Mark
Twain - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Chapter 30
THE TRAGEDY OF THE MANOR-HOUSE
AT midnight all was over, and we sat in the presence of four corpses.
We covered them with such rags as we could find, and started away,
fastening the door behind us. Their home must be these people's grave,
for they could not have Christian burial, or be admitted to consecrated
ground. They were as dogs, wild beasts, lepers, and no soul that valued
its hope of eternal life would throw it away by meddling in any sort
with these rebuked and smitten outcasts.
We had not moved four steps when I caught a sound as of footsteps
upon gravel. My heart flew to my throat. We must not be seen coming
from that house. I plucked at the king's robe and we drew back and
took shelter behind the corner of the cabin.
"Now we are safe," I said, "but it was a close call
-- so to speak. If the night had been lighter he might have seen us,
no doubt, he seemed to be so near."
"Mayhap it is but a beast and not a man at all."
"True. But man or beast, it will be wise to stay here a minute
and let it get by and out of the way."
"Hark! It cometh hither."
True again. The step was coming toward us -- straight toward the
hut. It must be a beast, then, and we might as well have saved our
trepidation. I was going to step out, but the king laid his hand upon
my arm. There was a moment of silence, then we heard a soft knock
on the cabin door. It made me shiver. Presently the knock was repeated,
and then we heard these words in a guarded voice:
"Mother! Father! Open -- we have got free, and we bring news
to pale your cheeks but glad your hearts; and we may not tarry, but
must fly! And -- but they answer not. Mother! father! -- "
I drew the king toward the other end of the hut and whispered:
"Come -- now we can get to the road."
The king hesitated, was going to demur; but just then we heard the
door give way, and knew that those desolate men were in the presence
of their dead.
"Come, my liege! in a moment they will strike a light, and
then will follow that which it would break your heart to hear."
He did not hesitate this time. The moment we were in the road I
ran; and after a moment he threw dignity aside and followed. I did
not want to think of what was happening in the hut -- I couldn't bear
it; I wanted to drive it out of my mind; so I struck into the first
subject that lay under that one in my mind:
"I have had the disease those people died of, and so have nothing
to fear; but if you have not had it also -- "
He broke in upon me to say he was in trouble, and it was his conscience
that was troubling him:
"These young men have got free, they say -- but HOW? It is
not likely that their lord hath set them free."
"Oh, no, I make no doubt they escaped."
"That is my trouble; I have a fear that this is so, and your
suspicion doth confirm it, you having the same fear.
"I should not call it by that name though. I do suspect that
they escaped, but if they did, I am not sorry, certainly."
"I am not sorry, I think -- but -- "
"What is it? What is there for one to be troubled about?"
"If they did escape, then are we bound in duty to lay hands
upon them and deliver them again to their lord; for it is not seemly
that one of his quality should suffer a so insolent and high-handed
outrage from persons of their base degree."
There it was again. He could see only one side of it. He was born
so, educated so, his veins were full of ancestral blood that was rotten
with this sort of unconscious brutality, brought down by inheritance
from a long procession of hearts that had each done its share toward
poisoning the stream. To imprison these men without proof, and starve
their kindred, was no harm, for they were merely peasants and subject
to the will and pleasure of their lord, no matter what fearful form
it might take; but for these men to break out of unjust captivity
was insult and outrage, and a thing not to be countenanced by any
conscientious person who knew his duty to his sacred caste.
I worked more than half an hour before I got him to change the subject
-- and even then an outside matter did it for me. This was a something
which caught our eyes as we struck the summit of a small hill -- a
red glow, a good way off.
"That's a fire," said I.
Fires interested me considerably, because I was getting a good deal
of an insurance business started, and was also training some horses
and building some steam fire-engines, with an eye to a paid fire department
by and by. The priests opposed both my fire and life insurance, on
the ground that it was an insolent attempt to hinder the decrees of
God; and if you pointed out that they did not hinder the decrees in
the least, but only modified the hard consequences of them if you
took out policies and had luck, they retorted that that was gambling
against the decrees of God, and was just as bad. So they managed to
damage those industries more or less, but I got even on my Accident
business. As a rule, a knight is a lummox, and some times even a labrick,
and hence open to pretty poor arguments when they come glibly from
a superstition-monger, but even he could see the practical side of
a thing once in a while; and so of late you couldn't clean up a tournament
and pile the result without finding one of my accident-tickets in
every helmet.
We stood there awhile, in the thick darkness and stillness, looking
toward the red blur in the distance, and trying to make out the meaning
of a far-away murmur that rose and fell fitfully on the night. Sometimes
it swelled up and for a moment seemed less remote; but when we were
hopefully expecting it to betray its cause and nature, it dulled and
sank again, carrying its mystery with it. We started down the hill
in its direction, and the winding road plunged us at once into almost
solid darkness -- darkness that was packed and crammed in between
two tall forest walls.
We groped along down for half a mile, perhaps, that murmur growing
more and more distinct all the time. the coming storm threatening
more and more, with now and then a little shiver of wind, a faint
show of lightning, and dull grumblings of distant thunder. I was in
the lead. I ran against something -- a soft heavy something which
gave, slightly, to the impulse of my weight; at the same moment the
lightning glared out, and within a foot of my face was the writhing
face of a man who was hanging from the limb of a tree! That is, it
seemed to be writhing, but it was not. It was a grewsome sight. Straightway
there was an ear-splitting explosion of thunder, and the bottom of
heaven fell out; the rain poured down in a deluge. No matter, we must
try to cut this man down, on the chance that there might be life in
him yet, mustn't we? The lightning came quick and sharp now, and the
place was alternately noonday and midnight. One moment the man would
be hanging before me in an intense light, and the next he was blotted
out again in the darkness. I told the king we must cut him down. The
king at once objected.
"If he hanged himself, he was willing to lose him property
to his lord; so let him be. If others hanged him, belike they had
the right -- let him hang."
"But -- "
"But me no buts, but even leave him as he is. And for yet another
reason. When the lightning cometh again -- there, look abroad."
Two others hanging, within fifty yards of us!
"It is not weather meet for doing useless courtesies unto dead
folk. They are past thanking you. Come -- it is unprofitable to tarry
here."
There was reason in what he said, so we moved on. Within the next
mile we counted six more hanging forms by the blaze of the lightning,
and altogether it was a grisly excursion. That murmur was a murmur
no longer, it was a roar; a roar of men's voices. A man came flying
by now, dimly through the darkness, and other men chasing him. They
disappeared. Presently another case of the kind occurred, and then
another and another. Then a sudden turn of the road brought us in
sight of that fire -- it was a large manor-house, and little or nothing
was left of it -- and everywhere men were flying and other men raging
after them in pursuit.
I warned the king that this was not a safe place for strangers.
We would better get away from the light, until matters should improve.
We stepped back a little, and hid in the edge of the wood. From this
hiding-place we saw both men and women hunted by the mob. The fearful
work went on until nearly dawn. Then, the fire being out and the storm
spent, the voices and flying footsteps presently ceased, and darkness
and stillness reigned again.
We ventured out, and hurried cautiously away; and although we were
worn out and sleepy, we kept on until we had put this place some miles
behind us. Then we asked hospitality at the hut of a charcoal burner,
and got what was to be had. A woman was up and about, but the man
was still asleep, on a straw shake-down, on the clay floor. The woman
seemed uneasy until I explained that we were travelers and had lost
our way and been wandering in the woods all night. She became talkative,
then, and asked if we had heard of the terrible goings-on at the manor-
house of Abblasoure. Yes, we had heard of them, but what we wanted
now was rest and sleep. The king broke in:
"Sell us the house and take yourselves away, for we be perilous
company, being late come from people that died of the Spotted Death."
It was good of him, but unnecessary. One of the commonest decorations
of the nation was the waffle-iron face. I had early noticed that the
woman and her husband were both so decorated. She made us entirely
welcome, and had no fears; and plainly she was immensely impressed
by the king's proposition; for, of course, it was a good deal of an
event in her life to run across a person of the king's humble appearance
who was ready to buy a man's house for the sake of a night's lodging.
It gave her a large respect for us, and she strained the lean possibilities
of her hovel to the utmost to make us comfortable.
We slept till far into the afternoon, and then got up hungry enough
to make cotter fare quite palatable to the king, the more particularly
as it was scant in quantity. And also in variety; it consisted solely
of onions, salt, and the national black bread made out of horse-feed.
The woman told us about the affair of the evening before. At ten or
eleven at night, when everybody was in bed, the manor-house burst
into flames. The country-side swarmed to the rescue, and the family
were saved, with one exception, the master. He did not appear. Everybody
was frantic over this loss, and two brave yeomen sacrificed their
lives in ransacking the burning house seeking that valuable personage.
But after a while he was found -- what was left of him -- which was
his corpse. It was in a copse three hundred yards away, bound, gagged,
stabbed in a dozen places.
Who had done this? Suspicion fell upon a humble family in the neighborhood
who had been lately treated with peculiar harshness by the baron;
and from these people the suspicion easily extended itself to their
relatives and familiars. A suspicion was enough; my lord's liveried
retainers proclaimed an instant crusade against these people, and
were promptly joined by the community in general. The woman's husband
had been active with the mob, and had not returned home until nearly
dawn. He was gone now to find out what the general result had been.
While we were still talking he came back from his quest. His report
was revolting enough. Eighteen persons hanged or butchered, and two
yeomen and thirteen prisoners lost in the fire.
"And how many prisoners were there altogether in the vaults?"
"Thirteen."
"Then every one of them was lost?"
"Yes, all."
"But the people arrived in time to save the family; how is
it they could save none of the prisoners?"
The man looked puzzled, and said:
"Would one unlock the vaults at such a time? Marry, some would
have escaped."
"Then you mean that nobody did unlock them?"
"None went near them, either to lock or unlock. It standeth
to reason that the bolts were fast; wherefore it was only needful
to establish a watch, so that if any broke the bonds he might not
escape, but be taken. None were taken."
"Natheless, three did escape," said the king, "and
ye will do well to publish it and set justice upon their track, for
these murthered the baron and fired the house."
I was just expecting he would come out with that. For a moment the
man and his wife showed an eager interest in this news and an impatience
to go out and spread it; then a sudden something else betrayed itself
in their faces, and they began to ask questions. I answered the questions
myself, and narrowly watched the effects produced. I was soon satisfied
that the knowledge of who these three prisoners were had somehow changed
the atmosphere; that our hosts' continued eagerness to go and spread
the news was now only pretended and not real. The king did not notice
the change, and I was glad of that. I worked the conversation around
toward other details of the night's proceedings, and noted that these
people were relieved to have it take that direction.
The painful thing observable about all this business was the alacrity
with which this oppressed community had turned their cruel hands against
their own class in the interest of the common oppressor. This man
and woman seemed to feel that in a quarrel between a person of their
own class and his lord, it was the natural and proper and rightful
thing for that poor devil's whole caste to side with the master and
fight his battle for him, without ever stopping to inquire into the
rights or wrongs of the matter. This man had been out helping to hang
his neighbors, and had done his work with zeal, and yet was aware
that there was nothing against them but a mere suspicion, with nothing
back of it describable as evidence, still neither he nor his wife
seemed to see anything horrible about it.
This was depressing -- to a man with the dream of a republic in
his head. It reminded me of a time thirteen centuries away, when the
"poor whites" of our South who were always despised and
frequently insulted by the slave-lords around them, and who owed their
base condition simply to the presence of slavery in their midst, were
yet pusillanimously ready to side with the slave-lords in all political
moves for the upholding and perpetuating of slavery, and did also
finally shoulder their muskets and pour out their lives in an effort
to prevent the destruction of that very institution which degraded
them. And there was only one redeeming feature connected with that
pitiful piece of history; and that was, that secretly the "poor
white" did detest the slave-lord, and did feel his own shame.
That feeling was not brought to the surface, but the fact that it
was there and could have been brought out, under favoring circumstances,
was something -- in fact, it was enough; for it showed that a man
is at bottom a man, after all, even if it doesn't show on the outside.
Well, as it turned out, this charcoal burner was just the twin of
the Southern "poor white" of the far future. The king presently
showed impatience, and said:
"An ye prattle here all the day, justice will miscarry. Think
ye the criminals will abide in their father's house? They are fleeing,
they are not waiting. You should look to it that a party of horse
be set upon their track."
The woman paled slightly, but quite perceptibly, and the man looked
flustered and irresolute. I said: "Come, friend, I will walk
a little way with you, and explain which direction I think they would
try to take. If they were merely resisters of the gabelle or some
kindred absurdity I would try to protect them from capture; but when
men murder a person of high degree and likewise burn his house, that
is another matter."
The last remark was for the king -- to quiet him. On the road the
man pulled his resolution together, and began the march with a steady
gait, but there was no eagerness in it. By and by I said:
"What relation were these men to you -- cousins?"
He turned as white as his layer of charcoal would let him, and stopped,
trembling.
"Ah, my God, how know ye that?"
"I didn't know it; it was a chance guess."
"Poor lads, they are lost. And good lads they were, too."
"Were you actually going yonder to tell on them?"
He didn't quite know how to take that; but he said, hesitatingly:
"Ye-s."
"Then I think you are a damned scoundrel!"
It made him as glad as if I had called him an angel.
"Say the good words again, brother! for surely ye mean that
ye would not betray me an I failed of my duty."
"Duty? There is no duty in the matter, except the duty to keep
still and let those men get away. They've done a righteous deed."
He looked pleased; pleased, and touched with apprehension at the
same time. He looked up and down the road to see that no one was coming,
and then said in a cautious voice:
"From what land come you, brother, that you speak such perilous
words, and seem not to be afraid?"
"They are not perilous words when spoken to one of my own caste,
I take it. You would not tell anybody I said them?"
"I? I would be drawn asunder by wild horses first."
"Well, then, let me say my say. I have no fears of your repeating
it. I think devil's work has been done last night upon those innocent
poor people. That old baron got only what he deserved. If I had my
way. all his kind should have the same luck."
Fear and depression vanished from the man's manner, and gratefulness
and a brave animation took their place:
"Even though you be a spy, and your words a trap for my undoing,
yet are they such refreshment that to hear them again and others like
to them, I would go to the gallows happy, as having had one good feast
at least in a starved life. And I will say my say now, and ye may
report it if ye be so minded. I helped to hang my neighbors for that
it were peril to my own life to show lack of zeal in the master's
cause; the others helped for none other reason. All rejoice today
that he is dead, but all do go about seemingly sorrowing, and shedding
the hypocrite's tear, for in that lies safety. I have said the words,
I have said the words! the only ones that have ever tasted good in
my mouth, and the reward of that taste is sufficient. Lead on, an
ye will, be it even to the scaffold, for I am ready."
There it was, you see. A man is a man, at bottom. Whole ages of
abuse and oppression cannot crush the manhood clear out of him. Whoever
thinks it a mistake is himself mistaken. Yes, there is plenty good
enough material for a republic in the most degraded people that ever
existed -- even the Russians; plenty of manhood in them -- even in
the Germans -- if one could but force it out of its timid and suspicious
privacy, to overthrow and trample in the mud any throne that ever
was set up and any nobility that ever supported it. We should see
certain things yet, let us hope and believe. First, a modified monarchy,
till Arthur's days were done, then the destruction of the throne,
nobility abolished, every member of it bound out to some useful trade,
universal suffrage instituted, and the whole government placed in
the hands of the men and women of the nation there to remain. Yes,
there was no occasion to give up my dream yet a while.
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