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Mark
Twain - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Chapter 7
MERLIN'S TOWER
INASMUCH as I was now the second personage in the Kingdom, as far
as political power and authority were concerned, much was made of
me. My raiment was of silks and velvets and cloth of gold, and by
consequence was very showy, also uncomfortable. But habit would soon
reconcile me to my clothes; I was aware of that. I was given the choicest
suite of apartments in the castle, after the king's. They were aglow
with loud-colored silken hangings, but the stone floors had nothing
but rushes on them for a carpet, and they were misfit rushes at that,
being not all of one breed. As for conveniences, properly speaking,
there weren't any. I mean littleconveniences; it is the little conveniences
that make the real comfort of life. The big oaken chairs, graced with
rude carvings, were well enough, but that was the stopping place.
There was no soap, no matches, no looking-glass -- except a metal
one, about as powerful as a pail of water. And not a chromo. I had
been used to chromos for years, and I saw now that without my suspecting
it a passion for art had got worked into the fabric of my being, and
was become a part of me. It made me homesick to look around over this
proud and gaudy but heartless barrenness and remember that in our
house in East Hartford, all unpretending as it was, you couldn't go
into a room but you would find an insurance-chromo, or at least a
three-color God-Bless-Our-Home over the door; and in the parlor we
had nine. But here, even in my grand room of state, there wasn't anything
in the nature of a picture except a thing the size of a bedquilt,
which was either woven or knitted (it had darned places in it), and
nothing in it was the right color or the right shape; and as for proportions,
even Raphael himself couldn't have botched them more formidably, after
all his practice on those nightmares they call his "celebrated
Hampton Court cartoons." Raphael was a bird. We had several of
his chromos; one was his "Miraculous Draught of Fishes,"
where he puts in a miracle of his own -- puts three men into a canoe
which wouldn't have held a dog without upsetting. I always admired
to study R.'s art, it was so fresh and unconventional.
There wasn't even a bell or a speaking-tube in the castle. I had
a great many servants, and those that were on duty lolled in the anteroom;
and when I wanted one of them I had to go and call for him. There
was no gas, there were no candles; a bronze dish half full of boarding-house
butter with a blazing rag floating in it was the thing that produced
what was regarded as light. A lot of these hung along the walls and
modified the dark, just toned it down enough to make it dismal. If
you went out at night, your servants carried torches. There were no
books, pens, paper or ink, and no glass in the openings they believed
to be windows. It is a little thing -- glass is -- until it is absent,
then it becomes a big thing. But perhaps the worst of all was, that
there wasn't any sugar, coffee, tea, or tobacco. I saw that I was
just another Robinson Crusoe cast away on an uninhabited island, with
no society but some more or less tame animals, and if I wanted to
make life bearable I must do as he did -- invent, contrive, create,
reorganize things; set brain and hand to work, and keep them busy.
Well, that was in my line.
One thing troubled me along at first -- the immense interest which
people took in me. Apparently the whole nation wanted a look at me.
It soon transpired that the eclipse had scared the British world almost
to death; that while it lasted the whole country, from one end to
the other, was in a pitiable state of panic, and the churches, hermitages,
and monkeries overflowed with praying and weeping poor creatures who
thought the end of the world was come. Then had followed the news
that the producer of this awful event was a stranger, a mighty magician
at Arthur's court; that he could have blown out the sun like a candle,
and was just going to do it when his mercy was purchased, and he then
dissolved his enchantments, and was now recognized and honored as
the man who had by his unaided might saved the globe from destruction
and its peoples from extinction. Now if you consider that everybody
believed that, and not only believed it, but never even dreamed of
doubting it, you will easily understand that there was not a person
in all Britain that would not have walked fifty miles to get a sight
of me. Of course I was all the talk -- all other subjects were dropped;
even the king became suddenly a person of minor interest and notoriety.
Within twenty-four hours the delegations began to arrive, and from
that time onward for a fortnight
There was no soap, no matches, no looking-glass they kept coming.
The village was crowded, and all the countryside. I had to go out
a dozen times a day and show myself to these reverent and awe-stricken
multitudes. It came to be a great burden, as to time and trouble,
but of course it was at the same time compensatingly agreeable to
be so celebrated and such a center of homage. It turned Brer Merlin
green with envy and spite, which was a great satisfaction to me. But
there was one thing I couldn't understand -- nobody had asked for
an autograph. I spoke to Clarence about it. By George! I had to explain
to him what it was. Then he said nobody in the country could read
or write but a few dozen priests. Land! think of that.
There was another thing that troubled me a little. Those multitudes
presently began to agitate for another miracle. That was natural.
To be able to carry back to their far homes the boast that they had
seen the man who could command the sun, riding in the heavens, and
be obeyed, would make them great in the eyes of their neighbors, and
envied by them all; but to be able to also say they had seen him work
a miracle themselves -- why, people would come a distance to see them.
The pressure got to be pretty strong. There was going to be an eclipse
of the moon, and I knew the date and hour, but it was too far away.
Two years. I would have given a good deal for license to hurry it
up and use it now when there was a big market for it. It seemed a
great pity to have it wasted so, and come lagging along at a time
when a body wouldn't have any use for it, as like as not. If it had
been booked for only a month away, I could have sold it short; but,
as matters stood, I couldn't seem to cipher out any way to make it
do me any good, so I gave up trying. Next, Clarence found that old
Merlin was making himself busy on the sly among those people. He was
spreading a report that I was a humbug, and that the reason I didn't
accommodate the people with a miracle was because I couldn't. I saw
that I must do something. I presently thought out a plan.
By my authority as executive I threw Merlin into prison -- the same
cell I had occupied myself. Then I gave public notice by herald and
trumpet that I should be busy with affairs of state for a fortnight,
but about the end of that time I would take a moment's leisure and
blow up Merlin's stone tower by fires from heaven; in the meantime,
whoso listened to evil reports about me, let him beware. Furthermore,
I would perform but this one miracle at this time, and no more; if
it failed to satisfy and any murmured, I would turn the murmurers
into horses, and make them useful. Quiet ensued.
I took Clarence into my confidence, to a certain degree, and we
went to work privately. I told him that this was a sort of miracle
that required a trifle of preparation, and that it would be sudden
death to ever talk about these preparations to anybody. That made
his mouth safe enough. Clandestinely we made a few bushels of first-rate
blasting powder, and I superintended my armorers while they constructed
a lightning-rod and some wires. This old stone tower was very massive
-- and rather ruinous, too, for it was Roman, and four hundred years
old. Yes, and handsome, after a rude fashion, and clothed with ivy
from base to summit, as with a shirt of scale mail. It stood on a
lonely eminence, in good view from the castle, and about half a mile
away.
Working by night, we stowed the powder in the tower -- dug stones
out, on the inside, and buried the powder in the walls themselves,
which were fifteen feet thick at the base. We put in a peck at a time,
in a dozen places. We could have blown up the Tower of London with
these charges. When the thirteenth night was come we put up our lightning-rod,
bedded it in one of the batches of powder, and ran wires from it to
the other batches. Everybody had shunned that locality from the day
of my proclamation, but on the morning of the fourteenth I thought
best to warn the people, through the heralds, to keep clear away --
a quarter of a mile away. Then added, by command, that at some time
during the twenty-four hours I would consummate the miracle, but would
first give a brief notice; by flags on the castle towers if in the
daytime, by torch-baskets in the same places if at night.
Thunder-showers had been tolerably frequent of late, and I was not
much afraid of a failure; still, I shouldn't have cared for a delay
of a day or two; I should have explained that I was busy with affairs
of state yet, and the people must wait.
Of course, we had a blazing sunny day -- almost the first one without
a cloud for three weeks; things always happen so. I kept secluded,
and watched the weather. Clarence dropped in from time to time and
said the public excitement was growing and growing all the time, and
the whole country filling up with human masses as far as one could
see from the battlements. At last the wind sprang up and a cloud appeared
-- in the right quarter, too, and just at nightfall. For a little
while I watched that distant cloud spread and blacken, then I judged
it was time for me to appear. I ordered the torch-baskets to be lit,
and Merlin liberated and sent to me. A quarter of an hour later I
ascended the parapet and there found the king and the court assembled
and gazing off in the darkness toward Merlin's Tower. Already the
darkness was so heavy that one could not see far; these people and
the old turrets, being partly in deep shadow and partly in the red
glow from the great torch-baskets overhead, made a good deal of a
picture.
Merlin arrived in a gloomy mood. I said:
"You wanted to burn me alive when I had not done you any harm,
and latterly you have been trying to injure my professional reputation.
Therefore I am going to call down fire and blow up your tower, but
it is only fair to give you a chance; now if you think you can break
my enchantments and ward off the fires, step to the bat, it's your
innings."
"I can, fair sir, and I will. Doubt it not."
He drew an imaginary circle on the stones of the roof, and burnt
a pinch of powder in it, which sent up a small cloud of aromatic smoke,
whereat everybody fell back and began to cross themselves and get
uncomfortable. Then he began to mutter and make passes in the air
with his hands. He worked himself up slowly and gradually into a sort
of frenzy, and got to thrashing around with his arms like the sails
of a windmill. By this time the storm had about reached us; the gusts
of wind were flaring the torches and making the shadows swash about,
the first heavy drops of rain were falling, the world abroad was black
as pitch, the lightning began to wink fitfully. Of course, my rod
would be loading itself now. In fact, things were imminent. So I said:
"You have had time enough. I have given you every advantage,
and not interfered. It is plain your magic is weak. It is only fair
that I begin now."
I made about three passes in the air, and then there was an awful
crash and that old tower leaped into the sky in chunks, along with
a vast volcanic fountain of fire that turned night to noonday, and
showed a thousand acres of human beings groveling on the ground in
a general collapse of consternation. Well, it rained mortar and masonry
the rest of the week. This was the report; but probably the facts
would have modified it.
It was an effective miracle. The great bothersome temporary population
vanished. There were a good many thousand tracks in the mud the next
morning, but they were all outward bound. If I had advertised another
miracle I couldn't have raised an audience with a sheriff.
Merlin's stock was flat. The king wanted to stop his wages; he even
wanted to banish him, but I interfered. I said he would be useful
to work the weather, and attend to small matters like that, and I
would give him a lift now and then when his poor little parlor-magic
soured on him. There wasn't a rag of his tower left, but I had the
government rebuild it for him, and advised him to take boarders; but
he was too hightoned for that. And as for being grateful, he never
even said thank you. He was a rather hard lot, take him how you might;
but then you couldn't fairly expect a man to be sweet that had been
set back so.
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