A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
him, he would come right in here and stand by little Hello-Central
for all he was worth. And that was what he did. He shied his
helmet into the corner, and in half a minute he had a new wick
in the alcohol lamp and was firing up on the croup-kettle. By this
time Sandy had built a blanket canopy over the crib, and everything
was ready.
Sir Launcelot got up steam, he and I loaded up the kettle with
unslaked lime and carbolic acid, with a touch of lactic acid added
thereto, then filled the thing up with water and inserted the
steam-spout under the canopy. Everything was ship-shape now,
and we sat down on either side of the crib to stand our watch.
Sandy was so grateful and so comforted that she charged a couple
of church-wardens with willow-bark and sumach-tobacco for us,
and told us to smoke as much as we pleased, it couldn't get under
the canopy, and she was used to smoke, being the first lady in the
land who had ever seen a cloud blown. Well, there couldn't be
a more contented or comfortable sight than Sir Launcelot in his
noble armor sitting in gracious serenity at the end of a yard
of snowy church-warden. He was a beautiful man, a lovely man,
and was just intended to make a wife and children happy. But, of
course Guenever--however, it's no use to cry over what's done and
can't be helped.
Well, he stood watch-and-watch with me, right straight through,
for three days and nights, till the child was out of danger; then
he took her up in his great arms and kissed her, with his plumes
falling about her golden head, then laid her softly in Sandy's
lap again and took his stately way down the vast hall, between
the ranks of admiring men-at-arms and menials, and so disappeared.
And no instinct warned me that I should never look upon him again
in this world! Lord, what a world of heart-break it is.
The doctors said we must take the child away, if we would coax
her back to health and strength again. And she must have sea-air.
So we took a man-of-war, and a suite of two hundred and sixty
persons, and went cruising about, and after a fortnight of this we
stepped ashore on the French coast, and the doctors thought it
would be a good idea to make something of a stay there. The little
king of that region offered us his hospitalities, and we were glad
to accept. If he had had as many conveniences as he lacked, we
should have been plenty comfortable enough; even as it was, we
made out very well, in his queer old castle, by the help of comforts
and luxuries from the ship.
At the end of a month I sent the vessel home for fresh supplies,
and for news. We expected her back in three or four days. She
would bring me, along with other news, the result of a certain
experiment which I had been starting. It was a project of mine
to replace the tournament with something which might furnish an
escape for the extra steam of the chivalry, keep those bucks
entertained and out of mischief, and at the same time preserve
the best thing in them, which was their hardy spirit of emulation.
I had had a choice band of them in private training for some time,
and the date was now arriving for their first public effort.
This experiment was baseball. In order to give the thing vogue
from the start, and place it out of the reach of criticism, I chose
my nines by rank, not capacity. There wasn't a knight in either
team who wasn't a sceptered sovereign. As for material of this
sort, there was a glut of it always around Arthur. You couldn't
throw a brick in any direction and not cripple a king. Of course,
I couldn't get these people to leave off their armor; they wouldn't
do that when they bathed. They consented to differentiate the
armor so that a body could tell one team from the other, but that
was the most they would do. So, one of the teams wore chain-mail
ulsters, and the other wore plate-armor made of my new Bessemer
steel. Their practice in the field was the most fantastic thing I
ever saw. Being ball-proof, they never skipped out of the way,
but stood still and took the result; when a Bessemer was at the bat
and a ball hit him, it would bound a hundred and fifty yards
sometimes. And when a man was running, and threw himself on his
stomach to slide to his base, it was like an iron-clad coming into
port. At first I appointed men of no rank to act as umpires, but
I had to discontinue that. These people were no easier to please
than other nines. The umpire's first decision was usually his
last; they broke him in two with a bat, and his friends toted him
home on a shutter. When it was noticed that no umpire ever survived
a game, umpiring got to be unpopular. So I was obliged to appoint
somebody whose rank and lofty position under the government would
protect him.
Here are the names of the nines:
BESSEMERS ULSTERS
KING ARTHUR. EMPEROR LUCIUS.
KING LOT OF LOTHIAN. KING LOGRIS.
KING OF NORTHGALIS. KING MARHALT OF IRELAND.
KING MARSIL. KING MORGANORE.
KING OF LITTLE BRITAIN. KING MARK OF CORNWALL.
KING LABOR. KING NENTRES OF GARLOT.
KING PELLAM OF LISTENGESE. KING MELIODAS OF LIONES.
KING BAGDEMAGUS. KING OF THE LAKE.
KING TOLLEME LA FEINTES. THE SOWDAN OF SYRIA.
Umpire--CLARENCE.
The first public game would certainly draw fifty thousand people;
and for solid fun would be worth going around the world to see.
Everything would be favorable; it was balmy and beautiful spring
weather now, and Nature was all tailored out in her new clothes.
CHAPTER XLI
THE INTERDICT
However, my attention was suddenly snatched from such matters;
our child began to lose ground again, and we had to go to sitting
up with her, her case became so serious. We couldn't bear to allow
anybody to help in this service, so we two stood watch-and-watch,
day in and day out. Ah, Sandy, what a right heart she had, how
simple, and genuine, and good she was! She was a flawless wife
and mother; and yet I had married her for no other particular
reasons, except that by the customs of chivalry she was my property
until some knight should win her from me in the field. She had
hunted Britain over for me; had found me at the hanging-bout
outside of London, and had straightway resumed her old place at
my side in the placidest way and as of right. I was a New Englander,
and in my opinion this sort of partnership would compromise her,
sooner or later. She couldn't see how, but I cut argument short
and we had a wedding.
Now I didn't know I was drawing a prize, yet that was what I did
draw. Within the twelvemonth I became her worshiper; and ours
was the dearest and perfectest comradeship that ever was. People
talk about beautiful friendships between two persons of the same
sex. What is the best of that sort, as compared with the friendship
of man and wife, where the best impulses and highest ideals of
both are the same? There is no place for comparison between
the two friendships; the one is earthly, the other divine.
In my dreams, along at first, I still wandered thirteen centuries
away, and my unsatisfied spirit went calling and harking all up
and down the unreplying vacancies of a vanished world. Many a
time Sandy heard that imploring cry come from my lips in my sleep.
With a grand magnanimity she saddled that cry of mine upon our
child, conceiving it to be the name of some lost darling of mine.
It touched me to tears, and it also nearly knocked me off my feet,
too, when she smiled up in my face for an earned reward, and played
her quaint and pretty surprise upon me:
“The name of one who was dear to thee is here preserved, here made
holy, and the music of it will abide alway in our ears. Now
thou'lt kiss me, as knowing the name I have given the child.”
But I didn't know it, all the same. I hadn't an idea in the
world; but it would have been cruel to confess it and spoil her
pretty game; so I never let on, but said:
“Yes, I know, sweetheart--how dear and good it is of you, too!
But I want to hear these lips of yours, which are also mine, utter
it first--then its music will be perfect.”
Pleased to the marrow, she murmured:
“HELLO-CENTRAL!”
I didn't laugh--I am always thankful for that--but the strain
ruptured every cartilage in me, and for weeks afterward I could
hear my bones clack when I walked. She never found out her mistake.
The first time she heard that form of salute used at the telephone
she was surprised, and not pleased; but I told her I had given
order for it: that henceforth and forever the telephone must
always be invoked with that reverent formality, in perpetual honor
and remembrance of my lost friend and her small namesake. This
was not true. But it answered.
Well, during two weeks and a half we watched by the crib, and in
our deep solicitude we were unconscious of any world outside of
that sick-room. Then our reward came: the center of the universe
turned the corner and began to mend. Grateful? It isn't the term.
There _isn't_ any term for it. You know that yourself, if you've
watched your child through the Valley of the Shadow and seen it
come back to life and sweep night out of the earth with one
all-illuminating smile that you could cover with your hand.
Why, we were back in this world in one instant! Then we looked
the same startled thought into each other's eyes at the same
moment; more than two weeks gone, and that ship not back yet!
In another minute I appeared in the presence of my train. They
had been steeped in troubled bodings all this time--their faces
showed it. I called an escort and we galloped five miles to a
hilltop overlooking the sea. Where was my great commerce that
so lately had made these glistening expanses populous and beautiful
with its white-winged flocks? Vanished, every one! Not a sail,
from verge to verge, not a smoke-bank--just a dead and empty
solitude, in place of all that brisk and breezy life.
I went swiftly back, saying not a word to anybody. I told Sandy
this ghastly news. We could imagine no explanation that would
begin to explain. Had there been an invasion? an earthquake?
a pestilence? Had the nation been swept out of existence? But
guessing was profitless. I must go--at once. I borrowed the king's
navy--a “ship” no bigger than a steam launch--and was soon ready.
The parting--ah, yes, that was hard. As I was devouring the child
with last kisses, it brisked up and jabbered out its vocabulary!
--the first time in more than two weeks, and it made fools of us
for joy. The darling mispronunciations of childhood!--dear me,
there's no music that can touch it; and how one grieves when it
wastes away and dissolves into correctness, knowing it will never
visit his bereaved ear again. Well, how good it was to be able
to carry that gracious memory away with me!
I approached England the next morning, with the wide highway of
salt water all to myself. There were ships in the harbor, at
Dover, but they were naked as to sails, and there was no sign
of life about them. It was Sunday; yet at Canterbury the streets
were empty; strangest of all, there was not even a priest in sight,
and no stroke of a bell fell upon my ear. The mournfulness of
death was everywhere. I couldn't understand it. At last, in
the further edge of that town I saw a small funeral procession
--just a family and a few friends following a coffin--no priest;
a funeral without bell, book, or candle; there was a church there
close at hand, but they passed it by weeping, and did not enter it;
I glanced up at the belfry, and there hung the bell, shrouded in
black, and its tongue tied back. Now I knew! Now I understood
the stupendous calamity that had overtaken England. Invasion?