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A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 0 | A CHRISTMAS CAROL
IN PROSE BEING A Ghost Story of Christmas
by Charles Dickens
PREFACE
I HAVE endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and ... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 1 | But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round--apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that--as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when me... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 2 | The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household should; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up to-morrow's pudd... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 3 | There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancie... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 4 |
"Humbug!" said Scrooge; and walked across the room.
After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It wa... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 5 |
"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may b... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 6 |
STAVE II: THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS
WHEN Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four qua... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 7 |
"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?" asked Scrooge.
"I am!"
The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.
"Who, and what are you?" Scrooge demanded.
"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."
"Long Past?" inquired Scrooge: observa... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 8 |
The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did so, "Let us see another Christmas!"
Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were sho... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 9 |
A terrible voice in the hall cried, "Bring down Master Scrooge's box, there!" and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old w... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 10 |
"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered," said the Ghost. "But she had a large heart!"
"So she had," cried Scrooge. "You're right. I will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!"
"She died a woman," said the Ghost, "and had, as I think, children."
"One child," Scrooge returned.
"True," said the ... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 11 |
You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it! They charged into the street with the shutters--one, two, three--had 'em up in their places--four, five, six--barred 'em and pinned 'em--seven, eight, nine--and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.
"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwi... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 12 |
This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, gr... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 13 |
"One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost.
"No more!" cried Scrooge. "No more. I don't wish to see it. Show me no more!"
But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next.
They were in another scene and place; a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. N... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 14 |
AWAKING in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the ... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 15 |
Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) th... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 16 |
But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers'... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 17 |
And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and on the threshold of the door... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 18 |
These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:
"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!"
Which all the family re-echoed.
"God bless us ... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 19 |
And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed, or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 20 |
The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped--whither? Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled and roared, and r... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 21 |
"Ha, ha!" laughed Scrooge's nephew. "Ha, ha, ha!"
If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his acquaintance.
It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, ... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 22 |
It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what; he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed, elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagr... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 23 |
Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and ... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 24 |
THE Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.
It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible s... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 25 |
They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched; the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cessp... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 26 |
He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language.
The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy, though Scroo... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 27 |
"If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion caused by this man's death," said Scrooge quite agonised, "show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!"
The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her children were... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 28 |
The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit's house; the dwelling he had visited before; and found the mother and the children seated round the fire.
Quiet. Ve... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 29 |
"Spectre," said Scrooge, "something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead?"
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as before--though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 30 |
"An intelligent boy!" said Scrooge. "A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there?--Not the little prize Turkey: the big one?"
"What, the one as big as me?" returned the boy.
"What a delightful boy!" said Scrooge. "It's a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!"
"It's... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 31 |
Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when you don't dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking-plaister over it, and been quite satisfied.
He dressed himself "all in his best," and... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 32 |
But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That was the thing he had set his heart upon.
And he did it; yes, he did! The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his ... |
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas | Charles Dickens | 33 |
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 0 | The ungentle laws and customs touched upon in this tale are historical, and the episodes which are used to illustrate them are also historical. It is not pretended that these laws and customs existed in England in the sixth century; no, it is only pretended that inasmuch as they existed in the English and other civiliz... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 1 |
MARK TWAIN
HARTFORD, July 21, 1889
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT
A WORD OF EXPLANATION
It was in Warwick Castle that I came across the curious stranger whom I am going to talk about. He attracted me by three things: his candid simplicity, his marvelous familiarity with ancient armor, and the restfuln... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 2 |
HOW SIR LAUNCELOT SLEW TWO GIANTS, AND MADE A CASTLE FREE
Anon withal came there upon him two great giants, well armed, all save the heads, with two horrible clubs in their hands. Sir Launcelot put his shield afore him, and put the stroke away of the one giant, and with his sword he clave his head asunder. When his f... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 3 |
As I laid the book down there was a knock at the door, and my stranger came in. I gave him a pipe and a chair, and made him welcome. I also comforted him with a hot Scotch whisky; gave him another one; then still another--hoping always for his story. After a fourth persuader, he drifted into it himself, in a quite sim... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 4 | He was in old-time iron armor from head to heel, with a helmet on his head the shape of a nail-keg with slits in it; and he had a shield, and a sword, and a prodigious spear; and his horse had armor on, too, and a steel horn projecting from his forehead, and gorgeous red and green silk trappings that hung down all arou... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 5 |
CHAPTER I. CAMELOT
“Camelot--Camelot,” said I to myself. “I don't seem to remember hearing of it before. Name of the asylum, likely.”
It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely as a dream, and as lonesome as Sunday. The air was full of the smell of flowers, and the buzzing of insects, and the twittering of... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 6 |
CHAPTER II
KING ARTHUR'S COURT
The moment I got a chance I slipped aside privately and touched an ancient common looking man on the shoulder and said, in an insinuating, confidential way:
“Friend, do me a kindness. Do you belong to the asylum, or are you just on a visit or something like that?”
He looked me over s... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 7 |
In the middle of this groined and vaulted public square was an oaken table which they called the Table Round. It was as large as a circus ring; and around it sat a great company of men dressed in such various and splendid colors that it hurt one's eyes to look at them. They wore their plumed hats, right along, except ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 8 |
CHAPTER III
KNIGHTS OF THE TABLE ROUND
Mainly the Round Table talk was monologues--narrative accounts of the adventures in which these prisoners were captured and their friends and backers killed and stripped of their steeds and armor. As a general thing--as far as I could make out--these murderous adventures were n... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 9 | Good friend, prithee call me for evensong.”
The boy nestled himself upon my shoulder and pretended to go to sleep. The old man began his tale; and presently the lad was asleep in reality; so also were the dogs, and the court, the lackeys, and the files of men-at-arms. The droning voice droned on; a soft snoring arose ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 10 |
CHAPTER IV
SIR DINADAN THE HUMORIST
It seemed to me that this quaint lie was most simply and beautifully told; but then I had heard it only once, and that makes a difference; it was pleasant to the others when it was fresh, no doubt.
Sir Dinadan the Humorist was the first to awake, and he soon roused the rest with ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 11 |
Now Sir Kay arose and began to fire up on his history-mill with me for fuel. It was time for me to feel serious, and I did. Sir Kay told how he had encountered me in a far land of barbarians, who all wore the same ridiculous garb that I did--a garb that was a work of enchantment, and intended to make the wearer secure... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 12 | Suppose Sir Walter, instead of putting the conversations into the mouths of his characters, had allowed the characters to speak for themselves? We should have had talk from Rebecca and Ivanhoe and the soft lady Rowena which would embarrass a tramp in our day. However, to the unconsciously indelicate all things are deli... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 13 |
But as soon as one is at rest, in this world, off he goes on something else to worry about. It occurred to me that I had made another blunder: I had sent the boy off to alarm his betters with a threat--I intending to invent a calamity at my leisure; now the people who are the readiest and eagerest and willingest to sw... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 14 |
I had to carry the boy out myself, he sunk into such a collapse. I handed him over to the soldiers, and went back.
CHAPTER VI
THE ECLIPSE
In the stillness and the darkness, realization soon began to supplement knowledge. The mere knowledge of a fact is pale; but when you come to _realize_ your fact, it takes on col... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 15 | As we stepped into the vast enclosed court of the castle I got a shock; for the first thing I saw was the stake, standing in the center, and near it the piled fagots and a monk. On all four sides of the court the seated multitudes rose rank above rank, forming sloping terraces that were rich with color. The king and th... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 16 | If the boy was right about the date, and this was surely the 20th, it _wasn't_ the sixth century. I reached for the monk's sleeve, in considerable excitement, and asked him what day of the month it was.
Hang him, he said it was the _twenty-first_! It made me turn cold to hear him. I begged him not to make any mistake ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 17 | 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... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 18 | 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 th... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 19 | 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... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 20 |
CHAPTER VIII
THE BOSS
To be vested with enormous authority is a fine thing; but to have the on-looking world consent to it is a finer. The tower episode solidified my power, and made it impregnable. If any were perchance disposed to be jealous and critical before that, they experienced a change of heart, now. There ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 21 | Even down to my birth-century that poison was still in the blood of Christendom, and the best of English commoners was still content to see his inferiors impudently continuing to hold a number of positions, such as lordships and the throne, to which the grotesque laws of his country did not allow him to aspire; in fact... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 22 |
CHAPTER IX
THE TOURNAMENT
They were always having grand tournaments there at Camelot; and very stirring and picturesque and ridiculous human bull-fights they were, too, but just a little wearisome to the practical mind. However, I was generally on hand--for two reasons: a man must not hold himself aloof from the thi... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 23 |
I not only watched this tournament from day to day, but detailed an intelligent priest from my Department of Public Morals and Agriculture, and ordered him to report it; for it was my purpose by and by, when I should have gotten the people along far enough, to start a newspaper. The first thing you want in a new count... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 24 |
There was an unpleasant little episode that day, which for reasons of state I struck out of my priest's report. You will have noticed that Garry was doing some great fighting in the engagement. When I say Garry I mean Sir Gareth. Garry was my private pet name for him; it suggests that I had a deep affection for him, a... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 25 |
CHAPTER X
BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION
The Round Table soon heard of the challenge, and of course it was a good deal discussed, for such things interested the boys. The king thought I ought now to set forth in quest of adventures, so that I might gain renown and be the more worthy to meet Sir Sagramor when the several... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 26 |
CHAPTER XI
THE YANKEE IN SEARCH OF ADVENTURES
There never was such a country for wandering liars; and they were of both sexes. Hardly a month went by without one of these tramps arriving; and generally loaded with a tale about some princess or other wanting help to get her out of some far-away castle where she was h... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 27 |
Well, one must make the best of things, and not waste time with useless fretting, but get down to business and see what can be done. In all lies there is wheat among the chaff; I must get at the wheat in this case: so I sent for the girl and she came. She was a comely enough creature, and soft and modest, but, if sign... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 28 |
Just as I was ending-up these reflections, Clarence came back. I remarked upon the barren result of my efforts with the girl; hadn't got hold of a single point that could help me to find the castle. The youth looked a little surprised, or puzzled, or something, and intimated that he had been wondering to himself what ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 29 |
CHAPTER XII
SLOW TORTURE
Straight off, we were in the country. It was most lovely and pleasant in those sylvan solitudes in the early cool morning in the first freshness of autumn. From hilltops we saw fair green valleys lying spread out below, with streams winding through them, and island groves of trees here and t... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 30 |
Gradually, as the time wore along, one annoying fact was borne in upon my understanding--that we were weather-bound. An armed novice cannot mount his horse without help and plenty of it. Sandy was not enough; not enough for me, anyway. We had to wait until somebody should come along. Waiting, in silence, would have be... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 31 | Here was another illustration of the childlike improvidence of this age and people. A man in armor always trusted to chance for his food on a journey, and would have been scandalized at the idea of hanging a basket of sandwiches on his spear. There was probably not a knight of all the Round Table combination who would ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 32 | On their journeys those Britons were used to long fasts, and knew how to bear them; and also how to freight up against probable fasts before starting, after the style of the Indian and the anaconda. As like as not, Sandy was loaded for a three-day stretch.
We were off before sunrise, Sandy riding and I limping along b... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 33 | Why, it was like reading about France and the French, before the ever memorable and blessed Revolution, which swept a thousand years of such villany away in one swift tidal-wave of blood--one: a settlement of that hoary debt in the proportion of half a drop of blood for each hogshead of it that had been pressed by slow... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 34 |
“Take it to the palace at Camelot and give it into the hands of Amyas le Poulet, whom I call Clarence, and he will understand.”
“He is a priest, then,” said the man, and some of the enthusiasm went out of his face.
“How--a priest? Didn't I tell you that no chattel of the Church, no bond-slave of pope or bishop can e... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 35 |
I paid three pennies for my breakfast, and a most extravagant price it was, too, seeing that one could have breakfasted a dozen persons for that money; but I was feeling good by this time, and I had always been a kind of spendthrift anyway; and then these people had wanted to give me the food for nothing, scant as the... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 36 |
CHAPTER XV
SANDY'S TALE
“And so I'm proprietor of some knights,” said I, as we rode off. “Who would ever have supposed that I should live to list up assets of that sort. I shan't know what to do with them; unless I raffle them off. How many of them are there, Sandy?”
“Seven, please you, sir, and their squires.”
“I... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 37 |
“Hello-girl?”
“Yes, but don't you ask me to explain; it's a new kind of a girl; they don't have them here; one often speaks sharply to them when they are not the least in fault, and he can't get over feeling sorry for it and ashamed of himself in thirteen hundred years, it's such shabby mean conduct and so unprovoked... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 38 |
“Man of prowess--yes, that is the man to please them, Sandy. Man of brains--that is a thing they never think of. Tom Sayers --John Heenan--John L. Sullivan--pity but you could be here. You would have your legs under the Round Table and a 'Sir' in front of your names within the twenty-four hours; and you could bring ab... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 39 |
The pelting sing-song of it carried me forward to scenes and sounds of my boyhood days:
“N-e-e-ew Haven! ten minutes for refreshments--knductr'll strike the gong-bell two minutes before train leaves--passengers for the Shore line please take seats in the rear k'yar, this k'yar don't go no furder--_ahh_-pls, _aw_-rnjz... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 40 |
“Celluloid teeth, nine dollars a set, as like as not--the loose-fit kind, that go up and down like a portcullis when you eat, and fall out when you laugh.”
“The second damsel was of thirty winter of age, with a circlet of gold about her head. The third damsel was but fifteen year of age--”
Billows of thought came ro... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 41 |
This missionary knight's name was La Cote Male Taile, and he said that this castle was the abode of Morgan le Fay, sister of King Arthur, and wife of King Uriens, monarch of a realm about as big as the District of Columbia--you could stand in the middle of it and throw bricks into the next kingdom. “Kings” and “Kingdo... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 42 |
The guards were less curious, and got out as soon as they got permission.
CHAPTER XVII
A ROYAL BANQUET
Madame, seeing me pacific and unresentful, no doubt judged that I was deceived by her excuse; for her fright dissolved away, and she was soon so importunate to have me give an exhibition and kill somebody, that th... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 43 |
Suddenly, even while the priest was lifting his hands, and all conscious heads were bowed in reverent expectation of the coming blessing, there appeared under the arch of the far-off door at the bottom of the hall an old and bent and white-haired lady, leaning upon a crutch-stick; and she lifted the stick and pointed ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 44 | So she tinkled along and along, in the otherwise profound and ghostly hush of the sleeping castle, until by and by there came, as if from deep down under us, a far-away sound, as of a muffled shriek --with an expression of agony about it that made my flesh crawl. The queen stopped, and her eyes lighted with pleasure; s... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 45 |
“Dear lord, I begged him on my knees to confess, but--”
“You _did_! It gets thicker and thicker. What did you want him to do that for?”
“Sith it would bring him a quick death and save him all this cruel pain.”
“Well--yes, there is reason in that. But _he_ didn't want the quick death.”
“He? Why, of a surety he _did... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 46 |
CHAPTER XVIII
IN THE QUEEN'S DUNGEONS
Well, I arranged all that; and I had the man sent to his home. I had a great desire to rack the executioner; not because he was a good, painstaking and paingiving official,--for surely it was not to his discredit that he performed his functions well--but to pay him back for want... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 47 |
I had had enough of this grisly place by this time, and wanted to leave, but I couldn't, because I had something on my mind that my conscience kept prodding me about, and wouldn't let me forget. If I had the remaking of man, he wouldn't have any conscience. It is one of the most disagreeable things connected with a pe... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 48 | He was nothing, this so-called king: the queen was the only power there. And she was a Vesuvius. As a favor, she might consent to warm a flock of sparrows for you, but then she might take that very opportunity to turn herself loose and bury a city. However, I reflected that as often as any other way, when you are expec... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 49 | He said he believed that if you were to strip the nation naked and send a stranger through the crowd, he couldn't tell the king from a quack doctor, nor a duke from a hotel clerk. Apparently here was a man whose brains had not been reduced to an ineffectual mush by idiotic training. I set him loose and sent him to the ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 50 |
CHAPTER XIX
KNIGHT-ERRANTRY AS A TRADE
Sandy and I were on the road again, next morning, bright and early. It was so good to open up one's lungs and take in whole luscious barrels-ful of the blessed God's untainted, dew-fashioned, woodland-scented air once more, after suffocating body and mind for two days and night... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 51 |
It was the first time I ever struck a still place in her. The mill had shut down for repairs, or something.
CHAPTER XX
THE OGRE'S CASTLE
Between six and nine we made ten miles, which was plenty for a horse carrying triple--man, woman, and armor; then we stopped for a long nooning under some trees by a limpid brook.... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 52 | What this folk needed, then, was a Reign of Terror and a guillotine, and I was the wrong man for them.
Two days later, toward noon, Sandy began to show signs of excitement and feverish expectancy. She said we were approaching the ogre's castle. I was surprised into an uncomfortable shock. The object of our quest had g... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 53 | Here she was, as sane a person as the kingdom could produce; and yet, from my point of view she was acting like a crazy woman. My land, the power of training! of influence! of education! It can bring a body up to believe anything. I had to put myself in Sandy's place to realize that she was not a lunatic. Yes, and put ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 54 |
The first thing we struck that day was a procession of pilgrims. It was not going our way, but we joined it, nevertheless; for it was hourly being borne in upon me now, that if I would govern this country wisely, I must be posted in the details of its life, and not at second hand, but by personal observation and scrut... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 55 |
Early in the afternoon we overtook another procession of pilgrims; but in this one was no merriment, no jokes, no laughter, no playful ways, nor any happy giddiness, whether of youth or age. Yet both were here, both age and youth; gray old men and women, strong men and women of middle age, young husbands, young wives,... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 56 |
We put up at the inn in a village just at nightfall, and when I rose next morning and looked abroad, I was ware where a knight came riding in the golden glory of the new day, and recognized him for knight of mine--Sir Ozana le Cure Hardy. He was in the gentlemen's furnishing line, and his missionarying specialty was p... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 57 |
The pilgrims were human beings. Otherwise they would have acted differently. They had come a long and difficult journey, and now when the journey was nearly finished, and they learned that the main thing they had come for had ceased to exist, they didn't do as horses or cats or angle-worms would probably have done--tu... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 58 |
At last I ventured a story myself; and vast was the success of it. Not right off, of course, for the native of those islands does not, as a rule, dissolve upon the early applications of a humorous thing; but the fifth time I told it, they began to crack in places; the eight time I told it, they began to crumble; at th... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 59 | It transmits itself like physical form and feature; and for a man, in those days, to have had an idea that his ancestors hadn't had, would have brought him under suspicion of being illegitimate. I said to the monk:
“It is a difficult miracle to restore water in a dry well, but we will try, if my brother Merlin fails. ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 60 |
His stand was a pillar sixty feet high, with a broad platform on the top of it. He was now doing what he had been doing every day for twenty years up there--bowing his body ceaselessly and rapidly almost to his feet. It was his way of praying. I timed him with a stop watch, and he made 1,244 revolutions in 24 minutes ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 61 |
[*All the details concerning the hermits, in this chapter, are from Lecky--but greatly modified. This book not being a history but only a tale, the majority of the historian's frank details were too strong for reproduction in it.--_Editor_]
CHAPTER XXIII
RESTORATION OF THE FOUNTAIN
Saturday noon I went to the well ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 62 |
“That's all right. Take your gripsack and get along. The thing for _you_ to do is to go home and work the weather, John W. Merlin.”
|
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 63 |
It was a home shot, and it made him wince; for he was the worst weather-failure in the kingdom. Whenever he ordered up the danger-signals along the coast there was a week's dead calm, sure, and every time he prophesied fair weather it rained brickbats. But I kept him in the weather bureau right along, to undermine his... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 64 |
The news of the disaster to the well had traveled far by this time; and now for two or three days a steady avalanche of people had been pouring into the valley. The lower end of the valley was become one huge camp; we should have a good house, no question about that. Criers went the rounds early in the evening and ann... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 65 |
It was a great night, an immense night. There was reputation in it. I could hardly get to sleep for glorying over it.
CHAPTER XXIV
A RIVAL MAGICIAN
My influence in the Valley of Holiness was something prodigious now. It seemed worth while to try to turn it to some valuable account. The thought came to me the next m... |
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