บทที่ บทที่ 21 · THE PILGRIMS

THE PILGRIMS

When I did get to bed at last I was unspeakably tired; the stretching

out, and the relaxing of the long-tense muscles, how luxurious,

how delicious! but that was as far as I could get--sleep was out of

the question for the present. The ripping and tearing and squealing

of the nobility up and down the halls and corridors was pandemonium

come again, and kept me broad awake. Being awake, my thoughts

were busy, of course; and mainly they busied themselves with Sandy's

curious delusion. 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 her in mine, to demonstrate how easy it is

to seem a lunatic to a person who has not been taught as you have

been taught. If I had told Sandy I had seen a wagon, uninfluenced

by enchantment, spin along fifty miles an hour; had seen a man,

unequipped with magic powers, get into a basket and soar out of

sight among the clouds; and had listened, without any necromancer's

help, to the conversation of a person who was several hundred miles

away, Sandy would not merely have supposed me to be crazy, she

would have thought she knew it. Everybody around her believed in

enchantments; nobody had any doubts; to doubt that a castle could

be turned into a sty, and its occupants into hogs, would have been

the same as my doubting among Connecticut people the actuality

of the telephone and its wonders,--and in both cases would be

absolute proof of a diseased mind, an unsettled reason. Yes, Sandy

was sane; that must be admitted. If I also would be sane--to Sandy

--I must keep my superstitions about unenchanted and unmiraculous

locomotives, balloons, and telephones, to myself. Also, I believed

that the world was not flat, and hadn't pillars under it to support

it, nor a canopy over it to turn off a universe of water that

occupied all space above; but as I was the only person in the kingdom

afflicted with such impious and criminal opinions, I recognized

that it would be good wisdom to keep quiet about this matter, too,

if I did not wish to be suddenly shunned and forsaken by everybody

as a madman.

The next morning Sandy assembled the swine in the dining-room and

gave them their breakfast, waiting upon them personally and

manifesting in every way the deep reverence which the natives of

her island, ancient and modern, have always felt for rank, let its

outward casket and the mental and moral contents be what they may.

I could have eaten with the hogs if I had had birth approaching my

lofty official rank; but I hadn't, and so accepted the unavoidable

slight and made no complaint. Sandy and I had our breakfast at

the second table. The family were not at home. I said:

“How many are in the family, Sandy, and where do they keep themselves?”

“Family?”

“Yes.”

“Which family, good my lord?”

“Why, this family; your own family.”

“Sooth to say, I understand you not. I have no family.”

“No family? Why, Sandy, isn't this your home?”

“Now how indeed might that be? I have no home.”

“Well, then, whose house is this?”

“Ah, wit you well I would tell you an I knew myself.”

“Come--you don't even know these people? Then who invited us here?”

“None invited us. We but came; that is all.”

“Why, woman, this is a most extraordinary performance. The

effrontery of it is beyond admiration. We blandly march into

a man's house, and cram it full of the only really valuable nobility

the sun has yet discovered in the earth, and then it turns out

that we don't even know the man's name. How did you ever venture

to take this extravagant liberty? I supposed, of course, it was

your home. What will the man say?”

“What will he say? Forsooth what can he say but give thanks?”

“Thanks for what?”

Her face was filled with a puzzled surprise:

“Verily, thou troublest mine understanding with strange words.

Do ye dream that one of his estate is like to have the honor twice

in his life to entertain company such as we have brought to grace

his house withal?”

“Well, no--when you come to that. No, it's an even bet that this

is the first time he has had a treat like this.”

“Then let him be thankful, and manifest the same by grateful speech

and due humility; he were a dog, else, and the heir and ancestor

of dogs.”

To my mind, the situation was uncomfortable. It might become more so.

It might be a good idea to muster the hogs and move on. So I said:

“The day is wasting, Sandy. It is time to get the nobility together

and be moving.”

“Wherefore, fair sir and Boss?”

“We want to take them to their home, don't we?”

“La, but list to him! They be of all the regions of the earth!

Each must hie to her own home; wend you we might do all these

journeys in one so brief life as He hath appointed that created

life, and thereto death likewise with help of Adam, who by sin

done through persuasion of his helpmeet, she being wrought upon

and bewrayed by the beguilements of the great enemy of man, that

serpent hight Satan, aforetime consecrated and set apart unto that

evil work by overmastering spite and envy begotten in his heart

through fell ambitions that did blight and mildew a nature erst

so white and pure whenso it hove with the shining multitudes

its brethren-born in glade and shade of that fair heaven wherein

all such as native be to that rich estate and--”

“Great Scott!”

“My lord?”

“Well, you know we haven't got time for this sort of thing. Don't

you see, we could distribute these people around the earth in less

time than it is going to take you to explain that we can't. We

mustn't talk now, we must act. You want to be careful; you mustn't

let your mill get the start of you that way, at a time like this.

To business now--and sharp's the word. Who is to take the

aristocracy home?”

“Even their friends. These will come for them from the far parts

of the earth.”

This was lightning from a clear sky, for unexpectedness; and the

relief of it was like pardon to a prisoner. She would remain to

deliver the goods, of course.

“Well, then, Sandy, as our enterprise is handsomely and successfully

ended, I will go home and report; and if ever another one--”

“I also am ready; I will go with thee.”

This was recalling the pardon.

“How? You will go with me? Why should you?”

“Will I be traitor to my knight, dost think? That were dishonor.

I may not part from thee until in knightly encounter in the field

some overmatching champion shall fairly win and fairly wear me.

I were to blame an I thought that that might ever hap.”

“Elected for the long term,” I sighed to myself. “I may as well

make the best of it.” So then I spoke up and said:

“All right; let us make a start.”

While she was gone to cry her farewells over the pork, I gave that

whole peerage away to the servants. And I asked them to take

a duster and dust around a little where the nobilities had mainly

lodged and promenaded; but they considered that that would be

hardly worth while, and would moreover be a rather grave departure

from custom, and therefore likely to make talk. A departure from

custom--that settled it; it was a nation capable of committing any

crime but that. The servants said they would follow the fashion,

a fashion grown sacred through immemorial observance; they would

scatter fresh rushes in all the rooms and halls, and then the

evidence of the aristocratic visitation would be no longer visible.

It was a kind of satire on Nature: it was the scientific method,

the geologic method; it deposited the history of the family in

a stratified record; and the antiquary could dig through it and

tell by the remains of each period what changes of diet the family

had introduced successively for a hundred years.

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 scrutiny.

This company of pilgrims resembled Chaucer's in this: that it

had in it a sample of about all the upper occupations and professions

the country could show, and a corresponding variety of costume.

There were young men and old men, young women and old women,

lively folk and grave folk. They rode upon mules and horses, and

there was not a side-saddle in the party; for this specialty was

to remain unknown in England for nine hundred years yet.

It was a pleasant, friendly, sociable herd; pious, happy, merry and

full of unconscious coarsenesses and innocent indecencies. What

they regarded as the merry tale went the continual round and caused

no more embarrassment than it would have caused in the best English

society twelve centuries later. Practical jokes worthy of the

English wits of the first quarter of the far-off nineteenth century

were sprung here and there and yonder along the line, and compelled

the delightedest applause; and sometimes when a bright remark was

made at one end of the procession and started on its travels toward

the other, you could note its progress all the way by the sparkling

spray of laughter it threw off from its bows as it plowed along;

and also by the blushes of the mules in its wake.

Sandy knew the goal and purpose of this pilgrimage, and she posted

me. She said:

“They journey to the Valley of Holiness, for to be blessed of the

godly hermits and drink of the miraculous waters and be cleansed

from sin.”

“Where is this watering place?”

“It lieth a two-day journey hence, by the borders of the land that

hight the Cuckoo Kingdom.”

“Tell me about it. Is it a celebrated place?”

“Oh, of a truth, yes. There be none more so. Of old time there

lived there an abbot and his monks. Belike were none in the world

more holy than these; for they gave themselves to study of pious

books, and spoke not the one to the other, or indeed to any, and

ate decayed herbs and naught thereto, and slept hard, and prayed

much, and washed never; also they wore the same garment until it

fell from their bodies through age and decay. Right so came they

to be known of all the world by reason of these holy austerities,

and visited by rich and poor, and reverenced.”

“Proceed.”

“But always there was lack of water there. Whereas, upon a time,

the holy abbot prayed, and for answer a great stream of clear

water burst forth by miracle in a desert place. Now were the

fickle monks tempted of the Fiend, and they wrought with their

abbot unceasingly by beggings and beseechings that he would construct

a bath; and when he was become aweary and might not resist more,

he said have ye your will, then, and granted that they asked.

Now mark thou what 'tis to forsake the ways of purity the which

He loveth, and wanton with such as be worldly and an offense.

These monks did enter into the bath and come thence washed as

white as snow; and lo, in that moment His sign appeared, in

miraculous rebuke! for His insulted waters ceased to flow, and

utterly vanished away.”

“They fared mildly, Sandy, considering how that kind of crime

is regarded in this country.”

“Belike; but it was their first sin; and they had been of perfect

life for long, and differing in naught from the angels. Prayers,

tears, torturings of the flesh, all was vain to beguile that water

to flow again. Even processions; even burnt-offerings; even votive

candles to the Virgin, did fail every each of them; and all in

the land did marvel.”

“How odd to find that even this industry has its financial panics,

and at times sees its assignats and greenbacks languish to zero,

and everything come to a standstill. Go on, Sandy.”

“And so upon a time, after year and day, the good abbot made humble

surrender and destroyed the bath. And behold, His anger was in that

moment appeased, and the waters gushed richly forth again, and even

unto this day they have not ceased to flow in that generous measure.”

“Then I take it nobody has washed since.”

“He that would essay it could have his halter free; yes, and

swiftly would he need it, too.”

“The community has prospered since?”

“Even from that very day. The fame of the miracle went abroad

into all lands. From every land came monks to join; they came

even as the fishes come, in shoals; and the monastery added building

to building, and yet others to these, and so spread wide its arms

and took them in. And nuns came, also; and more again, and yet

more; and built over against the monastery on the yon side of the

vale, and added building to building, until mighty was that nunnery.

And these were friendly unto those, and they joined their loving

labors together, and together they built a fair great foundling

asylum midway of the valley between.”

“You spoke of some hermits, Sandy.”

“These have gathered there from the ends of the earth. A hermit

thriveth best where there be multitudes of pilgrims. Ye shall not

find no hermit of no sort wanting. If any shall mention a hermit

of a kind he thinketh new and not to be found but in some far

strange land, let him but scratch among the holes and caves and

swamps that line that Valley of Holiness, and whatsoever be his

breed, it skills not, he shall find a sample of it there.”

I closed up alongside of a burly fellow with a fat good-humored

face, purposing to make myself agreeable and pick up some further

crumbs of fact; but I had hardly more than scraped acquaintance

with him when he began eagerly and awkwardly to lead up, in the

immemorial way, to that same old anecdote--the one Sir Dinadan

told me, what time I got into trouble with Sir Sagramor and was

challenged of him on account of it. I excused myself and dropped

to the rear of the procession, sad at heart, willing to go hence

from this troubled life, this vale of tears, this brief day of

broken rest, of cloud and storm, of weary struggle and monotonous

defeat; and yet shrinking from the change, as remembering how long

eternity is, and how many have wended thither who know that anecdote.

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, little boys

and girls, and three babies at the breast. Even the children were

smileless; there was not a face among all these half a hundred

people but was cast down, and bore that set expression of hopelessness

which is bred of long and hard trials and old acquaintance with

despair. They were slaves. Chains led from their fettered feet

and their manacled hands to a sole-leather belt about their waists;

and all except the children were also linked together in a file

six feet apart, by a single chain which led from collar to collar

all down the line. They were on foot, and had tramped three

hundred miles in eighteen days, upon the cheapest odds and ends

of food, and stingy rations of that. They had slept in these

chains every night, bundled together like swine. They had upon

their bodies some poor rags, but they could not be said to be

clothed. Their irons had chafed the skin from their ankles and

made sores which were ulcerated and wormy. Their naked feet were

torn, and none walked without a limp. Originally there had been a

hundred of these unfortunates, but about half had been sold on

the trip. The trader in charge of them rode a horse and carried

a whip with a short handle and a long heavy lash divided into

several knotted tails at the end. With this whip he cut the

shoulders of any that tottered from weariness and pain, and

straightened them up. He did not speak; the whip conveyed his

desire without that. None of these poor creatures looked up as

we rode along by; they showed no consciousness of our presence.

And they made no sound but one; that was the dull and awful clank

of their chains from end to end of the long file, as forty-three

burdened feet rose and fell in unison. The file moved in a cloud

of its own making.

All these faces were gray with a coating of dust. One has seen

the like of this coating upon furniture in unoccupied houses, and

has written his idle thought in it with his finger. I was reminded

of this when I noticed the faces of some of those women, young

mothers carrying babes that were near to death and freedom, how

a something in their hearts was written in the dust upon their

faces, plain to see, and lord, how plain to read! for it was the

track of tears. One of these young mothers was but a girl, and

it hurt me to the heart to read that writing, and reflect that it

was come up out of the breast of such a child, a breast that ought

not to know trouble yet, but only the gladness of the morning of

life; and no doubt--

She reeled just then, giddy with fatigue, and down came the lash

and flicked a flake of skin from her naked shoulder. It stung me

as if I had been hit instead. The master halted the file and

jumped from his horse. He stormed and swore at this girl, and

said she had made annoyance enough with her laziness, and as this

was the last chance he should have, he would settle the account now.

She dropped on her knees and put up her hands and began to beg,

and cry, and implore, in a passion of terror, but the master gave

no attention. He snatched the child from her, and then made the

men-slaves who were chained before and behind her throw her on

the ground and hold her there and expose her body; and then he

laid on with his lash like a madman till her back was flayed, she

shrieking and struggling the while piteously. One of the men who

was holding her turned away his face, and for this humanity he was

reviled and flogged.

All our pilgrims looked on and commented--on the expert way in

which the whip was handled. They were too much hardened by lifelong

everyday familiarity with slavery to notice that there was anything

else in the exhibition that invited comment. This was what slavery

could do, in the way of ossifying what one may call the superior

lobe of human feeling; for these pilgrims were kind-hearted people,

and they would not have allowed that man to treat a horse like that.

I wanted to stop the whole thing and set the slaves free, but that

would not do. I must not interfere too much and get myself a name

for riding over the country's laws and the citizen's rights

roughshod. If I lived and prospered I would be the death of

slavery, that I was resolved upon; but I would try to fix it so

that when I became its executioner it should be by command of

the nation.

Just here was the wayside shop of a smith; and now arrived a landed

proprietor who had bought this girl a few miles back, deliverable

here where her irons could be taken off. They were removed; then

there was a squabble between the gentleman and the dealer as to

which should pay the blacksmith. The moment the girl was delivered

from her irons, she flung herself, all tears and frantic sobbings,

into the arms of the slave who had turned away his face when she

was whipped. He strained her to his breast, and smothered her

face and the child's with kisses, and washed them with the rain

of his tears. I suspected. I inquired. Yes, I was right; it was

husband and wife. They had to be torn apart by force; the girl

had to be dragged away, and she struggled and fought and shrieked

like one gone mad till a turn of the road hid her from sight; and

even after that, we could still make out the fading plaint of those

receding shrieks. And the husband and father, with his wife and

child gone, never to be seen by him again in life?--well, the look

of him one might not bear at all, and so I turned away; but I knew

I should never get his picture out of my mind again, and there

it is to this day, to wring my heartstrings whenever I think of it.

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

plug hats. He was clothed all in steel, in the beautifulest armor

of the time--up to where his helmet ought to have been; but he

hadn't any helmet, he wore a shiny stove-pipe hat, and was ridiculous

a spectacle as one might want to see. It was another of my

surreptitious schemes for extinguishing knighthood by making it

grotesque and absurd. Sir Ozana's saddle was hung about with

leather hat boxes, and every time he overcame a wandering knight

he swore him into my service and fitted him with a plug and made

him wear it. I dressed and ran down to welcome Sir Ozana and

get his news.

“How is trade?” I asked.

“Ye will note that I have but these four left; yet were they sixteen

whenas I got me from Camelot.”

“Why, you have certainly done nobly, Sir Ozana. Where have you

been foraging of late?”

“I am but now come from the Valley of Holiness, please you sir.”

“I am pointed for that place myself. Is there anything stirring

in the monkery, more than common?”

“By the mass ye may not question it!.... Give him good feed,

boy, and stint it not, an thou valuest thy crown; so get ye lightly

to the stable and do even as I bid.... Sir, it is parlous news

I bring, and--be these pilgrims? Then ye may not do better, good

folk, than gather and hear the tale I have to tell, sith it

concerneth you, forasmuch as ye go to find that ye will not find,

and seek that ye will seek in vain, my life being hostage for my

word, and my word and message being these, namely: That a hap

has happened whereof the like has not been seen no more but once

this two hundred years, which was the first and last time that

that said misfortune strake the holy valley in that form by

commandment of the Most High whereto by reasons just and causes

thereunto contributing, wherein the matter--”

“The miraculous fount hath ceased to flow!” This shout burst from

twenty pilgrim mouths at once.

“Ye say well, good people. I was verging to it, even when ye spake.”

“Has somebody been washing again?”

“Nay, it is suspected, but none believe it. It is thought to be

some other sin, but none wit what.”

“How are they feeling about the calamity?”

“None may describe it in words. The fount is these nine days dry.

The prayers that did begin then, and the lamentations in sackcloth

and ashes, and the holy processions, none of these have ceased

nor night nor day; and so the monks and the nuns and the foundlings

be all exhausted, and do hang up prayers writ upon parchment,

sith that no strength is left in man to lift up voice. And at last

they sent for thee, Sir Boss, to try magic and enchantment; and

if you could not come, then was the messenger to fetch Merlin,

and he is there these three days now, and saith he will fetch that

water though he burst the globe and wreck its kingdoms to accomplish

it; and right bravely doth he work his magic and call upon his

hellions to hie them hither and help, but not a whiff of moisture

hath he started yet, even so much as might qualify as mist upon

a copper mirror an ye count not the barrel of sweat he sweateth

betwixt sun and sun over the dire labors of his task; and if ye--”

Breakfast was ready. As soon as it was over I showed to Sir Ozana

these words which I had written on the inside of his hat: “Chemical

Department, Laboratory extension, Section G. Pxxp. Send two of

first size, two of No. 3, and six of No. 4, together with the proper

complementary details--and two of my trained assistants.” And I said:

“Now get you to Camelot as fast as you can fly, brave knight, and

show the writing to Clarence, and tell him to have these required

matters in the Valley of Holiness with all possible dispatch.”

“I will well, Sir Boss,” and he was off.