A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 2. Read online

  CHAPTER IX

  THE TOURNAMENT

  They were always having grand tournaments there at Camelot; andvery stirring and picturesque and ridiculous human bull-fightsthey were, too, but just a little wearisome to the practical mind.However, I was generally on hand--for two reasons: a man mustnot hold himself aloof from the things which his friends and hiscommunity have at heart if he would be liked--especially asa statesman; and both as business man and statesman I wantedto study the tournament and see if I couldn't invent an improvementon it. That reminds me to remark, in passing, that the very firstofficial thing I did, in my administration--and it was on the veryfirst day of it, too--was to start a patent office; for I knewthat a country without a patent office and good patent laws wasjust a crab, and couldn't travel any way but sideways or backways.

  Things ran along, a tournament nearly every week; and now and thenthe boys used to want me to take a hand--I mean Sir Launcelot andthe rest--but I said I would by and by; no hurry yet, and too muchgovernment machinery to oil up and set to rights and start a-going.

  We had one tournament which was continued from day to day duringmore than a week, and as many as five hundred knights took partin it, from first to last. They were weeks gathering. They cameon horseback from everywhere; from the very ends of the country,and even from beyond the sea; and many brought ladies, and allbrought squires and troops of servants. It was a most gaudy andgorgeous crowd, as to costumery, and very characteristic of thecountry and the time, in the way of high animal spirits, innocentindecencies of language, and happy-hearted indifference to morals.It was fight or look on, all day and every day; and sing, gamble,dance, carouse half the night every night. They had a most noblegood time. You never saw such people. Those banks of beautifulladies, shining in their barbaric splendors, would see a knightsprawl from his horse in the lists with a lanceshaft the thicknessof your ankle clean through him and the blood spouting, and insteadof fainting they would clap their hands and crowd each other for abetter view; only sometimes one would dive into her handkerchief,and look ostentatiously broken-hearted, and then you could laytwo to one that there was a scandal there somewhere and she wasafraid the public hadn't found it out.

  The noise at night would have been annoying to me ordinarily, butI didn't mind it in the present circumstances, because it kept mefrom hearing the quacks detaching legs and arms from the day'scripples. They ruined an uncommon good old cross-cut saw for me,and broke the saw-buck, too, but I let it pass. And as for myaxe--well, I made up my mind that the next time I lent an axeto a surgeon I would pick my century.

  I not only watched this tournament from day to day, but detailedan intelligent priest from my Department of Public Morals andAgriculture, and ordered him to report it; for it was my purposeby and by, when I should have gotten the people along far enough,to start a newspaper. The first thing you want in a new country,is a patent office; then work up your school system; and after that,out with your paper. A newspaper has its faults, and plenty of them,but no matter, it's hark from the tomb for a dead nation, and don'tyou forget it. You can't resurrect a dead nation without it; thereisn't any way. So I wanted to sample things, and be finding outwhat sort of reporter-material I might be able to rake together outof the sixth century when I should come to need it.

  Well, the priest did very well, considering. He got in allthe details, and that is a good thing in a local item: you see,he had kept books for the undertaker-department of his churchwhen he was younger, and there, you know, the money's in the details;the more details, the more swag: bearers, mutes, candles, prayers--everything counts; and if the bereaved don't buy prayers enoughyou mark up your candles with a forked pencil, and your billshows up all right. And he had a good knack at getting in thecomplimentary thing here and there about a knight that was likelyto advertise--no, I mean a knight that had influence; and he alsohad a neat gift of exaggeration, for in his time he had kept doorfor a pious hermit who lived in a sty and worked miracles.

  Of course this novice's report lacked whoop and crash and luriddescription, and therefore wanted the true ring; but its antiquewording was quaint and sweet and simple, and full of the fragrancesand flavors of the time, and these little merits made up in a measurefor its more important lacks. Here is an extract from it:

  Then Sir Brian de les Isles and Grummore Grummorsum, knights of the castle, encountered with Sir Aglovale and Sir Tor, and Sir Tor smote down Sir Grummore Grummorsum to the earth. Then came Sir Carados of the dolorous tower, and Sir Turquine, knights of the castle, and there encountered with them Sir Percivale de Galis and Sir Lamorak de Galis, that were two brethren, and there encountered Sir Percivale with Sir Carados, and either brake their spears unto their hands, and then Sir Turquine with Sir Lamorak, and either of them smote down other, horse and all, to the earth, and either parties rescued other and horsed them again. And Sir Arnold, and Sir Gauter, knights of the castle, encountered with Sir Brandiles and Sir Kay, and these four knights encountered mightily, and brake their spears to their hands. Then came Sir Pertolope from the castle, and there encountered with him Sir Lionel, and there Sir Pertolope the green knight smote down Sir Lionel, brother to Sir Launcelot. All this was marked by noble heralds, who bare him best, and their names. Then Sir Bleobaris brake his spear upon Sir Gareth, but of that stroke Sir Bleobaris fell to the earth. When Sir Galihodin saw that, he bad Sir Gareth keep him, and Sir Gareth smote him to the earth. Then Sir Galihud gat a spear to avenge his brother, and in the same wise Sir Gareth served him, and Sir Dinadan and his brother La Cote Male Taile, and Sir Sagramore le Disirous, and Sir Dodinas le Savage; all these he bare down with one spear. When King Aswisance of Ireland saw Sir Gareth fare so he marvelled what he might be, that one time seemed green, and another time, at his again coming, he seemed blue. And thus at every course that he rode to and fro he changed his color, so that there might neither king nor knight have ready cognizance of him. Then Sir Agwisance the King of Ireland encountered with Sir Gareth, and there Sir Gareth smote him from his horse, saddle and all. And then came King Carados of Scotland, and Sir Gareth smote him down horse and man. And in the same wise he served King Uriens of the land of Gore. And then there came in Sir Bagdemagus, and Sir Gareth smote him down horse and man to the earth. And Bagdemagus's son Meliganus brake a spear upon Sir Gareth mightily and knightly. And then Sir Galahault the noble prince cried on high, Knight with the many colors, well hast thou justed; now make thee ready that I may just with thee. Sir Gareth heard him, and he gat a great spear, and so they encountered together, and there the prince brake his spear; but Sir Gareth smote him upon the left side of the helm, that he reeled here and there, and he had fallen down had not his men recovered him. Truly, said King Arthur, that knight with the many colors is a good knight. Wherefore the king called unto him Sir Launcelot, and prayed him to encounter with that knight. Sir, said Launcelot, I may as well find in my heart for to forbear him at this time, for he hath had travail enough this day, and when a good knight doth so well upon some day, it is no good knight's part to let him of his worship, and, namely, when he seeth a knight hath done so great labour; for peradventure, said Sir Launcelot, his quarrel is here this day, and peradventure he is best beloved with this lady of all that be here, for I see well he paineth himself and enforceth him to do great deeds, and therefore, said Sir Launcelot, as for me, this day he shall have the honour; though it lay in my power to put him from it, I would not.

  There was an unpleasant little episode that day, which for reasonsof state I struck out of my priest's report. You will have noticedthat Garry was doing some great fighting in the engagement. WhenI say Garry I mean Sir Gareth. Garry was my private pet namefor him; it suggests that I had a deep affection for him, and thatwas the case. But it was a private pet name only, and never spokenaloud to any one, much less to him; being a noble, he would nothave endured a familiarity like that from me. Well, to proceed:I sat in the private
box set apart for me as the king's minister.While Sir Dinadan was waiting for his turn to enter the lists,he came in there and sat down and began to talk; for he was alwaysmaking up to me, because I was a stranger and he liked to havea fresh market for his jokes, the most of them having reached thatstage of wear where the teller has to do the laughing himself whilethe other person looks sick. I had always responded to his effortsas well as I could, and felt a very deep and real kindness for him,too, for the reason that if by malice of fate he knew the oneparticular anecdote which I had heard oftenest and had most hatedand most loathed all my life, he had at least spared it me. It wasone which I had heard attributed to every humorous person whohad ever stood on American soil, from Columbus down to Artemus Ward.It was about a humorous lecturer who flooded an ignorant audiencewith the killingest jokes for an hour and never got a laugh; andthen when he was leaving, some gray simpletons wrung him gratefullyby the hand and said it had been the funniest thing they had everheard, and "it was all they could do to keep from laughin' rightout in meetin'." That anecdote never saw the day that it wasworth the telling; and yet I had sat under the telling of ithundreds and thousands and millions and billions of times, andcried and cursed all the way through. Then who can hope to knowwhat my feelings were, to hear this armor-plated ass start in onit again, in the murky twilight of tradition, before the dawn ofhistory, while even Lactantius might be referred to as "the lateLactantius," and the Crusades wouldn't be born for five hundredyears yet? Just as he finished, the call-boy came; so, haw-hawinglike a demon, he went rattling and clanking out like a crate ofloose castings, and I knew nothing more. It was some minutesbefore I came to, and then I opened my eyes just in time to seeSir Gareth fetch him an awful welt, and I unconsciously out withthe prayer, "I hope to gracious he's killed!" But by ill-luck,before I had got half through with the words, Sir Gareth crashedinto Sir Sagramor le Desirous and sent him thundering over hishorse's crupper, and Sir Sagramor caught my remark and thoughtI meant it for _him_.

  Well, whenever one of those people got a thing into his head,there was no getting it out again. I knew that, so I saved mybreath, and offered no explanations. As soon as Sir Sagramorgot well, he notified me that there was a little account to settlebetween us, and he named a day three or four years in the future;place of settlement, the lists where the offense had been given.I said I would be ready when he got back. You see, he was goingfor the Holy Grail. The boys all took a flier at the Holy Grailnow and then. It was a several years' cruise. They always put inthe long absence snooping around, in the most conscientious way,though none of them had any idea where the Holy Grail really was,and I don't think any of them actually expected to find it, orwould have known what to do with it if he _had_ run across it.You see, it was just the Northwest Passage of that day, as you maysay; that was all. Every year expeditions went out holy grailing,and next year relief expeditions went out to hunt for _them_. Therewas worlds of reputation in it, but no money. Why, they actuallywanted _me_ to put in! Well, I should smile.