A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 6.

by Mark Twain

  CHAPTER XXX

  THE TRAGEDY OF THE MANOR-HOUSE

  At midnight all was over, and we sat in the presence of fourcorpses. We covered them with such rags as we could find, andstarted away, fastening the door behind us. Their home must bethese people's grave, for they could not have Christian burial,or be admitted to consecrated ground. They were as dogs, wildbeasts, lepers, and no soul that valued its hope of eternal lifewould throw it away by meddling in any sort with these rebuked andsmitten outcasts.

  We had not moved four steps when I caught a sound as of footstepsupon gravel. My heart flew to my throat. We must not be seencoming from that house. I plucked at the king's robe and we drewback and took shelter behind the corner of the cabin.

  "Now we are safe," I said, "but it was a close call--so to speak.If the night had been lighter he might have seen us, no doubt,he seemed to be so near."

  "Mayhap it is but a beast and not a man at all."

  "True. But man or beast, it will be wise to stay here a minuteand let it get by and out of the way."

  "Hark! It cometh hither."

  True again. The step was coming toward us--straight toward the hut.It must be a beast, then, and we might as well have saved ourtrepidation. I was going to step out, but the king laid his handupon my arm. There was a moment of silence, then we heard a softknock on the cabin door. It made me shiver. Presently the knockwas repeated, and then we heard these words in a guarded voice:

  "Mother! Father! Open--we have got free, and we bring news topale your cheeks but glad your hearts; and we may not tarry, butmust fly! And--but they answer not. Mother! father!--"

  I drew the king toward the other end of the hut and whispered:

  "Come--now we can get to the road."

  The king hesitated, was going to demur; but just then we heardthe door give way, and knew that those desolate men were in thepresence of their dead.

  "Come, my liege! in a moment they will strike a light, and thenwill follow that which it would break your heart to hear."

  He did not hesitate this time. The moment we were in the roadI ran; and after a moment he threw dignity aside and followed.I did not want to think of what was happening in the hut--I couldn'tbear it; I wanted to drive it out of my mind; so I struck into thefirst subject that lay under that one in my mind:

  "I have had the disease those people died of, and so have nothingto fear; but if you have not had it also--"

  He broke in upon me to say he was in trouble, and it was hisconscience that was troubling him:

  "These young men have got free, they say--but _how_? It is notlikely that their lord hath set them free."

  "Oh, no, I make no doubt they escaped."

  "That is my trouble; I have a fear that this is so, and yoursuspicion doth confirm it, you having the same fear."

  "I should not call it by that name though. I do suspect that theyescaped, but if they did, I am not sorry, certainly."

  "I am not sorry, I _think_--but--"

  "What is it? What is there for one to be troubled about?"

  "_If_ they did escape, then are we bound in duty to lay hands uponthem and deliver them again to their lord; for it is not seemlythat one of his quality should suffer a so insolent and high-handedoutrage from persons of their base degree."

  There it was again. He could see only one side of it. He wasborn so, educated so, his veins were full of ancestral blood thatwas rotten with this sort of unconscious brutality, brought downby inheritance from a long procession of hearts that had each doneits share toward poisoning the stream. To imprison these menwithout proof, and starve their kindred, was no harm, for they weremerely peasants and subject to the will and pleasure of their lord,no matter what fearful form it might take; but for these men tobreak out of unjust captivity was insult and outrage, and a thingnot to be countenanced by any conscientious person who knew hisduty to his sacred caste.

  I worked more than half an hour before I got him to change thesubject--and even then an outside matter did it for me. This wasa something which caught our eyes as we struck the summit of asmall hill--a red glow, a good way off.

  "That's a fire," said I.

  Fires interested me considerably, because I was getting a gooddeal of an insurance business started, and was also training somehorses and building some steam fire-engines, with an eye to a paidfire department by and by. The priests opposed both my fire andlife insurance, on the ground that it was an insolent attempt tohinder the decrees of God; and if you pointed out that they did nothinder the decrees in the least, but only modified the hardconsequences of them if you took out policies and had luck, theyretorted that that was gambling against the decrees of God, and wasjust as bad. So they managed to damage those industries moreor less, but I got even on my Accident business. As a rule, a knightis a lummox, and some times even a labrick, and hence open to prettypoor arguments when they come glibly from a superstition-monger,but even _he_ could see the practical side of a thing once in a while;and so of late you couldn't clean up a tournament and pile theresult without finding one of my accident-tickets in every helmet.

  We stood there awhile, in the thick darkness and stillness, lookingtoward the red blur in the distance, and trying to make out themeaning of a far-away murmur that rose and fell fitfully on thenight. Sometimes it swelled up and for a moment seemed lessremote; but when we were hopefully expecting it to betray its causeand nature, it dulled and sank again, carrying its mystery with it.We started down the hill in its direction, and the winding roadplunged us at once into almost solid darkness--darkness that waspacked and crammed in between two tall forest walls. We gropedalong down for half a mile, perhaps, that murmur growing more andmore distinct all the time. The coming storm threatening more andmore, with now and then a little shiver of wind, a faint show oflightning, and dull grumblings of distant thunder. I was in thelead. I ran against something--a soft heavy something which gave,slightly, to the impulse of my weight; at the same moment thelightning glared out, and within a foot of my face was the writhingface of a man who was hanging from the limb of a tree! That is,it seemed to be writhing, but it was not. It was a grewsome sight.Straightway there was an ear-splitting explosion of thunder, andthe bottom of heaven fell out; the rain poured down in a deluge.No matter, we must try to cut this man down, on the chance thatthere might be life in him yet, mustn't we? The lightning camequick and sharp now, and the place was alternately noonday andmidnight. One moment the man would be hanging before me in anintense light, and the next he was blotted out again in the darkness.I told the king we must cut him down. The king at once objected.

  "If he hanged himself, he was willing to lose him property tohis lord; so let him be. If others hanged him, belike they hadthe right--let him hang."

  "But--"

  "But me no buts, but even leave him as he is. And for yet anotherreason. When the lightning cometh again--there, look abroad."

  Two others hanging, within fifty yards of us!

  "It is not weather meet for doing useless courtesies unto dead folk.They are past thanking you. Come--it is unprofitable to tarry here."

  There was reason in what he said, so we moved on. Within the nextmile we counted six more hanging forms by the blaze of the lightning,and altogether it was a grisly excursion. That murmur was a murmurno longer, it was a roar; a roar of men's voices. A man came flyingby now, dimly through the darkness, and other men chasing him.They disappeared. Presently another case of the kind occurred,and then another and another. Then a sudden turn of the roadbrought us in sight of that fire--it was a large manor-house, andlittle or nothing was left of it--and everywhere men were flyingand other men raging after them in pursuit.

  I warned the king that this was not a safe place for strangers.We would better get away from the light, until matters shouldimprove. We stepped back a little, and hid in the edge of thewood. From this hiding-place we saw both men and women huntedby the mob. The fearful work went on until nearly dawn. Then,the fire being out an
d the storm spent, the voices and flyingfootsteps presently ceased, and darkness and stillness reigned again.

  We ventured out, and hurried cautiously away; and although we wereworn out and sleepy, we kept on until we had put this place somemiles behind us. Then we asked hospitality at the hut of a charcoalburner, and got what was to be had. A woman was up and about, butthe man was still asleep, on a straw shake-down, on the clay floor.The woman seemed uneasy until I explained that we were travelersand had lost our way and been wandering in the woods all night.She became talkative, then, and asked if we had heard of theterrible goings-on at the manor-house of Abblasoure. Yes, we hadheard of them, but what we wanted now was rest and sleep. Theking broke in:

  "Sell us the house and take yourselves away, for we be perilouscompany, being late come from people that died of the Spotted Death."

  It was good of him, but unnecessary. One of the commonest decorationsof the nation was the waffle-iron face. I had early noticed thatthe woman and her husband were both so decorated. She made usentirely welcome, and had no fears; and plainly she was immenselyimpressed by the king's proposition; for, of course, it was a gooddeal of an event in her life to run across a person of the king'shumble appearance who was ready to buy a man's house for the sakeof a night's lodging. It gave her a large respect for us, and shestrained the lean possibilities of her hovel to the utmost to makeus comfortable.

  We slept till far into the afternoon, and then got up hungry enough tomake cotter fare quite palatable to the king, the more particularlyas it was scant in quantity. And also in variety; it consistedsolely of onions, salt, and the national black bread made out ofhorse-feed. The woman told us about the affair of the eveningbefore. At ten or eleven at night, when everybody was in bed,the manor-house burst into flames. The country-side swarmed tothe rescue, and the family were saved, with one exception, themaster. He did not appear. Everybody was frantic over this loss,and two brave yeomen sacrificed their lives in ransacking theburning house seeking that valuable personage. But after a whilehe was found--what was left of him--which was his corpse. It wasin a copse three hundred yards away, bound, gagged, stabbed in adozen places.

  Who had done this? Suspicion fell upon a humble family in theneighborhood who had been lately treated with peculiar harshnessby the baron; and from these people the suspicion easily extendeditself to their relatives and familiars. A suspicion was enough;my lord's liveried retainers proclaimed an instant crusade againstthese people, and were promptly joined by the community in general.The woman's husband had been active with the mob, and had notreturned home until nearly dawn. He was gone now to find outwhat the general result had been. While we were still talking hecame back from his quest. His report was revolting enough. Eighteenpersons hanged or butchered, and two yeomen and thirteen prisonerslost in the fire.

  "And how many prisoners were there altogether in the vaults?"

  "Thirteen."

  "Then every one of them was lost?"

  "Yes, all."

  "But the people arrived in time to save the family; how is it theycould save none of the prisoners?"

  The man looked puzzled, and said:

  "Would one unlock the vaults at such a time? Marry, some wouldhave escaped."

  "Then you mean that nobody _did_ unlock them?"

  "None went near them, either to lock or unlock. It standeth toreason that the bolts were fast; wherefore it was only needfulto establish a watch, so that if any broke the bonds he might notescape, but be taken. None were taken."

  "Natheless, three did escape," said the king, "and ye will do wellto publish it and set justice upon their track, for these murtheredthe baron and fired the house."

  I was just expecting he would come out with that. For a momentthe man and his wife showed an eager interest in this news andan impatience to go out and spread it; then a sudden somethingelse betrayed itself in their faces, and they began to ask questions.I answered the questions myself, and narrowly watched the effectsproduced. I was soon satisfied that the knowledge of who thesethree prisoners were had somehow changed the atmosphere; thatour hosts' continued eagerness to go and spread the news was nowonly pretended and not real. The king did not notice the change,and I was glad of that. I worked the conversation around towardother details of the night's proceedings, and noted that thesepeople were relieved to have it take that direction.

  The painful thing observable about all this business was thealacrity with which this oppressed community had turned theircruel hands against their own class in the interest of the commonoppressor. This man and woman seemed to feel that in a quarrelbetween a person of their own class and his lord, it was the naturaland proper and rightful thing for that poor devil's whole casteto side with the master and fight his battle for him, without everstopping to inquire into the rights or wrongs of the matter. Thisman had been out helping to hang his neighbors, and had done hiswork with zeal, and yet was aware that there was nothing againstthem but a mere suspicion, with nothing back of it describableas evidence, still neither he nor his wife seemed to see anythinghorrible about it.

  This was depressing--to a man with the dream of a republic in hishead. It reminded me of a time thirteen centuries away, whenthe "poor whites" of our South who were always despised andfrequently insulted by the slave-lords around them, and who owedtheir base condition simply to the presence of slavery in theirmidst, were yet pusillanimously ready to side with the slave-lordsin all political moves for the upholding and perpetuating ofslavery, and did also finally shoulder their muskets and pour outtheir lives in an effort to prevent the destruction of that veryinstitution which degraded them. And there was only one redeemingfeature connected with that pitiful piece of history; and that was,that secretly the "poor white" did detest the slave-lord, and didfeel his own shame. That feeling was not brought to the surface,but the fact that it was there and could have been brought out,under favoring circumstances, was something--in fact, it was enough;for it showed that a man is at bottom a man, after all, even if itdoesn't show on the outside.

  Well, as it turned out, this charcoal burner was just the twin ofthe Southern "poor white" of the far future. The king presentlyshowed impatience, and said:

  "An ye prattle here all the day, justice will miscarry. Think yethe criminals will abide in their father's house? They are fleeing,they are not waiting. You should look to it that a party of horsebe set upon their track."

  The woman paled slightly, but quite perceptibly, and the man lookedflustered and irresolute. I said:

  "Come, friend, I will walk a little way with you, and explain whichdirection I think they would try to take. If they were merelyresisters of the gabelle or some kindred absurdity I would tryto protect them from capture; but when men murder a person ofhigh degree and likewise burn his house, that is another matter."

  The last remark was for the king--to quiet him. On the roadthe man pulled his resolution together, and began the march witha steady gait, but there was no eagerness in it. By and by I said:

  "What relation were these men to you--cousins?"

  He turned as white as his layer of charcoal would let him, andstopped, trembling.

  "Ah, my God, how know ye that?"

  "I didn't know it; it was a chance guess."

  "Poor lads, they are lost. And good lads they were, too."

  "Were you actually going yonder to tell on them?"

  He didn't quite know how to take that; but he said, hesitatingly:

  "Ye-s."

  "Then I think you are a damned scoundrel!"

  It made him as glad as if I had called him an angel.

  "Say the good words again, brother! for surely ye mean that yewould not betray me an I failed of my duty."

  "Duty? There is no duty in the matter, except the duty to keepstill and let those men get away. They've done a righteous deed."

  He looked pleased; pleased, and touched with apprehension at thesame time. He looked up and down the road to see that no onewas coming, and th
en said in a cautious voice:

  "From what land come you, brother, that you speak such perilouswords, and seem not to be afraid?"

  "They are not perilous words when spoken to one of my own caste,I take it. You would not tell anybody I said them?"

  "I? I would be drawn asunder by wild horses first."

  "Well, then, let me say my say. I have no fears of your repeatingit. I think devil's work has been done last night upon thoseinnocent poor people. That old baron got only what he deserved.If I had my way, all his kind should have the same luck."

  Fear and depression vanished from the man's manner, and gratefulnessand a brave animation took their place:

  "Even though you be a spy, and your words a trap for my undoing,yet are they such refreshment that to hear them again and otherslike to them, I would go to the gallows happy, as having had onegood feast at least in a starved life. And I will say my say now,and ye may report it if ye be so minded. I helped to hang myneighbors for that it were peril to my own life to show lack ofzeal in the master's cause; the others helped for none other reason.All rejoice to-day that he is dead, but all do go about seeminglysorrowing, and shedding the hypocrite's tear, for in that liessafety. I have said the words, I have said the words! the onlyones that have ever tasted good in my mouth, and the reward ofthat taste is sufficient. Lead on, an ye will, be it even to thescaffold, for I am ready."

  There it was, you see. A man is a man, at bottom. Whole agesof abuse and oppression cannot crush the manhood clear out of him.Whoever thinks it a mistake is himself mistaken. Yes, there isplenty good enough material for a republic in the most degradedpeople that ever existed--even the Russians; plenty of manhoodin them--even in the Germans--if one could but force it out ofits timid and suspicious privacy, to overthrow and trample in themud any throne that ever was set up and any nobility that eversupported it. We should see certain things yet, let us hope andbelieve. First, a modified monarchy, till Arthur's days were done,then the destruction of the throne, nobility abolished, everymember of it bound out to some useful trade, universal suffrageinstituted, and the whole government placed in the hands of themen and women of the nation there to remain. Yes, there was nooccasion to give up my dream yet a while.