CHAPTER XV
SANDY'S TALE

AND so I'm proprietor of some knights," said I,
as we rode off. "Who would ever have sup-
posed 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."

"It is a good haul. Who are they? Where do they hang out?"

"Where do they hang out?"

"Yes, where do they live?"

"Ah, I understood thee not. That will I tell
eftsoons." Then she said musingly, and softly, turn-
ing the words daintily over her tongue: "Hang they
out -- hang they out -- where hang -- where do they
hang out; eh, right so; where do they hang out. Of
a truth the phrase hath a fair and winsome grace, and
is prettily worded withal. I will repeat it anon and
anon in mine idlesse, whereby I may peradventure
learn it. Where do they hang out. Even so! already
it falleth trippingly from my tongue, and forasmuch as --"

"Don't forget the cowboys, Sandy."

"Cowboys?"

"Yes; the knights, you know: You were going to
tell me about them. A while back, you remember.
Figuratively speaking, game's called."

"Game --"

"Yes, yes, yes! Go to the bat. I mean, get to
work on your statistics, and don't burn so much
kindling getting your fire started. Tell me about the
knights."

"I will well, and lightly will begin. So they two
departed and rode into a great forest. And --"

"Great Scott!"

You see, I recognized my mistake at once. I had
set her works a-going; it was my own fault; she would
be thirty days getting down to those facts. And she
generally began without a preface and finished without
a result. If you interrupted her she would either go
right along without noticing, or answer with a couple of
words, and go back and say the sentence over again.
So, interruptions only did harm; and yet I had to in-
terrupt, and interrupt pretty frequently, too, in order
to save my life; a person would die if he let her mo-
notony drip on him right along all day.

"Great Scott! " I said in my distress. She went
right back and began over again:

"So they two departed and rode into a great forest.
And --"

"WHICH two?"

"Sir Gawaine and Sir Uwaine. And so they came
to an abbey of monks, and there were well lodged. So
on the morn they heard their masses in the abbey, and
so they rode forth till they came to a great forest; then
was Sir Gawaine ware in a valley by a turret, of
twelve fair damsels, and two knights armed on great
horses, and the damsels went to and fro by a tree.
And then was Sir Gawaine ware how there hung a
white shield on that tree, and ever as the damsels came
by it they spit upon it, and some threw mire upon the
shield --"

"Now, if I hadn't seen the like myself in this country,
Sandy, I wouldn't believe it. But I've seen it, and I
can just see those creatures now, parading before that
shield and acting like that. The women here do cer-
tainly act like all possessed. Yes, and I mean your
best, too, society's very choicest brands. The hum-
blest hello-girl along ten thousand miles of wire could
teach gentleness, patience, modesty, manners, to the
highest duchess in Arthur's land."

"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; the fact is,
no gentleman ever does it -- though I -- well, I myself,
if I've got to confess --"

"Peradventure she --"

"Never mind her; never mind her; I tell you I
couldn't ever explain her so you would understand."

"Even so be it, sith ye are so minded. Then Sir
Gawaine and Sir Uwaine went and saluted them, and
asked them why they did that despite to the shield.
Sirs, said the damsels, we shall tell you. There is a
knight in this country that owneth this white shield, and
he is a passing good man of his hands, but he hateth
all ladies and gentlewomen, and therefore we do all this
despite to the shield. I will say you, said Sir Gawaine,
it beseemeth evil a good knight to despise all ladies and
gentlewomen, and peradventure though he hate you he
hath some cause, and peradventure he loveth in some
other places ladies and gentlewomen, and to be loved
again, and he such a man of prowess as ye speak of --"

"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 about a new distribution
of the married princesses and duchesses of the Court in
another twenty-four. The fact is, it is just a sort of
polished-up court of Comanches, and there isn't a
squaw in it who doesn't stand ready at the dropping of
a hat to desert to the buck with the biggest string of
scalps at his belt."

"-- and he be such a man of prowess as ye speak of,
said Sir Gawaine. Now, what is his name? Sir, said
they, his name is Marhaus the king's son of Ireland."

"Son of the king of Ireland, you mean; the other
form doesn't mean anything. And look out and hold
on tight, now, we must jump this gully....
There, we are all right now. This horse belongs in the
circus; he is born before his time."

"I know him well, said Sir Uwaine, he is a passing
good knight as any is on live."

"ON LIVE. If you've got a fault in the world,
Sandy, it is that you are a shade too archaic. But it
isn't any matter."

"-- for I saw him once proved at a justs where many
knights were gathered, and that time there might no
man withstand him. Ah, said Sir Gawaine, damsels,
methinketh ye are to blame, for it is to suppose he that
hung that shield there will not be long therefrom, and
then may those knights match him on horseback, and
that is more your worship than thus; for I will abide
no longer to see a knight's shield dishonored. And
therewith Sir Uwaine and Sir Gawaine departed a little
from them, and then were they ware where Sir Marhaus
came riding on a great horse straight toward them.
And when the twelve damsels saw Sir Marhaus they
fled into the turret as they were wild, so that some of
them fell by the way. Then the one of the knights of
the tower dressed his shield, and said on high, Sir Mar-
haus defend thee. And so they ran together that the
knight brake his spear on Marhaus, and Sir Marhaus
smote him so hard that he brake his neck and the
horse's back --"

"Well, that is just the trouble about this state of
things, it ruins so many horses."

"That saw the other knight of the turret, and
dressed him toward Marhaus, and they went so eagerly
together, that the knight of the turret was soon smitten
down, horse and man, stark dead --"

"ANOTHER horse gone; I tell you it is a custom that
ought to be broken up. I don't see how people with
any feeling can applaud and support it."

....

"So these two knights came together with great random --"

I saw that I had been asleep and missed a chapter,
but I didn't say anything. I judged that the Irish
knight was in trouble with the visitors by this time, and
this turned out to be the case.

"-- that Sir Uwaine smote Sir Marhaus that his
spear brast in pieces on the shield, and Sir Marhaus
smote him so sore that horse and man he bare to the
earth, and hurt Sir Uwaine on the left side --

"The truth is, Alisande, these archaics are a little
TOO simple; the vocabulary is too limited, and so, by
consequence, descriptions suffer in the matter of
variety; they run too much to level Saharas of fact,
and not enough to picturesque detail; this throws about
them a certain air of the monotonous; in fact the fights
are all alike: a couple of people come together with
great random -- random is a good word, and so is
exegesis, for that matter, and so is holocaust, and de-
falcation, and usufruct and a hundred others, but land!
a body ought to discriminate -- they come together
with great random, and a spear is brast, and one party
brake his shield and the other one goes down, horse
and man, over his horse-tail and brake his neck, and
then the next candidate comes randoming in, and brast
HIS spear, and the other man brast his shield, and
down HE goes, horse and man, over his horse-tail, and
brake HIS neck, and then there's another elected, and
another and another and still another, till the material
is all used up; and when you come to figure up results,
you can't tell one fight from another, nor who whip-
ped; and as a PICTURE, of living, raging, roaring battle,
sho! why, it's pale and noiseless -- just ghosts scuffling
in a fog. Dear me, what would this barren vocabulary
get out of the mightiest spectacle? -- the burning of
Rome in Nero's time, for instance? Why, it would
merely say, 'Town burned down; no insurance; boy
brast a window, fireman brake his neck!' Why, THAT
ain't a picture!"

It was a good deal of a lecture, I thought, but it
didn't disturb Sandy, didn't turn a feather; her steam
soared steadily up again, the minute I took off the lid:

"Then Sir Marhaus turned his horse and rode toward
Gawaine with his spear. And when Sir Gawaine saw
that, he dressed his shield, and they aventred their
spears, and they came together with all the might of
their horses, that either knight smote other so hard in
the midst of their shields, but Sir Gawaine's spear brake --"

"I knew it would."

-- "but Sir Marhaus's spear held; and therewith Sir
Gawaine and his horse rushed down to the earth --"

"Just so -- and brake his back."

-- "and lightly Sir Gawaine rose upon his feet and
pulled out his sword, and dressed him toward Sir Mar-
haus on foot, and therewith either came unto other
eagerly, and smote together with their swords, that their
shields flew in cantels, and they bruised their helms and
their hauberks, and wounded either other. But Sir
Gawaine, fro it passed nine of the clock, waxed by the
space of three hours ever stronger and stronger. and
thrice his might was increased. All this espied Sir
Marhaus, and had great wonder how his might in-
creased, and so they wounded other passing sore; and
then when it was come noon --"

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, b'NANners, S-A-N-D'ches, p--OP-corn!"

-- "and waxed past noon and drew toward even-
song. Sir Gawaine's strength feebled and waxed pass-
ing faint, that unnethes he might dure any longer, and
Sir Marhaus was then bigger and bigger --"

"Which strained his armor, of course; and yet little
would one of these people mind a small thing like that."

-- "and so, Sir Knight, said Sir Marhaus, I have
well felt that ye are a passing good knight, and a mar-
velous man of might as ever I felt any, while it lasteth,
and our quarrels are not great, and therefore it were a
pity to do you hurt, for I feel you are passing feeble.
Ah, said Sir Gawaine, gentle knight, ye say the word
that I should say. And therewith they took off their
helms and either kissed other, and there they swore
together either to love other as brethren --"

But I lost the thread there, and dozed off to slumber,
thinking about what a pity it was that men with such
superb strength -- strength enabling them to stand up
cased in cruelly burdensome iron and drenched with
perspiration, and hack and batter and bang each other
for six hours on a stretch -- should not have been
born at a time when they could put it to some useful
purpose. Take a jackass, for instance: a jackass has
that kind of strength, and puts it to a useful purpose,
and is valuable to this world because he is a jackass;
but a nobleman is not valuable because he is a jackass.
It is a mixture that is always ineffectual, and should
never have been attempted in the first place. And yet,
once you start a mistake, the trouble is done and you
never know what is going to come of it.

When I came to myself again and began to listen, I
perceived that I had lost another chapter, and that
Alisande had wandered a long way off with her people.

"And so they rode and came into a deep valley full
of stones, and thereby they saw a fair stream of water;
above thereby was the head of the stream, a fair foun-
tain, and three damsels sitting thereby. In this coun-
try, said Sir Marhaus, came never knight since it was
christened, but he found strange adventures --"

"This is not good form, Alisande. Sir Marhaus the
king's son of Ireland talks like all the rest; you ought
to give him a brogue, or at least a characteristic exple-
tive; by this means one would recognize him as soon
as he spoke, without his ever being named. It is a
common literary device with the great authors. You
should make him say, 'In this country, be jabers, came
never knight since it was christened, but he found
strange adventures, be jabers.' You see how much
better that sounds."

-- "came never knight but he found strange adven-
tures, be jabers. Of a truth it doth indeed, fair lord,
albeit 'tis passing hard to say, though peradventure
that will not tarry but better speed with usage. And
then they rode to the damsels, and either saluted other,
and the eldest had a garland of gold about her head,
and she was threescore winter of age or more --"

"The DAMSEL was?"

"Even so, dear lord -- and her hair was white under
the garland --"

"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 rolling over my soul, and
the voice faded out of my hearing!

Fifteen! Break -- my heart! oh, my lost darling!
Just her age who was so gentle, and lovely, and all the
world to me, and whom I shall never see again! How
the thought of her carries me back over wide seas of
memory to a vague dim time, a happy time, so many,
many centuries hence, when I used to wake in the soft
summer mornings, out of sweet dreams of her, and say
"Hello, Central!" just to hear her dear voice come
melting back to me with a "Hello, Hank!" that was
music of the spheres to my enchanted ear. She got
three dollars a week, but she was worth it.

I could not follow Alisande's further explanation of
who our captured knights were, now -- I mean in case
she should ever get to explaining who they were. My
interest was gone, my thoughts were far away, and sad.
By fitful glimpses of the drifting tale, caught here and
there and now and then, I merely noted in a vague way
that each of these three knights took one of these three
damsels up behind him on his horse, and one rode
north, another east, the other south, to seek adventures,
and meet again and lie, after year and day. Year and
day -- and without baggage. It was of a piece with
the general simplicity of the country.

The sun was now setting. It was about three in the
afternoon when Alisande had begun to tell me who the
cowboys were; so she had made pretty good progress
with it -- for her. She would arrive some time or other,
no doubt, but she was not a person who could be hurried.

We were approaching a castle which stood on high
ground; a huge, strong, venerable structure, whose
gray towers and battlements were charmingly draped
with ivy, and whose whole majestic mass was drenched
with splendors flung from the sinking sun. It was the
largest castle we had seen, and so I thought it might be
the one we were after, but Sandy said no. She did
not know who owned it; she said she had passed it
without calling, when she went down to Camelot.

****

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