Chapter XII: Slow Torture

by Mark Twain

　　Straight off, we were in the country. It wasmost lovely and pleasant in those sylvan solitudesin the early cool morning in the first freshness ofautumn. From hilltops we saw fair green valleys lyingspread out below, with streams winding through them,and island groves of trees here and there, and hugelonely oaks scattered about and casting black blots ofshade; and beyond the valleys we saw the ranges ofhills, blue with haze, stretching away in billowy perspective to the horizon, with at wide intervals a dimfleck of white or gray on a wave-summit, which weknew was a castle. We crossed broad natural lawnssparkling with dew, and we moved like spirits, thecushioned turf giving out no sound of footfall; wedreamed along through glades in a mist of green lightthat got its tint from the sun-drenched roof of leavesoverhead, and by our feet the clearest and coldest ofrunlets went frisking and gossiping over its reefs andmaking a sort of whispering music, comfortable to hear;and at times we left the world behind and entered intothe solemn great deeps and rich gloom of the forest,where furtive wild things whisked and scurried by andwere gone before you could even get your eye on theplace where the noise was; and where only the earliestbirds were turning out and getting to business with asong here and a quarrel yonder and a mysterious faroff hammering and drumming for worms on a tree trunkaway somewhere in the impenetrable remotenesses ofthe woods. And by and by out we would swing againinto the glare.About the third or fourth or fifth time that we swungout into the glare -- it was along there somewhere, acouple of hours or so after sun-up -- it wasn't as pleasant as it had been. It was beginning to get hot. Thiswas quite noticeable. We had a very long pull, afterthat, without any shade. Now it is curious howprogressively little frets grow and multiply after theyonce get a start. Things which I didn't mind at all,at first, I began to mind now -- and more and more,too, all the time. The first ten or fifteen times I wantedmy handkerchief I didn't seem to care; I got along,and said never mind, it isn't any matter, and droppedit out of my mind. But now it was different; I wantedit all the time; it was nag, nag, nag, right along, andno rest; I couldn't get it out of my mind; and so atlast I lost my temper and said hang a man that wouldmake a suit of armor without any pockets in it. Yousee I had my handkerchief in my helmet; and someother things; but it was that kind of a helmet that youcan't take off by yourself. That hadn't occurred tome when I put it there; and in fact I didn't know it.I supposed it would be particularly convenient there.And so now, the thought of its being there, so handyand close by, and yet not get-at-able, made it all theworse and the harder to bear. Yes, the thing that youcan't get is the thing that you want, mainly; every onehas noticed that. Well, it took my mind off from everything else; took it clear off, and centered it in myhelmet; and mile after mile, there it stayed, imaginingthe handkerchief, picturing the handkerchief; and itwas bitter and aggravating to have the salt sweat keeptrickling down into my eyes, and I couldn't get at it.It seems like a little thing, on paper, but it was not alittle thing at all; it was the most real kind of misery.I would not say it if it was not so. I made up mymind that I would carry along a reticule next time, letit look how it might, and people say what they would.Of course these iron dudes of the Round Table wouldthink it was scandalous, and maybe raise Sheol aboutit, but as for me, give me comfort first, and style afterwards. So we jogged along, and now and then westruck a stretch of dust, and it would tumble up inclouds and get into my nose and make me sneezeand cry; and of course I said things I oughtn't tohave said, I don't deny that. I am not better thanothers.We couldn't seem to meet anybody in this lonesome Britain, not even an ogre; and, in the mood Iwas in then, it was well for the ogre; that is, anogre with a handkerchief. Most knights would havethought of nothing but getting his armor; but so Igot his bandanna, he could keep his hardware, for allof me.Meantime, it was getting hotter and hotter in there.You see, the sun was beating down and warming up theiron more and more all the time. Well, when you arehot, that way, every little thing irritates you. When Itrotted, I rattled like a crate of dishes, and that annoyedme; and moreover I couldn't seem to stand thatshield slatting and banging, now about my breast, nowaround my back; and if I dropped into a walk myjoints creaked and screeched in that wearisome way thata wheelbarrow does, and as we didn't create any breezeat that gait, I was like to get fried in that stove; andbesides, the quieter you went the heavier the iron settled down on you and the more and more tons youseemed to weigh every minute. And you had to bealways changing hands, and passing your spear over tothe other foot, it got so irksome for one hand to holdit long at a time.Well, you know, when you perspire that way, inrivers, there comes a time when you -- when you --well, when you itch. You are inside, your hands areoutside; so there you are; nothing but iron between.It is not a light thing, let it sound as it may. Firstit is one place; then another; then some more; andit goes on spreading and spreading, and at last the territory is all occupied, and nobody can imagine whatyou feel like, nor how unpleasant it is. And when ithad got to the worst, and it seemed to me that I couldnot stand anything more, a fly got in through the barsand settled on my nose, and the bars were stuck andwouldn't work, and I couldn't get the visor up; and Icould only shake my head, which was baking hot bythis time, and the fly -- well, you know how a fly actswhen he has got a certainty -- he only minded theshaking enough to change from nose to lip, and lip toear, and buzz and buzz all around in there, and keepon lighting and biting, in a way that a person, alreadyso distressed as I was, simply could not stand. So Igave in, and got Alisande to unship the helmet andrelieve me of it. Then she emptied the conveniencesout of it and fetched it full of water, and I drank andthen stood up, and she poured the rest down inside thearmor. One cannot think how refreshing it was. Shecontinued to fetch and pour until I was well soakedand thoroughly comfortable.It was good to have a rest -- and peace. But nothingis quite perfect in this life, at any time. I had made apipe a while back, and also some pretty fair tobacco;not the real thing, but what some of the Indians use:the inside bark of the willow, dried. These comfortshad been in the helmet, and now I had them again, butno matches.Gradually, as the time wore along, one annoying factwas borne in upon my understanding -- that we wereweather-bound. An armed novice cannot mount hishorse without help and plenty of it. Sandy was notenough; not enough for me, anyway. We had to waituntil somebody should come along. Waiting, insilence, would have been agreeable enough, for I wasfull of matter for reflection, and wanted to give it achance to work. I wanted to try and think out how itwas that rational or even half-rational men could everhave learned to wear armor, considering its inconveniences; and how they had managed to keep up sucha fashion for generations when it was plain that what Ihad suffered to-day they had had to suffer all the daysof their lives. I wanted to think that out; and moreover I wanted to think out some way to reform thisevil and persuade the people to let the foolish fashiondie out; but thinking was out of the question in thecircumstances. You couldn't think, where Sandywas.She was a quite biddable creature and good-hearted,but she had a flow of talk that was as steady as a mill,and made your head sore like the drays and wagons ina city. If she had had a cork she would have been acomfort. But you can't cork that kind; they woulddie. Her clack was going all day, and you would thinksomething would surely happen to her works, by andby; but no, they never got out of order; and shenever had to slack up for words. She could grind,and pump, and churn, and buzz by the week, and neverstop to oil up or blow out. And yet the result wasjust nothing but wind. She never had any ideas, anymore than a fog has. She was a perfect blatherskite;I mean for jaw, jaw, jaw, talk, talk, talk, jabber, jabber,jabber; but just as good as she could be. I hadn'tminded her mill that morning, on account of havingthat hornets' nest of other troubles; but more thanonce in the afternoon I had to say:"Take a rest, child; the way you are using up allthe domestic air, the kingdom will have to go to importing it by to-morrow, and it's a low enough treasurywithout that."