Chapter XXI: The Pilgrims

by Mark Twain

　　When I did get to bed at last I was unspeakablytired; the stretching out, and the relaxing ofthe long-tense muscles, how luxurious, how delicious!but that was as far as I could get -- sleep was out ofthe question for the present. The ripping and tearingand squealing of the nobility up and down the hallsand corridors was pandemonium come again, and keptme broad awake. Being awake, my thoughts werebusy, of course; and mainly they busied themselveswith Sandy's curious delusion. Here she was, as sanea person as the kingdom could produce; and yet,from my point of view she was acting like a crazywoman. 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 realizethat she was not a lunatic. Yes, and put her in mine,to demonstrate how easy it is to seem a lunatic to aperson who has not been taught as you have beentaught. If I had told Sandy I had seen a wagon,uninfluenced by enchantment, spin along fifty miles anhour; had seen a man, unequipped with magic powers,get into a basket and soar out of sight among theclouds; and had listened, without any necromancer'shelp, to the conversation of a person who was severalhundred miles away, Sandy would not merely havesupposed me to be crazy, she would have thought sheknew it. Everybody around her believed in enchantments; nobody had any doubts; to doubt that a castlecould 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 itswonders, -- and in both cases would be absolute proofof a diseased mind, an unsettled reason. Yes, Sandywas sane; that must be admitted. If I also would besane -- to Sandy -- I must keep my superstitions aboutunenchanted and unmiraculous locomotives, balloons,and telephones, to myself. Also, I believed that theworld was not flat, and hadn't pillars under it to support it, nor a canopy over it to turn off a universe ofwater that occupied all space above; but as I was theonly person in the kingdom afflicted with such impiousand criminal opinions, I recognized that it would begood wisdom to keep quiet about this matter, too, if Idid not wish to be suddenly shunned and forsaken byeverybody as a madman.The next morning Sandy assembled the swine in thedining-room and gave them their breakfast, waitingupon them personally and manifesting in every waythe deep reverence which the natives of her island,ancient and modern, have always felt for rank, let itsoutward casket and the mental and moral contents bewhat they may. I could have eaten with the hogs if Ihad had birth approaching my lofty official rank; butI hadn't, and so accepted the unavoidable slight andmade no complaint. Sandy and I had our breakfast atthe second table. The family were not at home. Isaid:"How many are in the family, Sandy, and wheredo 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 nofamily.""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 knewmyself.""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 itfull of the only really valuable nobility the sun has yetdiscovered in the earth, and then it turns out that wedon't even know the man's name. How did you everventure 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 butgive thanks?""Thanks for what?"Her face was filled with a puzzled surprise:"Verily, thou troublest mine understanding withstrange words. Do ye dream that one of his estate islike to have the honor twice in his life to entertaincompany such as we have brought to grace his housewithal?""Well, no -- when you come to that. No, it's aneven bet that this is the first time he has had a treatlike this.""Then let him be thankful, and manifest the sameby grateful speech and due humility; he were a dog,else, and the heir and ancestor of dogs."To my mind, the situation was uncomfortable. Itmight become more so. It might be a good idea tomuster the hogs and move on. So I said:"The day is wasting, Sandy. It is time to get thenobility 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 ofthe earth! Each must hie to her own home; wendyou we might do all these journeys in one so brief lifeas He hath appointed that created life, and theretodeath likewise with help of Adam, who by sin donethrough persuasion of his helpmeet, she being wroughtupon and bewrayed by the beguilements of the greatenemy of man, that serpent hight Satan, aforetimeconsecrated and set apart unto that evil work by overmastering spite and envy begotten in his heart throughfell ambitions that did blight and mildew a nature erstso white and pure whenso it hove with the shiningmultitudes its brethren-born in glade and shade of thatfair heaven wherein all such as native be to that richestate and --""Great Scott!""My lord?""Well, you know we haven't got time for this sortof thing. Don't you see, we could distribute thesepeople around the earth in less time than it is going totake you to explain that we can't. We mustn't talknow, we must act. You want to be careful; youmustn't let your mill get the start of you that way, ata time like this. To business now -- and sharp's theword. Who is to take the aristocracy home?""Even their friends. These will come for themfrom 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 handsomelyand 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? Thatwere dishonor. I may not part from thee until inknightly encounter in the field some overmatchingchampion shall fairly win and fairly wear me. I wereto 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 spokeup and said:"All right; let us make a start."While she was gone to cry her farewells over thepork, I gave that whole peerage away to the servants.And I asked them to take a duster and dust around alittle where the nobilities had mainly lodged and promenaded; but they considered that that would be hardlyworth while, and would moreover be a rather gravedeparture from custom, and therefore likely to maketalk. A departure from custom -- that settled it; itwas a nation capable of committing any crime butthat. The servants said they would follow the fashion,a fashion grown sacred through immemorial observance; they would scatter fresh rushes in all the roomsand halls, and then the evidence of the aristocraticvisitation would be no longer visible. It was a kind ofsatire on Nature: it was the scientific method, thegeologic method; it deposited the history of the familyin a stratified record; and the antiquary could digthrough it and tell by the remains of each period whatchanges of diet the family had introduced successivelyfor a hundred years.The first thing we struck that day was a processionof pilgrims. It was not going our way, but we joinedit, nevertheless; for it was hourly being borne inupon me now, that if I would govern this countrywisely, I must be posted in the details of its life,and not at second hand, but by personal observationand scrutiny.This company of pilgrims resembled Chaucer's inthis: that it had in it a sample of about all the upperoccupations and professions the country could show,and a corresponding variety of costume. There wereyoung men and old men, young women and oldwomen, lively folk and grave folk. They rode uponmules and horses, and there was not a side-saddle inthe party; for this specialty was to remain unknown inEngland for nine hundred years yet.It was a pleasant, friendly, sociable herd; pious,happy, merry and full of unconscious coarsenesses andinnocent indecencies. What they regarded as themerry tale went the continual round and caused nomore embarrassment than it would have caused in thebest English society twelve centuries later. Practicaljokes worthy of the English wits of the first quarter ofthe far-off nineteenth century were sprung here andthere and yonder along the line, and compelled thedelightedest applause; and sometimes when a brightremark was made at one end of the procession andstarted on its travels toward the other, you could noteits progress all the way by the sparkling spray oflaughter 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 beblessed of the godly hermits and drink of the miraculous waters and be cleased from sin.""Where is this watering place?""It lieth a two-day journey hence, by the bordersof 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. Ofold 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, andspoke not the one to the other, or indeed to any, andate decayed herbs and naught thereto, and slept hard,and prayed much, and washed never; also they worethe same garment until it fell from their bodies throughage and decay. Right so came they to be known ofall the world by reason of these holy austerities, andvisited 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 answera great stream of clear water burst forth by miraclein a desert place. Now were the fickle monks temptedof the Fiend, and they wrought with their abbot unceasingly by beggings and beseechings that he wouldconstruct a bath; and when he was become aweary andmight 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 thencewashed as white as snow; and lo, in that moment Hissign appeared, in miraculous rebuke! for His insultedwaters ceased to flow, and utterly vanished away.""They fared mildly, Sandy, considering how thatkind of crime is regarded in this country.""Belike; but it was their first sin; and they hadbeen of perfect life for long, and differing in naughtfrom the angels. Prayers, tears, torturings of theflesh, all was vain to beguile that water to flow again.Even processions; even burnt-offerings; even votivecandles 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 itsfinancial panics, and at times sees its assignats andgreenbacks languish to zero, and everything come to astandstill. Go on, Sandy.""And so upon a time, after year and day, the goodabbot made humble surrender and destroyed the bath.And behold, His anger was in that moment appeased,and the waters gushed richly forth again, and evenunto this day they have not ceased to flow in thatgenerous 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 miraclewent abroad into all lands. From every land camemonks to join; they came even as the fishes come, inshoals; and the monastery added building to building,and yet others to these, and so spread wide its armsand took them in. And nuns came, also; and moreagain, and yet more; and built over against the monastery on the yon side of the vale, and added buildingto building, until mighty was that nunnery. Andthese were friendly unto those, and they joined theirloving labors together, and together they built a fairgreat foundling asylum midway of the valley between.""You spoke of some hermits, Sandy.""These have gathered there from the ends of theearth. A hermit thriveth best where there be multitudes of pilgrims. Ye shall not find no hermit of nosort wanting. If any shall mention a hermit of a kindhe thinketh new and not to be found but in some farstrange land, let him but scratch among the holes andcaves and swamps that line that Valley of Holiness,and whatsoever be his breed, it skills not, he shall finda sample of it there."I closed up alongside of a burly fellow with a fatgood-humored face, purposing to make myself agreeable and pick up some further crumbs of fact; but Ihad hardly more than scraped acquaintance with himwhen he began eagerly and awkwardly to lead up, inthe immemorial way, to that same old anecdote -- theone Sir Dinadan told me, what time I got into troublewith Sir Sagramor and was challenged of him on account of it. I excused myself and dropped to the rearof the procession, sad at heart, willing to go hencefrom this troubled life, this vale of tears, this brief dayof broken rest, of cloud and storm, of weary struggleand monotonous defeat; and yet shrinking from thechange, as remembering how long eternity is, and howmany have wended thither who know that anecdote.Early in the afternoon we overtook another procession of pilgrims; but in this one was no merriment, nojokes, no laughter, no playful ways, nor any happygiddiness, whether of youth or age. Yet both werehere, 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 threebabies at the breast. Even the children were smileless;there was not a face among all these half a hundredpeople but was cast down, and bore that set expressionof hopelessness which is bred of long and hard trialsand old acquaintance with despair. They were slaves.Chains led from their fettered feet and their manacledhands to a sole-leather belt about their waists; and allexcept the children were also linked together in a filesix feet apart, by a single chain which led from collarto collar all down the line. They were on foot, andhad tramped three hundred miles in eighteen days,upon the cheapest odds and ends of food, and stingyrations of that. They had slept in these chains everynight, bundled together like swine. They had upontheir bodies some poor rags, but they could not besaid to be clothed. Their irons had chafed the skinfrom their ankles and made sores which were ulceratedand wormy. Their naked feet were torn, and nonewalked without a limp. Originally there had been ahundred of these unfortunates, but about half had beensold on the trip. The trader in charge of them rodea horse and carried a whip with a short handle and along heavy lash divided into several knotted tails at theend. With this whip he cut the shoulders of any thattottered from weariness and pain, and straightenedthem up. He did not speak; the whip conveyed hisdesire without that. None of these poor creatureslooked up as we rode along by; they showed no consciousness of our presence. And they made no soundbut one; that was the dull and awful clank of theirchains from end to end of the long file, as forty-threeburdened feet rose and fell in unison. The file movedin 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 inunoccupied houses, and has written his idle thought init with his finger. I was reminded of this when Inoticed the faces of some of those women, youngmothers carrying babes that were near to death andfreedom, how a something in their hearts was writtenin the dust upon their faces, plain to see, and lord, howplain to read! for it was the track of tears. One ofthese young mothers was but a girl, and it hurt me tothe heart to read that writing, and reflect that it wascome up out of the breast of such a child, a breastthat 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 downcame the lash and flicked a flake of skin from hernaked shoulder. It stung me as if I had been hit instead. The master halted the file and jumped from hishorse. He stormed and swore at this girl, and saidshe had made annoyance enough with her laziness, andas this was the last chance he should have, he wouldsettle the account now. She dropped on her kneesand put up her hands and began to beg, and cry, andimplore, in a passion of terror, but the master gave noattention. He snatched the child from her, and thenmade the men-slaves who were chained before andbehind her throw her on the ground and hold her thereand expose her body; and then he laid on with hislash like a madman till her back was flayed, she shrieking and struggling the while piteously. One of themen who was holding her turned away his face, andfor this humanity he was reviled and flogged.All our pilgrims looked on and commented -- on theexpert way in which the whip was handled. Theywere too much hardened by lifelong everyday familiarity with slavery to notice that there was anything elsein the exhibition that invited comment. This was whatslavery could do, in the way of ossifying what one maycall the superior lobe of human feeling; for these pilgrims were kind-hearted people, and they would nothave allowed that man to treat a horse like that.I wanted to stop the whole thing and set the slavesfree, but that would not do. I must not interfere toomuch and get myself a name for riding over thecountry's laws and the citizen's rights roughshod. IfI lived and prospered I would be the death of slavery,that I was resolved upon; but I would try to fix it sothat when I became its executioner it should be bycommand of the nation.Just here was the wayside shop of a smith; and nowarrived a landed proprietor who had bought this girl afew miles back, deliverable here where her irons couldbe taken off. They were removed; then there was asquabble between the gentleman and the dealer as towhich should pay the blacksmith. The moment thegirl was delivered from her irons, she flung herself, alltears and frantic sobbings, into the arms of the slavewho had turned away his face when she was whipped.He strained her to his breast, and smothered herface and the child's with kisses, and washed themwith the rain of his tears. I suspected. I inquired.Yes, I was right; it was husband and wife. They hadto be torn apart by force; the girl had to be draggedaway, and she struggled and fought and shrieked likeone gone mad till a turn of the road hid her fromsight; and even after that, we could still make out thefading plaint of those receding shrieks. And the husband and father, with his wife and child gone, never tobe seen by him again in life? -- well, the look of himone might not bear at all, and so I turned away; but Iknew I should never get his picture out of my mindagain, 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, Iwas ware where a knight came riding in the goldenglory of the new day, and recognized him for knightof mine -- Sir Ozana le Cure Hardy. He was in thegentlemen's furnishing line, and his missionaryingspecialty was plug hats. He was clothed all in steel,in the beautifulest armor of the time -- up to where hishelmet ought to have been; but he hadn't any helmet,he wore a shiny stove-pipe hat, and was ridiculous aspectacle as one might want to see. It was another ofmy surreptitious schemes for extinguishing knighthoodby making it grotesque and absurd. Sir Ozana's saddle was hung about with leather hat boxes, and everytime he overcame a wandering knight he swore himinto my service and fitted him with a plug and madehim wear it. I dressed and ran down to welcome SirOzana and get his news."How is trade?" I asked."Ye will note that I have but these four left; yetwere 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 thereanything stirring in the monkery, more than common?""By the mass ye may not question it!.... Give himgood feed, boy, and stint it not, an thou valuest thycrown; so get ye lightly to the stable and do even as Ibid...... Sir, it is parlous news I bring, and -- bethese pilgrims? Then ye may not do better, goodfolk, than gather and hear the tale I have to tell, sith itconcerneth you, forasmuch as ye go to find that yewill not find, and seek that ye will seek in vain, my lifebeing hostage for my word, and my word and messagebeing these, namely: That a hap has happened whereof the like has not been seen no more but once thistwo hundred years, which was the first and last timethat that said misfortune strake the holy valley in thatform by commandment of the Most High whereto byreasons just and causes thereunto contributing, whereinthe matter --""The miraculous fount hath ceased to flow!" Thisshout 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 isthought to be some other sin, but none wit what.""How are they feeling about the calamity?""None may describe it in words. The fount isthese nine days dry. The prayers that did begin then,and the lamentations in sackcloth and ashes, and theholy processions, none of these have ceased nor nightnor day; and so the monks and the nuns and thefoundlings be all exhausted, and do hang up prayerswrit upon parchment, sith that no strength is left inman to lift up voice. And at last they sent for thee,Sir Boss, to try magic and enchantment; and if youcould not come, then was the messenger to fetchMerlin, and he is there these three days now, andsaith he will fetch that water though he burst the globeand wreck its kingdoms to accomplish it; and rightbravely doth he work his magic and call upon hishellions to hie them hither and help, but not a whiffof moisture hath he started yet, even so much as mightqualify as mist upon a copper mirror an ye count notthe barrel of sweat he sweateth betwixt sun and sunover the dire labors of his task; and if ye --"Breakfast was ready. As soon as it was over Ishowed to Sir Ozana these words which I had writtenon the inside of his hat: Chemical Department, Laboratory extension, Section G. Pxxp. Send two of firstsize, two of No. 3, and six of No. 4, together with theproper complementary details -- and two of my trainedassistants." And I said:"Now get you to Camelot as fast as you can fly,brave knight, and show the writing to Clarence, andtell him to have these required matters in the Valley ofHoliness with all possible dispatch.""I will well, Sir Boss," and he was off.