ABOUT bedtime I took the king to my private quarters to cut his hair and help him get the hang of the lowly raiment he was to wear. The high classes wore their hair banged across the forehead but hanging to the shoulders the rest of the way around, whereas the lowest ranks of commoners were banged fore1 and aft both; the slaves were bangless, and allowed their hair free growth. So I inverted2 a bowl over his head and cut away all the locks that hung below it. I also trimmed his whiskers and mustache until they were only about a half-inch long; and tried to do it inartistically, and succeeded. It was a villainous disfigurement. When he got his lubberly sandals on, and his long robe of coarse brown linen3 cloth, which hung straight from his neck to his ankle-bones, he was no longer the comeliest4 man in his kingdom, but one of the unhandsomest and most commonplace and unattractive. We were dressed and barbered alike, and could pass for small farmers, or farm bailiffs, or shepherds, or carters; yes, or for village artisans, if we chose, our costume being in effect universal among the poor, because of its strength and cheapness. I don't mean that it was really cheap to a very poor person, but I do mean that it was the cheapest material there was for male attire5 -- manufactured material, you understand.
We slipped away an hour before dawn, and by broad sun-up had made eight or ten miles, and were in the midst of a sparsely6 settled country. I had a pretty heavy knapsack; it was laden7 with provisions -- provisions for the king to taper8 down on, till he could take to the coarse fare of the country without damage.
I found a comfortable seat for the king by the roadside, and then gave him a morsel9 or two to stay his stomach with. Then I said I would find some water for him, and strolled away. Part of my project was to get out of sight and sit down and rest a little myself. It had always been my custom to stand when in his presence; even at the council board, except upon those rare occasions when the sitting was a very long one, extending over hours; then I had a trifling10 little backless thing which was like a reversed culvert and was as comfortable as the toothache. I didn't want to break him in suddenly, but do it by degrees. We should have to sit together now when in company, or people would notice; but it would not be good politics for me to be playing equality with him when there was no necessity for it.
I found the water some three hundred yards away, and had been resting about twenty minutes, when I heard voices. That is all right, I thought -- peasants going to work; nobody else likely to be stirring this early. But the next moment these comers jingled11 into sight around a turn of the road -- smartly clad people of quality, with luggage-mules and servants in their train! I was off like a shot, through the bushes, by the shortest cut. For a while it did seem that these people would pass the king before I could get to him; but desperation gives you wings, you know, and I canted my body forward, inflated12 my breast, and held my breath and flew. I arrived. And in plenty good enough time, too.
"Pardon, my king, but it's no time for ceremony -jump! Jump to your feet -- some quality are coming!"
"Is that a marvel14? Let them come."
"But my liege! You must not be seen sitting. Rise! -- and stand in humble15 posture16 while they pass. You are a peasant, you know."
"True -- I had forgot it, so lost was I in planning of a huge war with Gaul" -- he was up by this time, but a farm could have got up quicker, if there was any kind of a boom in real estate -- "and right-so a thought came randoming overthwart this majestic17 dream the which --"
"A humbler attitude, my lord the king -- and quick! Duck your head! -- more! -- still more! -droop18 it!"
He did his honest best, but lord, it was no great things. He looked as humble as the leaning tower at Pisa. It is the most you could say of it. Indeed, it was such a thundering poor success that it raised wondering scowls19 all along the line, and a gorgeous flunkey at the tail end of it raised his whip; but I jumped in time and was under it when it fell; and under cover of the volley of coarse laughter which followed, I spoke20 up sharply and warned the king to take no notice. He mastered himself for the moment, but it was a sore tax; he wanted to eat up the procession. I said:
"It would end our adventures at the very start; and we, being without weapons, could do nothing with that armed gang. If we are going to succeed in our emprise, we must not only look the peasant but act the peasant."
"It is wisdom; none can gainsay21 it. Let us go on, Sir Boss. I will take note and learn, and do the best I may."
He kept his word. He did the best he could, but I've seen better. If you have ever seen an active, heedless, enterprising child going diligently22 out of one mischief23 and into another all day long, and an anxious mother at its heels all the while, and just saving it by a hair from drowning itself or breaking its neck with each new experiment, you've seen the king and me.
If I could have foreseen what the thing was going to be like, I should have said, No, if anybody wants to make his living exhibiting a king as a peasant, let him take the layout; I can do better with a menagerie, and last longer. And yet, during the first three days I never allowed him to enter a hut or other dwelling24. If he could pass muster25 anywhere during his early novitiate it would be in small inns and on the road; so to these places we confined ourselves. Yes, he certainly did the best he could, but what of that? He didn't improve a bit that I could see.
He was always frightening me, always breaking out with fresh astonishers, in new and unexpected places. Toward evening on the second day, what does he do but blandly26 fetch out a dirk from inside his robe!
"Great guns, my liege, where did you get that?"
"From a smuggler27 at the inn, yester eve."
"What in the world possessed28 you to buy it?"
"We have escaped divers29 dangers by wit -- thy wit -- but I have bethought me that it were but prudence30 if I bore a weapon, too. Thine might fail thee in some pinch."
"But people of our condition are not allowed to carry arms. What would a lord say -- yes, or any other person of whatever condition -- if he caught an upstart peasant with a dagger31 on his person?"
It was a lucky thing for us that nobody came along just then. I persuaded him to throw the dirk away; and it was as easy as persuading a child to give up some bright fresh new way of killing32 itself. We walked along, silent and thinking. Finally the king said:
"When ye know that I meditate33 a thing inconvenient34, or that hath a peril35 in it, why do you not warn me to cease from that project?"
It was a startling question, and a puzzler. I didn't quite know how to take hold of it, or what to say, and so, of course, I ended by saying the natural thing:
"But, sire, how can I know what your thoughts are?"
The king stopped dead in his tracks, and stared at me.
"I believed thou wert greater than Merlin; and truly in magic thou art. But prophecy is greater than magic. Merlin is a prophet."
I saw I had made a blunder. I must get back my lost ground. After a deep reflection and careful planning, I said:
"Sire, I have been misunderstood. I will explain. There are two kinds of prophecy. One is the gift to foretell36 things that are but a little way off, the other is the gift to foretell things that are whole ages and centuries away. Which is the mightier37 gift, do you think?"
"Oh, the last, most surely!"
"True. Does Merlin possess it?"
"Partly, yes. He foretold38 mysteries about my birth and future kingship that were twenty years away."
"Has he ever gone beyond that?"
"He would not claim more, I think."
"It is probably his limit. All prophets have their limit. The limit of some of the great prophets has been a hundred years."
"These are few, I ween."
"There have been two still greater ones, whose limit was four hundred and six hundred years, and one whose limit compassed even seven hundred and twenty."
"Gramercy, it is marvelous!"
"But what are these in comparison with me? They are nothing."
"What? Canst thou truly look beyond even so vast a stretch of time as --"
"Seven hundred years? My liege, as clear as the vision of an eagle does my prophetic eye penetrate39 and lay bare the future of this world for nearly thirteen centuries and a half!"
My land, you should have seen the king's eyes spread slowly open, and lift the earth's entire atmosphere as much as an inch! That settled Brer Merlin. One never had any occasion to prove his facts, with these people; all he had to do was to state them. It never occurred to anybody to doubt the statement.
"Now, then," I continued, "I COULD work both kinds of prophecy -- the long and the short -- if I chose to take the trouble to keep in practice; but I seldom exercise any but the long kind, because the other is beneath my dignity. It is properer to Merlin's sort -- stump-tail prophets, as we call them in the profession. Of course, I whet40 up now and then and flirt41 out a minor42 prophecy, but not often -- hardly ever, in fact. You will remember that there was great talk, when you reached the Valley of Holiness, about my having prophesied43 your coming and the very hour of your arrival, two or three days beforehand."
"Indeed, yes, I mind it now."
"Well, I could have done it as much as forty times easier, and piled on a thousand times more detail into the bargain, if it had been five hundred years away instead of two or three days."
"How amazing that it should be so!"
"Yes, a genuine expert can always foretell a thing that is five hundred years away easier than he can a thing that's only five hundred seconds off."
"And yet in reason it should clearly be the other way; it should be five hundred times as easy to foretell the last as the first, for, indeed, it is so close by that one uninspired might almost see it. In truth, the law of prophecy doth contradict the likelihoods, most strangely making the difficult easy, and the easy difficult."
It was a wise head. A peasant's cap was no safe disguise for it; you could know it for a king's under a diving-bell, if you could hear it work its intellect.
I had a new trade now, and plenty of business in it. The king was as hungry to find out everything that was going to happen during the next thirteen centuries as if he were expecting to live in them. From that time out, I prophesied myself bald-headed trying to supply the demand. I have done some indiscreet things in my day, but this thing of playing myself for a prophet was the worst. Still, it had its ameliorations. A prophet doesn't have to have any brains. They are good to have, of course, for the ordinary exigencies44 of life, but they are no use in professional work. It is the restfulest vocation45 there is. When the spirit of prophecy comes upon you, you merely cake your intellect and lay it off in a cool place for a rest, and unship your jaw46 and leave it alone; it will work itself: the result is prophecy.
Every day a knight47-errant or so came along, and the sight of them fired the king's martial48 spirit every time. He would have forgotten himself, sure, and said something to them in a style a suspicious shade or so above his ostensible49 degree, and so I always got him well out of the road in time. Then he would stand and look with all his eyes; and a proud light would flash from them, and his nostrils50 would inflate13 like a war-horse's, and I knew he was longing51 for a brush with them. But about noon of the third day I had stopped in the road to take a precaution which had been suggested by the whip-stroke that had fallen to my share two days before; a precaution which I had afterward52 decided53 to leave untaken, I was so loath54 to institute it; but now I had just had a fresh reminder55: while striding heedlessly along, with jaw spread and intellect at rest, for I was prophesying56, I stubbed my toe and fell sprawling57. I was so pale I couldn't think for a moment; then I got softly and carefully up and unstrapped my knapsack. I had that dynamite58 bomb in it, done up in wool in a box. It was a good thing to have along; the time would come when I could do a valuable miracle with it, maybe, but it was a nervous thing to have about me, and I didn't like to ask the king to carry it. Yet I must either throw it away or think up some safe way to get along with its society. I got it out and slipped it into my scrip, and just then here came a couple of knights59. The king stood, stately as a statue, gazing toward them -- had forgotten himself again, of course -- and before I could get a word of warning out, it was time for him to skip, and well that he did it, too. He supposed they would turn aside. Turn aside to avoid trampling60 peasant dirt under foot? When had he ever turned aside himself -or ever had the chance to do it, if a peasant saw him or any other noble knight in time to judiciously61 save him the trouble? The knights paid no attention to the king at all; it was his place to look out himself, and if he hadn't skipped he would have b
een placidly62 ridden down, and laughed at besides.
The king was in a flaming fury, and launched out his challenge and epithets63 with a most royal vigor64. The knights were some little distance by now. They halted, greatly surprised, and turned in their saddles and looked back, as if wondering if it might be worth while to bother with such scum as we. Then they wheeled and started for us. Not a moment must be lost. I started for THEM. I passed them at a rattling65 gait, and as I went by I flung out a hair-lifting soulscorching thirteen-jointed insult which made the king's effort poor and cheap by comparison. I got it out of the nineteenth century where they know how. They had such headway that they were nearly to the king before they could check up; then, frantic66 with rage, they stood up their horses on their hind67 hoofs68 and whirled them around, and the next moment here they came, breast to breast. I was seventy yards off, then, and scrambling69 up a great bowlder at the roadside. When they were within thirty yards of me they let their long lances droop to a level, depressed70 their mailed heads, and so, with their horse-hair plumes71 streaming straight out behind, most gallant72 to see, this lightning express came tearing for me! When they were within fifteen yards, I sent that bomb with a sure aim, and it struck the ground just under the horses' noses.
Yes, it was a neat thing, very neat and pretty to see. It resembled a steamboat explosion on the Mississippi; and during the next fifteen minutes we stood under a steady drizzle73 of microscopic74 fragments of knights and hardware and horse-flesh. I say we, for the king joined the audience, of course, as soon as he had got his breath again. There was a hole there which would afford steady work for all the people in that region for some years to come -- in trying to explain it, I mean; as for filling it up, that service would be comparatively prompt, and would fall to the lot of a select few -- peasants of that seignory; and they wouldn't get anything for it, either.
But I explained it to the king myself. I said it was done with a dynamite bomb, This information did him no damage, because it left him as intelligent as he was before. However, it was a noble miracle, in his eyes, and was another settler for Merlin. I thought it well enough to explain that this was a miracle of so rare a sort that it couldn't be done except when the atmospheric75 conditions were just right. Otherwise he would be encoring it every time we had a good subject, and that would be inconvenient, because I hadn't any more bombs along.
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fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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inverted
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| adj.反向的，倒转的v.使倒置，使反转( invert的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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comeliest
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| adj.英俊的，好看的( comely的最高级 ) | |
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attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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sparsely
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| adv.稀疏地；稀少地；不足地；贫乏地 | |
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laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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taper
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| n.小蜡烛，尖细，渐弱；adj.尖细的；v.逐渐变小 | |
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morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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jingled
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| 喝醉的 | |
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inflated
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| adj.（价格）飞涨的；（通货）膨胀的；言过其实的；充了气的v.使充气（于轮胎、气球等）( inflate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）膨胀；（使）通货膨胀；物价上涨 | |
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inflate
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| vt.使膨胀，使骄傲，抬高（物价） | |
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marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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droop
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| v.低垂，下垂；凋萎，萎靡 | |
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scowls
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| 不悦之色，怒容( scowl的名词复数 ) | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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gainsay
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| v.否认，反驳 | |
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diligently
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| ad.industriously;carefully | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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muster
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| v.集合，收集，鼓起，激起；n.集合，检阅，集合人员，点名册 | |
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blandly
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| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
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smuggler
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| n.走私者 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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divers
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| adj.不同的；种种的 | |
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prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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meditate
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| v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想 | |
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inconvenient
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| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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foretell
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| v.预言，预告，预示 | |
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mightier
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| adj. 强有力的，强大的，巨大的 adv. 很，极其 | |
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foretold
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| v.预言，预示( foretell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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whet
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| v.磨快，刺激 | |
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flirt
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| v.调情，挑逗，调戏；n.调情者，卖俏者 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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prophesied
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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exigencies
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| n.急切需要 | |
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vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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martial
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| adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的 | |
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ostensible
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| adj.(指理由)表面的，假装的 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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loath
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| adj.不愿意的；勉强的 | |
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reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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prophesying
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的现在分词 ) | |
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sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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dynamite
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| n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破) | |
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knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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trampling
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| 踩( trample的现在分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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judiciously
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| adv.明断地，明智而审慎地 | |
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placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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epithets
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| n.（表示性质、特征等的）词语( epithet的名词复数 ) | |
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vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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69
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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70
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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71
plumes
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| 羽毛( plume的名词复数 )； 羽毛饰； 羽毛状物； 升上空中的羽状物 | |
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72
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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73
drizzle
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| v.下毛毛雨；n.毛毛雨，蒙蒙细雨 | |
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74
microscopic
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| adj.微小的，细微的，极小的，显微的 | |
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atmospheric
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| adj.大气的，空气的；大气层的；大气所引起的 | |
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