Chapter 13 - Freemen

YES, it is strange how little a while at a time a person can be contented¹. Only a little while back, when I was riding and suffering, what a heaven this peace, this rest, this sweet serenity² in this secluded³ shady nook by this purling stream would have seemed, where I could keep perfectly⁴ comfortable all the time by pouring a dipper of water into my armor now and then; yet already I was getting dissatisfied; partly because I could not light my pipe -- for, although I had long ago started a match factory, I had forgotten to bring matches with me -- and partly because we had nothing to eat. Here was another illustration of the childlike improvidence⁵ of this age and people. A man in armor always trusted to chance for his food on a journey, and would have been scandalized at the idea of hanging a basket of sandwiches on his spear. There was probably not a knight⁶ of all the Round Table combination who would not rather have died than been caught carrying such a thing as that on his flagstaff. And yet there could not be anything more sensible. It had been my intention to smuggle⁷ a couple of sandwiches into my helmet, but I was interrupted in the act, and had to make an excuse and lay them aside, and a dog got them.

Night approached, and with it a storm. The darkness came on fast. We must camp, of course. I found a good shelter for the demoiselle under a rock, and went off and found another for myself. But I was obliged to remain in my armor, because I could not get it off by myself and yet could not allow Alisande to help, because it would have seemed so like undressing before folk. It would not have amounted to that in reality, because I had clothes on underneath⁸; but the prejudices of one's breeding are not gotten rid of just at a jump, and I knew that when it came to stripping off that bob-tailed iron petticoat I should be embarrassed.

With the storm came a change of weather; and the stronger the wind blew, and the wilder the rain lashed⁹ around, the colder and colder it got. Pretty soon, various kinds of bugs¹⁰ and ants and worms and things began to flock in out of the wet and crawl down inside my armor to get warm; and while some of them behaved well enough, and snuggled up amongst my clothes and got quiet, the majority were of a restless, uncomfortable sort, and never stayed still, but went on prowling and hunting for they did not know what; especially the ants, which went tickling¹¹ along in wearisome procession from one end of me to the other by the hour, and are a kind of creatures which I never wish to sleep with again. It would be my advice to persons situated¹² in this way, to not roll or thrash around, because this excites the interest of all the different sorts of animals and makes every last one of them want to turn out and see what is going on, and this makes things worse than they were before, and of course makes you objurgate harder, too, if you can. Still, if one did not roll and thrash around he would die; so perhaps it is as well to do one way as the other; there is no real choice. Even after I was frozen solid I could still distinguish that tickling, just as a corpse¹³ does when he is taking electric treatment. I said I would never wear armor after this trip.

All those trying hours whilst I was frozen and yet was in a living fire, as you may say, on account of that swarm¹⁴ of crawlers, that same unanswerable question kept circling and circling through my tired head: How do people stand this miserable¹⁵ armor? How have they managed to stand it all these generations? How can they sleep at night for dreading¹⁶ the tortures of next day?

When the morning came at last, I was in a bad enough plight¹⁷: seedy, drowsy¹⁸, fagged, from want of sleep; weary from thrashing around, famished¹⁹ from long fasting; pining for a bath, and to get rid of the animals; and crippled with rheumatism²⁰. And how had it fared with the nobly born, the titled aristocrat²¹, the Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise? Why, she was as fresh as a squirrel; she had slept like the dead; and as for a bath, probably neither she nor any other noble in the land had ever had one, and so she was not missing it. Measured by modern standards, they were merely modified savages²⁴, those people. This noble lady showed no impatience²⁵ to get to breakfast -- and that smacks²⁶ of the savage²³, too. On their journeys those Britons were used to long fasts, and knew how to bear them; and also how to freight up against probable fasts before starting, after the style of the Indian and the anaconda. As like as not, Sandy was loaded for a three-day stretch.

We were off before sunrise, Sandy riding and I limping along behind. In half an hour we came upon a group of ragged²⁷ poor creatures who had assembled to mend the thing which was regarded as a road. They were as humble²⁸ as animals to me; and when I proposed to breakfast with them, they were so flattered, so overwhelmed by this extraordinary condescension²⁹ of mine that at first they were not able to believe that I was in earnest. My lady put up her scornful lip and withdrew to one side; she said in their hearing that she would as soon think of eating with the other cattle -- a remark which embarrassed these poor devils merely because it referred to them, and not because it insulted or offended them, for it didn't. And yet they were not slaves, not chattels³¹. By a sarcasm³² of law and phrase they were freemen. Seven-tenths of the free population of the country were of just their class and degree: small "independent" farmers, artisans, etc.; which is to say, they were the nation, the actual Nation; they were about all of it that was useful, or worth saving, or really respect-worthy, and to subtract them would have been to subtract the Nation and leave behind some dregs, some refuse, in the shape of a king, nobility and gentry³³, idle, unproductive, acquainted mainly with the arts of wasting and destroying, and of no sort of use or value in any rationally constructed world. And yet, by ingenious contrivance, this gilded³⁴ minority, instead of being in the tail of the procession where it belonged, was marching head up and banners flying, at the other end of it; had elected itself to be the Nation, and these innumerable clams³⁶ had permitted it so long that they had come at last to accept it as a truth; and not only that, but to believe it right and as it should be. The priests had told their fathers and themselves that this ironical³⁷ state of things was ordained³⁸ of God; and so, not reflecting upon how unlike God it would be to amuse himself with sarcasms³⁹, and especially such poor transparent⁴⁰ ones as this, they had dropped the matter there and become respectfully quiet.

The talk of these meek⁴¹ people had a strange enough sound in a formerly⁴² American ear. They were freemen, but they could not leave the estates of their lord or their bishop⁴³ without his permission; they could not prepare their own bread, but must have their corn ground and their bread baked at his mill and his bakery, and pay roundly for the same; they could not sell a piece of their own property without paying him a handsome percentage of the proceeds, nor buy a piece of somebody else's without remembering him in cash for the privilege; they had to harvest his grain for him gratis⁴⁴, and be ready to come at a moment's notice, leaving their own crop to destruction by the threatened storm; they had to let him plant fruit trees in their fields, and then keep their indignation to themselves when his heedless fruit-gatherers trampled⁴⁵ the grain around the trees; they had to smother⁴⁶ their anger when his hunting parties galloped⁴⁷ through their fields laying waste the result of their patient toil⁴⁸; they were not allowed to keep doves themselves, and when the swarms⁴⁹ from my lord's dovecote settled on their crops they must not lose their temper and kill a bird, for awful would the penalty be; when the harvest was at last gathered, then came the procession of robbers to levy⁵⁰ their blackmail⁵¹ upon it: first the Church carted off its fat tenth, then the king's commissioner⁵² took his twentieth, then my lord's people made a mighty⁵³ inroad upon the remainder; after which, the skinned freeman had liberty to bestow⁵⁴ the remnant in his barn, in case it was worth the trouble; there were taxes, and taxes, and taxes, and more taxes, and taxes again, and yet other taxes -- upon this free and independent pauper⁵⁶, but none upon his lord the baron⁵⁷ or the bishop, none upon the wasteful⁵⁸ nobility or the all-devouring Church; if the baron would sleep unvexed, the freeman must sit up all night after his day's work and whip the ponds to keep the frogs quiet; if the freeman's daughter -- but no, that last infamy⁵⁹ of monarchical⁶⁰ government is unprintable; and finally, if the freeman, grown desperate with his tortures, found his life unendurable under such conditions, and sacrificed it and fled to death for mercy and refuge, the gentle Church condemned⁶¹ him to eternal fire, the gentle law buried him at midnight at the cross-roads with a stake through his back, and his master the baron or the bishop confiscated⁶³ all his property and turned his widow and his orphans⁶⁴ out of doors.

And here were these freemen assembled in the early morning to work on their lord the bishop's road three days each -- gratis; every head of a family, and every son of a family, three days each, gratis, and a day or so added for their servants. Why, it was like reading about France and the French, before the ever memorable⁶⁵ and blessed Revolution, which swept a thousand years of such villany away in one swift tidal-wave of blood -- one: a settlement of that hoary⁶⁶ debt in the proportion of half a drop of blood for each hogshead of it that had been pressed by slow tortures out of that people in the weary stretch of ten centuries of wrong and shame and misery⁶⁷ the like of which was not to be mated but in hell. There were two "Reigns⁶⁹ of Terror," if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought⁷⁰ murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere²² months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted⁷¹ death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders⁷³ are all for the "horrors" of the minor³⁵ Terror, the momentary⁷⁴ Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe⁵⁵, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery⁷⁵ could contain the coffins⁷⁶ filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently⁷⁷ taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror -- that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

These poor ostensible⁷⁸ freemen who were sharing their breakfast and their talk with me, were as full of humble reverence⁷⁹ for their king and Church and nobility as their worst enemy could desire. There was something pitifully ludicrous about it. I asked them if they supposed a nation of people ever existed, who, with a free vote in every man's hand, would elect that a single family and its descendants should reign⁶⁸ over it forever, whether gifted or boobies, to the exclusion⁸⁰ of all other families -- including the voter's; and would also elect that a certain hundred families should be raised to dizzy summits of rank, and clothed on with offensive transmissible glories and privileges to the exclusion of the rest of the nation's families -- INCLUDING HIS OWN.

They all looked unhit, and said they didn't know; that they had never thought about it before, and it hadn't ever occurred to them that a nation could be so situated that every man COULD have a say in the government. I said I had seen one -- and that it would last until it had an Established Church. Again they were all unhit -- at first. But presently one man looked up and asked me to state that proposition again; and state it slowly, so it could soak into his understanding. I did it; and after a little he had the idea, and he brought his fist down and said HE didn't believe a nation where every man had a vote would voluntarily get down in the mud and dirt in any such way; and that to steal from a nation its will and preference must be a crime and the first of all crimes. I said to myself:

"This one's a man. If I were backed by enough of his sort, I would make a strike for the welfare of this country, and try to prove myself its loyalest citizen by making a wholesome⁸¹ change in its system of government."

You see my kind of loyalty⁸² was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous⁸³, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags -- that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy⁸⁴, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it. I was from Connecticut, whose Constitution declares "that all political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit; and that they have AT ALL TIMES an undeniable and indefeasible right to ALTER THEIR FORM OF GOVERNMENT in such a manner as they may think expedient⁸⁵."

Under that gospel, the citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth's political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate⁸⁶ for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor⁸⁷. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him; it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the duty of the others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does.

And now here I was, in a country where a right to say how the country should be governed was restricted to six persons in each thousand of its population. For the nine hundred and ninety-four to express dissatisfaction with the regnant system and propose to change it, would have made the whole six shudder⁷² as one man, it would have been so disloyal, so dishonorable, such putrid⁸⁸ black treason. So to speak, I was become a stockholder in a corporation where nine hundred and ninety-four of the members furnished all the money and did all the work, and the other six elected themselves a permanent board of direction and took all the dividends⁸⁹. It seemed to me that what the nine hundred and ninety-four dupes needed was a new deal. The thing that would have best suited the circus side of my nature would have been to resign the Boss-ship and get up an insurrection and turn it into a revolution; but I knew that the Jack⁹⁰ Cade or the Wat Tyler who tries such a thing without first educating his materials up to revolution grade is almost absolutely certain to get left. I had never been accustomed to getting left, even if I do say it myself. Wherefore, the "deal" which had been for some time working into shape in my mind was of a quite different pattern from the Cade-Tyler sort.

So I did not talk blood and insurrection to that man there who sat munching⁹¹ black bread with that abused and mistaught herd⁹² of human sheep, but took him aside and talked matter of another sort to him. After I had finished, I got him to lend me a little ink from his veins⁹³; and with this and a sliver⁹⁴ I wrote on a piece of bark --

Put him in the Man-factory --

and gave it to him, and said:

"Take it to the palace at Camelot and give it into the hands of Amyas le Poulet, whom I call Clarence, and he will understand."

"He is a priest, then," said the man, and some of the enthusiasm went out of his face.

"How -- a priest? Didn't I tell you that no chattel³⁰ of the Church, no bond-slave of pope or bishop can enter my Man-Factory? Didn't I tell you that YOU couldn't enter unless your religion, whatever it might be, was your own free property?"

"Marry, it is so, and for that I was glad; wherefore it liked me not, and bred in me a cold doubt, to hear of this priest being there."

"But he isn't a priest, I tell you."

The man looked far from satisfied. He said:

"He is not a priest, and yet can read?"

"He is not a priest and yet can read -- yes, and write, too, for that matter. I taught him myself." The man's face cleared. "And it is the first thing that you yourself will be taught in that Factory --"

"I? I would give blood out of my heart to know that art. Why, I will be your slave, your --"

"No you won't, you won't be anybody's slave. Take your family and go along. Your lord the bishop will confiscate⁶² your small property, but no matter. Clarence will fix you all right."

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