“I find I can’t go on; but come with me,
I’ve got it all written out, and you can read
it if you like.”
In his chamber, he said: “First, I kept
a journal; then by and by, after years, I took the
journal and turned it into a book. How long ago
that was!”
He handed me his manuscript, and pointed out the place
where I should begin:
“Begin here—I’ve already told
you what goes before.” He was steeped
in drowsiness by this time. As I went out at
his door I heard him murmur sleepily: “Give
you good den, fair sir.”
I sat down by my fire and examined my treasure.
The first part of it—the great bulk of
it—was parchment, and yellow with age.
I scanned a leaf particularly and saw that it was a
palimpsest. Under the old dim writing of the
Yankee historian appeared traces of a penmanship which
was older and dimmer still—Latin words
and sentences: fragments from old monkish legends,
evidently. I turned to the place indicated by
my stranger and began to read —as follows:
CAMELOT
“Camelot—Camelot,” said I to
myself. “I don’t seem to remember
hearing of it before. Name of the asylum, likely.”
It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely
as a dream, and as lonesome as Sunday. The air
was full of the smell of flowers, and the buzzing
of insects, and the twittering of birds, and there
were no people, no wagons, there was no stir of life,
nothing going on. The road was mainly a winding
path with hoof-prints in it, and now and then a faint
trace of wheels on either side in the grass—wheels
that apparently had a tire as broad as one’s
hand.
Presently a fair slip of a girl, about ten years old,
with a cataract of golden hair streaming down over
her shoulders, came along. Around her head she
wore a hoop of flame-red poppies. It was as sweet
an outfit as ever I saw, what there was of it.
She walked indolently along, with a mind at rest,
its peace reflected in her innocent face. The
circus man paid no attention to her; didn’t
even seem to see her. And she—she
was no more startled at his fantastic make-up than
if she was used to his like every day of her life.
She was going by as indifferently as she might have
gone by a couple of cows; but when she happened to
notice me, then there was a change! Up
went her hands, and she was turned to stone; her mouth
dropped open, her eyes stared wide and timorously,
she was the picture of astonished curiosity touched
with fear. And there she stood gazing, in a
sort of stupefied fascination, till we turned a corner
of the wood and were lost to her view. That
she should be startled at me instead of at the other
man, was too many for me; I couldn’t make head
or tail of it. And that she should seem to consider
me a spectacle, and totally overlook her own merits
in that respect, was another puzzling thing, and a
display of magnanimity, too, that was surprising in
one so young. There was food for thought here.
I moved along as one in a dream.
