Part 7 (2/2)
”You jus' wait a minute--my man ain't come yet,” he said easily, but from various places in the crowd came jeering shouts from the men with whom he had wagered and the Hon. Sam began to look anxious.
”I wonder what is the matter?” he added in a lower tone. ”I dressed him myself more than an hour ago and I told him to come last, but I didn't mean for him to wait till Christmas--ah!”
The Hon. Sam sank back in his seat again. From somewhere had come suddenly the blare of a solitary trumpet that rang in echoes around the amphitheatre of the hills and, a moment later, a dazzling something shot into sight above the mound that looked like a ball of fire, coming in mid-air. The new knight wore a s.h.i.+ning helmet and the Hon. Sam chuckled at the murmur that rose and then he sat up suddenly. There was no face under that helmet--the Hon. Sam's knight was MASKED and the Hon. Sam slapped his thigh with delight.
”Bully--bully! I never thought of it--I never thought of it--bully!”
This was thrilling, indeed--but there was more; the strange knight's body was cased in a flexible suit of glistening mail, his spear point, when he raised it on high, shone like silver, and he came on like a radiant star--on the Hon. Sam's charger, white-bridled, with long mane and tail and black from tip of nose to tip of that tail as midnight. The Hon. Sam was certainly doing it well. At a slow walk the stranger drew alongside of Marston and turned his spear point downward.
”Gawd!” said an old darky. ”Ku-klux done come again.” And, indeed, it looked like a Ku-klux mask, white, dropping below the chin, and with eye-holes through which gleamed two bright fires.
The eyes of Buck and Mollie were turned from Marston at last, and open-mouthed they stared.
”Hit's the same hoss--hit's Dave!” said Buck aloud.
”Well, my Lord!” said Mollie simply.
The Hon. Sam rose again.
”And who is Sir Tardy Knight that hither comes with masked face?” he asked courteously. He got no answer.
”What's your name, son?”
The white mask puffed at the wearer's lips.
”The Knight of the c.u.mberland,” was the low, m.u.f.fled reply.
”Make him take that thing off!” shouted some one.
”What's he got it on fer?” shouted another.
”I don't know, friend,” said the Hon. Sam; ”but it is not my business nor prithee thine; since by the laws of the tournament a knight may ride masked for a specified time or until a particular purpose is achieved, that purpose being, I wot, victory for himself and for me a handful of byzants from thee.”
”Now, go ahead, Budd,” called the Mayor again. ”Are you going crazy?”
The Hon. Sam stretched out his arms once to loosen them for gesture, thrust his chest out, and uplifted his chin: ”Fair ladies, n.o.bles of the realm, and good knights,” he said sonorously, and he raised one hand to his mouth and behind it spoke aside to me:
”How's my voice--how's my voice?”
”Great!” His question was genuine, for the mask of humor had dropped and the man was transformed. I knew his inner seriousness, his oratorical command of good English, and I knew the habit, not uncommon among stump-speakers in the South, of falling, through humor, carelessness, or for the effect of flattering comrades.h.i.+p, into all the lingual sins of rural speech; but I was hardly prepared for the soaring flight the Hon.
Sam took now. He started with one finger pointed heavenward:
”The knights are dust And their good swords are rast; Their souls are with the saints, we trust.”
”Scepticism is but a harmless phantom in these mighty hills. We BELIEVE that with the saints is the GOOD knight's soul, and if, in the radiant unknown, the eyes of those who have gone before can pierce the little shadow that lies between, we know that the good knights of old look gladly down on these good knights of to-day. For it is good to be remembered. The tireless struggle for name and fame since the sunrise of history attests it; and the ancestry wors.h.i.+p in the East and the world-wide hope of immortality show the fierce hunger in the human soul that the memory of it not only shall not perish from this earth, but that, across the Great Divide, it shall live on--neither forgetting nor forgotten. You are here in memory of those good knights to prove that the age of chivalry is not gone; that though their good swords are rust, the stainless soul of them still illumines every harmless spear point before me and makes it a torch that shall reveal, in your own hearts still aflame, their courage, their chivalry, their sense of protection for the weak, and the honor in which they held pure women, brave men, and almighty G.o.d.
”The tournament, some say, goes back to the walls of Troy. The form of it pa.s.sed with the windmills that Don Quixote charged. It is with you to keep the high spirit of it an ever-burning vestal fire. It was a deadly play of old--it is a harmless play to you this day. But the prowess of the game is unchanged; for the skill to strike those pendent rings is no less than was the skill to strike armor-joint, visor, or plumed crest.
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