The sword in the stone (34 page)

"Sir Ector has given me a glass of canary," said the Wart, "and sent me to see if you can't cheer me up."

"Sir Ector," said Merlyn, "is a wise man."

"Well," said the Wart, "what about it?"

"The best thing for disturbances of the spirit," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love and lose your moneys to a monster, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the poor mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you. Look at what a lot of things there are to learn — pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a milliard lifetimes in biology and medicine and theo-criticism and geography and history and economics, why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics, until it is time to learn to plow."

"Apart from all these things," said the Wart, "what do you suggest for me to do just now?"

"Let me see," said the magician, considering. "We have had a short six years of this, and in that time I think I am right in saying that you have been something in either animal, vegetable or mineral; something in earth, air, fire or water? "

"I don't know much," said the Wart, "about the animals and earth."

"Then the best thing is, that you should meet my friend the badger."

"I have never met a badger."

"Good," said Merlyn. "Except for dear old Archimedes, I think he is the most learned creature that I know. You will like him."

"By the way, Wart," added the magician, stopping in the middle of his spell, "there is one thing I ought to tell you. This is the last time I shall be able to turn you into anything. All the magic for that kind of thing has been used up, and this will be the end of your education. When Kay has been knighted my labors will be over. You will to go away then, to be his squire in the wide world, and I shall go elsewhere. Do you think you have learned anything?"

"I have learned, and been happy."

"That's all right, then," said Merlyn. "Try to remember what you learned."

He proceeded with the spell, pointed his wand of lignum vitae at the Little Bear, which had just begun to glow in the dimity as it hung by its tail from the North Star, and called out cheerfully, "Have a good time for the last night. Give love to Badger."

The call sounded from far away, and Wart found himself standing at the edge of a fallen bank in the Forest Sauvage, with a big black hole in front of him.

"Badger lives in there," he said to himself, "and I am supposed to go and talk to him. But I won't. It was bad enough never to be a knight, but now my own tutor that I found on the only Quest I shall ever have is to be taken from me also, and there will be no more natural history or exciting duels with Madame Mim. Very well, I will have one more night of joy before I am condemned, and, as I am wild beast now, I will be a wild beast, and there it is."I

So he trundled off fiercely over the twilight snow, for it was winter. If you are feeling desperate, a badger is a good thing to be. A relation of the bears, otters and wizzles, you are the nearest thing to a bear now left in England, and your skin is so thick that it makes no difference who bites you. As far as your own bite is concerned, there is something about the formation of your jaw which makes it almost impossible to be dislocated, and so, however much the thing you are biting twists about, there is no reason why you should ever let go. You are one of the few creatures which can munch up hedgehogs quite unconcernedly, just as you can munch up everything else from wasps'

nests and roots to baby rabbits.

It so happened that a sleeping hedgehog was the first thing which came in the Wart's way.

"Hedge-pig," said the Wart, peering at his victim with blurred, short-sighted eyes, "I am going to munch you up."

The hedgehog, which had hidden its own bright little eye-buttons and long sensitive nose inside its curl, and which had ornamented its spikes with a not very tasteful arrangement of dead leaves, before going to bed for the winter in its grassy nest, woke up at this and squealed most lamentably.

"The more you squeal," said the Wart, "the more I shall gnash. It makes my blood boil within me."

"Ah, Measter Brock," cried the hedgehog, holding himself tight shut.

"Good Measter Brock, show mercy to a poor urchin and don't 'ee be tyrannical. Us be'nt no common tiggy, measter, for to be munched and mumbled. Have mercy, kind sir, on a harmless, flea-bitten crofter which can't tell his left hand nor his right."

"Hedge-pig," said the Wart remorselessly, "forbear to whine, neither thrice nor once."

"Alas, my poor wife and childer!"

"I bet you haven't got any. Come out of that, thou tramp, and prepare to meet thy doom."

"Measter Brock," implored the unfortunate pig, "come now, doan't

'ee be okkerd, sweet Measter Brock, my duck.

Hearken to an urchin's prayer! Grant the dear boon of life uncommon tiggy, lordly measter, and he shall in numbers sweet or teach

'ee how to suck the pearly dew."

"Sing?" asked the Wart, stopping, quite taken aback.

"Aye, sing," cried the hedgehog. And it began hurriedly to sing in a very placating manner, but rather muffled because it dared not uncurl.

"Oh, Genevieve," it sang most mournfully into its tummy, "Sweet Genevieve,

Ther days may come,

Ther days may go,

But still the light of Mem'ry weaves

Those gentle dreams of long ago."

It also sang, without pausing for a moment between the songs: Home Sweet Home and The Old Rustic Bridge by The Mill. Then, because it had finished all its repertoire, it drew a hurried but quavering breath, and began again on Genevieve. After that, it sang Home Sweet Home and The Old Rustic Bridge by the Mill.

"Come on," said the Wart. "You can stop that. I won't bite you."

"Clementious measter," whispered the hedge-pig humbly. Us shall bless the saints and board of governors for thee for thy most kindly chops, so long as fleas skip nor urchins climb up chimbleys."

Then, for fear that its brief relapse into prose might have hardened the tyrant's heart, it launched out breathlessly into Genevieve, for the third time.

"Stop singing," said the Wart, "for heaven's sake. Uncurl. I won't do you any harm. Come, you silly little urchin, and tell me where you learned these beautiful songs."

"Uncurl is one word," answered the porcupine tremblingly — it did not feel in the least fretful at the moment — "but curling up is still another. If 'ee was to see my liddle naked nose, measter, at this dispicuous moment, 'ee might feel a twitching in thy white toothsomes; and all's fear in love and war, that we do know. Let un sing to 'ee again, sweet Measter Brock, concerning thick there rustic mill?"

"I don't want to hear it any more. You sing it very well, but I don't want it again. Uncurl, you idiot, and tell me where you learned to sing."

"Us be'nt no common urchin," quavered the poor creature, staying curled up as tight as ever. "Us wor a-teuk when liddle by one of them there gentry, like, as it might be from the mother's breast. Ah, doan't 'ee nip our tender vitals, lovely Measter Brock, for ee wor a proper gennelman, ee wor, and brought us up full comely on cow's milk an' that, all supped out from a lordly dish. Ah, there be'nt many urchins what a drunken tap water outer porcelain, that there be'nt."

"I don't know what you are talking about," said the Wart.

"Ee wor a gennelman," cried the hedgehog desperately, "like I tell

'ee. Ee teuk un when us wor liddle, an fed un when us ha'nt no more. Ee wor a proper gennelman what fed un in ter parlor, like what no urchins ha'nt been afore nor since; fed out from gennelman's porcelain, aye, and a dreary day it wor whenever us left un for nought but willfullness, that thou may'st be sure."

"What was the name of this gentleman?"

"Ee wor a gennelman, ee wor. Ee hadden no proper neame like, not like you may remember, but ee wor a gennelman, that ee wor, an fed un out a porcelain."

"Was he called Merlyn?" asked the Wart curiously.

"Ah, that wor is neame. A proper fine neame it wor, but us never could lay tongue to it by nary means. Ah Mearn ee called to iself, and fed un out a porcelain, like a proper fine gennelman."

"Oh, do uncurl," exclaimed the Wart. "I know the man who kept you, and I think I have seen you, yourself, when you were a baby in cotton wool. Come on, urchin, I'm sorry I frightened you. We are friends here, and I want to see your little gray wet twitching nose, just for old sake's sake."

"Twitching noase be one neame," answered the hedgehog obstinately, "and a-twitching of that noase be another, measter. Now you move along, kind Measter Brock, and leave a poor crofter to teak 'is winter drowse. Let you think of beetles or honey, sweet baron, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

"Nonsense," exclaimed the Wart. "I won't do you any harm, because I knew you when you were little."

"Ah, them badgers," said the poor thing to its tummy, "they go a-barrowing about with no harm in their hearts, Lor bless 'em, but doan't they fair give you a nip without a-noticing of it, and Lor bless 'ee what is a retired mun to do? It's that there skin of theirs, that's what it be, which from earliest childer they've been a-nipping of among each other, and also of their Ma's, without a-feeling of anything among theirselves, so natural they nips elsewhere like the seame. Now my poor gennelman, Measter Mearn, they was allars a-rushing arter his ankels, with their yik-yik-yik, when they wanted to be fed like, those what ee kept from liddles — and, holy church, how ee would scream! Aye, 'tis a mollocky thing to deal with they badgers, that us may be sure."

"Doan't see nothing," added the hedgehog, before the Wart could protest. "Blunder along like to one of they ambling hearth rugs, on the outsides of their girt feet. Get in their way for a moment, just out of fortune like, without nary wicked intention and 'tis snip-snap, just like that, out of self-defense for the hungry blind, and then where are you?"

"On'y pleace us can do for un," continued the urchin, "is to hit un onter noase. A killee's heel they neame un on ter scriptures. Hit one of they girt trollops on ter noase bim-bam, like that 'ere, and the sharp life is fair outed him 'ere ee can snuffle. 'Tis a fair knock-out, that it is."

"But how can a pore urchin dump un on ter noase?" concluded the lecturer mournfully, "when ee ha'nt got nothing to dump with, nor way to hold un? And then they comes about 'ee and asks 'ee for to uncurl!"

"You needn't uncurl," said the Wart resignedly. "I am sorry I woke you up, chap, and I'm sorry I frightened you. I think you are a charming hedgehog, and meeting you has made me feel more cheerful again. You just go to sleep like you were when I met you, and I shall go off to look for my friend badger, as I was told to do. Good night, urchin, and good luck in the snow."

"Good night it may be," muttered the pig grumpily. "And then again it mayern't. First it's uncurl and then it's curl. One thing one moment, and another thing ter next. Hey-ho, 'tis a turvey world; but Good night, Ladies is my motter, come hail, come snow, and so us shall be continued in our next."

With these words the humble animal curled himself up still more snugly than before, gave several squeaky grunts, and was far away in a dream-world so much deeper than our human dreams as a whole winter's sleep is longer than the mercy of a single night.

"Well," thought the Wart, "he certainly gets over his troubles pretty quickly. Fancy going to sleep again as quick as that. I dare say he was never more than half-awake all the time, and will think it was only a dream when he gets up properly in the spring."

He watched the dirty little ball of leaves and grass and fleas for a moment, curled up tightly inside its hole, then grunted and moved off towards the badger's sett, following his own oblong footmarks backwards in the snow.

"So Merlyn sent you to me," said the badger, "to finish off your education. Well, I can only teach you two things: to dig, and to love your home. These are the true end of philosophy."

"Would you show me your home?"

"Certainly," said the badger, "though, of course, I don't use it all. It's a rambling old place, much too big for a single man. I suppose some parts of it may be a thousand years old. There are about four families of us in it, here and there, take it by and large, from cellar to attics, and sometimes we don't meet for months. A crazy old place, I suppose it must seem to you modern people, but there, it's cozy."