The sword in the stone (35 page)

He went ambling off down the corridors, rolling from leg to leg with that queer badger paddle, his white mask with its black stripes looking ghostly in the gloom.

"It's along that passage," he said, "if you want to wash your hands. Badgers are not like foxes. They have a special midden where they put out their used bones and rubbish, proper earth closets, and bedrooms whose bedding they turn out frequently, to keep it clean. The Wart was enchanted with all he saw. He admired the Great Hall most, for this was the central room of the whole fortification — it was difficult to know whether to think of it as a fortification or as a palace — and all the various suites and bolt holes radiated outwards from it. It was a bit cobwebby, owing to being a sort of common-room instead of being looked after by one particular family, but it was decidedly solemn. Badger called it the Combination Room. All round the paneled walls there were ancient paintings of departed badgers, famous in their day for scholarship or godliness, lit up from above by shaded glow-worms. There were stately chairs with the badger arms stamped in gold upon their Spanish leather seats — the leather was coming off — and a portrait of the Founder over the fireplace. The chairs were arranged in a semi-circle round the fire, and there were mahogany fans with which everybody could shield their faces from the flames, and a kind of tilting-board by means of which the decanters could be slid back from the bottom of the semi-circle to the top. Some black gowns hung in the passage outside, and all was extremely ancient.

"I'm a bachelor at the moment," said the badger apologetically, when they got back to his own snug room with the flowered wallpaper, "so I'm afraid there is only one chair. You will have to sit on the bed. Make yourself at home, my dear, while I brew some punch, and tell me how things are going on in the wide world."

"Oh, they go on much the same. Merlyn is very well, and Kay is to be made a knight next week."

"An interesting ceremony," commented the badger, stirring the spirits with a big spoon.

"What enormous arms you have got," remarked the Wart, watching him. "So have I, for that matter." And he looked down at his own bandy-legged muscles. He was really just a tight chest holding together a pair of forearms, mighty as thighs.

"It's to dig with," said the badger complacently. "Mole and I, I suppose you would have to dig pretty quick to match with us."

"I met a hedgehog outside," said the Wart.

"Did you now? They say nowadays that hedgehogs can carry swine fever and foot-and-mouth disease."

"I thought he was rather nice."

"They do have a sort of pathetic appeal," said the badger sadly, "but I'm afraid I generally just munch them up. There is something irresistible about pork crackling."

"The Egyptians " he added, and by this he meant the gypsies, "are fond of them for eating, too."

"Mine wouldn't uncurl."

"You should have pushed him into some water," said the badger, and then he'd have shown you his poor legs quick enough. Come, the punch is ready. Sit you down by the fire and take your ease."

"It's nice to sit here with the snow and wind outside."

"It is nice. Let us drink good luck to Kay in his knighthood."

"Good luck to Kay, then."

"Good luck."

"Well," said the badger, setting down his glass again with a sigh.

"Now what could have possessed Merlyn to send you to me?"

"He was talking about learning," said the Wart.

"Ah, well, if it's learning you are after, you have come to the right shop. But don't you find learning rather dull?"

"Sometimes I do," said the Wart, "and sometimes I don't. On the whole I can bear a good deal of learning if it's about natural history."

"I am writing a treatise just now," said the badger, coughing diffidently to show that he was absolutely set upon explaining it, "which is to point out why Man has become the master of all the animals. Perhaps you would like to hear that?"

"It's for my D. Litt, you know," added the badger hastily, before Wart could protest. He got so few chances of reading his treatises to anybody, that he could not bear to let this priceless opportunity slip by.

"Thank you very much," said the Wart.

"It will be good for you, you know," explained the badger in a humble tone. "It's just the thing to top off your education. Study birds and fish and animals: then finish off with Man. How fortunate you came. Now where the devil did I put that manuscript?"

The old gentleman hurriedly scratched about with his great claws until he had turned up a dirty old bundle of papers, one corner of which had been used for lighting something. Then he sat down in his leather arm-chair, which had a deep depression in the middle of it; put on his velvet smoking-cap, with the tassel; and produced a pair of tarantula spectacles, which he balanced on the end of his nose.

"Hem," said the badger.

He immediately became completely paralyzed with shyness, and sat blushing at his papers, unable to begin.

"Go on," said the Wart.

"It's not very good," explained the badger coyly. "It's just a rough draft, you know. I shall alter a lot before I send it in."

"I am sure it must be interesting," said the Wart.

"Oh, no, it isn't a bit interesting. It's just an odd thing I threw off in an odd half-hour, just to pass the odd time, you know. But still, this is how it begins."

"Hem!" said the badger. Then he put on an impossibly high falsetto voice and began to read as fast as possible.

"People often ask as an idle question whether the process of evolution began with the chicken or the egg. Was there an egg out of which the first chicken came, or did a chicken lay the first egg? I am in a position to state that the first thing created was the egg.

"When God had manufactured all the eggs out of which the fishes and the serpents and the birds and the mammals and even the duck-billed platypus would eventually emerge, he called the embryos before him, and saw that they were good.

"Perhaps I ought to explain," added the badger, lowering his papers nervously and looking at the Wart over the top of them, "that all embryos look very much the same. They are what you are before you are born, and, whether you are going to be a tadpole or a peacock or a camelopard or a man, when you are an embryo you just look like a peculiarly repulsive and helpless human being. I continue as follows:

"The embryos stood up in front of God, with their feeble hands clasped politely over their stomachs and their heavy heads hanging down respectfully, and God addressed them.

"He said: 'Now, you embryos, here you are, all looking exactly the same, and We are going to give you the choice of what you are going to be. When you grow up you will get bigger anyway, but We are pleased to grant you another gift as well. You may alter any parts of yourselves into anything which you think would be useful to you in after life. For instance, at the moment you can't dig. Anybody who would like to turn his hands into a pair of spades or garden forks is allowed to do so. Or, to put it another way, at present you can only use your mouths for eating with. Anybody who would like to use his mouth as an offensive weapon, can change it by asking, and be a corkindrill or a saber-toothed tiger. Now then, step up and choose your tools, but remember that what you choose you will grow into, and will have to stick to.'

"All the embryos thought the matter over politely, and then, one by one, they stepped up before the eternal throne. They were allowed two or three specializations, so that some chose to use their arms as flying machines and their mouths as weapons, or crackers, or drillers, or spoons, while others selected to use their bodies as boats and their hands as oars. We badgers thought very hard and decided to ask three boons. We wanted to change our skins for shields, our mouths for weapons, and our arms for garden forks. These boons were granted to us. Everybody specialized in one way or another, and some of us in very queer ones. For instance, one of the lizards decided to swap his whole body for blotting-paper, and one of the toads who lived in the antipodes decided simply to be a waterbottle.

"The asking and granting took up two long days — they were the fifth and sixth, so far as I remember — and at the very end of the sixth day, just before it was time to knock off for Sunday, they had got through all the little embryos except one. This embryo was Man.

"'Well, Our little man,' said God. 'You have waited till the last, and slept on your decision, and We are sure you have been thinking hard all the time. What can We do for you?'

"'Please, God,' said the embryo, 'I think that You made me in the shape which I now have for reasons best known to Yourselves, and that it would be rude to change. If I am to have my choice I will stay just as I am. I will not alter any of the parts which You gave to me, for other and doubtless inferior tools, and I will stay a defenseless embryo all my life, doing my best to make unto myself a few feeble implements out of the wood, iron and other materials which you have seen fit to put before me. If I want a boat I will endeavor to construct it out of trees, and if I want to fly I will put together a chariot to do it for me. Probably I have been very silly in refusing to take advantage of Your kind offer, but I have done my best to think it over carefully and now hope that the feeble decision of this small innocent will find favor with Yourselves.'

"'Well done,' exclaimed the Creator in delighted tones. 'Here, all you embryos, come here with your beaks and what-nots to look upon Our first Man. He is the only one who has guessed Our riddle, out of all of you, and We have great pleasure in conferring upon him the Order of Dominion over the Fowls of the Air, and the Beasts of the Earth, and the Fishes of the Sea. Now let the rest of you get along, and love and multiply, for it is time to knock off for the week-end. As for you, Man, you will be a naked tool all your life, though a user of tools: you will look like an embryo till they bury you, but all others will be embryos before your might; eternally undeveloped, you will always remain potential in Our image, able to see some of Our sorrows and to feel some of Our joys. We are partly sorry for you, Man, and partly happy, but always proud. Run along then, Man, and do your best. And listen, Man, before you go. . .'

"'Well?' asked Adam, turning back from his dismissal.

"'We were only going to say,' said God shyly, twisting Their hands together. 'Well, We were just going to say, God bless you.'"

KING PELLINORE arrived for the important week-end, in a high state of flurry.

"I say," he exclaimed. "Do you know? Have you heard? Is it a secret, what?"

"Is what a secret, what?" they asked him.

"Why, the King," cried his majesty. "You know, about the King?"

"What's the matter with the King?" inquired Sir Ector. "You don't say he's comin' down to hunt with those damned hounds of his or anythin' like that?"

"He's dead," cried King Pellinore tragically. "He's dead, poor fellah, and can't hunt any more."

Sir Grummore stood up respectfully and took off his helm.

"The King is dead," he said. "Long live the King." Everybody else felt they ought to stand up too, and the boys' nurse burst into tears.

"There, there," she sobbed. "His loyal highness dead and gone, and him such a respectful gentleman. Many's the illuminated picture I've cut out of him, from the illustrated Missals, aye, and stuck up over the mantel. From the time when he was in swaddling bands, right through them world towers till he was a-visiting the dispersed areas as the world's Prince Charming, there wasn't a picture of 'im but I had it out, aye, and give 'im a last thought o' nights."

"Compose yourself, Nannie," said Sir Ector.

"It's solemn, isn't it," said King Pellinore, "what?"

"A solemn moment," said Sir Grummore. "The King is dead. Long live the King."

"We ought to pull down the blinds," said Kay, who was always a stickler for good form, "or half-mast the banners."

"That's right," said Sir Ector. "Somebody go and tell the sergeant-at-arms."

It was obviously the Wart's duty to execute this command, for he was now the junior of all the noblemen present, and so he ran out cheerfully to find the sergeant. Soon those who were left in the solar could hear a voice crying out, "Nah then, one-two, special mourning fer 'is lite majesty, lower awai on the command Two!" and then the flapping of all the standards, banners, pennons, pennoncells, banderolls, guidons, streamers and cognizances which made gay the snowy turrets of the Forest Sauvage.

"How did you hear?" asked Sir Ector.

"I was just pricking through the purlieus of the forest after that Beast, you know, when I met with a solemn friar of orders gray, and he told me. It's the very latest news."

"Poor old Pendragon," said Sir Ector.

"The King is dead," said Sir Grummore solemnly. "Long live the King."