hat I had suffered to-day they had had
to suffer all the days of their lives. I wanted to think that out;
and moreover I wanted to think out some way to reform this evil
and persuade the people to let the foolish fashion die out; but
thinking was out of the question in the circumstances. You couldn't
think, where Sandy was.

She was a quite biddable creature and good-hearted, but she had
a flow of talk that was as steady as a mill, and made your head
sore like the drays and wagons in a city. If she had had a cork
she would have been a comfort. But you can't cork that kind;
they would die. Her clack was going all day, and you would think
something would surely happen to her works, by and by; but no,
they never got out of order; and she never had to slack up for
words. She could grind, and pump, and churn, and buzz by the week,
and never stop to oil up or blow out. And yet the result was just
nothing but wind. She never had any ideas, any more than a fog
has. She was a perfect blatherskite; I mean for jaw, jaw, jaw,
talk, talk, talk, jabber, jabber, jabber; but just as good as she
could be. I hadn't minded her mill that morning, on account of
having that hornets' nest of other troubles; but more than once
in the afternoon I had to say:

"Take a rest, child; the way you are using up all the domestic air,
the kingdom will have to go to importing it by to-morrow, and it's
a low enough treasury without that."

CHAPTER XIII

FREEMEN

Yes, it is strange how little a while at a time a person can be
contented. Only a little while back, when I was riding and
suffering, what a heaven this peace, this rest, this sweet serenity
in this secluded shady nook by this purling stream would have
seemed, where I could keep perfectly 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
improvidence 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 knight of all the Round Table combination who
would not rather have died than been caught carrying such a thing
as that on hi