There & Back. George MacDonald
I don’t Why do you say ‘of course’?”
“Because I thought every English lady read Tennyson.”
“Ah, but I was born in New Zealand!—Tell me the blunder, though.”
“There was one thing in The Pausing of Arthur—that’s the name of one of the Idylls—which I never could understand:—how sir Bedivere could throw a sword with both hands, and make it go in the way Tennyson says it went.”
“But who was sir Bedivere?”
“You must read the poem to know that, Miss. He was one of the knights of king Arthur’s Round Table.”
“I don’t know anything about king Arthur.”
“I will repeat us much of the poem as is necessary to make you understand about the misprint.”
“Do—please.”
“Then quickly rose sir Bedivere, and ran,
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged
Among the bulrush beds, and clutch’d the sword,
And strongly wheeled and threw it. The great brand
Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon,
And flashing round and round, and whirl’d in an arch,
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock
By night, with noises of the northern sea.
So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur.”
“What does the brand Excalibur—is that it?—what does it mean? They put a brand on the cattle in the bush.”
“Brand means a sword, and Excalibur was the name of this sword. They seem to have baptized their swords in those days!”
“There’s nothing about both hands!”
“True; that comes a little lower down, where sir Bedivere tells king Arthur what he has done. He says—
“‘Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him’.
“—Now do you think anybody could do that, and make it go flashing round and round in an arch?”
Barbara thought for a moment, then said—
“No, certainly not. To make it go like that, you would have to take it in one hand, and swing it round your head—and then you couldn’t without a string tied to it. Or perhaps it was a sabre, and he was so strong he could send it like a boomerang!”
“No; it was a straight, big, heavy sword.—How then do you think Tennyson came to describe the thing so?”
“Because he didn’t know better—or didn’t think enough about it.”
“There is more than that in it, I fancy: he was misled by a printer’s blunder, I suspect. Some months ago I found the passage which Tennyson seems to follow, in a cheap reprint of sir Thomas Malory’s History of King Arthur—then just out, and could not make sense of it. Yesterday I found here this long little book, evidently the edition from which the other was printed—and printed correctly too. In both issues, this is what the knight is made to say:
“‘Then sir Bedivere departed, and went to the sword, and lightly took it up and went to the water’s side, and there he bound the girdle about the belts. And then he threw the sword into the water as far as he might.’”
“Well,” said Barbara, “you have not made me any wiser! You said the new one was printed correctly from that old one!”
“But I did not say the old one, as you call it, was itself printed correctly from the much older one! Look here now,” continued Richard—and mounting the library-steps, he took down another small volume, very like the former, “—here is another edition, of nearly the same date: let me read what is printed there:—
“‘Then sir Bedivere departed, and went to the sword, and lightly took it up, and went to the water side, and there he bound the girdle about the hilt. And then he threw the sword into the water as far as he might.’
“Now, most likely the copy from which both of these editions were printed, had the word hilts, for then they always spoke of the hilts, not hilt of a sword; and the one printer modernized it into hilt, and the other, perhaps mistaking the dim print, for hilts printed belts. To tie the girdle about the belts must simply be nonsense. But to tie the girdle to the hilts of the sword, would just give the knight what you said he would want—something long to swing it round his head with, and throw it like a stone, and the sling with it.”
“I understand.”
“You see then how the printer’s blunder, which might not appear to matter much, has come to matter a great deal, for it has, it seems to me, caused a fault-spot in the loveliest poem!”
During this conversation Richard’s work had scarcely relaxed; but now that a pause came it seemed to gather diligence.
“Why do you spend your time patching up books?” said Barbara.
“Because they are worth patching up; and because I earn my bread by patching them.”
“But you seem to care most for what is inside them!”
“If I did not, I should never have taken to mending, I should have been content with binding them. New covers make more show, and are much easier put on than patches.”
Another pause followed.
“What a lot you know!” said Barbara.
“Very little,” answered Richard.
“Then where am I!” she returned.
“Perhaps ladies don’t need books! I don’t know about ladies.”
“I think they don’t care about them. I never hear them talk as you do—as if books were their friends. But why should they? Books are only books!”
“You would not say that if once you knew them!”
“I wish you would make me know them, then!”
“There are books, and you can read, miss!”
“Ah, but I can’t read as you read! I understand that much! I was born where there ain’t any books. I can shoot and fish and run and ride and swim, and all that kind of thing. I never had to fight. I think I could shoe a horse, if any one would give me a lesson or two.”
“I will, with pleasure, miss.”
“Oh, thank you. That will be jolly! But how is it you can do everything?”
“I can only do one or two things. I can shoe a horse, but I never had the chance of riding one.”
“Teach me to shoe Miss Brown, and I will teach you to ride her. How is your hand?”
“Quite well, thank you.”
“I would rather learn to read, though—the right way, I mean—the way that makes one book talk to another.”
“That would be better than shoeing Miss Brown; but I will teach you both, if you care to learn.”
“Thank you indeed! When shall we begin?”
“When you please.”
“Now?”
“I cannot before six o’clock. I must do first what I am paid to do!—What kind of reading do you like best?”
“I don’t know any best. I used to read the papers to papa, but now I don’t even do that. I hope I never may.”
“Where do you live, miss, when you’re at home?” asked Richard, all the time busy with the quarto.
“Don’t you know?”
“I