T. H. White - The Sword in the Stone

“Well, it isn’t bad,” said Merlyn doubtfully, “and in a way it does look a bit like an M.”

Then he fell into a reverie, stroking his beard, breathing fire, and staring at the paper.

“About the breakfast?” asked the Wart timidly, after he had waited five minutes.

“Ah, yes,” said Merlyn. “How did I know to set breakfast for two? That was why I showed you the looking-glass. Now ordinary people are born forwards in Time, if you understand what I mean, and nearly everything in the world goes forward too. This makes it quite easy for the ordinary people to live, just as it would be easy to join those five dots into a W if you were allowed to look at them forwards instead of backwards and inside out. But I unfortunately was born at the wrong end of time, and I have to live backwards from in front, while surrounded by a lot of people living forwards from behind. Some people call it having second sight.”

Merlyn stopped talking and looked at the Wart in an anxious way.

“Have I told you this before?” he inquired suspiciously.

“No,” said the Wart. “We only met about half an hour ago.”

“So little time to pass as that?” said Merlyn, and a big tear ran down to the end of his nose. He wiped it off with his pyjama tops and added anxiously, “Am I going to tell it you again?”

“I don’t know,” said the Wart, “unless you haven’t finished telling me yet.”

“You see,” said Merlyn, “one gets confused with Time, when it is like that. All one’s tenses get muddled up, for one thing. If you know what’s going to happen to people, and not what has happened to them, it makes it so difficult to prevent it happening, if you don’t want it to have happened, if you see what I mean? Like drawing in a mirror.”

The Wart did not quite see, but was just going to say that he was sorry for Merlyn if these things made him unhappy, when he felt a curious sensation at his ear. “Don’t jump,” said Merlyn, just as he was going to do so, and the Wart sat still. Archimedes, who had been standing forgotten on his shoulder all this time, was gently touching himself against him. His beak was right against the lobe of his ear, which its bristles made to tickle, and suddenly, a soft hoarse little voice whispered, “How d’you do,” so that it sounded right inside his head.

“Oh, owl!” cried the Wart, forgetting about Merlyn’s troubles instantly. “Look, he has decided to talk to me!”

The Wart gently leant his head against the soft feathers, and the brown owl, taking the rim of his ear in its beak, quickly nibbled right round it with the smallest nibbles.

“I shall call him Archie!” exclaimed the Wart.

“I trust you will do nothing of the sort,” cried Merlyn instantly, in a stern and angry voice, and the owl withdrew to the farthest corner of his shoulder.

“Is it wrong?”

“You might as well call me Wol, or Olly,” said the owl sourly, “and have done with it.

“Or Bubbles,” added the owl in a bitter voice.

Merlyn took the Wart’s hand and said kindly, “You are only young, and do not understand these things. But you will learn that owls are the politest and the most courteous, single-hearted and faithful creatures living. You must never be familiar, rude or vulgar with them, or make them to look ridiculous. Their mother is Athene, the goddess of wisdom, and, though they are often ready to play the buffoon for your amusement, such conduct is the prerogative of the truly wise. No owl can possibly be called Archie.”

“I am sorry, owl,” said the Wart.

“And I am sorry, boy,” said the owl. “I can see that you spoke in ignorance, and I bitterly regret that I should have been so petty as to take offence where none was intended.”

The owl really did regret it, and looked so remorseful and upset that Merlyn had to put on a very cheerful manner and change the conversation.

“Well,” said he, “now that we have finished breakfast, I think it is high time that we should all three find out way back to Sir Ector.”

“Excuse me a moment,” he added as an afterthought, and, turning round to the breakfast things, he pointed a knobbly finger at them and said in a stern voice, “Wash up.”

At this all the china and cutlery scrambled down off the table, the cloth emptied the crumbs out of the window, and the napkins folded themselves up. All ran off down the ladder, to where Merlyn had left the bucket, and there was such a noise and yelling as if a lot of children had been let out of school. Merlyn went to the door and shouted, “Mind, nobody is to get broken.” But his voice was entirely drowned in shrill squeals, splashes, and cries of “My, it is cold,” “I shan’t stay in long,” “Look out, you’ll break me,” or “Come on, let’s duck the teapot.”

“Are you really coming all the way home with me?” asked the Wart, who could hardly believe the good news.

“Why not?” said Merlyn. “How else can I be your tutor?”

At this the Wart’s eyes grew rounder and rounder, until they were about as big as the owl’s who was sitting on his shoulder, and his face got redder and redder, and a big breath seemed to gather itself beneath his heart.

“My!” exclaimed the Wart, while his eyes sparkled with excitement at the discovery. “I must have been on a Quest.”

The Wart started talking before he was halfway over the drawbridge. “Look who I’ve brought,” he said. “Look! I’ve been on a Quest. I was shot at with three arrows. They had black and yellow stripes. The owl is called Archimedes. I saw King Pellinore. This is my tutor, Merlyn. I went on a Quest for him. He was after the Questing Beast. I mean King Pellinore. It was terrible in the forest. Merlyn made the plates wash up. Hallo, Hob. Look, we have got Cully.”

Hob just looked at the Wart, but so proudly that the Wart went quite red. It was such a pleasure to be back home again with all his friends, and everything achieved.

Hob said gruffly, “Ah, master, us shall make an austringer of ’ee yet.”

He came for Cully, as if he could not keep his hands off him any longer, but he patted the Wart too, fondling them both because he was not sure which he was gladder to see back. He took Cully on his own fist, reassuming him like a lame man putting on his accustomed wooden leg, after it had been lost.

“Merlyn caught him,” said the Wart. “He sent Archimedes to look for him on the way home. Then Archimedes told us that he had been and killed a pigeon and was eating it. We went and frightened him off. After that, Merlyn stuck six of the tail feathers round the pigeon in a circle, and made a loop in a long piece of string to go round the feathers. He tied one end to a stick in the ground, and he went away behind a bush with the other end. He said he wouldn’t use magic. He said you couldn’t use magic in Great Arts, like it would be unfair to make a great statue by magic. You have to cut it out with a chisel, you see. Then Cully came down to finish the pigeon, and we pulled the string, and the loop slipped over the feathers and caught him round the legs. He was angry. But we gave him the pigeon.”

Hob made a duty to Merlyn, who returned it courteously. They looked upon one another with grave affection and eagerness, knowing each other to be masters of the same trade. When they could be alone together they could talk and talk, although each was naturally a silent man. Meanwhile they must wait their time.