1 ”CAMELOT -- Camelot,” I said to myself. “I don’t seem to remember hearing of it before.

Name of the asylum, likely.”

 

2 It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely as a dream, and as lonesome as Sunday. The air was full of the smell of flowers, and the buzzing of insects, and the twittering of birds, and there were no people, no wagons, there was no stir of life, nothing going on. The road was mainly a winding path with hoof-prints in it, and now and then a faint trace of wheels on either side in the grass -- wheels that apparently had a tire as broad as one’s hand.

 

3 Presently, a fair slip of a girl, about ten years old, with golden hair streaming down over her shoulders, came along. Around her head, she wore a hoop of flame-red poppies. It was as sweet an outfit as ever I saw. She walked indolently along, with a mind at rest, its peace reflected in her innocent face. The circus man paid no attention to her; he didn’t even seem to see her. And she -- she was no more startled at his fantastic make-up than if she was used to his kind every day of her life. She was going by as indifferently as she might have gone by a couple of cows, but when she happened to notice me, THEN there was a change!

 

4 Up went her hands, and she was turned to stone; her mouth dropped open, her eyes stared wide and timorously, she was the picture of astonished curiosity touched with fear. And there she stood gazing, in a sort of stupefied fascination, till we turned a corner of the wood and were lost to her view. That she should be startled at me instead of at the other man was too many for me; I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. And that she should seem to consider me a spectacle, and totally overlook her own merits in that respect, was another puzzling thing, and a display of magnanimity, too, that was surprising in one so young. There was food for thought here. I moved along as one in a dream.

 

5 As we approached the town, signs of life began to appear. At intervals, we passed a wretched cabin, with a thatched roof, and about it small fields and garden patches in an indifferent state of cultivation. There were people, too; brawny men, with long, coarse, uncombed hair that hung down over their faces and made them look like animals. They and the women, as a rule, wore a coarse tow-linen robe that came well below the knee, and a rude sort of sandal and many wore an iron collar. All of these people stared at me, talked about me, ran into the huts, and fetched out their families to gape at me, but nobody ever noticed that other fellow, except to make him humble salutation and get no response for their pains.

 

6 We soon found ourselves in a great paved court, with towers and turrets stretching up into the blue air on all the four sides; and all about us, dismount was going on. There were much greeting and ceremony, and running to and fro, and a joyful display of moving and intermingling colors, and an altogether pleasant stir and noise and confusion.