"Excuse me, sir," said the Wart, "but can you tell me the way to Sir Ector's castle, if you don't mind?" The… — T. H. White
"Excuse me, sir," said the Wart, "but can you tell me the way to Sir Ector's castle, if you don't mind?"
The aged gentleman put down his bucket and looked at him. "Your name would be the Wart."
"Yes, sir, please, sir."
"My name," said the old man, "is Merlyn."
"How do you do?"
"How do."
When these formalities had been concluded, the Wart had leisure to look at him more closely. The magician was staring at him with a kind of unwinking and benevolent curiosity which made him feel that it would not be at all rude to stare back.
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The governess had red hair and some mysterious wound from which she derived a lot of prestige by showing it to all the women of the castle, behind closed doors. It was believed to be where she sat down, and to have been caused by sitting on some armour at a picnic by mistake. Eventually she offered to show it to Sir Ector, who was Kay's father, had hysterics and was sent away. They found out afterwards that she had been in a lunatic hospital for three years.
Merlyn stopped talking and looked at the Wart in an anxious way. "Have I told you this before?"
"No, we only met about half an hour ago."
"So little time to pass?" and a big tear ran down to the end of his nose. He wiped it off with his pyjamas and added anxiously, "Am I going to tell it you again?"
As far as the Wart was concerned, there was a time after this in which Sir Ector kept telling him to put the sword back into the stone — which he did — and in which Sir Ector and Kay then vainly tried to take it out. The Wart took it out for them, and stuck it back again once or twice. After this, there was another time which was more painful.
He saw that his dear guardian was looking quite old and powerless, and that he was kneeling down with difficulty on a gouty knee.
"Sir," said Sir Ector, without looking up, although he was speaking to his own boy.
"Please do not do this, father," said the Wart, kneeling down also. "Let me help you up, Sir Ector, because you are making me unhappy."
"Nay, nay, my lord," said Sir Ector, "I was never your father nor of your blood, but I wote well ye are of an higher blood than I wend ye were."
"Plenty of people have told me you are not my father," said the Wart, "but it does not matter a bit."
"Sir," said Sir Ector humbly, "will ye be my good and gracious lord when ye are King?"
"Oh, father, don't kneel down like that, because it breaks my heart. Please get up, Sir Ector, and don't make everything so horrible. Oh, dear, oh, dear, I wish I had never seen that filthy sword at all."
