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The Sword in
the Stone The old gentleman that the Wart saw
was a singular spectacle. He was dressed in a flowing gown with fur
tippets which had the signs of the zodiac embroidered all over it,
together with various cabalistic signs, as of triangles with eyes
in them, queer crosses, leaves of trees, bones and birds and
animals and a planetarium whose stars shone like bits of looking
glass with the sun on them. He had a pointed hat like a dunce's
cap, or like the headgear worn by ladies of that time, except that
the ladies were expected to have a bit of veil floating from the
top of it. He also had a wand of lignum vitae, which he had laid
down in the grass beside him, and a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles
like those of King Pellinore. They were extraordinary spectacles,
being without earpieces, but shaped rather like scissors or the
antennae of the tarantula wasp. |
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