A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court by Mark Twain Chapter 14 Page 5

We tarried with a holy hermit, that night, and my opportunity came about the middle of the next afternoon. We were crossing a vast meadow by way of short-cut, and I was musing absently, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, when Sandy suddenly interrupted a remark which she had begun that morning, with the cry:

“Defend thee, lord! — peril of life is toward!”

And she slipped down from the horse and ran a little way and stood. I looked up and saw, far off in the shade of a tree, half a dozen armed knights and their squires; and straightway there was bustle among them and tightening of saddle-girths for the mount.

My pipe was ready and would have been lit, if I had not been lost in thinking about how to banish oppression from this land and