The Knights of the Round Table: Stories of King Arthur and the Holy Grail
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Title: The Knights of the Round Table: Stories of King Arthur and the Holy Grail
Creator: William Henry Frost
Illustrator: Sydney Richmond Burleigh
Release date: July 2, 2014 [eBook #46176]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46176
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE: STORIES OF KING ARTHUR AND THE HOLY GRAIL ***
Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: "PERCIVALE SAW A SHIP COMING TOWARD THE LAND."]
THE KNIGHTS OF
THE ROUND TABLE
_STORIES OF KING ARTHUR
AND THE HOLY GRAIL_
BY
WILLIAM HENRY FROST
ILLUSTRATED BY SYDNEY RICHMOND BURLEIGH
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1897
COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Each 1 vol., 12mo, Illustrated by SIDNEY
R. BURLEIGH. Price, $1.50
THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE
THE COURT OF KING ARTHUR
THE WAGNER STORY BOOK
To
MY FATHER
John Dudley Frost
*CONTENTS*
*CHAPTER I*
On Glastonbury Tor
*CHAPTER II*
How We Discovered Camelot
*CHAPTER III*
The Boy from the Forest
*CHAPTER IV*
The Queen's Robing-Room
*CHAPTER V*
"Camelot, that is in English Winchester"
*CHAPTER VI*
The Boat on the River
*CHAPTER VII*
The Giants' Dance
*CHAPTER VIII*
On the Edge of Lyonnesse
*CHAPTER IX*
The Siege Perilous
*CHAPTER X*
Gawain
*CHAPTER XI*
Lancelot
*CHAPTER XII*
Bors
*CHAPTER XIII*
Percivale
*CHAPTER XIV*
Galahad
*CHAPTER XV*
The City of Sarras
*CHAPTER XVI*
Stories of Strange Stones
*CHAPTER XVII*
"And on the Mere the Wailing Died Away"
*CHAPTER XVIII*
The Abbess and the Monk
*CHAPTER XIX*
"Rexque Futurus"
*LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS*
"Percivale saw a ship coming toward the land." . . . _Frontispiece_
Glastonbury Tor
"As he played a storm began to rise"
The abbot's kitchen
"The city and the fortress of the rabbits"
"Kay's horse galloped back alone" (missing from book)
The Tower of London
The Round Table at Winchester
Winchester Cathedral
Stonehenge
St. Michael's Mount
The Land's End
"The bright spot on the road grew smaller and smaller" (missing from
book)
"A pasture where a hundred and fifty bulls were feeding"
"Through woods where there were scarcely any paths to follow"
"He saw the water before him and a ship"
"'Knight,' she said, 'what are you doing here?'"
"'It was King Evelake's shield'"
"'I cut off my hair and wove it into a girdle'"
The Dove with the golden censer
The Cheesewring
St. Joseph's Chapel, Glastonbury Abbey
"The two great waves broke upon each other"
The Choir, Glastonbury Abbey
"On toward the gold and the purple in the west"
*SOME OLDER STORY-TELLERS*
There is really no need, perhaps, for me to tell you that all these
stories have been told before. But, though you know it already, I like
to say it again, because I can never say often enough how grateful I am
to those who told the world first of Arthur, of Guinevere, of Lancelot,
and of Gawain; of Galahad, of Percivale, and of Percivale's sister; of
the Siege Perilous and of the Holy Grail. If you do not now count Sir
Thomas Malory a dear friend, as I do, learn to do it, and you will be
the better for it. I do not know who made those wonderful tales the
Mabinogion, but I know who gave them to us in our own language--Lady
Charlotte Guest. I wish that I knew whom to thank for "The Romance of
Merlin" and for the story of "Gawain and the Green Knight." And there
were many other noble story-tellers of the old time who passed away and
left us no knowledge of themselves and not even their names to call them
by. But they left us their stories, and if anything from us can reach
them where they are, surely gratitude can, and that they must have from
every one of us who loves a story. And the great poet of our own days,
Lord Tennyson, must have it too, for teaching us how to read their
stories.
Some time you may read these tales and others as they wrote them, and
you cannot read them without thinking what a great and marvellous thing
it was that they, who lived no longer than other men, could give delight
to the people of so many centuries. But some of these stories are not
easy to find, and some are not easy to read, when you have found them. I
have tried to tell a few of them again in my own way, hoping that thus
some might have the stories and know them, for whom the older books
might be hard to get or hard to understand.
[Illustration: Glastonbury Tor]
*THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE*
*CHAPTER I*
*ON GLASTONBURY TOR*
It was when we were making a journey in the South of England one summer
that we found ourselves in the midst of the old tales of King Arthur and
of the Holy Grail. "We" means Helen, Helen's mother, and me. We
wandered about the country, here and there and wherever our fancy led
us, and everywhere the stories of King Arthur fell in our way. In this
place he was born, in that place he was crowned; here he fought a
battle, there he held a tournament. Everything could remind us, when we
knew how to be reminded, of the stories of the King and the Queen and
the knights of the Round Table.
It was I who told the stories and it was Helen who listened to them.
Sometimes Helen's mother listened to them too, and sometimes she had
other things to do that she cared about more.
One day we had been riding for many hours on the crooked railways of the
Southwest, where you change cars so often that after a little while you
cannot remember at all how many trains you have taken. And late in the
afternoon, or perhaps early in the evening, we saw from the window of
the carriage a big hill, lifting itself high up against the sky, with a
lonely tower on the top of it. And that was Glastonbury Tor.
There was no time to try to see anything of Glastonbury that night after
dinner, and we were too tired. But that big hill looked so inviting
that we decided that we would see it the next day and climb up to the
top of it, before we did anything else. I was a little disappointed
with Glastonbury, as we walked through the streets on our way to the
Tor. The place looked much too prosperous to please me, and not at all
too neat.
I cheered up a little when we came to the Abbot's Kitchen. It stands in
the middle of a big field, with a fence around it, and we had to borrow
a key from a woman who kept it to lend so that we could go in and see
it. We even spared a little time from the Tor to see it in. The Abbot's
Kitchen belonged to the old abbey of Glastonbury. It is a small, square
building, with a fireplace in each corner. It is still in such good
repair that it is hardly fair to call it a ruin, but it is a part of old
Glastonbury, and we carried back the key feeling glad that we had
borrowed it.
It was a good, stiff climb up the side of the Tor, and we stopped more
than once to look back at the town behind us and below us. It looked
prettier from here. Down there in the streets there was the noise of a
busy modern town. The ways were muddy and there were rather frowsy
women and children about some of the doors. But up here we were out of
sight and hearing of all that. From here the town looked quiet and
peaceful and beautiful--just its roofs and chimneys and towers showing
through the wide, green masses of the trees, and the sound of a church
chime, that rang every quarter of an hour, came to us softened and
mellow.
"Down there," I said, "we saw nothing but Glastonbury--to-day's
Glastonbury--but here we can see Avalon. That is Avalon down there
below us, the Island of Apples, the happy country, the place where there
was no sorrow, the place where fairies lived, the place where Joseph
brought the Holy Grail and where he built his church. A wonderful old
place it was, and it was a wonderful abbey that grew up where Joseph
first made his little chapel. Our old friend St. Dunstan, who pinched
the devil's nose, was the abbot there once. So was St. Patrick. When
he came to Glastonbury he climbed up to the top of this hill where we
are now and found, where this old tower is, the ruins of a church of St.
Michael. They used to have a way of building churches to St. Michael on
the tops of high hills. St. Patrick rebuilt this one and afterwards it
was thrown down by an earthquake. I don't know whether St. Patrick
built this tower that is here now or not.
"Did I say that fairies used to live here? Another abbot of Glastonbury
found that out. He was St. Collen, and he must have lived when there was
no church of St. Michael here on the top of the Tor. St. Collen was one
of those men who think that they cannot serve God and live in comfort at
the same time. When he had been abbot of Glastonbury for a time he
thought that he was leading too easy a life, so he gave up his post and
went about preaching. But even that did not please him, so he came back
here and made a cell in the rock on the side of Glastonbury Tor, and
lived in it as a hermit.
"One day he heard two men outside his cell talking about Gwyn, the son
of Nudd. And one of them said: 'Gwyn, the son of Nudd, is the King of
the Fairies.'
"Then Collen put his head out of the door of his cell and said to the
two men: 'Do not talk of such wicked things. There are no fairies, or
if there are they are devils. And there is no Gwyn, the son of Nudd.
Hold your tongues about him.'
"'Hold your own tongue about him,' one of the men answered, 'or you will
hear from him in some unpleasant way.'
"The men went away, and by and by Collen heard a knock at his door, and
a voice asked if he were in his cell. 'I am here,' he answered; 'who is
it that asks?'
"'I am a messenger from Gwyn, the son of Nudd, the King of the Fairies,'
the voice said, 'and he has sent me to command you to come and speak
with him on the top of the hill at noon.'
"Collen did not think that he ought to mind what the King of the Fairies
said to him, if there really were any King of the Fairies, so he stayed
in his cell all day. The next day the messenger came again and said
just what he had said before, and again St. Collen stayed in his cell
all day. But the third day the messenger came again and said to Collen
that he must come and speak with Gwyn, the son of Nudd, the King of the
Fairies, on the top of the hill, at noon, or it would be the worse for
him.
"Then Collen took a flask and filled it with holy water and fastened it
at his waist, and at noon he went up the hill. For a long time Collen
had been abbot of Glastonbury and for a long time he had been a hermit
and lived in his cell on the side of this very hill, but never before
had he seen the great castle that stood that day on the top of
Glastonbury Tor. It did not look heavy, as if it were built for war,
but it was wonderfully high and graceful and beautiful. It had tall
towers, with banners of every color hung from the tops of them and lower
down, and there were battlements where ladies and squires in rich
dresses stood and looked down at other ladies and squires below. And
those below were dancing and jousting and playing games, and all around
there were soldiers, handsomely dressed too, guarding the place.
"When Collen came near, a dozen of the people met him and said to him:
'You must come with us to our King, Gwyn, the son of Nudd--he is waiting
for you.'
"And they led him into the castle and into the great hall. In the
middle of the hall was a table, spread with more delicious things to eat
than poor St. Collen, who thought that it was wicked to eat good things,
had ever dreamed of. And at the head of the table, on a gold chair, sat
a man who wore a crown. 'Collen,' he said, 'I am the King of the
Fairies, Gwyn, the son of Nudd. Do you believe in me now? Sit down and
eat with me, and let us talk together. You are a learned man, but you
did not believe in me. Perhaps I can tell you of other things that so
wise a man as you ought to know.'
"But St. Collen only took the flask of holy water from his side and
threw some of it upon Gwyn, the son of Nudd, and sprinkled some of it
around, and in an instant there was no king there and there was no
table. The hall was gone, and the castle. The dances and the games
were done, and the squires and the ladies and the soldiers all had
vanished. The whole of the fairy palace was gone, and Collen was left
standing alone on the top of Glastonbury Tor.
"But Glastonbury has forgotten St. Collen, I suppose. The old town is
prouder now of Joseph of Arimathaea than of anybody else--prouder than
it is of King Arthur, I think, though King Arthur--but I won't tell you
about that now. You know how Joseph of Arimathaea buried the Christ in
his tomb after He was taken down from the cross. After He had risen
again the Jews put Joseph in prison, because they said that he had
stolen the body. But Joseph had with him the Holy Grail, the cup in
which he had caught the blood of the Saviour, when He was on the cross.
It was the same cup, too, from which the Saviour had drunk at the Last
Supper. It was a wonderful thing, that cup, and there are whole volumes
of stories about it. The blood that Joseph had caught in it always
stayed in it afterwards, and the cup and the blood seemed to have a
strange sort of life and knowledge and the power of choosing. One of
the wonderful things about the Holy Grail was that it could always give
food to any one whom it chose, and those who were fed by the Holy Grail
wanted no other food than what it gave them. And so Joseph wanted
nothing while he was in prison.
"At last the Emperor had Joseph let out of his prison. And some one
asked him how long it had been since he was put there, and he answered:
'I have been here in this prison for nearly three days.'
"Then they all stared at one another and whispered and looked at Joseph,
and then they whispered together again. 'Why do you look at one another
and at me so,' said Joseph, 'is it not three days, almost, since they
put me here?'
"'It is wonderful,' said one of them; 'Joseph, you have been in this
prison for forty-two years.'
"'Can it be?' said Joseph; 'it seems to me like only three days, and
barely that, and I have never been so happy in my life as I have been
for these three days--or these--can it be--forty-two years?'
"And this was because he had had the Holy Grail in the prison with him.
Afterwards he came to England. He brought the Holy Grail here to
Avalon, and the King of that time gave him some ground to build his
church on. They say it was really the island of Avalon then, for it was
all surrounded by marsh and water, and there was an opening, a waterway,
out to the Bristol Channel. And since it ceased to be an island the sea
has twice at least broken through and made it one again for a little
while. But the last time was almost two hundred years ago.
"Well, when Joseph and those who were with him first came here, they
rested on the hillside and Joseph stuck the staff that he carried into
the ground. It was not this hill where we are, but another, Wearyall
Hill. And Joseph's staff, where he had set it in the ground, began to
bud, and then leaves and branches grew on it. It struck roots into the
ground and became a tree. It was a thorn-tree, the Holy Thorn they
called it, and always after that it blossomed twice a year, once in the
time of other thorn-trees and again at Christmas. The tree was gone, of
course, long ago, but other trees had grown from slips of it, and they
say that descendants of it are still growing in Glastonbury gardens and
that they still bloom at Christmas. I am sorry that we cannot stay here
till Christmas to see if it is true.
"So, in the place that the King gave him, Joseph built his chapel of
wood and woven twigs, and it was the first Christian church in England.
Some of the stories say that the Holy Grail, that Joseph brought here
with him, was buried at last under one of these Glastonbury hills, but
that is not the story that I like the best. One story says that it was
not a cup at all that Joseph brought to Avalon, but two cruets. It says
besides that these two cruets were buried with Joseph when he died, and
that when his grave is found, and the two cruets in it, there will never
again be any drought in England. But according to the story that I like
best, Joseph did not die at all, as other men die, but was long kept
alive by the Holy Grail, waiting for the best knight of the world, for
it was foretold that he should never die till the best knight of the
world should come.
"Since it was here that the Grail was brought, I think it must have been
not far from here that King Pelles lived, before Balin gave him the
wound that was never to heal till the best of all knights should come.
And I fancy it was somewhere near here, too, that he lived after that.
He was the keeper of the Grail, and he had a castle called Carbonek.
When we talk of the Grail it seems to me that everything becomes
mysterious and uncertain, so that it is hard to tell where this Castle
of Carbonek was. At one time it seems to have been on the seashore and
at another time it seems to have been inland. But for that very reason
I think that Avalon is as likely a place for it as any, for this place
was inland, just as it is now, but then the waters of the sea came in
around it. Yet the land around King Pelles's old castle was all laid
waste, and I have never heard that the land around Avalon was so. But
you see that it is all uncertain and strange, and we cannot be sure of
anything about it.
"I think I have told you the story about King Pelles and Balin before,
but I will tell you a little of it again, because it fits in so well
just here. King Pelles was descended from Joseph of Arimathaea, and, as
I said, he was the keeper of the Holy Grail. Once Balin came to his
castle, seeking for Garlon, a knight who had the power of riding
invisible and who killed other knights, when they could not see him.
Balin found him there and killed him, and King Pelles tried to avenge
his death, because he was his brother.
"Balin had broken his sword and he fled from King Pelles and ran through
the castle till he came to a chamber where Joseph of Arimathaea, who was
kept alive by the power of the Holy Grail, was lying in a bed. And
beside him was a spear, with drops of blood flowing from the point. It
was the spear with which the Roman soldier wounded the side of the
Christ when He was on the cross. Balin seized it and turned upon King
Pelles and wounded him with it in the side.
"Then the whole castle fell down around them and all the country about
it became waste and dry and desolate. Balin lay under the ruins for
three days, and then Merlin, the great magician of King Arthur's court,
came and woke him and gave him a horse and a sword and sent him on his
way. Afterwards Balin met his brother Balan, and they fought, neither
of them knowing who the other was, till they killed each other. Then
Merlin took the sword with which Balin had killed his brother and drove
it into a great stone, up to the hilt, and set the stone floating on the
river. And he wrote on the stone that no knight should ever draw this
sword out of the stone except the one to whom it should belong, the best
knight of the world.
"I cannot tell you how King Pelles got out of the ruins of his castle,
but afterwards he had another castle, the one that was called Carbonek.
He was still the keeper of the Grail. And it was foretold that the
wound in the side that Balin had given to him with the spear would never
be healed till the best knight of all the world should come. So for
many years King Pelles lived in his castle and bore the pain of a wound
that always seemed new and fresh, and waited for the coming of the best
knight of the world.
"This is getting to be a rather rambling sort of story, and while we are
rambling perhaps I may as well tell you about the adventure that Sir
Bors had at the Castle of Carbonek. Bors was a knight of the Round
Table. He was one of the best of all of them. He sat at the table in
the next seat but one to the Siege Perilous. The Siege Perilous was the
seat on the right of the King's. Merlin had made it when he made the
Round Table, and he said that no one should ever sit in it without
coming to harm, except the best knight of all the world. So for many
years no one had sat in that seat. And no one sat in the one next to it
either, but Bors sat in the one next to that. Next to him sat his
cousin Lancelot. They were the sons of two kings who were brothers, Ban
and Bors, who had helped King Arthur, when he first came to his throne.
"Lancelot was counted as the best of all King Arthur's knights. He was
the strongest and the bravest of them all, people said, and the best
fighter, and the King and the Queen loved him more than any of the
others. Nobody could see why he should not sit in the Siege Perilous,
but whenever a knight came to the Round Table his name appeared of
itself, in gold letters, in the seat that he was to have; and nobody
could sit in the Siege Perilous till his name came in it.
"But I set out to tell you about Sir Bors. Once Bors came to the Castle
of Carbonek. A wandering knight, in those days, was always welcome in
every castle, and so King Pelles welcomed Bors. The King was brought
into the hall and Bors was placed at the table between him and his
daughter. And there in the hall, too, Bors saw a beautiful child, a
boy, with deep eyes and a bright, sweet face and golden hair. He was the
son of King Pelles's daughter, and I will tell you more about him
another time.
"It was a strange way of entertaining guests that they had here, Bors
thought, for, though they were sitting at the table, there was nothing
to eat on it. Just as Bors noticed this he saw a white dove fly into
the room. It carried a little golden censer, by a chain which it held
in its beak. The thin smoke from the censer spread through the hall and
filled it with a strange, sweet odor. And while the dove flew about the
hall a girl came in, carrying something covered with white silk, which
she held high up in her hands. Bors could not see what it was that she
carried, but all who were in the hall knelt down and looked up toward
it, and Bors did the same. But though the covering of silk hid the thing
itself which was under it, there was something about it that it could
not hide. For the white silk was all glowing with a rosy light that
came from within it, and it shone through it and shed a rosy brightness
all through the hall. The dove flew out of the room again and the girl
went away too. And this was the Holy Grail that had passed, and Bors
had not seen it.
"But when it was gone and Bors looked at the table again it was covered
with food, finer and more delicious than Bors had ever tasted or seen
before. 'There are strange things to see in your castle, King Pelles,'
said Bors.
"'There are stranger things than you have seen yet,' King Pelles
answered. 'It is a place of wonders and of danger for knights, and few
of them leave here without coming to harm. Only for the best of them is
it safe to stay all night in my castle. You, Sir Knight, may stay if
you will, but it will be better for you to go, and so I warn you.'
"'It is not for me to say,' Bors answered, 'that I am better than other
knights, and indeed I know some who are better than I. But I am not
afraid to be in your castle for a night, and here I will stay.'
"'Do as you please,' said the King, 'but I have warned you.'
"So, when it was time to go to bed, Bors was led to a chamber and left
alone in it. Nothing that the King had said had made him afraid, but he
thought that it would be better not to take off his armor. And as soon
as he had lain down in his armor a great beam of light shone upon him.
He could not tell where it came from, but suddenly, along in the beam of
light, came a spear, with no hand to hold it, and a little stream of
blood flowed from the point of the spear. And before Bors could move the
spear came upon him and went through his armor as if it had been a
cobweb and made a deep wound in his side. The spear was drawn away
again, but with the pain Bors fell back upon his pillow and did not see
where it went.
"Then there came a knight, all armed, with his sword drawn, and the
knight said: 'Sir Bors, arise and fight with me.'
"Bors was almost fainting, because of the wound in his side, but he
arose and tried to fight. And when he tried he found that he could fight
better than he thought. He fought the other knight till he gave ground
before him, little by little, and at last Bors forced him out of the
chamber. Then Bors lay down again to rest, and all at once the room was
full of falling arrows. He could not see where they came from, any more
than he could see where anything else came from, but they fell all
around him and upon him. They pierced his armor, just as the spear had
done, as if there had been no armor, and they wounded him in many
places. And these wounds and the wound that the spear had made burned
and smarted more than before, and Bors felt weaker and fainter.
"Then a lion came into the chamber and sprang upon Bors and tore off his
shield. But again Bors found that he could fight if he tried, and he
struck the lion's head with his sword and killed it.
"And next there came an old man, who had a harp. He sat down and began
to play on the harp and to sing, and as he played a storm began to rise
outside the castle. At first it was only a rising of the wind that Bors
heard, but it grew and grew, till it swept through the halls and the
corridors of the castle and through the room where Bors lay. It caught
at the curtains and the tapestries of the chamber and almost tore them
from their places, and it shook the arms that hung on the walls, till
they rattled together with a dull, ghostly clatter. Bors could hear the
wind, too, rushing and roaring and screaming up over the towers. And
then the rain came, and the thunder, with noises of splitting and
crashing as if the hills around were breaking and rolling down into the
valleys, and the very walls shuddered and trembled, and the lightning
was so fierce that it seemed to shine through the walls, as if they had
been made of glass.
[Illustration: "AS HE PLAYED A STORM BEGAN TO RISE."]
"But all through the dreadful noise of the storm Bors could hear the
soft voice of the old man who sang, as if there had been no other sound.
He sang a song of how Joseph of Arimathaea had come to England and had
brought the Holy Grail. When he had finished it he spoke to Bors, and,
as he talked and as Bors answered him, the storm grew louder and more
terrible. 'Bors,' said the old man, 'leave this place. You have done
nobly here. There are few knights in the world who could bear all that
you have borne to-night. Tell your cousin Lancelot all that you have
seen, and tell him that it is he who should be here and should see these
things and more, but that he is not so good a knight as to be allowed to
see what you have seen. These things are only for the best of knights.'
"'It is well for you,' said Bors, 'that you are old. I am weary with
fighting and I am faint and dizzy with many wounds, but in spite of all,
if you were not old and weak, I would not hear you say such things of my
cousin Sir Lancelot. Sir Lancelot is the best knight that lives, and
what any good knight can do or see Lancelot can do or see.'
"'Bors, Bors,' said the old man again, 'do not think that you can
frighten me with loud talk. In the strength of his arm and the sureness
of his spear and the power of his sword, Lancelot is the best knight
that lives, but, for all that, he is not so good a knight as you, Sir
Bors. Bors, what did you, and what did Lancelot swear when King Arthur
made you knights of his Round Table?'
"'We swore,' said Bors, 'that we would help the King to guard his
people, that we would do right and justice, that in all things we would
be true and loyal to God and to the King.'
"'Yes, Bors,' said the old man, 'that was what you swore, and have you
kept your oath, both by your deeds and in your heart?'
"'As far as God has given me power,' Bors answered, 'I have kept it.'
"'Yes,' said the old man, 'you have kept it well. But how has Lancelot
kept it?'
"'Old man,' said Bors, 'do you dare to say to me, Lancelot's cousin and
his friend, that he has not kept his oath?'
"'Bors, Bors,' said the old man again, 'do not try to frighten me. I
dare to tell you anything that it is good for you to know. In all his
deeds Lancelot has kept his oath, but how has he kept it in his heart?
Go and ask him. Ask him if in his heart he has always been true and
loyal to the King. Ask him if he has never grown proud of his strength.
Ask him if he has not sometimes done his deeds for the Queen's praise,
and not for the King's love and the King's glory. Ask him if he has
never wished that he himself were such a king, with such a queen. Ask
him if that wish was all true and loyal to the King. Bors, Bors, out
there in the world, where you and Lancelot live, the strongest knight is
the best, and Lancelot is the best knight--out there in the world. But
this is the castle of the Holy Grail, and the Holy Grail searches the
hearts of men. Here, in this chamber, Sir Bors, Lancelot could not stay
as you have stayed and see what you have seen and bear what you have
borne.'
"As the old man ceased to speak it seemed to Bors that the burning of
his wounds grew less. While he was thinking of this and of what the old
man had said, the old man was gone, he could not tell where. Then, he
could not tell from where, the white dove flew into the room. It was the
same dove that he had seen in the hall, and it held the same little gold
censer in its beak, and again there was the sweet odor through the room.
And when the dove came the storm was ended. There was no more blinding
lightning and the thunder sounded only a little and far off. The rain
ceased and all the wind died down.
"Then Bors saw four children pass through the room, carrying four
lighted tapers. With the four children was a figure like an old man. It
wore a long, white robe, and a hood hung low down over the face, so that
all that Bors could see of it was the end of a white beard. In the right
hand was that spear, with the little stream of blood flowing from the
point. There was no one to tell Bors who this was, but somehow he
seemed to know that it was Joseph of Arimathaea.
"They passed through the room, but still Bors could see them in the next
chamber. The children knelt around the old man and he held high up in
his hands that wonderful thing with the covering of white silk. Again
the soft, rosy brightness glowed through the silk, and Bors did not know
why it was that when he saw it he felt so peaceful and glad. Then he
heard a loud voice that said: 'Sir Bors, leave this place; it is not yet
time for you to be here.'
"Then all at once the door was shut and Bors could not see the children
or the old man or what he carried. The strange, bright light that had
shone upon him all this time was gone. Outside the storm and the clouds
were past, and a clear ray of moonlight shone through the chamber. All
the pain of his wounds was gone and he sank back upon his pillow and
slept.
"When he awoke in the morning it seemed to him that he had never felt so
strong and fresh. The wounds that he had had from the spear and the
arrows had left no scar. And when King Pelles saw him he said: 'Sir
Bors, you have done here what few living knights could do, and I know
that you will prove one of the best knights of the world.'
"Then Bors remembered that the voice had told him that it was not time
yet for him to be in this place, so he took his horse and rode away
toward Camelot, to find Lancelot and to tell him what he had seen."
[Illustration: The Abbot's Kitchen]
*CHAPTER II*
*HOW WE DISCOVERED CAMELOT*
One of the strangest things about this kind of travel is to find how
much more you know about the country than the people do who live in it.
Before we came to England at all I had read in certain books that the
real Camelot was in the county of Somerset. It was at Camelot that King
Arthur lived more than anywhere else and where he had his finest castle.
So of course we were anxious to see Camelot. Our trouble did not seem
to be that we could not find it; it was that we found it in too many
places. We had been to Camelford, a poor little village in Cornwall,
earlier in our journey, and they had told us that that was Camelot. We
did not really believe it, but neither did I feel quite sure that my
books were right about the place in Somerset. We thought that it would
be best to see all the Camelots, so that we could make up our minds
which one we ought to believe in, or whether we ought to believe in any
of them at all.
I had studied the books and I had studied the maps, till I almost felt
that I could go straight to this Camelot, without any help. It was
still called Camelot, it seemed, and it was a fortified hill, near a
place called Queen Camel, some dozen miles to the south of Glastonbury.
It was lucky that I knew all this, because when we asked the people of
the hotel in Glastonbury if they could give us a carriage and a driver
to take us to Camelot they said that they had never heard of any such
place. They had heard of Queen Camel. They did not know just where
even that was, but they thought that it might be found. I felt so sure
that the books and the maps and I were right about it that I told them
that we would take the carriage and go to Queen Camel, and then we would
see if we could find Camelot. No doubt they thought that we were
insane, but that made no difference to us, and as long as we paid for
the carriage it made no difference to them.
Helen's mother is one of those dreadfully sensible people who always
want you to take umbrellas and things with you. She was not going with
us to discover Camelot, but she said that we must take umbrellas and
mackintoshes with us, because it was going to rain. It is always hard
to argue with these people, because they are so often right. This time
we really had no excuse for not taking them, for they would simply be
put in the bottom of the carriage and they would be no trouble. So we
took them, and we were scarcely outside Glastonbury before we found that
this was one of the times when Helen's mother was right. For then it
began to rain. The driver had taken the way that he thought was toward
Queen Camel, and we were riding across a great stretch of low, level
land. The wind swept across it, and the rain came at us in sheets. We
didn't mind it much, with our mackintoshes on, but I did think that it
was fair to ask Helen what she thought of the poet who said that this
Avalon was a place "Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow."
"Maybe it is," she answered, pulling her water-proof hood down so that
scarcely a bit of her could be seen, except the tip of her nose; "this
rain doesn't fall; it just comes against us sideways." So the poet's
reputation was saved.
It could not rain so hard as this very long, and by and by it stopped
altogether. Then it began again, and there were showers all day.
Sometimes it looked as if it were going to stop for good, but we could
scarcely get our waterproofs off before it began all over.
"Isn't it curious," I said, "that a storm coming up just here should
remind me of a story? It is about a time when Gawain had to go out in
bad weather. This is the right time to tell the story, too, while we
are looking for this particular Camelot. For the story begins at
Camelot, and the learned man who first dug it out of its old manuscript
and printed it says that Camelot was in Somerset.
"King Arthur was keeping Christmas at Camelot with his knights. The
feast lasted for many days. On New Year's Day, as they all sat in the
hall, the King and the Queen and the knights, there rode in the most
wonderful-looking man whom they had ever seen. He was dressed all in
green, and the big horse that he rode was green. And that was not all,
for the hair that hung down upon his shoulders was like long, waving
grass, and the beard that spread over his breast was like a green bush.
He wore no helmet and he carried no shield or spear. In one hand he
held a branch of holly and in the other a battle-axe. It was sharp and
polished so that it shone like silver. 'Who is the chief here?' he
cried.
"'I am the chief,' Arthur answered; 'sit down with us and help us keep
our feast.'
"'I have not come to eat and drink,' said the man in green. 'I have
come to see if it is true that you have brave knights in your court,
King Arthur.'
"'Then sit and eat with us first,' Arthur answered, 'and afterwards you
shall have as many good knights to joust with you as you can wish, and
you shall see whether they are brave.'
"'It is not for jousting that I have come, either,' said the man in
green. 'Do you see this axe of mine? I will lend it to any knight in
this hall who dares to strike me one blow with it, only he must promise
that afterwards I may strike him one blow with it, too. He shall strike
me with the axe now, and I will strike him with it a year from this
day.'
"This was such a new way of proving whether they were brave or not that
for a minute none of the knights answered. Then the King himself rose
and went toward the man in green. 'Give me your axe,' he said; 'none of
us here is afraid of your big talk; I will strike you with the axe
myself, and you shall strike me with it whenever you like.'
"Then Gawain sprang from his seat. Gawain was the King's nephew. And he
cried: 'My lord, let me try this game with him! You are the King, and
if any harm should come to you it would be the harm of all the country,
but one knight more or less will count but little.'
"Then many other knights begged the King to do as Gawain had said, and
the King thought of it a moment, and then gave the axe, which he had
taken from the man in green, to Gawain.
"Sir Knight,' said the man in green, 'will you tell me who you are?'
"'I am Gawain,' he said, 'the nephew of King Arthur.'
"'I have heard of you,' said the other, 'and I am glad that I shall
receive my blow from so great a knight. But will you promise that a
year from now you will seek me and find me, so that I may give you your
blow in return?'
"'I do not know who you are or where you live,' Gawain answered. 'If
you will tell me your name and where to find you, I will come to you
when the year is over.'
"'I will tell you those things,' said the man in green, 'after you have
struck me. If I cannot tell you then, you will be free of your promise
and you need not seek me.'
"Then the man in green came down from his horse, knelt on the floor
before Gawain, put his long, green hair aside from his neck, and told
Gawain to strike. Gawain swung the axe above his head and brought it
down upon the neck of the man in green, and his head was cut cleanly off
and rolled upon the floor. Instantly the green man sprang after it and
caught it in his hands, by the long, green hair. He sprang upon his
horse again and held up the head, with its face toward Gawain. 'Sir
Gawain,' it said 'seek for me till you find me, a year from now, so that
I may return your good blow. Bring the axe with you, and ask, wherever
you go, for the Knight of the Green Chapel.' Then he rode out of the
hall and away, still carrying the head in his hands.
"Of course Gawain and the King and all the rest thought that this was
the strangest adventure that they had ever seen. They were all sorry
for Gawain and they all wondered what would become of him, but there was
no danger for a year, and that always seems a long time, at the
beginning of it. So, as the time went on, they almost forgot about the
Knight of the Green Chapel, and even Gawain himself seemed to have no
dread of him. And the year went past like other years. Yet Gawain was
not forgetting his promise, and, as the time came near when he must keep
it, he began to wonder more and more who this Knight of the Green Chapel
could be and where he must go to look for him. 'It may take me a long
time to find him,' he said to the King at last, 'and so I mean to leave
the court and to begin my search on All Saints' Day.'
"'Yes,' said the King,' that will be best. And we know all the places
and nearly all the knights here in the South and in the West of England,
and over in the East, but we have never heard of this Knight of the
Green Chapel, so it will be best for you to seek him in the North.'
"So, on All Saints' Day, King Arthur made a feast, that all the knights
of the court might be together and bid Gawain good-by. They called it a
feast, but there was no happiness in it. They were all sad at the
parting and with the fear that Gawain would never come back.
"And when the time came they helped Gawain to put on the finest armor
that could be found for him and he mounted his horse and left them. He
rode slowly at first, and as soon as he came to places that he did not
know he began to ask the people whom he met if they could tell him where
to find the Green Chapel and the Knight of the Green Chapel. But no one
had ever heard of such a place or of such a person.
"He went farther and farther into the North, and as his time grew
shorter he tried to travel faster, for he felt that it would be a shame
to him if he did not find the Knight of the Green Chapel by New Year's
Day. Up great hills he went and down into deep valleys, across wide,
lonely plains, with freezing winds sweeping over them, and through dark
forests, where the wind cried up among the treetops and the trees
groaned and sighed in answer. Often he met wild beasts, wolves that
barked and leaped and sprang about him and tried to pull down his horse.
But he killed them or beat them and drove them away. Then he came to
plains where for many miles he saw no houses and no people. Often he
had to sleep in his armor, lying on the ground. Often he had to go so
long without food that he was faint with hunger, as well as weary.
"As the days went by the winter came on rougher and stormier and colder.
Then the winds that swept across the plains were full of driving rain
and sleet and snow. They cut against his face and almost blinded him,
and his horse could scarcely labor through the drifts and stand against
the storm. The wet sleet found its way into the joints of his armor and
froze there, and it froze into the chains of his mail and choked them
up, so that it was all rigid and hard, and it was as if all that he wore
were one solid piece of iron or ice. So terrible it was that he almost
forgot why he had come, and all that he wanted was to find some place
where he and his horse could rest and be warm. But at night he must get
off his horse, though he could scarcely bend his limbs, in his frozen
armor, and lie down in it, with no shelter but a tree, or perhaps a high
rock, and try to sleep till the light came, so that he could go on
again.
"Yet wherever he saw any people he asked them if they knew of the Knight
of the Green Chapel, and always they answered no. Then he told them how
the knight looked, but they all shook their heads or stared at him or
laughed, and they all said that they had never seen such a knight. Some
of them thought that he must be mad, to be wandering all by himself and
asking for a knight with green hair and a green beard, and sometimes
Gawain himself almost thought that he must be mad. Sometimes he
thought: 'I will hunt for him only till New Year's Day. If I have not
found him then it is his fault that he did not tell me where to come,
and I shall be free of my promise.' And then at other times he thought:
'I will not count my promise as so small a thing; I will seek this
knight as long as I live, if I do not find him, for the honor of King
Arthur and the Round Table.'
"And the cold and the storm and the long, rough journey seemed worst of
all to Gawain on Christmas Eve, for then he thought most of the King and
the Queen and the knights whom he had left at Camelot. He knew that
they were all together in the great hall now, that the fires were
blazing, that the minstrels were singing, and that a noble feast was
spread upon the Round Table. He thought of his own place at that table,
where he had sat a year ago, empty now. Did the others look at that
seat and think of him and wonder where he was? It was a common thing,
he knew, for Arthur's knights to be away from the hall seeking
adventures, and he knew that those who were left behind went on with
their feasting at such times as these, just as if all were there. No,
it was a little thing to them that he was gone, he thought. They were
laughing together and eating and drinking, and perhaps some one was
telling them some strange old tale, and they were warm and happy; and
the light of the fires and the torches was shining on the windows of the
hall, so that the people of the country miles away could see it and
could say: 'King Arthur and his knights are at Camelot to-night keeping
the Christmas feast.' And here was he alone, cold, hungry, weary,
riding over the rough ways and through the rough night, to find a man
who was to kill him.
"Then there came another thought that made him stronger: 'The honor of
the Round Table to-night is not all with those who sit about it; it is
here with me too. I am here because it was I who dared to come, for the
King and for all of them. If I never go back the King and all of them
will know that, and they will not forget. And now my time is short and I
must not rest any more. I will ride all night and go as far as I can to
find the Knight of the Green Chapel by New Year's Day.'
"So Gawain rode all night. In the morning he was in a great forest,
where it would have been too dark for him to ride, but for the snow that
lay everywhere, so that he could dimly see the black trunks of the trees
against it. And before the first cold light of the late morning fell
into the forest, he saw it touch the top of a high hill before him, and
there he saw a castle. It was one of the greatest castles he had ever
seen, with strong towers and thick walls and high ramparts. And as soon
as he saw it, it seemed to him as if the last strength went out of him
and his horse too, so that they could scarcely climb the hill to come to
the gate and ask if they might come in.
"But they reached the gate and the porter said: 'Come in, Sir Knight;
the lord of the castle will welcome you and you can stay as long as you
will.' And the lord of the castle did welcome him and Gawain let his
men lead him to a chamber, where they took off his armor and gave him a
rich robe to wear. Then they led him back to the hall and placed him at
the table with the lord and his wife and his daughter.
"They asked him who he was, and he told them that he was Gawain, a
knight of the Round Table. 'It is a proud day for us,' said the lord,
'so far away up here in the North, when a knight comes to us from the
court of King Arthur, and now you will stay with us and help us keep our
Christmas.'
"'No,' said Gawain, 'I cannot stay, for I must go on and find the Knight
of the Green Chapel,' and then he told them all that he knew about this
knight and why he had made this journey.
"'Then you will stay with us,' said the lord, 'for the Green Chapel is
only two miles from here, and on New Year's Day some one of my servants
shall show you the way there.'
"So Gawain stayed, and, on the third day after he had come to the
castle, the lord told him that on the next day he was going hunting and
asked Gawain if he would go too. 'No,' Gawain answered, 'it is only four
days now before I must go to the Knight of the Green Chapel. I have no
magic, such as he has, to guard myself against him, and he will kill me.
It is not a time now for me to think of hunting or of other pleasures.
I must think of more solemn things.'
"'Then shall we make a bargain?' said the lord. 'I will go to the hunt
to-morrow, and you shall stay here at the castle. When I come home I
will give you all that I have got in the hunt, and you shall give me all
that you have got by staying here.'
"'It shall be so, if you wish it,' said Gawain.
"The next morning the lord and his men were away early at the hunt.
Gawain breakfasted with the lady of the castle and her daughter, and
afterward they left him and he sat alone in the hall. Then the lord's
daughter came back, without her mother, and sat on the seat beside him.
'Sir Knight,' she said, 'will you tell me about King Arthur's court?'
"'What shall I tell you?' he asked.
"'We are so far away from all the world here!' she said. 'We never see
a town or a court or any people, except those who live here with us.
But sometimes we hear strange things and beautiful things about Camelot
and Caerleon and London and the court of King Arthur. They say that we
cannot believe how grand it is, and they say that there are such feasts
and tournaments, and that all the knights and the ladies are so happy
there in King Arthur's court! And oh! will you tell me one thing! Is
it true that every knight of King Arthur's has some lady whom he loves
more than anybody else, and is it true that every lady has some knight
whom she loves, who fights for her and wears something that she gave
him, a sleeve or a chain or a jewel, and tells everybody that she is the
most beautiful lady in the world?'
"'There are many knights,' Gawain answered, 'who have ladies whom they
love and who love them, and they do all the things that you have said.'
"The girl looked at Gawain and was silent for a little while, and then
she said: 'Sir Knight, is it too much that I am going to ask? I would
not ask you to be my knight, for there must be many ladies in King
Arthur's court more beautiful and more noble than I am. You would have
to love some one of them, I suppose. Only do not tell me so, and I will
not ask you. But after you have gone let me remember you and love you,
and I will try not to think whether you love me or not.'
"'My child,' said Gawain, 'I am here in your father's castle and he
trusts me, and it is not right that I should talk to you of such things
without his leave. And besides that, it is not right for me to think of
such things now. You know that I am going to find the Knight of the
Green Chapel. Your father has promised that on New Year's Day he will
send me to him. Then the Knight of the Green Chapel will kill me. I
have only three days more to live, and it is no time for me to think of
love.'
"'But why must you find this wicked Knight of the Green Chapel?' she
asked. 'Go back to Camelot and tell the King and the knights that you
fought him and that he could not hurt you. Nobody will know but us. We
never go to court and we never would tell anybody what you had done.'
"'No, no,' said Gawain, 'I promised him that I would find him. Now I
must find him or I never could go back to King Arthur's court or be one
of his knights again.'
"Then the girl started to go out of the hall, but when she was at the
door she turned and came back to Gawain. 'Will you let me kiss you just
once?' she said. And Gawain let her kiss him and she went away.
"At night, when the lord of the castle came home from the hunt, he
brought with him a deer that he had killed. He gave it to Gawain and
said: 'This is what I got in the hunt; now give me what you got by
staying behind.'
"Then Gawain gave him a kiss. 'Indeed,' said the lord, 'I think that
you have done better than I. Where did you get this?'
"'It was not in our bargain,' said Gawain, 'that I should tell you
that.'
"'Very well, then,' said the lord, 'shall we make the same bargain for
to-morrow?'
"'Yes,' said Gawain, 'if you wish it.'
"So the next day the lord rode to the hunt again and Gawain stayed
behind, as he had done before. And again the lord's daughter came to
him as he sat in the hall. 'Sir Knight,' she said, 'is it because you
have some other lady whom you love that you will not let me be your
lady? I do not ask you to love me, you know, only to let me love you.'
"'No,' Gawain answered, 'I have no lady, and if I might have any now, I
could love you as well as any other, but I have only two more days to
live and I must not think of such things.'
"Then the girl kissed him twice and went away. When the lord came back
that evening he brought the head and the sides of a wild boar that he
had killed. He gave these to Gawain and Gawain gave him two kisses.
'You always have better luck than I,' said the lord.
"Then they made the same bargain for the third day, and in the morning
the lord rode to the hunt and Gawain stayed behind. As he sat in the
hall the lord's daughter came to him again. 'Sir Knight,' she said,
'since you will do nothing else, will you not wear something of mine, as
the knights at King Arthur's court do for their ladies? See, this is
it, my girdle of green lace. And it is good for a knight to wear, for
while you have this around your body you can never be wounded.'
"Then Gawain thought that such a girdle as this would indeed be of use
to him, when the time came for the Knight of the Green Chapel to strike
him with his axe. So he took the girdle and thanked her for it, and she
kissed him three times and went away.
"That night the lord of the castle brought home the skin of a fox. He
gave it to Gawain and Gawain gave him three kisses. 'Your luck grows
better every day,' said the lord.
"Early the next morning Gawain rose and called for his armor and his
horse. One of the lord's servants was to show him the way to the Green
Chapel. The snow was falling again and there was a fierce, cold wind.
It was not daylight yet. They rode over rough hills and through deep
valleys for a long time, and at last, when it had grown as light as it
would be at all on such a dull, dreary day, the servant stopped. 'You
are not far now,' he said, 'from the Green Chapel. I can go with you no
farther. Ride on into this valley. When you are at the bottom of it
look to your left and you will see the chapel.'
"Then the servant turned back and left Gawain alone. He rode to the
bottom of the valley and looked about, but nothing like a chapel did he
see. But at last he saw a hole in a great rock, a cave, with vines,
loaded down with snow, almost hiding its mouth. Then it seemed to
Gawain that he heard a sound inside the cave, and he called aloud: 'Is
the Knight of the Green Chapel here? Gawain has come to keep his
promise to him. He has brought his axe, so that he may pay back the
blow that he received a year ago. Is the Knight of the Green Chapel
here?'
"Then a voice from the cave said: 'I am here, Sir Gawain, and I am
waiting for you. You have kept your time well.'
"And then out of the cave came the Green Knight. It seemed to Gawain
that he looked stronger and fiercer than when he was at Arthur's court,
and that his hair and beard were longer and of a brighter green. 'Give
me my axe,' he cried, 'and take off your helmet and be ready for my
stroke. Let us not delay!'
"'I want no delay,' said Gawain, and he took off his helmet, knelt down
on the snow and bent his neck, ready for the knight to strike. The
Green Knight raised his axe, and then, in spite of himself, Gawain drew
a little away from him.
"'How is this?' said the Green Knight; 'are you afraid? I did not
flinch when you struck me, a year ago.'
"'I shall not flinch again,' said Gawain; 'strike quickly.'
"Then the knight raised his axe a second time and Gawain was as still as
a stone. But this time the axe did not fall. 'Now I must strike you,'
said the Green Knight.
"'Strike, then, and do not talk about it,' said Gawain; 'I believe you
yourself are losing heart.'
"This time the knight swung the axe quickly up over his head and brought
it down with a mighty force upon Gawain's neck, and it made only a
little scratch. The girdle of green lace would not let him be wounded.
Then he sprang up and drew his sword and cried: 'Now, Knight of the
Green Chapel, take care of yourself. I have kept my promise and let you
strike me once, but I warn you that if you strike again I shall resist
you.'
"'Put up your sword,' the Knight of the Green Chapel answered; 'I do not
want to harm you. I could have used you much worse than I have, if I
had wished. I tried only to prove you, and you are the bravest and the
truest knight that I have ever found. I am the lord of the castle where
you have stayed for this last week. I knew where you got your kisses,
for I myself sent my daughter to you to try you, and you would not do
what you thought would not be right toward me, and you would not let any
thoughts of love turn you aside from your promise to the Knight of the
Green Chapel. You were well tried and you proved most true. It was
because of that and because you kept your word to me on the first two
days that I went to the hunt, that I did not strike you the first or the
second time that I raised my axe. But the third time I did strike you,
because you were untrue to me in one little thing. For you said that
you would give me all that you got by staying in the castle, yet you did
not give me the girdle of green lace. It was I who sent that to you by
my daughter, too. But you kept it only to save your life, and so I
forgive you, and to show you that I forgive you, you may keep it now
always.'
"But Gawain tore off the girdle and threw it at the feet of the Knight
of the Green Chapel. 'Take it back!' he cried, 'I do not deserve ever to
be called an honorable knight again! I came here for the honor of the
Round Table, and then I broke my promise to you. Tell me why you came
to our court and why you brought me to this shame, and then I will go
back to King Arthur and tell him that I am not worthy any longer to be
one of his knights. He will ask me why you did this, so tell me and let
me go away, for now I have lied to you and I cannot look you in the
face.'
"'I did it,' said the Knight of the Green Chapel, 'because the great
enchantress, Queen Morgan-le-Fay, King Arthur's sister, who hates him,
told me that all his knights were cowards. She said that all who praised
them lied or were themselves deceived and that some good knight ought to
go and prove them to be the cowards that they were. So I went to try
whether they were brave or not, and it was by the magic of Queen
Morgan-le-Fay that I was not killed when you cut off my head. But now I
see that what I did was wrong. It was Morgan-le-Fay, I see now, who
hoped to bring shame on King Arthur's court, because she hated him. And
you have shown me that Arthur's knights are brave and true, for you took
my challenge and came up here into the North to find me and to let me
kill you. Now come back with me to my castle and help us to keep the
festival of the New Year. Take up your girdle and come.'
"But Gawain was still filled with shame and horror at what he had done.
'I will not go back with you,' he said, 'but I will keep the girdle to
remind me of this time. If I ever feel that I am doing better things
and if I ever begin to grow proud of them, I will look at this girdle
and it will make me remember how I broke my word.'
"And Gawain would not listen to anything more that the knight said, but
he mounted his horse and turned him toward the south and rode away.
Gawain never knew what happened to him on that journey back to Camelot.
Perhaps the nights were as cold and the ways as rough as they had been
before. Perhaps the wild beasts came against him again. Perhaps the
storms still drove the snow and the sleet against him, so that they cut
him in the face and froze into his armor. He cared for none of these
things and he remembered none of them afterwards. His one thought was
to get back to Camelot and tell the King that he was no longer worthy to
be his knight, and then to go where no one who had known him should ever
see him again.
"And so he rode on, as fast as he could, for he did not know how many
days, and at last, in the early winter evening, he saw the glow in the
windows of the castle at Camelot. Once more he hurried his horse till
he reached the gate. He threw himself down from the saddle and hastened
to the hall, where a great shout went up: 'Gawain is alive and he has
come back!' and the knights and the ladies crowded around him to ask him
where he had been and what he had seen and done. He pushed his way
through them all and threw himself down upon the floor before the King.
He told all of his story, how he had gone out for the honor of the Round
Table and how he had broken his word and been shamed, and at the end he
held up the girdle of green lace and said: 'My lord, I shall leave you
now and I shall never see you again, for I am not worthy to be your
knight, but I shall carry this with me, and shall always wear it, so
that I never can forget my shame."
"And the King answered: 'Gawain, you are still among the best of my
knights. You failed a little at last, but it was no coward and no false
knight who went up there to seek his death and to keep a promise that he
need not have kept. Wear your girdle, but it shall be no shame to you.
And that it may be none all my knights shall wear girdles of green lace
like it.
"So the story says that all of King Arthur's knights wore green lace
girdles in honor of Gawain. I don't know what became of the girdles
afterwards, but they cannot have worn them always, or at least Gawain
cannot have worn his. For you know he could never be wounded while he
had it on, and he certainly was wounded afterwards. But I will tell you
about that when I get to it."
About the time that we got to the end of this story we came to a place
which the driver said was as far from Glastonbury as he had ever been in
this direction. We stopped at a little inn by the road, and the driver
asked the way to Queen Camel. We also asked the man who told him if he
had ever heard of a hill or of any sort of place about here called
Camelot, but he never had. So we went on to find it for ourselves.
After more riding and more asking of the way and more showers, we came
to Queen Camel. It was past luncheon-time then, and, what was more to
the point, it was past the horse's luncheon-time. So we decided that we
would not go any farther till we had all had something to eat.
The Bell looked like the best hotel in the place, so we went there and
astonished the proprietor and all the servants by asking for something
to eat. But we got it, and while we were at luncheon the driver put the
horse in the stable and then talked with the proprietor, to find out
whether he knew anything about Camelot. Now the keeper of this bit of an
hotel must have been a remarkably intelligent man, for he really did
know something about it. He came in to see us and he said that he
thought that it must be Cadbury Castle that we were looking for. Then a
great light shone upon me and I remembered what I ought to have
remembered before, that one of my books at home had said that it was
called Cadbury Castle now. "But do they not call it Camelot too?" I
asked him. I did not like to give up that name.
"Oh, yes, sir," he said, "they call it Camelot too."
"And do they say that King Arthur lived there?"
"No, sir, he didn't live there; he placed his army there."
Then the landlord went away and came back with a big book, a history of
Somersetshire, or something of that sort, to show us what it had to say
about Cadbury Castle. It did not say much that I did not know before,
but it said enough to prove what I wanted to know most of all. And that
was that this Cadbury Castle was without any doubt the place that we
were looking for. We finished our luncheon, the landlord showed us our
way, and we went on again.
It was only a little way now. We were to find a steep road that led up
the side of the hill to Cadbury Castle. It was too steep, we were told,
to take our carriage up, and we should have to leave it at the bottom
and walk. And so it proved. We found the hill and the steep little
track up its side. We got down from the carriage, and, while we waited
for the driver to find a safe place to leave the horse, we gazed up the
hill, along the rough little road, and knew that at last we were before
the gates of Camelot.
[Illustration: "The city and the fortress of the rabbits"]
*CHAPTER III*
*THE BOY FROM THE FOREST*
We walked up the steep road, and just before we came to the top of the
hill the rain began again. There was one little house near the top and
we decided to let Camelot wait for a few minutes longer and go into the
house and stay till the rain stopped.
The woman of the house seemed to be glad to see us, and she asked us to
write our names in her visitors' book. The names and the dates in the
book showed that Camelot had some six or eight visitors a year. Of
course we tried to get the woman to tell us something about the place,
and of course we failed. She knew that it was called Cadbury Castle and
sometimes Camelot and sometimes the Camp. She knew that the well close
by her house was called King Arthur's Well, but she did not know why.
The water in it was not good to drink, and in dry times they could not
get water from it at all. She got drinking-water and in dry times all
the water that she used from St. Anne's Wishing Well, a quarter of a
mile around the hill. She did not know what that name meant either. She
used to have a book that told all about the place, but she couldn't show
it to us, because it had been lent to somebody and had never been
returned. The vicar had studied a good deal about the place too, and he
knew all about it. Could we find the vicar and get him to tell us about
it? Oh, no, it wasn't the present vicar, it was the old vicar, and he
was dead.
So we gave up learning anything and waited for the rain to stop, and
then went out to see as much as we could for ourselves. The hilltop was
broad and level. I can't tell just how broad, because I am no judge of
acres, but I believe it was several. It had a low wall of earth around
it, covered with grass, of course, like all the rest of the place. When
we stood on the top of this wall and looked down, we saw that the ground
sloped away from us till it made a sort of ditch, and then rose again
and made another earth wall, a little way down the hillside. Then it
did the same thing again, and yet once more. So in its time this
hilltop must have had four strong walls around it. It really looked
much more like a fort or camp than like a city. It seemed too small for
a city, though it might have been a pretty big camp. If we had been
looking for hard facts, I think we should have believed what the
hotel-keeper had said, that this was not where King Arthur lived, but
where he placed his army.
I remembered reading somewhere that the Britons and the Romans and the
Saxons had all held this place at different times. I had read, too, I
was sure, that parts of old walls, of a dusky blue stone, and old coins
had been found here. It was a fine place for a camp or a castle. It was
so high and breezy and we could see for so many miles across the
country, that we could understand how useful and pleasant it must have
been for either or for both. It was pleasant enough now, this broad,
grassy hilltop, with its four grassy walls and the woodland sloping away
from it all around. But nobody lived here now to enjoy it--nobody, that
is to say, but the rabbits. For the place is theirs now, and they dig
holes in the ground and make their houses where King Arthur's castle
stood, where he and his knights sat in the hall about the Round Table,
and where all the greatest of the world came to see all that was richest
and noblest and best for kings and knights to be and to enjoy.
The rabbits scuttled across our way, as we walked about, and leaped into
their holes, when we came near, and then looked timidly out again, when
we had gone past, and wondered what we were doing and what right we had
here in their Camelot. There were only these holes now, where once
there were palaces and churches, and no traces of old glories, but the
walls of earth and turf. Yet it seemed better to me that Camelot should
be left alone and forgotten, like this, the city and the fortress of the
rabbits, but still high and open and fresh and free, than that it should
be a poor little town, full of poor little people, like Camelford.
Helen said that she thought so too, when I asked her, and she was
willing that this should be Camelot, if I thought that it really was.
"Really and truly and honestly," I said, "I think that this is as likely
to have been Camelot as any place that we have seen or shall see. It is
lucky for us that we know more about it than the people who live about
here do. If we did not I am afraid it would not interest us much. I
think that I have read somewhere that the King and his knights were
still here on the hilltop, kept here and made invisible by some
enchantment, that at certain times they could be seen, and that some
people had really seen them. I don't believe this story, but while we
are here let us believe at least, with all our might, that we are really
and truly in Camelot.
"Now here is a story, with Camelot in it, that you ought to hear. You
must not mind if it makes you think of a story that we saw once in the
fire. There are different ways of telling the same story, you know, and
this is a different way of telling that same story.
"Once, when Arthur was first King of England, he had a good knight
called Sir Percivale. He was killed in a tournament by a knight whom no
one knew. Some who saw the fight said that it was not a fair one and
that Sir Percivale was as good as murdered. The knight who killed him
wore red armor, and once, when his visor was up, Arthur saw his face.
No one knew where the knight went afterward and Arthur could never find
him to make him answer for the death of Sir Percivale.
"Now this Sir Percivale had seven sons and a daughter, and six of his
sons were killed also, in tournaments or battles. But the youngest of
the sons was not old enough yet to be a knight, and when his mother had
lost her husband and all her sons but him, she resolved that he should
never be a knight. His name was Percivale, like his father's. It was
right, she thought, for her to keep this last son that she had safe and
not to let him fight and be killed, as his father and his brother's had
been. And she feared so much that when he grew up he would want to be a
knight, like the others, that she resolved that he should never know
anything about knights or tournaments or wars or arms.
"She took him far away from the place where they had lived, and made a
home in the woods. It was far from the towns and the tournaments and
the courts, and it was even away from the roads that led through the
country. It was a lonely place that the mother chose, and she hoped
that no one would ever come to it from the world that she had left. She
brought her daughter with her, I suppose, though the story says nothing
about her just here, and she brought nobody else but servants--women and
boys and old men. Nobody in her house was ever allowed to speak of
knights or arms or battles or anything that had to do with them. She
would not even have any big, strong horses kept about the place, because
they reminded her of the war horses that knights rode. She tried to
bring up her boy so that he should know only of peaceful things. He
should know the trees and the flowers of the woods, she thought; he
should know the goats and the sheep and the cows that they kept, how the
fruits grew in the orchard, how the birds lived in the trees and the
bees in their hive; but he should never know the cruel ways of men out
in the world. He should see the axe of the woodman, not the battle-axe;
the scythe, not the sword; the crook of the shepherd, not the spear.
"So the boy grew up in the forest and ran about wherever he would and
climbed the trees and followed the squirrels and studied the nests of
the birds and knew all the plants that grew and all the animals that
lived about him. If it had not been for many things that his mother
taught him he would have been almost like one of the animals of the wood
himself. He could run almost as fast as the deer and he could climb
almost as well as the squirrel, and he could sing as well as some of the
birds.
"When he grew a little older his mother let him have a bow and arrows to
play with and shoot at marks, but nobody told him that men used bows and
arrows to shoot at one another or that men ever wanted to harm one
another. But he began to shoot at the birds with his arrows, and at
last he hit one of them and killed it. Then he looked at the dead bird
lying at his feet and he heard the other birds singing all around him.
And he thought: 'I have done a dreadful thing; a little while ago this
bird was singing too, and was as happy as the rest of them, and now it
can never sing any more or be happy any more, because I have killed it.'
And he broke his bow and threw it away and he threw himself down on the
ground beside the little dead bird and cried at what he had done. And
when his mother saw how grieved he was she said that all the birds
should be driven away, so that they should not trouble him. But
Percivale begged her to let them stay. He liked to hear them sing, and
to drive them off would be a crueler thing than he had done already.
And his mother thought: 'The boy is right; I brought him here to find
peace and safety for both of us, and why should I not let the poor birds
stay in peace and safety too?'
"But it was foolish for the poor woman to think that she could keep her
boy so that he would never know anything of the world. The world was
all around him, no matter how far off, and it was sure some time to come
where he was. And so, one day, as he was wandering in the wood, he saw
three horses coming, larger and stronger and finer than any horses he
had ever seen before. And on their backs, he thought, were three men,
but he could not feel sure, for they did not look like any men whom he
had ever seen. They seemed to be all covered with iron, which was
polished so that it glistened where the light touched it, and they wore
many gay and beautiful colors besides. He stood and looked at them till
they came close to him, and then one of them said: 'My boy, have you
seen a knight pass this way?'
"'I do not know what a knight is,' Percivale answered.
"'We are knights,' the man on the horse said; 'have you seen anyone like
us?'
"But Percivale was wondering so much at what he saw that he could not
answer. 'What is this?' he asked, touching the knight's shield.
"'That?' the knight answered, 'that is my shield.'
"'And what is it for?'
"'To keep other knights from hitting me with their spears or their
swords.'
"'Spears? What are they?'
"'This is a spear,' the knight answered, showing him one.
"'And what is this?'
"'That is a saddle.'
"'And what is this?'
"'A sword.'
"And so Percivale asked the knights about everything that they wore and
everything that they carried and all that was on their horses. 'And
where did you get these things?' he asked. 'Did you always wear them?'
"'No,' the knight answered; 'King Arthur gave me these arms when he made
me a knight.'
"'Then you were not always a knight?' Percivale asked again.
"'Why, no, I was a squire, a young man, like you, and King Arthur made
me a Knight and gave me these arms.'
"'Who is King Arthur, and where is he?'
"'He is the King of the country, and he lives at Camelot.'
"Then Percivale ran home as fast as he could and said to his mother:
'Mother, I saw some knights in the forest, and one of them told me that
he was not a knight always, but King Arthur made him one, and before
that he was a young man like me. And now I want to go to King Arthur,
too, and ask him to make me a knight, so that I can wear bright iron
things like them and ride on a big horse.'
"The instant that she heard the word 'knights' the mother knew that all
her care was lost. The boy was a man now. He had seen what other men
were like and she knew that he would never be happy again till he was
like the rest of them. Before her mind, all at once, everything came
back--the court, the field of the tournament, the men all dressed in
steel, with their sharp, cruel spears, the gleaming lines charging
against each other, the knights falling from their horses and rolling on
the ground. Her brain whirled around as she thought of all this, and
her one last son in the midst of it, to be killed, perhaps, as the rest
had been. But she knew that he must go--that he would go--nothing could
keep him with her now.
"'My son,' she said, 'if you will leave me and be a knight, like those
that you have seen, go to King Arthur. His are the best of knights and
among them you will learn all that you ought to know. Before you are a
knight the King will make you swear that you will be always loyal and
upright, that you will be faithful, gentle, and merciful, and that you
will fight for the right of the poor and the weak. Percivale, some
knights forget these things, after they have sworn them, but you will
not forget. Remember them the more because I tell them to you now. Be
ready always to help those who need help most, the poor and the weak and
the old and children and women. Keep yourself in the company of wise
men and talk with them and learn of them. Percivale, the King will make
you swear, too, that you will fear shame more than death. And I tell
you that. I have lost your father and your brothers, but I would rather
lose you, too, than not to know that you feared shame more than death.'
"Then, from the horses that his mother had, Percivale chose the one he
thought the best. It was not a war horse, of course, and it was not even
a good saddle horse, but it would carry him. He put some old pieces of
cloth on the horse's back, for a saddle, and with more of these, and
bits of cord and woven twigs he tried to make something to look like the
trappings that he had seen on the horses of the knights. Then he found a
long pole and sharpened the end of it, to make it look like a spear.
When he had done all that he could he got on the back of the horse, bade
his mother good-by, and rode away to find the court of King Arthur.
"The King and the Queen and their knights were in the great hall of the
castle at Camelot, when a strange knight, dressed in red armor, came in
and walked straight to where the King and the Queen sat. A page was
just offering to the Queen a gold goblet of wine. The red knight seized
the goblet and threw the wine in the Queen's face. Then he said: 'If
there is any one here who is bold enough to avenge this insult to the
Queen and to bring back this goblet, let him follow me and I will wait
for him in the meadow near the castle!' Then he left the hall, took his
horse, which he had left at the door, and went to the meadow.
"In the hall all the knights jumped from their places. But for an
instant they only stood and stared at one another. They remembered the
Green Knight, and they thought that this other knight would never dare
to do what he had done, unless he had some magic to guard him against
them. I am sure that in a moment some one of them would have gone after
him, but just in that moment a strange-looking young man rode straight
into the hall, on a poor, old, boney horse. He looked so queer, with
his simple dress and the saddle and trappings that he had made himself,
and his rough pole for a spear, that the knights almost forgot the
insult to the Queen in looking at him, and some of them laughed as they
saw him ride through the hall toward the King, with no more thought of
fear than if he had been a king himself. He came to where Kay, King
Arthur's seneschal, stood, and said to him: 'Tall man, is that King
Arthur who sits there?'
"'What do you want with King Arthur?' said Kay.
"'My mother told me,' the young man answered, 'to come to King Arthur
and be made a knight by him.'
"'You are not fit to be a knight,' said Kay; 'go back to your cows and
your goats.' Kay was a rough sort of fellow and he was always saying
unpleasant things without waiting to find out what he was talking about.
"Then a dwarf came close to the boy and cried out: 'Percivale, you are
welcome here! I know that you will be one of the best of knights, for I
knew your father and your brothers, and they were all good knights!'
"And Kay was so angry with the dwarf for speaking in this way that he
struck him and knocked him down. Now when Arthur had seen the red
knight come into the hall and insult the Queen and then go away again,
he had been as much astonished as any of the knights, and he had
thought, just as they had, that he must have some charm to protect him.
But he had had another thought, and it was: 'Where have I seen the face
of that knight before?' And when the young man had come into the hall
he had thought again: 'I have seen that face, too, before.' But when he
heard the dwarf call him by name he remembered it all. 'Young man,' he
said, 'are you the son of my old knight, Sir Percivale? I know that you
are, because you are so much like him, and the man who killed your
father was here just now and insulted the Queen and all of us.'
"'Yes, yes,' Kay shouted, 'go after him, boy, and avenge your father and
avenge the Queen and bring back her golden goblet! And when you have
killed him you can have his horse and his armor, and then you will look
fit to be made a knight.'
"'I will do what you say,' the boy answered, and he turned his horse and
rode out of the hall again. When he came to the meadow the red knight
was there, riding up and down. 'Boy,' he said, 'do you know if anyone is
coming from the hall to take this gold cup from me?'
"'I have come from the hall,' Percivale answered, 'to take that gold cup
from you.'
"'Go back and tell the King,' said the red knight, 'to send a man, a
knight, to take it. And tell him that I will not wait much longer.'
"'I mean to take it from you myself,' said Percivale again, 'so be ready
for me.'
"Then Percivale made his poor old horse go as fast as it could, and he
came against the red knight with his pointed pole. The knight tried to
strike the pole aside with his spear, but Percivale hit him fairly with
it and knocked him off his horse. And in falling he managed somehow to
break his neck.
"All that had passed in the hall since the red knight had appeared there
had passed so quickly that the King and the knights had scarcely had
time to know what was going on at all till it was all over. But when
Percivale had gone to find the red knight, Uwain, King Arthur's nephew,
said: 'Kay, it was not right for you to send such a boy as that after a
knight who is no doubt a hard fighter. The knight will kill him, and
then a double disgrace will fall upon the court, that of letting the boy
be killed and that of sending no good man to avenge the insult to the
Queen. Now I will go and see if I am in time to save the boy and punish
the knight.'
"So Uwain went to the meadow and there he found Percivale trying to take
off the dead knight's armor. He could not do it, because he knew
nothing about armor and did not know how it was fastened. So Uwain
showed him how to take it off and then how to dress himself in it. 'And
now,' said Uwain, 'come to King Arthur and I know that he will gladly
make you a knight, for you have shown that you are worthy to be one.'
"'No, 'said Percivale, 'I will not go back now. But tell me, what is
the name of the tall man who told me to follow this knight?'
"'He is Sir Kay,' Uwain answered, 'King Arthur's seneschal.'
"Then Percivale said: 'Take this gold cup back to the Queen and tell her
that I have avenged the insult to her. Tell King Arthur that wherever I
go I will be his servant and will try to do him what honor I can, but
tell Sir Kay that I will never come back to King Arthur's court till I
have met him and punished him for striking the dwarf who greeted me when
I came into the hall. My mother told me to fight for the poor and the
weak, and I am sure that dwarf is weak and I ought to fight for him.'
"When Uwain went back to the hall with these messages Kay laughed, but I
am not sure that he felt quite comfortable. He had had bad luck before
in making fun of young men who turned out well in spite of their simple
looks. Perhaps you may like to know how the dwarf knew who Percivale
was. It was very simple. He used to live in Percivale's father's house,
and he knew him because he was so much like his father.
"And Percivale was riding away from the court and did not know or care
where he was going. But after awhile he met a knight who asked him
whence he came. 'I come from the court of King Arthur,' he answered.
"And the knight said: 'I am the enemy of King Arthur and of all his men,
and when I meet any of them I kill them, if I can, and so I will kill
you now, if I can.'
"So they took their places and charged against each other with their
spears. Percivale had a real spear now. And Percivale threw the knight
off his horse and he begged for mercy. 'You shall have mercy,'
Percivale said, 'if you will go to the court of King Arthur and tell him
that Percivale sent you and that Percivale will never come to his court
again till he has punished Sir Kay for striking the dwarf.'
"The knight did as Percivale bade him, and the story says that within a
week he overcame sixteen knights and made every one of them go to the
court and tell King Arthur that Percivale had sent him and that
Percivale would never come back till he had met Sir Kay and punished him
for striking the dwarf. Now you can imagine that, when these knights
came into the hall, two or three of them a day, and brought always this
same message, Kay kept getting more and more uncomfortable. Every new
one who came proved over again what a tough fighter Percivale was and
every one of them told the King and the court that Percivale was waiting
for a chance to fight with Kay. And then the other knights began to
blame Kay for making such a fine young man leave the court. For it was
clear, they said, that he would some time be one of the best knights
among them all. At last King Arthur said that he himself, with some of
his best knights, would go to search for Percivale. And Kay, who was
really no coward, went with them.
"And Percivale kept on his way. And one evening, when it was time for
him to find a place to stay for the night, he saw a great castle before
him. He knocked on the gate and a young man with a thin, pale face put
his head through an opening in the battlement and looked at him. Then
the young man came and opened the gate for Percivale and led him to the
hall. There were eighteen young men there, all thin and with pale
faces, like the first. They took off Percivale's armor and they all sat
down together. Then five young women came into the hall, and Percivale
thought that one of them, who was the lady of the castle, was the most
beautiful he had ever seen. Mind, I don't say that I think so; I say
that Percivale thought so. For, as one of the beautiful, wonderful
books that tells this story says, 'whiter was her skin than the bloom of
crystal, and her hair and her two eyebrows were blacker than jet, and on
her cheeks were two red spots, redder than whatever is reddest.' She
was dressed in satin, but it was old and faded and worn.
"Afterwards two nuns came into the hall. One of them carried a flask of
wine and the other had six loaves of bread. 'Lady,' said one of the
nuns, 'there is not so much bread and wine left in our convent as we
have brought you here.' Then they all sat at a table, and Percivale saw
that the lady of the castle was giving more of the bread and the wine to
him than to any of the others. So he took all the bread and wine and
divided them equally among all who were at the table. And when it was
time they led Percivale to his chamber.
"And the rest still sat in the hall. Then one of the young men said to
the lady of the castle: 'Sister, go to this young man and tell him that
you will be his wife, if he will rescue you and the rest of us from our
enemies.'
"'I cannot do that,' she answered. 'He may not want me for his wife; if
he did he would ask me.'
"'Sister,' said the young man again, 'we have no more food and we cannot
hold the castle any longer. This is the only hope we have. You must do
this or we will leave you, and your enemies may do what they like with
you and your castle.'
"So she left them and went to the door of Percivale's chamber and opened
it. It was dark and he was asleep, but he heard her weeping and awoke.
'Who are you,' he asked, 'and why are you weeping? Can I help you?'
"'My lord,' she answered, 'if you do not help me nothing can ever help
me. I am the lady of the castle. My father owned this castle and all
the lands around it. There was a wicked knight, named Sir Mordred, who
wanted me to be his wife, but I would not, and so, after my father died
and left me the castle and the lands, Sir Mordred made war upon me. I
had not men enough to fight with him, and so he has taken everything I
had except this castle. But this castle is so strong that the few men
whom you have seen were able to hold it as long as we had food. They
are my foster brothers. Mordred and his men always watch the castle to
see that no one goes out from it to bring food, and so at last all that
we had was gone. Then the nuns, who are permitted to go wherever they
like, brought us food, but now they have no more. And Mordred watches
us so closely that he will know that we have no more food, and he will
come against us at once and take the castle, unless you can help us. So
the young men told me that I must come to you and tell you that I would
be your wife if you would save us, for there was no other way. Forgive
me, Sir Knight, for doing what I must do, and help me and my brothers,
if you can.'
"Then Percivale answered: 'I know that you do not say this because you
want to be my wife, and so I will not ask it of you. Marry whomever you
will. To-morrow, if this Sir Mordred comes, I will do my best to help
you.'
"And so we have come to Mordred. I am almost sorry that I have to tell
you about him, but I should have to tell you, some time, and it may as
well be now. Mordred was the brother of Gawain, and so he was King
Arthur's nephew. He was a knight of the Round Table, and he was the
wickedest and most treacherous man who was ever in Arthur's court. When
people tell you that they do not like King Arthur because he was too
good--and somebody is sure to tell you that some time--ask them what
they think of his letting such a creature as Mordred be a knight of his
Round Table. Still, I suppose Arthur did not know how bad Mordred was.
Good people are often slow to believe that there are any bad people, and
Arthur was so.
"Well, in the morning, surely enough, there were Mordred's men all
around the castle. There were tents set up and knights were riding up
and down on horses, and banners were flying, and it all looked as if
they had come to fight against a city, instead of against five women and
eighteen starved young men. Breakfast did not take long that morning,
because there was nothing in the castle to eat. So, as soon as he was
up, Percivale put on his armor and called for his horse and rode out of
the castle. He came near to some of the knights who were riding about
and seemed to be so ready to fight, and called out that he wanted to see
Sir Mordred and to talk with him.
"When Sir Mordred came, Percivale said to him: 'I challenge you alone,
Sir Mordred to fight with me alone for the right of the lady of this
castle. If you beat me you shall keep all that you have taken from her
and you shall have the castle too. If I beat you she shall keep the
castle and you shall give her back all that she had before. Do you
agree to this?'
"And Mordred said: 'I agree.'
"It was a short battle. They charged against each other once, and
Mordred's spear was broken against Percivale's shield, but Percivale's
spear went through Mordred's shield and through his shoulder. Mordred
could not fight any more after that, so he promised to give back to the
lady of the castle all the lands and everything else that he had taken
from her, if Percivale would not kill him. Percivale made him promise,
too, that his men should take to the castle that very day enough food
and drink for a hundred men and their horses. Then he sent Mordred
himself to Camelot, to say to the King and the court that Percivale
would never come back there till he had punished Sir Kay for striking
the dwarf. But when Mordred got to Camelot the King and Kay and a good
many of the other knights had gone to hunt for Percivale, and there were
not many left to hear the message.
"Then Percivale took his leave of the people of the castle and rode on
his way. He rode all day, and in the evening he came to the cell of a
hermit, who made him welcome, and he stayed with him all night. In the
morning he left the cell to go on his way, but just in front of the door
he saw something that made him stop to look at it. There had been a
fall of snow in the night, and a little way from the hermit's cell a
hawk had killed a wild fowl and the snow was stained with its blood.
Something had frightened the hawk away and now a raven had lighted on
the snow near the wild fowl. It was this that made Percivale stop to
look, for the blackness of the raven and the whiteness of the snow and
the red of the blood made him think of the black hair of the lady of the
castle where he had stayed, and of her white skin, and of the red in her
cheeks. This must have been a pleasant thought, for Percivale stood
there thinking it and gazing at the blood on the snow for a long time.
"Now it happened that King Arthur's tent had been pitched for the night
near this very place. And Arthur came out of his tent and saw some one
leaning on a spear and looking upon the ground. And he told one of his
young men to go and see who it was. So the young man rode to where
Percivale stood and said: 'Who are you, and what are you doing here?'
"But Percivale was thinking so much of the raven and the snow and the
blood and the lady of the castle that he gave no answer, and then the
young man thrust at him with his spear. Then Percivale turned and struck
the young man with his own spear and knocked him off his horse, and he
went back to tell the King how he had fared. And Kay said: 'I will go
and make him tell me who he is.'
"So Kay came and said and did very much as the young man had done, and
Percivale knocked him off his horse too, and in the fall he broke his
arm. Kay's horse galloped back alone to where the King and the knights
were and Kay had to walk back. 'Now, I will go,' said Gawain. 'It is
likely, Kay, that you spoke to him rudely, for you do speak rudely
sometimes. The knight may be deep in some thoughts in which he does not
like to be disturbed, but I will try to bring him back.'
*[Illustration: "Kay's horse galloped back alone"
(missing from book)]*
"It used to be said that Gawain could speak so well that nobody could
ever refuse him anything that he asked. He went to Percivale and stood
still beside him for a moment and then said to him: 'If I thought that
it would be pleasant to you to hear it, I would give you a message from
King Arthur. He wishes that you would come to his tent. Two others
have come here before me to speak to you.'
"'Yes,' said Percivale, 'and they spoke to me rudely and attacked me.
And it annoyed me, because I was looking at the snow and the raven and
the blood, and I was thinking of the face and the hair and the cheeks of
the lady whom I fought for yesterday. But tell me, is Sir Kay with King
Arthur?'
"'Yes,' said Gawain, 'and he was the second of the men who came to speak
to you, and the fall from his horse that you gave him broke his arm.'
"'Ah, then I am glad,' said Percivale, 'for now I have punished him for
striking the dwarf.'
"'For striking the dwarf?' Gawain repeated, 'then you are Percivale!
This is good news! Come back with me to the King, for he and all of us
have left Camelot to seek for you.'
"'Yes,' Percivale answered, 'I can come back with you now, for I have
met Sir Kay and have punished him for striking the dwarf.'
"So Gawain led Percivale back to the King, and Arthur and his knights
welcomed him as one of the best among them all. Then they all went back
to Camelot together, and as soon as they were there King Arthur made
Percivale a knight. And he said to him, when he had touched his
shoulders with his sword: 'Rise, Sir Percivale, and may God make you a
good knight. I know that He will, Sir Percivale, for no young man who
has ever come to my court has done so soon such noble things as you have
done. For before you were a knight at all you fought many battles for
right and justice, and you are worthy to be called God's own knight. And
you are worthy, too, to be a knight of the Round Table. Kneel again,
Sir Percivale, and take the oath of the Round Table.'
"Then Percivale knelt before the King again and the King said to him:
'Do you swear that you will help the King to guard his people and to
keep peace and justice in his land; that you will be faithful to your
fellows; that you will do right to poor and rich alike? Do you swear
that in all things you will be true and loyal to God and to the King?'
"And Percivale answered: 'I swear it.'
"The King took Percivale's hand and turned toward the Round Table. All
the knights looked eagerly to see where his place would be, for they
thought: 'No man of us has ever done such deeds as his while he was
still so young, and who knows but he may be that best knight of all the
world, who is to sit in the Siege Perilous?'
"The King thought of that too, and he paused beside the Siege Perilous,
to see if there were any letters in it, but there were not. But in the
next seat to it, where no one had ever sat since Arthur had been King,
he saw new letters of gold, and the letters said: 'This is the seat of
Percivale, God's knight.'"
[Illustration: The Tower of London]
*CHAPTER IV*
*THE QUEEN'S ROBING-ROOM*
When we got back to the hotel at Glastonbury that night there was a
surprise awaiting us. Helen's mother had a letter and she said: "We are
going to London by the first train to-morrow morning, and then we are
going straight to Paris."
Now you must know that before we started on this journey Helen's mother
had said that she did not care in the least where we went, except that
we must go to Paris. So it was agreed between us that she should be
allowed to go to Paris just whenever she pleased and that I should
arrange everything else just as I pleased. And so, when she said that
we were going to Paris at once, she made exactly the one announcement
that she had a perfect right to make, without asking me anything about
it at all. Still, just at first, I was not at all pleased.
I said that of course we should do just as she liked about it, still we
had thought that we were to have plenty of time in Glastonbury, and so
we had not gone to see the ruins of the abbey yet, and it seemed a pity
to have to leave Glastonbury without seeing them. Helen knew nothing
about the ruins of the abbey, but she agreed with me. That made no
difference to Helen's mother. She had a letter from somebody whom she
knew, who was in Paris. That somebody was to be there only for a week,
and she must be there at the same time. We really had no right to
object, and so I gave up objecting and tried to think of the best way
out of it. "Couldn't we come back here again afterwards?" Helen
suggested.
Now the notion of going to a little place like Glastonbury, so far off
the usual lines of travel, twice in the same journey, is one that would
never come into the head of any ordinary traveller. But Helen is not an
ordinary traveller. And when I came to think of it I could not see the
slightest reason in the world why we should not come back to Glastonbury
after we had been to Paris. I looked at Helen's mother and said: "May
we?"
"You know very well," she said, "that you can go and come wherever you
like, as long as you let me go to Paris."
Here was another notion. "As long as I let you go to Paris," I
repeated. "That is just what I will do. What do you want of me in
Paris? All the time that you are there you women will be running about
the city, seeing things that I don't care about and doing things that I
don't care about, such as shopping, and I should only be in the way.
You would get on better without me, and so why should I go to Paris at
all? I will go to London with you to-morrow, and then I will wait there
for you till you come back."
Helen's mother liked my plan so much that I almost felt hurt. "I don't
see," she said, "how you could be of the least use in Paris. You will
have a much better time in London, and I shall have you off my mind, and
can do just what I like."
This almost took my breath away, but, as the plan was my own, of course
I had to pretend that I liked it. I said that there were several things
in London that I wanted to see again, and I wanted to look up two or
three places not far from London that had stories about them. I was
afraid I should not have time to go to them if I went to Paris too.
When I said that Helen began to take an interest, as I had thought that
perhaps she might. "Are there more stories in London?" she asked.
"If you and I," I said, "were to stay in London and find a story every
day, we should not live long enough to find half of them."
"Oh!" said Helen.
"Now do you think?" I said, "when you come to think of it a second time,
that you really need Helen in Paris any more than you do me? When she
is a little older she will want to go there just as much as you do now,
and then she can go. But now, don't you think that you should like to
have her off your mind as well as me, and don't you think that she could
do a good deal toward cheering me up there in London, while you are
gone?"
Helen looked at her mother to see what she was going to say. She said
nothing at all, but she looked at Helen in a way that meant that she
might do just as she pleased about it, and Helen said: "If you don't
mind very much, I think I will stay in London."
Helen's mother did not mind very much, so I said: "Very well, then; this
is what we will do. We will go all the way to Dover with you, and then
we will come back to London and have as good a time as we can, till you
come back from having the best time that ever was in the world, in
Paris. And when you are with us again we will come back here to
Glastonbury and go to some other good places."
Nobody could make the least objection to that. And so the next day but
one Helen and I found that we were left quite to ourselves in London.
We found plenty of things to amuse us. We went to see the Tower of
London, as Americans do. We found the old armor and weapons that were
there most interesting, and Helen made a discovery. "Did King Arthur's
knights wear armors like those?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, "about like those."
"With all those chains and iron things?"
"Yes, to be sure."
"Then I know what became of the green lace girdles that Gawain and the
rest of them had."
"Very well; what did become of them?"
"Why, don't you see? They all wore out. They wouldn't last a week, if
they put them round their waists, with all those iron things on."
There was really no need of any better explanation than this, and so I
gave up ever finding any.
"There is one curious little thing about this Tower," I said, "that is
not in most of the books about it. It was here, you know, long before
King Arthur's time. One of the old kings was called Bran the Blessed.
And once he told his men that when he was dead they must cut off his
head and bury it under the White Tower, in London, with the face toward
France, and that as long as it stayed there England could never be
harmed by any foe from abroad. Now I have never heard of any White Tower
in London, except this big square one in the middle of the Tower of
London, so that I have no doubt that it was here that the head of Bran
the Blessed was buried, with the face toward France, to guard England
from her foreign foes. But when Arthur came to be King he had the head
dug up, for he said that it would be better for England to be guarded by
the strength and the courage of Englishmen than by magic. You can look
around you at the England of to-day and judge for yourself whether
Arthur was right."
I had heard that there were pictures of some of the King Arthur stories
in the Queen's robing-room, at the Palace of Westminster, and of course
we wanted to see them. Now anybody who looks moderately respectable can
walk through the Palace of Westminster any Saturday. The trouble is
that the policemen who are posted in the rooms will not let you stay in
any one of them long enough to do more than take a glance at it and pass
on to the next room. Of course this would not do for us, when there
were pictures of King Arthur to be looked at. But we were very lucky.
We knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody else, and I rather
think that this last somebody was the secretary of the Lord Great
Chamberlain. At any rate, there were some letters written about us, and
we were told to go to the Palace of Westminster and ask for the
inspector of police. So we went there when Saturday came around and saw
the inspector and told him that we were the ones whom the letters had
been written about. He was very glad to see us and he introduced us to
somebody else. Once more I think that it was the secretary of the Lord
Great Chamberlain, but I am not sure. Whoever he was, he was most
polite, and when we told him what friends of King Arthur's we were he
ordered the policemen on duty to let us stay in the Queen's robing-room
as long as we liked.
Having all the time we wanted, we did not hurry, but stood for a few
minutes at the windows, looking out across the Thames. "It was
somewhere over there," I said, "not very far on the other side of the
river, that there used to live one of the wickedest knights that were
ever in King Arthur's court. His name was Meliagraunce. I don't know
what made him so wicked, but I suppose he was so to start with. It
occurred to him once that there could be no better way for him to make
trouble than by stealing the Queen and carrying her off to his castle,
over there across the Thames. King Arthur was holding his court just
here at Westminster then, for it seems that there was a palace here as
long ago as that.
"Meliagraunce had to watch a long time for his chance, for there were
usually a good many people about the Queen, and Lancelot was likely to
be among them, and somehow, wicked as he was, he did not care about
doing anything to harm the Queen while Lancelot was with her. But one
day he heard that the Queen was going maying, with some knights and
ladies, and that Lancelot was not going. That, he thought, would be
just his chance. Now, as the Queen did not mean to go far from
Westminster, there was no thought of any danger. So the knights who
rode with her wore swords at their sides, as they did almost everywhere,
but they carried no spears or shields, and they wore no armor. There
were only ten of them, with ten ladies and a few squires and pages. But
Meliagraunce got ready twenty knights, fully armed, and a hundred
archers on foot.
"Westminster and the country about it looked very different then from
what they do now. Now there is nothing but city for miles around, but
then there were fields, and a little farther off there were woods. So
the Queen and her knights and ladies rode to the woods and gathered
flowers and green branches, and decked themselves and their horses with
them and started back toward Westminster. Then Meliagraunce and his
armed men fell upon them. The Queen's knights fought for her as well as
they could, but they were so few and so poorly armed that they were no
match for their enemies. In a little while they were all of them
wounded, and the Queen saw that they would all be killed if the fight
went on. So she called to Meliagraunce and begged him to stop the fight
and promised that she would go with him to his castle, if he would let
all her knights go too, for they were wounded and she must have them
with her, so that she could take care of them.
"Meliagraunce agreed to this and they all set off toward his castle.
But on the way the Queen whispered to a page who was on a swift horse,
and told him to ride back to Westminster and tell Lancelot that she was
a prisoner in the castle of Meliagraunce. So the page watched till
nobody was looking, and then turned his horse suddenly and rode back.
Of course Meliagraunce and his men saw in a moment what he was doing and
what it was for, and they shot at him with arrows, but they missed him
and he was soon beyond their reach.
"Now Meliagraunce and all those who were with him had to go slowly,
because of the wounded knights, but the page who went to tell Lancelot
rode fast. And when Lancelot heard what the page had to tell he rode
fast too, so that he came to the castle of Meliagraunce not long after
the others arrived there. And as soon as Meliagraunce heard that
Lancelot had come he began to see what a silly thing he had done and to
wish that he were well out of it. So he went to the Queen and begged
her not to let Lancelot kill him. If she would promise that, he said,
they would all go back to Westminster the next morning. So the Queen
sent for Lancelot and told him that it would be better to do as
Meliagraunce had said, for Meliagraunce was a knight of King Arthur's
and it would be better that it should not be known what he had done as
it would have to be if Lancelot fought with him and killed him. And of
course Lancelot said that it should be as the Queen wished.
"But Meliagraunce had still other mischief in his mind. Now that he had
found that he must send the Queen back to Westminster, he decided that
he would charge her with treason to the King. That was as easy a charge
to make against her as any, and it was as easy a way to harm her as any,
since that was what he wanted to do. You know anybody could charge
anybody else with anything, as long as he was ready to fight and risk
his life to prove it. of course it did not take a minute for Lancelot
to say that the charge that Meliagraunce made was a lie and that he
would fight with him to prove that the Queen was not a traitor to the
King, whenever and wherever Meliagraunce liked. And Meliagraunce said
that it should be eight days from that day, at Westminster, before King
Arthur.
"Now you may be sure that Meliagraunce would never have said a word
against the Queen if he had thought that he should really have to fight
with Lancelot about it. But he had still another trick to play, which
he thought was a good one. He pretended to be very friendly with
Lancelot and asked him if he should like to see his castle. Then he led
him about from room to room and at last he led him over a trap door. It
gave way and Lancelot fell down into a dungeon and struck on a heap of
straw. And there Meliagraunce meant to keep him till after the time for
the fight. And so, as he expected, it would all be decided his way,
because Lancelot would not be there to defend the Queen, or, at the
worst, he would have to fight with some knight who was not so good as
Lancelot.
"I suppose I ought to tell you just here that King Arthur himself could
not fight for the Queen in such a case as this, because he had to sit
and be the judge in all such fights. And Arthur always did justice to
rich and poor and to great and small alike, and he would do the same
justice, or he would try to, to the one whom he loved best of all the
world as to the meanest man or woman who could be brought before him.
"When the rest were ready to go back to Westminster they were surprised,
of course, that Lancelot was not with them. But they did not think that
it was so very strange, for Lancelot often went away suddenly in search
of adventures and told nobody that he was going. So they went back and
told the King that Meliagraunce had charged the Queen with treason and
that Lancelot was to defend her. And the King was not alarmed at all,
for he knew that the Queen could not be guilty of such a thing, and he
felt sure that Lancelot would be at hand when the time came to prove it.
"But the King felt more sure of Lancelot than Lancelot felt of himself,
for all that week he was in prison. And on the eighth day Meliagraunce
came to Westminster ready for the fight and called upon the King to give
judgment against the Queen, because Lancelot was not there to defend
her. Then Arthur said that he was sure that Lancelot must be dead or
sick or else in prison, for he never failed to keep his promise before,
and he asked if there was any other knight who would fight in his place
to defend the Queen. Then a knight of the Round Table said that he was
sure, too, that it was as the King had said and he would fight for the
Queen instead of Lancelot.
"But Meliagraunce, as clever people sometimes do, had made a mistake.
He did not know, perhaps, that there was a woman in his castle who was
in love with Lancelot. But there were a good many such women scattered
over England and he ought to have been careful about it. On the very
morning when the battle was to be she came to Lancelot and told him that
she would let him out of his prison if he would give her one kiss.
Lancelot thought that this was not a large price to pay and he paid it.
Then the woman let him out and found his armor for him and helped him to
get a horse from the stable and he set off, as fast as he could go, for
Westminster. And he arrived just as the knight who had promised to
fight for him had taken his place ready to begin the battle.
"Lancelot rode straight up before the King and told him how Meliagraunce
had trapped him and kept him in prison, and then he took the place of
the other knight and was ready for the fight. Nobody had any doubt how
the fight would go. Everybody felt that the right would win and that
the right meant Lancelot. The King felt so sure of it that he had the
Queen come and sit in her place beside him, though she was accused of
treason. The heralds gave the signal, the knights charged together, and
Meliagraunce was thrown from his horse. Lancelot dismounted then and
they fought with swords, but it was only a few moments before
Meliagraunce was disarmed and helpless and begging for mercy.
"Then Lancelot had a hard question to decide. In any ordinary fight it
would be unknightly to refuse mercy to any knight who asked it, but
Lancelot felt that such a cowardly, lying wretch as this had no right to
live and that he had no right to let him live. He thought for a moment
and then he said: 'Meliagraunce, take up your sword and let us go on
with this fight to the end.'
"'I will not fight any more,' said Meliagraunce; 'you have beaten me and
I ask your mercy, and you must give it, as you are a knight of the Round
Table.'
"'Meliagraunce,' said Lancelot, 'I will take off my helmet and all the
armor that I can from the left side of my body, and my left hand shall
be tied behind me, and then I will fight with you.'
"Then Meliagraunce ran toward the King. 'My lord,' he cried, 'have you
heard what he has said? I call upon you to make him keep his promise
and fight me with his head and his left side uncovered.'
"'Meliagraunce,' said Lancelot, 'come back! I am not a liar, like you,
and I need no one to make me keep my promises, even to traitors and
cowards.'
"Then Lancelot's armor was taken off his left side, as much of it as
could be, and his helmet was taken off. And his left hand was tied
behind him, so that he could not use his shield. And in this way he
stood ready for the fight again. Meliagraunce aimed a blow at his head,
but Lancelot caught it with his sword and put it aside. Then he struck
one great stroke and split Meliagraunce's helmet and laid him dead on
the field. And everybody felt that the Round Table was better by the
loss of Meliagraunce than it would be by the gain of three good knights.
And now I think that it is about time for us to look at these pictures
that we came to see."
The pictures were painted on the walls of two sides of the room. On the
third side was a throne, with a canopy over it, and on the fourth side
were the windows. The artist had painted scenes from the stories of
King Arthur and he had made them represent the virtues that he thought
ought to belong to a good knight. One of his pictures he called
"Mercy," and it showed Sir Gawain kneeling before Queen Guinevere and
swearing always to be merciful and never to be against ladies. The one
next to this was "Hospitality," and in it King Arthur was receiving Sir
Tristram as a knight of the Round Table. Another picture was
"Courtesy," and there Tristram was playing his harp to Isolt. For
"Religion" there was "The Vision of Sir Galahad and his Company." Then
there was one of "Generosity," with King Arthur thrown from his horse in
battle and his life spared by Lancelot. "That seems a strange picture
to you, no doubt," I said, "but some time I will tell you the story that
it belongs to, and then it will not seem so strange."
All around under these pictures and on the side of the room where the
throne was, there were carvings: "Arthur Delivered unto Merlin," "Arthur
Crowned King," "How Arthur Gate His Sword Excalibur," "King Arthur
Wedded to Guinevere," and many more.
"But of all these pictures," I said, "the one that reminds me of a story
that I want to tell you just now is this one of 'The Admission of Sir
Tristram to the Fellowship of the Round Table.' Tristram had been known
as the best knight of the world, next to Lancelot, for a long time
before he was a knight of the Round Table. King Arthur had long wished
that Tristram might be one of his knights, and Lancelot had heard so
much about him that he wanted to know him and to be his friend. So at
last Lancelot and some of the other knights set out to hunt for Tristram
and to try to bring him to the court.
"You remember that Tristram was in love with Isolt, the Princess of
Ireland. There was another knight, Sir Palamides, who was in love with
her too. I must tell you about this Palamides, for there never was a
knight who belonged more to that dear, silly old time or fitted into it
better than he did. He was a good and strong and brave knight, but
Isolt did not care two straws for him and never would, and he knew it.
But do you suppose that made any difference to him? Not a bit. He made
it half of his business to love her year after year, though he knew that
it would never do him or anybody else any good. It never came into his
head that there were just as good fish in the sea as ever came out of
it. No, all he cared for was to sit on the shore of the sea, never
trying to catch or even thinking of any other good fish, but only
wishing and wishing that he might catch the one that he knew he never
could. It was just like a good knight of those days.
"I said that he made it half of his business to love Isolt. The other
half of his business was to hunt the questing beast. It was called the
questing beast because of the questing or barking noise that came out of
it. It was a wonderful animal altogether. It had a body like a leopard
in front and like a lion behind, but its head was like a serpent's and
its feet were like those of a deer. And it did not make this barking
noise with its mouth, but the noise was inside the beast, and it was not
like the barking of one dog, but of sixty dogs. I don't know why
Palamides hunted it or what he was going to do with it if he ever caught
it, but this again was just like a knight of those days.
"Now Palamides used often to feel very unfriendly toward Tristram,
because Tristram loved Isolt. By nature I believe that he was a good
fellow, but he was hot-tempered, and, like other hot-tempered people, he
sometimes did things that he was afterward sorry for. And so, when he
met Tristram, he often felt angry and wanted to fight with him. And
Tristram beat him usually, but not always, for Palamides was such a good
knight that he could give Tristram, or even Lancelot, a pretty hard
battle. Then Palamides would be Tristram's friend for awhile, and then
he would think more about Isolt and would grow to be his enemy again,
and so would be ready for another fight.
"And once Tristram and Palamides had set a time and a place to fight
together and settle everything between them. But when the day came
Palamides was held in prison by some enemy and could not come. But
Tristram was at the place, and as he waited he saw a knight riding
toward him, with a closed helmet and a covered shield. Of course he
thought that this was Palamides, ready for the fight, so he put his
spear in rest and faced him, and the other knight, seeing him do that,
got ready to defend himself. Now this other knight was Lancelot, and
when the two had been fighting for a few minutes each began to wonder
who the other could be. Tristram knew very well that he was fighting
with a better knight than Palamides, and Lancelot knew that he had never
fought with so good a knight before.
"And after a long time it came into their heads to stop fighting for a
moment and ask each other who they were. And when each had told the
other his name they saw what a mistake they had made in fighting at all.
It was then that Lancelot made Tristram come to the court with him, and
it was then that King Arthur welcomed him and gave him his seat at the
Round Table, as the picture shows.
"And now, after all this bother, we have come to the story. Tristram
had not been long a knight of the Round Table when King Arthur made a
great tournament in his honor. It was at the Castle of Lonazep. I
don't know just where that was, but it was somewhere up in the other end
of England. As Tristram was on his way to the tournament he met
Palamides, and they fought, as usual. And Tristram won, as usual, and
then Palamides begged him to let him ride to the tournament with him and
fight for him and do him service.
"So they rode together till they came to the River Humber, and there
they saw a boat, all covered with canopies of purple silk, coming up the
stream. It came to the shore close to them and lay there still. Then
Tristram and Palamides went down into the boat and saw a strange sight.
In the middle of it was a couch, all covered with silk and cloth of
gold, and on the couch lay a dead knight, armed all but his head. As
Tristram stood gazing and wondering at this he saw that there was a
letter in the dead knight's hand. He took the letter and opened and
read it, and this is what it said: 'To the knights of King Arthur: I who
bring this letter was Hermance, King of the Red City. I was killed by
two traitors, for my lands and my crown. Now I pray that some one of
King Arthur's knights will avenge my death and will take my city and my
castles and my crown for his reward.'
"Then Palamides said: 'Sir Tristram, you must be at this tournament, for
King Arthur has made it in your honor, and he and many others will wish
to see you here. So let me go to avenge the death of this King, and
whatever I do shall be done for you and in your name.'
"'You are right,' said Tristram, 'and you may go, but come back, if you
can, for the tournament.'
"'If I live,' said Palamides, 'and the work that I find to do will let
me, I will be with you again at the tournament.'
"Then Tristram went ashore from the boat and Palamides stayed in it, and
the men turned the boat and it went away down the river. The men in the
boat knew why Palamides stayed in it. He did not speak to them and they
did not speak to him. He knew that they would take him where he ought
to go, so he stood at the prow and watched the fields that they passed
and the woods and the river, and waited to see and to know who these
traitors were whom he must punish and what sort of task it was to be to
avenge this dead King. And after a time the boat came to where the
river widened out toward the sea, and the men steered it toward a castle
that stood on the shore. Then they gave Palamides a horn and told him
to blow it. And the people of the castle knew the sound of the horn,
and when they heard it they came down to where the boat had landed and
welcomed Palamides and led him up into the hall. There the lord of the
castle met him and made him sit at the table and they brought him food
and wine. And Palamides saw that the lord of the castle and all the
others in it were dressed in black, and after he had eaten and drunk he
asked why this was.
"'It is for the death of our King,' the lord of the castle answered.
'He was Hermance, the King of the Red City, and no truer king ever
lived. He had two foster sons, whom he had brought up since they were
children. He loved them as if they had been his own sons, but they were
false and wicked. He meant when he died to give them everything he had,
but they could not wait. So they watched their chance, and one day,
when he had been hunting and had stopped to drink at a spring, they came
behind him and stabbed him in the back. There, beside the spring, I
found him, not yet dead. He made me put him in a boat and he made me
write a letter and put it in his hand before he died. The boatmen were
told to go up the Humber toward Lonazep, where all King Arthur's knights
were soon to be, and the letter asked that some one of them would come
to avenge the death of our good King. And you, Sir Knight--since you
have come in this boat--I suppose that you have read this letter and
have come to help us.'
"'One of the best knights of the world, Sir Tristram, read that letter,'
Palamides said, 'and I have come for him and in his name to avenge the
death of your King. So tell me where I shall find these men.'
"'You must take your boat again,' said the lord, 'and go to the
Delectable Isle. There is the Red City, and there you will find these
two brothers, Helius and Helake. Go and conquer them and we shall pray
for you and wait to hear what you have done.'
"Then Palamides went back to his boat, and just as he came to it he met
a knight who said: 'Sir Knight, tell me who you are and where you are
going.'
"'By what right,' said Palamides, 'do you command me so?'
"'If you are going to the Red City,' said the knight, 'to avenge the
death of King Hermance, turn back and go no farther. It is for me, not
for you, to avenge him. I am the brother of King Hermance.'
"'That may be true,' Palamides answered, 'but when the letter was taken
out of the dead King's hand we did not know that there was any knight to
avenge him. I promised then that I would do it, and I must do it now or
I shall be false to my promise.'
"'That is true,' said the other knight, 'but now let us try a few
strokes together, to see which of us is the better knight, and then that
one shall avenge the King my brother.'
"So they drew their swords and struck a few strokes, and then the
brother of the King said: 'You are the better; the adventure is yours.
But I will go to the Red City too, so that I can fight with these
traitors if they kill you.
"'Come with me, then,' said Palamides, 'but if they kill me go to my
lord, Sir Tristram, and tell him of it, and I am sure that he or Sir
Lancelot will come to avenge me and the King your brother.'
"So they both went on in the boat till they came to the Delectable Isle
and the Red City. And there all the people welcomed them, for they all
loved their King who was dead and hated the traitors who had killed him.
And they sent messengers to the brothers to tell them that one of King
Arthur's knights had come to fight with them, to avenge King Hermance.
And the brothers sent back word that they would be ready for the fight
the next morning.
"In the morning Palamides was ready in the lists and the people of the
city came to see the battle. And when they saw what a bold and
strong-looking man Palamides was they began to hope that they should be
free of their tyrants and have another King as good as Hermance. Then
the brothers came and took their places at the other end of the lists,
and when the people looked at them they began to fear again that the one
knight from King Arthur's court could never beat them.
"It was Helake who came first against Palamides, and Palamides ran him
through with his spear at the first charge and he fell dead upon the
field. But the battle with Helius was not so easy. At the first charge
Palamides was thrown from his saddle, and as he lay on the ground,
before he could get up, Helius tried to drive his horse over him, to
crush him. But Palamides sprang up and caught the bridle and cried:
'Come down and fight me fairly on foot or I will kill your horse and
make you do it.'
"Then Helius got off his horse and they began to fight again with their
swords. It was a fight for life and death, and it was a hard one. It
lasted for a long time, with no rest, and Helius seemed never to lose
any ground or any strength, but Palamides grew weaker and fainter and he
was forced back and back across the field. The people saw it and a low,
sad murmur ran through the crowd. And Palamides heard it, and for an
instant he glanced away from his enemy and saw the anxious faces of the
people and the tears in the eyes of some and the fear in the looks of
many. Then he said to himself: 'Palamides, you are a knight of the
Round Table. Will you let the news go back to King Arthur that you were
beaten in a fight by a traitor and a murderer? And you are here for
Tristram. Will you lose his battle for him?'
"And with that thought he gathered all his strength and struck Helius
three great blows with his sword, one upon the other, and with the third
he cut through his helmet and laid him dead upon the field with his
brother.
"Then a great shout went up from all the people and some of them ran
away to tell those who had not seen the fight how it had gone, and they
built bonfires and set all the bells of the city ringing, and others
crowded around the knight and cheered and shouted: 'Long live King
Palamides!'
"But when they would let him speak to them Palamides said: 'You must not
call me so; all that I have done was for my lord, Sir Tristram. If he
could have come he would have fought this battle better than I. If you
have any new king it is he, and now I must go back to him. But I leave
here this good knight, the brother of your old King Hermance, and he
shall rule you till Sir Tristram sends to tell you what else to do.'
"Then Palamides went on board his boat again and it took him away toward
the Humber and toward Lonazep to find Sir Tristram."
[Illustration: The Round Table at Winchester]
*CHAPTER V*
*"CAMELOT, THAT IS IN ENGLISH WINCHESTER"*
Even while we were at Camelford, and again while we were at Cadbury
Castle, I had not forgotten the words of my favorite book, "Camelot,
that is in English Winchester." If we were talking about hard history,
I suppose that I should have to say that, if there ever was a real
Camelot at all, it was probably that pleasant hill-top that we had seen
in Somerset. Yet, when a story-teller whom I love as much as I do good
old Sir Thomas says that Winchester was Camelot, it shall be Camelot for
me, at least while I am there. So we went down from London to see if
this third Camelot pleased us as much as the two that we had seen.
First we walked about the streets and aimed at nothing in particular.
That is a good thing to do on the first day when you are in a strange
city. "If I were to try to tell you," I said, "all the interesting and
useful and delightful things that there are to tell about Winchester, I
should have to go first and learn the most of them for myself. And then
you would get tired of listening to them, for there would be enough of
them to make a book as big as a dictionary. We are supposing, you know,
while we stay, that King Arthur lived here, and, whether he did or not,
other kings of England lived here more or less for I don't know how many
hundred years. King Alfred lived here and King Canute lived here and
William the Conqueror built a castle here, on the very spot, we will let
ourselves believe, where King Arthur's castle stood."
If the first thing to be done in a town newly visited is to walk about
the streets, the second is to go to the cathedral, if there is one. So
the next thing that we did was to go to Winchester Cathedral. It is not
much to look at from the outside, though it is pretty enough, with the
trees and grass around it. It has only the lowest of towers. It had a
higher one once, but when King William Rufus was killed, they buried him
in the cathedral and seven years afterward the tower fell down. They
thought that it must be because they had buried such a wicked man in the
church. But I think that there are kings as bad as William Rufus buried
under some English towers that have not fallen down. There are kings
and kings, good and bad, lying here in this cathedral. Canute is here,
and it was here that he brought his crown and put it up over the cross,
after he had found, down yonder at Southampton, that he could not rule
the waves, as England has since been supposed to do. To be fair to the
cathedral, I ought to say that, though it is unpromising outside, it is
surely very beautiful inside. After that I think I do not need to say
anything more about it at all, because there are so many people who can
tell you about this cathedral and others so much better than I can.
We left it and walked up the street to find the castle. I think I
forgot to say at the proper place that the whole town of Winchester that
day was in a state of breathless excitement about a cricket match. The
boys of Winchester College were playing against the boys from Eton, and
pretty nearly everybody in town had gone to see the game. When we got to
the castle, the man who ought to have been there to show it to us had
gone to see the cricket match, like the rest. But his wife, who was a
very pleasant elderly lady, said that she would show it to us.
They hold court in the castle still. Not the sort of court that King
Arthur used to hold, but courts of justice for the County of Hants. The
old woman took us into one room after another and told us about the
trials that had taken place in them. We pretended to be greatly
interested, but we were not a bit. But by and by she took us to a place
where we were interested. It was the great hall of the castle. I
should feel sorry for anybody who was not interested in the great hall
of Winchester Castle. It belonged to the old castle that William the
Conqueror built, where more kings and queens lived or were born or died
or did other fascinating things than I should dare to try to remember.
And this was the hall of Parliament for almost four hundred years. "And
we may as well believe," I said, "that now we are standing in King
Arthur's hall. If Winchester was Camelot there is no reason to suppose
that his castle was not on this very spot, and there is no reason to
suppose, either, that the great hall was not on this very spot. Henry
VII. believed it, when his son was born here and he named him Arthur."
It is a beautiful room as it stands to-day. It is long and wide and
high. It has fine arches and cluster columns and windows of stained
glass. But what we gazed at most hung high up on the wall at the west
end of the hall. The old woman told us that it was King Arthur's Round
Table. Well, there was no doubt that it was round, and she said that
there was no doubt that it had been a table once, because there were
places at the back of it to fasten legs. We found a picture of the back
of it afterwards in a book about Winchester, and it showed that she was
right. The table is eighteen feet across, if you insist on my being
exact. The table is painted in quite an elaborate style. There is a big
rose in the middle of it, and then there is a border, and in the border
are the words: "This is the round table of King Arthur and his
twenty-four Knights." This did not make us believe in the table any the
more, because we knew very well that twenty-four knights would not make
any show at all in King Arthur's hall. Above the rose, as the table
hangs now, and with his feet resting on it, is a picture of King Arthur
himself. The rest of the table, except the outer edge, is painted with
broad stripes of dark and light, which run from the border around the
rose to the larger border of the whole table. The old woman asked us to
notice that the names of the knights were around the edge of the table.
We tried to make out the names and we did make out some of them. There
were Lancelot and Lionel and Tristram and Gareth and Bedivere and
Palamides and Bors and Kay and Mordred and others that we could not
read. The old woman said that there were some of them that nobody had
ever been able to read, and we were not so proud as to try to read what
we were told that nobody could. It was King Henry VIII. who had this
table painted in such a gorgeous way, and it seemed to us that the
picture of King Arthur did not look quite unlike Henry. No, we could
not quite believe in the table after all. King Arthur's Round Table had
places, as we knew, for a hundred and fifty knights, and this had places
for only twenty-four. Still we could not help being uncommonly
interested in anything that had even been called King Arthur's Round
Table for four hundred years at the very least, and probably for six
hundred.
"You see," said the old woman, "the three pictures on the windows over
the Round Table are King Arthur and King Alfred and King Canute, a
Briton and a Saxon and a Dane."
We looked up at the three kings on the stained glass windows, and it was
then that I made a dreadful mistake. It came into my mind that it would
be a good plan to show off to this good lady who had so kindly shown us
the hall, how much we knew about these three kings. Pride does
sometimes go before a fall. "Helen," I said, "tell this lady something
about King Arthur, just to show her how much we have learned."
"I don't want to tell about him," Helen answered, "I would rather you
would tell a story about him."
"But I am not going to tell any story now," I said, "I want you to tell
one--any one you like, just to show that you can do it."
"But I don't want to show that I can do it."
"Helen, if you do not tell us something about King Arthur at once, I
will not tell you another story for a week."
And then what did this horrible child do but stand there and recite:
"When good King Arthur ruled this land
He was a goodly King;
He stole three pecks of barley meal
To make a bag-pudding.
A bag-pudding the king did make,
And stuffed it well with plums;
And in it put great lumps of fat,
As big as my two thumbs.
The King and Queen did eat thereof,
And noblemen beside;
And what they could not eat that night,
The Queen next morning fried."
I tried to look as sorrowful as I could. "You know very well," I said,
"that that is not true at all. That was written by some enemy of King
Arthur. There are plenty of good things that you know and might have
told us; and so, to punish you for telling that, you shall tell us now
about King Canute and his courtiers."
Now Helen did not like this any more than she liked telling about King
Arthur, but she must have seen how very determined I looked, and she
gave a little gasp and said: "King Canute's courtiers told him that he
was the greatest King in the world, and that the sea would obey him if
he told it to do anything. So he had his chair put on the sand and he
ordered the tide not to come up and wet him, and it did come up and wet
him. And he told his courtiers not to flatter him any more, and he
never smiled again."
"You get worse every minute," I said. "You know very well that it was
not Canute who never smiled again, and for telling that story wrong you
shall tell us now about King Alfred and the cakes."
By this time Helen saw that it was getting serious and that it would not
do any good to make any more mistakes, so she said: "King Alfred was
hiding from his enemies, and he was in the house of a cowherd. And the
cowherd's wife was baking some cakes, and King Alfred was sitting by the
fire. And the cakes burned and he was so busy mending his bows and
arrows that he didn't know it, so the cowherd's wife said: 'Can't you
look at the cakes and not let them burn? You'll be ready to eat them
fast enough when the time comes.' And she didn't know that he was the
King."
"I can't say," I said, "that you have told that quite as well as you
might, but it will do. And now, who was it that never smiled again?
"Henry I."
"And why?"
"Because his son William was drowned when the White Ship was lost."
"Very well. The first class in English history could sit down, if there
was anything to sit on."
The old woman was quite speechless with astonishment by this time. I
don't suppose anybody had ever come into this hall and tried to tell her
so many things about the kings who used to live in Winchester before.
We thanked her for her trouble and said good-by, and she just managed to
get back enough of her senses to say that we were welcome and to bid us
good-by in turn. "And now," I said, "suppose we do what everybody else
in town is doing and go and see the cricket match."
[Illustration: Winchester Cathedral]
*CHAPTER VI*
*THE BOAT ON THE RIVER*
Neither Helen nor I knew enough about cricket to tell a wicket-keeper
from a maiden over. But, whether we understood what was going on or
not, the Winchester cricket-field that day was a pretty sight. The
grass all over it was fresh and green, and around it were crowds of
gayly dressed people, watching the game and talking and laughing and
enjoying the warm, soft air and the bright sunshine. For a little while
we walked around the edge of the field and looked at the people and the
boys who were playing, running about and doing such absurd things as the
players of a game you do not understand always do. Then we found a
quiet place across the field from where the most of the people were, and
there we sat down on the grass to rest and to try to make something out
of the game. But that was hopeless, and we soon gave it up.
"Just suppose," I said, "that instead of these boys, with their harmless
bats and balls and wickets, this field was filled with armored knights
on horses, with long spears and great swords. Suppose that they were
playing their own rough game of the tournament, charging together and
throwing one another off their horses and not caring any too much,
sometimes, whether they killed one another or not. Suppose that the
people from the town had all come out to see the tournament, just as
they have come out to-day to see the game of cricket, and that we had
come, too, just as we really have. And suppose that King Arthur was
sitting over there in his high seat to judge the knights. If we can
suppose all this, I think that wee shall see pretty clearly how one of
King Arthur's tournaments looked when Winchester was Camelot. There is
a story, very pretty and very sad, about a tournament that was held at
this very Camelot, and for all I know it may have been on this very
field.
"The court was at Westminster just then but the King had given out that
this tournament was to be at Camelot, so, when the time came, he and his
knights set out to ride here. The Queen was sick and said that she would
not come with them, and Lancelot said that a wound that he had was not
yet well and so he would stay behind too and would not fight in this
tournament. Now, although Lancelot was usually honest, I am sorry to
say that just now he was saying what was not quite true. The truth was
that Lancelot wanted to be at the tournament without King Arthur or any
of the knights knowing that he was there. He had won in so many
tournaments and all the knights knew so well that he was sure to win if
he fought, that none of them liked to fight against him, and tournaments
where Lancelot was had come to be rather one-sided affairs. So he
thought that he would wait till the others were gone and then come to
Camelot by himself, in armor that they did not know and carrying some
strange shield, and join in the tournament and fight with whom he
pleased.
"It was early morning when the others went away. Lancelot waited till
noon, so that he should not overtake them on the way, and then he
mounted his horse and rode toward Camelot. Late in the day he came to a
place called Astolat. There was a castle, and Lancelot thought it best
to stay there for the night. The lord of the castle was an old knight,
Sir Bernard of Astolat. He welcomed Lancelot and asked him who he was,
but Lancelot said: 'If you will pardon me, I do not wish to tell my
name. I am going to the tournament at Camelot, to try what I can do
against the knights who will be there, and I do not wish that any of
them shall know who I am.'
"When it was time for supper Lancelot sat at the table with Sir Bernard
and his two sons, and Sir Bernard's daughter served them. Her name was
Elaine. And wherever Elaine went and whatever she did, she was always
looking at Lancelot. It seemed to her that there was something about
him that was wonderful and new. She thought that she had never seen a
man who looked so noble, and, as he talked with her father, she thought
that she had never heard a man who spoke so well. They lived a quiet
life there at Astolat, and this knight was telling her father about the
court and about battles and tournaments. He told things that were
strange to her about many of the knights, and she listened to hear him
say something about himself, but he did not say anything. 'Still,' she
thought, 'when I look at him I know that he is the best of them all.'
And she knew so little about knights that this was really a very good
guess for her to make.
"But Lancelot scarcely saw Elaine at all. He knew that she was there, of
course, and he knew that she was young and beautiful, and he knew that
she was serving them, as they sat there. But Lancelot had seen many
young girls serving at many tables--yes, and a good many of them had
fallen in love with him, too, before this one, with or without his
knowing it. And Lancelot asked the old man: 'Have you any plain shield
here that you could lend to me for this tournament? I have told you
that I do not want to be known at Camelot, but every knight would know
my shield, if I should carry my own.' And when she heard that, Elaine
thought: 'He is some famous knight, I knew he was!'
"And the old man answered: 'Here are my two sons, Torre and Lavaine;
they are both new knights and their shields are plain and blank. It may
be that Lavaine will like to go and see this tournament, but Torre
cannot go, for he has a wound that is not well yet. You can have his
shield.'
"'And may I leave my own shield here,' said Lancelot, 'till I come
back?'
"'Surely,' said the old man, 'Elaine will take good care of it for you.'
"And when she heard that, Elaine blushed from her forehead down to her
throat, and she stood still and gazed at Lancelot, and he looked up at
her and said: 'If she will do that for me I shall be very grateful.'
"Lavaine had been listening to all that Lancelot said, almost as much as
his sister, and now he said: 'Father, if this knight will let me, might
I not ride with him to the tournament and see the knights, and perhaps
try a joust with one of them?'
"'No, no," said his father, 'it would trouble the knight too much to
have such a boy with him.'
"'It would not trouble me at all,' said Lancelot; 'let him come. He
shall see everything, and if he wants to joust I will advise him and
help him all I can. It would be a poor return for your kindness to me
to do less than that.'
"Then Elaine, although she scarcely dared to speak to Lancelot, said:
'Sir Knight, if I am to keep your shield, could you not wear some token
of mine at the tournament?'
"'My child,' said Lancelot, 'I have never done that for any lady, and it
is against my rule.' And then he thought again: 'All my friends know
that I never wear a token of any lady, and, if I do it now, it will be
all the harder for them to know me.' So he said: 'Very well, then, I
will wear something for you; what is it?'
"And Elaine blushed again with happiness, and she went away and brought
him a sleeve of red silk, all embroidered over with pearls. And Lancelot
bound it on his helmet. Then they all went to bed, and in the morning
Lancelot and Lavaine rode away from Astolat together and came here to
Camelot. And Elaine took Lancelot's shield to her own chamber, and from
the tower of the castle she watched Lancelot and her brother till they
were out of sight.
"I don't see why I should tell you about the tournament. I have told
you about such things so many times that you know how the knights
fought, and I am sure you do not care to hear it again. But I will tell
you that Lancelot came to the tournament and nobody knew him, that he
did better than any other knight there, that Lavaine did well, too, for
so new a knight, and that Lancelot at last got a dreadful wound.
"Then he called to Lavaine to follow him and they rode away. Lancelot
could scarcely sit on his horse, but they rode a little way from Camelot
to a place that Lancelot knew, where a hermit lived. The hermit had
been a knight of the Round Table long ago, and when he saw Lancelot he
knew him, and he took him into his cell and took off his armor and
dressed his wound and did all that he could to help him. And Lancelot
was there with the hermit for a long time, and Lavaine stayed with him.
"Now when the tournament was over the King and all the knights wondered
what had become of the knight who had worn the red sleeve, with the
pearls, on his helmet. He had done better than any of them and the King
wanted to find him, so that he could give him the prize. Some of the
knights had seen that he was wounded, but none of them had seen which
way he went. Then Gawain said that he would hunt for him, but he rode
all around Camelot and could not find him, and then he went back to the
King' and told him that he feared that the knight who wore the red
sleeve was dead.
"So they all went back to Westminster. And at night Gawain came to
Astolat and to the castle of old Sir Bernard. And as soon as he and his
son and his daughter heard that Gawain had come from the tournament at
Camelot, they asked him to tell them all about it and what had been done
there and who had won the prize. 'The prize was won,' he said, 'by a
knight whom nobody knew, and he carried a plain shield and wore a red
sleeve, with pearls, on his helmet. I never saw a knight joust better,
but he went away before the tournament was over and afterwards he could
not be found.'
"Elaine was trembling with happiness that her knight had proved the best
of them all. 'We know him,' she cried; 'he was here with us; it was my
sleeve that he wore, and he is the knight that I love. I knew that he
was the best of knights!'
"'You know him?' said Gawain. 'Then tell me who he was, so that I may
tell the King.'
"Then Elaine told him that she did not know his name, and she told him
all that she did know about him, how he had come there and how he had
promised to wear her sleeve, and how he had taken her brother's shield
and had left his own with her.
"'Will you let me see his shield, then?' Gawain asked. 'I know so many
shields that I might tell who he was by that.'
"So Elaine brought the shield and showed it to Gawain, and said: 'do you
know the knight by this?'
"'Yes, yes,' said Gawain, 'indeed, indeed, I know him; I have known him
for many years, and he is the best knight of the world. He is Sir
Lancelot of the Lake.'
"And when she heard this, Elaine could not say anything, but could only
stand before Gawain, blushing and trembling again, that the great Sir
Lancelot had worn her token at the tournament.
"'But I fear,' said Gawain, 'that we must all be sad for this, for the
knight who wore that red sleeve with the pearls got a dreadful wound,
and now he may be dead or dying.'
"Then Elaine begged her father to let her go to find Lancelot. And he
saw that she loved him so much that it would be better for her to go and
try to find him and help him, if he needed her, than to stay at home and
fret about him, not knowing whether he was alive or dead. And so Elaine
left Astolat to seek for Lancelot. She went first toward Camelot, and
before she reached the city she met her brother, Lavaine. He did not see
her at first, but she called to him, and she was in such haste that she
would not wait to tell him how their father was, or why she had come,
but asked him at once where Sir Lancelot was.
"'How do you know,' he said, 'that he is Sir Lancelot?'
"'It was Sir Gawain that told us,' she answered; 'he came to Astolat and
saw his shield and knew it. Where is he?'
"'In a hermitage, not far from here.'
"'Then he is not dead?'
"'No,' said Lavaine, 'he was wounded and almost killed, but the hermit
is a skilful man and knows what to do with wounds, and he hopes that he
will live.'
"'Take me to him, then,' said Elaine.
"So Lavaine led her to the hermit's cell. And when she saw Lancelot
lying there, with his face thin and white, his eyes large and dark, and
all his strength gone from him, she ran to him and fell upon her knees
beside his bed and hid her face in the pillow, and for a few moments she
could not see or speak or move. Then she rose and looked at him again
and put her hand on his forehead, and then she went and spoke to the
hermit and at last she came and sat down beside Lancelot. And after
that she scarcely left the cell till he was well, and in all the weary
days that passed no one ever saw her tremble or shed a tear, and she
never slept when Lancelot needed her, but she was always there to nurse
him and care for him and help the hermit to cure him, and if he ever
smiled at her or called her by her name or reached out his hand and
touched hers she was happy.
"But Gawain had gone back to the court and had told the King and all the
rest that the knight who wore the red sleeve was Lancelot. And then Bors
had set off to find him too. And Lancelot knew that Bors would come to
find him and he told Lavaine to watch for him in the town, and so he was
soon brought to the cell. And when he and Lancelot had talked for a
little while and Lancelot had asked him about the King and the Queen and
all who were at court, Bors said: 'Is this girl whom I see about you the
one whom they call Elaine of Astolat?'
"'Yes,' said Lancelot, 'and I cannot make her go away. I tell her that
she keeps herself here too close, but she will not rest or leave me.'
"'Why should she leave you?' said Bors. 'She loves you, they say, and
here she proves it; why can you not love her too?'
"'No,' Lancelot answered, 'I wish that it could be, but it never can. I
shall be grateful to her always, she has done so much for me, and I
shall always be her knight, but I can do no more.'
"'It is for you alone to say,' said Bors, 'but I am sorry for her and
for you too.'
"They had spoken low, but Elaine was near and she could not help hearing
a part of what they said. When Bors stole a glance at her he saw that
her face was white, but there were no tears in her eyes, and when there
was anything for her to do for Lancelot she did it just as before, and,
just as before, she never wanted to sleep or to be away from him.
"So Lancelot grew slowly stronger, and after a long time he could sit
upon a horse again, and at last the hermit told him that he needed no
more of his care. Then it was agreed that Lancelot and Bors and Elaine
and Lavaine should ride together to Astolat. There Lancelot was to rest
and get his shield, which was still there, and then go on with Bors and
Lavaine to Westminster. So they came to Astolat and spent the night,
and in the morning Lancelot, Bors, and Lavaine were ready to ride on
their way. Then Lancelot said to Elaine: 'You have done more for me
than I can ever repay. I shall never forget you and always and
everywhere that I go I shall be your knight, and anything that I can
ever do for you I will do gladly.' And Elaine knew that Lancelot could
never do the one thing that she wished him to do for her--to love her.
"And after they were gone her father saw that she grew paler and
thinner, day by day. Her father and her brother Torre tried to amuse her
and cheer her and make her think less of Lancelot, but she thought of
him all day, and when she slept she dreamed of him. She did not sleep
much. Every morning, before the sun rose, she was up and was looking
out from the tower. Sometimes she looked away toward London, where
Lancelot was, or where she thought that he was, and sometimes she would
look away toward Camelot, where she had been with him. But at last she
could not get up to look out from her tower any more. She could not
leave her bed, but she lay there awake all day and much of the night;
she talked with her father or her brother a little, and for the rest of
the time she thought and dreamed of Lancelot. And one day she told her
father that she knew that she should live for only a little while more.
'And now,' she said, 'you must write a letter, just as I shall tell you.
And when I am dead, dress me the best you can and lay me on a couch and
put this letter in my hand. Then put the couch, and me upon it, into a
boat, and let the boat be rowed down the river to Westminster, where
Lancelot and the King and the Queen are.'
"All this she made her father promise to do. Then she told him what to
write for her in the letter, and a little while after that she died.
And her father did all that he had promised.
"One day King Arthur and Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot stood at a
window of the palace at Westminster, looking out upon the Thames. And
there they saw a little boat, all covered over with black and purple
silk, and with only one man to row it. And the boat came straight on
till it touched the shore near the palace. 'It is a strange-looking
boat,' said the King; 'let us go down and see what it is.'
"So they all went down and looked into the boat, and there they saw the
dead Elaine, lying on a couch covered with silk and cloth of gold. Then
the Queen saw the letter in her hand and took it and opened it and saw
that it was to Lancelot. But when she gave it to him Lancelot gave it
to the King and asked him to read it. And the letter said? 'To the
best knight of the world, Sir Lancelot of the Lake: I who bring you this
letter was Elaine of Astolat. I have died, Sir Lancelot, because you
could not love me. Now I beg that you will pray for my soul and will
bury me as I ought to be buried.'
"When the King had read this letter none of them spoke at first. Then
the Queen said: 'Lancelot, could you not do her some little kindness, to
make her sorrow less, so that she might live?'
"'She would have nothing but my love,' said Lancelot. 'I could not give
her that if I would, for true love, such as she should have had, must
come of itself, and cannot be compelled.'
"So the next day Elaine was buried as if she had been a queen, and
Lancelot and the King and the Queen and the knights of the Round Table
were there to see it done. And the boat that had brought her down the
river went back up the river toward Astolat."
[Illustration: Stonehenge]
*CHAPTER VII*
*THE GIANTS' DANCE*
Instead of going from Winchester straight back to London, we took a
little run across to Salisbury. It was not so much that we wanted to
see Salisbury, though it is a pretty place and has a fine cathedral, but
I wanted to go to Stonehenge. To look at Stonehenge, I think, brings
one nearer to the history and the legend of ancient Britain than
anything else that I have ever seen. And if Stonehenge were nothing at
all it would still be worth going to, for the ride to it from Salisbury
is one of the prettiest in all England. There is no such remarkable
scenery, perhaps, as is to be found in many another place, but on that
day when we rode out there the fields were fairly blazing with flowers,
red and yellow and purple, and the little gardens were almost too full
of them to hold them all without spilling. It was just a free, open,
country ride, with everything around looking peaceful and sweet and
beautiful and happy.
And when you take that ride, if you trust to a driver who knows the way
and where you ought to go, he will bring you soon to Old Sarum. It is a
hill, with a thick double wall of earth and a ditch around it, and it
was a Roman town once. Perhaps it was a British town or stronghold
before that. It reminded us a little of Cadbury Castle, but it is a
good deal bigger. It had a cathedral in it once, but for some reason or
other the people began to get tired of living in it and moved down and
made the town of Salisbury, and there a new cathedral was built, and Old
Sarum came to be nothing at all any more but a great hilltop, with its
walls and its ditch around it.
From Old Sarum we went on to Amesbury. I told the driver that I wanted
to stay there for a little while. I think he meant to make a little
stay, whether I had mentioned it or not, for he got ready to do it with
less explanation than it usually takes to get a driver to do anything he
is not used to. He stopped at the little hotel and gave the horse a
drink, and we gave him enough to get something to drink for himself.
Then we walked on toward the church and told him to follow us in a
little while.
We had walked about in the churchyard for only a minute when we saw a
man coming toward us. He proved to be the vicar, who had seen us and
was coming to show us the church. He did show it to us and told us a
great many interesting things about it which I cannot remember well
enough to repeat them here. But I do remember that it was so old that I
decided that there must have been a church here in King Arthur's time,
and that perhaps some part of this very one was standing then.
"But where is the old abbey?" I asked. "Are there not some ruins of that
left?"
We were outside the church now and were looking about at the fields and
the trees. "Oh, no," the vicar said, "there is nothing left of the
abbey now. It was very near where that large house is now. That is the
house of Sir Edmund Antrobus. We can come nearer and look at it, if you
like." So we went nearer and looked at it, and it was a handsome house,
and then we went and stood on a little bridge across the Avon. It was a
shady place and the water was clear, so that we could see the trout
swimming in it, and we looked down the river under a green arch of trees
that grew on the sides of the stream and sent their branches to meet
above it. "I should like you to remember this place," I said, "because
Queen Guinevere lived here for a long time. It is not time yet for me
to tell you how or why, but I will tell you when the time comes, and
till then I want you to remember how the place looks. Remember these
fields and this river and these trees. I don't know, of course, whether
they looked the same then, but they may have been not so very different.
So think of Queen Guinevere sometimes standing on a bridge, just as we
are now, or on the bank of the river, and looking down into just such
clear water and up at just such cool, green, spreading trees. Remember
that she lived over there where Sir Edmund Antrobus lives now, and that
she walked many a morning, it is likely, across these very fields, to a
church that stood where the church is now. That is all. Remember it
till we come to the story about it."
By the time we came out to the road the driver was waiting for us and
wondering what we had found to keep us so long. We got into the
carriage and went on again, and nothing happened till we got to
Stonehenge. Now I know that you don't want me to describe Stonehenge to
you. If you want to know a great deal more than you do about it, you
can find it in a good many big and learned books. What I wish I could
do would be to make you see it, and I cannot do that. It is not much to
tell about, but it is a wonderful thing to see. It seems to me to mean
so much, standing there, so lonely, in the middle of Salisbury
Plain--that great circle of half-smoothed stones--grand, sad, silent,
older than history--a solid, real, noble thing, left to us from a time
out of which we have little else but fairy tales. It was a huge circle
of stones once, square pillars set on end and big blocks laid across
them. Now many of them are lying on the ground, where they fell so long
ago that some of them are half buried in it. Some way off from the
circle is another tall stone, that they say the devil once threw at a
monk. He was such a good man that the devil could not hurt him, but it
struck his foot and took the print of his heel, and the print is there
now, to prove the story. In the morning of the day of the summer when
the sun goes highest in the sky, people come here to see it rise. I
have never been here then, but they say that on that morning, if you
stand over across the circle and look through one of the great stone
gateways, you will see the sun rise exactly over the point of this stone
that the devil threw at the monk.
"I am sorry," I said, "that I cannot tell you the history of Stonehenge,
but I can tell you the story of it, if you care to hear it."
To be sure Helen cared to hear it.
"We shall have to go back, then," I said, "to a time long before King
Arthur was born. Lud was the King of England. It was for him that
London was named. Perhaps the two names do not sound very much alike to
you, but you know names will get a good deal twisted, the best you can
do. Lud had a brother named Levelys, who had gone over to France and
married a princess and had become King of France. And about that time
King Lud and his people began to have a great deal of trouble. There
were three things that troubled them especially. The first was a race
of people called the Coranians. I don't know where these Coranians came
from or what they did to make themselves so troublesome, but there is no
doubt that, for some reason or other, they did not get on well with
Lud's people. And the worst of it was that there seemed to be no way to
get rid of them. The reason was that they had such good ears. For they
could hear anything that was said anywhere on the island, no matter how
softly it was spoken, if the wind was the right way. And so no plan
against them could ever be talked over without their finding out all
about it.
"And the second trouble was a noise, a horrible scream, that was heard
in every house in England on the eve of every May Day. It was so loud
and so fearful that it frightened people half to death, and it went
through them like a knife, and it chilled their blood and filled them
with horror, and some of them went mad because of it.
"And the third trouble was that the King never could keep anything to
eat in the house. No matter how much provision there was at night, it
was all gone the next morning, and nobody could find out what became of
it.
"Now, it occurred to King Lud that his brother Levelys was a very wise
man, and that it would be worth while to go to France and see him and
ask him if he could tell what ought to be done about all these troubles.
So he got ready a fleet, very quietly, so that the Coranians should know
as little as possible about it, and sailed toward France. And when his
brother heard that he was coming he got ready a fleet too, and sailed
from France to meet him. When they met they were very glad to see each
other, and they got ready to talk about King Lud's troubles. Levelys
was so wise that he knew just what Lud had come for, without being told,
so he tried to find a way for them to talk without the Coranians hearing
them. And he had a horn made of brass, and he thought that if they
talked through that they could not be heard even by such ears as the
Coranians had.
"But when they began to talk through it they found that whatever either
of them said into it nothing would come out but angry and hostile words.
Then Levelys knew that a demon had got into the horn. So he poured wine
through the horn and drove the demon out. Then they found that they
could hear through the horn much better. Levelys talked through the
horn and told Lud that he would give him some insects that would kill
the Coranians. He must put them in water and then he must call all the
people of the island together and scatter the water over them. It would
kill all the Coranians, he said, and it would not harm Lud's own people.
"As for the second trouble, that of the dreadful noise, Levelys said
that it was caused by two dragons, that were fighting. 'When you go
home,' he said, 'you must measure your island and find the exact middle
of it. There you must dig a pit, and in the pit you must put a cauldron
of the best mead, and you must cover the top of the cauldron with satin.
Then you must watch till you see the two dragons flying in the air and
fighting together. After a time they will grow weary with fighting and
they will drop down upon the satin and sink into the cauldron. Then
they will drink all the mead that there is in it and go to sleep. After
that you must fold the covering of satin around them and bury them in
the strongest place that you have.
"'And the third trouble,' Levelys went on, 'the disappearing of all your
food, is caused by a great enchanter, who comes and carries it away.
And the reason that nobody who watches ever sees him is that he casts
spells over all of them and makes them sleep. But you yourself must
watch, and you must have a cauldron filled with cold water beside you,
and when you feel like sleeping you must get into the cauldron and the
cold water will keep you awake.'
"When he had heard all this Lud went home. And the first thing that he
did was to call all the people together, as his brother had told him.
Then he sprinkled the water with the insects in it over all the people
and it killed all the Coranians and did no harm to his own people.
"Then he measured the island and found that the very middle of it was in
Oxford. You can measure it yourself, on the map, if you want to find
out whether the middle of it is really in Oxford. I don't say that it
is, only that that was what Lud found. But I suppose he must have been
right about it, for the rest of the experiment worked perfectly. That
is to say, he dug the pit and put the cauldron in the pit and the mead
in the cauldron, and the satin over the cauldron, and waited to see the
fight of the dragons. And the dragons came and fought and fell down
into the cauldron and drank up the mead and slept, and Lud covered them
with the satin and buried them in Snowdon, which is a great mountain in
Wales. I am sorry that we cannot go to Snowdon at present, for I know
that it must be worth seeing.
"And finally Lud made such a great feast that there was sure to be a
good deal of it left, and then he sat up to see what would become of it.
He put on his armor and sat down and waited, and by and by he began to
hear such sweet music that he could scarcely help going to sleep. But
he got into the cauldron of cold water which he had ready, and that kept
him awake. And at last there came a great man, dressed all in armor and
carrying a big basket. He began to put the food into the basket and Lud
began to wonder how he could do it, for it seemed to him that there was
a great deal more of it than the basket could ever hold. But the man put
it all in and then started to go away with it. Then Lud stopped him and
made him fight with him. And Lud beat him and would not grant him mercy
till he promised to be Lud's servant and to restore the value of all
that he had ever taken from him.
"Now we come to the second part of the story. To get to it we have to
come down a good many years, to the time when Merlin, the great magician
and wise man of King Arthur's court, was a boy. We almost always think
of him as an old man, with white hair and a long, white beard. But he
was a boy once, just like anybody else. And a wonderful thing about it
was that he knew just as much more than anybody else in the world when
he was a boy as he did when he was an old man.
"There was a King of England named Vortigern. He had no right to be King
of England, but he was. King Constantine had died not long ago, and had
left three sons. They were Constans, Pendragon, and Uther. Vortigern,
being very powerful at that time, had had Constans made King and he
himself had become his chief adviser. Then he had contrived to get
Constans killed and had been crowned as King himself. Pendragon and
Uther were too young then to rule, and those who had the care of them
had fled with them to France, because they knew that Vortigern would
kill them too, if they stayed in England. And in France the princes
lived and grew up to be young men.
"While they were doing that, Vortigern was having a good deal of trouble
in trying to govern the kingdom that did not belong to him. He did it
so badly that the people turned against him, and he had many enemies
from abroad besides. At last he called his wise men together and they
told him that there was nothing left for him to do but to build the
strongest tower he could, in the safest place he could, and then stay in
it and try to keep himself from his enemies.
"So Vortigern hunted all over the island to find the best place to build
his tower, and he decided that the best place was Snowdon. But when his
workmen began to build there was more trouble. No matter how much they
built in a day, it all fell down in the night, and the next day they had
to begin all over again. When that had gone on for awhile Vortigern
called his wise men together again and asked them what was the matter.
"The wise men did not know in the least, but they tried to look wiser
than they had ever looked before in their lives, and they said that in a
few days they would find out. Then they got together, away from the
King, and talked it all over and tried to make up their minds why the
King's tower would not stand. I don't know all the absurd ways that
they had of thinking that they found out things, but the one that they
believed in the most was studying the stars. So they studied the stars
as hard as ever they could, but not a thing could they find out from
them about the King's tower and why it would not stand. But they were
dreadfully scared by something else that they thought they saw in the
stars. This was that every one of them would finally be brought to his
death by a child who never had a father. Then one of them, who was a
little brighter than the others, said: 'If we cannot do anything for the
King, perhaps we can do something for ourselves. Let us try to kill
this child who never had a father, before he kills us. Let us tell the
King that we have found out from the stars that his tower will stand, if
he mixes the mortar with the blood of a child who never had a father.
Then he will find the child and kill him and we shall be safe."
"They all thought that this was a good plan, so they went and told the
King that he must find a child who never had a father and mix his blood
into the mortar. So the King sent out messengers in every direction to
hunt for a child who never had a father. As I told you at first, Merlin
was a child then, and perhaps you remember that I told you a long time
ago that nobody ever knew who Merlin's father was, unless, as some
people said, he was the son of a devil. Well, one day two of
Vortigern's messengers came to the town where Merlin lived, and Merlin
and some other children were playing in the street.
"Just as the messengers came along Merlin struck one of his playmates.
The boy cried out and asked Merlin how he dared to strike him, when he
was the son of a great man and when Merlin never had any father. When
the messengers heard that, of course they were interested at once. They
asked about Merlin and they found that the story was indeed that this
boy never had any father, so they told him that the King wanted him and
that he must come with them. 'I am ready to go with you,' Merlin said,
'and I am not afraid, though I know that the King means to kill me. You
could never have found me if I had not been willing that you should. I
knew that you were looking for me and I struck the other boy so that he
would say just what he did, to tell you that I was the child that the
King wanted. I shall not let the King kill me and I shall tell him what
makes his tower fall down.'
"Then the messengers went back to the King and took Merlin with them.
When he came before the King Merlin said: 'My lord, you mean to kill me
because your wise men have told you that my blood will make your tower
stand. But they know nothing about it. Call them and let me question
them and prove to you that they know nothing about it.'
"So the King called his wise men and Merlin said to them: 'What is under
the place where the King wants to build his tower?'
"The wise men studied and whispered together and tried to look wiser
than ever, but at last they had to say that they did not know what was
under the place. 'Then I will tell you,' said Merlin; 'there is water
under it; my lord, have your workmen dig down and see.
"So the workmen were set to digging and after awhile they came to the
water. 'Now what is under that?' said Merlin to the wise men.
"And again they could not tell. 'There are two great stones under it,'
said Merlin; 'draw the water off and see.'
"So they drew off the water and there were the stones, just as Merlin
said. 'Now,' said Merlin to the wise men, 'tell the King what is under
these stones.'
"And the wise men, who were getting pretty well scared by this time,
could not tell. 'There are two dragons under the stones,' said Merlin;
'one of them is red and the other is white; when the stones are lifted
they will fight and the red dragon will kill the white one.'
"The wise men had not another word to say and the King told the workmen
to take up the stones. They took them up and, surely enough, there were
the dragons. And, just as Merlin had said, they began to fight. People
were fond of fights in those days and there surely never was a better
one of its kind than this. But everybody who saw it felt that it could
be seen better a little way off. They were a good deal relieved when
Merlin told them that the dragons would not hurt any of them and would
only kill each other. And no doubt it was a fine fight to look at. The
dragons were horrible creatures, with snaky bodies and wings like bats
and long, sharp teeth and claws. And they flew above the heads of the
people and struck at each other with their claws and twisted about each
other and tore with their teeth and breathed fire out of their mouths,
and roared and shrieked till the air shook. And at last the red dragon
killed the white one, and then he fell down to the ground, and in a
little while he died too.
"'Now,' said Merlin, 'you can build your tower and it will stand. But
what is to be done,' he went on, 'with these men who tried to make you
kill me? Is it not fair, my lord, that you should give them to me and
let me do whatever I like with them?'
"'That is fair,' said the King; 'take them and do with them what you
like.'
"Of course the wise men were all begging Merlin for mercy now, and
telling him that all they did was only because the stars had told them
that he was to cause their death. 'That is true,' said Merlin; 'I know
that you really thought that you saw that in the stars, but I know too
that it was only because an evil spirit was deceiving you. He is a
spirit who hates me and he made you see what you saw in the stars in the
hope of destroying me. So it was not so much your fault, and I forgive
you.'
"After that Vortigern built his tower and it stood. But he was not
happy or safe in it long. The sons of the old King Constantine,
Pendragon and Uther, who had been taken to France, were grown up by this
time and they came over to England with an army, to get back from
Vortigern the kingdom which belonged to them. To make a short story of
it, they captured Vortigern's strong tower and killed him, and then
Pendragon was King of England. But the country was not peaceful yet.
The Saxons, who had come many times before, came still and tried to
conquer the Britons. Then Merlin foretold that there would be a great
battle on Salisbury Plain. There, he said, Pendragon and Uther and
their army would fight with the Saxons and would beat them, but one of
the brothers would be killed. He would not say which one, but he said
that the one who lived must take his brother's name, besides his own,
and be King of England, and he must build a monument to his brother on
Salisbury Plain that should last forever.
"So the great battle was fought on Salisbury Plain, all around where we
are now, and the Saxons were beaten. But when it was over, they found
that many of the Britons had been killed, and that the King, Pendragon,
was among them. So his brother Uther was made King and took his name
and was called Uther Pendragon. Then the new King sent for Merlin and
said to him: 'How shall I build the monument to my brother on Salisbury
Plain, so that it shall last forever?'
"And Merlin answered: 'Send to Ireland and get the Giants' Dance, and
set it up for a monument to your brother.'
"'What is the Giants' Dance?' the King asked.
"'It is a circle of great stones,' Merlin answered. 'The giants brought
them long ago from Africa and set them up in Ireland.'
"'And how shall I bring them here?' the King asked.
"'Send ships and men to get them,' Merlin answered, 'and I will go to
show them how.'
"So the ships were got ready and Merlin crossed over with the men into
Ireland. He knew the place to go, and there stood the Giants' Dance, a
great circle of upright stones, with other great stones lying across the
tops of them. 'Now see if you can take them down,' said Merlin. And
they tried. They brought timbers and ropes and made levers and pulled
and pushed and did everything that they could think of. And they could
no more move even one of the stones than they could move the mountain
that they stood on. 'Now rest a little while,' said Merlin.
"Then Merlin, all alone, walked about the stones and in and out among
them, and he seemed to be saying something or singing something, but
nobody could understand what it was. 'Try again to move them,' he said.
"They tried again and this time it was as easy as if the stones had been
bags filled with air. They put them on board the ships and they sailed
back to England, and Merlin set them up, just as they had been in
Ireland, here on Salisbury Plain, where Pendragon had been killed. And
afterward, when Uther Pendragon died, he was buried here at Stonehenge,
too.
"That is all of the story and here is Stonehenge to prove that it is
true. If anybody cares to say that this story is not true, let him tell
me how else these stones came here. Let him try to tell me how else
they could come here. Merlin told King Uther Pendragon that he would
build a monument that should stand forever. Forever is a long time.
Many of the stones have fallen now, you see, but still many of them
stand, and it is not for us to say that Merlin was wrong and that this
monument will not be here always. All that we can know is that the
stones, fallen or standing, are here where Merlin put them, that they
still show us the place where the battle was and where Pendragon fell,
and that the sun, on the longest day of the summer, still rises over the
one stone away down there and looks through the gate that Merlin built,
into the wonderful, old, mysterious, magic circle, where the two kings,
Pendragon and Uther, are buried. And after all, I think that I would
rather not know any more about Stonehenge than that."
[Illustration: St. Michael's Mount]
*CHAPTER VIII*
*ON THE EDGE OF LYONNESSE*
We had meant, when Helen's mother should come from Paris, to go back to
Glastonbury and begin our journey again where we had left off. But when
she came we thought better of it. We decided that, since we were going
to the Southwest of England again, we might as well go all the way and
see the Land's End. Then, we thought, we could go to Glastonbury just as
well on the way back.
So it happened that when Helen's mother was with us again, we took the
longest railway ride that we had taken yet, and at the end of it we
found ourselves in Penzance. Penzance is the place where the pirates
were, you know. We had always supposed that that was a made-up story and
that there never were really any pirates of Penzance. But we found that
the pirates were there still. Only now they do not scuttle ships any
more, if they ever did; they keep hotels. But that is an unpleasant
subject.
We set off the next morning for a long drive--which was to be partly a
walk--to the Land's End. There were many things that were worth seeing
before we got to the Land's End, or anywhere near it. First there was
the harbor of Penzance, one of the prettiest that I ever looked out
upon. And over on the other side of it, stately and beautiful against
the summer morning sky, stood St. Michael's Mount. St. Michael's Mount
is a cone-shaped hill, rising high out of the water, with a castle on
the top of it. It is one of those things that are so picturesque that
they surprise you when you see them in a real scene, because they look
too perfect to belong outside a painted picture.
"And who do you suppose used to live on the top of that hill?" I said.
"Why, the old giant Cormoran, the one whom Jack the Giant-Killer knocked
on the head with his pickaxe, the very first giant whom he killed. Of
course I should not think of telling you that story, at your time of
life; I only tell you that there is the place. But I might tell you
about another giant, and let you try to straighten out his story, if you
like, better than I can. Over across the channel from here, in France,
there is another St. Michael's Mount. I have never seen it, but the
picture of it looks as much like this one as if it were its own brother.
I think that I have told you before that the people of old days used to
think that high hills belonged somehow to St. Michael. Well, over there
on the other St. Michael's Mount lived another giant with whom King
Arthur himself once had a little tussle. The giant's name was Ryence,
and he had a mantle trimmed with kings' beards. You remember something,
perhaps, that I told you once about a King named Ryence, who had a
mantle trimmed with kings' beards. It is rather curious that there
should be two of them.
"It was when King Arthur went over to France on his way to fight the
Emperor of Rome that he heard of this giant. He was a terror to the
whole country, for he killed hundreds of people and spoiled crops, and
his favorite food was little boys. I don't know why he liked little
boys so much better than little girls, but I suppose he knew more about
which were the better to eat than I do.
"When Arthur heard about the giant he took Sir Kay and Sir Bedivere with
him and went to the foot of the hill. There he told them to wait for
him, and went up the hill alone. He found the giant sitting before a
fire cooking a man for his supper. Arthur got close to him and wounded
him with his sword before the giant knew that he was there. Then he
sprang up and caught hold of Arthur, and they both fell and rolled over
and over each other clear to the bottom of the hill, and Arthur managed
to give the giant two or three more wounds on the way. Kay and Bedivere
ran to see if the King was killed, and they found that he was scarcely
hurt at all and that the giant was dead.
"I don't say that there is anything so very remarkable about that. It
is just a plain sort of every-day giant story. But here are the strange
points, I think. Here were two hills looking wonderfully alike and with
the same name, and a giant lived and was killed on each of them. And
here were two giants, both named Ryence, for King Ryence was a giant,
too, and they both had mantles trimmed with kings' beards, and Arthur
killed one and beat the other. It looks to me as if two stories, at
least, had got a little mixed, or else one story twisted in two. How
does it look to you?"
There is no reason, that I can see, why I should try to tell you all
about the way from Penzance to the Land's End. It will not do you much
good to know that it was grand and beautiful, as long as you were not
there to see its grandeur and its beauty. We stopped at St. Buryan, and
a very old woman showed us the church. It is a curious old place, and
it has some fine carvings. But the old woman, who showed us everything
and explained it to us, could not understand what there was about it
that we found interesting. She had been showing this church to people,
she said, for more than fifty years, and she had never been able to make
out yet why they wanted to see it.
Then we went on to see the Logan Rock, and got a guide to find it for
us. We could never have found it for ourselves, because it is so mixed
up with so many other rocks. It is a huge rocking stone. It weighs I
don't know how many tons, but a strong man can move it a little, if he
knows just how and where to take hold of it and push. The guide rocked
it for us, and he said that we did it ourselves when we tried, but I
think he flattered us. He helped us to climb on the top of it--not an
easy thing to do at all--and then he rocked it with us sitting on it.
As he led the way back he took us through a narrow passage between two
great rocks and told us that we must each of us make a wish as we passed
through and never tell what it was, and then it would come true. "But we
don't need to ask what the young ladies wish," he said, "they all wish
the same thing." We wondered how many years he had been making that
same joke over and over again. No doubt he must have got some pretty
tips by it, when there were young women and young men both in the party.
We were going to walk from here to the Land's End, five miles, for it
was one of the places where we had been told that we must walk, so as to
see the scenery. We had already told the driver to go on to the Land's
End and wait there for us. The guide showed us how to go and offered to
go with us, but we thought that we did not need him. "You won't be able
to see the Scillys to-day," he said. "Sometimes you can see them from
the Land's End, but it isn't clear enough to-day. But you can be sure
of a fine day to-morrow. When it is clear enough to see the Scillys it
almost always rains the next day."
So we felt cheered at missing a sight that we had hoped to see, and went
on our way. All the way the walk was up headlands and down ravines,
with many grand and beautiful pictures--great crags and domes and
pinnacles of rock and deep valleys and gorges and caves, and the sea
always crashing and roaring down below us.
And when we came to the Land's End, of course that was the best of all.
For there the sea seemed rougher than anywhere else, though it was not a
rough day. It was no new thing for us to stand on a point of rock, with
all the land behind us and nothing but boundless ocean before us. We
did not need to come to the Land's End or to England for that. But
there was something awful and solemn about these towers of stone that
stood here to keep the sea from washing England away, and about the sea
that was working at them while we looked, dashing up against them and
slipping back and dashing up again, as it had been doing for thousands
of years before we had come to look, and as it would do for thousands of
years after we were gone. And after all these ages of work and struggle
the waves seemed to be still angry, still fierce and full of wrath that
the land should resist them so long. "Old rocks," they seemed to say,
"you think that you are firm and steady and strong. But wait--and
wait--there is much time before both of us still. Stand against us as
you will; we shall still clash and beat upon you, and at last, in spite
of all your firmness, we shall wear and wash you away, and we shall
cover you sometime as we covered old Lyonnesse."
Lyonnesse! That, after all, I believe, is the wonderful thing to think
of at the Land's End. "Yes, now," I said, "we are looking straight out
over Lyonnesse--Tristram's country, the country that is lost. This is
where it began, and it stretched away out there where there is nothing
now but ocean, away out to the Scilly Islands, which we are not to see
to-day. For thirty miles old Lyonnesse reached out from here, and even
now, they say, for all that way, the bottom of the ocean lies at an even
depth, and not like the bottom in other places. And they say, too, that
when the water had covered Lyonnesse for so long that people had almost
forgotten that there ever was any land there, the fishermen used to
think of it again, because they sometimes drew up their hooks with
pieces of doors and windows caught upon them. And nothing more than
these ever came back of a country that had its towns and its fields and
its forests and its people, which were all lost under the water
together.
"And I remember an old book which says that more than Lyonnesse was
taken away from Cornwall by the sea. For the old book says that St.
Michael's Mount, which we saw this morning, used to have another name,
that meant 'the rock in the wood.' And from this it was thought that
St. Michael's Mount stood in a forest once, and not in the sea, as it
does now. And the book, which was written about three hundred years ago,
says that even then, when the tides were low around St. Michael's Mount,
the stumps and roots of great trees were sometimes seen half buried in
the sand."
Perhaps this is all nothing but old fable, but the land of Cornwall and
the sea of Cornwall look as if it were true. How could these terrible
waves and tempests tear and beat and surge upon this country, even with
its walls of rock, without taking something away? You can laugh at the
old wives' tales--if it is your way to laugh at such things--it is not
ours--while you are at home, but when you stand at the Land's End and
look out to sea, if you have a bit of the love of a story in you, you
must and you will believe in Lyonnesse.
[Illustration: The Land's End]
*CHAPTER IX*
*THE SIEGE PERILOUS*
It does not matter just where we were when we told and heard these next
few stories. Neither do I need to use quotation marks all through them.
You will understand that we did tell them and hear them somewhere. They
belong to no place. When King Arthur's knights set out from Camelot to
seek the Holy Grail everything seemed at once to grow mysterious and
marvellous and magical. Place and time were unknown and almost
unthought of. Knights rode about without knowing or caring where they
went. Sometimes they found more wonderful adventures than had ever been
thought of before, and sometimes they rode for days and saw no house and
no living thing. Friends met friends and did not know them; fathers
fought with sons, and brothers with brothers. New knights won glory and
knights who were old and tried were put to shame. Common men became
prophets, and so prophets became common. The worst of men gave counsel
to the best of knights, and the knights could scarcely tell whether the
things that they were told to do were the best and the wisest or the
most foolish and the worst. There were signs and omens and visions, and
there were hard trials of courage and of faithfulness.
There are a hundred stories of what was seen and said and done. They
are all different, and among them all much seems confused and dim and
uncertain. But everywhere and through everything is seen, like a clear
flash of fleeting flame, one perfect knight, the strongest, noblest,
greatest knight who ever came to Arthur's court, the one best knight of
all the world. Others wander and stray and are tempted and overcome and
disheartened, and then there is a gleam of a fire-colored armor, and
there is a swift stroke of a spear that never missed its aim, the wicked
are overthrown, the helpless are rescued, and the knight has passed on
toward his goal of the Holy Grail.
It all began on the night before the feast of Pentecost, when so many
strange things happened. The King and the Queen and the knights were in
the great hall at Camelot, and a
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