The Merriest Knight

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

  "Young sir, how fares your knightly quest?"

  The other halted and looked blankly at the mountain lord and the shaggy pony. He pressed a hand to his brow.

  "What quest?" he asked.

  Sir Hew was nettled, and spoke accordingly.

  "If you are not a knight-errant on a quest, why are you in this wilderness at this desolate season of the year? What ails you that you loiter here, pale and unshaven and unarmed?—and a likelihood of snow any day now! The songbirds are flown, and even the woodcock have winged away. The squirrel has made his harvest of beechnuts for the winter. If you ride on no crazy, chivalrous quest, then what the devil brings you here at this time of year?"

  "A quest?" repeated the stranger, vaguely. "Yes, I rode on a quest, I do believe—but I have forgotten what it was."

  Sir Hew dismounted and looked keenly into the stranger's face—keenly but not unkindly.

  "Where are your arms and armor? Did wild mountainy men—fellows like these, in wolf-skins and sheep-skins—set upon you and bump your poor head and rob you? Or did something worse befall you? Are you bewitched, poor lad?"

  The stranger's dark eyes gazed vacantly into space as he murmured, "She found me roots of relish sweet, and honey wild and manna dew, and sure in language strange she said, 'I love thee true.' I set her on my pacing steed, and nothing else saw all day long, for sideways would she lean and sing a fairy's song."

  "God help you!" exclaimed Sir Hew.

  But the stranger would not be interrupted. He intoned his sad, wild, amazing story to the end.

  "I saw pale kings and princes too, pale warriors— death-pale were they all—who cried, 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci hath thee in thrall.'"

  Sir Hew laid big hands on the man's shoulders and shook him, then called for the leather bottle and forced an ounce or so of its contents between the bewitched knight-errant's teeth. Then they all went in search of the young man's arms and armor. The stranger walked beside the elder knight like a sleepwalker, and muttered wild words to himself. The mountaineers quartered the hillside like dogs; and presently one of them checked and gave a shout and pointed a finger. The others hurried up; and there, in a ferny hollow, lay the knightly armor, all complete, but with the shine of its plates and chain-pieces darkened and dimmed by dews and frosts. The casque, with its bedraggled plume, lay a little to one side; and a spider had spun its web under the raised vizor. The shield lay face down. Sir Hew stooped and turned the shield over. Its face was as plain as its back, and the iron plates were dark and dim.

  Later, at some distance, they found the saddle and trappings of the horse, a two-handed sword, and a long spear of ash with an iron head. The huntsman rode around the lake and fetched the charger. The cowherd saddled the great horse, and the young knight mounted without protest but equally without enthusiasm. And so all heads were turned homeward, southward, for the castle of the Two Mountains. Sir Hew talked and questioned; and his servants and wild mountainy men crowded close for fear of missing a word; but the bemazed knight paid no heed and replied to no question. But Sir Hew was not discouraged. He was pleased with the sound of his own voice and the consuming interest of his humble followers; and so he told wonderful stories of his own chivalrous past, naming many great names.

  * * *

  The sun sank and the frost struck. Sir Hew called a halt in a glade, beside a deserted hut of stones and wild thatch. The men in wolf-skins gathered fuel, lit a fire, and gathered dry fern and heather for beds. The huntsman and the cowherd saw to the big horse and the shaggy ponies. A side of young mutton was put to the fire. Sparks flew aloft in swarms like golden bees and leaping red flames painted the wavering walls of the night. The mountainy men skipped in and out of the heat and glare, feeding the fire and twirling the blistering mutton and looking like hairy devils. The knights sat just clear of roasting range, hunched in their cloaks; and Sir Hew still talked and questioned, but the stranger gazed into the heart of the fire without a word. The hounds sprawled at their master's feet. The side of mutton fell from its improvised spit into the flames; and the skipping devil who rescued it caught a-fire and lost all the hair off his wolf-skin shirt. The laughter of his companions, including His Lordship of the Two Mountains, went up higher than the soaring sparks into the frosty air; and just as that gust of mirth began to thin and subside, the bewitched young knight of the forgotten quest fell to laughing loud and high. At the first sound of that outburst, Sir Hew turned upon the stranger in astonishment.

  Astonishment gave way to boisterous approval, and he smote the other so heartily on a shoulder with an open hand as to overset him and roll him on the sod.

  "So you are a man of flesh and blood after all!" cried Sir Hew; whereupon the other righted himself in utter silence and fell to staring into the fire again with haunted eyes and desolated visage.

  The huntsman produced loaves of barley bread and passed them round. Then he served the scorched sheep, giving his master and the defaded knight-errant the first hack at it. The older knight chopped with a heavy hand, saying that mountain mutton was almost as much to his taste as mountain venison, but the bemused gentleman would have none of it. Sir Hew unstoppered his great leather bottle and pressed it upon his bedazed companion and himself; and the huntsman, cowherd, and wild hills-men washed their mutton and barley bread down with mountainy mead. The hounds grabbed discarded ribs and shanks, and the cracking of bones between pointed fangs sounded louder than the cracking and snapping of the flames and faggots.

  At last Sir Hew licked his fingers, wiped them on the lining of his cloak, and burst into song. It was a mountain song, all about hunting and feasting and frolicking; and the hounds and the mountainy men howled heartily in the chorus. At the end of the twenty-first stanza, he raised the leather bottle and tilted it against his lips—and he was surprised to find that no more of its mellow contents remained than what he could dispose of easily in two gulps.

  And now the young knight of the forgotten quest piped up a lugubrious air in a voice to match.

  "I met a lady in the meads,

  Full beautiful—a fairy's child!

  Her hair was long, her foot was light,

  And her eyes were wild."

  The great hounds sat down on their tails and pointed their snouts to the stars and howled right dismally. But the young knight wailed right on.

  " I set her on my pacing steed,

  And nothing else saw all day long;

  For sideways would she lean and sing

  A fairy's song.

  "I made a garland for her head,

  And bracelets too, and fragrant zone.

  She looked at me as she did love,

  And made sweet moan."

  Sir Hew sighed profoundly and prompted one of the howling hounds to silence with a well-gnawed rib of sheep. The bewitched knight wailed on.

  "She took me to her elfin grot,

  And there she gazed and sighed deep;

  And there I shut her wild, sad eyes—

  So kissed to sleep."

  The wild mountaineers shivered and flung more brush on the roaring fire, and the huntsman dipped again into the crock of mead. The strange knight piped on like a wintry wind in a large knothole.

  "And there we slumbered on the moss,

  And there I dreamed, ah, woe betide!

  The latest dream I ever dreamed

  On the cold hillside.

  "I saw pale kings and princes too,

  Pale warriors—death-pale were they all—

  Who cried, 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci

  Hath thee in thrall!'

  "I saw their starved lips in the gloom,

  With horrid warning gaped wide;

  And I awoke and found me here

  On the cold hillside"

  "God defend us!" cried Sir Hew, laying hold of the daft knight's shoulder. "What devil's rigmarole is this?—worse than the pipings of goat-hoofed Pan in the old heathenish days of my great-great-grandfather!"

  The young knight was silent. He
had finished. The hounds ceased their starward howling. The mountainy men muttered prayers to their wild, cruel, outlawed mountainy gods.

  "Is that a shadow?" asked Sir Hew, in a cracked voice.

  He pointed a finger. Everyone looked. The big hounds looked and lifted their hackles and shrank their bellies close against the sod, shivering and silent. It was not a shadow. It was an old man in a russet gown and a snow-white beard, with a shepherd's crook in his right hand.

  "Long life to you, my good lord of the Two Mountains, valorous and generous Sir Hew," said the ancient.

  The knight thanked him in an uneasy voice, and begged him to sit down and refresh himself with mutton and mead, wondering fearfully the while who the mischief he might be, for there was no blinking the strangeness of his sudden appearance at the edge of the fire. The newcomer dismissed the suggestion of food and drink with a wave of the left hand, moved around the fire, and stared keenly at the younger knight.

  "I heard your dolorous ditty, young sir," said he. "It is an ancient song, of ancient inspiration, but not widely known. I should be interested to learn where you picked it up."

  The befuddled one gave him a blank, wild-eyed look, then returned his gaze to the glowing heart of the fire.

  "Dinadan, harky to me," resumed the old man, in an impressive tone of voice. "A stranger and a mystery you may be to good Sir Hew, but you are neither to me. Young Dinadan of the Little Wood, third son of a poor knight of the North, and yourself knighted but a year ago by King Arthur Pendragon, at Westminster, in recognition of your service over the matter of King Rience."

  The knight-errant pressed a hand to his brow.

  "You may be right," he replied. "I seem to recatch a glimmer of something of the kind. And as you know so much, Reverend Sir, name me the high quest on which I rode away from King Arthur's court."

  "It is for you to answer questions, not to ask them. Have you seen this Fairy's Child?"

  "Why do you think so? And why not?"

  "When did you meet her, and where?"

  "Who wants to know, and why?"

  The old man made a gesture of impatience and ordered one of the wild mountainy men to fetch him the young knight's shield. The shield was laid at the ancient's feet, face up. He knelt and fell to rubbing the dim iron plates with the tail of his russet gown. Sir Hew and Sir Dinadan approached and stood over him, peering curiously to see what he was about. The huntsman, the herdsman, and the mountaineers crowded around. The old man rubbed and rubbed, hissing the while through his teeth like a varlet grooming a horse. He rubbed the entire surface of the shield over and over, now with a circular motion, now across, now up and down. At last he withdrew his hand and squatted back on his heels.

  "Your worthy sire's badge is a goshawk, and the rallying cry of your family is 'Strike hard.' But what have we here? Do you see it? Look!—shaping and brightening as if through thinning fog."

  "I see it!" exclaimed Sir Hew. "A white charger. A mounted knight, fully armed, with his spear sloped. Horse and rider gleam and glow, and seem to move yet remain in the center of the shield. And here letters appear—words— shining like fire!"

  "Read them," said the old man, with an ironical note in his voice.

  "Latin," said Sir Dinadan.

  "Ay, to be sure—Latin," echoed Sir Hew.

  "Have you two noble knights forgotten your Latin?" sneered the old man.

  "I have—if I ever had any," admitted Dinadan.

  "Expectans . . . equito," read Sir Hew, slowly. "Dear me! It sounds simple. Something about a horse, unhorse me else! I am expecting a horse. If not that exactly, something very like it. Or, I am waiting for my horse. How's that, Reverend Sir?"

  "Rotten!" exclaimed the old man, rising to his feet and uttering a harsh laugh. "Expectans equito—Waiting, I ride. Consider that, young Dinadan. Waiting, I ride.' It is written. Long shall be the waiting, I promise you, and long and rough the riding. And at the far end of it—what? That will depend upon yourself, young sir; for you will find nothing at the end of that long way that you have not carried with you in your heart."

  He turned, stepped one pace, and vanished.

  The knights gaped at nothing and the mountainy men shivered. The big hounds cowered against the knightly legs. Sir Hew was the first to recover his wits and power of speech.

  "Merlin!" he said. "That mighty warlock, older than antiquity. He hasn't been seen in these parts since I was a lad. My worthy father held him to be the master wizard of the world."

  "Never heard of him," said Sir Dinadan, staring dolorously down at his shield. "But, wizard or no wizard, I defy his mumbo jumbo! Expectans equito, is it? We shall see about that! I ride my own gait, and travel or tarry at my own pleasure, wizards and warlocks notwithstanding."

  "And witches?" queried Sir Hew. "Were you traveling or tarrying when I met you beside the lake? And was it of your own free will, poor lad?"

  The young knight hunched his cloak about his face and turned away.

  The Madness of Sir Tristram

  Dame Bragwaine rode to the court and told the queen, La Beale Isoud, that Sir Tristram was nigh in that country. For joy Isoud swooned; and when she might speak she said: "Help that I may speak with him, outher my heart will brast." Then Dame Bragwaine brought Sir Tristram and Sir Kehydius privily unto the court and into a chamber; and to tell the joys that were betwixt that queen and Sir Tristram no pen can write it. And when Sir Kehydius saw La Beale Isoud, he was so enamoured upon her. . . privily he wrote unto her letters and ballads. . . . And when she understood his letters, she had pity of his complaint, and unadvised she wrote another letter to comfort him withal. . . . And as it mishapped, Tristram found the letter that Kehydius had sent unto La Beale Isoud and also the letter she wrote unto Kehydius. . . . Then upon a night Sir Tristram put his horse from him and unlaced his armour, and so he went into the wilderness and brast down trees and boughs. Then was he naked; and he waxed lean and poor of flesh. . . . And he fell among swineherds; and when he did any shrewd deed, they beat him with rods.

  —Sir Thomas Malory

  Sir Dinadan drew rein and addressed his squire. "Tis twenty days since we rode forth from Camelot."

  "Twenty-three," the squire amended, in a patient voice.

  "And in that time I have encountered and bested four knights-errant."

  "Five, sir."

  "Four or five, our pouches are still empty." "You are too soft, sir."

  "But each and every one of them swore by his halidom that his arms and horse were the whole of his worldly possessions; and all pleaded hungry wives and children at home."

  "If you had kept your vizor shut—" "Just so! With my vizor shut, they'd not have seen my foolish face. I get your meaning, my friend." "Nay, sir—the kindness in it."

  "Nay, good Kedge, don't spare me. I'm a fool, and I admit it—but only to you. I distrust my own judgment. What would you do now, in my place?"

  "Well, sir—since you ask me: if I were you, we'd turn right around an' head back for Camelot at a gallop."

  "But we left there of necessity—this time as upon former occasions—because our money was spent and our credit exhausted. Why return now, with our pouches still empty?"

  "To refill them, sir—your pouch, that's to say—and boxes an' strong rooms to boot—the easiest way."

  "Ah, my poor Kedge, are you still harping on that frayed string?"

  "You asked my advice, sir. With a rich wife, you could live at court the year around, and give every day to the inventing of songs and bons mots, and every night to the reciting of them in the highest and merriest companies, with never a thought of the cost, and no risk to life or limb."

  "But you know my opinion of women!"

  "I've heard it often enough, sir—the gibes and the raillery; but knowing that it's all because some designing or frivolous chit has made a monkey of you upon occasion, and having frequently witnessed the pleasure you take in female society and the pleasure women of every condition and age appear to derive from you
r company, I cannot accept it as final, sir."

  "Made a monkey of, d'ye say? Ah, my dear Kedge, my heart has been nigh broken more than once and twice by their trickeries and faithlessness. As for my apparent partiality for their society, it is because of their intelligence. They are capable—save in exceptional instances—of appreciating my best efforts both as a poet and a wit. Their attraction for me, as mine for them, is solely of the mind."

  "Very good, sir. Then why not a marriage of minds? But with a gold ring, of course, and a bishop to perform the ceremony. I could name half a dozen ladies of superior intelligence—three widows and three spinsters—two of them duchesses—and all rich enough, who would jump at your offer, sir."

  "I could name them too. Forget them!"

  "Yes, sir. But I could name others just as intelligent and—"

  "Forget them too! I've learned my lesson. I've no further use for the so-called fair sex—hah, but most unfair!—save only as audiences and hostesses. If I sing of love, 'tis with tongue in cheek; and the while the fat ones all but brast their stays, and the thin ones scream like peahens at my quips and quirks, my bitter heart gives their merriment the lie. They have made a cynic of me at twenty-eight—a disillusioned cynic, which is a thing no poet can afford to be— the devil take them! But for their gleaming false eyes and soft lying lips, I'd be the greatest poet in Christendom now, instead of just one of two or three, and also the knight-at-arms of most prowess and honor in the world, instead of just one of half a dozen. And all in ten years. Ah, me!"

  "I mind the first one like yesterday, sir. You were but a squire then, and I but a groom. A designing chit, I grant you, sir—but it was for that affair of that princess and her sire's beard the King made a knight of you, and you promoted me to squiredom and gentility. She played you false, and wed Sir Kay the Seneschal, and broke your heart. But may I suggest, sir, that Sir Kay now looks like an even bitterer cynic than yourself? After all, she was, and still is, a redhead."