The Merriest Knight

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

  "Dinny Boy, this stranger is no concern of yours now, for you have given me your knightly oath to rid me of that giant!" she protested, shooting both eyes.

  "True, dear Agnes," he replied. "But by my vows of knighthood, I am pledged to meet every challenger to chivalrous combat."

  So he rode forth into the forest glade, and the boy rode at his left stirrup; and the groom with the great pack-horse, and the nurse on her cob, and the damosel on her palfrey still protesting and upon the brink of tears, all followed.

  At sight of them, the strange knight bawled: "You can't pass here! I keep this way against all comers."

  "That's to be demonstrated," replied Dinadan, and he laid his blunted spear and dressed his shield before him.

  "Defend yourself!" roared the other, and came at him at full speed.

  "Don't hurt him!" screamed Agnes.

  Now the great Garry was under way and running hard and straight; and now a clanging thud shook the air, and the damosel covered her eyes with a trembling hand.

  "Ho-ho!" exulted the groom.

  The damosel ventured to peep between her fingers, then cried, "Glory be to God!" For the knight flat on the greensward was not Dinadan, nor was the charger seated on its tail like a dog her champion's.

  Dinadan helped the unhorsed knight to his feet, and Victor did the same for the unknighted horse.

  "'Tis ever thus," said the knight. "This is my fiftieth tumble on this same ground. I always depart the saddle at the moment of contact, though with the firmest intention— but no longer a faintest hope—of remaining fixed. The fact is, the knack of keeping my seat is a phase of the art of chivalrous combat that I have never mastered."

  "I wonder, sir, that you persist in this adventure," said Dinadan politely.

  "Nay, to challenge and dispute the passage of this glade is a family tradition, and I swore to my father on his deathbed to maintain it."

  "Then I wonder, sir, that you don't dispute it afoot, and with swords instead of spears."

  "That may not be, alas! Because my sire, and his, and his too, were all superior jousters, but not so good on their feet, the sacred tradition demands horses and lances. But never mind that now: it is time for relaxation and refreshment."

  So this good though frustrated traditionalist, hight Sir Joram, entertained the travelers with the best of victuals and drink in a fair pavilion, and then bought his forfeited horse and arms back from Sir Dinadan at a generous price of his own naming. So the travelers departed and went their way in the same order as they had come, save for young Victor's frequent halts and backward casts to goggle and smile admiringly at Sir Dinadan. And Agnes too regarded the knight with a new look as well as the old ones.

  "You are wonderful, Dinny Boy," she told him. "How so?" he asked, modestly.

  "A wonderful poet, of course—I knew that. But the way you knocked that big Sir Joram off his horse was simply too wonderful!"

  "Were you surprised?"

  "Yes, I was. I was shaking with fear for you, and hid my eyes; and then I looked and saw him flat on his back. Oh, yes, I was almost as surprised as thankful to see that great big Sir Joram on the ground and you still jinking in the saddle, Dinny Boy."

  "Nay, not so big," he protested; and he would have continued and asked why she looked to him to rid her of a giant if she had doubted his ability to deal with a chance-come knight-errant, had not the question faded from his mind before the impact of her glances.

  So they traveled till sunset without further adventure; and throughout the next day too; and so on, day after day, till a few hours past nightfall of the seventh day, when they arrived at the edge of a black moat.

  "Here we are, and didn't lose so much as a horseshoe!" young Victor exclaimed proudly.

  "True for you, dear lad!" cried Dinadan. "Not even a horseshoe! Congratulations!"

  And yet he knew, exultantly though confusedly, that his heart was lost—again—this time beyond recovery.

  Victor blew three blasts on his horn, then two blasts, then three again; and then the red of torches flared high and low from a vast bulk of blackness beyond the black moat, and answering horns brayed, and the clanks of a great winch and the creaks of great hinges sounded, and at last the great drawbridge came down with a thump.

  * * *

  The father of Agnes and Victor was the Earl Fergus, and their mother was the Lady Fay; and when Sir Dinadan was presented to them, it was plain to see that they had never heard of him and were puzzled and disappointed at their daughter's choice of a giant-killer. But they were too kind and polite to show their feelings by worse than blinks and arched brows; and they plied him with courteous attentions and the best of meats and drinks at supper. After the removal of platters and trenchers, the lady said kindly: "Sir, observing a fine lute at your back, I venture to hope that you will oblige us with a little music."

  "Your servant to command, madam," answered Dinadan, who had quenched his thirst with a horn of mead and several cups of Spanish wine; and he drew the instrument around to his front and set his fingers to the strings. Then he flashed his eyes at Agnes and sang and played better than ever before.

  "Isn't he wonderful?" cried the damosel. "He's the best poet and lutanist in Christendom."

  The Lady Fay bowed her head, for she was too deeply moved for words. The Earl was vastly impressed too, but he drained a cup and found his tongue. He addressed his daughter.

  "I believe you, dear child. Yes, indeed; but I thought it was understood that our need was for a knight-at-arms— the best, or at least the second-best—but surely not for a poet, my dear, no matter how good, as such."

  Agnes replied: "But you don't know Sir Dinadan, Papa! If you had seen him lay that great big Sir Joram flat on his back, you would not speak so."

  "That's right, Papa!" the lad Victor exclaimed. "I saw it. I was right there. And why wouldn't I be? For I'm his squire."

  "That was nothing, sir and madam," Dinadan protested modestly. "Good Sir Joram is the unhandiest knight, and the most tottery in his saddle, I ever laid lance against. But don't think too badly of me, I pray you, for I have toppled many a better jouster than him, with sharp spears as well as blunted, and held my own on foot too, sword to sword, on occasion. There was big and vile Baron Uffel for one, who had ten ladies starving in a tower."

  "Uffel?" queried the Earl. "We are out of the world in this place and don't hear everything. What of him, young sir?"

  "It was two years ago, sir. After unhorsing him, I got down and fought him afoot. He was bigger on his feet than horsed, but I was faster. So we slashed and hacked half a day, and he split my shield in two. But he himself was in two pieces when I was done with him; and so I let the poor ladies out of the tower."

  Agnes and her mother were shaken beyond the power of utterance, and young Victor was speechless with admiration, but not so the Earl.

  "How big was this Uffel?" he asked.

  "Why, sir, he was bigger than Sir Lamorak—but not as good, or I'd not be here now."

  "Well and honestly said, my friend, and I´ll speak you as honestly. This giant is bigger than a windmill, and can cut through a haystack with one stroke of his sword."

  "So I have heard, sir. But size isn't everything. Tell me, does he fight best on horseback or on foot?"

  "Not on horseback, that's certain, for there's no horse big enough to carry him."

  "Then will I fight him on foot," said Sir Dinadan.

  At that, the lord and lady and Victor all cried out in horrified protest, but the damosel veiled her eyes and was silent.

  "To go against him on a big horse and run him through with a war-spear—that would be your only chance!" cried the Earl.

  "Nay, sir, no true knight keeps his saddle against an opponent on foot. 'Twould be a dastardly act, sir—a breach of the laws of chivalry."

  "Are you a fool—mad, that's to say—or bewitched?"

  "Maybe all three, sir; but I have sworn by my halidom to essay this giant, so that I´ll do; and since he must f
ight on foot, so must I."

  The Earl swore in his beard. Then he and the Countess and the lad all looked searchingly at the damosel, who continued to sit with veiled eyes and an enigmatic smile. Then the three exchanged questioning glances, with much arching of eyebrows: but Dinadan, gazing languishingly at Agnes, missed all the byplay.

  Earl Fergus sighed as if with relief, then addressed the young knight again, but in a changed voice and manner.

  "You're probably right, dear Sir Dinadan. Drink up and fill again."

  * * *

  Our hero was for setting out to seek the giant first thing in the morning, but his host explained to him that a

  rendezvous must be decided upon, and Taulurd notified of it, and the exact hour—all of which could not be done in a day, or maybe two or even three, as no raid had been reported of late, and the monster might be high in the mountains. So Dinadan penned a proper challenge, at the Earl's directing, as follows:

  "I, Sir Dinadan, a knight of that mighty prince Arthur Pendragon his dubbing, do challenge ye giant Taulurd to single and mortal combat according to the sacred rules of High Chivalry in Dragon Valley under St. Elmo Mount at nigh noon of the feast day of St. Michael—to which I swear by my halidom and do herewith set my unicorn seal and my name

  —Dinadan. "

  This document was given to a trusty fellow, who returned at nightfall with word that he had passed it on, according to the Earl's instructions, to a certain trusty mountaineer who knew the giant's whereabouts.

  Now Dinadan was faced by four days of inaction, a fact which he regretted in a sense; for despite his brave talk, he was beginning to wonder if he had not overstrained the obligations of knighthood in the matter of undertaking to dismount for the encounter. In another sense, he was glad of the delay, for it gave him four more sure days of life—of life with Agnes, the most enchanting of all the damosels of his hectic and disastrous experiences. He loved her. And she loved him, and told him so on the second day. He made a beautiful song of it, for which she kissed him tenderly; but soon after that, instead of making another song or singing the same one again, he became silent and sad, and sat with drooping head.

  "What ails my Dinny Boy?" she murmured at his ear.

  His only answer was a sigh.

  She murmured closer: "I shall love and cherish you all your life long."

  "Which may not be long at all," he mumbled.

  "If you mean that giant, cheer up!" she cried. "You'll take no harm from him, I know, or I'd sense it in my heart; and the Raven of Fergus—sure precursor of sorrow to this house—would be flapping at my window every night. But instead of that dismal fowl, a robin—the Cadwallader bird of happiness—has sung to me every midnight since our return. My mother was a Cadwallader."

  So he cheered up, being a respecter of family traditions and a firm believer in all omens and supernatural warnings, good and bad.

  * * *

  Sir Dinadan set out at dawn of Michaelmas Day for his rendezvous with Taulurd the giant, accompanied by Victor to show him the way. He was in good spirits, though fuddled by the damosel's parting caresses; and when the sun came up, disclosing Saint Michael's daisies like drifts of fairy smoke under every hanging wood, he broke into song; and mighty Garry, well rested and full of oats, pranced like a colt. Victor's hackney pranced and whickered too, but the lad himself was silent, and still in his saddle save for frequent furtive turnings of his head to right and left and over a shoulder.

  They came to the Dragon Valley under the chapel of Saint Elmo, but the giant was not there. They waited till past high noon, and still he did not come. So they rode onward into a higher valley, and from that into a yet higher, with Victor leading the way; and still the lad spoke little and sang not at all, and continued to shoot covert glances at the thickets and dark shaws to right and left.

  "D'ye look for the giant to leap out upon us from a holly bush, dear lad?" asked Dinadan brightly, toying with the thought that maybe his challenge had frightened Taulurd clear over the mountains and out of the country.

  "Nay, sir, if he comes at you, 'twill be from straight in front," Victor answered gravely.

  "Why so glum, then? D'ye doubt the issue? And all the omens on my side!"

  "Omens? God mend your simplicity!"

  At that moment the giant himself appeared before them from behind a knoll of huge boulders and crooked thorn-trees, resembling—so was Dinadan's first thought—a great rock rather than a creature of flesh and blood. He was almost square in shape, and moved like a mass of stone and wood. He was encased in hairy hides as stiff as iron plates, and carried a round shield of leather embossed with horn on his left arm. His sword, which he flourished in his right hand without apparent effort, was half as long again as Dinadan's standard two-handed weapon. Victor's horse tried to bolt, and even the courageous Garry shied at that appalling apparition.

  "Charge!" screamed Victor. "Let him have it! It's now or never!"

  "Tut-tut!" said the knight, dismounting. "Hold Garry. Keep him out of this. He might get hurt."

  He advanced up the gentle slope with his long shield dressed before him.

  "Giant Taulurd, I presume?" he called out politely.

  "The same," squawked the other, in a voice more suitable for a small varlet than a bulky ravaging giant. "Are you alone?"

  "Quite, save for my honorable squire here," returned the knight. "Didn't you get my letter?"

  "I don't believe all I read," Taulurd squawked. "But you look honest, and I´ll treasure your name as a true and honorable knight. So say your prayers, Sir Dinadan!" And with that he swung his great sword in a semicircular sweep which swished short of its objective by half-ell if an inch.

  "Gramercy," said Dinadan. "You're a poor judge of distance."

  He stood his ground. Taulurd recovered his equilibrium with a stagger, advanced one ponderous pace, and set himself for another swing and let it fly with a grunt. That second stroke was even more terrific than the first; but Dinadan avoided it with a skip backward.

  "I'm not a haystack," jeered Dinadan; and then, while the giant stumbled to get his big feet under his point of balance again, Dinadan cast away his shield, grasped the hilt of his sword in both hands, sprang in lightly, and as lightly was out again.

  Victor uttered a cry of astonishment, and the giant a squawk of consternation—and with cause, for the shapeless rolls and folds of hides in which the massive torso had so lately been encased and draped were now fallen about his legs and feet.

  "Bah!" cried Dinadan, addressing his squire, but still watching his discomfited antagonist. "I but cut a thong or two; and look at him, fat and hobbled and undone! He was too heavy for his legs, anyhow, and too slow to fight anything but a haystack. So this is your horrible giant?—and my high adventure?—the devil take him! I´ll have no more to do with him. I'm a knight, not a butcher." Then he jabbed at the quaking giant. "I won't foul my sword with your blubber. I spare your gluttonous life. You will be dead of your own fat within the year, anyhow."

  Taulurd, cowed and abashed and using his monstrous sword as a staff to steady him on his cluttered-up legs, sobbed and squawked his gratitude and relief in so shamelessly abject a manner that both the squire and the knight blushed for him.

  "Gramercy, gramercy, noble sir! The saints will reward you, merciful knight. I'm old and harmless—and will mend my ways—turn holy hermit and deafen heaven with my praise of merciful Sir Dinadan. I'll fast on roots and wild honey—no more beef and beer—never another ravaged farmstead—by the knuckle-bones of blessed Saint Elmo!"

  "Have done!" cried Dinadan, in disgust; and he would have turned away then, but stood nerveless and still as stone instead: for a long arrow quivered in Taulurd's fat throat, sunk halfway to its feathers. And even while he stared, horrified yet incredulous, another arrow struck and sank there, and four or five more pierced the unprotected gross breast and belly; and the giant, spouting blood, opened his dimming eyes wide upon Dinadan, and cried"Treachery!" and crashed to earth and l
ay still.

  Then Dinadan moved, but woodenly. He looked to his right, and over his right shoulder, then to his left; but the rugged coverts of bushes and boulders showed nothing of life. Then he turned and looked at Victor.

  "So?" he whispered hoarsely. "You fixed an ambush— and have made a false knight of me—and a liar and a dastard—and a murderer."

  The lad's face was white as chalk, and he answered with a cry as harsh as the knight's whisper.

  "Nay, not me! 'Twas her doing. She would keep you from harm—by fair means or foul!"

  "Agnes?"

  "Who else? She always has her way!" "But the omens?"

  "There were no omens, good or bad. But she feared for your life; and so an ambush of archers was set in the Dragon Valley, and when he did not meet you there, the archers followed us here."

  Dinadan moaned: "God's wounds!"

  Now an old man all in wolf-skins and white whiskers came suddenly from behind a rock and knelt beside the dead giant and cried out that his kind master had been murdered.

  Dinadan went to him and said: "Old man, harky to me! If you know a way out of here—over the mountains and clear out of this vile land of lies and dishonor—show it to me.

  The mountaineer rose and pointed to the entrance of a narrow, climbing glen on their right.

  "Lead on, then, poor fellow. Lead truly, and you have a new master: no giant now, but the fool of the world—and a forsworn dastard, to boot!"

  "Me too!" blurted young Victor. "I go with you, sir—for you're the best knight I know, never mind your simplicity— through thick and thin, mauger my head!"

  So they mounted and moved into and up that narrow glen, leaving the abashed and frightened archers still hiding in their coverts; but death was in Sir Dinadan's heart as surely as in the gigantic corpse on the ground behind him.

  The Goose Girl

  They emptied a pot or two in sweet accord; and when the good ale got to their hearts the talk turned upon women; and when it got to their heads, they fell to gross bragging. At last one cried out villainously how the meanest goose girl of his country outshone the very pick of high dames and damosels and even dukes' daughters of less favoured regions; whereupon the other broke the braggart's head with a pewter pot.