"Took 'em? But 'tis to marvel at! Pray rede me that riddle."
The lad swallowed hard and, still with bowed head, made answer mumblingly.
"From the fellow who held them. He held the leash with one hand an' a horn to his lips with t'other. They broke from cover—the hounds pulled hard forward and he pulled hard back, blowing hard on his horn for the hunt to come up with them. So they broke from cover whilst horsemen and footmen yet floundered in the thickets. So I took the leash an' ran with the hounds—fast and unseen—and so won back to you."
"Just so!" exclaimed Dinadan, but without conviction in voice or manner, for he was worse bewildered than before. "You took the leash and came away with the hounds. And what of their keeper? What did he do?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? Nay, good lad, I cannot believe that he did not cry out and pursue."
"Nay, he—he cried not—nor pursued. He—he didn't know."
At that, Dinadan gaped incredulously and cried, "He didn't know! Be ye mazed, poor lad?—or stark mad?"
The youth hung his head yet lower, and whispered shakily, "He didn't see me. I struck him down—with a great stone—before he saw me—and so came away unseen— with the hounds, so none could follow."
Now he put both hands to his face, went all limp, toppled forward from his knees and lay flat.
"How now?" muttered Dinadan, more perplexed and emotionally disturbed than ever. "Slew a huntsman with a stone?—this poor sniveler? Nay, I´ll not believe it. Yet here be the hounds and spent the hunt."
He went close to the forlorn figure on the ground and spoke kindly.
"'Twas well done, good lad, however contrived. Ay, bravely done, by my halidom! So cheer up now and show me a brave face."
The only response was a slight quivering of shoulders.
"Tears and swoons—more like a wench than a man," Sir Dinadan sighed.
Though still sorely perturbed, he became conscious suddenly of the fact that he had gone since breakfast without bite or sup. He took up the big leather bottle and drank heartily of the strong ale. Then he would have investigated the basket from which the swineherd had eaten, but remembered the horses. So he measured out oats and beans to Garry and Punch; and then he became aware of the interest of the two hounds in his every movement. Their sad eyes followed his steps and turns, and sought his face at every stop, beseeching and reproachful.
"You too?" he exclaimed. "Now God defend the larder!"
So the knight searched his store of provender till he discovered a roasted leg of mutton, whereupon he set-to with a knife and cut off chunks for the hounds and a slice for himself. Being hungry, he chewed and swallowed fast; but, being hungrier, the hounds gulped without any pretense of mastication. He cut again, and again, and so on— all the while boggling slices in his efforts to keep pace with his gulping guests—till nothing of the mutton remained but the bone. By now the sun was down and the forest all dusky.
Dinadan left the bone to the gnawing hounds and moved off heavily, as full of sleep as of mutton. He stumbled to the horses and embraced Garry and mumbled kindly to Punch. He found the swineherd where he had last seen him, but curled on his side now and apparently sound asleep. He returned to the jumbled heap of gear and fumbled there till he found a cloak which Dunderkyn had strapped to his saddle; and this he now loosed and carried back and spread lightly over the sleeping swineherd.
"Ay, 'twas a brave deed," he exclaimed, but mumblingly. "There be the making of a man in you, for all your tears and vapors. You can count me your friend now, so sleep well."
He returned again to the pile of gear and there got out of his harness unhandily and flung it down piece by piece. Now he sought and found his great belt with its weight of side arms, drew the long sword and a dagger and, gripping the first in his right hand and the other in his left, lay down right there and slept.
* * *
Thanks to fatigue and a full stomach, Sir Dinadan's slumber was deep and long; for during the past year and more he had lived too softly and unexcitingly to sharpen his appetite for victuals and drink. It was bright morning when he opened his eyes. He lay still for a little, gazing straight up into the leafy forest roof and trying to tag a flitting dream. The dream dissolved like a tatter of mist, leaving nothing of it but a sense of loss. Now he sat up and came back to earth.
"What's this?" he asked.
It was the cloak which he had spread over the swineherd the night before, as he recalled clearly—but now it lay on himself.
So he brought it back to me while I slept, he thought kindly, and looked about him.
He saw the lad and the horses and the black-and-tan hounds, and all the rattling incidents of yesterday flashed bright as blazonry on his mind. The lad was grooming Punch, and Garry and the hounds looked on. Garry had already been groomed, to judge by the gleam of his dapple-gray coat.
A good lad, and the making of a right trusty man, thought Dinadan; and he got lightly to his feet and called out benignly, "Well done, friend."
Swineherd, horses, and hounds turned attentive faces his way; and in that pause, while they regarded him and he them, all motionless and silent, he heard the twang of a bowstring and the quick whisper of a speeding shaft, and quivered to the impact and pang of an arrow on the front of his left shoulder.
"'Ware rogues! Take cover!" the knight bawled; and even while he snatched up his sword, four hairy fellows burst from the underbrush. Three held boar-spears, and one a bow ready bent with arrow on string. The spearmen came straight at him; and even as he leaped to meet them with whirling sword, he saw the fourth rogue's raised and full-bent bow jump crookedly from his grasp and fall to earth, arrow and all.
"Now what struck him?" he wondered even in the act of decapitating the leading spearman and avoiding fierce jabs from the irons of the remaining two.
But they did not remain much longer. Dinadan slashed and sidestepped till sweat blinded him and nothing was left for his sword to bite on. Then he wiped his eyes and beheld the swineherd and his dear horse Garry close in front and regarding him anxiously, and behind them the plowhorse and the sad-avisaged hounds, and to right and left four hairy corpses sprawled or crumpled on wet moss and blood-spattered fern.
"Just so," he said. "Poor souls! But up and away now before the whole savage tribe swarms on us like hornets!"
With that he ran to the jumble of gear and goods on the ground; and all save the dead men ran with him. There he dropped his bloody sword and set about the saddling of Garry, but unhandily because of the stiffness and pain in his left shoulder.
"Give over!" wailed the swineherd. "That arrow must be pulled out and the wound dressed, or worse may befall."
"Nay, 'tis nothing," said Dinadan. "Twill keep till we have time to spare. Lend a hand now."
They soon had the horses saddled and bitted and hung about with arms and gear. Dinadan gave no time to rearming, but stowed each piece of armor wherever he found a possible place for it on either Garry or Punch; but he sheathed his sticky sword and buckled on the great belt. So both mounted and rode, and the hounds followed mutely.
Dinadan led the way, and that with no other thought than of leaving the general direction from which the clamorous hunt had come, and the vicinity of the onset by mas-terless rogues, as speedily as possible. But he left the pace to Garry, for the footing was rough. So they went a difficult league, and then another without pause, at a walk often in thickets and among rocks, and sometimes at a stumbling trot, and now and then even at a hand-gallop across an open glade. And so on till past high noon, when the gray charger halted suddenly at a mossy spring, and the plow-horse pressed forward and stood beside him, and both plunged their muzzles into the cool water.
"Far enough for the nonce," said Dinadan, dismounting heavily. "Well unbit an' bait 'em," he continued in a slurred voice. "Ay, an' ease the girths—but not unload nor unsaddle."
Now the swineherd dismounted and moved fast, and in a minute had both horses unbridled and the girths of both saddl
es loosed. That done, he went close to Dinadan (who stood like one bemused) and gave the feathered shaft protruding from the knight's shoulder a stricken look, and averted his face and uttered a pitiful cry.
"Hah, the arrow," muttered Dinadan. "Still there. But a mere trifle an' soon mended."
He fumbled one-handed in the jumble on Garry's back, found and searched a saddlebag and drew forth a handful of crumpled linen, which he passed to the swineherd.
"A clean shirt," he said. "'Twill serve for bandages."
Again Dinadan explored the same saddlebag, and this time he pulled out a stone flask of about a pint's capacity.
"Trust good Dunderkyn not to forget the usquebaugh!" he exclaimed, but still in a thick voice. "It too will serve— to cleanse the wound withal."
He looked about him strangely and muttered, "Did we bait this morning? It has slipped me mind."
The youth, standing near with drooping head, whispered, "Nay, the attack was too sudden—and we came away too fast."
Nodding, Dinadan pulled down a bag of oats from Punch's mixed load, set his left foot on it and tore it open with his right hand. Now the swineherd came to his assistance, measured out a double feed of the grain before each hungry horse, and re tied the bag.
"Good lad," said Dinadan.
He moved off a few slow paces and sat down with his back against a convenient tree.
"Come here, good lad, an' pull me out this pesky arrow," he called.
The youth came on reluctant feet and stood and trembled before him with averted face, but made no motion to touch the arrow.
"How now?" the knight complained. "One sharp pull will do it, for that was a feeble an' crooked shoot. If the rogue had shot again when he stood within a spear's length of me, then 'twould call for a shrewd tug indeed and my vital spark quenched at the end of it. But no, all was sprung and undone and fallen to earth of a sudden as if hit by a thunderbolt."
"Nay, 'twas nought but the great mutton bone the hounds had left," whispered the other, still with bowed head and averted face. "I saw your peril an' snatched it up an' flung it hard an' true."
Now Dinadan stared, with the dullness gone from his eyes, and spoke in a clear voice.
"D'ye tell me so? Ay, hard an' true, by my halidom!—as a very bolt from heaven. Gramercy, friend! Ay, friend indeed, for you saved my life surely! And it may be you saved all our lives before, when you struck down that huntsman an' brought away these hounds. Here be food for thought—cause again for thanks to God for a humble friend in need. . . . There was Dunderkyn, for one—but he is a man full-grown and a bull for strength. And another was a goose girl. Nay, in truth she was no honest poor wench, but an artful damosel dissembling for her own ends. Ah, that goose girl! I've lost count of the times she saved my life that day by cunning an' courage, and at last by battering an armed rogue to death with her oaken staff. . . . And now yourself, dear friend. No minder of geese you, but a herder of swine. And yet ye be proner to tears an' swoons than any wench or damosel or petted queen even that ever I've seen—but as brave an' trusty a comrade withal as ever I've fared with—save only my horse Garry."
He paused and pressed his right hand to his head, but only for a moment, then resumed his talk, though not the thread of it, and now without animation. "So this world goes ever—feasting an' fasting—song an' sorrow—'round and 'round. 'Death in Life' preach holy clerics, but a good knight will ever chance Death in one more fight—one more bout with Evil. So be it. This arrow in my shoulder now— an evil thing, of a surety, an' with me too long. So what? I pluck it forth!"
He reached across his breast and made to grasp the shaft, but his fumbling fingers missed it; and before he could grab again, a defter hand struck his aside, and pain stabbed and as swiftly passed, leaving him limp but at peace. Ay, at blessed peace—but not for long. Now, blinking, he was aware of the swineherd standing over him with the bloodied arrow in a bloodied hand, and horror and pity in stricken eyes and on blanched face.
"Well done," he mumbled. "A shrewd pull. Gramercy."
For answer, the swineherd tottered and sank and lay still.
"Again?" complained the mazed knight. "I be the one should swoon, God wot!"
Heedless of his wound, he got to his feet, stooped, laid hold of the unconscious swineherd with his right hand and dragged him—but gently withal—to the spring. He splashed cold water in the youth's face, but without effect. Now, in a strange frenzy of anxiety, he tore open the front of scarred leather and raggedy wool and resumed the splashing yet more frantically, even using both hands despite stabs of agony through his left shoulder, blinded the while with pain and water. Exhausted all of a sudden, Dinadan sank to his knees and wiped his eyes clear with a trembling hand. He gasped, staring.
"God's wounds!" he whispered, still as stone.
Now the drenched and disarrayed swineherd twitched and sat up and met Dinadan's stricken gaze with a blinking of wet and bemused eyes.
"A wench!" whispered the knight, like one distraught.
The other glanced down, gave a little cry, clutched the torn front of the tunic and went red as fire.
"It was villainously done," sighed Dinadan. "But I didn't know, poor wench."
"Ay, a poor wench in very truth!" she cried piteously, and sprang to her feet and ran and fetched the stone flask and clean shirt. And now she had a little knife in her hand, and knelt before Dinadan and fell to cutting blood-sodden leather away from the wound; and all the while her eyes were fixed upon her task in fearful scrutiny, his stare of half-recognition and utter disbelief was upon her face.
She let fall the reeking knife at last, snatched up and unstoppered the flask, and, with a grimace of pity and a gesture of desperate resolve, splashed the wound with the strong liquor. Dinadan twitched at the sting of it, but recovered instantly as she began to sway again, took the flask from her trembling hands and forced some of the potent stuff between her lips. She swallowed and gasped.
"Look at me," he said.
Her eyes met his for a moment.
"Bewitched—or mad!" he sighed, and glanced down at his torn red shoulder. "The fever of it touches my brain. Cleanse it again and bind it, I pray you, whoever you are."
She obeyed without question, and swiftly and deftly, though all the while her tears welled and ran.
"Gramercy," Dinadan said. "But it cannot be. She never wept nor swooned, but threw me a purse and sent me forth into the night. But it will pass."
"Nay, you ran away," she whispered.
"It will pass," he muttered, and got heavily to his feet and stood unsteady.
Now she stood too, and close to him, and cried, "She shed tears enough when you were gone!—and learned swooning too since then, in grief and dread!"
"Heed it not!" he muttered. "A fantasy. Fever or worse. A runaway swineherd: an' my enfevered brain, or bewitched eyes, make for me a wench of him—and that goose girl of far away—and now that fair proud damosel of long ago."
"Nay, 'twas but two bitter long years ago," she cried; and with that she moved yet closer and put up both arms and pressed a hand tenderly to either side of his neck.
Now, gazing upward, she whispered, "Look down, Dinadan. Look down into my eyes, an' through them into my heart, an' see the truth, and no fantasy."
So he looked down into her eyes and heart and knew that she was no fantasy of fever or bewitchment, nor himself the victim of any madness save true love's own enchantment. And as she told him of her father's death and the seizure of her birthright by a hated uncle and a yet more hated cousin, and her escape from the cousin, his right arm went around her; and by the time she had told brokenly of her long travail after, ever in terror and hunger and disguise, his left arm was around her too.
So they stood embraced, while the big horses looked on benevolently and the sad-faced hounds lay waiting patiently with their heavy dewlaps on their paws.
And so I leave them, as sure as themselves of their winning home and living happy ever after.
SPUR AND
THE PRIZE
Young Wings Unfurling
Chapter One
The Flute and the Fire
Sap is the blood of a tree. Blood is the sap of a man. A man is not a tree, thank God! A tree cannot pull up its roots, but a man can lift his feet.
It was early morning of a day in spring. Hawthorns were in bloom, and fiddleheads of fern uncurled and sloughed thin brown skins. A butterfly split its cocoon and unfurled and spread its crumpled wings to dry in the sun. A lark went singing up and up and out of sight. A vixen barked among the dew-wet rocks.
Good Brother Ambrose lay on his back and snored. His was a long back, and wide at the shoulders. His large mouth was open, disclosing strong teeth somewhat blunted by grinding on dried peas and such. The mastication and digestion of flinty beans and peas and parched barleycorns reduce the natural choler of the human blood and thereby promote virtue. Dear Brother Ambrose! It was now more than fifteen years since he had fled the World and the Flesh and the Devil. But as I stood and gazed down at his open and shut countenance, I suspected that he had had his fun, and called many a tune and paid many a piper, before retreating to this mountainy wilderness.
"But what about me?" I asked.
The new-hatched butterfly raised and lowered its drying wings of mulberry and azure; and receiving no other answer, I turned and stepped out and off, leaving Brother Ambrose flat on his back and snoring. . . .
I was a man. I had lived a score of years, almost—a score lacking but twenty-four months, to be exact. I had outgrown Brother Ambrose's homilies and instructions and restricted library of the Early Fathers. My head was stuffed with churchly Latin, but my nose was full of smells of May-blossom and leaf-bud and greening moss and uncurling fern. My eyes were full of new sunshine, of painted wings, and of blue and flashing distances crowded with receding tors and crags and hanging woods. My heart was full of skylark song. I had a silver penny, a sharp knife of thrice-forged and thrice-tempered iron, and a staff of seasoned holly shod with iron. I had a wallet of doeskin, and therein four barley scones of my good friend's baking. I had a feather from a golden eagle's wing in my cap, fastened with a golden brooch. I had a mountainy man's strength and health.
The Merriest Knight Page 21