The Merriest Knight

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

  "Give it here, then."

  They exchanged spears.

  "Leave the footwork to Harhar," Dennys charged. "And the headwork too. Keep a straight spear now—and away we go!"

  Dennys, on Hercules, went full pelt at the younger of the strangers. The big roan knew his master well enough by this time to run straight and hard. The stranger's point struck Dennys' shield a hand's-span off center and glanced aside, but the pointless shaft of tough timber caught the opposing shield fair in the middle and held there. Both big horses were set back by the shock, but unequally, and both riders were pressed against the high backs of their saddles, but unequally also, for Hercules was the stronger horse and Dennys the stronger man. For a long moment, the headless spear bent in an arc: then, as the stranger was lifted clear of his high crupper, it sprang straight and flung him away.

  But Rufus was less fortunate, despite his undamaged spear and Harhar's craftiness. For all his practice tilts at wooden dummies, he missed his opponent's shield and person entirely, whereas the other's point, driven straightly and furiously, pierced his shield, and would have entered his breastplate had not the war-wise old steed given back instantly and with a sidewise fling of his hindquarters to relieve the pressure. So Rufus rolled on the ground, but with undamaged breastplate and breastbone.

  Dennys dismounted in haste and ran to him, and would have stooped to lift him, but for a cry of warning from Rufus himself, who was up on one elbow. Dennys turned, sword in hand, and sprang to meet the onset. He slashed, twisted aside, sprang in again, thrusting and hacking with his sword and shouldering like a charging boar. The spear broke. The horse, struck on a flank by Dennys' shield and full weight and an upthrust iron knee, grunted and flinched and lost both pace and direction. The rider loosed the butt of his useless spear and drew his sword, only to have it hacked from his hand.

  The horse, pressed by a hard shield and belly-kicked repeatedly by Dennys' mailed knee, staggered aside, crossed its forelegs, and stumbled to its knees. Dennys struck his starkest stroke then, and his enemy's helmet clanged like an anvil. The maddened horse staggered up, made a plunging wheel and bolted; and the rider (his left foot now firmly in the grasp of Dennys' two hands), came sidewise from the saddle and hit the ground like four hundredweight of iron and rocks. Dennys let the foot and leg fall with a secondary thud and turned to Rufus, who was sitting up and staring at him. "Are you hurt?" he asked.

  Rufus, still staring, got to his feet slowly and shook his head. Then Dennys surveyed the immediate and surrounding scene. His last opponent still lay motionless and silent. The first, who had fallen to a pointless spear, was standing now. His vizor was raised, and he was looking at Dennys. And all the others of that party, men and horses alike, were looking at Dennys. And Dennys' and Rufus' own four fellows, who must have got wind of the brawl back in the bridge-keepers' house in the woods, were staring at Dennys too as they came running with boar-spears and short swords in their hands.

  Dennys looked at his squire again.

  "It's your idea—this keeping the bridge. What do we do next?"

  The squire looked about him on all sides before answering. He spoke vaguely, with a curiously diffident air.

  "I don't know, sir. Ye kept the bridge, divil a doubt of it! Do we take four crowns now, or their steeds an' horses? And if that one's as dead as he looks—well, I don't know wot we do next."

  "You could open his vizor and see if he's breathing," Dennys said.

  Rufus went to the fallen cavalier and knelt and pushed the vizor up from the face.

  "He's puffing like a grampus, but his eyes are shut and he's bleeding at the nose," he reported.

  At that moment the other stranger approached and confronted Dennys, blinking his popping eyes and showing his teeth.

  "Four silver crowns," he snarled, and threw the coins on the ground.

  "Pick them up and hand them to me," said Dennys.

  "Not so fast!" Rufus cried, scrambling to his feet and stepping in between Dennys and the stranger, with his face to the stranger. "Ye owe me for a good spear too. And by the rules of this bridge, and of chivalry too, the horses an' arms an' gear of the both of you are forfeit to Sir Dennys ap Rhys here."

  "Hah! So that's it!" the other snarled. "Usurpers an' tricksters! Ye murdered the poor old lawful keepers, that's it, ye thieving, ditch-whelped foreigners! And now ye'd rob an' cheat in their names. But it won't be for long."

  "We didn't lay a finger on them," Rufus retorted. "The poor old gentlemen sit at home this very minute, eating an' drinking their fill for the first time in years. Ye can go see for yerself if you doubt the word of a MacMurraugh, me barnyard chantecler!"

  "A MacMurraugh, d'ye say? Yell not be the first of that breed to hang by the neck. And yer friend too, whatever name you give him—the two of yell dance on the air for this day's work, or I am no MacGorfey!"

  "MacGorfey?" Rufus echoed after him, in a changed voice.

  "So ye've heard it!" the other jeered; and his savage grin widened, full of teeth pointed like a wolfs fangs.

  Just then the big cavalier on the ground sat up and blew blood from his nose and spat it from his mouth. The grinning knight jeered again within six inches of Rufus' face.

  "King Gorfey! Maybe ye've heard of him too?"

  Rufus was silent for long enough to count ten. Then he spoke in a subdued and uncertain voice:

  "It was only the bash of his own weight when he hit the sod. The loss of a mite of blood will do him more good nor harm. See, he's up on his feet now! And they've caught your horses. On your way now—an' no hard feelings over a bit of sport, I trust, Sir MacGorfey?"

  "Prince is me style an' title," was the jeering reply. "And if we go now, the sooner well be back—and with a score instead of five in our train, including the sherrif s hangman."

  "Not so fast," said Dennys, elbowing his squire to one side. "Lend a hand to King what's-his-name, Rufe. As for you, prince or whatever you are, get out of your harness.

  I'm keeping your horse too; and the knave-knight's horse and armor and arms. King or whatever he is, I´ll teach him not to ride at a knight on the ground."

  Then King Gorfey spoke up in a grim voice. He was standing now, supported by one of his five varlets. His nose had stopped bleeding, but his beard and mustaches were ruddy and clotted.

  "Do as the rogue says."

  Fifteen minutes later, on spare horses, those two headed back the way they had come, with their train at their heels, leaving their war-gear in piles on the ground, and their chargers in the hands of Oggle and Maggon. One of the other grooms picked up the four silver crowns and held them out to the squire; but Rufus was regarding Dennys so wildly yet fixedly that he gave no heed; so the fellow extended them toward Dennys.

  "Keep them, lad; there's one for each of you," said Dennys.

  He smiled at the squire then, and asked: "Why d'ye eye me so wildly, Rufe? Haven't we done what we set ourselves to do?"

  "It was King Gorfey," Rufus said, in a desperate cracked whisper.

  "I've never heard of him," Dennys replied, still smiling, but with just a hint of asperity in his voice. "How many kings have you got in Ireland, anyway? But what of it? How much glory and gear would a knight-errant win if he didn't stand his ground against all comers? And a foul knight is foul if he fights foully, no matter what title he goes by. You don't want to take curses and threats of hanging seriously in this game, so long as you spare the weak, help the helpless, and keep the laws of chivalry."

  For answer, Rufus told the worst of all he knew and had ever heard of the kings and tribe of Gorfey. The first Gorfey, according to the chroniclers, had been out of a wood nymph and sired by a bog devil. And ever since, most of the women had been nymphs and the most of the men devils, no matter what decent people they bred to; and the only humanity about any MacGorfey, to this day, was the physical appearance. And starting within a league of the bridge, ten leagues of Gorfey territory lay across the way to Dublin, with Gorfeytown itself astraddle the
track somewhere.

  "We are dead men if we stop here," he said.

  "It was your own idea," Dennys reminded him.

  Rufus grasped his head with both hands and cursed himself for a fool.

  "Is this the only way to Dublin?" Dennys asked.

  "I was never there," the squire confessed miserably. "Nor more than five leagues from home before. The only way out of this I know is back the way we came."

  "Take that road, and youll be a knightless squire," Dennys warned.

  Rufus grasped his head again and moaned.

  They mounted and went back to the old bridge-keepers' house in the fringe of the forest, followed by their grooms and the chargers and war-gear of the terrible Gorfeys. When Sir Gorrill and Sir Craig heard what had happened, terror paralyzed them for long minutes from scalps to soles, wits and muscles alike. The use of their legs returned first, and they started for the nearest door with surprising agility, and would have been out and off into the forest if Dennys had not collared them.

  "Calm down, honored sirs, and aid us with your counsel," the young knight begged, shaking them gently the while.

  Chapter Five

  The MacCormicks

  They left that place at the crack of dawn, by a secret path, led by the old knights' only remaining servant, who had been born in that forest and was as fearful of the deadly displeasure of the Gorfeys as were his masters. Nothing living was left behind in the tumble-down steading, but the mice and squirrels in the thatched roofs, and the owls in the lofts.

  Knights, squire, grooms, chargers, spare horses, pack-beasts, and three lurchers followed the guide like a long, frayed rope dragged by him uphill, down dale, and around swamps and quagmires.

  Sir Gorrill carried a cat and nursing kittens in a basket on his saddlebow, and was hung about with bags and more baskets. Sir Craig, likewise festooned with personal and household gear, had a tame crow on his right shoulder.

  In addition to their ex-masters' forfeited war-gear, the forfeited Gorfey chargers wore baskets and bags too, and a pannier containing quacking ducks and another full of clucking hens.

  Even Dennys and Rufus, up on Hercules and the squire's own half-trained brown stallion, bore more than their personal arms. Each, in his softness of heart, had permitted himself to be cluttered up with useless knick-knacks and heirlooms. Only Harhar was unburdened, save for his war-saddle and a spare shield and spare lance. Dennys had foiled, kindly but firmly, all the old bridge-keepers' attempts to make a pack-horse of that wise and noble steed.

  It was a slow and vulnerable company: but such was the guide's knowledge of that wilderness, they did not meet with a human being of any sort in the first sennight of travel. The days passed in safe and steady progress— and easy, save for the passages of four full streams—and the nights in rest and slumber in grassy glades. Only the provisions of food and drink suffered. Supper on the seventh evening disposed of the last of the ducks.

  On the eighth day they met and were joined by three masterless men in tatters and undressed wolf-skins who, by their own telling, had been sentenced to death by King Gorfey more than fifteen months before, on the charge of preying on His Kingship's wild pigs; and though they had escaped to the wilderness with their lives, they had left their ears behind with one of the Gorfey forest wardens. Likely as the story was, one or another of the grooms kept an eye on them from dark till daylight. By that time, they were well clear of the boundaries of Gorfeyland and within the domain of the decent race of Cormicks, to their guide's best knowledge and belief. He turned the cavalcade onto a well-beaten track next morning, and to a town of farmsteads, and a mill and manor house of squared timbers before noon.

  One of the three crop-eared fellows ran to Sir Gorrill's stirrup and shouted up at him:

  "The lord here be Sir Finn MacCormick himself, sir, and hell make Yer Honors welcome."

  "Ye don't say so!" the ex-bridge-keeper cried joyfully. "Finn MacCormick! God bless all, I know him well! But maybe it wouldn't be the same one? For that was a long time ago, come to think of it."

  "Here be himself coming to welcome ye, anyhow," said the fellow.

  The lord of that barony proved to be the same Finn MacCormick whom Sir Gorrill had known thirty or more years before; but he was much younger, though well past the peak of physical agility, than either of the brothers of the bridge. He was a large, hearty lord in a long fur-trimmed gown and slippers to match. He made the travelers welcome with both hands; and so did his lady, who was much of his own proportions and manner. He took the knights and squire into his own house, and he sent a steward away to the home farm with the others, to introduce them, men and horses, to the best of everything in house and barn.

  * * *

  When Sir Finn heard the whole story of the brawl at the bridge, with what led up to it and what came after, and had it all sorted out in his mind, he was all but overcome with conflicting emotions. (This was at dinner, with the Lady MacCormick and the two youngest and unmarried daughters at the table.) He shouted with delight and reached across and patted Dennys on a wrist. He cursed furiously and banged the oaken board till the trenchers hopped, and the cups and horns slopped over. Then he laughed. Then he spoke, with what breath was left to him.

  "Well, ye're safe here. Ye've no call to go any farther, any of ye. Not in me saintly sire's day, nor in me own, has any of that breed of divils got as far as this—not in this direction, anyhow—save only as a corpse an' a curiosity. D'ye mind those three poor rogues with cropped ears who joined ye at the deserted hermitage? Well, they be our security, or a small fraction of it, anyhow. There be over ten score such and their women an' brats, along an' roundabout the way ye came; not all of them earless, but everyone of them scarred or marred somehow by a Gorfey. They live on MacCormick deer an' wild swine, an' free bread an' cheese an' ale when they choose to come an' fetch it away; and in return for me bounty, they make the woods impassable to our common enemy. So, friends old an' new, ye be safer from King Gorfey right here than ye'd be in Dublin itself, an' we'd be glad to have ye stop out yer natural lives with us."

  The dame said it would be wonderful, but the damosels said nothing and kept their eyes on their trenchers. Dennys and Rufus were silent too, though the former blushed slightly and the latter fidgeted. But Old Gorrill spoke up in a hurry, eagerly and anxiously.

  "D'ye mean that, Sir Finn?"

  "Sure I mean it, old friend!" cried MacCormick. "Wasn't I the first who ever unhorsed ye at your bridge—an' me just turned twenty? An' then Craig, here, gave me a tumble. An' then the three of us made a night of it in your grand house in the wood there; and I've never drunk as good liquor since. Sure I mean it!"

  "And Craig too?" quavered Sir Gorrill.

  "Sure, an' Craig too! An' these young gentlemen too. The more the merrier!"

  The poor old ex-keepers of the bridge fairly wept with relief and gratitude. Dennys thanked Sir Finn warmly, and explained the necessity of his return to his distant home.

  "That goes for me too, sir—unless Sir Dennys has had enough of me," the squire said, in a contrite voice and with a look at match it.

  The four MacCormicks looked at him curiously, and then as curiously at Dennys. The old brothers of the bridge were too busy and blind with their tears of relief to notice anything.

  "Not yet," said Dennys, but loud enough for all to hear. Then he leaned to Rufus and murmured: "If the spill Gorfey gave you is on your mind, forget it." "That's not all," Rufus muttered.

  The ale and usquebaugh were getting the better of the squire's discretion now; and Dennys, whose own head was a mite harder, recognized the symptoms.

  "Forget the rest of it too then, and eat yer pudding!" Dennys ordered; but there was affection as well as authority in his whisper. "And if I ever have cause for complaint, Rufe, I´ll tell you, never fear!" he added.

  The squire cheered up instantly.

  "Gramercy, Denny boy!" he exclaimed, with a grin in his best manner; and he disposed of his pudding with gusto. . . .


  Two days later, Dennys and Rufus took the road to Dublin and the world beyond again, leaving the horse and arms of the younger Gorfey with the brothers Sir Gorrill and Sir Craig, in settlement of their business at the bridge.

  Chapter Six

  With the Big League

  Sir Dennys and Master MacMurraugh reached the coast without mishap and found a ship of sorts; and after an argument on the subject of passage money with the half-score greedy shipmen, they embarked with their four trusty grooms, their seven horses, and three of the crew, leaving the remainder of the disputants licking their wounds, back among the rocks. They reached a wild spot on the opposite shore without loss of life or limb.

  Three days later they encountered a knight-errant. He did not look very formidable, and his manner and voice were pleasant. He told them that he had taken a vow not to change his shirt until he had unhorsed twenty cavaliers, that the tally now stood at eighteen, and that he was beginning to itch. So Dennys obliged him, and was pushed—no more than pushed—over Hercules' tail. Then Rufus volunteered, and was tossed into a holly bush. The victor stripped, bathed in a convenient spring, and donned a clean shirt. He was in high spirits, and deeply grateful to Dennys and Rufus for having afforded the means of fulfilling his vow; and to show his gratitude, he joined the younger cavaliers and remained with them on all the long road to Camelot.

  * * *

  He had been knighted three years before by Sir Uwaine, a renowned champion, and his name and style were Sir Errol of Highwood. On the way to the royal town of Camelot—and it was long and crooked—he gave Dennys and Rufus much practical advice on the subject of unhorsing one's antagonist while remaining in one's own saddle, and often illustrated his words with a dummy spear. They proved themselves apt pupils. Arrived at Camelot, where King Arthur and his court were in residence, Sir Errol presented his new friends to half a dozen representative knights and two earls, and then left them and went about his own affairs, which were probably of an amorous nature. . . .