THE LAST TOURNAMENT.
One day while King Arthur and Sir Lancelot were riding far, far beneatha winding wall of rock they heard the wail of a child.
A half-dead oak tree climbed up the sides of the rock and up in mid-airit held an eagle's nest. Through its branches rushed a rainy wind andthrough the wind came the voice of a little child. Lancelot sprang upthe crag and from the nest at the tree-top he brought down a baby girl.Round her neck was twined a necklace of rubies, wound round and roundthree times.
Arthur took the baby and gave it to Queen Guinevere, who soon loved itvery tenderly and named her "Nestling." But Nestling had caught aterrible cold in her strange little home in the wild eagle's nest anddied. And after that whenever the Queen looked at the ruby necklace itmade her very sad so she gave it to Arthur and said:
"Take these jewels of our Dead Innocence and make them a prize at atournament."
"Just as you wish," cried the King, "but why don't you wear the diamondsthat I found for you in the tarn, which Lancelot won for you at thejousts?"
"Don't you know that they slipped out of my hands the very day that hegave them to me, while I was leaning out of the window to see Elaine inthe barge on the river? But these rubies will bring better luck thanthat to the lady who gets them, for they didn't come from a dead king'sskeleton, but from the body of a sweet baby girl. Perhaps, who knows,the purest of your knights will win them at the jousts for the purest ofmy ladies."
So the great jousts were proclaimed with trumpets that blew all alongthe streets of Camelot and out across the faded fields to the farthesttowers, and everywhere the knights armed themselves for a day of glorybefore the king.
But just the day before they were to be held, as King Arthur sat in hisgreat hall, a churl staggered in through the door; his face was allstriped with the lashes of a dog whip, his nose was broken, one eye wasout, a hand was off and the other hand dangled at his side withshattered fingers.
"My poor Churl," cried the king, full of indignant pity, "what beast orfiend has been after you? Or was it a man who hurt you so?"
"He took them all away," sputtered the churl, "a hundred good ones. Itwas the Red Knight. He--Lord, I was tending sheep, my pigs, a hundredgood ones, and he drove them all off to his tower. And when I said thatyou were always kind to poor churls like me as well as gentle lords andladies, he made for me and would have killed me outright if he didn'twant me to bring you message and made me swear that I would tell you.
"He said, 'Tell the king that I have made a Round Table of my own in theNorth, and that whatever his knights swear not to do mine swear thatthey will do; and tell him his hour has come, and that the heathen areafter him, and that his long lance is broken, and that his swordExcalibur is a straw.'"
Then Arthur turned to Sir Kay the Seneschal and said: "Take this churlof mine and tend him very carefully as if he were the son of a kinguntil all his hurts are healed," and as Sir Kay left the hall with thechurl the king went on to Lancelot: "The heathen have been quiet for along, long time, but now they are rising again in the North, and I willgo with my younger knights to put them down, so as to make the wholeisland safe from one shore to the other. And while I go away, you, SirLancelot, will sit in my chair to-morrow at the tournament and be thejudge there of the field. For why should you anyway care to go in againyourself, when you've already won the nine diamonds for the queen?"
"Very well," replied Lancelot, "if you wish, although it would be betterif you would let me go off with the younger knights and you stay herewith the others and watch the tournament. But, if not, all is well?"
"Is all really well?" cried the king, "or have I just dreamed that ourknights are not quite so true and manly as they used to be and that mynoble realm which has been built up by noble deeds and noble vows isgoing to fall back into beastly roughness and violence again?"
He gathered all the younger Knights of the Round Table together andstarted away with them down the hilly streets of Camelot, and at thegateway turned sharply North.
The next morning, the day of the Tournament, the Tournament of the DeadInnocence they called it, a wet wind blew. But the streets were hungwith white samite, the fountains were filled with wine, and round eachfountain twelve little girls, all dressed in purest white sat with thecups of gold and gave drinks to all that passed. The stately gallerieswere filled with white-robed ladies. Lancelot mounted the steps to theking's dragon-carved chair, the trumpets blew and the jousts began.
TWELVE LITTLE GIRLS GAVE DRINK TO ALL WHO PASSED.]
But Lancelot did not think of the sport before him, he was dreaming overand over again the words of the king about the kingdom, and many rulesof the tournament were broken, and he didn't say a word. Once one of theknights, who was overthrown cursed the little baby girl, the deadinnocence, and the king, and once one of the knight's helmets becameunlaced and the wicked face of Modred peeped through like a vermin, butLancelot didn't see.
After a while a roar of welcome shouted all round the galleries andlists as a new knight came in dressed from his head to his feet in greenarmor all trimmed with tiny silver deer, with holly berries on hishelmet crest. It was Sir Tristram of the Woods who had just crossed overthe seas from Brittany. Lancelot had fought with him long ago andconquered him, and now he saw him and longed to fight him again. Asmany, many knights of the Round Table fell down before the new knightLancelot gripped the golden dragons on each side of his throne to keephimself in his seat, and groaned with passion. "Craven crests! oh,shame!" he muttered, "the glory of the Round Table is gone."
So Tristram won the jousts and Sir Lancelot gave him the jewels.
"The hands with which you take these rubies are red," he said as he putthe necklace in Tristram's hands.
Then the thick rain began to fall, the plumes on the helmets of theknights drooped and the dresses of the ladies were mussed. When theywent inside to feast the ladies took off their pure white gowns androbed themselves in all the colors of the rainbow and field flowers,like poppies, blue-bells, kingcups, and one said she was glad the timeto wear the pure innocent simple white was over. They grew so loud intheir frolics that at last the queen, who was angry that Sir Tristramhad won the prize and angry with the lawless youths, broke up thebanquet.
The next morning as Sir Tristram stood before the hall little Dagonet,the fool, came dancing along and Sir Tristram threw his rubies roundthe little fool's neck as he skipped about like a withered leaf, askinghim why he danced.
"It's stupid to dance without music," Tristram said, and picked up hisharp and began to twangle a tune on it; but as soon as Sir Tristrambegan to play Dagonet stopped his dance. "And why don't you go onskipping, Sir Fool?" asked Tristram.
"Because I'd rather skip twenty years to the music of my little brainthan skip a minute to the broken music you make."
"And what music have I broken?" cried Sir Tristram. "Arthur the King'smusic," cried little Dagonet, skipping again and again as Sir Tristramceased. Then down the city he danced all the way, while Sir Tristrampassed out into the lonely avenues of the forests. He rode on towardLyonesse and the West, thinking of Isolt, the White, whom he loved, andhow he would put the rubies round her neck.
LITTLE DAGONET SKIPPING AGAIN AND AGAIN.]
Arthur, meanwhile, with his hundred spearmen had gone far, far away,until at last over the countless reeds of marshes and islands he saw ahuge tower glaring in the wide-winged sunset of the West. As he drewnear he saw that the tower doors stood open and heard roars of riotingand wicked songs of ruffian men and women.
"Look," cried one of his knights, for there high on a grim dead treebefore the tower, a brother of the Round Table was swinging by his neck,his shield flowing with a shower of blood on a branch near by.
All the knights wanted to dash forward and blow the great horn that hungbeside the gate, but Arthur waved them back and went himself. He blew sohard that the horn roared until all the grasses of the marshes flaredup, and out of the castle gate sallied a knight dressed from tip to toein blo
od-red arms, the Red Knight.
"Aren't you the king?" he bellowed, "the king that keeps us all withsuch strict vows that we can't have any pleasures, a milky-hearted king?Look to your life now!"
Arthur scorned to speak to so vile a man or to fight him with his sword.He simply let the drunkard, stretching out from his horse to strike,fall head-heavy, over from the castle causeway to the swamp below.
Then all the Round Table Knights roared and shouted, leaped down on thefallen man, trampled out his face in the mire, sank his head so that itcould not be seen, and, still shouting, sprang through the open doorsamong the people within. They hurled their swords right and left on menand women, hurled over the tables and the wines and slew and slew untilall the rafters rang with yells and all the pavements streamed withblood. Then they set the tower all afire and half the night through itflushed the long low meadows and marshlands and lazily plunging sea withits flames. That was how Arthur made the ways of the island safe fromone shore to the other.
Sir Tristram, not many nights after, reached Tintagil, where Isolt, theWhite, lived in a crown of towers, where she now sat with the lowsea-sunset glorying her hair and glossy throat, thinking of him and ofMark, her Cornish lord.
When Tristram's footsteps came grinding up the tower steps she flushed,started out to meet him and threw her white arms about him.
"Not Mark, not Mark!" she cried. "At first your footsteps fluttered me,for Mark steals into his own castle like a cat."
"No, it's I," said Sir Tristram, "and don't think about your Mark anymore, for he isn't yours any longer."
"But listen," she cried, "to-day he went away for a three days' hunt, hesaid, and that means that he may be back in an hour for that's his way.My God, my hate for him is as strong as my love for you. Let me tell youhow I sat here one evening thinking of you, one black midsummer night,all alone, dreaming of you, and sometimes speaking your name aloud, whensuddenly there Mark stood behind me, for that's his way to steal behindone in the dark.
"'Tristram has married her!' he hissed out and then this tower shookwith such a roar that I swooned away."
"Come," cried Sir Tristram, laughing, "never mind, I'm hungry, give mesome meat and wine."
So they ate and drank, talked and laughed about Mark with his longcrane-like legs, and Sir Tristram took a harp and sang a song. Thenwhile the last light of the day glimmered away he swung the rubynecklace before Isolt.
"It's the fruit of a magical oak-tree that grew mid air," he cried, "andwas won by Sir Tristram as a tourney prize to bring to you."
Flinging the rubies round her neck he had just touched her jeweledthroat with his lips when behind him rose a shadow and a shriek.
"Mark's way!" cried Mark, the Cornish king, and he clove Tristramthrough the brain.
* * * * *
That very night Arthur came back from the North, and as he climbed upthe tower steps to go to the queen, in the dark of the tower somethingpulled at him. It was little Dagonet.
"Who are you?" said the king.
"I'm little Dagonet, your fool," sobbed the little jester, "and I crybecause I can never make you laugh again."
Tales from Tennyson Page 10