THE KNIGHT OF THE CRIMSON ROSE
The row of horsemen had halted in a curving line before the grand stand,
and now in the silence the herald, holding a parchment scroll, spurred
before each rider in turn, demanding his title. As this was given he
whirled to proclaim it, accompanying each evolution with a blast on his
horn. "Knight of the Golden Spur," "Knight of Castlewood," "Lord of
Brandon," "Westover's Knight," "Knight of the Silver Cross": the names,
fanciful, or those of family estates, fell on John Valiant's ear with a
pungent flavor of medievalism. His eyes, full of the swaying crowd, the
shift and shimmer of light and color, returned again and again to an
alluring spot of blue at one side, which might for him have been the
heart of the whole festal out-of-doors. He started as he became aware
that the rider next him had answered and that the herald had paused
before him.
"Knight of the Crimson Rose!" It sprang to his lips without forethought,
an echo, perhaps, of the improvised sash and the flower in his hat-band,
but the shout of the herald and the trumpet's blare seemed to make the
words fairly bulge with inevitability. And through this struck a sudden
appalled feeling that he had really spoken Shirley's name, and that
every one had heard. He could not see her face, and clutched his lance
fiercely to overcome an insane desire to stoop hideously in his saddle
and peer under the shading hat-brim. Lest he should do this, he fastened
his eyes determinedly on the major, who now proceeded to deliver himself
of the "Charge to the Knights."
The major made an appealing center to the charming picture as he stood
on the green turf, "the glass of fashion and the mold of form," his head
bare, his shock of blond-gray hair thrown back, and one hand thrust
between the buttons of his snowy waistcoat. His rich bass voice rolled
out to the farthest corner of the field:
"Sir Knights!
"The tournament to which we are gathered to-day is to us traditional; a
rite of antiquity and a monument of ancient generations. This relic of
the jousts of the Field of the Cloth-of-Gold points us back to an era of
knightly deeds, fidelity to sacred trust, obligation to duty and loyalty
to woman--the watchwords of true knighthood.
"We like to think that when our forefathers, offspring of men who
established chivalry, came from over-seas, they brought with them not
only this ancient play, but the precepts it symbolizes. We may be
proud, indeed, knowing that this is no hollow ceremonial, but an earnest
that the flower of knighthood has not withered in the world, that in an
age when the greed of gold was never so dazzling, the spirit of true
gallantry has not faded but blooms luxuriant in the sparkling dews of
the heart of this commonwealth.
"Yours is no bitter ride by haunted tarn or through enchanted forest--no
arrowed vigil on beleagered walls. You go not in gleaming steel and
fretted mail to meet the bite of blade and crash of battle-ax. Yet is
your trial one of honor and glory. I charge you that in the contest
there be no darkling envy for the victor, but only true comradeship and
that generosity which is the badge of noble minds.
"I summon you to bow the knee loyally before your queen. For as the
contest typifies life's battle, so shall she stand for you as the type
of womanhood, the crown of knighthood. The bravest thoughts of chivalry
circle about her. The stars of heaven only may be above her head, the
glowworm in the night-chill grasses the only fire at her feet; still the
spot that holds her is richer than if ceiled with cedar and painted with
vermilion, and sheds a light far for him who else were lampless.
"Most Noble Knights! In the name of that high tradition which this day
preserves! In the memory of those other knights who practised the
tourney in its old-time glory! In the sight of your Queen of Beauty! I
charge you, Southern gentlemen, to joust with that valor, fairness and
truth which are the enduring glories of the knighthood of Virginia!"
Over the ringing applause Nancy Chalmers looked at him with a little
smile, quizzical yet soft. "Dear old major!" she whispered to Betty
Page. "How he loves the center of the stage! And he's effective, too.
Thirty years ago, father says, he might have been anything he wanted
to--even United States Senator. But he would never leave the state. Not
that I blame him for that," she added; "I'd rather be a church-mouse in
Virginia than Croesus' daughter anywhere else."
The twelve horsemen were now sitting their restive mounts in a group at
one end of the lists. Two mounted monitors had stationed themselves on
either side of the rope-barrier; a third stood behind the upright from
whose arm was suspended the silver ring. The herald blew a blast,
calling the title of the first of the knights. Instantly, with lance at
rest, the latter galloped at full speed down the lists. There was a
sharp musical clash, and as he dashed on, the ring flew the full length
of its tether and swung back, whirling swiftly. It had been a close
thrust, for the iron pike-point had smitten its rim. A cheer went up,
under cover of which the rider looped back outside the lists to his
former position.
In an upper tier of the stand a spectator made a cup of his hands. "The
Knight of the Golden Spur against the field," he called. "What odds?"
"Five to one, Spotteswood," a voice answered.
"Ten dollars," announced the first.
"Good." And both made memorandum on their cuffs.
A second time the trumpet sounded, and the Knight of Castlewood flashed
ingloriously down the roped aisle--a miss.
Again and again the clear note rang out and a mounted figure plunged by,
and presently, in a burst of cheering, the herald proclaimed "The Knight
of the Black Eagle--one!" and Chilly Lusk, in old-rose doublet and inky
plume cantered back with a silver ring upon his pike.
The hazards in the stand multiplied. Now it was Westover's Knight
against him of the Silver Cross; now, the Lord of Brandon to win. The
gentlemen wagered coin of the realm; the ladies gloves and chocolates.
One pretty girl, amid a gale of chaff, staked a greyhound puppy. The
arena swam in a lustrous light, and the greensward glistened in its
frame of white and dusky spectators. In the sunshine the horses--every
one of them groomed till his coat shone like black, gray or sorrel
satin--curveted and whinnied, restive and red-nostriled under the tense
rein. The riders sat erect and statuesque, pikes in air, cloaks flapping
from their shoulders, waiting the call that sent each in turn tilting
against the glittering and elusively breeze-swinging silver circlet.
No simple thing, approaching leisurely and afoot, to send that tapering
point straight to the tiny mark. But at headlong gallop, astride a
blooded horse straining to take the bit, a deed requiring a nice eye, a
perfect seat and an unwavering arm and hand! Those knights who looped
back with their pikes thus braceleted had spent long hours in practise
and each rode as naturally as he breathed; yet more than once a horse
shied in mid-course and at the too-eager thrust of the spur bolted
through the ropes. Valiant made his first essay--and missed--with the
blood singing in his ears. The ring flew from his pike, catching him a
swinging blow on the temple in its rebound, but he scarcely felt it.
As he cantered back he heard the major's bass pitting him against the
field, and for a moment again the spot of blue seemed to spread over all
the watching stand.
And then, suddenly, stand and field all vanished. He saw only the long
level rope-lined lane with its twinkling mid-air point. An exhilaration
caught him at the feel of the splendid horse-flesh beneath him--that
sense of oneness with the creature he bestrode which the instinctive
horseman knows. He lifted his lance and hefted it, seeking its absolute
balance, feeling its point as a fencer with his rapier. When again the
blood-red sash streamed away the herald's cry, "Knight of the Crimson
Rose--One!" set the field hand-clapping. From the next joust also,
Valiant returned with the gage upon his lance. Two had gone to the
Champion of Castlewood and two to scattering riders. When Valiant won
his fourth the grand stand thundered with applause.
Katherine Fargo was watching with a gaze that held a curious puzzle.
After that recognition of the White Knight, Judge Chalmers had told in a
few words the story of Damory Court, its ancient history, the unhappy
duel that had sent its owner into a Northern exile, and the son's recent
coming. It had more than surprised her. Her father's appreciative
chuckle that "the young vagabond seemed after all to have fallen on his
feet" had left her strangely silent. She was undergoing a curious mental
bouleversement. Valiant's passionate defense of his father in that
fierce burst of anger in the court room had at first startled her with
its sense of unsuspected force. Later, however, she had come to think it
theatric and overdrawn, and she had heard of his quixotic surrender of
his fortune with a wonder not unmixed with an almost pitying scorn. She
despised eccentricity as much as she respected wealth, and the act had
seemed a ridiculous impulse or a silly affectation, destined to be
repented long and bitterly in cold blood. So she had thought of him
since his evanishment with a regret less sharp for being glozed with a
certain contempt.
The discovery of him to-day had dissipated this. She had an unerring
sense of social values and she made no error in her estimate of the
people by whom she was now surrounded. The recital of the Valiant
generations, the size of the estate, the position into which its heir
had stepped by very reason of being who he was, appealed to her instinct
and imagination and respect for blood. She had a sudden conception of
new values, beside which money counted little. The last of a line more
ancient than the state itself, master of a homestead famous throughout
its borders, John Valiant loomed larger in her eyes at the moment than
ever before.
The trumpet again pealed its silvery proclamation. Judge Chalmers was
on his feet. "Fifty to ten on the Crimson Rose," he cried. This time,
however, there were no takers. He called again, but none heard him; the
last tilts were too absorbing.
Where had John Valiant learned that trick of the loose wrist and
inflexible thrust, but at the fencing club? Where that subconscious
management of the rein, that nice gage of speed and distance, but on the
polo field? The old sports stood him now in good stead. "Why, he has a
seat like a centaur!" exclaimed the judge--praise indeed in a community
where riding was a passion and horse-flesh a fetish!
"Oh, dear!" mourned Nancy Chalmers. "I've bet six pairs of gloves on
Quint Carter. Never mind; if it has to be anybody else, I'd rather it
were Mr. Valiant. It's about time Damory Court got something after
Rip-Van-Winkling it for thirty years. Besides, he's giving us the dance,
and I _love_ him for that! Quint still has a chance, though. If he takes
the next two, and Mr. Valiant misses--"
Katherine looked at her with a little smile. "He won't miss," she said.
She had seen that look on his face before and read it aright. John
Valiant had striven in many contests, not only of skill but of strength
and daring, before crowded grand stands. But never in all his life had
he so desired to pluck the prize. His grip was tense on the lance as the
yellow doublet and olive plume of Castlewood shot away for a last
time--and failed. An instant later the Knight of the Crimson Rose
flashed down the lists with the last ring on his pike.
And the tourney was won.
In the shouting and hand-clapping Valiant took the rose from his
hat-band and bound it with a shred of his sash to his lance-point. As he
rode slowly toward the massed stand, the whole field was so still that
he could hear the hoofs of the file of knights behind him. The people
were on their feet.
The mounted herald blew his blast. "By the Majesties of St. Michael and
St. George," he proclaimed, "I declare the Knight of the Crimson Rose
the victor of this our tourney, and do charge him now to choose his
Queen of Beauty, that all may do her homage!"
Shirley saw the horse coming down the line, its rider bareheaded now,
and her heart began to race wildly. Beyond wanting him to take part, she
had not thought. She looked about her, suddenly dismayed. People were
smiling at her and clapping their hands. From the other end of the stand
she saw Nancy Chalmers throwing her a kiss, and beside her a tall pale
girl in champagne-color staring through a jeweled lorgnette.
She was conscious all at once that the flanneled rider was very close
... that his pike-point, with its big red blossom, was stretching up to
her.
* * * * *
With the rose in her hand she curtsied to him, while the blurred throng
cheered itself hoarse, and the band struck up _You Great Big Beautiful
Doll_, with extraordinary rapture, to the tune of which the noise
finally subsided to a battery of hilarious congratulations which left
her flushed and a little breathless. Nancy Chalmers and Betty Page had
burst upon her like petticoated whirlwinds and presently, when the
crowd had lessened, the judge came to introduce his visitor.
"Mr. Fargo and his daughter are our guests at Gladden Hall," he told
her. "They are old friends of Valiant's, by the way; they knew him in
New York."
"Katharine's lighting her incense now, I guess," observed Silas Fargo.
"See there!" He pointed across the stand, where stood a willowy tan
figure, one hand beckoning to the concourse below, where Valiant stood,
the center of a shifting group, round which the white bulldog, mad with
recovered liberty, tore in eccentric circles.
As they looked, she called softly, "John! John!"
Shirley saw him start and face about, then come quickly toward her,
amazement and welcome in his eyes.
As Shirley turned away a little later with the major, that whispering
voice seemed still to sound in her ears--"John! John!" There smote her
suddenly the thought that when he had chosen her his Queen of Beauty, he
had not seen the other--had not known she was there.
A few moments before the day had been golden; she went home through a
landscape that somehow seemed to have lost its brightest glow.