'Mother, I saw some knights in the forest, and one of them told me that
he was not a knight always, but King Arthur made him one, and before
that he was a young man like me. And now I want to go to King Arthur,
too, and ask him to make me a knight, so that I can wear bright iron
things like them and ride on a big horse.'
"The instant that she heard the word 'knights' the mother knew that all
her care was lost. The boy was a man now. He had seen what other men
were like and she knew that he would never be happy again till he was
like the rest of them. Before her mind, all at once, everything came
back--the court, the field of the tournament, the men all dressed in
steel, with their sharp, cruel spears, the gleaming lines charging
against each other, the knights falling from their horses and rolling on
the ground. Her brain whirled around as she thought of all this, and
her one last son in the midst of it, to be killed, perhaps, as the rest
had been. But she knew that he must go--that he would go--nothing could
keep him with her now.
"'My son,' she said, 'if you will leave me and be a knight, like those
that you have seen, go to King Arthur. His are the best of knights and
among them you will learn all that you ought to know. Before you are a
knight the King will make you swear that you will be always loyal and
upright, that you will be faithful, gentle, and merciful, and that you
will fight for the right of the poor and the weak. Percivale, some
knights forget these things, after they have sworn them, but you will
not forget. Remember them the more because I tell them to you now. Be
ready always to help those who need help most, the poor and the weak and
the old and children and women. Keep yourself in the company of wise
men and talk with them and learn of them. Percivale, the King will make
you swear, too, that you will fear shame more than death. And I tell
you that. I have lost your father and your brothers, but I would rather
lose you, too, than not to know that you feared shame more than death.'
"Then, from the horses that his mother had, Percivale chose the one he
thought the best. It was not a war horse, of course, and it was not even
a good saddle horse, but it would carry him. He put some old pieces of
cloth on the horse's back, for a saddle, and with more of these, and
bits of cord and woven twigs he tried to make something to look like the
trappings that he had seen on the horses of the knights. Then he found a
long pole and sharpened the end of it, to make it look like a spear.
When he had done all that he could he got on the back of the horse, bade
his mother good-by, and rode away to find the court of King Arthur.
"The King and the Queen and their knights were in the great hall of the
castle at Camelot, when a strange knight, dressed in red armor, came in
and walked straight to where the King and the Queen sat. A page was
just offering to the Queen a gold goblet of wine. The red knight seized
the goblet and threw the wine in the Queen's face. Then he said: 'If
there is any one here who is bold enough to avenge this insult to the
Queen and to bring back this goblet, let him follow me and I will wait
for him in the meadow near the castle!' Then he left the hall, took his
horse, which he had left at the door, and went to the meadow.
"In the hall all the knights jumped from their places. But for an
instant they only stood and stared at one another. They remembered the
Green Knight, and they thought that this other knight would never dare
to do what he had done, unless he had some magic to guard him against
them. I am sure that in a moment some one of them would have gone after
him, but just in that moment a strange-looking young man rode straight
into the hall, on a poor, old, boney horse. He looked so queer, with
his simple dress and the saddle and trappings that he had made himself,
and his rough pole for a spear, that the knights almost forgot the
insult to the Queen in looking at him, and some of them laughed as they
saw him ride through the hall toward the King, with no more thought of
fear than if he had been a king himself. He came to where Kay, King
Arthur's seneschal, stood, and said to him: 'Tall man, is that King
Arthur who sits there?'
"'What do you want with King Arthur?' said Kay.
"'My mother told me,' the young man answered, 'to come to King Arthur
and be made a knight by him.'
"'You are not fit to be a knight,' said Kay; 'go back to your cows and
your goats.' Kay was a rough sort of fellow and he was always saying
unpleasant things without waiting to find out what he was talking about.
"Then a dwarf came close to the boy and cried out: 'Percivale, you are
welcome here! I know that you will be one of the best of knights, for I
knew your father and your brothers, and they were all good knights!'
"And Kay was so angry with the dwarf for speaking in this way that he
struck him and knocked him down. Now when Arthur had seen the red
knight come into the hall and insult the Queen and then go away again,
he had been as much astonished as any of the knights, and he had
thought, just as they had, that he must have some charm to protect him.
But he had had another thought, and it was: 'Where have I seen the face
of that knight before?' And when the young man had come into the hall
he had thought again: 'I have seen that face, too, before.' But when he
heard the dwarf call him by name he remembered it all. 'Young man,' he
said, 'are you the son of my old knight, Sir Percivale? I know that you
are, because you are so much like him, and the man who killed your
father was here just now and insulted the Queen and all of us.'
"'Yes, yes,' Kay shouted, 'go after him, boy, and avenge your father and
avenge the Queen and bring back her golden goblet! And when you have
killed him you can have his horse and his armor, and then you will look
fit to be made a knight.'
"'I will do what you say,' the boy answered, and he turned his horse and
rode out of the hall again. When he came to the meadow the red knight
was there, riding up and down. 'Boy,' he said, 'do you know if anyone is
coming from the hall to take this gold cup from me?'
"'I have come from the hall,' Percivale answered, 'to take that gold cup
from you.'
"'Go back and tell the King,' said the red knight, 'to send a man, a
knight, to take it. And tell him that I will not wait much longer.'
"'I mean to take it from you myself,' said Percivale again, 'so be ready
for me.'
"Then Percivale made his poor old horse go as fast as it could, and he
came against the red knight with his pointed pole. The knight tried to
strike the pole aside with his spear, but Percivale hit him fairly with
it and knocked him off his horse. And in falling he managed somehow to
break his neck.
"All that had passed in the hall since the red knight had appeared there
had passed so quickly that the King and the knights had scarcely had
time to know what was going on at all till it was all over. But when
Percivale had gone to find the red knight, Uwain, King Arthur's nephew,
said: 'Kay, it was not right for you to send such a boy as that after a
knight who is no doubt a hard fighter. The knight will kill him, and
then a double disgrace will fall upon the court, that of letting the boy
be killed and that of sending no good man to avenge the insult to the
Queen. Now I will go and see if I am in time to save the boy and punish
the knight.'
"So Uwain went to the meadow and there he found Percivale trying to take
off the dead knight's armor. He could not do it, because he knew
nothing about armor and did not know how it was fastened. So Uwain
showed him how to take it off and then how to dress himself in it. 'And
now,' said Uwain, 'come to King Arthur and I know that he will gladly
make you a knight, for you have shown that you are worthy to be one.'
"'No, 'said Percivale, 'I will not go back now. But tell me, what is
the name of the tall man who told me to follow this knight?'
"'He is Sir Kay,' Uwain answered, 'King Arthur's seneschal.'
"Then Percivale said: 'Take this gold cup back to the Queen and tell her
that I have avenged the insult to her. Tell King Arthur that wherever I
go I will be his servant and will try to do him what honor I can, but
tell Sir Kay that I will never come back to King Arthur's court till I
have met him and punished him for striking the dwarf who greeted me when
I came into the hall. My mother told me to fight for the poor and the
weak, and I am sure that dwarf is weak and I ought to fight for him.'
"When Uwain went back to the hall with these messages Kay laughed, but I
am not sure that he felt quite comfortable. He had had bad luck before
in making fun of young men who turned out well in spite of their simple
looks. Perhaps you may like to know how the dwarf knew who Percivale
was. It was very simple. He used to live in Percivale's father's house,
and he knew him because he was so much like his father.
"And Percivale was riding away from the court and did not know or care
where he was going. But after awhile he met a knight who asked him
whence he came. 'I come from the court of King Arthur,' he answered.
"And the knight said: 'I am the enemy of King Arthur and of all his men,
and when I meet any of them I kill them, if I can, and so I will kill
you now, if I can.'
"So they took their places and charged against each other with their
spears. Percivale had a real spear now. And Percivale threw the knight
off his horse and he begged for mercy. 'You shall have mercy,'
Percivale said, 'if you will go to the court of King Arthur and tell him
that Percivale sent you and that Percivale will never come to his court
again till he has punished Sir Kay for striking the dwarf.'
"The knight did as Percivale bade him, and the story says that within a
week he overcame sixteen knights and made every one of them go to the
court and tell King Arthur that Percivale had sent him and that
Percivale would never come back till he had met Sir Kay and punished him
for striking the dwarf. Now you can imagine that, when these knights
came into the hall, two or three of them a day, and brought always this
same message, Kay kept getting more and more uncomfortable. Every new
one who came proved over again what a tough fighter Percivale was and
every one of them told the King and the court that Percivale was waiting
for a chance to fight with Kay. And then the other knights began to
blame Kay for making such a fine young man leave the court. For it was
clear, they said, that he would some time be one of the best knights
among them all. At last King Arthur said that he himself, with some of
his best knights, would go to search for Percivale. And Kay, who was
really no coward, went with them.
"And Percivale kept on his way. And one evening, when it was time for
him to find a place to stay for the night, he saw a great castle before
him. He knocked on the gate and a young man with a thin, pale face put
his head through an opening in the battlement and looked at him. Then
the young man came and opened the gate for Percivale and led him to the
hall. There were eighteen young men there, all thin and with pale
faces, like the first. They took off Percivale's armor and they all sat
down together. Then five young women came into the hall, and Percivale
thought that one of them, who was the lady of the castle, was the most
beautiful he had ever seen. Mind, I don't say that I think so; I say
that Percivale thought so. For, as one of the beautiful, wonderful
books that tells this story says, 'whiter was her skin than the bloom of
crystal, and her hair and her two eyebrows were blacker than jet, and on
her cheeks were two red spots, redder than whatever is reddest.' She
was dressed in satin, but it was old and faded and worn.
"Afterwards two nuns came into the hall. One of them carried a flask of
wine and the other had six loaves of bread. 'Lady,' said one of the
nuns, 'there is not so much bread and wine left in our convent as we
have brought you here.' Then they all sat at a table, and Percivale saw
that the lady of the castle was giving more of the bread and the wine to
him than to any of the others. So he took all the bread and wine and
divided them equally among all who were at the table. And when it was
time they led Percivale to his chamber.
"And the rest still sat in the hall. Then one of the young men said to
the lady of the castle: 'Sister, go to this young man and tell him that
you will be his wife, if he will rescue you and the rest of us from our
enemies.'
"'I cannot do that,' she answered. 'He may not want me for his wife; if
he did he would ask me.'
"'Sister,' said the young man again, 'we have no more food and we cannot
hold the castle any longer. This is the only hope we have. You must do
this or we will leave you, and your enemies may do what they like with
you and your castle.'
"So she left them and went to the door of Percivale's chamber and opened
it. It was dark and he was asleep, but he heard her weeping and awoke.
'Who are you,' he asked, 'and why are you weeping? Can I help you?'
"'My lord,' she answered, 'if you do not help me nothing can ever help
me. I am the lady of the castle. My father owned this castle and all
the lands around it. There was a wicked knight, named Sir Mordred, who
wanted me to be his wife, but I would not, and so, after my father died
and left me the castle and the lands, Sir Mordred made war upon me. I
had not men enough to fight with him, and so he has taken everything I
had except this castle. But this castle is so strong that the few men
whom you have seen were able to hold it as long as we had food. They
are my foster brothers. Mordred and his men always watch the castle to
see that no one goes out from it to bring food, and so at last all that
we had was gone. Then the nuns, who are permitted to go wherever they
like, brought us food, but now they have no more. And Mordred watches
us so closely that he will know that we have no more food, and he will
come against us at once and take the castle, unless you can help us. So
the young men told me that I must come to you and tell you that I would
be your wife if you would save us, for there was no other way. Forgive
me, Sir Knight, for doing what I must do, and help me and my brothers,
if you can.'
"Then Percivale answered: 'I know that you do not say this because you
want to be my wife, and so I will not ask it of you. Marry whomever you
will. To-morrow, if this Sir Mordred comes, I will do my best to help
you.'
"And so we have come to Mordred. I am almost sorry that I have to tell
you about him, but I should have to tell you, some time, and it may as
well be now. Mordred was the brother of Gawain, and so he was King
Arthur's nephew. He was a knight of the Round Table, and he was the
wickedest and most treacherous man who was ever in Arthur's court. When
people tell you that they do not like King Arthur because he was too
good--and somebody is sure to tell you that some time--ask them what
they think of his letting such a creature as Mordred be a knight of his
Round Table. Still, I suppose Arthur did not know how bad Mordred was.
Good people are often slow to believe that there are any bad people, and
Arthur was so.
"Well, in the morning, surely enough, there were Mordred's men all
around the castle. There were tents set up and knights were riding up
and down on horses, and banners were flying, and it all looked as if
they had come to fight against a city, instead of against five women and
eighteen starved young men. Breakfast did not take long that morning,
because there was nothing in the castle to eat. So, as soon as he was
up, Percivale put on his armor and called for his horse and rode out of
the castle. He came near to some of the knights who were riding about
and seemed to be so ready to fight, and called out that he wanted to see
Sir Mordred and to talk with him.
"When Sir Mordred came, Percivale said to him: 'I challenge you alone,
Sir Mordred to fight with me alone for the right of the lady of this
castle. If you beat me you shall keep all that you have taken from her
and you shall have the castle too. If I beat you she shall keep the
castle and you shall give her back all that she had before. Do you
agree to this?'
"And Mordred said: 'I agree.'
"It was a short battle. They charged against each other once, and
Mordred's spear was broken against Percivale's shield, but Percivale's
spear went through Mordred's shield and through his shoulder. Mordred
could not fight any more after that, so he promised to give back to the
lady of the castle all the lands and everything else that he had taken
from her, if Percivale would not kill him. Percivale made him promise,
too, that his men should take to the castle that very day enough food
and drink for a hundred men and their horses. Then he sent Mordred
himself to Camelot, to say to the King and the court that Percivale
would never come back there till he had punished Sir Kay for striking
the dwarf. But when Mordred got to Camelot the King and Kay and a good
many of the other knights had gone to hunt for Percivale, and there were
not many left to hear the message.
"Then Percivale took his leave of the people of the castle and rode on
his way. He rode all day, and in the evening he came to the cell of a
hermit, who made him welcome, and he stayed with him all night. In the
morning he left the cell to go on his way, but just in front of the door
he saw something that made him stop to look at it. There had been a
fall of snow in the night, and a little way from the hermit's cell a
hawk had killed a wild fowl and the snow was stained with its blood.
Something had frightened the hawk away and now a raven had lighted on
the snow near the wild fowl. It was this that made Percivale stop to
look, for the blackness of the raven and the whiteness of the snow and
the red of the blood made him think of the black hair of the lady of the
castle where he had stayed, and of her white skin, and of the red in her
cheeks. This must have been a pleasant thought, for Percivale stood
there thinking it and gazing at the blood on the snow for a long time.
"Now it happened that King Arthur's tent had been pitched for the night
near this very place. And Arthur came out of his tent and saw some one
leaning on a spear and looking upon the ground. And he told one of his
young men to go and see who it was. So the young man rode to where
Percivale stood and said: 'Who are you, and what are you doing here?'
"But Percivale was thinking so much of the raven and the snow and the
blood and the lady of the castle that he gave no answer, and then the
young man thrust at him with his spear. Then Percivale turned and struck
the young man with his own spear and knocked him off his horse, and he
went back to tell the King how he had fared. And Kay said: 'I will go
and make him tell me who he is.'
"So Kay came and said and did very much as the young man had done, and
Percivale knocked him off his horse too, and in the fall he broke his
arm. Kay's horse galloped back alone to where the King and the knights
were and Kay had to walk back. 'Now, I will go,' said Gawain. 'It is
likely, Kay, that you spoke to him rudely, for you do speak rudely
sometimes. The knight may be deep in some thoughts in which he does not
like to be disturbed, but I will try to bring him back.'
*[Illustration: "Kay's horse galloped back alone"
(missing from book)]*
"It used to be said that Gawain could speak so well that nobody could
ever refuse him anything that he asked. He went to Percivale and stood
still beside him for a moment and then said to him: 'If I thought that
it would be pleasant to you to hear it, I would give you a message from
King Arthur. He wishes that you would come to his tent. Two others
have come here before me to speak to you.'
"'Yes,' said Percivale, 'and they spoke to me rudely and attacked me.
And it annoyed me, because I was looking at the snow and the raven and
the blood, and I was thinking of the face and the hair and the cheeks of
the lady whom I fought for yesterday. But tell me, is Sir Kay with King
Arthur?'
"'Yes,' said Gawain, 'and he was the second of the men who came to speak
to you, and the fall from his horse that you gave him broke his arm.'
"'Ah, then I am glad,' said Percivale, 'for now I have punished him for
striking the dwarf.'
"'For striking the dwarf?' Gawain repeated, 'then you are Percivale!
This is good news! Come back with me to the King, for he and all of us
have left Camelot to seek for you.'
"'Yes,' Percivale answered, 'I can come back with you now, for I have
met Sir Kay and have punished him for striking the dwarf.'
"So Gawain led Percivale back to the King, and Arthur and his knights
welcomed him as one of the best among them all. Then they all went back
to Camelot together, and as soon as they were there King Arthur made
Percivale a knight. And he said to him, when he had touched his
shoulders with his sword: 'Rise, Sir Percivale, and may God make you a
good knight. I know that He will, Sir Percivale, for no young man who
has ever come to my court has done so soon such noble things as you have
done. For before you were a knight at all you fought many battles for
right and justice, and you are worthy to be called God's own knight. And
you are worthy, too, to be a knight of the Round Table. Kneel again,
Sir Percivale, and take the oath of the Round Table.'
"Then Percivale knelt before the King again and the King said to him:
'Do you swear that you will help the King to guard his people and to
keep peace and justice in his land; that you will be faithful to your
fellows; that you will do right to poor and rich alike? Do you swear
that in all things you will be true and loyal to God and to the King?'
"And Percivale answered: 'I swear it.'
"The King took Percivale's hand and turned toward the Round Table. All
the knights looked eagerly to see where his place would be, for they
thought: 'No man of us has ever done such deeds as his while he was
still so young, and who knows but he may be that best knight of all the
world, who is to sit in the Siege Perilous?'
"The King thought of that too, and he paused beside the Siege Perilous,
to see if there were any letters in it, but there were not. But in the
next seat to it, where no one had ever sat since Arthur had been King,
he saw new letters of gold, and the letters said: 'This is the seat of
Percivale, God's knight.'"
[Illustration: The Tower of London]
*CHAPTER IV*
*THE QUEEN'S ROBING-ROOM*
When we got back to the hotel at Glastonbury that night there was a
surprise awaiting us. Helen's mother had a letter and she said: "We are
going to London by the first train to-morrow morning, and then we are
going straight to Paris."
Now you must know that before we started on this journey Helen's mother
had said that she did not care in the least where we went, except that
we must go to Paris. So it was agreed between us that she should be
allowed to go to Paris just whenever she pleased and that I should
arrange everything else just as I pleased. And so, when she said that
we were going to Paris at once, she made exactly the one announcement
that she had a perfect right to make, without asking me anything about
it at all. Still, just at first, I was not at all pleased.
I said that of course we should do just as she liked about it, still we
had thought that we were to have plenty of time in Glastonbury, and so
we had not gone to see the ruins of the abbey yet, and it seemed a pity
to have to leave Glastonbury without seeing them. Helen knew nothing
about the ruins of the abbey, but she agreed with me. That made no
difference to Helen's mother. She had a letter from somebody whom she
knew, who was in Paris. That somebody was to be there only for a week,
and she must be there at the same time. We really had no right to
object, and so I gave up objecting and tried to think of the best way
out of it. "Couldn't we come back here again afterwards?" Helen
suggested.
Now the notion of going to a little place like Glastonbury, so far off
the usual lines of travel, twice in the same journey, is one that would
never come into the head of any ordinary traveller. But Helen is not an
ordinary traveller. And when I came to think of it I could not see the
slightest reason in the world why we should not come back to Glastonbury
after we had been to Paris. I looked at Helen's mother and said: "May
we?"
"You know very well," she said, "that you can go and come wherever you
like, as long as you let me go to Paris."
Here was another notion. "As long as I let you go to Paris," I
repeated. "That is just what I will do. What do you want of me in
Paris? All the time that you are there you women will be running about
the city, seeing things that I don't care about and doing things that I
don't care about, such as shopping, and I should only be in the way.
You would get on better without me, and so why should I go to Paris at
all? I will go to London with you to-morrow, and then I will wait there
for you till you come back."
Helen's mother liked my plan so much that I almost felt hurt. "I don't
see," she said, "how you could be of the least use in Paris. You will
have a much better time in London, and I shall have you off my mind, and
can do just what I like."