and I think he tried to tell us all that he could about all that we saw.
"The well of St. Keyne is not far from here," he said. "Perhaps you may
have heard of it, sir. They tell the story about it that when a man and
a woman are married, the one of them that drinks from the well of St.
Keyne first will always be the ruler of the house. And the story tells
how there was a man who was married, and he wanted to be sure to drink
first. So as soon as the marriage was over he left his wife in the
church and ran and drank from the well. But his wife was before him
after all, for she had brought a bottle of the water to church with her.
There was a piece of poetry made about it. I don't remember who did
it."
"Southey?" I suggested.
"Yes, sir; I think so, sir."
The driver showed us two curious stones in a field that we passed and
waited while we went to look at them more closely. They stood on end
and were rather higher than a man's head, as I remember. They were
square at the bottom, but smaller at the top, and one of them had
somewhat the form of a chair. There was some rough carving on the sides.
The driver said that he had heard that some old King of Cornwall was
buried there. Since then I have read more about these stones in a very
old book about Cornwall. The writer does not seem to know much more
than we as to how they came there, but he says that they are called "the
Other Half Stone." I think that you will say that that is as curious a
name as you ever heard. The old writer seems to think so too, and he
does not know anything about the one half stone of which these are "the
other half." But he says that they are just half way between Exeter and
the Land's End.
The driver decided that he would take us to the Cheesewring before
Dozmare Pool, and by and by he said that we were as near to it as we
could go with the carriage. He pointed it out to us, on a hill, a long
way off, as it seemed. Then he drove along to a poor little village,
where we left the horse and carriage at a house that called itself an
hotel, and from there we walked to the Cheesewring. The way was across
a broad stretch of rough ground and it was not at all easy walking. We
had not gone far before the driver had some more stones to show us.
They were not very large, but there were a good many of them, and they
stood on end, as usual. They had stood in two great circles once, as if
they were little stones trying to look like Stonehenge, but now some of
them had fallen down, and of course that was a part of their game of
Stonehenge too.
"They call these the Hurlers," said the driver, "and they tell the story
that they were men, who were turned into stone for playing quoits on
Sunday." (He pronounced it "kites.") Then he pointed to two stones
that stood by themselves, a little way from the circles, and said: "I
suppose those two were men who were only looking on, and not playing."
We resolved that we would never play quoits on Sunday, or so much as
look at anybody playing quoits on Sunday, and then we went on toward the
Cheesewring. We had to climb a little way up the hillside to get to it,
and then we stood almost on the edge of a precipice, looking down into a
great quarry, where there were men at work cutting out stone. The
Cheesewring itself was almost on the edge of the precipice too. It was
a great pile of stones--a great pile, but few stones, for they were huge
ones. They were skilfully fitted and balanced, one upon the other, and
the top one was much the largest of them all, so that the whole pile had
somewhat the shape of a rude anvil. The whole pile was perhaps four
times as high as our heads. I think I have forgotten to say till now
that "Cheesewring" means "cheese-press," and surely a very large and
very stiff cheese might be well flattened out by having that pile of
stones set upon it.
The puzzle of it, as usual, is how the stones got there. The machinery
that they are using down below there in the quarry to-day would be none
too good to move such stones as these. Yet there they are, and there is
no history of the time when they were put there. "What do you think of
them," I said, "and whoever do you suppose knew how to pile them up
there?"
"I don't know," Helen answered, "but when there are any big stones
anywhere you generally say that Merlin put them there."
"Well, I am not going to say so this time, though these stones do
somehow remind me of Merlin. Did I ever tell you what became of him at
last?"
"No," said Helen, "of course you didn't."
"Why, here we are," I said, "telling stories about the very end of King
Arthur's reign, and nobody had seen or heard anything of Merlin since
almost the very beginning of it. And do you mean to tell me that I have
never told you what became of him?"
"Why, you know you never did; what was it?"
"Well, to be sure, if I have never told you that, we ought not to lose
another minute about it. But you must forget everything that you have
heard lately and go away back, for that is where this story begins.
After Merlin had taken good care of King Vortigern and of King
Pendragon, King Arthur's uncle; and King Uther Pendragon, Arthur's
father; and of King Arthur himself; after he had set him on his throne
and had helped him to win battles and to get his sword Excalibur, what
do you think Merlin did? You would think that he was old enough to know
better, only I believe nobody is ever old enough to know better. He
fell in love.
"Merlin knew everything, and so he knew that he was going to fall in
love. He knew, too, that because of his falling in love he should go
away from the court and away from the King and away from all the world,
and that after that he should never be of any use again to the King or
to England or to the world. Merlin knew, and yet he could not help it.
Merlin could rule kingdoms and set up and cast down kings, yet there was
one power in the world that he could not rule and could not resist. He
could not save himself from the end that he knew was coming. He told
King Arthur that he should leave him soon and should never see him
again, and King Arthur tried to reason with him and to make him use his
magic against his fate. But Merlin said that no magic could do any
good; in this one thing he was helpless; when the time came he must go,
and the time was coming soon.
"And who was it, do you suppose, that Merlin was in love with? It was
Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, Lancelot's Fairy Mother. He met her in a
forest over in France, where she had her home. He taught her magic and
he made a splendid palace by magic and filled it with knights and ladies
for her, and there they had feasts and dances and games. One day she
asked him to show her how she could put to sleep any one whom she chose,
so that he could not awake till she should let him awake. And Merlin
knew that it was himself whom she wished to put to sleep so, yet he knew
that it was fate that he should tell her, and so he told her.
"They used to meet in the forest near a spring that was famous
afterward, for the water of the spring used to bubble up when anything
of iron or copper or brass was thrown into it, and the children who knew
the spring threw pins into it and said: 'Laugh, spring, and I will give
you a pin,' and then the spring would laugh for them. Merlin sat often
beside the spring with Nimue and taught her magic. He taught her so much
that at last there was nobody in the world who knew so much of it as
she, except himself and perhaps King Arthur's sister, Queen
Morgan-le-Fay.
"Then another time Nimue begged Merlin to teach her how one man or woman
could be shut up by another, so that he never could get away again, so
that no one could ever come to him but the one who had worked the spell,
so that he could never see any but that one, and no one could break the
spell but the one who made it. Then Merlin was sad again, for he knew
that Nimue loved him so much that she wanted to keep him all to herself
and never to let any one else see him or hear of him. And he knew, too,
that she must have her way in this. 'I know,' he said, 'what it is that
you wish, and I love you so much that I know that I must do what you
ask.'
"'If you know what it is that I wish,' she said, 'you know that I want a
place where we can be together always, only we two, where nobody else
can ever come to us and where I shall never see any one but you and you
will never see anyone but me. Surely, when I love you so much as you
know I do, you should love me enough for that.'
"And still Merlin was sad, knowing that this was to be the end of all
his work for the King and for the world, but he answered: 'I will do
what you ask. I will make a place where we two can be and no one else
can ever come to us or see us or know of us.'
"But Nimue said: 'I do not wish it so; you must teach me the magic, so
that I can do it myself. Then I will make the enchantment when I
please.'
"So Merlin, knowing that it was fate and that there was no other way,
taught her all the charms by which she could do what she wished. He
taught her how to walk about in circles and how to wave her hands and
what words to say. And she learned it and remembered it all. Then they
left France and came over into Cornwall and wandered together about the
hills and the woods. And one day, when they had gone a long way, they
sat down to rest. And Nimue took Merlin's head in her lap and put him to
sleep with the charm that he had taught her. When he was asleep she
rose and walked around him nine times and waved her hands and began to
say the words that he had taught her. And as she worked the charm
Merlin slept more soundly, and then the ground opened and he sank down
into it. She sank down too, and when they were deep enough the ground
closed above them. But still she went on with the charm and great
stones were moved by the magic words and piled themselves high above the
place where they had sunk.
"When Merlin awoke he knew that the spell was done. He was in a
beautiful place and Nimue was with him. She could go out and come in
when she chose, and she often did so, but he could never go out till the
spell was broken. And nobody could ever break the spell but Nimue, who
had made it. Merlin himself, with all his magic, could not break it,
for it was one of his own spells and the strongest of them, and it was
planned so that it could never be undone by anyone, even the greatest
magician of the world, except the one who had done it. And Nimue never
undid the spell.
"Now I am not sure where all this happened, and you know I would not
tell you anything that I was not sure of. Some say that it was here in
Cornwall and some say that it was over in France, and that Merlin and
Nimue did not come back to England at all. Some say, too, that there
was another Cornwall in France. But if they did come to England again,
and if the place was in this very Cornwall, then why might not this be
the very place where we are? Here is this great pile of stones and
neither we nor anybody else can tell how they came here or how they
could come here. Why might they not be the very ones that Nimue piled
up over Merlin by the enchantment that he taught her? I don't say that
they are, but I do say that I cannot see why they might not be, so let
us believe that they are."
Helen looked over the edge of the hill, down into the quarry. "If those
men down there dig out the rock a little more over this way," she said,
"they will let Merlin out, if he is still there."
"They will do nothing of the sort," I answered; "do you think that
Merlin's charms were worth no more than that? No one can ever let
Merlin out of his prison but Nimue, and she never did and never will.
If those men down there should dig to where Merlin was, you may be sure
that he would sink again, down and down through the earth, so that no
quarriers in the world could ever reach him. Merlin's charms were charms
that were made to last, and Merlin will never be seen again on the earth
as long as Stonehenge is on Salisbury Plain."
[Illustration: St. Joseph's Chapel, Glastonbury Abbey]
*CHAPTER XVII*
*"AND ON THE MERE THE WAILING DIED AWAY"*
It was only a short drive from the place where we had left the carriage
to Dozmare Pool. That is, it was a short drive to the nearest place to
it where we could get with the carriage. The carriage could not go
close to it, any more than it could to the Cheesewring. The driver began
to remember still more about Dozmare Pool, as we got nearer to it. The
water was salt, like the sea, he had heard, and in stormy times it had
great waves like the sea.
This reminded me of some things that I had heard and read about it
myself. The name "Dozmare," I had been told somewhere, meant "drop of
the sea." I had been told somewhere else that the name was made up of
two Cornish words that meant "come" and "great," and that the name was
given to it because it had tides, like the ocean. Long ago it had no
outlet that anybody could see, but it was said that something that was
thrown onto it was found many miles off, on the seashore. So it was
believed that a passage under ground led from it to the sea. It was
said, too, that it was so deep that no plummet had ever reached its
bottom.
We came at last to the foot of a steep hill and the driver said that we
could not go any farther with the carriage. He would stay here and
attend to the horse, and we must go straight up this hill and we should
find Dozmare Pool. Up the hill we went, a good, long climb, and when we
got to the top, though we knew what we had come to see, we were
surprised to see it. For all of a sudden there it was before us, the
broad lake on the top of the hill, just where we should expect to find
the downward slope of the other side of the hill. It did not look like
a stormy sea to-day, but a fresh breeze was blowing over it and drove
the little waves before it against the bank, where they made a plashing
noise at our feet. The pool seemed to be at the very top of everything,
except that far away across it we could see a mountain, with two peaks.
There was one little house near us and no other in sight. Near the
house a man was at work piling up turf, cut in long, square strips, for
winter fires. A little boy was playing about, or trying to help the
man, and a woman was driving a cart that brought the turf from somewhere
down below. We asked the man what mountain that was with the two peaks.
"Brown Gilly, sir," he said.
"Is the water of this lake salt?" we asked again.
"No, sir, it's fresh."
"Is it good to drink?"
"We don't drink it ourselves, sir, but it's good for washing and the
cattle drink it."
"How big is the lake?"
"It's about a mile and a quarter round, sir."
"And is there any outlet?"
"Yes, sir, down at the other end there's one."
"It was not always there, was it? When was it made?"
"I couldn't say, sir; it was there before my time."
We left the man to pile his turf and wonder what strange sort of people
we could be who wanted to know so many useless things. "Well, there is
so much of our story spoiled," I said. "It is not salt and it probably
does not have waves like the ocean, and an outlet has been made for it.
Still, as you stand and look over it, do you not feel that there is
something lonely and solemn and mysterious and magical about it? When
you think of its being here at the top of a hill, instead of down in a
valley, like a common lake, and when you see no higher hill around it,
except that one mountain over there, and when you think of the stories
about it, do you not get a little of what our old friend of the Alice
books calls the 'eerie' feeling? Have you guessed that the reason why I
brought you here was that this was the lake where King Arthur found his
sword Excalibur? Well, it was. And now I have another story to tell you
about it. It is rather a sad story. The most of our stories are getting
to be rather sad now, but there are not many more of them."
I had told Helen long before how King Arthur got his sword Excalibur.
His sword had been broken in a fight one day, and Merlin led him to the
shore of a little lake--this very lake where we stood now--and out in
the middle of it he had seen an arm rising out of the water. The arm was
covered with white silk and the hand held a sword, the most beautiful
that Arthur had ever seen. Merlin and Arthur went out to it in a boat
and the King took the sword and kept it. That was the wonderful sword
Excalibur. Merlin told Arthur strange things about the sword. No one
else ever knew what they were, and it may be that we do not know, even
yet, of all the wonders of that sword.
But now for the story. "You know," I said, "that I do not often throw
morals at you in these stories. As a general thing, I hate to see
morals hung up on the ends of stories as much as you do. If the moral
cannot make itself felt as the story goes along, it isn't of much use,
usually, to drag it out and hold it up at the end. But this story has
such a good and sound and useful moral that I can't help pointing it out
to you. But I will put it here at the beginning, instead of at the end,
and have it over with. It is that when a lie has been told about
anybody, no matter how wicked and silly it is, no matter how clearly it
may have been proved to be a lie, it will always stick to him, it will
never be forgotten, and there will always be people who will half
believe it.
"You remember how once Meliagraunce charged Queen Guinevere with treason
against King Arthur. Everybody knew that Meliagraunce himself was a
traitor and a liar and that he got killed for telling that one lie.
Still it never was forgotten and there were some who never had quite the
trust in the Queen again that they had had before. And since it was
Lancelot who had fought for the Queen then and at other times, they
looked at him just as they did at her, and shook their heads and
whispered to one another that they wondered if Lancelot was quite as
true to the King as he ought to be. There were some who said, too, that
Lancelot and the Queen both cared too much about honors and glory for
themselves and not enough about the honor of the King. And I am afraid
that was not a lie.
"Still all this thinking and talking counted for little for a long time.
And then there came a time when they counted for much. It was after the
quest of the Holy Grail. Lancelot had come back to the court and Bors
had come back from the City of Sarras, and all had come back who were
ever coming. Then, all at once, as it has always seemed to me, without
any reason, half the people in King Arthur's court went mad. The first
and the worst of them was Mordred, King Arthur's nephew, Gawain's
brother. He was always all but mad with jealousy and envy and hatred of
all who were greater than himself. And now he thought that nothing less
could please him than to overthrow King Arthur and to be King of
England.
"There are some people who cannot think of any better way of helping
themselves than by doing all the harm that they can to those who stand
in their way. Mordred was of this sort. He looked about him to see who
there was whom he could harm, and he thought of this old lie about the
Queen and of these new doubts about Lancelot. Then he went to the King
and told him that he had found that Lancelot and the Queen were plotting
treason together and forming some plan against the King. If the King
wanted proof of it, Mordred said, let him go hunting the next day, and
while he was gone, Mordred and some others would find Lancelot and the
Queen together.
"Now Lancelot and the Queen had always been the best of friends and what
in the world was supposed to be proved by their being seen together I am
sure I don't know. But just at this time it seems to me that it was the
King who went mad, and he said that he would do as Mordred advised him.
"The next day the King went hunting. Now Bors and some of Lancelot's
other friends had heard these whispers about the court and they had told
Lancelot of them. They had decided that it might stop the chatter,
about Lancelot at least, if he were to leave the court for a time. It
happened that Lancelot had meant to go this very day, and so he went to
say good-by to the Queen. Bors knew what a mischief-maker Mordred was;
he had seen that he dif not go to the hunt with the King, and he feared
that something was wrong. He begged Lancelot not to go to see the
Queen, but Lancelot laughed at the notion that there was anything to
fear and went. And Mordred and some other knights whom he had got on
his side were watching, and the minute that Lancelot and the Queen were
together they were upon them.
"Lancelot had come only to see the Queen and to bid her good-by; he had
not expected any fighting, and so he wore no armor. Mordred and his
knights meant to fall upon Lancelot all at once and kill him or take him
prisoner. But Lancelot was quick enough to shut the door of the room
and keep them out for a few minutes. Then he drew his sword and opened
the door just enough to let one of the knights come in. He struck that
one with his sword and wounded him so that he fell inside the room, and
then he shut the door again. Lancelot quickly took off the armor of the
wounded knight and dressed himself in it. Then he threw the door wide
open and rushed at the crowd of knights striking about him as he went
and wounding more of them.
"Many as they were they could not stand against Lancelot and he escaped
from them and went back to his friends. I suppose I ought to say just
here that there was scarcely ever a man in the world who had such
friends as Lancelot. There were his brother Ector, his cousins Bors and
Lionel, Lavaine, and many others who were ready to give their very lives
for Lancelot at any time. And now, after this terrible thing had
happened, they all left the city with him, as quickly as they could, and
then they waited near to see what would be done with the Queen.
"When the King came back Mordred told him about what had happened, in
his own lying way, I suppose. And the King, it seems, had not got over
his fit of madness yet, for surely nobody in his senses could think that
what Mordred had to tell proved anything. But of course we don't know
just how much Mordred lied, and I wonder if the King believed him just
because he was his own nephew. Such things happen sometimes, though for
my own part I don't see why any man should be believed because he is
another man's nephew. Bad men have uncles, as well as good men. But it
seems that the King did believe him, for some reason or other, and did
believe that the Queen and Lancelot were guilty of treason. And he said
that the Queen should have the punishment of treason, and so should
Lancelot, if he could get him. Now the punishment of treason in those
days was burning.
"Now, mad as the King seems to have been, I no more believe that he
would have the Queen burnt than I believe that he would have himself
burnt. I don't know why he pretended that he would. Perhaps he thought
that he could make her confess something, or perhaps he thought that
Mordred, when he saw how far things were going, would confess that he
was wrong. But the King declared that the punishment of the Queen
should be the next morning and he ordered some of his knights, and among
them Gareth and his brother Gaheris, to be present and see it done.
They and some of the others told the King plainly that they thought that
what he was doing was wrong and that they would have nothing to do with
it. Since he commanded them to be present, they said, they would be
there only to look on, and they would wear no armor.
"And now it came Lancelot's turn to go mad. For he believed that the
King would really do all that he said. So he resolved that he would
save the Queen. The King himself would have saved her, I am sure,
before any harm could come to her. But Lancelot heard what was to be
done and in the morning he took some of his friends, all fully armed,
and they rode to the place where the Queen was led out for her
punishment. Lancelot and his men dashed through the crowd of King
Arthur's knights, the most of whom wore no armor, laying about them with
their swords, killing some and wounding others, and came to where the
Queen stood. Lancelot lifted her and put her on his horse behind him,
and he and his knights rode away again. They did not stop near the city
this time, but they rode straight to a castle of Lancelot's own, called
Joyous Gard, and there they all shut themselves in and fortified the
town.
"But in the saving of the Queen another terrible thing had happened. As
Lancelot dashed through the crowd of King Arthur's knights to come where
she was, some of them struck at him, and in return he layed about him
with his sword and could not see who was in his way, and so, not knowing
who they were, he struck Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris, who wore no armor,
and killed them both. And now it was Gawain who went mad. When he
heard that Lancelot had killed his brothers he would not believe that it
was by accident and he swore that he would always follow Lancelot and
try to find chances to fight with him, till one of them should kill the
other. He urged the King to make war at once upon Lancelot, and the
King and his army marched to Joyous Gard and besieged the castle and the
town.