THE TOURNAMENT IN THE OLD MUSTER-FIELD.
The spot selected for the tournament was the old muster-field in the
rear of the meeting-house. This field was completely shut in on the
west by a thick woods; the meeting-house and parochial horse-sheds
screened it from observation on the highway side; the winding lane
leading to the Little Madam's lay along its eastern border, and its
southern extremity was lost in Hemlock Island. Altogether it was a
secluded spot, exactly fitted for a nineteenth-century tournament.
Considerable time was necessarily spent in preparation. The important
question of armor had first to be settled, and it proved to be a
somewhat difficult as well as important question. In the little
vignette on the title-page of the drab "Ivanhoe" was a mounted knight,
knight and horse being both in complete armor. Skatta promptly settled
the question of armor so far as she was concerned, when Dolly attempted
to strap a tin pot-cover on her breast, by standing on her hind feet
and snorting a vigorous protest. "Well, never mind," said Dolly;
"'Ivanhoe' doesn't say anything about horse's armor, and we won't have
any."
Great difficulty attended the finding of proper helmets. Ned suggested
tin pails, brass kettles, and even the culinary iron pots, much to
Dolly's disgust, for Ned did not take the tournament so seriously
as she did. He saw the absurdity of it, and was disposed to view it
in a comic light, although he pronounced it "jolly fun." At last a
compromise was made with pasteboard. Dolly, who had a knack at cutting
out things, fashioned two very tolerable helmets of pasteboard, covered
with black cambric, which certainly looked like the genuine thing,
although they would not stand hard thrusts.
As to breastplates, the covers surreptitiously unhinged from a couple
of brass warming-pans which hung in the garret made capital ones,
really quite pretty in effect. Ned manufactured two slender lances
out of birch, and a pair of tin pot-covers served as shields. These
pot-covers, be it said, were taken from the kitchen during Thankful's
absence, as both Dolly and Ned had an unspoken feeling that this matter
of the tournament had better be kept from the knowledge of the elders.
The armor of the two knights, at last complete, was taken over one
night at dusk and hidden under a low clump of birches in Bailey's Bowl.
Then the two, starting out the next morning, ostensibly for a ride to
the Little Madam's and thence to the Ridge pasture for hickory-nuts,
made a detour and arrived at Bailey's Bowl by way of Hemlock Island.
This Bowl was a deep, round depression in the western part of the
muster-field, not deep enough to be called a valley. It seems that
in early colonial times the people used to walk from Bridgewater to
Plymouth to attend church, or, rather, "meeting," an almost incredible
fact, when we remember that the distance by the Indian trail--much of
the highway to-day is that same old trail--was eighteen miles.
They started on Saturday, and encamped Saturday and Sunday nights on
this muster-field, which is therefore historic ground. And once upon
a time one of their number, named Bailey, hungry from the long march,
said, as he looked into the depths of the Bowl, "I wish it was full of
bean-porridge." Hence the name of Bailey's Bowl.
Our two nineteenth-century knights, having no esquires to equip them,
as did the knights of old, were obliged to put on their own armor,
mutually helping. The handles of the pot-covers were a tight fit, and
Dolly's plump arm was squeezed more than was agreeable, but she bore
the discomfort manfully, as became a brave knight about to do battle
for his "faire ladye." Skatta shied at the unwonted appearance of her
young mistress, but old Bill, more experienced, looked placidly on,
not surprised at any freak of these two, and utterly regardless of the
clashing tin and brass as Ned mounted his back.
"I do hope he won't balk," said Dolly, anxiously. Old Bill had a
trick of balking at the critical moment of starting, and nothing would
make him go but a handful of ashes crowded into his mouth. Whether he
thought by going on he should leave the bad taste behind, or whether in
thinking about the ashes he forgot to stand still, it is impossible to
say. As 'Zekle replied, when asked if he knew the philosophy of it,
"D' know nothin' 'bout y'r pilosophy; it'll make him go, 'n that's
'nough f'r me."
So Ned had stuffed one of his trousers-pockets with ashes, to use
in case old Bill should prove obstinate. But old Bill behaved as a
well-intentioned horse should at a tournament, and trotted obediently
to his place by a small pine in the eastern part of the muster-field,
while Dolly guided Skatta near a ground savin to the west. These
were the starting-places--the lists. Upon a small birch-tree hung a
somewhat cumbrous laurel wreath, with which to crown the victor. The
meeting-house clock was near the stroke of ten, and it was decided that
its first note should be the signal for the onset.
The name "Old Bill" may give a wrong impression of that famous and
tractable steed. He was not so very old, but he was lazy and safe, and
so Ned was allowed to use him all he liked. He looked like a Dutch
horse, low, round, and stout. Ned had tied blue ribbons to his bridle,
and wore the same colors on his helmet and lance, while Dolly and
Skatta were decked with scarlet, for which embellishments Dolly's
ribbon-box had been rifled.
For a moment or two they awaited the signal in silence, motionless,
with uplifted lances, and they really did look extremely pretty and
mediævalish--which means like the knights of those mystical Middle
Ages. It seemed a pity there were no spectators, none but a flock of
crows in the top of some tall pines in the western woods, that cried
"Caw! caw!" as though they scented the battle.
The clock struck.
"Deschidado! deschidado!" shouted Dolly, who was the Disinherited
Knight; while Ned, who was supposed to be Brian de Bois Gilbert,
replied with "Beau-seant! Beau-seant!" the war-cry of the Templars.
I wish I could say that the horses "rushed" to the fray as did those in
"Ivanhoe." But truth compels me to state that Skatta only got beyond a
moderate trot. Neither did they meet with "a crash that might have been
heard at a mile's distance." It having been necessary for the riders
to make their preparations for the tournament secretly, they had not
been able to practise sufficiently, and so found it difficult to manage
their horses and long lances at the same time.
Ned got his bridle-reins twisted, and old Bill, instead of meeting
Skatta half-way, as he should, ambled off in a north-westerly
direction; while Skatta, urged on by the lance which Dolly helplessly
poked into her ear, galloped away to the south-east, and owing to their
blinding helmets--for they rode, of course, with visors down--it was
some time before the riders could find each other.
But a second time they were at their starting-places, waiting with
uplifted lances.
"Now," spoke Dolly, "we must have a signal. We can't wait an hour for
the clock to strike. What shall we do?"
"Count," said Ned. "We'll count three together and then start"--which
was a sensible if not a knightly arrangement.
"One, two, three!" counted the combatants in chorus, and this time
they met to some purpose, for Skatta and old Bill barely missed of a
collision, and Dolly's lance proving, as before, unmanageable, struck
Ned's pasteboard helmet with great force, and Brian de Bois-Gilbert
rolled ignominiously in the dust, as he did in the "Gentle and Joyous
Passage of Arms at Ashby."
Skatta's impetus carried her with her rider well across the field, and
it was some moments before Dolly drew rein at the spot where Ned lay on
the ground, with old Bill standing over him touching him inquiringly
with his nose.
Dolly sprang quickly from her saddle. At first she thought Ned was
"playing 'possum," as the humming-bird does when caught, making believe
dead. But when she spoke to him and he did not answer, and then lifting
the pasteboard helmet saw how white he looked as he lay with closed
eyes; and then when she tried to lift him, and his head fell heavily
and helplessly back upon her arm, her heart misgave her, terror seized
upon her, and she ran swiftly across the field and the highway and
the Green, never heeding a carriageful of travellers, who looked
inquisitively at the flying maiden--_was_ it a maiden with the black
helmet, the brass breastplate, and the shining shield?--and burst in
upon the astonished Thankful, who had just drawn a pound-cake to the
mouth of the brick oven in order to test it with a broom straw, to see
if it was "done."
"Oh, Thankful! Thankful!" cried the strange apparition, in a sepulchral
voice, for the pasteboard helmet was thick, "come quick, do! for he's
dead and I've killed him!"--for poor Dolly remembered remorsefully that
it was she who had proposed the tournament.
"Who's dead? an' who 'r' you, I sh'd like t' know?" said Thankful,
completely bewildered, and not even recognizing the familiar shield and
breastplate.
"Why it's I--Dolly! Don't you know me?" and she tore off her helmet and
threw it on the floor. "Hateful old thing! I hit him with my lance and
knocked him off. We're playing tournament. Oh, hurry, Thankful, do!"
"Turnipment!" ejaculated Thankful, seeing a glimmer of light--for very
little escaped Thankful's shrewd observation, and she had "mistrusted,"
as she told Mrs. Park afterwards, that "they were up to somethin',"
and had missed the warming-pan covers when she went up into the garret
"a Thursday" to hang up the penny-royal and thorough-wort to dry.
"Lor', child, he ain't dead, only stunted, I guess. We'll bring him
tew--don't y' worry;" and Thankful caught up the "camphire" bottle and
the opodeldoc, and ran across the road, comforting Dolly by the way, to
find Ned sitting up trying to collect his scattered senses, in which
operation he was greatly assisted by Dolly throwing her arms--to one
of which the tin pot-cover still clung closely--around his neck and
kissing him violently.
"Halloo!" he exclaimed, surprised at this demonstration--for Dolly,
although warm-hearted and impetuous, as we have seen, was not given to
much kissing.
"Oh, I thought you were killed, Ned," she said, looking at him with
shining eyes.
"Not by a long chalk, you bet!" was the reassuring reply, all the more
reassuring from its slanginess. "And I say, Dolly, you beat, an' you'll
have to be crowned."
"It's crown enough for me to see you alive; an' I'm sick o' the old
tournament," she replied, as she put off her shield and breastplate.
"Oh, that's nothing," said Ned. "I've been knocked over a dozen times
playing ball. Knocking down don't hurt a fellow."
Thankful had at once proceeded to bathe his head with the camphor, to
which treatment Ned submitted with a good grace, although it got into
his eyes and made them smart. But when she proposed a rubbing with the
opodeldoc, he rebelled.
"Oh, pshaw, Thankful! I ain't a molly-coddle. What d'y think a fellow's
made of? I can't be rubbed with opodeldoc every time I tumble down."
Meanwhile the ungrateful Bill and Skatta had betaken themselves to
the juicy grasses of Bailey's Bowl, and were found feeding peacefully
in its depths, caring naught apparently for the weal of their riders.
But there was one who cared, and that was Gaston. He had watched the
tournament with deep interest; he had stayed by the fallen Ned while
Dolly had gone for help, and he now came up to her and, putting a paw
on either shoulder, looked into hers with his speaking, sympathetic
eyes.
"Dear old Gaston!" said Dolly, giving him a hug; "we're glad, aren't
we!"
Having gathered up their armor and taken possession of their recreant
steeds, they returned to the house, and who shall paint Thankful's
dismay when she found the oven-door wide open, as she had left it
in her haste, the pound-cake fallen flat, the loaves of raised cake
ditto, the mince-pies cooled, and their delicate flakiness utterly
spoiled--and the Honorable Mr. Quincy going to stop there that very
night to take supper, on his way to an anti-slavery meeting.
"I might 'a' known no good 'd come o' that novil," said Thankful, in
her wrath, slamming the oven door. "They're a _de_vice o' the Evil One,
my old mother used t' say, an' that's true 's preachin'."
But Thankful, even in her wrath, could not help smiling when she
recalled those two in their armor. The pot-cover which served for
Ned's shield had got a fearful dent in the fall, and it kept alive in
Thankful's memory for many a day the lovely Rebecca and her ill-starred
fortunes.
As to the laurel-wreath which had been woven for the victor, it was
forgotten. It hung on the birch-tree all winter, beaten by storms of
wind and rain, but being securely fastened did not fall, and in the
early spring a pair of robins built their nest among its rusty leaves.
Dolly and Ned saw it there one day when they were out May-flowering.
That evening, like Topsy, they "'fessed" their shortcomings to Mrs.
Park. Ned, somewhat paler than usual from the effects of his fall, was
cosily settled in his own special corner of the sofa.
"I thought a tournament must be so lovely," said Dolly, with a sigh,
"and now I think they're just horrid."
"I wouldn't feel that way about it," said Mrs. Park, smiling. She had
smiled a good deal during the narrative, for they had told her "all
about it" literally, the difficulty in regard to armor and everything,
and it certainly was a very funny experience to which to listen. "After
all, I expect a tournament is a much more charming thing to read about
in books than it ever was in reality. We should not like the dust and
the heat and the wounds."
"But," Mrs. Park went on, a little more seriously, "the _spirit_ of
knight-errantry is the same in all ages."
"Why, I thought tournaments were just play, like--like--"
"Puss-puss-in-the-corner," put in Ned.
"Yes, only men and women played," added Dolly.
And then Mrs. Park told them how a young man had to keep a solemn vigil
through all the hours of the night preceding the day on which he took
his vows of knighthood; and about Bayard, who kept his vows so well
that, though he died four hundred years ago, he is still known as the
chevalier "_sans peur et sans reproche_;" and about King Arthur and his
Knights of the Round Table, and the search for the Holy Grail, and what
it meant; and how all these beautiful stories, mythical though many of
them are, teach one principle--love to God and man--which is just as
binding now as when those knights took their solemn vows. And Dolly and
Ned both felt, for a while at least, that though the age of prancing
steeds and shining armor, of jousts, and queens of love and beauty, had
gone by, the _soul_ of it remained.