Part 13

"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."

*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.

"Lancelot had many friends, as I said before, and many of the lords and knights of the country, when they heard what had happened, thought that Lancelot was right and came to help him. By the time that the King and his army came to Joyous Gard Lancelot had a good army of his own there. But Lancelot did not want to fight the King, and for many days he kept all his men inside the town. He sent messages to the King and to Gawain. He told the King that neither he nor the Queen had ever thought of doing him any wrong, and he begged him to let the Queen come back to him and to leave off this war. He told Gawain that he had loved his brother Gareth as if he had been his own brother and that he would as soon have killed his own brother as Gareth or Gaheris, if he had known who they were. And the King was so sad at all that had been done that he wanted to give up the whole war, but Gawain would not hear of it. He would never forgive Lancelot for killing his brothers, he said, till one of them should kill the other.

"Then Lancelot's friends urged him to fight. Gawain would never let the King give up the war, they said, and it would be best to end it now. And Lancelot felt that they were right, and at last he yielded and said that he would go out to battle the next morning. In the morning Lancelot's army marched out of the city and the army of the King came to meet it. Lancelot had ordered all his men that whatever they did they should do no harm to the King or to Gawain. As for himself, he scarcely fought at all. He rode about the field and saw others fight. He saw many of his own men wounded and killed, but he had no heart to strike a blow against King Arthur or any knight of his. At last he saw the King himself charging against his cousin Bors. Bors met the charge with his spear and threw King Arthur from his horse. When Lancelot saw that he rode to where the King was and got off his horse. 'Here, my lord,' he said, 'take this horse; you and your knights fight against me and have no mercy, but I cannot fight against my King or see him overthrown and not try to help him.'

"And the King took Lancelot's horse and rode away from the field and called all his men away too, and Lancelot's men went back to the town.

"The next day Lancelot sent messengers to King Arthur again to ask him to let the Queen come back, to promise that she should not be harmed, and to end the war. And the King would have done everything that Lancelot asked, but again Gawain would not hear of it. 'Let the Queen come back if you like,' said Gawain; 'that is nothing to me. But I will not forgive Lancelot for killing my brothers and I will always follow him and fight with him till I kill him or he kills me.'

"You know I told you long ago of the old story that Gawain could speak so well that nobody could ever refuse him anything that he asked. I think that must have been why the King let him have his own way all through this war with Lancelot. I am sure that the King himself must have got back his senses now, and I almost think, after all, that he never really believed that the Queen or Lancelot could wish to do any wrong to him. How could he let her come back at all if he believed that? And he did let her come back, but still Gawain was firm against Lancelot, and the King would not make peace with him till Gawain wished it.