Part 6

"But of all these pictures," I said, "the one that reminds me of a story that I want to tell you just now is this one of 'The Admission of Sir Tristram to the Fellowship of the Round Table.' Tristram had been known as the best knight of the world, next to Lancelot, for a long time before he was a knight of the Round Table. King Arthur had long wished that Tristram might be one of his knights, and Lancelot had heard so much about him that he wanted to know him and to be his friend. So at last Lancelot and some of the other knights set out to hunt for Tristram and to try to bring him to the court.

"You remember that Tristram was in love with Isolt, the Princess of Ireland. There was another knight, Sir Palamides, who was in love with her too. I must tell you about this Palamides, for there never was a knight who belonged more to that dear, silly old time or fitted into it better than he did. He was a good and strong and brave knight, but Isolt did not care two straws for him and never would, and he knew it. But do you suppose that made any difference to him? Not a bit. He made it half of his business to love her year after year, though he knew that it would never do him or anybody else any good. It never came into his head that there were just as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. No, all he cared for was to sit on the shore of the sea, never trying to catch or even thinking of any other good fish, but only wishing and wishing that he might catch the one that he knew he never could. It was just like a good knight of those days.

"I said that he made it half of his business to love Isolt. The other half of his business was to hunt the questing beast. It was called the questing beast because of the questing or barking noise that came out of it. It was a wonderful animal altogether. It had a body like a leopard in front and like a lion behind, but its head was like a serpent's and its feet were like those of a deer. And it did not make this barking noise with its mouth, but the noise was inside the beast, and it was not like the barking of one dog, but of sixty dogs. I don't know why Palamides hunted it or what he was going to do with it if he ever caught it, but this again was just like a knight of those days.

"Now Palamides used often to feel very unfriendly toward Tristram, because Tristram loved Isolt. By nature I believe that he was a good fellow, but he was hot-tempered, and, like other hot-tempered people, he sometimes did things that he was afterward sorry for. And so, when he met Tristram, he often felt angry and wanted to fight with him. And Tristram beat him usually, but not always, for Palamides was such a good knight that he could give Tristram, or even Lancelot, a pretty hard battle. Then Palamides would be Tristram's friend for awhile, and then he would think more about Isolt and would grow to be his enemy again, and so would be ready for another fight.

"And once Tristram and Palamides had set a time and a place to fight together and settle everything between them. But when the day came Palamides was held in prison by some enemy and could not come. But Tristram was at the place, and as he waited he saw a knight riding toward him, with a closed helmet and a covered shield. Of course he thought that this was Palamides, ready for the fight, so he put his spear in rest and faced him, and the other knight, seeing him do that, got ready to defend himself. Now this other knight was Lancelot, and when the two had been fighting for a few minutes each began to wonder who the other could be. Tristram knew very well that he was fighting with a better knight than Palamides, and Lancelot knew that he had never fought with so good a knight before.

"And after a long time it came into their heads to stop fighting for a moment and ask each other who they were. And when each had told the other his name they saw what a mistake they had made in fighting at all. It was then that Lancelot made Tristram come to the court with him, and it was then that King Arthur welcomed him and gave him his seat at the Round Table, as the picture shows.

"And now, after all this bother, we have come to the story. Tristram had not been long a knight of the Round Table when King Arthur made a great tournament in his honor. It was at the Castle of Lonazep. I don't know just where that was, but it was somewhere up in the other end of England. As Tristram was on his way to the tournament he met Palamides, and they fought, as usual. And Tristram won, as usual, and then Palamides begged him to let him ride to the tournament with him and fight for him and do him service.

"So they rode together till they came to the River Humber, and there they saw a boat, all covered with canopies of purple silk, coming up the stream. It came to the shore close to them and lay there still. Then Tristram and Palamides went down into the boat and saw a strange sight. In the middle of it was a couch, all covered with silk and cloth of gold, and on the couch lay a dead knight, armed all but his head. As Tristram stood gazing and wondering at this he saw that there was a letter in the dead knight's hand. He took the letter and opened and read it, and this is what it said: 'To the knights of King Arthur: I who bring this letter was Hermance, King of the Red City. I was killed by two traitors, for my lands and my crown. Now I pray that some one of King Arthur's knights will avenge my death and will take my city and my castles and my crown for his reward.'

"Then Palamides said: 'Sir Tristram, you must be at this tournament, for King Arthur has made it in your honor, and he and many others will wish to see you here. So let me go to avenge the death of this King, and whatever I do shall be done for you and in your name.'

"'You are right,' said Tristram, 'and you may go, but come back, if you can, for the tournament.'

"'If I live,' said Palamides, 'and the work that I find to do will let me, I will be with you again at the tournament.'

"Then Tristram went ashore from the boat and Palamides stayed in it, and the men turned the boat and it went away down the river. The men in the boat knew why Palamides stayed in it. He did not speak to them and they did not speak to him. He knew that they would take him where he ought to go, so he stood at the prow and watched the fields that they passed and the woods and the river, and waited to see and to know who these traitors were whom he must punish and what sort of task it was to be to avenge this dead King. And after a time the boat came to where the river widened out toward the sea, and the men steered it toward a castle that stood on the shore. Then they gave Palamides a horn and told him to blow it. And the people of the castle knew the sound of the horn, and when they heard it they came down to where the boat had landed and welcomed Palamides and led him up into the hall. There the lord of the castle met him and made him sit at the table and they brought him food and wine. And Palamides saw that the lord of the castle and all the others in it were dressed in black, and after he had eaten and drunk he asked why this was.

"'It is for the death of our King,' the lord of the castle answered. 'He was Hermance, the King of the Red City, and no truer king ever lived. He had two foster sons, whom he had brought up since they were children. He loved them as if they had been his own sons, but they were false and wicked. He meant when he died to give them everything he had, but they could not wait. So they watched their chance, and one day, when he had been hunting and had stopped to drink at a spring, they came behind him and stabbed him in the back. There, beside the spring, I found him, not yet dead. He made me put him in a boat and he made me write a letter and put it in his hand before he died. The boatmen were told to go up the Humber toward Lonazep, where all King Arthur's knights were soon to be, and the letter asked that some one of them would come to avenge the death of our good King. And you, Sir Knight--since you have come in this boat--I suppose that you have read this letter and have come to help us.'

"'One of the best knights of the world, Sir Tristram, read that letter,' Palamides said, 'and I have come for him and in his name to avenge the death of your King. So tell me where I shall find these men.'

"'You must take your boat again,' said the lord, 'and go to the Delectable Isle. There is the Red City, and there you will find these two brothers, Helius and Helake. Go and conquer them and we shall pray for you and wait to hear what you have done.'

"Then Palamides went back to his boat, and just as he came to it he met a knight who said: 'Sir Knight, tell me who you are and where you are going.'

"'By what right,' said Palamides, 'do you command me so?'

"'If you are going to the Red City,' said the knight, 'to avenge the death of King Hermance, turn back and go no farther. It is for me, not for you, to avenge him. I am the brother of King Hermance.'

"'That may be true,' Palamides answered, 'but when the letter was taken out of the dead King's hand we did not know that there was any knight to avenge him. I promised then that I would do it, and I must do it now or I shall be false to my promise.'

"'That is true,' said the other knight, 'but now let us try a few strokes together, to see which of us is the better knight, and then that one shall avenge the King my brother.'

"So they drew their swords and struck a few strokes, and then the brother of the King said: 'You are the better; the adventure is yours. But I will go to the Red City too, so that I can fight with these traitors if they kill you.

"'Come with me, then,' said Palamides, 'but if they kill me go to my lord, Sir Tristram, and tell him of it, and I am sure that he or Sir Lancelot will come to avenge me and the King your brother.'

"So they both went on in the boat till they came to the Delectable Isle and the Red City. And there all the people welcomed them, for they all loved their King who was dead and hated the traitors who had killed him. And they sent messengers to the brothers to tell them that one of King Arthur's knights had come to fight with them, to avenge King Hermance. And the brothers sent back word that they would be ready for the fight the next morning.

"In the morning Palamides was ready in the lists and the people of the city came to see the battle. And when they saw what a bold and strong-looking man Palamides was they began to hope that they should be free of their tyrants and have another King as good as Hermance. Then the brothers came and took their places at the other end of the lists, and when the people looked at them they began to fear again that the one knight from King Arthur's court could never beat them.

"It was Helake who came first against Palamides, and Palamides ran him through with his spear at the first charge and he fell dead upon the field. But the battle with Helius was not so easy. At the first charge Palamides was thrown from his saddle, and as he lay on the ground, before he could get up, Helius tried to drive his horse over him, to crush him. But Palamides sprang up and caught the bridle and cried: 'Come down and fight me fairly on foot or I will kill your horse and make you do it.'

"Then Helius got off his horse and they began to fight again with their swords. It was a fight for life and death, and it was a hard one. It lasted for a long time, with no rest, and Helius seemed never to lose any ground or any strength, but Palamides grew weaker and fainter and he was forced back and back across the field. The people saw it and a low, sad murmur ran through the crowd. And Palamides heard it, and for an instant he glanced away from his enemy and saw the anxious faces of the people and the tears in the eyes of some and the fear in the looks of many. Then he said to himself: 'Palamides, you are a knight of the Round Table. Will you let the news go back to King Arthur that you were beaten in a fight by a traitor and a murderer? And you are here for Tristram. Will you lose his battle for him?'

"And with that thought he gathered all his strength and struck Helius three great blows with his sword, one upon the other, and with the third he cut through his helmet and laid him dead upon the field with his brother.

"Then a great shout went up from all the people and some of them ran away to tell those who had not seen the fight how it had gone, and they built bonfires and set all the bells of the city ringing, and others crowded around the knight and cheered and shouted: 'Long live King Palamides!'

"But when they would let him speak to them Palamides said: 'You must not call me so; all that I have done was for my lord, Sir Tristram. If he could have come he would have fought this battle better than I. If you have any new king it is he, and now I must go back to him. But I leave here this good knight, the brother of your old King Hermance, and he shall rule you till Sir Tristram sends to tell you what else to do.'

"Then Palamides went on board his boat again and it took him away toward the Humber and toward Lonazep to find Sir Tristram."

*CHAPTER V*

*"CAMELOT, THAT IS IN ENGLISH WINCHESTER"*

Even while we were at Camelford, and again while we were at Cadbury Castle, I had not forgotten the words of my favorite book, "Camelot, that is in English Winchester." If we were talking about hard history, I suppose that I should have to say that, if there ever was a real Camelot at all, it was probably that pleasant hill-top that we had seen in Somerset. Yet, when a story-teller whom I love as much as I do good old Sir Thomas says that Winchester was Camelot, it shall be Camelot for me, at least while I am there. So we went down from London to see if this third Camelot pleased us as much as the two that we had seen.

First we walked about the streets and aimed at nothing in particular. That is a good thing to do on the first day when you are in a strange city. "If I were to try to tell you," I said, "all the interesting and useful and delightful things that there are to tell about Winchester, I should have to go first and learn the most of them for myself. And then you would get tired of listening to them, for there would be enough of them to make a book as big as a dictionary. We are supposing, you know, while we stay, that King Arthur lived here, and, whether he did or not, other kings of England lived here more or less for I don't know how many hundred years. King Alfred lived here and King Canute lived here and William the Conqueror built a castle here, on the very spot, we will let ourselves believe, where King Arthur's castle stood."

If the first thing to be done in a town newly visited is to walk about the streets, the second is to go to the cathedral, if there is one. So the next thing that we did was to go to Winchester Cathedral. It is not much to look at from the outside, though it is pretty enough, with the trees and grass around it. It has only the lowest of towers. It had a higher one once, but when King William Rufus was killed, they buried him in the cathedral and seven years afterward the tower fell down. They thought that it must be because they had buried such a wicked man in the church. But I think that there are kings as bad as William Rufus buried under some English towers that have not fallen down. There are kings and kings, good and bad, lying here in this cathedral. Canute is here, and it was here that he brought his crown and put it up over the cross, after he had found, down yonder at Southampton, that he could not rule the waves, as England has since been supposed to do. To be fair to the cathedral, I ought to say that, though it is unpromising outside, it is surely very beautiful inside. After that I think I do not need to say anything more about it at all, because there are so many people who can tell you about this cathedral and others so much better than I can.

We left it and walked up the street to find the castle. I think I forgot to say at the proper place that the whole town of Winchester that day was in a state of breathless excitement about a cricket match. The boys of Winchester College were playing against the boys from Eton, and pretty nearly everybody in town had gone to see the game. When we got to the castle, the man who ought to have been there to show it to us had gone to see the cricket match, like the rest. But his wife, who was a very pleasant elderly lady, said that she would show it to us.

They hold court in the castle still. Not the sort of court that King Arthur used to hold, but courts of justice for the County of Hants. The old woman took us into one room after another and told us about the trials that had taken place in them. We pretended to be greatly interested, but we were not a bit. But by and by she took us to a place where we were interested. It was the great hall of the castle. I should feel sorry for anybody who was not interested in the great hall of Winchester Castle. It belonged to the old castle that William the Conqueror built, where more kings and queens lived or were born or died or did other fascinating things than I should dare to try to remember. And this was the hall of Parliament for almost four hundred years. "And we may as well believe," I said, "that now we are standing in King Arthur's hall. If Winchester was Camelot there is no reason to suppose that his castle was not on this very spot, and there is no reason to suppose, either, that the great hall was not on this very spot. Henry VII. believed it, when his son was born here and he named him Arthur."

It is a beautiful room as it stands to-day. It is long and wide and high. It has fine arches and cluster columns and windows of stained glass. But what we gazed at most hung high up on the wall at the west end of the hall. The old woman told us that it was King Arthur's Round Table. Well, there was no doubt that it was round, and she said that there was no doubt that it had been a table once, because there were places at the back of it to fasten legs. We found a picture of the back of it afterwards in a book about Winchester, and it showed that she was right. The table is eighteen feet across, if you insist on my being exact. The table is painted in quite an elaborate style. There is a big rose in the middle of it, and then there is a border, and in the border are the words: "This is the round table of King Arthur and his twenty-four Knights." This did not make us believe in the table any the more, because we knew very well that twenty-four knights would not make any show at all in King Arthur's hall. Above the rose, as the table hangs now, and with his feet resting on it, is a picture of King Arthur himself. The rest of the table, except the outer edge, is painted with broad stripes of dark and light, which run from the border around the rose to the larger border of the whole table. The old woman asked us to notice that the names of the knights were around the edge of the table.

We tried to make out the names and we did make out some of them. There were Lancelot and Lionel and Tristram and Gareth and Bedivere and Palamides and Bors and Kay and Mordred and others that we could not read. The old woman said that there were some of them that nobody had ever been able to read, and we were not so proud as to try to read what we were told that nobody could. It was King Henry VIII. who had this table painted in such a gorgeous way, and it seemed to us that the picture of King Arthur did not look quite unlike Henry. No, we could not quite believe in the table after all. King Arthur's Round Table had places, as we knew, for a hundred and fifty knights, and this had places for only twenty-four. Still we could not help being uncommonly interested in anything that had even been called King Arthur's Round Table for four hundred years at the very least, and probably for six hundred.

"You see," said the old woman, "the three pictures on the windows over the Round Table are King Arthur and King Alfred and King Canute, a Briton and a Saxon and a Dane."

We looked up at the three kings on the stained glass windows, and it was then that I made a dreadful mistake. It came into my mind that it would be a good plan to show off to this good lady who had so kindly shown us the hall, how much we knew about these three kings. Pride does sometimes go before a fall. "Helen," I said, "tell this lady something about King Arthur, just to show her how much we have learned."

"I don't want to tell about him," Helen answered, "I would rather you would tell a story about him."

"But I am not going to tell any story now," I said, "I want you to tell one--any one you like, just to show that you can do it."

"But I don't want to show that I can do it."

"Helen, if you do not tell us something about King Arthur at once, I will not tell you another story for a week."

And then what did this horrible child do but stand there and recite:

"When good King Arthur ruled this land He was a goodly King; He stole three pecks of barley meal To make a bag-pudding. A bag-pudding the king did make, And stuffed it well with plums; And in it put great lumps of fat, As big as my two thumbs. The King and Queen did eat thereof, And noblemen beside; And what they could not eat that night, The Queen next morning fried."

I tried to look as sorrowful as I could. "You know very well," I said, "that that is not true at all. That was written by some enemy of King Arthur. There are plenty of good things that you know and might have told us; and so, to punish you for telling that, you shall tell us now about King Canute and his courtiers."

Now Helen did not like this any more than she liked telling about King Arthur, but she must have seen how very determined I looked, and she gave a little gasp and said: "King Canute's courtiers told him that he was the greatest King in the world, and that the sea would obey him if he told it to do anything. So he had his chair put on the sand and he ordered the tide not to come up and wet him, and it did come up and wet him. And he told his courtiers not to flatter him any more, and he never smiled again."

"You get worse every minute," I said. "You know very well that it was not Canute who never smiled again, and for telling that story wrong you shall tell us now about King Alfred and the cakes."

By this time Helen saw that it was getting serious and that it would not do any good to make any more mistakes, so she said: "King Alfred was hiding from his enemies, and he was in the house of a cowherd. And the cowherd's wife was baking some cakes, and King Alfred was sitting by the fire. And the cakes burned and he was so busy mending his bows and arrows that he didn't know it, so the cowherd's wife said: 'Can't you look at the cakes and not let them burn? You'll be ready to eat them fast enough when the time comes.' And she didn't know that he was the King."

"I can't say," I said, "that you have told that quite as well as you might, but it will do. And now, who was it that never smiled again?

"Henry I."

"And why?"

"Because his son William was drowned when the White Ship was lost."

"Very well. The first class in English history could sit down, if there was anything to sit on."