Part 7

The old woman was quite speechless with astonishment by this time. I don't suppose anybody had ever come into this hall and tried to tell her so many things about the kings who used to live in Winchester before. We thanked her for her trouble and said good-by, and she just managed to get back enough of her senses to say that we were welcome and to bid us good-by in turn. "And now," I said, "suppose we do what everybody else in town is doing and go and see the cricket match."

*CHAPTER VI*

*THE BOAT ON THE RIVER*

Neither Helen nor I knew enough about cricket to tell a wicket-keeper from a maiden over. But, whether we understood what was going on or not, the Winchester cricket-field that day was a pretty sight. The grass all over it was fresh and green, and around it were crowds of gayly dressed people, watching the game and talking and laughing and enjoying the warm, soft air and the bright sunshine. For a little while we walked around the edge of the field and looked at the people and the boys who were playing, running about and doing such absurd things as the players of a game you do not understand always do. Then we found a quiet place across the field from where the most of the people were, and there we sat down on the grass to rest and to try to make something out of the game. But that was hopeless, and we soon gave it up.

"Just suppose," I said, "that instead of these boys, with their harmless bats and balls and wickets, this field was filled with armored knights on horses, with long spears and great swords. Suppose that they were playing their own rough game of the tournament, charging together and throwing one another off their horses and not caring any too much, sometimes, whether they killed one another or not. Suppose that the people from the town had all come out to see the tournament, just as they have come out to-day to see the game of cricket, and that we had come, too, just as we really have. And suppose that King Arthur was sitting over there in his high seat to judge the knights. If we can suppose all this, I think that wee shall see pretty clearly how one of King Arthur's tournaments looked when Winchester was Camelot. There is a story, very pretty and very sad, about a tournament that was held at this very Camelot, and for all I know it may have been on this very field.

"The court was at Westminster just then but the King had given out that this tournament was to be at Camelot, so, when the time came, he and his knights set out to ride here. The Queen was sick and said that she would not come with them, and Lancelot said that a wound that he had was not yet well and so he would stay behind too and would not fight in this tournament. Now, although Lancelot was usually honest, I am sorry to say that just now he was saying what was not quite true. The truth was that Lancelot wanted to be at the tournament without King Arthur or any of the knights knowing that he was there. He had won in so many tournaments and all the knights knew so well that he was sure to win if he fought, that none of them liked to fight against him, and tournaments where Lancelot was had come to be rather one-sided affairs. So he thought that he would wait till the others were gone and then come to Camelot by himself, in armor that they did not know and carrying some strange shield, and join in the tournament and fight with whom he pleased.

"It was early morning when the others went away. Lancelot waited till noon, so that he should not overtake them on the way, and then he mounted his horse and rode toward Camelot. Late in the day he came to a place called Astolat. There was a castle, and Lancelot thought it best to stay there for the night. The lord of the castle was an old knight, Sir Bernard of Astolat. He welcomed Lancelot and asked him who he was, but Lancelot said: 'If you will pardon me, I do not wish to tell my name. I am going to the tournament at Camelot, to try what I can do against the knights who will be there, and I do not wish that any of them shall know who I am.'

"When it was time for supper Lancelot sat at the table with Sir Bernard and his two sons, and Sir Bernard's daughter served them. Her name was Elaine. And wherever Elaine went and whatever she did, she was always looking at Lancelot. It seemed to her that there was something about him that was wonderful and new. She thought that she had never seen a man who looked so noble, and, as he talked with her father, she thought that she had never heard a man who spoke so well. They lived a quiet life there at Astolat, and this knight was telling her father about the court and about battles and tournaments. He told things that were strange to her about many of the knights, and she listened to hear him say something about himself, but he did not say anything. 'Still,' she thought, 'when I look at him I know that he is the best of them all.' And she knew so little about knights that this was really a very good guess for her to make.

"But Lancelot scarcely saw Elaine at all. He knew that she was there, of course, and he knew that she was young and beautiful, and he knew that she was serving them, as they sat there. But Lancelot had seen many young girls serving at many tables--yes, and a good many of them had fallen in love with him, too, before this one, with or without his knowing it. And Lancelot asked the old man: 'Have you any plain shield here that you could lend to me for this tournament? I have told you that I do not want to be known at Camelot, but every knight would know my shield, if I should carry my own.' And when she heard that, Elaine thought: 'He is some famous knight, I knew he was!'

"And the old man answered: 'Here are my two sons, Torre and Lavaine; they are both new knights and their shields are plain and blank. It may be that Lavaine will like to go and see this tournament, but Torre cannot go, for he has a wound that is not well yet. You can have his shield.'

"'And may I leave my own shield here,' said Lancelot, 'till I come back?'

"'Surely,' said the old man, 'Elaine will take good care of it for you.'

"And when she heard that, Elaine blushed from her forehead down to her throat, and she stood still and gazed at Lancelot, and he looked up at her and said: 'If she will do that for me I shall be very grateful.'

"Lavaine had been listening to all that Lancelot said, almost as much as his sister, and now he said: 'Father, if this knight will let me, might I not ride with him to the tournament and see the knights, and perhaps try a joust with one of them?'

"'No, no," said his father, 'it would trouble the knight too much to have such a boy with him.'

"'It would not trouble me at all,' said Lancelot; 'let him come. He shall see everything, and if he wants to joust I will advise him and help him all I can. It would be a poor return for your kindness to me to do less than that.'

"Then Elaine, although she scarcely dared to speak to Lancelot, said: 'Sir Knight, if I am to keep your shield, could you not wear some token of mine at the tournament?'

"'My child,' said Lancelot, 'I have never done that for any lady, and it is against my rule.' And then he thought again: 'All my friends know that I never wear a token of any lady, and, if I do it now, it will be all the harder for them to know me.' So he said: 'Very well, then, I will wear something for you; what is it?'

"And Elaine blushed again with happiness, and she went away and brought him a sleeve of red silk, all embroidered over with pearls. And Lancelot bound it on his helmet. Then they all went to bed, and in the morning Lancelot and Lavaine rode away from Astolat together and came here to Camelot. And Elaine took Lancelot's shield to her own chamber, and from the tower of the castle she watched Lancelot and her brother till they were out of sight.

"I don't see why I should tell you about the tournament. I have told you about such things so many times that you know how the knights fought, and I am sure you do not care to hear it again. But I will tell you that Lancelot came to the tournament and nobody knew him, that he did better than any other knight there, that Lavaine did well, too, for so new a knight, and that Lancelot at last got a dreadful wound.

"Then he called to Lavaine to follow him and they rode away. Lancelot could scarcely sit on his horse, but they rode a little way from Camelot to a place that Lancelot knew, where a hermit lived. The hermit had been a knight of the Round Table long ago, and when he saw Lancelot he knew him, and he took him into his cell and took off his armor and dressed his wound and did all that he could to help him. And Lancelot was there with the hermit for a long time, and Lavaine stayed with him.

"Now when the tournament was over the King and all the knights wondered what had become of the knight who had worn the red sleeve, with the pearls, on his helmet. He had done better than any of them and the King wanted to find him, so that he could give him the prize. Some of the knights had seen that he was wounded, but none of them had seen which way he went. Then Gawain said that he would hunt for him, but he rode all around Camelot and could not find him, and then he went back to the King' and told him that he feared that the knight who wore the red sleeve was dead.

"So they all went back to Westminster. And at night Gawain came to Astolat and to the castle of old Sir Bernard. And as soon as he and his son and his daughter heard that Gawain had come from the tournament at Camelot, they asked him to tell them all about it and what had been done there and who had won the prize. 'The prize was won,' he said, 'by a knight whom nobody knew, and he carried a plain shield and wore a red sleeve, with pearls, on his helmet. I never saw a knight joust better, but he went away before the tournament was over and afterwards he could not be found.'

"Elaine was trembling with happiness that her knight had proved the best of them all. 'We know him,' she cried; 'he was here with us; it was my sleeve that he wore, and he is the knight that I love. I knew that he was the best of knights!'

"'You know him?' said Gawain. 'Then tell me who he was, so that I may tell the King.'

"Then Elaine told him that she did not know his name, and she told him all that she did know about him, how he had come there and how he had promised to wear her sleeve, and how he had taken her brother's shield and had left his own with her.

"'Will you let me see his shield, then?' Gawain asked. 'I know so many shields that I might tell who he was by that.'

"So Elaine brought the shield and showed it to Gawain, and said: 'do you know the knight by this?'

"'Yes, yes,' said Gawain, 'indeed, indeed, I know him; I have known him for many years, and he is the best knight of the world. He is Sir Lancelot of the Lake.'

"And when she heard this, Elaine could not say anything, but could only stand before Gawain, blushing and trembling again, that the great Sir Lancelot had worn her token at the tournament.

"'But I fear,' said Gawain, 'that we must all be sad for this, for the knight who wore that red sleeve with the pearls got a dreadful wound, and now he may be dead or dying.'

"Then Elaine begged her father to let her go to find Lancelot. And he saw that she loved him so much that it would be better for her to go and try to find him and help him, if he needed her, than to stay at home and fret about him, not knowing whether he was alive or dead. And so Elaine left Astolat to seek for Lancelot. She went first toward Camelot, and before she reached the city she met her brother, Lavaine. He did not see her at first, but she called to him, and she was in such haste that she would not wait to tell him how their father was, or why she had come, but asked him at once where Sir Lancelot was.

"'How do you know,' he said, 'that he is Sir Lancelot?'

"'It was Sir Gawain that told us,' she answered; 'he came to Astolat and saw his shield and knew it. Where is he?'

"'In a hermitage, not far from here.'

"'Then he is not dead?'

"'No,' said Lavaine, 'he was wounded and almost killed, but the hermit is a skilful man and knows what to do with wounds, and he hopes that he will live.'

"'Take me to him, then,' said Elaine.

"So Lavaine led her to the hermit's cell. And when she saw Lancelot lying there, with his face thin and white, his eyes large and dark, and all his strength gone from him, she ran to him and fell upon her knees beside his bed and hid her face in the pillow, and for a few moments she could not see or speak or move. Then she rose and looked at him again and put her hand on his forehead, and then she went and spoke to the hermit and at last she came and sat down beside Lancelot. And after that she scarcely left the cell till he was well, and in all the weary days that passed no one ever saw her tremble or shed a tear, and she never slept when Lancelot needed her, but she was always there to nurse him and care for him and help the hermit to cure him, and if he ever smiled at her or called her by her name or reached out his hand and touched hers she was happy.

"But Gawain had gone back to the court and had told the King and all the rest that the knight who wore the red sleeve was Lancelot. And then Bors had set off to find him too. And Lancelot knew that Bors would come to find him and he told Lavaine to watch for him in the town, and so he was soon brought to the cell. And when he and Lancelot had talked for a little while and Lancelot had asked him about the King and the Queen and all who were at court, Bors said: 'Is this girl whom I see about you the one whom they call Elaine of Astolat?'

"'Yes,' said Lancelot, 'and I cannot make her go away. I tell her that she keeps herself here too close, but she will not rest or leave me.'

"'Why should she leave you?' said Bors. 'She loves you, they say, and here she proves it; why can you not love her too?'

"'No,' Lancelot answered, 'I wish that it could be, but it never can. I shall be grateful to her always, she has done so much for me, and I shall always be her knight, but I can do no more.'

"'It is for you alone to say,' said Bors, 'but I am sorry for her and for you too.'

"They had spoken low, but Elaine was near and she could not help hearing a part of what they said. When Bors stole a glance at her he saw that her face was white, but there were no tears in her eyes, and when there was anything for her to do for Lancelot she did it just as before, and, just as before, she never wanted to sleep or to be away from him.

"So Lancelot grew slowly stronger, and after a long time he could sit upon a horse again, and at last the hermit told him that he needed no more of his care. Then it was agreed that Lancelot and Bors and Elaine and Lavaine should ride together to Astolat. There Lancelot was to rest and get his shield, which was still there, and then go on with Bors and Lavaine to Westminster. So they came to Astolat and spent the night, and in the morning Lancelot, Bors, and Lavaine were ready to ride on their way. Then Lancelot said to Elaine: 'You have done more for me than I can ever repay. I shall never forget you and always and everywhere that I go I shall be your knight, and anything that I can ever do for you I will do gladly.' And Elaine knew that Lancelot could never do the one thing that she wished him to do for her--to love her.

"And after they were gone her father saw that she grew paler and thinner, day by day. Her father and her brother Torre tried to amuse her and cheer her and make her think less of Lancelot, but she thought of him all day, and when she slept she dreamed of him. She did not sleep much. Every morning, before the sun rose, she was up and was looking out from the tower. Sometimes she looked away toward London, where Lancelot was, or where she thought that he was, and sometimes she would look away toward Camelot, where she had been with him. But at last she could not get up to look out from her tower any more. She could not leave her bed, but she lay there awake all day and much of the night; she talked with her father or her brother a little, and for the rest of the time she thought and dreamed of Lancelot. And one day she told her father that she knew that she should live for only a little while more. 'And now,' she said, 'you must write a letter, just as I shall tell you. And when I am dead, dress me the best you can and lay me on a couch and put this letter in my hand. Then put the couch, and me upon it, into a boat, and let the boat be rowed down the river to Westminster, where Lancelot and the King and the Queen are.'

"All this she made her father promise to do. Then she told him what to write for her in the letter, and a little while after that she died. And her father did all that he had promised.

"One day King Arthur and Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot stood at a window of the palace at Westminster, looking out upon the Thames. And there they saw a little boat, all covered over with black and purple silk, and with only one man to row it. And the boat came straight on till it touched the shore near the palace. 'It is a strange-looking boat,' said the King; 'let us go down and see what it is.'

"So they all went down and looked into the boat, and there they saw the dead Elaine, lying on a couch covered with silk and cloth of gold. Then the Queen saw the letter in her hand and took it and opened it and saw that it was to Lancelot. But when she gave it to him Lancelot gave it to the King and asked him to read it. And the letter said? 'To the best knight of the world, Sir Lancelot of the Lake: I who bring you this letter was Elaine of Astolat. I have died, Sir Lancelot, because you could not love me. Now I beg that you will pray for my soul and will bury me as I ought to be buried.'

"When the King had read this letter none of them spoke at first. Then the Queen said: 'Lancelot, could you not do her some little kindness, to make her sorrow less, so that she might live?'

"'She would have nothing but my love,' said Lancelot. 'I could not give her that if I would, for true love, such as she should have had, must come of itself, and cannot be compelled.'

"So the next day Elaine was buried as if she had been a queen, and Lancelot and the King and the Queen and the knights of the Round Table were there to see it done. And the boat that had brought her down the river went back up the river toward Astolat."

*CHAPTER VII*

*THE GIANTS' DANCE*

Instead of going from Winchester straight back to London, we took a little run across to Salisbury. It was not so much that we wanted to see Salisbury, though it is a pretty place and has a fine cathedral, but I wanted to go to Stonehenge. To look at Stonehenge, I think, brings one nearer to the history and the legend of ancient Britain than anything else that I have ever seen. And if Stonehenge were nothing at all it would still be worth going to, for the ride to it from Salisbury is one of the prettiest in all England. There is no such remarkable scenery, perhaps, as is to be found in many another place, but on that day when we rode out there the fields were fairly blazing with flowers, red and yellow and purple, and the little gardens were almost too full of them to hold them all without spilling. It was just a free, open, country ride, with everything around looking peaceful and sweet and beautiful and happy.

And when you take that ride, if you trust to a driver who knows the way and where you ought to go, he will bring you soon to Old Sarum. It is a hill, with a thick double wall of earth and a ditch around it, and it was a Roman town once. Perhaps it was a British town or stronghold before that. It reminded us a little of Cadbury Castle, but it is a good deal bigger. It had a cathedral in it once, but for some reason or other the people began to get tired of living in it and moved down and made the town of Salisbury, and there a new cathedral was built, and Old Sarum came to be nothing at all any more but a great hilltop, with its walls and its ditch around it.

From Old Sarum we went on to Amesbury. I told the driver that I wanted to stay there for a little while. I think he meant to make a little stay, whether I had mentioned it or not, for he got ready to do it with less explanation than it usually takes to get a driver to do anything he is not used to. He stopped at the little hotel and gave the horse a drink, and we gave him enough to get something to drink for himself. Then we walked on toward the church and told him to follow us in a little while.

We had walked about in the churchyard for only a minute when we saw a man coming toward us. He proved to be the vicar, who had seen us and was coming to show us the church. He did show it to us and told us a great many interesting things about it which I cannot remember well enough to repeat them here. But I do remember that it was so old that I decided that there must have been a church here in King Arthur's time, and that perhaps some part of this very one was standing then.

"But where is the old abbey?" I asked. "Are there not some ruins of that left?"

We were outside the church now and were looking about at the fields and the trees. "Oh, no," the vicar said, "there is nothing left of the abbey now. It was very near where that large house is now. That is the house of Sir Edmund Antrobus. We can come nearer and look at it, if you like." So we went nearer and looked at it, and it was a handsome house, and then we went and stood on a little bridge across the Avon. It was a shady place and the water was clear, so that we could see the trout swimming in it, and we looked down the river under a green arch of trees that grew on the sides of the stream and sent their branches to meet above it. "I should like you to remember this place," I said, "because Queen Guinevere lived here for a long time. It is not time yet for me to tell you how or why, but I will tell you when the time comes, and till then I want you to remember how the place looks. Remember these fields and this river and these trees. I don't know, of course, whether they looked the same then, but they may have been not so very different. So think of Queen Guinevere sometimes standing on a bridge, just as we are now, or on the bank of the river, and looking down into just such clear water and up at just such cool, green, spreading trees. Remember that she lived over there where Sir Edmund Antrobus lives now, and that she walked many a morning, it is likely, across these very fields, to a church that stood where the church is now. That is all. Remember it till we come to the story about it."