[image]St. Joseph's Chapel, Glastonbury AbbeyCHAPTER 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."When Lancelot had sent the Queen back to King Arthur he thought that it was of no use to stay in England any longer, so he took all his knights and his army with him and crossed over into France. He went to Benwick, his father's old city and his own city now, because his father was dead long ago. And soon King Arthur and Gawain followed him with their army, for Gawain still vowed that he would go where Lancelot went and would not leave him till one of them had killed the other. In these last dreadful days of King Arthur's reign it seems as if no one ever missed a chance of making a mistake, and now Arthur made another. For when he went over to France he left Mordred in his place to rule England till he came back, and he left the Queen in Mordred's care too."So the King and Gawain and their army came to Benwick and besieged it, as they had besieged Joyous Gard. Lancelot sent a message to them again. He would do anything if they would end the war and not make him fight against the King and his old friend. He would give up his city to them, if they would take it, and let all the world think that he was beaten, when he was not beaten at all, or that he was a coward and did not dare to fight. Still Gawain would be content with nothing but that Lancelot must fight with him. But he sent back word that if Lancelot alone would come out and fight with him alone, till one of them should kill the other, that one fight should end the war."When this message was brought to Lancelot his friends told him that it was of no use any longer to hope for peace. Gawain would never yield, and it must be as he said at last. It would be better for Lancelot to fight with him now than to wait. Lancelot knew that they were right, and he sent word that the next morning he would meet Gawain outside the city and fight with him."They met the next morning, in the space between the city walls and King Arthur's army. Both the knights were thrown from their horses at the first charge, and then it was the old story of a sword fight that I have told you so many times before. But Gawain had the gift of growing stronger every day, from nine o'clock till noon, and then he had three times his natural strength. This had been given to him by a magician long ago, and nobody knew that he had it except himself and King Arthur. Lancelot knew nothing about it, but he had not been fighting long before he knew that there was something strange about Gawain's fighting. He felt him growing so strong that he scarcely tried to strike at Gawain at all, but used all his strength in defending himself. And so for a long time neither of them was much harmed, but when noon came, all at once Lancelot felt that Gawain had grown weaker. Then he said: 'Gawain, I do not know with what magic you have fought till now. But, whatever it was, I feel now that it has left you and you are like any other man. Now I must begin to fight.'"Then he struck Gawain a great blow on the head and wounded him, so that he fell, and Lancelot stood still beside him, resting on his sword. 'Why do you stop your fight?' Gawain cried. 'You have beaten me; finish it now and kill me.'"'You know,' said Lancelot, 'that I cannot kill any knight who is wounded and helpless, and least of all you, who have been my friend so long. Our fight is over.'"'Kill me and make an end to it,' Gawain said again, 'or as soon as I am cured of this wound I shall come and fight you again.'"'If I must fight with you again," said Lancelot, 'I shall be ready; I can do no more now.'"So Gawain was carried back to his tent and was kept there for many days, while his wound was healing. And as soon as he was strong enough he sent word to Lancelot that he must fight him again. There is no need of making a long story of it. Gawain and Lancelot fought again and the fight ended exactly as the first one had done. Lancelot wounded Gawain in the very same place where he had wounded him before, and Gawain was carried back to his tent, vowing that he would still fight with Lancelot as soon as his wound should heal."And what do you suppose had been going on in England all this time? You might almost guess. You would think that Mordred could not possibly keep out of mischief so long, and you would be quite right. King Arthur had not had much more than time to get to Benwick before Mordred began to tell people that the King was dead. He showed some letters, which he had written himself, but he pretended that they had come from France, and they said that the King had been killed in a battle against Lancelot. Of course the only thing to do in such a case was to crown Mordred himself as King, and Mordred took care that it should be done in a hurry. Then, to make everything as sure as possible, he gave notice that he was going to marry Queen Guinevere. Of course he did not trouble himself to ask Queen Guinevere whether or not it suited her to be married to him. He had begun to have his own way and he was resolved to go on. The Queen saw that it would not do any good to pretend that she did not want to be married to him, so she let Mordred think that there was nothing that would please her better than to be his wife. But she said that if she was to be married she should have to go to London to get some new gowns. Mordred saw nothing wrong about that and he let her go. Then, as soon as she got to London, she shut herself up in the Tower and found men who were friendly to her to guard it, and waited for Mordred to come and try to get her out of it."He came, you may be sure, as soon as he heard where she was, and he laid siege to the Tower, but it was so strong, and Queen Guinevere's men fought so well, that he could not take it. He kept up the siege till he heard that King Arthur and all his men were coming back from France and Lancelot and his men were coming with them. When he heard that he drew his army away from London and marched to Dover to meet the King and to keep him from getting England away from him."It was true that the King and his men were coming back from France, but it was not true that Lancelot was coming. Lancelot did not know why King Arthur and his army had so suddenly left Benwick. It was because the King had heard of the mischief that Mordred had done and of the more mischief that he was trying to do. Even Gawain could not ask the King to make war upon Lancelot any longer, when England itself was likely to be lost. Gawain had been acting in a mad fashion enough for a long time, but the news from England brought him back to his senses. His wound was nearly healed and he was beginning again to want to fight with Lancelot, but now he saw all at once what harm his wild anger against Lancelot had done. He was filled with shame and grief at the thought of it. 'It is I,' he said to the King, 'who have done all this. I see it now. It is Lancelot who has always been your truest and best friend, and it is I who have been your enemy. I fear that I have done too much for you to forgive, but there is hope still, for I know that Lancelot will still be your friend. Send for him; tell him that I was wrong in everything—that I confess it—and ask him to go with you and help you to win back England from Mordred.'"If the King had ever doubted Lancelot he doubted him no longer now. Gawain, who had been against him so long, was for him now. But the King looked sadly at Gawain and shook his head. 'Gawain, Gawain,' he said, 'we have gone too far. We have wronged Lancelot too much. We cannot ask him to help us now. We must fight our battles and win them or lose them by ourselves.'"So the King and Gawain and their army left Lancelot and Benwick and crossed into England. As soon as they landed at Dover Mordred met them and there was a hard battle. Many were killed and wounded on both sides and at last Mordred was driven back. But when the battle was over Gawain had been wounded again just where Lancelot had wounded him twice before."And this time he felt that he could not live. Then Gawain thought: 'If the King could not ask Lancelot to help him, yet surely I can ask him, now that I am dying. It was I who wronged him and I who was his enemy. But when he comes I shall not be here any more, and I know that he always loved the King and that he loves him still.'"And Gawain told those who were about him to bring him pen and paper, and he wrote a letter to Lancelot. The letter said: 'Sir Lancelot, I am dying from a wound that I got in battle to-day, just where you wounded me twice. I have been blind and deaf and mad all this while. I would not see or hear the truth, and the truth is, Lancelot, that it is you who have been always the King's friend and that it is I who, in these last days, have been his enemy. My pride and my selfishness and my anger have almost ruined the King, but it may be that your true love and your strength can save him yet. Come and help him, Lancelot. I have given you cause to hate me, but do not stay away from the King for that, for when you come to him I shall be dead.'"This letter Gawain gave to a messenger and ordered him to cross with it to France and to ride as fast as he could to Benwick and give it to Lancelot. And a little while after that Gawain died."The next day King Arthur marched against Mordred. Mordred, with his army, fell back before him and day after day the King pushed him farther and farther into the West, till at last the two armies were here in Cornwall. They had both been gathering strength as they marched, for many knights and many other men joined them as they passed through the country. Some joined Mordred because they were friends to Lancelot, not knowing, they were so little and so narrow themselves, that Lancelot was great enough to be the King's friend still."At last Mordred and his army halted and would retreat no farther. Then it seemed that the great battle must come the next day. But that night King Arthur had a dream. He dreamed that Gawain came and stood before him, and Gawain said: 'My lord, do not fight with Mordred to-morrow. If you fight with him to-morrow you will be killed. But put off the battle for a little while and Lancelot and all his knights and all his men will come to help you.'"In the morning, when the King awoke, he sent messengers to Mordred to ask him to meet him between the lines of the two armies and agree upon a truce. So it was arranged that Arthur and Mordred should each bring fourteen knights and that they should meet half-way between the two armies. Then Arthur said to his knights whom he left behind: 'I do not trust Mordred. I fear that he will try some treachery. So watch us when we meet and while we talk, and if you see any sword drawn among the men on either side, do not wait for any more, but charge forward and begin the battle.' And Mordred, before he went to meet the King, gave just the same command to his knights who stayed behind."All the knights who went with the King and with Mordred were told that this was to be a peaceful meeting and that no sword must be drawn. But after the King and Mordred had met and while they were talking, a little snake came out from under a bush and stung the foot of one of the knights. The knight forgot the order that had been given and drew his sword to kill the snake. But the men of the armies were too far away to see the snake and to know why the sword was drawn. They saw only the flash of the drawn sword and that was the signal of battle. It was of no use for Arthur or for Mordred to try to stop them or to delay the battle then. The trumpets blew, the knights charged forward, the two great waves of horses and men broke upon each other with a harsh rattle and jangle and clash of arms all along the field, and the battle was joined.[image]"The two great waves broke upon each other""In all his long reign, King Arthur had never fought such a battle as this before. There were thousands of men on each side and they were all men who had learned to fight in King Arthur's own battles and tournaments. They were men who had learned from him to fight and to fight and to go on fighting and never to stop till they had won. With men like that on both sides there was only one way that the battle could end. The battle went on all day. Slowly the knights on each side grew fewer and fewer and all who saw them knew that the fight would go on till there was none at all on one side or the other. Arthur's men were faithful to him to their last breath, and Mordred's men felt that they should be ruined if they were beaten. Once Arthur saw one of his old knights surrounded by enemies, and the old knight's son was close beside the King. The King and those around him had as much fighting as they could do, but Arthur said to the young knight: 'Do you not see your father there in danger? Why do you not go to help him?'"And the young knight answered: 'My lord, my father told me this morning to stay beside you all day and to let nothing draw me away from you. My father is a good knight and he must fight for himself.' And the old knight was killed, and afterward the son was killed, too."When the evening came there were few left to fight. It may be that some had run away, but the most were dead or wounded. King Arthur stood with only two of his knights beside him. They were Sir Lucan and Sir Bedivere. The King looked all about him and saw only one other man near. And that was Mordred. The King spoke under his breath: 'The end is come, I fear, for all of us, but before I die that man there shall die, who has brought this end to all of us.'"Sir Lucan and Sir Bedivere tried to hold him back. 'My lord,' said Sir Bedivere, 'do not try to fight any more with him to-day, or he may kill you. Remember what Gawain said to you in your dream. Mordred has no friends left now. Leave him for to-night, and to-morrow we can do justice upon him.'"'No,' said the King, 'that traitor shall not live any longer, and I will kill him myself.'"Arthur had his sword Excalibur in his hand. He rushed upon Mordred with it and struck him one blow upon the head, and Mordred fell down dead. But Arthur had been so eager against Mordred that he had not thought to defend himself. Mordred had struck too at the same time and had struck well and Arthur had a great wound on his head. Lucan and Bedivere went to him and he tried to stand, but he could not. 'You must help me,' he said, 'to some place of shelter; I cannot help myself any more.'"They tried to lift him up, but Lucan, who had been wounded in the battle, suddenly fell down beside the King and died. Then Arthur said: 'Bedivere, you are the last one left to me and there is only a little more that you can do. Take my sword Excalibur and go up this hill here before us. At the top of it there is a lake. Throw my sword into the lake, as far out into the middle of it as you can, and then come back and tell me what you see.'"Bedivere took the sword and climbed the hill and came to this very spot where we are standing. But on the way he looked at the sword and at the jewels in the hilt and he thought: 'It would be wrong to throw away this beautiful sword. I will hide it here, instead of throwing it into the lake. Then, if the King is cured of his wound, he will be glad to have his sword again, and if he dies, someone else can have it.'"So he hid the sword among the reeds that grew by the side of the lake and went back to the King. 'Did you throw my sword into the lake?' the King asked."'Yes, my lord,' said Bedivere."'And what did you see or hear?' said the King."'Nothing,' said Bedivere, 'but the water and the wind.'"'Then you did not throw it in,' the King answered. 'Go back now and throw it in, as I told you, and come back and tell me what you see.'"Then Bedivere went up the hill again to the lake and took the sword out from where he had hidden it. He held it up in the moonlight and saw the shining of the rich jewels and the gleam of the long blade and again he thought: 'It would be a sin to lose such a wonderful thing as this. The King is wounded and weak and he is wandering in his mind, or else he would not tell me to do it. I will tell him again that I have thrown it in.'"He hid the sword again and went back to the King, and the King said: 'Did you throw my sword into the lake?'"'Yes, my lord,' said Bedivere, 'I threw it in.'"'And what did you see or hear?' said Arthur."'I saw nothing but the water,' said Bedivere, 'and I heard nothing but the wind and the waves.'"'Oh, Bedivere,' said Arthur, 'you are the last of my knights and you will not obey me. Go now once more and throw my sword as far as you can out into the lake. And if you do not obey me this time, when you come again, wounded as I am, I will rise up and kill you, if I can, with my hands.'"Then Bedivere went as fast as he could up the hill again and found the sword and took it and swung it above his head and threw it as far as he could out over the lake. He watched it as it whirled through the air, and when it was near the water he saw an arm, covered with white silk, come up out of the water. The hand caught the sword as it fell and brandished it three times in a circle, and then the hand and the arm went down under the water, and Bedivere went back and told the King. 'And now, Bedivere,' said Arthur, 'help me to go to the lake too.'"But the King could not stand at all, so Bedivere took him on his back and carried him up the hill to the side of the lake. And there they saw a boat lying close to the shore. It was filled with women, all dressed in black, and three, who stood in the midst of them, were queens and wore crowns. 'Put me in the boat,' said Arthur, and Bedivere carried him to the boat and the three queens received him, and all the women in the boat wept when they saw him. The three queens laid him down and one of them took his head in her lap and said: 'My dear brother, why did you wait so long? You should have come here to us as soon as you had this wound.'"And this woman was King Arthur's sister, Queen Morgan-le-Fay. I don't know when or why she had ceased to be his enemy and had become his friend, but she was his friend now and she did all that she could to help him and to cure his wound."Then Bedivere saw that the boat was moving from the shore, and he cried: 'My lord—my King—where shall I go and what shall I do without you? Let me go with you where you go and die with you, if you are to die.'"But Arthur answered: 'Do not be grieved for me, Bedivere, but go your own way. Perhaps you may hear of me again, but now I can do no more for you or for my people. I am going to the Valley of Avalon, to be cured of my wound, and some time, perhaps, when my wound is well, I shall come again.'"Then the boat moved farther and farther away along the lake. The King did not speak again, but Bedivere could hear Queen Morgan-le-Fay speaking softly to him, and he could hear the other women weeping. Only for a little while he could hear them, and then he strained his eyes to see the boat as long as he could. But the light was dim and soon the dark shape of the boat mixed with the dark shadows and was lost."And so King Arthur floated away to Avalon. You know that Avalon was Glastonbury, and you do not see, perhaps, how any boat could go from this mountain lake, all shut in by the land, out to the sea and inland again to that island with the marsh around it. You must think of the magic of Queen Morgan-le-Fay. Where she wanted her boat to go I am sure that water-ways would open of themselves to let her pass. A ship with her upon it would go as fast and as far as she would have it go. And then, one of the old stories says, they had a pilot who knew all the seas and all the stars of the heavens."Sir Bedivere looked after the boat till it had been gone from his sight for a long time. Then he turned away from the lake, went down the hill, and wandered away through the woods. He did not know where he was going and he did not care. He scarcely saw what places he passed. He was thinking of his King who had been taken away from him. He thought of the bright old days when Arthur won his crown in the battles with the rebel Kings, when his own knights learned to love his strength and his truth and his nobleness. He thought of the happy days when the greatest knights of the world gathered at the Round Table in Camelot. He thought of how they had helped the King to bring peace and plenty and content to the land. He thought of the sad later days and of these last days of all and he wished that he might have died before they came. He could not think at all yet of what he was still to do or how he was to live without his King."So, deep in these sad thoughts, he went on and on, stopped now and then, where he could, to eat or drink, because he knew he must, or lay down in the forest to sleep, but never thought and never knew how long he had been on the way or how weary he was. At last he heard a bell and saw an abbey before him. He went into the chapel and saw a man kneeling upon a tomb. The man rose and came to meet him. He was the abbot. 'Sir,' said Bedivere, 'whose tomb is that where I saw you praying?'"'I do not know,' said the abbot. 'Last night a great company of ladies came here and brought a dead man and begged me to bury him. And I buried him in that tomb there before the altar, but they did not tell me who he was.'"'Then I will tell you,' said Bedivere. 'If a company of ladies brought him, it was King Arthur.'"Then Bedivere asked the hermit to let him stay there and live with him. And he stayed for a long time there in the Abbey of Glastonbury, and visited the poor and the sick, and at last he became a priest."And that was all that was known of how King Arthur passed away from the battle, of how he came to Avalon, and of how he was buried. The abbot did not know who the man was whom he had buried, till Bedivere told him, and Bedivere thought that he was King Arthur only because a company of ladies had brought him. But Arthur himself had told Bedivere that he was going to Avalon to be cured of his wound, and that some time he might come again. And so, on a stone over the grave at Glastonbury, they put the words:hic jacet Arthurus,Rex quondam Rexque futurus.That is Latin and it means: 'Here lies Arthur, King that was and King that shall be.' And so it was long believed that some time King Arthur would come back to conquer the foes of England and to save the people. Some said that he was taken away in the boat to some happy island, to be cured of his wound and to wait for the time when England should need him most. Some said that he was sleeping down under the ground, with his knights, at Caerleon-upon-Usk, and others that he was in the enchanted castle on the hill at Camelot. Some believed that he was a raven, flying around the Cornish coast, and some that he was dead like other men, and in his grave in the Abbey of Glastonbury."[image]The Choir, Glastonbury AbbeyCHAPTER XVIIITHE ABBESS AND THE MONKWe did get back to Glastonbury at last, and this time we did not miss seeing the abbey. We spent some time in tracing it all out from its ruins. It was a great and beautiful church in its time. Now it has been crumbling and falling for many years. Worse than that, the people of the country about here, when they wanted stone for building, instead of finding new stone, used to come and take some from the old abbey. But, after all that time and men could do to it, much of it still stands, and it is full of that sad, sweet beauty and stateliness that nothing but a ruin ever has. The walls of St. Joseph's chapel still remain, all covered with ivy, there is a good deal of the choir left, and there are two of the great, tall piers that held the tower. Then, some way off, there is the abbot's kitchen, still all but perfect.We found the place, or thought we did, where Joseph of Arimathæa first built his little church of wood and woven twigs. We tried to find the spot where King Arthur was buried. That is not easy, but we hit upon a place at last where we thought it must have been. When Henry II was King a search was made for King Arthur's grave by his order. They found it, they said, and Henry had a monument put over it. The monument is gone now, probably carried away, like so much of the abbey, to build stables, or something else just as noble and important, and there is nothing left to show where it stood. If we were talking of history instead of stories I might have something to say about this one of Henry II. But, as it is, it may as well stand with the rest of them."There is one more story," I said, "that I must tell you while we are here among these ruins. Then I shall have told you all that I set out to tell, and we shall have made the journey that we set out to make."When the letter that Gawain wrote was brought to Lancelot he lost no time in calling his knights and his army together and starting toward England to help King Arthur. If the King could only have delayed that last great battle, as he tried to do, Lancelot would have been with him and all would have been well. But when Lancelot landed at Dover the people told him that he had come too late. They told him of the battle that had been fought there, in which Gawain was killed, and of the greater battle that had been fought afterward far away in the West. All that they could tell him of the King was that he was gone. Some said that he was dead, and some that he had been carried away to Fairyland, where he would live till his people needed him."Then Lancelot asked: 'Where is the Queen?'"'She shut herself up in the Tower of London,' some one answered, 'to save herself from Mordred. Then, when Mordred left London and came here to meet the King, she left the Tower, too, and they say that she went to some abbey and is living with the nuns.'"Then Lancelot told Bors and the other knights who were with him to wait at Dover while he went to find the Queen. He rode alone through the country, asking at all the abbeys that he found, and at last he came to Almesbury, the place that is now called Amesbury, where we went, you know, on our way to Stonehenge. And at the abbey there he saw the Queen walking in the cloister. She saw him too and came to meet him."'I have come,' Lancelot said, 'to take you from this place. The King is gone from us now, and we shall never see him in this world again. Come with me now to my own city. While the King was with us I did not care whether I had a city. I thought it grander and nobler to be his knight than to be King of all the world but England. You know, my Queen, that I am King of Benwick. Come with me now and be my Queen still, more my Queen than ever, the Queen of Benwick. It is a little place, but my people love me, and they will love you, too.'"'Lancelot,' said the Queen, 'we must not think of such things—I must not. You must go back and rule your people well and make them happy—yes, and be happy yourself, if you can—but I must stay here and try to do a little good to the poor, and fast and pray, so that God will forgive me and so that he will forgive you and let us see our Arthur in another world, since we cannot in this. For, Lancelot, do you know that it is because of us—because of me and of you—that our Arthur has gone from us?'"'No, no,' said Lancelot, 'it is not true. I will not let you say such things of yourself, even though you say them of me. We did nothing that was wrong, you and I. They charged us with some plot—I do not know what it was, and they did not know themselves. Then I saved you and I saved myself, as it was right that I should do. The King made war on me. I made no war on him. I only guarded my knights and my people. I would not even have fought with Gawain, only he would have it so. And when I heard that the King needed me here in England I came back to help him, and it was too late. But it was the traitors who brought all this death and ruin.'"'It was not that we did any wrong, Lancelot,' said the Queen, 'it was that we did not do all that was right. You would rather be Arthur's knight, you said, than to be King of all the world but England. Ah, yes, but what of England? Did you never wish, even in your heart, that you were King of that? Arthur had noble thoughts for the good of his country and of his people, and you swore to be faithful in everything to him and to help him. And so your thoughts, Lancelot, should have been all for the King and for his people, and so should mine. And were they so? Did you never forget these things and work and fight for your own name and your own glory, instead of for the glory of the King and for the good of England? You fought, too, many times, for my name and for my glory, and I was foolish and let you do it, when my thoughts, too, should have been all for him and for England. But here alone, since we were all parted, I have had time to think, and I have seen more clearly than I ever saw before. Lancelot, it is not the great sins of the wicked people that bring ruin to the world; it is the follies and the failings of those who should be most true and most faithful, and so help and save the world, but do not do it. We were the nearest to the King, I his Queen and you his greatest knight. We should have been as strong and as firm in our faithfulness to him as he was to himself. If we ever had selfish and vain thoughts, thoughts that were not for the King, for a single hour, it was a worse wrong in us than the wrongs that those poor, weak knights did when they let Mordred persuade them and lead them against the King. Do you not know why you could not see the Holy Grail, as Galahad and Percivale and Bors saw it? This was why. And they could see it because in every thought and wish they were true to what they and all of the Round Table swore to the King. And so, Lancelot, my own best knight, as there is work for you to do among your people, go and do it, but I must stay here and do a little good, if I can, and pray for you and for myself, so that some time we may be nearer to the King than we have ever been.'"'If you are right,' said Lancelot, 'and you must be right—if you are right in staying here and doing what you say that you will do, then it is right for me, too. I will not go back to France. I will find some peaceful place and some good man, some hermit perhaps, and ask him to let me stay with him and do as you are doing. Pray for me sometimes, my Queen, and I will pray for you always.'"Now I can guess just what you think of all this. You think that Lancelot had not done any wrong at all and that the Queen was a great deal too hard on him. But I know that the Queen was right. Think over all that she said again and you will know it too. The Queen and Lancelot had stood next to the King for all these years. They had been proud of him and proud that they were so near to him, and if they had been steadfast in all that they did and said and thought, nothing could ever have harmed him or his country while they all lived. But sometimes they were weak and thoughtless, and then the King was left to work alone. Though this was all that they had done amiss, it was enough."So Lancelot left the Queen and went on his way. And Guinevere stayed there at Almesbury and lived with the nuns. She never left the abbey except to walk a little way among the fields, in the woods, and along the river that we saw when we were at Amesbury, or, more often, to carry help or comfort to the poor or the sick."After she had been with the nuns for a time she became one of them, and no one among them worked more than she for the people near who needed help, and no one among them was loved more than she. And no one, even of those who knew her best, could tell whether she was happy. But they all knew that she was always gentle and patient, that she never said that her work was hard, that she never seemed to wish for her old life, and that the sick people watched for her and the poor people prayed for her. And when the old abbess died they were all sure that no one could take her place so well as Guinevere. And so, for what was left of her life, Guinevere was abbess at Almesbury."When Lancelot rode away from Almesbury he felt that it was nothing to him where he went. He felt that he hated courts and tournaments and battle-fields now, and he wished only to find some place away from the busy and noisy world, where he could live as the Queen was living. And so he wandered here to Glastonbury. And when he found Bedivere here, when Bedivere had told him all about the great battle, and when he had shown him the grave in the chapel where he believed that King Arthur was buried, then Lancelot begged the abbot to let him stay here and be a monk with the rest of them as long as he lived. And the abbot and Bedivere were both glad to have him stay. So Lancelot, too, lived his life among his brother monks and among the poor and the sick, and they all learned to love him, as, long ago, all the good knights in Arthur's court had learned to love him."Bors and his fellows waited for Lancelot at Dover for a long time. At last Bors sent the army back to France, with all the knights except a few who were the best friends of Lancelot. With these he set out through England to search for him. They searched for a long time and at last they found him. And when they saw that he was a monk they said that they would all stay at Glastonbury and be monks too."When Lancelot had been at Glastonbury for a long time he had a dream one night. He dreamed that an angel stood beside him and said to him: 'Lancelot, take all your fellows here who were knights of the Round Table to-morrow and go to Almesbury. When you come there the abbess, Queen Guinevere, will be dead. Bring her here and bury her in the chapel beside the King.' And twice more that same night Lancelot had this dream."In the morning Lancelot told the abbot of his dream, and the abbot said that it would be best for him to take his fellows with him and go to Almesbury, as he had been told to do. So they all set out, and when they came to the abbey at Almesbury the nuns knew who they were and why they had come, without being told. For they said: 'Our abbess died not an hour ago, and she told us that after she was dead the monk who used to be Sir Lancelot of the Lake would come for her and would bury her at Glastonbury, beside the King. She had been told of it in a dream.'"So Lancelot and his fellows took the body of the Queen back with them to Glastonbury. There they made another grave before the altar in the chapel, beside the grave of King Arthur, and buried Queen Guinevere in it."And after this was done Lancelot would scarcely leave that chapel. He was there for nearly all of every day and much of every night, kneeling over the graves of the King and the Queen and praying. He would eat scarcely anything and he slept but little. And so he grew thin and pale and weak. The abbot and his friends could not comfort him or make him eat, and at last he told them that he should live only a little longer. 'When I am dead,' he said, 'take me and bury me in the chapel of my own old castle of Joyous Gard. I would far rather lie here in your chapel, near my King and my Queen, but years ago I made a vow that I would be buried in Joyous Gard, and I must keep that vow, so take me there.'"That night the abbot awoke some of the monks by laughing aloud in his sleep. They went to the abbot's bed and he awoke and said: 'I have had the most beautiful dream that I have ever had in my life.'"'What was it?' said Bors."'I dreamed,' the abbot said, 'that I saw Lancelot in the midst of a great company of angels. More angels there were than I ever saw of men in an army. Some of them lifted Lancelot up and they all rose to Heaven. I could see Lancelot's face as they went, and it was full of peace and gladness. They came near the gates of Heaven and the gates were opened for them and they all passed in. And as they passed I could see the great light that shone out and I could hear voices singing, and the gates were closed and then I awoke.'"Then they all went to Lancelot's bed. He did not awake when they came to him, as the abbot had done. He lay still and his face was full of peace and gladness and he was dead."They took him the next day, all his friends and the abbot with them, and they journeyed slowly till they came to Joyous Gard. There they buried him and then they journeyed slowly back again to Glastonbury. They did not talk much as they went, but now and then they spoke a little, sadly, as people will at such times, of the older and happier days. To Bors and to some of the others it seemed only a little while since a hundred and fifty knights sat at the Round Table in the hall at Camelot. Here were some of the knights of the Round Table still, but the glory of it had passed away with the King and Galahad and Gawain and Lancelot."
[image]St. Joseph's Chapel, Glastonbury Abbey
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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.
"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.
"When Lancelot had sent the Queen back to King Arthur he thought that it was of no use to stay in England any longer, so he took all his knights and his army with him and crossed over into France. He went to Benwick, his father's old city and his own city now, because his father was dead long ago. And soon King Arthur and Gawain followed him with their army, for Gawain still vowed that he would go where Lancelot went and would not leave him till one of them had killed the other. In these last dreadful days of King Arthur's reign it seems as if no one ever missed a chance of making a mistake, and now Arthur made another. For when he went over to France he left Mordred in his place to rule England till he came back, and he left the Queen in Mordred's care too.
"So the King and Gawain and their army came to Benwick and besieged it, as they had besieged Joyous Gard. Lancelot sent a message to them again. He would do anything if they would end the war and not make him fight against the King and his old friend. He would give up his city to them, if they would take it, and let all the world think that he was beaten, when he was not beaten at all, or that he was a coward and did not dare to fight. Still Gawain would be content with nothing but that Lancelot must fight with him. But he sent back word that if Lancelot alone would come out and fight with him alone, till one of them should kill the other, that one fight should end the war.
"When this message was brought to Lancelot his friends told him that it was of no use any longer to hope for peace. Gawain would never yield, and it must be as he said at last. It would be better for Lancelot to fight with him now than to wait. Lancelot knew that they were right, and he sent word that the next morning he would meet Gawain outside the city and fight with him.
"They met the next morning, in the space between the city walls and King Arthur's army. Both the knights were thrown from their horses at the first charge, and then it was the old story of a sword fight that I have told you so many times before. But Gawain had the gift of growing stronger every day, from nine o'clock till noon, and then he had three times his natural strength. This had been given to him by a magician long ago, and nobody knew that he had it except himself and King Arthur. Lancelot knew nothing about it, but he had not been fighting long before he knew that there was something strange about Gawain's fighting. He felt him growing so strong that he scarcely tried to strike at Gawain at all, but used all his strength in defending himself. And so for a long time neither of them was much harmed, but when noon came, all at once Lancelot felt that Gawain had grown weaker. Then he said: 'Gawain, I do not know with what magic you have fought till now. But, whatever it was, I feel now that it has left you and you are like any other man. Now I must begin to fight.'
"Then he struck Gawain a great blow on the head and wounded him, so that he fell, and Lancelot stood still beside him, resting on his sword. 'Why do you stop your fight?' Gawain cried. 'You have beaten me; finish it now and kill me.'
"'You know,' said Lancelot, 'that I cannot kill any knight who is wounded and helpless, and least of all you, who have been my friend so long. Our fight is over.'
"'Kill me and make an end to it,' Gawain said again, 'or as soon as I am cured of this wound I shall come and fight you again.'
"'If I must fight with you again," said Lancelot, 'I shall be ready; I can do no more now.'
"So Gawain was carried back to his tent and was kept there for many days, while his wound was healing. And as soon as he was strong enough he sent word to Lancelot that he must fight him again. There is no need of making a long story of it. Gawain and Lancelot fought again and the fight ended exactly as the first one had done. Lancelot wounded Gawain in the very same place where he had wounded him before, and Gawain was carried back to his tent, vowing that he would still fight with Lancelot as soon as his wound should heal.
"And what do you suppose had been going on in England all this time? You might almost guess. You would think that Mordred could not possibly keep out of mischief so long, and you would be quite right. King Arthur had not had much more than time to get to Benwick before Mordred began to tell people that the King was dead. He showed some letters, which he had written himself, but he pretended that they had come from France, and they said that the King had been killed in a battle against Lancelot. Of course the only thing to do in such a case was to crown Mordred himself as King, and Mordred took care that it should be done in a hurry. Then, to make everything as sure as possible, he gave notice that he was going to marry Queen Guinevere. Of course he did not trouble himself to ask Queen Guinevere whether or not it suited her to be married to him. He had begun to have his own way and he was resolved to go on. The Queen saw that it would not do any good to pretend that she did not want to be married to him, so she let Mordred think that there was nothing that would please her better than to be his wife. But she said that if she was to be married she should have to go to London to get some new gowns. Mordred saw nothing wrong about that and he let her go. Then, as soon as she got to London, she shut herself up in the Tower and found men who were friendly to her to guard it, and waited for Mordred to come and try to get her out of it.
"He came, you may be sure, as soon as he heard where she was, and he laid siege to the Tower, but it was so strong, and Queen Guinevere's men fought so well, that he could not take it. He kept up the siege till he heard that King Arthur and all his men were coming back from France and Lancelot and his men were coming with them. When he heard that he drew his army away from London and marched to Dover to meet the King and to keep him from getting England away from him.
"It was true that the King and his men were coming back from France, but it was not true that Lancelot was coming. Lancelot did not know why King Arthur and his army had so suddenly left Benwick. It was because the King had heard of the mischief that Mordred had done and of the more mischief that he was trying to do. Even Gawain could not ask the King to make war upon Lancelot any longer, when England itself was likely to be lost. Gawain had been acting in a mad fashion enough for a long time, but the news from England brought him back to his senses. His wound was nearly healed and he was beginning again to want to fight with Lancelot, but now he saw all at once what harm his wild anger against Lancelot had done. He was filled with shame and grief at the thought of it. 'It is I,' he said to the King, 'who have done all this. I see it now. It is Lancelot who has always been your truest and best friend, and it is I who have been your enemy. I fear that I have done too much for you to forgive, but there is hope still, for I know that Lancelot will still be your friend. Send for him; tell him that I was wrong in everything—that I confess it—and ask him to go with you and help you to win back England from Mordred.'
"If the King had ever doubted Lancelot he doubted him no longer now. Gawain, who had been against him so long, was for him now. But the King looked sadly at Gawain and shook his head. 'Gawain, Gawain,' he said, 'we have gone too far. We have wronged Lancelot too much. We cannot ask him to help us now. We must fight our battles and win them or lose them by ourselves.'
"So the King and Gawain and their army left Lancelot and Benwick and crossed into England. As soon as they landed at Dover Mordred met them and there was a hard battle. Many were killed and wounded on both sides and at last Mordred was driven back. But when the battle was over Gawain had been wounded again just where Lancelot had wounded him twice before.
"And this time he felt that he could not live. Then Gawain thought: 'If the King could not ask Lancelot to help him, yet surely I can ask him, now that I am dying. It was I who wronged him and I who was his enemy. But when he comes I shall not be here any more, and I know that he always loved the King and that he loves him still.'
"And Gawain told those who were about him to bring him pen and paper, and he wrote a letter to Lancelot. The letter said: 'Sir Lancelot, I am dying from a wound that I got in battle to-day, just where you wounded me twice. I have been blind and deaf and mad all this while. I would not see or hear the truth, and the truth is, Lancelot, that it is you who have been always the King's friend and that it is I who, in these last days, have been his enemy. My pride and my selfishness and my anger have almost ruined the King, but it may be that your true love and your strength can save him yet. Come and help him, Lancelot. I have given you cause to hate me, but do not stay away from the King for that, for when you come to him I shall be dead.'
"This letter Gawain gave to a messenger and ordered him to cross with it to France and to ride as fast as he could to Benwick and give it to Lancelot. And a little while after that Gawain died.
"The next day King Arthur marched against Mordred. Mordred, with his army, fell back before him and day after day the King pushed him farther and farther into the West, till at last the two armies were here in Cornwall. They had both been gathering strength as they marched, for many knights and many other men joined them as they passed through the country. Some joined Mordred because they were friends to Lancelot, not knowing, they were so little and so narrow themselves, that Lancelot was great enough to be the King's friend still.
"At last Mordred and his army halted and would retreat no farther. Then it seemed that the great battle must come the next day. But that night King Arthur had a dream. He dreamed that Gawain came and stood before him, and Gawain said: 'My lord, do not fight with Mordred to-morrow. If you fight with him to-morrow you will be killed. But put off the battle for a little while and Lancelot and all his knights and all his men will come to help you.'
"In the morning, when the King awoke, he sent messengers to Mordred to ask him to meet him between the lines of the two armies and agree upon a truce. So it was arranged that Arthur and Mordred should each bring fourteen knights and that they should meet half-way between the two armies. Then Arthur said to his knights whom he left behind: 'I do not trust Mordred. I fear that he will try some treachery. So watch us when we meet and while we talk, and if you see any sword drawn among the men on either side, do not wait for any more, but charge forward and begin the battle.' And Mordred, before he went to meet the King, gave just the same command to his knights who stayed behind.
"All the knights who went with the King and with Mordred were told that this was to be a peaceful meeting and that no sword must be drawn. But after the King and Mordred had met and while they were talking, a little snake came out from under a bush and stung the foot of one of the knights. The knight forgot the order that had been given and drew his sword to kill the snake. But the men of the armies were too far away to see the snake and to know why the sword was drawn. They saw only the flash of the drawn sword and that was the signal of battle. It was of no use for Arthur or for Mordred to try to stop them or to delay the battle then. The trumpets blew, the knights charged forward, the two great waves of horses and men broke upon each other with a harsh rattle and jangle and clash of arms all along the field, and the battle was joined.
[image]"The two great waves broke upon each other"
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"The two great waves broke upon each other"
"In all his long reign, King Arthur had never fought such a battle as this before. There were thousands of men on each side and they were all men who had learned to fight in King Arthur's own battles and tournaments. They were men who had learned from him to fight and to fight and to go on fighting and never to stop till they had won. With men like that on both sides there was only one way that the battle could end. The battle went on all day. Slowly the knights on each side grew fewer and fewer and all who saw them knew that the fight would go on till there was none at all on one side or the other. Arthur's men were faithful to him to their last breath, and Mordred's men felt that they should be ruined if they were beaten. Once Arthur saw one of his old knights surrounded by enemies, and the old knight's son was close beside the King. The King and those around him had as much fighting as they could do, but Arthur said to the young knight: 'Do you not see your father there in danger? Why do you not go to help him?'
"And the young knight answered: 'My lord, my father told me this morning to stay beside you all day and to let nothing draw me away from you. My father is a good knight and he must fight for himself.' And the old knight was killed, and afterward the son was killed, too.
"When the evening came there were few left to fight. It may be that some had run away, but the most were dead or wounded. King Arthur stood with only two of his knights beside him. They were Sir Lucan and Sir Bedivere. The King looked all about him and saw only one other man near. And that was Mordred. The King spoke under his breath: 'The end is come, I fear, for all of us, but before I die that man there shall die, who has brought this end to all of us.'
"Sir Lucan and Sir Bedivere tried to hold him back. 'My lord,' said Sir Bedivere, 'do not try to fight any more with him to-day, or he may kill you. Remember what Gawain said to you in your dream. Mordred has no friends left now. Leave him for to-night, and to-morrow we can do justice upon him.'
"'No,' said the King, 'that traitor shall not live any longer, and I will kill him myself.'
"Arthur had his sword Excalibur in his hand. He rushed upon Mordred with it and struck him one blow upon the head, and Mordred fell down dead. But Arthur had been so eager against Mordred that he had not thought to defend himself. Mordred had struck too at the same time and had struck well and Arthur had a great wound on his head. Lucan and Bedivere went to him and he tried to stand, but he could not. 'You must help me,' he said, 'to some place of shelter; I cannot help myself any more.'
"They tried to lift him up, but Lucan, who had been wounded in the battle, suddenly fell down beside the King and died. Then Arthur said: 'Bedivere, you are the last one left to me and there is only a little more that you can do. Take my sword Excalibur and go up this hill here before us. At the top of it there is a lake. Throw my sword into the lake, as far out into the middle of it as you can, and then come back and tell me what you see.'
"Bedivere took the sword and climbed the hill and came to this very spot where we are standing. But on the way he looked at the sword and at the jewels in the hilt and he thought: 'It would be wrong to throw away this beautiful sword. I will hide it here, instead of throwing it into the lake. Then, if the King is cured of his wound, he will be glad to have his sword again, and if he dies, someone else can have it.'
"So he hid the sword among the reeds that grew by the side of the lake and went back to the King. 'Did you throw my sword into the lake?' the King asked.
"'Yes, my lord,' said Bedivere.
"'And what did you see or hear?' said the King.
"'Nothing,' said Bedivere, 'but the water and the wind.'
"'Then you did not throw it in,' the King answered. 'Go back now and throw it in, as I told you, and come back and tell me what you see.'
"Then Bedivere went up the hill again to the lake and took the sword out from where he had hidden it. He held it up in the moonlight and saw the shining of the rich jewels and the gleam of the long blade and again he thought: 'It would be a sin to lose such a wonderful thing as this. The King is wounded and weak and he is wandering in his mind, or else he would not tell me to do it. I will tell him again that I have thrown it in.'
"He hid the sword again and went back to the King, and the King said: 'Did you throw my sword into the lake?'
"'Yes, my lord,' said Bedivere, 'I threw it in.'
"'And what did you see or hear?' said Arthur.
"'I saw nothing but the water,' said Bedivere, 'and I heard nothing but the wind and the waves.'
"'Oh, Bedivere,' said Arthur, 'you are the last of my knights and you will not obey me. Go now once more and throw my sword as far as you can out into the lake. And if you do not obey me this time, when you come again, wounded as I am, I will rise up and kill you, if I can, with my hands.'
"Then Bedivere went as fast as he could up the hill again and found the sword and took it and swung it above his head and threw it as far as he could out over the lake. He watched it as it whirled through the air, and when it was near the water he saw an arm, covered with white silk, come up out of the water. The hand caught the sword as it fell and brandished it three times in a circle, and then the hand and the arm went down under the water, and Bedivere went back and told the King. 'And now, Bedivere,' said Arthur, 'help me to go to the lake too.'
"But the King could not stand at all, so Bedivere took him on his back and carried him up the hill to the side of the lake. And there they saw a boat lying close to the shore. It was filled with women, all dressed in black, and three, who stood in the midst of them, were queens and wore crowns. 'Put me in the boat,' said Arthur, and Bedivere carried him to the boat and the three queens received him, and all the women in the boat wept when they saw him. The three queens laid him down and one of them took his head in her lap and said: 'My dear brother, why did you wait so long? You should have come here to us as soon as you had this wound.'
"And this woman was King Arthur's sister, Queen Morgan-le-Fay. I don't know when or why she had ceased to be his enemy and had become his friend, but she was his friend now and she did all that she could to help him and to cure his wound.
"Then Bedivere saw that the boat was moving from the shore, and he cried: 'My lord—my King—where shall I go and what shall I do without you? Let me go with you where you go and die with you, if you are to die.'
"But Arthur answered: 'Do not be grieved for me, Bedivere, but go your own way. Perhaps you may hear of me again, but now I can do no more for you or for my people. I am going to the Valley of Avalon, to be cured of my wound, and some time, perhaps, when my wound is well, I shall come again.'
"Then the boat moved farther and farther away along the lake. The King did not speak again, but Bedivere could hear Queen Morgan-le-Fay speaking softly to him, and he could hear the other women weeping. Only for a little while he could hear them, and then he strained his eyes to see the boat as long as he could. But the light was dim and soon the dark shape of the boat mixed with the dark shadows and was lost.
"And so King Arthur floated away to Avalon. You know that Avalon was Glastonbury, and you do not see, perhaps, how any boat could go from this mountain lake, all shut in by the land, out to the sea and inland again to that island with the marsh around it. You must think of the magic of Queen Morgan-le-Fay. Where she wanted her boat to go I am sure that water-ways would open of themselves to let her pass. A ship with her upon it would go as fast and as far as she would have it go. And then, one of the old stories says, they had a pilot who knew all the seas and all the stars of the heavens.
"Sir Bedivere looked after the boat till it had been gone from his sight for a long time. Then he turned away from the lake, went down the hill, and wandered away through the woods. He did not know where he was going and he did not care. He scarcely saw what places he passed. He was thinking of his King who had been taken away from him. He thought of the bright old days when Arthur won his crown in the battles with the rebel Kings, when his own knights learned to love his strength and his truth and his nobleness. He thought of the happy days when the greatest knights of the world gathered at the Round Table in Camelot. He thought of how they had helped the King to bring peace and plenty and content to the land. He thought of the sad later days and of these last days of all and he wished that he might have died before they came. He could not think at all yet of what he was still to do or how he was to live without his King.
"So, deep in these sad thoughts, he went on and on, stopped now and then, where he could, to eat or drink, because he knew he must, or lay down in the forest to sleep, but never thought and never knew how long he had been on the way or how weary he was. At last he heard a bell and saw an abbey before him. He went into the chapel and saw a man kneeling upon a tomb. The man rose and came to meet him. He was the abbot. 'Sir,' said Bedivere, 'whose tomb is that where I saw you praying?'
"'I do not know,' said the abbot. 'Last night a great company of ladies came here and brought a dead man and begged me to bury him. And I buried him in that tomb there before the altar, but they did not tell me who he was.'
"'Then I will tell you,' said Bedivere. 'If a company of ladies brought him, it was King Arthur.'
"Then Bedivere asked the hermit to let him stay there and live with him. And he stayed for a long time there in the Abbey of Glastonbury, and visited the poor and the sick, and at last he became a priest.
"And that was all that was known of how King Arthur passed away from the battle, of how he came to Avalon, and of how he was buried. The abbot did not know who the man was whom he had buried, till Bedivere told him, and Bedivere thought that he was King Arthur only because a company of ladies had brought him. But Arthur himself had told Bedivere that he was going to Avalon to be cured of his wound, and that some time he might come again. And so, on a stone over the grave at Glastonbury, they put the words:
hic jacet Arthurus,Rex quondam Rexque futurus.
That is Latin and it means: 'Here lies Arthur, King that was and King that shall be.' And so it was long believed that some time King Arthur would come back to conquer the foes of England and to save the people. Some said that he was taken away in the boat to some happy island, to be cured of his wound and to wait for the time when England should need him most. Some said that he was sleeping down under the ground, with his knights, at Caerleon-upon-Usk, and others that he was in the enchanted castle on the hill at Camelot. Some believed that he was a raven, flying around the Cornish coast, and some that he was dead like other men, and in his grave in the Abbey of Glastonbury."
[image]The Choir, Glastonbury Abbey
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The Choir, Glastonbury Abbey
CHAPTER XVIII
THE ABBESS AND THE MONK
We did get back to Glastonbury at last, and this time we did not miss seeing the abbey. We spent some time in tracing it all out from its ruins. It was a great and beautiful church in its time. Now it has been crumbling and falling for many years. Worse than that, the people of the country about here, when they wanted stone for building, instead of finding new stone, used to come and take some from the old abbey. But, after all that time and men could do to it, much of it still stands, and it is full of that sad, sweet beauty and stateliness that nothing but a ruin ever has. The walls of St. Joseph's chapel still remain, all covered with ivy, there is a good deal of the choir left, and there are two of the great, tall piers that held the tower. Then, some way off, there is the abbot's kitchen, still all but perfect.
We found the place, or thought we did, where Joseph of Arimathæa first built his little church of wood and woven twigs. We tried to find the spot where King Arthur was buried. That is not easy, but we hit upon a place at last where we thought it must have been. When Henry II was King a search was made for King Arthur's grave by his order. They found it, they said, and Henry had a monument put over it. The monument is gone now, probably carried away, like so much of the abbey, to build stables, or something else just as noble and important, and there is nothing left to show where it stood. If we were talking of history instead of stories I might have something to say about this one of Henry II. But, as it is, it may as well stand with the rest of them.
"There is one more story," I said, "that I must tell you while we are here among these ruins. Then I shall have told you all that I set out to tell, and we shall have made the journey that we set out to make.
"When the letter that Gawain wrote was brought to Lancelot he lost no time in calling his knights and his army together and starting toward England to help King Arthur. If the King could only have delayed that last great battle, as he tried to do, Lancelot would have been with him and all would have been well. But when Lancelot landed at Dover the people told him that he had come too late. They told him of the battle that had been fought there, in which Gawain was killed, and of the greater battle that had been fought afterward far away in the West. All that they could tell him of the King was that he was gone. Some said that he was dead, and some that he had been carried away to Fairyland, where he would live till his people needed him.
"Then Lancelot asked: 'Where is the Queen?'
"'She shut herself up in the Tower of London,' some one answered, 'to save herself from Mordred. Then, when Mordred left London and came here to meet the King, she left the Tower, too, and they say that she went to some abbey and is living with the nuns.'
"Then Lancelot told Bors and the other knights who were with him to wait at Dover while he went to find the Queen. He rode alone through the country, asking at all the abbeys that he found, and at last he came to Almesbury, the place that is now called Amesbury, where we went, you know, on our way to Stonehenge. And at the abbey there he saw the Queen walking in the cloister. She saw him too and came to meet him.
"'I have come,' Lancelot said, 'to take you from this place. The King is gone from us now, and we shall never see him in this world again. Come with me now to my own city. While the King was with us I did not care whether I had a city. I thought it grander and nobler to be his knight than to be King of all the world but England. You know, my Queen, that I am King of Benwick. Come with me now and be my Queen still, more my Queen than ever, the Queen of Benwick. It is a little place, but my people love me, and they will love you, too.'
"'Lancelot,' said the Queen, 'we must not think of such things—I must not. You must go back and rule your people well and make them happy—yes, and be happy yourself, if you can—but I must stay here and try to do a little good to the poor, and fast and pray, so that God will forgive me and so that he will forgive you and let us see our Arthur in another world, since we cannot in this. For, Lancelot, do you know that it is because of us—because of me and of you—that our Arthur has gone from us?'
"'No, no,' said Lancelot, 'it is not true. I will not let you say such things of yourself, even though you say them of me. We did nothing that was wrong, you and I. They charged us with some plot—I do not know what it was, and they did not know themselves. Then I saved you and I saved myself, as it was right that I should do. The King made war on me. I made no war on him. I only guarded my knights and my people. I would not even have fought with Gawain, only he would have it so. And when I heard that the King needed me here in England I came back to help him, and it was too late. But it was the traitors who brought all this death and ruin.'
"'It was not that we did any wrong, Lancelot,' said the Queen, 'it was that we did not do all that was right. You would rather be Arthur's knight, you said, than to be King of all the world but England. Ah, yes, but what of England? Did you never wish, even in your heart, that you were King of that? Arthur had noble thoughts for the good of his country and of his people, and you swore to be faithful in everything to him and to help him. And so your thoughts, Lancelot, should have been all for the King and for his people, and so should mine. And were they so? Did you never forget these things and work and fight for your own name and your own glory, instead of for the glory of the King and for the good of England? You fought, too, many times, for my name and for my glory, and I was foolish and let you do it, when my thoughts, too, should have been all for him and for England. But here alone, since we were all parted, I have had time to think, and I have seen more clearly than I ever saw before. Lancelot, it is not the great sins of the wicked people that bring ruin to the world; it is the follies and the failings of those who should be most true and most faithful, and so help and save the world, but do not do it. We were the nearest to the King, I his Queen and you his greatest knight. We should have been as strong and as firm in our faithfulness to him as he was to himself. If we ever had selfish and vain thoughts, thoughts that were not for the King, for a single hour, it was a worse wrong in us than the wrongs that those poor, weak knights did when they let Mordred persuade them and lead them against the King. Do you not know why you could not see the Holy Grail, as Galahad and Percivale and Bors saw it? This was why. And they could see it because in every thought and wish they were true to what they and all of the Round Table swore to the King. And so, Lancelot, my own best knight, as there is work for you to do among your people, go and do it, but I must stay here and do a little good, if I can, and pray for you and for myself, so that some time we may be nearer to the King than we have ever been.'
"'If you are right,' said Lancelot, 'and you must be right—if you are right in staying here and doing what you say that you will do, then it is right for me, too. I will not go back to France. I will find some peaceful place and some good man, some hermit perhaps, and ask him to let me stay with him and do as you are doing. Pray for me sometimes, my Queen, and I will pray for you always.'
"Now I can guess just what you think of all this. You think that Lancelot had not done any wrong at all and that the Queen was a great deal too hard on him. But I know that the Queen was right. Think over all that she said again and you will know it too. The Queen and Lancelot had stood next to the King for all these years. They had been proud of him and proud that they were so near to him, and if they had been steadfast in all that they did and said and thought, nothing could ever have harmed him or his country while they all lived. But sometimes they were weak and thoughtless, and then the King was left to work alone. Though this was all that they had done amiss, it was enough.
"So Lancelot left the Queen and went on his way. And Guinevere stayed there at Almesbury and lived with the nuns. She never left the abbey except to walk a little way among the fields, in the woods, and along the river that we saw when we were at Amesbury, or, more often, to carry help or comfort to the poor or the sick.
"After she had been with the nuns for a time she became one of them, and no one among them worked more than she for the people near who needed help, and no one among them was loved more than she. And no one, even of those who knew her best, could tell whether she was happy. But they all knew that she was always gentle and patient, that she never said that her work was hard, that she never seemed to wish for her old life, and that the sick people watched for her and the poor people prayed for her. And when the old abbess died they were all sure that no one could take her place so well as Guinevere. And so, for what was left of her life, Guinevere was abbess at Almesbury.
"When Lancelot rode away from Almesbury he felt that it was nothing to him where he went. He felt that he hated courts and tournaments and battle-fields now, and he wished only to find some place away from the busy and noisy world, where he could live as the Queen was living. And so he wandered here to Glastonbury. And when he found Bedivere here, when Bedivere had told him all about the great battle, and when he had shown him the grave in the chapel where he believed that King Arthur was buried, then Lancelot begged the abbot to let him stay here and be a monk with the rest of them as long as he lived. And the abbot and Bedivere were both glad to have him stay. So Lancelot, too, lived his life among his brother monks and among the poor and the sick, and they all learned to love him, as, long ago, all the good knights in Arthur's court had learned to love him.
"Bors and his fellows waited for Lancelot at Dover for a long time. At last Bors sent the army back to France, with all the knights except a few who were the best friends of Lancelot. With these he set out through England to search for him. They searched for a long time and at last they found him. And when they saw that he was a monk they said that they would all stay at Glastonbury and be monks too.
"When Lancelot had been at Glastonbury for a long time he had a dream one night. He dreamed that an angel stood beside him and said to him: 'Lancelot, take all your fellows here who were knights of the Round Table to-morrow and go to Almesbury. When you come there the abbess, Queen Guinevere, will be dead. Bring her here and bury her in the chapel beside the King.' And twice more that same night Lancelot had this dream.
"In the morning Lancelot told the abbot of his dream, and the abbot said that it would be best for him to take his fellows with him and go to Almesbury, as he had been told to do. So they all set out, and when they came to the abbey at Almesbury the nuns knew who they were and why they had come, without being told. For they said: 'Our abbess died not an hour ago, and she told us that after she was dead the monk who used to be Sir Lancelot of the Lake would come for her and would bury her at Glastonbury, beside the King. She had been told of it in a dream.'
"So Lancelot and his fellows took the body of the Queen back with them to Glastonbury. There they made another grave before the altar in the chapel, beside the grave of King Arthur, and buried Queen Guinevere in it.
"And after this was done Lancelot would scarcely leave that chapel. He was there for nearly all of every day and much of every night, kneeling over the graves of the King and the Queen and praying. He would eat scarcely anything and he slept but little. And so he grew thin and pale and weak. The abbot and his friends could not comfort him or make him eat, and at last he told them that he should live only a little longer. 'When I am dead,' he said, 'take me and bury me in the chapel of my own old castle of Joyous Gard. I would far rather lie here in your chapel, near my King and my Queen, but years ago I made a vow that I would be buried in Joyous Gard, and I must keep that vow, so take me there.'
"That night the abbot awoke some of the monks by laughing aloud in his sleep. They went to the abbot's bed and he awoke and said: 'I have had the most beautiful dream that I have ever had in my life.'
"'What was it?' said Bors.
"'I dreamed,' the abbot said, 'that I saw Lancelot in the midst of a great company of angels. More angels there were than I ever saw of men in an army. Some of them lifted Lancelot up and they all rose to Heaven. I could see Lancelot's face as they went, and it was full of peace and gladness. They came near the gates of Heaven and the gates were opened for them and they all passed in. And as they passed I could see the great light that shone out and I could hear voices singing, and the gates were closed and then I awoke.'
"Then they all went to Lancelot's bed. He did not awake when they came to him, as the abbot had done. He lay still and his face was full of peace and gladness and he was dead.
"They took him the next day, all his friends and the abbot with them, and they journeyed slowly till they came to Joyous Gard. There they buried him and then they journeyed slowly back again to Glastonbury. They did not talk much as they went, but now and then they spoke a little, sadly, as people will at such times, of the older and happier days. To Bors and to some of the others it seemed only a little while since a hundred and fifty knights sat at the Round Table in the hall at Camelot. Here were some of the knights of the Round Table still, but the glory of it had passed away with the King and Galahad and Gawain and Lancelot."