Read Ebook: Tales from Tennyson by Tennyson Alfred Tennyson Baron Bellew Molly K Editor

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Ebook has 684 lines and 36879 words, and 14 pages

When Gareth's turn came, he rested his arms, one on each servant, and stepped forward saying: "A boon, Sir King! Do you see how weak I seem, leaning on these men? Pray let me go into your kitchen and serve there for a year and a day, and do not ask me my name. After that I will fight for you."

"You are a handsome youth," said the king, "and worth something better from the king, but if that is what you wish, go and serve under the seneschal, Sir Kay, Master of the Meats and Drinks."

Sir Kay thought the boy had probably run away from the farm belonging to some Abbey where he had not had enough to eat, and he promised that if Gareth would work well he would feed him until he was as plump as a pigeon.

But Lancelot, the king's favorite, said to Kay: "You don't understand boys as well as dogs and cattle. Can't you see by this lad's broad fair forehead and fine hands that he is nobly born? Treat him well or he may shame you."

"Fair and fine, forsooth," cried Kay. "If he had been a gentleman he would have asked for a horse and armor."

At the end of the first month, lonely Queen Bellicent felt sorry for her poor, dear son, toiling and moiling among pots and pans, so she sent a servant to Camelot with the beaming armor of a knight and freed him from his vow. Gareth colored redder than any young girl and went alone in to the king and told him all.

"Make me your knight in secret," he begged Arthur, "and give me the very next quest from your court!"

"Son," answered the king, "my knights are sworn to vows of utter hardihood, of utter gentleness, of utter faithfulness in love and of utter obedience to the king."

Gareth sprang lightly from his knees: "My king, I can promise you for my hardihood; respecting my obedience, ask Sir Kay, and as for love I have not loved yet, but God willing some day I will, and faithfully."

The reply so pleased the great king, he laid his hand on Gareth's arm and smiled and knighted him.

"A river courses about the castle in three loops," said she, "each loop has a bridge and every bridge is guarded by a wicked outlaw warrior, Sir Morning-star, Sir Noon-sun and Sir Evening-star, while a fourth called Death, a huge man-beast of boundless savageries, is besieging my sister in her own castle so as to break her will and make her wed with him. They are four fools," cried the maiden disdainfully, "but they are mighty men so I have come to ask for Lancelot to ride away with me to help us."

Gareth was up in a twinkling with kindled eyes. "A boon, Sir King, this quest," he cried. "I am only a knave from your kitchen, but I can topple over a hundred such fellows. Your promise, king."

"You are rough and sudden and worthy to be a knight. Therefore go," said Arthur to the great amazement of the court.

"Fie on you, King!" exclaimed Lynette in a fury. "I asked you for your best knight, Lancelot, and you give me a slave from your kitchen," and she scampered down the aisle, leaped to her horse and flitted out of the weird white gate. "A kitchen slave!" she sputtered as she flew. "Why didn't the king send me a knight that fights for love and glory?"

Gareth in the meantime had strode to the side doorway of the royal hall where he saw a war-horse awaiting him, the gift of Arthur and worth half the price of a town. His two servants stood by with his shield and helmet and spear. Dropping his coarse kitchen cloak to the floor, he instantly harnessed himself in his armor, leaped to the back of his beautiful steed and flashed out of the gateway while all his kitchen mates threw up their caps and cried, "God bless the king and all his fellowship!"

"Maiden, the quest is mine," he said to Lynette as he overtook her, "Lead and I follow."

"Away with you!" she cried, nipping her slender nose. "You smell of kitchen grease. See there, your master is coming!"

Indeed she told the truth, for Sir Kay, infuriated with Gareth's boldness in the king's hall was hounding after them. "Don't you know me?" he shouted.

"Yes, too well," returned Gareth. "I know you to be the most ungentle knight in Arthur's court."

"Have at me, then," cried Kay, whereupon Gareth pounced upon him with his gleaming lance and struck him instantly to the earth, then turned for Lynette and said again, "Lead and I follow."

But Lynette had hurried her galloping palfrey away and would not stop the beast until his heart had nearly burst with its violent throbbing. Then she turned and eyed Gareth as scornfully as ever. As he pranced to her side she observed:

"Do you suppose scullion, that I think any more of you now that by some good luck you have overthrown your master. You dishwasher and water-carrier, you smell of the kitchen quite as much as before."

"Maiden," Gareth rejoined gently, "Say what you will, but whatever you say, I will not leave this quest until it is ended or I have died for it."

"O, my, how the knave talks! But you'll soon meet with another knave whom in spite of all the kitchen concoctions ever brewed, you'll not dare look in the face."

"I'll try him," answered Gareth with a smile that maddened Lynette. And away she darted again far into the strange avenues of the limitless woods.

Gareth plunged on through the pine trees after her and a serving-man came breaking through the black forest crying out, "They've bound my master and are throwing him into the lake!"

"Lead and I follow," cried Gareth to Lynette, and she led, plunging into the pine trees until they came upon a hollow sinking away into a lake, where six tall men up to their thighs in reeds and bulrushes were dragging a seventh man with a stone about his neck toward the water to drown him.

Gareth sprang upon three and stilled them with his doughty blows, but three scurried away through the trees; then Gareth loosened the stone from the gentleman and set him on his feet. He proved to be a baron and a friend of Arthur and asked Gareth what he could do to show his gratitude for the saving of his life. Gareth said he would like a night's shelter for the lady who was with him. So they rode over toward the graceful manor house where the baron lived, and as they rode he said to Gareth.

"I believe you are of the Table," meaning that Gareth was a Knight of the Round Table.

"Yes, he is of the table after his own fashion," Lynette laughed, "for he serves in Arthur's kitchen." And turning toward Gareth she added, "Do not imagine that I admire you the more for having routed these miserable cowardly foresters; any thresher with his flail could have done that."

And when they were seated at the baron's table, Gareth by Lynette's side, she cried out to their host, "It seems dreadfully rude in you, Lord Baron, to place this knave beside me. Listen to me: I went to King Arthur's court to ask for Sir Lancelot to come to help my sister, and as I ended my plea, up bawls this kitchen boy: 'Mine's the quest.' And Arthur goes mad and sends me this fellow who was made to kill pigs and not redress the wrongs of women."

So Gareth was seated at another table and the baron came to him and asked him whether it might not be better for him to relinquish his quest, but the lad replied that the king had given it to him and he would carry it through. The next morning he said again to proud Lynette, "Lead and I follow."

But the maiden responded, "We are almost at the place where one of the knaves is stationed. Don't you want to go home? He will slay you and then I'll go back to Arthur and shame him for giving me a knight from his kitchen cinders."

"Just let me fight," cried Gareth, "and I'll have as good luck as little Cinderella who married the prince."

So they came to the first coil of the river and on the other side saw a rich white pavilion with a purple dome and a slender crimson flag fluttering above. The lawless Sir Morning-star paced up and down outside.

"Damsel, is this the knight you've brought me?" he shouted.

"Not a knight, but a knave. The king scorned you so he sent some one from his kitchen."

"Come Daughters of the Dawn and arm me!" cried Sir Morning-star, and three bare-footed, bare-headed maidens in pink and gold dresses brought him a blue coat of mail and a blue shield.

"A kitchen knave in scorn of me!" roared the blue knight. "I won't fight him. Go home, knave! It isn't proper for you to be riding abroad with a lady."

"Dog, you lie! I'm sprung from nobler lineage than you," and saying this, Gareth sprang fiercely at his adversary who met him in the middle of the bridge. The two spears were hurled so harshly that both knights were thrown from their horses like two stones but up they leaped instantly. Gareth drew forth his sword and drove his enemy back down the bridge and laid him at his feet.

"I yield," Sir Morning-star cried, "don't kill me."

"Your life is in the hands of this lady," Gareth replied. "If she asks me to spare you I will."

"Scullion!" Lynette cried, reddening with shame. "Do you suppose I will ask a favor of you?"

"Then he dies," and Gareth was about to slay the wounded knight when Lynette screamed and told him he ought not to think of killing a man of nobler birth than himself. So Gareth said, "Knight, your life is spared at this lady's command. Go to King Arthur's court and tell him that his kitchen knave sent you, and crave his pardon for breaking his laws."

"I thought the smells of the odors of the kitchen grew fainter while you were fighting on the bridge," Lynette remarked to Gareth as he took his place behind her and told her to lead, "but now they are as strong as ever."

So they rode on until they arrived at the second loop of the river where the knight of the Noonday-Sun flared with his burning shield that blazed so violently that Gareth saw scarlet blots before his eyes as he turned away from it.

"Here's a kitchen knave from Arthur's hall who has overthrown your brother," Lynette called across the river to him.

"Ugh!" returned Sir Noonday-Sun, raising his visor to reveal his round foolish face like a cipher, and with that he pushed his horse into the foaming stream.

Gareth met him midway and struck him four blows of his sword. As he was about to deal the fifth stroke the horse of the Noonday-Sun slipped and the stream washed his dazzling master away. Gareth plucked him out of the water and sent him back to King Arthur.

"Lead and I follow," he said to Lynette.

"Do not fancy," she rejoined, as she guided him toward the third passing of the river, "that I thought you bold or brave when you overcame Sir Noonday-Sun; he just slipped on the river-bed. Here we are at the third fool in the allegory, Sir Evening-star. You see he looks naked but he is only wrapped in hardened skins that fit him like his own. They will turn the blade of your sword."

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