The Knights of the Round Table

"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.

"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."

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.