Tales from Tennyson Part 6

One morning Prince Geraint went into Arthur's hall and said:

"O King, my princedom is in danger. It lies close to the territory which is infested with bandits, earls and caitiff knights, a.s.sa.s.sins and all sorts of outlaws. Give me your kind good leave and I will go there to defend my lands."

The king said the prince might go, and sent fifty armed knights to protect him and pretty Enid as they traveled away on their horses across the Severn River into their own country, the Land of Devon.

After Geraint had come into Devon he forgot what he had said to the king of ridding his princedom of outlawry, he forgot the chase where he had always been so clever in tracking his game, forgot the tournament where he had won victory after victory, forgot all his former glory and his name, forgot his lands and their cares, forgot everything he ever did, and did nothing at all but lie about at home and talk with Enid. At last all his people began to gossip about their fine prince who once had been ill.u.s.trious everywhere and now had become an idle stay-at-home who spent his time in making love to his wife.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENID HEARD OF GERAINT FROM HER HAIR-DRESSER.]

Enid heard of the tattling about Geraint from her hair-dresser, and one morning as he lay abed, she went over it all to herself, talking aloud.

She wished, that he would not abandon all his knightly pursuits but would hunt and fight again and add to his l.u.s.tre. She felt very bashful about mentioning the matter to him as she was very shy by nature and lived in a time when wives were altogether over-ruled by their husbands, yet to say nothing she thought would not be showing herself a true wife to Geraint. All this and more Enid went over to herself.

The drowsy prince, half awake, just half heard her and quite misunderstood her meaning. When she said that in keeping quiet about the gossip she was not a true wife to him he supposed she meant that she no longer cared for him, that he was not a handsome and strong enough man to suit her. This grieved him deeply and made him very angry with her, for Geraint had really given up all the glory of the king's court just to be alone with Enid, although no one knew it. And the thought that now she looked down upon him infuriated all his heart. A word would have made everything right but he didn't say it.

Springing up quickly from his bed he roused his squire and said, "Get ready our horses, my charger and the princess' palfrey. And you,"

turning a frowning face to the princess, "put on the worst looking, meanest, poorest dress you have and come away with me. We are going on a quest of honor and then you will see what sort of soldier I am."

Enid wondered why her lord was so vexed with her and replied, "If I have displeased you surely you will tell me why."

But Geraint would not say; he could not bear to speak of it. So Enid hurried after her poor old faded silk gown with the summer flowers among its folds, which she had worn to ride from her old home to Caerleon, and hastily dressed.

"Do not ride at my side," Geraint said as they both mounted their horses to start away. "Ride ahead of me, a good way ahead of me, and no matter what may happen, do not speak a word to me, no not a word."

Enid listened, wondering what had come over her lord.

"There!" he cried as they were off, "we will make our way along with our iron weapons, not with gold money." So saying, he loosed the great purse which dangled from his belt and tossed it back to his squire who stood on the marble threshold of the doorway where the golden coins flashed and clattered as they scattered every which-way over the floor. "Now then, Enid, to the wild woods!"

At that they made for the swampy, desolated forest lands that were famous for their perilous paths and their bandits, Enid with a white face going before, Geraint coming gloomily nearly a quarter of a mile after.

The morning was only half begun when the white princess became aware that behind a rock hiding in the shadow stood three tall knights on horseback, armed from tip to toe, bandit outlaws lying in wait to fall upon whoever should pa.s.s. She heard one saying to his comrades as he pointed toward Geraint:

"Look here comes some lazy-bones who seems just about as bold as a dog who has had the worst of it in a fight. Come, we will kill him, and then we will take his horse and armor and his lady."

Enid thought, "I'll go back a little way to Geraint and tell him about these ruffians, for even if it will madden him I should rather have him kill me than to have him fall into their hands."

She guided her palfrey backward and bravely met the frowning face which greeted her, saying timidly:

"My lord, there are three bandit knights behind a rock a little way beyond us who are boasting that they will slay you and steal your horse and armor and make me their captive."

"Did I tell you," cried Geraint angrily, "that you should warn me of any danger. There was only one thing which I told you to do and that was to keep quiet; and this is the way you have heeded me! a pretty way! But win or lose, you shall see by these fellows that my vigor is not lost."

Then Enid stood back as the three outlaws flashed out of their ambush and bore down upon the prince.

Geraint aimed first for the middle one, driving his long spear into the bandit's breast and out on the other side. The two others in the meanwhile had dashed upon him with their lances, but they had broken on his magnificent armor like so many icicles. He now turned upon them with his broadsword, swinging it first to the right and then to the left, first stunning them with his blows, then slaying them outright. And when all three had fallen he dismounted, and like a hunter skinning the wild beasts he has shot, he stripped the three robber knights of their gay suits of armor, and leaving the bodies lie, bound each man's sword, spear and coat of arms to his horse, tied the three bridle reins of the three empty horses together and cried to Enid.

"Drive these on before you."

Enid drove them on across the wastelands, Geraint following after. As she pa.s.sed into the first shallow shade of the forest she described three more hors.e.m.e.n partly hidden in the gloom of three st.u.r.dy oak-trees. All were armed and one was a veritable giant, so tall and bulky, towering above his companions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE THREE OUTLAWS BORE DOWN UPON THE PRINCE.]

"See there, a prize!" bellowed the giant and set Enid's pulses in a quiver. "Three horses and three suits of armor, and all in charge of--whom? A girl! Isn't that simple? Lay on, my men!"

"No," cried the second, "behind is coming a knight. A coward and a fool, for see how he hangs his head."

The giant thundered back gaily.

"Yes? Only one? Wait here and as he goes by make for him."

"I will go no farther until Geraint comes," Enid said to herself stopping her horse. "And then I will tell him about these villains. He must be so weary with his other fight and they will fall upon him unawares. I shall have to disobey him again for his own sake. How could I dare to obey him and let him be harmed? I must speak; if he kills me for it I shall only have lost my own life to save a life that is dearer to me than my own."

So she waited until the prince approached when she said with a timid firmness, "Have I your leave to speak?"

"You take it without asking when you speak," he replied, and she continued:

"There are three men lurking in the woods behind some oaks and one of them is larger than you, a perfect giant. He told them to attack you as you pa.s.sed by them."

"If there were a hundred men in the wood and each of them a giant and if they all made for me together I vow it would not anger me so as to have you disobey me. Stand aside while we do battle and when we are done stand by the victor."

At this, while Enid fell back breathing short fits of prayer but not daring to watch, Geraint proceeded to meet his a.s.sailants. The giant was the first to dash out for him aiming his lance at Geraint's helmet, but the lance missed and went to one side. Geraint's spear had been a little strained with his first encounter, but it struck through the bulky giant's corselet and pierced his breast, then broke, one-half of it still fast in the flesh as the giant knight fell to the earth. The other two bandits now felt that their support and hero was gone, and when Geraint darted rapidly on them, uttering his terrible warcry as if there were a thousand men behind him to come to his aid, they flew into the woods. But they were soon overtaken and pitilessly put to death.

Then Geraint, selecting the best lance, the brightest and strongest among their spears to replace the one he had broken on the giant, he plucked off the gaudy armor from each brigand's body, laid it on the backs of the three horses, tied the bridle reins together and handed them to Enid with the words, "Drive them on before you."

So Enid now followed the wild paths of the gloomy forest with two sets of three horses, each horse laden with his master's jingling weapons and coat of mail. Geraint came after. As they pa.s.sed out of the wood into the open sky they came to a little town with towers upon a rocky hill, and beneath it a wide meadowland with mowers in it, mowing the hay. Down a stony pathway from the town skipped a fair-haired lad carrying a basket of lunch for the laborers in the field.

"Friend!" cried Geraint, as the lad trotted past him, for he saw that Enid looked very white, "let my lady have something to eat. She is so faint."

"Willingly," the youth answered, "and you too, my lord, even although this feed is very coa.r.s.e and only fit for the mowers."

He set down his basket and Enid and Geraint alighted and put all the horses to graze, while they sat down on the green sward to have some bread and barley. Enid felt too faint at heart, thinking of the prince's strange conduct, to care a great deal for food, but Geraint was hungry enough and had all the mowers' basket emptied almost before he knew it.

"Boy," he cried half-ashamed, "everything is gone, which is a disgrace.

But take one of my horses and his arms by way of payment, choose the very best."

The poor lad, who might as well have had a kingdom given him, reddened with his extreme surprise and delight.

"My lord, you are over-paying me fifty times," he cried.

"You will be all the wealthier then," returned the prince, gaily.

"I'll take it as free gift, then," the lad answered. "The food is not worth much. While your lady is resting here I can easily go back and fetch more, some more for the earl's mowers. For all these mowers belong to our great earl, and all these fields are his, and I am his, too. I'll tell him what a fine man you are, and he will have you to his palace and serve you with costly dinners."

"I wish no better fare than I have had," Geraint said, "I never ate better in my life than just now when I left your poor mowers dinnerless.

And I will go into no earl's palace. If he desires to see me, let him come to me. Now you go hire us some pleasant room in the town, stall our horses and when you return with the food for these men tell us about it."

"Yes, my kind lord," the glad youth cried, and he held his head high and thought he was a gorgeous knight off to the wars as he disappeared up the rocky path leading his handsome horse.

The prince turned himself sleepily to watch the l.u.s.ty mowers laboring under the sun as it blazed on their scythes, while Enid plucked the long gra.s.s by the meadows' edge to weave it round and round her wedding ring, until the boy returned and showed them the room he had got in the town.