Tales from Tennyson Part 12

"What do I know?" Elaine answered simply. "I don't know whether I know what love is, but I do know that if I do not love him there isn't another man whom I can love."

"Yes, you love him well," said Gawain. "And I suppose you know just where your greatest knight is hidden, so let me leave my quest with you.

If you love him it will be sweet to you to give him the diamond and if he loves you it will be sweet to him to receive it from you, while even if he doesn't love you, a diamond is always a diamond. Farewell a thousand times. If he loves you I may see you at court after while."

Then Gawain lightly kissed her hand as he laid the diamond in it, and, wearied of his quest, leaped on his horse and carrolling a love-ballad airily rode away to the court where it was soon buzzed abroad that a maid of Astolat loved Lancelot and that Lancelot loved a maid of Astolat.

The maid meanwhile crept up to her father one day and received his leave to take the diamond to Sir Lancelot. Sir Torre went with her to the gates of Camelot where they saw Lavaine capering about on a horse.

"Lavaine!" she cried, "how is it with my lord Sir Lancelot?" and she told him about the diamond. Then Sir Torre went on into the city while Lavaine guided Elaine to the hermit's cave. As she saw her handsome knight on the floor, a sort of skeleton of himself, she gave a little tender dolorous cry.

"Your prize, the diamond, sent you by the king," said she, as she put it into his hand and explained how she had received it from Gawain. Then he kissed her as a father would kiss a dear little daughter and she went back to the dim, rich city of Camelot for the night. But the next morning she was back in the cave, and day after day she came, caring for him more mildly, tenderly and kindly than any mother could with a child, until at last the old hermit said she had nursed him back to life, then all three rode back together one morning to Astolat where Lancelot asked Elaine to tell him the dearest wish of her heart so that he could grant it to her. Elaine turned as pale as a ghost when he first spoke but at last one day she told him. She said she wanted him to love her, she wanted to be his wife.

"If I had chosen to wed," Lancelot replied, slowly, "I would have been married long before this. But now I shall never marry, sweet Elaine."

"No, no," cried Elaine, "it won't matter if I can't be your wife, if I can only go with you always and go round the world with you and serve you."

But Lancelot said that would be a poor way for him to requite the love and kindness her father and brothers had shown him. "n.o.ble maid," he went on, "this is only the first flash of love with you. After awhile you will smile at yourself about it when you find a knight who is fitter for you to marry and not three times older than you as I am, and then I will give you broad lands and territories even to a half of my kingdom across the seas and I'll always be ready to fight for you in your troubles. I'll do this, dear girl, but more I cannot."

"Of all this I care for nothing," Elaine said growing deathly pale and falling in a swoon.

That evening Lancelot sent for his shield from the tower where Elaine sat with it, and as his horse's hoofs clattered off upon the stone of the highway she looked down from her tower, but he did not glance back.

After that Elaine dreamed her time sadly away in the tower and only wished that she could die. She begged her father to send for the priest to confess her and asked Lavaine to write a letter for her to Lancelot.

Then she arranged it that when she died the dumb old man at the gate was to take her in the barge down the river to the king's palace. Eleven days later this was done. Elaine was dressed like a little sleeping queen and floated along the stream with her letter in one hand and a lily in the other.

That day Lancelot was with the queen and as he looked out of the cas.e.m.e.nt upon the river he saw the barge hung with rich black samite, the dumb old man and the lily maid of Astolat gliding up to the palace door.

"What is it?" cried everybody streaming round. "A pale fairy queen come to take Arthur to fairy land?"

Then the king bade meek Sir Percival and pure Sir Galahad carry her reverently into the hall where the fine Gawain came and wondered at her and Lancelot came and mused over her, and the queen came and pitied her.

But King Arthur spied a letter, opened it and read it aloud to all the lords and ladies. It was Elaine's goodbye to Lancelot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PALE FAIRY QUEEN CAME TO TAKE ARTHUR TO FAIRY LAND.]

Then Sir Lancelot told them everything about Elaine and how he had promised to give her his lands and riches when she should be ready to marry some knight of her own age. The king said that he should see that she was buried very grandly. So they had a procession with all the pomp of a queen, with gorgeous ceremonies, ma.s.s and rolling music while all the Order of the Round Table followed her to the tomb. Then they laid the shield of Lancelot at her feet and put a lily in her hand.

THE HOLY GRAIL.

One day a new monk came into the abbey beyond Camelot. There was something about him different from all the other monks there. He was so polished and clever that old Ambrosious who had lived in the old monastery for fifty years and had never seen a bit of the world guessed in a minute that the new brother had come from King Arthur's court. And one windy April morning as Ambrosious stood under the yew tree with this gentle monk he asked him why he left the Knights of the Round Table.

Then Sir Percival answered:

"It was the sweet vision of the Holy Grail."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE HOLY GRAIL," CRIED AMBROSIOUS.]

"The Holy Grail," cried Ambrosious. "Heaven knows I don't know much, but what is that, the phantom of a cup that comes and goes?"

"No, no," said Percival, "what phantom do you mean? It's the cup that our Lord drank from at his sad last supper, and after he died Joseph of Aramathea brought it to Glas...o...b..ry at Christmas time, and there it stayed a while and every one who looked at it or touched it was healed of their sicknesses. But the times grew so wicked that the cup was caught up into heaven where n.o.body could see it."

"Yes, I remember reading in our old books," said Ambrosious, "how Joseph built a lonely little church at Glas...o...b..ry on the marsh, but that was long ago. Who first saw the vision of the Holy Grail to-day?"

"A woman," said Sir Percival, "a nun, my sister who was a holy maid if ever there was one. The old man to whom she used to tell her sins (or what she called her sins), often spoke to her about the legend of the Holy Grail which had been handed down through six people, each of them a hundred years old, from the Lord's time. And when Arthur made the order of the Round Table and all hearts became clean and pure for a time this old man thought surely the Holy Grail would come back again. 'O Christ!'

he used to say to my sister, 'if only it would come back and help all the world of its wickedness!' And then my sister asked him whether it might come to her by prayer and fasting.

"'Perhaps,' said the father, 'for your heart is as pure as snow.'

"So she prayed and fasted until the sun shone and the wind blew through her and one day she sent for me. Her eyes were so beautiful with the light of holiness that I did not know them.

"'Sweet Brother,' she said, 'I have seen the Holy Grail. I heard a sound like a silver horn but sweeter than any music we can make, and then a cold silver beam of light streamed in through my cell, and down the beam stole the Holy Grail, rose red and throbbing as if it were alive. All the walls of my cell grew rosy red with quivering rosy colors. Then the music faded away, the Holy Grail vanished and the colors died out in the darkness. So now we know the Holy Thing is here again, Brother fast, too, and pray, and tell your brother-knights about it, then perhaps the vision may be seen by you all, and the whole world will be healed.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: MY KNIGHT OF HEAVEN, GO FORTH.]

"So I told all the knights and we fasted and prayed for many weeks. Then my sister cut off all her long streaming silken hair which used to fall to her feet and out of it braided a strong sword belt and with silver and crimson thread she wove into it a crimson grail in a silver beam.

Then she bound it on our beautiful boy knight, Sir Galahad, and said:

"'My knight of heaven, go forth, for you shall see what I have seen and far in the spiritual city you will be crowned king.' Then she sent the deathless pa.s.sion of her eyes through him and he believed what she said.

"Then came a year of miracles. In our great hall there stood a chair which Merlin had fashioned carved with strange figures like a serpent and in and out among the strange figures ran a scroll of strange letters in a language n.o.body knew like a serpent. Merlin called it the Seat Perilous, because he said if any one sat in it he would get lost. And Galahad said that if he got lost in it he would save himself. So one summer night Sir Galahad sat down in the chair and all at once there was a cracking of the roofs above us, and a blast and thunder, and in the thunder there was a cry and in the blast there was a beam of light seven times clearer than the daylight. Down the beam stole the Holy Grail all covered over with a luminous cloud. Then it pa.s.sed away but every knight saw his brother knight's faces in a glory and we all rose and stared at each other until at last I found my voice and swore a vow.

"I swore that because I had not seen the Holy Grail behind the cloud I would ride away a year and a day in quest of it until I could see it as my sister saw it. Galahad swore too, and good Sir Bors, and Lancelot and many others, knights, and Gawain louder than all the rest.

"The king was not in the hall that day for he had gone out to help some poor maiden, but as he came back over the plains beyond Camelot he saw the roofs rolling in smoke and thought that his wonderfully dear, beautiful hall which Merlin had built for him so wonderfully was afire.

So he rode fast and rushed into the tumult of knights and asked me what it all meant.

"'Woe is me!' cried the king when I told him. 'Had I been here you would not have sworn the vows.'

"'My king,' I answered boldly, had you been here you would have sworn the vows yourself.'

"'Yes, yes,' said he, 'are you so bold when you didn't see the Grail?

You didn't see farther than the cloud, and what can you expect to see now if you go out into the wilderness?'

"'No, no, Lord, I didn't see the Grail, I heard the sound, I saw the light and since I didn't see the holy thing I swore the vow that I would follow it until I did see.'

"'Then he asked us, knight by knight, whether we had seen it and each one said, 'No, no, Lord, that was why we swore our vows,' but suddenly Galahad called out, 'But I saw the Holy Grail, Sir Arthur, and heard the cry, "O Galahad, follow me."'

"Ah, Galahad, Galahad,' said the king, 'the vision is for such as you and for your holy nun but not for these. Are you all Galahads or all Percivals? No, no, you are just men with the strength to right the wrongs and violences of the land. But now since one has seen, all the blind want to see. However, since you have made the vow, go. But oh, how often the distressed people of the kingdom will come into the hall for you to help them and all your chairs will be vacant while you are out chasing a fire in the quagmire! Many of you, yes, most of you will never come back again! But come to-morrow before you go, let us have one more day of field sports so that before you go I can rejoice in the unbroken strength of the Order I have made.'

"So the next day there was the greatest tournament that Camelot had ever seen, and Galahad and I, with a strength which we had received from the vision, overthrew so many knights that all the people cheered hotly for Sir Galahad and Sir Percival. The next morning all the rich balconies along the streets of Camelot were laden with ladies and showers of flowers fell over us as we pa.s.sed out and men and boys astride lions and dragons, griffins and swans at the street corners, called us all by name and cried, 'G.o.d Speed!' while many lords and ladies wept. Then we came down to the gate of The Three Queens and there each one went on his own way.

"I was feeling glad over my victories in the lists and thought the sky never looked so blue nor the earth so green. All my blood danced within me for I knew that I would see the Holy Grail. But after a while I thought of the dark warning of the king. I looked about and saw that I was quite alone in a sandy th.o.r.n.y place, and I thought I would die of thirst. Then I came to a deep lawn with a flowing brook and apple trees overhanging it. But while I was drinking of the water and eating of the apples they all turned to dust, and I was alone and thirsty again in among the sands and thorns. Next I saw a woman spinning beside a beautiful house. She rose to greet me and stretched out her arms to welcome me into her house to rest, but as soon as I touched her she fell to dust, and the house turned into a shed with a dead baby inside, and then it fell to dust too.

"Then I rode on and found a big hill and on the top was a walled city, the spires with incredible pinnacles reaching up to the sky, and at the gateway there was a crowd of people who cried out to me: