No More Learning

That was in England which at that time was not England as it is today,
all one kingdom under a single ruler, but was divided into many bits of
kingdoms each with its own king and all warring against each other.
Arthur's kingdom was the most unpeaceful of all. This was because for
twenty years or more, ever since the death of old King Uther, the
country had been without a ruler. Old King Uther had died about a score
of years before without leaving an heir to the throne, and all the
nobles of the realm had immediately gone to war with one another each
trying to get the most land and each trying to get the throne for
himself.

[Illustration: OLD MERLIN APPEARS. ]

Suddenly, however, old Merlin, the wizard who had been King Uther's
magician, appeared one day in the royal council hall with a handsome
young man, Arthur, and declared him to be the king of the realm. Arthur
was crowned and for a time the nobles were quiet, for he ruled with a
strong hand of iron, put down all the evils in his kingdom and
everywhere gave it peace and order. People in every part of the island
sent for him and his knights, begging him to come to help them out of
their difficulties. But presently the nobles became troublesome again;
they said that Arthur was not the true king, that he was not the son of
Uther and that, therefore, he had no right to reign over them. So there
was fighting and unrest again, and in the midst of it Leodogran, the
king of the Land of Cameliard, asked Arthur to come with his knights and
drive away the enemies besetting him on every side. The country of
Cameliard had gone to waste and ruin, because of the continual warfare
that was waged with the kings that lived in the little neighboring
countries and a mass of wild-eyed foreign heathen peoples who invaded
the land. And so it happened that Cameliard was ravaged with battles,
its strong men were cut down with the sword and wild dogs, wolves, and
bears from the tangled weeds came rooting up the green fields and
wallowing into the palace gardens. Sometimes the wolves stole little
children from the villages and nursed them like their own cubs, until
finally these children grew up into a race of wolf-men who molested the
land worse than the wolves themselves. Then another king fought
Leodogran, and at last the heathen hordes came swarming from over the
seas and made all the earth red with his soldiers' blood, and they made
the sun red with the smoke of the burning homes of his people.

Leodogran simply did not know which way to turn for help until at last
he thought of young Arthur of the Round Table who recently had been
crowned king.
So Leodogran sent for Arthur beseeching him to come and
help him, for between the men and the beasts his country was dying.

[Illustration: PRINCESS GUINEVERE. ]

King Arthur and his men welcomed the chance and went at once into the
Land of Cameliard to drive away the heathen marauders. As he marched
with his men past the castle walls, pretty Princess Guinevere stood
outside to watch the glittering soldiers go by. Among so many richly
dressed knights she did not particularly notice Arthur, for he wore
nothing to show that he was king, although his kingly bearing and brave
forehead might suggest leadership. But no royal arms were engraved upon
his helmet or his shield, and he carried simple weapons not nearly so
gorgeously emblazoned as those of some of the others.

[Illustration: HE LED HIS WARRIORS BOLDLY. ]

Although Guinevere did not see the fair young King, Arthur spied her
beside the castle wall; he felt the light of her beautiful eyes
glimmering out into his heart and setting it all aflame with a fire of
love for her.

He led his warriors boldly to the forests where they pitched their
tents, then fought all the heathen until they scampered away to their
own territories, he slew the frightful wild beasts that had plundered
the fields, cut down the forest trees so as to open out roads for the
people of Cameliard to pass over from one part of their land to the
other, then he traveled quietly away with his men, back to fight his own
battles in his own country. For there was fighting everywhere in those
days. But all the time in Arthur's heart, while he was doing those
wonderful things for Leodogran, he was thinking still, not of Leodogran,
but of the lovely Guinevere, and yearning for her.

If only she could be his queen he thought they two together could rule
on his throne as one strong, sweet, delicious life, and could exert a
mighty power over all his people to make them good and wise and happy.
Each day increased his love until he could not bear even to think for a
moment of living without her. So from the very field of battle, while
the swords were flashing and clashing about him, as he fought the barons
and great lords who had risen up against him, Arthur dispatched three
messengers to Leodogran, the King of Cameliard.

These three messengers were Ulfius, Brastias and Bedivere, the very
first knight Arthur had knighted upon his throne. They went to Leodogran
and said that if Arthur had been of any service to him in his recent
troubles with the heathen and the wild beasts, he should give the
Princess Guinevere to be Arthur's wife as a mark of his good will.