No More Learning

She
was too afraid of Geraint to speak with him about it, but when he had
fallen asleep she stepped lightly about the room and gathered the pieces
of his armor together in one place ready for an early departure on the
morrow. Then she dropped off into slumber. But suddenly she heard a loud
sound, the earl with his wild following blowing his trumpet to call her
to come out, she thought. But it was only the great red cock in the
yard below crowing at the daylight which had begun to glimmer now across
the heap of Geraint's armor. She rose immediately in her fright to see
that all was well, went over to examine the weapons and unwittingly let
the casque fall jangling to the floor. This woke Geraint, who started up
and stared at her.

"My lord," began Enid, and then she told him all that Earl Limours had
said to her and how she had put him off by telling him to come this
morning.

"Call the woman of the house and tell her to bring the charger and the
palfrey," Geraint cried angrily. "Your sweet face makes fools of good
fellows. " Geraint loved Enid still and he was in as great perplexity as
she, for after misunderstanding what she had said he no more knew
whether she cared for him truly than she knew what was troubling him and
making him act in this unaccountable manner.

Enid slipped through the sleeping household like a ghost to deliver the
prince's message to the landlord, hurried back to help Geraint with his
armor and came down with him to spring upon her palfrey.

"What do I owe you, friends? " the prince asked his host, but before the
man could reply he added "take those five horses and their burdens of
arms. "

"My lord, I have scarcely spent the price of one of them on you! " cried
the landlord astonished.
"You'll have all the more riches then," the prince laughed, then turning
to Enid, "today I charge you more particularly than ever before that
whatever you may see, hear, fancy or imagine, do not speak to me, but
obey. "

"Yes, my lord," answered Enid, "I know your wish and should like to
obey, but when I go riding ahead, I hear all the violent threats you do
not hear and see the danger you cannot see, and then not to give you
warning seems hard, almost beyond me. Yet, I wish to obey you. "

"Do so, then," said he. "Do not be too wise, seeing that you are
married, not to a clown but a strong man with arms to guard his own head
and yours, too. "

The broad beaten path which they now took passed through toward the
wasted lands bordering on the castle of Earl Doorm, the Bull, as his
people called him, because of his ferocity.

It was still early morning when Enid caught the sound of quantities of
hoofs galloping up the road. Turning round she saw cloudsful of dust and
the points of lances sparkling in it. Then, not to disobey the prince,
yet to give him warning, she held up her finger and pointed toward the
dust. Geraint was pleased at her cunning, and immediately stopped his
horse. The moment after, the Earl of Limours dashed in upon him on a
charger as black and as stormy as a thunder-cloud.

Geraint closed with the earl, bore down on him with his spear, and in a
minute brought him stunned or dead to the ground. Then he turned to the
next-comer after Limours, overthrew him and blindly rushed back upon all
the men behind. But they were so startled at the flash and movement of
the prince that they scrambled away in a panic, leaving their leader
lying on the public highway. The horses also of the fallen warriors
whisked off from their wounded masters and wildly flew away to mix with
the vanishing mob.

"Horse and man, all of one mind," remarked Geraint, smiling, "not a hoof
of them left.