No More Learning

"So I came to Merlin to ask him whether that was all true about the
shining dragon-ship and the tiny bare baby floating down from heaven
over on the glory of the seas; but Merlin just laughed, as he always
does, and answered me in the riddles of the old song, this way:

"'Rain, rain and sun! a rainbow in the sky!
A young man will be wiser by and by;
An old man's wit may wander ere he die.
Rain, rain and sun! a rainbow on the lea!
And truth is this to me and that to thee;
And truth or clothed or naked let it be.
Rain, sun and rain! and the free blossom blows;
Sun, rain and sun! and where is he who knows.
From the great deep to the great deep he goes! '

"It vexed me dreadfully to have Merlin be so tantalizing; but you must
not be afraid, king, to give your only child Guinevere to this King
Arthur. For great poets will sing of his brave deeds in long years after
this; and Merlin has said, and not joking, either, that even although
Arthur's enemies may wound him in battle he will never, never die, but
will only pass away for a time, for a little while, and then will come
to us again. And Merlin says too, that sometime Arthur is going to
trample all the heathen kings under his feet until all the nations and
all the men will call him their king. "

It pleased Leodogran tremendously to hear what the Queen of Orkney told
him of Arthur, and when she had ended he lay thinking over it all, still
puzzled as to whether he should say "yes" or "no" to the ambassadors
whom Arthur had sent. As he lay buried in his thoughts he grew very,
very drowsy and dreamy, and at last, he fell asleep.
And while he slept
he saw a wonderful vision in a dream.

There was a strange, sloping land, rising before his eyes, that ascended
higher and higher, field after field, to a very great height and at the
top there was a lofty peak hidden in the heavy, hazy clouds; and on the
peak a phantom king stood. One moment the king was there, and the next
moment he was gone, while everything below him was in a frightful
confusion, a battle with swords, and the flocks of sheep and cattle
falling back, and all the villages burning and their smoke rolling up in
streams to the clouded pinnacle of the peak where the king stood in the
fog, hiding him the more. Now and then the king spoke out through the
haze, and some one here or there beneath would point upward toward him,
but the rest all went on fighting. They cried out, "He is no king of
ours, no son of Uther's, no king of ours. " Then in a twinkling the dream
all changed; the mists had quite blown away, the solid earth below the
peak had vanished like a bubble and only the wonderful king remained,
crowned with his diadems, standing in the heavens.

Then Leodogran while still looking at him woke from his sleep. He called
for Ulfius and Brastias and Bedevere, and when they had come into this
presence he told them that Arthur should marry the fair Princess
Guinevere, and he sent them galloping back to Arthur's court.

That was a joyful day for King Arthur when the three knights delivered
King Leodogran's message. He made ready at once for his sweet queen. He
picked out Lancelot, his favorite Knight of the Round Table, whom he
loved better than any other man in all the world, to ride over into the
Land of Cameliard and bring back Guinevere for his bride. And as
Lancelot mounted his dancing steed and rode away _Arthur watched him
from the palace gates_, thinking of the lovely lady who would ride by
his side when he returned.

[Illustration: LANCELOT MOUNTED HIS DANCING STEED. ]

Lancelot's horse trampled away among the flowers; for it was April when
he left the court of Arthur, and just one month later he came riding
back among the flowers of the May-time. Guinevere was with him on her
graceful palfrey.

Then Dubric, the head of the whole church in Britain, went out to meet
her.