No More Learning

Geraint sprang forward and the tourney was begun. Three times the two
warriors clashed together. _Three times they broke their spears. _ Then
both were thrown from their horses. They now drew their swords; and
with them lashed at one another so frequently and with such dreadfully
hard strokes that all the crowd wondered. Now and again from the distant
walls came the sounds of applause, like the clapping of phantom hands.
The perspiration and the blood flowed together down the strong bodies of
the combatants. Each was as sturdy as the other.

[Illustration]

"Remember the great insult done our queen! " Earl Yniol cried at last.

This so inflamed Geraint that he heaved his vast sword-blade aloft,
cracked through his enemy's helmet, bit into the bone of his head,
felled the haughty knight, and set his feet upon his breast.

"Your name! " demanded Geraint.

"Edryn, the son of Nudd," groaned the fallen warrior.

"Very well, then Edryn, the son of Nudd," returned Geraint, "you must do
these two things or else you will have to die.
First, you with your lady
and your dwarf must ride to Arthur's court at Caerleon and crave their
pardon for the insult you did the queen yesterday morning, and you must
bide her decree in the punishment she awards you. Secondly, you must
give back the earldom to your uncle the Earl of Yniol. You will do these
two things or you die. "

"I will do them," cried Edryn. "For never before was I ever overcome.
But now all of my pride is broken down, for Enid has seen me fall. "

With that Edryn rose from the ground like a man, took his lady and the
dwarf on their horses to Arthur's court. There receiving the sweet
forgiveness of the queen, he became a true knight of the Round Table,
and at the last died in battle while he fought for his king.

But Geraint when the tourney was over and he had come back to the
castle, drew Enid aside to tell her that early the next morning he would
have to start for Caerleon and that she should be ready to ride away
with him to be married at the court with tremendous pomp. For that would
be three days after the King's chase, when the prince had promised Queen
Guinevere he would be back. But of that he did not speak to Enid, who
wondered why he was so bent on returning immediately, and why she could
not have time at home to prepare herself some pretty robes to wear.

Imagine, she thought, such a grand and frightful thing as a court, the
queen's court, with all the graceful ladies staring at her in that faded
old silk dress! And although she promised Geraint that she would go as
he wished, when she woke to the dread day for making her appearance at
court, she still yearned that he would only stay yet a little while so
that she could sew herself some clothes, that she had the flowered silk
which her mother had given her three years ago for her birthday and
which Edryn's men had robbed from her when they sacked the house and
scattered everything she ever owned to all the winds. How she wished
that handsome Geraint had known her then, those three years ago when she
wore so many pretty dresses and jewels!

But while she lay dreamily thinking, softly in trod her mother bearing
on her arm a gorgeous, delicate robe.

"Do you recognize it, child?