The Once and Future King. T. H. White

home again with all his friends, and everything achieved.

      Hob said gruffly, ‘Ah, Master, us shall make an austringer of ’ee yet.’

      He came for Cully, as if he could not keep his hands off him longer, but he patted the Wart too, fondling them both because he was not sure which he was gladder to see back. He took Cully on his own fist, reassuming him like a lame man putting on his accustomed wooden leg, after it had been lost.

      ‘Merlyn caught him,’ said the Wart. ‘He sent Archimedes to look for him on the way home. Then Archimedes told us that he had been and killed a pigeon and was eating it. We went and frightened him off. After that, Merlyn stuck six of the tail feathers round the pigeon in a circle, and made a loop in a long piece of string to go round the feathers. He tied one end to a stick in the ground, and we went away behind a bush with the other end. He said he would not use magic. He said you could not use magic in Great Arts, just as it would be unfair to make a great statue by magic. You have to cut it out with a chisel, you see. Then Cully came down to finish the pigeon, and we pulled the string, and the loop slipped over the feathers and caught him round the legs. He was angry! But we gave him the pigeon.’

      Hob made a duty to Merlyn, who returned it courteously. They looked upon one another with grave affection, knowing each other to be masters of the same trade. When they could be alone together they would talk about falconry, although Hob was naturally a silent man. Meanwhile they must wait their time.

      ‘Oh, Kay,’ cried the Wart, as the latter appeared with their nurse and other delighted welcomers. ‘Look, I have got a magician for our tutor. He has a mustard-pot that walks.’

      ‘I am glad you are back,’ said Kay.

      ‘Alas, where did you sleep, Master Art?’ exclaimed the nurse. ‘Look at your clean jerkin all muddied and torn. Such a turn as you gave us. I really don’t know. But look at your poor hair with all them twigs in it. Oh, my own random, wicked little lamb.’

      Sir Ector came bustling out with his greaves on back to front, and kissed the Wart on both cheeks. ‘Well, well, well,’ he exclaimed moistly. ‘Here we are again, hey? What the devil have we been doin’, hey? Settin’ the whole household upside down.’

      But inside himself he was proud of the Wart for staying out after a hawk, and prouder still to see that he had got it, for all the while Hob held the bird in the air for everybody to see.

      ‘Oh, sir,’ said the Wart, ‘I have been on that quest you said for a tutor, and I have found him. Please, he is this gentleman here, and he is called Merlyn. He has got some badgers and hedgehogs and mice and ants and things on this white donkey here, because we could not leave them behind to starve. He is a great magician, and can make things come out of the air.’

      ‘Ah, a magician,’ said Sir Ector, putting on his glasses and looking closely at Merlyn. ‘White magic, I hope?’

      ‘Assuredly,’ said Merlyn, who stood patiently among the throng with his arms folded in his necromantic gown, while Archimedes sat very stiff and elongated on the top of his head.

      ‘Ought to have some testimonials,’ said Sir Ector doubtfully. ‘It’s usual.’

      ‘Testimonials,’ said Merlyn, holding out his hand.

      Instantly there were some heavy tablets in it, signed by Aristotle, a parchment signed by Hecate, and some typewritten duplicates signed by the Master of Trinity, who could not remember having met him. All these gave Merlyn an excellent character.

      ‘He had ’em up his sleeve,’ said Sir Ector wisely. ‘Can you do anything else?’

      ‘Tree,’ said Merlyn. At once there was an enormous mulberry growing in the middle of the courtyard, with its luscious blue fruits ready to patter down. This was all the more remarkable, since mulberries only became popular in the days of Cromwell.

      ‘They do it with mirrors,’ said Sir Ector.

      ‘Snow,’ said Merlyn. ‘And an umbrella,’ he added hastily.

      Before they could turn round, the copper sky of summer had assumed a cold and lowering bronze, while the biggest white flakes that ever were seen were floating about them and settling on the battlements. An inch of snow had fallen before they could speak, and all were trembling with the wintry blast. Sir Ector’s nose was blue, and had an icicle hanging from the end of it, while all except Merlyn had a ledge of snow upon their shoulders. Merlyn stood in the middle, holding his umbrella high because of the owl.

      ‘It’s done by hypnotism,’ said Sir Ector, with chattering teeth. ‘Like those wallahs from the Indies.

      ‘But that’ll do,’ he added hastily, ‘that’ll do very well. I’m sure you’ll make an excellent tutor for teachin’ these boys.’

      The snow stopped immediately and the sun came out – ‘Enough to give a body a pewmonia,’ said the nurse, ‘or to frighten the elastic commissioners’ – while Merlyn folded up his umbrella and handed it back to the air, which received it.

      ‘Imagine the boy doin’ a quest like that by himself,’ exclaimed Sir Ector. ‘Well, well, well! Wonders never cease.’

      ‘I do not think much of it as a quest,’ said Kay. ‘He only went after the hawk, after all.’

      ‘And got the hawk, Master Kay,’ said Hob reprovingly.

      ‘Oh, well,’ said Kay, ‘I bet the old man caught it for him.’

      ‘Kay,’ said Merlyn, suddenly terrible, ‘thou wast ever a proud and ill-tongued speaker, and a misfortunate one. Thy sorrow will come from thine own mouth.’

      At this everybody felt uncomfortable, and Kay, instead of flying into his usual passion, hung his head. He was not at all an unpleasant person really, but clever, quick, proud, passionate and ambitious. He was one of those people who would be neither a follower nor a leader, but only an aspiring heart, impatient in the failing body which imprisoned it. Merlyn repented of his rudeness at once. He made a little silver hunting knife come out of the air, which he gave him to put things right. The knob of the handle was made of the skull of a stoat, oiled and polished like ivory, and Kay loved it.

Chapter V

      Sir Ector’s home was called The Castle of the Forest Sauvage. It was more like a town or a village than any one man’s home, and indeed it was the village during times of danger: for this part of the story is one which deals with troubled times. Whenever there was a raid or an invasion by some neighbouring tyrant, everybody on the estate hurried into the castle, driving the beasts before them into the courts, and there they remained until the danger was over. The wattle and daub cottages nearly always got burned, and had to be rebuilt afterwards with much profanity. For this reason it was not worth while to have a village church, as it would constantly be having to be replaced. The villagers went to church in the chapel of the castle. They wore their best clothes and trooped up the street with their most respectable gait on Sundays, looking with vague and dignified looks in all directions, as if reluctant to disclose their destination, and on week-days they came to Mass and vespers in their ordinary clothes, walking much more cheerfully. Everybody went to church in those days, and liked it.

      The Castle of the Forest Sauvage is still standing, and you can see its lovely ruined walls with ivy on them, standing broached to the sun and wind. Some lizards live there now, and the starving sparrows keep warm on winter nights in the ivy, and a barn owl drives it methodically, hovering outside the frightened congregations and beating the ivy with its wings, to make them fly out. Most of the curtain wall is down, though you can trace the foundations of the twelve round towers which guarded it. They were round, and stuck out from the walls into the moat, so that the archers could shoot in all directions and command every part of the wall. Inside the towers there are circular stairs. These go round and round a central column, and this column is pierced with holes for shooting arrows. Even if the enemy had got inside the curtain wall and fought their way into the bottom