The Once and Future King. T. H. White

I’m not’ – ‘Yes, you are,’ until it was safely on. Then they retreated to opposite ends of the clearing, got their weight upon their toes, and came rumbling and thundering together like two runaway trams.

      Unfortunately they were now so cross that they had both ceased to be vigilant, and in the fury of the moment they missed each other altogether. The momentum of their armour was too great for them to stop till they had passed each other handsomely, and then they manœuvred about in such a manner that neither happened to come within the other’s range of vision. It was funny watching them because King Pellinore, having already been caught from behind once, was continually spinning round to look behind him, and Sir Grummore, having used the stratagem himself, was doing the same thing. Thus they wandered for some five minutes, standing still, listening, clanking, crouching, creeping, peering, walking on tiptoe, and occasionally making a chance swipe behind their backs. Once they were standing within a few feet of each other, back to back, only to stalk off in opposite directions with infinite precaution, and once King Pellinore did hit Sir Grummore with one of his back strokes, but they both immediately spun round so often that they became giddy and mislaid each other afresh.

      After five minutes Sir Grummore said, ‘All right, Pellinore. It is no use hidin’. I can see where you are.’

      ‘I am not hiding,’ exclaimed King Pellinore indignantly. ‘Where am I?’

      They discovered each other and went up close together, face to face.

      ‘Cad,’ said Sir Grummore.

      ‘Yah,’ said King Pellinore.

      They turned round and marched off to their corners, seething with indignation.

      ‘Swindler,’ shouted Sir Grummore.

      ‘Beastly bully,’ shouted King Pellinore.

      With this they summoned all their energies together for one decisive encounter, leaned forward, lowered their heads like two billy-goats, and positively sprinted together for the final blow. Alas, their aim was poor. They missed each other by about five yards, passed at full steam doing at least eight knots, like ships that pass in the night but speak not to each other in passing, and hurtled onward to their doom. Both knights began waving their arms like windmills, anti-clockwise, in the vain effort to slow up. Both continued with undiminished speed. Then Sir Grummore rammed his head against the beech in which the Wart was sitting, and King Pellinore collided with a chestnut at the other side of the clearing. The trees shook, the forest rang. Blackbirds and squirrels cursed and wood-pigeons flew out of their leafy perches half a mile away. The two knights stood to attention while one could count three. Then, with a last unanimous melodious clang, they both fell prostrate on the fatal sward.

      ‘Stunned,’ said Merlyn, ‘I should think.’

      ‘Oh, dear,’ said the Wart. ‘Ought we to get down and help them?’

      ‘We could pour water on their heads,’ said Merlyn reflectively, ‘if there was any water. But I don’t suppose they would thank us for making their armour rusty. They will be all right. Besides, it is time that we were home.’

      ‘But they might be dead!’

      ‘They are not dead, I know. In a minute or two they will come round and go off home to dinner.’

      ‘Poor King Pellinore has not got a home.’

      ‘Then Sir Grummore will invite him to stay the night. They will be the best of friends when they come to. They always are.’

      ‘Do you think so?’

      ‘My dear boy, I know so. Shut your eyes and we will be off.’

      The Wart gave in to Merlyn’s superior knowledge. ‘Do you think,’ he asked with his eyes shut, ‘that Sir Grummore has a feather bed?’

      ‘Probably.’

      ‘Good,’ said the Wart. ‘That will be nice for King Pellinore, even if he was stunned.’

      The Latin words were spoken and the secret passes made. The funnel of whistling noise and space received them. In two seconds they were lying under the grandstand, and the sergeant’s voice was calling from the opposite side of the tilting ground, ‘Nah then, Master Art, nah then. You’ve been a-snoozing there long enough. Come aht into the sunlight ’ere with Master Kay, one-two, one-two, and see some real tilting.’

Chapter VIII

      It was a cold wet evening, such as may happen even toward the end of August, and the Wart did not know how to bear himself indoors. He spent some time in the kennels talking to Cavall, then wandered off to help them turn the spit in the kitchen. But there it was too hot. He was forced to stay indoors because of the rain, by his female supervisors, as happens too frequently to the unhappy children of our generation, but the mere wetness and dreariness in the open discouraged him from going out. He hated everybody.

      ‘Confound the boy,’ said Sir Ector. ‘For goodness’ sake stop mopin’ by that window there, and go and find your tutor. When I was a boy we always used to study on wet days, yes, and eddicate our minds.’

      ‘Wart is stupid,’ said Kay.

      ‘Ah, run along, my duck,’ said their old nurse. ‘I han’t got time to attend to thy mopseys now, what with all this sorbent washing.’

      ‘Now then, my young master,’ said Hob. ‘Let thee run off to thy quarters, and stop confusing they fowls.’

      ‘Nah, nah,’ said the sergeant. ‘You ’op orf art of ’ere. I got enough to do a-polishing of this ber-lady harmour.’

      Even the Dog Boy barked at him when he went back to the kennels.

      Wart draggled off to the tower room, where Merlyn was busy knitting himself a woollen night-cap for the winter.

      ‘I cast off now together at every other line,’ said the magician, ‘but for some reason it seems to end too sharply. Like an onion. It is the turning of the heel that does one, every time.’

      ‘I think I ought to have some eddication,’ said the Wart. ‘I can’t think of anything to do.’

      ‘You think that education is something which ought to be done when all else fails?’ inquired Merlyn nastily, for he was in a bad mood too.

      ‘Well,’ said the Wart, ‘some sorts of education.’

      ‘Mine?’ asked the magician with flashing eyes.

      ‘Oh, Merlyn,’ exclaimed the Wart without answering, ‘please give me something to do, because I feel so miserable. Nobody wants me for anything today, and I just don’t know how to be sensible. It rains so.’

      ‘You should learn to knit.’

      ‘Could I go out and be something, a fish or anything like that?’

      ‘You have been a fish,’ said Merlyn. ‘Nobody with any go needs to do their education twice.’

      ‘Well, could I be a bird?’

      ‘If you knew anything at all,’ said Merlyn, ‘which you do not, you would know that a bird does not like to fly in the rain because it wets its feathers and makes them stick together. They get bedraggled.’

      ‘I could be a hawk in Hob’s mews,’ said the Wart stoutly. ‘Then I should be indoors and not get wet.’

      ‘That is pretty ambitious,’ said the old man, ‘to want to be a hawk.’

      ‘You know you will turn me into a hawk when you want to,’ shouted the Wart, ‘but you like to plague me because it is wet. I won’t have it.’

      ‘Hoity-toity!’

      ‘Please,’ said the Wart, ‘dear Merlyn, turn me into a hawk. If you don’t do that I shall do something. I don’t know what.’

      Merlyn