The Once and Future King. T. H. White

XV

      It was Christmas night, the eve of the Boxing Day Meet. You must remember that this was in the old Merry England of Gramarye, when the rosy barons ate with their fingers, and had peacocks served before them with all their tail feathers streaming, or boar’s heads with the tusks stuck in again – when there was no unemployment because there were too few people to be employed – when the forests rang with knights walloping each other on the helm, and the unicorns in the wintry moonlight stamped with their silver feet and snorted their noble breaths of blue upon the frozen air. Such marvels were great and comfortable ones. But in the Old England there was a greater marvel still. The weather behaved itself.

      In the spring, the little flowers came out obediently in the meads, and the dew sparkled, and the birds sang. In the summer it was beautifully hot for no less than four months, and, if it did rain just enough for agricultural purposes, they managed to arrange it so that it rained while you were in bed. In the autumn the leaves flamed and rattled before the west winds, tempering their sad adieu with glory. And in the winter, which was confined by statute to two months, the snow lay evenly, three feet thick, but never turned into slush.

      It was Christmas night in The Castle of the Forest Sauvage, and all around the castle the snow lay as it ought to lie. It hung heavily on the battlements, like thick icing on a very good cake, and in a few convenient places it modestly turned itself into the clearest icicles of the greatest possible length. It hung on the boughs of the forest trees in rounded lumps, even better than apple-blossom, and occasionally slid off the roofs of the village when it saw the chance of falling on some amusing character and giving pleasure to all. The boys made snowballs with it, but never put stones in them to hurt each other, and the dogs, when they were taken out to scombre, bit it and rolled in it, and looked surprised but delighted when they vanished into the bigger drifts. There was skating on the moat, which roared with the gliding bones which they used for skates, while hot chestnuts and spiced mead were served on the bank to all and sundry. The owls hooted. The cooks put out plenty of crumbs for the small birds. The villagers brought out their red mufflers. Sir Ector’s face shone redder even than these. And reddest of all shone the cottage fires down the main street of an evening while the winds howled outside and the old English wolves wandered about slavering in an appropriate manner, or sometimes peeping in at the key-holes with their bloody-red eyes.

      It was Christmas night and the proper things had been done. The whole village had come to dinner in hall. There had been boar’s head and venison and pork and beef and mutton and capons – but no turkey, because this bird had not yet been invented. There had been plum pudding and snap-dragon, with blue fire on the tips of one’s fingers, and as much mead as anybody could drink. Sir Ector’s health had been drunk with ‘Best respects, Measter,’ or ‘Best compliments of the Season, my lords and ladies, and many of them.’ There had been murmurs to play an exciting dramatic presentation of a story in which St George and a Saracen and a funny Doctor did surprising things, also carol-singers who rendered ‘Adeste Fideles’ and ‘I Sing of a Maiden,’ in high, clear, tenor voices. After that, those children who had not been sick from their dinner played Hoodman Blind and other appropriate games, while the young men and maidens danced morris dances in the middle, the tables having been cleared away. The old folks sat round the walls holding glasses of mead in their hands and feeling thankful that they were past such capers, hoppings and skippings, while those children who had not been sick sat with them, and soon went to sleep, the small heads leaning against their shoulders. At the high table Sir Ector sat with his knightly guests, who had come for the morrow’s hunting, smiling and nodding and drinking burgundy or sherries sack or malmsey wine.

      After a bit, silence was prayed for Sir Grummore. He stood up and sang his old school song, amid great applause – but forgot most of it and had to make a humming noise in his moustache. Then King Pellinore was nudged to his feet and sang bashfully:

       Oh, I was born a Pellinore in famous Lincolnshire.

       Full well I chased the Questing Beast for more than seventeen year.

       Till I took up with Sir Grummore here

       In the season of the year.

       (Since when) ’tis my delight

       On a feather-bed night

       To sleep at home, my dear.

      ‘You see,’ explained King Pellinore blushing, as he sat down with everybody whacking him on the back, ‘old Grummore invited me home, what, after we had been having a pleasant joust together, and since then I’ve been letting my beastly Beast go and hang itself on the wall, what?’

      ‘Well done,’ they told him. ‘You live your own life while you’ve got it.’

      William Twyti was called for, who had arrived on the previous evening, and the famous huntsman stood up with a perfectly straight face, and his crooked eyes fixed upon Sir Ector, to sing:

       D’ye ken William Twyti

       With his jerkin so dragged?

       D’ye ken William Twyti

       Who never yet lagged?

       Yes, I ken William Twyti,

       And he ought to be gagged

       With his hounds and his horn in the morning.

      ‘Bravo!’ cried Sir Ector. ‘Did you hear that, eh? Said he ought to be gagged, my dear fellah. Blest if I didn’t think he was going to boast when he began. Splendid chaps, these huntsmen, eh? Pass Master Twyti the malmsey, with my compliments.’

      The boys lay curled up under the benches near the fire, Wart with Cavall in his arms. Cavall did not like the heat and the shouting and the smell of mead, and wanted to go away, but Wart held him tightly because he needed something to hug, and Cavall had to stay with him perforce, panting over a long pink tongue.

      ‘Now Ralph Passelewe.’ ‘Good wold Ralph.’ ‘Who killed the cow, Ralph?’ ‘Pray silence for Master Passelewe that couldn’t help it.’

      At this the most lively old man got up at the furthest and humblest end of the hall, as he had got up on all similar occasions for the past half-century. He was no less than eighty-five years of age, almost blind, almost deaf, but still able and willing and happy to quaver out the same song which he had sung for the pleasure of the Forest Sauvage since before Sir Ector was bound up in a kind of tight linen puttee in his cradle. They could not hear him at the high table – he was too far away in Time to be able to reach across the room – but everybody knew what the cracked voice was singing, and everybody loved it. This is what he sang;

       Whe-an/Wold King-Cole/was a/wakkin doon-t’street,

       H-e/saw a-lovely laid-y a/steppin-in-a-puddle./

       She-a/lifted hup-er-skeat/

       For to/

       Hop acrost ter middle,/

       An ee/saw her/an-kel.

       Wasn’t that a fuddle?/

       Ee could’ernt elp it,/ee Ad to.

      There were about twenty verses of this song, in which Wold King Cole helplessly saw more and more things that he ought not to have seen, and everybody cheered at the end of each verse until, at the conclusion, old Ralph was overwhelmed with congratulations and sat down smiling dimly to a replenished mug of mead.

      It was now Sir Ector’s turn to wind up the proceedings. He stood up importantly and delivered the following speech:

      ‘Friends, tenants and otherwise. Unaccustomed as I am to public speakin’ –’

      There was a faint cheer at this, for everybody recognized the speech which Sir Ector had made for the last twenty years, and welcomed it like a brother.

      ‘– unaccustomed as I am to public speakin’, it is my pleasant duty – I might say my very pleasant duty – to welcome all and sundry to this