The Once and Future King. T. H. White

these chickens. You’re eatin’ nothin’ this mornin’.’

      King Pellinore said, ‘I don’t think I will, thank you all the same. I don’t think I feel quite the thing, this morning, what?’

      Sir Grummore took his nose out of his chop and inquired sharply, ‘Nerves?’

      ‘Oh, no,’ cried King Pellinore. ‘Oh, no, really not that, what? I think I must have taken something last night that disagreed with me.’

      ‘Nonsense, my dear fellah,’ said Sir Ector, ‘here you are, just you have a few chickens to keep your strength up.’

      He helped the unfortunate King to two or three capons, and the latter sat down miserably at the end of the table, trying to swallow a few bits of them.

      ‘Need them,’ said Sir Grummore meaningly, ‘by the end of the day, I dare say.’

      ‘Do you think so?’

      ‘Know so,’ said Sir Grummore, and winked at his host.

      The Wart noticed that Sir Ector and Sir Grummore were eating with rather exaggerated gusto. He did not feel that he could manage more than one chop himself, and, as for Kay, he had stayed away from the breakfast-room altogether.

      When breakfast was over, and Master Twyti had been consulted, the Boxing Day cavalcade moved off to the Meet. Perhaps the hounds would have seemed rather a mixed pack to a master of hounds today. There were half a dozen black and white alaunts, which looked like greyhounds with the heads of bull-terriers or worse. These, which were the proper hounds for boars, wore muzzles because of their ferocity. The gaze-hounds, of which there were two taken just in case, were in reality nothing but greyhounds according to modern language, while the lymers were a sort of mixture between the bloodhound and the red setter of today. The latter had collars on, and were led with straps. The brachets were like beagles, and trotted along with the master in the way that beagles always have trotted, and a charming way it is.

      With the hounds went the foot-people. Merlyn, in his running breeches, looked rather like Lord Baden-Powell, except, of course, that the latter did not wear a beard. Sir Ector was dressed in ‘sensible’ leather clothes – it was not considered sporting to hunt in armour – and he walked beside Master Twyti with that bothered and important expression which has always been worn by masters of hounds. Sir Grummore, just behind, was puffing and asking everybody whether they had sharpened their spears. King Pellinore had dropped back among the villagers, feeling that there was safety in numbers. All the villagers were there, every male soul on the estate from Hob the austringer down to old Wat with no nose, every man carrying a spear or a pitchfork or a worn scythe blade on a stout pole. Even some of the young women who were courting had come out, with baskets of provisions for the men. It was a regular Boxing Day Meet.

      At the edge of the forest the last follower joined up. He was a tall, distinguished-looking person dressed in green, and he carried a seven-foot bow.

      ‘Good morning, Master,’ he said pleasantly to Sir Ector.

      ‘Ah, yes,’ said Sir Ector. ‘Yes, yes, good mornin’, eh? Yes, good mornin’.’

      He led the gentleman in green aside and said in a loud whisper that could be heard by everybody, ‘For heaven’s sake, my dear fellow, do be careful. This is the King’s own huntsman, and those two other chaps are King Pellinore and Sir Grummore. Now do be a good chap, my dear fellow, and don’t say anything controversial, will you, old boy, there’s a good chap?’

      ‘Certainly I won’t,’ said the green man reassuringly, ‘but I think you had better introduce me to them.’

      Sir Ector blushed deeply and called out: ‘Ah, Grummore, come over here a minute, will you? I want to introduce a friend of mine, old chap, a chap called Wood, old chap – Wood with a W, you know, not an H. Yes, and this is King Pellinore. Master Wood – King Pellinore.’

      ‘Hail,’ said King Pellinore, who had not quite got out of the habit when nervous.

      ‘How do?’ said Sir Grummore. ‘No relation to Robin Hood, I suppose?’

      ‘Oh, not in the least,’ interrupted Sir Ector hastily. ‘Double you, double owe, dee, you know, like the stuff they make furniture out of – furniture, you know, and spears, and – well – spears, you know, and furniture.’

      ‘How do you do?’ said Robin.

      ‘Hail,’ said King Pellinore.

      ‘Well,’ said Sir Grummore, ‘it is funny you should both wear green.’

      ‘Yes, it is funny, isn’t it?’ said Sir Ector anxiously. ‘He wears it in mournin’ for an aunt of his, who died by fallin’ out of a tree.’

      ‘Beg pardon, I’m sure,’ said Sir Grummore, grieved at having touched upon this tender subject – and all was well.

      ‘Now, then, Mr Wood,’ said Sir Ector when he had recovered. ‘Where shall we go for our first draw?’

      As soon as this question had been put, Master Twyti was fetched into the conversation, and a brief confabulation followed in which all sorts of technical terms like ‘lesses’ were bandied about. Then there was a long walk in the wintry forest, and the fun began.

      Wart had lost the panicky feeling which had taken hold of his stomach when he was breaking his fast. The exercise and the snow-wind had breathed him, so that his eyes sparkled almost as brilliantly as the frost crystals in the white winter sunlight, and his blood raced with the excitement of the chase. He watched the lymerer who held the two bloodhound dogs on their leashes, and saw the dogs straining more and more as the boar’s lair was approached. He saw how, one by one and ending with the gaze-hounds – who did not hunt by scent – the various hounds became uneasy and began to whimper with desire. He noticed Robin pause and pick up some lesses, which he handed to Master Twyti, and then the whole cavalcade came to a halt. They had reached the dangerous spot.

      Boar-hunting was like cub-hunting to this extent, that the boar was attempted to be held up. The object of the hunt was to kill him as quickly as possible. Wart took up his position in the circle round the monster’s lair, and knelt down on one knee in the snow, with the handle of his spear couched on the ground, ready for emergencies. He felt the hush which fell upon the company, and saw Master Twyti wave silently to the lymerer to uncouple his hounds. The two lymers plunged immediately into the covert which the hunters surrounded. They ran mute.

      There were five long minutes during which nothing happened. The hearts beat thunderously in the circle, and a small vein on the side of each neck throbbed in harmony with each heart. The heads turned quickly from side to side, as each man assured himself of his neighbours, and the breath of life streamed away on the north wind sweetly, as each realized how beautiful life was, which a reeking tusk might, in a few seconds, rape away from one or another of them if things went wrong.

      The boar did not express his fury with his voice. There was no uproar in the covert or yelping from the lymers. Only, about a hundred yards away from the Wart, there was suddenly a black creature standing on the edge of the clearing. It did not seem to be a boar particularly, not in the first seconds that it stood there. It had come too quickly to seem to be anything. It was charging Sir Grummore before the Wart had recognized what it was.

      The black thing rushed over the white snow, throwing up little puffs of it. Sir Grummore – also looking black against the snow – turned a quick somersault in a larger puff. A kind of grunt, but no noise of falling, came clearly on the north wind, and then the boar was gone. When it was gone, but not before, the Wart knew certain things about it – things which he had not had time to notice while the boar was there. He remembered the rank mane of bristles standing upright on its razor back, one flash of a sour tush, the staring ribs, the head held low, and the red flame from a piggy eye.

      Sir Grummore got up, dusting snow out of himself unhurt, blaming his spear. A few drops of blood were to be seen frothing on the white earth. Master Twyti put his horn to his lips. The alaunts were uncoupled as the exciting notes of the menee began to ring through the forest and then the