The Once and Future King. T. White H.
his breeches and stopped to mend them up by magic.
The sergeant had thrown out his chest so far in crying Tally-ho and telling everybody which way they ought to run that he had lost all sense of place, and was leading a disconsolate party of villagers, in Indian file, at the double, with knees up, in the wrong direction. Hob was still in the running.
‘Swef, swef,’ panted the huntsman, addressing the Wart as if he had been a hound. ‘Not so fast, Master, they are going off the line.’
Even as he spoke, Wart noticed that the hound music was weaker and more querulous.
‘Stop,’ said Robin, ‘or we may tumble over him.’
The music died away.
‘Swef, swef!’ shouted Master Twyti at the top of his voice. ‘Sto arere, so howe, so howe!’ He swung his baldric in front of him, and, lifting the horn to his lips, began to blow a recheat.
There was a single note from one of the lymers.
‘Hoo arere,’ cried the huntsman.
The lymer’s note grew in confidence, faltered, then rose to the full bay.
‘Hoo arere! Here how, amy. Hark to Beaumont the valiant! Ho moy, ho moy, hole, hole, hole, hole.’
The lymer was taken up by the tenor bells of the brachets. The noises grew to a crescendo of excitement as the blood-thirsty thunder of the alaunts pealed through the lesser notes.
‘They have him,’ said Twyti briefly, and the three humans began to run again, while the huntsman blew encouragement with Trou-rou-root.
In a small bushment the grim boar stood at bay. He had got his hindquarters into the nook of a tree blown down by a gale, in an impregnable position. He stood on the defensive with his upper lip writhed back in a snarl. The blood of Sir Grummore’s gash welled fatly among the bristles of his shoulder and down his leg, while the foam of his chops dropped on the blushing snow and melted it. His small eyes darted in every direction. The hounds stood round, yelling at his mask, and Beaumont, with his back broken, writhed at his feet. He paid no further attention to the living hound, which could do him no harm. He was black, flaming and bloody.
‘So-ho,’ said the huntsman.
He advanced with his spear held in front of him, and the hounds, encouraged by their master, stepped forward with him pace by pace.
The scene changed as suddenly as a house of cards falling down. The boar was not at bay any more, but charging Master Twyti. As it charged, the alaunts closed in, seizing it fiercely by the shoulder or throat or leg, so that what surged down on the huntsman was not one boar but a bundle of animals. He dared not use his spear for fear of hurting the dogs. The bundle rolled forward unchecked, as if the hounds did not impede it at all. Twyti began to reverse his spear, to keep the charge off with its butt end, but even as he reversed it the tussle was upon him. He sprang back, tripped over a root, and the battle closed on top. The Wart pranced round the edge, waving his own spear in an agony, but there was nowhere he dared to thrust it in. Robin dropped his spear, drew his falchion in the same movement, stepped into the huddle of snarls, and calmly picked an alaunt up by the leg. The dog did not let go, but there was space where its body had been. Into this space the falchion went slowly, once, twice, thrice. The whole superstructure stumbled, recovered itself, stumbled again, and sank down ponderously on its left side. The hunt was over.
Master Twyti drew one leg slowly from under the boar, stood up, took hold of his knee with his right hand, moved it inquiringly in various directions, nodded to himself and stretched his back straight. Then he picked up his spear without saying anything and limped over to Beaumont. He knelt down beside him and took his head on his lap. He stroked Beaumont’s head and said, ‘Hark to Beaumont. Softly, Beaumont, mon amy. Oyez à Beaumont the Valiant. Swef, le douce Beaumont, swef, swef.’ Beaumont licked his hand but could not wag his tail. The huntsman nodded to Robin, who was standing behind, and held the hound’s eyes with his own. He said, ‘Good dog, Beaumont the valiant, sleep now, old friend Beaumont, good old dog.’ Then Robin’s falchion let Beaumont out of this world, to run free with Orion and roll among the stars.
The Wart did not like to watch Master Twyti for a moment. The strange, leathery man stood up without saying anything and whipped the hounds off the corpse of the boar as he was accustomed to do. He put his horn to his lips and blew the four long notes of the mort without a quaver. But he was blowing the notes for a different reason, and he startled the Wart because he seemed to be crying.
The mort brought most of the stragglers up in due time. Hob was there already and Sir Ector came next, whacking the brambles aside with his boar-spear, puffing importantly and shouting, ‘Well done, Twyti. Splendid hunt, very. That’s the way to chase a beast of venery, I will say. What does he weigh?’ The others dribbled in by batches, King Pellinore bounding along and crying out, ‘Tally-ho! Tally-ho! Tally-ho!’ in ignorance that the hunt was done. When informed of this, he stopped and said, ‘Tally-ho, what?’ in a feeble voice, then relapsed into silence. Even the sergeant’s Indian file arrived in the end, still doubling with knees up, and were halted in the clearing while the sergeant explained to them with great satisfaction that if it had not been for him, all would have been lost. Merlyn appeared holding up his running shorts, having failed in his magic. Sir Grummore came stumping along with Kay, saying that it had been one of the finest points he had ever seen run, although he had not seen it, and then the butcher’s business of the ‘undoing’ was proceeded with apace.
Over this there was a bit of excitement. King Pellinore, who had really been scarcely himself all day, made the fatal mistake of asking when the hounds were going to be given their quarry. Now, as everybody knows, a quarry is a reward of entrails, etc., which is given to the hounds on the hide of the dead beast (sur le quir), and, as everybody else knows, a slain boar is not skinned. It is disembowelled without the hide being taken off, and since there can be no hide, there can be no quarry. We all know that the hounds are rewarded with a fouail, or mixture of bowels and bread cooked over a fire, and, of course, poor King Pellinore had used the wrong word.
So King Pellinore was bent over the dead beast amid loud huzzas, and the protesting monarch was given a hearty smack with a sword blade by Sir Ector. The King then said, ‘I think you are all a lot of beastly cads,’ and wandered off mumbling into the forest.
The boar was undone, the hounds rewarded, and the foot-people, standing about in chattering groups because they would have got wet if they had sat down in the snow, ate the provisions which the young women had brought in baskets. A small barrel of wine which had been thoughtfully provided by Sir Ector was broached, and a good drink was had by all. The boar’s feet were tied together, a pole was slipped between his legs, and two men hoisted it upon their shoulders. William Twyti stood back, and courteously blew the prise.
It was at this moment that King Pellinore reappeared. Even before he came into view they could hear him crashing in the undergrowth and calling out, ‘I say, I say! Come here at once! A most dreadful thing has happened!’ He appeared dramatically upon the edge of the clearing, just as a disturbed branch, whose burden was too heavy, emptied a couple of hundredweight of snow on his head. King Pellinore paid no attention. He climbed out of the snow heap as if he had not noticed it, still calling out, ‘I say, I say!’
‘What is it, Pellinore?’ shouted Sir Ector.
‘Oh, come quick!’ cried the King, and, turning round distracted, he vanished again into the forest.
‘Is he all right,’ inquired Sir Ector, ‘do you suppose?’
‘Excitable character,’ said Sir Grummore. ‘Very.’
‘Better follow up and see what he’s doin’.’
The procession moved off sedately in King Pellinore’s direction, following his erratic course by the fresh tracks in the snow.
The spectacle which they came across was one for which they were not prepared. In the middle of a dead gorse bush King Pellinore was sitting, with the tears streaming down his face. In his lap there was an enormous snake’s head, which he was patting. At the other end of