and now,” as albert would say, here we are, for a comfort, back at windsor, and just in time, too, for there is something special on hand. and somebody else is just in time as well—somebody who was not expected, and who, i fear, is not wanted. marie-celeste, seated in the library window, and busy in transferring some great luscious strawberries from a plate on the seat beside her to a basket in her lap, is the first to discover a familiar little figure turning in at the gate. “bother!” she exclaims, her pretty face all of a scowl.
“what’s the matter?” asks harold, who is on his knees on the floor, trying to make some very stiff wrapping-paper accommodate itself to the edges and corners of a generous box of luncheon, and is: quite too preoccupied to look up.
“bother enough! who do you suppose is coming up the path as large as life? albert, if you please, and he’s all alone, and that means that margaret has left him at the corner, and that he has come to spend the day.”
“bother i say too,” exclaims harold; “we can’t send him home, and with aunt lou up in london, there’s no one to leave him with here, and of course we can’t take him. oh, why did he happen to come to-day!”
but the truth of it was that albert had not happened to come at all. his visit had been deliberately planned for precisely this hour. could any one suppose for a moment, that he could hear all the beautiful plans fora knight-of-the-garter day discussed in his presence, and never make an effort to have a hand in it? to be sure, the children had tried to keep the date a close-guarded secret, but albert had got wind of it, all the same; and here he was, bright and fresh as the day itself, marching up the path, his little blue sacque folded carefully over one arm, and an inviting luncheon hamper swinging from the other. fortunately, considering the ungracious mood of the two children in the library, his first encounter chanced to be with donald, who, arrayed in the white and blue of his summer sailor-suit, was bending over the pansy bed, gathering a few “beauties” into a bunch for marie-celeste; and so absorbed in his task was he that he did not hear albert’s tread upon the walk. “why, where did you come from?” he said, looking up surprised.
“of course you knowed where i tum from, donald,” albert replied in his literal fashion; “but where do you s’pose i’m doin’?”
“to london town,” laughed donald, to whom it had not occurred to regard albert’s arrival as likely to interfere with the day’s programme.
“no; i’m doin’ on your knight-of-de-garter party.”
“well, that’s cool,” whispered marie-celeste, concealed by the curtain, and yet near enough to hear all that was said through the open window.
“who asked you?” queried donald.
“dat’s de only trouble, donald; dey didn’t ask me,” his little face growing sorely worried as he spoke; “but i guess it was a mistake, don’t you?”
“i shouldn’t wonder,” for the little fellow’s aggrieved look was really piteous to see; “but how did you get permission to go, albert?”
“oh, i jus’ told mamma you were all doin’, and i jus’ begged and begged till she said 1 could do too; and, donald, i didn’t zackly tell her i wasn’t invited, ‘cause i knowed it must be a mistake.”
“bless his heart!” whispered harold, who was also listening by this time under screen of the curtain.
“the cunning thing!” said marie-celeste; and so it was easy to see that two hard hearts were slowly but surely relenting.
“perhaps dey tought i was too little, but i’m not, donald, really; i can walk all day an’ carry my own coat an’ basket. besides, i don’t believe harold will ever have anudder knight-of-de-garter day, do you?”
“no; now’s your chance, i guess,” said donald kindly, slipping a great purple and yellow pansy into one of the buttonholes of albert’s little frilled shirt as he spoke.
“where are de children, anyway?” asked albert, wonderfully reassured by donald’s courteous reception; “won’t you fin’ dem for me, please, donald, and tell dem i won’t be a badder, nor ask queshuns, and i’ll jus’ eat my own lunch and—”
at this the hard hearts relented altogether, and harold rushed out and gave albert a toss in the air that was very threatening to the eggs in the luncheon basket; and as soon as he was on terra firma again marie-celeste gave him a good hard hug, and both begged his pardon half a dozen times over for ever assuming for a moment that he was “too little,” and intimated that they felt very small indeed themselves to think they had been so unfeeling as to plan not to include him in the expedition. and so matters were beautifully adjusted, and the knight-of-the-garter party set out with harold harris, student and devoted admirer of the grand old knighthood, filling the important role of interpreter and guide. and where did they go first but to the castle, preferring to save until the last, because the best, the choir of st. george’s, where the banners of the knights are hung and where the knights are duly installed. on the way harold held forth, marie-celeste and donald walking one on either side of him, and albert, determined not to miss a word, trotting along at a sort of sidewise angle just in front, and yet careful to keep well out of the way, too, for fear of the remotest chance of “boddering.”
“now to begin,” said harold, “you know a knight at first was just a young man who had proved himself strong enough and brave enough to wear armor and be a soldier, and after that there came to be orders of knights. you remember i told you the other day what an order was, and how the order of the knights of the garter happened to be started.” yes, they remembered that, but no one remembered that poor little albert had not been present on that occasion, and so knew nothing whatever about it; but albert, so very thankful in his heart that he had been allowed to come at all, did not dare to make mention of the same.
“where are we going first?” asked marie-celeste, who, unlike poor albert, felt herself at perfect liberty to ask every question that occurred to her.
“to the banqueting hall, because it has more to do with the knights than any other room in the castle.”
“oh, yes, that’s where they have the garter and the cross of st. george woven even into the pattern of the carpet! and what about st. george—who was he?”
0100
“nobody knows, marie-celeste. he is supposed to have been a soldier in the roman army, and to have killed a monstrous dragon that no one else could overcome, and at last, after being dreadfully tortured for his faith in christianity, he is also supposed to have died a martyr’s death.”
“‘is supposed’ isn’t very satisfactory, harold.”
“no, it isn’t; but it can’t be helped. indeed, they knew so little about him way back even in the fifth century, that one of the popes, when he made up a list of the saints, said ‘he was one of those whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose actions are known only to god.’”
“you talk just like a book,” remarked donald, to whom harold, with his knowledge of men and things, was a never-ceasing wonder.
“and good reason why, for i got it out of a book. don’t you remember i told you i’d studied up about it?”
“oh, yes,” as though thankful there was some sort of explanation for such uncanny erudition.
“but how does this st. george come to be mixed up with the knights of the garter?” asked marie-celeste.
“this is the way of it. you know what the crusades were?” marie-celeste nodded yes, but intimating, with a significant glance in the direction of donald and albert, that probably they did not, harold took the hint, and began over again.
“well, ever so many years ago great armies of men went out from england to try and get possession of the holy land, and each time an army went out they called it a crusade, and on the first one the leader of the army prayed to st. george to help him, and as he was very successful, that made st. george’s name very famous. then afterward richard cour de lion, when he went to the holy land, put himself under st. george’s protection, and from that time he became the patron saint of england, and that means, albert” (for albert looked the question he longed to ask), “that england regarded him as the saint who would help her most and be her special guardian.”
“yes,” said marie-celeste, since harold apparently considered he had come to a natural pause in the narrative; “but you haven’t told us what st. george and the knights of the garter have to do with each other.”
“so i haven’t; well, all the connection that i know of is, that every year a feast in honor of st. george was ordered to be kept as a holiday, and that the order of the garter was founded on that day—st. george’s day—and that so the cross of st. george and the garter of the knights came to be a sort of double emblem for the order.”
by this time the children had reached the norman gate, and crossing the quadrangle, harold led the way into the state apartments, and being well known to most of the guides of the castle, was allowed, with his little party, to pass on unattended, and to make his way straight to the grand banqueting hall. from the moment they entered the castle, donald was of no use as far as receiving instruction was concerned. this being his first visit to any castle whatever, he was far too much astonished and overawed by everything he saw to be able to think of applying his mind to mere historical detail.
let harold hold forth as eloquently as he chose about this old knight or that old armor, for him there might never be another visit to this wonderful place, and he was going to see it all in his own way. harold and marie-celeste were at first very much disgusted at his utter disregard of the object of their visit, but disgust gradually gave way to amusement, and the tale of the chivalrous old knights was even suspended for awhile, that they might watch the little fellow’s peculiar methods of letting nothing escape him. gazing in rapt wonder, he moved from one point to another, wholly absorbed in his surroundings, and oblivious to the presence of any one beside himself. now he was standing in admiration before the great oak chair of state beneath the organ gallery, and now nothing loath he mounts the steps that lead to it and runs a finger along the curves of its elaborate carving, and then, with a most reverent air, touches the embroidered cross and garter with which it is decorated. all this is making very free with state belongings, and one of the guides, in charge of a small party of visitors, starts toward him in a decidedly menacing manner; but harold intercepts him and explains, and the guide, himself much amused, decides to leave unmolested this gallant little tar of her majesty’s. and now donald seeks out a corner of the room and deliberately stretches himself on the floor, clasping his hands under the back of his head. this is done the better to take in the elaborate ceiling, decorated as it is with the armorial bearings of the knights of five centuries, and now, with arm upraised and extended finger, he is entering into some mathematical calculation of his own in connection with the banners that hang just beneath the ceiling. and now what does the boy do but suddenly exchange his vertical position for one quite the reverse, and turn all his attention to the carpet; for did not harold say it was woven in some special way on purpose? yes, sure enough! here is the cross of st. george in the centre of each little panel, and here—crossing to the edge of the room—the beautiful circle of the gaiter worked into the design of the border. oh, but it is a wonderful place! and there are probably other rooms just as wonderful; so a little closer look at the brass shields and the helmets, and the portraits of the sovereigns ranged along one side, and then, wholly unsuspicious of any disapproval, he walks over to the children and remarks “that now he would like to see the other rooms, please.” his delight in it all, and na?ve unconsciousness of anything unusual in his behavior, are altogether irresistible, and harold and marie-celeste, after a whispered conference, decide to suspend knight-of-the-garter reminiscences for the time being, and make the tour of the castle with him. albert, who has found much of harold’s narration quite beyond him, but has “never let on” for one moment, hails the announcement with great inward rejoicing, and the little quartette make their way to the guard chamber, as the place next in interest. in every room donald brings his own peculiar methods of investigation to bear, not in the least minding a good deal of mirthful laughter at his expense on the part of harold and marie-celeste; and albert, feeling privileged to join in the general merriment, though evidently half the time without in anywise appreciating the situation, only helps on the jollity of things. then when at noon, by special permission of a very lenient guardsman, the children establish themselves for luncheon on a terrace beneath the shade of the round tower, marie-celeste and albert and harold agree that they had never had such fun—never!
“well, you may call it fun,” says donald, quite willing that they should, “but i call it something better than that. the grandest time i ever had, that’s what i call it.”
but all the sights were not seen yet, and for the members of the little party who still adhered to the knight-of-the-garter research the best was yet to come, in st. george’s chapel. entering at the door at the south front and crossing to the centre, the children passed directly into the choir, which is really a chapel in itself, and to them of special interest, because the very place where the ceremony of installing’ the knights is performed. harold led the way to the farther end, and they took their seats on the steps of the chancel. behind them the light fell softly through the stained glass of the window over the altar; above them waved the knights’ silken banners, and just below each banner hung the sword, mantle, and helmet of the knight whose crest it bore, mounted against a background of elaborate carving. it was of course the spot of spots for any one who, like harold, had been initiated into all the mysteries by being present at an installation, and he did justice to the occasion. by this time even donald, whose powers of endurance were not yet of the strongest, was content to sit by, an apparent listener; but much that harold had to tell having little interest for him, he resorted to that little trick to which some discriminating ears readily lend themselves, of listening to what appealed to him and letting the rest go. with albert matters were reversed. he had completely lapsed from his humble estate of the morning, when he felt in duty bound to at least pretend to be an attentive listener, and when they reached the chapel, already such a familiar place to him, he no longer even tried to keep up appearances. a great big collie belonging to the verger, mr. brown, sometimes made so bold as to steal in “unbeknownst” and curl up on the cool marble in a dark corner of the choir, and albert, who knew the corner well, at once slipped away in the hope of finding him.
yes, there he was in the old place—dear, audacious old timothy, stretched close along the wall in the deep shadow of the oueen’s own stall, as though well aware that it was the one spot where he might reasonably expect to escape observation.
0105
“hush, timothy,” said albert, approaching him on tiptoe; but the warning was quite unnecessary. nothing was farther from timothy’s thoughts than to make any disturbance whatever—why should he? were they not the best of friends, he and that blessed little albert? so he never raised his head from where it rested upon his outstretched paws, only looked up with that gaze of implicit confidence peculiar to the kind eyes of the laverick setter, and which made albert lose not a second in spreading his little coat out beneath him, throwing his two arms around timothy’s neck, and pillowing his head on his beautiful silky coat. now, it is not granted to laverick setters to purr in pussy’s demonstrative fashion, but they have a subdued little grateful purr of their own, distinctly audible to an ear placed as close as albert’s chanced to be, and timothy at once indulged in the same. outwardly, however, not a sound was to be heard. only the experienced eye and ear could appreciate how intense were the depths of his canine satisfaction.
“we’ve had an awful good time this morning, timothy,” albert confided in a whisper; “we’ve been all over the castle, learning ‘bout knights of the garter. harold knows an awful lot about ‘em, but i’m tired of ‘em, an’ i don’t care to hear any more. i’d rather stay here wid you, timothy. there, please move that paw a little—that’s it; now, timothy, keep very still! please, please don’t snap for that fly, or they’ll hear you; still! still, timothy, while i stroke your head like this, till, till—” and the subject was dropped indefinitely.
“now, if there are any questions you would like to ask?” said harold, for, dear as was the subject to him, he really could think of nothing more to tell.
“indeed there are,” said marie-celeste, who had conscientiously tried not to interrupt, though there were a dozen lines along which she desired information.
“first, will you tell me if they ever let the ladies have any part in all the feasting and good times you have told about?”
“oh, yes! there was a time when the wives of the knights were called ladies of the society of the garter, and they used to be allowed to wear violet-colored or white cloth robes ‘furred,’ as one old book says, and embroidered with garters. the number of garters depended on their rank. but in the reign of king henry the eighth, for some reason that branch of the order was given up. by the way, henry the eighth is buried just yonder,” pointing a few feet away. “there’s a royal vault right under those tiles, and charles the first, whose head cromwell cut off, is buried there too.”
“you don’t mean it!” for donald was all attention the second there was anything so thrilling as cut-off heads in the wind.
“now, there’s another thing i’d like to know,” said marie-celeste, “and that is, how long do they let a knight’s banner hang there? because when a new knight is made his banner has to be put up somewhere.”
“yes, of course; and so when a man dies they take away everything except the brass plate at the back of the stall that belonged to him, and that has his name on and all his titles.”
“i like the american way of not having any titles,” said donald; “seems to me they’re an awful fuss and bother. of course you don’t believe in them, marie-celeste.”
“well, i don’t exactly care for the titles and such a ridiculous lot of letters coming after one’s name, but i should think it would be nice to know who your greatest grandfather was, and that he was a gentleman into the bargain, for that’s what some of the titles mean, you know. they’ve come down from father to son for centuries.”
“i’d be satisfied just to know who my own father was,” said donald with a sigh, and marie-celeste wished she had not said anything to bring that sad fact to mind.
“did you say, harold,” she asked, by way of quickly changing the subject, “that edward the third, who founded the order of the carter, built this chapel?”
“no; but i said that the chapel that he did build and dedicated to st. george stood right where this choir is now. this chapel was commenced a hundred years later, and the old one torn down.”
“well,” said donald, getting onto his feet, “one way and another i’ve learned a great deal to-day—just about as much as i can hold, seems to me.”
“yes, i’m tired, too,” marie-celeste admitted; “but we’re ever so much obliged, it’s been very interesting; but look here, donald, before we go, i want to show you something,” and she led the way to a stall of one of the knights.
“see,” said marie-celeste, pushing the seat of the stall from beneath, so that it folded up against the back, thereby bringing to view a queer little wooden projection about six inches wide.
“now, donald, will you believe that is all the seat the old knights used to have in these stalls? they’ve preserved them in this way just as a curiosity. things are more comfortable for them now, you see, but in the old times they were afraid the knights would go to sleep during the service, and so made them uncomfortable to keep them awake.”
“not a bad idea,” mused donald, as though he had more than once in his life experienced a similar temptation.
“well, i think it was, then,” said marie-celeste decidedly. “this church is enough in itself to keep a man awake if he has any thoughts to think, no matter how dull the sermon might happen to be; but then i know”—with an insinuating shrug of the shoulders—“some men, and boys too i suppose, never do have any thoughts to think. if they’re not eating or being amused, sleep’s the only thing for them.”
there was a whimsical little look in donald’s face, which an american street gamin would have interpreted as “what are you giving us?” he did not say anything, however; and just then harold, who had strolled on by himself, came toward them, his face aglow with merriment. “i believe”—speaking to donald—“you said you’d like to see a live knight of the garter; now come right along quickly and i’ll show you one.”
what could he mean? donald and marie-celeste elbowed each other in their haste to discover, and in the next moment sure enough there he was right before them. he was only a little knight, to be sure, not over four, and sound asleep at that, with one arm thrown around a big dog, who was also sound asleep. a knight he was, however, beyond all dispute, for there was the unmistakable blue garter plainly visible, and in exactly the right place, too, on the left leg just below the knee. he had not meant that any one should know it, such a modest little knight was he; but alas! the weakness of drowsiness had overtaken the valiant little fellow, and in the disorder thereon attendant the shapely little limb had thrust itself forth from the folds of the protecting kilt, and there was the garter plainly visible to the most casual passer-by.
“yes, will you believe it?” said marie-celeste, stooping down for closer inspection, “‘honi soit qui mal y pense,’ as large as life in gold letters running all round it—just as near the real thing as possible.”
donald and harold were on the eve of laughing outright, but marie-celeste, detecting a suspicious blinking in the long curling lashes of the eyelids, kept them still by an imperative gesture.
“yes, ladies and gentlemen,” she said, imitating exactly old brown’s tone and accent when showing visitors through the chapel, “this is a monument erected to the memory of a knight who was killed in battle, together with his noble palfrey. it represents him as he was found, one arm around the neck of his faithful charger” (at this the knight’s lips also betrayed a certain uncontrollable twitching). “the smile upon his face is considered one of the chief charms of the statue; but the way that we know that he is a knight—in fact, the only way—is by this blue garter around his knee.” at this the little limb was suddenly drawn up, that the tell-tale garter might be hid from view; and then, able to stand it no longer, albert looked up entreatingly to the children above him, and blushingly explained, “dorothy made it for me, just for a bit of fun, you know;” and then sure to a certainty that he never, never would hear the end of that blue garter, buried his blushes in timothy’s long silky coat, and rued the hour when dorothy had so merrily abetted his desire for this particular “bit of fun.”
