T. H. White - The Sword in the Stone

“Except when he is drinking, of course,” added the King severely, as if he had rather shocked himself by leaving this out.

“It must be a dreadful kind of monster,” said the Wart, looking at him anxiously.

“A dreadful monster,” repeated the other complacently. “It is the Beast Glatisant, you know.”

“And how do you follow it?”

This seemed to be the wrong kind of question, for King Pellinore immediately began to look much more depressed than ever, and glanced over his shoulder so hurriedly that his visor shut down altogether.

“Ay have a brachet,” said King Pellinore sadly, as soon as he had restored himself. “There she is, over theah.”

The Wart looked in the direction which had been indicated with a despondent thumb, and saw a lot of rope wound round a tree. The other end of the rope was tied to King Pellinore’s saddle.

“I don’t see her very well.”

“Wound herself round the other side of the tree, Ay dare say,” said the King, without looking round. “She always goes the opposite way to me.”

The Wart went over to the tree and found a large white dog scratching herself for fleas. As soon as she saw the Wart, she began wagging her whole body, grinning vacuously, and panting in her efforts to lick his face in spite of the cord. She was too tangled up to move.

“It’s quite a good brachet,” said King Pellinore, “only it pants so, and gets wound round things, and goes the opposite way. What with that and the visor, what, Ay sometimes don’t know which way to turn.”

“Why don’t you let her loose?” asked the Wart. “She would follow the Beast just as well like that.”

“She just goes right away then, you know, and Ay don’t see her sometimes for a week.

“Gets a bit lonely without her,” added the King wistfully, “following this Beast about, what, and never knowing where one is. Makes a bit of company, you know.”

“She seems to have a friendly nature,” said the Wart.

“Too friendly. Sometimes Ay doubt whether she is really after the Beast at all.”

“What does she do when she sees it?”

“Nothing,” said King Pellinore.

“Oh, well,” said the Wart, “I dare say she will get to be interested in it after a time.”

“It’s eight months anyway since Ay saw the Beast at all.”

King Pellinore’s voice had got sadder and sadder since the beginning of the conversation, and now he definitely began to sniffle. “It’s the curse of the Pellinores,” he exclaimed. “Always mollocking about after that beastly Beast. What on earth use is it, anyway? First you have to stop to unwind the brachet, then your visor falls down, then you can’t see through your spectacles. Nowhere to sleep, never know where you are. Rheumatism in the winter, sunstroke in the summer. All this beastly armour takes hours to put on. When it is on it’s either frying or freezing, and it gets rusty. You have to sit up all night polishing the stuff. Oh, how Ay do wish Ay had a nice house of my own to live in, a house with beds in it and real pillows and sheets. If Ay was rich that’s what Ay would buy. A nice bed with a nice pillow and a nice sheet that you could lie in, and then Ay would put this beastly horse in a meadow and tell that beastly brachet to run away and play, and throw all this beastly armour out of the window, and let the beastly Beast go and chase itself, that Ay would.”

“If you could only show me the way home,” said the Wart craftily, “I am sure Sir Ector would put you up in a bed for the night.”

“Do you really mean it?” cried King Pellinore. “In a bed?”

“A feather bed,” said the Wart firmly.

King Pellinore’s eyes grew as round as saucers.

“A feather bed!” he repeated slowly. “Would it have pillows?”

“Down pillows.”

“Down pillows!” whispered the King, holding his breath. And then, letting it all out in a rush. “What a lovely house your guardian must have!”

“I don’t think it is more than two hours away,” said the Wart, following up his advantage.

“And did this gentleman really send you out to invite me in?” inquired the King wonderingly. (He had forgotten all about the Wart being lost.) “How nice of him, how very nice of him, Ay do think, what?”

“He will be very pleased to see us,” said the Wart, quite truthfully.

“Oh, how nice of him,” exclaimed the King again, beginning to bustle about his various trappings. “And what a lovely gentleman he must be, to have a feather bed!

“Ay suppose Ay should have to share it with somebody?” he added doubtfully.

“You could have one of your very own.”

“A feather bed of one’s very own,” exclaimed King Pellinore, “with sheets and a pillow – perhaps even two pillows, or a pillow and a bolster – and no need to get up in time for breakfast!

“Does your guardian get up in time for breakfast?” inquired the King, a momentary doubt striking him.

“Never,” said the Wart.

“Fleas in the bed?” asked the King suspiciously.

“Not one.”

“Well!” said King Pellinore. “It does sound too nice for words, Ay must say. A feather bed and none of those beastly fewmets for ever so long. How long did you say it would take us to get there?”

“Two hours,” said the Wart; but he had to shout the second of these words, for the sounds were drowned in his mouth by a dreadful noise which had that moment arisen close beside them.

“What was that?” exclaimed the Wart.

“Hark!” cried the King.

“Oh, mercy!” wailed the Wart.

“It’s the Beast!” shouted the King.

And immediately the loving huntsman had forgotten everything else, but was busied about his task. He wiped his spectacles upon the seat of his trousers, the only accessible piece of cloth about him, while the belling and bloody cry arose all round; balanced them on the end of his long nose, just before the visor automatically clapped to; clutched his jousting lance in his right hand, and galloped off in the direction of the noise. He was brought up short by the rope which was wound round the tree – the vacuous brachet meanwhile giving a melancholy yelp – and fell off his horse with a tremendous clang. In a second he was up again – the Wart was convinced that his spectacles must be broken – and hopping round the white horse with one foot in the stirrup. The girths stood the test and he was in the saddle somehow, with his jousting lance between his legs, and then he was galloping round and round the tree, in the opposite direction to that in which the brachet had wound herself up. He went round three times too often, the brachet meanwhile running and yelping in the opposite direction, and then, after four or five back casts, they were both free of the obstruction. “Yoicks, what!” cried King Pellinore, waving his lance in the air, and swaying excitedly in the saddle. Then he disappeared completely into the gloom of the forest, with the unfortunate brachet trailing and howling behind him at the other end of the string.

The Wart slept well in the woodland nest where he had laid himself down, in that kind of thin but refreshing sleep which people have when they first lie out of doors. At first he only dipped below the surface of sleep, and skimmed along like a salmon in shallow water, so close to the surface that he fancied himself in the air. He thought himself awake when he was already asleep. He saw the stars above his face, whirling round on their silent and sleepless axis, and the leaves of the trees rustling against them, and heard small changes in the grass. These little noises of footsteps and soft-fringed wing-beats and stealthy bellies drawn over the grass blades or rattling against the bracken at first frightened or interested him, so that he moved to see what they were (but never saw), then soothed him, so that he no longer cared to see what they were but trusted them to be themselves, and finally left him altogether as he swam down deeper and deeper, nuzzling his nose into the scented turf, into the warm ground, into the unending waters under the earth.