When King Arthur beheld that piteous sight, he had great

compassion, and hailed the giant, short life and shameful death! Duchess and these little children ?"

saying, "Mayest thou have Why hast thou slain this

The Giant made at the King with his club; but the King had his good sword Excalibar, and after a sore fight, wherein they wrestled and grappled together, Ryence was smitten down close to the water's edge, and slain. Hard by was his den, full of treasure of gold, silver, and precious stones; but Arthur would have none of it, only his club and the mantle purfled of king's beards, whereof one only was lacking. The treasure he gave unto Sir Kaye and Sir Bedivere, and the head of the Giant he sent to Duke Hoel, counselling him to build a church on the rock; and this being done, it was thenceforth called Mount St. Michael.

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So now, King Arthur being returned home after his exploit, high feasts and rejoicings were held, and the hall was full of banqueting. Sir Kaye, that was grand sewer, clothed in ermine, carved the meats; and Sir Bedivere, the butler, served the wine, while Arthur and the rest of the knights sat at the Round Table, where one was no higher than the other, since all were equal in deeds of daring. It was a goodly sight to see, since each noble knight wore his arms and dress of the same fashion.

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There was Sir Lancelot du Lac, so called because Viviana, the Lady of the Lake, stole him when an infant from his father

F

and mother, and brought him up in her bower beneath the water. There was his brother, Sir Hector de Maris; there was Sir Tristrem of Lyonesse, the most deft knight of all at the chase; there was Sir Cradocke, Sir Bors, Sir Percival, Sir Gawain, Sir Guy, and many more than I can tell; and there, too, was the Siege Perilous, where none might seat himself till he should come, who should achieve the perilous adventure.

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Here, then, into the midst of the hall, did the travellers enter with Tom Thumb, and began to regale themselves with the scraps of broken meat that were thrown to the beggars at the door. They did not see that Tom slid softly away from them, and, by and by, when King Arthur would have taken some salt, he was aware of a little mannikin, in a white coat and green hose, lifting up a load thereof, and laying it on his royal trencher with a low bow.

"How now?" cried good King Arthur, " do we see elves by the noon-day sun ?”

"No, please your grace," Tom Thumb made answer, nothing daunted; "I am the son of Owen the farmer, your grace's loyal subject."

Thereupon he told his whole story, and the King, having well rewarded the travellers with the gift of a golden cup, asked Tom Thumb if he would tarry with him and be his page.

To this Tom answered that he came with the very wish to offer his poor service to his King, but that he prayed first to return home, to take leave of his parents. To this the good

King freely consented, but he desired first to shew the little man to Queen Guenever and her ladies, who feasted apart; and Tom had the honour of riding to her chamber upon the King's own royal finger, the very finger that had grappled with the Giant Ryence.35

Queen Guenever was delighted, and dandled and smoothed Tom as though he had been a lap-dog. She said he should be her darling page, and that she would cause a house of ivory fitted up with gold to be made for him, if he would stay at once with her; but Tom thought of his mother, and begged and prayed hard to be allowed to go home.

So the King took him into the treasury, and bade him choose anything he could carry, to take home to his parents. Tom made choice of a silver threepenny piece, put it into his wallet, which he had stitched together of the honey-bags of the wild mountain bees, and laying it on his shoulders, set forth on his journey.36

It was heavy toil to drag home such a burthen; he was three days on the road, and had to rest at least five hundred times; but he kept up a good heart, for he was going home, and he knew a servant of King Arthur must not fail in patience, and thus he came at last to his own cottage door.

"Mother!" he weakly said; but feeble as his voice was, his mother heard it, and snatched him up, asking how he could ever have gone away from her.

He was so faint and exhausted that he could hardly speak,

but she placed him comfortably in his nest by the fire, and by and by, he was able to eat. He found himself so hungry that he devoured a whole hazel-nut in three days, whereas it ought to have lasted him a whole month, and thus he became so ill that he could not leave the fireside, although he was very anxious to begin his service; and his father told him that if he gave himself to the like excess, he could not be a knightly servant of the good King Arthur, since knights must bravely bear hardship, and not seek after fine eating and soft lying.

Indeed, he told him that he would be far less likely to be drawn aside by the elvish fancies that Puck whispered to him, if he were striving hard to do service to the King, than if he were sleeping in the Queen's ivory house, and merely doing frolicsome tricks for her sport; and as Tom listened, he vowed with all the force of his little heart, that if faithfulness could serve instead of strength, he would shew himself a man and not a bauble.

CHAPTER VIII.

HOW TOM THUMB WAS PUT IN PRISON.

EING fully recovered, Tom deemed it time to return to the Court to undertake his duties, but there had been so heavy a fall of rain, that though he proposed to carry a walnut-shell for a boat, and cross the pools of water with a pease-blossom for a sail, and grass stalks for oars, his mother thought the journey over perilous. However, she was not the woman to hinder him from his service, so she fastened to his coat the wings of a dragon-fly, and blew hard in the direction of Caerleon, so that he safely floated through the air, until he was just above the palace court, when, as ill-luck would have it, a sparrow that had been stealing pease in the garden, took fright at the cook coming out of the kitchen with a bowl of furmity. The thievish bird, fluttering up in haste, clashed against poor Tom, so that he fell down into the bowl. The scalding furmity was splashed over the cook's face, and in rage and terror, he threw down the bowl,

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