But on the hither side of that loud morn Into the hall stagger'd, his visage ribb'd From ear to ear with dogwhip-weals, his nose Bridge-broken, one eye out, and one hand off, And one with shatter'd fingers dangling lame, A churl, to whom indignantly the King, "My churl, for whom Christ died, what evil beast Hath drawn his claws athwart thy face? or fiend? Man was it who marr'd Heaven's image in thee thus?" Then, sputtering thro' the hedge of splinter'd teeth, Yet strangers to the tongue, and with blunt stump Pitch-blacken'd sawing the air, said the maim'd churl, "He took them and he drave them to his tower-- Some hold he was a table-knight of thine-- A hundred goodly ones--the Red Knight, he-- "Lord, I was tending swine, and the Red Knight Brake in upon me and drave them to his tower; And when I call'd upon thy name as one That doest right by gentle and by churl, Maim'd me and maul'd, and would outright have slain, Save that he sware me to a message, saying-- 'Tell thou the King and all his liars, that I Have founded my Round Table in the North, And whatsoever his own knights have sworn My knights have sworn the counter to it--and say My tower is full of harlots, like his court, But mine are worthier, seeing they profess To be none other than themselves--and say My knights are all adulterers like his own, But mine are truer, seeing they profess To be none other; and say his hour is come, The heathen are upon him, his long lance Broken, and his Excalibur a straw.'" Then Arthur turn'd to Kay the seneschal, "Take thou my churl, and tend him curiously Like a king's heir, till all his hurts be whole. The heathen--but that ever-climbing wave, Hurl'd back again so often in empty foam, Hath lain for years at rest--and renegades, Thieves, bandits, leavings of confusion, whom The wholesome realm is purged of otherwhere,-- Friends, thro' your manhood and your fealty,--now Make their last head like Satan in the North. My younger knights, new-made, in whom your flower Waits to be solid fruit of golden deeds, Move with me toward their quelling, which achieved, The loneliest ways are safe from shore to shore. But thou, Sir Lancelot, sitting in my place Enchair'd to-morrow, arbitrate the field; For wherefore shouldst thou care to mingle with it, Only to yield my Queen her own again? Speak, Lancelot, thou art silent: is it well?" * * * * * Thereto Sir Lancelot answer'd, "It is well: Yet better if the King abide, and leave The leading of his younger knights to me. Else, for the King has will'd it, it is well." * * * * *