Читать книгу The Library of Work and Play: Housekeeping - Elizabeth Hale Gilman - Страница 9

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When King Arthur was King of England, a boy named Gareth, was growing up in a castle far away from Camelot, the King's city. But he had two brothers who were at Court, and who were Knights of the Order of the Round Table, and when they came home, now and then, Gareth asked them more questions than you could count about the King and his knights, and the Court, and tournaments, and battles. Every day, he rode and practised with lance and sword, and exercised in all ways that would make him strong and skilful with arms. And always he tried to be brave and to be gentle toward weak things and to tell the truth. And the reason for all this was that, more than anything else in the world, he longed to be in the service of the King, and to be a Knight of the Round Table.

As Gareth grew older, and more and more worthy to be made a knight, his mother, Bellicent, sorrowed and grieved. Her husband was very, very old, and her two elder sons had gone away to the Court, and she could not bear to have Gareth leave her, for he was the youngest and last. Though she saw that his heart's desire was to be with the King, yet she felt as if her heart would break if he went. She tried to make him especially happy at home; she tried to persuade him that he was not skilful or brave enough to be a knight; she told him of dangers and wounds, and besought him not to go. Again and again he asked her permission to go away and earn his knighthood; again and again she refused.

One day when he had spoken so bravely and truly that she knew not how to resist him longer, the thought came to her to test his great desire to be with the King, and she said to him: "If you desire so greatly to serve the King, give the proof of it which I shall ask of you. Go to the King and ask him to let you serve him in his kitchen for a year and a day, and tell no one your name and rank until the time is over."

She thought he would refuse to do it, but he kissed and thanked her, and quickly made ready to go to Camelot. For he wanted to serve the King, and this was a way of doing it, though not the one he had hoped for.

He journeyed a day and a night, and came to Camelot, the wonderful big city which he had never seen before. In the morning, the King sat in the Great Hall of his palace to hear the requests and troubles of his people. There Gareth came, and stood before him. And when he raised his eyes to the King's quiet face, and met his eyes, he loved him and longed more than ever to serve him. It was a little hard, when he was longing to be made a knight, and to be sent on an adventure, just to ask to be a kitchen-boy; but he did it, and the King granted his request.

So joyous and strong was he when he went out from the presence of the King, that he felt nothing would ever be hard to do again. But there were things which were hard. The kitchen was a great stone room with an earth floor, and a fireplace at either end as big as a little room. When the great fires were lit it was mightily hot between, and there was smoke and hurry, and jostling of servants, and there were some bad-tempered people and a great deal of hard work. There were trenchers and platters to be scoured, and big iron pots to be lifted about and washed, and roasting meats to be watched and turned before the fires. The cooking tanned Gareth's face and hands as riding in the hot sun had never done. When he could, he would run out into the courtyard, and play games with the other kitchen-boys, and when they were tired, they would sit against the wall and he would tell long tales he had read, and some that he made up, about knights and dragons and enchanted forests and robbers. The stories he loved best to tell, though, were stories of the King.

Often these play-times were broken in upon by the Master of the Kitchens, who called them back to their tasks with no great gentleness. Especially was he a hard master to Gareth; and, strangely enough, this was because Gareth was willing and cheerful, for there are people with such crooked places in their minds that they cannot see a person working gladly at a hard task but they want nothing so much as to see if they cannot break their cheerfulness. And that was the sort of master Gareth found in the King's Kitchen. He missed his rides over the downs in the clear air, and the right to go and come as he pleased. But when things seemed hard he cast off the thought and laughed to himself, saying, "It is for the King." In a little while, too, he learned to take fault-finding, and, now and again, a blow, in quietness. And this, too, was for the King.

As the days came and went, Bellicent, alone now with her old husband, thought of her son day and night; and the tasks that he must do and the discomforts he must suffer seemed to her a thousand times worse than he ever thought them. At last, when hardly a month of his trial had yet gone by, she could bear it no longer, but sent a messenger to the King to tell him the story, and to take to Gareth a horse and armour and all things that he would need when it should please the King to make him a knight.

After the King had seen the messenger he sent for Gareth, and Gareth left his scouring and went gaily and eagerly to him. He was glad in his love for the King, and I think he may have felt that he had borne rather unusual things for his sake. As he came near, the King loved him for his youth and gaiety and faithfulness. But Gareth, looking up into the quiet, loving eyes that were fixed on him, knelt down at the King's feet and bowed his head, and knew that nothing he could do for the King would ever be too much.

The King ended Gareth's kitchen service and made him a knight, and some day you will read other stories about him, for he fought many battles and loved a beautiful lady.

And it seems likely that the King loved him all the more because he could cook and scour for his sake.