Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/49

 Rh When he saw what he had done, all Jack's bad passion left him in an instant, and he was seized by shame and remorse. He ran up to the knight and endeavoured to raise him. The wounded man recovered a little, but refused his help. "Begone!" he said, in a stern though feeble voice; "you have slain me by a foul blow; let not my last moments be disturbed by the presence of a coward." With these words he fell back; his face turned pale, his limbs stiffened, and he spoke no more.

Jack, in the greatest distress, did all he could think of to revive him, but with no success. Then, rising up, he slowly and sorrowfully turned his horse's head homewards.

"The knight spoke truly," he said within himself. "I have done a shameful and cowardly deed, and am no longer worthy to punish the crimes of others. Henceforth I will retire from the world, and live in penitence and obscurity. I now perceive that those magic gifts were only fatal snares. Oh that I had listened to the advice of the wise Merlin! But I will go now and tell him all."

So he returned to Camelot in a very different mood from that in which he had set out. He sought the wise Merlin, and freely told him everything that had happened, confessing all his errors and misfortunes without any concealment. When he had finished his tale, the wise Merlin smiled cheerfully, and answered him thus:

"My son, be comforted. I see with joy that you are now cured of the faults which were creeping over you, and I may safely tell you the truth. Learn, then, that the two giants and the knight were no other than myself. You know that I have the power of assuming any shape I please; and perceiving that you needed a sharp lesson to rouse you from your state of indolence and self-satisfaction, I took this means of bringing you to a of your duty. Cheer up, therefore, there is no harm done; and you are a better man than ever. You have already got rid of the shoes and sword, get rid of the coat also; and then you will be worthy to wear the only one of the giant's treasures that was really useful, the Cap of Knowledge, which I now return to you."

Jack embraced the good Enchanter with the warmest gratitude and delight.

"You have taken a load off my heart," he cried, "and have given me a lesson which I will never forget. But as for the Cap of Knowledge, pray keep it yourself. You are wise, and will know how to use it; but I perceive that knowledge without wisdom is of no avail. I possessed it; but it did me no good. Henceforth I will learn to depend on myself alone."

Just then King Arthur was busy making up a huge fire to boil that famous plum-pudding of his that you have so often heard of. So Jack went up to the furnace and thrust the coat into it.

Merlin kept the cap, and became ten times more knowing than even he had been before. Nevertheless, he was made a regular fool of by a pretty woman soon afterwards.

Jack got up early the very next morning after his return and practised the dumb bells two hours before breakfast and after a few weeks of training he felt fit for his old work once more, and went forth in a proper state of mind, as he had done in the days of Cormoran, to destroy all the race of wicked giants on the face of the earth. He had a vast number of adventures, which I have no time to tell you. I can only say, that in the end he was perfectly successful; and the best proof of it is that you may travel from the Land's End to John o'Groat's and back again without meeting a single giant, except, perhaps, at a fair, and he will be only a puny stunted creature, barely eight feet high, who couldn't eat so much as a baby if he tried.

the halls of Derg there is quiet and gloom— The old lord lies dead in the great Blue Room.

The servants are whispering under their breath, And they hurry to pass by the chamber of death,

But gather in knots on the winding stair, And point—for they know He is lying there.

And shake their heads at each gossiping friend, And say, "The old lord made a fearful end."

They tell how he yell'd and raved and tore His few white hairs; how he shrieked and swore,

And cursed himself, and his kith and kin, And gloried to die, as he'd lived, in sin;

How he, who kept his relations in rags, Had screamed to the last for his money-bags;

How with failing breath he had Heaven defied, And, leaping up, he had howled and died.

Then they wonder when the young lord will come To seize the broad lands of his castle home,