That enlightened citizen of the United States, Mr. John B. Bellamy, left his name, writ large, in the visitors' book. He was keen as ever on collecting relics of the late King, and inquired if the holy grail was yet on view at the castle? King Arthur's tables, plates, and punch-bowls not being what he wanted, he chipped some and left the rest. The hotel clerk told us that the gentleman left some opinions on things in general behind him; and the impression on the clerk's mind was that if this citizen from the States ran the show at Tintagel, things would be a "durned sight different" in two shakes of a duck's tail.

Sea and land and sky were deliciously clear when we started for the ruins; and the atmosphere was so buoyant that we could not bear it more so when walking without flying off into space.

"I don't suppose it makes much difference to a fellow where he's born, but I'd like a more cheerful place to live in," said Guy, throwing himself on the turf, and pulling his hat over his eyes.

A stiff climb up slippery stone steps, with samphire growing perilously near, brought us to the "fortress," and what there was in stone suggested little by way of poetry or romance. Guy had made up his mind beforehand to see something quite different—Tintern Abbey, or Warwick Castle, or something. But this! As he couldn't see what he wished for, he would see nothing; so tilted his hat over his eyes to keep off the sun and hide disappointment. We left him where he lay, and rambled.

A fine bit of rock scenery, even in Cornwall, and worth looking at, is this. If there had only been a tempest, and all the elements at war, their chorus of thunders drowning the sea-birds' cries! But to-day it was sunshine and peace, and nothing to tell of war but sharp-pointed rocks and landslips and slides telling their own tale, writ large.

"This is the very place in which Arthur should have been born," said the Bookworm, when Guy, tired of his own discontent, joined us.

"I don't see any reason for it," said Guy.

"No! When Arthur first opened his eyes upon this rock, what impression do you think he received? This was a fit cradle for great things in a great mind, and this man was great."

"Never lived at all, perhaps."

"I don't care. This was a fit cradle for an allegory of war between What Is and What Should be, and Arthur is as the light shining in darkness."

"Have it your own way," said Guy; "but wouldn't some other place do just as well?"

"Quite, if the first impressions of the newly born were of eternal struggle. Arthur was born for the world, and not for a parish."

"I think we'd better clear," said Guy, sharply. "Here's the lady in specs., and the antiquarian with the trumpet, and the whole crew. They've all got their Tennysons, and I can't go over it again. If the place was only a bit like it, I wouldn't mind."

Dozmary Pool is a cheerless place at its best; it is situated in a sad-coloured region, wherein stones grow best, and everything that has life struggles for existence. This is the place that Tennyson selected for the King's death, and the mysterious disappearance of his famous sword "Excalibur." In Arthur's time the mere was better worth calling a lake than now, but the stones and barren lands and hills and general "wishtness" of the place are pretty much the same. The locality is marked as about one thousand feet above sea-level, and in winter the place is said to be more breezy than pleasant. They have been draining the pool a bit lately, but no trace has yet been discovered of "Excalibur"—one day a syndicate may be formed to dredge the mere. An arm "clothed in white samite, mystic, beautiful," holding King Arthur's sword with jewelled hilt, and every jewel worth a king's ransom, would be worth a trifle, and make the poet's reputation as an historian. Some people are never satisfied until they can see and handle things.

Guy touched the water of the silent pool, and, finding it real, was encouraged to sit down and discuss things in a matter-of-fact sort of way. He said we could start with facts here, for here was a mere, and the water was wet. Then, there were rushes growing on the margin of the pool, and when the wind blew, no doubt they made rush music—sad, mournful music—a sort of place where a fellow who had had a good licking in battle would come and hide, and die, if he could, and no one to see him do it.

"I like this story: there's something human about it, and it was a bit rough on Sir Bedivere to be told to chuck away the only thing King Arthur had got. I feel for him. Only fancy being told to throw away the only available asset to pay funeral expenses! It was very human on the part of Sir Bedivere to want to keep Excalibur, and I don't suppose that any of Arthur's friends and next-of-kin believed him when he said he threw it into the mere. He said he did, and we'll let it go at that; and if it should be dredged up one day, why, of course, the good Sir Bedivere will leave the court without a stain upon his character."

The sun was westerning; a slight breeze ruffled the waters of the mere and the dry reeds rustled. The Bookworm said it must have been a fit place for a great temptation, and he was glad that Tennyson made it appear that Sir Bedivere was a man of honour. A chough skimmed across the water, and the Bookworm said this was a strange coincidence—we were talking about King Arthur, and the very bird which legend said his soul inhabited came upon the scene. This was only wanted to make the wild place a sanctuary.

"Nothing but legend," said Guy, quickly. "Wherever you are in this county, its nothing but legend. You walk on legend, and just breathe it all the time."

"Perhaps you never heard this one," said the Bookworm. "There's time to tell it."

"Go ahead, old man," said Guy. "Another added to the number won't count much."

King Arthur's Chough.

Well, then, you know, said the Bookworm, that King Arthur was married to one Jenefer (sometimes called Guinevere, which is the same thing), and that Merlin was present at the wedding. Everybody was having a good time, and Merlin slipped out and consulted the stars. He had a monopoly in that business, and was paid special fees by all the swagger people who wanted to know what trouble they'd be likely to get into if they but went the right way to work about it. Well, Merlin slipped out of the castle, and ran against a young gentleman singing, "The night is clear, and I am all alone," underneath the royal bridal chamber. "You'd better go and sing indoors," said Merlin, making a note of the fact that this was Launcelot, a young sprig of nobility who thought no small beer of himself in those days. He was an army man, and fond of poaching. Merlin read something in the stars that night which he told an old chough, who knew more of the black art than any other bird. This chough Merlin gave the King as a wedding present. The bird was as black as a raven in those days, and used to live so long that it was only at its prime at a hundred years.

Queen Jenefer was much written about in the chronicles of her time; and so the poets know what she did, and what she wore, and how she looked, and what she said at all the grand tournaments whereat she distributed blue ribands and prizes to knights of high degree.

The King was a busy man, so busy that in the end mischief came of it, for when garden parties and jousts and things were going on, he was wont to say to Launcelot, his aide-de-camp in chief: "Just you look after the Queen this afternoon." Now this suited Launcelot full well, for he was a born Squire of dames and a gallant man as well as a fighter of renown. Sometimes the King sighed when he saw his Queen riding away gaily by the side of Launcelot; but he was a fond husband, and it was not in his heart to say her nay when she would a-hawking go, or watch the young knights a-hurling for a silver ball.

So the habit grew as the King got busier and busier. And though Launcelot liked more and more to wait upon the Queen and learned to put up with her tempers, the Queen was not happy at home, where she had it all her own way, but would look in the mirror and pity herself, for that being plump and fair to look upon there was no Arthur at hand to pinch her cheeks and tell her so. At times she even grew weary at hearing how good Arthur was, and would exclaim in her tantrums—

And to her little waiting maid she would say: "By my faith, I could do with less goodness abroad and more comfort at home."

The old chough which Merlin gave the King was the wireless messenger between the King and Queen, and carried messages to and fro. Launcelot was left behind, as usual now, when the King went on a fighting tour in Wales. He had, however, a fit of the "blues" just then, and the Queen put him on milk and soda and dry biscuit diet, so he soon got well, and trouble began. They played hide-and-seek, and found each other in the gardens, and quarrelled and made it up again, until the Queen had fond eyes for none but Launcelot; and the old chough hopped about the Court, and was kept waiting for a return message which, when he got it, wasn't worth the carrying, so light of love the words were. The old chough had a friend at Court, a dwarf, who played the fool, and skipped about like a withered leaf, and learnt a good deal more than people wot of. One day he tied a paper around the chough's leg, which opened the King's eyes when he read it; and he whispered something to the chough, which made him turn red about the beak.

The King was still in Wales, and his sword ran crimson. A council of war broke up in confusion, all through one Murdock, a bosom friend of Launcelot's, putting his spoke in all the King's plans. It was Murdock's turn to sleep on the mat outside the King's chamber, and the old chough, acting on information received, kept his eye on Murdock. The King was sweetly dreaming of home and Jenefer, his Queen, when the chough woke him.

"What's up?" asked the King.

"Come and see," croaked the chough, hopping towards the door.

Then King Arthur noticed that the old chough was crimson about the feet and legs, and great drops of blood stained the floor, and he soon found the reason, for the chough had slain Murdock in his sleep, and so saved the life of the King, as was proved by correspondence in secret cypher found in the traitor's breast-pocket. Then the King called all the Court together, and in their presence knighted the chough; and from that day the chough family have had red beaks and legs.

When King Arthur died, his soul entered into the body of Sir Chough, his old familiar and preserver, and now, whenever he visits the scenes of past shame and glory, it is in the body of a chough, and that is why the Cornish would not kill a chough in the old days, when this story was fresh in their minds.

"Now the chough is protected by Act of Parliament," said Guy.

"Ill-protected," replied the Bookworm. "What Act of Parliament is so effective as a feeling of reverence consecrated by centuries? You destroy tradition at your own peril."

"All right; the story isn't bad," said Guy. "I thought we were going to have something tasty about Queen Jenefer and Launcelot."

"No, the story is only concerned with showing how and why a black chough got a red beak and legs, and transmitted the distinction to the whole family of choughs. If you want the story of the whitewashing of Jenefer, you must go to Tennyson."

"I know—the Queen and the little maid that in convent did dwell. It is very nice reading, even if you don't believe it," said Guy.

The popular fancy buried King Arthur in a long mound in the Camelford district—about the bleakest and most sterile in the county. There is an ancient British fortification here, and here the old people thought a fit and proper place for the resting-place of a King for ever at war against men and the age he lived in. But no legend seems to have fastened on this spot as the centre of mystic visitation by red-legged choughs, or the shadowy repentant forms of Jenefer and Launcelot, and all those who failed to keep the oaths of chastity and the higher life. Only here and all around—a land of mountain, bog, and moor, bleak and inhospitable—is a vast burial-ground of ancient Britons in kist and tumuli, rude dwellings and entrenchments. Here King Arthur may lie and sleep as soundly as in the "Vale of Avalon," the poet's paradise for a grand soul born before its time; but when legend is so silent, history is doubtful in this land.

We reached Camelford, and at night the piskies sealed our eyes in sleep too restful even for the shadow of a dream.