ped full of white, slow-moving clouds, and everywhere the
warm air was fragrant with the perfume of the forest, and at every strong
breeze the nuts would fall pattering down upon the ground like hailstones.

[Sidenote: Sir Tristram rides ahunting] And because the world was so
beautiful and so lusty, Sir Tristram took great pleasure in life in spite
of that trouble that lay upon him. So he and his court rode very joyfully
amid the trees and thickets, making the woodlands merry with the music of
winding horns and loud-calling voices and with the baying of hounds
sounding like sweet tolling bells in the remoter aisles of the forest
spaces.

Thus Sir Tristram made sport all one morning, in such an autumn season, and
when noon had come he found himself to be anhungered. So he gave orders to
those who were in attendance upon him that food should be spread at a
certain open space in the forest; and therewith, in accordance with those
orders, they in attendance immediately opened sundry hampers of wicker, and
therefrom brought forth a noble pasty of venison, and manchets of bread and
nuts and apples and several flasks and flagons of noble wine of France and
the Rhine countries. This abundance of good things they set upon a cloth as
white as snow which they had laid out upon the ground.

Now just as Sir Tristram was about to seat himself at this goodly feast he
beheld amid the thin yellow foliage that there rode through a forest path
not far away a very noble-seeming knight clad all in shining armor and with
vestments and trappings of scarlet so that he shone like a flame of fire in
the woodlands.

Then Sir Tristram said to those who stood near him, "Know ye who is yonder
knight who rides alone?" They say, "No, Lord, we know him not." Sir
Tristram said, "Go and bid that knight of his courtesy that he come hither
and eat with me."

So three or four esquires ran to where that knight was riding, and in a
little they came attending him to where Sir Tristram was, and Sir Tristram
went to meet him.

Then Sir Tristram said: "Sir Knight, I pray you for to tell me your name
and degree, for it seems to me that you are someone very high in order of
knighthood."

[Sidenote: Sir Lamorack meets Sir Tristam] "Messire," quoth the other, "I
shall be very glad to tell you my name if so be you will do the like
courtesy unto me. I am Sir Lamorack of Gales, and I am son of the late King
Pellinore, who was in his days held to be the foremost k