ting there all night." Then
they rode on and left him.

But the lad ran with haste to the wood and took his armor from the
tree and put it on. He shook the bridle, and the black steed came
galloping up to him. The lad mounted and rode away to the battle
field. The King's forces were falling back, but the lad attacked the
enemy so fiercely that they were put to rout. Every one wondered who
the hero could be, but as soon as the battle was won he rode away so
swiftly that no one had a chance to question him and no one knew what
had become of him. "If I could but find him," said the King, "I would
honor him as I have never honored any one, for such a hero never was
seen before."

But the lad hastened back to the wood; he laid aside his armor and
turned the black steed loose. Then he put on his wig again and ran
back to the swamp and mounted the sorry nag.

When the King's forces came riding home, there sat the gardener's ugly
lad, whipping his sorry nag and crying "Hie! Hie! Now will you go?"

The courtiers looked upon him with scorn. "Why does he not go home and
get to work?" they cried. "Such a scarecrow is an insult to all who
see him." One of the courtiers, more ill-natured than the rest, shot
an arrow at him, and it pierced his leg so the blood flowed. The lad
cried out so that it was pitiful to hear him. The King felt sorry for
him, ugly though he was, and drew out his own royal handkerchief and
threw it to him.

"There, Sirrah! Take that and bind up thy wound!" he cried.

The lad took the handkerchief and bound it about his leg, and so the
bleeding was stopped.

The next day, when the courtiers rode by, there sat the lad still upon
his broken-down nag, shouting to it as if to urge it forward, and his
leg was tied up with the bloody kerchief, and the King's own initials
were on the kerchief in letters of gold.

The courtiers did not dare to jeer at him this time, because the King
had been kind to him, but they turned their faces aside so as not to
see him.

As soon as they had gone the lad sprang down and ran to the wood and
put on his armor and shook the bridle for the black steed, but he was
in such haste, that he forgot the kerchief that he had used to bind up
his wound, and so, when he rode out upon the battle field, he had it
still tied about his leg.

That day the lad fought more fiercely than ever before, and it was
well he did, for otherwise the King's forces would certainly have been
defeated. A