gh clean. Yet truly, thought
Geraint, he had never seen a lovelier maiden, nor one with more
sweetness and grace in her smile or gentleness in her voice. And the
heart of him stirred with pity to see her so pale and wan, as if she
fared but poorly.

'Welcome, fair sir,' said the old dame. 'This is my daughter Enid, who
will gladly prepare food for you.'

When food had been prepared they sat down, and Geraint was placed
between the white-haired man and his wife, and the maiden served them.

Afterwards, as they drank weak mead from cups of earthenware, they
spoke together; and Geraint asked whose was the manor in which they
sat.

'Mine,' said the old man, 'for I built it. And the castle up there and
the town were also mine.'

'Alas!' said Geraint, 'how is it you and yours have lost them?'

'For my sins and my greed,' said the old man sadly, 'and bitterly have
I repented me of my wrong. I am Earl Inewl, but I have lost the lands
that made my earldom. For I have a nephew, whom his father, on his
deathbed, gave into my keeping, with all his lands. And I added his
possessions to my own, and when the boy was a man he demanded them of
me, and I would not give them up. So he made war upon me, and took
everything from me except this ruined hall and one poor farm.'

'Since you are sorry for the greed that hath ruined you,' replied
Geraint, 'I will do what I may to regain your possessions, if God gives
me life. But first I would ask, why went that knight and the lady and
the dwarf just now into the town, and why is there so much furbishing
of arms there?'

'The preparations are for the jousting that is to be held to-morrow's
morn in the level meadow beside the ford,' responded the old earl. 'And
the prize is to be a falcon of pure gold. The knight thou sawest has
won the falcon two years running, and if he wins it this time he will
have it for his own, and will win the title of the Knight of the Golden
Falcon. And to gain it from him all those knights in the town will
essay. And with each will go the lady that he loveth best, and if a man
takes not his lady with him he may not enter the lists.'

'Sir,' said Sir Geraint, 'I would willingly have to do with that
knight, for he hath, by the hands of his dwarf page, most evilly
insulted the queen of my dear lord, King Arthur; but I have no armour.'

'As for that,' said the old man, 'I have arms here that will fit thee;
but if thou hast no maiden with thee, thou canst not do