kind and gentle
to all so that no one in all that place had any fear of him but all were
pleased and merry with him.

Yet ever there lay within the heart of Sir Launcelot some remembrance
that told him that he was too worthy to content himself with being a mad
fool in a lord's castle, wherefore it was always in his will to escape
from the castle of Sir Blyant if he was able to do so.

[Sidenote: _The madman escapeth from the castle of Sir Blyant._]

So now, being unchained, it happened one night when none observed him,
that he dropped privily from the wall of the castle into the moat
thereof, and swam the moat to the other side. And after he had thus
escaped into the night he ran on without stopping until he had reached
the forest, and there he roamed once more altogether wild as he had been
aforetime. For the remnant of his knighthood said to him that it would
be better for him to die alone there in the woodlands than to dwell in
shame in a lord's castle.

* * * * *

Now at that time there was a great wild boar in those parts that was the
terror of all men, and this boar was called the boar of
Lystenesse--taking its name from that part of the forest which was
called the Forest of Lystenesse.

[Sidenote: _King Arthur hunts the boar of Lystenesse._]

So word of this great wild boar, and news of its ravages came to the
ears of King Arthur, whereupon the King ordained that a day should be
set apart for a hunt in which the beast should be slain and the
countryside set free from the ravages thereof.

[Sidenote: _The madman chases the boar._]

Thus it befell that upon a time Sir Launcelot, where he lived in his
madness alone in the forest, was aware of the baying of hounds and the
shouting of voices sounding ever nearer and nearer to where he was. Anon
the baying of the hounds approached him very near indeed, and presently
there came a great cracking and rending of the bushes and the small
trees. Thereupon as he gazed, there burst out of the forest that great
savage wild boar of Lystenesse. And lo! the jowl of that boar was all
white with the foam that was churned by his tusks, and the huge tusks of
the boar gleamed white in the midst of the foam. And the bristles of
that great beast were like sharp wires of steel, and they too were all
flecked with the foam that had fallen from the jowl of the beast. And
the eyes of the wild boar gleamed like to two coals of fire, and it
roared like