the young man, "I do indeed ask a great thing. I
would gladly tell you more of myself, but I am under a vow to
reveal no more than you already know. Yet I will tell you this,
further. I am the son of a noble who was as big as a giant. My
good father was very peaceable and did not care to fight; so he
never came to your Court, and you did not hear of him. He lived
at home with my mother and me, and the simple people who plowed
the land about our castle.

"Every one ought to have loved him; but he had one enemy. One
day, six years ago, when I was only a boy, my father and I were
in the forest. My father was sleeping at the foot of a tree, and
I was bathing in a brook near by. This enemy, who wanted my
father's lands, came up and drove his sword into my father's
heart. Then he rode away. I ran up to my dead father and took off
the coat which he wore and put it on. I swore never to take it
off, and never to tell my father's name or where I came from,
till I had avenged his death.

"Then I rode home to our castle, but our enemy had taken
possession of it, and had made my mother prisoner. As I was not
yet grown up I vowed that I would stay with the good shepherds
near by till I was strong enough to pull up a young tree by the
roots. Then I would go to King Arthur's Court and ask to be made
a knight. So every month I have tried to uproot a young tree.
This morning I succeeded, and here, my lords, I am."

The knights were much moved and prayed the king to make him a
knight. They said that they would teach him to use arms. The king
said that he would wait to see what sort of man Brune was.

A few days after this all the knights rode off to a tournament
and Brune was left at home with a few soldiers. He was in the
castle yard practicing some of the lessons in warfare which the
knights had been teaching him. While he was hard at work, Queen
Guinevere with twelve soldiers who were her bodyguard passed by.

As she was speaking kindly to Brune, they heard a terrible noise,
and looking in the direction from which it came, saw a dreadful
sight. A fierce lion which had been confined in a tower of stone
had broken out of its prison and was rushing towards them. The
twelve soldiers fled, leaving the queen and Brune alone.

"Ah," said Brune, "not all the cowards in the world are dead."

[Illustration: _"The king touched him lightly with his sword"_]

He stood still while the lion bounded towards him. He had dropped
his sword, an