Then King Arthur noticed that the old chough was crimson about the feet and legs, and great drops of blood stained the floor, and he soon found the reason, for the chough had slain Murdock in his sleep, and so saved the life of the King, as was proved by correspondence in secret cypher found in the traitor's breast-pocket. Then the King called all the Court together, and in their presence knighted the chough; and from that day the chough family have had red beaks and legs.
When King Arthur died, his soul entered into the body of Sir Chough, his old familiar and preserver, and now, whenever he visits the scenes of past shame and glory, it is in the body of a chough, and that is why the Cornish would not kill a chough in the old days, when this story was fresh in their minds.
"Now the chough is protected by Act of Parliament," said Guy.
"Ill-protected," replied the Bookworm. "What Act of Parliament is so effective as a feeling of reverence consecrated by centuries? You destroy tradition at your own peril."
"All right; the story isn't bad," said Guy. "I thought we were going to have something tasty about Queen Jenefer and Launcelot."
"No, the story is only concerned with showing how and why a black chough got a red beak and legs, and transmitted the distinction to the whole family of choughs. If you want the story of the whitewashing of Jenefer, you must go to Tennyson."
"I know—the Queen and the little maid that in convent did dwell. It is very nice reading, even if you don't believe it," said Guy.
The popular fancy buried King Arthur in a long mound in the Camelford district—about the bleakest and most sterile in the county. There is an ancient British fortification here, and here the old people thought a fit and proper place for the resting-place of a King for ever at war against men and the age he lived in. But no legend seems to have fastened on this spot as the centre of mystic visitation by red-legged choughs, or the shadowy repentant forms of Jenefer and Launcelot, and all those who failed to keep the oaths of chastity and the higher life. Only here and all around—a land of mountain, bog, and moor, bleak and inhospitable—is a vast burial-ground of ancient Britons in kist and tumuli, rude dwellings and entrenchments. Here King Arthur may lie and sleep as soundly as in the "Vale of Avalon," the poet's paradise for a grand soul born before its time; but when legend is so silent, history is doubtful in this land.
We reached Camelford, and at night the piskies sealed our eyes in sleep too restful even for the shadow of a dream.