Cornwall's Wonderland

by Mabel Quiller-Couch

Little Tristram wailed right lustily, as though he fully realized his orphan state, and wept with pity for his own sad fate; and good cause he had to wail, too, poor little man, had he but known it, for already the greedy barons had cast their eyes on his land, longing to possess it and rule it. With only a baby boy standing between them and it, their way was easy enough. His death could easily be accomplished.

Fortunately, though, for him, and everyone else in the land, King Melodias was just then released from enchantment by Merlin the wizard, and came hurrying joyfully to his home, to embrace his beloved wife. Great was his grief when he found that she was dead, great was the moan he made in his sorrow. With great pomp and splendour he buried her, and for seven years lived a lonely life, mourning her.

At the end of that time he married again, but the stepmother hated little Tristram, the heir, and longed to destroy him, that her own child might be king. So one day she placed some poison in a cup for him to drink, but her own child, being thirsty, drank the poison and died.

The queen, broken-hearted at the loss of her boy, and horror-stricken at what she had done, hated her stepson more than ever after this, and once again she tried to kill him in the same manner. This time, though, King Melodias, spying the tempting-looking drink, took it up and was about to drink it, when the queen, seeing what he was about to do, rushed in and snatched it from him. Then he discovered her guilt, and his anger knew no bounds.

"Thou traitress!" he cried, "confess what manner of drink this is, or here and now I will run this sword through thy heart!"

So she confessed, and was tried before the barons, and by their judgment was given over to be burnt to death. The faggots were prepared, the queen was bound to the stake, and they were beginning to light the fire when little Tristram, flinging himself on his knees, besought his father with such entreaties to pardon her, that the king could not refuse. So the queen was released, and in time the king forgave her.

But, though he forgave her, he could never trust her again, and to protect little Tristram from her, he was sent to France, where he continued for some time, learning to joust and hunt, and do all things that were right and brave and noble; and seven years passed before he returned to his home in Lyonesse.

Lyonesse was the furthest point of Cornwall; it joined what we now call 'Land's End,' and stretched out through the sea until it reached the Scilly Islands, a wild, rugged, beautiful spot, washed on either side by the glorious Atlantic sea. One day, though, that glorious Atlantic rose like a mountain above Lyonesse, and where in the morning had been a beautiful city with churches and houses, and fertile lands, in the evening there was only a raging, boiling sea, bearing on its bosom fragments of the lost world it had devoured. This, though, was long after the time of which I am writing now.

For two years after his return from France, Tristram lived in Lyonesse, and then it happened that King Anguish of Ireland sent to King Mark of Cornwall to demand seven years' truage that was due to him. But when the demand reached King Mark, he and his knights absolutely refused to pay the money, and sent the messenger back, with none too polite a message, to say so. If he wanted the debt settled, they said, he could send the noblest knight of his court to fight for it, otherwise the king might whistle for his money.

King Anguish was furiously enraged when this message reached him, and calling to him at once Sir Marhaus, his biggest and trustiest knight, sent him without delay to Cornwall to fight this battle.