Everything was fresh and cheerful as of a new-born earth, and so were the spirits of the two youthful knights, who were pricking forth in search of adventures. He whose face was turned towards the West, where the rising sun had last set, wore a primrose scarf over his cuirass, and had on his shield a quaint device, which, on closer inspection, might be seen to be a tombstone with the inscription,
‘I was well, would be better, and here I am.’
He rode along musing on the heroic legends of the past, and wishing that he had been a knight of Arthur’s round table to ride out with the blameless king against invading heathen.
The second knight, whose face was turned towards the rising sun, bore an azure shield with a different device. On it was depicted the good Sir James Douglass charging the serried Paynim army, and, as he charged, flinging before him into the hostile ranks the casket containing the heart of Robert Bruce, and shouting for battle-cry—
Go thou aye forward, as was thy wont.
As he rode his fancy wrought the fairy web of a day-dream, in which he saw himself delivering the fair princess Liberty from the fiery dragon Prejudice and the stolid giant Obstruction.
The knights met just where an ancient oak of mighty bulk stretched overhead a huge branch across the path, as some aged athlete might stretch out an arm rigid with gnarled and knotted muscles, to show younger generations how Olympian laurels were won when Pollux or Hercules plied the cestus. From this branch a shield hung suspended.
‘Good morrow, fair knight,’ said he of the primrose scarf; ‘prithee tell me if thou knowest what means this golden shield suspended here.’
‘I marvel at it myself, good Sir Knight,’ responded the other; ‘but you mistake in calling the shield golden; it is of silver.’