“Out with thee, old fellow!” he exclaimed. “How cam’st thou here? This is no place for beggars and basket-men such as thou.”
Then when Sir Cleges said he had a present in his basket for the king, the usher, like the porter, must see what the present could be.
“Holy Saint Peter!” he gasped, when Sir Cleges had lifted the cover of the basket. “Cherries at Christmas-time! How can such a thing be?”
But he soon recovered from his surprise and told Sir Cleges he might go in, but only if he promised that one third of the reward which the king gave him should come to him. And Sir Cleges, thinking how hard it was to do even a kindness to a king, must needs promise as he had done before.
When Sir Cleges entered the great hall all was bright and merry there. The knights and the ladies of King Uther’s court, all decked in their finest feathers and silks, were about to sit down to the banquet. The serving-men went scurrying back and forth from the kitchen, bearing platters of rich food for the king’s feasters and stumbling over each other in their excitement and hurry. The table was hardly able to carry everything they wanted to put upon it. There were great haunches of venison, and roast swans and geese and ducks and pheasants by the dozen. At each end, there stood a huge pasty almost as big around as a cart wheel. The king’s cooks had used all their art in concocting cakes and pies and puddings, to say nothing of the sweetmeats of marchpane molded into the forms of towers and castles, or of knights on horseback, or baskets of fruit and flowers, and various other fanciful and astonishing structures. Everybody’s mouth was watering, but the king was not yet ready to sit down to the feasting, and the courtiers and their ladies stood chatting and laughing merrily with one another. All were too busy to pay any heed to the shabby Sir Cleges, with the basket on his arm, until the watchful eye of the king’s haughty steward happened to fall upon him. Horrified to see such a melancholy figure in the midst of so gay a company, he hastened up to Sir Cleges and was hustling him out of the hall with short ceremony before Sir Cleges managed to say that he had a present for the king.
“Beggars are not givers,” said the steward; “but show me, what is the present thou dost bring?”
Then, when Sir Cleges had lifted the cover of the basket and had shown him the cherries, he was no less surprised than the others had been, nor was he less greedy.
“Cherries at Christmas!” he exclaimed. “Whoever heard of such a thing? But listen, sir,” said he, in a low voice, “thou speakest not with the king unless thou promise me one third of the reward he gives thee.”
When Sir Cleges heard these words he thought to himself: “Little enough am I to get out of this. If I have a dinner for my pains, it’s as much as I may look for.” But he said nothing until the steward prodded him again, and then, seeing that there was no other way of getting by this greedy officer, he promised him a third of his reward, as he already had done to the porter and the usher.
At last the way was free for Sir Cleges; and with his precious basket, he made his way through the throng of the courtiers to the place where the king was seated on a dais.