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Updated: August 3, 2024
A herald blew a trumpet, and the knight who was called the Sparrow-hawk galloped into the field. He rode around it three times, and then went up to the pavilion and said to his lady: "I give you the gold sparrow-hawk again, because no one dares to fight with me for it." Then Sir Geraint rode forward in his rusty armor and said: "I will fight with you."
It might be a squirrel; it certainly looked like the work of his strong claws; but, on the other hand, it might be the sparrow-hawk who had made the meadow his daily hunting-ground since the mysterious disaster to the kingbird's nest had deprived us of the police services of that vigilant bird.
Imagine that a sparrow-hawk had seized a trembling pigeon, and that a royal falcon swooped, and with one lightning-like stroke of body and wing, buffeted him away, and sent him gaping and glaring and grasping at pigeonless air with his claws.
"Gladly will I permit thee," said the hoary-headed man, "and since thou dost thus resolve, it is necessary that thy horse and arms should be ready to-morrow at break of day. For then the Knight of the Sparrow-Hawk will make proclamation, and ask the lady he loves best to take the Sparrow- Hawk.
Madame had also formed her separate Court, in the midst of which she received, with the grace of a girl and the premature dignity of a Queen, the elaborate homage of her future subjects; and meanwhile the young Louis, delighted by a partial emancipation from ceremony and etiquette for which he was indebted to the unusual movement about him, pursued his favourite sport of bird-hunting in the gardens of the Tuileries, and attached more importance to the feats of a well-trained sparrow-hawk than to the probable qualities of the bride provided for him by the policy of his royal mother.
He forgives the insult to himself, in consideration of his having put me in peril of my life. And he imposed on me a condition, manly, and honourable, and warrior-like, which was to do thee justice, Lady." "Now, where did he overtake thee?" "At the place where we were jousting, and contending for the Sparrow-Hawk, in the town which is now called Cardiff.
The big brown owl from the beech-grove, the kestrel from the rock on the far side of the brook, the sparrow-hawk from the spinney up-stream, together with the weasels, the stoats, the cats, the jays, and the magpies all in turn met their doom. A pair of barn-owls from the loft in the farm suffered next. These owls were great pets at the old homestead.
But I said, 'I'd look at the books; but I didn't think his deposit was anything like that. 'You little equivocating humbug, says he: 'and which was better, to tell the truths at once and let Captain Dodd, who never did me any harm, have his own, or to hear it told me in the felon's dock? Those were his words, sir: and they made my blood run cold; and if he had gone on at me like that, I should have split, I know I should: but he just said, 'There, your face has given your tongue the lie: you haven't brains enough to play the rogue. Oh, and another thing he said he wouldn't talk to the sparrow-hawk any more, when there was the kite hard by: so by that I guess your turn is coming, sir; so mind your eye.
And when the earl and his company saw the Knight of the Sparrow-hawk gaining the mastery, there was shouting and joy and mirth amongst them; and the hoary-headed man and his wife and his daughter were sorrowful. And the hoary-headed man served Geraint with lances as often as he broke them, and the dwarf served the Knight of the Sparrow-hawk.
But Geraint was brave, and he called out loudly, 'I claim the prize for the fairest lady in the field. And he glanced at Enid in her faded silk dress. Then, in a great rage, the Sparrow-hawk got ready for the fight with Enid's champion, and they fought so fiercely that three times they broke their spears. Then they got off their horses, and fought with their swords.
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