The Adventures of Sir Givret the Short Read Online Free PDF Page A

looking very confused. "And when he's finished, the fellow starts yellin' at the lady for speaking, even though she's just saved his life. Tell me, is this Sir Erec barmy?"
    Givret ignored the question. Tossing a few gold coins to the former bandits, he said, "Here. Live on this until you find honest work. You're making the right choice, you know. A bandit never knows when someone will take his club away and, um—"
    "WE KNOW! WE KNOW!" shouted Clem.
    [[graphic]]

    Givret continued following Erec and Enide northeast, generally heading toward Limors. At dusk, Givret came upon four dusty and dented knights trudging down the path on foot. Now, knights
never
travel without horses—walking in armor is no fun—so Givret stopped and stared.
    "What are you looking at?" growled a knight in red armor. He carried a badly dented helmet under one arm, and one of his eyes was swollen nearly shut. With his other eye, he was gazing longingly at Givret's horse.
    "It looks like a parade," Givret replied. "But your party costumes are all dented."
    All the knights snarled at this, and Red said, 'Why don't you get off that horse, little man, and say that?"
    Givret stayed out of reach. He had never met a recreant knight, but he was pretty sure these knights were that sort. 'No, thank you," he replied. "I may be little, but I'm not stupid. Not even Sir Lancelot would take on four knights at once."
    At that, one of the knights said, "Say, maybe that's it! Maybe it was Sir Lancelot!"
    "Shut up!" snapped Red.
    "I mean, if we were beaten by Sir Lancelot, it wouldn't be so embarrass—"
    "Shut your trap, I said!"
    Givret laughed. "You don't mean it! All four of you were beaten by one knight? Alone?"
    "He wasn't alone!" said Red. "He had someone with him!"
    Then Givret understood. "No, he wasn't alone, was he? He had a lady with him."
    "Well, the lady helped!" snarled Red. "If she had not called out a warning, we'd have taken him by surprise, and now we'd have ourselves two fine new horses!"
    "Ah! So you meant to steal their horses, so after he'd beaten you, he took
your
horses, right? That's hilarious!" Givret laughed, but none of the knights joined him. After a moment Givret asked, "Say, did the knight seem annoyed at the lady for warning him?"
    At this, all the knights turned toward Givret, and Red muttered, "Ay, that he did. He got angry with her for saving him, which made no sense at all. How did you know that? Do you know this knight?"
    "I do," replied Givret.
    The knight who had spoken before asked eagerly, "Is it Sir Lancelot?"
    "No," said Givret. "It was Sir Erec of East Wales."
    "What?" gasped Red. "The very one they say has given up fighting so as to hang about his lady's skirts?"
    "That's what the rumor says," Givret agreed. "But it isn't true."
    "No bleeding joke!" grumbled Red, and Givret rode on.

    Givret hadn't caught up with Erec and Enide by nightfall, so he made camp and went to sleep. Before long, though, he was awakened by approaching footsteps. He grabbed his sword, but it was not an attacker who stumbled up to his campfire.
    "Enide!" Givret cried.
    "Oh, Givret! It's you!" Enide gasped with relief. Then she burst into tears.
    Givret let her cry herself out, which took several minutes, then asked, "What are you doing out here alone?"
    "Oh, it was just too awful!" Enide wailed. "I tried not to talk, really I did, as hard as I could, because I love Erec so much, but when those people attacked him, I
had
to warn him, didn't I? But then he was so angry and I saw that I could never be a good wife. I might as well be miserable with Count Oringle, if it will make dear Erec happy, but oh, I don't
want
to!"
    Hang on there, Enide," Givret asked. 'Who said anything about Count Oringle?"
    "Oh, we ran into him just as we were making camp this evening—did you know we were back in Limors? Erec had no idea we'd gone this direction!-and the count seemed very friendly but when Erec went to see to our horses, he whispered to me that