We put up at the inn in a village just at nightfall, and when
I rose next morning and looked abroad, I was ware where a knight
came riding in the golden glory of the new day, and recognized him
for knight of mine--Sir Ozana le Cure Hardy. He was in the
gentlemen's furnishing line, and his missionarying specialty was
plug hats. He was clothed all in steel, in the beautifulest armor
of the time--up to where his helmet ought to have been; but he
hadn't any helmet, he wore a shiny stove-pipe hat, and was ridiculous
a spectacle as one might want to see. It was another of my
surreptitious schemes for extinguishing knighthood by making it
grotesque and absurd. Sir Ozana's saddle was hung about with
leather hat boxes, and every time he overcame a wandering knight
he swore him into my service and fitted him with a plug and made
him wear it. I dressed and ran down to welcome Sir Ozana and
get his news.
"How is trade?" I asked.
"Ye will note that I have but these four left; yet were they sixteen
whenas I got me from Camelot."
"Why, you have certainly done nobly, Sir Ozana. Where have you
been foraging of late?"
"I am but now come from the Valley of Holiness, please you sir."
"I am pointed for that place myself. Is there anything stirring
in the monkery, more than common?"
"By the mass ye may not question it!.
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