The bishop thus splendidly accoutred was conducted with great state and solemnity into the banqueting-room, one of the most magnificent and spacious of the kind. It excelled everything he had ever before seen: odoriferous and fragrant perfumes, fit for a Peri3 to feed on, saluted his nose; his sight was dazzled by splendid and radiant illuminations, the most exquisite music stole upon his ear, and laughter and mirth seemed to be universal; every face (there were many hundreds in the room) was decked with a smile; there wanted but one thing to complete the enchantment of the scene, – the light of woman's laughing eye.
As the bishop entered the hall, five hundred harpers in an instant twanged their harps; and the air resounded with trumpets, clarions, fifes, and other musical instruments, not omitting the hollow drum.
The bishop, being tainted with the superstitious feelings of the age, easily persuaded himself that he was in an enchanted palace; he therefore determined to conform to every custom that prevailed in the assembled company, and by that means he hoped to ingratiate himself with the presiding spirit. When he had reached the centre of the hall, the king (he wore a robe of rich crimson velvet, furred with ermine, over a dalmatica flowered with gold, rubies, emeralds, pearls, and diamonds, and on his head was a splendid crown beyond estimation,) descended from a throne of the purest crystal, and advanced to meet the bishop. As he passed the obsequious nobles, he received their servile adulation with a smile, and, extending his arms, folded the bishop in a royal embrace. The latter surveyed with some awe the brawny shoulders of the king, and regarded with much respect the amber-coloured locks hanging in great profusion down his musculous back. The bishop thought that the aquiline nose, the expansive brow, the large clear azure eye, and the ruddy complexion of his host, about as much resembled those of his own monarch as a terrible-looking bull-dog does a snarling mongrel. But he kept his complimentary thoughts of his host to himself, as he was not at any time of a communicative spirit, – he was a proud, not a vain man, – and he moreover did not know how his compliment might be received.
The king handed the bishop to the upper end of the hall, and placed him at his right hand. No sooner were they seated than twenty trumpeters, in a gallery at the lower end of the room, blew, as the signal for supper to be served up, three such electrifying blasts, that, had the building not been as substantial as beautiful, it must have been shaken.
As the loquacious seneschal, in tempting the bishop to quicken his steps to supper, has put us in possession of many of the various articles provided for this festive entertainment, we shall not weary our reader by recapitulating them; but content ourselves with stating that, in addition to the solid fare, there were exquisite and delicate fruits and viands, with wines and liqueurs of the choicest quality and flavour. The supper-service was of the most superb description, frosted silver and burnished gold; the goblets, vases, and wine-cups were of crystal, mounted in gold richly carved. Such a feast the bishop had never seen or tasted; and yet he was, like many of his predecessors and successors too, perfectly familiar with the charms of eating and drinking.
Nothing produces good-fellowship, intimacy, and conviviality more than a good supper. We do not mean the cold, formal, and pompous supper given to a fashionable party of the present day; but such as were peculiar to by-gone days, when the table groaned under hot and solid joints, and the company, with good appetites as provocatives, ate and drank right heartily, – when glee and joy sat merrily upon every face, and the glass went briskly round. Even misanthropes or proud men could not be insensible to such festive scenes; their hearts would necessarily warm as the exhilarating wine washed away their gloomy and proud thoughts.
The bishop soon became familiar with his host, ate, drank, laughed, and was merry; (we will not so scandalise the Bench as to presume that he was drunk, although the Chronicle of Lanercost insinuates as much;) the conversation was brilliant, the wit bright and poignant, and the repartees flashed, and often rebounded upon the discharger.
To put a direct or pointed question at any time is, to say the least of it, ungentlemanly; it very often gives dire offence, is seldom admired or tolerated even by your most intimate acquaintance; and men are seldom guilty of it, unless in their cups, or with a desire of insulting: – how unpalatable must it be to royalty! As we know it was the bishop's desire to keep upon good terms with his host, it is but natural to infer that he would not intentionally insult him by any rude question. If, therefore, any rudeness occurred on the part of the bishop, it is charitable to set it down to inebriation, or perhaps to the bishop's habit of putting questions in the confessional.
To the ineffable surprise of the king, the bishop was so injudicious as to ask his host, in the most direct and pointed manner, who he was, and whence he came there.
No sooner had the bishop attempted to satisfy his prying curiosity by what appeared to him a very natural question, than the hall shook as if Nature were indignant at his presumptuous inquiry; the whole place was filled with an effulgent lambent light so brilliant, that it entirely eclipsed the blaze of the variegated lamps that burned in the hall; a low murmuring wind followed. The king's eyes seemed to flash liquid fire as he answered, "Know me for what I am, – Arthur, formerly lord of the whole monarchy of Britain, son of the mighty Pendragon, and the illustrious founder of the Order of the Round Table."
The bishop, having a firm heart and buxom valour, was far from being daunted, as most men in a similar situation would have been, and he inquired whether the story then current was true, that King Arthur was not dead, but had been carried away by fairies into some pleasant place, where he was to remain for a time, and then return again and reign in as great authority as ever; or whether he died by the sword-wounds he received from the sons of the king of the Picts; and if so, whether his soul was saved, and come to revisit this sublunary world. The bishop, meditating authorship, asked a thousand other questions relative to the immortality of the soul; and so subtle were they, that, had they been put in these days of sciolism and charlatanry, his fame would have been as brilliant, lasting, and deserved as that of the noble editor of Paley's Theology.
Whether King Arthur did not choose to satisfy the bishop's curiosity, or whether, judging from the usual depth of the human mind, he thought the immortality of the soul a subject too deep and mystic for such moonshine treatises as have been written concerning it, the Chronicle of Lanercost does not inform us. It merely states, that to all the bishop's searching questions Arthur only replied, "Verè expecto misericordiam Dei magnam." He had no sooner uttered those words than a roar, like the falling of mighty waters such as Niagara's was heard, and from the incense-altar another blaze of transcendent light issued: the whole assembly, excepting the bishop, prostrated themselves and chaunted a hymn, which he, mistaking for a bacchanal-venatical chorus, heartily joined in. Upon this outrage of public decency, the chaunt instantly terminated with a crash resembling what is ignorantly called the falling of a thunderbolt; the altar again smoked, and horrible and clamorous noises issued therefrom, like the bellowing of buffaloes, the howling of wolves, the snarling and barking of hounds, the neighing of horses, the halloo of huntsmen, and the blasts of brazen trumpets, all in heterogeneous mingle. The smoke gradually assumed the appearance of a host of hunters; one of them, evidently their chief, fixed his glaring eyes upon the bishop, and frowned awfully. The bishop did not admire the looks of the hunter-chief, and even winced a little when he raised his ghastly arm, (as a self-satisfied orator does when about to enforce some appalling clap-trap sentiment,) and said in a gruff growl, "I am Nimrod, of hunting fame, and such a hunter was I as the world had not before, or since, or will ever have again. Yet was I no monopolizer of game, or murderer of men to preserve it, as some have unjustly charged me. I loved the chase, and taught my subjects to love it too; but thou, oh Bishop Peter, hast been a cruel hunter, and strict preserver of game. The tongues thou hast dilacerated, the ears and noses thou hast cut off, and the wretches thou hast slain, form an awful catalogue of cruelty, and one that will require tears of blood to wash out. Hearken to the lamentations of thy victims, and the bewailings of the widows and orphans thy cruelty hath made! Hadst thou not been so peerless and bold a hunter, I should not have condescended to warn you of the terrible fate you will experience in the world to come, unless you mend your ways. Lover and encourager that I was, and interested as I still am in that manly sport, I would sooner that it were entirely lost to the world than it should be disgraced by human bloodshed.