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“O sire, what have I done that you should treat me so cruelly?”

“You have mocked me and my ambassador; for you said, if I had sent you to fetch the Fair One with Golden Locks, you would have been successful and brought her back.”

“I did say it, and it was true,” replied Avenant fearlessly; “for I should have told her so much about your majesty and your various high qualities, which no one knows so well as myself, that I am persuaded she would have returned with me.”

“I believe it,” said the king, with an angry look at those who had spoken ill of his favourite; he then gave Avenant a free pardon, and took him back with him to the court.

After having supplied the famished youth with as much supper as he could eat, the king admitted him to a private audience, and said, “I am as much in love as ever with the Fair One with Golden Locks, so I will take thee at thy word, and send thee to try and win her for me.”

“Very well, please your majesty,” replied Avenant cheerfully; “I will depart to-morrow.”

The king, overjoyed with his willingness and hopefulness, would have furnished him with a still more magnificent equipage and suite than the first ambassador; but Avenant refused to take anything except a good horse to ride, and letters of introduction to the princess’s father. The king embraced him and eagerly saw him depart.

It was on a Monday morning when, without any pomp or show, Avenant thus started on his mission. He rode slowly and meditatively, pondering over every possible means of persuading the Fair One with Golden Locks to marry the king; but, even after several days’ journey towards her country, no clear project had entered into his mind. One morning, when he had started at break of day, he came to a great meadow with a stream running through it, along which were planted willows and poplars. It was such a pleasant, rippling stream that he dismounted and sat down on its banks. There he perceived, gasping on the grass, a large golden carp, which, in leaping too far after gnats, had thrown itself quite out of the water, and now lay dying on the greensward. Avenant took pity on it, and though he was very hungry, and the fish was very fat, and he would well enough have liked it for his breakfast, still he lifted it gently and put it back into the stream. No sooner had the carp touched the fresh cool water than it revived and swam away; but shortly returning, it spoke to him from the water in this wise:–

“Avenant, I thank you for your good deed. I was dying, and you have saved me: I will recompense you for this one day.”

After this pretty little speech, the fish popped down to the bottom of the stream, according to the habit of carp, leaving Avenant very much astonished, as was natural.

Another day he met with a raven that was in great distress, being pursued by an eagle, which would have swallowed him up in no time. “See,” thought Avenant, “how the stronger oppress the weaker! What right has an eagle to eat up a raven?” So taking his bow and arrow, which he always carried, he shot the eagle dead, and the raven, delighted, perched in safety on an opposite tree.

“Avenant,” screeched he, though not in the sweetest voice in the world; “you have generously succoured me, a poor miserable raven. I am not ungrateful, and I will recompense you one day.

“Thank you,” said Avenant, and continued his road.

Entering in a thick wood, so dark with the shadows of early morning that he could scarcely find his way, he heard an owl hooting, like an owl in great tribulation. She had been caught by the nets spread by birdcatchers to entrap finches, larks, and other small birds. “What a pity,” thought Avenant, “that men must always torment poor birds and beasts who have done them no harm!” So he took out his knife, cut the net, and let the owl go free. She went sailing up into the air, but immediately returned hovering over his head on her brown wings.