I feel assured that God may still have works of faith and patience for us to do for Him here, which (albeit the world will never know it) may be more blessed in His eyes than those great deeds the fame of which goes through the world.  Perchance were I a man of thews and sinews like my brothers, I might think only of the glory of feats of arms and the stress and strife of the battle.  But being as I am, I cannot but think of other matters; and so thinking and dreaming, there has come to me the sense that if I may never win the knighthood and the fame which may attend on others, I may yet be called upon to serve the Great King in some other way.  Raymond, I think that I could gladly die content if I might but feel that I had been called to some task for Him, and having been called had been found faithful.”

John’s eyes were shining brightly as he spoke.  Raymond felt a slight shiver run through his frame as he answered impulsively: 

“Thou hast done a deed already of which any belted knight might well be proud.  It was thou who saved the life of the Prince of Wales by taking upon thy shoulder the blow aimed at his head.  The King himself has spoken in thy praise.  How canst thou speak as though no fame or glory would be thine?”

A look of natural pride and pleasure stole for a moment over John’s pale face; but the thoughtful brightness in his eyes deepened during the silence that followed, and presently he said musingly: 

“I am glad to think of that.  I like to feel that my arm has struck one good blow for my King and country; though, good Raymond, to thee and to Gaston, as much as to me, belongs the credit of saving the young Prince.  Yet though I too love deeds of glory and chivalry, and rejoice to have borne a part in one such struggle undertaken in defence of the poor and the weak, I still think there be higher tasks, higher quests, yet to be undertaken by man in this world.”

“What quest?” asked Raymond wonderingly, as John paused, enwrapped, as it seemed, in his own thoughts.

It was some time before the question was answered, and then John spoke dreamily and slow, as though his thoughts were far away from his wondering listener.

“The quest after that whose glory shall not be of this world alone; the quest that shall raise man heavenward to his Maker.  Is that thought new in the heart of man?  I trow not.  We have heard of late much of that great King Arthur, the founder of chivalry, and of his knights.  Were feats of arms alone enough for them? or those exploits undertaken in the cause of the helpless or oppressed, great and noble as these must ever be?  Did not one or more of their number feel that there was yet another and a holier quest asked of a true knight?  Did not Sir Galahad leave all else to seek after the Holy Grail?  Thou knowest all the story; have we not read it often together?  And seems it not to thee to point us ever onward and upward, away from things of earth towards the things of heaven, showing that even chivalry itself is but an earthly thing, unless it have its final hopes and aspirations fixed far above this earth?”