, Sir Ector took
Arthur to the Archbishop, and told him all that had occurred, and the
Archbishop was as much surprised as Arthur had been, and being a wise
man, he foresaw that all others would be surprised as well, and some of
them unpleasantly so, so he advised that the matter be kept secret for a
little while, when he would summon the Knights for another trial, at
which Arthur could do publicly what he had already done unobserved.

"On Twelfth Day the plan was carried out. The Knights again rode to the
church-yard and tugged at the sword, but no more successfully than
before. Then Arthur came forth to try, and they all laughed at him. Some
of them sneeringly asked why a mere boy should be brought forward to try
to do what they, the most gallant and the strongest Knights, had been
unable to do, but they soon stopped smiling and sneering and began to
frown. Arthur, as he had previously done, walked easily up to the stone,
and grasping the sword by the hilt, pulled it out with as little effort
as if it were a weed in a garden."

"That ain't always easy," said Mollie, who had tried weeding in her own
little garden patch.

"No," said her father; "not always, but sometimes they come up with
scarcely an effort, and that is the way the sword came out of the stone
as soon as Arthur grasped the hilt."

Jack chuckled. "You can bet on a boy to beat a man in a game o' stunts
every time," he said, proudly.

"Well, you can in many cases," said his father, with a smile, "but the
Knights did not like it any the better for that. They were not used to
playing games of stunts with boys, and in this particular instance the
prize was so great a one that their anger ran very high, and they asked
some very embarrassing questions.

"'Who is this boy?' asked some, and nobody was prepared to answer the
question. All Sir Ector knew was that he had brought him up from a baby,
and that he had been a very good boy, but this was not enough for the
Knights. With the crown at stake, they wanted to be certain that his
parents were people of high birth. They didn't want the son of a
stable-man to rule over them and to sit on the throne, and they grew so
bitter about it that to save trouble the Archbishop ordered another
trial to be held at Candlemas."

"I don't think that was fair," said Mollie. "He'd won, and they'd ought
to have given him the prize."

"True," said her father. "He certainly had won it, but the Archbishop
felt that having wo