The foursome started out for Mrs. Lynde's. Leaving some very shocked Avonlea Schoolers.
"What news do you have to tell Mrs. Lynde that I don't know about Diana Barry?" Anne said as they walked.
"Yes do tell us Fred." Gilbert said with a smirk.
"Well," Diana began nervously. "Fred and I are sort of thinking about c-courting." She finished with a stammer.
"Courting?!" Anne squeaked in shock.
"hmhm." Diana said quietly.
"Really? This... You... Fred.. Together?"Anne queried.
Diana turned pale. Did her Bosom Friend not approve? She was looking at her with eyes that were a cloudy grey. A sign that she was sad or hurt or both. Anne looked over at Fred. Her eyes flashed a fiery green. She most definitely did not like Fred. Her eyes only flashed green when she was angry. Diana saw Anne glance down at her hand intertwined with Fred's. Anne's expression was unreadable.
"Do you promise you won't ever hurt her, Fred?" She said at last.
"I swear." Fred said solemnly.
"You are sure you love him that way?" She asked Diana.
"I know he's not the dashing man I imagined when we were eleven, but he's all I dream of now." She looked up at Fred with shining eyes.
"Then I don't see anything wrong with this 'match'. What I do have a problem with, though is the fact you felt it more important to have Mrs. Lynde's approval and didn't care to have mine." Anne said reproachfully.
"Oh Anne it's not that way! I always want to know what you think." Diana said hurriedly.
"Do your parents know?" Anne inquired as they neared the Orchard Slope.
"No. We should tell our parents Freddie." Diana flitted her eyelashes at 'Freddie' as she said this.
"Meet you at Barry's Pond Gilbert?" Fred said after he cleared his throat.
"Sure." Gil said with a nod.
The girls looked at each other with amused smiles. Why were they using that unimaginative name?
"Well Diana I don't think we should meet at Barry's Pond." Anne said with a wink at her friend.
"Me either. Where do you think we should meet up?" Diana asked stiffening a giggle.
"Why, the Lake of Shining Waters of course." Anne said with a glimmer in her eyes and a smirk on her mouth.
"The Lake of Shining Waters sounds like the perfect spot. We'll meet there... That is if Fred and Gil agree. What do you boys think?" Diana was not the best at tricks, but this was greatest one she had ever been apart of. The boys had a look of confusion written on every feature.
"Lake of Shining What?" They asked in unison.
"Lake of Shining Waters." Anne answered.
"You can't tell us you don't know where that is." Diana chimed in.
"Well, n-no we don't." Fred stammered.
"It's only the most beautiful place in the world." Anne said with a theatrical flare.
"Definitely." Diana said in agreement.
"Where is this 'most beautiful place in the world' Anne?" Gilbert interrogated.
"It's just half a mile between Green Gables and Orchard slope." Anne answered.
"Half a mile... Green Gables... Orchard Slope... Hmm..." Gilbert thought aloud.
" Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable,
Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat,
High in her chamber up a tower to the east
Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot;
Which first she placed where morning's earliest ray" Anne recited.
"What?" Fred queered.
"Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam;
Then fearing rust or soilure fashioned for it
A case of silk, and braided thereupon
All the devices blazoned on the shield
In their own tinct, and added, of her wit,
A border fantasy of branch and flower,
And yellow-throated nestling in the nest.
Nor rested thus content, but day by day,
Leaving her household and good father, climbed
That eastern tower, and entering barred her door," Diana added.
"What does a poem have to do with anything?" Gilbert asked. Lancelot and a Elaine how cute. They don't actually think I'd forget The Unfortunate Lily Maid would they? Let them play all they like.
"Stript off the case, and read the naked shield,
Now guessed a hidden meaning in his arms,
Now made a pretty history to herself
Of every dint a sword had beaten in it,
And every scratch a lance had made upon it,
Conjecturing when and where: this cut is fresh;
That ten years back; this dealt him at Caerlyle;
That at Caerleon; this at Camelot:
And ah God's mercy, what a stroke was there!
And here a thrust that might have killed, but God
Broke the strong lance, and rolled his enemy down,
And saved him: so she lived in fantasy." Anne continued.
"Camelot? What in the world girls does this have to do with this 'Lake of Shining Waters?" Fred inquired.
"How came the lily maid by that good shield
Of Lancelot, she that knew not even his name?
He left it with her, when he rode to tilt
For the great diamond in the diamond jousts,
Which Arthur had ordained, and by that name
Had named them, since a diamond was the prize.
For Arthur, long before they crowned him King,
Roving the trackless realms of Lyonnesse,
Had found a glen, gray boulder and black tarn.
A horror lived about the tarn, and clave
Like its own mists to all the mountain side:
For here two brothers, one a king, had met
And fought together; but their names were lost;
And each had slain his brother at a blow;
And down they fell and made the glen abhorred:
And there they lay till all their bones were bleached,
And lichened into colour with the crags:
And he, that once was king, had on a crown
Of diamonds, one in front, and four aside.
And Arthur came, and labouring up the pass,
All in a misty moonshine, unawares
Had trodden that crowned skeleton, and the skull
Brake from the nape, and from the skull the crown
Rolled into light, and turning on its rims
Fled like a glittering rivulet to the tarn:
And down the shingly scaur he plunged, and caught,
And set it on his head, and in his heart
Heard murmurs, "Lo, thou likewise shalt be King." Diana persisted. Please let one of them have a working brain.
" Thereafter, when a King, he had the gems
Plucked from the crown, and showed them to his knights,
Saying, "These jewels, whereupon I chanced
Divinely, are the kingdom's, not the King's-
For public use: henceforward let there be,
Once every year, a joust for one of these:
For so by nine years' proof we needs must learn
Which is our mightiest, and ourselves shall grow
In use of arms and manhood, till we drive
The heathen, who, some say, shall rule the land
Hereafter, which God hinder." Thus he spoke:
And eight years past, eight jousts had been, and still
Had Lancelot won the diamond of the year,
With purpose to present them to the Queen,
When all were won; but meaning all at once
To snare her royal fancy with a boon
Worth half her realm, had never spoken word." Anne said dramatically. Come on Gil you know this.
"Isn't this Lancelot and Elaine? The poem Ms. Stacy had us red a year ago?" Gilbert asked pretending to catch on. If those little ladies thought they could pull the wool over his eyes they were wrong. However, he would let them have their fun.
" Yes." Anne said with a sigh.
"Now for the central diamond and the last
And largest, Arthur, holding then his court
Hard on the river nigh the place which now
Is this world's hugest, let proclaim a joust
At Camelot, and when the time drew nigh
Spake" Gilbert quoted.
"Exactly. You rescued me from drowning after the girls and I tried to reenact this. The spot that you saved me was called..." Anne waited for him to connect the dots.
"Barry's Pond." Gilbert finished.
"Or.." Diana added.
"The Lake of Shining Waters?" Fred said questioningly.
Anne nodded.
"Our boys aren't as dense as we thought them Anne." Diana laughed.
"Not as dense, but dense they are." Anne said with a smirk.
"Meet you there after we tell our parents and/or guardians?" Fred asked.
They all nodded in agreement.
This chapter ran a little long because of the Lancelot and Elaine quotes. Sorry about that.