Then one came forward and arrested me in the king’s name as a traitor, and I drew my sword on him, telling him he lied in giving me that name, calling too on my men to aid me.  But they were overmatched, and dared not resist, for the swords of the king’s men were out, and, moreover, I saw that Matelgar’s men were weaponless.  He himself was not with me, and still I had no thought of treachery.

So the end was that I was pinioned from behind and bound, and taken away that night to where I knew not.  Only, wherever it was, I was kept in darkness and chains, maddened by the injustice of the thing and my own helplessness, till I lost count of days, and at last hope itself.  And all that time the real reason for my arrest, and for the accusation that caused it, never entered my mind, and least of all did I suspect that Matelgar, my friend, was at the bottom of it.  Indeed, I hoped at first that, hearing of my trouble, he would interfere and procure my release, till, as I say, hope was gone.

It was March when I was taken to prison.  It was into broad May sunshine and greenness that I was brought out by my surly jailers at last, set, half blind with the darkness of the prison, on a good horse, and so, with my hands bound behind me, led off in the midst of a strong guard to the place of my trial.

Then, as mind and feeling came back to me with the fresh air and springtime warmth, I knew the place we were leaving:  It was the castle of a friend of Matelgar—­and that seemed strange to me, for I had been hardly treated, seeing none save the men who fed me and saw that my chains were kept secure.  Then I looked in the faces of my guards, but all were unknown to me.  As I had not before been to that castle as a guest, I was not surprised, and I said nothing to them, for I had found the uselessness of question and entreaty when I spoke at the first to the jailers.

So, silently, we rode on, and the world looked very fair to me after the long grayness of the prison walls.

One who knows the west country, hunting through it as I have hunted, grows to love and recognize the changing shapes of every hill and coombe and spur of climbing forest on their sides, and so, before long, I knew we were making for the great hill of Brent, but why I could not tell.  Then we crossed Parret river, and I watched a salmon leap as we did so; and then on over the level marshes till I could see that the wide circle on Brent top was black with swarming people.  Often enough, as the cloud shadows passed from them, arms and bright armour sparkled in the sunlight among the crowd; and then I could have wept, having no arms or harness left me, for often when aforetime I rode free I would take a childish pleasure in seeing the churls blink and shade their eyes as I flashed on them, and would wonder, too, if my weapons shone as my father’s shone as we rode side by side on some sunny upland.

Then, when we came under the hill of Brent, the hum of voices came down to us, for the day was still, and my guards straightened themselves in the saddle and set their ranks more orderly.  But I, clad as I was in the rags of the finery I had worn at the feast whence I was taken, shrank within myself, ashamed to meet the gazes that must be turned on me presently, for I saw that we were going on up the steep ascent to mix with the crowd on the summit of the great knoll.