So we departed, and divers of the said knights and squires went
with us to see us safe on the way.
"But this was nigh to the kingdom of my lord's father,
and that felon baron I came across again, and he was ever
after one of my worst foes.
"Moreover, that young champion who had first stood up in the hall rode
with us still, when the others had turned back; and I soon saw of him
that he found it hard to keep his eyes off me; and that also saw my lord,
and it was a near thing that they did not draw sword thereover:
yet was that knight no evil man, but good and true, and I was exceedingly
sorry for him; but I could not help him in the only way he would take
help of me.
"Lo you, my friend, the beginnings of evil in those long past days,
and the seeds of ill-hap sown in the field of my new life even before
the furrow was turned.
"Well, we came soon into my lord's country, and fair and rich
and lovely was it in those days; free from trouble and unpeace,
a happy abode for the tillers of the soil, and the fashioners of wares.
The tidings had gone to the king that my lord was come back,
and he came to meet him with a great company of knights and barons,
arrayed in the noblest fashion that such folk use; so that I
was bewildered with their glory, and besought my lord to let me
fall back out of the way, and perchance he might find me again.
But he bade me ride on his right hand, for that I was the half
of his life and his soul, and that my friends were his friends
and my foes his foes.
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