your share full
cheap, and made a good bargain."

He Wins the Prizes

While this short conversation had been going on the judges had
returned to their seats, and formally awarded the prize to Gamelyn,
and now came to him, bearing the ram and the ring for his acceptance.

Gamelyn took them gladly, and went home the next morning, followed by
a cheering crowd of admirers; but when the cowardly Sir John saw the
people he bolted the castle doors against his more favourite and
successful brother.

He Overcomes his Brother's Servants

The porter, obeying his master's commands, refused Gamelyn entrance;
and the youth, enraged at this insult, broke down the door with one
blow, caught the fleeing porter, and flung him down the well in the
courtyard. His brother's servants fled from his anger, and the crowd
that had accompanied him swarmed into courtyard and hall, while the
knight took refuge in a little turret.

"Welcome to you all," said Gamelyn. "We will be masters here and ask
no man's leave. Yesterday I left five tuns of wine in the cellar; we
will drain them dry before you go. If my brother objects (as he well
may, for he is a miser) I will be butler and caterer and manage the
whole feast. Any person who dares to object may join the porter in the
well."

Naturally no objections were raised, and Gamelyn and his friends held
high revel for a week, while Sir John lay hidden in his turret,
terrified at the noise and revelry, and dreading what his brother
might do to him now he had so great a following.

A Reckoning with Sir John

However, the guests departed quietly on the eighth day, leaving
Gamelyn alone, and very sorrowful, in the hall where he had held high
revel. As he stood there, musing sadly, he heard a timid footstep, and
saw his brother creeping towards him. When he had attracted Gamelyn's
attention he spoke out loudly: "Who made thee so bold as to destroy
all my household stores?"

"Nay, brother, be not wroth," said the youth quietly. "If I have used
anything I have paid for it fully beforehand. For these sixteen years
you have had full use and profit of fifteen good ploughlands which my
father left me; you have also the use and increase of all my cattle
and horses; and now all this past profit I abandon to you, in return
for the expense of this feast of mine."

Then said the treacherous Sir John: "Hearken, my dear brother: I have
no son, and thou shalt be my heir--I swear by the holy St. John."