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.

Now, by this time the long ride had brought back my senses to me, and I
began to take more thought for myself and what might be meant by this
journey. At first I had been so stunned and dazed by t