d afterwards gone back and so made the
demand that you made not at the first, he would have come back to
health. But our Lord God willed it so to be, wherefore well beseemeth
us to yield to His will and pleasure."

XXVII.

Perceval hath heard his mother, but right little hath he answered her,
albeit greatly is he pleased with whatsoever she hath said. His face is
to-flushed of hardiment, and courage hath taken hold on him. His
mother looketh at him right fainly, and hath him disarmed and
apparelled in a right rich robe. So comely a knight was he that in all
the world might not be found one of better seeming nor better shapen of
body. The Lord of the Moors, that made full certain of having his
mother's castle, knew of Perceval's coming. He was not at all dismayed
in semblant, nor would he stint to ride by fell nor forest, and every
day he weened in his pride that the castle should be his own at the
hour and the term he had set thereof. One of the five knights of the
Widow Lady was one day gone into the Lonely Forest after hart and hind,
and had taken thereof at his will. He was returning back to the castle
and the huntsmen with him, when the Lord of the Moors met him and told
him he had done great hardiment in shooting with the bow in the forest,
and the knight made answer that the forest was not his of right, but
the Lady's of Camelot and her son's that had repaired thither.

XXVIII.

The Lord of the Moors waxed wroth. He held a sword in his hand and
thrust him therewith through the body and slew him. The knight was
borne dead to the castle of Camelot before the Widow Lady and her son.

"Fair son," saith the Widow Lady, "More presents of such-like kind the
Lord of the Moors sendeth me than I would. Never may he be satisfied
of harming my land and shedding the blood of the bodies of my knights.
Now may you well know how many a hurt he hath done me sithence that
your father hath been dead and you were no longer at the castle, sith
that this hath he done me even now that you are here. You have the
name of Perceval on this account, that tofore you were born, he had
begun to reave your father of the Valleys of Camelot, for your father
was an old knight and all his brethren were dead, and therefore he gave
you this name in baptism, for that he would remind you of the mischief
done to him and to you, and that you might help to retrieve it and you
should have the power."

The Dame maketh shroud the knight,