t it was some poor wretch
who had fallen amongst thieves, for Sir Ewaine had neither armor nor
weapons of any sort that might indicate how exalted was his estate, and
even his golden chain of knighthood had been stolen from him by those
thieves of the forest. Wherefore it was not possible for any one to know
that he was other than a poor wayfarer of the forest. So the
fagot-maker, unknowing who he was, bare that good knight out of the
forest, and Sir Ewaine lay fainting, and all covered with blood and nigh
to death, upon a bed of leaves in a poor woodchopper's cart.

Now when the fagot-maker had brought the wounded knight out of the
woodlands and into the open country, he turned to find how it fared with
him, for it seemed to the honest fellow that his burden was lying
wonderful still and quiet. So the fagot-maker called out, "Friend, what
cheer have you?" To this Sir Ewaine answered him not, for in the
meantime as they travelled onward he had fallen into a swoon and now he
lay like one who was dying or was dead.

Then the woodchopper came and looked upon the face of Sir Ewaine, and he
beheld that it was white like to death. And he could not see that Sir
Ewaine breathed, wherefore he thought that the wounded man was dead.

Thereat the poor knave was filled with great fear, for he said to
himself: "Of a surety if they find me thus with a dead man lying in my
cart, they will believe that I have committed a murder and they will
hale me before the judge and they will hang me." Wherefore, reasoning in
that wise, he began to cast about him how he might rid himself of that
which was within his cart so that he should not thus be found in company
with a dead man.

[Sidenote: _The woodchopper layeth Sir Ewaine beside a lake._]

Now at that time the cart chanced to be passing through a park
coadjacent to a castle, the towers and the roofs and the chimneys of
which might be seen through the leaves of the intervening trees. And at
that place there was a little lake of water with many flags and sweet
rushes growing around about the margin thereof, and this was a very
secret, quiet place, for no one was nigh at that still early hour of
day.

So here perceiving that no one could see what he would do, the
fagot-maker stopped his cart and lifted Sir Ewaine out thereof and still
he thought that the wounded man was dead. After that the woodchopper
laid Sir Ewaine down very gently upon a soft bed of moss under the
shadow of an oak tr