That I have paid my hire.”
“It was my sister that told thee this,” the churlish baron exclaimed. “Vengeance light on her! I will some time or other do her as ill a turn.”
King Arthur rode homeward, but not light of heart, for he remembered the promise he was under to the loathly lady to give her one of his young and gallant knights for a husband. He told his grief to Sir Gawain, his nephew, and he replied, “Be not sad, my lord, for I will marry the loathly lady.” King Arthur replied:
“Now nay, now nay, good Sir Gawaine,
My sister’s son ye be;
The loathly lady’s all too grim,
And all too foule for thee.”
But Gawain persisted, and the king at last, with sorrow of heart, consented that Gawain should be his ransom. So one day the king and his knights rode to the forest, met the loathly lady, and brought her to the court. Sir Gawain stood the scoffs and jeers of his companions as he best might, and the marriage was solemnized, but not with the usual festivities. Chaucer tells us:
“. . . There was no joye ne feste at alle;
There n’ as but hevinesse and mochel sorwe,