as pleasant to him to kill them as to go alive himself.  Wherefore I tell thee truly, ’come ye there, ye be killed, though ye had twenty lives to spend.  He has dwelt there long of yore, and on field much sorrow has wrought.  Against his sore dints ye may not defend you’ (ll. 2069-2117).  Therefore, good Sir Gawayne, let the man alone, and for God’s sake go by some other path, and then I shall hie me home again.  I swear to you by

    [Footnote 1:  He only in part keeps to his covenant, as he holds back
    the love-lace.]

    God and all His saints that I will never say that ever ye attempted to
    flee from any man.”

    Gawayne thanks his guide for his well-meant kindness, but declares that
    to the Green Chapel he will go, though the owner thereof be “a stern
    knave,” for God can devise means to save his servants.

“Mary!” quoth the other, “since it pleases thee to lose thy life I will not hinder thee.  Have thy helmet on thy head, thy spear in thy hand, and ride down this path by yon rock-side, till thou be brought to the bottom of the valley.  Then look a little on the plain, on thy left hand, and thou shalt see in that slade the chapel itself, and the burly knight that guards it (ll. 2118-2148).  Now, farewell Gawayne the noble! for all the gold upon ground I would not go with thee nor bear thee fellowship through this wood ‘on foot farther.’” Thus having spoken, he gallops away and leaves the knight alone.

Gawayne now pursues his journey, rides through the dale, and looks about.  He sees no signs of a resting-place, but only high and steep banks, and the very shadows of the high woods seemed wild and distorted.  No chapel, however, could he discover.  After a while he sees a round hill by the side of a stream; thither he goes, alights, and fastens his horse to the branch of a tree.  He walks about the hill, debating with himself what it might be.  It had a hole in the one end and on each side, and everywhere overgrown with grass, but whether it was only an old cave or a crevice of an old crag he could not tell (ll. 2149-2188).

“Now, indeed,” quoth Gawayne, “a desert is here; this oratory is ugly with herbs overgrown.  It is a fitting place for the man in green to ‘deal here his devotions after the devil’s manner.’  Now I feel it is the fiend (the devil) in my five wits that has covenanted with me that he may destroy me.  This is a chapel of misfortune—­evil betide it!  It is the most cursed kirk that ever I came in.”  With his helmet on his head, and spear in his hand, he roams up to the rock, and then he hears from that high hill beyond the brook a wondrous wild noise.  Lo! it clattered in the cliff as if one upon a grindstone were grinding a scythe.  It whirred like the water at a mill, and rushed and re-echoed, terrible to hear.  “Though my life I forgo,” says Gawayne, “no noise shall cause me to fear.”

    Then he cried aloud, “Who dwells in this place, discourse with me to
    hold?  For now is good Gawayne going right here if any brave wight will
    hie him hither, either now or never” (ll. 2189-2216).