Conduct so unusual attracted the attention of the whole company, and even of the queen, who, ordering “a chair with a cushion” to be placed near the palmer, took her seat in it, entered into conversation with him on the subject of his long and painful pilgrimage and was much edified by the moral lessons which he interspersed in his narrative.  But no importunity could induce him to taste food:  he was sick at heart, and required the aid of solitary meditation to overcome the painful recollections which continually assailed him The queen was more and more astonished, but at length left him to his reflections, after declaring that, “for her lord’s soul, or for his love, if he were still alive,” she was determined to retain the holy palmer in her palace, and to assign him a convenient apartment, together with a servant to attend him.

An interval of fifteen years, passed in the laborious occupations of blacksmith and pilgrim, may be supposed to have produced a very considerable alteration in the appearance of Sir Isumbras; and even his voice, subdued by disease and penance, may have failed to discover the gallant knight under the disguise which he had so long assumed.  But that his wife (for such she was) should have been equally altered by the sole operation of time that the air and gestures and action of a person once so dear and so familiar to him should have awakened no trace of recollection in the mind of a husband, though in the midst of scenes which painfully recalled the memory of his former splendour, is more extraordinary.  Be this as it may, the knight and the queen, though lodged under the same roof and passing much of their time together, continued to bewail the miseries of their protracted widowhood.  Sir Isumbras, however, speedily recovered, in the plentiful court of the rich queen, his health and strength, and with these the desire of returning to his former exercises.  A tournament was proclaimed; and the lists, which were formed immediately under the widows of the castle, were quickly occupied by a number of Saracen knights, all of whom Sir Isumbras successively overthrew.  So dreadful was the stroke of his spear, that many were killed at the first encounter; some escaped with a few broken bones; others were thrown headlong into the castle ditch, but the greater number consulted their safety by a timely flight; while the queen contemplated with pleasure and astonishment the unparalleled exploits of her favourite palmer.

Then fell it, upon a day,
The Knight went him for to play,
As it was ere his kind;
A fowl’s nest he found on high;
A red cloth therein he seygh[FN#590]
Wavand[FN#591] in the wind. 
To the nest he gan win;[FN#592]
His own mantle he found therein;
The gold there gan he find.