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In the meantime the willow branch at the castle-gate had grown to be a splendid tree, which stood there free and self-sustained. "That is our genealogical tree," the old people said, and the tree was to be honoured and respected so they told all the children, even those who had not very good heads. And a hundred years rolled by. It was in our own time.
When they came near the men alighted, and, leaving their horses in care of the dwarf, they walked towards the castle-gate. One of these men was very tall, being a foot and a half higher than his companions. On seeing this, Gawaine went to the king and said, "Sire, I deem you can now safely go to your dinner, for I fancy we have an adventure at hand."
They were both powerful men, and well-matched. As if by common consent, the soldiers on either side held back to witness the encounter of their chiefs. "Slavata spoke first. 'I know thee well, he said; 'thou art the marauding baron of the Thirty Mountains, whose head is worth its weight of gold at the castle-gate of Kalbs-Braten.
He jumps from the couch, he goes a few feet in swaying progress toward the castle-gate: She who shall heal the wound forever draws near like a hero, draws near bringing health, let the world fade away before his victorious haste!... The victorious haste has taken him a staggering step or two, when Isolde's voice comes borne to him, calling before she appears. "Tristan, Tristan! Beloved!"
So all unhappily she laid her down in her bed, foreboding the worst, which she deemed might well be death at the hand of her jailers. As for Christopher, she saw the last of him as they entered the Castle-gate, and knew not what they had done with him. So she lay in dismal thoughts, but at last fell asleep for mere weariness.
Fortunately for herself, the poor girl in falling seized one of the hanging branches of the willow tree, by means of which she kept herself suspended over the muddy water, and as soon as the baron and his company had disappeared through the castle-gate, the girl tried to scramble up again; but the bough broke off at the top, and she would have fallen backward among the reeds, if a strong hand from above had not at that moment seized her.
It was two hours after tierce, or one hour before noon, on the fourth Wednesday of Lent in the year of Christ 1351 that the men of Ploermel rode forth from their castle-gate and crossed the bridge of the Due. In front was Bambro' with his Squire Croquart, the latter on a great roan horse bearing the banner of Ploermel, which was a black rampant lion holding a blue flag upon a field of ermine.
Several months had passed away since Eric had quitted home, when one day a man, with a large pack on his back, presented himself at the Castle-gate, and demanded to see the Knight. He was admitted. "Well, friend, what would you with me?" asked the Knight. "I have books to sell, and will show them to you forthwith," answered the colporteur, unslinging his pack.
And all rode proudly out through the great castle-gate. And Gunther and the young Giselher and all the fair ladies of the court bade them God-speed. The little army passed through the forest, and went northwards, until, on the fifth day, they reached the boundaries of Saxon Land.
It had, no doubt, a perfect right to be called a castle, as it was entered by a castle-gate which led into a court, the porter's lodge for which was built as it were into the wall; there were attached to it also two round, stumpy adjuncts, which were, perhaps properly, called towers, though they did not do much in the way of towering; and, moreover, along one side of the house, over what would otherwise have been the cornice, there ran a castellated parapet, through the assistance of which, the imagination no doubt was intended to supply the muzzles of defiant artillery.
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