Guy being betrayed by his wife and slain by her paramour when Bevis was only seven years old, the wicked pair’s next object would naturally be to get rid of a child who might avenge his father. With a fortunate want of wisdom often shown by the bad characters of romance, the mother did not see to this business herself, but charged it on Saber, the child’s uncle, by whom he had been reared; then the kind Saber, as proof of compliance, sent her his nephew’s princely garments sprinkled with the blood of a pig, while he kept the boy safe and sound, disguised as a shepherd. But Bevis had too high a spirit to await the opportunity of revenge promised by his uncle when he should come to manhood. Feeding his sheep on the downs, he became so infuriated by the sounds of revelry in which his mother and her new husband sought to drown the memory of their crime, that he burst into the hall, knocking down the porter who would have shut him out, unpacked his young heart of its indignation before the whole company, and with three blows of a “mace” laid his stepfather senseless before them all. Thus did this seven-year-old princeling show a resolution that might well put Hamlet to shame; and as he was so terrible with a stick, we may guess what feats he would perform when it got to sword-play. The guilty mother was so much displeased by such conduct, that she punished her precociously brave child by sending him to be sold for a slave in heathen lands. Thereby he came into the hands of a Saracen king named Ermyn, whose daughter, Josyan, at once fell in love with the young captive, according to the romantic precedent followed in such cases down to the days of Pocahontas. Ermyn, too, recognising the boy’s quality at a glance, proposed to make him his heir and son-in-law on condition of his abjuring Christianity. But the heroes of old were as orthodox as gallant. Bevis, though not yet in his teens, lifted up such a bold testimony against the errors of Mahound, that the king saw well to drop the subject, and for the present took him on as page, promising him further advancement in the course of time. Still no amount of friendly intercourse with unbelievers could shake the youngster’s faith. He had reached the age of fifteen, when certain Saracen knights rashly ventured to touch on his religion, whereupon he slew them all, some sixty or so, with remarkable ease. Ermyn forgave him for this once, and Josyan with kisses and salves soon cured him of his wounds; then, in return for their kindness, he obligingly rid them of a fearful wild boar that had long been the terror of the country.