Under an assumed name, so grown and sun-tanned that his own mother treated the stranger politely, he now introduced himself into the house of Sir Murdour, undertaking to serve him against Saber, but playing a trick on him in the way of carrying off his best horses and arms to the enemy. Before coming to an end with that caitiff, however, Bevis had to return to Cologne to rescue Josyan from certain perils she had got into through her devotion to him; then at last they both joined his uncle in the Isle of Wight. The local Macbeth’s fate now drew to its fifth act. In vain he summoned to his aid both a Scotch and a German army. When he had to do with such prodigies of strength as Bevis and Ascapard, Murdour could expect nothing but to be overthrown, captured, and boiled into hounds’ meat in a great caldron of pitch, brimstone, and lead, as duly befell at Carisbrooke. His wicked wife, hearing how it had fared with him, very properly threw herself from the top of a high tower. His triple army had no more fight in them after the death of their leader, and the delivered citizens of Southampton hailed with joy their true lord, who at last thought himself entitled to wed Josyan after so long and chequered a courtship. But the author of this long poem is not yet out of breath, and he still takes his hero through what may be called an appendix of adventures, in which Bevis once more goes abroad. King Edgar’s son so much admired Arundel’s form in a horse-race at court, that he tried to steal this peerless steed, and was kicked to death in the stable for his pains. The angry father was for having the horse’s master hanged; but the barons got him off with exile. While wandering homeless, his wife presents him with twin sons, as fresh hostages to their troubled fortune. Ascapard now turns unfaithful, and steals Josyan from him to restore her to her Saracen husband; but after a separation of seven years or so all comes right again, unbelievers and traitors are duly slain as they deserve, and Bevis meets no further check in his triumphant career of baptising heathen lands in blood, if not otherwise. Meanwhile, in his absence, King Edgar spitefully did him further wrong by confiscating the family estate, which the nephew had handed over to Saber. This injury must be redressed by a visit of Bevis to London, where his exploits seem hardly historical. He had now two sturdy sons to back him up, and these being chips of the old block, they easily contrived to kill sixty thousand people in a battle fought about Cheapside and Ludgate Hill, which brought the king to a reasonable mood. So many men at once were never seen dead, For the water of Thames for blood wax red From St Mary Bowe to London Stone.