They bound Sir Gawain's hands, and set him on a sorry hack, and to anger him they led beside him Gringalet, his steed. This they did that he might be the more sorrowful when he beheld his horse, which he had now lost, and his own life withal! For of this would they deprive him, and make him to die a shameful death; burn him they would, or break him upon the wheel, that they might wreak their vengeance upon him. There were among them knights and squires, the richest, and the most nobly born after the lord of the land; and all had sworn an oath that they would lead Sir Gawain to the cross-roads, at the entering in of their land for the greater shaming of King Arthur's Court. To this had they pledged themselves, that they would there slay him without respite or delay; and were it not that 'twere shame to themselves, and too great dishonour to one who bare the name of knight, they had hung him by the neck, on the border of the two lands, to shame King Arthur; so that all his folk who were of the knightly order, and dwelt at his court, and sought for adventure, should shun their land when they heard the tidings of the vengeance wrought by them upon knights-errant who would prove their fate within those borders. Thus it fell out that they brought Sir Gawain on the horse, sorely wounded and mishandled, within the nearness of half a mile, so that the knight knew he was nigh to the cell of the Hermit of whom at that self-same cross-road he had asked tidings of King Arthur's knights, and of that bad and evil land where many were brought to shame. And they who had brought him thither were of one mind that they should make a wheel, and break the knight upon it at the Cross by the parting of the ways whereof I have told ye afore. Now shall I leave speaking of this matter till I come again thereto, and will forthwith tell ye how it fared with Morien when the three had parted asunder, as I told ye afore (Sir Gawain, Morien, and Sir Lancelot, he was the third), since they would fain make proof of that which the Hermit had told them. Now will I tell ye of Morien ere that I end the tale of Sir Gawain. Now doth the adventure tell that Morien, that bold knight, rode the seaward way, and came safely to the passage of the ford nigh unto the open sea. And all the day he met no man of whom he might ask concerning his father; 'twas labour wasted, for all who saw him fled from him. Little good might his asking do him, since none who might walk or ride would abide his coming. But he saw there the hoof-prints of horses, which lay before him and were but newly made; by this he deemed that his father had passed that way but a short while before. Thus he followed the hoof-tracks to the passage of the sea. That night had he neither rest nor slumber, nor found he place where he might shelter, or where it seemed to him he might ask for food or lodging beneath a roof.