So did we, and came down to the orchard and did off our helms, and lay down under a big apple-tree which was clear of cover all round about, and so fell to our redes; and I asked Arthur what he deemed of the story of our loves having been carried to the House under the Wood, and if it might not be tried seeking thither; but he laughed and said: Never would she have told us thereof had it been sooth: doubtless our friends are here on this isle, but, as I deem, not in the house, else had not the witch left all the house free for us to search into. Yea, said I, but how if they be in her prison? Said he: It is not hard to find out which is the prison of so dainty a house as is yonder; and when we had found it, soon should we have hit upon a way to break it, since we be three, and stout fellows enough. Nay, I deem that the lovelings be stowed away in some corner of the isle without the house, and that mayhappen we shall find them there; and yet I trow not before we have made guile meet guile, and overcome the sorceress. But come now, let us be doing, and begin to quarter this little land as the kestrel doth the water-meadow; and leave we our armour, lest we weary us, for we shall have no need for hard strokes. We hung up there on the tree helm and shield and hauberk, and all our defences, and went our ways quartering the isle; and the work was toilsome, but we rested not till the time was come to keep tryst with the lady; and all that while we found no sign of the darling ones: and the isle was everywhere a meadow as fair as a garden, with little copses of sweet-growing trees here and there, and goodly brooks of water, but no tillage anywhere: wild things, as hart and buck and roe, we came upon, and smaller deer withal, but all unhurtful to man; but of herding was no token. Came we then back to that lordly perron, and there, at the foot thereof, stood the witch-wife, and received us joyously; clad was she all gloriously in red scarlet broidered and begemmed; her arms bare and her feet sandalled, and her yellow hair hanging down from under its garland; and certainly it was so that she had grown fairer, and was sleek and white and well-shapen, and well-haired; yet by all that, the visage of her was little bettered, and unto me she was loathsome.