“Ah,” quoth Gawain, “can this be the Green Chapel? Here might the devil
say his mattins at midnight! Now I wis there is wizardry here. ’Tis an
ugly oratory, all overgrown with grass, and ’twould well beseem that
fellow in green to say his devotions on devil’s wise. By my five wits,
’tis the foul fiend himself who hath set me this tryst, to destroy me
here! This is a chapel of mischance: ill-luck betide it, ’tis the
cursedest kirk that ever I came in!”
Helmet on head and lance in hand, he came up to the rough dwelling, when
he heard over the high hill beyond the brook, as it were in a bank, a
wondrous fierce noise, that rang in the cliff as if it would cleave
asunder. ’Twas as if one ground a scythe on a grindstone, it whirred and
whetted like water on a mill-wheel and rushed and rang, terrible to
hear.
“By God,” quoth Gawain, “I trow that gear is preparing for the knight
who will meet me here. Alas! naught may help me, yet should my life be
forfeit, I fear not a jot!” With that he called aloud. “Who waiteth in
this place to give me tryst? Now is Gawain come hither: if any man will
aught of him let him hasten hither now or never.”