38 THE PLEASANT HISTORY OF CHAP.

into the river, and swam down the stream,
and landed on the other side, where he began
with much grief to meditate how he might
get to the court, for he had lost his ears, his
talons, and all the skin off his feet, so that
had a thousand deaths followed him, he could
not go. Yet of necessity he must move,
that in the end compelled by extremity, he
set his tail on the ground, and tumbled his
body over and over, so by degrees, tumbling
now half a mile, and then half a mile, in the
end he tumbled to the court, where divers
beholding his strange manner of approach,
they thought some prodigy had come towards
them; but in the end the King knew him,
and grew angry, saying, ‘It is sir LBruzn,
my servant; what villains have wounded him
thus, or where hath he been that he brings
his death thus along with him?’

‘O my dread Sovereign Lord the King,’
cried out the bear, ‘I complain me grievously
unto you; behold how I am _ massacred,
which I humbly beseech you revenge on
that false Reynard, who, for doing your royal
pleasure, hath brought me to this disgrace
and slaughter.’

Then said the King, ‘How durst he do