word bare in his
hand, and his head uncovered; and that as he advanced, one of his foes
had drawn a bow and pierced him through the brain, so that he fell in
his blood between the armies; and that then a kind of fury had fallen
upon his men to avenge his death, and they routed the foe with a
mighty slaughter. But the sword had been set in the church with this
legend above it; and there it had lain many a year.

So Sir Henry disengaged the sword from its place very tenderly and
carefully. It had been there so long that it was all covered with
dust; and then, holding it in his hands, he knelt down and made a
prayer in his heart that he might have strength for what he had a mind
to do; and then he walked softly down the church, looking about him
with a sort of secret tenderness, as though he were bidding it all
farewell; his own father and mother were buried in the church; and he
stopped for awhile beside their grave, and then, holding the sword by
his side--for he wished it not to be seen of any--he went back to his
house, and put the sword away in a great chest, that no one might know
where it was laid.

Then he tarried not, but went softly out; and all that afternoon he
walked about his own lands, every acre of them; for he did not think
to see them again; and his mind went back to the old days; he had not
thought that all could be so full of little memories. In this place he
remembered being set on a horse by his father, who held him very
lovingly and safely while he led the great beast about; he remembered
how proud he had been, and how he had fancied himself a mighty
warrior. On this little pond, with all its reeds and water-lilies, he
had sailed a boat on a summer day, his mother sitting near under a
tree to see that he had no danger; and thus it was everywhere; till,
as he walked in the silent afternoon, he could almost have believed
that there were others that walked with him unseen, to left and right;
for at every place some little memory roused itself, as the flies that
rise buzzing from the leaves when you walk in an alley, until he felt
like a child again, with all the years before him.

Then he came to the house again, and did the same for every room. He
left one room for the last, a room where dwelt an old and simple woman
that had nursed him; she was very frail and aged now, and went not
much abroad, but sate and did little businesses; and it was ever a
delight to her if he asked her to do some small tas