is fingers; and sometimes he would go and stroke his
armour, which lay where he had put it off, and cry. The only thing he
cared for was to have his keys beside him, and he would tell them one
by one, and curse if he could not tell them right. And so the days
dragged slowly by. He cared nothing for his son, who never entered the
solar except for his own ends. And one of these was to steal away his
father's keys, and to unlock every door in the castle; for he was
inquisitive and bold; he knew the use of all the keys but one; this
was a small strong key, with a head like a quatrefoil; and though he
tried to fit it to every cupboard and door in the house, he could
never find its place.

But one day when his father was ill and lay abed, staring at the
flies on the ceiling, the boy came to the solar, and slipped in behind
the dusty arras that hung round the room, making believe that he was a
rabbit in its burrow; he went round with his face to the wall, feeling
with his hands; and when he came to the corner of the room, the wall
was colder to his touch, like iron; and feeling at the place, he
seemed to discover hinges and a door. So he dived beneath the arras,
and then lifted it up; and he saw that in the wall was a small iron
door like a cupboard. Something in his heart held him back, but before
he had time to listen to it he had opened the little door, for the
keys lay on the table to his hand; and he was peering into a small
dark recess of stone, which seemed, for the wail that the little door
made on its hinges, not to have been opened for many years.

In the cupboard, which had no shelves, lay some dark objects.

The boy took out the largest, looping the arras up over the little
door; it was a rudely made spiked crown or coronet of iron, with odd
devices chased upon it; the boy replaced it and drew out the next;
this was a rusted iron dagger with torn leather on the hilt. The boy
did not care for this--there were many better in the castle armoury.
There seemed to be nothing else in the cupboard. But feeling with his
hand in the dark corners, he drew out a stone about the size of a
hen's egg. This he thought he would take, so he locked the cupboard,
let the arras fall, and stood awhile to consider. On the arras
opposite him, over the door, was the figure of a man embroidered in
green tunic and leggings with a hat drawn over his face and with a
finger laid on his lip, as though he had cause to be silent, or to
wish oth