n garden, should have a sudden fear come over me
that I should not find it after all; though for these nineteen years I
have watched the trees change and change all about it--ah! here, stop
now.'

We stopped before a great oak; a beech tree was behind us--she said,
'Dig, Lionel, hereabouts.'

So I dug and for an hour found nothing but beech roots, while my mother
seemed as if she were going mad, sometimes running about muttering to
herself, sometimes stooping into the hole and howling, sometimes throwing
herself on the grass and twisting her hands together above her head; she
went once down the hill to a pool that had filled an old gravel pit, and
came back dripping and with wild eyes; 'I am too hot,' she said, 'far too
hot this St. Peter's day.'

Clink just then from my spade against iron; my mother screamed, and I dug
with all my might for another hour, and then beheld a chest of heavy wood
bound with iron ready to be heaved out of the hole; 'Now Lionel weigh it
out--hard for your life!'

And with some trouble I got the chest out; she gave me a key, I unlocked
the chest, and took out another wrapped in lead, which also I unlocked
with a silver key that my mother gave me, and behold therein lay
armour--mail for the whole body, made of very small rings wrought most
wonderfully, for every ring was fashioned like a serpent, and though they
were so small yet could you see their scales and their eyes, and of some
even the forked tongue was on it, and lay on the rivet, and the rings
were gilded here and there into patterns and flowers so that the gleam of
it was most glorious.--And the mail coif was all gilded and had red and
blue stones at the rivets; and the tilting helms (inside which the mail
lay when I saw it first) was gilded also, and had flowers pricked out on
it; and the chain of it was silver, and the crest was two gold wings. And
there was a shield of blue set with red stones, which had two gold wings
for a cognizance; and the hilt of the sword was gold, with angels wrought
in green and blue all up it, and the eyes in their wings were of pearls
and red stones, and the sheath was of silver with green flowers on it.

Now when I saw this armour and understood that my mother would have me
put it on, and ride out without fear, leaving her alone, I cast myself
down on the grass so that I might not see its beauty (for it made me
mad), and strove to think; but what thoughts soever came to me were only
of the things