'Look!' said Una, as though Dan were not staring his very eyes out. 'It's like the picture in your room--"Sir Isumbras at the Ford."'
The rider turned towards them, and his thin, long face was just as sweet and gentle as that of the knight who carries the children in that picture.
'They should be here now, Sir Richard,' said Puck's deep voice among the willow-herb.
'They are here,' the knight said, and he smiled at Dan with the string of trouts in his hand. 'There seems no great change in boys since mine fished this water.'
'If your horse has drunk, we shall be more at ease in the Ring,' said Puck; and he nodded to the children as though he had never magicked away their memories the week before.
The great horse turned and hoisted himself into the pasture with a kick and a scramble that tore the clods down rattling.
'Your pardon!' said Sir Richard to Dan. 'When these lands were mine, I never loved that mounted men should cross the brook except by the paved ford. But my Swallow here was thirsty, and I wished to meet you.'
'We're very glad you've come, sir,' said Dan. 'It doesn't matter in the least about the banks.'
He trotted across the pasture on the sword-side of the mighty horse, and it was a mighty iron-handled sword that swung from Sir Richard's belt. Una walked behind with Puck. She remembered everything now.
'I'm sorry about the Leaves,' he said, 'but it would never have done if you had gone home and told, would it?'
'I s'pose not,' Una answered. 'But you said that all the fair--People of the Hills had left England.'
'So they have; but I told you that you should come and go and look and know, didn't I? The knight isn't a fairy. He's Sir Richard Dalyngridge, a very old friend of mine. He came over with William the Conqueror, and he wants to see you particularly.'
'On account of your great wisdom and learning,' Puck replied, without a twinkle.
'Us?' said Una. 'Why, I don't know my Nine Times--not to say it dodging; and Dan makes the most _awful_ mess of fractions. He can't mean _us_!'
'Una!' Dan called back. 'Sir Richard says he is going to tell what happened to Weland's sword. He's got it. Isn't it splendid?'
'Nay--nay,' said Sir Richard, dismounting as they reached the Ring, in the bend of the mill-stream bank. 'It is you that must tell me, for I hear the youngest child in our England to-day is as wise as our wisest clerk.' He slipped the bit out of Swallow's mouth, dropped the ruby-red reins over his head, and the wise horse moved off to graze.