by two or three deep-set
windows. He made a reverence and then drew near to the altar.

All the furniture of the church was most simple and old; but over the
altar there was a long unusual-looking shelf; he went up to it, and
stood for awhile gazing upon it. Along the shelf lay a rude and ancient
sword of a simple design, in a painted scabbard of wood; and over it was
a board with a legend painted on it.

The legend was in an old form of French words, long since disused in the
land. But it said:

_Unsheathe me and die thyself, but the battle shall be stayed._

He had known the look of the sword, and the words on the board from a
child. The tale was that there had been in days long past a great battle
on the hill, and that the general of one of the armies had been told,
in a dream or vision, that if he should himself be slain, then should
his men have the victory; but that if he lived through the battle, then
should his men be worsted. Now before the armies met, while they stood
and looked upon each other, the general, so said the tale, had gone out
suddenly and alone, with his sword 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