without end, Cold Iron, four fingers wide and a thumb thick, and
there is writing on the breadth of it."

'"Read the writing if you have the learning," I called. The
darkness had lifted by then, and the owl was out over the fern again.

'He called back, reading the runes on the iron:

"Few can see
Further forth
Than when the child
Meets the Cold Iron."

And there he stood, in clear starlight, with a new, heavy, shining
slave-ring round his proud neck.

'"Is this how it goes?" he asked, while the Lady Esclairmonde cried.

'"That is how it goes," I said. He hadn't snapped the catch
home yet, though.

'"What fortune does it mean for him?" said Sir Huon, while
the Boy fingered the ring. "You who walk under Cold Iron, you
must tell us and teach us."

'"Tell I can, but teach I cannot," I said. "The virtue of the Ring
is only that he must go among folk in housen henceforward,
doing what they want done, or what he knows they need, all Old
England over. Never will he be his own master, nor yet ever any
man's. He will get half he gives, and give twice what he gets, till