then I set them to fight. The people say I am an innocent, and do not
do me any harm, and never ask me to do any work but go a message now
and then. It is because I am an innocent that they send me to get the
crowns: anyone else would steal them; and they dare not come back
themselves, for now that you are not with them they are afraid of the
wood-thieves. Did you ever hear how, when the wood-thieves are
christened, the wolves are made their god-fathers, and their right
arms are not christened at all?'

'If you will not take these crowns, my good lad, I have nothing for
you, I fear, unless you would have that old coat of mail which I
shall soon need no more.'

'There was something I wanted: yes, I remember now,' said the lad. 'I
want you to tell me why you fought like the champions and giants in
the stories and for so little a thing. Are you indeed a man like us?
Are you not rather an old wizard who lives among these hills, and
will not a wind arise presently and crumble you into dust?'

'I will tell you of myself,' replied the knight, 'for now that I am
the last of the fellowship, 'I may tell all and witness for God. Look
at the Rose of Rubies on my helmet, and see the symbol of my life and
of my hope.' And then he told the lad this story, but with always
more frequent pauses; and, while he told it, the Rose shone a deep
blood-colour in the firelight, and the lad stuck the cock's
feathers in the earth in front of him, and moved them about as though
he made them actors in the play.

'I live in a land far from this, and was one of the Knights of St.
John,' said the old man; 'but I was one of those in the Order who