His body was covered with a tight slashed tunic of a brown velvet. His cap—if he set out with one—had been lost in the flight.
The boy seemed to desire no talk, for he lay with his ear to the earth, breathing heavily, and so Dickon squatted himself on his haunches, and pried open the cover of the heavy casket he had borne so far.
Instead of jewels, as he had looked to find, there was naught but a block of leather, ornamented with raised strips of velvet and gilded lines, which wholly filled the box. When Dickon lifted it out from its encasing, this leather top turned as on a hinge; and fastened below it at the back were seen many folds of parchment, one upon the other, all covered with black markings strange to the eye.
Dickon gazed in wonder at the queer figures upon the parchment. Then his slow mind recalled the archers talk of magic, and he let the thing drop, open and with crushed pages, flat to the ground.
The lad sprang up at this with a murmur of alarm, and lifted the fallen object, solicitously smoothing out the parchments and shutting the leather over them. Then he reached for the casket, and put it inside again, eying his companion with vexed regard meanwhile.
"It is ill to mar what thou canst not mend," he said sharply.
"There are more bolts to my bow, an you mean me harm," Dickon answered, with a stout voice enough, but much uncertainty within. He took up his weapon to point the words.
The lad in velvet laughed. "What harm could be in me?" he said, and laughed again. "Bolts and bows, forsooth! Why, thou couldst spoil me with thy thumb." And still he laughed on.
"Yon leathern gear—is it goodly?" Dickon pointed to the casket.
"What—my Troilus?" Looking into Dickon's honest face, he understood his fears, and answered gently: "Nay, ease thy mind. It is a book—a book not written, but made with types. It tells to the skilled eye a brave story—but not braver, good fellow, than to-day's tale of thee. Art a stout carle, by the rood! Who is thy master?"