'What for?' said Una.
'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 today 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.
Sir Richard (they noticed he limped a little) unslung his great sword.
'That's it,' Dan whispered to Una.
'This is the sword that Brother Hugh had from Wayland-Smith,' Sir Richard said. 'Once he gave it me, but I would not take it; but at the last it became mine after such a fight as never christened man fought. See!' He half drew it from its sheath and turned it before them. On either side just below the handle, where the Runic letters shivered as though they were alive, were two deep gouges in the dull, deadly steel. 'Now, what Thing made those?' said he. 'I know not, but you, perhaps, can say.'
'Tell them all the tale, Sir Richard,' said Puck. 'It concerns their land somewhat.'