Then Mistress Mary would have the tale of the sword, and Will, his grief forgot, and joyously bent on touzing my hair to the image of his own, made instant demand for the fullest narration--"Every word, madam-muvver--from _onceuponatime_ to _happyeverafter_." Yet the attempt to bring my tale to the measure of childish apprehension did lead me into quagmires of question and answer so vexing to our diverse ignorance, that dinner and Colonel Royston found us scarce advanced beyond Will's _onceuponatime_. At meat the children demanded and obtained permission to lay the matter before their father--the promised history, and the obscurity of word and idea found necessary by the historian at the very commencement. At last Ned made as if he would speak, when "Madam," cries Mary, as one big with a great thought, "madam, will you not write it all down, that we may read when we have learned the long words?" "Wise maid!" said her father. "And indeed, Philippa, it is worth the doing. But, Mistress Wisehead," he continued to the child, "when the long words are spelt from thy mother's head upon the paper, they will cry aloud to be spelt back into thine, if you will have the tale." Now these words did make my poor maid to blush hotly, who had little love to her book. Yet she answered well, saying: "I know, sir, that I have been a poor scholar, but, if madam will write the tale, I purpose to be diligent to the end that I may read well and fitly against the time it is written." "'T is plain, Phil," says Ned merrily, "that here is your one hope to make a scholar of your daughter. And, indeed, sweetheart," he went on, with more of gravity, "'t is a book I should like well to read myself." "And that, sir," said I, "is a compliment you pay to few. For, beyond M. Vauban's work on fortification, I vow I have not seen a book in your hand since we were wed." So, what with a reluctant daughter to be tempted into the path of letters, and a husband to please,--as I knew by his face his heart was much set on this enterprise of little Mary's suggestion,--I found myself committed to the task. Yet, though I have thought much and uneasily of my promise, I know not indeed when I had begun the fulfilling it had not Mary this very afternoon brought ink and paper, while Will followed close with a new pen. "Write now, madam," quoth the maid. "Write now, madam-muvver," says Will in faithful echo. "If I begin now," said I, hard driven for yet a new plea to postpone the first plunge, "William Maurice Royston will not be able to read the book when it is done." "William Maurice Royston," said he, "does not purpose reading. Sis says reading is irksome. But, when the tale is wrote, madam-muvver is going to read it to him." And so it is that I begin. THE SWORD OF THE KING CHAPTER I