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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:47:54 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:47:54 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/15976-8.txt b/15976-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..82853ae --- /dev/null +++ b/15976-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7326 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Puck of Pook's Hill, by Rudyard Kipling + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Puck of Pook's Hill + +Author: Rudyard Kipling + +Illustrator: Harold Robert Millar + +Release Date: June 3, 2005 [EBook #15976] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUCK OF POOK'S HILL *** + + + + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer + + + + + + +Transcriber's note: This text was based on the 1996 plain ASCII +text created by Jo Churcher, Scarborough, Ontario (jchurche@io.org), +then proofread against a 1911 reprint of a 1906 edition (Macmillan & +Co. Ltd., London). +The illustrations by H.R. Millar have been omitted from this text-only +version. + +--------------------------------------------------------------------- + + + + PUCK OF POOK'S HILL + by + RUDYARD KIPLING + + + + +CONTENTS + + +Weland's Sword +Young Men at the Manor +The Knights of the Joyous Venture +Old Men at Pevensey +A Centurion of the Thirtieth +On the Great Wall +The Winged Hats +Hal o' the Draft +'Dymchurch Flit' +The Treasure and the Law + + + + +WELAND'S SWORD + + +Puck's Song + + +See you the dimpled track that runs, + All hollow through the wheat? +O that was where they hauled the guns + That smote King Philip's fleet! + +See you our little mill that clacks, + So busy by the brook? +She has ground her corn and paid her tax + Ever since Domesday Book. + +See you our stilly woods of oak, + And the dread ditch beside? +O that was where the Saxons broke, + On the day that Harold died! + +See you the windy levels spread + About the gates of Rye? +O that was where the Northmen fled, + When Alfred's ships came by! + +See you our pastures wide and lone, + Where the red oxen browse? +O there was a City thronged and known, + Ere London boasted a house! + +And see you, after rain, the trace + Of mound and ditch and wall? +O that was a Legion's camping-place, + When Cæsar sailed from Gaul! + +And see you marks that show and fade, + Like shadows on the Downs? +O they are the lines the Flint Men made, + To guard their wondrous towns! + +Trackway and Camp and City lost, + Salt Marsh where now is corn; +Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease, + And so was England born! + +She is not any common Earth, + Water or Wood or Air, +But Merlin's Isle of Gramarye, + Where you and I will fare. + + +The children were at the Theatre, acting to Three Cows as much as they +could remember of _Midsummer Night's Dream_. Their father had made them +a small play out of the big Shakespeare one, and they had rehearsed it +with him and with their mother till they could say it by heart. They +began when Nick Bottom the weaver comes out of the bushes with a +donkey's head on his shoulders, and finds Titania, Queen of the Fairies, +asleep. Then they skipped to the part where Bottom asks three little +fairies to scratch his head and bring him honey, and they ended where he +falls asleep in Titania's arms. Dan was Puck and Nick Bottom, as well as +all three Fairies. He wore a pointy-eared cloth cap for Puck, and a +paper donkey's head out of a Christmas cracker--but it tore if you were +not careful--for Bottom. Una was Titania, with a wreath of columbines +and a foxglove wand. + +The Theatre lay in a meadow called the Long Slip. A little mill-stream, +carrying water to a mill two or three fields away, bent round one corner +of it, and in the middle of the bend lay a large old Fairy Ring of +darkened grass, which was the stage. The millstream banks, overgrown +with willow, hazel, and guelder-rose, made convenient places to wait in +till your turn came; and a grown-up who had seen it said that +Shakespeare himself could not have imagined a more suitable setting for +his play. They were not, of course, allowed to act on Midsummer Night +itself, but they went down after tea on Midsummer Eve, when the shadows +were growing, and they took their supper--hard-boiled eggs, Bath Oliver +biscuits, and salt in an envelope--with them. Three Cows had been milked +and were grazing steadily with a tearing noise that one could hear all +down the meadow; and the noise of the Mill at work sounded like bare +feet running on hard ground. A cuckoo sat on a gate-post singing his +broken June tune, 'cuckoo-cuk', while a busy kingfisher crossed from the +mill-stream, to the brook which ran on the other side of the meadow. +Everything else was a sort of thick, sleepy stillness smelling of +meadow-sweet and dry grass. + +Their play went beautifully. Dan remembered all his parts--Puck, Bottom, +and the three Fairies--and Una never forgot a word of Titania--not even +the difficult piece where she tells the Fairies how to feed Bottom with +'apricocks, green figs, and dewberries', and all the lines end in 'ies'. +They were both so pleased that they acted it three times over from +beginning to end before they sat down in the unthistly centre of the +Ring to eat eggs and Bath Olivers. This was when they heard a whistle +among the alders on the bank, and they jumped. + +The bushes parted. In the very spot where Dan had stood as Puck they saw +a small, brown, broad-shouldered, pointy-eared person with a snub nose, +slanting blue eyes, and a grin that ran right across his freckled face. +He shaded his forehead as though he were watching Quince, Snout, Bottom, +and the others rehearsing _Pyramus and Thisbe_, and, in a voice as deep +as Three Cows asking to be milked, he began: + +'What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here, +So near the cradle of our fairy Queen?' + +He stopped, hollowed one hand round his ear, and, with a wicked twinkle +in his eye, went on: + +'What, a play toward? I'll be auditor; +An actor, too, perhaps, if I see cause.' + +The children looked and gasped. The small thing--he was no taller than +Dan's shoulder--stepped quietly into the Ring. + +'I'm rather out of practice,' said he; 'but that's the way my part ought +to be played.' + +Still the children stared at him--from his dark-blue cap, like a big +columbine flower, to his bare, hairy feet. At last he laughed. + +'Please don't look like that. It isn't my fault. What else could you +expect?' he said. + +'We didn't expect any one,' Dan answered, slowly. 'This is our field.' + +'Is it?' said their visitor, sitting down. 'Then what on Human Earth +made you act _Midsummer Night's Dream_ three times over, _on_ Midsummer +Eve, _in_ the middle of a Ring, and under--right _under_ one of my +oldest hills in Old England? Pook's Hill--Puck's Hill--Puck's +Hill--Pook's Hill! It's as plain as the nose on my face.' + +He pointed to the bare, fern-covered slope of Pook's Hill that runs up +from the far side of the mill-stream to a dark wood. Beyond that wood +the ground rises and rises for five hundred feet, till at last you climb +out on the bare top of Beacon Hill, to look over the Pevensey Levels and +the Channel and half the naked South Downs. + +'By Oak, Ash, and Thorn!' he cried, still laughing. 'If this had +happened a few hundred years ago you'd have had all the People of the +Hills out like bees in June!' + +'We didn't know it was wrong,' said Dan. + +'Wrong!' The little fellow shook with laughter. 'Indeed, it isn't wrong. +You've done something that Kings and Knights and Scholars in old days +would have given their crowns and spurs and books to find out. If Merlin +himself had helped you, you couldn't have managed better! You've broken +the Hills--you've broken the Hills! It hasn't happened in a thousand +years.' + +'We--we didn't mean to,' said Una. + +'Of course you didn't! That's just why you did it. Unluckily the Hills +are empty now, and all the People of the Hills are gone. I'm the only +one left. I'm Puck, the oldest Old Thing in England, very much at your +service if--if you care to have anything to do with me. If you don't, of +course you've only to say so, and I'll go.' + +He looked at the children, and the children looked at him for quite half +a minute. His eyes did not twinkle any more. They were very kind, and +there was the beginning of a good smile on his lips. + +Una put out her hand. 'Don't go,' she said. 'We like you.' + +'Have a Bath Oliver,' said Dan, and he passed over the squashy envelope +with the eggs. + +'By Oak, Ash and Thorn,' cried Puck, taking off his blue cap, 'I like +you too. Sprinkle a plenty salt on the biscuit, Dan, and I'll eat it +with you. That'll show you the sort of person I am. Some of us'--he went +on, with his mouth full--'couldn't abide Salt, or Horse-shoes over a +door, or Mountain-ash berries, or Running Water, or Cold Iron, or the +sound of Church Bells. But I'm Puck!' + +He brushed the crumbs carefully from his doublet and shook hands. + +'We always said, Dan and I,' Una stammered, 'that if it ever happened +we'd know ex-actly what to do; but--but now it seems all different +somehow.' + +'She means meeting a fairy,' said Dan. 'I never believed in 'em--not +after I was six, anyhow.' + +'I did,' said Una. 'At least, I sort of half believed till we learned +"Farewell Rewards". Do you know "Farewell Rewards and Fairies"?' + +'Do you mean this?' said Puck. He threw his big head back and began at +the second line: + + 'Good housewives now may say, +For now foul sluts in dairies + Do fare as well as they; +And though they sweep their hearths no less + +('Join in, Una!') + +Than maids were wont to do, +Yet who of late for cleanliness +Finds sixpence in her shoe?' + +The echoes flapped all along the flat meadow. + +'Of course I know it,' he said. + +'And then there's the verse about the rings,' said Dan. 'When I was +little it always made me feel unhappy in my inside.' + +'"Witness those rings and roundelays", do you mean?' boomed Puck, with a +voice like a great church organ. + + 'Of theirs which yet remain, +Were footed in Queen Mary's days + On many a grassy plain, +But since of late Elizabeth, + And, later, James came in, +Are never seen on any heath + As when the time hath been.' + +'It's some time since I heard that sung, but there's no good beating +about the bush: it's true. The People of the Hills have all left. I saw +them come into Old England and I saw them go. Giants, trolls, kelpies, +brownies, goblins, imps; wood, tree, mound, and water spirits; +heath-people, hill-watchers, treasure-guards, good people, little +people, pishogues, leprechauns, night-riders, pixies, nixies, gnomes, +and the rest--gone, all gone! I came into England with Oak, Ash and +Thorn, and when Oak, Ash and Thorn are gone I shall go too.' + +Dan looked round the meadow--at Una's Oak by the lower gate; at the line +of ash trees that overhang Otter Pool where the mill-stream spills over +when the Mill does not need it, and at the gnarled old white-thorn where +Three Cows scratched their necks. + +'It's all right,' he said; and added, 'I'm planting a lot of acorns this +autumn too.' + +'Then aren't you most awfully old?' said Una. + +'Not old--fairly long-lived, as folk say hereabouts. Let me see--my +friends used to set my dish of cream for me o' nights when Stonehenge +was new. Yes, before the Flint Men made the Dewpond under Chanctonbury +Ring.' + +Una clasped her hands, cried 'Oh!' and nodded her head. + +'She's thought a plan,' Dan explained. 'She always does like that when +she thinks a plan.' + +'I was thinking--suppose we saved some of our porridge and put it in the +attic for you? They'd notice if we left it in the nursery.' + +'Schoolroom,' said Dan quickly, and Una flushed, because they had made a +solemn treaty that summer not to call the schoolroom the nursery any +more. + +'Bless your heart o' gold!' said Puck. 'You'll make a fine considering +wench some market-day. I really don't want you to put out a bowl for me; +but if ever I need a bite, be sure I'll tell you.' + +He stretched himself at length on the dry grass, and the children +stretched out beside him, their bare legs waving happily in the air. +They felt they could not be afraid of him any more than of their +particular friend old Hobden the hedger. He did not bother them with +grown-up questions, or laugh at the donkey's head, but lay and smiled to +himself in the most sensible way. + +'Have you a knife on you?' he said at last. + +Dan handed over his big one-bladed outdoor knife, and Puck began to +carve out a piece of turf from the centre of the Ring. + +'What's that for--Magic?' said Una, as he pressed up the square of +chocolate loam that cut like so much cheese. + +'One of my little magics,' he answered, and cut another. 'You see, I +can't let you into the Hills because the People of the Hills have gone; +but if you care to take seizin from me, I may be able to show you +something out of the common here on Human Earth. You certainly deserve +it.' + +'What's taking seizin?' said Dan, cautiously. + +'It's an old custom the people had when they bought and sold land. They +used to cut out a clod and hand it over to the buyer, and you weren't +lawfully seized of your land--it didn't really belong to you--till the +other fellow had actually given you a piece of it--like this.' He held +out the turves. + +'But it's our own meadow,' said Dan, drawing back. 'Are you going to +magic it away?' + +Puck laughed. 'I know it's your meadow, but there's a great deal more in +it than you or your father ever guessed. Try!' + +He turned his eyes on Una. + +'I'll do it,' she said. Dan followed her example at once. + +'Now are you two lawfully seized and possessed of all Old England,' +began Puck, in a sing-song voice. 'By right of Oak, Ash, and Thorn are +you free to come and go and look and know where I shall show or best you +please. You shall see What you shall see and you shall hear What you +shall hear, though It shall have happened three thousand year; and you +shall know neither Doubt nor Fear. Fast! Hold fast all I give you.' + +The children shut their eyes, but nothing happened. + +'Well?' said Una, disappointedly opening them. 'I thought there would be +dragons.' + +'"Though It shall have happened three thousand year,"' said Puck, and +counted on his fingers. 'No; I'm afraid there were no dragons three +thousand years ago.' + +'But there hasn't happened anything at all,' said Dan. + +'Wait awhile,' said Puck. 'You don't grow an oak in a year--and Old +England's older than twenty oaks. Let's sit down again and think. _I_ +can do that for a century at a time.' + +'Ah, but you're a fairy,' said Dan. + +'Have you ever heard me say that word yet?' said Puck quickly. + +'No. You talk about "the People of the Hills", but you never say +"fairies",' said Una. 'I was wondering at that. Don't you like it?' + +'How would you like to be called "mortal" or "human being" all the +time?' said Puck; 'or "son of Adam" or "daughter of Eve"?' + +'I shouldn't like it at all,' said Dan. 'That's how the Djinns and +Afrits talk in the _Arabian Nights_.' + +'And that's how _I_ feel about saying--that word that I don't say. +Besides, what you call them are made-up things the People of the Hills +have never heard of--little buzzflies with butterfly wings and gauze +petticoats, and shiny stars in their hair, and a wand like a +schoolteacher's cane for punishing bad boys and rewarding good ones. _I_ +know 'em!' + +'We don't mean that sort,' said Dan. 'We hate 'em too.' + +'Exactly,' said Puck. 'Can you wonder that the People of the Hills don't +care to be confused with that painty-winged, wand-waving, +sugar-and-shake-your-head set of impostors? Butterfly wings, indeed! +I've seen Sir Huon and a troop of his people setting off from Tintagel +Castle for Hy-Brasil in the teeth of a sou'-westerly gale, with the +spray flying all over the Castle, and the Horses of the Hills wild with +fright. Out they'd go in a lull, screaming like gulls, and back they'd +be driven five good miles inland before they could come head to wind +again. Butterfly-wings! It was Magic--Magic as black as Merlin could +make it, and the whole sea was green fire and white foam with singing +mermaids in it. And the Horses of the Hills picked their way from one +wave to another by the lightning flashes! _That_ was how it was in the +old days!' + +'Splendid,' said Dan, but Una shuddered. + +'I'm glad they're gone, then; but what made the People of the Hills go +away?' Una asked. + +'Different things. I'll tell you one of them some day--the thing that +made the biggest flit of any,' said Puck. 'But they didn't all flit at +once. They dropped off, one by one, through the centuries. Most of them +were foreigners who couldn't stand our climate. _They_ flitted early.' + +'How early?' said Dan. + +'A couple of thousand years or more. The fact is they began as Gods. The +Phoenicians brought some over when they came to buy tin; and the Gauls, +and the Jutes, and the Danes, and the Frisians, and the Angles brought +more when they landed. They were always landing in those days, or being +driven back to their ships, and they always brought their Gods with +them. England is a bad country for Gods. Now, _I_ began as I mean to go +on. A bowl of porridge, a dish of milk, and a little quiet fun with the +country folk in the lanes was enough for me then, as it is now. I belong +here, you see, and I have been mixed up with people all my days. But +most of the others insisted on being Gods, and having temples, and +altars, and priests, and sacrifices of their own.' + +'People burned in wicker baskets?' said Dan. 'Like Miss Blake tells us +about?' + +'All sorts of sacrifices,' said Puck. 'If it wasn't men, it was horses, +or cattle, or pigs, or metheglin--that's a sticky, sweet sort of beer. +_I_ never liked it. They were a stiff-necked, extravagant set of idols, +the Old Things. But what was the result? Men don't like being sacrificed +at the best of times; they don't even like sacrificing their +farm-horses. After a while, men simply left the Old Things alone, and +the roofs of their temples fell in, and the Old Things had to scuttle +out and pick up a living as they could. Some of them took to hanging +about trees, and hiding in graves and groaning o' nights. If they +groaned loud enough and long enough they might frighten a poor +countryman into sacrificing a hen, or leaving a pound of butter for +them. I remember one Goddess called Belisama. She became a common wet +water-spirit somewhere in Lancashire. And there were hundreds of other +friends of mine. First they were Gods. Then they were People of the +Hills, and then they flitted to other places because they couldn't get +on with the English for one reason or another. There was only one Old +Thing, I remember, who honestly worked for his living after he came down +in the world. He was called Weland, and he was a smith to some Gods. +I've forgotten their names, but he used to make them swords and spears. +I think he claimed kin with Thor of the Scandinavians.' + +'_Heroes of Asgard_ Thor?' said Una. She had been reading the book. + +'Perhaps,' answered Puck. 'None the less, when bad times came, he didn't +beg or steal. He worked; and I was lucky enough to be able to do him a +good turn.' + +'Tell us about it,' said Dan. 'I think I like hearing of Old Things.' + +They rearranged themselves comfortably, each chewing a grass stem. Puck +propped himself on one strong arm and went on: + +'Let's think! I met Weland first on a November afternoon in a sleet +storm, on Pevensey Level----' + +'Pevensey? Over the hill, you mean?' Dan pointed south. + +'Yes; but it was all marsh in those days, right up to Horsebridge and +Hydeneye. I was on Beacon Hill--they called it Brunanburgh then--when I +saw the pale flame that burning thatch makes, and I went down to look. +Some pirates--I think they must have been Peofn's men--were burning a +village on the Levels, and Weland's image--a big, black wooden thing +with amber beads round his neck--lay in the bows of a black +thirty-two-oar galley that they had just beached. Bitter cold it was! +There were icicles hanging from her deck and the oars were glazed over +with ice, and there was ice on Weland's lips. When he saw me he began a +long chant in his own tongue, telling me how he was going to rule +England, and how I should smell the smoke of his altars from +Lincolnshire to the Isle of Wight. I didn't care! I'd seen too many Gods +charging into Old England to be upset about it. I let him sing himself +out while his men were burning the village, and then I said (I don't +know what put it into my head), "Smith of the Gods," I said, "the time +comes when I shall meet you plying your trade for hire by the wayside."' + +'What did Weland say?' said Una. 'Was he angry?' + +'He called me names and rolled his eyes, and I went away to wake up the +people inland. But the pirates conquered the country, and for centuries +Weland was a most important God. He had temples everywhere--from +Lincolnshire to the Isle of Wight, as he said--and his sacrifices were +simply scandalous. To do him justice, he preferred horses to men; but +men or horses, I knew that presently he'd have to come down in the +world--like the other Old Things. I gave him lots of time--I gave him +about a thousand years--and at the end of 'em I went into one of his +temples near Andover to see how he prospered. There was his altar, and +there was his image, and there were his priests, and there were the +congregation, and everybody seemed quite happy, except Weland and the +priests. In the old days the congregation were unhappy until the priests +had chosen their sacrifices; and so would you have been. When the +service began a priest rushed out, dragged a man up to the altar, +pretended to hit him on the head with a little gilt axe, and the man +fell down and pretended to die. Then everybody shouted: "A sacrifice to +Weland! A sacrifice to Weland!"' + +'And the man wasn't really dead?' said Una. + +'Not a bit. All as much pretence as a dolls' tea-party. Then they +brought out a splendid white horse, and the priest cut some hair from +its mane and tail and burned it on the altar, shouting, "A sacrifice!" +That counted the same as if a man and a horse had been killed. I saw +poor Weland's face through the smoke, and I couldn't help laughing. He +looked so disgusted and so hungry, and all he had to satisfy himself was +a horrid smell of burning hair. Just a dolls' tea-party! + +'I judged it better not to say anything then ('twouldn't have been +fair), and the next time I came to Andover, a few hundred years later, +Weland and his temple were gone, and there was a Christian bishop in a +church there. None of the People of the Hills could tell me anything +about him, and I supposed that he had left England.' Puck turned; lay on +the other elbow, and thought for a long time. + +'Let's see,' he said at last. 'It must have been some few years later--a +year or two before the Conquest, I think--that I came back to Pook's +Hill here, and one evening I heard old Hobden talking about Weland's +Ford.' + +'If you mean old Hobden the hedger, he's only seventy-two. He told me so +himself,' said Dan. 'He's a intimate friend of ours.' + +'You're quite right,' Puck replied. 'I meant old Hobden's ninth +great-grandfather. He was a free man and burned charcoal hereabouts. +I've known the family, father and son, so long that I get confused +sometimes. Hob of the Dene was my Hobden's name, and he lived at the +Forge cottage. Of course, I pricked up my ears when I heard Weland +mentioned, and I scuttled through the woods to the Ford just beyond Bog +Wood yonder.' He jerked his head westward, where the valley narrows +between wooded hills and steep hop-fields. + +'Why, that's Willingford Bridge,' said Una. 'We go there for walks +often. There's a kingfisher there.' + +'It was Weland's Ford then, dear. A road led down to it from the Beacon +on the top of the hill--a shocking bad road it was--and all the hillside +was thick, thick oak-forest, with deer in it. There was no trace of +Weland, but presently I saw a fat old farmer riding down from the Beacon +under the greenwood tree. His horse had cast a shoe in the clay, and +when he came to the Ford he dismounted, took a penny out of his purse, +laid it on a stone, tied the old horse to an oak, and called out: +"Smith, Smith, here is work for you!" Then he sat down and went to +sleep. You can imagine how _I_ felt when I saw a white-bearded, bent old +blacksmith in a leather apron creep out from behind the oak and begin to +shoe the horse. It was Weland himself. I was so astonished that I jumped +out and said: "What on Human Earth are you doing here, Weland?"' + +'Poor Weland!' sighed Una. + +'He pushed the long hair back from his forehead (he didn't recognize me +at first). Then he said: "_You_ ought to know. You foretold it, Old +Thing. I'm shoeing horses for hire. I'm not even Weland now," he said. +"They call me Wayland-Smith."' + +'Poor chap!' said Dan. 'What did you say?' + +'What could I say? He looked up, with the horse's foot on his lap, and +he said, smiling, "I remember the time when I wouldn't have accepted +this old bag of bones as a sacrifice, and now I'm glad enough to shoe +him for a penny." + +'"Isn't there any way for you to get back to Valhalla, or wherever you +come from?" I said. + +'"I'm afraid not," he said, rasping away at the hoof. He had a wonderful +touch with horses. The old beast was whinnying on his shoulder. "You may +remember that I was not a gentle God in my Day and my Time and my Power. +I shall never be released till some human being truly wishes me well." + +'"Surely," said I, "the farmer can't do less than that. You're shoeing +the horse all round for him." + +'"Yes," said he, "and my nails will hold a shoe from one full moon to +the next. But farmers and Weald clay," said he, "are both uncommon cold +and sour." + +'Would you believe it, that when that farmer woke and found his horse +shod he rode away without one word of thanks? I was so angry that I +wheeled his horse right round and walked him back three miles to the +Beacon, just to teach the old sinner politeness.' + +'Were you invisible?' said Una. Puck nodded, gravely. + +'The Beacon was always laid in those days ready to light, in case the +French landed at Pevensey; and I walked the horse about and about it +that lee-long summer night. The farmer thought he was bewitched--well, +he _was_, of course--and began to pray and shout. _I_ didn't care! I was +as good a Christian as he any fair-day in the County, and about four +o'clock in the morning a young novice came along from the monastery that +used to stand on the top of Beacon Hill.' + +'What's a novice?' said Dan. + +'It really means a man who is beginning to be a monk, but in those days +people sent their sons to a monastery just the same as a school. This +young fellow had been to a monastery in France for a few months every +year, and he was finishing his studies in the monastery close to his +home here. Hugh was his name, and he had got up to go fishing +hereabouts. His people owned all this valley. Hugh heard the farmer +shouting, and asked him what in the world he meant. The old man spun him +a wonderful tale about fairies and goblins and witches; and I _know_ he +hadn't seen a thing except rabbits and red deer all that night. (The +People of the Hills are like otters--they don't show except when they +choose.) But the novice wasn't a fool. He looked down at the horse's +feet, and saw the new shoes fastened as only Weland knew how to fasten +'em. (Weland had a way of turning down the nails that folks called the +Smith's Clinch.) + +'"H'm!" said the novice. "Where did you get your horse shod?" + +'The farmer wouldn't tell him at first, because the priests never liked +their people to have any dealings with the Old Things. At last he +confessed that the Smith had done it. "What did you pay him?" said the +novice. "Penny," said the farmer, very sulkily. "That's less than a +Christian would have charged," said the novice. "I hope you threw a +'Thank you' into the bargain." "No," said the farmer; "Wayland-Smith's a +heathen." "Heathen or no heathen," said the novice, "you took his help, +and where you get help there you must give thanks." "What?" said the +farmer--he was in a furious temper because I was walking the old horse +in circles all this time--"What, you young jackanapes?" said he. "Then +by your reasoning I ought to say 'Thank you' to Satan if he helped me?" +"Don't roll about up there splitting reasons with me," said the novice. +"Come back to the Ford and thank the Smith, or you'll be sorry." + +'Back the farmer had to go. I led the horse, though no one saw me, and +the novice walked beside us, his gown swishing through the shiny dew and +his fishing-rod across his shoulders, spear-wise. When we reached the +Ford again--it was five o'clock and misty still under the oaks--the +farmer simply wouldn't say "Thank you." He said he'd tell the Abbot that +the novice wanted him to worship heathen Gods. Then Hugh the novice lost +his temper. He just cried, "Out!" put his arm under the farmer's fat +leg, and heaved him from his saddle on to the turf, and before he could +rise he caught him by the back of the neck and shook him like a rat till +the farmer growled, "Thank you, Wayland-Smith."' + +'Did Weland see all this?' said Dan. + +'Oh yes, and he shouted his old war-cry when the farmer thudded on to +the ground. He was delighted. Then the novice turned to the oak tree and +said, "Ho, Smith of the Gods! I am ashamed of this rude farmer; but for +all you have done in kindness and charity to him and to others of our +people, I thank you and wish you well." Then he picked up his +fishing-rod--it looked more like a tall spear than ever--and tramped off +down your valley.' + +'And what did poor Weland do?' said Una. + +'He laughed and he cried with joy, because he had been released at last, +and could go away. But he was an honest Old Thing. He had worked for his +living and he paid his debts before he left. "I shall give that novice a +gift," said Weland. "A gift that shall do him good the wide world over +and Old England after him. Blow up my fire, Old Thing, while I get the +iron for my last task." Then he made a sword--a dark-grey, wavy-lined +sword--and I blew the fire while he hammered. By Oak, Ash and Thorn, I +tell you, Weland was a Smith of the Gods! He cooled that sword in +running water twice, and the third time he cooled it in the evening dew, +and he laid it out in the moonlight and said Runes (that's charms) over +it, and he carved Runes of Prophecy on the blade. "Old Thing," he said +to me, wiping his forehead, "this is the best blade that Weland ever +made. Even the user will never know how good it is. Come to the +monastery." + +'We went to the dormitory where the monks slept, we saw the novice fast +asleep in his cot, and Weland put the sword into his hand, and I +remember the young fellow gripped it in his sleep. Then Weland strode as +far as he dared into the Chapel and threw down all his +shoeing-tools--his hammers and pincers and rasps--to show that he had +done with them for ever. It sounded like suits of armour falling, and +the sleepy monks ran in, for they thought the monastery had been +attacked by the French. The novice came first of all, waving his new +sword and shouting Saxon battle-cries. When they saw the shoeing-tools +they were very bewildered, till the novice asked leave to speak, and +told what he had done to the farmer, and what he had said to +Wayland-Smith, and how, though the dormitory light was burning, he had +found the wonderful rune-carved sword in his cot. + +'The Abbot shook his head at first, and then he laughed and said to the +novice: "Son Hugh, it needed no sign from a heathen God to show me that +you will never be a monk. Take your sword, and keep your sword, and go +with your sword, and be as gentle as you are strong and courteous. We +will hang up the Smith's tools before the Altar," he said, "because, +whatever the Smith of the Gods may have been, in the old days, we know +that he worked honestly for his living and made gifts to Mother Church." +Then they went to bed again, all except the novice, and he sat up in the +garth playing with his sword. Then Weland said to me by the stables: +"Farewell, Old Thing; you had the right of it. You saw me come to +England, and you see me go. Farewell!" + +'With that he strode down the hill to the corner of the Great +Woods--Woods Corner, you call it now--to the very place where he had +first landed--and I heard him moving through the thickets towards +Horsebridge for a little, and then he was gone. That was how it +happened. I saw it.' + +Both children drew a long breath. + +'But what happened to Hugh the novice?' said Una. + +'And the sword?' said Dan. + +Puck looked down the meadow that lay all quiet and cool in the shadow of +Pook's Hill. A corncrake jarred in a hay-field near by, and the small +trouts of the brook began to jump. A big white moth flew unsteadily from +the alders and flapped round the children's heads, and the least little +haze of water-mist rose from the brook. + +'Do you really want to know?' Puck said. + +'We do,' cried the children. 'Awfully!' + +'Very good. I promised you that you shall see What you shall see, and +you shall hear What you shall hear, though It shall have happened three +thousand year; but just now it seems to me that, unless you go back to +the house, people will be looking for you. I'll walk with you as far as +the gate.' + +'Will you be here when we come again?' they asked. + +'Surely, sure-ly,' said Puck. 'I've been here some time already. One +minute first, please.' + +He gave them each three leaves--one of Oak, one of Ash and one of Thorn. + +'Bite these,' said he. 'Otherwise you might be talking at home of what +you've seen and heard, and--if I know human beings--they'd send for the +doctor. Bite!' + +They bit hard, and found themselves walking side by side to the lower +gate. Their father was leaning over it. + +'And how did your play go?' he asked. + +'Oh, splendidly,' said Dan. 'Only afterwards, I think, we went to sleep. +it was very hot and quiet. Don't you remember, Una?' + +Una shook her head and said nothing. + +'I see,' said her father. + +'Late--late in the evening Kilmeny came home, +For Kilmeny had been she could not tell where, +And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare. + +But why are you chewing leaves at your time of life, daughter? For fun?' + +'No. It was for something, but I can't azactly remember,' said Una. + +And neither of them could till---- + + + +A TREE SONG + + +Of all the trees that grow so fair, + Old England to adorn, +Greater are none beneath the Sun, + Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn. +Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good Sirs + (All of a Midsummer morn)! +Surely we sing no little thing, + In Oak, and Ash, and Thorn! + +Oak of the Clay lived many a day, + Or ever Æneas began; +Ash of the Loam was a lady at home, + When Brut was an outlaw man; +Thorn of the Down saw New Troy Town + (From which was London born); +Witness hereby the ancientry + Of Oak, and Ash, and Thorn! + +Yew that is old in churchyard mould, + He breedeth a mighty bow; +Alder for shoes do wise men choose, + And beech for cups also. +But when ye have killed, and your bowl is spilled, + And your shoes are clean outworn, +Back ye must speed for all that ye need, + To Oak and Ash and Thorn! + +Ellum she hateth mankind, and waiteth + Till every gust be laid, +To drop a limb on the head of him + That anyway trusts her shade: +But whether a lad be sober or sad, + Or mellow with ale from the horn, +He will take no wrong when he lieth along + 'Neath Oak, and Ash, and Thorn! + +Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight, + Or he would call it a sin; +But--we have been out in the woods all night, + A-conjuring Summer in! +And we bring you news by word of mouth-- + Good news for cattle and corn-- +Now is the Sun come up from the South, + With Oak, and Ash, and Thorn! + +Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good Sirs + (All of a Midsummer morn)! +England shall bide till Judgement Tide, + By Oak and Ash and Thorn! + + + + +YOUNG MEN AT THE MANOR + + +They were fishing, a few days later, in the bed of the brook that for +centuries had cut deep into the soft valley soil. The trees closing +overhead made long tunnels through which the sunshine worked in blobs +and patches. Down in the tunnels were bars of sand and gravel, old roots +and trunks covered with moss or painted red by the irony water; +foxgloves growing lean and pale towards the light; clumps of fern and +thirsty shy flowers who could not live away from moisture and shade. In +the pools you could see the wave thrown up by the trouts as they charged +hither and yon, and the pools were joined to each other--except in flood +time, when all was one brown rush--by sheets of thin broken water that +poured themselves chuckling round the darkness of the next bend. + +This was one of the children's most secret hunting-grounds, and their +particular friend, old Hobden the hedger, had shown them how to use it. +Except for the click of a rod hitting a low willow, or a switch and +tussle among the young ash-leaves as a line hung up for the minute, +nobody in the hot pasture could have guessed what game was going on +among the trouts below the banks. + +'We've got half-a-dozen,' said Dan, after a warm, wet hour. 'I vote we +go up to Stone Bay and try Long Pool.' + +Una nodded--most of her talk was by nods--and they crept from the gloom +of the tunnels towards the tiny weir that turns the brook into the +mill-stream. Here the banks are low and bare, and the glare of the +afternoon sun on the Long Pool below the weir makes your eyes ache. + +When they were in the open they nearly fell down with astonishment. A +huge grey horse, whose tail-hairs crinkled the glassy water, was +drinking in the pool, and the ripples about his muzzle flashed like +melted gold. On his back sat an old, white-haired man dressed in a loose +glimmery gown of chain-mail. He was bare-headed, and a nut-shaped iron +helmet hung at his saddle-bow. His reins were of red leather five or six +inches deep, scalloped at the edges, and his high padded saddle with its +red girths was held fore and aft by a red leather breastband and +crupper. + +'Look!' said Una, as though Dan were not staring his very eyes out. +'It's like the picture in your room--"Sir Isumbras at the Ford".' + +The rider turned towards them, and his thin, long face was just as sweet +and gentle as that of the knight who carries the children in that +picture. + +'They should be here now, Sir Richard,' said Puck's deep voice among the +willow-herb. + +'They are here,' the knight said, and he smiled at Dan with the string +of trouts in his hand. 'There seems no great change in boys since mine +fished this water.' + +'If your horse has drunk, we shall be more at ease in the Ring,' said +Puck; and he nodded to the children as though he had never magicked away +their memories a week before. + +The great horse turned and hoisted himself into the pasture with a kick +and a scramble that tore the clods down rattling. + +'Your pardon!' said Sir Richard to Dan. 'When these lands were mine, I +never loved that mounted men should cross the brook except by the paved +ford. But my Swallow here was thirsty, and I wished to meet you.' + +'We're very glad you've come, sir,' said Dan. 'It doesn't matter in the +least about the banks.' + +He trotted across the pasture on the sword side of the mighty horse, and +it was a mighty iron-handled sword that swung from Sir Richard's belt. +Una walked behind with Puck. She remembered everything now. + +'I'm sorry about the Leaves,' he said, 'but it would never have done if +you had gone home and told, would it?' + +'I s'pose not,' Una answered. 'But you said that all the fair--People of +the Hills had left England.' + +'So they have; but I told you that you should come and go and look and +know, didn't I? The knight isn't a fairy. He's Sir Richard Dalyngridge, +a very old friend of mine. He came over with William the Conqueror, and +he wants to see you particularly.' + +'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.' + +'Yes, from the very beginning,' Una pleaded, for the knight's good face +and the smile on it more than ever reminded her of 'Sir Isumbras at the +Ford'. + +They settled down to listen, Sir Richard bare-headed to the sunshine, +dandling the sword in both hands, while the grey horse cropped outside +the Ring, and the helmet on the saddle-bow clinged softly each time he +jerked his head. + +'From the beginning, then,' Sir Richard said, 'since it concerns your +land, I will tell the tale. When our Duke came out of Normandy to take +his England, great knights (have ye heard?) came and strove hard to +serve the Duke, because he promised them lands here, and small knights +followed the great ones. My folk in Normandy were poor; but a great +knight, Engerrard of the Eagle--Engenulf De Aquila--who was kin to my +father, followed the Earl of Mortain, who followed William the Duke, and +I followed De Aquila. Yes, with thirty men-at-arms out of my father's +house and a new sword, I set out to conquer England three days after I +was made knight. I did not then know that England would conquer me. We +went up to Santlache with the rest--a very great host of us.' + +'Does that mean the Battle of Hastings--Ten Sixty-Six?' Una whispered, +and Puck nodded, so as not to interrupt. + +'At Santlache, over the hill yonder'--he pointed south-eastward towards +Fairlight--'we found Harold's men. We fought. At the day's end they ran. +My men went with De Aquila's to chase and plunder, and in that chase +Engerrard of the Eagle was slain, and his son Gilbert took his banner +and his men forward. This I did not know till after, for Swallow here +was cut in the flank, so I stayed to wash the wound at a brook by a +thorn. There a single Saxon cried out to me in French, and we fought +together. I should have known his voice, but we fought together. For a +long time neither had any advantage, till by pure ill-fortune his foot +slipped and his sword flew from his hand. Now I had but newly been made +knight, and wished, above all, to be courteous and fameworthy, so I +forbore to strike and bade him get his sword again. "A plague on my +sword," said he. "It has lost me my first fight. You have spared my +life. Take my sword." He held it out to me, but as I stretched my hand +the sword groaned like a stricken man, and I leaped back crying, +"Sorcery!"' + +[The children looked at the sword as though it might speak again.] + +'Suddenly a clump of Saxons ran out upon me and, seeing a Norman alone, +would have killed me, but my Saxon cried out that I was his prisoner, +and beat them off. Thus, see you, he saved my life. He put me on my +horse and led me through the woods ten long miles to this valley.' + +'To here, d'you mean?' said Una. + +'To this very valley. We came in by the Lower Ford under the King's Hill +yonder'--he pointed eastward where the valley widens. + +'And was that Saxon Hugh the novice?' Dan asked. + +'Yes, and more than that. He had been for three years at the monastery +at Bec by Rouen, where'--Sir Richard chuckled--'the Abbot Herluin would +not suffer me to remain.' + +'Why wouldn't he?' said Dan. + +'Because I rode my horse into the refectory, when the scholars were at +meat, to show the Saxon boys we Normans were not afraid of an Abbot. It +was that very Saxon Hugh tempted me to do it, and we had not met since +that day. I thought I knew his voice even inside my helmet, and, for all +that our Lords fought, we each rejoiced we had not slain the other. He +walked by my side, and he told me how a Heathen God, as he believed, had +given him his sword, but he said he had never heard it sing before. I +remember I warned him to beware of sorcery and quick enchantments.' Sir +Richard smiled to himself. 'I was very young--very young! + +'When we came to his house here we had almost forgotten that we had been +at blows. It was near midnight, and the Great Hall was full of men and +women waiting news. There I first saw his sister, the Lady Ælueva, of +whom he had spoken to us in France. She cried out fiercely at me, and +would have had me hanged in that hour, but her brother said that I had +spared his life--he said not how he saved mine from the Saxons--and that +our Duke had won the day; and even while they wrangled over my poor +body, of a sudden he fell down in a swoon from his wounds. + +'"This is _thy_ fault," said the Lady Ælueva to me, and she kneeled +above him and called for wine and cloths. + +'"If I had known," I answered, "he should have ridden and I walked. But +he set me on my horse; he made no complaint; he walked beside me and +spoke merrily throughout. I pray I have done him no harm." + +'"Thou hast need to pray," she said, catching up her underlip. "If he +dies, thou shalt hang." + +'They bore off Hugh to his chamber; but three tall men of the house +bound me and set me under the beam of the Great Hall with a rope round +my neck. The end of the rope they flung over the beam, and they sat them +down by the fire to wait word whether Hugh lived or died. They cracked +nuts with their knife-hilts the while.' + +'And how did you feel?' said Dan. + +'Very weary; but I did heartily pray for my schoolmate Hugh his health. +About noon I heard horses in the valley, and the three men loosed my +ropes and fled out, and De Aquila's men rode up. Gilbert de Aquila came +with them, for it was his boast that, like his father, he forgot no man +that served him. He was little, like his father, but terrible, with a +nose like an eagle's nose and yellow eyes like an eagle. He rode tall +warhorses--roans, which he bred himself--and he could never abide to be +helped into the saddle. He saw the rope hanging from the beam and +laughed, and his men laughed, for I was too stiff to rise. + +'"This is poor entertainment for a Norman knight," he said, "but, such +as it is, let us be grateful. Show me, boy, to whom thou owest most, and +we will pay them out of hand."' + +'What did he mean? To kill 'em?' said Dan. + +'Assuredly. But I looked at the Lady Ælueva where she stood among her +maids, and her brother beside her. De Aquila's men had driven them all +into the Great Hall.' + +'Was she pretty?' said Una. + +'In all my long life I have never seen woman fit to strew rushes before +my Lady Ælueva,' the knight replied, quite simply and quietly. 'As I +looked at her I thought I might save her and her house by a jest. + +'"Seeing that I came somewhat hastily and without warning," said I to De +Aquila, "I have no fault to find with the courtesy that these Saxons +have shown me." But my voice shook. It is--it was not good to jest with +that little man. + +'All were silent awhile, till De Aquila laughed. "Look, men--a miracle," +said he. "The fight is scarce sped, my father is not yet buried, and +here we find our youngest knight already set down in his Manor, while +his Saxons--ye can see it in their fat faces--have paid him homage and +service! By the Saints," he said, rubbing his nose, "I never thought +England would be so easy won! Surely I can do no less than give the lad +what he has taken. This Manor shall be thine, boy," he said, "till I +come again, or till thou art slain. Now, mount, men, and ride. We follow +our Duke into Kent to make him King of England." + +'He drew me with him to the door while they brought his horse--a lean +roan, taller than my Swallow here, but not so well girthed. + +'"Hark to me," he said, fretting with his great war-gloves. "I have +given thee this Manor, which is a Saxon hornets' nest, and I think thou +wilt be slain in a month--as my father was slain. Yet if thou canst keep +the roof on the hall, the thatch on the barn, and the plough in the +furrow till I come back, thou shalt hold the Manor from me; for the Duke +has promised our Earl Mortain all the lands by Pevensey, and Mortain +will give me of them what he would have given my father. God knows if +thou or I shall live till England is won; but remember, boy, that here +and now fighting is foolishness and"--he reached for the reins--"craft +and cunning is all." + +'"Alas, I have no cunning," said I. + +'"Not yet," said he, hopping abroad, foot in stirrup, and poking his +horse in the belly with his toe. "Not yet, but I think thou hast a good +teacher. Farewell! Hold the Manor and live. Lose the Manor and hang," he +said, and spurred out, his shield-straps squeaking behind him. + +'So, children, here was I, little more than a boy, and Santlache fight +not two days old, left alone with my thirty men-at-arms, in a land I +knew not, among a people whose tongue I could not speak, to hold down +the land which I had taken from them.' + +'And that was here at home?' said Una. + +'Yes, here. See! From the Upper Ford, Weland's Ford, to the Lower Ford, +by the Belle Allée, west and east it ran half a league. From the Beacon +of Brunanburgh behind us here, south and north it ran a full league--and +all the woods were full of broken men from Santlache, Saxon thieves, +Norman plunderers, robbers, and deer-stealers. A hornets' nest indeed! + +'When De Aquila had gone, Hugh would have thanked me for saving their +lives; but the Lady Ælueva said that I had done it only for the sake of +receiving the Manor. + +'"How could I know that De Aquila would give it me?" I said. "If I had +told him I had spent my night in your halter he would have burned the +place twice over by now." + +'"If any man had put _my_ neck in a rope," she said, "I would have seen +his house burned thrice over before _I_ would have made terms." + +'"But it was a woman," I said; and I laughed, and she wept and said that +I mocked her in her captivity. + +'"Lady," said I, "there is no captive in this valley except one, and he +is not a Saxon." + +'At this she cried that I was a Norman thief, who came with false, sweet +words, having intended from the first to turn her out in the fields to +beg her bread. Into the fields! She had never seen the face of war! + +'I was angry, and answered, "This much at least I can disprove, for I +swear"--and on my sword-hilt I swore it in that place--"I swear I will +never set foot in the Great Hall till the Lady Ælueva herself shall +summon me there." + +'She went away, saying nothing, and I walked out, and Hugh limped after +me, whistling dolorously (that is a custom of the English), and we came +upon the three Saxons that had bound me. They were now bound by my +men-at-arms, and behind them stood some fifty stark and sullen churls of +the House and the Manor, waiting to see what should fall. We heard De +Aquila's trumpets blow thin through the woods Kentward. + +'"Shall we hang these?" said my men. + +'"Then my churls will fight," said Hugh, beneath his breath; but I bade +him ask the three what mercy they hoped for. + +'"None," said they all. "She bade us hang thee if our master died. And +we would have hanged thee. There is no more to it." + +'As I stood doubting, a woman ran down from the oak wood above the +King's Hill yonder, and cried out that some Normans were driving off the +swine there. + +'"Norman or Saxon," said I, "we must beat them back, or they will rob us +every day. Out at them with any arms ye have!" So I loosed those three +carles and we ran together, my men-at-arms and the Saxons with bills and +axes which they had hidden in the thatch of their huts, and Hugh led +them. Half-way up the King's Hill we found a false fellow from +Picardy--a sutler that sold wine in the Duke's camp--with a dead +knight's shield on his arm, a stolen horse under him, and some ten or +twelve wastrels at his tail, all cutting and slashing at the pigs. We +beat them off, and saved our pork. One hundred and seventy pigs we saved +in that great battle.' Sir Richard laughed. + +'That, then, was our first work together, and I bade Hugh tell his folk +that so would I deal with any man, knight or churl, Norman or Saxon, who +stole as much as one egg from our valley. Said he to me, riding home: +"Thou hast gone far to conquer England this evening." I answered: +"England must be thine and mine, then. Help me, Hugh, to deal aright +with these people. Make them to know that if they slay me De Aquila will +surely send to slay them, and he will put a worse man in my place." +"That may well be true," said he, and gave me his hand. "Better the +devil we know than the devil we know not, till we can pack you Normans +home." And so, too, said his Saxons; and they laughed as we drove the +pigs downhill. But I think some of them, even then, began not to hate +me.' + +'I like Brother Hugh,' said Una, softly. + +'Beyond question he was the most perfect, courteous, valiant, tender, +and wise knight that ever drew breath,' said Sir Richard, caressing the +sword. 'He hung up his sword--this sword--on the wall of the Great Hall, +because he said it was fairly mine, and never he took it down till De +Aquila returned, as I shall presently show. For three months his men and +mine guarded the valley, till all robbers and nightwalkers learned there +was nothing to get from us save hard tack and a hanging. Side by side we +fought against all who came--thrice a week sometimes we fought--against +thieves and landless knights looking for good manors. Then we were in +some peace, and I made shift by Hugh's help to govern the valley--for +all this valley of yours was my Manor--as a knight should. I kept the +roof on the hall and the thatch on the barn, but ... the English are a +bold people. His Saxons would laugh and jest with Hugh, and Hugh with +them, and--this was marvellous to me--if even the meanest of them said +that such and such a thing was the Custom of the Manor, then straightway +would Hugh and such old men of the Manor as might be near forsake +everything else to debate the matter--I have seen them stop the Mill +with the corn half ground--and if the custom or usage were proven to be +as it was said, why, that was the end of it, even though it were flat +against Hugh, his wish and command. Wonderful!' + +'Aye,' said Puck, breaking in for the first time. 'The Custom of Old +England was here before your Norman knights came, and it outlasted them, +though they fought against it cruel.' + +'Not I,' said Sir Richard. 'I let the Saxons go their stubborn way, but +when my own men-at-arms, Normans not six months in England, stood up and +told me what was the custom of the country, then I was angry. Ah, good +days! Ah, wonderful people! And I loved them all.' + +The knight lifted his arms as though he would hug the whole dear valley, +and Swallow, hearing the chink of his chain-mail, looked up and whinnied +softly. + +'At last,' he went on, 'after a year of striving and contriving and some +little driving, De Aquila came to the valley, alone and without warning. +I saw him first at the Lower Ford, with a swineherd's brat on his +saddle-bow. + +'"There is no need for thee to give any account of thy stewardship," +said he. "I have it all from the child here." And he told me how the +young thing had stopped his tall horse at the Ford, by waving of a +branch, and crying that the way was barred. "And if one bold, bare babe +be enough to guard the Ford in these days, thou hast done well," said +he, and puffed and wiped his head. + +'He pinched the child's cheek, and looked at our cattle in the flat by +the river. + +'"Both fat," said he, rubbing his nose. "This is craft and cunning such +as I love. What did I tell thee when I rode away, boy?" + +'"Hold the Manor or hang," said I. I had never forgotten it. + +'"True. And thou hast held." He clambered from his saddle and with his +sword's point cut out a turf from the bank and gave it me where I +kneeled.' + +Dan looked at Una, and Una looked at Dan. + +'That's seizin,' said Puck, in a whisper. + +'"Now thou art lawfully seized of the Manor, Sir Richard," said he--'twas +the first time he ever called me that--"thou and thy heirs for ever. This +must serve till the King's clerks write out thy title on a parchment. +England is all ours--if we can hold it." + +'"What service shall I pay?" I asked, and I remember I was proud beyond +words. + +'"Knight's fee, boy, knight's fee!" said he, hopping round his horse on +one foot. (Have I said he was little, and could not endure to be helped +to his saddle?) "Six mounted men or twelve archers thou shalt send me +whenever I call for them, and--where got you that corn?" said he, for it +was near harvest, and our corn stood well. "I have never seen such +bright straw. Send me three bags of the same seed yearly, and +furthermore, in memory of our last meeting--with the rope round thy +neck--entertain me and my men for two days of each year in the Great +Hall of thy Manor." + +'"Alas!" said I, "then my Manor is already forfeit. I am under vow not +to enter the Great Hall." And I told him what I had sworn to the Lady +Ælueva.' + +'And hadn't you ever been into the house since?' said Una. + +'Never,' Sir Richard answered, smiling. 'I had made me a little hut of +wood up the hill, and there I did justice and slept ... De Aquila +wheeled aside, and his shield shook on his back. "No matter, boy," said +he. "I will remit the homage for a year."' + +'He meant Sir Richard needn't give him dinner there the first year,' +Puck explained. + +'De Aquila stayed with me in the hut, and Hugh, who could read and write +and cast accounts, showed him the Roll of the Manor, in which were +written all the names of our fields and men, and he asked a thousand +questions touching the land, the timber, the grazing, the mill, and the +fish-ponds, and the worth of every man in the valley. But never he named +the Lady Ælueva's name, nor went he near the Great Hall. By night he +drank with us in the hut. Yes, he sat on the straw like an eagle ruffled +in her feathers, his yellow eyes rolling above the cup, and he pounced +in his talk like an eagle, swooping from one thing to another, but +always binding fast. Yes; he would lie still awhile, and then rustle in +the straw, and speak sometimes as though he were King William himself, +and anon he would speak in parables and tales, and if at once we saw not +his meaning he would yerk us in the ribs with his scabbarded sword. + +'"Look you, boys," said he, "I am born out of my due time. Five hundred +years ago I would have made all England such an England as neither Dane, +Saxon, nor Norman should have conquered. Five hundred years hence I +should have been such a counsellor to Kings as the world hath never +dreamed of. 'Tis all here," said he, tapping his big head, "but it hath +no play in this black age. Now Hugh here is a better man than thou art, +Richard." He had made his voice harsh and croaking, like a raven's. + +'"Truth," said I. "But for Hugh, his help and patience and +long-suffering, I could never have kept the Manor." + +'"Nor thy life either," said De Aquila. "Hugh has saved thee not once, +but a hundred times. Be still, Hugh!" he said. "Dost thou know, Richard, +why Hugh slept, and why he still sleeps, among thy Norman men-at-arms?" + +'"To be near me," said I, for I thought this was truth. + +'"Fool!" said De Aquila. "It is because his Saxons have begged him to +rise against thee, and to sweep every Norman out of the valley. No +matter how I know. It is truth. Therefore Hugh hath made himself an +hostage for thy life, well knowing that if any harm befell thee from his +Saxons thy Normans would slay him without remedy. And this his Saxons +know. Is it true, Hugh?" + +'"In some sort," said Hugh shamefacedly; "at least, it was true half a +year ago. My Saxons would not harm Richard now. I think they know +him--but I judged it best to make sure." + +'Look, children, what that man had done--and I had never guessed it! +Night after night had he lain down among my men-at-arms, knowing that if +one Saxon had lifted knife against me, his life would have answered for +mine. + +'"Yes," said De Aquila. "And he is a swordless man." He pointed to +Hugh's belt, for Hugh had put away his sword--did I tell you?--the day +after it flew from his hand at Santlache. He carried only the short +knife and the long-bow. "Swordless and landless art thou, Hugh; and they +call thee kin to Earl Godwin." (Hugh was indeed of Godwin's blood.) "The +Manor that was thine is given to this boy and to his children for ever. +Sit up and beg, for he can turn thee out like a dog, Hugh." + +'Hugh said nothing, but I heard his teeth grind, and I bade De Aquila, +my own overlord, hold his peace, or I would stuff his words down his +throat. Then De Aquila laughed till the tears ran down his face. + +'"I warned the King," said he, "what would come of giving England to us +Norman thieves. Here art thou, Richard, less than two days confirmed in +thy Manor, and already thou hast risen against thy overlord. What shall +we do to him, _Sir_ Hugh?" + +'"I am a swordless man," said Hugh. "Do not jest with me," and he laid +his head on his knees and groaned. + +'"The greater fool thou," said De Aquila, and all his voice changed; +"for I have given thee the Manor of Dallington up the hill this +half-hour since," and he yerked at Hugh with his scabbard across the +straw. + +'"To me?" said Hugh. "I am a Saxon, and, except that I love Richard +here, I have not sworn fealty to any Norman." + +'"In God's good time, which because of my sins I shall not live to see, +there will be neither Saxon nor Norman in England," said De Aquila. "If +I know men, thou art more faithful unsworn than a score of Normans I +could name. Take Dallington, and join Sir Richard to fight me tomorrow, +if it please thee!" + +'"Nay," said Hugh. "I am no child. Where I take a gift, there I render +service"; and he put his hands between De Aquila's, and swore to be +faithful, and, as I remember, I kissed him, and De Aquila kissed us +both. + +'We sat afterwards outside the hut while the sun rose, and De Aquila +marked our churls going to their work in the fields, and talked of holy +things, and how we should govern our Manors in time to come, and of +hunting and of horse-breeding, and of the King's wisdom and unwisdom; +for he spoke to us as though we were in all sorts now his brothers. Anon +a churl stole up to me--he was one of the three I had not hanged a year +ago--and he bellowed--which is the Saxon for whispering--that the Lady +Ælueva would speak to me at the Great House. She walked abroad daily in +the Manor, and it was her custom to send me word whither she went, that +I might set an archer or two behind and in front to guard her. Very +often I myself lay up in the woods and watched on her also. + +'I went swiftly, and as I passed the great door it opened from within, +and there stood my Lady Ælueva, and she said to me: "Sir Richard, will +it please you enter your Great Hall?" Then she wept, but we were alone.' + +The knight was silent for a long time, his face turned across the +valley, smiling. + +'Oh, well done!' said Una, and clapped her hands very softly. 'She was +sorry, and she said so.' + +'Aye, she was sorry, and she said so,' said Sir Richard, coming back +with a little start. 'Very soon--but _he_ said it was two full hours +later--De Aquila rode to the door, with his shield new scoured (Hugh had +cleansed it), and demanded entertainment, and called me a false knight, +that would starve his overlord to death. Then Hugh cried out that no man +should work in the valley that day, and our Saxons blew horns, and set +about feasting and drinking, and running of races, and dancing and +singing; and De Aquila climbed upon a horse-block and spoke to them in +what he swore was good Saxon, but no man understood it. At night we +feasted in the Great Hall, and when the harpers and the singers were +gone we four sat late at the high table. As I remember, it was a warm +night with a full moon, and De Aquila bade Hugh take down his sword from +the wall again, for the honour of the Manor of Dallington, and Hugh took +it gladly enough. Dust lay on the hilt, for I saw him blow it off. + +'She and I sat talking a little apart, and at first we thought the +harpers had come back, for the Great Hall was filled with a rushing +noise of music. De Aquila leaped up; but there was only the moonlight +fretty on the floor. + +'"Hearken!" said Hugh. "It is my sword," and as he belted it on the +music ceased. + +'"Over Gods, forbid that I should ever belt blade like that," said De +Aquila. "What does it foretell?" + +'"The Gods that made it may know. Last time it spoke was at Hastings, +when I lost all my lands. Belike it sings now that I have new lands and +am a man again," said Hugh. + +'He loosed the blade a little and drove it back happily into the sheath, +and the sword answered him low and crooningly, as--as a woman would +speak to a man, her head on his shoulder. + +'Now that was the second time in all my life I heard this Sword +sing.'... + + + +'Look!' said Una. 'There's Mother coming down the Long Slip. What will +she say to Sir Richard? She can't help seeing him.' + +'And Puck can't magic us this time,' said Dan. + +'Are you sure?' said Puck; and he leaned forward and whispered to Sir +Richard, who, smiling, bowed his head. + +'But what befell the sword and my brother Hugh I will tell on another +time,' said he, rising. 'Ohé, Swallow!' + +The great horse cantered up from the far end of the meadow, close to +Mother. + +They heard Mother say: 'Children, Gleason's old horse has broken into +the meadow again. Where did he get through?' + +'Just below Stone Bay,' said Dan. 'He tore down simple flobs of the +bank! We noticed it just now. And we've caught no end of fish. We've +been at it all the afternoon.' + +And they honestly believed that they had. They never noticed the Oak, +Ash and Thorn leaves that Puck had slyly thrown into their laps. + + + +SIR RICHARD'S SONG + + +I followed my Duke ere I was a lover, + To take from England fief and fee; +But now this game is the other way over-- + But now England hath taken me! + +I had my horse, my shield and banner, + And a boy's heart, so whole and free; +But now I sing in another manner-- + But now England hath taken me! + +As for my Father in his tower, + Asking news of my ship at sea; +He will remember his own hour-- + Tell him England hath taken me! + +As for my Mother in her bower, + That rules my Father so cunningly; +She will remember a maiden's power-- + Tell her England hath taken me! + +As for my Brother in Rouen city, + A nimble and naughty page is he; +But he will come to suffer and pity-- + Tell him England hath taken me! + +As for my little Sister waiting + In the pleasant orchards of Normandie; +Tell her youth is the time of mating-- + Tell her England hath taken me! + +As for my Comrades in camp and highway, + That lift their eyebrows scornfully; +Tell them their way is not my way-- + Tell them England hath taken me! + +Kings and Princes and Barons famed, + Knights and Captains in your degree; +Hear me a little before I am blamed-- + Seeing England hath taken me! + +Howso great man's strength be reckoned, + There are two things he cannot flee; +Love is the first, and Death is the second-- + And Love, in England, hath taken me! + + + + +THE KNIGHTS OF THE JOYOUS VENTURE + + + +HARP SONG OF THE DANE WOMEN + + +What is a woman that you forsake her, +And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, +To go with the old grey Widow-maker? + +She has no house to lay a guest in-- +But one chill bed for all to rest in, +That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in. + +She has no strong white arms to fold you, +But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you +Bound on the rocks where the tide has rolled you. + +Yet, when the signs of summer thicken, +And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken, +Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken-- + +Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters,-- +You steal away to the lapping waters, +And look at your ship in her winter quarters. + +You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables, +The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables-- +To pitch her sides and go over her cables! + +Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow: +And the sound of your oar-blades falling hollow +Is all we have left through the months to follow. + +Ah, what is a Woman that you forsake her, +And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, +To go with the old grey Widow-maker? + + + +It was too hot to run about in the open, so Dan asked their friend, old +Hobden, to take their own dinghy from the pond and put her on the brook +at the bottom of the garden. Her painted name was the _Daisy_, but for +exploring expeditions she was the _Golden Hind_ or the _Long Serpent_, +or some such suitable name. Dan hiked and howked with a boat-hook (the +brook was too narrow for sculls), and Una punted with a piece of +hop-pole. When they came to a very shallow place (the _Golden Hind_ drew +quite three inches of water) they disembarked and scuffled her over the +gravel by her tow-rope, and when they reached the overgrown banks beyond +the garden they pulled themselves up stream by the low branches. + +That day they intended to discover the North Cape like 'Othere, the old +sea-captain', in the book of verses which Una had brought with her; but +on account of the heat they changed it to a voyage up the Amazon and the +sources of the Nile. Even on the shaded water the air was hot and heavy +with drowsy scents, while outside, through breaks in the trees, the +sunshine burned the pasture like fire. The kingfisher was asleep on his +watching-branch, and the blackbirds scarcely took the trouble to dive +into the next bush. Dragonflies wheeling and clashing were the only +things at work, except the moorhens and a big Red Admiral, who flapped +down out of the sunshine for a drink. + +When they reached Otter Pool the _Golden Hind_ grounded comfortably on a +shallow, and they lay beneath a roof of close green, watching the water +trickle over the flood-gates down the mossy brick chute from the +mill-stream to the brook. A big trout--the children knew him +well--rolled head and shoulders at some fly that sailed round the bend, +while, once in just so often, the brook rose a fraction of an inch +against all the wet pebbles, and they watched the slow draw and shiver +of a breath of air through the tree-tops. Then the little voices of the +slipping water began again. + +'It's like the shadows talking, isn't it?' said Una. She had given up +trying to read. Dan lay over the bows, trailing his hands in the +current. They heard feet on the gravel-bar that runs half across the +pool and saw Sir Richard Dalyngridge standing over them. + +'Was yours a dangerous voyage?' he asked, smiling. + +'She bumped a lot, sir,' said Dan. 'There's hardly any water this +summer.' + +'Ah, the brook was deeper and wider when my children played at Danish +pirates. Are you pirate-folk?' + +'Oh no. We gave up being pirates years ago,' explained Una. 'We're +nearly always explorers now. Sailing round the world, you know.' + +'Round?' said Sir Richard. He sat him in the comfortable crotch of an +old ash-root on the bank. 'How can it be round?' + +'Wasn't it in your books?' Dan suggested. He had been doing geography at +his last lesson. + +'I can neither write nor read,' he replied. 'Canst _thou_ read, child?' + +'Yes,' said Dan, 'barring the very long words.' + +'Wonderful! Read to me, that I may hear for myself.' + +Dan flushed, but opened the book and began--gabbling a little--at 'The +Discoverer of the North Cape.' + +'Othere, the old sea-captain, +Who dwelt in Helgoland, +To King Alfred, the lover of truth, +Brought a snow-white walrus tooth, +That he held in his brown right hand.' + +'But--but--this I know! This is an old song! This I have heard sung! +This is a miracle,' Sir Richard interrupted. 'Nay, do not stop!' He +leaned forward, and the shadows of the leaves slipped and slid upon his +chain-mail. + +'"I ploughed the land with horses, +But my heart was ill at ease, +For the old sea-faring men +Came to me now and then +With their Sagas of the Seas."' + +His hand fell on the hilt of the great sword. 'This is truth,' he cried, +'for so did it happen to me,' and he beat time delightedly to the tramp +of verse after verse. + +'"And now the land," said Othere, +"Bent southward suddenly, +And I followed the curving shore, +And ever southward bore +Into a nameless sea."' + +'A nameless sea!' he repeated. 'So did I--so did Hugh and I.' + +'Where did you go? Tell us,' said Una. + +'Wait. Let me hear all first.' So Dan read to the poem's very end. + +'Good,' said the knight. 'That is Othere's tale--even as I have heard +the men in the Dane ships sing it. Not in those same valiant words, but +something like to them.' + +'Have you ever explored North?' Dan shut the book. + +'Nay. My venture was South. Farther South than any man has fared, Hugh +and I went down with Witta and his heathen.' He jerked the tall sword +forward, and leaned on it with both hands; but his eyes looked long past +them. + +'I thought you always lived here,' said Una, timidly. + +'Yes; while my Lady Ælueva lived. But she died. She died. Then, my +eldest son being a man, I asked De Aquila's leave that he should hold +the Manor while I went on some journey or pilgrimage--to forget. De +Aquila, whom the Second William had made Warden of Pevensey in Earl +Mortain's place, was very old then, but still he rode his tall, roan +horses, and in the saddle he looked like a little white falcon. When +Hugh, at Dallington, over yonder, heard what I did, he sent for my +second son, whom being unmarried he had ever looked upon as his own +child, and, by De Aquila's leave, gave him the Manor of Dallington to +hold till he should return. Then Hugh came with me.' + +'When did this happen?' said Dan. + +'That I can answer to the very day, for as we rode with De Aquila by +Pevensey--have I said that he was Lord of Pevensey and of the Honour of +the Eagle?--to the Bordeaux ship that fetched him his wines yearly out +of France, a Marsh man ran to us crying that he had seen a great black +goat which bore on his back the body of the King, and that the goat had +spoken to him. On that same day Red William our King, the Conqueror's +son, died of a secret arrow while he hunted in a forest. "This is a +cross matter," said De Aquila, "to meet on the threshold of a journey. +If Red William be dead I may have to fight for my lands. Wait a little." + +'My Lady being dead, I cared nothing for signs and omens, nor Hugh +either. We took that wine-ship to go to Bordeaux; but the wind failed +while we were yet in sight of Pevensey, a thick mist hid us, and we +drifted with the tide along the cliffs to the west. Our company was, for +the most part, merchants returning to France, and we were laden with +wool and there were three couple of tall hunting-dogs chained to the +rail. Their master was a knight of Artois. His name I never learned, but +his shield bore gold pieces on a red ground, and he limped, much as I +do, from a wound which he had got in his youth at Mantes siege. He +served the Duke of Burgundy against the Moors in Spain, and was +returning to that war with his dogs. He sang us strange Moorish songs +that first night, and half persuaded us to go with him. I was on +pilgrimage to forget--which is what no pilgrimage brings. I think I +would have gone, but ... + +'Look you how the life and fortune of man changes! Towards morning a +Dane ship, rowing silently, struck against us in the mist, and while we +rolled hither and yon Hugh, leaning over the rail, fell outboard. I +leaped after him, and we two tumbled aboard the Dane, and were caught +and bound ere we could rise. Our own ship was swallowed up in the mist. +I judge the Knight of the Gold Pieces muzzled his dogs with his cloak, +lest they should give tongue and betray the merchants, for I heard their +baying suddenly stop. + +'We lay bound among the benches till morning, when the Danes dragged us +to the high deck by the steering-place, and their captain--Witta, he was +called--turned us over with his foot. Bracelets of gold from elbow to +armpit he wore, and his red hair was long as a woman's, and came down in +plaited locks on his shoulder. He was stout, with bowed legs and long +arms. He spoiled us of all we had, but when he laid hand on Hugh's sword +and saw the runes on the blade hastily he thrust it back. Yet his +covetousness overcame him and he tried again and again, and the third +time the Sword sang loud and angrily, so that the rowers leaned on their +oars to listen. Here they all spoke together, screaming like gulls, and +a Yellow Man, such as I have never seen, came to the high deck and cut +our bonds. He was yellow--not from sickness, but by nature--yellow as +honey, and his eyes stood endwise in his head.' + +'How do you mean?' said Una, her chin on her hand. + +'Thus,' said Sir Richard. He put a finger to the corner of each eye, and +pushed it up till his eyes narrowed to slits. + +'Why, you look just like a Chinaman!' cried Dan. 'Was the man a +Chinaman?' + +'I know not what that may be. Witta had found him half dead among ice on +the shores of Muscovy. _We_ thought he was a devil. He crawled before us +and brought food in a silver dish which these sea-wolves had robbed from +some rich abbey, and Witta with his own hands gave us wine. He spoke a +little in French, a little in South Saxon, and much in the Northman's +tongue. We asked him to set us ashore, promising to pay him better +ransom than he would get price if he sold us to the Moors--as once +befell a knight of my acquaintance sailing from Flushing. + +'"Not by my father Guthrum's head," said he. "The Gods sent ye into my +ship for a luck-offering." + +'At this I quaked, for I knew it was still the Danes' custom to +sacrifice captives to their Gods for fair weather. + +'"A plague on thy four long bones!" said Hugh. "What profit canst thou +make of poor old pilgrims that can neither work nor fight?" + +'"Gods forbid I should fight against thee, poor Pilgrim with the Singing +Sword," said he. "Come with us and be poor no more. Thy teeth are far +apart, which is a sure sign thou wilt travel and grow rich." + +'"What if we will not come?" said Hugh. + +'"Swim to England or France," said Witta. "We are midway between the +two. Unless ye choose to drown yourselves no hair of your head will be +harmed here aboard. We think ye bring us luck, and I myself know the +runes on that Sword are good." He turned and bade them hoist sail. + +'Hereafter all made way for us as we walked about the ship, and the ship +was full of wonders.' + +'What was she like?' said Dan. + +'Long, low, and narrow, bearing one mast with a red sail, and rowed by +fifteen oars a-side,' the knight answered. 'At her bows was a deck under +which men might lie, and at her stern another shut off by a painted door +from the rowers' benches. Here Hugh and I slept, with Witta and the +Yellow Man, upon tapestries as soft as wool. I remember'--he laughed to +himself--'when first we entered there a loud voice cried, "Out swords! +Out swords! Kill, kill!" Seeing us start Witta laughed, and showed us it +was but a great-beaked grey bird with a red tail. He sat her on his +shoulder, and she called for bread and wine hoarsely, and prayed him to +kiss her. Yet she was no more than a silly bird. But--ye knew this?' He +looked at their smiling faces. + +'We weren't laughing at you,' said Una. 'That must have been a parrot. +It's just what Pollies do.' + +'So we learned later. But here is another marvel. The Yellow Man, whose +name was Kitai, had with him a brown box. In the box was a blue bowl +with red marks upon the rim, and within the bowl, hanging from a fine +thread, was a piece of iron no thicker than that grass stem, and as +long, maybe, as my spur, but straight. In this iron, said Witta, abode +an Evil Spirit which Kitai, the Yellow Man, had brought by Art Magic out +of his own country that lay three years' journey southward. The Evil +Spirit strove day and night to return to his country, and therefore, +look you, the iron needle pointed continually to the South.' + +'South?' said Dan suddenly, and put his hand into his pocket. + +'With my own eyes I saw it. Every day and all day long, though the ship +rolled, though the sun and the moon and the stars were hid, this blind +Spirit in the iron knew whither it would go, and strained to the South. +Witta called it the Wise Iron, because it showed him his way across the +unknowable seas.' Again Sir Richard looked keenly at the children. 'How +think ye? Was it sorcery?' + +'Was it anything like this?' Dan fished out his old brass +pocket-compass, that generally lived with his knife and key-ring. 'The +glass has got cracked, but the needle waggles all right, sir.' + +The knight drew a long breath of wonder. 'Yes, yes! The Wise Iron shook +and swung in just this fashion. Now it is still. Now it points to the +South.' + +'North,' said Dan. + +'Nay, South! There is the South,' said Sir Richard. Then they both +laughed, for naturally when one end of a straight compass-needle points +to the North, the other must point to the South. + +'Té,' said Sir Richard, clicking his tongue. 'There can be no sorcery if +a child carries it. Wherefore does it point South--or North?' + +'Father says that nobody knows,' said Una. + +Sir Richard looked relieved. 'Then it may still be magic. It was magic +to _us_. And so we voyaged. When the wind served we hoisted sail, and +lay all up along the windward rail, our shields on our backs to break +the spray. When it failed, they rowed with long oars; the Yellow Man sat +by the Wise Iron, and Witta steered. At first I feared the great +white-flowering waves, but as I saw how wisely Witta led his ship among +them I grew bolder. Hugh liked it well from the first. My skill is not +upon the water; and rocks and whirlpools such as we saw by the West +Isles of France, where an oar caught on a rock and broke, are much +against my stomach. We sailed South across a stormy sea, where by +moonlight, between clouds, we saw a Flanders ship roll clean over and +sink. Again, though Hugh laboured with Witta all night, I lay under the +deck with the Talking Bird, and cared not whether I lived or died. There +is a sickness of the sea which for three days is pure death! When we +next saw land Witta said it was Spain, and we stood out to sea. That +coast was full of ships busy in the Duke's war against the Moors, and we +feared to be hanged by the Duke's men or sold into slavery by the Moors. +So we put into a small harbour which Witta knew. At night men came down +with loaded mules, and Witta exchanged amber out of the North against +little wedges of iron and packets of beads in earthen pots. The pots he +put under the decks, and the wedges of iron he laid on the bottom of the +ship after he had cast out the stones and shingle which till then had +been our ballast. Wine, too, he bought for lumps of sweet-smelling grey +amber--a little morsel no bigger than a thumbnail purchased a cask of +wine. But I speak like a merchant.' + +'No, no! Tell us what you had to eat,' cried Dan. + +'Meat dried in the sun, and dried fish and ground beans, Witta took in; +and corded frails of a certain sweet, soft fruit, which the Moors use, +which is like paste of figs, but with thin, long stones. Aha! Dates is +the name. + +'"Now," said Witta, when the ship was loaded, "I counsel you strangers +to pray to your Gods, for from here on, our road is No Man's road." He +and his men killed a black goat for sacrifice on the bows; and the +Yellow Man brought out a small, smiling image of dull-green stone and +burned incense before it. Hugh and I commended ourselves to God, and +Saint Barnabas, and Our Lady of the Assumption, who was specially dear +to my Lady. We were not young, but I think no shame to say whenas we +drove out of that secret harbour at sunrise over a still sea, we two +rejoiced and sang as did the knights of old when they followed our great +Duke to England. Yet was our leader an heathen pirate; all our proud +fleet but one galley perilously overloaded; for guidance we leaned on a +pagan sorcerer; and our port was beyond the world's end. Witta told us +that his father Guthrum had once in his life rowed along the shores of +Africa to a land where naked men sold gold for iron and beads. There had +he bought much gold, and no few elephants' teeth, and thither by help of +the Wise Iron would Witta go. Witta feared nothing--except to be poor. + +'"My father told me," said Witta, "that a great Shoal runs three days' +sail out from that land, and south of the shoal lies a Forest which +grows in the sea. South and east of the Forest my father came to a place +where the men hid gold in their hair; but all that country, he said, was +full of Devils who lived in trees, and tore folk limb from limb. How +think ye?" + +'"Gold or no gold," said Hugh, fingering his sword, "it is a joyous +venture. Have at these Devils of thine, Witta!" + +'"Venture!" said Witta sourly. "I am only a poor sea-thief. I do not set +my life adrift on a plank for joy, or the venture. Once I beach ship +again at Stavanger, and feel the wife's arms round my neck, I'll seek no +more ventures. A ship is heavier care than a wife or cattle." + +'He leaped down among the rowers, chiding them for their little strength +and their great stomachs. Yet Witta was a wolf in fight, and a very fox +in cunning. + +'We were driven South by a storm, and for three days and three nights he +took the stern-oar, and threddled the longship through the sea. When it +rose beyond measure he brake a pot of whale's oil upon the water, which +wonderfully smoothed it, and in that anointed patch he turned her head +to the wind and threw out oars at the end of a rope, to make, he said, +an anchor at which we lay rolling sorely, but dry. This craft his father +Guthrum had shown him. He knew, too, all the Leech-Book of Bald, who was +a wise doctor, and he knew the Ship-Book of Hlaf the Woman, who robbed +Egypt. He knew all the care of a ship. + +'After the storm we saw a mountain whose top was covered with snow and +pierced the clouds. The grasses under this mountain, boiled and eaten, +are a good cure for soreness of the gums and swelled ankles. We lay +there eight days, till men in skins threw stones at us. When the heat +increased Witta spread a cloth on bent sticks above the rowers, for the +wind failed between the Island of the Mountain and the shore of Africa, +which is east of it. That shore is sandy, and we rowed along it within +three bowshots. Here we saw whales, and fish in the shape of shields, +but longer than our ship. Some slept, some opened their mouths at us, +and some danced on the hot waters. The water was hot to the hand, and +the sky was hidden by hot, grey mists, out of which blew a fine dust +that whitened our hair and beards of a morning. Here, too, were fish +that flew in the air like birds. They would fall on the laps of the +rowers, and when we went ashore we would roast and eat them.' + +The knight paused to see if the children doubted him, but they only +nodded and said, 'Go on.' + +'The yellow land lay on our left, the grey sea on our right. Knight +though I was, I pulled my oar amongst the rowers. I caught seaweed and +dried it, and stuffed it between the pots of beads lest they should +break. Knighthood is for the land. At sea, look you, a man is but a +spurless rider on a bridleless horse. I learned to make strong knots in +ropes--yes, and to join two ropes end to end, so that even Witta could +scarcely see where they had been married. But Hugh had tenfold more +sea-cunning than I. Witta gave him charge of the rowers of the left +side. Thorkild of Borkum, a man with a broken nose, that wore a Norman +steel cap, had the rowers of the right, and each side rowed and sang +against the other. They saw that no man was idle. Truly, as Hugh said, +and Witta would laugh at him, a ship is all more care than a Manor. + +'How? Thus. There was water to fetch from the shore when we could find +it, as well as wild fruit and grasses, and sand for scrubbing of the +decks and benches to keep them sweet. Also we hauled the ship out on low +islands and emptied all her gear, even to the iron wedges, and burned +off the weed, that had grown on her, with torches of rush, and smoked +below the decks with rushes dampened in salt water, as Hlaf the Woman +orders in her Ship-Book. Once when we were thus stripped, and the ship +lay propped on her keel, the bird cried, "Out swords!" as though she saw +an enemy. Witta vowed he would wring her neck.' + +'Poor Polly! Did he?' said Una. + +'Nay. She was the ship's bird. She could call all the rowers by name.... Those were good days--for a wifeless man--with Witta and his +heathen--beyond the world's end. ... After many weeks we came on the +great Shoal which stretched, as Witta's father had said, far out to sea. +We skirted it till we were giddy with the sight and dizzy with the sound +of bars and breakers, and when we reached land again we found a naked +black people dwelling among woods, who for one wedge of iron loaded us +with fruits and grasses and eggs. Witta scratched his head at them in +sign he would buy gold. They had no gold, but they understood the sign +(all the gold-traders hide their gold in their thick hair), for they +pointed along the coast. They beat, too, on their chests with their +clenched hands, and that, if we had known it, was an evil sign.' + +'What did it mean?' said Dan. + +'Patience. Ye shall hear. We followed the coast eastward sixteen days +(counting time by sword-cuts on the helm-rail) till we came to the +Forest in the Sea. Trees grew there out of mud, arched upon lean and +high roots, and many muddy waterways ran all whither into darkness, +under the trees. Here we lost the sun. We followed the winding channels +between the trees, and where we could not row we laid hold of the +crusted roots and hauled ourselves along. The water was foul, and great +glittering flies tormented us. Morning and evening a blue mist covered +the mud, which bred fevers. Four of our rowers sickened, and were bound +to their benches, lest they should leap overboard and be eaten by the +monsters of the mud. The Yellow Man lay sick beside the Wise Iron, +rolling his head and talking in his own tongue. Only the Bird throve. +She sat on Witta's shoulder and screamed in that noisome, silent +darkness. Yes; I think it was the silence we most feared.' + +He paused to listen to the comfortable home noises of the brook. + +'When we had lost count of time among those black gullies and swashes we +heard, as it were, a drum beat far off, and following it we broke into a +broad, brown river by a hut in a clearing among fields of pumpkins. We +thanked God to see the sun again. The people of the village gave the +good welcome, and Witta scratched his head at them (for gold), and +showed them our iron and beads. They ran to the bank--we were still in +the ship--and pointed to our swords and bows, for always when near shore +we lay armed. Soon they fetched store of gold in bars and in dust from +their huts, and some great blackened elephants' teeth. These they piled +on the bank, as though to tempt us, and made signs of dealing blows in +battle, and pointed up to the tree-tops, and to the forest behind. Their +captain or chief sorcerer then beat on his chest with his fists, and +gnashed his teeth. + +'Said Thorkild of Borkum: "Do they mean we must fight for all this +gear?" and he half drew sword. + +'"Nay," said Hugh. "I think they ask us to league against some enemy." + +'"I like this not," said Witta, of a sudden. "Back into mid-stream." + +'So we did, and sat still all, watching the black folk and the gold they +piled on the bank. Again we heard drums beat in the forest, and the +people fled to their huts, leaving the gold unguarded. + +'Then Hugh, at the bows, pointed without speech, and we saw a great +Devil come out of the forest. He shaded his brows with his hand, and +moistened his pink tongue between his lips--thus.' + +'A Devil!' said Dan, delightfully horrified. + +'Yea. Taller than a man; covered with reddish hair. When he had well +regarded our ship, he beat on his chest with his fists till it sounded +like rolling drums, and came to the bank swinging all his body between +his long arms, and gnashed his teeth at us. Hugh loosed arrow, and +pierced him through the throat. He fell roaring, and three other Devils +ran out of the forest and hauled him into a tall tree out of sight. Anon +they cast down the blood-stained arrow, and lamented together among the +leaves. + +Witta saw the gold on the bank; he was loath to leave it. "Sirs," said +he (no man had spoken till then), "yonder is what we have come so far +and so painfully to find, laid out to our very hand. Let us row in while +these Devils bewail themselves, and at least bear off what we may." + +'Bold as a wolf, cunning as a fox was Witta! He set four archers on the +foredeck to shoot the Devils if they should leap from the tree, which +was close to the bank. He manned ten oars a-side, and bade them watch +his hand to row in or back out, and so coaxed he them toward the bank. +But none would set foot ashore, though the gold was within ten paces. No +man is hasty to his hanging! They whimpered at their oars like beaten +hounds, and Witta bit his fingers for rage. + +'Said Hugh of a sudden, "Hark!" At first we thought it was the buzzing +of the glittering flies on the water; but it grew loud and fierce, so +that all men heard.' + +'What?' said Dan and Una. + +'It was the Sword.' Sir Richard patted the smooth hilt. 'It sang as a +Dane sings before battle. "I go," said Hugh, and he leaped from the bows +and fell among the gold. I was afraid to my four bones' marrow, but for +shame's sake I followed, and Thorkild of Borkum leaped after me. None +other came. "Blame me not," cried Witta behind us, "I must abide by my +ship." We three had no time to blame or praise. We stooped to the gold +and threw it back over our shoulders, one hand on our swords and one eye +on the tree, which nigh overhung us. + +'I know not how the Devils leaped down, or how the fight began. I heard +Hugh cry: "Out! out!" as though he were at Santlache again; I saw +Thorkild's steel cap smitten off his head by a great hairy hand, and I +felt an arrow from the ship whistle past my ear. They say that till +Witta took his sword to the rowers he could not bring his ship inshore; +and each one of the four archers said afterwards that he alone had +pierced the Devil that fought me. I do not know. I went to it in my +mail-shirt, which saved my skin. With long-sword and belt-dagger I +fought for the life against a Devil whose very feet were hands, and who +whirled me back and forth like a dead branch. He had me by the waist, my +arms to my side, when an arrow from the ship pierced him between the +shoulders, and he loosened grip. I passed my sword twice through him, +and he crutched himself away between his long arms, coughing and +moaning. Next, as I remember, I saw Thorkild of Borkum, bare-headed and +smiling, leaping up and down before a Devil that leaped and gnashed his +teeth. Then Hugh passed, his sword shifted to his left hand, and I +wondered why I had not known that Hugh was a left-handed man; and +thereafter I remembered nothing till I felt spray on my face, and we +were in sunshine on the open sea. That was twenty days after.' + +'What had happened? Did Hugh die?'the children asked. + +'Never was such a fight fought by christened man,' said Sir Richard. 'An +arrow from the ship had saved me from my Devil, and Thorkild of Borkum +had given back before his Devil, till the bowmen on the ship could shoot +it all full of arrows from near by; but Hugh's Devil was cunning, and +had kept behind trees, where no arrow could reach. Body to body there, +by stark strength of sword and hand, had Hugh slain him, and, dying, the +Thing had clenched his teeth on the sword. Judge what teeth they were!' + +Sir Richard turned the sword again that the children might see the two +great chiselled gouges on either side of the blade. + +'Those same teeth met in Hugh's right arm and side,' Sir Richard went +on. 'I? Oh, I had no more than a broken foot and a fever. Thorkild's ear +was bitten, but Hugh's arm and side clean withered away. I saw him where +he lay along, sucking a fruit in his left hand. His flesh was wasted off +his bones, his hair was patched with white, and his hand was blue-veined +like a woman's. He put his left arm round my neck and whispered, "Take +my sword. It has been thine since Hastings, O my brother, but I can +never hold hilt again." We lay there on the high deck talking of +Santlache, and, I think, of every day since Santlache, and it came so +that we both wept. I was weak, and he little more than a shadow. + +'"Nay--nay," said Witta, at the helm-rail. "Gold is a good right arm to +any man. Look--look at the gold!" He bade Thorkild show us the gold and +the elephants' teeth, as though we had been children. He had brought +away all the gold on the bank, and twice as much more, that the people +of the village gave him for slaying the Devils. They worshipped us as +Gods, Thorkild told me: it was one of their old women healed up Hugh's +poor arm.' + +'How much gold did you get?'asked Dan. + +'How can I say? Where we came out with wedges of iron under the rowers' +feet we returned with wedges of gold hidden beneath planks. There was +dust of gold in packages where we slept and along the side, and +crosswise under the benches we lashed the blackened elephants' teeth. + +'"I had sooner have my right arm," said Hugh, when he had seen all. + +'"Ahai! That was my fault," said Witta. "I should have taken ransom and +landed you in France when first you came aboard, ten months ago." + +'"It is over-late now," said Hugh, laughing. + +'Witta plucked at his long shoulder-lock. "But think!" said he. "If I +had let ye go--which I swear I would never have done, for I love ye more +than brothers--if I had let ye go, by now ye might have been horribly +slain by some mere Moor in the Duke of Burgundy's war, or ye might have +been murdered by land-thieves, or ye might have died of the plague at an +inn. Think of this and do not blame me overmuch, Hugh. See! I will only +take a half of the gold." + +'"I blame thee not at all, Witta," said Hugh. "It was a joyous venture, +and we thirty-five here have done what never men have done. If I live +till England, I will build me a stout keep over Dallington out of my +share." + +'"I will buy cattle and amber and warm red cloth for the wife," said +Witta, "and I will hold all the land at the head of Stavanger Fiord. +Many will fight for me now. But first we must turn North, and with this +honest treasure aboard I pray we meet no pirate ships." + +'We did not laugh. We were careful. We were afraid lest we should lose +one grain of our gold, for which we had fought Devils. + +'"Where is the Sorcerer?" said I, for Witta was looking at the Wise Iron +in the box, and I could not see the Yellow Man. + +'"He has gone to his own country," said he. "He rose up in the night +while we were beating out of that forest in the mud, and said that he +could see it behind the trees. He leaped out on the mud, and did not +answer when we called; so we called no more. He left the Wise Iron, +which is all that I care for--and see, the Spirit still points to the +South." + +'We were troubled for fear that the Wise Iron should fail us now that +its Yellow Man had gone, and when we saw the Spirit still served us we +grew afraid of too strong winds, and of shoals, and of careless leaping +fish, and of all the people on all the shores where we landed.' + +'Why?' said Dan. + +'Because of the gold--because of our gold. Gold changes men altogether. +Thorkild of Borkum did not change. He laughed at Witta for his fears, +and at us for our counselling Witta to furl sail when the ship pitched +at all. + +'"Better be drowned out of hand," said Thorkild of Borkum, "than go tied +to a deck-load of yellow dust." + +'He was a landless man, and had been slave to some King in the East. He +would have beaten out the gold into deep bands to put round the oars, +and round the prow. + +'Yet, though he vexed himself for the gold, Witta waited upon Hugh like +a woman, lending him his shoulder when the ship rolled, and tying of +ropes from side to side that Hugh might hold by them. But for Hugh, he +said--and so did all his men--they would never have won the gold. I +remember Witta made a little, thin gold ring for our Bird to swing in. + +'Three months we rowed and sailed and went ashore for fruits or to clean +the ship. When we saw wild horsemen, riding among sand-dunes, +flourishing spears, we knew we were on the Moors' coast, and stood over +north to Spain; and a strong south-west wind bore us in ten days to a +coast of high red rocks, where we heard a hunting-horn blow among the +yellow gorse and knew it was England. + +'"Now find ye Pevensey yourselves," said Witta. "I love not these narrow +ship-filled seas." + +'He set the dried, salted head of the Devil, which Hugh had killed, high +on our prow, and all boats fled from us. Yet, for our gold's sake, we +were more afraid than they. We crept along the coast by night till we +came to the chalk cliffs, and so east to Pevensey. Witta would not come +ashore with us, though Hugh promised him wine at Dallington enough to +swim in. He was on fire to see his wife, and ran into the Marsh after +sunset, and there he left us and our share of gold, and backed out on +the same tide. He made no promise; he swore no oath; he looked for no +thanks; but to Hugh, an armless man, and to me, an old cripple whom he +could have flung into the sea, he passed over wedge upon wedge, packet +upon packet of gold and dust of gold, and only ceased when we would take +no more. As he stooped from the rail to bid us farewell he stripped off +his right-arm bracelets and put them all on Hugh's left, and he kissed +Hugh on the cheek. I think when Thorkild of Borkum bade the rowers give +way we were near weeping. It is true that Witta was an heathen and a +pirate; true it is he held us by force many months in his ship, but I +loved that bow-legged, blue-eyed man for his great boldness, his +cunning, his skill, and, beyond all, for his simplicity.' + +'Did he get home all right?' said Dan. + +'I never knew. We saw him hoist sail under the moon-track and stand +away. I have prayed that he found his wife and the children.' + +'And what did you do?' + +'We waited on the Marsh till the day. Then I sat by the gold, all tied +in an old sail, while Hugh went to Pevensey, and De Aquila sent us +horses.' + +Sir Richard crossed hands on his sword-hilt, and stared down stream +through the soft warm shadows. + +'A whole shipload of gold!' said Una, looking at the little _Golden +Hind_. 'But I'm glad I didn't see the Devils.' + +'I don't believe they were Devils,'Dan whispered back. + +'Eh?' said Sir Richard. 'Witta's father warned him they were +unquestionable Devils. One must believe one's father, and not one's +children. What were my Devils, then?' + +Dan flushed all over. 'I--I only thought,' he stammered; 'I've got a +book called _The Gorilla Hunters_--it's a continuation of _Coral +Island_, sir--and it says there that the gorillas (they're big monkeys, +you know) were always chewing iron up.' + +'Not always,' said Una. 'Only twice.' They had been reading _The Gorilla +Hunters_ in the orchard. + +'Well, anyhow, they always drummed on their chests, like Sir Richard's +did, before they went for people. And they built houses in trees, too.' + +'Ha!' Sir Richard opened his eyes. 'Houses like flat nests did our +Devils make, where their imps lay and looked at us. I did not see them +(I was sick after the fight), but Witta told me, and, lo, ye know it +also? Wonderful! Were our Devils only nest-building apes? Is there no +sorcery left in the world?' + +'I don't know,' answered Dan, uncomfortably. 'I've seen a man take +rabbits out of a hat, and he told us we could see how he did it, if we +watched hard. And we did.' + +'But we didn't,' said Una, sighing. 'Oh! there's Puck!' + +The little fellow, brown and smiling, peered between two stems of an +ash, nodded, and slid down the bank into the cool beside them. + +'No sorcery, Sir Richard?' he laughed, and blew on a full dandelion head +he had picked. + +'They tell me that Witta's Wise Iron was a toy. The boy carries such an +iron with him. They tell me our Devils were apes, called gorillas!' said +Sir Richard, indignantly. + +'That is the sorcery of books,' said Puck. 'I warned thee they were wise +children. All people can be wise by reading of books.' + +'But are the books true?' Sir Richard frowned. 'I like not all this +reading and writing.' + +'Ye-es,' said Puck, holding the naked dandelion head at arm's length. +'But if we hang all fellows who write falsely, why did De Aquila not +begin with Gilbert the Clerk? _He_ was false enough.' + +'Poor false Gilbert. Yet, in his fashion, he was bold,' said Sir +Richard. + +'What did he do?' said Dan. + +'He wrote,' said Sir Richard. 'Is the tale meet for children, think +you?' He looked at Puck; but 'Tell us! Tell us!' cried Dan and Una +together. + + + +THORKILD'S SONG + + +There's no wind along these seas, + Out oars for Stavanger! + Forward all for Stavanger! +So we must wake the white-ash breeze, + Let fall for Stavanger! + A long pull for Stavanger! + +Oh, hear the benches creak and strain! + (A long pull for Stavanger!) +She thinks she smells the Northland rain! + (A long pull for Stavanger!) + +She thinks she smells the Northland snow, +And she's as glad as we to go. + +She thinks she smells the Northland rime, +And the dear dark nights of winter-time. + +Her very bolts are sick for shore, +And we--we want it ten times more! + +So all you Gods that love brave men, +Send us a three-reef gale again! + +Send us a gale, and watch us come, +With close-cropped canvas slashing home! + +But--there's no wind in all these seas. + A long pull for Stavanger! +So we must wake the white-ash breeze, + A long pull for Stavanger! + + + + +OLD MEN AT PEVENSEY + + + +'It has naught to do with apes or Devils,'Sir Richard went on, in an +undertone. 'It concerns De Aquila, than whom there was never bolder nor +craftier, nor more hardy knight born. And remember he was an old, old +man at that time.' + +'When?' said Dan. + +'When we came back from sailing with Witta.' + +'What did you do with your gold?' said Dan. + +'Have patience. Link by link is chain-mail made. I will tell all in its +place. We bore the gold to Pevensey on horseback--three loads of it--and +then up to the north chamber, above the Great Hall of Pevensey Castle, +where De Aquila lay in winter. He sat on his bed like a little white +falcon, turning his head swiftly from one to the other as we told our +tale. Jehan the Crab, an old sour man-at-arms, guarded the stairway, but +De Aquila bade him wait at the stair-foot, and let down both leather +curtains over the door. It was Jehan whom De Aquila had sent to us with +the horses, and only Jehan had loaded the gold. When our story was told, +De Aquila gave us the news of England, for we were as men waked from a +year-long sleep. The Red King was dead--slain (ye remember?) the day we +set sail--and Henry, his younger brother, had made himself King of +England over the head of Robert of Normandy. This was the very thing +that the Red King had done to Robert when our Great William died. Then +Robert of Normandy, mad, as De Aquila said, at twice missing of this +kingdom, had sent an army against England, which army had been well +beaten back to their ships at Portsmouth. A little earlier, and Witta's +ship would have rowed through them. + +'"And now," said De Aquila, "half the great Barons of the North and West +are out against the King between Salisbury and Shrewsbury, and half the +other half wait to see which way the game shall go. They say Henry is +overly English for their stomachs, because he hath married an English +wife and she hath coaxed him to give back their old laws to our Saxons. +(Better ride a horse on the bit he knows, _I_ say!) But that is only a +cloak to their falsehood." He cracked his finger on the table, where the +wine was spilt, and thus he spoke:-- + +'"William crammed us Norman barons full of good English acres after +Santlache. _I_ had my share too," he said, and clapped Hugh on the +shoulder; "but I warned him--I warned him before Odo rebelled--that he +should have bidden the Barons give up their lands and lordships in +Normandy if they would be English lords. Now they are all but princes +both in England and Normandy--trencher-fed hounds, with a foot in one +trough and both eyes on the other! Robert of Normandy has sent them word +that if they do not fight for him in England he will sack and harry out +their lands in Normandy. Therefore Clare has risen, FitzOsborne has +risen, Montgomery has risen--whom our First William made an English +Earl. Even D'Arcy is out with his men, whose father I remember a little +hedge-sparrow knight nearby Caen. If Henry wins, the Barons can still +flee to Normandy, where Robert will welcome them. If Henry loses, +Robert, he says, will give them more lands in England. Oh, a pest--a +pest on Normandy, for she will be our England's curse this many a long +year!" + +'"Amen," said Hugh. "But will the war come our ways, think you?" + +'"Not from the North," said De Aquila. "But the sea is always open. If +the Barons gain the upper hand Robert will send another army into +England for sure, and this time I think he will land here--where his +father, the Conqueror, landed. Ye have brought your pigs to a pretty +market! Half England alight, and gold enough on the ground"--he stamped +on the bars beneath the table--"to set every sword in Christendom +fighting." + +'"What is to do?" said Hugh. "I have no keep at Dallington; and if we +buried it, whom could we trust?" + +'"Me," said De Aquila. "Pevensey walls are strong. No man but Jehan, who +is my dog, knows what is between them." He drew a curtain by the +shot-window and showed us the shaft of a well in the thickness of the +wall. + +'"I made it for a drinking-well," he said, "but we found salt water, and +it rises and falls with the tide. Hark!" We heard the water whistle and +blow at the bottom. "Will it serve?" said he. + +'"Needs must," said Hugh. "Our lives are in thy hands." So we lowered +all the gold down except one small chest of it by De Aquila's bed, which +we kept as much for his delight in its weight and colour as for any of +our needs. + +'In the morning, ere we rode to our Manors, he said: "I do not say +farewell; because ye will return and bide here. Not for love nor for +sorrow, but to be with the gold. Have a care," he said, laughing, "lest +I use it to make myself Pope. Trust me not, but return!"' + +Sir Richard paused and smiled sadly. + +'In seven days, then, we returned from our Manors--from the Manors which +had been ours.' + +'And were the children quite well?' said Una. + +'My sons were young. Land and governance belong by right to young men.' +Sir Richard was talking to himself. 'It would have broken their hearts +if we had taken back our Manors. They made us great welcome, but we +could see--Hugh and I could see--that our day was done. I was a cripple +and he a one-armed man. No!' He shook his head. 'And therefore'--he +raised his voice--'we rode back to Pevensey.' + +'I'm sorry,' said Una, for the knight seemed very sorrowful. + +'Little maid, it all passed long ago. They were young; we were old. We +let them rule the Manors. "Aha!" cried De Aquila from his shot-window, +when we dismounted. "Back again to earth, old foxes?" but when we were +in his chamber above the Hall he puts his arms about us and says, +"Welcome, ghosts! Welcome, poor ghosts!" ... Thus it fell out that we +were rich beyond belief, and lonely. And lonely!' + +'What did you do?' said Dan. + +'We watched for Robert of Normandy,' said the knight. 'De Aquila was +like Witta. He suffered no idleness. In fair weather we would ride along +between Bexlei on the one side, to Cuckmere on the other--sometimes with +hawk, sometimes with hound (there are stout hares both on the Marsh and +the Downland), but always with an eye to the sea, for fear of fleets +from Normandy. In foul weather he would walk on the top of his tower, +frowning against the rain--peering here and pointing there. It always +vexed him to think how Witta's ship had come and gone without his +knowledge. When the wind ceased and ships anchored, to the wharf's edge +he would go and, leaning on his sword among the stinking fish, would +call to the mariners for their news from France. His other eye he kept +landward for word of Henry's war against the Barons. + +'Many brought him news--jongleurs, harpers, pedlars, sutlers, priests +and the like; and, though he was secret enough in small things, yet, if +their news misliked him, then, regarding neither time nor place nor +people, he would curse our King Henry for a fool or a babe. I have heard +him cry aloud by the fishing boats: "If I were King of England I would +do thus and thus"; and when I rode out to see that the warning-beacons +were laid and dry, he hath often called to me from the shot-window: +"Look to it, Richard! Do not copy our blind King, but see with thine own +eyes and feel with thine own hands." I do not think he knew any sort of +fear. And so we lived at Pevensey, in the little chamber above the Hall. + +'One foul night came word that a messenger of the King waited below. We +were chilled after a long riding in the fog towards Bexlei, which is an +easy place for ships to land. De Aquila sent word the man might either +eat with us or wait till we had fed. Anon Jehan, at the stair-head, +cried that he had called for horse, and was gone. "Pest on him!" said De +Aquila. "I have more to do than to shiver in the Great Hall for every +gadling the King sends. Left he no word?" + +'"None," said Jehan, "except"--he had been with De Aquila at +Santlache--"except he said that if an old dog could not learn new tricks +it was time to sweep out the kennel." + +'"Oho!" said De Aquila, rubbing his nose, "to whom did he say that?" + +'"To his beard, chiefly, but some to his horse's flank as he was +girthing up. I followed him out," said Jehan the Crab. + +'"What was his shield-mark?" + +'"Gold horseshoes on black," said the Crab. + +'"That is one of Fulke's men," said De Aquila.' + +Puck broke in very gently, 'Gold horseshoes on black is _not_ the +Fulkes' shield. The Fulkes' arms are----' + +The knight waved one hand statelily. + +'Thou knowest that evil man's true name,' he replied, 'but I have chosen +to call him Fulke because I promised him I would not tell the story of +his wickedness so that any man might guess it. I have changed _all_ the +names in my tale. His children's children may be still alive.' + +'True--true,' said Puck, smiling softly. 'It is knightly to keep +faith--even after a thousand years.' + +Sir Richard bowed a little and went on:-- + +'"Gold horseshoes on black?" said De Aquila. "I had heard Fulke had +joined the Barons, but if this is true our King must be of the upper +hand. No matter, all Fulkes are faithless. Still, I would not have sent +the man away empty." + +'"He fed," said Jehan. "Gilbert the Clerk fetched him meat and wine from +the kitchens. He ate at Gilbert's table." + +'This Gilbert was a clerk from Battle Abbey, who kept the accounts of +the Manor of Pevensey. He was tall and pale-coloured, and carried those +new-fashioned beads for counting of prayers. They were large brown nuts +or seeds, and hanging from his girdle with his pen and inkhorn they +clashed when he walked. His place was in the great fireplace. There was +his table of accounts, and there he lay o' nights. He feared the hounds +in the Hall that came nosing after bones or to sleep on the warm ashes, +and would slash at them with his beads--like a woman. When De Aquila sat +in Hall to do justice, take fines, or grant lands, Gilbert would so +write it in the Manor-roll. But it was none of his work to feed our +guests, or to let them depart without his lord's knowledge. + +'Said De Aquila, after Jehan was gone down the stair: "Hugh, hast thou +ever told my Gilbert thou canst read Latin hand-of-write?" + +'"No," said Hugh. "He is no friend to me, or to Odo my hound either." +'"No matter," said De Aquila. "Let him never know thou canst tell one +letter from its fellow, and"--here he jerked us in the ribs with his +scabbard--"watch him, both of ye. There be devils in Africa, as I have +heard, but by the Saints, there be greater devils in Pevensey!" And that +was all he would say. + +'It chanced, some small while afterwards, a Norman man-at-arms would wed +a Saxon wench of the Manor, and Gilbert (we had watched him well since +De Aquila spoke) doubted whether her folk were free or slave. Since De +Aquila would give them a field of good land, if she were free, the +matter came up at the justice in Great Hall before De Aquila. First the +wench's father spoke; then her mother; then all together, till the hall +rang and the hounds bayed. De Aquila held up his hands. "Write her +free," he called to Gilbert by the fireplace. "A' God's name write her +free, before she deafens me! Yes, yes," he said to the wench that was on +her knees at him; "thou art Cerdic's sister, and own cousin to the Lady +of Mercia, if thou wilt be silent. In fifty years there will be neither +Norman nor Saxon, but all English," said he, "and _these_ are the men +that do our work!" He clapped the man-at-arms that was Jehan's nephew on +the shoulder, and kissed the wench, and fretted with his feet among the +rushes to show it was finished. (The Great Hall is always bitter cold.) +I stood at his side; Hugh was behind Gilbert in the fireplace making to +play with wise rough Odo. He signed to De Aquila, who bade Gilbert +measure the new field for the new couple. Out then runs our Gilbert +between man and maid, his beads clashing at his waist, and the Hall +being empty, we three sit by the fire. + +'Said Hugh, leaning down to the hearthstones, "I saw this stone move +under Gilbert's foot when Odo snuffed at it. Look!" De Aquila digged in +the ashes with his sword; the stone tilted; beneath it lay a parchment +folden, and the writing atop was: "Words spoken against the King by our +Lord of Pevensey--the second part." + +'Here was set out (Hugh read it us whispering) every jest De Aquila had +made to us touching the King; every time he had called out to me from +the shot-window, and every time he had said what he would do if he were +King of England. Yes, day by day had his daily speech, which he never +stinted, been set down by Gilbert, tricked out and twisted from its true +meaning, yet withal so cunningly that none could deny who knew him that +De Aquila had in some sort spoken those words. Ye see?' + +Dan and Una nodded. + +'Yes,' said Una gravely. 'It isn't what you say so much. It's what you +mean when you say it. Like calling Dan a beast in fun. Only grown-ups +don't always understand.' + +'"He hath done this day by day before our very face?" said De Aquila. + +'"Nay, hour by hour," said Hugh. "When De Aquila spoke even now, in the +Hall, of Saxons and Normans, I saw Gilbert write on a parchment, which +he kept beside the Manor-roll, that De Aquila said soon there would be +no Normans left in England if his men-at-arms did their work aright." + +'"Bones of the Saints!" said De Aquila. "What avail is honour or a sword +against a pen? Where did Gilbert hide that writing? He shall eat it." + +'"In his breast when he ran out," said Hugh. "Which made me look to see +where he kept his finished stuff. When Odo scratched at this stone here, +I saw his face change. So I was sure." + +'"He is bold," said De Aquila. "Do him justice. In his own fashion, my +Gilbert is bold." + +'"Overbold," said Hugh. "Hearken here," and he read: "Upon the Feast of +St Agatha, our Lord of Pevensey, lying in his upper chamber, being +clothed in his second fur gown reversed with rabbit----" + +'"Pest on him! He is not my tire-woman!" said De Aquila, and Hugh and I +laughed. + +'"Reversed with rabbit, seeing a fog over the marshes, did wake Sir +Richard Dalyngridge, his drunken cup-mate" (here they laughed at me) +"and said, 'Peer out, old fox, for God is on the Duke of Normandy's +side."' + +'"So did I. It was a black fog. Robert could have landed ten thousand +men, and we none the wiser. Does he tell how we were out all day riding +the Marsh, and how I near perished in a quicksand, and coughed like a +sick ewe for ten days after?" cried De Aquila. + +'"No," said Hugh. "But here is the prayer of Gilbert himself to his +master Fulke." + +'"Ah," said De Aquila. "Well I knew it was Fulke. What is the price of +my blood?" + +'"Gilbert prayeth that when our Lord of Pevensey is stripped of his +lands on this evidence which Gilbert hath, with fear and pains, +collected----" + +'"Fear and pains is a true word," said De Aquila, and sucked in his +cheeks. "But how excellent a weapon is a pen! I must learn it." + +'"He prays that Fulke will advance him from his present service to that +honour in the Church which Fulke promised him. And lest Fulke should +forget, he has written below, 'To be Sacristan of Battle'." + +'At this De Aquila whistled. "A man who can plot against one lord can +plot against another. When I am stripped of my lands Fulke will whip off +my Gilbert's foolish head. None the less Battle needs a new Sacristan. +They tell me the Abbot Henry keeps no sort of rule there." + +'"Let the Abbot wait," said Hugh. "It is our heads and our lands that +are in danger. This parchment is the second part of the tale. The first +has gone to Fulke, and so to the King, who will hold us traitors." + +"Assuredly," said De Aquila. "Fulke's man took the first part that +evening when Gilbert fed him, and our King is so beset by his brother +and his Barons (small blame, too!) that he is mad with mistrust. Fulke +has his ear, and pours poison into it. Presently the King gives him my +land and yours. This is old," and he leaned back and yawned. + +'"And thou wilt surrender Pevensey without word or blow?" said Hugh. "We +Saxons will fight your King then. I will go warn my nephew at +Dallington. Give me a horse!" + +'"Give thee a toy and a rattle," said De Aquila. "Put back the +parchment, and rake over the ashes. If Fulke is given my Pevensey, which +is England's gate, what will he do with it? He is Norman at heart, and +his heart is in Normandy, where he can kill peasants at his pleasure. He +will open England's gate to our sleepy Robert, as Odo and Mortain tried +to do, and then there will be another landing and another Santlache. +Therefore I cannot give up Pevensey." + +'"Good," said we two. + +'"Ah, but wait! If my King be made, on Gilbert's evidence, to mistrust +me, he will send his men against me here, and while we fight, England's +gate is left unguarded. Who will be the first to come through thereby? +Even Robert of Normandy. Therefore I cannot fight my King." He nursed +his sword--thus. + +'"This is saying and unsaying like a Norman," said Hugh. "What of our +Manors?" + +'"I do not think for myself," said De Aquila, "nor for our King, nor for +your lands. I think for England, for whom neither King nor Baron thinks. +I am not Norman, Sir Richard, nor Saxon, Sir Hugh. English am I." + +'"Saxon, Norman or English," said Hugh, "our lives are thine, however +the game goes. When do we hang Gilbert?" + +'"Never," said De Aquila. "Who knows, he may yet be Sacristan of Battle, +for, to do him justice, he is a good writer. Dead men make dumb +witnesses. Wait." + +'"But the King may give Pevensey to Fulke. And our Manors go with it," +said I. "Shall we tell our sons?" + +'"No. The King will not wake up a hornets' nest in the South till he has +smoked out the bees in the North. He may hold me a traitor; but at least +he sees I am not fighting against him; and every day that I lie still is +so much gain to him while he fights the Barons. If he were wise he would +wait till that war were over before he made new enemies. But I think +Fulke will play upon him to send for me, and if I do not obey the +summons, that will, to Henry's mind, be proof of my treason. But mere +talk, such as Gilbert sends, is no proof nowadays. We Barons follow the +Church, and, like Anselm, we speak what we please. Let us go about our +day's dealings, and say naught to Gilbert." + +'"Then we do nothing?" said Hugh. + +'"We wait," said De Aquila. "I am old, but still I find that the most +grievous work I know." + +'And so we found it, but in the end De Aquila was right. + +'A little later in the year, armed men rode over the hill, the Golden +Horseshoes flying behind the King's banner. Said De Aquila, at the +window of our chamber: "How did I tell you? Here comes Fulke himself to +spy out his new lands which our King hath promised him if he can bring +proof of my treason." + +'"How dost thou know?" said Hugh. + +'"Because that is what I would do if I were Fulke, but _I_ should have +brought more men. My roan horse to your old shoes," said he, "Fulke +brings me the King's Summons to leave Pevensey and join the war." He +sucked in his cheeks and drummed on the edge of the shaft, where the +water sounded all hollow. + +'"Shall we go?" said I. + +'"Go! At this time of year? Stark madness," said he. "Take _me_ from +Pevensey to fisk and flyte through fern and forest, and in three days +Robert's keels would be lying on Pevensey mud with ten thousand men! Who +would stop them--Fulke?" + +'The horns blew without, and anon Fulke cried the King's Summons at the +great door, that De Aquila with all men and horse should join the King's +camp at Salisbury. + +'"How did I tell you?" said De Aquila. "There are twenty Barons 'twixt +here and Salisbury could give King Henry good land service, but he has +been worked upon by Fulke to send South and call me--_me_!--off the Gate +of England, when his enemies stand about to batter it in. See that +Fulke's men lie in the big south barn," said he. "Give them drink, and +when Fulke has eaten we will drink in my chamber. The Great Hall is too +cold for old bones." + +'As soon as he was off-horse Fulke went to the chapel with Gilbert to +give thanks for his safe coming, and when he had eaten--he was a fat +man, and rolled his eyes greedily at our good roast Sussex wheatears--we +led him to the little upper chamber, whither Gilbert had already gone +with the Manor-roll. I remember when Fulke heard the tide blow and +whistle in the shaft he leaped back, and his long down-turned +stirrup-shoes caught in the rushes and he stumbled, so that Jehan behind +him found it easy to knock his head against the wall.' + +'Did you know it was going to happen?' said Dan. + +'Assuredly,' said Sir Richard, with a sweet smile. 'I put my foot on his +sword and plucked away his dagger, but he knew not whether it was day or +night for awhile. He lay rolling his eyes and bubbling with his mouth, +and Jehan roped him like a calf. He was cased all in that newfangled +armour which we call lizard-mail. Not rings like my hauberk here'--Sir +Richard tapped his chest--but little pieces of dagger-proof steel +overlapping on stout leather. We stripped it off (no need to spoil good +harness by wetting it), and in the neck-piece De Aquila found the same +folden piece of parchment which we had put back under the hearthstone. + +'At this Gilbert would have run out. I laid my hand on his shoulder. It +sufficed. He fell to trembling and praying on his beads. + +'"Gilbert," said De Aquila, "here be more notable sayings and doings of +our Lord of Pevensey for thee to write down. Take pen and ink-horn, +Gilbert. We cannot all be Sacristans of Battle." + +'Said Fulke from the floor, "Ye have bound a King's messenger. Pevensey +shall burn for this." + +'"Maybe. I have seen it besieged once," said De Aquila, "but heart up, +Fulke. I promise thee that thou shalt be hanged in the middle of the +flames at the end of that siege, if I have to share my last loaf with +thee; and that is more than Odo would have done when we starved out him +and Mortain." + +'Then Fulke sat up and looked long and cunningly at De Aquila. + +'"By the Saints," said he, "why didst thou not say thou wast on the Duke +Robert's side at the first?" + +'"Am I?" said De Aquila. + +'Fulke laughed and said, "No man who serves King Henry dare do this much +to his messenger. When didst thou come over to the Duke? Let me up and +we can smooth it out together." And he smiled and becked and winked. + +'"Yes, we will smooth it out," said De Aquila. He nodded to me, and +Jehan and I heaved up Fulke--he was a heavy man--and lowered him into +the shaft by a rope, not so as to stand on our gold, but dangling by his +shoulders a little above. It was turn of ebb, and the water came to his +knees. He said nothing, but shivered somewhat. + +'Then jehan of a sudden beat down Gilbert's wrist with his sheathed +dagger. "Stop!" he said. "He swallows his beads." + +'"Poison, belike," said De Aquila. "It is good for men who know too +much. I have carried it these thirty years. Give me!" + +'Then Gilbert wept and howled. De Aquila ran the beads through his +fingers. The last one--I have said they were large nuts--opened in two +halves on a pin, and there was a small folded parchment within. On it +was written: "_The Old Dog goes to Salisbury to be beaten. I have his +Kennel. Come quickly_." + +'"This is worse than poison," said De Aquila, very softly, and sucked in +his cheeks. Then Gilbert grovelled in the rushes, and told us all he +knew. The letter, as we guessed, was from Fulke to the Duke (and not the +first that had passed between them); Fulke had given it to Gilbert in +the chapel, and Gilbert thought to have taken it by morning to a certain +fishing boat at the wharf, which trafficked between Pevensey and the +French shore. Gilbert was a false fellow, but he found time between his +quakings and shakings to swear that the master of the boat knew nothing +of the matter. + +'"He hath called me shaved head," said Gilbert, "and he hath thrown +haddock-guts at me; but for all that, he is no traitor." + +'"I will have no clerk of mine mishandled or miscalled," said De Aquila. +"That seaman shall be whipped at his own mast. Write me first a letter, +and thou shalt bear it, with the order for the whipping, to-morrow to +the boat." + +'At this Gilbert would have kissed De Aquila's hand--he had not hoped to +live until the morning--and when he trembled less he wrote a letter as +from Fulke to the Duke, saying that the Kennel, which signified +Pevensey, was shut, and that the Old Dog (which was De Aquila) sat +outside it, and, moreover, that all had been betrayed. + +'"Write to any man that all is betrayed," said De Aquila, "and even the +Pope himself would sleep uneasily. Eh, Jehan? If one told thee all was +betrayed, what wouldst thou do?" + +'"I would run away," said Jehan. "it might be true." + +'"Well said," quoth De Aquila. "Write, Gilbert, that Montgomery, the +great Earl, hath made his peace with the King, and that little D'Arcy, +whom I hate, hath been hanged by the heels. We will give Robert full +measure to chew upon. Write also that Fulke himself is sick to death of +a dropsy." + +'"Nay!" cried Fulke, hanging in the well-shaft. "Drown me out of hand, +but do not make a jest of me." + +'"Jest? I?" said De Aquila. "I am but fighting for life and lands with a +pen, as thou hast shown me, Fulke." + +'Then Fulke groaned, for he was cold, and, "Let me confess," said he. + +'"Now, this is right neighbourly," said De Aquila, leaning over the +shaft. "Thou hast read my sayings and doings--or at least the first part +of them--and thou art minded to repay me with thy own doings and +sayings. Take pen and inkhorn, Gilbert. Here is work that will not irk +thee." + +'"Let my men go without hurt, and I will confess my treason against the +King," said Fulke. + +'"Now, why has he grown so tender of his men of a sudden?" said Hugh to +me; for Fulke had no name for mercy to his men. Plunder he gave them, +but pity, none. + +'"Té! Té!" said De Aquila. "Thy treason was all confessed long ago by +Gilbert. It would be enough to hang Montgomery himself." + +'"Nay; but spare my men," said Fulke; and we heard him splash like a +fish in a pond, for the tide was rising. + +'"All in good time," said De Aquila. "The night is young; the wine is +old; and we need only the merry tale. Begin the story of thy life since +when thou wast a lad at Tours. Tell it nimbly!" + +'"Ye shame me to my soul," said Fulke. + +'"Then I have done what neither King nor Duke could do," said De Aquila. +"But begin, and forget nothing." + +'"Send thy man away," said Fulke. + +'"That much can I do," said De Aquila. "But, remember, I am like the +Danes' King; I cannot turn the tide." + +'"How long will it rise?" said Fulke, and splashed anew. + +'"For three hours," said De Aquila. "Time to tell all thy good deeds. +Begin, and Gilbert,--I have heard thou art somewhat careless--do not +twist his words from his true meaning." + +'So--fear of death in the dark being upon him--Fulke began, and Gilbert, +not knowing what his fate might be, wrote it word by word. I have heard +many tales, but never heard I aught to match the tale of Fulke his black +life, as Fulke told it hollowly, hanging in the shaft.' + +'Was it bad?' said Dan, awestruck. + +'Beyond belief,' Sir Richard answered. 'None the less, there was that in +it which forced even Gilbert to laugh. We three laughed till we ached. +At one place his teeth so chattered that we could not well hear, and we +reached him down a cup of wine. Then he warmed to it, and smoothly set +out all his shifts, malices, and treacheries, his extreme boldnesses (he +was desperate bold); his retreats, shufflings, and counterfeitings (he +was also inconceivably a coward); his lack of gear and honour; his +despair at their loss; his remedies, and well-coloured contrivances. +Yes, he waved the filthy rags of his life before us, as though they had +been some proud banner. When he ceased, we saw by torches that the tide +stood at the corners of his mouth, and he breathed strongly through his +nose. + +'We had him out, and rubbed him; we wrapped him in a cloak, and gave him +wine, and we leaned and looked upon him, the while he drank. He was +shivering, but shameless. + +'Of a sudden we heard Jehan at the stairway wake, but a boy pushed past +him, and stood before us, the hall rushes in his hair, all slubbered +with sleep. "My father! My father! I dreamed of treachery," he cried, +and babbled thickly. + +'"There is no treachery here," said Fulke. "Go!" and the boy turned, +even then not fully awake, and Jehan led him by the hand to the Great +Hall. + +'"Thy only son!" said De Aquila. "Why didst thou bring the child here?" + +'"He is my heir. I dared not trust him to my brother," said Fulke, and +now he was ashamed. De Aquila said nothing, but sat weighing a wine cup +in his two hands--thus. Anon, Fulke touched him on the knee. + +'"Let the boy escape to Normandy," said he, "and do with me at thy +pleasure. Yea, hang me tomorrow, with my letter to Robert round my neck, +but let the boy go." + +'"Be still," said De Aquila. "I think for England." + +'So we waited what our Lord of Pevensey should devise; and the sweat ran +down Fulke's forehead. + +'At last said De Aquila: "I am too old to judge, or to trust any man. I +do not covet thy lands, as thou hast coveted mine; and whether thou art +any better or any worse than any other black Angevin thief, it is for +thy King to find out. Therefore, go back to thy King, Fulke." + +'"And thou wilt say nothing of what has passed?" said Fulke. + +'"Why should I? Thy son will stay with me. If the King calls me again to +leave Pevensey, which I must guard against England's enemies; if the +King sends his men against me for a traitor; or if I hear that the King +in his bed thinks any evil of me or my two knights, thy son will be +hanged from out this window, Fulke."' + +'But it hadn't anything to do with his son,' cried Una, startled. + +'How could we have hanged Fulke?' said Sir Richard. 'We needed him to +make our peace with the King. He would have betrayed half England for +the boy's sake. Of that we were sure.' + +'I don't understand,' said Una. 'But I think it was simply awful.' + +'So did not Fulke. He was well pleased.' + +'What? Because his son was going to be killed?' + +'Nay. Because De Aquila had shown him how he might save the boy's life +and his own lands and honours. "I will do it," he said. "I swear I will +do it. I will tell the King thou art no traitor, but the most excellent, +valiant, and perfect of us all. Yes, I will save thee." + +'De Aquila looked still into the bottom of the cup, rolling the +wine-dregs to and fro. + +'"Ay," he said. "If I had a son, I would, I think, save him. But do not +by any means tell me how thou wilt go about it." + +'"Nay, nay," said Fulke, nodding his bald head wisely. "That is my +secret. But rest at ease, De Aquila, no hair of thy head nor rood of thy +land shall be forfeited," and he smiled like one planning great good +deeds. + +'"And henceforward," said De Aquila, "I counsel thee to serve one +master--not two." + +'"What?" said Fulke. "Can I work no more honest trading between the two +sides these troublous times?" + +'"Serve Robert or the King--England or Normandy," said De Aquila. "I +care not which it is, but make thy choice here and now." + +'"The King, then," said Fulke, "for I see he is better served than +Robert. Shall I swear it?" + +'"No need," said De Aquila, and he laid his hand on the parchments which +Gilbert had written. "It shall be some part of my Gilbert's penance to +copy out the savoury tale of thy life, till we have made ten, twenty, an +hundred, maybe, copies. How many cattle, think you, would the Bishop of +Tours give for that tale? Or thy brother? Or the Monks of Blois? +Minstrels will turn it into songs which thy own Saxon serfs shall sing +behind their plough-stilts, and men-at-arms riding through thy Norman +towns. From here to Rome, Fulke, men will make very merry over that +tale, and how Fulke told it, hanging in a well, like a drowned puppy. +This shall be thy punishment, if ever I find thee double-dealing with +thy King any more. Meantime, the parchments stay here with thy son. Him +I will return to thee when thou hast made my peace with the King. The +parchments never." + +'Fulke hid his face and groaned. + +'"Bones of the Saints!" said De Aquila, laughing. "The pen cuts deep. I +could never have fetched that grunt out of thee with any sword." + +'"But so long as I do not anger thee, my tale will be secret?" said +Fulke. + +'"Just so long. Does that comfort thee, Fulke?" said De Aquila. + +'"What other comfort have ye left me?" he said, and of a sudden he wept +hopelessly like a child, dropping his face on his knees.' + +'Poor Fulke,' said Una. + +'I pitied him also,' said Sir Richard. + +'"After the spur, corn," said De Aquila, and he threw Fulke three wedges +of gold that he had taken from our little chest by the bedplace. + +'"If I had known this," said Fulke, catching his breath, "I would never +have lifted hand against Pevensey. Only lack of this yellow stuff has +made me so unlucky in my dealings." + +'It was dawn then, and they stirred in the Great Hall below. We sent +down Fulke's mail to be scoured, and when he rode away at noon under his +own and the King's banner, very splendid and stately did he show. He +smoothed his long beard, and called his son to his stirrup and kissed +him. De Aquila rode with him as far as the New Mill landward. We thought +the night had been all a dream.' + +'But did he make it right with the King?' Dan asked. 'About your not +being traitors, I mean.' + +Sir Richard smiled. 'The King sent no second summons to Pevensey, nor +did he ask why De Aquila had not obeyed the first. Yes, that was Fulke's +work. I know not how he did it, but it was well and swiftly done.' + +'Then you didn't do anything to his son?' said Una. + +'The boy? Oh, he was an imp! He turned the keep doors out of dortoirs +while we had him. He sang foul songs, learned in the Barons' camps--poor +fool; he set the hounds fighting in Hall; he lit the rushes to drive +out, as he said, the fleas; he drew his dagger on Jehan, who threw him +down the stairway for it; and he rode his horse through crops and among +sheep. But when we had beaten him, and showed him wolf and deer, he +followed us old men like a young, eager hound, and called us "uncle". +His father came the summer's end to take him away, but the boy had no +lust to go, because of the otter-hunting, and he stayed on till the +fox-hunting. I gave him a bittern's claw to bring him good luck at +shooting. An imp, if ever there was!' + +'And what happened to Gilbert?' said Dan. + +'Not even a whipping. De Aquila said he would sooner a clerk, however +false, that knew the Manor-roll than a fool, however true, that must be +taught his work afresh. Moreover, after that night I think Gilbert loved +as much as he feared De Aquila. At least he would not leave us--not even +when Vivian, the King's Clerk, would have made him Sacristan of Battle +Abbey. A false fellow, but, in his fashion, bold.' + +'Did Robert ever land in Pevensey after all?' Dan went on. + +'We guarded the coast too well while Henry was fighting his Barons; and +three or four years later, when England had peace, Henry crossed to +Normandy and showed his brother some work at Tenchebrai that cured +Robert of fighting. Many of Henry's men sailed from Pevensey to that +war. Fulke came, I remember, and we all four lay in the little chamber +once again, and drank together. De Aquila was right. One should not +judge men. Fulke was merry. Yes, always merry--with a catch in his +breath.' + +'And what did you do afterwards?' said Una. + +'We talked together of times past. That is all men can do when they grow +old, little maid.' + + +The bell for tea rang faintly across the meadows. Dan lay in the bows of +the _Golden Hind_; Una in the stern, the book of verses open in her lap, +was reading from 'The Slave's Dream': + +'Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep, +He saw his native land.' + +'I don't know when you began that,' said Dan, sleepily. + +On the middle thwart of the boat, beside Una's sun-bonnet, lay an Oak +leaf, an Ash leaf, and a Thorn leaf, that must have dropped down from +the trees above; and the brook giggled as though it had just seen some +joke. + + + +THE RUNES ON WELAND'S SWORD + + +A Smith makes me +To betray my Man +In my first fight. + +To gather Gold +At the world's end +I am sent. + +The Gold I gather +Comes into England +Out of deep Water. + +Like a shining Fish +Then it descends +Into deep Water. + +It is not given +For goods or gear, +But for The Thing. + +The Gold I gather +A King covets +For an ill use. + +The Gold I gather +Is drawn up +Out of deep Water. + +Like a shining Fish +Then it descends +Into deep Water. + +It is not given +For goods or gear, +But for The Thing. + + + + +A CENTURION OF THE THIRTIETH + + +Cities and Thrones and Powers + Stand in Time's eye, +Almost as long as flowers, + Which daily die. +But, as new buds put forth + To glad new men, +Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth, + The Cities rise again. + +This season's Daffodil, + She never hears, +What change, what chance, what chill, + Cut down last year's: +But with bold countenance, + And knowledge small, +Esteems her seven days' continuance + To be perpetual. + +So Time that is o'er-kind, + To all that be, +Ordains us e'en as blind, + As bold as she: +That in our very death, + And burial sure, +Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith, + 'See how our works endure!' + + + +A Centurion of the Thirtieth + + +Dan had come to grief over his Latin, and was kept in; so Una went alone +to Far Wood. Dan's big catapult and the lead bullets that Hobden had +made for him were hidden in an old hollow beech-stub on the west of the +wood. They had named the place out of the verse in _Lays of Ancient +Rome_: + + From lordly Volaterrae, + Where scowls the far-famed hold + Piled by the hands of giants + For Godlike Kings of old. + +They were the 'Godlike Kings', and when old Hobden +piled some comfortable brushwood between the big wooden +knees of Volaterrae, they called him 'Hands of Giants'. + +Una slipped through their private gap in the fence, and +sat still awhile, scowling as scowlily and lordlily as she +knew how; for Volaterrae is an important watch-tower +that juts out of Far Wood just as Far Wood juts out of the +hillside. Pook's Hill lay below her and all the turns of the +brook as it wanders out of the Willingford Woods, between +hop-gardens, to old Hobden's cottage at the +Forge. The Sou'-West wind (there is always a wind by +Volaterrae) blew from the bare ridge where Cherry Clack +Windmill stands. + +Now wind prowling through woods sounds like exciting +things going to happen, and that is why on blowy +days you stand up in Volaterrae and shout bits of the _Lays_ +to suit its noises. + +Una took Dan's catapult from its secret place, and +made ready to meet Lars Porsena's army stealing +through the wind-whitened aspens by the brook. A gust +boomed up the valley, and Una chanted sorrowfully: + + 'Verbenna down to Ostia + Hath wasted all the plain: + Astur hath stormed Janiculum, + And the stout guards are slain.' + +But the wind, not charging fair to the wood, started aside and shook a +single oak in Gleason's pasture. Here it made itself all small and +crouched among the grasses, waving the tips of them as a cat waves the +tip of her tail before she springs. + +'Now welcome--welcome, Sextus,' sang Una, loading the catapult-- + +'Now welcome to thy home! +Why dost thou stay, and turn away? +Here lies the road to Rome.' + +She fired into the face of the lull, to wake up the cowardly wind, and +heard a grunt from behind a thorn in the pasture. + +'Oh, my Winkie!' she said aloud, and that was something she had picked +up from Dan. 'I b'lieve I've tickled up a Gleason cow.' + +'You little painted beast!' a voice cried. 'I'll teach you to sling your +masters!' + +She looked down most cautiously, and saw a young man covered with hoopy +bronze armour all glowing among the late broom. But what Una admired +beyond all was his great bronze helmet with a red horse-tail that +flicked in the wind. She could hear the long hairs rasp on his shimmery +shoulder-plates. + +'What does the Faun mean,' he said, half aloud to himself, 'by telling +me that the Painted People have changed?' He caught sight of Una's +yellow head. 'Have you seen a painted lead-slinger?' he called. + +'No-o,' said Una. 'But if you've seen a bullet----' + +'Seen?' cried the man. 'It passed within a hair's breadth of my ear.' + +'Well, that was me. I'm most awfully sorry.' + +'Didn't the Faun tell you I was coming?' He smiled. + +'Not if you mean Puck. I thought you were a Gleason cow. I--I didn't +know you were a--a----What are you?' + +He laughed outright, showing a set of splendid teeth. His face and eyes +were dark, and his eyebrows met above his big nose in one bushy black +bar. + +'They call me Parnesius. I have been a Centurion of the Seventh Cohort +of the Thirtieth Legion--the Ulpia Victrix. Did you sling that bullet?' + +'I did. I was using Dan's catapult,' said Una. + +'Catapults!' said he. 'I ought to know something about them. Show me!' + +He leaped the rough fence with a rattle of spear, shield, and armour, +and hoisted himself into Volaterrae as quickly as a shadow. + +'A sling on a forked stick. I understand!' he cried, and pulled at the +elastic. 'But what wonderful beast yields this stretching leather?' + +'It's laccy--elastic. You put the bullet into that loop, and then you +pull hard.' + +The man pulled, and hit himself square on his thumb-nail. + +'Each to his own weapon,' he said gravely, handing it back. 'I am better +with the bigger machine, little maiden. But it's a pretty toy. A wolf +would laugh at it. Aren't you afraid of wolves?' + +'There aren't any,' said Una. + +'Never believe it! A wolf's like a Winged Hat. He comes when he isn't +expected. Don't they hunt wolves here?' + +'We don't hunt,' said Una, remembering what she had heard from grown-ups. +'We preserve--pheasants. Do you know them?' + +'I ought to,' said the young man, smiling again, and he imitated the cry +of the cock-pheasant so perfectly that a bird answered out of the wood. + +'What a big painted clucking fool is a pheasant!' he said. 'Just like +some Romans.' + +'But you're a Roman yourself, aren't you?' said Una. + +'Ye-es and no. I'm one of a good few thousands who have never seen Rome +except in a picture. My people have lived at Vectis for generations. +Vectis--that island West yonder that you can see from so far in clear +weather.' + +'Do you mean the Isle of Wight? It lifts up just before rain, and you +see it from the Downs.' + +'Very likely. Our villa's on the South edge of the Island, by the Broken +Cliffs. Most of it is three hundred years old, but the cow-stables, +where our first ancestor lived, must be a hundred years older. Oh, quite +that, because the founder of our family had his land given him by +Agricola at the Settlement. It's not a bad little place for its size. In +spring-time violets grow down to the very beach. I've gathered sea-weeds +for myself and violets for my Mother many a time with our old nurse.' + +'Was your nurse a--a Romaness too?' + +'No, a Numidian. Gods be good to her! A dear, fat, brown thing with a +tongue like a cowbell. She was a free woman. By the way, are you free, +maiden?' + +'Oh, quite,' said Una. 'At least, till tea-time; and in summer our +governess doesn't say much if we're late.' + +The young man laughed again--a proper understanding laugh. + +'I see,' said he. 'That accounts for your being in the wood. _We_ hid +among the cliffs.' + +'Did you have a governess, then?' + +'Did we not? A Greek, too. She had a way of clutching her dress when she +hunted us among the gorse-bushes that made us laugh. Then she'd say +she'd get us whipped. She never did, though, bless her! Aglaia was a +thorough sportswoman, for all her learning.' + +'But what lessons did you do--when--when you were little?' + +'Ancient history, the Classics, arithmetic and so on,' he answered. 'My +sister and I were thick-heads, but my two brothers (I'm the middle one) +liked those things, and, of course, Mother was clever enough for any +six. She was nearly as tall as I am, and she looked like the new statue +on the Western Road--the Demeter of the Baskets, you know. And funny! +Roma Dea! How Mother could make us laugh!' + +'What at?' + +'Little jokes and sayings that every family has. Don't you know?' + +'I know we have, but I didn't know other people had them too,' said Una. +'Tell me about all your family, please.' + +'Good families are very much alike. Mother would sit spinning of +evenings while Aglaia read in her corner, and Father did accounts, and +we four romped about the passages. When our noise grew too loud the +Pater would say, "Less tumult! Less tumult! Have you never heard of a +Father's right over his children? He can slay them, my loves--slay them +dead, and the Gods highly approve of the action!" Then Mother would prim +up her dear mouth over the wheel and answer: "H'm! I'm afraid there +can't be much of the Roman Father about you!" Then the Pater would roll +up his accounts, and say, "I'll show you!" and then--then, he'd be worse +than any of us!' + +'Fathers can--if they like,' said Una, her eyes dancing. + +'Didn't I say all good families are very much the same?' + +'What did you do in summer?' said Una. 'Play about, like us?' + +'Yes, and we visited our friends. There are no wolves in Vectis. We had +many friends, and as many ponies as we wished.' + +'It must have been lovely,' said Una. 'I hope it lasted for ever.' + +'Not quite, little maid. When I was about sixteen or seventeen, the +Father felt gouty, and we all went to the Waters.' + +'What waters?' + +'At Aquae Solis. Every one goes there. You ought to get your Father to +take you some day.' + +'But where? I don't know,' said Una. + +The young man looked astonished for a moment. 'Aquae Solis,' he +repeated. 'The best baths in Britain. just as good, I'm told, as Rome. +All the old gluttons sit in hot water, and talk scandal and politics. +And the Generals come through the streets with their guards behind them; +and the magistrates come in their chairs with their stiff guards behind +them; and you meet fortune-tellers, and goldsmiths, and merchants, and +philosophers, and feather-sellers, and ultra-Roman Britons, and +ultra-British Romans, and tame tribesmen pretending to be civilised, and +Jew lecturers, and--oh, everybody interesting. We young people, of +course, took no interest in politics. We had not the gout: there were +many of our age like us. We did not find life sad. + +'But while we were enjoying ourselves without thinking, my sister met +the son of a magistrate in the West--and a year afterwards she was +married to him. My young brother, who was always interested in plants +and roots, met the First Doctor of a Legion from the City of the +Legions, and he decided that he would be an Army doctor. I do not think +it is a profession for a well-born man, but then--I'm not my brother. He +went to Rome to study medicine, and now he's First Doctor of a Legion in +Egypt--at Antinoe, I think, but I have not heard from him for some time. + +'My eldest brother came across a Greek philosopher, and told my Father +that he intended to settle down on the estate as a farmer and a +philosopher. You see,'--the young man's eyes twinkled--'his philosopher +was a long-haired one!' + +'I thought philosophers were bald,' said Una. + +'Not all. She was very pretty. I don't blame him. Nothing could have +suited me better than my eldest brother's doing this, for I was only too +keen to join the Army. I had always feared I should have to stay at home +and look after the estate while my brother took _this_.' + +He rapped on his great glistening shield that never seemed to be in his +way. + +'So we were well contented--we young people--and we rode back to +Clausentum along the Wood Road very quietly. But when we reached home, +Aglaia, our governess, saw what had come to us. I remember her at the +door, the torch over her head, watching us climb the cliff-path from the +boat. "Aie! Aie!" she said. "Children you went away. Men and a woman you +return!" Then she kissed Mother, and Mother wept. Thus our visit to the +Waters settled our fates for each of us, Maiden.' + +He rose to his feet and listened, leaning on the shield-rim. + +'I think that's Dan--my brother,' said Una. + +'Yes; and the Faun is with him,' he replied, as Dan with Puck stumbled +through the copse. + +'We should have come sooner,' Puck called, 'but the beauties of your +native tongue, O Parnesius, have enthralled this young citizen.' + +Parnesius looked bewildered, even when Una explained. + +'Dan said the plural of "dominus" was "dominoes", and when Miss Blake +said it wasn't he said he supposed it was "backgammon", and so he had to +write it out twice--for cheek, you know.' + +Dan had climbed into Volaterrae, hot and panting. + +'I've run nearly all the way,' he gasped, 'and then Puck met me. How do +you do, Sir?' + +'I am in good health,' Parnesius answered. 'See! I have tried to bend +the bow of Ulysses, but----' He held up his thumb. + +'I'm sorry. You must have pulled off too soon,' said Dan. 'But Puck said +you were telling Una a story.' + +'Continue, O Parnesius,' said Puck, who had perched himself on a dead +branch above them. 'I will be chorus. Has he puzzled you much, Una?' + +'Not a bit, except--I didn't know where Ak--Ak something was,' she +answered. + +'Oh, Aquae Solis. That's Bath, where the buns come from. Let the hero +tell his own tale.' + +Parnesius pretended to thrust his spear at Puck's legs, but Puck reached +down, caught at the horse-tail plume, and pulled off the tall helmet. + +'Thanks, jester,' said Parnesius, shaking his curly dark head. 'That is +cooler. Now hang it up for me.... + +'I was telling your sister how I joined the Army,' he said to Dan. + +'Did you have to pass an Exam?' Dan asked eagerly. + +'No. I went to my Father, and said I should like to enter the Dacian +Horse (I had seen some at Aquae Solis); but he said I had better begin +service in a regular Legion from Rome. Now, like many of our youngsters, +I was not too fond of anything Roman. The Roman-born officers and +magistrates looked down on us British-born as though we were barbarians. +I told my Father so. + +'"I know they do," he said; "but remember, after all, we are the people +of the Old Stock, and our duty is to the Empire." + +'"To which Empire?" I asked. "We split the Eagle before I was born." + +'"What thieves' talk is that?" said my Father. He hated slang. + +'"Well, sir," I said, "we've one Emperor in Rome, and I don't know how +many Emperors the outlying Provinces have set up from time to time. +Which am I to follow?" + +'"Gratian," said he. "At least he's a sportsman." + +'"He's all that," I said. "Hasn't he turned himself into a +raw-beef-eating Scythian?" + +'"Where did you hear of it?" said the Pater. + +'"At Aquae Solis," I said. It was perfectly true. This precious Emperor +Gratian of ours had a bodyguard of fur-cloaked Scythians, and he was so +crazy about them that he dressed like them. In Rome of all places in the +world! It was as bad as if my own Father had painted himself blue! + +'"No matter for the clothes," said the Pater. "They are only the fringe +of the trouble. It began before your time or mine. Rome has forsaken her +Gods, and must be punished. The great war with the Painted People broke +out in the very year the temples of our Gods were destroyed. We beat the +Painted People in the very year our temples were rebuilt. Go back +further still."... He went back to the time of Diocletian; and to listen +to him you would have thought Eternal Rome herself was on the edge of +destruction, just because a few people had become a little large-minded. + +'_I_ knew nothing about it. Aglaia never taught us the history of our +own country. She was so full of her ancient Greeks. + +'"There is no hope for Rome," said the Pater, at last. "She has forsaken +her Gods, but if the Gods forgive _us_ here, we may save Britain. To do +that, we must keep the Painted People back. Therefore, I tell you, +Parnesius, as a Father, that if your heart is set on service, your place +is among men on the Wall--and not with women among the cities."' + +'What Wall?' asked Dan and Una at once. + +'Father meant the one we call Hadrian's Wall. I'll tell you about it +later. It was built long ago, across North Britain, to keep out the +Painted People--Picts, you call them. Father had fought in the great +Pict War that lasted more than twenty years, and he knew what fighting +meant. Theodosius, one of our great Generals, had chased the little +beasts back far into the North before I was born. Down at Vectis, of +course, we never troubled our heads about them. But when my Father spoke +as he did, I kissed his hand, and waited for orders. We British-born +Romans know what is due to our parents.' + +'If I kissed my Father's hand, he'd laugh,' said Dan. + +'Customs change; but if you do not obey your Father, the Gods remember +it. You may be quite sure of _that_. + +'After our talk, seeing I was in earnest, the Pater sent me over to +Clausentum to learn my foot-drill in a barrack full of foreign +auxiliaries--as unwashed and unshaved a mob of mixed barbarians as ever +scrubbed a breastplate. It was your stick in their stomachs and your +shield in their faces to push them into any sort of formation. When I +had learned my work the Instructor gave me a handful--and they were a +handful!--of Gauls and Iberians to polish up till they were sent to +their stations up-country. I did my best, and one night a villa in the +suburbs caught fire, and I had my handful out and at work before any of +the other troops. I noticed a quiet-looking man on the lawn, leaning on +a stick. He watched us passing buckets from the pond, and at last he +said to me: "Who are you?" + +'"A probationer, waiting for a command," I answered. _I_ didn't know who +he was from Deucalion! + +'"Born in Britain?" he said. + +'"Yes, if you were born in Spain," I said, for he neighed his words like +an Iberian mule. + +'"And what might you call yourself when you are at home?" he said, +laughing. + +'"That depends," I answered; "sometimes one thing and sometimes another. +But now I'm busy." + +'He said no more till we had saved the family gods (they were +respectable householders), and then he grunted across the laurels: +"Listen, young sometimes-one-thing-and-sometimes-another. In future call +yourself Centurion of the Seventh Cohort of the Thirtieth, the Ulpia +Victrix. That will help me to remember you. Your Father and a few other +people call me Maximus." + +'He tossed me the polished stick he was leaning on, and went away. You +might have knocked me down with it!' + +'Who was he?' said Dan. + +'Maximus himself, our great General! _The_ General of Britain who had +been Theodosius's right hand in the Pict War! Not only had he given me +my Centurion's stick direct, but three steps in a good Legion as well! A +new man generally begins in the Tenth Cohort of his Legion, and works +up.' + +'And were you pleased?' said Una. + +'Very. I thought Maximus had chosen me for my good looks and fine style +in marching, but, when I went home, the Pater told me he had served +under Maximus in the great Pict War, and had asked him to befriend me.' + +'A child you were!' said Puck, from above. + +'I was,' said Parnesius. 'Don't begrudge it me, Faun. Afterwards--the +Gods know I put aside the games!' And Puck nodded, brown chin on brown +hand, his big eyes still. + +'The night before I left we sacrificed to our ancestors--the usual +little Home Sacrifice--but I never prayed so earnestly to all the Good +Shades, and then I went with my Father by boat to Regnum, and across the +chalk eastwards to Anderida yonder.' + +'Regnum? Anderida?' The children turned their faces to Puck. + +'Regnum's Chichester,' he said, pointing towards Cherry Clack, 'and'--he +threw his arm South behind him--'Anderida's Pevensey.' + +'Pevensey again!' said Dan. 'Where Weland landed?' + +'Weland and a few others,' said Puck. 'Pevensey isn't young--even +compared to me!' + +'The headquarters of the Thirtieth lay at Anderida in summer, but my own +Cohort, the Seventh, was on the Wall up North. Maximus was inspecting +Auxiliaries--the Abulci, I think--at Anderida, and we stayed with him, +for he and my Father were very old friends. I was only there ten days +when I was ordered to go up with thirty men to my Cohort.' He laughed +merrily. 'A man never forgets his first march. I was happier than any +Emperor when I led my handful through the North Gate of the Camp, and we +saluted the guard and the Altar of Victory there.' + +'How? How?' said Dan and Una. + +Parnesius smiled, and stood up, flashing in his armour. + +'So!' said he; and he moved slowly through the beautiful movements of +the Roman Salute, that ends with a hollow clang of the shield coming +into its place between the shoulders. + +'Hai!' said Puck. 'That sets one thinking!' + +'We went out fully armed,' said Parnesius, sitting down; 'but as soon as +the road entered the Great Forest, my men expected the pack-horses to +hang their shields on. "No!" I said; "you can dress like women in +Anderida, but while you're with me you will carry your own weapons and +armour." + +'"But it's hot," said one of them, "and we haven't a doctor. Suppose we +get sunstroke, or a fever?" + +'"Then die," I said, "and a good riddance to Rome! Up shield--up spears, +and tighten your foot-wear!" + +'"Don't think yourself Emperor of Britain already," a fellow shouted. I +knocked him over with the butt of my spear, and explained to these +Roman-born Romans that, if there were any further trouble, we should go +on with one man short. And, by the Light of the Sun, I meant it too! My +raw Gauls at Clausentum had never treated me so. + +'Then, quietly as a cloud, Maximus rode out of the fern (my Father +behind him), and reined up across the road. He wore the Purple, as +though he were already Emperor; his leggings were of white buckskin +laced with gold. + +'My men dropped like--like partridges. + +'He said nothing for some time, only looked, with his eyes puckered. +Then he crooked his forefinger, and my men walked--crawled, I mean--to +one side. + +'"Stand in the sun, children," he said, and they formed up on the hard +road. + +'"What would you have done," he said to me, "if I had not been here?" + +'"I should have killed that man," I answered. + +'"Kill him now," he said. "He will not move a limb." + +'"No," I said. "You've taken my men out of my command. I should only be +your butcher if I killed him now." Do you see what I meant?' Parnesius +turned to Dan. + +'Yes,' said Dan. 'It wouldn't have been fair, somehow.' + +'That was what I thought,' said Parnesius. 'But Maximus frowned. "You'll +never be an Emperor," he said. "Not even a General will you be." + +'I was silent, but my Father seemed pleased. + +'"I came here to see the last of you," he said. + +'"You have seen it," said Maximus. "I shall never need your son any +more. He will live and he will die an officer of a Legion--and he might +have been Prefect of one of my Provinces. Now eat and drink with us," he +said. "Your men will wait till you have finished." + +'My miserable thirty stood like wine-skins glistening in the hot sun, +and Maximus led us to where his people had set a meal. Himself he mixed +the wine. + +'"A year from now," he said, "you will remember that you have sat with +the Emperor of Britain--and Gaul." + +'"Yes," said the Pater, "you can drive two mules--Gaul and Britain." + +'"Five years hence you will remember that you have drunk"--he passed me +the cup and there was blue borage in it--"with the Emperor of Rome!" + +'"No; you can't drive three mules. They will tear you in pieces," said +my Father. + +'"And you on the Wall, among the heather, will weep because your notion +of justice was more to you than the favour of the Emperor of Rome." + +'I sat quite still. One does not answer a General who wears the Purple. + +'"I am not angry with you," he went on; "I owe too much to your +Father----" + +'"You owe me nothing but advice that you never took," said the Pater. + +'"----to be unjust to any of your family. Indeed, I say you may make a +good Tribune, but, so far as I am concerned, on the Wall you will live, +and on the Wall you will die," said Maximus. + +'"Very like," said my Father. "But we shall have the Picts _and_ their +friends breaking through before long. You cannot move all troops out of +Britain to make you Emperor, and expect the North to sit quiet." + +'"I follow my destiny," said Maximus. + +'"Follow it, then," said my Father, pulling up a fern root; "and die as +Theodosius died." + +'"Ah!" said Maximus. "My old General was killed because he served the +Empire too well. _I_ may be killed, but not for that reason," and he +smiled a little pale grey smile that made my blood run cold. + +'"Then I had better follow my destiny," I said, "and take my men to the +Wall." + +'He looked at me a long time, and bowed his head slanting like a +Spaniard. "Follow it, boy," he said. That was all. I was only too glad +to get away, though I had many messages for home. I found my men +standing as they had been put--they had not even shifted their feet in +the dust, and off I marched, still feeling that terrific smile like an +east wind up my back. I never halted them till sunset, and'--he turned +about and looked at Pook's Hill below him--'then I halted yonder.' He +pointed to the broken, bracken-covered shoulder of the Forge Hill behind +old Hobden's cottage. + +'There? Why, that's only the old Forge--where they made iron once,' said +Dan. + +'Very good stuff it was too,' said Parnesius calmly. 'We mended three +shoulder-straps here and had a spear-head riveted. The Forge was rented +from the Government by a one-eyed smith from Carthage. I remember we +called him Cyclops. He sold me a beaver-skin rug for my sister's room.' + +'But it couldn't have been here,' Dan insisted. + +'But it was! From the Altar of Victory at Anderida to the First Forge in +the Forest here is twelve miles seven hundred paces. It is all in the +Road Book. A man doesn't forget his first march. I think I could tell +you every station between this and----' He leaned forward, but his eye +was caught by the setting sun. + +It had come down to the top of Cherry Clack Hill, and the light poured +in between the tree trunks so that you could see red and gold and black +deep into the heart of Far Wood; and Parnesius in his armour shone as +though he had been afire. + +'Wait!' he said, lifting a hand, and the sunlight jinked on his glass +bracelet. 'Wait! I pray to Mithras!' + +He rose and stretched his arms westward, with deep, splendid-sounding +words. + +Then Puck began to sing too, in a voice like bells tolling, and as he +sang he slipped from Volaterrae to the ground, and beckoned the children +to follow. They obeyed; it seemed as though the voices were pushing them +along; and through the goldy-brown light on the beech leaves they +walked, while Puck between them chanted something like this: + +'Cur mundus militat sub vana gloria +Cujus prosperitas est transitoria? +Tam cito labitur ejus potentia +Quam vasa figuli quæ sunt fragilia.' + +They found themselves at the little locked gates of the wood. + +'Quo Cæsar abiit celsus imperio? +Vel Dives splendidus totus in prandio? +Dic ubi Tullius----' + +Still singing, he took Dan's hand and wheeled him round to face Una as +she came out of the gate. It shut behind her, at the same time as Puck +threw the memory-magicking Oak, Ash and Thorn leaves over their heads. + +'Well, you _are_ jolly late,' said Una. 'Couldn't you get away before?' + +'I did,' said Dan. 'I got away in lots of time, but--but I didn't know +it was so late. Where've you been?' + +'In Volaterrae--waiting for you.' + +'Sorry,' said Dan. 'It was all that beastly Latin.' + + + +A BRITISH-ROMAN SONG (A.D. 406) + + +My father's father saw it not, + And I, belike, shall never come, +To look on that so-holy spot-- + The very Rome-- + +Crowned by all Time, all Art, all Might, + The equal work of Gods and Man, +City beneath whose oldest height-- + The Race began! + +Soon to send forth again a brood, + Unshakeable, we pray, that clings, +To Rome's thrice-hammered hardihood-- + In arduous things. + +Strong heart with triple armour bound, + Beat strongly, for thy life-blood runs, +Age after Age, the Empire round-- + In us thy Sons, + +Who, distant from the Seven Hills, + Loving and serving much, require +Thee,--thee to guard 'gainst home-born ills + The Imperial Fire! + + + +ON THE GREAT WALL + + +'When I left Rome for Lalage's sake + By the Legions' Road to Rimini, +She vowed her heart was mine to take + With me and my shield to Rimini-- + (Till the Eagles flew from Rimini!) + And I've tramped Britain, and I've tramped Gaul, + And the Pontic shore where the snow-flakes fall + As white as the neck of Lalage-- + (As cold as the heart of Lalage!) + And I've lost Britain, and I've lost Gaul,' + +(the voice seemed very cheerful about it), + + 'And I've lost Rome, and, worst of all, + I've lost Lalage!' + +They were standing by the gate to Far Wood when they heard this song. +Without a word they hurried to their private gap and wriggled through +the hedge almost atop of a jay that was feeding from Puck's hand. + +'Gently!' said Puck. 'What are you looking for?' + +'Parnesius, of course,' Dan answered. 'We've only just remembered +yesterday. It isn't fair.' + +Puck chuckled as he rose. 'I'm sorry, but children who spend the +afternoon with me and a Roman Centurion need a little settling dose of +Magic before they go to tea with their governess. Ohé, Parnesius!' he +called. + +'Here, Faun!' came the answer from Volaterrae. They could see the +shimmer of bronze armour in the beech crotch, and the friendly flash of +the great shield uplifted. + +'I have driven out the Britons.' Parnesius laughed like a boy. 'I occupy +their high forts. But Rome is merciful! You may come up.' And up they +three all scrambled. + +'What was the song you were singing just now?' said Una, as soon as she +had settled herself. + +'That? Oh, _Rimini_. It's one of the tunes that are always being born +somewhere in the Empire. They run like a pestilence for six months or a +year, till another one pleases the Legions, and then they march to +_that_.' + +'Tell them about the marching, Parnesius. Few people nowadays walk from +end to end of this country,' said Puck. + +'The greater their loss. I know nothing better than the Long March when +your feet are hardened. You begin after the mists have risen, and you +end, perhaps, an hour after sundown.' + +'And what do you have to eat?' Dan asked promptly. + +'Fat bacon, beans, and bread, and whatever wine happens to be in the +rest-houses. But soldiers are born grumblers. Their very first day out, +my men complained of our water-ground British corn. They said it wasn't +so filling as the rough stuff that is ground in the Roman ox-mills. +However, they had to fetch and eat it.' + +'Fetch it? Where from?' said Una. + +'From that newly invented water-mill below the Forge.' + +'That's Forge Mill--_our_ Mill!' Una looked at Puck. + +'Yes; yours,' Puck put in. 'How old did you think it was?' + +'I don't know. Didn't Sir Richard Dalyngridge talk about it?' + +'He did, and it was old in his day,' Puck answered. 'Hundreds of years +old.' + +'It was new in mine,' said Parnesius. 'My men looked at the flour in +their helmets as though it had been a nest of adders. They did it to try +my patience. But I--addressed them, and we became friends. To tell the +truth, they taught me the Roman Step. You see, I'd only served with +quick-marching Auxiliaries. A Legion's pace is altogether different. It +is a long, slow stride, that never varies from sunrise to sunset. +"Rome's Race--Rome's Pace," as the proverb says. Twenty-four miles in +eight hours, neither more nor less. Head and spear up, shield on your +back, cuirass-collar open one hand's breadth--and that's how you take +the Eagles through Britain.' + +'And did you meet any adventures?' said Dan. + +'There are no adventures South the Wall,' said Parnesius. 'The worst +thing that happened me was having to appear before a magistrate up +North, where a wandering philosopher had jeered at the Eagles. I was +able to show that the old man had deliberately blocked our road; and the +magistrate told him, out of his own Book, I believe, that, whatever his +Gods might be, he should pay proper respect to Cæsar.' + +'What did you do?' said Dan. + +'Went on. Why should _I_ care for such things, my business being to +reach my station? It took me twenty days. + +'Of course, the farther North you go the emptier are the roads. At last +you fetch clear of the forests and climb bare hills, where wolves howl +in the ruins of our cities that have been. No more pretty girls; no more +jolly magistrates who knew your Father when he was young, and invite you +to stay with them; no news at the temples and way-stations except bad +news of wild beasts. There's where you meet hunters, and trappers for +the Circuses, prodding along chained bears and muzzled wolves. Your pony +shies at them, and your men laugh. + +'The houses change from gardened villas to shut forts with watch-towers +of grey stone, and great stone-walled sheepfolds, guarded by armed +Britons of the North Shore. In the naked hills beyond the naked houses, +where the shadows of the clouds play like cavalry charging, you see +puffs of black smoke from the mines. The hard road goes on and on--and +the wind sings through your helmet-plume--past altars to Legions and +Generals forgotten, and broken statues of Gods and Heroes, and thousands +of graves where the mountain foxes and hares peep at you. Red-hot in +summer, freezing in winter, is that big, purple heather country of +broken stone. + +'Just when you think you are at the world's end, you see a smoke from +East to West as far as the eye can turn, and then, under it, also as far +as the eye can stretch, houses and temples, shops and theatres, barracks +and granaries, trickling along like dice behind--always behind--one +long, low, rising and falling, and hiding and showing line of towers. +And that is the Wall!' + +'Ah!' said the children, taking breath. + +'You may well,' said Parnesius. 'Old men who have followed the Eagles +since boyhood say nothing in the Empire is more wonderful than first +sight of the Wall!' + +'Is it just a Wall? Like the one round the kitchen-garden?' said Dan. + +'No, no! It is _the_ Wall. Along the top are towers with guard-houses, +small towers, between. Even on the narrowest part of it three men with +shields can walk abreast, from guard-house to guard-house. A little +curtain wall, no higher than a man's neck, runs along the top of the +thick wall, so that from a distance you see the helmets of the sentries +sliding back and forth like beads. Thirty feet high is the Wall, and on +the Picts' side, the North, is a ditch, strewn with blades of old swords +and spear-heads set in wood, and tyres of wheels joined by chains. The +Little People come there to steal iron for their arrow-heads. + +'But the Wall itself is not more wonderful than the town behind it. Long +ago there were great ramparts and ditches on the South side, and no one +was allowed to build there. Now the ramparts are partly pulled down and +built over, from end to end of the Wall; making a thin town eighty miles +long. Think of it! One roaring, rioting, cock-fighting, wolf-baiting, +horse-racing town, from Ituna on the West to Segedunum on the cold +eastern beach! On one side heather, woods and ruins where Picts hide, +and on the other, a vast town--long like a snake, and wicked like a +snake. Yes, a snake basking beside a warm wall! + +'My Cohort, I was told, lay at Hunno, where the Great North Road runs +through the Wall into the Province of Valentia.' Parnesius laughed +scornfully. 'The Province of Valentia! We followed the road, therefore, +into Hunno town, and stood astonished. The place was a fair--a fair of +peoples from every corner of the Empire. Some were racing horses: some +sat in wine-shops: some watched dogs baiting bears, and many gathered in +a ditch to see cocks fight. A boy not much older than myself, but I +could see he was an officer, reined up before me and asked what I +wanted. + +'"My station," I said, and showed him my shield.' Parnesius held up his +broad shield with its three X's like letters on a beer-cask. + +'"Lucky omen!" said he. "Your Cohort's the next tower to us, but they're +all at the cock-fight. This is a happy place. Come and wet the Eagles." +He meant to offer me a drink. + +'"When I've handed over my men," I said. I felt angry and ashamed. + +'"Oh, you'll soon outgrow that sort of nonsense," he answered. "But +don't let me interfere with your hopes. Go on to the Statue of Roma Dea. +You can't miss it. The main road into Valentia!" and he laughed and rode +off. I could see the statue not a quarter of a mile away, and there I +went. At some time or other the Great North Road ran under it into +Valentia; but the far end had been blocked up because of the Picts, and +on the plaster a man had scratched, "Finish!" It was like marching into +a cave. We grounded spears together, my little thirty, and it echoed in +the barrel of the arch, but none came. There was a door at one side +painted with our number. We prowled in, and I found a cook asleep, and +ordered him to give us food. Then I climbed to the top of the Wall, and +looked out over the Pict country, and I--thought,' said Parnesius. 'The +bricked-up arch with "Finish!" on the plaster was what shook me, for I +was not much more than a boy.' + +'What a shame!' said Una. 'But did you feel happy after you'd had a +good----' Dan stopped her with a nudge. + +'Happy?' said Parnesius. 'When the men of the Cohort I was to command +came back unhelmeted from the cock-fight, their birds under their arms, +and asked me who I was? No, I was not happy; but I made my new Cohort +unhappy too ... I wrote my Mother I was happy, but, oh, my friends'--he +stretched arms over bare knees--'I would not wish my worst enemy to +suffer as I suffered through my first months on the Wall. Remember this: +among the officers was scarcely one, except myself (and I thought I had +lost the favour of Maximus, my General), scarcely one who had not done +something of wrong or folly. Either he had killed a man, or taken money, +or insulted the magistrates, or blasphemed the Gods, and so had been +sent to the Wall as a hiding-place from shame or fear. And the men were +as the officers. Remember, also, that the Wall was manned by every breed +and race in the Empire. No two towers spoke the same tongue, or +worshipped the same Gods. In one thing only we were all equal. No matter +what arms we had used before we came to the Wall, _on_ the Wall we were +all archers, like the Scythians. The Pict cannot run away from the +arrow, or crawl under it. He is a bowman himself. _He_ knows!' + +'I suppose you were fighting Picts all the time,' said Dan. + +'Picts seldom fight. I never saw a fighting Pict for half a year. The +tame Picts told us they had all gone North.' + +'What is a tame Pict?' said Dan. + +'A Pict--there were many such--who speaks a few words of our tongue, and +slips across the Wall to sell ponies and wolf-hounds. Without a horse +and a dog, _and_ a friend, man would perish. The Gods gave me all three, +and there is no gift like friendship. Remember this'--Parnesius turned +to Dan--'when you become a young man. For your fate will turn on the +first true friend you make.' + +'He means,' said Puck, grinning, 'that if you try to make yourself a +decent chap when you're young, you'll make rather decent friends when +you grow up. If you're a beast, you'll have beastly friends. Listen to +the Pious Parnesius on Friendship!' + +'I am not pious,' Parnesius answered, 'but I know what goodness means; +and my friend, though he was without hope, was ten thousand times better +than I. Stop laughing, Faun!' + +'Oh, Youth Eternal and All-believing,' cried Puck, as he rocked on the +branch above. 'Tell them about your Pertinax.' + +'He was that friend the Gods sent me--the boy who spoke to me when I +first came. Little older than myself, commanding the Augusta Victoria +Cohort on the tower next to us and the Numidians. In virtue he was far +my superior.' + +'Then why was he on the Wall?' Una asked, quickly. 'They'd all done +something bad. You said so yourself.' + +'He was the nephew, his Father had died, of a great rich man in Gaul who +was not always kind to his Mother. When Pertinax grew up, he discovered +this, and so his uncle shipped him off, by trickery and force, to the +Wall. We came to know each other at a ceremony in our Temple--in the +dark. It was the Bull-Killing,' Parnesius explained to Puck. + +'_I_ see, said Puck, and turned to the children. 'That's something you +wouldn't quite understand. Parnesius means he met Pertinax in church.' + +'Yes--in the Cave we first met, and we were both raised to the Degree of +Gryphons together.' Parnesius lifted his hand towards his neck for an +instant. 'He had been on the Wall two years, and knew the Picts well. He +taught me first how to take Heather.' + +'What's that?' said Dan. + +'Going out hunting in the Pict country with a tame Pict. You are quite +safe so long as you are his guest, and wear a sprig of heather where it +can be seen. If you went alone you would surely be killed, if you were +not smothered first in the bogs. Only the Picts know their way about +those black and hidden bogs. Old Allo, the one-eyed, withered little +Pict from whom we bought our ponies, was our special friend. At first we +went only to escape from the terrible town, and to talk together about +our homes. Then he showed us how to hunt wolves and those great red deer +with horns like Jewish candlesticks. The Roman-born officers rather +looked down on us for doing this, but we preferred the heather to their +amusements. Believe me,' Parnesius turned again to Dan, 'a boy is safe +from all things that really harm when he is astride a pony or after a +deer. Do you remember, O Faun,'--he turned to Puck--'the little altar I +built to the Sylvan Pan by the pine-forest beyond the brook?' + +'Which? The stone one with the line from Xenophon?' said Puck, in quite +a new voice. + +'No! What do _I_ know of Xenophon? That was Pertinax--after he had shot +his first mountain-hare with an arrow--by chance! Mine I made of round +pebbles, in memory of my first bear. It took me one happy day to build.' +Parnesius faced the children quickly. + +'And that was how we lived on the Wall for two years--a little scuffling +with the Picts, and a great deal of hunting with old Allo in the Pict +country. He called us his children sometimes, and we were fond of him +and his barbarians, though we never let them paint us Pict fashion. The +marks endure till you die.' + +'How's it done?' said Dan. 'Anything like tattooing?' + +'They prick the skin till the blood runs, and rub in coloured juices. +Allo was painted blue, green, and red from his forehead to his ankles. +He said it was part of his religion. He told us about his religion +(Pertinax was always interested in such things), and as we came to know +him well, he told us what was happening in Britain behind the Wall. Many +things took place behind us in those days. And by the Light of the Sun,' +said Parnesius, earnestly, 'there was not much that those little people +did not know! He told me when Maximus crossed over to Gaul, after he had +made himself Emperor of Britain, and what troops and emigrants he had +taken with him. We did not get the news on the Wall till fifteen days +later. He told me what troops Maximus was taking out of Britain every +month to help him to conquer Gaul; and I always found the numbers were +as he said. Wonderful! And I tell another strange thing!' + +He joined his hands across his knees, and leaned his head on the curve +of the shield behind him. + +'Late in the summer, when the first frosts begin and the Picts kill +their bees, we three rode out after wolf with some new hounds. +Rutilianus, our General, had given us ten days' leave, and we had pushed +beyond the Second Wall--beyond the Province of Valentia--into the higher +hills, where there are not even any of old Rome's ruins. We killed a +she-wolf before noon, and while Allo was skinning her he looked up and +said to me, "When you are Captain of the Wall, my child, you won't be +able to do this any more!" + +'I might as well have been made Prefect of Lower Gaul, so I laughed and +said, "Wait till I am Captain." + +'"No, don't wait," said Allo. "Take my advice and go home--both of you." + +'"We have no homes," said Pertinax. "You know that as well as we do. +We're finished men--thumbs down against both of us. Only men without +hope would risk their necks on your ponies." The old man laughed one of +those short Pict laughs--like a fox barking on a frosty night. "I'm fond +of you two," he said. "Besides, I've taught you what little you know +about hunting. Take my advice and go home." + +'"We can't," I said. "I'm out of favour with my General, for one thing; +and for another, Pertinax has an uncle." + +'"I don't know about his uncle," said Allo, "but the trouble with you, +Parnesius, is that your General thinks well of you." + +'"Roma Dea!" said Pertinax, sitting up. "What can you guess what Maximus +thinks, you old horse-coper?" + +'Just then (you know how near the brutes creep when one is eating?) a +great dog-wolf jumped out behind us, and away our rested hounds tore +after him, with us at their tails. He ran us far out of any country we'd +ever heard of, straight as an arrow till sunset, towards the sunset. We +came at last to long capes stretching into winding waters, and on a grey +beach below us we saw ships drawn up. Forty-seven we counted--not Roman +galleys but the raven-winged ships from the North where Rome does not +rule. Men moved in the ships, and the sun flashed on their +helmets--winged helmets of the red-haired men from the North where Rome +does not rule. We watched, and we counted, and we wondered, for though +we had heard rumours concerning these Winged Hats, as the Picts called +them, never before had we looked upon them. + +'"Come away! come away!" said Allo. "My Heather won't protect you here. +We shall all be killed!" His legs trembled like his voice. Back we +went--back across the heather under the moon, till it was nearly +morning, and our poor beasts stumbled on some ruins. + +'When we woke, very stiff and cold, Allo was mixing the meal and water. +One does not light fires in the Pict country except near a village. The +little men are always signalling to each other with smokes, and a +strange smoke brings them out buzzing like bees. They can sting, too! + +'"What we saw last night was a trading-station," said Allo. "Nothing but +a trading-station." + +'"I do not like lies on an empty stomach," said Pertinax. "I suppose" +(he had eyes like an eagle's)--"I suppose _that_ is a trading-station +also?" He pointed to a smoke far off on a hill-top, ascending in what we +call the Picts' Call:--Puff--double-puff: double-puff--puff! They make +it by raising and dropping a wet hide on a fire. + +'"No," said Allo, pushing the platter back into the bag. "That is for +you and me. Your fate is fixed. Come." + +'We came. When one takes Heather, one must obey one's Pict--but that +wretched smoke was twenty miles distant, well over on the East coast, +and the day was as hot as a bath. + +'"Whatever happens," said Allo, while our ponies grunted along, "I want +you to remember me." + +'"I shall not forget," said Pertinax. "You have cheated me out of my +breakfast." + +"What is a handful of crushed oats to a Roman?" he said. Then he laughed +his laugh that was not a laugh. + +"What would _you_ do if _you_ were a handful of oats being crushed +between the upper and lower stones of a mill?" + +'"I'm Pertinax, not a riddle-guesser," said Pertinax. + +'"You're a fool," said Allo. "Your Gods and my Gods are threatened by +strange Gods, and all you can do is to laugh." + +'"Threatened men live long," I said. + +'"I pray the Gods that may be true," he said. "But I ask you again not +to forget me." + +'We climbed the last hot hill and looked out on the eastern sea, three +or four miles off. There was a small sailing-galley of the North Gaul +pattern at anchor, her landing-plank down and her sail half up; and +below us, alone in a hollow, holding his pony, sat Maximus, Emperor of +Britain! He was dressed like a hunter, and he leaned on his little +stick; but I knew that back as far as I could see it, and I told +Pertinax. + +'"You're madder than Allo!" he said. "It must be the sun!" + +'Maximus never stirred till we stood before him. Then he looked me up +and down, and said: "Hungry again? It seems to be my destiny to feed you +whenever we meet. I have food here. Allo shall cook it." + +'"No," said Allo. "A Prince in his own land does not wait on wandering +Emperors. I feed my two children without asking your leave." He began to +blow up the ashes. + +'"I was wrong," said Pertinax. "We are all mad. Speak up, O Madman +called Emperor!" + +'Maximus smiled his terrible tight-lipped smile, but two years on the +Wall do not make a man afraid of mere looks. So I was not afraid. + +'"I meant you, Parnesius, to live and die a Centurion of the Wall," said +Maximus. "But it seems from these,"--he fumbled in his breast--"you can +think as well as draw." He pulled out a roll of letters I had written to +my people, full of drawings of Picts, and bears, and men I had met on +the Wall. Mother and my sister always liked my pictures. + +'He handed me one that I had called "Maximus's Soldiers". It showed a +row of fat wine-skins, and our old Doctor of the Hunno hospital snuffing +at them. Each time that Maximus had taken troops out of Britain to help +him to conquer Gaul, he used to send the garrisons more wine--to keep +them quiet, I suppose. On the Wall, we always called a wine-skin a +"Maximus". Oh, yes; and I had drawn them in Imperial helmets. + +'"Not long since," he went on, "men's names were sent up to Cæsar for +smaller jokes than this." + +'"True, Cæsar," said Pertinax; "but you forget that was before I, your +friend's friend, became such a good spear-thrower." + +'He did not actually point his hunting-spear at Maximus, but balanced it +on his palm--so! + +'"I was speaking of time past," said Maximus, never fluttering an +eyelid. "Nowadays one is only too pleased to find boys who can think for +themselves, _and_ their friends." He nodded at Pertinax. "Your Father +lent me the letters, Parnesius, so you run no risk from me." + +'"None whatever," said Pertinax, and rubbed the spear-point on his +sleeve. + +'"I have been forced to reduce the garrisons in Britain, because I need +troops in Gaul. Now I come to take troops from the Wall itself," said +he. + +'"I wish you joy of us," said Pertinax. "We're the last sweepings of the +Empire--the men without hope. Myself, I'd sooner trust condemned +criminals." + +'"You think so?" he said, quite seriously. "But it will only be till I +win Gaul. One must always risk one's life, or one's soul, or one's +peace--or some little thing." + +'Allo passed round the fire with the sizzling deer's meat. He served us +two first. + +'"Ah!" said Maximus, waiting his turn. "I perceive you are in your own +country. Well, you deserve it. They tell me you have quite a following +among the Picts, Parnesius." + +'"I have hunted with them," I said. "Maybe I have a few friends among +the Heather." + +'"He is the only armoured man of you all who understands us," said Allo, +and he began a long speech about our virtues, and how we had saved one +of his grandchildren from a wolf the year before.' + +'Had you?' said Una. + +'Yes; but that was neither here nor there. The little green man orated +like a--like Cicero. He made us out to be magnificent fellows. Maximus +never took his eyes off our faces. + +'"Enough," he said. "I have heard Allo on you. I wish to hear you on the +Picts." + +'I told him as much as I knew, and Pertinax helped me out. There is +never harm in a Pict if you but take the trouble to find out what he +wants. Their real grievance against us came from our burning their +heather. The whole garrison of the Wall moved out twice a year, and +solemnly burned the heather for ten miles North. Rutilianus, our +General, called it clearing the country. The Picts, of course, scampered +away, and all we did was to destroy their bee-bloom in the summer, and +ruin their sheep-food in the spring. + +'"True, quite true," said Allo. "How can we make our holy heather-wine, +if you burn our bee-pasture?" + +'We talked long, Maximus asking keen questions that showed he knew much +and had thought more about the Picts. He said presently to me: "If I +gave you the old Province of Valentia to govern, could you keep the +Picts contented till I won Gaul? Stand away, so that you do not see +Allo's face; and speak your own thoughts." + +'"No," I said. "You cannot remake that Province. The Picts have been +free too long." + +'"Leave them their village councils, and let them furnish their own +soldiers," he said. "You, I am sure, would hold the reins very lightly." + +"Even then, no," I said. "At least not now. They have been too oppressed +by us to trust anything with a Roman name for years and years." + +'I heard old Allo behind me mutter: "Good child!" + +'"Then what do you recommend," said Maximus, "to keep the North quiet +till I win Gaul?" + +'"Leave the Picts alone," I said. "Stop the heather-burning at once, +and--they are improvident little animals--send them a shipload or two of +corn now and then." + +'"Their own men must distribute it--not some cheating Greek accountant," +said Pertinax. + +'"Yes, and allow them to come to our hospitals when they are sick," I +said. + +'"Surely they would die first," said Maximus. + +'"Not if Parnesius brought them in," said Allo. "I could show you twenty +wolf-bitten, bear-clawed Picts within twenty miles of here. But +Parnesius must stay with them in hospital, else they would go mad with +fear." + +'"I see," said Maximus. "Like everything else in the world, it is one +man's work. You, I think, are that one man." + +'"Pertinax and I are one," I said. + +'"As you please, so long as you work. Now, Allo, you know that I mean +your people no harm. Leave us to talk together," said Maximus. + +'"No need!" said Allo. "I am the corn between the upper and lower +millstones. I must know what the lower millstone means to do. These boys +have spoken the truth as far as they know it. I, a Prince, will tell you +the rest. I am troubled about the Men of the North." He squatted like a +hare in the heather, and looked over his shoulder. + +'"I also," said Maximus, "or I should not be here." + +'"Listen," said Allo. "Long and long ago the Winged Hats"--he meant the +Northmen--"came to our beaches and said, 'Rome falls! Push her down!' We +fought you. You sent men. We were beaten. After that we said to the +Winged Hats, 'You are liars! Make our men alive that Rome killed, and we +will believe you.' They went away ashamed. Now they come back bold, and +they tell the old tale, which we begin to believe--that Rome falls!" + +'"Give me three years' peace on the Wall," cried Maximus, "and I will +show you and all the ravens how they lie!" + +'"Ah, I wish it too! I wish to save what is left of the corn from the +millstones. But you shoot us Picts when we come to borrow a little iron +from the Iron Ditch; you burn our heather, which is all our crop; you +trouble us with your great catapults. Then you hide behind the Wall, and +scorch us with Greek fire. How can I keep my young men from listening to +the Winged Hats--in winter especially, when we are hungry? My young men +will say, 'Rome can neither fight nor rule. She is taking her men out of +Britain. The Winged Hats will help us to push down the Wall. Let us show +them the secret roads across the bogs.' Do _I_ want that? No!" He spat +like an adder. "I would keep the secrets of my people though I were +burned alive. My two children here have spoken truth. Leave us Picts +alone. Comfort us, and cherish us, and feed us from far off--with the +hand behind the back. Parnesius understands us. Let _him_ have rule on +the Wall, and I will hold my young men quiet for"--he ticked it off on +his fingers--"one year easily: the next year not so easily: the third +year, perhaps! See, I give you three years. If then you do not show us +that Rome is strong in men and terrible in arms, the Winged Hats, I tell +you, will sweep down the Wall from either sea till they meet in the +middle, and you will go. _I_ shall not grieve over that, but well I know +tribe never helps tribe except for one price. We Picts will go too. The +Winged Hats will grind us to this!" He tossed a handful of dust in the +air. + +'"Oh, Roma Dea!" said Maximus, half aloud. "It is always one man's +work--always and everywhere!" + +"And one man's life," said Allo. "You are Emperor, but not a God. You +may die." + +'"I have thought of that too," said he. "Very good. If this wind holds, +I shall be at the East end of the Wall by morning. To-morrow, then, I +shall see you two when I inspect, and I will make you Captains of the +Wall for this work." + +'"One instant, Cæsar," said Pertinax. "All men have their price. I am +not bought yet." + +'"Do _you_ also begin to bargain so early?" said Maximus. "Well?" + +'"Give me justice against my uncle Icenus, the Duumvir of Divio in +Gaul," he said. + +'"Only a life? I thought it would be money or an office. Certainly you +shall have him. Write his name on these tablets--on the red side; the +other is for the living!" and Maximus held out his tablets. + +'"He is of no use to me dead," said Pertinax. "My mother is a widow. I +am far off. I am not sure he pays her all her dowry." + +'"No matter. My arm is reasonably long. We will look through your +uncle's accounts in due time. Now, farewell till to-morrow, O Captains +of the Wall!" + +'We saw him grow small across the heather as he walked to the galley. +There were Picts, scores, each side of him, hidden behind stones. He +never looked left or right. He sailed away southerly, full spread before +the evening breeze, and when we had watched him out to sea, we were +silent. We understood that Earth bred few men like to this man. + +'Presently Allo brought the ponies and held them for us to mount--a +thing he had never done before. + +'"Wait awhile," said Pertinax, and he made a little altar of cut turf, +and strewed heather-bloom atop, and laid upon it a letter from a girl in +Gaul. + +'"What do you do, O my friend?" I said. + +'"I sacrifice to my dead youth," he answered, and, when the flames had +consumed the letter, he ground them out with his heel. Then we rode back +to that Wall of which we were to be Captains.' + +Parnesius stopped. The children sat still, not even asking if that were +all the tale. Puck beckoned, and pointed the way out of the wood. +'Sorry,' he whispered, 'but you must go now.' + +'We haven't made him angry, have we?' said Una. 'He looks so far off, +and--and--thinky.' + +'Bless your heart, no. Wait till tomorrow. It won't be long. Remember, +you've been playing _Lays of Ancient Rome_.' + +And as soon as they had scrambled through their gap where Oak, Ash, and +Thorn grew, that was all they remembered. + + + +A SONG TO MITHRAS + + +Mithras, God of the Morning, our trumpets waken the Wall! +'Rome is above the Nations, but Thou art over all!' +Now as the names are answered, and the guards are marched away, +Mithras, also a soldier, give us strength for the day! + +Mithras, God of the Noontide, the heather swims in the heat, +Our helmets scorch our foreheads, our sandals burn our feet. +Now in the ungirt hour; now ere we blink and drowse, +Mithras, also a soldier, keep us true to our vows! + +Mithras, God of the Sunset, low on the Western main, +Thou descending immortal, immortal to rise again! +Now when the watch is ended, now when the wine is drawn, +Mithras, also a soldier, keep us pure till the dawn! + +Mithras, God of the Midnight, here where the great bull dies, +Look on Thy children in darkness. Oh, take our sacrifice! +Many roads Thou hast fashioned: all of them lead to the Light! +Mithras, also a soldier, teach us to die aright! + + + + +THE WINGED HATS + + + +The next day happened to be what they called a Wild Afternoon. Father +and Mother went out to pay calls; Miss Blake went for a ride on her +bicycle, and they were left all alone till eight o'clock. + +When they had seen their dear parents and their dear preceptress +politely off the premises they got a cabbage-leaf full of raspberries +from the gardener, and a Wild Tea from Ellen. They ate the raspberries +to prevent their squashing, and they meant to divide the cabbage-leaf +with Three Cows down at the Theatre, but they came across a dead +hedgehog which they simply _had_ to bury, and the leaf was too useful to +waste. + +Then they went on to the Forge and found old Hobden the hedger at home +with his son, the Bee Boy, who is not quite right in his head, but who +can pick up swarms of bees in his naked hands; and the Bee Boy told them +the rhyme about the slow-worm:-- + +'If I had eyes _as_ I could see, +No mortal man would trouble me.' + +They all had tea together by the hives, and Hobden said the loaf-cake +which Ellen had given them was almost as good as what his wife used to +make, and he showed them how to set a wire at the right height for +hares. They knew about rabbits already. + +Then they climbed up Long Ditch into the lower end of Far Wood. This is +sadder and darker than the Volaterrae end because of an old marlpit full +of black water, where weepy, hairy moss hangs round the stumps of the +willows and alders. But the birds come to perch on the dead branches, +and Hobden says that the bitter willow-water is a sort of medicine for +sick animals. + +They sat down on a felled oak-trunk in the shadows of the beech +undergrowth, and were looping the wires Hobden had given them, when they +saw Parnesius. + +'How quietly you came!' said Una, moving up to make room. 'Where's Puck?' + +'The Faun and I have disputed whether it is better that I should tell +you all my tale, or leave it untold,' he replied. + +'I only said that if he told it as it happened you wouldn't understand +it,' said Puck, jumping up like a squirrel from behind the log. + +'I don't understand all of it,' said Una, 'but I like hearing about the +little Picts.' + +'What I can't understand,' said Dan, 'is how Maximus knew all about the +Picts when he was over in Gaul.' + +'He who makes himself Emperor anywhere must know everything, +everywhere,' said Parnesius. 'We had this much from Maximus's mouth +after the Games.' + +'Games? What Games?' said Dan. + +Parnesius stretched his arm out stiffly, thumb pointed to the ground. +'Gladiators! _That_ sort of game,' he said. 'There were two days' Games +in his honour when he landed all unexpected at Segedunum on the East end +of the Wall. Yes, the day after we had met him we held two days' Games; +but I think the greatest risk was run, not by the poor wretches on the +sand, but by Maximus. In the old days the Legions kept silence before +their Emperor. So did not we! You could hear the solid roar run West +along the Wall as his chair was carried rocking through the crowds. The +garrison beat round him--clamouring, clowning, asking for pay, for +change of quarters, for anything that came into their wild heads. That +chair was like a little boat among waves, dipping and falling, but +always rising again after one had shut the eyes.' Parnesius shivered. + +'Were they angry with him?' said Dan. + +'No more angry than wolves in a cage when their trainer walks among +them. If he had turned his back an instant, or for an instant had ceased +to hold their eyes, there would have been another Emperor made on the +Wall that hour. Was it not so, Faun?' + +'So it was. So it always will be,' said Puck. + +'Late in the evening his messenger came for us, and we followed to the +Temple of Victory, where he lodged with Rutilianus, the General of the +Wall. I had hardly seen the General before, but he always gave me leave +when I wished to take Heather. He was a great glutton, and kept five +Asian cooks, and he came of a family that believed in oracles. We could +smell his good dinner when we entered, but the tables were empty. He lay +snorting on a couch. Maximus sat apart among long rolls of accounts. +Then the doors were shut. + +'"These are your men," said Maximus to the General, who propped his +eye-corners open with his gouty fingers, and stared at us like a fish. + +'"I shall know them again, Cæsar," said Rutilianus. + +"Very good," said Maximus. "Now hear! You are not to move man or shield +on the Wall except as these boys shall tell you. You will do nothing, +except eat, without their permission. They are the head and arms. You +are the belly!" + +'"As Cæsar pleases," the old man grunted. "If my pay and profits are not +cut, you may make my Ancestors' Oracle my master. Rome has been! Rome +has been!" Then he turned on his side to sleep. + +'"He has it," said Maximus. "We will get to what _I_ need." + +'He unrolled full copies of the number of men and supplies on the +Wall--down to the sick that very day in Hunno Hospital. Oh, but I +groaned when his pen marked off detachment after detachment of our +best--of our least worthless men! He took two towers of our Scythians, +two of our North British auxiliaries, two Numidian cohorts, the Dacians +all, and half the Belgians. It was like an eagle pecking a carcass. + +'"And now, how many catapults have you?" He turned up a new list, but +Pertinax laid his open hand there. + +'"No, Cæsar," said he. "Do not tempt the Gods too far. Take men, or +engines, but not both; else we refuse."' + +'Engines?' said Una. + +'The catapults of the Wall--huge things forty feet high to the +head--firing nets of raw stone or forged bolts. Nothing can stand +against them. He left us our catapults at last, but he took a Cæsar's +half of our men without pity. We were a shell when he rolled up the +lists! + +'"Hail, Cæsar! We, about to die, salute you!" said Pertinax, laughing. +"If any enemy even leans against the Wall now, it will tumble." + +'"Give me the three years Allo spoke of," he answered, "and you shall +have twenty thousand men of your own choosing up here. But now it is a +gamble--a game played against the Gods, and the stakes are Britain, +Gaul, and perhaps Rome. You play on my side?" + +'"We will play, Cæsar," I said, for I had never met a man like this man. + +'"Good. Tomorrow," said he, "I proclaim you Captains of the Wall before +the troops." + +'So we went into the moonlight, where they were cleaning the ground +after the Games. We saw great Roma Dea atop of the Wall, the frost on +her helmet, and her spear pointed towards the North Star. We saw the +twinkle of night-fires all along the guard towers, and the line of the +black catapults growing smaller and smaller in the distance. All these +things we knew till we were weary; but that night they seemed very +strange to us, because the next day we knew we were to be their masters. + +'The men took the news well; but when Maximus went away with half our +strength, and we had to spread ourselves into the emptied towers, and +the townspeople complained that trade would be ruined, and the autumn +gales blew--it was dark days for us two. Here Pertinax was more than my +right hand. Being born and bred among the great country-houses in Gaul, +he knew the proper words to address to all--from Roman-born Centurions +to those dogs of the Third--the Libyans. And he spoke to each as though +that man were as high-minded as himself. Now _I_ saw so strongly what +things were needed to be done, that I forgot things are only +accomplished by means of men. That was a mistake. + +'I feared nothing from the Picts, at least for that year, but Allo +warned me that the Winged Hats would soon come in from the sea at each +end of the Wall to prove to the Picts how weak we were. So I made ready +in haste, and none too soon. I shifted our best men to the ends of the +Wall, and set up screened catapults by the beach. The Winged Hats would +drive in before the snow-squalls--ten or twenty boats at a time--on +Segedunum or Ituna, according as the wind blew. + +'Now a ship coming in to land men must furl her sail. If you wait till +you see her men gather up the sail's foot, your catapults can jerk a net +of loose stones (bolts only cut through the cloth) into the bag of it. +Then she turns over, and the sea makes everything clean again. A few men +may come ashore, but very few. ... It was not hard work, except the +waiting on the beach in blowing sand and snow. And that was how we dealt +with the Winged Hats that winter. + +'Early in the spring, when the East winds blow like skinning-knives, +they gathered again off Segedunum with many ships. Allo told me they +would never rest till they had taken a tower in open fight. Certainly +they fought in the open. We dealt with them thoroughly through a long +day: and when all was finished, one man dived clear of the wreckage of +his ship, and swam towards shore. I waited, and a wave tumbled him at my +feet. + +'As I stooped, I saw he wore such a medal as I wear.' Parnesius raised +his hand to his neck. 'Therefore, when he could speak, I addressed him a +certain Question which can only be answered in a certain manner. He +answered with the necessary Word--the Word that belongs to the Degree of +Gryphons in the science of Mithras my God. I put my shield over him till +he could stand up. You see I am not short, but he was a head taller than +I. He said: "What now?" I said: "At your pleasure, my brother, to stay +or go." + +'He looked out across the surf. There remained one ship unhurt, beyond +range of our catapults. I checked the catapults and he waved her in. +She came as a hound comes to a master. When she was yet a hundred paces +from the beach, he flung back his hair, and swam out. They hauled him +in, and went away. I knew that those who worship Mithras are many and of +all races, so I did not think much more upon the matter. + +'A month later I saw Allo with his horses--by the Temple of Pan, O +Faun--and he gave me a great necklace of gold studded with coral. + +'At first I thought it was a bribe from some tradesman in the +town--meant for old Rutilianus. "Nay," said Allo. "This is a gift from +Amal, that Winged Hat whom you saved on the beach. He says you are a +Man." + +'"He is a Man, too. Tell him I can wear his gift," I answered. + +'"Oh, Amal is a young fool; but, speaking as sensible men, your Emperor +is doing such great things in Gaul that the Winged Hats are anxious to +be his friends, or, better still, the friends of his servants. They +think you and Pertinax could lead them to victories." Allo looked at me +like a one-eyed raven. + +'"Allo," I said, "you are the corn between the two millstones. Be +content if they grind evenly, and don't thrust your hand between them." + +'"I?" said Allo. "I hate Rome and the Winged Hats equally; but if the +Winged Hats thought that some day you and Pertinax might join them +against Maximus, they would leave you in peace while you considered. +Time is what we need--you and I and Maximus. Let me carry a pleasant +message back to the Winged Hats--something for them to make a council +over. We barbarians are all alike. We sit up half the night to discuss +anything a Roman says. Eh?" + +'"We have no men. We must fight with words," said Pertinax. "Leave it to +Allo and me." + +'So Allo carried word back to the Winged Hats that we would not fight +them if they did not fight us; and they (I think they were a little +tired of losing men in the sea) agreed to a sort of truce. I believe +Allo, who being a horse-dealer loved lies, also told them we might some +day rise against Maximus as Maximus had risen against Rome. + +'Indeed, they permitted the corn-ships which I sent to the Picts to pass +North that season without harm. Therefore the Picts were well fed that +winter, and since they were in some sort my children, I was glad of it. +We had only two thousand men on the Wall, and I wrote many times to +Maximus and begged--prayed--him to send me only one cohort of my old +North British troops. He could not spare them. He needed them to win +more victories in Gaul. + +'Then came news that he had defeated and slain the Emperor Gratian, and +thinking he must now be secure, I wrote again for men. He answered: "You +will learn that I have at last settled accounts with the pup Gratian. +There was no need that he should have died, but he became confused and +lost his head, which is a bad thing to befall any Emperor. Tell your +Father I am content to drive two mules only; for unless my old General's +son thinks himself destined to destroy me, I shall rest Emperor of Gaul +and Britain, and then you, my two children, will presently get all the +men you need. Just now I can spare none."' + +'What did he mean by his General's son?' said Dan. + +'He meant Theodosius Emperor of Rome, who was the son of Theodosius the +General under whom Maximus had fought in the old Pict War. The two men +never loved each other, and when Gratian made the younger Theodosius +Emperor of the East (at least, so I've heard), Maximus carried on the +war to the second generation. It was his fate, and it was his fall. But +Theodosius the Emperor is a good man. As I know.' Parnesius was silent +for a moment and then continued. + +'I wrote back to Maximus that, though we had peace on the Wall, I should +be happier with a few more men and some new catapults. He answered: "You +must live a little longer under the shadow of my victories, till I can +see what young Theodosius intends. He may welcome me as a +brother-Emperor, or he may be preparing an army. In either case I cannot +spare men just now." + +'But he was always saying that,' cried Una. + +'It was true. He did not make excuses; but thanks, as he said, to the +news of his victories, we had no trouble on the Wall for a long, long +time. The Picts grew fat as their own sheep among the heather, and as +many of my men as lived were well exercised in their weapons. Yes, the +Wall looked strong. For myself, I knew how weak we were. I knew that if +even a false rumour of any defeat to Maximus broke loose among the +Winged Hats, they might come down in earnest, and then--the Wall must +go! For the Picts I never cared, but in those years I learned something +of the strength of the Winged Hats. They increased their strength every +day, but I could not increase my men. Maximus had emptied Britain behind +us, and I felt myself to be a man with a rotten stick standing before a +broken fence to turn bulls. + +'Thus, my friends, we lived on the Wall, waiting--waiting--waiting for +the men that Maximus never sent. + +'Presently he wrote that he was preparing an army against Theodosius. He +wrote--and Pertinax read it over my shoulder in our quarters: "_Tell +your Father that my destiny orders me to drive three mules or be torn in +pieces by them. I hope within a year to finish with Theodosius, son of +Theodosius, once and for all. Then you shall have Britain to rule, and +Pertinax, if he chooses, Gaul. To-day I wish strongly you were with me +to beat my Auxiliaries into shape. Do not, I pray you, believe any +rumour of my sickness. I have a little evil in my old body which I shall +cure by riding swiftly into Rome._" + +'Said Pertinax: "It is finished with Maximus. He writes as a man without +hope. I, a man without hope, can see this. What does he add at the +bottom of the roll? '_Tell Pertinax I have met his late Uncle, the +Duumvir of Divio, and that he accounted to me quite truthfully for all +his Mother's monies. I have sent her with a fitting escort, for she is +the mother of a hero, to Nicaea, where the climate is warm_.' + +'"That is proof," said Pertinax. "Nicaea is not far by sea from Rome. A +woman there could take ship and fly to Rome in time of war. Yes, Maximus +foresees his death, and is fulfilling his promises one by one. But I am +glad my uncle met him."' + +'"You think blackly to-day?" I asked. + +'"I think truth. The Gods weary of the play we have played against them. +Theodosius will destroy Maximus. It is finished!" + +'"Will you write him that?" I said. + +'"See what I shall write," he answered, and he took pen and wrote a +letter cheerful as the light of day, tender as a woman's and full of +jests. Even I, reading over his shoulder, took comfort from it till--I +saw his face! + +'"And now," he said, sealing it, "we be two dead men, my brother. Let us +go to the Temple." + +'We prayed awhile to Mithras, where we had many times prayed before. +After that, we lived day by day among evil rumours till winter came +again. + +'It happened one morning that we rode to the East shore, and found on +the beach a fair-haired man, half frozen, bound to some broken planks. +Turning him over, we saw by his belt-buckle that he was a Goth of an +Eastern Legion. Suddenly he opened his eyes and cried loudly, "He is +dead! The letters were with me, but the Winged Hats sank the ship." So +saying, he died between our hands. + +'We asked not who was dead. We knew! We raced before the driving snow to +Hunno, thinking perhaps Allo might be there. We found him already at our +stables, and he saw by our faces what we had heard. + +'"It was in a tent by the sea," he stammered. "He was beheaded by +Theodosius. He sent a letter to you, written while he waited to be +slain. The Winged Hats met the ship and took it. The news is running +through the heather like fire. Blame me not! I cannot hold back my young +men any more." + +'"I would we could say as much for our men," said Pertinax, laughing. +"But, Gods be praised, they cannot run away." + +'"What do you do?" said Allo. "I bring an order--a message--from the +Winged Hats that you join them with your men, and march South to plunder +Britain." + +'"It grieves me," said Pertinax, "but we are stationed here to stop that +thing." + +'"If I carry back such an answer they will kill me," said Allo. "I +always promised the Winged Hats that you would rise when Maximus fell. +I--I did not think he could fall." + +'"Alas! my poor barbarian," said Pertinax, still laughing. "Well, you +have sold us too many good ponies to be thrown back to your friends. We +will make you a prisoner, although you are an ambassador." + +'"Yes, that will be best," said Allo, holding out a halter. We bound him +lightly, for he was an old man. + +'"Presently the Winged Hats may come to look for you, and that will give +us more time. See how the habit of playing for time sticks to a man!" +said Pertinax, as he tied the rope. + +'"No," I said. "Time may help. If Maximus wrote us a letter while he was +a prisoner, Theodosius must have sent the ship that brought it. If he +can send ships, he can send men." + +'"How will that profit us?" said Pertinax. "We serve Maximus, not +Theodosius. Even if by some miracle of the Gods Theodosius down South +sent and saved the Wall, we could not expect more than the death Maximus +died." + +'"It concerns us to defend the Wall, no matter what Emperor dies, or +makes die," I said. + +'"That is worthy of your brother the philosopher," said Pertinax. +"Myself I am without hope, so I do not say solemn and stupid things! +Rouse the Wall!" + +'We armed the Wall from end to end; we told the officers that there was +a rumour of Maximus's death which might bring down the Winged Hats, but +we were sure, even if it were true, that Theodosius, for the sake of +Britain, would send us help. Therefore, we must stand fast. ... My +friends, it is above all things strange to see how men bear ill news! +Often the strongest till then become the weakest, while the weakest, as +it were, reach up and steal strength from the Gods. So it was with us. +Yet my Pertinax by his jests and his courtesy and his labours had put +heart and training into our poor numbers during the past years--more +than I should have thought possible. Even our Libyan Cohort--the +Third--stood up in their padded cuirasses and did not whimper. + +'In three days came seven chiefs and elders of the Winged Hats. Among +them was that tall young man, Amal, whom I had met on the beach, and he +smiled when he saw my necklace. We made them welcome, for they were +ambassadors. We showed them Allo, alive but bound. They thought we had +killed him, and I saw it would not have vexed them if we had. Allo saw +it too, and it vexed him. Then in our quarters at Hunno we came to +Council. + +'They said that Rome was falling, and that we must join them. They +offered me all South Britain to govern after they had taken a tribute +out of it. + +'I answered, "Patience. This Wall is not weighed off like plunder. Give +me proof that my General is dead." + +'"Nay," said one elder, "prove to us that he lives"; and another said +cunningly, "What will you give us if we read you his last words?" + +'"We are not merchants to bargain," cried Amal. "Moreover, I owe this +man my life. He shall have his proof." He threw across to me a letter +(well I knew the seal) from Maximus. + +'"We took this out of the ship we sank," he cried. "I cannot read, but I +know one sign, at least, which makes me believe." He showed me a dark +stain on the outer roll that my heavy heart perceived was the valiant +blood of Maximus. + +'"Read!" said Amal. "Read, and then let us hear whose servants you are!" + +'Said Pertinax, very softly, after he had looked through it: "I will +read it all. Listen, barbarians!" He read that which I have carried next +my heart ever since.' + +Parnesius drew from his neck a folded and spotted piece of parchment, +and began in a hushed voice:-- + +'"_To Parnesius and Pertinax, the not unworthy Captains of the Wall, +from Maximus, once Emperor of Gaul and Britain, now prisoner waiting +death by the sea in the camp of Theodosius--Greeting and Good-bye!_" + +'"Enough," said young Amal; "there is your proof! You must join us now!" + +'Pertinax looked long and silently at him, till that fair man blushed +like a girl. Then read Pertinax:-- + +'"_I have joyfully done much evil in my life to those who have wished me +evil, but if ever I did any evil to you two I repent, and I ask your +forgiveness. The three mules which I strove to drive have torn me in +pieces as your Father prophesied. The naked swords wait at the tent door +to give me the death I gave to Gratian. Therefore I, your General and +your emperor, send you free and honourable dismissal from my service, +which you entered, not for money or office, but, as it makes me warm to +believe, because you loved me!_" + +'"By the Light of the Sun," Amal broke in. "This was in some sort a Man! +We may have been mistaken in his servants!" + +'And Pertinax read on: "_You gave me the time for which I asked. If I +have failed to use it, do not lament. We have gambled very splendidly +against the Gods, but they hold weighted dice, and I must pay the +forfeit. Remember, I have been; but Rome is; and Rome will be. Tell +Pertinax his Mother is in safety at Nicaea, and her monies are in charge +of the Prefect at Antipolis. Make my remembrances to your Father and to +your Mother, whose friendship was great gain to me. Give also to my +little Picts and to the Winged Hats such messages as their thick heads +can understand. I would have sent you three Legions this very day if all +had gone aright. Do not forget me. We have worked together. Farewell! +Farewell! Farewell!_" + +'Now, that was my Emperor's last letter.' (The children heard the +parchment crackle as Parnesius returned it to its place.) + +'"I was mistaken," said Amal. "The servants of such a man will sell +nothing except over the sword. I am glad of it." He held out his hand to +me. + +'"But Maximus has given you your dismissal," said an elder. "You are +certainly free to serve--or to rule--whom you please. Join--do not +follow--join us!" + +'"We thank you," said Pertinax. "But Maximus tells us to give you such +messages as--pardon me, but I use his words--your thick heads can +understand." He pointed through the door to the foot of a catapult wound +up. + +'"We understand," said an elder. "The Wall must be won at a price?" + +'"It grieves me," said Pertinax, laughing, "but so it must be won," and +he gave them of our best Southern wine. + +'They drank, and wiped their yellow beards in silence till they rose to +go. + +'Said Amal, stretching himself (for they were barbarians): "We be a +goodly company; I wonder what the ravens and the dogfish will make of +some of us before this snow melts." + +'"Think rather what Theodosius may send," I answered; and though they +laughed, I saw that my chance shot troubled them. + +'Only old Allo lingered behind a little. + +'"You see," he said, winking and blinking, "I am no more than their dog. +When I have shown their men the secret short ways across our bogs, they +will kick me like one." + +'"Then I should not be in haste to show them those ways," said Pertinax, +"till I was sure that Rome could not save the Wall." + +'"You think so? Woe is me!" said the old man. "I only wanted peace for +my people," and he went out stumbling through the snow behind the tall +Winged Hats. + +'In this fashion then, slowly, a day at a time, which is very bad for +doubting troops, the War came upon us. At first the Winged Hats swept in +from the sea as they had done before, and there we met them as +before--with the catapults; and they sickened of it. Yet for a long time +they would not trust their duck-legs on land, and I think, when it came +to revealing the secrets of the tribe, the little Picts were afraid or +ashamed to show them all the roads across the heather. I had this from a +Pict prisoner. They were as much our spies as our enemies, for the +Winged Hats oppressed them, and took their winter stores. Ah, foolish +Little People! + +'Then the Winged Hats began to roll us up from each end of the Wall. I +sent runners Southward to see what the news might be in Britain, but the +wolves were very bold that winter, among the deserted stations where the +troops had once been, and none came back. We had trouble, too, with the +forage for the ponies along the Wall. I kept ten, and so did Pertinax. +We lived and slept in the saddle, riding east or west, and we ate our +worn-out ponies. The people of the town also made us some trouble till I +gathered them all in one quarter behind Hunno. We broke down the Wall on +either side of it to make as it were a citadel. Our men fought better in +close order. + +'By the end of the second month we were deep in the War as a man is deep +in a snowdrift, or in a dream. I think we fought in our sleep. At least +I know I have gone on the Wall and come off again, remembering nothing +between, though my throat was harsh with giving orders, and my sword, I +could see, had been used. + +'The Winged Hats fought like wolves--all in a pack. Where they had +suffered most, there they charged in most hotly. This was hard for the +defenders, but it held them from sweeping on into Britain. + +'In those days Pertinax and I wrote on the plaster of the bricked +archway into Valentia the names of the towers, and the days on which +they fell one by one. We wished for some record. + +'And the fighting? The fight was always hottest to left and right of the +great statue of Roma Dea, near to Rutilianus's house. By the Light of +the Sun, that old fat man, whom we had not considered at all, grew young +again among the trumpets! I remember he said his sword was an oracle! +"Let us consult the Oracle," he would say, and put the handle against +his ear, and shake his head wisely. "And _this_ day is allowed +Rutilianus to live," he would say, and, tucking up his cloak, he would +puff and pant and fight well. Oh, there were jests in plenty on the Wall +to take the place of food! + +'We endured for two months and seventeen days--always being pressed from +three sides into a smaller space. Several times Allo sent in word that +help was at hand. We did not believe it, but it cheered our men. 'The +end came not with shoutings of joy, but, like the rest, as in a dream. +The Winged Hats suddenly left us in peace for one night and the next +day; which is too long for spent men. We slept at first lightly, +expecting to be roused, and then like logs, each where he lay. May you +never need such sleep! When I waked our towers were full of strange, +armed men, who watched us snoring. I roused Pertinax, and we leaped up +together. + +'"What?" said a young man in clean armour. "Do you fight against +Theodosius? Look!" + +'North we looked over the red snow. No Winged Hats were there. South we +looked over the white snow, and behold there were the Eagles of two +strong Legions encamped. East and west we saw flame and fighting, but by +Hunno all was still. + +'"Trouble no more," said the young man. "Rome's arm is long. Where are +the Captains of the Wall?" + +'We said we were those men. + +'"But you are old and grey-haired," he cried. "Maximus said that they +were boys." + +'"Yes, that was true some years ago," said Pertinax. "What is our fate +to be, you fine and well-fed child?" + +'"I am called Ambrosius, a secretary of the Emperor," he answered. "Show +me a certain letter which Maximus wrote from a tent at Aquileia, and +perhaps I will believe." + +'I took it from my breast, and when he had read it he saluted us, +saying: "Your fate is in your own hands. If you choose to serve +Theodosius, he will give you a Legion. If it suits you to go to your +homes, we will give you a Triumph." + +'"I would like better a bath, wine, food, razors, soaps, oils, and +scents," said Pertinax, laughing. + +'"Oh, I see you are a boy," said Ambrosius. "And you?" turning to me. + +'"We bear no ill-will against Theodosius, but in War----" I began. + +'"In War it is as it is in Love," said Pertinax. "Whether she be good or +bad, one gives one's best once, to one only. That given, there remains +no second worth giving or taking." + +'"That is true," said Ambrosius. "I was with Maximus before he died. He +warned Theodosius that you would never serve him, and frankly I say I am +sorry for my Emperor." + +'"He has Rome to console him," said Pertinax. "I ask you of your +kindness to let us go to our homes and get this smell out of our +nostrils." + +'None the less they gave us a Triumph!' + + +'It was well earned,' said Puck, throwing some leaves into the still +water of the marlpit. The black, oily circles spread dizzily as the +children watched them. + +'I want to know, oh, ever so many things,' said Dan. 'What happened to +old Allo? Did the Winged Hats ever come back? And what did Amal do?' + +'And what happened to the fat old General with the five cooks?' said +Una. 'And what did your Mother say when you came home? ...' + +'She'd say you're settin' too long over this old pit, so late as 'tis +already,' said old Hobden's voice behind them. 'Hst!' he whispered. + +He stood still, for not twenty paces away a magnificent dog-fox sat on +his haunches and looked at the children as though he were an old friend +of theirs. + +'Oh, Mus' Reynolds, Mus' Reynolds!' said Hobden, under his breath. 'If I +knowed all was inside your head, I'd know something wuth knowin'. Mus' +Dan an' Miss Una, come along o' me while I lock up my liddle hen-house.' + + + +A PICT SONG + + +Rome never looks where she treads, + Always her heavy hooves fall +On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads; + And Rome never heeds when we bawl. +Her sentries pass on--that is all, + And we gather behind them in hordes, +And plot to reconquer the Wall, + With only our tongues for our swords. + +We are the Little Folk--we! + Too little to love or to hate. +Leave us alone and you'll see + How we can drag down the Great! +We are the worm in the wood! + We are the rot at the root! +We are the germ in the blood! + We are the thorn in the foot! + +Mistletoe killing an oak-- + Rats gnawing cables in two-- +Moths making holes in a cloak-- + How they must love what they do! +Yes--and we Little Folk too, + We are as busy as they-- +Working our works out of view-- +Watch, and you'll see it some day! + +No indeed! We are not strong, + But we know Peoples that are. +Yes, and we'll guide them along, + To smash and destroy you in War! +We shall be slaves just the same? + Yes, we have always been slaves, +But you--you will die of the shame, + And then we shall dance on your graves! + + We are the Little Folk, we, etc. + + + + +HAL O' THE DRAFT + + +Prophets have honour all over the Earth, + Except in the village where they were born, +Where such as knew them boys from birth + Nature-ally hold 'em in scorn. + +When Prophets are naughty and young and vain, + They make a won'erful grievance of it; +(You can see by their writings how they complain), + But Oh, 'tis won'erful good for the Prophet! + +There's nothing Nineveh Town can give + (Nor being swallowed by whales between), +Makes up for the place where a man's folk live, + That don't care nothing what he has been. +He might ha' been that, or he might ha' been this, +But they love and they hate him for what he is. + + + +A rainy afternoon drove Dan and Una over to play pirates in the Little +Mill. If you don't mind rats on the rafters and oats in your shoes, the +mill-attic, with its trap-doors and inscriptions on beams about floods +and sweethearts, is a splendid place. It is lighted by a foot-square +window, called Duck Window, that looks across to Little Lindens Farm, +and the spot where Jack Cade was killed. + +When they had climbed the attic ladder (they called it 'the mainmast +tree', out of the ballad of Sir Andrew Barton, and Dan 'swarved it with +might and main', as the ballad says) they saw a man sitting on Duck +Window-sill. He was dressed in a plum-coloured doublet and tight +plum-coloured hose, and he drew busily in a red-edged book. + +'Sit ye! Sit ye!' Puck cried from a rafter overhead. 'See what it is to +be beautiful! Sir Harry Dawe--pardon, Hal--says I am the very image of a +head for a gargoyle.' + +The man laughed and raised his dark velvet cap to the children, and his +grizzled hair bristled out in a stormy fringe. He was old--forty at +least--but his eyes were young, with funny little wrinkles all round +them. A satchel of embroidered leather hung from his broad belt, which +looked interesting. + +'May we see?' said Una, coming forward. + +'Surely--sure-ly!' he said, moving up on the window-seat, and returned +to his work with a silver-pointed pencil. Puck sat as though the grin +were fixed for ever on his broad face, while they watched the quick, +certain fingers that copied it. Presently the man took a reed pen from +his satchel, and trimmed it with a little ivory knife, carved in the +semblance of a fish. + +'Oh, what a beauty!' cried Dan. + +''Ware fingers! That blade is perilous sharp. I made it myself of the +best Low Country cross-bow steel. And so, too, this fish. When his +back-fin travels to his tail--so--he swallows up the blade, even as the +whale swallowed Gaffer Jonah ... Yes, and that's my ink-horn. I made the +four silver saints round it. Press Barnabas's head. It opens, and +then----' He dipped the trimmed pen, and with careful boldness began to +put in the essential lines of Puck's rugged face, that had been but +faintly revealed by the silver-point. + +The children gasped, for it fairly leaped from the page. + +As he worked, and the rain fell on the tiles, he talked--now clearly, +now muttering, now breaking off to frown or smile at his work. He told +them he was born at Little Lindens Farm, and his father used to beat him +for drawing things instead of doing things, till an old priest called +Father Roger, who drew illuminated letters in rich people's books, +coaxed the parents to let him take the boy as a sort of painter's +apprentice. Then he went with Father Roger to Oxford, where he cleaned +plates and carried cloaks and shoes for the scholars of a College called +Merton. + +'Didn't you hate that?' said Dan after a great many other questions. + +'I never thought on't. Half Oxford was building new colleges or +beautifying the old, and she had called to her aid the master-craftsmen +of all Christendie--kings in their trade and honoured of Kings. I knew +them. I worked for them: that was enough. No wonder----' He stopped and +laughed. + +'You became a great man, Hal,' said Puck. + +'They said so, Robin. Even Bramante said so.' + +'Why? What did you do?' Dan asked. + +The artist looked at him queerly. 'Things in stone and such, up and down +England. You would not have heard of 'em. To come nearer home, I +rebuilded this little St Barnabas' church of ours. It cost me more +trouble and sorrow than aught I've touched in my life. But 'twas a sound +lesson.' + +'Um,' said Dan. 'We've had lessons this morning.' + +'I'll not afflict ye, lad,' said Hal, while Puck roared. 'Only 'tis +strange to think how that little church was rebuilt, re-roofed, and made +glorious, thanks to some few godly Sussex iron-masters, a Bristow sailor +lad, a proud ass called Hal o' the Draft because, d'you see, he was +always drawing and drafting; and'--he dragged the words slowly--'_and_ a +Scotch pirate.' + +'Pirate?' said Dan. He wriggled like a hooked fish. + +'Even that Andrew Barton you were singing of on the stair just now.' He +dipped again in the ink-well, and held his breath over a sweeping line, +as though he had forgotten everything else. + +'Pirates don't build churches, do they?' said Dan. 'Or _do_ they?' + +'They help mightily,' Hal laughed. 'But you were at your lessons this +morn, Jack Scholar.' + +'Oh, pirates aren't lessons. It was only Bruce and his silly old +spider,' said Una. 'Why did Sir Andrew Barton help you?' + +'I question if he ever knew it,' said Hal, twinkling. 'Robin, how a' +mischief's name am I to tell these innocents what comes of sinful +pride?' + +'Oh, we know all about _that_,' said Una pertly. 'If you get too +beany--that's cheeky--you get sat upon, of course.' + +Hal considered a moment, pen in air, and Puck said some long words. + +'Aha! that was my case too,' he cried. 'Beany--you say--but certainly I +did not conduct myself well. I was proud of--of such things as +porches--a Galilee porch at Lincoln for choice--proud of one +Torrigiano's arm on my shoulder, proud of my knighthood when I made the +gilt scroll-work for the _Sovereign_--our King's ship. But Father Roger +sitting in Merton Library, he did not forget me. At the top of my pride, +when I and no other should have builded the porch at Lincoln, he laid +it on me with a terrible forefinger to go back to my Sussex clays and +rebuild, at my own charges, my own church, where us Dawes have been +buried for six generations. "Out! Son of my Art!" said he. "Fight the +Devil at home ere you call yourself a man and a craftsman." And I +quaked, and I went ... How's yon, Robin?' He flourished the finished +sketch before Puck. + +'Me! Me past peradventure,' said Puck, smirking like a man at a mirror. +'Ah, see! The rain has took off! I hate housen in daylight.' + +'Whoop! Holiday!' cried Hal, leaping up. 'Who's for my Little Lindens? +We can talk there.' + +They tumbled downstairs, and turned past the dripping willows by the +sunny mill-dam. + +'Body o' me,' said Hal, staring at the hop-garden, where the hops were +just ready to blossom. 'What are these? Vines? No, not vines, and they +twine the wrong way to beans.' He began to draw in his ready book. + +'Hops. New since your day,' said Puck. 'They're an herb of Mars, and +their flowers dried flavour ale. We say-- + +'Turkeys, Heresy, Hops, and Beer +Came into England all in one year.' + +'Heresy I know. I've seen Hops--God be praised for their beauty! What is +your Turkis?' + +The children laughed. They knew the Lindens turkeys, and as soon as they +reached Lindens orchard on the hill the full flock charged at them. + +Out came Hal's book at once. 'Hoity-toity!' he cried. 'Here's Pride in +purple feathers! Here's wrathy contempt and the Pomps of the Flesh! How +d'you call _them_?' + +'Turkeys! Turkeys!' the children shouted, as the old gobbler raved and +flamed against Hal's plum-coloured hose. + +''Save Your Magnificence!' he said. 'I've drafted two good new things +today.' And he doffed his cap to the bubbling bird. + +Then they walked through the grass to the knoll where Little Lindens +stands. The old farmhouse, weather-tiled to the ground, took almost the +colour of a blood-ruby in the afternoon light. The pigeons pecked at the +mortar in the chimney-stacks; the bees that had lived under the tiles +since it was built filled the hot August air with their booming; and the +smell of the box-tree by the dairy-window mixed with the smell of earth +after rain, bread after baking, and a tickle of wood-smoke. + +The farmer's wife came to the door, baby on arm, shaded her brows +against the sun, stooped to pluck a sprig of rosemary, and turned down +the orchard. The old spaniel in his barrel barked once or twice to show +he was in charge of the empty house. Puck clicked back the garden-gate. + +'D'you marvel that I love it?' said Hal, in a whisper. 'What can town +folk know of the nature of housen--or land?' + +They perched themselves arow on the old hacked oak bench in Lindens +garden, looking across the valley of the brook at the fern-covered +dimples and hollows of the Forge behind Hobden's cottage. The old man +was cutting a faggot in his garden by the hives. It was quite a second +after his chopper fell that the chump of the blow reached their lazy +ears. + +'Eh--yeh!' said Hal. 'I mind when where that old gaffer stands was +Nether Forge--Master John Collins's foundry. Many a night has his big +trip-hammer shook me in my bed here. _Boom-bitty! Boom-bitty!_ If the +wind was east, I could hear Master Tom Collins's forge at Stockens +answering his brother, _Boom-oop! Boom-oop!_ and midway between, Sir +John Pelham's sledge-hammers at Brightling would strike in like a pack +o' scholars, and "_Hic-haec-hoc_" they'd say, "_Hic-haec-hoc_," till I +fell asleep. Yes. The valley was as full o' forges and fineries as a May +shaw o' cuckoos. All gone to grass now!' + +'What did they make?' said Dan. + +'Guns for the King's ships--and for others. Serpentines and cannon +mostly. When the guns were cast, down would come the King's Officers, +and take our plough-oxen to haul them to the coast. Look! Here's one of +the first and finest craftsmen of the Sea!' + +He fluttered back a page of his book, and showed them a young man's +head. Underneath was written: 'Sebastianus.' + +'He came down with a King's Order on Master John Collins for twenty +serpentines (wicked little cannon they be!) to furnish a venture of +ships. I drafted him thus sitting by our fire telling Mother of the new +lands he'd find the far side the world. And he found them, too! There's +a nose to cleave through unknown seas! Cabot was his name--a Bristol +lad--half a foreigner. I set a heap by him. He helped me to my +church-building.' + +'I thought that was Sir Andrew Barton,' said Dan. + +'Ay, but foundations before roofs,' Hal answered. 'Sebastian first put +me in the way of it. I had come down here, not to serve God as a +craftsman should, but to show my people how great a craftsman I was. +They cared not, and it served me right, one split straw for my craft or +my greatness. What a murrain call had I, they said, to mell with old St +Barnabas'? Ruinous the church had been since the Black Death, and +ruinous she would remain; and I could hang myself in my new +scaffold-ropes! Gentle and simple, high and low--the Hayes, the Fowles, +the Fenners, the Collinses--they were all in a tale against me. Only Sir +John Pelham up yonder at Brightling bade me heart-up and go on. Yet how +could I? Did I ask Master Collins for his timber-tug to haul beams? The +oxen had gone to Lewes after lime. Did he promise me a set of iron +cramps or ties for the roof? They never came to hand, or else they were +spaulty or cracked. So with everything. Nothing said, but naught done +except I stood by them, and then done amiss. I thought the countryside +was fair bewitched.' + +'It was, sure-ly,' said Puck, knees under chin. 'Did you never suspect +ary one?' + +'Not till Sebastian came for his guns, and John Collins played him the +same dog's tricks as he'd played me with my ironwork. Week in, week out, +two of three serpentines would be flawed in the casting, and only fit, +they said, to be re-melted. Then John Collins would shake his head, and +vow he could pass no cannon for the King's service that were not +perfect. Saints! How Sebastian stormed! _I_ know, for we sat on this +bench sharing our sorrows inter-common. + +'When Sebastian had fumed away six weeks at Lindens and gotten just six +serpentines, Dirk Brenzett, Master of the _Cygnet_ hoy, sends me word +that the block of stone he was fetching me from France for our new font +he'd hove overboard to lighten his ship, chased by Andrew Barton up to +Rye Port.' + +'Ah! The pirate!' said Dan. + +'Yes. And while I am tearing my hair over this, Ticehurst Will, my best +mason, comes to me shaking, and vowing that the Devil, horned, tailed, +and chained, has run out on him from the church-tower, and the men would +work there no more. So I took 'em off the foundations, which we were +strengthening, and went into the Bell Tavern for a cup of ale. Says +Master John Collins: "Have it your own way, lad; but if I was you, I'd +take the sinnification o' the sign, and leave old Barnabas' Church +alone!" And they all wagged their sinful heads, and agreed. Less afraid +of the Devil than of me--as I saw later. + +'When I brought my sweet news to Lindens, Sebastian was limewashing the +kitchen-beams for Mother. He loved her like a son. + +'"Cheer up, lad," he says. "God's where He was. Only you and I chance to +be pure pute asses. We've been tricked, Hal, and more shame to me, a +sailor, that I did not guess it before! You must leave your belfry +alone, forsooth, because the Devil is adrift there; and I cannot get my +serpentines because John Collins cannot cast them aright. Meantime +Andrew Barton hawks off the Port of Rye. And why? To take those very +serpentines which poor Cabot must whistle for; the said serpentines, +I'll wager my share of new continents, being now hid away in St +Barnabas' church-tower. Clear as the Irish coast at noonday!" + +"They'd sure never dare to do it," I said; "and, for another thing, +selling cannon to the King's enemies is black treason--hanging and +fine." + +'"It is sure, large profit. Men'll dare any gallows for that. I have +been a trader myself," says he. "We must be upsides with 'em for the +honour of Bristol." + +'Then he hatched a plot, sitting on the limewash bucket. We gave out to +ride o' Tuesday to London and made a show of taking farewells of our +friends--especially of Master John Collins. But at Wadhurst Woods we +turned; rode home to the watermeadows; hid our horses in a willow-tot at +the foot of the glebe, and, come night, stole a-tiptoe up hill to +Barnabas' church again. A thick mist, and a moon striking through. + +'I had no sooner locked the tower-door behind us than over goes +Sebastian full length in the dark. + +'"Pest!" he says. "Step high and feel low, Hal. I've stumbled over guns +before." + +'I groped, and one by one--the tower was pitchy dark--I counted the +lither barrels of twenty serpentines laid out on pease straw. No conceal +at all! + +'"There's two demi-cannon my end," says Sebastian, slapping metal. +"They'll be for Andrew Barton's lower deck. Honest--honest John Collins! +So this is his warehouse, his arsenal, his armoury! Now see you why your +pokings and pryings have raised the Devil in Sussex? You've hindered +John's lawful trade for months," and he laughed where he lay. + +'A clay-cold tower is no fireside at midnight, so we climbed the belfry +stairs, and there Sebastian trips over a cow-hide with its horns and +tail. + +'"Aha! Your Devil has left his doublet! Does it become me, Hal?" He +draws it on and capers in the shafts of window-moonlight--won'erful +devilish-like. Then he sits on the stairs, rapping with his tail on a +board, and his back-aspect was dreader than his front, and a howlet lit +in, and screeched at the horns of him. + +'"If you'd keep out the Devil, shut the door," he whispered. "And that's +another false proverb, Hal, for I can hear your tower-door opening." + +'"I locked it. Who a-plague has another key, then?" I said. + +'"All the congregation, to judge by their feet," he says, and peers into +the blackness. "Still! Still, Hal! Hear 'em grunt! That's more o' my +serpentines, I'll be bound. One--two--three--four they bear in! Faith, +Andrew equips himself like an Admiral! Twenty-four serpentines in all!" + +'As if it had been an echo, we heard John Collins's voice come up all +hollow: "Twenty-four serpentines and two demi-cannon. That's the full +tally for Sir Andrew Barton." + +'"Courtesy costs naught," whispers Sebastian. "Shall I drop my dagger on +his head?" + +'"They go over to Rye o' Thursday in the wool-wains, hid under the +wool-packs. Dirk Brenzett meets them at Udimore, as before," says John. + +'"Lord! What a worn, handsmooth trade it is!" says Sebastian. "I lay we +are the sole two babes in the village that have not our lawful share in +the venture." + +'There was a full score folk below, talking like all Robertsbridge +Market. We counted them by voice. + +'Master John Collins pipes: "The guns for the French carrack must lie +here next month. Will, when does your young fool" (me, so please you!) +"come back from Lunnon?" + +'"No odds," I heard Ticehurst Will answer. "Lay 'em just where you've a +mind, Mus' Collins. We're all too afraid o' the Devil to mell with the +tower now." And the long knave laughed. + +'"Ah! 'tis easy enow for you to raise the Devil, Will," says +another--Ralph Hobden of the Forge. + +'"Aaa-men!" roars Sebastian, and ere I could hold him, he leaps down the +stairs--won'erful devilish-like howling no bounds. He had scarce time to +lay out for the nearest than they ran. Saints, how they ran! We heard +them pound on the door of the Bell Tavern, and then we ran too. + +'"What's next?" says Sebastian, looping up his cow-tail as he leaped the +briars. "I've broke honest John's face." + +'"Ride to Sir John Pelham's," I said. "He is the only one that ever +stood by me." + +'We rode to Brightling, and past Sir John's lodges, where the keepers +would have shot at us for deer-stealers, and we had Sir John down into +his Justice's chair, and when we had told him our tale and showed him +the cow-hide which Sebastian wore still girt about him, he laughed till +the tears ran. + +'"Wel-a-well!" he says. "I'll see justice done before daylight. What's +your complaint? Master Collins is my old friend." + +'"He's none of mine," I cried. "When I think how he and his likes have +baulked and dozened and cozened me at every turn over the church"----and +I choked at the thought. + +'"Ah, but ye see now they needed it for another use," says he smoothly. + +'"So they did my serpentines," Sebastian cries. "I should be half across +the Western Ocean by now if my guns had been ready. But they're sold to +a Scotch pirate by your old friend--" + +'"Where's your proof?" says Sir John, stroking his beard. + +'"I broke my shins over them not an hour since, and I heard John give +order where they were to be taken," says Sebastian. + +'"Words! Words only," says Sir John. "Master Collins is somewhat of a +liar at best." + +'He carried it so gravely that, for the moment, I thought he was dipped +in this secret traffick too, and that there was not an honest ironmaster +in Sussex. + +'"Name o' Reason!" says Sebastian, and raps with his cow-tail on the +table, "whose guns are they, then?" + +'"Yours, manifestly," says Sir John. "You come with the King's Order for +'em, and Master Collins casts them in his foundry. If he chooses to +bring them up from Nether Forge and lay 'em out in the church-tower, +why, they are e'en so much the nearer to the main road and you are saved +a day's hauling. What a coil to make of a mere act of neighbourly +kindness, lad!" + +'"I fear I have requited him very scurvily," says Sebastian, looking at +his knuckles. "But what of the demi-cannon? I could do with 'em well, +but they are not in the King's Order." + +'"Kindness--loving-kindness," says Sir John. "Questionless, in his zeal +for the King and his love for you, John adds those two cannon as a gift. +'Tis plain as this coming daylight, ye stockfish!" + +'"So it is," says Sebastian. "Oh, Sir John, Sir John, why did you never +use the sea? You are lost ashore." And he looked on him with great love. + +'"I do my best in my station." Sir John strokes his beard again and +rolls forth his deep drumming Justice's voice thus: "But--suffer +me!--you two lads, on some midnight frolic into which I probe not, +roystering around the taverns, surprise Master Collins at his"--he +thinks a moment--"at his good deeds done by stealth. Ye surprise him, I +say, cruelly." + +'"Truth, Sir John. If you had seen him run!" says Sebastian. + +'"On this you ride breakneck to me with a tale of pirates, and +wool-wains, and cow-hides, which, though it hath moved my mirth as a +man, offendeth my reason as a magistrate. So I will e'en accompany you +back to the tower with, perhaps, some few of my own people, and +three-four wagons, and I'll be your warrant that Master John Collins +will freely give you your guns and your demi-cannon, Master Sebastian." +He breaks into his proper voice--"I warned the old tod and his +neighbours long ago that they'd come to trouble with their side-sellings +and bye-dealings; but we cannot have half Sussex hanged for a little +gun-running. Are ye content, lads?" + +'"I'd commit any treason for two demi-cannon," said Sebastian, and rubs +his hands. + +'"Ye have just compounded with rank treason-felony for the same bribe," +says Sir John. "Wherefore to horse, and get the guns."' + +'But Master Collins meant the guns for Sir Andrew Barton all along, +didn't he?' said Dan. + +'Questionless, that he did,' said Hal. 'But he lost them. We poured into +the village on the red edge of dawn, Sir John horsed, in half-armour, +his pennon flying; behind him thirty stout Brightling knaves, five +abreast; behind them four wool-wains, and behind them four trumpets to +triumph over the jest, blowing: _Our King went forth to Normandie_. When +we halted and rolled the ringing guns out of the tower, 'twas for all +the world like Friar Roger's picture of the French siege in the Queen's +Missal-book.' + +'And what did we--I mean, what did our village do?' said Dan. + +'Oh! Bore it nobly--nobly,' cried Hal. 'Though they had tricked me, I +was proud of them. They came out of their housen, looked at that little +army as though it had been a post, and went their shut-mouthed way. +Never a sign! Never a word! They'd ha' perished sooner than let +Brightling overcrow us. Even that villain, Ticehurst Will, coming out of +the Bell for his morning ale, he all but runs under Sir John's horse. + +'"'Ware, Sirrah Devil!" cries Sir John, reining back. + +'"Oh!" says Will. "Market-day, is it? And all the bullocks from +Brightling here?" + +'I spared him his belting for that--the brazen knave! + +'But John Collins was our masterpiece! He happened along-street (his jaw +tied up where Sebastian had clouted him) when we were trundling the +first demi-cannon through the lych-gate. + +'"I reckon you'll find her middlin' heavy," he says. "If you've a mind +to pay, I'll loan ye my timber-tug. She won't lie easy on ary +wool-wain." + +'That was the one time I ever saw Sebastian taken flat aback. He opened +and shut his mouth, fishy-like. + +'"No offence," says Master John. "You've got her reasonable good cheap. +I thought ye might not grudge me a groat if I helped move her." Ah, he +was a masterpiece! They say that morning's work cost our John two +hundred pounds, and he never winked an eyelid, not even when he saw the +guns all carted off to Lewes.' + +'Neither then nor later?' said Puck. + +'Once. 'Twas after he gave St Barnabas' the new chime of bells. (Oh, +there was nothing the Collinses, or the Hayes, or the Fowles, or the +Fenners would not do for the church then! "Ask and have" was their +song.) We had rung 'em in, and he was in the tower with Black Nick +Fowle, that gave us our rood-screen. The old man pinches the bell-rope +one hand and scratches his neck with t'other. "Sooner she was pulling +yon clapper than my neck, he says. That was all! That was Sussex--seely +Sussex for everlastin'!' + +'And what happened after?' said Una. + +'I went back into England,' said Hal, slowly. 'I'd had my lesson against +pride. But they tell me I left St Barnabas' a jewel--justabout a jewel! +Wel-a-well! 'Twas done for and among my own people, and--Father Roger +was right--I never knew such trouble or such triumph since. That's the +nature o' things. A dear--dear land.' He dropped his chin on his chest. + +'There's your Father at the Forge. What's he talking to old Hobden +about?' said Puck, opening his hand with three leaves in it. + +Dan looked towards the cottage. + +'Oh, I know. It's that old oak lying across the brook. Pater always +wants it grubbed.' + +In the still valley they could hear old Hobden's deep tones. + +'Have it _as_ you've a mind to,' he was saying. 'But the vivers of her +roots they hold the bank together. If you grub her out, the bank she'll +all come tearin' down, an' next floods the brook'll swarve up. But have +it as you've a mind. The Mistuss she sets a heap by the ferns on her +trunk. + +'Oh! I'll think it over,' said the Pater. + +Una laughed a little bubbling chuckle. + +'What Devil's in _that_ belfry?' said Hal, with a lazy laugh. 'That +should be a Hobden by his voice.' + +'Why, the oak is the regular bridge for all the rabbits between the +Three Acre and our meadow. The best place for wires on the farm, Hobden +says. He's got two there now,' Una answered. '_He_ won't ever let it be +grubbed!' + +'Ah, Sussex! Sillly Sussex for everlastin',' murmured Hal; and the next +moment their Father's voice calling across to Little Lindens broke the +spell as little St Barnabas' clock struck five. + + + +A SMUGGLERS' SONG + + +If You wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet, +Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street, +Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie. +Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by! + Five-and-twenty ponies, + Trotting through the dark-- + Brandy for the Parson, + 'Baccy for the Clerk; + Laces for a lady; letters for a spy, +And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by! + +Running round the woodlump if you chance to find +Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine; +Don't you shout to come and look, nor take 'em for your play; +Put the brishwood back again,--and they'll be gone next day! + +If you see the stable-door setting open wide; +If you see a tired horse lying down inside; +If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore; +If the lining's wet and warm--don't you ask no more! + +If you meet King George's men, dressed in blue and red, +You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said. +If they call you 'pretty maid,' and chuck you 'neath the chin, +Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been! + +Knocks and footsteps round the house--whistles after dark-- +You've no call for running out till the house-dogs bark. +Trusty's here, and Pincher's here, and see how dumb they lie-- +They don't fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by! + +If you do as you've been told, 'likely there's a chance, +You'll be give a dainty doll, all the way from France, +With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood-- +A present from the Gentlemen, along o' being good! + Five-and-twenty ponies, + Trotting through the dark-- + Brandy for the Parson, + 'Baccy for the Clerk. +Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie-- +Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by! + + + + +'DYMCHURCH FLIT' + + + +THE BEE BOY'S SONG + + +Bees! Bees! Hark to your bees! +'Hide from your neighbours as much as you please, +But all that has happened, to _us_ you must tell, +Or else we will give you no honey to sell!' + + A Maiden in her glory, + Upon her wedding-day, + Must tell her Bees the story, + Or else they'll fly away. + Fly away--die away-- + Dwindle down and leave you! + But if you don't deceive your Bees, + Your Bees will not deceive you. + + Marriage, birth or buryin', + News across the seas, + All you're sad or merry in, + You must tell the Bees. + Tell 'em coming in an' out, + Where the Fanners fan, + 'Cause the Bees are justabout + As curious as a man! + + Don't you wait where trees are, + When the lightnings play; + Nor don't you hate where Bees are, + Or else they'll pine away. + Pine away--dwine away-- + Anything to leave you! + But if you never grieve your Bees, + Your Bees'll never grieve you! + + + +Just at dusk, a soft September rain began to fall on the hop-pickers. +The mothers wheeled the bouncing perambulators out of the gardens; bins +were put away, and tally-books made up. The young couples strolled home, +two to each umbrella, and the single men walked behind them laughing. +Dan and Una, who had been picking after their lessons, marched off to +roast potatoes at the oast-house, where old Hobden, with Blue-eyed Bess, +his lurcher dog, lived all the month through, drying the hops. + +They settled themselves, as usual, on the sack-strewn cot in front of +the fires, and, when Hobden drew up the shutter, stared, as usual, at +the flameless bed of coals spouting its heat up the dark well of the +old-fashioned roundel. Slowly he cracked off a few fresh pieces of coal, +packed them, with fingers that never flinched, exactly where they would +do most good; slowly he reached behind him till Dan tilted the potatoes +into his iron scoop of a hand; carefully he arranged them round the +fire, and then stood for a moment, black against the glare. As he closed +the shutter, the oast-house seemed dark before the day's end, and he lit +the candle in the lanthorn. The children liked all these things because +they knew them so well. + +The Bee Boy, Hobden's son, who is not quite right in his head, though he +can do anything with bees, slipped in like a shadow. They only guessed +it when Bess's stump-tail wagged against them. + +A big voice began singing outside in the drizzle: + +'Old Mother Laidinwool had nigh twelve months been dead, +She heard the hops were doin' well, and then popped up her head.' + +'There can't be two people made to holler like that!' cried old Hobden, +wheeling round. + +'For,' says she, 'The boys I've picked with when I was young and fair, +They're bound to be at hoppin', and I'm----' + +A man showed at the doorway. + +'Well, well! They do say hoppin' 'll draw the very deadest, and now I +belieft 'em. You, Tom? Tom Shoesmith?' Hobden lowered his lanthorn. + +'You're a hem of a time makin' your mind to it, Ralph!' The stranger +strode in--three full inches taller than Hobden, a grey-whiskered, +brown-faced giant with clear blue eyes. They shook hands, and the +children could hear the hard palms rasp together. + +'You ain't lost none o' your grip,' said Hobden. 'Was it thirty or forty +year back you broke my head at Peasmarsh Fair?' + +'Only thirty, an' no odds 'tween us regardin' heads, neither. You had it +back at me with a hop-pole. How did we get home that night? Swimmin'?' + +'Same way the pheasant come into Gubbs's pocket--by a little luck an' a +deal o' conjurin'.' Old Hobden laughed in his deep chest. + +'I see you've not forgot your way about the woods. D'ye do any o' _this_ +still?' The stranger pretended to look along a gun. + +Hobden answered with a quick movement of the hand as though he were +pegging down a rabbit-wire. + +'No. _That's_ all that's left me now. Age she must as Age she can. An' +what's your news since all these years?' + +'Oh, I've bin to Plymouth, I've bin to Dover-- +I've bin ramblin', boys, the wide world over,' + +the man answered cheerily. 'I reckon I know as much of Old England as +most.' He turned towards the children and winked boldly. + +'I lay they told you a sight o' lies, then. I've been into England fur +as Wiltsheer once. I was cheated proper over a pair of hedgin'-gloves,' +said Hobden. + +'There's fancy-talkin' everywhere. _You've_ cleaved to your own parts +pretty middlin' close, Ralph.' + +'Can't shift an old tree 'thout it dyin',' Hobden chuckled. 'An' I be no +more anxious to die than you look to be to help me with my hops +tonight.' + +The great man leaned against the brickwork of the roundel, and swung his +arms abroad. 'Hire me!' was all he said, and they stumped upstairs +laughing. + +The children heard their shovels rasp on the cloth where the yellow hops +lie drying above the fires, and all the oast-house filled with the +sweet, sleepy smell as they were turned. + +'Who is it?' Una whispered to the Bee Boy. + +'Dunno, no more'n you--if _you_ dunno,' said he, and smiled. + +The voices on the drying-floor talked and chuckled together, and the +heavy footsteps moved back and forth. Presently a hop-pocket dropped +through the press-hole overhead, and stiffened and fattened as they +shovelled it full. 'Clank!' went the press, and rammed the loose stuff +into tight cake. + +'Gently!' they heard Hobden cry. 'You'll bust her crop if you lay on so. +You be as careless as Gleason's bull, Tom. Come an' sit by the fires. +She'll do now.' + +They came down, and as Hobden opened the shutter to see if the potatoes +were done Tom Shoesmith said to the children, 'Put a plenty salt on 'em. +That'll show you the sort o' man _I_ be.' Again he winked, and again the +Bee Boy laughed and Una stared at Dan. + +'_I_ know what sort o' man you be,' old Hobden grunted, groping for the +potatoes round the fire. + +'Do ye?' Tom went on behind his back. 'Some of us can't abide +Horseshoes, or Church Bells, or Running Water; an', talkin' o' runnin' +water'--he turned to Hobden, who was backing out of the roundel--'d'you +mind the great floods at Robertsbridge, when the miller's man was +drowned in the street?' + +'Middlin' well.' Old Hobden let himself down on the coals by the +fire-door. 'I was courtin' my woman on the Marsh that year. Carter to +Mus' Plum I was, gettin' ten shillin's week. Mine was a Marsh woman.' + +'Won'erful odd-gates place----Romney Marsh,' said Tom Shoesmith. 'I've +heard say the world's divided like into Europe, Ashy, Afriky, Ameriky, +Australy, an' Romney Marsh.' + +'The Marsh folk think so,' said Hobden. 'I had a hem o' trouble to get +my woman to leave it.' + +'Where did she come out of? I've forgot, Ralph.' + +'Dymchurch under the Wall,' Hobden answered, a potato in his hand. + +'Then she'd be a Pett--or a Whitgift, would she?' + +'Whitgift.' Hobden broke open the potato and ate it with the curious +neatness of men who make most of their meals in the blowy open. 'She +growed to be quite reasonable-like after livin' in the Weald awhile, but +our first twenty year or two she was odd-fashioned, no bounds. And she +was a won'erful hand with bees.' He cut away a little piece of potato +and threw it out to the door. + +'Ah! I've heard say the Whitgifts could see further through a millstone +than most,' said Shoesmith. 'Did she, now?' + +'She was honest-innocent of any nigromancin',' said Hobden. 'Only she'd +read signs and sinnifications out o' birds flyin', stars fallin', bees +hivin', and such. An, she'd lie awake--listenin' for calls, she said.' + +'That don't prove naught,' said Tom. 'All Marsh folk has been smugglers +since time everlastin'. 'Twould be in her blood to listen out o' +nights.' + +'Nature-ally,' old Hobden replied, smiling. 'I mind when there was +smugglin' a sight nearer us than what the Marsh be. But that wasn't my +woman's trouble. 'Twas a passel o' no-sense talk'--he dropped his +voice--'about Pharisees.' + +'Yes. I've heard Marsh men belieft in 'em.' Tom looked straight at the +wide-eyed children beside Bess. + +'Pharisees,' cried Una. 'Fairies? Oh, I see!' + +'People o' the Hills,' said the Bee Boy, throwing half of his potato +towards the door. + +'There you be!' said Hobden, pointing at him. My boy--he has her eyes +and her out-gate sense. That's what _she_ called 'em!' + +'And what did you think of it all?' + +'Um--um,' Hobden rumbled. 'A man that uses fields an' shaws after dark +as much as I've done, he don't go out of his road excep' for keepers.' + +'But settin' that aside?' said Tom, coaxingly. 'I saw ye throw the Good +Piece out-at-doors just now. Do ye believe or--_do_ ye?' + +'There was a great black eye to that tater,' said Hobden indignantly. + +'My liddle eye didn't see un, then. It looked as if you meant it +for--for Any One that might need it. But settin' that aside, d'ye +believe or--_do_ ye?' + +'I ain't sayin' nothin', because I've heard naught, an' I've see naught. +But if you was to say there was more things after dark in the shaws than +men, or fur, or feather, or fin, I dunno as I'd go far about to call you +a liar. Now turnagain, Tom. What's your say?' + +'I'm like you. I say nothin'. But I'll tell you a tale, an' you can fit +it _as_ how you please.' + +'Passel o' no-sense stuff,' growled Hobden, but he filled his pipe. + +'The Marsh men they call it Dymchurch Flit,' Tom went on slowly. 'Hap +you have heard it?' + +'My woman she've told it me scores o' times. Dunno as I didn't end by +belieftin' it--sometimes.' + +Hobden crossed over as he spoke, and sucked with his pipe at the yellow +lanthorn flame. Tom rested one great elbow on one great knee, where he +sat among the coal. + +'Have you ever bin in the Marsh?' he said to Dan. + +'Only as far as Rye, once,' Dan answered. + +'Ah, that's but the edge. Back behind of her there's steeples settin' +beside churches, an' wise women settin' beside their doors, an' the sea +settin' above the land, an' ducks herdin' wild in the diks' (he meant +ditches). 'The Marsh is justabout riddled with diks an' sluices, an' +tide-gates an' water-lets. You can hear 'em bubblin' an' grummelin' when +the tide works in 'em, an' then you hear the sea rangin' left and +right-handed all up along the Wall. You've seen how flat she is--the +Marsh? You'd think nothin' easier than to walk eend-on acrost her? Ah, +but the diks an' the water-lets, they twists the roads about as ravelly +as witch-yarn on the spindles. So ye get all turned round in broad +daylight.' + +'That's because they've dreened the waters into the diks,' said Hobden. +'When I courted my woman the rushes was green--Eh me! the rushes was +green--an' the Bailiff o' the Marshes he rode up and down as free as the +fog.' + +'Who was he?' said Dan. + +'Why, the Marsh fever an' ague. He've clapped me on the shoulder once or +twice till I shook proper. But now the dreenin' off of the waters have +done away with the fevers; so they make a joke, like, that the Bailiff +o' the Marshes broke his neck in a dik. A won'erful place for bees an' +ducks 'tis too.' + +'An' old,' Tom went on. 'Flesh an' Blood have been there since Time +Everlastin' Beyond. Well, now, speakin' among themselves, the Marsh men +say that from Time Everlastin' Beyond, the Pharisees favoured the Marsh +above the rest of Old England. I lay the Marsh men ought to know. +They've been out after dark, father an' son, smugglin' some one thing or +t'other, since ever wool grew to sheep's backs. They say there was +always a middlin' few Pharisees to be seen on the Marsh. Impident as +rabbits, they was. They'd dance on the nakid roads in the nakid daytime; +they'd flash their liddle green lights along the diks, comin' an' goin', +like honest smugglers. Yes, an' times they'd lock the church doors +against parson an' clerk of Sundays.' + +'That 'ud be smugglers layin' in the lace or the brandy till they could +run it out o' the Marsh. I've told my woman so,' said Hobden. + +'I'll lay she didn't belieft it, then--not if she was a Whitgift. A +won'erful choice place for Pharisees, the Marsh, by all accounts, till +Queen Bess's father he come in with his Reformatories.' + +'Would that be a Act of Parliament like?' Hobden asked. + +'Sure-ly. Can't do nothing in Old England without Act, Warrant an' +Summons. He got his Act allowed him, an', they say, Queen Bess's father +he used the parish churches something shameful. Justabout tore the +gizzards out of I dunnamany. Some folk in England they held with 'en; +but some they saw it different, an' it eended in 'em takin' sides an' +burnin' each other no bounds, accordin' which side was top, time bein'. +That tarrified the Pharisees: for Goodwill among Flesh an' Blood is meat +an' drink to 'em, an' ill-will is poison.' + +'Same as bees,' said the Bee Boy. 'Bees won't stay by a house where +there's hating.' + +'True,' said Tom. 'This Reformatories tarrified the Pharisees same as +the reaper goin' round a last stand o' wheat tarrifies rabbits. They +packed into the Marsh from all parts, and they says, "Fair or foul, we +must flit out o' this, for Merry England's done with, an' we're reckoned +among the Images."' + +'Did they _all_ see it that way?' said Hobden. + +'All but one that was called Robin--if you've heard of him. What are you +laughin' at?' Tom turned to Dan. 'The Pharisees's trouble didn't tech +Robin, because he'd cleaved middlin' close to people, like. No more he +never meant to go out of Old England--not he; so he was sent messagin' +for help among Flesh an' Blood. But Flesh an' Blood must always think of +their own concerns, an' Robin couldn't get _through_ at 'em, ye see. +They thought it was tide-echoes off the Marsh.' + +'What did you--what did the fai--Pharisees want?' Una asked. + +'A boat, to be sure. Their liddle wings could no more cross Channel than +so many tired butterflies. A boat an' a crew they desired to sail 'em +over to France, where yet awhile folks hadn't tore down the Images. They +couldn't abide cruel Canterbury Bells ringin' to Bulverhithe for more +pore men an' women to be burnded, nor the King's proud messenger ridin' +through the land givin' orders to tear down the Images. They couldn't +abide it no shape. Nor yet they couldn't get their boat an' crew to flit +by without Leave an' Good-will from Flesh an' Blood; an' Flesh an' Blood +came an' went about its own business the while the Marsh was swarvin' +up, an' swarvin' up with Pharisees from all England over, strivin' all +means to get through at Flesh an' Blood to tell 'em their sore need ... +I don't know as you've ever heard say Pharisees are like chickens?' + +'My woman used to say that too,' said Hobden, folding his brown arms. + +'They be. You run too many chickens together, an' the ground sickens, +like, an' you get a squat, an' your chickens die. Same way, you crowd +Pharisees all in one place--_they_ don't die, but Flesh an' Blood +walkin' among 'em is apt to sick up an' pine off. _They_ don't mean it, +an' Flesh an' Blood don't know it, but that's the truth--as I've heard. +The Pharisees through bein' all stenched up an' frighted, an' trying' to +come _through_ with their supplications, they nature-ally changed the +thin airs an' humours in Flesh an' Blood. It lay on the Marsh like +thunder. Men saw their churches ablaze with the wildfire in the windows +after dark; they saw their cattle scatterin' an' no man scarin'; their +sheep flockin' an' no man drivin'; their horses latherin' an' no man +leadin'; they saw the liddle low green lights more than ever in the +dik-sides; they heard the liddle feet patterin' more than ever round the +houses; an' night an' day, day an' night, 'twas all as though they were +bein' creeped up on, an' hinted at by Some One or other that couldn't +rightly shape their trouble. Oh, I lay they sweated! Man an' maid, woman +an' child, their nature done 'em no service all the weeks while the +Marsh was swarvin' up with Pharisees. But they was Flesh an' Blood, an' +Marsh men before all. They reckoned the signs sinnified trouble for the +Marsh. Or that the sea 'ud rear up against Dymchurch Wall an' they'd be +drownded like Old Winchelsea; or that the Plague was comin'. So they +looked for the meanin' in the sea or in the clouds--far an' high up. +They never thought to look near an' knee-high, where they could see +naught. + +'Now there was a poor widow at Dymchurch under the Wall, which, lacking +man or property, she had the more time for feeling; and she come to feel +there was a Trouble outside her doorstep bigger an' heavier than aught +she'd ever carried over it. She had two sons--one born blind, an' +t'other struck dumb through fallin' off the Wall when he was liddle. +They was men grown, but not wage-earnin', an' she worked for 'em, +keepin' bees and answerin' Questions.' + +'What sort of questions?' said Dan. + +'Like where lost things might be found, an' what to put about a crooked +baby's neck, an' how to join parted sweethearts. She felt the Trouble on +the Marsh same as eels feel thunder. She was a wise woman.' + +'My woman was won'erful weather-tender, too,' said Hobden. 'I've seen +her brish sparks like off an anvil out of her hair in thunderstorms. But +she never laid out to answer Questions.' + +'This woman was a Seeker, like, an' Seekers they sometimes find. One +night, while she lay abed, hot an' achin', there come a Dream an' tapped +at her window, an' "Widow Whitgift," it said, "Widow Whitgift!" + +'First, by the wings an' the whistlin', she thought it was peewits, but +last she arose an' dressed herself, an' opened her door to the Marsh, +an' she felt the Trouble an' the Groanin' all about her, strong as fever +an' ague, an' she calls: "What is it? Oh, what is it?" + +'Then 'twas all like the frogs in the diks peepin'; then 'twas all like +the reeds in the diks clip-clappin'; an' then the great Tide-wave +rummelled along the Wall, an' she couldn't hear proper. + +'Three times she called, an' three times the Tide-wave did her down. But +she catched the quiet between, an' she cries out, "What is the Trouble +on the Marsh that's been lying down with my heart an' arising with my +body this month gone?" She felt a liddle hand lay hold on her gown-hem, +an' she stooped to the pull o' that liddle hand.' + +Tom Shoesmith spread his huge fist before the fire and smiled at it. + +'"Will the sea drown the Marsh?" she says. She was a Marsh woman first +an' foremost. + +'"No," says the liddle voice. "Sleep sound for all o' that." + +'"Is the Plague comin' to the Marsh?" she says. Them was all the ills +she knowed. + +'"No. Sleep sound for all o' that," says Robin. + +'She turned about, half mindful to go in, but the liddle voices grieved +that shrill an' sorrowful she turns back, an' she cries: "If it is not a +Trouble of Flesh an' Blood, what can I do?" + +'The Pharisees cried out upon her from all round to fetch them a boat to +sail to France, an' come back no more. + +'"There's a boat on the Wall," she says, "but I can't push it down to +the sea, nor sail it when 'tis there." + +'"Lend us your sons," says all the Pharisees. "Give 'em Leave an' +Good-will to sail it for us, Mother--O Mother!" + +'"One's dumb, an' t'other's blind," she says. "But all the dearer me for +that; and you'll lose them in the big sea." The voices justabout +pierced through her; an' there was children's voices too. She stood out +all she could, but she couldn't rightly stand against _that_. So she +says: "If you can draw my sons for your job, I'll not hinder 'em. You +can't ask no more of a Mother." + +'She saw them liddle green lights dance an' cross till she was dizzy; +she heard them liddle feet patterin' by the thousand; she heard cruel +Canterbury Bells ringing to Bulverhithe, an' she heard the great +Tide-wave ranging along the Wall. That was while the Pharisees was +workin' a Dream to wake her two sons asleep: an' while she bit on her +fingers she saw them two she'd bore come out an' pass her with never a +word. She followed 'em, cryin' pitiful, to the old boat on the Wall, an' +that they took an' runned down to the sea. + +'When they'd stepped mast an' sail the blind son speaks: "Mother, we're +waitin' your Leave an' Good-will to take Them over."' + +Tom Shoesmith threw back his head and half shut his eyes. + +'Eh, me!' he said. 'She was a fine, valiant woman, the Widow Whitgift. +She stood twistin' the eends of her long hair over her fingers, an' she +shook like a poplar, makin' up her mind. The Pharisees all about they +hushed their children from cryin' an' they waited dumb-still. She was +all their dependence. 'Thout her Leave an' Good-will they could not +pass; for she was the Mother. So she shook like a aps-tree makin' up her +mind. 'Last she drives the word past her teeth, an' "Go!" she says. "Go +with my Leave an' Goodwill." + +'Then I saw--then, they say, she had to brace back same as if she was +wadin' in tide-water; for the Pharisees just about flowed past her--down +the beach to the boat, I dunnamany of 'em--with their wives an' childern +an' valooables, all escapin' out of cruel Old England. Silver you could +hear chinkin', an' liddle bundles hove down dunt on the bottom-boards, +an' passels o' liddle swords an' shields raklin', an' liddle fingers an' +toes scratchin' on the boatside to board her when the two sons pushed +her off. That boat she sunk lower an' lower, but all the Widow could see +in it was her boys movin' hampered-like to get at the tackle. Up sail +they did, an' away they went, deep as a Rye barge, away into the +off-shore mists, an' the Widow Whitgift she sat down an' eased her grief +till mornin' light.' + +'I never heard she was _all_ alone,' said Hobden. + +'I remember now. The one called Robin, he stayed with her, they tell. +She was all too grievious to listen to his promises.' + +'Ah! She should ha' made her bargain beforehand. I allus told my woman +so!' Hobden cried. + +'No. She loaned her sons for a pure love-loan, bein' as she sensed the +Trouble on the Marshes, an' was simple good-willin' to ease it.' Tom +laughed softly. 'She done that. Yes, she done that! From Hithe to +Bulverhithe, fretty man an' maid, ailin' woman an' wailin' child, they +took the advantage of the change in the thin airs just about _as_ soon +as the Pharisees flitted. Folks come out fresh an' shinin' all over the +Marsh like snails after wet. An' that while the Widow Whitgift sat +grievin' on the Wall. She might have belieft us--she might have trusted +her sons would be sent back! She fussed, no bounds, when their boat come +in after three days.' + +'And, of course, the sons were both quite cured?' said Una. + +'No-o. That would have been out o' Nature. She got 'em back as she sent +'em. The blind man he hadn't seen naught of anythin', an' the dumb man +nature-ally he couldn't say aught of what he'd seen. I reckon that was +why the Pharisees pitched on 'em for the ferryin' job.' + +'But what did you--what did Robin promise the Widow?' said Dan. + +'What _did_ he promise, now?' Tom pretended to think. 'Wasn't your woman +a Whitgift, Ralph? Didn't she ever say?' + +'She told me a passel o' no-sense stuff when he was born.' Hobden +pointed at his son. 'There was always to be one of 'em that could see +further into a millstone than most.' + +'Me! That's me!' said the Bee Boy so suddenly that they all laughed. + +'I've got it now!' cried Tom, slapping his knee. 'So long as Whitgift +blood lasted, Robin promised there would allers be one o' her stock +that--that no Trouble 'ud lie on, no Maid 'ud sigh on, no Night could +frighten, no Fright could harm, no Harm could make sin, an' no Woman +could make a fool of.' + +'Well, ain't that just me?' said the Bee Boy, where he sat in the silver +square of the great September moon that was staring into the oast-house +door. + +'They was the exact words she told me when we first found he wasn't like +others. But it beats me how you known 'em,' said Hobden. + +'Aha! There's more under my hat besides hair?' Tom laughed and stretched +himself. 'When I've seen these two young folk home, we'll make a night +of old days, Ralph, with passin' old tales--eh? An' where might you +live?' he said, gravely, to Dan. 'An' do you think your Pa 'ud give me a +drink for takin' you there, Missy?' + +They giggled so at this that they had to run out. Tom picked them both +up, set one on each broad shoulder, and tramped across the ferny pasture +where the cows puffed milky puffs at them in the moonlight. + +'Oh, Puck! Puck! I guessed you right from when you talked about the +salt. How could you ever do it?' Una cried, swinging along delighted. + +'Do what?' he said, and climbed the stile by the pollard oak. + +'Pretend to be Tom Shoesmith,' said Dan, and they ducked to avoid the +two little ashes that grow by the bridge over the brook. Tom was almost +running. + +'Yes. That's my name, Mus' Dan,' he said, hurrying over the silent +shining lawn, where a rabbit sat by the big white-thorn near the croquet +ground. 'Here you be.' He strode into the old kitchen yard, and slid +them down as Ellen came to ask questions. + +'I'm helping in Mus' Spray's oast-house,' he said to her. 'No, I'm no +foreigner. I knowed this country 'fore your mother was born; an'--yes, +it's dry work oastin', Miss. Thank you.' + +Ellen went to get a jug, and the children went in--magicked once more by +Oak, Ash, and Thorn! + + + +A THREE-PART SONG + + +I'm just in love with all these three, +The Weald an' the Marsh an' the Down countrie; +Nor I don't know which I love the most, +The Weald or the Marsh or the white chalk coast! + +I've buried my heart in a ferny hill, +Twix' a liddle low shaw an' a great high gill. +Oh, hop-bine yaller an' woodsmoke blue, +I reckon you'll keep her middling true! + +I've loosed my mind for to out an' run +On a Marsh that was old when Kings begun: +Oh, Romney level an' Brenzett reeds, +I reckon you know what my mind needs! + +I've given my soul to the Southdown grass, +An' sheep-bells tinkled where you pass. +Oh, Firle an' Ditchling an' sails at sea, +I reckon you keep my soul for me! + + + + +THE TREASURE AND THE LAW + + + +SONG OF THE FIFTH RIVER + + +When first by Eden Tree +The Four Great Rivers ran, +To each was appointed a Man +Her Prince and Ruler to be. + +But after this was ordained, +(The ancient legends tell), +There came dark Israel, +For whom no River remained. + +Then He That is Wholly Just +Said to him: 'Fling on the ground +A handful of yellow dust, +And a Fifth Great River shall run, +Mightier than these four, +In secret the Earth around; +And Her secret evermore +Shall be shown to thee and thy Race. + +So it was said and done. +And, deep in the veins of Earth, +And, fed by a thousand springs +That comfort the market-place, +Or sap the power of Kings, +The Fifth Great River had birth, +Even as it was foretold-- +The Secret River of Gold! + +And Israel laid down +His sceptre and his crown, +To brood on that River bank, +Where the waters flashed and sank, +And burrowed in earth and fell, +And bided a season below; +For reason that none might know, +Save only Israel. + +He is Lord of the Last-- +The Fifth, most wonderful, Flood. +He hears Her thunder past +And Her song is in his blood. +He can foresay: 'She will fall,' +For he knows which fountain dries +Behind which desert-belt +A thousand leagues to the South. +He can foresay: 'She will rise.' +He knows what far snows melt; +Along what mountain-wall +A thousand leagues to the North. +He snuffs the coming drought +As he snuffs the coming rain, +He knows what each will bring forth, +And turns it to his gain. + +A Prince without a Sword, +A Ruler without a Throne; +Israel follows his quest. +In every land a guest, +Of many lands a lord, +In no land King is he. +But the Fifth Great River keeps +The secret of Her deeps +For Israel alone, +As it was ordered to be. + + + +The Treasure and the Law + + +Now it was the third week in November, and the woods rang with the noise +of pheasant-shooting. No one hunted that steep, cramped country except +the village beagles, who, as often as not, escaped from their kennels +and made a day of their own. Dan and Una found a couple of them towling +round the kitchen-garden after the laundry cat. The little brutes were +only too pleased to go rabbiting, so the children ran them all along the +brook pastures and into Little Lindens farm-yard, where the old sow +vanquished them--and up to the quarry-hole, where they started a fox. He +headed for Far Wood, and there they frightened out all the pheasants, +who were sheltering from a big beat across the valley. Then the cruel +guns began again, and they grabbed the beagles lest they should stray +and get hurt. + +'I wouldn't be a pheasant--in November--for a lot,' Dan panted, as he +caught _Folly_ by the neck. 'Why did you laugh that horrid way?' + +'I didn't,' said Una, sitting on _Flora_, the fat lady-dog. 'Oh, look! +The silly birds are going back to their own woods instead of ours, where +they would be safe.' + +'Safe till it pleased you to kill them.' An old man, so tall he was +almost a giant, stepped from behind the clump of hollies by Volaterrae. +The children jumped, and the dogs dropped like setters. He wore a +sweeping gown of dark thick stuff, lined and edged with yellowish fur, +and he bowed a bent-down bow that made them feel both proud and ashamed. +Then he looked at them steadily, and they stared back without doubt or +fear. + +'You are not afraid?' he said, running his hands through his splendid +grey beard. 'Not afraid that those men yonder'--he jerked his head +towards the incessant pop-pop of the guns from the lower woods--'will do +you hurt?' + +'We-ell'--Dan liked to be accurate, especially when he was shy--'old +Hobd--a friend of mine told me that one of the beaters got peppered last +week--hit in the leg, I mean. You see, Mr Meyer _will_ fire at rabbits. +But he gave Waxy Garnett a quid--sovereign, I mean--and Waxy told Hobden +he'd have stood both barrels for half the money.' + +'He doesn't understand,' Una cried, watching the pale, troubled face. +'Oh, I wish----' + +She had scarcely said it when Puck rustled out of the hollies and spoke +to the man quickly in foreign words. Puck wore a long cloak too--the +afternoon was just frosting down--and it changed his appearance +altogether. + +'Nay, nay!' he said at last. 'You did not understand the boy. A freeman +was a little hurt, by pure mischance, at the hunting.' + +'I know that mischance! What did his Lord do? Laugh and ride over him?' +the old man sneered. + +'It was one of your own people did the hurt, Kadmiel.' Puck's eyes +twinkled maliciously. 'So he gave the freeman a piece of gold, and no +more was said.' + +'A Jew drew blood from a Christian and no more was said?' Kadmiel cried. +'Never! When did they torture him?' + +'No man may be bound, or fined, or slain till he has been judged by his +peers,' Puck insisted. 'There is but one Law in Old England for Jew or +Christian--the Law that was signed at Runnymede.' + +'Why, that's Magna Charta!' Dan whispered. It was one of the few history +dates that he could remember. Kadmiel turned on him with a sweep and a +whirr of his spicy-scented gown. + +'Dost _thou_ know of that, babe?' he cried, and lifted his hands in +wonder. + +'Yes,' said Dan firmly. + +'Magna Charta was signed by John, +That Henry the Third put his heel upon. + +And old Hobden says that if it hadn't been for _her_ (he calls +everything "her", you know), the keepers would have him clapped in Lewes +Gaol all the year round.' + +Again Puck translated to Kadmiel in the strange, solemn-sounding +language, and at last Kadmiel laughed. + +'Out of the mouths of babes do we learn,' said he. 'But tell me now, and +I will not call you a babe but a Rabbi, _why_ did the King sign the roll +of the New Law at Runnymede? For he was a King.' + +Dan looked sideways at his sister. It was her turn. + +'Because he jolly well had to,' said Una softly. 'The Barons made him.' + +'Nay,' Kadmiel answered, shaking his head. 'You Christians always forget +that gold does more than the sword. Our good King signed because he +could not borrow more money from us bad Jews.' He curved his shoulders +as he spoke. 'A King without gold is a snake with a broken back, +and'--his nose sneered up and his eyebrows frowned down--'it is a good +deed to break a snake's back. That was my work,' he cried, triumphantly, +to Puck. 'Spirit of Earth, bear witness that that was _my_ work!' He +shot up to his full towering height, and his words rang like a trumpet. +He had a voice that changed its tone almost as an opal changes +colour--sometimes deep and thundery, sometimes thin and waily, but +always it made you listen. + +'Many people can bear witness to that,' Puck answered. 'Tell these babes +how it was done. Remember, Master, they do not know Doubt or Fear.' + +'So I saw in their faces when we met,' said Kadmiel. 'Yet surely, surely +they are taught to spit upon Jews?' + +'Are they?' said Dan, much interested. 'Where at?' + +Puck fell back a pace, laughing. 'Kadmiel is thinking of King John's +reign,' he explained. 'His people were badly treated then.' + +'Oh, we know _that_.' they answered, and (it was very rude of them, but +they could not help it) they stared straight at Kadmiel's mouth to see +if his teeth were all there. It stuck in their lesson-memory that King +John used to pull out Jews' teeth to make them lend him money. + +Kadmiel understood the look and smiled bitterly. + +'No. Your King never drew my teeth: I think, perhaps, I drew his. +Listen! I was not born among Christians, but among Moors--in Spain--in a +little white town under the mountains. Yes, the Moors are cruel, but at +least their learned men dare to think. It was prophesied of me at my +birth that I should be a Lawgiver to a People of a strange speech and a +hard language. We Jews are always looking for the Prince and the +Lawgiver to come. Why not? My people in the town (we were very few) set +me apart as a child of the prophecy--the Chosen of the Chosen. We Jews +dream so many dreams. You would never guess it to see us slink about the +rubbish-heaps in our quarter; but at the day's end--doors shut, candles +lit--aha! _then_ we became the Chosen again.' + +He paced back and forth through the wood as he talked. The rattle of the +shot-guns never ceased, and the dogs whimpered a little and lay flat on +the leaves. + +'I was a Prince. Yes! Think of a little Prince who had never known +rough words in his own house handed over to shouting, bearded Rabbis, +who pulled his ears and filliped his nose, all that he might +learn--learn--learn to be King when his time came. Hé! Such a little +Prince it was! One eye he kept on the stone-throwing Moorish boys, and +the other it roved about the streets looking for his Kingdom. Yes, and +he learned to cry softly when he was hunted up and down those streets. +He learned to do all things without noise. He played beneath his +father's table when the Great Candle was lit, and he listened as +children listen to the talk of his father's friends above the table. +They came across the mountains, from out of all the world, for my +Prince's father was their counsellor. They came from behind the armies +of Sala-ud-Din: from Rome: from Venice: from England. They stole down +our alley, they tapped secretly at our door, they took off their rags, +they arrayed themselves, and they talked to my father at the wine. All +over the world the heathen fought each other. They brought news of these +wars, and while he played beneath the table, my Prince heard these +meanly dressed ones decide between themselves how, and when, and for how +long King should draw sword against King, and People rise up against +People. Why not? There can be no war without gold, and we Jews know how +the earth's gold moves with the seasons, and the crops, and the winds; +circling and looping and rising and sinking away like a river--a +wonderful underground river. How should the foolish Kings know _that_ +while they fight and steal and kill?' + +The children's faces showed that they knew nothing at all as, with open +eyes, they trotted and turned beside the long-striding old man. He +twitched his gown over his shoulders, and a square plate of gold, +studded with jewels, gleamed for an instant through the fur, like a star +through flying snow. + +'No matter,' he said. 'But, credit me, my Prince saw peace or war +decided not once, but many times, by the fall of a coin spun between a +Jew from Bury and a Jewess from Alexandria, in his father's house, when +the Great Candle was lit. Such power had we Jews among the Gentiles. Ah, +my little Prince! Do you wonder that he learned quickly? Why not?' He +muttered to himself and went on:-- + +'My trade was that of a physician. When I had learned it in Spain I went +to the East to find my Kingdom. Why not? A Jew is as free as a +sparrow--or a dog. He goes where he is hunted. In the East I found +libraries where men dared to think--schools of medicine where they dared +to learn. I was diligent in my business. Therefore I stood before Kings. +I have been a brother to Princes and a companion to beggars, and I have +walked between the living and the dead. There was no profit in it. I did +not find my Kingdom. So, in the tenth year of my travels, when I had +reached the Uttermost Eastern Sea, I returned to my father's house. God +had wonderfully preserved my people. None had been slain, none even +wounded, and only a few scourged. I became once more a son in my +father's house. Again the Great Candle was lit; again the meanly +apparelled ones tapped on our door after dusk; and again I heard them +weigh out peace and war, as they weighed out the gold on the table. But +I was not rich--not very rich. Therefore, when those that had power and +knowledge and wealth talked together, I sat in the shadow. Why not? + +'Yet all my wanderings had shown me one sure thing, which is, that a +King without money is like a spear without a head. He cannot do much +harm. I said, therefore, to Elias of Bury, a great one among our people: +"Why do our people lend any more to the Kings that oppress us?" +"Because," said Elias, "if we refuse they stir up their people against +us, and the People are tenfold more cruel than Kings. If thou doubtest, +come with me to Bury in England and live as I live." + +'I saw my mother's face across the candle flame, and I said, "I will +come with thee to Bury. Maybe my Kingdom shall be there." + +'So I sailed with Elias to the darkness and the cruelty of Bury in +England, where there are no learned men. How can a man be wise if he +hate? At Bury I kept his accounts for Elias, and I saw men kill Jews +there by the tower. No--none laid hands on Elias. He lent money to the +King, and the King's favour was about him. A King will not take the life +so long as there is any gold. This King--yes, John--oppressed his people +bitterly because they would not give him money. Yet his land was a good +land. If he had only given it rest he might have cropped it as a +Christian crops his beard. But even _that_ little he did not know, for +God had deprived him of all understanding, and had multiplied +pestilence, and famine, and despair upon the people. Therefore his +people turned against us Jews, who are all people's dogs. Why not? +Lastly the Barons and the people rose together against the King because +of his cruelties. Nay--nay--the Barons did not love the people, but they +saw that if the King cut up and destroyed the common people, he would +presently destroy the Barons. They joined then, as cats and pigs will +join to slay a snake. I kept the accounts, and I watched all these +things, for I remembered the Prophecy. + +'A great gathering of Barons (to most of whom we had lent money) came to +Bury, and there, after much talk and a thousand runnings-about, they +made a roll of the New Laws that they would force on the King. If he +swore to keep those Laws, they would allow him a little money. That was +the King's God--Money--to waste. They showed us the roll of the New +Laws. Why not? We had lent them money. We knew all their counsels--we +Jews shivering behind our doors in Bury.' He threw out his hands +suddenly. 'We did not seek to be paid _all_ in money. We sought +Power--Power--Power! That is _our_ God in our captivity. Power to use! + +'I said to Elias: "These New Laws are good. Lend no more money to the +King: so long as he has money he will lie and slay the people." + +'"Nay," said Elias. "I know this people. They are madly cruel. Better +one King than a thousand butchers. I have lent a little money to the +Barons, or they would torture us, but my most I will lend to the King. +He hath promised me a place near him at Court, where my wife and I shall +be safe." + +'"But if the King be made to keep these New Laws," I said, "the land +will have peace, and our trade will grow. If we lend he will fight +again." + +'"Who made thee a Lawgiver in England?" said Elias. "I know this people. +Let the dogs tear one another! I will lend the King ten thousand pieces +of gold, and he can fight the Barons at his pleasure." + +'"There are not two thousand pieces of gold in all England this summer," +I said, for I kept the accounts, and I knew how the earth's gold +moved--that wonderful underground river. Elias barred home the windows, +and, his hands about his mouth, he told me how, when he was trading with +small wares in a French ship, he had come to the Castle of Pevensey.' + +'Oh!' said Dan. 'Pevensey again!' and looked at Una, who nodded and +skipped. + +'There, after they had scattered his pack up and down the Great Hall, +some young knights carried him to an upper room, and dropped him into a +well in a wall, that rose and fell with the tide. They called him +Joseph, and threw torches at his wet head. Why not?' + +'Why, of course!' cried Dan. 'Didn't you know it was----' Puck held up +his hand to stop him, and Kadmiel, who never noticed, went on. + +'When the tide dropped he thought he stood on old armour, but feeling +with his toes, he raked up bar on bar of soft gold. Some wicked treasure +of the old days put away, and the secret cut off by the sword. I have +heard the like before.' + +'So have we,' Una whispered. 'But it wasn't wicked a bit.' + +'Elias took a little of the stuff with him, and thrice yearly he would +return to Pevensey as a chapman, selling at no price or profit, till +they suffered him to sleep in the empty room, where he would plumb and +grope, and steal away a few bars. The great store of it still remained, +and by long brooding he had come to look on it as his own. Yet when we +thought how we should lift and convey it, we saw no way. This was before +the Word of the Lord had come to me. A walled fortress possessed by +Normans; in the midst a forty-foot tide-well out of which to remove +secretly many horse-loads of gold! Hopeless! So Elias wept. Adah, his +wife, wept too. She had hoped to stand beside the Queen's Christian +tiring-maids at Court when the King should give them that place at Court +which he had promised. Why not? She was born in England--an odious +woman. + +'The present evil to us was that Elias, out of his strong folly, had, as +it were, promised the King that he would arm him with more gold. +Wherefore the King in his camp stopped his ears against the Barons and +the people. Wherefore men died daily. Adah so desired her place at +Court, she besought Elias to tell the King where the treasure lay, that +the King might take it by force, and--they would trust in his gratitude. +Why not? This Elias refused to do, for he looked on the gold as his own. +They quarrelled, and they wept at the evening meal, and late in the +night came one Langton--a priest, almost learned--to borrow more money +for the Barons. Elias and Adah went to their chamber.' + +Kadmiel laughed scornfully in his beard. The shots across the valley +stopped as the shooting party changed their ground for the last beat. + +'So it was I, not Elias,' he went on quietly, 'that made terms with +Langton touching the fortieth of the New Laws.' + +'What terms?' said Puck quickly. 'The Fortieth of the Great Charter +says: "To none will we sell, refuse, or delay right or justice."' + +'True, but the Barons had written first: _To no free man_. It cost me +two hundred broad pieces of gold to change those narrow words. Langton, +the priest, understood. "Jew though thou art," said he, "the change is +just, and if ever Christian and Jew came to be equal in England thy +people may thank thee." Then he went out stealthily, as men do who deal +with Israel by night. I think he spent my gift upon his altar. Why not? +I have spoken with Langton. He was such a man as I might have been +if--if we Jews had been a people. But yet, in many things, a child. + +'I heard Elias and Adah abovestairs quarrel, and, knowing the woman was +the stronger, I saw that Elias would tell the King of the gold and that +the King would continue in his stubbornness. Therefore I saw that the +gold must be put away from the reach of any man. Of a sudden, the Word +of the Lord came to me saying, "The Morning is come, O thou that +dwellest in the land."' + +Kadmiel halted, all black against the pale green sky beyond the wood--a +huge robed figure, like the Moses in the picture-Bible. + +'I rose. I went out, and as I shut the door on that House of +Foolishness, the woman looked from the window and whispered, "I have +prevailed on my husband to tell the King!" I answered: "There is no +need. The Lord is with me." + +'In that hour the Lord gave me full understanding of all that I must do; +and His Hand covered me in my ways. First I went to London, to a +physician of our people, who sold me certain drugs that I needed. You +shall see why. Thence I went swiftly to Pevensey. Men fought all around +me, for there were neither rulers nor judges in the abominable land. Yet +when I walked by them they cried out that I was one Ahasuerus, a Jew, +condemned, as they believe, to live for ever, and they fled from me +everyways. Thus the Lord saved me for my work, and at Pevensey I bought +me a little boat and moored it on the mud beneath the Marsh-gate of the +Castle. That also God showed me.' + +He was as calm as though he were speaking of some stranger, and his +voice filled the little bare wood with rolling music. + +'I cast'--his hand went to his breast, and again the strange jewel +gleamed--'I cast the drugs which I had prepared into the common well of +the Castle. Nay, I did no harm. The more we physicians know, the less do +we do. Only the fool says: "I dare." I caused a blotched and itching +rash to break out upon their skins, but I knew it would fade in fifteen +days. I did not stretch out my hand against their life. They in the +Castle thought it was the Plague, and they ran out, taking with them +their very dogs. + +'A Christian physician, seeing that I was a Jew and a stranger, vowed +that I had brought the sickness from London. This is the one time I have +ever heard a Christian leech speak truth of any disease. Thereupon the +people beat me, but a merciful woman said: "Do not kill him now. Push +him into our Castle with his Plague, and if, as he says, it will abate +on the fifteenth day, we can kill him then." Why not? They drove me +across the drawbridge of the Castle, and fled back to their booths. Thus +I came to be alone with the treasure.' + +'But did you know this was all going to happen just right?' said Una. + +'My Prophecy was that I should be a Lawgiver to a People of a strange +land and a hard speech. I knew I should not die. I washed my cuts. I +found the tide-well in the wall, and from Sabbath to Sabbath I dove and +dug there in that empty, Christian-smelling fortress. Hé! I spoiled the +Egyptians! Hé! If they had only known! I drew up many good loads of +gold, which I loaded by night into my boat. There had been gold-dust +too, but that had been washed out by the tides.' + +'Didn't you ever wonder who had put it there?' said Dan, stealing a +glance at Puck's calm, dark face under the hood of his gown. Puck shook +his head and pursed his lips. + +'Often; for the gold was new to me,' Kadmiel replied. 'I know the Golds. +I can judge them in the dark; but this was heavier and redder than any +we deal in. Perhaps it was the very gold of Parvaim. Eh, why not? It +went to my heart to heave it on to the mud, but I saw well that if the +evil thing remained, or if even the hope of finding it remained, the +King would not sign the New Laws, and the land would perish.' + +'Oh, Marvel!' said Puck, beneath his breath, rustling in the dead +leaves. + +'When the boat was loaded I washed my hands seven times, and pared +beneath my nails, for I would not keep one grain. I went out by the +little gate where the Castle's refuse is thrown. I dared not hoist sail +lest men should see me; but the Lord commanded the tide to bear me +carefully, and I was far from land before the morning.' + +'Weren't you afraid?' said Una. + +'Why? There were no Christians in the boat. At sunrise I made my prayer, +and cast the gold--all--all that gold--into the deep sea! A King's +ransom--no, the ransom of a People! When I had loosed hold of the last +bar, the Lord commanded the tide to return me to a haven at the mouth of +a river, and thence I walked across a wilderness to Lewes, where I have +brethren. They opened the door to me, and they say--I had not eaten for +two days--they say that I fell across the threshold, crying: "I have +sunk an army with horsemen in the sea!"' + +'But you hadn't,' said Una. 'Oh, yes! I see! You meant that King John +might have spent it on that?' + +'Even so,' said Kadmiel. + +The firing broke out again close behind them. The pheasants poured over +the top of a belt of tall firs. They could see young Mr Meyer, in his +new yellow gaiters, very busy and excited at the end of the line, and +they could hear the thud of the falling birds. + +'But what did Elias of Bury do?' Puck demanded. 'He had promised money +to the King.' + +Kadmiel smiled grimly. 'I sent him word from London that the Lord was on +my side. When he heard that the Plague had broken out in Pevensey, and +that a Jew had been thrust into the Castle to cure it, he understood my +word was true. He and Adah hurried to Lewes and asked me for an +accounting. He still looked on the gold as his own. I told them where I +had laid it, and I gave them full leave to pick it up ... Eh, well! The +curses of a fool and the dust of a journey are two things no wise man +can escape ... But I pitied Elias! The King was wroth with him because +he could not lend; the Barons were wroth too because they heard that he +would have lent to the King; and Adah was wroth with him because she was +an odious woman. They took ship from Lewes to Spain. That was wise!' + +'And you? Did you see the signing of the Law at Runnymede?' said Puck, +as Kadmiel laughed noiselessly. + +'Nay. Who am I to meddle with things too high for me? I returned to +Bury, and lent money on the autumn crops. Why not?' + +There was a crackle overhead. A cock-pheasant that had sheered aside +after being hit spattered down almost on top of them, driving up the dry +leaves like a shell. _Flora_ and _Folly_ threw themselves at it; the +children rushed forward, and when they had beaten them off and smoothed +down the plumage Kadmiel had disappeared. + +'Well,' said Puck calmly, 'what did you think of it? Weland gave the +Sword! The Sword gave the Treasure, and the Treasure gave the Law. It's +as natural as an oak growing.' + +'I don't understand. Didn't he know it was Sir Richard's old treasure?' +said Dan. 'And why did Sir Richard and Brother Hugh leave it lying +about? And--and----' + +'Never mind,' said Una politely. 'He'll let us come and go and look and +know another time. Won't you, Puck?' + +'Another time maybe,' Puck answered. 'Brr! It's cold--and late. I'll +race you towards home!' + +They hurried down into the sheltered valley. The sun had almost sunk +behind Cherry Clack, the trodden ground by the cattle-gates was freezing +at the edges, and the new-waked north wind blew the night on them from +over the hills. They picked up their feet and flew across the browned +pastures, and when they halted, panting in the steam of their own +breath, the dead leaves whirled up behind them. There was Oak and Ash +and Thorn enough in that year-end shower to magic away a thousand +memories. + +So they trotted to the brook at the bottom of the lawn, wondering why +_Flora_ and _Folly_ had missed the quarry-hole fox. + +Old Hobden was just finishing some hedge-work. They saw his white smock +glimmer in the twilight where he faggoted the rubbish. + +'Winter, he's come, I reckon, Mus' Dan,' he called. 'Hard times now till +Heffle Cuckoo Fair. Yes, we'll all be glad to see the Old Woman let the +Cuckoo out o' the basket for to start lawful Spring in England.' + +They heard a crash, and a stamp and a splash of water as though a heavy +old cow were crossing almost under their noses. + +Hobden ran forward angrily to the ford. + +'Gleason's bull again, playin' Robin all over the Farm! Oh, look, Mus' +Dan--his great footmark as big as a trencher. No bounds to his +impidence! He might count himself to be a man or--or Somebody----' + +A voice the other side of the brook boomed: + +'I wonder who his cloak would turn +When Puck had led him round, +Or where those walking fires would burn----' + +Then the children went in singing 'Farewell Rewards and Fairies' at the +tops of their voices. They had forgotten that they had not even said +good-night to Puck. + + + +THE CHILDREN'S SONG + + +Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee +Our love and toil in the years to be; +When we are grown and take our place, +As men and women with our race. + +Father in Heaven Who lovest all, +Oh, help Thy children when they call; +That they may build from age to age, +An undefiled heritage. + +Teach us to bear the yoke in youth, +With steadfastness and careful truth; +That, in our time, Thy Grace may give +The Truth whereby the Nations live. + +Teach us to rule ourselves alway, +Controlled and cleanly night and day; +That we may bring, if need arise, +No maimed or worthless sacrifice. + +Teach us to look in all our ends, +On Thee for judge, and not our friends; +That we, with Thee, may walk uncowed +By fear or favour of the crowd. + +Teach us the Strength that cannot seek, +By deed or thought, to hurt the weak; +That, under Thee, we may possess +Man's strength to comfort man's distress. + +Teach us Delight in simple things, +And Mirth that has no bitter springs; +Forgiveness free of evil done, +And Love to all men 'neath the sun! + +Land of our Birth, our faith, our pride, +For whose dear sake our fathers died; +O Motherland, we pledge to thee +Head, heart and hand through the years to be! + + +---------------------------------------------------------------- + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Puck of Pook's Hill, by Rudyard Kipling + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUCK OF POOK'S HILL *** + +***** This file should be named 15976-8.txt or 15976-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/9/7/15976/ + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Puck of Pook's Hill + +Author: Rudyard Kipling + +Illustrator: Harold Robert Millar + +Release Date: June 3, 2005 [EBook #15976] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUCK OF POOK'S HILL *** + + + + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer + + + + + +</pre> + +<h4>There are several editions of this ebook in the Project Gutenberg collection. Various characteristics of each ebook are listed to aid in selecting the preferred file.<br />Click on any of the filenumbers below to quickly view each ebook. +</h4> + + +<table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3"> + +<tr><td> + <b><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15976/15976-h/15976-h.htm"> +15976</a> </b> </td><td>(Illustrated in Black and White) +</td></tr> + +<tr><td> + <b><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26027/26027-h/26027-h.html"> +26027</a></b></td><td>(Illustrated in Color) +</td></tr> + +<tr><td> + <b><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/557/557-h/557-h.htm"> +557</a></b> </td><td>(Plain HTML) +</td></tr> + +</table> + + +<tt> + +Transcriber's note: this file is based on the 1996 plain ASCII file +created by Jo Churcher, Scarborough, Ontario (jchurche@io.org), then +proofread against a 1911 reprint of a 1906 edition (Macmillan and Co. Ltd., +London). +The illustrations are by H.R. Millar. + +</tt> +<hr class="wide" /> +<h1>PUCK</h1> +<h3>OF</h3> +<h1>POOK'S HILL</h1> +<h4>by</h4> +<h3>RUDYARD KIPLING</h3> + +<hr class="wide" /> +<center> +<a name="frontispiece"></a> +<a href="./images/frontispiece_full.png"> +<img src="./images/frontispiece.png" width="400" height="645" alt="Frontispiece" /></a> +<div class="caption"> +They saw a small brown ... pointy-eared person ... step quietly into the Ring —<i>P. <a href="#page_6">6</a></i></div> +<br /><br /> +<img src="./images/title.png" width="400" height="660" alt="Title Page" /> +</center> + +<hr class="wide" /> + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> + + +<ul> +<li> <a href="#page_1">1</a> Weland's Sword </li> +<li> <a href="#page_35">35</a> Young Men at the Manor</li> +<li> <a href="#page_65">65</a> The Knights of the Joyous Venture </li> +<li> <a href="#page_103">103</a> Old Men at Pevensey </li> +<li> <a href="#page_137">137</a> A Centurion of the Thirtieth </li> +<li> <a href="#page_165">165</a> On the Great Wall </li> +<li> <a href="#page_193">193</a> The Winged Hats </li> +<li> <a href="#page_227">227</a> Hal o' the Draft </li> +<li> <a href="#page_253">253</a> 'Dymchurch Flit' </li> +<li> <a href="#page_279">279</a> The Treasure and the Law </li> +</ul> + +<hr /> + +<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3> + +<ul> +<li><a href="#frontispiece"><i>Frontispiece</i></a> They saw a small, brown ... pointy-eared person ... step quietly into the Ring</li> + +<li> <a href="#page_25">25</a> Then he made a sword </li> + +<li> <a href="#page_46">46</a> 'At this she cried that I was a Norman thief' </li> +<li> <a href="#page_52">52</a> Said he, 'I have it all from the child here.' </li> + +<li> <a href="#page_59">59</a> 'Sir Richard, will it please you to enter your Great Hall?' </li> + +<li> <a href="#page_75">75</a> 'And we two tumbled aboard the Dane.' </li> + +<li> <a href="#page_91">91</a> Thorkild had given back before his Devil, till the bowmen on the ship could shoot it all full of arrows</li> + +<li> <a href="#page_95">95</a> 'So we called no more' </li> + +<li> <a href="#page_113">113</a> 'A' God's Name write her free, before she deafens me!' </li> + +<li> <a href="#page_132">132</a> He drew his dagger on Jehan, who threw him down the stairway </li> + +<li> <a href="#page_145">145</a> 'You put the bullet into that loop' </li> + +<li> <a href="#page_172">172</a> 'And that is the Wall!' </li> + +<li> <a href="#page_200">200</a> 'Hail, Cæsar!' </li> + +<li> <a href="#page_204">204</a> 'We dealt with them thoroughly through a long day' </li> + +<li> <a href="#page_216">216</a> 'The Wall must be won at a price' </li> + +<li> <a href="#page_220">220</a> Where they had suffered most, there they charged in most hotly </li> + +<li> <a href="#page_248">248</a> 'I reckon you'll find her middlin' heavy,' he says </li> + +<li> <a href="#page_261">261</a> '<i>I</i> know what sort o' man you be,' old Hobden grunted, groping for the potatoes. </li> + +<li> <a href="#page_288">288</a> Doors shut, candles lit. </li> + +<li> <a href="#page_299">299</a> 'They drove me across the drawbridge' </li> +</ul> + +<hr class="wide" /> +<a name="page_1"></a><span class="pagenum">[1]</span> +<h3>WELAND'S SWORD</h3> +<hr /> +<a name="page_3"></a><span class="pagenum">[3]</span> +<h4>PUCK'S SONG</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span><i>See you the dimpled track that runs,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>All hollow through the wheat?</i></span> +<span><i>O that was where they hauled the guns</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>That smote King Philip's fleet!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>See you our little mill that clacks,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>So busy by the brook?</i></span> +<span><i>She has ground her corn and paid her tax</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Ever since Domesday Book.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>See you our stilly woods of oak,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>And the dread ditch beside?</i></span> +<span><i>O that was where the Saxons broke,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>On the day that Harold died!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>See you the windy levels spread</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>About the gates of Rye?</i></span> +<span><i>O that was where the Northmen fled,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>When Alfred's ships came by!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>See you our pastures wide and lone,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Where the red oxen browse?</i></span> +<span><i>O there was a City thronged and known,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Ere London boasted a house!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>And see you, after rain, the trace</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Of mound and ditch and wall?</i></span> +<span><i>O that was a Legion's camping-place,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>When Cæsar sailed from Gaul!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>And see you marks that show and fade,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Like shadows on the Downs?</i></span> +<span><i>O they are the lines the Flint Men made,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>To guard their wondrous towns!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Trackway and Camp and City lost,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Salt Marsh where now is corn;</i></span> +<span><i>Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>And so was England born!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>She is not any common Earth,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Water or Wood or Air,</i></span> +<span><i>But Merlin's Isle of Gramarye,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Where you and I will fare.</i></span> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<a name="page_5"></a><span class="pagenum">[5]</span> +<h4>Weland's Sword</h4> +<p>The children were at the Theatre, acting to Three Cows as much as they +could remember of <i>Midsummer Night's Dream</i>. Their father had made them +a small play out of the big Shakespeare one, and they had rehearsed it +with him and with their mother till they could say it by heart. They +began when Nick Bottom the weaver comes out of the bushes with a +donkey's head on his shoulders, and finds Titania, Queen of the Fairies, +asleep. Then they skipped to the part where Bottom asks three little +fairies to scratch his head and bring him honey, and they ended where he +falls asleep in Titania's arms. Dan was Puck and Nick Bottom, as well as +all three Fairies. He wore a pointy-eared cloth cap for Puck, and a +paper donkey's head out of a Christmas cracker—but it tore if you were +not careful—for Bottom. Una was Titania, with a wreath of columbines +and a foxglove wand.</p> + +<p>The Theatre lay in a meadow called the Long Slip. A little mill-stream, +carrying water to a mill two or three fields away, bent round one corner +of it, and in the middle of the bend lay a large old Fairy Ring of +darkened grass, which was the stage. The millstream banks, overgrown +with willow, <a name="page_6"></a><span class="pagenum">[6]</span>hazel, and guelder-rose, made convenient places to wait in +till your turn came; and a grown-up who had seen it said that +Shakespeare himself could not have imagined a more suitable setting for +his play. They were not, of course, allowed to act on Midsummer Night +itself, but they went down after tea on Midsummer Eve, when the shadows +were growing, and they took their supper—hard-boiled eggs, Bath Oliver +biscuits, and salt in an envelope—with them. Three Cows had been milked +and were grazing steadily with a tearing noise that one could hear all +down the meadow; and the noise of the Mill at work sounded like bare +feet running on hard ground. A cuckoo sat on a gate-post singing his +broken June tune, 'cuckoo-cuk', while a busy kingfisher crossed from the +mill-stream, to the brook which ran on the other side of the meadow. +Everything else was a sort of thick, sleepy stillness smelling of +meadow-sweet and dry grass.</p> + +<p>Their play went beautifully. Dan remembered all his parts—Puck, Bottom, +and the three Fairies—and Una never forgot a word of Titania—not even +the difficult piece where she tells the Fairies how to feed Bottom with +'apricocks, green figs, and dewberries', and all the lines end in 'ies'. +They were both so pleased that they acted it three times over from +beginning to end before they sat down in the unthistly centre of the +Ring to eat eggs and Bath Olivers. This was when they heard a whistle +among the alders on the bank, and they jumped.</p> + +<p>The bushes parted. In the very spot where Dan had stood as Puck they saw +a small, brown, <a name="page_7"></a><span class="pagenum">[7]</span>broad-shouldered, pointy-eared person with a snub nose, +slanting blue eyes, and a grin that ran right across his freckled face. +He shaded his forehead as though he were watching Quince, Snout, Bottom, +and the others rehearsing <i>Pyramus and Thisbe</i>, and, in a voice as deep +as Three Cows asking to be milked, he began:</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>'What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here,</span> +<span>So near the cradle of our fairy Queen?'</span> +</div> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p>He stopped, hollowed one hand round his ear, and, with a wicked twinkle +in his eye, went on:</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>'What, a play toward? I'll be auditor; </span> +<span>An actor, too, perhaps, if I see cause.'</span> +</div> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p>The children looked and gasped. The small thing—he was no taller than +Dan's shoulder—stepped quietly into the Ring.</p> + +<p>'I'm rather out of practice,' said he; 'but that's the way my part ought +to be played.'</p> + +<p>Still the children stared at him—from his dark-blue cap, like a big +columbine flower, to his bare, hairy feet. At last he laughed.</p> + +<p>'Please don't look like that. It isn't my fault. What else could you +expect?' he said.</p> + +<p>'We didn't expect any one,' Dan answered, slowly. 'This is our field.'</p> + +<p>'Is it?' said their visitor, sitting down. 'Then what on Human Earth +made you act <i>Midsummer Night's Dream</i> three times over, <i>on</i> Midsummer +Eve, <i>in</i> the middle of a Ring, and under—right <i>under</i> one of my +oldest hills in Old England? Pook's Hill—Puck's Hill—Puck's +<a name="page_8"></a><span class="pagenum">[8]</span> +Hill—Pook's Hill! It's as plain as the nose on my face.'</p> + +<p>He pointed to the bare, fern-covered slope of Pook's Hill that runs up +from the far side of the mill-stream to a dark wood. Beyond that wood +the ground rises and rises for five hundred feet, till at last you climb +out on the bare top of Beacon Hill, to look over the Pevensey Levels and +the Channel and half the naked South Downs.</p> + +<p>'By Oak, Ash, and Thorn!' he cried, still laughing. 'If this had +happened a few hundred years ago you'd have had all the People of the +Hills out like bees in June!'</p> + +<p>'We didn't know it was wrong,' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Wrong!' The little fellow shook with laughter. 'Indeed, it isn't wrong. +You've done something that Kings and Knights and Scholars in old days +would have given their crowns and spurs and books to find out. If Merlin +himself had helped you, you couldn't have managed better! You've broken +the Hills—you've broken the Hills! It hasn't happened in a thousand +years.'</p> + +<p>'We—we didn't mean to,' said Una.</p> + +<p>'Of course you didn't! That's just why you did it. Unluckily the Hills +are empty now, and all the People of the Hills are gone. I'm the only +one left. I'm Puck, the oldest Old Thing in England, very much at your +service if—if you care to have anything to do with me. If you don't, of +course you've only to say so, and I'll go.'</p> + +<p>He looked at the children, and the children looked at him for quite half +a minute. His eyes <a name="page_9"></a><span class="pagenum">[9]</span>did not twinkle any more. They were very kind, and +there was the beginning of a good smile on his lips.</p> + +<p>Una put out her hand. 'Don't go,' she said. 'We like you.'</p> + +<p>'Have a Bath Oliver,' said Dan, and he passed over the squashy envelope +with the eggs.</p> + +<p>'By Oak, Ash and Thorn,' cried Puck, taking off his blue cap, 'I like +you too. Sprinkle a plenty salt on the biscuit, Dan, and I'll eat it +with you. That'll show you the sort of person I am. Some of us'—he went +on, with his mouth full—'couldn't abide Salt, or Horse-shoes over a +door, or Mountain-ash berries, or Running Water, or Cold Iron, or the +sound of Church Bells. But I'm Puck!'</p> + +<p>He brushed the crumbs carefully from his doublet and shook hands.</p> + +<p>'We always said, Dan and I,' Una stammered, 'that if it ever happened +we'd know ex-actly what to do; but—but now it seems all different +somehow.'</p> + +<p>'She means meeting a fairy,' said Dan. 'I never believed in 'em—not +after I was six, anyhow.'</p> + +<p>'I did,' said Una. 'At least, I sort of half believed till we learned +"Farewell Rewards". Do you know "Farewell Rewards and Fairies"?'</p> + +<p>'Do you mean this?' said Puck. He threw his big head back and began at +the second line:</p> +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2"> 'Good housewives now may say,</span> +<span>For now foul sluts in dairies,</span> +<span class="i2">Do fare as well as they;,</span> +<span>And though they sweep their hearths no less,</span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> +<a name="page_10"></a><span class="pagenum">[10]</span> +<p>('Join in, Una!')</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Than maids were wont to do,</span> +<span>Yet who of late for cleanliness,</span> +<span class="i2">Finds sixpence in her shoe?'</span> +</div> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p>The echoes flapped all along the flat meadow.</p> + +<p>'Of course I know it,' he said.</p> + +<p>'And then there's the verse about the rings,' said Dan. 'When I was +little it always made me feel unhappy in my inside.'</p> + +<p>'"Witness those rings and roundelays", do you mean?' boomed Puck, with a +voice like a great church organ.</p> +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">'Of theirs which yet remain,</span> +<span>Were footed in Queen Mary's days</span> +<span class="i2">On many a grassy plain,</span> +<span>But since of late Elizabeth,</span> +<span class="i2">And, later, James came in,</span> +<span>Are never seen on any heath</span> +<span class="i2">As when the time hath been.'</span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>'It's some time since I heard that sung, but there's no good beating +about the bush: it's true. The People of the Hills have all left. I saw +them come into Old England and I saw them go. Giants, trolls, kelpies, +brownies, goblins, imps; wood, tree, mound, and water spirits; +heath-people, hill-watchers, treasure-guards, good people, little +people, pishogues, leprechauns, night-riders, pixies, nixies, gnomes, +and the rest—gone, all gone! I came into England with Oak, Ash and +Thorn, and when Oak, Ash and Thorn are gone I shall go too.'</p> + +<p>Dan looked round the meadow—at Una's Oak by the lower gate; at the line +of ash trees that <a name="page_11"></a><span class="pagenum">[11]</span>overhang Otter Pool where the mill-stream spills over +when the Mill does not need it, and at the gnarled old white-thorn where +Three Cows scratched their necks.</p> + +<p>'It's all right,' he said; and added, 'I'm planting a lot of acorns this +autumn too.'</p> + +<p>'Then aren't you most awfully old?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'Not old—fairly long-lived, as folk say hereabouts. Let me see—my +friends used to set my dish of cream for me o' nights when Stonehenge +was new. Yes, before the Flint Men made the Dewpond under Chanctonbury +Ring.'</p> + +<p>Una clasped her hands, cried 'Oh!' and nodded her head.</p> + +<p>'She's thought a plan,' Dan explained. 'She always does like that when +she thinks a plan.'</p> + +<p>'I was thinking—suppose we saved some of our porridge and put it in the +attic for you? They'd notice if we left it in the nursery.'</p> + +<p>'Schoolroom,' said Dan quickly, and Una flushed, because they had made a +solemn treaty that summer not to call the schoolroom the nursery any +more.</p> + +<p>'Bless your heart o' gold!' said Puck. 'You'll make a fine considering +wench some market-day. I really don't want you to put out a bowl for me; +but if ever I need a bite, be sure I'll tell you.'</p> + +<p>He stretched himself at length on the dry grass, and the children +stretched out beside him, their bare legs waving happily in the air. +They felt they could not be afraid of him any more than of their +particular friend old Hobden the <a name="page_12"></a><span class="pagenum">[12]</span>hedger. He did not bother them with +grown-up questions, or laugh at the donkey's head, but lay and smiled to +himself in the most sensible way.</p> + +<p>'Have you a knife on you?' he said at last.</p> + +<p>Dan handed over his big one-bladed outdoor knife, and Puck began to +carve out a piece of turf from the centre of the Ring.</p> + +<p>'What's that for—Magic?' said Una, as he pressed up the square of +chocolate loam that cut like so much cheese.</p> + +<p>'One of my little magics,' he answered, and cut another. 'You see, I +can't let you into the Hills because the People of the Hills have gone; +but if you care to take seizin from me, I may be able to show you +something out of the common here on Human Earth. You certainly deserve +it.'</p> + +<p>'What's taking seizin?' said Dan, cautiously.</p> + +<p>'It's an old custom the people had when they bought and sold land. They +used to cut out a clod and hand it over to the buyer, and you weren't +lawfully seized of your land—it didn't really belong to you—till the +other fellow had actually given you a piece of it—like this.' He held +out the turves.</p> + +<p>'But it's our own meadow,' said Dan, drawing back. 'Are you going to +magic it away?'</p> + +<p>Puck laughed. 'I know it's your meadow, but there's a great deal more in +it than you or your father ever guessed. Try!'</p> + +<p>He turned his eyes on Una.</p> + +<p>'I'll do it,' she said. Dan followed her example at once.</p> +<a name="page_13"></a><span class="pagenum">[13]</span> +<p>'Now are you two lawfully seized and possessed of all Old England,' +began Puck, in a sing-song voice. 'By right of Oak, Ash, and Thorn are +you free to come and go and look and know where I shall show or best you +please. You shall see What you shall see and you shall hear What you +shall hear, though It shall have happened three thousand year; and you +shall know neither Doubt nor Fear. Fast! Hold fast all I give you.'</p> + +<p>The children shut their eyes, but nothing happened.</p> + +<p>'Well?' said Una, disappointedly opening them. 'I thought there would be +dragons.'</p> + +<p>'"Though It shall have happened three thousand year,"' said Puck, and +counted on his fingers. 'No; I'm afraid there were no dragons three +thousand years ago.'</p> + +<p>'But there hasn't happened anything at all,' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Wait awhile,' said Puck. 'You don't grow an oak in a year—and Old +England's older than twenty oaks. Let's sit down again and think. <i>I</i> +can do that for a century at a time.'</p> + +<p>'Ah, but you're a fairy,' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Have you ever heard me say that word yet?' said Puck quickly.</p> + +<p>'No. You talk about "the People of the Hills", but you never say +"fairies",' said Una. 'I was wondering at that. Don't you like it?'</p> + +<p>'How would you like to be called "mortal" or "human being" all the +time?' said Puck; 'or "son of Adam" or "daughter of Eve"?'</p> + +<p>'I shouldn't like it at all,' said Dan. 'That's <a name="page_14"></a><span class="pagenum">[14]</span>how the Djinns and +Afrits talk in the <i>Arabian Nights</i>.'</p> + +<p>'And that's how <i>I</i> feel about saying—that word that I don't say. +Besides, what you call them are made-up things the People of the Hills +have never heard of—little buzzflies with butterfly wings and gauze +petticoats, and shiny stars in their hair, and a wand like a +schoolteacher's cane for punishing bad boys and rewarding good ones. <i>I</i> +know 'em!'</p> + +<p>'We don't mean that sort,' said Dan. 'We hate 'em too.'</p> + +<p>'Exactly,' said Puck. 'Can you wonder that the People of the Hills don't +care to be confused with that painty-winged, wand-waving, +sugar-and-shake-your-head set of impostors? Butterfly wings, indeed! +I've seen Sir Huon and a troop of his people setting off from Tintagel +Castle for Hy-Brasil in the teeth of a sou'-westerly gale, with the +spray flying all over the Castle, and the Horses of the Hills wild with +fright. Out they'd go in a lull, screaming like gulls, and back they'd +be driven five good miles inland before they could come head to wind +again. Butterfly-wings! It was Magic—Magic as black as Merlin could +make it, and the whole sea was green fire and white foam with singing +mermaids in it. And the Horses of the Hills picked their way from one +wave to another by the lightning flashes! <i>That</i> was how it was in the +old days!'</p> + +<p>'Splendid,' said Dan, but Una shuddered.</p> + +<p>'I'm glad they're gone, then; but what made the People of the Hills go +away?' Una asked.</p> +<a name="page_15"></a><span class="pagenum">[15]</span> +<p>'Different things. I'll tell you one of them some day—the thing that +made the biggest flit of any,' said Puck. 'But they didn't all flit at +once. They dropped off, one by one, through the centuries. Most of them +were foreigners who couldn't stand our climate. <i>They</i> flitted early.'</p> + +<p>'How early?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'A couple of thousand years or more. The fact is they began as Gods. The +Phœnicians brought some over when they came to buy tin; and the Gauls, +and the Jutes, and the Danes, and the Frisians, and the Angles brought +more when they landed. They were always landing in those days, or being +driven back to their ships, and they always brought their Gods with +them. England is a bad country for Gods. Now, <i>I</i> began as I mean to go +on. A bowl of porridge, a dish of milk, and a little quiet fun with the +country folk in the lanes was enough for me then, as it is now. I belong +here, you see, and I have been mixed up with people all my days. But +most of the others insisted on being Gods, and having temples, and +altars, and priests, and sacrifices of their own.'</p> + +<p>'People burned in wicker baskets?' said Dan. 'Like Miss Blake tells us +about?'</p> + +<p>'All sorts of sacrifices,' said Puck. 'If it wasn't men, it was horses, +or cattle, or pigs, or metheglin—that's a sticky, sweet sort of beer. +<i>I</i> never liked it. They were a stiff-necked, extravagant set of idols, +the Old Things. But what was the result? Men don't like being sacrificed +at the best of times; they don't even like sacrificing their +farm-horses. After a while, men simply <a name="page_16"></a><span class="pagenum">[16]</span>left the Old Things alone, and +the roofs of their temples fell in, and the Old Things had to scuttle +out and pick up a living as they could. Some of them took to hanging +about trees, and hiding in graves and groaning o' nights. If they +groaned loud enough and long enough they might frighten a poor +countryman into sacrificing a hen, or leaving a pound of butter for +them. I remember one Goddess called Belisama. She became a common wet +water-spirit somewhere in Lancashire. And there were hundreds of other +friends of mine. First they were Gods. Then they were People of the +Hills, and then they flitted to other places because they couldn't get +on with the English for one reason or another. There was only one Old +Thing, I remember, who honestly worked for his living after he came down +in the world. He was called Weland, and he was a smith to some Gods. +I've forgotten their names, but he used to make them swords and spears. +I think he claimed kin with Thor of the Scandinavians.'</p> + +<p>'<i>Heroes of Asgard</i> Thor?' said Una. She had been reading the book.</p> + +<p>'Perhaps,' answered Puck. 'None the less, when bad times came, he didn't +beg or steal. He worked; and I was lucky enough to be able to do him a +good turn.'</p> + +<p>'Tell us about it,' said Dan. 'I think I like hearing of Old Things.'</p> + +<p>They rearranged themselves comfortably, each chewing a grass stem. Puck +propped himself on one strong arm and went on:</p> + +<p>'Let's think! I met Weland first on a <a name="page_17"></a><span class="pagenum">[17]</span>November afternoon in a sleet +storm, on Pevensey Level——'</p> + +<p>'Pevensey? Over the hill, you mean?' Dan pointed south.</p> + +<p>'Yes; but it was all marsh in those days, right up to Horsebridge and +Hydeneye. I was on Beacon Hill—they called it Brunanburgh then—when I +saw the pale flame that burning thatch makes, and I went down to look. +Some pirates—I think they must have been Peofn's men—were burning a +village on the Levels, and Weland's image—a big, black wooden thing +with amber beads round his neck—lay in the bows of a black +thirty-two-oar galley that they had just beached. Bitter cold it was! +There were icicles hanging from her deck and the oars were glazed over +with ice, and there was ice on Weland's lips. When he saw me he began a +long chant in his own tongue, telling me how he was going to rule +England, and how I should smell the smoke of his altars from +Lincolnshire to the Isle of Wight. I didn't care! I'd seen too many Gods +charging into Old England to be upset about it. I let him sing himself +out while his men were burning the village, and then I said (I don't +know what put it into my head), "Smith of the Gods," I said, "the time +comes when I shall meet you plying your trade for hire by the wayside."'</p> + +<p>'What did Weland say?' said Una. 'Was he angry?'</p> + +<p>'He called me names and rolled his eyes, and I went away to wake up the +people inland. But the pirates conquered the country, and for centuries +<a name="page_18"></a><span class="pagenum">[18]</span>Weland was a most important God. He had temples everywhere—from +Lincolnshire to the Isle of Wight, as he said—and his sacrifices were +simply scandalous. To do him justice, he preferred horses to men; but +men or horses, I knew that presently he'd have to come down in the +world—like the other Old Things. I gave him lots of time—I gave him +about a thousand years—and at the end of 'em I went into one of his +temples near Andover to see how he prospered. There was his altar, and +there was his image, and there were his priests, and there were the +congregation, and everybody seemed quite happy, except Weland and the +priests. In the old days the congregation were unhappy until the priests +had chosen their sacrifices; and so would you have been. When the +service began a priest rushed out, dragged a man up to the altar, +pretended to hit him on the head with a little gilt axe, and the man +fell down and pretended to die. Then everybody shouted: "A sacrifice to +Weland! A sacrifice to Weland!"'</p> + +<p>'And the man wasn't really dead?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'Not a bit. All as much pretence as a dolls' tea-party. Then they +brought out a splendid white horse, and the priest cut some hair from +its mane and tail and burned it on the altar, shouting, "A sacrifice!" +That counted the same as if a man and a horse had been killed. I saw +poor Weland's face through the smoke, and I couldn't help laughing. He +looked so disgusted and so hungry, and all he had to satisfy himself was +a horrid smell of burning hair. Just a dolls' tea-party!</p> +<a name="page_19"></a><span class="pagenum">[19]</span> +<p>'I judged it better not to say anything then ('twouldn't have been +fair), and the next time I came to Andover, a few hundred years later, +Weland and his temple were gone, and there was a Christian bishop in a +church there. None of the People of the Hills could tell me anything +about him, and I supposed that he had left England.' Puck turned; lay on +the other elbow, and thought for a long time.</p> + +<p>'Let's see,' he said at last. 'It must have been some few years later—a +year or two before the Conquest, I think—that I came back to Pook's +Hill here, and one evening I heard old Hobden talking about Weland's +Ford.'</p> + +<p>'If you mean old Hobden the hedger, he's only seventy-two. He told me so +himself,' said Dan. 'He's a intimate friend of ours.'</p> + +<p>'You're quite right,' Puck replied. 'I meant old Hobden's ninth +great-grandfather. He was a free man and burned charcoal hereabouts. +I've known the family, father and son, so long that I get confused +sometimes. Hob of the Dene was my Hobden's name, and he lived at the +Forge cottage. Of course, I pricked up my ears when I heard Weland +mentioned, and I scuttled through the woods to the Ford just beyond Bog +Wood yonder.' He jerked his head westward, where the valley narrows +between wooded hills and steep hop-fields.</p> + +<p>'Why, that's Willingford Bridge,' said Una. 'We go there for walks +often. There's a kingfisher there.'</p> + +<p>'It was Weland's Ford then, dear. A road led down to it from the Beacon +on the top of the <a name="page_20"></a><span class="pagenum">[20]</span>hill—a shocking bad road it was—and all the hillside +was thick, thick oak-forest, with deer in it. There was no trace of +Weland, but presently I saw a fat old farmer riding down from the Beacon +under the greenwood tree. His horse had cast a shoe in the clay, and +when he came to the Ford he dismounted, took a penny out of his purse, +laid it on a stone, tied the old horse to an oak, and called out: +"Smith, Smith, here is work for you!" Then he sat down and went to +sleep. You can imagine how <i>I</i> felt when I saw a white-bearded, bent old +blacksmith in a leather apron creep out from behind the oak and begin to +shoe the horse. It was Weland himself. I was so astonished that I jumped +out and said: "What on Human Earth are you doing here, Weland?"'</p> + +<p>'Poor Weland!' sighed Una.</p> + +<p>'He pushed the long hair back from his forehead (he didn't recognize me +at first). Then he said: "<i>You</i> ought to know. You foretold it, Old +Thing. I'm shoeing horses for hire. I'm not even Weland now," he said. +"They call me Wayland-Smith."'</p> + +<p>'Poor chap!' said Dan. 'What did you say?'</p> + +<p>'What could I say? He looked up, with the horse's foot on his lap, and +he said, smiling, "I remember the time when I wouldn't have accepted +this old bag of bones as a sacrifice, and now I'm glad enough to shoe +him for a penny."</p> + +<p>'"Isn't there any way for you to get back to Valhalla, or wherever you +come from?" I said.</p> + +<p>'"I'm afraid not," he said, rasping away at the <a name="page_21"></a><span class="pagenum">[21]</span>hoof. He had a wonderful +touch with horses. The old beast was whinnying on his shoulder. "You may +remember that I was not a gentle God in my Day and my Time and my Power. +I shall never be released till some human being truly wishes me well."</p> + +<p>'"Surely," said I, "the farmer can't do less than that. You're shoeing +the horse all round for him."</p> + +<p>'"Yes," said he, "and my nails will hold a shoe from one full moon to +the next. But farmers and Weald clay," said he, "are both uncommon cold +and sour."</p> + +<p>'Would you believe it, that when that farmer woke and found his horse +shod he rode away without one word of thanks? I was so angry that I +wheeled his horse right round and walked him back three miles to the +Beacon, just to teach the old sinner politeness.'</p> + +<p>'Were you invisible?' said Una. Puck nodded, gravely.</p> + +<p>'The Beacon was always laid in those days ready to light, in case the +French landed at Pevensey; and I walked the horse about and about it +that lee-long summer night. The farmer thought he was bewitched—well, +he <i>was</i>, of course—and began to pray and shout. <i>I</i> didn't care! I was +as good a Christian as he any fair-day in the County, and about four +o'clock in the morning a young novice came along from the monastery that +used to stand on the top of Beacon Hill.'</p> + +<p>'What's a novice?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'It really means a man who is beginning to be <a name="page_22"></a><span class="pagenum">[22]</span>a monk, but in those days +people sent their sons to a monastery just the same as a school. This +young fellow had been to a monastery in France for a few months every +year, and he was finishing his studies in the monastery close to his +home here. Hugh was his name, and he had got up to go fishing +hereabouts. His people owned all this valley. Hugh heard the farmer +shouting, and asked him what in the world he meant. The old man spun him +a wonderful tale about fairies and goblins and witches; and I <i>know</i> he +hadn't seen a thing except rabbits and red deer all that night. (The +People of the Hills are like otters—they don't show except when they +choose.) But the novice wasn't a fool. He looked down at the horse's +feet, and saw the new shoes fastened as only Weland knew how to fasten +'em. (Weland had a way of turning down the nails that folks called the +Smith's Clinch.)</p> + +<p>'"H'm!" said the novice. "Where did you get your horse shod?"</p> + +<p>'The farmer wouldn't tell him at first, because the priests never liked +their people to have any dealings with the Old Things. At last he +confessed that the Smith had done it. "What did you pay him?" said the +novice. "Penny," said the farmer, very sulkily. "That's less than a +Christian would have charged," said the novice. "I hope you threw a +'Thank you' into the bargain." "No," said the farmer; "Wayland-Smith's a +heathen." "Heathen or no heathen," said the novice, "you took his help, +and where you get help there you must give thanks." <a name="page_23"></a><span class="pagenum">[23]</span> "What?" said the +farmer—he was in a furious temper because I was walking the old horse +in circles all this time—"What, you young jackanapes?" said he. "Then by +your reasoning I ought to say 'Thank you' to Satan if he helped me?" +"Don't roll about up there splitting reasons with me," said the novice. +"Come back to the Ford and thank the Smith, or you'll be sorry."</p> + +<p>'Back the farmer had to go. I led the horse, though no one saw me, and +the novice walked beside us, his gown swishing through the shiny dew and +his fishing-rod across his shoulders, spear-wise. When we reached the +Ford again—it was five o'clock and misty still under the oaks—the +farmer simply wouldn't say "Thank you." He said he'd tell the Abbot that +the novice wanted him to worship heathen Gods. Then Hugh the novice lost +his temper. He just cried, "Out!" put his arm under the farmer's fat +leg, and heaved him from his saddle on to the turf, and before he could +rise he caught him by the back of the neck and shook him like a rat till +the farmer growled, "Thank you, Wayland-Smith."'</p> + +<p>'Did Weland see all this?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Oh yes, and he shouted his old war-cry when the farmer thudded on to +the ground. He was delighted. Then the novice turned to the oak tree and +said, "Ho, Smith of the Gods! I am ashamed of this rude farmer; but for +all you have done in kindness and charity to him and to others of our +people, I thank you and wish you well." Then he picked up his +fishing-rod—it <a name="page_24"></a><span class="pagenum">[24]</span> looked more like a tall spear than ever—and tramped off +down your valley.'</p> + +<p>'And what did poor Weland do?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'He laughed and he cried with joy, because he had been released at last, +and could go away. But he was an honest Old Thing. He had worked for his +living and he paid his debts before he left. "I shall give that novice a +gift," said Weland. "A gift that shall do him good the wide world over +and Old England after him. Blow up my fire, Old Thing, while I get the +iron for my last task." Then he made a sword—a dark-grey, wavy-lined +sword—and I blew the fire while he hammered. By Oak, Ash and Thorn, I +tell you, Weland was a Smith of the Gods! He cooled that sword in +running water twice, and the third time he cooled it in the evening dew, +and he laid it out in the moonlight and said Runes (that's charms) over +it, and he carved Runes of Prophecy on the blade. "Old Thing," he said +to me, wiping his forehead, "this is the best blade that Weland ever +made. Even the user will never know how good it is. Come to the +monastery."</p> + +<p>'We went to the dormitory where the monks slept, we saw the novice fast +asleep in his cot, and Weland put the sword into his hand, and I +remember the young fellow gripped it in his sleep. Then Weland strode as +far as he dared into the Chapel and threw down all his +shoeing-tools—his hammers and pincers and rasps—to show that he had +done with them for ever. It sounded like suits of armour falling, and +the sleepy monks ran in, for they thought the monastery had been</p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_25"></a><span class="pagenum">[25]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_25_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_25.png" height="623" width="400" alt="Then he made a sword." /> +</a><br /> +<span class="caption">Then he made a sword</span> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_27"></a><span class="pagenum">[27]</span> +<p>attacked by the French. The novice came first of all, waving his new +sword and shouting Saxon battle-cries. When they saw the shoeing-tools +they were very bewildered, till the novice asked leave to speak, and +told what he had done to the farmer, and what he had said to +Wayland-Smith, and how, though the dormitory light was burning, he had +found the wonderful rune-carved sword in his cot.</p> + +<p>'The Abbot shook his head at first, and then he laughed and said to the +novice: "Son Hugh, it needed no sign from a heathen God to show me that +you will never be a monk. Take your sword, and keep your sword, and go +with your sword, and be as gentle as you are strong and courteous. We +will hang up the Smith's tools before the Altar," he said, "because, +whatever the Smith of the Gods may have been, in the old days, we know +that he worked honestly for his living and made gifts to Mother Church." +Then they went to bed again, all except the novice, and he sat up in the +garth playing with his sword. Then Weland said to me by the stables: +"Farewell, Old Thing; you had the right of it. You saw me come to +England, and you see me go. Farewell!"</p> + +<p>'With that he strode down the hill to the corner of the Great +Woods—Woods Corner, you call it now—to the very place where he had +first landed—and I heard him moving through the thickets towards +Horsebridge for a little, and then he was gone. That was how it +happened. I saw it.'</p> + +<p>Both children drew a long breath.</p> +<a name="page_28"></a><span class="pagenum">[28]</span> +<p>'But what happened to Hugh the novice?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'And the sword?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>Puck looked down the meadow that lay all quiet and cool in the shadow of +Pook's Hill. A corncrake jarred in a hay-field near by, and the small +trouts of the brook began to jump. A big white moth flew unsteadily from +the alders and flapped round the children's heads, and the least little +haze of water-mist rose from the brook.</p> + +<p>'Do you really want to know?' Puck said.</p> + +<p>'We do,' cried the children. 'Awfully!'</p> + +<p>'Very good. I promised you that you shall see What you shall see, and +you shall hear What you shall hear, though It shall have happened three +thousand year; but just now it seems to me that, unless you go back to +the house, people will be looking for you. I'll walk with you as far as +the gate.'</p> + +<p>'Will you be here when we come again?' they asked.</p> + +<p>'Surely, sure-ly,' said Puck. 'I've been here some time already. One +minute first, please.'</p> + +<p>He gave them each three leaves—one of Oak, one of Ash and one of Thorn.</p> + +<p>'Bite these,' said he. 'Otherwise you might be talking at home of what +you've seen and heard, and—if I know human beings—they'd send for the +doctor. Bite!'</p> + +<p>They bit hard, and found themselves walking side by side to the lower +gate. Their father was leaning over it.</p> + +<p>'And how did your play go?' he asked.</p> +<a name="page_29"></a><span class="pagenum">[29]</span> +<p>'Oh, splendidly,' said Dan. 'Only afterwards, I think, we went to sleep. +it was very hot and quiet. Don't you remember, Una?'</p> + +<p>Una shook her head and said nothing.</p> + +<p>'I see,' said her father.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>'Late—late in the evening Kilmeny came home,</span> +<span>For Kilmeny had been she could not tell where,</span> +<span>And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare.</span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>But why are you chewing leaves at your time of life, daughter? For fun?'</p> + +<p>'No. It was for something, but I can't azactly remember,' said Una.</p> + +<p>And neither of them could till——</p> + +<hr /> +<a name="page_31"></a><span class="pagenum">[31]</span> +<h4>A TREE SONG</h4> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Of all the trees that grow so fair,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Old England to adorn,</i></span> +<span><i>Greater are none beneath the Sun,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.</i></span> +<span><i>Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good Sirs</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>(All of a Midsummer morn)!</i></span> +<span><i>Surely we sing no little thing,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>In Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Oak of the Clay lived many a day,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Or ever Æneas began;</i></span> +<span><i>Ash of the Loam was a lady at home,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>When Brut was an outlaw man;</i></span> +<span><i>Thorn of the Down saw New Troy Town</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>(From which was London born);</i></span> +<span><i>Witness hereby the ancientry</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Of Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Yew that is old in churchyard mould,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>He breedeth a mighty bow;</i></span> +<span><i>Alder for shoes do wise men choose,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>And beech for cups also.</i></span> +<a name="page_32"></a><span class="pagenum">[32]</span> +<span><i>But when ye have killed, and your bowl is spilled,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>And your shoes are clean outworn,</i></span> +<span><i>Back ye must speed for all that ye need,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>To Oak and Ash and Thorn!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Ellum she hateth mankind, and waiteth</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Till every gust be laid,</i></span> +<span><i>To drop a limb on the head of him</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>That anyway trusts her shade:</i></span> +<span><i>But whether a lad be sober or sad,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Or mellow with ale from the horn,</i></span> +<span><i>He will take no wrong when he lieth along</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>'Neath Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Or he would call it a sin;</i></span> +<span><i>But—we have been out in the woods all night,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>A-conjuring Summer in!</i></span> +<span><i>And we bring you news by word of mouth—</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Good news for cattle and corn—</i></span> +<span><i>Now is the Sun come up from the South,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>With Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good Sirs</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>(All of a Midsummer morn)!</i></span> +<span><i>England shall bide till Judgement Tide,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>By Oak and Ash and Thorn!</i></span> +</div> +</div> +<hr class="wide" /> +<a name="page_33"></a><span class="pagenum">[33]</span> +<h3>Young Men at the Manor</h3> +<a name="page_35"></a><span class="pagenum">[35]</span> +<h4>Young Men at the Manor</h4> + +<p>They were fishing, a few days later, in the bed of the brook that for +centuries had cut deep into the soft valley soil. The trees closing +overhead made long tunnels through which the sunshine worked in blobs +and patches. Down in the tunnels were bars of sand and gravel, old roots +and trunks covered with moss or painted red by the irony water; +foxgloves growing lean and pale towards the light; clumps of fern and +thirsty shy flowers who could not live away from moisture and shade. In +the pools you could see the wave thrown up by the trouts as they charged +hither and yon, and the pools were joined to each other—except in flood +time, when all was one brown rush—by sheets of thin broken water that +poured themselves chuckling round the darkness of the next bend.</p> + +<p>This was one of the children's most secret hunting-grounds, and their +particular friend, old Hobden the hedger, had shown them how to use it. +Except for the click of a rod hitting a low willow, or a switch and +tussle among the young ash-leaves as a line hung up for the minute, +nobody in the hot pasture could have guessed what game was going on +among the trouts below the banks.</p> +<a name="page_36"></a><span class="pagenum">[36]</span> +<p>'We've got half-a-dozen,' said Dan, after a warm, wet hour. 'I vote we +go up to Stone Bay and try Long Pool.'</p> + +<p>Una nodded—most of her talk was by nods—and they crept from the gloom +of the tunnels towards the tiny weir that turns the brook into the +mill-stream. Here the banks are low and bare, and the glare of the +afternoon sun on the Long Pool below the weir makes your eyes ache.</p> + +<p>When they were in the open they nearly fell down with astonishment. A +huge grey horse, whose tail-hairs crinkled the glassy water, was +drinking in the pool, and the ripples about his muzzle flashed like +melted gold. On his back sat an old, white-haired man dressed in a loose +glimmery gown of chain-mail. He was bare-headed, and a nut-shaped iron +helmet hung at his saddle-bow. His reins were of red leather five or six +inches deep, scalloped at the edges, and his high padded saddle with its +red girths was held fore and aft by a red leather breastband and +crupper.</p> + +<p>'Look!' said Una, as though Dan were not staring his very eyes out. +'It's like the picture in your room—"Sir Isumbras at the Ford".'</p> + +<p>The rider turned towards them, and his thin, long face was just as sweet +and gentle as that of the knight who carries the children in that +picture.</p> + +<p>'They should be here now, Sir Richard,' said Puck's deep voice among the +willow-herb.</p> + +<p>'They are here,' the knight said, and he smiled at Dan with the string +of trouts in his hand. +<a name="page_37"></a><span class="pagenum">[37]</span>'There seems no great change in boys since mine +fished this water.'</p> + +<p>'If your horse has drunk, we shall be more at ease in the Ring,' said +Puck; and he nodded to the children as though he had never magicked away +their memories a week before.</p> + +<p>The great horse turned and hoisted himself into the pasture with a kick +and a scramble that tore the clods down rattling.</p> + +<p>'Your pardon!' said Sir Richard to Dan. 'When these lands were mine, I +never loved that mounted men should cross the brook except by the paved +ford. But my Swallow here was thirsty, and I wished to meet you.'</p> + +<p>'We're very glad you've come, sir,' said Dan. 'It doesn't matter in the +least about the banks.'</p> + +<p>He trotted across the pasture on the sword side of the mighty horse, and +it was a mighty iron-handled sword that swung from Sir Richard's belt. +Una walked behind with Puck. She remembered everything now.</p> + +<p>'I'm sorry about the Leaves,' he said, 'but it would never have done if +you had gone home and told, would it?'</p> + +<p>'I s'pose not,' Una answered. 'But you said that all the fair—People of +the Hills had left England.'</p> + +<p>'So they have; but I told you that you should come and go and look and +know, didn't I? The knight isn't a fairy. He's Sir Richard Dalyngridge, +a very old friend of mine. He came over with William the Conqueror, and +he wants to see you particularly.'</p> +<a name="page_38"></a><span class="pagenum">[38]</span> +<p>'What for?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'On account of your great wisdom and learning,' Puck replied, without a +twinkle.</p> + +<p>'Us?' said Una. 'Why, I don't know my Nine Times—not to say it dodging, +and Dan makes the most <i>awful</i> mess of fractions. He can't mean <i>us</i>!'</p> + +<p>'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?'</p> + +<p>'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.</p> + +<p>Sir Richard (they noticed he limped a little) unslung his great sword.</p> + +<p>'That's it,' Dan whispered to Una.</p> + +<p>'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.'</p> + +<p>'Tell them all the tale, Sir Richard,' said Puck. 'It concerns their +land somewhat.'</p> +<a name="page_39"></a><span class="pagenum">[39]</span> +<p>'Yes, from the very beginning,' Una pleaded, for the knight's good face +and the smile on it more than ever reminded her of 'Sir Isumbras at the +Ford'.</p> + +<p>They settled down to listen, Sir Richard bare-headed to the sunshine, +dandling the sword in both hands, while the grey horse cropped outside +the Ring, and the helmet on the saddle-bow clinged softly each time he +jerked his head.</p> + +<p>'From the beginning, then,' Sir Richard said, 'since it concerns your +land, I will tell the tale. When our Duke came out of Normandy to take +his England, great knights (have ye heard?) came and strove hard to +serve the Duke, because he promised them lands here, and small knights +followed the great ones. My folk in Normandy were poor; but a great +knight, Engerrard of the Eagle—Engenulf De Aquila—who was kin to my +father, followed the Earl of Mortain, who followed William the Duke, and +I followed De Aquila. Yes, with thirty men-at-arms out of my father's +house and a new sword, I set out to conquer England three days after I +was made knight. I did not then know that England would conquer me. We +went up to Santlache with the rest—a very great host of us.'</p> + +<p>'Does that mean the Battle of Hastings—Ten Sixty-Six?' Una whispered, +and Puck nodded, so as not to interrupt.</p> + +<p>'At Santlache, over the hill yonder'—he pointed south-eastward towards +Fairlight—'we found Harold's men. We fought. At the day's end they ran. +My men went with De Aquila's to +<a name="page_40"></a><span class="pagenum">[40]</span>chase and plunder, and in that chase +Engerrard of the Eagle was slain, and his son Gilbert took his banner +and his men forward. This I did not know till after, for Swallow here +was cut in the flank, so I stayed to wash the wound at a brook by a +thorn. There a single Saxon cried out to me in French, and we fought +together. I should have known his voice, but we fought together. For a +long time neither had any advantage, till by pure ill-fortune his foot +slipped and his sword flew from his hand. Now I had but newly been made +knight, and wished, above all, to be courteous and fameworthy, so I +forbore to strike and bade him get his sword again. "A plague on my +sword," said he. "It has lost me my first fight. You have spared my +life. Take my sword." He held it out to me, but as I stretched my hand +the sword groaned like a stricken man, and I leaped back crying, +"Sorcery!"'</p> + +<p>[The children looked at the sword as though it might speak again.]</p> + +<p>'Suddenly a clump of Saxons ran out upon me and, seeing a Norman alone, +would have killed me, but my Saxon cried out that I was his prisoner, +and beat them off. Thus, see you, he saved my life. He put me on my +horse and led me through the woods ten long miles to this valley.'</p> + +<p>'To here, d'you mean?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'To this very valley. We came in by the Lower Ford under the King's Hill +yonder'—he pointed eastward where the valley widens.</p> + +<p>'And was that Saxon Hugh the novice?' Dan asked.</p> +<a name="page_41"></a><span class="pagenum">[41]</span> +<p>'Yes, and more than that. He had been for three years at the monastery +at Bec by Rouen, where'—Sir Richard chuckled—'the Abbot Herluin would +not suffer me to remain.'</p> + +<p>'Why wouldn't he?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Because I rode my horse into the refectory, when the scholars were at +meat, to show the Saxon boys we Normans were not afraid of an Abbot. It +was that very Saxon Hugh tempted me to do it, and we had not met since +that day. I thought I knew his voice even inside my helmet, and, for all +that our Lords fought, we each rejoiced we had not slain the other. He +walked by my side, and he told me how a Heathen God, as he believed, had +given him his sword, but he said he had never heard it sing before. I +remember I warned him to beware of sorcery and quick enchantments.' Sir +Richard smiled to himself. 'I was very young—very young!</p> + +<p>'When we came to his house here we had almost forgotten that we had been +at blows. It was near midnight, and the Great Hall was full of men and +women waiting news. There I first saw his sister, the Lady Ælueva, of +whom he had spoken to us in France. She cried out fiercely at me, and +would have had me hanged in that hour, but her brother said that I had +spared his life—he said not how he saved mine from the Saxons—and that +our Duke had won the day; and even while they wrangled over my poor +body, of a sudden he fell down in a swoon from his wounds.</p> + +<p>'"This is <i>thy</i> fault," said the Lady Ælueva +<a name="page_42"></a><span class="pagenum">[42]</span> +to me, and she kneeled above him and called for wine and cloths.</p> + +<p>'"If I had known," I answered, "he should have ridden and I walked. But +he set me on my horse; he made no complaint; he walked beside me and +spoke merrily throughout. I pray I have done him no harm."</p> + +<p>'"Thou hast need to pray," she said, catching up her underlip. "If he +dies, thou shalt hang."</p> + +<p>'They bore off Hugh to his chamber; but three tall men of the house +bound me and set me under the beam of the Great Hall with a rope round +my neck. The end of the rope they flung over the beam, and they sat them +down by the fire to wait word whether Hugh lived or died. They cracked +nuts with their knife-hilts the while.'</p> + +<p>'And how did you feel?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Very weary; but I did heartily pray for my schoolmate Hugh his health. +About noon I heard horses in the valley, and the three men loosed my +ropes and fled out, and De Aquila's men rode up. Gilbert de Aquila came +with them, for it was his boast that, like his father, he forgot no man +that served him. He was little, like his father, but terrible, with a +nose like an eagle's nose and yellow eyes like an eagle. He rode tall +warhorses—roans, which he bred himself—and he could never abide to be +helped into the saddle. He saw the rope hanging from the beam and +laughed, and his men laughed, for I was too stiff to rise.</p> + +<p>'"This is poor entertainment for a Norman +<a name="page_43"></a><span class="pagenum">[43]</span>knight," he said, "but, such +as it is, let us be grateful. Show me, boy, to whom thou owest most, and +we will pay them out of hand."'</p> + +<p>'What did he mean? To kill 'em?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Assuredly. But I looked at the Lady Ælueva where she stood among her +maids, and her brother beside her. De Aquila's men had driven them all +into the Great Hall.'</p> + +<p>'Was she pretty?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'In all my long life I have never seen woman fit to strew rushes before +my Lady Ælueva,' the knight replied, quite simply and quietly. 'As I +looked at her I thought I might save her and her house by a jest.</p> + +<p>'"Seeing that I came somewhat hastily and without warning," said I to De +Aquila, "I have no fault to find with the courtesy that these Saxons +have shown me." But my voice shook. It is—it was not good to jest with +that little man.</p> + +<p>'All were silent awhile, till De Aquila laughed. "Look, men—a miracle," +said he. "The fight is scarce sped, my father is not yet buried, and +here we find our youngest knight already set down in his Manor, while +his Saxons—ye can see it in their fat faces—have paid him homage and +service! By the Saints," he said, rubbing his nose, "I never thought +England would be so easy won! Surely I can do no less than give the lad +what he has taken. This Manor shall be thine, boy," he said, "till I +come again, or till thou art slain. Now, mount, men, and ride. We follow +our Duke into Kent to make him King of England."</p> + +<p>'He drew me with him to the door while they +<a name="page_44"></a><span class="pagenum">[44]</span> +brought his horse—a lean roan, taller than my Swallow here, but not so well girthed.</p> + +<p>'"Hark to me," he said, fretting with his great war-gloves. "I have +given thee this Manor, which is a Saxon hornets' nest, and I think thou +wilt be slain in a month—as my father was slain. Yet if thou canst keep +the roof on the hall, the thatch on the barn, and the plough in the +furrow till I come back, thou shalt hold the Manor from me; for the Duke +has promised our Earl Mortain all the lands by Pevensey, and Mortain +will give me of them what he would have given my father. God knows if +thou or I shall live till England is won; but remember, boy, that here +and now fighting is foolishness and"—he reached for the reins—"craft +and cunning is all."</p> + +<p>'"Alas, I have no cunning," said I.</p> + +<p>'"Not yet," said he, hopping abroad, foot in stirrup, and poking his +horse in the belly with his toe. "Not yet, but I think thou hast a good +teacher. Farewell! Hold the Manor and live. Lose the Manor and hang," he +said, and spurred out, his shield-straps squeaking behind him.</p> + +<p>'So, children, here was I, little more than a boy, and Santlache fight +not two days old, left alone with my thirty men-at-arms, in a land I +knew not, among a people whose tongue I could not speak, to hold down +the land which I had taken from them.'</p> + +<p>'And that was here at home?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'Yes, here. See! From the Upper Ford, Weland's Ford, to the Lower Ford, +by the Belle Allée, west and east it ran half a league. From</p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_46"></a><span class="pagenum">[46]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_46_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_46.png" height="679" width="400" alt="'At this she cried that I was a Norman thief'" /> +</a> +<div class="caption">'At this she cried that I was a Norman thief'</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_47"></a><span class="pagenum">[47]</span> +<p>the Beacon +of Brunanburgh behind us here, south and north it ran a full league—and +all the woods were full of broken men from Santlache, Saxon thieves, +Norman plunderers, robbers, and deer-stealers. A hornets' nest indeed!</p> + +<p>'When De Aquila had gone, Hugh would have thanked me for saving their +lives; but the Lady Ælueva said that I had done it only for the sake of +receiving the Manor.</p> + +<p>'"How could I know that De Aquila would give it me?" I said. "If I had +told him I had spent my night in your halter he would have burned the +place twice over by now."</p> + +<p>'"If any man had put <i>my</i> neck in a rope," she said, "I would have seen +his house burned thrice over before <i>I</i> would have made terms."</p> + +<p>'"But it was a woman," I said; and I laughed, and she wept and said that +I mocked her in her captivity.</p> + +<p>'"Lady," said I, "there is no captive in this valley except one, and he +is not a Saxon."</p> + +<p>'At this she cried that I was a Norman thief, who came with false, sweet +words, having intended from the first to turn her out in the fields to +beg her bread. Into the fields! She had never seen the face of war!</p> + +<p>'I was angry, and answered, "This much at least I can disprove, for I +swear"—and on my sword-hilt I swore it in that place—"I swear I will +never set foot in the Great Hall till the Lady Ælueva herself shall +summon me there."</p> + +<p>'She went away, saying nothing, and I walked out, and Hugh limped after +me, whistling +<a name="page_48"></a><span class="pagenum">[48]</span> +dolorously (that is a custom of the English), and we came +upon the three Saxons that had bound me. They were now bound by my +men-at-arms, and behind them stood some fifty stark and sullen churls of +the House and the Manor, waiting to see what should fall. We heard De +Aquila's trumpets blow thin through the woods Kentward.</p> + +<p>'"Shall we hang these?" said my men.</p> + +<p>'"Then my churls will fight," said Hugh, beneath his breath; but I bade +him ask the three what mercy they hoped for.</p> + +<p>'"None," said they all. "She bade us hang thee if our master died. And +we would have hanged thee. There is no more to it."</p> + +<p>'As I stood doubting, a woman ran down from the oak wood above the +King's Hill yonder, and cried out that some Normans were driving off the +swine there.</p> + +<p>'"Norman or Saxon," said I, "we must beat them back, or they will rob us +every day. Out at them with any arms ye have!" So I loosed those three +carles and we ran together, my men-at-arms and the Saxons with bills and +axes which they had hidden in the thatch of their huts, and Hugh led +them. Half-way up the King's Hill we found a false fellow from +Picardy—a sutler that sold wine in the Duke's camp—with a dead +knight's shield on his arm, a stolen horse under him, and some ten or +twelve wastrels at his tail, all cutting and slashing at the pigs. We +beat them off, and saved our pork. One hundred and seventy pigs we saved +in that great battle.' Sir Richard laughed.</p> +<a name="page_49"></a><span class="pagenum">[49]</span> +<p>'That, then, was our first work together, and I bade Hugh tell his folk +that so would I deal with any man, knight or churl, Norman or Saxon, who +stole as much as one egg from our valley. Said he to me, riding home: +"Thou hast gone far to conquer England this evening." I answered: +"England must be thine and mine, then. Help me, Hugh, to deal aright +with these people. Make them to know that if they slay me De Aquila will +surely send to slay them, and he will put a worse man in my place." +"That may well be true," said he, and gave me his hand. "Better the +devil we know than the devil we know not, till we can pack you Normans +home." And so, too, said his Saxons; and they laughed as we drove the +pigs downhill. But I think some of them, even then, began not to hate +me.'</p> + +<p>'I like Brother Hugh,' said Una, softly.</p> + +<p>'Beyond question he was the most perfect, courteous, valiant, tender, +and wise knight that ever drew breath,' said Sir Richard, caressing the +sword. 'He hung up his sword—this sword—on the wall of the Great Hall, +because he said it was fairly mine, and never he took it down till De +Aquila returned, as I shall presently show. For three months his men and +mine guarded the valley, till all robbers and nightwalkers learned there +was nothing to get from us save hard tack and a hanging. Side by side we +fought against all who came—thrice a week sometimes we fought—against +thieves and landless knights looking for good manors. Then we were in +some peace, and I made shift by Hugh's help to govern the valley—for +<a name="page_50"></a><span class="pagenum">[50]</span> +all this valley of yours was my Manor—as a knight should. I kept the +roof on the hall and the thatch on the barn, but ... the English are a +bold people. His Saxons would laugh and jest with Hugh, and Hugh with +them, and—this was marvellous to me—if even the meanest of them said +that such and such a thing was the Custom of the Manor, then straightway +would Hugh and such old men of the Manor as might be near forsake +everything else to debate the matter—I have seen them stop the Mill +with the corn half ground—and if the custom or usage were proven to be +as it was said, why, that was the end of it, even though it were flat +against Hugh, his wish and command. Wonderful!'</p> + +<p>'Aye,' said Puck, breaking in for the first time. 'The Custom of Old +England was here before your Norman knights came, and it outlasted them, +though they fought against it cruel.'</p> + +<p>'Not I,' said Sir Richard. 'I let the Saxons go their stubborn way, but +when my own men-at-arms, Normans not six months in England, stood up and +told me what was the custom of the country, then I was angry. Ah, good +days! Ah, wonderful people! And I loved them all.'</p> + +<p>The knight lifted his arms as though he would hug the whole dear valley, +and Swallow, hearing the chink of his chain-mail, looked up and whinnied +softly.</p> + +<p>'At last,' he went on, 'after a year of striving and contriving and some +little driving, De Aquila came to the valley, alone and without warning.</p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_52"></a><span class="pagenum">[52]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_52_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_52.png" height="636" width="400" alt="Said he,'I have it all from the child here.'" /> +</a> +<div class="caption">Said he,'I have it all from this child here.'</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_53"></a><span class="pagenum">[53]</span> +<p>I saw him first at the Lower Ford, with a swineherd's brat on his +saddle-bow.</p> + +<p>'"There is no need for thee to give any account of thy stewardship," +said he. "I have it all from the child here." And he told me how the +young thing had stopped his tall horse at the Ford, by waving of a +branch, and crying that the way was barred. "And if one bold, bare babe +be enough to guard the Ford in these days, thou hast done well," said +he, and puffed and wiped his head.</p> + +<p>'He pinched the child's cheek, and looked at our cattle in the flat by +the river.</p> + +<p>'"Both fat," said he, rubbing his nose. "This is craft and cunning such +as I love. What did I tell thee when I rode away, boy?"</p> + +<p>'"Hold the Manor or hang," said I. I had never forgotten it.</p> + +<p>'"True. And thou hast held." He clambered from his saddle and with his +sword's point cut out a turf from the bank and gave it me where I +kneeled.'</p> + +<p>Dan looked at Una, and Una looked at Dan.</p> + +<p>'That's seizin,' said Puck, in a whisper.</p> + +<p>'"Now thou art lawfully seized of the Manor, Sir Richard," said he—'twas +the first time he ever called me that—"thou and thy heirs for +ever. This must serve till the King's clerks write out thy title on a +parchment. England is all ours—if we can hold it."</p> + +<p>'"What service shall I pay?" I asked, and I remember I was proud beyond +words.</p> + +<p>'"Knight's fee, boy, knight's fee!" said he, +<a name="page_54"></a><span class="pagenum">[54]</span> +hopping round his horse on +one foot. (Have I said he was little, and could not endure to be helped +to his saddle?) "Six mounted men or twelve archers thou shalt send me +whenever I call for them, and—where got you that corn?" said he, for it +was near harvest, and our corn stood well. "I have never seen such +bright straw. Send me three bags of the same seed yearly, and +furthermore, in memory of our last meeting—with the rope round thy +neck—entertain me and my men for two days of each year in the Great +Hall of thy Manor."</p> + +<p>'"Alas!" said I, "then my Manor is already forfeit. I am under vow not +to enter the Great Hall." And I told him what I had sworn to the Lady +Ælueva.'</p> + +<p>'And hadn't you ever been into the house since?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'Never,' Sir Richard answered, smiling. 'I had made me a little hut of +wood up the hill, and there I did justice and slept ... De Aquila +wheeled aside, and his shield shook on his back. "No matter, boy," said +he. "I will remit the homage for a year."'</p> + +<p>'He meant Sir Richard needn't give him dinner there the first year,' +Puck explained.</p> + +<p>'De Aquila stayed with me in the hut, and Hugh, who could read and write +and cast accounts, showed him the Roll of the Manor, in which were +written all the names of our fields and men, and he asked a thousand +questions touching the land, the timber, the grazing, the mill, and the +fish-ponds, and the worth of every +<a name="page_55"></a><span class="pagenum">[55]</span> +man in the valley. But never he named +the Lady Ælueva's name, nor went he near the Great Hall. By night he +drank with us in the hut. Yes, he sat on the straw like an eagle ruffled +in her feathers, his yellow eyes rolling above the cup, and he pounced +in his talk like an eagle, swooping from one thing to another, but +always binding fast. Yes; he would lie still awhile, and then rustle in +the straw, and speak sometimes as though he were King William himself, +and anon he would speak in parables and tales, and if at once we saw not +his meaning he would yerk us in the ribs with his scabbarded sword.</p> + +<p>'"Look you, boys," said he, "I am born out of my due time. Five hundred +years ago I would have made all England such an England as neither Dane, +Saxon, nor Norman should have conquered. Five hundred years hence I +should have been such a counsellor to Kings as the world hath never +dreamed of. 'Tis all here," said he, tapping his big head, "but it hath +no play in this black age. Now Hugh here is a better man than thou art, +Richard." He had made his voice harsh and croaking, like a raven's.</p> + +<p>'"Truth," said I. "But for Hugh, his help and patience and +long-suffering, I could never have kept the Manor."</p> + +<p>'"Nor thy life either," said De Aquila. "Hugh has saved thee not once, +but a hundred times. Be still, Hugh!" he said. "Dost thou know, Richard, +why Hugh slept, and why he still sleeps, among thy Norman men-at-arms?"</p> +<a name="page_56"></a><span class="pagenum">[56]</span> +<p>'"To be near me," said I, for I thought this was truth.</p> + +<p>'"Fool!" said De Aquila. "It is because his Saxons have begged him to +rise against thee, and to sweep every Norman out of the valley. No +matter how I know. It is truth. Therefore Hugh hath made himself an +hostage for thy life, well knowing that if any harm befell thee from his +Saxons thy Normans would slay him without remedy. And this his Saxons +know. Is it true, Hugh?"</p> + +<p>'"In some sort," said Hugh shamefacedly; "at least, it was true half a +year ago. My Saxons would not harm Richard now. I think they know +him—but I judged it best to make sure."</p> + +<p>'Look, children, what that man had done—and I had never guessed it! +Night after night had he lain down among my men-at-arms, knowing that if +one Saxon had lifted knife against me, his life would have answered for +mine.</p> + +<p>'"Yes," said De Aquila. "And he is a swordless man." He pointed to +Hugh's belt, for Hugh had put away his sword—did I tell you?—the day +after it flew from his hand at Santlache. He carried only the short +knife and the long-bow. "Swordless and landless art thou, Hugh; and they +call thee kin to Earl Godwin." (Hugh was indeed of Godwin's blood.) "The +Manor that was thine is given to this boy and to his children for ever. +Sit up and beg, for he can turn thee out like a dog, Hugh."</p> + +<p>'Hugh said nothing, but I heard his teeth grind, and I bade De Aquila, +my own overlord, +<a name="page_57"></a><span class="pagenum">[57]</span> +hold his peace, or I would stuff his words down his +throat. Then De Aquila laughed till the tears ran down his face.</p> + +<p>'"I warned the King," said he, "what would come of giving England to us +Norman thieves. Here art thou, Richard, less than two days confirmed in +thy Manor, and already thou hast risen against thy overlord. What shall +we do to him, <i>Sir</i> Hugh?"</p> + +<p>'"I am a swordless man," said Hugh. "Do not jest with me," and he laid +his head on his knees and groaned.</p> + +<p>'"The greater fool thou," said De Aquila, and all his voice changed; +"for I have given thee the Manor of Dallington up the hill this +half-hour since," and he yerked at Hugh with his scabbard across the +straw.</p> + +<p>'"To me?" said Hugh. "I am a Saxon, and, except that I love Richard +here, I have not sworn fealty to any Norman."</p> + +<p>'"In God's good time, which because of my sins I shall not live to see, +there will be neither Saxon nor Norman in England," said De Aquila. "If +I know men, thou art more faithful unsworn than a score of Normans I +could name. Take Dallington, and join Sir Richard to fight me tomorrow, +if it please thee!"</p> + +<p>'"Nay," said Hugh. "I am no child. Where I take a gift, there I render +service"; and he put his hands between De Aquila's, and swore to be +faithful, and, as I remember, I kissed him, and De Aquila kissed us +both.</p> + +<p>'We sat afterwards outside the hut while the +<a name="page_58"></a><span class="pagenum">[58]</span> +sun rose, and De Aquila +marked our churls going to their work in the fields, and talked of holy +things, and how we should govern our Manors in time to come, and of +hunting and of horse-breeding, and of the King's wisdom and unwisdom; +for he spoke to us as though we were in all sorts now his brothers. Anon +a churl stole up to me—he was one of the three I had not hanged a year +ago—and he bellowed—which is the Saxon for whispering—that the Lady +Ælueva would speak to me at the Great House. She walked abroad daily in +the Manor, and it was her custom to send me word whither she went, that +I might set an archer or two behind and in front to guard her. Very +often I myself lay up in the woods and watched on her also.</p> + +<p>'I went swiftly, and as I passed the great door it opened from within, +and there stood my Lady Ælueva, and she said to me: "Sir Richard, will +it please you enter your Great Hall?" Then she wept, but we were alone.'</p> + +<p>The knight was silent for a long time, his face turned across the +valley, smiling.</p> + +<p>'Oh, well done!' said Una, and clapped her hands very softly. 'She was +sorry, and she said so.'</p> + +<p>'Aye, she was sorry, and she said so,' said Sir Richard, coming back +with a little start. 'Very soon—but <i>he</i> said it was two full hours +later—De Aquila rode to the door, with his shield new scoured (Hugh had +cleansed it), and demanded entertainment, and called me a false knight, +that would starve his overlord to death. Then Hugh</p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_59"></a><span class="pagenum">[59]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_59_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_59.png" height="638" width="400" alt="'Sir Richard, will it please you to enter your Great Hall?'" /> +</a> +<div class="caption">'Sir Richard, will it please you to enter your Great Hall?'</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_61"></a><span class="pagenum">[61]</span> +<p>cried out that no man +should work in the valley that day, and our Saxons blew horns, and set +about feasting and drinking, and running of races, and dancing and +singing; and De Aquila climbed upon a horse-block and spoke to them in +what he swore was good Saxon, but no man understood it. At night we +feasted in the Great Hall, and when the harpers and the singers were +gone we four sat late at the high table. As I remember, it was a warm +night with a full moon, and De Aquila bade Hugh take down his sword from +the wall again, for the honour of the Manor of Dallington, and Hugh took +it gladly enough. Dust lay on the hilt, for I saw him blow it off.</p> + +<p>'She and I sat talking a little apart, and at first we thought the +harpers had come back, for the Great Hall was filled with a rushing +noise of music. De Aquila leaped up; but there was only the moonlight +fretty on the floor.</p> + +<p>'"Hearken!" said Hugh. "It is my sword," and as he belted it on the +music ceased.</p> + +<p>'"Over Gods, forbid that I should ever belt blade like that," said De +Aquila. "What does it foretell?"</p> + +<p>'"The Gods that made it may know. Last time it spoke was at Hastings, +when I lost all my lands. Belike it sings now that I have new lands and +am a man again," said Hugh.</p> + +<p>'He loosed the blade a little and drove it back happily into the sheath, +and the sword answered him low and crooningly, as—as a woman would +speak to a man, her head on his shoulder.</p> +<a name="page_62"></a><span class="pagenum">[62]</span> +<p>'Now that was the second time in all my life I heard this Sword +sing.'...</p> +<br /><br /> +<p> +'Look!' said Una. 'There's Mother coming down the Long Slip. What will +she say to Sir Richard? She can't help seeing him.'</p> + +<p>'And Puck can't magic us this time,' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Are you sure?' said Puck; and he leaned forward and whispered to Sir +Richard, who, smiling, bowed his head.</p> + +<p>'But what befell the sword and my brother Hugh I will tell on another +time,' said he, rising. 'Ohé, Swallow!'</p> + +<p>The great horse cantered up from the far end of the meadow, close to +Mother.</p> + +<p>They heard Mother say: 'Children, Gleason's old horse has broken into +the meadow again. Where did he get through?'</p> + +<p>'Just below Stone Bay,' said Dan. 'He tore down simple flobs of the +bank! We noticed it just now. And we've caught no end of fish. We've +been at it all the afternoon.'</p> + +<p>And they honestly believed that they had. They never noticed the Oak, +Ash and Thorn leaves that Puck had slyly thrown into their laps.</p> + +<hr /> +<a name="page_63"></a><span class="pagenum">[63]</span> + +<h4>SIR RICHARD'S SONG</h4> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span><i>I followed my Duke ere I was a lover,</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>To take from England fief and fee;</i></span> +<span><i>But now this game is the other way over—</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>But now England hath taken me!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>I had my horse, my shield and banner,</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>And a boy's heart, so whole and free;</i></span> +<span><i>But now I sing in another manner—</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>But now England hath taken me!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>As for my Father in his tower,</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Asking news of my ship at sea;</i></span> +<span><i>He will remember his own hour—</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Tell him England hath taken me!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>As for my Mother in her bower,</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>That rules my Father so cunningly;</i></span> +<span><i>She will remember a maiden's power—</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Tell her England hath taken me!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>As for my Brother in Rouen city,</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>A nimble and naughty page is he;</i></span> +<span><i>But he will come to suffer and pity—</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Tell him England hath taken me!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>As for my little Sister waiting</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>In the pleasant orchards of Normandie;</i></span> +<span><i>Tell her youth is the time of mating—</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Tell her England hath taken me!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>As for my Comrades in camp and highway,</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>That lift their eyebrows scornfully;</i></span> +<span><i>Tell them their way is not my way—</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Tell them England hath taken me!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Kings and Princes and Barons famed,</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Knights and Captains in your degree;</i></span> +<span><i>Hear me a little before I am blamed—</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Seeing England hath taken me!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Howso great man's strength be reckoned,</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>There are two things he cannot flee;</i></span> +<span><i>Love is the first, and Death is the second—</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>And Love, in England, hath taken me!</i></span> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="wide" /> +<a name="page_65"></a><span class="pagenum">[65]</span> +<h3>The Knights of the Joyous Venture</h3> +<hr /> +<a name="page_67"></a><span class="pagenum">[67]</span> +<h4>HARP SONG OF THE DANE WOMEN</h4> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span><i>What is a woman that you forsake her,</i></span> +<span><i>And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,</i></span> +<span><i>To go with the old grey Widow-maker?</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>She has no house to lay a guest in—</i></span> +<span><i>But one chill bed for all to rest in,</i></span> +<span><i>That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>She has no strong white arms to fold you,</i></span> +<span><i>But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you</i></span> +<span><i>Bound on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,</i></span> +<span><i>And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,</i></span> +<span><i>Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken—</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters,—</i></span> +<span><i>You steal away to the lapping waters,</i></span> +<span><i>And look at your ship in her winter quarters.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables,</i></span> +<span><i>The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables—</i></span> +<span><i>To pitch her sides and go over her cables!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow:</i></span> +<span><i>And the sound of your oar-blades falling hollow</i></span> +<span><i>Is all we have left through the months to follow.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Ah, what is a Woman that you forsake her,</i></span> +<span><i>And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,</i></span> +<span><i>To go with the old grey Widow-maker?</i></span> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> +<a name="page_69"></a><span class="pagenum">[69]</span> +<h4>The Knights of the Joyous Venture</h4> + +<p>It was too hot to run about in the open, so Dan asked their friend, old +Hobden, to take their own dinghy from the pond and put her on the brook +at the bottom of the garden. Her painted name was the <i>Daisy</i>, but for +exploring expeditions she was the <i>Golden Hind</i> or the <i>Long Serpent</i>, +or some such suitable name. Dan hiked and howked with a boat-hook (the +brook was too narrow for sculls), and Una punted with a piece of +hop-pole. When they came to a very shallow place (the <i>Golden Hind</i> drew +quite three inches of water) they disembarked and scuffled her over the +gravel by her tow-rope, and when they reached the overgrown banks beyond +the garden they pulled themselves up stream by the low branches.</p> + +<p>That day they intended to discover the North Cape like 'Othere, the old +sea-captain', in the book of verses which Una had brought with her; but +on account of the heat they changed it to a voyage up the Amazon and the +sources of the Nile. Even on the shaded water the air was hot and heavy +with drowsy scents, while outside, through breaks in the trees, the +sunshine burned the pasture like fire. The kingfisher was asleep +<a name="page_70"></a><span class="pagenum">[70]</span> +on his +watching-branch, and the blackbirds scarcely took the trouble to dive +into the next bush. Dragonflies wheeling and clashing were the only +things at work, except the moorhens and a big Red Admiral, who flapped +down out of the sunshine for a drink.</p> + +<p>When they reached Otter Pool the <i>Golden Hind</i> grounded comfortably on a +shallow, and they lay beneath a roof of close green, watching the water +trickle over the flood-gates down the mossy brick chute from the +mill-stream to the brook. A big trout—the children knew him +well—rolled head and shoulders at some fly that sailed round the bend, +while, once in just so often, the brook rose a fraction of an inch +against all the wet pebbles, and they watched the slow draw and shiver +of a breath of air through the tree-tops. Then the little voices of the +slipping water began again.</p> + +<p>'It's like the shadows talking, isn't it?' said Una. She had given up +trying to read. Dan lay over the bows, trailing his hands in the +current. They heard feet on the gravel-bar that runs half across the +pool and saw Sir Richard Dalyngridge standing over them.</p> + +<p>'Was yours a dangerous voyage?' he asked, smiling.</p> + +<p>'She bumped a lot, sir,' said Dan. 'There's hardly any water this +summer.'</p> + +<p>'Ah, the brook was deeper and wider when my children played at Danish +pirates. Are you pirate-folk?'</p> + +<p>'Oh no. We gave up being pirates years ago,' explained Una. 'We're +nearly always +<a name="page_71"></a><span class="pagenum">[71]</span>explorers now. Sailing round the world, you know.'</p> + +<p>'Round?' said Sir Richard. He sat him in the comfortable crotch of an +old ash-root on the bank. 'How can it be round?'</p> + +<p>'Wasn't it in your books?' Dan suggested. He had been doing geography at +his last lesson.</p> + +<p>'I can neither write nor read,' he replied. 'Canst <i>thou</i> read, child?'</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Dan, 'barring the very long words.'</p> + +<p>'Wonderful! Read to me, that I may hear for myself.'</p> + +<p>Dan flushed, but opened the book and began—gabbling a little—at 'The +Discoverer of the North Cape.'</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>'Othere, the old sea-captain,<br /></span> +<span>Who dwelt in Helgoland,<br /></span> +<span>To King Alfred, the lover of truth,<br /></span> +<span>Brought a snow-white walrus tooth,<br /></span> +<span>That he held in his brown right hand.'<br /></span> +</div> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p> +'But—but—this I know! This is an old song! This I have heard sung! +This is a miracle,' Sir Richard interrupted. 'Nay, do not stop!' He +leaned forward, and the shadows of the leaves slipped and slid upon his +chain-mail.</p> +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>'"I ploughed the land with horses,<br /></span> +<span>But my heart was ill at ease,<br /></span> +<span>For the old sea-faring men<br /></span> +<span>Came to me now and then<br /></span> +<span>With their Sagas of the Seas."'<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p> +His hand fell on the hilt of the great sword. 'This is truth,' he cried, +'for so did it happen to +<a name="page_72"></a><span class="pagenum">[72]</span> +me,' and he beat time delightedly to the tramp +of verse after verse.</p> +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>'"And now the land," said Othere,<br /></span> +<span>"Bent southward suddenly,<br /></span> +<span>And I followed the curving shore,<br /></span> +<span>And ever southward bore<br /></span> +<span>Into a nameless sea."'<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> +<p>'A nameless sea!' he repeated. 'So did I—so did Hugh and I.'</p> + +<p>'Where did you go? Tell us,' said Una.</p> + +<p>'Wait. Let me hear all first.' So Dan read to the poem's very end.</p> + +<p>'Good,' said the knight. 'That is Othere's tale—even as I have heard +the men in the Dane ships sing it. Not in those same valiant words, but +something like to them.'</p> + +<p>'Have you ever explored North?' Dan shut the book.</p> + +<p>'Nay. My venture was South. Farther South than any man has fared, Hugh +and I went down with Witta and his heathen.' He jerked the tall sword +forward, and leaned on it with both hands; but his eyes looked long past +them.</p> + +<p>'I thought you always lived here,' said Una, timidly.</p> + +<p>'Yes; while my Lady Ælueva lived. But she died. She died. Then, my +eldest son being a man, I asked De Aquila's leave that he should hold +the Manor while I went on some journey or pilgrimage—to forget. De +Aquila, whom the Second William had made Warden of Pevensey in Earl +Mortain's place, was very old then, but still he rode his tall, roan +horses, and in the saddle +<a name="page_73"></a><span class="pagenum">[73]</span> +he looked like a little white falcon. When +Hugh, at Dallington, over yonder, heard what I did, he sent for my +second son, whom being unmarried he had ever looked upon as his own +child, and, by De Aquila's leave, gave him the Manor of Dallington to +hold till he should return. Then Hugh came with me.'</p> + +<p>'When did this happen?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'That I can answer to the very day, for as we rode with De Aquila by +Pevensey—have I said that he was Lord of Pevensey and of the Honour of +the Eagle?—to the Bordeaux ship that fetched him his wines yearly out +of France, a Marsh man ran to us crying that he had seen a great black +goat which bore on his back the body of the King, and that the goat had +spoken to him. On that same day Red William our King, the Conqueror's +son, died of a secret arrow while he hunted in a forest. "This is a +cross matter," said De Aquila, "to meet on the threshold of a journey. +If Red William be dead I may have to fight for my lands. Wait a little."</p> + +<p>'My Lady being dead, I cared nothing for signs and omens, nor Hugh +either. We took that wine-ship to go to Bordeaux; but the wind failed +while we were yet in sight of Pevensey, a thick mist hid us, and we +drifted with the tide along the cliffs to the west. Our company was, for +the most part, merchants returning to France, and we were laden with +wool and there were three couple of tall hunting-dogs chained to the +rail. Their master was a knight of Artois. His name I never learned, but +his shield bore gold +<a name="page_74"></a><span class="pagenum">[74]</span> +pieces on a red ground, and he limped, much as I +do, from a wound which he had got in his youth at Mantes siege. He +served the Duke of Burgundy against the Moors in Spain, and was +returning to that war with his dogs. He sang us strange Moorish songs +that first night, and half persuaded us to go with him. I was on +pilgrimage to forget—which is what no pilgrimage brings. I think I +would have gone, but ...</p> + +<p>'Look you how the life and fortune of man changes! Towards morning a +Dane ship, rowing silently, struck against us in the mist, and while we +rolled hither and yon Hugh, leaning over the rail, fell outboard. I +leaped after him, and we two tumbled aboard the Dane, and were caught +and bound ere we could rise. Our own ship was swallowed up in the mist. +I judge the Knight of the Gold Pieces muzzled his dogs with his cloak, +lest they should give tongue and betray the merchants, for I heard their +baying suddenly stop.</p> + +<p>'We lay bound among the benches till morning, when the Danes dragged us +to the high deck by the steering-place, and their captain—Witta, he was +called—turned us over with his foot. Bracelets of gold from elbow to +armpit he wore, and his red hair was long as a woman's, and came down in +plaited locks on his shoulder. He was stout, with bowed legs and long +arms. He spoiled us of all we had, but when he laid hand on Hugh's sword +and saw the runes on the blade hastily he thrust it back. Yet his +covetousness overcame </p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_75"></a><span class="pagenum">[75]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_75_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_75.png" height="638" width="400" alt="'And we two tumbled aboard the Dane'" /> +</a> +<div class="caption">'And we two tumbled aboard the Dane'</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_77"></a><span class="pagenum">[77]</span> +<p>him and he tried again and again, and the third +time the Sword sang loud and angrily, so that the rowers leaned on their +oars to listen. Here they all spoke together, screaming like gulls, and +a Yellow Man, such as I have never seen, came to the high deck and cut +our bonds. He was yellow—not from sickness, but by nature—yellow as +honey, and his eyes stood endwise in his head.'</p> + +<p>'How do you mean?' said Una, her chin on her hand.</p> + +<p>'Thus,' said Sir Richard. He put a finger to the corner of each eye, and +pushed it up till his eyes narrowed to slits.</p> + +<p>'Why, you look just like a Chinaman!' cried Dan. 'Was the man a +Chinaman?'</p> + +<p>'I know not what that may be. Witta had found him half dead among ice on +the shores of Muscovy. <i>We</i> thought he was a devil. He crawled before us +and brought food in a silver dish which these sea-wolves had robbed from +some rich abbey, and Witta with his own hands gave us wine. He spoke a +little in French, a little in South Saxon, and much in the Northman's +tongue. We asked him to set us ashore, promising to pay him better +ransom than he would get price if he sold us to the Moors—as once +befell a knight of my acquaintance sailing from Flushing.</p> + +<p>'"Not by my father Guthrum's head," said he. "The Gods sent ye into my +ship for a luck-offering."</p> + +<p>'At this I quaked, for I knew it was still the Danes' custom to +sacrifice captives to their Gods for fair weather.</p> +<a name="page_78"></a><span class="pagenum">[78]</span> + +<p>'"A plague on thy four long bones!" said Hugh. "What profit canst thou +make of poor old pilgrims that can neither work nor fight?"</p> + +<p>'"Gods forbid I should fight against thee, poor Pilgrim with the Singing +Sword," said he. "Come with us and be poor no more. Thy teeth are far +apart, which is a sure sign thou wilt travel and grow rich."</p> + +<p>'"What if we will not come?" said Hugh.</p> + +<p>'"Swim to England or France," said Witta. "We are midway between the +two. Unless ye choose to drown yourselves no hair of your head will be +harmed here aboard. We think ye bring us luck, and I myself know the +runes on that Sword are good." He turned and bade them hoist sail.</p> + +<p>'Hereafter all made way for us as we walked about the ship, and the ship +was full of wonders.'</p> + +<p>'What was she like?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Long, low, and narrow, bearing one mast with a red sail, and rowed by +fifteen oars a-side,' the knight answered. 'At her bows was a deck under +which men might lie, and at her stern another shut off by a painted door +from the rowers' benches. Here Hugh and I slept, with Witta and the +Yellow Man, upon tapestries as soft as wool. I remember'—he laughed to +himself—'when first we entered there a loud voice cried, "Out swords! +Out swords! Kill, kill!" Seeing us start Witta laughed, and showed us it +was but a great-beaked grey bird with a red tail. He sat her on his +shoulder, and she called for bread and wine hoarsely, and prayed him to +kiss +<a name="page_79"></a><span class="pagenum">[79]</span> +her. Yet she was no more than a silly bird. But—ye knew this?' He +looked at their smiling faces.</p> + +<p>'We weren't laughing at you,' said Una. 'That must have been a parrot. +It's just what Pollies do.'</p> + +<p>'So we learned later. But here is another marvel. The Yellow Man, whose +name was Kitai, had with him a brown box. In the box was a blue bowl +with red marks upon the rim, and within the bowl, hanging from a fine +thread, was a piece of iron no thicker than that grass stem, and as +long, maybe, as my spur, but straight. In this iron, said Witta, abode +an Evil Spirit which Kitai, the Yellow Man, had brought by Art Magic out +of his own country that lay three years' journey southward. The Evil +Spirit strove day and night to return to his country, and therefore, +look you, the iron needle pointed continually to the South.'</p> + +<p>'South?' said Dan suddenly, and put his hand into his pocket.</p> + +<p>'With my own eyes I saw it. Every day and all day long, though the ship +rolled, though the sun and the moon and the stars were hid, this blind +Spirit in the iron knew whither it would go, and strained to the South. +Witta called it the Wise Iron, because it showed him his way across the +unknowable seas.' Again Sir Richard looked keenly at the children. 'How +think ye? Was it sorcery?'</p> + +<p>'Was it anything like this?' Dan fished out his old brass +pocket-compass, that generally lived +<a name="page_80"></a><span class="pagenum">[80]</span> +with his knife and key-ring. 'The +glass has got cracked, but the needle waggles all right, sir.'</p> + +<p>The knight drew a long breath of wonder. 'Yes, yes! The Wise Iron shook +and swung in just this fashion. Now it is still. Now it points to the +South.'</p> + +<p>'North,' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Nay, South! There is the South,' said Sir Richard. Then they both +laughed, for naturally when one end of a straight compass-needle points +to the North, the other must point to the South.</p> + +<p>'Té,' said Sir Richard, clicking his tongue. 'There can be no sorcery if +a child carries it. Wherefore does it point South—or North?'</p> + +<p>'Father says that nobody knows,' said Una.</p> + +<p>Sir Richard looked relieved. 'Then it may still be magic. It was magic +to <i>us</i>. And so we voyaged. When the wind served we hoisted sail, and +lay all up along the windward rail, our shields on our backs to break +the spray. When it failed, they rowed with long oars; the Yellow Man sat +by the Wise Iron, and Witta steered. At first I feared the great +white-flowering waves, but as I saw how wisely Witta led his ship among +them I grew bolder. Hugh liked it well from the first. My skill is not +upon the water; and rocks and whirlpools such as we saw by the West +Isles of France, where an oar caught on a rock and broke, are much +against my stomach. We sailed South across a stormy sea, where by +moonlight, between clouds, we saw a Flanders ship roll clean over and +sink. Again, though Hugh laboured with Witta all night, I lay under the +deck with +<a name="page_81"></a><span class="pagenum">[81]</span> +the Talking Bird, and cared not whether I lived or died. There +is a sickness of the sea which for three days is pure death! When we +next saw land Witta said it was Spain, and we stood out to sea. That +coast was full of ships busy in the Duke's war against the Moors, and we +feared to be hanged by the Duke's men or sold into slavery by the Moors. +So we put into a small harbour which Witta knew. At night men came down +with loaded mules, and Witta exchanged amber out of the North against +little wedges of iron and packets of beads in earthen pots. The pots he +put under the decks, and the wedges of iron he laid on the bottom of the +ship after he had cast out the stones and shingle which till then had +been our ballast. Wine, too, he bought for lumps of sweet-smelling grey +amber—a little morsel no bigger than a thumbnail purchased a cask of +wine. But I speak like a merchant.'</p> + +<p>'No, no! Tell us what you had to eat,' cried Dan.</p> + +<p>'Meat dried in the sun, and dried fish and ground beans, Witta took in; +and corded frails of a certain sweet, soft fruit, which the Moors use, +which is like paste of figs, but with thin, long stones. Aha! Dates is +the name.</p> + +<p>'"Now," said Witta, when the ship was loaded, "I counsel you strangers +to pray to your Gods, for from here on, our road is No Man's road." He +and his men killed a black goat for sacrifice on the bows; and the +Yellow Man brought out a small, smiling image of dull-green stone and +burned incense before it. Hugh and I commended ourselves +<a name="page_82"></a><span class="pagenum">[82]</span> +to God, and +Saint Barnabas, and Our Lady of the Assumption, who was specially dear +to my Lady. We were not young, but I think no shame to say whenas we +drove out of that secret harbour at sunrise over a still sea, we two +rejoiced and sang as did the knights of old when they followed our great +Duke to England. Yet was our leader an heathen pirate; all our proud +fleet but one galley perilously overloaded; for guidance we leaned on a +pagan sorcerer; and our port was beyond the world's end. Witta told us +that his father Guthrum had once in his life rowed along the shores of +Africa to a land where naked men sold gold for iron and beads. There had +he bought much gold, and no few elephants' teeth, and thither by help of +the Wise Iron would Witta go. Witta feared nothing—except to be poor.</p> + +<p>'"My father told me," said Witta, "that a great Shoal runs three days' +sail out from that land, and south of the shoal lies a Forest which +grows in the sea. South and east of the Forest my father came to a place +where the men hid gold in their hair; but all that country, he said, was +full of Devils who lived in trees, and tore folk limb from limb. How +think ye?"</p> + +<p>'"Gold or no gold," said Hugh, fingering his sword, "it is a joyous +venture. Have at these Devils of thine, Witta!"</p> + +<p>'"Venture!" said Witta sourly. "I am only a poor sea-thief. I do not set +my life adrift on a plank for joy, or the venture. Once I beach ship +again at Stavanger, and feel the wife's arms round +<a name="page_83"></a><span class="pagenum">[83]</span> +my neck, I'll seek no +more ventures. A ship is heavier care than a wife or cattle."</p> + +<p>'He leaped down among the rowers, chiding them for their little strength +and their great stomachs. Yet Witta was a wolf in fight, and a very fox +in cunning.</p> + +<p>'We were driven South by a storm, and for three days and three nights he +took the stern-oar, and threddled the longship through the sea. When it +rose beyond measure he brake a pot of whale's oil upon the water, which +wonderfully smoothed it, and in that anointed patch he turned her head +to the wind and threw out oars at the end of a rope, to make, he said, +an anchor at which we lay rolling sorely, but dry. This craft his father +Guthrum had shown him. He knew, too, all the Leech-Book of Bald, who was +a wise doctor, and he knew the Ship-Book of Hlaf the Woman, who robbed +Egypt. He knew all the care of a ship.</p> + +<p>'After the storm we saw a mountain whose top was covered with snow and +pierced the clouds. The grasses under this mountain, boiled and eaten, +are a good cure for soreness of the gums and swelled ankles. We lay +there eight days, till men in skins threw stones at us. When the heat +increased Witta spread a cloth on bent sticks above the rowers, for the +wind failed between the Island of the Mountain and the shore of Africa, +which is east of it. That shore is sandy, and we rowed along it within +three bowshots. Here we saw whales, and fish in the shape of shields, +but longer than our ship. Some slept, some opened their +<a name="page_84"></a><span class="pagenum">[84]</span> +mouths at us, +and some danced on the hot waters. The water was hot to the hand, and +the sky was hidden by hot, grey mists, out of which blew a fine dust +that whitened our hair and beards of a morning. Here, too, were fish +that flew in the air like birds. They would fall on the laps of the +rowers, and when we went ashore we would roast and eat them.'</p> + +<p>The knight paused to see if the children doubted him, but they only +nodded and said, 'Go on.'</p> + +<p>'The yellow land lay on our left, the grey sea on our right. Knight +though I was, I pulled my oar amongst the rowers. I caught seaweed and +dried it, and stuffed it between the pots of beads lest they should +break. Knighthood is for the land. At sea, look you, a man is but a +spurless rider on a bridleless horse. I learned to make strong knots in +ropes—yes, and to join two ropes end to end, so that even Witta could +scarcely see where they had been married. But Hugh had tenfold more +sea-cunning than I. Witta gave him charge of the rowers of the left +side. Thorkild of Borkum, a man with a broken nose, that wore a Norman +steel cap, had the rowers of the right, and each side rowed and sang +against the other. They saw that no man was idle. Truly, as Hugh said, +and Witta would laugh at him, a ship is all more care than a Manor.</p> + +<p>'How? Thus. There was water to fetch from the shore when we could find +it, as well as wild fruit and grasses, and sand for scrubbing of the +decks and benches to keep them sweet. Also we hauled the ship out on low +islands and emptied +<a name="page_85"></a><span class="pagenum">[85]</span> +all her gear, even to the iron wedges, and burned +off the weed, that had grown on her, with torches of rush, and smoked +below the decks with rushes dampened in salt water, as Hlaf the Woman +orders in her Ship-Book. Once when we were thus stripped, and the ship +lay propped on her keel, the bird cried, "Out swords!" as though she saw +an enemy. Witta vowed he would wring her neck.'</p> + +<p>'Poor Polly! Did he?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'Nay. She was the ship's bird. She could call all the rowers by name.... Those were good days—for a wifeless man—with Witta and his +heathen—beyond the world's end. ... After many weeks we came on the +great Shoal which stretched, as Witta's father had said, far out to sea. +We skirted it till we were giddy with the sight and dizzy with the sound +of bars and breakers, and when we reached land again we found a naked +black people dwelling among woods, who for one wedge of iron loaded us +with fruits and grasses and eggs. Witta scratched his head at them in +sign he would buy gold. They had no gold, but they understood the sign +(all the gold-traders hide their gold in their thick hair), for they +pointed along the coast. They beat, too, on their chests with their +clenched hands, and that, if we had known it, was an evil sign.'</p> + +<p>'What did it mean?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Patience. Ye shall hear. We followed the coast eastward sixteen days +(counting time by sword-cuts on the helm-rail) till we came to the +Forest in the Sea. Trees grew there out of mud, arched upon lean and +high roots, and many muddy +<a name="page_86"></a><span class="pagenum">[86]</span> +waterways ran all whither into darkness, +under the trees. Here we lost the sun. We followed the winding channels +between the trees, and where we could not row we laid hold of the +crusted roots and hauled ourselves along. The water was foul, and great +glittering flies tormented us. Morning and evening a blue mist covered +the mud, which bred fevers. Four of our rowers sickened, and were bound +to their benches, lest they should leap overboard and be eaten by the +monsters of the mud. The Yellow Man lay sick beside the Wise Iron, +rolling his head and talking in his own tongue. Only the Bird throve. +She sat on Witta's shoulder and screamed in that noisome, silent +darkness. Yes; I think it was the silence we most feared.'</p> + +<p>He paused to listen to the comfortable home noises of the brook.</p> + +<p>'When we had lost count of time among those black gullies and swashes we +heard, as it were, a drum beat far off, and following it we broke into a +broad, brown river by a hut in a clearing among fields of pumpkins. We +thanked God to see the sun again. The people of the village gave the +good welcome, and Witta scratched his head at them (for gold), and +showed them our iron and beads. They ran to the bank—we were still in +the ship—and pointed to our swords and bows, for always when near shore +we lay armed. Soon they fetched store of gold in bars and in dust from +their huts, and some great blackened elephants' teeth. These they piled +on the bank, as though to tempt us, and made signs of dealing blows in +<a name="page_87"></a><span class="pagenum">[87]</span> +battle, and pointed up to the tree-tops, and to the forest behind. Their +captain or chief sorcerer then beat on his chest with his fists, and +gnashed his teeth.</p> + +<p>'Said Thorkild of Borkum: "Do they mean we must fight for all this +gear?" and he half drew sword.</p> + +<p>'"Nay," said Hugh. "I think they ask us to league against some enemy."</p> + +<p>'"I like this not," said Witta, of a sudden. "Back into mid-stream."</p> + +<p>'So we did, and sat still all, watching the black folk and the gold they +piled on the bank. Again we heard drums beat in the forest, and the +people fled to their huts, leaving the gold unguarded.</p> + +<p>'Then Hugh, at the bows, pointed without speech, and we saw a great +Devil come out of the forest. He shaded his brows with his hand, and +moistened his pink tongue between his lips—thus.'</p> + +<p>'A Devil!' said Dan, delightfully horrified.</p> + +<p>'Yea. Taller than a man; covered with reddish hair. When he had well +regarded our ship, he beat on his chest with his fists till it sounded +like rolling drums, and came to the bank swinging all his body between +his long arms, and gnashed his teeth at us. Hugh loosed arrow, and +pierced him through the throat. He fell roaring, and three other Devils +ran out of the forest and hauled him into a tall tree out of sight. Anon +they cast down the blood-stained arrow, and lamented together among the +leaves.</p> + +<p>Witta saw the gold on the bank; he was loath to leave it. "Sirs," said +he (no man had spoken till then), +<a name="page_88"></a><span class="pagenum">[88]</span> +"yonder is what we have come so far +and so painfully to find, laid out to our very hand. Let us row in while +these Devils bewail themselves, and at least bear off what we may."</p> + +<p>'Bold as a wolf, cunning as a fox was Witta! He set four archers on the +foredeck to shoot the Devils if they should leap from the tree, which +was close to the bank. He manned ten oars a-side, and bade them watch +his hand to row in or back out, and so coaxed he them toward the bank. +But none would set foot ashore, though the gold was within ten paces. No +man is hasty to his hanging! They whimpered at their oars like beaten +hounds, and Witta bit his fingers for rage.</p> + +<p>'Said Hugh of a sudden, "Hark!" At first we thought it was the buzzing +of the glittering flies on the water; but it grew loud and fierce, so +that all men heard.'</p> + +<p>'What?' said Dan and Una.</p> + +<p>'It was the Sword.' Sir Richard patted the smooth hilt. 'It sang as a +Dane sings before battle. "I go," said Hugh, and he leaped from the bows +and fell among the gold. I was afraid to my four bones' marrow, but for +shame's sake I followed, and Thorkild of Borkum leaped after me. None +other came. "Blame me not," cried Witta behind us, "I must abide by my +ship." We three had no time to blame or praise. We stooped to the gold +and threw it back over our shoulders, one hand on our swords and one eye +on the tree, which nigh overhung us.</p> + +<p>'I know not how the Devils leaped down, or +<a name="page_89"></a><span class="pagenum">[89]</span> +how the fight began. I heard +Hugh cry: "Out! out!" as though he were at Santlache again; I saw +Thorkild's steel cap smitten off his head by a great hairy hand, and I +felt an arrow from the ship whistle past my ear. They say that till +Witta took his sword to the rowers he could not bring his ship inshore; +and each one of the four archers said afterwards that he alone had +pierced the Devil that fought me. I do not know. I went to it in my +mail-shirt, which saved my skin. With long-sword and belt-dagger I +fought for the life against a Devil whose very feet were hands, and who +whirled me back and forth like a dead branch. He had me by the waist, my +arms to my side, when an arrow from the ship pierced him between the +shoulders, and he loosened grip. I passed my sword twice through him, +and he crutched himself away between his long arms, coughing and +moaning. Next, as I remember, I saw Thorkild of Borkum, bare-headed and +smiling, leaping up and down before a Devil that leaped and gnashed his +teeth. Then Hugh passed, his sword shifted to his left hand, and I +wondered why I had not known that Hugh was a left-handed man; and +thereafter I remembered nothing till I felt spray on my face, and we +were in sunshine on the open sea. That was twenty days after.'</p> + +<p>'What had happened? Did Hugh die?'the children asked.</p> + +<p>'Never was such a fight fought by christened man,' said Sir Richard. 'An +arrow from the ship had saved me from my Devil, and Thorkild of Borkum +had given back before his Devil, till the +<a name="page_90"></a><span class="pagenum">[90]</span> +bowmen on the ship could shoot +it all full of arrows from near by; but Hugh's Devil was cunning, and +had kept behind trees, where no arrow could reach. Body to body there, +by stark strength of sword and hand, had Hugh slain him, and, dying, the +Thing had clenched his teeth on the sword. Judge what teeth they were!'</p> + +<p>Sir Richard turned the sword again that the children might see the two +great chiselled gouges on either side of the blade.</p> + +<p>'Those same teeth met in Hugh's right arm and side,' Sir Richard went +on. 'I? Oh, I had no more than a broken foot and a fever. Thorkild's ear +was bitten, but Hugh's arm and side clean withered away. I saw him where +he lay along, sucking a fruit in his left hand. His flesh was wasted off +his bones, his hair was patched with white, and his hand was blue-veined +like a woman's. He put his left arm round my neck and whispered, "Take +my sword. It has been thine since Hastings, O my brother, but I can +never hold hilt again." We lay there on the high deck talking of +Santlache, and, I think, of every day since Santlache, and it came so +that we both wept. I was weak, and he little more than a shadow.</p> + +<p>'"Nay—nay," said Witta, at the helm-rail. "Gold is a good right arm to +any man. Look—look at the gold!" He bade Thorkild show us the gold and +the elephants' teeth, as though we had been children. He had brought +away all the gold on the bank, and twice as much more, that the people +of the village gave him for slaying the Devils. They worshipped us as +Gods, Thorkild </p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_91"></a><span class="pagenum">[91]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_91_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_91.png" height="648" width="400" alt="'Thorkild had given back before his Devil, till the bowmen on the ship could shoot it all full of arrows'" /> +</a> +<div class="caption">'Thorkild had given back before his Devil, till the bowmen on the ship could shoot it all full of arrows'</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_93"></a><span class="pagenum">[93]</span> +<p>told me: it was one of their old women healed up Hugh's +poor arm.'</p> + +<p>'How much gold did you get?'asked Dan.</p> + +<p>'How can I say? Where we came out with wedges of iron under the rowers' +feet we returned with wedges of gold hidden beneath planks. There was +dust of gold in packages where we slept and along the side, and +crosswise under the benches we lashed the blackened elephants' teeth.</p> + +<p>'"I had sooner have my right arm," said Hugh, when he had seen all.</p> + +<p>'"Ahai! That was my fault," said Witta. "I should have taken ransom and +landed you in France when first you came aboard, ten months ago."</p> + +<p>'"It is over-late now," said Hugh, laughing.</p> + +<p>'Witta plucked at his long shoulder-lock. "But think!" said he. "If I +had let ye go—which I swear I would never have done, for I love ye more +than brothers—if I had let ye go, by now ye might have been horribly +slain by some mere Moor in the Duke of Burgundy's war, or ye might have +been murdered by land-thieves, or ye might have died of the plague at an +inn. Think of this and do not blame me overmuch, Hugh. See! I will only +take a half of the gold."</p> + +<p>'"I blame thee not at all, Witta," said Hugh. "It was a joyous venture, +and we thirty-five here have done what never men have done. If I live +till England, I will build me a stout keep over Dallington out of my +share."</p> + +<p>'"I will buy cattle and amber and warm red cloth for the wife," said +Witta, "and I will hold +<a name="page_94"></a><span class="pagenum">[94]</span> +all the land at the head of Stavanger Fiord. +Many will fight for me now. But first we must turn North, and with this +honest treasure aboard I pray we meet no pirate ships."</p> + +<p>'We did not laugh. We were careful. We were afraid lest we should lose +one grain of our gold, for which we had fought Devils.</p> + +<p>'"Where is the Sorcerer?" said I, for Witta was looking at the Wise Iron +in the box, and I could not see the Yellow Man.</p> + +<p>'"He has gone to his own country," said he. "He rose up in the night +while we were beating out of that forest in the mud, and said that he +could see it behind the trees. He leaped out on the mud, and did not +answer when we called; so we called no more. He left the Wise Iron, +which is all that I care for—and see, the Spirit still points to the +South."</p> + +<p>'We were troubled for fear that the Wise Iron should fail us now that +its Yellow Man had gone, and when we saw the Spirit still served us we +grew afraid of too strong winds, and of shoals, and of careless leaping +fish, and of all the people on all the shores where we landed.'</p> + +<p>'Why?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Because of the gold—because of our gold. Gold changes men altogether. +Thorkild of Borkum did not change. He laughed at Witta for his fears, +and at us for our counselling Witta to furl sail when the ship pitched +at all.</p> + +<p>'"Better be drowned out of hand," said Thorkild of Borkum, "than go tied +to a deck-load of yellow dust."</p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_95"></a><span class="pagenum">[95]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_95_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_95.png" height="641" width="400" alt="'So we called no more'"/> +</a> +<div class="caption">'So we called no more.'</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_97"></a><span class="pagenum">[97]</span> + +<p>'He was a landless man, and had been slave to some King in the East. He +would have beaten out the gold into deep bands to put round the oars, +and round the prow.</p> + +<p>'Yet, though he vexed himself for the gold, Witta waited upon Hugh like +a woman, lending him his shoulder when the ship rolled, and tying of +ropes from side to side that Hugh might hold by them. But for Hugh, he +said—and so did all his men—they would never have won the gold. I +remember Witta made a little, thin gold ring for our Bird to swing in.</p> + +<p>'Three months we rowed and sailed and went ashore for fruits or to clean +the ship. When we saw wild horsemen, riding among sand-dunes, +flourishing spears, we knew we were on the Moors' coast, and stood over +north to Spain; and a strong south-west wind bore us in ten days to a +coast of high red rocks, where we heard a hunting-horn blow among the +yellow gorse and knew it was England.</p> + +<p>'"Now find ye Pevensey yourselves," said Witta. "I love not these narrow +ship-filled seas."</p> + +<p>'He set the dried, salted head of the Devil, which Hugh had killed, high +on our prow, and all boats fled from us. Yet, for our gold's sake, we +were more afraid than they. We crept along the coast by night till we +came to the chalk cliffs, and so east to Pevensey. Witta would not come +ashore with us, though Hugh promised him wine at Dallington enough to +swim in. He was on fire to see his wife, and ran into the Marsh +<a name="page_98"></a><span class="pagenum">[98]</span> +after sunset, and there he left us and our share of gold, and backed out on +the same tide. He made no promise; he swore no oath; he looked for no +thanks; but to Hugh, an armless man, and to me, an old cripple whom he +could have flung into the sea, he passed over wedge upon wedge, packet +upon packet of gold and dust of gold, and only ceased when we would take +no more. As he stooped from the rail to bid us farewell he stripped off +his right-arm bracelets and put them all on Hugh's left, and he kissed +Hugh on the cheek. I think when Thorkild of Borkum bade the rowers give +way we were near weeping. It is true that Witta was an heathen and a +pirate; true it is he held us by force many months in his ship, but I +loved that bow-legged, blue-eyed man for his great boldness, his +cunning, his skill, and, beyond all, for his simplicity.'</p> + +<p>'Did he get home all right?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'I never knew. We saw him hoist sail under the moon-track and stand +away. I have prayed that he found his wife and the children.'</p> + +<p>'And what did you do?'</p> + +<p>'We waited on the Marsh till the day. Then I sat by the gold, all tied +in an old sail, while Hugh went to Pevensey, and De Aquila sent us +horses.'</p> + +<p>Sir Richard crossed hands on his sword-hilt, and stared down stream +through the soft warm shadows.</p> + +<p>'A whole shipload of gold!' said Una, looking at the little <i>Golden +Hind</i>. 'But I'm glad I didn't see the Devils.'</p> +<a name="page_99"></a><span class="pagenum">[99]</span> +<p>'I don't believe they were Devils,'Dan whispered back.</p> + +<p>'Eh?' said Sir Richard. 'Witta's father warned him they were +unquestionable Devils. One must believe one's father, and not one's +children. What were my Devils, then?'</p> + +<p>Dan flushed all over. 'I—I only thought,' he stammered; 'I've got a +book called <i>The Gorilla Hunters</i>—it's a continuation of <i>Coral +Island</i>, sir—and it says there that the gorillas (they're big monkeys, +you know) were always chewing iron up.'</p> + +<p>'Not always,' said Una. 'Only twice.' They had been reading <i>The Gorilla +Hunters</i> in the orchard.</p> + +<p>'Well, anyhow, they always drummed on their chests, like Sir Richard's +did, before they went for people. And they built houses in trees, too.'</p> + +<p>'Ha!' Sir Richard opened his eyes. 'Houses like flat nests did our +Devils make, where their imps lay and looked at us. I did not see them +(I was sick after the fight), but Witta told me, and, lo, ye know it +also? Wonderful! Were our Devils only nest-building apes? Is there no +sorcery left in the world?'</p> + +<p>'I don't know,' answered Dan, uncomfortably. 'I've seen a man take +rabbits out of a hat, and he told us we could see how he did it, if we +watched hard. And we did.'</p> + +<p>'But we didn't,' said Una, sighing. 'Oh! there's Puck!'</p> + +<p>The little fellow, brown and smiling, peered between two stems of an +ash, nodded, and slid down the bank into the cool beside them.</p> +<a name="page_100"></a><span class="pagenum">[100]</span> +<p>'No sorcery, Sir Richard?' he laughed, and blew on a full dandelion head +he had picked.</p> + +<p>'They tell me that Witta's Wise Iron was a toy. The boy carries such an +iron with him. They tell me our Devils were apes, called gorillas!' said +Sir Richard, indignantly.</p> + +<p>'That is the sorcery of books,' said Puck. 'I warned thee they were wise +children. All people can be wise by reading of books.'</p> + +<p>'But are the books true?' Sir Richard frowned. 'I like not all this +reading and writing.'</p> + +<p>'Ye-es,' said Puck, holding the naked dandelion head at arm's length. +'But if we hang all fellows who write falsely, why did De Aquila not +begin with Gilbert the Clerk? <i>He</i> was false enough.'</p> + +<p>'Poor false Gilbert. Yet, in his fashion, he was bold,' said Sir +Richard.</p> + +<p>'What did he do?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'He wrote,' said Sir Richard. 'Is the tale meet for children, think +you?' He looked at Puck; but 'Tell us! Tell us!' cried Dan and Una +together.</p> + +<hr /> +<a name="page_101"></a><span class="pagenum">[101]</span> +<h4>THORKILD'S SONG</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span><i>There's no wind along these seas,</i></span> +<span class="i2">Out oars for Stavanger!</span> +<span class="i2">Forward all for Stavanger!</span> +<span><i>So we must wake the white-ash breeze,</i></span> +<span class="i2">Let fall for Stavanger!</span> +<span class="i2">A long pull for Stavanger!</span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Oh, hear the benches creak and strain!</i></span> +<span class="i2">(A long pull for Stavanger!)</span> +<span><i>She thinks she smells the Northland rain!</i></span> +<span class="i2">(A long pull for Stavanger!)</span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>She thinks she smells the Northland snow,</i></span> +<span><i>And she's as glad as we to go.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>She thinks she smells the Northland rime,</i></span> +<span><i>And the dear dark nights of winter-time.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Her very bolts are sick for shore,</i></span> +<span><i>And we—we want it ten times more!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>So all you Gods that love brave men,</i></span> +<span><i>Send us a three-reef gale again!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Send us a gale, and watch us come,</i></span> +<span><i>With close-cropped canvas slashing home!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>But—there's no wind in all these seas.</i></span> +<span class="i2">A long pull for Stavanger!</span> +<span><i>So we must wake the white-ash breeze,</i></span> +<span class="i2">A long pull for Stavanger!</span> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="wide" /> +<a name="page_103"></a><span class="pagenum">[103]</span> + +<h3>Old Men at Pevensey</h3> +<hr /> +<a name="page_105"></a><span class="pagenum">[105]</span> + +<h4>Old Men at Pevensey</h4> + +<p>'It has naught to do with apes or Devils,'Sir Richard went on, in an +undertone. 'It concerns De Aquila, than whom there was never bolder nor +craftier, nor more hardy knight born. And remember he was an old, old +man at that time.'</p> + +<p>'When?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'When we came back from sailing with Witta.'</p> + +<p>'What did you do with your gold?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Have patience. Link by link is chain-mail made. I will tell all in its +place. We bore the gold to Pevensey on horseback—three loads of it—and +then up to the north chamber, above the Great Hall of Pevensey Castle, +where De Aquila lay in winter. He sat on his bed like a little white +falcon, turning his head swiftly from one to the other as we told our +tale. Jehan the Crab, an old sour man-at-arms, guarded the stairway, but +De Aquila bade him wait at the stair-foot, and let down both leather +curtains over the door. It was Jehan whom De Aquila had sent to us with +the horses, and only Jehan had loaded the gold. When our story was told, +De Aquila gave us the news of England, for we were as men waked from a +year-long sleep. The Red King was dead—slain (ye +<a name="page_106"></a><span class="pagenum">[106]</span> +remember?) the day we +set sail—and Henry, his younger brother, had made himself King of +England over the head of Robert of Normandy. This was the very thing +that the Red King had done to Robert when our Great William died. Then +Robert of Normandy, mad, as De Aquila said, at twice missing of this +kingdom, had sent an army against England, which army had been well +beaten back to their ships at Portsmouth. A little earlier, and Witta's +ship would have rowed through them.</p> + +<p>'"And now," said De Aquila, "half the great Barons of the North and West +are out against the King between Salisbury and Shrewsbury, and half the +other half wait to see which way the game shall go. They say Henry is +overly English for their stomachs, because he hath married an English +wife and she hath coaxed him to give back their old laws to our Saxons. +(Better ride a horse on the bit he knows, <i>I</i> say!) But that is only a +cloak to their falsehood." He cracked his finger on the table, where the +wine was spilt, and thus he spoke:—</p> + +<p>'"William crammed us Norman barons full of good English acres after +Santlache. <i>I</i> had my share too," he said, and clapped Hugh on the +shoulder; "but I warned him—I warned him before Odo rebelled—that he +should have bidden the Barons give up their lands and lordships in +Normandy if they would be English lords. Now they are all but princes +both in England and Normandy—trencher-fed hounds, with a foot in one +trough and both eyes on the other! Robert of Normandy has sent them word +that if they do not +<a name="page_107"></a><span class="pagenum">[107]</span> +fight for him in England he will sack and harry out +their lands in Normandy. Therefore Clare has risen, FitzOsborne has +risen, Montgomery has risen—whom our First William made an English +Earl. Even D'Arcy is out with his men, whose father I remember a little +hedge-sparrow knight nearby Caen. If Henry wins, the Barons can still +flee to Normandy, where Robert will welcome them. If Henry loses, +Robert, he says, will give them more lands in England. Oh, a pest—a +pest on Normandy, for she will be our England's curse this many a long +year!"</p> + +<p>'"Amen," said Hugh. "But will the war come our ways, think you?"</p> + +<p>'"Not from the North," said De Aquila. "But the sea is always open. If +the Barons gain the upper hand Robert will send another army into +England for sure, and this time I think he will land here—where his +father, the Conqueror, landed. Ye have brought your pigs to a pretty +market! Half England alight, and gold enough on the ground"—he stamped +on the bars beneath the table—"to set every sword in Christendom +fighting."</p> + +<p>'"What is to do?" said Hugh. "I have no keep at Dallington; and if we +buried it, whom could we trust?"</p> + +<p>'"Me," said De Aquila. "Pevensey walls are strong. No man but Jehan, who +is my dog, knows what is between them." He drew a curtain by the +shot-window and showed us the shaft of a well in the thickness of the +wall.</p> + +<p>'"I made it for a drinking-well," he said, +<a name="page_108"></a><span class="pagenum">[108]</span> +"but we found salt water, and +it rises and falls with the tide. Hark!" We heard the water whistle and +blow at the bottom. "Will it serve?" said he.</p> + +<p>'"Needs must," said Hugh. "Our lives are in thy hands." So we lowered +all the gold down except one small chest of it by De Aquila's bed, which +we kept as much for his delight in its weight and colour as for any of +our needs.</p> + +<p>'In the morning, ere we rode to our Manors, he said: "I do not say +farewell; because ye will return and bide here. Not for love nor for +sorrow, but to be with the gold. Have a care," he said, laughing, "lest +I use it to make myself Pope. Trust me not, but return!"'</p> + +<p>Sir Richard paused and smiled sadly.</p> + +<p>'In seven days, then, we returned from our Manors—from the Manors which +had been ours.'</p> + +<p>'And were the children quite well?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'My sons were young. Land and governance belong by right to young men.' +Sir Richard was talking to himself. 'It would have broken their hearts +if we had taken back our Manors. They made us great welcome, but we +could see—Hugh and I could see—that our day was done. I was a cripple +and he a one-armed man. No!' He shook his head. 'And therefore'—he +raised his voice—'we rode back to Pevensey.'</p> + +<p>'I'm sorry,' said Una, for the knight seemed very sorrowful.</p> + +<p>'Little maid, it all passed long ago. They were young; we were old. We +let them rule the Manors. "Aha!" cried De Aquila from his shot-window, +<a name="page_109"></a><span class="pagenum">[109]</span> +when we dismounted. "Back again to earth, old foxes?" but when we were +in his chamber above the Hall he puts his arms about us and says, +"Welcome, ghosts! Welcome, poor ghosts!" ... Thus it fell out that we +were rich beyond belief, and lonely. And lonely!'</p> + +<p>'What did you do?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'We watched for Robert of Normandy,' said the knight. 'De Aquila was +like Witta. He suffered no idleness. In fair weather we would ride along +between Bexlei on the one side, to Cuckmere on the other—sometimes with +hawk, sometimes with hound (there are stout hares both on the Marsh and +the Downland), but always with an eye to the sea, for fear of fleets +from Normandy. In foul weather he would walk on the top of his tower, +frowning against the rain—peering here and pointing there. It always +vexed him to think how Witta's ship had come and gone without his +knowledge. When the wind ceased and ships anchored, to the wharf's edge +he would go and, leaning on his sword among the stinking fish, would +call to the mariners for their news from France. His other eye he kept +landward for word of Henry's war against the Barons.</p> + +<p>'Many brought him news—jongleurs, harpers, pedlars, sutlers, priests +and the like; and, though he was secret enough in small things, yet, if +their news misliked him, then, regarding neither time nor place nor +people, he would curse our King Henry for a fool or a babe. I have heard +him cry aloud by the fishing boats: "If I were King of England I would +do thus and thus"; and +<a name="page_110"></a><span class="pagenum">[110]</span> +when I rode out to see that the warning-beacons +were laid and dry, he hath often called to me from the shot-window: +"Look to it, Richard! Do not copy our blind King, but see with thine own +eyes and feel with thine own hands." I do not think he knew any sort of +fear. And so we lived at Pevensey, in the little chamber above the Hall.</p> + +<p>'One foul night came word that a messenger of the King waited below. We +were chilled after a long riding in the fog towards Bexlei, which is an +easy place for ships to land. De Aquila sent word the man might either +eat with us or wait till we had fed. Anon Jehan, at the stair-head, +cried that he had called for horse, and was gone. "Pest on him!" said De +Aquila. "I have more to do than to shiver in the Great Hall for every +gadling the King sends. Left he no word?"</p> + +<p>'"None," said Jehan, "except"—he had been with De Aquila at +Santlache—"except he said that if an old dog could not learn new tricks +it was time to sweep out the kennel."</p> + +<p>'"Oho!" said De Aquila, rubbing his nose, "to whom did he say that?"</p> + +<p>'"To his beard, chiefly, but some to his horse's flank as he was +girthing up. I followed him out," said Jehan the Crab.</p> + +<p>'"What was his shield-mark?"</p> + +<p>'"Gold horseshoes on black," said the Crab.</p> + +<p>'"That is one of Fulke's men," said De Aquila.'</p> + +<p>Puck broke in very gently, 'Gold horseshoes on black is <i>not</i> the +Fulkes' shield. The Fulkes' arms are——'</p> +<a name="page_111"></a><span class="pagenum">[111]</span> + +<p>The knight waved one hand statelily.</p> + +<p>'Thou knowest that evil man's true name,' he replied, 'but I have chosen +to call him Fulke because I promised him I would not tell the story of +his wickedness so that any man might guess it. I have changed <i>all</i> the +names in my tale. His children's children may be still alive.'</p> + +<p>'True—true,' said Puck, smiling softly. 'It is knightly to keep +faith—even after a thousand years.'</p> + +<p>Sir Richard bowed a little and went on:—</p> + +<p>'"Gold horseshoes on black?" said De Aquila. "I had heard Fulke had +joined the Barons, but if this is true our King must be of the upper +hand. No matter, all Fulkes are faithless. Still, I would not have sent +the man away empty."</p> + +<p>'"He fed," said Jehan. "Gilbert the Clerk fetched him meat and wine from +the kitchens. He ate at Gilbert's table."</p> + +<p>'This Gilbert was a clerk from Battle Abbey, who kept the accounts of +the Manor of Pevensey. He was tall and pale-coloured, and carried those +new-fashioned beads for counting of prayers. They were large brown nuts +or seeds, and hanging from his girdle with his pen and inkhorn they +clashed when he walked. His place was in the great fireplace. There was +his table of accounts, and there he lay o' nights. He feared the hounds +in the Hall that came nosing after bones or to sleep on the warm ashes, +and would slash at them with his beads—like a woman. When De Aquila sat +in Hall to do justice, take fines, or grant lands, Gilbert would so +write it in +<a name="page_112"></a><span class="pagenum">[112]</span> +the Manor-roll. But it was none of his work to feed our +guests, or to let them depart without his lord's knowledge.</p> + +<p>'Said De Aquila, after Jehan was gone down the stair: "Hugh, hast thou +ever told my Gilbert thou canst read Latin hand-of-write?"</p> + +<p>'"No," said Hugh. "He is no friend to me, or to Odo my hound either." +'"No matter," said De Aquila. "Let him never know thou canst tell one +letter from its fellow, and"—here he jerked us in the ribs with his +scabbard—"watch him, both of ye. There be devils in Africa, as I have +heard, but by the Saints, there be greater devils in Pevensey!" And that +was all he would say.</p> + +<p>'It chanced, some small while afterwards, a Norman man-at-arms would wed +a Saxon wench of the Manor, and Gilbert (we had watched him well since +De Aquila spoke) doubted whether her folk were free or slave. Since De +Aquila would give them a field of good land, if she were free, the +matter came up at the justice in Great Hall before De Aquila. First the +wench's father spoke; then her mother; then all together, till the hall +rang and the hounds bayed. De Aquila held up his hands. "Write her +free," he called to Gilbert by the fireplace. "A' God's name write her +free, before she deafens me! Yes, yes," he said to the wench that was on +her knees at him; "thou art Cerdic's sister, and own cousin to the Lady +of Mercia, if thou wilt be silent. In fifty years there will be neither +Norman nor Saxon, but all English," said he, "and <i>these</i> are the men +that do</p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_113"></a><span class="pagenum">[113]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_113_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_113.png" height="652" width="400" alt="'A' God's name write her free, before she deafens me!'" /> +</a> +<div class="caption">'A' God's name write her free, before she deafens me!'</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_115"></a><span class="pagenum">[115]</span> +<p>our work!" He clapped the man-at-arms that was Jehan's nephew on +the shoulder, and kissed the wench, and fretted with his feet among the +rushes to show it was finished. (The Great Hall is always bitter cold.) +I stood at his side; Hugh was behind Gilbert in the fireplace making to +play with wise rough Odo. He signed to De Aquila, who bade Gilbert +measure the new field for the new couple. Out then runs our Gilbert +between man and maid, his beads clashing at his waist, and the Hall +being empty, we three sit by the fire.</p> + +<p>'Said Hugh, leaning down to the hearthstones, "I saw this stone move +under Gilbert's foot when Odo snuffed at it. Look!" De Aquila digged in +the ashes with his sword; the stone tilted; beneath it lay a parchment +folden, and the writing atop was: "Words spoken against the King by our +Lord of Pevensey—the second part."</p> + +<p>'Here was set out (Hugh read it us whispering) every jest De Aquila had +made to us touching the King; every time he had called out to me from +the shot-window, and every time he had said what he would do if he were +King of England. Yes, day by day had his daily speech, which he never +stinted, been set down by Gilbert, tricked out and twisted from its true +meaning, yet withal so cunningly that none could deny who knew him that +De Aquila had in some sort spoken those words. Ye see?'</p> + +<p>Dan and Una nodded.</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Una gravely. 'It isn't what you say so much. It's what you +mean when you say +<a name="page_116"></a><span class="pagenum">[116]</span> +it. Like calling Dan a beast in fun. Only grown-ups +don't always understand.'</p> + +<p>'"He hath done this day by day before our very face?" said De Aquila.</p> + +<p>'"Nay, hour by hour," said Hugh. "When De Aquila spoke even now, in the +Hall, of Saxons and Normans, I saw Gilbert write on a parchment, which +he kept beside the Manor-roll, that De Aquila said soon there would be +no Normans left in England if his men-at-arms did their work aright."</p> + +<p>'"Bones of the Saints!" said De Aquila. "What avail is honour or a sword +against a pen? Where did Gilbert hide that writing? He shall eat it."</p> + +<p>'"In his breast when he ran out," said Hugh. "Which made me look to see +where he kept his finished stuff. When Odo scratched at this stone here, +I saw his face change. So I was sure."</p> + +<p>'"He is bold," said De Aquila. "Do him justice. In his own fashion, my +Gilbert is bold."</p> + +<p>'"Overbold," said Hugh. "Hearken here," and he read: "Upon the Feast of +St Agatha, our Lord of Pevensey, lying in his upper chamber, being +clothed in his second fur gown reversed with rabbit——"</p> + +<p>'"Pest on him! He is not my tire-woman!" said De Aquila, and Hugh and I +laughed.</p> + +<p>'"Reversed with rabbit, seeing a fog over the marshes, did wake Sir +Richard Dalyngridge, his drunken cup-mate" (here they laughed at me) +"and said, 'Peer out, old fox, for God is on the Duke of Normandy's +side."'</p> +<a name="page_117"></a><span class="pagenum">[117]</span> +<p>'"So did I. It was a black fog. Robert could have landed ten thousand +men, and we none the wiser. Does he tell how we were out all day riding +the Marsh, and how I near perished in a quicksand, and coughed like a +sick ewe for ten days after?" cried De Aquila.</p> + +<p>'"No," said Hugh. "But here is the prayer of Gilbert himself to his +master Fulke."</p> + +<p>'"Ah," said De Aquila. "Well I knew it was Fulke. What is the price of +my blood?"</p> + +<p>'"Gilbert prayeth that when our Lord of Pevensey is stripped of his +lands on this evidence which Gilbert hath, with fear and pains, +collected——"</p> + +<p>'"Fear and pains is a true word," said De Aquila, and sucked in his +cheeks. "But how excellent a weapon is a pen! I must learn it."</p> + +<p>'"He prays that Fulke will advance him from his present service to that +honour in the Church which Fulke promised him. And lest Fulke should +forget, he has written below, 'To be Sacristan of Battle'."</p> + +<p>'At this De Aquila whistled. "A man who can plot against one lord can +plot against another. When I am stripped of my lands Fulke will whip off +my Gilbert's foolish head. None the less Battle needs a new Sacristan. +They tell me the Abbot Henry keeps no sort of rule there."</p> + +<p>'"Let the Abbot wait," said Hugh. "It is our heads and our lands that +are in danger. This parchment is the second part of the tale. The first +has gone to Fulke, and so to the King, who will hold us traitors."</p> +<a name="page_118"></a><span class="pagenum">[118]</span> +<p>"Assuredly," said De Aquila. "Fulke's man took the first part that +evening when Gilbert fed him, and our King is so beset by his brother +and his Barons (small blame, too!) that he is mad with mistrust. Fulke +has his ear, and pours poison into it. Presently the King gives him my +land and yours. This is old," and he leaned back and yawned.</p> + +<p>'"And thou wilt surrender Pevensey without word or blow?" said Hugh. "We +Saxons will fight your King then. I will go warn my nephew at +Dallington. Give me a horse!"</p> + +<p>'"Give thee a toy and a rattle," said De Aquila. "Put back the +parchment, and rake over the ashes. If Fulke is given my Pevensey, which +is England's gate, what will he do with it? He is Norman at heart, and +his heart is in Normandy, where he can kill peasants at his pleasure. He +will open England's gate to our sleepy Robert, as Odo and Mortain tried +to do, and then there will be another landing and another Santlache. +Therefore I cannot give up Pevensey."</p> + +<p>'"Good," said we two.</p> + +<p>'"Ah, but wait! If my King be made, on Gilbert's evidence, to mistrust +me, he will send his men against me here, and while we fight, England's +gate is left unguarded. Who will be the first to come through thereby? +Even Robert of Normandy. Therefore I cannot fight my King." He nursed +his sword—thus.</p> + +<p>'"This is saying and unsaying like a Norman," said Hugh. "What of our +Manors?"</p> +<a name="page_119"></a><span class="pagenum">[119]</span> +<p>'"I do not think for myself," said De Aquila, "nor for our King, nor for +your lands. I think for England, for whom neither King nor Baron thinks. +I am not Norman, Sir Richard, nor Saxon, Sir Hugh. English am I."</p> + +<p>'"Saxon, Norman or English," said Hugh, "our lives are thine, however +the game goes. When do we hang Gilbert?"</p> + +<p>'"Never," said De Aquila. "Who knows, he may yet be Sacristan of Battle, +for, to do him justice, he is a good writer. Dead men make dumb +witnesses. Wait."</p> + +<p>'"But the King may give Pevensey to Fulke. And our Manors go with it," +said I. "Shall we tell our sons?"</p> + +<p>'"No. The King will not wake up a hornets' nest in the South till he has +smoked out the bees in the North. He may hold me a traitor; but at least +he sees I am not fighting against him; and every day that I lie still is +so much gain to him while he fights the Barons. If he were wise he would +wait till that war were over before he made new enemies. But I think +Fulke will play upon him to send for me, and if I do not obey the +summons, that will, to Henry's mind, be proof of my treason. But mere +talk, such as Gilbert sends, is no proof nowadays. We Barons follow the +Church, and, like Anselm, we speak what we please. Let us go about our +day's dealings, and say naught to Gilbert."</p> + +<p>'"Then we do nothing?" said Hugh.</p> + +<p>'"We wait," said De Aquila. "I am old, but still I find that the most +grievous work I know."</p> +<a name="page_120"></a><span class="pagenum">[120]</span> + +<p>'And so we found it, but in the end De Aquila was right.</p> + +<p>'A little later in the year, armed men rode over the hill, the Golden +Horseshoes flying behind the King's banner. Said De Aquila, at the +window of our chamber: "How did I tell you? Here comes Fulke himself to +spy out his new lands which our King hath promised him if he can bring +proof of my treason."</p> + +<p>'"How dost thou know?" said Hugh.</p> + +<p>'"Because that is what I would do if I were Fulke, but <i>I</i> should have +brought more men. My roan horse to your old shoes," said he, "Fulke +brings me the King's Summons to leave Pevensey and join the war." He +sucked in his cheeks and drummed on the edge of the shaft, where the +water sounded all hollow.</p> + +<p>'"Shall we go?" said I.</p> + +<p>'"Go! At this time of year? Stark madness," said he. "Take <i>me</i> from +Pevensey to fisk and flyte through fern and forest, and in three days +Robert's keels would be lying on Pevensey mud with ten thousand men! Who +would stop them—Fulke?"</p> + +<p>'The horns blew without, and anon Fulke cried the King's Summons at the +great door, that De Aquila with all men and horse should join the King's +camp at Salisbury.</p> + +<p>'"How did I tell you?" said De Aquila. "There are twenty Barons 'twixt +here and Salisbury could give King Henry good land service, but he has +been worked upon by Fulke to send South and call me—<i>me</i>!—off the Gate +of England, +<a name="page_121"></a><span class="pagenum">[121]</span> +when his enemies stand about to batter it in. See that +Fulke's men lie in the big south barn," said he. "Give them drink, and +when Fulke has eaten we will drink in my chamber. The Great Hall is too +cold for old bones."</p> + +<p>'As soon as he was off-horse Fulke went to the chapel with Gilbert to +give thanks for his safe coming, and when he had eaten—he was a fat +man, and rolled his eyes greedily at our good roast Sussex wheatears—we +led him to the little upper chamber, whither Gilbert had already gone +with the Manor-roll. I remember when Fulke heard the tide blow and +whistle in the shaft he leaped back, and his long down-turned +stirrup-shoes caught in the rushes and he stumbled, so that Jehan behind +him found it easy to knock his head against the wall.'</p> + +<p>'Did you know it was going to happen?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Assuredly,' said Sir Richard, with a sweet smile. 'I put my foot on his +sword and plucked away his dagger, but he knew not whether it was day or +night for awhile. He lay rolling his eyes and bubbling with his mouth, +and Jehan roped him like a calf. He was cased all in that newfangled +armour which we call lizard-mail. Not rings like my hauberk here'—Sir +Richard tapped his chest—but little pieces of dagger-proof steel +overlapping on stout leather. We stripped it off (no need to spoil good +harness by wetting it), and in the neck-piece De Aquila found the same +folden piece of parchment which we had put back under the hearthstone.</p> +<a name="page_122"></a><span class="pagenum">[122]</span> + +<p>'At this Gilbert would have run out. I laid my hand on his shoulder. It +sufficed. He fell to trembling and praying on his beads.</p> + +<p>'"Gilbert," said De Aquila, "here be more notable sayings and doings of +our Lord of Pevensey for thee to write down. Take pen and ink-horn, +Gilbert. We cannot all be Sacristans of Battle."</p> + +<p>'Said Fulke from the floor, "Ye have bound a King's messenger. Pevensey +shall burn for this."</p> + +<p>'"Maybe. I have seen it besieged once," said De Aquila, "but heart up, +Fulke. I promise thee that thou shalt be hanged in the middle of the +flames at the end of that siege, if I have to share my last loaf with +thee; and that is more than Odo would have done when we starved out him +and Mortain."</p> + +<p>'Then Fulke sat up and looked long and cunningly at De Aquila.</p> + +<p>'"By the Saints," said he, "why didst thou not say thou wast on the Duke +Robert's side at the first?"</p> + +<p>'"Am I?" said De Aquila.</p> + +<p>'Fulke laughed and said, "No man who serves King Henry dare do this much +to his messenger. When didst thou come over to the Duke? Let me up and +we can smooth it out together." And he smiled and becked and winked.</p> + +<p>'"Yes, we will smooth it out," said De Aquila. He nodded to me, and +Jehan and I heaved up Fulke—he was a heavy man—and lowered him into +the shaft by a rope, not so as to stand on our +<a name="page_123"></a><span class="pagenum">[123]</span> +gold, but dangling by his +shoulders a little above. It was turn of ebb, and the water came to his +knees. He said nothing, but shivered somewhat.</p> + +<p>'Then jehan of a sudden beat down Gilbert's wrist with his sheathed +dagger. "Stop!" he said. "He swallows his beads."</p> + +<p>'"Poison, belike," said De Aquila. "It is good for men who know too +much. I have carried it these thirty years. Give me!"</p> + +<p>'Then Gilbert wept and howled. De Aquila ran the beads through his +fingers. The last one—I have said they were large nuts—opened in two +halves on a pin, and there was a small folded parchment within. On it +was written: "<i>The Old Dog goes to Salisbury to be beaten. I have his +Kennel. Come quickly</i>."</p> + +<p>'"This is worse than poison," said De Aquila, very softly, and sucked in +his cheeks. Then Gilbert grovelled in the rushes, and told us all he +knew. The letter, as we guessed, was from Fulke to the Duke (and not the +first that had passed between them); Fulke had given it to Gilbert in +the chapel, and Gilbert thought to have taken it by morning to a certain +fishing boat at the wharf, which trafficked between Pevensey and the +French shore. Gilbert was a false fellow, but he found time between his +quakings and shakings to swear that the master of the boat knew nothing +of the matter.</p> + +<p>'"He hath called me shaved head," said Gilbert, "and he hath thrown +haddock-guts at me; but for all that, he is no traitor."</p> + +<p>'"I will have no clerk of mine mishandled or +<a name="page_124"></a><span class="pagenum">[124]</span> +miscalled," said De Aquila. +"That seaman shall be whipped at his own mast. Write me first a letter, +and thou shalt bear it, with the order for the whipping, to-morrow to +the boat."</p> + +<p>'At this Gilbert would have kissed De Aquila's hand—he had not hoped to +live until the morning—and when he trembled less he wrote a letter as +from Fulke to the Duke, saying that the Kennel, which signified +Pevensey, was shut, and that the Old Dog (which was De Aquila) sat +outside it, and, moreover, that all had been betrayed.</p> + +<p>'"Write to any man that all is betrayed," said De Aquila, "and even the +Pope himself would sleep uneasily. Eh, Jehan? If one told thee all was +betrayed, what wouldst thou do?"</p> + +<p>'"I would run away," said Jehan. "it might be true."</p> + +<p>'"Well said," quoth De Aquila. "Write, Gilbert, that Montgomery, the +great Earl, hath made his peace with the King, and that little D'Arcy, +whom I hate, hath been hanged by the heels. We will give Robert full +measure to chew upon. Write also that Fulke himself is sick to death of +a dropsy."</p> + +<p>'"Nay!" cried Fulke, hanging in the well-shaft. "Drown me out of hand, +but do not make a jest of me."</p> + +<p>'"Jest? I?" said De Aquila. "I am but fighting for life and lands with a +pen, as thou hast shown me, Fulke."</p> + +<p>'Then Fulke groaned, for he was cold, and, "Let me confess," said he.</p> + +<p>'"Now, this is right neighbourly," said De +<a name="page_125"></a><span class="pagenum">[125]</span> +Aquila, leaning over the +shaft. "Thou hast read my sayings and doings—or at least the first part +of them—and thou art minded to repay me with thy own doings and +sayings. Take pen and inkhorn, Gilbert. Here is work that will not irk +thee."</p> + +<p>'"Let my men go without hurt, and I will confess my treason against the +King," said Fulke.</p> + +<p>'"Now, why has he grown so tender of his men of a sudden?" said Hugh to +me; for Fulke had no name for mercy to his men. Plunder he gave them, +but pity, none.</p> + +<p>'"Té! Té!" said De Aquila. "Thy treason was all confessed long ago by +Gilbert. It would be enough to hang Montgomery himself."</p> + +<p>'"Nay; but spare my men," said Fulke; and we heard him splash like a +fish in a pond, for the tide was rising.</p> + +<p>'"All in good time," said De Aquila. "The night is young; the wine is +old; and we need only the merry tale. Begin the story of thy life since +when thou wast a lad at Tours. Tell it nimbly!"</p> + +<p>'"Ye shame me to my soul," said Fulke.</p> + +<p>'"Then I have done what neither King nor Duke could do," said De Aquila. +"But begin, and forget nothing."</p> + +<p>'"Send thy man away," said Fulke.</p> + +<p>'"That much can I do," said De Aquila. "But, remember, I am like the +Danes' King; I cannot turn the tide."</p> + +<p>'"How long will it rise?" said Fulke, and splashed anew.</p> + +<p>'"For three hours," said De Aquila. "Time +<a name="page_126"></a><span class="pagenum">[126]</span> +to tell all thy good deeds. +Begin, and Gilbert,—I have heard thou art somewhat careless—do not +twist his words from his true meaning."</p> + +<p>'So—fear of death in the dark being upon him—Fulke began, and Gilbert, +not knowing what his fate might be, wrote it word by word. I have heard +many tales, but never heard I aught to match the tale of Fulke his black +life, as Fulke told it hollowly, hanging in the shaft.'</p> + +<p>'Was it bad?' said Dan, awestruck.</p> + +<p>'Beyond belief,' Sir Richard answered. 'None the less, there was that in +it which forced even Gilbert to laugh. We three laughed till we ached. +At one place his teeth so chattered that we could not well hear, and we +reached him down a cup of wine. Then he warmed to it, and smoothly set +out all his shifts, malices, and treacheries, his extreme boldnesses (he +was desperate bold); his retreats, shufflings, and counterfeitings (he +was also inconceivably a coward); his lack of gear and honour; his +despair at their loss; his remedies, and well-coloured contrivances. +Yes, he waved the filthy rags of his life before us, as though they had +been some proud banner. When he ceased, we saw by torches that the tide +stood at the corners of his mouth, and he breathed strongly through his +nose.</p> + +<p>'We had him out, and rubbed him; we wrapped him in a cloak, and gave him +wine, and we leaned and looked upon him, the while he drank. He was +shivering, but shameless.</p> + +<p>'Of a sudden we heard Jehan at the stairway wake, but a boy pushed past +him, and stood before +<a name="page_127"></a><span class="pagenum">[127]</span> +us, the hall rushes in his hair, all slubbered +with sleep. "My father! My father! I dreamed of treachery," he cried, +and babbled thickly.</p> + +<p>'"There is no treachery here," said Fulke. "Go!" and the boy turned, +even then not fully awake, and Jehan led him by the hand to the Great +Hall.</p> + +<p>'"Thy only son!" said De Aquila. "Why didst thou bring the child here?"</p> + +<p>'"He is my heir. I dared not trust him to my brother," said Fulke, and +now he was ashamed. De Aquila said nothing, but sat weighing a wine cup +in his two hands—thus. Anon, Fulke touched him on the knee.</p> + +<p>'"Let the boy escape to Normandy," said he, "and do with me at thy +pleasure. Yea, hang me tomorrow, with my letter to Robert round my neck, +but let the boy go."</p> + +<p>'"Be still," said De Aquila. "I think for England."</p> + +<p>'So we waited what our Lord of Pevensey should devise; and the sweat ran +down Fulke's forehead.</p> + +<p>'At last said De Aquila: "I am too old to judge, or to trust any man. I +do not covet thy lands, as thou hast coveted mine; and whether thou art +any better or any worse than any other black Angevin thief, it is for +thy King to find out. Therefore, go back to thy King, Fulke."</p> + +<p>'"And thou wilt say nothing of what has passed?" said Fulke.</p> + +<p>'"Why should I? Thy son will stay with me. If the King calls me again to +leave Pevensey, +<a name="page_128"></a><span class="pagenum">[128]</span> +which I must guard against England's enemies; if the +King sends his men against me for a traitor; or if I hear that the King +in his bed thinks any evil of me or my two knights, thy son will be +hanged from out this window, Fulke."'</p> + +<p>'But it hadn't anything to do with his son,' cried Una, startled.</p> + +<p>'How could we have hanged Fulke?' said Sir Richard. 'We needed him to +make our peace with the King. He would have betrayed half England for +the boy's sake. Of that we were sure.'</p> + +<p>'I don't understand,' said Una. 'But I think it was simply awful.'</p> + +<p>'So did not Fulke. He was well pleased.'</p> + +<p>'What? Because his son was going to be killed?'</p> + +<p>'Nay. Because De Aquila had shown him how he might save the boy's life +and his own lands and honours. "I will do it," he said. "I swear I will +do it. I will tell the King thou art no traitor, but the most excellent, +valiant, and perfect of us all. Yes, I will save thee."</p> + +<p>'De Aquila looked still into the bottom of the cup, rolling the +wine-dregs to and fro.</p> + +<p>'"Ay," he said. "If I had a son, I would, I think, save him. But do not +by any means tell me how thou wilt go about it."</p> + +<p>'"Nay, nay," said Fulke, nodding his bald head wisely. "That is my +secret. But rest at ease, De Aquila, no hair of thy head nor rood of thy +land shall be forfeited," and he smiled like one planning great good +deeds.</p> +<a name="page_129"></a><span class="pagenum">[129]</span> +<p>'"And henceforward," said De Aquila, "I counsel thee to serve one +master—not two."</p> + +<p>'"What?" said Fulke. "Can I work no more honest trading between the two +sides these troublous times?"</p> + +<p>'"Serve Robert or the King—England or Normandy," said De Aquila. "I +care not which it is, but make thy choice here and now."</p> + +<p>'"The King, then," said Fulke, "for I see he is better served than +Robert. Shall I swear it?"</p> + +<p>'"No need," said De Aquila, and he laid his hand on the parchments which +Gilbert had written. "It shall be some part of my Gilbert's penance to +copy out the savoury tale of thy life, till we have made ten, twenty, an +hundred, maybe, copies. How many cattle, think you, would the Bishop of +Tours give for that tale? Or thy brother? Or the Monks of Blois? +Minstrels will turn it into songs which thy own Saxon serfs shall sing +behind their plough-stilts, and men-at-arms riding through thy Norman +towns. From here to Rome, Fulke, men will make very merry over that +tale, and how Fulke told it, hanging in a well, like a drowned puppy. +This shall be thy punishment, if ever I find thee double-dealing with +thy King any more. Meantime, the parchments stay here with thy son. Him +I will return to thee when thou hast made my peace with the King. The +parchments never."</p> + +<p>'Fulke hid his face and groaned.</p> + +<p>'"Bones of the Saints!" said De Aquila, laughing. "The pen cuts deep. I +could never have fetched that grunt out of thee with any sword."</p> +<a name="page_130"></a><span class="pagenum">[130]</span> + +<p>'"But so long as I do not anger thee, my tale will be secret?" said +Fulke.</p> + +<p>'"Just so long. Does that comfort thee, Fulke?" said De Aquila.</p> + +<p>'"What other comfort have ye left me?" he said, and of a sudden he wept +hopelessly like a child, dropping his face on his knees.'</p> + +<p>'Poor Fulke,' said Una.</p> + +<p>'I pitied him also,' said Sir Richard.</p> + +<p>'"After the spur, corn," said De Aquila, and he threw Fulke three wedges +of gold that he had taken from our little chest by the bedplace.</p> + +<p>'"If I had known this," said Fulke, catching his breath, "I would never +have lifted hand against Pevensey. Only lack of this yellow stuff has +made me so unlucky in my dealings."</p> + +<p>'It was dawn then, and they stirred in the Great Hall below. We sent +down Fulke's mail to be scoured, and when he rode away at noon under his +own and the King's banner, very splendid and stately did he show. He +smoothed his long beard, and called his son to his stirrup and kissed +him. De Aquila rode with him as far as the New Mill landward. We thought +the night had been all a dream.'</p> + +<p>'But did he make it right with the King?' Dan asked. 'About your not +being traitors, I mean.'</p> + +<p>Sir Richard smiled. 'The King sent no second summons to Pevensey, nor +did he ask why De Aquila had not obeyed the first. Yes, that was Fulke's +work. I know not how he did it, but it was well and swiftly done.'</p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_132"></a><span class="pagenum">[132]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_132_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_132.png" height="670" width="400" alt="'He drew his dagger on Jehan, who threw him down the stairway.'" /> +</a> +<div class="caption">'He drew his dagger on Jehan, who threw him down the stairway.'</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_133"></a><span class="pagenum">[133]</span> + +<p>'Then you didn't do anything to his son?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'The boy? Oh, he was an imp! He turned the keep doors out of dortoirs +while we had him. He sang foul songs, learned in the Barons' camps—poor +fool; he set the hounds fighting in Hall; he lit the rushes to drive +out, as he said, the fleas; he drew his dagger on Jehan, who threw him +down the stairway for it; and he rode his horse through crops and among +sheep. But when we had beaten him, and showed him wolf and deer, he +followed us old men like a young, eager hound, and called us "uncle". +His father came the summer's end to take him away, but the boy had no +lust to go, because of the otter-hunting, and he stayed on till the +fox-hunting. I gave him a bittern's claw to bring him good luck at +shooting. An imp, if ever there was!'</p> + +<p>'And what happened to Gilbert?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Not even a whipping. De Aquila said he would sooner a clerk, however +false, that knew the Manor-roll than a fool, however true, that must be +taught his work afresh. Moreover, after that night I think Gilbert loved +as much as he feared De Aquila. At least he would not leave us—not even +when Vivian, the King's Clerk, would have made him Sacristan of Battle +Abbey. A false fellow, but, in his fashion, bold.'</p> + +<p>'Did Robert ever land in Pevensey after all?' Dan went on.</p> + +<p>'We guarded the coast too well while Henry was fighting his Barons; and +three or four years later, when England had peace, Henry crossed to +<a name="page_134"></a><span class="pagenum">[134]</span> +Normandy and showed his brother some work at Tenchebrai that cured +Robert of fighting. Many of Henry's men sailed from Pevensey to that +war. Fulke came, I remember, and we all four lay in the little chamber +once again, and drank together. De Aquila was right. One should not +judge men. Fulke was merry. Yes, always merry—with a catch in his +breath.'</p> + +<p>'And what did you do afterwards?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'We talked together of times past. That is all men can do when they grow +old, little maid.'</p> + +<p> +The bell for tea rang faintly across the meadows. Dan lay in the bows of +the <i>Golden Hind</i>; Una in the stern, the book of verses open in her lap, +was reading from 'The Slave's Dream':</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>'Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep,</span> +<span>He saw his native land.'</span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>'I don't know when you began that,' said Dan, sleepily.</p> + +<p>On the middle thwart of the boat, beside Una's sun-bonnet, lay an Oak +leaf, an Ash leaf, and a Thorn leaf, that must have dropped down from +the trees above; and the brook giggled as though it had just seen some +joke.</p> + +<hr /> +<a name="page_135"></a><span class="pagenum">[135]</span> +<h4>THE RUNES ON WELAND'S SWORD</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span><i>A Smith makes me</i></span> +<span><i>To betray my Man</i></span> +<span><i>In my first fight.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>To gather Gold</i></span> +<span><i>At the world's end</i></span> +<span><i>I am sent.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>The Gold I gather</i></span> +<span><i>Comes into England</i></span> +<span><i>Out of deep Water.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Like a shining Fish</i></span> +<span><i>Then it descends</i></span> +<span><i>Into deep Water.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>It is not given</i></span> +<span><i>For goods or gear,</i></span> +<span><i>But for The Thing.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>The Gold I gather</i></span> +<span><i>A King covets</i></span> +<span><i>For an ill use.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>The Gold I gather</i></span> +<span><i>Is drawn up</i></span> +<span><i>Out of deep Water.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Like a shining Fish</i></span> +<span><i>Then it descends</i></span> +<span><i>Into deep Water.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>It is not given</i></span> +<span><i>For goods or gear,</i></span> +<span><i>But for The Thing.</i></span> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="wide" /> +<a name="page_137"></a><span class="pagenum">[137]</span> +<h3>A Centurion of the Thirtieth</h3> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Cities and Thrones and Powers</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Stand in Time's eye,</i></span> +<span><i>Almost as long as flowers,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Which daily die.</i></span> +<span><i>But, as new buds put forth</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>To glad new men,</i></span> +<span><i>Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>The Cities rise again.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>This season's Daffodil,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>She never hears,</i></span> +<span><i>What change, what chance, what chill,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Cut down last year's:</i></span> +<span><i>But with bold countenance,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>And knowledge small,</i></span> +<span><i>Esteems her seven days' continuance</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>To be perpetual.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>So Time that is o'er-kind,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>To all that be,</i></span> +<span><i>Ordains us e'en as blind,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>As bold as she:</i></span> +<span><i>That in our very death,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>And burial sure,</i></span> +<span><i>Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>'See how our works endure!'</i></span> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> +<a name="page_141"></a><span class="pagenum">[141]</span> +<h4>A Centurion of the Thirtieth</h4> + +<p>Dan had come to grief over his Latin, and was kept in; so Una went alone +to Far Wood. Dan's big catapult and the lead bullets that Hobden had +made for him were hidden in an old hollow beech-stub on the west of the +wood. They had named the place out of the verse in <i>Lays of Ancient +Rome</i>:</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>From lordly Volaterrae,</span> +<span class="i2">Where scowls the far-famed hold</span> +<span>Piled by the hands of giants</span> +<span class="i2">For Godlike Kings of old.</span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>They were the 'Godlike Kings', and when old Hobden +piled some comfortable brushwood between the big wooden +knees of Volaterrae, they called him 'Hands of Giants'.</p> + +<p>Una slipped through their private gap in the fence, and +sat still awhile, scowling as scowlily and lordlily as she +knew how; for Volaterrae is an important watch-tower +that juts out of Far Wood just as Far Wood juts out of the +hillside. Pook's Hill lay below her and all the turns of the +brook as it wanders out of the Willingford Woods, between +hop-gardens, to old Hobden's cottage at the +Forge. The Sou'-West wind (there is always +<a name="page_142"></a><span class="pagenum">[142]</span> +a wind by Volaterrae) blew from the bare ridge where Cherry Clack +Windmill stands.</p> + +<p>Now wind prowling through woods sounds like exciting +things going to happen, and that is why on blowy +days you stand up in Volaterrae and shout bits of the <i>Lays</i> +to suit its noises.</p> + +<p>Una took Dan's catapult from its secret place, and +made ready to meet Lars Porsena's army stealing +through the wind-whitened aspens by the brook. A gust +boomed up the valley, and Una chanted sorrowfully:</p> +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>'Verbenna down to Ostia</span> +<span class="i2">Hath wasted all the plain:</span> +<span>Astur hath stormed Janiculum,</span> +<span class="i2">And the stout guards are slain.'</span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> +<p>But the wind, not charging fair to the wood, started aside and shook a +single oak in Gleason's pasture. Here it made itself all small and +crouched among the grasses, waving the tips of them as a cat waves the +tip of her tail before she springs.</p> + +<p>'Now welcome—welcome, Sextus,' sang Una, loading the catapult—</p> +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">'Now welcome to thy home!</span> +<span>Why dost thou stay, and turn away?</span> +<span class="i2">Here lies the road to Rome.'</span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> +<p>She fired into the face of the lull, to wake up the cowardly wind, and +heard a grunt from behind a thorn in the pasture.</p> + +<p>'Oh, my Winkie!' she said aloud, and that was something she had picked +up from Dan. 'I b'lieve I've tickled up a Gleason cow.'</p> +<a name="page_143"></a><span class="pagenum">[143]</span> + +<p>'You little painted beast!' a voice cried. 'I'll teach you to sling your +masters!'</p> + +<p>She looked down most cautiously, and saw a young man covered with hoopy +bronze armour all glowing among the late broom. But what Una admired +beyond all was his great bronze helmet with a red horse-tail that +flicked in the wind. She could hear the long hairs rasp on his shimmery +shoulder-plates.</p> + +<p>'What does the Faun mean,' he said, half aloud to himself, 'by telling +me that the Painted People have changed?' He caught sight of Una's +yellow head. 'Have you seen a painted lead-slinger?' he called.</p> + +<p>'No-o,' said Una. 'But if you've seen a bullet——'</p> + +<p>'Seen?' cried the man. 'It passed within a hair's breadth of my ear.'</p> + +<p>'Well, that was me. I'm most awfully sorry.'</p> + +<p>'Didn't the Faun tell you I was coming?' He smiled.</p> + +<p>'Not if you mean Puck. I thought you were a Gleason cow. I—I didn't +know you were a—a——What are you?'</p> + +<p>He laughed outright, showing a set of splendid teeth. His face and eyes +were dark, and his eyebrows met above his big nose in one bushy black +bar.</p> + +<p>'They call me Parnesius. I have been a Centurion of the Seventh Cohort +of the Thirtieth Legion—the Ulpia Victrix. Did you sling that bullet?'</p> + +<p>'I did. I was using Dan's catapult,' said Una.</p> +<a name="page_144"></a><span class="pagenum">[144]</span> + +<p>'Catapults!' said he. 'I ought to know something about them. Show me!'</p> + +<p>He leaped the rough fence with a rattle of spear, shield, and armour, +and hoisted himself into Volaterrae as quickly as a shadow.</p> + +<p>'A sling on a forked stick. I understand!' he cried, and pulled at the +elastic. 'But what wonderful beast yields this stretching leather?'</p> + +<p>'It's laccy—elastic. You put the bullet into that loop, and then you +pull hard.'</p> + +<p>The man pulled, and hit himself square on his thumb-nail.</p> + +<p>'Each to his own weapon,' he said gravely, handing it back. 'I am better +with the bigger machine, little maiden. But it's a pretty toy. A wolf +would laugh at it. Aren't you afraid of wolves?'</p> + +<p>'There aren't any,' said Una.</p> + +<p>'Never believe it! A wolf's like a Winged Hat. He comes when he isn't +expected. Don't they hunt wolves here?'</p> + +<p>'We don't hunt,' said Una, remembering what she had heard from grown-ups. +'We preserve—pheasants. Do you know them?'</p> + +<p>'I ought to,' said the young man, smiling again, and he imitated the cry +of the cock-pheasant so perfectly that a bird answered out of the wood.</p> + +<p>'What a big painted clucking fool is a pheasant!' he said. 'Just like +some Romans.'</p> + +<p>'But you're a Roman yourself, aren't you?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'Ye-es and no. I'm one of a good few thousands who have never seen Rome +except in a picture. </p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_145"></a><span class="pagenum">[145]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_145_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_145.png" height="637" width="400" alt="'You put the bullet into that loop.'" /> +</a> +<div class="caption">'You put the bullet into that loop.'</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_147"></a><span class="pagenum">[147]</span> +<p> +My people have lived at Vectis for generations. +Vectis—that island West yonder that you can see from so far in clear +weather.'</p> + +<p>'Do you mean the Isle of Wight? It lifts up just before rain, and you +see it from the Downs.'</p> + +<p>'Very likely. Our villa's on the South edge of the Island, by the Broken +Cliffs. Most of it is three hundred years old, but the cow-stables, +where our first ancestor lived, must be a hundred years older. Oh, quite +that, because the founder of our family had his land given him by +Agricola at the Settlement. It's not a bad little place for its size. In +spring-time violets grow down to the very beach. I've gathered sea-weeds +for myself and violets for my Mother many a time with our old nurse.'</p> + +<p>'Was your nurse a—a Romaness too?'</p> + +<p>'No, a Numidian. Gods be good to her! A dear, fat, brown thing with a +tongue like a cowbell. She was a free woman. By the way, are you free, +maiden?'</p> + +<p>'Oh, quite,' said Una. 'At least, till tea-time; and in summer our +governess doesn't say much if we're late.'</p> + +<p>The young man laughed again—a proper understanding laugh.</p> + +<p>'I see,' said he. 'That accounts for your being in the wood. <i>We</i> hid +among the cliffs.'</p> + +<p>'Did you have a governess, then?'</p> + +<p>'Did we not? A Greek, too. She had a way of clutching her dress when she +hunted us among the gorse-bushes that made us laugh. Then she'd +<a name="page_148"></a><span class="pagenum">[148]</span> +say she'd get us whipped. She never did, though, bless her! Aglaia was a +thorough sportswoman, for all her learning.'</p> + +<p>'But what lessons did you do—when—when you were little?'</p> + +<p>'Ancient history, the Classics, arithmetic and so on,' he answered. 'My +sister and I were thick-heads, but my two brothers (I'm the middle one) +liked those things, and, of course, Mother was clever enough for any +six. She was nearly as tall as I am, and she looked like the new statue +on the Western Road—the Demeter of the Baskets, you know. And funny! +Roma Dea! How Mother could make us laugh!'</p> + +<p>'What at?'</p> + +<p>'Little jokes and sayings that every family has. Don't you know?'</p> + +<p>'I know we have, but I didn't know other people had them too,' said Una. +'Tell me about all your family, please.'</p> + +<p>'Good families are very much alike. Mother would sit spinning of +evenings while Aglaia read in her corner, and Father did accounts, and +we four romped about the passages. When our noise grew too loud the +Pater would say, "Less tumult! Less tumult! Have you never heard of a +Father's right over his children? He can slay them, my loves—slay them +dead, and the Gods highly approve of the action!" Then Mother would prim +up her dear mouth over the wheel and answer: "H'm! I'm afraid there +can't be much of the Roman Father about you!" Then the Pater would roll +up his accounts, and say, "I'll +<a name="page_149"></a><span class="pagenum">[149]</span> +show you!" and then—then, he'd be worse than any of us!'</p> + +<p>'Fathers can—if they like,' said Una, her eyes dancing.</p> + +<p>'Didn't I say all good families are very much the same?'</p> + +<p>'What did you do in summer?' said Una. 'Play about, like us?'</p> + +<p>'Yes, and we visited our friends. There are no wolves in Vectis. We had +many friends, and as many ponies as we wished.'</p> + +<p>'It must have been lovely,' said Una. 'I hope it lasted for ever.'</p> + +<p>'Not quite, little maid. When I was about sixteen or seventeen, the +Father felt gouty, and we all went to the Waters.'</p> + +<p>'What waters?'</p> + +<p>'At Aquae Solis. Every one goes there. You ought to get your Father to +take you some day.'</p> + +<p>'But where? I don't know,' said Una.</p> + +<p>The young man looked astonished for a moment. 'Aquae Solis,' he +repeated. 'The best baths in Britain. just as good, I'm told, as Rome. +All the old gluttons sit in hot water, and talk scandal and politics. +And the Generals come through the streets with their guards behind them; +and the magistrates come in their chairs with their stiff guards behind +them; and you meet fortune-tellers, and goldsmiths, and merchants, and +philosophers, and feather-sellers, and ultra-Roman Britons, and +ultra-British Romans, and tame tribesmen pretending to be civilised, and +Jew lecturers, and—oh, everybody interesting. We young people, of +<a name="page_150"></a><span class="pagenum">[150]</span> +course, took no interest in politics. We had not the gout: there were +many of our age like us. We did not find life sad.</p> + +<p>'But while we were enjoying ourselves without thinking, my sister met +the son of a magistrate in the West—and a year afterwards she was +married to him. My young brother, who was always interested in plants +and roots, met the First Doctor of a Legion from the City of the +Legions, and he decided that he would be an Army doctor. I do not think +it is a profession for a well-born man, but then—I'm not my brother. He +went to Rome to study medicine, and now he's First Doctor of a Legion in +Egypt—at Antinoe, I think, but I have not heard from him for some time.</p> + +<p>'My eldest brother came across a Greek philosopher, and told my Father +that he intended to settle down on the estate as a farmer and a +philosopher. You see,'—the young man's eyes twinkled—'his philosopher +was a long-haired one!'</p> + +<p>'I thought philosophers were bald,' said Una.</p> + +<p>'Not all. She was very pretty. I don't blame him. Nothing could have +suited me better than my eldest brother's doing this, for I was only too +keen to join the Army. I had always feared I should have to stay at home +and look after the estate while my brother took <i>this</i>.'</p> + +<p>He rapped on his great glistening shield that never seemed to be in his +way.</p> + +<p>'So we were well contented—we young people—and we rode back to +Clausentum along the Wood Road very quietly. But when we reached +<a name="page_151"></a><span class="pagenum">[151]</span> +home, Aglaia, our governess, saw what had come to us. I remember her at the +door, the torch over her head, watching us climb the cliff-path from the +boat. "Aie! Aie!" she said. "Children you went away. Men and a woman you +return!" Then she kissed Mother, and Mother wept. Thus our visit to the +Waters settled our fates for each of us, Maiden.'</p> + +<p>He rose to his feet and listened, leaning on the shield-rim.</p> + +<p>'I think that's Dan—my brother,' said Una.</p> + +<p>'Yes; and the Faun is with him,' he replied, as Dan with Puck stumbled +through the copse.</p> + +<p>'We should have come sooner,' Puck called, 'but the beauties of your +native tongue, O Parnesius, have enthralled this young citizen.'</p> + +<p>Parnesius looked bewildered, even when Una explained.</p> + +<p>'Dan said the plural of "dominus" was "dominoes", and when Miss Blake +said it wasn't he said he supposed it was "backgammon", and so he had to +write it out twice—for cheek, you know.'</p> + +<p>Dan had climbed into Volaterrae, hot and panting.</p> + +<p>'I've run nearly all the way,' he gasped, 'and then Puck met me. How do +you do, Sir?'</p> + +<p>'I am in good health,' Parnesius answered. 'See! I have tried to bend +the bow of Ulysses, but——' He held up his thumb.</p> + +<p>'I'm sorry. You must have pulled off too soon,' said Dan. 'But Puck said +you were telling Una a story.'</p> +<a name="page_152"></a><span class="pagenum">[152]</span> + +<p>'Continue, O Parnesius,' said Puck, who had perched himself on a dead +branch above them. 'I will be chorus. Has he puzzled you much, Una?'</p> + +<p>'Not a bit, except—I didn't know where Ak—Ak something was,' she +answered.</p> + +<p>'Oh, Aquae Solis. That's Bath, where the buns come from. Let the hero +tell his own tale.'</p> + +<p>Parnesius pretended to thrust his spear at Puck's legs, but Puck reached +down, caught at the horse-tail plume, and pulled off the tall helmet.</p> + +<p>'Thanks, jester,' said Parnesius, shaking his curly dark head. 'That is +cooler. Now hang it up for me....</p> + +<p>'I was telling your sister how I joined the Army,' he said to Dan.</p> + +<p>'Did you have to pass an Exam?' Dan asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>'No. I went to my Father, and said I should like to enter the Dacian +Horse (I had seen some at Aquae Solis); but he said I had better begin +service in a regular Legion from Rome. Now, like many of our youngsters, +I was not too fond of anything Roman. The Roman-born officers and +magistrates looked down on us British-born as though we were barbarians. +I told my Father so.</p> + +<p>'"I know they do," he said; "but remember, after all, we are the people +of the Old Stock, and our duty is to the Empire."</p> + +<p>'"To which Empire?" I asked. "We split the Eagle before I was born."</p> +<a name="page_153"></a><span class="pagenum">[153]</span> + +<p>'"What thieves' talk is that?" said my Father. He hated slang.</p> + +<p>'"Well, sir," I said, "we've one Emperor in Rome, and I don't know how +many Emperors the outlying Provinces have set up from time to time. +Which am I to follow?"</p> + +<p>'"Gratian," said he. "At least he's a sportsman."</p> + +<p>'"He's all that," I said. "Hasn't he turned himself into a +raw-beef-eating Scythian?"</p> + +<p>'"Where did you hear of it?" said the Pater.</p> + +<p>'"At Aquae Solis," I said. It was perfectly true. This precious Emperor +Gratian of ours had a bodyguard of fur-cloaked Scythians, and he was so +crazy about them that he dressed like them. In Rome of all places in the +world! It was as bad as if my own Father had painted himself blue!</p> + +<p>'"No matter for the clothes," said the Pater. "They are only the fringe +of the trouble. It began before your time or mine. Rome has forsaken her +Gods, and must be punished. The great war with the Painted People broke +out in the very year the temples of our Gods were destroyed. We beat the +Painted People in the very year our temples were rebuilt. Go back +further still."... He went back to the time of Diocletian; and to listen +to him you would have thought Eternal Rome herself was on the edge of +destruction, just because a few people had become a little large-minded.</p> + +<p>'<i>I</i> knew nothing about it. Aglaia never taught us the history of our +own country. She was so full of her ancient Greeks.</p> +<a name="page_154"></a><span class="pagenum">[154]</span> + +<p>'"There is no hope for Rome," said the Pater, at last. "She has forsaken +her Gods, but if the Gods forgive <i>us</i> here, we may save Britain. To do +that, we must keep the Painted People back. Therefore, I tell you, +Parnesius, as a Father, that if your heart is set on service, your place +is among men on the Wall—and not with women among the cities."'</p> + +<p>'What Wall?' asked Dan and Una at once.</p> + +<p>'Father meant the one we call Hadrian's Wall. I'll tell you about it +later. It was built long ago, across North Britain, to keep out the +Painted People—Picts, you call them. Father had fought in the great +Pict War that lasted more than twenty years, and he knew what fighting +meant. Theodosius, one of our great Generals, had chased the little +beasts back far into the North before I was born. Down at Vectis, of +course, we never troubled our heads about them. But when my Father spoke +as he did, I kissed his hand, and waited for orders. We British-born +Romans know what is due to our parents.'</p> + +<p>'If I kissed my Father's hand, he'd laugh,' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Customs change; but if you do not obey your Father, the Gods remember +it. You may be quite sure of <i>that</i>.</p> + +<p>'After our talk, seeing I was in earnest, the Pater sent me over to +Clausentum to learn my foot-drill in a barrack full of foreign +auxiliaries—as unwashed and unshaved a mob of mixed barbarians as ever +scrubbed a breastplate. It was your stick in their stomachs and your +shield in +<a name="page_155"></a><span class="pagenum">[155]</span> +their faces to push them into any sort of formation. When I +had learned my work the Instructor gave me a handful—and they were a +handful!—of Gauls and Iberians to polish up till they were sent to +their stations up-country. I did my best, and one night a villa in the +suburbs caught fire, and I had my handful out and at work before any of +the other troops. I noticed a quiet-looking man on the lawn, leaning on +a stick. He watched us passing buckets from the pond, and at last he +said to me: "Who are you?"</p> + +<p>'"A probationer, waiting for a command," I answered. <i>I</i> didn't know who +he was from Deucalion!</p> + +<p>'"Born in Britain?" he said.</p> + +<p>'"Yes, if you were born in Spain," I said, for he neighed his words like +an Iberian mule.</p> + +<p>'"And what might you call yourself when you are at home?" he said, +laughing.</p> + +<p>'"That depends," I answered; "sometimes one thing and sometimes another. +But now I'm busy."</p> + +<p>'He said no more till we had saved the family gods (they were +respectable householders), and then he grunted across the laurels: +"Listen, young sometimes-one-thing-and-sometimes-another. In future call +yourself Centurion of the Seventh Cohort of the Thirtieth, the Ulpia +Victrix. That will help me to remember you. Your Father and a few other +people call me Maximus."</p> + +<p>'He tossed me the polished stick he was leaning on, and went away. You +might have knocked me down with it!'</p> + +<p>'Who was he?' said Dan.</p> +<a name="page_156"></a><span class="pagenum">[156]</span> + +<p>'Maximus himself, our great General! <i>The</i> General of Britain who had +been Theodosius's right hand in the Pict War! Not only had he given me +my Centurion's stick direct, but three steps in a good Legion as well! A +new man generally begins in the Tenth Cohort of his Legion, and works +up.'</p> + +<p>'And were you pleased?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'Very. I thought Maximus had chosen me for my good looks and fine style +in marching, but, when I went home, the Pater told me he had served +under Maximus in the great Pict War, and had asked him to befriend me.'</p> + +<p>'A child you were!' said Puck, from above.</p> + +<p>'I was,' said Parnesius. 'Don't begrudge it me, Faun. Afterwards—the +Gods know I put aside the games!' And Puck nodded, brown chin on brown +hand, his big eyes still.</p> + +<p>'The night before I left we sacrificed to our ancestors—the usual +little Home Sacrifice—but I never prayed so earnestly to all the Good +Shades, and then I went with my Father by boat to Regnum, and across the +chalk eastwards to Anderida yonder.'</p> + +<p>'Regnum? Anderida?' The children turned their faces to Puck.</p> + +<p>'Regnum's Chichester,' he said, pointing towards Cherry Clack, 'and'—he +threw his arm South behind him—'Anderida's Pevensey.'</p> + +<p>'Pevensey again!' said Dan. 'Where Weland landed?'</p> + +<p>'Weland and a few others,' said Puck. 'Pevensey isn't young—even +compared to me!'</p> +<a name="page_157"></a><span class="pagenum">[157]</span> + +<p>'The headquarters of the Thirtieth lay at Anderida in summer, but my own +Cohort, the Seventh, was on the Wall up North. Maximus was inspecting +Auxiliaries—the Abulci, I think—at Anderida, and we stayed with him, +for he and my Father were very old friends. I was only there ten days +when I was ordered to go up with thirty men to my Cohort.' He laughed +merrily. 'A man never forgets his first march. I was happier than any +Emperor when I led my handful through the North Gate of the Camp, and we +saluted the guard and the Altar of Victory there.'</p> + +<p>'How? How?' said Dan and Una.</p> + +<p>Parnesius smiled, and stood up, flashing in his armour.</p> + +<p>'So!' said he; and he moved slowly through the beautiful movements of +the Roman Salute, that ends with a hollow clang of the shield coming +into its place between the shoulders.</p> + +<p>'Hai!' said Puck. 'That sets one thinking!'</p> + +<p>'We went out fully armed,' said Parnesius, sitting down; 'but as soon as +the road entered the Great Forest, my men expected the pack-horses to +hang their shields on. "No!" I said; "you can dress like women in +Anderida, but while you're with me you will carry your own weapons and +armour."</p> + +<p>'"But it's hot," said one of them, "and we haven't a doctor. Suppose we +get sunstroke, or a fever?"</p> + +<p>'"Then die," I said, "and a good riddance to Rome! Up shield—up spears, +and tighten your foot-wear!"</p> +<a name="page_158"></a><span class="pagenum">[158]</span> + +<p>'"Don't think yourself Emperor of Britain already," a fellow shouted. I +knocked him over with the butt of my spear, and explained to these +Roman-born Romans that, if there were any further trouble, we should go +on with one man short. And, by the Light of the Sun, I meant it too! My +raw Gauls at Clausentum had never treated me so.</p> + +<p>'Then, quietly as a cloud, Maximus rode out of the fern (my Father +behind him), and reined up across the road. He wore the Purple, as +though he were already Emperor; his leggings were of white buckskin +laced with gold.</p> + +<p>'My men dropped like—like partridges.</p> + +<p>'He said nothing for some time, only looked, with his eyes puckered. +Then he crooked his forefinger, and my men walked—crawled, I mean—to +one side.</p> + +<p>'"Stand in the sun, children," he said, and they formed up on the hard +road.</p> + +<p>'"What would you have done," he said to me, "if I had not been here?"</p> + +<p>'"I should have killed that man," I answered.</p> + +<p>'"Kill him now," he said. "He will not move a limb."</p> + +<p>'"No," I said. "You've taken my men out of my command. I should only be +your butcher if I killed him now." Do you see what I meant?' Parnesius +turned to Dan.</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Dan. 'It wouldn't have been fair, somehow.'</p> + +<p>'That was what I thought,' said Parnesius. 'But Maximus frowned. "You'll +never be an +<a name="page_159"></a><span class="pagenum">[159]</span> +Emperor," he said. "Not even a General will you be."</p> + +<p>'I was silent, but my Father seemed pleased.</p> + +<p>'"I came here to see the last of you," he said.</p> + +<p>'"You have seen it," said Maximus. "I shall never need your son any +more. He will live and he will die an officer of a Legion—and he might +have been Prefect of one of my Provinces. Now eat and drink with us," he +said. "Your men will wait till you have finished."</p> + +<p>'My miserable thirty stood like wine-skins glistening in the hot sun, +and Maximus led us to where his people had set a meal. Himself he mixed +the wine.</p> + +<p>'"A year from now," he said, "you will remember that you have sat with +the Emperor of Britain—and Gaul."</p> + +<p>'"Yes," said the Pater, "you can drive two mules—Gaul and Britain."</p> + +<p>'"Five years hence you will remember that you have drunk"—he passed me +the cup and there was blue borage in it—"with the Emperor of Rome!"</p> + +<p>'"No; you can't drive three mules. They will tear you in pieces," said +my Father.</p> + +<p>'"And you on the Wall, among the heather, will weep because your notion +of justice was more to you than the favour of the Emperor of Rome."</p> + +<p>'I sat quite still. One does not answer a General who wears the Purple.</p> + +<p>'"I am not angry with you," he went on; "I owe too much to your +Father——"</p> +<a name="page_160"></a><span class="pagenum">[160]</span> + +<p>'"You owe me nothing but advice that you never took," said the Pater.</p> + +<p>'"——to be unjust to any of your family. Indeed, I say you may make a +good Tribune, but, so far as I am concerned, on the Wall you will live, +and on the Wall you will die," said Maximus.</p> + +<p>'"Very like," said my Father. "But we shall have the Picts <i>and</i> their +friends breaking through before long. You cannot move all troops out of +Britain to make you Emperor, and expect the North to sit quiet."</p> + +<p>'"I follow my destiny," said Maximus.</p> + +<p>'"Follow it, then," said my Father, pulling up a fern root; "and die as +Theodosius died."</p> + +<p>'"Ah!" said Maximus. "My old General was killed because he served the +Empire too well. <i>I</i> may be killed, but not for that reason," and he +smiled a little pale grey smile that made my blood run cold.</p> + +<p>'"Then I had better follow my destiny," I said, "and take my men to the +Wall."</p> + +<p>'He looked at me a long time, and bowed his head slanting like a +Spaniard. "Follow it, boy," he said. That was all. I was only too glad +to get away, though I had many messages for home. I found my men +standing as they had been put—they had not even shifted their feet in +the dust, and off I marched, still feeling that terrific smile like an +east wind up my back. I never halted them till sunset, and'—he turned +about and looked at Pook's Hill below him—'then I halted yonder.' He +pointed to the broken, bracken-covered +<a name="page_161"></a><span class="pagenum">[161]</span> + shoulder of the Forge Hill behind old Hobden's cottage.</p> + +<p>'There? Why, that's only the old Forge—where they made iron once,' said +Dan.</p> + +<p>'Very good stuff it was too,' said Parnesius calmly. 'We mended three +shoulder-straps here and had a spear-head riveted. The Forge was rented +from the Government by a one-eyed smith from Carthage. I remember we +called him Cyclops. He sold me a beaver-skin rug for my sister's room.'</p> + +<p>'But it couldn't have been here,' Dan insisted.</p> + +<p>'But it was! From the Altar of Victory at Anderida to the First Forge in +the Forest here is twelve miles seven hundred paces. It is all in the +Road Book. A man doesn't forget his first march. I think I could tell +you every station between this and——' He leaned forward, but his eye +was caught by the setting sun.</p> + +<p>It had come down to the top of Cherry Clack Hill, and the light poured +in between the tree trunks so that you could see red and gold and black +deep into the heart of Far Wood; and Parnesius in his armour shone as +though he had been afire.</p> + +<p>'Wait!' he said, lifting a hand, and the sunlight jinked on his glass +bracelet. 'Wait! I pray to Mithras!'</p> + +<p>He rose and stretched his arms westward, with deep, splendid-sounding +words.</p> + +<p>Then Puck began to sing too, in a voice like bells tolling, and as he +sang he slipped from Volaterrae to the ground, and beckoned the +<a name="page_162"></a><span class="pagenum">[162]</span> +children +to follow. They obeyed; it seemed as though the voices were pushing them +along; and through the goldy-brown light on the beech leaves they +walked, while Puck between them chanted something like this:</p> +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>'Cur mundus militat sub vana gloria</span> +<span>Cujus prosperitas est transitoria?</span> +<span>Tam cito labitur ejus potentia</span> +<span>Quam vasa figuli quæ sunt fragilia.'</span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>They found themselves at the little locked gates of the wood.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>'Quo Cæsar abiit celsus imperio?</span> +<span>Vel Dives splendidus totus in prandio?</span> +<span>Dic ubi Tullius——'</span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>Still singing, he took Dan's hand and wheeled him round to face Una as +she came out of the gate. It shut behind her, at the same time as Puck +threw the memory-magicking Oak, Ash and Thorn leaves over their heads.</p> + +<p>'Well, you <i>are</i> jolly late,' said Una. 'Couldn't you get away before?'</p> + +<p>'I did,' said Dan. 'I got away in lots of time, but—but I didn't know +it was so late. Where've you been?'</p> + +<p>'In Volaterrae—waiting for you.'</p> + +<p>'Sorry,' said Dan. 'It was all that beastly Latin.'</p> + +<hr /> +<a name="page_163"></a><span class="pagenum">[163]</span> +<h4>A BRITISH-ROMAN SONG (A.D. 406)</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span><i>My father's father saw it not,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>And I, belike, shall never come,</i></span> +<span><i>To look on that so-holy spot—</i></span> +<span class="i8"><i>The very Rome—</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Crowned by all Time, all Art, all Might,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>The equal work of Gods and Man,</i></span> +<span><i>City beneath whose oldest height—</i></span> +<span class="i8"><i>The Race began!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Soon to send forth again a brood,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Unshakeable, we pray, that clings,</i></span> +<span><i>To Rome's thrice-hammered hardihood—</i></span> +<span class="i8"><i>In arduous things.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Strong heart with triple armour bound,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Beat strongly, for thy life-blood runs,</i></span> +<span><i>Age after Age, the Empire round—</i></span> +<span class="i8"><i>In us thy Sons,</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Who, distant from the Seven Hills,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Loving and serving much, require</i></span> +<span><i>Thee,—thee to guard 'gainst home-born ills</i></span> +<span class="i8"><i>The Imperial Fire!</i></span> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="wide" /> +<a name="page_165"></a><span class="pagenum">[165]</span> +<h3>ON THE GREAT WALL</h3> + +<hr /> +<a name="page_167"></a><span class="pagenum">[167]</span> +<h4>ON THE GREAT WALL</h4> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>'When I left Rome for Lalage's sake</span> +<span class="i2">By the Legions' Road to Rimini,</span> +<span>She vowed her heart was mine to take</span> +<span class="i2">With me and my shield to Rimini—</span> +<span class="i2">(Till the Eagles flew from Rimini!)</span> +<span class="i4">And I've tramped Britain, and I've tramped Gaul,</span> +<span class="i4">And the Pontic shore where the snow-flakes fall</span> +<span class="i2">As white as the neck of Lalage—</span> +<span class="i2">(As cold as the heart of Lalage!)</span> +<span class="i4">And I've lost Britain, and I've lost Gaul,'</span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> +<p>(the voice seemed very cheerful about it),</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">'And I've lost Rome, and, worst of all,</span> +<span class="i6">I've lost Lalage!'</span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>They were standing by the gate to Far Wood when they heard this song. +Without a word they hurried to their private gap and wriggled through +the hedge almost atop of a jay that was feeding from Puck's hand.</p> + +<p>'Gently!' said Puck. 'What are you looking for?'</p> + +<p>'Parnesius, of course,' Dan answered. 'We've only just remembered +yesterday. It isn't fair.'</p> + +<p>Puck chuckled as he rose. 'I'm sorry, but children who spend the +afternoon with me and a +<a name="page_168"></a><span class="pagenum">[168]</span> +Roman Centurion need a little settling dose of +Magic before they go to tea with their governess. Ohé, Parnesius!' he +called.</p> + +<p>'Here, Faun!' came the answer from Volaterrae. They could see the +shimmer of bronze armour in the beech crotch, and the friendly flash of +the great shield uplifted.</p> + +<p>'I have driven out the Britons.' Parnesius laughed like a boy. 'I occupy +their high forts. But Rome is merciful! You may come up.' And up they +three all scrambled.</p> + +<p>'What was the song you were singing just now?' said Una, as soon as she +had settled herself.</p> + +<p>'That? Oh, <i>Rimini</i>. It's one of the tunes that are always being born +somewhere in the Empire. They run like a pestilence for six months or a +year, till another one pleases the Legions, and then they march to +<i>that</i>.'</p> + +<p>'Tell them about the marching, Parnesius. Few people nowadays walk from +end to end of this country,' said Puck.</p> + +<p>'The greater their loss. I know nothing better than the Long March when +your feet are hardened. You begin after the mists have risen, and you +end, perhaps, an hour after sundown.'</p> + +<p>'And what do you have to eat?' Dan asked promptly.</p> + +<p>'Fat bacon, beans, and bread, and whatever wine happens to be in the +rest-houses. But soldiers are born grumblers. Their very first day out, +my men complained of our water-ground British corn. They said it wasn't +so filling as the rough stuff +<a name="page_169"></a><span class="pagenum">[169]</span> +that is ground in the Roman ox-mills. +However, they had to fetch and eat it.'</p> + +<p>'Fetch it? Where from?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'From that newly invented water-mill below the Forge.'</p> + +<p>'That's Forge Mill—<i>our</i> Mill!' Una looked at Puck.</p> + +<p>'Yes; yours,' Puck put in. 'How old did you think it was?'</p> + +<p>'I don't know. Didn't Sir Richard Dalyngridge talk about it?'</p> + +<p>'He did, and it was old in his day,' Puck answered. 'Hundreds of years +old.'</p> + +<p>'It was new in mine,' said Parnesius. 'My men looked at the flour in +their helmets as though it had been a nest of adders. They did it to try +my patience. But I—addressed them, and we became friends. To tell the +truth, they taught me the Roman Step. You see, I'd only served with +quick-marching Auxiliaries. A Legion's pace is altogether different. It +is a long, slow stride, that never varies from sunrise to sunset. +"Rome's Race—Rome's Pace," as the proverb says. Twenty-four miles in +eight hours, neither more nor less. Head and spear up, shield on your +back, cuirass-collar open one hand's breadth—and that's how you take +the Eagles through Britain.'</p> + +<p>'And did you meet any adventures?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'There are no adventures South the Wall,' said Parnesius. 'The worst +thing that happened me was having to appear before a magistrate up +North, where a wandering philosopher had jeered +<a name="page_170"></a><span class="pagenum">[170]</span> +at the Eagles. I was +able to show that the old man had deliberately blocked our road; and the +magistrate told him, out of his own Book, I believe, that, whatever his +Gods might be, he should pay proper respect to Cæsar.'</p> + +<p>'What did you do?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Went on. Why should <i>I</i> care for such things, my business being to +reach my station? It took me twenty days.</p> + +<p>'Of course, the farther North you go the emptier are the roads. At last +you fetch clear of the forests and climb bare hills, where wolves howl +in the ruins of our cities that have been. No more pretty girls; no more +jolly magistrates who knew your Father when he was young, and invite you +to stay with them; no news at the temples and way-stations except bad +news of wild beasts. There's where you meet hunters, and trappers for +the Circuses, prodding along chained bears and muzzled wolves. Your pony +shies at them, and your men laugh.</p> + +<p>'The houses change from gardened villas to shut forts with watch-towers +of grey stone, and great stone-walled sheepfolds, guarded by armed +Britons of the North Shore. In the naked hills beyond the naked houses, +where the shadows of the clouds play like cavalry charging, you see +puffs of black smoke from the mines. The hard road goes on and on—and +the wind sings through your helmet-plume—past altars to Legions and +Generals forgotten, and broken statues of Gods and Heroes, and thousands +of graves where the mountain foxes and hares peep at you. Red-hot </p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_172"></a><span class="pagenum">[172]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_172_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_172.png" height="625" width="400" alt="'And that is the Wall!'" /> +</a> +<div class="caption">'And that is the Wall!'</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_173"></a><span class="pagenum">[173]</span> +<p>in summer, freezing in winter, is that big, purple heather country of +broken stone.</p> + +<p>'Just when you think you are at the world's end, you see a smoke from +East to West as far as the eye can turn, and then, under it, also as far +as the eye can stretch, houses and temples, shops and theatres, barracks +and granaries, trickling along like dice behind—always behind—one +long, low, rising and falling, and hiding and showing line of towers. +And that is the Wall!'</p> + +<p>'Ah!' said the children, taking breath.</p> + +<p>'You may well,' said Parnesius. 'Old men who have followed the Eagles +since boyhood say nothing in the Empire is more wonderful than first +sight of the Wall!'</p> + +<p>'Is it just a Wall? Like the one round the kitchen-garden?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'No, no! It is <i>the</i> Wall. Along the top are towers with guard-houses, +small towers, between. Even on the narrowest part of it three men with +shields can walk abreast, from guard-house to guard-house. A little +curtain wall, no higher than a man's neck, runs along the top of the +thick wall, so that from a distance you see the helmets of the sentries +sliding back and forth like beads. Thirty feet high is the Wall, and on +the Picts' side, the North, is a ditch, strewn with blades of old swords +and spear-heads set in wood, and tyres of wheels joined by chains. The +Little People come there to steal iron for their arrow-heads.</p> + +<p>'But the Wall itself is not more wonderful than the town behind it. Long +ago there were great ramparts and ditches on the South side, and no +<a name="page_174"></a><span class="pagenum">[174]</span> +one was allowed to build there. Now the ramparts are partly pulled down and +built over, from end to end of the Wall; making a thin town eighty miles +long. Think of it! One roaring, rioting, cock-fighting, wolf-baiting, +horse-racing town, from Ituna on the West to Segedunum on the cold +eastern beach! On one side heather, woods and ruins where Picts hide, +and on the other, a vast town—long like a snake, and wicked like a +snake. Yes, a snake basking beside a warm wall!</p> + +<p>'My Cohort, I was told, lay at Hunno, where the Great North Road runs +through the Wall into the Province of Valentia.' Parnesius laughed +scornfully. 'The Province of Valentia! We followed the road, therefore, +into Hunno town, and stood astonished. The place was a fair—a fair of +peoples from every corner of the Empire. Some were racing horses: some +sat in wine-shops: some watched dogs baiting bears, and many gathered in +a ditch to see cocks fight. A boy not much older than myself, but I +could see he was an officer, reined up before me and asked what I +wanted.</p> + +<p>'"My station," I said, and showed him my shield.' Parnesius held up his +broad shield with its three X's like letters on a beer-cask.</p> + +<p>'"Lucky omen!" said he. "Your Cohort's the next tower to us, but they're +all at the cock-fight. This is a happy place. Come and wet the Eagles." +He meant to offer me a drink.</p> + +<p>'"When I've handed over my men," I said. I felt angry and ashamed.</p> +<a name="page_175"></a><span class="pagenum">[175]</span> + +<p>'"Oh, you'll soon outgrow that sort of nonsense," he answered. "But +don't let me interfere with your hopes. Go on to the Statue of Roma Dea. +You can't miss it. The main road into Valentia!" and he laughed and rode +off. I could see the statue not a quarter of a mile away, and there I +went. At some time or other the Great North Road ran under it into +Valentia; but the far end had been blocked up because of the Picts, and +on the plaster a man had scratched, "Finish!" It was like marching into +a cave. We grounded spears together, my little thirty, and it echoed in +the barrel of the arch, but none came. There was a door at one side +painted with our number. We prowled in, and I found a cook asleep, and +ordered him to give us food. Then I climbed to the top of the Wall, and +looked out over the Pict country, and I—thought,' said Parnesius. 'The +bricked-up arch with "Finish!" on the plaster was what shook me, for I +was not much more than a boy.'</p> + +<p>'What a shame!' said Una. 'But did you feel happy after you'd had a +good——' Dan stopped her with a nudge.</p> + +<p>'Happy?' said Parnesius. 'When the men of the Cohort I was to command +came back unhelmeted from the cock-fight, their birds under their arms, +and asked me who I was? No, I was not happy; but I made my new Cohort +unhappy too ... I wrote my Mother I was happy, but, oh, my friends'—he +stretched arms over bare knees—'I would not wish my worst enemy to +suffer as I suffered through my first months on +<a name="page_176"></a><span class="pagenum">[176]</span> +the Wall. Remember this: +among the officers was scarcely one, except myself (and I thought I had +lost the favour of Maximus, my General), scarcely one who had not done +something of wrong or folly. Either he had killed a man, or taken money, +or insulted the magistrates, or blasphemed the Gods, and so had been +sent to the Wall as a hiding-place from shame or fear. And the men were +as the officers. Remember, also, that the Wall was manned by every breed +and race in the Empire. No two towers spoke the same tongue, or +worshipped the same Gods. In one thing only we were all equal. No matter +what arms we had used before we came to the Wall, <i>on</i> the Wall we were +all archers, like the Scythians. The Pict cannot run away from the +arrow, or crawl under it. He is a bowman himself. <i>He</i> knows!'</p> + +<p>'I suppose you were fighting Picts all the time,' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Picts seldom fight. I never saw a fighting Pict for half a year. The +tame Picts told us they had all gone North.'</p> + +<p>'What is a tame Pict?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'A Pict—there were many such—who speaks a few words of our tongue, and +slips across the Wall to sell ponies and wolf-hounds. Without a horse +and a dog, <i>and</i> a friend, man would perish. The Gods gave me all three, +and there is no gift like friendship. Remember this'—Parnesius turned +to Dan—'when you become a young man. For your fate will turn on the +first true friend you make.'</p> +<a name="page_177"></a><span class="pagenum">[177]</span> + +<p>'He means,' said Puck, grinning, 'that if you try to make yourself a +decent chap when you're young, you'll make rather decent friends when +you grow up. If you're a beast, you'll have beastly friends. Listen to +the Pious Parnesius on Friendship!'</p> + +<p>'I am not pious,' Parnesius answered, 'but I know what goodness means; +and my friend, though he was without hope, was ten thousand times better +than I. Stop laughing, Faun!'</p> + +<p>'Oh, Youth Eternal and All-believing,' cried Puck, as he rocked on the +branch above. 'Tell them about your Pertinax.'</p> + +<p>'He was that friend the Gods sent me—the boy who spoke to me when I +first came. Little older than myself, commanding the Augusta Victoria +Cohort on the tower next to us and the Numidians. In virtue he was far +my superior.'</p> + +<p>'Then why was he on the Wall?' Una asked, quickly. 'They'd all done +something bad. You said so yourself.'</p> + +<p>'He was the nephew, his Father had died, of a great rich man in Gaul who +was not always kind to his Mother. When Pertinax grew up, he discovered +this, and so his uncle shipped him off, by trickery and force, to the +Wall. We came to know each other at a ceremony in our Temple—in the +dark. It was the Bull-Killing,' Parnesius explained to Puck.</p> + +<p>'<i>I</i> see, said Puck, and turned to the children. 'That's something you +wouldn't quite understand. Parnesius means he met Pertinax in church.'</p> + +<p>'Yes—in the Cave we first met, and we were +<a name="page_178"></a><span class="pagenum">[178]</span> +both raised to the Degree of +Gryphons together.' Parnesius lifted his hand towards his neck for an +instant. 'He had been on the Wall two years, and knew the Picts well. He +taught me first how to take Heather.'</p> + +<p>'What's that?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Going out hunting in the Pict country with a tame Pict. You are quite +safe so long as you are his guest, and wear a sprig of heather where it +can be seen. If you went alone you would surely be killed, if you were +not smothered first in the bogs. Only the Picts know their way about +those black and hidden bogs. Old Allo, the one-eyed, withered little +Pict from whom we bought our ponies, was our special friend. At first we +went only to escape from the terrible town, and to talk together about +our homes. Then he showed us how to hunt wolves and those great red deer +with horns like Jewish candlesticks. The Roman-born officers rather +looked down on us for doing this, but we preferred the heather to their +amusements. Believe me,' Parnesius turned again to Dan, 'a boy is safe +from all things that really harm when he is astride a pony or after a +deer. Do you remember, O Faun,'—he turned to Puck—'the little altar I +built to the Sylvan Pan by the pine-forest beyond the brook?'</p> + +<p>'Which? The stone one with the line from Xenophon?' said Puck, in quite +a new voice.</p> + +<p>'No! What do <i>I</i> know of Xenophon? That was Pertinax—after he had shot +his first mountain-hare with an arrow—by chance! Mine I made of round +pebbles, in memory of my first bear. It +<a name="page_179"></a><span class="pagenum">[179]</span> + took me one happy day to build.' Parnesius faced the children quickly.</p> + +<p>'And that was how we lived on the Wall for two years—a little scuffling +with the Picts, and a great deal of hunting with old Allo in the Pict +country. He called us his children sometimes, and we were fond of him +and his barbarians, though we never let them paint us Pict fashion. The +marks endure till you die.'</p> + +<p>'How's it done?' said Dan. 'Anything like tattooing?'</p> + +<p>'They prick the skin till the blood runs, and rub in coloured juices. +Allo was painted blue, green, and red from his forehead to his ankles. +He said it was part of his religion. He told us about his religion +(Pertinax was always interested in such things), and as we came to know +him well, he told us what was happening in Britain behind the Wall. Many +things took place behind us in those days. And by the Light of the Sun,' +said Parnesius, earnestly, 'there was not much that those little people +did not know! He told me when Maximus crossed over to Gaul, after he had +made himself Emperor of Britain, and what troops and emigrants he had +taken with him. We did not get the news on the Wall till fifteen days +later. He told me what troops Maximus was taking out of Britain every +month to help him to conquer Gaul; and I always found the numbers were +as he said. Wonderful! And I tell another strange thing!'</p> + +<p>He joined his hands across his knees, and leaned his head on the curve +of the shield behind him.</p> + +<p>'Late in the summer, when the first frosts +<a name="page_180"></a><span class="pagenum">[180]</span> +begin and the Picts kill +their bees, we three rode out after wolf with some new hounds. +Rutilianus, our General, had given us ten days' leave, and we had pushed +beyond the Second Wall—beyond the Province of Valentia—into the higher +hills, where there are not even any of old Rome's ruins. We killed a +she-wolf before noon, and while Allo was skinning her he looked up and +said to me, "When you are Captain of the Wall, my child, you won't be +able to do this any more!"</p> + +<p>'I might as well have been made Prefect of Lower Gaul, so I laughed and +said, "Wait till I am Captain."</p> + +<p>'"No, don't wait," said Allo. "Take my advice and go home—both of you."</p> + +<p>'"We have no homes," said Pertinax. "You know that as well as we do. +We're finished men—thumbs down against both of us. Only men without +hope would risk their necks on your ponies." The old man laughed one of +those short Pict laughs—like a fox barking on a frosty night. "I'm fond +of you two," he said. "Besides, I've taught you what little you know +about hunting. Take my advice and go home."</p> + +<p>'"We can't," I said. "I'm out of favour with my General, for one thing; +and for another, Pertinax has an uncle."</p> + +<p>'"I don't know about his uncle," said Allo, "but the trouble with you, +Parnesius, is that your General thinks well of you."</p> + +<p>'"Roma Dea!" said Pertinax, sitting up. "What can you guess what Maximus +thinks, you old horse-coper?"</p> + +<p>'Just then (you know how near the brutes +<a name="page_181"></a><span class="pagenum">[181]</span> +creep when one is eating?) a +great dog-wolf jumped out behind us, and away our rested hounds tore +after him, with us at their tails. He ran us far out of any country we'd +ever heard of, straight as an arrow till sunset, towards the sunset. We +came at last to long capes stretching into winding waters, and on a grey +beach below us we saw ships drawn up. Forty-seven we counted—not Roman +galleys but the raven-winged ships from the North where Rome does not +rule. Men moved in the ships, and the sun flashed on their +helmets—winged helmets of the red-haired men from the North where Rome +does not rule. We watched, and we counted, and we wondered, for though +we had heard rumours concerning these Winged Hats, as the Picts called +them, never before had we looked upon them.</p> + +<p>'"Come away! come away!" said Allo. "My Heather won't protect you here. +We shall all be killed!" His legs trembled like his voice. Back we +went—back across the heather under the moon, till it was nearly +morning, and our poor beasts stumbled on some ruins.</p> + +<p>'When we woke, very stiff and cold, Allo was mixing the meal and water. +One does not light fires in the Pict country except near a village. The +little men are always signalling to each other with smokes, and a +strange smoke brings them out buzzing like bees. They can sting, too!</p> + +<p>'"What we saw last night was a trading-station," said Allo. "Nothing but +a trading-station."</p> + +<p>'"I do not like lies on an empty stomach," said Pertinax. "I suppose" +(he had eyes like an eagle's)—"I +<a name="page_182"></a><span class="pagenum">[182]</span> +suppose <i>that</i> is a trading-station +also?" He pointed to a smoke far off on a hill-top, ascending in what we +call the Picts' Call:—Puff—double-puff: double-puff—puff! They make +it by raising and dropping a wet hide on a fire.</p> + +<p>'"No," said Allo, pushing the platter back into the bag. "That is for +you and me. Your fate is fixed. Come."</p> + +<p>'We came. When one takes Heather, one must obey one's Pict—but that +wretched smoke was twenty miles distant, well over on the East coast, +and the day was as hot as a bath.</p> + +<p>'"Whatever happens," said Allo, while our ponies grunted along, "I want +you to remember me."</p> + +<p>'"I shall not forget," said Pertinax. "You have cheated me out of my +breakfast."</p> + +<p>"What is a handful of crushed oats to a Roman?" he said. Then he laughed +his laugh that was not a laugh.</p> + +<p>"What would <i>you</i> do if <i>you</i> were a handful of oats being crushed +between the upper and lower stones of a mill?"</p> + +<p>'"I'm Pertinax, not a riddle-guesser," said Pertinax.</p> + +<p>'"You're a fool," said Allo. "Your Gods and my Gods are threatened by +strange Gods, and all you can do is to laugh."</p> + +<p>'"Threatened men live long," I said.</p> + +<p>'"I pray the Gods that may be true," he said. "But I ask you again not +to forget me."</p> + +<p>'We climbed the last hot hill and looked out on the eastern sea, three +or four miles off. There was a small sailing-galley of the North Gaul +<a name="page_183"></a><span class="pagenum">[183]</span> +pattern at anchor, her landing-plank down and her sail half up; and +below us, alone in a hollow, holding his pony, sat Maximus, Emperor of +Britain! He was dressed like a hunter, and he leaned on his little +stick; but I knew that back as far as I could see it, and I told +Pertinax.</p> + +<p>'"You're madder than Allo!" he said. "It must be the sun!"</p> + +<p>'Maximus never stirred till we stood before him. Then he looked me up +and down, and said: "Hungry again? It seems to be my destiny to feed you +whenever we meet. I have food here. Allo shall cook it."</p> + +<p>'"No," said Allo. "A Prince in his own land does not wait on wandering +Emperors. I feed my two children without asking your leave." He began to +blow up the ashes.</p> + +<p>'"I was wrong," said Pertinax. "We are all mad. Speak up, O Madman +called Emperor!"</p> + +<p>'Maximus smiled his terrible tight-lipped smile, but two years on the +Wall do not make a man afraid of mere looks. So I was not afraid.</p> + +<p>'"I meant you, Parnesius, to live and die a Centurion of the Wall," said +Maximus. "But it seems from these,"—he fumbled in his breast—"you can +think as well as draw." He pulled out a roll of letters I had written to +my people, full of drawings of Picts, and bears, and men I had met on +the Wall. Mother and my sister always liked my pictures.</p> + +<p>'He handed me one that I had called "Maximus's Soldiers". It showed a +row of fat wine-skins, and our old Doctor of the Hunno hospital +<a name="page_184"></a><span class="pagenum">[184]</span> +snuffing +at them. Each time that Maximus had taken troops out of Britain to help +him to conquer Gaul, he used to send the garrisons more wine—to keep +them quiet, I suppose. On the Wall, we always called a wine-skin a +"Maximus". Oh, yes; and I had drawn them in Imperial helmets.</p> + +<p>'"Not long since," he went on, "men's names were sent up to Cæsar for +smaller jokes than this."</p> + +<p>'"True, Cæsar," said Pertinax; "but you forget that was before I, your +friend's friend, became such a good spear-thrower."</p> + +<p>'He did not actually point his hunting-spear at Maximus, but balanced it +on his palm—so!</p> + +<p>'"I was speaking of time past," said Maximus, never fluttering an +eyelid. "Nowadays one is only too pleased to find boys who can think for +themselves, <i>and</i> their friends." He nodded at Pertinax. "Your Father +lent me the letters, Parnesius, so you run no risk from me."</p> + +<p>'"None whatever," said Pertinax, and rubbed the spear-point on his +sleeve.</p> + +<p>'"I have been forced to reduce the garrisons in Britain, because I need +troops in Gaul. Now I come to take troops from the Wall itself," said +he.</p> + +<p>'"I wish you joy of us," said Pertinax. "We're the last sweepings of the +Empire—the men without hope. Myself, I'd sooner trust condemned +criminals."</p> + +<p>'"You think so?" he said, quite seriously. "But it will only be till I +win Gaul. One must always risk one's life, or one's soul, or one's +peace—or some little thing."</p> +<a name="page_185"></a><span class="pagenum">[185]</span> + +<p>'Allo passed round the fire with the sizzling deer's meat. He served us +two first.</p> + +<p>'"Ah!" said Maximus, waiting his turn. "I perceive you are in your own +country. Well, you deserve it. They tell me you have quite a following +among the Picts, Parnesius."</p> + +<p>'"I have hunted with them," I said. "Maybe I have a few friends among +the Heather."</p> + +<p>'"He is the only armoured man of you all who understands us," said Allo, +and he began a long speech about our virtues, and how we had saved one +of his grandchildren from a wolf the year before.'</p> + +<p>'Had you?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'Yes; but that was neither here nor there. The little green man orated +like a—like Cicero. He made us out to be magnificent fellows. Maximus +never took his eyes off our faces.</p> + +<p>'"Enough," he said. "I have heard Allo on you. I wish to hear you on the +Picts."</p> + +<p>'I told him as much as I knew, and Pertinax helped me out. There is +never harm in a Pict if you but take the trouble to find out what he +wants. Their real grievance against us came from our burning their +heather. The whole garrison of the Wall moved out twice a year, and +solemnly burned the heather for ten miles North. Rutilianus, our +General, called it clearing the country. The Picts, of course, scampered +away, and all we did was to destroy their bee-bloom in the summer, and +ruin their sheep-food in the spring.</p> + +<p>'"True, quite true," said Allo. "How can +<a name="page_186"></a><span class="pagenum">[186]</span> +we make our holy heather-wine, f you burn our bee-pasture?"</p> + +<p>'We talked long, Maximus asking keen questions that showed he knew much +and had thought more about the Picts. He said presently to me: "If I +gave you the old Province of Valentia to govern, could you keep the +Picts contented till I won Gaul? Stand away, so that you do not see +Allo's face; and speak your own thoughts."</p> + +<p>'"No," I said. "You cannot remake that Province. The Picts have been +free too long."</p> + +<p>'"Leave them their village councils, and let them furnish their own +soldiers," he said. "You, I am sure, would hold the reins very lightly."</p> + +<p>"Even then, no," I said. "At least not now. They have been too oppressed +by us to trust anything with a Roman name for years and years."</p> + +<p>'I heard old Allo behind me mutter: "Good child!"</p> + +<p>'"Then what do you recommend," said Maximus, "to keep the North quiet +till I win Gaul?"</p> + +<p>'"Leave the Picts alone," I said. "Stop the heather-burning at once, +and—they are improvident little animals—send them a shipload or two of +corn now and then."</p> + +<p>'"Their own men must distribute it—not some cheating Greek accountant," +said Pertinax.</p> + +<p>'"Yes, and allow them to come to our hospitals when they are sick," I +said.</p> + +<p>'"Surely they would die first," said Maximus.</p> + +<p>'"Not if Parnesius brought them in," said Allo. "I could show you twenty +wolf-bitten, +<a name="page_187"></a><span class="pagenum">[187]</span> +bear-clawed Picts within twenty miles of here. But +Parnesius must stay with them in hospital, else they would go mad with +fear."</p> + +<p>'"I see," said Maximus. "Like everything else in the world, it is one +man's work. You, I think, are that one man."</p> + +<p>'"Pertinax and I are one," I said.</p> + +<p>'"As you please, so long as you work. Now, Allo, you know that I mean +your people no harm. Leave us to talk together," said Maximus.</p> + +<p>'"No need!" said Allo. "I am the corn between the upper and lower +millstones. I must know what the lower millstone means to do. These boys +have spoken the truth as far as they know it. I, a Prince, will tell you +the rest. I am troubled about the Men of the North." He squatted like a +hare in the heather, and looked over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>'"I also," said Maximus, "or I should not be here."</p> + +<p>'"Listen," said Allo. "Long and long ago the Winged Hats"—he meant the +Northmen—"came to our beaches and said, 'Rome falls! Push her down!' We +fought you. You sent men. We were beaten. After that we said to the +Winged Hats, 'You are liars! Make our men alive that Rome killed, and we +will believe you.' They went away ashamed. Now they come back bold, and +they tell the old tale, which we begin to believe—that Rome falls!"</p> + +<p>'"Give me three years' peace on the Wall," cried Maximus, "and I will +show you and all the ravens how they lie!"</p> +<a name="page_188"></a><span class="pagenum">[188]</span> + +<p>'"Ah, I wish it too! I wish to save what is left of the corn from the +millstones. But you shoot us Picts when we come to borrow a little iron +from the Iron Ditch; you burn our heather, which is all our crop; you +trouble us with your great catapults. Then you hide behind the Wall, and +scorch us with Greek fire. How can I keep my young men from listening to +the Winged Hats—in winter especially, when we are hungry? My young men +will say, 'Rome can neither fight nor rule. She is taking her men out of +Britain. The Winged Hats will help us to push down the Wall. Let us show +them the secret roads across the bogs.' Do <i>I</i> want that? No!" He spat +like an adder. "I would keep the secrets of my people though I were +burned alive. My two children here have spoken truth. Leave us Picts +alone. Comfort us, and cherish us, and feed us from far off—with the +hand behind the back. Parnesius understands us. Let <i>him</i> have rule on +the Wall, and I will hold my young men quiet for"—he ticked it off on +his fingers—"one year easily: the next year not so easily: the third +year, perhaps! See, I give you three years. If then you do not show us +that Rome is strong in men and terrible in arms, the Winged Hats, I tell +you, will sweep down the Wall from either sea till they meet in the +middle, and you will go. <i>I</i> shall not grieve over that, but well I know +tribe never helps tribe except for one price. We Picts will go too. The +Winged Hats will grind us to this!" He tossed a handful of dust in the +air.</p> + +<p>'"Oh, Roma Dea!" said Maximus, half aloud. +<a name="page_189"></a><span class="pagenum">[189]</span> +"It is always one man's work—always and everywhere!"</p> + +<p>"And one man's life," said Allo. "You are Emperor, but not a God. You +may die."</p> + +<p>'"I have thought of that too," said he. "Very good. If this wind holds, +I shall be at the East end of the Wall by morning. To-morrow, then, I +shall see you two when I inspect, and I will make you Captains of the +Wall for this work."</p> + +<p>'"One instant, Cæsar," said Pertinax. "All men have their price. I am +not bought yet."</p> + +<p>'"Do <i>you</i> also begin to bargain so early?" said Maximus. "Well?"</p> + +<p>'"Give me justice against my uncle Icenus, the Duumvir of Divio in +Gaul," he said.</p> + +<p>'"Only a life? I thought it would be money or an office. Certainly you +shall have him. Write his name on these tablets—on the red side; the +other is for the living!" and Maximus held out his tablets.</p> + +<p>'"He is of no use to me dead," said Pertinax. "My mother is a widow. I +am far off. I am not sure he pays her all her dowry."</p> + +<p>'"No matter. My arm is reasonably long. We will look through your +uncle's accounts in due time. Now, farewell till to-morrow, O Captains +of the Wall!"</p> + +<p>'We saw him grow small across the heather as he walked to the galley. +There were Picts, scores, each side of him, hidden behind stones. He +never looked left or right. He sailed away southerly, full spread before +the evening breeze, and when we had watched him out to sea, we were +silent. +<a name="page_190"></a><span class="pagenum">[190]</span> + We understood that Earth bred few men like to this man.</p> + +<p>'Presently Allo brought the ponies and held them for us to mount—a +thing he had never done before.</p> + +<p>'"Wait awhile," said Pertinax, and he made a little altar of cut turf, +and strewed heather-bloom atop, and laid upon it a letter from a girl in +Gaul.</p> + +<p>'"What do you do, O my friend?" I said.</p> + +<p>'"I sacrifice to my dead youth," he answered, and, when the flames had +consumed the letter, he ground them out with his heel. Then we rode back +to that Wall of which we were to be Captains.'</p> + +<p>Parnesius stopped. The children sat still, not even asking if that were +all the tale. Puck beckoned, and pointed the way out of the wood. +'Sorry,' he whispered, 'but you must go now.'</p> + +<p>'We haven't made him angry, have we?' said Una. 'He looks so far off, +and—and—thinky.'</p> + +<p>'Bless your heart, no. Wait till tomorrow. It won't be long. Remember, +you've been playing <i>Lays of Ancient Rome</i>.'</p> + +<p>And as soon as they had scrambled through their gap where Oak, Ash, and +Thorn grew, that was all they remembered.</p> + +<hr /> +<a name="page_191"></a><span class="pagenum">[191]</span> +<h4>A SONG TO MITHRAS</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Mithras, God of the Morning, our trumpets waken the Wall!</i></span> +<span><i>'Rome is above the Nations, but Thou art over all!'</i></span> +<span><i>Now as the names are answered, and the guards are marched away,</i></span> +<span><i>Mithras, also a soldier, give us strength for the day!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Mithras, God of the Noontide, the heather swims in the heat,</i></span> +<span><i>Our helmets scorch our foreheads, our sandals burn our feet.</i></span> +<span><i>Now in the ungirt hour; now ere we blink and drowse,</i></span> +<span><i>Mithras, also a soldier, keep us true to our vows!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Mithras, God of the Sunset, low on the Western main,</i></span> +<span><i>Thou descending immortal, immortal to rise again!</i></span> +<span><i>Now when the watch is ended, now when the wine is drawn,</i></span> +<span><i>Mithras, also a soldier, keep us pure till the dawn!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Mithras, God of the Midnight, here where the great bull dies,</i></span> +<span><i>Look on Thy children in darkness. Oh, take our sacrifice!</i></span> +<span><i>Many roads Thou hast fashioned: all of them lead to the Light!</i></span> +<span><i>Mithras, also a soldier, teach us to die aright!</i></span> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="wide" /> +<a name="page_193"></a><span class="pagenum">[193]</span> +<h3>The Winged Hats</h3> +<hr /> +<a name="page_195"></a><span class="pagenum">[195]</span> +<h4>The Winged Hats</h4> + +<p>The next day happened to be what they called a Wild Afternoon. Father +and Mother went out to pay calls; Miss Blake went for a ride on her +bicycle, and they were left all alone till eight o'clock.</p> + +<p>When they had seen their dear parents and their dear preceptress +politely off the premises they got a cabbage-leaf full of raspberries +from the gardener, and a Wild Tea from Ellen. They ate the raspberries +to prevent their squashing, and they meant to divide the cabbage-leaf +with Three Cows down at the Theatre, but they came across a dead +hedgehog which they simply <i>had</i> to bury, and the leaf was too useful to +waste.</p> + +<p>Then they went on to the Forge and found old Hobden the hedger at home +with his son, the Bee Boy, who is not quite right in his head, but who +can pick up swarms of bees in his naked hands; and the Bee Boy told them +the rhyme about the slow-worm:—</p> +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>'If I had eyes <i>as</i> I could see,</span> +<span>No mortal man would trouble me.'</span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>They all had tea together by the hives, and Hobden said the loaf-cake +which Ellen had given +<a name="page_196"></a><span class="pagenum">[196]</span> +them was almost as good as what his wife used to +make, and he showed them how to set a wire at the right height for +hares. They knew about rabbits already.</p> + +<p>Then they climbed up Long Ditch into the lower end of Far Wood. This is +sadder and darker than the Volaterrae end because of an old marlpit full +of black water, where weepy, hairy moss hangs round the stumps of the +willows and alders. But the birds come to perch on the dead branches, +and Hobden says that the bitter willow-water is a sort of medicine for +sick animals.</p> + +<p>They sat down on a felled oak-trunk in the shadows of the beech +undergrowth, and were looping the wires Hobden had given them, when they +saw Parnesius.</p> + +<p>'How quietly you came!' said Una, moving up to make room. 'Where's Puck?'</p> + +<p>'The Faun and I have disputed whether it is better that I should tell +you all my tale, or leave it untold,' he replied.</p> + +<p>'I only said that if he told it as it happened you wouldn't understand +it,' said Puck, jumping up like a squirrel from behind the log.</p> + +<p>'I don't understand all of it,' said Una, 'but I like hearing about the +little Picts.'</p> + +<p>'What I can't understand,' said Dan, 'is how Maximus knew all about the +Picts when he was over in Gaul.'</p> + +<p>'He who makes himself Emperor anywhere must know everything, +everywhere,' said Parnesius. 'We had this much from Maximus's mouth +after the Games.'</p> +<a name="page_197"></a><span class="pagenum">[197]</span> + +<p>'Games? What Games?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>Parnesius stretched his arm out stiffly, thumb pointed to the ground. +'Gladiators! <i>That</i> sort of game,' he said. 'There were two days' Games +in his honour when he landed all unexpected at Segedunum on the East end +of the Wall. Yes, the day after we had met him we held two days' Games; +but I think the greatest risk was run, not by the poor wretches on the +sand, but by Maximus. In the old days the Legions kept silence before +their Emperor. So did not we! You could hear the solid roar run West +along the Wall as his chair was carried rocking through the crowds. The +garrison beat round him—clamouring, clowning, asking for pay, for +change of quarters, for anything that came into their wild heads. That +chair was like a little boat among waves, dipping and falling, but +always rising again after one had shut the eyes.' Parnesius shivered.</p> + +<p>'Were they angry with him?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'No more angry than wolves in a cage when their trainer walks among +them. If he had turned his back an instant, or for an instant had ceased +to hold their eyes, there would have been another Emperor made on the +Wall that hour. Was it not so, Faun?'</p> + +<p>'So it was. So it always will be,' said Puck.</p> + +<p>'Late in the evening his messenger came for us, and we followed to the +Temple of Victory, where he lodged with Rutilianus, the General of the +Wall. I had hardly seen the General before, but he always gave me leave +when I wished to take Heather. He was a great glutton, +<a name="page_198"></a><span class="pagenum">[198]</span> +and kept five +Asian cooks, and he came of a family that believed in oracles. We could +smell his good dinner when we entered, but the tables were empty. He lay +snorting on a couch. Maximus sat apart among long rolls of accounts. +Then the doors were shut.</p> + +<p>'"These are your men," said Maximus to the General, who propped his +eye-corners open with his gouty fingers, and stared at us like a fish.</p> + +<p>'"I shall know them again, Cæsar," said Rutilianus.</p> + +<p>"Very good," said Maximus. "Now hear! You are not to move man or shield +on the Wall except as these boys shall tell you. You will do nothing, +except eat, without their permission. They are the head and arms. You +are the belly!"</p> + +<p>'"As Cæsar pleases," the old man grunted. "If my pay and profits are not +cut, you may make my Ancestors' Oracle my master. Rome has been! Rome +has been!" Then he turned on his side to sleep.</p> + +<p>'"He has it," said Maximus. "We will get to what <i>I</i> need."</p> + +<p>'He unrolled full copies of the number of men and supplies on the +Wall—down to the sick that very day in Hunno Hospital. Oh, but I +groaned when his pen marked off detachment after detachment of our +best—of our least worthless men! He took two towers of our Scythians, +two of our North British auxiliaries, two Numidian cohorts, the Dacians +all, and half the Belgians. It was like an eagle pecking a carcass.</p> + +<p>'"And now, how many catapults have you?" </p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_200"></a><span class="pagenum">[200]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_200_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_200.png" height="676" width="400" alt="'Hail, Cæsar!'" /> +</a> +<div class="caption">'Hail, Cæsar!'</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_201"></a><span class="pagenum">[201]</span> +<p>He turned up a new list, but +Pertinax laid his open hand there.</p> + +<p>'"No, Cæsar," said he. "Do not tempt the Gods too far. Take men, or +engines, but not both; else we refuse."'</p> + +<p>'Engines?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'The catapults of the Wall—huge things forty feet high to the +head—firing nets of raw stone or forged bolts. Nothing can stand +against them. He left us our catapults at last, but he took a Cæsar's +half of our men without pity. We were a shell when he rolled up the +lists!</p> + +<p>'"Hail, Cæsar! We, about to die, salute you!" said Pertinax, laughing. +"If any enemy even leans against the Wall now, it will tumble."</p> + +<p>'"Give me the three years Allo spoke of," he answered, "and you shall +have twenty thousand men of your own choosing up here. But now it is a +gamble—a game played against the Gods, and the stakes are Britain, +Gaul, and perhaps Rome. You play on my side?"</p> + +<p>'"We will play, Cæsar," I said, for I had never met a man like this man.</p> + +<p>'"Good. Tomorrow," said he, "I proclaim you Captains of the Wall before +the troops."</p> + +<p>'So we went into the moonlight, where they were cleaning the ground +after the Games. We saw great Roma Dea atop of the Wall, the frost on +her helmet, and her spear pointed towards the North Star. We saw the +twinkle of night-fires all along the guard towers, and the line of the +black catapults growing smaller and smaller in the distance. All these +things we knew till we were</p> +<a name="page_202"></a><span class="pagenum">[202]</span> +<p>weary; but that night they seemed very +strange to us, because the next day we knew we were to be their masters.</p> + +<p>'The men took the news well; but when Maximus went away with half our +strength, and we had to spread ourselves into the emptied towers, and +the townspeople complained that trade would be ruined, and the autumn +gales blew—it was dark days for us two. Here Pertinax was more than my +right hand. Being born and bred among the great country-houses in Gaul, +he knew the proper words to address to all—from Roman-born Centurions +to those dogs of the Third—the Libyans. And he spoke to each as though +that man were as high-minded as himself. Now <i>I</i> saw so strongly what +things were needed to be done, that I forgot things are only +accomplished by means of men. That was a mistake.</p> + +<p>'I feared nothing from the Picts, at least for that year, but Allo +warned me that the Winged Hats would soon come in from the sea at each +end of the Wall to prove to the Picts how weak we were. So I made ready +in haste, and none too soon. I shifted our best men to the ends of the +Wall, and set up screened catapults by the beach. The Winged Hats would +drive in before the snow-squalls—ten or twenty boats at a time—on +Segedunum or Ituna, according as the wind blew.</p> + +<p>'Now a ship coming in to land men must furl her sail. If you wait till +you see her men gather up the sail's foot, your catapults can jerk a net +of loose stones (bolts only cut through the cloth) into the bag of it. +Then she turns over, and the sea </p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_204"></a><span class="pagenum">[204]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_204_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_204.png" height="624" width="400" alt="'We dealt with them thoroughly through a long day'" /> +</a> +<div class="caption">'We dealt with them thoroughly through a long day.'</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_205"></a><span class="pagenum">[205]</span> +<p> +makes everything clean again. A few men +may come ashore, but very few. ... It was not hard work, except the +waiting on the beach in blowing sand and snow. And that was how we dealt +with the Winged Hats that winter.</p> + +<p>'Early in the spring, when the East winds blow like skinning-knives, +they gathered again off Segedunum with many ships. Allo told me they +would never rest till they had taken a tower in open fight. Certainly +they fought in the open. We dealt with them thoroughly through a long +day: and when all was finished, one man dived clear of the wreckage of +his ship, and swam towards shore. I waited, and a wave tumbled him at my +feet.</p> + +<p>'As I stooped, I saw he wore such a medal as I wear.' Parnesius raised +his hand to his neck. 'Therefore, when he could speak, I addressed him a +certain Question which can only be answered in a certain manner. He +answered with the necessary Word—the Word that belongs to the Degree of +Gryphons in the science of Mithras my God. I put my shield over him till +he could stand up. You see I am not short, but he was a head taller than +I. He said: "What now?" I said: "At your pleasure, my brother, to stay +or go."</p> + +<p>'He looked out across the surf. There remained one ship unhurt, beyond +range of our catapults. I checked the catapults and he waved her in. +She came as a hound comes to a master. When she was yet a hundred paces +from the beach, he flung back his hair, and swam out. They hauled him +in, and went away. I knew that those +<a name="page_206"></a><span class="pagenum">[206]</span> +who worship Mithras are many and of +all races, so I did not think much more upon the matter.</p> + +<p>'A month later I saw Allo with his horses—by the Temple of Pan, O +Faun—and he gave me a great necklace of gold studded with coral.</p> + +<p>'At first I thought it was a bribe from some tradesman in the +town—meant for old Rutilianus. "Nay," said Allo. "This is a gift from +Amal, that Winged Hat whom you saved on the beach. He says you are a +Man."</p> + +<p>'"He is a Man, too. Tell him I can wear his gift," I answered.</p> + +<p>'"Oh, Amal is a young fool; but, speaking as sensible men, your Emperor +is doing such great things in Gaul that the Winged Hats are anxious to +be his friends, or, better still, the friends of his servants. They +think you and Pertinax could lead them to victories." Allo looked at me +like a one-eyed raven.</p> + +<p>'"Allo," I said, "you are the corn between the two millstones. Be +content if they grind evenly, and don't thrust your hand between them."</p> + +<p>'"I?" said Allo. "I hate Rome and the Winged Hats equally; but if the +Winged Hats thought that some day you and Pertinax might join them +against Maximus, they would leave you in peace while you considered. +Time is what we need—you and I and Maximus. Let me carry a pleasant +message back to the Winged Hats—something for them to make a council +over. We barbarians are all alike. We sit up half the night to discuss +anything a Roman says. Eh?"</p> +<a name="page_207"></a><span class="pagenum">[207]</span> + +<p>'"We have no men. We must fight with words," said Pertinax. "Leave it to +Allo and me."</p> + +<p>'So Allo carried word back to the Winged Hats that we would not fight +them if they did not fight us; and they (I think they were a little +tired of losing men in the sea) agreed to a sort of truce. I believe +Allo, who being a horse-dealer loved lies, also told them we might some +day rise against Maximus as Maximus had risen against Rome.</p> + +<p>'Indeed, they permitted the corn-ships which I sent to the Picts to pass +North that season without harm. Therefore the Picts were well fed that +winter, and since they were in some sort my children, I was glad of it. +We had only two thousand men on the Wall, and I wrote many times to +Maximus and begged—prayed—him to send me only one cohort of my old +North British troops. He could not spare them. He needed them to win +more victories in Gaul.</p> + +<p>'Then came news that he had defeated and slain the Emperor Gratian, and +thinking he must now be secure, I wrote again for men. He answered: "You +will learn that I have at last settled accounts with the pup Gratian. +There was no need that he should have died, but he became confused and +lost his head, which is a bad thing to befall any Emperor. Tell your +Father I am content to drive two mules only; for unless my old General's +son thinks himself destined to destroy me, I shall rest Emperor of Gaul +and Britain, and then you, my two children, will presently get all +<a name="page_208"></a><span class="pagenum">[208]</span> +the men you need. Just now I can spare none."'</p> + +<p>'What did he mean by his General's son?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'He meant Theodosius Emperor of Rome, who was the son of Theodosius the +General under whom Maximus had fought in the old Pict War. The two men +never loved each other, and when Gratian made the younger Theodosius +Emperor of the East (at least, so I've heard), Maximus carried on the +war to the second generation. It was his fate, and it was his fall. But +Theodosius the Emperor is a good man. As I know.' Parnesius was silent +for a moment and then continued.</p> + +<p>'I wrote back to Maximus that, though we had peace on the Wall, I should +be happier with a few more men and some new catapults. He answered: "You +must live a little longer under the shadow of my victories, till I can +see what young Theodosius intends. He may welcome me as a +brother-Emperor, or he may be preparing an army. In either case I cannot +spare men just now."</p> + +<p>'But he was always saying that,' cried Una.</p> + +<p>'It was true. He did not make excuses; but thanks, as he said, to the +news of his victories, we had no trouble on the Wall for a long, long +time. The Picts grew fat as their own sheep among the heather, and as +many of my men as lived were well exercised in their weapons. Yes, the +Wall looked strong. For myself, I knew how weak we were. I knew that if +even a false +<a name="page_209"></a><span class="pagenum">[209]</span> +rumour of any defeat to Maximus broke loose among the +Winged Hats, they might come down in earnest, and then—the Wall must +go! For the Picts I never cared, but in those years I learned something +of the strength of the Winged Hats. They increased their strength every +day, but I could not increase my men. Maximus had emptied Britain behind +us, and I felt myself to be a man with a rotten stick standing before a +broken fence to turn bulls.</p> + +<p>'Thus, my friends, we lived on the Wall, waiting—waiting—waiting for +the men that Maximus never sent.</p> + +<p>'Presently he wrote that he was preparing an army against Theodosius. He +wrote—and Pertinax read it over my shoulder in our quarters: "<i>Tell +your Father that my destiny orders me to drive three mules or be torn in +pieces by them. I hope within a year to finish with Theodosius, son of +Theodosius, once and for all. Then you shall have Britain to rule, and +Pertinax, if he chooses, Gaul. To-day I wish strongly you were with me +to beat my Auxiliaries into shape. Do not, I pray you, believe any +rumour of my sickness. I have a little evil in my old body which I shall +cure by riding swiftly into Rome.</i>"</p> + +<p>'Said Pertinax: "It is finished with Maximus. He writes as a man without +hope. I, a man without hope, can see this. What does he add at the +bottom of the roll? '<i>Tell Pertinax I have met his late Uncle, the +Duumvir of Divio, and that he accounted to me quite truthfully for all +his Mother's monies. I have sent her with a fitting +<a name="page_210"></a><span class="pagenum">[210]</span> +escort, for she is +the mother of a hero, to Nicaea, where the climate is warm</i>.'</p> + +<p>'"That is proof," said Pertinax. "Nicaea is not far by sea from Rome. A +woman there could take ship and fly to Rome in time of war. Yes, Maximus +foresees his death, and is fulfilling his promises one by one. But I am +glad my uncle met him."'</p> + +<p>'"You think blackly to-day?" I asked.</p> + +<p>'"I think truth. The Gods weary of the play we have played against them. +Theodosius will destroy Maximus. It is finished!"</p> + +<p>'"Will you write him that?" I said.</p> + +<p>'"See what I shall write," he answered, and he took pen and wrote a +letter cheerful as the light of day, tender as a woman's and full of +jests. Even I, reading over his shoulder, took comfort from it till—I +saw his face!</p> + +<p>'"And now," he said, sealing it, "we be two dead men, my brother. Let us +go to the Temple."</p> + +<p>'We prayed awhile to Mithras, where we had many times prayed before. +After that, we lived day by day among evil rumours till winter came +again.</p> + +<p>'It happened one morning that we rode to the East shore, and found on +the beach a fair-haired man, half frozen, bound to some broken planks. +Turning him over, we saw by his belt-buckle that he was a Goth of an +Eastern Legion. Suddenly he opened his eyes and cried loudly, "He is +dead! The letters were with me, but the Winged Hats sank the ship." So +saying, he died between our hands.</p> +<a name="page_211"></a><span class="pagenum">[211]</span> +<p>'We asked not who was dead. We knew! We raced before the driving snow to +Hunno, thinking perhaps Allo might be there. We found him already at our +stables, and he saw by our faces what we had heard.</p> + +<p>'"It was in a tent by the sea," he stammered. "He was beheaded by +Theodosius. He sent a letter to you, written while he waited to be +slain. The Winged Hats met the ship and took it. The news is running +through the heather like fire. Blame me not! I cannot hold back my young +men any more."</p> + +<p>'"I would we could say as much for our men," said Pertinax, laughing. +"But, Gods be praised, they cannot run away."</p> + +<p>'"What do you do?" said Allo. "I bring an order—a message—from the +Winged Hats that you join them with your men, and march South to plunder +Britain."</p> + +<p>'"It grieves me," said Pertinax, "but we are stationed here to stop that +thing."</p> + +<p>'"If I carry back such an answer they will kill me," said Allo. "I +always promised the Winged Hats that you would rise when Maximus fell. +I—I did not think he could fall."</p> + +<p>'"Alas! my poor barbarian," said Pertinax, still laughing. "Well, you +have sold us too many good ponies to be thrown back to your friends. We +will make you a prisoner, although you are an ambassador."</p> + +<p>'"Yes, that will be best," said Allo, holding out a halter. We bound him +lightly, for he was an old man.</p> +<a name="page_212"></a><span class="pagenum">[212]</span> +<p>'"Presently the Winged Hats may come to look for you, and that will give +us more time. See how the habit of playing for time sticks to a man!" +said Pertinax, as he tied the rope.</p> + +<p>'"No," I said. "Time may help. If Maximus wrote us a letter while he was +a prisoner, Theodosius must have sent the ship that brought it. If he +can send ships, he can send men."</p> + +<p>'"How will that profit us?" said Pertinax. "We serve Maximus, not +Theodosius. Even if by some miracle of the Gods Theodosius down South +sent and saved the Wall, we could not expect more than the death Maximus +died."</p> + +<p>'"It concerns us to defend the Wall, no matter what Emperor dies, or +makes die," I said.</p> + +<p>'"That is worthy of your brother the philosopher," said Pertinax. +"Myself I am without hope, so I do not say solemn and stupid things! +Rouse the Wall!"</p> + +<p>'We armed the Wall from end to end; we told the officers that there was +a rumour of Maximus's death which might bring down the Winged Hats, but +we were sure, even if it were true, that Theodosius, for the sake of +Britain, would send us help. Therefore, we must stand fast. ... My +friends, it is above all things strange to see how men bear ill news! +Often the strongest till then become the weakest, while the weakest, as +it were, reach up and steal strength from the Gods. So it was with us. +Yet my Pertinax by his jests and his courtesy and his labours had put +heart and training into our poor numbers during the past years—more +than I +<a name="page_213"></a><span class="pagenum">[213]</span> +should have thought possible. Even our Libyan Cohort—the +Third—stood up in their padded cuirasses and did not whimper.</p> + +<p>'In three days came seven chiefs and elders of the Winged Hats. Among +them was that tall young man, Amal, whom I had met on the beach, and he +smiled when he saw my necklace. We made them welcome, for they were +ambassadors. We showed them Allo, alive but bound. They thought we had +killed him, and I saw it would not have vexed them if we had. Allo saw +it too, and it vexed him. Then in our quarters at Hunno we came to +Council.</p> + +<p>'They said that Rome was falling, and that we must join them. They +offered me all South Britain to govern after they had taken a tribute +out of it.</p> + +<p>'I answered, "Patience. This Wall is not weighed off like plunder. Give +me proof that my General is dead."</p> + +<p>'"Nay," said one elder, "prove to us that he lives"; and another said +cunningly, "What will you give us if we read you his last words?"</p> + +<p>'"We are not merchants to bargain," cried Amal. "Moreover, I owe this +man my life. He shall have his proof." He threw across to me a letter +(well I knew the seal) from Maximus.</p> + +<p>'"We took this out of the ship we sank," he cried. "I cannot read, but I +know one sign, at least, which makes me believe." He showed me a dark +stain on the outer roll that my heavy heart perceived was the valiant +blood of Maximus.</p> +<a name="page_214"></a><span class="pagenum">[214]</span> +<p>'"Read!" said Amal. "Read, and then let us hear whose servants you are!"</p> + +<p>'Said Pertinax, very softly, after he had looked through it: "I will +read it all. Listen, barbarians!" He read that which I have carried next +my heart ever since.'</p> + +<p>Parnesius drew from his neck a folded and spotted piece of parchment, +and began in a hushed voice:—</p> + +<p>'"<i>To Parnesius and Pertinax, the not unworthy Captains of the Wall, +from Maximus, once Emperor of Gaul and Britain, now prisoner waiting +death by the sea in the camp of Theodosius—Greeting and Good-bye!</i>"</p> + +<p>'"Enough," said young Amal; "there is your proof! You must join us now!"</p> + +<p>'Pertinax looked long and silently at him, till that fair man blushed +like a girl. Then read Pertinax:—</p> + +<p>'"<i>I have joyfully done much evil in my life to those who have wished me +evil, but if ever I did any evil to you two I repent, and I ask your +forgiveness. The three mules which I strove to drive have torn me in +pieces as your Father prophesied. The naked swords wait at the tent door +to give me the death I gave to Gratian. Therefore I, your General and +your emperor, send you free and honourable dismissal from my service, +which you entered, not for money or office, but, as it makes me warm to +believe, because you loved me!</i>"</p> + +<p>'"By the Light of the Sun," Amal broke in. "This was in some sort a Man! +We may have been mistaken in his servants!"</p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_216"></a><span class="pagenum">[216]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_216_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_216.png" height="640" width="400" alt="'The Wall must be won at a price.'" /> +</a> +<div class="caption">'The Wall must be won at a price.'</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_217"></a><span class="pagenum">[217]</span> +<p>'And Pertinax read on: "<i>You gave me the time for which I asked. If I +have failed to use it, do not lament. We have gambled very splendidly +against the Gods, but they hold weighted dice, and I must pay the +forfeit. Remember, I have been; but Rome is; and Rome will be. Tell +Pertinax his Mother is in safety at Nicaea, and her monies are in charge +of the Prefect at Antipolis. Make my remembrances to your Father and to +your Mother, whose friendship was great gain to me. Give also to my +little Picts and to the Winged Hats such messages as their thick heads +can understand. I would have sent you three Legions this very day if all +had gone aright. Do not forget me. We have worked together. Farewell! +Farewell! Farewell!</i>"</p> + +<p>'Now, that was my Emperor's last letter.' (The children heard the +parchment crackle as Parnesius returned it to its place.)</p> + +<p>'"I was mistaken," said Amal. "The servants of such a man will sell +nothing except over the sword. I am glad of it." He held out his hand to +me.</p> + +<p>'"But Maximus has given you your dismissal," said an elder. "You are +certainly free to serve—or to rule—whom you please. Join—do not +follow—join us!"</p> + +<p>'"We thank you," said Pertinax. "But Maximus tells us to give you such +messages as—pardon me, but I use his words—your thick heads can +understand." He pointed through the door to the foot of a catapult wound +up.</p> + +<p>'"We understand," said an elder. "The Wall must be won at a price?"</p> +<a name="page_218"></a><span class="pagenum">[218]</span> +<p>'"It grieves me," said Pertinax, laughing, "but so it must be won," and +he gave them of our best Southern wine.</p> + +<p>'They drank, and wiped their yellow beards in silence till they rose to +go.</p> + +<p>'Said Amal, stretching himself (for they were barbarians): "We be a +goodly company; I wonder what the ravens and the dogfish will make of +some of us before this snow melts."</p> + +<p>'"Think rather what Theodosius may send," I answered; and though they +laughed, I saw that my chance shot troubled them.</p> + +<p>'Only old Allo lingered behind a little.</p> + +<p>'"You see," he said, winking and blinking, "I am no more than their dog. +When I have shown their men the secret short ways across our bogs, they +will kick me like one."</p> + +<p>'"Then I should not be in haste to show them those ways," said Pertinax, +"till I was sure that Rome could not save the Wall."</p> + +<p>'"You think so? Woe is me!" said the old man. "I only wanted peace for +my people," and he went out stumbling through the snow behind the tall +Winged Hats.</p> + +<p>'In this fashion then, slowly, a day at a time, which is very bad for +doubting troops, the War came upon us. At first the Winged Hats swept in +from the sea as they had done before, and there we met them as +before—with the catapults; and they sickened of it. Yet for a long time +they would not trust their duck-legs on land, and I think, when it came +to revealing the secrets of the tribe, the little Picts were afraid or +ashamed to </p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_220"></a><span class="pagenum">[220]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_220_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_220.png" height="657" width="400" alt="'Where they had suffered most, there they charged in most hotly.'" /> +</a> +<div class="caption">'Where they had suffered most, there they charged in most hotly.'</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_221"></a><span class="pagenum">[221]</span> +<p>show them all the roads across the heather. I had this from a +Pict prisoner. They were as much our spies as our enemies, for the +Winged Hats oppressed them, and took their winter stores. Ah, foolish +Little People!</p> + +<p>'Then the Winged Hats began to roll us up from each end of the Wall. I +sent runners Southward to see what the news might be in Britain, but the +wolves were very bold that winter, among the deserted stations where the +troops had once been, and none came back. We had trouble, too, with the +forage for the ponies along the Wall. I kept ten, and so did Pertinax. +We lived and slept in the saddle, riding east or west, and we ate our +worn-out ponies. The people of the town also made us some trouble till I +gathered them all in one quarter behind Hunno. We broke down the Wall on +either side of it to make as it were a citadel. Our men fought better in +close order.</p> + +<p>'By the end of the second month we were deep in the War as a man is deep +in a snowdrift, or in a dream. I think we fought in our sleep. At least +I know I have gone on the Wall and come off again, remembering nothing +between, though my throat was harsh with giving orders, and my sword, I +could see, had been used.</p> + +<p>'The Winged Hats fought like wolves—all in a pack. Where they had +suffered most, there they charged in most hotly. This was hard for the +defenders, but it held them from sweeping on into Britain.</p> + +<p>'In those days Pertinax and I wrote on the plaster of the bricked +archway into Valentia the +<a name="page_222"></a><span class="pagenum">[222]</span> +names of the towers, and the days on which +they fell one by one. We wished for some record.</p> + +<p>'And the fighting? The fight was always hottest to left and right of the +great statue of Roma Dea, near to Rutilianus's house. By the Light of +the Sun, that old fat man, whom we had not considered at all, grew young +again among the trumpets! I remember he said his sword was an oracle! +"Let us consult the Oracle," he would say, and put the handle against +his ear, and shake his head wisely. "And <i>this</i> day is allowed +Rutilianus to live," he would say, and, tucking up his cloak, he would +puff and pant and fight well. Oh, there were jests in plenty on the Wall +to take the place of food!</p> + +<p>'We endured for two months and seventeen days—always being pressed from +three sides into a smaller space. Several times Allo sent in word that +help was at hand. We did not believe it, but it cheered our men. 'The +end came not with shoutings of joy, but, like the rest, as in a dream. +The Winged Hats suddenly left us in peace for one night and the next +day; which is too long for spent men. We slept at first lightly, +expecting to be roused, and then like logs, each where he lay. May you +never need such sleep! When I waked our towers were full of strange, +armed men, who watched us snoring. I roused Pertinax, and we leaped up +together.</p> + +<p>'"What?" said a young man in clean armour. "Do you fight against +Theodosius? Look!"</p> + +<p>'North we looked over the red snow. No +<a name="page_223"></a><span class="pagenum">[223]</span> +Winged Hats were there. South we +looked over the white snow, and behold there were the Eagles of two +strong Legions encamped. East and west we saw flame and fighting, but by +Hunno all was still.</p> + +<p>'"Trouble no more," said the young man. "Rome's arm is long. Where are +the Captains of the Wall?"</p> + +<p>'We said we were those men.</p> + +<p>'"But you are old and grey-haired," he cried. "Maximus said that they +were boys."</p> + +<p>'"Yes, that was true some years ago," said Pertinax. "What is our fate +to be, you fine and well-fed child?"</p> + +<p>'"I am called Ambrosius, a secretary of the Emperor," he answered. "Show +me a certain letter which Maximus wrote from a tent at Aquileia, and +perhaps I will believe."</p> + +<p>'I took it from my breast, and when he had read it he saluted us, +saying: "Your fate is in your own hands. If you choose to serve +Theodosius, he will give you a Legion. If it suits you to go to your +homes, we will give you a Triumph."</p> + +<p>'"I would like better a bath, wine, food, razors, soaps, oils, and +scents," said Pertinax, laughing.</p> + +<p>'"Oh, I see you are a boy," said Ambrosius. "And you?" turning to me.</p> + +<p>'"We bear no ill-will against Theodosius, but in War——" I began.</p> + +<p>'"In War it is as it is in Love," said Pertinax. "Whether she be good or +bad, one gives one's best once, to one only. That given, there remains +no second worth giving or taking."</p> +<a name="page_224"></a><span class="pagenum">[224]</span> + +<p>'"That is true," said Ambrosius. "I was with Maximus before he died. He +warned Theodosius that you would never serve him, and frankly I say I am +sorry for my Emperor."</p> + +<p>'"He has Rome to console him," said Pertinax. "I ask you of your +kindness to let us go to our homes and get this smell out of our +nostrils."</p> + +<p>'None the less they gave us a Triumph!'</p> +<br /> +<br /> +<p> +'It was well earned,' said Puck, throwing some leaves into the still +water of the marlpit. The black, oily circles spread dizzily as the +children watched them.</p> + +<p>'I want to know, oh, ever so many things,' said Dan. 'What happened to +old Allo? Did the Winged Hats ever come back? And what did Amal do?'</p> + +<p>'And what happened to the fat old General with the five cooks?' said +Una. 'And what did your Mother say when you came home? ...'</p> + +<p>'She'd say you're settin' too long over this old pit, so late as 'tis +already,' said old Hobden's voice behind them. 'Hst!' he whispered.</p> + +<p>He stood still, for not twenty paces away a magnificent dog-fox sat on +his haunches and looked at the children as though he were an old friend +of theirs.</p> + +<p>'Oh, Mus' Reynolds, Mus' Reynolds!' said Hobden, under his breath. 'If I +knowed all was inside your head, I'd know something wuth knowin'. Mus' +Dan an' Miss Una, come along o' me while I lock up my liddle hen-house.'</p> + +<hr /> +<a name="page_225"></a><span class="pagenum">[225]</span> +<h4>A PICT SONG</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Rome never looks where she treads,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Always her heavy hooves fall</i></span> +<span><i>On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>And Rome never heeds when we bawl.</i></span> +<span><i>Her sentries pass on—that is all,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>And we gather behind them in hordes,</i></span> +<span><i>And plot to reconquer the Wall,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>With only our tongues for our swords.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>We are the Little Folk—we!</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Too little to love or to hate.</i></span> +<span><i>Leave us alone and you'll see</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>How we can drag down the Great!</i></span> +<span><i>We are the worm in the wood!</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>We are the rot at the root!</i></span> +<span><i>We are the germ in the blood!</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>We are the thorn in the foot!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Mistletoe killing an oak—</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Rats gnawing cables in two—</i></span> +<span><i>Moths making holes in a cloak—</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>How they must love what they do!</i></span> +<span><i>Yes—and we Little Folk too,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>We are as busy as they—</i></span> +<span><i>Working our works out of view—</i></span> +<span><i>Watch, and you'll see it some day!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>No indeed! We are not strong,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>But we know Peoples that are.</i></span> +<span><i>Yes, and we'll guide them along,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>To smash and destroy you in War!</i></span> +<span><i>We shall be slaves just the same?</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Yes, we have always been slaves,</i></span> +<span><i>But you—you will die of the shame,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>And then we shall dance on your graves!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2"><i>We are the Little Folk, we, etc.</i></span> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="wide" /> +<a name="page_227"></a><span class="pagenum">[227]</span> +<h3>Hal o' the Draft</h3> + +<a name="page_229"></a><span class="pagenum">[229]</span> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Prophets have honour all over the Earth,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Except in the village where they were born,</i></span> +<span><i>Where such as knew them boys from birth</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Nature-ally hold 'em in scorn.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>When Prophets are naughty and young and vain,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>They make a won'erful grievance of it;</i></span> +<span><i>(You can see by their writings how they complain),</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>But Oh, 'tis won'erful good for the Prophet!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>There's nothing Nineveh Town can give</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>(Nor being swallowed by whales between),</i></span> +<span><i>Makes up for the place where a man's folk live,</i></span> +<span class="i2"><i>That don't care nothing what he has been.</i></span> +<span><i>He might ha' been that, or he might ha' been this,</i></span> +<span><i>But they love and they hate him for what he is.</i></span> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> +<a name="page_231"></a><span class="pagenum">[231]</span> +<h4>Hal o' the Draft</h4> +<p> +A rainy afternoon drove Dan and Una over to play pirates in the Little +Mill. If you don't mind rats on the rafters and oats in your shoes, the +mill-attic, with its trap-doors and inscriptions on beams about floods +and sweethearts, is a splendid place. It is lighted by a foot-square +window, called Duck Window, that looks across to Little Lindens Farm, +and the spot where Jack Cade was killed.</p> + +<p>When they had climbed the attic ladder (they called it 'the mainmast +tree', out of the ballad of Sir Andrew Barton, and Dan 'swarved it with +might and main', as the ballad says) they saw a man sitting on Duck +Window-sill. He was dressed in a plum-coloured doublet and tight +plum-coloured hose, and he drew busily in a red-edged book.</p> + +<p>'Sit ye! Sit ye!' Puck cried from a rafter overhead. 'See what it is to +be beautiful! Sir Harry Dawe—pardon, Hal—says I am the very image of a +head for a gargoyle.'</p> + +<p>The man laughed and raised his dark velvet cap to the children, and his +grizzled hair bristled out in a stormy fringe. He was old—forty +<a name="page_232"></a><span class="pagenum">[232]</span> +at least—but his eyes were young, with funny little wrinkles all round +them. A satchel of embroidered leather hung from his broad belt, which +looked interesting.</p> + +<p>'May we see?' said Una, coming forward.</p> + +<p>'Surely—sure-ly!' he said, moving up on the window-seat, and returned +to his work with a silver-pointed pencil. Puck sat as though the grin +were fixed for ever on his broad face, while they watched the quick, +certain fingers that copied it. Presently the man took a reed pen from +his satchel, and trimmed it with a little ivory knife, carved in the +semblance of a fish.</p> + +<p>'Oh, what a beauty!' cried Dan.</p> + +<p>''Ware fingers! That blade is perilous sharp. I made it myself of the +best Low Country cross-bow steel. And so, too, this fish. When his +back-fin travels to his tail—so—he swallows up the blade, even as the +whale swallowed Gaffer Jonah ... Yes, and that's my ink-horn. I made the +four silver saints round it. Press Barnabas's head. It opens, and +then——' He dipped the trimmed pen, and with careful boldness began to +put in the essential lines of Puck's rugged face, that had been but +faintly revealed by the silver-point.</p> + +<p>The children gasped, for it fairly leaped from the page.</p> + +<p>As he worked, and the rain fell on the tiles, he talked—now clearly, +now muttering, now breaking off to frown or smile at his work. He told +them he was born at Little Lindens Farm, and his father used to beat him +for drawing things instead +<a name="page_233"></a><span class="pagenum">[233]</span> +of doing things, till an old priest called +Father Roger, who drew illuminated letters in rich people's books, +coaxed the parents to let him take the boy as a sort of painter's +apprentice. Then he went with Father Roger to Oxford, where he cleaned +plates and carried cloaks and shoes for the scholars of a College called +Merton.</p> + +<p>'Didn't you hate that?' said Dan after a great many other questions.</p> + +<p>'I never thought on't. Half Oxford was building new colleges or +beautifying the old, and she had called to her aid the master-craftsmen +of all Christendie—kings in their trade and honoured of Kings. I knew +them. I worked for them: that was enough. No wonder——' He stopped and +laughed.</p> + +<p>'You became a great man, Hal,' said Puck.</p> + +<p>'They said so, Robin. Even Bramante said so.'</p> + +<p>'Why? What did you do?' Dan asked.</p> + +<p>The artist looked at him queerly. 'Things in stone and such, up and down +England. You would not have heard of 'em. To come nearer home, I +rebuilded this little St Barnabas' church of ours. It cost me more +trouble and sorrow than aught I've touched in my life. But 'twas a sound +lesson.'</p> + +<p>'Um,' said Dan. 'We've had lessons this morning.'</p> + +<p>'I'll not afflict ye, lad,' said Hal, while Puck roared. 'Only 'tis +strange to think how that little church was rebuilt, re-roofed, and made +glorious, thanks to some few godly Sussex iron-masters, +<a name="page_234"></a><span class="pagenum">[234]</span> +a Bristow sailor +lad, a proud ass called Hal o' the Draft because, d'you see, he was +always drawing and drafting; and'—he dragged the words slowly—'<i>and</i> a +Scotch pirate.'</p> + +<p>'Pirate?' said Dan. He wriggled like a hooked fish.</p> + +<p>'Even that Andrew Barton you were singing of on the stair just now.' He +dipped again in the ink-well, and held his breath over a sweeping line, +as though he had forgotten everything else.</p> + +<p>'Pirates don't build churches, do they?' said Dan. 'Or <i>do</i> they?'</p> + +<p>'They help mightily,' Hal laughed. 'But you were at your lessons this +morn, Jack Scholar.'</p> + +<p>'Oh, pirates aren't lessons. It was only Bruce and his silly old +spider,' said Una. 'Why did Sir Andrew Barton help you?'</p> + +<p>'I question if he ever knew it,' said Hal, twinkling. 'Robin, how a' +mischief's name am I to tell these innocents what comes of sinful +pride?'</p> + +<p>'Oh, we know all about <i>that</i>,' said Una pertly. 'If you get too +beany—that's cheeky—you get sat upon, of course.'</p> + +<p>Hal considered a moment, pen in air, and Puck said some long words.</p> + +<p>'Aha! that was my case too,' he cried. 'Beany—you say—but certainly I +did not conduct myself well. I was proud of—of such things as +porches—a Galilee porch at Lincoln for choice—proud of one +Torrigiano's arm on my shoulder, proud of my knighthood when I made the +gilt scroll-work for the <i>Sovereign</i>—our King's ship. But Father Roger +sitting in Merton Library, he +<a name="page_235"></a><span class="pagenum">[235]</span> +did not forget me. At the top of +my pride, when I and no other should have builded the porch at Lincoln, +he laid it on me with a terrible forefinger to go back to my Sussex +clays and rebuild, at my own charges, my own church, where us Dawes have +been buried for six generations. "Out! Son of my Art!" said he. "Fight +the Devil at home ere you call yourself a man and a craftsman." And I +quaked, and I went ... How's yon, Robin?' He flourished the finished +sketch before Puck.</p> + +<p>'Me! Me past peradventure,' said Puck, smirking like a man at a mirror. +'Ah, see! The rain has took off! I hate housen in daylight.'</p> + +<p>'Whoop! Holiday!' cried Hal, leaping up. 'Who's for my Little Lindens? +We can talk there.'</p> + +<p>They tumbled downstairs, and turned past the dripping willows by the +sunny mill-dam.</p> + +<p>'Body o' me,' said Hal, staring at the hop-garden, where the hops were +just ready to blossom. 'What are these? Vines? No, not vines, and they +twine the wrong way to beans.' He began to draw in his ready book.</p> + +<p>'Hops. New since your day,' said Puck. 'They're an herb of Mars, and +their flowers dried flavour ale. We say—</p> +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>'Turkeys, Heresy, Hops, and Beer</span> +<span>Came into England all in one year.'</span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> +<p>'Heresy I know. I've seen Hops—God be praised for their beauty! What is +your Turkis?'</p> +<a name="page_236"></a><span class="pagenum">[236]</span> + +<p>The children laughed. They knew the Lindens turkeys, and as soon as they +reached Lindens orchard on the hill the full flock charged at them.</p> + +<p>Out came Hal's book at once. 'Hoity-toity!' he cried. 'Here's Pride in +purple feathers! Here's wrathy contempt and the Pomps of the Flesh! How +d'you call <i>them</i>?'</p> + +<p>'Turkeys! Turkeys!' the children shouted, as the old gobbler raved and +flamed against Hal's plum-coloured hose.</p> + +<p>''Save Your Magnificence!' he said. 'I've drafted two good new things +today.' And he doffed his cap to the bubbling bird.</p> + +<p>Then they walked through the grass to the knoll where Little Lindens +stands. The old farmhouse, weather-tiled to the ground, took almost the +colour of a blood-ruby in the afternoon light. The pigeons pecked at the +mortar in the chimney-stacks; the bees that had lived under the tiles +since it was built filled the hot August air with their booming; and the +smell of the box-tree by the dairy-window mixed with the smell of earth +after rain, bread after baking, and a tickle of wood-smoke.</p> + +<p>The farmer's wife came to the door, baby on arm, shaded her brows +against the sun, stooped to pluck a sprig of rosemary, and turned down +the orchard. The old spaniel in his barrel barked once or twice to show +he was in charge of the empty house. Puck clicked back the garden-gate.</p> + +<p>'D'you marvel that I love it?' said Hal, in a whisper. 'What can town +folk know of the nature of housen—or land?'</p> +<a name="page_237"></a><span class="pagenum">[237]</span> +<p>They perched themselves arow on the old hacked oak bench in Lindens +garden, looking across the valley of the brook at the fern-covered +dimples and hollows of the Forge behind Hobden's cottage. The old man +was cutting a faggot in his garden by the hives. It was quite a second +after his chopper fell that the chump of the blow reached their lazy +ears.</p> + +<p>'Eh—yeh!' said Hal. 'I mind when where that old gaffer stands was +Nether Forge—Master John Collins's foundry. Many a night has his big +trip-hammer shook me in my bed here. <i>Boom-bitty! Boom-bitty!</i> If the +wind was east, I could hear Master Tom Collins's forge at Stockens +answering his brother, <i>Boom-oop! Boom-oop!</i> and midway between, Sir +John Pelham's sledge-hammers at Brightling would strike in like a pack +o' scholars, and "<i>Hic-haec-hoc</i>" they'd say, "<i>Hic-haec-hoc</i>," till I +fell asleep. Yes. The valley was as full o' forges and fineries as a May +shaw o' cuckoos. All gone to grass now!'</p> + +<p>'What did they make?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Guns for the King's ships—and for others. Serpentines and cannon +mostly. When the guns were cast, down would come the King's Officers, +and take our plough-oxen to haul them to the coast. Look! Here's one of +the first and finest craftsmen of the Sea!'</p> + +<p>He fluttered back a page of his book, and showed them a young man's +head. Underneath was written: 'Sebastianus.'</p> + +<p>'He came down with a King's Order on Master John Collins for twenty +serpentines (wicked little +<a name="page_238"></a><span class="pagenum">[238]</span> +cannon they be!) to furnish a venture of +ships. I drafted him thus sitting by our fire telling Mother of the new +lands he'd find the far side the world. And he found them, too! There's +a nose to cleave through unknown seas! Cabot was his name—a Bristol +lad—half a foreigner. I set a heap by him. He helped me to my +church-building.'</p> + +<p>'I thought that was Sir Andrew Barton,' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Ay, but foundations before roofs,' Hal answered. 'Sebastian first put +me in the way of it. I had come down here, not to serve God as a +craftsman should, but to show my people how great a craftsman I was. +They cared not, and it served me right, one split straw for my craft or +my greatness. What a murrain call had I, they said, to mell with old St +Barnabas'? Ruinous the church had been since the Black Death, and +ruinous she would remain; and I could hang myself in my new +scaffold-ropes! Gentle and simple, high and low—the Hayes, the Fowles, +the Fenners, the Collinses—they were all in a tale against me. Only Sir +John Pelham up yonder at Brightling bade me heart-up and go on. Yet how +could I? Did I ask Master Collins for his timber-tug to haul beams? The +oxen had gone to Lewes after lime. Did he promise me a set of iron +cramps or ties for the roof? They never came to hand, or else they were +spaulty or cracked. So with everything. Nothing said, but naught done +except I stood by them, and then done amiss. I thought the countryside +was fair bewitched.'</p> +<a name="page_239"></a><span class="pagenum">[239]</span> +<p>'It was, sure-ly,' said Puck, knees under chin. 'Did you never suspect +ary one?'</p> + +<p>'Not till Sebastian came for his guns, and John Collins played him the +same dog's tricks as he'd played me with my ironwork. Week in, week out, +two of three serpentines would be flawed in the casting, and only fit, +they said, to be re-melted. Then John Collins would shake his head, and +vow he could pass no cannon for the King's service that were not +perfect. Saints! How Sebastian stormed! <i>I</i> know, for we sat on this +bench sharing our sorrows inter-common.</p> + +<p>'When Sebastian had fumed away six weeks at Lindens and gotten just six +serpentines, Dirk Brenzett, Master of the <i>Cygnet</i> hoy, sends me word +that the block of stone he was fetching me from France for our new font +he'd hove overboard to lighten his ship, chased by Andrew Barton up to +Rye Port.'</p> + +<p>'Ah! The pirate!' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Yes. And while I am tearing my hair over this, Ticehurst Will, my best +mason, comes to me shaking, and vowing that the Devil, horned, tailed, +and chained, has run out on him from the church-tower, and the men would +work there no more. So I took 'em off the foundations, which we were +strengthening, and went into the Bell Tavern for a cup of ale. Says +Master John Collins: "Have it your own way, lad; but if I was you, I'd +take the sinnification o' the sign, and leave old Barnabas' Church +alone!" And they all wagged their sinful heads, and agreed. Less afraid +of the Devil than of me—as I saw later.</p> +<a name="page_240"></a><span class="pagenum">[240]</span> +<p>'When I brought my sweet news to Lindens, Sebastian was limewashing the +kitchen-beams for Mother. He loved her like a son.</p> + +<p>'"Cheer up, lad," he says. "God's where He was. Only you and I chance to +be pure pute asses. We've been tricked, Hal, and more shame to me, a +sailor, that I did not guess it before! You must leave your belfry +alone, forsooth, because the Devil is adrift there; and I cannot get my +serpentines because John Collins cannot cast them aright. Meantime +Andrew Barton hawks off the Port of Rye. And why? To take those very +serpentines which poor Cabot must whistle for; the said serpentines, +I'll wager my share of new continents, being now hid away in St +Barnabas' church-tower. Clear as the Irish coast at noonday!"</p> + +<p>"They'd sure never dare to do it," I said; "and, for another thing, +selling cannon to the King's enemies is black treason—hanging and +fine."</p> + +<p>'"It is sure, large profit. Men'll dare any gallows for that. I have +been a trader myself," says he. "We must be upsides with 'em for the +honour of Bristol."</p> + +<p>'Then he hatched a plot, sitting on the limewash bucket. We gave out to +ride o' Tuesday to London and made a show of taking farewells of our +friends—especially of Master John Collins. But at Wadhurst Woods we +turned; rode home to the watermeadows; hid our horses in a willow-tot at +the foot of the glebe, and, come night, stole a-tiptoe up hill to +Barnabas' church again. A thick mist, and a moon striking through.</p> +<a name="page_241"></a><span class="pagenum">[241]</span> +<p>'I had no sooner locked the tower-door behind us than over goes +Sebastian full length in the dark.</p> + +<p>'"Pest!" he says. "Step high and feel low, Hal. I've stumbled over guns +before."</p> + +<p>'I groped, and one by one—the tower was pitchy dark—I counted the +lither barrels of twenty serpentines laid out on pease straw. No conceal +at all!</p> + +<p>'"There's two demi-cannon my end," says Sebastian, slapping metal. +"They'll be for Andrew Barton's lower deck. Honest—honest John Collins! +So this is his warehouse, his arsenal, his armoury! Now see you why your +pokings and pryings have raised the Devil in Sussex? You've hindered +John's lawful trade for months," and he laughed where he lay.</p> + +<p>'A clay-cold tower is no fireside at midnight, so we climbed the belfry +stairs, and there Sebastian trips over a cow-hide with its horns and +tail.</p> + +<p>'"Aha! Your Devil has left his doublet! Does it become me, Hal?" He +draws it on and capers in the shafts of window-moonlight—won'erful +devilish-like. Then he sits on the stairs, rapping with his tail on a +board, and his back-aspect was dreader than his front, and a howlet lit +in, and screeched at the horns of him.</p> + +<p>'"If you'd keep out the Devil, shut the door," he whispered. "And that's +another false proverb, Hal, for I can hear your tower-door opening."</p> + +<p>'"I locked it. Who a-plague has another key, then?" I said.</p> +<a name="page_242"></a><span class="pagenum">[242]</span> + +<p>'"All the congregation, to judge by their feet," he says, and peers into +the blackness. "Still! Still, Hal! Hear 'em grunt! That's more o' my +serpentines, I'll be bound. One—two—three—four they bear in! Faith, +Andrew equips himself like an Admiral! Twenty-four serpentines in all!"</p> + +<p>'As if it had been an echo, we heard John Collins's voice come up all +hollow: "Twenty-four serpentines and two demi-cannon. That's the full +tally for Sir Andrew Barton."</p> + +<p>'"Courtesy costs naught," whispers Sebastian. "Shall I drop my dagger on +his head?"</p> + +<p>'"They go over to Rye o' Thursday in the wool-wains, hid under the +wool-packs. Dirk Brenzett meets them at Udimore, as before," says John.</p> + +<p>'"Lord! What a worn, handsmooth trade it is!" says Sebastian. "I lay we +are the sole two babes in the village that have not our lawful share in +the venture."</p> + +<p>'There was a full score folk below, talking like all Robertsbridge +Market. We counted them by voice.</p> + +<p>'Master John Collins pipes: "The guns for the French carrack must lie +here next month. Will, when does your young fool" (me, so please you!) +"come back from Lunnon?"</p> + +<p>'"No odds," I heard Ticehurst Will answer. "Lay 'em just where you've a +mind, Mus' Collins. We're all too afraid o' the Devil to mell with the +tower now." And the long knave laughed.</p> + +<p>'"Ah! 'tis easy enow for you to raise the +<a name="page_243"></a><span class="pagenum">[243]</span> +Devil, Will," says another—Ralph Hobden of the Forge.</p> + +<p>'"Aaa-men!" roars Sebastian, and ere I could hold him, he leaps down the +stairs—won'erful devilish-like howling no bounds. He had scarce time to +lay out for the nearest than they ran. Saints, how they ran! We heard +them pound on the door of the Bell Tavern, and then we ran too.</p> + +<p>'"What's next?" says Sebastian, looping up his cow-tail as he leaped the +briars. "I've broke honest John's face."</p> + +<p>'"Ride to Sir John Pelham's," I said. "He is the only one that ever +stood by me."</p> + +<p>'We rode to Brightling, and past Sir John's lodges, where the keepers +would have shot at us for deer-stealers, and we had Sir John down into +his Justice's chair, and when we had told him our tale and showed him +the cow-hide which Sebastian wore still girt about him, he laughed till +the tears ran.</p> + +<p>'"Wel-a-well!" he says. "I'll see justice done before daylight. What's +your complaint? Master Collins is my old friend."</p> + +<p>'"He's none of mine," I cried. "When I think how he and his likes have +baulked and dozened and cozened me at every turn over the church"——and +I choked at the thought.</p> + +<p>'"Ah, but ye see now they needed it for another use," says he smoothly.</p> + +<p>'"So they did my serpentines," Sebastian cries. "I should be half across +the Western Ocean by now if my guns had been ready. +<a name="page_244"></a><span class="pagenum">[244]</span> +But they're sold to a Scotch pirate by your old friend—"</p> + +<p>'"Where's your proof?" says Sir John, stroking his beard.</p> + +<p>'"I broke my shins over them not an hour since, and I heard John give +order where they were to be taken," says Sebastian.</p> + +<p>'"Words! Words only," says Sir John. "Master Collins is somewhat of a +liar at best."</p> + +<p>'He carried it so gravely that, for the moment, I thought he was dipped +in this secret traffick too, and that there was not an honest ironmaster +in Sussex.</p> + +<p>'"Name o' Reason!" says Sebastian, and raps with his cow-tail on the +table, "whose guns are they, then?"</p> + +<p>'"Yours, manifestly," says Sir John. "You come with the King's Order for +'em, and Master Collins casts them in his foundry. If he chooses to +bring them up from Nether Forge and lay 'em out in the church-tower, +why, they are e'en so much the nearer to the main road and you are saved +a day's hauling. What a coil to make of a mere act of neighbourly +kindness, lad!"</p> + +<p>'"I fear I have requited him very scurvily," says Sebastian, looking at +his knuckles. "But what of the demi-cannon? I could do with 'em well, +but they are not in the King's Order."</p> + +<p>'"Kindness—loving-kindness," says Sir John. "Questionless, in his zeal +for the King and his love for you, John adds those two cannon as a gift. +'Tis plain as this coming daylight, ye stockfish!"</p> +<a name="page_245"></a><span class="pagenum">[245]</span> + +<p>'"So it is," says Sebastian. "Oh, Sir John, Sir John, why did you never +use the sea? You are lost ashore." And he looked on him with great love.</p> + +<p>'"I do my best in my station." Sir John strokes his beard again and +rolls forth his deep drumming Justice's voice thus: "But—suffer +me!—you two lads, on some midnight frolic into which I probe not, +roystering around the taverns, surprise Master Collins at his"—he +thinks a moment—"at his good deeds done by stealth. Ye surprise him, I +say, cruelly."</p> + +<p>'"Truth, Sir John. If you had seen him run!" says Sebastian.</p> + +<p>'"On this you ride breakneck to me with a tale of pirates, and +wool-wains, and cow-hides, which, though it hath moved my mirth as a +man, offendeth my reason as a magistrate. So I will e'en accompany you +back to the tower with, perhaps, some few of my own people, and +three-four wagons, and I'll be your warrant that Master John Collins +will freely give you your guns and your demi-cannon, Master Sebastian." +He breaks into his proper voice—"I warned the old tod and his +neighbours long ago that they'd come to trouble with their side-sellings +and bye-dealings; but we cannot have half Sussex hanged for a little +gun-running. Are ye content, lads?"</p> + +<p>'"I'd commit any treason for two demi-cannon," said Sebastian, and rubs +his hands.</p> + +<p>'"Ye have just compounded with rank treason-felony for the same bribe," +says Sir John. "Wherefore to horse, and get the guns."'</p> +<a name="page_246"></a><span class="pagenum">[246]</span> + +<p>'But Master Collins meant the guns for Sir Andrew Barton all along, +didn't he?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Questionless, that he did,' said Hal. 'But he lost them. We poured into +the village on the red edge of dawn, Sir John horsed, in half-armour, +his pennon flying; behind him thirty stout Brightling knaves, five +abreast; behind them four wool-wains, and behind them four trumpets to +triumph over the jest, blowing: <i>Our King went forth to Normandie</i>. When +we halted and rolled the ringing guns out of the tower, 'twas for all +the world like Friar Roger's picture of the French siege in the Queen's +Missal-book.'</p> + +<p>'And what did we—I mean, what did our village do?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Oh! Bore it nobly—nobly,' cried Hal. 'Though they had tricked me, I +was proud of them. They came out of their housen, looked at that little +army as though it had been a post, and went their shut-mouthed way. +Never a sign! Never a word! They'd ha' perished sooner than let +Brightling overcrow us. Even that villain, Ticehurst Will, coming out of +the Bell for his morning ale, he all but runs under Sir John's horse.</p> + +<p>'"'Ware, Sirrah Devil!" cries Sir John, reining back.</p> + +<p>'"Oh!" says Will. "Market-day, is it? And all the bullocks from +Brightling here?"</p> + +<p>'I spared him his belting for that—the brazen knave!</p> + +<p>'But John Collins was our masterpiece! He happened along-street (his jaw +tied up where </p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_248"></a><span class="pagenum">[248]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_248_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_248.png" height="660" width="400" alt="'I reckon you'll find her middlin' heavy, he says.'" /> +</a> +<div class="caption">'I reckon you'll find her middlin' heavy, he says.'</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_249"></a><span class="pagenum">[249]</span> +<p>Sebastian had clouted him) when we were trundling the +first demi-cannon through the lych-gate.</p> + +<p>'"I reckon you'll find her middlin' heavy," he says. "If you've a mind +to pay, I'll loan ye my timber-tug. She won't lie easy on ary +wool-wain."</p> + +<p>'That was the one time I ever saw Sebastian taken flat aback. He opened +and shut his mouth, fishy-like.</p> + +<p>'"No offence," says Master John. "You've got her reasonable good cheap. +I thought ye might not grudge me a groat if I helped move her." Ah, he +was a masterpiece! They say that morning's work cost our John two +hundred pounds, and he never winked an eyelid, not even when he saw the +guns all carted off to Lewes.'</p> + +<p>'Neither then nor later?' said Puck.</p> + +<p>'Once. 'Twas after he gave St Barnabas' the new chime of bells. (Oh, +there was nothing the Collinses, or the Hayes, or the Fowles, or the +Fenners would not do for the church then! "Ask and have" was their +song.) We had rung 'em in, and he was in the tower with Black Nick +Fowle, that gave us our rood-screen. The old man pinches the bell-rope +one hand and scratches his neck with t'other. "Sooner she was pulling +yon clapper than my neck, he says. That was all! That was Sussex—seely +Sussex for everlastin'!'</p> + +<p>'And what happened after?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'I went back into England,' said Hal, slowly. 'I'd had my lesson against +pride. But they tell me I left St Barnabas' a jewel—justabout a jewel! +Wel-a-well! 'Twas done for and among my own people, and—Father Roger +was right—I never +<a name="page_250"></a><span class="pagenum">[250]</span> +knew such trouble or such triumph since. That's the +nature o' things. A dear—dear land.' He dropped his chin on his chest.</p> + +<p>'There's your Father at the Forge. What's he talking to old Hobden +about?' said Puck, opening his hand with three leaves in it.</p> + +<p>Dan looked towards the cottage.</p> + +<p>'Oh, I know. It's that old oak lying across the brook. Pater always +wants it grubbed.'</p> + +<p>In the still valley they could hear old Hobden's deep tones.</p> + +<p>'Have it <i>as</i> you've a mind to,' he was saying. 'But the vivers of her +roots they hold the bank together. If you grub her out, the bank she'll +all come tearin' down, an' next floods the brook'll swarve up. But have +it as you've a mind. The Mistuss she sets a heap by the ferns on her +trunk.</p> + +<p>'Oh! I'll think it over,' said the Pater.</p> + +<p>Una laughed a little bubbling chuckle.</p> + +<p>'What Devil's in <i>that</i> belfry?' said Hal, with a lazy laugh. 'That +should be a Hobden by his voice.'</p> + +<p>'Why, the oak is the regular bridge for all the rabbits between the +Three Acre and our meadow. The best place for wires on the farm, Hobden +says. He's got two there now,' Una answered. '<i>He</i> won't ever let it be +grubbed!'</p> + +<p>'Ah, Sussex! Sillly Sussex for everlastin',' murmured Hal; and the next +moment their Father's voice calling across to Little Lindens broke the +spell as little St Barnabas' clock struck five.</p> + +<hr /> +<a name="page_251"></a><span class="pagenum">[251]</span> +<h4>A SMUGGLERS' SONG</h4> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span><i>If You wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,</i></span> +<span><i>Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,</i></span> +<span><i>Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie.</i></span> +<span><i>Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!</i></span> +<span class="i6"><i>Five-and-twenty ponies,</i></span> +<span class="i6"><i>Trotting through the dark—</i></span> +<span class="i6"><i>Brandy for the Parson,</i></span> +<span class="i6"><i>'Baccy for the Clerk;</i></span> +<span class="i6"><i>Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,</i></span> +<span><i>And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Running round the woodlump if you chance to find</i></span> +<span><i>Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine;</i></span> +<span><i>Don't you shout to come and look, nor take 'em for your play;</i></span> +<span><i>Put the brishwood back again,—and they'll be gone next day!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>If you see the stable-door setting open wide;</i></span> +<span><i>If you see a tired horse lying down inside;</i></span> +<span><i>If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;</i></span> +<span><i>If the lining's wet and warm—don't you ask no more!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>If you meet King George's men, dressed in blue and red,</i></span> +<span><i>You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said.</i></span> +<span><i>If they call you 'pretty maid,' and chuck you 'neath the chin,</i></span> +<span><i>Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Knocks and footsteps round the house—whistles after dark—</i></span> +<span><i>You've no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.</i></span> +<span><i>Trusty's here, and Pincher's here, and see how dumb they lie—</i></span> +<span><i>They don't fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>If you do as you've been told, 'likely there's a chance,</i></span> +<span><i>You'll be give a dainty doll, all the way from France,</i></span> +<span><i>With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood—</i></span> +<span><i>A present from the Gentlemen, along o' being good!</i></span> +<span class="i6"><i>Five-and-twenty ponies,</i></span> +<span class="i6"><i>Trotting through the dark—</i></span> +<span class="i6"><i>Brandy for the Parson,</i></span> +<span class="i6"><i>'Baccy for the Clerk.</i></span> +<span><i>Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie—</i></span> +<span><i>Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!</i></span> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="wide"/> +<a name="page_253"></a><span class="pagenum">[253]</span> +<h3>'Dymchurch Flit'</h3> +<hr /> +<a name="page_255"></a><span class="pagenum">[255]</span> +<h4>THE BEE BOY'S SONG</h4> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>Bees! Bees! Hark to your bees!</span> +<span>'Hide from your neighbours as much as you please,</span> +<span>But all that has happened, to <i>us</i> you must tell,</span> +<span>Or else we will give you no honey to sell!'</span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"><i>A Maiden in her glory,</i></span> +<span class="i6"><i>Upon her wedding-day,</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Must tell her Bees the story,</i></span> +<span class="i6"><i>Or else they'll fly away.</i></span> +<span class="i8"><i>Fly away—die away—</i></span> +<span class="i10"><i>Dwindle down and leave you!</i></span> +<span class="i8"><i>But if you don't deceive your Bees,</i></span> +<span class="i10"><i>Your Bees will not deceive you.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"><i>Marriage, birth or buryin',</i></span> +<span class="i6"><i>News across the seas,</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>All you're sad or merry in,</i></span> +<span class="i6"><i>You must tell the Bees.</i></span> +<span class="i8"><i>Tell 'em coming in an' out,</i></span> +<span class="i10"><i>Where the Fanners fan,</i></span> +<span class="i8"><i>'Cause the Bees are justabout</i></span> +<span class="i10"><i>As curious as a man!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"><i>Don't you wait where trees are,</i></span> +<span class="i6"><i>When the lightnings play;</i></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Nor don't you hate where Bees are,</i></span> +<span class="i6"><i>Or else they'll pine away.</i></span> +<span class="i8"><i>Pine away—dwine away—</i></span> +<span class="i10"><i>Anything to leave you!</i></span> +<span class="i8"><i>But if you never grieve your Bees,</i></span> +<span class="i10"><i>Your Bees'll never grieve you!</i></span> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> +<a name="page_257"></a><span class="pagenum">[257]</span> +<h4>'Dymchurch Flit'</h4> +<p> +Just at dusk, a soft September rain began to fall on the hop-pickers. +The mothers wheeled the bouncing perambulators out of the gardens; bins +were put away, and tally-books made up. The young couples strolled home, +two to each umbrella, and the single men walked behind them laughing. +Dan and Una, who had been picking after their lessons, marched off to +roast potatoes at the oast-house, where old Hobden, with Blue-eyed Bess, +his lurcher dog, lived all the month through, drying the hops.</p> + +<p>They settled themselves, as usual, on the sack-strewn cot in front of +the fires, and, when Hobden drew up the shutter, stared, as usual, at +the flameless bed of coals spouting its heat up the dark well of the +old-fashioned roundel. Slowly he cracked off a few fresh pieces of coal, +packed them, with fingers that never flinched, exactly where they would +do most good; slowly he reached behind him till Dan tilted the potatoes +into his iron scoop of a hand; carefully he arranged them round the +fire, and then stood for a moment, black against the glare. As he closed +the shutter, the oast-house seemed dark before the day's end, +<a name="page_258"></a><span class="pagenum">[258]</span> +and he lit +the candle in the lanthorn. The children liked all these things because +they knew them so well.</p> + +<p>The Bee Boy, Hobden's son, who is not quite right in his head, though he +can do anything with bees, slipped in like a shadow. They only guessed +it when Bess's stump-tail wagged against them.</p> + +<p>A big voice began singing outside in the drizzle:</p> +<blockquote> +'Old Mother Laidinwool had nigh twelve months been dead,<br /> +She heard the hops were doin' well, and then popped up her head.' +</blockquote> +<p>'There can't be two people made to holler like that!' cried old Hobden, +wheeling round.</p> +<blockquote> +'For,' says she, 'The boys I've picked with when I was young and fair,<br /> +They're bound to be at hoppin', and I'm——' +</blockquote> +<p>A man showed at the doorway.</p> + +<p>'Well, well! They do say hoppin' 'll draw the very deadest, and now I +belieft 'em. You, Tom? Tom Shoesmith?' Hobden lowered his lanthorn.</p> + +<p>'You're a hem of a time makin' your mind to it, Ralph!' The stranger +strode in—three full inches taller than Hobden, a grey-whiskered, +brown-faced giant with clear blue eyes. They shook hands, and the +children could hear the hard palms rasp together.</p> + +<p>'You ain't lost none o' your grip,' said Hobden. 'Was it thirty or forty +year back you broke my head at Peasmarsh Fair?'</p> + +<p>'Only thirty, an' no odds 'tween us regardin' +<a name="page_259"></a><span class="pagenum">[259]</span> +heads, neither. You had it +back at me with a hop-pole. How did we get home that night? Swimmin'?'</p> + +<p>'Same way the pheasant come into Gubbs's pocket—by a little luck an' a +deal o' conjurin'.' Old Hobden laughed in his deep chest.</p> + +<p>'I see you've not forgot your way about the woods. D'ye do any o' <i>this</i> +still?' The stranger pretended to look along a gun.</p> + +<p>Hobden answered with a quick movement of the hand as though he were +pegging down a rabbit-wire.</p> + +<p>'No. <i>That's</i> all that's left me now. Age she must as Age she can. An' +what's your news since all these years?'</p> +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>'Oh, I've bin to Plymouth, I've bin to Dover—</span> +<span>I've bin ramblin', boys, the wide world over,'</span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>the man answered cheerily. 'I reckon I know as much of Old England as +most.' He turned towards the children and winked boldly.</p> + +<p>'I lay they told you a sight o' lies, then. I've been into England fur +as Wiltsheer once. I was cheated proper over a pair of hedgin'-gloves,' +said Hobden.</p> + +<p>'There's fancy-talkin' everywhere. <i>You've</i> cleaved to your own parts +pretty middlin' close, Ralph.'</p> + +<p>'Can't shift an old tree 'thout it dyin',' Hobden chuckled. 'An' I be no +more anxious to die than you look to be to help me with my hops +tonight.'</p> + +<p>The great man leaned against the brickwork of the roundel, and swung his +arms abroad. 'Hire +<a name="page_260"></a><span class="pagenum">[260]</span> +me!' was all he said, and they stumped upstairs laughing.</p> + +<p>The children heard their shovels rasp on the cloth where the yellow hops +lie drying above the fires, and all the oast-house filled with the +sweet, sleepy smell as they were turned.</p> + +<p>'Who is it?' Una whispered to the Bee Boy.</p> + +<p>'Dunno, no more'n you—if <i>you</i> dunno,' said he, and smiled.</p> + +<p>The voices on the drying-floor talked and chuckled together, and the +heavy footsteps moved back and forth. Presently a hop-pocket dropped +through the press-hole overhead, and stiffened and fattened as they +shovelled it full. 'Clank!' went the press, and rammed the loose stuff +into tight cake.</p> + +<p>'Gently!' they heard Hobden cry. 'You'll bust her crop if you lay on so. +You be as careless as Gleason's bull, Tom. Come an' sit by the fires. +She'll do now.'</p> + +<p>They came down, and as Hobden opened the shutter to see if the potatoes +were done Tom Shoesmith said to the children, 'Put a plenty salt on 'em. +That'll show you the sort o' man <i>I</i> be.' Again he winked, and again the +Bee Boy laughed and Una stared at Dan.</p> + +<p>'<i>I</i> know what sort o' man you be,' old Hobden grunted, groping for the +potatoes round the fire.</p> + +<p>'Do ye?' Tom went on behind his back. 'Some of us can't abide +Horseshoes, or Church Bells, or Running Water; an', talkin' o' runnin' +water'—he turned to Hobden, who was backing out of the roundel—'d'you +mind the great </p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_261"></a><span class="pagenum">[261]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_261_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_261.png" height="641" width="400" alt="'I know what sort o' man you be,' old Hobden grunted, groping for the +potatoes." /> +</a> +<div class="caption">'<i>I</i> know what sort o' man you be,' old Hobden grunted, groping for the +potatoes.</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_263"></a><span class="pagenum">[263]</span> +<p>floods at Robertsbridge, when the miller's man was +drowned in the street?'</p> + +<p>'Middlin' well.' Old Hobden let himself down on the coals by the +fire-door. 'I was courtin' my woman on the Marsh that year. Carter to +Mus' Plum I was, gettin' ten shillin's week. Mine was a Marsh woman.'</p> + +<p>'Won'erful odd-gates place——Romney Marsh,' said Tom Shoesmith. 'I've +heard say the world's divided like into Europe, Ashy, Afriky, Ameriky, +Australy, an' Romney Marsh.'</p> + +<p>'The Marsh folk think so,' said Hobden. 'I had a hem o' trouble to get +my woman to leave it.'</p> + +<p>'Where did she come out of? I've forgot, Ralph.'</p> + +<p>'Dymchurch under the Wall,' Hobden answered, a potato in his hand.</p> + +<p>'Then she'd be a Pett—or a Whitgift, would she?'</p> + +<p>'Whitgift.' Hobden broke open the potato and ate it with the curious +neatness of men who make most of their meals in the blowy open. 'She +growed to be quite reasonable-like after livin' in the Weald awhile, but +our first twenty year or two she was odd-fashioned, no bounds. And she +was a won'erful hand with bees.' He cut away a little piece of potato +and threw it out to the door.</p> + +<p>'Ah! I've heard say the Whitgifts could see further through a millstone +than most,' said Shoesmith. 'Did she, now?'</p> + +<p>'She was honest-innocent of any nigromancin',' said Hobden. 'Only she'd +read signs and sinnifications out o' birds flyin', stars fallin', +<a name="page_264"></a><span class="pagenum">[264]</span> +bees +hivin', and such. An, she'd lie awake—listenin' for calls, she said.'</p> + +<p>'That don't prove naught,' said Tom. 'All Marsh folk has been smugglers +since time everlastin'. 'Twould be in her blood to listen out o' +nights.'</p> + +<p>'Nature-ally,' old Hobden replied, smiling. 'I mind when there was +smugglin' a sight nearer us than what the Marsh be. But that wasn't my +woman's trouble. 'Twas a passel o' no-sense talk'—he dropped his +voice—'about Pharisees.'</p> + +<p>'Yes. I've heard Marsh men belieft in 'em.' Tom looked straight at the +wide-eyed children beside Bess.</p> + +<p>'Pharisees,' cried Una. 'Fairies? Oh, I see!'</p> + +<p>'People o' the Hills,' said the Bee Boy, throwing half of his potato +towards the door.</p> + +<p>'There you be!' said Hobden, pointing at him. My boy—he has her eyes +and her out-gate sense. That's what <i>she</i> called 'em!'</p> + +<p>'And what did you think of it all?'</p> + +<p>'Um—um,' Hobden rumbled. 'A man that uses fields an' shaws after dark +as much as I've done, he don't go out of his road excep' for keepers.'</p> + +<p>'But settin' that aside?' said Tom, coaxingly. 'I saw ye throw the Good +Piece out-at-doors just now. Do ye believe or—<i>do</i> ye?'</p> + +<p>'There was a great black eye to that tater,' said Hobden indignantly.</p> + +<p>'My liddle eye didn't see un, then. It looked as if you meant it +for—for Any One that might need it. But settin' that aside, d'ye +believe or—<i>do</i> ye?'</p> +<a name="page_265"></a><span class="pagenum">[265]</span> + +<p>'I ain't sayin' nothin', because I've heard naught, an' I've see naught. +But if you was to say there was more things after dark in the shaws than +men, or fur, or feather, or fin, I dunno as I'd go far about to call you +a liar. Now turnagain, Tom. What's your say?'</p> + +<p>'I'm like you. I say nothin'. But I'll tell you a tale, an' you can fit +it <i>as</i> how you please.'</p> + +<p>'Passel o' no-sense stuff,' growled Hobden, but he filled his pipe.</p> + +<p>'The Marsh men they call it Dymchurch Flit,' Tom went on slowly. 'Hap +you have heard it?'</p> + +<p>'My woman she've told it me scores o' times. Dunno as I didn't end by +belieftin' it—sometimes.'</p> + +<p>Hobden crossed over as he spoke, and sucked with his pipe at the yellow +lanthorn flame. Tom rested one great elbow on one great knee, where he +sat among the coal.</p> + +<p>'Have you ever bin in the Marsh?' he said to Dan.</p> + +<p>'Only as far as Rye, once,' Dan answered.</p> + +<p>'Ah, that's but the edge. Back behind of her there's steeples settin' +beside churches, an' wise women settin' beside their doors, an' the sea +settin' above the land, an' ducks herdin' wild in the diks' (he meant +ditches). 'The Marsh is justabout riddled with diks an' sluices, an' +tide-gates an' water-lets. You can hear 'em bubblin' an' grummelin' when +the tide works in 'em, an' then you hear the sea rangin' left and +right-handed all up along the Wall. You've seen how flat she is—the +Marsh? You'd think nothin' +<a name="page_266"></a><span class="pagenum">[266]</span> +easier than to walk eend-on acrost her? Ah, +but the diks an' the water-lets, they twists the roads about as ravelly +as witch-yarn on the spindles. So ye get all turned round in broad +daylight.'</p> + +<p>'That's because they've dreened the waters into the diks,' said Hobden. +'When I courted my woman the rushes was green—Eh me! the rushes was +green—an' the Bailiff o' the Marshes he rode up and down as free as the +fog.'</p> + +<p>'Who was he?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Why, the Marsh fever an' ague. He've clapped me on the shoulder once or +twice till I shook proper. But now the dreenin' off of the waters have +done away with the fevers; so they make a joke, like, that the Bailiff +o' the Marshes broke his neck in a dik. A won'erful place for bees an' +ducks 'tis too.'</p> + +<p>'An' old,' Tom went on. 'Flesh an' Blood have been there since Time +Everlastin' Beyond. Well, now, speakin' among themselves, the Marsh men +say that from Time Everlastin' Beyond, the Pharisees favoured the Marsh +above the rest of Old England. I lay the Marsh men ought to know. +They've been out after dark, father an' son, smugglin' some one thing or +t'other, since ever wool grew to sheep's backs. They say there was +always a middlin' few Pharisees to be seen on the Marsh. Impident as +rabbits, they was. They'd dance on the nakid roads in the nakid daytime; +they'd flash their liddle green lights along the diks, comin' an' goin', +like honest smugglers. Yes, an' times they'd lock the church doors +against parson an' clerk of Sundays.'</p> +<a name="page_267"></a><span class="pagenum">[267]</span> + +<p>'That 'ud be smugglers layin' in the lace or the brandy till they could +run it out o' the Marsh. I've told my woman so,' said Hobden.</p> + +<p>'I'll lay she didn't belieft it, then—not if she was a Whitgift. A +won'erful choice place for Pharisees, the Marsh, by all accounts, till +Queen Bess's father he come in with his Reformatories.'</p> + +<p>'Would that be a Act of Parliament like?' Hobden asked.</p> + +<p>'Sure-ly. Can't do nothing in Old England without Act, Warrant an' +Summons. He got his Act allowed him, an', they say, Queen Bess's father +he used the parish churches something shameful. Justabout tore the +gizzards out of I dunnamany. Some folk in England they held with 'en; +but some they saw it different, an' it eended in 'em takin' sides an' +burnin' each other no bounds, accordin' which side was top, time bein'. +That tarrified the Pharisees: for Goodwill among Flesh an' Blood is meat +an' drink to 'em, an' ill-will is poison.'</p> + +<p>'Same as bees,' said the Bee Boy. 'Bees won't stay by a house where +there's hating.'</p> + +<p>'True,' said Tom. 'This Reformatories tarrified the Pharisees same as +the reaper goin' round a last stand o' wheat tarrifies rabbits. They +packed into the Marsh from all parts, and they says, "Fair or foul, we +must flit out o' this, for Merry England's done with, an' we're reckoned +among the Images."'</p> + +<p>'Did they <i>all</i> see it that way?' said Hobden.</p> + +<p>'All but one that was called Robin—if you've heard of him. What are you +laughin' at?' Tom +<a name="page_268"></a><span class="pagenum">[268]</span> +turned to Dan. 'The Pharisees's trouble didn't tech +Robin, because he'd cleaved middlin' close to people, like. No more he +never meant to go out of Old England—not he; so he was sent messagin' +for help among Flesh an' Blood. But Flesh an' Blood must always think of +their own concerns, an' Robin couldn't get <i>through</i> at 'em, ye see. +They thought it was tide-echoes off the Marsh.'</p> + +<p>'What did you—what did the fai—Pharisees want?' Una asked.</p> + +<p>'A boat, to be sure. Their liddle wings could no more cross Channel than +so many tired butterflies. A boat an' a crew they desired to sail 'em +over to France, where yet awhile folks hadn't tore down the Images. They +couldn't abide cruel Canterbury Bells ringin' to Bulverhithe for more +pore men an' women to be burnded, nor the King's proud messenger ridin' +through the land givin' orders to tear down the Images. They couldn't +abide it no shape. Nor yet they couldn't get their boat an' crew to flit +by without Leave an' Good-will from Flesh an' Blood; an' Flesh an' Blood +came an' went about its own business the while the Marsh was swarvin' +up, an' swarvin' up with Pharisees from all England over, strivin' all +means to get through at Flesh an' Blood to tell 'em their sore need ... +I don't know as you've ever heard say Pharisees are like chickens?'</p> + +<p>'My woman used to say that too,' said Hobden, folding his brown arms.</p> + +<p>'They be. You run too many chickens together, an' the ground sickens, +like, an' you get a squat, an' your chickens die. Same way, you +<a name="page_269"></a><span class="pagenum">[269]</span> +crowd +Pharisees all in one place—<i>they</i> don't die, but Flesh an' Blood +walkin' among 'em is apt to sick up an' pine off. <i>They</i> don't mean it, +an' Flesh an' Blood don't know it, but that's the truth—as I've heard. +The Pharisees through bein' all stenched up an' frighted, an' trying' to +come <i>through</i> with their supplications, they nature-ally changed the +thin airs an' humours in Flesh an' Blood. It lay on the Marsh like +thunder. Men saw their churches ablaze with the wildfire in the windows +after dark; they saw their cattle scatterin' an' no man scarin'; their +sheep flockin' an' no man drivin'; their horses latherin' an' no man +leadin'; they saw the liddle low green lights more than ever in the +dik-sides; they heard the liddle feet patterin' more than ever round the +houses; an' night an' day, day an' night, 'twas all as though they were +bein' creeped up on, an' hinted at by Some One or other that couldn't +rightly shape their trouble. Oh, I lay they sweated! Man an' maid, woman +an' child, their nature done 'em no service all the weeks while the +Marsh was swarvin' up with Pharisees. But they was Flesh an' Blood, an' +Marsh men before all. They reckoned the signs sinnified trouble for the +Marsh. Or that the sea 'ud rear up against Dymchurch Wall an' they'd be +drownded like Old Winchelsea; or that the Plague was comin'. So they +looked for the meanin' in the sea or in the clouds—far an' high up. +They never thought to look near an' knee-high, where they could see +naught.</p> + +<p>'Now there was a poor widow at Dymchurch under the Wall, which, lacking +man or property, +<a name="page_270"></a><span class="pagenum">[270]</span> +she had the more time for feeling; and she come to feel +there was a Trouble outside her doorstep bigger an' heavier than aught +she'd ever carried over it. She had two sons—one born blind, an' +t'other struck dumb through fallin' off the Wall when he was liddle. +They was men grown, but not wage-earnin', an' she worked for 'em, +keepin' bees and answerin' Questions.'</p> + +<p>'What sort of questions?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'Like where lost things might be found, an' what to put about a crooked +baby's neck, an' how to join parted sweethearts. She felt the Trouble on +the Marsh same as eels feel thunder. She was a wise woman.'</p> + +<p>'My woman was won'erful weather-tender, too,' said Hobden. 'I've seen +her brish sparks like off an anvil out of her hair in thunderstorms. But +she never laid out to answer Questions.'</p> + +<p>'This woman was a Seeker, like, an' Seekers they sometimes find. One +night, while she lay abed, hot an' achin', there come a Dream an' tapped +at her window, an' "Widow Whitgift," it said, "Widow Whitgift!"</p> + +<p>'First, by the wings an' the whistlin', she thought it was peewits, but +last she arose an' dressed herself, an' opened her door to the Marsh, +an' she felt the Trouble an' the Groanin' all about her, strong as fever +an' ague, an' she calls: "What is it? Oh, what is it?"</p> + +<p>'Then 'twas all like the frogs in the diks peepin'; then 'twas all like +the reeds in the diks clip-clappin'; an' then the great Tide-wave +rummelled along the Wall, an' she couldn't hear proper.</p> +<a name="page_271"></a><span class="pagenum">[271]</span> +<p>'Three times she called, an' three times the Tide-wave did her down. But +she catched the quiet between, an' she cries out, "What is the Trouble +on the Marsh that's been lying down with my heart an' arising with my +body this month gone?" She felt a liddle hand lay hold on her gown-hem, +an' she stooped to the pull o' that liddle hand.'</p> + +<p>Tom Shoesmith spread his huge fist before the fire and smiled at it.</p> + +<p>'"Will the sea drown the Marsh?" she says. She was a Marsh woman first +an' foremost.</p> + +<p>'"No," says the liddle voice. "Sleep sound for all o' that."</p> + +<p>'"Is the Plague comin' to the Marsh?" she says. Them was all the ills +she knowed.</p> + +<p>'"No. Sleep sound for all o' that," says Robin.</p> + +<p>'She turned about, half mindful to go in, but the liddle voices grieved +that shrill an' sorrowful she turns back, an' she cries: "If it is not a +Trouble of Flesh an' Blood, what can I do?"</p> + +<p>'The Pharisees cried out upon her from all round to fetch them a boat to +sail to France, an' come back no more.</p> + +<p>'"There's a boat on the Wall," she says, "but I can't push it down to +the sea, nor sail it when 'tis there."</p> + +<p>'"Lend us your sons," says all the Pharisees. "Give 'em Leave an' +Good-will to sail it for us, Mother—O Mother!"</p> + +<p>'"One's dumb, an' t'other's blind," she says. "But all the dearer me for +that; and you'll lose +<a name="page_272"></a><span class="pagenum">[272]</span> +them in the big sea." The voices justabout +pierced through her; an' there was children's voices too. She stood out +all she could, but she couldn't rightly stand against <i>that</i>. So she +says: "If you can draw my sons for your job, I'll not hinder 'em. You +can't ask no more of a Mother."</p> + +<p>'She saw them liddle green lights dance an' cross till she was dizzy; +she heard them liddle feet patterin' by the thousand; she heard cruel +Canterbury Bells ringing to Bulverhithe, an' she heard the great +Tide-wave ranging along the Wall. That was while the Pharisees was +workin' a Dream to wake her two sons asleep: an' while she bit on her +fingers she saw them two she'd bore come out an' pass her with never a +word. She followed 'em, cryin' pitiful, to the old boat on the Wall, an' +that they took an' runned down to the sea.</p> + +<p>'When they'd stepped mast an' sail the blind son speaks: "Mother, we're +waitin' your Leave an' Good-will to take Them over."'</p> + +<p>Tom Shoesmith threw back his head and half shut his eyes.</p> + +<p>'Eh, me!' he said. 'She was a fine, valiant woman, the Widow Whitgift. +She stood twistin' the eends of her long hair over her fingers, an' she +shook like a poplar, makin' up her mind. The Pharisees all about they +hushed their children from cryin' an' they waited dumb-still. She was +all their dependence. 'Thout her Leave an' Good-will they could not +pass; for she was the Mother. So she shook like a aps-tree makin' up her +mind. 'Last she drives the word past her teeth, an' +<a name="page_273"></a><span class="pagenum">[273]</span> +"Go!" she says. "Go with my Leave an' Goodwill."</p> + +<p>'Then I saw—then, they say, she had to brace back same as if she was +wadin' in tide-water; for the Pharisees just about flowed past her—down +the beach to the boat, I dunnamany of 'em—with their wives an' childern +an' valooables, all escapin' out of cruel Old England. Silver you could +hear chinkin', an' liddle bundles hove down dunt on the bottom-boards, +an' passels o' liddle swords an' shields raklin', an' liddle fingers an' +toes scratchin' on the boatside to board her when the two sons pushed +her off. That boat she sunk lower an' lower, but all the Widow could see +in it was her boys movin' hampered-like to get at the tackle. Up sail +they did, an' away they went, deep as a Rye barge, away into the +off-shore mists, an' the Widow Whitgift she sat down an' eased her grief +till mornin' light.'</p> + +<p>'I never heard she was <i>all</i> alone,' said Hobden.</p> + +<p>'I remember now. The one called Robin, he stayed with her, they tell. +She was all too grievious to listen to his promises.'</p> + +<p>'Ah! She should ha' made her bargain beforehand. I allus told my woman +so!' Hobden cried.</p> + +<p>'No. She loaned her sons for a pure love-loan, bein' as she sensed the +Trouble on the Marshes, an' was simple good-willin' to ease it.' Tom +laughed softly. 'She done that. Yes, she done that! From Hithe to +Bulverhithe, fretty man an' maid, ailin' woman an' wailin' child, they +took the advantage of the change in the thin airs just about <i>as</i> soon +as the Pharisees +<a name="page_274"></a><span class="pagenum">[274]</span> +flitted. Folks come out fresh an' shinin' all over the +Marsh like snails after wet. An' that while the Widow Whitgift sat +grievin' on the Wall. She might have belieft us—she might have trusted +her sons would be sent back! She fussed, no bounds, when their boat come +in after three days.'</p> + +<p>'And, of course, the sons were both quite cured?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'No-o. That would have been out o' Nature. She got 'em back as she sent +'em. The blind man he hadn't seen naught of anythin', an' the dumb man +nature-ally he couldn't say aught of what he'd seen. I reckon that was +why the Pharisees pitched on 'em for the ferryin' job.'</p> + +<p>'But what did you—what did Robin promise the Widow?' said Dan.</p> + +<p>'What <i>did</i> he promise, now?' Tom pretended to think. 'Wasn't your woman +a Whitgift, Ralph? Didn't she ever say?'</p> + +<p>'She told me a passel o' no-sense stuff when he was born.' Hobden +pointed at his son. 'There was always to be one of 'em that could see +further into a millstone than most.'</p> + +<p>'Me! That's me!' said the Bee Boy so suddenly that they all laughed.</p> + +<p>'I've got it now!' cried Tom, slapping his knee. 'So long as Whitgift +blood lasted, Robin promised there would allers be one o' her stock +that—that no Trouble 'ud lie on, no Maid 'ud sigh on, no Night could +frighten, no Fright could harm, no Harm could make sin, an' no Woman +could make a fool of.'</p> + +<p>'Well, ain't that just me?' said the Bee Boy, +<a name="page_275"></a><span class="pagenum">[275]</span> +where he sat in the silver +square of the great September moon that was staring into the oast-house +door.</p> + +<p>'They was the exact words she told me when we first found he wasn't like +others. But it beats me how you known 'em,' said Hobden.</p> + +<p>'Aha! There's more under my hat besides hair?' Tom laughed and stretched +himself. 'When I've seen these two young folk home, we'll make a night +of old days, Ralph, with passin' old tales—eh? An' where might you +live?' he said, gravely, to Dan. 'An' do you think your Pa 'ud give me a +drink for takin' you there, Missy?'</p> + +<p>They giggled so at this that they had to run out. Tom picked them both +up, set one on each broad shoulder, and tramped across the ferny pasture +where the cows puffed milky puffs at them in the moonlight.</p> + +<p>'Oh, Puck! Puck! I guessed you right from when you talked about the +salt. How could you ever do it?' Una cried, swinging along delighted.</p> + +<p>'Do what?' he said, and climbed the stile by the pollard oak.</p> + +<p>'Pretend to be Tom Shoesmith,' said Dan, and they ducked to avoid the +two little ashes that grow by the bridge over the brook. Tom was almost +running.</p> + +<p>'Yes. That's my name, Mus' Dan,' he said, hurrying over the silent +shining lawn, where a rabbit sat by the big white-thorn near the croquet +ground. 'Here you be.' He strode into the old kitchen yard, and slid +them down as Ellen came to ask questions.</p> +<a name="page_276"></a><span class="pagenum">[276]</span> + +<p>'I'm helping in Mus' Spray's oast-house,' he said to her. 'No, I'm no +foreigner. I knowed this country 'fore your mother was born; an'—yes, +it's dry work oastin', Miss. Thank you.'</p> + +<p>Ellen went to get a jug, and the children went in—magicked once more by +Oak, Ash, and Thorn!</p> + +<hr /> +<a name="page_277"></a><span class="pagenum">[277]</span> +<h4>A THREE-PART SONG</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span><i>I'm just in love with all these three,</i></span> +<span><i>The Weald an' the Marsh an' the Down countrie;</i></span> +<span><i>Nor I don't know which I love the most,</i></span> +<span><i>The Weald or the Marsh or the white chalk coast!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>I've buried my heart in a ferny hill,</i></span> +<span><i>Twix' a liddle low shaw an' a great high gill.</i></span> +<span><i>Oh, hop-bine yaller an' woodsmoke blue,</i></span> +<span><i>I reckon you'll keep her middling true!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>I've loosed my mind for to out an' run</i></span> +<span><i>On a Marsh that was old when Kings begun:</i></span> +<span><i>Oh, Romney level an' Brenzett reeds,</i></span> +<span><i>I reckon you know what my mind needs!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>I've given my soul to the Southdown grass,</i></span> +<span><i>An' sheep-bells tinkled where you pass.</i></span> +<span><i>Oh, Firle an' Ditchling an' sails at sea,</i></span> +<span><i>I reckon you keep my soul for me!</i></span> +</div></div> + +<hr class="wide" /> +<a name="page_279"></a><span class="pagenum">[279]</span> +<h3>The Treasure and the Law</h3> +<hr /> +<a name="page_281"></a><span class="pagenum">[281]</span> +<h4>SONG OF THE FIFTH RIVER</h4> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span><i>When first by Eden Tree</i></span> +<span><i>The Four Great Rivers ran,</i></span> +<span><i>To each was appointed a Man</i></span> +<span><i>Her Prince and Ruler to be.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>But after this was ordained,</i></span> +<span><i>(The ancient legends tell),</i></span> +<span><i>There came dark Israel,</i></span> +<span><i>For whom no River remained.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Then He That is Wholly Just</i></span> +<span><i>Said to him: 'Fling on the ground</i></span> +<span><i>A handful of yellow dust,</i></span> +<span><i>And a Fifth Great River shall run,</i></span> +<span><i>Mightier than these four,</i></span> +<span><i>In secret the Earth around;</i></span> +<span><i>And Her secret evermore</i></span> +<span><i>Shall be shown to thee and thy Race.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>So it was said and done.</i></span> +<span><i>And, deep in the veins of Earth,</i></span> +<span><i>And, fed by a thousand springs</i></span> +<span><i>That comfort the market-place,</i></span> +<span><i>Or sap the power of Kings,</i></span> +<span><i>The Fifth Great River had birth,</i></span> +<span><i>Even as it was foretold—</i></span> +<span><i>The Secret River of Gold!</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>And Israel laid down</i></span> +<span><i>His sceptre and his crown,</i></span> +<span><i>To brood on that River bank,</i></span> +<span><i>Where the waters flashed and sank,</i></span> +<span><i>And burrowed in earth and fell,</i></span> +<span><i>And bided a season below;</i></span> +<span><i>For reason that none might know,</i></span> +<span><i>Save only Israel.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>He is Lord of the Last—</i></span> +<span><i>The Fifth, most wonderful, Flood.</i></span> +<span><i>He hears Her thunder past</i></span> +<span><i>And Her song is in his blood.</i></span> +<span><i>He can foresay: 'She will fall,'</i></span> +<span><i>For he knows which fountain dries</i></span> +<span><i>Behind which desert-belt</i></span> +<span><i>A thousand leagues to the South.</i></span> +<span><i>He can foresay: 'She will rise.'</i></span> +<span><i>He knows what far snows melt;</i></span> +<span><i>Along what mountain-wall</i></span> +<span><i>A thousand leagues to the North.</i></span> +<span><i>He snuffs the coming drought</i></span> +<span><i>As he snuffs the coming rain,</i></span> +<span><i>He knows what each will bring forth,</i></span> +<span><i>And turns it to his gain.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>A Prince without a Sword,</i></span> +<span><i>A Ruler without a Throne;</i></span> +<span><i>Israel follows his quest.</i></span> +<span><i>In every land a guest,</i></span> +<span><i>Of many lands a lord,</i></span> +<span><i>In no land King is he.</i></span> +<span><i>But the Fifth Great River keeps</i></span> +<span><i>The secret of Her deeps</i></span> +<span><i>For Israel alone,</i></span> +<span><i>As it was ordered to be.</i></span> +</div></div> + +<hr /> +<a name="page_283"></a><span class="pagenum">[283]</span> +<h4>The Treasure and the Law</h4> + +<p> +Now it was the third week in November, and the woods rang with the noise +of pheasant-shooting. No one hunted that steep, cramped country except +the village beagles, who, as often as not, escaped from their kennels +and made a day of their own. Dan and Una found a couple of them towling +round the kitchen-garden after the laundry cat. The little brutes were +only too pleased to go rabbiting, so the children ran them all along the +brook pastures and into Little Lindens farm-yard, where the old sow +vanquished them—and up to the quarry-hole, where they started a fox. He +headed for Far Wood, and there they frightened out all the pheasants, +who were sheltering from a big beat across the valley. Then the cruel +guns began again, and they grabbed the beagles lest they should stray +and get hurt.</p> + +<p>'I wouldn't be a pheasant—in November—for a lot,' Dan panted, as he +caught <i>Folly</i> by the neck. 'Why did you laugh that horrid way?'</p> + +<p>'I didn't,' said Una, sitting on <i>Flora</i>, the fat lady-dog. 'Oh, look! +The silly birds are going back to their own woods instead of ours, where +they would be safe.'</p> +<a name="page_284"></a><span class="pagenum">[284]</span> + +<p>'Safe till it pleased you to kill them.' An old man, so tall he was +almost a giant, stepped from behind the clump of hollies by Volaterrae. +The children jumped, and the dogs dropped like setters. He wore a +sweeping gown of dark thick stuff, lined and edged with yellowish fur, +and he bowed a bent-down bow that made them feel both proud and ashamed. +Then he looked at them steadily, and they stared back without doubt or +fear.</p> + +<p>'You are not afraid?' he said, running his hands through his splendid +grey beard. 'Not afraid that those men yonder'—he jerked his head +towards the incessant pop-pop of the guns from the lower woods—'will do +you hurt?'</p> + +<p>'We-ell'—Dan liked to be accurate, especially when he was shy—'old +Hobd—a friend of mine told me that one of the beaters got peppered last +week—hit in the leg, I mean. You see, Mr Meyer <i>will</i> fire at rabbits. +But he gave Waxy Garnett a quid—sovereign, I mean—and Waxy told Hobden +he'd have stood both barrels for half the money.'</p> + +<p>'He doesn't understand,' Una cried, watching the pale, troubled face. +'Oh, I wish——'</p> + +<p>She had scarcely said it when Puck rustled out of the hollies and spoke +to the man quickly in foreign words. Puck wore a long cloak too—the +afternoon was just frosting down—and it changed his appearance +altogether.</p> + +<p>'Nay, nay!' he said at last. 'You did not understand the boy. A freeman +was a little hurt, by pure mischance, at the hunting.'</p> + +<p>'I know that mischance! What did his Lord +<a name="page_285"></a><span class="pagenum">[285]</span> +do? Laugh and ride over him?' the old man sneered.</p> + +<p>'It was one of your own people did the hurt, Kadmiel.' Puck's eyes +twinkled maliciously. 'So he gave the freeman a piece of gold, and no +more was said.'</p> + +<p>'A Jew drew blood from a Christian and no more was said?' Kadmiel cried. +'Never! When did they torture him?'</p> + +<p>'No man may be bound, or fined, or slain till he has been judged by his +peers,' Puck insisted. 'There is but one Law in Old England for Jew or +Christian—the Law that was signed at Runnymede.'</p> + +<p>'Why, that's Magna Charta!' Dan whispered. It was one of the few history +dates that he could remember. Kadmiel turned on him with a sweep and a +whirr of his spicy-scented gown.</p> + +<p>'Dost <i>thou</i> know of that, babe?' he cried, and lifted his hands in +wonder.</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Dan firmly.</p> +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>'Magna Charta was signed by John,</span> +<span>That Henry the Third put his heel upon.</span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> +<p>And old Hobden says that if it hadn't been for <i>her</i> (he calls +everything "her", you know), the keepers would have him clapped in Lewes +Gaol all the year round.'</p> + +<p>Again Puck translated to Kadmiel in the strange, solemn-sounding +language, and at last Kadmiel laughed.</p> + +<p>'Out of the mouths of babes do we learn,' said he. 'But tell me now, and +I will not call you a +<a name="page_286"></a><span class="pagenum">[286]</span> +babe but a Rabbi, <i>why</i> did the King sign the roll +of the New Law at Runnymede? For he was a King.'</p> + +<p>Dan looked sideways at his sister. It was her turn.</p> + +<p>'Because he jolly well had to,' said Una softly. 'The Barons made him.'</p> + +<p>'Nay,' Kadmiel answered, shaking his head. 'You Christians always forget +that gold does more than the sword. Our good King signed because he +could not borrow more money from us bad Jews.' He curved his shoulders +as he spoke. 'A King without gold is a snake with a broken back, +and'—his nose sneered up and his eyebrows frowned down—'it is a good +deed to break a snake's back. That was my work,' he cried, triumphantly, +to Puck. 'Spirit of Earth, bear witness that that was <i>my</i> work!' He +shot up to his full towering height, and his words rang like a trumpet. +He had a voice that changed its tone almost as an opal changes +colour—sometimes deep and thundery, sometimes thin and waily, but +always it made you listen.</p> + +<p>'Many people can bear witness to that,' Puck answered. 'Tell these babes +how it was done. Remember, Master, they do not know Doubt or Fear.'</p> + +<p>'So I saw in their faces when we met,' said Kadmiel. 'Yet surely, surely +they are taught to spit upon Jews?'</p> + +<p>'Are they?' said Dan, much interested. 'Where at?'</p> + +<p>Puck fell back a pace, laughing. 'Kadmiel is </p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_288"></a><span class="pagenum">[288]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_288_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_288.png" height="608" width="400" alt="Doors shut, candles lit." /></a> +<div class="caption">Doors shut, candle lit.</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_289"></a><span class="pagenum">[289]</span> +<p>thinking of King John's +reign,' he explained. 'His people were badly treated then.'</p> + +<p>'Oh, we know <i>that</i>.' they answered, and (it was very rude of them, but +they could not help it) they stared straight at Kadmiel's mouth to see +if his teeth were all there. It stuck in their lesson-memory that King +John used to pull out Jews' teeth to make them lend him money.</p> + +<p>Kadmiel understood the look and smiled bitterly.</p> + +<p>'No. Your King never drew my teeth: I think, perhaps, I drew his. +Listen! I was not born among Christians, but among Moors—in Spain—in a +little white town under the mountains. Yes, the Moors are cruel, but at +least their learned men dare to think. It was prophesied of me at my +birth that I should be a Lawgiver to a People of a strange speech and a +hard language. We Jews are always looking for the Prince and the +Lawgiver to come. Why not? My people in the town (we were very few) set +me apart as a child of the prophecy—the Chosen of the Chosen. We Jews +dream so many dreams. You would never guess it to see us slink about the +rubbish-heaps in our quarter; but at the day's end—doors shut, candles +lit—aha! <i>then</i> we became the Chosen again.'</p> + +<p>He paced back and forth through the wood as he talked. The rattle of the +shot-guns never ceased, and the dogs whimpered a little and lay flat on +the leaves.</p> + +<p>'I was a Prince. Yes! Think of a little Prince who had never +known rough words in +<a name="page_290"></a><span class="pagenum">[290]</span> +his own house handed over to shouting, bearded +Rabbis, who pulled his ears and filliped his nose, all that he might +learn—learn—learn to be King when his time came. Hé! Such a little +Prince it was! One eye he kept on the stone-throwing Moorish boys, and +the other it roved about the streets looking for his Kingdom. Yes, and +he learned to cry softly when he was hunted up and down those streets. +He learned to do all things without noise. He played beneath his +father's table when the Great Candle was lit, and he listened as +children listen to the talk of his father's friends above the table. +They came across the mountains, from out of all the world, for my +Prince's father was their counsellor. They came from behind the armies +of Sala-ud-Din: from Rome: from Venice: from England. They stole down +our alley, they tapped secretly at our door, they took off their rags, +they arrayed themselves, and they talked to my father at the wine. All +over the world the heathen fought each other. They brought news of these +wars, and while he played beneath the table, my Prince heard these +meanly dressed ones decide between themselves how, and when, and for how +long King should draw sword against King, and People rise up against +People. Why not? There can be no war without gold, and we Jews know how +the earth's gold moves with the seasons, and the crops, and the winds; +circling and looping and rising and sinking away like a river—a +wonderful underground river. How should the foolish Kings know <i>that</i> +while they fight and steal and kill?'</p> +<a name="page_291"></a><span class="pagenum">[291]</span> + +<p>The children's faces showed that they knew nothing at all as, with open +eyes, they trotted and turned beside the long-striding old man. He +twitched his gown over his shoulders, and a square plate of gold, +studded with jewels, gleamed for an instant through the fur, like a star +through flying snow.</p> + +<p>'No matter,' he said. 'But, credit me, my Prince saw peace or war +decided not once, but many times, by the fall of a coin spun between a +Jew from Bury and a Jewess from Alexandria, in his father's house, when +the Great Candle was lit. Such power had we Jews among the Gentiles. Ah, +my little Prince! Do you wonder that he learned quickly? Why not?' He +muttered to himself and went on:—</p> + +<p>'My trade was that of a physician. When I had learned it in Spain I went +to the East to find my Kingdom. Why not? A Jew is as free as a +sparrow—or a dog. He goes where he is hunted. In the East I found +libraries where men dared to think—schools of medicine where they dared +to learn. I was diligent in my business. Therefore I stood before Kings. +I have been a brother to Princes and a companion to beggars, and I have +walked between the living and the dead. There was no profit in it. I did +not find my Kingdom. So, in the tenth year of my travels, when I had +reached the Uttermost Eastern Sea, I returned to my father's house. God +had wonderfully preserved my people. None had been slain, none even +wounded, and only a few scourged. I became once more a son in my +father's house. +<a name="page_292"></a><span class="pagenum">[292]</span> +Again the Great Candle was lit; again the meanly +apparelled ones tapped on our door after dusk; and again I heard them +weigh out peace and war, as they weighed out the gold on the table. But +I was not rich—not very rich. Therefore, when those that had power and +knowledge and wealth talked together, I sat in the shadow. Why not?</p> + +<p>'Yet all my wanderings had shown me one sure thing, which is, that a +King without money is like a spear without a head. He cannot do much +harm. I said, therefore, to Elias of Bury, a great one among our people: +"Why do our people lend any more to the Kings that oppress us?" +"Because," said Elias, "if we refuse they stir up their people against +us, and the People are tenfold more cruel than Kings. If thou doubtest, +come with me to Bury in England and live as I live."</p> + +<p>'I saw my mother's face across the candle flame, and I said, "I will +come with thee to Bury. Maybe my Kingdom shall be there."</p> + +<p>'So I sailed with Elias to the darkness and the cruelty of Bury in +England, where there are no learned men. How can a man be wise if he +hate? At Bury I kept his accounts for Elias, and I saw men kill Jews +there by the tower. No—none laid hands on Elias. He lent money to the +King, and the King's favour was about him. A King will not take the life +so long as there is any gold. This King—yes, John—oppressed his people +bitterly because they would not give him money. Yet his land was a good +land. If he had only given it rest he might have cropped it as a +Christian +<a name="page_293"></a><span class="pagenum">[293]</span> +crops his beard. But even <i>that</i> little he did not know, for +God had deprived him of all understanding, and had multiplied +pestilence, and famine, and despair upon the people. Therefore his +people turned against us Jews, who are all people's dogs. Why not? +Lastly the Barons and the people rose together against the King because +of his cruelties. Nay—nay—the Barons did not love the people, but they +saw that if the King cut up and destroyed the common people, he would +presently destroy the Barons. They joined then, as cats and pigs will +join to slay a snake. I kept the accounts, and I watched all these +things, for I remembered the Prophecy.</p> + +<p>'A great gathering of Barons (to most of whom we had lent money) came to +Bury, and there, after much talk and a thousand runnings-about, they +made a roll of the New Laws that they would force on the King. If he +swore to keep those Laws, they would allow him a little money. That was +the King's God—Money—to waste. They showed us the roll of the New +Laws. Why not? We had lent them money. We knew all their counsels—we +Jews shivering behind our doors in Bury.' He threw out his hands +suddenly. 'We did not seek to be paid <i>all</i> in money. We sought +Power—Power—Power! That is <i>our</i> God in our captivity. Power to use!</p> + +<p>'I said to Elias: "These New Laws are good. Lend no more money to the +King: so long as he has money he will lie and slay the people."</p> + +<p>'"Nay," said Elias. "I know this people. They are madly cruel. Better +one King than a +<a name="page_294"></a><span class="pagenum">[294]</span> +thousand butchers. I have lent a little money to the +Barons, or they would torture us, but my most I will lend to the King. +He hath promised me a place near him at Court, where my wife and I shall +be safe."</p> + +<p>'"But if the King be made to keep these New Laws," I said, "the land +will have peace, and our trade will grow. If we lend he will fight +again."</p> + +<p>'"Who made thee a Lawgiver in England?" said Elias. "I know this people. +Let the dogs tear one another! I will lend the King ten thousand pieces +of gold, and he can fight the Barons at his pleasure."</p> + +<p>'"There are not two thousand pieces of gold in all England this summer," +I said, for I kept the accounts, and I knew how the earth's gold +moved—that wonderful underground river. Elias barred home the windows, +and, his hands about his mouth, he told me how, when he was trading with +small wares in a French ship, he had come to the Castle of Pevensey.'</p> + +<p>'Oh!' said Dan. 'Pevensey again!' and looked at Una, who nodded and +skipped.</p> + +<p>'There, after they had scattered his pack up and down the Great Hall, +some young knights carried him to an upper room, and dropped him into a +well in a wall, that rose and fell with the tide. They called him +Joseph, and threw torches at his wet head. Why not?'</p> + +<p>'Why, of course!' cried Dan. 'Didn't you know it was——' Puck held up +his hand to stop him, and Kadmiel, who never noticed, went on.</p> + +<p>'When the tide dropped he thought he stood on +<a name="page_295"></a><span class="pagenum">[295]</span> +old armour, but feeling +with his toes, he raked up bar on bar of soft gold. Some wicked treasure +of the old days put away, and the secret cut off by the sword. I have +heard the like before.'</p> + +<p>'So have we,' Una whispered. 'But it wasn't wicked a bit.'</p> + +<p>'Elias took a little of the stuff with him, and thrice yearly he would +return to Pevensey as a chapman, selling at no price or profit, till +they suffered him to sleep in the empty room, where he would plumb and +grope, and steal away a few bars. The great store of it still remained, +and by long brooding he had come to look on it as his own. Yet when we +thought how we should lift and convey it, we saw no way. This was before +the Word of the Lord had come to me. A walled fortress possessed by +Normans; in the midst a forty-foot tide-well out of which to remove +secretly many horse-loads of gold! Hopeless! So Elias wept. Adah, his +wife, wept too. She had hoped to stand beside the Queen's Christian +tiring-maids at Court when the King should give them that place at Court +which he had promised. Why not? She was born in England—an odious +woman.</p> + +<p>'The present evil to us was that Elias, out of his strong folly, had, as +it were, promised the King that he would arm him with more gold. +Wherefore the King in his camp stopped his ears against the Barons and +the people. Wherefore men died daily. Adah so desired her place at +Court, she besought Elias to tell the King where the treasure lay, that +the King might take it by force, and—they would trust in his gratitude. +<a name="page_296"></a><span class="pagenum">[296]</span> +Why not? This Elias refused to do, for he looked on the gold as his own. +They quarrelled, and they wept at the evening meal, and late in the +night came one Langton—a priest, almost learned—to borrow more money +for the Barons. Elias and Adah went to their chamber.'</p> + +<p>Kadmiel laughed scornfully in his beard. The shots across the valley +stopped as the shooting party changed their ground for the last beat.</p> + +<p>'So it was I, not Elias,' he went on quietly, 'that made terms with +Langton touching the fortieth of the New Laws.'</p> + +<p>'What terms?' said Puck quickly. 'The Fortieth of the Great Charter +says: "To none will we sell, refuse, or delay right or justice."'</p> + +<p>'True, but the Barons had written first: <i>To no free man</i>. It cost me +two hundred broad pieces of gold to change those narrow words. Langton, +the priest, understood. "Jew though thou art," said he, "the change is +just, and if ever Christian and Jew came to be equal in England thy +people may thank thee." Then he went out stealthily, as men do who deal +with Israel by night. I think he spent my gift upon his altar. Why not? +I have spoken with Langton. He was such a man as I might have been +if—if we Jews had been a people. But yet, in many things, a child.</p> + +<p>'I heard Elias and Adah abovestairs quarrel, and, knowing the woman was +the stronger, I saw that Elias would tell the King of the gold and that +the King would continue in his stubbornness. Therefore I saw that the +gold must be put away from the reach of any man. Of a sudden, the +<a name="page_297"></a><span class="pagenum">[297]</span> +Word of the Lord came to me saying, "The Morning is come, O thou that +dwellest in the land."'</p> + +<p>Kadmiel halted, all black against the pale green sky beyond the wood—a +huge robed figure, like the Moses in the picture-Bible.</p> + +<p>'I rose. I went out, and as I shut the door on that House of +Foolishness, the woman looked from the window and whispered, "I have +prevailed on my husband to tell the King!" I answered: "There is no +need. The Lord is with me."</p> + +<p>'In that hour the Lord gave me full understanding of all that I must do; +and His Hand covered me in my ways. First I went to London, to a +physician of our people, who sold me certain drugs that I needed. You +shall see why. Thence I went swiftly to Pevensey. Men fought all around +me, for there were neither rulers nor judges in the abominable land. Yet +when I walked by them they cried out that I was one Ahasuerus, a Jew, +condemned, as they believe, to live for ever, and they fled from me +everyways. Thus the Lord saved me for my work, and at Pevensey I bought +me a little boat and moored it on the mud beneath the Marsh-gate of the +Castle. That also God showed me.'</p> + +<p>He was as calm as though he were speaking of some stranger, and his +voice filled the little bare wood with rolling music.</p> + +<p>'I cast'—his hand went to his breast, and again the strange jewel +gleamed—'I cast the drugs which I had prepared into the common well of +<a name="page_298"></a><span class="pagenum">[298]</span> +the Castle. Nay, I did no harm. The more we physicians know, the less do +we do. Only the fool says: "I dare." I caused a blotched and itching +rash to break out upon their skins, but I knew it would fade in fifteen +days. I did not stretch out my hand against their life. They in the +Castle thought it was the Plague, and they ran out, taking with them +their very dogs.</p> + +<p>'A Christian physician, seeing that I was a Jew and a stranger, vowed +that I had brought the sickness from London. This is the one time I have +ever heard a Christian leech speak truth of any disease. Thereupon the +people beat me, but a merciful woman said: "Do not kill him now. Push +him into our Castle with his Plague, and if, as he says, it will abate +on the fifteenth day, we can kill him then." Why not? They drove me +across the drawbridge of the Castle, and fled back to their booths. Thus +I came to be alone with the treasure.'</p> + +<p>'But did you know this was all going to happen just right?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'My Prophecy was that I should be a Lawgiver to a People of a strange +land and a hard speech. I knew I should not die. I washed my cuts. I +found the tide-well in the wall, and from Sabbath to Sabbath I dove and +dug there in that empty, Christian-smelling fortress. Hé! I spoiled the +Egyptians! Hé! If they had only known! I drew up many good loads of +gold, which I loaded by night into my boat. There had been gold-dust +too, but that had been washed out by the tides.'</p> +<hr /> +<a name="page_299"></a><span class="pagenum">[299]</span> +<center> +<a href="./images/page_299_full.png"> +<img src="./images/page_299.png" height="623" width="400" alt="'They drove me across the drawbridge'" /> +</a> +<div class="caption">'They drove me across the drawbridge'</div> +</center> +<hr /> +<a name="page_301"></a><span class="pagenum">[301]</span> + +<p>'Didn't you ever wonder who had put it there?' said Dan, stealing a +glance at Puck's calm, dark face under the hood of his gown. Puck shook +his head and pursed his lips.</p> + +<p>'Often; for the gold was new to me,' Kadmiel replied. 'I know the Golds. +I can judge them in the dark; but this was heavier and redder than any +we deal in. Perhaps it was the very gold of Parvaim. Eh, why not? It +went to my heart to heave it on to the mud, but I saw well that if the +evil thing remained, or if even the hope of finding it remained, the +King would not sign the New Laws, and the land would perish.'</p> + +<p>'Oh, Marvel!' said Puck, beneath his breath, rustling in the dead +leaves.</p> + +<p>'When the boat was loaded I washed my hands seven times, and pared +beneath my nails, for I would not keep one grain. I went out by the +little gate where the Castle's refuse is thrown. I dared not hoist sail +lest men should see me; but the Lord commanded the tide to bear me +carefully, and I was far from land before the morning.'</p> + +<p>'Weren't you afraid?' said Una.</p> + +<p>'Why? There were no Christians in the boat. At sunrise I made my prayer, +and cast the gold—all—all that gold—into the deep sea! A King's +ransom—no, the ransom of a People! When I had loosed hold of the last +bar, the Lord commanded the tide to return me to a haven at the mouth of +a river, and thence I walked across a wilderness to Lewes, where I have +brethren. They opened the door to me, and they say—I had not eaten for +two days—they say that I fell across +<a name="page_302"></a><span class="pagenum">[302]</span> +the threshold, crying: "I have +sunk an army with horsemen in the sea!"'</p> + +<p>'But you hadn't,' said Una. 'Oh, yes! I see! You meant that King John +might have spent it on that?'</p> + +<p>'Even so,' said Kadmiel.</p> + +<p>The firing broke out again close behind them. The pheasants poured over +the top of a belt of tall firs. They could see young Mr Meyer, in his +new yellow gaiters, very busy and excited at the end of the line, and +they could hear the thud of the falling birds.</p> + +<p>'But what did Elias of Bury do?' Puck demanded. 'He had promised money +to the King.'</p> + +<p>Kadmiel smiled grimly. 'I sent him word from London that the Lord was on +my side. When he heard that the Plague had broken out in Pevensey, and +that a Jew had been thrust into the Castle to cure it, he understood my +word was true. He and Adah hurried to Lewes and asked me for an +accounting. He still looked on the gold as his own. I told them where I +had laid it, and I gave them full leave to pick it up ... Eh, well! The +curses of a fool and the dust of a journey are two things no wise man +can escape ... But I pitied Elias! The King was wroth with him because +he could not lend; the Barons were wroth too because they heard that he +would have lent to the King; and Adah was wroth with him because she was +an odious woman. They took ship from Lewes to Spain. That was wise!'</p> + +<p>'And you? Did you see the signing of +<a name="page_303"></a><span class="pagenum">[303]</span> +the Law at Runnymede?' said Puck, as Kadmiel laughed noiselessly.</p> + +<p>'Nay. Who am I to meddle with things too high for me? I returned to +Bury, and lent money on the autumn crops. Why not?'</p> + +<p>There was a crackle overhead. A cock-pheasant that had sheered aside +after being hit spattered down almost on top of them, driving up the dry +leaves like a shell. <i>Flora</i> and <i>Folly</i> threw themselves at it; the +children rushed forward, and when they had beaten them off and smoothed +down the plumage Kadmiel had disappeared.</p> + +<p>'Well,' said Puck calmly, 'what did you think of it? Weland gave the +Sword! The Sword gave the Treasure, and the Treasure gave the Law. It's +as natural as an oak growing.'</p> + +<p>'I don't understand. Didn't he know it was Sir Richard's old treasure?' +said Dan. 'And why did Sir Richard and Brother Hugh leave it lying +about? And—and——'</p> + +<p>'Never mind,' said Una politely. 'He'll let us come and go and look and +know another time. Won't you, Puck?'</p> + +<p>'Another time maybe,' Puck answered. 'Brr! It's cold—and late. I'll +race you towards home!'</p> + +<p>They hurried down into the sheltered valley. The sun had almost sunk +behind Cherry Clack, the trodden ground by the cattle-gates was freezing +at the edges, and the new-waked north wind blew the night on them from +over the hills. They picked up their feet and flew across the browned +pastures, and when they halted, panting in the steam of their own +breath, the dead leaves <a name="page_304"></a><span class="pagenum">[304]</span> +whirled up behind them. There was Oak and Ash +and Thorn enough in that year-end shower to magic away a thousand +memories.</p> + +<p>So they trotted to the brook at the bottom of the lawn, wondering why +<i>Flora</i> and <i>Folly</i> had missed the quarry-hole fox.</p> + +<p>Old Hobden was just finishing some hedge-work. They saw his white smock +glimmer in the twilight where he faggoted the rubbish.</p> + +<p>'Winter, he's come, I reckon, Mus' Dan,' he called. 'Hard times now till +Heffle Cuckoo Fair. Yes, we'll all be glad to see the Old Woman let the +Cuckoo out o' the basket for to start lawful Spring in England.'</p> + +<p>They heard a crash, and a stamp and a splash of water as though a heavy +old cow were crossing almost under their noses.</p> + +<p>Hobden ran forward angrily to the ford.</p> + +<p>'Gleason's bull again, playin' Robin all over the Farm! Oh, look, Mus' +Dan—his great footmark as big as a trencher. No bounds to his +impidence! He might count himself to be a man or—or Somebody——'</p> + +<p>A voice the other side of the brook boomed:</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span>'I wonder who his cloak would turn</span> +<span>When Puck had led him round,</span> +<span>Or where those walking fires would burn——'</span> +</div> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p>Then the children went in singing 'Farewell Rewards and Fairies' at the +tops of their voices. They had forgotten that they had not even said +good-night to Puck.</p> + + +<a name="page_304"></a><span class="pagenum">[305]</span> +<h4>THE CHILDREN'S SONG</h4> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee</i></span> +<span><i>Our love and toil in the years to be;</i></span> +<span><i>When we are grown and take our place,</i></span> +<span><i>As men and women with our race.</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Father in Heaven Who lovest all,</span> +<span>Oh, help Thy children when they call;</span> +<span>That they may build from age to age,</span> +<span>An undefiled heritage.</span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Teach us to bear the yoke in youth,</span> +<span>With steadfastness and careful truth;</span> +<span>That, in our time, Thy Grace may give</span> +<span>The Truth whereby the Nations live.</span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Teach us to rule ourselves alway,</span> +<span>Controlled and cleanly night and day;</span> +<span>That we may bring, if need arise,</span> +<span>No maimed or worthless sacrifice.</span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Teach us to look in all our ends,</span> +<span>On Thee for judge, and not our friends;</span> +<span>That we, with Thee, may walk uncowed</span> +<span>By fear or favour of the crowd.</span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Teach us the Strength that cannot seek,</span> +<span>By deed or thought, to hurt the weak;</span> +<span>That, under Thee, we may possess</span> +<span>Man's strength to comfort man's distress.</span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Teach us Delight in simple things,</span> +<span>And Mirth that has no bitter springs;</span> +<span>Forgiveness free of evil done,</span> +<span>And Love to all men 'neath the sun!</span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><i>Land of our Birth, our faith, our pride,</i></span> +<span><i>For whose dear sake our fathers died;</i></span> +<span><i>O Motherland, we pledge to thee</i></span> +<span><i>Head, heart and hand through the years to be!</i></span> +</div></div> +<hr /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Puck of Pook's Hill, by Rudyard Kipling + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUCK OF POOK'S HILL *** + +***** This file should be named 15976-h.htm or 15976-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/9/7/15976/ + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc20799 --- /dev/null +++ b/15976-h/images/page_95_full.png diff --git a/15976-h/images/title.png b/15976-h/images/title.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..818a486 --- /dev/null +++ b/15976-h/images/title.png diff --git a/15976.txt b/15976.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d3a4a12 --- /dev/null +++ b/15976.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7326 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Puck of Pook's Hill, by Rudyard Kipling + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Puck of Pook's Hill + +Author: Rudyard Kipling + +Illustrator: Harold Robert Millar + +Release Date: June 3, 2005 [EBook #15976] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUCK OF POOK'S HILL *** + + + + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer + + + + + + +Transcriber's note: This text was based on the 1996 plain ASCII +text created by Jo Churcher, Scarborough, Ontario (jchurche@io.org), +then proofread against a 1911 reprint of a 1906 edition (Macmillan & +Co. Ltd., London). +The illustrations by H.R. Millar have been omitted from this text-only +version. + +--------------------------------------------------------------------- + + + + PUCK OF POOK'S HILL + by + RUDYARD KIPLING + + + + +CONTENTS + + +Weland's Sword +Young Men at the Manor +The Knights of the Joyous Venture +Old Men at Pevensey +A Centurion of the Thirtieth +On the Great Wall +The Winged Hats +Hal o' the Draft +'Dymchurch Flit' +The Treasure and the Law + + + + +WELAND'S SWORD + + +Puck's Song + + +See you the dimpled track that runs, + All hollow through the wheat? +O that was where they hauled the guns + That smote King Philip's fleet! + +See you our little mill that clacks, + So busy by the brook? +She has ground her corn and paid her tax + Ever since Domesday Book. + +See you our stilly woods of oak, + And the dread ditch beside? +O that was where the Saxons broke, + On the day that Harold died! + +See you the windy levels spread + About the gates of Rye? +O that was where the Northmen fled, + When Alfred's ships came by! + +See you our pastures wide and lone, + Where the red oxen browse? +O there was a City thronged and known, + Ere London boasted a house! + +And see you, after rain, the trace + Of mound and ditch and wall? +O that was a Legion's camping-place, + When Caesar sailed from Gaul! + +And see you marks that show and fade, + Like shadows on the Downs? +O they are the lines the Flint Men made, + To guard their wondrous towns! + +Trackway and Camp and City lost, + Salt Marsh where now is corn; +Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease, + And so was England born! + +She is not any common Earth, + Water or Wood or Air, +But Merlin's Isle of Gramarye, + Where you and I will fare. + + +The children were at the Theatre, acting to Three Cows as much as they +could remember of _Midsummer Night's Dream_. Their father had made them +a small play out of the big Shakespeare one, and they had rehearsed it +with him and with their mother till they could say it by heart. They +began when Nick Bottom the weaver comes out of the bushes with a +donkey's head on his shoulders, and finds Titania, Queen of the Fairies, +asleep. Then they skipped to the part where Bottom asks three little +fairies to scratch his head and bring him honey, and they ended where he +falls asleep in Titania's arms. Dan was Puck and Nick Bottom, as well as +all three Fairies. He wore a pointy-eared cloth cap for Puck, and a +paper donkey's head out of a Christmas cracker--but it tore if you were +not careful--for Bottom. Una was Titania, with a wreath of columbines +and a foxglove wand. + +The Theatre lay in a meadow called the Long Slip. A little mill-stream, +carrying water to a mill two or three fields away, bent round one corner +of it, and in the middle of the bend lay a large old Fairy Ring of +darkened grass, which was the stage. The millstream banks, overgrown +with willow, hazel, and guelder-rose, made convenient places to wait in +till your turn came; and a grown-up who had seen it said that +Shakespeare himself could not have imagined a more suitable setting for +his play. They were not, of course, allowed to act on Midsummer Night +itself, but they went down after tea on Midsummer Eve, when the shadows +were growing, and they took their supper--hard-boiled eggs, Bath Oliver +biscuits, and salt in an envelope--with them. Three Cows had been milked +and were grazing steadily with a tearing noise that one could hear all +down the meadow; and the noise of the Mill at work sounded like bare +feet running on hard ground. A cuckoo sat on a gate-post singing his +broken June tune, 'cuckoo-cuk', while a busy kingfisher crossed from the +mill-stream, to the brook which ran on the other side of the meadow. +Everything else was a sort of thick, sleepy stillness smelling of +meadow-sweet and dry grass. + +Their play went beautifully. Dan remembered all his parts--Puck, Bottom, +and the three Fairies--and Una never forgot a word of Titania--not even +the difficult piece where she tells the Fairies how to feed Bottom with +'apricocks, green figs, and dewberries', and all the lines end in 'ies'. +They were both so pleased that they acted it three times over from +beginning to end before they sat down in the unthistly centre of the +Ring to eat eggs and Bath Olivers. This was when they heard a whistle +among the alders on the bank, and they jumped. + +The bushes parted. In the very spot where Dan had stood as Puck they saw +a small, brown, broad-shouldered, pointy-eared person with a snub nose, +slanting blue eyes, and a grin that ran right across his freckled face. +He shaded his forehead as though he were watching Quince, Snout, Bottom, +and the others rehearsing _Pyramus and Thisbe_, and, in a voice as deep +as Three Cows asking to be milked, he began: + +'What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here, +So near the cradle of our fairy Queen?' + +He stopped, hollowed one hand round his ear, and, with a wicked twinkle +in his eye, went on: + +'What, a play toward? I'll be auditor; +An actor, too, perhaps, if I see cause.' + +The children looked and gasped. The small thing--he was no taller than +Dan's shoulder--stepped quietly into the Ring. + +'I'm rather out of practice,' said he; 'but that's the way my part ought +to be played.' + +Still the children stared at him--from his dark-blue cap, like a big +columbine flower, to his bare, hairy feet. At last he laughed. + +'Please don't look like that. It isn't my fault. What else could you +expect?' he said. + +'We didn't expect any one,' Dan answered, slowly. 'This is our field.' + +'Is it?' said their visitor, sitting down. 'Then what on Human Earth +made you act _Midsummer Night's Dream_ three times over, _on_ Midsummer +Eve, _in_ the middle of a Ring, and under--right _under_ one of my +oldest hills in Old England? Pook's Hill--Puck's Hill--Puck's +Hill--Pook's Hill! It's as plain as the nose on my face.' + +He pointed to the bare, fern-covered slope of Pook's Hill that runs up +from the far side of the mill-stream to a dark wood. Beyond that wood +the ground rises and rises for five hundred feet, till at last you climb +out on the bare top of Beacon Hill, to look over the Pevensey Levels and +the Channel and half the naked South Downs. + +'By Oak, Ash, and Thorn!' he cried, still laughing. 'If this had +happened a few hundred years ago you'd have had all the People of the +Hills out like bees in June!' + +'We didn't know it was wrong,' said Dan. + +'Wrong!' The little fellow shook with laughter. 'Indeed, it isn't wrong. +You've done something that Kings and Knights and Scholars in old days +would have given their crowns and spurs and books to find out. If Merlin +himself had helped you, you couldn't have managed better! You've broken +the Hills--you've broken the Hills! It hasn't happened in a thousand +years.' + +'We--we didn't mean to,' said Una. + +'Of course you didn't! That's just why you did it. Unluckily the Hills +are empty now, and all the People of the Hills are gone. I'm the only +one left. I'm Puck, the oldest Old Thing in England, very much at your +service if--if you care to have anything to do with me. If you don't, of +course you've only to say so, and I'll go.' + +He looked at the children, and the children looked at him for quite half +a minute. His eyes did not twinkle any more. They were very kind, and +there was the beginning of a good smile on his lips. + +Una put out her hand. 'Don't go,' she said. 'We like you.' + +'Have a Bath Oliver,' said Dan, and he passed over the squashy envelope +with the eggs. + +'By Oak, Ash and Thorn,' cried Puck, taking off his blue cap, 'I like +you too. Sprinkle a plenty salt on the biscuit, Dan, and I'll eat it +with you. That'll show you the sort of person I am. Some of us'--he went +on, with his mouth full--'couldn't abide Salt, or Horse-shoes over a +door, or Mountain-ash berries, or Running Water, or Cold Iron, or the +sound of Church Bells. But I'm Puck!' + +He brushed the crumbs carefully from his doublet and shook hands. + +'We always said, Dan and I,' Una stammered, 'that if it ever happened +we'd know ex-actly what to do; but--but now it seems all different +somehow.' + +'She means meeting a fairy,' said Dan. 'I never believed in 'em--not +after I was six, anyhow.' + +'I did,' said Una. 'At least, I sort of half believed till we learned +"Farewell Rewards". Do you know "Farewell Rewards and Fairies"?' + +'Do you mean this?' said Puck. He threw his big head back and began at +the second line: + + 'Good housewives now may say, +For now foul sluts in dairies + Do fare as well as they; +And though they sweep their hearths no less + +('Join in, Una!') + +Than maids were wont to do, +Yet who of late for cleanliness +Finds sixpence in her shoe?' + +The echoes flapped all along the flat meadow. + +'Of course I know it,' he said. + +'And then there's the verse about the rings,' said Dan. 'When I was +little it always made me feel unhappy in my inside.' + +'"Witness those rings and roundelays", do you mean?' boomed Puck, with a +voice like a great church organ. + + 'Of theirs which yet remain, +Were footed in Queen Mary's days + On many a grassy plain, +But since of late Elizabeth, + And, later, James came in, +Are never seen on any heath + As when the time hath been.' + +'It's some time since I heard that sung, but there's no good beating +about the bush: it's true. The People of the Hills have all left. I saw +them come into Old England and I saw them go. Giants, trolls, kelpies, +brownies, goblins, imps; wood, tree, mound, and water spirits; +heath-people, hill-watchers, treasure-guards, good people, little +people, pishogues, leprechauns, night-riders, pixies, nixies, gnomes, +and the rest--gone, all gone! I came into England with Oak, Ash and +Thorn, and when Oak, Ash and Thorn are gone I shall go too.' + +Dan looked round the meadow--at Una's Oak by the lower gate; at the line +of ash trees that overhang Otter Pool where the mill-stream spills over +when the Mill does not need it, and at the gnarled old white-thorn where +Three Cows scratched their necks. + +'It's all right,' he said; and added, 'I'm planting a lot of acorns this +autumn too.' + +'Then aren't you most awfully old?' said Una. + +'Not old--fairly long-lived, as folk say hereabouts. Let me see--my +friends used to set my dish of cream for me o' nights when Stonehenge +was new. Yes, before the Flint Men made the Dewpond under Chanctonbury +Ring.' + +Una clasped her hands, cried 'Oh!' and nodded her head. + +'She's thought a plan,' Dan explained. 'She always does like that when +she thinks a plan.' + +'I was thinking--suppose we saved some of our porridge and put it in the +attic for you? They'd notice if we left it in the nursery.' + +'Schoolroom,' said Dan quickly, and Una flushed, because they had made a +solemn treaty that summer not to call the schoolroom the nursery any +more. + +'Bless your heart o' gold!' said Puck. 'You'll make a fine considering +wench some market-day. I really don't want you to put out a bowl for me; +but if ever I need a bite, be sure I'll tell you.' + +He stretched himself at length on the dry grass, and the children +stretched out beside him, their bare legs waving happily in the air. +They felt they could not be afraid of him any more than of their +particular friend old Hobden the hedger. He did not bother them with +grown-up questions, or laugh at the donkey's head, but lay and smiled to +himself in the most sensible way. + +'Have you a knife on you?' he said at last. + +Dan handed over his big one-bladed outdoor knife, and Puck began to +carve out a piece of turf from the centre of the Ring. + +'What's that for--Magic?' said Una, as he pressed up the square of +chocolate loam that cut like so much cheese. + +'One of my little magics,' he answered, and cut another. 'You see, I +can't let you into the Hills because the People of the Hills have gone; +but if you care to take seizin from me, I may be able to show you +something out of the common here on Human Earth. You certainly deserve +it.' + +'What's taking seizin?' said Dan, cautiously. + +'It's an old custom the people had when they bought and sold land. They +used to cut out a clod and hand it over to the buyer, and you weren't +lawfully seized of your land--it didn't really belong to you--till the +other fellow had actually given you a piece of it--like this.' He held +out the turves. + +'But it's our own meadow,' said Dan, drawing back. 'Are you going to +magic it away?' + +Puck laughed. 'I know it's your meadow, but there's a great deal more in +it than you or your father ever guessed. Try!' + +He turned his eyes on Una. + +'I'll do it,' she said. Dan followed her example at once. + +'Now are you two lawfully seized and possessed of all Old England,' +began Puck, in a sing-song voice. 'By right of Oak, Ash, and Thorn are +you free to come and go and look and know where I shall show or best you +please. You shall see What you shall see and you shall hear What you +shall hear, though It shall have happened three thousand year; and you +shall know neither Doubt nor Fear. Fast! Hold fast all I give you.' + +The children shut their eyes, but nothing happened. + +'Well?' said Una, disappointedly opening them. 'I thought there would be +dragons.' + +'"Though It shall have happened three thousand year,"' said Puck, and +counted on his fingers. 'No; I'm afraid there were no dragons three +thousand years ago.' + +'But there hasn't happened anything at all,' said Dan. + +'Wait awhile,' said Puck. 'You don't grow an oak in a year--and Old +England's older than twenty oaks. Let's sit down again and think. _I_ +can do that for a century at a time.' + +'Ah, but you're a fairy,' said Dan. + +'Have you ever heard me say that word yet?' said Puck quickly. + +'No. You talk about "the People of the Hills", but you never say +"fairies",' said Una. 'I was wondering at that. Don't you like it?' + +'How would you like to be called "mortal" or "human being" all the +time?' said Puck; 'or "son of Adam" or "daughter of Eve"?' + +'I shouldn't like it at all,' said Dan. 'That's how the Djinns and +Afrits talk in the _Arabian Nights_.' + +'And that's how _I_ feel about saying--that word that I don't say. +Besides, what you call them are made-up things the People of the Hills +have never heard of--little buzzflies with butterfly wings and gauze +petticoats, and shiny stars in their hair, and a wand like a +schoolteacher's cane for punishing bad boys and rewarding good ones. _I_ +know 'em!' + +'We don't mean that sort,' said Dan. 'We hate 'em too.' + +'Exactly,' said Puck. 'Can you wonder that the People of the Hills don't +care to be confused with that painty-winged, wand-waving, +sugar-and-shake-your-head set of impostors? Butterfly wings, indeed! +I've seen Sir Huon and a troop of his people setting off from Tintagel +Castle for Hy-Brasil in the teeth of a sou'-westerly gale, with the +spray flying all over the Castle, and the Horses of the Hills wild with +fright. Out they'd go in a lull, screaming like gulls, and back they'd +be driven five good miles inland before they could come head to wind +again. Butterfly-wings! It was Magic--Magic as black as Merlin could +make it, and the whole sea was green fire and white foam with singing +mermaids in it. And the Horses of the Hills picked their way from one +wave to another by the lightning flashes! _That_ was how it was in the +old days!' + +'Splendid,' said Dan, but Una shuddered. + +'I'm glad they're gone, then; but what made the People of the Hills go +away?' Una asked. + +'Different things. I'll tell you one of them some day--the thing that +made the biggest flit of any,' said Puck. 'But they didn't all flit at +once. They dropped off, one by one, through the centuries. Most of them +were foreigners who couldn't stand our climate. _They_ flitted early.' + +'How early?' said Dan. + +'A couple of thousand years or more. The fact is they began as Gods. The +Phoenicians brought some over when they came to buy tin; and the Gauls, +and the Jutes, and the Danes, and the Frisians, and the Angles brought +more when they landed. They were always landing in those days, or being +driven back to their ships, and they always brought their Gods with +them. England is a bad country for Gods. Now, _I_ began as I mean to go +on. A bowl of porridge, a dish of milk, and a little quiet fun with the +country folk in the lanes was enough for me then, as it is now. I belong +here, you see, and I have been mixed up with people all my days. But +most of the others insisted on being Gods, and having temples, and +altars, and priests, and sacrifices of their own.' + +'People burned in wicker baskets?' said Dan. 'Like Miss Blake tells us +about?' + +'All sorts of sacrifices,' said Puck. 'If it wasn't men, it was horses, +or cattle, or pigs, or metheglin--that's a sticky, sweet sort of beer. +_I_ never liked it. They were a stiff-necked, extravagant set of idols, +the Old Things. But what was the result? Men don't like being sacrificed +at the best of times; they don't even like sacrificing their +farm-horses. After a while, men simply left the Old Things alone, and +the roofs of their temples fell in, and the Old Things had to scuttle +out and pick up a living as they could. Some of them took to hanging +about trees, and hiding in graves and groaning o' nights. If they +groaned loud enough and long enough they might frighten a poor +countryman into sacrificing a hen, or leaving a pound of butter for +them. I remember one Goddess called Belisama. She became a common wet +water-spirit somewhere in Lancashire. And there were hundreds of other +friends of mine. First they were Gods. Then they were People of the +Hills, and then they flitted to other places because they couldn't get +on with the English for one reason or another. There was only one Old +Thing, I remember, who honestly worked for his living after he came down +in the world. He was called Weland, and he was a smith to some Gods. +I've forgotten their names, but he used to make them swords and spears. +I think he claimed kin with Thor of the Scandinavians.' + +'_Heroes of Asgard_ Thor?' said Una. She had been reading the book. + +'Perhaps,' answered Puck. 'None the less, when bad times came, he didn't +beg or steal. He worked; and I was lucky enough to be able to do him a +good turn.' + +'Tell us about it,' said Dan. 'I think I like hearing of Old Things.' + +They rearranged themselves comfortably, each chewing a grass stem. Puck +propped himself on one strong arm and went on: + +'Let's think! I met Weland first on a November afternoon in a sleet +storm, on Pevensey Level----' + +'Pevensey? Over the hill, you mean?' Dan pointed south. + +'Yes; but it was all marsh in those days, right up to Horsebridge and +Hydeneye. I was on Beacon Hill--they called it Brunanburgh then--when I +saw the pale flame that burning thatch makes, and I went down to look. +Some pirates--I think they must have been Peofn's men--were burning a +village on the Levels, and Weland's image--a big, black wooden thing +with amber beads round his neck--lay in the bows of a black +thirty-two-oar galley that they had just beached. Bitter cold it was! +There were icicles hanging from her deck and the oars were glazed over +with ice, and there was ice on Weland's lips. When he saw me he began a +long chant in his own tongue, telling me how he was going to rule +England, and how I should smell the smoke of his altars from +Lincolnshire to the Isle of Wight. I didn't care! I'd seen too many Gods +charging into Old England to be upset about it. I let him sing himself +out while his men were burning the village, and then I said (I don't +know what put it into my head), "Smith of the Gods," I said, "the time +comes when I shall meet you plying your trade for hire by the wayside."' + +'What did Weland say?' said Una. 'Was he angry?' + +'He called me names and rolled his eyes, and I went away to wake up the +people inland. But the pirates conquered the country, and for centuries +Weland was a most important God. He had temples everywhere--from +Lincolnshire to the Isle of Wight, as he said--and his sacrifices were +simply scandalous. To do him justice, he preferred horses to men; but +men or horses, I knew that presently he'd have to come down in the +world--like the other Old Things. I gave him lots of time--I gave him +about a thousand years--and at the end of 'em I went into one of his +temples near Andover to see how he prospered. There was his altar, and +there was his image, and there were his priests, and there were the +congregation, and everybody seemed quite happy, except Weland and the +priests. In the old days the congregation were unhappy until the priests +had chosen their sacrifices; and so would you have been. When the +service began a priest rushed out, dragged a man up to the altar, +pretended to hit him on the head with a little gilt axe, and the man +fell down and pretended to die. Then everybody shouted: "A sacrifice to +Weland! A sacrifice to Weland!"' + +'And the man wasn't really dead?' said Una. + +'Not a bit. All as much pretence as a dolls' tea-party. Then they +brought out a splendid white horse, and the priest cut some hair from +its mane and tail and burned it on the altar, shouting, "A sacrifice!" +That counted the same as if a man and a horse had been killed. I saw +poor Weland's face through the smoke, and I couldn't help laughing. He +looked so disgusted and so hungry, and all he had to satisfy himself was +a horrid smell of burning hair. Just a dolls' tea-party! + +'I judged it better not to say anything then ('twouldn't have been +fair), and the next time I came to Andover, a few hundred years later, +Weland and his temple were gone, and there was a Christian bishop in a +church there. None of the People of the Hills could tell me anything +about him, and I supposed that he had left England.' Puck turned; lay on +the other elbow, and thought for a long time. + +'Let's see,' he said at last. 'It must have been some few years later--a +year or two before the Conquest, I think--that I came back to Pook's +Hill here, and one evening I heard old Hobden talking about Weland's +Ford.' + +'If you mean old Hobden the hedger, he's only seventy-two. He told me so +himself,' said Dan. 'He's a intimate friend of ours.' + +'You're quite right,' Puck replied. 'I meant old Hobden's ninth +great-grandfather. He was a free man and burned charcoal hereabouts. +I've known the family, father and son, so long that I get confused +sometimes. Hob of the Dene was my Hobden's name, and he lived at the +Forge cottage. Of course, I pricked up my ears when I heard Weland +mentioned, and I scuttled through the woods to the Ford just beyond Bog +Wood yonder.' He jerked his head westward, where the valley narrows +between wooded hills and steep hop-fields. + +'Why, that's Willingford Bridge,' said Una. 'We go there for walks +often. There's a kingfisher there.' + +'It was Weland's Ford then, dear. A road led down to it from the Beacon +on the top of the hill--a shocking bad road it was--and all the hillside +was thick, thick oak-forest, with deer in it. There was no trace of +Weland, but presently I saw a fat old farmer riding down from the Beacon +under the greenwood tree. His horse had cast a shoe in the clay, and +when he came to the Ford he dismounted, took a penny out of his purse, +laid it on a stone, tied the old horse to an oak, and called out: +"Smith, Smith, here is work for you!" Then he sat down and went to +sleep. You can imagine how _I_ felt when I saw a white-bearded, bent old +blacksmith in a leather apron creep out from behind the oak and begin to +shoe the horse. It was Weland himself. I was so astonished that I jumped +out and said: "What on Human Earth are you doing here, Weland?"' + +'Poor Weland!' sighed Una. + +'He pushed the long hair back from his forehead (he didn't recognize me +at first). Then he said: "_You_ ought to know. You foretold it, Old +Thing. I'm shoeing horses for hire. I'm not even Weland now," he said. +"They call me Wayland-Smith."' + +'Poor chap!' said Dan. 'What did you say?' + +'What could I say? He looked up, with the horse's foot on his lap, and +he said, smiling, "I remember the time when I wouldn't have accepted +this old bag of bones as a sacrifice, and now I'm glad enough to shoe +him for a penny." + +'"Isn't there any way for you to get back to Valhalla, or wherever you +come from?" I said. + +'"I'm afraid not," he said, rasping away at the hoof. He had a wonderful +touch with horses. The old beast was whinnying on his shoulder. "You may +remember that I was not a gentle God in my Day and my Time and my Power. +I shall never be released till some human being truly wishes me well." + +'"Surely," said I, "the farmer can't do less than that. You're shoeing +the horse all round for him." + +'"Yes," said he, "and my nails will hold a shoe from one full moon to +the next. But farmers and Weald clay," said he, "are both uncommon cold +and sour." + +'Would you believe it, that when that farmer woke and found his horse +shod he rode away without one word of thanks? I was so angry that I +wheeled his horse right round and walked him back three miles to the +Beacon, just to teach the old sinner politeness.' + +'Were you invisible?' said Una. Puck nodded, gravely. + +'The Beacon was always laid in those days ready to light, in case the +French landed at Pevensey; and I walked the horse about and about it +that lee-long summer night. The farmer thought he was bewitched--well, +he _was_, of course--and began to pray and shout. _I_ didn't care! I was +as good a Christian as he any fair-day in the County, and about four +o'clock in the morning a young novice came along from the monastery that +used to stand on the top of Beacon Hill.' + +'What's a novice?' said Dan. + +'It really means a man who is beginning to be a monk, but in those days +people sent their sons to a monastery just the same as a school. This +young fellow had been to a monastery in France for a few months every +year, and he was finishing his studies in the monastery close to his +home here. Hugh was his name, and he had got up to go fishing +hereabouts. His people owned all this valley. Hugh heard the farmer +shouting, and asked him what in the world he meant. The old man spun him +a wonderful tale about fairies and goblins and witches; and I _know_ he +hadn't seen a thing except rabbits and red deer all that night. (The +People of the Hills are like otters--they don't show except when they +choose.) But the novice wasn't a fool. He looked down at the horse's +feet, and saw the new shoes fastened as only Weland knew how to fasten +'em. (Weland had a way of turning down the nails that folks called the +Smith's Clinch.) + +'"H'm!" said the novice. "Where did you get your horse shod?" + +'The farmer wouldn't tell him at first, because the priests never liked +their people to have any dealings with the Old Things. At last he +confessed that the Smith had done it. "What did you pay him?" said the +novice. "Penny," said the farmer, very sulkily. "That's less than a +Christian would have charged," said the novice. "I hope you threw a +'Thank you' into the bargain." "No," said the farmer; "Wayland-Smith's a +heathen." "Heathen or no heathen," said the novice, "you took his help, +and where you get help there you must give thanks." "What?" said the +farmer--he was in a furious temper because I was walking the old horse +in circles all this time--"What, you young jackanapes?" said he. "Then +by your reasoning I ought to say 'Thank you' to Satan if he helped me?" +"Don't roll about up there splitting reasons with me," said the novice. +"Come back to the Ford and thank the Smith, or you'll be sorry." + +'Back the farmer had to go. I led the horse, though no one saw me, and +the novice walked beside us, his gown swishing through the shiny dew and +his fishing-rod across his shoulders, spear-wise. When we reached the +Ford again--it was five o'clock and misty still under the oaks--the +farmer simply wouldn't say "Thank you." He said he'd tell the Abbot that +the novice wanted him to worship heathen Gods. Then Hugh the novice lost +his temper. He just cried, "Out!" put his arm under the farmer's fat +leg, and heaved him from his saddle on to the turf, and before he could +rise he caught him by the back of the neck and shook him like a rat till +the farmer growled, "Thank you, Wayland-Smith."' + +'Did Weland see all this?' said Dan. + +'Oh yes, and he shouted his old war-cry when the farmer thudded on to +the ground. He was delighted. Then the novice turned to the oak tree and +said, "Ho, Smith of the Gods! I am ashamed of this rude farmer; but for +all you have done in kindness and charity to him and to others of our +people, I thank you and wish you well." Then he picked up his +fishing-rod--it looked more like a tall spear than ever--and tramped off +down your valley.' + +'And what did poor Weland do?' said Una. + +'He laughed and he cried with joy, because he had been released at last, +and could go away. But he was an honest Old Thing. He had worked for his +living and he paid his debts before he left. "I shall give that novice a +gift," said Weland. "A gift that shall do him good the wide world over +and Old England after him. Blow up my fire, Old Thing, while I get the +iron for my last task." Then he made a sword--a dark-grey, wavy-lined +sword--and I blew the fire while he hammered. By Oak, Ash and Thorn, I +tell you, Weland was a Smith of the Gods! He cooled that sword in +running water twice, and the third time he cooled it in the evening dew, +and he laid it out in the moonlight and said Runes (that's charms) over +it, and he carved Runes of Prophecy on the blade. "Old Thing," he said +to me, wiping his forehead, "this is the best blade that Weland ever +made. Even the user will never know how good it is. Come to the +monastery." + +'We went to the dormitory where the monks slept, we saw the novice fast +asleep in his cot, and Weland put the sword into his hand, and I +remember the young fellow gripped it in his sleep. Then Weland strode as +far as he dared into the Chapel and threw down all his +shoeing-tools--his hammers and pincers and rasps--to show that he had +done with them for ever. It sounded like suits of armour falling, and +the sleepy monks ran in, for they thought the monastery had been +attacked by the French. The novice came first of all, waving his new +sword and shouting Saxon battle-cries. When they saw the shoeing-tools +they were very bewildered, till the novice asked leave to speak, and +told what he had done to the farmer, and what he had said to +Wayland-Smith, and how, though the dormitory light was burning, he had +found the wonderful rune-carved sword in his cot. + +'The Abbot shook his head at first, and then he laughed and said to the +novice: "Son Hugh, it needed no sign from a heathen God to show me that +you will never be a monk. Take your sword, and keep your sword, and go +with your sword, and be as gentle as you are strong and courteous. We +will hang up the Smith's tools before the Altar," he said, "because, +whatever the Smith of the Gods may have been, in the old days, we know +that he worked honestly for his living and made gifts to Mother Church." +Then they went to bed again, all except the novice, and he sat up in the +garth playing with his sword. Then Weland said to me by the stables: +"Farewell, Old Thing; you had the right of it. You saw me come to +England, and you see me go. Farewell!" + +'With that he strode down the hill to the corner of the Great +Woods--Woods Corner, you call it now--to the very place where he had +first landed--and I heard him moving through the thickets towards +Horsebridge for a little, and then he was gone. That was how it +happened. I saw it.' + +Both children drew a long breath. + +'But what happened to Hugh the novice?' said Una. + +'And the sword?' said Dan. + +Puck looked down the meadow that lay all quiet and cool in the shadow of +Pook's Hill. A corncrake jarred in a hay-field near by, and the small +trouts of the brook began to jump. A big white moth flew unsteadily from +the alders and flapped round the children's heads, and the least little +haze of water-mist rose from the brook. + +'Do you really want to know?' Puck said. + +'We do,' cried the children. 'Awfully!' + +'Very good. I promised you that you shall see What you shall see, and +you shall hear What you shall hear, though It shall have happened three +thousand year; but just now it seems to me that, unless you go back to +the house, people will be looking for you. I'll walk with you as far as +the gate.' + +'Will you be here when we come again?' they asked. + +'Surely, sure-ly,' said Puck. 'I've been here some time already. One +minute first, please.' + +He gave them each three leaves--one of Oak, one of Ash and one of Thorn. + +'Bite these,' said he. 'Otherwise you might be talking at home of what +you've seen and heard, and--if I know human beings--they'd send for the +doctor. Bite!' + +They bit hard, and found themselves walking side by side to the lower +gate. Their father was leaning over it. + +'And how did your play go?' he asked. + +'Oh, splendidly,' said Dan. 'Only afterwards, I think, we went to sleep. +it was very hot and quiet. Don't you remember, Una?' + +Una shook her head and said nothing. + +'I see,' said her father. + +'Late--late in the evening Kilmeny came home, +For Kilmeny had been she could not tell where, +And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare. + +But why are you chewing leaves at your time of life, daughter? For fun?' + +'No. It was for something, but I can't azactly remember,' said Una. + +And neither of them could till---- + + + +A TREE SONG + + +Of all the trees that grow so fair, + Old England to adorn, +Greater are none beneath the Sun, + Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn. +Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good Sirs + (All of a Midsummer morn)! +Surely we sing no little thing, + In Oak, and Ash, and Thorn! + +Oak of the Clay lived many a day, + Or ever AEneas began; +Ash of the Loam was a lady at home, + When Brut was an outlaw man; +Thorn of the Down saw New Troy Town + (From which was London born); +Witness hereby the ancientry + Of Oak, and Ash, and Thorn! + +Yew that is old in churchyard mould, + He breedeth a mighty bow; +Alder for shoes do wise men choose, + And beech for cups also. +But when ye have killed, and your bowl is spilled, + And your shoes are clean outworn, +Back ye must speed for all that ye need, + To Oak and Ash and Thorn! + +Ellum she hateth mankind, and waiteth + Till every gust be laid, +To drop a limb on the head of him + That anyway trusts her shade: +But whether a lad be sober or sad, + Or mellow with ale from the horn, +He will take no wrong when he lieth along + 'Neath Oak, and Ash, and Thorn! + +Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight, + Or he would call it a sin; +But--we have been out in the woods all night, + A-conjuring Summer in! +And we bring you news by word of mouth-- + Good news for cattle and corn-- +Now is the Sun come up from the South, + With Oak, and Ash, and Thorn! + +Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good Sirs + (All of a Midsummer morn)! +England shall bide till Judgement Tide, + By Oak and Ash and Thorn! + + + + +YOUNG MEN AT THE MANOR + + +They were fishing, a few days later, in the bed of the brook that for +centuries had cut deep into the soft valley soil. The trees closing +overhead made long tunnels through which the sunshine worked in blobs +and patches. Down in the tunnels were bars of sand and gravel, old roots +and trunks covered with moss or painted red by the irony water; +foxgloves growing lean and pale towards the light; clumps of fern and +thirsty shy flowers who could not live away from moisture and shade. In +the pools you could see the wave thrown up by the trouts as they charged +hither and yon, and the pools were joined to each other--except in flood +time, when all was one brown rush--by sheets of thin broken water that +poured themselves chuckling round the darkness of the next bend. + +This was one of the children's most secret hunting-grounds, and their +particular friend, old Hobden the hedger, had shown them how to use it. +Except for the click of a rod hitting a low willow, or a switch and +tussle among the young ash-leaves as a line hung up for the minute, +nobody in the hot pasture could have guessed what game was going on +among the trouts below the banks. + +'We've got half-a-dozen,' said Dan, after a warm, wet hour. 'I vote we +go up to Stone Bay and try Long Pool.' + +Una nodded--most of her talk was by nods--and they crept from the gloom +of the tunnels towards the tiny weir that turns the brook into the +mill-stream. Here the banks are low and bare, and the glare of the +afternoon sun on the Long Pool below the weir makes your eyes ache. + +When they were in the open they nearly fell down with astonishment. A +huge grey horse, whose tail-hairs crinkled the glassy water, was +drinking in the pool, and the ripples about his muzzle flashed like +melted gold. On his back sat an old, white-haired man dressed in a loose +glimmery gown of chain-mail. He was bare-headed, and a nut-shaped iron +helmet hung at his saddle-bow. His reins were of red leather five or six +inches deep, scalloped at the edges, and his high padded saddle with its +red girths was held fore and aft by a red leather breastband and +crupper. + +'Look!' said Una, as though Dan were not staring his very eyes out. +'It's like the picture in your room--"Sir Isumbras at the Ford".' + +The rider turned towards them, and his thin, long face was just as sweet +and gentle as that of the knight who carries the children in that +picture. + +'They should be here now, Sir Richard,' said Puck's deep voice among the +willow-herb. + +'They are here,' the knight said, and he smiled at Dan with the string +of trouts in his hand. 'There seems no great change in boys since mine +fished this water.' + +'If your horse has drunk, we shall be more at ease in the Ring,' said +Puck; and he nodded to the children as though he had never magicked away +their memories a week before. + +The great horse turned and hoisted himself into the pasture with a kick +and a scramble that tore the clods down rattling. + +'Your pardon!' said Sir Richard to Dan. 'When these lands were mine, I +never loved that mounted men should cross the brook except by the paved +ford. But my Swallow here was thirsty, and I wished to meet you.' + +'We're very glad you've come, sir,' said Dan. 'It doesn't matter in the +least about the banks.' + +He trotted across the pasture on the sword side of the mighty horse, and +it was a mighty iron-handled sword that swung from Sir Richard's belt. +Una walked behind with Puck. She remembered everything now. + +'I'm sorry about the Leaves,' he said, 'but it would never have done if +you had gone home and told, would it?' + +'I s'pose not,' Una answered. 'But you said that all the fair--People of +the Hills had left England.' + +'So they have; but I told you that you should come and go and look and +know, didn't I? The knight isn't a fairy. He's Sir Richard Dalyngridge, +a very old friend of mine. He came over with William the Conqueror, and +he wants to see you particularly.' + +'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.' + +'Yes, from the very beginning,' Una pleaded, for the knight's good face +and the smile on it more than ever reminded her of 'Sir Isumbras at the +Ford'. + +They settled down to listen, Sir Richard bare-headed to the sunshine, +dandling the sword in both hands, while the grey horse cropped outside +the Ring, and the helmet on the saddle-bow clinged softly each time he +jerked his head. + +'From the beginning, then,' Sir Richard said, 'since it concerns your +land, I will tell the tale. When our Duke came out of Normandy to take +his England, great knights (have ye heard?) came and strove hard to +serve the Duke, because he promised them lands here, and small knights +followed the great ones. My folk in Normandy were poor; but a great +knight, Engerrard of the Eagle--Engenulf De Aquila--who was kin to my +father, followed the Earl of Mortain, who followed William the Duke, and +I followed De Aquila. Yes, with thirty men-at-arms out of my father's +house and a new sword, I set out to conquer England three days after I +was made knight. I did not then know that England would conquer me. We +went up to Santlache with the rest--a very great host of us.' + +'Does that mean the Battle of Hastings--Ten Sixty-Six?' Una whispered, +and Puck nodded, so as not to interrupt. + +'At Santlache, over the hill yonder'--he pointed south-eastward towards +Fairlight--'we found Harold's men. We fought. At the day's end they ran. +My men went with De Aquila's to chase and plunder, and in that chase +Engerrard of the Eagle was slain, and his son Gilbert took his banner +and his men forward. This I did not know till after, for Swallow here +was cut in the flank, so I stayed to wash the wound at a brook by a +thorn. There a single Saxon cried out to me in French, and we fought +together. I should have known his voice, but we fought together. For a +long time neither had any advantage, till by pure ill-fortune his foot +slipped and his sword flew from his hand. Now I had but newly been made +knight, and wished, above all, to be courteous and fameworthy, so I +forbore to strike and bade him get his sword again. "A plague on my +sword," said he. "It has lost me my first fight. You have spared my +life. Take my sword." He held it out to me, but as I stretched my hand +the sword groaned like a stricken man, and I leaped back crying, +"Sorcery!"' + +[The children looked at the sword as though it might speak again.] + +'Suddenly a clump of Saxons ran out upon me and, seeing a Norman alone, +would have killed me, but my Saxon cried out that I was his prisoner, +and beat them off. Thus, see you, he saved my life. He put me on my +horse and led me through the woods ten long miles to this valley.' + +'To here, d'you mean?' said Una. + +'To this very valley. We came in by the Lower Ford under the King's Hill +yonder'--he pointed eastward where the valley widens. + +'And was that Saxon Hugh the novice?' Dan asked. + +'Yes, and more than that. He had been for three years at the monastery +at Bec by Rouen, where'--Sir Richard chuckled--'the Abbot Herluin would +not suffer me to remain.' + +'Why wouldn't he?' said Dan. + +'Because I rode my horse into the refectory, when the scholars were at +meat, to show the Saxon boys we Normans were not afraid of an Abbot. It +was that very Saxon Hugh tempted me to do it, and we had not met since +that day. I thought I knew his voice even inside my helmet, and, for all +that our Lords fought, we each rejoiced we had not slain the other. He +walked by my side, and he told me how a Heathen God, as he believed, had +given him his sword, but he said he had never heard it sing before. I +remember I warned him to beware of sorcery and quick enchantments.' Sir +Richard smiled to himself. 'I was very young--very young! + +'When we came to his house here we had almost forgotten that we had been +at blows. It was near midnight, and the Great Hall was full of men and +women waiting news. There I first saw his sister, the Lady AElueva, of +whom he had spoken to us in France. She cried out fiercely at me, and +would have had me hanged in that hour, but her brother said that I had +spared his life--he said not how he saved mine from the Saxons--and that +our Duke had won the day; and even while they wrangled over my poor +body, of a sudden he fell down in a swoon from his wounds. + +'"This is _thy_ fault," said the Lady AElueva to me, and she kneeled +above him and called for wine and cloths. + +'"If I had known," I answered, "he should have ridden and I walked. But +he set me on my horse; he made no complaint; he walked beside me and +spoke merrily throughout. I pray I have done him no harm." + +'"Thou hast need to pray," she said, catching up her underlip. "If he +dies, thou shalt hang." + +'They bore off Hugh to his chamber; but three tall men of the house +bound me and set me under the beam of the Great Hall with a rope round +my neck. The end of the rope they flung over the beam, and they sat them +down by the fire to wait word whether Hugh lived or died. They cracked +nuts with their knife-hilts the while.' + +'And how did you feel?' said Dan. + +'Very weary; but I did heartily pray for my schoolmate Hugh his health. +About noon I heard horses in the valley, and the three men loosed my +ropes and fled out, and De Aquila's men rode up. Gilbert de Aquila came +with them, for it was his boast that, like his father, he forgot no man +that served him. He was little, like his father, but terrible, with a +nose like an eagle's nose and yellow eyes like an eagle. He rode tall +warhorses--roans, which he bred himself--and he could never abide to be +helped into the saddle. He saw the rope hanging from the beam and +laughed, and his men laughed, for I was too stiff to rise. + +'"This is poor entertainment for a Norman knight," he said, "but, such +as it is, let us be grateful. Show me, boy, to whom thou owest most, and +we will pay them out of hand."' + +'What did he mean? To kill 'em?' said Dan. + +'Assuredly. But I looked at the Lady AElueva where she stood among her +maids, and her brother beside her. De Aquila's men had driven them all +into the Great Hall.' + +'Was she pretty?' said Una. + +'In all my long life I have never seen woman fit to strew rushes before +my Lady AElueva,' the knight replied, quite simply and quietly. 'As I +looked at her I thought I might save her and her house by a jest. + +'"Seeing that I came somewhat hastily and without warning," said I to De +Aquila, "I have no fault to find with the courtesy that these Saxons +have shown me." But my voice shook. It is--it was not good to jest with +that little man. + +'All were silent awhile, till De Aquila laughed. "Look, men--a miracle," +said he. "The fight is scarce sped, my father is not yet buried, and +here we find our youngest knight already set down in his Manor, while +his Saxons--ye can see it in their fat faces--have paid him homage and +service! By the Saints," he said, rubbing his nose, "I never thought +England would be so easy won! Surely I can do no less than give the lad +what he has taken. This Manor shall be thine, boy," he said, "till I +come again, or till thou art slain. Now, mount, men, and ride. We follow +our Duke into Kent to make him King of England." + +'He drew me with him to the door while they brought his horse--a lean +roan, taller than my Swallow here, but not so well girthed. + +'"Hark to me," he said, fretting with his great war-gloves. "I have +given thee this Manor, which is a Saxon hornets' nest, and I think thou +wilt be slain in a month--as my father was slain. Yet if thou canst keep +the roof on the hall, the thatch on the barn, and the plough in the +furrow till I come back, thou shalt hold the Manor from me; for the Duke +has promised our Earl Mortain all the lands by Pevensey, and Mortain +will give me of them what he would have given my father. God knows if +thou or I shall live till England is won; but remember, boy, that here +and now fighting is foolishness and"--he reached for the reins--"craft +and cunning is all." + +'"Alas, I have no cunning," said I. + +'"Not yet," said he, hopping abroad, foot in stirrup, and poking his +horse in the belly with his toe. "Not yet, but I think thou hast a good +teacher. Farewell! Hold the Manor and live. Lose the Manor and hang," he +said, and spurred out, his shield-straps squeaking behind him. + +'So, children, here was I, little more than a boy, and Santlache fight +not two days old, left alone with my thirty men-at-arms, in a land I +knew not, among a people whose tongue I could not speak, to hold down +the land which I had taken from them.' + +'And that was here at home?' said Una. + +'Yes, here. See! From the Upper Ford, Weland's Ford, to the Lower Ford, +by the Belle Allee, west and east it ran half a league. From the Beacon +of Brunanburgh behind us here, south and north it ran a full league--and +all the woods were full of broken men from Santlache, Saxon thieves, +Norman plunderers, robbers, and deer-stealers. A hornets' nest indeed! + +'When De Aquila had gone, Hugh would have thanked me for saving their +lives; but the Lady AElueva said that I had done it only for the sake of +receiving the Manor. + +'"How could I know that De Aquila would give it me?" I said. "If I had +told him I had spent my night in your halter he would have burned the +place twice over by now." + +'"If any man had put _my_ neck in a rope," she said, "I would have seen +his house burned thrice over before _I_ would have made terms." + +'"But it was a woman," I said; and I laughed, and she wept and said that +I mocked her in her captivity. + +'"Lady," said I, "there is no captive in this valley except one, and he +is not a Saxon." + +'At this she cried that I was a Norman thief, who came with false, sweet +words, having intended from the first to turn her out in the fields to +beg her bread. Into the fields! She had never seen the face of war! + +'I was angry, and answered, "This much at least I can disprove, for I +swear"--and on my sword-hilt I swore it in that place--"I swear I will +never set foot in the Great Hall till the Lady AElueva herself shall +summon me there." + +'She went away, saying nothing, and I walked out, and Hugh limped after +me, whistling dolorously (that is a custom of the English), and we came +upon the three Saxons that had bound me. They were now bound by my +men-at-arms, and behind them stood some fifty stark and sullen churls of +the House and the Manor, waiting to see what should fall. We heard De +Aquila's trumpets blow thin through the woods Kentward. + +'"Shall we hang these?" said my men. + +'"Then my churls will fight," said Hugh, beneath his breath; but I bade +him ask the three what mercy they hoped for. + +'"None," said they all. "She bade us hang thee if our master died. And +we would have hanged thee. There is no more to it." + +'As I stood doubting, a woman ran down from the oak wood above the +King's Hill yonder, and cried out that some Normans were driving off the +swine there. + +'"Norman or Saxon," said I, "we must beat them back, or they will rob us +every day. Out at them with any arms ye have!" So I loosed those three +carles and we ran together, my men-at-arms and the Saxons with bills and +axes which they had hidden in the thatch of their huts, and Hugh led +them. Half-way up the King's Hill we found a false fellow from +Picardy--a sutler that sold wine in the Duke's camp--with a dead +knight's shield on his arm, a stolen horse under him, and some ten or +twelve wastrels at his tail, all cutting and slashing at the pigs. We +beat them off, and saved our pork. One hundred and seventy pigs we saved +in that great battle.' Sir Richard laughed. + +'That, then, was our first work together, and I bade Hugh tell his folk +that so would I deal with any man, knight or churl, Norman or Saxon, who +stole as much as one egg from our valley. Said he to me, riding home: +"Thou hast gone far to conquer England this evening." I answered: +"England must be thine and mine, then. Help me, Hugh, to deal aright +with these people. Make them to know that if they slay me De Aquila will +surely send to slay them, and he will put a worse man in my place." +"That may well be true," said he, and gave me his hand. "Better the +devil we know than the devil we know not, till we can pack you Normans +home." And so, too, said his Saxons; and they laughed as we drove the +pigs downhill. But I think some of them, even then, began not to hate +me.' + +'I like Brother Hugh,' said Una, softly. + +'Beyond question he was the most perfect, courteous, valiant, tender, +and wise knight that ever drew breath,' said Sir Richard, caressing the +sword. 'He hung up his sword--this sword--on the wall of the Great Hall, +because he said it was fairly mine, and never he took it down till De +Aquila returned, as I shall presently show. For three months his men and +mine guarded the valley, till all robbers and nightwalkers learned there +was nothing to get from us save hard tack and a hanging. Side by side we +fought against all who came--thrice a week sometimes we fought--against +thieves and landless knights looking for good manors. Then we were in +some peace, and I made shift by Hugh's help to govern the valley--for +all this valley of yours was my Manor--as a knight should. I kept the +roof on the hall and the thatch on the barn, but ... the English are a +bold people. His Saxons would laugh and jest with Hugh, and Hugh with +them, and--this was marvellous to me--if even the meanest of them said +that such and such a thing was the Custom of the Manor, then straightway +would Hugh and such old men of the Manor as might be near forsake +everything else to debate the matter--I have seen them stop the Mill +with the corn half ground--and if the custom or usage were proven to be +as it was said, why, that was the end of it, even though it were flat +against Hugh, his wish and command. Wonderful!' + +'Aye,' said Puck, breaking in for the first time. 'The Custom of Old +England was here before your Norman knights came, and it outlasted them, +though they fought against it cruel.' + +'Not I,' said Sir Richard. 'I let the Saxons go their stubborn way, but +when my own men-at-arms, Normans not six months in England, stood up and +told me what was the custom of the country, then I was angry. Ah, good +days! Ah, wonderful people! And I loved them all.' + +The knight lifted his arms as though he would hug the whole dear valley, +and Swallow, hearing the chink of his chain-mail, looked up and whinnied +softly. + +'At last,' he went on, 'after a year of striving and contriving and some +little driving, De Aquila came to the valley, alone and without warning. +I saw him first at the Lower Ford, with a swineherd's brat on his +saddle-bow. + +'"There is no need for thee to give any account of thy stewardship," +said he. "I have it all from the child here." And he told me how the +young thing had stopped his tall horse at the Ford, by waving of a +branch, and crying that the way was barred. "And if one bold, bare babe +be enough to guard the Ford in these days, thou hast done well," said +he, and puffed and wiped his head. + +'He pinched the child's cheek, and looked at our cattle in the flat by +the river. + +'"Both fat," said he, rubbing his nose. "This is craft and cunning such +as I love. What did I tell thee when I rode away, boy?" + +'"Hold the Manor or hang," said I. I had never forgotten it. + +'"True. And thou hast held." He clambered from his saddle and with his +sword's point cut out a turf from the bank and gave it me where I +kneeled.' + +Dan looked at Una, and Una looked at Dan. + +'That's seizin,' said Puck, in a whisper. + +'"Now thou art lawfully seized of the Manor, Sir Richard," said he--'twas +the first time he ever called me that--"thou and thy heirs for ever. This +must serve till the King's clerks write out thy title on a parchment. +England is all ours--if we can hold it." + +'"What service shall I pay?" I asked, and I remember I was proud beyond +words. + +'"Knight's fee, boy, knight's fee!" said he, hopping round his horse on +one foot. (Have I said he was little, and could not endure to be helped +to his saddle?) "Six mounted men or twelve archers thou shalt send me +whenever I call for them, and--where got you that corn?" said he, for it +was near harvest, and our corn stood well. "I have never seen such +bright straw. Send me three bags of the same seed yearly, and +furthermore, in memory of our last meeting--with the rope round thy +neck--entertain me and my men for two days of each year in the Great +Hall of thy Manor." + +'"Alas!" said I, "then my Manor is already forfeit. I am under vow not +to enter the Great Hall." And I told him what I had sworn to the Lady +AElueva.' + +'And hadn't you ever been into the house since?' said Una. + +'Never,' Sir Richard answered, smiling. 'I had made me a little hut of +wood up the hill, and there I did justice and slept ... De Aquila +wheeled aside, and his shield shook on his back. "No matter, boy," said +he. "I will remit the homage for a year."' + +'He meant Sir Richard needn't give him dinner there the first year,' +Puck explained. + +'De Aquila stayed with me in the hut, and Hugh, who could read and write +and cast accounts, showed him the Roll of the Manor, in which were +written all the names of our fields and men, and he asked a thousand +questions touching the land, the timber, the grazing, the mill, and the +fish-ponds, and the worth of every man in the valley. But never he named +the Lady AElueva's name, nor went he near the Great Hall. By night he +drank with us in the hut. Yes, he sat on the straw like an eagle ruffled +in her feathers, his yellow eyes rolling above the cup, and he pounced +in his talk like an eagle, swooping from one thing to another, but +always binding fast. Yes; he would lie still awhile, and then rustle in +the straw, and speak sometimes as though he were King William himself, +and anon he would speak in parables and tales, and if at once we saw not +his meaning he would yerk us in the ribs with his scabbarded sword. + +'"Look you, boys," said he, "I am born out of my due time. Five hundred +years ago I would have made all England such an England as neither Dane, +Saxon, nor Norman should have conquered. Five hundred years hence I +should have been such a counsellor to Kings as the world hath never +dreamed of. 'Tis all here," said he, tapping his big head, "but it hath +no play in this black age. Now Hugh here is a better man than thou art, +Richard." He had made his voice harsh and croaking, like a raven's. + +'"Truth," said I. "But for Hugh, his help and patience and +long-suffering, I could never have kept the Manor." + +'"Nor thy life either," said De Aquila. "Hugh has saved thee not once, +but a hundred times. Be still, Hugh!" he said. "Dost thou know, Richard, +why Hugh slept, and why he still sleeps, among thy Norman men-at-arms?" + +'"To be near me," said I, for I thought this was truth. + +'"Fool!" said De Aquila. "It is because his Saxons have begged him to +rise against thee, and to sweep every Norman out of the valley. No +matter how I know. It is truth. Therefore Hugh hath made himself an +hostage for thy life, well knowing that if any harm befell thee from his +Saxons thy Normans would slay him without remedy. And this his Saxons +know. Is it true, Hugh?" + +'"In some sort," said Hugh shamefacedly; "at least, it was true half a +year ago. My Saxons would not harm Richard now. I think they know +him--but I judged it best to make sure." + +'Look, children, what that man had done--and I had never guessed it! +Night after night had he lain down among my men-at-arms, knowing that if +one Saxon had lifted knife against me, his life would have answered for +mine. + +'"Yes," said De Aquila. "And he is a swordless man." He pointed to +Hugh's belt, for Hugh had put away his sword--did I tell you?--the day +after it flew from his hand at Santlache. He carried only the short +knife and the long-bow. "Swordless and landless art thou, Hugh; and they +call thee kin to Earl Godwin." (Hugh was indeed of Godwin's blood.) "The +Manor that was thine is given to this boy and to his children for ever. +Sit up and beg, for he can turn thee out like a dog, Hugh." + +'Hugh said nothing, but I heard his teeth grind, and I bade De Aquila, +my own overlord, hold his peace, or I would stuff his words down his +throat. Then De Aquila laughed till the tears ran down his face. + +'"I warned the King," said he, "what would come of giving England to us +Norman thieves. Here art thou, Richard, less than two days confirmed in +thy Manor, and already thou hast risen against thy overlord. What shall +we do to him, _Sir_ Hugh?" + +'"I am a swordless man," said Hugh. "Do not jest with me," and he laid +his head on his knees and groaned. + +'"The greater fool thou," said De Aquila, and all his voice changed; +"for I have given thee the Manor of Dallington up the hill this +half-hour since," and he yerked at Hugh with his scabbard across the +straw. + +'"To me?" said Hugh. "I am a Saxon, and, except that I love Richard +here, I have not sworn fealty to any Norman." + +'"In God's good time, which because of my sins I shall not live to see, +there will be neither Saxon nor Norman in England," said De Aquila. "If +I know men, thou art more faithful unsworn than a score of Normans I +could name. Take Dallington, and join Sir Richard to fight me tomorrow, +if it please thee!" + +'"Nay," said Hugh. "I am no child. Where I take a gift, there I render +service"; and he put his hands between De Aquila's, and swore to be +faithful, and, as I remember, I kissed him, and De Aquila kissed us +both. + +'We sat afterwards outside the hut while the sun rose, and De Aquila +marked our churls going to their work in the fields, and talked of holy +things, and how we should govern our Manors in time to come, and of +hunting and of horse-breeding, and of the King's wisdom and unwisdom; +for he spoke to us as though we were in all sorts now his brothers. Anon +a churl stole up to me--he was one of the three I had not hanged a year +ago--and he bellowed--which is the Saxon for whispering--that the Lady +AElueva would speak to me at the Great House. She walked abroad daily in +the Manor, and it was her custom to send me word whither she went, that +I might set an archer or two behind and in front to guard her. Very +often I myself lay up in the woods and watched on her also. + +'I went swiftly, and as I passed the great door it opened from within, +and there stood my Lady AElueva, and she said to me: "Sir Richard, will +it please you enter your Great Hall?" Then she wept, but we were alone.' + +The knight was silent for a long time, his face turned across the +valley, smiling. + +'Oh, well done!' said Una, and clapped her hands very softly. 'She was +sorry, and she said so.' + +'Aye, she was sorry, and she said so,' said Sir Richard, coming back +with a little start. 'Very soon--but _he_ said it was two full hours +later--De Aquila rode to the door, with his shield new scoured (Hugh had +cleansed it), and demanded entertainment, and called me a false knight, +that would starve his overlord to death. Then Hugh cried out that no man +should work in the valley that day, and our Saxons blew horns, and set +about feasting and drinking, and running of races, and dancing and +singing; and De Aquila climbed upon a horse-block and spoke to them in +what he swore was good Saxon, but no man understood it. At night we +feasted in the Great Hall, and when the harpers and the singers were +gone we four sat late at the high table. As I remember, it was a warm +night with a full moon, and De Aquila bade Hugh take down his sword from +the wall again, for the honour of the Manor of Dallington, and Hugh took +it gladly enough. Dust lay on the hilt, for I saw him blow it off. + +'She and I sat talking a little apart, and at first we thought the +harpers had come back, for the Great Hall was filled with a rushing +noise of music. De Aquila leaped up; but there was only the moonlight +fretty on the floor. + +'"Hearken!" said Hugh. "It is my sword," and as he belted it on the +music ceased. + +'"Over Gods, forbid that I should ever belt blade like that," said De +Aquila. "What does it foretell?" + +'"The Gods that made it may know. Last time it spoke was at Hastings, +when I lost all my lands. Belike it sings now that I have new lands and +am a man again," said Hugh. + +'He loosed the blade a little and drove it back happily into the sheath, +and the sword answered him low and crooningly, as--as a woman would +speak to a man, her head on his shoulder. + +'Now that was the second time in all my life I heard this Sword +sing.'... + + + +'Look!' said Una. 'There's Mother coming down the Long Slip. What will +she say to Sir Richard? She can't help seeing him.' + +'And Puck can't magic us this time,' said Dan. + +'Are you sure?' said Puck; and he leaned forward and whispered to Sir +Richard, who, smiling, bowed his head. + +'But what befell the sword and my brother Hugh I will tell on another +time,' said he, rising. 'Ohe, Swallow!' + +The great horse cantered up from the far end of the meadow, close to +Mother. + +They heard Mother say: 'Children, Gleason's old horse has broken into +the meadow again. Where did he get through?' + +'Just below Stone Bay,' said Dan. 'He tore down simple flobs of the +bank! We noticed it just now. And we've caught no end of fish. We've +been at it all the afternoon.' + +And they honestly believed that they had. They never noticed the Oak, +Ash and Thorn leaves that Puck had slyly thrown into their laps. + + + +SIR RICHARD'S SONG + + +I followed my Duke ere I was a lover, + To take from England fief and fee; +But now this game is the other way over-- + But now England hath taken me! + +I had my horse, my shield and banner, + And a boy's heart, so whole and free; +But now I sing in another manner-- + But now England hath taken me! + +As for my Father in his tower, + Asking news of my ship at sea; +He will remember his own hour-- + Tell him England hath taken me! + +As for my Mother in her bower, + That rules my Father so cunningly; +She will remember a maiden's power-- + Tell her England hath taken me! + +As for my Brother in Rouen city, + A nimble and naughty page is he; +But he will come to suffer and pity-- + Tell him England hath taken me! + +As for my little Sister waiting + In the pleasant orchards of Normandie; +Tell her youth is the time of mating-- + Tell her England hath taken me! + +As for my Comrades in camp and highway, + That lift their eyebrows scornfully; +Tell them their way is not my way-- + Tell them England hath taken me! + +Kings and Princes and Barons famed, + Knights and Captains in your degree; +Hear me a little before I am blamed-- + Seeing England hath taken me! + +Howso great man's strength be reckoned, + There are two things he cannot flee; +Love is the first, and Death is the second-- + And Love, in England, hath taken me! + + + + +THE KNIGHTS OF THE JOYOUS VENTURE + + + +HARP SONG OF THE DANE WOMEN + + +What is a woman that you forsake her, +And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, +To go with the old grey Widow-maker? + +She has no house to lay a guest in-- +But one chill bed for all to rest in, +That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in. + +She has no strong white arms to fold you, +But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you +Bound on the rocks where the tide has rolled you. + +Yet, when the signs of summer thicken, +And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken, +Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken-- + +Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters,-- +You steal away to the lapping waters, +And look at your ship in her winter quarters. + +You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables, +The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables-- +To pitch her sides and go over her cables! + +Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow: +And the sound of your oar-blades falling hollow +Is all we have left through the months to follow. + +Ah, what is a Woman that you forsake her, +And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, +To go with the old grey Widow-maker? + + + +It was too hot to run about in the open, so Dan asked their friend, old +Hobden, to take their own dinghy from the pond and put her on the brook +at the bottom of the garden. Her painted name was the _Daisy_, but for +exploring expeditions she was the _Golden Hind_ or the _Long Serpent_, +or some such suitable name. Dan hiked and howked with a boat-hook (the +brook was too narrow for sculls), and Una punted with a piece of +hop-pole. When they came to a very shallow place (the _Golden Hind_ drew +quite three inches of water) they disembarked and scuffled her over the +gravel by her tow-rope, and when they reached the overgrown banks beyond +the garden they pulled themselves up stream by the low branches. + +That day they intended to discover the North Cape like 'Othere, the old +sea-captain', in the book of verses which Una had brought with her; but +on account of the heat they changed it to a voyage up the Amazon and the +sources of the Nile. Even on the shaded water the air was hot and heavy +with drowsy scents, while outside, through breaks in the trees, the +sunshine burned the pasture like fire. The kingfisher was asleep on his +watching-branch, and the blackbirds scarcely took the trouble to dive +into the next bush. Dragonflies wheeling and clashing were the only +things at work, except the moorhens and a big Red Admiral, who flapped +down out of the sunshine for a drink. + +When they reached Otter Pool the _Golden Hind_ grounded comfortably on a +shallow, and they lay beneath a roof of close green, watching the water +trickle over the flood-gates down the mossy brick chute from the +mill-stream to the brook. A big trout--the children knew him +well--rolled head and shoulders at some fly that sailed round the bend, +while, once in just so often, the brook rose a fraction of an inch +against all the wet pebbles, and they watched the slow draw and shiver +of a breath of air through the tree-tops. Then the little voices of the +slipping water began again. + +'It's like the shadows talking, isn't it?' said Una. She had given up +trying to read. Dan lay over the bows, trailing his hands in the +current. They heard feet on the gravel-bar that runs half across the +pool and saw Sir Richard Dalyngridge standing over them. + +'Was yours a dangerous voyage?' he asked, smiling. + +'She bumped a lot, sir,' said Dan. 'There's hardly any water this +summer.' + +'Ah, the brook was deeper and wider when my children played at Danish +pirates. Are you pirate-folk?' + +'Oh no. We gave up being pirates years ago,' explained Una. 'We're +nearly always explorers now. Sailing round the world, you know.' + +'Round?' said Sir Richard. He sat him in the comfortable crotch of an +old ash-root on the bank. 'How can it be round?' + +'Wasn't it in your books?' Dan suggested. He had been doing geography at +his last lesson. + +'I can neither write nor read,' he replied. 'Canst _thou_ read, child?' + +'Yes,' said Dan, 'barring the very long words.' + +'Wonderful! Read to me, that I may hear for myself.' + +Dan flushed, but opened the book and began--gabbling a little--at 'The +Discoverer of the North Cape.' + +'Othere, the old sea-captain, +Who dwelt in Helgoland, +To King Alfred, the lover of truth, +Brought a snow-white walrus tooth, +That he held in his brown right hand.' + +'But--but--this I know! This is an old song! This I have heard sung! +This is a miracle,' Sir Richard interrupted. 'Nay, do not stop!' He +leaned forward, and the shadows of the leaves slipped and slid upon his +chain-mail. + +'"I ploughed the land with horses, +But my heart was ill at ease, +For the old sea-faring men +Came to me now and then +With their Sagas of the Seas."' + +His hand fell on the hilt of the great sword. 'This is truth,' he cried, +'for so did it happen to me,' and he beat time delightedly to the tramp +of verse after verse. + +'"And now the land," said Othere, +"Bent southward suddenly, +And I followed the curving shore, +And ever southward bore +Into a nameless sea."' + +'A nameless sea!' he repeated. 'So did I--so did Hugh and I.' + +'Where did you go? Tell us,' said Una. + +'Wait. Let me hear all first.' So Dan read to the poem's very end. + +'Good,' said the knight. 'That is Othere's tale--even as I have heard +the men in the Dane ships sing it. Not in those same valiant words, but +something like to them.' + +'Have you ever explored North?' Dan shut the book. + +'Nay. My venture was South. Farther South than any man has fared, Hugh +and I went down with Witta and his heathen.' He jerked the tall sword +forward, and leaned on it with both hands; but his eyes looked long past +them. + +'I thought you always lived here,' said Una, timidly. + +'Yes; while my Lady AElueva lived. But she died. She died. Then, my +eldest son being a man, I asked De Aquila's leave that he should hold +the Manor while I went on some journey or pilgrimage--to forget. De +Aquila, whom the Second William had made Warden of Pevensey in Earl +Mortain's place, was very old then, but still he rode his tall, roan +horses, and in the saddle he looked like a little white falcon. When +Hugh, at Dallington, over yonder, heard what I did, he sent for my +second son, whom being unmarried he had ever looked upon as his own +child, and, by De Aquila's leave, gave him the Manor of Dallington to +hold till he should return. Then Hugh came with me.' + +'When did this happen?' said Dan. + +'That I can answer to the very day, for as we rode with De Aquila by +Pevensey--have I said that he was Lord of Pevensey and of the Honour of +the Eagle?--to the Bordeaux ship that fetched him his wines yearly out +of France, a Marsh man ran to us crying that he had seen a great black +goat which bore on his back the body of the King, and that the goat had +spoken to him. On that same day Red William our King, the Conqueror's +son, died of a secret arrow while he hunted in a forest. "This is a +cross matter," said De Aquila, "to meet on the threshold of a journey. +If Red William be dead I may have to fight for my lands. Wait a little." + +'My Lady being dead, I cared nothing for signs and omens, nor Hugh +either. We took that wine-ship to go to Bordeaux; but the wind failed +while we were yet in sight of Pevensey, a thick mist hid us, and we +drifted with the tide along the cliffs to the west. Our company was, for +the most part, merchants returning to France, and we were laden with +wool and there were three couple of tall hunting-dogs chained to the +rail. Their master was a knight of Artois. His name I never learned, but +his shield bore gold pieces on a red ground, and he limped, much as I +do, from a wound which he had got in his youth at Mantes siege. He +served the Duke of Burgundy against the Moors in Spain, and was +returning to that war with his dogs. He sang us strange Moorish songs +that first night, and half persuaded us to go with him. I was on +pilgrimage to forget--which is what no pilgrimage brings. I think I +would have gone, but ... + +'Look you how the life and fortune of man changes! Towards morning a +Dane ship, rowing silently, struck against us in the mist, and while we +rolled hither and yon Hugh, leaning over the rail, fell outboard. I +leaped after him, and we two tumbled aboard the Dane, and were caught +and bound ere we could rise. Our own ship was swallowed up in the mist. +I judge the Knight of the Gold Pieces muzzled his dogs with his cloak, +lest they should give tongue and betray the merchants, for I heard their +baying suddenly stop. + +'We lay bound among the benches till morning, when the Danes dragged us +to the high deck by the steering-place, and their captain--Witta, he was +called--turned us over with his foot. Bracelets of gold from elbow to +armpit he wore, and his red hair was long as a woman's, and came down in +plaited locks on his shoulder. He was stout, with bowed legs and long +arms. He spoiled us of all we had, but when he laid hand on Hugh's sword +and saw the runes on the blade hastily he thrust it back. Yet his +covetousness overcame him and he tried again and again, and the third +time the Sword sang loud and angrily, so that the rowers leaned on their +oars to listen. Here they all spoke together, screaming like gulls, and +a Yellow Man, such as I have never seen, came to the high deck and cut +our bonds. He was yellow--not from sickness, but by nature--yellow as +honey, and his eyes stood endwise in his head.' + +'How do you mean?' said Una, her chin on her hand. + +'Thus,' said Sir Richard. He put a finger to the corner of each eye, and +pushed it up till his eyes narrowed to slits. + +'Why, you look just like a Chinaman!' cried Dan. 'Was the man a +Chinaman?' + +'I know not what that may be. Witta had found him half dead among ice on +the shores of Muscovy. _We_ thought he was a devil. He crawled before us +and brought food in a silver dish which these sea-wolves had robbed from +some rich abbey, and Witta with his own hands gave us wine. He spoke a +little in French, a little in South Saxon, and much in the Northman's +tongue. We asked him to set us ashore, promising to pay him better +ransom than he would get price if he sold us to the Moors--as once +befell a knight of my acquaintance sailing from Flushing. + +'"Not by my father Guthrum's head," said he. "The Gods sent ye into my +ship for a luck-offering." + +'At this I quaked, for I knew it was still the Danes' custom to +sacrifice captives to their Gods for fair weather. + +'"A plague on thy four long bones!" said Hugh. "What profit canst thou +make of poor old pilgrims that can neither work nor fight?" + +'"Gods forbid I should fight against thee, poor Pilgrim with the Singing +Sword," said he. "Come with us and be poor no more. Thy teeth are far +apart, which is a sure sign thou wilt travel and grow rich." + +'"What if we will not come?" said Hugh. + +'"Swim to England or France," said Witta. "We are midway between the +two. Unless ye choose to drown yourselves no hair of your head will be +harmed here aboard. We think ye bring us luck, and I myself know the +runes on that Sword are good." He turned and bade them hoist sail. + +'Hereafter all made way for us as we walked about the ship, and the ship +was full of wonders.' + +'What was she like?' said Dan. + +'Long, low, and narrow, bearing one mast with a red sail, and rowed by +fifteen oars a-side,' the knight answered. 'At her bows was a deck under +which men might lie, and at her stern another shut off by a painted door +from the rowers' benches. Here Hugh and I slept, with Witta and the +Yellow Man, upon tapestries as soft as wool. I remember'--he laughed to +himself--'when first we entered there a loud voice cried, "Out swords! +Out swords! Kill, kill!" Seeing us start Witta laughed, and showed us it +was but a great-beaked grey bird with a red tail. He sat her on his +shoulder, and she called for bread and wine hoarsely, and prayed him to +kiss her. Yet she was no more than a silly bird. But--ye knew this?' He +looked at their smiling faces. + +'We weren't laughing at you,' said Una. 'That must have been a parrot. +It's just what Pollies do.' + +'So we learned later. But here is another marvel. The Yellow Man, whose +name was Kitai, had with him a brown box. In the box was a blue bowl +with red marks upon the rim, and within the bowl, hanging from a fine +thread, was a piece of iron no thicker than that grass stem, and as +long, maybe, as my spur, but straight. In this iron, said Witta, abode +an Evil Spirit which Kitai, the Yellow Man, had brought by Art Magic out +of his own country that lay three years' journey southward. The Evil +Spirit strove day and night to return to his country, and therefore, +look you, the iron needle pointed continually to the South.' + +'South?' said Dan suddenly, and put his hand into his pocket. + +'With my own eyes I saw it. Every day and all day long, though the ship +rolled, though the sun and the moon and the stars were hid, this blind +Spirit in the iron knew whither it would go, and strained to the South. +Witta called it the Wise Iron, because it showed him his way across the +unknowable seas.' Again Sir Richard looked keenly at the children. 'How +think ye? Was it sorcery?' + +'Was it anything like this?' Dan fished out his old brass +pocket-compass, that generally lived with his knife and key-ring. 'The +glass has got cracked, but the needle waggles all right, sir.' + +The knight drew a long breath of wonder. 'Yes, yes! The Wise Iron shook +and swung in just this fashion. Now it is still. Now it points to the +South.' + +'North,' said Dan. + +'Nay, South! There is the South,' said Sir Richard. Then they both +laughed, for naturally when one end of a straight compass-needle points +to the North, the other must point to the South. + +'Te,' said Sir Richard, clicking his tongue. 'There can be no sorcery if +a child carries it. Wherefore does it point South--or North?' + +'Father says that nobody knows,' said Una. + +Sir Richard looked relieved. 'Then it may still be magic. It was magic +to _us_. And so we voyaged. When the wind served we hoisted sail, and +lay all up along the windward rail, our shields on our backs to break +the spray. When it failed, they rowed with long oars; the Yellow Man sat +by the Wise Iron, and Witta steered. At first I feared the great +white-flowering waves, but as I saw how wisely Witta led his ship among +them I grew bolder. Hugh liked it well from the first. My skill is not +upon the water; and rocks and whirlpools such as we saw by the West +Isles of France, where an oar caught on a rock and broke, are much +against my stomach. We sailed South across a stormy sea, where by +moonlight, between clouds, we saw a Flanders ship roll clean over and +sink. Again, though Hugh laboured with Witta all night, I lay under the +deck with the Talking Bird, and cared not whether I lived or died. There +is a sickness of the sea which for three days is pure death! When we +next saw land Witta said it was Spain, and we stood out to sea. That +coast was full of ships busy in the Duke's war against the Moors, and we +feared to be hanged by the Duke's men or sold into slavery by the Moors. +So we put into a small harbour which Witta knew. At night men came down +with loaded mules, and Witta exchanged amber out of the North against +little wedges of iron and packets of beads in earthen pots. The pots he +put under the decks, and the wedges of iron he laid on the bottom of the +ship after he had cast out the stones and shingle which till then had +been our ballast. Wine, too, he bought for lumps of sweet-smelling grey +amber--a little morsel no bigger than a thumbnail purchased a cask of +wine. But I speak like a merchant.' + +'No, no! Tell us what you had to eat,' cried Dan. + +'Meat dried in the sun, and dried fish and ground beans, Witta took in; +and corded frails of a certain sweet, soft fruit, which the Moors use, +which is like paste of figs, but with thin, long stones. Aha! Dates is +the name. + +'"Now," said Witta, when the ship was loaded, "I counsel you strangers +to pray to your Gods, for from here on, our road is No Man's road." He +and his men killed a black goat for sacrifice on the bows; and the +Yellow Man brought out a small, smiling image of dull-green stone and +burned incense before it. Hugh and I commended ourselves to God, and +Saint Barnabas, and Our Lady of the Assumption, who was specially dear +to my Lady. We were not young, but I think no shame to say whenas we +drove out of that secret harbour at sunrise over a still sea, we two +rejoiced and sang as did the knights of old when they followed our great +Duke to England. Yet was our leader an heathen pirate; all our proud +fleet but one galley perilously overloaded; for guidance we leaned on a +pagan sorcerer; and our port was beyond the world's end. Witta told us +that his father Guthrum had once in his life rowed along the shores of +Africa to a land where naked men sold gold for iron and beads. There had +he bought much gold, and no few elephants' teeth, and thither by help of +the Wise Iron would Witta go. Witta feared nothing--except to be poor. + +'"My father told me," said Witta, "that a great Shoal runs three days' +sail out from that land, and south of the shoal lies a Forest which +grows in the sea. South and east of the Forest my father came to a place +where the men hid gold in their hair; but all that country, he said, was +full of Devils who lived in trees, and tore folk limb from limb. How +think ye?" + +'"Gold or no gold," said Hugh, fingering his sword, "it is a joyous +venture. Have at these Devils of thine, Witta!" + +'"Venture!" said Witta sourly. "I am only a poor sea-thief. I do not set +my life adrift on a plank for joy, or the venture. Once I beach ship +again at Stavanger, and feel the wife's arms round my neck, I'll seek no +more ventures. A ship is heavier care than a wife or cattle." + +'He leaped down among the rowers, chiding them for their little strength +and their great stomachs. Yet Witta was a wolf in fight, and a very fox +in cunning. + +'We were driven South by a storm, and for three days and three nights he +took the stern-oar, and threddled the longship through the sea. When it +rose beyond measure he brake a pot of whale's oil upon the water, which +wonderfully smoothed it, and in that anointed patch he turned her head +to the wind and threw out oars at the end of a rope, to make, he said, +an anchor at which we lay rolling sorely, but dry. This craft his father +Guthrum had shown him. He knew, too, all the Leech-Book of Bald, who was +a wise doctor, and he knew the Ship-Book of Hlaf the Woman, who robbed +Egypt. He knew all the care of a ship. + +'After the storm we saw a mountain whose top was covered with snow and +pierced the clouds. The grasses under this mountain, boiled and eaten, +are a good cure for soreness of the gums and swelled ankles. We lay +there eight days, till men in skins threw stones at us. When the heat +increased Witta spread a cloth on bent sticks above the rowers, for the +wind failed between the Island of the Mountain and the shore of Africa, +which is east of it. That shore is sandy, and we rowed along it within +three bowshots. Here we saw whales, and fish in the shape of shields, +but longer than our ship. Some slept, some opened their mouths at us, +and some danced on the hot waters. The water was hot to the hand, and +the sky was hidden by hot, grey mists, out of which blew a fine dust +that whitened our hair and beards of a morning. Here, too, were fish +that flew in the air like birds. They would fall on the laps of the +rowers, and when we went ashore we would roast and eat them.' + +The knight paused to see if the children doubted him, but they only +nodded and said, 'Go on.' + +'The yellow land lay on our left, the grey sea on our right. Knight +though I was, I pulled my oar amongst the rowers. I caught seaweed and +dried it, and stuffed it between the pots of beads lest they should +break. Knighthood is for the land. At sea, look you, a man is but a +spurless rider on a bridleless horse. I learned to make strong knots in +ropes--yes, and to join two ropes end to end, so that even Witta could +scarcely see where they had been married. But Hugh had tenfold more +sea-cunning than I. Witta gave him charge of the rowers of the left +side. Thorkild of Borkum, a man with a broken nose, that wore a Norman +steel cap, had the rowers of the right, and each side rowed and sang +against the other. They saw that no man was idle. Truly, as Hugh said, +and Witta would laugh at him, a ship is all more care than a Manor. + +'How? Thus. There was water to fetch from the shore when we could find +it, as well as wild fruit and grasses, and sand for scrubbing of the +decks and benches to keep them sweet. Also we hauled the ship out on low +islands and emptied all her gear, even to the iron wedges, and burned +off the weed, that had grown on her, with torches of rush, and smoked +below the decks with rushes dampened in salt water, as Hlaf the Woman +orders in her Ship-Book. Once when we were thus stripped, and the ship +lay propped on her keel, the bird cried, "Out swords!" as though she saw +an enemy. Witta vowed he would wring her neck.' + +'Poor Polly! Did he?' said Una. + +'Nay. She was the ship's bird. She could call all the rowers by name.... Those were good days--for a wifeless man--with Witta and his +heathen--beyond the world's end. ... After many weeks we came on the +great Shoal which stretched, as Witta's father had said, far out to sea. +We skirted it till we were giddy with the sight and dizzy with the sound +of bars and breakers, and when we reached land again we found a naked +black people dwelling among woods, who for one wedge of iron loaded us +with fruits and grasses and eggs. Witta scratched his head at them in +sign he would buy gold. They had no gold, but they understood the sign +(all the gold-traders hide their gold in their thick hair), for they +pointed along the coast. They beat, too, on their chests with their +clenched hands, and that, if we had known it, was an evil sign.' + +'What did it mean?' said Dan. + +'Patience. Ye shall hear. We followed the coast eastward sixteen days +(counting time by sword-cuts on the helm-rail) till we came to the +Forest in the Sea. Trees grew there out of mud, arched upon lean and +high roots, and many muddy waterways ran all whither into darkness, +under the trees. Here we lost the sun. We followed the winding channels +between the trees, and where we could not row we laid hold of the +crusted roots and hauled ourselves along. The water was foul, and great +glittering flies tormented us. Morning and evening a blue mist covered +the mud, which bred fevers. Four of our rowers sickened, and were bound +to their benches, lest they should leap overboard and be eaten by the +monsters of the mud. The Yellow Man lay sick beside the Wise Iron, +rolling his head and talking in his own tongue. Only the Bird throve. +She sat on Witta's shoulder and screamed in that noisome, silent +darkness. Yes; I think it was the silence we most feared.' + +He paused to listen to the comfortable home noises of the brook. + +'When we had lost count of time among those black gullies and swashes we +heard, as it were, a drum beat far off, and following it we broke into a +broad, brown river by a hut in a clearing among fields of pumpkins. We +thanked God to see the sun again. The people of the village gave the +good welcome, and Witta scratched his head at them (for gold), and +showed them our iron and beads. They ran to the bank--we were still in +the ship--and pointed to our swords and bows, for always when near shore +we lay armed. Soon they fetched store of gold in bars and in dust from +their huts, and some great blackened elephants' teeth. These they piled +on the bank, as though to tempt us, and made signs of dealing blows in +battle, and pointed up to the tree-tops, and to the forest behind. Their +captain or chief sorcerer then beat on his chest with his fists, and +gnashed his teeth. + +'Said Thorkild of Borkum: "Do they mean we must fight for all this +gear?" and he half drew sword. + +'"Nay," said Hugh. "I think they ask us to league against some enemy." + +'"I like this not," said Witta, of a sudden. "Back into mid-stream." + +'So we did, and sat still all, watching the black folk and the gold they +piled on the bank. Again we heard drums beat in the forest, and the +people fled to their huts, leaving the gold unguarded. + +'Then Hugh, at the bows, pointed without speech, and we saw a great +Devil come out of the forest. He shaded his brows with his hand, and +moistened his pink tongue between his lips--thus.' + +'A Devil!' said Dan, delightfully horrified. + +'Yea. Taller than a man; covered with reddish hair. When he had well +regarded our ship, he beat on his chest with his fists till it sounded +like rolling drums, and came to the bank swinging all his body between +his long arms, and gnashed his teeth at us. Hugh loosed arrow, and +pierced him through the throat. He fell roaring, and three other Devils +ran out of the forest and hauled him into a tall tree out of sight. Anon +they cast down the blood-stained arrow, and lamented together among the +leaves. + +Witta saw the gold on the bank; he was loath to leave it. "Sirs," said +he (no man had spoken till then), "yonder is what we have come so far +and so painfully to find, laid out to our very hand. Let us row in while +these Devils bewail themselves, and at least bear off what we may." + +'Bold as a wolf, cunning as a fox was Witta! He set four archers on the +foredeck to shoot the Devils if they should leap from the tree, which +was close to the bank. He manned ten oars a-side, and bade them watch +his hand to row in or back out, and so coaxed he them toward the bank. +But none would set foot ashore, though the gold was within ten paces. No +man is hasty to his hanging! They whimpered at their oars like beaten +hounds, and Witta bit his fingers for rage. + +'Said Hugh of a sudden, "Hark!" At first we thought it was the buzzing +of the glittering flies on the water; but it grew loud and fierce, so +that all men heard.' + +'What?' said Dan and Una. + +'It was the Sword.' Sir Richard patted the smooth hilt. 'It sang as a +Dane sings before battle. "I go," said Hugh, and he leaped from the bows +and fell among the gold. I was afraid to my four bones' marrow, but for +shame's sake I followed, and Thorkild of Borkum leaped after me. None +other came. "Blame me not," cried Witta behind us, "I must abide by my +ship." We three had no time to blame or praise. We stooped to the gold +and threw it back over our shoulders, one hand on our swords and one eye +on the tree, which nigh overhung us. + +'I know not how the Devils leaped down, or how the fight began. I heard +Hugh cry: "Out! out!" as though he were at Santlache again; I saw +Thorkild's steel cap smitten off his head by a great hairy hand, and I +felt an arrow from the ship whistle past my ear. They say that till +Witta took his sword to the rowers he could not bring his ship inshore; +and each one of the four archers said afterwards that he alone had +pierced the Devil that fought me. I do not know. I went to it in my +mail-shirt, which saved my skin. With long-sword and belt-dagger I +fought for the life against a Devil whose very feet were hands, and who +whirled me back and forth like a dead branch. He had me by the waist, my +arms to my side, when an arrow from the ship pierced him between the +shoulders, and he loosened grip. I passed my sword twice through him, +and he crutched himself away between his long arms, coughing and +moaning. Next, as I remember, I saw Thorkild of Borkum, bare-headed and +smiling, leaping up and down before a Devil that leaped and gnashed his +teeth. Then Hugh passed, his sword shifted to his left hand, and I +wondered why I had not known that Hugh was a left-handed man; and +thereafter I remembered nothing till I felt spray on my face, and we +were in sunshine on the open sea. That was twenty days after.' + +'What had happened? Did Hugh die?'the children asked. + +'Never was such a fight fought by christened man,' said Sir Richard. 'An +arrow from the ship had saved me from my Devil, and Thorkild of Borkum +had given back before his Devil, till the bowmen on the ship could shoot +it all full of arrows from near by; but Hugh's Devil was cunning, and +had kept behind trees, where no arrow could reach. Body to body there, +by stark strength of sword and hand, had Hugh slain him, and, dying, the +Thing had clenched his teeth on the sword. Judge what teeth they were!' + +Sir Richard turned the sword again that the children might see the two +great chiselled gouges on either side of the blade. + +'Those same teeth met in Hugh's right arm and side,' Sir Richard went +on. 'I? Oh, I had no more than a broken foot and a fever. Thorkild's ear +was bitten, but Hugh's arm and side clean withered away. I saw him where +he lay along, sucking a fruit in his left hand. His flesh was wasted off +his bones, his hair was patched with white, and his hand was blue-veined +like a woman's. He put his left arm round my neck and whispered, "Take +my sword. It has been thine since Hastings, O my brother, but I can +never hold hilt again." We lay there on the high deck talking of +Santlache, and, I think, of every day since Santlache, and it came so +that we both wept. I was weak, and he little more than a shadow. + +'"Nay--nay," said Witta, at the helm-rail. "Gold is a good right arm to +any man. Look--look at the gold!" He bade Thorkild show us the gold and +the elephants' teeth, as though we had been children. He had brought +away all the gold on the bank, and twice as much more, that the people +of the village gave him for slaying the Devils. They worshipped us as +Gods, Thorkild told me: it was one of their old women healed up Hugh's +poor arm.' + +'How much gold did you get?'asked Dan. + +'How can I say? Where we came out with wedges of iron under the rowers' +feet we returned with wedges of gold hidden beneath planks. There was +dust of gold in packages where we slept and along the side, and +crosswise under the benches we lashed the blackened elephants' teeth. + +'"I had sooner have my right arm," said Hugh, when he had seen all. + +'"Ahai! That was my fault," said Witta. "I should have taken ransom and +landed you in France when first you came aboard, ten months ago." + +'"It is over-late now," said Hugh, laughing. + +'Witta plucked at his long shoulder-lock. "But think!" said he. "If I +had let ye go--which I swear I would never have done, for I love ye more +than brothers--if I had let ye go, by now ye might have been horribly +slain by some mere Moor in the Duke of Burgundy's war, or ye might have +been murdered by land-thieves, or ye might have died of the plague at an +inn. Think of this and do not blame me overmuch, Hugh. See! I will only +take a half of the gold." + +'"I blame thee not at all, Witta," said Hugh. "It was a joyous venture, +and we thirty-five here have done what never men have done. If I live +till England, I will build me a stout keep over Dallington out of my +share." + +'"I will buy cattle and amber and warm red cloth for the wife," said +Witta, "and I will hold all the land at the head of Stavanger Fiord. +Many will fight for me now. But first we must turn North, and with this +honest treasure aboard I pray we meet no pirate ships." + +'We did not laugh. We were careful. We were afraid lest we should lose +one grain of our gold, for which we had fought Devils. + +'"Where is the Sorcerer?" said I, for Witta was looking at the Wise Iron +in the box, and I could not see the Yellow Man. + +'"He has gone to his own country," said he. "He rose up in the night +while we were beating out of that forest in the mud, and said that he +could see it behind the trees. He leaped out on the mud, and did not +answer when we called; so we called no more. He left the Wise Iron, +which is all that I care for--and see, the Spirit still points to the +South." + +'We were troubled for fear that the Wise Iron should fail us now that +its Yellow Man had gone, and when we saw the Spirit still served us we +grew afraid of too strong winds, and of shoals, and of careless leaping +fish, and of all the people on all the shores where we landed.' + +'Why?' said Dan. + +'Because of the gold--because of our gold. Gold changes men altogether. +Thorkild of Borkum did not change. He laughed at Witta for his fears, +and at us for our counselling Witta to furl sail when the ship pitched +at all. + +'"Better be drowned out of hand," said Thorkild of Borkum, "than go tied +to a deck-load of yellow dust." + +'He was a landless man, and had been slave to some King in the East. He +would have beaten out the gold into deep bands to put round the oars, +and round the prow. + +'Yet, though he vexed himself for the gold, Witta waited upon Hugh like +a woman, lending him his shoulder when the ship rolled, and tying of +ropes from side to side that Hugh might hold by them. But for Hugh, he +said--and so did all his men--they would never have won the gold. I +remember Witta made a little, thin gold ring for our Bird to swing in. + +'Three months we rowed and sailed and went ashore for fruits or to clean +the ship. When we saw wild horsemen, riding among sand-dunes, +flourishing spears, we knew we were on the Moors' coast, and stood over +north to Spain; and a strong south-west wind bore us in ten days to a +coast of high red rocks, where we heard a hunting-horn blow among the +yellow gorse and knew it was England. + +'"Now find ye Pevensey yourselves," said Witta. "I love not these narrow +ship-filled seas." + +'He set the dried, salted head of the Devil, which Hugh had killed, high +on our prow, and all boats fled from us. Yet, for our gold's sake, we +were more afraid than they. We crept along the coast by night till we +came to the chalk cliffs, and so east to Pevensey. Witta would not come +ashore with us, though Hugh promised him wine at Dallington enough to +swim in. He was on fire to see his wife, and ran into the Marsh after +sunset, and there he left us and our share of gold, and backed out on +the same tide. He made no promise; he swore no oath; he looked for no +thanks; but to Hugh, an armless man, and to me, an old cripple whom he +could have flung into the sea, he passed over wedge upon wedge, packet +upon packet of gold and dust of gold, and only ceased when we would take +no more. As he stooped from the rail to bid us farewell he stripped off +his right-arm bracelets and put them all on Hugh's left, and he kissed +Hugh on the cheek. I think when Thorkild of Borkum bade the rowers give +way we were near weeping. It is true that Witta was an heathen and a +pirate; true it is he held us by force many months in his ship, but I +loved that bow-legged, blue-eyed man for his great boldness, his +cunning, his skill, and, beyond all, for his simplicity.' + +'Did he get home all right?' said Dan. + +'I never knew. We saw him hoist sail under the moon-track and stand +away. I have prayed that he found his wife and the children.' + +'And what did you do?' + +'We waited on the Marsh till the day. Then I sat by the gold, all tied +in an old sail, while Hugh went to Pevensey, and De Aquila sent us +horses.' + +Sir Richard crossed hands on his sword-hilt, and stared down stream +through the soft warm shadows. + +'A whole shipload of gold!' said Una, looking at the little _Golden +Hind_. 'But I'm glad I didn't see the Devils.' + +'I don't believe they were Devils,'Dan whispered back. + +'Eh?' said Sir Richard. 'Witta's father warned him they were +unquestionable Devils. One must believe one's father, and not one's +children. What were my Devils, then?' + +Dan flushed all over. 'I--I only thought,' he stammered; 'I've got a +book called _The Gorilla Hunters_--it's a continuation of _Coral +Island_, sir--and it says there that the gorillas (they're big monkeys, +you know) were always chewing iron up.' + +'Not always,' said Una. 'Only twice.' They had been reading _The Gorilla +Hunters_ in the orchard. + +'Well, anyhow, they always drummed on their chests, like Sir Richard's +did, before they went for people. And they built houses in trees, too.' + +'Ha!' Sir Richard opened his eyes. 'Houses like flat nests did our +Devils make, where their imps lay and looked at us. I did not see them +(I was sick after the fight), but Witta told me, and, lo, ye know it +also? Wonderful! Were our Devils only nest-building apes? Is there no +sorcery left in the world?' + +'I don't know,' answered Dan, uncomfortably. 'I've seen a man take +rabbits out of a hat, and he told us we could see how he did it, if we +watched hard. And we did.' + +'But we didn't,' said Una, sighing. 'Oh! there's Puck!' + +The little fellow, brown and smiling, peered between two stems of an +ash, nodded, and slid down the bank into the cool beside them. + +'No sorcery, Sir Richard?' he laughed, and blew on a full dandelion head +he had picked. + +'They tell me that Witta's Wise Iron was a toy. The boy carries such an +iron with him. They tell me our Devils were apes, called gorillas!' said +Sir Richard, indignantly. + +'That is the sorcery of books,' said Puck. 'I warned thee they were wise +children. All people can be wise by reading of books.' + +'But are the books true?' Sir Richard frowned. 'I like not all this +reading and writing.' + +'Ye-es,' said Puck, holding the naked dandelion head at arm's length. +'But if we hang all fellows who write falsely, why did De Aquila not +begin with Gilbert the Clerk? _He_ was false enough.' + +'Poor false Gilbert. Yet, in his fashion, he was bold,' said Sir +Richard. + +'What did he do?' said Dan. + +'He wrote,' said Sir Richard. 'Is the tale meet for children, think +you?' He looked at Puck; but 'Tell us! Tell us!' cried Dan and Una +together. + + + +THORKILD'S SONG + + +There's no wind along these seas, + Out oars for Stavanger! + Forward all for Stavanger! +So we must wake the white-ash breeze, + Let fall for Stavanger! + A long pull for Stavanger! + +Oh, hear the benches creak and strain! + (A long pull for Stavanger!) +She thinks she smells the Northland rain! + (A long pull for Stavanger!) + +She thinks she smells the Northland snow, +And she's as glad as we to go. + +She thinks she smells the Northland rime, +And the dear dark nights of winter-time. + +Her very bolts are sick for shore, +And we--we want it ten times more! + +So all you Gods that love brave men, +Send us a three-reef gale again! + +Send us a gale, and watch us come, +With close-cropped canvas slashing home! + +But--there's no wind in all these seas. + A long pull for Stavanger! +So we must wake the white-ash breeze, + A long pull for Stavanger! + + + + +OLD MEN AT PEVENSEY + + + +'It has naught to do with apes or Devils,'Sir Richard went on, in an +undertone. 'It concerns De Aquila, than whom there was never bolder nor +craftier, nor more hardy knight born. And remember he was an old, old +man at that time.' + +'When?' said Dan. + +'When we came back from sailing with Witta.' + +'What did you do with your gold?' said Dan. + +'Have patience. Link by link is chain-mail made. I will tell all in its +place. We bore the gold to Pevensey on horseback--three loads of it--and +then up to the north chamber, above the Great Hall of Pevensey Castle, +where De Aquila lay in winter. He sat on his bed like a little white +falcon, turning his head swiftly from one to the other as we told our +tale. Jehan the Crab, an old sour man-at-arms, guarded the stairway, but +De Aquila bade him wait at the stair-foot, and let down both leather +curtains over the door. It was Jehan whom De Aquila had sent to us with +the horses, and only Jehan had loaded the gold. When our story was told, +De Aquila gave us the news of England, for we were as men waked from a +year-long sleep. The Red King was dead--slain (ye remember?) the day we +set sail--and Henry, his younger brother, had made himself King of +England over the head of Robert of Normandy. This was the very thing +that the Red King had done to Robert when our Great William died. Then +Robert of Normandy, mad, as De Aquila said, at twice missing of this +kingdom, had sent an army against England, which army had been well +beaten back to their ships at Portsmouth. A little earlier, and Witta's +ship would have rowed through them. + +'"And now," said De Aquila, "half the great Barons of the North and West +are out against the King between Salisbury and Shrewsbury, and half the +other half wait to see which way the game shall go. They say Henry is +overly English for their stomachs, because he hath married an English +wife and she hath coaxed him to give back their old laws to our Saxons. +(Better ride a horse on the bit he knows, _I_ say!) But that is only a +cloak to their falsehood." He cracked his finger on the table, where the +wine was spilt, and thus he spoke:-- + +'"William crammed us Norman barons full of good English acres after +Santlache. _I_ had my share too," he said, and clapped Hugh on the +shoulder; "but I warned him--I warned him before Odo rebelled--that he +should have bidden the Barons give up their lands and lordships in +Normandy if they would be English lords. Now they are all but princes +both in England and Normandy--trencher-fed hounds, with a foot in one +trough and both eyes on the other! Robert of Normandy has sent them word +that if they do not fight for him in England he will sack and harry out +their lands in Normandy. Therefore Clare has risen, FitzOsborne has +risen, Montgomery has risen--whom our First William made an English +Earl. Even D'Arcy is out with his men, whose father I remember a little +hedge-sparrow knight nearby Caen. If Henry wins, the Barons can still +flee to Normandy, where Robert will welcome them. If Henry loses, +Robert, he says, will give them more lands in England. Oh, a pest--a +pest on Normandy, for she will be our England's curse this many a long +year!" + +'"Amen," said Hugh. "But will the war come our ways, think you?" + +'"Not from the North," said De Aquila. "But the sea is always open. If +the Barons gain the upper hand Robert will send another army into +England for sure, and this time I think he will land here--where his +father, the Conqueror, landed. Ye have brought your pigs to a pretty +market! Half England alight, and gold enough on the ground"--he stamped +on the bars beneath the table--"to set every sword in Christendom +fighting." + +'"What is to do?" said Hugh. "I have no keep at Dallington; and if we +buried it, whom could we trust?" + +'"Me," said De Aquila. "Pevensey walls are strong. No man but Jehan, who +is my dog, knows what is between them." He drew a curtain by the +shot-window and showed us the shaft of a well in the thickness of the +wall. + +'"I made it for a drinking-well," he said, "but we found salt water, and +it rises and falls with the tide. Hark!" We heard the water whistle and +blow at the bottom. "Will it serve?" said he. + +'"Needs must," said Hugh. "Our lives are in thy hands." So we lowered +all the gold down except one small chest of it by De Aquila's bed, which +we kept as much for his delight in its weight and colour as for any of +our needs. + +'In the morning, ere we rode to our Manors, he said: "I do not say +farewell; because ye will return and bide here. Not for love nor for +sorrow, but to be with the gold. Have a care," he said, laughing, "lest +I use it to make myself Pope. Trust me not, but return!"' + +Sir Richard paused and smiled sadly. + +'In seven days, then, we returned from our Manors--from the Manors which +had been ours.' + +'And were the children quite well?' said Una. + +'My sons were young. Land and governance belong by right to young men.' +Sir Richard was talking to himself. 'It would have broken their hearts +if we had taken back our Manors. They made us great welcome, but we +could see--Hugh and I could see--that our day was done. I was a cripple +and he a one-armed man. No!' He shook his head. 'And therefore'--he +raised his voice--'we rode back to Pevensey.' + +'I'm sorry,' said Una, for the knight seemed very sorrowful. + +'Little maid, it all passed long ago. They were young; we were old. We +let them rule the Manors. "Aha!" cried De Aquila from his shot-window, +when we dismounted. "Back again to earth, old foxes?" but when we were +in his chamber above the Hall he puts his arms about us and says, +"Welcome, ghosts! Welcome, poor ghosts!" ... Thus it fell out that we +were rich beyond belief, and lonely. And lonely!' + +'What did you do?' said Dan. + +'We watched for Robert of Normandy,' said the knight. 'De Aquila was +like Witta. He suffered no idleness. In fair weather we would ride along +between Bexlei on the one side, to Cuckmere on the other--sometimes with +hawk, sometimes with hound (there are stout hares both on the Marsh and +the Downland), but always with an eye to the sea, for fear of fleets +from Normandy. In foul weather he would walk on the top of his tower, +frowning against the rain--peering here and pointing there. It always +vexed him to think how Witta's ship had come and gone without his +knowledge. When the wind ceased and ships anchored, to the wharf's edge +he would go and, leaning on his sword among the stinking fish, would +call to the mariners for their news from France. His other eye he kept +landward for word of Henry's war against the Barons. + +'Many brought him news--jongleurs, harpers, pedlars, sutlers, priests +and the like; and, though he was secret enough in small things, yet, if +their news misliked him, then, regarding neither time nor place nor +people, he would curse our King Henry for a fool or a babe. I have heard +him cry aloud by the fishing boats: "If I were King of England I would +do thus and thus"; and when I rode out to see that the warning-beacons +were laid and dry, he hath often called to me from the shot-window: +"Look to it, Richard! Do not copy our blind King, but see with thine own +eyes and feel with thine own hands." I do not think he knew any sort of +fear. And so we lived at Pevensey, in the little chamber above the Hall. + +'One foul night came word that a messenger of the King waited below. We +were chilled after a long riding in the fog towards Bexlei, which is an +easy place for ships to land. De Aquila sent word the man might either +eat with us or wait till we had fed. Anon Jehan, at the stair-head, +cried that he had called for horse, and was gone. "Pest on him!" said De +Aquila. "I have more to do than to shiver in the Great Hall for every +gadling the King sends. Left he no word?" + +'"None," said Jehan, "except"--he had been with De Aquila at +Santlache--"except he said that if an old dog could not learn new tricks +it was time to sweep out the kennel." + +'"Oho!" said De Aquila, rubbing his nose, "to whom did he say that?" + +'"To his beard, chiefly, but some to his horse's flank as he was +girthing up. I followed him out," said Jehan the Crab. + +'"What was his shield-mark?" + +'"Gold horseshoes on black," said the Crab. + +'"That is one of Fulke's men," said De Aquila.' + +Puck broke in very gently, 'Gold horseshoes on black is _not_ the +Fulkes' shield. The Fulkes' arms are----' + +The knight waved one hand statelily. + +'Thou knowest that evil man's true name,' he replied, 'but I have chosen +to call him Fulke because I promised him I would not tell the story of +his wickedness so that any man might guess it. I have changed _all_ the +names in my tale. His children's children may be still alive.' + +'True--true,' said Puck, smiling softly. 'It is knightly to keep +faith--even after a thousand years.' + +Sir Richard bowed a little and went on:-- + +'"Gold horseshoes on black?" said De Aquila. "I had heard Fulke had +joined the Barons, but if this is true our King must be of the upper +hand. No matter, all Fulkes are faithless. Still, I would not have sent +the man away empty." + +'"He fed," said Jehan. "Gilbert the Clerk fetched him meat and wine from +the kitchens. He ate at Gilbert's table." + +'This Gilbert was a clerk from Battle Abbey, who kept the accounts of +the Manor of Pevensey. He was tall and pale-coloured, and carried those +new-fashioned beads for counting of prayers. They were large brown nuts +or seeds, and hanging from his girdle with his pen and inkhorn they +clashed when he walked. His place was in the great fireplace. There was +his table of accounts, and there he lay o' nights. He feared the hounds +in the Hall that came nosing after bones or to sleep on the warm ashes, +and would slash at them with his beads--like a woman. When De Aquila sat +in Hall to do justice, take fines, or grant lands, Gilbert would so +write it in the Manor-roll. But it was none of his work to feed our +guests, or to let them depart without his lord's knowledge. + +'Said De Aquila, after Jehan was gone down the stair: "Hugh, hast thou +ever told my Gilbert thou canst read Latin hand-of-write?" + +'"No," said Hugh. "He is no friend to me, or to Odo my hound either." +'"No matter," said De Aquila. "Let him never know thou canst tell one +letter from its fellow, and"--here he jerked us in the ribs with his +scabbard--"watch him, both of ye. There be devils in Africa, as I have +heard, but by the Saints, there be greater devils in Pevensey!" And that +was all he would say. + +'It chanced, some small while afterwards, a Norman man-at-arms would wed +a Saxon wench of the Manor, and Gilbert (we had watched him well since +De Aquila spoke) doubted whether her folk were free or slave. Since De +Aquila would give them a field of good land, if she were free, the +matter came up at the justice in Great Hall before De Aquila. First the +wench's father spoke; then her mother; then all together, till the hall +rang and the hounds bayed. De Aquila held up his hands. "Write her +free," he called to Gilbert by the fireplace. "A' God's name write her +free, before she deafens me! Yes, yes," he said to the wench that was on +her knees at him; "thou art Cerdic's sister, and own cousin to the Lady +of Mercia, if thou wilt be silent. In fifty years there will be neither +Norman nor Saxon, but all English," said he, "and _these_ are the men +that do our work!" He clapped the man-at-arms that was Jehan's nephew on +the shoulder, and kissed the wench, and fretted with his feet among the +rushes to show it was finished. (The Great Hall is always bitter cold.) +I stood at his side; Hugh was behind Gilbert in the fireplace making to +play with wise rough Odo. He signed to De Aquila, who bade Gilbert +measure the new field for the new couple. Out then runs our Gilbert +between man and maid, his beads clashing at his waist, and the Hall +being empty, we three sit by the fire. + +'Said Hugh, leaning down to the hearthstones, "I saw this stone move +under Gilbert's foot when Odo snuffed at it. Look!" De Aquila digged in +the ashes with his sword; the stone tilted; beneath it lay a parchment +folden, and the writing atop was: "Words spoken against the King by our +Lord of Pevensey--the second part." + +'Here was set out (Hugh read it us whispering) every jest De Aquila had +made to us touching the King; every time he had called out to me from +the shot-window, and every time he had said what he would do if he were +King of England. Yes, day by day had his daily speech, which he never +stinted, been set down by Gilbert, tricked out and twisted from its true +meaning, yet withal so cunningly that none could deny who knew him that +De Aquila had in some sort spoken those words. Ye see?' + +Dan and Una nodded. + +'Yes,' said Una gravely. 'It isn't what you say so much. It's what you +mean when you say it. Like calling Dan a beast in fun. Only grown-ups +don't always understand.' + +'"He hath done this day by day before our very face?" said De Aquila. + +'"Nay, hour by hour," said Hugh. "When De Aquila spoke even now, in the +Hall, of Saxons and Normans, I saw Gilbert write on a parchment, which +he kept beside the Manor-roll, that De Aquila said soon there would be +no Normans left in England if his men-at-arms did their work aright." + +'"Bones of the Saints!" said De Aquila. "What avail is honour or a sword +against a pen? Where did Gilbert hide that writing? He shall eat it." + +'"In his breast when he ran out," said Hugh. "Which made me look to see +where he kept his finished stuff. When Odo scratched at this stone here, +I saw his face change. So I was sure." + +'"He is bold," said De Aquila. "Do him justice. In his own fashion, my +Gilbert is bold." + +'"Overbold," said Hugh. "Hearken here," and he read: "Upon the Feast of +St Agatha, our Lord of Pevensey, lying in his upper chamber, being +clothed in his second fur gown reversed with rabbit----" + +'"Pest on him! He is not my tire-woman!" said De Aquila, and Hugh and I +laughed. + +'"Reversed with rabbit, seeing a fog over the marshes, did wake Sir +Richard Dalyngridge, his drunken cup-mate" (here they laughed at me) +"and said, 'Peer out, old fox, for God is on the Duke of Normandy's +side."' + +'"So did I. It was a black fog. Robert could have landed ten thousand +men, and we none the wiser. Does he tell how we were out all day riding +the Marsh, and how I near perished in a quicksand, and coughed like a +sick ewe for ten days after?" cried De Aquila. + +'"No," said Hugh. "But here is the prayer of Gilbert himself to his +master Fulke." + +'"Ah," said De Aquila. "Well I knew it was Fulke. What is the price of +my blood?" + +'"Gilbert prayeth that when our Lord of Pevensey is stripped of his +lands on this evidence which Gilbert hath, with fear and pains, +collected----" + +'"Fear and pains is a true word," said De Aquila, and sucked in his +cheeks. "But how excellent a weapon is a pen! I must learn it." + +'"He prays that Fulke will advance him from his present service to that +honour in the Church which Fulke promised him. And lest Fulke should +forget, he has written below, 'To be Sacristan of Battle'." + +'At this De Aquila whistled. "A man who can plot against one lord can +plot against another. When I am stripped of my lands Fulke will whip off +my Gilbert's foolish head. None the less Battle needs a new Sacristan. +They tell me the Abbot Henry keeps no sort of rule there." + +'"Let the Abbot wait," said Hugh. "It is our heads and our lands that +are in danger. This parchment is the second part of the tale. The first +has gone to Fulke, and so to the King, who will hold us traitors." + +"Assuredly," said De Aquila. "Fulke's man took the first part that +evening when Gilbert fed him, and our King is so beset by his brother +and his Barons (small blame, too!) that he is mad with mistrust. Fulke +has his ear, and pours poison into it. Presently the King gives him my +land and yours. This is old," and he leaned back and yawned. + +'"And thou wilt surrender Pevensey without word or blow?" said Hugh. "We +Saxons will fight your King then. I will go warn my nephew at +Dallington. Give me a horse!" + +'"Give thee a toy and a rattle," said De Aquila. "Put back the +parchment, and rake over the ashes. If Fulke is given my Pevensey, which +is England's gate, what will he do with it? He is Norman at heart, and +his heart is in Normandy, where he can kill peasants at his pleasure. He +will open England's gate to our sleepy Robert, as Odo and Mortain tried +to do, and then there will be another landing and another Santlache. +Therefore I cannot give up Pevensey." + +'"Good," said we two. + +'"Ah, but wait! If my King be made, on Gilbert's evidence, to mistrust +me, he will send his men against me here, and while we fight, England's +gate is left unguarded. Who will be the first to come through thereby? +Even Robert of Normandy. Therefore I cannot fight my King." He nursed +his sword--thus. + +'"This is saying and unsaying like a Norman," said Hugh. "What of our +Manors?" + +'"I do not think for myself," said De Aquila, "nor for our King, nor for +your lands. I think for England, for whom neither King nor Baron thinks. +I am not Norman, Sir Richard, nor Saxon, Sir Hugh. English am I." + +'"Saxon, Norman or English," said Hugh, "our lives are thine, however +the game goes. When do we hang Gilbert?" + +'"Never," said De Aquila. "Who knows, he may yet be Sacristan of Battle, +for, to do him justice, he is a good writer. Dead men make dumb +witnesses. Wait." + +'"But the King may give Pevensey to Fulke. And our Manors go with it," +said I. "Shall we tell our sons?" + +'"No. The King will not wake up a hornets' nest in the South till he has +smoked out the bees in the North. He may hold me a traitor; but at least +he sees I am not fighting against him; and every day that I lie still is +so much gain to him while he fights the Barons. If he were wise he would +wait till that war were over before he made new enemies. But I think +Fulke will play upon him to send for me, and if I do not obey the +summons, that will, to Henry's mind, be proof of my treason. But mere +talk, such as Gilbert sends, is no proof nowadays. We Barons follow the +Church, and, like Anselm, we speak what we please. Let us go about our +day's dealings, and say naught to Gilbert." + +'"Then we do nothing?" said Hugh. + +'"We wait," said De Aquila. "I am old, but still I find that the most +grievous work I know." + +'And so we found it, but in the end De Aquila was right. + +'A little later in the year, armed men rode over the hill, the Golden +Horseshoes flying behind the King's banner. Said De Aquila, at the +window of our chamber: "How did I tell you? Here comes Fulke himself to +spy out his new lands which our King hath promised him if he can bring +proof of my treason." + +'"How dost thou know?" said Hugh. + +'"Because that is what I would do if I were Fulke, but _I_ should have +brought more men. My roan horse to your old shoes," said he, "Fulke +brings me the King's Summons to leave Pevensey and join the war." He +sucked in his cheeks and drummed on the edge of the shaft, where the +water sounded all hollow. + +'"Shall we go?" said I. + +'"Go! At this time of year? Stark madness," said he. "Take _me_ from +Pevensey to fisk and flyte through fern and forest, and in three days +Robert's keels would be lying on Pevensey mud with ten thousand men! Who +would stop them--Fulke?" + +'The horns blew without, and anon Fulke cried the King's Summons at the +great door, that De Aquila with all men and horse should join the King's +camp at Salisbury. + +'"How did I tell you?" said De Aquila. "There are twenty Barons 'twixt +here and Salisbury could give King Henry good land service, but he has +been worked upon by Fulke to send South and call me--_me_!--off the Gate +of England, when his enemies stand about to batter it in. See that +Fulke's men lie in the big south barn," said he. "Give them drink, and +when Fulke has eaten we will drink in my chamber. The Great Hall is too +cold for old bones." + +'As soon as he was off-horse Fulke went to the chapel with Gilbert to +give thanks for his safe coming, and when he had eaten--he was a fat +man, and rolled his eyes greedily at our good roast Sussex wheatears--we +led him to the little upper chamber, whither Gilbert had already gone +with the Manor-roll. I remember when Fulke heard the tide blow and +whistle in the shaft he leaped back, and his long down-turned +stirrup-shoes caught in the rushes and he stumbled, so that Jehan behind +him found it easy to knock his head against the wall.' + +'Did you know it was going to happen?' said Dan. + +'Assuredly,' said Sir Richard, with a sweet smile. 'I put my foot on his +sword and plucked away his dagger, but he knew not whether it was day or +night for awhile. He lay rolling his eyes and bubbling with his mouth, +and Jehan roped him like a calf. He was cased all in that newfangled +armour which we call lizard-mail. Not rings like my hauberk here'--Sir +Richard tapped his chest--but little pieces of dagger-proof steel +overlapping on stout leather. We stripped it off (no need to spoil good +harness by wetting it), and in the neck-piece De Aquila found the same +folden piece of parchment which we had put back under the hearthstone. + +'At this Gilbert would have run out. I laid my hand on his shoulder. It +sufficed. He fell to trembling and praying on his beads. + +'"Gilbert," said De Aquila, "here be more notable sayings and doings of +our Lord of Pevensey for thee to write down. Take pen and ink-horn, +Gilbert. We cannot all be Sacristans of Battle." + +'Said Fulke from the floor, "Ye have bound a King's messenger. Pevensey +shall burn for this." + +'"Maybe. I have seen it besieged once," said De Aquila, "but heart up, +Fulke. I promise thee that thou shalt be hanged in the middle of the +flames at the end of that siege, if I have to share my last loaf with +thee; and that is more than Odo would have done when we starved out him +and Mortain." + +'Then Fulke sat up and looked long and cunningly at De Aquila. + +'"By the Saints," said he, "why didst thou not say thou wast on the Duke +Robert's side at the first?" + +'"Am I?" said De Aquila. + +'Fulke laughed and said, "No man who serves King Henry dare do this much +to his messenger. When didst thou come over to the Duke? Let me up and +we can smooth it out together." And he smiled and becked and winked. + +'"Yes, we will smooth it out," said De Aquila. He nodded to me, and +Jehan and I heaved up Fulke--he was a heavy man--and lowered him into +the shaft by a rope, not so as to stand on our gold, but dangling by his +shoulders a little above. It was turn of ebb, and the water came to his +knees. He said nothing, but shivered somewhat. + +'Then jehan of a sudden beat down Gilbert's wrist with his sheathed +dagger. "Stop!" he said. "He swallows his beads." + +'"Poison, belike," said De Aquila. "It is good for men who know too +much. I have carried it these thirty years. Give me!" + +'Then Gilbert wept and howled. De Aquila ran the beads through his +fingers. The last one--I have said they were large nuts--opened in two +halves on a pin, and there was a small folded parchment within. On it +was written: "_The Old Dog goes to Salisbury to be beaten. I have his +Kennel. Come quickly_." + +'"This is worse than poison," said De Aquila, very softly, and sucked in +his cheeks. Then Gilbert grovelled in the rushes, and told us all he +knew. The letter, as we guessed, was from Fulke to the Duke (and not the +first that had passed between them); Fulke had given it to Gilbert in +the chapel, and Gilbert thought to have taken it by morning to a certain +fishing boat at the wharf, which trafficked between Pevensey and the +French shore. Gilbert was a false fellow, but he found time between his +quakings and shakings to swear that the master of the boat knew nothing +of the matter. + +'"He hath called me shaved head," said Gilbert, "and he hath thrown +haddock-guts at me; but for all that, he is no traitor." + +'"I will have no clerk of mine mishandled or miscalled," said De Aquila. +"That seaman shall be whipped at his own mast. Write me first a letter, +and thou shalt bear it, with the order for the whipping, to-morrow to +the boat." + +'At this Gilbert would have kissed De Aquila's hand--he had not hoped to +live until the morning--and when he trembled less he wrote a letter as +from Fulke to the Duke, saying that the Kennel, which signified +Pevensey, was shut, and that the Old Dog (which was De Aquila) sat +outside it, and, moreover, that all had been betrayed. + +'"Write to any man that all is betrayed," said De Aquila, "and even the +Pope himself would sleep uneasily. Eh, Jehan? If one told thee all was +betrayed, what wouldst thou do?" + +'"I would run away," said Jehan. "it might be true." + +'"Well said," quoth De Aquila. "Write, Gilbert, that Montgomery, the +great Earl, hath made his peace with the King, and that little D'Arcy, +whom I hate, hath been hanged by the heels. We will give Robert full +measure to chew upon. Write also that Fulke himself is sick to death of +a dropsy." + +'"Nay!" cried Fulke, hanging in the well-shaft. "Drown me out of hand, +but do not make a jest of me." + +'"Jest? I?" said De Aquila. "I am but fighting for life and lands with a +pen, as thou hast shown me, Fulke." + +'Then Fulke groaned, for he was cold, and, "Let me confess," said he. + +'"Now, this is right neighbourly," said De Aquila, leaning over the +shaft. "Thou hast read my sayings and doings--or at least the first part +of them--and thou art minded to repay me with thy own doings and +sayings. Take pen and inkhorn, Gilbert. Here is work that will not irk +thee." + +'"Let my men go without hurt, and I will confess my treason against the +King," said Fulke. + +'"Now, why has he grown so tender of his men of a sudden?" said Hugh to +me; for Fulke had no name for mercy to his men. Plunder he gave them, +but pity, none. + +'"Te! Te!" said De Aquila. "Thy treason was all confessed long ago by +Gilbert. It would be enough to hang Montgomery himself." + +'"Nay; but spare my men," said Fulke; and we heard him splash like a +fish in a pond, for the tide was rising. + +'"All in good time," said De Aquila. "The night is young; the wine is +old; and we need only the merry tale. Begin the story of thy life since +when thou wast a lad at Tours. Tell it nimbly!" + +'"Ye shame me to my soul," said Fulke. + +'"Then I have done what neither King nor Duke could do," said De Aquila. +"But begin, and forget nothing." + +'"Send thy man away," said Fulke. + +'"That much can I do," said De Aquila. "But, remember, I am like the +Danes' King; I cannot turn the tide." + +'"How long will it rise?" said Fulke, and splashed anew. + +'"For three hours," said De Aquila. "Time to tell all thy good deeds. +Begin, and Gilbert,--I have heard thou art somewhat careless--do not +twist his words from his true meaning." + +'So--fear of death in the dark being upon him--Fulke began, and Gilbert, +not knowing what his fate might be, wrote it word by word. I have heard +many tales, but never heard I aught to match the tale of Fulke his black +life, as Fulke told it hollowly, hanging in the shaft.' + +'Was it bad?' said Dan, awestruck. + +'Beyond belief,' Sir Richard answered. 'None the less, there was that in +it which forced even Gilbert to laugh. We three laughed till we ached. +At one place his teeth so chattered that we could not well hear, and we +reached him down a cup of wine. Then he warmed to it, and smoothly set +out all his shifts, malices, and treacheries, his extreme boldnesses (he +was desperate bold); his retreats, shufflings, and counterfeitings (he +was also inconceivably a coward); his lack of gear and honour; his +despair at their loss; his remedies, and well-coloured contrivances. +Yes, he waved the filthy rags of his life before us, as though they had +been some proud banner. When he ceased, we saw by torches that the tide +stood at the corners of his mouth, and he breathed strongly through his +nose. + +'We had him out, and rubbed him; we wrapped him in a cloak, and gave him +wine, and we leaned and looked upon him, the while he drank. He was +shivering, but shameless. + +'Of a sudden we heard Jehan at the stairway wake, but a boy pushed past +him, and stood before us, the hall rushes in his hair, all slubbered +with sleep. "My father! My father! I dreamed of treachery," he cried, +and babbled thickly. + +'"There is no treachery here," said Fulke. "Go!" and the boy turned, +even then not fully awake, and Jehan led him by the hand to the Great +Hall. + +'"Thy only son!" said De Aquila. "Why didst thou bring the child here?" + +'"He is my heir. I dared not trust him to my brother," said Fulke, and +now he was ashamed. De Aquila said nothing, but sat weighing a wine cup +in his two hands--thus. Anon, Fulke touched him on the knee. + +'"Let the boy escape to Normandy," said he, "and do with me at thy +pleasure. Yea, hang me tomorrow, with my letter to Robert round my neck, +but let the boy go." + +'"Be still," said De Aquila. "I think for England." + +'So we waited what our Lord of Pevensey should devise; and the sweat ran +down Fulke's forehead. + +'At last said De Aquila: "I am too old to judge, or to trust any man. I +do not covet thy lands, as thou hast coveted mine; and whether thou art +any better or any worse than any other black Angevin thief, it is for +thy King to find out. Therefore, go back to thy King, Fulke." + +'"And thou wilt say nothing of what has passed?" said Fulke. + +'"Why should I? Thy son will stay with me. If the King calls me again to +leave Pevensey, which I must guard against England's enemies; if the +King sends his men against me for a traitor; or if I hear that the King +in his bed thinks any evil of me or my two knights, thy son will be +hanged from out this window, Fulke."' + +'But it hadn't anything to do with his son,' cried Una, startled. + +'How could we have hanged Fulke?' said Sir Richard. 'We needed him to +make our peace with the King. He would have betrayed half England for +the boy's sake. Of that we were sure.' + +'I don't understand,' said Una. 'But I think it was simply awful.' + +'So did not Fulke. He was well pleased.' + +'What? Because his son was going to be killed?' + +'Nay. Because De Aquila had shown him how he might save the boy's life +and his own lands and honours. "I will do it," he said. "I swear I will +do it. I will tell the King thou art no traitor, but the most excellent, +valiant, and perfect of us all. Yes, I will save thee." + +'De Aquila looked still into the bottom of the cup, rolling the +wine-dregs to and fro. + +'"Ay," he said. "If I had a son, I would, I think, save him. But do not +by any means tell me how thou wilt go about it." + +'"Nay, nay," said Fulke, nodding his bald head wisely. "That is my +secret. But rest at ease, De Aquila, no hair of thy head nor rood of thy +land shall be forfeited," and he smiled like one planning great good +deeds. + +'"And henceforward," said De Aquila, "I counsel thee to serve one +master--not two." + +'"What?" said Fulke. "Can I work no more honest trading between the two +sides these troublous times?" + +'"Serve Robert or the King--England or Normandy," said De Aquila. "I +care not which it is, but make thy choice here and now." + +'"The King, then," said Fulke, "for I see he is better served than +Robert. Shall I swear it?" + +'"No need," said De Aquila, and he laid his hand on the parchments which +Gilbert had written. "It shall be some part of my Gilbert's penance to +copy out the savoury tale of thy life, till we have made ten, twenty, an +hundred, maybe, copies. How many cattle, think you, would the Bishop of +Tours give for that tale? Or thy brother? Or the Monks of Blois? +Minstrels will turn it into songs which thy own Saxon serfs shall sing +behind their plough-stilts, and men-at-arms riding through thy Norman +towns. From here to Rome, Fulke, men will make very merry over that +tale, and how Fulke told it, hanging in a well, like a drowned puppy. +This shall be thy punishment, if ever I find thee double-dealing with +thy King any more. Meantime, the parchments stay here with thy son. Him +I will return to thee when thou hast made my peace with the King. The +parchments never." + +'Fulke hid his face and groaned. + +'"Bones of the Saints!" said De Aquila, laughing. "The pen cuts deep. I +could never have fetched that grunt out of thee with any sword." + +'"But so long as I do not anger thee, my tale will be secret?" said +Fulke. + +'"Just so long. Does that comfort thee, Fulke?" said De Aquila. + +'"What other comfort have ye left me?" he said, and of a sudden he wept +hopelessly like a child, dropping his face on his knees.' + +'Poor Fulke,' said Una. + +'I pitied him also,' said Sir Richard. + +'"After the spur, corn," said De Aquila, and he threw Fulke three wedges +of gold that he had taken from our little chest by the bedplace. + +'"If I had known this," said Fulke, catching his breath, "I would never +have lifted hand against Pevensey. Only lack of this yellow stuff has +made me so unlucky in my dealings." + +'It was dawn then, and they stirred in the Great Hall below. We sent +down Fulke's mail to be scoured, and when he rode away at noon under his +own and the King's banner, very splendid and stately did he show. He +smoothed his long beard, and called his son to his stirrup and kissed +him. De Aquila rode with him as far as the New Mill landward. We thought +the night had been all a dream.' + +'But did he make it right with the King?' Dan asked. 'About your not +being traitors, I mean.' + +Sir Richard smiled. 'The King sent no second summons to Pevensey, nor +did he ask why De Aquila had not obeyed the first. Yes, that was Fulke's +work. I know not how he did it, but it was well and swiftly done.' + +'Then you didn't do anything to his son?' said Una. + +'The boy? Oh, he was an imp! He turned the keep doors out of dortoirs +while we had him. He sang foul songs, learned in the Barons' camps--poor +fool; he set the hounds fighting in Hall; he lit the rushes to drive +out, as he said, the fleas; he drew his dagger on Jehan, who threw him +down the stairway for it; and he rode his horse through crops and among +sheep. But when we had beaten him, and showed him wolf and deer, he +followed us old men like a young, eager hound, and called us "uncle". +His father came the summer's end to take him away, but the boy had no +lust to go, because of the otter-hunting, and he stayed on till the +fox-hunting. I gave him a bittern's claw to bring him good luck at +shooting. An imp, if ever there was!' + +'And what happened to Gilbert?' said Dan. + +'Not even a whipping. De Aquila said he would sooner a clerk, however +false, that knew the Manor-roll than a fool, however true, that must be +taught his work afresh. Moreover, after that night I think Gilbert loved +as much as he feared De Aquila. At least he would not leave us--not even +when Vivian, the King's Clerk, would have made him Sacristan of Battle +Abbey. A false fellow, but, in his fashion, bold.' + +'Did Robert ever land in Pevensey after all?' Dan went on. + +'We guarded the coast too well while Henry was fighting his Barons; and +three or four years later, when England had peace, Henry crossed to +Normandy and showed his brother some work at Tenchebrai that cured +Robert of fighting. Many of Henry's men sailed from Pevensey to that +war. Fulke came, I remember, and we all four lay in the little chamber +once again, and drank together. De Aquila was right. One should not +judge men. Fulke was merry. Yes, always merry--with a catch in his +breath.' + +'And what did you do afterwards?' said Una. + +'We talked together of times past. That is all men can do when they grow +old, little maid.' + + +The bell for tea rang faintly across the meadows. Dan lay in the bows of +the _Golden Hind_; Una in the stern, the book of verses open in her lap, +was reading from 'The Slave's Dream': + +'Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep, +He saw his native land.' + +'I don't know when you began that,' said Dan, sleepily. + +On the middle thwart of the boat, beside Una's sun-bonnet, lay an Oak +leaf, an Ash leaf, and a Thorn leaf, that must have dropped down from +the trees above; and the brook giggled as though it had just seen some +joke. + + + +THE RUNES ON WELAND'S SWORD + + +A Smith makes me +To betray my Man +In my first fight. + +To gather Gold +At the world's end +I am sent. + +The Gold I gather +Comes into England +Out of deep Water. + +Like a shining Fish +Then it descends +Into deep Water. + +It is not given +For goods or gear, +But for The Thing. + +The Gold I gather +A King covets +For an ill use. + +The Gold I gather +Is drawn up +Out of deep Water. + +Like a shining Fish +Then it descends +Into deep Water. + +It is not given +For goods or gear, +But for The Thing. + + + + +A CENTURION OF THE THIRTIETH + + +Cities and Thrones and Powers + Stand in Time's eye, +Almost as long as flowers, + Which daily die. +But, as new buds put forth + To glad new men, +Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth, + The Cities rise again. + +This season's Daffodil, + She never hears, +What change, what chance, what chill, + Cut down last year's: +But with bold countenance, + And knowledge small, +Esteems her seven days' continuance + To be perpetual. + +So Time that is o'er-kind, + To all that be, +Ordains us e'en as blind, + As bold as she: +That in our very death, + And burial sure, +Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith, + 'See how our works endure!' + + + +A Centurion of the Thirtieth + + +Dan had come to grief over his Latin, and was kept in; so Una went alone +to Far Wood. Dan's big catapult and the lead bullets that Hobden had +made for him were hidden in an old hollow beech-stub on the west of the +wood. They had named the place out of the verse in _Lays of Ancient +Rome_: + + From lordly Volaterrae, + Where scowls the far-famed hold + Piled by the hands of giants + For Godlike Kings of old. + +They were the 'Godlike Kings', and when old Hobden +piled some comfortable brushwood between the big wooden +knees of Volaterrae, they called him 'Hands of Giants'. + +Una slipped through their private gap in the fence, and +sat still awhile, scowling as scowlily and lordlily as she +knew how; for Volaterrae is an important watch-tower +that juts out of Far Wood just as Far Wood juts out of the +hillside. Pook's Hill lay below her and all the turns of the +brook as it wanders out of the Willingford Woods, between +hop-gardens, to old Hobden's cottage at the +Forge. The Sou'-West wind (there is always a wind by +Volaterrae) blew from the bare ridge where Cherry Clack +Windmill stands. + +Now wind prowling through woods sounds like exciting +things going to happen, and that is why on blowy +days you stand up in Volaterrae and shout bits of the _Lays_ +to suit its noises. + +Una took Dan's catapult from its secret place, and +made ready to meet Lars Porsena's army stealing +through the wind-whitened aspens by the brook. A gust +boomed up the valley, and Una chanted sorrowfully: + + 'Verbenna down to Ostia + Hath wasted all the plain: + Astur hath stormed Janiculum, + And the stout guards are slain.' + +But the wind, not charging fair to the wood, started aside and shook a +single oak in Gleason's pasture. Here it made itself all small and +crouched among the grasses, waving the tips of them as a cat waves the +tip of her tail before she springs. + +'Now welcome--welcome, Sextus,' sang Una, loading the catapult-- + +'Now welcome to thy home! +Why dost thou stay, and turn away? +Here lies the road to Rome.' + +She fired into the face of the lull, to wake up the cowardly wind, and +heard a grunt from behind a thorn in the pasture. + +'Oh, my Winkie!' she said aloud, and that was something she had picked +up from Dan. 'I b'lieve I've tickled up a Gleason cow.' + +'You little painted beast!' a voice cried. 'I'll teach you to sling your +masters!' + +She looked down most cautiously, and saw a young man covered with hoopy +bronze armour all glowing among the late broom. But what Una admired +beyond all was his great bronze helmet with a red horse-tail that +flicked in the wind. She could hear the long hairs rasp on his shimmery +shoulder-plates. + +'What does the Faun mean,' he said, half aloud to himself, 'by telling +me that the Painted People have changed?' He caught sight of Una's +yellow head. 'Have you seen a painted lead-slinger?' he called. + +'No-o,' said Una. 'But if you've seen a bullet----' + +'Seen?' cried the man. 'It passed within a hair's breadth of my ear.' + +'Well, that was me. I'm most awfully sorry.' + +'Didn't the Faun tell you I was coming?' He smiled. + +'Not if you mean Puck. I thought you were a Gleason cow. I--I didn't +know you were a--a----What are you?' + +He laughed outright, showing a set of splendid teeth. His face and eyes +were dark, and his eyebrows met above his big nose in one bushy black +bar. + +'They call me Parnesius. I have been a Centurion of the Seventh Cohort +of the Thirtieth Legion--the Ulpia Victrix. Did you sling that bullet?' + +'I did. I was using Dan's catapult,' said Una. + +'Catapults!' said he. 'I ought to know something about them. Show me!' + +He leaped the rough fence with a rattle of spear, shield, and armour, +and hoisted himself into Volaterrae as quickly as a shadow. + +'A sling on a forked stick. I understand!' he cried, and pulled at the +elastic. 'But what wonderful beast yields this stretching leather?' + +'It's laccy--elastic. You put the bullet into that loop, and then you +pull hard.' + +The man pulled, and hit himself square on his thumb-nail. + +'Each to his own weapon,' he said gravely, handing it back. 'I am better +with the bigger machine, little maiden. But it's a pretty toy. A wolf +would laugh at it. Aren't you afraid of wolves?' + +'There aren't any,' said Una. + +'Never believe it! A wolf's like a Winged Hat. He comes when he isn't +expected. Don't they hunt wolves here?' + +'We don't hunt,' said Una, remembering what she had heard from grown-ups. +'We preserve--pheasants. Do you know them?' + +'I ought to,' said the young man, smiling again, and he imitated the cry +of the cock-pheasant so perfectly that a bird answered out of the wood. + +'What a big painted clucking fool is a pheasant!' he said. 'Just like +some Romans.' + +'But you're a Roman yourself, aren't you?' said Una. + +'Ye-es and no. I'm one of a good few thousands who have never seen Rome +except in a picture. My people have lived at Vectis for generations. +Vectis--that island West yonder that you can see from so far in clear +weather.' + +'Do you mean the Isle of Wight? It lifts up just before rain, and you +see it from the Downs.' + +'Very likely. Our villa's on the South edge of the Island, by the Broken +Cliffs. Most of it is three hundred years old, but the cow-stables, +where our first ancestor lived, must be a hundred years older. Oh, quite +that, because the founder of our family had his land given him by +Agricola at the Settlement. It's not a bad little place for its size. In +spring-time violets grow down to the very beach. I've gathered sea-weeds +for myself and violets for my Mother many a time with our old nurse.' + +'Was your nurse a--a Romaness too?' + +'No, a Numidian. Gods be good to her! A dear, fat, brown thing with a +tongue like a cowbell. She was a free woman. By the way, are you free, +maiden?' + +'Oh, quite,' said Una. 'At least, till tea-time; and in summer our +governess doesn't say much if we're late.' + +The young man laughed again--a proper understanding laugh. + +'I see,' said he. 'That accounts for your being in the wood. _We_ hid +among the cliffs.' + +'Did you have a governess, then?' + +'Did we not? A Greek, too. She had a way of clutching her dress when she +hunted us among the gorse-bushes that made us laugh. Then she'd say +she'd get us whipped. She never did, though, bless her! Aglaia was a +thorough sportswoman, for all her learning.' + +'But what lessons did you do--when--when you were little?' + +'Ancient history, the Classics, arithmetic and so on,' he answered. 'My +sister and I were thick-heads, but my two brothers (I'm the middle one) +liked those things, and, of course, Mother was clever enough for any +six. She was nearly as tall as I am, and she looked like the new statue +on the Western Road--the Demeter of the Baskets, you know. And funny! +Roma Dea! How Mother could make us laugh!' + +'What at?' + +'Little jokes and sayings that every family has. Don't you know?' + +'I know we have, but I didn't know other people had them too,' said Una. +'Tell me about all your family, please.' + +'Good families are very much alike. Mother would sit spinning of +evenings while Aglaia read in her corner, and Father did accounts, and +we four romped about the passages. When our noise grew too loud the +Pater would say, "Less tumult! Less tumult! Have you never heard of a +Father's right over his children? He can slay them, my loves--slay them +dead, and the Gods highly approve of the action!" Then Mother would prim +up her dear mouth over the wheel and answer: "H'm! I'm afraid there +can't be much of the Roman Father about you!" Then the Pater would roll +up his accounts, and say, "I'll show you!" and then--then, he'd be worse +than any of us!' + +'Fathers can--if they like,' said Una, her eyes dancing. + +'Didn't I say all good families are very much the same?' + +'What did you do in summer?' said Una. 'Play about, like us?' + +'Yes, and we visited our friends. There are no wolves in Vectis. We had +many friends, and as many ponies as we wished.' + +'It must have been lovely,' said Una. 'I hope it lasted for ever.' + +'Not quite, little maid. When I was about sixteen or seventeen, the +Father felt gouty, and we all went to the Waters.' + +'What waters?' + +'At Aquae Solis. Every one goes there. You ought to get your Father to +take you some day.' + +'But where? I don't know,' said Una. + +The young man looked astonished for a moment. 'Aquae Solis,' he +repeated. 'The best baths in Britain. just as good, I'm told, as Rome. +All the old gluttons sit in hot water, and talk scandal and politics. +And the Generals come through the streets with their guards behind them; +and the magistrates come in their chairs with their stiff guards behind +them; and you meet fortune-tellers, and goldsmiths, and merchants, and +philosophers, and feather-sellers, and ultra-Roman Britons, and +ultra-British Romans, and tame tribesmen pretending to be civilised, and +Jew lecturers, and--oh, everybody interesting. We young people, of +course, took no interest in politics. We had not the gout: there were +many of our age like us. We did not find life sad. + +'But while we were enjoying ourselves without thinking, my sister met +the son of a magistrate in the West--and a year afterwards she was +married to him. My young brother, who was always interested in plants +and roots, met the First Doctor of a Legion from the City of the +Legions, and he decided that he would be an Army doctor. I do not think +it is a profession for a well-born man, but then--I'm not my brother. He +went to Rome to study medicine, and now he's First Doctor of a Legion in +Egypt--at Antinoe, I think, but I have not heard from him for some time. + +'My eldest brother came across a Greek philosopher, and told my Father +that he intended to settle down on the estate as a farmer and a +philosopher. You see,'--the young man's eyes twinkled--'his philosopher +was a long-haired one!' + +'I thought philosophers were bald,' said Una. + +'Not all. She was very pretty. I don't blame him. Nothing could have +suited me better than my eldest brother's doing this, for I was only too +keen to join the Army. I had always feared I should have to stay at home +and look after the estate while my brother took _this_.' + +He rapped on his great glistening shield that never seemed to be in his +way. + +'So we were well contented--we young people--and we rode back to +Clausentum along the Wood Road very quietly. But when we reached home, +Aglaia, our governess, saw what had come to us. I remember her at the +door, the torch over her head, watching us climb the cliff-path from the +boat. "Aie! Aie!" she said. "Children you went away. Men and a woman you +return!" Then she kissed Mother, and Mother wept. Thus our visit to the +Waters settled our fates for each of us, Maiden.' + +He rose to his feet and listened, leaning on the shield-rim. + +'I think that's Dan--my brother,' said Una. + +'Yes; and the Faun is with him,' he replied, as Dan with Puck stumbled +through the copse. + +'We should have come sooner,' Puck called, 'but the beauties of your +native tongue, O Parnesius, have enthralled this young citizen.' + +Parnesius looked bewildered, even when Una explained. + +'Dan said the plural of "dominus" was "dominoes", and when Miss Blake +said it wasn't he said he supposed it was "backgammon", and so he had to +write it out twice--for cheek, you know.' + +Dan had climbed into Volaterrae, hot and panting. + +'I've run nearly all the way,' he gasped, 'and then Puck met me. How do +you do, Sir?' + +'I am in good health,' Parnesius answered. 'See! I have tried to bend +the bow of Ulysses, but----' He held up his thumb. + +'I'm sorry. You must have pulled off too soon,' said Dan. 'But Puck said +you were telling Una a story.' + +'Continue, O Parnesius,' said Puck, who had perched himself on a dead +branch above them. 'I will be chorus. Has he puzzled you much, Una?' + +'Not a bit, except--I didn't know where Ak--Ak something was,' she +answered. + +'Oh, Aquae Solis. That's Bath, where the buns come from. Let the hero +tell his own tale.' + +Parnesius pretended to thrust his spear at Puck's legs, but Puck reached +down, caught at the horse-tail plume, and pulled off the tall helmet. + +'Thanks, jester,' said Parnesius, shaking his curly dark head. 'That is +cooler. Now hang it up for me.... + +'I was telling your sister how I joined the Army,' he said to Dan. + +'Did you have to pass an Exam?' Dan asked eagerly. + +'No. I went to my Father, and said I should like to enter the Dacian +Horse (I had seen some at Aquae Solis); but he said I had better begin +service in a regular Legion from Rome. Now, like many of our youngsters, +I was not too fond of anything Roman. The Roman-born officers and +magistrates looked down on us British-born as though we were barbarians. +I told my Father so. + +'"I know they do," he said; "but remember, after all, we are the people +of the Old Stock, and our duty is to the Empire." + +'"To which Empire?" I asked. "We split the Eagle before I was born." + +'"What thieves' talk is that?" said my Father. He hated slang. + +'"Well, sir," I said, "we've one Emperor in Rome, and I don't know how +many Emperors the outlying Provinces have set up from time to time. +Which am I to follow?" + +'"Gratian," said he. "At least he's a sportsman." + +'"He's all that," I said. "Hasn't he turned himself into a +raw-beef-eating Scythian?" + +'"Where did you hear of it?" said the Pater. + +'"At Aquae Solis," I said. It was perfectly true. This precious Emperor +Gratian of ours had a bodyguard of fur-cloaked Scythians, and he was so +crazy about them that he dressed like them. In Rome of all places in the +world! It was as bad as if my own Father had painted himself blue! + +'"No matter for the clothes," said the Pater. "They are only the fringe +of the trouble. It began before your time or mine. Rome has forsaken her +Gods, and must be punished. The great war with the Painted People broke +out in the very year the temples of our Gods were destroyed. We beat the +Painted People in the very year our temples were rebuilt. Go back +further still."... He went back to the time of Diocletian; and to listen +to him you would have thought Eternal Rome herself was on the edge of +destruction, just because a few people had become a little large-minded. + +'_I_ knew nothing about it. Aglaia never taught us the history of our +own country. She was so full of her ancient Greeks. + +'"There is no hope for Rome," said the Pater, at last. "She has forsaken +her Gods, but if the Gods forgive _us_ here, we may save Britain. To do +that, we must keep the Painted People back. Therefore, I tell you, +Parnesius, as a Father, that if your heart is set on service, your place +is among men on the Wall--and not with women among the cities."' + +'What Wall?' asked Dan and Una at once. + +'Father meant the one we call Hadrian's Wall. I'll tell you about it +later. It was built long ago, across North Britain, to keep out the +Painted People--Picts, you call them. Father had fought in the great +Pict War that lasted more than twenty years, and he knew what fighting +meant. Theodosius, one of our great Generals, had chased the little +beasts back far into the North before I was born. Down at Vectis, of +course, we never troubled our heads about them. But when my Father spoke +as he did, I kissed his hand, and waited for orders. We British-born +Romans know what is due to our parents.' + +'If I kissed my Father's hand, he'd laugh,' said Dan. + +'Customs change; but if you do not obey your Father, the Gods remember +it. You may be quite sure of _that_. + +'After our talk, seeing I was in earnest, the Pater sent me over to +Clausentum to learn my foot-drill in a barrack full of foreign +auxiliaries--as unwashed and unshaved a mob of mixed barbarians as ever +scrubbed a breastplate. It was your stick in their stomachs and your +shield in their faces to push them into any sort of formation. When I +had learned my work the Instructor gave me a handful--and they were a +handful!--of Gauls and Iberians to polish up till they were sent to +their stations up-country. I did my best, and one night a villa in the +suburbs caught fire, and I had my handful out and at work before any of +the other troops. I noticed a quiet-looking man on the lawn, leaning on +a stick. He watched us passing buckets from the pond, and at last he +said to me: "Who are you?" + +'"A probationer, waiting for a command," I answered. _I_ didn't know who +he was from Deucalion! + +'"Born in Britain?" he said. + +'"Yes, if you were born in Spain," I said, for he neighed his words like +an Iberian mule. + +'"And what might you call yourself when you are at home?" he said, +laughing. + +'"That depends," I answered; "sometimes one thing and sometimes another. +But now I'm busy." + +'He said no more till we had saved the family gods (they were +respectable householders), and then he grunted across the laurels: +"Listen, young sometimes-one-thing-and-sometimes-another. In future call +yourself Centurion of the Seventh Cohort of the Thirtieth, the Ulpia +Victrix. That will help me to remember you. Your Father and a few other +people call me Maximus." + +'He tossed me the polished stick he was leaning on, and went away. You +might have knocked me down with it!' + +'Who was he?' said Dan. + +'Maximus himself, our great General! _The_ General of Britain who had +been Theodosius's right hand in the Pict War! Not only had he given me +my Centurion's stick direct, but three steps in a good Legion as well! A +new man generally begins in the Tenth Cohort of his Legion, and works +up.' + +'And were you pleased?' said Una. + +'Very. I thought Maximus had chosen me for my good looks and fine style +in marching, but, when I went home, the Pater told me he had served +under Maximus in the great Pict War, and had asked him to befriend me.' + +'A child you were!' said Puck, from above. + +'I was,' said Parnesius. 'Don't begrudge it me, Faun. Afterwards--the +Gods know I put aside the games!' And Puck nodded, brown chin on brown +hand, his big eyes still. + +'The night before I left we sacrificed to our ancestors--the usual +little Home Sacrifice--but I never prayed so earnestly to all the Good +Shades, and then I went with my Father by boat to Regnum, and across the +chalk eastwards to Anderida yonder.' + +'Regnum? Anderida?' The children turned their faces to Puck. + +'Regnum's Chichester,' he said, pointing towards Cherry Clack, 'and'--he +threw his arm South behind him--'Anderida's Pevensey.' + +'Pevensey again!' said Dan. 'Where Weland landed?' + +'Weland and a few others,' said Puck. 'Pevensey isn't young--even +compared to me!' + +'The headquarters of the Thirtieth lay at Anderida in summer, but my own +Cohort, the Seventh, was on the Wall up North. Maximus was inspecting +Auxiliaries--the Abulci, I think--at Anderida, and we stayed with him, +for he and my Father were very old friends. I was only there ten days +when I was ordered to go up with thirty men to my Cohort.' He laughed +merrily. 'A man never forgets his first march. I was happier than any +Emperor when I led my handful through the North Gate of the Camp, and we +saluted the guard and the Altar of Victory there.' + +'How? How?' said Dan and Una. + +Parnesius smiled, and stood up, flashing in his armour. + +'So!' said he; and he moved slowly through the beautiful movements of +the Roman Salute, that ends with a hollow clang of the shield coming +into its place between the shoulders. + +'Hai!' said Puck. 'That sets one thinking!' + +'We went out fully armed,' said Parnesius, sitting down; 'but as soon as +the road entered the Great Forest, my men expected the pack-horses to +hang their shields on. "No!" I said; "you can dress like women in +Anderida, but while you're with me you will carry your own weapons and +armour." + +'"But it's hot," said one of them, "and we haven't a doctor. Suppose we +get sunstroke, or a fever?" + +'"Then die," I said, "and a good riddance to Rome! Up shield--up spears, +and tighten your foot-wear!" + +'"Don't think yourself Emperor of Britain already," a fellow shouted. I +knocked him over with the butt of my spear, and explained to these +Roman-born Romans that, if there were any further trouble, we should go +on with one man short. And, by the Light of the Sun, I meant it too! My +raw Gauls at Clausentum had never treated me so. + +'Then, quietly as a cloud, Maximus rode out of the fern (my Father +behind him), and reined up across the road. He wore the Purple, as +though he were already Emperor; his leggings were of white buckskin +laced with gold. + +'My men dropped like--like partridges. + +'He said nothing for some time, only looked, with his eyes puckered. +Then he crooked his forefinger, and my men walked--crawled, I mean--to +one side. + +'"Stand in the sun, children," he said, and they formed up on the hard +road. + +'"What would you have done," he said to me, "if I had not been here?" + +'"I should have killed that man," I answered. + +'"Kill him now," he said. "He will not move a limb." + +'"No," I said. "You've taken my men out of my command. I should only be +your butcher if I killed him now." Do you see what I meant?' Parnesius +turned to Dan. + +'Yes,' said Dan. 'It wouldn't have been fair, somehow.' + +'That was what I thought,' said Parnesius. 'But Maximus frowned. "You'll +never be an Emperor," he said. "Not even a General will you be." + +'I was silent, but my Father seemed pleased. + +'"I came here to see the last of you," he said. + +'"You have seen it," said Maximus. "I shall never need your son any +more. He will live and he will die an officer of a Legion--and he might +have been Prefect of one of my Provinces. Now eat and drink with us," he +said. "Your men will wait till you have finished." + +'My miserable thirty stood like wine-skins glistening in the hot sun, +and Maximus led us to where his people had set a meal. Himself he mixed +the wine. + +'"A year from now," he said, "you will remember that you have sat with +the Emperor of Britain--and Gaul." + +'"Yes," said the Pater, "you can drive two mules--Gaul and Britain." + +'"Five years hence you will remember that you have drunk"--he passed me +the cup and there was blue borage in it--"with the Emperor of Rome!" + +'"No; you can't drive three mules. They will tear you in pieces," said +my Father. + +'"And you on the Wall, among the heather, will weep because your notion +of justice was more to you than the favour of the Emperor of Rome." + +'I sat quite still. One does not answer a General who wears the Purple. + +'"I am not angry with you," he went on; "I owe too much to your +Father----" + +'"You owe me nothing but advice that you never took," said the Pater. + +'"----to be unjust to any of your family. Indeed, I say you may make a +good Tribune, but, so far as I am concerned, on the Wall you will live, +and on the Wall you will die," said Maximus. + +'"Very like," said my Father. "But we shall have the Picts _and_ their +friends breaking through before long. You cannot move all troops out of +Britain to make you Emperor, and expect the North to sit quiet." + +'"I follow my destiny," said Maximus. + +'"Follow it, then," said my Father, pulling up a fern root; "and die as +Theodosius died." + +'"Ah!" said Maximus. "My old General was killed because he served the +Empire too well. _I_ may be killed, but not for that reason," and he +smiled a little pale grey smile that made my blood run cold. + +'"Then I had better follow my destiny," I said, "and take my men to the +Wall." + +'He looked at me a long time, and bowed his head slanting like a +Spaniard. "Follow it, boy," he said. That was all. I was only too glad +to get away, though I had many messages for home. I found my men +standing as they had been put--they had not even shifted their feet in +the dust, and off I marched, still feeling that terrific smile like an +east wind up my back. I never halted them till sunset, and'--he turned +about and looked at Pook's Hill below him--'then I halted yonder.' He +pointed to the broken, bracken-covered shoulder of the Forge Hill behind +old Hobden's cottage. + +'There? Why, that's only the old Forge--where they made iron once,' said +Dan. + +'Very good stuff it was too,' said Parnesius calmly. 'We mended three +shoulder-straps here and had a spear-head riveted. The Forge was rented +from the Government by a one-eyed smith from Carthage. I remember we +called him Cyclops. He sold me a beaver-skin rug for my sister's room.' + +'But it couldn't have been here,' Dan insisted. + +'But it was! From the Altar of Victory at Anderida to the First Forge in +the Forest here is twelve miles seven hundred paces. It is all in the +Road Book. A man doesn't forget his first march. I think I could tell +you every station between this and----' He leaned forward, but his eye +was caught by the setting sun. + +It had come down to the top of Cherry Clack Hill, and the light poured +in between the tree trunks so that you could see red and gold and black +deep into the heart of Far Wood; and Parnesius in his armour shone as +though he had been afire. + +'Wait!' he said, lifting a hand, and the sunlight jinked on his glass +bracelet. 'Wait! I pray to Mithras!' + +He rose and stretched his arms westward, with deep, splendid-sounding +words. + +Then Puck began to sing too, in a voice like bells tolling, and as he +sang he slipped from Volaterrae to the ground, and beckoned the children +to follow. They obeyed; it seemed as though the voices were pushing them +along; and through the goldy-brown light on the beech leaves they +walked, while Puck between them chanted something like this: + +'Cur mundus militat sub vana gloria +Cujus prosperitas est transitoria? +Tam cito labitur ejus potentia +Quam vasa figuli quae sunt fragilia.' + +They found themselves at the little locked gates of the wood. + +'Quo Caesar abiit celsus imperio? +Vel Dives splendidus totus in prandio? +Dic ubi Tullius----' + +Still singing, he took Dan's hand and wheeled him round to face Una as +she came out of the gate. It shut behind her, at the same time as Puck +threw the memory-magicking Oak, Ash and Thorn leaves over their heads. + +'Well, you _are_ jolly late,' said Una. 'Couldn't you get away before?' + +'I did,' said Dan. 'I got away in lots of time, but--but I didn't know +it was so late. Where've you been?' + +'In Volaterrae--waiting for you.' + +'Sorry,' said Dan. 'It was all that beastly Latin.' + + + +A BRITISH-ROMAN SONG (A.D. 406) + + +My father's father saw it not, + And I, belike, shall never come, +To look on that so-holy spot-- + The very Rome-- + +Crowned by all Time, all Art, all Might, + The equal work of Gods and Man, +City beneath whose oldest height-- + The Race began! + +Soon to send forth again a brood, + Unshakeable, we pray, that clings, +To Rome's thrice-hammered hardihood-- + In arduous things. + +Strong heart with triple armour bound, + Beat strongly, for thy life-blood runs, +Age after Age, the Empire round-- + In us thy Sons, + +Who, distant from the Seven Hills, + Loving and serving much, require +Thee,--thee to guard 'gainst home-born ills + The Imperial Fire! + + + +ON THE GREAT WALL + + +'When I left Rome for Lalage's sake + By the Legions' Road to Rimini, +She vowed her heart was mine to take + With me and my shield to Rimini-- + (Till the Eagles flew from Rimini!) + And I've tramped Britain, and I've tramped Gaul, + And the Pontic shore where the snow-flakes fall + As white as the neck of Lalage-- + (As cold as the heart of Lalage!) + And I've lost Britain, and I've lost Gaul,' + +(the voice seemed very cheerful about it), + + 'And I've lost Rome, and, worst of all, + I've lost Lalage!' + +They were standing by the gate to Far Wood when they heard this song. +Without a word they hurried to their private gap and wriggled through +the hedge almost atop of a jay that was feeding from Puck's hand. + +'Gently!' said Puck. 'What are you looking for?' + +'Parnesius, of course,' Dan answered. 'We've only just remembered +yesterday. It isn't fair.' + +Puck chuckled as he rose. 'I'm sorry, but children who spend the +afternoon with me and a Roman Centurion need a little settling dose of +Magic before they go to tea with their governess. Ohe, Parnesius!' he +called. + +'Here, Faun!' came the answer from Volaterrae. They could see the +shimmer of bronze armour in the beech crotch, and the friendly flash of +the great shield uplifted. + +'I have driven out the Britons.' Parnesius laughed like a boy. 'I occupy +their high forts. But Rome is merciful! You may come up.' And up they +three all scrambled. + +'What was the song you were singing just now?' said Una, as soon as she +had settled herself. + +'That? Oh, _Rimini_. It's one of the tunes that are always being born +somewhere in the Empire. They run like a pestilence for six months or a +year, till another one pleases the Legions, and then they march to +_that_.' + +'Tell them about the marching, Parnesius. Few people nowadays walk from +end to end of this country,' said Puck. + +'The greater their loss. I know nothing better than the Long March when +your feet are hardened. You begin after the mists have risen, and you +end, perhaps, an hour after sundown.' + +'And what do you have to eat?' Dan asked promptly. + +'Fat bacon, beans, and bread, and whatever wine happens to be in the +rest-houses. But soldiers are born grumblers. Their very first day out, +my men complained of our water-ground British corn. They said it wasn't +so filling as the rough stuff that is ground in the Roman ox-mills. +However, they had to fetch and eat it.' + +'Fetch it? Where from?' said Una. + +'From that newly invented water-mill below the Forge.' + +'That's Forge Mill--_our_ Mill!' Una looked at Puck. + +'Yes; yours,' Puck put in. 'How old did you think it was?' + +'I don't know. Didn't Sir Richard Dalyngridge talk about it?' + +'He did, and it was old in his day,' Puck answered. 'Hundreds of years +old.' + +'It was new in mine,' said Parnesius. 'My men looked at the flour in +their helmets as though it had been a nest of adders. They did it to try +my patience. But I--addressed them, and we became friends. To tell the +truth, they taught me the Roman Step. You see, I'd only served with +quick-marching Auxiliaries. A Legion's pace is altogether different. It +is a long, slow stride, that never varies from sunrise to sunset. +"Rome's Race--Rome's Pace," as the proverb says. Twenty-four miles in +eight hours, neither more nor less. Head and spear up, shield on your +back, cuirass-collar open one hand's breadth--and that's how you take +the Eagles through Britain.' + +'And did you meet any adventures?' said Dan. + +'There are no adventures South the Wall,' said Parnesius. 'The worst +thing that happened me was having to appear before a magistrate up +North, where a wandering philosopher had jeered at the Eagles. I was +able to show that the old man had deliberately blocked our road; and the +magistrate told him, out of his own Book, I believe, that, whatever his +Gods might be, he should pay proper respect to Caesar.' + +'What did you do?' said Dan. + +'Went on. Why should _I_ care for such things, my business being to +reach my station? It took me twenty days. + +'Of course, the farther North you go the emptier are the roads. At last +you fetch clear of the forests and climb bare hills, where wolves howl +in the ruins of our cities that have been. No more pretty girls; no more +jolly magistrates who knew your Father when he was young, and invite you +to stay with them; no news at the temples and way-stations except bad +news of wild beasts. There's where you meet hunters, and trappers for +the Circuses, prodding along chained bears and muzzled wolves. Your pony +shies at them, and your men laugh. + +'The houses change from gardened villas to shut forts with watch-towers +of grey stone, and great stone-walled sheepfolds, guarded by armed +Britons of the North Shore. In the naked hills beyond the naked houses, +where the shadows of the clouds play like cavalry charging, you see +puffs of black smoke from the mines. The hard road goes on and on--and +the wind sings through your helmet-plume--past altars to Legions and +Generals forgotten, and broken statues of Gods and Heroes, and thousands +of graves where the mountain foxes and hares peep at you. Red-hot in +summer, freezing in winter, is that big, purple heather country of +broken stone. + +'Just when you think you are at the world's end, you see a smoke from +East to West as far as the eye can turn, and then, under it, also as far +as the eye can stretch, houses and temples, shops and theatres, barracks +and granaries, trickling along like dice behind--always behind--one +long, low, rising and falling, and hiding and showing line of towers. +And that is the Wall!' + +'Ah!' said the children, taking breath. + +'You may well,' said Parnesius. 'Old men who have followed the Eagles +since boyhood say nothing in the Empire is more wonderful than first +sight of the Wall!' + +'Is it just a Wall? Like the one round the kitchen-garden?' said Dan. + +'No, no! It is _the_ Wall. Along the top are towers with guard-houses, +small towers, between. Even on the narrowest part of it three men with +shields can walk abreast, from guard-house to guard-house. A little +curtain wall, no higher than a man's neck, runs along the top of the +thick wall, so that from a distance you see the helmets of the sentries +sliding back and forth like beads. Thirty feet high is the Wall, and on +the Picts' side, the North, is a ditch, strewn with blades of old swords +and spear-heads set in wood, and tyres of wheels joined by chains. The +Little People come there to steal iron for their arrow-heads. + +'But the Wall itself is not more wonderful than the town behind it. Long +ago there were great ramparts and ditches on the South side, and no one +was allowed to build there. Now the ramparts are partly pulled down and +built over, from end to end of the Wall; making a thin town eighty miles +long. Think of it! One roaring, rioting, cock-fighting, wolf-baiting, +horse-racing town, from Ituna on the West to Segedunum on the cold +eastern beach! On one side heather, woods and ruins where Picts hide, +and on the other, a vast town--long like a snake, and wicked like a +snake. Yes, a snake basking beside a warm wall! + +'My Cohort, I was told, lay at Hunno, where the Great North Road runs +through the Wall into the Province of Valentia.' Parnesius laughed +scornfully. 'The Province of Valentia! We followed the road, therefore, +into Hunno town, and stood astonished. The place was a fair--a fair of +peoples from every corner of the Empire. Some were racing horses: some +sat in wine-shops: some watched dogs baiting bears, and many gathered in +a ditch to see cocks fight. A boy not much older than myself, but I +could see he was an officer, reined up before me and asked what I +wanted. + +'"My station," I said, and showed him my shield.' Parnesius held up his +broad shield with its three X's like letters on a beer-cask. + +'"Lucky omen!" said he. "Your Cohort's the next tower to us, but they're +all at the cock-fight. This is a happy place. Come and wet the Eagles." +He meant to offer me a drink. + +'"When I've handed over my men," I said. I felt angry and ashamed. + +'"Oh, you'll soon outgrow that sort of nonsense," he answered. "But +don't let me interfere with your hopes. Go on to the Statue of Roma Dea. +You can't miss it. The main road into Valentia!" and he laughed and rode +off. I could see the statue not a quarter of a mile away, and there I +went. At some time or other the Great North Road ran under it into +Valentia; but the far end had been blocked up because of the Picts, and +on the plaster a man had scratched, "Finish!" It was like marching into +a cave. We grounded spears together, my little thirty, and it echoed in +the barrel of the arch, but none came. There was a door at one side +painted with our number. We prowled in, and I found a cook asleep, and +ordered him to give us food. Then I climbed to the top of the Wall, and +looked out over the Pict country, and I--thought,' said Parnesius. 'The +bricked-up arch with "Finish!" on the plaster was what shook me, for I +was not much more than a boy.' + +'What a shame!' said Una. 'But did you feel happy after you'd had a +good----' Dan stopped her with a nudge. + +'Happy?' said Parnesius. 'When the men of the Cohort I was to command +came back unhelmeted from the cock-fight, their birds under their arms, +and asked me who I was? No, I was not happy; but I made my new Cohort +unhappy too ... I wrote my Mother I was happy, but, oh, my friends'--he +stretched arms over bare knees--'I would not wish my worst enemy to +suffer as I suffered through my first months on the Wall. Remember this: +among the officers was scarcely one, except myself (and I thought I had +lost the favour of Maximus, my General), scarcely one who had not done +something of wrong or folly. Either he had killed a man, or taken money, +or insulted the magistrates, or blasphemed the Gods, and so had been +sent to the Wall as a hiding-place from shame or fear. And the men were +as the officers. Remember, also, that the Wall was manned by every breed +and race in the Empire. No two towers spoke the same tongue, or +worshipped the same Gods. In one thing only we were all equal. No matter +what arms we had used before we came to the Wall, _on_ the Wall we were +all archers, like the Scythians. The Pict cannot run away from the +arrow, or crawl under it. He is a bowman himself. _He_ knows!' + +'I suppose you were fighting Picts all the time,' said Dan. + +'Picts seldom fight. I never saw a fighting Pict for half a year. The +tame Picts told us they had all gone North.' + +'What is a tame Pict?' said Dan. + +'A Pict--there were many such--who speaks a few words of our tongue, and +slips across the Wall to sell ponies and wolf-hounds. Without a horse +and a dog, _and_ a friend, man would perish. The Gods gave me all three, +and there is no gift like friendship. Remember this'--Parnesius turned +to Dan--'when you become a young man. For your fate will turn on the +first true friend you make.' + +'He means,' said Puck, grinning, 'that if you try to make yourself a +decent chap when you're young, you'll make rather decent friends when +you grow up. If you're a beast, you'll have beastly friends. Listen to +the Pious Parnesius on Friendship!' + +'I am not pious,' Parnesius answered, 'but I know what goodness means; +and my friend, though he was without hope, was ten thousand times better +than I. Stop laughing, Faun!' + +'Oh, Youth Eternal and All-believing,' cried Puck, as he rocked on the +branch above. 'Tell them about your Pertinax.' + +'He was that friend the Gods sent me--the boy who spoke to me when I +first came. Little older than myself, commanding the Augusta Victoria +Cohort on the tower next to us and the Numidians. In virtue he was far +my superior.' + +'Then why was he on the Wall?' Una asked, quickly. 'They'd all done +something bad. You said so yourself.' + +'He was the nephew, his Father had died, of a great rich man in Gaul who +was not always kind to his Mother. When Pertinax grew up, he discovered +this, and so his uncle shipped him off, by trickery and force, to the +Wall. We came to know each other at a ceremony in our Temple--in the +dark. It was the Bull-Killing,' Parnesius explained to Puck. + +'_I_ see, said Puck, and turned to the children. 'That's something you +wouldn't quite understand. Parnesius means he met Pertinax in church.' + +'Yes--in the Cave we first met, and we were both raised to the Degree of +Gryphons together.' Parnesius lifted his hand towards his neck for an +instant. 'He had been on the Wall two years, and knew the Picts well. He +taught me first how to take Heather.' + +'What's that?' said Dan. + +'Going out hunting in the Pict country with a tame Pict. You are quite +safe so long as you are his guest, and wear a sprig of heather where it +can be seen. If you went alone you would surely be killed, if you were +not smothered first in the bogs. Only the Picts know their way about +those black and hidden bogs. Old Allo, the one-eyed, withered little +Pict from whom we bought our ponies, was our special friend. At first we +went only to escape from the terrible town, and to talk together about +our homes. Then he showed us how to hunt wolves and those great red deer +with horns like Jewish candlesticks. The Roman-born officers rather +looked down on us for doing this, but we preferred the heather to their +amusements. Believe me,' Parnesius turned again to Dan, 'a boy is safe +from all things that really harm when he is astride a pony or after a +deer. Do you remember, O Faun,'--he turned to Puck--'the little altar I +built to the Sylvan Pan by the pine-forest beyond the brook?' + +'Which? The stone one with the line from Xenophon?' said Puck, in quite +a new voice. + +'No! What do _I_ know of Xenophon? That was Pertinax--after he had shot +his first mountain-hare with an arrow--by chance! Mine I made of round +pebbles, in memory of my first bear. It took me one happy day to build.' +Parnesius faced the children quickly. + +'And that was how we lived on the Wall for two years--a little scuffling +with the Picts, and a great deal of hunting with old Allo in the Pict +country. He called us his children sometimes, and we were fond of him +and his barbarians, though we never let them paint us Pict fashion. The +marks endure till you die.' + +'How's it done?' said Dan. 'Anything like tattooing?' + +'They prick the skin till the blood runs, and rub in coloured juices. +Allo was painted blue, green, and red from his forehead to his ankles. +He said it was part of his religion. He told us about his religion +(Pertinax was always interested in such things), and as we came to know +him well, he told us what was happening in Britain behind the Wall. Many +things took place behind us in those days. And by the Light of the Sun,' +said Parnesius, earnestly, 'there was not much that those little people +did not know! He told me when Maximus crossed over to Gaul, after he had +made himself Emperor of Britain, and what troops and emigrants he had +taken with him. We did not get the news on the Wall till fifteen days +later. He told me what troops Maximus was taking out of Britain every +month to help him to conquer Gaul; and I always found the numbers were +as he said. Wonderful! And I tell another strange thing!' + +He joined his hands across his knees, and leaned his head on the curve +of the shield behind him. + +'Late in the summer, when the first frosts begin and the Picts kill +their bees, we three rode out after wolf with some new hounds. +Rutilianus, our General, had given us ten days' leave, and we had pushed +beyond the Second Wall--beyond the Province of Valentia--into the higher +hills, where there are not even any of old Rome's ruins. We killed a +she-wolf before noon, and while Allo was skinning her he looked up and +said to me, "When you are Captain of the Wall, my child, you won't be +able to do this any more!" + +'I might as well have been made Prefect of Lower Gaul, so I laughed and +said, "Wait till I am Captain." + +'"No, don't wait," said Allo. "Take my advice and go home--both of you." + +'"We have no homes," said Pertinax. "You know that as well as we do. +We're finished men--thumbs down against both of us. Only men without +hope would risk their necks on your ponies." The old man laughed one of +those short Pict laughs--like a fox barking on a frosty night. "I'm fond +of you two," he said. "Besides, I've taught you what little you know +about hunting. Take my advice and go home." + +'"We can't," I said. "I'm out of favour with my General, for one thing; +and for another, Pertinax has an uncle." + +'"I don't know about his uncle," said Allo, "but the trouble with you, +Parnesius, is that your General thinks well of you." + +'"Roma Dea!" said Pertinax, sitting up. "What can you guess what Maximus +thinks, you old horse-coper?" + +'Just then (you know how near the brutes creep when one is eating?) a +great dog-wolf jumped out behind us, and away our rested hounds tore +after him, with us at their tails. He ran us far out of any country we'd +ever heard of, straight as an arrow till sunset, towards the sunset. We +came at last to long capes stretching into winding waters, and on a grey +beach below us we saw ships drawn up. Forty-seven we counted--not Roman +galleys but the raven-winged ships from the North where Rome does not +rule. Men moved in the ships, and the sun flashed on their +helmets--winged helmets of the red-haired men from the North where Rome +does not rule. We watched, and we counted, and we wondered, for though +we had heard rumours concerning these Winged Hats, as the Picts called +them, never before had we looked upon them. + +'"Come away! come away!" said Allo. "My Heather won't protect you here. +We shall all be killed!" His legs trembled like his voice. Back we +went--back across the heather under the moon, till it was nearly +morning, and our poor beasts stumbled on some ruins. + +'When we woke, very stiff and cold, Allo was mixing the meal and water. +One does not light fires in the Pict country except near a village. The +little men are always signalling to each other with smokes, and a +strange smoke brings them out buzzing like bees. They can sting, too! + +'"What we saw last night was a trading-station," said Allo. "Nothing but +a trading-station." + +'"I do not like lies on an empty stomach," said Pertinax. "I suppose" +(he had eyes like an eagle's)--"I suppose _that_ is a trading-station +also?" He pointed to a smoke far off on a hill-top, ascending in what we +call the Picts' Call:--Puff--double-puff: double-puff--puff! They make +it by raising and dropping a wet hide on a fire. + +'"No," said Allo, pushing the platter back into the bag. "That is for +you and me. Your fate is fixed. Come." + +'We came. When one takes Heather, one must obey one's Pict--but that +wretched smoke was twenty miles distant, well over on the East coast, +and the day was as hot as a bath. + +'"Whatever happens," said Allo, while our ponies grunted along, "I want +you to remember me." + +'"I shall not forget," said Pertinax. "You have cheated me out of my +breakfast." + +"What is a handful of crushed oats to a Roman?" he said. Then he laughed +his laugh that was not a laugh. + +"What would _you_ do if _you_ were a handful of oats being crushed +between the upper and lower stones of a mill?" + +'"I'm Pertinax, not a riddle-guesser," said Pertinax. + +'"You're a fool," said Allo. "Your Gods and my Gods are threatened by +strange Gods, and all you can do is to laugh." + +'"Threatened men live long," I said. + +'"I pray the Gods that may be true," he said. "But I ask you again not +to forget me." + +'We climbed the last hot hill and looked out on the eastern sea, three +or four miles off. There was a small sailing-galley of the North Gaul +pattern at anchor, her landing-plank down and her sail half up; and +below us, alone in a hollow, holding his pony, sat Maximus, Emperor of +Britain! He was dressed like a hunter, and he leaned on his little +stick; but I knew that back as far as I could see it, and I told +Pertinax. + +'"You're madder than Allo!" he said. "It must be the sun!" + +'Maximus never stirred till we stood before him. Then he looked me up +and down, and said: "Hungry again? It seems to be my destiny to feed you +whenever we meet. I have food here. Allo shall cook it." + +'"No," said Allo. "A Prince in his own land does not wait on wandering +Emperors. I feed my two children without asking your leave." He began to +blow up the ashes. + +'"I was wrong," said Pertinax. "We are all mad. Speak up, O Madman +called Emperor!" + +'Maximus smiled his terrible tight-lipped smile, but two years on the +Wall do not make a man afraid of mere looks. So I was not afraid. + +'"I meant you, Parnesius, to live and die a Centurion of the Wall," said +Maximus. "But it seems from these,"--he fumbled in his breast--"you can +think as well as draw." He pulled out a roll of letters I had written to +my people, full of drawings of Picts, and bears, and men I had met on +the Wall. Mother and my sister always liked my pictures. + +'He handed me one that I had called "Maximus's Soldiers". It showed a +row of fat wine-skins, and our old Doctor of the Hunno hospital snuffing +at them. Each time that Maximus had taken troops out of Britain to help +him to conquer Gaul, he used to send the garrisons more wine--to keep +them quiet, I suppose. On the Wall, we always called a wine-skin a +"Maximus". Oh, yes; and I had drawn them in Imperial helmets. + +'"Not long since," he went on, "men's names were sent up to Caesar for +smaller jokes than this." + +'"True, Caesar," said Pertinax; "but you forget that was before I, your +friend's friend, became such a good spear-thrower." + +'He did not actually point his hunting-spear at Maximus, but balanced it +on his palm--so! + +'"I was speaking of time past," said Maximus, never fluttering an +eyelid. "Nowadays one is only too pleased to find boys who can think for +themselves, _and_ their friends." He nodded at Pertinax. "Your Father +lent me the letters, Parnesius, so you run no risk from me." + +'"None whatever," said Pertinax, and rubbed the spear-point on his +sleeve. + +'"I have been forced to reduce the garrisons in Britain, because I need +troops in Gaul. Now I come to take troops from the Wall itself," said +he. + +'"I wish you joy of us," said Pertinax. "We're the last sweepings of the +Empire--the men without hope. Myself, I'd sooner trust condemned +criminals." + +'"You think so?" he said, quite seriously. "But it will only be till I +win Gaul. One must always risk one's life, or one's soul, or one's +peace--or some little thing." + +'Allo passed round the fire with the sizzling deer's meat. He served us +two first. + +'"Ah!" said Maximus, waiting his turn. "I perceive you are in your own +country. Well, you deserve it. They tell me you have quite a following +among the Picts, Parnesius." + +'"I have hunted with them," I said. "Maybe I have a few friends among +the Heather." + +'"He is the only armoured man of you all who understands us," said Allo, +and he began a long speech about our virtues, and how we had saved one +of his grandchildren from a wolf the year before.' + +'Had you?' said Una. + +'Yes; but that was neither here nor there. The little green man orated +like a--like Cicero. He made us out to be magnificent fellows. Maximus +never took his eyes off our faces. + +'"Enough," he said. "I have heard Allo on you. I wish to hear you on the +Picts." + +'I told him as much as I knew, and Pertinax helped me out. There is +never harm in a Pict if you but take the trouble to find out what he +wants. Their real grievance against us came from our burning their +heather. The whole garrison of the Wall moved out twice a year, and +solemnly burned the heather for ten miles North. Rutilianus, our +General, called it clearing the country. The Picts, of course, scampered +away, and all we did was to destroy their bee-bloom in the summer, and +ruin their sheep-food in the spring. + +'"True, quite true," said Allo. "How can we make our holy heather-wine, +if you burn our bee-pasture?" + +'We talked long, Maximus asking keen questions that showed he knew much +and had thought more about the Picts. He said presently to me: "If I +gave you the old Province of Valentia to govern, could you keep the +Picts contented till I won Gaul? Stand away, so that you do not see +Allo's face; and speak your own thoughts." + +'"No," I said. "You cannot remake that Province. The Picts have been +free too long." + +'"Leave them their village councils, and let them furnish their own +soldiers," he said. "You, I am sure, would hold the reins very lightly." + +"Even then, no," I said. "At least not now. They have been too oppressed +by us to trust anything with a Roman name for years and years." + +'I heard old Allo behind me mutter: "Good child!" + +'"Then what do you recommend," said Maximus, "to keep the North quiet +till I win Gaul?" + +'"Leave the Picts alone," I said. "Stop the heather-burning at once, +and--they are improvident little animals--send them a shipload or two of +corn now and then." + +'"Their own men must distribute it--not some cheating Greek accountant," +said Pertinax. + +'"Yes, and allow them to come to our hospitals when they are sick," I +said. + +'"Surely they would die first," said Maximus. + +'"Not if Parnesius brought them in," said Allo. "I could show you twenty +wolf-bitten, bear-clawed Picts within twenty miles of here. But +Parnesius must stay with them in hospital, else they would go mad with +fear." + +'"I see," said Maximus. "Like everything else in the world, it is one +man's work. You, I think, are that one man." + +'"Pertinax and I are one," I said. + +'"As you please, so long as you work. Now, Allo, you know that I mean +your people no harm. Leave us to talk together," said Maximus. + +'"No need!" said Allo. "I am the corn between the upper and lower +millstones. I must know what the lower millstone means to do. These boys +have spoken the truth as far as they know it. I, a Prince, will tell you +the rest. I am troubled about the Men of the North." He squatted like a +hare in the heather, and looked over his shoulder. + +'"I also," said Maximus, "or I should not be here." + +'"Listen," said Allo. "Long and long ago the Winged Hats"--he meant the +Northmen--"came to our beaches and said, 'Rome falls! Push her down!' We +fought you. You sent men. We were beaten. After that we said to the +Winged Hats, 'You are liars! Make our men alive that Rome killed, and we +will believe you.' They went away ashamed. Now they come back bold, and +they tell the old tale, which we begin to believe--that Rome falls!" + +'"Give me three years' peace on the Wall," cried Maximus, "and I will +show you and all the ravens how they lie!" + +'"Ah, I wish it too! I wish to save what is left of the corn from the +millstones. But you shoot us Picts when we come to borrow a little iron +from the Iron Ditch; you burn our heather, which is all our crop; you +trouble us with your great catapults. Then you hide behind the Wall, and +scorch us with Greek fire. How can I keep my young men from listening to +the Winged Hats--in winter especially, when we are hungry? My young men +will say, 'Rome can neither fight nor rule. She is taking her men out of +Britain. The Winged Hats will help us to push down the Wall. Let us show +them the secret roads across the bogs.' Do _I_ want that? No!" He spat +like an adder. "I would keep the secrets of my people though I were +burned alive. My two children here have spoken truth. Leave us Picts +alone. Comfort us, and cherish us, and feed us from far off--with the +hand behind the back. Parnesius understands us. Let _him_ have rule on +the Wall, and I will hold my young men quiet for"--he ticked it off on +his fingers--"one year easily: the next year not so easily: the third +year, perhaps! See, I give you three years. If then you do not show us +that Rome is strong in men and terrible in arms, the Winged Hats, I tell +you, will sweep down the Wall from either sea till they meet in the +middle, and you will go. _I_ shall not grieve over that, but well I know +tribe never helps tribe except for one price. We Picts will go too. The +Winged Hats will grind us to this!" He tossed a handful of dust in the +air. + +'"Oh, Roma Dea!" said Maximus, half aloud. "It is always one man's +work--always and everywhere!" + +"And one man's life," said Allo. "You are Emperor, but not a God. You +may die." + +'"I have thought of that too," said he. "Very good. If this wind holds, +I shall be at the East end of the Wall by morning. To-morrow, then, I +shall see you two when I inspect, and I will make you Captains of the +Wall for this work." + +'"One instant, Caesar," said Pertinax. "All men have their price. I am +not bought yet." + +'"Do _you_ also begin to bargain so early?" said Maximus. "Well?" + +'"Give me justice against my uncle Icenus, the Duumvir of Divio in +Gaul," he said. + +'"Only a life? I thought it would be money or an office. Certainly you +shall have him. Write his name on these tablets--on the red side; the +other is for the living!" and Maximus held out his tablets. + +'"He is of no use to me dead," said Pertinax. "My mother is a widow. I +am far off. I am not sure he pays her all her dowry." + +'"No matter. My arm is reasonably long. We will look through your +uncle's accounts in due time. Now, farewell till to-morrow, O Captains +of the Wall!" + +'We saw him grow small across the heather as he walked to the galley. +There were Picts, scores, each side of him, hidden behind stones. He +never looked left or right. He sailed away southerly, full spread before +the evening breeze, and when we had watched him out to sea, we were +silent. We understood that Earth bred few men like to this man. + +'Presently Allo brought the ponies and held them for us to mount--a +thing he had never done before. + +'"Wait awhile," said Pertinax, and he made a little altar of cut turf, +and strewed heather-bloom atop, and laid upon it a letter from a girl in +Gaul. + +'"What do you do, O my friend?" I said. + +'"I sacrifice to my dead youth," he answered, and, when the flames had +consumed the letter, he ground them out with his heel. Then we rode back +to that Wall of which we were to be Captains.' + +Parnesius stopped. The children sat still, not even asking if that were +all the tale. Puck beckoned, and pointed the way out of the wood. +'Sorry,' he whispered, 'but you must go now.' + +'We haven't made him angry, have we?' said Una. 'He looks so far off, +and--and--thinky.' + +'Bless your heart, no. Wait till tomorrow. It won't be long. Remember, +you've been playing _Lays of Ancient Rome_.' + +And as soon as they had scrambled through their gap where Oak, Ash, and +Thorn grew, that was all they remembered. + + + +A SONG TO MITHRAS + + +Mithras, God of the Morning, our trumpets waken the Wall! +'Rome is above the Nations, but Thou art over all!' +Now as the names are answered, and the guards are marched away, +Mithras, also a soldier, give us strength for the day! + +Mithras, God of the Noontide, the heather swims in the heat, +Our helmets scorch our foreheads, our sandals burn our feet. +Now in the ungirt hour; now ere we blink and drowse, +Mithras, also a soldier, keep us true to our vows! + +Mithras, God of the Sunset, low on the Western main, +Thou descending immortal, immortal to rise again! +Now when the watch is ended, now when the wine is drawn, +Mithras, also a soldier, keep us pure till the dawn! + +Mithras, God of the Midnight, here where the great bull dies, +Look on Thy children in darkness. Oh, take our sacrifice! +Many roads Thou hast fashioned: all of them lead to the Light! +Mithras, also a soldier, teach us to die aright! + + + + +THE WINGED HATS + + + +The next day happened to be what they called a Wild Afternoon. Father +and Mother went out to pay calls; Miss Blake went for a ride on her +bicycle, and they were left all alone till eight o'clock. + +When they had seen their dear parents and their dear preceptress +politely off the premises they got a cabbage-leaf full of raspberries +from the gardener, and a Wild Tea from Ellen. They ate the raspberries +to prevent their squashing, and they meant to divide the cabbage-leaf +with Three Cows down at the Theatre, but they came across a dead +hedgehog which they simply _had_ to bury, and the leaf was too useful to +waste. + +Then they went on to the Forge and found old Hobden the hedger at home +with his son, the Bee Boy, who is not quite right in his head, but who +can pick up swarms of bees in his naked hands; and the Bee Boy told them +the rhyme about the slow-worm:-- + +'If I had eyes _as_ I could see, +No mortal man would trouble me.' + +They all had tea together by the hives, and Hobden said the loaf-cake +which Ellen had given them was almost as good as what his wife used to +make, and he showed them how to set a wire at the right height for +hares. They knew about rabbits already. + +Then they climbed up Long Ditch into the lower end of Far Wood. This is +sadder and darker than the Volaterrae end because of an old marlpit full +of black water, where weepy, hairy moss hangs round the stumps of the +willows and alders. But the birds come to perch on the dead branches, +and Hobden says that the bitter willow-water is a sort of medicine for +sick animals. + +They sat down on a felled oak-trunk in the shadows of the beech +undergrowth, and were looping the wires Hobden had given them, when they +saw Parnesius. + +'How quietly you came!' said Una, moving up to make room. 'Where's Puck?' + +'The Faun and I have disputed whether it is better that I should tell +you all my tale, or leave it untold,' he replied. + +'I only said that if he told it as it happened you wouldn't understand +it,' said Puck, jumping up like a squirrel from behind the log. + +'I don't understand all of it,' said Una, 'but I like hearing about the +little Picts.' + +'What I can't understand,' said Dan, 'is how Maximus knew all about the +Picts when he was over in Gaul.' + +'He who makes himself Emperor anywhere must know everything, +everywhere,' said Parnesius. 'We had this much from Maximus's mouth +after the Games.' + +'Games? What Games?' said Dan. + +Parnesius stretched his arm out stiffly, thumb pointed to the ground. +'Gladiators! _That_ sort of game,' he said. 'There were two days' Games +in his honour when he landed all unexpected at Segedunum on the East end +of the Wall. Yes, the day after we had met him we held two days' Games; +but I think the greatest risk was run, not by the poor wretches on the +sand, but by Maximus. In the old days the Legions kept silence before +their Emperor. So did not we! You could hear the solid roar run West +along the Wall as his chair was carried rocking through the crowds. The +garrison beat round him--clamouring, clowning, asking for pay, for +change of quarters, for anything that came into their wild heads. That +chair was like a little boat among waves, dipping and falling, but +always rising again after one had shut the eyes.' Parnesius shivered. + +'Were they angry with him?' said Dan. + +'No more angry than wolves in a cage when their trainer walks among +them. If he had turned his back an instant, or for an instant had ceased +to hold their eyes, there would have been another Emperor made on the +Wall that hour. Was it not so, Faun?' + +'So it was. So it always will be,' said Puck. + +'Late in the evening his messenger came for us, and we followed to the +Temple of Victory, where he lodged with Rutilianus, the General of the +Wall. I had hardly seen the General before, but he always gave me leave +when I wished to take Heather. He was a great glutton, and kept five +Asian cooks, and he came of a family that believed in oracles. We could +smell his good dinner when we entered, but the tables were empty. He lay +snorting on a couch. Maximus sat apart among long rolls of accounts. +Then the doors were shut. + +'"These are your men," said Maximus to the General, who propped his +eye-corners open with his gouty fingers, and stared at us like a fish. + +'"I shall know them again, Caesar," said Rutilianus. + +"Very good," said Maximus. "Now hear! You are not to move man or shield +on the Wall except as these boys shall tell you. You will do nothing, +except eat, without their permission. They are the head and arms. You +are the belly!" + +'"As Caesar pleases," the old man grunted. "If my pay and profits are not +cut, you may make my Ancestors' Oracle my master. Rome has been! Rome +has been!" Then he turned on his side to sleep. + +'"He has it," said Maximus. "We will get to what _I_ need." + +'He unrolled full copies of the number of men and supplies on the +Wall--down to the sick that very day in Hunno Hospital. Oh, but I +groaned when his pen marked off detachment after detachment of our +best--of our least worthless men! He took two towers of our Scythians, +two of our North British auxiliaries, two Numidian cohorts, the Dacians +all, and half the Belgians. It was like an eagle pecking a carcass. + +'"And now, how many catapults have you?" He turned up a new list, but +Pertinax laid his open hand there. + +'"No, Caesar," said he. "Do not tempt the Gods too far. Take men, or +engines, but not both; else we refuse."' + +'Engines?' said Una. + +'The catapults of the Wall--huge things forty feet high to the +head--firing nets of raw stone or forged bolts. Nothing can stand +against them. He left us our catapults at last, but he took a Caesar's +half of our men without pity. We were a shell when he rolled up the +lists! + +'"Hail, Caesar! We, about to die, salute you!" said Pertinax, laughing. +"If any enemy even leans against the Wall now, it will tumble." + +'"Give me the three years Allo spoke of," he answered, "and you shall +have twenty thousand men of your own choosing up here. But now it is a +gamble--a game played against the Gods, and the stakes are Britain, +Gaul, and perhaps Rome. You play on my side?" + +'"We will play, Caesar," I said, for I had never met a man like this man. + +'"Good. Tomorrow," said he, "I proclaim you Captains of the Wall before +the troops." + +'So we went into the moonlight, where they were cleaning the ground +after the Games. We saw great Roma Dea atop of the Wall, the frost on +her helmet, and her spear pointed towards the North Star. We saw the +twinkle of night-fires all along the guard towers, and the line of the +black catapults growing smaller and smaller in the distance. All these +things we knew till we were weary; but that night they seemed very +strange to us, because the next day we knew we were to be their masters. + +'The men took the news well; but when Maximus went away with half our +strength, and we had to spread ourselves into the emptied towers, and +the townspeople complained that trade would be ruined, and the autumn +gales blew--it was dark days for us two. Here Pertinax was more than my +right hand. Being born and bred among the great country-houses in Gaul, +he knew the proper words to address to all--from Roman-born Centurions +to those dogs of the Third--the Libyans. And he spoke to each as though +that man were as high-minded as himself. Now _I_ saw so strongly what +things were needed to be done, that I forgot things are only +accomplished by means of men. That was a mistake. + +'I feared nothing from the Picts, at least for that year, but Allo +warned me that the Winged Hats would soon come in from the sea at each +end of the Wall to prove to the Picts how weak we were. So I made ready +in haste, and none too soon. I shifted our best men to the ends of the +Wall, and set up screened catapults by the beach. The Winged Hats would +drive in before the snow-squalls--ten or twenty boats at a time--on +Segedunum or Ituna, according as the wind blew. + +'Now a ship coming in to land men must furl her sail. If you wait till +you see her men gather up the sail's foot, your catapults can jerk a net +of loose stones (bolts only cut through the cloth) into the bag of it. +Then she turns over, and the sea makes everything clean again. A few men +may come ashore, but very few. ... It was not hard work, except the +waiting on the beach in blowing sand and snow. And that was how we dealt +with the Winged Hats that winter. + +'Early in the spring, when the East winds blow like skinning-knives, +they gathered again off Segedunum with many ships. Allo told me they +would never rest till they had taken a tower in open fight. Certainly +they fought in the open. We dealt with them thoroughly through a long +day: and when all was finished, one man dived clear of the wreckage of +his ship, and swam towards shore. I waited, and a wave tumbled him at my +feet. + +'As I stooped, I saw he wore such a medal as I wear.' Parnesius raised +his hand to his neck. 'Therefore, when he could speak, I addressed him a +certain Question which can only be answered in a certain manner. He +answered with the necessary Word--the Word that belongs to the Degree of +Gryphons in the science of Mithras my God. I put my shield over him till +he could stand up. You see I am not short, but he was a head taller than +I. He said: "What now?" I said: "At your pleasure, my brother, to stay +or go." + +'He looked out across the surf. There remained one ship unhurt, beyond +range of our catapults. I checked the catapults and he waved her in. +She came as a hound comes to a master. When she was yet a hundred paces +from the beach, he flung back his hair, and swam out. They hauled him +in, and went away. I knew that those who worship Mithras are many and of +all races, so I did not think much more upon the matter. + +'A month later I saw Allo with his horses--by the Temple of Pan, O +Faun--and he gave me a great necklace of gold studded with coral. + +'At first I thought it was a bribe from some tradesman in the +town--meant for old Rutilianus. "Nay," said Allo. "This is a gift from +Amal, that Winged Hat whom you saved on the beach. He says you are a +Man." + +'"He is a Man, too. Tell him I can wear his gift," I answered. + +'"Oh, Amal is a young fool; but, speaking as sensible men, your Emperor +is doing such great things in Gaul that the Winged Hats are anxious to +be his friends, or, better still, the friends of his servants. They +think you and Pertinax could lead them to victories." Allo looked at me +like a one-eyed raven. + +'"Allo," I said, "you are the corn between the two millstones. Be +content if they grind evenly, and don't thrust your hand between them." + +'"I?" said Allo. "I hate Rome and the Winged Hats equally; but if the +Winged Hats thought that some day you and Pertinax might join them +against Maximus, they would leave you in peace while you considered. +Time is what we need--you and I and Maximus. Let me carry a pleasant +message back to the Winged Hats--something for them to make a council +over. We barbarians are all alike. We sit up half the night to discuss +anything a Roman says. Eh?" + +'"We have no men. We must fight with words," said Pertinax. "Leave it to +Allo and me." + +'So Allo carried word back to the Winged Hats that we would not fight +them if they did not fight us; and they (I think they were a little +tired of losing men in the sea) agreed to a sort of truce. I believe +Allo, who being a horse-dealer loved lies, also told them we might some +day rise against Maximus as Maximus had risen against Rome. + +'Indeed, they permitted the corn-ships which I sent to the Picts to pass +North that season without harm. Therefore the Picts were well fed that +winter, and since they were in some sort my children, I was glad of it. +We had only two thousand men on the Wall, and I wrote many times to +Maximus and begged--prayed--him to send me only one cohort of my old +North British troops. He could not spare them. He needed them to win +more victories in Gaul. + +'Then came news that he had defeated and slain the Emperor Gratian, and +thinking he must now be secure, I wrote again for men. He answered: "You +will learn that I have at last settled accounts with the pup Gratian. +There was no need that he should have died, but he became confused and +lost his head, which is a bad thing to befall any Emperor. Tell your +Father I am content to drive two mules only; for unless my old General's +son thinks himself destined to destroy me, I shall rest Emperor of Gaul +and Britain, and then you, my two children, will presently get all the +men you need. Just now I can spare none."' + +'What did he mean by his General's son?' said Dan. + +'He meant Theodosius Emperor of Rome, who was the son of Theodosius the +General under whom Maximus had fought in the old Pict War. The two men +never loved each other, and when Gratian made the younger Theodosius +Emperor of the East (at least, so I've heard), Maximus carried on the +war to the second generation. It was his fate, and it was his fall. But +Theodosius the Emperor is a good man. As I know.' Parnesius was silent +for a moment and then continued. + +'I wrote back to Maximus that, though we had peace on the Wall, I should +be happier with a few more men and some new catapults. He answered: "You +must live a little longer under the shadow of my victories, till I can +see what young Theodosius intends. He may welcome me as a +brother-Emperor, or he may be preparing an army. In either case I cannot +spare men just now." + +'But he was always saying that,' cried Una. + +'It was true. He did not make excuses; but thanks, as he said, to the +news of his victories, we had no trouble on the Wall for a long, long +time. The Picts grew fat as their own sheep among the heather, and as +many of my men as lived were well exercised in their weapons. Yes, the +Wall looked strong. For myself, I knew how weak we were. I knew that if +even a false rumour of any defeat to Maximus broke loose among the +Winged Hats, they might come down in earnest, and then--the Wall must +go! For the Picts I never cared, but in those years I learned something +of the strength of the Winged Hats. They increased their strength every +day, but I could not increase my men. Maximus had emptied Britain behind +us, and I felt myself to be a man with a rotten stick standing before a +broken fence to turn bulls. + +'Thus, my friends, we lived on the Wall, waiting--waiting--waiting for +the men that Maximus never sent. + +'Presently he wrote that he was preparing an army against Theodosius. He +wrote--and Pertinax read it over my shoulder in our quarters: "_Tell +your Father that my destiny orders me to drive three mules or be torn in +pieces by them. I hope within a year to finish with Theodosius, son of +Theodosius, once and for all. Then you shall have Britain to rule, and +Pertinax, if he chooses, Gaul. To-day I wish strongly you were with me +to beat my Auxiliaries into shape. Do not, I pray you, believe any +rumour of my sickness. I have a little evil in my old body which I shall +cure by riding swiftly into Rome._" + +'Said Pertinax: "It is finished with Maximus. He writes as a man without +hope. I, a man without hope, can see this. What does he add at the +bottom of the roll? '_Tell Pertinax I have met his late Uncle, the +Duumvir of Divio, and that he accounted to me quite truthfully for all +his Mother's monies. I have sent her with a fitting escort, for she is +the mother of a hero, to Nicaea, where the climate is warm_.' + +'"That is proof," said Pertinax. "Nicaea is not far by sea from Rome. A +woman there could take ship and fly to Rome in time of war. Yes, Maximus +foresees his death, and is fulfilling his promises one by one. But I am +glad my uncle met him."' + +'"You think blackly to-day?" I asked. + +'"I think truth. The Gods weary of the play we have played against them. +Theodosius will destroy Maximus. It is finished!" + +'"Will you write him that?" I said. + +'"See what I shall write," he answered, and he took pen and wrote a +letter cheerful as the light of day, tender as a woman's and full of +jests. Even I, reading over his shoulder, took comfort from it till--I +saw his face! + +'"And now," he said, sealing it, "we be two dead men, my brother. Let us +go to the Temple." + +'We prayed awhile to Mithras, where we had many times prayed before. +After that, we lived day by day among evil rumours till winter came +again. + +'It happened one morning that we rode to the East shore, and found on +the beach a fair-haired man, half frozen, bound to some broken planks. +Turning him over, we saw by his belt-buckle that he was a Goth of an +Eastern Legion. Suddenly he opened his eyes and cried loudly, "He is +dead! The letters were with me, but the Winged Hats sank the ship." So +saying, he died between our hands. + +'We asked not who was dead. We knew! We raced before the driving snow to +Hunno, thinking perhaps Allo might be there. We found him already at our +stables, and he saw by our faces what we had heard. + +'"It was in a tent by the sea," he stammered. "He was beheaded by +Theodosius. He sent a letter to you, written while he waited to be +slain. The Winged Hats met the ship and took it. The news is running +through the heather like fire. Blame me not! I cannot hold back my young +men any more." + +'"I would we could say as much for our men," said Pertinax, laughing. +"But, Gods be praised, they cannot run away." + +'"What do you do?" said Allo. "I bring an order--a message--from the +Winged Hats that you join them with your men, and march South to plunder +Britain." + +'"It grieves me," said Pertinax, "but we are stationed here to stop that +thing." + +'"If I carry back such an answer they will kill me," said Allo. "I +always promised the Winged Hats that you would rise when Maximus fell. +I--I did not think he could fall." + +'"Alas! my poor barbarian," said Pertinax, still laughing. "Well, you +have sold us too many good ponies to be thrown back to your friends. We +will make you a prisoner, although you are an ambassador." + +'"Yes, that will be best," said Allo, holding out a halter. We bound him +lightly, for he was an old man. + +'"Presently the Winged Hats may come to look for you, and that will give +us more time. See how the habit of playing for time sticks to a man!" +said Pertinax, as he tied the rope. + +'"No," I said. "Time may help. If Maximus wrote us a letter while he was +a prisoner, Theodosius must have sent the ship that brought it. If he +can send ships, he can send men." + +'"How will that profit us?" said Pertinax. "We serve Maximus, not +Theodosius. Even if by some miracle of the Gods Theodosius down South +sent and saved the Wall, we could not expect more than the death Maximus +died." + +'"It concerns us to defend the Wall, no matter what Emperor dies, or +makes die," I said. + +'"That is worthy of your brother the philosopher," said Pertinax. +"Myself I am without hope, so I do not say solemn and stupid things! +Rouse the Wall!" + +'We armed the Wall from end to end; we told the officers that there was +a rumour of Maximus's death which might bring down the Winged Hats, but +we were sure, even if it were true, that Theodosius, for the sake of +Britain, would send us help. Therefore, we must stand fast. ... My +friends, it is above all things strange to see how men bear ill news! +Often the strongest till then become the weakest, while the weakest, as +it were, reach up and steal strength from the Gods. So it was with us. +Yet my Pertinax by his jests and his courtesy and his labours had put +heart and training into our poor numbers during the past years--more +than I should have thought possible. Even our Libyan Cohort--the +Third--stood up in their padded cuirasses and did not whimper. + +'In three days came seven chiefs and elders of the Winged Hats. Among +them was that tall young man, Amal, whom I had met on the beach, and he +smiled when he saw my necklace. We made them welcome, for they were +ambassadors. We showed them Allo, alive but bound. They thought we had +killed him, and I saw it would not have vexed them if we had. Allo saw +it too, and it vexed him. Then in our quarters at Hunno we came to +Council. + +'They said that Rome was falling, and that we must join them. They +offered me all South Britain to govern after they had taken a tribute +out of it. + +'I answered, "Patience. This Wall is not weighed off like plunder. Give +me proof that my General is dead." + +'"Nay," said one elder, "prove to us that he lives"; and another said +cunningly, "What will you give us if we read you his last words?" + +'"We are not merchants to bargain," cried Amal. "Moreover, I owe this +man my life. He shall have his proof." He threw across to me a letter +(well I knew the seal) from Maximus. + +'"We took this out of the ship we sank," he cried. "I cannot read, but I +know one sign, at least, which makes me believe." He showed me a dark +stain on the outer roll that my heavy heart perceived was the valiant +blood of Maximus. + +'"Read!" said Amal. "Read, and then let us hear whose servants you are!" + +'Said Pertinax, very softly, after he had looked through it: "I will +read it all. Listen, barbarians!" He read that which I have carried next +my heart ever since.' + +Parnesius drew from his neck a folded and spotted piece of parchment, +and began in a hushed voice:-- + +'"_To Parnesius and Pertinax, the not unworthy Captains of the Wall, +from Maximus, once Emperor of Gaul and Britain, now prisoner waiting +death by the sea in the camp of Theodosius--Greeting and Good-bye!_" + +'"Enough," said young Amal; "there is your proof! You must join us now!" + +'Pertinax looked long and silently at him, till that fair man blushed +like a girl. Then read Pertinax:-- + +'"_I have joyfully done much evil in my life to those who have wished me +evil, but if ever I did any evil to you two I repent, and I ask your +forgiveness. The three mules which I strove to drive have torn me in +pieces as your Father prophesied. The naked swords wait at the tent door +to give me the death I gave to Gratian. Therefore I, your General and +your emperor, send you free and honourable dismissal from my service, +which you entered, not for money or office, but, as it makes me warm to +believe, because you loved me!_" + +'"By the Light of the Sun," Amal broke in. "This was in some sort a Man! +We may have been mistaken in his servants!" + +'And Pertinax read on: "_You gave me the time for which I asked. If I +have failed to use it, do not lament. We have gambled very splendidly +against the Gods, but they hold weighted dice, and I must pay the +forfeit. Remember, I have been; but Rome is; and Rome will be. Tell +Pertinax his Mother is in safety at Nicaea, and her monies are in charge +of the Prefect at Antipolis. Make my remembrances to your Father and to +your Mother, whose friendship was great gain to me. Give also to my +little Picts and to the Winged Hats such messages as their thick heads +can understand. I would have sent you three Legions this very day if all +had gone aright. Do not forget me. We have worked together. Farewell! +Farewell! Farewell!_" + +'Now, that was my Emperor's last letter.' (The children heard the +parchment crackle as Parnesius returned it to its place.) + +'"I was mistaken," said Amal. "The servants of such a man will sell +nothing except over the sword. I am glad of it." He held out his hand to +me. + +'"But Maximus has given you your dismissal," said an elder. "You are +certainly free to serve--or to rule--whom you please. Join--do not +follow--join us!" + +'"We thank you," said Pertinax. "But Maximus tells us to give you such +messages as--pardon me, but I use his words--your thick heads can +understand." He pointed through the door to the foot of a catapult wound +up. + +'"We understand," said an elder. "The Wall must be won at a price?" + +'"It grieves me," said Pertinax, laughing, "but so it must be won," and +he gave them of our best Southern wine. + +'They drank, and wiped their yellow beards in silence till they rose to +go. + +'Said Amal, stretching himself (for they were barbarians): "We be a +goodly company; I wonder what the ravens and the dogfish will make of +some of us before this snow melts." + +'"Think rather what Theodosius may send," I answered; and though they +laughed, I saw that my chance shot troubled them. + +'Only old Allo lingered behind a little. + +'"You see," he said, winking and blinking, "I am no more than their dog. +When I have shown their men the secret short ways across our bogs, they +will kick me like one." + +'"Then I should not be in haste to show them those ways," said Pertinax, +"till I was sure that Rome could not save the Wall." + +'"You think so? Woe is me!" said the old man. "I only wanted peace for +my people," and he went out stumbling through the snow behind the tall +Winged Hats. + +'In this fashion then, slowly, a day at a time, which is very bad for +doubting troops, the War came upon us. At first the Winged Hats swept in +from the sea as they had done before, and there we met them as +before--with the catapults; and they sickened of it. Yet for a long time +they would not trust their duck-legs on land, and I think, when it came +to revealing the secrets of the tribe, the little Picts were afraid or +ashamed to show them all the roads across the heather. I had this from a +Pict prisoner. They were as much our spies as our enemies, for the +Winged Hats oppressed them, and took their winter stores. Ah, foolish +Little People! + +'Then the Winged Hats began to roll us up from each end of the Wall. I +sent runners Southward to see what the news might be in Britain, but the +wolves were very bold that winter, among the deserted stations where the +troops had once been, and none came back. We had trouble, too, with the +forage for the ponies along the Wall. I kept ten, and so did Pertinax. +We lived and slept in the saddle, riding east or west, and we ate our +worn-out ponies. The people of the town also made us some trouble till I +gathered them all in one quarter behind Hunno. We broke down the Wall on +either side of it to make as it were a citadel. Our men fought better in +close order. + +'By the end of the second month we were deep in the War as a man is deep +in a snowdrift, or in a dream. I think we fought in our sleep. At least +I know I have gone on the Wall and come off again, remembering nothing +between, though my throat was harsh with giving orders, and my sword, I +could see, had been used. + +'The Winged Hats fought like wolves--all in a pack. Where they had +suffered most, there they charged in most hotly. This was hard for the +defenders, but it held them from sweeping on into Britain. + +'In those days Pertinax and I wrote on the plaster of the bricked +archway into Valentia the names of the towers, and the days on which +they fell one by one. We wished for some record. + +'And the fighting? The fight was always hottest to left and right of the +great statue of Roma Dea, near to Rutilianus's house. By the Light of +the Sun, that old fat man, whom we had not considered at all, grew young +again among the trumpets! I remember he said his sword was an oracle! +"Let us consult the Oracle," he would say, and put the handle against +his ear, and shake his head wisely. "And _this_ day is allowed +Rutilianus to live," he would say, and, tucking up his cloak, he would +puff and pant and fight well. Oh, there were jests in plenty on the Wall +to take the place of food! + +'We endured for two months and seventeen days--always being pressed from +three sides into a smaller space. Several times Allo sent in word that +help was at hand. We did not believe it, but it cheered our men. 'The +end came not with shoutings of joy, but, like the rest, as in a dream. +The Winged Hats suddenly left us in peace for one night and the next +day; which is too long for spent men. We slept at first lightly, +expecting to be roused, and then like logs, each where he lay. May you +never need such sleep! When I waked our towers were full of strange, +armed men, who watched us snoring. I roused Pertinax, and we leaped up +together. + +'"What?" said a young man in clean armour. "Do you fight against +Theodosius? Look!" + +'North we looked over the red snow. No Winged Hats were there. South we +looked over the white snow, and behold there were the Eagles of two +strong Legions encamped. East and west we saw flame and fighting, but by +Hunno all was still. + +'"Trouble no more," said the young man. "Rome's arm is long. Where are +the Captains of the Wall?" + +'We said we were those men. + +'"But you are old and grey-haired," he cried. "Maximus said that they +were boys." + +'"Yes, that was true some years ago," said Pertinax. "What is our fate +to be, you fine and well-fed child?" + +'"I am called Ambrosius, a secretary of the Emperor," he answered. "Show +me a certain letter which Maximus wrote from a tent at Aquileia, and +perhaps I will believe." + +'I took it from my breast, and when he had read it he saluted us, +saying: "Your fate is in your own hands. If you choose to serve +Theodosius, he will give you a Legion. If it suits you to go to your +homes, we will give you a Triumph." + +'"I would like better a bath, wine, food, razors, soaps, oils, and +scents," said Pertinax, laughing. + +'"Oh, I see you are a boy," said Ambrosius. "And you?" turning to me. + +'"We bear no ill-will against Theodosius, but in War----" I began. + +'"In War it is as it is in Love," said Pertinax. "Whether she be good or +bad, one gives one's best once, to one only. That given, there remains +no second worth giving or taking." + +'"That is true," said Ambrosius. "I was with Maximus before he died. He +warned Theodosius that you would never serve him, and frankly I say I am +sorry for my Emperor." + +'"He has Rome to console him," said Pertinax. "I ask you of your +kindness to let us go to our homes and get this smell out of our +nostrils." + +'None the less they gave us a Triumph!' + + +'It was well earned,' said Puck, throwing some leaves into the still +water of the marlpit. The black, oily circles spread dizzily as the +children watched them. + +'I want to know, oh, ever so many things,' said Dan. 'What happened to +old Allo? Did the Winged Hats ever come back? And what did Amal do?' + +'And what happened to the fat old General with the five cooks?' said +Una. 'And what did your Mother say when you came home? ...' + +'She'd say you're settin' too long over this old pit, so late as 'tis +already,' said old Hobden's voice behind them. 'Hst!' he whispered. + +He stood still, for not twenty paces away a magnificent dog-fox sat on +his haunches and looked at the children as though he were an old friend +of theirs. + +'Oh, Mus' Reynolds, Mus' Reynolds!' said Hobden, under his breath. 'If I +knowed all was inside your head, I'd know something wuth knowin'. Mus' +Dan an' Miss Una, come along o' me while I lock up my liddle hen-house.' + + + +A PICT SONG + + +Rome never looks where she treads, + Always her heavy hooves fall +On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads; + And Rome never heeds when we bawl. +Her sentries pass on--that is all, + And we gather behind them in hordes, +And plot to reconquer the Wall, + With only our tongues for our swords. + +We are the Little Folk--we! + Too little to love or to hate. +Leave us alone and you'll see + How we can drag down the Great! +We are the worm in the wood! + We are the rot at the root! +We are the germ in the blood! + We are the thorn in the foot! + +Mistletoe killing an oak-- + Rats gnawing cables in two-- +Moths making holes in a cloak-- + How they must love what they do! +Yes--and we Little Folk too, + We are as busy as they-- +Working our works out of view-- +Watch, and you'll see it some day! + +No indeed! We are not strong, + But we know Peoples that are. +Yes, and we'll guide them along, + To smash and destroy you in War! +We shall be slaves just the same? + Yes, we have always been slaves, +But you--you will die of the shame, + And then we shall dance on your graves! + + We are the Little Folk, we, etc. + + + + +HAL O' THE DRAFT + + +Prophets have honour all over the Earth, + Except in the village where they were born, +Where such as knew them boys from birth + Nature-ally hold 'em in scorn. + +When Prophets are naughty and young and vain, + They make a won'erful grievance of it; +(You can see by their writings how they complain), + But Oh, 'tis won'erful good for the Prophet! + +There's nothing Nineveh Town can give + (Nor being swallowed by whales between), +Makes up for the place where a man's folk live, + That don't care nothing what he has been. +He might ha' been that, or he might ha' been this, +But they love and they hate him for what he is. + + + +A rainy afternoon drove Dan and Una over to play pirates in the Little +Mill. If you don't mind rats on the rafters and oats in your shoes, the +mill-attic, with its trap-doors and inscriptions on beams about floods +and sweethearts, is a splendid place. It is lighted by a foot-square +window, called Duck Window, that looks across to Little Lindens Farm, +and the spot where Jack Cade was killed. + +When they had climbed the attic ladder (they called it 'the mainmast +tree', out of the ballad of Sir Andrew Barton, and Dan 'swarved it with +might and main', as the ballad says) they saw a man sitting on Duck +Window-sill. He was dressed in a plum-coloured doublet and tight +plum-coloured hose, and he drew busily in a red-edged book. + +'Sit ye! Sit ye!' Puck cried from a rafter overhead. 'See what it is to +be beautiful! Sir Harry Dawe--pardon, Hal--says I am the very image of a +head for a gargoyle.' + +The man laughed and raised his dark velvet cap to the children, and his +grizzled hair bristled out in a stormy fringe. He was old--forty at +least--but his eyes were young, with funny little wrinkles all round +them. A satchel of embroidered leather hung from his broad belt, which +looked interesting. + +'May we see?' said Una, coming forward. + +'Surely--sure-ly!' he said, moving up on the window-seat, and returned +to his work with a silver-pointed pencil. Puck sat as though the grin +were fixed for ever on his broad face, while they watched the quick, +certain fingers that copied it. Presently the man took a reed pen from +his satchel, and trimmed it with a little ivory knife, carved in the +semblance of a fish. + +'Oh, what a beauty!' cried Dan. + +''Ware fingers! That blade is perilous sharp. I made it myself of the +best Low Country cross-bow steel. And so, too, this fish. When his +back-fin travels to his tail--so--he swallows up the blade, even as the +whale swallowed Gaffer Jonah ... Yes, and that's my ink-horn. I made the +four silver saints round it. Press Barnabas's head. It opens, and +then----' He dipped the trimmed pen, and with careful boldness began to +put in the essential lines of Puck's rugged face, that had been but +faintly revealed by the silver-point. + +The children gasped, for it fairly leaped from the page. + +As he worked, and the rain fell on the tiles, he talked--now clearly, +now muttering, now breaking off to frown or smile at his work. He told +them he was born at Little Lindens Farm, and his father used to beat him +for drawing things instead of doing things, till an old priest called +Father Roger, who drew illuminated letters in rich people's books, +coaxed the parents to let him take the boy as a sort of painter's +apprentice. Then he went with Father Roger to Oxford, where he cleaned +plates and carried cloaks and shoes for the scholars of a College called +Merton. + +'Didn't you hate that?' said Dan after a great many other questions. + +'I never thought on't. Half Oxford was building new colleges or +beautifying the old, and she had called to her aid the master-craftsmen +of all Christendie--kings in their trade and honoured of Kings. I knew +them. I worked for them: that was enough. No wonder----' He stopped and +laughed. + +'You became a great man, Hal,' said Puck. + +'They said so, Robin. Even Bramante said so.' + +'Why? What did you do?' Dan asked. + +The artist looked at him queerly. 'Things in stone and such, up and down +England. You would not have heard of 'em. To come nearer home, I +rebuilded this little St Barnabas' church of ours. It cost me more +trouble and sorrow than aught I've touched in my life. But 'twas a sound +lesson.' + +'Um,' said Dan. 'We've had lessons this morning.' + +'I'll not afflict ye, lad,' said Hal, while Puck roared. 'Only 'tis +strange to think how that little church was rebuilt, re-roofed, and made +glorious, thanks to some few godly Sussex iron-masters, a Bristow sailor +lad, a proud ass called Hal o' the Draft because, d'you see, he was +always drawing and drafting; and'--he dragged the words slowly--'_and_ a +Scotch pirate.' + +'Pirate?' said Dan. He wriggled like a hooked fish. + +'Even that Andrew Barton you were singing of on the stair just now.' He +dipped again in the ink-well, and held his breath over a sweeping line, +as though he had forgotten everything else. + +'Pirates don't build churches, do they?' said Dan. 'Or _do_ they?' + +'They help mightily,' Hal laughed. 'But you were at your lessons this +morn, Jack Scholar.' + +'Oh, pirates aren't lessons. It was only Bruce and his silly old +spider,' said Una. 'Why did Sir Andrew Barton help you?' + +'I question if he ever knew it,' said Hal, twinkling. 'Robin, how a' +mischief's name am I to tell these innocents what comes of sinful +pride?' + +'Oh, we know all about _that_,' said Una pertly. 'If you get too +beany--that's cheeky--you get sat upon, of course.' + +Hal considered a moment, pen in air, and Puck said some long words. + +'Aha! that was my case too,' he cried. 'Beany--you say--but certainly I +did not conduct myself well. I was proud of--of such things as +porches--a Galilee porch at Lincoln for choice--proud of one +Torrigiano's arm on my shoulder, proud of my knighthood when I made the +gilt scroll-work for the _Sovereign_--our King's ship. But Father Roger +sitting in Merton Library, he did not forget me. At the top of my pride, +when I and no other should have builded the porch at Lincoln, he laid +it on me with a terrible forefinger to go back to my Sussex clays and +rebuild, at my own charges, my own church, where us Dawes have been +buried for six generations. "Out! Son of my Art!" said he. "Fight the +Devil at home ere you call yourself a man and a craftsman." And I +quaked, and I went ... How's yon, Robin?' He flourished the finished +sketch before Puck. + +'Me! Me past peradventure,' said Puck, smirking like a man at a mirror. +'Ah, see! The rain has took off! I hate housen in daylight.' + +'Whoop! Holiday!' cried Hal, leaping up. 'Who's for my Little Lindens? +We can talk there.' + +They tumbled downstairs, and turned past the dripping willows by the +sunny mill-dam. + +'Body o' me,' said Hal, staring at the hop-garden, where the hops were +just ready to blossom. 'What are these? Vines? No, not vines, and they +twine the wrong way to beans.' He began to draw in his ready book. + +'Hops. New since your day,' said Puck. 'They're an herb of Mars, and +their flowers dried flavour ale. We say-- + +'Turkeys, Heresy, Hops, and Beer +Came into England all in one year.' + +'Heresy I know. I've seen Hops--God be praised for their beauty! What is +your Turkis?' + +The children laughed. They knew the Lindens turkeys, and as soon as they +reached Lindens orchard on the hill the full flock charged at them. + +Out came Hal's book at once. 'Hoity-toity!' he cried. 'Here's Pride in +purple feathers! Here's wrathy contempt and the Pomps of the Flesh! How +d'you call _them_?' + +'Turkeys! Turkeys!' the children shouted, as the old gobbler raved and +flamed against Hal's plum-coloured hose. + +''Save Your Magnificence!' he said. 'I've drafted two good new things +today.' And he doffed his cap to the bubbling bird. + +Then they walked through the grass to the knoll where Little Lindens +stands. The old farmhouse, weather-tiled to the ground, took almost the +colour of a blood-ruby in the afternoon light. The pigeons pecked at the +mortar in the chimney-stacks; the bees that had lived under the tiles +since it was built filled the hot August air with their booming; and the +smell of the box-tree by the dairy-window mixed with the smell of earth +after rain, bread after baking, and a tickle of wood-smoke. + +The farmer's wife came to the door, baby on arm, shaded her brows +against the sun, stooped to pluck a sprig of rosemary, and turned down +the orchard. The old spaniel in his barrel barked once or twice to show +he was in charge of the empty house. Puck clicked back the garden-gate. + +'D'you marvel that I love it?' said Hal, in a whisper. 'What can town +folk know of the nature of housen--or land?' + +They perched themselves arow on the old hacked oak bench in Lindens +garden, looking across the valley of the brook at the fern-covered +dimples and hollows of the Forge behind Hobden's cottage. The old man +was cutting a faggot in his garden by the hives. It was quite a second +after his chopper fell that the chump of the blow reached their lazy +ears. + +'Eh--yeh!' said Hal. 'I mind when where that old gaffer stands was +Nether Forge--Master John Collins's foundry. Many a night has his big +trip-hammer shook me in my bed here. _Boom-bitty! Boom-bitty!_ If the +wind was east, I could hear Master Tom Collins's forge at Stockens +answering his brother, _Boom-oop! Boom-oop!_ and midway between, Sir +John Pelham's sledge-hammers at Brightling would strike in like a pack +o' scholars, and "_Hic-haec-hoc_" they'd say, "_Hic-haec-hoc_," till I +fell asleep. Yes. The valley was as full o' forges and fineries as a May +shaw o' cuckoos. All gone to grass now!' + +'What did they make?' said Dan. + +'Guns for the King's ships--and for others. Serpentines and cannon +mostly. When the guns were cast, down would come the King's Officers, +and take our plough-oxen to haul them to the coast. Look! Here's one of +the first and finest craftsmen of the Sea!' + +He fluttered back a page of his book, and showed them a young man's +head. Underneath was written: 'Sebastianus.' + +'He came down with a King's Order on Master John Collins for twenty +serpentines (wicked little cannon they be!) to furnish a venture of +ships. I drafted him thus sitting by our fire telling Mother of the new +lands he'd find the far side the world. And he found them, too! There's +a nose to cleave through unknown seas! Cabot was his name--a Bristol +lad--half a foreigner. I set a heap by him. He helped me to my +church-building.' + +'I thought that was Sir Andrew Barton,' said Dan. + +'Ay, but foundations before roofs,' Hal answered. 'Sebastian first put +me in the way of it. I had come down here, not to serve God as a +craftsman should, but to show my people how great a craftsman I was. +They cared not, and it served me right, one split straw for my craft or +my greatness. What a murrain call had I, they said, to mell with old St +Barnabas'? Ruinous the church had been since the Black Death, and +ruinous she would remain; and I could hang myself in my new +scaffold-ropes! Gentle and simple, high and low--the Hayes, the Fowles, +the Fenners, the Collinses--they were all in a tale against me. Only Sir +John Pelham up yonder at Brightling bade me heart-up and go on. Yet how +could I? Did I ask Master Collins for his timber-tug to haul beams? The +oxen had gone to Lewes after lime. Did he promise me a set of iron +cramps or ties for the roof? They never came to hand, or else they were +spaulty or cracked. So with everything. Nothing said, but naught done +except I stood by them, and then done amiss. I thought the countryside +was fair bewitched.' + +'It was, sure-ly,' said Puck, knees under chin. 'Did you never suspect +ary one?' + +'Not till Sebastian came for his guns, and John Collins played him the +same dog's tricks as he'd played me with my ironwork. Week in, week out, +two of three serpentines would be flawed in the casting, and only fit, +they said, to be re-melted. Then John Collins would shake his head, and +vow he could pass no cannon for the King's service that were not +perfect. Saints! How Sebastian stormed! _I_ know, for we sat on this +bench sharing our sorrows inter-common. + +'When Sebastian had fumed away six weeks at Lindens and gotten just six +serpentines, Dirk Brenzett, Master of the _Cygnet_ hoy, sends me word +that the block of stone he was fetching me from France for our new font +he'd hove overboard to lighten his ship, chased by Andrew Barton up to +Rye Port.' + +'Ah! The pirate!' said Dan. + +'Yes. And while I am tearing my hair over this, Ticehurst Will, my best +mason, comes to me shaking, and vowing that the Devil, horned, tailed, +and chained, has run out on him from the church-tower, and the men would +work there no more. So I took 'em off the foundations, which we were +strengthening, and went into the Bell Tavern for a cup of ale. Says +Master John Collins: "Have it your own way, lad; but if I was you, I'd +take the sinnification o' the sign, and leave old Barnabas' Church +alone!" And they all wagged their sinful heads, and agreed. Less afraid +of the Devil than of me--as I saw later. + +'When I brought my sweet news to Lindens, Sebastian was limewashing the +kitchen-beams for Mother. He loved her like a son. + +'"Cheer up, lad," he says. "God's where He was. Only you and I chance to +be pure pute asses. We've been tricked, Hal, and more shame to me, a +sailor, that I did not guess it before! You must leave your belfry +alone, forsooth, because the Devil is adrift there; and I cannot get my +serpentines because John Collins cannot cast them aright. Meantime +Andrew Barton hawks off the Port of Rye. And why? To take those very +serpentines which poor Cabot must whistle for; the said serpentines, +I'll wager my share of new continents, being now hid away in St +Barnabas' church-tower. Clear as the Irish coast at noonday!" + +"They'd sure never dare to do it," I said; "and, for another thing, +selling cannon to the King's enemies is black treason--hanging and +fine." + +'"It is sure, large profit. Men'll dare any gallows for that. I have +been a trader myself," says he. "We must be upsides with 'em for the +honour of Bristol." + +'Then he hatched a plot, sitting on the limewash bucket. We gave out to +ride o' Tuesday to London and made a show of taking farewells of our +friends--especially of Master John Collins. But at Wadhurst Woods we +turned; rode home to the watermeadows; hid our horses in a willow-tot at +the foot of the glebe, and, come night, stole a-tiptoe up hill to +Barnabas' church again. A thick mist, and a moon striking through. + +'I had no sooner locked the tower-door behind us than over goes +Sebastian full length in the dark. + +'"Pest!" he says. "Step high and feel low, Hal. I've stumbled over guns +before." + +'I groped, and one by one--the tower was pitchy dark--I counted the +lither barrels of twenty serpentines laid out on pease straw. No conceal +at all! + +'"There's two demi-cannon my end," says Sebastian, slapping metal. +"They'll be for Andrew Barton's lower deck. Honest--honest John Collins! +So this is his warehouse, his arsenal, his armoury! Now see you why your +pokings and pryings have raised the Devil in Sussex? You've hindered +John's lawful trade for months," and he laughed where he lay. + +'A clay-cold tower is no fireside at midnight, so we climbed the belfry +stairs, and there Sebastian trips over a cow-hide with its horns and +tail. + +'"Aha! Your Devil has left his doublet! Does it become me, Hal?" He +draws it on and capers in the shafts of window-moonlight--won'erful +devilish-like. Then he sits on the stairs, rapping with his tail on a +board, and his back-aspect was dreader than his front, and a howlet lit +in, and screeched at the horns of him. + +'"If you'd keep out the Devil, shut the door," he whispered. "And that's +another false proverb, Hal, for I can hear your tower-door opening." + +'"I locked it. Who a-plague has another key, then?" I said. + +'"All the congregation, to judge by their feet," he says, and peers into +the blackness. "Still! Still, Hal! Hear 'em grunt! That's more o' my +serpentines, I'll be bound. One--two--three--four they bear in! Faith, +Andrew equips himself like an Admiral! Twenty-four serpentines in all!" + +'As if it had been an echo, we heard John Collins's voice come up all +hollow: "Twenty-four serpentines and two demi-cannon. That's the full +tally for Sir Andrew Barton." + +'"Courtesy costs naught," whispers Sebastian. "Shall I drop my dagger on +his head?" + +'"They go over to Rye o' Thursday in the wool-wains, hid under the +wool-packs. Dirk Brenzett meets them at Udimore, as before," says John. + +'"Lord! What a worn, handsmooth trade it is!" says Sebastian. "I lay we +are the sole two babes in the village that have not our lawful share in +the venture." + +'There was a full score folk below, talking like all Robertsbridge +Market. We counted them by voice. + +'Master John Collins pipes: "The guns for the French carrack must lie +here next month. Will, when does your young fool" (me, so please you!) +"come back from Lunnon?" + +'"No odds," I heard Ticehurst Will answer. "Lay 'em just where you've a +mind, Mus' Collins. We're all too afraid o' the Devil to mell with the +tower now." And the long knave laughed. + +'"Ah! 'tis easy enow for you to raise the Devil, Will," says +another--Ralph Hobden of the Forge. + +'"Aaa-men!" roars Sebastian, and ere I could hold him, he leaps down the +stairs--won'erful devilish-like howling no bounds. He had scarce time to +lay out for the nearest than they ran. Saints, how they ran! We heard +them pound on the door of the Bell Tavern, and then we ran too. + +'"What's next?" says Sebastian, looping up his cow-tail as he leaped the +briars. "I've broke honest John's face." + +'"Ride to Sir John Pelham's," I said. "He is the only one that ever +stood by me." + +'We rode to Brightling, and past Sir John's lodges, where the keepers +would have shot at us for deer-stealers, and we had Sir John down into +his Justice's chair, and when we had told him our tale and showed him +the cow-hide which Sebastian wore still girt about him, he laughed till +the tears ran. + +'"Wel-a-well!" he says. "I'll see justice done before daylight. What's +your complaint? Master Collins is my old friend." + +'"He's none of mine," I cried. "When I think how he and his likes have +baulked and dozened and cozened me at every turn over the church"----and +I choked at the thought. + +'"Ah, but ye see now they needed it for another use," says he smoothly. + +'"So they did my serpentines," Sebastian cries. "I should be half across +the Western Ocean by now if my guns had been ready. But they're sold to +a Scotch pirate by your old friend--" + +'"Where's your proof?" says Sir John, stroking his beard. + +'"I broke my shins over them not an hour since, and I heard John give +order where they were to be taken," says Sebastian. + +'"Words! Words only," says Sir John. "Master Collins is somewhat of a +liar at best." + +'He carried it so gravely that, for the moment, I thought he was dipped +in this secret traffick too, and that there was not an honest ironmaster +in Sussex. + +'"Name o' Reason!" says Sebastian, and raps with his cow-tail on the +table, "whose guns are they, then?" + +'"Yours, manifestly," says Sir John. "You come with the King's Order for +'em, and Master Collins casts them in his foundry. If he chooses to +bring them up from Nether Forge and lay 'em out in the church-tower, +why, they are e'en so much the nearer to the main road and you are saved +a day's hauling. What a coil to make of a mere act of neighbourly +kindness, lad!" + +'"I fear I have requited him very scurvily," says Sebastian, looking at +his knuckles. "But what of the demi-cannon? I could do with 'em well, +but they are not in the King's Order." + +'"Kindness--loving-kindness," says Sir John. "Questionless, in his zeal +for the King and his love for you, John adds those two cannon as a gift. +'Tis plain as this coming daylight, ye stockfish!" + +'"So it is," says Sebastian. "Oh, Sir John, Sir John, why did you never +use the sea? You are lost ashore." And he looked on him with great love. + +'"I do my best in my station." Sir John strokes his beard again and +rolls forth his deep drumming Justice's voice thus: "But--suffer +me!--you two lads, on some midnight frolic into which I probe not, +roystering around the taverns, surprise Master Collins at his"--he +thinks a moment--"at his good deeds done by stealth. Ye surprise him, I +say, cruelly." + +'"Truth, Sir John. If you had seen him run!" says Sebastian. + +'"On this you ride breakneck to me with a tale of pirates, and +wool-wains, and cow-hides, which, though it hath moved my mirth as a +man, offendeth my reason as a magistrate. So I will e'en accompany you +back to the tower with, perhaps, some few of my own people, and +three-four wagons, and I'll be your warrant that Master John Collins +will freely give you your guns and your demi-cannon, Master Sebastian." +He breaks into his proper voice--"I warned the old tod and his +neighbours long ago that they'd come to trouble with their side-sellings +and bye-dealings; but we cannot have half Sussex hanged for a little +gun-running. Are ye content, lads?" + +'"I'd commit any treason for two demi-cannon," said Sebastian, and rubs +his hands. + +'"Ye have just compounded with rank treason-felony for the same bribe," +says Sir John. "Wherefore to horse, and get the guns."' + +'But Master Collins meant the guns for Sir Andrew Barton all along, +didn't he?' said Dan. + +'Questionless, that he did,' said Hal. 'But he lost them. We poured into +the village on the red edge of dawn, Sir John horsed, in half-armour, +his pennon flying; behind him thirty stout Brightling knaves, five +abreast; behind them four wool-wains, and behind them four trumpets to +triumph over the jest, blowing: _Our King went forth to Normandie_. When +we halted and rolled the ringing guns out of the tower, 'twas for all +the world like Friar Roger's picture of the French siege in the Queen's +Missal-book.' + +'And what did we--I mean, what did our village do?' said Dan. + +'Oh! Bore it nobly--nobly,' cried Hal. 'Though they had tricked me, I +was proud of them. They came out of their housen, looked at that little +army as though it had been a post, and went their shut-mouthed way. +Never a sign! Never a word! They'd ha' perished sooner than let +Brightling overcrow us. Even that villain, Ticehurst Will, coming out of +the Bell for his morning ale, he all but runs under Sir John's horse. + +'"'Ware, Sirrah Devil!" cries Sir John, reining back. + +'"Oh!" says Will. "Market-day, is it? And all the bullocks from +Brightling here?" + +'I spared him his belting for that--the brazen knave! + +'But John Collins was our masterpiece! He happened along-street (his jaw +tied up where Sebastian had clouted him) when we were trundling the +first demi-cannon through the lych-gate. + +'"I reckon you'll find her middlin' heavy," he says. "If you've a mind +to pay, I'll loan ye my timber-tug. She won't lie easy on ary +wool-wain." + +'That was the one time I ever saw Sebastian taken flat aback. He opened +and shut his mouth, fishy-like. + +'"No offence," says Master John. "You've got her reasonable good cheap. +I thought ye might not grudge me a groat if I helped move her." Ah, he +was a masterpiece! They say that morning's work cost our John two +hundred pounds, and he never winked an eyelid, not even when he saw the +guns all carted off to Lewes.' + +'Neither then nor later?' said Puck. + +'Once. 'Twas after he gave St Barnabas' the new chime of bells. (Oh, +there was nothing the Collinses, or the Hayes, or the Fowles, or the +Fenners would not do for the church then! "Ask and have" was their +song.) We had rung 'em in, and he was in the tower with Black Nick +Fowle, that gave us our rood-screen. The old man pinches the bell-rope +one hand and scratches his neck with t'other. "Sooner she was pulling +yon clapper than my neck, he says. That was all! That was Sussex--seely +Sussex for everlastin'!' + +'And what happened after?' said Una. + +'I went back into England,' said Hal, slowly. 'I'd had my lesson against +pride. But they tell me I left St Barnabas' a jewel--justabout a jewel! +Wel-a-well! 'Twas done for and among my own people, and--Father Roger +was right--I never knew such trouble or such triumph since. That's the +nature o' things. A dear--dear land.' He dropped his chin on his chest. + +'There's your Father at the Forge. What's he talking to old Hobden +about?' said Puck, opening his hand with three leaves in it. + +Dan looked towards the cottage. + +'Oh, I know. It's that old oak lying across the brook. Pater always +wants it grubbed.' + +In the still valley they could hear old Hobden's deep tones. + +'Have it _as_ you've a mind to,' he was saying. 'But the vivers of her +roots they hold the bank together. If you grub her out, the bank she'll +all come tearin' down, an' next floods the brook'll swarve up. But have +it as you've a mind. The Mistuss she sets a heap by the ferns on her +trunk. + +'Oh! I'll think it over,' said the Pater. + +Una laughed a little bubbling chuckle. + +'What Devil's in _that_ belfry?' said Hal, with a lazy laugh. 'That +should be a Hobden by his voice.' + +'Why, the oak is the regular bridge for all the rabbits between the +Three Acre and our meadow. The best place for wires on the farm, Hobden +says. He's got two there now,' Una answered. '_He_ won't ever let it be +grubbed!' + +'Ah, Sussex! Sillly Sussex for everlastin',' murmured Hal; and the next +moment their Father's voice calling across to Little Lindens broke the +spell as little St Barnabas' clock struck five. + + + +A SMUGGLERS' SONG + + +If You wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet, +Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street, +Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie. +Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by! + Five-and-twenty ponies, + Trotting through the dark-- + Brandy for the Parson, + 'Baccy for the Clerk; + Laces for a lady; letters for a spy, +And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by! + +Running round the woodlump if you chance to find +Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine; +Don't you shout to come and look, nor take 'em for your play; +Put the brishwood back again,--and they'll be gone next day! + +If you see the stable-door setting open wide; +If you see a tired horse lying down inside; +If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore; +If the lining's wet and warm--don't you ask no more! + +If you meet King George's men, dressed in blue and red, +You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said. +If they call you 'pretty maid,' and chuck you 'neath the chin, +Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been! + +Knocks and footsteps round the house--whistles after dark-- +You've no call for running out till the house-dogs bark. +Trusty's here, and Pincher's here, and see how dumb they lie-- +They don't fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by! + +If you do as you've been told, 'likely there's a chance, +You'll be give a dainty doll, all the way from France, +With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood-- +A present from the Gentlemen, along o' being good! + Five-and-twenty ponies, + Trotting through the dark-- + Brandy for the Parson, + 'Baccy for the Clerk. +Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie-- +Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by! + + + + +'DYMCHURCH FLIT' + + + +THE BEE BOY'S SONG + + +Bees! Bees! Hark to your bees! +'Hide from your neighbours as much as you please, +But all that has happened, to _us_ you must tell, +Or else we will give you no honey to sell!' + + A Maiden in her glory, + Upon her wedding-day, + Must tell her Bees the story, + Or else they'll fly away. + Fly away--die away-- + Dwindle down and leave you! + But if you don't deceive your Bees, + Your Bees will not deceive you. + + Marriage, birth or buryin', + News across the seas, + All you're sad or merry in, + You must tell the Bees. + Tell 'em coming in an' out, + Where the Fanners fan, + 'Cause the Bees are justabout + As curious as a man! + + Don't you wait where trees are, + When the lightnings play; + Nor don't you hate where Bees are, + Or else they'll pine away. + Pine away--dwine away-- + Anything to leave you! + But if you never grieve your Bees, + Your Bees'll never grieve you! + + + +Just at dusk, a soft September rain began to fall on the hop-pickers. +The mothers wheeled the bouncing perambulators out of the gardens; bins +were put away, and tally-books made up. The young couples strolled home, +two to each umbrella, and the single men walked behind them laughing. +Dan and Una, who had been picking after their lessons, marched off to +roast potatoes at the oast-house, where old Hobden, with Blue-eyed Bess, +his lurcher dog, lived all the month through, drying the hops. + +They settled themselves, as usual, on the sack-strewn cot in front of +the fires, and, when Hobden drew up the shutter, stared, as usual, at +the flameless bed of coals spouting its heat up the dark well of the +old-fashioned roundel. Slowly he cracked off a few fresh pieces of coal, +packed them, with fingers that never flinched, exactly where they would +do most good; slowly he reached behind him till Dan tilted the potatoes +into his iron scoop of a hand; carefully he arranged them round the +fire, and then stood for a moment, black against the glare. As he closed +the shutter, the oast-house seemed dark before the day's end, and he lit +the candle in the lanthorn. The children liked all these things because +they knew them so well. + +The Bee Boy, Hobden's son, who is not quite right in his head, though he +can do anything with bees, slipped in like a shadow. They only guessed +it when Bess's stump-tail wagged against them. + +A big voice began singing outside in the drizzle: + +'Old Mother Laidinwool had nigh twelve months been dead, +She heard the hops were doin' well, and then popped up her head.' + +'There can't be two people made to holler like that!' cried old Hobden, +wheeling round. + +'For,' says she, 'The boys I've picked with when I was young and fair, +They're bound to be at hoppin', and I'm----' + +A man showed at the doorway. + +'Well, well! They do say hoppin' 'll draw the very deadest, and now I +belieft 'em. You, Tom? Tom Shoesmith?' Hobden lowered his lanthorn. + +'You're a hem of a time makin' your mind to it, Ralph!' The stranger +strode in--three full inches taller than Hobden, a grey-whiskered, +brown-faced giant with clear blue eyes. They shook hands, and the +children could hear the hard palms rasp together. + +'You ain't lost none o' your grip,' said Hobden. 'Was it thirty or forty +year back you broke my head at Peasmarsh Fair?' + +'Only thirty, an' no odds 'tween us regardin' heads, neither. You had it +back at me with a hop-pole. How did we get home that night? Swimmin'?' + +'Same way the pheasant come into Gubbs's pocket--by a little luck an' a +deal o' conjurin'.' Old Hobden laughed in his deep chest. + +'I see you've not forgot your way about the woods. D'ye do any o' _this_ +still?' The stranger pretended to look along a gun. + +Hobden answered with a quick movement of the hand as though he were +pegging down a rabbit-wire. + +'No. _That's_ all that's left me now. Age she must as Age she can. An' +what's your news since all these years?' + +'Oh, I've bin to Plymouth, I've bin to Dover-- +I've bin ramblin', boys, the wide world over,' + +the man answered cheerily. 'I reckon I know as much of Old England as +most.' He turned towards the children and winked boldly. + +'I lay they told you a sight o' lies, then. I've been into England fur +as Wiltsheer once. I was cheated proper over a pair of hedgin'-gloves,' +said Hobden. + +'There's fancy-talkin' everywhere. _You've_ cleaved to your own parts +pretty middlin' close, Ralph.' + +'Can't shift an old tree 'thout it dyin',' Hobden chuckled. 'An' I be no +more anxious to die than you look to be to help me with my hops +tonight.' + +The great man leaned against the brickwork of the roundel, and swung his +arms abroad. 'Hire me!' was all he said, and they stumped upstairs +laughing. + +The children heard their shovels rasp on the cloth where the yellow hops +lie drying above the fires, and all the oast-house filled with the +sweet, sleepy smell as they were turned. + +'Who is it?' Una whispered to the Bee Boy. + +'Dunno, no more'n you--if _you_ dunno,' said he, and smiled. + +The voices on the drying-floor talked and chuckled together, and the +heavy footsteps moved back and forth. Presently a hop-pocket dropped +through the press-hole overhead, and stiffened and fattened as they +shovelled it full. 'Clank!' went the press, and rammed the loose stuff +into tight cake. + +'Gently!' they heard Hobden cry. 'You'll bust her crop if you lay on so. +You be as careless as Gleason's bull, Tom. Come an' sit by the fires. +She'll do now.' + +They came down, and as Hobden opened the shutter to see if the potatoes +were done Tom Shoesmith said to the children, 'Put a plenty salt on 'em. +That'll show you the sort o' man _I_ be.' Again he winked, and again the +Bee Boy laughed and Una stared at Dan. + +'_I_ know what sort o' man you be,' old Hobden grunted, groping for the +potatoes round the fire. + +'Do ye?' Tom went on behind his back. 'Some of us can't abide +Horseshoes, or Church Bells, or Running Water; an', talkin' o' runnin' +water'--he turned to Hobden, who was backing out of the roundel--'d'you +mind the great floods at Robertsbridge, when the miller's man was +drowned in the street?' + +'Middlin' well.' Old Hobden let himself down on the coals by the +fire-door. 'I was courtin' my woman on the Marsh that year. Carter to +Mus' Plum I was, gettin' ten shillin's week. Mine was a Marsh woman.' + +'Won'erful odd-gates place----Romney Marsh,' said Tom Shoesmith. 'I've +heard say the world's divided like into Europe, Ashy, Afriky, Ameriky, +Australy, an' Romney Marsh.' + +'The Marsh folk think so,' said Hobden. 'I had a hem o' trouble to get +my woman to leave it.' + +'Where did she come out of? I've forgot, Ralph.' + +'Dymchurch under the Wall,' Hobden answered, a potato in his hand. + +'Then she'd be a Pett--or a Whitgift, would she?' + +'Whitgift.' Hobden broke open the potato and ate it with the curious +neatness of men who make most of their meals in the blowy open. 'She +growed to be quite reasonable-like after livin' in the Weald awhile, but +our first twenty year or two she was odd-fashioned, no bounds. And she +was a won'erful hand with bees.' He cut away a little piece of potato +and threw it out to the door. + +'Ah! I've heard say the Whitgifts could see further through a millstone +than most,' said Shoesmith. 'Did she, now?' + +'She was honest-innocent of any nigromancin',' said Hobden. 'Only she'd +read signs and sinnifications out o' birds flyin', stars fallin', bees +hivin', and such. An, she'd lie awake--listenin' for calls, she said.' + +'That don't prove naught,' said Tom. 'All Marsh folk has been smugglers +since time everlastin'. 'Twould be in her blood to listen out o' +nights.' + +'Nature-ally,' old Hobden replied, smiling. 'I mind when there was +smugglin' a sight nearer us than what the Marsh be. But that wasn't my +woman's trouble. 'Twas a passel o' no-sense talk'--he dropped his +voice--'about Pharisees.' + +'Yes. I've heard Marsh men belieft in 'em.' Tom looked straight at the +wide-eyed children beside Bess. + +'Pharisees,' cried Una. 'Fairies? Oh, I see!' + +'People o' the Hills,' said the Bee Boy, throwing half of his potato +towards the door. + +'There you be!' said Hobden, pointing at him. My boy--he has her eyes +and her out-gate sense. That's what _she_ called 'em!' + +'And what did you think of it all?' + +'Um--um,' Hobden rumbled. 'A man that uses fields an' shaws after dark +as much as I've done, he don't go out of his road excep' for keepers.' + +'But settin' that aside?' said Tom, coaxingly. 'I saw ye throw the Good +Piece out-at-doors just now. Do ye believe or--_do_ ye?' + +'There was a great black eye to that tater,' said Hobden indignantly. + +'My liddle eye didn't see un, then. It looked as if you meant it +for--for Any One that might need it. But settin' that aside, d'ye +believe or--_do_ ye?' + +'I ain't sayin' nothin', because I've heard naught, an' I've see naught. +But if you was to say there was more things after dark in the shaws than +men, or fur, or feather, or fin, I dunno as I'd go far about to call you +a liar. Now turnagain, Tom. What's your say?' + +'I'm like you. I say nothin'. But I'll tell you a tale, an' you can fit +it _as_ how you please.' + +'Passel o' no-sense stuff,' growled Hobden, but he filled his pipe. + +'The Marsh men they call it Dymchurch Flit,' Tom went on slowly. 'Hap +you have heard it?' + +'My woman she've told it me scores o' times. Dunno as I didn't end by +belieftin' it--sometimes.' + +Hobden crossed over as he spoke, and sucked with his pipe at the yellow +lanthorn flame. Tom rested one great elbow on one great knee, where he +sat among the coal. + +'Have you ever bin in the Marsh?' he said to Dan. + +'Only as far as Rye, once,' Dan answered. + +'Ah, that's but the edge. Back behind of her there's steeples settin' +beside churches, an' wise women settin' beside their doors, an' the sea +settin' above the land, an' ducks herdin' wild in the diks' (he meant +ditches). 'The Marsh is justabout riddled with diks an' sluices, an' +tide-gates an' water-lets. You can hear 'em bubblin' an' grummelin' when +the tide works in 'em, an' then you hear the sea rangin' left and +right-handed all up along the Wall. You've seen how flat she is--the +Marsh? You'd think nothin' easier than to walk eend-on acrost her? Ah, +but the diks an' the water-lets, they twists the roads about as ravelly +as witch-yarn on the spindles. So ye get all turned round in broad +daylight.' + +'That's because they've dreened the waters into the diks,' said Hobden. +'When I courted my woman the rushes was green--Eh me! the rushes was +green--an' the Bailiff o' the Marshes he rode up and down as free as the +fog.' + +'Who was he?' said Dan. + +'Why, the Marsh fever an' ague. He've clapped me on the shoulder once or +twice till I shook proper. But now the dreenin' off of the waters have +done away with the fevers; so they make a joke, like, that the Bailiff +o' the Marshes broke his neck in a dik. A won'erful place for bees an' +ducks 'tis too.' + +'An' old,' Tom went on. 'Flesh an' Blood have been there since Time +Everlastin' Beyond. Well, now, speakin' among themselves, the Marsh men +say that from Time Everlastin' Beyond, the Pharisees favoured the Marsh +above the rest of Old England. I lay the Marsh men ought to know. +They've been out after dark, father an' son, smugglin' some one thing or +t'other, since ever wool grew to sheep's backs. They say there was +always a middlin' few Pharisees to be seen on the Marsh. Impident as +rabbits, they was. They'd dance on the nakid roads in the nakid daytime; +they'd flash their liddle green lights along the diks, comin' an' goin', +like honest smugglers. Yes, an' times they'd lock the church doors +against parson an' clerk of Sundays.' + +'That 'ud be smugglers layin' in the lace or the brandy till they could +run it out o' the Marsh. I've told my woman so,' said Hobden. + +'I'll lay she didn't belieft it, then--not if she was a Whitgift. A +won'erful choice place for Pharisees, the Marsh, by all accounts, till +Queen Bess's father he come in with his Reformatories.' + +'Would that be a Act of Parliament like?' Hobden asked. + +'Sure-ly. Can't do nothing in Old England without Act, Warrant an' +Summons. He got his Act allowed him, an', they say, Queen Bess's father +he used the parish churches something shameful. Justabout tore the +gizzards out of I dunnamany. Some folk in England they held with 'en; +but some they saw it different, an' it eended in 'em takin' sides an' +burnin' each other no bounds, accordin' which side was top, time bein'. +That tarrified the Pharisees: for Goodwill among Flesh an' Blood is meat +an' drink to 'em, an' ill-will is poison.' + +'Same as bees,' said the Bee Boy. 'Bees won't stay by a house where +there's hating.' + +'True,' said Tom. 'This Reformatories tarrified the Pharisees same as +the reaper goin' round a last stand o' wheat tarrifies rabbits. They +packed into the Marsh from all parts, and they says, "Fair or foul, we +must flit out o' this, for Merry England's done with, an' we're reckoned +among the Images."' + +'Did they _all_ see it that way?' said Hobden. + +'All but one that was called Robin--if you've heard of him. What are you +laughin' at?' Tom turned to Dan. 'The Pharisees's trouble didn't tech +Robin, because he'd cleaved middlin' close to people, like. No more he +never meant to go out of Old England--not he; so he was sent messagin' +for help among Flesh an' Blood. But Flesh an' Blood must always think of +their own concerns, an' Robin couldn't get _through_ at 'em, ye see. +They thought it was tide-echoes off the Marsh.' + +'What did you--what did the fai--Pharisees want?' Una asked. + +'A boat, to be sure. Their liddle wings could no more cross Channel than +so many tired butterflies. A boat an' a crew they desired to sail 'em +over to France, where yet awhile folks hadn't tore down the Images. They +couldn't abide cruel Canterbury Bells ringin' to Bulverhithe for more +pore men an' women to be burnded, nor the King's proud messenger ridin' +through the land givin' orders to tear down the Images. They couldn't +abide it no shape. Nor yet they couldn't get their boat an' crew to flit +by without Leave an' Good-will from Flesh an' Blood; an' Flesh an' Blood +came an' went about its own business the while the Marsh was swarvin' +up, an' swarvin' up with Pharisees from all England over, strivin' all +means to get through at Flesh an' Blood to tell 'em their sore need ... +I don't know as you've ever heard say Pharisees are like chickens?' + +'My woman used to say that too,' said Hobden, folding his brown arms. + +'They be. You run too many chickens together, an' the ground sickens, +like, an' you get a squat, an' your chickens die. Same way, you crowd +Pharisees all in one place--_they_ don't die, but Flesh an' Blood +walkin' among 'em is apt to sick up an' pine off. _They_ don't mean it, +an' Flesh an' Blood don't know it, but that's the truth--as I've heard. +The Pharisees through bein' all stenched up an' frighted, an' trying' to +come _through_ with their supplications, they nature-ally changed the +thin airs an' humours in Flesh an' Blood. It lay on the Marsh like +thunder. Men saw their churches ablaze with the wildfire in the windows +after dark; they saw their cattle scatterin' an' no man scarin'; their +sheep flockin' an' no man drivin'; their horses latherin' an' no man +leadin'; they saw the liddle low green lights more than ever in the +dik-sides; they heard the liddle feet patterin' more than ever round the +houses; an' night an' day, day an' night, 'twas all as though they were +bein' creeped up on, an' hinted at by Some One or other that couldn't +rightly shape their trouble. Oh, I lay they sweated! Man an' maid, woman +an' child, their nature done 'em no service all the weeks while the +Marsh was swarvin' up with Pharisees. But they was Flesh an' Blood, an' +Marsh men before all. They reckoned the signs sinnified trouble for the +Marsh. Or that the sea 'ud rear up against Dymchurch Wall an' they'd be +drownded like Old Winchelsea; or that the Plague was comin'. So they +looked for the meanin' in the sea or in the clouds--far an' high up. +They never thought to look near an' knee-high, where they could see +naught. + +'Now there was a poor widow at Dymchurch under the Wall, which, lacking +man or property, she had the more time for feeling; and she come to feel +there was a Trouble outside her doorstep bigger an' heavier than aught +she'd ever carried over it. She had two sons--one born blind, an' +t'other struck dumb through fallin' off the Wall when he was liddle. +They was men grown, but not wage-earnin', an' she worked for 'em, +keepin' bees and answerin' Questions.' + +'What sort of questions?' said Dan. + +'Like where lost things might be found, an' what to put about a crooked +baby's neck, an' how to join parted sweethearts. She felt the Trouble on +the Marsh same as eels feel thunder. She was a wise woman.' + +'My woman was won'erful weather-tender, too,' said Hobden. 'I've seen +her brish sparks like off an anvil out of her hair in thunderstorms. But +she never laid out to answer Questions.' + +'This woman was a Seeker, like, an' Seekers they sometimes find. One +night, while she lay abed, hot an' achin', there come a Dream an' tapped +at her window, an' "Widow Whitgift," it said, "Widow Whitgift!" + +'First, by the wings an' the whistlin', she thought it was peewits, but +last she arose an' dressed herself, an' opened her door to the Marsh, +an' she felt the Trouble an' the Groanin' all about her, strong as fever +an' ague, an' she calls: "What is it? Oh, what is it?" + +'Then 'twas all like the frogs in the diks peepin'; then 'twas all like +the reeds in the diks clip-clappin'; an' then the great Tide-wave +rummelled along the Wall, an' she couldn't hear proper. + +'Three times she called, an' three times the Tide-wave did her down. But +she catched the quiet between, an' she cries out, "What is the Trouble +on the Marsh that's been lying down with my heart an' arising with my +body this month gone?" She felt a liddle hand lay hold on her gown-hem, +an' she stooped to the pull o' that liddle hand.' + +Tom Shoesmith spread his huge fist before the fire and smiled at it. + +'"Will the sea drown the Marsh?" she says. She was a Marsh woman first +an' foremost. + +'"No," says the liddle voice. "Sleep sound for all o' that." + +'"Is the Plague comin' to the Marsh?" she says. Them was all the ills +she knowed. + +'"No. Sleep sound for all o' that," says Robin. + +'She turned about, half mindful to go in, but the liddle voices grieved +that shrill an' sorrowful she turns back, an' she cries: "If it is not a +Trouble of Flesh an' Blood, what can I do?" + +'The Pharisees cried out upon her from all round to fetch them a boat to +sail to France, an' come back no more. + +'"There's a boat on the Wall," she says, "but I can't push it down to +the sea, nor sail it when 'tis there." + +'"Lend us your sons," says all the Pharisees. "Give 'em Leave an' +Good-will to sail it for us, Mother--O Mother!" + +'"One's dumb, an' t'other's blind," she says. "But all the dearer me for +that; and you'll lose them in the big sea." The voices justabout +pierced through her; an' there was children's voices too. She stood out +all she could, but she couldn't rightly stand against _that_. So she +says: "If you can draw my sons for your job, I'll not hinder 'em. You +can't ask no more of a Mother." + +'She saw them liddle green lights dance an' cross till she was dizzy; +she heard them liddle feet patterin' by the thousand; she heard cruel +Canterbury Bells ringing to Bulverhithe, an' she heard the great +Tide-wave ranging along the Wall. That was while the Pharisees was +workin' a Dream to wake her two sons asleep: an' while she bit on her +fingers she saw them two she'd bore come out an' pass her with never a +word. She followed 'em, cryin' pitiful, to the old boat on the Wall, an' +that they took an' runned down to the sea. + +'When they'd stepped mast an' sail the blind son speaks: "Mother, we're +waitin' your Leave an' Good-will to take Them over."' + +Tom Shoesmith threw back his head and half shut his eyes. + +'Eh, me!' he said. 'She was a fine, valiant woman, the Widow Whitgift. +She stood twistin' the eends of her long hair over her fingers, an' she +shook like a poplar, makin' up her mind. The Pharisees all about they +hushed their children from cryin' an' they waited dumb-still. She was +all their dependence. 'Thout her Leave an' Good-will they could not +pass; for she was the Mother. So she shook like a aps-tree makin' up her +mind. 'Last she drives the word past her teeth, an' "Go!" she says. "Go +with my Leave an' Goodwill." + +'Then I saw--then, they say, she had to brace back same as if she was +wadin' in tide-water; for the Pharisees just about flowed past her--down +the beach to the boat, I dunnamany of 'em--with their wives an' childern +an' valooables, all escapin' out of cruel Old England. Silver you could +hear chinkin', an' liddle bundles hove down dunt on the bottom-boards, +an' passels o' liddle swords an' shields raklin', an' liddle fingers an' +toes scratchin' on the boatside to board her when the two sons pushed +her off. That boat she sunk lower an' lower, but all the Widow could see +in it was her boys movin' hampered-like to get at the tackle. Up sail +they did, an' away they went, deep as a Rye barge, away into the +off-shore mists, an' the Widow Whitgift she sat down an' eased her grief +till mornin' light.' + +'I never heard she was _all_ alone,' said Hobden. + +'I remember now. The one called Robin, he stayed with her, they tell. +She was all too grievious to listen to his promises.' + +'Ah! She should ha' made her bargain beforehand. I allus told my woman +so!' Hobden cried. + +'No. She loaned her sons for a pure love-loan, bein' as she sensed the +Trouble on the Marshes, an' was simple good-willin' to ease it.' Tom +laughed softly. 'She done that. Yes, she done that! From Hithe to +Bulverhithe, fretty man an' maid, ailin' woman an' wailin' child, they +took the advantage of the change in the thin airs just about _as_ soon +as the Pharisees flitted. Folks come out fresh an' shinin' all over the +Marsh like snails after wet. An' that while the Widow Whitgift sat +grievin' on the Wall. She might have belieft us--she might have trusted +her sons would be sent back! She fussed, no bounds, when their boat come +in after three days.' + +'And, of course, the sons were both quite cured?' said Una. + +'No-o. That would have been out o' Nature. She got 'em back as she sent +'em. The blind man he hadn't seen naught of anythin', an' the dumb man +nature-ally he couldn't say aught of what he'd seen. I reckon that was +why the Pharisees pitched on 'em for the ferryin' job.' + +'But what did you--what did Robin promise the Widow?' said Dan. + +'What _did_ he promise, now?' Tom pretended to think. 'Wasn't your woman +a Whitgift, Ralph? Didn't she ever say?' + +'She told me a passel o' no-sense stuff when he was born.' Hobden +pointed at his son. 'There was always to be one of 'em that could see +further into a millstone than most.' + +'Me! That's me!' said the Bee Boy so suddenly that they all laughed. + +'I've got it now!' cried Tom, slapping his knee. 'So long as Whitgift +blood lasted, Robin promised there would allers be one o' her stock +that--that no Trouble 'ud lie on, no Maid 'ud sigh on, no Night could +frighten, no Fright could harm, no Harm could make sin, an' no Woman +could make a fool of.' + +'Well, ain't that just me?' said the Bee Boy, where he sat in the silver +square of the great September moon that was staring into the oast-house +door. + +'They was the exact words she told me when we first found he wasn't like +others. But it beats me how you known 'em,' said Hobden. + +'Aha! There's more under my hat besides hair?' Tom laughed and stretched +himself. 'When I've seen these two young folk home, we'll make a night +of old days, Ralph, with passin' old tales--eh? An' where might you +live?' he said, gravely, to Dan. 'An' do you think your Pa 'ud give me a +drink for takin' you there, Missy?' + +They giggled so at this that they had to run out. Tom picked them both +up, set one on each broad shoulder, and tramped across the ferny pasture +where the cows puffed milky puffs at them in the moonlight. + +'Oh, Puck! Puck! I guessed you right from when you talked about the +salt. How could you ever do it?' Una cried, swinging along delighted. + +'Do what?' he said, and climbed the stile by the pollard oak. + +'Pretend to be Tom Shoesmith,' said Dan, and they ducked to avoid the +two little ashes that grow by the bridge over the brook. Tom was almost +running. + +'Yes. That's my name, Mus' Dan,' he said, hurrying over the silent +shining lawn, where a rabbit sat by the big white-thorn near the croquet +ground. 'Here you be.' He strode into the old kitchen yard, and slid +them down as Ellen came to ask questions. + +'I'm helping in Mus' Spray's oast-house,' he said to her. 'No, I'm no +foreigner. I knowed this country 'fore your mother was born; an'--yes, +it's dry work oastin', Miss. Thank you.' + +Ellen went to get a jug, and the children went in--magicked once more by +Oak, Ash, and Thorn! + + + +A THREE-PART SONG + + +I'm just in love with all these three, +The Weald an' the Marsh an' the Down countrie; +Nor I don't know which I love the most, +The Weald or the Marsh or the white chalk coast! + +I've buried my heart in a ferny hill, +Twix' a liddle low shaw an' a great high gill. +Oh, hop-bine yaller an' woodsmoke blue, +I reckon you'll keep her middling true! + +I've loosed my mind for to out an' run +On a Marsh that was old when Kings begun: +Oh, Romney level an' Brenzett reeds, +I reckon you know what my mind needs! + +I've given my soul to the Southdown grass, +An' sheep-bells tinkled where you pass. +Oh, Firle an' Ditchling an' sails at sea, +I reckon you keep my soul for me! + + + + +THE TREASURE AND THE LAW + + + +SONG OF THE FIFTH RIVER + + +When first by Eden Tree +The Four Great Rivers ran, +To each was appointed a Man +Her Prince and Ruler to be. + +But after this was ordained, +(The ancient legends tell), +There came dark Israel, +For whom no River remained. + +Then He That is Wholly Just +Said to him: 'Fling on the ground +A handful of yellow dust, +And a Fifth Great River shall run, +Mightier than these four, +In secret the Earth around; +And Her secret evermore +Shall be shown to thee and thy Race. + +So it was said and done. +And, deep in the veins of Earth, +And, fed by a thousand springs +That comfort the market-place, +Or sap the power of Kings, +The Fifth Great River had birth, +Even as it was foretold-- +The Secret River of Gold! + +And Israel laid down +His sceptre and his crown, +To brood on that River bank, +Where the waters flashed and sank, +And burrowed in earth and fell, +And bided a season below; +For reason that none might know, +Save only Israel. + +He is Lord of the Last-- +The Fifth, most wonderful, Flood. +He hears Her thunder past +And Her song is in his blood. +He can foresay: 'She will fall,' +For he knows which fountain dries +Behind which desert-belt +A thousand leagues to the South. +He can foresay: 'She will rise.' +He knows what far snows melt; +Along what mountain-wall +A thousand leagues to the North. +He snuffs the coming drought +As he snuffs the coming rain, +He knows what each will bring forth, +And turns it to his gain. + +A Prince without a Sword, +A Ruler without a Throne; +Israel follows his quest. +In every land a guest, +Of many lands a lord, +In no land King is he. +But the Fifth Great River keeps +The secret of Her deeps +For Israel alone, +As it was ordered to be. + + + +The Treasure and the Law + + +Now it was the third week in November, and the woods rang with the noise +of pheasant-shooting. No one hunted that steep, cramped country except +the village beagles, who, as often as not, escaped from their kennels +and made a day of their own. Dan and Una found a couple of them towling +round the kitchen-garden after the laundry cat. The little brutes were +only too pleased to go rabbiting, so the children ran them all along the +brook pastures and into Little Lindens farm-yard, where the old sow +vanquished them--and up to the quarry-hole, where they started a fox. He +headed for Far Wood, and there they frightened out all the pheasants, +who were sheltering from a big beat across the valley. Then the cruel +guns began again, and they grabbed the beagles lest they should stray +and get hurt. + +'I wouldn't be a pheasant--in November--for a lot,' Dan panted, as he +caught _Folly_ by the neck. 'Why did you laugh that horrid way?' + +'I didn't,' said Una, sitting on _Flora_, the fat lady-dog. 'Oh, look! +The silly birds are going back to their own woods instead of ours, where +they would be safe.' + +'Safe till it pleased you to kill them.' An old man, so tall he was +almost a giant, stepped from behind the clump of hollies by Volaterrae. +The children jumped, and the dogs dropped like setters. He wore a +sweeping gown of dark thick stuff, lined and edged with yellowish fur, +and he bowed a bent-down bow that made them feel both proud and ashamed. +Then he looked at them steadily, and they stared back without doubt or +fear. + +'You are not afraid?' he said, running his hands through his splendid +grey beard. 'Not afraid that those men yonder'--he jerked his head +towards the incessant pop-pop of the guns from the lower woods--'will do +you hurt?' + +'We-ell'--Dan liked to be accurate, especially when he was shy--'old +Hobd--a friend of mine told me that one of the beaters got peppered last +week--hit in the leg, I mean. You see, Mr Meyer _will_ fire at rabbits. +But he gave Waxy Garnett a quid--sovereign, I mean--and Waxy told Hobden +he'd have stood both barrels for half the money.' + +'He doesn't understand,' Una cried, watching the pale, troubled face. +'Oh, I wish----' + +She had scarcely said it when Puck rustled out of the hollies and spoke +to the man quickly in foreign words. Puck wore a long cloak too--the +afternoon was just frosting down--and it changed his appearance +altogether. + +'Nay, nay!' he said at last. 'You did not understand the boy. A freeman +was a little hurt, by pure mischance, at the hunting.' + +'I know that mischance! What did his Lord do? Laugh and ride over him?' +the old man sneered. + +'It was one of your own people did the hurt, Kadmiel.' Puck's eyes +twinkled maliciously. 'So he gave the freeman a piece of gold, and no +more was said.' + +'A Jew drew blood from a Christian and no more was said?' Kadmiel cried. +'Never! When did they torture him?' + +'No man may be bound, or fined, or slain till he has been judged by his +peers,' Puck insisted. 'There is but one Law in Old England for Jew or +Christian--the Law that was signed at Runnymede.' + +'Why, that's Magna Charta!' Dan whispered. It was one of the few history +dates that he could remember. Kadmiel turned on him with a sweep and a +whirr of his spicy-scented gown. + +'Dost _thou_ know of that, babe?' he cried, and lifted his hands in +wonder. + +'Yes,' said Dan firmly. + +'Magna Charta was signed by John, +That Henry the Third put his heel upon. + +And old Hobden says that if it hadn't been for _her_ (he calls +everything "her", you know), the keepers would have him clapped in Lewes +Gaol all the year round.' + +Again Puck translated to Kadmiel in the strange, solemn-sounding +language, and at last Kadmiel laughed. + +'Out of the mouths of babes do we learn,' said he. 'But tell me now, and +I will not call you a babe but a Rabbi, _why_ did the King sign the roll +of the New Law at Runnymede? For he was a King.' + +Dan looked sideways at his sister. It was her turn. + +'Because he jolly well had to,' said Una softly. 'The Barons made him.' + +'Nay,' Kadmiel answered, shaking his head. 'You Christians always forget +that gold does more than the sword. Our good King signed because he +could not borrow more money from us bad Jews.' He curved his shoulders +as he spoke. 'A King without gold is a snake with a broken back, +and'--his nose sneered up and his eyebrows frowned down--'it is a good +deed to break a snake's back. That was my work,' he cried, triumphantly, +to Puck. 'Spirit of Earth, bear witness that that was _my_ work!' He +shot up to his full towering height, and his words rang like a trumpet. +He had a voice that changed its tone almost as an opal changes +colour--sometimes deep and thundery, sometimes thin and waily, but +always it made you listen. + +'Many people can bear witness to that,' Puck answered. 'Tell these babes +how it was done. Remember, Master, they do not know Doubt or Fear.' + +'So I saw in their faces when we met,' said Kadmiel. 'Yet surely, surely +they are taught to spit upon Jews?' + +'Are they?' said Dan, much interested. 'Where at?' + +Puck fell back a pace, laughing. 'Kadmiel is thinking of King John's +reign,' he explained. 'His people were badly treated then.' + +'Oh, we know _that_.' they answered, and (it was very rude of them, but +they could not help it) they stared straight at Kadmiel's mouth to see +if his teeth were all there. It stuck in their lesson-memory that King +John used to pull out Jews' teeth to make them lend him money. + +Kadmiel understood the look and smiled bitterly. + +'No. Your King never drew my teeth: I think, perhaps, I drew his. +Listen! I was not born among Christians, but among Moors--in Spain--in a +little white town under the mountains. Yes, the Moors are cruel, but at +least their learned men dare to think. It was prophesied of me at my +birth that I should be a Lawgiver to a People of a strange speech and a +hard language. We Jews are always looking for the Prince and the +Lawgiver to come. Why not? My people in the town (we were very few) set +me apart as a child of the prophecy--the Chosen of the Chosen. We Jews +dream so many dreams. You would never guess it to see us slink about the +rubbish-heaps in our quarter; but at the day's end--doors shut, candles +lit--aha! _then_ we became the Chosen again.' + +He paced back and forth through the wood as he talked. The rattle of the +shot-guns never ceased, and the dogs whimpered a little and lay flat on +the leaves. + +'I was a Prince. Yes! Think of a little Prince who had never known +rough words in his own house handed over to shouting, bearded Rabbis, +who pulled his ears and filliped his nose, all that he might +learn--learn--learn to be King when his time came. He! Such a little +Prince it was! One eye he kept on the stone-throwing Moorish boys, and +the other it roved about the streets looking for his Kingdom. Yes, and +he learned to cry softly when he was hunted up and down those streets. +He learned to do all things without noise. He played beneath his +father's table when the Great Candle was lit, and he listened as +children listen to the talk of his father's friends above the table. +They came across the mountains, from out of all the world, for my +Prince's father was their counsellor. They came from behind the armies +of Sala-ud-Din: from Rome: from Venice: from England. They stole down +our alley, they tapped secretly at our door, they took off their rags, +they arrayed themselves, and they talked to my father at the wine. All +over the world the heathen fought each other. They brought news of these +wars, and while he played beneath the table, my Prince heard these +meanly dressed ones decide between themselves how, and when, and for how +long King should draw sword against King, and People rise up against +People. Why not? There can be no war without gold, and we Jews know how +the earth's gold moves with the seasons, and the crops, and the winds; +circling and looping and rising and sinking away like a river--a +wonderful underground river. How should the foolish Kings know _that_ +while they fight and steal and kill?' + +The children's faces showed that they knew nothing at all as, with open +eyes, they trotted and turned beside the long-striding old man. He +twitched his gown over his shoulders, and a square plate of gold, +studded with jewels, gleamed for an instant through the fur, like a star +through flying snow. + +'No matter,' he said. 'But, credit me, my Prince saw peace or war +decided not once, but many times, by the fall of a coin spun between a +Jew from Bury and a Jewess from Alexandria, in his father's house, when +the Great Candle was lit. Such power had we Jews among the Gentiles. Ah, +my little Prince! Do you wonder that he learned quickly? Why not?' He +muttered to himself and went on:-- + +'My trade was that of a physician. When I had learned it in Spain I went +to the East to find my Kingdom. Why not? A Jew is as free as a +sparrow--or a dog. He goes where he is hunted. In the East I found +libraries where men dared to think--schools of medicine where they dared +to learn. I was diligent in my business. Therefore I stood before Kings. +I have been a brother to Princes and a companion to beggars, and I have +walked between the living and the dead. There was no profit in it. I did +not find my Kingdom. So, in the tenth year of my travels, when I had +reached the Uttermost Eastern Sea, I returned to my father's house. God +had wonderfully preserved my people. None had been slain, none even +wounded, and only a few scourged. I became once more a son in my +father's house. Again the Great Candle was lit; again the meanly +apparelled ones tapped on our door after dusk; and again I heard them +weigh out peace and war, as they weighed out the gold on the table. But +I was not rich--not very rich. Therefore, when those that had power and +knowledge and wealth talked together, I sat in the shadow. Why not? + +'Yet all my wanderings had shown me one sure thing, which is, that a +King without money is like a spear without a head. He cannot do much +harm. I said, therefore, to Elias of Bury, a great one among our people: +"Why do our people lend any more to the Kings that oppress us?" +"Because," said Elias, "if we refuse they stir up their people against +us, and the People are tenfold more cruel than Kings. If thou doubtest, +come with me to Bury in England and live as I live." + +'I saw my mother's face across the candle flame, and I said, "I will +come with thee to Bury. Maybe my Kingdom shall be there." + +'So I sailed with Elias to the darkness and the cruelty of Bury in +England, where there are no learned men. How can a man be wise if he +hate? At Bury I kept his accounts for Elias, and I saw men kill Jews +there by the tower. No--none laid hands on Elias. He lent money to the +King, and the King's favour was about him. A King will not take the life +so long as there is any gold. This King--yes, John--oppressed his people +bitterly because they would not give him money. Yet his land was a good +land. If he had only given it rest he might have cropped it as a +Christian crops his beard. But even _that_ little he did not know, for +God had deprived him of all understanding, and had multiplied +pestilence, and famine, and despair upon the people. Therefore his +people turned against us Jews, who are all people's dogs. Why not? +Lastly the Barons and the people rose together against the King because +of his cruelties. Nay--nay--the Barons did not love the people, but they +saw that if the King cut up and destroyed the common people, he would +presently destroy the Barons. They joined then, as cats and pigs will +join to slay a snake. I kept the accounts, and I watched all these +things, for I remembered the Prophecy. + +'A great gathering of Barons (to most of whom we had lent money) came to +Bury, and there, after much talk and a thousand runnings-about, they +made a roll of the New Laws that they would force on the King. If he +swore to keep those Laws, they would allow him a little money. That was +the King's God--Money--to waste. They showed us the roll of the New +Laws. Why not? We had lent them money. We knew all their counsels--we +Jews shivering behind our doors in Bury.' He threw out his hands +suddenly. 'We did not seek to be paid _all_ in money. We sought +Power--Power--Power! That is _our_ God in our captivity. Power to use! + +'I said to Elias: "These New Laws are good. Lend no more money to the +King: so long as he has money he will lie and slay the people." + +'"Nay," said Elias. "I know this people. They are madly cruel. Better +one King than a thousand butchers. I have lent a little money to the +Barons, or they would torture us, but my most I will lend to the King. +He hath promised me a place near him at Court, where my wife and I shall +be safe." + +'"But if the King be made to keep these New Laws," I said, "the land +will have peace, and our trade will grow. If we lend he will fight +again." + +'"Who made thee a Lawgiver in England?" said Elias. "I know this people. +Let the dogs tear one another! I will lend the King ten thousand pieces +of gold, and he can fight the Barons at his pleasure." + +'"There are not two thousand pieces of gold in all England this summer," +I said, for I kept the accounts, and I knew how the earth's gold +moved--that wonderful underground river. Elias barred home the windows, +and, his hands about his mouth, he told me how, when he was trading with +small wares in a French ship, he had come to the Castle of Pevensey.' + +'Oh!' said Dan. 'Pevensey again!' and looked at Una, who nodded and +skipped. + +'There, after they had scattered his pack up and down the Great Hall, +some young knights carried him to an upper room, and dropped him into a +well in a wall, that rose and fell with the tide. They called him +Joseph, and threw torches at his wet head. Why not?' + +'Why, of course!' cried Dan. 'Didn't you know it was----' Puck held up +his hand to stop him, and Kadmiel, who never noticed, went on. + +'When the tide dropped he thought he stood on old armour, but feeling +with his toes, he raked up bar on bar of soft gold. Some wicked treasure +of the old days put away, and the secret cut off by the sword. I have +heard the like before.' + +'So have we,' Una whispered. 'But it wasn't wicked a bit.' + +'Elias took a little of the stuff with him, and thrice yearly he would +return to Pevensey as a chapman, selling at no price or profit, till +they suffered him to sleep in the empty room, where he would plumb and +grope, and steal away a few bars. The great store of it still remained, +and by long brooding he had come to look on it as his own. Yet when we +thought how we should lift and convey it, we saw no way. This was before +the Word of the Lord had come to me. A walled fortress possessed by +Normans; in the midst a forty-foot tide-well out of which to remove +secretly many horse-loads of gold! Hopeless! So Elias wept. Adah, his +wife, wept too. She had hoped to stand beside the Queen's Christian +tiring-maids at Court when the King should give them that place at Court +which he had promised. Why not? She was born in England--an odious +woman. + +'The present evil to us was that Elias, out of his strong folly, had, as +it were, promised the King that he would arm him with more gold. +Wherefore the King in his camp stopped his ears against the Barons and +the people. Wherefore men died daily. Adah so desired her place at +Court, she besought Elias to tell the King where the treasure lay, that +the King might take it by force, and--they would trust in his gratitude. +Why not? This Elias refused to do, for he looked on the gold as his own. +They quarrelled, and they wept at the evening meal, and late in the +night came one Langton--a priest, almost learned--to borrow more money +for the Barons. Elias and Adah went to their chamber.' + +Kadmiel laughed scornfully in his beard. The shots across the valley +stopped as the shooting party changed their ground for the last beat. + +'So it was I, not Elias,' he went on quietly, 'that made terms with +Langton touching the fortieth of the New Laws.' + +'What terms?' said Puck quickly. 'The Fortieth of the Great Charter +says: "To none will we sell, refuse, or delay right or justice."' + +'True, but the Barons had written first: _To no free man_. It cost me +two hundred broad pieces of gold to change those narrow words. Langton, +the priest, understood. "Jew though thou art," said he, "the change is +just, and if ever Christian and Jew came to be equal in England thy +people may thank thee." Then he went out stealthily, as men do who deal +with Israel by night. I think he spent my gift upon his altar. Why not? +I have spoken with Langton. He was such a man as I might have been +if--if we Jews had been a people. But yet, in many things, a child. + +'I heard Elias and Adah abovestairs quarrel, and, knowing the woman was +the stronger, I saw that Elias would tell the King of the gold and that +the King would continue in his stubbornness. Therefore I saw that the +gold must be put away from the reach of any man. Of a sudden, the Word +of the Lord came to me saying, "The Morning is come, O thou that +dwellest in the land."' + +Kadmiel halted, all black against the pale green sky beyond the wood--a +huge robed figure, like the Moses in the picture-Bible. + +'I rose. I went out, and as I shut the door on that House of +Foolishness, the woman looked from the window and whispered, "I have +prevailed on my husband to tell the King!" I answered: "There is no +need. The Lord is with me." + +'In that hour the Lord gave me full understanding of all that I must do; +and His Hand covered me in my ways. First I went to London, to a +physician of our people, who sold me certain drugs that I needed. You +shall see why. Thence I went swiftly to Pevensey. Men fought all around +me, for there were neither rulers nor judges in the abominable land. Yet +when I walked by them they cried out that I was one Ahasuerus, a Jew, +condemned, as they believe, to live for ever, and they fled from me +everyways. Thus the Lord saved me for my work, and at Pevensey I bought +me a little boat and moored it on the mud beneath the Marsh-gate of the +Castle. That also God showed me.' + +He was as calm as though he were speaking of some stranger, and his +voice filled the little bare wood with rolling music. + +'I cast'--his hand went to his breast, and again the strange jewel +gleamed--'I cast the drugs which I had prepared into the common well of +the Castle. Nay, I did no harm. The more we physicians know, the less do +we do. Only the fool says: "I dare." I caused a blotched and itching +rash to break out upon their skins, but I knew it would fade in fifteen +days. I did not stretch out my hand against their life. They in the +Castle thought it was the Plague, and they ran out, taking with them +their very dogs. + +'A Christian physician, seeing that I was a Jew and a stranger, vowed +that I had brought the sickness from London. This is the one time I have +ever heard a Christian leech speak truth of any disease. Thereupon the +people beat me, but a merciful woman said: "Do not kill him now. Push +him into our Castle with his Plague, and if, as he says, it will abate +on the fifteenth day, we can kill him then." Why not? They drove me +across the drawbridge of the Castle, and fled back to their booths. Thus +I came to be alone with the treasure.' + +'But did you know this was all going to happen just right?' said Una. + +'My Prophecy was that I should be a Lawgiver to a People of a strange +land and a hard speech. I knew I should not die. I washed my cuts. I +found the tide-well in the wall, and from Sabbath to Sabbath I dove and +dug there in that empty, Christian-smelling fortress. He! I spoiled the +Egyptians! He! If they had only known! I drew up many good loads of +gold, which I loaded by night into my boat. There had been gold-dust +too, but that had been washed out by the tides.' + +'Didn't you ever wonder who had put it there?' said Dan, stealing a +glance at Puck's calm, dark face under the hood of his gown. Puck shook +his head and pursed his lips. + +'Often; for the gold was new to me,' Kadmiel replied. 'I know the Golds. +I can judge them in the dark; but this was heavier and redder than any +we deal in. Perhaps it was the very gold of Parvaim. Eh, why not? It +went to my heart to heave it on to the mud, but I saw well that if the +evil thing remained, or if even the hope of finding it remained, the +King would not sign the New Laws, and the land would perish.' + +'Oh, Marvel!' said Puck, beneath his breath, rustling in the dead +leaves. + +'When the boat was loaded I washed my hands seven times, and pared +beneath my nails, for I would not keep one grain. I went out by the +little gate where the Castle's refuse is thrown. I dared not hoist sail +lest men should see me; but the Lord commanded the tide to bear me +carefully, and I was far from land before the morning.' + +'Weren't you afraid?' said Una. + +'Why? There were no Christians in the boat. At sunrise I made my prayer, +and cast the gold--all--all that gold--into the deep sea! A King's +ransom--no, the ransom of a People! When I had loosed hold of the last +bar, the Lord commanded the tide to return me to a haven at the mouth of +a river, and thence I walked across a wilderness to Lewes, where I have +brethren. They opened the door to me, and they say--I had not eaten for +two days--they say that I fell across the threshold, crying: "I have +sunk an army with horsemen in the sea!"' + +'But you hadn't,' said Una. 'Oh, yes! I see! You meant that King John +might have spent it on that?' + +'Even so,' said Kadmiel. + +The firing broke out again close behind them. The pheasants poured over +the top of a belt of tall firs. They could see young Mr Meyer, in his +new yellow gaiters, very busy and excited at the end of the line, and +they could hear the thud of the falling birds. + +'But what did Elias of Bury do?' Puck demanded. 'He had promised money +to the King.' + +Kadmiel smiled grimly. 'I sent him word from London that the Lord was on +my side. When he heard that the Plague had broken out in Pevensey, and +that a Jew had been thrust into the Castle to cure it, he understood my +word was true. He and Adah hurried to Lewes and asked me for an +accounting. He still looked on the gold as his own. I told them where I +had laid it, and I gave them full leave to pick it up ... Eh, well! The +curses of a fool and the dust of a journey are two things no wise man +can escape ... But I pitied Elias! The King was wroth with him because +he could not lend; the Barons were wroth too because they heard that he +would have lent to the King; and Adah was wroth with him because she was +an odious woman. They took ship from Lewes to Spain. That was wise!' + +'And you? Did you see the signing of the Law at Runnymede?' said Puck, +as Kadmiel laughed noiselessly. + +'Nay. Who am I to meddle with things too high for me? I returned to +Bury, and lent money on the autumn crops. Why not?' + +There was a crackle overhead. A cock-pheasant that had sheered aside +after being hit spattered down almost on top of them, driving up the dry +leaves like a shell. _Flora_ and _Folly_ threw themselves at it; the +children rushed forward, and when they had beaten them off and smoothed +down the plumage Kadmiel had disappeared. + +'Well,' said Puck calmly, 'what did you think of it? Weland gave the +Sword! The Sword gave the Treasure, and the Treasure gave the Law. It's +as natural as an oak growing.' + +'I don't understand. Didn't he know it was Sir Richard's old treasure?' +said Dan. 'And why did Sir Richard and Brother Hugh leave it lying +about? And--and----' + +'Never mind,' said Una politely. 'He'll let us come and go and look and +know another time. Won't you, Puck?' + +'Another time maybe,' Puck answered. 'Brr! It's cold--and late. I'll +race you towards home!' + +They hurried down into the sheltered valley. The sun had almost sunk +behind Cherry Clack, the trodden ground by the cattle-gates was freezing +at the edges, and the new-waked north wind blew the night on them from +over the hills. They picked up their feet and flew across the browned +pastures, and when they halted, panting in the steam of their own +breath, the dead leaves whirled up behind them. There was Oak and Ash +and Thorn enough in that year-end shower to magic away a thousand +memories. + +So they trotted to the brook at the bottom of the lawn, wondering why +_Flora_ and _Folly_ had missed the quarry-hole fox. + +Old Hobden was just finishing some hedge-work. They saw his white smock +glimmer in the twilight where he faggoted the rubbish. + +'Winter, he's come, I reckon, Mus' Dan,' he called. 'Hard times now till +Heffle Cuckoo Fair. Yes, we'll all be glad to see the Old Woman let the +Cuckoo out o' the basket for to start lawful Spring in England.' + +They heard a crash, and a stamp and a splash of water as though a heavy +old cow were crossing almost under their noses. + +Hobden ran forward angrily to the ford. + +'Gleason's bull again, playin' Robin all over the Farm! Oh, look, Mus' +Dan--his great footmark as big as a trencher. No bounds to his +impidence! He might count himself to be a man or--or Somebody----' + +A voice the other side of the brook boomed: + +'I wonder who his cloak would turn +When Puck had led him round, +Or where those walking fires would burn----' + +Then the children went in singing 'Farewell Rewards and Fairies' at the +tops of their voices. They had forgotten that they had not even said +good-night to Puck. + + + +THE CHILDREN'S SONG + + +Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee +Our love and toil in the years to be; +When we are grown and take our place, +As men and women with our race. + +Father in Heaven Who lovest all, +Oh, help Thy children when they call; +That they may build from age to age, +An undefiled heritage. + +Teach us to bear the yoke in youth, +With steadfastness and careful truth; +That, in our time, Thy Grace may give +The Truth whereby the Nations live. + +Teach us to rule ourselves alway, +Controlled and cleanly night and day; +That we may bring, if need arise, +No maimed or worthless sacrifice. + +Teach us to look in all our ends, +On Thee for judge, and not our friends; +That we, with Thee, may walk uncowed +By fear or favour of the crowd. + +Teach us the Strength that cannot seek, +By deed or thought, to hurt the weak; +That, under Thee, we may possess +Man's strength to comfort man's distress. + +Teach us Delight in simple things, +And Mirth that has no bitter springs; +Forgiveness free of evil done, +And Love to all men 'neath the sun! + +Land of our Birth, our faith, our pride, +For whose dear sake our fathers died; +O Motherland, we pledge to thee +Head, heart and hand through the years to be! + + +---------------------------------------------------------------- + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Puck of Pook's Hill, by Rudyard Kipling + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUCK OF POOK'S HILL *** + +***** This file should be named 15976.txt or 15976.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/9/7/15976/ + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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