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+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 http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: Puck of Pook's Hill
+
+Author: Rudyard Kipling
+
+Release Date: July 11, 2008 [Ebook #26027]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUCK OF POOK'S HILL***
+
+
+
+
+
+                           PUCK OF POOK'S HILL
+
+
+                         BOOKS BY RUDYARD KIPLING
+
+          PUCK OF POOK'S HILL
+          THEY
+          TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES
+          THE FIVE NATIONS
+          THE JUST SO SONG BOOK
+          JUST SO STORIES
+          KIM
+          STALKY & CO.
+          THE DAY'S WORK
+          THE BRUSHWOOD BOY
+          FROM SEA TO SEA
+          DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES AND BALLADS AND BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS
+          PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS
+          THE LIGHT THAT FAILED
+          LIFE'S HANDICAP: BEING STORIES OF MINE OWN PEOPLE
+          UNDER THE DEODARS, THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW, AND WEE WILLIE WINKIE
+          SOLDIERS THREE, THE STORY OF THE GADSBYS, AND IN BLACK AND WHITE
+          SOLDIER STORIES
+          THE KIPLING BIRTHDAY BOOK
+          (WITH WOLCOTT BALESTIER) THE NAULAHKA
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: '"Go!" she says. "Go with my Leave an' Goodwill."'
+  _See page 247_]
+
+
+
+
+
+                          Puck of Pook's Hill
+
+                            By Rudyard Kipling
+
+
+_Illustrated by_
+Arthur Rackham, A.R.W.S.
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+1906
+
+
+
+
+
+                        Copyright, 1905, 1906, by
+                             RUDYARD KIPLING
+                         Published, October, 1906
+
+                         _All rights reserved,_
+         _including that of translation into foreign languages,_
+                       _including the Scandinavian_
+
+
+
+
+
+          ROBIN GOODFELLOW--HIS FRIENDS
+
+          By RUDYARD KIPLING
+
+             I. A Centurion of the Thirtieth.
+            II. On the Great Wall.
+           III. The Winged Hats.
+            IV. Hal o' the Draft.
+             V. Dymchurch Flit.
+            VI. The Treasure and the Law.
+
+          Copyright, 1906, by RUDYARD KIPLING.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                           PAGE
+_Puck's Song_                                 1
+Weland's Sword                                5
+_A Tree Song_                                29
+Young Men at the Manor                       33
+_Sir Richard's Song_                         55
+_Harp Song of the Dane Women_                59
+The Knights of the Joyous Venture            61
+_Thorkild's Song_                            87
+Old Men at Pevensey                          91
+_The Runes on Weland's Sword_               119
+A Centurion of the Thirtieth                125
+_A British-Roman Song_                      145
+On the Great Wall                           149
+_A Song to Mithras_                         173
+The Winged Hats                             177
+_A Pict Song_                               201
+Hal o' the Draft                            207
+_A Smugglers' Song_                         227
+_The Bee Boy's Song_                        231
+'Dymchurch Flit'                            233
+_A Three-Part Song_                         251
+_Song of the Fifth River_                   255
+The Treasure and the Law                    257
+_The Children's Song_                       276
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+'"Go!" she says, "Go with my Leave an' Goodwill."'        _Frontispiece_
+                                                             FACING PAGE
+In the very spot where Dan had stood as Puck they saw a                6
+small, brown, broad-shouldered, pointy-eared person
+with a snub nose, slanting blue eyes, and a grin that
+ran right across his freckled face.
+'There's where you meet hunters, and trappers for the                152
+Circuses, prodding along chained bears and muzzled
+wolves.'
+'Hoity-toity!' he cried. 'Here's Pride in purple                     212
+feathers! Here's wrathy contempt and the Pomps of the
+Flesh!'... And he doffed his cap to the bubbling bird.
+
+
+
+
+
+                           PUCK OF POOK'S HILL
+
+
+
+
+
+
+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._
+
+
+
+
+
+WELAND'S SWORD
+
+
+
+
+WELAND'S SWORD(1)
+
+
+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
+where Nick Bottom the weaver comes out of the bushes with a donkey's head
+on his shoulder, 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 their stage. The mill-stream 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 gatepost 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, ripe 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.
+
+  [Illustration: In the very spot where Dan had stood as Puck they now
+  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.]
+
+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 little 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 Horseshoes 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;
+  For 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 are a fairy,' said Dan.
+
+'Have you ever heard me use 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 Hill 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 Hill 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 its 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 recognise 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 spearwise. 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 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 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 hammer, 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 Judgment Tide,_
+    _By Oak, and Ash and Thorn!_
+
+
+
+
+
+YOUNG MEN AT THE MANOR
+
+
+
+
+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's 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 bareheaded, 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 the 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 to-day 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 to 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 forebore 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 his 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
+war-horses--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 life I had 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 deerstealers. A hornets' nest indeed!
+
+'When De Aquila had gone, Hugh would have thanked me for saving their
+lives; but 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
+bows 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 this
+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 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 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 swine-herd'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
+brook.
+
+'"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 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 councillor 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. It is
+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 was 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 to-morrow, 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 for 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 Woman that you forsake her,_
+  _And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,_
+  _To go with the old grey Widow-maker?_
+
+
+
+
+THE KNIGHTS OF THE JOYOUS VENTURE
+
+
+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. Dragon-flies wheeling and clashing were the only things at
+work, except the moor-hens 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 floodgates 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 the 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 Alfred, lover of truth,
+  Brought a snow-white walrus tooth,
+  That he held in his 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 Dane's 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 glass and burned incense
+before it. Hugh and I commended ourselves to God, and Saint Bartholomew,
+and Our Lady of the Assumption, who was specially dear to my Lady. We were
+not young, but I think no shame to say, when as 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 out of mud, arched upon lean and high roots, and
+many muddy water-ways ran allwhither 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 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 pumkins. 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 elephant 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 his 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 midstream."
+
+'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 that 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 in shore; 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 bareheaded 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 hand 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 to 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 is 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!_
+
+  _Hoe--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
+
+
+
+
+OLD MEN AT PEVENSEY
+
+
+'It has nought 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, Fitz Osborn 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 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,
+would he 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 faithful. 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 penner 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 hornet's 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 a while. He lay rolling his eyes and bubbling with his mouth,
+and Jehan roped him like a calf. He was cased all in that new-fangled
+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 penner and inkhorn,
+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'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
+penner 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 I can," 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 their 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 to-morrow, 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 bed-place.
+
+'"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 a while,
+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 from 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 turn and run away?
+    Here lies the rod of 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 believe 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 its 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
+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 an officer 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 is 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 we 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 gorze-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 thickheads, 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 its 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. '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 breast-plate. 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 cohort," 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 promote 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 head-quarters 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 will make a good
+officer, 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
+
+
+
+
+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 God 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.
+
+  [Illustration: 'There's where you meet hunters, and trappers for the
+  Circuses, prodding along chained bears and muzzled wolves.']
+
+'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, cockfighting, 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 as he said.
+Wonderful! And I tell another strange thing!'
+
+He jointed 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 Rome's old 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
+Pict's 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 an Officer 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 re-make 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 your 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 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 to-morrow. 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 grow, 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 lies,_
+  _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 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' 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. To-morrow," 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 the East end 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 sunk 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 letters 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 Thirds--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 sunk," 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 from 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 were 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 snow-drift 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 defender,
+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' 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 O, '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!_
+
+
+
+
+HAL O' THE DRAFT
+
+
+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 Farms, 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,' 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
+re-builded this little St. Bartholomew's 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 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 re-built, re-roofed, and made
+glorious, thanks to some few godly Sussex iron-masters, a Bristol 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 re-build, at my own charges, my own
+church, where we 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 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
+to-day.' And he doffed his cap to the bubbling bird.
+
+Then they walked through the grass to the knoll where Little Lindens
+stands. The old farm-house, 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?'
+
+  [Illustration: 'Hoity-toity,' he cried. 'Here's Pride in purple
+  feathers! Here's wrathy contempt and the Pomps of the Flesh!'... And
+  he doffed his cap to the bubbling bird.]
+
+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's? Ruinous
+the church had been since the Black Death, and ruinous she should remain;
+and I could hang myself in my new scaffold-ropes! Gentle and simple, high
+and low--the Hayes, the Fowles, the Fanners, the Collinses--they were all in
+a tale against me. Only Sir John Pelham up yonder to 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 any
+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 remelted. 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's 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 lime-wash bucket. We gave out to
+ride o' Tuesday to London and made a show of making farewells of our
+friends--especially of Master John Collins. But at Wadhurst Woods we
+turned; rode by night to the watermeadows; hid our horses in a willow-tot
+at the foot of the glebe, and stole a-tiptoe up hill to Barnabas's church
+again. A thick mist, and a moon coming 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 slits of window-moonlight--won'erful devilish-like.
+Then he sits on the stair, 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 from 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 this 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 to 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 us. 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 ran 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 help 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 Fanners
+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's a jewel--just about 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 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! Silly Sussex for everlastin',' murmured Hal; and the next
+moment their Father's voice calling across to Little Lindens broke the
+spell as St. Barnabas's clock struck five.
+
+
+
+
+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 brandywined;_
+  _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 stableyard setting open wide;_
+  _If you see a tied 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 Park--_
+      _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 the 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._
+
+
+
+
+'DYMCHURCH FLIT'
+
+
+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 doing 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 hedging-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 to-night.'
+
+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 went 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 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 beleft 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 senses. 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 seen 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 farabout to call you a
+liar. Now turn again, 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've heard it?'
+
+'My woman she've told it me scores o' times. Dunno as I didn't end by
+belieft in' 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 Marshmen say
+that from Time Everlastin' Beyond the Pharisees favoured the Marsh above
+the rest of Old England. I lay the Marshmen 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 beleft 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 o' 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 Reformations 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
+laughing 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, striving all means to
+get _through_ at Flesh an' Blood to tell 'en 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' tryin' to come _through_ with
+their supplications, they nature-ally changed the thin airs and 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' and no man scarin'; their sheep flockin' and 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, and 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, and 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' aching, there come a Dream an' tapped at her
+window, and "Widow Whitgift," it said, "Widow Whitgift!"
+
+'First, by the wings an' the whistling, 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 Groaning 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 peeping: then 'twas all like
+the reeds in the diks clipclapping; 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 up: "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 ends 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' Goodwill they could not pass; for she was
+the Mother. So she shook like a asp-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 justabout flowed past her--down the
+beach to the boat, _I_ dunnamany of 'em--with their wives an' children an'
+valooables, all escapin' out of cruel Old England. Silver you could hear
+clinkin', an' liddle bundles hove down dunt on the bottom-boards, an'
+passels o' liddle swords an' shield's 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 mistes, an'
+the Widow Whitgift she sat down and 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-willing to ease it.' Tom
+laughed softly. 'She done that. Yes, she done that! From Hithe to
+Bulverthithe, fretty man an' petty 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' shining all over
+the Marsh like snails after wet. An' that while the Widow Whitgift sat
+grievin' on the Wall. She might have beleft 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 anything, 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 ferrying 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 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.'
+
+'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 oasting, 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 and the Marsh and 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-vine yaller and woodsmoke blue,_
+  _I reckon you'll keep her middling true!_
+
+  _I've loosed my mind for to out and run,_
+  _On a Marsh that was old when Kings begun;_
+  _Oh Romney Level and Brenzett reeds,_
+  _I reckon you know what my mind needs!_
+
+  _I've given my soul to the Southdown grass,_
+  _And sheep-bells tinkled where you pass._
+  _Oh Firle an' Ditchling an' sails at sea,_
+  _I reckon you'll keep my soul or 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 drouth_
+  _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 the 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 become 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 councillor. 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 eat 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 morsel 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 say:
+"To none will we sell, refuse, or deny 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 come 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 forth, 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 away 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 bars, 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 at him because he could
+not lend; the Barons were wroth at him because they heard that he would
+have lent to the King; and Adah was wroth at 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 rackon, 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 Somebody.'
+
+A voice the other side of the brook boomed:
+
+  'I marvel 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!_
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTE
+
+
+    1 Copyright, 1905, by Rudyard Kipling.
+
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
+
+
+The following typographical errors were corrected:
+
+      page 7, "Pyramis" changed to "Pyramus"
+      page 9, quotes added before "couldn't" and "I"
+      page 13, "draggons" changed to "dragons"
+      page 27, quote added before "Late"
+      page 43, "summons" changed to "summon"
+      page 51, "we" added before "do"
+      page 62, double quote changed to single quote after "pirate-folk?"
+      page 64, semicolon added after "Yes"
+      page 68, double "said" removed, single quote changed to double quote
+      after "kill!"
+      page 69, comma added after "Kitai"
+      page 76, double "where" removed
+      page 85, quote added after "gold!"
+      page 97, quote removed after "Aquila."
+      page 99, "shouder" changed to "shoulder", single quote changed to
+      double quote after "Look!"
+      page 102, "learned" changed to "leaned"
+      page 103, "a" added between "is" and "good"
+      page 108, quote removed before "At"
+      page 110, single quote changed to double quote before "But"
+      page 127, quote added after "catapult,", quote removed after "Una.",
+      "quicky" changed to "quickly"
+      page 128, comma removed after "bigger"
+      page 135, "hmself" changed to "himself"
+      page 137, "did'nt" changed to "didn't"
+      page 141, quote added before "But"
+      page 142, single quote changed to double quote after "reason,"
+      page 143, "Cylops" changed to "Cyclops"
+      page 152, "Caesar" changed to "Caesar"
+      page 153, comma added after "children,"
+      page 156, quote added after "make."
+      page 160, comma added after "No", period added after "up"
+      page 166, quote added after "thoughts."
+      page 170, double quote changed to single quote before "Sorry"
+      page 184, single quote changed to double quote after "Man."
+      page 188, single quote changed to double quote after "him,",
+      "to-day?" and "finished!"
+      page 193, quote added after "letter."
+      page 205, parenthesis added after "complain"
+      page 214, period added after "lime."
+      page 218, "sepentines" changed to "serpentines"
+      page 224, quote added after "voice."
+      page 235, apostroph moved after "conjurin'."
+      page 237, quote added before "Dymchurch"
+      page 239, apostroph and comma changed after "nothin',"
+      page 240, "shouder" changed to "shoulder"
+      page 241, apostroph and periodchanged after "bein'."
+      page 244, apostroph added after "an"
+      page 248, comma removed after "Robin"
+      page 260, "asid" changed to "said"
+      page 269, "stubborness" changed to "stubbornness"
+      page 275, quote added before "I", "burne" changed to "burn"
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUCK OF POOK'S HILL***
+
+
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