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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rewards and Fairies, by Rudyard Kipling
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Rewards and Fairies
+
+Author: Rudyard Kipling
+
+Release Date: June, 1996 [Etext #556]
+Posting Date: November 28, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REWARDS AND FAIRIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jo Churcher
+
+
+
+
+
+REWARDS AND FAIRIES
+
+By Rudyard Kipling
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+        A Charm
+     Introduction
+     Cold Iron
+        Cold Iron
+     Gloriana
+        The Two Cousins
+        The Looking-Glass
+     The Wrong Thing
+        A Truthful Song
+        King Henry VII and the Shipwrights
+     Marklake Witches
+        The Way through the Woods
+        Brookland Road
+     The Knife and the Naked Chalk
+        The Run of the Downs
+        Song of the Men's Side
+     Brother Square-Toes
+        Philadelphia
+        If--
+        Rs
+        'A Priest in Spite of Himself'
+        A St Helena Lullaby
+        'Poor Honest Men'
+     The Conversion of St Wilfrid
+        Eddi's Service
+        Song of the Red War-Boat
+     A Doctor of Medicine
+        An Astrologer's Song
+        'Our Fathers of Old'
+     Simple Simon
+        The Thousandth Man
+        Frankie's Trade
+     The Tree of Justice
+        The Ballad of Minepit Shaw
+        A Carol
+
+
+
+
+A Charm
+
+
+     Take of English earth as much
+     As either hand may rightly clutch.
+     In the taking of it breathe
+     Prayer for all who lie beneath--
+     Not the great nor well-bespoke,
+     But the mere uncounted folk
+     Of whose life and death is none
+     Report or lamentation.
+     Lay that earth upon thy heart,
+     And thy sickness shall depart!
+
+     It shall sweeten and make whole
+     Fevered breath and festered soul;
+     It shall mightily restrain
+     Over-busy hand and brain;
+     it shall ease thy mortal strife
+     'Gainst the immortal woe of life,
+     Till thyself restored shall prove
+     By what grace the Heavens do move.
+
+     Take of English flowers these--
+     Spring's full-faced primroses,
+     Summer's wild wide-hearted rose,
+     Autumn's wall-flower of the close,
+     And, thy darkness to illume,
+     Winter's bee-thronged ivy-bloom.
+     Seek and serve them where they bide
+     From Candlemas to Christmas-tide,
+     For these simples used aright
+     Shall restore a failing sight.
+
+     These shall cleanse and purify
+     Webbed and inward-turning eye;
+     These shall show thee treasure hid,
+     Thy familiar fields amid,
+     At thy threshold, on thy hearth,
+     Or about thy daily path;
+     And reveal (which is thy need)
+     Every man a King indeed!
+
+
+
+
+Introduction
+
+
+Once upon a time, Dan and Una, brother and sister, living in the English
+country, had the good fortune to meet with Puck, alias Robin Goodfellow,
+alias Nick o' Lincoln, alias Lob-lie-by-the-Fire, the last survivor
+in England of those whom mortals call Fairies. Their proper name, of
+course, is 'The People of the Hills'. This Puck, by means of the magic
+of Oak, Ash, and Thorn, gave the children power
+
+     To see what they should see and hear what they should hear,
+     Though it should have happened three thousand year.
+
+The result was that from time to time, and in different places on the
+farm and in the fields and in the country about, they saw and talked to
+some rather interesting people. One of these, for instance, was a Knight
+of the Norman Conquest, another a young Centurion of a Roman Legion
+stationed in England, another a builder and decorator of King Henry
+VII's time; and so on and so forth; as I have tried to explain in a book
+called PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.
+
+A year or so later, the children met Puck once more, and though they
+were then older and wiser, and wore boots regularly instead of going
+barefooted when they got the chance, Puck was as kind to them as ever,
+and introduced them to more people of the old days.
+
+He was careful, of course, to take away their memory of their walks and
+conversations afterwards, but otherwise he did not interfere; and Dan
+and Una would find the strangest sort of persons in their gardens or
+woods.
+
+In the stories that follow I am trying to tell something about those
+people.
+
+
+
+
+COLD IRON
+
+
+When Dan and Una had arranged to go out before breakfast, they did not
+remember that it was Midsummer Morning. They only wanted to see the
+otter which, old Hobden said, had been fishing their brook for weeks;
+and early morning was the time to surprise him. As they tiptoed out of
+the house into the wonderful stillness, the church clock struck five.
+Dan took a few steps across the dew-blobbed lawn, and looked at his
+black footprints.
+
+'I think we ought to be kind to our poor boots,' he said. 'They'll get
+horrid wet.'
+
+It was their first summer in boots, and they hated them, so they took
+them off, and slung them round their necks, and paddled joyfully over
+the dripping turf where the shadows lay the wrong way, like evening in
+the East. The sun was well up and warm, but by the brook the last of
+the night mist still fumed off the water. They picked up the chain of
+otter's footprints on the mud, and followed it from the bank, between
+the weeds and the drenched mowing, while the birds shouted with
+surprise. Then the track left the brook and became a smear, as though a
+log had been dragged along.
+
+They traced it into Three Cows meadow, over the mill-sluice to the
+Forge, round Hobden's garden, and then up the slope till it ran out
+on the short turf and fern of Pook's Hill, and they heard the
+cock-pheasants crowing in the woods behind them.
+
+'No use!' said Dan, questing like a puzzled hound. 'The dew's drying
+off, and old Hobden says otters'll travel for miles.'
+
+'I'm sure we've travelled miles.' Una fanned herself with her hat. 'How
+still it is! It's going to be a regular roaster.' She looked down the
+valley, where no chimney yet smoked.
+
+'Hobden's up!' Dan pointed to the open door of the Forge cottage. 'What
+d'you suppose he has for breakfast?' 'One of them. He says they eat good
+all times of the year,' Una jerked her head at some stately pheasants
+going down to the brook for a drink.
+
+A few steps farther on a fox broke almost under their bare feet, yapped,
+and trotted off.
+
+'Ah, Mus' Reynolds--Mus' Reynolds'--Dan was quoting from old
+Hobden,--'if I knowed all you knowed, I'd know something.' [See 'The
+Winged Hats' in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.]
+
+I say,'--Una lowered her voice--'you know that funny feeling of things
+having happened before. I felt it when you said "Mus' Reynolds."'
+
+'So did I,' Dan began. 'What is it?'
+
+They faced each other, stammering with excitement.
+
+'Wait a shake! I'll remember in a minute. Wasn't it something about a
+fox--last year? Oh, I nearly had it then!' Dan cried.
+
+'Be quiet!' said Una, prancing excitedly. 'There was something happened
+before we met the fox last year. Hills! Broken Hills--the play at the
+theatre--see what you see--'
+
+'I remember now,' Dan shouted. 'It's as plain as the nose on your
+face--Pook's Hill--Puck's Hill--Puck!'
+
+'I remember, too,' said Una. 'And it's Midsummer Day again!' The young
+fern on a knoll rustled, and Puck walked out, chewing a green-topped
+rush.
+
+'Good Midsummer Morning to you! Here's a happy meeting,' said he. They
+shook hands all round, and asked questions.
+
+'You've wintered well,' he said after a while, and looked them up and
+down. 'Nothing much wrong with you, seemingly.'
+
+'They've put us into boots,' said Una. 'Look at my feet--they're all
+pale white, and my toes are squidged together awfully.'
+
+'Yes--boots make a difference.' Puck wriggled his brown, square, hairy
+foot, and cropped a dandelion flower between the big toe and the next.
+
+'I could do that--last year,' Dan said dismally, as he tried and failed.
+'And boots simply ruin one's climbing.'
+
+'There must be some advantage to them, I suppose,'said Puck, or folk
+wouldn't wear them. Shall we come this way?' They sauntered along side
+by side till they reached the gate at the far end of the hillside. Here
+they halted just like cattle, and let the sun warm their backs while
+they listened to the flies in the wood.
+
+'Little Lindens is awake,' said Una, as she hung with her chin on the
+top rail. 'See the chimney smoke?'
+
+'Today's Thursday, isn't it?' Puck turned to look at the old pink
+farmhouse across the little valley. 'Mrs Vincey's baking day. Bread
+should rise well this weather.' He yawned, and that set them both
+yawning.
+
+The bracken about rustled and ticked and shook in every direction. They
+felt that little crowds were stealing past.
+
+'Doesn't that sound like--er--the People of the Hills?'said Una.
+
+'It's the birds and wild things drawing up to the woods before people
+get about,' said Puck, as though he were Ridley the keeper.
+
+'Oh, we know that. I only said it sounded like.'
+
+'As I remember 'em, the People of the Hills used to make more noise.
+They'd settle down for the day rather like small birds settling down for
+the night. But that was in the days when they carried the high hand. Oh,
+me! The deeds that I've had act and part in, you'd scarcely believe!'
+
+'I like that!' said Dan. 'After all you told us last year, too!'
+
+'Only, the minute you went away, you made us forget everything,' said
+Una.
+
+Puck laughed and shook his head. 'I shall this year, too. I've given you
+seizin of Old England, and I've taken away your Doubt and Fear, but your
+memory and remembrance between whiles I'll keep where old Billy Trott
+kept his night-lines--and that's where he could draw 'em up and hide 'em
+at need. Does that suit?' He twinkled mischievously.
+
+'It's got to suit,'said Una, and laughed. 'We Can't magic back at you.'
+She folded her arms and leaned against the gate. 'Suppose, now, you
+wanted to magic me into something--an otter? Could you?'
+
+'Not with those boots round your neck.' 'I'll take them off.' She threw
+them on the turf. Dan's followed immediately. 'Now!' she said.
+
+'Less than ever now you've trusted me. Where there's true faith, there's
+no call for magic.' Puck's slow smile broadened all over his face.
+
+'But what have boots to do with it?' said Una, perching on the gate.
+
+'There's Cold Iron in them,' said Puck, and settled beside her. 'Nails
+in the soles, I mean. It makes a difference.'
+
+'How?' 'Can't you feel it does? You wouldn't like to go back to bare
+feet again, same as last year, would you? Not really?'
+
+'No-o. I suppose I shouldn't--not for always. I'm growing up, you know,'
+said Una.
+
+'But you told us last year, in the Long Slip--at the theatre--that you
+didn't mind Cold Iron,'said Dan.
+
+'I don't; but folks in housen, as the People of the Hills call them,
+must be ruled by Cold Iron. Folk in housen are born on the near side of
+Cold Iron--there's iron 'in every man's house, isn't there? They handle
+Cold Iron every day of their lives, and their fortune's made or spoilt
+by Cold Iron in some shape or other. That's how it goes with Flesh and
+Blood, and one can't prevent it.'
+
+'I don't quite see. How do you mean?'said Dan.
+
+'It would take me some time to tell you.'
+
+'Oh, it's ever so long to breakfast,' said Dan. 'We looked in the
+larder before we came out.' He unpocketed one big hunk of bread and Una
+another, which they shared with Puck.
+
+'That's Little Lindens' baking,' he said, as his white teeth sunk in
+it. 'I know Mrs Vincey's hand.' He ate with a slow sideways thrust and
+grind, just like old Hobden, and, like Hobden, hardly dropped a crumb.
+The sun flashed on Little Lindens' windows, and the cloudless sky grew
+stiller and hotter in the valley.
+
+'AH--Cold Iron,' he said at last to the impatient children. 'Folk in
+housen, as the People of the Hills say, grow careless about Cold Iron.
+They'll nail the Horseshoe over the front door, and forget to put it
+over the back. Then, some time or other, the People of the Hills slip
+in, find the cradle-babe in the corner, and--'
+
+'Oh, I know. Steal it and leave a changeling,'Una cried.
+
+'No,' said Puck firmly. 'All that talk of changelings is people's excuse
+for their own neglect. Never believe 'em. I'd whip 'em at the cart-tail
+through three parishes if I had my way.'
+
+'But they don't do it now,' said Una.
+
+'Whip, or neglect children? Umm! Some folks and some fields never alter.
+But the People of the Hills didn't work any changeling tricks.
+They'd tiptoe in and whisper and weave round the cradle-babe in the
+chimney-corner--a fag-end of a charm here, or half a spell there--like
+kettles singing; but when the babe's mind came to bud out afterwards,
+it would act differently from other people in its station. That's no
+advantage to man or maid. So I wouldn't allow it with my folks' babies
+here. I told Sir Huon so once.'
+
+'Who was Sir Huon?' Dan asked, and Puck turned on him in quiet
+astonishment.
+
+'Sir Huon of Bordeaux--he succeeded King Oberon. He had been a bold
+knight once, but he was lost on the road to Babylon, a long while back.
+Have you ever heard "How many miles to Babylon?"?'
+
+'Of course,' said Dan, flushing.
+
+'Well, Sir Huon was young when that song was new. But about tricks
+on mortal babies. I said to Sir Huon in the fern here, on just such a
+morning as this: "If you crave to act and influence on folk in housen,
+which I know is your desire, why don't you take some human cradle-babe
+by fair dealing, and bring him up among yourselves on the far side
+of Cold Iron--as Oberon did in time past? Then you could make him a
+splendid fortune, and send him out into the world."
+
+'"Time past is past time," says Sir Huon. "I doubt if we could do it.
+For one thing, the babe would have to be taken without wronging man,
+woman, or child. For another, he'd have to be born on the far side of
+Cold Iron--in some house where no Cold Iron ever stood; and for yet the
+third, he'd have to be kept from Cold Iron all his days till we let
+him find his fortune. No, it's not easy," he said, and he rode off,
+thinking. You see, Sir Huon had been a man once. 'I happened to attend
+Lewes Market next Woden's Day even, and watched the slaves being sold
+there--same as pigs are sold at Robertsbridge Market nowadays. Only,
+the pigs have rings on their noses, and the slaves had rings round their
+necks.'
+
+'What sort of rings?' said Dan.
+
+'A ring of Cold Iron, four fingers wide, and a thumb thick, just like
+a quoit, but with a snap to it for to snap round the slave's neck. They
+used to do a big trade in slave-rings at the Forge here, and ship
+them to all parts of Old England, packed in oak sawdust. But, as I was
+saying, there was a farmer out of the Weald who had bought a woman with
+a babe in her arms, and he didn't want any encumbrances to her driving
+his beasts home for him.'
+
+'Beast himself!' said Una, and kicked her bare heel on the gate.
+
+'So he blamed the auctioneer. "It's none o' my baby," the wench puts in.
+"I took it off a woman in our gang who died on Terrible Down yesterday."
+"I'll take it off to the church then," says the farmer. "Mother
+Church'll make a monk of it, and we'll step along home."
+
+'It was dusk then. He slipped down to St Pancras' Church, and laid the
+babe at the cold chapel door. I breathed on the back of his stooping
+neck--and--I've heard he never could be warm at any fire afterwards. I
+should have been surprised if he could! Then I whipped up the babe, and
+came flying home here like a bat to his belfry.
+
+'On the dewy break of morning of Thor's own day--just such a day as
+this--I laid the babe outside the Hill here, and the People flocked up
+and wondered at the sight.
+
+'"You've brought him, then?" Sir Huon said, staring like any mortal man.
+
+'"Yes, and he's brought his mouth with him, too," I said. The babe was
+crying loud for his breakfast.
+
+'"What is he?" says Sir Huon, when the womenfolk had drawn him under to
+feed him.
+
+'"Full Moon and Morning Star may know," I says. "I don't. By what I
+could make out of him in the moonlight, he's without brand or blemish.
+I'll answer for it that he's born on the far side of Cold Iron, for he
+was born under a shaw on Terrible Down, and I've wronged neither man,
+woman, nor child in taking him, for he is the son of a dead slave-woman."
+
+'"All to the good, Robin," Sir Huon said. "He'll be the less anxious to
+leave us. Oh, we'll give him a splendid fortune, and we shall act and
+influence on folk in housen as we have always craved." His Lady came up
+then, and drew him under to watch the babe's wonderful doings.' 'Who was
+his Lady?'said Dan. 'The Lady Esclairmonde. She had been a woman once,
+till she followed Sir Huon across the fern, as we say. Babies are no
+special treat to me--I've watched too many of them--so I stayed on the
+Hill. Presently I heard hammering down at the Forge there.'Puck pointed
+towards Hobden's cottage. 'It was too early for any workmen, but it
+passed through my mind that the breaking day was Thor's own day. A slow
+north-east wind blew up and set the oaks sawing and fretting in a way I
+remembered; so I slipped over to see what I could see.'
+
+'And what did you see?' 'A smith forging something or other out of Cold
+Iron. When it was finished, he weighed it in his hand (his back was
+towards me), and tossed it from him a longish quoit-throw down the
+valley. I saw Cold Iron flash in the sun, but I couldn't quite make out
+where it fell. That didn't trouble me. I knew it would be found sooner
+or later by someone.'
+
+'How did you know?'Dan went on.
+
+'Because I knew the Smith that made it,' said Puck quietly.
+
+'Wayland Smith?' Una suggested. [See 'Weland's Sword' in PUCK OF POOK'S
+HILL.]
+
+'No. I should have passed the time o' day with Wayland Smith, of course.
+This other was different. So'--Puck made a queer crescent in the air
+with his finger--'I counted the blades of grass under my nose till the
+wind dropped and he had gone--he and his Hammer.'
+
+'Was it Thor then?' Una murmured under her breath.
+
+'Who else? It was Thor's own day.' Puck repeated the sign. 'I didn't
+tell Sir Huon or his Lady what I'd seen. Borrow trouble for yourself if
+that's your nature, but don't lend it to your neighbours. Moreover,
+I might have been mistaken about the Smith's work. He might have been
+making things for mere amusement, though it wasn't like him, or he might
+have thrown away an old piece of made iron. One can never be sure. So I
+held my tongue and enjoyed the babe. He was a wonderful child--and the
+People of the Hills were so set on him, they wouldn't have believed me.
+He took to me wonderfully. As soon as he could walk he'd putter forth
+with me all about my Hill here. Fern makes soft falling! He knew when
+day broke on earth above, for he'd thump, thump, thump, like an old
+buck-rabbit in a bury, and I'd hear him say "Opy!" till some one who
+knew the Charm let him out, and then it would be "Robin! Robin!" all
+round Robin Hood's barn, as we say, till he'd found me.'
+
+'The dear!' said Una. 'I'd like to have seen him!' 'Yes, he was a boy.
+And when it came to learning his words--spells and such-like--he'd sit
+on the Hill in the long shadows, worrying out bits of charms to try on
+passersby. And when the bird flew to him, or the tree bowed to him for
+pure love's sake (like everything else on my Hill), he'd shout, "Robin!
+Look--see! Look, see, Robin!" and sputter out some spell or other that
+they had taught him, all wrong end first, till I hadn't the heart to
+tell him it was his own dear self and not the words that worked the
+wonder. When he got more abreast of his words, and could cast spells for
+sure, as we say, he took more and more notice of things and people in
+the world. People, of course, always drew him, for he was mortal all
+through.
+
+'Seeing that he was free to move among folk in housen, under or over
+Cold Iron, I used to take him along with me, night-walking, where he
+could watch folk, and I could keep him from touching Cold Iron. That
+wasn't so difficult as it sounds, because there are plenty of things
+besides Cold Iron in housen to catch a boy's fancy. He was a handful,
+though! I shan't forget when I took him to Little Lindens--his first
+night under a roof. The smell of the rushlights and the bacon on the
+beams--they were stuffing a feather-bed too, and it was a drizzling warm
+night--got into his head. Before I could stop him--we were hiding in
+the bakehouse--he'd whipped up a storm of wildfire, with flashlights
+and voices, which sent the folk shrieking into the garden, and a girl
+overset a hive there, and--of course he didn't know till then such
+things could touch him--he got badly stung, and came home with his face
+looking like kidney potatoes! 'You can imagine how angry Sir Huon and
+Lady Esclairmonde were with poor Robin! They said the Boy was never to
+be trusted with me night-walking any more--and he took about as much
+notice of their order as he did of the bee-stings. Night after night,
+as soon as it was dark, I'd pick up his whistle in the wet fern, and
+off we'd flit together among folk in housen till break of day--he asking
+questions, and I answering according to my knowledge. Then we fell into
+mischief again!'Puck shook till the gate rattled.
+
+'We came across a man up at Brightling who was beating his wife with
+a bat in the garden. I was just going to toss the man over his own
+woodlump when the Boy jumped the hedge and ran at him. Of course the
+woman took her husband's part, and while the man beat him, the woman
+scratted his face. It wasn't till I danced among the cabbages like
+Brightling Beacon all ablaze that they gave up and ran indoors. The
+Boy's fine green-and-gold clothes were torn all to pieces, and he had
+been welted in twenty places with the man's bat, and scratted by the
+woman's nails to pieces. He looked like a Robertsbridge hopper on a
+Monday morning.
+
+'"Robin," said he, while I was trying to clean him down with a bunch of
+hay, "I don't quite understand folk in housen. I went to help that old
+woman, and she hit me, Robin!"
+
+'"What else did you expect?" I said. "That was the one time when you
+might have worked one of your charms, instead of running into three
+times your weight."
+
+'"I didn't think," he says. "But I caught the man one on the head that
+was as good as any charm. Did you see it work, Robin?"
+
+'"Mind your nose," I said. "Bleed it on a dockleaf--not your sleeve, for
+pity's sake." I knew what the Lady Esclairmonde would say.
+
+'He didn't care. He was as happy as a gipsy with a stolen pony, and the
+front part of his gold coat, all blood and grass stains, looked like
+ancient sacrifices.
+
+'Of course the People of the Hills laid the blame on me. The Boy could
+do nothing wrong, in their eyes.
+
+'"You are bringing him up to act and influence on folk in housen, when
+you're ready to let him go," I said. "Now he's begun to do it, why do
+you cry shame on me? That's no shame. It's his nature drawing him to his
+kind."
+
+'"But we don't want him to begin that way," the Lady Esclairmonde
+said. "We intend a splendid fortune for him--not your flitter-by-night,
+hedge-jumping, gipsy-work."
+
+'"I don't blame you, Robin," says Sir Huon, "but I do think you might
+look after the Boy more closely."
+
+'"I've kept him away from Cold Iron these sixteen years," I said. "You
+know as well as I do, the first time he touches Cold Iron he'll find
+his own fortune, in spite of everything you intend for him. You owe me
+something for that."
+
+'Sir Huon, having been a man, was going to allow me the right of it, but
+the Lady Esclairmonde, being the Mother of all Mothers, over-persuaded
+him.
+
+'"We're very grateful," Sir Huon said, "but we think that just for the
+present you are about too much with him on the Hill."
+
+'"Though you have said it," I said, "I will give you a second chance."
+I did not like being called to account for my doings on my own Hill. I
+wouldn't have stood it even that far except I loved the Boy.
+
+'"No! No!" says the Lady Esclairmonde. "He's never any trouble when he's
+left to me and himself. It's your fault."
+
+'"You have said it," I answered. "Hear me! From now on till the Boy has
+found his fortune, whatever that may be, I vow to you all on my Hill, by
+Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, and by the Hammer of Asa Thor"--again Puck made
+that curious double-cut in the air--'"that you may leave me out of
+all your counts and reckonings." Then I went out'--he snapped his
+fingers--'like the puff of a candle, and though they called and cried,
+they made nothing by it. I didn't promise not to keep an eye on the Boy,
+though. I watched him close--close--close!
+
+'When he found what his people had forced me to do, he gave them a piece
+of his mind, but they all kissed and cried round him, and being only
+a boy, he came over to their way of thinking (I don't blame him), and
+called himself unkind and ungrateful; and it all ended in fresh shows
+and plays, and magics to distract him from folk in housen. Dear heart
+alive! How he used to call and call on me, and I couldn't answer, or
+even let him know that I was near!'
+
+'Not even once?' said Una. 'If he was very lonely?' 'No, he couldn't,'
+said Dan, who had been thinking. 'Didn't you swear by the Hammer of Thor
+that you wouldn't, Puck?'
+
+'By that Hammer!' was the deep rumbled reply. Then he came back to his
+soft speaking voice. 'And the Boy was lonely, when he couldn't see me
+any more. He began to try to learn all learning (he had good teachers),
+but I saw him lift his eyes from the big black books towards folk in
+housen all the time. He studied song-making (good teachers he had too!),
+but he sang those songs with his back toward the Hill, and his face
+toward folk. I know! I have sat and grieved over him grieving within a
+rabbit's jump of him. Then he studied the High, Low, and Middle Magic.
+He had promised the Lady Esclairmonde he would never go near folk in
+housen; so he had to make shows and shadows for his mind to chew on.'
+'What sort of shows?' said Dan.
+
+'Just boy's Magic as we say. I'll show you some, some time. It pleased
+him for the while, and it didn't hurt any one in particular except a few
+men coming home late from the taverns. But I knew what it was a sign of,
+and I followed him like a weasel follows a rabbit. As good a boy as ever
+lived! I've seen him with Sir Huon and the Lady Esclairmonde stepping
+just as they stepped to avoid the track of Cold Iron in a furrow, or
+walking wide of some old ash-tot because a man had left his swop-hook or
+spade there; and all his heart aching to go straightforward among folk
+in housen all the time. Oh, a good boy! They always intended a fine
+fortune for him--but they could never find it in their heart to let him
+begin. I've heard that many warned them, but they wouldn't be warned. So
+it happened as it happened.
+
+'One hot night I saw the Boy roving about here wrapped in his flaming
+discontents. There was flash on flash against the clouds, and rush on
+rush of shadows down the valley till the shaws were full of his hounds
+giving tongue, and the woodways were packed with his knights in armour
+riding down into the water-mists--all his own Magic, of course. Behind
+them you could see great castles lifting slow and splendid on arches
+of moonshine, with maidens waving their hands at the windows, which all
+turned into roaring rivers; and then would come the darkness of his
+own young heart wiping out the whole slateful. But boy's Magic doesn't
+trouble me--or Merlin's either for that matter. I followed the Boy by
+the flashes and the whirling wildfire of his discontent, and oh, but I
+grieved for him! Oh, but I grieved for him! He pounded back and
+forth like a bullock in a strange pasture--sometimes alone--sometimes
+waist-deep among his shadow-hounds--sometimes leading his shadow-knights
+on a hawk-winged horse to rescue his shadow-girls. I never guessed he
+had such Magic at his command; but it's often that way with boys.
+
+'Just when the owl comes home for the second time, I saw Sir Huon and
+the Lady ride down my Hill, where there's not much Magic allowed except
+mine. They were very pleased at the Boy's Magic--the valley flared with
+it--and I heard them settling his splendid fortune when they should
+find it in their hearts to let him go to act and influence among folk in
+housen. Sir Huon was for making him a great King somewhere or other, and
+the Lady was for making him a marvellous wise man whom all should praise
+for his skill and kindness. She was very kind-hearted.
+
+'Of a sudden we saw the flashes of his discontents turned back on the
+clouds, and his shadow-hounds stopped baying.
+
+'"There's Magic fighting Magic over yonder," the Lady Esclairmonde
+cried, reigning up. "Who is against him?"
+
+'I could have told her, but I did not count it any of my business to
+speak of Asa Thor's comings and goings.
+
+'How did you know?'said Una.
+
+'A slow North-East wind blew up, sawing and fretting through the oaks in
+a way I remembered. The wildfire roared up, one last time in one sheet,
+and snuffed out like a rushlight, and a bucketful of stinging hail fell.
+We heard the Boy walking in the Long Slip--where I first met you.
+
+'"Here, oh, come here!" said the Lady Esclairmonde, and stretched out
+her arms in the dark.
+
+'He was coming slowly, but he stumbled in the footpath, being, of
+course, mortal man.
+
+'"Why, what's this?" he said to himself. We three heard him.
+
+'"Hold, lad, hold! 'Ware Cold Iron!" said Sir Huon, and they two swept
+down like nightjars, crying as they rode.
+
+'I ran at their stirrups, but it was too late. We felt that the Boy
+had touched Cold Iron somewhere in the dark, for the Horses of the Hill
+shied off, and whipped round, snorting.
+
+'Then I judged it was time for me to show myself in my own shape; so I
+did.
+
+'"Whatever it is," I said, "he has taken hold of it. Now we must find
+out whatever it is that he has taken hold of, for that will be his
+fortune."
+
+'"Come here, Robin," the Boy shouted, as soon as he heard my voice. "I
+don't know what I've hold of."
+
+'"It is in your hands," I called back. "Tell us if it is hard and cold,
+with jewels atop. For that will be a King's Sceptre."
+
+'"Not by a furrow-long," he said, and stooped and tugged in the dark.
+We heard him. '"Has it a handle and two cutting edges?" I called. "For
+that'll be a Knight's Sword."
+
+'"No, it hasn't," he says. "It's neither ploughshare, whittle, hook,
+nor crook, nor aught I've yet seen men handle." By this time he was
+scratting in the dirt to prise it up.
+
+'"Whatever it is, you know who put it there, Robin," said Sir Huon to
+me, "or you would not ask those questions. You should have told me as
+soon as you knew."
+
+'"What could you or I have done against the Smith that made it and laid
+it for him to find?" I said, and I whispered Sir Huon what I had seen at
+the Forge on Thor's Day, when the babe was first brought to the Hill.
+
+'"Oh, good-bye, our dreams!" said Sir Huon. "It's neither sceptre,
+sword, nor plough! Maybe yet it's a bookful of learning, bound with iron
+clasps. There's a chance for a splendid fortune in that sometimes."
+
+'But we knew we were only speaking to comfort ourselves, and the Lady
+Esclairmonde, having been a woman, said so.
+
+'"Thur aie! Thor help us!" the Boy called. "It is round, without end,
+Cold Iron, four fingers wide and a thumb thick, and there is writing on
+the breadth of it."
+
+'"Read the writing if you have the learning," I called. The darkness had
+lifted by then, and the owl was out over the fern again.
+
+'He called back, reading the runes on the iron:
+
+  "Few can see
+  Further forth
+  Than when the child
+  Meets the Cold Iron."
+
+And there he stood, in clear starlight, with a new, heavy, shining
+slave-ring round his proud neck.
+
+'"Is this how it goes?" he asked, while the Lady Esclairmonde cried.
+
+'"That is how it goes," I said. He hadn't snapped the catch home yet,
+though.
+
+'"What fortune does it mean for him?" said Sir Huon, while the Boy
+fingered the ring. "You who walk under Cold Iron, you must tell us and
+teach us."
+
+'"Tell I can, but teach I cannot," I said. "The virtue of the Ring is
+only that he must go among folk in housen henceforward, doing what they
+want done, or what he knows they need, all Old England over. Never will
+he be his own master, nor yet ever any man's. He will get half he gives,
+and give twice what he gets, till his life's last breath; and if he lays
+aside his load before he draws that last breath, all his work will go
+for naught."
+
+'"Oh, cruel, wicked Thor!" cried the Lady Esclairmonde. "Ah, look see,
+all of you! The catch is still open! He hasn't locked it. He can still
+take it off. He can still come back. Come back!" She went as near as
+she dared, but she could not lay hands on Cold Iron. The Boy could have
+taken it off, yes. We waited to see if he would, but he put up his hand,
+and the snap locked home.
+
+'"What else could I have done?" said he.
+
+'"Surely, then, you will do," I said. "Morning's coming, and if you
+three have any farewells to make, make them now, for, after sunrise,
+Cold Iron must be your master." 'So the three sat down, cheek by wet
+cheek, telling over their farewells till morning light. As good a boy as
+ever lived, he was.'
+
+'And what happened to him?' asked Dan.
+
+'When morning came, Cold Iron was master of him and his fortune, and
+he went to work among folk in housen. Presently he came across a maid
+like-minded with himself, and they were wedded, and had bushels of
+children, as the saying is. Perhaps you'll meet some of his breed, this
+year.'
+
+'Thank you,' said Una. 'But what did the poor Lady Esclairmonde do?'
+
+'What can you do when Asa Thor lays the Cold Iron in a lad's path? She
+and Sir Huon were comforted to think they had given the Boy good store
+of learning to act and influence on folk in housen. For he was a good
+boy! Isn't it getting on for breakfast-time? I'll walk with you a
+piece.'
+
+When they were well in the centre of the bone-dry fern, Dan nudged Una,
+who stopped and put on a boot as quickly as she could. 'Now,' she said,
+'you can't get any Oak, Ash, and Thorn leaves from here, and'--she
+balanced wildly on one leg--'I'm standing on Cold Iron. What'll you do
+if we don't go away?'
+
+'E-eh? Of all mortal impudence!'said Puck, as Dan, also in one boot,
+grabbed his sister's hand to steady himself. He walked round them,
+shaking with delight. 'You think I can only work with a handful of dead
+leaves? This comes of taking away your Doubt and Fear! I'll show you!'
+
+
+A minute later they charged into old Hobden at his simple breakfast of
+cold roast pheasant, shouting that there was a wasps' nest in the fern
+which they had nearly stepped on, and asking him to come and smoke it
+out. 'It's too early for wops-nests, an' I don't go diggin' in the Hill,
+not for shillin's,' said the old man placidly. 'You've a thorn in your
+foot, Miss Una. Sit down, and put on your t'other boot. You're too old
+to be caperin' barefoot on an empty stomach. Stay it with this chicken
+o' mine.'
+
+
+
+
+Cold Iron
+
+
+     'Gold is for the mistress--silver for the maid!
+     Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.'
+     'Good!' said the Baron, sitting in his hall,
+     'But Iron--Cold Iron--is master of them all!'
+
+     So he made rebellion 'gainst the King his liege,
+     Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege--
+     'Nay!' said the cannoneer on the castle wall,
+     'But Iron--Cold Iron--shall be master of you all!'
+
+     Woe for the Baron and his knights so strong,
+     When the cruel cannon-balls laid 'em all along!
+     He was taken prisoner, he was cast in thrall,
+     And Iron--Cold Iron--was master of it all!
+
+     Yet his King spake kindly (Oh, how kind a Lord!)
+     'What if I release thee now and give thee back thy sword?'
+     'Nay!' said the Baron, 'mock not at my fall,
+     For Iron--Cold Iron--is master of men all.'
+
+     'Tears are for the craven, prayers are for the clown--
+     Halters for the silly neck that cannot keep a crown.'
+     'As my loss is grievous, so my hope is small,
+     For Iron--Cold Iron--must be master of men all!'
+
+     Yet his King made answer (few such Kings there be!)
+     'Here is Bread and here is Wine--sit and sup with me.
+     Eat and drink in Mary's Name, the whiles I do recall
+     How Iron--Cold Iron--can be master of men all!'
+
+     He took the Wine and blessed It; He blessed and brake the Bread.
+     With His own Hands He served Them, and presently He said:
+     'Look!  These Hands they pierced with nails outside my city wall
+     Show Iron--Cold Iron--to be master of men all!
+
+     'Wounds are for the desperate, blows are for the strong,
+     Balm and oil for weary hearts all cut and bruised with wrong.
+     I forgive thy treason--I redeem thy fall--
+     For Iron--Cold Iron--must be master of men all!'
+
+     'Crowns are for the valiant--sceptres for the bold!
+     Thrones and powers for mighty men who dare to take and hold.'
+     'Nay!' said the Baron, kneeling in his hall,
+     'But Iron--Cold Iron--is master of men all!
+     Iron, out of Calvary, is master of men all!'
+
+
+
+
+GLORIANA
+
+
+
+The Two Cousins
+
+
+     Valour and Innocence
+     Have latterly gone hence
+     To certain death by certain shame attended.
+     Envy--ah!  even to tears!--
+     The fortune of their years
+     Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended.
+
+     Scarce had they lifted up
+     Life's full and fiery cup,
+     Than they had set it down untouched before them.
+     Before their day arose
+     They beckoned it to close--
+     Close in destruction and confusion o'er them.
+
+     They did not stay to ask
+     What prize should crown their task,
+     Well sure that prize was such as no man strives for;
+     But passed into eclipse,
+     Her kiss upon their lips--
+     Even Belphoebe's, whom they gave their lives for!
+
+
+
+
+Gloriana
+
+
+Willow Shaw, the little fenced wood where the hop-poles are stacked like
+Indian wigwams, had been given to Dan and Una for their very own kingdom
+when they were quite small. As they grew older, they contrived to keep
+it most particularly private. Even Phillips, the gardener, told them
+every time that he came in to take a hop-pole for his beans, and old
+Hobden would no more have thought of setting his rabbit-wires there
+without leave, given fresh each spring, than he would have torn down the
+calico and marking ink notice on the big willow which said: 'Grown-ups
+not allowed in the Kingdom unless brought.'
+
+Now you can understand their indignation when, one blowy July afternoon,
+as they were going up for a potato-roast, they saw somebody moving
+among the trees. They hurled themselves over the gate, dropping half the
+potatoes, and while they were picking them up Puck came out of a wigwam.
+
+'Oh, it's you, is it?' said Una. 'We thought it was people.' 'I saw you
+were angry--from your legs,' he answered with a grin.
+
+'Well, it's our own Kingdom--not counting you, of course.'
+
+'That's rather why I came. A lady here wants to see you.'
+
+'What about?' said Dan cautiously. 'Oh, just Kingdoms and things. She
+knows about Kingdoms.'
+
+There was a lady near the fence dressed in a long dark cloak that hid
+everything except her high red-heeled shoes. Her face was half covered
+by a black silk fringed mask, without goggles. And yet she did not look
+in the least as if she motored.
+
+Puck led them up to her and bowed solemnly. Una made the best
+dancing-lesson curtsy she could remember. The lady answered with a long,
+deep, slow, billowy one.
+
+'Since it seems that you are a Queen of this Kingdom,'she said, 'I can
+do no less than acknowledge your sovereignty.' She turned sharply on
+staring Dan. 'What's in your head, lad? Manners?'
+
+'I was thinking how wonderfully you did that curtsy,' he answered.
+
+She laughed a rather shrill laugh. 'You're a courtier already. Do you
+know anything of dances, wench--or Queen, must I say?'
+
+'I've had some lessons, but I can't really dance a bit,' said Una.
+
+'You should learn, then.' The lady moved forward as though she would
+teach her at once. 'It gives a woman alone among men or her enemies
+time to think how she shall win or--lose. A woman can only work in man's
+play-time. Heigho!'She sat down on the bank.
+
+Old Middenboro, the lawn-mower pony, stumped across the paddock and hung
+his sorrowful head over the fence.
+
+'A pleasant Kingdom,' said the lady, looking round. 'Well enclosed. And
+how does your Majesty govern it? Who is your Minister?'
+
+Una did not quite understand. 'We don't play that,' she said.
+
+'Play?' The lady threw up her hands and laughed.
+
+'We have it for our own, together,' Dan explained.
+
+'And d'you never quarrel, young Burleigh?'
+
+'Sometimes, but then we don't tell.'
+
+The lady nodded. 'I've no brats of my own, but I understand keeping a
+secret between Queens and their Ministers. Ay de mi!
+
+But with no disrespect to present majesty, methinks your realm'
+small, and therefore likely to be coveted by man and beast. For Is
+example'--she pointed to Middenboro--'yonder old horse, with the face of
+a Spanish friar--does he never break in?'
+
+'He can't. Old Hobden stops all our gaps for us,' said Una, 'and we let
+Hobden catch rabbits in the Shaw.'
+
+The lady laughed like a man. 'I see! Hobden catches conies--rabbits--for
+himself, and guards your defences for you. Does he make a profit out of
+his coney-catching?'
+
+'We never ask,' said Una. 'Hobden's a particular friend of ours.'
+'Hoity-toity!' the lady began angrily. Then she laughed. 'But I forget.
+It is your Kingdom. I knew a maid once that had a larger one than this
+to defend, and so long as her men kept the fences stopped, she asked 'em
+no questions either.'
+
+'Was she trying to grow flowers?'said Una.
+
+'No, trees--perdurable trees. Her flowers all withered.' The lady leaned
+her head on her hand.
+
+'They do if you don't look after them. We've got a few. Would you like
+to see? I'll fetch you some.' Una ran off to the rank grass in the shade
+behind the wigwam, and came back with a handful of red flowers. 'Aren't
+they pretty?' she said. 'They're Virginia stock.'
+
+'Virginia?' said the lady, and lifted them to the fringe of her mask.
+
+'Yes. They come from Virginia. Did your maid ever plant any?'
+
+'Not herself--but her men adventured all over the earth to pluck or to
+plant flowers for her crown. They judged her worthy of them.'
+
+'And was she?' said Dan cheerfully.
+
+'Quien sabe? [who knows?] But at least, while her men toiled abroad she
+toiled in England, that they might find a safe home to come back to.'
+
+'And what was she called?'
+
+'Gloriana--Belphoebe--Elizabeth of England.' Her voice changed at each
+word.
+
+'You mean Queen Bess?'
+
+The lady bowed her head a little towards Dan. 'You name her lightly
+enough, young Burleigh. What might you know of her?' said she.
+
+'Well, I--I've seen the little green shoes she left at Brickwall
+House--down the road, you know. They're in a glass case--awfully tiny
+things.'
+
+'Oh, Burleigh, Burleigh!' she laughed. 'You are a courtier too soon.'
+
+'But they are,' Dan insisted. 'As little as dolls' shoes. Did you really
+know her well?'
+
+'Well. She was a--woman. I've been at her Court all my life. Yes, I
+remember when she danced after the banquet at Brickwall. They say she
+danced Philip of Spain out of a brand-new kingdom that day. Worth the
+price of a pair of old shoes--hey?'
+
+She thrust out one foot, and stooped forward to look at its broad
+flashing buckle.
+
+'You've heard of Philip of Spain--long-suffering Philip,' she said, her
+eyes still on the shining stones. 'Faith, what some men will endure at
+some women's hands passes belief! If I had been a man, and a woman had
+played with me as Elizabeth played with Philip, I would have--' She
+nipped off one of the Virginia stocks and held it up between finger
+and thumb. 'But for all that'--she began to strip the leaves one by
+one--'they say--and I am persuaded--that Philip loved her.' She tossed
+her head sideways.
+
+'I don't quite understand,' said Una.
+
+'The high heavens forbid that you should, wench!' She swept the flowers
+from her lap and stood up in the rush of shadows that the wind chased
+through the wood.
+
+'I should like to know about the shoes,' said Dan.
+
+'So ye shall, Burleigh. So ye shall, if ye watch me. 'Twill be as good
+as a play.'
+
+'We've never been to a play,' said Una.
+
+The lady looked at her and laughed. 'I'll make one for you. Watch! You
+are to imagine that she--Gloriana, Belphoebe, Elizabeth--has gone on a
+progress to Rye to comfort her sad heart (maids are often melancholic),
+and while she halts at Brickwall House, the village--what was its name?'
+She pushed Puck with her foot.
+
+'Norgem,' he croaked, and squatted by the wigwam.
+
+'Norgem village loyally entertains her with a masque or play, and a
+Latin oration spoken by the parson, for whose false quantities, if I'd
+made 'em in my girlhood, I should have been whipped.'
+
+'You whipped?' said Dan.
+
+'Soundly, sirrah, soundly! She stomachs the affront to her scholarship,
+makes her grateful, gracious thanks from the teeth outwards, thus'--(the
+lady yawned)--'Oh, a Queen may love her subjects in her heart, and yet
+be dog-wearied of 'em 'in body and mind--and so sits down'--her skirts
+foamed about her as she sat--'to a banquet beneath Brickwall Oak. Here
+for her sins she is waited upon by--What were the young cockerels' names
+that served Gloriana at table?'
+
+'Frewens, Courthopes, Fullers, Husseys,' Puck began.
+
+She held up her long jewelled hand. 'Spare the rest! They were the best
+blood of Sussex, and by so much the more clumsy in handling the dishes
+and plates. Wherefore'--she looked funnily over her shoulder--'you
+are to think of Gloriana in a green and gold-laced habit, dreadfully
+expecting that the jostling youths behind her would, of pure jealousy or
+devotion, spatter it with sauces and wines. The gown was Philip's gift,
+too! At this happy juncture a Queen's messenger, mounted and mired,
+spurs up the Rye road and delivers her a letter'--she giggled--'a letter
+from a good, simple, frantic Spanish gentleman called--Don Philip.'
+
+'That wasn't Philip, King of Spain?'Dan asked.
+
+'Truly, it was. 'Twixt you and me and the bedpost, young Burleigh, these
+kings and queens are very like men and women, and I've heard they write
+each other fond, foolish letters that none of their ministers should
+open.'
+
+'Did her ministers ever open Queen Elizabeth's letters?' said Una.
+
+'Faith, yes! But she'd have done as much for theirs, any day. You are
+to think of Gloriana, then (they say she had a pretty hand), excusing
+herself thus to the company--for the Queen's time is never her own--and,
+while the music strikes up, reading Philip's letter, as I do.' She drew
+a real letter from her pocket, and held it out almost at arm's length,
+like the old post-mistress in the village when she reads telegrams.
+
+'Hm! Hm! Hm! Philip writes as ever most lovingly. He says his Gloriana
+is cold, for which reason he burns for her through a fair written page.'
+She turned it with a snap. 'What's here? Philip complains that certain
+of her gentlemen have fought against his generals in the Low Countries.
+He prays her to hang 'em when they re-enter her realms. (Hm, that's as
+may be.) Here's a list of burnt shipping slipped between two vows of
+burning adoration. Oh, poor Philip! His admirals at sea--no less than
+three of 'em--have been boarded, sacked, and scuttled on their lawful
+voyages by certain English mariners (gentlemen, he will not call them),
+who are now at large and working more piracies in his American ocean,
+which the Pope gave him. (He and the Pope should guard it, then!) Philip
+hears, but his devout ears will not credit it, that Gloriana in some
+fashion countenances these villains' misdeeds, shares in their booty,
+and--oh, shame!---has even lent them ships royal for their sinful
+thefts. Therefore he requires (which is a word Gloriana loves not),
+requires that she shall hang 'em when they return to England, and
+afterwards shall account to him for all the goods and gold they have
+plundered. A most loving request! If Gloriana will not be Philip's
+bride, she shall be his broker and his butcher! Should she still
+be stiff-necked, he writes--see where the pen digged the innocent
+paper!---that he hath both the means and the intention to be revenged
+on her. Aha! Now we come to the Spaniard in his shirt!' (She waved
+the letter merrily.) 'Listen here! Philip will prepare for Gloriana a
+destruction from the West--a destruction from the West--far exceeding
+that which Pedro de Avila wrought upon the Huguenots. And he rests and
+remains, kissing her feet and her hands, her slave, her enemy, or her
+conqueror, as he shall find that she uses him.'
+
+She thrust back the letter under her cloak, and went on acting, but in
+a softer voice. 'All this while--hark to it--the wind blows through
+Brickwall Oak, the music plays, and, with the company's eyes upon her,
+the Queen of England must think what this means. She cannot remember the
+name of Pedro de Avila, nor what he did to the Huguenots, nor when, nor
+where. She can only see darkly some dark motion moving in Philip's dark
+mind, for he hath never written before in this fashion. She must smile
+above the letter as though it were good news from her ministers--the
+smile that tires the mouth and the poor heart. What shall she do?' Again
+her voice changed.
+
+'You are to fancy that the music of a sudden wavers away. Chris Hatton,
+Captain of her bodyguard, quits the table all red and ruffled, and
+Gloriana's virgin ear catches the clash of swords at work behind a wall.
+The mothers of Sussex look round to count their chicks--I mean those
+young gamecocks that waited on her. Two dainty youths have stepped
+aside into Brickwall garden with rapier and dagger on a private point of
+honour. They are haled out through the gate, disarmed and glaring--the
+lively image of a brace of young Cupids transformed into pale, panting
+Cains. Ahem! Gloriana beckons awfully--thus! They come up for judgement.
+Their lives and estates lie at her mercy whom they have doubly offended,
+both as Queen and woman. But la! what will not foolish young men do for
+a beautiful maid?'
+
+'Why? What did she do? What had they done?' said Una.
+
+'Hsh! You mar the play! Gloriana had guessed the cause of the trouble.
+They were handsome lads. So she frowns a while and tells 'em not to be
+bigger fools than their mothers had made 'em, and warns 'em, if they do
+not kiss and be friends on the instant, she'll have Chris Hatton horse
+and birch 'em in the style of the new school at Harrow. (Chris looks
+sour at that.) Lastly, because she needed time to think on Philip's
+letter burning in her pocket, she signifies her pleasure to dance with
+'em and teach 'em better manners. Whereat the revived company call down
+Heaven's blessing on her gracious head; Chris and the others prepare
+Brickwall House for a dance; and she walks in the clipped garden between
+those two lovely young sinners who are both ready to sink for shame.
+They confess their fault. It appears that midway in the banquet the
+elder--they were cousins--conceived that the Queen looked upon him with
+special favour. The younger, taking the look to himself, after some
+words gives the elder the lie. Hence, as she guessed, the duel.'
+
+'And which had she really looked at?' Dan asked.
+
+'Neither--except to wish them farther off. She was afraid all the while
+they'd spill dishes on her gown. She tells 'em this, poor chicks--and it
+completes their abasement. When they had grilled long enough, she says:
+"And so you would have fleshed your maiden swords for me--for me?"
+Faith, they would have been at it again if she'd egged 'em on! but their
+swords--oh, prettily they said it!---had been drawn for her once or
+twice already.
+
+'"And where?" says she. "On your hobby-horses before you were breeched?"
+
+'"On my own ship," says the elder. "My cousin was vice-admiral of our
+venture in his pinnace. We would not have you think of us as brawling
+children."
+
+'"No, no," says the younger, and flames like a very Tudor rose. "At
+least the Spaniards know us better."
+
+'"Admiral Boy--Vice-Admiral Babe," says Gloriana, "I cry your pardon.
+The heat of these present times ripens childhood to age more quickly
+than I can follow. But we are at peace with Spain. Where did you break
+your Queen's peace?" '"On the sea called the Spanish Main, though 'tis
+no more Spanish than my doublet," says the elder. Guess how that warmed
+Gloriana's already melting heart! She would never suffer any sea to be
+called Spanish in her private hearing.
+
+'"And why was I not told? What booty got you, and where have you hid
+it? Disclose," says she. "You stand in some danger of the gallows for
+pirates."
+
+'"The axe, most gracious lady," says the elder, "for we are gentle
+born." He spoke truth, but no woman can brook contradiction.
+"Hoity-toity!" says she, and, but that she remembered that she was
+Queen, she'd have cuffed the pair of 'em. "It shall be gallows, hurdle,
+and dung-cart if I choose."
+
+'"Had our Queen known of our going beforehand, Philip might have held
+her to blame for some small things we did on the seas," the younger
+lisps.
+
+'"As for treasure," says the elder, "we brought back but our bare lives.
+We were wrecked on the Gascons' Graveyard, where our sole company for
+three months was the bleached bones of De Avila's men."
+
+'Gloriana's mind jumped back to Philip's last letter.
+
+'"De Avila that destroyed the Huguenots? What d'you know of him?" she
+says. The music called from the house here, and they three turned back
+between the yews.
+
+'"Simply that De Avila broke in upon a plantation of Frenchmen on that
+coast, and very Spaniardly hung them all for heretics--eight hundred
+or so. The next year Dominique de Gorgues, a Gascon, broke in upon De
+Avila's men, and very justly hung 'em all for murderers--five hundred or
+so. No Christians inhabit there now, says the elder lad, though 'tis a
+goodly land north of Florida."
+
+'"How far is it from England?" asks prudent Gloriana.
+
+'"With a fair wind, six weeks. They say that Philip will plant it again
+soon." This was the younger, and he looked at her out of the corner of
+his innocent eye.
+
+'Chris Hatton, fuming, meets and leads her into Brickwall Hall, where
+she dances--thus. A woman can think while she dances--can think. I'll
+show you. Watch!'
+
+She took off her cloak slowly, and stood forth in dove-coloured satin,
+worked over with pearls that trembled like running water in the running
+shadows of the trees. Still talking--more to herself than to the
+children--she swam into a majestical dance of the stateliest balancings,
+the naughtiest wheelings and turnings aside, the most dignified
+sinkings, the gravest risings, all joined together by the elaboratest
+interlacing steps and circles. They leaned forward breathlessly to watch
+the splendid acting.
+
+'Would a Spaniard,' she began, looking on the ground, 'speak of his
+revenge till his revenge were ripe? No. Yet a man who loved a woman
+might threaten her 'in the hope that his threats would make her love
+him. Such things have been.' She moved slowly across a bar of sunlight.
+'A destruction from the West may signify that Philip means to descend on
+Ireland. But then my Irish spies would have had some warning. The Irish
+keep no secrets. No--it is not Ireland. Now why--why--why'--the red
+shoes clicked and paused--'does Philip name Pedro Melendez de Avila,
+a general in his Americas, unless'--she turned more quickly--unless he
+intends to work his destruction from the Americas? Did he say De Avila
+only to put her off her guard, or for this once has his black
+pen betrayed his black heart? We'--she raised herself to her full
+height--'England must forestall Master Philip. But not openly,'--she
+sank again--'we cannot fight Spain openly--not yet--not yet.' She
+stepped three paces as though she were pegging down some snare with her
+twinkling shoe-buckles. 'The Queen's mad gentlemen may fight Philip's
+poor admirals where they find 'em, but England, Gloriana, Harry's
+daughter, must keep the peace. Perhaps, after all, Philip loves her--as
+many men and boys do. That may help England. Oh, what shall help
+England?'
+
+She raised her head--the masked head that seemed to have nothing to do
+with the busy feet--and stared straight at the children.
+
+'I think this is rather creepy,' said Una with a shiver. 'I wish she'd
+stop.'
+
+The lady held out her jewelled hand as though she were taking some one
+else's hand in the Grand Chain.
+
+'Can a ship go down into the Gascons' Graveyard and wait there?' she
+asked into the air, and passed on rustling.
+
+'She's pretending to ask one of the cousins, isn't she?' said Dan, and
+Puck nodded.
+
+Back she came in the silent, swaying, ghostly dance. They saw she was
+smiling beneath the mask, and they could hear her breathing hard.
+
+'I cannot lend you any of my ships for the venture; Philip would hear
+of it,' she whispered over her shoulder; 'but as much guns and powder as
+you ask, if you do not ask too--'Her voice shot up and she stamped her
+foot thrice. 'Louder! Louder, the music in the gallery! Oh, me, but I
+have burst out of my shoe!'
+
+She gathered her skirts in each hand, and began a curtsy. 'You will go
+at your own charges,' she whispered straight before her. 'Oh, enviable
+and adorable age of youth!' Her eyes shone through the mask-holes. 'But
+I warn you you'll repent it. Put not your trust in princes--or Queens.
+Philip's ships'll blow you out of water. You'll not be frightened? Well,
+we'll talk on it again, when I return from Rye, dear lads.'
+
+The wonderful curtsy ended. She stood up. Nothing stirred on her except
+the rush of the shadows.
+
+'And so it was finished,' she said to the children. 'Why d'you not
+applaud?'
+
+'What was finished?' said Una.
+
+'The dance,' the lady replied offendedly. 'And a pair of green shoes.'
+
+'I don't understand a bit,' said Una.
+
+'Eh? What did you make of it, young Burleigh?'
+
+'I'm not quite sure,' Dan began, 'but--'
+
+'You never can be--with a woman. But--?'
+
+'But I thought Gloriana meant the cousins to go back to the Gascons'
+Graveyard, wherever that was.'
+
+''Twas Virginia after-wards. Her plantation of Virginia.'
+
+'Virginia afterwards, and stop Philip from taking it. Didn't she say
+she'd lend 'em guns?'
+
+'Right so. But not ships--then.'
+
+'And I thought you meant they must have told her they'd do it off their
+own bat, without getting her into a row with Philip. Was I right?'
+
+'Near enough for a Minister of the Queen. But remember she gave the
+lads full time to change their minds. She was three long days at Rye
+Royal--knighting of fat Mayors. When she came back to Brickwall, they
+met her a mile down the road, and she could feel their eyes burn through
+her riding-mask. Chris Hatton, poor fool, was vexed at it.
+
+'"YOU would not birch them when I gave you the chance," says she to
+Chris. "Now you must get me half an hour's private speech with 'em in
+Brickwall garden. Eve tempted Adam in a garden. Quick, man, or I may
+repent!"'
+
+'She was a Queen. Why did she not send for them herself?' said Una.
+
+The lady shook her head. 'That was never her way. I've seen her walk
+to her own mirror by bye-ends, and the woman that cannot walk straight
+there is past praying for. Yet I would have you pray for her! What
+else--what else in England's name could she have done?' She lifted her
+hand to her throat for a moment. 'Faith,' she cried, 'I'd forgotten
+the little green shoes! She left 'em at Brickwall--so she did. And I
+remember she gave the Norgem parson--John Withers, was he?---a text
+for his sermon--"Over Edom have I cast out my shoe." Neat, if he'd
+understood!'
+
+'I don't understand,' said Una. 'What about the two cousins?'
+
+'You are as cruel as a woman,' the lady answered. 'I was not to blame.
+I told you I gave 'em time to change their minds. On my honour (ay de
+mi!), she asked no more of 'em at first than to wait a while off that
+coast--the Gascons' Graveyard--to hover a little if their ships chanced
+to pass that way--they had only one tall ship and a pinnace--only
+to watch and bring me word of Philip's doings. One must watch Philip
+always. What a murrain right had he to make any plantation there, a
+hundred leagues north of his Spanish Main, and only six weeks from
+England? By my dread father's soul, I tell you he had none--none!'
+She stamped her red foot again, and the two children shrunk back for a
+second.
+
+'Nay, nay. You must not turn from me too! She laid it all fairly before
+the lads in Brickwall garden between the yews. I told 'em that if Philip
+sent a fleet (and to make a plantation he could not well send less),
+their poor little cock-boats could not sink it. They answered that, with
+submission, the fight would be their own concern. She showed 'em again
+that there could be only one end to it--quick death on the sea, or slow
+death in Philip's prisons. They asked no more than to embrace death
+for my sake. Many men have prayed to me for life. I've refused 'em, and
+slept none the worse after; but when my men, my tall, fantastical
+young men, beseech me on their knees for leave to die for me, it shakes
+me--ah, it shakes me to the marrow of my old bones.' Her chest sounded
+like a board as she hit it. 'She showed 'em all. I told 'em that this
+was no time for open war with Spain. If by miracle inconceivable they
+prevailed against Philip's fleet, Philip would hold me accountable. For
+England's sake, to save war, I should e'en be forced (I told 'em so) to
+give him up their young lives. If they failed, and again by some miracle
+escaped Philip's hand, and crept back to England with their bare lives,
+they must lie--oh, I told 'em all--under my sovereign displeasure. She
+could not know them, see them, nor hear their names, nor stretch out a
+finger to save them from the gallows, if Philip chose to ask it.
+
+'"Be it the gallows, then," says the elder. (I could have wept, but that
+my face was made for the day.)
+
+'"Either way--any way--this venture is death, which I know you fear not.
+But it is death with assured dishonour," I cried.
+
+'"Yet our Queen will know in her heart what we have done," says the
+younger. '"Sweetheart," I said. "A queen has no heart."
+
+'"But she is a woman, and a woman would not forget," says the elder. "We
+will go!" They knelt at my feet.
+
+'"Nay, dear lads--but here!" I said, and I opened my arms to them and I
+kissed them.
+
+'"Be ruled by me," I said. "We'll hire some ill-featured old
+tarry-breeks of an admiral to watch the Graveyard, and you shall come to
+Court."
+
+'"Hire whom you please," says the elder; "we are ruled by you, body and
+soul"; and the younger, who shook most when I kissed 'em, says between
+his white lips, "I think you have power to make a god of a man."
+
+'"Come to Court and be sure of't," I said.
+
+'They shook their heads and I knew--I knew, that go they would. If I had
+not kissed them--perhaps I might have prevailed.'
+
+'Then why did you do it?' said Una. 'I don't think you knew really what
+you wanted done.'
+
+'May it please your Majesty'--the lady bowed her head low--'this
+Gloriana whom I have represented for your pleasure was a woman and a
+Queen. Remember her when you come to your Kingdom.'
+
+'But--did the cousins go to the Gascons' Graveyard?' said Dan, as Una
+frowned.
+
+'They went,' said the lady.
+
+'Did they ever come back?' Una began; but--'Did they stop King Philip's
+fleet?' Dan interrupted.
+
+The lady turned to him eagerly.
+
+'D'you think they did right to go?' she asked.
+
+'I don't see what else they could have done,' Dan replied, after
+thinking it over.
+
+'D'you think she did right to send 'em?' The lady's voice rose a little.
+
+'Well,' said Dan, 'I don't see what else she could have done, either--do
+you? How did they stop King Philip from getting Virginia?'
+
+'There's the sad part of it. They sailed out that autumn from Rye Royal,
+and there never came back so much as a single rope-yarn to show what
+had befallen them. The winds blew, and they were not. Does that make
+you alter your mind, young Burleigh?' 'I expect they were drowned, then.
+Anyhow, Philip didn't score, did he?'
+
+'Gloriana wiped out her score with Philip later. But if Philip had won,
+would you have blamed Gloriana for wasting those lads' lives?'
+
+'Of course not. She was bound to try to stop him.'
+
+The lady coughed. 'You have the root of the matter in you. Were I Queen,
+I'd make you Minister.'
+
+'We don't play that game,' said Una, who felt that she disliked the lady
+as much as she disliked the noise the high wind made tearing through
+Willow Shaw.
+
+'Play!' said the lady with a laugh, and threw up her hands affectedly.
+The sunshine caught the jewels on her many rings and made them flash
+till Una's eyes dazzled, and she had to rub them. Then she saw Dan on
+his knees picking up the potatoes they had spilled at the gate.
+
+'There wasn't anybody in the Shaw, after all,' he said. 'Didn't you
+think you saw someone?'
+
+'I'm most awfully glad there isn't,' said Una. Then they went on with
+the potato-roast.
+
+
+
+
+The Looking-Glass
+
+Queen Bess Was Harry's daughter!
+
+     The Queen was in her chamber, and she was middling old,
+     Her petticoat was satin and her stomacher was gold.
+     Backwards and forwards and sideways did she pass,
+     Making up her mind to face the cruel looking-glass.
+     The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass
+     As comely or as kindly or as young as once she was!
+
+     The Queen was in her chamber, a-combing of her hair,
+     There came Queen Mary's spirit and it stood behind her chair,
+     Singing, 'Backwards and forwards and sideways you may pass,
+     But I will stand behind you till you face the looking-glass.
+     The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass
+     As lovely or unlucky or as lonely as I was!'
+
+     The Queen was in her chamber, a-weeping very sore,
+     There came Lord Leicester's spirit and it scratched upon the door,
+     Singing, 'Backwards and forwards and sideways may you pass,
+     But I will walk beside you till you face the looking-glass.
+     The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass
+     As hard and unforgiving or as wicked as you was!'
+
+     The Queen was in her chamber; her sins were on her head;
+     She looked the spirits up and down and statelily she said:
+     'Backwards and forwards and sideways though I've been,
+     Yet I am Harry's daughter and I am England's Queen!'
+     And she faced the looking-glass (and whatever else there was),
+     And she saw her day was over and she saw her beauty pass
+     In the cruel looking-glass that can always hurt a lass
+     More hard than any ghost there is or any man there was!
+
+
+
+
+THE WRONG THING
+
+
+
+
+A Truthful Song
+
+
+       THE BRICKLAYER:
+
+     I tell this tale, which is strictly true,
+     just by way of convincing you
+     How very little since things were made
+     Things have altered in the building trade.
+
+     A year ago, come the middle o' March,
+     We was building flats near the Marble Arch,
+     When a thin young man with coal-black hair
+     Came up to watch us working there.
+
+     Now there wasn't a trick in brick or stone
+     That this young man hadn't seen or known;
+     Nor there wasn't a tool from trowel to maul
+     But this young man could use 'em all!
+     Then up and spoke the plumbyers bold,
+     Which was laying the pipes for the hot and cold:
+     'Since you with us have made so free,
+     Will you kindly say what your name might be?'
+
+     The young man kindly answered them:
+     'It might be Lot or Methusalem,
+     Or it might be Moses (a man I hate),
+     Whereas it is Pharaoh surnamed the Great.
+
+     'Your glazing is new and your plumbing's strange,
+     But other-wise I perceive no change,
+     And in less than a month, if you do as I bid,
+     I'd learn you to build me a Pyramid.'
+
+       THE SAILOR:
+
+     I tell this tale, which is stricter true,
+     just by way of convincing you
+     How very little since things was made
+     Things have altered in the shipwright's trade.
+
+     In Blackwall Basin yesterday
+     A China barque re-fitting lay,
+     When a fat old man with snow-white hair
+     Came up to watch us working there.
+
+     Now there wasn't a knot which the riggers knew
+     But the old man made it--and better too;
+     Nor there wasn't a sheet, or a lift, or a brace,
+     But the old man knew its lead and place.
+
+     Then up and spake the caulkyers bold,
+     Which was packing the pump in the after-hold:
+     'Since you with us have made so free,
+     Will you kindly tell what your name might be?'
+
+     The old man kindly answered them:
+     'it might be Japhet, it might be Shem,
+     Or it might be Ham (though his skin was dark),
+     Whereas it is Noah, commanding the Ark.
+
+     'Your wheel is new and your pumps are strange,
+     But otherwise I perceive no change,
+     And in less than a week, if she did not ground,
+     I'd sail this hooker the wide world round!'
+
+       BOTH: We tell these tales, which are strictest true, etc.
+
+
+
+
+The Wrong Thing
+
+
+Dan had gone in for building model boats; but after he had filled the
+schoolroom with chips, which he expected Una to clear away, they turned
+him out of doors and he took all his tools up the hill to Mr Springett's
+yard, where he knew he could make as much mess as he chose. Old Mr
+Springett was a builder, contractor, and sanitary engineer, and
+his yard, which opened off the village street, was always full of
+interesting things. At one end of it was a long loft, reached by a
+ladder, where he kept his iron-bound scaffold-planks, tins of paints,
+pulleys, and odds and ends he had found in old houses. He would sit here
+by the hour watching his carts as they loaded or unloaded in the yard
+below, while Dan gouged and grunted at the carpenter's bench near the
+loft window. Mr Springett and Dan had always been particular friends,
+for Mr Springett was so old he could remember when railways were being
+made in the southern counties of England, and people were allowed to
+drive dogs in carts.
+
+One hot, still afternoon--the tar-paper on the roof smelt like
+ships--Dan, in his shirt-sleeves, was smoothing down a new schooner's
+bow, and Mr Springett was talking of barns and houses he had built. He
+said he never forgot any stick or stone he had ever handled, or any
+man, woman, or child he had ever met. Just then he was very proud of the
+Village Hall at the entrance of the village, which he had finished a few
+weeks before.
+
+'An' I don't mind tellin' you, Mus' Dan,' he said, 'that the Hall will
+be my last job top of this mortal earth. I didn't make ten pounds--no,
+nor yet five--out o' the whole contrac', but my name's lettered on the
+foundation stone--Ralph Springett, Builder--and the stone she's bedded
+on four foot good concrete. If she shifts any time these five hundred
+years, I'll sure-ly turn in my grave. I told the Lunnon architec' so
+when he come down to oversee my work.'
+
+'What did he say?' Dan was sandpapering the schooner's port bow.
+
+'Nothing. The Hall ain't more than one of his small jobs for him, but
+'tain't small to me, an' my name is cut and lettered, frontin' the
+village street, I do hope an' pray, for time everlastin'. You'll want
+the little round file for that holler in her bow. Who's there?' Mr
+Springett turned stiffly in his chair.
+
+A long pile of scaffold-planks ran down the centre of the loft. Dan
+looked, and saw Hal o' the Draft's touzled head beyond them. [See 'Hal
+o' the Draft' in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.]
+
+'Be you the builder of the Village Hall?' he asked of Mr Springett.
+
+'I be,' was the answer. 'But if you want a job--'
+
+Hal laughed. 'No, faith!'he said. 'Only the Hall is as good and honest
+a piece of work as I've ever run a rule over. So, being born hereabouts,
+and being reckoned a master among masons, and accepted as a master
+mason, I made bold to pay my brotherly respects to the builder.'
+
+'Aa--um!' Mr Springett looked important. 'I be a bit rusty, but I'll try
+ye!'
+
+He asked Hal several curious questions, and the answers must have
+pleased him, for he invited Hal to sit down. Hal moved up, always
+keeping behind the pile of planks so that only his head showed, and sat
+down on a trestle in the dark corner at the back of Mr Springett's
+desk. He took no notice of Dan, but talked at once to Mr Springett about
+bricks, and cement, and lead and glass, and after a while Dan went on
+with his work. He knew Mr Springett was pleased, because he tugged
+his white sandy beard, and smoked his pipe in short puffs. The two
+men seemed to agree about everything, but when grown-ups agree they
+interrupt each other almost as much as if they were quarrelling. Hal
+said something about workmen.
+
+'Why, that's what I always say,' Mr Springett cried. 'A man who can only
+do one thing, he's but next-above-fool to the man that can't do nothin'.
+That's where the Unions make their mistake.'
+
+'My thought to the very dot.' Dan heard Hal slap his tight-hosed leg.
+'I've suffered 'in my time from these same Guilds--Unions, d'you call
+'em? All their precious talk of the mysteries of their trades--why, what
+does it come to?'
+
+'Nothin'! You've justabout hit it,' said Mr Springett, and rammed his
+hot tobacco with his thumb.
+
+'Take the art of wood-carving,'Hal went on. He reached across the
+planks, grabbed a wooden mallet, and moved his other hand as though he
+wanted something. Mr Springett without a word passed him one of Dan's
+broad chisels. 'Ah! Wood-carving, for example. If you can cut wood and
+have a fair draft of what ye mean to do, a' Heaven's name take chisel
+and maul and let drive at it, say I! You'll soon find all the mystery,
+forsooth, of wood-carving under your proper hand!' Whack, came the
+mallet on the chisel, and a sliver of wood curled up in front of it. Mr
+Springett watched like an old raven.
+
+'All art is one, man--one!' said Hal between whacks; 'and to wait on
+another man to finish out--'
+
+'To finish out your work ain't no sense,' Mr Springett cut in. 'That's
+what I'm always sayin' to the boy here.' He nodded towards Dan. 'That's
+what I said when I put the new wheel into Brewster's Mill in Eighteen
+hundred Seventy-two. I reckoned I was millwright enough for the job
+'thout bringin' a man from Lunnon. An' besides, dividin' work eats up
+profits, no bounds.'
+
+Hal laughed his beautiful deep laugh, and Mr Springett joined in till
+Dan laughed too.
+
+'You handle your tools, I can see,' said Mr Springett. 'I reckon, if
+you're any way like me, you've found yourself hindered by those--Guilds,
+did you call 'em?---Unions, we say.'
+
+'You may say so!' Hal pointed to a white scar on his cheekbone. 'This
+is a remembrance from the Master watching-Foreman of Masons on Magdalen
+Tower, because, please you, I dared to carve stone without their leave.
+They said a stone had slipped from the cornice by accident.'
+
+'I know them accidents. There's no way to disprove 'em. An' stones ain't
+the only things that slip,' Mr Springett grunted. Hal went on:
+
+'I've seen a scaffold-plank keckle and shoot a too-clever workman thirty
+foot on to the cold chancel floor below. And a rope can break--' 'Yes,
+natural as nature; an' lime'll fly up in a man's eyes without any breath
+o' wind sometimes,' said Mr Springett. 'But who's to show 'twasn't a
+accident?'
+
+'Who do these things?' Dan asked, and straightened his back at the bench
+as he turned the schooner end-for-end in the vice to get at her counter.
+
+'Them which don't wish other men to work no better nor quicker than they
+do,' growled Mr Springett. 'Don't pinch her so hard in the vice, Mus'
+Dan. Put a piece o' rag in the jaws, or you'll bruise her. More than
+that'--he turned towards Hal--'if a man has his private spite laid up
+against you, the Unions give him his excuse for workin' it off.'
+
+'Well I know it,'said Hal.
+
+'They never let you go, them spiteful ones. I knowed a plasterer in
+Eighteen hundred Sixty-one--down to the wells. He was a Frenchy--a bad
+enemy he was.' 'I had mine too. He was an Italian, called Benedetto.
+I met him first at Oxford on Magdalen Tower when I was learning my
+trade-or trades, I should say. A bad enemy he was, as you say, but he
+came to be my singular good friend,' said Hal as he put down the mallet
+and settled himself comfortably.
+
+'What might his trade have been--plastering' Mr Springett asked.
+
+'Plastering of a sort. He worked in stucco--fresco we call it. Made
+pictures on plaster. Not but what he had a fine sweep of the hand in
+drawing. He'd take the long sides of a cloister, trowel on his stuff,
+and roll out his great all-abroad pictures of saints and croppy-topped
+trees quick as a webster unrolling cloth almost. Oh, Benedetto could
+draw, but 'a was a little-minded man, professing to be full of secrets
+of colour or plaster--common tricks, all of 'em--and his one single talk
+was how Tom, Dick or Harry had stole this or t'other secret art from
+him.'
+
+'I know that sort,' said Mr Springett. 'There's no keeping peace or
+making peace with such. An' they're mostly born an' bone idle.'
+
+'True. Even his fellow-countrymen laughed at his jealousy. We two came
+to loggerheads early on Magdalen Tower. I was a youngster then. Maybe I
+spoke my mind about his work.'
+
+'You shouldn't never do that.' Mr Springett shook his head. 'That sort
+lay it up against you.'
+
+'True enough. This Benedetto did most specially. Body o' me, the
+man lived to hate me! But I always kept my eyes open on a plank or a
+scaffold. I was mighty glad to be shut of him when he quarrelled with
+his Guild foreman, and went off, nose in air, and paints under his arm.
+But'--Hal leaned forward--'if you hate a man or a man hates you--'
+
+'I know. You're everlastin' running acrost him,' Mr Springett
+interrupted. 'Excuse me, sir.' He leaned out of the window, and shouted
+to a carter who was loading a cart with bricks.
+
+'Ain't you no more sense than to heap 'em up that way?' he said. 'Take
+an' throw a hundred of 'em off. It's more than the team can compass.
+Throw 'em off, I tell you, and make another trip for what's left over.
+Excuse me, sir. You was sayin'-'
+
+'I was saying that before the end of the year I went to Bury to
+strengthen the lead-work in the great Abbey east window there.'
+
+'Now that's just one of the things I've never done. But I mind there was
+a cheap excursion to Chichester in Eighteen hundred Seventy-nine, an'
+I went an' watched 'em leadin' a won'erful fine window in Chichester
+Cathedral. I stayed watchin' till 'twas time for us to go back. Dunno as
+I had two drinks p'raps, all that day.'
+
+Hal smiled. 'At Bury, then, sure enough, I met my enemy Benedetto. He
+had painted a picture in plaster on the south wall of the Refectory--a
+noble place for a noble thing--a picture of Jonah.'
+
+'Ah! Jonah an' his whale. I've never been as far as Bury. You've worked
+about a lot,' said Mr Springett, with his eyes on the carter below.
+
+'No. Not the whale. This was a picture of Jonah and the pompion that
+withered. But all that Benedetto had shown was a peevish grey-beard
+huggled up in angle-edged drapery beneath a pompion on a wooden trellis.
+This last, being a dead thing, he'd drawn it as 'twere to the life. But
+fierce old Jonah, bared in the sun, angry even to death that his cold
+prophecy was disproven--Jonah, ashamed, and already hearing the children
+of Nineveh running to mock him--ah, that was what Benedetto had not
+drawn!'
+
+'He better ha' stuck to his whale, then,' said Mr Springett.
+
+'He'd ha' done no better with that. He draws the damp cloth off the
+picture, an' shows it to me. I was a craftsman too, d'ye see?'
+
+'"Tis good," I said, "but it goes no deeper than the plaster."
+
+'"What?" he said in a whisper.
+
+'"Be thy own judge, Benedetto," I answered. "Does it go deeper than the
+plaster?"
+
+'He reeled against a piece of dry wall. "No," he says, "and I know it.
+I could not hate thee more than I have done these five years, but if I
+live, I will try, Hal. I will try." Then he goes away. I pitied him, but
+I had spoken truth. His picture went no deeper than the plaster.'
+
+'Ah!' said Mr Springett, who had turned quite red. 'You was talkin' so
+fast I didn't understand what you was drivin' at. I've seen men--good
+workmen they was--try to do more than they could do, and--and they
+couldn't compass it. They knowed it, and it nigh broke their hearts
+like. You was in your right, o' course, sir, to say what you thought o'
+his work; but if you'll excuse me, was you in your duty?'
+
+'I was wrong to say it,' Hal replied. 'God forgive me--I was young!
+He was workman enough himself to know where he failed. But it all
+came evens in the long run. By the same token, did ye ever hear o' one
+Torrigiano--Torrisany we called him?'
+
+'I can't say I ever did. Was he a Frenchy like?'
+
+'No, a hectoring, hard-mouthed, long-sworded Italian builder, as vain as
+a peacock and as strong as a bull, but, mark you, a master workman. More
+than that--he could get his best work out of the worst men.'
+
+'Which it's a gift. I had a foreman-bricklayer like him once,' said Mr
+Springett. 'He used to prod 'em in the back like with a pointing-trowel,
+and they did wonders.'
+
+I've seen our Torrisany lay a 'prentice down with one buffet and raise
+him with another--to make a mason of him. I worked under him at building
+a chapel in London--a chapel and a tomb for the King.'
+
+'I never knew kings went to chapel much,' said Mr Springett. 'But I
+always hold with a man--don't care who he be--seein' about his own grave
+before he dies. 'Tidn't the sort of thing to leave to your family after
+the will's read. I reckon 'twas a fine vault?'
+
+'None finer in England. This Torrigiano had the contract for it, as
+you'd say. He picked master craftsmen from all parts--England, France,
+Italy, the Low Countries--no odds to him so long as they knew their
+work, and he drove them like--like pigs at Brightling Fair. He called us
+English all pigs. We suffered it because he was a master in his craft.
+If he misliked any work that a man had done, with his own great hands
+he'd rive it out, and tear it down before us all. "Ah, you pig--you
+English pig!" he'd scream in the dumb wretch's face. "You answer me? You
+look at me? You think at me? Come out with me into the cloisters. I
+will teach you carving myself. I will gild you all over!" But when
+his passion had blown out, he'd slip his arm round the man's neck, and
+impart knowledge worth gold. 'Twould have done your heart good, Mus'
+Springett, to see the two hundred of us masons, jewellers, carvers,
+gilders, iron-workers and the rest--all toiling like cock-angels, and
+this mad Italian hornet fleeing one to next up and down the chapel. Done
+your heart good, it would!'
+
+'I believe you,' said Mr Springett. 'In Eighteen hundred Fifty-four, I
+mind, the railway was bein' made into Hastin's. There was two thousand
+navvies on it--all young--all strong--an' I was one of 'em. Oh, dearie
+me! Excuse me, sir, but was your enemy workin' with you?'
+
+'Benedetto? Be sure he was. He followed me like a lover. He painted
+pictures on the chapel ceiling--slung from a chair. Torrigiano made
+us promise not to fight till the work should be finished. We were both
+master craftsmen, do ye see, and he needed us. None the less, I never
+went aloft to carve 'thout testing all my ropes and knots each morning.
+We were never far from each other. Benedetto 'ud sharpen his knife on
+his sole while he waited for his plaster to dry--wheet, wheet, wheet.
+I'd hear it where I hung chipping round a pillar-head, and we'd nod to
+each other friendly-like. Oh, he was a craftsman, was Benedetto, but his
+hate spoiled his eye and his hand. I mind the night I had finished the
+models for the bronze saints round the tomb; Torrigiano embraced me
+before all the chapel, and bade me to supper. I met Benedetto when I
+came out. He was slavering in the porch Like a mad dog.'
+
+'Workin' himself up to it?' said Mr Springett. 'Did he have it in at ye
+that night?'
+
+'No, no. That time he kept his oath to Torrigiano. But I pitied him. Eh,
+well! Now I come to my own follies. I had never thought too little of
+myself; but after Torrisany had put his arm round my neck, I--I'--Hal
+broke into a laugh--'I lay there was not much odds 'twixt me and a
+cock-sparrow in his pride.'
+
+'I was pretty middlin' young once on a time,' said Mr Springett.
+
+'Then ye know that a man can't drink and dice and dress fine, and keep
+company above his station, but his work suffers for it, Mus' Springett.'
+
+'I never held much with dressin' up, but--you're right! The worst
+mistakes I ever made they was made of a Monday morning,' Mr Springett
+answered. 'We've all been one sort of fool or t'other. Mus' Dan, Mus'
+Dan, take the smallest gouge, or you'll be spluttin' her stem works
+clean out. Can't ye see the grain of the wood don't favour a chisel?'
+
+'I'll spare you some of my follies. But there was a man called
+Brygandyne--Bob Brygandyne--Clerk of the King's Ships, a little, smooth,
+bustling atomy, as clever as a woman to get work done for nothin'--a
+won'erful smooth-tongued pleader. He made much o' me, and asked me to
+draft him out a drawing, a piece of carved and gilt scroll-work for the
+bows of one of the King's Ships--the SOVEREIGN was her name.'
+
+'Was she a man-of-war?'asked Dan.
+
+'She was a warship, and a woman called Catherine of Castile desired the
+King to give her the ship for a pleasure-ship of her own. I did not
+know at the time, but she'd been at Bob to get this scroll-work done and
+fitted that the King might see it. I made him the picture, in an hour,
+all of a heat after supper--one great heaving play of dolphins and a
+Neptune or so reining in webby-footed sea-horses, and Arion with his
+harp high atop of them. It was twenty-three foot long, and maybe nine
+foot deep--painted and gilt.'
+
+It must ha' justabout looked fine,' said Mr Springett.
+
+'That's the curiosity of it. 'Twas bad--rank bad. In my conceit I must
+needs show it to Torrigiano, in the chapel. He straddles his legs,
+hunches his knife behind him, and whistles like a storm-cock through a
+sleet-shower. Benedetto was behind him. We were never far apart, I've
+told you.
+
+'"That is pig's work," says our Master. "Swine's work. You make any more
+such things, even after your fine Court suppers, and you shall be sent
+away."
+
+'Benedetto licks his lips like a cat. "It is so bad then, Master?" he
+says. "What a pity!"
+
+'"Yes," says Torrigiano. "Scarcely you could do things so bad. I will
+condescend to show."
+
+'He talks to me then and there. No shouting, no swearing (it was too bad
+for that); but good, memorable counsel, bitten in slowly. Then he sets
+me to draft out a pair of iron gates, to take, as he said, the taste
+of my naughty dolphins out of my mouth. Iron's sweet stuff if you don't
+torture her, and hammered work is all pure, truthful line, with a reason
+and a support for every curve and bar of it. A week at that settled
+my stomach handsomely, and the Master let me put the work through the
+smithy, where I sweated out more of my foolish pride.'
+
+'Good stuff is good iron,' said Mr Springett. 'I done a pair of lodge
+gates once in Eighteen hundred Sixty-three.'
+
+'Oh, I forgot to say that Bob Brygandyne whipped away my draft of the
+ship's scroll-work, and would not give it back to me to re-draw. He said
+'twould do well enough. Howsoever, my lawful work kept me too busied to
+remember him. Body o' me, but I worked that winter upon the gates and
+the bronzes for the tomb as I'd never worked before! I was leaner than
+a lath, but I lived--I lived then!' Hal looked at Mr Springett with his
+wise, crinkled-up eyes, and the old man smiled back.
+
+'Ouch!' Dan cried. He had been hollowing out the schooner's after-deck,
+the little gouge had slipped and gashed the ball of his left thumb,--an
+ugly, triangular tear.
+
+'That came of not steadying your wrist,' said Hal calmly. 'Don't bleed
+over the wood. Do your work with your heart's blood, but no need to let
+it show.' He rose and peered into a corner of the loft.
+
+Mr Springett had risen too, and swept down a ball of cobwebs from a
+rafter.
+
+'Clap that on,' was all he said, 'and put your handkerchief atop. 'Twill
+cake over in a minute. It don't hurt now, do it?'
+
+'No,' said Dan indignantly. 'You know it has happened lots of times.
+I'll tie it up myself. Go on, sir.'
+
+'And it'll happen hundreds of times more,' said Hal with a friendly nod
+as he sat down again. But he did not go on till Dan's hand was tied up
+properly. Then he said:
+
+'One dark December day--too dark to judge colour--we was all sitting and
+talking round the fires in the chapel (you heard good talk there), when
+Bob Brygandyne bustles in and--"Hal, you're sent for," he squeals. I
+was at Torrigiano's feet on a pile of put-locks, as I might be here,
+toasting a herring on my knife's point. 'Twas the one English thing our
+Master liked--salt herring.
+
+'"I'm busy, about my art," I calls.
+
+
+'"Art?" says Bob. "What's Art compared to your scroll-work for the
+SOVEREIGN? Come."
+
+'"Be sure your sins will find you out," says Torrigiano. "Go with him
+and see." As I followed Bob out I was aware of Benedetto, like a black
+spot when the eyes are tired, sliddering up behind me.
+
+'Bob hurries through the streets in the raw fog, slips into a doorway,
+up stairs, along passages, and at last thrusts me into a little cold
+room vilely hung with Flemish tapestries, and no furnishing except a
+table and my draft of the SOVEREIGN's scrollwork. Here he leaves me.
+Presently comes in a dark, long-nosed man in a fur cap.
+
+'"Master Harry Dawe?" said he.
+
+'"The same," I says. "Where a plague has Bob Brygandyne gone?"
+
+'His thin eyebrows surged up in a piece and come down again in a stiff
+bar. "He went to the King," he says.
+
+'"All one. Where's your pleasure with me?" I says, shivering, for it was
+mortal cold.
+
+'He lays his hand flat on my draft. "Master Dawe," he says, "do you know
+the present price of gold leaf for all this wicked gilding of yours?"
+
+'By that I guessed he was some cheese-paring clerk or other of the
+King's Ships, so I gave him the price. I forget it now, but it worked
+out to thirty pounds--carved, gilt, and fitted in place.
+
+'"Thirty pounds!" he said, as though I had pulled a tooth of him. "You
+talk as though thirty pounds was to be had for the asking. None the
+less," he says, "your draft's a fine piece of work."
+
+'I'd been looking at it ever since I came in, and 'twas viler even than
+I judged it at first. My eye and hand had been purified the past months,
+d'ye see, by my iron work.
+
+'"I could do it better now," I said. The more I studied my squabby
+Neptunes the less I liked 'em; and Arion was a pure flaming shame atop
+of the unbalanced dolphins.
+
+'"I doubt it will be fresh expense to draft it again," he says.
+
+'"Bob never paid me for the first draft. I lay he'll never pay me for
+the second. 'Twill cost the King nothing if I re-draw it," I says.
+
+'"There's a woman wishes it to be done quickly," he says. "We'll stick
+to your first drawing, Master Dawe. But thirty pounds is thirty pounds.
+You must make it less."
+
+'And all the while the faults in my draft fair leaped out and hit me
+between the eyes. At any cost, I thinks to myself, I must get it back
+and re-draft it. He grunts at me impatiently, and a splendid thought
+comes to me, which shall save me. By the same token, It was quite
+honest.'
+
+'They ain't always,' says Mr Springett. 'How did you get out of it?'
+
+'By the truth. I says to Master Fur Cap, as I might to you here, I says,
+"I'll tell you something, since you seem a knowledgeable man. Is the
+SOVEREIGN to lie in Thames river all her days, or will she take the high
+seas?"
+
+'"Oh," he says quickly, "the King keeps no cats that don't catch mice.
+She must sail the seas, Master Dawe. She'll be hired to merchants for
+the trade. She'll be out in all shapes o' weathers. Does that make any
+odds?"
+
+'"Why, then," says I, "the first heavy sea she sticks her nose into'll
+claw off half that scroll-work, and the next will finish it. If she's
+meant for a pleasure-ship give me my draft again, and I'll porture you a
+pretty, light piece of scroll-work, good cheap. If she's meant for the
+open--sea, pitch the draft into the fire. She can never carry that
+weight on her bows."
+
+'He looks at me squintlings and plucks his under-lip.
+
+'"Is this your honest, unswayed opinion?" he says.
+
+'"Body o' me! Ask about!" I says. "Any seaman could tell you 'tis
+true. I'm advising you against my own profit, but why I do so is my own
+concern."
+
+'"Not altogether ", he says. "It's some of mine. You've saved me thirty
+pounds, Master Dawe, and you've given me good arguments to use against
+a willful woman that wants my fine new ship for her own toy. We'll not
+have any scroll-work." His face shined with pure joy.
+
+'"Then see that the thirty pounds you've saved on it are honestly paid
+the King," I says, "and keep clear o' women-folk." I gathered up my
+draft and crumpled it under my arm. "If that's all you need of me I'll
+be gone," I says. "I'm pressed."
+
+'He turns him round and fumbles in a corner. "Too pressed to be made
+a knight, Sir Harry?" he says, and comes at me smiling, with
+three-quarters of a rusty sword.
+
+'I pledge you my Mark I never guessed it was the King till that moment.
+I kneeled, and he tapped me on the shoulder.
+
+'"Rise up, Sir Harry Dawe," he says, and, in the same breath, "I'm
+pressed, too," and slips through the tapestries, leaving me like a stuck
+calf.
+
+'It come over me, in a bitter wave like, that here was I, a master
+craftsman, who had worked no bounds, soul or body, to make the King's
+tomb and chapel a triumph and a glory for all time; and here, d'ye see,
+I was made knight, not for anything I'd slaved over, or given my heart
+and guts to, but expressedly because I'd saved him thirty pounds and a
+tongue-lashing from Catherine of Castille--she that had asked for the
+ship. That thought shrivelled me with insides while I was folding away
+my draft. On the heels of it--maybe you'll see why--I began to grin
+to myself. I thought of the earnest simplicity of the man--the King, I
+should say--because I'd saved him the money; his smile as though
+he'd won half France! I thought of my own silly pride and foolish
+expectations that some day he'd honour me as a master craftsman. I
+thought of the broken-tipped sword he'd found behind the hangings; the
+dirt of the cold room, and his cold eye, wrapped up in his own concerns,
+scarcely resting on me. Then I remembered the solemn chapel roof and
+the bronzes about the stately tomb he'd lie in, and--d'ye see?---the
+unreason of it all--the mad high humour of it all--took hold on me till
+I sat me down on a dark stair-head in a passage, and laughed till I
+could laugh no more. What else could I have done?
+
+'I never heard his feet behind me--he always walked like a cat--but his
+arm slid round my neck, pulling me back where I sat, till my head lay
+on his chest, and his left hand held the knife plumb over my
+heart--Benedetto! Even so I laughed--the fit was beyond my
+holding--laughed while he ground his teeth in my ear. He was stark
+crazed for the time.
+
+'"Laugh," he said. "Finish the laughter. I'll not cut ye short. Tell
+me now"--he wrenched at my head--"why the King chose to honour
+you,--you--you--you lickspittle Englishman? I am full of patience now.
+I have waited so long." Then he was off at score about his Jonah in Bury
+Refectory, and what I'd said of it, and his pictures in the chapel which
+all men praised and none looked at twice (as if that was my fault!), and
+a whole parcel of words and looks treasured up against me through years.
+
+'"Ease off your arm a little," I said. "I cannot die by choking, for I
+am just dubbed knight, Benedetto."
+
+'"Tell me, and I'll confess ye, Sir Harry Dawe, Knight. There's a long
+night before ye. Tell," says he.
+
+'So I told him--his chin on my crown--told him all; told it as well
+and with as many words as I have ever told a tale at a supper with
+Torrigiano. I knew Benedetto would understand, for, mad or sad, he was a
+craftsman. I believed it to be the last tale I'd ever tell top of mortal
+earth, and I would not put out bad work before I left the Lodge. All
+art's one art, as I said. I bore Benedetto no malice. My spirits, d'ye
+see, were catched up in a high, solemn exaltation, and I saw all earth's
+vanities foreshortened and little, laid out below me like a town from a
+cathedral scaffolding. I told him what befell, and what I thought of it.
+I gave him the King's very voice at "Master Dawe, you've saved me thirty
+pounds!"; his peevish grunt while he looked for the sword; and how the
+badger-eyed figures of Glory and Victory leered at me from the Flemish
+hangings. Body o' me, 'twas a fine, noble tale, and, as I thought, my
+last work on earth.
+
+'"That is how I was honoured by the King," I said. "They'll hang ye for
+killing me, Benedetto. And, since you've killed in the King's Palace,
+they'll draw and quarter you; but you're too mad to care. Grant me,
+though, ye never heard a better tale." 'He said nothing, but I felt him
+shake. My head on his chest shook; his right arm fell away, his
+left dropped the knife, and he leaned with both hands on my
+shoulder--shaking--shaking! I turned me round. No need to put my foot
+on his knife. The man was speechless with laughter--honest craftsman's
+mirth. The first time I'd ever seen him laugh. You know the mirth that
+cuts off the very breath, while ye stamp and snatch at the short ribs?
+That was Benedetto's case.
+
+'When he began to roar and bay and whoop in the passage, I haled him
+out into the street, and there we leaned against the wall and had it all
+over again--waving our hands and wagging our heads--till the watch came
+to know if we were drunk.
+
+'Benedetto says to 'em, solemn as an owl: "You have saved me thirty
+pounds, Mus' Dawe," and off he pealed. In some sort we were mad-drunk--I
+because dear life had been given back to me, and he because, as he said
+afterwards, because the old crust of hatred round his heart was broke up
+and carried away by laughter. His very face had changed too.
+
+'"Hal," he cries, "I forgive thee. Forgive me too, Hal. Oh, you English,
+you English! Did it gall thee, Hal, to see the rust on the dirty sword?
+Tell me again, Hal, how the King grunted with joy. Oh, let us tell the
+Master."
+
+'So we reeled back to the chapel, arms round each other's necks, and
+when we could speak--he thought we'd been fighting--we told the Master.
+Yes, we told Torrigiano, and he laughed till he rolled on the new cold
+pavement. Then he knocked our heads together.
+
+'"Ah, you English!" he cried. "You are more than pigs. You are English.
+Now you are well punished for your dirty fishes. Put the draft in the
+fire, and never do so any more. You are a fool, Hal, and you are a fool,
+Benedetto, but I need your works to please this beautiful English King."
+
+'"And I meant to kill Hal," says Benedetto. "Master, I meant to kill him
+because the English King had made him a knight."
+
+'"Ah!" says the Master, shaking his finger. "Benedetto, if you had
+killed my Hal, I should have killed you--in the cloister. But you are a
+craftsman too, so I should have killed you like a craftsman, very, very
+slowly--in an hour, if I could spare the time!" That was Torrigiano--the
+Master!'
+
+Mr Springett sat quite still for some time after Hal had finished.
+Then he turned dark red; then he rocked to and fro; then he coughed and
+wheezed till the tears ran down his face. Dan knew by this that he was
+laughing, but it surprised Hal at first.
+
+'Excuse me, sir,' said Mr Springett, 'but I was thinkin' of some stables
+I built for a gentleman in Eighteen hundred Seventy-four. They was
+stables in blue brick--very particular work. Dunno as they weren't the
+best job which ever I'd done. But the gentleman's lady--she'd come
+from Lunnon, new married--she was all for buildin' what was called
+a haw-haw--what you an' me 'ud call a dik--right acrost his park. A
+middlin' big job which I'd have had the contract of, for she spoke to me
+in the library about it. But I told her there was a line o' springs just
+where she wanted to dig her ditch, an' she'd flood the park if she went
+on.'
+
+'Were there any springs at all?' said Hal.
+
+'Bound to be springs everywhere if you dig deep enough, ain't there?
+But what I said about the springs put her out o' conceit o' diggin'
+haw-haws, an' she took an' built a white tile dairy instead. But when
+I sent in my last bill for the stables, the gentleman he paid it 'thout
+even lookin' at it, and I hadn't forgotten nothin', I do assure you.
+More than that, he slips two five-pound notes into my hand in the
+library, an' "Ralph," he says--he allers called me by name--"Ralph," he
+says, "you've saved me a heap of expense an' trouble this autumn." I
+didn't say nothin', o' course. I knowed he didn't want any haws-haws
+digged acrost his park no more'n I did, but I never said nothin'. No
+more he didn't say nothin' about my blue-brick stables, which was really
+the best an' honestest piece o' work I'd done in quite a while. He
+give me ten pounds for savin' him a hem of a deal o' trouble at home. I
+reckon things are pretty much alike, all times, in all places.'
+
+Hal and he laughed together. Dan couldn't quite understand what they
+thought so funny, and went on with his work for some time without
+speaking.
+
+When he looked up, Mr Springett, alone, was wiping his eyes with his
+green-and-yellow pocket-handkerchief.
+
+'Bless me, Mus' Dan, I've been asleep,' he said. 'An' I've dreamed a
+dream which has made me laugh--laugh as I ain't laughed in a long day.
+I can't remember what 'twas all about, but they do say that when old
+men take to laughin' in their sleep, they're middlin' ripe for the next
+world. Have you been workin' honest, Mus' Dan?'
+
+'Ra-ather,' said Dan, unclamping the schooner from the vice. 'And look
+how I've cut myself with the small gouge.'
+
+'Ye-es. You want a lump o' cobwebs to that,' said Mr Springett. 'Oh, I
+see you've put it on already. That's right, Mus' Dan.'
+
+
+
+
+King Henry VII and the Shipwrights
+
+  Harry our King in England from London town is gone,
+  And comen to Hamull on the Hoke in the countie of Suthampton.
+  For there lay the MARY OF THE TOWER, his ship of war so strong,
+  And he would discover, certaynely, if his shipwrights did him wrong.
+
+  He told not none of his setting forth, nor yet where he would go
+  (But only my Lord of Arundel), and meanly did he show,
+  In an old jerkin and patched hose that no man might him mark;
+  With his frieze hood and cloak about, he looked like any clerk.
+  He was at Hamull on the Hoke about the hour of the tide,
+  And saw the MARY haled into dock, the winter to abide,
+  With all her tackle and habiliments which are the King his own;
+  But then ran on his false shipwrights and stripped her to the bone.
+
+  They heaved the main-mast overboard, that was of a trusty tree,
+  And they wrote down it was spent and lost by force of weather at sea.
+  But they sawen it into planks and strakes as far as it might go,
+  To maken beds for their own wives and little children also.
+
+  There was a knave called Slingawai, he crope beneath the deck,
+  Crying: 'Good felawes, come and see!  The ship is nigh a wreck!
+  For the storm that took our tall main-mast, it blew so fierce and fell,
+  Alack!  it hath taken the kettles and pans, and this brass pott as well!'
+
+  With that he set the pott on his head and hied him up the hatch,
+  While all the shipwrights ran below to find what they might snatch;
+  All except Bob Brygandyne and he was a yeoman good,
+  He caught Slingawai round the waist and threw him on to the mud.
+
+  'I have taken plank and rope and nail, without the King his leave,
+  After the custom of Portesmouth, but I will not suffer a thief.
+  Nay, never lift up thy hand at me!  There's no clean hands in the trade.
+  Steal in measure,' quo' Brygandyne.  'There's measure in all things made!'
+
+  'Gramercy, yeoman!' said our King.  'Thy counsel liketh me.'
+  And he pulled a whistle out of his neck and whistled whistles three.
+  Then came my Lord of Arundel pricking across the down,
+  And behind him the Mayor and Burgesses of merry Suthampton town.
+
+  They drew the naughty shipwrights up, with the kettles in their hands,
+  And bound them round the forecastle to wait the King's commands.
+  But 'Since ye have made your beds,' said the King, 'ye needs must lie
+  thereon.
+  For the sake of your wives and little ones--felawes, get you gone!'
+
+  When they had beaten Slingawai, out of his own lips,
+  Our King appointed Brygandyne to be Clerk of all his ships.
+  'Nay, never lift up thy hands to me--there's no clean hands in the trade.
+  But steal in measure,'said Harry our King.  'There's measure in all things
+  made!'
+
+  God speed the 'Mary of the Tower,' the 'Sovereign' and 'Grace Dieu,'
+  The 'Sweepstakes' and the 'Mary Fortune,' and the 'Henry of Bristol' too!
+  All tall ships that sail on the sea, or in our harbours stand,
+  That they may keep measure with Harry our King and peace in Engeland!
+
+
+
+
+MARKLAKE WITCHES
+
+
+
+
+The Way Through the Woods
+
+
+     They shut the road through the woods
+     Seventy years ago.
+     Weather and rain have undone it again,
+     And now you would never know
+     There was once a road through the woods
+     Before they planted the trees.
+     It is underneath the coppice and heath,
+     And the thin anemones.
+     Only the keeper sees
+     That, where the ring-dove broods,
+     And the badgers roll at ease,
+     There was once a road through the woods.
+
+     Yet, if you enter the woods
+     Of a summer evening late,
+     When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
+     Where the otter whistles his mate
+     (They fear not men in the woods
+     Because they see so few),
+     You will hear the beat of a horse's feet
+     And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
+     Steadily cantering through
+     The misty solitudes,
+     As though they perfectly knew
+     The old lost road through the woods...
+     But there is no road through the woods!
+
+
+
+
+Marklake Witches
+
+
+When Dan took up boat-building, Una coaxed Mrs Vincey, the farmer's wife
+at Little Lindens, to teach her to milk. Mrs Vincey milks in the pasture
+in summer, which is different from milking in the shed, because the
+cows are not tied up, and until they know you they will not stand still.
+After three weeks Una could milk Red Cow or Kitty Shorthorn quite dry,
+without her wrists aching, and then she allowed Dan to look. But milking
+did not amuse him, and it was pleasanter for Una to be alone in the
+quiet pastures with quiet-spoken Mrs Vincey. So, evening after evening,
+she slipped across to Little Lindens, took her stool from the fern-clump
+beside the fallen oak, and went to work, her pail between her knees, and
+her head pressed hard into the cow's flank. As often as not, Mrs Vincey
+would be milking cross Pansy at the other end of the pasture, and would
+not come near till it was time to strain and pour off.
+
+Once, in the middle of a milking, Kitty Shorthorn boxed Una's ear with
+her tail.
+
+'You old pig!' said Una, nearly crying, for a cow's tail can hurt.
+
+'Why didn't you tie it down, child?' said a voice behind her.
+
+'I meant to, but the flies are so bad I let her off--and this is what
+she's done!' Una looked round, expecting Puck, and saw a curly-haired
+girl, not much taller than herself, but older, dressed in a curious
+high-waisted, lavender-coloured riding-habit, with a high hunched collar
+and a deep cape and a belt fastened with a steel clasp. She wore a
+yellow velvet cap and tan gauntlets, and carried a real hunting-crop.
+Her cheeks were pale except for two pretty pink patches in the middle,
+and she talked with little gasps at the end of her sentences, as though
+she had been running.
+
+'You don't milk so badly, child,' she said, and when she smiled her
+teeth showed small and even and pearly.
+
+'Can you milk?' Una asked, and then flushed, for she heard Puck's
+chuckle.
+
+He stepped out of the fern and sat down, holding Kitty Short-horn's
+tail. 'There isn't much,' he said, 'that Miss Philadelphia doesn't
+know about milk--or, for that matter, butter and eggs. She's a great
+housewife.'
+
+'Oh,' said Una. 'I'm sorry I can't shake hands. Mine are all milky; but
+Mrs Vincey is going to teach me butter-making this summer.' 'Ah! I'm
+going to London this summer,' the girl said, 'to my aunt in Bloomsbury.'
+She coughed as she began to hum, '"Oh, what a town! What a wonderful
+metropolis!"
+
+'You've got a cold,' said Una.
+
+'No. Only my stupid cough. But it's vastly better than it was last
+winter. It will disappear in London air. Every one says so. D'you like
+doctors, child?'
+
+'I don't know any,' Una replied. 'But I'm sure I shouldn't.'
+
+'Think yourself lucky, child. I beg your pardon,' the girl laughed, for
+Una frowned.
+
+'I'm not a child, and my name's Una,'she said.
+
+'Mine's Philadelphia. But everybody except Rene calls me Phil. I'm
+Squire Bucksteed's daughter--over at Marklake yonder.' She jerked her
+little round chin towards the south behind Dallington. 'Sure-ly you know
+Marklake?'
+
+'We went a picnic to Marklake Green once,' said Una. 'It's awfully
+pretty. I like all those funny little roads that don't lead anywhere.'
+
+'They lead over our land,' said Philadelphia stiffly, 'and the coach
+road is only four miles away. One can go anywhere from the Green. I went
+to the Assize Ball at Lewes last year.' She spun round and took a few
+dancing steps, but stopped with her hand to her side.
+
+'It gives me a stitch,' she explained. 'No odds. 'Twill go away in
+London air. That's the latest French step, child. Rene taught it me.
+D'you hate the French, chi--Una?'
+
+'Well, I hate French, of course, but I don't mind Ma'm'selle. She's
+rather decent. Is Rene your French governess?'
+
+Philadelphia laughed till she caught her breath again.
+
+'Oh no! Rene's a French prisoner--on parole. That means he's promised
+not to escape till he has been properly exchanged for an Englishman.
+He's only a doctor, so I hope they won't think him worth exchanging. My
+uncle captured him last year in the FERDINAND privateer, off Belle Isle,
+and he cured my uncle of a r-r-raging toothache. Of course, after that
+we couldn't let him lie among the common French prisoners at Rye, and
+so he stays with us. He's of very old family--a Breton, which is nearly
+next door to being a true Briton, my father says--and he wears his hair
+clubbed--not powdered. Much more becoming, don't you think?'
+
+'I don't know what you're--' Una began, but Puck, the other side of
+the pail, winked, and she went on with her milking. 'He's going to be a
+great French physician when the war is over. He makes me bobbins for my
+lace-pillow now--he's very clever with his hands; but he'd doctor our
+people on the Green if they would let him. Only our Doctor--Doctor
+Break--says he's an emp--or imp something--worse than imposter. But my
+Nurse says--'
+
+'Nurse! You're ever so old. What have you got a nurse for?' Una finished
+milking, and turned round on her stool as Kitty Shorthorn grazed off.
+
+'Because I can't get rid of her. Old Cissie nursed my mother, and she
+says she'll nurse me till she dies. The idea! She never lets me alone.
+She thinks I'm delicate. She has grown infirm in her understanding, you
+know. Mad--quite mad, poor Cissie!'
+
+
+'Really mad?' said Una. 'Or just silly?'
+
+'Crazy, I should say--from the things she does. Her devotion to me is
+terribly embarrassing. You know I have all the keys of the Hall except
+the brewery and the tenants' kitchen. I give out all stores and the
+linen and plate.'
+
+'How jolly! I love store-rooms and giving out things.'
+
+Ah, it's a great responsibility, you'll find, when you come to my
+age. Last year Dad said I was fatiguing myself with my duties, and he
+actually wanted me to give up the keys to old Amoore, our housekeeper.
+I wouldn't. I hate her. I said, "No, sir. I am Mistress of Marklake Hall
+just as long as I live, because I'm never going to be married, and I
+shall give out stores and linen till I die!"
+
+And what did your father say?'
+
+'Oh, I threatened to pin a dishclout to his coat-tail. He ran away.
+Every one's afraid of Dad, except me.' Philadelphia stamped her foot.
+'The idea! If I can't make my own father happy in his own house, I'd
+like to meet the woman that can, and--and--I'd have the living hide off
+her!'
+
+She cut with her long-thonged whip. It cracked like a pistol-shot across
+the still pasture. Kitty Shorthorn threw up her head and trotted away.
+
+'I beg your pardon,' Philadelphia said; 'but it makes me furious. Don't
+you hate those ridiculous old quizzes with their feathers and fronts,
+who come to dinner and call you "child" in your own chair at your own
+table?'
+
+'I don't always come to dinner, said Una, 'but I hate being called
+"child." Please tell me about store-rooms and giving out things.'
+
+Ah, it's a great responsibility--particularly with that old cat Amoore
+looking at the lists over your shoulder. And such a shocking thing
+happened last summer! Poor crazy Cissie, my Nurse that I was telling you
+of, she took three solid silver tablespoons.'
+
+'Took! But isn't that stealing?' Una cried.
+
+'Hsh!' said Philadelphia, looking round at Puck. 'All I say is she took
+them without my leave. I made it right afterwards. So, as Dad says--and
+he's a magistrate-, it wasn't a legal offence; it was only compounding a
+felony.
+
+'It sounds awful,' said Una.
+
+'It was. My dear, I was furious! I had had the keys for ten months, and
+I'd never lost anything before. I said nothing at first, because a big
+house offers so many chances of things being mislaid, and coming to hand
+later. "Fetching up in the lee-scuppers," my uncle calls it. But next
+week I spoke to old Cissie about it when she was doing my hair at night,
+and she said I wasn't to worry my heart for trifles!'
+
+'Isn't it like 'em?' Una burst out. 'They see you're worried over
+something that really matters, and they say, "Don't worry"; as if that
+did any good!'
+
+'I quite agree with you, my dear; quite agree with you! I told Ciss the
+spoons were solid silver, and worth forty shillings, so if the thief
+were found, he'd be tried for his life.' 'Hanged, do you mean?'Una said.
+
+'They ought to be; but Dad says no jury will hang a man nowadays for
+a forty-shilling theft. They transport 'em into penal servitude at
+the uttermost ends of the earth beyond the seas, for the term of their
+natural life. I told Cissie that, and I saw her tremble in my mirror.
+Then she cried, and caught hold of my knees, and I couldn't for my life
+understand what it was all about,--she cried so. Can you guess, my dear,
+what that poor crazy thing had done? It was midnight before I pieced it
+together. She had given the spoons to Jerry Gamm, the Witchmaster on the
+Green, so that he might put a charm on me! Me!'
+
+'Put a charm on you? Why?'
+
+'That's what I asked; and then I saw how mad poor Cissie was! You know
+this stupid little cough of mine? It will disappear as soon as I go to
+London. She was troubled about that, and about my being so thin, and
+she told me Jerry had promised her, if she would bring him three silver
+spoons, that he'd charm my cough away and make me plump--"flesh up," she
+said. I couldn't help laughing; but it was a terrible night! I had to
+put Cissie into my own bed, and stroke her hand till she cried herself
+to sleep. What else could I have done? When she woke, and I coughed--I
+suppose I can cough in my own room if I please--she said that she'd
+killed me, and asked me to have her hanged at Lewes sooner than send her
+to the uttermost ends of the earth away from me.'
+
+'How awful! What did you do, Phil?'
+
+'Do? I rode off at five in the morning to talk to Master Jerry, with a
+new lash on my whip. Oh, I was furious! Witchmaster or no Witchmaster, I
+meant to--'
+
+Ah! what's a Witchmaster?'
+
+'A master of witches, of course. I don't believe there are witches; but
+people say every village has a few, and Jerry was the master of all ours
+at Marklake. He has been a smuggler, and a man-of-war's man, and now he
+pretends to be a carpenter and joiner--he can make almost anything--but
+he really is a white wizard. He cures people by herbs and charms. He can
+cure them after Doctor Break has given them up, and that's why Doctor
+Break hates him so. He used to make me toy carts, and charm off my warts
+when I was a child.' Philadelphia spread out her hands with the delicate
+shiny little nails. 'It isn't counted lucky to cross him. He has his
+ways of getting even with you, they say. But I wasn't afraid of Jerry!
+I saw him working in his garden, and I leaned out of my saddle and
+double-thonged him between the shoulders, over the hedge. Well, my dear,
+for the first time since Dad gave him to me, my Troubadour (I wish you
+could see the sweet creature!) shied across the road, and I spilled out
+into the hedge-top. Most undignified! Jerry pulled me through to his
+side and brushed the leaves off me. I was horribly pricked, but I didn't
+care. "Now, Jerry," I said, "I'm going to take the hide off you first,
+and send you to Lewes afterwards. You well know why."
+
+'"Oh!" he said, and he sat down among his bee-hives. "Then I reckon
+you've come about old Cissie's business, my dear." "I reckon I justabout
+have," I said. "Stand away from these hives. I can't get at you there."
+"That's why I be where I be," he said. "If you'll excuse me, Miss Phil,
+I don't hold with bein' flogged before breakfast, at my time o' life."
+He's a huge big man, but he looked so comical squatting among the hives
+that--I know I oughtn't to--I laughed, and he laughed. I always laugh at
+the wrong time. But I soon recovered my dignity, and I said, "Then give
+me back what you made poor Cissie steal!"
+
+'"Your pore Cissie," he said. "She's a hatful o' trouble. But you shall
+have 'em, Miss Phil. They're all ready put by for you." And, would you
+believe it, the old sinner pulled my three silver spoons out of his
+dirty pocket, and polished them on his cuff. "Here they be," he says,
+and he gave them to me, just as cool as though I'd come to have my
+warts charmed. That's the worst of people having known you when you were
+young. But I preserved my composure. "Jerry," I said, "what in the world
+are we to do? If you'd been caught with these things on you, you'd have
+been hanged."
+
+'"I know it," he said. "But they're yours now."
+
+'"But you made my Cissie steal them," I said.
+
+'"That I didn't," he said. "Your Cissie, she was pickin' at me an'
+tarrifyin' me all the long day an' every day for weeks, to put a charm
+on you, Miss Phil, an' take away your little spitty cough."
+
+'"Yes. I knew that, Jerry, and to make me flesh-up!" I said. "I'm much
+obliged to you, but I'm not one of your pigs!"
+
+'"Ah! I reckon she've been talking to you, then," he said. "Yes,
+she give me no peace, and bein' tarrified--for I don't hold with old
+women--I laid a task on her which I thought 'ud silence her. I never
+reckoned the old scrattle 'ud risk her neckbone at Lewes Assizes for
+your sake, Miss Phil. But she did. She up an' stole, I tell ye, as
+cheerful as a tinker. You might ha' knocked me down with any one of them
+liddle spoons when she brung 'em in her apron."
+
+'"Do you mean to say, then, that you did it to try my poor Cissie?" I
+screamed at him.
+
+'"What else for, dearie?" he said. "I don't stand in need of
+hedge-stealings. I'm a freeholder, with money in the bank; and now I
+won't trust women no more! Silly old besom! I do beleft she'd ha' stole
+the Squire's big fob-watch, if I'd required her."
+
+'"Then you're a wicked, wicked old man," I said, and I was so angry that
+I couldn't help crying, and of course that made me cough.
+
+'Jerry was in a fearful taking. He picked me up and carried me into his
+cottage--it's full of foreign curiosities--and he got me something to
+eat and drink, and he said he'd be hanged by the neck any day if it
+pleased me. He said he'd even tell old Cissie he was sorry. That's a
+great comedown for a Witchmaster, you know.
+
+'I was ashamed of myself for being so silly, and I dabbed my eyes and
+said, "The least you can do now is to give poor Ciss some sort of a
+charm for me."
+
+'"Yes, that's only fair dealings," he said. "You know the names of the
+Twelve Apostles, dearie? You say them names, one by one, before your
+open window, rain or storm, wet or shine, five times a day fasting. But
+mind you, 'twixt every name you draw in your breath through your nose,
+right down to your pretty liddle toes, as long and as deep as you can,
+and let it out slow through your pretty liddle mouth. There's virtue for
+your cough in those names spoke that way. And I'll give you something
+you can see, moreover. Here's a stick of maple, which is the warmest
+tree in the wood."' 'That's true,' Una interrupted. 'You can feel it
+almost as warm as yourself when you touch it.'
+
+'"It's cut one inch long for your every year," Jerry said. "That's
+sixteen inches. You set it in your window so that it holds up the sash,
+and thus you keep it, rain or shine, or wet or fine, day and night. I've
+said words over it which will have virtue on your complaints."
+
+"I haven't any complaints, Jerry," I said. "It's only to please Cissie."
+
+'"I know that as well as you do, dearie," he said. And--and that was all
+that came of my going to give him a flogging. I wonder whether he made
+poor Troubadour shy when I lashed at him? Jerry has his ways of getting
+even with people.'
+
+'I wonder,' said Una. 'Well, did you try the charm? Did it work?'
+
+'What nonsense! I told Rene about it, of course, because he's a doctor.
+He's going to be a most famous doctor. That's why our doctor hates him.
+Rene said, "Oho! Your Master Gamm, he is worth knowing," and he put up
+his eyebrows--like this. He made joke of it all. He can see my window
+from the carpenter's shed, where he works, and if ever the maple stick
+fell down, he pretended to be in a fearful taking till I propped the
+window up again. He used to ask me whether I had said my Apostles
+properly, and how I took my deep breaths. Oh yes, and the next day,
+though he had been there ever so many times before, he put on his new
+hat and paid Jerry Gamm a visit of state--as a fellow-physician. Jerry
+never guessed Rene was making fun of him, and so he told Rene about
+the sick people in the village, and how he cured them with herbs after
+Doctor Break had given them up. Jerry could talk smugglers' French, of
+course, and I had taught Rene plenty of English, if only he wasn't so
+shy. They called each other Monsieur Gamm and Mosheur Lanark, just like
+gentlemen. I suppose it amused poor Rene. He hasn't much to do, except
+to fiddle about in the carpenter's shop. He's like all the French
+prisoners--always making knickknacks; and Jerry had a little lathe at
+his cottage, and so--and so--Rene took to being with Jerry much more
+than I approved of. The Hall is so big and empty when Dad's away, and
+I will not sit with old Amoore--she talks so horridly about every
+one--specially about Rene.
+
+'I was rude to Rene, I'm afraid; but I was properly served out for it.
+One always is. You see, Dad went down to Hastings to pay his respects
+to the General who commanded the brigade there, and to bring him to the
+Hall afterwards. Dad told me he was a very brave soldier from India--he
+was Colonel of Dad's Regiment, the Thirty-third Foot, after Dad left the
+Army, and then he changed his name from Wesley to Wellesley, or else the
+other way about; and Dad said I was to get out all the silver for him,
+and I knew that meant a big dinner. So I sent down to the sea for early
+mackerel, and had such a morning in the kitchen and the store-rooms. Old
+Amoore nearly cried.
+
+'However, my dear, I made all my preparations in ample time, but the
+fish didn't arrive--it never does--and I wanted Rene to ride to Pevensey
+and bring it himself. He had gone over to Jerry, of course, as he always
+used, unless I requested his presence beforehand. I can't send for Rene
+every time I want him. He should be there. Now, don't you ever do what I
+did, child, because it's in the highest degree unladylike; but--but
+one of our Woods runs up to Jerry's garden, and if you climb--it's
+ungenteel, but I can climb like a kitten--there's an old hollow oak
+just above the pigsty where you can hear and see everything below.
+Truthfully, I only went to tell Rene about the mackerel, but I saw him
+and Jerry sitting on the seat playing with wooden toy trumpets. So I
+slipped into the hollow, and choked down my cough, and listened. Rene
+had never shown me any of these trumpets.'
+
+'Trumpets? Aren't you too old for trumpets?' said Una.
+
+'They weren't real trumpets, because Jerry opened his short-collar, and
+Rene put one end of his trumpet against Jerry's chest, and put his
+ear to the other. Then Jerry put his trumpet against Rene's chest, and
+listened while Rene breathed and coughed. I was afraid I would cough
+too.
+
+'"This hollywood one is the best," said Jerry. "'Tis won'erful like
+hearin' a man's soul whisperin' in his innards; but unless I've a
+buzzin' in my ears, Mosheur Lanark, you make much about the same kind o'
+noises as old Gaffer Macklin--but not quite so loud as young Copper. It
+sounds like breakers on a reef--a long way off. Comprenny?"
+
+'"Perfectly," said Rene. "I drive on the breakers. But before I strike,
+I shall save hundreds, thousands, millions perhaps, by my little
+trumpets. Now tell me what sounds the old Gaffer Macklin have made in
+his chest, and what the young Copper also."
+
+'Jerry talked for nearly a quarter of an hour about sick people in the
+village, while Rene asked questions. Then he sighed, and said, "You
+explain very well, Monsieur Gamm, but if only I had your opportunities
+to listen for myself! Do you think these poor people would let me listen
+to them through my trumpet--for a little money? No?"--Rene's as poor as
+a church mouse.
+
+'"They'd kill you, Mosheur. It's all I can do to coax 'em to abide it,
+and I'm Jerry Gamm," said Jerry. He's very proud of his attainments.
+
+'"Then these poor people are alarmed--No?" said Rene.
+
+'"They've had it in at me for some time back because o' my tryin' your
+trumpets on their sick; and I reckon by the talk at the alehouse they
+won't stand much more. Tom Dunch an' some of his kidney was drinkin'
+themselves riot-ripe when I passed along after noon. Charms an'
+mutterin's an' bits o' red wool an' black hens is in the way o' nature
+to these fools, Mosheur; but anything likely to do 'em real service is
+devil's work by their estimation. If I was you, I'd go home before they
+come." Jerry spoke quite quietly, and Rene shrugged his shoulders.
+
+'"I am prisoner on parole, Monsieur Gamm," he said. "I have no home."
+
+'Now that was unkind of Rene. He's often told me that he looked on
+England as his home. I suppose it's French politeness.
+
+'"Then we'll talk o' something that matters," said Jerry. "Not to name
+no names, Mosheur Lanark, what might be your own opinion o' some one
+who ain't old Gaffer Macklin nor young Copper? Is that person better or
+worse?"
+
+'"Better--for time that is," said Rene. He meant for the time being, but
+I never could teach him some phrases.
+
+'"I thought so too," said Jerry. "But how about time to come?"
+
+'Rene shook his head, and then he blew his nose. You don't know how odd a
+man looks blowing his nose when you are sitting directly above him.
+
+'"I've thought that too," said Jerry. He rumbled so deep I could scarcely
+catch. "It don't make much odds to me, because I'm old. But you're
+young, Mosheur--you're young," and he put his hand on Rene's knee, and
+Rene covered it with his hand. I didn't know they were such friends.
+
+'"Thank you, mon ami," said Rene. "I am much oblige. Let us return to
+our trumpet-making. But I forget"--he stood up--"it appears that you
+receive this afternoon!"
+
+'You can't see into Gamm's Lane from the oak, but the gate opened, and
+fat little Doctor Break stumped in, mopping his head, and half-a-dozen
+of our people following him, very drunk.
+
+'You ought to have seen Rene bow; he does it beautifully.
+
+'"A word with you, Laennec," said Doctor Break. "Jerry has been
+practising some devilry or other on these poor wretches, and they've
+asked me to be arbiter."
+
+'"Whatever that means, I reckon it's safer than asking you to be
+doctor," said Jerry, and Tom Dunch, one of our carters, laughed.
+
+'"That ain't right feeling of you, Tom," Jerry said, "seeing how clever
+Doctor Break put away your thorn in the flesh last winter." Tom's wife
+had died at Christmas, though Doctor Break bled her twice a week. Doctor
+Break danced with rage.
+
+'"This is all beside the mark," he said. "These good people are willing
+to testify that you've been impudently prying into God's secrets by
+means of some papistical contrivance which this person"--he pointed
+to poor Rene--"has furnished you with. Why, here are the things
+themselves!" Rene was holding a trumpet in his hand.
+
+'Then all the men talked at once. They said old Gaffer Macklin was dying
+from stitches in his side where Jerry had put the trumpet--they called
+it the devil's ear-piece; and they said it left round red witch-marks on
+people's skins, and dried up their lights, and made 'em spit blood, and
+threw 'em into sweats. Terrible things they said. You never heard such a
+noise. I took advantage of it to cough.
+
+'Rene and Jerry were standing with their backs to the pigsty. Jerry
+fumbled in his big flap pockets and fished up a pair of pistols. You
+ought to have seen the men give back when he cocked his. He passed one
+to Rene.
+
+'"Wait! Wait!" said Rene. "I will explain to the doctor if he permits."
+He waved a trumpet at him, and the men at the gate shouted, "Don't touch
+it, Doctor! Don't lay a hand to the thing."
+
+'"Come, come!" said Rene. "You are not so big fool as you pretend. No?"
+
+'Doctor Break backed toward the gate, watching Jerry's pistol, and Rene
+followed him with his trumpet, like a nurse trying to amuse a child, and
+put the ridiculous thing to his ear to show how it was used, and talked
+of la Gloire, and l'Humanite, and la Science, while Doctor Break watched
+jerry's pistol and swore. I nearly laughed aloud.
+
+'"Now listen! Now listen!" said Rene. "This will be moneys in your
+pockets, my dear confrere. You will become rich."
+
+'Then Doctor Break said something about adventurers who could not earn
+an honest living in their own country creeping into decent houses and
+taking advantage of gentlemen's confidence to enrich themselves by base
+intrigues.
+
+'Rene dropped his absurd trumpet and made one of his best bows. I knew
+he was angry from the way he rolled his "r's."
+
+'"Ver-r-ry good," said he. "For that I shall have much pleasure to
+kill you now and here. Monsieur Gamm,"--another bow to Jerry--"you will
+please lend him your pistol, or he shall have mine. I give you my word I
+know not which is best; and if he will choose a second from his friends
+over there"--another bow to our drunken yokels at the gate--"we will
+commence."
+
+'"That's fair enough," said Jerry. "Tom Dunch, you owe it to the Doctor
+to be his second. Place your man." '"No," said Tom. "No mixin' in
+gentry's quarrels for me." And he shook his head and went out, and the
+others followed him.
+
+'"Hold on," said Jerry. "You've forgot what you set out to do up at the
+alehouse just now. You was goin' to search me for witch-marks; you
+was goin' to duck me in the pond; you was goin' to drag all my bits
+o' sticks out o' my little cottage here. What's the matter with you?
+Wouldn't you like to be with your old woman tonight, Tom?"
+
+'But they didn't even look back, much less come. They ran to the village
+alehouse like hares.
+
+'"No matter for these canaille," said Rene, buttoning up his coat so
+as not to show any linen. All gentlemen do that before a duel, Dad
+says--and he's been out five times. "You shall be his second, Monsieur
+Gamm. Give him the pistol."
+
+'Doctor Break took it as if it was red-hot, but he said that if Rene
+resigned his pretensions in certain quarters he would pass over the
+matter. Rene bowed deeper than ever.
+
+'"As for that," he said, "if you were not the ignorant which you are,
+you would have known long ago that the subject of your remarks is not
+for any living man."
+
+'I don't know what the subject of his remarks might have been, but he
+spoke in a simply dreadful voice, my dear, and Doctor Break turned quite
+white, and said Rene was a liar; and then Rene caught him by the throat,
+and choked him black.
+
+'Well, my dear, as if this wasn't deliciously exciting enough, just
+exactly at that minute I heard a strange voice on the other side of
+the hedge say, "What's this? What's this, Bucksteed?" and there was my
+father and Sir Arthur Wesley on horseback in the lane; and there was
+Rene kneeling on Doctor Break, and there was I up in the oak, listening
+with all my ears.
+
+'I must have leaned forward too much, and the voice gave me such a
+start that I slipped. I had only time to make one jump on to the pigsty
+roof--another, before the tiles broke, on to the pigsty wall--and then
+I bounced down into the garden, just behind Jerry, with my hair full of
+bark. Imagine the situation!'
+
+'Oh, I can!' Una laughed till she nearly fell off the stool.
+
+'Dad said, "Phil--a--del--phia!" and Sir Arthur Wesley said, "Good Ged"
+and Jerry put his foot on the pistol Rene had dropped. But Rene was
+splendid. He never even looked at me. He began to untwist Doctor Break's
+neckcloth as fast as he'd twisted it, and asked him if he felt better.
+
+'"What's happened? What's happened?" said Dad.
+
+'"A fit!" said Rene. "I fear my confrere has had a fit. Do not be
+alarmed. He recovers himself. Shall I bleed you a little, my dear
+Doctor?" Doctor Break was very good too. He said, "I am vastly obliged,
+Monsieur Laennec, but I am restored now." And as he went out of the
+gate he told Dad it was a syncope--I think. Then Sir Arthur said, "Quite
+right, Bucksteed. Not another word! They are both gentlemen." And he
+took off his cocked hat to Doctor Break and Rene.
+
+'But poor Dad wouldn't let well alone. He kept saying, "Philadelphia,
+what does all this mean?"
+
+'"Well, sir," I said, "I've only just come down. As far as I could see,
+it looked as though Doctor Break had had a sudden seizure." That was
+quite true--if you'd seen Rene seize him. Sir Arthur laughed. "Not much
+change there, Bucksteed," he said. "She's a lady--a thorough lady."
+
+'"Heaven knows she doesn't look like one," said poor Dad. "Go home,
+Philadelphia."
+
+'So I went home, my dear--don't laugh so!---right under Sir Arthur's
+nose--a most enormous nose--feeling as though I were twelve years old,
+going to be whipped. Oh, I beg your pardon, child!'
+
+'It's all right,' said Una. 'I'm getting on for thirteen. I've never
+been whipped, but I know how you felt. All the same, it must have been
+funny!'
+
+'Funny! If you'd heard Sir Arthur jerking out, "Good Ged, Bucksteed!"
+every minute as they rode behind me; and poor Dad saying, '"'Pon my
+honour, Arthur, I can't account for it!" Oh, how my cheeks tingled when
+I reached my room! But Cissie had laid out my very best evening dress,
+the white satin one, vandyked at the bottom with spots of morone foil,
+and the pearl knots, you know, catching up the drapery from the left
+shoulder. I had poor mother's lace tucker and her coronet comb.'
+
+'Oh, you lucky!' Una murmured. 'And gloves?'
+
+'French kid, my dear'--Philadelphia patted her shoulder--'and morone
+satin shoes and a morone and gold crape fan. That restored my calm. Nice
+things always do. I wore my hair banded on my forehead with a little
+curl over the left ear. And when I descended the stairs, en grande
+tenue, old Amoore curtsied to me without my having to stop and look at
+her, which, alas! is too often the case. Sir Arthur highly approved
+of the dinner, my dear: the mackerel did come in time. We had all the
+Marklake silver out, and he toasted my health, and he asked me where
+my little bird's-nesting sister was. I know he did it to quiz me, so I
+looked him straight in the face, my dear, and I said, "I always send her
+to the nursery, Sir Arthur, when I receive guests at Marklake Hall."'
+
+'Oh, how chee--clever of you. What did he say?' Una cried. 'He said,
+"Not much change there, Bucksteed. Ged, I deserved it," and he toasted
+me again. They talked about the French and what a shame it was that Sir
+Arthur only commanded a brigade at Hastings, and he told Dad of a battle
+in India at a place called Assaye. Dad said it was a terrible fight, but
+Sir Arthur described it as though it had been a whist-party--I suppose
+because a lady was present.'
+
+'Of course you were the lady. I wish I'd seen you,'said Una.
+
+'I wish you had, child. I had such a triumph after dinner. Rene and
+Doctor Break came in. They had quite made up their quarrel, and they
+told me they had the highest esteem for each other, and I laughed and
+said, "I heard every word of it up in the tree." You never saw two men
+so frightened in your life, and when I said, "What was 'the subject of
+your remarks,' Rene?" neither of them knew where to look. Oh, I quizzed
+them unmercifully. They'd seen me jump off the pigsty roof, remember.'
+
+'But what was the subject of their remarks?' said Una.
+
+'Oh, Doctor Break said it was a professional matter, so the laugh
+was turned on me. I was horribly afraid it might have been something
+unladylike and indelicate. But that wasn't my triumph. Dad asked me to
+play on the harp. Between just you and me, child, I had been practising
+a new song from London--I don't always live in trees--for weeks; and I
+gave it them for a surprise.'
+
+'What was it?'said Una. 'Sing it.'
+
+'"I have given my heart to a flower." Not very difficult fingering, but
+r-r-ravishing sentiment.'
+
+Philadelphia coughed and cleared her throat.
+
+'I've a deep voice for my age and size,' she explained. 'Contralto, you
+know, but it ought to be stronger,' and she began, her face all dark
+against the last of the soft pink sunset:
+
+     'I have given my heart to a flower,
+     Though I know it is fading away,
+     Though I know it will live but an hour
+     And leave me to mourn its decay!
+
+'Isn't that touchingly sweet? Then the last verse--I wish I had my harp,
+dear--goes as low as my register will reach.'She drew in her chin, and
+took a deep breath:
+
+     'Ye desolate whirlwinds that rave,
+     I charge you be good to my dear!
+     She is all--she is all that I have,
+     And the time of our parting is near!'
+
+'Beautiful!' said Una. 'And did they like it?' 'Like it? They were
+overwhelmed--accables, as Rene says. My dear, if I hadn't seen it, I
+shouldn't have believed that I could have drawn tears, genuine tears, to
+the eyes of four grown men. But I did! Rene simply couldn't endure
+it! He's all French sensibility. He hid his face and said, "Assez,
+Mademoiselle! C'est plus fort que moi! Assez!" And Sir Arthur blew his
+nose and said, "Good Ged! This is worse than Assaye!" While Dad sat with
+the tears simply running down his cheeks.'
+
+'And what did Doctor Break do?'
+
+'He got up and pretended to look out of the window, but I saw his little
+fat shoulders jerk as if he had the hiccoughs. That was a triumph. I
+never suspected him of sensibility.'
+
+'Oh, I wish I'd seen! I wish I'd been you,'said Una, clasping her
+hands. Puck rustled and rose from the fern, just as a big blundering
+cock-chafer flew smack against Una's cheek.
+
+When she had finished rubbing the place, Mrs Vincey called to her that
+Pansy had been fractious, or she would have come long before to help her
+strain and pour off. 'It didn't matter,' said Una; 'I just waited. Is
+that old Pansy barging about the lower pasture now?'
+
+'No,' said Mrs Vincey, listening. 'It sounds more like a horse being
+galloped middlin' quick through the woods; but there's no road there.
+I reckon it's one of Gleason's colts loose. Shall I see you up to the
+house, Miss Una?'
+
+'Gracious, no! thank you. What's going to hurt me?' said Una, and she
+put her stool away behind the oak, and strolled home through the gaps
+that old Hobden kept open for her.
+
+
+
+
+Brookland Road
+
+
+     I was very well pleased with what I knowed,
+     I reckoned myself no fool--
+     Till I met with a maid on the Brookland Road
+     That turned me back to school.
+
+          Low down--low down!
+          Where the liddle green lanterns shine--
+          Oh!  maids, I've done with 'ee all but one,
+          And she can never be mine!
+     'Twas right in the middest of a hot June night,
+     With thunder duntin' round,
+     And I seed her face by the fairy light
+     That beats from off the ground.
+
+     She only smiled and she never spoke,
+     She smiled and went away;
+     But when she'd gone my heart was broke,
+     And my wits was clean astray.
+
+     Oh!  Stop your ringing and let me be--
+     Let be, O Brookland bells!
+     You'll ring Old Goodman * out of the sea,
+     Before I wed one else!
+
+     Old Goodman's farm is rank sea sand,
+     And was this thousand year;
+     But it shall turn to rich plough land
+     Before I change my dear!
+
+     Oh!  Fairfield Church is water-bound
+     From Autumn to the Spring;
+     But it shall turn to high hill ground
+     Before my bells do ring!
+
+     Oh!  leave me walk on the Brookland Road,
+     In the thunder and warm rain--
+     Oh!  leave me look where my love goed
+     And p'raps I'll see her again!
+          Low down--low down!
+          Where the liddle green lanterns shine--
+          Oh!  maids, I've done with 'ee all but one,
+          And she can never be mine!
+
+
+               *Earl Godwin of the Goodwin Sands(?)
+
+
+
+
+THE KNIFE AND THE NAKED CHALK
+
+
+
+
+The Run of the Downs
+
+
+     The Weald is good, the Downs are best--
+     I'll give you the run of 'em, East to West.
+     Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill,
+     They were once and they are still.
+     Firle, Mount Caburn and Mount Harry
+     Go back as far as sums'll carry.
+     Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring,
+     They have looked on many a thing;
+     And what those two have missed between 'em
+     I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen 'em.
+     Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down
+     Knew Old England before the Crown.
+     Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood
+     Knew Old England before the Flood.
+     And when you end on the Hampshire side--
+     Butser's old as Time and Tide.
+     The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn,
+     You be glad you are Sussex born!
+
+
+
+
+The Knife and the Naked Chalk
+
+
+The children went to the seaside for a month, and lived in a flint
+village on the bare windy chalk Downs, quite thirty miles away from
+home. They made friends with an old shepherd, called Mr Dudeney, who had
+known their Father when their Father was little. He did not talk like
+their own people in the Weald of Sussex, and he used different names for
+farm things, but he understood how they felt, and let them go with him.
+He had a tiny cottage about half a mile from the village, where his wife
+made mead from thyme honey, and nursed sick lambs in front of a coal
+fire, while Old Jim, who was Mr Dudeney's sheep-dog's father, lay at
+the door. They brought up beef bones for Old Jim (you must never give
+a sheep-dog mutton bones), and if Mr Dudeney happened to be far in the
+Downs, Mrs Dudeney would tell the dog to take them to him, and he did.
+
+One August afternoon when the village water-cart had made the street
+smell specially townified, they went to look for their shepherd as
+usual, and, as usual, Old Jim crawled over the doorstep and took them
+in charge. The sun was hot, the dry grass was very slippery, and the
+distances were very distant.
+
+'It's Just like the sea,' said Una, when Old Jim halted in the shade
+of a lonely flint barn on a bare rise. 'You see where you're going,
+and--you go there, and there's nothing between.'
+
+Dan slipped off his shoes. 'When we get home I shall sit in the woods
+all day,' he said.
+
+'Whuff!' said Old Jim, to show he was ready, and struck across a long
+rolling stretch of turf. Presently he asked for his beefbone.
+
+'Not yet,' said Dan. 'Where's Mr Dudeney? Where's Master?' Old Jim
+looked as if he thought they were mad, and asked again.
+
+'Don't you give it him,' Una cried. 'I'm not going to be left howling in
+a desert.'
+
+'Show, boy! Show!' said Dan, for the Downs seemed as bare as the palm of
+your hand.
+
+Old Jim sighed, and trotted forward. Soon they spied the blob of Mr
+Dudeney's hat against the sky a long way off.
+
+'Right! All right!' said Dan. Old Jim wheeled round, took his bone
+carefully between his blunted teeth, and returned to the shadow of the
+old barn, looking just like a wolf. The children went on. Two kestrels
+hung bivvering and squealing above them. A gull flapped lazily along the
+white edge of the cliffs. The curves of the Downs shook a little in the
+heat, and so did Mr Dudeney's distant head.
+
+They walked toward it very slowly and found themselves staring into
+a horseshoe-shaped hollow a hundred feet deep, whose steep sides were
+laced with tangled sheep-tracks. The flock grazed on the flat at the
+bottom, under charge of Young Jim. Mr Dudeney sat comfortably knitting
+on the edge of the slope, his crook between his knees. They told him
+what Old Jim had done.
+
+'Ah, he thought you could see my head as soon as he did. The closeter
+you be to the turf the more you see things. You look warm-like,'said Mr
+Dudeney.
+
+'We be,' said Una, flopping down. 'And tired.'
+
+'Set beside o' me here. The shadow'll begin to stretch out in a little
+while, and a heat-shake o' wind will come up with it that'll overlay
+your eyes like so much wool.'
+
+'We don't want to sleep,' said Una indignantly; but she settled herself
+as she spoke, in the first strip of early afternoon shade.
+
+'O' course not. You come to talk with me same as your father used. He
+didn't need no dog to guide him to Norton Pit.'
+
+'Well, he belonged here,' said Dan, and laid himself down at length on
+the turf.
+
+'He did. And what beats me is why he went off to live among them messy
+trees in the Weald, when he might ha' stayed here and looked all about
+him. There's no profit to trees. They draw the lightning, and sheep
+shelter under 'em, and so, like as not, you'll lose a half-score ewes
+struck dead in one storm. Tck! Your father knew that.'
+
+'Trees aren't messy.' Una rose on her elbow. 'And what about firewood? I
+don't like coal.'
+
+'Eh? You lie a piece more uphill and you'll lie more natural,' said Mr
+Dudeney, with his provoking deaf smile. 'Now press your face down and
+smell to the turf. That's Southdown thyme which makes our Southdown
+mutton beyond compare, and, my mother told me, 'twill cure anything
+except broken necks, or hearts. I forget which.'
+
+They sniffed, and somehow forgot to lift their cheeks from the soft
+thymy cushions.
+
+'You don't get nothing like that in the Weald. Watercress, maybe?' said
+Mr Dudeney.
+
+'But we've water--brooks full of it--where you paddle in hot weather,'
+Una replied, watching a yellow-and-violet-banded snail-shell close to
+her eye.
+
+'Brooks flood. Then you must shift your sheep--let alone foot-rot
+afterward. I put more dependence on a dew-pond any day.'
+
+'How's a dew-pond made?' said Dan, and tilted his hat over his eyes. Mr
+Dudeney explained.
+
+The air trembled a little as though it could not make up its mind
+whether to slide into the Pit or move across the open. But it seemed
+easiest to go downhill, and the children felt one soft puff after
+another slip and sidle down the slope in fragrant breaths that baffed on
+their eyelids. The little whisper of the sea by the cliffs joined with
+the whisper of the wind over the grass, the hum of insects in the thyme,
+the ruffle and rustle of the flock below, and a thickish mutter deep in
+the very chalk beneath them. Mr Dudeney stopped explaining, and went
+on with his knitting. They were roused by voices. The shadow had crept
+halfway down the steep side of Norton Pit, and on the edge of it, his
+back to them, Puck sat beside a half-naked man who seemed busy at some
+work. The wind had dropped, and in that funnel of ground every least
+noise and movement reached them like whispers up a water-Pipe.
+
+'That is clever,' said Puck, leaning over. 'How truly you shape it!'
+
+'Yes, but what does The Beast care for a brittle flint tip? Bah!' The
+man flicked something contemptuously over his shoulder. It fell between
+Dan and Una--a beautiful dark-blue flint arrow-head still hot from the
+maker's hand.
+
+The man reached for another stone, and worked away like a thrush with a
+snail-shell.
+
+'Flint work is fool's work,' he said at last. 'One does it because one
+always did it; but when it comes to dealing with The Beast--no good!' He
+shook his shaggy head. 'The Beast was dealt with long ago. He has gone,'
+said Puck.
+
+'He'll be back at lambing time. I know him.' He chipped very carefully,
+and the flints squeaked.
+
+'Not he. Children can lie out on the Chalk now all day through and go
+home safe.'
+
+'Can they? Well, call The Beast by his True Name, and I'll believe it,'
+the man replied. 'Surely!' Puck leaped to his feet, curved his hands
+round his mouth and shouted: 'Wolf! Wolf!'
+
+Norton Pit threw back the echo from its dry sides--'Wuff!' Wuff!' like
+Young jim's bark.
+
+'You see? You hear?' said Puck. 'Nobody answers. Grey Shepherd is gone.
+Feet-in-the-Night has run off. There are no more wolves.'
+
+'Wonderful!' The man wiped his forehead as though he were hot. 'Who
+drove him away? You?'
+
+'Many men through many years, each working in his own country. Were you
+one of them?' Puck answered.
+
+The man slid his sheepskin cloak to his waist, and without a word
+pointed to his side, which was all seamed and blotched with scars.
+His arms, too, were dimpled from shoulder to elbow with horrible white
+dimples.
+
+'I see,' said Puck. 'It is The Beast's mark. What did you use against
+him?' 'Hand, hammer, and spear, as our fathers did before us.'
+
+'So? Then how'--Puck twitched aside the man's dark-brown cloak--'how did
+a Flint-worker come by that? Show, man, show!' He held out his little
+hand.
+
+The man slipped a long dark iron knife, almost a short sword, from his
+belt, and after breathing on it, handed it hilt-first to Puck, who took
+it with his head on one side, as you should when you look at the works
+of a watch, squinted down the dark blade, and very delicately rubbed his
+forefinger from the point to the hilt.
+
+'Good!' said he, in a surprised tone.
+
+'It should be. The Children of the Night made it,' the man answered.
+
+'So I see by the iron. What might it have cost you?'
+
+'This!' The man raised his hand to his cheek. Puck whistled like a Weald
+starling.
+
+'By the Great Rings of the Chalk!' he cried. 'Was that your price? Turn
+sunward that I may see better, and shut your eye.' He slipped his hand
+beneath the man's chin and swung him till he faced the children up the
+slope. They saw that his right eye was gone, and the eyelid lay shrunk.
+Quickly Puck turned him round again, and the two sat down.
+
+'It was for the sheep. The sheep are the people,' said the man, in an
+ashamed voice. 'What else could I have done? You know, Old One.'
+
+Puck sighed a little fluttering sigh. 'Take the knife. I listen.' The
+man bowed his head, drove the knife into the turf, and while it still
+quivered said: 'This is witness between us that I speak the thing that
+has been. Before my Knife and the Naked Chalk I speak. Touch!'
+
+Puck laid a hand on the hilt. It stopped shaking. The children wriggled
+a little nearer.
+
+'I am of the People of the Worked Flint. I am the one son of the
+Priestess who sells the Winds to the Men of the Sea. I am the Buyer
+of the Knife--the Keeper of the People,' the man began, in a sort of
+singing shout. 'These are my names in this country of the Naked Chalk,
+between the Trees and the Sea.'
+
+'Yours was a great country. Your names are great too,' said Puck.
+
+'One cannot feed some things on names and songs.' The man hit himself
+on the chest. 'It is better--always better--to count one's children safe
+round the fire, their Mother among them.'
+
+'Ahai!' said Puck. 'I think this will be a very old tale.' 'I warm
+myself and eat at any fire that I choose, but there is no one to light
+me a fire or cook my meat. I sold all that when I bought the Magic Knife
+for my people. It was not right that The Beast should master man. What
+else could I have done?'
+
+'I hear. I know. I listen,' said Puck.
+
+'When I was old enough to take my place in the Sheepguard, The Beast
+gnawed all our country like a bone between his teeth. He came in behind
+the flocks at watering-time, and watched them round the Dew-ponds; he
+leaped into the folds between our knees at the shearing; he walked out
+alongside the grazing flocks, and chose his meat on the hoof while our
+boys threw flints at him; he crept by night 'into the huts, and licked
+the babe from between the mother's hands; he called his companions and
+pulled down men in broad daylight on the Naked Chalk. No--not always did
+he do so! This was his cunning! He would go away for a while to let us
+forget him. A year--two years perhaps--we neither smelt, nor heard, nor
+saw him. When our flocks had increased; when our men did not always
+look behind them; when children strayed from the fenced places; when our
+women walked alone to draw water--back, back, back came the Curse of
+the Chalk, Grey Shepherd, Feet-in-the-Night--The Beast, The Beast, The
+Beast!
+
+'He laughed at our little brittle arrows and our poor blunt spears. He
+learned to run in under the stroke of the hammer. I think he knew when
+there was a flaw in the flint. Often it does not show till you bring it
+down on his snout. Then--Pouf!---the false flint falls all to flinders,
+and you are left with the hammer-handle in your fist, and his teeth in
+your flank! I have felt them. At evening, too, in the dew, or when it
+has misted and rained, your spear-head lashings slack off, though you
+have kept them beneath your cloak all day. You are alone--but so close
+to the home ponds that you stop to tighten the sinews with hands, teeth,
+and a piece of driftwood. You bend over and pull--so! That is the minute
+for which he has followed you since the stars went out. "Aarh!" he
+"Wurr-aarh!" he says.' (Norton Pit gave back the growl like a pack of
+real wolves.) 'Then he is on your right shoulder feeling for the vein
+in your neck, and--perhaps your sheep run on without you. To fight
+The Beast is nothing, but to be despised by The Beast when he fights
+you--that is like his teeth in the heart! Old One, why is it that men
+desire so greatly, and can do so little?'
+
+'I do not know. Did you desire so much?' said Puck.
+
+'I desired to master The Beast. It is not right that The Beast should
+master man. But my people were afraid. Even, my Mother, the Priestess,
+was afraid when I told her what I desired. We were accustomed to be
+afraid of The Beast. When I was made a man, and a maiden--she was a
+Priestess--waited for me at the Dew-ponds, The Beast flitted from off
+the Chalk. Perhaps it was a sickness; perhaps he had gone to his Gods to
+learn how to do us new harm. But he went, and we breathed more freely.
+The women sang again; the children were not so much guarded; our flocks
+grazed far out. I took mine yonder'--he pointed inland to the hazy
+line of the Weald--'where the new grass was best. They grazed north. I
+followed till we were close to the Trees'--he lowered his voice--'close
+there where the Children of the Night live.' He pointed north again.
+
+'Ah, now I remember a thing,' said Puck. 'Tell me, why did your people
+fear the Trees so extremely?'
+
+'Because the Gods hate the Trees and strike them with lightning. We can
+see them burning for days all along the Chalk's edge. Besides, all the
+Chalk knows that the Children of the Night, though they worship our
+Gods, are magicians. When a man goes into their country, they change his
+spirit; they put words into his mouth; they make him like talking water.
+But a voice in my heart told me to go toward the north. While I watched
+my sheep there I saw three Beasts chasing a man, who ran toward the
+Trees. By this I knew he was a Child of the Night. We Flint-workers fear
+the Trees more than we fear The Beast. He had no hammer. He carried a
+knife like this one. A Beast leaped at him. He stretched out his knife.
+The Beast fell dead. The other Beasts ran away howling, which they would
+never have done from a Flint-worker. The man went in among the Trees. I
+looked for the dead Beast. He had been killed in a new way--by a single
+deep, clean cut, without bruise or tear, which had split his bad heart.
+Wonderful! So I saw that the man's knife was magic, and I thought how to
+get it,--thought strongly how to get it.
+
+'When I brought the flocks to the shearing, my Mother the Priestess
+asked me, "What is the new thing which you have seen and I see in your
+face?" I said, "It is a sorrow to me"; and she answered, "All new things
+are sorrow. Sit in my place, and eat sorrow." I sat down in her place by
+the fire, where she talks to the ghosts in winter, and two voices spoke
+in my heart. One voice said, "Ask the Children of the Night for the
+Magic Knife. It is not fit that The Beast should master man." I listened
+to that voice.
+
+'One voice said, "If you go among the Trees, the Children of the Night
+will change your spirit. Eat and sleep here." The other voice said, "Ask
+for the Knife." I listened to that voice.
+
+'I said to my Mother in the morning, "I go away to find a thing for the
+people, but I do not know whether I shall return in my own shape." She
+answered, "Whether you live or die, or are made different, I am your
+Mother."
+
+'True,' said Puck. 'The Old Ones themselves cannot change men's mothers
+even if they would.'
+
+'Let us thank the Old Ones! I spoke to my Maiden, the Priestess who
+waited for me at the Dew-ponds. She promised fine things too.' The man
+laughed. 'I went away to that place where I had seen the magician with
+the knife. I lay out two days on the short grass before I ventured among
+the Trees. I felt my way before me with a stick. I was afraid of the
+terrible talking Trees. I was afraid of the ghosts in the branches; of
+the soft ground underfoot; of the red and black waters. I was afraid,
+above all, of the Change. It came!'
+
+They saw him wipe his forehead once again, and his strong back-muscles
+quivered till he laid his hand on the knife-hilt.
+
+'A fire without a flame burned in my head; an evil taste grew in my
+mouth; my eyelids shut hot over my eyes; my breath was hot between my
+teeth, and my hands were like the hands of a stranger. I was made to
+sing songs and to mock the Trees, though I was afraid of them. At the
+same time I saw myself laughing, and I was very sad for this fine young
+man, who was myself. Ah! The Children of the Night know magic.'
+
+'I think that is done by the Spirits of the Mist. They change a man, if
+he sleeps among them,' said Puck. 'Had you slept in any mists?'
+
+'Yes--but I know it was the Children of the Night. After three days I
+saw a red light behind the Trees, and I heard a heavy noise. I saw the
+Children of the Night dig red stones from a hole, and lay them in fires.
+The stones melted like tallow, and the men beat the soft stuff with
+hammers. I wished to speak to these men, but the words were changed in
+my mouth, and all I could say was, "Do not make that noise. It hurts my
+head." By this I knew that I was bewitched, and I clung to the Trees,
+and prayed the Children of the Night to take off their spells. They were
+cruel. They asked me many questions which they would never allow me to
+answer. They changed my words between my teeth till I wept. Then they
+led me into a hut and covered the floor with hot stones and dashed water
+on the stones, and sang charms till the sweat poured off me like
+water. I slept. When I waked, my own spirit--not the strange, shouting
+thing--was back in my body, and I was like a cool bright stone on the
+shingle between the sea and the sunshine. The magicians came to hear
+me--women and men--each wearing a Magic Knife. Their Priestess was their
+Ears and their Mouth.
+
+'I spoke. I spoke many words that went smoothly along like sheep in
+order when their shepherd, standing on a mound, can count those coming,
+and those far off getting ready to come. I asked for Magic Knives for my
+people. I said that my people would bring meat, and milk, and wool, and
+lay them in the short grass outside the Trees, if the Children of the
+Night would leave Magic Knives for our people to take away. They
+were pleased. Their Priestess said, "For whose sake have you come?" I
+answered, "The sheep are the people. If The Beast kills our sheep, our
+people die. So I come for a Magic Knife to kill The Beast."
+
+'She said, "We do not know if our God will let us trade with the people
+of the Naked Chalk. Wait till we have asked."
+
+'When they came back from the Question-place (their Gods are our Gods),
+their Priestess said, "The God needs a proof that your words are true."
+I said, "What is the proof?" She said, "The God says that if you have
+come for the sake of your people you will give him your right eye to be
+put out; but if you have come for any other reason you will not give it.
+This proof is between you and the God. We ourselves are sorry."
+
+'I said, "This is a hard proof. Is there no other road?"
+
+'She said, "Yes. You can go back to your people with your two eyes in
+your head if you choose. But then you will not get any Magic Knives for
+your people."
+
+'I said, "It would be easier if I knew that I were to be killed."
+
+'She said, "Perhaps the God knew this too. See! I have made my knife
+hot."
+
+'I said, "Be quick, then!" With her knife heated in the flame she put
+out my right eye. She herself did it. I am the son of a Priestess. She
+was a Priestess. It was not work for any common man.'
+
+'True! Most true,' said Puck. 'No common man's work that. And,
+afterwards?'
+
+'Afterwards I did not see out of that eye any more. I found also that a
+one eye does not tell you truly where things are. Try it!'
+
+At this Dan put his hand over one eye, and reached for the flint
+arrow-head on the grass. He missed it by inches. 'It's true,' he
+whispered to Una. 'You can't judge distances a bit with only one eye.'
+
+Puck was evidently making the same experiment, for the man laughed at
+him.
+
+'I know it is so,' said he. 'Even now I am not always sure of my blow.
+I stayed with the Children of the Night till my eye healed. They said I
+was the son of Tyr, the God who put his right hand in a Beast's mouth.
+They showed me how they melted their red stone and made the Magic Knives
+of it. They told me the charms they sang over the fires and at the
+beatings. I can sing many charms.' Then he began to laugh like a boy.
+
+'I was thinking of my journey home,' he said, 'and of the surprised
+Beast. He had come back to the Chalk. I saw him--I smelt his lairs as
+soon as ever I left the Trees. He did not know I had the Magic Knife--I
+hid it under my cloak--the Knife that the Priestess gave me. Ho! Ho!
+That happy day was too short! See! A Beast would wind me. "Wow!" he
+would say. "Here is my Flint-worker!" He would come leaping, tail
+in air; he would roll; he would lay his head between his paws out of
+merriness of heart at his warm, waiting meal. He would leap--and, oh,
+his eye in mid-leap when he saw--when he saw the knife held ready for
+him! It pierced his hide as a rush pierces curdled milk. Often he had no
+time to howl. I did not trouble to flay any beasts I killed. Sometimes
+I missed my blow. Then I took my little flint hammer and beat out his
+brains as he cowered. He made no fight. He knew the Knife! But The Beast
+is very cunning. Before evening all The Beasts had smelt the blood on my
+knife, and were running from me like hares. They knew! Then I walked as
+a man should--the Master of The Beast!
+
+'So came I back to my Mother's house. There was a lamb to be killed.
+I cut it in two halves with my knife, and I told her all my tale. She
+said, "This is the work of a God." I kissed her and laughed. I went to
+my Maiden who waited for me at the Dew-ponds. There was a lamb to be
+killed. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and told her all my tale.
+She said, "It is the work of a God." I laughed, but she pushed me away,
+and being on my blind side, ran off before I could kiss her. I went
+to the Men of the Sheepguard at watering-time. There was a sheep to be
+killed for their meat. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and told
+them all my tale. They said, "It is the work of a God." I said, "We talk
+too much about Gods. Let us eat and be happy, and tomorrow I will take
+you to the Children of the Night, and each man will find a Magic Knife."
+
+
+'I was glad to smell our sheep again; to see the broad sky from edge to
+edge, and to hear the sea. I slept beneath the stars in my cloak. The
+men talked among themselves.
+
+'I led them, the next day, to the Trees, taking with me meat, wool, and
+curdled milk, as I had promised. We found the Magic Knives laid out on
+the grass, as the Children of the Night had promised. They watched us
+from among the Trees. Their Priestess called to me and said, "How is it
+with your people?" I said "Their hearts are changed. I cannot see their
+hearts as I used to." She said, "That is because you have only one eye.
+Come to me and I will be both your eyes." But I said, "I must show my
+people how to use their knives against The Beast, as you showed me how
+to use my knife." I said this because the Magic Knife does not balance
+like the flint. She said, "What you have done, you have done for the
+sake of a woman, and not for the sake of your people." I asked of her,
+"Then why did the God accept my right eye, and why are you so angry?"
+She answered, "Because any man can lie to a God, but no man can lie to
+a woman. And I am not angry with you. I am only very sorrowful for you.
+Wait a little, and you will see out of your one eye why I am sorry." So
+she hid herself.
+
+'I went back with my people, each one carrying his Knife, and making
+it sing in the air--tssee-sssse. The Flint never sings. It
+mutters--ump-ump. The Beast heard. The Beast saw. He knew! Everywhere
+he ran away from us. We all laughed. As we walked over the grass my
+Mother's brother--the Chief on the Men's Side--he took off his Chief's
+necklace of yellow sea-stones.'
+
+'How? Eh? Oh, I remember! Amber,' said Puck.
+
+'And would have put them on my neck. I said, "No, I am content. What
+does my one eye matter if my other eye sees fat sheep and fat children
+running about safely?" My Mother's brother said to them, "I told you he
+would never take such things." Then they began to sing a song in the Old
+Tongue--The Song of Tyr. I sang with them, but my Mother's brother said,
+"This is your song, O Buyer of the Knife. Let us sing it, Tyr."
+
+'Even then I did not understand, till I saw that--that no man stepped
+on my shadow; and I knew that they thought me to be a God, like the God
+Tyr, who gave his right hand to conquer a Great Beast.'
+
+'By the Fire in the Belly of the Flint was that so?' Puck rapped out.
+
+'By my Knife and the Naked Chalk, so it was! They made way for my shadow
+as though it had been a Priestess walking to the Barrows of the Dead.
+I was afraid. I said to myself, "My Mother and my Maiden will know I am
+not Tyr." But still I was afraid, with the fear of a man who falls into
+a steep flint-pit while he runs, and feels that it will be hard to climb
+out.
+
+'When we came to the Dew-ponds all our people were there. The men showed
+their knives and told their tale. The sheep guards also had seen
+The Beast flying from us. The Beast went west across the river in
+packs--howling! He knew the Knife had come to the Naked Chalk at
+last--at last! He knew! So my work was done. I looked for my Maiden
+among the Priestesses. She looked at me, but she did not smile. She made
+the sign to me that our Priestesses must make when they sacrifice to the
+Old Dead in the Barrows. I would have spoken, but my Mother's brother
+made himself my Mouth, as though I had been one of the Old Dead in the
+Barrows for whom our Priests speak to the people on Midsummer Mornings.'
+
+'I remember. Well I remember those Midsummer Mornings!' said Puck.
+
+'Then I went away angrily to my Mother's house. She would have knelt
+before me. Then I was more angry, but she said, "Only a God would have
+spoken to me thus, a Priestess. A man would have feared the punishment
+of the Gods." I looked at her and I laughed. I could not stop my unhappy
+laughing. They called me from the door by the name of Tyr himself. A
+young man with whom I had watched my first flocks, and chipped my first
+arrow, and fought my first Beast, called me by that name in the Old
+Tongue. He asked my leave to take my Maiden. His eyes were lowered, his
+hands were on his forehead. He was full of the fear of a God, but of me,
+a man, he had no fear when he asked. I did not kill him. I said, "Call
+the maiden." She came also without fear--this very one that had waited
+for me, that had talked with me, by our Dew-ponds. Being a Priestess,
+she lifted her eyes to me. As I look on a hill or a cloud, so she looked
+at me. She spoke in the Old Tongue which Priestesses use when they make
+prayers to the Old Dead in the Barrows. She asked leave that she might
+light the fire in my companion's house--and that I should bless their
+children. I did not kill her. I heard my own voice, little and cold,
+say, "Let it be as you desire," and they went away hand in hand. My
+heart grew little and cold; a wind shouted in my ears; my eye darkened.
+I said to my Mother, "Can a God die?" I heard her say, "What is it? What
+is it, my son?" and I fell into darkness full of hammer-noises. I was
+not.'
+
+'Oh, poor--poor God!' said Puck. 'And your wise Mother?'
+
+'She knew. As soon as I dropped she knew. When my spirit came back
+I heard her whisper in my ear, "Whether you live or die, or are made
+different, I am your Mother." That was good--better even than the water
+she gave me and the going away of the sickness. Though I was ashamed to
+have fallen down, yet I was very glad. She was glad too. Neither of us
+wished to lose the other. There is only the one Mother for the one son.
+I heaped the fire for her, and barred the doors, and sat at her feet as
+before I went away, and she combed my hair, and sang.
+
+'I said at last, "What is to be done to the people who say that I am
+Tyr?"
+
+'She said, "He who has done a God-like thing must bear himself like a
+God. I see no way out of it. The people are now your sheep till you die.
+You cannot drive them off."
+
+
+'I said, "This is a heavier sheep than I can lift." She said, "In time
+it will grow easy. In time perhaps you will not lay it down for any
+maiden anywhere. Be wise--be very wise, my son, for nothing is left you
+except the words, and the songs, and the worship of a God."
+
+'Oh, poor God!' said Puck. 'But those are not altogether bad things.'
+
+'I know they are not; but I would sell them all--all--all for one small
+child of my own, smearing himself with the ashes of our own house-fire.'
+
+He wrenched his knife from the turf, thrust it into his belt and stood
+up.
+
+'And yet, what else could I have done?' he said. 'The sheep are the
+people.'
+
+'It is a very old tale,' Puck answered. 'I have heard the like of it not
+only on the Naked Chalk, but also among the Trees--under Oak, and Ash,
+and Thorn.'
+
+The afternoon shadows filled all the quiet emptiness of Norton Pit. The
+children heard the sheep-bells and Young jim's busy bark above them, and
+they scrambled up the slope to the level.
+
+'We let you have your sleep out,' said Mr Dudeney, as the flock
+scattered before them. 'It's making for tea-time now.'
+
+'Look what I've found, said Dan, and held up a little blue flint
+arrow-head as fresh as though it had been chipped that very day.
+
+'Oh,' said Mr Dudeney, 'the closeter you be to the turf the more you're
+apt to see things. I've found 'em often. Some says the fairies made 'em,
+but I says they was made by folks like ourselves--only a goodish time
+back. They're lucky to keep. Now, you couldn't ever have slept--not to
+any profit--among your father's trees same as you've laid out on Naked
+Chalk--could you?'
+
+'One doesn't want to sleep in the woods,' said Una.
+
+'Then what's the good of 'em?' said Mr Dudeney. 'Might as well set in
+the barn all day. Fetch 'em 'long, Jim boy!'
+
+The Downs, that looked so bare and hot when they came, were full of
+delicious little shadow-dimples; the smell of the thyme and the salt
+mixed together on the south-west drift from the still sea; their eyes
+dazzled with the low sun, and the long grass under it looked golden. The
+sheep knew where their fold was, so Young Jim came back to his master,
+and they all four strolled home, the scabious-heads swishing about their
+ankles, and their shadows streaking behind them like the shadows of
+giants.
+
+
+
+
+Song of the Men's Side
+
+
+     Once we feared The Beast--when he followed us we ran,
+     Ran very fast though we knew
+     It was not right that The Beast should master Man;
+     But what could we Flint-workers do?
+     The Beast only grinned at our spears round his ears--
+     Grinned at the hammers that we made;
+     But now we will hunt him for the life with the Knife--
+     And this is the Buyer of the Blade!
+
+          Room for his shadow on the grass--let it pass!
+          To left and right--stand clear!
+          This is the Buyer of the Blade--be afraid!
+          This is the great God Tyr!
+
+     Tyr thought hard till he hammered out a plan,
+     For he knew it was not right
+     (And it is not right) that The Beast should master Man;
+     So he went to the Children of the Night.
+     He begged a Magic Knife of their make for our sake.
+     When he begged for the Knife they said:
+     'The price of the Knife you would buy is an eye!'
+     And that was the price he paid.
+
+          Tell it to the Barrows of the Dead--run ahead!
+          Shout it so the Women's Side can hear!
+          This is the Buyer of the Blade--be afraid!
+          This is the great God Tyr!
+
+     Our women and our little ones may walk on the Chalk,
+     As far as we can see them and beyond.
+     We shall not be anxious for our sheep when we keep
+     Tally at the shearing-pond.
+
+     We can eat with both our elbows on our knees, if we please,
+     We can sleep after meals in the sun;
+     For Shepherd-of-the-Twilight is dismayed at the Blade,
+     Feet-in-the-Night have run!
+     Dog-without-a-Master goes away (Hai, Tyr aie!),
+     Devil-in-the-Dusk has run!
+
+     Then:
+          Room for his shadow on the grass--let it pass!
+          To left and right--stand clear!
+          This is the Buyer of the Blade--be afraid!
+          This is the great God Tyr!
+
+
+
+
+BROTHER SQUARE-TOES
+
+
+
+
+Philadelphia
+
+
+   If you're off to Philadelphia in the morning,
+   You mustn't take my stories for a guide.
+   There's little left indeed of the city you will read of,
+   And all the folk I write about have died.
+   Now few will understand if you mention Talleyrand,
+   Or remember what his cunning and his skill did.
+   And the cabmen at the wharf do not know Count Zinnendorf,
+   Nor the Church in Philadelphia he builded.
+
+        It is gone, gone, gone with lost Atlantis
+        (Never say I didn't give you warning).
+        In Seventeen Ninety-three 'twas there for all to see,
+        But it's not in Philadelphia this morning.
+
+   If you're off to Philadelphia in the morning,
+   You mustn't go by everything I've said.
+   Bob Bicknell's Southern Stages have been laid aside for ages,
+   But the Limited will take you there instead.
+   Toby Hirte can't be seen at One Hundred and Eighteen,
+   North Second Street--no matter when you call;
+   And I fear you'll search in vain for the wash-house down the lane
+   Where Pharaoh played the fiddle at the ball.
+
+        It is gone, gone, gone with Thebes the Golden
+        (Never say I didn't give you warning).
+        In Seventeen Ninety-four 'twas a famous dancing-floor--
+        But it's not in Philadelphia this morning.
+
+   If you're off to Philadelphia in the morning,
+   You must telegraph for rooms at some Hotel.
+   You needn't try your luck at Epply's or the 'Buck,'
+   Though the Father of his Country liked them well.
+   It is not the slightest use to inquire for Adam Goos,
+   Or to ask where Pastor Meder has removed--so
+   You must treat as out-of-date the story I relate
+   Of the Church in Philadelphia he loved so.
+
+        He is gone, gone, gone with Martin Luther
+        (Never say I didn't give you warning).
+        In Seventeen Ninety-five he was (rest his soul!) alive,
+        But he's not in Philadelphia this morning.
+   If you're off to Philadelphia this morning,
+   And wish to prove the truth of what I say,
+   I pledge my word you'll find the pleasant land behind
+   Unaltered since Red Jacket rode that way.
+   Still the pine-woods scent the noon; still the cat-bird sings his tune;
+   Still Autumn sets the maple-forest blazing.
+   Still the grape-vine through the dusk flings her soul-compelling musk;
+   Still the fire-flies in the corn make night amazing.
+        They are there, there, there with Earth immortal
+        (Citizens, I give you friendly warning).
+        The things that truly last when men and times have passed,
+        They are all in Pennsylvania this morning!
+
+
+
+
+Brother Square-Toes
+
+
+It was almost the end of their visit to the seaside. They had turned
+themselves out of doors while their trunks were being packed, and
+strolled over the Downs towards the dull evening sea. The tide was dead
+low under the chalk cliffs, and the little wrinkled waves grieved along
+the sands up the coast to Newhaven and down the coast to long, grey
+Brighton, whose smoke trailed out across the Channel.
+
+They walked to The Gap, where the cliff is only a few feet high. A
+windlass for hoisting shingle from the beach below stands at the edge of
+it. The Coastguard cottages are a little farther on, and an old ship's
+figurehead of a Turk in a turban stared at them over the wall. 'This
+time tomorrow we shall be at home, thank goodness,' said Una. 'I hate
+the sea!'
+
+'I believe it's all right in the middle,' said Dan. 'The edges are the
+sorrowful parts.'
+
+Cordery, the coastguard, came out of the cottage, levelled his telescope
+at some fishing-boats, shut it with a click and walked away. He grew
+smaller and smaller along the edge of the cliff, where neat piles of
+white chalk every few yards show the path even on the darkest night.
+'Where's Cordery going?'said Una.
+
+'Half-way to Newhaven,'said Dan. 'Then he'll meet the Newhaven
+coastguard and turn back. He says if coastguards were done away with,
+smuggling would start up at once.'
+
+A voice on the beach under the cliff began to sing:
+
+     'The moon she shined on Telscombe Tye--
+     On Telscombe Tye at night it was--
+     She saw the smugglers riding by,
+     A very pretty sight it was!'
+
+Feet scrabbled on the flinty path. A dark, thin-faced man in very neat
+brown clothes and broad-toed shoes came up, followed by Puck.
+
+     'Three Dunkirk boats was standin' in!'
+
+the man went on. 'Hssh!' said Puck. 'You'll shock these nice young
+people.'
+
+'Oh! Shall I? Mille pardons!' He shrugged his shoulders almost up to his
+ears--spread his hands abroad, and jabbered in French. 'No comprenny?'
+he said. 'I'll give it you in Low German.' And he went off in another
+language, changing his voice and manner so completely that they hardly
+knew him for the same person. But his dark beady-brown eyes still
+twinkled merrily in his lean face, and the children felt that they did
+not suit the straight, plain, snuffy-brown coat, brown knee-breeches,
+and broad-brimmed hat. His hair was tied 'in a short pigtail which
+danced wickedly when he turned his head.
+
+'Ha' done!' said Puck, laughing. 'Be one thing or t'other,
+Pharaoh--French or English or German--no great odds which.'
+
+'Oh, but it is, though,' said Una quickly. 'We haven't begun German yet,
+and--and we're going back to our French next week.'
+
+'Aren't you English?' said Dan. 'We heard you singing just now.'
+
+'Aha! That was the Sussex side o' me. Dad he married a French girl
+out o' Boulogne, and French she stayed till her dyin' day. She was an
+Aurette, of course. We Lees mostly marry Aurettes. Haven't you ever come
+across the saying:
+
+     'Aurettes and Lees,
+     Like as two peas.
+     What they can't smuggle,
+     They'll run over seas'?
+
+'Then, are you a smuggler?' Una cried; and, 'Have you smuggled
+much?'said Dan.
+
+Mr Lee nodded solemnly.
+
+'Mind you,' said he, 'I don't uphold smuggling for the generality o'
+mankind--mostly they can't make a do of it--but I was brought up to the
+trade, d'ye see, in a lawful line o' descent on'--he waved across the
+Channel--'on both sides the water. 'Twas all in the families, same
+as fiddling. The Aurettes used mostly to run the stuff across from
+Boulogne, and we Lees landed it here and ran it up to London Town, by
+the safest road.'
+
+'Then where did you live?' said Una.
+
+'You mustn't ever live too close to your business in our trade. We kept
+our little fishing smack at Shoreham, but otherwise we Lees was all
+honest cottager folk--at Warminghurst under Washington--Bramber way--on
+the old Penn estate.'
+
+'Ah!' said Puck, squatted by the windlass. 'I remember a piece about the
+Lees at Warminghurst, I do:
+
+     'There was never a Lee to Warminghurst
+     That wasn't a gipsy last and first.
+
+I reckon that's truth, Pharaoh.'
+
+Pharaoh laughed. 'Admettin' that's true,' he said, 'my gipsy blood must
+be wore pretty thin, for I've made and kept a worldly fortune.'
+
+'By smuggling?' Dan asked. 'No, in the tobacco trade.'
+
+'You don't mean to say you gave up smuggling just to go and be a
+tobacconist!' Dan looked so disappointed they all had to laugh.
+
+'I'm sorry; but there's all sorts of tobacconists,' Pharaoh replied.
+'How far out, now, would you call that smack with the patch on her
+foresail?' He pointed to the fishing-boats.
+
+'A scant mile,' said Puck after a quick look.
+
+'Just about. It's seven fathom under her--clean sand. That was where
+Uncle Aurette used to sink his brandy kegs from Boulogne, and we fished
+'em up and rowed 'em into The Gap here for the ponies to run inland.
+One thickish night in January of 'Ninety-three, Dad and Uncle Lot and me
+came over from Shoreham in the smack, and we found Uncle Aurette and the
+L'Estranges, my cousins, waiting for us in their lugger with New Year's
+presents from Mother's folk in Boulogne. I remember Aunt Cecile she'd
+sent me a fine new red knitted cap, which I put on then and there, for
+the French was having their Revolution in those days, and red caps was
+all the fashion. Uncle Aurette tells us that they had cut off their
+King Louis' head, and, moreover, the Brest forts had fired on an English
+man-o'-war. The news wasn't a week old.
+
+'"That means war again, when we was only just getting used to the
+peace," says Dad. "Why can't King George's men and King Louis' men do on
+their uniforms and fight it out over our heads?"
+
+'"Me too, I wish that," says Uncle Aurette. "But they'll be pressing
+better men than themselves to fight for 'em. The press-gangs are out
+already on our side. You look out for yours."
+
+'"I'll have to bide ashore and grow cabbages for a while, after I've run
+this cargo; but I do wish"--Dad says, going over the lugger's side with
+our New Year presents under his arm and young L'Estrange holding the
+lantern--"I just do wish that those folk which make war so easy had to
+run one cargo a month all this winter. It 'ud show 'em what honest work
+means."
+
+'"Well, I've warned ye," says Uncle Aurette. "I'll be slipping off now
+before your Revenue cutter comes. Give my love to Sister and take care
+o' the kegs. It's thicking to southward." 'I remember him waving to us
+and young Stephen L'Estrange blowing out the lantern. By the time we'd
+fished up the kegs the fog came down so thick Dad judged it risky for me
+to row 'em ashore, even though we could hear the ponies stamping on
+the beach. So he and Uncle Lot took the dinghy and left me in the smack
+playing on my fiddle to guide 'em back.
+
+'Presently I heard guns. Two of 'em sounded mighty like Uncle Aurette's
+three-pounders. He didn't go naked about the seas after dark. Then come
+more, which I reckoned was Captain Giddens in the Revenue cutter. He was
+open-handed with his compliments, but he would lay his guns himself. I
+stopped fiddling to listen, and I heard a whole skyful o' French up in
+the fog--and a high bow come down on top o' the smack. I hadn't time to
+call or think. I remember the smack heeling over, and me standing on the
+gunwale pushing against the ship's side as if I hoped to bear her off.
+Then the square of an open port, with a lantern in it, slid by in front
+of my nose. I kicked back on our gunwale as it went under and slipped
+through that port into the French ship--me and my fiddle.'
+
+'Gracious!' said Una. 'What an adventure!'
+
+'Didn't anybody see you come in?' said Dan.
+
+'There wasn't any one there. I'd made use of an orlop-deck port--that's
+the next deck below the gun-deck, which by rights should not have been
+open at all. The crew was standing by their guns up above. I rolled on
+to a pile of dunnage in the dark and I went to sleep. When I woke, men
+was talking all round me, telling each other their names and sorrows
+just like Dad told me pressed men used to talk in the last war. Pretty
+soon I made out they'd all been hove aboard together by the press-gangs,
+and left to sort 'emselves. The ship she was the Embuscade, a
+thirty-six-gun Republican frigate, Captain Jean Baptiste Bompard, two
+days out of Le Havre, going to the United States with a Republican
+French Ambassador of the name of Genet. They had been up all night
+clearing for action on account of hearing guns in the fog. Uncle Aurette
+and Captain Giddens must have been passing the time o' day with each
+other off Newhaven, and the frigate had drifted past 'em. She never knew
+she'd run down our smack. Seeing so many aboard was total strangers
+to each other, I thought one more mightn't be noticed; so I put Aunt
+Cecile's red cap on the back of my head, and my hands in my pockets like
+the rest, and, as we French say, I circulated till I found the galley.
+
+'"What! Here's one of 'em that isn't sick!" says a cook. "Take his
+breakfast to Citizen Bompard."
+
+'I carried the tray to the cabin, but I didn't call this Bompard
+"Citizen." Oh no! "Mon Capitaine" was my little word, same as Uncle
+Aurette used to answer in King Louis' Navy. Bompard, he liked it. He
+took me on for cabin servant, and after that no one asked questions; and
+thus I got good victuals and light work all the way across to America.
+He talked a heap of politics, and so did his officers, and when this
+Ambassador Genet got rid of his land-stomach and laid down the law
+after dinner, a rooks' parliament was nothing compared to their cabin. I
+learned to know most of the men which had worked the French Revolution,
+through waiting at table and hearing talk about 'em. One of our
+forecas'le six-pounders was called Danton and t'other Marat. I used to
+play the fiddle between 'em, sitting on the capstan. Day in and day out
+Bompard and Monsieur Genet talked o' what France had done, and how the
+United States was going to join her to finish off the English in this
+war. Monsieur Genet said he'd justabout make the United States fight for
+France. He was a rude common man. But I liked listening. I always helped
+drink any healths that was proposed--specially Citizen Danton's who'd
+cut off King Louis' head. An all-Englishman might have been shocked--but
+that's where my French blood saved me.
+
+'It didn't save me from getting a dose of ship's fever though, the week
+before we put Monsieur Genet ashore at Charleston; and what was left
+of me after bleeding and pills took the dumb horrors from living 'tween
+decks. The surgeon, Karaguen his name was, kept me down there to help
+him with his plasters--I was too weak to wait on Bompard. I don't
+remember much of any account for the next few weeks, till I smelled
+lilacs, and I looked out of the port, and we was moored to a wharf-edge
+and there was a town o' fine gardens and red-brick houses and all the
+green leaves o' God's world waiting for me outside.
+
+'"What's this?" I said to the sick-bay man--Old Pierre Tiphaigne he was.
+"Philadelphia," says Pierre. "You've missed it all. We're sailing next
+week."
+
+'I just turned round and cried for longing to be amongst the laylocks.
+
+'"If that's your trouble," says old Pierre, "you go straight ashore.
+None'll hinder you. They're all gone mad on these coasts--French and
+American together. 'Tisn't my notion o' war." Pierre was an old King
+Louis man.
+
+'My legs was pretty tottly, but I made shift to go on deck, which it
+was like a fair. The frigate was crowded with fine gentlemen and ladies
+pouring in and out. They sung and they waved French flags, while Captain
+Bompard and his officers--yes, and some of the men--speechified to
+all and sundry about war with England. They shouted, "Down with
+England!"--"Down with Washington!"--"Hurrah for France and the
+Republic!" I couldn't make sense of it. I wanted to get out from that
+crunch of swords and petticoats and sit in a field. One of the gentlemen
+said to me, "Is that a genuine cap o' Liberty you're wearing?" 'Twas
+Aunt Cecile's red one, and pretty near wore out. "Oh yes!" I says,
+"straight from France." "I'll give you a shilling for it," he says, and
+with that money in my hand and my fiddle under my arm I squeezed past
+the entry-port and went ashore. It was like a dream--meadows, trees,
+flowers, birds, houses, and people all different! I sat me down in
+a meadow and fiddled a bit, and then I went in and out the streets,
+looking and smelling and touching, like a little dog at a fair. Fine
+folk was setting on the white stone doorsteps of their houses, and
+a girl threw me a handful of laylock sprays, and when I said "Merci"
+without thinking, she said she loved the French. They all was the
+fashion in the city. I saw more tricolour flags in Philadelphia than
+ever I'd seen in Boulogne, and every one was shouting for war with
+England. A crowd o' folk was cheering after our French Ambassador--that
+same Monsieur Genet which we'd left at Charleston. He was a-horseback
+behaving as if the place belonged to him--and commanding all and sundry
+to fight the British. But I'd heard that before. I got into a long
+straight street as wide as the Broyle, where gentlemen was racing
+horses. I'm fond o' horses. Nobody hindered 'em, and a man told me it
+was called Race Street o' purpose for that. Then I followed some black
+niggers, which I'd never seen close before; but I left them to run after
+a great, proud, copper-faced man with feathers in his hair and a red
+blanket trailing behind him. A man told me he was a real Red Indian
+called Red Jacket, and I followed him into an alley-way off Race
+Street by Second Street, where there was a fiddle playing. I'm fond
+o' fiddling. The Indian stopped at a baker's shop--Conrad Gerhard's
+it was--and bought some sugary cakes. Hearing what the price was I was
+going to have some too, but the Indian asked me in English if I was
+hungry. "Oh yes!" I says. I must have looked a sore scrattel. He opens
+a door on to a staircase and leads the way up. We walked into a dirty
+little room full of flutes and fiddles and a fat man fiddling by the
+window, in a smell of cheese and medicines fit to knock you down. I was
+knocked down too, for the fat man jumped up and hit me a smack in the
+face. I fell against an old spinet covered with pill-boxes and the pills
+rolled about the floor. The Indian never moved an eyelid.
+
+'"Pick up the pills! Pick up the pills!" the fat man screeches.
+
+'I started picking 'em up--hundreds of 'em--meaning to run out under the
+Indian's arm, but I came on giddy all over and I sat down. The fat man
+went back to his fiddling.
+
+'"Toby!" says the Indian after quite a while. "I brought the boy to be
+fed, not hit."
+
+'"What?" says Toby, "I thought it was Gert Schwankfelder." He put down
+his fiddle and took a good look at me. "Himmel!" he says. "I have hit
+the wrong boy. It is not the new boy. Why are you not the new boy? Why
+are you not Gert Schwankfelder?"
+
+'"I don't know," I said. "The gentleman in the pink blanket brought me."
+
+'Says the Indian, "He is hungry, Toby. Christians always feed the
+hungry. So I bring him."
+
+'"You should have said that first," said Toby. He pushed plates at me
+and the Indian put bread and pork on them, and a glass of Madeira wine.
+I told him I was off the French ship, which I had joined on account of
+my mother being French. That was true enough when you think of it, and
+besides I saw that the French was all the fashion in Philadelphia. Toby
+and the Indian whispered and I went on picking up the pills.
+
+'"You like pills--eh?" says Toby. "No," I says. "I've seen our ship's
+doctor roll too many of em."
+
+'"Ho!" he says, and he shoves two bottles at me. "What's those?"
+
+'"Calomel," I says. "And t'other's senna."
+
+'"Right," he says. "One week have I tried to teach Gert Schwankfelder
+the difference between them, yet he cannot tell. You like to fiddle?" he
+says. He'd just seen my kit on the floor.
+
+'"Oh yes!" says I.
+
+'"Oho!" he says. "What note is this?" drawing his bow across.
+
+'He meant it for A, so I told him it was.
+
+'"My brother," he says to the Indian. "I think this is the hand of
+Providence! I warned that Gert if he went to play upon the wharves
+any more he would hear from me. Now look at this boy and say what you
+think."
+
+'The Indian looked me over whole minutes--there was a musical clock on
+the wall and dolls came out and hopped while the hour struck. He looked
+me over all the while they did it.
+
+'"Good," he says at last. "This boy is good."
+
+'"Good, then," says Toby. "Now I shall play my fiddle and you shall sing
+your hymn, brother. Boy, go down to the bakery and tell them you are
+young Gert Schwankfelder that was. The horses are in Davy jones's
+locker. If you ask any questions you shall hear from me."
+
+'I left 'em singing hymns and I went down to old Conrad Gerhard. He
+wasn't at all surprised when I told him I was young Gert Schwankfelder
+that was. He knew Toby. His wife she walked me into the back-yard
+without a word, and she washed me and she cut my hair to the edge of a
+basin, and she put me to bed, and oh! how I slept--how I slept in that
+little room behind the oven looking on the flower garden! I didn't know
+Toby went to the Embuscade that night and bought me off Dr Karaguen for
+twelve dollars and a dozen bottles of Seneca Oil. Karaguen wanted a new
+lace to his coat, and he reckoned I hadn't long to live; so he put me
+down as "discharged sick."
+
+'I like Toby,' said Una.
+
+'Who was he?' said Puck.
+
+'Apothecary Tobias Hirte,' Pharaoh replied. 'One Hundred and Eighteen,
+Second Street--the famous Seneca Oil man, that lived half of every year
+among the Indians. But let me tell my tale my own way, same as his brown
+mare used to go to Lebanon.'
+
+'Then why did he keep her in Davy Jones's locker?' Dan asked. 'That was
+his joke. He kept her under David Jones's hat shop in the "Buck" tavern
+yard, and his Indian friends kept their ponies there when they visited
+him. I looked after the horses when I wasn't rolling pills on top of
+the old spinet, while he played his fiddle and Red Jacket sang hymns.
+I liked it. I had good victuals, light work, a suit o' clean clothes, a
+plenty music, and quiet, smiling German folk all around that let me
+sit in their gardens. My first Sunday, Toby took me to his church in
+Moravian Alley; and that was in a garden too. The women wore long-eared
+caps and handkerchiefs. They came in at one door and the men at another,
+and there was a brass chandelier you could see your face in, and a
+nigger-boy to blow the organ bellows. I carried Toby's fiddle, and he
+played pretty much as he chose all against the organ and the singing. He
+was the only one they let do it, for they was a simple-minded folk. They
+used to wash each other's feet up in the attic to keep 'emselves humble:
+which Lord knows they didn't need.'
+
+'How very queer!' said Una.
+
+Pharaoh's eyes twinkled. 'I've met many and seen much,' he said; 'but I
+haven't yet found any better or quieter or forbearinger people than the
+Brethren and Sistern of the Moravian Church in Philadelphia. Nor will I
+ever forget my first Sunday--the service was in English that week--with
+the smell of the flowers coming in from Pastor Meder's garden where
+the big peach tree is, and me looking at all the clean strangeness and
+thinking of 'tween decks on the Embuscade only six days ago. Being a
+boy, it seemed to me it had lasted for ever, and was going on for
+ever. But I didn't know Toby then. As soon as the dancing clock struck
+midnight that Sunday--I was lying under the spinet--I heard Toby's
+fiddle. He'd just done his supper, which he always took late and heavy.
+"Gert," says he, "get the horses. Liberty and Independence for Ever! The
+flowers appear upon the earth, and the time of the singing of birds is
+come. We are going to my country seat in Lebanon."
+
+'I rubbed my eyes, and fetched 'em out of the "Buck" stables. Red Jacket
+was there saddling his, and when I'd packed the saddle-bags we three
+rode up Race Street to the Ferry by starlight. So we went travelling.
+It's a kindly, softly country there, back of Philadelphia among the
+German towns, Lancaster way. Little houses and bursting big barns, fat
+cattle, fat women, and all as peaceful as Heaven might be if they farmed
+there. Toby sold medicines out of his saddlebags, and gave the French
+war-news to folk along the roads. Him and his long-hilted umberell
+was as well known as the stage-coaches. He took orders for that famous
+Seneca Oil which he had the secret of from Red Jacket's Indians, and he
+slept in friends' farmhouses, but he would shut all the windows; so Red
+Jacket and me slept outside. There's nothing to hurt except snakes--and
+they slip away quick enough if you thrash in the bushes.'
+
+'I'd have liked that!' said Dan.
+
+'I'd no fault to find with those days. In the cool o' the morning the
+cat-bird sings. He's something to listen to. And there's a smell of wild
+grape-vine growing in damp hollows which you drop into, after long rides
+in the heat, which is beyond compare for sweetness. So's the puffs out
+of the pine woods of afternoons. Come sundown, the frogs strike up, and
+later on the fireflies dance in the corn. Oh me, the fireflies in the
+corn! We were a week or ten days on the road, tacking from one place to
+another--such as Lancaster, Bethlehem-Ephrata--"thou Bethlehem-Ephrata."
+No odds--I loved the going about. And so we jogged 'into dozy little
+Lebanon by the Blue Mountains, where Toby had a cottage and a garden of
+all fruits. He come north every year for this wonderful Seneca Oil the
+Seneca Indians made for him. They'd never sell to any one else, and he
+doctored 'em with von Swieten pills, which they valued more than their
+own oil. He could do what he chose with them, and, of course, he tried
+to make them Moravians. The Senecas are a seemly, quiet people, and
+they'd had trouble enough from white men--American and English--during
+the wars, to keep 'em in that walk. They lived on a Reservation by
+themselves away off by their lake. Toby took me up there, and they
+treated me as if I was their own blood brother. Red Jacket said the mark
+of my bare feet in the dust was just like an Indian's and my style of
+walking was similar. I know I took to their ways all over.'
+
+'Maybe the gipsy drop in your blood helped you?' said Puck.
+
+'Sometimes I think it did,' Pharaoh went on. 'Anyhow, Red Jacket and
+Cornplanter, the other Seneca chief, they let me be adopted into the
+tribe. It's only a compliment, of course, but Toby was angry when I
+showed up with my face painted. They gave me a side-name which means
+"Two Tongues," because, d'ye see, I talked French and English.
+
+'They had their own opinions (I've heard 'em) about the French and the
+English, and the Americans. They'd suffered from all of 'em during the
+wars, and they only wished to be left alone. But they thought a heap of
+the President of the United States. Cornplanter had had dealings with
+him in some French wars out West when General Washington was only a lad.
+His being President afterwards made no odds to 'em. They always called
+him Big Hand, for he was a large-fisted man, and he was all of their
+notion of a white chief. Cornplanter 'ud sweep his blanket round him,
+and after I'd filled his pipe he'd begin--"In the old days, long ago,
+when braves were many and blankets were few, Big Hand said-" If Red
+Jacket agreed to the say-so he'd trickle a little smoke out of the
+corners of his mouth. If he didn't, he'd blow through his nostrils.
+Then Cornplanter 'ud stop and Red Jacket 'ud take on. Red Jacket was the
+better talker of the two. I've laid and listened to 'em for hours.
+Oh! they knew General Washington well. Cornplanter used to meet him at
+Epply's--the great dancing-place in the city before District Marshal
+William Nichols bought it. They told me he was always glad to see 'em,
+and he'd hear 'em out to the end if they had anything on their minds.
+They had a good deal in those days. I came at it by degrees, after I was
+adopted into the tribe. The talk up in Lebanon and everywhere else that
+summer was about the French war with England and whether the United
+States 'ud join in with France or make a peace treaty with England. Toby
+wanted peace so as he could go about the Reservation buying his oils.
+But most of the white men wished for war, and they was angry because
+the President wouldn't give the sign for it. The newspaper said men was
+burning Guy Fawkes images of General Washington and yelling after him in
+the streets of Philadelphia. You'd have been astonished what those two
+fine old chiefs knew of the ins and outs of such matters. The little
+I've learned of politics I picked up from Cornplanter and Red Jacket
+on the Reservation. Toby used to read the Aurora newspaper. He was
+what they call a "Democrat," though our Church is against the Brethren
+concerning themselves with politics.'
+
+'I hate politics, too,' said Una, and Pharaoh laughed.
+
+'I might ha' guessed it,' he said. 'But here's something that isn't
+politics. One hot evening late in August, Toby was reading the newspaper
+on the stoop and Red Jacket was smoking under a peach tree and I was
+fiddling. Of a sudden Toby drops his Aurora.
+
+'"I am an oldish man, too fond of my own comforts," he says. "I will
+go to the Church which is in Philadelphia. My brother, lend me a spare
+pony. I must be there tomorrow night."
+
+'"Good!" says Red Jacket, looking at the sun. "My brother shall be
+there. I will ride with him and bring back the ponies."
+
+'I went to pack the saddle-bags. Toby had cured me of asking questions.
+He stopped my fiddling if I did. Besides, Indians don't ask questions
+much and I wanted to be like 'em.
+
+'When the horses were ready I jumped up.
+
+'"Get off," says Toby. "Stay and mind the cottage till I come back. The
+Lord has laid this on me, not on you. I wish He hadn't."
+
+'He powders off down the Lancaster road, and I sat on the doorstep
+wondering after him. When I picked up the paper to wrap his
+fiddle-strings in, I spelled out a piece about the yellow fever being in
+Philadelphia so dreadful every one was running away. I was scared, for
+I was fond of Toby. We never said much to each other, but we fiddled
+together, and music's as good as talking to them that understand.'
+
+'Did Toby die of yellow fever?'Una asked.
+
+'Not him! There's justice left in the world still. He went down to the
+City and bled 'em well again in heaps. He sent back word by Red Jacket
+that, if there was war or he died, I was to bring the oils along to the
+City, but till then I was to go on working in the garden and Red Jacket
+was to see me do it. Down at heart all Indians reckon digging a squaw's
+business, and neither him nor Cornplanter, when he relieved watch, was
+a hard task-Master. We hired a nigger-boy to do our work, and a lazy
+grinning runagate he was. When I found Toby didn't die the minute he
+reached town, why, boylike, I took him off my mind and went with my
+Indians again. Oh! those days up north at Canasedago, running races and
+gambling with the Senecas, or bee-hunting 'in the woods, or fishing in
+the lake.' Pharaoh sighed and looked across the water. 'But it's best,'
+he went on suddenly, 'after the first frosts. You roll out o' your
+blanket and find every leaf left green over night turned red and yellow,
+not by trees at a time, but hundreds and hundreds of miles of 'em, like
+sunsets splattered upside down. On one of such days--the maples was
+flaming scarlet and gold, and the sumach bushes were redder--Cornplanter
+and Red Jacket came out in full war-dress, making the very leaves look
+silly: feathered war-bonnets, yellow doeskin leggings, fringed and
+tasselled, red horse-blankets, and their bridles feathered and shelled
+and beaded no bounds. I thought it was war against the British till I
+saw their faces weren't painted, and they only carried wrist-whips. Then
+I hummed "Yankee Doodle" at 'em. They told me they was going to visit
+Big Hand and find out for sure whether he meant to join the French in
+fighting the English or make a peace treaty with England. I reckon those
+two would ha' gone out on the war-path at a nod from Big Hand, but they
+knew well, if there was war 'twixt England and the United States, their
+tribe 'ud catch it from both parties same as in all the other wars. They
+asked me to come along and hold the ponies. That puzzled me, because
+they always put their ponies up at the "Buck" or Epply's when they went
+to see General Washington in the city, and horse-holding is a nigger's
+job. Besides, I wasn't exactly dressed for it.'
+
+'D'you mean you were dressed like an Indian?'Dan demanded.
+
+Pharaoh looked a little abashed. 'This didn't happen at Lebanon,'
+he said, 'but a bit farther north, on the Reservation; and at that
+particular moment of time, so far as blanket, hair-band, moccasins, and
+sunburn went, there wasn't much odds 'twix' me and a young Seneca buck.
+You may laugh'--he smoothed down his long-skirted brown coat--'but I
+told you I took to their ways all over. I said nothing, though I was
+bursting to let out the war-whoop like the young men had taught me.'
+
+'No, and you don't let out one here, either,' said Puck before Dan could
+ask. 'Go on, Brother Square-toes.'
+
+'We went on.' Pharaoh's narrow dark eyes gleamed and danced. 'We went
+on--forty, fifty miles a day, for days on end--we three braves. And how
+a great tall Indian a-horse-back can carry his war-bonnet at a canter
+through thick timber without brushing a feather beats me! My silly head
+was banged often enough by low branches, but they slipped through like
+running elk. We had evening hymn-singing every night after they'd blown
+their pipe-smoke to the quarters of heaven. Where did we go? I'll tell
+you, but don't blame me if you're no wiser. We took the old war-trail
+from the end of the Lake along the East Susquehanna through the Nantego
+country, right down to Fort Shamokin on the Senachse river. We crossed
+the Juniata by Fort Granville, got into Shippensberg over the hills by
+the Ochwick trail, and then to Williams Ferry (it's a bad one). From
+Williams Ferry, across the Shanedore, over the Blue Mountains, through
+Ashby's Gap, and so south-east by south from there, till we found the
+President at the back of his own plantations. I'd hate to be trailed by
+Indians in earnest. They caught him like a partridge on a stump. After
+we'd left our ponies, we scouted forward through a woody piece, and,
+creeping slower and slower, at last if my moccasins even slipped
+Red Jacket 'ud turn and frown. I heard voices--Monsieur Genet's for
+choice--long before I saw anything, and we pulled up at the edge of
+a clearing where some niggers in grey-and-red liveries were holding
+horses, and half-a-dozen gentlemen--but one was Genet--were talking
+among felled timber. I fancy they'd come to see Genet a piece on his
+road, for his portmantle was with him. I hid in between two logs as near
+to the company as I be to that old windlass there. I didn't need anybody
+to show me Big Hand. He stood up, very still, his legs a little apart,
+listening to Genet, that French Ambassador, which never had more manners
+than a Bosham tinker. Genet was as good as ordering him to declare war
+on England at once. I had heard that clack before on the Embuscade.
+He said he'd stir up the whole United States to have war with England,
+whether Big Hand liked it or not.
+
+'Big Hand heard him out to the last end. I looked behind me, and my two
+chiefs had vanished like smoke. Says Big Hand, "That is very forcibly
+put, Monsieur Genet--"
+
+'"Citizen--citizen!" the fellow spits in. "I, at least, am a
+Republican!"
+
+"Citizen Genet," he says, "you may be sure it will receive my fullest
+consideration." This seemed to take Citizen Genet back a piece. He rode
+off grumbling, and never gave his nigger a penny. No gentleman!
+
+'The others all assembled round Big Hand then, and, in their way, they
+said pretty much what Genet had said. They put it to him, here was
+France and England at war, in a manner of speaking, right across the
+United States' stomach, and paying no regards to any one. The French
+was searching American ships on pretence they was helping England, but
+really for to steal the goods. The English was doing the same, only
+t'other way round, and besides searching, they was pressing American
+citizens into their Navy to help them fight France, on pretence that
+those Americans was lawful British subjects. His gentlemen put this
+very clear to Big Hand. It didn't look to them, they said, as though the
+United States trying to keep out of the fight was any advantage to her,
+because she only catched it from both French and English. They said that
+nine out of ten good Americans was crazy to fight the English then and
+there. They wouldn't say whether that was right or wrong; they only
+wanted Big Hand to turn it over in his mind. He did--for a while. I
+saw Red Jacket and Cornplanter watching him from the far side of the
+clearing, and how they had slipped round there was another mystery. Then
+Big Hand drew himself up, and he let his gentlemen have it.'
+
+'Hit 'em?' Dan asked.
+
+'No, nor yet was it what you might call swearing. He--he blasted 'em
+with his natural speech. He asked them half-a-dozen times over whether
+the United States had enough armed ships for any shape or sort of war
+with any one. He asked 'em, if they thought she had those ships, to give
+him those ships, and they looked on the ground, as if they expected to
+find 'em there. He put it to 'em whether, setting ships aside, their
+country--I reckon he gave 'em good reasons--whether the United States
+was ready or able to face a new big war; she having but so few years
+back wound up one against England, and being all holds full of her own
+troubles. As I said, the strong way he laid it all before 'em blasted
+'em, and when he'd done it was like a still in the woods after a storm.
+A little man--but they all looked little--pipes up like a young rook
+in a blowed-down nest, "Nevertheless, General, it seems you will be
+compelled to fight England." Quick Big Hand wheeled on him, "And is
+there anything in my past which makes you think I am averse to fighting
+Great Britain?"
+
+'Everybody laughed except him. "Oh, General, you mistake us entirely!"
+they says. "I trust so," he says. "But I know my duty. We must have
+peace with England."
+
+'"At any price?" says the man with the rook's voice.
+
+'"At any price," says he, word by word. "Our ships will be searched--our
+citizens will be pressed, but--"
+
+'"Then what about the Declaration of Independence?" says one.
+
+'"Deal with facts, not fancies," says Big Hand. "The United States are
+in no position to fight England."
+
+'"But think of public opinion," another one starts up. "The feeling in
+Philadelphia alone is at fever heat."
+
+'He held up one of his big hands. "Gentlemen," he says--slow he spoke,
+but his voice carried far--"I have to think of our country. Let me
+assure you that the treaty with Great Britain will be made though every
+city in the Union burn me in effigy."
+
+'"At any price?" the actor-like chap keeps on croaking.
+
+'"The treaty must be made on Great Britain's own terms. What else can I
+do?" 'He turns his back on 'em and they looked at each other and slinked
+off to the horses, leaving him alone: and then I saw he was an old man.
+Then Red Jacket and Cornplanter rode down the clearing from the far end
+as though they had just chanced along. Back went Big Hand's shoulders,
+up went his head, and he stepped forward one single pace with a great
+deep Hough! so pleased he was. That was a statelified meeting to
+behold--three big men, and two of 'em looking like jewelled images among
+the spattle of gay-coloured leaves. I saw my chiefs' war-bonnets sinking
+together, down and down. Then they made the sign which no Indian makes
+outside of the Medicine Lodges--a sweep of the right hand just clear
+of the dust and an inbend of the left knee at the same time, and those
+proud eagle feathers almost touched his boot-top.'
+
+'What did it mean?' said Dan.
+
+'Mean!' Pharaoh cried. 'Why it's what you--what we--it's the Sachems'
+way of sprinkling the sacred corn-meal in front of--oh! it's a piece
+of Indian compliment really, and it signifies that you are a very big
+chief.
+
+'Big Hand looked down on 'em. First he says quite softly, "My brothers
+know it is not easy to be a chief." Then his voice grew. "My children,"
+says he, "what is in your minds?"
+
+'Says Cornplanter, "We came to ask whether there will be war with King
+George's men, but we have heard what our Father has said to his chiefs.
+We will carry away that talk in our hearts to tell to our people."
+
+'"No," says Big Hand. "Leave all that talk behind--it was between white
+men only--but take this message from me to your people--'There will be
+no war.'"
+
+'His gentlemen were waiting, so they didn't delay him-, only Cornplanter
+says, using his old side-name, "Big Hand, did you see us among the
+timber just now?"
+
+'"Surely," says he. "You taught me to look behind trees when we were
+both young." And with that he cantered off.
+
+'Neither of my chiefs spoke till we were back on our ponies again and a
+half-hour along the home-trail. Then Cornplanter says to Red Jacket, "We
+will have the Corn-dance this year. There will be no war." And that was
+all there was to it.'
+
+Pharaoh stood up as though he had finished.
+
+'Yes,' said Puck, rising too. 'And what came out of it in the long run?'
+
+'Let me get at my story my own way,'was the answer. 'Look! it's later
+than I thought. That Shoreham smack's thinking of her supper.' The
+children looked across the darkening Channel. A smack had hoisted a
+lantern and slowly moved west where Brighton pier lights ran out in a
+twinkling line. When they turned round The Gap was empty behind them.
+
+'I expect they've packed our trunks by now,' said Dan. 'This time
+tomorrow we'll be home.'
+
+
+
+
+IF--
+
+     If you can keep your head when all about you
+     Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
+     If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
+     But make allowance for their doubting too;
+     If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
+     Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
+     Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
+     And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
+
+     If you can dream--and not make dreams your master;
+     If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim,
+     If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
+     And treat those two impostors just the same;
+     If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
+     Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
+     Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
+     And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
+
+     If you can make one heap of all your winnings
+     And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
+     And lose, and start again at your beginnings
+     And never breathe a word about your loss;
+     If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
+     To serve your turn long after they are gone,
+     And so hold on when there is nothing in you
+     Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
+
+     If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
+     Or walk with Kings--nor lose the common touch,
+     If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
+     If all men count with you, but none too much;
+     If you can fill the unforgiving minute
+     With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
+     Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
+     And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
+
+
+
+
+'A PRIEST IN SPITE OF HIMSELF'
+
+
+
+
+A St Helena Lullaby
+
+
+   How far is St Helena from a little child at play?
+     What makes you want to wander there with all the world between?
+   Oh, Mother, call your son again or else he'll run away.
+     (No one thinks of winter when the grass is green!)
+
+   How far is St Helena from a fight in Paris street?
+     I haven't time to answer now--the men are falling fast.
+   The guns begin to thunder, and the drums begin to beat
+     (If you take the first step you will take the last!)
+
+   How far is St Helena from the field at Austerlitz?
+     You couldn't hear me if I told--so loud the cannons roar.
+   But not so far for people who are living by their wits.
+     ('Gay go up' means 'gay go down' the wide world o'er!)
+
+   How far is St Helena from an Emperor of France?
+     I cannot see--I cannot tell--the crowns they dazzle so.
+   The Kings sit down to dinner, and the Queens stand up to dance.
+     (After open weather you may look for snow!)
+
+   How far is St Helena from the Capes of Trafalgar?
+     A longish way--a longish way--with ten year more to run.
+   It's South across the water underneath a setting star.
+     (What you cannot finish you must leave undone!)
+
+   How far is St Helena from the Beresina ice?
+     An ill way--a chill way--the ice begins to crack.
+   But not so far for gentlemen who never took advice.
+     (When you can't go forward you must e'en come back!)
+
+   How far is St Helena from the field of Waterloo?
+     A near way--a clear way--the ship will take you soon.
+   A pleasant place for gentlemen with little left to do.
+     (Morning never tries you till the afternoon!)
+
+   How far from St Helena to the Gate of Heaven's Grace?
+     That no one knows--that no one knows--and no one ever will.
+   But fold your hands across your heart and cover up your face,
+     And after all your trapesings, child, lie still!
+
+
+
+
+'A Priest in Spite of Himself'
+
+
+The day after they came home from the sea-side they set out on a tour
+of inspection to make sure everything was as they had left it. Soon they
+discovered that old Hobden had blocked their best hedge-gaps with stakes
+and thorn-bundles, and had trimmed up the hedges where the blackberries
+were setting.
+
+'It can't be time for the gipsies to come along,' said Una. 'Why, it was
+summer only the other day!'
+
+'There's smoke in Low Shaw!' said Dan, sniffing. 'Let's make sure!'
+
+They crossed the fields towards the thin line of blue smoke that leaned
+above the hollow of Low Shaw which lies beside the King's Hill road.
+It used to be an old quarry till somebody planted it, and you can look
+straight down into it from the edge of Banky Meadow.
+
+'I thought so,' Dan whispered, as they came up to the fence at the edge
+of the larches. A gipsy-van--not the show-man's sort, but the old black
+kind, with little windows high up and a baby-gate across the door--was
+getting ready to leave. A man was harnessing the horses; an old woman
+crouched over the ashes of a fire made out of broken fence-rails; and a
+girl sat on the van-steps singing to a baby on her lap. A wise-looking,
+thin dog snuffed at a patch of fur on the ground till the old woman put
+it carefully in the middle of the fire. The girl reached back inside the
+van and tossed her a paper parcel. This was laid on the fire too, and
+they smelt singed feathers.
+
+'Chicken feathers!' said Dan. 'I wonder if they are old Hobden's.'
+
+Una sneezed. The dog growled and crawled to the girl's feet, the old
+woman fanned the fire with her hat, while the man led the horses up to
+the shafts, They all moved as quickly and quietly as snakes over moss.
+
+'Ah!' said the girl. 'I'll teach you!' She beat the dog, who seemed to
+expect it.
+
+'Don't do that,' Una called down. 'It wasn't his fault.'
+
+'How do you know what I'm beating him for?' she answered.
+
+'For not seeing us,' said Dan. 'He was standing right in the smoke, and
+the wind was wrong for his nose, anyhow.'
+
+The girl stopped beating the dog, and the old woman fanned faster than
+ever.
+
+'You've fanned some of your feathers out of the fire,' said Una.
+'There's a tail-feather by that chestnut-tot.'
+
+'What of it?' said the old woman, as she grabbed it.
+
+'Oh, nothing!' said Dan. 'Only I've heard say that tail-feathers are as
+bad as the whole bird, sometimes.'
+
+That was a saying of Hobden's about pheasants. Old Hobden always burned
+all feather and fur before he sat down to eat.
+
+'Come on, mother,' the man whispered. The old woman climbed into the
+van, and the horses drew it out of the deep-rutted shaw on to the hard
+road.
+
+The girl waved her hands and shouted something they could not catch.
+
+'That was gipsy for "Thank you kindly, Brother and Sister,"' said
+Pharaoh Lee.
+
+He was standing behind them, his fiddle under his arm. 'Gracious, you
+startled me!' said Una.
+
+'You startled old Priscilla Savile,' Puck called from below them. 'Come
+and sit by their fire. She ought to have put it out before they left.'
+
+They dropped down the ferny side of the shaw. Una raked the ashes
+together, Dan found a dead wormy oak branch that burns without flame,
+and they watched the smoke while Pharaoh played a curious wavery air.
+
+'That's what the girl was humming to the baby,' said Una.
+
+'I know it,'he nodded, and went on:
+
+     'Ai Lumai, Lumai, Lumai!  Luludia!
+     Ai Luludia!'
+
+
+He passed from one odd tune to another, and quite forgot the children.
+At last Puck asked him to go on with his adventures in Philadelphia and
+among the Seneca Indians.
+
+'I'm telling it,' he said, staring straight in front of him as he
+played. 'Can't you hear?'
+
+'Maybe, but they can't. Tell it aloud,' said Puck.
+
+Pharaoh shook himself, laid his fiddle beside him, and began:
+
+'I'd left Red Jacket and Cornplanter riding home with me after Big Hand
+had said that there wouldn't be any war. That's all there was to it.
+We believed Big Hand and we went home again--we three braves. When we
+reached Lebanon we found Toby at the cottage with his waistcoat a foot
+too big for him--so hard he had worked amongst the yellow-fever people.
+He beat me for running off with the Indians, but 'twas worth it--I was
+glad to see him,--and when we went back to Philadelphia for the winter,
+and I was told how he'd sacrificed himself over sick people in the
+yellow fever, I thought the world and all of him. No, I didn't neither.
+I'd thought that all along. That yellow fever must have been something
+dreadful. Even in December people had no more than begun to trinkle back
+to town. Whole houses stood empty and the niggers was robbing them out.
+But I can't call to mind that any of the Moravian Brethren had died. It
+seemed like they had just kept on with their own concerns, and the good
+Lord He'd just looked after 'em. That was the winter--yes, winter of
+'Ninety-three--the Brethren bought a stove for the church. Toby spoke in
+favour of it because the cold spoiled his fiddle hand, but many thought
+stove-heat not in the Bible, and there was yet a third party which
+always brought hickory coal foot-warmers to service and wouldn't
+speak either way. They ended by casting the Lot for it, which is like
+pitch-and-toss. After my summer with the Senecas, church-stoves didn't
+highly interest me, so I took to haunting round among the French emigres
+which Philadelphia was full of. My French and my fiddling helped me
+there, d'ye see. They come over in shiploads from France, where, by what
+I made out, every one was killing every one else by any means, and they
+spread 'emselves about the city--mostly in Drinker's Alley and Elfrith's
+Alley--and they did odd jobs till times should mend. But whatever they
+stooped to, they were gentry and kept a cheerful countenance, and after
+an evening's fiddling at one of their poor little proud parties, the
+Brethren seemed old-fashioned. Pastor Meder and Brother Adam Goos didn't
+like my fiddling for hire, but Toby said it was lawful in me to earn my
+living by exercising my talents. He never let me be put upon.
+
+'In February of 'Ninety-four--No, March it must have been, because a
+new Ambassador called Faucher had come from France, with no more
+manners than Genet the old one--in March, Red Jacket came in from the
+Reservation bringing news of all kind friends there. I showed him round
+the city, and we saw General Washington riding through a crowd of folk
+that shouted for war with England. They gave him quite rough music,
+but he looked 'twixt his horse's ears and made out not to notice. His
+stirrup brished Red Jacket's elbow, and Red Jacket whispered up, "My
+brother knows it is not easy to be a chief." Big Hand shot just one look
+at him and nodded. Then there was a scuffle behind us over some one who
+wasn't hooting at Washington loud enough to please the people. We went
+away to be out of the fight. Indians won't risk being hit.'
+
+'What do they do if they are?' Dan asked.
+
+'Kill, of course. That's why they have such proper manners. Well,
+then, coming home by Drinker's Alley to get a new shirt which a French
+Vicomte's lady was washing to take the stiff out of (I'm always choice
+in my body-linen) a lame Frenchman pushes a paper of buttons at us. He
+hadn't long landed in the United States, and please would we buy. He
+sure-ly was a pitiful scrattel--his coat half torn off, his face cut,
+but his hands steady; so I knew it wasn't drink. He said his name
+was Peringuey, and he'd been knocked about in the crowd round the
+Stadt--Independence Hall. One thing leading to another we took him up
+to Toby's rooms, same as Red Jacket had taken me the year before. The
+compliments he paid to Toby's Madeira wine fairly conquered the old man,
+for he opened a second bottle and he told this Monsieur Peringuey all
+about our great stove dispute in the church. I remember Pastor Meder and
+Brother Adam Goos dropped 'in, and although they and Toby were direct
+opposite sides regarding stoves, yet this Monsieur Peringuey he made 'em
+feel as if he thought each one was in the right of it. He said he had
+been a clergyman before he had to leave France. He admired at Toby's
+fiddling, and he asked if Red Jacket, sitting by the spinet, was a
+simple Huron. Senecas aren't Hurons, they're Iroquois, of course, and
+Toby told him so. Well, then, in due time he arose and left in a style
+which made us feel he'd been favouring us, instead of us feeding him.
+I've never seen that so strong before--in a man. We all talked him over
+but couldn't make head or tail of him, and Red Jacket come out to walk
+with me to the French quarter where I was due to fiddle at a party.
+Passing Drinker's Alley again we saw a naked window with a light in it,
+and there sat our button-selling Monsieur Peringuey throwing dice all
+alone, right hand against left.
+
+'Says Red Jacket, keeping back in the dark, "Look at his face!"
+
+'I was looking. I protest to you I wasn't frightened like I was when Big
+Hand talked to his gentlemen. I--I only looked, and I wondered that
+even those dead dumb dice 'ud dare to fall different from what that face
+wished. It--it was a face!
+
+'"He is bad," says Red Jacket. "But he is a great chief. The French have
+sent away a great chief. I thought so when he told us his lies. Now I
+know."
+
+'I had to go on to the party, so I asked him to call round for me
+afterwards and we'd have hymn-singing at Toby's as usual. "No," he says.
+"Tell Toby I am not Christian tonight. All Indian." He had those fits
+sometimes. I wanted to know more about Monsieur Peringuey, and the
+emigre party was the very place to find out. It's neither here nor
+there, of course, but those French emigre parties they almost make you
+cry. The men that you bought fruit of in Market Street, the hairdressers
+and fencing-masters and French teachers, they turn back again by
+candlelight to what they used to be at home, and you catch their real
+names. There wasn't much room in the washhouse, so I sat on top of the
+copper and played 'em the tunes they called for--"Si le Roi m'avait
+donne," and such nursery stuff. They cried sometimes. It hurt me to
+take their money afterwards, indeed it did. And there I found out about
+Monsieur Peringuey. He was a proper rogue too! None of 'em had a good
+word for him except the Marquise that kept the French boarding-house on
+Fourth Street. I made out that his real name was the Count Talleyrand de
+Perigord--a priest right enough, but sorely come down in the world. He'd
+been King Louis' Ambassador to England a year or two back, before the
+French had cut off King Louis' head; and, by what I heard, that head
+wasn't hardly more than hanging loose before he'd run back to Paris and
+prevailed on Danton, the very man which did the murder, to send him back
+to England again as Ambassador of the French Republic! That was too much
+for the English, so they kicked him out by Act of Parliament, and he'd
+fled to the Americas without money or friends or prospects. I'm telling
+you the talk in the washhouse. Some of 'em was laughing over it. Says
+the French Marquise, "My friends, you laugh too soon. That man 'll be on
+the winning side before any of us."
+
+'"I did not know you were so fond of priests, Marquise," says the
+Vicomte. His lady did my washing, as I've told you.
+
+'"I have my reasons," says the Marquise. "He sent my uncle and my two
+brothers to Heaven by the little door,"--that was one of the emigre
+names for the guillotine. "He will be on the winning side if it costs
+him the blood of every friend he has in the world."
+
+'"Then what does he want here?" says one of 'em. "We have all lost our
+game."
+
+'"My faith!" says the Marquise. "He will find out, if any one can,
+whether this canaille of a Washington means to help us to fight England.
+Genet" (that was my Ambassador in the Embuscade) "has failed and gone
+off disgraced; Faucher" (he was the new man) "hasn't done any better,
+but our Abbe will find out, and he will make his profit out of the news.
+Such a man does not fall."
+
+'"He begins unluckily," says the Vicomte. "He was set upon today in the
+street for not hooting your Washington." They all laughed again, and one
+remarks, "How does the poor devil keep himself?"
+
+'He must have slipped in through the washhouse door, for he flits past
+me and joins 'em, cold as ice.
+
+'"One does what one can," he says. "I sell buttons. And you, Marquise?"
+
+'"I?"--she waves her poor white hands all burned--"I am a cook--a very
+bad one--at your service, Abbe. We were just talking about you."
+
+They didn't treat him like they talked of him. They backed off and stood
+still.
+
+'"I have missed something, then," he says. "But I spent this last
+hour playing--only for buttons, Marquise--against a noble savage, the
+veritable Huron himself."
+
+'"You had your usual luck, I hope?" she says.
+
+'"Certainly," he says. "I cannot afford to lose even buttons in these
+days."
+
+'"Then I suppose the child of nature does not know that your dice are
+usually loaded, Father Tout-a-tous," she continues. I don't know
+whether she meant to accuse him of cheating. He only bows. '"Not yet,
+Mademoiselle Cunegonde," he says, and goes on to make himself agreeable
+to the rest of the company. And that was how I found out our Monsieur
+Peringuey was Count Charles Maurice Talleyrand de Perigord.'
+
+Pharaoh stopped, but the children said nothing.
+
+'You've heard of him?' said Pharaoh.
+
+Una shook her head. 'Was Red Jacket the Indian he played dice with?' Dan
+asked.
+
+'He was. Red Jacket told me the next time we met. I asked if the lame
+man had cheated. Red Jacket said no--he had played quite fair and was
+a master player. I allow Red Jacket knew. I've seen him, on the
+Reservation, play himself out of everything he had and in again. Then I
+told Red Jacket all I'd heard at the party concerning Talleyrand.
+
+'"I was right," he says. "I saw the man's war-face when he thought he
+was alone. That's why I played him. I played him face to face. He's a
+great chief. Do they say why he comes here?"
+
+'"They say he comes to find out if Big Hand makes war against the
+English," I said.
+
+'Red Jacket grunted. "Yes," he says. "He asked me that too. If he had
+been a small chief I should have lied. But he is a great chief. He knew
+I was a chief, so I told him the truth. I told him what Big Hand said to
+Cornplanter and me in the clearing--'There will be no war.' I could not
+see what he thought. I could not see behind his face. But he is a great
+chief. He will believe."
+
+'"Will he believe that Big Hand can keep his people back from war?" I
+said, thinking of the crowds that hooted Big Hand whenever he rode out.
+
+'"He is as bad as Big Hand is good, but he is not as strong as Big
+Hand," says Red Jacket. "When he talks with Big Hand he will feel this
+in his heart. The French have sent away a great chief. Presently he will
+go back and make them afraid."
+
+'Now wasn't that comical? The French woman that knew him and owed all
+her losses to him; the Indian that picked him up, cut and muddy on
+the street, and played dice with him; they neither of 'em doubted that
+Talleyrand was something by himself--appearances notwithstanding.'
+
+'And was he something by himself?' asked Una.
+
+Pharaoh began to laugh, but stopped. 'The way I look at it,'he said,
+'Talleyrand was one of just three men in this world who are quite by
+themselves. Big Hand I put first, because I've seen him.' 'Ay,' said
+Puck. 'I'm sorry we lost him out of Old England. Who d'you put second?'
+
+'Talleyrand: maybe because I've seen him too,' said Pharaoh.
+
+'Who's third?'said Puck.
+
+'Boney--even though I've seen him.'
+
+'Whew!' said Puck. 'Every man has his own weights and measures, but
+that's queer reckoning.' 'Boney?' said Una. 'You don't mean you've ever
+met Napoleon Bonaparte?'
+
+'There, I knew you wouldn't have patience with the rest of my tale after
+hearing that! But wait a minute. Talleyrand he come round to Hundred
+and Eighteen in a day or two to thank Toby for his kindness. I didn't
+mention the dice-playing, but I could see that Red Jacket's doings had
+made Talleyrand highly curious about Indians--though he would call him
+the Huron. Toby, as you may believe, was all holds full of knowledge
+concerning their manners and habits. He only needed a listener. The
+Brethren don't study Indians much till they join the Church, but Toby
+knew 'em wild. So evening after evening Talleyrand crossed his sound leg
+over his game one and Toby poured forth. Having been adopted into the
+Senecas I, naturally, kept still, but Toby 'ud call on me to back up
+some of his remarks, and by that means, and a habit he had of drawing
+you on in talk, Talleyrand saw I knew something of his noble savages
+too. Then he tried a trick. Coming back from an emigre party he turns
+into his little shop and puts it to me, laughing like, that I'd gone
+with the two chiefs on their visit to Big Hand. I hadn't told. Red
+Jacket hadn't told, and Toby, of course, didn't know. 'Twas just
+Talleyrand's guess. "Now," he says, "my English and Red Jacket's French
+was so bad that I am not sure I got the rights of what the President
+really said to the unsophisticated Huron. Do me the favour of telling it
+again." I told him every word Red Jacket had told him and not one word
+more. I had my suspicions, having just come from an emigre party where
+the Marquise was hating and praising him as usual.
+
+'"Much obliged," he said. "But I couldn't gather from Red Jacket exactly
+what the President said to Monsieur Genet, or to his American gentlemen
+after Monsieur Genet had ridden away."
+
+'I saw Talleyrand was guessing again, for Red Jacket hadn't told him a
+word about the white men's pow-wow.'
+
+'Why hadn't he?' Puck asked.
+
+'Because Red Jacket was a chief. He told Talleyrand what the President
+had said to him and Cornplanter; but he didn't repeat the talk, between
+the white men, that Big Hand ordered him to leave behind. 'Oh!' said
+Puck. 'I see. What did you do?'
+
+'First I was going to make some sort of tale round it, but Talleyrand
+was a chief too. So I said, "As soon as I get Red Jacket's permission
+to tell that part of the tale, I'll be delighted to refresh your memory,
+Abbe." What else could I have done?
+
+'"Is that all?" he says, laughing. "Let me refresh your memory. In a
+month from now I can give you a hundred dollars for your account of the
+conversation."
+
+'"Make it five hundred, Abbe," I says. '"Five, then," says he.
+
+'"That will suit me admirably," I says. "Red Jacket will be in town
+again by then, and the moment he gives me leave I'll claim the money."
+
+'He had a hard fight to be civil, but he come out smiling.
+
+'"Monsieur," he says, "I beg your pardon as sincerely as I envy the
+noble Huron your loyalty. Do me the honour to sit down while I explain."
+
+'There wasn't another chair, so I sat on the button-box.
+
+'He was a clever man. He had got hold of the gossip that the President
+meant to make a peace treaty with England at any cost. He had found
+out--from Genet, I reckon, who was with the President on the day the two
+chiefs met him. He'd heard that Genet had had a huff with the President
+and had ridden off leaving his business at loose ends. What he
+wanted--what he begged and blustered to know--was just the very words
+which the President had said to his gentlemen after Genet had left,
+concerning the peace treaty with England. He put it to me that in
+helping him to those very words I'd be helping three great countries as
+well as mankind. The room was as bare as the palm of your hand, but I
+couldn't laugh at him.
+
+'"I'm sorry," I says, when he wiped his forehead. "As soon as Red Jacket
+gives permission--"
+
+'"You don't believe me, then?" he cuts in. '"Not one little, little
+word, Abbe," I says; "except that you mean to be on the winning side.
+Remember, I've been fiddling to all your old friends for months."
+
+'Well, then his temper fled him and he called me names.
+
+'"Wait a minute, ci-devant," I says at last. "I am half English and half
+French, but I am not the half of a man. I will tell thee something the
+Indian told me. Has thee seen the President?"
+
+'"Oh yes!" he sneers. "I had letters from the Lord Lansdowne to that
+estimable old man."
+
+'"Then," I says, "thee will understand. The Red Skin said that when thee
+has met the President thee will feel in thy heart he is a stronger man
+than thee."
+
+'"Go!" he whispers. "Before I kill thee, go."
+
+'He looked like it. So I left him.'
+
+'Why did he want to know so badly?' said Dan.
+
+'The way I look at it is that if he had known for certain that
+Washington meant to make the peace treaty with England at any price,
+he'd ha' left old Faucher fumbling about in Philadelphia while he went
+straight back to France and told old Danton--"It's no good your wasting
+time and hopes on the United States, because she won't fight on our
+side--that I've proof of!" Then Danton might have been grateful and
+given Talleyrand a job, because a whole mass of things hang on knowing
+for sure who's your friend and who's your enemy. Just think of us poor
+shop-keepers, for instance.'
+
+'Did Red Jacket let you tell, when he came back?' Una asked.
+
+'Of course not. He said, "When Cornplanter and I ask you what Big Hand
+said to the whites you can tell the Lame Chief. All that talk was left
+behind in the timber, as Big Hand ordered. Tell the Lame Chief there
+will be no war. He can go back to France with that word."
+
+'Talleyrand and me hadn't met for a long time except at emigre parties.
+When I give him the message he just shook his head. He was sorting
+buttons in the shop.
+
+'"I cannot return to France with nothing better than the word of an
+unsophisticated savage," he says.
+
+'"Hasn't the President said anything to you?" I asked him.
+
+'"He has said everything that one in his position ought to say, but--but
+if only I had what he said to his Cabinet after Genet rode off I believe
+I could change Europe--the world, maybe." '"I'm sorry," I says. "Maybe
+you'll do that without my help."
+
+'He looked at me hard. "Either you have unusual observation for one so
+young, or you choose to be insolent," he says.
+
+'"It was intended for a compliment," I says. "But no odds. We're off in
+a few days for our summer trip, and I've come to make my good-byes."
+
+'"I go on my travels too," he says. "If ever we meet again you may be
+sure I will do my best to repay what I owe you."
+
+'"Without malice, Abbe, I hope," I says.
+
+'"None whatever," says he. "Give my respects to your adorable Dr
+Pangloss" (that was one of his side-names for Toby) "and the Huron." I
+never could teach him the difference betwixt Hurons and Senecas.
+
+'Then Sister Haga came in for a paper of what we call "pilly buttons,"
+and that was the last I saw of Talleyrand in those parts.'
+
+'But after that you met Napoleon, didn't you?' said Una. 'Wait Just
+a little, dearie. After that, Toby and I went to Lebanon and the
+Reservation, and, being older and knowing better how to manage him,
+I enjoyed myself well that summer with fiddling and fun. When we came
+back, the Brethren got after Toby because I wasn't learning any lawful
+trade, and he had hard work to save me from being apprenticed to
+Helmbold and Geyer the printers. 'Twould have ruined our music together,
+indeed it would. And when we escaped that, old Mattes Roush, the
+leather-breeches maker round the corner, took a notion I was cut out for
+skin-dressing. But we were rescued. Along towards Christmas there comes
+a big sealed letter from the Bank saying that a Monsieur Talleyrand had
+put five hundred dollars--a hundred pounds--to my credit there to use as
+I pleased. There was a little note from him inside--he didn't give any
+address--to thank me for past kindnesses and my believing in his future,
+which he said was pretty cloudy at the time of writing. I wished Toby to
+share the money. I hadn't done more than bring Talleyrand up to Hundred
+and Eighteen. The kindnesses were Toby's. But Toby said, "No! Liberty
+and Independence for ever. I have all my wants, my son." So I gave him
+a set of new fiddle-strings, and the Brethren didn't advise us any more.
+Only Pastor Meder he preached about the deceitfulness of riches, and
+Brother Adam Goos said if there was war the English 'ud surely shoot
+down the Bank. I knew there wasn't going to be any war, but I drew the
+money out and on Red Jacket's advice I put it into horse-flesh, which
+I sold to Bob Bicknell for the Baltimore stage-coaches. That way, I
+doubled my money inside the twelvemonth.' 'You gipsy! You proper gipsy!'
+Puck shouted.
+
+'Why not? 'Twas fair buying and selling. Well, one thing leading to
+another, in a few years I had made the beginning of a worldly fortune
+and was in the tobacco trade.'
+
+'Ah!' said Puck, suddenly. 'Might I inquire if you'd ever sent any news
+to your people in England--or in France?'
+
+'O' course I had. I wrote regular every three months after I'd made
+money in the horse trade. We Lees don't like coming home empty-handed.
+If it's only a turnip or an egg, it's something. Oh yes, I wrote good
+and plenty to Uncle Aurette, and--Dad don't read very quickly--Uncle
+used to slip over Newhaven way and tell Dad what was going on in the
+tobacco trade.'
+
+'I see--
+
+     Aurettes and Lees--
+     Like as two peas.
+
+Go on, Brother Square-toes,' said Puck. Pharaoh laughed and went on.
+
+'Talleyrand he'd gone up in the world same as me. He'd sailed to France
+again, and was a great man in the Government there awhile, but they
+had to turn him out on account of some story about bribes from American
+shippers. All our poor emigres said he was surely finished this time,
+but Red Jacket and me we didn't think it likely, not unless he was quite
+dead. Big Hand had made his peace treaty with Great Britain, just as
+he said he would, and there was a roaring trade 'twixt England and the
+United States for such as 'ud take the risk of being searched by British
+and French men-o'-war. Those two was fighting, and just as his gentlemen
+told Big Hand 'ud happen--the United States was catching it from both.
+If an English man-o'-war met an American ship he'd press half the best
+men out of her, and swear they was British subjects. Most of 'em was! If
+a Frenchman met her he'd, likely, have the cargo out of her, swearing
+it was meant to aid and comfort the English; and if a Spaniard or a
+Dutchman met her--they was hanging on to England's coat-tails too--Lord
+only knows what they wouldn't do! It came over me that what I wanted in
+my tobacco trade was a fast-sailing ship and a man who could be French,
+English, or American at a pinch. Luckily I could lay my hands on both
+articles. So along towards the end of September in the year 'Ninety-nine
+I sailed from Philadelphia with a hundred and eleven hogshead o' good
+Virginia tobacco, in the brig BERTHE AURETTE, named after Mother's
+maiden name, hoping 'twould bring me luck, which she didn't--and yet she
+did.'
+
+'Where was you bound for?' Puck asked.
+
+'Er--any port I found handiest. I didn't tell Toby or the Brethren. They
+don't understand the ins and outs of the tobacco trade.'
+
+Puck coughed a small cough as he shifted a piece of wood with his bare
+foot.
+
+'It's easy for you to sit and judge,' Pharaoh cried. 'But think o' what
+we had to put up with! We spread our wings and run across the broad
+Atlantic like a hen through a horse-fair. Even so, we was stopped by an
+English frigate, three days out. He sent a boat alongside and pressed
+seven able seamen. I remarked it was hard on honest traders, but the
+officer said they was fighting all creation and hadn't time to argue.
+The next English frigate we escaped with no more than a shot in our
+quarter. Then we was chased two days and a night by a French privateer,
+firing between squalls, and the dirty little English ten-gun brig which
+made him sheer off had the impudence to press another five of our men.
+That's how we reached to the chops of the Channel. Twelve good men
+pressed out of thirty-five; an eighteen-pound shot-hole close beside our
+rudder; our mainsail looking like spectacles where the Frenchman had
+hit us--and the Channel crawling with short-handed British cruisers.
+Put that in your pipe and smoke it next time you grumble at the price of
+tobacco!
+
+'Well, then, to top it off, while we was trying to get at our leaks, a
+French lugger come swooping at us out o' the dusk. We warned him to keep
+away, but he fell aboard us, and up climbed his Jabbering red-caps. We
+couldn't endure any more--indeed we couldn't. We went at 'em with all
+we could lay hands on. It didn't last long. They was fifty odd to our
+twenty-three. Pretty soon I heard the cutlasses thrown down and some one
+bellowed for the sacri captain.
+
+'"Here I am!" I says. "I don't suppose it makes any odds to you thieves,
+but this is the United States brig BERTHE AURETTE."
+
+'"My aunt!" the man says, laughing. "Why is she named that?"
+
+'"Who's speaking?" I said. 'Twas too dark to see, but I thought I knew
+the voice.
+
+'"Enseigne de Vaisseau Estephe L'Estrange," he sings out, and then I was
+sure.
+
+'"Oh!" I says. "It's all in the family, I suppose, but you have done a
+fine day's work, Stephen."
+
+'He whips out the binnacle-light and holds it to my face. He was young
+L'Estrange, my full cousin, that I hadn't seen since the night the smack
+sank off Telscombe Tye--six years before.
+
+'"Whew!" he says. "That's why she was named for Aunt Berthe, is it?
+What's your share in her, Pharaoh?"
+
+'"Only half owner, but the cargo's mine."
+
+'"That's bad," he says. "I'll do what I can, but you shouldn't have
+fought us." '"Steve," I says, "you aren't ever going to report our
+little fall-out as a fight! Why, a Revenue cutter 'ud laugh at it!"
+
+'"So'd I if I wasn't in the Republican Navy," he says. "But two of our
+men are dead, d'ye see, and I'm afraid I'll have to take you
+to the Prize Court at Le Havre."
+
+'"Will they condemn my 'baccy?" I asks.
+
+'"To the last ounce. But I was thinking more of the ship. She'd make a
+sweet little craft for the Navy if the Prize Court 'ud let me have her,"
+he says.
+
+'Then I knew there was no hope. I don't blame him--a man must consider
+his own interests, but nigh every dollar I had was in ship or cargo, and
+Steve kept on saying, "You shouldn't have fought us."
+
+'Well, then, the lugger took us to Le Havre, and that being the one time
+we did want a British ship to rescue us, why, o' course we never saw
+one. My cousin spoke his best for us at the Prize Court. He owned he'd
+no right to rush alongside in the face o' the United States flag, but
+we couldn't get over those two men killed, d'ye see, and the Court
+condemned both ship and cargo. They was kind enough not to make us
+prisoners--only beggars--and young L'Estrange was given the BERTHE
+AURETTE to re-arm into the French Navy.
+
+'"I'll take you round to Boulogne," he says. "Mother and the rest'll be
+glad to see you, and you can slip over to Newhaven with Uncle Aurette.
+Or you can ship with me, like most o' your men, and take a turn at King
+George's loose trade. There's plenty pickings," he says.
+
+'Crazy as I was, I couldn't help laughing.
+
+'"I've had my allowance of pickings and stealings," I says. "Where are
+they taking my tobacco?" 'Twas being loaded on to a barge.
+
+'"Up the Seine to be sold in Paris," he says. "Neither you nor I will
+ever touch a penny of that money."
+
+'"Get me leave to go with it," I says. "I'll see if there's justice to
+be gotten out of our American Ambassador."
+
+'"There's not much justice in this world," he says, "without a Navy."
+But he got me leave to go with the barge and he gave me some money. That
+tobacco was all I had, and I followed it like a hound follows a snatched
+bone. Going up the river I fiddled a little to keep my spirits up, as
+well as to make friends with the guard. They was only doing their duty.
+Outside o' that they were the reasonablest o' God's creatures. They
+never even laughed at me. So we come to Paris, by river, along in
+November, which the French had christened Brumaire. They'd given new
+names to all the months, and after such an outrageous silly piece o'
+business as that, they wasn't likely to trouble 'emselves with my rights
+and wrongs. They didn't. The barge was laid up below Notre Dame church
+in charge of a caretaker, and he let me sleep aboard after I'd run about
+all day from office to office, seeking justice and fair dealing, and
+getting speeches concerning liberty. None heeded me. Looking back on it
+I can't rightly blame 'em. I'd no money, my clothes was filthy mucked;
+I hadn't changed my linen in weeks, and I'd no proof of my claims except
+the ship's papers, which, they said, I might have stolen. The thieves!
+The door-keeper to the American Ambassador--for I never saw even the
+Secretary--he swore I spoke French a sight too well for an American
+citizen. Worse than that--I had spent my money, d'ye see, and I--I took
+to fiddling in the streets for my keep; and--and, a ship's captain with
+a fiddle under his arm--well, I don't blame 'em that they didn't believe
+me.
+
+'I come back to the barge one day--late in this month Brumaire it
+was--fair beazled out. Old Maingon, the caretaker, he'd lit a fire in a
+bucket and was grilling a herring.
+
+'"Courage, mon ami," he says. "Dinner is served."
+
+'"I can't eat," I says. "I can't do any more. It's stronger than I am."
+'"Bah!" he says. "Nothing's stronger than a man. Me, for example! Less
+than two years ago I was blown up in the Orient in Aboukir Bay, but
+I descended again and hit the water like a fairy. Look at me now," he
+says. He wasn't much to look at, for he'd only one leg and one eye, but
+the cheerfullest soul that ever trod shoe-leather. "That's worse than a
+hundred and eleven hogshead of 'baccy," he goes on. "You're young, too!
+What wouldn't I give to be young in France at this hour! There's nothing
+you couldn't do," he says. "The ball's at your feet--kick it!" he says.
+He kicks the old fire-bucket with his peg-leg. "General Buonaparte, for
+example!" he goes on. "That man's a babe compared to me, and see what
+he's done already. He's conquered Egypt and Austria and Italy--oh! half
+Europe!" he says, "and now he sails back to Paris, and he sails out
+to St Cloud down the river here--don't stare at the river, you young
+fool!---and all in front of these pig-jobbing lawyers and citizens he
+makes himself Consul, which is as good as a King. He'll be King, too,
+in the next three turns of the capstan--King of France, England, and the
+world! Think o' that!" he shouts, "and eat your herring."
+
+'I says something about Boney. If he hadn't been fighting England I
+shouldn't have lost my 'baccy--should I?
+
+'"Young fellow," says Maingon, "you don't understand."
+
+'We heard cheering. A carriage passed over the bridge with two in it.
+'"That's the man himself," says Maingon. "He'll give 'em something to
+cheer for soon." He stands at the salute.
+
+'"Who's t'other in black beside him?" I asks, fairly shaking all over.
+
+'"Ah! he's the clever one. You'll hear of him before long. He's that
+scoundrel-bishop, Talleyrand."
+
+'"It is!" I said, and up the steps I went with my fiddle, and run after
+the carriage calling, "Abbe, Abbe!"
+
+'A soldier knocked the wind out of me with the back of his sword, but I
+had sense to keep on following till the carriage stopped--and there just
+was a crowd round the house-door! I must have been half-crazy else I
+wouldn't have struck up "Si le Roi m'avait donne Paris la grande ville!"
+I thought it might remind him.
+
+'"That is a good omen!" he says to Boney sitting all hunched up; and he
+looks straight at me.
+
+'"Abbe--oh, Abbe!" I says. "Don't you remember Toby and Hundred and
+Eighteen Second Street?"
+
+'He said not a word. He just crooked his long white finger to the guard
+at the door while the carriage steps were let down, and I skipped into
+the house, and they slammed the door in the crowd's face. '"You go
+there," says a soldier, and shoves me into an empty room, where I
+catched my first breath since I'd left the barge. Presently I heard
+plates rattling next door--there were only folding doors between--and a
+cork drawn. "I tell you," some one shouts with his mouth full, "it was
+all that sulky ass Sieyes' fault. Only my speech to the Five Hundred
+saved the situation."
+
+'"Did it save your coat?" says Talleyrand. "I hear they tore it when
+they threw you out. Don't gasconade to me. You may be in the road of
+victory, but you aren't there yet."
+
+'Then I guessed t'other man was Boney. He stamped about and swore at
+Talleyrand.
+
+'"You forget yourself, Consul," says Talleyrand, "or rather you remember
+yourself--Corsican."
+
+'"Pig!" says Boney, and worse.
+
+'"Emperor!" says Talleyrand, but, the way he spoke, it sounded worst of
+all. Some one must have backed against the folding doors, for they flew
+open and showed me in the middle of the room. Boney whipped out his
+pistol before I could stand up.
+
+"General," says Talleyrand to him, "this gentleman has a habit of
+catching us canaille en deshabille. Put that thing down."
+
+'Boney laid it on the table, so I guessed which was master. Talleyrand
+takes my hand--"Charmed to see you again, Candide," he says. "How is the
+adorable Dr Pangloss and the noble Huron?"
+
+'"They were doing very well when I left," I said. "But I'm not."
+
+'"Do you sell buttons now?" he says, and fills me a glass of wine off
+the table.
+
+'"Madeira," says he. "Not so good as some I have drunk."
+
+'"You mountebank!" Boney roars. "Turn that out." (He didn't even say
+"man," but Talleyrand, being gentle born, just went on.)
+
+'"Pheasant is not so good as pork," he says. "You will find some at that
+table if you will do me the honour to sit down. Pass him a clean plate,
+General." And, as true as I'm here, Boney slid a plate along just like
+a sulky child. He was a lanky-haired, yellow-skinned little man, as
+nervous as a cat--and as dangerous. I could feel that.
+
+'"And now," said Talleyrand, crossing his game leg over his sound one,
+"will you tell me your story?" 'I was in a fluster, but I told him
+nearly everything from the time he left me the five hundred dollars in
+Philadelphia, up to my losing ship and cargo at Le Havre. Boney began by
+listening, but after a bit he dropped into his own thoughts and looked
+at the crowd sideways through the front-room curtains. Talleyrand called
+to him when I'd done.
+
+'"Eh? What we need now," says Boney, "is peace for the next three or
+four years."
+
+'"Quite so," says Talleyrand. "Meantime I want the Consul's order to the
+Prize Court at Le Havre to restore my friend here his ship."
+
+'"Nonsense!" says Boney. "Give away an oak-built brig of two hundred and
+seven tons for sentiment? Certainly not! She must be armed into my Navy
+with ten--no, fourteen twelve-pounders and two long fours. Is she strong
+enough to bear a long twelve forward?"
+
+'Now I could ha' sworn he'd paid no heed to my talk, but that wonderful
+head-piece of his seemingly skimmed off every word of it that was useful
+to him.
+
+'"Ah, General!" says Talleyrand. "You are a magician--a magician without
+morals. But the brig is undoubtedly American, and we don't want to
+offend them more than we have."
+
+'"Need anybody talk about the affair?" he says. He didn't look at me,
+but I knew what was in his mind--just cold murder because I worried him;
+and he'd order it as easy as ordering his carriage.
+
+'"You can't stop 'em," I said. "There's twenty-two other men besides
+me." I felt a little more 'ud set me screaming like a wired hare.
+
+'"Undoubtedly American," Talleyrand goes on. "You would gain
+something if you returned the ship--with a message of fraternal
+good-will--published in the MONITEUR" (that's a French paper like the
+Philadelphia AURORA).
+
+'"A good idea!" Boney answers. "One could say much in a message."
+
+'"It might be useful," says Talleyrand. "Shall I have the message
+prepared?" He wrote something in a little pocket ledger.
+
+'"Yes--for me to embellish this evening. The MONITEUR will publish it
+tonight."
+
+'"Certainly. Sign, please," says Talleyrand, tearing the leaf out.
+
+'"But that's the order to return the brig," says Boney. "Is that
+necessary? Why should I lose a good ship? Haven't I lost enough ships
+already?" 'Talleyrand didn't answer any of those questions. Then Boney
+sidled up to the table and jabs his pen into the ink. Then he shies at
+the paper again: "My signature alone is useless," he says. "You must
+have the other two Consuls as well. Sieyes and Roger Ducos must sign. We
+must preserve the Laws."
+
+'"By the time my friend presents it," says Talleyrand, still looking out
+of window, "only one signature will be necessary."
+
+'Boney smiles. "It's a swindle," says he, but he signed and pushed the
+paper across.
+
+'"Give that to the President of the Prize Court at Le Havre," says
+Talleyrand, "and he will give you back your ship. I will settle for the
+cargo myself. You have told me how much it cost. What profit did you
+expect to make on it?"
+
+'Well, then, as man to man, I was bound to warn him that I'd set out
+to run it into England without troubling the Revenue, and so I couldn't
+rightly set bounds to my profits.'
+
+'I guessed that all along,' said Puck.
+
+     'There was never a Lee to Warminghurst--
+     That wasn't a smuggler last and first.'
+
+The children laughed.
+
+'It's comical enough now,' said Pharaoh. 'But I didn't laugh then. Says
+Talleyrand after a minute, "I am a bad accountant and I have several
+calculations on hand at present. Shall we say twice the cost of the
+cargo?"
+
+'Say? I couldn't say a word. I sat choking and nodding like a China
+image while he wrote an order to his secretary to pay me, I won't say
+how much, because you wouldn't believe it.
+
+'"Oh! Bless you, Abbe! God bless you!" I got it out at last.
+
+'"Yes," he says, "I am a priest in spite of myself, but they call me
+Bishop now. Take this for my episcopal blessing," and he hands me the
+paper.
+
+'"He stole all that money from me," says Boney over my shoulder. "A Bank
+of France is another of the things we must make. Are you mad?" he shouts
+at Talleyrand.
+
+'"Quite," says Talleyrand, getting up. "But be calm. The disease will
+never attack you. It is called gratitude. This gentleman found me in the
+street and fed me when I was hungry."
+
+'"I see; and he has made a fine scene of it, and you have paid him, I
+suppose. Meantime, France waits."
+
+'"Oh! poor France!" says Talleyrand. "Good-bye, Candide," he says to me.
+"By the way," he says, "have you yet got Red Jacket's permission to
+tell me what the President said to his Cabinet after Monsieur Genet rode
+away?"
+
+'I couldn't speak, I could only shake my head, and Boney--so impatient
+he was to go on with his doings--he ran at me and fair pushed me out of
+the room. And that was all there was to it.' Pharaoh stood up and slid
+his fiddle into one of his big skirt-pockets as though it were a dead
+hare.
+
+'Oh! but we want to know lots and lots more,'said Dan. 'How you got
+home--and what old Maingon said on the barge--and wasn't your cousin
+surprised when he had to give back the BERTHE AURETTE, and--'
+
+'Tell us more about Toby!' cried Una.
+
+'Yes, and Red Jacket,' said Dan.
+
+'Won't you tell us any more?' they both pleaded.
+
+Puck kicked the oak branch on the fire, till it sent up a column of
+smoke that made them sneeze. When they had finished the Shaw was empty
+except for old Hobden stamping through the larches.
+
+
+'They gipsies have took two,' he said. 'My black pullet and my liddle
+gingy-speckled cockrel.'
+
+'I thought so,' said Dan, picking up one tail-feather that the old woman
+had overlooked.
+
+'Which way did they go? Which way did the runagates go?' said Hobden.
+
+'Hobby!' said Una. 'Would you like it if we told Keeper Ridley all your
+goings and comings?'
+
+
+
+
+'Poor Honest Men'
+
+
+     Your jar of Virginny
+     Will cost you a guinea,
+     Which you reckon too much by five shilling or ten;
+     But light your churchwarden
+     And judge it accordin'
+     When I've told you the troubles of poor honest men.
+
+     From the Capes of the Delaware,
+     As you are well aware,
+     We sail with tobacco for England--but then
+     Our own British cruisers,
+     They watch us come through, sirs,
+     And they press half a score of us poor honest men.
+
+     Or if by quick sailing
+     (Thick weather prevailing)
+     We leave them behind (as we do now and then)
+     We are sure of a gun from
+     Each frigate we run from,
+     Which is often destruction to poor honest men!
+
+     Broadsides the Atlantic
+     We tumble short-handed,
+     With shot-holes to plug and new canvas to bend,
+     And off the Azores,
+     Dutch, Dons and Monsieurs
+     Are waiting to terrify poor honest men!
+
+     Napoleon's embargo
+     Is laid on all cargo
+     Which comfort or aid to King George may intend;
+     And since roll, twist and leaf,
+     Of all comforts is chief,
+     They try for to steal it from poor honest men!
+
+     With no heart for fight,
+     We take refuge in flight,
+     But fire as we run, our retreat to defend,
+     Until our stern-chasers
+     Cut up her fore-braces,
+     And she flies off the wind from us poor honest men!
+
+     Twix' the Forties and Fifties,
+     South-eastward the drift is,
+     And so, when we think we are making Land's End,
+     Alas, it is Ushant
+     With half the King's Navy,
+     Blockading French ports against poor honest men!
+
+     But they may not quit station
+     (Which is our salvation),
+     So swiftly we stand to the Nor'ard again;
+     And finding the tail of
+     A homeward-bound convoy,
+     We slip past the Scillies like poor honest men.
+
+     'Twix' the Lizard and Dover,
+     We hand our stuff over,
+     Though I may not inform how we do it, nor when;
+     But a light on each quarter
+     Low down on the water
+     Is well understanded by poor honest men.
+     Even then we have dangers
+     From meddlesome strangers,
+     Who spy on our business and are not content
+     To take a smooth answer,
+     Except with a handspike...
+     And they say they are murdered by poor honest men!
+
+     To be drowned or be shot
+     Is our natural lot,
+     Why should we, moreover, be hanged in the end--
+     After all our great pains
+     For to dangle in chains,
+     As though we were smugglers, not poor honest men?
+
+
+
+
+THE CONVERSION OF ST WILFRID
+
+
+
+
+Eddi's Service
+
+
+     Eddi, priest of St Wilfrid
+     In the chapel at Manhood End,
+     Ordered a midnight service
+     For such as cared to attend.
+     But the Saxons were keeping Christmas,
+     And the night was stormy as well.
+     Nobody came to service
+     Though Eddi rang the bell.
+
+     'Wicked weather for walking,'
+     Said Eddi of Manhood End.
+     'But I must go on with the service
+     For such as care to attend.'
+     The altar candles were lighted,--
+     An old marsh donkey came,
+     Bold as a guest invited,
+     And stared at the guttering flame.
+
+     The storm beat on at the windows,
+     The water splashed on the floor,
+     And a wet yoke-weary bullock
+     Pushed in through the open door.
+     'How do I know what is greatest,
+     How do I know what is least?
+     That is My Father's business,'
+     Said Eddi, Wilfrid's priest.
+
+     'But, three are gathered together--
+     Listen to me and attend.
+     I bring good news, my brethren!'
+     Said Eddi, of Manhood End.
+     And he told the Ox of a manger
+     And a stall in Bethlehem,
+     And he spoke to the Ass of a Rider
+     That rode to jerusalem.
+
+     They steamed and dripped in the chancel,
+     They listened and never stirred,
+     While, just as though they were Bishops,
+     Eddi preached them The Word.
+
+     Till the gale blew off on the marshes
+     And the windows showed the day,
+     And the Ox and the Ass together
+     Wheeled and clattered away.
+
+     And when the Saxons mocked him,
+     Said Eddi of Manhood End,
+     'I dare not shut His chapel
+     On such as care to attend.'
+
+
+
+
+The Conversion of St Wilfrid
+
+
+They had bought peppermints up at the village, and were coming home
+past little St Barnabas' Church, when they saw Jimmy Kidbrooke, the
+carpenter's baby, kicking at the churchyard gate, with a shaving in his
+mouth and the tears running down his cheeks.
+
+Una pulled out the shaving and put in a peppermint. Jimmy said he was
+looking for his grand-daddy--he never seemed to take much notice of his
+father--so they went up between the old graves, under the leaf-dropping
+limes, to the porch, where Jim trotted in, looked about the empty
+Church, and screamed like a gate-hinge.
+
+Young Sam Kidbrooke's voice came from the bell-tower and made them jump.
+
+'Why, jimmy,'he called, 'what are you doin' here? Fetch him, Father!'
+
+Old Mr Kidbrooke stumped downstairs, jerked Jimmy on to his shoulder,
+stared at the children beneath his brass spectacles, and stumped back
+again. They laughed: it was so exactly like Mr Kidbrooke.
+
+'It's all right,' Una called up the stairs. 'We found him, Sam. Does his
+mother know?'
+
+'He's come off by himself. She'll be justabout crazy,' Sam answered.
+
+'Then I'll run down street and tell her.' Una darted off.
+
+'Thank you, Miss Una. Would you like to see how we're mendin' the
+bell-beams, Mus' Dan?'
+
+Dan hopped up, and saw young Sam lying on his stomach in a most
+delightful place among beams and ropes, close to the five great bells.
+Old Mr Kidbrooke on the floor beneath was planing a piece of wood, and
+Jimmy was eating the shavings as fast as they came away. He never looked
+at Jimmy; Jimmy never stopped eating; and the broad gilt-bobbed pendulum
+of the church clock never stopped swinging across the white-washed wall
+of the tower.
+
+Dan winked through the sawdust that fell on his upturned face. 'Ring a
+bell,' he called.
+
+'I mustn't do that, but I'll buzz one of 'em a bit for you,' said Sam.
+He pounded on the sound-bow of the biggest bell, and waked a hollow
+groaning boom that ran up and down the tower like creepy feelings down
+your back. Just when it almost began to hurt, it died away in a hurry of
+beautiful sorrowful cries, like a wine-glass rubbed with a wet finger.
+The pendulum clanked--one loud clank to each silent swing.
+
+Dan heard Una return from Mrs Kidbrooke's, and ran down to fetch her.
+She was standing by the font staring at some one who kneeled at the
+Altar-rail.
+
+'Is that the Lady who practises the organ?' she whispered.
+
+'No. She's gone into the organ-place. Besides, she wears black,' Dan
+replied.
+
+The figure rose and came down the nave. It was a white-haired man in
+a long white gown with a sort of scarf looped low on the neck, one end
+hanging over his shoulder. His loose long sleeves were embroidered with
+gold, and a deep strip of gold embroidery waved and sparkled round the
+hem of his gown.
+
+'Go and meet him,' said Puck's voice behind the font. 'It's only
+Wilfrid.'
+
+'Wilfrid who?' said Dan. 'You come along too.'
+
+'Wilfrid--Saint of Sussex, and Archbishop of York. I shall wait till
+he asks me.' He waved them forward. Their feet squeaked on the old
+grave-slabs in the centre aisle. The Archbishop raised one hand with a
+pink ring on it, and said something in Latin. He was very handsome, and
+his thin face looked almost as silvery as his thin circle of hair.
+
+'Are you alone?' he asked.
+
+'Puck's here, of course,' said Una. 'Do you know him?'
+
+'I know him better now than I used to.' He beckoned over Dan's shoulder,
+and spoke again in Latin. Puck pattered forward, holding himself as
+straight as an arrow. The Archbishop smiled.
+
+'Be welcome,' said he. 'Be very welcome.'
+
+'Welcome to you also, O Prince of the church,' Puck replied.
+
+The Archbishop bowed his head and passed on, till he glimmered like a
+white moth in the shadow by the font.
+
+'He does look awfully princely,' said Una. 'Isn't he coming back?'
+
+'Oh yes. He's only looking over the church. He's very fond of churches,'
+said Puck. 'What's that?'
+
+The Lady who practices the organ was speaking to the blower-boy behind
+the organ-screen. 'We can't very well talk here,' Puck whispered. 'Let's
+go to Panama Corner.'
+
+He led them to the end of the south aisle, where there is a slab of iron
+which says in queer, long-tailed letters: ORATE P. ANNEMA JHONE COLINE.
+The children always called it Panama Corner.
+
+The Archbishop moved slowly about the little church, peering at the old
+memorial tablets and the new glass windows. The Lady who practises the
+organ began to pull out stops and rustle hymn-books behind the screen.
+
+'I hope she'll do all the soft lacey tunes--like treacle on porridge,'
+said Una.
+
+'I like the trumpety ones best,' said Dan. 'Oh, look at Wilfrid! He's
+trying to shut the Altar-gates!'
+
+'Tell him he mustn't,' said Puck, quite seriously.
+
+He can't, anyhow,' Dan muttered, and tiptoed out of Panama Corner while
+the Archbishop patted and patted at the carved gates that always sprang
+open again beneath his hand.
+
+'That's no use, sir,' Dan whispered. 'Old Mr Kidbrooke says Altar-gates
+are just the one pair of gates which no man can shut. He made 'em so
+himself.'
+
+The Archbishop's blue eyes twinkled. Dan saw that he knew all about it.
+
+'I beg your pardon,' Dan stammered--very angry with Puck.
+
+'Yes, I know! He made them so Himself.' The Archbishop smiled, and
+crossed to Panama Corner, where Una dragged up a certain padded
+arm-chair for him to sit on.
+
+The organ played softly. 'What does that music say?'he asked.
+
+Una dropped into the chant without thinking: '"O all ye works of the
+Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever." We call
+it the Noah's Ark, because it's all lists of things--beasts and birds
+and whales, you know.'
+
+'Whales?' said the Archbishop quickly.
+
+'Yes--"O ye whales, and all that move in the waters,"' Una
+hummed--'"Bless ye the Lord." It sounds like a wave turning over,
+doesn't it?'
+
+'Holy Father,' said Puck with a demure face, 'is a little seal also "one
+who moves in the water"?'
+
+'Eh? Oh yes--yess!' he laughed. 'A seal moves wonderfully in the waters.
+Do the seal come to my island still?'
+
+Puck shook his head. 'All those little islands have been swept away.'
+
+'Very possible. The tides ran fiercely down there. Do you know the land
+of the Sea-calf, maiden?'
+
+'No--but we've seen seals--at Brighton.'
+
+'The Archbishop is thinking of a little farther down the coast. He means
+Seal's Eye--Selsey--down Chichester way--where he converted the South
+Saxons,' Puck explained.
+
+'Yes--yess; if the South Saxons did not convert me,' said the
+Archbishop, smiling. 'The first time I was wrecked was on that coast. As
+our ship took ground and we tried to push her off, an old fat fellow of
+a seal, I remember, reared breast-high out of the water, and scratched
+his head with his flipper as if he were saying: "What does that excited
+person with the pole think he is doing." I was very wet and miserable,
+but I could not help laughing, till the natives came down and attacked
+us.'
+
+'What did you do?' Dan asked.
+
+'One couldn't very well go back to France, so one tried to make them go
+back to the shore. All the South Saxons are born wreckers, like my own
+Northumbrian folk. I was bringing over a few things for my old church at
+York, and some of the natives laid hands on them, and--and I'm afraid I
+lost my temper.'
+
+'It is said--' Puck's voice was wickedly meek--'that there was a great
+fight.'
+
+Eh, but I must ha' been a silly lad.' Wilfrid spoke with a sudden thick
+burr in his voice. He coughed, and took up his silvery tones again.
+'There was no fight really. My men thumped a few of them, but the tide
+rose half an hour before its time, with a strong wind, and we backed
+off. What I wanted to say, though, was, that the seas about us were full
+of sleek seals watching the scuffle. My good Eddi--my chaplain--insisted
+that they were demons. Yes--yess! That was my first acquaintance with
+the South Saxons and their seals.'
+
+'But not the only time you were wrecked, was it?' said Dan.
+
+'Alas, no! On sea and land my life seems to have been one long
+shipwreck.' He looked at the Jhone Coline slab as old Hobden sometimes
+looks into the fire. 'Ah, well!'
+
+'But did you ever have any more adventures among the seals?' said Una,
+after a little.
+
+'Oh, the seals! I beg your pardon. They are the important things.
+Yes--yess! I went back to the South Saxons after twelve--fifteen--years.
+No, I did not come by water, but overland from my own Northumbria, to
+see what I could do. It's little one can do with that class of native
+except make them stop killing each other and themselves--' 'Why did they
+kill themselves?' Una asked, her chin in her hand.
+
+'Because they were heathen. When they grew tired of life (as if they
+were the only people!) they would jump into the sea. They called it
+going to Wotan. It wasn't want of food always--by any means. A man would
+tell you that he felt grey in the heart, or a woman would say that she
+saw nothing but long days in front of her; and they'd saunter away to
+the mud-flats and--that would be the end of them, poor souls, unless one
+headed them off. One had to run quick, but one can't allow people to
+lay hands on themselves because they happen to feel grey.
+Yes--yess--Extraordinary people, the South Saxons. Disheartening,
+sometimes.... What does that say now?' The organ had changed tune again.
+
+'Only a hymn for next Sunday,' said Una. '"The Church's One Foundation."
+Go on, please, about running over the mud. I should like to have seen
+you.'
+
+'I dare say you would, and I really could run in those days. Ethelwalch
+the King gave me some five or six muddy parishes by the sea, and the
+first time my good Eddi and I rode there we saw a man slouching
+along the slob, among the seals at Manhood End. My good Eddi disliked
+seals--but he swallowed his objections and ran like a hare.'
+
+'Why?'said Dan.
+
+'For the same reason that I did. We thought it was one of our people
+going to drown himself. As a matter of fact, Eddi and I were nearly
+drowned in the pools before we overtook him. To cut a long story short,
+we found ourselves very muddy, very breathless, being quietly made fun
+of in good Latin by a very well-spoken person. No--he'd no idea of
+going to Wotan. He was fishing on his own beaches, and he showed us the
+beacons and turf-heaps that divided his land from the church property.
+He took us to his own house, gave us a good dinner, some more than good
+wine, sent a guide with us into Chichester, and became one of my best
+and most refreshing friends. He was a Meon by descent, from the west
+edge of the kingdom; a scholar educated, curiously enough, at Lyons,
+my old school; had travelled the world over, even to Rome, and was a
+brilliant talker. We found we had scores of acquaintances in common. It
+seemed he was a small chief under King Ethelwalch, and I fancy the King
+was somewhat afraid of him. The South Saxons mistrust a man who talks
+too well. Ah! Now, I've left out the very point of my story. He kept a
+great grey-muzzled old dog-seal that he had brought up from a pup. He
+called it Padda--after one of my clergy. It was rather like fat, honest
+old Padda. The creature followed him everywhere, and nearly knocked down
+my good Eddi when we first met him. Eddi loathed it. It used to sniff at
+his thin legs and cough at him. I can't say I ever took much notice
+of it (I was not fond of animals), till one day Eddi came to me with
+a circumstantial account of some witchcraft that Meon worked. He would
+tell the seal to go down to the beach the last thing at night, and
+bring him word of the weather. When it came back, Meon might say to his
+slaves, "Padda thinks we shall have wind tomorrow. Haul up the boats!" I
+spoke to Meon casually about the story, and he laughed.
+
+'He told me he could judge by the look of the creature's coat and the
+way it sniffed what weather was brewing. Quite possible. One need
+not put down everything one does not understand to the work of bad
+spirits--or good ones, for that matter.' He nodded towards Puck, who
+nodded gaily in return.
+
+'I say so,' he went on, 'because to a certain extent I have been made a
+victim of that habit of mind. Some while after I was settled at Selsey,
+King Ethelwalch and Queen Ebba ordered their people to be baptized. I
+fear I'm too old to believe that a whole nation can change its heart at
+the King's command, and I had a shrewd suspicion that their real motive
+was to get a good harvest. No rain had fallen for two or three years,
+but as soon as we had finished baptizing, it fell heavily, and they all
+said it was a miracle.'
+
+'And was it?' Dan asked.
+
+'Everything in life is a miracle, but'--the Archbishop twisted the heavy
+ring on his finger--'I should be slow--ve-ry slow should I be--to assume
+that a certain sort of miracle happens whenever lazy and improvident
+people say they are going to turn over a new leaf if they are paid for
+it. My friend Meon had sent his slaves to the font, but he had not come
+himself, so the next time I rode over--to return a manuscript--I took
+the liberty of asking why. He was perfectly open about it. He looked
+on the King's action as a heathen attempt to curry favour with the
+Christians' God through me the Archbishop, and he would have none of it.
+
+'"My dear man," I said, "admitting that that is the case, surely you, as
+an educated person, don't believe in Wotan and all the other hobgoblins
+any more than Padda here?" The old seal was hunched up on his ox-hide
+behind his master's chair.
+
+'"Even if I don't," he said, "why should I insult the memory of my
+fathers' Gods? I have sent you a hundred and three of my rascals to
+christen. Isn't that enough?"
+
+'"By no means," I answered. "I want you."
+
+'"He wants us! What do you think of that, Padda?" He pulled the seal's
+whiskers till it threw back its head and roared, and he pretended to
+interpret. "No! Padda says he won't be baptized yet awhile. He says
+you'll stay to dinner and come fishing with me tomorrow, because you're
+over-worked and need a rest."
+
+'"I wish you'd keep yon brute in its proper place," I said, and Eddi, my
+chaplain, agreed.
+
+'"I do," said Meon. "I keep him just next my heart. He can't tell a lie,
+and he doesn't know how to love any one except me. It 'ud be the same if
+I were dying on a mud-bank, wouldn't it, Padda?"
+
+'"Augh! Augh!" said Padda, and put up his head to be scratched.
+
+'Then Meon began to tease Eddi: "Padda says, if Eddi saw his Archbishop
+dying on a mud-bank Eddi would tuck up his gown and run. Padda knows
+Eddi can run too! Padda came into Wittering Church last Sunday--all
+wet--to hear the music, and Eddi ran out."
+
+'My good Eddi rubbed his hands and his shins together, and flushed.
+"Padda is a child of the Devil, who is the father of lies!" he cried,
+and begged my pardon for having spoken. I forgave him.
+
+'"Yes. You are just about stupid enough for a musician," said Meon. "But
+here he is. Sing a hymn to him, and see if he can stand it. You'll find
+my small harp beside the fireplace."
+
+'Eddi, who is really an excellent musician, played and sang for quite
+half an hour. Padda shuffled off his ox-hide, hunched himself on his
+flippers before him, and listened with his head thrown back. Yes--yess!
+A rather funny sight! Meon tried not to laugh, and asked Eddi if he were
+satisfied.
+
+'It takes some time to get an idea out of my good Eddi's head. He looked
+at me.
+
+'"Do you want to sprinkle him with holy water, and see if he flies up
+the chimney? Why not baptize him?" said Meon.
+
+'Eddi was really shocked. I thought it was bad taste myself.
+
+'"That's not fair," said Meon. "You call him a demon and a familiar
+spirit because he loves his master and likes music, and when I offer you
+a chance to prove it you won't take it. Look here! I'll make a bargain.
+I'll be baptized if you'll baptize Padda too. He's more of a man than
+most of my slaves."
+
+'"One doesn't bargain--or joke--about these matters," I said. He was
+going altogether too far.
+
+'"Quite right," said Meon; "I shouldn't like any one to joke about
+Padda. Padda, go down to the beach and bring us tomorrow's weather!"
+
+'My good Eddi must have been a little over-tired with his day's work.
+"I am a servant of the church," he cried. "My business is to save souls,
+not to enter into fellowships and understandings with accursed beasts."
+
+'"Have it your own narrow way," said Meon. "Padda, you needn't go." The
+old fellow flounced back to his ox-hide at once.
+
+'"Man could learn obedience at least from that creature," said Eddi, a
+little ashamed of himself. Christians should not curse. '"Don't begin to
+apologise Just when I am beginning to like you," said Meon. "We'll leave
+Padda behind tomorrow--out of respect to your feelings. Now let's go to
+supper. We must be up early tomorrow for the whiting."
+
+'The next was a beautiful crisp autumn morning--a weather-breeder, if I
+had taken the trouble to think; but it's refreshing to escape from
+kings and converts for half a day. We three went by ourselves in Meon's
+smallest boat, and we got on the whiting near an old wreck, a mile or
+so off shore. Meon knew the marks to a yard, and the fish were
+keen. Yes--yess! A perfect morning's fishing! If a Bishop can't be a
+fisherman, who can?' He twiddled his ring again. 'We stayed there a
+little too long, and while we were getting up our stone, down came the
+fog. After some discussion, we decided to row for the land. The ebb was
+just beginning to make round the point, and sent us all ways at once
+like a coracle.'
+
+'Selsey Bill,' said Puck under his breath. 'The tides run something
+furious there.'
+
+'I believe you,' said the Archbishop. 'Meon and I have spent a good many
+evenings arguing as to where exactly we drifted. All I know is we found
+ourselves in a little rocky cove that had sprung up round us out of the
+fog, and a swell lifted the boat on to a ledge, and she broke up beneath
+our feet. We had just time to shuffle through the weed before the next
+wave. The sea was rising. '"It's rather a pity we didn't let Padda go
+down to the beach last night," said Meon. "He might have warned us this
+was coming."
+
+'"Better fall into the hands of God than the hands of demons," said
+Eddi, and his teeth chattered as he prayed. A nor'-west breeze had just
+got up--distinctly cool.
+
+'"Save what you can of the boat," said Meon; "we may need it," and we
+had to drench ourselves again, fishing out stray planks.'
+
+'What for?' said Dan.
+
+'For firewood. We did not know when we should get off. Eddi had flint
+and steel, and we found dry fuel in the old gulls' nests and lit a
+fire. It smoked abominably, and we guarded it with boat-planks up-ended
+between the rocks. One gets used to that sort of thing if one travels.
+Unluckily I'm not so strong as I was. I fear I must have been a trouble
+to my friends. It was blowing a full gale before midnight. Eddi wrung
+out his cloak, and tried to wrap me in it, but I ordered him on his
+obedience to keep it. However, he held me in his arms all the first
+night, and Meon begged his pardon for what he'd said the night
+before--about Eddi, running away if he found me on a sandbank, you
+remember. '"You are right in half your prophecy," said Eddi. "I have
+tucked up my gown, at any rate." (The wind had blown it over his head.)
+"Now let us thank God for His mercies."
+
+'"Hum!" said Meon. "If this gale lasts, we stand a very fair chance of
+dying of starvation."
+
+'"If it be God's will that we survive, God will provide," said Eddi. "At
+least help me to sing to Him." The wind almost whipped the words out of
+his mouth, but he braced himself against a rock and sang psalms.
+
+'I'm glad I never concealed my opinion--from myself--that Eddi was
+a better man than I. Yet I have worked hard in my time--very hard!
+Yes--yess! So the morning and the evening were our second day on that
+islet. There was rain-water in the rock-pools, and, as a churchman, I
+knew how to fast, but I admit we were hungry. Meon fed our fire chip by
+chip to eke it out, and they made me sit over it, the dear fellows, when
+I was too weak to object. Meon held me in his arms the second night,
+just like a child. My good Eddi was a little out of his senses,
+and imagined himself teaching a York choir to sing. Even so, he was
+beautifully patient with them.
+
+'I heard Meon whisper, "If this keeps up we shall go to our Gods. I
+wonder what Wotan will say to me. He must know I don't believe in him.
+On the other hand, I can't do what Ethelwalch finds so easy--curry
+favour with your God at the last minute, in the hope of being saved--as
+you call it. How do you advise, Bishop?" '"My dear man," I said, "if
+that is your honest belief, I take it upon myself to say you had far
+better not curry favour with any God. But if it's only your Jutish pride
+that holds you back, lift me up, and I'll baptize you even now."
+
+'"Lie still," said Meon. "I could judge better if I were in my own
+hall. But to desert one's fathers' Gods--even if one doesn't believe in
+them--in the middle of a gale, isn't quite--What would you do yourself?"
+
+'I was lying in his arms, kept alive by the warmth of his big, steady
+heart. It did not seem to me the time or the place for subtle arguments,
+so I answered, "No, I certainly should not desert my God." I don't see
+even now what else I could have said.
+
+'"Thank you. I'll remember that, if I live," said Meon, and I must have
+drifted back to my dreams about Northumbria and beautiful France, for
+it was broad daylight when I heard him calling on Wotan in that high,
+shaking heathen yell that I detest so.
+
+'"Lie quiet. I'm giving Wotan his chance," he said. Our dear Eddi ambled
+up, still beating time to his imaginary choir.
+
+'"Yes. Call on your Gods," he cried, "and see what gifts they will send
+you. They are gone on a journey, or they are hunting."
+
+'I assure you the words were not out of his mouth when old Padda shot
+from the top of a cold wrinkled swell, drove himself over the weedy
+ledge, and landed fair in our laps with a rock-cod between his teeth. I
+could not help smiling at Eddi's face. "A miracle! A miracle!" he cried,
+and kneeled down to clean the cod.
+
+'"You've been a long time finding us, my son," said Meon. "Now
+fish--fish for all our lives. We're starving, Padda."
+
+'The old fellow flung himself quivering like a salmon backward into the
+boil of the currents round the rocks, and Meon said, "We're safe. I'll
+send him to fetch help when this wind drops. Eat and be thankful."
+
+'I never tasted anything so good as those rock-codlings we took from
+Padda's mouth and half roasted over the fire. Between his plunges Padda
+would hunch up and purr over Meon with the tears running down his face.
+I never knew before that seals could weep for joy--as I have wept.
+
+'"Surely," said Eddi, with his mouth full, "God has made the seal the
+loveliest of His creatures in the water. Look how Padda breasts the
+current! He stands up against it like a rock; now watch the chain of
+bubbles where he dives; and now--there is his wise head under that
+rock-ledge! Oh, a blessing be on thee, my little brother Padda!"
+
+'"You said he was a child of the Devil!" Meon laughed. '"There I
+sinned," poor Eddi answered. "Call him here, and I will ask his pardon.
+God sent him out of the storm to humble me, a fool."
+
+'"I won't ask you to enter into fellowships and understandings with any
+accursed brute," said Meon, rather unkindly. "Shall we say he was sent
+to our Bishop as the ravens were sent to your prophet Elijah?"
+
+'"Doubtless that is so," said Eddi. "I will write it so if I live to get
+home."
+
+'"No--no!" I said. "Let us three poor men kneel and thank God for His
+mercies."
+
+'We kneeled, and old Padda shuffled up and thrust his head under Meon's
+elbows. I laid my hand upon it and blessed him. So did Eddi.
+
+'"And now, my son," I said to Meon, "shall I baptize thee?"
+
+'"Not yet," said he. "Wait till we are well ashore and at home. No God
+in any Heaven shall say that I came to him or left him because I was wet
+and cold. I will send Padda to my people for a boat. Is that witchcraft,
+Eddi?"
+
+'"Why, no. Surely Padda will go and pull them to the beach by the skirts
+of their gowns as he pulled me in Wittering Church to ask me to sing.
+Only then I was afraid, and did not understand," said Eddi.
+
+'"You are understanding now," said Meon, and at a wave of his arm off
+went Padda to the mainland, making a wake like a war-boat till we lost
+him in the rain. Meon's people could not bring a boat across for some
+hours; even so it was ticklish work among the rocks in that tideway.
+But they hoisted me aboard, too stiff to move, and Padda swam behind us,
+barking and turning somersaults all the way to Manhood End!'
+
+'Good old Padda!' murmured Dan.
+
+'When we were quite rested and re-clothed, and his people had been
+summoned--not an hour before--Meon offered himself to be baptized.'
+
+'Was Padda baptized too?' Una asked.
+
+'No, that was only Meon's joke. But he sat blinking on his ox-hide in
+the middle of the hall. When Eddi (who thought I wasn't looking) made a
+little cross in holy water on his wet muzzle, he kissed Eddi's hand. A
+week before Eddi wouldn't have touched him. That was a miracle, if you
+like! But seriously, I was more glad than I can tell you to get Meon. A
+rare and splendid soul that never looked back--never looked back!' The
+Arch-bishop half closed his eyes.
+
+'But, sir,' said Puck, most respectfully, 'haven't you left out what
+Meon said afterwards?' Before the Bishop could speak he turned to the
+children and went on: 'Meon called all his fishers and ploughmen and
+herdsmen into the hall and he said: "Listen, men! Two days ago I asked
+our Bishop whether it was fair for a man to desert his fathers' Gods
+in a time of danger. Our Bishop said it was not fair. You needn't shout
+like that, because you are all Christians now. My red war-boat's crew
+will remember how near we all were to death when Padda fetched them over
+to the Bishop's islet. You can tell your mates that even in that place,
+at that time, hanging on the wet, weedy edge of death, our Bishop, a
+Christian, counselled me, a heathen, to stand by my fathers' Gods. I
+tell you now that a faith which takes care that every man shall keep
+faith, even though he may save his soul by breaking faith, is the faith
+for a man to believe in. So I believe in the Christian God, and in
+Wilfrid His Bishop, and in the Church that Wilfrid rules. You have been
+baptized once by the King's orders. I shall not have you baptized again;
+but if I find any more old women being sent to Wotan, or any girls
+dancing on the sly before Balder, or any men talking about Thun or Lok
+or the rest, I will teach you with my own hands how to keep faith with
+the Christian God. Go out quietly; you'll find a couple of beefs on the
+beach." Then of course they shouted "Hurrah!" which meant "Thor help
+us!" and--I think you laughed, sir?'
+
+'I think you remember it all too well,' said the Archbishop, smiling.
+'It was a joyful day for me. I had learned a great deal on that rock
+where Padda found us. Yes--yess! One should deal kindly with all the
+creatures of God, and gently with their masters. But one learns late.'
+
+He rose, and his gold-embroidered sleeves rustled thickly.
+
+The organ cracked and took deep breaths.
+
+'Wait a minute,' Dan whispered. 'She's going to do the trumpety one. It
+takes all the wind you can pump. It's in Latin, sir.'
+
+'There is no other tongue,' the Archbishop answered.
+
+'It's not a real hymn,' Una explained. 'She does it as a treat after her
+exercises. She isn't a real organist, you know. She just comes down here
+sometimes, from the Albert Hall.'
+
+'Oh, what a miracle of a voice!' said the Archbishop.
+
+It rang out suddenly from a dark arch of lonely noises--every word
+spoken to the very end:
+
+     'Dies Irae, dies illa,
+     Solvet saeclum in favilla,
+     Teste David cum Sibylla.'
+The Archbishop caught his breath and moved forward. The music carried on
+by itself a while.
+
+'Now it's calling all the light out of the windows,' Una whispered to
+Dan.
+
+'I think it's more like a horse neighing in battle,' he whispered back.
+The voice continued:
+
+     'Tuba mirum spargens sonum
+     Per sepulchre regionum.'
+
+Deeper and deeper the organ dived down, but far below its deepest note
+they heard Puck's voice joining in the last line:
+
+     'Coget omnes ante thronum.'
+
+As they looked in wonder, for it sounded like the dull jar of one of the
+very pillars shifting, the little fellow turned and went out through the
+south door.
+
+'Now's the sorrowful part, but it's very beautiful.' Una found herself
+speaking to the empty chair in front of her.
+
+'What are you doing that for?' Dan said behind her. 'You spoke so
+politely too.'
+
+'I don't know... I thought--' said Una. 'Funny!'
+
+''Tisn't. It's the part you like best,' Dan grunted.
+
+The music had turned soft--full of little sounds that chased each other
+on wings across the broad gentle flood of the main tune. But the voice
+was ten times lovelier than the music.
+
+     'Recordare Jesu pie,
+     Quod sum causa Tuae viae,
+     Ne me perdas illi die!'
+
+There was no more. They moved out into the centre aisle.
+
+'That you?' the Lady called as she shut the lid. 'I thought I heard you,
+and I played it on purpose.'
+
+'Thank you awfully,' said Dan. 'We hoped you would, so we waited. Come
+on, Una, it's pretty nearly dinner-time.'
+
+
+
+
+Song of the Red War-Boat
+
+
+     Shove off from the wharf-edge!  Steady!
+     Watch for a smooth!  Give way!
+     If she feels the lop already
+     She'll stand on her head in the bay.
+     It's ebb--it's dusk--it's blowing,
+     The shoals are a mile of white,
+     But (snatch her along!) we're going
+     To find our master tonight.
+
+          For we hold that in all disaster
+          Of shipwreck, storm, or sword,
+          A man must stand by his master
+          When once he had pledged his word!
+
+     Raging seas have we rowed in,
+     But we seldom saw them thus;
+     Our master is angry with Odin--
+     Odin is angry with us!
+     Heavy odds have we taken,
+     But never before such odds.
+     The Gods know they are forsaken,
+     We must risk the wrath of the Gods!
+
+     Over the crest she flies from,
+     Into its hollow she drops,
+     Crouches and clears her eyes from
+     The wind-torn breaker-tops,
+     Ere out on the shrieking shoulder
+     Of a hill-high surge she drives.
+     Meet her!  Meet her and hold her!
+     Pull for your scoundrel lives!
+
+     The thunder bellow and clamour
+     The harm that they mean to do;
+     There goes Thor's Own Hammer
+     Cracking the dark in two!
+
+     Close!  But the blow has missed her,
+     Here comes the wind of the blow!
+     Row or the squall'll twist her
+     Broadside on to it!---Row!
+
+     Hearken, Thor of the Thunder!
+     We are not here for a jest--
+     For wager, warfare, or plunder,
+     Or to put your power to test.
+     This work is none of our wishing--
+     We would stay at home if we might--
+     But our master is wrecked out fishing,
+     We go to find him tonight.
+
+          For we hold that in all disaster--
+          As the Gods Themselves have said--
+          A man must stand by his master
+          Till one of the two is dead.
+
+     That is our way of thinking,
+     Now you can do as you will,
+     While we try to save her from sinking,
+     And hold her head to it still.
+     Bale her and keep her moving,
+     Or she'll break her back in the trough...
+     Who said the weather's improving,
+     And the swells are taking off?
+
+     Sodden, and chafed and aching,
+     Gone in the loins and knees--
+     No matter--the day is breaking,
+     And there's far less weight to the seas!
+     Up mast, and finish baling--
+     In oars, and out with the mead--
+     The rest will be two-reef sailing...
+     That was a night indeed!
+          But we hold that in all disaster
+          (And faith, we have found it true!)
+          If only you stand by your master,
+          The Gods will stand by you!
+
+
+
+
+
+A DOCTOR OF MEDICINE
+
+
+
+
+An Astrologer's Song
+
+
+     To the Heavens above us
+     Oh, look and behold
+     The planets that love us
+     All harnessed in gold!
+     What chariots, what horses,
+     Against us shall bide
+     While the Stars in their courses
+     Do fight on our side?
+
+     All thought, all desires,
+     That are under the sun,
+     Are one with their fires,
+     As we also are one;
+     All matter, all spirit,
+     All fashion, all frame,
+     Receive and inherit
+     Their strength from the same.
+
+     (Oh, man that deniest
+     All power save thine own,
+     Their power in the highest
+     Is mightily shown.
+     Not less in the lowest
+     That power is made clear.
+     Oh, man, if thou knowest,
+     What treasure is here!)
+
+     Earth quakes in her throes
+     And we wonder for why!
+     But the blind planet knows
+     When her ruler is nigh;
+     And, attuned since Creation,
+     To perfect accord,
+     She thrills in her station
+     And yearns to her Lord.
+
+     The waters have risen,
+     The springs are unbound--
+     The floods break their prison,
+     And ravin around.
+     No rampart withstands 'em,
+     Their fury will last,
+     Till the Sign that commands 'em
+     Sinks low or swings past.
+
+     Through abysses unproven,
+     And gulfs beyond thought,
+     Our portion is woven,
+     Our burden is brought.
+     Yet They that prepare it,
+     Whose Nature we share,
+     Make us who must bear it
+     Well able to bear.
+
+     Though terrors o'ertake us
+     We'll not be afraid,
+     No Power can unmake us
+     Save that which has made.
+     Nor yet beyond reason
+     Nor hope shall we fall--
+     All things have their season,
+     And Mercy crowns all.
+
+     Then, doubt not, ye fearful--
+     The Eternal is King--
+     Up, heart, and be cheerful,
+     And lustily sing:
+     What chariots, what horses,
+     Against us shall bide
+     While the Stars in their courses
+     Do fight on our side?
+
+
+
+
+A Doctor of Medicine
+
+They were playing hide-and-seek with bicycle lamps after tea. Dan had
+hung his lamp on the apple tree at the end of the hellebore bed in the
+walled garden, and was crouched by the gooseberry bushes ready to dash
+off when Una should spy him. He saw her lamp come into the garden and
+disappear as she hid it under her cloak. While he listened for her
+footsteps, somebody (they both thought it was Phillips the gardener)
+coughed in the corner of the herb-beds.
+
+'All right,' Una shouted across the asparagus; 'we aren't hurting your
+old beds, Phippsey!'
+
+She flashed her lantern towards the spot, and in its circle of light
+they saw a Guy Fawkes-looking man in a black cloak and a steeple-crowned
+hat, walking down the path beside Puck. They ran to meet him, and the
+man said something to them about rooms in their head. After a time they
+understood he was warning them not to catch colds.
+
+'You've a bit of a cold yourself, haven't you?' said Una, for he ended
+all his sentences with a consequential cough. Puck laughed.
+
+'Child,' the man answered, 'if it hath pleased Heaven to afflict me with
+an infirmity--'
+
+'Nay, nay,' Puck struck In, 'the maid spoke out of kindness. I know that
+half your cough is but a catch to trick the vulgar; and that's a pity.
+There's honesty enough in you, Nick, without rasping and hawking.'
+
+'Good people'--the man shrugged his lean shoulders--'the vulgar crowd
+love not truth unadorned. Wherefore we philosophers must needs dress her
+to catch their eye or--ahem!---their ear.'
+
+'And what d'you think of that?' said Puck solemnly to Dan.
+
+'I don't know,' he answered. 'It sounds like lessons.'
+
+'Ah--well! There have been worse men than Nick Culpeper to take lessons
+from. Now, where can we sit that's not indoors?'
+
+'In the hay-mow, next to old Middenboro,' Dan suggested. 'He doesn't
+mind.'
+
+'Eh?' Mr Culpeper was stooping over the pale hellebore blooms by the
+light of Una's lamp. 'Does Master Middenboro need my poor services,
+then?'
+
+'Save him, no!' said Puck. 'He is but a horse--next door to an ass, as
+you'll see presently. Come!'
+
+Their shadows jumped and slid on the fruit-tree walls. They filed out of
+the garden by the snoring pig-pound and the crooning hen-house, to the
+shed where Middenboro the old lawn-mower pony lives. His friendly eyes
+showed green in the light as they set their lamps down on the chickens'
+drinking-trough outside, and pushed past to the hay-mow. Mr Culpeper
+stooped at the door.
+
+'Mind where you lie,' said Dan. 'This hay's full of hedge-brishings.
+
+'In! in!' said Puck. 'You've lain in fouler places than this, Nick.
+Ah! Let us keep touch with the stars!' He kicked open the top of the
+half-door, and pointed to the clear sky. 'There be the planets you
+conjure with! What does your wisdom make of that wandering and variable
+star behind those apple boughs?'
+
+The children smiled. A bicycle that they knew well was being walked down
+the steep lane. 'Where?' Mr Culpeper leaned forward quickly. 'That? Some
+countryman's lantern.'
+
+'Wrong, Nick,' said Puck. ''Tis a singular bright star in Virgo,
+declining towards the house of Aquarius the water-carrier, who hath
+lately been afflicted by Gemini. Aren't I right, Una?' Mr Culpeper
+snorted contemptuously.
+
+'No. It's the village nurse going down to the Mill about some fresh
+twins that came there last week. Nurse,' Una called, as the light
+stopped on the flat, 'when can I see the Morris twins? And how are
+they?'
+
+'Next Sunday, perhaps. Doing beautifully,' the Nurse called back, and
+with a ping-ping-ping of the bell brushed round the corner.
+
+'Her uncle's a vetinary surgeon near Banbury,' Una explained, and if you
+ring her bell at night, it rings right beside her bed--not downstairs
+at all. Then she 'umps up--she always keeps a pair of dry boots in the
+fender, you know--and goes anywhere she's wanted. We help her bicycle
+through gaps sometimes. Most of her babies do beautifully. She told us
+so herself.'
+
+'I doubt not, then, that she reads in my books,' said Mr Culpeper
+quietly. 'Twins at the Mill!' he muttered half aloud. "And again He
+sayeth, Return, ye children of men."'
+
+'Are you a doctor or a rector?' Una asked, and Puck with a shout turned
+head over heels in the hay. But Mr Culpeper was quite serious. He told
+them that he was a physician-astrologer--a doctor who knew all about the
+stars as well as all about herbs for medicine. He said that the sun,
+the moon, and five Planets, called Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, and
+Venus, governed everybody and everything in the world. They all lived
+in Houses--he mapped out some of them against the dark with a busy
+forefinger--and they moved from House to House like pieces at draughts;
+and they went loving and hating each other all over the skies. If you
+knew their likes and dislikes, he said, you could make them cure your
+patient and hurt your enemy, and find out the secret causes of things.
+He talked of these five Planets as though they belonged to him, or as
+though he were playing long games against them. The children burrowed
+in the hay up to their chins, and looked out over the half-door at the
+solemn, star-powdered sky till they seemed to be falling upside down
+into it, while Mr Culpeper talked about 'trines' and 'oppositions' and
+'conjunctions' and 'sympathies' and 'antipathies' in a tone that just
+matched things.
+
+A rat ran between Middenboro's feet, and the old pony stamped.
+
+'Mid hates rats,' said Dan, and passed him over a lock of hay. 'I wonder
+why.'
+
+'Divine Astrology tells us,' said Mr Culpeper. 'The horse, being a
+martial beast that beareth man to battle, belongs naturally to the red
+planet Mars--the Lord of War. I would show you him, but he's too near
+his setting. Rats and mice, doing their businesses by night, come under
+the dominion of our Lady the Moon. Now between Mars and Luna, the one
+red, t'other white, the one hot t'other cold and so forth, stands, as
+I have told you, a natural antipathy, or, as you say, hatred. Which
+antipathy their creatures do inherit. Whence, good people, you may both
+see and hear your cattle stamp in their stalls for the self-same causes
+as decree the passages of the stars across the unalterable face of
+Heaven! Ahem!' Puck lay along chewing a leaf. They felt him shake with
+laughter, and Mr Culpeper sat up stiffly.
+
+'I myself' said he, 'have saved men's lives, and not a few neither, by
+observing at the proper time--there is a time, mark you, for all
+things under the sun--by observing, I say, so small a beast as a rat
+in conjunction with so great a matter as this dread arch above us.' He
+swept his hand across the sky. 'Yet there are those,' he went on sourly,
+'who have years without knowledge.'
+
+'Right,' said Puck. 'No fool like an old fool.'
+
+Mr Culpeper wrapped his cloak round him and sat still while the children
+stared at the Great Bear on the hilltop.
+
+'Give him time,' Puck whispered behind his hand. 'He turns like a
+timber-tug--all of a piece.'
+
+'Ahem!' Mr Culpeper said suddenly. 'I'll prove it to you. When I was
+physician to Saye's Horse, and fought the King--or rather the man
+Charles Stuart--in Oxfordshire (I had my learning at Cambridge), the
+plague was very hot all around us. I saw it at close hands. He who
+says I am ignorant of the plague, for example, is altogether beside the
+bridge.'
+
+'We grant it,' said Puck solemnly. 'But why talk of the plague this rare
+night?'
+
+'To prove my argument. This Oxfordshire plague, good people, being
+generated among rivers and ditches, was of a werish, watery nature.
+Therefore it was curable by drenching the patient in cold water, and
+laying him in wet cloths; or at least, so I cured some of them. Mark
+this. It bears on what shall come after.'
+
+'Mark also, Nick,' said Puck, that we are not your College of
+Physicians, but only a lad and a lass and a poor lubberkin. Therefore be
+plain, old Hyssop on the Wall!'
+
+'To be plain and in order with you, I was shot in the chest while
+gathering of betony from a brookside near Thame, and was took by the
+King's men before their Colonel, one Blagg or Bragge, whom I warned
+honestly that I had spent the week past among our plague-stricken. He
+flung me off into a cowshed, much like this here, to die, as I supposed;
+but one of their priests crept in by night and dressed my wound. He was
+a Sussex man like myself.'
+
+'Who was that?' said Puck suddenly. 'Zack Tutshom?'
+
+'No, Jack Marget,' said Mr Culpeper.
+
+'Jack Marget of New College? The little merry man that stammered so? Why
+a plague was stuttering Jack at Oxford then?' said Puck.
+
+'He had come out of Sussex in hope of being made a Bishop when the King
+should have conquered the rebels, as he styled us Parliament men. His
+College had lent the King some monies too, which they never got again,
+no more than simple Jack got his bishopric. When we met he had had a
+bitter bellyful of King's promises, and wished to return to his wife and
+babes. This came about beyond expectation, for, so soon as I could
+stand of my wound, the man Blagge made excuse that I had been among the
+plague, and Jack had been tending me, to thrust us both out from their
+camp. The King had done with Jack now that Jack's College had lent the
+money, and Blagge's physician could not abide me because I would not
+sit silent and see him butcher the sick. (He was a College of Physicians
+man!) So Blagge, I say, thrust us both out, with many vile words, for a
+pair of pestilent, prating, pragmatical rascals.'
+
+'Ha! Called you pragmatical, Nick?' Puck started up. 'High time Oliver
+came to purge the land! How did you and honest Jack fare next?'
+
+'We were in some sort constrained to each other's company. I was for
+going to my house in Spitalfields, he would go to his parish in Sussex;
+but the plague was broke out and spreading through Wiltshire, Berkshire,
+and Hampshire, and he was so mad distracted to think that it might even
+then be among his folk at home that I bore him company. He had comforted
+me in my distress. I could not have done less; and I remembered that I
+had a cousin at Great Wigsell, near by Jack's parish. Thus we footed it
+from Oxford, cassock and buff coat together, resolute to leave wars on
+the left side henceforth; and either through our mean appearances, or
+the plague making men less cruel, we were not hindered. To be sure, they
+put us in the stocks one half-day for rogues and vagabonds at a village
+under St Leonard's forest, where, as I have heard, nightingales never
+sing; but the constable very honestly gave me back my Astrological
+Almanac, which I carry with me.' Mr Culpeper tapped his thin chest. 'I
+dressed a whitlow on his thumb. So we went forward.
+
+'Not to trouble you with impertinences, we fetched over against Jack
+Marget's parish in a storm of rain about the day's end. Here our roads
+divided, for I would have gone on to my cousin at Great Wigsell, but
+while Jack was pointing me out his steeple, we saw a man lying drunk,
+as he conceived, athwart the road. He said it would be one Hebden, a
+parishioner, and till then a man of good life; and he accused himself
+bitterly for an unfaithful shepherd, that had left his flock to follow
+princes. But I saw it was the plague, and not the beginnings of it
+neither. They had set out the plague-stone, and the man's head lay on
+it.'
+
+'What's a plague-stone?' Dan whispered.
+
+'When the plague is so hot in a village that the neighbours shut the
+roads against 'em, people set a hollowed stone, pot, or pan, where such
+as would purchase victual from outside may lay money and the paper of
+their wants, and depart. Those that would sell come later--what will
+a man not do for gain?---snatch the money forth, and leave in exchange
+such goods as their conscience reckons fair value. I saw a silver groat
+in the water, and the man's list of what he would buy was rain-pulped in
+his wet hand.
+
+'"My wife! Oh, my wife and babes!" says Jack of a sudden, and makes
+uphill--I with him.
+
+'A woman peers out from behind a barn, crying out that the village is
+stricken with the plague, and that for our lives' sake we must avoid it.
+
+'"Sweetheart!" says Jack. "Must I avoid thee?" and she leaps at him and
+says the babes are safe. She was his wife.
+
+'When he had thanked God, even to tears, he tells me this was not the
+welcome he had intended, and presses me to flee the place while I was
+clean.
+
+'"Nay! The Lord do so to me and more also if I desert thee now," I said.
+"These affairs are, under God's leave, in some fashion my strength."
+
+'"Oh, sir," she says, "are you a physician? We have none."
+
+'"Then, good people," said I, "I must e'en justify myself to you by my
+works."
+
+'"Look--look ye," stammers Jack, "I took you all this time for a crazy
+Roundhead preacher." He laughs, and she, and then I--all three together
+in the rain are overtook by an unreasonable gust or clap of laughter,
+which none the less eased us. We call it in medicine the Hysterical
+Passion. So I went home with 'em.'
+
+'Why did you not go on to your cousin at Great Wigsell, Nick?' Puck
+suggested. ''tis barely seven mile up the road.'
+
+'But the plague was here,' Mr Culpeper answered, and pointed up the
+hill. 'What else could I have done?'
+
+'What were the parson's children called?' said Una.
+
+'Elizabeth, Alison, Stephen, and Charles--a babe. I scarce saw them at
+first, for I separated to live with their father in a cart-lodge. The
+mother we put--forced--into the house with her babes. She had done
+enough.
+
+'And now, good people, give me leave to be particular in this case. The
+plague was worst on the north side of the street, for lack, as I showed
+'em, of sunshine; which, proceeding from the PRIME MOBILE, or source of
+life (I speak astrologically), is cleansing and purifying in the highest
+degree. The plague was hot too by the corn-chandler's, where they sell
+forage to the carters, extreme hot in both Mills, along the river, and
+scatteringly in other places, except, mark you, at the smithy. Mark
+here, that all forges and smith shops belong to Mars, even as corn and
+meat and wine shops acknowledge Venus for their mistress. There was no
+plague in the smithy at Munday's Lane--'
+
+'Munday's Lane? You mean our village? I thought so when you talked about
+the two Mills,' cried Dan. 'Where did we put the plague-stone? I'd like
+to have seen it.'
+
+'Then look at it now,' said Puck, and pointed to the chickens'
+drinking-trough where they had set their bicycle lamps. It was a rough,
+oblong stone pan, rather like a small kitchen sink, which Phillips,
+who never wastes anything, had found in a ditch and had used for his
+precious hens.
+
+'That?' said Dan and Una, and stared, and stared, and stared. Mr
+Culpeper made impatient noises in his throat and went on.
+
+'I am at these pains to be particular, good people, because I would have
+you follow, so far as you may, the operations of my mind. That plague
+which I told you I had handled outside Wallingford in Oxfordshire was
+of a watery nature, conformable to the brookish riverine country it bred
+in, and curable, as I have said, by drenching in water. This plague of
+ours here, for all that it flourished along watercourses--every soul at
+both Mills died of it,--could not be so handled. Which brought me to a
+stand. Ahem!'
+
+'And your sick people in the meantime?'Puck demanded. 'We persuaded them
+on the north side of the street to lie out in Hitheram's field. Where
+the plague had taken one, or at most two, in a house, folk would not
+shift for fear of thieves in their absence. They cast away their lives
+to die among their goods.'
+
+'Human nature,' said Puck. 'I've seen it time and again. How did your
+sick do in the fields?'
+
+'They died not near so thick as those that kept within doors, and even
+then they died more out of distraction and melancholy than plague. But
+I confess, good people, I could not in any sort master the sickness, or
+come at a glimmer of its nature or governance. To be brief, I was flat
+bewildered at the brute malignity of the disease, and so--did what I
+should have done before--dismissed all conjectures and apprehensions
+that had grown up within me, chose a good hour by my Almanac, clapped
+my vinegar-cloth to my face, and entered some empty houses, resigned to
+wait upon the stars for guidance.'
+
+'At night? Were you not horribly frightened?' said Puck.
+
+'I dared to hope that the God who hath made man so nobly curious to
+search out His mysteries might not destroy a devout seeker. In due
+time--there's a time, as I have said, for everything under the sun--I
+spied a whitish rat, very puffed and scabby, which sat beneath the
+dormer of an attic through which shined our Lady the Moon. Whilst I
+looked on him--and her--she was moving towards old cold Saturn, her
+ancient ally--the rat creeped languishingly into her light, and there,
+before my eyes, died. Presently his mate or companion came out, laid him
+down beside there, and in like fashion died too. Later--an hour or
+less to midnight--a third rat did e'en the same; always choosing the
+moonlight to die in. This threw me into an amaze, since, as we know, the
+moonlight is favourable, not hurtful, to the creatures of the Moon;
+and Saturn, being friends with her, as you would say, was hourly
+strengthening her evil influence. Yet these three rats had been stricken
+dead in very moonlight. I leaned out of the window to see which of
+Heaven's host might be on our side, and there beheld I good trusty Mars,
+very red and heated, bustling about his setting. I straddled the roof to
+see better.
+
+'Jack Marget came up street going to comfort our sick in Hitheram's
+field. A tile slipped under my foot.
+
+Says he, heavily enough, "Watchman, what of the night?"
+
+'"Heart up, Jack," says I. "Methinks there's one fighting for us that,
+like a fool, I've forgot all this summer." My meaning was naturally the
+planet Mars.
+
+'"Pray to Him then," says he. "I forgot Him too this summer."
+
+'He meant God, whom he always bitterly accused himself of having
+forgotten up in Oxfordshire, among the King's men. I called down that
+he had made amends enough for his sin by his work among the sick, but he
+said he would not believe so till the plague was lifted from 'em. He was
+at his strength's end--more from melancholy than any just cause. I have
+seen this before among priests and overcheerful men. I drenched him then
+and there with a half-cup of waters, which I do not say cure the plague,
+but are excellent against heaviness of the spirits.'
+
+'What were they?' said Dan.
+
+'White brandy rectified, camphor, cardamoms, ginger, two sorts of
+pepper, and aniseed.' 'Whew!' said Puck. 'Waters you call 'em!'
+
+'Jack coughed on it valiantly, and went downhill with me. I was for the
+Lower Mill in the valley, to note the aspect of the Heavens. My mind had
+already shadowed forth the reason, if not the remedy, for our troubles,
+but I would not impart it to the vulgar till I was satisfied. That
+practice may be perfect, judgment ought to be sound, and to make
+judgment sound is required an exquisite knowledge. Ahem! I left Jack and
+his lantern among the sick in Hitheram's field. He still maintained
+the prayers of the so-called Church, which were rightly forbidden by
+Cromwell.'
+
+'You should have told your cousin at Wigsell,' said Puck, 'and Jack
+would have been fined for it, and you'd have had half the money. How did
+you come so to fail in your duty, Nick?'
+
+Mr Culpeper laughed--his only laugh that evening--and the children
+jumped at the loud neigh of it.
+
+'We were not fearful of men's judgment in those days,' he answered. 'Now
+mark me closely, good people, for what follows will be to you, though
+not to me, remarkable. When I reached the empty Mill, old Saturn, low
+down in the House of the Fishes, threatened the Sun's rising-place. Our
+Lady the Moon was moving towards the help of him (understand, I speak
+astrologically). I looked abroad upon the high Heavens, and I prayed the
+Maker of 'em for guidance. Now Mars sparkingly withdrew himself below
+the sky. On the instant of his departure, which I noted, a bright star
+or vapour leaped forth above his head (as though he had heaved up his
+sword), and broke all about in fire. The cocks crowed midnight through
+the valley, and I sat me down by the mill-wheel, chewing spearmint
+(though that's an herb of Venus), and calling myself all the asses'
+heads in the world! 'Twas plain enough now!'
+
+'What was plain?' said Una.
+
+'The true cause and cure of the plague. Mars, good fellow, had fought
+for us to the uttermost. Faint though he had been in the Heavens, and
+this had made me overlook him in my computations, he more than any
+of the other planets had kept the Heavens--which is to say, had been
+visible some part of each night wellnigh throughout the year. Therefore
+his fierce and cleansing influence, warring against the Moon, had
+stretched out to kill those three rats under my nose, and under the nose
+of their natural mistress, the Moon. I had known Mars lean half across
+Heaven to deal our Lady the Moon some shrewd blow from under his shield,
+but I had never before seen his strength displayed so effectual.'
+
+'I don't understand a bit. Do you mean Mars killed the rats because he
+hated the Moon?' said Una.
+
+'That is as plain as the pikestaff with which Blagge's men pushed me
+forth,'Mr Culpeper answered. 'I'll prove it. Why had the plague not
+broken out at the blacksmith's shop in Munday's Lane? Because, as I've
+shown you, forges and smithies belong naturally to Mars, and, for his
+honour's sake, Mars 'ud keep 'em clean from the creatures of the Moon.
+But was it like, think you, that he'd come down and rat-catch in general
+for lazy, ungrateful mankind? That were working a willing horse to
+death. So, then, you can see that the meaning of the blazing star above
+him when he set was simply this: "Destroy and burn the creatures Of the
+moon, for they are the root of your trouble. And thus, having shown you
+a taste of my power, good people, adieu."'
+
+'Did Mars really say all that?' Una whispered.
+
+'Yes, and twice so much as that to any one who had ears to hear.
+Briefly, he enlightened me that the plague was spread by the creatures
+of the Moon. The Moon, our Lady of ill-aspect, was the offender. My own
+poor wits showed me that I, Nick Culpeper, had the people in my charge,
+God's good providence aiding me, and no time to lose neither.
+
+'I posted up the hill, and broke into Hitheram's field amongst 'em all
+at prayers.
+
+'"Eureka, good people!" I cried, and cast down a dead mill-rat which I'd
+found. "Here's your true enemy, revealed at last by the stars."
+
+'"Nay, but I'm praying," says Jack. His face was as white as washed
+silver.
+
+'"There's a time for everything under the sun," says I. "If you would
+stay the plague, take and kill your rats."
+
+'"Oh, mad, stark mad!" says he, and wrings his hands.
+
+'A fellow lay in the ditch beside him, who bellows that he'd as soon die
+mad hunting rats as be preached to death on a cold fallow. They
+laughed round him at this, but Jack Marget falls on his knees, and very
+presumptuously petitions that he may be appointed to die to save the
+rest of his people. This was enough to thrust 'em back into their
+melancholy. '"You are an unfaithful shepherd, jack," I says. "Take a
+bat" (which we call a stick in Sussex) "and kill a rat if you die before
+sunrise. 'Twill save your people."
+
+'"Aye, aye. Take a bat and kill a rat," he says ten times over, like
+a child, which moved 'em to ungovernable motions of that hysterical
+passion before mentioned, so that they laughed all, and at least
+warmed their chill bloods at that very hour--one o'clock or a little
+after--when the fires of life burn lowest. Truly there is a time for
+everything; and the physician must work with it--ahem!--or miss his
+cure. To be brief with you, I persuaded 'em, sick or sound, to have
+at the whole generation of rats throughout the village. And there's a
+reason for all things too, though the wise physician need not blab 'em
+all. Imprimis, or firstly, the mere sport of it, which lasted ten days,
+drew 'em most markedly out of their melancholy. I'd defy sorrowful
+job himself to lament or scratch while he's routing rats from a rick.
+Secundo, or secondly, the vehement act and operation of this chase or
+war opened their skins to generous transpiration--more vulgarly, sweated
+'em handsomely; and this further drew off their black bile--the mother
+of sickness. Thirdly, when we came to burn the bodies of the rats,
+I sprinkled sulphur on the faggots, whereby the onlookers were as
+handsomely suffumigated. This I could not have compassed if I had made
+it a mere physician's business; they'd have thought it some conjuration.
+Yet more, we cleansed, limed, and burned out a hundred foul poke-holes,
+sinks, slews, and corners of unvisited filth in and about the houses in
+the village, and by good fortune (mark here that Mars was in opposition
+to Venus) burned the corn-handler's shop to the ground. Mars loves not
+Venus. Will Noakes the saddler dropped his lantern on a truss of straw
+while he was rat-hunting there.'
+
+'Had ye given Will any of that gentle cordial of yours, Nick, by any
+chance?' said Puck.
+
+'A glass--or two glasses--not more. But as I would say, in fine, when we
+had killed the rats, I took ash, slag, and charcoal from the smithy,
+and burnt earth from the brickyard (I reason that a brickyard belongs
+to Mars), and rammed it with iron crowbars into the rat-runs and buries,
+and beneath all the house floors. The Creatures of the Moon hate all
+that Mars hath used for his own clean ends. For example--rats bite not
+iron.'
+
+'And how did poor stuttering Jack endure it?' said Puck.
+
+'He sweated out his melancholy through his skin, and catched a
+loose cough, which I cured with electuaries, according to art. It is
+noteworthy, were I speaking among my equals, that the venom of the
+plague translated, or turned itself into, and evaporated, or went away
+as, a very heavy hoarseness and thickness of the head, throat, and
+chest. (Observe from my books which planets govern these portions of
+man's body, and your darkness, good people, shall be illuminated--ahem!)
+None the less, the plague, qua plague, ceased and took off (for we only
+lost three more, and two of 'em had it already on 'em) from the
+morning of the day that Mars enlightened me by the Lower Mill.' He
+coughed--almost trumpeted--triumphantly.
+
+'It is proved,' he jerked out. 'I say I have proved my contention, which
+is, that by Divine Astrology and humble search into the veritable causes
+of things--at the proper time--the sons of wisdom may combat even the
+plague.'
+
+H'm!' Puck replied. 'For my own part I hold that a simple soul--'
+
+'Mine? Simple, forsooth?' said Mr Culpeper.
+
+'A very simple soul, a high courage tempered with sound and stubborn
+conceit, is stronger than all the stars in their courses. So I confess
+truly that you saved the village, Nick.'
+
+'I stubborn? I stiff-necked? I ascribed all my poor success, under God's
+good providence, to Divine Astrology. Not to me the glory! You talk as
+that dear weeping ass Jack Marget preached before I went back to my work
+in Red Lion House, Spitalfields.'
+
+'Oh! Stammering Jack preached, did he? They say he loses his stammer in
+the pulpit.'
+
+'And his wits with it. He delivered a most idolatrous discourse when the
+plague was stayed. He took for his text: "The wise man that delivered
+the city." I could have given him a better, such as: "There is a time
+for--"'
+
+'But what made you go to church to hear him?' Puck interrupted. 'Wail
+Attersole was your lawfully appointed preacher, and a dull dog he was!'
+
+Mr Culpeper wriggled uneasily.
+
+'The vulgar,' said he, 'the old crones and--ahem!---the children, Alison
+and the others, they dragged me to the House of Rimmon by the hand. I
+was in two minds to inform on Jack for maintaining the mummeries of the
+falsely-called Church, which, I'll prove to you, are founded merely on
+ancient fables--'
+
+'Stick to your herbs and planets,' said Puck, laughing. 'You should
+have told the magistrates, Nick, and had Jack fined. Again, why did you
+neglect your plain duty?'
+
+'Because--because I was kneeling, and praying, and weeping with the rest
+of 'em at the Altar-rails. In medicine this is called the Hysterical
+Passion. It may be--it may be.'
+
+'That's as may be,' said Puck. They heard him turn the hay. 'Why, your
+hay is half hedge-brishings,' he said. 'You don't expect a horse to
+thrive on oak and ash and thorn leaves, do you?'
+
+Ping-ping-ping went the bicycle bell round the corner. Nurse was coming
+back from the mill.
+
+'Is it all right?' Una called.
+
+'All quite right,' Nurse called back. 'They're to be christened next
+Sunday.'
+
+'What? What?' They both leaned forward across the half-door. It could
+not have been properly fastened, for it opened, and tilted them out with
+hay and leaves sticking all over them.
+
+'Come on! We must get those two twins' names,' said Una, and they
+charged uphill shouting over the hedge, till Nurse slowed up and told
+them. When they returned, old Middenboro had got out of his stall, and
+they spent a lively ten minutes chasing him in again by starlight.
+
+
+
+
+'Our Fathers of Old'
+
+
+     Excellent herbs had our fathers of old--
+     Excellent herbs to ease their pain--
+     Alexanders and Marigold,
+     Eyebright, Orris, and Elecampane,
+     Basil, Rocket, Valerian, Rue,
+     (Almost singing themselves they run)
+     Vervain, Dittany, Call-me-to-you--
+     Cowslip, Melilot, Rose of the Sun.
+     Anything green that grew out of the mould
+     Was an excellent herb to our fathers of old.
+
+     Wonderful tales had our fathers of old--
+     Wonderful tales of the herbs and the stars--
+     The Sun was Lord of the Marigold,
+     Basil and Rocket belonged to Mars.
+     Pat as a sum in division it goes--
+     (Every plant had a star bespoke)--
+     Who but Venus should govern the Rose?
+     Who but Jupiter own the Oak?
+     Simply and gravely the facts are told
+     In the wonderful books of our fathers of old.
+
+     Wonderful little, when all is said,
+     Wonderful little our fathers knew.
+     Half their remedies cured you dead--
+     Most of their teaching was quite untrue--
+     'Look at the stars when a patient is ill,
+     (Dirt has nothing to do with disease,)
+     Bleed and blister as much as you will,
+     Blister and bleed him as oft as you please.'
+     Whence enormous and manifold
+     Errors were made by our fathers of old.
+
+     Yet when the sickness was sore in the land,
+     And neither planet nor herb assuaged,
+     They took their lives in their lancet-hand
+     And, oh, what a wonderful war they waged!
+     Yes, when the crosses were chalked on the door--
+     Yes, when the terrible dead-cart rolled,
+     Excellent courage our fathers bore--
+     Excellent heart had our fathers of old.
+     Not too learned, but nobly bold,
+     Into the fight went our fathers of old.
+
+     If it be certain, as Galen says,
+     And sage Hippocrates holds as much--
+     'That those afflicted by doubts and dismays
+     Are mightily helped by a dead man's touch,'
+     Then, be good to us, stars above!
+     Then, be good to us, herbs below!
+     We are afflicted by what we can prove;
+     We are distracted by what we know--
+     So--ah, so!
+     Down from your Heaven or up from your mould,
+     Send us the hearts of our fathers of old!
+
+
+
+
+SIMPLE SIMON
+
+
+
+
+The Thousandth Man
+
+
+     One man in a thousand, Solomon says,
+       Will stick more close than a brother.
+     And it's worth while seeking him half your days
+       If you find him before the other.
+     Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend
+       on what the world sees in you,
+     But the Thousandth Man will stand your friend
+       With the whole round world agin you.
+
+     'Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show
+       Will settle the finding for 'ee.
+     Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em go
+       By your looks or your acts or your glory.
+     But if he finds you and you find him,
+       The rest of the world don't matter;
+     For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim
+       With you in any water.
+
+     You can use his purse with no more shame
+       Than he uses yours for his spendings;
+     And laugh and mention it just the same
+       As though there had been no lendings.
+     Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em call
+       For silver and gold in their dealings;
+     But the Thousandth Man he's worth 'em all,
+       Because you can show him your feelings!
+
+     His wrong's your wrong, and his right's your right,
+       In season or out of season.
+     Stand up and back it in all men's sight--
+       With that for your only reason!
+     Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide
+       The shame or mocking or laughter,
+     But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side
+       To the gallows-foot--and after!
+
+
+
+
+Simple Simon
+
+
+Cattiwow came down the steep lane with his five-horse timber-tug. He
+stopped by the wood-lump at the back gate to take off the brakes. His
+real name was Brabon, but the first time the children met him, years and
+years ago, he told them he was 'carting wood,' and it sounded so exactly
+like 'cattiwow' that they never called him anything else.
+
+'HI!' Una shouted from the top of the wood-lump, where they had been
+watching the lane. 'What are you doing? Why weren't we told?'
+
+'They've just sent for me,' Cattiwow answered. 'There's a middlin' big
+log stacked in the dirt at Rabbit Shaw, and'--he flicked his whip back
+along the line--'so they've sent for us all.'
+
+Dan and Una threw themselves off the wood-lump almost under black
+Sailor's nose. Cattiwow never let them ride the big beam that makes
+the body of the timber-tug, but they hung on behind while their teeth
+thuttered.
+
+The Wood road beyond the brook climbs at once into the woods, and you
+see all the horses' backs rising, one above another, like moving stairs.
+Cattiwow strode ahead in his sackcloth woodman's petticoat, belted at
+the waist with a leather strap; and when he turned and grinned, his red
+lips showed under his sackcloth-coloured beard. His cap was sackcloth
+too, with a flap behind, to keep twigs and bark out of his neck. He
+navigated the tug among pools of heather-water that splashed in their
+faces, and through clumps of young birches that slashed at their legs,
+and when they hit an old toadstooled stump, they never knew whether it
+would give way in showers of rotten wood, or jar them back again.
+
+At the top of Rabbit Shaw half-a-dozen men and a team of horses stood
+round a forty-foot oak log in a muddy hollow. The ground about was
+poached and stoached with sliding hoofmarks, and a wave of dirt was
+driven up in front of the butt.
+
+'What did you want to bury her for this way?' said Cattiwow. He took his
+broad-axe and went up the log tapping it.
+
+'She's sticked fast,' said 'Bunny' Lewknor, who managed the other team.
+
+Cattiwow unfastened the five wise horses from the tug. They cocked their
+ears forward, looked, and shook themselves.
+
+'I believe Sailor knows,' Dan whispered to Una.
+
+'He do,' said a man behind them. He was dressed in flour sacks like the
+others, and he leaned on his broad-axe, but the children, who knew all
+the wood-gangs, knew he was a stranger. In his size and oily hairiness
+he might have been Bunny Lewknor's brother, except that his brown eyes
+were as soft as a spaniel's, and his rounded black beard, beginning
+close up under them, reminded Una of the walrus in 'The Walrus and the
+Carpenter.'
+
+'Don't he justabout know?' he said shyly, and shifted from one foot to
+the other.
+
+'Yes. "What Cattiwow can't get out of the woods must have roots growing
+to her."' Dan had heard old Hobden say this a few days before.
+
+At that minute Puck pranced up, picking his way through the pools of
+black water in the ling.
+
+'Look out!' cried Una, jumping forward. 'He'll see you, Puck!'
+
+'Me and Mus' Robin are pretty middlin' well acquainted,' the man
+answered with a smile that made them forget all about walruses.
+
+'This is Simon Cheyneys,' Puck began, and cleared his throat.
+'Shipbuilder of Rye Port; burgess of the said town, and the only--'
+
+'Oh, look! Look ye! That's a knowing one,' said the man.
+
+Cattiwow had fastened his team to the thin end of the log, and was
+moving them about with his whip till they stood at right angles to it,
+heading downhill. Then he grunted. The horses took the strain, beginning
+with Sailor next the log, like a tug-of-war team, and dropped almost to
+their knees. The log shifted a nail's breadth in the clinging dirt, with
+the noise of a giant's kiss.
+
+'You're getting her!' Simon Cheyneys slapped his knee. 'Hing on! Hing
+on, lads, or she'll master ye! Ah!'
+
+Sailor's left hind hoof had slipped on a heather-tuft. One of the men
+whipped off his sack apron and spread it down. They saw Sailor feel for
+it, and recover. Still the log hung, and the team grunted in despair.
+
+'Hai!' shouted Cattiwow, and brought his dreadful whip twice across
+Sailor's loins with the crack of a shot-gun. The horse almost screamed
+as he pulled that extra last ounce which he did not know was in him.
+The thin end of the log left the dirt and rasped on dry gravel. The butt
+ground round like a buffalo in his wallow. Quick as an axe-cut, Lewknor
+snapped on his five horses, and sliding, trampling, jingling, and
+snorting, they had the whole thing out on the heather.
+
+'Dat's the very first time I've knowed you lay into Sailor--to hurt
+him,' said Lewknor.
+
+'It is,' said Cattiwow, and passed his hand over the two wheals. 'But
+I'd ha' laid my own brother open at that pinch. Now we'll twitch her
+down the hill a piece--she lies just about right--and get her home by
+the low road. My team'll do it, Bunny; you bring the tug along. Mind
+out!'
+
+He spoke to the horses, who tightened the chains. The great log half
+rolled over, and slowly drew itself out of sight downhill, followed by
+the wood-gang and the timber-tug. In half a minute there was nothing to
+see but the deserted hollow of the torn-up dirt, the birch undergrowth
+still shaking, and the water draining back into the hoof-prints.
+
+'Ye heard him?' Simon Cheyneys asked. 'He cherished his horse, but he'd
+ha' laid him open in that pinch.'
+
+'Not for his own advantage,' said Puck quickly. ''Twas only to shift the
+log.'
+
+'I reckon every man born of woman has his log to shift in the world--if
+so be you're hintin' at any o' Frankie's doings. He never hit beyond
+reason or without reason,' said Simon.
+
+'I never said a word against Frankie,' Puck retorted, with a wink at the
+children. 'An' if I did, do it lie in your mouth to contest my say-so,
+seeing how you--'
+
+'Why don't it lie in my mouth, seeing I was the first which knowed
+Frankie for all he was?' The burly sack-clad man puffed down at cool
+little Puck.
+
+'Yes, and the first which set out to poison him--Frankie--on the high
+seas--'
+
+Simon's angry face changed to a sheepish grin. He waggled his immense
+hands, but Puck stood off and laughed mercilessly.
+
+'But let me tell you, Mus' Robin,'he pleaded.
+
+'I've heard the tale. Tell the children here. Look, Dan! Look,
+Una!'---Puck's straight brown finger levelled like an arrow. 'There's
+the only man that ever tried to poison Sir Francis Drake!'
+
+'Oh, Mus' Robin! 'Tidn't fair. You've the 'vantage of us all in your
+upbringin's by hundreds o' years. Stands to nature you know all the
+tales against every one.'
+
+He turned his soft eyes so helplessly on Una that she cried, 'Stop
+ragging him, Puck! You know he didn't really.'
+
+'I do. But why are you so sure, little maid?' 'Because--because he
+doesn't look like it,' said Una stoutly.
+
+'I thank you,' said Simon to Una. 'I--I was always trustable-like
+with children if you let me alone, you double handful o' mischief.' He
+pretended to heave up his axe on Puck; and then his shyness overtook him
+afresh.
+
+'Where did you know Sir Francis Drake?' said Dan, not liking being
+called a child.
+
+'At Rye Port, to be sure,' said Simon, and seeing Dan's bewilderment,
+repeated it.
+
+'Yes, but look here,'said Dan. '"Drake he was a Devon man." The song
+says so.'
+
+'"And ruled the Devon seas,"' Una went on. 'That's what I was
+thinking--if you don't mind.'
+
+Simon Cheyneys seemed to mind very much indeed, for he swelled in
+silence while Puck laughed.
+
+'Hutt!' he burst out at last, 'I've heard that talk too. If you listen
+to them West Country folk, you'll listen to a pack o' lies. I believe
+Frankie was born somewhere out west among the Shires, but his father
+had to run for it when Frankie was a baby, because the neighbours was
+wishful to kill him, d'ye see? He run to Chatham, old Parson Drake did,
+an' Frankie was brought up in a old hulks of a ship moored in the Medway
+river, same as it might ha' been the Rother. Brought up at sea, you
+might say, before he could walk on land--nigh Chatham in Kent. And ain't
+Kent back-door to Sussex? And don't that make Frankie Sussex? O' course
+it do. Devon man! Bah! Those West Country boats they're always fishin'
+in other folks' water.'
+
+'I beg your pardon,' said Dan. 'I'm sorry.
+
+'No call to be sorry. You've been misled. I met Frankie at Rye Port when
+my Uncle, that was the shipbuilder there, pushed me off his wharf-edge
+on to Frankie's ship. Frankie had put in from Chatham with his rudder
+splutted, and a man's arm--Moon's that 'ud be--broken at the tiller.
+"Take this boy aboard an' drown him," says my Uncle, "and I'll mend your
+rudder-piece for love."
+
+'What did your Uncle want you drowned for?'said Una.
+
+'That was only his fashion of say-so, same as Mus' Robin. I'd a
+foolishness in my head that ships could be builded out of iron.
+Yes--iron ships! I'd made me a liddle toy one of iron plates beat out
+thin--and she floated a wonder! But my Uncle, bein' a burgess of Rye,
+and a shipbuilder, he 'prenticed me to Frankie in the fetchin' trade, to
+cure this foolishness.'
+
+'What was the fetchin' trade?' Dan interrupted.
+
+'Fetchin' poor Flemishers and Dutchmen out o' the Low Countries into
+England. The King o' Spain, d'ye see, he was burnin' 'em in those parts,
+for to make 'em Papishers, so Frankie he fetched 'em away to our parts,
+and a risky trade it was. His master wouldn't never touch it while he
+lived, but he left his ship to Frankie when he died, and Frankie turned
+her into this fetchin' trade. Outrageous cruel hard work--on besom-black
+nights bulting back and forth off they Dutch roads with shoals on
+all sides, and having to hark out for the frish-frish-frish-like of a
+Spanish galliwopses' oars creepin' up on ye. Frankie 'ud have the tiller
+and Moon he'd peer forth at the bows, our lantern under his skirts, till
+the boat we was lookin' for 'ud blurt up out o' the dark, and we'd lay
+hold and haul aboard whoever 'twas--man, woman, or babe--an' round we'd
+go again, the wind bewling like a kite in our riggin's, and they'd drop
+into the hold and praise God for happy deliverance till they was all
+sick.
+
+'I had nigh a year at it, an' we must have fetched off--oh, a hundred
+pore folk, I reckon. Outrageous bold, too, Frankie growed to be.
+Outrageous cunnin' he was. Once we was as near as nothin' nipped by a
+tall ship off Tergoes Sands in a snowstorm. She had the wind of us, and
+spooned straight before it, shootin' all bow guns. Frankie fled inshore
+smack for the beach, till he was atop of the first breakers. Then he
+hove his anchor out, which nigh tore our bows off, but it twitched us
+round end-for-end into the wind, d'ye see, an' we clawed off them sands
+like a drunk man rubbin' along a tavern bench. When we could see, the
+Spanisher was laid flat along in the breakers with the snows whitening
+on his wet belly. He thought he could go where Frankie went.'
+
+'What happened to the crew?' said Una.
+
+'We didn't stop,' Simon answered. 'There was a very liddle new baby
+in our hold, and the mother she wanted to get to some dry bed middlin'
+quick. We runned into Dover, and said nothing.'
+
+'Was Sir Francis Drake very much pleased?' 'Heart alive, maid, he'd
+no head to his name in those days. He was just a outrageous, valiant,
+crop-haired, tutt-mouthed boy, roarin' up an' down the narrer seas, with
+his beard not yet quilted out. He made a laughing-stock of everything
+all day, and he'd hold our lives in the bight of his arm all the
+besom-black night among they Dutch sands; and we'd ha' jumped overside
+to behove him any one time, all of us.'
+
+'Then why did you try to poison him?' Una asked wickedly, and Simon hung
+his head like a shy child.
+
+'Oh, that was when he set me to make a pudden, for because our cook was
+hurted. I done my uttermost, but she all fetched adrift like in the bag,
+an' the more I biled the bits of her, the less she favoured any fashion
+o' pudden. Moon he chawed and chammed his piece, and Frankie chawed and
+chammed his'n, and--no words to it--he took me by the ear an' walked
+me out over the bow-end, an' him an' Moon hove the pudden at me on
+the bowsprit gub by gub, something cruel hard!' Simon rubbed his hairy
+cheek.
+
+'"Nex' time you bring me anything," says Frankie, "you bring me
+cannon-shot an' I'll know what I'm getting." But as for poisonin'--' He
+stopped, the children laughed so.
+
+'Of course you didn't,' said Una. 'Oh, Simon, we do like you!'
+
+'I was always likeable with children.' His smile crinkled up through the
+hair round his eyes. 'Simple Simon they used to call me through our yard
+gates.'
+
+'Did Sir Francis mock you?' Dan asked.
+
+'Ah, no. He was gentle-born. Laugh he did--he was always laughing--but
+not so as to hurt a feather. An' I loved 'en. I loved 'en before England
+knew 'en, or Queen Bess she broke his heart.'
+
+'But he hadn't really done anything when you knew him, had he?' Una
+insisted. 'Armadas and those things, I mean.'
+
+Simon pointed to the scars and scrapes left by Cattiwow's great log.
+'You tell me that that good ship's timber never done nothing against
+winds and weathers since her up-springing, and I'll confess ye that
+young Frankie never done nothing neither. Nothing? He adventured and
+suffered and made shift on they Dutch sands as much in any one month
+as ever he had occasion for to do in a half-year on the high seas
+afterwards. An' what was his tools? A coaster boat--a liddle box o'
+walty plankin' an' some few fathom feeble rope held together an' made
+able by him sole. He drawed our spirits up In our bodies same as a
+chimney-towel draws a fire. 'Twas in him, and it comed out all times
+and shapes.' 'I wonder did he ever 'magine what he was going to be? Tell
+himself stories about it?' said Dan with a flush.
+
+'I expect so. We mostly do--even when we're grown. But bein' Frankie, he
+took good care to find out beforehand what his fortune might be. Had I
+rightly ought to tell 'em this piece?' Simon turned to Puck, who nodded.
+
+'My Mother, she was just a fair woman, but my Aunt, her sister, she had
+gifts by inheritance laid up in her,' Simon began.
+
+'Oh, that'll never do,' cried Puck, for the children stared blankly. 'Do
+you remember what Robin promised to the Widow Whitgift so long as her
+blood and get lasted?' [See 'Dymchurch Flit' in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.]
+'Yes. There was always to be one of them that could see farther through
+a millstone than most,' Dan answered promptly.
+
+'Well, Simon's Aunt's mother,' said Puck slowly, 'married the Widow's
+blind son on the Marsh, and Simon's Aunt was the one chosen to see
+farthest through millstones. Do you understand?'
+
+'That was what I was gettin' at,' said Simon, 'but you're so desperate
+quick. My Aunt she knew what was comin' to people. My Uncle being a
+burgess of Rye, he counted all such things odious, and my Aunt she
+couldn't be got to practise her gifts hardly at all, because it hurted
+her head for a week after-wards; but when Frankie heard she had 'em,
+he was all for nothin' till she foretold on him--till she looked in
+his hand to tell his fortune, d'ye see? One time we was at Rye she come
+aboard with my other shirt and some apples, and he fair beazled the life
+out of her about it.
+
+'"Oh, you'll be twice wed, and die childless," she says, and pushes his
+hand away.
+
+'"That's the woman's part," he says. "What'll come to me-to me?" an' he
+thrusts it back under her nose.
+
+'"Gold--gold, past belief or counting," she says. "Let go o' me, lad."
+
+'"Sink the gold!" he says. "What'll I do, mother?" He coaxed her like no
+woman could well withstand. I've seen him with 'em--even when they were
+sea-sick.
+
+'"If you will have it," she says at last, "you shall have it. You'll do a
+many things, and eating and drinking with a dead man beyond the world's
+end will be the least of them. For you'll open a road from the East
+unto the West, and back again, and you'll bury your heart with your best
+friend by that road-side, and the road you open none shall shut so long
+as you're let lie quiet in your grave."
+
+
+[The old lady's prophecy is in a fair way to come true, for now the
+Panama Canal is finished, one end of it opens into the very bay where
+Sir Francis Drake was buried. So ships are taken through the Canal, and
+the road round Cape Horn which Sir Francis opened is very little used.]
+
+
+'"And if I'm not?" he says.
+
+'"Why, then," she says, "Sim's iron ships will be sailing on dry land.
+Now ha' done with this foolishness. Where's Sim's shirt?"
+
+'He couldn't fetch no more out of her, and when we come up from the
+cabin, he stood mazed-like by the tiller, playing with a apple. '"My
+Sorrow!" says my Aunt; "d'ye see that? The great world lying in his
+hand, liddle and round like a apple."
+
+'"Why, 'tis one you gived him," I says.
+
+'"To be sure," she says. "'Tis just a apple," and she went ashore with
+her hand to her head. It always hurted her to show her gifts.
+
+Him and me puzzled over that talk plenty. It sticked in his mind quite
+extravagant. The very next time we slipped out for some fetchin' trade,
+we met Mus' Stenning's boat over by Calais sands; and he warned us that
+the Spanishers had shut down all their Dutch ports against us English,
+and their galliwopses was out picking up our boats like flies off hogs'
+backs. Mus' Stenning he runs for Shoreham, but Frankie held on a piece,
+knowin' that Mus Stenning was jealous of our good trade. Over by Dunkirk
+a great gor-bellied Spanisher, with the Cross on his sails, came rampin'
+at us. We left him. We left him all they bare seas to conquest in.
+
+'"Looks like this road was going to be shut pretty soon," says Frankie,
+humourin' her at the tiller. "I'll have to open that other one your Aunt
+foretold of."
+
+'"The Spanisher's crowdin' down on us middlin' quick," I says. "No odds,"
+says Frankie, "he'll have the inshore tide against him. Did your Aunt
+say I was to be quiet in my grave for ever?"
+
+'"Till my iron ships sailed dry land," I says.
+
+'"That's foolishness," he says. "Who cares where Frankie Drake makes a
+hole in the water now or twenty years from now?"
+
+'The Spanisher kept muckin' on more and more canvas. I told him so.
+
+'"He's feelin' the tide," was all he says. "If he was among Tergoes
+Sands with this wind, we'd be picking his bones proper. I'd give my
+heart to have all their tall ships there some night before a north gale,
+and me to windward. There'd be gold in My hands then. Did your Aunt say
+she saw the world settin' in my hand, Sim?"
+
+'"Yes, but 'twas a apple," says I, and he laughed like he always did
+at me. "Do you ever feel minded to jump overside and be done with
+everything?" he asks after a while.
+
+'"No. What water comes aboard is too wet as 'tis," I says. "The
+Spanisher's going about."
+
+'"I told you," says he, never looking back. "He'll give us the Pope's
+Blessing as he swings. Come down off that rail. There's no knowin' where
+stray shots may hit." So I came down off the rail, and leaned against
+it, and the Spanisher he ruffled round in the wind, and his port-lids
+opened all red inside.
+
+'"Now what'll happen to my road if they don't let me lie quiet in my
+grave?" he says. "Does your Aunt mean there's two roads to be found and
+kept open--or what does she mean? I don't like that talk about t'other
+road. D'you believe in your iron ships, Sim?"
+
+'He knowed I did, so I only nodded, and he nodded back again. '"Anybody
+but me 'ud call you a fool, Sim," he says. "Lie down. Here comes the
+Pope's Blessing!"
+
+'The Spanisher gave us his broadside as he went about. They all fell
+short except one that smack-smooth hit the rail behind my back, an' I
+felt most won'erful cold.
+
+'"Be you hit anywhere to signify?" he says. "Come over to me."
+
+'"O Lord, Mus' Drake," I says, "my legs won't move," and that was the
+last I spoke for months.'
+
+'Why? What had happened?' cried Dan and Una together.
+
+'The rail had jarred me in here like.' Simon reached behind him
+clumsily. 'From my shoulders down I didn't act no shape. Frankie carried
+me piggyback to my Aunt's house, and I lay bed-rid and tongue-tied while
+she rubbed me day and night, month in and month out. She had faith in
+rubbing with the hands. P'raps she put some of her gifts into it, too.
+Last of all, something loosed itself in my pore back, and lo! I was
+whole restored again, but kitten-feeble.
+
+'"Where's Frankie?" I says, thinking I'd been a longish while abed.
+
+'"Down-wind amongst the Dons--months ago," says my Aunt.
+
+'"When can I go after 'en?" I says.
+
+'"Your duty's to your town and trade now," says she. "Your Uncle he
+died last Michaelmas and he've left you and me the yard. So no more iron
+ships, mind ye."
+
+'"What?" I says. "And you the only one that beleft in 'em!"
+
+
+'"Maybe I do still," she says, "but I'm a woman before I'm a Whitgift,
+and wooden ships is what England needs us to build. I lay on ye to do
+so."
+
+'That's why I've never teched iron since that day--not to build a
+toy ship of. I've never even drawed a draft of one for my pleasure of
+evenings.' Simon smiled down on them all. 'Whitgift blood is terrible
+resolute--on the she-side,'said Puck.
+
+'Didn't You ever see Sir Francis Drake again?'Dan asked.
+
+'With one thing and another, and my being made a burgess of Rye, I never
+clapped eyes on him for the next twenty years. Oh, I had the news of
+his mighty doings the world over. They was the very same bold, cunning
+shifts and passes he'd worked with beforetimes off they Dutch sands,
+but, naturally, folk took more note of them. When Queen Bess made him
+knight, he sent my Aunt a dried orange stuffed with spiceries to smell
+to. She cried outrageous on it. She blamed herself for her foretellings,
+having set him on his won'erful road; but I reckon he'd ha' gone that
+way all withstanding. Curious how close she foretelled it! The world in
+his hand like an apple, an' he burying his best friend, Mus' Doughty--'
+
+'Never mind for Mus' Doughty,' Puck interrupted. 'Tell us where you met
+Sir Francis next.'
+
+'Oh, ha! That was the year I was made a burgess of Rye--the same year
+which King Philip sent his ships to take England without Frankie's
+leave.'
+
+'The Armada!' said Dan contentedly. 'I was hoping that would come.'
+
+'I knowed Frankie would never let 'em smell London smoke, but plenty
+good men in Rye was two-three minded about the upshot. 'Twas the noise
+of the gun-fire tarrified us. The wind favoured it our way from off
+behind the Isle of Wight. It made a mutter like, which growed and
+growed, and by the end of a week women was shruckin' in the streets.
+Then they come slidderin' past Fairlight in a great smoky pat vambrished
+with red gun-fire, and our ships flyin' forth and duckin' in again. The
+smoke-pat sliddered over to the French shore, so I knowed Frankie was
+edgin' the Spanishers toward they Dutch sands where he was master. I
+says to my Aunt, "The smoke's thinnin' out. I lay Frankie's just about
+scrapin' his hold for a few last rounds shot. 'Tis time for me to go."
+
+'"Never in them clothes," she says. "Do on the doublet I bought you to
+be made burgess in, and don't you shame this day."
+
+'So I mucked it on, and my chain, and my stiffed Dutch breeches and all.
+
+'"I be comin', too," she says from her chamber, and forth she come
+pavisandin' like a peacock--stuff, ruff, stomacher and all. She was a
+notable woman.'
+
+'But how did you go? You haven't told us,' said Una.
+
+'In my own ship--but half-share was my Aunt's. In the ANTONY OF RYE, to
+be sure; and not empty-handed. I'd been loadin' her for three days
+with the pick of our yard. We was ballasted on cannon-shot of all three
+sizes; and iron rods and straps for his carpenters; and a nice passel of
+clean three-inch oak planking and hide breech-ropes for his cannon, and
+gubs of good oakum, and bolts o' canvas, and all the sound rope in the
+yard. What else could I ha' done? I knowed what he'd need most after a
+week's such work. I'm a shipbuilder, little maid.
+
+'We'd a fair slant o' wind off Dungeness, and we crept on till it fell
+light airs and puffed out. The Spanishers was all in a huddle over by
+Calais, and our ships was strawed about mending 'emselves like dogs
+lickin' bites. Now and then a Spanisher would fire from a low port, and
+the ball 'ud troll across the flat swells, but both sides was finished
+fightin' for that tide.
+
+'The first ship we foreslowed on, her breastworks was crushed in, an'
+men was shorin' 'em up. She said nothing. The next was a black pinnace,
+his pumps clackin' middling quick, and he said nothing. But the third,
+mending shot-holes, he spoke out plenty. I asked him where Mus' Drake
+might be, and a shiny-suited man on the poop looked down into us, and
+saw what we carried.
+
+'"Lay alongside you!" he says. "We'll take that all."
+
+'"'Tis for Mus' Drake," I says, keeping away lest his size should lee
+the wind out of my sails.
+
+'"Hi! Ho! Hither! We're Lord High Admiral of England! Come alongside, or
+we'll hang ye," he says.
+
+''Twas none of my affairs who he was if he wasn't Frankie, and while he
+talked so hot I slipped behind a green-painted ship with her top-sides
+splintered. We was all in the middest of 'em then.
+
+'"Hi! Hoi!" the green ship says. "Come alongside, honest man, and I'll
+buy your load. I'm Fenner that fought the seven Portugals--clean out of
+shot or bullets. Frankie knows me."
+
+'"Ay, but I don't," I says, and I slacked nothing.
+
+'He was a masterpiece. Seein' I was for goin' on, he hails a Bridport
+hoy beyond us and shouts, "George! Oh, George! Wing that duck. He's
+fat!" An' true as we're all here, that squatty Bridport boat rounds to
+acrost our bows, intendin' to stop us by means o' shooting.
+
+'My Aunt looks over our rail. "George," she says, "you finish with your
+enemies afore you begin on your friends."
+
+'Him that was laying the liddle swivel-gun at us sweeps off his hat an'
+calls her Queen Bess, and asks if she was selling liquor to pore dry
+sailors. My Aunt answered him quite a piece. She was a notable woman.
+
+'Then he come up--his long pennant trailing overside--his waistcloths
+and netting tore all to pieces where the Spanishers had grappled, and
+his sides black-smeared with their gun-blasts like candle-smoke in a
+bottle. We hooked on to a lower port and hung.
+
+'"Oh, Mus' Drake! Mus' Drake!" I calls up.
+
+'He stood on the great anchor cathead, his shirt open to the middle, and
+his face shining like the sun.
+
+'"Why, Sim!" he says. Just like that--after twenty year! "Sim," he says,
+"what brings you?"
+
+'"Pudden," I says, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
+
+'"You told me to bring cannon-shot next time, an' I've brought 'em."
+
+'He saw we had. He ripped out a fathom and a half o' brimstone Spanish,
+and he swung down on our rail, and he kissed me before all his fine
+young captains. His men was swarming out of the lower ports ready to
+unload us. When he saw how I'd considered all his likely wants, he
+kissed me again.
+
+'"Here's a friend that sticketh closer than a brother!" he says.
+"Mistress," he says to my Aunt, "all you foretold on me was true. I've
+opened that road from the East to the West, and I've buried my heart
+beside it."
+
+'"I know," she says. "That's why I be come."
+
+'"But ye never foretold this"; he points to both they great fleets.
+
+'"This don't seem to me to make much odds compared to what happens to a
+man," she says. "Do it?"
+
+'"Certain sure a man forgets to remember when he's proper mucked up with
+work. Sim," he says to me, "we must shift every living Spanisher round
+Dunkirk corner on to our Dutch sands before morning. The wind'll come
+out of the North after this calm--same as it used--and then they're our
+meat."
+
+'"Amen," says I. "I've brought you what I could scutchel up of odds and
+ends. Be you hit anywhere to signify?"
+
+'"Oh, our folk'll attend to all that when we've time," he says. He turns
+to talk to my Aunt, while his men flew the stuff out of our hold. I
+think I saw old Moon amongst 'em, but he was too busy to more than
+nod like. Yet the Spanishers was going to prayers with their bells and
+candles before we'd cleaned out the ANTONY. Twenty-two ton o' useful
+stuff I'd fetched him. '"Now, Sim," says my Aunt, "no more devouring of
+Mus' Drake's time. He's sending us home in the Bridport hoy. I want to
+speak to them young springalds again."
+
+'"But here's our ship all ready and swept," I says.
+
+'"Swep' an' garnished," says Frankie. "I'm going to fill her with devils
+in the likeness o' pitch and sulphur. We must shift the Dons round
+Dunkirk corner, and if shot can't do it, we'll send down fireships."
+
+'"I've given him my share of the ANTONY," says my Aunt. "What do you
+reckon to do about yours?"
+
+'"She offered it," said Frankie, laughing.
+
+'"She wouldn't have if I'd overheard her," I says; "because I'd have
+offered my share first." Then I told him how the ANTONY's sails was best
+trimmed to drive before the wind, and seeing he was full of occupations
+we went acrost to that Bridport hoy, and left him.
+
+'But Frankie was gentle-born, d'ye see, and that sort they never
+overlook any folks' dues.
+
+'When the hoy passed under his stern, he stood bare-headed on the poop
+same as if my Aunt had been his Queen, and his musicianers played "Mary
+Ambree" on their silver trumpets quite a long while. Heart alive, little
+maid! I never meaned to make you look sorrowful!
+
+'Bunny Lewknor in his sackcloth petticoats burst through the birch scrub
+wiping his forehead.
+
+'We've got the stick to rights now! She've been a whole hatful o'
+trouble. You come an' ride her home, Mus' Dan and Miss Una!'
+
+'They found the proud wood-gang at the foot of the slope, with the log
+double-chained on the tug.
+
+'Cattiwow, what are you going to do with it?'said Dan, as they straddled
+the thin part.
+
+'She's going down to Rye to make a keel for a Lowestoft fishin'-boat,
+I've heard. Hold tight!'
+
+'Cattiwow cracked his whip, and the great log dipped and tilted, and
+leaned and dipped again, exactly like a stately ship upon the high seas.
+
+
+
+
+Frankie's Trade
+
+
+     Old Horn to All Atlantic said:
+       (A-hay O!  To me O!)
+     'Now where did Frankie learn his trade?
+     For he ran me down with a three-reef mains'le.'
+     (All round the Horn!)
+
+     Atlantic answered: 'Not from me!
+     You'd better ask the cold North Sea,
+     For he ran me down under all plain canvas.'
+     (All round the Horn!)
+
+     The North Sea answered: 'He's my man,
+     For he came to me when he began--
+     Frankie Drake in an open coaster.
+     (All round the Sands!)
+
+     'I caught him young and I used him sore,
+     So you never shall startle Frankie more,
+     Without capsizing Earth and her waters.
+     (All round the Sands!)
+
+     'I did not favour him at all,
+     I made him pull and I made him haul--
+     And stand his trick with the common sailors.
+     (All round the Sands!)
+
+     'I froze him stiff and I fogged him blind,
+     And kicked him home with his road to find
+     By what he could see of a three-day snow-storm.
+     (All round the Sands!)
+
+     'I learned him his trade o' winter nights,
+     'Twixt Mardyk Fort and Dunkirk lights
+     On a five-knot tide with the forts a-firing.
+     (All round the Sands!)
+
+     'Before his beard began to shoot,
+     I showed him the length of the Spaniard's foot--
+     And I reckon he clapped the boot on it later.
+     (All round the Sands!)
+     'If there's a risk which you can make
+     That's worse than he was used to take
+     Nigh every week in the way of his business;
+     (All round the Sands!)
+
+     'If there's a trick that you can try
+     Which he hasn't met in time gone by,
+     Not once or twice, but ten times over;
+     (All round the Sands!)
+
+     'If you can teach him aught that's new,
+       (A-hay O!  To me O!)
+     I'll give you Bruges and Niewport too,
+     And the ten tall churches that stand between 'em.'
+     Storm along, my gallant Captains!
+       (All round the Horn!)
+
+
+
+
+THE TREE OF JUSTICE
+
+
+
+
+The Ballad of Minepit Shaw
+
+
+     About the time that taverns shut
+       And men can buy no beer,
+     Two lads went up by the keepers' hut
+       To steal Lord Pelham's deer.
+
+     Night and the liquor was in their heads--
+       They laughed and talked no bounds,
+     Till they waked the keepers on their beds,
+       And the keepers loosed the hounds.
+
+     They had killed a hart, they had killed a hind,
+       Ready to carry away,
+     When they heard a whimper down the wind
+       And they heard a bloodhound bay.
+
+     They took and ran across the fern,
+       Their crossbows in their hand,
+     Till they met a man with a green lantern
+       That called and bade 'em stand.
+
+     'What are you doing, O Flesh and Blood,
+       And what's your foolish will,
+     That you must break into Minepit Wood
+       And wake the Folk of the Hill?'
+
+     'Oh, we've broke into Lord Pelham's park,
+       And killed Lord Pelham's deer,
+     And if ever you heard a little dog bark
+       You'll know why we come here!'
+
+     'We ask you let us go our way,
+       As fast as we can flee,
+     For if ever you heard a bloodhound bay,
+       You'll know how pressed we be.'
+
+     'Oh, lay your crossbows on the bank
+       And drop the knife from your hand,
+     And though the hounds are at your flank
+       I'll save you where you stand!'
+     They laid their crossbows on the bank,
+       They threw their knives in the wood,
+     And the ground before them opened and sank
+       And saved 'em where they stood.
+     'Oh, what's the roaring in our ears
+       That strikes us well-nigh dumb?'
+     'Oh, that is just how things appears
+       According as they come.'
+
+     'What are the stars before our eyes
+       That strike us well-nigh blind?'
+     'Oh, that is just how things arise
+       According as you find.'
+
+     'And why's our bed so hard to the bones
+       Excepting where it's cold?'
+     'Oh, that's because it is precious stones
+       Excepting where 'tis gold.
+
+     'Think it over as you stand
+       For I tell you without fail,
+     If you haven't got into Fairyland
+       You're not in Lewes Gaol.'
+
+     All night long they thought of it,
+       And, come the dawn, they saw
+     They'd tumbled into a great old pit,
+       At the bottom of Minepit Shaw.
+
+     And the keepers' hound had followed 'em close
+       And broke her neck in the fall;
+     So they picked up their knives and their cross-bows
+       And buried the dog.  That's all.
+
+     But whether the man was a poacher too
+       Or a Pharisee so bold--
+     I reckon there's more things told than are true,
+       And more things true than are told.
+
+
+
+
+The Tree of Justice
+
+It was a warm, dark winter day with the Sou'-West wind singing through
+Dallington Forest, and the woods below the Beacon. The children set
+out after dinner to find old Hobden, who had a three months' job in
+the Rough at the back of Pound's Wood. He had promised to get them a
+dormouse in its nest. The bright leaf Still clung to the beech coppice;
+the long chestnut leaves lay orange on the ground, and the rides were
+speckled with scarlet-lipped sprouting acorns. They worked their way by
+their own short cuts to the edge of Pound's Wood, and heard a horse's
+feet just as they came to the beech where Ridley the keeper hangs up the
+vermin. The poor little fluffy bodies dangled from the branches--some
+perfectly good, but most of them dried to twisted strips.
+
+'Three more owls,' said Dan, counting. 'Two stoats, four jays, and a
+kestrel. That's ten since last week. Ridley's a beast.'
+
+'In my time this sort of tree bore heavier fruit.' Sir Richard
+Dalyngridge reined up his grey horse, Swallow, in the ride behind them.
+[This is the Norman knight they met the year before in PUCK OF POOK'S
+HILL. See 'Young Men at the Manor,' 'The Knights of the Joyous Venture,'
+and 'Old Men at Pevensey,' in that book.] 'What play do you make?'he
+asked.
+
+'Nothing, Sir. We're looking for old Hobden,'Dan replied.'He promised to
+get us a sleeper.'
+
+'Sleeper? A DORMEUSE, do you say?'
+
+'Yes, a dormouse, Sir.' 'I understand. I passed a woodman on the low
+grounds. Come!' He wheeled up the ride again, and pointed through an
+opening to the patch of beech-stubs, chestnut, hazel, and birch that
+old Hobden would turn into firewood, hop-poles, pea-boughs, and
+house-faggots before spring. The old man was as busy as a beaver.
+
+Something laughed beneath a thorn, and Puck stole out, his finger on his
+lip.
+
+'Look!' he whispered. 'Along between the spindle-trees. Ridley has been
+there this half-hour.'
+
+The children followed his point, and saw Ridley the keeper in an old dry
+ditch, watching Hobden as a cat watches a mouse.
+
+'Huhh!' cried Una. 'Hobden always 'tends to his wires before breakfast.
+He puts his rabbits into the faggots he's allowed to take home. He'll
+tell us about 'em tomorrow.'
+
+'We had the same breed in my day,' Sir Richard replied, and moved off
+quietly, Puck at his bridle, the children on either side between the
+close-trimmed beech stuff.
+
+'What did you do to them?' said Dan, as they repassed Ridley's terrible
+tree.
+
+'That!' Sir Richard jerked his head toward the dangling owls.
+
+'Not he!' said Puck. 'There was never enough brute Norman in you to hang
+a man for taking a buck.'
+
+'I--I cannot abide to hear their widows screech. But why am I on
+horseback while you are afoot?' He dismounted lightly, tapped Swallow
+on the chest, so that the wise thing backed instead of turning in the
+narrow ride, and put himself at the head of the little procession. He
+walked as though all the woods belonged to him. 'I have often told my
+friends,' he went on, 'that Red William the King was not the only Norman
+found dead in a forest while he hunted.'
+
+'D'you mean William Rufus?'said Dan.
+
+'Yes,' said Puck, kicking a clump of red toad-stools off a dead log.
+
+'For example, there was a knight new from Normandy,' Sir Richard went
+on, 'to whom Henry our King granted a manor in Kent near by. He chose
+to hang his forester's son the day before a deer-hunt that he gave to
+pleasure the King.'
+
+'Now when would that be?' said Puck, and scratched an ear thoughtfully.
+
+'The summer of the year King Henry broke his brother Robert of Normandy
+at Tenchebrai fight. Our ships were even then at Pevensey loading for
+the war.'
+
+'What happened to the knight?'Dan asked.
+
+'They found him pinned to an ash, three arrows through his leather coat.
+I should have worn mail that day.'
+
+'And did you see him all bloody?'Dan continued.
+
+'Nay, I was with De Aquila at Pevensey, counting horseshoes, and
+arrow-sheaves, and ale-barrels into the holds of the ships. The army
+only waited for our King to lead them against Robert in Normandy, but
+he sent word to De Aquila that he would hunt with him here before he set
+out for France.'
+
+'Why did the King want to hunt so particularly?' Una demanded.
+
+'If he had gone straight to France after the Kentish knight was killed,
+men would have said he feared being slain like the knight. It was
+his duty to show himself debonair to his English people as it was De
+Aquila's duty to see that he took no harm while he did it, But it was
+a great burden! De Aquila, Hugh, and I ceased work on the ships, and
+scoured all the Honour of the Eagle--all De Aquila's lands--to make a
+fit, and, above all, a safe sport for our King. Look!'
+
+The ride twisted, and came out on the top of Pound's Hill Wood. Sir
+Richard pointed to the swells of beautiful, dappled Dallington, that
+showed like a woodcock's breast up the valley. 'Ye know the forest?'
+said he.
+
+'You ought to see the bluebells there in Spring!' said Una. 'I have
+seen,' said Sir Richard, gazing, and stretched out his hand. 'Hugh's
+work and mine was first to move the deer gently from all parts into
+Dallington yonder, and there to hold them till the King came. Next, we
+must choose some three hundred beaters to drive the deer to the stands
+within bowshot of the King. Here was our trouble! In the mellay of a
+deer-drive a Saxon peasant and a Norman King may come over-close to each
+other. The conquered do not love their conquerors all at once. So we
+needed sure men, for whom their village or kindred would answer in life,
+cattle, and land if any harm come to the King. Ye see?'
+
+'If one of the beaters shot the King,' said Puck, 'Sir Richard wanted to
+be able to punish that man's village. Then the village would take care
+to send a good man.'
+
+'So! So it was. But, lest our work should be too easy, the King had done
+such a dread justice over at Salehurst, for the killing of the Kentish
+knight (twenty-six men he hanged, as I heard), that our folk were half
+mad with fear before we began. It is easier to dig out a badger gone to
+earth than a Saxon gone dumb-sullen. And atop of their misery the
+old rumour waked that Harold the Saxon was alive and would bring them
+deliverance from us Normans. This has happened every autumn since
+Santlache fight.'
+
+'But King Harold was killed at Hastings,'said Una.
+
+'So it was said, and so it was believed by us Normans, but our Saxons
+always believed he would come again. That rumour did not make our work
+any more easy.'
+
+Sir Richard strode on down the far slope of the wood, where the trees
+thin out. It was fascinating to watch how he managed his long spurs
+among the lumps of blackened ling.
+
+'But we did it!' he said. 'After all, a woman is as good as a man to
+beat the woods, and the mere word that deer are afoot makes cripples and
+crones young again. De Aquila laughed when Hugh told him over the list
+of beaters. Half were women; and many of the rest were clerks--Saxon and
+Norman priests.
+
+'Hugh and I had not time to laugh for eight days, till De Aquila,
+as Lord of Pevensey, met our King and led him to the first
+shooting-stand--by the Mill on the edge of the forest. Hugh and I--it
+was no work for hot heads or heavy hands--lay with our beaters on the
+skirts of Dallington to watch both them and the deer. When De Aquila's
+great horn blew we went forward, a line half a league long. Oh, to see
+the fat clerks, their gowns tucked up, puffing and roaring, and the
+sober millers dusting the under-growth with their staves; and, like as
+not, between them a Saxon wench, hand in hand with her man, shrilling
+like a kite as she ran, and leaping high through the fern, all for joy
+of the sport.' 'Ah! How! Ah! How! How-ah! Sa-how-ah!' Puck bellowed
+without warning, and Swallow bounded forward, ears cocked, and nostrils
+cracking.
+
+'Hal-lal-lal-lal-la-hai-ie!' Sir Richard answered in a high clear shout.
+
+The two voices joined in swooping circles of sound, and a heron rose out
+of a red osier-bed below them, circling as though he kept time to the
+outcry. Swallow quivered and swished his glorious tail. They stopped
+together on the same note.
+
+A hoarse shout answered them across the bare woods.
+
+'That's old Hobden,'said Una.
+
+'Small blame to him. It is in his blood,' said Puck. 'Did your beaters
+cry so, Sir Richard?'
+
+'My faith, they forgot all else. (Steady, Swallow, steady!) They forgot
+where the King and his people waited to shoot. They followed the deer to
+the very edge of the open till the first flight of wild arrows from the
+stands flew fair over them.
+
+'I cried, "'Ware shot! 'Ware shot!" and a knot of young knights new from
+Normandy, that had strayed away from the Grand Stand, turned about, and
+in mere sport loosed off at our line shouting: "'Ware Santlache arrows!
+'Ware Santlache arrows!" A jest, I grant you, but too sharp. One of our
+beaters answered in Saxon: "'Ware New Forest arrows! 'Ware Red William's
+arrow!" so I judged it time to end the jests, and when the boys saw my
+old mail gown (for, to shoot with strangers I count the same as war),
+they ceased shooting. So that was smoothed over, and we gave our beaters
+ale to wash down their anger. They were excusable! We--they had
+sweated to show our guests good sport, and our reward was a flight
+of hunting-arrows which no man loves, and worse, a churl's jibe over
+hard-fought, fair-lost Hastings fight. So, before the next beat, Hugh
+and I assembled and called the beaters over by name, to steady them. The
+greater part we knew, but among the Netherfield men I saw an old, old
+man, in the dress of a pilgrim.
+
+'The Clerk of Netherfield said he was well known by repute for twenty
+years as a witless man that journeyed without rest to all the shrines of
+England. The old man sits, Saxon fashion, head between fists. We Normans
+rest the chin on the left palm. '"Who answers for him?" said I. "If he
+fails in his duty, who will pay his fine?"
+
+'"Who will pay my fine?" the pilgrim said. "I have asked that of all the
+Saints in England these forty years, less three months and nine days!
+They have not answered!" When he lifted his thin face I saw he was
+one-eyed, and frail as a rush. '"Nay, but, Father," I said, "to whom
+hast thou commended thyself-?" He shook his head, so I spoke in Saxon:
+"Whose man art thou?"
+
+'"I think I have a writing from Rahere, the King's jester," said he
+after a while. "I am, as I suppose, Rahere's man."
+
+'He pulled a writing from his scrip, and Hugh, coming up, read it.
+
+'It set out that the pilgrim was Rahere's man, and that Rahere was the
+King's jester. There was Latin writ at the back.
+
+'"What a plague conjuration's here?" said Hugh, turning it over.
+"Pum-quum-sum oc-occ. Magic?"
+
+'"Black Magic," said the Clerk of Netherfield (he had been a monk at
+Battle). "They say Rahere is more of a priest than a fool and more of a
+wizard than either. Here's Rahere's name writ, and there's Rahere's red
+cockscomb mark drawn below for such as cannot read." He looked slyly at
+me.
+
+'"Then read it," said I, "and show thy learning." He was a vain little
+man, and he gave it us after much mouthing.
+
+'"The charm, which I think is from Virgilius the Sorcerer, says: 'When
+thou art once dead, and Minos' (which is a heathen judge) 'has doomed
+thee, neither cunning, nor speechcraft, nor good works will restore
+thee!' A terrible thing! It denies any mercy to a man's soul!"
+
+'"Does it serve?" said the pilgrim, plucking at Hugh's cloak. "Oh, man
+of the King's blood, does it cover me?"
+
+'Hugh was of Earl Godwin's blood, and all Sussex knew it, though no
+Saxon dared call him kingly in a Norman's hearing. There can be but one
+King.
+
+'"It serves," said Hugh. "But the day will be long and hot. Better rest
+here. We go forward now."
+
+'"No, I will keep with thee, my kinsman," he answered like a child. He
+was indeed childish through great age.
+
+'The line had not moved a bowshot when De Aquila's great horn blew for a
+halt, and soon young Fulke--our false Fulke's son--yes, the imp that
+lit the straw in Pevensey Castle [See 'Old Men at Pevensey' in PUCK OF
+POOK'S HILL.]--came thundering up a woodway.
+
+'"Uncle," said he (though he was a man grown, he called me Uncle),
+"those young Norman fools who shot at you this morn are saying that
+your beaters cried treason against the King. It has come to Harry's long
+ears, and he bids you give account of it. There are heavy fines in his
+eye, but I am with you to the hilt, Uncle!" 'When the boy had fled back,
+Hugh said to me: "It was Rahere's witless man that cried, ''Ware Red
+William's arrow!' I heard him, and so did the Clerk of Netherfield."
+
+'"Then Rahere must answer to the King for his man," said I. "Keep him by
+you till I send," and I hastened down.
+
+'The King was with De Aquila in the Grand Stand above Welansford down in
+the valley yonder. His Court--knights and dames--lay glittering on the
+edge of the glade. I made my homage, and Henry took it coldly. '"How
+came your beaters to shout threats against me?" said he.
+
+'"The tale has grown," I answered. "One old witless man cried out,
+''Ware Red William's arrow,' when the young knights shot at our line. We
+had two beaters hit."
+
+'"I will do justice on that man," he answered. "Who is his master?"
+
+'"He's Rahere's man," said I.
+
+'"Rahere's?" said Henry. "Has my fool a fool?"
+
+'I heard the bells jingle at the back of the stand, and a red leg waved
+over it; then a black one. So, very slowly, Rahere the King's jester
+straddled the edge of the planks, and looked down on us, rubbing his
+chin. Loose-knit, with cropped hair, and a sad priest's face, under his
+cockscomb cap, that he could twist like a strip of wet leather. His eyes
+were hollow-set.
+
+'"Nay, nay, Brother," said he. "If I suffer you to keep your fool, you
+must e'en suffer me to keep mine."
+
+'This he delivered slowly into the King's angry face! My faith, a King's
+jester must be bolder than lions!
+
+'"Now we will judge the matter," said Rahere. "Let these two brave
+knights go hang my fool because he warned King Henry against running
+after Saxon deer through woods full of Saxons. 'Faith, Brother, if thy
+Brother, Red William, now among the Saints as we hope, had been timely
+warned against a certain arrow in New Forest, one fool of us four would
+not be crowned fool of England this morning. Therefore, hang the fool's
+fool, knights!" 'Mark the fool's cunning! Rahere had himself given us
+order to hang the man. No King dare confirm a fool's command to such a
+great baron as De Aquila; and the helpless King knew it.
+
+'"What? No hanging?" said Rahere, after a silence. "A' God's Gracious
+Name, kill something, then! Go forward with the hunt!"
+
+'He splits his face ear to ear in a yawn like a fish-pond. "Henry," says
+he, "the next time I sleep, do not pester me with thy fooleries." Then
+he throws himself out of sight behind the back of the stand.
+
+'I have seen courage with mirth in De Aquila and Hugh, but stark mad
+courage of Rahere's sort I had never even guessed at.'
+
+'What did the King say?' cried Dan.
+
+'He had opened his mouth to speak, when young Fulke, who had come into
+the stand with us, laughed, and, boy-like, once begun, could not check
+himself. He kneeled on the instant for pardon, but fell sideways,
+crying: "His legs! Oh, his long, waving red legs as he went backward!"
+
+'Like a storm breaking, our grave King laughed,--stamped and reeled
+with laughter till the stand shook. So, like a storm, this strange thing
+passed!
+
+'He wiped his eyes, and signed to De Aquila to let the drive come on.
+
+'When the deer broke, we were pleased that the King shot from the
+shelter of the stand, and did not ride out after the hurt beasts as Red
+William would have done. Most vilely his knights and barons shot!
+
+'De Aquila kept me beside him, and I saw no more of Hugh till evening.
+We two had a little hut of boughs by the camp, where I went to wash me
+before the great supper, and in the dusk I heard Hugh on the couch.
+
+'"Wearied, Hugh?" said I.
+
+'"A little," he says. "I have driven Saxon deer all day for a Norman
+King, and there is enough of Earl Godwin's blood left in me to sicken at
+the work. Wait awhile with the torch."
+
+'I waited then, and I thought I heard him sob.'
+
+'Poor Hugh! Was he so tired?' said Una. 'Hobden says beating is hard
+work sometimes.'
+
+'I think this tale is getting like the woods,' said Dan, 'darker and
+twistier every minute.' Sir Richard had walked as he talked, and though
+the children thought they knew the woods well enough, they felt a little
+lost.
+
+'A dark tale enough,' says Sir Richard, 'but the end was not all black.
+When we had washed, we went to wait on the King at meat in the great
+pavilion. Just before the trumpets blew for the Entry--all the guests
+upstanding--long Rahere comes posturing up to Hugh, and strikes him with
+his bauble-bladder.
+
+'"Here's a heavy heart for a joyous meal!" he says. "But each man must
+have his black hour or where would be the merit of laughing? Take a
+fool's advice, and sit it out with my man. I'll make a jest to excuse
+you to the King if he remember to ask for you. That's more than I would
+do for Archbishop Anselm."
+
+'Hugh looked at him heavy-eyed. "Rahere?" said he. "The King's jester?
+Oh, Saints, what punishment for my King!" and smites his hands together.
+'"Go--go fight it out in the dark," says Rahere, "and thy Saxon Saints
+reward thee for thy pity to my fool." He pushed him from the pavilion,
+and Hugh lurched away like one drunk.'
+
+'But why?' said Una. 'I don't understand.'
+
+'Ah, why indeed? Live you long enough, maiden, and you shall know the
+meaning of many whys.' Sir Richard smiled. 'I wondered too, but it was
+my duty to wait on the King at the High Table in all that glitter and
+stir.
+
+'He spoke me his thanks for the sport I had helped show him, and he had
+learned from De Aquila enough of my folk and my castle in Normandy to
+graciously feign that he knew and had loved my brother there. (This,
+also, is part of a king's work.) Many great men sat at the High
+Table--chosen by the King for their wits, not for their birth. I have
+forgotten their names, and their faces I only saw that one night.
+But'--Sir Richard turned in his stride--'but Rahere, flaming in black
+and scarlet among our guests, the hollow of his dark cheek flushed with
+wine--long, laughing Rahere, and the stricken sadness of his face when
+he was not twisting it about--Rahere I shall never forget.
+
+'At the King's outgoing De Aquila bade me follow him, with his great
+bishops and two great barons, to the little pavilion. We had devised
+jugglers and dances for the Court's sport; but Henry loved to talk
+gravely to grave men, and De Aquila had told him of my travels to the
+world's end. We had a fire of apple-wood, sweet as incense,--and the
+curtains at the door being looped up, we could hear the music and see
+the lights shining on mail and dresses.
+
+'Rahere lay behind the King's chair. The questions he darted forth at me
+were as shrewd as the flames. I was telling of our fight with the apes,
+as ye called them, at the world's end. [See 'The Knights of the Joyous
+Venture' in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.] '"But where is the Saxon knight that
+went with you?" said Henry. "He must confirm these miracles."
+
+'"He is busy," said Rahere, "confirming a new miracle."
+
+'"Enough miracles for today," said the King. "Rahere, you have saved
+your long neck. Fetch the Saxon knight."
+
+'"Pest on it," said Rahere. "Who would be a King's jester? I'll bring
+him, Brother, if you'll see that none of your home-brewed bishops taste
+my wine while I am away." So he jingled forth between the men-at-arms at
+the door.
+
+'Henry had made many bishops in England without the Pope's leave. I know
+not the rights of the matter, but only Rahere dared jest about it. We
+waited on the King's next word.
+
+'"I think Rahere is jealous of you," said he, smiling, to Nigel of Ely.
+He was one bishop; and William of Exeter, the other--Wal-wist the Saxons
+called him--laughed long. "Rahere is a priest at heart. Shall I make him
+a bishop, De Aquila?" says the King.
+
+'"There might be worse," said our Lord of Pevensey. "Rahere would never
+do what Anselm has done."
+
+'This Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, had gone off raging to the Pope
+at Rome, because Henry would make bishops without his leave either. I
+knew not the rights of it, but De Aquila did, and the King laughed.
+
+'"Anselm means no harm. He should have been a monk, not a bishop," said
+the King. "I'll never quarrel with Anselm or his Pope till they quarrel
+with my England. If we can keep the King's peace till my son comes to
+rule, no man will lightly quarrel with our England."
+
+'"Amen," said De Aquila. "But the King's peace ends when the King dies."
+
+'That is true. The King's peace dies with the King. The custom then is
+that all laws are outlaw, and men do what they will till the new King is
+chosen.
+
+'"I will amend that," said the King hotly. "I will have it so that
+though King, son, and grandson were all slain in one day, still the
+King's peace should hold over all England! What is a man that his mere
+death must upheave a people? We must have the Law."
+
+'"Truth," said William of Exeter; but that he would have said to any
+word of the King.
+
+'The two great barons behind said nothing. This teaching was clean
+against their stomachs, for when the King's peace ends, the great barons
+go to war and increase their lands. At that instant we heard Rahere's
+voice returning, in a scurril Saxon rhyme against William of Exeter:
+
+     '"Well wist Wal-wist where lay his fortune
+     When that he fawned on the King for his crozier,"
+
+and amid our laughter he burst in, with one arm round Hugh, and one
+round the old pilgrim of Netherfield.
+
+'"Here is your knight, Brother," said he, "and for the better disport of
+the company, here is my fool. Hold up, Saxon Samson, the gates of Gaza
+are clean carried away!"
+
+'Hugh broke loose, white and sick, and staggered to my side; the old man
+blinked upon the company.
+
+'We looked at the King, but he smiled.
+
+'"Rahere promised he would show me some sport after supper to cover his
+morning's offence," said he to De Aquila. "So this is thy man, Rahere?"
+
+'"Even so," said Rahere. "My man he has been, and my protection he
+has taken, ever since I found him under the gallows at Stamford Bridge
+telling the kites atop of it that he was--Harold of England!"
+
+'There was a great silence upon these last strange words, and Hugh hid
+his face on my shoulder, woman-fashion.
+
+'"It is most cruel true," he whispered to me. "The old man proved it
+to me at the beat after you left, and again in our hut even now. It is
+Harold, my King!"
+
+'De Aquila crept forward. He walked about the man and swallowed.
+
+'"Bones of the Saints!" said he, staring.
+
+'"Many a stray shot goes too well home," said Rahere.
+
+'The old man flinched as at an arrow. "Why do you hurt me still?" he said
+in Saxon. "It was on some bones of some Saints that I promised I would
+give my England to the Great Duke." He turns on us all crying, shrilly:
+"Thanes, he had caught me at Rouen--a lifetime ago. If I had not
+promised, I should have lain there all my life. What else could I have
+done? I have lain in a strait prison all my life none the less. There is
+no need to throw stones at me." He guarded his face with his arms, and
+shivered. "Now his madness will strike him down," said Rahere. "Cast out
+the evil spirit, one of you new bishops."
+
+'Said William of Exeter: "Harold was slain at Santlache fight. All the
+world knows it."
+
+'"I think this man must have forgotten," said Rahere. "Be comforted,
+Father. Thou wast well slain at Hastings forty years gone, less three
+months and nine days. Tell the King."
+
+'The man uncovered his face. "I thought they would stone me," he said.
+"I did not know I spoke before a King." He came to his full towering
+height--no mean man, but frail beyond belief.
+
+'The King turned to the tables, and held him out his own cup of wine.
+The old man drank, and beckoned behind him, and, before all the Normans,
+my Hugh bore away the empty cup, Saxon-fashion, upon the knee.
+
+"It is Harold!" said De Aquila. "His own stiff-necked blood kneels to
+serve him.
+
+"Be it so," said Henry. "Sit, then, thou that hast been Harold of
+England."
+
+'The madman sat, and hard, dark Henry looked at him between half-shut
+eyes. We others stared like oxen, all but De Aquila, who watched Rahere
+as I have seen him watch a far sail on the sea.
+
+'The wine and the warmth cast the old man into a dream. His white head
+bowed; his hands hung. His eye indeed was opened, but the mind was
+shut. When he stretched his feet, they were scurfed and road-cut like a
+slave's.
+
+'"Ah, Rahere," cried Hugh, "why hast thou shown him thus? Better have
+let him die than shame him--and me!"
+
+'"Shame thee?" said the King. "Would any baron of mine kneel to me if I
+were witless, discrowned, and alone, and Harold had my throne?"
+
+'"No," said Rahere. "I am the sole fool that might do it, Brother,
+unless"--he pointed at De Aquila, whom he had only met that day--"yonder
+tough Norman crab kept me company. But, Sir Hugh, I did not mean to
+shame him. He hath been somewhat punished through, maybe, little fault
+of his own."
+
+'"Yet he lied to my Father, the Conqueror," said the King, and the old
+man flinched in his sleep.
+
+'"Maybe," said Rahere, "but thy Brother Robert, whose throat we purpose
+soon to slit with our own hands--"
+
+'"Hutt!" said the King, laughing. "I'll keep Robert at my table for
+a life's guest when I catch him. Robert means no harm. It is all his
+cursed barons."
+
+'"None the less," said Rahere, "Robert may say that thou hast not always
+spoken the stark truth to him about England. I should not hang too many
+men on that bough, Brother." '"And it is certain," said Hugh, "that"--he
+pointed to the old man--"Harold was forced to make his promise to the
+Great Duke."
+
+'"Very strongly, forced," said De Aquila. He had never any pride in the
+Duke William's dealings with Harold before Hastings. Yet, as he said,
+one cannot build a house all of straight sticks.
+
+'"No matter how he was forced," said Henry, "England was promised to my
+Father William by Edward the Confessor. Is it not so?" William of Exeter
+nodded. "Harold confirmed that promise to my Father on the bones of the
+Saints. Afterwards he broke his oath and would have taken England by
+the strong hand."
+
+'"Oh! La! La!" Rahere rolled up his eyes like a girl. "That ever England
+should be taken by the strong hand!"
+
+'Seeing that Red William and Henry after him had each in just that
+fashion snatched England from Robert of Normandy, we others knew not
+where to look. But De Aquila saved us quickly.
+
+'"Promise kept or promise broken," he said, "Harold came near enough to
+breaking us Normans at Santlache."
+
+'"Was it so close a fight, then?" said Henry.
+
+'"A hair would have turned it either way," De Aquila answered. "His
+house-carles stood like rocks against rain. Where wast thou, Hugh, in
+it?"
+
+'"Among Godwin's folk beneath the Golden Dragon till your front gave
+back, and we broke our ranks to follow," said Hugh.
+
+'"But I bade you stand! I bade you stand! I knew it was all a deceit!"
+Harold had waked, and leaned forward as one crying from the grave.
+
+'"Ah, now we see how the traitor himself was betrayed!" said William of
+Exeter, and looked for a smile from the King.
+
+'"I made thee Bishop to preach at my bidding," said Henry; and turning
+to Harold, "Tell us here how thy people fought us?" said he. "Their sons
+serve me now against my Brother Robert!"
+
+'The old man shook his head cunningly. "Na--Na--Na!" he cried. "I know
+better. Every time I tell my tale men stone me. But, Thanes, I will tell
+you a greater thing. Listen!" He told us how many paces it was from some
+Saxon Saint's shrine to another shrine, and how many more back to the
+Abbey of the Battle.
+
+'"Ay," said he. "I have trodden it too often to be out even ten paces.
+I move very swiftly. Harold of Norway knows that, and so does Tostig my
+brother. They lie at ease at Stamford Bridge, and from Stamford Bridge
+to the Battle Abbey it is--" he muttered over many numbers and forgot
+us.
+
+'"Ay," said De Aquila, all in a muse. "That man broke Harold of Norway
+at Stamford Bridge, and came near to breaking us at Santlache--all
+within one month."
+
+'"But how did he come alive from Santlache fight?" asked the King. "Ask
+him! Hast thou heard it, Rahere?" "Never. He says he has been stoned too
+often for telling the tale. But he can count you off Saxon and Norman
+shrines till daylight," said Rahere and the old man nodded proudly.
+
+'"My faith!" said Henry after a while. "I think even my Father the Great
+Duke would pity if he could see him."
+
+'"How if he does see?" said Rahere.
+
+'Hugh covered his face with his sound hand. "Ah, why hast thou shamed
+him?" he cried again to Rahere.
+
+'"No--no," says the old man, reaching to pluck at Rahere's cape. "I am
+Rahere's man. None stone me now," and he played with the bells on the
+scollops of it.
+
+'"How if he had been brought to me when you found him?" said the King to
+Rahere.
+
+'"You would have held him prisoner again--as the Great Duke did," Rahere
+answered.
+
+'"True," said our King. "He is nothing except his name. Yet that name
+might have been used by stronger men to trouble my England. Yes. I must
+have made him my life's guest--as I shall make Robert."
+
+'"I knew it," said Rahere. "But while this man wandered mad by the
+wayside, none cared what he called himself."
+
+'"I learned to cease talking before the stones flew," says the old man,
+and Hugh groaned.
+
+'"Ye have heard!" said Rahere. "Witless, landless, nameless, and, but
+for my protection, masterless, he can still make shift to bide his doom
+under the open sky."
+
+'"Then wherefore didst thou bring him here for a mock and a shame?"
+cried Hugh, beside himself with woe.
+
+'"A right mock and a just shame!" said William of Exeter.
+
+'"Not to me," said Nigel of Ely. "I see and I tremble, but I neither
+mock nor judge."  "Well spoken, Ely." Rahere falls into the pure fool
+again. "I'll pray for thee when I turn monk. Thou hast given thy
+blessing on a war between two most Christian brothers." He meant the war
+forward 'twixt Henry and Robert of Normandy. "I charge you, Brother," he
+says, wheeling on the King, "dost thou mock my fool?" The King shook his
+head, and so then did smooth William of Exeter.
+
+'"De Aquila, does thou mock him?" Rahere jingled from one to another,
+and the old man smiled.
+
+'"By the Bones of the Saints, not I," said our Lord of Pevensey. "I know
+how dooms near he broke us at Santlache."
+
+'"Sir Hugh, you are excused the question. But you, valiant, loyal,
+honourable, and devout barons, Lords of Man's justice in your own
+bounds, do you mock my fool?"
+
+'He shook his bauble in the very faces of those two barons whose names
+I have forgotten. "Na--Na!" they said, and waved him back foolishly
+enough.
+
+'He hies him across to staring, nodding Harold, and speaks from behind
+his chair.
+
+'"No man mocks thee, Who here judges this man? Henry of
+England--Nigel--De Aquila! On your souls, swift with the answer!" he
+cried.
+
+'None answered. We were all--the King not least--over-borne by that
+terrible scarlet-and-black wizard-jester.
+
+'"Well for your souls," he said, wiping his brow. Next, shrill like a
+woman: "Oh, come to me!" and Hugh ran forward to hold Harold, that had
+slidden down in the chair.
+
+'"Hearken," said Rahere, his arm round Harold's neck. "The King--his
+bishops--the knights--all the world's crazy chessboard neither mock nor
+judge thee. Take that comfort with thee, Harold of England!"
+
+'Hugh heaved the old man up and he smiled.
+
+'"Good comfort," said Harold. "Tell me again! I have been somewhat
+punished." 'Rahere hallooed it once more into his ear as the head
+rolled. We heard him sigh, and Nigel of Ely stood forth, praying aloud.
+
+'"Out! I will have no Norman!" Harold said as clearly as I speak now,
+and he refuged himself on Hugh's sound shoulder, and stretched out, and
+lay all still.'
+
+'Dead?' said Una, turning up a white face in the dusk.
+
+'That was his good fortune. To die in the King's presence, and on the
+breast of the most gentlest, truest knight of his own house. Some of us
+envied him,' said Sir Richard, and fell back to take Swallow's bridle.
+
+'Turn left here,' Puck called ahead of them from under an oak. They
+ducked down a narrow path through close ash plantation.
+
+The children hurried forward, but cutting a corner charged full-abreast
+into the thorn-faggot that old Hobden was carrying home on his back.
+'My! My!' said he. 'Have you scratted your face, Miss Una?'
+
+'Sorry! It's all right,' said Una, rubbing her nose. 'How many rabbits
+did you get today?'
+
+'That's tellin'!' the old man grinned as he re-hoisted his faggot. 'I
+reckon Mus' Ridley he've got rheumatism along o' lyin' in the dik to see
+I didn't snap up any. Think o' that now!'
+
+They laughed a good deal while he told them the tale.
+
+'An' just as he crawled away I heard some one hollerin' to the hounds
+in our woods,' said he. 'Didn't you hear? You must ha' been asleep
+sure-ly.'
+
+'Oh, what about the sleeper you promised to show us?' Dan cried.
+
+''Ere he be--house an' all!' Hobden dived into the prickly heart of the
+faggot and took out a dormouse's wonderfully woven nest of grass and
+leaves. His blunt fingers parted it as if it had been precious lace, and
+tilting it toward the last of the light he showed the little, red, furry
+chap curled up inside, his tail between his eyes that were shut for
+their winter sleep.
+
+'Let's take him home. Don't breathe on him,' said Una. 'It'll make him
+warm and he'll wake up and die straight off. Won't he, Hobby?'
+
+'Dat's a heap better by my reckonin' than wakin' up and findin' himself
+in a cage for life. No! We'll lay him into the bottom o' this hedge.
+Dat's jus' right! No more trouble for him till come Spring. An' now
+we'll go home.'
+
+
+
+
+A Carol
+
+
+     Our Lord Who did the Ox command
+     To kneel to Judah's King,
+     He binds His frost upon the land
+     To ripen it for Spring--
+     To ripen it for Spring, good sirs,
+     According to His word;
+     Which well must be as ye can see--
+     And who shall judge the Lord?
+
+     When we poor fenmen skate the ice
+     Or shiver on the wold,
+     We hear the cry of a single tree
+     That breaks her heart in the cold--
+     That breaks her heart in the cold, good sirs,
+     And rendeth by the board;
+     Which well must be as ye can see--
+     And who shall judge the Lord?
+
+     Her wood is crazed and little worth
+     Excepting as to burn
+     That we may warm and make our mirth
+     Until the Spring return--
+     Until the Spring return, good sirs,
+     When people walk abroad;
+     Which well must be as ye can see--
+     And who shall judge the Lord?
+
+     God bless the master of this house,
+     And all that sleep therein!
+     And guard the fens from pirate folk,
+     And keep us all from sin,
+     To walk in honesty, good sirs,
+     Of thought and deed and word!
+     Which shall befriend our latter end--
+     And who shall judge the Lord?
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rewards and Fairies, by Rudyard Kipling
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