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Puck of Pook's Hill

by Rudyard Kipling · English · Gutenberg #557 · 335,299 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Puck of Pook's Hill

Author: Rudyard Kipling


        
Release date: June 1, 1996 [eBook #557]
                Most recently updated: January 1, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/557

Credits: Produced by Jo Churcher.  HTML version by Al Haines.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUCK OF POOK'S HILL ***




Produced by Jo Churcher.  HTML version by Al Haines.









PUCK OF POOK'S HILL


by

RUDYARD KIPLING





CONTENTS


Weland's Sword
   Puck's Song
   A Tree Song

Young Men at the Manor
   Sir Richard's Song

The Knights of the Joyous Venture
   Harp Song of the Dane Women
   Thorkild's Song

Old Men at Pevensey
   The Runes on Weland's Sword

A Centurion of the Thirtieth
   'Cities and Thrones and Powers'
   A British-Roman Song

On the Great Wall
   A Song to Mithras

The Winged Hats
   A Pict Song

Hal o' the Draft
   'Prophets have honour all over the Earth'
   A Smugglers' Song

'Dymchurch Flit'
   The Bee Boy's Song
   A Three-Part Song

The Treasure and the Law
   Song of the Fifth River
   The Children's Song




WELAND'S SWORD


Puck's Song

  See you the dimpled track that runs,
  All hollow through the wheat?
  O that was where they hauled the guns
  That smote King Philip's fleet!

  See you our little mill that clacks,
  So busy by the brook?
  She has ground her corn and paid her tax
  Ever since Domesday Book.

  See you our stilly woods of oak,
  And the dread ditch beside?
  O that was where the Saxons broke,
  On the day that Harold died!

  See you the windy levels spread
  About the gates of Rye?
  O that was where the Northmen fled,
  When Alfred's ships came by!

  See you our pastures wide and lone,
  Where the red oxen browse?
  O there was a City thronged and known,
  Ere London boasted a house!

  And see you, after rain, the trace
  Of mound and ditch and wall?
  O that was a Legion's camping-place,
  When Caesar sailed from Gaul!

  And see you marks that show and fade,
  Like shadows on the Downs?
  O they are the lines the Flint Men made,
  To guard their wondrous towns!

  Trackway and Camp and City lost,
  Salt Marsh where now is corn;
  Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease,
  And so was England born!

  She is not any common Earth,
  Water or Wood or Air,
  But Merlin's Isle of Gramarye,
  Where you and I will fare.


The children were at the Theatre, acting to Three Cows as much as they
could remember of Midsummer Night's Dream.  Their father had made them
a small play out of the big Shakespeare one, and they had rehearsed it
with him and with their mother till they could say it by heart.  They
began when Nick Bottom the weaver comes out of the bushes with a
donkey's head on his shoulders, and finds Titania, Queen of the
Fairies, asleep.  Then they skipped to the part where Bottom asks three
little fairies to scratch his head and bring him honey, and they ended
where he falls asleep in Titania's arms.  Dan was Puck and Nick Bottom,
as well as all three Fairies.  He wore a pointy-cloth cap for Puck, and
a paper donkey's head out of a Christmas cracker--but it tore if you
were not careful--for Bottom.  Una was Titania, with a wreath of
columbines and a foxglove wand.

The Theatre lay in a meadow called the Long Slip.  A little
mill-stream, carrying water to a mill two or three fields away, bent
round one corner of it, and in the middle of the bend lay a large old
Fairy Ring of darkened grass, which was the stage.  The millstream
banks, overgrown with willow, hazel, and guelder-rose, made convenient
places to wait in till your turn came; and a grown-up who had seen it
said that Shakespeare himself could not have imagined a more suitable
setting for his play.  They were not, of course, allowed to act on
Midsummer Night itself, but they went down after tea on Midsummer Eve,
when the shadows were growing, and they took their supper--hard-boiled
eggs, Bath Oliver biscuits, and salt in an envelope--with them.  Three
Cows had been milked and were grazing steadily with a tearing noise
that one could hear all down the meadow; and the noise of the Mill at
work sounded like bare feet running on hard ground.  A cuckoo sat on a
gate-post singing his broken June tune, 'cuckoo-cuck', while a busy
kingfisher crossed from the mill-stream, to the brook which ran on the
other side of the meadow.  Everything else was a sort of thick, sleepy
stillness smelling of meadow-sweet and dry grass.

Their play went beautifully.  Dan remembered all his parts--Puck,
Bottom, and the three Fairies--and Una never forgot a word of
Titania--not even the difficult piece where she tells the Fairies how
to feed Bottom with 'apricocks, green figs, and dewberries', and all
the lines end in 'ies'.  They were both so pleased that they acted it
three times over from beginning to end before they sat down in the
unthistly centre of the Ring to eat eggs and Bath Olivers.  This was
when they heard a whistle among the alders on the bank, and they jumped.

The bushes parted.  In the very spot where Dan had stood as Puck they
saw a small, brown, broad-shouldered, pointy-eared person with a snub
nose, slanting blue eyes, and a grin that ran right across his freckled
face.  He shaded his forehead as though he were watching Quince, Snout,
Bottom, and the others rehearsing Pyramus and Thisbe, and, in a voice
as deep as Three Cows asking to be milked, he began:

     'What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here,
     So near the cradle of the fairy Queen?'

He stopped, hollowed one hand round his ear, and, with a wicked twinkle
in his eye, went on:

     'What, a play toward?  I'll be an auditor;
     An actor, too, perhaps, if I see cause.'

The children looked and gasped.  The small thing--he was no taller than
Dan's shoulder--stepped quietly into the Ring.

'I'm rather out of practice,' said he; 'but that's the way my part
ought to be played.'

Still the children stared at him--from his dark-blue cap, like a big
columbine flower, to his bare, hairy feet.  At last he laughed.

'Please don't look like that.  It isn't my fault.  What else could you
expect?' he said.

'We didn't expect any one,' Dan answered slowly. 'This is our field.'

'Is it?' said their visitor, sitting down.  'Then what on Human Earth
made you act Midsummer Night's Dream three times over, on Midsummer
Eve, in the middle of a Ring, and under--right under one of my oldest
hills in Old England?  Pook's Hill--Puck's Hill--Puck's Hill--Pook's
Hill!  It's as plain as the nose on my face.'

He pointed to the bare, fern-covered slope of Pook's Hill that runs up
from the far side of the mill-stream to a dark wood.  Beyond that wood
the ground rises and rises for five hundred feet, till at last you
climb out on the bare top of Beacon Hill, to look over the Pevensey
Levels and the Channel and half the naked South Downs.

'By Oak, Ash, and Thorn!' he cried, still laughing.  'If this had
happened a few hundred years ago you'd have had all the People of the
Hills out like bees in June!'

'We didn't know it was wrong,' said Dan.

'Wrong!'  The little fellow shook with laughter.  'Indeed, it isn't
wrong.  You've done something that Kings and Knights and Scholars in
old days would have given their crowns and spurs and books to find out.
If Merlin himself had helped you, you couldn't have managed better!
You've broken the Hills--you've broken the Hills! It hasn't happened in
a thousand years.'

'We--we didn't mean to,' said Una.

'Of course you didn't!  That's just why you did it. Unluckily the Hills
are empty now, and all the People of the Hills are gone.  I'm the only
one left.  I'm Puck, the oldest Old Thing in England, very much at your
service if--if you care to have anything to do with me.  If you don't,
of course you've only to say so, and I'll go.'

He looked at the children, and the children looked at him for quite
half a minute.  His eyes did not twinkle any more.  They were very
kind, and there was the beginning of a good smile on his lips.

Una put out her hand.  'Don't go,' she said.  'We like you.' 'Have a
Bath Oliver,' said Dan, and he passed over the squashy envelope with
the eggs.

'By Oak, Ash and Thorn,' cried Puck, taking off his blue cap, 'I like
you too.  Sprinkle a plenty salt on the biscuit, Dan, and I'll eat it
with you.  That'll show you the sort of person I am.  Some of us'--he
went on, with his mouth full--'couldn't abide Salt, or Horse-shoes over
a door, or Mountain-ash berries, or Running Water, or Cold Iron, or the
sound of Church Bells.  But I'm Puck!'

He brushed the crumbs carefully from his doublet and shook hands.

'We always said, Dan and I,' Una stammered, 'that if it ever happened
we'd know ex-actly what to do; but--but now it seems all different
somehow.'

'She means meeting a fairy,'said Dan.  'I never believed in 'em--not
after I was six, anyhow.'

'I did,' said Una.  'At least, I sort of half believed till we learned
"Farewell, Rewards".  Do you know "Farewell, Rewards and Fairies"?'

'Do you mean this?' said Puck.  He threw his big head back and began at
the second line:

     'Good housewives now may say,
     For now foul sluts in dairies
     Do fare as well as they;
     And though they sweep their hearths no less

('Join in, Una!')

     Than maids were wont to do,
     Yet who of late for cleanliness
     Finds sixpence in her shoe?'

The echoes flapped all along the flat meadow. 'Of course I know it,' he
said.

'And then there's the verse about the rings,' said Dan. 'When I was
little it always made me feel unhappy in my inside.'

"'Witness those rings and roundelays", do you mean?' boomed Puck, with
a voice like a great church organ.

     'Of theirs which yet remain,
     Were footed in Queen Mary's days
     On many a grassy plain,
     But since of late Elizabeth,
     And, later, James came in,
     Are never seen on any heath
     As when the time hath been.

'It's some time since I heard that sung, but there's no good beating
about the bush:  it's true.  The People of the Hills have all left.  I
saw them come into Old England and I saw them go.  Giants, trolls,
kelpies, brownies, goblins, imps; wood, tree, mound, and water spirits;
heath-people, hill-watchers, treasure-guards, good people, little
people, pishogues, leprechauns, night-riders, pixies, nixies, gnomes,
and the rest--gone, all gone!  I came into England with Oak, Ash and
Thorn, and when Oak, Ash and Thorn are gone I shall go too.'

Dan looked round the meadow--at Una's Oak by the lower gate; at the
line of ash trees that overhang Otter Pool where the millstream spills
over when the Mill does not need it, and at the gnarled old white-thorn
where Three Cows scratched their necks.

'It's all right,' he said; and added, 'I'm planting a lot of acorns
this autumn too.'

'Then aren't you most awfully old?' said Una.

'Not old--fairly long-lived, as folk say hereabouts.  Let me see--my
friends used to set my dish of cream for me o' nights when Stonehenge
was new.  Yes, before the Flint Men made the Dewpond under Chanctonbury
Ring.' Una clasped her hands, cried 'Oh!' and nodded her head.

'She's thought a plan,' Dan explained.  'She always does like that when
she thinks a plan.'

'I was thinking--suppose we saved some of our porridge and put it in
the attic for you?  They'd notice if we left it in the nursery.'

'Schoolroom,' said Dan quickly, and Una flushed, because they had made
a solemn treaty that summer not to call the schoolroom the nursery any
more.

'Bless your heart o' gold!' said Puck.  'You'll make a fine considering
wench some market-day.  I really don't want you to put out a bowl for
me; but if ever I need a bite, be sure I'll tell you.'

He stretched himself at length on the dry grass, and the children
stretched out beside him, their bare legs waving happily in the air.
They felt they could not be afraid of him any more than of their
particular friend old Hobden the hedger.  He did not bother them with
grown-up questions, or laugh at the donkey's head, but lay and smiled
to himself in the most sensible way. 'Have you a knife on you?' he said
at last.

Dan handed over his big one-bladed outdoor knife, and Puck began to
carve out a piece of turf from the centre of the Ring.

'What's that for--Magic?' said Una, as he pressed up the square of
chocolate loam that cut like so much cheese.

'One of my little magics,' he answered, and cut another.  'You see, I
can't let you into the Hills because the People of the Hills have gone;
but if you care to take seisin from me, I may be able to show you
something out of the common here on Human Earth.  You certainly deserve
it.'

'What's taking seisin?' said Dan, cautiously.

'It's an old custom the people had when they bought and sold land.
They used to cut out a clod and hand it over to the buyer, and you
weren't lawfully seised of your land--it didn't really belong to
you--till the other fellow had actually given you a piece of it--'like
this.'  He held out the turves.

'But it's our own meadow,' said Dan, drawing back. 'Are you going to
magic it away?'

Puck laughed.  'I know it's your meadow, but there's a great deal more
in it than you or your father ever guessed.  Try!'

He turned his eyes on Una.

'I'll do it,' she said.  Dan followed her example at once.

'Now are you two lawfully seised and possessed of all Old England,'
began Puck, in a sing-song voice.  'By right of Oak, Ash, and Thorn are
you free to come and go and look and know where I shall show or best
you please. You shall see What you shall see and you shall hear What
you shall hear, though It shall have happened three thousand year; and
you shall know neither Doubt nor Fear.  Fast!  Hold fast all I give
you.'

The children shut their eyes, but nothing happened.

'Well?' said Una, disappointedly opening them.  'I thought there would
be dragons.'

"'Though It shall have happened three thousand year,"' said Puck, and
counted on his fingers.  'No; I'm afraid there were no dragons three
thousand years ago.'

'But there hasn't happened anything at all,' said Dan. 'Wait awhile,'
said Puck.  'You don't grow an oak in a year--and Old England's older
than twenty oaks.  Let's sit down again and think.  I can do that for a
century at a time.'

'Ah, but you're a fairy,' said Dan.

'Have you ever heard me say that word yet?' said Puck quickly.

'No.  You talk about "the People of the Hills", but you never say
"fairies",' said Una.  'I was wondering at that. Don't you like it?'

'How would you like to be called "mortal" or "human being" all the
time?' said Puck; 'or "son of Adam" or "daughter of Eve"?'

'I shouldn't like it at all,' said Dan.  'That's how the Djinns and
Afrits talk in the Arabian Nights.'

'And that's how I feel about saying--that word that I don't say.
Besides, what you call them are made-up things the People of the Hills
have never heard of--little buzzflies with butterfly wings and gauze
petticoats, and shiny stars in their hair, and a wand like a
schoolteacher's cane for punishing bad boys and rewarding good ones.  I
know 'em!'

'We don't mean that sort,'said Dan.  'We hate 'em too.'

'Exactly,' said Puck.  'Can you wonder that the People of the Hills
don't care to be confused with that painty-winged, wand-waving,
sugar-and-shake-your-head set of impostors?  Butterfly wings, indeed!
I've seen Sir Huon and a troop of his people setting off from Tintagel
Castle for Hy-Brasil in the teeth of a sou'-westerly gale, with the
spray flying all over the Castle, and the Horses of the Hills wild with
fright.  Out they'd go in a lull, screaming like gulls, and back they'd
be driven five good miles inland before they could come head to wind
again. Butterfly-wings!  It was Magic--Magic as black as Merlin could
make it, and the whole sea was green fire and white foam with singing
mermaids in it.  And the Horses of the Hills picked their way from one
wave to another by the lightning flashes!  That was how it was in the
old days!'

'Splendid,' said Dan, but Una shuddered.

'I'm glad they're gone, then; but what made the People of the Hills go
away?' Una asked.

'Different things.  I'll tell you one of them some day--the thing that
made the biggest flit of any,' said Puck.  'But they didn't all flit at
once.  They dropped off, one by one, through the centuries.  Most of
them were foreigners who couldn't stand our climate.  They flitted
early.'

'How early?' said Dan.

'A couple of thousand years or more.  The fact is they began as Gods.
The Phoenicians brought some over when they came to buy tin; and the
Gauls, and the Jutes, and the Danes, and the Frisians, and the Angles
brought more when they landed.  They were always landing in those days,
or being driven back to their ships, and they always brought their Gods
with them.  England is a bad country for Gods.  Now, I began as I mean
to go on.  A bowl of porridge, a dish of milk, and a little quiet fun
with the country folk in the lanes was enough for me then, as it is
now.  I belong here, you see, and I have been mixed up with people all
my days.  But most of the others insisted on being Gods, and having
temples, and altars, and priests, and sacrifices of their own.'

'People burned in wicker baskets?' said Dan.  'Like Miss Blake tells us
about?'

'All sorts of sacrifices,' said Puck.  'If it wasn't men, it was
horses, or cattle, or pigs, or metheglin--that's a sticky, sweet sort
of beer.  I never liked it.  They were a stiff-necked, extravagant set
of idols, the Old Things.  But what was the result?  Men don't like
being sacrificed at the best of times; they don't even like sacrificing
their farm-horses.  After a while, men simply left the Old Things
alone, and the roofs of their temples fell in, and the Old Things had
to scuttle out and pick up a living as they could.  Some of them took
to hanging about trees, and hiding in graves and groaning o' nights.
If they groaned loud enough and long enough they might frighten a poor
countryman into sacrificing a hen, or leaving a pound of butter for
them.  I remember one Goddess called Belisama.  She became a common wet
water-spirit somewhere in Lancashire.  And there were hundreds of other
friends of mine.  First they were Gods.  Then they were People of the
Hills, and then they flitted to other places because they couldn't get
on with the English for one reason or another.  There was only one Old
Thing, I remember, who honestly worked for his living after he came
down in the world.  He was called Weland, and he was a smith to some
Gods.  I've forgotten their names, but he used to make them swords and
spears.  I think he claimed kin with Thor of the Scandinavians.'

'Heroes of Asgard Thor?' said Una.  She had been reading the book.

'Perhaps,' answered Puck.  'None the less, when bad times came, he
didn't beg or steal.  He worked; and I was lucky enough to be able to
do him a good turn.'

'Tell us about it,' said Dan.  'I think I like hearing of Old Things.'

They rearranged themselves comfortably, each chewing a grass stem.
Puck propped himself on one strong arm and went on:

'Let's think!  I met Weland first on a November afternoon in a sleet
storm, on Pevensey Level.'

'Pevensey?  Over the hill, you mean?'  Dan pointed south.

'Yes; but it was all marsh in those days, right up to Horsebridge and
Hydeneye.  I was on Beacon Hill--they called it Brunanburgh then--when
I saw the pale flame that burning thatch makes, and I went down to
look. Some pirates--I think they must have been Peor's men--were
burning a village on the Levels, and Weland's image--a big, black
wooden thing with amber beads round his neck--lay in the bows of a
black thirty-two-oar galley that they had just beached.  Bitter cold it
was!  There were icicles hanging from her deck and the oars were glazed
over with ice, and there was ice on Weland's lips. When he saw me he
began a long chant in his own tongue, telling me how he was going to
rule England, and how I should smell the smoke of his altars from
Lincolnshire to the Isle of Wight.  I didn't care!  I'd seen too many
Gods charging into Old England to be upset about it.  I let him sing
himself out while his men were burning the village, and then I said (I
don't know what put it into my head), "Smith of the Gods," I said, "the
time comes when I shall meet you plying your trade for hire by the
wayside."'

'What did Weland say?' said Una.  'Was he angry?'

'He called me names and rolled his eyes, and I went away to wake up the
people inland.  But the pirates conquered the country, and for
centuries Weland was a most important God.  He had temples
everywhere--from Lincolnshire to the Isle of Wight, as he said--and his
sacrifices were simply scandalous.  To do him justice, he preferred
horses to men; but men or horses, I knew that presently he'd have to
come down in the world--like the other Old Things.  I gave him lots of
time--I gave him about a thousand years--and at the end of 'em I went
into one of his temples near Andover to see how he prospered. There was
his altar, and there was his image, and there were his priests, and
there were the congregation, and everybody seemed quite happy, except
Weland and the priests.  In the old days the congregation were unhappy
until the priests had chosen their sacrifices; and so would you have
been.  When the service began a priest rushed out, dragged a man up to
the altar, pretended to hit him on the head with a little gilt axe, and
the man fell down and pretended to die.  Then everybody shouted: "A
sacrifice to Weland!  A sacrifice to Weland!"'

'And the man wasn't really dead?' said Una.

'Not a bit.  All as much pretence as a dolls' tea-party. Then they
brought out a splendid white horse, and the priest cut some hair from
its mane and tail and burned it on the altar, shouting, "A sacrifice!"
That counted the same as if a man and a horse had been killed.  I saw
poor Weland's face through the smoke, and I couldn't help laughing.  He
looked so disgusted and so hungry, and all he had to satisfy himself
was a horrid smell of burning hair.  Just a dolls' tea-party!

'I judged it better not to say anything then ('twouldn't have been
fair), and the next time I came to Andover, a few hundred years later,
Weland and his temple were gone, and there was a Christian bishop in a
church there. None of the People of the Hills could tell me anything
about him, and I supposed that he had left England.' Puck turned, lay
on his other elbow, and thought for a long time.

'Let's see,' he said at last.  'It must have been some few years
later--a year or two before the Conquest, I think--that I came back to
Pook's Hill here, and one evening I heard old Hobden talking about
Weland's Ford.'

'If you mean old Hobden the hedger, he's only seventy-two. He told me
so himself,' said Dan.  'He's a intimate friend of ours.'

'You're quite right,' Puck replied.  'I meant old Hobden's ninth
great-grandfather.  He was a free man and burned charcoal hereabouts.
I've known the family, father and son, so long that I get confused
sometimes. Hob of the Dene was my Hobden's name, and he lived at the
Forge cottage.  Of course, I pricked up my ears when I heard Weland
mentioned, and I scuttled through the woods to the Ford just beyond Bog
Wood yonder.'  He jerked his head westward, where the valley narrows
between wooded hills and steep hop-fields.

'Why, that's Willingford Bridge,' said Una.  'We go there for walks
often.  There's a kingfisher there.'

'It was Weland's Ford then, dearie.  A road led down to it from the
Beacon on the top of the hill--a shocking bad road it was--and all the
hillside was thick, thick oak-forest, with deer in it.  There was no
trace of Weland, but presently I saw a fat old farmer riding down from
the Beacon under the greenwood tree.  His horse had cast a shoe in the
clay, and when he came to the Ford he dismounted, took a penny out of
his purse, laid it on a stone, tied the old horse to an oak, and called
out: "Smith, Smith, here is work for you!" Then he sat down and went to
sleep.  You can imagine how I felt when I saw a white-bearded, bent old
blacksmith in a leather apron creep out from behind the oak and begin
to shoe the horse.  It was Weland himself.  I was so astonished that I
jumped out and said:  "What on Human Earth are you doing here, Weland?"'

'Poor Weland!' sighed Una.

'He pushed the long hair back from his forehead (he didn't recognize me
at first).  Then he said:  "You ought to know.  You foretold it, Old
Thing.  I'm shoeing horses for hire.  I'm not even Weland now," he
said.  "They call me Wayland-Smith."'

'Poor chap!' said Dan.  'What did you say?'

'What could I say?  He looked up, with the horse's foot on his lap, and
he said, smiling, "I remember the time when I wouldn't have accepted
this old bag of bones as a sacrifice, and now I'm glad enough to shoe
him for a penny."

"'Isn't there any way for you to get back to Valhalla, or wherever you
come from?" I said.

"'I'm afraid not," he said, rasping away at the hoof.  He had a
wonderful touch with horses.  The old beast was whinnying on his
shoulder.  "You may remember that I was not a gentle God in my Day and
my Time and my Power.  I shall never be released till some human being
truly wishes me well."

"'Surely," said I, "the farmer can't do less than that. You're shoeing
the horse all round for him."

"'Yes," said he, "and my nails will hold a shoe from one full moon to
the next.  But farmers and Weald clay," said he, "are both uncommon
cold and sour."

'Would you believe it, that when that farmer woke and found his horse
shod he rode away without one word of thanks?  I was so angry that I
wheeled his horse right round and walked him back three miles to the
Beacon, just to teach the old sinner politeness.'

'Were you invisible?' said Una.  Puck nodded, gravely.

'The Beacon was always laid in those days ready to light, in case the
French landed at Pevensey; and I walked the horse about and about it
that lee-long summer night. The farmer thought he was bewitched--well,
he was, of course--and began to pray and shout.  I didn't care!  I was
as good a Christian as he any fair-day in the County, and about four
o'clock in the morning a young novice came along from the monastery
that used to stand on the top of Beacon Hill.'

'What's a novice?' said Dan.

'It really means a man who is beginning to be a monk, but in those days
people sent their sons to a monastery just the same as a school.  This
young fellow had been to a monastery in France for a few months every
year, and he was finishing his studies in the monastery close to his
home here.  Hugh was his name, and he had got up to go fishing
hereabouts.  His people owned all this valley. Hugh heard the farmer
shouting, and asked him what in the world he meant.  The old man spun
him a wonderful tale about fairies and goblins and witches; and I know
he hadn't seen a thing except rabbits and red deer all that night.
(The People of the Hills are like otters--they don't show except when
they choose.) But the novice wasn't a fool.  He looked down at the
horse's feet, and saw the new shoes fastened as only Weland knew how to
fasten 'em.  (Weland had a way of turning down the nails that folks
called the Smith's Clinch.)

"'H'm!" said the novice.  "Where did you get your horse shod?"

'The farmer wouldn't tell him at first, because the priests never liked
their people to have any dealings with the Old Things.  At last he
confessed that the Smith had done it.  "What did you pay him?" said the
novice. "Penny," said the farmer, very sulkily.  "That's less than a
Christian would have charged," said the novice.  "I hope you threw a
'thank you' into the bargain." "No," said the farmer; "Wayland-Smith's
a heathen." "Heathen or no heathen," said the novice, "you took his
help, and where you get help there you must give thanks." "What?" said
the farmer--he was in a furious temper because I was walking the old
horse in circles all this time--"What, you young jackanapes?" said he.
"Then by your reasoning I ought to say 'Thank you' to Satan if he
helped me?"  "Don't roll about up there splitting reasons with me,"
said the novice.  "Come back to the Ford and thank the Smith, or you'll
be sorry."

'Back the farmer had to go.  I led the horse, though no one saw me, and
the novice walked beside us, his gown swishing through the shiny dew
and his fishing-rod across his shoulders, spear-wise.  When we reached
the Ford again--it was five o'clock and misty still under the oaks--the
farmer simply wouldn't say "Thank you." He said he'd tell the Abbot
that the novice wanted him to worship heathen Gods.  Then Hugh the
novice lost his temper.  He just cried, "Out!" put his arm under the
farmer's fat leg, and heaved him from his saddle on to the turf, and
before he could rise he caught him by the back of the neck and shook
him like a rat till the farmer growled, "Thank you, Wayland-Smith."'

'Did Weland see all this?' said Dan.

'Oh yes, and he shouted his old war-cry when the farmer thudded on to
the ground.  He was delighted. Then the novice turned to the oak tree
and said, "Ho, Smith of the Gods!  I am ashamed of this rude farmer;
but for all you have done in kindness and charity to him and to others
of our people, I thank you and wish you well." Then he picked up his
fishing-rod--it looked more like a tall spear than ever--and tramped
off down your valley.'

'And what did poor Weland do?' said Una.

'He laughed and he cried with joy, because he had been released at
last, and could go away.  But he was an honest Old Thing.  He had
worked for his living and he paid his debts before he left.  "I shall
give that novice a gift," said Weland.  "A gift that shall do him good
the wide world over and Old England after him.  Blow up my fire, Old
Thing, while I get the iron for my last task." Then he made a sword--a
dark-grey, wavy-lined sword--and I blew the fire while he hammered.  By
Oak, Ash and Thorn, I tell you, Weland was a Smith of the Gods!  He
cooled that sword in running water twice, and the third time he cooled
it in the evening dew, and he laid it out in the moonlight and said
Runes (that's charms) over it, and he carved Runes of Prophecy on the
blade.  "Old Thing," he said to me, wiping his forehead, "this is the
best blade that Weland ever made.  Even the user will never know how
good it is.  Come to the monastery."

'We went to the dormitory where the monks slept, we saw the novice fast
asleep in his cot, and Weland put the sword into his hand, and I
remember the young fellow gripped it in his sleep.  Then Weland strode
as far as he dared into the Chapel and threw down all his
shoeing-tools--his hammers and pincers and rasps--to show that he had
done with them for ever.  It sounded like suits of armour falling, and
the sleepy monks ran in, for they thought the monastery had been
attacked by the French. The novice came first of all, waving his new
sword and shouting Saxon battle-cries.  When they saw the shoeing-tools
they were very bewildered, till the novice asked leave to speak, and
told what he had done to the farmer, and what he had said to
Wayland-Smith, and how, though the dormitory light was burning, he had
found the wonderful Rune-carved sword in his cot.

'The Abbot shook his head at first, and then he laughed and said to the
novice:  "Son Hugh, it needed no sign from a heathen God to show me
that you will never be a monk.  Take your sword, and keep your sword,
and go with your sword, and be as gentle as you are strong and
courteous.  We will hang up the Smith's tools before the Altar," he
said, "because, whatever the Smith of the Gods may have been, in the
old days, we know that he worked honestly for his living and made gifts
to Mother Church." Then they went to bed again, all except the novice,
and he sat up in the garth playing with his sword. Then Weland said to
me by the stables:  "Farewell, Old Thing; you had the right of it.  You
saw me come to England, and you see me go.  Farewell!"

'With that he strode down the hill to the corner of the Great
Woods--Woods Corner, you call it now--to the very place where he had
first landed--and I heard him moving through the thickets towards
Horsebridge for a little, and then he was gone.  That was how it
happened.  I saw it.'

Both children drew a long breath.

'But what happened to Hugh the novice?' said Una.

'And the sword?' said Dan.

Puck looked down the meadow that lay all quiet and cool in the shadow
of Pook's Hill.  A corncrake jarred in a hay-field near by, and the
small trouts of the brook began to jump.  A big white moth flew
unsteadily from the alders and flapped round the children's heads, and
the least little haze of water-mist rose from the brook. 'Do you really
want to know?' Puck said.

'We do,' cried the children.  'Awfully!'

'Very good.  I promised you that you shall see What you shall see, and
you shall hear What you shall hear, though It shall have happened three
thousand year; but just now it seems to me that, unless you go back to
the house, people will be looking for you.  I'll walk with you as far
as the gate.'

'Will you be here when we come again?' they asked.

'Surely, sure-ly,' said Puck.  'I've been here some time already.  One
minute first, please.'

He gave them each three leaves--one of Oak, one of Ash and one of Thorn.

'Bite these,' said he.  'Otherwise you might be talking at home of what
you've seen and heard, and--if I know human beings--they'd send for the
doctor.  Bite!'

They bit hard, and found themselves walking side by side to the lower
gate.  Their father was leaning over it.

'And how did your play go?' he asked.

'Oh, splendidly,' said Dan.  'Only afterwards, I think, we went to
sleep.  It was very hot and quiet.  Don't you remember, Una?'

Una shook her head and said nothing.

'I see,' said her father.

     'Late--late in the evening Kilmeny came home,
     For Kilmeny had been she could not tell where,
     And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare.

But why are you chewing leaves at your time of life, daughter?  For
fun?'

'No.  It was for something, but I can't exactly remember,' said Una.

And neither of them could till--



A Tree Song

  Of all the trees that grow so fair,
  Old England to adorn,
  Greater are none beneath the Sun,
  Than Oak and Ash and Thorn.
  Sing Oak and Ash and Thorn, good Sirs
  (All of a Midsummer morn)!
  Surely we sing no little thing,
  In Oak and Ash and Thorn!

  Oak of the Clay lived many a day,
  Or ever Aeneas began;
  Ash of the Loam was a lady at home,
  When Brut was an outlaw man;
  Thorn of the Down saw New Troy Town
  (From which was London born);
  Witness hereby the ancientry
  Of Oak and Ash and Thorn!
  Yew that is old in churchyard mould,
  He breedeth a mighty bow;
  Alder for shoes do wise men choose,
  And beech for cups also.
  But when ye have killed, and your bowl is spilled,
  And your shoes are clean outworn,
  Back ye must speed for all that ye need,
  To Oak and Ash and Thorn!

  Ellum she hateth mankind, and waiteth
  Till every gust be laid,
  To drop a limb on the head of him
  That anyway trusts her shade:
  But whether a lad be sober or sad,
  Or mellow with ale from the horn,
  He will take no wrong when he lieth along
  'Neath Oak and Ash and Thorn!

  Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight,
  Or he would call it a sin;
  But--we have been out in the woods all night,
  A-conjuring Summer in!
  And we bring you news by word of mouth--
  Good news for cattle and corn--
  Now is the Sun come up from the South,
  With Oak and Ash and Thorn!

  Sing Oak and Ash and Thorn, good Sirs
  (All of a Midsummer morn)!
  England shall bide till Judgement Tide,
  By Oak and Ash and Thorn!




YOUNG MEN AT THE MANOR


They were fishing, a few days later, in the bed of the brook that for
centuries had cut deep into the soft valley soil.  The trees closing
overhead made long tunnels through which the sunshine worked in blobs
and patches.  Down in the tunnels were bars of sand and gravel, old
roots and trunks covered with moss or painted red by the irony water;
foxgloves growing lean and pale towards the light; clumps of fern and
thirsty shy flowers who could not live away from moisture and shade.
In the pools you could see the wave thrown up by the trouts as they
charged hither and yon, and the pools were joined to each other--except
in flood-time, when all was one brown rush--by sheets of thin broken
water that poured themselves chuckling round the darkness of the next
bend.

This was one of the children's most secret hunting-grounds, and their
particular friend, old Hobden the hedger, had shown them how to use it.
Except for the click of a rod hitting a low willow, or a switch and
tussle among the young ash leaves as a line hung up for the minute,
nobody in the hot pasture could have guessed what game was going on
among the trouts below the banks.

'We've got half a dozen,' said Dan, after a warm, wet hour.  'I vote we
go up to Stone Bay and try Long Pool.'

Una nodded--most of her talk was by nods--and they crept from the gloom
of the tunnels towards the tiny weir that turns the brook into the
mill-stream.  Here the banks are low and bare, and the glare of the
afternoon sun on the Long Pool below the weir makes your eyes ache.

When they were in the open they nearly fell down with astonishment.  A
huge grey horse, whose tail-hairs crinkled the glassy water, was
drinking in the pool, and the ripples about his muzzle flashed like
melted gold.  On his back sat an old, white-haired man dressed in a
loose glimmery gown of chain-mail.  He was bare-headed, and a
nut-shaped iron helmet hung at his saddle-bow.  His reins were of red
leather five or six inches deep, scalloped at the edges, and his high
padded saddle with its red girths was held fore and aft by a red
leather breastband and crupper.

'Look!' said Una, as though Dan were not staring his very eyes out.
'It's like the picture in your room--"Sir Isumbras at the Ford".'

The rider turned towards them, and his thin, long face was just as
sweet and gentle as that of the knight who carries the children in that
picture.

'They should be here now, Sir Richard,' said Puck's deep voice among
the willow-herb.

'They are here,' the knight said, and he smiled at Dan with the string
of trouts in his hand.  'There seems no great change in boys since mine
fished this water.'

'If your horse has drunk, we shall be more at ease in the Ring,' said
Puck; and he nodded to the children as though he had never magicked
away their memories a week before.

The great horse turned and hoisted himself into the pasture with a kick
and a scramble that tore the clods down rattling.

'Your pardon!' said Sir Richard to Dan.  'When these lands were mine, I
never loved that mounted men should cross the brook except by the paved
ford.  But my Swallow here was thirsty, and I wished to meet you.'

'We're very glad you've come, sir,'said Dan.'It doesn't matter in the
least about the banks.'

He trotted across the pasture on the sword side of the mighty horse,
and it was a mighty iron-handled sword that swung from Sir Richard's
belt.  Una walked behind with Puck.  She remembered everything now.

'I'm sorry about the Leaves,' he said, 'but it would never have done if
you had gone home and told, would it?'

'I s'pose not,' Una answered.  'But you said that all the fair--People
of the Hills had left England.'

'So they have; but I told you that you should come and go and look and
know, didn't I?  The knight isn't a fairy. He's Sir Richard
Dalyngridge, a very old friend of mine. He came over with William the
Conqueror, and he wants to see you particularly.'

'What for?' said Una.

'On account of your great wisdom and learning,' Puck replied, without a
twinkle.

'Us?' said Una.  'Why, I don't know my Nine Times--not to say it
dodging, and Dan makes the most awful mess of fractions.  He can't mean
us!'

'Una!' Dan called back.  'Sir Richard says he is going to tell what
happened to Weland's sword.  He's got it.  Isn't it splendid?'

'Nay--nay,' said Sir Richard, dismounting as they reached the Ring, in
the bend of the mill-stream bank.  'It is you that must tell me, for I
hear the youngest child in our England today is as wise as our wisest
clerk.'  He slipped the bit out of Swallow's mouth, dropped the
ruby-red reins over his head, and the wise horse moved off to graze.

Sir Richard (they noticed he limped a little) unslung his great sword.

'That's it,' Dan whispered to Una.

'This is the sword that Brother Hugh had from Wayland-Smith,' Sir
Richard said.  'Once he gave it me, but I would not take it; but at the
last it became mine after such a fight as never christened man fought.
See!' He half drew it from its sheath and turned it before them.  On
either side just below the handle, where the Runic letters shivered as
though they were alive, were two deep gouges in the dull, deadly steel.
'Now, what Thing made those?' said he.  'I know not, but you, perhaps,
can say.'

'Tell them all the tale, Sir Richard,' said Puck.  'It concerns their
land somewhat.'

'Yes, from the very beginning,' Una pleaded, for the knight's good face
and the smile on it more than ever reminded her of 'Sir Isumbras at the
Ford'.

They settled down to listen, Sir Richard bare-headed to the sunshine,
dandling the sword in both hands, while the grey horse cropped outside
the Ring, and the helmet on the saddle-bow clinged softly each time he
jerked his head.

'From the beginning, then,' Sir Richard said, 'since it concerns your
land, I will tell the tale.  When our Duke came out of Normandy to take
his England, great knights (have ye heard?) came and strove hard to
serve the Duke, because he promised them lands here, and small knights
followed the great ones.  My folk in Normandy were poor; but a great
knight, Engerrard of the Eagle--Engenulf De Aquila--who was kin to my
father, followed the Earl of Mortain, who followed William the Duke,
and I followed De Aquila.  Yes, with thirty men-at-arms out of my
father's house and a new sword, I set out to conquer England three days
after I was made knight.  I did not then know that England would
conquer me.  We went up to Santlache with the rest--a very great host
of us.'

'Does that mean the Battle of Hastings--Ten Sixty-Six?' Una whispered,
and Puck nodded, so as not to interrupt.

'At Santlache, over the hill yonder'--he pointed south-eastward towards
Fairlight--'we found Harold's men. We fought.  At the day's end they
ran.  My men went with De Aquila's to chase and plunder, and in that
chase Engerrard of the Eagle was slain, and his son Gilbert took his
banner and his men forward.  This I did not know till after, for
Swallow here was cut in the flank, so I stayed to wash the wound at a
brook by a thorn.  There a single Saxon cried out to me in French, and
we fought together. I should have known his voice, but we fought
together. For a long time neither had any advantage, till by pure
ill-fortune his foot slipped and his sword flew from his hand.  Now I
had but newly been made knight, and wished, above all, to be courteous
and fameworthy, so I forbore to strike and bade him get his sword
again.  "A plague on my sword," said he.  "It has lost me my first
fight.  You have spared my life.  Take my sword." He held it out to me,
but as I stretched my hand the sword groaned like a stricken man, and I
leaped back crying, "Sorcery!"'

(The children looked at the sword as though it might speak again.)

'Suddenly a clump of Saxons ran out upon me and, seeing a Norman alone,
would have killed me, but my Saxon cried out that I was his prisoner,
and beat them off. Thus, see you, he saved my life.  He put me on my
horse and led me through the woods ten long miles to this valley.'

'To here, d'you mean?' said Una.

'To this very valley.  We came in by the Lower Ford under the King's
Hill yonder'--he pointed eastward where the valley widens.

'And was that Saxon Hugh the novice?' Dan asked.

'Yes, and more than that.  He had been for three years at the monastery
at Bec by Rouen, where'--Sir Richard chuckled--'the Abbot Herluin would
not suffer me to remain.'

'Why wouldn't he?' said Dan.

'Because I rode my horse into the refectory, when the scholars were at
meat, to show the Saxon boys we Normans were not afraid of an Abbot.
It was that very Saxon Hugh tempted me to do it, and we had not met
since that day.  I thought I knew his voice even inside my helmet, and,
for all that our Lords fought, we each rejoiced we had not slain the
other.  He walked by my side, and he told me how a heathen God, as he
believed, had given him his sword, but he said he had never heard it
sing before.  I remember I warned him to beware of sorcery and quick
enchantments.'  Sir Richard smiled to himself.  'I was very young--very
young! 'When we came to his house here we had almost forgotten that we
had been at blows.  It was near midnight, and the Great Hall was full
of men and women waiting news.  There I first saw his sister, the Lady
Aelueva, of whom he had spoken to us in France.  She cried out fiercely
at me, and would have had me hanged in that hour, but her brother said
that I had spared his life--he said not how he saved mine from the
Saxons--and that our Duke had won the day; and even while they wrangled
over my poor body, of a sudden he fell down in a swoon from his wounds.

"'This is thy fault," said the Lady Aelueva to me, and she kneeled
above him and called for wine and cloths.

"'If I had known," I answered, "he should have ridden and I walked.
But he set me on my horse; he made no complaint; he walked beside me
and spoke merrily throughout.  I pray I have done him no harm."

"'Thou hast need to pray," she said, catching up her underlip.  "If he
dies, thou shalt hang."

'They bore off Hugh to his chamber; but three tall men of the house
bound me and set me under the beam of the Great Hall with a rope round
my neck.  The end of the rope they flung over the beam, and they sat
them down by the fire to wait word whether Hugh lived or died. They
cracked nuts with their knife-hilts the while.'

'And how did you feel?' said Dan.

'Very weary; but I did heartily pray for my schoolmate Hugh his health.
About noon I heard horses in the valley, and the three men loosed my
ropes and fled out, and De Aquila's men rode up.  Gilbert de Aquila
came with them, for it was his boast that, like his father, he forgot
no man that served him.  He was little, like his father, but terrible,
with a nose like an eagle's nose and yellow eyes like an eagle.  He
rode tall warhorses--roans, which he bred himself--and he could never
abide to be helped into the saddle.  He saw the rope hanging from the
beam and laughed, and his men laughed, for I was too stiff to rise.

"'This is poor entertainment for a Norman knight," he said, "but, such
as it is, let us be grateful.  Show me, boy, to whom thou owest most,
and we will pay them out of hand."'

'What did he mean?  To kill 'em?' said Dan.

'Assuredly.  But I looked at the Lady Aelueva where she stood among her
maids, and her brother beside her. De Aquila's men had driven them all
into the Great Hall.'

'Was she pretty?' said Una.

'In all my long life I have never seen woman fit to strew rushes before
my Lady Aelueva,' the knight replied, quite simply and quietly.  'As I
looked at her I thought I might save her and her house by a jest.

"'Seeing that I came somewhat hastily and without warning," said I to
De Aquila, "I have no fault to find with the courtesy that these Saxons
have shown me." But my voice shook.  It is--it was not good to jest
with that little man.

'All were silent awhile, till De Aquila laughed.  "Look, men--a
miracle," said he.  "The fight is scarce sped, my father is not yet
buried, and here we find our youngest knight already set down in his
Manor, while his Saxons--ye can see it in their fat faces--have paid
him homage and service!  By the Saints," he said, rubbing his nose, "I
never thought England would be so easy won!  Surely I can do no less
than give the lad what he has taken.  This Manor shall be thine, boy,"
he said, "till I come again, or till thou art slain.  Now, mount, men,
and ride.  We follow our Duke into Kent to make him King of England."

'He drew me with him to the door while they brought his horse--a lean
roan, taller than my Swallow here, but not so well girthed.

"'Hark to me," he said, fretting with his great war-gloves.  "I have
given thee this Manor, which is a Saxon hornets' nest, and I think thou
wilt be slain in a month--as my father was slain.  Yet if thou canst
keep the roof on the hall, the thatch on the barn, and the plough in
the furrow till I come back, thou shalt hold the Manor from me; for the
Duke has promised our Earl Mortain all the lands by Pevensey, and
Mortain will give me of them what he would have given my father.  God
knows if thou or I shall live till England is won; but remember, boy,
that here and now fighting is foolishness and"--he reached for the
reins--"craft and cunning is all."

"'Alas, I have no cunning," said I.

"'Not yet," said he, hopping abroad, foot in stirrup, and poking his
horse in the belly with his toe.  "Not yet, but I think thou hast a
good teacher.  Farewell!  Hold the Manor and live.  Lose the Manor and
hang," he said, and spurred out, his shield-straps squeaking behind him.

'So, children, here was I, little more than a boy, and Santlache fight
not two days old, left alone with my thirty men-at-arms, in a land I
knew not, among a people whose tongue I could not speak, to hold down
the land which I had taken from them.'

'And that was here at home?' said Una.

'Yes, here.  See!  From the Upper Ford, Weland's Ford, to the Lower
Ford, by the Belle Allee, west and east it ran half a league.  From the
Beacon of Brunanburgh behind us here, south and north it ran a full
league--and all the woods were full of broken men from Santlache, Saxon
thieves, Norman plunderers, robbers, and deer-stealers. A hornets' nest
indeed!

'When De Aquila had gone, Hugh would have thanked me for saving their
lives; but the Lady Aelueva said that I had done it only for the sake
of receiving the Manor.

"'How could I know that De Aquila would give it me?" I said.  "If I had
told him I had spent my night in your halter he would have burned the
place twice over by now."

"'If any man had put my neck in a rope," she said, "I would have seen
his house burned thrice over before I would have made terms."

"'But it was a woman," I said; and I laughed, and she wept and said
that I mocked her in her captivity.

"'Lady," said I, "there is no captive in this valley except one, and he
is not a Saxon."

'At this she cried that I was a Norman thief, who came with false,
sweet words, having intended from the first to turn her out in the
fields to beg her bread.  Into the fields! She had never seen the face
of war!

'I was angry, and answered, "This much at least I can disprove, for I
swear"--and on my sword-hilt I swore it in that place--"I swear I will
never set foot in the Great Hall till the Lady Aelueva herself shall
summon me there."

'She went away, saying nothing, and I walked out, and Hugh limped after
me, whistling dolorously (that is a custom of the English), and we came
upon the three Saxons that had bound me.  They were now bound by my
men-at-arms, and behind them stood some fifty stark and sullen churls
of the House and the Manor, waiting to see what should fall.  We heard
De Aquila's trumpets blow thin through the woods Kentward.

"'Shall we hang these?" said my men.

"'Then my churls will fight," said Hugh, beneath his breath; but I bade
him ask the three what mercy they hoped for. "'None," said they all.
"She bade us hang thee if our master died.  And we would have hanged
thee.  There is no more to it."

'As I stood doubting, a woman ran down from the oak wood above the
King's Hill yonder, and cried out that some Normans were driving off
the swine there.

"'Norman or Saxon," said I, "we must beat them back, or they will rob
us every day.  Out at them with any arms ye have!" So I loosed those
three carles and we ran together, my men-at-arms and the Saxons with
bills and axes which they had hidden in the thatch of their huts, and
Hugh led them.  Half-way up the King's Hill we found a false fellow
from Picardy--a sutler that sold wine in the Duke's camp--with a dead
knight's shield on his arm, a stolen horse under him, and some ten or
twelve wastrels at his tail, all cutting and slashing at the pigs.  We
beat them off, and saved our pork.  One hundred and seventy pigs we
saved in that great battle.'  Sir Richard laughed.

'That, then, was our first work together, and I bade Hugh tell his folk
that so would I deal with any man, knight or churl, Norman or Saxon,
who stole as much as one egg from our valley.  Said he to me, riding
home: "Thou hast gone far to conquer England this evening." I answered:
"England must be thine and mine, then.  Help me, Hugh, to deal aright
with these people.  Make them to know that if they slay me De Aquila
will surely send to slay them, and he will put a worse man in my place."

"That may well be true," said he, and gave me his hand. "Better the
devil we know than the devil we know not, till we can pack you Normans
home." And so, too, said his Saxons; and they laughed as we drove the
pigs downhill. But I think some of them, even then, began not to hate
me.'

'I like Brother Hugh,' said Una, softly.

'Beyond question he was the most perfect, courteous, valiant, tender,
and wise knight that ever drew breath,' said Sir Richard, caressing the
sword.  'He hung up his sword--this sword--on the wall of the Great
Hall, because he said it was fairly mine, and never he took it down
till De Aquila returned, as I shall presently show. For three months
his men and mine guarded the valley, till all robbers and nightwalkers
learned there was nothing to get from us save hard tack and a hanging.
Side by side we fought against all who came--thrice a week sometimes we
fought--against thieves and landless knights looking for good manors.
Then we were in some peace, and I made shift by Hugh's help to govern
the valley--for all this valley of yours was my Manor--as a knight
should.  I kept the roof on the hall and the thatch on the barn, but
... the English are a bold people.  His Saxons would laugh and jest
with Hugh, and Hugh with them, and--this was marvellous to me--if even
the meanest of them said that such and such a thing was the Custom of
the Manor, then straightway would Hugh and such old men of the Manor as
might be near forsake everything else to debate the matter--I have seen
them stop the Mill with the corn half ground--and if the custom or
usage were proven to be as it was said, why, that was the end of it,
even though it were flat against Hugh, his wish and command.
Wonderful!'

'Aye,' said Puck, breaking in for the first time.  'The Custom of Old
England was here before your Norman knights came, and it outlasted
them, though they fought against it cruel.' 'Not I,' said Sir Richard.
'I let the Saxons go their stubborn way, but when my own men-at-arms,
Normans not six months in England, stood up and told me what was the
custom of the country, then I was angry.  Ah, good days!  Ah, wonderful
people!  And I loved them all.' The knight lifted his arms as though he
would hug the whole dear valley, and Swallow, hearing the chink of his
chain-mail, looked up and whinnied softly.

'At last,' he went on, 'after a year of striving and contriving and
some little driving, De Aquila came to the valley, alone and without
warning.  I saw him first at the Lower Ford, with a swineherd's brat on
his saddle-bow.

"'There is no need for thee to give any account of thy stewardship,"
said he.  "I have it all from the child here." And he told me how the
young thing had stopped his tall horse at the Ford, by waving of a
branch, and crying that the way was barred.  "And if one bold, bare
babe be enough to guard the Ford in these days, thou hast done well,"
said he, and puffed and wiped his head.

'He pinched the child's cheek, and looked at our cattle in the flat by
the river.

"'Both fat," said he, rubbing his nose.  "This is craft and cunning
such as I love.  What did I tell thee when I rode away, boy?"

"'Hold the Manor or hang," said I.  I had never forgotten it.

"'True.  And thou hast held." He clambered from his saddle and with his
sword's point cut out a turf from the bank and gave it me where I
kneeled.' Dan looked at Una, and Una looked at Dan. 'That's seisin,'
said Puck, in a whisper.

"'Now thou art lawfully seised of the Manor, Sir Richard," said
he--'twas the first time he ever called me that--"thou and thy heirs
for ever.  This must serve till the King's clerks write out thy title
on a parchment.  England is all ours--if we can hold it."

"'What service shall I pay?" I asked, and I remember I was proud beyond
words.

"'Knight's fee, boy, knight's fee!" said he, hopping round his horse on
one foot.  (Have I said he was little, and could not endure to be
helped to his saddle?) "Six mounted men or twelve archers thou shalt
send me whenever I call for them, and--where got you that corn?" said
he, for it was near harvest, and our corn stood well. "I have never
seen such bright straw.  Send me three bags of the same seed yearly,
and furthermore, in memory of our last meeting--with the rope round thy
neck--entertain me and my men for two days of each year in the Great
Hall of thy Manor."

"'Alas!" said I, "then my Manor is already forfeit.  I am under vow not
to enter the Great Hall." And I told him what I had sworn to the Lady
Aelueva.'

'And hadn't you ever been into the house since?' said Una.

'Never,' Sir Richard answered, smiling.  'I had made me a little hut of
wood up the hill, and there I did justice and slept ...  De Aquila
wheeled aside, and his shield shook on his back.  "No matter, boy,"
said he.  "I will remit the homage for a year."'

'He meant Sir Richard needn't give him dinner there the first year,'
Puck explained.

'De Aquila stayed with me in the hut, and Hugh, who could read and
write and cast accounts, showed him the Roll of the Manor, in which
were written all the names of our fields and men, and he asked a
thousand questions touching the land, the timber, the grazing, the
mill, and the fish-ponds, and the worth of every man in the valley. But
never he named the Lady Aelueva's name, nor went he near the Great
Hall.  By night he drank with us in the hut.  Yes, he sat on the straw
like an eagle ruffled in her feathers, his yellow eyes rolling above
the cup, and he pounced in his talk like an eagle, swooping from one
thing to another, but always binding fast.  Yes; he would lie still
awhile, and then rustle in the straw, and speak sometimes as though he
were King William himself, and anon he would speak in parables and
tales, and if at once we saw not his meaning he would yerk us in the
ribs with his scabbarded sword.

"'Look you, boys," said he, "I am born out of my due time.  Five
hundred years ago I would have made all England such an England as
neither Dane, Saxon, nor Norman should have conquered.  Five hundred
years hence I should have been such a counsellor to Kings as the world
hath never dreamed of.  'Tis all here," said he, tapping his big head,
"but it hath no play in this black age.  Now Hugh here is a better man
than thou art, Richard." He had made his voice harsh and croaking, like
a raven's.

"'Truth," said I.  "But for Hugh, his help and patience and
long-suffering, I could never have kept the Manor."

"'Nor thy life either," said De Aquila.  "Hugh has saved thee not once,
but a hundred times.  Be still, Hugh!" he said.  "Dost thou know,
Richard, why Hugh slept, and why he still sleeps, among thy Norman
men-at-arms?"

"'To be near me," said I, for I thought this was truth.

"'Fool!" said De Aquila.  "It is because his Saxons have begged him to
rise against thee, and to sweep every Norman out of the valley.  No
matter how I know.  It is truth.  Therefore Hugh hath made himself an
hostage for thy life, well knowing that if any harm befell thee from
his Saxons thy Normans would slay him without remedy.  And this his
Saxons know.  Is it true, Hugh?"

"'In some sort," said Hugh shamefacedly; "at least, it was true half a
year ago.  My Saxons would not harm Richard now.  I think they know
him--but I judged it best to make sure."

'Look, children, what that man had done--and I had never guessed it!
Night after night had he lain down among my men-at-arms, knowing that
if one Saxon had lifted knife against me, his life would have answered
for mine.

"'Yes," said De Aquila.  "And he is a swordless man." He pointed to
Hugh's belt, for Hugh had put away his sword--did I tell you?---the day
after it flew from his hand at Santlache.  He carried only the short
knife and the long-bow.  "Swordless and landless art thou, Hugh; and
they call thee kin to Earl Godwin." (Hugh was indeed of Godwin's
blood.) "The Manor that was thine is given to this boy and to his
children for ever.  Sit up and beg, for he can turn thee out like a
dog, Hugh."

'Hugh said nothing, but I heard his teeth grind, and I bade De Aquila,
my own overlord, hold his peace, or I would stuff his words down his
throat.  Then De Aquila laughed till the tears ran down his face.

"'I warned the King," said he, "what would come of giving England to us
Norman thieves.  Here art thou, Richard, less than two days confirmed
in thy Manor, and already thou hast risen against thy overlord.  What
shall we do to him, Sir Hugh?"

"'I am a swordless man," said Hugh.  "Do not jest with me," and he laid
his head on his knees and groaned.

"'The greater fool thou," said De Aquila, and all his voice changed;
"for I have given thee the Manor of Dallington up the hill this
half-hour since," and he yerked at Hugh with his scabbard across the
straw.

"'To me?" said Hugh.  "I am a Saxon, and, except that I love Richard
here, I have not sworn fealty to any Norman."

"'In God's good time, which because of my sins I shall not live to see,
there will be neither Saxon nor Norman in England," said De Aquila.
"If I know men, thou art more faithful unsworn than a score of Normans
I could name.  Take Dallington, and join Sir Richard to fight me
tomorrow, if it please thee!"

"'Nay," said Hugh.  "I am no child.  Where I take a gift, there I
render service"; and he put his hands between De Aquila's, and swore to
be faithful, and, as I remember, I kissed him, and De Aquila kissed us
both.

'We sat afterwards outside the hut while the sun rose, and De Aquila
marked our churls going to their work in the fields, and talked of holy
things, and how we should govern our Manors in time to come, and of
hunting and of horse-breeding, and of the King's wisdom and unwisdom;
for he spoke to us as though we were in all sorts now his brothers.
Anon a churl stole up to me--he was one of the three I had not hanged a
year ago--and he bellowed--which is the Saxon for whispering--that the
Lady Aelueva would speak to me at the Great House.  She walked abroad
daily in the Manor, and it was her custom to send me word whither she
went, that I might set an archer or two behind and in front to guard
her.  Very often I myself lay up in the woods and watched on her also.

'I went swiftly, and as I passed the great door it opened from within,
and there stood my Lady Aelueva, and she said to me:  "Sir Richard,
will it please you enter your Great Hall?"  Then she wept, but we were
alone.'

The knight was silent for a long time, his face turned across the
valley, smiling. 'Oh, well done!' said Una, and clapped her hands very
softly.  'She was sorry, and she said so.'

'Aye, she was sorry, and she said so,' said Sir Richard, coming back
with a little start.  'Very soon--but he said it was two full hours
later--De Aquila rode to the door, with his shield new scoured (Hugh
had cleansed it), and demanded entertainment, and called me a false
knight, that would starve his overlord to death.  Then Hugh cried out
that no man should work in the valley that day, and our Saxons blew
horns, and set about feasting and drinking, and running of races, and
dancing and singing; and De Aquila climbed upon a horse-block and spoke
to them in what he swore was good Saxon, but no man understood it.  At
night we feasted in the Great Hall, and when the harpers and the
singers were gone we four sat late at the high table.  As I remember,
it was a warm night with a full moon, and De Aquila bade Hugh take down
his sword from the wall again, for the honour of the Manor of
Dallington, and Hugh took it gladly enough. Dust lay on the hilt, for I
saw him blow it off.

'She and I sat talking a little apart, and at first we thought the
harpers had come back, for the Great Hall was filled with a rushing
noise of music.  De Aquila leaped up; but there was only the moonlight
fretty on the floor.

"'Hearken!" said Hugh.  "It is my sword," and as he belted it on the
music ceased.

"'Over Gods, forbid that I should ever belt blade like that," said De
Aquila.  "What does it foretell?"

"'The Gods that made it may know.  Last time it spoke was at Hastings,
when I lost all my lands.  Belike it sings now that I have new lands
and am a man again," said Hugh.

'He loosed the blade a little and drove it back happily into the
sheath, and the sword answered him low and crooningly, as--as a woman
would speak to a man, her head on his shoulder.

'Now that was the second time in all my life I heard this Sword sing.'
...


'Look!' said Una.  'There's Mother coming down the Long Slip.  What
will she say to Sir Richard?  She can't help seeing him.'

'And Puck can't magic us this time,' said Dan.

'Are you sure?' said Puck; and he leaned forward and whispered to Sir
Richard, who, smiling, bowed his head. 'But what befell the sword and
my brother Hugh I will tell on another time,' said he, rising.  'Ohe,
Swallow!' The great horse cantered up from the far end of the meadow,
close to Mother.

They heard Mother say:  'Children, Gleason's old horse has broken into
the meadow again.  Where did he get through?'

'Just below Stone Bay,' said Dan.  'He tore down simple flobs of the
bank!  We noticed it just now.  And we've caught no end of fish.  We've
been at it all the afternoon.' And they honestly believed that they
had.  They never noticed the Oak, Ash and Thorn leaves that Puck had
slyly thrown into their laps.



Sir Richard's Song


  I followed my Duke ere I was a lover,
  To take from England fief and fee;
  But now this game is the other way over--
  But now England hath taken me!

  I had my horse, my shield and banner,
  And a boy's heart, so whole and free;
  But now I sing in another manner--
  But now England hath taken me!

  As for my Father in his tower,
  Asking news of my ship at sea;
  He will remember his own hour--
  Tell him England hath taken me!

  As for my Mother in her bower,
  That rules my Father so cunningly;
  She will remember a maiden's power--
  Tell her England hath taken me!

  As for my Brother in Rouen city,
  A nimble and naughty page is he;
  But he will come to suffer and pity--
  Tell him England hath taken me!

  As for my little Sister waiting
  In the pleasant orchards of Normandie;
  Tell her youth is the time of mating--
  Tell her England hath taken me!

  As for my Comrades in camp and highway,
  That lift their eyebrows scornfully;
  Tell them their way is not my way--
  Tell them England hath taken me!

  Kings and Princes and Barons famed,
  Knights and Captains in your degree;
  Hear me a little before I am blamed--
  Seeing England hath taken me!

  Howso great man's strength be reckoned,
  There are two things he cannot flee;
  Love is the first, and Death is the second--
  And Love, in England, hath taken me!




THE KNIGHTS OF THE JOYOUS VENTURE


Harp Song of the Dane Women


  What is a woman that you forsake her,
  And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
  To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

  She has no house to lay a guest in--
  But one chill bed for all to rest in,
  That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.

  She has no strong white arms to fold you,
  But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you
  Bound on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.

  Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,
  And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,
  Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken--

  Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters,--
  And steal away to the lapping waters,
  And look at your ship in her winter quarters.

  You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables,
  The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables--
  To pitch her sides and go over her cables!

  Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow:
  And the sound of your oar-blades falling hollow
  Is all we have left through the months to follow.

  Ah, what is a Woman that you forsake her,
  And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
  To go with the old grey Widow-maker?


It was too hot to run about in the open, so Dan asked their friend, old
Hobden, to take their own dinghy from the pond and put her on the brook
at the bottom of the garden.  Her painted name was the Daisy, but for
exploring expeditions she was the Golden Hind or the Long Serpent, or
some such suitable name.  Dan hiked and howked with a boat-hook (the
brook was too narrow for sculls), and Una punted with a piece of
hop-pole.  When they came to a very shallow place (the Golden Hind drew
quite three inches of water) they disembarked and scuffled her over the
gravel by her tow-rope, and when they reached the overgrown banks
beyond the garden they pulled themselves upstream by the low branches.

That day they intended to discover the North Cape like 'Othere, the old
sea-captain', in the book of verses which Una had brought with her; but
on account of the heat they changed it to a voyage up the Amazon and
the sources of the Nile.  Even on the shaded water the air was hot and
heavy with drowsy scents, while outside, through breaks in the trees,
the sunshine burned the pasture like fire.  The kingfisher was asleep
on his watching-branch, and the blackbirds scarcely took the trouble to
dive into the next bush.  Dragonflies wheeling and clashing were the
only things at work, except the moorhens and a big Red Admiral, who
flapped down out of the sunshine for a drink.

When they reached Otter Pool the Golden Hind grounded comfortably on a
shallow, and they lay beneath a roof of close green, watching the water
trickle over the flood-gates down the mossy brick chute from the
mill-stream to the brook.  A big trout--the children knew him
well--rolled head and shoulders at some fly that sailed round the bend,
while, once in just so often, the brook rose a fraction of an inch
against all the wet pebbles, and they watched the slow draw and shiver
of a breath of air through the tree-tops.  Then the little voices of
the slipping water began again.

'It's like the shadows talking, isn't it?' said Una.  She had given up
trying to read.  Dan lay over the bows, trailing his hands in the
current.  They heard feet on the gravel-bar that runs half across the
pool and saw Sir Richard Dalyngridge standing over them.

'Was yours a dangerous voyage?' he asked, smiling.

'She bumped a lot, sir,' said Dan.  'There's hardly any water this
summer.'

'Ah, the brook was deeper and wider when my children played at Danish
pirates.  Are you pirate-folk?'

'Oh no.  We gave up being pirates years ago,'explained Una.  'We're
nearly always explorers now.  Sailing round the world, you know.'

'Round?' said Sir Richard.  He sat him in the comfortable crotch of an
old ash-root on the bank.  'How can it be round?'

'Wasn't it in your books?' Dan suggested.  He had been doing geography
at his last lesson.

'I can neither write nor read,' he replied.  'Canst thou read, child?'

'Yes,' said Dan, 'barring the very long words.'

'Wonderful!  Read to me, that I may hear for myself.'

Dan flushed, but opened the book and began--gabbling a little--at 'The
Discoverer of the North Cape.'

     'Othere, the old sea-captain,
     Who dwelt in Helgoland,
     To King Alfred, the lover of truth,
     Brought a snow-white walrus-tooth,
     Which he held in his brown right hand.'

'But--but--this I know!  This is an old song!  This I have heard sung!
This is a miracle,' Sir Richard interrupted. 'Nay, do not stop!'  He
leaned forward, and the shadows of the leaves slipped and slid upon his
chain-mail.

     "'I ploughed the land with horses,
     But my heart was ill at ease,
     For the old seafaring men
     Came to me now and then
     With their sagas of the seas."'

His hand fell on the hilt of the great sword.  'This is truth,' he
cried, 'for so did it happen to me,' and he beat time delightedly to
the tramp of verse after verse.

     "'And now the land," said Othere,
     "Bent southward suddenly,
     And I followed the curving shore,
     And ever southward bore
     Into a nameless sea."'

'A nameless sea!' he repeated.  'So did I--so did Hugh and I.'

'Where did you go?  Tell us,' said Una.

'Wait.  Let me hear all first.'  So Dan read to the poem's very end.

'Good,' said the knight.  'That is Othere's tale--even so I have heard
the men in the Dane ships sing it.  Not those same valiant words, but
something like to them.'

'Have you ever explored North?'  Dan shut the book.

'Nay.  My venture was South.  Farther South than any man has fared,
Hugh and I went down with Witta and his heathen.'  He jerked the tall
sword forward, and leaned on it with both hands; but his eyes looked
long past them.

'I thought you always lived here,' said Una, timidly.

'Yes; while my Lady Aelueva lived.  But she died.  She died.  Then, my
eldest son being a man, I asked De Aquila's leave that he should hold
the Manor while I went on some journey or pilgrimage--to forget. De
Aquila, whom the Second William had made Warden of Pevensey in Earl
Mortain's place, was very old then, but still he rode his tall, roan
horses, and in the saddle he looked like a little white falcon.  When
Hugh, at Dallington, over yonder, heard what I did, he sent for my
second son, whom being unmarried he had ever looked upon as his own
child, and, by De Aquila's leave, gave him the Manor of Dallington to
hold till he should return. Then Hugh came with me.'

'When did this happen?' said Dan.

'That I can answer to the very day, for as we rode with De Aquila by
Pevensey--have I said that he was Lord of Pevensey and of the Honour of
the Eagle?---to the Bordeaux ship that fetched him his wines yearly out
of France, a Marsh man ran to us crying that he had seen a great black
goat which bore on his back the body of the King, and that the goat had
spoken to him.  On that same day Red William our King, the Conqueror's
son, died of a secret arrow while he hunted in a forest.  "This is a
cross matter," said De Aquila, "to meet on the threshold of a journey.
If Red William be dead I may have to fight for my lands.  Wait a
little."

'My Lady being dead, I cared nothing for signs and omens, nor Hugh
either.  We took that wine-ship to go to Bordeaux; but the wind failed
while we were yet in sight of Pevensey, a thick mist hid us, and we
drifted with the tide along the cliffs to the west.  Our company was,
for the most part, merchants returning to France, and we were laden
with wool and there were three couple of tall hunting-dogs chained to
the rail.  Their master was a knight of Artois.  His name I never
learned, but his shield bore gold pieces on a red ground, and he
limped, much as I do, from a wound which he had got in his youth at
Mantes siege.  He served the Duke of Burgundy against the Moors in
Spain, and was returning to that war with his dogs.  He sang us strange
Moorish songs that first night, and half persuaded us to go with him.
I was on pilgrimage to forget--which is what no pilgrimage brings.  I
think I would have gone, but...

'Look you how the life and fortune of man changes! Towards morning a
Dane ship, rowing silently, struck against us in the mist, and while we
rolled hither and yon Hugh, leaning over the rail, fell outboard.  I
leaped after him, and we two tumbled aboard the Dane, and were caught
and bound ere we could rise.  Our own ship was swallowed up in the
mist.  I judge the Knight of the Gold Pieces muzzled his dogs with his
cloak, lest they should give tongue and betray the merchants, for I
heard their baying suddenly stop.

'We lay bound among the benches till morning, when the Danes dragged us
to the high deck by the steering-place, and their captain--Witta, he
was called--turned us over with his foot.  Bracelets of gold from elbow
to armpit he wore, and his red hair was long as a woman's, and came
down in plaited locks on his shoulder.  He was stout, with bowed legs
and long arms.  He spoiled us of all we had, but when he laid hand on
Hugh's sword and saw the runes on the blade hastily he thrust it back.
Yet his covetousness overcame him and he tried again and again, and the
third time the Sword sang loud and angrily, so that the rowers leaned
on their oars to listen. Here they all spoke together, screaming like
gulls, and a Yellow Man, such as I have never seen, came to the high
deck and cut our bonds.  He was yellow--not from sickness, but by
nature--yellow as honey, and his eyes stood endwise in his head.'

'How do you mean?' said Una, her chin on her hand.

'Thus,' said Sir Richard.  He put a finger to the corner of each eye,
and pushed it up till his eyes narrowed to slits.

'Why, you look just like a Chinaman!' cried Dan.  'Was the man a
Chinaman?'

'I know not what that may be.  Witta had found him half dead among ice
on the shores of Muscovy.  We thought he was a devil.  He crawled
before us and brought food in a silver dish which these sea-wolves had
robbed from some rich abbey, and Witta with his own hands gave us wine.
He spoke a little in French, a little in South Saxon, and much in the
Northman's tongue.  We asked him to set us ashore, promising to pay him
better ransom than he would get price if he sold us to the Moors--as
once befell a knight of my acquaintance sailing from Flushing.

"'Not by my father Guthrum's head," said he.  "The Gods sent ye into my
ship for a luck-offering."

'At this I quaked, for I knew it was still the Danes' custom to
sacrifice captives to their Gods for fair weather.

"'A plague on thy four long bones!" said Hugh.  "What profit canst thou
make of poor old pilgrims that can neither work nor fight?"

"'Gods forbid I should fight against thee, poor Pilgrim with the
Singing Sword," said he.  "Come with us and be poor no more.  Thy teeth
are far apart, which is a sure sign thou wilt travel and grow rich."

"'What if we will not come?" said Hugh. "'Swim to England or France,"
said Witta.  "We are midway between the two.  Unless ye choose to drown
yourselves no hair of your head will be harmed here aboard.  We think
ye bring us luck, and I myself know the runes on that Sword are good."
He turned and bade them hoist sail.

'Hereafter all made way for us as we walked about the ship, and the
ship was full of wonders.'

'What was she like?' said Dan.

'Long, low, and narrow, bearing one mast with a red sail, and rowed by
fifteen oars a side,' the knight answered.  'At her bows was a deck
under which men might lie, and at her stern another shut off by a
painted door from the rowers' benches.  Here Hugh and I slept, with
Witta and the Yellow Man, upon tapestries as soft as wool.  I
remember'--he laughed to himself--'when first we entered there a loud
voice cried, "Out swords!  Out swords!  Kill, kill!" Seeing us start
Witta laughed, and showed us it was but a great-beaked grey bird with a
red tail.  He sat her on his shoulder, and she called for bread and
wine hoarsely, and prayed him to kiss her.  Yet she was no more than a
silly bird.  But--ye knew this?'  He looked at their smiling faces.

'We weren't laughing at you,' said Una.  'That must have been a parrot.
It's just what Pollies do.'

'So we learned later.  But here is another marvel.  The Yellow Man,
whose name was Kitai, had with him a brown box.  In the box was a blue
bowl with red marks upon the rim, and within the bowl, hanging from a
fine thread, was a piece of iron no thicker than that grass stem, and
as long, maybe, as my spur, but straight.  In this iron, said Witta,
abode an Evil Spirit which Kitai, the Yellow Man, had brought by Art
Magic out of his own country that lay three years' journey southward.
The Evil Spirit strove day and night to return to his country, and
therefore, look you, the iron needle pointed continually to the South.'

'South?' said Dan suddenly, and put his hand into his pocket.

'With my own eyes I saw it.  Every day and all day long, though the
ship rolled, though the sun and the moon and the stars were hid, this
blind Spirit in the iron knew whither it would go, and strained to the
South.  Witta called it the Wise Iron, because it showed him his way
across the unknowable seas.'  Again Sir Richard looked keenly at the
children.  'How think ye?  Was it sorcery?'

'Was it anything like this?'  Dan fished out his old brass
pocket-compass, that generally lived with his knife and key-ring.  'The
glass has got cracked, but the needle waggles all right, sir.'

The knight drew a long breath of wonder.  'Yes, yes! The Wise Iron
shook and swung in just this fashion.  Now it is still.  Now it points
to the South.'

'North,' said Dan.

'Nay, South!  There is the South,'said Sir Richard.  Then they both
laughed, for naturally when one end of a straight compass-needle points
to the North, the other must point to the South.

'Te,' said Sir Richard, clicking his tongue.  'There can be no sorcery
if a child carries it.  Wherefore does it point South--or North?'

'Father says that nobody knows,' said Una.

Sir Richard looked relieved.  'Then it may still be magic. It was magic
to us.  And so we voyaged.  When the wind served we hoisted sail, and
lay all up along the windward rail, our shields on our backs to break
the spray.  When it failed, they rowed with long oars; the Yellow Man
sat by the Wise Iron, and Witta steered.  At first I feared the great
white-flowering waves, but as I saw how wisely Witta led his ship among
them I grew bolder.  Hugh liked it well from the first.  My skill is
not upon the water; and rocks and whirlpools such as we saw by the West
Isles of France, where an oar caught on a rock and broke, are much
against my stomach.  We sailed South across a stormy sea, where by
moonlight, between clouds, we saw a Flanders ship roll clean over and
sink.  Again, though Hugh laboured with Witta all night, I lay under
the deck with the Talking Bird, and cared not whether I lived or died.
There is a sickness of the sea which for three days is pure death!
When we next saw land Witta said it was Spain, and we stood out to sea.
That coast was full of ships busy in the Duke's war against the Moors,
and we feared to be hanged by the Duke's men or sold into slavery by
the Moors.  So we put into a small harbour which Witta knew.  At night
men came down with loaded mules, and Witta exchanged amber out of the
North against little wedges of iron and packets of beads in earthen
pots.  The pots he put under the decks, and the wedges of iron he laid
on the bottom of the ship after he had cast out the stones and shingle
which till then had been our ballast.  Wine, too, he bought for lumps
of sweet-smelling grey amber--a little morsel no bigger than a
thumb-nail purchased a cask of wine.  But I speak like a merchant.'
'No, no!  Tell us what you had to eat,' cried Dan.

'Meat dried in the sun, and dried fish and ground beans, Witta took in;
and corded frails of a certain sweet, soft fruit, which the Moors use,
which is like paste of figs, but with thin, long stones.  Aha!  Dates
is the name.

"'Now," said Witta, when the ship was loaded, "I counsel you strangers
to pray to your Gods, for, from here on, our road is No Man's road." He
and his men killed a black goat for sacrifice on the bows; and the
Yellow Man brought out a small, smiling image of dull-green stone and
burned incense before it.  Hugh and I commended ourselves to God, and
Saint Barnabas, and Our Lady of the Assumption, who was specially dear
to my Lady.  We were not young, but I think no shame to say whenas we
drove out of that secret harbour at sunrise over a still sea, we two
rejoiced and sang as did the knights of old when they followed our
great Duke to England.  Yet was our leader an heathen pirate; all our
proud fleet but one galley perilously overloaded; for guidance we
leaned on a pagan sorcerer; and our port was beyond the world's end.
Witta told us that his father Guthrum had once in his life rowed along
the shores of Africa to a land where naked men sold gold for iron and
beads.  There had he bought much gold, and no few elephants' teeth, and
thither by help of the Wise Iron would Witta go.  Witta feared
nothing--except to be poor.

"'My father told me," said Witta, "that a great Shoal runs three days'
sail out from that land, and south of the shoal lies a Forest which
grows in the sea.  South and east of the Forest my father came to a
place where the men hid gold in their hair; but all that country, he
said, was full of Devils who lived in trees, and tore folk limb from
limb. How think ye?"

"'Gold or no gold," said Hugh, fingering his sword, "it is a joyous
venture.  Have at these Devils of thine, Witta!"

"'Venture!" said Witta sourly.  "I am only a poor sea-thief.  I do not
set my life adrift on a plank for joy, or the venture.  Once I beach
ship again at Stavanger, and feel the wife's arms round my neck, I'll
seek no more ventures.  A ship is heavier care than a wife or cattle."

'He leaped down among the rowers, chiding them for their little
strength and their great stomachs.  Yet Witta was a wolf in fight, and
a very fox in cunning.

'We were driven South by a storm, and for three days and three nights
he took the stern-oar, and threddled the longship through the sea.
When it rose beyond measure he brake a pot of whale's oil upon the
water, which wonderfully smoothed it, and in that anointed patch he
turned her head to the wind and threw out oars at the end of a rope, to
make, he said, an anchor at which we lay rolling sorely, but dry.  This
craft his father Guthrum had shown him.  He knew, too, all the
Leech-Book of Bald, who was a wise doctor, and he knew the Ship-Book of
Hlaf the Woman, who robbed Egypt.  He knew all the care of a ship.

'After the storm we saw a mountain whose top was covered with snow and
pierced the clouds.  The grasses under this mountain, boiled and eaten,
are a good cure for soreness of the gums and swelled ankles.  We lay
there eight days, till men in skins threw stones at us.  When the heat
increased Witta spread a cloth on bent sticks above the rowers, for the
wind failed between the Island of the Mountain and the shore of Africa,
which is east of it.  That shore is sandy, and we rowed along it within
three bowshots.  Here we saw whales, and fish in the shape of shields,
but longer than our ship.  Some slept, some opened their mouths at us,
and some danced on the hot waters.  The water was hot to the hand, and
the sky was hidden by hot, grey mists, out of which blew a fine dust
that whitened our hair and beards of a morning.  Here, too, were fish
that flew in the air like birds.  They would fall on the laps of the
rowers, and when we went ashore we would roast and eat them.'

The knight paused to see if the children doubted him, but they only
nodded and said, 'Go on.'

'The yellow land lay on our left, the grey sea on our right.  Knight
though I was, I pulled my oar amongst the rowers.  I caught seaweed and
dried it, and stuffed it between the pots of beads lest they should
break.  Knighthood is for the land.  At sea, look you, a man is but a
spurless rider on a bridleless horse.  I learned to make strong knots
in ropes--yes, and to join two ropes end to end, so that even Witta
could scarcely see where they had been married.  But Hugh had tenfold
more sea-cunning than I.  Witta gave him charge of the rowers of the
left side.  Thorkild of Borkum, a man with a broken nose, that wore a
Norman steel cap, had the rowers of the right, and each side rowed and
sang against the other.  They saw that no man Was idle.  Truly, as Hugh
said, and Witta would laugh at him, a ship is all more care than a
Manor.

'How?  Thus.  There was water to fetch from the shore when we could
find it, as well as wild fruit and grasses, and sand for scrubbing of
the decks and benches to keep them sweet.  Also we hauled the ship out
on low islands and emptied all her gear, even to the iron wedges, and
burned off the weed, that had grown on her, with torches of rush, and
smoked below the decks with rushes dampened in salt water, as Hlaf the
Woman orders in her Ship-Book.  Once when we were thus stripped, and
the ship lay propped on her keel, the bird cried, "Out swords!" as
though she saw an enemy.  Witta vowed he would wring her neck.'

'Poor Polly!  Did he?' said Una.

'Nay.  She was the ship's bird.  She could call all the rowers by
name...  Those were good days--for a wifeless man--with Witta and his
heathen--beyond the world's end...  After many weeks we came on the
great Shoal which stretched, as Witta's father had said, far out to
sea.  We skirted it till we were giddy with the sight and dizzy with
the sound of bars and breakers, and when we reached land again we found
a naked black people dwelling among woods, who for one wedge of iron
loaded us with fruits and grasses and eggs.  Witta scratched his head
at them in sign he would buy gold.  They had no gold, but they
understood the sign (all the gold-traders hide their gold in their
thick hair), for they pointed along the coast.  They beat, too, on
their chests with their clenched hands, and that, if we had known it,
was an evil sign.'

'What did it mean?' said Dan.

'Patience.  Ye shall hear.  We followed the coast eastward sixteen days
(counting time by sword-cuts on the helm-rail) till we came to the
Forest in the Sea.  Trees grew there out of mud, arched upon lean and
high roots, and many muddy waterways ran allwhither into darkness,
under the trees.  Here we lost the sun.  We followed the winding
channels between the trees, and where we could not row we laid hold of
the crusted roots and hauled ourselves along.  The water was foul, and
great glittering flies tormented us.  Morning and evening a blue mist
covered the mud, which bred fevers.  Four of our rowers sickened, and
were bound to their benches, lest they should leap overboard and be
eaten by the monsters of the mud.  The Yellow Man lay sick beside the
Wise Iron, rolling his head and talking in his own tongue.  Only the
Bird throve.  She sat on Witta's shoulder and screamed in that noisome,
silent darkness.  Yes; I think it was the silence we most feared.'

He paused to listen to the comfortable home noises of the brook.

'When we had lost count of time among those black gullies and swashes
we heard, as it were, a drum beat far off, and following it we broke
into a broad, brown river by a hut in a clearing among fields of
pumpkins.  We thanked God to see the sun again.  The people of the
village gave the good welcome, and Witta scratched his head at them
(for gold), and showed them our iron and beads.  They ran to the
bank--we were still in the ship--and pointed to our swords and bows,
for always when near shore we lay armed.  Soon they fetched store of
gold in bars and in dust from their huts, and some great blackened
elephants' teeth.  These they piled on the bank, as though to tempt us,
and made signs of dealing blows in battle, and pointed up to the
tree-tops, and to the forest behind.  Their captain or chief sorcerer
then beat on his chest with his fists, and gnashed his teeth.

'Said Thorkild of Borkum:  "Do they mean we must fight for all this
gear?" and he half drew sword.

"'Nay," said Hugh.  "I think they ask us to league against some enemy."

"'I like this not," said Witta, of a sudden.  "Back into mid-stream."

'So we did, and sat still all, watching the black folk and the gold
they piled on the bank.  Again we heard drums beat in the forest, and
the people fled to their huts, leaving the gold unguarded.

'Then Hugh, at the bows, pointed without speech, and we saw a great
Devil come out of the forest.  He shaded his brows with his hand, and
moistened his pink tongue between his lips--thus.'

'A Devil!' said Dan, delightfully horrified.

'Yea.  Taller than a man; covered with reddish hair. When he had well
regarded our ship, he beat on his chest with his fists till it sounded
like rolling drums, and came to the bank swinging all his body between
his long arms, and gnashed his teeth at us.  Hugh loosed arrow, and
pierced him through the throat.  He fell roaring, and three other
Devils ran out of the forest and hauled him into a tall tree out of
sight.  Anon they cast down the blood-stained arrow, and lamented
together among the leaves.

Witta saw the gold on the bank; he was loath to leave it. "Sirs," said
he (no man had spoken till then), "yonder is what we have come so far
and so painfully to find, laid out to our very hand.  Let us row in
while these Devils bewail themselves, and at least bear off what we
may."

'Bold as a wolf, cunning as a fox was Witta!  He set four archers on
the fore-deck to shoot the Devils if they should leap from the tree,
which was close to the bank.  He manned ten oars a side, and bade them
watch his hand to row in or back out, and so coaxed he them toward the
bank.  But none would set foot ashore, though the gold was within ten
paces.  No man is hasty to his hanging! They whimpered at their oars
like beaten hounds, and Witta bit his fingers for rage.

'Said Hugh of a sudden, "Hark!" At first we thought it was the buzzing
of the glittering flies on the water; but it grew loud and fierce, so
that all men heard.'

'What?' said Dan and Una.

'It was the Sword.'  Sir Richard patted the smooth hilt. 'It sang as a
Dane sings before battle.  "I go," said Hugh, and he leaped from the
bows and fell among the gold.  I was afraid to my four bones' marrow,
but for shame's sake I followed, and Thorkild of Borkum leaped after
me. None other came.  "Blame me not," cried Witta behind us, "I must
abide by my ship." We three had no time to blame or praise.  We stooped
to the gold and threw it back over our shoulders, one hand on our
swords and one eye on the tree, which nigh overhung us.

'I know not how the Devils leaped down, or how the fight began.  I
heard Hugh cry:  "Out!  out!" as though he were at Santlache again; I
saw Thorkild's steel cap smitten off his head by a great hairy hand,
and I felt an arrow from the ship whistle past my ear.  They say that
till Witta took his sword to the rowers he could not bring his ship
inshore; and each one of the four archers said afterwards that he alone
had pierced the Devil that fought me.  I do not know.  I went to it in
my mail-shirt, which saved my skin.  With long-sword and belt-dagger I
fought for the life against a Devil whose very feet were hands, and who
whirled me back and forth like a dead branch.  He had me by the waist,
my arms to my side, when an arrow from the ship pierced him between the
shoulders, and he loosened grip.  I passed my sword twice through him,
and he crutched himself away between his long arms, coughing and
moaning.  Next, as I remember, I saw Thorkild of Borkum, bare-headed
and smiling, leaping up and down before a Devil that leaped and gnashed
his teeth.  Then Hugh passed, his sword shifted to his left hand, and I
wondered why I had not known that Hugh was a left-handed man; and
thereafter I remembered nothing till I felt spray on my face, and we
were in sunshine on the open sea.  That was twenty days after.'

'What had happened?  Did Hugh die?'the children asked.

'Never was such a fight fought by christened man,' said Sir Richard.
'An arrow from the ship had saved me from my Devil, and Thorkild of
Borkum had given back before his Devil, till the bowmen on the ship
could shoot it all full of arrows from near by; but Hugh's Devil was
cunning, and had kept behind trees, where no arrow could reach.  Body
to body there, by stark strength of sword and hand, had Hugh slain him,
and, dying, the Thing had clenched his teeth on the sword.  Judge what
teeth they were!'

Sir Richard turned the sword again that the children might see the two
great chiselled gouges on either side of the blade.

'Those same teeth met in Hugh's right arm and side,' Sir Richard went
on.  'I?  Oh, I had no more than a broken foot and a fever.  Thorkild's
ear was bitten, but Hugh's arm and side clean withered away.  I saw him
where he lay along, sucking a fruit in his left hand.  His flesh was
wasted off his bones, his hair was patched with white, and his hand was
blue-veined like a woman's.  He put his left arm round my neck and
whispered, "Take my sword. It has been thine since Hastings, O my
brother, but I can never hold hilt again." We lay there on the high
deck talking of Santlache, and, I think, of every day since Santlache,
and it came so that we both wept.  I was weak, and he little more than
a shadow.

"'Nay--nay," said Witta, at the helm-rail.  "Gold is a good right arm
to any man.  Look--look at the gold!" He bade Thorkild show us the gold
and the elephants' teeth, as though we had been children.  He had
brought away all the gold on the bank, and twice as much more, that the
people of the village gave him for slaying the Devils. They worshipped
us as Gods, Thorkild told me:  it was one of their old women healed up
Hugh's poor arm.'

'How much gold did you get?'asked Dan. 'How can I say?  Where we came
out with wedges of iron under the rowers' feet we returned with wedges
of gold hidden beneath planks.  There was dust of gold in packages
where we slept and along the side, and cross-wise under the benches we
lashed the blackened elephants' teeth.

"'I had sooner have my right arm," said Hugh, when he had seen all.

"'Ahai!  That was my fault," said Witta.  "I should have taken ransom
and landed you in France when first you came aboard, ten months ago."

"'It is over-late now," said Hugh, laughing.

'Witta plucked at his long shoulder-lock.  "But think!" said he.  "If I
had let ye go--which I swear I would never have done, for I love ye
more than brothers--if I had let ye go, by now ye might have been
horribly slain by some mere Moor in the Duke of Burgundy's war, or ye
might have been murdered by land-thieves, or ye might have died of the
plague at an inn.  Think of this and do not blame me overmuch, Hugh.
See!  I will only take a half of the gold."

"'I blame thee not at all, Witta," said Hugh.  "It was a joyous
venture, and we thirty-five here have done what never men have done.
If I live till England, I will build me a stout keep over Dallington
out of my share."

"'I will buy cattle and amber and warm red cloth for the wife," said
Witta, "and I will hold all the land at the head of Stavanger Fiord.
Many will fight for me now.  But first we must turn North, and with
this honest treasure aboard I pray we meet no pirate ships."

'We did not laugh.  We were careful.  We were afraid lest we should
lose one grain of our gold, for which we had fought Devils.

"'Where is the Sorcerer?" said I, for Witta was looking at the Wise
Iron in the box, and I could not see the Yellow Man.

"'He has gone to his own country," said he.  "He rose up in the night
while we were beating out of that forest in the mud, and said that he
could see it behind the trees. He leaped out on the mud, and did not
answer when we called; so we called no more.  He left the Wise Iron,
which is all that I care for--and see, the Spirit still points to the
South."

'We were troubled for fear that the Wise Iron should fail us now that
its Yellow Man had gone, and when we saw the Spirit still served us we
grew afraid of too strong winds, and of shoals, and of careless leaping
fish, and of all the people on all the shores where we landed.'

'Why?' said Dan.

'Because of the gold--because of our gold.  Gold changes men
altogether.  Thorkild of Borkum did not change.  He laughed at Witta
for his fears, and at us for our counselling Witta to furl sail when
the ship pitched at all.

"'Better be drowned out of hand," said Thorkild of Borkum, "than go
tied to a deck-load of yellow dust."

'He was a landless man, and had been slave to some King in the East.
He would have beaten out the gold into deep bands to put round the
oars, and round the prow.

'Yet, though he vexed himself for the gold, Witta waited upon Hugh like
a woman, lending him his shoulder when the ship rolled, and tying of
ropes from side to side that Hugh might hold by them.  But for Hugh, he
said--and so did all his men--they would never have won the gold.  I
remember Witta made a little, thin gold ring for our Bird to swing in.

'Three months we rowed and sailed and went ashore for fruits or to
clean the ship.  When we saw wild horsemen, riding among sand-dunes,
flourishing spears, we knew we were on the Moors' coast, and stood over
north to Spain; and a strong south-west wind bore us in ten days to a
coast of high red rocks, where we heard a hunting-horn blow among the
yellow gorse and knew it was England.

"'Now find ye Pevensey yourselves," said Witta.  "I love not these
narrow ship-filled seas."

'He set the dried, salted head of the Devil, which Hugh had killed,
high on our prow, and all boats fled from us. Yet, for our gold's sake,
we were more afraid than they. We crept along the coast by night till
we came to the chalk cliffs, and so east to Pevensey.  Witta would not
come ashore with us, though Hugh promised him wine at Dallington enough
to swim in.  He was on fire to see his wife, and ran into the Marsh
after sunset, and there he left us and our share of gold, and backed
out on the same tide.  He made no promise; he swore no oath; he looked
for no thanks; but to Hugh, an armless man, and to me, an old cripple
whom he could have flung into the sea, he passed over wedge upon wedge,
packet upon packet of gold and dust of gold, and only ceased when we
would take no more.  As he stooped from the rail to bid us farewell he
stripped off his right-arm bracelets and put them all on Hugh's left,
and he kissed Hugh on the cheek.  I think when Thorkild of Borkum bade
the rowers give way we were near weeping.  It is true that Witta was an
heathen and a pirate; true it is he held us by force many months in his
ship, but I loved that bow-legged, blue-eyed man for his great
boldness, his cunning, his skill, and, beyond all, for his simplicity.'

'Did he get home all right?' said Dan.

'I never knew.  We saw him hoist sail under the moon-track and stand
away.  I have prayed that he found his wife and the children.'

'And what did you do?'

'We waited on the Marsh till the day.  Then I sat by the gold, all tied
in an old sail, while Hugh went to Pevensey, and De Aquila sent us
horses.'

Sir Richard crossed hands on his sword-hilt, and stared down stream
through the soft warm shadows.

'A whole shipload of gold!' said Una, looking at the little Golden
Hind.  'But I'm glad I didn't see the Devils.'

'I don't believe they were Devils,'Dan whispered back.

'Eh?' said Sir Richard.  'Witta's father warned him they were
unquestionable Devils.  One must believe one's father, and not one's
children.  What were my Devils, then?'

Dan flushed all over.  'I--I only thought,' he stammered; 'I've got a
book called The Gorilla Hunters--it's a continuation of Coral Island,
sir--and it says there that the gorillas (they're big monkeys, you
know) were always chewing iron up.'

'Not always,' said Una.  'Only twice.'  They had been reading The
Gorilla Hunters in the orchard.

'Well, anyhow, they always drummed on their chests, like Sir Richard's
did, before they went for people.  And they built houses in trees, too.'

'Ha!'  Sir Richard opened his eyes.  'Houses like flat nests did our
Devils make, where their imps lay and looked at us.  I did not see them
(I was sick after the fight), but Witta told me, and, lo, ye know it
also?  Wonderful! Were our Devils only nest-building apes?  Is there no
sorcery left in the world?'

'I don't know,' answered Dan, uncomfortably.  'I've seen a man take
rabbits out of a hat, and he told us we could see how he did it, if we
watched hard.  And we did.'

'But we didn't,' said Una, sighing.  'Oh!  there's Puck!'

The little fellow, brown and smiling, peered between two stems of an
ash, nodded, and slid down the bank into the cool beside them.

'No sorcery, Sir Richard?' he laughed, and blew on a full dandelion
head he had picked.

'They tell me that Witta's Wise Iron was a toy.  The boy carries such
an iron with him.  They tell me our Devils were apes, called gorillas!'
said Sir Richard, indignantly.

'That is the sorcery of books,' said Puck.  'I warned thee they were
wise children.  All people can be wise by reading of books.'

'But are the books true?'  Sir Richard frowned.  'I like not all this
reading and writing.' 'Ye-es,' said Puck, holding the naked dandelion
head at arm's length.  'But if we hang all fellows who write falsely,
why did De Aquila not begin with Gilbert the Clerk?  He was false
enough.'

'Poor false Gilbert.  Yet, in his fashion, he was bold,' said Sir
Richard.

'What did he do?' said Dan.

'He wrote,' said Sir Richard.  'Is the tale meet for children, think
you?'  He looked at Puck; but 'Tell us!  Tell us!' cried Dan and Una
together.



Thorkild's Song


  There's no wind along these seas,
  Out oars for Stavanger!
  Forward all for Stavanger!
  So we must wake the white-ash breeze,
  Let fall for Stavanger!
  A long pull for Stavanger!

  Oh, hear the benches creak and strain!
  (A long pull for Stavanger!)
  She thinks she smells the Northland rain!
  (A long pull for Stavanger!)

  She thinks she smells the Northland snow,
  And she's as glad as we to go.

  She thinks she smells the Northland rime,
  And the dear dark nights of winter-time.

  Her very bolts are sick for shore,
  And we--we want it ten times more!

  So all you Gods that love brave men,
  Send us a three-reef gale again!

  Send us a gale, and watch us come,
  With close-cropped canvas slashing home!

  But--there's no wind in all these seas.
    A long pull for Stavanger!
  So we must wake the white-ash breeze,
    A long pull for Stavanger!




OLD MEN AT PEVENSEY


'It has naught to do with apes or Devils,'Sir Richard went on, in an
undertone.  'It concerns De Aquila, than whom there was never bolder
nor craftier, nor more hardy knight born.  And remember he was an old,
old man at that time.'

'When?' said Dan.

'When we came back from sailing with Witta.'

'What did you do with your gold?' said Dan.

'Have patience.  Link by link is chain-mail made.  I will tell all in
its place.  We bore the gold to Pevensey on horseback--three loads of
it--and then up to the north chamber, above the Great Hall of Pevensey
Castle, where De Aquila lay in winter.  He sat on his bed like a little
white falcon, turning his head swiftly from one to the other as we told
our tale.  Jehan the Crab, an old sour man-at-arms, guarded the
stairway, but De Aquila bade him wait at the stair-foot, and let down
both leather curtains over the door.  It was jehan whom De Aquila had
sent to us with the horses, and only Jehan had loaded the gold.  When
our story was told, De Aquila gave us the news of England, for we were
as men waked from a year-long sleep.  The Red King was dead--slain (ye
remember?) the day we set sail--and Henry, his younger brother, had
made himself King of England over the head of Robert of Normandy.  This
was the very thing that the Red King had done to Robert when our Great
William died.  Then Robert of Normandy, mad, as De Aquila said, at
twice missing of this kingdom, had sent an army against England, which
army had been well beaten back to their ships at Portsmouth.  A little
earlier, and Witta's ship would have rowed through them.

"'And now," said De Aquila, "half the great Barons of the North and
West are out against the King between Salisbury and Shrewsbury, and
half the other half wait to see which way the game shall go.  They say
Henry is overly English for their stomachs, because he hath married an
English wife and she hath coaxed him to give back their old laws to our
Saxons.  (Better ride a horse on the bit he knows, I say!) But that is
only a cloak to their falsehood." He cracked his finger on the table,
where the wine was spilt, and thus he spoke:

"'William crammed us Norman barons full of good English acres after
Santlache.  I had my share too," he said, and clapped Hugh on the
shoulder; "but I warned him--I warned him before Odo rebelled--that he
should have bidden the Barons give up their lands and lordships in
Normandy if they would be English lords.  Now they are all but princes
both in England and Normandy--trencher-fed hounds, with a foot in one
trough and both eyes on the other!  Robert of Normandy has sent them
word that if they do not fight for him in England he will sack and
harry out their lands in Normandy.  Therefore Clare has risen,
FitzOsborne has risen, Montgomery has risen--whom our First William
made an English Earl. Even D'Arcy is out with his men, whose father I
remember--a little hedge-sparrow knight near by Caen.  If Henry wins,
the Barons can still flee to Normandy, where Robert will welcome them.
If Henry loses, Robert, he says, will give them more lands in England.
Oh, a pest--a pest on Normandy, for she will be our England's curse
this many a long year!"

"'Amen," said Hugh.  "But will the war come our ways, think you?"

"'Not from the North," said De Aquila.  "But the sea is always open.
If the Barons gain the upper hand Robert will send another army into
England for sure, and this time I think he will land here--where his
father, the Conqueror, landed.  Ye have brought your pigs to a pretty
market!  Half England alight, and gold enough on the ground"--he
stamped on the bars beneath the table--"to set every sword in
Christendom fighting."

"'What is to do?" said Hugh.  "I have no keep at Dallington; and if we
buried it, whom could we trust?" "'Me," said De Aquila.  "Pevensey
walls are strong.  No man but jehan, who is my dog, knows what is
between them." He drew a curtain by the shot-window and showed us the
shaft of a well in the thickness of the wall.

"'I made it for a drinking-well," he said, "but we found salt water,
and it rises and falls with the tide.  Hark!" We heard the water
whistle and blow at the bottom.  "Will it serve?" said he.

"'Needs must," said Hugh.  "Our lives are in thy hands." So we lowered
all the gold down except one small chest of it by De Aquila's bed,
which we kept as much for his delight in its weight and colour as for
any of our needs.

'In the morning, ere we rode to our Manors, he said:  "I do not say
farewell; because ye will return and bide here. Not for love nor for
sorrow, but to be with the gold.  Have a care," he said, laughing,
"lest I use it to make myself Pope.  Trust me not, but return!"'

Sir Richard paused and smiled sadly.

'In seven days, then, we returned from our Manors--from the Manors
which had been ours.'

'And were the children quite well?' said Una.

'My sons were young.  Land and governance belong by right to young
men.'  Sir Richard was talking to himself. 'It would have broken their
hearts if we had taken back our Manors.  They made us great welcome,
but we could see--Hugh and I could see--that our day was done.  I was a
cripple and he a one-armed man.  No!'  He shook his head.  'And
therefore'--he raised his voice--'we rode back to Pevensey.'

'I'm sorry,' said Una, for the knight seemed very sorrowful.

'Little maid, it all passed long ago.  They were young; we were old.
We let them rule the Manors.  "Aha!" cried De Aquila from his
shot-window, when we dismounted. "Back again to earth, old foxes?" but
when we were in his chamber above the Hall he puts his arms about us
and says, "Welcome, ghosts!  Welcome, poor ghosts!"

Thus it fell out that we were rich beyond belief, and lonely.  And
lonely!'

'What did you do?' said Dan.

'We watched for Robert of Normandy,' said the knight. 'De Aquila was
like Witta.  He suffered no idleness.  In fair weather we would ride
along between Bexlei on the one side, to Cuckmere on the
other--sometimes with hawk, sometimes with hound (there are stout hares
both on the Marsh and the Downland), but always with an eye to the sea,
for fear of fleets from Normandy.  In foul weather he would walk on the
top of his tower, frowning against the rain--peering here and pointing
there.  It always vexed him to think how Witta's ship had come and gone
without his knowledge.  When the wind ceased and ships anchored, to the
wharf's edge he would go and, leaning on his sword among the stinking
fish, would call to the mariners for their news from France.  His other
eye he kept landward for word of Henry's war against the Barons.

'Many brought him news--jongleurs, harpers, pedlars, sutlers, priests
and the like; and, though he was secret enough in small things, yet, if
their news misliked him, then, regarding neither time nor place nor
people, he would curse our King Henry for a fool or a babe.  I have
heard him cry aloud by the fishing boats:  "If I were King of England I
would do thus and thus"; and when I rode out to see that the
warning-beacons were laid and dry, he hath often called to me from the
shot-window:  "Look to it, Richard!  Do not copy our blind King, but
see with thine own eyes and feel with thine own hands." I do not think
he knew any sort of fear.  And so we lived at Pevensey, in the little
chamber above the Hall.

'One foul night came word that a messenger of the King waited below.
We were chilled after a long riding in the fog towards Bexlei, which is
an easy place for ships to land.  De Aquila sent word the man might
either eat with us or wait till we had fed.  Anon jehan, at the
stair-head, cried that he had called for horse, and was gone.  "Pest on
him!" said De Aquila.  "I have more to do than to shiver in the Great
Hall for every gadling the King sends.  Left he no word?"

"'None," said Jehan, "except"--he had been with De Aquila at
Santlache--"except he said that if an old dog could not learn new
tricks it was time to sweep out the kennel."

"'Oho!" said De Aquila, rubbing his nose, "to whom did he say that?"

"'To his beard, chiefly, but some to his horse's flank as he was
girthing up.  I followed him out," said jehan the Crab.

"'What was his shield-mark?"

"'Gold horseshoes on black," said the Crab.

"'That is one of Fulke's men," said De Aquila.'

Puck broke in very gently, 'Gold horseshoes on black is not the Fulkes'
shield.  The Fulkes' arms are--'

The knight waved one hand statelily.

'Thou knowest that evil man's true name,' he replied, 'but I have
chosen to call him Fulke because I promised him I would not tell the
story of his wickedness so that any man might guess it.  I have changed
all the names in my tale.  His children's children may be still alive.'

'True--true,' said Puck, smiling softly.  'It is knightly to keep
faith--even after a thousand years.'

Sir Richard bowed a little and went on:

"'Gold horseshoes on black?" said De Aquila.  "I had heard Fulke had
joined the Barons, but if this is true our King must be of the upper
hand.  No matter, all Fulkes are faithless.  Still, I would not have
sent the man away empty."

"'He fed," said jehan.  "Gilbert the Clerk fetched him meat and wine
from the kitchens.  He ate at Gilbert's table."

'This Gilbert was a clerk from Battle Abbey, who kept the accounts of
the Manor of Pevensey.  He was tall and pale-coloured, and carried
those new-fashioned beads for counting of prayers.  They were large
brown nuts or seeds, and hanging from his girdle with his pen and
ink-horn they clashed when he walked.  His place was in the great
fireplace.  There was his table of accounts, and there he lay o'
nights.  He feared the hounds in the Hall that came nosing after bones
or to sleep on the warm ashes, and would slash at them with his
beads--like a woman.  When De Aquila sat in Hall to do justice, take
fines, or grant lands, Gilbert would so write it in the Manor-roll.
But it was none of his work to feed our guests, or to let them depart
without his lord's knowledge.

'Said De Aquila, after jehan was gone down the stair: "Hugh, hast thou
ever told my Gilbert thou canst read Latin hand-of-write?"

"'No," said Hugh.  "He is no friend to me, or to Odo my hound either."

"'No matter," said De Aquila.  "Let him never know thou canst tell one
letter from its fellow, and"--there he yerked us in the ribs with his
scabbard--"watch him, both of ye.  There be devils in Africa, as I have
heard, but by the Saints, there be greater devils in Pevensey!" And
that was all he would say.

'It chanced, some small while afterwards, a Norman man-at-arms would
wed a Saxon wench of the Manor, and Gilbert (we had watched him well
since De Aquila spoke) doubted whether her folk were free or slave.
Since De Aquila would give them a field of good land, if she were free,
the matter came up at the justice in Great Hall before De Aquila.
First the wench's father spoke; then her mother; then all together,
till the Hall rang and the hounds bayed.  De Aquila held up his hands.
"Write her free," he called to Gilbert by the fireplace.  "A' God's
name write her free, before she deafens me!  Yes, yes," he said to the
wench that was on her knees at him; "thou art Cerdic's sister, and own
cousin to the Lady of Mercia, if thou wilt be silent.  In fifty years
there will be neither Norman nor Saxon, but all English," said he, "and
these are the men that do our work!" He clapped the man-at-arms that
was Jehan's nephew on the shoulder, and kissed the wench, and fretted
with his feet among the rushes to show it was finished.  (The Great
Hall is always bitter cold.) I stood at his side; Hugh was behind
Gilbert in the fireplace making to play with wise rough Odo.  He signed
to De Aquila, who bade Gilbert measure the new field for the new
couple.  Out then runs our Gilbert between man and maid, his beads
clashing at his waist, and the Hall being empty, we three sit by the
fire.

'Said Hugh, leaning down to the hearthstones, "I saw this stone move
under Gilbert's foot when Odo snuffed at it.  Look!" De Aquila digged
in the ashes with his sword; the stone tilted; beneath it lay a
parchment folden, and the writing atop was:  "Words spoken against the
King by our Lord of Pevensey--the second part."

'Here was set out (Hugh read it us whispering) every jest De Aquila had
made to us touching the King; every time he had called out to me from
the shot-window, and every time he had said what he would do if he were
King of England.  Yes, day by day had his daily speech, which he never
stinted, been set down by Gilbert, tricked out and twisted from its
true meaning, yet withal so cunningly that none could deny who knew him
that De Aquila had in some sort spoken those words.  Ye see?'

Dan and Una nodded.

'Yes,' said Una gravely.  'It isn't what you say so much. It's what you
mean when you say it.  Like calling Dan a beast in fun.  Only grown-ups
don't always understand.'

"'He hath done this day by day before our very face?" said De Aquila.

"'Nay, hour by hour," said Hugh.  "When De Aquila spoke even now, in
the Hall, of Saxons and Normans, I saw Gilbert write on a parchment,
which he kept beside the Manor-roll, that De Aquila said soon there
would be no Normans left in England if his men-at-arms did their work
aright."

"'Bones of the Saints!" said De Aquila.  "What avail is honour or a
sword against a pen?  Where did Gilbert hide that writing?  He shall
eat it."

"'In his breast when he ran out," said Hugh.  "Which made me look to
see where he kept his finished stuff. When Odo scratched at this stone
here, I saw his face change.  So I was sure."

"'He is bold," said De Aquila.  "Do him justice.  In his own fashion,
my Gilbert is bold."

"'Overbold," said Hugh.  "Hearken here," and he read:  "Upon the Feast
of St Agatha, our Lord of Pevensey, lying in his upper chamber, being
clothed in his second fur gown reversed with rabbit--"

"'Pest on him!  He is not my tire-woman!" said De Aquila, and Hugh and
I laughed. "'Reversed with rabbit, seeing a fog over the marshes, did
wake Sir Richard Dalyngridge, his drunken cup-mate" (here they laughed
at me) "and said, 'Peer out, old fox, for God is on the Duke of
Normandy's side."'

"'So did I.  It was a black fog.  Robert could have landed ten thousand
men, and we none the wiser.  Does he tell how we were out all day
riding the Marsh, and how I near perished in a quicksand, and coughed
like a sick ewe for ten days after?" cried De Aquila.

"'No," said Hugh.  "But here is the prayer of Gilbert himself to his
master Fulke."

"'Ah," said De Aquila.  "Well I knew it was Fulke. What is the price of
my blood?"

"'Gilbert prayeth that when our Lord of Pevensey is stripped of his
lands on this evidence which Gilbert hath, with fear and pains,
collected--"

"'Fear and pains is a true word," said De Aquila, and sucked in his
cheeks.  "But how excellent a weapon is a pen!  I must learn it."

"'He prays that Fulke will advance him from his present service to that
honour in the Church which Fulke promised him.  And lest Fulke should
forget, he has written below, 'To be Sacristan of Battle'."

'At this De Aquila whistled.  "A man who can plot against one lord can
plot against another.  When I am stripped of my lands Fulke will whip
off my Gilbert's foolish head.  None the less Battle needs a new
Sacristan. They tell me the Abbot Henry keeps no sort of rule there."

"'Let the Abbot wait," said Hugh.  "It is our heads and our lands that
are in danger.  This parchment is the second part of the tale.  The
first has gone to Fulke, and so to the King, who will hold us traitors."

"Assuredly," said De Aquila.  "Fulke's man took the first part that
evening when Gilbert fed him, and our King is so beset by his brother
and his Barons (small blame, too!) that he is mad with mistrust.  Fulke
has his ear, and pours poison into it.  Presently the King gives him my
land and yours.  This is old," and he leaned back and yawned.

"'And thou wilt surrender Pevensey without word or blow?" said Hugh.
"We Saxons will fight your King then. I will go warn my nephew at
Dallington.  Give me a horse!"

"'Give thee a toy and a rattle," said De Aquila.  "Put back the
parchment, and rake over the ashes.  If Fulke is given my Pevensey,
which is England's gate, what will he do with it?  He is Norman at
heart, and his heart is in Normandy, where he can kill peasants at his
pleasure. He will open England's gate to our sleepy Robert, as Odo and
Mortain tried to do, and then there will be another landing and another
Santlache.  Therefore I cannot give up Pevensey."

"'Good," said we two.

"'Ah, but wait!  If my King be made, on Gilbert's evidence, to mistrust
me, he will send his men against me here, and while we fight, England's
gate is left unguarded.  Who will be the first to come through thereby?
Even Robert of Normandy.  Therefore I cannot fight my King." He nursed
his sword--thus.

"'This is saying and unsaying like a Norman," said Hugh.  "What of our
Manors?"

"'I do not think for myself," said De Aquila, "nor for our King, nor
for your lands.  I think for England, for whom neither King nor Baron
thinks.  I am not Norman, Sir Richard, nor Saxon, Sir Hugh.  English am
I."

"'Saxon, Norman or English," said Hugh, "our lives are thine, however
the game goes.  When do we hang Gilbert?"

"'Never," said De Aquila.  "Who knows, he may yet be Sacristan of
Battle, for, to do him justice, he is a good writer.  Dead men make
dumb witnesses.  Wait."

"'But the King may give Pevensey to Fulke.  And our Manors go with it,"
said I.  "Shall we tell our sons?"

"'No.  The King will not wake up a hornets' nest in the South till he
has smoked out the bees in the North.  He may hold me a traitor; but at
least he sees I am not fighting against him; and every day that I lie
still is so much gain to him while he fights the Barons.  If he were
wise he would wait till that war were over before he made new enemies.
But I think Fulke will play upon him to send for me, and if I do not
obey the summons, that will, to Henry's mind, be proof of my treason.
But mere talk, such as Gilbert sends, is no proof nowadays.  We Barons
follow the Church, and, like Anselm, we speak what we please.  Let us
go about our day's dealings, and say naught to Gilbert."

"'Then we do nothing?" said Hugh.

"'We wait," said De Aquila.  "I am old, but still I find that the most
grievous work I know." 'And so we found it, but in the end De Aquila
was right.

'A little later in the year, armed men rode over the hill, the Golden
Horseshoes flying behind the King's banner. Said De Aquila, at the
window of our chamber:  "How did I tell you?  Here comes Fulke himself
to spy out his new lands which our King hath promised him if he can
bring proof of my treason."

"'How dost thou know?" said Hugh.

"'Because that is what I would do if I were Fulke, but I should have
brought more men.  My roan horse to your old shoes," said he, "Fulke
brings me the King's Summons to leave Pevensey and join the war." He
sucked in his cheeks and drummed on the edge of the well-shaft, where
the water sounded all hollow.

"'Shall we go?" said I.

"'Go!  At this time of year?  Stark madness," said he. "Take me from
Pevensey to fisk and flyte through fern and forest, and in three days
Robert's keels would be lying on Pevensey mud with ten thousand men!
Who would stop them--Fulke?"

'The horns blew without, and anon Fulke cried the King's Summons at the
great door, that De Aquila with all men and horse should join the
King's camp at Salisbury. "'How did I tell you?" said De Aquila.
"There are twenty Barons 'twixt here and Salisbury could give King
Henry good land service, but he has been worked upon by Fulke to send
South and call me--me!---off the Gate of England, when his enemies
stand about to batter it in. See that Fulke's men lie in the big south
barn," said he. "Give them drink, and when Fulke has eaten we will
drink in my chamber.  The Great Hall is too cold for old bones."

'As soon as he was off-horse Fulke went to the chapel with Gilbert to
give thanks for his safe coming, and when he had eaten--he was a fat
man, and rolled his eyes greedily at our good roast Sussex
wheat-ears--we led him to the little upper chamber, whither Gilbert had
already gone with the Manor-roll.  I remember when Fulke heard the tide
blow and whistle in the shaft he leaped back, and his long down-turned
stirrup-shoes caught in the rushes and he stumbled, so that Jehan
behind him found it easy to knock his head against the wall.'

'Did you know it was going to happen?' said Dan.

'Assuredly,' said Sir Richard, with a sweet smile.  'I put my foot on
his sword and plucked away his dagger, but he knew not whether it was
day or night for awhile.  He lay rolling his eyes and bubbling with his
mouth, and jehan roped him like a calf.  He was cased all in that
newfangled armour which we call lizard-mail.  Not rings like my hauberk
here'--Sir Richard tapped his chest--but little pieces of dagger-proof
steel overlapping on stout leather.  We stripped it off (no need to
spoil good harness by wetting it), and in the neck-piece De Aquila
found the same folden piece of parchment which we had put back under
the hearth-stone.

'At this Gilbert would have run out.  I laid my hand on his shoulder.
It sufficed.  He fell to trembling and praying on his beads.

"'Gilbert," said De Aquila, "here be more notable sayings and doings of
our Lord of Pevensey for thee to write down.  Take pen and ink-horn,
Gilbert.  We cannot all be Sacristans of Battle."

'Said Fulke from the floor, "Ye have bound a King's messenger.
Pevensey shall burn for this."

"'Maybe.  I have seen it besieged once," said De Aquila, "but heart up,
Fulke.  I promise thee that thou shalt be hanged in the middle of the
flames at the end of that siege, if I have to share my last loaf with
thee; and that is more than Odo would have done when we starved out him
and Mortain."

'Then Fulke sat up and looked long and cunningly at De Aquila.

"'By the Saints," said he, "why didst thou not say thou wast on the
Duke Robert's side at the first?"

"'Am I?" said De Aquila.

'Fulke laughed and said, "No man who serves King Henry dare do this
much to his messenger.  When didst thou come over to the Duke?  Let me
up and we can smooth it out together." And he smiled and becked and
winked.

"'Yes, we will smooth it out," said De Aquila.  He nodded to me, and
jehan and I heaved up Fulke--he was a heavy man--and lowered him into
the shaft by a rope, not so as to stand on our gold, but dangling by
his shoulders a little above.  It was turn of ebb, and the water came
to his knees.  He said nothing, but shivered somewhat.

'Then jehan of a sudden beat down Gilbert's wrist with his sheathed
dagger.  "Stop!" he said.  "He swallows his beads."

"'Poison, belike," said De Aquila.  "It is good for men who know too
much.  I have carried it these thirty years. Give me!"

'Then Gilbert wept and howled.  De Aquila ran the beads through his
fingers.  The last one--I have said they were large nuts--opened in two
halves on a pin, and there was a small folded parchment within.  On it
was written: "The Old Dog goes to Salisbury to be beaten.  I have his
Kennel. Come quickly.

"'This is worse than poison," said De Aquila very softly, and sucked in
his cheeks.  Then Gilbert grovelled in the rushes, and told us all he
knew.  The letter, as we guessed, was from Fulke to the Duke (and not
the first that had passed between them); Fulke had given it to Gilbert
in the chapel, and Gilbert thought to have taken it by morning to a
certain fishing boat at the wharf, which trafficked between Pevensey
and the French shore.  Gilbert was a false fellow, but he found time
between his quakings and shakings to swear that the master of the boat
knew nothing of the matter.

"'He hath called me shaved-head," said Gilbert, "and he hath thrown
haddock-guts at me; but for all that, he is no traitor."

"'I will have no clerk of mine mishandled or miscalled," said De
Aquila.  "That seaman shall be whipped at his own mast.  Write me first
a letter, and thou shalt bear it, with the order for the whipping,
tomorrow to the boat."

'At this Gilbert would have kissed De Aquila's hand--he had not hoped
to live until the morning--and when he trembled less he wrote a letter
as from Fulke to the Duke, saying that the Kennel, which signified
Pevensey, was shut, and that the Old Dog (which was De Aquila) sat
outside it, and, moreover, that all had been betrayed.

"'Write to any man that all is betrayed," said De Aquila, "and even the
Pope himself would sleep uneasily.  Eh, Jehan?  If one told thee all
was betrayed, what wouldst thou do?"

"'I would run away," said Jehan.  "It might be true."

"'Well said," quoth De Aquila.  "Write, Gilbert, that Montgomery, the
great Earl, hath made his peace with the King, and that little D'Arcy,
whom I hate, hath been hanged by the heels.  We will give Robert full
measure to chew upon.  Write also that Fulke himself is sick to death
of a dropsy."

"'Nay!" cried Fulke, hanging in the well-shaft. "Drown me out of hand,
but do not make a jest of me."

"'Jest?  I?" said De Aquila.  "I am but fighting for life and lands
with a pen, as thou hast shown me, Fulke."

'Then Fulke groaned, for he was cold, and, "Let me confess," said he.

"'Now, this is right neighbourly," said De Aquila, leaning over the
shaft.  "Thou hast read my sayings and doings--or at least the first
part of them--and thou art minded to repay me with thy own doings and
sayings.  Take pen and inkhorn, Gilbert.  Here is work that will not
irk thee."

"'Let my men go without hurt, and I will confess my treason against the
King," said Fulke.

"'Now, why has he grown so tender of his men of a sudden?" said Hugh to
me; for Fulke had no name for mercy to his men.  Plunder he gave them,
but pity, none.

"'Te!  Te!" said De Aquila.  "Thy treason was all confessed long ago by
Gilbert.  It would be enough to hang Montgomery himself."

"'Nay; but spare my men," said Fulke; and we heard him splash like a
fish in a pond, for the tide was rising.

"'All in good time," said De Aquila.  "The night is young; the wine is
old; and we need only the merry tale. Begin the story of thy life since
when thou wast a lad at Tours.  Tell it nimbly!"

"'Ye shame me to my soul," said Fulke.

"'Then I have done what neither King nor Duke could do," said De
Aquila.  "But begin, and forget nothing."

"'Send thy man away," said Fulke.

"'That much can I do," said De Aquila.  'But, remember, I am like the
Danes' King.  I cannot turn the tide.'

"'How long will it rise?" said Fulke, and splashed anew.

"'For three hours," said De Aquila.  "Time to tell all thy good deeds.
Begin, and, Gilbert,--I have heard thou art somewhat careless--do not
twist his words from his true meaning."

'So--fear of death in the dark being upon him--Fulke began, and
Gilbert, not knowing what his fate might be, wrote it word by word.  I
have heard many tales, but never heard I aught to match the tale of
Fulke his black life, as Fulke told it hollowly, hanging in the shaft.'

'Was it bad?' said Dan, awestruck. 'Beyond belief,' Sir Richard
answered.  'None the less, there was that in it which forced even
Gilbert to laugh. We three laughed till we ached.  At one place his
teeth so chattered that we could not well hear, and we reached him down
a cup of wine.  Then he warmed to it, and smoothly set out all his
shifts, malices, and treacheries, his extreme boldnesses (he was
desperate bold); his retreats, shufflings, and counterfeitings (he was
also inconceivably a coward); his lack of gear and honour; his despair
at their loss; his remedies, and well-coloured contrivances.  Yes, he
waved the filthy rags of his life before us, as though they had been
some proud banner. When he ceased, we saw by torches that the tide
stood at the corners of his mouth, and he breathed strongly through his
nose.

'We had him out, and rubbed him; we wrapped him in a cloak, and gave
him wine, and we leaned and looked upon him, the while he drank.  He
was shivering, but shameless.

'Of a sudden we heard jehan at the stairway wake, but a boy pushed past
him, and stood before us, the Hall-rushes in his hair, all slubbered
with sleep.  "My father! My father!  I dreamed of treachery," he cried,
and babbled thickly.

"'There is no treachery here," said Fulke.  "Go!" and the boy turned,
even then not fully awake, and jehan led him by the hand to the Great
Hall. "'Thy only son!" said De Aquila.  "Why didst thou bring the child
here?"

"'He is my heir.  I dared not trust him to my brother," said Fulke, and
now he was ashamed.  De Aquila said nothing, but sat weighing a
wine-cup in his two hands--thus.  Anon, Fulke touched him on the knee.

"'Let the boy escape to Normandy," said he, "and do with me at thy
pleasure.  Yea, hang me tomorrow, with my letter to Robert round my
neck, but let the boy go."

"'Be still," said De Aquila.  "I think for England."

'So we waited what our Lord of Pevensey should devise; and the sweat
ran down Fulke's forehead.

'At last said De Aquila:  "I am too old to judge, or to trust any man.
I do not covet thy lands, as thou hast coveted mine; and whether thou
art any better or any worse than any other black Angevin thief, it is
for thy King to find out.  Therefore, go back to thy King, Fulke."

"'And thou wilt say nothing of what has passed?" said Fulke.

"'Why should I?  Thy son will stay with me.  If the King calls me again
to leave Pevensey, which I must guard against England's enemies; if the
King sends his men against me for a traitor; or if I hear that the King
in his bed thinks any evil of me or my two knights, thy son will be
hanged from out this window, Fulke."'

'But it hadn't anything to do with his son,' cried Una, startled.

'How could we have hanged Fulke?' said Sir Richard. 'We needed him to
make our peace with the King.  He would have betrayed half England for
the boy's sake.  Of that we were sure.'

'I don't understand,' said Una.  'But I think it was simply awful.'

'So did not Fulke.  He was well pleased.'

'What?  Because his son was going to be killed?'

'Nay.  Because De Aquila had shown him how he might save the boy's life
and his own lands and honours.  "I will do it," he said.  "I swear I
will do it.  I will tell the King thou art no traitor, but the most
excellent, valiant, and perfect of us all.  Yes, I will save thee."

'De Aquila looked still into the bottom of the cup, rolling the
wine-dregs to and fro. "'Ay," he said.  "If I had a son, I would, I
think, save him.  But do not by any means tell me how thou wilt go
about it."

"'Nay, nay," said Fulke, nodding his bald head wisely. "That is my
secret.  But rest at ease, De Aquila, no hair of thy head nor rood of
thy land shall be forfeited," and he smiled like one planning great
good deeds.

"'And henceforward," said De Aquila, "I counsel thee to serve one
master--not two."

"'What?" said Fulke.  "Can I work no more honest trading between the
two sides these troublous times?"

"'Serve Robert or the King--England or Normandy," said De Aquila.  "I
care not which it is, but make thy choice here and now."

"'The King, then," said Fulke, "for I see he is better served than
Robert.  Shall I swear it?"

"'No need," said De Aquila, and he laid his hand on the parchments
which Gilbert had written.  "It shall be some part of my Gilbert's
penance to copy out the savoury tale of thy life, till we have made
ten, twenty, an hundred, maybe, copies.  How many cattle, think you,
would the Bishop of Tours give for that tale?  Or thy brother?  Or the
Monks of Blois?  Minstrels will turn it into songs which thy own Saxon
serfs shall sing behind their plough-stilts, and men-at-arms riding
through thy Norman towns.  From here to Rome, Fulke, men will make very
merry over that tale, and how Fulke told it, hanging in a well, like a
drowned puppy.  This shall be thy punishment, if ever I find thee
double-dealing with thy King any more.  Meantime, the parchments stay
here with thy son.  Him I will return to thee when thou hast made my
peace with the King.  The parchments never."

'Fulke hid his face and groaned.

"'Bones of the Saints!" said De Aquila, laughing.  "The pen cuts deep.
I could never have fetched that grunt out of thee with any sword."

"'But so long as I do not anger thee, my tale will be secret?" said
Fulke.

"'Just so long.  Does that comfort thee, Fulke?" said De Aquila.

"'What other comfort have ye left me?" he said, and of a sudden he wept
hopelessly like a child, dropping his face on his knees.'

'Poor Fulke,' said Una.

'I pitied him also,' said Sir Richard.

"'After the spur, corn," said De Aquila, and he threw Fulke three
wedges of gold that he had taken from our little chest by the bedplace.

"'If I had known this," said Fulke, catching his breath, "I would never
have lifted hand against Pevensey.  Only lack of this yellow stuff has
made me so unlucky in my dealings."

'It was dawn then, and they stirred in the Great Hall below.  We sent
down Fulke's mail to be scoured, and when he rode away at noon under
his own and the King's banner, very splendid and stately did he show.
He smoothed his long beard, and called his son to his stirrup and
kissed him.  De Aquila rode with him as far as the New Mill landward.
We thought the night had been all a dream.'

'But did he make it right with the King?' Dan asked. 'About your not
being traitors, I mean.'

Sir Richard smiled.  'The King sent no second summons to Pevensey, nor
did he ask why De Aquila had not obeyed the first.  Yes, that was
Fulke's work.  I know not how he did it, but it was well and swiftly
done.'

'Then you didn't do anything to his son?' said Una.

'The boy?  Oh, he was an imp!  He turned the keep doors out of dortoirs
while we had him.  He sang foul songs, learned in the Barons'
camps--poor fool; he set the hounds fighting in Hall; he lit the rushes
to drive out, as he said, the fleas; he drew his dagger on jehan, who
threw him down the stairway for it; and he rode his horse through crops
and among sheep.  But when we had beaten him, and showed him wolf and
deer, he followed us old men like a young, eager hound, and called us
"uncle".  His father came the summer's end to take him away, but the
boy had no lust to go, because of the otter-hunting, and he stayed on
till the fox-hunting.  I gave him a bittern's claw to bring him good
luck at shooting.  An imp, if ever there was!'

'And what happened to Gilbert?' said Dan.

'Not even a whipping.  De Aquila said he would sooner a clerk, however
false, that knew the Manor-roll than a fool, however true, that must be
taught his work afresh. Moreover, after that night I think Gilbert
loved as much as he feared De Aquila.  At least he would not leave
us--not even when Vivian, the King's Clerk, would have made him
Sacristan of Battle Abbey.  A false fellow, but, in his fashion, bold.'

'Did Robert ever land in Pevensey after all?' Dan went on.

'We guarded the coast too well while Henry was fighting his Barons; and
three or four years later, when England had peace, Henry crossed to
Normandy and showed his brother some work at Tenchebrai that cured
Robert of fighting.  Many of Henry's men sailed from Pevensey to that
war.  Fulke came, I remember, and we all four lay in the little chamber
once again, and drank together.  De Aquila was right.  One should not
judge men.  Fulke was merry.  Yes, always merry--with a catch in his
breath.'

'And what did you do afterwards?' said Una.

'We talked together of times past.  That is all men can do when they
grow old, little maid.'


The bell for tea rang faintly across the meadows.  Dan lay in the bows
of the Golden Hind; Una in the stern, the book of verses open in her
lap, was reading from 'The Slave's Dream':

     'Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep,
     He saw his native land.'

'I don't know when you began that,' said Dan, sleepily.

On the middle thwart of the boat, beside Una's sun-bonnet, lay an Oak
leaf, an Ash leaf, and a Thorn leaf, that must have dropped down from
the trees above; and the brook giggled as though it had just seen some
joke.



The Runes on Weland's Sword


  A Smith makes me
  To betray my Man
  In my first fight.

  To gather Gold
  At the world's end
  I am sent.

  The Gold I gather
  Comes into England
  Out of deep Water.

  Like a shining Fish
  Then it descends
  Into deep Water.

  It is not given
  For goods or gear,
  But for The Thing.

  The Gold I gather
  A King covets
  For an ill use.

  The Gold I gather
  Is drawn up
  Out of deep Water.

  Like a shining Fish
  Then it descends
  Into deep Water.

  It is not given
  For goods or gear,
  But for The Thing.




A CENTURION OF THE THIRTIETH


  Cities and Thrones and Powers
  Stand in Time's eye,
  Almost as long as flowers,
  Which daily die.
  But, as new buds put forth
  To glad new men,
  Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth
  The Cities rise again.

  This season's Daffodil,
  She never hears
  What change, what chance, what chill,
  Cut down last year's:
  But with bold countenance,
  And knowledge small,
  Esteems her seven days' continuance
  To be perpetual.

  So Time that is o'er-kind
  To all that be,
  Ordains us e'en as blind,
  As bold as she:
  That in our very death,
  And burial sure,
  Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,
  'See how our works endure!'



Dan had come to grief over his Latin, and was kept in; so Una went
alone to Far Wood.  Dan's big catapult and the lead bullets that Hobden
had made for him were hidden in an old hollow beech-stub on the west of
the wood. They had named the place out of the verse in Lays of Ancient
Rome:

     From lordly Volaterrae,
     Where scowls the far-famed hold
     Piled by the hands of giants
     For Godlike Kings of old.

They were the 'Godlike Kings', and when old Hobden piled some
comfortable brushwood between the big wooden knees of Volaterrae, they
called him 'Hands of Giants'.

Una slipped through their private gap in the fence, and sat still
awhile, scowling as scowlily and lordlily as she knew how; for
Volaterrae is an important watch-tower that juts out of Far Wood just
as Far Wood juts out of the hillside.  Pook's Hill lay below her and
all the turns of the brook as it wanders out of the Willingford Woods,
between hop-gardens, to old Hobden's cottage at the Forge.  The
sou'-west wind (there is always a wind by Volaterrae) blew from the
bare ridge where Cherry Clack Windmill stands.

Now wind prowling through woods sounds like exciting things going to
happen, and that is why on blowy days you stand up in Volaterrae and
shout bits of the Lays to suit its noises.

Una took Dan's catapult from its secret place, and made ready to meet
Lars Porsena's army stealing through the wind-whitened aspens by the
brook.  A gust boomed up the valley, and Una chanted sorrowfully:

     'Verbenna down to Ostia
     Hath wasted all the plain:
     Astur hath stormed Janiculum,
     And the stout guards are slain.'

But the wind, not charging fair to the wood, started aside and shook a
single oak in Gleason's pasture.  Here it made itself all small and
crouched among the grasses, waving the tips of them as a cat waves the
tip of her tail before she springs.

'Now welcome--welcome, Sextus,' sang Una, loading the catapult--
     'Now welcome to thy home!
     Why dost thou stay, and turn away?
     Here lies the road to Rome.'

She fired into the face of the lull, to wake up the cowardly wind, and
heard a grunt from behind a thorn in the pasture.

'Oh, my Winkie!' she said aloud, and that was something she had picked
up from Dan.  'I b'lieve I've tickled up a Gleason cow.'

'You little painted beast!' a voice cried.  'I'll teach you to sling
your masters!'

She looked down most cautiously, and saw a young man covered with hoopy
bronze armour all glowing among the late broom.  But what Una admired
beyond all was his great bronze helmet with a red horse-tail that
flicked in the wind.  She could hear the long hairs rasp on his
shimmery shoulder-plates.

'What does the Faun mean,' he said, half aloud to himself, 'by telling
me that the Painted People have changed?'  He caught sight of Una's
yellow head.  'Have you seen a painted lead-slinger?' he called.

'No-o,' said Una.  'But if you've seen a bullet--'

'Seen?' cried the man.  'It passed within a hair's--breadth of my ear.'

'Well, that was me.  I'm most awfully sorry.'

'Didn't the Faun tell you I was coming?'  He smiled.

'Not if you mean Puck.  I thought you were a Gleason cow.  I--I didn't
know you were a--a--What are you?'

He laughed outright, showing a set of splendid teeth. His face and eyes
were dark, and his eyebrows met above his big nose in one bushy black
bar.

'They call me Parnesius.  I have been a Centurion of the Seventh Cohort
of the Thirtieth Legion--the Ulpia Victrix. Did you sling that bullet?'

'I did.  I was using Dan's catapult,' said Una.

'Catapults!' said he.  'I ought to know something about them.  Show me!'

He leaped the rough fence with a rattle of spear, shield, and armour,
and hoisted himself into Volaterrae as quickly as a shadow.

'A sling on a forked stick.  I understand!' he cried, and pulled at the
elastic.  'But what wonderful beast yields this stretching leather?'

'It's laccy--elastic.  You put the bullet into that loop, and then you
pull hard.'

The man pulled, and hit himself square on his thumbnail.

'Each to his own weapon,' he said gravely, handing it back.  'I am
better with the bigger machine, little maiden. But it's a pretty toy.
A wolf would laugh at it.  Aren't you afraid of wolves?'

'There aren't any,' said Una.

'Never believe it!  A wolf's like a Winged Hat.  He comes when he isn't
expected.  Don't they hunt wolves here?'

'We don't hunt,'said Una, remembering what she had heard from
grown-ups.  'We preserve--pheasants.  Do you know them?'

'I ought to,' said the young man, smiling again, and he imitated the
cry of the cock-pheasant so perfectly that a bird answered out of the
wood.

'What a big painted clucking fool is a pheasant!' he said.  'Just like
some Romans.'

'But you're a Roman yourself, aren't you?' said Una.

'Ye-es and no.  I'm one of a good few thousands who have never seen
Rome except in a picture.  My people have lived at Vectis for
generations.  Vectis--that island West yonder that you can see from so
far in clear weather.'

'Do you mean the Isle of Wight?  It lifts up just before rain, and you
see it from the Downs.'

'Very likely.  Our villa's on the south edge of the Island, by the
Broken Cliffs.  Most of it is three hundred years old, but the
cow-stables, where our first ancestor lived, must be a hundred years
older.  Oh, quite that, because the founder of our family had his land
given him by Agricola at the Settlement.  It's not a bad little place
for its size.  In springtime violets grow down to the very beach. I've
gathered sea-weeds for myself and violets for my Mother many a time
with our old nurse.'

'Was your nurse a--a Romaness too?'

'No, a Numidian.  Gods be good to her!  A dear, fat, brown thing with a
tongue like a cowbell.  She was a free woman.  By the way, are you
free, maiden?'

'Oh, quite,' said Una.  'At least, till tea-time; and in summer our
governess doesn't say much if we're late.'

The young man laughed again--a proper understanding laugh.

'I see,' said he.  'That accounts for your being in the wood.  We hid
among the cliffs.'

'Did you have a governess, then?'

'Did we not?  A Greek, too.  She had a way of clutching her dress when
she hunted us among the gorse-bushes that made us laugh.  Then she'd
say she'd get us whipped.  She never did, though, bless her!  Aglaia
was a thorough sportswoman, for all her learning.'

'But what lessons did you do--when--when you were little?' 'Ancient
history, the Classics, arithmetic and so on,'he answered.  'My sister
and I were thickheads, but my two brothers (I'm the middle one) liked
those things, and, of course, Mother was clever enough for any six.
She was nearly as tall as I am, and she looked like the new statue on
the Western Road--the Demeter of the Baskets, you know.  And funny!
Roma Dea!  How Mother could make us laugh!'

'What at?'

'Little jokes and sayings that every family has.  Don't you know?'

'I know we have, but I didn't know other people had them too,' said
Una.  'Tell me about all your family, please.'

'Good families are very much alike.  Mother would sit spinning of
evenings while Aglaia read in her corner, and Father did accounts, and
we four romped about the passages.  When our noise grew too loud the
Pater would say, "Less tumult!  Less tumult!  Have you never heard of a
Father's right over his children?  He can slay them, my loves--slay
them dead, and the Gods highly approve of the action!" Then Mother
would prim up her dear mouth over the wheel and answer:  "H'm!  I'm
afraid there can't be much of the Roman Father about you!" Then the
Pater would roll up his accounts, and say, "I'll show you!" and
then--then, he'd be worse than any of us!'

'Fathers can--if they like,' said Una, her eyes dancing.

'Didn't I say all good families are very much the same?'

'What did you do in summer?' said Una.  'Play about, like us?'

'Yes, and we visited our friends.  There are no wolves in Vectis.  We
had many friends, and as many ponies as we wished.'

'It must have been lovely,' said Una.  'I hope it lasted for ever.'

'Not quite, little maid.  When I was about sixteen or seventeen, the
Father felt gouty, and we all went to the Waters.'

'What waters?'

'At Aquae Sulis.  Every one goes there.  You ought to get your Father
to take you some day.'

'But where?  I don't know,' said Una.

The young man looked astonished for a moment. 'Aquae Sulis,' he
repeated.  'The best baths in Britain.  Just as good, I'm told, as
Rome.  All the old gluttons sit in hot water, and talk scandal and
politics.  And the Generals come through the streets with their guards
behind them; and the magistrates come in their chairs with their stiff
guards behind them; and you meet fortune-tellers, and goldsmiths, and
merchants, and philosophers, and feather-sellers, and ultra-Roman
Britons, and ultra-British Romans, and tame tribesmen pretending to be
civilised, and Jew lecturers, and--oh, everybody interesting. We young
people, of course, took no interest in politics.  We had not the gout.
There were many of our age like us.  We did not find life sad.

'But while we were enjoying ourselves without thinking, my sister met
the son of a magistrate in the West--and a year afterwards she was
married to him.  My young brother, who was always interested in plants
and roots, met the First Doctor of a Legion from the City of the
Legions, and he decided that he would be an Army doctor.  I do not
think it is a profession for a well-born man, but then--I'm not my
brother.  He went to Rome to study medicine, and now he's First Doctor
of a Legion in Egypt--at Antinoe, I think, but I have not heard from
him for some time.

'My eldest brother came across a Greek philosopher, and told my Father
that he intended to settle down on the estate as a farmer and a
philosopher.  You see,'--the young man's eyes twinkled--'his
philosopher was a long-haired one!'

'I thought philosophers were bald,' said Una.

'Not all.  She was very pretty.  I don't blame him. Nothing could have
suited me better than my eldest brother's doing this, for I was only
too keen to join the Army.  I had always feared I should have to stay
at home and look after the estate while my brother took this.'

He rapped on his great glistening shield that never seemed to be in his
way.

'So we were well contented--we young people--and we rode back to
Clausentum along the Wood Road very quietly.  But when we reached home,
Aglaia, our governess, saw what had come to us.  I remember her at the
door, the torch over her head, watching us climb the cliff-path from
the boat.  "Aie!  Aie!" she said.  "Children you went away.  Men and a
woman you return!" Then she kissed Mother, and Mother wept.  Thus our
visit to the Waters settled our fates for each of us, maiden.' He rose
to his feet and listened, leaning on the shield-rim.

'I think that's Dan--my brother,' said Una.

'Yes; and the Faun is with him,'he replied, as Dan with Puck stumbled
through the copse.

'We should have come sooner,' Puck called, 'but the beauties of your
native tongue, O Parnesius, have enthralled this young citizen.'

Parnesius looked bewildered, even when Una explained.

'Dan said the plural of "dominus" was "dominoes", and when Miss Blake
said it wasn't he said he supposed it was "backgammon", and so he had
to write it out twice--for cheek, you know.' Dan had climbed into
Volaterrae, hot and panting.

'I've run nearly all the way,'he gasped, 'and then Puck met me.  How do
you do, sir?'

'I am in good health,' Parnesius answered.  'See!  I have tried to bend
the bow of Ulysses, but--' He held up his thumb.

'I'm sorry.  You must have pulled off too soon,' said Dan.  'But Puck
said you were telling Una a story.'

'Continue, O Parnesius,' said Puck, who had perched himself on a dead
branch above them.  'I will be chorus. Has he puzzled you much, Una?'
'Not a bit, except--I didn't know where Ak--Ak something was,' she
answered.

'Oh, Aquae Sulis.  That's Bath, where the buns come from.  Let the hero
tell his own tale.'

Parnesius pretended to thrust his spear at Puck's legs, but Puck
reached down, caught at the horse-tail plume, and pulled off the tall
helmet.

'Thanks, jester,' said Parnesius, shaking his curly dark head.  'That
is cooler.  Now hang it up for me.

'I was telling your sister how I joined the Army,' he said to Dan.

'Did you have to pass an Exam?' Dan asked eagerly.

'No.  I went to my Father, and said I should like to enter the Dacian
Horse (I had seen some at Aquae Sulis); but he said I had better begin
service in a regular Legion from Rome.  Now, like many of our
youngsters, I was not too fond of anything Roman.  The Roman-born
officers and magistrates looked down on us British-born as though we
were barbarians.  I told my Father so.

"'I know they do," he said; "but remember, after all, we are the people
of the Old Stock, and our duty is to the Empire."

"'To which Empire?" I asked.  "We split the Eagle before I was born."

"'What thieves' talk is that?" said my Father.  He hated slang.

"'Well, sir," I said, "we've one Emperor in Rome, and I don't know how
many Emperors the outlying Provinces have set up from time to time.
Which am I to follow?"

"'Gratian," said he.  "At least he's a sportsman."

"'He's all that," I said.  "Hasn't he turned himself into a
raw-beef-eating Scythian?"

"'Where did you hear of it?" said the Pater.

"'At Aquae Sulis," I said.  It was perfectly true.  This precious
Emperor Gratian of ours had a bodyguard of fur-cloaked Scythians, and
he was so crazy about them that he dressed like them.  In Rome of all
places in the world!  It was as bad as if my own Father had painted
himself blue!

"'No matter for the clothes," said the Pater.  "They are only the
fringe of the trouble.  It began before your time or mine.  Rome has
forsaken her Gods, and must be punished.  The great war with the
Painted People broke out in the very year the temples of our Gods were
destroyed.  We beat the Painted People in the very year our temples
were rebuilt.  Go back further still." He went back to the time of
Diocletian; and to listen to him you would have thought Eternal Rome
herself was on the edge of destruction, just because a few people had
become a little large-minded.

'I knew nothing about it.  Aglaia never taught us the history of our
own country.  She was so full of her ancient Greeks.

"'There is no hope for Rome," said the Pater, at last. "She has
forsaken her Gods, but if the Gods forgive us here, we may save
Britain.  To do that, we must keep the Painted People back.  Therefore,
I tell you, Parnesius, as a Father, that if your heart is set on
service, your place is among men on the Wall--and not with women among
the cities."'

'What Wall?' asked Dan and Una at once.

'Father meant the one we call Hadrian's Wall.  I'll tell you about it
later.  It was built long ago, across North Britain, to keep out the
Painted People--Picts, you call them.  Father had fought in the great
Pict War that lasted more than twenty years, and he knew what fighting
meant.  Theodosius, one of our great Generals, had chased the little
beasts back far into the North before I was born.  Down at Vectis, of
course, we never troubled our heads about them.  But when my Father
spoke as he did, I kissed his hand, and waited for orders.  We
British-born Romans know what is due to our parents.'

'If I kissed my Father's hand, he'd laugh,' said Dan.

'Customs change; but if you do not obey your Father, the Gods remember
it.  You may be quite sure of that.

'After our talk, seeing I was in earnest, the Pater sent me over to
Clausentum to learn my foot-drill in a barrack full of foreign
Auxiliaries--as unwashed and unshaved a mob of mixed barbarians as ever
scrubbed a breastplate. It was your stick in their stomachs and your
shield in their faces to push them into any sort of formation.  When I
had learned my work the Instructor gave me a handful--and they were a
handful!---of Gauls and Iberians to polish up till they were sent to
their stations up-country.  I did my best, and one night a villa in the
suburbs caught fire, and I had my handful out and at work before any of
the other troops.  I noticed a quiet-looking man on the lawn, leaning
on a stick.  He watched us passing buckets from the pond, and at last
he said to me:  "Who are you?"

"'A probationer, waiting for a command," I answered. I didn't know who
he was from Deucalion!

"'Born in Britain?" he said.

"'Yes, if you were born in Spain," I said, for he neighed his words
like an Iberian mule.

"'And what might you call yourself when you are at home?" he said,
laughing.

"'That depends," I answered; "sometimes one thing and sometimes
another.  But now I'm busy."

'He said no more till we had saved the family Gods (they were
respectable householders), and then he grunted across the laurels:
"Listen, young sometimes-one-thing-and-sometimes-another.  In future
call yourself Centurion of the Seventh Cohort of the Thirtieth, the
Ulpia Victrix.  That will help me to remember you.  Your Father and a
few other people call me Maximus."

'He tossed me the polished stick he was leaning on, and went away.  You
might have knocked me down with it!' 'Who was he?' said Dan.

'Maximus himself, our great General!  The General of Britain who had
been Theodosius's right hand in the Pict War!  Not only had he given me
my Centurion's stick direct, but three steps in a good Legion as well!
A new man generally begins in the Tenth Cohort of his Legion, and works
up.'

'And were you pleased?' said Una.

'Very.  I thought Maximus had chosen me for my good looks and fine
style in marching, but, when I went home, the Pater told me he had
served under Maximus in the great Pict War, and had asked him to
befriend me.'

'A child you were!' said Puck, from above.

'I was,' said Parnesius.  'Don't begrudge it me, Faun. Afterwards--the
Gods know I put aside the games!'  And Puck nodded, brown chin on brown
hand, his big eyes still.

'The night before I left we sacrificed to our ancestors--the usual
little Home Sacrifice--but I never prayed so earnestly to all the Good
Shades, and then I went with my Father by boat to Regnum, and across
the chalk eastwards to Anderida yonder.'

'Regnum?  Anderida?'  The children turned their faces to Puck.

'Regnum's Chichester,' he said, pointing towards Cherry Clack,
'and'--he threw his arm South behind him--'Anderida's Pevensey.'

'Pevensey again!' said Dan.  'Where Weland landed?'

'Weland and a few others,' said Puck.  'Pevensey isn't young--even
compared to me!'

'The headquarters of the Thirtieth lay at Anderida in summer, but my
own Cohort, the Seventh, was on the Wall up North.  Maximus was
inspecting Auxiliaries--the Abulci, I think--at Anderida, and we stayed
with him, for he and my Father were very old friends.  I was only there
ten days when I was ordered to go up with thirty men to my Cohort.'  He
laughed merrily.  'A man never forgets his first march.  I was happier
than any Emperor when I led my handful through the North Gate of the
Camp, and we saluted the guard and the Altar of Victory there.'

'How?  How?' said Dan and Una.

Parnesius smiled, and stood up, flashing in his armour.

'So!' said he; and he moved slowly through the beautiful movements of
the Roman Salute, that ends with a hollow clang of the shield coming
into its place between the shoulders.

'Hai!' said Puck.  'That sets one thinking!'

'We went out fully armed,' said Parnesius, sitting down; 'but as soon
as the road entered the Great Forest, my men expected the pack-horses
to hang their shields on.  "No!" I said; "you can dress like women in
Anderida, but while you're with me you will carry your own weapons and
armour."

"'But it's hot," said one of them, "and we haven't a doctor.  Suppose
we get sunstroke, or a fever?"

"'Then die," I said, "and a good riddance to Rome!  Up shield--up
spears, and tighten your foot-wear!"

"'Don't think yourself Emperor of Britain already," a fellow shouted.
I knocked him over with the butt of my spear, and explained to these
Roman-born Romans that, if there were any further trouble, we should go
on with one man short.  And, by the Light of the Sun, I meant it too!
My raw Gauls at Clausentum had never treated me so.

'Then, quietly as a cloud, Maximus rode out of the fern (my Father
behind him), and reined up across the road.  He wore the Purple, as
though he were already Emperor; his leggings were of white buckskin
laced with gold.

'My men dropped like--like partridges.

'He said nothing for some time, only looked, with his eyes puckered.
Then he crooked his forefinger, and my men walked--crawled, I mean--to
one side.

"'Stand in the sun, children," he said, and they formed up on the hard
road.

"'What would you have done," he said to me, "if I had not been here?"

"'I should have killed that man," I answered.

"'Kill him now," he said.  "He will not move a limb."

"'No," I said.  "You've taken my men out of my command.  I should only
be your butcher if I killed him now." Do you see what I meant?'
Parnesius turned to Dan. 'Yes,'said Dan.  'It wouldn't have been fair,
somehow.'

'That was what I thought,' said Parnesius.  'But Maximus frowned.
"You'll never be an Emperor," he said.  "Not even a General will you
be."

'I was silent, but my Father seemed pleased. "'I came here to see the
last of you," he said.

"'You have seen it," said Maximus.  "I shall never need your son any
more.  He will live and he will die an officer of a Legion--and he
might have been Prefect of one of my Provinces.  Now eat and drink with
us," he said.  "Your men will wait till you have finished."

'My miserable thirty stood like wine-skins glistening in the hot sun,
and Maximus led us to where his people had set a meal.  Himself he
mixed the wine.

"'A year from now," he said, "you will remember that you have sat with
the Emperor of Britain--and Gaul."

"'Yes," said the Pater, "you can drive two mules--Gaul and Britain."

"'Five years hence you will remember that you have drunk"--he passed me
the cup and there was blue borage in it--"with the Emperor of Rome!"

"'No; you can't drive three mules.  They will tear YOU in pieces," said
my Father.

"'And you on the Wall, among the heather, will weep because your notion
of justice was more to you than the favour of the Emperor of Rome."

'I sat quite still.  One does not answer a General who wears the Purple.

"'I am not angry with you," he went on; "I owe too much to your
Father--"

"'You owe me nothing but advice that you never took," said the Pater.

"'--to be unjust to any of your family.  Indeed, I say you may make a
good Tribune, but, so far as I am concerned, on the Wall you will live,
and on the Wall you will die," said Maximus.

"'Very like," said my Father.  "But we shall have the Picts and their
friends breaking through before long. You cannot move all troops out of
Britain to make you Emperor, and expect the North to sit quiet." "'I
follow my destiny," said Maximus.

"'Follow it, then," said my Father, pulling up a fern root; "and die as
Theodosius died."

"'Ah!" said Maximus.  "My old General was killed because he served the
Empire too well.  I may be killed, but not for that reason," and he
smiled a little pale grey smile that made my blood run cold.

"'Then I had better follow my destiny," I said, "and take my men to the
Wall."

'He looked at me a long time, and bowed his head slanting like a
Spaniard.  "Follow it, boy," he said.  That was all.  I was only too
glad to get away, though I had many messages for home.  I found my men
standing as they had been put--they had not even shifted their feet in
the dust, and off I marched, still feeling that terrific smile like an
east wind up my back.  I never halted them till sunset, and'--he turned
about and looked at Pook's Hill below him--'then I halted yonder.'  He
pointed to the broken, bracken-covered shoulder of the Forge Hill
behind old Hobden's cottage.

'There?  Why, that's only the old Forge--where they made iron once,'
said Dan.

'Very good stuff it was too,' said Parnesius calmly.  'We mended three
shoulder-straps here and had a spear-head riveted.  The Forge was
rented from the Government by a one-eyed smith from Carthage.  I
remember we called him Cyclops.  He sold me a beaver-skin rug for my
sister's room.'

'But it couldn't have been here,' Dan insisted.

'But it was!  From the Altar of Victory at Anderida to the First Forge
in the Forest here is twelve miles seven hundred paces.  It is all in
the Road Book.  A man doesn't forget his first march.  I think I could
tell you every station between this and--!  He leaned forward, but his
eye was caught by the setting sun.

It had come down to the top of Cherry Clack Hill, and the light poured
in between the tree trunks so that you could see red and gold and black
deep into the heart of Far Wood; and Parnesius in his armour shone as
though he had been afire.

'Wait!' he said, lifting a hand, and the sunlight jinked on his glass
bracelet.  'Wait!  I pray to Mithras!'

He rose and stretched his arms westward, with deep, splendid-sounding
words. Then Puck began to sing too, in a voice like bells tolling, and
as he sang he slipped from Volaterrae to the ground, and beckoned the
children to follow.  They obeyed; it seemed as though the voices were
pushing them along; and through the goldy-brown light on the beech
leaves they walked, while Puck between them chanted something like this:

     'Cur mundus militat sub vana gloria
     Cujus prosperitas est transitoria?
     Tam cito labitur ejus potentia
     Quam vasa figuli quae sunt fragilia.'

They found themselves at the little locked gates of the wood.

     'Quo Caesar abiit celsus imperio?
     Vel Dives splendidus totus in prandio?
     Dic ubi Tullius--'

Still singing, he took Dan's hand and wheeled him round to face Una as
she came out of the gate.  It shut behind her, at the same time as Puck
threw the memory-magicking Oak, Ash and Thorn leaves over their heads.

'Well, you are jolly late,' said Una.  'Couldn't you get away before?'

'I did,' said Dan.  'I got away in lots of time, but--but I didn't know
it was so late.  Where've you been?'

'In Volaterrae--waiting for you.'

'Sorry,' said Dan.  'It was all that beastly Latin.'



A British-Roman Song

(A.D. 406)


  My father's father saw it not,
  And I, belike, shall never come
  To look on that so-holy spot--
  The very Rome--

  Crowned by all Time, all Art, all Might,
  The equal work of Gods and Man,
  City beneath whose oldest height--
  The Race began!

  Soon to send forth again a brood,
  Unshakeable, we pray, that clings
  To Rome's thrice-hammered hardihood--
  In arduous things.
  Strong heart with triple armour bound,
  Beat strongly, for Thy life-blood runs,
  Age after Age, the Empire round--
  In us Thy Sons,
  Who, distant from the Seven Hills,
  Loving and serving much, require
  Thee--Thee to guard 'gainst home-born ills
  The Imperial Fire!




ON THE GREAT WALL


  'When I left Rome for Lalage's sake
  By the Legions' Road to Rimini,
  She vowed her heart was mine to take
  With me and my shield to Rimini--
  (Till the Eagles flew from Rimini!)
  And I've tramped Britain, and I've tramped Gaul,
  And the Pontic shore where the snow-flakes fall
  As white as the neck of Lalage--
  (As cold as the heart of Lalage!)
  And I've lost Britain, and I've lost Gaul,'

  (the voice seemed very cheerful about it),

  'And I've lost Rome, and, worst of all,
  I've lost Lalage!'

They were standing by the gate to Far Wood when they heard this song.
Without a word they hurried to their private gap and wriggled through
the hedge almost atop of a jay that was feeding from Puck's hand.
'Gently!' said Puck.  'What are you looking for?'

'Parnesius, of course,' Dan answered.  'We've only just remembered
yesterday.  It isn't fair.'

Puck chuckled as he rose.  'I'm sorry, but children who spend the
afternoon with me and a Roman Centurion need a little settling dose of
Magic before they go to tea with their governess.  Ohe, Parnesius!' he
called.

'Here, Faun!' came the answer from Volaterrae.  They could see the
shimmer of bronze armour in the beech-crotch, and the friendly flash of
the great shield uplifted.

'I have driven out the Britons.'  Parnesius laughed like a boy.  'I
occupy their high forts.  But Rome is merciful!  You may come up.'And
up they three all scrambled.

'What was the song you were singing just now?' said Una, as soon as she
had settled herself.

'That?  Oh, Rimini.  It's one of the tunes that are always being born
somewhere in the Empire.  They run like a pestilence for six months or
a year, till another one pleases the Legions, and then they march to
that.'

'Tell them about the marching, Parnesius.  Few people nowadays walk
from end to end of this country,' said Puck.

'The greater their loss.  I know nothing better than the Long March
when your feet are hardened.  You begin after the mists have risen, and
you end, perhaps, an hour after sundown.'

'And what do you have to eat?' Dan asked promptly.

'Fat bacon, beans, and bread, and whatever wine happens to be in the
rest-houses.  But soldiers are born grumblers.  Their very first day
out, my men complained of our water-ground British corn.  They said it
wasn't so filling as the rough stuff that is ground in the Roman
ox-mills.  However, they had to fetch and eat it.'

'Fetch it?  Where from?' said Una.

'From that newly invented water-mill below the Forge.'

'That's Forge Mill--our Mill!'  Una looked at Puck.

'Yes; yours,' Puck put in.  'How old did you think it was?'

'I don't know.  Didn't Sir Richard Dalyngridge talk about it?'

'He did, and it was old in his day,' Puck answered. 'Hundreds of years
old.'

'It was new in mine,' said Parnesius.  'My men looked at the flour in
their helmets as though it had been a nest of adders.  They did it to
try my patience.  But I--addressed them, and we became friends.  To
tell the truth, they taught me the Roman Step.  You see, I'd only
served with quick-marching Auxiliaries.  A Legion's pace is altogether
different.  It is a long, slow stride, that never varies from sunrise
to sunset.  "Rome's Race--Rome's Pace," as the proverb says.
Twenty-four miles in eight hours, neither more nor less.  Head and
spear up, shield on your back, cuirass-collar open one
handsbreadth--and that's how you take the Eagles through Britain.'

'And did you meet any adventures?' said Dan.

'There are no adventures South the Wall,' said Parnesius.  'The worst
thing that happened me was having to appear before a magistrate up
North, where a wandering philosopher had jeered at the Eagles.  I was
able to show that the old man had deliberately blocked our road; and
the magistrate told him, out of his own Book, I believe, that, whatever
his Gods might be, he should pay proper respect to Caesar.'

'What did you do?' said Dan.

'Went on.  Why should I care for such things, my business being to
reach my station?  It took me twenty days.

'Of course, the farther North you go the emptier are the roads.  At
last you fetch clear of the forests and climb bare hills, where wolves
howl in the ruins of our cities that have been.  No more pretty girls;
no more jolly magistrates who knew your Father when he was young, and
invite you to stay with them; no news at the temples and way-stations
except bad news of wild beasts.  There's where you meet hunters, and
trappers for the Circuses, prodding along chained bears and muzzled
wolves.  Your pony shies at them, and your men laugh.

'The houses change from gardened villas to shut forts with watch-towers
of grey stone, and great stone-walled sheepfolds, guarded by armed
Britons of the North Shore.  In the naked hills beyond the naked
houses, where the shadows of the clouds play like cavalry charging, you
see puffs of black smoke from the mines.  The hard road goes on and
on--and the wind sings through your helmet-plume--past altars to
Legions and Generals forgotten, and broken statues of Gods and Heroes,
and thousands of graves where the mountain foxes and hares peep at you.
Red-hot in summer, freezing in winter, is that big, purple heather
country of broken stone.

'Just when you think you are at the world's end, you see a smoke from
East to West as far as the eye can turn, and then, under it, also as
far as the eye can stretch, houses and temples, shops and theatres,
barracks and granaries, trickling along like dice behind--always
behind--one long, low, rising and falling, and hiding and showing line
of towers.  And that is the Wall!'

'Ah!' said the children, taking breath.

'You may well,' said Parnesius.  'Old men who have followed the Eagles
since boyhood say nothing in the Empire is more wonderful than first
sight of the Wall!'

'Is it just a Wall?  Like the one round the kitchen-garden?' said Dan.
'No, no!  It is the Wall.  Along the top are towers with guard-houses,
small towers, between.  Even on the narrowest part of it three men with
shields can walk abreast, from guard-house to guard-house.  A little
curtain wall, no higher than a man's neck, runs along the top of the
thick wall, so that from a distance you see the helmets of the sentries
sliding back and forth like beads.  Thirty feet high is the Wall, and
on the Picts' side, the North, is a ditch, strewn with blades of old
swords and spear-heads set in wood, and tyres of wheels joined by
chains.  The Little People come there to steal iron for their
arrow-heads.

'But the Wall itself is not more wonderful than the town behind it.
Long ago there were great ramparts and ditches on the South side, and
no one was allowed to build there.  Now the ramparts are partly pulled
down and built over, from end to end of the Wall; making a thin town
eighty miles long.  Think of it!  One roaring, rioting, cock-fighting,
wolf-baiting, horse-racing town, from Ituna on the West to Segedunum on
the cold eastern beach!  On one side heather, woods and ruins where
Picts hide, and on the other, a vast town--long like a snake, and
wicked like a snake.  Yes, a snake basking beside a warm wall!

'My Cohort, I was told, lay at Hunno, where the Great North Road runs
through the Wall into the Province of Valentia.'Parnesius laughed
scornfully.  'The Province of Valentia!  We followed the road,
therefore, into Hunno town, and stood astonished.  The place was a
fair--a fair of peoples from every corner of the Empire.  Some were
racing horses:  some sat in wine-shops:  some watched dogs baiting
bears, and many gathered in a ditch to see cocks fight.  A boy not much
older than myself, but I could see he was an officer, reined up before
me and asked what I wanted.

"'My station," I said, and showed him my shield.' Parnesius held up his
broad shield with its three X's like letters on a beer-cask.

"'Lucky omen!" said he.  "Your Cohort's the next tower to us, but
they're all at the cock-fight.  This is a happy place.  Come and wet
the Eagles." He meant to offer me a drink.

"'When I've handed over my men," I said.  I felt angry and ashamed.

"'Oh, you'll soon outgrow that sort of nonsense," he answered.  "But
don't let me interfere with your hopes. Go on to the Statue of Roma
Dea.  You can't miss it.  The main road into Valentia!" and he laughed
and rode off.  I could see the statue not a quarter of a mile away, and
there I went.  At some time or other the Great North Road ran under it
into Valentia; but the far end had been blocked up because of the
Picts, and on the plaster a man had scratched, "Finish!" It was like
marching into a cave. We grounded spears together, my little thirty,
and it echoed in the barrel of the arch, but none came.  There was a
door at one side painted with our number.  We prowled in, and I found a
cook asleep, and ordered him to give us food.  Then I climbed to the
top of the Wall, and looked out over the Pict country, and I--thought,'
said Parnesius.  'The bricked-up arch with "Finish!" on the plaster was
what shook me, for I was not much more than a boy.'

'What a shame!'said Una.  'But did you feel happy after you'd had a
good--'Dan stopped her with a nudge.

'Happy?' said Parnesius.  'When the men of the Cohort I was to command
came back unhelmeted from the cock-fight, their birds under their arms,
and asked me who I was?  No, I was not happy; but I made my new Cohort
unhappy too...  I wrote my Mother I was happy, but, oh, my friends'--he
stretched arms over bare knees--'I would not wish my worst enemy to
suffer as I suffered through my first months on the Wall.  Remember
this: among the officers was scarcely one, except myself (and I thought
I had lost the favour of Maximus, my General), scarcely one who had not
done something of wrong or folly.  Either he had killed a man, or taken
money, or insulted the magistrates, or blasphemed the Gods, and so had
been sent to the Wall as a hiding-place from shame or fear.  And the
men were as the officers.  Remember, also, that the Wall was manned by
every breed and race in the Empire.  No two towers spoke the same
tongue, or worshipped the same Gods.  In one thing only we were all
equal.  No matter what arms we had used before we came to the Wall, on
the Wall we were all archers, like the Scythians.  The Pict cannot run
away from the arrow, or crawl under it.  He is a bowman himself.  He
knows!'

'I suppose you were fighting Picts all the time,' said Dan.

'Picts seldom fight.  I never saw a fighting Pict for half a year.  The
tame Picts told us they had all gone North.'

'What is a tame Pict?' said Dan.

'A Pict--there were many such--who speaks a few words of our tongue,
and slips across the Wall to sell ponies and wolf-hounds.  Without a
horse and a dog, and a friend, man would perish.  The Gods gave me all
three, and there is no gift like friendship.  Remember this'--Parnesius
turned to Dan--'when you become a young man.  For your fate will turn
on the first true friend you make.'

'He means,' said Puck, grinning, 'that if you try to make yourself a
decent chap when you're young, you'll make rather decent friends when
you grow up.  If you're a beast, you'll have beastly friends.  Listen
to the Pious Parnesius on Friendship!'

'I am not pious,'Parnesius answered, 'but I know what goodness means;
and my friend, though he was without hope, was ten thousand times
better than I.  Stop laughing, Faun!'

'Oh, Youth Eternal and All-believing,' cried Puck, as he rocked on the
branch above.  'Tell them about your Pertinax.'

'He was that friend the Gods sent me--the boy who spoke to me when I
first came.  Little older than myself, commanding the Augusta Victoria
Cohort on the tower next to us and the Numidians.  In virtue he was far
my superior.'

'Then why was he on the Wall?' Una asked, quickly. 'They'd all done
something bad.  You said so yourself.'

'He was the nephew, his father had died, of a great rich man in Gaul
who was not always kind to his mother. When Pertinax grew up, he
discovered this, and so his uncle shipped him off, by trickery and
force, to the Wall. We came to know each other at a ceremony in our
Temple in the dark.  It was the Bull-Killing,'Parnesius explained to
Puck.

'I see, said Puck, and turned to the children.  'That's something you
wouldn't quite understand.  Parnesius means he met Pertinax in church.'

'Yes--in the Cave we first met, and we were both raised to the Degree
of Gryphons together.'  Parnesius lifted his hand towards his neck for
an instant.  'He had been on the Wall two years, and knew the Picts
well.  He taught me first how to take Heather.'

'What's that?' said Dan.

'Going out hunting in the Pict country with a tame Pict. You are quite
safe so long as you are his guest, and wear a sprig of heather where it
can be seen.  If you went alone you would surely be killed, if you were
not smothered first in the bogs.  Only the Picts know their way about
those black and hidden bogs.  Old Allo, the one-eyed, withered little
Pict from whom we bought our ponies, was our special friend.  At first
we went only to escape from the terrible town, and to talk together
about our homes.  Then he showed us how to hunt wolves and those great
red deer with horns like Jewish candlesticks. The Roman-born officers
rather looked down on us for doing this, but we preferred the heather
to their amusements. Believe me,' Parnesius turned again to Dan, 'a boy
is safe from all things that really harm when he is astride a pony or
after a deer.  Do you remember, O Faun,'--he turned to Puck--'the
little altar I built to the Sylvan Pan by the pine-forest beyond the
brook?'

'Which?  The stone one with the line from Xenophon?' said Puck, in
quite a new voice.

'No!  What do I know of Xenophon?  That was Pertinax--after he had shot
his first mountain-hare with an arrow--by chance!  Mine I made of round
pebbles, in memory of my first bear.  It took me one happy day to
build.' Parnesius faced the children quickly.

'And that was how we lived on the Wall for two years--a little
scuffling with the Picts, and a great deal of hunting with old Allo in
the Pict country.  He called us his children sometimes, and we were
fond of him and his barbarians, though we never let them paint us
Pict-fashion.  The marks endure till you die.'

'How's it done?' said Dan.  'Anything like tattooing?'

'They prick the skin till the blood runs, and rub in coloured juices.
Allo was painted blue, green, and red from his forehead to his ankles.
He said it was part of his religion.  He told us about his religion
(Pertinax was always interested in such things), and as we came to know
him well, he told us what was happening in Britain behind the Wall.
Many things took place behind us in those days.  And by the Light of
the Sun,' said Parnesius, earnestly, 'there was not much that those
little people did not know!  He told me when Maximus crossed over to
Gaul, after he had made himself Emperor of Britain, and what troops and
emigrants he had taken with him.  We did not get the news on the Wall
till fifteen days later.  He told me what troops Maximus was taking out
of Britain every month to help him to conquer Gaul; and I always found
the numbers were as he said.  Wonderful!  And I tell another strange
thing!'

He joined his hands across his knees, and leaned his head on the curve
of the shield behind him.

'Late in the summer, when the first frosts begin and the Picts kill
their bees, we three rode out after wolf with some new hounds.
Rutilianus, our General, had given us ten days' leave, and we had
pushed beyond the Second Wall--beyond the Province of Valentia--into
the higher hills, where there are not even any of old Rome's ruins. We
killed a she-wolf before noon, and while Allo was skinning her he
looked up and said to me, "When you are Captain of the Wall, my child,
you won't be able to do this any more!"

'I might as well have been made Prefect of Lower Gaul, so I laughed and
said, "Wait till I am Captain."

"'No, don't wait," said Allo.  "Take my advice and go home--both of
you."

"'We have no homes," said Pertinax.  "You know that as well as we do.
We're finished men--thumbs down against both of us.  Only men without
hope would risk their necks on your ponies."

The old man laughed one of those short Pict laughs--like a fox barking
on a frosty night.  "I'm fond of you two," he said. "Besides, I've
taught you what little you know about hunting.  Take my advice and go
home."

"'We can't," I said.  "I'm out of favour with my General, for one
thing; and for another, Pertinax has an uncle."

"'I don't know about his uncle," said Allo, "but the trouble with you,
Parnesius, is that your General thinks well of you."

"'Roma Dea!" said Pertinax, sitting up.  "What can you guess what
Maximus thinks, you old horse-coper?"

'Just then (you know how near the brutes creep when one is eating?) a
great dog-wolf jumped out behind us, and away our rested hounds tore
after him, with us at their tails.  He ran us far out of any country
we'd ever heard of, straight as an arrow till sunset, towards the
sunset.  We came at last to long capes stretching into winding waters,
and on a grey beach below us we saw ships drawn up.  Forty-seven we
counted--not Roman galleys but the raven-winged ships from the North
where Rome does not rule.  Men moved in the ships, and the sun flashed
on their helmets--winged helmets of the red-haired men from the North
where Rome does not rule.  We watched, and we counted, and we wondered,
for though we had heard rumours concerning these Winged Hats, as the
Picts called them, never before had we looked upon them.

"'Come away!  come away!" said Allo.  "My Heather won't protect you
here.  We shall all be killed!" His legs trembled like his voice.  Back
we went--back across the heather under the moon, till it was nearly
morning, and our poor beasts stumbled on some ruins.

'When we woke, very stiff and cold, Allo was mixing the meal and water.
One does not light fires in the Pict country except near a village.
The little men are always signalling to each other with smokes, and a
strange smoke brings them out buzzing like bees.  They can sting, too!

"'What we saw last night was a trading-station," said Allo.  "Nothing
but a trading-station."

"'I do not like lies on an empty stomach," said Pertinax.  "I suppose"
(he had eyes like an eagle's)--"I suppose that is a trading-station
also?"  He pointed to a smoke far off on a hill-top, ascending in what
we call the Picts' Call:---Puff--double-puff:  double-puff--puff!  They
make it by raising and dropping a wet hide on a fire.

"'No," said Allo, pushing the platter back into the bag. "That is for
you and me.  Your fate is fixed.  Come."

'We came.  When one takes Heather, one must obey one's Pict--but that
wretched smoke was twenty miles distant, well over on the East coast,
and the day was as hot as a bath.

"'Whatever happens," said Allo, while our ponies grunted along, "I want
you to remember me." "'I shall not forget," said Pertinax.  "You have
cheated me out of my breakfast."

"What is a handful of crushed oats to a Roman?" he said.  Then he
laughed his laugh that was not a laugh.

"What would you do if you were a handful of oats being crushed between
the upper and lower stones of a mill?"

"'I'm Pertinax, not a riddle-guesser," said Pertinax.

"'You're a fool," said Allo.  "Your Gods and my Gods are threatened by
strange Gods, and all you can do is to laugh."

"'Threatened men live long," I said.

"'I pray the Gods that may be true," he said.  "But I ask you again not
to forget me."

'We climbed the last hot hill and looked out on the eastern sea, three
or four miles off.  There was a small sailing-galley of the North Gaul
pattern at anchor, her landing-plank down and her sail half up; and
below us, alone in a hollow, holding his pony, sat Maximus, Emperor of
Britain!  He was dressed like a hunter, and he leaned on his little
stick; but I knew that back as far as I could see it, and I told
Pertinax.

"'You're madder than Allo!" he said.  "It must be the sun!"

'Maximus never stirred till we stood before him.  Then he looked me up
and down, and said:  "Hungry again?  It seems to be my destiny to feed
you whenever we meet.  I have food here.  Allo shall cook it."

"'No," said Allo.  "A Prince in his own land does not wait on wandering
Emperors.  I feed my two children without asking your leave." He began
to blow up the ashes.

"'I was wrong," said Pertinax.  "We are all mad.  Speak up, O Madman
called Emperor!"

'Maximus smiled his terrible tight-lipped smile, but two years on the
Wall do not make a man afraid of mere looks.  So I was not afraid.

"'I meant you, Parnesius, to live and die a Centurion of the Wall,"
said Maximus.  "But it seems from these,"--he fumbled in his
breast--"you can think as well as draw." He pulled out a roll of
letters I had written to my people, full of drawings of Picts, and
bears, and men I had met on the Wall.  Mother and my sister always
liked my pictures.

'He handed me one that I had called "Maximus's Soldiers".  It showed a
row of fat wine-skins, and our old Doctor of the Hunno hospital
snuffing at them.  Each time that Maximus had taken troops out of
Britain to help him to conquer Gaul, he used to send the garrisons more
wine--to keep them quiet, I suppose.  On the Wall, we always called a
wine-skin a "Maximus".  Oh, yes; and I had drawn them in Imperial
helmets.

"'Not long since," he went on, "men's names were sent up to Caesar for
smaller jokes than this."

"'True, Caesar," said Pertinax; "but you forget that was before I, your
friend's friend, became such a good spear-thrower."

'He did not actually point his hunting-spear at Maximus, but balanced
it on his palm--so!

"'I was speaking of time past," said Maximus, never fluttering an
eyelid.  "Nowadays one is only too pleased to find boys who can think
for themselves, and their friends." He nodded at Pertinax.  "Your
Father lent me the letters, Parnesius, so you run no risk from me."

"'None whatever," said Pertinax, and rubbed the spear-point on his
sleeve.

"'I have been forced to reduce the garrisons in Britain, because I need
troops in Gaul.  Now I come to take troops from the Wall itself," said
he.

"'I wish you joy of us," said Pertinax.  "We're the last sweepings of
the Empire--the men without hope. Myself, I'd sooner trust condemned
criminals."

"'You think so?" he said, quite seriously.  "But it will only be till I
win Gaul.  One must always risk one's life, or one's soul, or one's
peace--or some little thing."

'Allo passed round the fire with the sizzling deer's meat.  He served
us two first.

"'Ah!" said Maximus, waiting his turn.  "I perceive you are in your own
country.  Well, you deserve it.  They tell me you have quite a
following among the Picts, Parnesius."

"'I have hunted with them," I said.  "Maybe I have a few friends among
the heather."

"'He is the only armoured man of you all who understands us," said
Allo, and he began a long speech about our virtues, and how we had
saved one of his grandchildren from a wolf the year before.'

'Had you?' said Una.

'Yes; but that was neither here nor there.  The little green man orated
like a--like Cicero.  He made us out to be magnificent fellows.
Maximus never took his eyes off our faces.

"'Enough," he said.  "I have heard Allo on you.  I wish to hear you on
the Picts."

'I told him as much as I knew, and Pertinax helped me out.  There is
never harm in a Pict if you but take the trouble to find out what he
wants.  Their real grievance against us came from our burning their
heather.  The whole garrison of the Wall moved out twice a year, and
solemnly burned the heather for ten miles North. Rutilianus, our
General, called it clearing the country. The Picts, of course,
scampered away, and all we did was to destroy their bee-bloom in the
summer, and ruin their sheep-food in the spring.

"'True, quite true," said Allo.  "How can we make our holy
heather-wine, if you burn our bee-pasture?"

'We talked long, Maximus asking keen questions that showed he knew much
and had thought more about the Picts.  He said presently to me:  "If I
gave you the old Province of Valentia to govern, could you keep the
Picts contented till I won Gaul?  Stand away, so that you do not see
Allo's face; and speak your own thoughts."

"'No," I said.  "You cannot remake that Province.  The Picts have been
free too long."

"'Leave them their village councils, and let them furnish their own
soldiers," he said.  "You, I am sure, would hold the reins very
lightly."

"Even then, no," I said.  "At least not now.  They have been too
oppressed by us to trust anything with a Roman name for years and
years."

'I heard old Allo behind me mutter:  "Good child!"

"'Then what do you recommend," said Maximus, "to keep the North quiet
till I win Gaul?"

"'Leave the Picts alone," I said.  "Stop the heather-burning at once,
and--they are improvident little animals--send them a shipload or two
of corn now and then."

"'Their own men must distribute it--not some cheating Greek
accountant," said Pertinax.

"'Yes, and allow them to come to our hospitals when they are sick," I
said.

"'Surely they would die first," said Maximus.

"'Not if Parnesius brought them in," said Allo.  "I could show you
twenty wolf-bitten, bear-clawed Picts within twenty miles of here.  But
Parnesius must stay with them in hospital, else they would go mad with
fear."

"'I see," said Maximus.  "Like everything else in the world, it is one
man's work.  You, I think, are that one man."

"'Pertinax and I are one," I said.

"'As you please, so long as you work.  Now, Allo, you know that I mean
your people no harm.  Leave us to talk together," said Maximus.

"'No need!" said Allo.  "I am the corn between the upper and lower
millstones.  I must know what the lower millstone means to do.  These
boys have spoken the truth as far as they know it.  I, a Prince, will
tell you the rest.  I am troubled about the Men of the North." He
squatted like a hare in the heather, and looked over his shoulder.

"'I also," said Maximus, "or I should not be here."

"'Listen," said Allo.  "Long and long ago the Winged Hats"--he meant
the Northmen--"came to our beaches and said, 'Rome falls!  Push her
down!'  We fought you. You sent men.  We were beaten.  After that we
said to the Winged Hats, 'You are liars!  Make our men alive that Rome
killed, and we will believe you.'  They went away ashamed.  Now they
come back bold, and they tell the old tale, which we begin to
believe--that Rome falls!"

"'Give me three years' peace on the Wall," cried Maximus, "and I will
show you and all the ravens how they lie!"

"'Ah, I wish it too!  I wish to save what is left of the corn from the
millstones.  But you shoot us Picts when we come to borrow a little
iron from the Iron Ditch; you burn our heather, which is all our crop;
you trouble us with your great catapults.  Then you hide behind the
Wall, and scorch us with Greek fire.  How can I keep my young men from
listening to the Winged Hats--in winter especially, when we are hungry?
My young men will say, 'Rome can neither fight nor rule.  She is taking
her men out of Britain.  The Winged Hats will help us to push down the
Wall.  Let us show them the secret roads across the bogs.' Do I want
that?  No!" He spat like an adder.  "I would keep the secrets of my
people though I were burned alive.  My two children here have spoken
truth.  Leave us Picts alone.  Comfort us, and cherish us, and feed us
from far off--with the hand behind the back.  Parnesius understands us.
Let him have rule on the Wall, and I will hold my young men quiet
for"--he ticked it off on his fingers--"one year easily:  the next year
not so easily:  the third year, perhaps!  See, I give you three years.
If then you do not show us that Rome is strong in men and terrible in
arms, the Winged Hats, I tell you, will sweep down the Wall from either
sea till they meet in the middle, and you will go.  I shall not grieve
over that, but well I know tribe never helps tribe except for one
price.  We Picts will go too.  The Winged Hats will grind us to this!"
He tossed a handful of dust in the air.

"'Oh, Roma Dea!" said Maximus, half aloud.  "It is always one man's
work--always and everywhere!"

"And one man's life," said Allo.  "You are Emperor, but not a God.  You
may die."

"'I have thought of that too," said he.  "Very good.  If this wind
holds, I shall be at the East end of the Wall by morning.  Tomorrow,
then, I shall see you two when I inspect, and I will make you Captains
of the Wall 

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