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Puck of Pook's Hill
‘“By the Light of the Sun,” Amal broke in. “This was in some sort a Man! We may have been mistaken in his servants!”
‘And Pertinax read on: “You gave me the time for which I asked. If I have failed to use it, do not lament. We have gambled very splendidly against the Gods, but they hold weighted dice, and I must pay the forfeit. Remember, I have been; but Rome is; and Rome will be! Tell Pertinax his Mother is in safety at Nicæa, and her monies are in charge of the Prefect at Antipolis. Make my remembrances to your Father and to your Mother, whose friendship was great gain to me. Give also to my little Picts and to the Winged Hats such messages as their thick heads can understand. I would have sent you three Legions this very day if all had gone aright. Do not forget me. We have worked together. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!”
‘Now, that was my Emperor’s last letter.’ (The children heard the parchment crackle as Parnesius returned it to its place.)
‘“I was mistaken,” said Amal. “The servants of such a man will sell nothing except over the sword. I am glad of it.” He held out his hand to me.
‘“But Maximus has given you your dismissal,” said an elder. “You are certainly free to serve – or to rule – whom you please. Join – do not follow – join us!”
‘“We thank you,” said Pertinax. “But Maximus tells us to give you such messages as – pardon me, but I use his words – your thick heads can understand.” He pointed through the door to the foot of a catapult wound up.
‘“We understand,” said an elder. “The Wall must be won at a price?”
‘“It grieves me,” said Pertinax, laughing, “but so it must be won,” and he gave them of our best Southern wine.
‘They drank, and wiped their yellow beards in silence till they rose to go.
‘Said Amal, stretching himself (for they were barbarians), “We be a goodly company; I wonder what the ravens and the dogfish will make of some of us before this snow melts.”
‘“Think rather what Theodosius may send,” I answered; and though they laughed, I saw that my chance shot troubled them.
‘Only old Allo lingered behind a little.
‘“You see,” he said, winking and blinking, “I am no more than their dog. When I have shown their men the secret short ways across our bogs, they will kick me like one.”
‘“Then I should not be in haste to show them those ways,” said Pertinax, “till I were sure that Rome could not save the Wall.”
‘“You think so? Woe is me!” said the old man. “I only wanted peace for my people,” and he went out stumbling through the snow behind the tall Winged Hats.
‘In this fashion then, slowly, a day at a time, which is very bad for doubting troops, the War came upon us. At first the Winged Hats swept in from the sea as they had done before, and there we met them as before – with the catapults; and they sickened of it. Yet for a long time they would not trust their duck-legs on land, and I think when it came to revealing the secrets of the tribe, the little Picts were afraid or ashamed to show them all the roads across the heather. I had this from a Pict prisoner. They were as much our spies as our enemies, for the Winged Hats oppressed them, and took their winter stores. Ah, foolish Little People!
‘Then the Winged Hats began to roll us up from each end of the Wall. I sent runners Southward to see what the news might be in Britain; but the wolves were very bold that winter among the deserted stations where the troops had once been, and none came back. We had trouble too with the forage for the ponies along the Wall. I kept ten, and so did Pertinax. We lived and slept in the saddle riding east or west, and we ate our worn-out ponies. The people of the town also made us some trouble till I gathered them all in one quarter behind Hunno. We broke down the Wall on either side of it to make as it were a citadel. Our men fought better in close order.
‘By the end of the second month we were deep in the War as a man is deep in a snow-drift or in a dream. I think we fought in our sleep. At least I know I have gone on the Wall and come off again, remembering nothing between, though my throat was harsh with giving orders, and my sword, I could see, had been used.
‘The Winged Hats fought like wolves – all in a pack. Where they had suffered most, there they charged in most hotly. This was hard for the defender, but it held them from sweeping on into Britain.
‘In those days Pertinax and I wrote on the plaster of the bricked archway into Valentia the names of the towers, and the days on which they fell one by one. We wished for some record.
‘And the fighting? The fight was always hottest to left and right of the great Statue of Roma Dea, near to Rutilianus’ house. By the light of the Sun, that old fat man, whom we had not considered at all, grew young again among the trumpets! I remember he said his sword was an oracle! “Let us consult the Oracle,” he would say, and put the handle against his ear, and shake his head wisely. “And this day is allowed Rutilianus to live,” he would say, and, tucking up his cloak, he would puff and pant and fight well. Oh, there were jests in plenty on the Wall to take the place of food!
‘We endured for two months and seventeen days – always being pressed from three sides into a smaller space. Several times Allo sent in word that help was at hand. We did not believe it, but it cheered our men.
‘The end came not with shoutings of joy, but, like the rest, as in a dream. The Winged Hats suddenly left us in peace for one night, and the next day; which is too long for spent men. We slept at first lightly, expecting to be roused, and then like logs, each where he lay. May you never need such sleep! When I waked our towers were full of strange, armed men, who watched us snoring. I roused Pertinax, and we leaped up together.
‘“What?” said a young man in clean armour. “Do you fight against Theodosius? Look!”
‘North we looked over the red snow. No Winged Hats were there. South we looked over the white snow, and behold there were the Eagles of two strong Legions encamped. East and west we saw flame and fighting, but by Hunno all was still.
‘“Trouble no more,” said the young man. “Rome’s arm is long. Where are the Captains of the Wall?”
‘We said we were those men.
‘“But you are old and grey-haired,” he cried. “Maximus said that they were boys.”
‘“Yes that was true some years ago,” said Pertinax. “What is our fate to be, you fine and well-fed child?”
‘“I am called Ambrosius, a secretary of the Emperor,” he answered. “Show me a certain letter which Maximus wrote from a tent at Aquileia, and perhaps I will believe.”
‘I took it from my breast, and when he had read it he saluted us, saying: “Your fate is in your own hands. If you choose to serve Theodosius, he will give you a Legion. If it suits you to go to your homes, we will give you a Triumph.”
‘“I would like better a bath, wine, food, razors, soaps, oils, and scents,” said Pertinax, laughing.
‘“Oh, I see you are a boy,” said Ambrosius. “And you?” turning to me.
‘“We bear no ill-will against Theodosius, but in War – ” I began.
‘“In War it is as it is in Love,” said Pertinax. “Whether she be good or bad, one gives one’s best once, to one only. That given, there remains no second worth giving or taking.”
‘“That is true,” said Ambrosius. “I was with Maximus before he died. He warned Theodosius that you would never serve him, and frankly I say I am sorry for my Emperor.”
‘“He has Rome to console him,” said Pertinax. “I ask you of your kindness to let us go to our homes and get this smell out of our nostrils.”
‘None the less they gave us a Triumph!’
‘It was well earned,’ said Puck, throwing some leaves into the still water of the marlpit. The black, oily circles spread dizzily as the children watched them.
‘I want to know, oh, ever so many things,’ said Dan, ‘What happened to old Allo? Did the Winged Hats ever come back? And what did Amal do?’
‘And what happened to the fat old General with the five cooks?’ said Una. ‘And what did your Mother say when you came home?’…
‘She’d say you’re settin’ too long over this old pit, so late as ’tis already,’ said old Hobden’s voice behind them. ‘Hst!’ he whispered.
He stood still, for not twenty paces away a magnificent dog-fox sat on his haunches and looked at the children as though he were an old friend of theirs.
‘Oh, Mus’ Reynolds, Mus’ Reynolds!’ said Hobden, under his breath. ‘If I knowed all was inside your head, I’d know something wuth knowin’. Mus’ Dan an’ Miss Una, come along o’ me while I lock up my liddle hen-house.’
A PICT SONG
Rome never looks where she treads,Always her heavy hooves fall,On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;And Rome never heeds when we bawl.Her sentries pass on – that is all,And we gather behind them in hordes,And plot to reconquer the Wall,With only our tongues for our swords.We are the Little Folk – we!Too little to love or to hate.Leave us alone and you’ll seeHow we can drag down the Great!We are the worm in the wood!We are the rot at the root!We are the germ in the blood!We are the thorn in the foot!Mistletoe killing an oak —Rats gnawing cables in two —Moths making holes in a cloak —How they must love what they do!Yes, – and we Little Folk too,We are as busy as they —Working our works out of view —Watch, and you’ll see it some day!No indeed! We are not strong,But we know Peoples that are.Yes, and we’ll guide them along,To smash and destroy you in War!We shall be slaves just the same?Yes, we have always been slaves;But you – you will die of the shame,And then we shall dance on your graves!We are the Little Folk, we! etc.HAL O’ THE DRAFT
HAL O’ THE DRAFT
A rainy afternoon drove Dan and Una over to play pirates in the Little Mill. If you don’t mind rats on the rafters and oats in your shoes, the mill-attic, with its trap-doors and inscriptions on beams about floods and sweethearts, is a splendid place. It is lighted by a foot-square window, called Duck Window, that looks across to Little Lindens Farm, and the spot where Jack Cade was killed.
When they had climbed the attic ladder (they called it the ‘mainmast tree’ out of the ballad of Sir Andrew Barton, and Dan ‘swarved it with might and main,’ as the ballad says) they saw a man sitting on Duck window-sill. He was dressed in a plum-coloured doublet and tight plum-coloured hose, and he drew busily in a red-edged book.
‘Sit ye! Sit ye!’ Puck cried from a rafter overhead. ‘See what it is to be beautiful! Sir Harry Dawe – pardon, Hal – says I am the very image of a head for a gargoyle.’
The man laughed and raised his dark velvet cap to the children, and his grizzled hair bristled out in a stormy fringe. He was old – forty at least – but his eyes were young, with funny little wrinkles all round them. A satchel of embroidered leather hung from his broad belt, which looked interesting.
‘May we see?’ said Una, coming forward.
‘Surely – sure-ly!’ he said, moving up on the window-seat, and returned to his work with a silver-pointed pencil. Puck sat as though the grin were fixed for ever on his broad face, while they watched the quick, certain fingers that copied it. Presently the man took a reed pen from his satchel, and trimmed it with a little ivory knife, carved in the semblance of a fish.
‘Oh, what a beauty!’ cried Dan.
‘’Ware fingers! That blade is perilous sharp. I made it myself of the best Low Country cross-bow steel. And so, too, this fish. When his back-fin travels to his tail – so – he swallows up the blade, even as the whale swallowed Gaffer Jonah… Yes, and that’s my ink-horn. I made the four silver saints round it. Press Barnabas’s head. It opens, and then – ’ He dipped the trimmed pen, and with careful boldness began to put in the essential lines of Puck’s rugged face, that had been but faintly revealed by the silver-point.
The children gasped, for it fairly leaped from the page.
As he worked, and the rain fell on the tiles, he talked – now clearly, now muttering, now breaking off to frown or smile at his work. He told them he was born at Little Lindens Farms, and his father used to beat him for drawing things instead of doing things, till an old priest called Father Roger, who drew illuminated letters in rich people’s books, coaxed the parents to let him take the boy as a sort of painter’s apprentice. Then he went with Father Roger to Oxford, where he cleaned plates and carried cloaks and shoes for the scholars of a College called Merton.
‘Didn’t you hate that?’ said Dan after a great many other questions.
‘I never thought on’t. Half Oxford was building new colleges or beautifying the old, and she had called to her aid the master-craftsmen of all Christendie – kings in their trade and honoured of Kings. I knew them. I worked for them: that was enough. No wonder – ’ He stopped and laughed.
‘You became a great man,’ said Puck.
‘They said so, Robin. Even Bramante said so.’
‘Why? What did you do?’ Dan asked.
The artist looked at him queerly. ‘Things in stone and such, up and down England. You would not have heard of ’em. To come nearer home, I re-builded this little St. Bartholomew’s church of ours. It cost me more trouble and sorrow than aught I’ve touched in my life. But ’twas a sound lesson.’
‘Um,’ said Dan. ‘We had lessons this morning.’
‘I’ll not afflict ye, lad,’ said Hal, while Puck roared. ‘Only ’tis strange to think how that little church was re-built, re-roofed, and made glorious, thanks to some few godly Sussex iron-masters, a Bristol sailor lad, a proud ass called Hal o’ the Draft because, d’you see, he was always drawing and drafting; and’ – he dragged the words slowly – ‘and a Scotch pirate.’
‘Pirate?’ said Dan. He wriggled like a hooked fish.
‘Even that Andrew Barton you were singing of on the stair just now.’ He dipped again in the ink-well, and held his breath over a sweeping line, as though he had forgotten everything else.
‘Pirates don’t build churches, do they?’ said Dan. ‘Or do they?’
‘They help mightily,’ Hal laughed. ‘But you were at your lessons this morn, Jack Scholar?’
‘Oh, pirates aren’t lessons. It was only Bruce and his silly old spider,’ said Una. ‘Why did Sir Andrew Barton help you?’
‘I question if he ever knew it,’ said Hal, twinkling. ‘Robin, how a-mischief’s name am I to tell these innocents what comes of sinful pride?’
‘Oh, we know all about that,’ said Una pertly. ‘If you get too beany – that’s cheeky – you get sat upon, of course.’
Hal considered a moment, pen in air, and Puck said some long words.
‘Aha! That was my case too,’ he cried. ‘Beany – you say – but certainly I did not conduct myself well. I was proud of – of such things as porches – a Galilee porch at Lincoln for choice – proud of one Torrigiano’s arm on my shoulder, proud of my knighthood when I made the gilt scroll-work for The Sovereign– our King’s ship. But Father Roger sitting in Merton Library, he did not forget me. At the top of my pride, when I and no other should have builded the porch at Lincoln, he laid it on me with a terrible forefinger to go back to my Sussex clays and re-build, at my own charges, my own church, where we Dawes have been buried for six generations. “Out! Son of my Art!” said he. “Fight the Devil at home ere you call yourself a man and a craftsman.” And I quaked, and I went… How’s yon, Robin?’ He flourished the finished sketch before Puck.
‘Me! Me past peradventure,’ said Puck, smirking like a man at a mirror. ‘Ah, see! The rain has took off! I hate housen in daylight.’
‘Whoop! Holiday!’ cried Hal, leaping up. ‘Who’s for my Little Lindens? We can talk there.’
They tumbled downstairs, and turned past the dripping willows by the sunny mill dam.
‘Body o’ me,’ said Hal, staring at the hop-garden, where the hops were just ready to blossom. ‘What are these vines? No, not vines, and they twine the wrong way to beans.’ He began to draw in his ready book.
‘Hops. New since your day,’ said Puck. ‘They’re an herb of Mars, and their flowers dried flavour ale. We say: —
‘“Turkeys, Heresy, Hops, and BeerCame into England all in one year.”’‘Heresy I know. I’ve seen Hops – God be praised for their beauty! What is your Turkis?’
The children laughed. They knew the Lindens turkeys, and as soon as they reached Lindens’ orchard on the hill the flock charged at them.
Out came Hal’s book at once. ‘Hoity-toity!’ he cried. ‘Here’s Pride in purple feathers! Here’s wrathy contempt and the Pomps of the Flesh! How d’you call them?’
‘Turkeys! Turkeys!’ the children shouted, as the old gobbler raved and flamed against Hal’s plum-coloured hose.
‘Save Your Magnificence!’ he said. ‘I’ve drafted two good new things to-day.’ And he doffed his cap to the bubbling bird.
Then they walked through the grass to the knoll where Little Lindens stands. The old farm-house, weather-tiled to the ground, took almost the colour of a blood-ruby in the afternoon light. The pigeons pecked at the mortar in the chimney-stacks; the bees that had lived under the tiles since it was built filled the hot August air with their booming; and the smell of the box-tree by the dairy-window mixed with the smell of earth after rain, bread after baking, and a tickle of wood-smoke.
The farmer’s wife came to the door, baby on arm, shaded her brows against the sun, stooped to pluck a sprig of rosemary, and turned down the orchard. The old spaniel in his barrel barked once or twice to show he was in charge of the empty house. Puck clicked back the garden-gate.
‘D’you marvel that I love it?’ said Hal, in a whisper. ‘What can town folk know of the nature of housen – or land?’
They perched themselves arow on the old hacked oak bench in Lindens’ garden, looking across the valley of the brook at the fern-covered dimples and hollows of the Forge behind Hobden’s cottage. The old man was cutting a faggot in his garden by the hives. It was quite a second after his chopper fell that the chump of the blow reached their lazy ears.
‘Eh – yeh!’ said Hal. ‘I mind when where that old gaffer stands was Nether Forge – Master John Collins’s foundry. Many a night has his big trip-hammer shook me in my bed here. Boom-bitty! Boom-bitty! If the wind was east, I could hear Master Tom Collins’s forge at Stockens answering his brother, Boom-oop! Boom-oop! and midway between, Sir John Pelham’s sledge-hammers at Brightling would strike in like a pack o’scholars, and “Hic-haec-hoc” they’d say, “Hic-haec-hoc,” till I fell asleep. Yes. The valley was as full o’ forges and fineries as a May shaw o’ cuckoos. All gone to grass now!’
‘What did they make?’ said Dan.
‘Guns for the King’s ships – and for others. Serpentines and cannon mostly. When the guns were cast, down would come the King’s Officers, and take our plough-oxen to haul them to the coast. Look! Here’s one of the first and finest craftsmen of the Sea!’
He fluttered back a page of his book, and showed them a young man’s head. Underneath was written: ‘Sebastianus.’
‘He came down with a King’s Order on Master John Collins for twenty serpentines (wicked little cannon they be!) to furnish a venture of ships. I drafted him thus sitting by our fire telling Mother of the new lands he’d find the far side the world. And he found them, too! There’s a nose to cleave through unknown seas! Cabot was his name – a Bristol lad – half a foreigner. I set a heap by him. He helped me to my church-building.’
‘I thought that was Sir Andrew Barton,’ said Dan.
‘Ay, but foundations before roofs,’ Hal answered. ‘Sebastian first put me in the way of it. I had come down here, not to serve God as a craftsman should, but to show my people how great a craftsman I was. They cared not, and it served me right, one split straw for my craft or my greatness. What a murrain call had I, they said, to mell with old St. Barnabas’s? Ruinous the church had been since the Black Death, and ruinous she should remain; and I could hang myself in my new scaffold-ropes! Gentle and simple, high and low – the Hayes, the Fowles, the Fanners, the Collinses – they were all in a tale against me. Only Sir John Pelham up yonder to Brightling bade me heart-up and go on. Yet how could I? Did I ask Master Collins for his timber-tug to haul beams? The oxen had gone to Lewes after lime. Did he promise me a set of iron cramps or ties for the roof? They never came to hand, or else they were spaulty or cracked. So with everything. Nothing said, but naught done except I stood by them, and then done amiss. I thought the countryside was fair bewitched.’
‘It was, sure-ly,’ said Puck, knees under chin. ‘Did you never suspect any one?’
‘Not till Sebastian came for his guns, and John Collins played him the same dog’s tricks as he’d played me with my ironwork. Week in, week out, two of three serpentines would be flawed in the casting, and only fit, they said, to be remelted. Then John Collins would shake his head, and vow he could pass no cannon for the King’s service that were not perfect. Saints! How Sebastian stormed! I know, for we sat on this bench sharing our sorrows inter-common.
‘When Sebastian had fumed away six weeks at Lindens and gotten just six serpentines, Dirk Brenzett, Master of the Cygnet hoy, sends me word that the block of stone he was fetching me from France for our new font he’d hove overboard to lighten his ship, chased by Andrew Barton up to Rye Port.’
‘Ah! The pirate!’ said Dan.
‘Yes. And while I am tearing my hair over this, Ticehurst Will, my best mason, comes to me shaking, and vowing that the Devil, horned, tailed, and chained, has run out on him from the church-tower, and the men would work there no more. So I took ’em off the foundations, which we were strengthening, and went into the Bell Tavern for a cup of ale. Says Master John Collins: “Have it your own way, lad; but if I was you, I’d take the sinnification o’ the sign, and leave old Barnabas’s Church alone!” And they all wagged their sinful heads, and agreed. Less afraid of the Devil than of me – as I saw later.
‘When I brought my sweet news to Lindens, Sebastian was limewashing the kitchen-beams for Mother. He loved her like a son.
‘“Cheer up, lad,” he says. “God’s where He was. Only you and I chance to be pure pute asses! We’ve been tricked, Hal, and more shame to me, a sailor, that I did not guess it before! You must leave your belfry alone, forsooth, because the Devil is adrift there; and I cannot get my serpentines because John Collins cannot cast them aright. Meantime Andrew Barton hawks off the Port of Rye. And why? To take those very serpentines which poor Cabot must whistle for; the said serpentines, I’ll wager my share of new Continents, being now hid away in St. Barnabas church tower. Clear as the Irish coast at noonday!”
‘“They’d sure never dare to do it,” I said; “and for another thing, selling cannon to the King’s enemies is black treason – hanging and fine.”
‘“It is sure large profit. Men’ll dare any gallows for that. I have been a trader myself,” says he. “We must be upsides with ’em for the honour of Bristol.”
‘Then he hatched a plot, sitting on the lime-wash bucket. We gave out to ride o’ Tuesday to London and made a show of making farewells of our friends – especially of Master John Collins. But at Wadhurst Woods we turned; rode by night to the watermeadows; hid our horses in a willow-tot at the foot of the glebe, and stole a-tiptoe up hill to Barnabas’s church again. A thick mist, and a moon coming through.
‘I had no sooner locked the tower-door behind us than over goes Sebastian full length in the dark.
‘“Pest!” he says. “Step high and feel low, Hal. I’ve stumbled over guns before.”
‘I groped, and one by one – the tower was pitchy dark – I counted the lither barrels of twenty serpentines laid out on pease-straw. No conceal at all!
