Puck of Pook's Hill

‘Were you invisible?’ said Una. Puck nodded, gravely.

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

‘What’s a novice?’ said Dan.

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

‘“H’m!” said the novice. “Where did you get your horse shod?”

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

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

‘Did Weland see all this?’ said Dan.

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

‘And what did poor Weland do?’ said Una.

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

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

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

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

Both children drew a long breath.

‘But what happened to Hugh the novice?’ said Una.

‘And the sword?’ said Dan.

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

‘Do you really want to know?’ Puck said.

‘We do,’ cried the children. ‘Awfully!’

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘And how did your play go?’ he asked.

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

Una shook her head and said nothing.

‘I see,’ said her father.

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

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

‘No. It was for something, but I can’t azactly remember,’ said Una.

And neither of them could till —

A TREE SONG

Of all the trees that grow so fair,Old England to adorn,Greater are none beneath the Sun,Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good Sirs(All of a Midsummer morn)!Surely we sing no little thing,In Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!Oak of the Clay lived many a day,Or ever Æneas began;Ash of the Loam was a lady at home,When Brut was an outlaw man;Thorn of the Down saw New Troy Town(From which was London born);Witness hereby the ancientryOf 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 waitethTill every gust be laid,To drop a limb on the head of him,That anyway trusts her shadeBut 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 nightA-conjuring Summer in!And we bring you news by word of mouth —Good news for cattle and corn —Now is the Sun come up from the South,With Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good Sirs(All of a Midsummer morn)!England shall bide till Judgment Tide,By Oak, and Ash and Thorn!

YOUNG MEN AT THE MANOR

YOUNG MEN AT THE MANOR

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

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

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

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

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

‘Look!’ said Una, as though Dan were not staring his very eyes out. ‘It’s like the picture in your room – “Sir Isumbras at the Ford.”’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘What for?’ said Una.

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

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

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

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

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

‘That’s it,’ Dan whispered to Una.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[The children looked at the sword as though it might speak again.]

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

‘To here, d’you mean?’ said Una.

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

‘And was that Saxon Hugh the novice?’ Dan asked.

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

‘Why wouldn’t he?’ said Dan.

‘Because I rode my horse into the refectory, when the scholars were at meat, to show the Saxon boys we Normans were not afraid of an abbot. It was that very Saxon Hugh tempted me to do it, and we had not met since that day. I thought I knew his voice even inside my helmet, and, for all that our Lords fought, we each rejoiced we had not slain the other. He walked by my side, and he told me how a Heathen God, as he believed, had given him his sword, but he said he had never heard it sing before. I remember I warned him to beware of sorcery and quick enchantments.’ Sir Richard smiled to himself. ‘I was very young – very young!

‘When we came to his house here we had almost forgotten that we had been at blows. It was near midnight, and the Great Hall was full of men and women waiting news. There I first saw his sister, the Lady Ælueva, of whom he had spoken to us in France. She cried out fiercely at me, and would have had me hanged in that hour, but her brother said that I had spared his life – he said not how he saved mine from his Saxons – and that our Duke had won the day; and even while they wrangled over my poor body, of a sudden he fell down in a swoon from his wounds.

‘“This is thy fault,” said the Lady Ælueva to me, and she kneeled above him and called for wine and cloths.

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

‘“Thou hast need to pray,” she said, catching up her underlip. “If he dies, thou shalt hang!”

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

‘And how did you feel?’ said Dan.

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

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

‘What did he mean? To kill ’em?’ said Dan.

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

‘Was she pretty?’ said Una.

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

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

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

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

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

‘“Alas, I have no cunning,” said I.

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

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

‘And that was here at home?’ said Una.

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

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

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

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