Puck of Pook's Hill

‘“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 Ælueva herself shall summon me there.”

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

‘“Shall we hang these?” said my men.

‘“Then my churls will fight,” said Hugh, beneath his breath; but I bade him ask the three what mercy they hoped for.

‘“None,” said they all. “She bade us hang thee if our master died. And we would have hanged thee. There is no more to it.”

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

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

‘That, then, was our first work together, and I bade Hugh tell his folk that so would I deal with any man, knight or churl, Norman or Saxon, who stole as much as one egg from our valley. Said he to me, riding home: “Thou hast gone far to conquer England this evening.” I answered: “England must be thine and mine, then. Help me, Hugh, to deal aright with this people. Make them to know that if they slay me De Aquila will surely send to slay them, and he will put a worse man in my place.” “That may well be true,” said he, and gave me his hand. “Better the devil we know than the devil we know not, till we can pack you Normans home.” And so, too, said his Saxons; and they laughed as we drove the pigs downhill. But I think some of them, even then, began not to hate me.’

‘I like Brother Hugh,’ said Una, softly.

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

‘Aye,’ said Puck, breaking in for the first time. ‘The Custom of Old England was here before your Norman knights came, and it outlasted them, though they fought against it cruel.’

‘Not I,’ said Richard. ‘I let the Saxons go their stubborn way, but when my own men-at-arms, Normans not six months in England, stood up and told me what was the custom of the country, then I was angry. Ah, good days! Ah, wonderful people! And I loved them all.’

The knight lifted his arms as though he would hug the whole dear valley, and Swallow, hearing the chink of his chain-mail, looked up and whinnied softly.

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

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

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

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

‘“Hold the Manor or hang,” said I. I had never forgotten it.

‘“True. And thou hast held.” He clambered from his saddle and with sword’s point cut out a turf from the bank and gave it me where I kneeled.’

Dan looked at Una, and Una looked at Dan.

‘That’s seizin,’ said Puck, in a whisper.

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

‘“What service shall I pay?” I asked, and I remember I was proud beyond words.

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

‘“Alas!” said I, “then my Manor is already forfeit. I am under vow not to enter the Great Hall.” And I told him what I had sworn to the Lady Ælueva.’

‘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 Ælueva’s name, nor went he near the Great Hall. By night he drank with us in the hut. Yes, he sat on the straw like an eagle ruffled in her feathers, his yellow eyes rolling above the cup, and he pounced in his talk like an eagle, swooping from one thing to another, but always binding fast. Yes; he would lie still awhile, and then rustle in the straw, and speak sometimes as though he were King William himself, and anon he would speak in parables and tales, and if at once we saw not his meaning he would yerk us in the ribs with his scabbarded sword.

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

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

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

‘“To be near me,” said I, for I thought this was truth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘We sat afterwards outside the hut while the sun rose, and De Aquila marked our churls going to their work in the fields, and talked of holy things, and how we should govern our Manors in time to come, and of hunting and of horse-breeding, and of the King’s wisdom and unwisdom; for he spoke to us as though we were in all sorts now his brothers. Anon a churl stole up to me – he was one of the three I had not hanged a year ago – and he bellowed – which is the Saxon for whispering – that the Lady Ælueva 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 Ælueva, 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. ‘Ohé, 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 waitingIn the pleasant orchards of Normandie;Tell her youth is the time for mating —Tell her England hath taken me!As for my Comrades in camp and highway,That lift their eyebrows scornfully;Tell them their way is not my way —Tell them England hath taken me!Kings and Princes and Barons famed,Knights and Captains in your degree;Hear me a little before I am blamed —Seeing England hath taken me!Howso great man’s strength be reckoned,There are two things he cannot flee;Love is the first, and Death is the second —And Love, in England, hath taken me!

THE KNIGHTS OF THE JOYOUS VENTURE

HARP SONG OF THE DANE WOMEN

What is a woman that you forsake her,And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,To go with the old grey Widow-maker?She has no house to lay a guest in —But one chill bed for all to rest in,That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.She has no strong white arms to fold you,But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold youBound on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken —Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters,You steal away to the lapping waters,And look at your ship in her winter quarters.You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables,The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables —To pitch her sides and go over her cables!Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow:And the sound of your oar-blades falling hollow,Is all we have left through the months to follow!Ah, what is Woman that you forsake her,And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

THE KNIGHTS OF THE JOYOUS VENTURE

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

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

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

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

‘Was yours a dangerous voyage?’ he asked, smiling.

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Yes,’ said Dan, ‘barring the very long words.’

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

Dan flushed, but opened the book and began – gabbling a little – at ‘The Discoverer of the North Cape.’

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

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

‘I ploughed the land with horses,But my heart was ill at ease,For the old sea-faring menCame to me now and thenWith 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 boreInto a nameless sea.”’

‘A nameless sea!’ he repeated. ‘So did I – so did Hugh and I.’

‘Where did you go? Tell us,’ said Una.

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

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

‘Have you ever explored North?’ Dan shut the book.

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

‘I thought you always lived here,’ said Una, timidly.

‘Yes; while my Lady Ælueva 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…