Puck of Pooks Hill | Page 5

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