Puck of Pooks Hill | Page 8

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