se, 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 tim