essing 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 Sir 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 swineherd'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 p