e 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 puffed and wiped his head.

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

'"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 an