eal wolves.) 'Then he is on your right shoulder feeling for the vein in
your neck, and--perhaps your sheep run on without you. To fight The
Beast is nothing, but to be despised by The Beast when he fights
you--that is like his teeth in the heart! Old One, why is it that men
desire so greatly, and can do so little?'

'I do not know. Did you desire so much?' said Puck.

'I desired to master The Beast. It is not right that The Beast should
master man. But my people were afraid. Even my Mother, the Priestess,
was afraid when I told her what I desired. We were accustomed to be
afraid of The Beast. When I was made a man, and a maiden--she was a
Priestess--waited for me at the Dew-ponds, The Beast flitted from off
the Chalk. Perhaps it was a sickness; perhaps he had gone to his Gods to
learn how to do us new harm. But he went, and we breathed more freely.
The women sang again; the children were not so much guarded; our flocks
grazed far out. I took mine yonder'--he pointed inland to the hazy line
of the Weald--'where the new grass was best. They grazed north. I
followed till we were close to the Trees'--he lowered his voice--'close
_there_ where the Children of the Night live,' He pointed north again.

'Ah, now I remember a thing,' said Puck. 'Tell me, why did your people
fear the Trees so extremely?'

'Because the Gods hate the Trees and strike them with lightning. We can
see them burning for days all along the Chalk's edge. Besides, all the
Chalk knows that the Children of the Night, though they worship our
Gods, are magicians. When a man goes into their country, they change his
spirit; they put words into his mouth; they make him like talking water.
But a voice in my heart told me to go toward the north. While I watched
my sheep there I saw three Beasts chasing a man, who ran toward the
Trees. By this I knew he was a Child of the Night. We Flint-workers fear
the Trees more than we fear The Beast. He had no hammer; he carried a
knife like this one. A Beast leaped at him. He stretched out his knife.
The Beast fell dead. The other Beasts ran away howling, which they would
never have done from a Flint-worker. The man went in among the Trees. I
looked for the dead Beast. He had been killed in a new way--by a single
deep, clean cut, without bruise or tear, which had split his bad heart.
Wonderful! So I saw that the man's knife was magic, and I thought how to
get it,--thought strongly how to get it.

'When I brought the flocks