any one,' Dan answered, slowly. 'This is our field.'

'Is it?' said their visitor, sitting down. 'Then what on Human Earth made
you act _Midsummer Night's Dream_ three times over, _on_ Midsummer Eve,
_in_ the middle of a Ring, and under--right _under_ one of my oldest hills
in Old England? Pook's Hill--Puck's Hill--Puck's Hill--Pook's Hill! It's as
plain as the nose on my face.'

He pointed to the bare, fern-covered slope of Pook's Hill that runs up
from the far side of the mill-stream to a dark wood. Beyond that wood the
ground rises and rises for five hundred feet, till at last you climb out
on the bare top of Beacon Hill, to look over the Pevensey Levels and the
Channel and half the naked South Downs.

'By Oak, Ash, and Thorn!' he cried, still laughing. 'If this had happened
a few hundred years ago you'd have had all the People of the Hills out
like bees in June!'

'We didn't know it was wrong,' said Dan.

'Wrong!' The little fellow shook with laughter. 'Indeed, it isn't wrong.
You've done something that Kings and Knights and Scholars in old days
would have given their crowns and spurs and books to find out. If Merlin
himself had helped you, you couldn't have managed better! You've broken
the Hills--you've broken the Hills! It hasn't happened in a thousand
years.'

'We--we didn't mean to,' said Una.

'Of course you didn't! That's just why you did it. Unluckily the Hills are
empty now, and all the People of the Hills are gone. I'm the only one
left. I'm Puck, the oldest Old Thing in England, very much at your service
if--if you care to have anything to do with me. If you don't, of course
you've only to say so, and I'll go.'

He looked at the children and the children looked at him for quite half a
minute. His eyes did not twinkle any more. They were very kind, and there
was the beginning of a good smile on his lips.

Una put out her hand. 'Don't go,' she said. 'We like you.'

'Have a Bath Oliver,' said Dan, and he passed over the squashy envelope
with the eggs.

'By Oak, Ash, and Thorn!' cried Puck, taking off his blue cap, 'I like you
too. Sprinkle a little salt on the biscuit, Dan, and I'll eat it with you.
That'll show you the sort of person I am. Some of us'--he went on, with his
mouth full--'couldn't abide Salt, or Horseshoes over a door, or
Mountain-ash berries, or Running Water, or Cold Iron, or the sound of
Church Bells. But I'm Puck!'

He brushed the crumbs carefully from his doublet and shook