Puck of Pook's Hill

by Rudyard Kipling

"Nowadays one is only too pleased to find boys who can think for themselves, and their friends."

"We're the last sweepings of the Empire—the men without hope. Myself, I'd sooner trust condemned criminals."

There is never harm in a Pict if you but take the trouble to find out what he wants.

'"Then what do you recommend," said Maximus, "to keep the North quiet till I win Gaul?" '"Leave the Picts alone," I said. "Stop the heather-burning at once, and—they are improvident little animals—send them a shipload or two of corn now and then."

"Like everything else in the world, it is one man's work. You, I think, are that one man."

Then they climbed up Long Ditch into the lower end of Far Wood. This is sadder and darker than the Volaterrae end because of an old marlpit full of black water, where weepy, hairy moss hangs round the stumps of the willows and alders. But the birds come to perch on the dead branches, and Hobden says that the bitter willow-water is a sort of medicine for sick animals.

'He who makes himself Emperor anywhere must know everything, everywhere,'

"you are the corn between the two millstones. Be content if they grind evenly, and don't thrust your hand between them."

that we would not fight them if they did not fight us; and they (I think they were a little tired of losing men in the sea) agreed to a sort of truce.

"Nicaea is not far by sea from Rome. A woman there could take ship and fly to Rome in time of war.

'The Winged Hats fought like wolves—all in a pack. Where they had suffered most, there they charged in most hotly. This was hard for the defenders, but it held them from sweeping on into Britain.

By the Light of the Sun, that old fat man, whom we had not considered at all, grew young again among the trumpets!

'"In War it is as it is in Love," said Pertinax. "Whether she be good or bad, one gives one's best once, to one only. That given, there remains no second worth giving or taking."

And we gather behind them in hordes, And plot to reconquer the Wall, With only our tongues for our swords. We are the Little Folk—we! Too little to love or to hate. Leave us alone and you'll see How we can drag down the Great! We are the worm in the wood! We are the rot at the root! We are the germ in the blood! We are the thorn in the foot! Mistletoe killing an oak— Rats gnawing cables in two— Moths making holes in a cloak— How they must love what they do!

Prophets have honour all over the Earth, Except in the village where they were born, Where such as knew them boys from birth Nature-ally hold 'em in scorn. When Prophets are naughty and young and vain, They make a won'erful grievance of it; (You can see by their writings how they complain),

If you don't mind rats on the rafters and oats in your shoes, the mill-attic, with its trap-doors and inscriptions on beams about floods and sweethearts, is a splendid place.

climbed the attic ladder (they called it 'the mainmast tree', out of the ballad of Sir Andrew Barton, and Dan 'swarved it with might and main', as the ballad says)

Sir Harry Dawe—pardon, Hal—says I am the very image of a head for a gargoyle.'

but his eyes were young, with funny little wrinkles all round them.

He dipped the trimmed pen, and with careful boldness began to put in the essential lines of Puck's rugged face, that had been but faintly revealed by the silver-point. The children gasped, for it fairly leaped from the page.

his father used to beat him for drawing things instead of doing things, till an old priest called Father Roger, who drew illuminated letters in rich people's books, coaxed the parents to let him take the boy as a sort of painter's apprentice.

'Pirate?' said Dan. He wriggled like a hooked fish.

'Hops. New since your day,' said Puck. 'They're an herb of Mars, and their flowers dried flavour ale. We say— 'Turkeys, Heresy, Hops, and Beer Came into England all in one year.'

The pigeons pecked at the mortar in the chimney-stacks; the bees that had lived under the tiles since it was built filled the hot August air with their booming; and the smell of the box-tree by the dairy-window mixed with the smell of earth after rain, bread after baking, and a tickle of wood-smoke.

The old spaniel in his barrel barked once or twice to show he was in charge of the empty house.

Sir John Pelham's sledge-hammers at Brightling would strike in like a pack o' scholars, and "Hic-haec-hoc" they'd say, "Hic-haec-hoc," till I fell asleep.

ships. I drafted him thus sitting by our fire telling Mother of the new lands he'd find the far side the world. And he found them, too! There's a nose to cleave through unknown seas!

'"Cheer up, lad," he says. "God's where He was.

'"Aha! Your Devil has left his doublet! Does it become me, Hal?" He draws it on and capers in the shafts of window-moonlight—won'erful devilish-like. Then he sits on the stairs, rapping with his tail on a board, and his back-aspect was dreader than his front, and a howlet lit in, and screeched at the horns of him.

Sir John, why did you never use the sea? You are lost ashore."

We poured into the village on the red edge of dawn, Sir John horsed, in half-armour, his pennon flying; behind him thirty stout Brightling knaves, five abreast; behind them four wool-wains, and behind them four trumpets to triumph over the jest, blowing: Our King went forth to Normandie. When we halted and rolled the ringing guns out of the tower, 'twas for all the world like Friar Roger's picture of the French siege in the Queen's Missal-book.'

that villain, Ticehurst Will, coming out of the Bell for his morning ale,

(Oh, there was nothing the Collinses, or the Hayes, or the Fowles, or the Fenners would not do for the church then! "Ask and have" was their song.)

If You wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet, Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street, Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie. Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

Five-and-twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark— Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk; Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,

If you meet King George's men, dressed in blue and red, You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said. If they call you 'pretty maid,' and chuck you 'neath the chin, Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been!

Just at dusk, a soft September rain began to fall on the hop-pickers. The mothers wheeled the bouncing perambulators out of the gardens; bins were put away, and tally-books made up. The young couples strolled home, two to each umbrella, and the single men walked behind them laughing.

The Bee Boy, Hobden's son, who is not quite right in his head, though he can do anything with bees, slipped in like a shadow.

They shook hands, and the children could hear the hard palms rasp together.

How did we get home that night? Swimmin'?' 'Same way the pheasant come into Gubbs's pocket—by a little luck an' a deal o' conjurin'.' Old Hobden laughed in his deep chest.

You've cleaved to your own parts pretty middlin' close, Ralph.' 'Can't shift an old tree 'thout it dyin','

'Twas a passel o' no-sense talk'—he dropped his voice—'about Pharisees.' 'Yes. I've heard Marsh men belieft in 'em.' Tom looked straight at the wide-eyed children beside Bess. 'Pharisees,' cried Una. 'Fairies? Oh, I see!'

Eh me! the rushes was green—an' the Bailiff o' the Marshes he rode up and down as free as the fog.' 'Who was he?' said Dan. 'Why, the Marsh fever an' ague. He've clapped me on the shoulder once or twice till I shook proper.

'Bees won't stay by a house where there's hating.'

you crowd Pharisees all in one place—they don't die, but Flesh an' Blood walkin' among 'em is apt to sick up an' pine off.

they saw their cattle scatterin' an' no man scarin'; their sheep flockin' an' no man drivin'; their horses latherin' an' no man leadin';

She felt the Trouble on the Marsh same as eels feel thunder.

"What is the Trouble on the Marsh that's been lying down with my heart an' arising with my body this month gone?"

'There was always to be one of 'em that could see further into a millstone than most.'

sat in the silver square of the great September moon that was staring into the oast-house door.