Part 16 (1/2)

'Trees aren't messy.' Una rose on her elbow. 'And what about firewood? I don't like coal.'

'Eh? You lie a piece more up-hill and you'll lie more natural,' said Mr. Dudeney, with his provoking deaf smile. 'Now press your face down and smell to the turf. That's Southdown thyme which makes our Southdown mutton beyond compare, and, my mother told me, 'twill cure anything except broken necks, or hearts. I forget which.'

They sniffed, and somehow forgot to lift their cheeks from the soft thymy cus.h.i.+ons.

'You don't get nothing like that in the Weald. Watercress, maybe?' said Mr. Dudeney.

'But we've water--brooks full of it--where you paddle in hot weather,'

Una replied, watching a yellow-and-violet-banded snail-sh.e.l.l close to her eye.

'Brooks flood. Then you must s.h.i.+ft your sheep--let alone foot-rot afterward. I put more dependence on a dew-pond any day.'

'How's a dew-pond made?' said Dan, and tilted his hat over his eyes. Mr.

Dudeney explained.

The air trembled a little as though it could not make up its mind whether to slide into the Pit or move across the open. But it seemed easiest to go down-hill, and the children felt one soft puff after another slip and sidle down the slope in fragrant breaths that baffed on their eyelids. The little whisper of the sea by the cliffs joined with the whisper of the wind over the gra.s.s, the hum of insects in the thyme, the ruffle and rustle of the flock below, and a thickish mutter deep in the very chalk beneath them. Mr. Dudeney stopped explaining, and went on with his knitting.

They were roused by voices. The shadow had crept half-way down the steep side of Norton's Pit, and on the edge of it, his back to them, Puck sat beside a half-naked man who seemed busy at some work. The wind had dropped, and in that funnel of ground every least noise and movement reached them like whispers up a water-pipe.

'That is clever,' said Puck, leaning over. 'How truly you shape it!'

'Yes, but what does The Beast care for a brittle flint tip? Bah!' The man flicked something contemptuously over his shoulder. It fell between Dan and Una--a beautiful dark-blue flint arrow-head still hot from the maker's hand.

The man reached for another stone, and worked away like a thrush with a snail-sh.e.l.l.

'Flint work is fool's work,' he said at last. 'One does it because one always did it, but when it comes to dealing with The Beast--no good!' He shook his s.h.a.ggy head.

'The Beast was dealt with long ago. He has gone,' said Puck.

'He'll be back at lambing-time. _I_ know him.' He chipped very carefully, and the flints squeaked.

'Not he. Children can lie out on the Chalk now all day through and go home safe.'

'Can they? Well, call The Beast by his True Name, and I'll believe it,'

the man replied.

'Surely!' Puck leaped to his feet, curved his hands round his mouth and shouted: ”Wolf! Wolf!”

Norton's Pit threw back the echo from its dry sides--'Wuff! Wuff!' like Young Jim's bark.

'You see? You hear?' said Puck. 'n.o.body answers. Grey Shepherd is gone.

Feet-in-the-Night has run off. There are no more wolves.'

'Wonderful!' The man wiped his forehead as though he were hot. 'Who drove him away? You?'

'Many men through many years, each working in his own country. Were you one of them?' Puck answered.

The man slid his sheepskin cloak to his waist, and without a word pointed to his side, which was all seamed and blotched with scars. His arms too were dimpled from shoulder to elbow with horrible white dimples.