e in PUCK OF POOK'S
HILL. See 'Young Men at the Manor,' 'The Knights of the Joyous Venture,'
and 'Old Men at Pevensey,' in that book.] 'What play do you make?'he
asked.

'Nothing, Sir. We're looking for old Hobden,'Dan replied.'He promised to
get us a sleeper.'

'Sleeper? A DORMEUSE, do you say?'

'Yes, a dormouse, Sir.' 'I understand. I passed a woodman on the low
grounds. Come!' He wheeled up the ride again, and pointed through an
opening to the patch of beech-stubs, chestnut, hazel, and birch that
old Hobden would turn into firewood, hop-poles, pea-boughs, and
house-faggots before spring. The old man was as busy as a beaver.

Something laughed beneath a thorn, and Puck stole out, his finger on his
lip.

'Look!' he whispered. 'Along between the spindle-trees. Ridley has been
there this half-hour.'

The children followed his point, and saw Ridley the keeper in an old dry
ditch, watching Hobden as a cat watches a mouse.

'Huhh!' cried Una. 'Hobden always 'tends to his wires before breakfast.
He puts his rabbits into the faggots he's allowed to take home. He'll
tell us about 'em tomorrow.'

'We had the same breed in my day,' Sir Richard replied, and moved off
quietly, Puck at his bridle, the children on either side between the
close-trimmed beech stuff.

'What did you do to them?' said Dan, as they repassed Ridley's terrible
tree.

'That!' Sir Richard jerked his head toward the dangling owls.

'Not he!' said Puck. 'There was never enough brute Norman in you to hang
a man for taking a buck.'

'I--I cannot abide to hear their widows screech. But why am I on
horseback while you are afoot?' He dismounted lightly, tapped Swallow
on the chest, so that the wise thing backed instead of turning in the
narrow ride, and put himself at the head of the little procession. He
walked as though all the woods belonged to him. 'I have often told my
friends,' he went on, 'that Red William the King was not the only Norman
found dead in a forest while he hunted.'

'D'you mean William Rufus?'said Dan.

'Yes,' said Puck, kicking a clump of red toad-stools off a dead log.

'For example, there was a knight new from Normandy,' Sir Richard went
on, 'to whom Henry our King granted a manor in Kent near by. He chose
to hang his forester's son the day before a deer-hunt that he gave to
pleasure the King.'

'Now when would that be?' said Puck, and scratched an ear thoughtfully.

'The summer of the year King Henry broke his brother