The young
fern on a knoll rustled, and Puck walked out, chewing a green-topped
rush.

'Good Midsummer Morning to you! Here's a happy meeting,' said he. They
shook hands all round, and asked questions.

'You've wintered well,' he said after a while, and looked them up and
down. 'Nothing much wrong with you, seemingly.'

'They've put us into boots,' said Una. 'Look at my feet--they're all
pale white, and my toes are squidged together awfully.'

'Yes--boots make a difference.' Puck wriggled his brown, square, hairy
foot, and cropped a dandelion flower between the big toe and the next.

'I could do that--last year,' Dan said dismally, as he tried and failed.
'And boots simply ruin one's climbing.'

'There must be some advantage to them, I suppose,'said Puck, or folk
wouldn't wear them. Shall we come this way?' They sauntered along side
by side till they reached the gate at the far end of the hillside. Here
they halted just like cattle, and let the sun warm their backs while
they listened to the flies in the wood.

'Little Lindens is awake,' said Una, as she hung with her chin on the
top rail. 'See the chimney smoke?'

'Today's Thursday, isn't it?' Puck turned to look at the old pink
farmhouse across the little valley. 'Mrs Vincey's baking day. Bread
should rise well this weather.' He yawned, and that set them both
yawning.

The bracken about rustled and ticked and shook in every direction. They
felt that little crowds were stealing past.

'Doesn't that sound like--er--the People of the Hills?'said Una.

'It's the birds and wild things drawing up to the woods before people
get about,' said Puck, as though he were Ridley the keeper.

'Oh, we know that. I only said it sounded like.'

'As I remember 'em, the People of the Hills used to make more noise.
They'd settle down for the day rather like small birds settling down for
the night. But that was in the days when they carried the high hand. Oh,
me! The deeds that I've had act and part in, you'd scarcely believe!'

'I like that!' said Dan. 'After all you told us last year, too!'

'Only, the minute you went away, you made us forget everything,' said
Una.

Puck laughed and shook his head. 'I shall this year, too. I've given you
seizin of Old England, and I've taken away your Doubt and Fear, but your
memory and remembrance between whiles I'll keep where old Billy Trott
kept his night-lines--and that's where he could draw 'em up and hide 'em
at need. Does that s