_But we know Peoples that are._
_Yes, and we'll guide them along,_
_To smash and destroy you in War!_
_We shall be slaves just the same?_
_Yes, we have always been slaves;_
_But you--you will die of the shame,_
_And then we shall dance on your graves!_

_We are the Little Folk, we! etc._

HAL O' THE DRAFT

_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),_
_But O, 'tis won'erful good for the Prophet!_

_There's nothing Nineveh Town can give,_
_(Nor being swallowed by whales between),_
_Makes up for the place where a man's folk live,_
_That don't care nothing what he has been._
_He might ha' been that, or he might ha' been this,_
_But they love and they hate him for what he is!_

HAL O' THE DRAFT

A rainy afternoon drove Dan and Una over to play pirates in the Little
Mill. 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. It is lighted by a foot-square window,
called Duck Window, that looks across to Little Lindens Farm, and the spot
where Jack Cade was killed.

When they had 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) they saw a man sitting on Duck window-sill. He
was dressed in a plum-coloured doublet and tight plum-coloured hose, and
he drew busily in a red-edged book.

'Sit ye! Sit ye!' Puck cried from a rafter overhead. 'See what it is to be
beautiful! Sir Harry Dawe--pardon, Hal--says I am the very image of a head
for a gargoyle.'

The man laughed and raised his dark velvet cap to the children, and his
grizzled hair bristled out in a stormy fringe. He was old--forty at
least--but his eyes were young, with funny little wrinkles all round them.
A satchel of embroidered leather hung from his broad belt, which looked
interesting.

'May we see?' said Una, coming forward.

'Surely--sure-ly!' he said, moving up on the window-seat, and returned to
his work with a silver-pointed pencil. Puck sat as though the grin were
fi