eaded for
Far Wood, and there they frightened out all the pheasants who were
sheltering from a big beat across the valley. Then the cruel guns began
again, and they grabbed the beagles lest they should stray and get hurt.

'I wouldn't be a pheasant--in November--for a lot,' Dan panted, as he caught
_Folly_ by the neck. 'Why did you laugh that horrid way?'

'I didn't,' said Una, sitting on _Flora_, the fat lady-dog. 'Oh, look! The
silly birds are going back to their own woods instead of ours, where they
would be safe.'

'Safe till it pleased you to kill them.' An old man, so tall he was almost
a giant, stepped from behind the clump of hollies by 'Volaterrae.' The
children jumped, and the dogs dropped like setters. He wore a sweeping
gown of dark thick stuff, lined and edged with yellowish fur, and he bowed
a bent-down bow that made them feel both proud and ashamed. Then he looked
at them steadily, and they stared back without doubt or fear.

'You are not afraid?' he said, running his hands through his splendid grey
beard. 'Not afraid that those men yonder'--he jerked his head towards the
incessant pop-pop of the guns from the lower woods--'will do you hurt?'

'We-ell'--Dan liked to be accurate, especially when he was shy--'old Hobd--a
friend of mine told me that one of the beaters got peppered last week--hit
in the leg, I mean. You see, Mr. Meyer _will_ fire at rabbits. But he gave
Waxy Garnett a quid--sovereign, I mean--and Waxy told Hobden he'd have stood
both barrels for half the money.'

'He doesn't understand,' Una cried, watching the pale, troubled face. 'Oh,
I wish----'

She had scarcely said it when Puck rustled out of the hollies and spoke to
the man quickly in foreign words. Puck wore a long cloak too--the afternoon
was just frosting down--and it changed his appearance altogether.

'Nay, nay!' he said at last. 'You did not understand the boy. A freeman
was a little hurt, by pure mischance, at the hunting.'

'I know that mischance! What did his Lord do? Laugh and ride over him?'
the old man sneered.

'It was one of your own people did the hurt, Kadmiel.' Puck's eyes
twinkled maliciously. 'So he gave the freeman a piece of gold, and no more
was said.'

'A Jew drew blood from a Christian and no more was said?' Kadmiel cried.
'Never! When did they torture him?'

'No man may be bound, or fined, or slain till he has been judged by his
peers,' Puck insisted. 'There is but one Law in Old England for Jew or