monastery had been attacked by the French. The novice came
first of all, waving his new sword and shouting Saxon battle-cries. When
they saw the shoeing-tools they were very bewildered, till the novice
asked leave to speak, and told what he had done to the farmer, and what he
had said to Wayland-Smith, and how, though the dormitory light was
burning, he had found the wonderful rune-carved sword in his cot.

'The Abbot shook his head at first, and then he laughed and said to the
novice: "Son Hugh, it needed no sign from a heathen God to show me that
you will never be a monk. Take your sword, and keep your sword, and go
with your sword, and be as gentle as you are strong and courteous. We will
hang up the Smith's tools before the Altar," he said, "because, whatever
the Smith of the Gods may have been in the old days, we know that he
worked honestly for his living and made gifts to Mother Church." Then they
went to bed again, all except the novice, and he sat up in the garth
playing with his sword. Then Weland said to me by the stables: "Farewell,
Old Thing; you had the right of it. You saw me come to England, and you
see me go. Farewell!"

'With that he strode down the hill to the corner of the Great Woods--Woods
Corner, you call it now--to the very place where he had first landed--and I
heard him moving through the thickets towards Horsebridge for a little,
and then he was gone. That was how it happened. I saw it.'

Both children drew a long breath.

'But what happened to Hugh the novice?' said Una.

'And the sword?' said Dan.

Puck looked down the meadow that lay all quiet and cool in the shadow of
Pook's Hill. A corncrake jarred in a hay-field near by, and the small
trouts of the brook began to jump. A big white moth flew unsteadily from
the alders and flapped round the children's heads, and the least little
haze of water-mist rose from the brook.

'Do you really want to know?' Puck said.

'We do,' cried the children. 'Awfully!'

'Very good. I promised you that you shall see What you shall see, and you
shall hear What you shall hear, though It shall have happened three
thousand year; but just now it seems to me that, unless you go back to the
house, people will be looking for you. I'll walk with you as far as the
gate.'

'Will you be here when we come again?' they asked.

'Surely, sure-ly,' said Puck. 'I've been here some time already. One
minute first, please.'

He gave them each three leaves--one of Oak