W

COLD IRON

WHEN Dan and Una had arranged to go out before breakfast, they did not remember it was Midsummer Morning. They only wanted to see the otter which, old Hobden said, had been fishing their brook for weeks; and early morning was the time to surprise him. As they tip-toed out of the house into the wonderful stillness, the church clock struck five. Dan took a few steps across the dewblobbed lawn, and looked at his black footprints.

"I think we ought to be kind to our poor boots," he said. "They'll get horrid wet."

It was their first Summer in boots, and they hated them, so they took them off and slung them round their necks, and paddled joyfully over the dripping turf where the shadows lay the wrong way, like evening in the East.

The sun was well up and warm, but, by the brook, the last of the night mist still fumed off the water. They picked up the chain of otter's footprints on the mud, and followed it from the bank, between the weeds and the drenched mowing, while the birds

shouted with surprise. Then the track left the brook and became a smear, as though a log had been dragged along.

They traced it into Three Cows meadow, over the mill-sluice to the Forge, round Hobden's garden, and then up the slope till it ran out on the short turf and fern of Pook's Hill, and they heard the cock-pheasants crowing in the woods behind them.

"No use!" said Dan, questing like a puzzled hound. "The dew's drying off, and old Hobden says otters'll travel for miles."

"I'm sure we've travelled miles." Una fanned herself with her hat. "How still it is! It's going to be a regular roaster." She looked down the valley, where no chimney yet smoked.

"Hobden's up!" Dan pointed to the open door of the Forge cottage. "What d'you suppose he has for breakfast?"

"One of them. He says they eat good all times of the year." Una jerked her head at some stately pheasants going down to the brook for a drink.

A few steps farther on a fox broke almost under their bare feet, yapped, and trotted off.

"Ah, Mus' Reynolds-Mus' Reynolds," - Dan was quoting from old Hobden-"If I knowed all you knowed, I'd know something." 1

"I say," Una lowered her voice, "you know that

1 See "The Winged Hats" in Puck of Pook's Hill.

funny feeling of things having happened before. I felt it when you said 'Mus' Reynolds.'

"So did I," Dan began. "What is it?"

They faced each other stammering with excite

ment.

"Wait a shake! I'll remember in a minute. Wasn't it something about a fox-last year. Oh, I nearly had it then!" Dan cried.

"Be quiet!" said Una, prancing excitedly. "There was something happened before we met the fox last year. Hills! Broken Hills-the play at the theatre-see what you see—

"I remember now," Dan shouted. "It's as plain as the nose on your face-Pook's Hill-Puck's Hill - Puck!"

"I remember, too," said Una. "And it's Midsummer Day again!"

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 squdged 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?"

"To-day'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 They felt that little crowds

in every direction.

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.