'And why's our bed so hard to the bones Excepting where it's cold?'

'Oh, that's because it is precious stones Excepting where 'tis gold.

All night long they thought of it
And, come the dawn, they saw
They'd tumbled into a great old pit,
At the bottom of Minepit Shaw.

And the keepers' hound had followed 'em close And broke her neck in the fall;

So they picked up their knives and their crossbows And buried the dog. That's all.

But whether the man was a poacher too

Or a Pharisee so bold

I reckon there's more things told than are true.
And more things true than are told.

THE TREE OF JUSTICE

It was a warm, dark winter day with the Sou❜-West wind singing through Dallington Forest, and the woods below the Beacon. The children set out afterdinner to find old Hobden, who had a three months' job in the Rough at the back of Pound's Wood. He had promised to get them a dormouse in its nest. The bright leaf still clung to the beech-coppice; the long chestnut leaves lay orange on the ground, and the rides were speckled with scarlet-lipped sprouting acorns. They worked their way by their own short cuts to the edge of Pound's Wood, and heard a horse's feet just as they came to the beech where Ridley the keeper hangs up the vermin. The poor little fluffy bodies dangled from the branches - some perfectly good, but most of them dried to twisted strips.

'Three more owls,' said Dan, counting. "Two stoats, four jays, and a kestrel. That's ten since last week. Ridley's a beast.'

'In my time this sort of tree bore heavier fruit.' Sir Richard Dalyngridge' reined up his grey horse, Swallow, in the ride behind them. 'What play do

you make?' he asked.

1 This is the Norman Knight they met the year before in Puck of Pook's Hill. See 'Young Men at the Manor, The Knights of the Joyous Venture,' and 'Old Men at Pevensey,' in that book.

'Nothing, sir. We're looking for old Hobden,' Dan replied. He promised to get us a sleeper.' 'Sleeper? A dormeuse do you say?'

'Yes, a dormouse, sir.'

'I understand. I passed a woodman on the low grounds. Come!'

He wheeled up the ride again, and pointed through an opening to the patch of beech-stubs, chestnut, hazel, and birch that old Hobden would turn into firewood, hop-holes, pea-boughs, and house faggots before Spring. The old man was as busy as a beaver. Something laughed beneath a thorn, and Puck stole out, his finger on his lip.

'Look!' he whispered. 'Along between the spindle trees! Ridley has been there this half-hour.'

The children followed his point, and saw Ridley the keeper in an old dry ditch, watching Hobden as a cat watches a mouse.

'Huh!' cried Una. 'Hobden always 'tends to his wires before breakfast. He puts his rabbits into the faggots he's allowed to take home. He'll tell us about 'em to-morrow.'

'We had the same breed in my day,' Sir Richard replied, and moved off quietly, Puck at his bridle, the children on either side between the close-trimmed beech stuff.

'What did you do to them?' said Dan, as they re-passed Ridley's terrible tree.

'That!' Sir Richard jerked his head toward the dangling owls.

'Not he!' said Puck. 'There was never enough brute Norman in you to hang a man for taking a buck.'

'II cannot abide to hear their widows screech. But why am I on horseback while you are afoot?' He dismounted lightly, tapped Swallow on the chest, so that the wise thing backed instead of turning in the narrow ride, and put himself at the head of the little procession. He walked as though all the woods belonged to him. 'I have often told my friends,' he went on, 'that Red William the King was not the only Norman found dead in a forest while he hunted.' 'D'you mean William Rufus?' said Dan.

‘Yes,' said Puck, kicking a clump of red toadstools off a dead log.

'For example, there was a Knight new from Normandy,' Sir Richard went on, 'to whom Henry our King granted a manor in Kent near by. He chose to hang his forester's son the day before a deer-hunt that he gave to pleasure the King.'

'Now when would that be?' said Puck, and scratched an ear thoughtfully.

'The summer of the year King Henry broke his brother Robert of Normandy at Tenchebrai fight. Our ships were even then at Pevensey loading for the

war.

'What happened to the knight?' Dan asked.

"They found him pinned to an ash, three arrows through his leather coat. I should have worn mail that day.'

'And did you see him pinned up?' Dan continued.