’Of theirs which yet remain,
Were footed in Queen Mary’s days
  On many a grassy plain,
But since of late Elizabeth,
  And, later, James came in,
Are never seen on any heath
  As when the time hath been.’

’It’s some time since I heard that sung, but there’s no good beating about the bush:  it’s true.  The People of the Hills have all left.  I saw them come into Old England and I saw them go.  Giants, trolls, kelpies, brownies, goblins, imps; wood, tree, mound, and water spirits; heath-people, hill-watchers, treasure-guards, good people, little people, pishogues, leprechauns, night-riders, pixies, nixies, gnomes, and the rest—­gone, all gone!  I came into England with Oak, Ash and Thorn, and when Oak, Ash and Thorn are gone I shall go too.’

Dan looked round the meadow—­at Una’s Oak by the lower gate; at the line of ash trees that overhang Otter Pool where the mill-stream spills over when the Mill does not need it, and at the gnarled old white-thorn where Three Cows scratched their necks.

‘It’s all right,’ he said; and added, ’I’m planting a lot of acorns this autumn too.’

‘Then aren’t you most awfully old?’ said Una.

’Not old—­fairly long-lived, as folk say hereabouts.  Let me see—­my friends used to set my dish of cream for me o’ nights when Stonehenge was new.  Yes, before the Flint Men made the Dewpond under Chanctonbury Ring.’

Una clasped her hands, cried ‘Oh!’ and nodded her head.

‘She’s thought a plan,’ Dan explained.  ’She always does like that when she thinks a plan.’

’I was thinking—­suppose we saved some of our porridge and put it in the attic for you?  They’d notice if we left it in the nursery.’

‘Schoolroom,’ said Dan quickly, and Una flushed, because they had made a solemn treaty that summer not to call the schoolroom the nursery any more.

‘Bless your heart o’ gold!’ said Puck.  ’You’ll make a fine considering wench some market-day.  I really don’t want you to put out a bowl for me; but if ever I need a bite, be sure I’ll tell you.’

He stretched himself at length on the dry grass, and the children stretched out beside him, their bare legs waving happily in the air.  They felt they could not be afraid of him any more than of their particular friend old Hobden the hedger.  He did not bother them with grown-up questions, or laugh at the donkey’s head, but lay and smiled to himself in the most sensible way.

‘Have you a knife on you?’ he said at last.

Dan handed over his big one-bladed outdoor knife, and Puck began to carve out a piece of turf from the centre of the Ring.

‘What’s that for—­Magic?’ said Una, as he pressed up the square of chocolate loam that cut like so much cheese.

‘One of my little magics,’ he answered, and cut another.  ’You see, I can’t let you into the Hills because the People of the Hills have gone; but if you care to take seizin from me, I may be able to show you something out of the common here on Human Earth.  You certainly deserve it.’