Rudyard Kipling - Puck of Pook's Hill

A Centurion of the Thirtieth

Dan had come to grief over his Latin, and was kept in; so Una went alone to Far Wood. Dan's big catapult and the lead bullets that Hobden had made for him were hidden in an old hollow beech–stub on the west of the wood. They had named the place out of the verse in Lays of Ancient Rome :

They were the 'Godlike Kings', and when old Hobden piled some comfortable brushwood between the big wooden knees of Volaterrae, they called him 'Hands of Giants'.

Una slipped through their private gap in the fence, and sat still awhile, scowling as scowlily and lordlily as she knew how; for Volaterrae is an important watch–tower that juts out of Far Wood just as Far Wood juts out of the hillside. Pook's Hill lay below her and all the turns of the brook as it wanders out of the Willingford Woods, between hop–gardens, to old Hobden's cottage at the Forge. The Sou'–West wind (there is always a wind by Volaterrae) blew from the bare ridge where Cherry Clack Windmill stands.

Now wind prowling through woods sounds like exciting things going to happen, and that is why on blowy days you stand up in Volaterrae and shout bits of the Lays to suit its noises.

Una took Dan's catapult from its secret place, and made ready to meet Lars Porsena's army stealing through the wind–whitened aspens by the brook. A gust boomed up the valley, and Una chanted sorrowfully:

But the wind, not charging fair to the wood, started aside and shook a single oak in Gleason's pasture. Here it made itself all small and crouched among the grasses, waving the tips of them as a cat waves the tip of her tail before she springs.

'Now welcome—welcome, Sextus,' sang Una, loading the catapult—

'Now welcome to thy home! Why dost thou stay, and turn away? Here lies the road to Rome.'

She fired into the face of the lull, to wake up the cowardly wind, and heard a grunt from behind a thorn in the pasture.

'Oh, my Winkie!' she said aloud, and that was something she had picked up from Dan. 'I b'lieve I've tickled up a Gleason cow.'

'You little painted beast!' a voice cried. 'I'll teach you to sling your masters!'

She looked down most cautiously, and saw a young man covered with hoopy bronze armour all glowing among the late broom. But what Una admired beyond all was his great bronze helmet with a red horse–tail that flicked in the wind. She could hear the long hairs rasp on his shimmery shoulder–plates.

'What does the Faun mean,' he said, half aloud to himself, 'by telling me that the Painted People have changed?' He caught sight of Una's yellow head. 'Have you seen a painted lead–slinger?' he called.

'No–o,' said Una. 'But if you've seen a bullet―'

'Seen?' cried the man. 'It passed within a hair's breadth of my ear.'

'Well, that was me. I'm most awfully sorry.'

'Didn't the Faun tell you I was coming?' He smiled.

'Not if you mean Puck. I thought you were a Gleason cow. I—I didn't know you were a—a―What are you?'

He laughed outright, showing a set of splendid teeth. His face and eyes were dark, and his eyebrows met above his big nose in one bushy black bar.

'They call me Parnesius. I have been a Centurion of the Seventh Cohort of the Thirtieth Legion—the Ulpia Victrix. Did you sling that bullet?'

'I did. I was using Dan's catapult,' said Una.

'Catapults!' said he. 'I ought to know something about them. Show me!'

He leaped the rough fence with a rattle of spear, shield, and armour, and hoisted himself into Volaterrae as quickly as a shadow.

'A sling on a forked stick. I understand!' he cried, and pulled at the elastic. 'But what wonderful beast yields this stretching leather?'

'It's laccy—elastic. You put the bullet into that loop, and then you pull hard.'

The man pulled, and hit himself square on his thumb–nail.

'Each to his own weapon,' he said gravely, handing it back. 'I am better with the bigger machine, little maiden. But it's a pretty toy. A wolf would laugh at it. Aren't you afraid of wolves?'

'There aren't any,' said Una.

'Never believe it! A wolf's like a Winged Hat. He comes when he isn't expected. Don't they hunt wolves here?'

'We don't hunt,' said Una, remembering what she had heard from grown–ups. 'We preserve—pheasants. Do you know them?'

'I ought to,' said the young man, smiling again, and he imitated the cry of the cock–pheasant so perfectly that a bird answered out of the wood.

'What a big painted clucking fool is a pheasant!' he said. 'Just like some Romans.'

'But you're a Roman yourself, aren't you?' said Una.

'Ye–es and no. I'm one of a good few thousands who have never seen Rome except in a picture. My people have lived at Vectis for generations. Vectis—that island West yonder that you can see from so far in clear weather.'

'Do you mean the Isle of Wight? It lifts up just before rain, and you see it from the Downs.'

'Very likely. Our villa's on the South edge of the Island, by the Broken Cliffs. Most of it is three hundred years old, but the cow–stables, where our first ancestor lived, must be a hundred years older. Oh, quite that, because the founder of our family had his land given him by Agricola at the Settlement. It's not a bad little place for its size. In spring–time violets grow down to the very beach. I've gathered sea–weeds for myself and violets for my Mother many a time with our old nurse.'

'Was your nurse a—a Romaness too?'

'No, a Numidian. Gods be good to her! A dear, fat, brown thing with a tongue like a cowbell. She was a free woman. By the way, are you free, maiden?'

'Oh, quite,' said Una. 'At least, till tea–time; and in summer our governess doesn't say much if we're late.'

The young man laughed again—a proper understanding laugh.

'I see,' said he. 'That accounts for your being in the wood. We hid among the cliffs.'

'Did you have a governess, then?'

'Did we not? A Greek, too. She had a way of clutching her dress when she hunted us among the gorse–bushes that made us laugh. Then she'd say she'd get us whipped. She never did, though, bless her! Aglaia was a thorough sportswoman, for all her learning.'

'But what lessons did you do—when—when you were little?'

'Ancient history, the Classics, arithmetic and so on,' he answered. 'My sister and I were thick–heads, but my two brothers (I'm the middle one) liked those things, and, of course, Mother was clever enough for any six. She was nearly as tall as I am, and she looked like the new statue on the Western Road—the Demeter of the Baskets, you know. And funny! Roma Dea! How Mother could make us laugh!'