`` Surely , '' said I , `` the farmer ca n't do less than that . You 're shoeing the horse all round for him . '' ' `` Yes , '' said he , `` and my nails will hold a shoe from one full moon to the next . But farmers and Weald clay , '' said he , `` are both uncommon cold and sour . '' ` Would you believe it , that when that farmer woke and found his horse shod he rode away without one word of thanks ? I was so angry that I wheeled his horse right round and walked him back three miles to the Beacon , just to teach the old sinner politeness . ' ` Were you invisible ? ' said Una . Puck nodded , gravely . ` The Beacon was always laid in those days ready to light , in case the French landed at Pevensey ; and I walked the horse about and about it that lee-long summer night . The farmer thought he was bewitched -- well , he was , of course -- and began to pray and shout . I did n't care ! I was as good a Christian as he any fair-day in the County , and about four o'clock in the morning a young novice came along from the monastery that used to stand on the top of Beacon Hill . ' ` What 's a novice ? ' said Dan . ` It really means a man who is beginning to be a monk , but in those days people sent their sons to a monastery just the same as a school . This young fellow had been to a monastery in France for a few months every year , and he was finishing his studies in the monastery close to his home here . Hugh was his name , and he had got up to go fishing hereabouts . His people owned all this valley . Hugh heard the farmer shouting , and asked him what in the world he meant .
The old man spun him a wonderful tale about fairies and goblins and witches ; and I know he had n't seen a thing except rabbits and red deer all that XXXXX .
Beacon Dan Hill Hugh Puck Una days morning night year