Oh , do not tell the Priest our plight , Or he would call it a sin ; But -- we have been out in the woods all night , A-conjuring Summer in ! And we bring you news by word of mouth -- Good news for cattle and corn -- Now is the Sun come up from the South , With Oak , and Ash , and Thorn ! Sing Oak , and Ash , and Thorn , good Sirs -LRB- All of a Midsummer morn -RRB- ! England shall bide till Judgement Tide , By Oak and Ash and Thorn ! YOUNG MEN AT THE MANOR They were fishing , a few days later , in the bed of the brook that for centuries had cut deep into the soft valley soil . The trees closing overhead made long tunnels through which the sunshine worked in blobs and patches . Down in the tunnels were bars of sand and gravel , old roots and trunks covered with moss or painted red by the irony water ; foxgloves growing lean and pale towards the light ; clumps of fern and thirsty shy flowers who could not live away from moisture and shade . In the pools you could see the wave thrown up by the trouts as they charged hither and yon , and the pools were joined to each other -- except in flood time , when all was one brown rush -- by sheets of thin broken water that poured themselves chuckling round the darkness of the next bend . This was one of the children 's most secret hunting-grounds , and their particular friend , old Hobden the hedger , had shown them how to use it . Except for the click of a rod hitting a low willow , or a switch and tussle among the young ash-leaves as a line hung up for the minute , nobody in the hot pasture could have guessed what game was going on among the trouts below the banks . ` We 've got half-a-dozen , ' said Dan , after a warm , wet hour . ' I vote we go up to Stone Bay and try Long Pool . ' Una nodded -- most of her talk was by nods -- and they crept from the gloom of the tunnels towards the tiny weir that turns the brook into the mill-stream . Here the banks are low and bare , and the glare of the afternoon sun on the Long Pool below the weir makes your eyes ache . When they were in the open they nearly fell down with astonishment . A huge grey horse , whose tail-hairs crinkled the glassy water , was drinking in the pool , and the ripples about his muzzle flashed like melted gold . On his back sat an old , white-haired man dressed in a loose glimmery gown of chain-mail . He was bare-headed , and a nut-shaped iron helmet hung at his saddle-bow . His reins were of red leather five or six inches deep , scalloped at the edges , and his high padded saddle with its red girths was held fore and aft by a red leather breastband and crupper . ` Look ! '
said Una , as though XXXXX were not staring his very eyes out .
A-conjuring Dan England Pool Una hour morn saddle-bow sun tail-hairs