Puck of Pook's Hill Part 31

THE TREASURE AND THE LAW

SONG OF THE FIFTH RIVER

_When first by Eden Tree,_ _The Four Great Rivers ran,_ _To each was appointed a Man_ _Her Prince and Ruler to be._

_But after this was ordained,_ _(The ancient legends tell),_ _There came dark Israel,_ _For whom no River remained._

_Then He That is Wholly Just,_ _Said to him: 'Fling on the ground_ _A handful of yellow dust,_ _And a Fifth Great River shall run,_ _Mightier than these Four,_ _In secret the Earth around;_ _And Her secret evermore,_ _Shall be shown to thee and thy Race.'_

_So it was said and done._ _And, deep in the veins of Earth,_ _And, fed by a thousand springs_ _That comfort the market-place,_ _Or sap the power of Kings,_ _The Fifth Great River had birth,_ _Even as it was foretold-_ _The Secret River of Gold!_

_And Israel laid down_ _His sceptre and his crown,_ _To brood on that River bank,_ _Where the waters flashed and sank,_ _And burrowed in earth and fell,_ _And bided a season below;_ _For reason that none might know,_ _Save only Israel._

_He is Lord of the Last-_ _The Fifth, most wonderful, Flood._ _He hears her thunder past_ _And Her Song is in his blood._ _He can foresay: 'She will fall,'_ _For he knows which fountain dries,_ _Behind which desert belt_ _A thousand leagues to the South._ _He can foresay: 'She will rise.'_ _He knows what far snows melt;_ _Along what mountain wall_ _A thousand leagues to the North._ _He snuffs the coming drouth_ _As he snuffs the coming rain,_ _He knows what each will bring forth_ _And turns it to his gain._

_A Prince without a Sword,_ _A Ruler without a Throne;_ _Israel follows his quest:-_ _In every land a guest._ _Of many lands the lord._ _In no land King is he._ _But the Fifth Great River keeps_ _The secret of her deeps_ _For Israel alone,_ _As it was ordered to be._

THE TREASURE AND THE LAW

Now it was the third week in November, and the woods rang with the noise of pheasant-shooting. No one hunted that steep, cramped country except the village beagles, who, as often as not, escaped from their kennels and made a day of their own. Dan and Una found a couple of them towling round the kitchen-garden after the laundry cat. The little brutes were only too pleased to go rabbiting, so the children ran them all along the brook pastures and into Little Lindens farm-yard, where the old sow vanquished them-and up to the quarry-hole, where they started a fox. He headed for Far Wood, and there they frightened out all the pheasants who were sheltering from a big beat across the valley. Then the cruel guns began again, and they grabbed the beagles lest they should stray and get hurt.

'I wouldn't be a pheasant-in November-for a lot,' Dan panted, as he caught _Folly_ by the neck. 'Why did you laugh that horrid way?'

'I didn't,' said Una, sitting on _Flora_, the fat lady-dog. 'Oh, look! The silly birds are going back to their own woods instead of ours, where they would be safe.'

'Safe till it pleased you to kill them.' An old man, so tall he was almost a giant, stepped from behind the clump of hollies by 'Volaterrae.' The children jumped, and the dogs dropped like setters. He wore a sweeping gown of dark thick stuff, lined and edged with yellowish fur, and he bowed a bent-down bow that made them feel both proud and ashamed. Then he looked at them steadily, and they stared back without doubt or fear.

'You are not afraid?' he said, running his hands through his splendid grey beard. 'Not afraid that those men yonder'-he jerked his head towards the incessant pop-pop of the guns from the lower woods-'will do you hurt?'

'We-ell'-Dan liked to be accurate, especially when he was shy-'old Hobd-a friend of mine told me that one of the beaters got peppered last week-hit in the leg, I mean. You see, Mr. Meyer _will_ fire at rabbits. But he gave Waxy Garnett a quid-sovereign, I mean-and Waxy told Hobden he'd have stood both barrels for half the money.'

'He doesn't understand,' Una cried, watching the pale, troubled face. 'Oh, I wish--'

She had scarcely said it when Puck rustled out of the hollies and spoke to the man quickly in foreign words. Puck wore a long cloak too-the afternoon was just frosting down-and it changed his appearance altogether.

'Nay, nay!' he said at last. 'You did not understand the boy. A freeman was a little hurt, by pure mischance, at the hunting.'

'I know that mischance! What did his Lord do? Laugh and ride over him?'

the old man sneered.

'It was one of your own people did the hurt, Kadmiel.' Puck's eyes twinkled maliciously. 'So he gave the freeman a piece of gold, and no more was said.'

'A Jew drew blood from a Christian and no more was said?' Kadmiel cried.

'Never! When did they torture him?'

'No man may be bound, or fined, or slain till he has been judged by his peers,' Puck insisted. 'There is but one Law in Old England for Jew or Christian-the Law that was signed at Runnymede.'

'Why, that's Magna Charta!' Dan whispered. It was one of the few history dates that he could remember. Kadmiel turned on him with a sweep and a whirr of his spicy-scented gown.

'Dost _thou_ know of that, babe?' he cried, and lifted his hands in wonder.

'Yes,' said Dan, firmly.

'Magna Charta was signed by John, That Henry the Third put his heel upon.

And old Hobden says that if it hadn't been for her (he calls everything "her," you know), the keepers would have him clapped in Lewes Gaol all the year round.'

Again Puck translated to Kadmiel in the strange, solemn-sounding language, and at last Kadmiel laughed.

'Out of the mouths of babes do we learn,' said he. 'But tell me now, and I will not call you a babe but a Rabbi, _why_ did the King sign the roll of the New Law at Runnymede? For he was a King.'

Dan looked sideways at his sister. It was her turn.

'Because he jolly well had to,' said Una, softly. 'The Barons made him.'

'Nay,' Kadmiel answered, shaking his head. 'You Christians always forget that gold does more than the sword. Our good King signed because he could not borrow more money from us bad Jews.' He curved his shoulders as he spoke. 'A King without gold is a snake with a broken back, and'-his nose sneered up and his eyebrows frowned down-'it is a good deed to break a snake's back. That was _my_ work,' he cried, triumphantly, to Puck.

'Spirit of Earth, bear witness that that was my work!' He shot up to his full towering height, and his words rang like a trumpet. He had a voice that changed its tone almost as an opal changes colour-sometimes deep and thundery, sometimes thin and waily, but always it made you listen.

'Many people can bear witness to that,' Puck answered. 'Tell these babes how it was done. Remember, Master, they do not know Doubt or Fear.'

'So I saw in their faces when we met,' said Kadmiel. 'Yet surely, surely they are taught to spit upon Jews?'

'Are they?' said Dan, much interested. 'Where at?'

Puck fell back a pace, laughing. 'Kadmiel is thinking of King John's reign,' he explained. 'His people were badly treated then.'

'Oh, we know _that_,' they answered, and (it was very rude of them, but they could not help it) they stared straight at Kadmiel's mouth to see if his teeth were all there. It stuck in their lesson-memory that King John used to pull out Jews' teeth to make them lend him money.

Kadmiel understood the look and smiled bitterly.

'No. Your King never drew my teeth: I think, perhaps, I drew his. Listen!

I was not born among Christians, but among Moors-in Spain-in a little white town under the mountains. Yes, the Moors are cruel, but at least their learned men dare to think. It was prophesied of me at my birth that I should be a Lawgiver to a People of a strange speech and a hard language. We Jews are always looking for the Prince and the Lawgiver to come. Why not? My people in the town (we were very few) set me apart as a child of the prophecy-the Chosen of the Chosen. We Jews dream so many dreams. You would never guess it to see us slink about the rubbish-heaps in our quarter; but at the day's end-doors shut, candles lit-aha! _then_ we become the Chosen again.'

He paced back and forth through the wood as he talked. The rattle of the shot-guns never ceased, and the dogs whimpered a little and lay flat on the leaves.

'I was a Prince. Yes! Think of a little Prince who had never known rough words in his own house handed over to shouting, bearded Rabbis, who pulled his ears and filliped his nose, all that he might learn-learn-learn to be King when his time came. He! Such a little Prince it was! One eye he kept on the stone-throwing Moorish boys, and the other it roved about the streets looking for his Kingdom. Yes, and he learned to cry softly when he was hunted up and down those streets. He learned to do all things without noise. He played beneath his father's table when the Great Candle was lit, and he listened as children listen to the talk of his father's friends above the table. They came across the mountains, from out of all the world; for my Prince's father was their councillor. They came from behind the armies of Sala-ud-Din: from Rome: from Venice: from England. They stole down our alley, they tapped secretly at our door, they took off their rags, they arrayed themselves, and they talked to my father at the wine. All over the world the heathen fought each other. They brought news of these wars, and while he played beneath the table, my Prince heard these meanly-dressed ones decide between themselves how, and when, and for how long King should draw sword against King, and People rise up against People. Why not? There can be no war without gold, and we Jews know how the earth's gold moves with the seasons, and the crops, and the winds; circling and looping and rising and sinking away like a river-a wonderful underground river. How should the foolish Kings know _that_ while they fight and steal and kill?'

The children's faces showed that they knew nothing at all as, with open eyes, they trotted and turned beside the long-striding old man. He twitched his gown over his shoulders, and a square plate of gold, studded with jewels, gleamed for an instant through the fur, like a star through flying snow.