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.