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
hadn't seen a thing except rabbits and red deer all that
night. (The People of the Hills are like otters - they don't
show except when they choose.) But the novice wasn't a
fool. He looked down at the horse's feet, and saw the
new shoes fastened as only Weland knew how to fasten
'em. (Weland had a way of turning down the nails that
folks called the Smith's Clinch.)

"'H'm!" said the novice. "Where did you get your
horse shod?"

'The farmer wouldn't tell him at first, because the
priests never liked their people to have any dealings with
the Old Things. At last he confessed that the Smith had