A year or so later, the children met Puck once more, and though they were then older and wiser, and wore boots regularly instead of going bare-footed when they got the chance, Puck was as kind to them as ever, and introduced them to more people of the old days. He was careful, of course, to take away their memory of their walks and conversations afterwards, but otherwise he did not interfere; and Dan and Una would find the strangest sort of persons in their gardens or woods. In the stories that follow I am trying to tell something about those people. Cold Iron When Dan and Una had arranged to go out before breakfast, they did not remember it was Midsummer Morning. They only wanted to see the otter which, old Hobden said, had been fishing their brook for weeks; and early morning was the time to surprise him. As they tiptoed out of the house into the wonderful stillness, the church clock struck five. Dan took a few steps across the dew-blobbed lawn, and looked at his black footprints. 'I think we ought to be kind to our poor boots,' he said. 'They'll get horrid wet.' It was their first Summer in boots, and they hated them, so they took them off, and slung them round their necks, and paddled joyfully over the dripping turf where the shadows lay the wrong way, like evening in the East. The sun was well up and warm, but by the brook the last of the night mist still fumed off the water. They picked up the chain of otter's footprints on the mud, and followed it from the bank, between the weeds and the drenched mowing, while the birds shouted with surprise. Then the track left the brook and became a smear, as though a log had been dragged along. They traced it into Three Cows meadow, over the mill-sluice to the Forge, round Hobden's garden, and then up the slope till it ran out on the short turf and fern of Pook's Hill, and they heard the cock-pheasants crowing in the woods behind them. 'No use!' said Dan, questing like a puzzled hound. 'The dew's drying off, and old Hobden says otters'll travel for miles.' 'I'm sure we've travelled miles.' Una fanned herself with her hat. 'How still it is! It's going to be a regular roaster.' She looked down the valley, where no chimney yet smoked. 'Hobden's up!' Dan pointed to the open door of the Forge cottage. 'What d'you suppose he has for breakfast?' 'One of _them_. He says they eat good all times of the year.' Una jerked her head at some stately pheasants going down to the brook for a drink. A few steps farther on a fox broke almost under their bare feet, yapped, and trotted off. 'Ah, Mus' Reynolds--Mus' Reynolds'--Dan was quoting from old Hobden,--'if I knowed all you knowed, I'd know something.'[1] [1] See 'The Winged Hats' in _Puck of Pook's Hill_. 'I say,' Una lowered her voice, 'you know that funny feeling of things having happened before. I felt it when you said "Mus' Reynolds."' 'So did I,' Dan began. 'What is it?' They faced each other stammering with excitement.