Dan had hung his lamp on the apple tree at the end of the hellebore
bed in the walled garden, and was crouched by the gooseberry
bushes ready to dash off when Una should spy him. He saw her
lamp come into the garden and disappear as she hid it under her
cloak. While he listened for her footsteps, somebody (they both
thought it was Phillips the gardener) coughed in the corner of the
herb-beds.
'All right,' Una shouted across the asparagus; 'we aren't
hurting your old beds, Phippsey!'
She flashed her lantern towards the spot, and in its circle of light
they saw a Guy Fawkes-looking man in a black cloak and a
steeple-crowned hat, walking down the path beside Puck. They
ran to meet him, and the man said something to them about rooms
in their head. After a time they understood he was warning them
not to catch colds.
'You've a bit of a cold yourself, haven't you?' said Una, for he
ended all his sentences with a consequential cough. Puck laughed.
'Child,' the man answered, 'if it hath pleased Heaven to afflict
me with an infirmity -'
'Nay, nay,' Puck struck In, 'the maid spoke out of kindness. I
know that half your cough is but a catch to trick the vulgar; and
that's a pity.
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