nd their dear preceptress
politely off the premises they got a cabbage-leaf full of raspberries
from the gardener, and a Wild Tea from Ellen. They ate the raspberries
to prevent their squashing, and they meant to divide the cabbage-leaf
with Three Cows down at the Theatre, but they came across a dead
hedgehog which they simply had to bury, and the leaf was too useful to
waste.

Then they went on to the Forge and found old Hobden the hedger at home
with his son, the Bee Boy, who is not quite right in his head, but who
can pick up swarms of bees in his naked hands; and the Bee Boy told
them the rhyme about the slow-worm:

'If I had eyes as I could see,
No mortal man would trouble me.'

They all had tea together by the hives, and Hobden said the loaf-cake
which Ellen had given them was almost as good as what his wife used to
make, and he showed them how to set a wire at the right height for
hares. They knew about rabbits already.

Then they climbed up Long Ditch into the lower end of Far Wood. This
is sadder and darker than the Volaterrae end because of an old marl-pit
full of black water, where weepy, hairy moss hangs round the stumps of
the willows and alders. But the birds come to perch on the dead
branches, and Hobden says that the bitter willow-water is a sort of
medicine for sick animals.

They sat down on a felled oak-trunk in the shadows of the beech
undergrowth, and were looping the wires Hobden had given them, when
they saw Parnesius.

'How quietly you came!'said Una, moving up to make room. 'Where's
Puck?'

'The Faun and I have disputed whether it is better that I should tell
you all my tale, or leave it untold,' he replied.

'I only said that if he told it as it happened you wouldn't understand
it,' said Puck, jumping up like a squirrel from behind the log. 'I
don't understand all of it,' said Una, 'but I like hearing about the
little Picts.'

'What I can't understand,' said Dan, 'is how Maximus knew all about the
Picts when he was over in Gaul.'

'He who makes himself Emperor anywhere must know everything,
everywhere,' said Parnesius. 'We had this much from Maximus's mouth
after the Games.'

'Games? What Games?' said Dan.

Parnesius stretched his arm out stiffly, thumb pointed to the ground.
'Gladiators! That sort of game,' he said. 'There were two days' Games
in his honour when he landed all unexpected at Segedunum on the East
end of the Wall. Yes, the day after we had met