s.

They settled themselves, as usual, on the sack-strewn cot in front of
the fires, and, when Hobden drew up the shutter, stared, as usual, at
the flameless bed of coals spouting its heat up the dark well of the
old-fashioned roundel. Slowly he cracked off a few fresh pieces of coal,
packed them, with fingers that never flinched, exactly where they would
do most good; slowly he reached behind him till Dan tilted the potatoes
into his iron scoop of a hand; carefully he arranged them round the
fire, and then stood for a moment, black against the glare. As he closed
the shutter, the oast-house seemed dark before the day's end, and he lit
the candle in the lanthorn. The children liked all these things because
they knew them so well.

The Bee Boy, Hobden's son, who is not quite right in his head, though he
can do anything with bees, slipped in like a shadow. They only guessed
it when Bess's stump-tail wagged against them.

A big voice began singing outside in the drizzle:

'Old Mother Laidinwool had nigh twelve months been dead,
She heard the hops were doin' well, and then popped up her head.'

'There can't be two people made to holler like that!' cried old Hobden,
wheeling round.

'For,' says she, 'The boys I've picked with when I was young and fair,
They're bound to be at hoppin', and I'm----'

A man showed at the doorway.

'Well, well! They do say hoppin' 'll draw the very deadest, and now I
belieft 'em. You, Tom? Tom Shoesmith?' Hobden lowered his lanthorn.

'You're a hem of a time makin' your mind to it, Ralph!' The stranger
strode in--three full inches taller than Hobden, a grey-whiskered,
brown-faced giant with clear blue eyes. They shook hands, and the
children could hear the hard palms rasp together.

'You ain't lost none o' your grip,' said Hobden. 'Was it thirty or forty
year back you broke my head at Peasmarsh Fair?'

'Only thirty, an' no odds 'tween us regardin' heads, neither. You had it
back at me with a hop-pole. How did we get home that night? Swimmin'?'

'Same way the pheasant come into Gubbs's pocket--by a little luck an' a
deal o' conjurin'.' Old Hobden laughed in his deep chest.

'I see you've not forgot your way about the woods. D'ye do any o' _this_
still?' The stranger pretended to look along a gun.

Hobden answered with a quick movement of the hand as though he were
pegging down a rabbit-wire.

'No. _That's_ all that's left me now. Age she must as Age she can. An'
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