oast-house
door.

'They was the exact words she told me when we first found he wasn't like
others. But it beats me how you known 'em,' said Hobden.

'Aha! There's more under my hat besides hair!' Tom laughed and stretched
himself. 'When I've seen these two young folk home, we'll make a night of
old days, Ralph, with passin' old tales--eh? An' where might you live?' he
said, gravely, to Dan. 'An' do you think your Pa 'ud give me a drink for
takin' you there, Missy?'

They giggled so at this that they had to run out. Tom picked them both up,
set one on each broad shoulder, and tramped across the ferny pasture where
the cows puffed milky puffs at them in the moonlight.

'Oh, Puck! Puck! I guessed you right from when you talked about the salt.
How could you ever do it?' Una cried, swinging along delighted.

'Do what?' he said, and climbed the stile by the pollard oak.

'Pretend to be Tom Shoesmith,' said Dan, and they ducked to avoid the two
little ashes that grow by the bridge over the brook. Tom was almost
running.

'Yes. That's my name, Mus' Dan,' he said, hurrying over the silent shining
lawn, where a rabbit sat by the big white-thorn near the croquet ground.
'Here you be.' He strode into the old kitchen yard, and slid them down as
Ellen came to ask questions.

'I'm helping in Mus' Spray's oast-house,' he said to her. 'No, I'm no
foreigner. I knowed this country 'fore your Mother was born; an'--yes it's
dry work oasting, Miss. Thank you.'

Ellen went to get a jug, and the children went in--magicked once more by
Oak, Ash, and Thorn!

A THREE-PART SONG

_I'm just in love with all these three,_
_The Weald and the Marsh and the Down countrie;_
_Nor I don't know which I love the most,_
_The Weald or the Marsh or the white chalk coast!_

_I've buried my heart in a ferny hill,_
_Twix' a liddle low Shaw an' a great high Gill._
_Oh hop-vine yaller and woodsmoke blue,_
_I reckon you'll keep her middling true!_

_I've loosed my mind for to out and run,_
_On a Marsh that was old when Kings begun;_
_Oh Romney Level and Brenzett reeds,_
_I reckon you know what my mind needs!_

_I've given my soul to the Southdown grass,_
_And sheep-bells tinkled where you pass._
_Oh Firle an' Ditchling an' sails at sea,_
_I reckon you'll keep my soul or me!_

THE TREASURE AND THE LAW

SONG OF THE FIFTH RIVER

_When first by Eden Tree,_
_The Four Great Rivers ran,_