Ch. 7: The Winged Hats

The next day happened to be what they called a Wild
Afternoon. Father and Mother went out to pay calls; Miss
Blake went for a ride on her bicycle, and they were left all
alone till eight o'clock.

When they had seen their dear parents and 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