Ch. 9: Dymchurch Flit - Page 2

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.

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' what's your news since all these years?'

'Oh, I've bin to Plymouth, I've bin to Dover -
I've bin ramblin', boys, the wide world over,'

the man answered cheerily. 'I reckon I know as much of
Old England as most.' He turned towards the children
and winked boldly.

'I lay they told you a sight o' lies, then. I've been into
England fur as Wiltsheer once. I was cheated proper over
a pair of hedgin'-gloves,' said Hobden.

'There's fancy-talkin' everywhere. You've cleaved to
your own parts pretty middlin' close, Ralph.'

'Can't shift an old tree 'thout it dyin',' Hobden
chuckled. 'An' I be no more anxious to die than you look
to be to help me with my hops tonight.'

The great man leaned against the brickwork of the
roundel, and swung his arms abroad. 'Hire me!' was all
he said, and they stumped upstairs laughing.

The children heard their shovels rasp on the cloth
where the yellow hops lie drying above the fires, and all
the oast-house filled with the sweet, sleepy smell as they
were turned.

'Who is it?' Una whispered to the Bee Boy.

'Dunno, no more'n you - if you dunno,' said he, and smiled.

The voices on the drying-floor talked and chuckled
together, and the heavy footsteps moved back and forth.
Presently a hop-pocket dropped through the press-hole
overhead, and stiffened and fattened as they shovelled it
full. 'Clank!' went the press, and rammed the loose stuff
into tight cake.
'Gentle!' they heard