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.
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