The old man did not hear the hails, because he was busy listening to other talk. Now he was nodding his head at all manner of folk, and stretching down his hand for a hearty shake. Sometimes he checked the trap with a tug at the rein, and kept Bob waiting while he had a crack with this body and then with that. Bob thought he was taking a look round, and let the old man sit as long as he liked, but Kit was doing a great deal more than look. He was puzzled to find so many folk out and about on the marsh at the same time, but he was more than pleased to set eyes on them again. Every single one of them wanted a crack with the old man who was so terribly busy going home, and his own tongue was as lish as most, for the matter of that—so lish that it wouldn’t rest quiet in his mouth. It had been stiff and frozen for many a long month, but now it was getting away like a beck in spate. He seemed to himself to be talking very loud, and to laugh a great deal, and to hear the other folks talking like a lot of crows. It was surely a rare stroke of luck that so many should be about just when old Fiddlin’ Kit was busy coming home! He found it as stimulating as any dance, with figures whirling over a crowded floor. The fiddle was quivering under his coat, as it always did at once if he raised his voice. He would have taken it out and played the folk a tune, but he was never finished with all he wanted to say. Bob was forgotten completely, but he did not mind, because he saw and heard nobody but the peewit and the gull.