'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. 'I 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. 'Gently!' they heard Hobden cry. 'You'll bust her crop if you lay on so. You be as careless as Gleason's bull, Tom. Come an' sit by the fires. She'll do now.' They came down, and as Hobden opened the shutter to see if the potatoes were done Tom Shoesmith said to the children, 'Put a plenty salt on 'em. That'll show you the sort o' man _I_ be.' Again he winked, and again the Bee Boy laughed and Una stared at Dan.