It was a warm, dark winter day with the Sou’-West wind singing through Dallington Forest, and the woods below the Beacon. The children set out after dinner to find old Hobden, who had a three months’ job in the Rough at the back of Pound’s Wood. He had promised to get them a dormouse in its nest. The bright leaf Still clung to the beech coppice; the long chestnut leaves lay orange on the ground, and the rides were speckled with scarlet-lipped sprouting acorns. They worked their way by their own short cuts to the edge of Pound’s Wood, and heard a horse’s feet just as they came to the beech where Ridley the keeper hangs up the vermin. The poor little fluffy bodies dangled from the branches--some perfectly good, but most of them dried to twisted strips. ‘Three more owls,’ said Dan, counting. ‘Two stoats, four jays, and a kestrel. That’s ten since last week. Ridley’s a beast.’ ‘In my time this sort of tree bore heavier fruit.’ Sir Richard Dalyngridge reined up his grey horse, Swallow, in the ride behind them. [This is the Norman knight they met the year before in PUCK OF POOK’S HILL. See ‘Young Men at the Manor,’ ‘The Knights of the Joyous Venture,’ and ‘Old Men at Pevensey,’ in that book.] ‘What play do you make?’ he asked. ‘Nothing, Sir. We’re looking for old Hobden,’ Dan replied.’He promised to get us a sleeper.’ ‘Sleeper? A DORMEUSE, do you say?’ ‘Yes, a dormouse, Sir.’ ‘I understand. I passed a woodman on the low grounds. Come!’ He wheeled up the ride again, and pointed through an opening to the patch of beech-stubs, chestnut, hazel, and birch that old Hobden would turn into firewood, hop-poles, pea-boughs, and house-faggots before spring. The old man was as busy as a beaver. Something laughed beneath a thorn, and Puck stole out, his finger on his lip. ‘Look!’ he whispered. ‘Along between the spindle-trees. Ridley has been there this half-hour.’ The children followed his point, and saw Ridley the keeper in an old dry ditch, watching Hobden as a cat watches a mouse. ‘Huhh!’ cried Una. ‘Hobden always ‘tends to his wires before breakfast. He puts his rabbits into the faggots he’s allowed to take home. He’ll tell us about ‘em tomorrow.’ ‘We had the same breed in my day,’ Sir Richard replied, and moved off quietly, Puck at his bridle, the children on either side between the close-trimmed beech stuff. ‘What did you do to them?’ said Dan, as they repassed Ridley’s terrible tree. ‘That!’ Sir Richard jerked his head toward the dangling owls. ‘Not he!’ said Puck. ‘There was never enough brute Norman in you to hang a man for taking a buck.’