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Page 71
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.
'_I_ know what sort o' man you be,' old Hobden grunted, groping for the
potatoes round the fire.
'Do ye?' Tom went on behind his back. 'Some of us can't abide
Horseshoes, or Church Bells, or Running Water; an', talkin' o' runnin'
water'--he turned to Hobden, who was backing out of the roundel--'d'you
mind the great floods at Robertsbridge, when the miller's man was
drowned in the street?'
'Middlin' well.' Old Hobden let himself down on the coals by the
fire-door. 'I was courtin' my woman on the Marsh that year. Carter to
Mus' Plum I was, gettin' ten shillin's week. Mine was a Marsh woman.'
'Won'erful odd-gates place----Romney Marsh,' said Tom Shoesmith. 'I've
heard say the world's divided like into Europe, Ashy, Afriky, Ameriky,
Australy, an' Romney Marsh.'
'The Marsh folk think so,' said Hobden. 'I had a hem o' trouble to get
my woman to leave it.'
'Where did she come out of? I've forgot, Ralph.'
'Dymchurch under the Wall,' Hobden answered, a potato in his hand.
'Then she'd be a Pett--or a Whitgift, would she?'
'Whitgift.' Hobden broke open the potato and ate it with the curious
neatness of men who make most of their meals in the blowy open. 'She
growed to be quite reasonable-like after livin' in the Weald awhile, but
our first twenty year or two she was odd-fashioned, no bounds. And she
was a won'erful hand with bees.' He cut away a little piece of potato
and threw it out to the door.
'Ah! I've heard say the Whitgifts could see further through a millstone
than most,' said Shoesmith. 'Did she, now?'
'She was honest-innocent of any nigromancin',' said Hobden. 'Only she'd
read signs and sinnifications out o' birds flyin', stars fallin', bees
hivin', and such. An, she'd lie awake--listenin' for calls, she said.'
'That don't prove naught,' said Tom. 'All Marsh folk has been smugglers
since time everlastin'. 'Twould be in her blood to listen out o'
nights.'
'Nature-ally,' old Hobden replied, smiling. 'I mind when there was
smugglin' a sight nearer us than what the Marsh be. But that wasn't my
woman's trouble. 'Twas a passel o' no-sense talk'--he dropped his
voice--'about Pharisees.'
'Yes. I've heard Marsh men belieft in 'em.' Tom looked straight at the
wide-eyed children beside Bess.
'Pharisees,' cried Una. 'Fairies? Oh, I see!'
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