hers! Here's wrathy contempt and the Pomps of the Flesh!
How d'you call them?'

'Turkeys! Turkeys!' the children shouted, as the old gobbler raved and
flamed against Hal's plum-coloured hose.

'Save Your Magnificence!' he said. 'I've drafted two good new things
today.' And he doffed his cap to the bubbling bird.

Then they walked through the grass to the knoll where Little Lindens
stands. The old farmhouse, weather-tiled to the ground, took almost
the colour of a blood-ruby in the afternoon light. The pigeons pecked
at the mortar in the chimney-stacks; the bees that had lived under the
tiles since it was built filled the hot August air with their booming;
and the smell of the box-tree by the dairy-window mixed with the smell
of earth after rain, bread after baking, and a tickle of wood-smoke.

The farmer's wife came to the door, baby on arm, shaded her brows
against the sun, stooped to pluck a sprig of rosemary, and turned down
the orchard. The old spaniel in his barrel barked once or twice to
show he was in charge of the empty house. Puck clicked back the
garden-gate.

'D'you marvel that I love it?' said Hal, in a whisper. 'What can town
folk know of the nature of housen--or land?' They perched themselves
arow on the old hacked oak bench in Lindens garden, looking across the
valley of the brook at the fern-covered dimples and hollows of the
Forge behind Hobden's cottage. The old man was cutting a faggot in his
garden by the hives. It was quite a second after his chopper fell that
the chump of the blow reached their lazy ears.

'Eh--yeh!' said Hal. 'I mind when where that old gaffer stands was
Nether Forge--Master John Collins's foundry. Many a night has his big
trip-hammer shook me in my bed here. Boom-bitty! Boom-bitty! If the
wind was east, I could hear Master Tom Collins's forge at Stockens
answering his brother, Boom-oop! Boom-oop! and midway between, Sir
John Pelham's sledgehammers at Brightling would strike in like a pack
o' scholars, and "Hic-haec-hoc" they'd say, "Hic-haec-hoc," till I fell
asleep. Yes. The valley was as full o' forges and fineries as a May
shaw o' cuckoos. All gone to grass now!'

'What did they make?' said Dan. 'Guns for the King's ships--and for
others. Serpentines and cannon mostly. When the guns were cast, down
would come the King's Officers, and take our plough-oxen to haul them
to the coast. Look! Here's one of the first and finest craftsmen of
the Sea!'