, give us strength for the day!

Mithras, God of the Noontide, the heather swims in the heat,
Our helmets scorch our foreheads, our sandals burn our feet.
Now in the ungirt hour; now ere we blink and drowse,
Mithras, also a soldier, keep us true to our vows!

Mithras, God of the Sunset, low on the Western main,
Thou descending immortal, immortal to rise again!
Now when the watch is ended, now when the wine is drawn,
Mithras, also a soldier, keep us pure till the dawn!

Mithras, God of the Midnight, here where the great bull dies,
Look on Thy children in darkness. Oh, take our sacrifice!
Many roads Thou hast fashioned: all of them lead to the Light!
Mithras, also a soldier, teach us to die aright!

THE WINGED HATS

The next day happened to be what they called a Wild Afternoon. Father
and Mother went out to pay calls; Miss Blake went for a ride on her
bicycle, and they were left all alone till eight o'clock.

When they had seen their dear parents and their dear preceptress
politely off the premises they got a cabbage-leaf full of raspberries
from the gardener, and a Wild Tea from Ellen. They ate the raspberries
to prevent their squashing, and they meant to divide the cabbage-leaf
with Three Cows down at the Theatre, but they came across a dead
hedgehog which they simply _had_ to bury, and the leaf was too useful to
waste.

Then they went on to the Forge and found old Hobden the hedger at home
with his son, the Bee Boy, who is not quite right in his head, but who
can pick up swarms of bees in his naked hands; and the Bee Boy told them
the rhyme about the slow-worm:--

'If I had eyes _as_ I could see,
No mortal man would trouble me.'

They all had tea together by the hives, and Hobden said the loaf-cake
which Ellen had given them was almost as good as what his wife used to
make, and he showed them how to set a wire at the right height for
hares. They knew about rabbits already.

Then they climbed up Long Ditch into the lower end of Far Wood. This is
sadder and darker than the Volaterrae end because of an old marlpit full
of black water, where weepy, hairy moss hangs round the stumps of the
willows and alders. But the birds come to perch on the dead branches,
and Hobden says that the bitter willow-water is a sort of medicine for
sick animals.

They sat down on a felled oak-trunk in the shadows of the beech
undergrowth, and were looping the wires Hobden had given them, when they
saw Parnesius.

'Ho