God of the Midnight, here where the great bull lies,_
_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 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.

'How quietly you came!' said Una, moving up to make room. 'Where's Puck?'

'The Faun and I have disputed whether it is better that I should tell you
all my tale, or leave it untold,' he replied.

'I only said that if he told it as it happened you wouldn't understand
it,' said Puck, jumping up like a squirrel from behind the log.

'I don't understand all of it,' said Una, 'but I like hearing about the
little Picts.'

'What _I_ can't understand