` Not a bit . All as much pretence as a dolls ' tea-party . Then they brought out a splendid white horse , and the priest cut some hair from its mane and tail and burned it on the altar , shouting , `` A sacrifice ! '' That counted the same as if a man and a horse had been killed . I saw poor Weland 's face through the smoke , and I could n't help laughing . He looked so disgusted and so hungry , and all he had to satisfy himself was a horrid smell of burning hair . Just a dolls ' tea-party ! ' I judged it better not to say anything then -LRB- ` twould n't have been fair -RRB- , and the next time I came to Andover , a few hundred years later , Weland and his temple were gone , and there was a Christian bishop in a church there . None of the People of the Hills could tell me anything about him , and I supposed that he had left England . ' Puck turned ; lay on the other elbow , and thought for a long time . ` Let 's see , ' he said at last . ` It must have been some few years later -- a year or two before the Conquest , I think -- that I came back to Pook 's Hill here , and one evening I heard old Hobden talking about Weland 's Ford . ' ` If you mean old Hobden the hedger , he 's only seventy-two . He told me so himself , ' said Dan . ` He 's a intimate friend of ours . ' ` You 're quite right , ' Puck replied . ' I meant old Hobden 's ninth great-grandfather . He was a free man and burned charcoal hereabouts . I 've known the family , father and son , so long that I get confused sometimes . Hob of the Dene was my Hobden 's name , and he lived at the Forge cottage .
Of course , I pricked up my ears when I heard Weland mentioned , and I scuttled through the woods to the XXXXX just beyond Bog Wood yonder . '
Andover Christian England Ford Hill Pook Weland evening tea-party year