“As I was going through No Man’s Land I saw an old man counting sand, I saw a woman sauntering by With wings on her head that could not fly, After that I saw a child Who from birth had never smiled. These riddles are hard to understand, They could only happen in No Man’s Land.” “Have all those riddles got answers?” asked Ginger. “I think so,” said the Piper, “but they’re harder to find in the city than in the country. They grow best in the grass, like men and flowers. The grass is mown now, and Sussex smells hay and hears corn.” He twisted his fifth penny, and sang while it hummed: “If I had a lady I’d give her pretty things, Cowslip balls and daisy chains And green grass rings. I’d cut a fork of hazel To find hidden wells, And turn about we’d crack the nuts And sail the nut-shells. We’d love at first sight, And marry on the spot, I and the lady That I haven’t got.” “Gypsy!” cried Ginger. “I can’t bear it any longer. Let’s go and live in a hut in a wood.” “If you want a nice hut,” said the Piper, “I know where there is one on the banks of a Southdown river, with martins under the thatch.” “But the Blacksmith’s Son lives in it,” wailed Ginger, “with Lizzie Hooker.” “It was empty,” said the Piper, “when I saw it last.” “How long ago was that?” asked Gypsy hopefully. “A hundred and sixty years, I think,” said the Piper, “so I ought to be moving on, children.” Before he rose he span his sixth penny, and while it twirled he moved away and sang as he went: “I can pipe a song for that, And a song for this; You may pay me with an old straw hat, A crust or a kiss. I haven’t any use for pounds And little use for pence, While I whistle bits of rounds Sitting on a fence. You’ll learn them in a minute, And forget them in a day, And remember them in fifty years When I come your way.” His voice died with the penny. And very far away they heard him once more pipe his Monday tune. “Oh dear,” said Ginger restlessly, “I wish he’d told us what _that_ tune was about. But I’m determined to remember every one of his other songs to-morrow morning.” (As a matter of fact she forgot them all, like the dreams we determine to remember in the middle of the night.) “There’s one of the songs he forgot himself,” and Gypsy, picking up the seventh penny and spinning it. And while it span the distant piping seemed to turn to singing, but it was now such a long way off that I am not sure if Gypsy and Ginger got the words right. “Oh, did you hear the sheep go by Upon a Monday morning? Did you hear the sheep go by Without a sign of warning? Did you hear the sheep go by? They bleated through the London mist With plaintive sounds and muffled, They bleated through the London mist, They shuffled and they scuffled Bleating through the London mist.