Martin Pippin in the Apple OrchardFarjeon, Eleanor
General
Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard
Farjeon, Eleanor
Fairy tales; Minstrels -- Fiction
"I am nearly fourteen," said Hugh, "and stronger than Heriot, and even
than you, Ambrose, and I can take care of myself and Lionel too. There
are more ways than one to seek, and I'll go my way while you go yours.
But I will find him or die." And he looked with defiance at Ambrose,
and then turned to Hobb and said doggedly, "I'm going, Hobb."
Hobb, who himself sought the hills unwearingly day after day, and then
sat up three parts of the night attending to the duties of the Burgh,
said, "Go, and God bless you."
And Hugh's mouth grew less set, and he kissed his brothers, and put his
knife in his belt, and took food in his wallet, and walked out of the
Burgh. He followed the grass-track to the north, and had walked less
than half-an-hour when the wind took his cap and blew it into the
middle of a pond, where it lay soddening out of reach. So he took off
his shoes and walked into the pond to fetch it out, stirring up the
yellow mud in thick soft clouds. But as he stooped to grab his cap,
something else stirred the mud in the middle, and a body heaved itself
sluggishly into view. At first Hugh thought it must be the body of a
sheep that had tumbled into the water, but to his amazement the sulky
head of an old man appeared. He was barely distinguishable from the mud
out of which he had risen.
"Drat the boys!" said the muddy man. "Will they never be done with
disturbing the newts and me? Drat em, I say!"
"Who are you?" demanded Hugh, staring with all his might.
"Jerry I am, and this is my pond. Why can't you leave me in peace?"
"The wind took my cap," said Hugh.
"Finding's keepings," said the muddy man, taking the cap himself, "and
windfalls on this water is mine. So I'll keep your cap, and it's the
second wind's brought me this March. And if you're in want of another
you'd best go to where Wind lives and ask him for it, like t'other one.
But he said he'd ask for a toy farm instead."
"A toy farm?" shouted Hugh.
"Go away and don't deafen a body," said Jerry, and prepared to sink
again. But Hugh caught him by the hair and said fiercely, "Keep my cap
if you like, but I won't let you go until you tell me where my brother
went."
"Your brother was it?" growled the muddy man. "He went to High and
Over, dancing like a sunbeam."
"What's High and Over?"
"Where Wind lives."
"Where's that?"
"Find out," mumbled the muddy man; and he wriggled himself out of
Hugh's clutch and buried himself like a monstrous newt in the mud. And
though Hugh groped and fumbled shoulder-deep he could not feel a trace
of him.
"But," said he, "there's at least a name to go on." And he got out of
the pond and went in search of High and Over. And his brothers waited
in vain for his return. And the heaviness of four hearts was now
divided between three, and doubled because of another brother lost.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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