Martin Pippin in the Apple OrchardFarjeon, Eleanor
General
Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard
Farjeon, Eleanor
Fairy tales; Minstrels -- Fiction
But Hobb could not sleep. For in the night a wind came up and blew four
times round his lodge, shaking it once on every wall. And it stirred in
him the memory of High and Over, and with the memory misgivings that he
could not name. And he rose restlessly from his couch and went out
under the troubled moon, for a windy rack of clouds was blowing over
the sky. But through it she often poured her amber light, and by it
Hobb saw that Margaret's door was blowing on its hinges. He called her
softly, but he got no answer; and then he called more loudly, but still
she did not answer.
"She cannot be sleeping through this," said Hobb to himself; and with
an uneasy heart he stood beside the door and looked into the lodge. And
she was not there, and the couch had not been slept on. But on it lay
her empty dress, its gold and black all tumbled in a heap, and on top
of it was an embroidered smock. And something in the smock attracted
him, so that he went quickly forward to examine it; and he saw that it
was Heriot's shirt, that had been cut and changed and worked all over
with peacocks' feathers. And he stood staring at it, astounded and
aghast. Recovering himself, he turned to leave the lodge, but stumbled
on the open coffer, hanging out of which was a second smock; and this
one had two lions worked on the back and front, and one was red and the
other white, and the smock had been Hugh's shirt. Then Hobb fell on the
coffer and searched its contents till he had found Lionel's little
shirt fashioned into a linen vest, with a tiny border of fantastic
animals dancing round it, pink pigs, and black cocks, and white
donkeys, and chestnut horses. And last of all he found the shirt of
Ambrose, tattered and frayed, and every tatter was worked at the edge
with a different hue, and here and there small mocking patches of color
had been stitched above the holes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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