Transcribed from the 1905 A. R. Mowbray & Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org [Picture: Book cover] THE PIGEON PIE * * * * * BY CHARLOTTE M. YONGE _Author of_ “_The Heir of Redclyffe_” * * * * * NEW EDITION * * * * * A. R. MOWBRAY & CO. LIMITED OXFORD: 106, S. Aldate’s Street LONDON: 34, Great Castle Street, Oxford Circus, W 1905 CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. 1 CHAPTER II. 19 CHAPTER III. 34 CHAPTER IV. 47 CHAPTER V. 62 CHAPTER VI. 77 CHAPTER VII. 97 CHAPTER VIII. 107 CHAPTER IX. 117 CHAPTER I. EARLY in the September of the year 1651 the afternoon sun was shining pleasantly into the dining-hall of Forest Lea House. The sunshine came through a large bay-window, glazed in diamonds, and with long branches of a vine trailing across it, but in parts the glass had been broken and had never been mended. The walls were wainscoted with dark oak, as well as the floor, which shone bright with rubbing, and stag’s antlers projected from them, on which hung a sword in its sheath, one or two odd gauntlets, an old-fashioned helmet, a gun, some bows and arrows, and two of the broad shady hats then in use, one with a drooping black feather, the other plainer and a good deal the worse for wear, both of a small size, as if belonging to a young boy. An oaken screen crossed the hall, close to the front door, and there was a large open fireplace, a settle on each side under the great yawning chimney, where however at present no fire was burning. Before it was a long dining-table covered towards the upper end with a delicately white cloth, on which stood, however, a few trenchers, plain drinking-horns, and a large old-fashioned black-jack, that is to say, a pitcher formed of leather. An armchair was at the head of the table, and heavy oaken benches along the side. A little boy of six years old sat astride on the end of one of the benches, round which he had thrown a bridle of plaited rushes, and, with a switch in his other hand, was springing himself up and down, calling out, “Come, Eleanor, come, Lucy; come and ride on a pillion behind me to Worcester, to see King Charles and brother Edmund.” “I’ll come, I am coming!” cried Eleanor, a little girl about a year older, her hair put tightly away under a plain round cap, and she was soon perched sideways behind her brother.