They were dumb with amazement. This was as different from all the other tapestry they had ever seen as is an apple-tree in full blossom against a turquoise sky in May to the same tree in November, when only a few red leaves still cling to its branches, and the sky is leaden. Oh, those blues, and pinks, and brilliant greens! In what miraculous dyes had the silks been dipped?
As to the subjects, they were those familiar to every Dorimarite—hunting scenes, fugitives chased by the moon, shepherds and shepherdesses tending their azure sheep. But, depicted in these brilliant hues, they were like the ashes of the past, suddenly, under one’s very eyes, breaking into flame. Heigh-presto! The men and women of a vanished age, noisy, gaudy, dominant, are flooding the streets, and driving the living before them like dead leaves.
And what was this lying in heaps on the floor? Pearls and sapphires, and monstrous rubies? Or windfalls of fruit, marvellous fruit, fallen from the trees depicted on the tapestry?
Then, as their eyes grew accustomed to all the brilliance, the two friends began to get their bearings; there could be no doubt as to the nature of that fruit lying on the floor. It was fairy fruit, or their names were not respectively Chanticleer and Honeysuckle.
And, to their amazement, the guardian of this strange treasure was none other than their old acquaintance Mother Tibbs.
Her clear, childlike eyes that shone like lamps out of her seared weather-beaten face, were gazing at them in a sort of mild surprise.
“If it isn’t Master Hyacinth and Master Josiah!” she exclaimed, adding, with her gay, young laugh, “to think of their knowing the password!”
Then she peered anxiously into their faces: “Are your stockings wearing well yonder? The last pair I washed for you didn’t take the soap as they should. Marching down the Milky Way, and tripping it beyond the moon, is hard on stockings.”
Clearly she took them for their own fathers.
Meanwhile, Master Ambrose was drawing in his breath, with a noise as if he were eating soup, and creasing his double chins—sure signs, to anyone who had seen him on the Bench, that he was getting ready to hector.
But Master Nathaniel gave him a little warning nudge, and said cordially to their hostess, “Why, our stockings, and boots too, are doing very nicely, thank you. So you didn’t expect us to know the password, eh? Well, well, perhaps we know more than you think,” then, under his breath to Master Ambrose, “By my Great-aunt’s Rump, Ambrose, what was the password?”
Then turning again to Mother Tibbs, who was slightly swaying from her hips, as if in time to some jig, which she alone could hear, he said, “You’ve got some fine tapestry. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen finer!”
She smiled, and then coming close up to him, said in a low voice, “Does your Worship know what makes it so fine? No? Why, it’s the fairy fruit!” and she nodded her head mysteriously, several times.
Master Ambrose gave a sort of low growl of rage, but again Master Nathaniel shot him a warning look, and said in a voice of polite interest, “Indeed! Indeed! And where, may I ask, does the … er … fruit come from?”
She laughed merrily, “Why, the gentlemen bring it! All the pretty gentlemen, dressed in green, with their knots of ribbons, crowding down in the sunrise from their ships with the scarlet sails to suck the golden apricocks, when all in Lud are fast asleep! And then the cock says Cockadoodledoo! Cockadoodledooooo!” and her voice trailed off, faraway and lonely, suggesting, somehow, the first glimmer of dawn on ghostly hayricks.
“And I’ll tell you something, Master Nat Cock o’ the Roost,” she went on, smiling mysteriously, and coming close up to him, “you’ll soon be dead!”
Then she stepped back, smiling and nodding encouragingly, as if to say, “There’s a pretty present I’ve given you! Take care of it.”
“And as for Mother Tibbs,” she went on triumphantly, “she’ll soon be a fine lady, like the wives of the Senators, dancing all night under the moon! The gentlemen have promised.”
Master Ambrose gave a snort of impatience, but Master Nathaniel said with a good-humoured laugh, “So that’s how you think the wives of the Senators spend their time, eh? I’m afraid they’ve other things to do. And as to yourself, aren’t you getting too old for dancing?”
A slight shadow passed across her clear eyes. Then she tossed her head with the noble gesture of a wild creature, and cried, “No! No! As long as my heart dances my feet will too. And nobody will grow old when the Duke comes back.”
But Master Ambrose could contain himself no longer. He knew only too well Nat’s love of listening to long rambling talk—especially when there happened to be some serious business on hand.
“Come, come,” he cried in a stern voice, “in spite of being crackbrained, my good woman, you may soon find yourself dancing to another tune. Unless you tell us in double quick time who exactly these gentlemen are, and who it was that put you on guard here, and who brings that filthy fruit, and who takes it away, we will … why, we will cut the fiddle strings that you dance to!”
This threat was a subconscious echo of the last words he had heard spoken by Moonlove. Its effect was instantaneous.
“Cut the fiddle strings! Cut the fiddle strings!” she wailed; adding coaxingly, “No, no, pretty master, you would never do that! Would he now?” and she turned appealingly to Master Nathaniel. “It would be like taking away the poor man’s strawberries. The Senator has peaches and roasted swans and peacock’s hearts, and a fine coach to drive in, and a feather bed to lie late in of a morning. And the poor man has black bread and baked haws, and work … but in the summer he has strawberries and tunes to dance to. No, no, you would never
