Hope Mirrlees - Lud-In-The-Mist

And, strange to say, far from being set up by his new honours, he felt oddly ashamed of them - it was almost as if he was for the first time running the gauntlet of his friends' eyes after having been afflicted by some physical disfigurement.

When things had returned again to their usual rut, Master Ambrose came to spend a quiet evening with Master Nathaniel.

They sat for some time in silence puffing at their pipes, and then Master Ambrose said, "Tell me what your theory is about Endymion Leer, Nat. He was a double-dyed villain, all right, I suppose?"

Master Nathaniel did not answer at once, and then he said thoughtfully, "I suppose so. I read the report of his defence, however, and his words seemed to me to ring true. But I think there was some evil lurking in his soul, and everything he touched was contaminated by it, even fairy fruit - even Duke Aubrey."

"And that spiritual sin he accused himself of… what do you suppose it was?"

"I think," said Master Nathaniel slowly, "he may have mishandled the sacred objects of the Mysteries."

"What are these sacred objects, Nat?"

Master Nathaniel moved uneasily in his chair, and said, with an embarrassed little laugh, "Life and death, I suppose." He hated being asked about these sorts of things.

Master Ambrose sat for a few moments pondering, and then he said, "It was curious how in all his attacks on you he defeated his own ends."

"Yes," cried Master Nathaniel, with much more animation than he had hitherto shown, "that was really very curious. Everything he did produced exactly the opposite effect he had intended it should. He feared the Chanticleers, and wanted to be rid of them, so he gets Ranulph off to Fairyland, whence nobody had ever before returned. And he manages to get me so discredited that I have to leave Lud, and he thinks me safely out of the way. But, in reality, he was only bringing about his own downfall. I have to leave Lud, and so I go to the farm, and there I find old Gibberty's incriminating document. While the fact of Ranulph's having gone off yonder sends me after him, and that is why, I suppose, I come back as Duke Aubrey's deputy," and again he gave an embarrassed laugh; and then added dreamily, "It is useless to try and circumvent the Duke."

"`He who rides the wind needs must go where his steed carries him," quoted Master Ambrose.

Master Nathaniel smiled, and for some minutes they puffed at their pipes in silence.

Then Master Nathaniel gave a reminiscent chuckle: "Those were queer months that we lived through, Ambrose!" he cried. "All of us, that's to say those of us who had parts to play, seemed to be living each others' dreams or dreaming each others' lives, whichever way you choose to put it, and the most incongruous things began to rhyme - apples and bleeding corpses and trees and ghosts. Yes, all our dreams got entangled. Leer makes a speech about men and trees, and I find the solution of the situation under a herm, which is half a man and half a tree, and you see the juice of fairy fruit and think that it is the dead bleeding - and so on. Yes, my adventures went on getting more and more like a dream till… the climax," and he paused abruptly.

A long silence followed, broken at last by Master Ambrose. "Well, Nat," he said, "I think I've had a lesson in humility. I used to have as good an opinion of myself as most men, I think, but now I've learned that I'm a very ordinary sort of fellow, made of very inferior clay to you and my Moonlove - all the things that you know at first hand and I can only take on faith."

"Suppose, Ambrose, that what we know at first hand is only this - that there is nothing to know?" said Master Nathaniel a little sadly. Then he sank into a brown study, and Master Ambrose, thinking he wanted to be alone, stole quietly from the room.

Master Nathaniel sat gazing moodily into the fire; and his pipe went out without his noticing it. Then the door opened softly, and someone stole in and stood behind his chair. It was Dame Marigold. All she said was, "Funny old Nat!" but her voice had a husky tenderness. And then she knelt down beside him and took him into her soft warm arms. And a new hope was borne in upon Master Nathaniel that someday he would hear the Note again, and all would be clear.

Conclusion

I should like to conclude with a few words as to the fate of the various people who have appeared in these pages.

Hazel Gibberty married Sebastian Thug - and an excellent husband he made her. He gave up the sea and settled on his wife's farm. Mistress Ivy Peppercorn came and lived with them and every summer they had a visit from Master Nathaniel and Ranulph. Bawdy Bess left Lud at the time of Sebastian's marriage - out of pique, said the malicious.

Luke Hempen entered the Lud Yeomanry, where he did so well that when Mumchance retired he was elected Captain in his place.

Hempie lived to a ripe old age - long enough to tell her stories to Ranulph's children; nor had she any scruples about telling them her views on "neighbourliness." And when she died, as a tribute to her long and loving service, she was buried in the family chapel of the Chanticleers.

Mother Tibbs, after taking a conspicuous part in the wild revels which followed on the arrival of the fairy army, vanished for ever from Dorimare. Nor did anyone ever again see Portunus. But, from time to time, a wild red-haired youth would arrive uninvited, and having turned everything topsy-turvy with his pranks, would rush from the house, shouting "Ho! Ho! Hoh! "

By degrees the Crabapple Blossoms recovered their spirits. But they certainly did not grow up into the sort of young ladies their mothers had imagined they would when they first sent them to Miss Primrose Crabapple's Academy. They were never stinted of fairy fruit, for the Dapple continued to bring its tribute to Dorimare, adding thereby considerably to the wealth of the country. For, thanks to the sound practical sense of Master Ambrose, a new industry was started - that of candying fairy fruit, and exporting it to all the countries with which they trafficked, in pretty fancy boxes, the painted lids of which showed that art was creeping back to Dorimare.

As for Ranulph, when he grew up he wrote the loveliest songs that had been heard since the days of Duke Aubrey -songs that crossed the sea and were sung by lonely fishermen in the far North, and by indigo mothers crooning to their babies by the doors of their huts in the Cinnamon Isles.

Dame Marigold continued to smile, and to nibble marzipan with her cronies. But she used sometimes sadly to wonder whether Master Nathaniel had ever really come back from beyond the Debatable Hills; sometimes, but not always.

And Master Nathaniel himself? Whether he ever heard the Note again I cannot say. But in time he went, either to reap the fields of gillyflowers, or to moulder in the Fields of Grammary. And below his coffin in the family chapel a brass tablet was put up with this epitaph:

An epitaph not unlike those he used to con so wistfully in his visits to the Fields of Grammary.

And this is but another proof that the Written Word is a Fairy, as mocking and elusive as Willy Wisp, speaking lying words to us in a feigned voice. So let all readers of books take warning! And with this final exhortation this book shall close.

Columbine