"Hullo, boy! What are you after?"
"I'm going about my business," the boy said pertly.
"And what might that be, young fellow?"
"I might be a good tinker, and worship god Pan, or I might grind
scissors as sharp as the noses of bakers. But, as a matter of fact,
I'm a piper, not a rat-catcher, you understand, but just a simple
singer of sad songs, and a mad singer of merry ones."
"Oh," said the baker dully, for he had hoped the boy was in search of
work. "Then I suppose you have a message."
"I sing songs," the boy said emphatically. "I don't run errands
for anyone save it be for the fairies."
"Well, then, you have come to tell us that we are bad, that our lives
are corrupt and our homes sordid. Nowadays there's money in that if
you can do it well."
"Your wit gets up too early in the morning for me, baker," said the
boy. "I tell you I sing songs."
"Aye, I know, but there's something in them, I hope. Perhaps you
bring news. They're not so popular as the other sort, but still, as
long as it's bad news--"
"Is it the flour that has changed his brains to dough, or the heat of
the oven that has made them like dead grass?"
"But you must have some news----?"
"News! It's a fine morning of summer, and I saw a kingfisher across
the watermeadows coming along. Oh, and there's a cuckoo back in the
fir plantation, singing with a May voice. It must have been asleep
all these months."
"But, my dear boy, these things happen every day.
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