Midwinter Nightingale by Joan Aiken Page A

coming on, so his man told my sis, when His Majesty's officers come to the house and arrested him and took him off to the Tower.”
    “What happened there?”
    “Oh, they had a passel of doctors with herbal drops and inhalers and sufflecators to, like, nip the trouble afore it got too far.”
    “But now he's come out. …”
    “Ah. And just as bad as when he went in, so it's said. …”

slow progress, leading his mare through wet woodland. The ground was not completely flooded, but so drenched with rain that Magpie sank up to her fetlocks in the soggy soil at every step, and the little sharp hooves of the sheep cut even deeper; they had followed eagerly where Magpie had led, but their pace was beginning to falter and the light was beginning to fail.
    If we can't get there before dark, Simon wondered, what will I ever do with them? There are wolves in these woods—bears too, for all I know—and I'm expected; they will be worrying at Darkwater if I don't turn up soon.
    As if in agreement with his thoughts, the sheep, who had been dutifully making their way along the forest path behind him with no sound but the patter of a hundredwilling feet, suddenly lifted up their voices in a prolonged and plaintive
baaaa.
    Hush, now! Simon admonished them (but in his mind, not out loud), Keep your worry inside your foolish heads; we don't want every meat-eater in the forest alerted to the fact that a hundred Sunday dinners are trotting through their territory!
    And in fact a shout coming from a southward direction suggested that the flock's appeal had been picked up by somebody. In a few moments the sound of hooves preceded the arrival of two men, richly dressed and handsomely mounted.
    “Hey there! You—shepherd!” said one of the men. “Can you tell us how to find a way out of this mortaceous wilderness?”
    Simon's jaw dropped in horror. For here was one of the people he least wished or expected to see: Sir Angus McGrind, the marshal of the king's wardrobe and equerry of state for domestic affairs, a rigid, masterful Scotsman, quick to interfere in any palace affair that came his way, detested by the king and always on the lookout for any business that might increase his own power and importance. But what disastrous rumor had brought him in
this
direction?
    Mercifully he had not recognized Simon, who blessed the foresight that had made him put on rough country clothes for this journey, and a stumble of the mare, Magpie, which had thrown him into a bog hole and coated his face with mud.
    “Where was you wishful to go, worshipful sirs?” he inquired, putting on a rich Wet-country burr.
    “Why, we want to know if there is any mansion or manor in these parts where persons of quality, such as ourselves, might be accommodated.”
    “Eeh, no,
that
thurr baint, your honor,” Simon answered at once with the utmost firmness. “Thurr's nob-but barns and shippens—few enow o' them—less you count a tuthree chapels.”
    “Ay, chapels. We came across one of those with a crazy old loon of a chaplain who directed us into a bog. But is there no hall, no country seat, no gentleman's abode?”
    “Nay, sirs, not as
I
knows on—not less you cater on, norrard an' west'ard, till you spies the rail track, an' that'll take ye, bimeby, to High Edge, where owd Lord Lugworthy has his cassel.”
    “Oh, deuce take it! How great a distance is that?”
    “Mebbe not moren two hours' ride on your lordships' fine hosses.”
    “Devil take it!” grumbled Sir Angus again, turning his horse's head in the suggested direction. “And, by the by, where had
you
that well-bred beast, fellow? She is no forest shepherd's nag. Did you come by her honestly?”
    “Ah, the mare be turble sick wi' glanders o' the gizzard,” Simon explained in a suitably gloomy voice. “I be a-taking of her to Goodyer the horse leech in Forest Wells; I be taking her for Farmer Goadby, who lies mortal sick himself wi' a groovy kidney—'tis told how hecaught it from the mare.