Latest / Bedtime Sleep Stories For Grownups / Picklewick Fair and the Runaway Kite

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Picklewick Fair and the Runaway Kite · Bedtime Sleep Stories For Grownups

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome, however you came to be here. Whether
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the afternoon is stretching out lazily in front of you,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or you've simply decided that now is the right moment
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: to rest, I'm glad you found your way to this
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: quiet place. This is Bedtime Sleep Stories for Grownups, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I'm your storyteller. If you've been here before, thank you
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: for coming back, and it's lovely to have you again.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: If this is your first time, welcome in. and make
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: yourself comfortable. There is nothing you need to do here.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: This story is a good one to leave playing while
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: you do something gentle. You might be folding laundry, or
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: rusting your eyes, or tidying a shelf, or sitting by
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: a window with a cup of tea going cool beside you.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: It works just as well in the background of an
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: ordinary afternoon as it does at the very end of
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: a long night. And if you drift off somewhere in
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: the middle, That is not a failure. That is exactly
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: what it is for. Before we begin, if you like
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: what you hear, a slow follow or share is a
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: kind thing to do and it helps these stories find
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: other tired people. But that can wait. For now, let
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: your shoulders come down from around your ears. Let your
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: jaw loosen. Let your hands rest wherever they happen to
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: be resting. Take one slow breath in and let it
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: go out a little longer than it came in Good.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: And another, if you'd like. Now, let me tell you
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: about a fair. And a kite. A green and rolling
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: corner of the countryside, where the hills are round as
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: loaves and the lanes wander about without any particular hurry,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: there lay a town called Picklewick. It was not a
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: large town. If you stood on the top of the
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: church tower, you could see the whole of it at once.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: The red roofs huddled together like a flock of resting hens.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: The slow, silver river that curled around the south side
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: of the town. The market square with its crooked well.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: And beyond it all, the wide open sweep of the meadows.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: rolling away toward the hills until they faded into blue.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: The people of Picklewick were fond of their town in
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: the way that people are fond of a favorite chair.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: They did not boast about it. They simply sat in
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: it and sighed and felt at home. And once every year,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: on the first Saturday, after the last of the harvest
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: was safely in, the people of Picklewick held their fair.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: It was called, quite simply, the Pickle Week Fair, and
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: it had been held on the very same patch of
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: grass for more than 200 years. Nobody in living memory
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: had ever missed one. There had been a fair in rain,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: and a fair in fog in one famous fair, in
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: which the wind had been so strong that the pie
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: stall had to be tied to an oak tree, and
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the pies were served sideways. But there had always been
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: a fair. It was, the town's folk like to say,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: what kept the year from sliding off the tables. This
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: story begins very early, on the morning of the fair,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: before the sun had so much as cleared its throat.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: The sky over Picklewick was still the color of dark
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: blue velvet, with a few faint stars hanging in it
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: like crumbs on a cloth. The air was cool and
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: smelled of wet grass and wood smoke and faintly of
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: something sweet, which was the bakery, whose ovens had been
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: lit since three o'clock, well since the third hour of
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the morning, as the old baker would have said, because
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: she did not hold with numbers written as little figures,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: and neither shall we. A mist lay over the meadow
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: called the Long Green, soft and might, and about knee-deep
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: the way mist sometimes does when it has settled down
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: for the night and does not wish to be disturbed.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: The Long Green was a wide, gently sloping field at
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: the edge of town, with a row of tall beech
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: trees along its western side, and a low stone wall
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: along its eastern side, and in the middle of it,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: a single old oak that had been standing there since
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: before the fair began. This was where the fair was held.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: It was the flattest, kindest, most generous piece of grass
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: for miles around, and down the lane toward it, in
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: the gray half-light, came the first cart. It was a
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: small wooden cart, painted green, with a patched canvas roof
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: and two round wheels that squeaked in a comfortable rhythm,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: a squeak, and then a pause, and then a squeak,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: like a very slow clock. It was pulled by a
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: stout brown pony named Dumpling, who had pulled this very
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: cart to the fair for eleven years and knew the
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: way better than the person holding the reins. Beside her
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: walked a tall, narrow man, with a long gray scarf
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: wound three times around his neck. and the scarf was
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: so long that its end trailed behind him on the
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: road like a friendly tail. His name was Tobias Marrow,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: and he was the clockmaker, and he was always first.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Good morning, Dumpling, he said quietly, as the cart rolled
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: through the gap in the stone wall. Mind the puddle.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Dumpling did not mind the puddle. She walked through the
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: middle of it with great dignity. because she believed that
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: a puddle was merely a mirror that wanted to be
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: stepped on. Tobias sighed and smiled and followed her in. Now,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: it is a particular kind of quiet that settles over
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: a field just before it becomes busy. You might know it.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: It is the quiet of a stage before the curtain rises,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: or a kitchen before the family wakes, or a beach
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: before the first footprint. It is not an empty quiet.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: It is a held quiet, a patient one full of
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: everything that is about to happen. The long green had
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: that quiet, as Tobias unhitched dumpling and let her wander
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: over to nibble the dewy grass, and as he stood
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: for a moment with his hands in his pockets looking
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: out at the mist, here we are again, he said
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: to nobody and everybody, another year. He took a deep breath,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: and the breath came out as a small cloud, and
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: the cloud drifted up toward the fading stars. Then, one
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: by one, behind him, other carts began to arrive. First
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: came the Pennywhistle sisters, three of them, with a wagon
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: piled high with striped canvas, who were going to put
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: up the tea tent, as they did every year. and
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: who were arguing, as they did every year, about which
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: of them had packed the tent pegs. The oldest sister
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: said the middle sister had them. The middle sister said
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: the youngest had them. The youngest sister, who was holding
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: a sack that clinked, said nothing at all, and smiled
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: in the manner of someone who has had the pegs
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: the whole time. Then came old Barnaby Clill, who kept
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: bees and sold honey, with his wagon rattling gently and
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: his small, shaggy dog, Mumble, trotting along beside it. Mumble
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: was a dog of no particular breed and no particular opinions,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: except that he believed all mornings were improved by the
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: discovery of a good stick. He found one at once,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: near the gate, and carried it for the rest of
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: the day with the solemn pride of a person who
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: has been handed a very important document. Then came the cheesemonger,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: with her wheels of cheese, wrapped in cloth and stacked
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: in a barrow like pale round moons. Then came the
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: man who sold hand-turned wooden spoons, and the woman who
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: made candles that smelled of rain, and the twin brothers
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: who sold roasted chestnuts and always, always wore matching hats.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: They came in ones and twos and threes, down the
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: lane and through the gap in the wall, and all
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: of them said good morning to one another in low voices,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: because it was still early enough that a loud voice
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: would have seemed rude. By the time the sky had
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: faded from dark blue to a soft hazy gray, The
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: long green was alive with quiet work. If you had
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: been standing under the old oak, you would have heard
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: it as a kind of music. There was the knock, knock,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: knock of wooden mallets driving tent tags into soft ground.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: There was the long, slow whoosh of canvas being shaken
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: out and lifted, and the creak of poles rising, and
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the low, cheerful murmur of people saying things like, a
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: little to the left, and no, your other left, and there,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: that's it, hold it there. There was the clink of crates,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: and the rustle of straw, and the gentle thump of
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: a barrow being set down. Somewhere a kettle was already whistling,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: thin and bright, and somewhere a rooster, who had been
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: told it was far too early, was crowing. anyway and
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: as the tents went up the field began to change
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: where there had been nothing but grass and mist there
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: were now long rows of little peaked roofs striped in
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  Speaker 1: red and cream and green and gold and blue and
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: white like a village of tiny circus tops. Between them
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: ran narrow paths of trodden straw, and along the paths
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: the stalls began to take shape. Low wooden counters, hung
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: with cloth, with painted signs propped against their fronts. There
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: was a sign that said in cheerful yellow letters, Honey, Jam,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: and other sticky comforts. There was a sign that said,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Buttons of Every Description, and beneath it, in smaller writing,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Accept the One You Lost. There was a sign that said, Hats,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: mended while you wait, or, even while you don't. And
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: at the very center of the field, beside the old oak,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: stood an empty patch of grass, a wide, flat, carefully
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: marked square, with a rope staked out around it and
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: a little hand-lettered notice nailed to a post. The notice
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: was not finished yet. Somebody had painted only the first
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: two words. They said, Reserved four. The rest would be
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: added later. Once the owner of the space arrived, and once,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: as is traditional, somebody had found the right brush. But
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: we shook on to that. And at about the moment
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: when the first thin line of gold appeared along the
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: eastern hills, A round, brisk woman in a green coat
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: came bustling across the long green that the clipboard held
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: to her chest. This was Alderwoman Tuppence Gable, who was
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: the head of the fair committee, which was to say
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: that she was the person who knew where everything was
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: supposed to go and what everyone was supposed to be
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: doing at any given moment. She was small and quick
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: and kind, with a pair of spectacles on a chain,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: a pencil tucked behind her ear, and another pencil tucked
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: behind the other ear in case the first one failed.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: She had organized the fair for nineteen years, and in
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: all that time she had never once lost her temper,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: though she had on three occasions come very close, and
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: had each time recovered by eating a plum bun. Good morning, everyone,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: she called in her clear, warm, carrying voice. Good morning,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: good morning, lovely day for it. My the guy ropes, dear.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Is that the tea tent? Wonderful. Lovely. Not there, dear,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: that's where the donkey goes. There's a donkey? said one
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: of the penny-whistle sisters. There's always a donkey, said Tuppence
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Gable serenely. The donkey is part of the fair. She
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: stopped by the old oak and looked about her, and
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: what she saw pleased her very much. The stalls were rising,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: the paths were swept, the bunting, long strings of little
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: triangular flags in every color you could name, was being
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: looped from tent to tent by two boys on ladders,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: and it fluttered in the soft dawn breeze like a
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: flock of tiny, bright, obliging birds. There was a smell
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: of wood smoke and canvas and trodden straw and fresh bread,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and somewhere in the distance the church bell was ringing
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: the hour, slow and round and easy. She counted the
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: strokes under her breath. Out of habit. Six. It was
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: six o'clock in the morning and the gates would open
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: at ten. Four hours, she murmured, and tapped her pencil
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: against her clipboard. We have all the time in the world.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: This was, of course, not quite true. But it is
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: a lovely thing to say, and it is sometimes the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: saying of it that makes it so. Now I should
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: tell you about the plum buns, since we have mentioned them,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: and since a good story ought never to mention a
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: plum bun without following through. The Picklewick Bakery was run
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: by a broad, flowery, rosy-cheeked woman named Odalie Fenimore, who
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: had been baking since before she could properly reach the counter.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: She had stood on a wooden crate to knead dough
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: when she was six years old, and she still kept
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the crate in the corner of the bakery as a
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: kind of monument. Odalie's plum buns were famous for twelve
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: miles in every direction. They were soft and golden, and
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: slightly sticky on top, with a split in the middle
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: where the dark, sweet plum jam showed through, and a
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: dusting of sugar over everything like the first light frost
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: of the year. By the morning of the fair, Odalie
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Fenimore had baked three hundred and sixty of them, and
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: she had loaded them into six enormous baskets. and she
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: was now wheeling the baskets across the long green on
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: a handcart, with the careful, delicate air of a woman
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: transporting sleeping infants.' Plum muns,' she announced to nobody in
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: particular as she arrived at the tea tent.' Fresh.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Warm.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Still thinking about whether they're done rising, some of them. So,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: be gentle.' The penny-whistle sister stopped arguing at once. It
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: was a thing that happened around Odalie's buns. A sort
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: of peace descended. The oldest sister put down her mallet.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: The middle sister put down her pegs, which she had
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: had all along. The youngest sister, who was a person
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: of few words, simply held out both hands, and Odalie
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: placed in them a single warm bun on a square
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: of paper. For a moment, nobody spoke. The youngest penny-whistle
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: sister closed her eyes, Her long secret smile spread across
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: her face. Well, said Odalie. Yes, said the youngest sister,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: which was the only word she had said all morning,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: and it was exactly enough. And so, the tea tent
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: was opened a little early, and the urn was lit,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: and a long line of tired, happy, cold-lingered people formed
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: along the counter. Mugs were passed round, steam rose and curls.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Tobias Mero stood with his hands wrapped around a hot
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: cup of tea and a plombon in the other, and
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Dumpling the pony, who had wandered over to see what
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: all the fuss was about, was given the very end
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: of a bun, which she accepted with a look that
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: said she had been expecting it all along. The sun
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: came up properly at about a quarter past seven. It
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: did not rush, it never does, on a fair morning.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: It rose as though it had all the time in
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: the world, which for the sun is simply true. First
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: there was a thin ream of gold along the hilltops,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: then a slow spill of pink and amber across the sky,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: then a long warm shaft of light that slid down
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: the slopes of the meadow and touched the mist, and
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: the mist glowed. and turned to a pale, shimmering gold,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: and began, slowly, gently, to lift. All across the long green,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: people paused in their work. They did not plan to,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: it simply happened. A man holding a ladder stopped and
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: looked up. A woman holding a basket of apples set
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: it down. Two small children, who had been sent to
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: fetch water, stood in the middle of the path with
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: their buckets and stared at the sky with their mouths
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: slightly open. Even the Dante who had in fact arrived
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: by this point raised his long gray head and let
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: out one low contented sigh. It was a lovely thing.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: To be in that field at that moment the light
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: touched the tops of the tents first so that every
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: striped roof glowed like a lantern. Then it touched the
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: bunting and the little flags seemed to catch fire in
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: gentle colors. Then it touched the grass itself and every
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: blade held a bead of dew and every bead of
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: dew held a tiny sun. so that the whole meadow
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: shimmered as though somebody had scattered a handful of diamonds
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: across it and then gone away, smiling. To put the
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: tuttle on, Tuppence Gable took off her spectacles, and polished them,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: and put them back on again, and looked at the
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: field a second time because the first time had been
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: so nice. There, she said softly, that's the one. Nobody
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: asked what she meant. Everybody knew. And now, just as
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the light had settled fully over the field, and the
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: first church bell of half-past seven was starting up, a
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: small figure came running down the lane with her coat
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: unbuttoned and her hair in two crooked plaits. Her name
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: was Posey Larkspur, and she was nine years old, which
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: is the age at which a person knows a great
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: many things for certain. She knew that a goose could
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: be reasoned with if you were calm. She knew that
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the best place to sit at a fair was underneath
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: a table. She knew the names of every Dodd and Picklewick,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: and the names of most of their grandmothers. and she
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: knew with a certainty that nothing in the world could shake,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: that this year's fair was going to be the best
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: one that had ever been. Behind her, much more slowly,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: walked her grandfather, a stooped and gentle man named Elias Larkspur,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: who carried a long wooden crate on his shoulder and
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: wore a flat cap pulled low against the morning light.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: He'd walked this lane for seventy years, and he walked
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: it now at precisely the pace he had always walked it.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: which was the pace of a man who has learned
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: that nothing worth arriving at will leave without him. Grandfather, hurry,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Posey called back over her shoulder. They've started without us.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: They have not, said Elias Larkspur mildly. They have merely
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: begun in our absence. It is a different thing. Posey
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: skidded to the halt of the gap in the wall,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: and looked out across the field, and her whole face
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: lit up. She saw the tents. She saw the stalls.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: She saw the bunting and the mist and the smoke
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: and the shining dew. And she saw in the very
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: middle of the long green, the empty rope spur beside
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: the old oak with the half-finished sign. Reserved for, she
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: read aloud, slowly. Then she turned to her grandfather with
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: her eyes very wide. Is it today? Is it really today?
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Elias Larkspur set down his long wooden crate in the
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: grass and straightened up, with one hand on the small
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: of his back, and smiled at the field and at
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: the sky and at his granddaughter. It is today, he said,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: but we mustn't rush it. A great thing arrives in
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: its own time, Posey. Come, let's find a nice cup
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: of tea and a bun and see how the morning goes.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: So they walked together into the long green, the girl
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: and the old man, through the thinning mist, past the
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: stalls and the bunting, and the busy, humming, happy people.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: A breeze stirred the little flags overhead. Somewhere a fiddle
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: was being tuned. Somewhere a pot of something wonderful had
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: begun to bubble. And the sun climbed a little higher
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: into the clean blue sky, warming the grass, warming the canvas,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: warming the shoulders of everyone who stood beneath it. The
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: gates of the Pukhawut fair would not open for another
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: two hours or so. There was still time to set
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: out the jars, and to polish the brass, and to
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: hang the last of the lanterns. There was still time
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: to sit on an upturned crate, and watch the dew
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: steam gently off the grass. There was still time, and
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: nobody was in a hurry, and the morning was as
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: soft as a folded blanket, and you, listening, may let
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: yourself settle into that morning too. You might notice how
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: it feels to be somewhere before the busy part begins.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: You might notice the warmth of the sun on a
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: canvas roof and the faint sweetness of the bakery in
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: the air and the slow, steady, comfortable pace of everything.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: There is no schedule to keep here. There is only
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the field and the light and the tea and the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: quiet promise of a day that has not happened yet.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Let your breath go slow. Let your shoulders shake. Let
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: the early light of the long green rest on you
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: for a while. At 10 o'clock exactly by the church bell,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: which was for once in agreement with the clockmaker's pocket watch.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Alderwoman Tuppen Stable stood at the gap in the stone
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: wall with a ribbon in one hand and a very
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: large pair of scissors in the other. A small crowd
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: had gathered. It was not a loud crowd. It was
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: the sort of crowd that holds paper cups of tea
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and shits its weight from foot to foot and smiles
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: at the sky. Friends, neighbors, and visitors from over the hill,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: said Tuppence, in her clear war voice. Welcome once again
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: to the Picklewick Fair. Be kind to the animals, be
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: kind to the stallholders, be kind to your own feet,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: which will have a great deal of walking to do,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: and please remember that the goose has the right of way.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: There was a ripple of fond laughter, because the goose
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: did indeed have the right of way, and had held
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: it for six years. Then Tuppence snipped the ribbon which
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: fell in two soft halves to the grass, and the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: fair was open. It was not a stampede. Nothing in
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Picklewick is ever a stampede. It was more like a
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: slow tide coming in across a flat beach, a gentle
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: spreading of people through the gap and into the field,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: drifting left and right and forward, in twos and threes
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: and families with pram and walking sticks and children on shoulders.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Dumpling the pony watched them go by with half-closed eyes,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: The donkey said something in his own language which was
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: probably a blessing, and somewhere near the tea tent, the fiddle,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: now tuned at last, began a slow, rolling, easy tune
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: that sounded like a lane in summer. Posy Larkspur took
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: her grandfather's hand, the one that was not carrying the crate,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: and said, We're first. Wherever you like, said Elias. The
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: fair has no front door. It has only a great
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: many side doors, and every one of them opens somewhere
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: good They began with the honey, because Barnaby Quill's stall
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: was nearest the gap, and because Mumble the dog had
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: already stationed himself beneath it with his stick, like a
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: small furry guard. Barnaby's stall was a thing of beauty.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: He had hung a canopy of faded yellow cloth, and
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: under it, on shelves of pale wood, he had arranged
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: his honey in jars of every size, so that the
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: light coming through the cloth turned them all to glowing
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: amber lamps. There was clover honey, as light as sunshine
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: on a river. There was heather honey, dark and rich
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: and a little smoky. There was a creamy white honey,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: set thick as butter, which Barnaby claimed was the only
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: honey in the world that could be spread on a cloud.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: And there was a single small jar at the very
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: center of the table with a handwritten label that said,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Last flowers of the year, not for sale, but you
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: may look. Look away, look away, said Barnaby cheerfully, spreading
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: his hands. The look is free. A thing tastes as
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: a penny, a jar is a few pennies more, and
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the bees would like you to know they worked very hard.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: He held out a wooden stick with a drop of
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: clover honey on its end and posy-toot it, and put
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: it in her mouth and closed her eyes, and was
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: quiet for quite a long moment. It tastes like the
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: inside of a flower, she said at last in a
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: hushed voice. That is precisely what it is, said Barnaby
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: with deep satisfaction. You have to taste, young lady, in
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: honey and in everything else. He wrapped a small jar
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: of clover honey in brown paper and tied it with
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: twine and slipped it into Edouard's lockspur's coat pocket. and
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: when Elias protested, Barnaby waved him off and said that
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: old friends, who walked with such lovely granddaughters, had no
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: business paying. Who knew when a kindness was being offered
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: and when it would be rude to refuse, thanked him gravely.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: and the two old men nodded to each other in
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: the way of people who have said all that needs
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: saying for forty years and have no need to say
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: it again. Mumble, beneath the table, thumbed his tail twice
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: against the grass, and kept hold of his stick. The
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: next stall along sold buttons, It was a small stall,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: run by a thin, thoughtful woman called Hester Plum, who
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: wore a long cardigan covered in buttons of every possible kind,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: so that when she moved she clicked softly, like a
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: hopeful beetle. She had thousands of them, in glass jars
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: and tin boxes and wooden trays, sorted not by color
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: nor by size but by the feeling they gave her,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: which was a system that nobody else could follow and
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: which worked perfectly. There were round buttons and square buttons
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: and buttons shaped like stars. There were buttons of brass
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: and bone and mother of pearl. There were tiny black
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: buttons no bigger than a lentil that had once belonged
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: to a christening gown There were enormous wooden buttons the
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: size of a biscuit that had once belonged to a
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: sea captain's coat. There was a button carved to look
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: like an acorn, and a button carved to look like
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: a sleeping fox, and a button of pale green glass that,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: when held up to the light, showed a tiny bubble
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: trapped inside it, like a thought. Posey picked up the
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: green glass button and turned it, and the bubble slid
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: slowly from one side to the other. Where is it from?
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: she asked. Nobody knows, said Hester Plum. It was in
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: a coat I bought at a house sale. The coat
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: was gone, and the lining was gone, and the pockets
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: were gone, but the button was still there, sewn to nothing,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: holding on all by itself. She smiled. I thought, anybody
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: that's stubborn deserves a home. Posey held the button very carefully.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: She turned to look at her grandfather, and Elias, without
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: a word, put a penny on the counter, and Hester
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Plum put the button into Posey's palm and closed her
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: small fingers around it. There's a sign about this stall,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Posey said, looking up, that says, except the one you lost. Yes,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: said Hester Plum mildly. I put that there for the
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: people who come looking for it. They always do. And
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: now and then I find it for them. It is
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: a kind of magic of the plainest sort. Most of
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: what people lose is simply waiting in somebody else's jar.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: which little further down the path, where the straw was
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: thick and golden underfoot, stood the hat stall, and here
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: a small queue had formed. The hat mender was a
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: very round man named Fitzwilliam Crum, with a very round
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: head and a very round smile, and he sat on
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: a stool behind a table piled high with hats of
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: all descriptions, straw hats, felt hats, caps, bonnets, bowlers, and
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: a single astonishing hat made entirely of peacock feathers, which
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: he insisted was only on loan. He worked quickly, with
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: a curved needle and a spool of thread, his fingers
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: moving in small, neat loops. A woman handed him a
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: hat with a hole in the brim. A man handed
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: him a cap with a squashed crown. A little boy
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: handed him a sun hat that had been sat on,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: and Fitzwilliam looked at it for a long moment and said, Ah,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: a hat with a story. Mended while you wait, Posey
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: read from the sign. Or even while you don't. What
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: does that mean? It means, said Fitzwilliam without looking up,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: that if you are in a hurry, you may wait,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: and I shall mend your hat in the time it
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: takes you to eat a plum bun. But, if you
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: wish to wander off and look at other things, you
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: may leave your hat with me, and when you return
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: it will be mended and will have somehow become a
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: little better than it was. The second way takes longer,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: it is also the better way. He blew a thread
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: from his sleeve, and smiled and handed the little boy
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: back his sun hat, which now stood proudly upright with
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: a new band of blue ribbon, and which the boy
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: placed on his head with great ceremony before marching away
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: in the direction of the lemonade. Elias Larkspur, who had
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: been quietly watching, tipped his own flat cap to the hat-mender,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: and Fitzwilliam Crumb tipped an invisible hat back, and everyone
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: felt that something courteous and ancient had just been completed.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Through the middle of the morning, the long green was
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: gently humming. It is hard to describe the sound of
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: a fair, if you have not stood inside one. It
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: is made of a hundred small sounds laid over one another,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: like blankets on a bed. There was the soft chatter
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: of voices, rising and falling. There was the clink of
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: coins and the rustle of paper and the creak of boards.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: There was the fiddle, now joined by a flute and
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: a small round drum. There was the sizzle of sausages somewhere,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: and the pop of roasting chestnuts somewhere else. There was
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: a child laughing, and then another child laughing, and then,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: a little later, a third child crying, briefly and for
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: no reason, and then laughing again. It was a warm
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: day for early autumn, though not too warm. The sky
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: was a pale and gentle blue, with a few high,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: thin clouds drawn across it like pencil strokes. A light wind,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: steady and soft and from the west, was moving across
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: the meadow, and his start a bunting overhead so that
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: the little flags rippled continuously, one after another, in long,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: lazy waves. If you looked up and followed the ripple,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: you could trace the breeze across the whole of the fair,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: from one end to the other, like watching a thought
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: travel through a mind. Posey noticed this, because she noticed
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: most things. The winds from the west, she said. Isn't it?
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: It is, said Elias. A good steady wind. A very
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: good one, his eyes crinkled at the corners. Hold that thought,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: my dear. There's a great deal of fare to get
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: through before we need it. And they walked on, down
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: the long straw path, with the green glass button warm
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: in Posey's pocket, and the little jar of honey knocking
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: gently against her grandfather's hip. In the very heart of
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: the fair, where the paths crossed beneath the old oak,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: there was a stall that sold nothing at all, at
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: least that was how it appeared. It was a plain
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: wooden table, covered in a green cloth with a handsome
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: brass bell on it and a small hand-painted sign. The
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: sign said, Small Wonders. Beneath that, in smaller letters, it said,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Please take one. And behind the table sat a tiny,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: bright-eyed old woman in a shawl the color of a
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: robin's breast, who was knitting something long and lilac and
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: did not look up.' It' s free?' whispered Posey.' It' s whatever
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: you need,' said the old woman, still not looking up.'
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: That' s the fun of it. I never know what it
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: is until you do.' On the table, in neat rows,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: lay a hundred little things. There was a smooth gray
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: pebble with a white stripe around its middle. There was
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: a feather, speckled brown and cream. There was a folded
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: paper boat the size of a thumb. There was a
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: tiny glass bottle with a cork in it, and inside
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: the bottle a drop of what looked like moonlight. There
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: was a seed. In a twist of paper there was
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: a silver thimble. There was a very small brass key,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: which opened nothing, and which she liked to give to
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: people who were afraid of locked doors. Posy stood before
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: the table for a long time. Her hands clasped behind
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: her back, which is the correct way to choose among
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: wonders so as not to touch the wrong one. Finally,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: she pointed one finger out to the pebble with the
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: white stripe. That one, she said, please. Ah, said the
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: old woman. She put her knitting down at last and
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: looked up. And her eyes were the color of warm
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: tea and as bright as buttons. That one's been waiting
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: for somebody who needed a reminder to go around the
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: edges of things slowly. It's a pocket pebble. When you're hurried,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: you rub it with your thumb. It will tell you
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: to breeze. Does it work? asked Posey. Rita's never failed,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: said the old woman, but it is a very slow stone.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: It does not talk fast, so you must listen well.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Posey tucked the pebble into her pocket beside the green button,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: and the old woman went back to her knitting, humming now,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: and the brass bell on the table rang once, softly,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: all by itself, though nobody had touched it. They ate
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: lunch under a table, naturally, because Posey had always held
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: that this was the best way to eat at a fair.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: The table belonged to the pie stall, which was run
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: by a large and jovial family called the Dobbs, who
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: baked pies of every kind and stacked them in towering
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: pyramids in the sunshine. There were meat pies and mushroom
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: pies and pies of leeks and cheese. They were small
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: round pies with a crust on top and large oblong
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: pies with a lattice. There was a pie made with
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: apples and blackberries and a pinch of cinnamon, which smelled
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: like the inset of a warm cupboard in winter. And
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: underneath the table, beneath the long white cloth that hung
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: to the ground, was a secret little room of shade
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: and straw with a crate for a seat and a
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: perfectly good view of everybody's ankles. Posing in an air seven-sided,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: side by side, with a mushroom pie to share between them,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: and Mumble the dog, who had followed without being asked,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: lay at their feet with his stick across his paws
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: and his chin on the grass. I can see boots,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Posey whispered happily. I can see a lady's shoes with buckles,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: and a pony's hooves, and, what do you think, two
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: tiny pairs of wellingtons running. Running is allowed, said Elias jumpily.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: At a fair I think it's rather encouraged. Grandfather, said
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Posey after a while, picking at the pastry, Do you
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: think the wind will stay? Elias took a bite of
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: pie and chewed thoughtfully and watched the ankles go by.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: The wind, he said, is like a good guest. It
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: will stay as long as it feels welcome. And it
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: has been made very welcome today. He rested his hand
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: on the long wooden crate beside him, the one he
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: had carried all the way from the lane, and patted
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: it lightly, twice, as one pats the neck of a
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: sleeping horse. Soon, he said. Not yet. Soon. The pie
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: was finished and the crumbs had been brushed away. They
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: crawled out from beneath the table into the bright afternoon
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: and wandered a while without any plan at all. They
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: passed the cheesemonger, whose moon-shaped wheels had been cut into
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: tiny wedges. on a board for tasting. They passed the
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: woman with the rain-scented candles, who let Posey sniff one
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: and promised that when lit on a dry day it
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: would persuade a room that it had just stopped drizzling outside.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: They passed the chestnut twins in their matching hats, who
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: were peeling hot chestnuts into paper cones and and whistling
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: the same tune in slightly different keys. They passed the
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: stall of wooden spoons, where a man with a magnificent
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: mustache demonstrated that a spoon, properly made, could stir a pot,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: taste a soup, and bless a kitchen all at once.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: They passed a puppet theatre, where a small crowd of
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: children sat cross-legged in the grass to watch a velvet
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: fox outwit a stern and pompous badger. They passed a ring-toss,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: where a boy had just won a goldfish and was
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: holding it in a bag of water with an expression
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: of overwhelming responsibility. They passed a stall of teapots, all different,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: all round, like a family portrait of comfortable aunts. They
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: passed a stall selling music boxes, each of which played
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: a different small tune, so that standing among them was
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: like standing inside a bubble of tinkling rain. And they passed,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: more than once, a ribbon stall. It was a handsome stall,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: hung from top to bottom with ribbons. And the ribbons
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: fluttered and slid and tangled in the breeze like long,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: colored hair. Red ribbons, and green ribbons, and gold, spotted ribbons,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: and striped ribbons, and ribbons printed with tiny birds. A
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: woman called Missive. Ravenworth ran it. and she wore a
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: hat covered in ribbon roses, and it was said that
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: she had never once wrapped a present badly, nor tied
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: a bow that came undone. What was strange is that
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: nobody was buying ribbons, they were being collected. All through
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: the morning people had been stopping at Mrs. Ribbenworth's stall,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: and instead of paying they'd pulled a ribbon from their
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: own pocket, or their own hat, or their own sleeve,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: and handed it to her. And she had wound it
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: carefully onto an enormous wooden school, and tied a knot,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: and given them a small smile and thanked them. What
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: are you doing with all the ribbons? Posy asked with
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: great interest. Mrs. Ribenworth looked at her over the top
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: of her spectacles. A smile spread across her face, wide
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: and secret and warm. Wait and see, my dear, she said.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: The ribbons are for later. They are for the tail.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: The afternoon began slowly to lean toward the west. It
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: does this out of fear, as everywhere else, though out
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: of fear you notice it less, because there is always
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: one more stool to look at, one more bun to eat,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: one more friend to say hello to, one more small,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: delicate wonder holding its breath on a table. The shadows
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: lengthened by the smallest of degrees. The light thickened and
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: turned slightly golden. The breeze, steady from the west, carried
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: the smell of wood smoke and cinnamon over the meadow,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: and the bunting rippled and rippled along its strings, as
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: steady as a heartbeat. Posey and Elias sat down at
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: last on a hay bale near the old oak with
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: cups of warm apple juice and watched the world go by.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Mumble lay between them. The honey jar sat in Elias's pocket.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: The green glass button and the white striped pebble sat
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: in posies. The long wooden crate rested in the grass
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: at their feet, closed and quiet like a sleeping animal.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Azash was beginning to creep across the field. Not a
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: silence exactly, more of a gathering. People were drifting one
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: by one and two by two, toward the center of
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: the long green, toward the empty square of grass beside
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: the oak, with its rope and its unfinished sign. They
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: carried their teacups. They carried their children. They did not hurry.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: They simply arrived. As water arrives at a low place,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: and stood, and waited, and murmured. Something was about to happen.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Everyone could feel it. It sat in the air like
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: the stillness before a bell is struck. Grandfather, Posey whispered. Look,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: they're coming. Elias Laksper set down his cup. He rested
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: a hand on his granddaughter's shoulder and looked up a
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: long green hill toward the lane, where far away and small,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: a procession was just beginning to appear at the crest. Yes,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: he said softly. Here comes Branwell Towers. And you, listening,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: can let all that busy wonder wash slowly past you now.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: The amber honey, the clicking buttons, the mended hats, the
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: pebble that tells you to breathe. Let the gentle noise
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: of the fair fade down into a soft blur, the
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: way a favorite song fades when you are almost asleep.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: There is nothing to buy and nothing to find and
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: nowhere you need to be. There is only the warm
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: afternoon and the golden light and the slow seed pace
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: of the day. Breathe in. Breathe out. Very slowly, the
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: way the pebble taught. Wrong Well Towers stood on the
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: highest hill above Picklewick, and it was the kind of
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: house that looked as though it had been built by
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: someone telling a story and not quite deciding where to stop.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: It had a tall, central tower with a copper roof,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: gone green with age. It had a smaller tower on
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: the left and a smaller tower on the right, and
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: a third tower at the back that nobody had ever
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: managed to count properly from the same spot twice. It
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: had a long glass conservatory full of ferns and lemon trees,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: a crooked chimney that wore a little tilted hat of moss,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: and a great arched window at the very top that
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: caught the light of the setting sun and flung it
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: down across the valley like a lantern. Ivy climbed its walls,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: doves lived in its eaves, and inside it was said
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: there were more staircases than there were people to climb them,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: and a library so big that it had a weather
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: of its own. For as long as there had been
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: a fair in Picklewick, there had been a Branwell in
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: the house, and for as long as there had been
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: a Branwell in the house, there had been some manner
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: of flooding thing that came down from the hill on
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: the day of the fair. In the early years it
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: had been a flag, then a banner, then a great
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: painted balloon of oiled silk, which had floated off over
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: the hills one year with a basket of buys and
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: was never seen again. And then, a very long time ago,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: a Branwell child had discovered Kite's, and the tradition had
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: settled into its present happy shape. Every year the people
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: of the towers made a kite. Every year it was
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: a little bigger than the last. And every year, at
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: four o'clock in the afternoon, it was carried down the hill,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: and into the long green, and flown over the fair,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: to the delight of everybody, and then brought carefully back
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: to earth. and put away in the attic, until the
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: following spring, when the whole business began again. This year's kite,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: people said, was going to be the biggest of all.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: The procession came over the crest of the hill at
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: about half past three, and the field fell quiet to
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: watch it. First came a boy with a small brass bell,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: ringing it softly once for every fifth step, so that
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: the whole procession seemed to move to a slow, gentle,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: tinkling rhythm. Then came two women carrying a banner of
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: green cloth, embroidered with a golden flyer. Then came a
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: cart pulled by a patient grey mare, and on the cart,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: in a high-backed wicker chair padded with cushions, and wrapped
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: in a quilt of a hundred colors, sat a very small,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: very old, very upright woman, in a hat with a
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: feather in it. This was Miss Cordelia Branwell, who was
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: ninety-one years old, in the head of the house. She
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: had white hair pinned up in a loose and elegant knot,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: and bright, shrewd, humorous blue eyes, and a face as
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: soft and creased as a well-loved mat. She sat in
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: her chair like a queen on a throne, with one
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: hand resting on a walking stick topped with a silver fox,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: and she looked out across the long green with an
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: expression of great and serene satisfaction.' Look at them all,'
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: she said to the young woman, walking beside the cart.'
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Look at them, Wilhelmina. They have come again.'' They always come,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Aunt Cordelia,' said Wilhelmina Branwell, who was her niece.' and
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: who had short, practical hair and ink on her fingers,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: and a pencil behind her ear, and who had designed
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: the structure of the kite with a careful, patient joy.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: They would come if it were snowing. They would come
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: if it were raining frogs, said Miss Cordelia, and bring
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: umbrellas for the frogs. Behind the cart came a long,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: long line of people. There were servants and cooks and
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: gardeners from the towers. There were farmers' wives and shopkeepers
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: and schoolchildren. Ten were the sons and daughters of the
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: people who had once worked at the towers, and the
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: grandsons and granddaughters of the people who had worked there before.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: They walked in pairs, two by two, down the grassy slope,
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: and each pair carried one end of something, and the
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: something stretched back up the hill, and out of sight,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: long and long and long, wrapped in a great paled sheet,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: because the kite of that year was not carried on
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: a cart, it was too large, it was carried by hands.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: I should like you to picture it properly because it
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: is worth picturing. The kite was called the Great Marigold
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: and it was shaped like a large and perfect diamond,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: as tall as a two-story house and nearly as wide
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: as the nave of the church. Its frame was made
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: of long slender canes of willow and bamboo, bound together
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: with waxed thread and braced with the finest silver wire
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: from the Tower Zone workshop. The canes crossed in the
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: middle in a great star, and each arm of the
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: star was as straight and light as a violin bow.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: Wilhelmina Branwell had drawn the plans for it over the
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: course of a winter, in the glow of a green-shaded lamp,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: and had changed her mind eleven times, and had tested
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: a scale model in the ballroom, where it had flown
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: very nicely until it met a chandelier. But it was
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: the covering that made it wonderful. The covering was made
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: of cloth, and all the cloth had been given— Over
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: the course of that year, by a kind of quiet arrangement,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: families all across Picklewick had been burning fabric up the
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: hill to the towers. Little pieces and big pieces, scraps
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: and remnants and well-loved things. There was a square of
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: blue gingham from a kitchen curtain. There was a stripe
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: of ticking from an old mattress. There was a triangle
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: of white lace from a wedding veil that had been
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: worn by four generations of brides. each of whom had
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: added a tightening stitch to the hem. There was a
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: patch of faded red flannel that had once been a
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: baby's blanket. There was a panel of green velvet from
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: a theater curtain, and a square of yellow silk from
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: a fisherman's sail, and a heart-shaped piece cut from the
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: lining of a soldier's coat that had come home safe.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: All these pieces had been stitched together by a dozen
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: pairs of hands in the long attic of the tower's,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: through the dark evenings of winter, with a great deal
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: of tea and a great deal of talk. The stitching
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: was small and neat and strong. The pattern which Wilhelmina
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: had drawn was a vast and glowing flower, with a
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: golden heart at the center and petals of orange and
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: amber and honey spreading outward to the corners, so that
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: when the kite was held up to the sun, the
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: light came through the thin fabric in a thousand warm shades,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: like a church window made of kindness. it was as
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: miss cordelia liked to say not a kite at all
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: it was the quilt that had decided to try something
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: more ambitious they laid it out on the grass beside
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: the old oak in the roped square as carefully as
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: one lays out a sleeping person it took the whole
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: procession to do it The long line of carriers fanned
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: out and lowered the great pale sheet to the ground
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: and peeled it back, and a murmur ran through the
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: watching crowd like wind through wheat. The great marigold lay
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: in the sunlight shining. Its color seemed to glow from within.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: A little girl at the front of the crowd put
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: both hands over her mouth. An old man took off
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: his cap. Somebody, somewhere at the back, said a quiet, oh,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: and several people said it again, and it spread, and
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: became a sort of soft, collective sigh. Tuppence Gable stood
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: beside the roped-off square, with her clipboard pressed to her heart.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: She did not say anything. For once, she had nothing
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: she needed to organize. she simply looked and her spectacles
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: were misty and she took them off and wiped them
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: on her sleeve and put them on again and the
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: kite was still there and still beautiful well said miss
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: cordelia bramwell from her wicker chair which had been lifted
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: down from the cart and set on the grass in
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: the shade of the oak that went rather well does
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: anyone have a cup of tea Seven cups of tea
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: were produced at once. She accepted the nearest and took
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: a sip, and nodded, and then turned her bright blue
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: gaze across the proud, and let it settle as if
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: by instinct, upon a small girl with crooked plaits, standing
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: in front of a post with a half-painted sign.' Ah,'
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: said Miss Cordelia,' and there she is.' Posey Lockspur, I believe.'
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Come here, child.' I have been told you are the
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: person who finishes the signs. It was an old tradition,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: and a lovely one, that someone small should finish the sign.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: Nobody knew exactly how it had begun. Some said that
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: a long time ago a grandma had been too busy
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: to paint it, and had asked a passing child to help.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Others said it was simply good luck, that a thing
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: begun by large hands ought to be finished by small ones,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: so that it would stay young. Whatever the reason, every
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: year a child was chosen, usually the one who had
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: been waiting most patiently, and handed a brush, and allowed
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: to paint the last words on the notice board beside
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: the kite. Posey walked forward with her hands clasped behind
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: her back, slowly, because the pocket pebble had told her to.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: Eli has followed, a few steps behind, carrying the long
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: wooden ring. A hash fell across the field, and in
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: a hush it began venting and rippling overhead. And Mumble
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: the dog sniffing gently at the grass. Wilhelmina Branwell crouched
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: down beside her and held out a small pot of
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: green paint and a thin brush with a bristle tip.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: The words are, the great marigold, said Wilhelmina quietly. You
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: may paint them however you like, large or small, straight
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: or crooked. We have never had a crooked one, but
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: I have always privately hoped. Posy looked at the brush,
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: then she looked at the board, which read in neat
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: white letters, reserved for She dipped the brush in the
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: green paint and let a bead of it gather at
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: the tip and breathed in, slowly, as the pebble had instructed,
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: and began. She painted every letter carefully, the T and
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: the H and the E, a little space, the G
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: with a round belly and the R and the E
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: and the A and the T, another little space, and
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: then the long, looping, joyful M of marigold. which she
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: gave an extra curl at the top without quite meaning to.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: By the time she reached the final D, her tongue
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: was poking out of the corner of her mouth and
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: the whole crowd was holding its breath. She lifted the brush.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: She stepped back. The sign read, In glistening green, reserved
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: for the great marigold, and the last D leaned very
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: slightly to the left. as if it were looking over
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: its shoulder at the sky.' Perfect,' said Miss Cordelia Branwell.'
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: A little crooked, exactly right.' A great warm cheer rose
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: from the field. It was not a loud cheer. It
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: was more of a glad, rolling hum, the kind that
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: people make when they are happy and a bit moved
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: and not sure where to put their hands.' Somebody blew
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: their nose. Somebody laughed. Mumble barked once. And then remembering
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: his dignity, stopped. Now take the work of readying the
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: kite for flight. and this part was done slowly and
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: with a great many hands. First the tail. Mrs. Ribbenworth
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: came forward, flushed and radiant with the enormous wooden spool
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: of collected ribbons in her arms. All the ribbons of
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: the day, the red ones and green ones and gold ones,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: the ones pulled from hats and pockets and plaits, had
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: been knotted end to end into one extraordinarily long streamer,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: hundreds upon hundreds of them, In every color and pattern,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: a rainbow that had been quietly gathered all day by
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: a woman in a rose-covered hat. It was tied to
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: the bottom point of the diamond, and it was unspooled
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: across the grass in a long, rippling, shimmering road, and
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: it was so long that it reached the beech trees
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: at the far end of the field. Four hundred ribbons, Mrs.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: Ribenworth said proudly, or very nearly. I stopped counting at
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: the green ones. A tale like that, said Miss Cordelia admiringly,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: could steer a ship. It's meant to steady her, said Wilhelmina,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: kneeling at the kite's lower point her finger is busy
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: with the knots a kite this size needs weight at
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: the back to keep her nose up and she needs
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: something beautiful to trail behind her I've never known a
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: kite that flew well without a little beauty to follow
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: then the bridle which is the arrangement of fine cords
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: that joins the kite to its line Wilhelmina and two
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: helpers attached it in three places, adjusting and testing, tugging gently,
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: listening with their fingertips for the right tension. Then the
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: final knot, the large and important one, which Wilhelmina tied
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: herself with her tongue between her teeth, and then stood
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: back and looked at in silence for a long moment,
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: as though it were a small and delicate creature that
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: she was trusting to the world. And then Alaya's large
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: spur stepped forward, You will remember, I think, the long
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: wooden crate that he had carried all day. He had
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: carried it from the lane to the field. He had
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: carried it to the honey stall and the button stall
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: and the pie stall. He had rested it at his
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: feet under a table and patted it and said, Soon.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: All this time nobody had asked what was inside, because
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: in Picklewick it is considered poor manners to ask what
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: is in a person's crate. Now Elias knelt in the
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: grass with a slow creak of his knees and unlatched
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: the lid and folded it open. and inside, wound around
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: a cylinder of pale polished wood, lay coil after coil
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: after coil of the most beautiful line. It was silvery
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: gray and thin as a thread of spider silk, and
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: it caught the sunlight with a soft shimmer. It was braided,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: you see, from three kinds of fiber, strong white hemp
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: for the core, silk for the shine, and a very
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: fine thread of flax for the flexibility. But Goliath had
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: spun and twisted and braided it himself over the course
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: of a long winter in the little cottage at the
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: end of Larkspur Lane by the light of his fire.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: It was 3,000 feet long. It had taken him 111 evenings.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: He had rewound it twice, by hand, and tested every
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: yard of it by drawing it slowly through his fingers,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: feeling for weakness the way a doctor feels for a pulse.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: Seventy years I have made the line for this fair,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: said Elias. My father made it before me, and his
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: father before him. It is a quiet trade. Nobody ever
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: sees the line. They see the kite, and the sky,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: and the lovely tail. But it is the line that
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: holds the whole thing to the earth. He smiled a
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: little shyly. And I'm rather fond of it. Miss Cordelia Bramwell,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: from her chair, reached out and laid a thin hand
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: over his weathered one. I lies Larkspur, she said. The
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: kite flies because of the wind. But it stays because
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: of you. Elias said nothing. But Posy, who stood beside him,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: saw her grandfather's eyes grow bright, and she slipped her
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: small hand into his, and the two of them looked
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: at the silvery line gleaming in the crate, and neither
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: said a word. At a quarter to four, the order
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: of the launch was arranged. The kite would be lifted
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: by eight of the strongest and gentlest carriers, who would
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: hold it up above their heads and wait for the wind.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: The line would be paid out slowly by Elias, from
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: the big wooden reel which would be set on its
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: stout iron stake driven deep into the ground beside the
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: old oak. Wilhelmina would stand at the stake to watch
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: the tension. A ring of helpers, including Tobias Marrow with
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: his long gray scarf, and Barnaby Quill with a hand
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: on Mumble's collar, an odly fenimore with a plum bun
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: held in each fist, would stand in the field and
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: hold the line lightly as it ran, to steady the
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: early lift. Posey would stand at her grandfather's side and
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: would be given the honor of saying the word. What word?
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: She whispered. The word that lets her go, said Elias.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: We say it together. All of us. It's a very
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: old word. It's just up. Just up. Just up, said Elias.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: There are some things that need no more than one.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: The crowd was now spread across the long green in
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: a wide, soft circle, hundreds of them standing and sitting
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: and perching on hay bales, children on shoulders, dogs at heels.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: The afternoon light fell gold across everyone's faces. The west wind,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: steady and soft, came rolling over the beaches and through
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: the stalls and across the meadow, and it lifted the
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: corner of the great Celtic kite so that it quivered,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: just a little, like a sleeper who was almost ready
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: to wake. Puppin's gable raced her clippily like a conductor.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, she called. Neighbors, friends, children, dogs, and goose.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: Branwell Towers presents, for the first and I suspect only
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: time in history, The Gray Marigold. There was a small
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: sweet pause in which a thousand people drew breath. And you, listening,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: can draw breath too. Here, in the golden hush before
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: the lift. Feel the gentle tart of the wind on
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: the quilt. Feel the warm light on your face. Feel
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: the line, silver and slender and strong, resting in a
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: hundred careful hands. Nothing has to happen yet. Nothing has
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: gone wrong. Everything is still and ready and held and kind.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: Let that stillness spread through you, from the top of
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: your head down to your toes. Out, said Posy. She
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: said it in a very small voice, hardly more than
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: a whisper, because that is how the biggest words are
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: often said. But a thousand other voices said it with her, softly,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: all at once, so that the word rolled out across
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: the long green like a long, low wave, and the
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: eight carriers lifted the great marigold high above their heads.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: For a moment, nothing at all happened. The kite hung there,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: in the hands of its carriers. A vast glowing flower
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: held up against the blue, with its long rainbow tail
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: curling away behind it across the grass. The west wind
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: leaned against it, the fabric rippled, and the willow frame
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: creaked and the silver line stretched out from the bridle
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: toward the reel and went taut. And then the wind
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: found it, properly. the way a swimmer finds the current.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: And the great marigold lifted. It did not leap. It rose.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: It rose out of the hands of the carriers as
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: gently as a held breath, and the carriers let go
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: one by one, and stepped back, laughing, with their arms
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: still raised. Up went the kite, and up, and up.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: Slowly at first, and then with more confidence, tilting a
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: little to the left, then a little to the right,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: finding its balance in the air. The long tail of
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: ribbons rose after it, rippling off the grass in a
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: stream of color, a hundred, then two hundred, then four
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: hundred ribbons lifting and fluttering and unfurling into the sky
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: like the world's loveliest flag. Elias Larkspur stood at the
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: big wooden rail with his feet planted and let out line,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: one steady hand over the other, and the silver cord
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: whispered off the spindle and away into the blue. There,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: he murmured. There she goes, easy, easy now. The crowd
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: made a sound then that I have only heard a
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: few times in my life, and I think you will
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: know it. It is the sound of many people being
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: delighted at once, and not wanting to spoil it by
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: being loud. It is a sort of long-exhaled, pitched low,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: shading into laughter at the end, and it rolled out
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: across the field and bounced off the beech trees and
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: came back, softer as an echo. Posy had hands clasped
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: under her chin. Her eyes were enormous. She watched the
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: kite climb until she had to tilt her whole head back,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: and then until she had to lean back from the hips,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: and then until her grandfather put a steadying hand between
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: her shoulder blades so she would not fall over backwards
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: onto the hay. It's so big, she whispered. Grandfather, it's
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: so big, and it's so small. Both, said Elias with
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: a smile. Everything that flies is both. Five hundred feet up,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: the kite found a steadier current of air and settled
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: into it. The tremble went out of the line, the
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: great marigold hung in the sky above the long green
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: enormous and golden and perfectly still. Its patches of lace
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: and velvet and gingham all lit from behind by the
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: afternoon sun so that it seemed less like a thing
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: made of cloth and more like a window into some
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: other tender world from the ground you could see every
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: piece there was the blue gingham square from the kitchen
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: curtain glowing like a patch of summer sea there was
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: the heart of red from the soldier's coat small and
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: warm near the middle There was the white lace of
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: the wedding veil, shining like frost, and all around the
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: golden heart of the flower, the petals of orange and
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: amber and honey, spreading outward across the sky like a
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: sunrise that had decided to stay. A thousand people stood
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: with their faces turned upward, in the gentle light, and
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: for a long moment no one spoke. was a perfect
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: hour i should tell you that plainly so that you
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: know it is so for one hour in the golden
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: middle of the afternoon everything in picklewick was exactly as
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: it should be the kite flew the line held The
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: wind blew steady and kind from the west, and down
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: on the long green the fair carried on beneath it,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: quietly and happily, with its face turned up toward the sky.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: The Pennywhistle Sisters served tea to a long queue, and
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: for once they were not arguing, because they were all
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: looking up. Otili Fenimore handed out plum buns without really noticing,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: and the people receiving them did not really notice either,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: so that some buns were handed over twice, and some
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: not at all, and nobody minded. Barabiquel let go of
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: Mumble's collar, and the little dog sat down in the
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: grass beside his stick and gazed upward with the grave,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: comprehending look of a creature who understands that something splendid
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: is happening, even if he does not know what a
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: kite is. Hester Plum, the button woman, sat on an
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: upturned crate with a tray of buttons on her knees.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: She was not selling any. She had forgotten to. She
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: sorted them slowly, one by one, with her face lifted
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: to the sky. Fitzwilliam Crumb, the hat mender, took up
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: his own round hat and held it against his chest. Mrs. Rivenworth,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: with an empty spool in her arms, stood beside the
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: old oak and smiled so widely that the roses on
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: her hat seemed to bloom. Tobias Merrow looked at his
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: pocket watch and then at the kite. and then put
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: the watch away. It was the first time in eleven
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: years that he had forgotten to check the time at
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: the fair. He felt rather peculiar about it, and also
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: rather pleased.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: The goose, who held the right of way, watched slowly
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: across the middle of the field with her neck extended,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: looking up at the great marigold with one beady eye.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: She was a goose of strong opinions. After a long
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: while she gained one short approving honk, Everyone agreed this
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: was the highest praise the Count could receive.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: Miss Cordelia Branwell watched from her wicker chair, her silver-topped
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: walking stick across her lap, and a small, secret smile
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: on her face. Do you know? she said to Willie Mina,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: who had come to stand at her shoulder. When I
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: was a girl, I thought the whole point of a
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: kite was to hold it, to keep it close. I
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: would run along the field with the string wrapped about
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: my fists, and I would be so frightened of losing
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: it that I never once looked up to see it.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: And now, said Williamina, smiling, and now I think the
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: whole point of a kite, said Miss Cordelia, is that
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: it is not in our hands. If it were in
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: our hands, it would be a toy. It is only
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: a kite when it is a little bit out of
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: our control. and is trusted to be safe there anyway.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: She tapped the silver fox on her walking stick thoughtfully.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: That's rather good, she said. I shall have it put
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: on a cushion. Wilhelmina laughed, and bent to kiss her
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: aunt's soft, papery cheek, and then straightened, and glanced up
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: at the sky and frowned, very slightly. It was a
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: small frown. It was the smallest of frowns. The kind
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: you would not have noticed unless you were looking at
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: her face, and she did not say anything about it,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: because there was nothing to say. But she had spent
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: a winter listening to the language of canes and cords
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: and cloth, and her ears were tuned to certain sounds.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: And as she looked at the great marigold hanging in
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: the blue, she noticed that the line, which had been
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: so still and straight, had begun to hum. It went
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: a very gentle hum. It was the sound of a
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: long thread of silk being plucked by a breeze, a thin,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: bright note, high and clear and sweet, like a glass
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: being touched on its rim. Elias heard it a moment later.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: His hand paused on the reel. He lifted his chin
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: and listened with his whole body, the way a man
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: listens who has spent seventy years learning the language of
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: the air. and a look of mild, interested surprise crossed
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: his face. Aha, he said softly. There's a bit of
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: a change coming. What kind of change? said Posey. The
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: kind you can't hold back, said Elias, not unkindly. A
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: little shift in the west. The wind is thinking of
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: getting stronger. He had barely finished the sentence when a long,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: low sigh came sweeping across the long green from the
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: beech trees. It was a lovely sigh. It was cool
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: and clean and smelled of rain somewhere far away, and
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: it came over the hedge and over the stone wall
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: and over the tops of the tents. It lifted the
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: bunting into a long line of snapping flags. It tugged
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: the hat of every person in the field. It ruffled
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: the fur of the donkey and made the Penny Whistle
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: Sisters' tent roar softly like a ship in a good breeze.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: And in the sky, the great marigold, as if she
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: had been waiting for exactly this, dipped her left shoulder
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: and tilted and leaned with a creak of willow into
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: the rising wind. The line went tight as a boss string. Easy,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: said Elias. Easy, my lovely. The reel began to spin faster.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: The silver line wore it off the spindle. Wilhelmina leaned
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: in at the iron stake, her face intent, and put
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: a steadying hand on the reel's wooden frame. A ring
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: of volunteers, Tobias and Barnaby and Odeline, half a dozen others,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: took the line in their hands and leaned back against it, laughing,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: their heels dug into the turf. A fine gust, Tobias called.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: She's enjoying herself. She's showing off, sadly Lee, and took
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: a bun-covered bite of air. what happened next happened so
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: softly that afterward no one could agree on the exact
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: moment some said it was the iron stake others said
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: it was the old wooden spindle which had a hairline
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: crack in it that nobody had known about from a
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: night in a damp attic a few believed it was
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: the knot at the very end of the line The
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: one Elias had tied himself, the old keeping knot that
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: his father had taught him, which had not slipped in
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: seventy years of fares. And one small serious slightly sicky
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: boy named Alfie insisted for the rest of his life
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: that it was the donkey, who had stepped on the
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: stake in a thoughtful way. But the truth, as far
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: as anyone ever knew, was simply this. The wind was strong,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: the ground was soft, the stake, which was driven deep,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: had been driven into the shade side of the old oak,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: where the dew had lain all morning and never plight dried.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: And the wind, which had been so well behaved all day,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: came sweeping through the field with a long exhale, and
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: put its whole shoulder behind the kite, and leaned. There
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: was a small sound. It was a gentle, almost apologetic sound,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: like a spoon being set down in a saucer. The
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: iron stake slid out of the earth. It slid out
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: quietly and cleanly, trailing a little crumb of dark soil,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: and the wooden reel went spinning forward across the grass
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: with the silver line streaming off it, faster and faster.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: The volunteers gasped. Wilhelmina lunged. and missed by a hair.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: Elias who had never in seventy years let a reel go,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: put out both his hands, and the reel brushed his fingers,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: and spun by. The last turns of the line whipped
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: off the spindle. A final tail of silver whisked through
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: the grass like a startled snake, and the great marigold
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: suddenly lighter, suddenly free, gave a wide, graceful, delighted swoop
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: in the air, and soared, Nobody screamed. Nobody ran. In fact,
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: for the first few seconds, no one moved at all.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: A thousand people stood in the golden afternoon. light, with
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: their faces tilted up, and watched their giant homemade kite
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: of patchwork and ribbons and willow canes sail gently away
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: from them across the sky, trailing a long silver line
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: like a thread of dreams behind it. It was strangely beautiful.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: The light sparkled in the sun, the ribbons streamed out
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: in a rainbow, and the great, glowing flower grew smaller
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: and smaller as it drifted east over the beech trees
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: and out toward the meadows, without any hurry at all,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: as though it had simply remembered somewhere it wanted to go.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: The first sound was a very small one. It came
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: from Mumble the dog, who looked up at the sky,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: then at the trailing line then back up at the
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: sky again and let out a thoughtful little woof the
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: second sound was a snort of laughter from miss cordelia
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: branwell it began as a snort and became a chuckle
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: and became a delighted peal and then she was laughing
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: so hard she had to hold on to her hat
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: her blue eyes streaming her silver walking-stick tapping against the
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: arm of her chair Oh, my dears, she gasped. Oh,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: look at her, look at her go. She wanted to
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: see the hills and the whole field as if a
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: spell had been broken, began to laugh with her. It
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: was not a laugh of mockery or alarm. It was
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: the warm, rueful, helpless laughter of people who had been
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: given something unexpected and had decided to accept it. It
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: rolled across the long green and the stallholders laughed And
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: the children laughed, and the penny-whistle sisters laughed so hard
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: that one of them sat down on the tea urn.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: Tobias Merrow laughed into his low, gray scarf. Odalie Finnemore
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: laughed until her plum bun fell from her hand and
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: was caught, without a fuss, by the goose. Elias Larkspur
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: did not laugh at first. He stood quite still, with
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: his hands open in front of him, and looked at
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: the empty place where the reel had been. Posey slipped
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: her hand into his. Grandfather, she said quietly. It wasn't
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: your line. No, said Elias. He seemed to come back
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: from a long way off. No, it wasn't. The line
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: was fine. The line was perfect. He looked down at her.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: and a slow, wandering smile ginned to spread across his
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: lined face. It was the wind's turn, I think. We
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: kept her to ourselves for a good long hour, and
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: the wind said, my turn now. Is it all right?
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: said Posey. It is entirely all right, said Elias. The
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: wind's got her, that's all, and the wind has never
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: in its life done anything unkind to a kite. He
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: drew a long, slow breath. He let it out, I
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: think quite unexpectedly he began to laugh as well. A rich, crackling,
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: wheezy old man laugh that shook his whole frame and
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: made his flat cap slip sideways on his head. Seventy years,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: he said, seventy years, and she waits until now to
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: do it. Oh, Cordelia, oh my goodness. Wilhelmina Branwell, who
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: had been standing with her hand over her mouth, lowered it.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: I designed that kite for a year, she said faintly.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: And it's the best flying kite you've ever made, said
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: Miss Cordelia from her wicker chair. Don't spoil it by
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: being upset. Now, what do we do? There was a pause.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: People looked at one another. The silver line was a long,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: long way off now, and the kite itself was a
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: bright speck above the trees. Then Tuppence Gable stepped out
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: into the middle of the field, tucked her clipboard under
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: her arm, and clapped her hands twice. Well, she said,
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: in her clear, calm, carrying voice. I think we are
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: all agreed that the Great Marigold has gone for a walk,
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: and I think we are all agreed that it would
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: be rude to let her go alone. Chase her? said
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: a young man uncertain. Not chase, said Toppins firmly. Nobody
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: is to chase anything. We shall follow. There is a difference.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: To chase is to hurry, and hurrying is hard on
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: the knees. To follow is to stroll with an interest.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: We shall take our tea with us. We shall bring
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: our buns. We shall go gently over the meadows, and
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: look up, now and then. And the kite will go
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: where she goes, and we shall go where she goes.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: And by and by, we shall all arrive. Arrive where?
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: said Alfie, the small sticky boy. Toppins considered this seriously.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: She tapped her pencil against her chin. Wherever she decides,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: she said at last. It is entirely up to her.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: There was a ripple of applause and a few cheers,
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: and a sound of people reaching for their coats and
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: picking up their baskets and collecting their children. Barnaby Quills
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: shut the lid of his honey crate and hung a
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: small sign on his stall that said, Gone Kite Following,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: Back Presently. Hester Plum covered her buttons with a cloth.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: Fitzwilliam Crum put on his hat. Mrs. Ribenworth tied a
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: bright green ribbon around her wrist, for luck. and Odalie
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: Fenimore filled a basket with leftover plum buns and slung
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: it over her arm. The stalls were left standing in
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: the afternoon sun, with their signs propped up, their cloths unfolded,
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: their jars gleaming amber, because in Picklewick nobody has ever
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: taken a thing that was not theirs, and the fare
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: would be exactly as they had left it when they
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: came back. And Posy Larkspurk, who had been watching the
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: silver thread of the line sinking slowly through the air
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: toward the far edge of the meadow, tugged her grandfather's sleeve.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: The end of the line is on the ground, she said.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: I can see it. It's dragging through the grass. If
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: we follow it, we'll never lose her. It's like a path.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: Elias looked. And it was true. Down in the grass,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: shining faintly, there lay a thin silver trail winding away
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: east across the long green, over the stone wall, and
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: into the fields beyond, like a road drawn by a
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: very fine pen. So it is, he said softly. So
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: it is. Well done, Posey. Lead on. so they set
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: off the whole town of picklewick in the long golden
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: light of the early evening one by one and two
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: by two out through the gap in the stone wall
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: and into the meadows they did not hurry They had
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: no need to. They went as people go on a
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: summer walk with nothing particular to do and everywhere particular
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: to look. Teacups were carried carefully. Children skipped. Dogs ranged
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: ahead and fell back and ranged again. Miss Cordelia Branwell
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: in her wicker chair on the cart was drawn along
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: by the patient gray mare. with wellheim in a walking
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: at her side and the little bell-ringing boy trotting happily
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: in front ringing his bell for every fifth step as
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: before dumpling the pony came too pulling tobias merrow's cart
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: with half a dozen small children sitting in the back
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: with their legs dangling at the very front in the
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: wide soft glow of the afternoon walked a small girl
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: in crooked plaits and an old man in a flat
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: cap with a shaggy brown dock trotting between them, and
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: above them the faint bright speck of the great marigold,
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: drifting over the fields, and below in the grass, the
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: faint gleaming ribbon of silver that showed them the way. You, listening,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: can come along too. Let yourself walk slowly with them
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: in your mind. Let your feet fall easy on the grass,
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: Let the evening air touch your face. Feel how little
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: there is to worry about when the road ahead is
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: a silver thread and the whole town is walking and
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: the sky is wide and the light is gold. Nothing
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: is lost. Nothing is late. Everyone is going the same
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: gentle way. The first meadow beyond the long green was
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: called Buttercup Meadow, and it was exactly what it said.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: It was a wide, gently sloping field bordered by a
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: hawthorn hedge on one side and a lazy little stream
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: on the other, and in the late days of the year,
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: when most of the flowers had gone, a stubborn scatter
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: of buttercups still held on in the sunshine, nodding their small,
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: bright heads. Every one of them caught the slanting light
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: and held it, so the whole field glimmered a pale
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: and shifting gold as though the grass had been lightly
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: dusted with sunshine to her sieve the people of picklewick
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: came out of the gap in the stone wall and
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: down the little path and into the meadow and stopped
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: not because they were tired because it was so lovely.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: The silver line of Elias's cord, trailing through the grass
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: ahead of them, wound its slow shining way across the
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: middle of the field, and the buttercups bent a little
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: where it passed, one after another as though bowing, And
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: high above the far hedge, the grave marigold drifted on
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: in the sky, quite unhurried, its long tail of ribbons
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: trailing out behind it so that the whole sky seemed
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: to be wearing a sash. It's lovely from here, said
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: O'Daly Fenimore, a little breathless, holding her basket of buns.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: I'd never have thought, all these years at the fair,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: and I've never once looked at the fair from the
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: other side. The best view of anything, said Elias, is
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: from somewhere you didn't plan to stand. They walked on.
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: And as they walked, the children began, quite without anyone
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: suggesting it, to pick buttercups. They gathered them in small
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: fists and held them under each other's chins, to see
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: whether the yellow reflected, which it does if you are fortunate,
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: and if you like butter. Mumble the dog ran in
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: circles through the flowers with his stick in his mouth,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: making a flattened spiral, like a drawing of a snail.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: Somebody started to hum, somebody else joined in. And before
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: long the whole procession was crossing the meadow, to the
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: sound of a low, wandering, wordless tune that nobody had
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: ever taught them, and that everybody knew. At the edge
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: of Buttercup Meadow there was a wooden gate, and leaning
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: on the gate was a farmer. He was a long, lean,
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: weathered man in a sagging brown hat, with a straw
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: between his teeth and a pair of mild, pale eyes.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: and had been leaning on that gate, in one form
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: or another, since about nine o'clock that morning. He had
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: a sheepdog at his feet, a black and white collie
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: named Biscuit whose ears pricked as the procession approached. He
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: watched the crowd come across the meadow, he took the
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: straw out of his mouth, he looked at the sky,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: and then at the silver thread in the grass, and
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: then at the faces, and then he raised his eyebrows
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: very slightly.' Afternoon,' said Farmer Hollis.' Good afternoon, Mr. Hollis,'
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: said Tuppence Cable a little out of breath. Forgive the intrusion,
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: we are following a kite. Ah, said Mr.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 3: Hollis.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: He nodded slowly. That'll be what that was. I thought
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: it was the sunset coming early. It's the Great Marigold,
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: said Posey. It's a handsome one, said Mr. Hollis gravely.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: It went over about ten minutes ago, with a line
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: behind it, and the sheep didn't care for the ribbons,
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: so I've had to have a quiet word. He opened
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: the gate. You're welcome to cross, mind the cowpats. And
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: if you see a ewe called Tagitha, don't give her
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: any buns. She's had two already. The procession filed through
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: the gate one after another, saying thank you, thank you,
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: thank you, in a murmuring rhythm like a slow rain.
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: When the last of them had passed, Mr. Hollis latched
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: the gate behind them and looked down at his dog. Well, Biscuit,
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: he said, I don't suppose the sheep will get much
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: done today. Biscuit wowed her tail in agreement. and the
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: two of them, Farmer and Dodd, fell in at the
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: back of the line, because it did seem on reflection
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: the right thing to do, and because the gate would
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: keep itself. The second meadow was the sheep meadow, and
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: the sheep were, indeed, distracted. There were about sixty of them,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: round and woolly and pale as clouds, spread across the
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: green slope like crumbs on a tablecloth. They had been
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: grazing peacefully all afternoon, but now the whole flock had
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: stopped as if by agreement, and every sheep had turned
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: her face to the east to look at the sky,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: where a giant golden flower trailed a rainbow tail high
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: above the trees. Sheep are not creatures given to wonder.
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: But there is something about a flock of sheep all
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: looking in the same direction, with an expression of mild, steady,
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: uncomprehending interest, that makes you feel the universe is in
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: good hands. Ba-ah-ah, said one, thoughtfully. Ba-ah-ah, said another, in agreement.
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: Which of them is Agatha? whispered Posy, craning her neck.
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: The large one, said Mr. Hollis, behind them. the opinions.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: And indeed there was a large ewe near the middle
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: of the flock, with a serious Roman nose in a
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: spot of black above one eye, who looked at the
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: procession as it came across the slope, and then at
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: the plum buns in Odalie's basket, and then at Odalie,
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: and then at the buns again. A long, heavy, meaningful
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: pause followed. No, said old Lee, fending more firmly, you've
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: had two. Aditha gave a snort of profound injury and
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: turned away, but a minute later, when Odalie wasn't looking,
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: she took four steps forward and fell in at the
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: back of the procession, and a few of the other
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: sheep seeing this followed her and before long much to
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: mr hollis's amusement a small woolly tail of sheep was
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: trailing along behind the people of picklewick ambling through the
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: long grass bying softly to one another as if they
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: were attending a sort of outdoor church Now the afternoon
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: had slid by debris into the soft, deep golden hours
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: that come before evening, and the meadows had begun to glow.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: It is hard to describe this light if you have
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: not stood in it. It is thick and slow and sweet,
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: like honey that has been warmed on a windowsill. It
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: comes in sideways, low across the land, and everything it
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: touches grows a rim of gold. The seed heads of
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: the grasses, the wings of the gnats, the tops of
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: the dandelion clocks. Your shadow stretches out ahead of you,
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: long and thin and elegant, as if it were walking
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: a little in front, showing the way. The air has
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: a gentle coolness at its edges and a gentle warmth
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: at its center, and it smells of cut hay and
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: warm earth and distant smoke. The people of Picklewick walked
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: in that light, and they were quietly happy. They did
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: not talk much. They had no need. Now and then
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: a child would point at the sky and say there,
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: and a hundred faces would tip up together and the
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: kite would be there, a little smaller, a little higher,
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: drifting patiently, its tail of ribbons glinting. Now and then
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: someone would laugh, softly, at nothing. Now and then a
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: dog would bark, once, at a butterfly. Tobias Merrow had
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: unwound his long gray scarf and was carrying it over
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: one arm. Fitzwilliam Crumb had tipped his round hat back
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: on his head. Hester Plum had found a button on
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: the path, a small plain brown one, and was holding
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: it up to the light with the look of a
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: person who has been given a present.' This is the
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: loveliest chase I ever took part in,' said Barnaby Quill.'
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: It isn't a chase,' said Tuppence Gable.' Without turning her head,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: it's a following.'' Quite right,' said Barnaby.' The loveliest following.
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: And I've done a few.' The third meadow was a
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: field of lavender, and here the procession slowed, almost to
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: a stop. It belonged to a farm called Pennyroyal, a small,
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: old farm at the end of a long track, and
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: its lavender grew in perfect rows. The soft purple bushes
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: trimmed round and neat as sleeping hedgehogs. By this time
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: of year the flowers had mostly finished, and the fields
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: were silver-green, and heavy with a deep, calm, powdery scent
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: that drifted over the whole slope like a blessing. It
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: was the smell of linen cupboards and clean pillows and long,
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: peaceful evenings. It was the smell of being tucked in.
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: Posy stopped in the middle of the rose with her
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: hands at her sides and breathed in and closed her eyes.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: She felt a little pebble in her pocket. She rubbed
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: it with her thumb. and she thought, quite clearly, in
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: her own voice, Breathe slowly. It is a slow day.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: Nobody's hurrying you. The bees, who were still working the
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: last of the flowers, hummed everywhere in the warm air
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: a low, drowsy, thrumming chord. Barnaby Clill took off his
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: hat and walked slowly down a row with his hand
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: held out, and a single bee came and rested on
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: his fingertick, and he held it up and murmured to
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: it so softly that none of the others heard what
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: he said. It buzzed once, and rose and flew away
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: over the field. Barnaby smiled to himself. What did you
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: say to it?
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 3: Asked Posy quietly. I asked how the day had been,
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 3: said Barnaby. She said it had been maul, and good,
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 3: and she was going home. Posy nodded, as if this
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 3: were perfectly sensible. And then, because the lavender was so
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 3: soft and the light so warm, she did something she
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 3: hadn't planned. She sat down, right there in the row
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 3: among the silvery bushes with her legs crossed, and put
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 3: her chin on her hands.' Just for a moment, she said.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: Just for a moment, Elias agreed and lowered himself down
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: beside her with a soft crake of his knees. Mumble
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: flopped between them. And one by one, others began to
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: sit in the lavender too, in the long rows. with
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: their baskets beside them, and their teacups steaming gently, and
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: a hush came down. But there is something that I
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: should say about hush, because it is a small and
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: underrated magic. When a great many people are quiet together,
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: in a beautiful place, the quiet changes. It is not
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: like the quiet of one person alone. It is warmer
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: and wider and somehow fuller, as if everyone were contributing
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: a little of their own calm to a shared bowl.
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: And if you sit inside it, you can feel your
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: own thoughts slow down and your breath settle and your
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: shoulders let go of whatever they had been carrying. That
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: is what happened in the lavender field, at Pennyroyal Farm.
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: The whole procession sat among the bushes in the amber light,
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: in a long, loose scatter. And for a few minutes
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: nobody said a word. The sheep, who had followed them
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: all this way, stood at the edge of the field,
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: chewing slowly. Biscuit the collie lay down with her chin
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: on her paws. Agatha the ewe who had the largest
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: opinions of all, closed her eyes. And high above them
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: the kite hung in the air, a faint golden shape
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: against the paling blue, no longer drifting very fast, as
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: though it too were taking a moment to rest. She's
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: waiting for us, said Posy in a soft voice. She's
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: not waiting, said Elias after a thought. I think she's
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: simply being herself, but it's very kind of her to
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: do it slowly. Miss Cordelia Branwell, in her wicker chair
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: with a spread of lavender tucked into her hatband, let
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: out a long, contented, rustling sigh. I have lived in
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: that house on the hill for ninety-one years, she said,
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: and I have never once sat in the lavender at Pennyroyal.
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: Not once. I always meant to. It is a funny thing,
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: isn't it, how the nearest places are the ones we
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: save for later. Nobody answered. They didn't need to. They
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: simply let the sentence settle into the soft purple air
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: and rest there like a bee on a flower. When
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: at last they rose, crushing the little gray-green leaves from
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: their knees, the sun had slid lower, and the shadows
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: had grown long and blue. The path now led them
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: through a gap in a stone wall and down into
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: a small, quiet orchard, where the apple trees stood in
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: crooked rows, and the grass beneath them was littered with
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: fallen fruit. It was a very old orchard. The trees
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: were gnarled and mossy and heavy with apples, red and
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: gold and russet. hanging among the leaves like lanterns that
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: had been left on. The air was thick and sweet
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: with the smell of them, the warm cidery smell of
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: cinnamon and honey and fermenting windfalls. Wasps hummed drowsily in
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: the grass, a robin sang from the topmost branch of
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: the oldest tree one high, silvery, liquid phrase, and fell
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: silent and sang it again.' Oh, I know this place,'
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: said Hester Plum, her face lighting up. its widow pedigree
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: is orchid so you still let us pick as many
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: as we liked as long as we left the rosy
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: ones for the birds she still does said a voice
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: and a very small very upright very white-haired woman stepped
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: out from behind one of the trees with an apple
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: in each hand and a blue apron over her skirt
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: provided i'm asked which i wasn't though i do see
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: that you are following a kite which i suppose is
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: a sort of reason She was Widow Pettigrew, and she
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: was ninety-four, and she regarded the entire town with sharp,
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: delighted eyes.' Take what you like,' she said.' I' ve enough
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: for a hundred winters. The wasps will thank you for
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: the visit. Mind that child, he's about to eat a windfall. Oh,
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: he's eaten it, never mind, it's only a little fermented.'
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: A hundred people spread out among the old trees and
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: pit baffles and bit into them, and the crisp, sweet
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: crunch of it rose from every side like a soft,
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: crackling fire. they sat in the grass with their backs
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: against the mossy trunks and passed round slices and odalie
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: fenimore ever practical produced a bread-knife from the bottom of
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: her basket and began to cut the larger ones into
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: neat moons posy ate an apple in six bites and
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: put the core in her pocket for the sheep elias
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: polished his on his sleeve until it shone where's she
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: got to some one called and a hundred apples paused
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: halfway to a hundred mouths they looked up through the
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: branches and there framed in the leaves like a painting
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: in a window hung the great marigold a golden shape
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: in the rosy sky her long tail curling in the
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: breeze a little lower than before and a little further
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: east she's still going said alfie the sticky boy with
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: his mouth full of course she is said widow pettigrew
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: a kite doesn't stop for apples that's what makes it
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: a kite They climbed out of the orchard at last,
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: thanking the widow, who waved them off with an apple
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: in each hand like a conductor with two batons, and
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: the path now rose up a long, easy hill, through
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: a swath of tall, pale grass that whispered against their legs.
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: By now the sun was low enough that it had
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: turned from gold to deep, melting amber, and the sky
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: above the hill was beginning to blush. High clouds drifted
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: in long, narrow streaks, tinted pink at their edges, gray
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: at their hearts. A line of rooks flew home overhead
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: in a ragged black thread, calling to each other in low,
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: rough voices. The air had gone cool, and the people
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: of Picklewick had begun to button their coats. And the children,
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: who had been so bright and active all day, were
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: beginning to slow, and to lean, and to yawn, with
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: great wide yawns that they covered with their hands. From
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: Dumpling the pony plodded steadily upward with Tobias Merrill's cart
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: behind her, and in the cart, tucked in among the
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: baskets and the quilts, three small children had fallen asleep
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: in a heap like puppies with their cheeks pressed together.
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: Tobias glanced back at them, and then forward again, and
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: slowed Dumpling's pace by half so the wheels would not jolt. Careful,
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: old girl, he murmured. Precious cargo. Dumpling flicked one ear
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: in understanding and softened her step. At the top of
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: the hill, the grass gave way to a wide, windy,
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: open ridge, with the whole of the countryside spread out
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: beneath it like a map. They could see the valley
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: falling away in folds of gold and green. They could
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: see the red roofs of Picklewick, tiny and tidy far behind.
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: They could see the bright squares of other people's fields,
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: and the dark smudge of the beechwood, and the thin,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: pale line of a road. In front of them, down
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: the long slope on the other side of the ridge,
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: they could see the river. It was a broad, slow,
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: shining river, the color of pewter and rose, winding through
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: the flat land at the bottom of the valley like
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: a ribbon dropped by a giant, and far out over
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: its surface, a bright shape, small and golden, and trailing
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: a thread of color, hung low and steady in the light.
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: The river, said Posey, in a hushed voice. She's going
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: over the river. So she is, said Elias. For a moment,
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: the whole town stood on the ridge, in the wind, breathing,
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: with their coats flapping and their hair blown back, looking
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: down at the water. Nobody said what they were all thinking,
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: which was that a river is a different sort of
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: obstacle from a hedge. Then, Tuppence Gable settled her spectacles
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: on her nose. Well, she said, brightly. We have always
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: wanted a look at the other side. You, listening, can
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: pause here too. On the high, wide ridge, in the
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: cool of the evening wind, feel it against your face,
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: gentle and clean. Look out across the lovely land with
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: its folds of gold and green, and know that there
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: is nothing below you that is not kind. Let your
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: eyes go soft. Let the far-off river shine. You do
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: not have to cross it yet. The river was called
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: the Wen, and it deserved its name. It came down
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: out of the northern hills as a thin, bright stream,
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: and by the time it reached the valley of Picklewick
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: it had grown broad and slow and easy, like a
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: person who has stopped hurrying and discovered how much nicer
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: the world looks that way. It wound through the flat
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: green country in great lazy loops, doubling back on itself,
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: turning round to look at where it had been, and
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: then wandering off again in some new direction. It was
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: bordered on both sides by willows and rushes and long,
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: yellow reeds, and in the evening light it shone like
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: polished pewter, streaked with rose and violet where the clouds
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: were reflected. At the bottom of the long slope below
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: the ridge, the people of Picklewick came out of the
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: tall grass and onto the bank, and there they stopped
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: in a wide, quiet semicircle looking at the water. It
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: was perhaps a hundred yards across at this point. The
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: current moved slowly, with a soft, silky, rippling sound, and
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: the surface was dimpled here and there by rising fish.
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: A pair of swans drifted past in the shallows with
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: their necks curved like question marks. A heron stood motionless
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: among the reeds, as still as a gray coat hung
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: on a nail. And out in the middle of the river,
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: high above the water, the great marigold hung in the
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: pink light, no more than a few hundred feet above
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: the surface, her long silver line trailing down from her
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: like a thread from a spool and dipping gently into
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: the river's edge. She's over the water, said Posey. She is,
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: said Elias. The line's in the river. Only the end
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: of it, said Elias. It floats. Silk and hemp are
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: friendly with water. The kite was still moving, but slowly now,
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: in the way a leaf moves on a pond, with
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: no obvious purpose and no particular direction, simply being carried.
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: The ribbons of her tail trailed out like a rainbow banner,
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: and the evening light caught them, and they glowed. For
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: the first time since the string had slipped, the great
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: marigold looked very far away. Now then, said Toppins Gable,
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: we'll want a bridge. There's a bridge, said Tobias Merrow,
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: a good mile upstream, old Ashcombe Bridge, seven arches. A mile,
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: said Tuppence. Hmm, or, said a deep, slow, gravelly voice
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: from somewhere in the reed, there's me. Everybody turned. Out
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: of the rushes with a long pole in his hands
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: came a ferryman. He was an enormous man, broad as
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: a barn door, with a grey beard like a bush
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: of sea foam, a faded blue jersey, and a face
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: as brown and creased and kind as the bark of
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: an old oak. He walked with a rolling gait, as
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: though the ground were an inconvenient sort of water. and
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: behind him, nosing out of the rushes with a soft
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: rubbing sound against the mud, there slid into view a long, flat,
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: broad-bottomed boat, painted and cracked green and white, with benches
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: along both sides and a tatted little pennant on the prow.
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: The name on the bow, in faded gold letters, was
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: the Dozy Duchess. Van Wyck Reed, said the ferryman, lowering
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: his pole with a nod. Ferries the wind, when at
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: once ferrying, evening all, saw your kite to lower, nice one,
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: thought you'd be along. Fenwick, you're a marvel, said Toppin Scable,
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: with enormous relief. I'm a ferryman, said Fenwick Reed, modestly.
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: It comes to much the same now. She'll take twenty
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: at a time, if nobody's got big feet, and she'll
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: take about forty if everyone's friendly, which I suspect you are.
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: Mind the step. it took the better part of an
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: hour to get the whole town across, and no one
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: minded even slightly. The first load went over with the
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: little ones, and the sleepiest of the children, who were
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: lifted gently from the cart and carried aboard in their blankets,
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: and laid along the benches like parcels. Miss Cordelia Bramall
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: was assisted aboard in her wicker chair, with great ceremony
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: by four stout men, and a murmur of one, two, three, up,
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: and settled in the middle of the deck, with her
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: silver-topped walking-stick across her knees. and surveyed the river like
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: an admiral. Slandered, she said, I've not been on a
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: boat in thirty years. The pole dipped into the water,
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: the dozy duchess set off the bank with a long,
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: soft hush, and the first lantern, hung on the prow
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: by Femma Greed, with a practiced flick of the wrist,
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: caught a gleam of yellow flame and shone out over
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: the water. The fairy glided across the wind as gently
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: as a swan. there was no splash and no jolt
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: there was only the quiet sound of the pole and
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: the slow lap of the water against the hull and
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: the creak of the old wooden benches and the soft
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: hushed breathing of tired people listening to a river posy
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: sat in the bow with her chin resting on the
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: rail and her hand trailing in the water and the
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: water felt cool and silky like a ribbon running through
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: her fingers She watched the kite grow closer and larger
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: as they crossed. She could see the stitching on the
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: patches now. She could see the lace of the wedding veil,
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: ghostly white against the dusk. She could see the small
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: red heart from the soldier's coat, glowing like an ember.
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: and she felt a quiet rush of tenderness for it all,
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: for every piece of cloth that someone had once worn,
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: or loved, or hung in a window. Someone sang this river,
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: said Fenwick Reed, behind her, in his slow, gravelly voice,
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: a long time ago, before the bridge. They sang it
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: from the hill to the sea, and it's been following
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: the tune ever since. What was the tune? asked Posey. Ah,
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: said Fenwick, that I couldn't tell you, but if you listen,
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: it's still there. Posey listened, and she thought, though she
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: couldn't be sure, that she could hear it too. A low,
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: steady humming under the sound of the water, a long,
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: drowsy note, rolling on and on toward the sea. The
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: second load took the volunteers with the baskets, and the
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: third took the sheep. This was Agatha's idea. She had
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: stood at the edge of the bank for some time,
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: with the other sheep gathered behind her, looking at the
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: ferry with an expression of heavy suspicion. When the boat returned,
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: she walked forward, very deliberately, and put one hoof on
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: the gangplank. She then looked up at Fenwick Reed with
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: the air of a ewe who has made up her mind. Well,
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: said Fenwick, I never welcome aboard, madam. Mind your walk.
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: As reported, the other sheep, since she had done so,
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: felt that they could not do otherwise, and filed on
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: after her in a long, woolly, bang procession. Farmer Hollis,
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: who had followed the whole way with his dog, took
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: off his hat and stared. Then he put his hat
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: back on, and stepped aboard after his sheep. Because a
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: farmer who loses his ewes to a fairy has only
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: himself to blame. This is irregular, he said gravely. Very,
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: said Fennec Reed, but I rather like it. The dozy
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: duchess pushed off, laden with sheep, children of Farmer Akali,
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: and two baskets of plum buns. Biscuit the Kali stood
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: at the very prow, with her ears pricked and her
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: white-tipped tail held proudly high like a figurehead. The ewe
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: stood in a clunk amid ships, swaying slightly, ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a pale
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: and round and lemon-colored, like a plate left out on
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: a table. Mumble sat in the stern with his stick
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: across his paws, watching the water slide by with the faint,
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: patient expression of a dog who has seen a great
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: many strange things in his day and expects to see
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: several more. And so it went, trip by trip, load
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: by load, until the whole of Picklewick, and a certain
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: portion of the sheep population of the surrounding hills, stood
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: together on the far bank of the River Wend, in
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: the cool blue of the evening, damp about the ankles
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: and entirely happy. The far bank of the Wend was
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: a place that very few people in Picklewick knew well.
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: It was a wide, flat, secret sort of country, called
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: Heron Meadow. All reeds and willows, and silver pools. And
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: as the town gathered on the shore, the evening began
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: to settle over it like a soft gray shawl. The
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: sky in the east was a deepening violet. and in
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: it faint and white the very first star was appearing
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: as though some were pricking a small hole in a
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: dark cloth to let a little light through a mist
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: was rising from the water frogs were beginning to sing
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: in the ditches a gentle bubbling chorus Somewhere among the
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: reeds an owl was waking up and clearing its throat.
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: There was a boathouse on the bank, small and weathered,
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: with a gable roof, and lanterns hung along its eaves,
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: glowing warm and yellow against the blue. Van Witt Reed
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: let more of them as they came ashore. going from
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: hook to hook with the taper. And every new flame bloomed,
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: and soon the whole bank was ringed with soft, wavering light.
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: It looked as though a string of tiny suns had
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: settled in the reeds for the night. A good smell
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: drifted from the bodas porch. It was the smell of
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: fried onions and wood smoke and strong dark tea. On
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: a flat stone by the door, a pot was bubbling
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: over a small fire, and a woman with a long
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: gray plait was ladling something into tin mugs. My white moya,
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: said Finlick Reed. She heard the fairy bell and put
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: the soup on. She always does. She says a ferryman's
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: evening should end with something hot. Soup, said Tobias Merrill
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: reverently as if naming a saint. Leek and potato, said
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: Maya Reeve with a nod. There's plenty. Hold your mugs out.
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: Don't spill. It's hotter than it looks. The people of
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: Picklewick sat down. in the long grass beside the boathouse,
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: in rings of three and four and five, with their
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: cold hands wrapped around warm tin mugs, and drank the
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: soup in slow, grateful, thoughtful sips. It was the best
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: soup any of them had ever tasted. It was thick
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: and salty and smooth, and it went all the way down,
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: spreading its warmth through their chests and out along their
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: arms like a quiet, glowing sunrise. This said Hester Plum softly,
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: is what I'd call a small wonder. But all this
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: time the kite had been drifting. It had crossed the
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: river some while ago and now hung above Heron Meadow,
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: a bright, gentle golden shape against the violet dusk. The
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: sun had sunk to the rim of the world. and
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: hung there, a great red gold coin about to be spent.
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: The sky in the west was a long burning stripe
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: of orange and rose, shading into green, and then into
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: the first deep blue of night, and against this immense
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: soft glow the great marigold drifted, very small and clear,
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: like a flower floating on a still pond. Posey sat
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: on the bank with her knees drawn up, watching it,
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: and she noticed that something about the evening had changed.
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: It was the bunting of leaves on the willow, you see.
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: All day the willow branches had streamed eastward, leaning in
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: the steady west wind. But now, one by one, they
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: were slowing down. They hung straight for a moment. Then
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: they gave a very long shiver. Then as she watched,
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: they turned, and began, quite gently, to lean the other way. Grandfather,
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: said Posey. The winds changed. Elias lifted his head. He sniffed. Once,
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: like an old dog, he wet a finger and held
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: it up. And a slow, thoughtful, pleased expression spread across
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: his creased face. So it has, he said. There's the
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 1: evening breeze. She comes in from the east when the
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: land cools. It happens sometimes. At dusk, near a river.
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: The air goes still. Anne sighs and turns around. I'd forgotten,
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: he chuckled softly. I'd quite forgotten. You must forgive an
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: old man's memory, Posey. I've not flown a kite this
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: far in my life. What does it mean? said Posey.
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: It means, said Elias, that the great Memarigold is about
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 1: to come home. It happened slowly and it was beautiful.
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 1: The east wind came over the meadow in a long, soft,
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: cooling sigh. It lifted the mist off the river. and
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: wound it into slow white curls. It stirred the reeds,
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: and the reeds whispered, and a single heron rose from
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 1: the shallows with a heavy flap and flew away into
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: the dusk. It ruffled the lantern flames, so they leaned,
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: and it ruffled the fur of the sheep, and it
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 1: ruffled the loose silver hair of Miss Cordelia Branwell beneath
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: her feather hat. And in the sky the great marigolds shivered.
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: You could see it from the ground, first a ripple,
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: from the top corner down through the patchwork, like the
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: shiver of a sleeper in a dream, then a slow
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: turning like a great flower following the sun as the
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: kite swung round on the still air to face the
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: other way. The ribbons of her tail, which had streamed
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: out eastward for hours, now fell slack for a moment,
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 1: hung straight down in a long soft rainbow curtain, and
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: then as the new wind caught them, lifted and streamed
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 1: out in the opposite direction.' She' s turning,' breathed Wilhelmina.' She' s
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: coming back,' said Tuppence.' She' s coming back,' said Posey, in
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: a voice that was nearly a whisper, with her whole
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 1: face shining. The great marigold sails slowly, slowly, majestically, out
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: from over Heron Meadow, back toward the river, back toward
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: the faint pink glow of the west.' back toward the
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: little far-off hill that held the roofs of Picklewick. And
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: a gray, soft, wandering murmur rose from the watching crowd,
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: the sound of people who had been given exactly what
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 1: they wanted without having asked for it. Well, said Fenwick Reed,
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 1: very quietly, leaning on his pole. I never. A kite
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: that turns round. Doesn't every good traveller, said Miss Woody Lea-Brunwell.
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 1: So the whole town crossed the wand a second time.
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 1: In the last of the light, with the lanterns lit,
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: this time there was no need to hurry, and the
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: fairy made trip after trip with the lantern swaying on
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: the prow and the water dark and silky beneath it.
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: Shot through with long, trembling lines of gold, the evening
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: smelled of mud and mitt and wood smoke. A second
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: star came out, and a third, and a fourth, as
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: if someone had begun very slowly to spill a jar
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: of them. The frogs chorused, the crickets answered, and from
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: somewhere far upriver a nightingale began, hesitantly then fully, to sing.
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: Some of the children were asleep on the benches, some
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: were awake and watching the water with enormous eyes. Hester
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: Plum began to hum a lullaby, and one by one
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: the others joined in, in low voices, so the sound
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 1: rose from the ferry in the dusk like the murmur
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: of a bee-loud meadow, and drifted out over the water
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: and was lost among the reeds. on the dirt crossing
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 1: fenwick reed with the pole in his great brown hands
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: began to sing as well his voice was deep and
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: rough and surprisingly sweet like a cello that had been
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: left out in the weather he sang an old river
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: song with no words that posy could understand only long
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: rolling vowels rising and falling like the current and posy
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: who was sitting at his feet with her head against
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: the rail realized with a small thrill that it was
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 1: the tune it was the tune of the wind it
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: had been here all the time She closed her eyes.
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: The fairy slid on across the dark water, rocking gently
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: the way a cradle rocks. The song went on, soft
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 1: and low. The lantern swayed. Somewhere in the sky above them,
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 1: a great patchwork flower was sailing home on an east wind,
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: with her ribbons trailing behind her like a comet's tail. Oh,
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 1: the moon. All of the people of Picklewick, wherever they
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 1: were in the boat, on the bank or waiting for
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: their turn in the long grass, tipped their heads back
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: and watched her go. You, listening, can feel the rocking too.
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: Feel the slow sway of the boat beneath you, left
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 1: and right, left and right, like breathing. Feel the cool
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: of the river air on your cheek and the warmth
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: of the lantern on your hands. Let the old song
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 1: carry you across. You are safe on the water. You
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 1: are carried. There is nothing to do but be taken
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 1: gently home. The last of the ferry loads stepped ashore
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: on the near bank of the wind, just as the
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: sun touched the horizon. It did not set all at once.
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: It never does. It sank slowly like a great gold
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 1: coin being lowered into a pocket, a little more with
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: every breath, and as it sank the sky behind it
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: caught fire in the gentlest way. First came a wide
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: wash of apricot, then rose, then a deep warm orange
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: that spread out in long horizontal streaks, and a high
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: thin veil of cloud that blushed pink and then copper,
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: and then a glowing smoky purple. The river took it
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 1: all in and held it, so that the wind ran
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 1: gold and crimson and lilac, a long unrolling ribbon of sunset,
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: and the reeds on its banks stood out as black
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: and delicate as lines in an ink drawing. Fenwick Reed
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: tied up the dozy duchess to her old iron post,
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 1: padded her side as one pats a tired horse, and
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 1: stood for a moment with his great hands on his
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: hips looking up. Well now, he said in his deep,
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: slow voice. I think I'll walk up with you if
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: nobody minds. I've not seen how a kite story ends
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 1: in a good many years. Nobody minds in the slightest,
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: said Tuppence Gable. In fact, Moira, we should be honored
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: if you'd come too. Moira Reed, who had already banked
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: down the boathouse fire and hung her apron on its nail,
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: talked to Flax, cut to her arm, and smiled. I
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: was hoping you'd ask, she said. So up the lone
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: slope they went, the whole crowd of them, the town
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: and the farmer and the ferryman and his wife and
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: the collie and the sheep, and the one shaggy brown
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: dog with the stick, up through the pale rustling grass
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: toward the high wide ridge where they had stood looking
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 1: down at the water not so long before. The lanterns
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: from the boathouse bobbed along with them, carried by children,
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 1: so that the procession wound up the hillside like a
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: slow glowing necklace. Their shadows ran long behind them, stretching
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 1: all the way back to the river. and above them,
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 1: in the burning sky, the great Marigold was coming home.
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 1: See he came over the water in a long, slow,
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: shining glide, with her ribbon streaming out behind her toward
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: the east, lit from beneath by the dying sun. I
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: wish you could have seen it. It is a sight
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: I shall try to describe, though I know I will
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: not do it justice. The kite was now lower than
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 1: she had been all day, no more than two hundred
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: feet above the ground, and the low sun shone straight
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: through her thin patchwork covering. Every square of cloth lit
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 1: up like a window. The blue gingham boiled like a
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 1: summer pond. The yellow silk of the fisherman's sail shone
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 1: like butter in a pan. The white lace of the
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: wedding veil sparkled like frost on a pane, and the
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: red heart from the soldier's coat gave off a deep, tender,
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: steady glow, as though it had a small flame inside.
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: Around the golden center, the petals blazed in amber and
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: orange and honey brown so that the whole kite looked
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: like a huge flower made of stained glass, lit up
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 1: from behind by an angel with a lamp. Her long
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: tail of ribbons, four hundred strong, rippled and shimmered in
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 1: the light, with every color burning like a coal. The
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 1: silver line trailed below her from her bridle in a
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: gentle curve, glittering like a thread of spun sugar. Oh,
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 1: said Posey, who had stopped in the middle of the path. Oh, grandfather,
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: she's the sunset. Yes, said Elias, his voice was very quiet. Yes,
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: she is. The people of Picklewick did not speak. They
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 1: stood on the long slope in the glow with their
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 1: faces turned up. and the light fell over them all
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 1: in a warm, tender flood, turning gray hair to gold
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: and brown hair to bronze, and the faces of the
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 1: very young to something like burnished apples. Hester Plum's buttons shone.
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: Fitzwilliam Crumb's round hat was a small sun as thick
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: as a moon. And Miss Cordelia Branwell, upright in her
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: wicker chair with her silver walking stick held to her chest,
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: had tears in her blue eyes, which she did not
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: trouble to wipe away. nobody she said at last in
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: a clear soft voice has ever made a kite like
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: that not in a hundred years and it wasn't made
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 1: by me or wilhelmina or any one person it was
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: made by all of us every single one of you
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: a long breath moved through the crowd like wind through
• 2:12:28
  Speaker 1: grain The wind was dying now. You could feel it.
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 1: All day it had been moving, leaning and tugging and
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: breathing and turning. But as the sun went down, it
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 1: grew tired, in the way that winds do, and began
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 1: to lose its strength. The grass stopped rustling, the willows
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: by the river settled and became still, The ribbons of
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 1: the kite's tail, which had been streaming out so briskly,
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 1: began to droop. And the great marigold, jerking gently over
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: the near bank of the wind, over the lavender fields
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: and the orchard and the sheep meadow, began very slowly
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 1: to sink. She did not fall. Please do not imagine that.
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 1: She settled as a feather settles, as a leaf settles
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: on a pond, in long, gentle spirals. tilting a little
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 1: to the left and a little to the right, her
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 1: great fring creaking softly in the dusk. Each time she dipped,
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 1: a murmur ran through the crowd, and each time she studied,
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 1: the murmur softened into a sigh. She was descending, all
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: in her own time, toward the high ridge buck the river,
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 1: toward the old gnarled hawthorn tree that stood on its crest, alone,
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 1: against the sky. She's going to land, said Tobias Merrow.
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: She's not going to land, said Wilhelmina. She's going to
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 1: be caught. By whom? By the hawthorn, said Wilhelmina. Her
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 1: eyes narrowed with calculation. Look at the angle. The wind drops.
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 1: She loses lift. The tail drags first. If she goes
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 1: down over the ridge, the tail will catch in those branches.
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 1: And then the line. She stopped. She looked at the
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: trailing silver thread still wandering through the grass ahead of them,
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 1: down the slope and across the path. She turned slowly
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 1: to Posey. Where is the end of the line, she said.
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 1: Posey looked down, and she saw at her feet, in
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 1: the long grass, a gleam of silver. was there the
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: whole time, if he had bloated. All afternoon, the end
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: of Elias's silver line had been trailing across the meadows,
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 1: and the lavender and the orchard grass, winding through the
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 1: buttercups and under the hedge and over the ferry deck
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 1: and along the river bank, as faithful as a dog
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: on a lid. It had been Posey's road, it had
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 1: been the thread that led them over the hills and
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: across the wind and back again. And now as the
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: kite sank, the line was sinking too, drawing closer with
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: every moment, crawling slowly down through the cooling air, until
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: at last the very end of it lay in the
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 1: grass at Posey's feet, like a dropped necklace. She bent down.
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 1: She picked it up. It was cool and thin and silky,
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: and it ran through her fingers like water. There was
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 1: a small, neat loop at the very end, tied by
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: her grandfather with the old keeping knot. She held it
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 1: for a moment, wondering. She looked up at the sky,
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 1: where the great marigold hung low and golden a few
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: hundred yachts away. Her face turned toward the hawthorn. Grandfather,
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 1: she said, I've got the end. Elias came and stood
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 1: behind her and looked at the loop in her hand,
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 1: and a very curious expression came over his face. It
• 2:16:14
  Speaker 1: was awe and tenderness and a small private amusement. So
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 1: you have, he said. So you have, my girl. What
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 1: do I do? Hold on, said Elias, lightly. She's a
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: very big kite, and you're a rather small girl, but
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 1: she is nearly done with pulling now. She only wants
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: a hand to tell her it's all right. Posey gripped
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 1: the line in both fists. It trembled slightly, with the
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 1: faint life of the kite in the far-off air. She
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: felt it travel through her arms, down her spine, into
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 1: the soles of her feet. It felt like holding hands
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 1: with the sky. Grandfather, she whispered. I can feel her. Yes,
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 1: said Elias. That's the line doing its work. And then,
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 1: because one pair of hands is not enough for a
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 1: kite of that size, a hundred more came to help.
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 1: It happened without anyone saying a word. First, Elias laid
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 1: his weathered hands over posies, just beneath them on the cord.
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: Then Wilhelmina took the line behind him. Then Tobias, and Barnaby,
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 1: and Nodalee, who handed her basket of buns to the
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 1: nearest child, and Hester Plum and Fitzwilliam Crum, and Mrs. Rivenworth,
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 1: and Fenwick Reed with his enormous bound fists, and Moira
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: beside him. him, and the Pennywhistle sisters, all three. Farmer
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: Hollis took hold, and Widdle Pettygrew who had somehow arrived,
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: panting and bright-eyed from the orchard with an apple in
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: each pocket. The goose who had followed the whole way
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 1: at a stately waddle, took a corner of the line
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 1: in her beak to be part of it. They stood
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: in a long chain, a hundred strong, a hundred and fifty,
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: with the silver cord passing from hand to hand along
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: the slope, as the sun burned low, and each of
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 1: them held it so lightly, so tenderly, that the line
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 1: barely moved at all. Gently, murmured Wilhelmina, gently, let her
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 1: come on her own. Above them, the great marigold began
• 2:18:35
  Speaker 1: her last slow descent. She sank over the crest of
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 1: the ridge, her golden face glowing, her tail of ribbons
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 1: trailing after her in a loose brilliant rope. She dip-hides
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 1: the dark wrenches of the lone hawthorn tree. She paused,
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 1: and swayed, and sank again. The first ribbon touched a twig.
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 1: It wound once around a branch, and held. The second
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: wound itself round the first, a third, a fourth, and soon,
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: a whole, shining skein of colors had tangled gently in
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 1: the hawthorn's arms, as if the old tree were gathering
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 1: a bouquet. And the great kite, with a last long
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 1: creak of willow, came to rest against the sky, hanging
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 1: low and glowing in the branches of the hawthorn on
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 1: the crest of the ridge, like an enormous golden bird
• 2:19:29
  Speaker 1: that had folded its wings. Not a single stitch had
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 1: been torn. Not a single cane had cracked. Nobody breathed.
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 1: there was a silence on the reach then a silence
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: so clean and deep that you could hear the last
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 1: wind sigh out of the grass and then Miss Cordelia
• 2:19:58
  Speaker 1: Branwell from her wicker chair began to clap she clapped
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: slowly at first her small thin hands coming together with
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 1: a soft dry sound and then faster and then everyone
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 1: was clapping and cheering in warm rolling happy waves that
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 1: echoed down the hill and out across the valley The
• 2:20:17
  Speaker 1: children jumped. The dogs barked. The sheep startled, said, Bah!
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: in chorus. Tuppence Gable threw her clipboard in the air
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: and it came down on Dumpling the pony's back where
• 2:20:28
  Speaker 1: it stayed. Tobias Mera wiped his eyes with the end
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: of his long gray scarf. Fenwick Reed lifted Moira clean
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 1: off her feet and spun her around. And Moira, laughing,
• 2:20:41
  Speaker 1: hit him lightly on the shoulder and told him to
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 1: put her down. Barnaby Quill took off his hat and
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 1: flung it in the air, and Mumble the dog, who
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 1: could stand it no longer, dropped his stick, which he
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 1: had been carrying since morning, and ran in three joyous
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: circles around the entire crowd with his ears flying. Posy
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 1: stood in the middle of it all, with the end
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: of the silver line still in her hands, and tears
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: running down her cheeks, and a smile so broad it hurt.
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: We caught her, she said. We actually caught her. You
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 1: caught her? said Elias. He had to clear his throat.
• 2:21:20
  Speaker 1: You and the whole of Picklewick. But it wasn't catching, really,
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 1: Posey said, wiping her cheek on her sleeve. She wanted
• 2:21:28
  Speaker 1: to come back. We only held on. Elias looked down
• 2:21:31
  Speaker 1: at her, and something went across his face like the
• 2:21:34
  Speaker 1: passing of a very soft cloud, and then the light returned,
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: brighter than before. You know, Posey, he said. That is
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: the best thing anyone has said about holding on in
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: all my years. I think you may have just explained
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 1: all of it. They tied the line to the hawthorn.
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: Elias did it himself, with the old keeping knot, slowly
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: and carefully, with Posey's hands over his, the way you
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: might tie a boat to a mooring on a gentle night.
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: He pulled it snug. He gave it a small, thoughtful pat.
• 2:22:19
  Speaker 1: and the great marigold hung there in the branches, held
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 1: at last, with the silver cord running down from her
• 2:22:25
  Speaker 1: bridle to the roots, rocking very slightly in the last
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 1: warmth of the breeze. Are we taking her down? asked
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 1: Tuppence Gable, retrieving her clipboard. Not yet, said Miss Cordelia Branwell.
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 1: She had said it softly, but everyone heard. Not yet,
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 1: she said again. Let her stay a little. Look at her.
• 2:22:42
  Speaker 1: The sun hasn't gone yet, and she is so very beautiful,
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 1: hanging there in the tree like that. It would be
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 1: a shame to bring her down while the light's still
• 2:22:50
  Speaker 1: on her. Let her have her sunset. We can take
• 2:22:52
  Speaker 1: her down in the morning. In the morning, said Wilhelmina.
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 1: In the morning, said Miss Cordelia. Tonight, I think, we
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 1: are going to stay on this hill. There was a
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: silence while this idea settled. And then, one by one,
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 1: people began to smile. Stay? said Adélie Fennimore. We have blankets,
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: said Mrs. Ribbenworth. We have buns, said Adélie. We have soup,
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 1: said Moya Reed, tapping her flask. We have a goose,
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: said Alfie, the sticky boy, who has the right of way.
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 1: And we have, said Toppins Gable, tapping her clipboard thoughtfully,
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 1: a whole town of people. In one place, with nothing
• 2:23:44
  Speaker 1: to do, and no one to be anywhere. I do
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 1: not believe that has ever happened before. She put her
• 2:23:52
  Speaker 1: pencil behind her ear. I think, she said, that is
• 2:23:56
  Speaker 1: a very good idea indeed. So the people of Picklewick
• 2:24:10
  Speaker 1: settled down on the crest of the ridge. in the
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 1: last glow of the sunset, like birds settling into a hedge.
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 1: Blankets were produced from the cart and unfolded on the grass.
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 1: Quilts were shaken out and spread in great patchwork scrubs.
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 1: Hay was fetched, and cushions and coats. The older people
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 1: were helped into folding chairs and the younger ones spelled
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: on their backs, and the very small ones were tucked
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 1: in a row under a wide red blanket like loaves
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: in an oven. Odalie Fenimore passed round the last of
• 2:24:37
  Speaker 1: the plumbuns, one for each person, perfect number, with one
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: left for the goose. Moira Reeb poured her hot soup
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 1: into mugs. Barnaby Clill brought out his small jar of
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 1: last flowers of the year and shared a spoonful with
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 1: everyone who wanted it, which was everyone, and it tasted
• 2:24:51
  Speaker 1: of the whole of autumn, golden and slow. The sun sank.
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 1: The sky deepened to rose, to plum, to violet, to
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 1: a deep, rich, velvety blue. A great marigold glowed softly
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 1: in the hawthorn like a lantern long after the sun
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 1: had dipped below the hills. as though she had stored
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 1: up the light of the whole day and was letting
• 2:25:15
  Speaker 1: it out slowly, a little at a time, so that
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 1: no one would be left in the dark. One by
• 2:25:22
  Speaker 1: one the first stars appeared, and you listening may settle
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 1: down now too. Find the softest spot you can. Feel
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 1: the blanket beneath you, and the earth beneath the blanket,
• 2:25:32
  Speaker 1: and the whole slow-turning world beneath that. Feel the days
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 1: last waft on your skin, the way it lingers on
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 1: a stone after the sun has gone. There is nothing
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 1: left to chase. There is nothing left to carry. The
• 2:25:45
  Speaker 1: kite has come home, and you have come home with it.
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: Let your eyes grow heavy. Let the sky go violet.
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: Let the first stars come out, one by one, like
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 1: soft lamps in a far-off window. Everything has been caught.
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 1: Everything is safe. It was Wilhelmina Branwell who remembered the box.
• 2:26:25
  Speaker 1: She had been sitting on a folded blanket at the
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 1: foot of the hawthorn tree, with a mug of myrrh
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 1: soup in her hands and her back against the trunk
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 1: looking up at the great marigold glowing softly among the
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 1: branches when a thought came to her, slowly, like a
• 2:26:39
  Speaker 1: fish rising. She frowned. She put down her mug. She
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: stood up rather stiffly, and went over to the cart
• 2:26:47
  Speaker 1: where her aunt's wicker chair had been left and rummaged
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: for a while in the straw beneath the seat, and
• 2:26:52
  Speaker 1: came back carrying a long flat wooden case bound in
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 1: brass and no bigger than a breadboard. Aunt Cordelia, she said,
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: I forgot. I brought these up from the towers this morning.
• 2:27:03
  Speaker 1: We always do. They've been in the cart all day.
• 2:27:06
  Speaker 1: Miss Cordelia Branwell, who was lying back in her chair
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 1: with a rug over her knees and a sprig of
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 1: lavender in her hatband, opened one blue eye. The slow fireworks,
• 2:27:16
  Speaker 1: she said. The slow fireworks. Oh, my dear girl, said
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 1: Miss Cordelia. And she opened the other eye and sat
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 1: up a little, and her whole face seemed to soften
• 2:27:30
  Speaker 1: and glow. Of course, of course, at the end of
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 1: the fair there are always the slow fireworks. I had
• 2:27:36
  Speaker 1: quite forgotten we weren't at the end of the fair.
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: We are now, said Winifred. smiling. So we are, said
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 1: Miss Cordelia. How remarkable! The fair has come to us.
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 1: By this time many of the townsfolk had overheard, and
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 1: a ripple of whispering ran across the crust of the ridge,
• 2:27:52
  Speaker 1: in the ducts, from blanket to blanket and quilt to quilt.
• 2:27:56
  Speaker 1: The slow fireworks— the slow fireworks nobody under the age
• 2:27:59
  Speaker 1: of about twelve had ever seen them, because the children
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 1: were always, somehow, asleep by the time they were let off,
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 1: and the grown-ups who had seen them only ever described
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: them in vague and misty terms, as if recalling a dream.
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 1: What are slow fireworks? asked Posy, from beneath her blanket,
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 1: where she was lying on her back with her head
• 2:28:24
  Speaker 1: on her grandfather's folded coat. Ah, said Elias softly. Well,
• 2:28:32
  Speaker 1: then not like the other kind. I should explain what
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: Wilhelmina carried, because it is a very particular thing. You
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 1: may know the ordinary sort of firework, the sort that
• 2:28:52
  Speaker 1: goes up with a bang and a whiz, and explodes
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 1: in a shower of noise and sparks. and makes the
• 2:28:57
  Speaker 1: dogs hide under the table. Those are fine in their way,
• 2:29:01
  Speaker 1: they are good for celebrating, but they are not good
• 2:29:04
  Speaker 1: for sleeping. The fireworks of Picklewick were different. They had
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 1: been invented a long, long time ago, by a Brunwell
• 2:29:12
  Speaker 1: who had a baby that would not settle, and who
• 2:29:14
  Speaker 1: had thought, rather desperately, at three o'clock in the that
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 1: did not frighten anyone. She had gone down to her workshop.
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 1: She had mixed a handful of this and a pinch
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 1: of that. She had spent a good many nights making experiments,
• 2:29:31
  Speaker 1: and a good many mornings clearing up. And at last
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: she had produced a small paper cylinder, no bigger than
• 2:29:40
  Speaker 1: a candle, that rose into the air without a sound,
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 1: and unfolded at the top very slowly into a bloom
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 1: of soft, silvery drifting light. The light did not flash,
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 1: it did not crack, It opened like a flower in time-lapse,
• 2:29:52
  Speaker 1: petal by petal in the dark, and hung there for
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 1: a long moment, shimmering, and then began to sink, in
• 2:29:58
  Speaker 1: a thousand tiny motes like dandelion seeds made of moonlight,
• 2:30:01
  Speaker 1: and the baby on its mother's shoulder looked up and
• 2:30:03
  Speaker 1: watched it come down and sighed and fell fast asleep.
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 1: That was the first slow firework. There had been a
• 2:30:09
  Speaker 1: great many since. Willipmena knelt at the grass and undid
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: the brass catches of the long case. The lid opened
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 1: with a soft click. and inside, nestled in a bed
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 1: of folded violet velvet, lay a row of paper tubes,
• 2:30:27
  Speaker 1: each one about as long as her hand, painted in
• 2:30:29
  Speaker 1: pale blues and silvers and the faintest of greens, and
• 2:30:33
  Speaker 1: each one tied with a tiny silk ribbon of a
• 2:30:36
  Speaker 1: different color. There are twelve, she said, one for each
• 2:30:42
  Speaker 1: month of the year, but we shall do them all tonight,
• 2:30:55
  Speaker 1: Too wide a marrow was chosen to light them, because
• 2:30:58
  Speaker 1: he had the steadiest hands. He was a clockmaker, after all.
• 2:31:02
  Speaker 1: He had spent his whole life with tiny screws and
• 2:31:05
  Speaker 1: delicate springs and the thin, hair-light hands of watches. He
• 2:31:09
  Speaker 1: took a long taper from Fenugreed's lantern and knelt beside
• 2:31:13
  Speaker 1: the case, and the whole ridge went quiet. Even the
• 2:31:16
  Speaker 1: crickets seemed to pause. Even the sheep, curled at the
• 2:31:19
  Speaker 1: edge of the blankets with their leads folded under them,
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 1: turned their heads to watch. Where do we set them?
• 2:31:25
  Speaker 1: he murmured. Anywhere in the open, said Wilhelmina. Stand them upright.
• 2:31:31
  Speaker 1: They like a little grass around their feet. Then the
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 1: taper to the string. There, the little blue one. And
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: step back. They'll do the rest. Tobias set the first
• 2:31:41
  Speaker 1: tube upright in a hollow of the grass, a short
• 2:31:44
  Speaker 1: way from the hawthorn. It was tied with a pale
• 2:31:47
  Speaker 1: lavender ribbon. He touched the flame to the thread and
• 2:31:54
  Speaker 1: it caught with a tiny, tidy hiss and he stepped
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 1: back and the whole ridge held its breath. For a
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 1: moment nothing at all happened. Then, without a bang or
• 2:32:04
  Speaker 1: a whistle, the paper tube rose, gently, straight up into
• 2:32:09
  Speaker 1: the dark. trailing a thin thread of silver light behind it,
• 2:32:13
  Speaker 1: like a spider cliving of filament. It rose slowly, slowly,
• 2:32:19
  Speaker 1: up past the branches of the hawthorn, up past the
• 2:32:22
  Speaker 1: glowing shape of the great marigold, up into the deepening night,
• 2:32:26
  Speaker 1: and when it was perhaps as high as a church tower,
• 2:32:30
  Speaker 1: it paused, as if considering, and then it opened, it gloomed,
• 2:32:34
  Speaker 1: there's no other word, it bloomed, in the sky like
• 2:32:38
  Speaker 1: a great, pale peony, a hundred petals unfolding one after another,
• 2:32:43
  Speaker 1: each petal a curl of silvery lavender light, each one
• 2:32:48
  Speaker 1: soft at its edges, glimmering and glowing and slowly turning.
• 2:32:53
  Speaker 1: For a long moment it hung there, perfectly still, an
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 1: enormous flower of light in the velvet dark. And then
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 1: one by one the petals began to loosen and drift apart.
• 2:33:08
  Speaker 1: and sink, like a slow, silent, sparkling snowfall down toward
• 2:33:13
  Speaker 1: the sleeping hell. A sigh went up from the crowd.
• 2:33:17
  Speaker 1: It was not a gasp of surprise, it was a
• 2:33:19
  Speaker 1: sigh of the deepest relief, the sort you give when
• 2:33:22
  Speaker 1: you finally sit down after a long day. And all
• 2:33:25
  Speaker 1: across the ridge, as the silver moats came drifting down,
• 2:33:28
  Speaker 1: people yawned, It was a remarkable thing, and I should
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 1: like to tell you exactly how it felt. When a
• 2:33:44
  Speaker 1: slow firework opens, you do not feel excited. You feel unwound.
• 2:33:50
  Speaker 1: The glowing petals drift down through the air, and as
• 2:33:52
  Speaker 1: they fall, the day seems to fall away from you too.
• 2:33:56
  Speaker 1: Your forehead softens. The little muscles around your eyes let go.
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 1: Your hands, which have been holding onto things all day
• 2:34:04
  Speaker 1: without your noticing, fall open on the blanket, palms upward.
• 2:34:08
  Speaker 1: And a gentle warmth spreads out from the middle of
• 2:34:11
  Speaker 1: your chest like a hot water bottle slipped under the covers.
• 2:34:15
  Speaker 1: And a feeling comes over you that is something like
• 2:34:17
  Speaker 1: being forgiven, and something like being carried. Oddly, Fenimore lay
• 2:34:22
  Speaker 1: back in the grass with her hands folded over her stomach. Oh,
• 2:34:27
  Speaker 1: she said dreamily. Oh, that one smells of warm bread.
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 1: It does, said Hester Plum in the same drowsy tone.
• 2:34:35
  Speaker 1: And a little bit of wool. Each one has a smell,
• 2:34:39
  Speaker 1: said Posey, turning her head. Each one has something, said
• 2:34:47
  Speaker 1: Elias in a low, slow voice beside her. A smell,
• 2:34:51
  Speaker 1: a sound, a feeling. That's what they're made of. They're
• 2:34:55
  Speaker 1: made of small, quiet things. Tobias lit the second. It
• 2:34:59
  Speaker 1: rose on a thread of pale blue and opened in
• 2:35:02
  Speaker 1: a ring of softly glowing silver green, like a circle
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 1: of moonlit leaves, and drifted down. And as the petals fell,
• 2:35:08
  Speaker 1: a sound came with them, very faint and very far away.
• 2:35:12
  Speaker 1: It was the sound of rain on a roof. It
• 2:35:14
  Speaker 1: was the gentle pattering of the soft, steady drizzle on slates,
• 2:35:18
  Speaker 1: overheard from a warm bed. Rain, whispered Fitzwilliam Crumb. Oh,
• 2:35:23
  Speaker 1: how lovely. Rain on the roof. A knee inside? Posy
• 2:35:28
  Speaker 1: settled her cheek against her grandfather's coat. The pebble was
• 2:35:31
  Speaker 1: warm in her pocket. She listened to the rain that
• 2:35:34
  Speaker 1: was not raining and let her eyes close and then
• 2:35:36
  Speaker 1: opened them again because she did not want to miss anything.
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: The third firework was the color of warm honey and
• 2:35:53
  Speaker 1: it smelled of cinnamon. The fourth was a pale rose
• 2:35:57
  Speaker 1: pink and it carried the soft purr of a cat
• 2:36:00
  Speaker 1: settling into a lap. The sound of it spread across
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 1: the hillside, a deep, rumbling, sleepy hum, and several people
• 2:36:08
  Speaker 1: laughed softly, and several others were already too far gone
• 2:36:12
  Speaker 1: to laugh. Mumble, curled at Elias' feet, gave a long,
• 2:36:17
  Speaker 1: wheezing sigh in his sleep. as of durning the cat
• 2:36:21
  Speaker 1: in spirit. The fifth was a deep glowing indigo, and
• 2:36:25
  Speaker 1: it brought the sensation of a heavy quilt being drawn
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 1: up under one's chin, tucked in at the corners by
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 1: a careful hand. The sixth was a drifting cloud of
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 1: tiny gold sparks, like the last embers of a fire,
• 2:36:38
  Speaker 1: and with it came the crackle and saddle of logs
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 1: in a grate, and the smell of wood smoke and
• 2:36:43
  Speaker 1: old books. The seventh was white, pure white, as soft
• 2:36:48
  Speaker 1: as new snow. It opened high above the reach in
• 2:36:55
  Speaker 1: a great sphere of feathery light, and drifted slowly down
• 2:36:58
  Speaker 1: on every side. And as it came, an almost silence fell,
• 2:37:02
  Speaker 1: the harsh of a snowy night, when every sound is
• 2:37:05
  Speaker 1: wrapped in wool, and the world seems to have been
• 2:37:08
  Speaker 1: put away in a drawer. That one murmured while your
• 2:37:10
  Speaker 1: reed is my favorite. Mine too, said her husband, so
• 2:37:14
  Speaker 1: low that it was nearly a thought. They lay side
• 2:37:17
  Speaker 1: by side on the grass, the ferryman and his wife,
• 2:37:21
  Speaker 1: his enormous hand wrapped around hers, and their eyes were closed.
• 2:37:25
  Speaker 1: All across the hilltop, the people of Picolic were settling
• 2:37:28
  Speaker 1: lower and lower into their blankets. The talk had dwindled
• 2:37:31
  Speaker 1: to a murmur, and the murmur had dwindled to the
• 2:37:34
  Speaker 1: occasional word, and the occasional word had dwindled to breathing.
• 2:37:38
  Speaker 1: Top and Scable had taken her spectacles off and folded
• 2:37:41
  Speaker 1: them on her chest. Her clipboard lay forgotten on the
• 2:37:48
  Speaker 1: grass beside her, and her pencils, both of them had
• 2:37:51
  Speaker 1: slipped from behind her ears and she did not notice.
• 2:38:04
  Speaker 1: The eighth firework was for the books. It was a soft,
• 2:38:07
  Speaker 1: warm amber, the color of lamplight through a curtain, and
• 2:38:12
  Speaker 1: it opened in the sky like a slowly turning page.
• 2:38:15
  Speaker 1: As the petals came down, there was a smell of
• 2:38:18
  Speaker 1: paper and ink and leather and the faint, dry whisper
• 2:38:22
  Speaker 1: of someone, somewhere, turning a page by the light of
• 2:38:25
  Speaker 1: a small lamp. It was the feeling of the last
• 2:38:29
  Speaker 1: chapter of a story you have loved. It was the
• 2:38:32
  Speaker 1: feeling of a good book being closed gently and set
• 2:38:35
  Speaker 1: down on a bedside table with a bookmark in it.
• 2:38:39
  Speaker 1: The ninth was for gardens. It was a green so
• 2:38:43
  Speaker 1: pale that it was almost silver, and it brought with
• 2:38:46
  Speaker 1: it a wave of cool, damp, earthy air and the
• 2:38:50
  Speaker 1: scent of freshly turned soil and tomato leaves and mint
• 2:38:54
  Speaker 1: and the far-off buzz of a single bee.' Barnaby,' Hester
• 2:38:58
  Speaker 1: Plim whispered.' That' s one of yours, mine,' said Barnaby Quill drowsily.' Mine?
• 2:39:04
  Speaker 1: If an old friend in the Tower's workshop. She asked
• 2:39:07
  Speaker 1: me what the best sound in the world was.' I sat,
• 2:39:14
  Speaker 1: a bee at the end of a long day, going home.
• 2:39:17
  Speaker 1: She was right to ask you, said Hester. She was right,
• 2:39:22
  Speaker 1: said Barnaby, to ask anyone. The tent was for the river.
• 2:39:27
  Speaker 1: It was blue, or deep midnight blue shot through with
• 2:39:30
  Speaker 1: ripples of silver, and as it fell, it brought the
• 2:39:33
  Speaker 1: long slow lapping of water against a hull. On the
• 2:39:37
  Speaker 1: creek of a mooring rope, in the faint faraway echo
• 2:39:40
  Speaker 1: of a ferryman's song, rolling on and on toward the sea.
• 2:39:45
  Speaker 1: Fenwick Reed, who was almost asleep, gave a deep, wumbling
• 2:39:49
  Speaker 1: sigh in his beard. They put that one in for me,
• 2:39:52
  Speaker 1: he murmured. They did not, said Moira without opening her eyes.
• 2:39:57
  Speaker 1: They'd been making it for a hundred years. Then I
• 2:40:01
  Speaker 1: was in it before I was born, said Fenwick comfortably,
• 2:40:04
  Speaker 1: and was gone. Wilhelmina knelt beside the last two tubes
• 2:40:18
  Speaker 1: and her eyes in the dark were soft and wet.
• 2:40:22
  Speaker 1: She had made the eleventh one herself. She had never
• 2:40:24
  Speaker 1: told anyone, not even her aunt. It had taken her
• 2:40:27
  Speaker 1: the whole of the winter. In her workshop, in the
• 2:40:30
  Speaker 1: green lamplight, between the sketches for the kite, it was
• 2:40:32
  Speaker 1: tied with a little ribbon of the color of marigolds.
• 2:40:36
  Speaker 1: She held it for a long moment in her hands.
• 2:40:39
  Speaker 1: and then she looked up at the darred patchwork shape
• 2:40:41
  Speaker 1: in the hawthorn, the kite that had flown away and
• 2:40:44
  Speaker 1: come back, and she set the tube carefully in a
• 2:40:47
  Speaker 1: hollow of the grass and lit it herself. He rose
• 2:40:51
  Speaker 1: without a sound, He rose and rose and, when it
• 2:40:56
  Speaker 1: reached its height, it opened in a great, slow rain
• 2:40:59
  Speaker 1: of soft golden light, and in the heart of the
• 2:41:02
  Speaker 1: ring there bloomed a smaller flower, and in the heart
• 2:41:05
  Speaker 1: of that a smaller one still flower, within flower, within flower,
• 2:41:10
  Speaker 1: glowing like a patchwork of tiny lanterns. And as the
• 2:41:17
  Speaker 1: petals sang toward the earth, they brought a feeling that
• 2:41:20
  Speaker 1: is very hard to name. It was the feeling of
• 2:41:23
  Speaker 1: having been part of something. Of having made a good
• 2:41:26
  Speaker 1: thing with other hands. Of having let it go and
• 2:41:29
  Speaker 1: having it come back. And being forgiven for the letting go.
• 2:41:33
  Speaker 1: Nobody spoke. Nobody could have. The golden light fell over
• 2:41:37
  Speaker 1: the sleeping hilltop in a slow, tender, glittering rain. And
• 2:41:40
  Speaker 1: he gleamed on the faces and the quilts and the dew.
• 2:41:44
  Speaker 1: And on the folded wings of the great marigold. and
• 2:41:47
  Speaker 1: on a small, white-haired woman in a wicker chair, who
• 2:41:50
  Speaker 1: had closed her eyes and was smiling. Oh, Wilhelmina, Miss
• 2:41:57
  Speaker 1: Cordelia murmured. How very like us. The twelfth firework was
• 2:42:11
  Speaker 1: the last. It was the simplest of all. It was
• 2:42:14
  Speaker 1: tied with a plain white ribbon. and it carried no color,
• 2:42:18
  Speaker 1: and no scent, and no sound. Wilhelmina set it in
• 2:42:22
  Speaker 1: the grass, and touched the flame to it with the
• 2:42:25
  Speaker 1: very last of the taper, and sat back on her heels,
• 2:42:28
  Speaker 1: and watched it climb. It rose to the very top
• 2:42:31
  Speaker 1: of the sky. It rose until it was only a
• 2:42:34
  Speaker 1: pinprick of light among the stars, a spark among the
• 2:42:37
  Speaker 1: other sparks, indistinguishable from the rest. For a moment there
• 2:42:42
  Speaker 1: was nothing, and then it opened. so softly and so
• 2:42:46
  Speaker 1: faintly that you could hardly have said it was there,
• 2:42:48
  Speaker 1: into a veil of the palest silver, a net of
• 2:42:51
  Speaker 1: light so fine that it seemed to be made of breath.
• 2:42:54
  Speaker 1: It spread across the whole sky from one horizon to
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 1: the other, and it did not fall like the others,
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 1: it simply stayed, gently glowing, and then more gently, and
• 2:43:05
  Speaker 1: then so gently, that you could not say where it
• 2:43:08
  Speaker 1: ended and the dark began, and the dark came down,
• 2:43:15
  Speaker 1: and came down as warm as a hand on your forehead.
• 2:43:18
  Speaker 1: It came down as soft as a feather. It was
• 2:43:21
  Speaker 1: not an absence of anything. It was a presence, a deep, wide,
• 2:43:25
  Speaker 1: kind darkness full of rest that settled over the hilltop
• 2:43:28
  Speaker 1: and over the valley and over the whole sleeping country
• 2:43:30
  Speaker 1: and held it all. Posy opened her eyes for the
• 2:43:33
  Speaker 1: last time. She saw the stars through the veil of silver.
• 2:43:36
  Speaker 1: She saw the dark outline of the hawthorn tree and
• 2:43:39
  Speaker 1: in it faintly gleaming the great quilted shape of the
• 2:43:42
  Speaker 1: great marigold hanging in the branches with her ribbons trailing down.
• 2:43:45
  Speaker 1: She felt the line in her hand. She realized still.
• 2:43:48
  Speaker 1: She had held it all this time. She had not
• 2:43:50
  Speaker 1: let go. She smiled. She did not know that she
• 2:43:54
  Speaker 1: was smiling. Grandfather, she whispered. It was the best fare.
• 2:43:58
  Speaker 1: It was, said Elias, very softly, from a long way off.
• 2:44:02
  Speaker 1: Sleep now, my love. Sleep now. Posy sighed. Her fingers
• 2:44:06
  Speaker 1: loosened around the silver cord. Her breathing slowed and slowed
• 2:44:11
  Speaker 1: and slowed. and so the fair came to its quiet
• 2:44:24
  Speaker 1: close the lanterns burned lower the stars wheeled slowly overhead
• 2:44:29
  Speaker 1: the last of the silver motes drifted down over the
• 2:44:32
  Speaker 1: hill and went out one by one in the grass
• 2:44:35
  Speaker 1: like sparks of a very small fire the sheep slept
• 2:44:38
  Speaker 1: with their legs tucked under them in a woolly ring
• 2:44:41
  Speaker 1: Biscuit the collie slept with her nose on Farmer Hollis's boot.
• 2:44:45
  Speaker 1: Dumpling the pony slept standing up, with one hind hoof
• 2:44:48
  Speaker 1: tilted as ponies do. The goose slept with her head
• 2:44:51
  Speaker 1: beneath her wing. Mumbo slept on his back, with all
• 2:44:55
  Speaker 1: four paws in the air, and his stick, which he
• 2:44:58
  Speaker 1: had picked up again at some point in the night,
• 2:45:00
  Speaker 1: tucked firmly under his chin. Back in the valley, the
• 2:45:04
  Speaker 1: stalls of the long green stood quietly in the starlight,
• 2:45:07
  Speaker 1: their jars gleaming, their signs propped up. their canvas roofs
• 2:45:11
  Speaker 1: rippling very gently in the breeze. Not a single thing
• 2:45:14
  Speaker 1: had been taken. Not a single thing was missing. The
• 2:45:23
  Speaker 1: button stall, the hat stall, the stall of small wonders,
• 2:45:26
  Speaker 1: the pies on their pyramids under the cloths, the honey,
• 2:45:30
  Speaker 1: the spoons, the cheese, everything waited, calmly, as things do
• 2:45:35
  Speaker 1: that know they will be loved again in the morning.
• 2:45:37
  Speaker 1: and on the high, wide ridge above the river, under
• 2:45:40
  Speaker 1: the old hawthorn, the whole town of Picklewick slept in
• 2:45:43
  Speaker 1: the starlight, side by side, on quilts and blankets and hay,
• 2:45:48
  Speaker 1: with the silver line drifting loosely from a little girl's
• 2:45:51
  Speaker 1: hand to a tree, and a giant kite, made of kindness,
• 2:45:54
  Speaker 1: glowing softly above them all. The night was warm, the
• 2:45:58
  Speaker 1: stars were close, the wind was gone, and would not
• 2:46:01
  Speaker 1: be back until dawn, and that was the end of
• 2:46:03
  Speaker 1: the Picklewick Faire. Thank you for spending this time with me.
• 2:46:17
  Speaker 1: It has been a pleasure to walk those meadows with you,
• 2:46:20
  Speaker 1: and to cross that river, and to sit on that
• 2:46:23
  Speaker 1: hellside while the sky filled up with slow silver light.
• 2:46:28
  Speaker 1: I hope you are a little softer now than when
• 2:46:30
  Speaker 1: we started. I hope your shoulders have come down and
• 2:46:34
  Speaker 1: your breathing has slowed, and some small corner of your
• 2:46:37
  Speaker 1: mind has gone quiet. If you have been listening for
• 2:46:40
  Speaker 1: a while and enjoying these stories, I'd be so grateful
• 2:46:44
  Speaker 1: if you would follow or subscribe so that new stories
• 2:46:47
  Speaker 1: find their way to you. And if you know someone
• 2:46:50
  Speaker 1: who is tired or restless or simply in need of
• 2:46:53
  Speaker 1: a gentle voice, please share this one with them. It's
• 2:46:57
  Speaker 1: the kindest way, I know, of passing on a good
• 2:46:59
  Speaker 1: night's rest. Remember, too, that these stories are made to
• 2:47:03
  Speaker 1: be left playing quietly in the background. Put one on
• 2:47:07
  Speaker 1: while you cook, or tidy, or work, or read, or rest.
• 2:47:12
  Speaker 1: There is no wrong way to listen. you've drifted off
• 2:47:19
  Speaker 1: somewhere along the way then the story has done its
• 2:47:23
  Speaker 1: job and you needn't have heard a word of this
• 2:47:26
  Speaker 1: at all so here in the warm dark is where
• 2:47:29
  Speaker 1: I leave you the kite is safe in the tree
• 2:47:33
  Speaker 1: the line is held the whole town is sleeping and
• 2:47:36
  Speaker 1: so I hope are you or soon will be Good night,
• 2:47:40
  Speaker 1: dear listener. Sleep softly. Sleep well.