Violet Jacob > Stories told by the miller

138 STORIES TOLD BY THE MILLER
thorn into the horse’s flank as he was led by,
and Dan had blacked both his eyes before
leaving the fair. When the vans were settled
in one place, he would often be absent for days
together, and nobody knew where he went.
Maggie soon found out that they were making
for some woods a few days’ journey off. She
was very happy, for she had seen so little of the
world outside the farmyard that every new
place amused her. The woman was friendly
to her in her silent way when she found
how careful she was of the baby. Maggie soon
learnt to dress and tend it; and she swept out
the vans, lit the fires, and in the evening sat on
the top step, talking to Alfonso and the Cochin-
China cock. They were quite contented too,
though they did not live so well as they had
done at the farm.
They travelled on, by villages and hill-sides,
by moors and by roads. The trees flamed with
autumn, and the rose-hips were turning red.
At last they drew up in a grassy track which
ran through an immense wood, where the
sighing of the air in the fir-branches rose and
fell in little gusts, and grey-blue wood-pigeons
went flapping away down the vistas of stems.