A long silence followed, broken at last by Master Ambrose. "Well, Nat," he said, "I think I've had a lesson in humility. I used to have as good an opinion of myself as most men, I think, but now I've learned that I'm a very ordinary sort of fellow, made of very inferior clay to you and my Moonlove - all the things that you know at first hand and I can only take on faith."
"Suppose, Ambrose, that what we know at first hand is only this - that there is nothing to know?" said Master Nathaniel a little sadly. Then he sank into a brown study, and Master Ambrose, thinking he wanted to be alone, stole quietly from the room.
Master Nathaniel sat gazing moodily into the fire; and his pipe went out without his noticing it. Then the door opened softly, and someone stole in and stood behind his chair. It was Dame Marigold. All she said was, "Funny old Nat!" but her voice had a husky tenderness. And then she knelt down beside him and took him into her soft warm arms. And a new hope was borne in upon Master Nathaniel that someday he would hear the Note again, and all would be clear.
Chapter XXXII
Conclusion
I should like to conclude with a few words as to the fate of the various people who have appeared in these pages.
Hazel Gibberty married Sebastian Thug - and an excellent husband he made her. He gave up the sea and settled on his wife's farm. Mistress Ivy Peppercorn came and lived with them and every summer they had a visit from Master Nathaniel and Ranulph. Bawdy Bess left Lud at the time of Sebastian's marriage - out of pique, said the malicious.
Luke Hempen entered the Lud Yeomanry, where he did so well that when Mumchance retired he was elected Captain in his place.
Hempie lived to a ripe old age - long enough to tell her stories to Ranulph's children; nor had she any scruples about telling them her views on "neighbourliness." And when she died, as a tribute to her long and loving service, she was buried in the family chapel of the Chanticleers.
Mother Tibbs, after taking a conspicuous part in the wild revels which followed on the arrival of the fairy army, vanished for ever from Dorimare. Nor did anyone ever again see Portunus. But, from time to time, a wild red-haired youth would arrive uninvited, and having turned everything topsy-turvy with his pranks, would rush from the house, shouting "Ho! Ho! Hoh!"
By degrees the Crabapple Blossoms recovered their spirits. But they certainly did not grow up into the sort of young ladies their mothers had imagined they would when they first sent them to Miss Primrose Crabapple's Academy. They were never stinted of fairy fruit, for the Dapple continued to bring its tribute to Dorimare, adding thereby considerably to the wealth of the country. For, thanks to the sound practical sense of Master Ambrose, a new industry was started - that of candying fairy fruit, and exporting it to all the countries with which they trafficked, in pretty fancy boxes, the painted lids of which showed that art was creeping back to Dorimare.
As for Ranulph, when he grew up he wrote the loveliest songs that had been heard since the days of Duke Aubrey -songs that crossed the sea and were sung by lonely fishermen in the far North, and by indigo mothers crooning to their babies by the doors of their huts in the Cinnamon Isles.
Dame Marigold continued to smile, and to nibble marzipan with her cronies. But she used sometimes sadly to wonder whether Master Nathaniel had ever really come back from beyond the Debatable Hills; sometimes, but not always.
And Master Nathaniel himself? Whether he ever heard the Note again I cannot say. But in time he went, either to reap the fields of gillyflowers, or to moulder in the Fields of Grammary. And below his coffin in the family chapel a brass tablet was put up with this epitaph:
An epitaph not unlike those he used to con so wistfully in his visits to the Fields of Grammary.
And this is but another proof that the Written Word is a Fairy, as mocking and elusive as Willy Wisp, speaking lying words to us in a feigned voice. So let all readers of books take warning! And with this final exhortation this book shall close.
Columbine