“What does it tell? A story without an end, I think.”
He rose and looked through the window. A little complaining horn, pivoted on the top of a long pole, swung to the lightest breeze and caught and passed it on in waves of protest. Upon a slack wire or two that, like tent ropes, held the pole secure, lower currents of air fluttered with the sound of a knife sharpening on a tinker’s grindstone.
Ned grunted and resumed his seat.
“It would drive me silly to have that for ever in my ears. How can you stand it, Nicette?”
“It speaks to me of many things, monsieur.”
“What, for instance?”
“Monsieur will laugh.”
“No, I will not.”
“The whispering of the flower spirits, then; the steps and the low voices that come from beyond the dawn before even the shepherds are awake; sometimes the noise of the sea.”
“You have travelled?”