“How long ago was that?” asked Gypsy hopefully.
“A hundred and sixty years, I think,” said the Piper, “so I ought to be moving on, children.”
Before he rose he span his sixth penny, and while it twirled he moved away and sang as he went:
“I can pipe a song for that,
And a song for this;
You may pay me with an old straw hat,
A crust or a kiss.
I haven’t any use for pounds
And little use for pence,
While I whistle bits of rounds
Sitting on a fence.
You’ll learn them in a minute,
And forget them in a day,
And remember them in fifty years
When I come your way.”
His voice died with the penny. And very far away they heard him once more pipe his Monday tune.
“Oh dear,” said Ginger restlessly, “I wish he’d told us what that tune was about. But I’m determined to remember every one of his other songs to-morrow morning.” (As a matter of fact she forgot them all, like the dreams we determine to remember in the middle of the night.)
“There’s one of the songs he forgot himself,” and Gypsy, picking up the seventh penny and spinning it. And while it span the distant piping seemed to turn to singing, but it was now such a long way off that I am not sure if Gypsy and Ginger got the words right.
“Oh, did you hear the sheep go by
Upon a Monday morning?
Did you hear the sheep go by
Without a sign of warning?
Did you hear the sheep go by?
They bleated through the London mist
With plaintive sounds and muffled,
They bleated through the London mist,
They shuffled and they scuffled
Bleating through the London mist.
They came from meadows fresh and green
Which they had cropped together,
They came from meadows fresh and green
And they were going whither?
They came from meadows fresh and green.”