They came down from the hills, and a mist descended upon them, and presently a driving rain. They were glad of each other, and smiled their joy upon all whom they met. Nicholas Bly never ceased to make songs, and as he sang the woman laughed merrily. The songs he made he sang to many men, but none would listen except the drunken man in the public-houses.
One day a very drunken man asked Nicholas Bly to sing a song again, and he refused, because he wished to sing a better song. The man offered him a mug of beer to sing again, but he refused, saying:
“I do not sing for hire.”
The man despised him and drank the beer himself, saying:
“It’s a silly kind of sod will sing for nothing.”
And he would hear no more.
So it was everywhere. None could understand that Nicholas Bly should sing for the delight of it or that there could be a joy to set him singing. In the end, and that soon, his heart broke and he died, and Fatland is as it is.
Mr. Nicodemus and Jah were never seen again, nor in Fatland is there trace or memory of them.
But within the womb of the woman was the child of her man, so that she gazed in upon herself with a great hope. In this she was so absorbed that the insensibility of the Fattish moved her not at all and she forgot to apply for her maternity benefit.
THE END OF
WINDMILLS