CHAPTER VII
MASTER AMBROSE CHASES A WILD GOOSE AND HAS A VISION
Master Ambrose Honeysuckle had finished his midday meal, and was smoking his churchwarden on his daisy-powdered lawn, under the branches of a great, cool, yellowing lime; and beside him sat his stout comfortable wife, Dame Jessamine, placidly fanning herself to sleep, with her pink-tongued mushroom-coloured pug snoring and choking in her lap.
Master Ambrose was ruminating on the consignment he was daily expecting of flowers-in-amber—a golden eastern wine, for the import of which his house had the monopoly in Dorimare.
But he was suddenly roused from his pleasant reverie by the sound of loud excited voices proceeding from the house, and turning heavily in his chair, he saw his daughter, Moonlove, wild-eyed and dishevelled, rushing towards him across the lawn, followed by a crowd of servants with scared faces and all chattering at once.
"My dear child, what's this? What's this?" he cried testily.
But her only answer was to look at him in agonized terror, and then to moan, "The horror of midday!"
Dame Jessamine sat up with a start and rubbing her eyes exclaimed, "Dear me, I believe I was napping. But ... Moonlove! Ambrose! What's happening?"
But before Master Ambrose could answer, Moonlove gave three blood-curdling screams, and shrieked out, "Horror! Horror! The tune that never stops! Break the fiddle! Break the fiddle! Oh, Father, quietly, on tiptoe behind him, cut the strings. Cut the strings and let me out, I want the dark."