"Going to the fair?" he asked.
The answer was as usual.
"I'll meet you there. Take you for rides, and into the shows. Got your clothes ready?"
The same soft word, which Thomasine made a dissyllable, and Boodles sang as an anthem, followed. Goose Fair was the greatest day in the girl's year, and to be treated there by a man with money was to glide along one of the four rivers of Paradise, only that was not the expression which occurred to Thomasine.
Pendoggat reached in and took her hand. It was large with labour, and red with blood, but quite clean. He pulled her towards him. There was nobody in the court; only the unobservant chickens, pecking diligently. A cloud had settled upon the top of the tor, which was just visible above the barn, an angry cloud purple like a wound, as if the granite had pierced and wounded it. Thomasine wondered if it would be fine for Goose Fair.
Her sleeve was loose. Pendoggat pressed his fingers under it, and paddled the soft flesh like a cat up to her elbow.
"Don't ye, sir," pleaded Thomasine, feeling somehow this was not right.
"You're a fine, lusty maid," he muttered.
"'Tis time master was back from Lydford, I reckon," she murmured.
"You're bloody."