Tales of the Long Bow
fool not to have seen before. So a man will fall over something in a game of hiding-and-seeking, and get up shaken with laughter.
"What a bump your mother earth gives you when you fall out of an aeroplane," he said, "especially when your flying ship is only a flying pig. The earth of the real peasants and the real pigs—don't be offended; I assure you the confusion is a compliment. What a thing is horse-sense, and how much finer really than the poetry of Pegasus! And when there is everything else as well that makes the sky clean and the earth kind, beauty and bravery and the lifting of the head—well, you are right enough, Joan. Will you take care of me? Will you stop at home and clip my pig's wings?"
He had caught hold of her by the hands; but she still laughed as she answered:
"Yes—I told you I couldn't help—but you must really let go, Hilary. I can see your friends coming down from the quarry."
As she spoke, indeed, Colonel Crane and Owen Hood could be seen descending the slope and passing through a screen of slender trees towards them.
"Hullo!" said Hilary Pierce cheerfully. "I want you to congratulate me. Joan thinks I'm an awful humbug, and right she is; I am
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