The last days of July had been so hot that the pavements steamed all night with the memory of them. In the early mornings Ginger would wake in a thin haze that was itself like the last thin veil between sleep and consciousness. One Monday morning as she stretched her arms, she half-opened her eyes upon London breathing forth its mists, and half-opened her ears to the lost sounds of bleating sheep. Ginger at once became six years old again.

Every Monday morning when she was six, sheep had shuffled under her window along the misty street. And as soon as the unseen sheep had passed with an unseen dog and an unseen shepherd, an unseen piper had followed with a little tune upon a penny whistle. This was all a part of being six years old, and she never wondered about it then; but whenever she thought of it afterwards she wondered why any piper should play his tune so early in the morning, when even the housemaids were not yet on the doorsteps to throw him pennies. Listening to the sheep go by, she now wondered all this over again. While she was wondering, the last sheep bleated itself into the distance, and at the same instant a penny whistle began piping in the mist. It was the tune she had always, and only heard when she was six.

She lifted herself on one elbow, and saw Gypsy lifting himself on his. They looked at each other, and she saw that he was exactly eight years old.

“Did you ever see him?” asked Ginger in a whisper.

Gypsy shook his head. “Did you?”

Ginger shook hers. “I always longed to.”

“I wonder if there’s any way of catching him?” whispered Gypsy; and reaching stealthily for the pillar-box, he shook out a dozen coppers. Then he picked out the gold ones which were the fine-weather pennies (he himself was always given brown pennies), and span one through the haze in the direction of the tune. They heard it ring on the road, and the tune stopped, and a moment later mended its broken bar. Gypsy sent a second penny not quite so far, and in the pause they heard three soft steps come their way. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth pennies fell shorter still, and the seventh penny was so close that a form stood up like a shadow on the mist. Even then they couldn’t see the Piper very distinctly; but he was tall and thin, and Gypsy said he had the silver hair of a very old man, and Ginger said he had the blue eyes of the youngest babies.

But his gentle voice was neither young nor old as he said kindly, “What am I to do with seven pennies, children?”

“Spend them?” suggested Gypsy.

“That’s so difficult,” said the Piper.

“Spin them?” suggested Ginger.

“Ah, that’s easy,” said the Piper. And he sat down cross-legged a little way off on the pavement, and span one of the seven gold pennies. While it span he sang a song that began and ended with the penny.

“What a nice song,” said Ginger. “Do spin another.”

So the Piper span the second penny and sang.

The last note met the plop of the penny on the pavement.

“How do you manage it?” asked Gypsy.

“It manages itself,” said the Piper. “None of my songs lasts longer than the spin of a coin.” He span the third penny so badly that it only made a very little song, like this:

“Have you just come up the river?” asked Ginger.

“No,” said the Piper. “I have just come from a chickory field under Graffham. The Sussex chicory is as blue now as it will be, and the raspberries are ripening on the Downs.”

“Don’t!” implored Ginger, sitting up, “How could you bear to come to town?”

“I follow the sheep,” said the Piper, and span the fourth penny. While it turned he sang:

“Have all those riddles got answers?” asked Ginger.

“I think so,” said the Piper, “but they’re harder to find in the city than in the country. They grow best in the grass, like men and flowers. The grass is mown now, and Sussex smells hay and hears corn.”

He twisted his fifth penny, and sang while it hummed:

“Gypsy!” cried Ginger. “I can’t bear it any longer. Let’s go and live in a hut in a wood.”

“If you want a nice hut,” said the Piper, “I know where there is one on the banks of a Southdown river, with martins under the thatch.”

“But the Blacksmith’s Son lives in it,” wailed Ginger, “with Lizzie Hooker.”

“It was empty,” said the Piper, “when I saw it last.”

“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:

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.