Parables of a Province

Parables of a Province

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Parker #69 in our series by Gilbert Parker
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Title: Parables Of A Province
Author: Gilbert Parker
Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6242] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 17,
2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARABLES
OF A PROVINCE, PARKER ***

This eBook was produced by David Widger

PARABLES OF A PROVINCE
By Gilbert Parker

THE GOLDEN PIPES THE GUARDIAN OF THE FIRE BY THAT
PLACE CALLED PERADVENTURE THE SINGING OF THE BEES
THE WHITE OMEN THE SOJOURNERS THE TENT OF THE
PURPLE MAT THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY THE FORGE IN THE
VALLEY

THE GOLDEN PIPES
They hung all bronzed and shining, on the side of Margath
Mountain--the tall and perfect pipes of the organ which was played by
some son of God when the world was young. At least Hepnon the
cripple said this was so, when he was but a child, and when he got
older he said that even now a golden music came from the pipes at
sunrise and sunset. And no one laughed at Hepnon, for you could not
look into the dark warm eyes, dilating with his fancies, or see the
transparent temper of his face, the look of the dreamer over all, without
believing him, and reproving your own judgment. You felt that he had
travelled ways you could never travel, that he had had dreams beyond
you, that his fanciful spirit had had adventures you would give years of
your dull life to know.
And yet he was not made only as women are made, fragile and
trembling in his nerves. For he was strong of arm, and there was no
place in the hills to be climbed by venturesome man, which he could
not climb with crutch and shrivelled leg. Also, he was a gallant
horseman, riding with his knees and one foot in stirrup, his crutch slung
behind him. It may be that was why rough men listened to his fancies

about the Golden Pipes. Indeed they would go out at sunrise and look
across to where the pipes hung, taking the rosy glory of the morning,
and steal away alone at sunset, and in some lonely spot lean out
towards the flaming instrument to hear if any music rose from them.
The legend that one of the Mighty Men of the Kimash Hills came here
to play, with invisible hands, the music of the first years of the world,
became a truth, though a truth that none could prove. And by-and-by,
no man ever travelled the valley without taking off his hat as he passed
the Golden Pipes--so had a cripple with his whimsies worked upon the
land.
Then, too, perhaps his music had to do with it. As a child he had only a
poor concertina, but by it he drew the traveller and the mountaineer and
the worker in the valley to him like a magnet. Some touch of the
mysterious, some sweet fantastical melody in all he played, charmed
them, even when he gave them old familiar airs. From the concertina he
passed to the violin, and his skill and mastery over his followers grew;
and then there came a notable day when up over a thousand miles of
country a melodeon was brought him. Then a wanderer, a minstrel
outcast from a far country, taking refuge in those hills, taught him, and
there was one long year of loving labour together, and merry
whisperings between the two, and secret drawings, and worship of the
Golden Pipes; and then the minstrel died, and left Hepnon alone.
And now they said that Hepnon tried to coax out of the old melodeon
the music of the Golden Pipes. But a look of sorrow