The Pigeon Pie | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by David Price, email [email protected]
from the 1905 A. R. Mowbray & Co. edition.

THE PIGEON PIE
by Charlotte M. Yonge

CHAPTER I
.

Early in the September of the year 1651 the afternoon sun was shining
pleasantly into the dining-hall of Forest Lea House. The sunshine came
through a large bay-window, glazed in diamonds, and with long
branches of a vine trailing across it, but in parts the glass had been
broken and had never been mended. The walls were wainscoted with
dark oak, as well as the floor, which shone bright with rubbing, and
stag's antlers projected from them, on which hung a sword in its sheath,
one or two odd gauntlets, an old-fashioned helmet, a gun, some bows
and arrows, and two of the broad shady hats then in use, one with a
drooping black feather, the other plainer and a good deal the worse for
wear, both of a small size, as if belonging to a young boy.
An oaken screen crossed the hall, close to the front door, and there was
a large open fireplace, a settle on each side under the great yawning
chimney, where however at present no fire was burning. Before it was a
long dining-table covered towards the upper end with a delicately white
cloth, on which stood, however, a few trenchers, plain drinking-horns,
and a large old-fashioned black-jack, that is to say, a pitcher formed of

leather. An armchair was at the head of the table, and heavy oaken
benches along the side.
A little boy of six years old sat astride on the end of one of the benches,
round which he had thrown a bridle of plaited rushes, and, with a
switch in his other hand, was springing himself up and down, calling
out, "Come, Eleanor, come, Lucy; come and ride on a pillion behind
me to Worcester, to see King Charles and brother Edmund."
"I'll come, I am coming!" cried Eleanor, a little girl about a year older,
her hair put tightly away under a plain round cap, and she was soon
perched sideways behind her brother.
"Oh, fie, Mistress Eleanor; why, you would not ride to the wars?" This
was said by a woman of about four or five-and-twenty, tall, thin and
spare, with a high colour, sharp black eyes, and a waist which the long
stiff stays, laced in front, had pinched in till it was not much bigger
than a wasp's, while her quilted green