Page:The Children Who Followed the Piper.djvu/40

THE CHILDREN time, with Baldwin, the old mill horse, beside him.

A man came toward them. He was a black-bearded man, tremendously tall and tremendously broad, with a nose that came very far out on his face. He carried a spear across his shoulder, and from the spear a dead wolf was hanging. As the man came near he said to the Piper: "Mercury, art thou back?" "Yea, Mars, I am back," said the Piper, "and now I shall draw the wolves away." "Leave me the wolves," said the black-bearded man, in a deep voice, "leave me the wolves," and he passed them, and went on through the trees.

And then a bird, a woodpecker with brown wings and a red cap, flew up on a branch and looked down at them. "Mercury, art thou back?" said the woodpecker. "I am back, Picus," said the Pied Piper.

They went on, and they saw an old man seated in a doorway—there was no house there, only a doorway. He had white hair and a white beard. As they came near, he said: "Mercury, Mercury,