It is lighted by a foot-square window,
called Duck Window, that looks across to Little Lindens
Farm, and the spot where Jack Cade was killed.
When they had climbed the attic ladder (they called it
'the mainmast tree', out of the ballad of Sir Andrew
Barton, and Dan 'swarved it with might and main', as the
ballad says) they saw a man sitting on Duck Window-sill.
He was dressed in a plum-coloured doublet and tight
plum-coloured hose, and he drew busily in a red-edged book.
'Sit ye! Sit ye!' Puck cried from a rafter overhead. 'See
what it is to be beautiful! Sir Harry Dawe - pardon, Hal -
says I am the very image of a head for a gargoyle.'
The man laughed and raised his dark velvet cap to the
children, and his grizzled hair bristled out in a stormy
fringe. He was old - forty at least - but his eyes were
young, with funny little wrinkles all round them. A
satchel of embroidered leather hung from his broad belt,
which looked interesting.
'May we see?' said Una, coming forward.
'Surely - sure-ly!' he said, moving up on the window-
seat, and returned to his work with a silver-pointed
pencil.
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