Cart and Cwidder by Diana Wynne Jones

darted. The soul flies through life.
    Osfameron in his mind’s eye knew it.
    The bird’s life is not the man’s life.
    â€œOsfameron walked in the eye
    Of his mind. The blackbird flew there.
    He would not let the blackbird’s song go by.
    His mind’s life can keep the bird there.”
    It sounded good to Moril. And it was his own doing, he was positive, and not the cwidder’s. When he had finished, however, there was silence in the square. The crowd had never heard the old songs done that way and did not know what to think. Kialan made up their minds for them by clapping loudly. Other people clapped. Then came a burst of applause which made Moril feel ashamed of himself—he was only a learner, after all—and more coins went into the hat.
    The applause seemed to worry Olob. From then on he became restive. He tossed his head, he stamped, he tried to go forward, and he threatened to back. Brid pulled him up, and he backed in earnest, throwing Moril into Dagner. Brid had to take the reins up again, which put her half out of action. Seeing this, Dagner pulled himself together and led into some songs with rousing choruses, hoping the crowd would join in. He had little luck. People were in the mood for listening. But they had come to the end of all they had practiced, so Dagner was forced to go on to “Jolly Holanders” and finish.
    Olob was still behaving like a colt, so Moril got down and went to his head. The crowd shifted away from the cart. Moril heard Brid say to Dagner, “Shall I go shopping? I know what to get,” and the hat chinking.
    â€œNo, I’ll go,” said Dagner. He still seemed nervous, although the show was over. He took the hat and climbed down from the cart. Almost at once, several men that Moril recognized as friends of Clennen’s came up and crowded round Dagner.
    â€œWhat’s this, Dagner? What’s this about Clennen?”
    The upshot was that Dagner went off to have a drink with them, taking the hat. Moril did not see which inn they went to because he found himself being talked to by a kindly man just then. This man first gave Moril a pie, then told him—in a fatherly way—that he had sung the old songs all wrong, and things were going to the dogs if people could take those kind of liberties.
    Moril took a leaf out of Dagner’s book. “Yes, but I can’t do it like my father did,” he said with his mouth full. He was extremely grateful for the pie, or he would have told the man his real opinion of the old songs.
    When the man had gone, muttering that he didn’t know what the young were coming to, Moril remembered that Brid would be a prey to murmuring gentlemen. He looked up at the cart, wondering what he would do if she was. There was—or had been—a murmuring gentleman. Brid was glaring at him like a tiger, and the gentleman was retreating, very red in the face. “I do hope Dagner remembers the shopping,” Brid said to Moril, pretending the gentleman had never existed.
    So did Moril. They waited, and waited, Moril at Olob’s restive head and Brid in the cart, for well over an hour. Moril saw Kialan at intervals, hanging about in the square, evidently waiting, too. But Kialan made no attempt to come near them. Moril rather irritably wondered why not.
    Olob tossed his head furiously. Brid said, “There’s Dagner!” Moril saw Dagner hurrying back across the square with the empty hat rolled up in one hand. “Where’s the shopping?” Brid wondered. Dagner waved cheerfully and came hurrying on. He had almost reached the cart when two large men advanced, quietly and purposefully, on either side of Dagner. One took Dagner’s shoulder in a large hand.
    â€œWhat—?” said Dagner, trying to shake free.
    â€œYou’re under arrest, in the Earl’s name,” said the man. “Come on quietly and don’t make any trouble now.”
    For a moment Moril had