{"product_id":"2940013681453","title":"Perris of the Cherry-trees","description":"Pippany Webster, handy-man and only labourer to Abel Perris, the small\u003cbr\u003efarmer who dragged a bare living out of Cherry-trees, the little holding\u003cbr\u003eat the top of the hill above Martinsthorpe, came lazily up the road from\u003cbr\u003ethe village one May afternoon, leading a horse which seemed as fully\u003cbr\u003einclined to laziness as Pippany himself. Perris had left home for a day\u003cbr\u003eor two, and had apportioned his man a certain fixed task to accomplish by\u003cbr\u003ethe time of his return: Pippany, lid it so pleased him, might have\u003cbr\u003elaboured steadily at it until that event happened. And for the whole of\u003cbr\u003ethe first day and half of the next he had kept himself to the work, but\u003cbr\u003eat noon on that second day it was borne in upon him that one of the two\u003cbr\u003ehorses, which formed the entire stable of the establishment, required\u003cbr\u003eshoeing, and after eating his dinner, he had led it down the hill to the\u003cbr\u003esmithy near the cross-roads in Martinsthorpe. There, and in the kitchen\u003cbr\u003eof the Dancing Bear, close by, where there was ale and tobacco and\u003cbr\u003egossip, he had contrived to spend the greater part of the afternoon. He\u003cbr\u003ewould have stayed longer amidst such pleasant surroundings, but for the\u003cbr\u003efact that supper-time was approaching.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was difficult, looking at man and horse, to decide as to which most\u003cbr\u003esuggested helplessness and incompetence. The horse showed itself to be a\u003cbr\u003epoor man's beast in every line and aspect of its ill-shaped, badly-fed\u003cbr\u003ebody, in the listless droop of its head, in its ungroomed, rough-haired\u003cbr\u003ecoat, in the very indecision with which it set down its oversized,\u003cbr\u003esprawling feet. It had a dull, listless eye, the eye of an equine\u003cbr\u003eoutcast; there was an evident disposition in it to stop on any\u003cbr\u003eprovocation, to crop the fresh green of the grass from the broad\u003cbr\u003estretches of turf on the wayside, to nibble at the tender shoots of the\u003cbr\u003ehedgerows, to do anything that needed little effort. It breathed heavily\u003cbr\u003eas it breasted the hill, following the man who slouched in front, his\u003cbr\u003ehead drooping from his bent shoulders, his lips, still moist and sticky\u003cbr\u003efrom the ale he had drunk, sucking mechanically at a foul clay pipe. He\u003cbr\u003ewas a little more fully attired than the scarecrows in the neighbouring\u003cbr\u003efields, but there was all over him the aimlessness, the ineptitude, the\u003cbr\u003epurposelessness of the unfit. His old hat, shapeless and colourless,\u003cbr\u003eshaded a face which suggested nothing but dull stupidity, and was only\u003cbr\u003erelieved from utter vacancy by a certain slyness and craftiness of\u003cbr\u003eexpression. He shambled in his walk, and his long arms, the finger-tips\u003cbr\u003eof which reached below his knees, wagged and waved in front of him as he\u003cbr\u003eforged ahead, as though they were set loose in their sockets, his small,\u003cbr\u003epig-like eyes fixed on the few inches of high-road which lay immediately\u003cbr\u003ebefore his toes. From the foot of the hill to its crest those eyes were\u003cbr\u003enever lifted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd yet, the crest of the hill once gained, a landscape presented itself\u003cbr\u003eover which most folk would have gazed with pleasure and appreciation. On\u003cbr\u003eall sides the country stretched away in a great plateau, thickly wooded,\u003cbr\u003eand just then smiling in the clear light and fresh, unsullied tints and\u003cbr\u003ecolours of spring-tide. The place to which the unkempt man was leading\u003cbr\u003ethe unkempt horse was in itself a picture. It stood, a small but very old\u003cbr\u003efarmhouse, with a high sloping roof, dormer windows, and tall chimneys,\u003cbr\u003ein t he angle made by the meeting of two roads; before i t lay a\u003cbr\u003eflower-garden, in one corner of which rose an ancient cedar-tree; behind\u003cbr\u003eit stretched a wide-spreading orchard, filled, for the most part, with\u003cbr\u003echerry-trees, just then in the full glory of pink and white blossom. I\u003cbr\u003eimmediately in front of it, on the opposite side of the highway, rose a\u003cbr\u003egreat grove of chestnut-trees; they, too, were in bloom, and the wax-like\u003cbr\u003eclusters made little pyramids of light against the, glossy green of the\u003cbr\u003ewidespreading leaves. And over everything was the clear blue of the May\u003cbr\u003esky, and in the hedgerows and the coppices were the first signs of the\u003cbr\u003eflowering of the hawthorn.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47068911927536,"sku":"2940013681453","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013681453_p0.jpg?v=1763583890","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013681453","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}