For all the bend of branch and straggle of bracken, it felt in good order: not quite tame, but thriving in its own clear sequence, like a garden with inoffensive ideas of growth. If Tobias had trespassed out here again, evidently the forest didn’t mind.
It was cultivated, too, that much was clear: pollarded trees bristled at the height of his face, and coppiced ones lower down, great useful bouquets of wood that could be trimmed out and woven into fences, sold for kindling, maybe used for carpentry-work of the kind he knew nothing about. The birds had ordinary sorts of things to say, and ahead of him, once, he saw the flash of an ochre plume, a fox sleeking its way through the undergrowth in search of mice...
‘This is a very well-kept place,’ John said, not wanting to begin by delivering what, he was remembering now, was probably not going to be a welcome message. ‘I must compliment you, Mister Thorpe.’
Franklin Thorpe had been a small boy with his own yearnings to be a man that folks would listen to, and did not laugh at John’s rather stately tone. ‘Why, thank you,’ he said. ‘It’s a fine place to work. I’m checking for traps today, you know, poachers’ traps. I don’t suppose you’ve seen any?’
John shook his head. ‘But I wouldn’t know what to look for if they were secret,’ he explained; pride might have been one of his vices, but he was proud enough of his real skills to be candid about the ones he lacked.
‘We all have our own trades,’ Franklin agreed.
#BookQuoteWednesday #BQW word: VICE.
Apprentice fairy-smith needs to consult forester and family friend Franklin Thorpe about how their 'fey-touched' neighbour Tobias keeps trespassing in the lord's woods. John might be a little fey-touched himself - or at least he's too interested in the forest.
