Reblogged from Jim Webster, aka Tallis Steelyard:

It is one thing to have a goal, it is entirely another thing to successfully achieve it. Hindle was wise enough to realise that. Still, next day, as he went about his daily round, he met a young woman. She was carrying a fiddle under one arm but didn’t seem to be going anywhere. He greeted her as he greeted everybody else, with an aphorism. In her case he greeted her with the words, “When I was young I told my mentor, ‘When I grow up, I want to be a musician.’ My mentor told me, “You’ll have to choose because you cannot do both.”

She smiled, a wide genuine smile that even reached her eyes. That’s where his problems started because he looked into her eyes and found himself drowning. Desperate to maintain a conversation he almost babbled. “I’m Hindle, the mendicant. I’m raising money to provide a refuge for those who have no other refuge. He half turned and saw, as he expected, Bog the Babbler. Bog followed him round for much of the day, Hindle had known hounds who couldn’t run to heel as faithfully. “Like Bog here.”

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