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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2032-h.zip b/2032-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2fae589 --- /dev/null +++ b/2032-h.zip diff --git a/2032-h/2032-h.htm b/2032-h/2032-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5eacc96 --- /dev/null +++ b/2032-h/2032-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,19933 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard, +by Eleanor Farjeon +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.finis { text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: larger; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard, by Eleanor Farjeon + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard + +Author: Eleanor Farjeon + +Posting Date: November 19, 2008 [EBook #2032] +Release Date: January, 2000 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARTIN PIPPIN IN THE APPLE ORCHARD *** + + + + +Produced by Batsy. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +by +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +Eleanor Farjeon +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="foreword"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FOREWORD +</H3> + +<P> +I have been asked to introduce Miss Farjeon to the American public, and +although I believe that introductions of this kind often do more harm +than good, I have consented in this case because the instance is rare +enough to justify an exception. If Miss Farjeon had been a promising +young novelist either of the realistic or the romantic school, I should +not have dared to express an opinion on her work, even if I had +believed that she had greater gifts than the ninety-nine other +promising young novelists who appear in the course of each decade. But +she has a far rarer gift than any of those that go to the making of a +successful novelist. She is one of the few who can conceive and tell a +fairy-tale; the only one to my knowledge—with the just possible +exceptions of James Stephens and Walter de la Mare—in my own +generation. She has, in fact, the true gift of fancy. It has already +been displayed in her verse—a form in which it is far commoner than in +prose—but Martin Pippin is her first book in this kind. +</P> + +<P> +I am afraid to say too much about it for fear of prejudicing both the +reviewers and the general public. My taste may not be theirs and in +this matter there is no opportunity for argument. Let me, therefore, do +no more than tell the story of how the manuscript affected me. I was a +little overworked. I had been reading a great number of manuscripts in +the preceding weeks, and the mere sight of typescript was a burden to +me. But before I had read five pages of Martin Pippin, I had forgotten +that it was a manuscript submitted for my judgment. I had forgotten who +I was and where I lived. I was transported into a world of sunlight, of +gay inconsequence, of emotional surprise, a world of poetry, delight, +and humor. And I lived and took my joy in that rare world, until all +too soon my reading was done. +</P> + +<P> +My most earnest wish is that there may be many minds and imaginations +among the American people who will be able to share that pleasure with +me. For every one who finds delight in this book I can claim as a +kindred spirit. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +J. D. Beresford. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<H4> + <A HREF="#foreword">Foreword</A><BR> + <A HREF="#introduction">Introduction</A><BR> + <A HREF="#prolog1">Prologue—Part I</A><BR> + <A HREF="#prolog2">Part II</A><BR> + <A HREF="#prolog3">Part III</A><BR> + <A HREF="#prelude1">Prelude to the First Tale</A><BR> + <A HREF="#tale1">The First Tale: The King's Barn</A><BR> + <A HREF="#interlude1">First Interlude</A><BR> + <A HREF="#tale2">The Second Tale: Young Gerard</A><BR> + <A HREF="#interlude2">Second Interlude</A><BR> + <A HREF="#tale3">The Third Tale: The Mill of Dreams</A><BR> + <A HREF="#interlude3">Third Interlude</A><BR> + <A HREF="#tale4">The Fourth Tale: Open Winkins</A><BR> + <A HREF="#interlude4">Fourth Interlude</A><BR> + <A HREF="#tale5">The Fifth Tale: Proud Rosalind and the Hart-Royal</A><BR> + <A HREF="#interlude5">Fifth Interlude</A><BR> + <A HREF="#tale6">The Sixth Tale: The Imprisoned Princess</A><BR> + <A HREF="#postlude1">Postlude—Part I</A><BR> + <A HREF="#postlude2">Part II</A><BR> + <A HREF="#postlude3">Part III</A><BR> + <A HREF="#postlude4">Part IV</A><BR> + <A HREF="#epilog">Epilogue</A><BR> + <A HREF="#conclusion">Conclusion</A><BR> +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="introduction"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +INTRODUCTION +</H3> + +<P> +In Adversane in Sussex they still sing the song of The Spring-Green +Lady; any fine evening, in the streets or in the meadows, you may come +upon a band of children playing the old game that is their heritage, +though few of them know its origin, or even that it had one. It is to +them as the daisies in the grass and the stars in the sky. Of these +things, and such as these, they ask no questions. But there you will +still find one child who takes the part of the Emperor's Daughter, and +another who is the Wandering Singer, and the remaining group (there +should be no more than six in it) becomes the Spring-Green Lady, the +Rose-White Lady, the Apple-Gold Lady, of the three parts of the game. +Often there are more than six in the group, for the true number of the +damsels who guarded their fellow in her prison is as forgotten as their +names: Joscelyn, Jane and Jennifer, Jessica, Joyce and Joan. Forgotten, +too, the name of Gillian, the lovely captive. And the Wandering Singer +is to them but the Wandering Singer, not Martin Pippin the Minstrel. +Worse and worse, he is even presumed to be the captive's sweetheart, +who wheedles the flower, the ring, and the prison-key out of the strict +virgins for his own purposes, and flies with her at last in his shallop +across the sea, to live with her happily ever after. But this is a +fallacy. Martin Pippin never wheedled anything out of anybody for his +own purposes—in fact, he had none of his own. On this adventure he was +about the business of young Robin Rue. There are further discrepancies; +for the Emperor's Daughter was not an emperor's daughter, but a +farmer's; nor was the Sea the sea, but a duckpond; nor— +</P> + +<P> +But let us begin with the children's version, as they sing and dance it +on summer days and evenings in Adversane. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE SINGING-GAME OF "THE SPRING-GREEN LADY" +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +(The Emperor's Daughter sits weeping in her Tower. Around her, with +their backs to her, stand six maids in a ring, with joined hands. They +are in green dresses. The Wandering Singer approaches them with his +lute.) +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE WANDERING SINGER +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Lady, lady, my spring-green lady,<BR> + May I come into your orchard, lady?<BR> + For the leaf is now on the apple-bough<BR> + And the sun is high and the lawn is shady,<BR> + Lady, lady,<BR> + My fair lady!<BR> + O my spring-green lady!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE LADIES +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + You may not come into our orchard, singer,<BR> + Because we must guard the Emperor's Daughter<BR> + Who hides in her hair at the windows there<BR> + With her thoughts a thousand leagues over the water,<BR> + Singer, singer,<BR> + Wandering singer,<BR> + O my honey-sweet singer!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE WANDERING SINGER +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Lady, lady, my spring-green lady,<BR> + But will you not hear an Alba, lady?<BR> + I'll play for you now neath the apple-bough<BR> + And you shall dance on the lawn so shady,<BR> + Lady, lady,<BR> + My fair lady,<BR> + O my spring-green lady!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE LADIES +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + O if you play us an Alba, singer,<BR> + How can that harm the Emperor's Daughter?<BR> + No word would she say though we danced all day,<BR> + With her thoughts a thousand leagues over the water,<BR> + Singer, singer,<BR> + Wandering singer,<BR> + O my honey-sweet singer!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE WANDERING SINGER +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + But if I play you an Alba, lady,<BR> + Get me a boon from the Emperor's Daughter—<BR> + The flower from her hair for my heart to wear<BR> + Though hers be a thousand leagues over the water,<BR> + Lady, lady,<BR> + My fair lady,<BR> + O my spring-green lady!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE LADIES +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +(They give him the flower from the hair of the Emperor's Daughter, and +sing—) +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Now you may play us an Alba, singer,<BR> + A dance of dawn for a spring-green lady,<BR> + For the leaf is now on the apple-bough,<BR> + And the sun is high and the lawn is shady,<BR> + Singer, singer,<BR> + Wandering singer,<BR> + O my honey-sweet singer!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Wandering Singer plays on his lute, and The Ladies break their +ranks and dance. The Singer steals up behind The Emperor's Daughter, +who uncovers her face and sings—) +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE EMPEROR'S DAUGHTER +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Mother, mother, my fair dead mother,<BR> + They have stolen the flower from your weeping daughter!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE WANDERING SINGER +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + O dry your eyes, you shall have this other<BR> + When yours is a thousand leagues over the water,<BR> + Daughter, daughter,<BR> + My sweet daughter!<BR> + Love is not far, my daughter!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +The Singer then drops a second flower into the lap of the child in the +middle, and goes away, and this ends the first part of the game. The +Emperor's Daughter is not yet released, for the key of her tower is +understood to be still in the keeping of the dancing children. Very +likely it is bed-time by this, and mothers are calling from windows and +gates, and the children must run home to their warm bread-and-milk and +their cool sheets. But if time is still to spare, the second part of +the game is played like this. The dancers once more encircle their +weeping comrade, and now they are gowned in white and pink. They will +indicate these changes perhaps by colored ribbons, or by any flower in +its season, or by imagining themselves first in green and then in rose, +which is really the best way of all. Well then— +</P> + +<P> +(The Ladies, in gowns of white and rose-color, stand around The +Emperor's Daughter, weeping in her Tower. To them once more comes The +Wandering Singer with his lute.) +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE WANDERING SINGER +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Lady, lady, my rose-white lady,<BR> + May I come into your orchard, lady?<BR> + For the blossom's now on the apple-bough<BR> + And the stars are near and the lawn is shady,<BR> + Lady, lady,<BR> + My fair lady,<BR> + O my rose-white lady!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE LADIES +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + You may not come into our orchard, singer,<BR> + Lest you bear a word to the Emperor's Daughter<BR> + From one who was sent to banishment<BR> + Away a thousand leagues over the water,<BR> + Singer, singer,<BR> + Wandering singer,<BR> + O my honey-sweet singer!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE WANDERING SINGER +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Lady, lady, my rose-white lady,<BR> + But will you not hear a Roundel, lady?<BR> + I'll play for you now neath the apple-bough<BR> + And you shall trip on the lawn so shady,<BR> + Lady, lady,<BR> + My fair lady,<BR> + O my rose-white lady!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE LADIES +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + O if you play us a Roundel, singer,<BR> + How can that harm the Emperor's Daughter?<BR> + She would not speak though we danced a week,<BR> + With her thoughts a thousand leagues over the water,<BR> + Singer, singer,<BR> + Wandering singer,<BR> + O my honey-sweet singer!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE WANDERING SINGER +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + But if I play you a Roundel, lady,<BR> + Get me a gift from the Emperor's Daughter—<BR> + Her finger-ring for my finger bring<BR> + Though she's pledged a thousand leagues over the water,<BR> + Lady, lady<BR> + My fair lady,<BR> + O my rose-white lady!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE LADIES +</P> + +<P> +(They give him the ring from the finger of The Emperor's Daughter, and +sing—) +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Now you may play us a Roundel, singer,<BR> + A sunset-dance for a rose-white lady,<BR> + For the blossom's now on the apple-bough,<BR> + And the stars are near and the lawn is shady,<BR> + Singer, singer,<BR> + Wandering singer,<BR> + O my honey-sweet singer!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +As before, The Singer plays and The Ladies dance; and through the +broken circle The Singer comes behind The Emperor's Daughter, who +uncovers her face to sing—) +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE EMPEROR'S DAUGHTER +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Mother, mother, my fair dead mother,<BR> + They've stolen the ring from your heart-sick daughter.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE WANDERING SINGER +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + O mend your heart, you shall wear this other<BR> + When yours is a thousand leagues over the water,<BR> + Daughter, daughter,<BR> + My sweet daughter!<BR> + Love is at hand, my daughter!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +The third part of the game is seldom played. If it is not bed-time, or +tea-time, or dinner-time, or school-time, by this time at all events +the players have grown weary of the game, which is tiresomely long; and +most likely they will decide to play something else, such as Bertha +Gentle Lady, or The Busy Lass, or Gypsy, Gypsy, Raggetty Loon!, or The +Crock of Gold, or Wayland, Shoe me my Mare!—which are all good games +in their way, though not, like The Spring-Green Lady, native to +Adversane. But I did once have the luck to hear and see The Lady played +in entirety—the children had been granted leave to play "just one more +game" before bed-time, and of course they chose the longest and played +it without missing a syllable. +</P> + +<P> +(The Ladies, in yellow dresses, stand again in a ring about The +Emperor's Daughter, and are for the last time accosted by The Singer +with his lute.) +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE WANDERING SINGER +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Lady, lady, my apple-gold lady,<BR> + May I come into your orchard, lady?<BR> + For the fruit is now on the apple-bough,<BR> + And the moon is up and the lawn is shady,<BR> + Lady, lady,<BR> + My fair lady,<BR> + O my apple-gold lady!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE LADIES +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + You may not come into our orchard, singer,<BR> + In case you set free the Emperor's Daughter<BR> + Who pines apart to follow her heart<BR> + That's flown a thousand leagues over the water,<BR> + Singer, singer,<BR> + Wandering singer,<BR> + O my honey-sweet singer!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE WANDERING SINGER +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Lady, lady, my apple-gold lady,<BR> + But will you not hear a Serena, lady?<BR> + I'll play for you now neath the apple-bough<BR> + And you shall dream on the lawn so shady,<BR> + Lady, lady,<BR> + My fair lady,<BR> + O my apple-gold lady!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE LADIES +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + O if you play a Serena, singer,<BR> + How can that harm the Emperor's Daughter?<BR> + She would not hear though we danced a year<BR> + With her heart a thousand leagues over the water,<BR> + Singer, singer,<BR> + Wandering singer,<BR> + O my honey-sweet singer!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE WANDERING SINGER +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + But if I play a Serena, lady,<BR> + Let me guard the key of the Emperor's Daughter,<BR> + Lest her body should follow her heart like a swallow<BR> + And fly a thousand leagues over the water,<BR> + Lady, lady,<BR> + My fair lady,<BR> + O my apple-gold lady!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE LADIES +</P> + +<P> +(They give the key of the Tower into his hands.) +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Now you may play a Serena, singer,<BR> + A dream of night for an apple-gold lady,<BR> + For the fruit is now on the apple-bough<BR> + And the moon is up and the lawn is shady,<BR> + Singer, singer,<BR> + Wandering singer,<BR> + O my honey-sweet singer!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +(Once more The Singer plays and The Ladies dance; but one by one they +fall asleep to the drowsy music, and then The Singer steps into the +ring and unlocks the Tower and kisses The Emperor's Daughter. They have +the end of the game to themselves.) +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Lover, lover, thy/my own true lover<BR> + Has opened a way for the Emperor's Daughter!<BR> + The dawn is the goal and the dark the cover<BR> + As we sail a thousand leagues over the water—<BR> + Lover, lover,<BR> + My dear lover,<BR> + O my own true lover!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +(The Wandering Singer and The Emperor's Daughter float a thousand +leagues in his shallop and live happily ever after. I don't know what +becomes of The Ladies.) +</P> + +<P> +"Bed-time, children!" +</P> + +<P> +In they go. +</P> + +<P> +You see the treatment is a trifle fanciful. But romance gathers round +an old story like lichen on an old branch. And the story of Martin +Pippin in the Apple-Orchard is so old now—some say a year old, some +say even two. How can the children be expected to remember? +</P> + +<P> +But here's the truth of it. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +MARTIN PIPPIN IN THE APPLE-ORCHARD +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="prolog1"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PROLOGUE +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PART I +</H3> + +<P> +One morning in April Martin Pippin walked in the meadows near +Adversane, and there he saw a young fellow sowing a field with oats +broadcast. So pleasant a sight was enough to arrest Martin for an hour, +though less important things, such as making his living, could not +occupy him for a minute. So he leaned upon the gate, and presently +noticed that for every handful he scattered the young man shed as many +tears as seeds, and now and then he stopped his sowing altogether, and +putting his face between his hands sobbed bitterly. When this had +happened three or four times, Martin hailed the youth, who was then +fairly close to the gate. +</P> + +<P> +"Young master!" said he. "The baker of this crop will want no salt to +his baking, and that's flat." +</P> + +<P> +The young man dropped his hands and turned his brown and tear-stained +countenance upon the Minstrel. He was so young a man that he wanted his +beard. +</P> + +<P> +"They who taste of my sorrow," he replied, "will have no stomach for +bread." +</P> + +<P> +And with that he fell anew to his sowing and sighing, and passed up the +field. +</P> + +<P> +When he came down again Martin observed, "It must be a very bitter +sorrow that will put a man off his dinner." +</P> + +<P> +"It is the bitterest," said the youth, and went his way. +</P> + +<P> +At his next coming Martin inquired, "What is the name of your sorrow?" +</P> + +<P> +"Love," said the youth. By now he was somewhat distant from the gate +when he came abreast of it, and Martin Pippin did not catch the word. +So he called louder: +</P> + +<P> +"What?" +</P> + +<P> +"Love!" shouted the youth. His voice cracked on it. He appeared +slightly annoyed. Martin chewed a grass and watched him up and down the +meadow. +</P> + +<P> +At the right moment he bellowed: +</P> + +<P> +"I was never yet put off my feed by love." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," roared the youth, "you have never loved." +</P> + +<P> +At this Martin jumped over the gate and ran along the furrow behind the +boy. +</P> + +<P> +"I have loved," he vowed, "as many times as I have tuned lute-strings." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said the youth, not turning his head, "you have never loved in +vain." +</P> + +<P> +"Always, thank God!" said Martin fervently. +</P> + +<P> +The youth, whose name was Robin Rue, suddenly dropped all his seed in +one heap, flung up his arms, and, +</P> + +<P> +"Alas!" he cried. "Oh, Gillian! Gillian!" And began to sob more heavily +than ever. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me your trouble," said the Minstrel kindly. +</P> + +<P> +"Sir," said the youth, "I do not know your name, and your clothes are +very tattered. But you are the first who has cared whether or no my +heart should break since my lovely Gillian was locked with six keys +into her father's Well-House, and six young milkmaids, sworn virgins +and man-haters all, to keep the keys." +</P> + +<P> +"The thirsty," said Martin, "make little of padlocks when within a +rope's length of water." +</P> + +<P> +"But, sir," continued the youth earnestly, "this Well-House is set in +the midst of an Apple-Orchard enclosed in a hawthorn hedge full six +feet high, and no entrance thereto but one small green wicket, bolted +on the inner side." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed?" said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"And worse to come. The length of the hedge there is a great duckpond, +nine yards broad, and three wild ducks swimming on it. Alas!" he cried, +"I shall never see my lovely girl again!" +</P> + +<P> +"Love is a mighty power," said Martin Pippin, "but there are doubtless +things it cannot do." +</P> + +<P> +"I ask so little," sighed Robin Rue. "Only to send her a primrose for +her hair-band, and have again whatever flower she wears there now." +</P> + +<P> +"Would this really content you?" said Martin Pippin. +</P> + +<P> +"I would then consent to live," swore Robin Rue, "long enough at all +events to make an end of my sowing." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that would be something," said Martin cheerfully, "for fields +must not go fallow that are appointed to bear. Direct me to your +Gillian's Apple-Orchard." +</P> + +<P> +"It is useless," Robin said. "For even if you could cross the duckpond, +and evade the ducks, and compass the green gate, my sweetheart's +father's milkmaids are not to be come over by any man; and they watch +the Well-House day and night." +</P> + +<P> +"Yet direct me to the orchard," repeated Martin Pippin, and thrummed +his lute a little. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, sir," said Robin anxiously, "I must warn you that it is a long and +weary way, it may be as much as two mile by the road." And he looked +disconsolately at the Minstrel, as though in fear that he would be +discouraged from the adventure. +</P> + +<P> +"It can but be attempted," answered Martin, "and now tell me only +whether I go north or south as the road runs." +</P> + +<P> +"Gillman the farmer, her father," said Robin Rue, "has moreover a very +big stick—" +</P> + +<P> +"Heaven help us!" cried Martin, and took to his heels. +</P> + +<P> +"That ends it!" sighed the sorry lover. +</P> + +<P> +"At least let us make a beginning!" quoth Martin Pippin. +</P> + +<P> +He leaped the gate, mocked at a cuckoo, plucked a primrose, and went +singing up the road. +</P> + +<P> +Robin Rue resumed his sowing and his tears. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Maids," said Joscelyn, "what is this coming across the duckpond?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is a man," said little Joan. +</P> + +<P> +The six girls came running and crowding to the wicket, standing +a-tiptoe and peeping between each other's sunbonnets. Their sunbonnets +and their gowns were as green as lettuce-leaves. +</P> + +<P> +"Is he coming on a raft?" asked Jessica, who stood behind. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Jane, "he is coming on his two feet. He has taken off his +shoes, but I fear his breeches will suffer." +</P> + +<P> +"He is giving bread to the ducks," said Jennifer. +</P> + +<P> +"He has a lute on his back," said Joyce. +</P> + +<P> +"Man!" cried Joscelyn, who was the tallest and the sternest of the +milkmaids, "go away at once!" +</P> + +<P> +Martin Pippin was by now within arm's-length of the green gate. He +looked with pleasure at the six virgins fluttering in their green +gowns, and peeping bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked under their green +bonnets. Beyond them he saw the forbidden orchard, with cuckoo-flower +and primrose, daffodil and celandine, silver windflower and sweet +violets blue and white, spangling the gay grass. The twisted +apple-trees were in young leaf. +</P> + +<P> +"Go away!" cried all the milkmaids in a breath. "Go away!" +</P> + +<P> +"My green maidens," said Martin, "may I not come into your orchard? The +sun is up, and the shadow lies fresh on the grass. Let me in to rest a +little, dear maidens—if maidens indeed you be, and not six leaflets +blown from the apple-branches." +</P> + +<P> +"You cannot come in," said Joscelyn, "because we are guarding our +master's daughter, who sits yonder weeping in the Well-House." +</P> + +<P> +"That is a noble and a tender duty," said Martin. "From what do you +guard her?" +</P> + +<P> +The milkmaids looked primly at one another, and little Joan said, "It +is a secret." +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I will ask no more. And what do you do all day long? +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: Nothing, and it is very dull. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: It must be still duller for your master's daughter. +</P> + +<P> +Joan: Oh, no, she has her thoughts to play with. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: And what of your thoughts? +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: We have no thoughts. I should think not indeed! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I beg your pardon. But since you find the hours so tedious, +will you not let me sing and play to you upon my lute? I will sing you +a song for a spring morning, and you shall dance in the grass like any +leaf in the wind. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: I think there can be no harm in that. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: It can't matter a straw to Gillian. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: She would not look up from her thoughts though we footed it all +day. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: So long as he is on one side of the gate— +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: —and we on the other. +</P> + +<P> +"I love to dance," said little Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"Man!" cried the milkmaids in a breath, "play and sing to us!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, maidens," answered Martin merrily, "every tune deserves its fee. +But don't look so troubled—my hire shall be of the lightest. Let me +see! You shall fetch me the flower from the hair of your little +mistress who sits weeping on the coping with her face hidden in her +shining locks." +</P> + +<P> +At this the milkmaids clapped their hands, and little Joan, running to +the Well-House, with a touch like thistledown drew from the weeper's +yellow hair a yellow primrose. She brought it to the gate and laid it +in Martin's hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Now you will play for us, won't you?" said she. "A dance for a +spring-morning when the leaves dance on the apple-trees." +</P> + +<P> +Then Martin tuned his lute and played and sang as follows, while the +girls took hands and danced in a green chain among the twisty trees. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + The green leaf dances now,<BR> + The green leaf dances now,<BR> + The green leaf with its tilted wings<BR> + Dances on the bough,<BR> + And every rustling air<BR> + Says, I've caught you, caught you,<BR> + Leaf with tilted wings,<BR> + Caught you in a snare!<BR> + Whose snare? Spring's,<BR> + That bound you to the bough<BR> + Where you dance now,<BR> + Dance, but cannot fly,<BR> + For all your tilted wings<BR> + Pointing to the sky;<BR> + Where like martins you would dart<BR> + But for Spring's delicious art<BR> + That caught you to the bough,<BR> + Caught, yet left you free<BR> + To dance if not to fly—oh see!<BR> + As you are dancing now,<BR> + Dancing on the bough,<BR> + Dancing on the bough,<BR> + Dancing with your tilted wings<BR> + On the apple-bough.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Now as Martin sang and the milkmaids danced, it seemed that Gillian in +her prison heard and saw nothing except the music and the movement of +her sorrows. But presently she raised her hand and touched her +hair-band, and then she lifted up the fairest face Martin had ever +seen, so that he needs must see it nearer; and he took the green gate +in one stride, and the green dancers never observed him. Then Gillian's +tender mouth parted like an opening quince-blossom, and— +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Mother, Mother!" she said, "if you had only lived they would not +have stolen the flower from my hair while I sat weeping." +</P> + +<P> +Above her head a whispering voice made answer, "Oh, Daughter, Daughter, +dry your sweet eyes. You shall wear this other flower when yours is +gone over the duckpond to Adversane." +</P> + +<P> +And lo! A second primrose dropped out of the skies into her lap. And +that day the lovely Gillian wept no more. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="prolog2"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PART II +</H3> + +<P> +It happened that on an afternoon in May Martin Pippin passed again +through Adversane, and as he passed he thought, "Now certainly I have +been here before," but he could not remember when or how, for a full +month had run under the bridges of time since then, and man's memory is +not infinite. +</P> + +<P> +But in walking by a certain garden he heard a sound of sobbing; and +curiosity, of which he was largely made, caused him to climb the old +brick wall that he might discover the cause. What he saw from his perch +was a garden laid out in neat plots between grassy walks edged with +double daisies, red, white and pink, or bordered with sweet herbs, or +with lavender and wallflower; and here and there were cordons of +fruit-trees, apple, plum and cherry, and in a sunny corner a clump of +flowering currant heavy with humming bees; and against the inner walls +flat pear-trees stretched their long straight lines, like music-staves +whereon a lovely melody was written in notes of snow. And in the midst +of all this stood a very young man with a face as brown as a berry. He +was spraying the cordons with quassia-water. But whenever he filled his +syringe he wept so many tears above the bucket that it was always full +to the brim. +</P> + +<P> +When he had watched this happen several times, Martin hailed the young +man. +</P> + +<P> +"Young master!" said Martin, "the eater of your plums will need sugar +thereto, and that's flat." +</P> + +<P> +The young man turned his eyes upward. +</P> + +<P> +"There is not sugar enough in all the world," he answered, "to sweeten +the fruits that are watered by my sorrows." +</P> + +<P> +"Then here is a waste of good quassia," said Martin, "and I think your +name is Robin Rue." +</P> + +<P> +"It is," said Robin, "and you are Martin Pippin, to whom I owe more +than to any man living. But the primrose you brought me is dead this +five-and-twenty days." +</P> + +<P> +"And what of your Gillian?" +</P> + +<P> +"Alas! How can I tell what of her? She is where she was and I am here +where I am. What will become of me?" +</P> + +<P> +"There are riddles without answers," observed Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"I can answer this one. I shall fall into a decline and die. And yet I +ask no more than to send her a ring to wear on her finger, and have her +ring to wear on mine." +</P> + +<P> +"Would this satisfy you?" asked Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"I could then cling to life," said Robin Rue, "long enough at least to +finish my spraying." +</P> + +<P> +"We may praise God as much for small mercies," said Martin pleasantly, +"as for great ones; and trees must not be blighted that were appointed +to fruit." +</P> + +<P> +So saying, he unstraddled his legs and dropped into the road, tickled +an armadillo with his toe, twirled the silver ring on his finger, and +went away singing. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Maidens," said Joscelyn, "here is that man come again." +</P> + +<P> +Maids' memories are longer than men's. At all events, the milkmaids +knew instantly to whom she referred, although nearly a month had passed +since his coming. +</P> + +<P> +"Has he his lute with him?" asked little Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"He has. And he is giving cake to the ducks; they take it from his +hand. Man, go away immediately!" +</P> + +<P> +Martin Pippin propped his elbows on the little gate, and looked smiling +into the orchard, all pink and white blossom. The trees that had been +longest in bloom were white cascades of flower, others there were +flushed like the cheek of a sleeping child, and some were still studded +with rose-red buds. The grass was high and full of spotted orchis, and +tall wild parsley spread its nets of lace almost abreast of the lowest +boughs of blossom. So that the milkmaids stood embraced in meeting +flowers, waist-deep in the orchard growth: all gowned in pink lawn with +loose white sleeves, and their faces flushed it may have been with the +pink linings to their white bonnets, or with the evening rose in the +west, or with I know not what. +</P> + +<P> +"Go away!" they cried at the intruder. "Go away!" +</P> + +<P> +"My rose-white maidens," said Martin, "will you not let me into your +orchard? For the stars are rising with the dew, and the hour is at +peace. Let me in to rest, dear maidens—if maidens indeed you be, and +not six blossoms fallen from the apple-boughs." +</P> + +<P> +"You cannot come in," said Joscelyn, "lest you are the bearer of a word +to our master's daughter who sits weeping in the Well-House." +</P> + +<P> +"From whom should I bear her a word?" asked Martin Pippin in great +amazement. +</P> + +<P> +The milkmaids cast down their eyes, and little Joan said, "It is a +secret." +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I will inquire no further. But shall I not play a little on my +lute? It is as good an hour for song and dance as any other, and I will +make a tune for a sunny May evening, and you shall sway among the +grasses like any flower on the bough. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: In my opinion that can hurt nobody. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Gillian wouldn't care two pins. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: She would utter no word though we tripped it for a week. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: So long as he keeps to his side of the hedge— +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: —and we to ours. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I do love to dance!" cried little Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"Man!" they commanded him as one voice, "play and sing to us instantly!" +</P> + +<P> +"My pretty ones," laughed Martin Pippin, "songs are as light as air, +but worth more than pearls and diamonds. What will you give me for my +song? Wait, now!—I have it. You shall fetch me the ring from the +finger of your little mistress, who sits hidden beneath the fountain of +her own bright tresses." +</P> + +<P> +The milkmaids at these words nodded gayly, and little Joan tip-toed to +the Well-House, and slipped the ring from Gillian's finger as lightly +as a daisy may be slipped from its fellow on the chain. Then she ran +with it to the gate, and Martin held up his little finger, and she put +it on, saying: +</P> + +<P> +"Now you will keep your promise, honey-sweet singer, and play a dance +for a May evening when the blossom blows for happiness on the +apple-trees." +</P> + +<P> +So Martin Pippin tuned his lute and sang what follows, while the girls +floated in ones and twos among the orchard grass: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating?<BR> + Fairy ships rocking with pink sails and white<BR> + Smoothly as swans on a river of light<BR> + Saw I a-floating?<BR> + No, it was apple-bloom, rosy and fair,<BR> + Softly obeying the nod of the air<BR> + I saw a-floating.<BR> + A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating?<BR> + White clouds at eventide blown to and fro<BR> + Lightly as bubbles the cherubim blow,<BR> + Saw I a-floating?<BR> + No, it was pretty girls gowned like a flower<BR> + Blown in a ring round their own apple-bower<BR> + I saw a-floating.<BR> + Or was it my dream, my dream only—who knows?—<BR> + As frail as a snowflake, as flushed as a rose,<BR> + I saw a-floating?<BR> + A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating?<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Martin sang, and the milkmaids danced, and Gillian in her prison only +heard the dropping of her tears, and only saw the rainbow prisms on her +lashes. But presently she laid her cheek against her hand, and missed a +touch she knew; and on that revealed her lovely face so full of woe, +that Martin needs must comfort her or weep himself. And the dancers +took no heed when he made one step across the gate and went under the +trees to the Well-House. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Mother, Mother!" sighed Gillian, "if you had only lived they would +never have stolen the ring from my finger while I sat heartsick." +</P> + +<P> +Above her head a whispering voice replied, "Oh, Daughter, Daughter, +mend your dear heart! You shall wear this other ring when yours is gone +over the duckpond to Adversane." +</P> + +<P> +Oh wonder! Out of the very heavens fell a silver ring into her bosom. +And if that night Gillian slept not, neither wept she. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="prolog3"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PART III +</H3> + +<P> +In the beginning of the first week in September Martin Pippin came once +more to Adversane, and he said to himself when he saw it: +</P> + +<P> +"Now this is the prettiest hamlet I ever had the luck to light on in my +wanderings. And if chance or fortune will, I shall some day come this +way again." +</P> + +<P> +While he was thinking these thoughts, his ears were assailed by groans +and sighs, so that he wet his finger and held it up to find which way +the wind blew on this burning day of blue and gold. But no wind coming, +he sought some other agency for these gusts, and discovered it in a +wheat-field where was a young fellow stooking sheaves. A very young +fellow he was, turned copper by the sun; and as he stooked he heaved +such sighs that for every shock he stooked two tumbled at his feet. +When Martin had seen this happen more than once he called aloud to the +harvester. +</P> + +<P> +"Young master!" said Martin, "the mill that grinds your grain will need +no wind to its sails, and that's flat." +</P> + +<P> +The young man looked up from his labors to reply. +</P> + +<P> +"There are no mill-stones in all the world," said he, "strong enough to +grind the grain of my grief." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I would save these gales till they may be put to more use," +remarked Martin, "and if I remember rightly you wear a lady's ring on +your little finger, though I cannot remember her name or yours." +</P> + +<P> +"Her heavenly name is Gillian," said the youth, "and mine is Robin Rue." +</P> + +<P> +"And are you wedded yet?" asked Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"Wedded?" he cried. "Have you forgotten that she is locked with six +keys inside her father's Well-House?" +</P> + +<P> +"But this was long ago," said Martin. "Is she there yet?" +</P> + +<P> +"She is," said Robin Rue, "and here am I." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, all states must end some time," said Martin Pippin. +</P> + +<P> +"Even life," sighed Robin, "and therefore before the month is out I +shall wilt and be laid in the earth." +</P> + +<P> +"That would be a pity," said Martin. "Can nothing save you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing but the keys to her prison, and they are in the keeping of +them that will not give them up." +</P> + +<P> +"I remember," said Martin. "Six milkmaids." +</P> + +<P> +"With hearts of flint!" cried Robin. +</P> + +<P> +"Sparks may be struck from flint," said Martin, in his inconsequential +way. "But tell me, if Gillian's prison were indeed unlocked, would all +be well with you for ever?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said Robin Rue, "if her prison were unlocked and the prisoner in +these arms, this wheat should be flour for a wedding-cake." +</P> + +<P> +"It is the best of all cakes," said Martin Pippin, "and the grain that +is destined thereto must not rot in the husk." +</P> + +<P> +With these words he strolled out of the cornfield, gathered a harebell, +rang it so loudly in the ear of a passing rabbit that it is said never +to have stopped running till it found itself in France, and went up the +road humming and thrumming his lute. +</P> + +<P> +On the road he met a Gypsy. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Maids," said Joscelyn, "somebody is at the gate." +</P> + +<P> +The milkmaids, who were eating apples, came clustering about her +instantly. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it a man?" asked little Joan, pausing between her bites. +</P> + +<P> +"No, thank all our stars," said Joscelyn, "it is a gypsy." +</P> + +<P> +The milkmaids withdrew, their fears allayed. Joan bit her apple and +said, "It puckers my mouth." +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: Mine's sour. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Mine's hard. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Mine's bruised. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: There's a maggot in mine. +</P> + +<P> +They threw their apples away. +</P> + +<P> +"Who'll buy trinkets?" said the Gypsy at the gate. +</P> + +<P> +"What have you to sell?" asked Joscelyn. +</P> + +<P> +"Knick-knacks and gew-gaws of all sorts. Rings and ribbons, mirrors and +beads, silken shoe-strings and colored lacings, sweetmeats and scents +and gilded pins; silver buckles, belts and bracelets, gay kerchiefs, +spotted ones, striped ones; ivory bobbins, sprigs of coral, and +sea-shells from far places, they'll murmur you secrets o' nights if you +put em under your pillow; here are patterns for patchwork, and here's +a sheet of ballads, and here's a pack of cards for telling fortunes. +What will ye buy? A dream-book, a crystal, a charmed powder that shall +make you see your sweetheart in the dark?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" six voices cried in one. +</P> + +<P> +"Or this other powder shall charm him to love you, if he love you not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Fie!" exclaimed Joscelyn severely. "We want no love-charms." +</P> + +<P> +"I warrant you!" laughed the Gypsy. "What will ye buy?" +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: I'll have this flasket of scent. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: I'll have this looking-glass. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: And I this necklet of beads. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: A pair of shoe-buckles, if you please. +</P> + +<P> +Joan: This bunch of ribbons for me. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: Have you a corset-lace of yellow silk? +</P> + +<P> +The Gypsy: Here's for you and you. No love-charms, no. Here's for you +and you and you. I warrant, no love-charms! Ay, I've a yellow lace, +twill keep you in as tight as jealousy, my pretty. Out upon all +love-charms!—And what will she have that sits crouched in the +Well-House? +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Gypsy!" cried Joscelyn, "have you among your charms one that will +make a maid fall OUT of love?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nay, nay," said the Gypsy, growing suddenly grave. "That is a charm +takes more black art than I am mistress of. I know indeed of but one +remedy. Is the case so bad?" +</P> + +<P> +"She has been shut into the Well-House to cure her of loving," said +Joscelyn, "and in six months she has scarcely ceased to weep, and has +never uttered a word. If you know the physic that shall heal her of her +foolishness, I pray you tell us of it. For it is extremely dull in this +orchard, with nothing to do except watch the changes of the +apple-trees, and meanwhile the farmstead lacks water and milk, there +being no entry to the well nor maids to milk the cows. Daily comes Old +Gillman to tell us how, from morning till night, he is forced to drink +cider and ale, and so the farm goes to rack and ruin, and all because +he has a lovesick daughter. What is your remedy? He would give you gold +and silver for it." +</P> + +<P> +"I do not know if it can be bought," said the Gypsy, "I do not even +know if it exists. But when a maid broods too much on her own +love-tale, the like weapons only will vanquish her thoughts. Nothing +but a new love-tale will overcome her broodings, and where the case is +obstinate one only will not suffice. You say she has pined upon her +love six months. Let her be told six brand-new love-tales, tales which +no woman ever heard before, and I think she will be cured. These +counter-poisons will so work in her that little by little her own case +will be obliterated from her blood. But for my part I doubt whether +there be six untold love-tales left on earth, and if there be I know +not who keeps them buttoned under his jacket." +</P> + +<P> +"Alas!" cried Joscelyn, "then we must stay here for ever until we die." +</P> + +<P> +"It looks very like it," said the Gypsy, "and my wares are a penny +apiece." +</P> + +<P> +So saying she collected her moneys and withdrew, and for all I know was +never seen again by man, woman, or child. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"My apple-gold maidens," said Martin Pippin, leaning on the gate in the +bright night, "may I come into your orchard?" +</P> + +<P> +As he addressed them he gazed with delight at the enclosure. By the +light of the Queen Moon, now at her full in heaven, he saw that the +orchard grass was clipped, and patterned with small clover, but against +the hedges rose wild banks of meadow-sweet and yarrow and the jolly +ragwort, and briony with its heart-shaped leaf and berry as red as +heart's-blood made a bower above them all. And all the apple-trees were +decked with little golden moons hanging in clusters on the drooping +boughs, and glimmering in the recesses of the leaves. Under each tree a +ring of windfalls lay in the grass. But prettiest sight of all was the +ring of girls in yellow gowns and caps, that lay around the midmost +apple-tree like fallen fruit. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear maidens," pleaded the Minstrel, "let me come in." +</P> + +<P> +At the sound of his voice the six milkmaids rose up in the grass like +golden fountains. And fountains indeed they were, for their eyes were +running over with tears. +</P> + +<P> +"We did not hear you coming," said little Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"Go away at once!" commanded Joscelyn. +</P> + +<P> +Then all the girls cried "Go away!" together. +</P> + +<P> +"My apple-gold maidens," said Martin Pippin, "I entreat you to let me +in. For the moon is up, and it is time to be sleeping or waking, in +sweet company. So I beseech you to admit me, dear maidens—if maidens +in truth you be, and not six apples bobbed off their stems." +</P> + +<P> +"You may not come in," said Joscelyn, "in case you should release our +master's daughter, who sits in the Well-House pining to follow her +heart." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, whither would she follow it?" asked Martin much surprised. +</P> + +<P> +The milkmaids turned their faces away, and little Joan murmured, "It is +a secret." +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I will put chains on my thoughts. But shall I not sing you a +tune you may dance to? I will make you a song for an August night, when +the moon rocks her way up and down the cradle of the sky, and you shall +rock on earth like any apple on the twig. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: For my part, I see nothing against it. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Gillian won't care little apples. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: She would not hear though we danced the round of the year. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: So long as he does not come in— +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: —or we go out. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, let us dance, do let us dance!" cried little Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"Man," they importuned him in a single breath, "play for us and sing +for us, as quickly as you can!" +</P> + +<P> +"Sweet ones," said Martin Pippin, shaking his head, "songs must be paid +for. And yet I do not know what to ask you, some trifle in kind it +should be. Why, now, I have it! If I give you the keys to the dance, +give me the keys to your little mistress, that I may keep her secure +from following her heart like a bird of passage, whither it's no +business of mine to ask." +</P> + +<P> +At this request, made so gayly and so carelessly, the girls all looked +at one another in consternation. Then Joscelyn drew herself up to full +height, and pointing with her arm straight across the duckpond she +cried: +</P> + +<P> +"Minstrel, begone!" +</P> + +<P> +And the six girls, turning their backs upon him, moved away into the +shadows of the moon. +</P> + +<P> +"Well-a-day!" sighed Martin Pippin, "how a fool may trip and never know +it till his nose hits the earth. I will sing to you for nothing." +</P> + +<P> +But the girls did not answer. +</P> + +<P> +Then Martin touched his lute and sang as follows, so softly and sweetly +that they, not regarding, hardly knew the sound of his song from the +heavy-sweet scent of the ungathered apples over their heads. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Toss me your golden ball, laughing maid, lovely maid,<BR> + Lovely maid, laughing maid, toss me your ball!<BR> + I'll catch it and throw it, and hide it and show it,<BR> + And spin it to heaven and not let it fall.<BR> + Boy, run away with you! I will not play with you—<BR> + This is no ball!<BR> + We are too old to be playing at ball.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Toss me the golden sun, laughing maid, lovely maid,<BR> + Lovely maid, laughing maid, toss me the sun!<BR> + I'll wheel it, I'll whirl it, I'll twist it and twirl it<BR> + Till cocks crow at midnight and day breaks at one.<BR> + Boy, I'll not sport with you! Boy, to be short with you,<BR> + This is no sun!<BR> + We are too young to play tricks with the sun.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Toss me your golden toy, laughing maid, lovely maid,<BR> + Lovely maid, laughing maid, toss me your toy!<BR> + It's all one to me, girl, whatever it be, girl<BR> + So long as it's round that's enough for a boy.<BR> + Boy, come and catch it then!—there now! Don't snatch it then!<BR> + Here comes your toy!<BR> + Apples were made for a girl and a boy.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +There was no sound or movement from the girls in the shadows. +</P> + +<P> +"Farewell, then," said Martin. "I must carry my tunes and tales +elsewhere." +</P> + +<P> +Like pebbles from a catapult the milkmaids shot to the gate. +</P> + +<P> +"Tales?" cried Jessica. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know tales?" exclaimed Jennifer. +</P> + +<P> +"What kind of tales?" demanded Jane. +</P> + +<P> +"Love-tales?" panted Joyce. +</P> + +<P> +"Six of them?" urged little Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"A thousand!" said Martin Pippin. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn's hand lay on the bolt. +</P> + +<P> +"Man," she said, "come in." +</P> + +<P> +She opened the wicket, and Martin Pippin walked into the Apple Orchard. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="prelude1"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PRELUDE TO THE FIRST TALE +</H3> + +<P> +"And now," said Martin Pippin, "what exactly do you require of me?" +</P> + +<P> +"If you please," said little Joan, "you are to tell us a love-story +that has never been told before." +</P> + +<P> +"But we have reason to fear," added Jane, "that there is no such story +left in all the world." +</P> + +<P> +"There you are wrong," said Martin, "for on the contrary no love-story +has ever been told twice. I never heard any tale of lovers that did not +seem to me as new as the world on its first morning. I am glad you have +a taste for love-stories." +</P> + +<P> +"We have not," said Joscelyn, very quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"No, indeed!" cried her five fellows. +</P> + +<P> +"Then shall it be some other kind of tale?" +</P> + +<P> +"No other kind will do," said Joscelyn, still more quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"We must all bear our burdens," said Martin; "so let us make ourselves +as happy as we can in an apple-tree, and when the tale becomes too +little to your taste you shall munch apples and forget it." +</P> + +<P> +"Will you sit in the swing?" asked Jennifer, pointing to the midmost +apple-tree, which was the largest in the orchard, and had a little +swing hanging from a long upper limb. +</P> + +<P> +Close to the apple-tree, a branch of which indeed brushed its mossed +pent-roof, stood the Well-House. It had a round wall of old red bricks +growing green with time, and a pillar of oak rose up at each point of +the compass to support the pent. Between the south and west pillars was +a green door, held by a rusty chain and a padlock with six keyholes. +The little circular court within was flagged, and three rings of worn +steps led to the well-head and the green wooden bucket inverted on the +coping. Between the cracks of the flags sprang grass, and pink-starred +centaury, and even a trail of mallow sprawled over the steps where +Gillian lay in tears, as though to wreathe her head with its striped +blooms. +</P> + +<P> +"What luck you have," said Martin, "not only to live in an orchard, but +to have a swing to swing in." +</P> + +<P> +"It is our one diversion," said Joyce, "except when you come to play to +us." +</P> + +<P> +"It is delightful to swing," said little Joan invitingly. +</P> + +<P> +"So it is," agreed Martin, "and I beg you to sit in the swing while I +sit on this bough, and when I see your eyelids growing heavy with my +tale I will start the rope and rouse you—thus!" +</P> + +<P> +So saying, he lifted the littlest milkmaid lightly into her perch and +gave her so vigorous a push that she cried out with delight, as at one +moment the point of her shoe cleared the door of the Well-House, and at +the next her heels were up among the apples. Then Martin ensconced +himself upon a lower limb of the tree, which had a mossy cushion +against the trunk as though nature or time had designed it for a teller +of tales. The milkmaids sprang quickly into other branches around him, +shaking a hail of sweet apples about his head. What he could he caught, +and dropped into the swinger's lap, whence from time to time he helped +himself; and she did likewise. +</P> + +<P> +"Begin," said Joscelyn. +</P> + +<P> +"A thought has occurred to me," said Martin Pippin, "and it is that my +tale may disturb your master's daughter." +</P> + +<P> +"We desire it to," said Joscelyn looking down on the Well-House and the +yellow head of Gillian. "The fear is rather that you may not arouse her +attention, so I hope that when you speak you will speak clearly. For to +tell you the truth we have heard that nothing but six love-tales will +wash from her mind the image of—" +</P> + +<P> +"Of whom?" inquired Martin as she paused. +</P> + +<P> +"It does not matter whom," said Joscelyn, "but I think the time is ripe +to confess to you that the silly damsel is in love." +</P> + +<P> +"The world is so full of wonders," said Martin Pippin, "that one ceases +to be surprised at almost anything." +</P> + +<P> +"Is love then," said little Joan, "so rare a thing in the world?" +</P> + +<P> +"The rarest of all things," answered Martin, looking gravely into her +eyes. "It is as rare as flowers in Spring." +</P> + +<P> +"I am glad of that," said Joan; while Joscelyn objected, "But nothing +is commoner." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think so?" said Martin. "Perhaps you are right. Yet Spring +after Spring the flowers quicken my heart as though I were perceiving +them for the first time in my life—yes, even the very commonest of +them." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you call the commonest?" asked Jessica. +</P> + +<P> +"Could any be commoner," said Martin, "than Robin-run-by-the-Wall? Yet +I think he has touched many a heart in his day." +</P> + +<P> +And fixing his eyes on the weeper in the Well-House, Martin Pippin +tried his lute and sang this song. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Run by the wall, Robin,<BR> + Run by the wall!<BR> + You might hear a secret<BR> + A lady once let fall.<BR> + If you hear her secret<BR> + Tell it in my ear,<BR> + And I'll whisper you another<BR> + For her to overhear.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +The weeper stirred very slightly. +</P> + +<P> +"The song makes little sense," said Joscelyn, "and would make none at +all if you called this flower by its right name of Jack-in-the-Hedge." +</P> + +<P> +"Let us do so," said Martin readily, "and then the nonsense will run +this way as easily as that." +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Hide in the hedge, Jack,<BR> + Hide in the hedge!<BR> + You might catch a letter<BR> + Dropped over the edge.<BR> + If you catch her letter<BR> + Slip it in my hand,<BR> + And I'll write another<BR> + That she'll understand.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +As he concluded, Gillian lifted up her head, and putting her hair from +her face gazed over the duckpond beyond the green wicket. +</P> + +<P> +"The lady," said Joscelyn with some impatience, "who understand the +letter must outdo me in wits, for I find no understanding whatever in +your silly song. However, it seems to have brought our master's +daughter out of her lethargy, and the moment is favorable to your tale. +Therefore without further ado I beg you to begin." +</P> + +<P> +"I will," said Martin, "and on my part entreat your forbearance while I +relate to you the story of The King's Barn." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="tale1"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE KING'S BARN +</H3> + +<P> +There was once, dear maidens, a King in Sussex of whose kingdom and +possessions nothing remained but a single Barn and a change of linen. +It was no fault of his. He was a very young king when he came into his +heritage, and it was already dwindled to these proportions. Once his +fathers had owned a beautiful city on the banks of the Adur, and all +the lands to the north and the west were theirs, for a matter of +several miles indeed, including many strange things that were on them: +such as the Wapping Thorp, the Huddle Stone, the Bush Hovel where a +Wise Woman lived, and the Guess Gate; likewise those two communities +known as the Doves and the Hawking Sopers, whose ways of life were as +opposite as the Poles. The Doves were simple men, and religious; but +the Hawking Sopers were indeed a wild and rowdy crew, and it is said +that the King's father had hunted and drunk with them until his estates +were gambled away and his affairs decayed of neglect, and nothing was +left at last but the solitary Barn which marked the northern boundary +of his possessions. And here, when his father was dead, our young King +sat on a tussock of hay with his golden crown on his head and his +golden scepter in his hand, and ate bread and cheese thrice a day, +throwing the rind to the rats and the crumbs to the swallows. His name +was William, and beyond the rats and the swallows he had no other +company than a nag called Pepper, whom he fed daily from the tussock he +sat on. +</P> + +<P> +But at the end of a week he said: +</P> + +<P> +"It is a dull life. What should a King do in a Barn?" +</P> + +<P> +So saying, he pulled the last handful of hay from under him, rising up +quickly before he had time to fall down, and gave it to his nag; and +next he tied up his scepter and crown with his change of linen in a +blue handkerchief; and last he fetched a rope and a sack and put them +on Pepper for bridle and saddle, and rode out of the Barn leaving the +door to swing. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us go south, Pepper," said he, "for it is warmer to ride into the +sun than away from it, and so we shall visit my Father's lands that +might have been mine." +</P> + +<P> +South they went, with the great Downs ahead of them, and who knew what +beyond? And first they came to the Hawking Sopers, who when they saw +William approaching tumbled out of their dwelling with a great racket, +crying to him to come and drink and play with them. +</P> + +<P> +"Not I," said he. "For so I should lose my Barn to you, and such as it +is it is a shelter, and my only one. But tell me, if you can, what +should a King do in a Barn?" +</P> + +<P> +"He should dance in it," said they, and went laughing and singing back +to their cups. +</P> + +<P> +"What sort of advice is this, Pepper?" said the King. "Shall we try +elsewhere?" +</P> + +<P> +The nag whinnied with unusual vehemence, and the King, taking this for +yea, and not observing that she limped as she went, rode on to the +Doves: the gentle gray-gowned Brothers who spent their days in pious +works and their nights in meditation. Between the twelve hours of +twilight and dawn they were pledged not to utter speech, but the King +arriving there at noon they welcomed him with kind words, and offered +him a bowl of rice and milk. +</P> + +<P> +He thanked them, and when he had eaten and drink put to them his riddle. +</P> + +<P> +"What should a King do in a Barn?" +</P> + +<P> +They answered, "He should pray in it." +</P> + +<P> +"This may be good advice," said the King. "Pepper, should we go +further?" +</P> + +<P> +The little nag whinnied till her sides shook, which the King took, as +before, to be an affirmative. However, because it was Sunday he +remained with the Doves a day and a night, and during such time as +their lips were not sealed they urged him to become one of them, and +found a new settlement of Brothers in his Barn. He spent his night in +reflection, but by morning had come to no decision. +</P> + +<P> +"To what better use could you dedicate it?" asked the Chief Brother, +who was known as the Ringdove because he was the leader. +</P> + +<P> +"None that I can think of," said the King, "but I fear I am not good +enough." +</P> + +<P> +"When you have passed our initiation," said the Ringdove, "you will be." +</P> + +<P> +"Is it difficult?" asked William. +</P> + +<P> +"No, it is very easy, and can be accomplished within a month. You have +only to ride south till you come to the hills, on the highest of which +you will see a Ring of beech-trees. Under the hills lies the little +village of Washington, and there you may dwell in comfort through the +week. But on each of the four Saturdays of the lunar month you must +mount the hill at sunset and keep a vigil among the beeches till +sunrise. And you must see that these Saturdays occur on the fourth +quarters of the moon—once when she is in her crescent, once at the +half, again at the full, and lastly when she is waning." +</P> + +<P> +"And is this all?" said William. "It sounds very simple." +</P> + +<P> +"Not quite all, but the rest is nearly as simple. You have but to +observe four rules. First, to tell no living soul of your resolve +during the month of initiation. Second, to keep your vigil always +between the two great beeches in the middle of the Ring. Third, to +issue forth at midnight and immerse your head in the Dewpond which lies +on the hilltop to the west, and having done so to return to your watch +between the trees. And fourth, to make no utterance on any account +whatever from sunset to sunrise." +</P> + +<P> +"Suppose I should sneeze?" inquired the King anxiously. +</P> + +<P> +"There's no supposing about it," said the Ringdove. "Sneezing, seeing +that your head will be extremely wet, is practically inevitable. But +the rule applies only to such utterance as lies within human control. +When the fourth vigil has been successfully accomplished, return to us +for a blessing and the gray robe of our Order." +</P> + +<P> +"But how," asked the King, "during my vigils shall I know when midnight +is due?" +</P> + +<P> +"In the third quarter after eleven a bird sings. At the beginning of +its song go forth from the Ring, and at the ending plunge your head +into the Pond. For on these nights the bird sings ceaselessly for +fifteen minutes, but stops at the very moment of midnight." +</P> + +<P> +"And is this really all?" +</P> + +<P> +"This is all." +</P> + +<P> +"How easy it is to become good," said William cheerfully. "I will begin +at once." +</P> + +<P> +So impatient was he to become a Brother Dove— +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(But here Martin Pippin broke off abruptly, and catching the rope of +the swing in his left hand he gave it a great lurch. +</P> + +<P> +Joan: Oh! Oh! Oh! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I perceive, Mistress Joan, that you lose interest in my story. +Your mouth droops. +</P> + +<P> +Joan: Oh, no! Oh, no! It is only—it is a very nice story—but— +</P> + +<P> +Martin: What cannot be said aloud can frequently be whispered. +</P> + +<P> +He leaned his ear close to her mouth, and very shyly she whispered into +it. +</P> + +<P> +Joan (whispering very shyly): Why must the young King join a +Brotherhood? I thought...this was to be a...love story. +</P> + +<P> +Martin smiled and chose an apple from her lap. +</P> + +<P> +"Keep this for me," said he, "until I ask for it; and if you are not +then satisfied, neither will I be") +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +So impatient (resumed Martin) was the King to enter the Brotherhood, +that he abandoned his idea of visiting the Huddle Stone and the Wapping +Thorp (which would have taken him out of his course), and, without even +waiting to break his fast, leaped on to Pepper's back and turned her +head southwest towards the hills. And in his eagerness he failed to +remark how Pepper stumbled at every second step. Before he had gone a +mile he came to the Guess Gate. +</P> + +<P> +Of the Guess Gate, as you may know, all men ask a question in passing +through, and in the back-swing of the Gate it creaks an answer. So +nothing more natural than that the King, having flung the Gate open, +should cry aloud once more: +</P> + +<P> +"Gate, Gate! What should a King do in a Barn?" +</P> + +<P> +"Now at last," thought he, "I shall be told whether to dance or to pray +in it." And he stood listening eagerly as the Gate hung an instant on +its outward journey and then began to creak home. +</P> + +<P> +"He—should—rule—in—it—he—should—rule—in—it—he—should—" +squeaked the Guess Gate, and then latch clicked and it was silent. +</P> + +<P> +This disconcerted William. +</P> + +<P> +"Now I am worse off than ever," he sighed. "Pray, Pepper, can this +advice be bettered?" +</P> + +<P> +As usual when he questioned her, the nag pricked up her ears and +whinnied so violently that he nearly fell off her back. Nevertheless, +he kept Pepper's head in a beeline for Chanctonbury, never noticing how +very ill she was going, and presently crossed the great High Road +beyond which lay the Bush Hovel. The Wise Woman was at home; from afar +the King saw her sitting outside the Hovel mending her broom with a +withe from the Bush. +</P> + +<P> +"Here if anywhere," rejoiced William, "I shall learn the truth." +</P> + +<P> +He dismounted and approached the old woman, cap in hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Wise Woman," he said respectfully, "you know most things, but do you +know this—whether a King should dance or pray or rule in his Barn?" +</P> + +<P> +"He should do all three, young man," said the Wise Woman. +</P> + +<P> +"But—!" exclaimed William. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm busy," snapped the Wise Woman. "You men will always be chattering, +as though pots need never be stewed nor cobwebs swept." So saying, she +went into the Hovel and slammed the door. +</P> + +<P> +"Pepper," said the poor King, "I am at my wits' ends. Go where yours +lead you." +</P> + +<P> +At this Pepper whinnied in a perfect frenzy of delight, and the King +had to clasp both arms round her neck to avoid tumbling off. +</P> + +<P> +Now the little nag preferred roads to beelines over copses and ditches, +and she turned back and ambled along the highway so very lamely that it +became impossible even for her preoccupied rider not to perceive that +she had cast all her four shoes. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor beast!" he cried dismayed, "how has this happened, and where? Oh, +Pepper, how could you be so careless? I have not a penny in my purse to +buy you new shoes, my poor Pepper. Do you not remember where you lost +them?" +</P> + +<P> +The little nag licked her master's hand (for he had dismounted to +examine her trouble), and looked at him with great eyes full of +affection, and then she flung up her head and whinnied louder than +ever. The sound of it was like nothing so much as laughter. Then she +went on, hobbling as best she could, and the King walked by her side +with his hand on her neck. In this way they came to a small village, +and here the nag turned up a by-road and halted outside the +blacksmith's forge. The smith's Lad stood within, clinking at the +anvil, the smuttiest Lad smith ever had. +</P> + +<P> +"Lad!" cried the King. +</P> + +<P> +The Lad looked up from his work and came at once to the door, wiping +his hands upon his leather apron. +</P> + +<P> +"Where am I?" asked the King. +</P> + +<P> +"In the village of Washington," said the Lad. +</P> + +<P> +"What! Under the Ring?" cried the King. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir," said the Lad. +</P> + +<P> +"A blessing on you!" said the King joyfully, and clapped his hand on +the Lad's shoulder. "Pepper, you have solved the problem and led me to +my destiny." +</P> + +<P> +"Is Pepper your nag's name?" asked the blacksmith's Lad. +</P> + +<P> +"It is," said the King; "her only one." +</P> + +<P> +"Then she has one more name than she has shoes," said the Lad. "How +came she to lose them?" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't notice," confessed the King. +</P> + +<P> +"You must have been thinking very deeply," remarked the Lad. "Are you +in love?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am not quite twenty-one," said the King. +</P> + +<P> +"I see. Do you want your nag shod?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do. But I have spent my last penny." +</P> + +<P> +"Earn another then," said the Lad. +</P> + +<P> +"I did not even earn the last one," said the King shamefacedly. "I have +never worked in my life." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, where have you lived?" exclaimed the Lad. +</P> + +<P> +"In a Barn." +</P> + +<P> +"But one works in a Barn—" +</P> + +<P> +"Stop!" cried the king, putting his fingers in his ears. "One prays in +a Barn." +</P> + +<P> +"Very likely," said the Lad, looking at him curiously. "Are you going +to pray in one?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said the King. "When is the New Moon?" +</P> + +<P> +"Next Saturday." +</P> + +<P> +"Hurrah!" cried the King. "That settles it. But what's to-day?" +</P> + +<P> +"Monday, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Alas!" sighed William, wondering how he should make shift to live for +five days. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know what you mean, sir," said the Lad. +</P> + +<P> +"I would tell you my meaning," said the King, "but am pledged not to." +</P> + +<P> +Then the Lad said, "Let it pass. I have a proposal to make. My father +is dead, and for two years I have worked the forge single-handed. Now I +am willing to teach you to shoe your nag with four good shoes and +strong, if you will meanwhile blow the bellows for whatever other jobs +come to the forge; and if the shoes are not done by dinner-time you +shall have a meal thrown in." +</P> + +<P> +The King looked at the Lad kindly. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall blow your bellows very badly," he said, "and shoe my nag still +worse." +</P> + +<P> +Said the Lad, "You'll learn in time." +</P> + +<P> +"Not before dinner-time, I hope," said the King, "for I am very hungry." +</P> + +<P> +"You look hungry," said the Lad. "It's a bargain then." +</P> + +<P> +The King held out his hand, but the Lad suddenly whipped his behind his +back. "It's so dirty, sir," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Give it me all the same," said the King; and they clasped hands. +</P> + +<P> +The rest of that morning the King spent in blowing the bellows, and by +dinner-time not so much as the first of Pepper's hoofs was shod. For a +great deal of business came into the forge, and there was no time for a +lesson. So the King and the Lad took their meal together, and the King +was by this time nearly as black as his master. He would have washed +himself, but the Lad said it was no matter, he himself having no time +to wash from week's end to week's end. In the afternoon they changed +places, and the King stood at the anvil and the Lad at the bellows. He +was a good teacher, but the King made a poor job of it. By nightfall he +had produced shoes resembling all the letters of the alphabet excepting +U, and when at last he submitted to the Lad a shoe like nothing so much +as a drunken S, his master shrugged and said: +</P> + +<P> +"Zeal is praiseworthy within its limits, but the best of smiths does +not attempt to make two shoes at once. Let us sup." +</P> + +<P> +They supped; and afterwards the Lad showed the King a small bedroom as +neat as a new pin. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall sully the sheets," said William, "and you will excuse me if I +fetch the kettle, which is on the boil." +</P> + +<P> +"As you please," said the Lad, and took himself off. +</P> + +<P> +In the morning the King came clean to breakfast, but the Lad was as +black as he had been. +</P> + +<P> +Tuesday passed as Monday had passed; now William took the bellows, +marveling at his youthful master's deftness, and now the Lad blew, +groaning at his pupil's clumsiness. By nightfall, however, he had +achieved a shoe faintly recognizable as such. For a second time the +King washed himself and slept again in the little trim chamber, but the +Lad in the morning resembled midnight. In this way the week went by, +the King's heart beating a little faster each morning as Saturday +approached, and he wondered by what ruse he could explain his absence +without creating suspicion or breaking his pledge. +</P> + +<P> +On Saturday morning the Lad said to the King: "This is a half-day. You +must make your shoe this morning or not at all. It is my custom at one +o'clock to close the forge and go to visit my Great-Aunt. I will be +work again on Monday, till when you must shift for yourself." +</P> + +<P> +The King could hardly believe his luck in having matters so well +settled, and he spent the morning so diligently that by noon he had +produced a shoe which, if not that of a master-craftsman, was at least +adaptable to the purpose for which it had been fashioned. +</P> + +<P> +The Lad examined it and said reluctantly, "It will do," and proceeded +to show the King how to fasten it to Pepper's hoof. +</P> + +<P> +"Why," said the King, having the nag's off forefoot in his hand, +"here's a stone in it. Small wonder she limped." +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't a stone," said the Lad, extracting it, "it is a ruby." +</P> + +<P> +And he exhibited to the King a ruby of such a glowing red that it was +as though the souls of all the grapes of Burgundy had been pressed to +create it. +</P> + +<P> +"You are a rich man now," said the Lad quietly, "and can live as you +will." +</P> + +<P> +But William closed the Lad's fingers over the stone. "Keep it," he +said, "for you have filled me for a week, and I have paid you with +nothing but my breath." +</P> + +<P> +"As you please," said the Lad carelessly, and, tossing the stone upon a +shelf, locked up the forge. "Now I am going to my Great-Aunt. There's a +cake in the larder." +</P> + +<P> +So saying, he strolled away, and the King was left to his own devices. +These consisted in bathing himself from head to foot till his body was +as pure without as he desired his heart to be within; and in donning +his fresh suit of linen. He would not break his fast, but waited, +trembling and eager, till an hour before sundown, and then at last he +set forth to mount the great hill with the sacred crown of trees upon +its crest. +</P> + +<P> +When at last he stood upon the boundary of the Ring, his heart sprang +for joy in his breast, and his breath nearly failed him with amazement +at the beauty of the world which lay outspread for leagues below him. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, lovely earth!" he cried aloud, "never till now have I known what +beauty I lived in. How is it that we cannot see the wonder of our +surroundings until we gaze upon them from afar? But if you look so fair +from the hilltops, what must you appear from the very sky?" And lost in +delight he turned his eyes upward, and was recalled to his senses by +the sight of the sinking sun. "Lovely one, how nearly you have betrayed +me!" he said, and smiling waved his hand to the dear earth, sealed up +his lips, and entered the Ring. +</P> + +<P> +And here between two midmost beeches he knelt down and buried his face +in his hands, and prayed the spirits of that place to make him worthy. +</P> + +<P> +The hours passed, quarter by quarter, and the King stayed motionless +like one in a dream. Presently, however, the dream was faintly shaken +by a little lirrup of sound, as light as rain dropping from leaves +above a pool. Again and again the sweet round notes fell on the +meditations of the King, and he remembered with entrancement that this +was the tender signal by which he was summoned to the Pond. So, rising +silently, he wandered through the trees, and keeping his eyes fixed on +the soft dim turf, lest some new beauty should tempt him to speech, he +went across the open hill the Pond. Here he knelt down again, listening +to the childlike bird, until at last the young piping ceased with a +joyous chuckle. And at that instant, reflected in the Pond, he saw the +silver star that watches the invisible young moon, and dipped his head. +</P> + +<P> +Oh, my dear maids! When he lifted it again, all wet and bewildered, he +saw upon the opposite border of the Pond, a figure, the white figure +of—a woman! a girl! a child! He could not tell, for she lay three +parts in the shadowy water with her back towards him, and his gaze and +senses swam; but in that faint starlight one bare and lovely arm, as +white as the crescent moon, was clear to him, upcurved to her shadowy +hair. So she reclined, and so he knelt, both motionless, and his heart +trembled (even as it had trembled at the bird's song) with a wish to go +near to her, or at least to whisper to her across the water. Indeed, he +was on the point of doing so, when a sudden contraction seized him, his +eyes closed in a delicious agony, and he sneezed once vigorously; and +in that moment of shattering blackness he recalled his vow, and rising +turned his back upon the vision and groped his way again to the shelter +of the trees. +</P> + +<P> +Here he remained till dawn in meditation, but as to the nature of his +meditations I am, dear maidens, ignorant. Nor do I know in what +restless wise he passed his Sunday. +</P> + +<P> +It is enough to know that on Monday when he went into the forge he +found the Lad already at work, and if he had been pitch-black at their +parting he was no less so at their meeting. He appeared to be out of +humor, and for some time regarded his apprentice with dissatisfaction, +but only remarked at last: +</P> + +<P> +"You look fatigued." +</P> + +<P> +"My sleep was broken with dreams," said the King. "I am sorry if I am +late. Let me to my shoeing. Since Saturday ended in success, I suppose +I shall now finish the business without more ado." +</P> + +<P> +He was, however, too hopeful as it appeared, for though he managed to +fashion a shoe which was in his eyes the equal of the other, the Lad +was captious and would not commend it. +</P> + +<P> +"I should be an ill craftmaster," said he, "if I let you rest content +on what you have already done. I made such a shoe as this on my +thirteenth birthday, and my father's only praise was, You must do +better yet.'" +</P> + +<P> +So particular was the young smith that William spent the whole of +another week in endeavoring to please him. This might have chafed the +King, but that it agreed entirely with his desires to remain in that +place, sleeping and eating at no cost to himself, and working so +strenuously that his hands grew almost as hard as the metal he worked +in; for the Lad now began to entrust him with small jobs of various +sorts, although in the matter of the second shoe he refused to be +satisfied. +</P> + +<P> +When Saturday came, however, the King contrived a shoe so much superior +to any he had yet made that the Lad, examining it, was compelled to +say, "It is better than the other." Then Pepper, who always stood in a +noose beside the door awaiting her moment, lifted up her near forefoot +of her own accord, and the King took it in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"How odd!" he exclaimed a moment later. "The nag has a stone in this +foot also. It is not strange that she went so ill." +</P> + +<P> +"It is not a stone," said the Lad. "It is a pearl." +</P> + +<P> +And he held out to the King a pearl of such a shining purity that it +was as though it had been rounded within the spirit of a saint. +</P> + +<P> +"This makes you a rich man," said the Lad moodily, "and you can journey +whither you please." +</P> + +<P> +But the King shook his head. "Keep it," he said, "for you have lodged +me for a week, and I have given you only the clumsy service of my +hands." +</P> + +<P> +"Very well," said the Lad simply, and put the pearl in his pocket. "My +Great-Aunt is expecting me. There's a cake in the larder." +</P> + +<P> +So saying he walked off, and the King was left alone. As before, he +bathed himself and changed his linen, and left the contents of the +larder untouched; and an hour before sunset he climbed the hill for the +second time, and presently stood panting on the edge of the Ring. And +again a pang of wonder that was akin to pain shot through his heart at +the loveliness of the world below him. +</P> + +<P> +"Beautiful earth!" he cried once more, "how fair and dear you are +become to me in your remoteness. But oh, if you appear so beautiful +from this summit, what must you appear from the summit of the clouds?" +And he glanced from the earth to the sky, and saw the sun running down +his airy hill. "Dear Temptress!" he said, "how cunningly you would +snare me from my purpose." And he kissed his hand to her thrice, sealed +up his lips, and entered the Ring. +</P> + +<P> +Between the two tall beeches he knelt down, and drowned the following +hours in thought and prayer; till that deep lake of meditation was +divided by the sound of singing, as though a shoal of silver fishes +swam and leaped upon its surface, putting all quietness to flight, and +troubling its waters with a million lovelinesses. For now it was as +though the bird's enchanting song came partly from within and partly +from without, and if the fall of its music shattered his dream like +falling fish, certain it seemed to him that the fish had first leaped +from his own heart, out of whose unsuspected caves darted a shoal of +nameless longings. He too leaped up and darted through the trees, and +with head bent down, for fear of he knew not what, made his way to the +Pond. Here he knelt again, drinking in the tremulous song of the bird, +as tremulous as youth and maidenhood, until at last it ceased with a +sweet uncompleted cry of longing. And at that instant, in the mirror of +the Pond, he saw the uncompleted disc of the half-moon, and dipped his +head. +</P> + +<P> +Ah wonder! when he lifted it again, dazzled and dripping, he saw across +the Pond a figure rising from the water, the figure, as he could now +perceive in the fuller light, of a girl, clear to the waist. Her face +was half turned from him, and her hair flowed half to him and half +away, but within that cloudy setting gleamed the lines of her lovely +neck and one white shoulder and one moonlit breast, whose undercurve +appeared to float upon the Pond like the petal of a waterlily. So he +knelt on his side and she on hers, both motionless, and he heart leaped +(even as it had leaped at the bird's song) with a longing to kneel +beside and even touch that loveliness; or, if he could not, at least to +call to her across the Pond so that he would turn and reveal to him +what still was hidden. He was in fact about to do so, when suddenly his +senses were overwhelmed with a sweet anguish, darkness fell on him, and +from its very core he sneezed twice, violently. This interruption of +the previous spell was sufficient to bring him to a realization of his +peril, and rising hastily he ran back to the Ring, where he remained +till morning. But to what pious thoughts he then committed himself I +cannot tell you; neither in what feverish fashion he got through Sunday. +</P> + +<P> +On Monday morning when he arrived at the forge he found the Lad at work +before him, and ebony was not blacker than his face. He glanced at the +King with some show of temper, but only said: +</P> + +<P> +"You look worn out." +</P> + +<P> +"I have had bad dreams," said the King. "Excuse me for being behind my +time. I will try to make up for it by wasting no more, and fashioning +instantly two shoes as good as that I made on Saturday." +</P> + +<P> +But though he handled his tools with more dexterity than he had yet +exhibited, the Lad petulantly pushed aside the first shoe he made, +which to the King appeared to be, if anything, superior to the one he +had made on Saturday. The Lad, however, quickly explained himself, +saying: +</P> + +<P> +"A master-smith who intends to make his apprentice his equal will not +let him rest at the halfway house. I made a shoe like this when I was +fourteen, and all my father said was, I have hopes of you.'" +</P> + +<P> +So for yet another week the King's nose was kept to the grindstone, and +it would have irritated most men to find their good work repeatedly +condemned; but William was, as you may have observed, singularly +sweet-tempered, besides which he desired nothing so much as to remain +where he was. And for another five days he slept and ate and worked, +until the muscles of his arms began to swell, and he swung the hammer +with as much ease as his master, who now left a great part of the work +entirely in his hands. Although in this matter of the third shoe he +refused to be satisfied. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless on Saturday morning the King, making a last effort before +the forge was shut, submitted a shoe so far beyond anything he had yet +achieved, that the Lad could not but say, "This is a good shoe." And +Pepper, seeing them coming, lifted her off hind-foot to be shod. +</P> + +<P> +"Now as I live!" cried the King. "Another stone! And how she contrived +to hobble so far is a miracle." +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't a stone," said the Lad, "it is a diamond." +</P> + +<P> +And he presented to the King a diamond of such triumphant brilliance +that it might have been conceived of the ambitions of the mightiest +monarch of the earth. +</P> + +<P> +"You now own surpassing wealth," said the Lad dejectedly, "and you have +no more need to work." +</P> + +<P> +But William would not even touch the stone. "Keep it," he said, "for +you have befriended me for a week, and I have given you only the +strength of my arms." +</P> + +<P> +"Let it be so," said the Lad gently, and put the diamond in his belt. +"I must not keep my Great-Aunt waiting. There's a cake in the larder." +</P> + +<P> +So saying he went his way, and the King went his; which, as you may +surmise, was to the bath and his clean clothes. He did not go into the +larder, and an hour before sunset made the ascent of the hill, and for +the third time stood like a conqueror upon the crest. And as he gazed +over the lands below his heart throbbed with a passion for the earth +that was half agony and half love, unless indeed it was the whole agony +of love. +</P> + +<P> +"Most beautiful earth!" he cried aloud, "only as you recede from me do +I realize how necessary it is for me to possess you. How is it that +when I possess you I know you not as I know you now? But oh! if you are +so wonderful from these great hills, what must you be from the greater +hills of air?" And he looked up, and saw the sun descending in the +west. "Sweet earth," he sighed, "you would hold me when I should be +gone, and never remind me that the moment to depart is due." And he +stretched out his arms to her, sealed up his lips, and went into the +Ring. +</P> + +<P> +Once more he knelt between the giant beeches, and sank all thoughts in +pious contemplation; till suddenly those still waters were convulsed as +though with stormy currents, and a wild song beat through his breast, +so that he could not believe it was the bird singing from a short +distance: it was as though the storm of music broke from his singing +heart—yes, from his own heart singing for some unexpressed +fulfillment. He was barely conscious of going through the trees, with +eyes shut tight against the outer world, but soon he was kneeling at +the brink of the Pond, while the surge of joy and pain in the song +broke on his spirit like waves upon a shore, or love upon a man and a +woman—washed back, towered up, and broke on him again. At last on one +full glorious phrase it ceased. And at that instant, deep in the Pond, +he saw the full orb of the moon, and dipped his head. +</P> + +<P> +Oh, when he lifted it, startled and illuminated, he saw on the further +side of the Pond a woman standing. The moonlight bathed her form from +head to foot, her hair was thrown behind her, and she stood facing him, +so that in the cold clear light he could see her fully revealed: her +strong tender face, her strong soft body, her strong slim legs, her +strong and lovely arms. As white as mayblossom she was, and beauty went +forth from her like fragrance from the shaken bough. So he knelt on his +side and she stood on hers, both motionless, but gazing into each +other's eyes, and his heart broke (even as it had broken at the bird's +song) with a passion to take her in his arms, for it seemed to him that +this alone would mend its breaking. Or if he might not do this, at +least to send his need of her in a great cry across the Pond. And as +his passion grew she slowly lifted her arms and opened them to him as +though to bid him enter; and her lips parted, and she cried out, as +though she were uttering the cry of his own soul: +</P> + +<P> +"Beloved!" +</P> + +<P> +All the joy and the pain, fulfilled, of the bird's song were gathered +in that word. +</P> + +<P> +Glorified he leaped up, his whole being answering the cry of hers, but +before his lips could translate it he was gripped by a mighty agony, +and sneeze after sneeze shook all his senses, so that he was utterly +helpless. When he was able to look up again he saw the woman moving +towards him round the Pond, and suddenly he clapped his hands over his +eyes and fled towards the Ring, as though pursued by demons. Here he +passed the remainder of the night, but in what sort of prayers I leave +you to imagine; as also amid what ravings he passed his Sunday. +</P> + +<P> +On Monday the Lad was again before him at the forge, and a crow's wing +had looked milky beside his face. He did not raise his eyes as the King +came in, but said: +</P> + +<P> +"You look very ill." He said it furiously. +</P> + +<P> +"I have had nightmares," said the King. "Pardon me if you can. I will +get to work and make my final shoe." +</P> + +<P> +But though he now had little more to learn in his craft, the Lad, when +the shoe was made, picked it up in his pincers and flung it to the +other end of the forge; yet the King now knew enough to know that few +smiths could have made its equal. So he looked surprised; at which the +Lad, controlling himself, said: +</P> + +<P> +"When I pass your fourth shoe you will need no more masters—I forged a +shoe like that one yonder when I was fifteen, and my father said of it, +You will make a smith one day.'" +</P> + +<P> +And on neither Tuesday nor Wednesday nor Thursday nor Friday could the +King succeed in pleasing the Lad; the better his shoes the angrier grew +his young master that they were not good enough. Yet between these +gusts of temper he was gentle and remorseful, and once the King saw +tears in his eyes, and another time the Lad came humbly to ask for +pardon. Then William laughed and put out his hand, but, as once before, +the Lad slipped his behind his back and said: +</P> + +<P> +"It is so dirty, friend." +</P> + +<P> +And this time he would not let William take it. So the King was forced +instead to lay his arm about the Lad's shoulder, and press it tenderly; +but the Lad made no response, and only stood hanging his head until the +King removed his arm. All the same, when next the King made a shoe he +was full of rage, and stamped on it, and ran out of the forge. Which +surprised the King all the more because it was so excellent a shoe. Yet +he was secretly glad of its rejection, for he felt it would break his +heart to go away from that place; and he could think of no good cause +for remaining, once Pepper was shod. So there he stayed, eating, +sleeping, and working, while the thews of his back became as strong +under the smooth skin as the thews of a beech-tree under the smooth +bark; and his craft was such that the Lad at last left the whole of the +work of the forge in his charge. For there was nothing he could not do +surpassingly well. And this the Lad admitted, save only in the case of +the fourth shoe. +</P> + +<P> +But on Saturday, just before closing-time, the King set to and made a +shoe so fine that when the Lad saw it he said quietly, "I could not +make a better." Had he not said so he must have lied, or proved that he +did know a masterpiece when he saw it. And he too good a craftsman for +that, besides being honest. +</P> + +<P> +Pepper instantly lifted up her near hind-foot. +</P> + +<P> +"Upon my word!" exclaimed the King, "the world is full of stones, and +Pepper has found them all. The wonder is that she did not fall down on +the road." +</P> + +<P> +"This is not a stone," said the Lad, "it is an opal." +</P> + +<P> +And he displayed an opal of such marvelous changeability, such milk and +fire shot with such shifting rainbows, that it was as though it had had +birth of all the moods of all the women of all time. +</P> + +<P> +"This enriches you for life," said the Lad gloomily, "and now you are +free of masters for ever." +</P> + +<P> +But William thrust his hands into his pockets. "Keep it," he said, "for +this week you have given me love, and I have given you nothing but the +sinews of my body." +</P> + +<P> +The Lad looked at him and said, "I have given you hard words, and fits +of temper, and much injustice." +</P> + +<P> +"Have you?" said William. "I remember only your tenderness and your +tears. So keep the opal in love's name." +</P> + +<P> +The Lad tried to answer, but could not; and he slipped the opal under +his shirt. Then he faltered, "My Great-Aunt—" and still he could not +speak. But he made a third effort, and said, "There is a cake in the +larder," and turned on his heel and went away quickly. And the King +looked after him till he was out of sight, and then very slowly went to +his bath and his fresh linen. But he left the cake where it was. +</P> + +<P> +And he sat by the door of the forge with his face in his hands until +the length of his shadow warned him that he must go. And he rose and +went for the last time up the hill, but with a sinking heart; and when +he stood on the top and gazed upon the beauty of the earth he had left +below, in his breast was the ache of loss and longing for one he had +loved, and with his eyes he tried to draw that beauty into himself, but +the void in him remained unfulfilled. Yet never had her beauty been so +great. +</P> + +<P> +"Beloved and lovely earth!" he whispered, "why do you appear most fair +and most desirable now that I am about to lose you? Why when I had you +did you not hold me by force, and tell me what you were? Only now I +discover you from mid-heaven—but oh! in what way should I discover you +from heaven itself?" And he looked upward, and lo! a blurred sun shone +upon him, swimming to its rest. "Farewell, dear earth!" said the King. +"Since you cannot mount to me, and I may not descend to you." And he +knelt upon the turf and laid his cheek and forehead to it, and then he +rose, sealed up his lips, and passed into the Ring. +</P> + +<P> +Between the two tall beeches he sank down, and all sense and thought +and consciousness sank with him, as though his being had become a dead +forgotten lake, hidden in a lifeless wood; where birds sang not, nor +rain fell, nor fishes played, nor currents moved below the stagnant +waters. But presently a wind seemed to wail among the trees, and the +sound of it traveled over the King's senses, stirred them, and passed. +But only to return again, moan over him, and trail away; and so it kept +coming and going till first he heard, then listened to, and at last +realized the haunting signal of the bird. And he went forth into the +open night, his eyes wide apart but seeing nothing until he stumbled at +the Pond and crouched beside it. The bird grew fainter and fainter, and +presently the sound, like a ghost at dawn, ceased to exist; and at that +instant, under the Pond, he beheld the lessening circle of the moon, +and dipped his head. +</P> + +<P> +Alas! when he lifted it, shivering and stunned, he saw the form he +longed to see on the other side of the Pond; but not, as he had longed +to see it, gazing at him with the love and glory of seven nights ago. +Now she stood on the turf, half turned from him, and the wave of her +hair blew to and fro like a cloud, now revealing her white side, now +concealing it. And he looked, but she would not look. So he knelt on +his side and she remained on hers, both motionless. And suddenly the +impulse to sneeze arose within him, and at that instant she began to +move—not towards him, as before, but away from him, downhill. +</P> + +<P> +At that he could bear no more, and quelling the impulse with a mighty +effort, he got upon his feet crying, "Beloved, stay! Beloved, stay, +beloved!" +</P> + +<P> +And he staggered round the Pound as quickly as his shaking knees would +let him; but quicker still she slid away, and when he came where she +had been the place was as empty as the sky in its moonless season. He +called and ran about and called again; but he got no answer, nor found +what he sought. All that night he spent in calling and running to and +fro. What he did on Sunday you may know, and I may know, but he did +not. On Sunday night he stayed beside the Pond, but whatever his hopes +were they received no fulfillment. On Monday night he was there again, +and on Tuesday, and on Wednesday; and between the mornings and the +nights he went from hill to hill, seeking her hiding-place who came to +bathe in the lake. There was not a hill within a day's march that did +not know him, from Duncton to Mount Harry. But on none of them he found +the Woman. How he lived is a puzzle. Perhaps upon wild raspberries. +</P> + +<P> +After the sun had set on Chanctonbury on Saturday night, he came +exhausted to the Ring again, and stood on that high hill gazing +earthward. But there was no light above or below, and he said: +</P> + +<P> +"I have lost all. For the earth is swallowed in blackness, and the +Woman has disappeared into space, and I myself have cast away my +spiritual initiation. I will sit by the Pond till midnight, and if the +bird sings then I will still hope, but if it does not I will dip my +head in the water and not lift it again." +</P> + +<P> +So he went and lay down by the Pond in the darkness, and the hours wore +away. But as the time of the bird's song drew near he clasped his hands +and prayed. But the bird did not sing; and when he judged that midnight +was come, he got upon his knees and prepared to put his head under the +water. And as he did so he saw, on the opposite side of the Pond, the +feeble light of a lantern. He could not see who held it, because even +as he looked the bearer blew out the light; but in that moment it +appeared to him that she was as black as the night itself. +</P> + +<P> +So for awhile he knelt upon his side, and she remained on hers, both +trembling; but at last the King, dreading to startle her away, rose +softly and went round the Pond to where he had seen her. +</P> + +<P> +He said into the night in a shaking voice, "I cannot see you. If you +are there, give me your hand." +</P> + +<P> +And out of the night a shaking voice replied: +</P> + +<P> +"It is so dirty, beloved." +</P> + +<P> +Then he took her in his arms, and felt how she trembled, and he held +her closely to him to still her, whispering: +</P> + +<P> +"You are my Lad." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said in a low voice. "But wait." +</P> + +<P> +And she slipped out of his embrace, and he heard her enter the Pond, +and she stayed there as it seemed to him a lifetime; but presently she +rose up, and even in that black night the whiteness of her body was +visible to him, and she came to him as she was and laid her head on his +breast and said: +</P> + +<P> +"I am your Woman." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +("I want my apple," said Martin Pippin. +</P> + +<P> +"But is this the end?" cried little Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" said Martin. "The lovers are united." +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: Nonsense! Of course it is not the end! You must tell us a +thousand other things. Why was the Woman a woman on Saturday night and +a lad all the rest of the week? +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: What of the four jewels? +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: Which of the answers to the King's riddle was the right one? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: What happened to the cake? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: What was her name? +</P> + +<P> +"Please," said little Joan, "do not let this be the end, but tell us +what they did next." +</P> + +<P> +"Women will be women," observed Martin, "and to the end of time prefer +unessentials to the essential. But I will endeavor to satisfy you on +the points you name.") +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +In the morning William said to his beloved: +</P> + +<P> +"Now tell me something of yourself. How come you to be so masterful a +smith? Why do you live as a black Lad all the week and turn only into a +white Woman on Saturdays? Have you really got a Great-Aunt, and where +does she live? How old are you? Why were you so hard to please about +the shoeing of Pepper? And why, the better my shoes the worse your +temper? Why did you run away from me a week ago? Why did you never tell +me who you were? Why have you tormented me for a whole month? What is +your name?" +</P> + +<P> +"Trust a man to ask questions!" said his beloved, laughing and +blushing. "Is it not enough that I am your beloved?" +</P> + +<P> +"More than enough, yet not nearly enough," said the King, "for there is +nothing of yourself which you must not tell me in time, from the moment +when you first stole barley sugar behind your father's back, down to +that in which you first loved me." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I had best begin at once," she smiled, "or a lifetime will not be +long enough. I am eighteen years old and my name is Viola. I was born +in Falmer, and my father was the best smith in all Sussex, and because +he had no other child he made me his bellows-boy, and in time, as you +know, taught me his trade. But he was, as you also know, a stern +master, and it was not until, on my sixteenth birthday, I forged a shoe +the equal of your last, that he said I could not make a better.' And +so saying he died. Now I had no other relative in all the world except +my Great-Aunt, the Wise Woman of the Bush Hovel, and her I had never +seen; but I thought I could not do better in my extremity than go to +her for counsel. So, shouldering my father's tools, I journeyed west +until I came to her place, and found her trying to break in a new +birch-broom that was still too green and full of sap to be easily +mastered; and she was in a very bad temper. Good day, Great-Aunt,' I +said, I am your Great-Niece Viola.' I have no more use for great +nieces,' she snapped, than for little ones.' And she continued to +tussle with the broomstick and took no further notice of me. Then I +went into the Hovel, where a fire burned on the hearth, and I took out +my tools and fashioned a bit on the hob; and when it was ready I took +it to her and said, This will teach it its manners'; and she put the +bit on the broom, which became as docile as a lamb. Great-Niece,' said +she, it appears that I told you a lie this morning. What can I do for +you?' Tell me, if you please, how I am to live now that my father is +dead.' There is no need to tell you,' said she; you have your living +at your fingers' ends.' But women cannot be smiths,' said I. Then +become a lad,' said she, and ply your trade where none knows you; and +lest men should suspect you by your face, which fools though they be +they might easily do, let it be so sooted from week's end to week's end +that none can discover what you look like; and if any one remarks on +it, put it down to your trade.' +</P> + +<P> +But Great-Aunt,' I said, I could not bear to go dirty from week's +end to week's end.' If you will be so particular,' she said, take a +bath every Saturday night and spend your Sundays with me, as fair as +when you were a babe. And before you go to work again on Monday you +shall once more conceal your fairness past all men's penetration.' +But, dear Great-Aunt,' I pleaded, it may be that the day will come +when I might not wish—'" +</P> + +<P> +And here, dear maidens, Viola faltered. And William put his arm about +her a little tighter—because it was there already—and said, "What +might you not wish, beloved?" And she murmured, "To be concealed past +one man's penetration. And my Great-Aunt said I need not worry. Because +though men, she said, were fools, there was one time in every man's +life when he was quick enough to penetrate all obscurities, whether it +were a layer of soot or a night without a moon." And she hid her face +on the King's shoulder, and he tried to kiss her but could not make her +look up until he said, "Or even a woman's waywardness?" Then she looked +up of her own accord and kissed him. +</P> + +<P> +"In this way," she resumed, "it became my custom on each Saturday, +after closing the forge, to come here with my woman's raiment, and wait +in a hollow until night had fallen, and make myself clean of the week's +blackness. For I dared not do this by daylight, or be seen going forth +from my forge in my proper person." +</P> + +<P> +"But why did you choose to bathe at midnight?" asked the King. +</P> + +<P> +She was silent for a few moments, and then said hurriedly, "I did not +choose to bathe at midnight until a month ago.—For the rest," she +resumed, "I was hard to please in the matter of the shoes because I +knew that when they were finished you would ride away. And therefore +the more you improved the crosser I became. And if I have tormented you +for a month it was because you tormented me by refusing to speak when +you saw me here, in spite of your hateful vow; and you would not even +look at my cake in the larder." +</P> + +<P> +"Women are strange," said the King. "How do you know I did not look at +the cake?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do know," she said as hurriedly as before. "And if I would not tell +you who I was, it was because I could not bear, on the other hand, to +extort from you a love you seemed so reluctant to endure; until indeed +it became of its own accord too strong even for the purpose which +brought you every week to the Ring. For I knew that purpose, since all +dwellers in Washington know why men go up the hill with the new moon." +</P> + +<P> +"But when my love did become too strong for my vow, and opened my lips +at last," said the King, "why did you run away?" +</P> + +<P> +Viola said, "Had you not run away the week before? And now I have +answered all your questions." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said the King, "not all. You haven't told me yet when you first +loved me." +</P> + +<P> +Viola smiled and said, "I first stole barley sugar when my father said +This is for the other little girl over the way'; and I first loved you +when, seeing you had been too absent-minded to know that Pepper had +cast her shoes, I feared you were in love." +</P> + +<P> +"But that was three minutes after we met!" cried the King. +</P> + +<P> +"Was it as much as that!" said she. +</P> + +<P> +Now after awhile Viola said, "Let us get down to the world again. We +cannot stay here for ever." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" said the King. However, they walked to the brow of the hill, +and stood together gazing awhile over the sunlit earth that had never +been so beautiful to either of them; for their sight was newly-washed +with love, and all things were changed. +</P> + +<P> +"Now I know how she looks from heaven," said the King, "and that is +like heaven itself. Let us go; for I think she will still look so at +our coming, seeing that we carry heaven with us." +</P> + +<P> +So they went downhill to the forge, and there Viola said to her lover, +"I can stay no longer in this place where all men have known me as a +lad; and besides, a woman's home is where her husband lives." +</P> + +<P> +"But I live only in a Barn," said William the King. +</P> + +<P> +"Then I will live there with you," said Viola, "and from this very +night. But first I will shoe Pepper anew, for she is so unequally shod +that she might spill us on the road. And that she may be shod worthily +of herself and of us, give me what you have tied up in your blue +handkerchief." The King fetched his handkerchief and unknotted it, and +gave her his crown and scepter; and she set him at the bellows and made +three golden shoes and shod the nag on her two fore-feet and her off +hind-foot. But when she looked at the near hind-foot, which the King +had shod last of all, she said: "I could not make a better. And +therefore, like his father, the Lad must shut his smithy, for he is +dead." Then she put the three shoes she had removed into a bag with +some other trifles; and while she did so the King took what remained of +the gold and made it into two rings. This done, they got on to Pepper's +back, and with her three shoes of gold and one of iron she bore them +the way the King had come. When they passed the Bush Hovel they saw the +Wise Woman currying her broomstick, and Viola cried: +</P> + +<P> +"Great-Aunt, give us a blessing." +</P> + +<P> +"Great-Niece," said the Wise Woman, "how can I give you what you +already have? But I will give you this." And she held out a horseshoe. +</P> + +<P> +"Good gracious," said the King, "this was once Pepper's." +</P> + +<P> +"It was," said the Wise Woman. "In her merriment at hearing you ask a +silly question, she cast it outside my door." +</P> + +<P> +A little further on they came to the Guess Gate, but when the King, +dismounting, swung it open, it grated on something in the road. He +stooped and lifted—a horseshoe. +</P> + +<P> +"Wonder of wonders!" exclaimed the King. "This also was Pepper's. What +shall we do with it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hang—it—up—hang—it—up—hang—" creaked the Gate; and clicked home. +</P> + +<P> +In due course they reached the Doves, and at the sound of Pepper's +hoofs the Brothers flocked out to meet them. +</P> + +<P> +"Is all well?" cried the Ringdove, seeing the King only. "And have you +returned to us for the final blessing?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have," replied the King, "for I bring my bride behind me, and now +you must make us one." +</P> + +<P> +The gentle Brothers, rejoicing at the sight of their happiness and +their beauty, led them in; and there they were wedded. The Doves +offered them to eat, but the King was impatient to reach his Barn by +nightfall; so they got again on Pepper's back, and as they were about +to leave the Ringdove said: +</P> + +<P> +"I have something of yours which is in itself a thing of no moment; +yet, because it is of good augury, take it with you." +</P> + +<P> +And he gave the King Pepper's third shoe. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," said the King, "I will hang it over my Barn door." +</P> + +<P> +Now he urged Pepper to her full speed, and they went at a gallop past +the Hawking Sopers, who, hearing the clatter, came running into the +road. +</P> + +<P> +"Stay, gallopers, stay!" they cried, "and make merry with us." +</P> + +<P> +"We cannot," called the King, "for we are newly married." +</P> + +<P> +"Good luck to you then!" shouted the Sopers, and with huzzas and +laughter flung something after them. Viola stretched out her hand and +caught it in mid-air, and it was a horseshoe. +</P> + +<P> +"The tale is complete," she laughed, "and now you know where Pepper +picked up her stones." +</P> + +<P> +Soon after the King said, "Here is my Barn." And he sprang down and +lifted his bride from the nag's back and brought her in. +</P> + +<P> +"It is a poor place," he said gently, "but it is all I have. What can I +do for you in such a home?" +</P> + +<P> +"I will tell you," said Viola, and putting her hand into her left +pocket, she drew out the ruby winking with the wine of mirth. "You can +dance in it." And suddenly they caught each other by the hands and went +capering and laughing round the Barn like children. +</P> + +<P> +"Hurrah!" cried William, "now I know what a King should do in a Barn!" +</P> + +<P> +"But he should do more than dance in it," said Viola; and putting her +hand into her right pocket she gave him the pearl, as pure as a prayer; +"beloved, he should pray in it too." +</P> + +<P> +And William looked at her and knelt, and she knelt by him, and in +silence they prayed the same prayer, side by side. +</P> + +<P> +Then William rose and said simply, "Now I know." +</P> + +<P> +But she knelt still, and took from her girdle the diamond, as bright as +power, and she put it in his hand, saying very low, "Oh, my dear King! +but he should also rule in it." And she kissed his hand. But the King +lifted her very quickly so that she stood equal with his heart, and +embracing her he said, with tears in his eyes: +</P> + +<P> +"And you, beloved! what will a Queen do in a Barn?" +</P> + +<P> +"The same as a King," she whispered, and drew from her bosom the opal, +as lovely and as variable as the human spirit. "With the other three +stones you may, if you will, buy back your father's kingdom. But this, +which contains all qualities in one, let us keep for ever, for our +children and theirs, that they may know there is nothing a King and a +Queen may not do in a Barn, or a man and a woman anywhere. But the best +thing they can do is to work in it." +</P> + +<P> +Then, going out, she came back with the bag which she had slung on +Pepper's back, and took from it her father's tools. +</P> + +<P> +"In three weeks you learned all I learned in three years," said she. +"When I shod Pepper this morning I did my last job as a smith; for now +I shall have other work to do. But you, whether you choose to get your +father's lands again or no, I pray to work in the trade I have given +you, for I have made you the very king of smiths, and all men should do +the thing they can do best. So take the hammer and nail up the +horseshoes over the door while I get supper; for you look as hungry as +I feel." +</P> + +<P> +"But there's nothing to eat," said the King ruefully. +</P> + +<P> +However, he went outside, and over the door he hung as many shoes as +there are nails in one—the four Pepper had cast on the road, and the +three he had first made for her. As he drove the last nail home Viola +called: +</P> + +<P> +"Supper is ready." +</P> + +<P> +And the King went into the Barn and saw a Wedding Cake. +</P> + +<P> +And now, if you please, Mistress Joan, I have earned my apple. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="interlude1"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FIRST INTERLUDE +</H3> + +<P> +Now there was a great munching of apples in the tree, for to tell the +truth during the latter part of the story this business had been +suspended, and between bites the milkmaids discussed the merits of what +they had just heard. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: What is your opinion of this tale, Jane? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: It surprised me more than anything. For who could have suspected +that the Lad was a Woman? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Lads are to be suspected of any mischief, Mistress Jane. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: It is not to be supposed, Master Pippin, that we are +acquainted with the habits of lads. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I suppose nothing. But did the story please you? +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: As a story it was well enough to pass an hour. I would be +willing to learn whether the King regained his kingdom or no. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I think he did, since you may go to this day to the little city +on the banks of the Adur which is re-named after his Barn. But I doubt +whether he lived there, or anywhere but in the Barn where he and his +beloved began their life of work and prayer and mirth and loving-rule. +And died as happily as they had lived. +</P> + +<P> +Joan: I am glad they lived happily. I was afraid the tale would end +unhappily. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: And so was I. For when the King roamed the hills for a whole +week without success, I began to fear he would never find the Woman +again. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: I for my part feared lest he should not open his lips during +the fourth vigil, and so must become a Dove for the remainder of his +days. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: It was but by the grace of a moment he did not drown himself in +the Pond. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Or what if, by some unlucky chance, he had never come to the +forge at all? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: In any of these events, I grant you, the tale must have ended +in disaster. And this is the special wonder of love-tales: that though +they may end unhappily in a thousand ways, and happily in only one, yet +that one will vanquish the thousand as often as the desires of lovers +run in tandem. But there is one accident you have left out of count, +and it is the worst stumbling-block I know of in the path of happy +endings. +</P> + +<P> +All the Milkmaids: What is it? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Suppose the lovely Viola had been a sworn virgin and a hater of +men. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +There was silence in the Apple-Orchard. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Joscelyn: She would have been none the worse for that, singer. And the +tale would have been none the less a tale, which is all we look for +from you. This talk of happy endings is silly talk. The King might have +sought the Woman in vain, or kept his vow, or drowned himself, or +ridden to the confines of Kent, for aught I care. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: Or I. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: Or I. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Or I. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Or I. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I am silenced. Tales are but tales, and not worth speculation. +And see, the moon is gone to sleep behind a cloud, which shows us +nothing save the rainbow of her dreams. It is time we did as she does. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Like shooting-stars in August the milkmaids slid from their leafy +heaven and dropped to the grass. And here they pillowed their heads on +their soft arms and soon were breathing the breath of sleep. But little +Joan sat on in the swing. +</P> + +<P> +Now all this while she had kept between her hands the promised apple, +turning and turning it like one in doubt; and presently Martin looked +aside at her with a smile, and held his open palm to receive his +reward. And first she glanced at him, and then at the sleepers, and +last she tossed the apple lightly in the air. But by some mishap she +tossed it too high, and it made an arc clean over the tree and fell in +a distant corner by the hedge. So she ran quickly to recover it for +him, and he ran likewise, and they stooped and rose together, she with +the apple in her hands, he with his hands on hers. At which she blushed +a little, but held fast to the fruit. +</P> + +<P> +"What!" said Martin Pippin, "am I never to have my apple?" +</P> + +<P> +She answered softly, "Only when I am satisfied, as you promised." +</P> + +<P> +"And are you not? What have I left undone?" +</P> + +<P> +Joan: Please, Master Pippin. What did the young King look like? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Fool that I am to leave these vital things untold! I shall +avoid this error in future. He was more than middle tall, and broad in +the shoulders; and he had gray-blue eyes, and a fresh color, and a kind +and merry look, and dark brown hair that was not always as sleek as he +wished it to be. +</P> + +<P> +Joan: Oh! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: With this further oddity, that above the nape of his neck was a +whitish tuft which, though he took great pains to conceal it, +continually obtruded through the darker hair like the cottontail on the +back of a rabbit. +</P> + +<P> +Joan: Oh! Oh! +</P> + +<P> +And she became as red as a cherry. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: May I have my apple? +</P> + +<P> +Joan: But had not he a—mustache? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: He fondly believed so. +</P> + +<P> +Joan (with unexpected fire): It was a big and beautiful mustache! +</P> + +<P> +Martin (fervently): There was never a King of twenty years with one so +big and beautiful. +</P> + +<P> +She gave him the apple. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Thank you. Will you, because I have answered many questions, +now answer one? +</P> + +<P> +Joan: Yes. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Then tell me this—what is your quarrel with men? +</P> + +<P> +Joan: Oh, Master Pippin! they say that one and one make two. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Is this possible? Good heavens, are men such numskulls! When +they have but to go to the littlest woman on earth to learn—what you +and I well know—that one and one make one, and sometimes three, or +four, or even half-a-dozen; but never two. Fie upon these men! +</P> + +<P> +Joan: I am glad you think I am in the right. But how obstinate they are! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: As obstinate as children, and should be birched as roundly. +</P> + +<P> +Joan: Oh! but— You would not birch children. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You are right again. They should be coaxed. +</P> + +<P> +Joan: Yes. No. I mean— Good night, dear singer. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Good night, dear milkmaid. Sleep sweetly among your comrades +who are wiser than we, being so indifferent to happy endings that they +would never unpadlock sorrow, though they had the key in their keeping. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Then he took her hands in one of his, and put his other hand very +gently under her chin, and lifted it till he could look into her face, +and he said: "Give me the key to Gillian's prison, little Joan, because +you love happy endings." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Joan: Dear Martin, I cannot give you the key. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Why not? +</P> + +<P> +Joan: Because I stuck it inside your apple. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +So he kissed her and they parted, and lay down and slept; she among her +comrades under the apple-tree, and he under the briony in the hedge; +and the moon came out of her dream and watched theirs. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +With morning came a hoarse voice calling along the hedge: +</P> + +<P> +"Maids! maids! maids!" +</P> + +<P> +Up sprang the milkmaids, rubbing their eyes and stretching their arms; +and up sprang Martin likewise. And seeing him, Joscelyn was stricken +with dismay. +</P> + +<P> +"It is Old Gillman, our master," she whispered, "come with bread and +questions. Quick, singer, quick! into the hollow russet before he +reaches the hole in the hedge." +</P> + +<P> +Swiftly the milkmaids hustled Martin into the russet tree, and +concealed him at the very moment when the Farmer was come to the +peephole, filling it with his round red face and broad gray fringe of +whiskers, like the winter sun on a sky that is going to snow. +</P> + +<P> +"Good morrow, maids," quoth old Gillman. +</P> + +<P> +"Good morrow, master," said they. +</P> + +<P> +"Is my daughter come to her mind yet?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, master," said little Joan, "but I begin to have hopes that she +may." +</P> + +<P> +"If she do not," groaned Gillman, "I know not what will happen to the +farmstead. For it is six months now since I tasted water, and how can a +man follow his business who is fuddled day and night with Barley Wine? +Life is full of hardships, of which daughters are the greatest. +Gillian!" he cried, "when will ye come into your senses and out of the +Well-House?" +</P> + +<P> +But Gillian took no more heed of him than of the quacking of the drake +on the duckpond. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, here is your bread," said Gillman, and he thrust a basket with +seven loaves in it through the gap. "And may to-morrow bring better +tidings." +</P> + +<P> +"One moment, dear master," entreated little Joan. "Tell me, please, how +Nancy my Jersey fares." +</P> + +<P> +"Pines for you, pines for you, maid, though Charles does his best by +her. But it is as though she had taken a vow to let down no milk till +you come again. Rack and ruin, rack and ruin!" +</P> + +<P> +And the old man retreated as he had come, muttering "Rack and ruin!" +the length of the hedge. +</P> + +<P> +The maids then set about preparing breakfast, which was simplicity +itself, being bread and apples than which no breakfast could be +sweeter. There was a loaf for each maid and one over for Gillian, which +they set upon the wall of the Well-House, taking away yesterday's loaf +untouched and stale. +</P> + +<P> +"Does she never eat?" asked Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"She has scarcely broken bread in six months," said Joscelyn, "and what +she lives on besides her thoughts we do not know." +</P> + +<P> +"Thoughts are a fast or a feast according to their nature," said +Martin, "so let us feed the ducks, who have none." +</P> + +<P> +They broke the stale bread into fragments, and when the ducks had made +a meal, returned to their own; and of two loaves made seven parts, that +Martin might have his share, and to this they added apples according to +their fancies, red or russet, green or golden. +</P> + +<P> +After breakfast, at Martin's suggestion, they made little boats of +twigs and leaves and sailed them on the duckpond, where they met with +many adventures and calamities from driftweed, small breezes, and the +curiosity of the ducks. And before they were aware of it the dinner +hour was upon them, when they divided two more loaves as before and ate +apples at will. +</P> + +<P> +Then Martin, taking a handkerchief from his pocket, proposed a game of +Blindman's-Buff, and the girls, delighted, counter +Eener-Meener-Meiner-Mo to find the Blindman. And Joyce was He. So +Martin tied the handkerchief over her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Can you see?" asked Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I can't see!" said Joyce. +</P> + +<P> +"Promise?" said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"I hope, Master Pippin," said Jane reprovingly, "that you can take a +girl's word for it." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure I hope I can," said Martin, and turned Joyce round three +times, and ran for his life. And Joyce caught Jane on the spot and +guessed her immediately. +</P> + +<P> +Then Jane was blindfolded, and she was so particular about not seeing +that it was quite ten minutes before she caught Jennifer, but she knew +who she was by the feel of her gown; and Jennifer caught Joscelyn, and +guessed her by her girdle; and Joscelyn caught Jessica and guessed her +by the darn in her sleeve; and Jessica caught Joan, and guessed her by +her ribbon; and Joan caught Martin, and guessed him by his difference. +</P> + +<P> +So then Martin was Blindman, and it seemed as though he would never +have eyes again; for though he caught all the girls, one after another, +he couldn't guess which was which, and gave Jane's nose to Jessica, and +Jessica's hands to Joscelyn, and Joscelyn's chin to Joyce, and Joyce's +hair to Jennifer, and Jennifer's eyebrows to Joan; but when he caught +Joan he guessed her at once by her littleness. +</P> + +<P> +In due course the change of light told them it was supper-time; and +with great surprise they ate the last two loaves to the sweet +accompaniment of the apples. +</P> + +<P> +"I would never have supposed," said Joscelyn, as they gathered under +the central tree at the close of the meal, "that a day could pass so +quickly." +</P> + +<P> +"Bait time with a diversion," said Martin, "and he will run like a +donkey after a dangled carrot." +</P> + +<P> +"It has nearly been the happiest day of my life," said Joyce with a sly +glance at Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"And why not quite?" said he. +</P> + +<P> +"Because it lacked a story, singer," she said demurely. +</P> + +<P> +"What can be rectified," said Martin, "must be; and the day is not yet +departed, but still lingers like a listener on the threshold of night. +So set the swing in motion, dear Mistress Joyce, and to its measure I +will endeavor to swing my thoughts, which have till now been laggards." +</P> + +<P> +With these words he set Joyce in the swing and himself upon the branch +beside it as before. And the other milkmaids climbed into their +perches, rustling the fruit down from the shaken boughs; and he made of +Joyce's lap a basket for the harvest. And he and each of the maids +chose an apple as though supper had not been. +</P> + +<P> +"We are listening," said Joscelyn from above. +</P> + +<P> +"Not all of you," said Martin. And he looked up at Joscelyn alert on +her branch, and down at Gillian prone on the steps. +</P> + +<P> +"You are here for no other purpose," said Joscelyn, "than to make them +listen that will not. I would not have you think we desire to listen." +</P> + +<P> +"I think nothing but that you are the prey of circumstances," said +Martin, "constrained like flowers to bear witness to that which is +against all nature." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean by that?" said Joscelyn. "Flowers are nature itself." +</P> + +<P> +"So men have agreed," replied Martin, "yet who but men have compelled +them repeatedly to assert such unnaturalnesses as that foxes wear +gloves and cuckoos shoes? Out on the pretty fibbers!" +</P> + +<P> +"Please do not be angry with the flowers," said Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"How could I be?" said Martin. "The flowers must always be forgiven, +because their inconsistencies lie always at men's doors. Besides, who +does not love fairy-tales?" +</P> + +<P> +Then Martin kicked his heels against the tree and sang idly: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + When cuckoos fly in shoes<BR> + And foxes run in gloves,<BR> + Then butterflies won't go in twos<BR> + And boys will leave their loves.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"A silly song," said Joscelyn. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: If you say so. For my part I can never tell the difference +between silliness and sense. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Then how can a good song be told from a bad? You must go by +something. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I go by the sound. But since Mistress Joscelyn pronounces my +song silly, I can only suppose she has seen cuckoos flying in shoes. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: You are always supposing nonsense. Who ever heard of cuckoos +flying in shoes? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Or of foxes running in gloves? +</P> + +<P> +Joan: Or of butterflies going in ones? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Or of boys— +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: I have frequently seen butterflies going in ones, foolish +Joan. And the argument was not against butterflies, but cuckoos. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: And their shoes. Please, dear Mistress Joan, do not look so +downcast, nor you, dear Mistress Joscelyn, so vexed. Let us see if we +cannot turn a more sensible song upon this theme. +</P> + +<P> +And he sang— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Cuckoo Shoes aren't cuckoos' shoes,<BR> + They're shoes which cuckoos never don;<BR> + And cuckoo nests aren't cuckoos' nests,<BR> + But other birds' for a moment gone;<BR> + And nothing that the cuckoo has<BR> + But he does make a mock upon.<BR> + For even when the cuckoo sings<BR> + He only says what isn't true—<BR> + When happy lovers first swore oaths<BR> + An artful cuckoo called and flew,<BR> + Yes! and when lovers weep like dew<BR> + The teasing cuckoo laughs Cuckoo!<BR> + What need for tears? Cuckoo, cuckoo!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +As Martin ended, Gillian raised herself upon an elbow, and looked no +more into the green grass, but across the green duckpond. +</P> + +<P> +"The second song seems to me as irrelevant as the first," said +Joscelyn, "but I observe that you cuckooed so loudly as to startle our +mistress out of her inattention. So if you mean to tell us another +story, by all means tell it now. Not that I care, except for our +extremity." +</P> + +<P> +"It is my only object to ease it," said Martin, "so bear with me as +well as you may during the recital of Young Gerard." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="tale2"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +YOUNG GERARD +</H3> + +<P> +There was once, dear maidens, a shepherd who kept his master's sheep on +Amberley Mount. His name was Gerard, and he was always called Young +Gerard to distinguish him from the other shepherd who was known as Old +Gerard, yet was not, as you might suppose, his father. Their master was +the Lord of Combe Ivy that lay in the southern valleys of the hills +toward the sea; he owned the grazing on the whole circle of the Downs +between the two great roads—on Amberley and Perry and Wepham and +Blackpatch and Cockhill and Highdown and Barnsfarm and Sullington and +Chantry. But the two Gerards lived together in the great shed behind +the copse between Rackham Hill and Kithurst, and the way they came to +do so was this. +</P> + +<P> +One night in April when Old Gerard's gray beard was still brown, the +door of the shed was pushed open, letting in not only the winds of +Spring but a woman wrapped in a green cloak, with a lining of +cherry-color and a border of silver flowers and golden cherries. In one +hand she swung a crystal lantern set in a silver frame, but it had no +light in it; and in the other she held a small slip of a cherry-tree, +but it had no bloom on it. Her dress was white, or had been; for the +skirts of it, and her mantle, were draggled and sodden, and her green +shoes stained and torn, and her long fair hair lay limp and dank upon +her mantle whose hood had fallen away, and the shadows round her blue +eyes were as black as pools under hedgerows thawing after a frost, and +her lovely face was as white as the snowbanks they bed in. Behind her +came another woman in a duffle cloak, a crone with eyes as black as +sloes, and a skin as brown as beechnuts, and unkempt hair like the +fireless smoke of Old Man's Beard straying where it will on the +November woodsides. She too was wet and soiled, but full of life where +the young one seemed full of death. +</P> + +<P> +The Shepherd looked at this strange pair and said surlily, "What want +ye?" +</P> + +<P> +"Shelter," replied the crone. +</P> + +<P> +She pushed the lady, who never spoke, into the shed, and took from her +shoulders the wet mantle, and from her hands the lantern and the tree; +and led her to the Shepherd's bed and laid her down. Then she spread +the mantle over the Shepherd's bench and, +</P> + +<P> +"Lie there," said she, "till love warms ye." +</P> + +<P> +Next she hung the lantern up on a nail in the wall, and, +</P> + +<P> +"Swing there," said she, "till love lights ye." +</P> + +<P> +Last she took the Shepherd's trowel and went outside the shed, and set +the cherry-slip beside the door. And she said: +</P> + +<P> +"Grow there, till love blossoms ye." +</P> + +<P> +After this she came inside and sat down at the bedhead. +</P> + +<P> +Gerard the Shepherd, who had watched her proceedings without word or +gesture, said to himself, "They've come through the floods." +</P> + +<P> +He looked across at the women and raised his voice to ask, "Did ye come +through the floods?" +</P> + +<P> +The lady moaned a little, and the crone said, "Let her be and go to +sleep. What does it matter where we came from by night? By daybreak we +shall both of us be gone no matter whither." +</P> + +<P> +The Shepherd said no more, for though he was both curious and +ill-tempered he had not the courage to disturb the lady, knowing by the +richness of her attire that she was of the quality; and the iron of +serfdom was driven deep into his soul. So he went to sleep on his +stool, as he had been bidden. But in the middle of the night he was +awakened by a gusty wind and the banging of his door; and he started up +rubbing his knuckles in his eyes, saying, "I've been dreaming of +strange women, but was it a dream or no?" He peered about the shed, and +the crone had vanished utterly, but the lady still lay on his bed. And +when he went over to look at her, she was dead. But beside her lay a +newborn child that opened its eyes and wailed at him. +</P> + +<P> +Then the Shepherd ran to his open door and stared into the blowing +night, but there were no more signs of the crone without than there +were within. So he fastened the latch and came back to the bedside, and +examined the child.— +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(But at this point Martin Pippin interrupted himself, and seizing the +rope of the swing set it rocking violently. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: I shall fall! I shall fall! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Then you will be no worse off than I, who have fallen already. +For I see you do not like my story. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: What makes you say so? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Till now you listened with all your ears, but a moment ago you +turned away your head a moment too late to hide the disappointment in +your eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: It is true I am disappointed. Because the beautiful lady is +dead, and how can a love-story be, if half the lovers are dead? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Dear Mistress Joyce, what has love to do with death? Love and +death are strangers and speak in different tongues. Women may die and +men may die, but lovers are ignorant of mortality. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce (pouting): That may be, singer. But lovers are also a man and a +woman, and the woman is dead, and the love-tale ended before we have +even heard it. You should not have let the woman die. What sort of +love-tale is this, now the woman is dead? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Are not more nests than one built in a spring-time?—Give me, I +pray you, two hairs of your head. +</P> + +<P> +She plucked two and gave them to him, turning her pouting to laughing. +One of them Martin coiled and held before his lips, and blew on it. +</P> + +<P> +"There it flies," said he, and gave her back the second hair. "Hold +fast by this and keep it from its fellow with all your might, for to +part true mates baffles the forces of the universe. And when you give +me this second hair again I swear I will send it where it will find its +fellow. But I will never ask for it until, my story ended, you say to +me, I am content.'") +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Examining the child (repeated Martin) the Shepherd discovered it to be +a lusty boy-child, and this rejoiced him, so that while the baby wept +he laughed aloud. +</P> + +<P> +"It is better to weep for something than for nothing," said he, "and to +laugh for something likewise. Tears are for serfs and laughter is for +freedmen." For he had conceived the plan of selling the child to his +master, the Lord of Combe Ivy, and buying his freedom with the purchase +money. So in the morning he carried the body of the lady into the heart +of the copse, and there he dug a grave and laid her in it in her white +gown. And afterwards he went up hill and down dale to his master, and +said he had a man for sale. The Lord of Combe Ivy, who was a jovial +lord and a bachelor, laughed at the tale he had to tell; but being +always of the humor for a jest he paid the Shepherd a gold piece for +the child, and promised him another each midnight on the anniversary of +its birth; but on the twenty-first anniversary, he said, the Shepherd +was to bring back the twenty-one gold pieces he had received, and +instead of adding another to them he would take them again, and make +the serf a freedman, and the child his serf. +</P> + +<P> +"For," said the Lord of Combe Ivy, "an infant is a poor deal for a man +in his prime, as you are, but a youth come to manhood is a good +exchange for a graybeard, as you will be. Therefore rear this babe as +you please, and if he live to manhood so much the better for you, but +if he die first it's all one to me." +</P> + +<P> +The Shepherd had hoped for a better bargain, but he must needs be +content with seeing liberty at a distance. So he returned to his shed +on the hills and made a leather purse to keep his gold-piece in, and +hung it round his neck, touching it fifty times a day under his shirt +to be sure it was still there. And presently he sought among his ewes +one who had borne her young, saying, "You shall mother two instead of +one." And the baby sucked the ewe like her very lamb, and thrived upon +the milk. And the shepherd called the child Gerard after himself, +"since," he said, "it is as good a name for a shepherd as another"; and +from that time they became the Young and Old Gerards to all who knew +them. +</P> + +<P> +So the Young Gerard grew up, and as he grew the cherry-tree grew +likewise, but in the strangest fashion; for though it flourished past +all expectation, it never put forth either leaf or blossom. This +bitterly vexed Old Gerard, who had hoped in time for fruit, and the +frustration of his hopes became to him a cause of grievance against the +boy. A further grudge was that by no manner of means could he succeed +in lighting any wick or candle in the silver lantern, of which he +desired to make use. +</P> + +<P> +"But if your tree and your lantern won't work," said he, "it's no +reason why you shouldn't." So he put Young Gerard to work, first as +sheepboy to his own flock, but later the boy had a flock of his own. +There was no love lost between these two, and kicks and curses were the +young one's fare; for he was often idle and often a truant, and none +was held responsible for him except the old shepherd who was selling +him piece-meal, year by year, to their master. Because of what depended +on him, Old Gerard was constrained to show him some sort of care when +he would liever have wrung his neck. The boy's fits exasperated the +man; whether he was cutting strange capers and laughing without reason, +as he frequently did, or sitting a whole evening in a morose dream, +staring at the fire or at the stars, and saying never a word. The boy's +coloring was as mingled as his moods, a blend of light and dark—black +hair, brown skin, blue eyes and golden lashes, a very odd anomaly. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(Martin: What is it, Mistress Joyce? +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: I said nothing, Master Pippin. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I thought I heard you sigh. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: I did not—you did not. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: My imagination exceeds all bounds.) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Because of their mutual dislike, when the boy was put in charge of his +own sheep the two shepherds spent their days apart. The Old Gerard +grazed his flock to the east as far as Chantry, but the Young Gerard +grazed his flock to the west as far as Amberley, whose lovely dome was +dearer to him than all the other hills of Sussex. And here he would sit +all day watching the cloud-shadows stalk over the face of the Downs, or +slipping along the land below him, with the sun running swiftly after, +like a carpet of light unrolling itself upon a dusky floor. And in the +evening he watched the smoke going up from the tiny cottages till it +was almost dark, and a hundred tiny lights were lit in a hundred tiny +windows. Sometimes on his rare holidays, and on other days too, he ran +away to the Wildbrooks to watch the herons, or to find in the +water-meadows the tallest kingcups in the whole world, and the myriad +treasures of the river—the giant comfrey, purple and white, +meadowsweet, St. John's Wort, purple loose-strife, willowherb, and the +ninety-nine-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-five others, or whatever +number else you please, that go to make a myriad. He came to know more +about the ways of the Wildbrooks than any other lad of those parts, and +one day he rediscovered the Lost Causeway that can be traveled even in +the floods, when the land lies under a lake at the foot of the hills. +He kept this, like many other things, a secret; but he had one more +precious still. +</P> + +<P> +For as he lay and watched the play of sun and shadow on the plains, he +fancied a world of strange places he had known, somewhere beyond the +veils of light and mist that hung between his vision and the distance, +and he fell into a frequent dream of tunes and laughter, and sunlit +boughs in blossom, and dancing under the boughs; or of fires burning in +the open night, and a wilder singing and dancing in the starlight; and +often when his body was lying on the round hill, or by the smoky +hearth, his thoughts were running with lithe boys as strong and +careless as he was, or playing with lovely free-limbed girls with +flowing hair. Sometimes these people were fair and bright-haired and in +light and lovely clothing, and at others they were dark, with eyes of +mischief, and clad in the gayest rags; and sometimes they came to him +in a mingled company, made one by their careless hearts. +</P> + +<P> +One evening in April, on the twelfth anniversary, when Young Gerard +came to gather his flock, a lamb was missing; so to escape a scolding +he waited awhile on the hills till Old Gerard should be gone about his +business. What this was Young Gerard did not know, he only knew that +each year on this night the old shepherd left him to his own devices, +and returned in the small hours of the morning. Not therefore until he +judged that the master must have left the hut, did the boy fold his +sheep; and this done he ran out on the hills again, seeking the lost +lamb. For careless though he was he cared for his sheep, as he did for +all things that ran on legs or flew on wings. So he went swinging his +lantern under the stars, singing and whistling and smelling the spring. +Now and then he paused and bleated like a ewe; and presently a small +whimper answered his signal. +</P> + +<P> +"My lost lamb crying on the hills," said Young Gerard. He called again, +but at the sound of his voice the other stopped, and for a moment he +stood quite still, listening and perplexed. +</P> + +<P> +"Where are you, my lamb?" said he. +</P> + +<P> +"Here," said a little frightened voice behind a bush. +</P> + +<P> +He laughed aloud and went forward, and soon discovered a tiny girl +cowering under a thorn. When she saw him she ran quickly and grasped +his sleeve and hid her face in it and wept. She was small for her +years, which were not more than eight. +</P> + +<P> +Young Gerard, who was big for his, picked her up and looked at her +kindly and curiously. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, you little thing?" said he. +</P> + +<P> +"I got lost," said the child shyly through her tears. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, now you're found," said Young Gerard, "so don't cry any more." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but I'm hungry," sobbed the child. +</P> + +<P> +"Then come with me. Will you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Where to?" +</P> + +<P> +"To a feast in a palace." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +Young Gerard set her on his shoulder, and went back the way he had +come, till the dark shape of his wretched shed stood big between them +and the sky. +</P> + +<P> +"Is this your palace?" said the child. +</P> + +<P> +"That's it," said Young Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't know palaces had cracks in the walls," said she. +</P> + +<P> +"This one has," explained Young Gerard, "because it's so old." And she +was satisfied. +</P> + +<P> +Then she asked, "What is that funny tree by the door?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's a cherry-tree." +</P> + +<P> +"My father's cherry-trees have flowers on them," said she. +</P> + +<P> +"This one hasn't," said Young Gerard, "because it's not old enough." +</P> + +<P> +"One day will it be?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"One day," he said. And that contented her. +</P> + +<P> +He then carried her into the shed, and she looked around eagerly to see +what a palace might be like inside; and it was full of flickering +lights and shadows and the scent of burning wood, and she did not see +how poor and dirty the room was; for the firelight gleamed upon a mass +of golden fruit and silver bloom embroidered on the covering of the +settle by the hearth, and sparkled against a silver and crystal lantern +hanging in the chimney. And between the cracks on the walls Young +Gerard had stuck wands of gold and silver palm and branches of snowy +blackthorn, and on the floor was a dish full of celandine and daisies, +and a broken jar of small wild daffodils. And the child knew that all +these things were the treasures of queens and kings. +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you have that?" she asked, pointing to the crystal lantern +as Young Gerard set down his horn one. +</P> + +<P> +"Because I can't light it," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"Let ME light it!" she begged; so he fetched it from its nail, and +thrust a pine twig in the fire and gave her the sweet-smoking torch. +But in vain she tried to light the wick, which always spluttered and +went out again. So seeing her disappointment Young Gerard hung the +lantern up, saying, "Firelight is prettier." And he set her by the fire +and filled her lap with cones and dry leaves and dead bracken to burn +and make crackle and turn into fiery ferns. And she was pleased. +</P> + +<P> +Then he looked about and found his own wooden cup, and went away and +came back with the cup full of milk, set on a platter heaped with +primroses, and when he brought it to her she looked at it with shining +eyes and asked: +</P> + +<P> +"Is this the feast?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's it," said Young Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +And she drank it eagerly. And while she drank Young Gerard fetched a +pipe and began to whistle tunes on it as mad as any thrush, and the +child began to laugh, and jumped up, spilling her leaves and primroses, +and danced between the fitful lights and shadows as though she were, +now a shadow taken shape, and now a flame. Whenever he paused she +cried, "Oh, let me dance! Don't stop! Let me go on dancing!" until at +the same moment she dropped panting on the hearth and he flung his pipe +behind him and fell on his back with his heels in the air, crying, +"Pouf! d'you think I've the four quarters of heaven in my lungs, or +what?" But as though to prove he had yet a capful of wind under his +ribs, he suddenly began to sing a song she'd never heard before, and it +went like this: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + I looked before me and behind,<BR> + I looked beyond the sun and wind,<BR> + Beyond the rainbow and the snow,<BR> + And saw a land I used to know.<BR> + The floods rolled up to keep me still<BR> + A captive on my heavenly hill,<BR> + And on their bright and dangerous glass<BR> + Was written, Boy, you shall not pass!<BR> + I laughed aloud, You shining seas,<BR> + I'll run away the day I please!<BR> + I am not winged like any plover<BR> + Yet I've a way shall take me over,<BR> + I am not finned like any bream<BR> + Yet I can cross you, lake and stream.<BR> + And I my hidden land shall find<BR> + That lies beyond the sun and wind—<BR> + Past drowned grass and drowning trees<BR> + I'll run away the day I please,<BR> + I'll run like one whom nothing harms<BR> + With my bonny in my arms.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"What does that mean?" asked the child. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure I don't know," said Young Gerard. He kicked at the dying log +on the hearth, and sent a fountain of sparks up the chimney. The child +threw a dry leaf and saw it shrivel, and Young Gerard stirred the white +ash and blew up the embers, and held a fan of bracken to them, till the +fire ran up its veins like life in the veins of a man, and the frond +that had already lived and died became a gleaming spirit, and then it +too fell in ashes among the ash. Then Young Gerard took a handful of +twigs and branches, and began to build upon the ash a castle of many +sorts of wood, and the child helped him, laying hazel on his beech and +fir upon his oak; and often before their turret was quite reared a +spark would catch at the dry fringes of the fir, or the brown +oakleaves, and one twig or another would vanish from the castle. +</P> + +<P> +"How quickly wood burns," said the child. +</P> + +<P> +"That's the lovely part of it," said Young Gerard, "the fire is always +changing and doing different things with it." +</P> + +<P> +And they watched the fire together, and smelled its smoke, that had as +many smells as there were sorts of wood. Sometimes it was like roast +coffee, and sometimes like roast chestnuts, and sometimes like incense. +And they saw the lichen on old stumps crinkle into golden ferns, or +fire run up a dead tail of creeper in a red S, and vanish in mid-air +like an Indian boy climbing a rope, or crawl right through the middle +of a birch-twig, making hieroglyphics that glowed and faded between the +gray scales of the bark. And then suddenly it caught the whole +scaffolding of their castle, and blazed up through the fir and oak and +spiny thorns and dead leaves, and the bits of old bark all over +blue-gray-green rot, and the young sprigs almost budding, and hissing +with sap. And for one moment they saw all the skeleton and soul of the +castle without its body, before it fell in. +</P> + +<P> +The child sighed a little and yawned a little and said: +</P> + +<P> +"How nice it is to live in a palace. Who lives here with you?" +</P> + +<P> +"My friends," said Young Gerard, poking at the log with a bit of stick. +</P> + +<P> +"What are your friends like?" she asked him, rubbing her knuckles in +her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +He was silent for a little, stirring up sparks and smoke. Then he +answered, "They are gay in their hearts, and they're dressed in bright +clothes, and they come with singing and dancing." +</P> + +<P> +"Who else lives in your palace with you?" she asked drowsily. +</P> + +<P> +"You do," said Young Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +The child's head dropped against his shoulder and she said, "My name's +Dorothea, but my father calls me Thea, and he is the Lord of Combe +Ivy." And she fell fast asleep. +</P> + +<P> +For a little while Young Gerard held and watched her in the firelight, +and then he rose and wrapped her in the old embroidered mantle on the +settle, and went out. And sure-foot as a goat he carried her over the +dark hills by the tracks he knew, for roads there were none, and his +arms ached with his burden, but he would not wake her till they stood +at her father's gates. Then he shook her gently and set her down, and +she clung to him a little dazed, trying to remember. +</P> + +<P> +"This is Combe Ivy," he whispered. "You must go in alone. Will you come +again?" +</P> + +<P> +"One day," said Thea. +</P> + +<P> +"One day there'll be flowers on my cherry-tree," said Young Gerard. +"Don't forget." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I won't," she said. +</P> + +<P> +He returned through the night up hill and down dale, but did not go +back to the shed until he had recovered his lamb. By then it was almost +dawn, and he found his master awake and cursing. He had feared the boy +had made off, and he had had curt treatment at Combe Ivy, which was in +a stir about the loss of the little daughter. Young Gerard showed the +lamb as his excuse, nevertheless the old shepherd leathered the young +one soundly, as he did six days in seven. +</P> + +<P> +After this when Young Gerard sat dreaming on the hills, he dreamed not +only of his happy land and laughing friends, but of the next coming of +little Thea. But Combe Ivy was far away, and the months passed and the +years, and she did not come again. Meanwhile Young Gerard and his tree +grew apace, and the limbs of the boy became longer and stronger, and +the branches of the tree spread up to the roof and even began to thrust +their way through the holes in the wall; but the boy's life, save for +his dreaming, was as friendless as the tree's was flowerless. And of a +tree's dreaming who shall speak? Meanwhile Old Gerard thrashed and +rated him, and reckoned his gold pieces, and counted the years that +still lay between him and his freedom. At last came another April +bringing its hour. +</P> + +<P> +For as he sat on the Mount in the early morning, when he was in his +seventeenth year, Young Gerard saw a slender girl running over the turf +and laughing in the sunlight, sometimes stopping to watch a bird +flying, or stooping to pluck one of the tiny Down-flowers at her feet. +So she came with a dancing step to the top of the Mount, and then she +saw him, and her glee left her and shyness took its place. But a little +pride in her prevented her from turning away, and she still came +forward until she stood beside him, and said: +</P> + +<P> +"Good morning, Shepherd. Is it true that in April the country north of +the hills is filled with lakes?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sometimes, Mistress Thea," said Young Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him with surprise and said, "You must be one of my +father's shepherds, but I do not remember seeing you at Combe Ivy." +</P> + +<P> +"I was only once near Combe Ivy," said Young Gerard, "when I took you +there five years ago the night you were lost on these hills." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I remember," she said with a faint smile. "How they did scold me. +Is your cherry-tree in flower yet, Shepherd?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, mistress," said Young Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"I want to see it," she said suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +Young Gerard left his flock to the dog, and walked with her along the +hillbrow. +</P> + +<P> +"I have run away," she told him as they went. "I had to get up very +early while they were asleep. I shall be scolded again. But travelers +come who talk of the lakes, and I wanted to see them, and to swim in +them." +</P> + +<P> +"I wouldn't do that," said Young Gerard, hiding a smile. "It's +dangerous to swim in the April floods. And it would be rather cold." +</P> + +<P> +"What lies beyond?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not able to know," said Young Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"Some day I mean to know, shepherd." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, mistress," he said, "you'll be free to." +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him quickly and reddened a little, it might have been +from shame or pity, Young Gerard did not know which. And her shyness +once more enveloped her; it always came over her unexpectedly, taking +her breath away like a breaking wave. So she said no more, and they +walked together, she looking at the ground, he at the soft brown hair +blowing over the curve of her young cheek. She was fine and delicate in +every line, and in her color, and in the touch of her too, Young Gerard +knew. He wanted to touch her cheek with his finger as he would have +touched the petal of a flower. Her neck, the back of it especially, was +one of the loveliest bits of her, like a primrose stalk. He fell a step +behind so that he could look at it. They did not speak as they went. He +did not want to, and she did not know what to say. +</P> + +<P> +When they reached the shed she lingered a moment by the tree, tracing a +bare branch with her finger, and he waited, content, till she should +speak or act, to watch her. At last she said with her faint smile, "I +am very thirsty." Then he went into the shed and came out with his +wooden cup filled with milk. She drank and said, "Thank you, shepherd. +How pretty the violets are in your copse." +</P> + +<P> +"Would you like some?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Not now," she said. "Perhaps another day. I must go now." She gave him +back his cup and went away, slowly at first, but when she was at some +distance he saw her begin to run like a fawn. +</P> + +<P> +She did not come again that spring. And so the stark lives of the boy +and the tree went forward for another year. But one evening in the +following April, when the green was quivering on wood and hedgerow, he +came to the door of the shed and saw her bending like a flower at the +edge of the copse, filling her little basket and singing to herself. +She looked up soon and said: +</P> + +<P> +"Good evening, shepherd. How does your cherry-tree?" +</P> + +<P> +"As usual, Mistress Thea." +</P> + +<P> +"So I see. What a lazy tree it is. Have you some milk for me?" +</P> + +<P> +He brought her his cup and she drank of it for the third time, and left +him before he had had time to realize that she had come and gone, but +only how greatly her delicate beauty had increased in the last year. +</P> + +<P> +However, before the summer was over she came again—to swim in the +river, she told him, as she passed him on the hills, without lingering. +And in the autumn she came to gather blackberries, and he showed her +the best place to find them. Any of these things she might have done as +easily nearer Combe Ivy, but it seemed she must always offer him some +reason for her small truancies—whether to gather berries or flowers, +or to swim in the river. He knew that her chief delight lay in escaping +from her father's manor. +</P> + +<P> +Winter closed her visits; but Young Gerard was as patient as the earth, +and did not begin to look for her till April. As surely as it brought +leaves to the trees and flowers to the grass, it would, he knew, bring +his little mistress's question, half shy, half smiling, "Is your +cherry-tree in blossom, shepherd?" And later her request, smiling and +shy, for milk. +</P> + +<P> +They seldom exchanged more than a few words at any time. Sometimes they +did not speak at all. For he, who was her father's servant, never spoke +first; and she, growing in years and loveliness, grew also in timidity, +so that it seemed to cost her more and more to address her greeting or +her question even to her father's servant. The sweet quick reddening of +her cheek was one of Young Gerard's chief remembrances of her. +</P> + +<P> +But after a while, when they met by those sly chances which she could +control and he could not; and when she did not speak, but glanced and +hesitated and passed on; or glanced and passed without hesitation; or +passed without a glance; he came to know that she would not mind if he +arose and walked with her, if he could control the pretext, which she +could not. And he did so quietly, having always something to show her. +</P> + +<P> +He showed her his most secret nests and his greatest treasures of +flowers, his because he loved them so much. He would have been jealous +of showing these things to any one but her. In a great water-meadow in +the valley, he had once shown her kingcups making sheets of gold, +enameled with every green grass ever seen in spring—thousands of +kingcups and a myriad of milkmaids in between, dancing attendance in +all their faint shades of silver-white and rosy-mauve. When a breeze +blew, this world of milkmaids swayed and curtsied above the kings' +daughters in their glory. Then Gerard and Thea looked at each other +smiling, because the same delight was in each, and soon she looked away +again at the gentle maids and the royal ladies, but he looked still at +her, who was both to him. +</P> + +<P> +In silence he showed her what he loved. +</P> + +<P> +But you must not suppose that she came frequently to those hills. She +was to be seen no more often than you will see a kingfisher when you +watch for it under a willow. Yet because in the season of kingfishers +you know you may see one flash at any instant, so to Young Gerard each +day of spring and summer was an expectancy; and this it was that kept +his lift alight. This and his young troop of friends in a land of fruit +in blossom and a sky in stars. For men, dear maids, live by the daily +bread of their dreams; on realizations they would starve. +</P> + +<P> +At last came the winter that preceded Young Gerard's twenty-first year. +With the stripping of the boughs he stripped his heart of all thoughts +of seeing her again till the green of the coming year. The snows came, +and he tended his sheep and counted his memories; and Old Gerard tended +his sheep and counted his coins. The count was full now, and he dreamed +of April and the freeing of his body. Young Gerard also dreamed of +April, and the freeing of his heart. And under the ice that bound the +flooded meadows doubtless the earth dreamed of the freeing of her +waters and the blooming of the land. The snows and the frosts lasted +late that year as though the winter would never be done, and to the two +Gerards the days crawled like snails; but in time March blew himself +off the face of the earth, and April dawned, and the swollen river went +rushing to the sea above the banks it had drowned with its wild +overflow. And as Old Gerard began to mark the days off on a tally, +Young Gerard began to listen on the hills. When the day came whose +midnight was to make the old man a freedman, Thea had not appeared. +</P> + +<P> +On the morning of this day, as the two shepherds stood outside their +shed before they separated with their flocks, their ears were accosted +with shoutings and halloos on the other side of the copse, and soon +they saw coming through the trees a man in gay attire. He had a +scalloped jerkin of orange leather, and his shoes and cap were of the +same, but his sleeves and hose and feather were of a vivid green, like +nothing in nature. He looked garish in the sun. Seeing the shepherds he +took off his cap, and solemnly thanked heaven for having after all +created something besides hills and valleys. "For," said he, "after +being lost among them I know not how many hours, with no other company +than my own shadow, I had begun to doubt whether I was not the only man +on earth, and my name Adam. A curse of all lords who do not live by +highroads!" +</P> + +<P> +"Where are you bound for, master?" asked Old Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"Combe Ivy," said the stranger, "and the wedding." +</P> + +<P> +Old Gerard nodded, as one little surprised; but to Young Gerard this +mention of a wedding at Combe Ivy came as news. It did not stir him +much, however, for he was not curious about the doings of the master +and the house he never saw; all that concerned him was that to-day, at +least, he must cease to listen on the hills, since his young mistress +would be at the wedding with the others. +</P> + +<P> +Old Gerard said to the stranger, "Keep the straight track to the south +till you come under Wepham, then follow the valley to the east, and so +you'll be in time for the feasting, master." +</P> + +<P> +"That's certain," said the stranger, "for the Lord of Combe Ivy and the +Rough Master of Coates have had no peers at junketing since Gay Street +lost its Lord; and the feast is like to go on till midnight." +</P> + +<P> +With that he went on his way, and Old Gerard followed him with his +eyes, muttering, +</P> + +<P> +"Would I also were there! But for you," he said, turning on the young +man with a sudden snarl, "I should be! Had ye not come a day too late, +I'd be a freedman to-night instead of to-morrow, and junketing at the +wedding with the rest." +</P> + +<P> +Young Gerard did not understand him. He was not in the habit of +questioning the old man, and if he had would not have expected answers. +But certain words of the stranger had pricked his attention, and now he +said: +</P> + +<P> +"Where is Gay Street?" +</P> + +<P> +"Far away over the Stor and the Chill," growled Old Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a jolly name." +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe. But they say it's a sorry place now that it lacks its Lord." +</P> + +<P> +"What became of him?" +</P> + +<P> +"How should I know? What can a man know who lives all his life on a +hill with pewits for gossips?" +</P> + +<P> +"You know more than I," said Young Gerard indolently. "You know there's +a wedding down yonder. Who's the Rough Master of Coates?" +</P> + +<P> +"The bridegroom, young know-nothing. You've a tongue in your head +to-day." +</P> + +<P> +"Why do they call him the Rough Master?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because that's what he is, and so are his people, as rough as furze on +a common, they say. Have you any more questions?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Young Gerard. "Who is the bride?" +</P> + +<P> +"Who should the bride be? Combe Ivy's mother?" +</P> + +<P> +"She's dead," said Young Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"His daughter then," scoffed Old Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +Young Gerard stared at him. +</P> + +<P> +"Get about your business," shouted the old shepherd with sudden wrath. +"Why do ye stare so? You're not drunk. Ah! down yonder they'll be +getting drunk without me. Enough of your idling and staring!" +</P> + +<P> +He raised his staff, but Young Gerard thrust it aside so violently that +he staggered, and the boy went away to his sheep and they met no more +till evening. The whole of that day Young Gerard sat on the Mount, not +looking as usual to the busy north dreaming of the unknown land beyond +the water, but over the silent slopes and valleys of the south, whose +peoples were only birds and foxes and rabbits, and whose only cities +were built of lights and shadows. Somewhere beyond them was Combe Ivy, +and little Thea getting married to the Rough Master of Coates, in the +midst of feasting and singing and dancing. He thought of her dancing +over the Downs for joy of being free, he thought of her singing to +herself as she gathered flowers in his copse, and he thought of her +feasting on wild berries he had helped her to find—that also was a +feasting and singing and dancing. All day long his thoughts ran, "She +will not come any more in the mornings to bathe in the river over the +hill. She will not come with her little basket to gather flowers and +berries. She will not stop and ask for a cup of milk, or say, Let me +see the young lambs, or say, Is your cherry-tree in flower yet, +shepherd? She will not ask me with her eyes to come with her—oh, she +will not ask me by turning her eyes away, with her little head bent. +You! you Rough Master of Coates, what are you like, what are you like?" +</P> + +<P> +In the evening when he gathered his sheep, one was missing. He had to +take the flock back without it. Old Gerard was furious with him; it +seemed as though on this last night that separated him from the long +fulfillment of his hopes he must be more furious than he had ever been +before. He was furious at being thwarted of the fun in the valley, +furious at the loss of the lamb, most furious at young Gerard's +indifference to his fury. He told the boy he must search on the hills, +and Young Gerard only sat down by the side of the shed and looked to +the south and made no answer. So he went himself, leaving the boy to +prepare the mess for supper; for he feared that if he went to Combe Ivy +that night with a bad tale to tell, his master for a whim might say +that a young sheep was a fair deal for an old shepherd, and take his +gold, and keep him a bondman still. For the Lord of Combe Ivy lived by +his whimsies. But Old Gerard could not find the lost sheep, and when he +came back the boy was where he had left him, looking over the darkening +hills. +</P> + +<P> +"Is the mess ready?" said Old Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Young Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because I forgot." +</P> + +<P> +Old Gerard slashed at him with a rope he had taken in case of need. +"That will make you remember." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Young Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +Young Gerard said, "You beat me too often, I cannot remember all the +reasons." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said Old Gerard full of wrath, "I will beat you out of all +reason." +</P> + +<P> +And he began to thrash Young Gerard will all his might, talking between +the blows. "Haven't you been the curse of my life for twenty-one +years?" snarled he. "Can I trust you? Can I leave you? Would the sheep +get their straw? Would the lambs be brought alive into the world? Bah! +for all you care the sheep would go cold and their young would die. And +down yonder they are getting drunk without me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Old shepherd," said a voice behind him. +</P> + +<P> +The angry man, panting with his rage and the exertion of his blows, +paused and turned. Near the corner of the shed he saw a woman in a +duffle cloak standing, or rather stooping, on her crutch. She was so +ancient that it seemed as though Death himself must have forgotten her, +but her eyes in their wrinkled sockets were as piercing as thorns. Old +Gerard, staring at them, felt as though his own eyes were pricked. +</P> + +<P> +"Where have I seen you before, hag?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you ever seen me before?" asked the old woman. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought so, I thought so"—he fumbled with his memory. +</P> + +<P> +"Then it must have been when we went courting in April, nine-and-ninety +years ago," said the old woman dryly, "but you lads remember me better +than I do you. Can I sleep by your hearth to-night?" +</P> + +<P> +"Where are you going to?" asked Old Gerard, half grinning, half sour. +</P> + +<P> +"Where I'll be welcome," said she. +</P> + +<P> +"You're not welcome here. But there's nothing to steal, you may sleep +by the hearth." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, shepherd," said the crone, "for your courtesy. Why were you +beating the boy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because he's one that won't work." +</P> + +<P> +"Is he your slave?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's my master's slave. But he's idle." +</P> + +<P> +"I am not idle," said Young Gerard. "The year round I'm busy long +before dawn and long after dark." +</P> + +<P> +"Then why are you idle to-day," sneered Old Gerard, "of all the days in +the year?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've something else to think of," said the boy. +</P> + +<P> +"You see," said the old man to the crone. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said she, "a boy cannot always be working. A boy will sometimes +be dreaming. Life isn't all labor, shepherd." +</P> + +<P> +"What else is it?" said Old Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"Joy." +</P> + +<P> +"Ho, ho, ho!" went Old Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"And power." +</P> + +<P> +"Ho, ho, ho!" +</P> + +<P> +"And triumph." +</P> + +<P> +"Not for serfs," said Old Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"For serfs and lords," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Ho, ho, ho!" +</P> + +<P> +"You were young once," said the crone. +</P> + +<P> +Old Gerard said, "What if I was?" +</P> + +<P> +"Good night," said the crone; and she went into the shed. +</P> + +<P> +The shepherds looked after her, the old one stupidly, the young one +with lighted eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you get supper?" growled Old Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Young Gerard, "I won't. I want no supper. Put down that +rope. I am taller and stronger than you, and why I've let you go on +beating me so long I don't know, unless it is that you began to beat me +when you were taller and stronger than I. If you want any supper, get +it yourself." +</P> + +<P> +Old Gerard turned red and purple. "The boy's mad!" he gasped. "Do you +know what happens to servants who defy their masters?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Young Gerard, "then they're lords." And he too went into +the shed. +</P> + +<P> +"Try that on Combe Ivy!" bawled Old Gerard, "and see what you'll get +for it. I thank fortune, I'll be quit of you tomorrow— What's that +to-do in the valley?" he muttered, and stared down the hill. +</P> + +<P> +Away in the hollows and shadows he saw splashes of moving light, and +heard far-off snatches of song and laughter, but the movements and +sounds were still so distant that they seemed to be only those of +ghosts and echoes. Nearer they came and nearer, and now in the night he +could discern a great rabble stumbling among the dips and rises of the +hills. +</P> + +<P> +"They're heading this way," said Old Gerard. "Why, tis the +wedding-party," he said amazed, "if it's not witchcraft. But why are +they coming here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hola! hola! hola!" shouted a tipsy voice hard by. +</P> + +<P> +"Here's dribblings from the wineskin," said Old Gerard; and up the +track struggled a drunken man, waving a torch above his head. It was +the guest whom he had directed in the morning. +</P> + +<P> +"Hola!" he shouted again on seeing Old Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, racketer?" said the shepherd, with a chuckle. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall a man not racket at another man's wedding?" he cried. "Let some +one be jolly, say I!" +</P> + +<P> +"The bridegroom," said Old Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"Ha, ha!" laughed the other, "the bridegroom! He was first in high +feather and last in the sulks." +</P> + +<P> +"The bride, then." +</P> + +<P> +"Ha, ha! ha, ha! during the toasts he tried to kiss her." +</P> + +<P> +"Wouldn't she?" +</P> + +<P> +"She wouldn't." +</P> + +<P> +"Hark!" said Old Gerard, "here they come." The sound of rollicking +increased as the rout drew nearer. +</P> + +<P> +"He's taking her home across the river," said the guest. "I wouldn't be +she. There she sat, her pretty face fixed and frozen, but a fright in +her that shook her whole body. You could see it shake. And we drank, +how we drank! to the bride and the groom and their daughters and sons, +to the sire and the priest, and the ring and the bed, to the kiss and +the quarrel, to love which is one thing and marriage which is +another—Lord, how we drank! But she drank nothing. And for all her +terror the Rough could do no more with her than with a stone. Something +in her turned him cold every time. Suddenly up he gets. We'll have no +more of this,' he says, we'll go.' Combe Ivy would have had them stay, +but She's where she's used to lord it here,' says Rough, I'll take +her where I lord it, and teach her who's master,' And he pushes down +his chair and takes her hand and pulls her away; and out we tumble +after him. Combe Ivy cries to him to wait for the horses, but no, +We'll foot it,' says he, up hill and down dale as the crow flies, and +if she hates me now without a cause I swear she'll love me with one at +the end of the dance.' We're dancing them as far as the Wildbrooks; on +t'other side they may dance for themselves. Here they come +dancing—dance, you!" cried the guest, and whirled his torch like a +madman. And as he whirled and staggered, up the hill came the +wedding-party as tipsy as he was: a motley procession, waving torches +and garlands, winecups, flagons, colored napkins, shouting and singing +and beating on trenchers and salvers—on anything that they could +snatch from the table as they quitted it. They came in all their +bravery—in doublets of flame-colored silk and blue, in scarlet leather +and green velvet, in purple slashed with silver and crimson fringed +with bronze; but their vests were unlaced, their hose sagged, and silk +and velvet and leather were stained bright or dark with wine. Some had +stuck leaves and flowers in their hair, others had tied their forelocks +with ribbons like horses on a holiday, and one had torn his yellow +mantle in two and capered in advance, waving the halves in either hand +like monstrous banners, or the flapping wings of some golden bird of +prey. In the midst of them, pressing forward and pressed on by the riot +behind, was the Rough Master of Coates, and with him, always hanging a +little away and shrinking under her veil, Thea, whose right wrist he +grasped in his left hand. Breathless she was among the breathless +rabble, who, gaining the hilltop seized each other suddenly and broke +into antics, shaking their napkins and rattling on their plates. Their +voices were hoarse with laughter and drink, and their faces flushed +with it; only among those red and swollen faces, the bridegroom's, in +the flare of the torches, looked as black as the bride's looked white. +The night about the newly-wedded pair was one great din and flutter. +</P> + +<P> +Then in a trice the dancers all lost breath, and the dance parted as +they staggered aside; and at the door of the shed Young Gerard stood, +and gazed through the broken revel at little Thea, and she stood gazing +at him. And behind and above him, along the walls of the hut, and over +the doorway, and making lovely the very roof, she saw a cloud of +snowwhite blossom. +</P> + +<P> +Somebody cried, "Here's a boy. He shall dance too. Boy, is there drink +within?" +</P> + +<P> +The others took up the clamor. "Drink! bring us something to drink!" +</P> + +<P> +"The red grape!" cried one. +</P> + +<P> +"The yellow grape!" cried another. +</P> + +<P> +"The sap of the apple!" +</P> + +<P> +"The juice of the pear!" +</P> + +<P> +"Nut-brown ale!" +</P> + +<P> +"The spirit that burns!" +</P> + +<P> +"Bring us drink!" they cried in a breath. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you have milk?" said Young Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +At this the company burst into a roar of laughter. They laughed till +they rocked. But when they were silent little Thea spoke. She said in a +faint clear voice: +</P> + +<P> +"I would like a cup of milk." +</P> + +<P> +Young Gerard went into the hut and came out with his wooden cup filled +with milk, and brought it to her, and she drank. None spoke or moved +while she drank, but when she gave him the cup again one of the crew +said chuckling, "Now she has drunk, now she's merrier. Try her again, +Rough, try her on milk!" +</P> + +<P> +Again the night reeled with their laughter. They surrounded the wedded +pair crying, "Kiss her! kiss her! kiss her!" Then the Rough Master of +Coates pulled her round to him, dark with anger, and tried to kiss her. +But she turned sharply in his arms, bending her head away. And despite +his force, and though he was a man and she little more than a child, he +could not make her mouth meet his. And the laughter of the guests rose +higher, and infuriated him. +</P> + +<P> +Then he who had spoken before said, "By Hymen, the bride should kiss +something. If the lord's not good enough, let her kiss the churl!" At +this the revelers, wild with delight, beat on their trenchers and +shouted, "Ay, let her!" +</P> + +<P> +And suddenly they surged in, parting Thea from the Rough; while some +pulled him back others dragged Young Gerard forward, till he stood +where the bridegroom had stood; and in that seething throng of mockery +he felt her clinging helplessly to him, and his arm went round her. +</P> + +<P> +"Kiss him! kiss him! kiss him!" cried the guests. +</P> + +<P> +She looked up pitifully at him, and he bent his head. And she heard him +whisper: +</P> + +<P> +"My cherry-tree's in flower." +</P> + +<P> +She whispered, "Yes." +</P> + +<P> +And they kissed each other. +</P> + +<P> +Then the tumult of laughter passed all bounds, so that it was a wonder +if it was not heard at Combe Ivy; and the guests clashed their +trenchers one against another, and whirled their torches till the +sparks flew, yelling, "The bride's kiss! Ha, ha! the bride's kiss!" +</P> + +<P> +But the Rough Master of Coates had had enough; snarling like a mad dog +he thrust his way through the crowd on one side, as Old Gerard, seeing +his purpose, thrust through on the other, and both at the same instant +fell on the boy, the one with his scabbard, the other with his staff. +</P> + +<P> +"Kisses, will ye?" cried the Rough Master of Coates, "here's kisses for +ye!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ha, ha!" cried the guests, "more kisses, more kisses for him that +kissed the bride!" +</P> + +<P> +And then they all struck him at once, kicking and beating him without +mercy, till he lay prone on the earth. When he had fallen, the Rough +shouted, "Away to the Wildbrooks, away!" +</P> + +<P> +And he seized Thea in his arms, and rushed along the brow of the hill, +and all the company followed in a confusion, and were swallowed up in +the night. +</P> + +<P> +But Young Gerard raised himself a little, and groaned, "The +Wildbrooks—are they going to the Wildbrooks?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, and over the Wildbrooks," said Old Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"But they're in flood," gasped Young Gerard. "They'll never cross it in +the spring floods." +</P> + +<P> +"They'll manage it somehow. The Rough—did you see his eyes when you—? +ho, ho! he'll cross it somehow." +</P> + +<P> +"He can't," the boy muttered. "The April tide's too strong. He will +drown in the flood." +</P> + +<P> +"And she," said Old Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps she will swim on the flood," said Young Gerard faintly. And he +sighed and sank back on the earth. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, you'll be sore," chuckled the old man. "You had your salve before +you had your drubbing. Lie there. I must be gone on business." +</P> + +<P> +He took up his staff and went down the hill for the last time to Combe +Ivy, to purchase his freedom. +</P> + +<P> +But Young Gerard lay with his face pressed to the turf. "And that was +the bridegroom," he said, and shook where he lay. +</P> + +<P> +"Young shepherd," said a voice beside him. He looked up and saw the +hooded crone, come out of the hut. "Why do you water the earth?" said +she. "Have not the rains done their work?" +</P> + +<P> +"What work, dame?" +</P> + +<P> +"You've as fine a cherry in flower," said she, "as ever blossomed in +Gay Street in the season of singing and dancing." +</P> + +<P> +"Singing and dancing!" he cried, his voice choking, and he sprang up +despite his pains. "Don't speak to me, dame, of singing and dancing. +You're old, like the withered branch of a tree, but did you not see +with your old eyes, and hear with your old ears? Did you not see her +come up the green hillside with singing and dancing? Oh, yes, my +cherry's in flower, like a crown for a bride, and the spring is all in +movement, and the birds are all in song, and she—she came up the +hillside with singing and dancing." +</P> + +<P> +"I saw," said the crone, "and I heard. I'm not so old, young shepherd, +that I do not remember the curse of youth." +</P> + +<P> +"What's that?" he said moodily. +</P> + +<P> +"To bear the soul of a master in the body of a slave," said she; "to be +a flower in a sealed bud, the moon in a cloud, water locked in ice, +Spring in the womb of the year, love that does not know itself." +</P> + +<P> +"But when it does know?" said Young Gerard slowly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, when it knows!" said she. "Then the flower of the fruit will leap +through the bud, and the moon will leap like a lamb on the hills of the +sky, and April will leap in the veins of the year, and the river will +leap with the fury of Spring, and the headlong heart will cry in the +body of youth, I will not be a slave, but I will be the lord of life, +because—" +</P> + +<P> +"Because?" said Young Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"Because I will!" +</P> + +<P> +Young Gerard said nothing, and they sat together in a long silence in +the darkness, and time went by filling the sky with stars. +</P> + +<P> +Now as they sat the hilltop once more began to waver with shadows and +voices, but this time the shadows came on heavy feet and weary, and the +voices were forlorn. One feebly cried, "Hola!" And round the belt of +trees straggled the rout that had left them an hour or so earlier. But +now they were sodden and dejected, draggled and woebegone, as sorry a +spectacle as so many drowned rats. +</P> + +<P> +"Fire!" moaned one. "Fire! fire!" +</P> + +<P> +"Who's burning?" said Young Gerard, and got quickly on his feet; but he +did not see the two he looked for. +</P> + +<P> +"None's burning, fool, but many are drowning. Do we not look like +drowned men? How shall we ever get back to Combe Ivy, and warmth and +drink and comforts? Would we were burning!" +</P> + +<P> +"What has happened?" the boy demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"We went in search of the ferry," he said, "but the ferry was drowned +too." +</P> + +<P> +"We couldn't find the ferry," said a second. +</P> + +<P> +"No," mumbled a third, "the river had drunk it up. Where there were +paths there are brooks, and where there were meadows, lakes." +</P> + +<P> +The miserable crew broke out into plaints and questions—"Have you no +fire? have you no food? no coverings?" +</P> + +<P> +"None," said Young Gerard. "Where is the bride?" +</P> + +<P> +"Have you do drink?" +</P> + +<P> +"Where is the bride?" +</P> + +<P> +"The groom stumbled," said one. "Let us to Combe Ivy, in comfort's +name. There'll be drink there." +</P> + +<P> +He staggered down the hill, and his fellows made after him. But Young +Gerard sprang upon one, and gripped him by the shoulder and shook him, +and for the third time cried: +</P> + +<P> +"Where is the bride?" +</P> + +<P> +"In the water," he answered heavily, "because—there was—no wine." +</P> + +<P> +Then he dragged himself out of the boy's grasp, and fell down the hill +after his companions. +</P> + +<P> +Young Gerard stood for one instant listening and holding his breath. +Suddenly he said, "My lost lamb, crying on the hills." He ran into the +shed and looked about, and snatched from the settle the green and +cherry cloak, and from the wall the crystal and silver lantern. He +struck a spark from a flint and lit the wick. It burned brightly and +steadily. Then he ran out of the shed. The old woman rose up in his +path. +</P> + +<P> +"That's a good light," said she, "and a warm cloak." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't stop me!" said Young Gerard, and ran on. She nodded, and as he +vanished in one direction, she vanished in the other. +</P> + +<P> +He had not run far when he saw one more shadow on the hills; and it +came with faltering steps, and a trembling sobbing breath, and he held +up his lantern and the light fell on Thea, shivering in her wet veil. +As the flame struck her eyes she sighed, "Oh, I can't see the way—I +can't see!" +</P> + +<P> +Young Gerard hurried to her and said, "Come this way," and he took her +hand; but she snatched it quickly from him. +</P> + +<P> +"Go, man!" she said. "Don't touch me. Go!" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't be frightened of me," said Young Gerard gently. +</P> + +<P> +Then she looked at him and whispered, "Oh—it is you—shepherd. I was +trying to find you. I'm cold." +</P> + +<P> +Young Gerard wrapped the cloak about her, and said, "Come with me. I'll +make you a fire." +</P> + +<P> +He took her back to the shed. But she did not go in. She crouched on +the ground under the cherry-tree. Young Gerard moved about collecting +brushwood. They scarcely looked at each other; but once when he passed +her he said, "You're shivering." +</P> + +<P> +"It's because I'm so wet," said Thea. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you fall in the water?" +</P> + +<P> +She nodded. "The floods were so strong." +</P> + +<P> +"It's a bad night for swimming," said Young Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, shepherd." She then said again, "Yes." He could tell by her voice +that she was smiling faintly. He glanced at her and saw her looking at +him; both smiled a little and glanced away again. He began to pile his +brushwood for the fire. +</P> + +<P> +After a short pause she said timidly, "Are you sore, shepherd?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I feel nothing," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"They beat you very hard." +</P> + +<P> +"I did not feel their blows." +</P> + +<P> +"How could you not feel them?" she said in a low voice. He looked at +her again, and again their eyes met, and again parted quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"Now I'll strike a spark," said Young Gerard, "and you'll be warm soon." +</P> + +<P> +He kindled his fire; the branches crackled and burned, and she knelt +beside the blaze and held her hands to it. +</P> + +<P> +"I was never here by night before," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, once," said Young Gerard. "You often came, didn't you, to gather +flowers in the morning and to swim in the river at noon. But once +before you were here in the night." +</P> + +<P> +"Was I?" said she. +</P> + +<P> +He dropped a handful of cones into her lap, throwing the last on the +fire. She threw another after it, and smiled as it crackled. +</P> + +<P> +"I remember," she said. "Thank you, shepherd. You were always kind and +found me the things I wanted, and gave me your cup to drink of. Who'll +drink of it now?" +</P> + +<P> +"No one," he said, "ever again." +</P> + +<P> +He went and fetched the cup and gave it to her. "Burn that too," said +Young Gerard. Thea put it into the fire and trembled. When it was +burned she asked very low, "Will you be lonely?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll have my sheep and my thoughts." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Thea, "and stars when the sheep are folded. The stars are +good to be with too." +</P> + +<P> +"Good to see and not be seen by," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know they don't see you?" she asked shyly. +</P> + +<P> +"One shepherd on a hill isn't much for the eye of a star. He may watch +them unwatched, while they come and go in their months. Sometimes there +aren't any, and sometimes not more than one pricking the sky near the +moon. But to-night, look! the sky's like a tree with full branches." +</P> + +<P> +Thea looked up and said with a child's laugh, "Break me a branch!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'd want Jacob's Ladder for that," smiled Young Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"Then shake the tree and bring them down!" she insisted. +</P> + +<P> +"Here come your stars," said Young Gerard. Suddenly she was enveloped +in a falling shower, white and heavenly. +</P> + +<P> +"The stars—!" she cried. "Oh, what is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"My cherry-tree—it's in flower—" said Young Gerard, and his voice +trembled. She looked up quickly and saw that he was standing beside +her, shaking the tree above her head. And now their eyes met and did +not separate. He put out his hand and broke a branch from the tree and +offered it to her. She took it from him slowly, as though she were in a +dream, and laid it in her lap, and put her face in her hands and began +to cry. +</P> + +<P> +Young Gerard whispered, "Why are you crying?" +</P> + +<P> +Thea said, "Oh, my wedding, my wedding! Only last year I thought of the +night of my wedding and how it would be. It was not with torchlight and +shouting and wine, but moonlight and silence and the scent of wild +blossoms. And now I know that it was not the night of my wedding I +dreamed of." +</P> + +<P> +"What did you dream of?" asked Young Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +"The night of my first love." +</P> + +<P> +"Thea," said Young Gerard, and he knelt beside her. +</P> + +<P> +"And my love's first kiss." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Thea," said Young Gerard, and he took her hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you not feel their blows?" she said. "I felt them." +</P> + +<P> +Their arms went round each other, and for the second time that night +they kissed. +</P> + +<P> +Young Gerard said, "I've always wondered if this would happen." +</P> + +<P> +And Thea answered, "I didn't know it would be you." +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't you? didn't you?" he whispered, stroking her head, wondering at +himself doing what he had so often dreamed of doing. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she faltered, "sometimes I thought—it might—be you, darling." +</P> + +<P> +"Thea, Thea!" +</P> + +<P> +"When I came over the Mount to swim in the river, and saw you in the +distance among your sheep, there was a swifter river running through +all my body. When I came every April to ask for your cherry-tree, what +did it matter to me that it was not in bloom? for all my heart was wild +with bloom, oh, Gerard, my—lover!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Thea, my love! What can I give you, Thea, I, a shepherd?" +</P> + +<P> +"You were the lord of the earth, and you gave me its flowers and its +birds and its secret waters. What more could you give me, you, a +shepherd and my lord?" +</P> + +<P> +"The wild white bloom of its fruit-trees that comes to the branches in +April like love to the heart. I'll give it you now. Sit here, sit here! +I'll make you a bower of the cherry, and a crown, and a carpet too. +There's nothing in all April lovely and wild enough for you to-night, +your bridal night, my lady and my darling!" +</P> + +<P> +And in a great fit of joy he broke branch after branch from the tree as +she sat at its foot, and set them about her, and filled her arms to +overflowing, and crowned her with blossoms, and shook the bloom under +her feet, till her shy happy face, paling and reddening by turns, +looked out from a world of flowers and she cried between laughing and +weeping, "Oh, Gerard, oh, you're drowning me!" +</P> + +<P> +"It's the April floods," shouted Young Gerard, "and I must drown with +you, Thea, Thea, Thea!" And he cast himself down beside her, and +clasped her amid all the blossoming, and with his head on her shoulder +kissed and kissed her till he was breathless and she as pale as the +flowers that smothered their kisses. +</P> + +<P> +And then suddenly he folded her in the green mantle, blossoms and all, +and sprang up and lifted her to his breast till she lay like a child in +the arms of its mother; and he picked up the lantern and said, "Now we +will go away for ever." +</P> + +<P> +"Where are we going?" she whispered with shining eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"To the Wildbrooks," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"To drown in the floods together?" She closed her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"There's a way through all floods," said Young Gerard. +</P> + +<P> +And he ran with her over the hills with all his speed. +</P> + +<P> +And Old Gerard returned to a hut as empty as it had been one-and-twenty +years ago. And they say that Combe Ivy, having never set eyes on the +boy in his life, swore that the shepherd's tale had been a fiction from +first to last, and kept him a serf to the end of his days. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +("What a night of stars it is!" said Martin Pippin, stretching his arms. +</P> + +<P> +"Good heavens, Master Pippin," cried Joyce, "what a moment to mention +it!" +</P> + +<P> +"It is worth mentioning," said Martin, "at all moments when it is so. I +would not think of mentioning it in the middle of a snowstorm." +</P> + +<P> +"You should as little think of mentioning it," said Joyce, "in the +middle of a story." +</P> + +<P> +"But I am at the end of my story, Mistress Joyce." +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: Preposterous! Oh! Oh, how can you say so? I am ashamed of you! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Dear Mistress Joscelyn, I thank you in charity's name for being +that for me which I have never yet succeeded in being for myself. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: What! are you not ashamed to offer us a broken gift? Your +story is like a cracked pitcher with half the milk leaked out. What was +the secret of the Lantern, the Cloak, and the Cherry-tree? +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: Who was the lovely lady, his mother? and who the old crone? +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: What was the end of the Rough Master of Coates? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Did not the lovers drown in the floods? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: And if they did not, what became of them? +</P> + +<P> +"Please," said little Joan, "tell us why Young Gerard dreamed those +dreams. Oh, please tell us what happened." +</P> + +<P> +"Women's taste is for trifles," said Martin. "I have offered you my +cake, and you wish only to pick off the nuts and the cherries." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Joan, "we wish you to put them on. Do you not love nuts and +cherries on a cake?" +</P> + +<P> +"More than anything," said Martin.) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +A long while ago, dear maidens, there were Lords in Gay Street, and up +and down the Street the cherry-trees bloomed in Spring as they bloomed +nowhere else in Sussex, and under the trees sang and danced the +loveliest lads and lasses in all England, with hearts like children. +And on all their holiday clothes they worked the leaf and branch and +flower and fruit of the cherry. And they never wore anything else but +their holiday clothes, because in Gay Street it was always holidays. +</P> + +<P> +And a long while ago there were Gypsies on Nyetimber Common, the +merriest Gypsies in the southlands, with the gayest tatters and the +brightest eyes, and the maddest hearts for mirth-making. They were also +makers of lanterns when they were anything else but what all Gypsies +are. +</P> + +<P> +And once the son of a Gypsy King loved the daughter of a Lord of Gay +Street, and she loved him. And because of this there was wrath in Gay +Street and scorn on Nyetimber, and all things were done to keep the +lovers apart. But they who attempt this might more profitably chase +wild geese. So one night in April they were taken under one of her +father's own wild cherries by the light of one of his father's own +lanterns. And it was her father and his father who found them, as they +had missed them, in the same moment, and were come hunting for +sweethearts by night with their people behind them. +</P> + +<P> +Then the Lord of Gay Street pronounced a curse of banishment on his own +daughter, that she must go far away beyond the country of the floods, +and another on his own tree, that it might never blossom more. And +there and then it withered. And the Gypsy King pronounced as dark a +curse of banishment on his own son, and a second on his own lantern, +that it might never more give light. And there and then it went out. +</P> + +<P> +Then from the crowd of gypsies came the oldest of them all, who was the +King's great-grandmother, and she looked from the angry parents to the +unhappy lovers and said, "You can blight the tree and make the lantern +dark; nevertheless you cannot extinguish the flower and the light of +love. And till these things lift the curse and are seen again united +among you, there will be no Lords in Gay Street nor Kings on Nyetimber." +</P> + +<P> +And she broke a shoot from the cherry and picked up the lantern and +gave them to the lady and her lover; and then she took them one by each +hand and went away. And the Lord of Gay Street and the Gypsy King died +soon after without heirs, and the joy went out of the hearts of both +peoples, and they dressed in sad colors for one-and-twenty years. +</P> + +<P> +But the three traveled south through the country of the floods, and on +the way the King's son was drowned, as others had been before him, and +after him the Rough Master of Coates. But the crone brought the lady +safely through, and how she was at once delivered of her son and her +sorrow, dear maidens, you know. +</P> + +<P> +And for one-and-twenty years the crone was seen no more, and then of a +sudden she re-appeared at daybreak and bade her people put on their +bright apparel because their King was coming with a young Queen; and +after this she led them to Gay Street where she bade the folk to don +their holiday attire, because their Lord was on his way with a fair +Lady. And all those girls and boys, the dark and the light, felt the +child of joy in their hearts again, and they went in the morning with +singing and dancing to welcome the comers under the cherry-trees. +</P> + +<P> +I entreat you now, Mistress Joyce, for the second hair from your head. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="interlude2"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SECOND INTERLUDE +</H3> + +<P> +The milkmaids put their forgotten apples to their mouths, and the +chatter began to run out of them like juice from bitten fruit. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: What did you think of this story, Jane? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: I did not know what to think, Jessica, until the very conclusion, +and then I was too amazed to think anything. For who would have +imagined the young Shepherd to be in reality a lord? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Few of us are what we seem, Mistress Jane. Even chimney-sweeps +are Jacks-in-Green on May-Days; for the other +three-hundred-and-sixty-four days in the year they pretend to be +chimney-sweeps. And I have actually known men who appeared to be haters +of women, when they secretly loved them most tenderly. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: It does not surprise me to hear this. I have always +understood men to be composed of caprices. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: They are composed of nothing else. I see you know them through +and through. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: I do not know anything at all about them. We do not study +what does not interest us. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I hope, Mistress Joscelyn, you found my story worthy of study? +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: It served its turn. Might one, by going to Rackham Hill, see +this same cherry-tree and this same shed? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Alas, no. The shed rotted with time and weather, and bit by bit +its sides were rebuilt with stone. And the cherry-tree Old Gerard +chopped down in a fury, and made firewood of it. But it too had served +its turn. For as every man's life (and perhaps, but you must answer for +this, every woman's life), awaits the hour of blossoming that makes it +immortal, so this tree passed in a single night from sterility to +immortality; and it mattered as little if its body were burned the next +day, as it would have mattered had Gerard and Thea gone down through +the waters that night instead of many years later, after a life-time of +great joy and delight. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: I am glad of that. There were moments when I feared it would not +be so. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: I too. For how could it be otherwise, seeing that he was a +shepherd and she a lord's daughter? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: And when it was related how she was to wed the Rough Master of +Coates, my hopes were dashed entirely. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: And when they beat Young Gerard I was perfectly certain he was +dead. +</P> + +<P> +Joan: I rather fancied the tale would end happily, all the same. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I fancied so too. For though any of these accidents would have +marred the ending, love is a divinity above all accidents, and guards +his own with extraordinary obstinacy. Nothing could have thwarted him +of his way but one thing. +</P> + +<P> +Five of the Milkmaids: Oh, what? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Had Thea been one of those who are not interested in the study +of men. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Nobody said anything in the Apple-Orchard. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: She need not have been condemned to unhappiness on that +account, singer. And what does the happiness or unhappiness of an idle +story weigh? Whether she wedded another, or whether they were parted by +whatever cause, such as her superior station, or even his death, it's +all one to me. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: And me. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: And me. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: And me. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: The tale is judged. Let it go hang. For a cloud has dropped +over nine-tenths of the moon, like the eyelid of a girl who still peeps +through her lashes, but will soon fall asleep for weariness. I have +made her lids as heavy as yours with my poor story. Let us all sleep +and forget it. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +So the girls lay down in the grass and slept. But Joyce went on +swinging. And every time she swayed past him she looked at Martin, and +her lips opened and shut again, nothing having escaped them but a very +little laughter. The tenth time this happened Martin said: +</P> + +<P> +"What keeps your lashes open, Mistress Joyce, when your comrades' lie +tangled on their cheeks? Is it the same thing that opens your lips and +peeps through the doorway and runs away again?" +</P> + +<P> +"MUST my lashes shut because others' do?" said Joyce. "May not lashes +have whims of their own?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing is more whimsical," said Martin Pippin. "I have known, for +instance, lashes that WILL be golden though the hair of the head be +dark. It is a silly trick." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't dislike such lashes," said Joyce. "That is, I think I should +not if ever I saw them." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Martin: Perhaps you are right. I should love them in a woman. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: I never saw them in a woman. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: In a man they would be regrettable. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: Then why did you give them to Young Gerard? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Did I? It was pure carelessness. Let us change the color of his +lashes. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: No, no! I will not have them changed. I would not for the world. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Dear Mistress Joyce, if I had the world to offer you, I would +sit by the road and break it with a pickax rather than change a single +eyelash in Young Gerard's lids. Since you love them. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: Oh, did I say so? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Didn't you?—Mistress Joyce, when you laugh I am ready to +forgive you all your debts. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: Why, what do I owe you? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: An eyelash. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: I am sure I do not. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: No? Then a hair of some sort. How will you be able to sleep +to-night with a hair on your conscience? For your own sake, lift that +crowbar. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: To tell you the truth, I fear to redeem my promise lest you are +unable to redeem yours. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Which was? +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: To blow it to its fellow, who is now wandering in the night like +thistledown. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I will do it, nevertheless. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: It is easier promised than proved. But here is the hair. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Are you certain it is the same hair? +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: I kept it wound round my finger. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I know no better way of keeping a hair. So here it goes! +</P> + +<P> +And he held the hair to his lips and blew on it. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: A blessing on it. It will soon be wedded. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: I have your word on it. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You shall have your eyes on it if you will tell me one thing. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: Is it a little thing? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: It's as trifling as a hair. I wish only to know why you have +fallen out with men. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: For the best of reasons. Why, Master Pippin! they say the world +is round! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Heaven preserve us! was ever so giddy a statement? Round? Why, +the world's as full of edges as the dealings of men and women, in which +you can scarcely go a day's march without reaching the end of all +things and tumbling into heaven. I tell you I have traveled the world +more than any man living, and it takes me all my time to keep from +falling off the brink. Round? The world is one great precipice! +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: I said so! I said so! I know I was right! I should like to +tell—them so. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Were you only able to go out of the Orchard, you would be free +to tell—them so. They are such fools, these men. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: Not in all matters, Master Pippin, but certainly in this. They +are good at some things. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: For my part I can't think what. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: They whitewash cowsheds beautifully. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Who wouldn't? Whitewash is such beautiful stuff. No, let us be +done with these round-minded men and go to bed. Good night, dear +milkmaid. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: Ah, but singer! you have not yet proved your fable of the two +hairs, which you swore were as hard to keep apart as the two lovers in +your tale. +</P> + +<P> +"Whom love guarded against accidents," said Martin; and he held out to +her the third finger of his left hand, and wound at its base were the +two hairs, in a ring as fine as a cobweb. She took his finger between +two of hers and laughed, and examined it, and laughed again. +</P> + +<P> +"You have been playing the god of love to my hairs," said Joyce. +</P> + +<P> +"Somebody must protect those that cannot, or will not, be kind to +themselves," said Martin. And then his other fingers closed quickly on +her hand, and he said: "Dear Mistress Joyce, help me to play the god of +love to Gillian, and give me your key to the Well-House, because there +were moments when you feared my tale would end unhappily." +</P> + +<P> +She pulled her hand away and began to swing rapidly, without answering. +But presently she exclaimed, "Oh, oh! it has dropped!" +</P> + +<P> +"What? what?" said Martin anxiously. +</P> + +<P> +But she only cried again, "Oh, my heart! it has dropped under the +swing." +</P> + +<P> +"In love's name," said Martin, "let me recover your heart." +</P> + +<P> +He groped in the grass and found what she had dropped, and then was +obliged to fall flat on his back to escape her feet as she swung. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, any time's a time for laughing," said Martin, crawling forth and +getting on his knees. "Here's the key to your heart, laughing Joyce." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Martin! how can I take it with my hands on the ropes?" +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'll lay it on your lap." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Martin! how do you expect it to stay there while I swing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Then you must stop swinging." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Martin! I will never stop swinging as long as I live!" +</P> + +<P> +"Then what must I do with this key?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Martin! why do you bother me so about an old key? Can't you see +I'm busy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Joyce! when you laugh I must—I must—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes?" +</P> + +<P> +"I must!" +</P> + +<P> +And he caught her two little feet in his hands as she next flew by, and +kissed each one upon the instep. +</P> + +<P> +Then he ran to his bed under the hedge, and she sat where she was till +her laughing turned to smiling, and her smiling to sleeping. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Maids! maids! maids!" +</P> + +<P> +It was morning. +</P> + +<P> +"To your hiding-place, Master Pippin!" urged Joscelyn. "It's our master +come again." +</P> + +<P> +Martin concealed himself with speed, and an instant later the farmer's +burly face peered through the gap in the hedge. +</P> + +<P> +"Good morrow, maids." +</P> + +<P> +"Good morrow, master." +</P> + +<P> +"Has my daughter stopped weeping yet?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, master," said Joyce, "but I begin to think that she will before +long." +</P> + +<P> +"A little longer will be too long," moaned Gillman, "for my purse is +running dry with these droughty times, and I shall have to mortgage the +farm to buy me ale, since I am foiled of both water and milk. Who would +have daughters when he might have sons? Gillian!" he cried, "when will +ye learn that old heads are wiser than young ones?" +</P> + +<P> +But Gillian paid no more attention to him than to the cawing rooks in +the elms in the oatfield. +</P> + +<P> +"Take your bread, maids," said Gillman, "and heaven send us grace +to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"Just an instant, master," said Joyce. "I would like to know if Blossom +my Shorthorn is well?" +</P> + +<P> +"As well as a child without its mother, maid, though Michael has turned +nurse to her. But she seems sworn to hold back her milk till you come +again. Rack and ruin, nothing but rack and ruin!" +</P> + +<P> +And off he went. +</P> + +<P> +Then breakfast was prepared as on the previous day, and Gillian's stale +loaf was broken for the ducks. But Joscelyn pointed out that one of the +kissing-crusts had been pulled off in the night. +</P> + +<P> +"Your stories, Master Pippin, are doing their work," said she. +</P> + +<P> +"I begin to think so," said Martin cheerfully. And then they fell to on +their own white loaves and sweet apples. +</P> + +<P> +When they had breakfasted Martin observed that he could make better and +longer daisy-chains than any one else in the world, and his statement +was pooh-poohed by six voices at once. For girls' fingers, said these +voices, had been especially fashioned by nature for the making of +daisy-chains. Martin challenged them to prove this, and they plucked +lapfuls of the small white daisies with big yellow eyes, and threaded +chains of great length, and hung them about each other's necks. And so +deft and dainty was their touch that the chains never broke in the +making or, what is still more delicate a matter, in the hanging. But +Martin's chains always broke before he had joined the last daisy to the +first, and the girls jeered at him for having no necklace to match +their necklaces of pearls and gold, and for failing so contemptibly in +his boast. And he appeared so abashed by their jeers that little Joan +relented and made a longer chain than any that had been made yet, and +hung it round his neck. At which he was merry again, and confessed +himself beaten, and the girls became very gracious, being in their +triumph even more pleased with him than with themselves. Which was a +great deal. And by then it was dinner-time. +</P> + +<P> +After dinner Martin proposed that as they had sat all the morning they +should run all the afternoon, so they played Touchwood. And Martin was +He. But an orchard is so full of wood that he had a hard job of it. And +he observed that Jennifer had very little daring, and scarcely ever +lifted her finger from the wood as she ran from one tree to another; +and that Jane had no daring at all, and never even left her tree. And +that Joscelyn was extremely daring when it was safe to be so; and that +Jessica was daring enough to tweak him and run away, while Joyce was +more daring still, for she tweaked him and did not run. As for little +Joan, she puzzled him most of all; for half the time she outdid them +all in daring, and then she was uncatchable, slipping through his very +fingers like a ray of sunlight a child tries to hold; but the other +half of the time she was timidity itself, and crept from tree to tree, +and if he were near became like a little frightened rabbit, forgetting, +or being through fear unable, to touch safety; and then she was snared +more easily than any. +</P> + +<P> +By supper, however, every maid had been He but Jane. For no man can +catch what doesn't run. +</P> + +<P> +"How the time has flown," said Joscelyn, when they were all seated +about the middle tree after the meal. +</P> + +<P> +"It makes such a difference," said Jennifer, "when there's something to +do. We never used to have anything to do till Master Pippin came, and +now life is all games and stories." +</P> + +<P> +"The games," said Joscelyn, "are well enough." +</P> + +<P> +"Shall we," said Martin, "forego the stories?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Master Pippin!" said Jennifer anxiously, "we surely are to have a +story to-night?" +</P> + +<P> +"Unless we are to remain here for ever," said Martin, "I fear we must. +But for my part I am quite happy here. Are not you, Mistress Joscelyn?" +</P> + +<P> +"Your questions are idle," said she. "You know very well that we cannot +escape a story." +</P> + +<P> +"You see, Mistress Jennifer," said Martin. "Let us resign ourselves +therefore. And for your better diversion, please sit in the swing, and +when the story is tedious you will have a remedy at hand." +</P> + +<P> +So saying, he put Jennifer on the seat and her hands on the ropes, and +the five other girls climbed into the tree, while he took the bough +that had become his own. And all provided themselves with apples. +</P> + +<P> +"Begin," said Joscelyn. +</P> + +<P> +"A story-teller," said Martin, "as much as any other craftsman, needs +his instruments, of which his auditors are the chief. And of these I +lack one." And he fixed his eyes of the weeper in the Well-House. +</P> + +<P> +"You have six already," said Joscelyn. "The seventh you must acquire as +you proceed. So begin." +</P> + +<P> +"Without the vital tool?" cried Martin. "As well might you bid Madam +Toad to spin flax without her distaff." +</P> + +<P> +"What folly is this?" said Joscelyn. "Toads don't spin." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't they?" said Martin, much astonished. "I thought they did. What +then is toadflax? Do the wildflowers not know?" +</P> + +<P> +And still keeping his eyes fixed on Gillian he thrummed and sang— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Toad, toad, old toad,<BR> + What are you spinning?<BR> + Seven hanks of yellow flax<BR> + Into snow-white linen.<BR> + What will you do with it<BR> + Then, toad, pray?<BR> + Make shifts for seven brides<BR> + Against their wedding-day.<BR> + Suppose e'er a one of them<BR> + Refuses to be wed?<BR> + Then she shall not see the jewel<BR> + I wear in my head.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +As he concluded, Gillian raised herself on her two elbows, and with her +chin on her palms gazed steadily over the duckpond. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: Why seven? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Is it not as good a number as another? +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: What is the jewel like in the toad's head, Master Pippin? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: How can I say, Mistress Jennifer? There's but one way of +knowing, according to the song, and like a fool I refused it. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: I wish I knew. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: The way lies open to all. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: These are silly legends, Jennifer. It is as little likely +that there are jewels in toads' heads as that toads spin flax. But +Master Pippin pins his faith to any nonsense. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: True, Mistress Joscelyn. My faith cries for elbow-room, and he +who pins his faith to common-sense is like to get a cramp in it. +Therefore since women, as I hear tell, have ceased to spin brides' +shifts, I am obliged to believe that these things are spun by toads. +Because brides there must be though the wells should run dry. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: I do not see the connection. However, it is obvious that the +bad logic of your song has aroused even Gillian's attention, so for +mercy's sake make short work of your tale before it flags again. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I will follow your advice. And do you follow me with your best +attention while I turn the wheel of The Mill of Dreams. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="tale3"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE MILL OF DREAMS +</H3> + +<P> +There was once, dear maidens, a girl who lived in a mill on the +Sidlesham marshes. But in those days the marshlands were meadowlands, +with streams running in from the coast, so that their water was +brackish and salt. And sometimes the girl dipped her finger in the +water and sucked it and tasted the sea. And the taste made storms rise +in her heart. Her name was Helen. +</P> + +<P> +The mill-house was a gaunt and gloomy building of stone, as gray as +sleep, weatherstained with dreams. It had fine proportions, and looked +like a noble prison. And in fact, if a prison is the lockhouse of +secrets, it was one. The great millstones ground day and night, and +what the world sent in as corn it got back as flour. And as to the +secrets of the grinding it asked no questions, because to the world +results are everything. It understands death better than sorrow, +marriage better than love, and birth better than creation. And the +millstones of joy and pain, grinding dreams into bread, it seldom +hears. But Helen heard them, and they were all the knowledge she had of +life; for if the mill was a prison of dreams it was her prison too. +</P> + +<P> +Her father the miller was a harsh man and dark; he was dark within and +without. Her mother was dead; she did not remember her. As she grew up +she did little by little the work of the big place. She was her +father's servant, and he kept her as close to her work as he kept his +millstones to theirs. He was morose, and welcomed no company. Gayety he +hated. Helen knew no songs, for she had heard none. From morning till +night she worked for her father. When she had done all her other work +she spun flax into linen for shirts and gowns, and wool for stockings +and vests. If she went outside the mill-house, it was only for a few +steps for a few moments. She wasn't two miles from the sea, but she had +never seen it. But she tasted the salt water and smelt the salt wind. +</P> + +<P> +Like all things that grow up away from the light, she was pale. Her +oval face was like ivory, and her lips, instead of being scarlet, had +the tender red of apple-blossom, after the unfolding of the bright bud. +Her hair was black and smooth and heavy, and lay on either side of her +face like a starling's wings. Her eyes too were as black as midnight, +and sometimes like midnight they were deep and sightless. But when she +was neither working nor spinning she would steal away to the +millstones, and stand there watching and listening. And then there were +two stars in the midnight. She came away from those stolen times +powdered with flour. Her black hair and her brows and lashes, her old +blue gown, her rough hands and fair neck, and her white face—all that +was dark and pale in her was merged in a mist, and seen only through +the clinging dust of the millstones. She would try to wipe off all the +evidences of her secret occasions, but her father generally knew. Had +he known by nothing else, he need only have looked at her eyes before +they lost their starlight. +</P> + +<P> +One day when she was seventeen years old there was a knock at the +mill-house door. Nobody ever knocked. Her father was the only man who +came in and went out. The mill stood solitary in those days. The face +of the country has since been changed by man and God, but at that time +there were no habitations in sight. At regular times the peasants +brought their grain and fetched their meal; but the miller kept his +daughter away from his custom. He never said why. Doubtless at the back +of his mind was the thought of losing what was useful to him. Most +parents have their ways of trying to keep their children; in some it is +this way, in others that; not many learn to keep them by letting them +go. +</P> + +<P> +So when the knock came at the door, it was the strangest thing that had +ever happened in Helen's life. She ran to the door and stood with her +hand on the heavy wooden bar that fell across it into a great socket. +Her heart beat fast. Before we know a thing it is a thousand things. +Only one thing would be there when she lifted the bar. But as she stood +with her hand upon it, a host of presences hovered on the other side. A +knight in armor, a king in his gold crown, a god in the guise of a +beggar, an angel with a sword; a dragon even; a woman to be her friend; +her mother...a child... +</P> + +<P> +"Would it be better not to open?" thought Helen. For then she would +never know. Yes, then she could run to her millstones and fling them +her thoughts in the husk, and listen, listen while they ground them +into dreams. What knowledge would be better than that? What would she +lose by opening the door? +</P> + +<P> +But she had to open the door. +</P> + +<P> +Outside on the stones stood a common lad. He might have been three +years older than she. He had a cap with a hole in it in his hand, and a +shabby jersey that left his brown neck bare. He was whistling when she +lifted the bar, but he stopped as the door fell back, and gave Helen a +quick and careless look. +</P> + +<P> +"Can I have a bit of bread?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Helen stared at him without answering. She was so unused to people that +her mind had to be summoned from a world of ghosts before she could +hear and utter real words. The boy waited for her to speak, but, as she +did not, shrugged his shoulders and turned away whistling his tune. +</P> + +<P> +Then she understood that he was going, and she ran after him quickly +and touched his sleeve. He turned again, expecting her to speak; but +she was still dumb. +</P> + +<P> +"Thought better of it?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +Helen said slowly, "Why did you ask me for bread?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" He looked her up and down. "To mend my boots with, of course." +</P> + +<P> +She looked at his boots. +</P> + +<P> +"You silly thing," grinned the boy. +</P> + +<P> +A faint color came under her skin. "I'm sorry for being stupid. I +suppose you're hungry." +</P> + +<P> +"As a hunter. But there's no call to trouble you. I'll be where I can +get bread, and meat too, in forty minutes. Good-by, child." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Helen. "Please don't go. I'd like to give you some bread." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, all right," said the boy. "What frightened you? Did you think I +was a scamp?" +</P> + +<P> +"I wasn't frightened," said Helen. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't tell me," mocked the boy. "You couldn't get a word out." +</P> + +<P> +"I wasn't frightened." +</P> + +<P> +"You thought I was a bad lot. You don't know I'm not one now." +</P> + +<P> +Helen's eyes filled with tears. She turned away quickly. "I'll get you +your bread," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"You are a silly, aren't you?" said the boy as she disappeared. +</P> + +<P> +Before long she came back with half a loaf in one hand, and something +in the other which she kept behind her back. +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks," said the boy, taking the bit of loaf. "What else have you got +there?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's something better than bread," said Helen slowly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, let's have a look at it." +</P> + +<P> +She took her hand from behind her, and offered him seven ears of wheat. +They were heavy with grain, and bowed on their ripe stems. +</P> + +<P> +"Is this what you call better than bread?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"It is better." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, all right. I sha'n't eat it though—not all at once." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Helen, "keep it till you're hungry. The grains go quite a +long way when you're hungry." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll eat one a year," said the boy, "and then they'll go so far +they'll outlast me my lifetime." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Helen, "but the bread will be gone in forty minutes. And +then you'll be where you can get meat." +</P> + +<P> +"You funny thing," said the boy, puzzled because she never smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"Where can you get meat?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"In a boat, fishing for rabbits." +</P> + +<P> +But she took no notice of the rabbits. She said eagerly, "A boat? are +you going in a boat?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you a sailor?" +</P> + +<P> +"You've hit it." +</P> + +<P> +"You've seen the sea! you've been on the sea!—sailors do that..." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, dear no," said the boy, "we sail three times round the duckpond +and come home for tea." +</P> + +<P> +Helen hung her head. The boy put his hand up to his mouth and watched +her over it. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said presently, "I must get along to Pagham." He stuck the +little sheaf of wheat through the hole in his cap, and it bobbed like a +ruddy-gold plume over his ear. Then he felt in his pocket and after +some fumbling got hold of what he wanted and pulled it out. "Here you +are, child," he said, "and thank you again." +</P> + +<P> +He put his present into her hand and swung off whistling. He turned +once to wave to her, and the corn in his cap nodded with its weight and +his light gait. She stood gazing till he was out of sight, and then she +looked at what he had given her. It was a shell. +</P> + +<P> +She had heard of shells, of course, but she had never seen one. Yet she +knew this was no English shell. It was as large as the top of a teacup, +but more oval than round. Over its surface, like pearl, rippled waves +of sea-green and sea-blue, under a luster that was like golden +moonlight on the ocean. She could not define or trace the waves of +color; they flowed in and out of each other with interchangeable +movement. One half of the outer rim, which was transparently thin and +curled like the fantastic edge of a surf wave, was flecked with a faint +play of rose and cream and silver, that melted imperceptibly into the +moonlit sea. When she turned the shell over she found that she could +not see its heart. The blue-green side of the shell curled under like a +smooth billow, and then broke into a world of caves, and caves within +caves, whose final secret she could not discover. But within and within +the color grew deeper and deeper, bottomless blues and unfathomable +greens, shot with such gleams of light as made her heart throb, for +they were like the gleams that shoot through our dreams, the light that +just eludes us when we wake. +</P> + +<P> +She went into the mill, trembling from head to foot. She was not +conscious of moving, but she found herself presently standing by the +grinding stones, with sound rushing through her and white dust whirling +round her. She gazed and gazed into the labyrinth of the shell as +though she must see to its very core; but she could not. So she +unfastened her blue gown and laid the shell against her young heart. It +was for the first time of so many times that I know not whether when, +twenty years later, she did it for the last time, they outnumbered the +silver hairs among her black ones. And the silver by then were +uncountable. Yet on the day when Helen began her twenty years of lonely +listening— +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(But having said this, Martin Pippin grasped the rope just above +Jennifer's hand, and pulled it with such force that the swing, instead +of swinging back and forth, as a swing should, reeled sideways so that +the swinger had much ado to keep her seat. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: Heaven help me! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Heaven help ME! I need its help more sorely than you do. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: Oh, you should be punished, not helped! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I have been punished, and the punished require help more than +censure, or scorn, or anger, or any other form of righteousness. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: Who has punished you? And for what? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You, Mistress Jennifer. For my bad story. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: I do not remember doing so. The story is only begun. I am +sure it will be a very good story. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Now you are compassionate, because I need comfort. But the +truth is that, good or bad, you care no more for my story. For I saw a +tear of vexation come into your eye. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: It was not vexation. Not exactly vexation. And doubtless +Helen will have experiences which we shall all be glad to hear. But all +the same I wish— +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You wish? +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: That she was not going to grow old in her loneliness. Because +all lovers are young. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You have spoken the most beautiful of all truths. Does the +grass grow high enough by the swing for you to pluck me two blades? +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: I think so. Yes. What do you want with them? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I want but one of them now. You shall only give me the other +if, at the end of my tale, you agree that its lovers are as green as +this blade and that.) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +On the day (resumed Martin) when Helen began her lonely listening of +heart and ears betwixt the seashell and the millstones of her dreams, +there was not, dear Mistress Jennifer, a silver thread in her black +locks to vex you with. For a girl of seventeen is but a child. Yet old +enough to begin spinning the stuff of the spirit... +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"My boy!— +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, how strange it was, your coming like that, so suddenly. Before I +opened the door I stood there guessing...And how could I have guessed +this? Did you guess too on the other side?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, not much. I thought it might be a cross old woman. What did YOU +guess?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, such stupid things. Kings and knights and even women. And it was +you!" +</P> + +<P> +"And it was you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Suppose I'd been a cross old woman?" +</P> + +<P> +"Suppose I'd been a king?" +</P> + +<P> +"And you were just my boy." +</P> + +<P> +"And you—my sulky girl." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I wasn't sulky. Oh, didn't you understand? How could I speak to +you? I couldn't hear you, I couldn't see you, even!" +</P> + +<P> +"Can you see me now?" +</P> + +<P> +She was lying with her cheek against his heart, and she turned her face +suddenly inwards, because she saw him bend his head, and the sweetness +of his first kiss was going to be more than she could bear. +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you look up, you silly child? Why don't you look at me, +dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"How can I yet? Can I ever? It's so hard looking in a person's eyes. +But I am looking at you, I AM, though you can't see me." +</P> + +<P> +"Then tell me what color my eyes are." +</P> + +<P> +"They're gray-green, and your hair is dark red, a sort of chestnut but +a little redder and rough over your forehead, and your nose is all over +freckles with very very snub—" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(Martin: Heaven help you, Mistress Jennifer! +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: W-w-w-w-why, Master Pippin? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Were you not about to fall again? +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: N-n-n-n-no. I-I-I-I-I— +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I see you are as firm as a rock. How could I have been so +deceived?) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +He shook her a little in his arms, saying: "How rude you are to my +nose. I wish you'd look up." +</P> + +<P> +"No, not yet...presently. But you, did you look at me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't you see me look?" +</P> + +<P> +"When?" +</P> + +<P> +"As soon as you opened the door." +</P> + +<P> +"What did you see?" +</P> + +<P> +"The loveliest thing I'd ever seen." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not really—am I?" +</P> + +<P> +"I used to dream about you at night on my watches. I made you up out of +bits of the night—white moonlight, black clouds, and stars. Sometimes +I would take the last cloud of sunset for your lips. And the wind, when +it was gentle, for your voice. And the movements of the sea for your +movements, and the rise and fall of it for your breathing, and the lap +of it against the boat for your kisses. Oh, child, look up!..." +</P> + +<P> +She looked up.... +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"What's your name?" +</P> + +<P> +"Helen." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't hear you." +</P> + +<P> +"Helen. Say it." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm trying to." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't hear YOU now. And I want to hear your voice say my name. Oh, +my boy, do say it, so that I can remember it when you're away." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't say it, child. Why didn't you tell me your name?" +</P> + +<P> +"What is yours?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm trying to tell you." +</P> + +<P> +"Please—please!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm trying with all my might. Listen with all yours." +</P> + +<P> +"I am listening. I can't hear anything. Yet I'm listening so hard that +it hurts. I want to say your name over and over and over to myself when +you're away. CAN'T you say it louder?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, it's no good." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, why didn't you tell me, boy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, child, why didn't you tell me?" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Is my bread sweet to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"The sweetest I ever ate. I ate it slowly, and took each bit from your +hand. I kept one crust." +</P> + +<P> +"And my corn." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, your corn! that is everlasting. You have sown your seed. I have +eaten a grain, and it bore its harvest. One by one I shall eat them, +and every grain will bear its full harvest. You have replenished the +unknown earth with fields of golden corn, and set me walking there for +ever." +</P> + +<P> +"And you have thrown golden light upon strange waters, and set me +floating there for ever. Oh, you on my earth and I on your ocean, how +shall we meet?" +</P> + +<P> +"Your corn is my waters, my waters are your corn. They move on one +wave. Oh, child, we are borne on it together, for ever." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"But how you teased me!" +</P> + +<P> +"I couldn't help it." +</P> + +<P> +"You and your boats and your duckponds." +</P> + +<P> +"It was such fun. You were so serious. It was so easy to tease you." +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you put your hand over your mouth?" +</P> + +<P> +"To keep myself from—" +</P> + +<P> +"Laughing at me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Kissing you. You looked so sorry because sailors only sail round +duckponds, when you thought they always sailed out by the West and home +by the East. You believed the duckponds." +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't really." +</P> + +<P> +"For a moment!" +</P> + +<P> +"I felt so stupid." +</P> + +<P> +"You blushed." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, did I?" +</P> + +<P> +"A very little. Like the inside of a shell. I'd always tease you to +make you blush like that. Don't you ever smile or laugh, child?" +</P> + +<P> +"You might teach me to. I haven't had the sort of life that makes one +smile and laugh. Oh, but I could. I could smile and laugh for you if +you wished. I could do anything you wanted. I could be anything you +wanted." +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I make something of you? What shall it be?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care, so long as it is yours. Oh, make something of me. I've +been lonely always. I don't want to be any more. I want to be able to +come to you when I please, not only because I need so much to come, but +because you need me to come. Can you make me sure that you need me? +When no one has ever needed you, how can you believe...? Oh, no, no! +don't look sorry. I do believe it. And will you always stand with me +here in the loneliness that has been so dark? Then it won't be dark any +more. Why do two people make light? One alone only wanders and holds +out her hand and finds no one—nothing. Sometimes not even herself. +Will you be with me always?" +</P> + +<P> +"Always." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because I love you." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Helen, "but because I love you." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Tell me—WERE you frightened?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of you? when I saw you at the door?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Were you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, my boy." +</P> + +<P> +"But didn't you think I might be a scamp?" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't think about it at all. It wouldn't have made any difference." +</P> + +<P> +"Then why were you as mum as a fish?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, my boy." +</P> + +<P> +"Why? why? why?—if you weren't frightened? Of course you were +frightened." +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, I wasn't. I told you I wasn't. Why don't you believe me?— Oh, +you're laughing at me again." +</P> + +<P> +"You're blushing again." +</P> + +<P> +"It's so easy to make me ashamed when I've been silly. Of course you +know now why I couldn't speak. You know what took my words away. Didn't +you know then?" +</P> + +<P> +"How could I know? How could I dream it would be as quick for you as +for me?" +</P> + +<P> +"One can dream anything...oh!" +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, child?" For she had caught at her heart. +</P> + +<P> +"Dreams...and not truth. Oh, are you here? Am I? Where are you—where +are you? Hold me, hold me fast. Don't let it be just empty dreams." +</P> + +<P> +"Hush, hush, my dear. Dreams aren't empty. Dreams are as near the truth +as we can come. What greater truth can you ever have than this? For as +men and women dream, they drop one by one the veils between them and +the mystery. But when they meet they are shrouded in the veils again, +and though they long to strip them off, they cannot. And each sees of +each but dimly the truth which in their dreams was as clear as light. +Oh, child, it's not our dreams that are our illusions." +</P> + +<P> +"No," she whispered. "But still it is not enough. Not quite enough for +the beloved that they shall dream apart and find their truths apart. In +life too they must touch, and find the mystery together. Though it be +only for one eternal instant. Touch me not only in my dreams, but in +life. Turn life itself into the dream at last. Oh, hold me fast, my +boy, my boy..." +</P> + +<P> +"Hush, hush, child, I'm holding you..." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"You wept." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, did you see? I turned my head away." +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you weep?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because you thought I had misjudged you." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I misjudged you." +</P> + +<P> +"But I did not weep for that." +</P> + +<P> +"Would you, if I misjudged you?" +</P> + +<P> +"It would not be so hard to bear." +</P> + +<P> +"And you went away with tears and brought me the corn of your mill." +</P> + +<P> +"And you took it with smiles, and gave me the shell of your seas." +</P> + +<P> +"Your corn rustled through my head." +</P> + +<P> +"Your shell whispers at my heart." +</P> + +<P> +"You shall always hear it whispering there. It will tell you what I can +never tell you, or only tell you in other ways." +</P> + +<P> +"Of your life on the sea? Of the countries over the water? Of storms +and islands and flashing birds, and strange bright flowers? Of all the +lands and life I've never seen, and dream of all wrong? Will it tell me +those things?—of your life that I don't know." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, perhaps. But I could tell you of that life." +</P> + +<P> +"Of what other life will it tell me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of my life that you do know." +</P> + +<P> +"Is there one?" +</P> + +<P> +"Look in your own heart." +</P> + +<P> +"I am looking." +</P> + +<P> +"And listen." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you hear?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, boy, the whispering of your shell!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, child, the rustling of your corn!" +</P> + +<P> +Oh, maids! the grinding of the millstones. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This is only a little part of what she heard. But if I told you the +whole we should rise from the story gray-headed. For every day she +carried her boy's shell to the grinding stones, and stood there while +it spoke against her heart. And at other times of the day it lay in her +pocket, while she swept and cooked and spun, and she saw shadows of her +mill-dreams in the cobwebs and the rising steam, and heard echos of +them in her singing kettle and her singing wheel. And at night it lay +on her pillow against her ear, and the voice of the waters went through +her sleep. +</P> + +<P> +So the years slipped one by one, and she grew from a girl into a young +woman; and presently passed out of her youth. But her eyes and her +heart were still those of a girl, for life had touched them with +nothing but a girl's dream. And it is not time that leaves its traces +on the spirit, whatever it may do to the body. Her father meanwhile +grew harder and more tyrannical with years. There was little for him to +fear now that any man would come to take her from him; but the habit of +the oppressor was on him, and of the oppressed on her. And when this +has been many years established, it is hard for either to realize that, +to escape, the oppressed has only to open the door and go. +</P> + +<P> +Yet Helen, if she had ever thought of escape into another world and +life, would not have desired it. For in leaving her millstones she +would have lost a world whose boundaries she had never touched, and a +life whose sweetness she had never exhausted. And she would have lost +her clue to knowledge of him who was to her always the boy in the old +jersey who had knocked at her door so many years ago. +</P> + +<P> +Once he was shipwrecked... +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +...The waters had sucked her under twice already, when her helpless +hands hit against some floating substance on the waves. She could not +have grasped it by herself, for her strength was gone; but a hand +gripped her in the darkness, and dragged her, almost insensible, to +safety. For a long while she lay inert across the knees of her rescuer. +Consciousness was at its very boundary. She knew that in some dim +distance strong hands were chafing a wet and frozen body...but whose +hands?...whose body?...Presently it was lifted to the shelter of strong +arms; and now she was conscious of her own heart-beats, but it was like +a heart beating in air, not in a body. Then warmth and breath began to +fall like garments about this bodiless heart, and they were indeed not +her own warmth and breath, but these things given to her by +another—the warmth was that of his own body where he had laid her cold +hands and breast to take what heat there was in him, and the breath was +of his own lungs, putting life into hers through their two +mouths....She opened her eyes. It was dark. The darkness she had come +out of was bright beside this pitchy night, and her struggle back to +life less painful than the fierce labor of the wind and waves. Their +frail precarious craft was in ceaseless peril. His left arm held her +like a vice, but for greater safety he had bound a rope round their two +bodies and the small mast of their craft. With his right arm he clasped +the mast low down, and his right hand came round to grip her shaking +knees. In this close hold she lay a long while without speaking. Then +she said faintly: +</P> + +<P> +"Is it my boy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, child. Didn't you know?" +</P> + +<P> +"I wanted to hear you say it. How long have you been in danger?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know. Some hours. I thought you would never come to yourself." +</P> + +<P> +"I tried to come to you. I can't swim." +</P> + +<P> +"The sea brought you to me. You were nearly drowned. You slipped me +once. If you had again—!" +</P> + +<P> +"What would you have done?" +</P> + +<P> +"Jumped in. I couldn't have stayed on here without you." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, but you mustn't ever do that—promise, promise! For then you'd +lose me for ever. Promise." +</P> + +<P> +"I promise. But there's no for ever of that sort. There's no losing +each other, whatever happens. You know that, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I do know. When people love, they find each other for ever. But I +don't want you to die, and I don't want to die—yet. But if it is +to-night it will be together. Will it be to-night, do you think?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know, dear. The storm's breaking up over there, but that's not +the only danger." +</P> + +<P> +"But nothing matters, nothing matters at all while I'm with you." She +lay heavily against him; her eyes closed, and she shook violently. +</P> + +<P> +"Child, you're shuddering, you're as cold as ice." He put his hand upon +her chilly bosom, and hugged her more fiercely to his own. With a +sudden movement of despair and anger at the little he could do, he +slipped his arms from his jacket, and stripping open his shirt pulled +her to him, re-fastening his jacket around them both, tying it tightly +about their bodies by the empty sleeves. She felt his lips on her hair +and heard him whisper, "You're not frightened of me, are you, child? +You never will be, will you?" +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head and whispered, "I never have been." +</P> + +<P> +"Sleep, if you can, dear." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll try." +</P> + +<P> +So closely was she held by his coat and his arms, so near she lay to +his beloved heart, that she knew no longer what part of that union was +herself; they were one body, and one spirit. Her shivering grew less, +and with her lips pressed to his neck she fell asleep. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It was noon. +</P> + +<P> +The hemisphere of the sky was an unbroken blue washed with a silver +glare. She could not look up. The sea was no longer wild, but it was +not smooth; it was a dancing sea, and every small wave rippled with +crested rainbows. A flight of gulls wheeled and screamed over their +heads; their movements were so swift that the mid-air seemed to be +filled with visible lines described by their flight, silver lines that +gleamed and melted on transparent space like curved lightnings. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, look! oh, look!" cried Helen. +</P> + +<P> +He smiled, but he was not watching the gulls. "Yes, you've never seen +that, have you, child?" His eyes searched the distance. +</P> + +<P> +"But you aren't looking. What are you looking at?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing. I can't see what I'm looking for. But the gulls might mean +land, or icebergs, or a ship." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want land or a ship, or even icebergs," said Helen suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her with the fleeting look that had been her first +impression of him. +</P> + +<P> +"Why not? Why don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm so happy where I am." +</P> + +<P> +"That's all very well," said her boy, with his eyes on the distance. +</P> + +<P> +For awhile she lay enjoying the warmth of the sun, watching the gulls +sliding down the unseen slopes of the air. Presently high up she saw +one hover and pause, settling on nothingness by the swift, almost +imperceptible beat of its wings. And suddenly it dropped like a stone +upon a wave, and darted up again so quickly that she could not follow +what had happened. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it doing?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Fishing," said the boy. "It wanted its dinner." +</P> + +<P> +"So do I," said Helen. +</P> + +<P> +He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a packet wrapped in +oilskin. There was biscuit in it. He gave some to her, bit by bit; +though it was soft and dull, she was glad of it. But soon she drew away +from the hand that fed her. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"You must have some too." +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right. I'm not greedy like you birds." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not a bird. And I'm not greedy. Being hungry's not being greedy. +I'd be greedy if I ate while you're hungry." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not hungry." +</P> + +<P> +"Then neither am I." +</P> + +<P> +To satisfy her he ate a biscuit. Soon after she began to feel thirst, +but she dared not ask for water. She knew he had none. He looked at her +lying pale in his arms, and said with a smile that was not like a real +smile, "It's a pity about the icebergs." She smiled and nodded, and lay +still in the heat, watching the gulls, and thinking of ice. Some of the +birds settled on the raft. One sat on the mast; another hovered at her +knee, picking at crumbs. They played in the sun, rising and falling, +and turned in her vision into a whirl of snowflakes, enormous +snowflakes....She began to dream of snow, and her lips parted in the +hope that some might fall upon her tongue. Presently she ceased to +dream of snow....The boy looked down at her closed lids, and at her +cheeks, as white as the breasts of the gulls. He could not bear to look +long, and returned to his distances. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It was night again. +</P> + +<P> +The circle of the sea was as smooth as silk. Pale light played over it +like dreams and ghosts. The sky was a crowded arc of stars, millions of +stars, she had never seen or imagined so many. They glittered, +glittered restlessly, in an ecstasy that caught her spirit. She too was +filled with millions of stars, through her senses they flashed and +glittered—a delirium of stars in heaven and her heart.... +</P> + +<P> +"My boy!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, child." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you see the stars?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, child." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you feel them?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, can't we die now?" +</P> + +<P> +She felt him move stiffly. "There's a ship! I'm certain of it now—I'm +certain! Oh, if it were day!" +</P> + +<P> +The stars went on dazzling. She did not understand about the ship. Time +moved forward, or stood still. For her the night was timeless. It was +eternity. +</P> + +<P> +But things were happening outside in time and space. By what means they +had been seen or had attracted attention she did not know. But the +floating dreamlight and the shivering starlight on the sea were broken +by a dark movement on the waveless waters. A boat was coming. For some +time there had been shouting and calling in strange voices, one of them +her boy's. But once again she hovered on the dim verge of +consciousness. She had flown from the body he was painfully unbinding +from his own. What he had suffered in holding it there so long she +never knew. From leagues away she heard him whispering, "Child, can you +help yourself a little?" And now for an instant her soul re-approached +her body, and looked at him through the soft midnight of her eyes, and +he saw in them such starlight as never was in sky or on sea. +</P> + +<P> +"Kiss me," said Helen. +</P> + +<P> +He kissed her. +</P> + +<P> +With a great effort she lifted herself and stood upright on the raft, +swaying a little and holding by the mast. The boat was still a little +distant. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-by, my boy." +</P> + +<P> +"Child—!" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't jump. You promised not to. You promised. But I can't come with +you now. You must let me go." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her, and saw she was in a fever. He made a desperate +clutch at her blue gown. But he was not quick enough. "Keep your +promise!" she cried, and disappeared in the dreamlit waters; she +disappeared like a dream, without a sound. As she sank, she heard him +calling her by the only name he knew.... +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +When she was thirty-five her father died. Now she was free to go where +she pleased. But she did not go anywhere. +</P> + +<P> +Ever since, as a child, she had first tasted salt water, she had longed +to travel and see other lands. What held her now? Was it that her +longing had been satisfied? that she had a host of memories of great +mountains and golden shores, of jungles and strange cities of the +coast, of islands lost in seas of sapphire and emerald? of caravans and +towers of ivory? of haunted caverns and deserted temples? where, a +child always, with her darling boy, she had had such adventures as +would have filled a hundred earthly lives. They had built huts in +uninhabited places, or made a twisted bower of strong green creepers, +and lived their primitive paradisal life wanting nothing but each +other; sometimes, through accidents and illness, they had nursed each +other, with such unwearied tenderness that death himself had to +withdraw, defeated by love. Once on a ship there had been mutiny, and +she alone stood by him against a throng; once savages had captured her, +and he, outwitting them, had rescued her, riding through leagues of +prairie-land and forest, holding her before him on the saddle. In +nearly all these adventures it was as though they had met for the first +time, and were struck anew with the dumb wonder of first love, and the +strange shy sweetness of wooing and confession. Yet they were but +playing above truth. For the knowledge was always between them that +they were bound immortally by a love which, having no end, seemed also +to have had no beginning. They quarreled sometimes—this was playing +too. She put, now herself, now him, in the wrong. And either +reconciliation was sweet. But it was she who was oftenest at fault, his +forgiveness was so dear to her. And still, this was but playing at it. +When all these adventures and pretenses were done, they stood heart to +heart, and out of their only meeting in life built up eternal truth and +told each other. They told it inexhaustibly. +</P> + +<P> +And so, when her father left her free to go, Helen lived on still in +the mill of dreams, and kept her millstones grinding. Two years went +by. And her hard gray lonely life laid its hand on her hair and her +countenance. Her father had worn her out before her time. +</P> + +<P> +It was only invisible grain in the mill now. The peasants came no +longer with their corn. She had enough to live on, and her long +seclusion unfitted her for strange men in the mill, and people she must +talk to. And so long was the habit of the recluse on her, that though +her soul flew leagues her body never wandered more than a few hundred +yards from her home. Some who had heard of her, and had glimpses of +her, spoke to her when they met; but they could make no headway with +this sweet, shy, silent woman. Yet children and boys and girls felt +drawn to her. It was the dream in her eyes that stirred the love in +their hearts; though they knew it no more than the soup in the pipkin +knows why it bubbles and boils. For it cannot see the fire. But to them +she did not seem old; her strength and eagerness were still upon her, +and that silver needlework with which time broiders all men had in her +its special beauty, setting her aloof in the unabandoned dream which +the young so often desert as their youth deserts them. Those of her +age, seeing that unyouthful gleam of her hair combined with the +still-youthful dream of her eyes, felt as though they could not touch +her; for no man can break another's web, he can only break his own, and +these had torn their films to tatters long ago, and shouldered their +way through the smudgy rents, and no more walked where she walked. But +very young people knew the places she walked in, and saw her clearly, +for they walked there too, though they were growing up and she was +growing old. +</P> + +<P> +At the end of the second year there was a storm. It lasted three days +without stopping. Such fury of rain and thunder she had never heard. +The gaunt rooms of the mill were steeped in gloom, except when +lightning stared through the flat windows or split into fierce cracks +on the dingy glass. Those three days she spent by candle-light. Outside +the world seemed to lie under a dark doom. +</P> + +<P> +On the third morning she woke early. She had had restless nights, but +now and then slept heavily; and out of one dull slumber she awakened to +the certainty that something strange had happened. The storm had lulled +at last. Through her window, set high in the wall, she could see the +dead light of a blank gray dawn. She had seen other eyeless mornings on +her windowpane; but this was different, the air in her room was +different. Something unknown had been taken from or added to it. As she +lay there wondering, but not yet willing to discover, the flat light at +the window was blocked out. A seagull beat against it with its wings +and settled on the sill. +</P> + +<P> +The flutter and the settling of the bird overcame her. It was as though +reality were more than she could bear. The birds of memory and pain +flew through her heart. +</P> + +<P> +She got up and went to the window. The gull did not move. It was broken +and exhausted by the storm. And beyond it she looked down upon the sea. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, it was true. The sea itself washed at the walls of the mill. +</P> + +<P> +She did not understand these gray-green waters. She knew them in +vision, not in reality. She cried out sharply and threw the window up. +The draggled bird fluttered in and sank on the floor. A sea-wind blew +in with it. The bird's wings shivered on her feet, and the wind on her +bosom. She stared over the land, swallowed up in the sea. Wreckage of +all sorts tossed and floated on it. Fences and broken gates and +branches of trees; and fragments of boats and nets and bits of cork; +and grass and flowers and seaweed—She thought—what did she think? She +thought she must be dreaming. +</P> + +<P> +She felt like one drowning. Where could she find a shore? +</P> + +<P> +She hurried to the bed and got her shell; its touch on her heart was +her first safety. In her nightgown as she was she ran with her naked +feet through the dim passages until she stood beside the grinding +stones.... +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Child! child! child!" +</P> + +<P> +"Where are you, my boy, where are you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Aren't you coming? Must I lose you after all this?—Oh, come!" +</P> + +<P> +"But tell me where you are!" +</P> + +<P> +"In a few hours I should have been with you—a few hours after many +years." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, boy, for pity, tell me where to find you!" +</P> + +<P> +"You are there waiting for me, aren't you, child? I know you are—I've +always known you were. What would you have said to me when you opened +the door in your blue gown?—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but say only where you are, my boy!" +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know what I should have said? I shouldn't have said anything. I +should have kissed you—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, let me come to you and you shall kiss me...." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +But she listened in vain. +</P> + +<P> +She went back to her room. The gull was still on the floor. Its wing +was broken. Her actions from this moment were mechanical; she did what +she did without will. First she bound the broken wing, and fetched +bread and water for the wounded bird. Then she dressed herself and went +out of the mill. She had a rope in her hands. +</P> + +<P> +The water was not all around the mill. Strips and stretches of land +were still unflooded, or only thinly covered. But the face of the earth +had been altered by one of those great inland swoops of the sea that +have for centuries changed and re-changed the point of Sussex, +advancing, receding, shifting the coast-line, making new shores, +restoring old fields, wedding the soil with the sand. +</P> + +<P> +Helen walked where she could. She had no choice of ways. She kept by +the edge of the water and went into no-man's land. A bank of rotting +grasses and dry reeds, which the waves had left uncovered, rose from +the marshes. She mounted it, and beheld the unnatural sea on either +hand. Here and there in the desolate water mounds of gray-green grass +lifted themselves like drifting islands. Trees stricken or still in +leaf reared from the unfamiliar element. Many of those which were +leafless had put on a strange greenness, for their boughs dripped with +seaweed. Over the floods, which were littered with such flotsam as she +had seen from her window, flew sea-birds and land-birds, crying and +cheeping. There was no other presence in that desolation except her own. +</P> + +<P> +And then at last her commanded feet stood still, and her will came back +to her. For she saw what she had come to find. +</P> + +<P> +He was hanging, as though it had caught him in a snare, in a tree +standing solitary in the middle of a wide waste of water. He was +hanging there like a dead man. She could distinguish his dark red hair +and his blue jersey. +</P> + +<P> +She paused to think what to do. She couldn't swim. She would not have +hesitated to try; but she wanted to save him. She looked about, and saw +among the bits of stuff washing against the foot of the bank a large +dismembered tree-trunk. It bobbed back and forth among the hollow +reeds. She thought it would serve her if she had an oar. She went in +search of one, and found a broken plank cast up among the tangled +growth of the bank. When she had secured it she fastened one end of her +rope around the stump of an old pollard squatting on the bank like a +sturdy gnome, and the other end she knotted around herself. Then, +gathering all the middle of the rope into a coil, and using her plank +as a prop, she let herself down the bank and slid shuddering into the +water. But she had her tree-trunk now; with some difficulty she +scrambled on to it, and paddled her way into the open water. +</P> + +<P> +It was not really a great distance to his tree, but to her it seemed +immeasurable. She was unskillful, and her awkwardness often put her +into danger. But her will made her do what she otherwise might not have +done; presently she was under the branches of the tree. +</P> + +<P> +She pulled herself up to a limb beside him and looked at him. And it +was not he. +</P> + +<P> +It was not her boy. It was a man, middle-aged, rough and weatherbeaten, +but pallid under his red-and-tan. His hair was grizzled. And his face +was rough with a growth of grizzled hair. His whole body lurched +heavily and helplessly in a fork of the tree, and one arm hung limp. +His eyes were half-shut. +</P> + +<P> +But they were not quite shut. He was not unconscious. And under the +drooping lids he was watching her. +</P> + +<P> +For a few minutes they sat gazing at each other in silence. She had her +breath to get. She thought it would never come back. +</P> + +<P> +The man spoke first. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you made a job of it," he said. +</P> + +<P> +She didn't answer. +</P> + +<P> +"But you don't know much about the water, do you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've never seen the sea till to-day," said Helen slowly. +</P> + +<P> +He laughed a little. "I expect you've seen enough of it to-day. But +where do you live, then, that you've never seen the sea? In the middle +of the earth?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Helen, "I live in a mill." +</P> + +<P> +His eyelids flickered. "Do you? Yes, of course you do. I might have +guessed it." +</P> + +<P> +"How should you guess it?" +</P> + +<P> +"By your blue dress," said the man. Then he fainted. +</P> + +<P> +She sat there miserably, waiting, ready to prop him if he fell. She did +not know what else to do. Before very long he opened his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Did I go off again?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +She nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Well, it's time to be making a move. I dare say I can now you're +here. What's your name?" +</P> + +<P> +"Helen." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Helen, we'd better put that rope to some use. Will that tree at +the other end hold?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Then just you untie yourself and we'll get aboard and haul ourselves +home." +</P> + +<P> +She unfastened the rope from her body, and helped him down to her +makeshift boat. +</P> + +<P> +"You take the paddle," he said. "My arm's damaged. But I can pull on +the rope with the other." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you sure? Are you all right? What's your name?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I can manage. My name's Peter. This would have been a lark thirty +years ago, wouldn't it? It's rather a lark now." +</P> + +<P> +She nodded vaguely, wondering what she would do if he fell off the log +in mid-water. +</P> + +<P> +"Suppose you faint again?" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't look for trouble," said the man. "Push off, now." +</P> + +<P> +Pulling and paddling they got to the bank. He took her helping-hand up +it, and she saw by his movements that he was very feeble. He leaned on +her as they went back to the mill; they walked without speaking. +</P> + +<P> +When they reached the door Peter said, "It's twenty years since I was +here, but I expect you don't remember." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes," said Helen, "I remember." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you now?" said Peter. "It's funny you should remember." +</P> + +<P> +And with that he did faint again. And this time when he recovered he +was in a fever. His staying-power was gone. +</P> + +<P> +She put him to bed and nursed him. She sat day and night in his room, +doing by instinct what was right and needful. At first he lay either +unconscious or delirious. She listened to his incoherent speech in a +sort of agony, as though it might contain some clue to a riddle; and +sat with her passionate eyes brooding on his countenance, as though in +that too might lie the answer. But if there was one, neither his words +nor his face revealed it. "When he wakes," she whispered to herself, +"he'll tell me. How can there be barriers between us any more?" +</P> + +<P> +After three days he came to himself. She was sitting by the window +preparing sheep's-wool for her spindle. She bent over her task, using +the last of the light, which fell upon her head. She did not know that +he was conscious, or had been watching her, until he spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"Your hair used to be quite brown, didn't it?" he said. "Nut-brown." +</P> + +<P> +She started and turned to him, and a faint flush stained her cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, you're not pleased," said Peter with a slight grin. "None of us +like getting old, do we?" +</P> + +<P> +Helen put by the question. "You're yourself again." +</P> + +<P> +"Doing my best," said he. "How long is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Three days." +</P> + +<P> +"As much as that? I could have sworn it was only yesterday. Well, time +passes." +</P> + +<P> +He said no more, and fell into a doze. Helen was as grateful for this +as she could have been for anything just then. She couldn't have gone +on talking. She was stunned with misgivings. How could he ever have +thought her hair was brown? Couldn't he see even now that it had once +been as black as jet? She put her hand up to her head, and unpinned a +coil of her heavy hair, and spread it over her breast and looked at it. +Yes, the silver was there, too much and too soon. But there was less +silver than black. It was still time's stitchery, not his fabric. The +man who was not her boy need never have seen her before to know that +once her hair had been black. This was worse than forgetfulness in him; +it was misremembrance. She pulled at the silver hairs passionately as +though she would pluck them out and make him see her as she had been. +But soon she stopped her futile effort to uncount the years. "I am +foolish," she whispered to herself, and coiled her lock again and bound +it in its place. "There are other ways of making him remember. +Presently when he wakes again I will talk to him. I will remind him of +everything, yes, and I'll tell him everything. I WON'T be afraid." She +waited with longing his next consciousness. +</P> + +<P> +But to her woe she found herself defeated. While he slept she was able, +as when he had been delirious or absent, to create the occasion and the +talk between them. She dropped all fears, and in frank tenderness +brought him her twenty years of dreams. And in her thought he accepted +and answered them. But when he woke and spoke to her from the bed, she +knew at once that the man who lay there was not the man with whom she +had been speaking. His personality fenced with hers; it had barriers +she could not pass. She dared not try, for dread of his indifference or +his smiles. +</P> + +<P> +"What made you stick on in this place?" he asked her. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know," said Helen. "Places hold one, don't they?" +</P> + +<P> +"None ever held me. I couldn't have been content to stay the best half +of my life in one spot. But I suppose women are different." +</P> + +<P> +"You speak as though all women were the same." +</P> + +<P> +"Aren't they? I thought they might be. I don't know much about them," +said Peter, rubbing his chin. "Rough as a porcupine, aren't I? You must +have thought me a savage when you found me stuck upside-down in that +tree like a sloth. What DID you think?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him, longing to tell him what she had thought. She longed +to tell him of the boy she had expected to find in the tree. She longed +to tell him how the finding had shocked her by bringing home to her her +loss—not of the boy, but of something in that moment still more +precious to her. Because (she longed to tell him) she had so swiftly +rediscovered the lost boy, not in his face but in his glance, not in +his words but in the tones of his voice. +</P> + +<P> +But when she looked at him and saw him leaning on his elbow waiting for +her answer with his half-shut lids and the half-smile on his lips, she +answered only, "I was thinking how to get you back to the bank." +</P> + +<P> +"Was that it? Well, you managed it. I've never thanked you, have I?" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't!" said Helen with a quick breath, and looked out of the window. +</P> + +<P> +He waited for a few moments and then said, "I'm a bad hand at thanking. +I can't help being a savage, you know. I'm not fit for women's company. +I don't look so rough when I'm trimmed." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want to be thanked," said Helen controlling her voice; and +added with a faint smile, "No one looks his best when he's ill." +</P> + +<P> +"Wait till I'm well," grinned Peter, "and see if I'm not fit to walk +you out o' Sundays." He lay back on his pillow and whistled a snatch of +tune. Her heart almost stopped beating, because it was the tune he had +whistled at the door twenty years ago. For a moment she thought she +could speak to him as she wished. But desire choked her power to choose +her words; so many rushed through her brain that she had to pause, +seeking which of them to utter; and that long pause, in which she +really seemed to have uttered them all aloud, checked the impulse. But +surely he had heard her? No; for she had not spoken yet. And before she +could make the effort he had stopped whistling, and when she looked at +him to speak, he was fumbling restlessly about his pillow. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Something I had—where's my clothes?" +</P> + +<P> +She brought them to him, and he searched them till he had found among +them a small metal box which he thrust under the pillow; and then he +lay back, as though too tired to notice her. So her impulse died in +her, unacted on. +</P> + +<P> +And during the next four days it was always so. A dozen times in their +talks she tried to come near him, and could not. Was it because he +would not let her? or because the thing she wished to find in him was +not really there? Sometimes by his manner only, and sometimes by his +words, he baffled her when she attempted to approach him—and the +attempt had been so painful to conceive, and its still-birth was such +agony to her. He would talk frequently of the time when he would be +making tracks again. +</P> + +<P> +"Where to?" asked Helen. +</P> + +<P> +"I leave it to chance. I always have. I've never made plans. Or very +seldom. And I'm not often twice in the same place. You look tired. I'm +sorry to be a bother to you. But it'll be for the last time, most +likely. Go and lie down." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want to," said Helen under her breath. And in her thoughts she +was crying, "The last time? Then it must be soon, soon! I'll make you +listen to me now!" +</P> + +<P> +"I want to sleep," said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +She left the room. Tears of helplessness and misery filled her eyes. +She was almost angry with him, but more angry with herself; but her +self-anger was mixed with shame. She was ashamed that he made her feel +so much, while he felt nothing. Did he feel nothing? +</P> + +<P> +"It's my stupidity that keeps us apart," she whispered. "I will break +through it!" As quickly as she had left him she returned, and stood by +the bed. He was lying with his hand pressed over his eyes. When he was +conscious of her being there, his hand fell, and his keen eyes shot +into hers. His brows contracted. +</P> + +<P> +"You nuisance," he muttered, and hid his eyes again. She turned and +left him. When she got outside the door she leaned against it and shook +from head to foot. She hovered on the brink of her delusions and felt +as though she would soon crash into a precipice. She longed for him to +go before she fell. Yes, she began to long for the time when he should +go, and end this pain, and leave her to the old strange life that had +been so sweet. His living presence killed it. +</P> + +<P> +After that third day she had had no more fears for his safety, and he +was strong and rallied quickly. The gull too was saved. He saved it. It +had drooped and sickened with her. She did not know what to do with it. +On the fourth day as he was so much better, she brought it to him. He +reset its wing and kept it by him, making it his patient and his +playfellow. It thrived at once and grew tame to his hand. He fondled +and talked to it like a lover. She would watch him silently with her +smoldering eyes as he fed and caressed the bird, and jabbered to it in +scraps of a dozen foreign tongues. His tenderness smote her heart. +</P> + +<P> +"You're not very fond of birds," he said to her once, when she had been +sitting in one of her silences while he played with his pet. +</P> + +<P> +The words, question or statement, filled her with anger. She would not +trust herself to protest or deny. "I don't know much about them," she +said. +</P> + +<P> +"That's a pity," said Peter coolly. "The more you know em the more you +have to love em. Yet you could love them for all sorts of things +without knowing them, I'd have thought." +</P> + +<P> +She said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"For their beauty, now. That's worth loving. Look at this one—you're a +beauty all right, aren't you, my pretty? Not many girls to match you." +He paused, and ran his finger down the bird's throat and breast. +"Perhaps you don't think she's beautiful," he said to Helen. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, she's beautiful," said Helen, with a difficulty that sounded like +reluctance. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, you don't think so. You ought to see her flying. You shall some +day. When her hurt's mended she'll fly—I'll let her go." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps she won't go," said Helen. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, she will. How can she stop in a place like this? This is no +air for her—she must fly in her own." +</P> + +<P> +"You'll be sorry to see her go," said Helen. +</P> + +<P> +"To see her free? No, not a bit. I want her to fly. Why should I keep +her? I'd not let her keep me. I'd hate her for it. Why should I make +her hate me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps she wouldn't," said Helen, in a low voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I expect she would. Ungrateful little beggar. I've saved her life, +and she ought to know she belongs to me. So she might stay out of +gratitude. But she'd come to hate me for it, all the same. Not at +first; after a bit. Because we change. Bound to, aren't we?" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps." +</P> + +<P> +"I know I do. We can none of us stay what we were. You haven't either." +</P> + +<P> +"You haven't much to go by," said Helen. +</P> + +<P> +"Seven minutes at the door, wasn't it? This time it's been seven days." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"It's a long time for me," said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +"It's not much out of a lifetime." +</P> + +<P> +"No. But suppose it were more than seven days?" +</P> + +<P> +Helen looked at him and said slowly, "It will be, won't it? You won't +be able to go to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Peter, "not to-morrow, or next day perhaps. Perhaps I won't +be able to go for the rest of my life." +</P> + +<P> +This time Helen looked at him and said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +Peter stroked his bird and whistled his tune and stopped abruptly and +said, "Will you marry me, Helen?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'd rather die," said Helen. +</P> + +<P> +And she got up and went out of the room. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +("Oh, the green grass!" chuckled Martin like a bird. +</P> + +<P> +"Nobody asked her you to begin a song, Master Pippin," quavered +Jennifer. +</P> + +<P> +"It was not the beginning of a song, Mistress Jennifer. It was the +epilogue of a story." +</P> + +<P> +"But the epilogue comes at the end of a story," said Jennifer. +</P> + +<P> +"And hasn't my story come to its end?" said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: Ridiculous! oh, dear! there's no bearing with you. How CAN +this be the end? How can it be, with him on one side of the door and +her on the other? +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: And her heart's breaking—you must make an end of that. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: And you must tell us the end of the shell. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: And of the millstones. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: What did he have in his box? +</P> + +<P> +"Please," said little Joan, "tell us whether she ever found her boy +again—oh, please tell us the end of her dreams." +</P> + +<P> +"Do these things matter?" said Martin. "Hasn't he asked her to marry +him?" +</P> + +<P> +"But she said no," said Jennifer with tears in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Did she?" said Martin. "Who said so?" +</P> + +<P> +"Master Pippin," said Joscelyn, and her voice shook with the agitation +of her anger, "tell us immediately the things we want to know!" +</P> + +<P> +"When, I wonder," said Martin, "will women cease to want to know little +things more than big ones? However, I suppose they must be indulged in +little things, lest—" +</P> + +<P> +"Lest?" said little Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"There is such a thing," said Martin, "as playing for safety.") +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Well, then, my dear maids, when Helen ran out of his room she went to +her own, and she threw herself on the bed and sobbed without weeping. +Because everything in her life seemed to have been taken away from her. +She lay there for a long time, and when she moved at last her head was +so heavy that she took the pins from her hair to relieve herself of its +weight. But still the pain weighed on her forehead, which burned on her +cold fingers when she pressed them over her eyes, trying to think and +find some gleam of hope among her despairing thoughts. And then she +remembered that one thing at least was left her—her shell. During his +illness she had never carried it to the millstones. It was as though +his being there had been the only answer to her daily dreams, an answer +that had failed them all the time. But now in spite of him she would +try to find the old answers again. So she went once more to the +millstones with her shell. And when she got there she held it so +tightly to her heart that it marked her skin. +</P> + +<P> +And the millstones had nothing to say. For the first time they refused +to grind her corn. +</P> + +<P> +Then Helen knew that she really had nothing left, and that the +home-coming of the man had robbed her of her boy and of the child she +had been. Nothing was left but the man and woman who had lost their +youth. And the man had nothing to give the woman. Nothing but gratitude +and disillusion. And now a still bitterer thought came to her—the +thought that the boy had had nothing to give the girl. For twenty years +it had been the girl's illusion. The storms in her heart broke out. She +put her face in her hands and wept like wild rain on the sea. She wept +so violently that between her passion and the speechless grinding of +the stones she did not hear him coming. She only knew he was there when +he put his arm round her. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, you silly thing?" said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +She looked up at him through her hair that fell like a girl's in soft +masses on either side of her face. There was a change in him, but she +didn't know then what it was. He had got into his clothes and made +himself kempt. His beard was no longer rough, though his hair was still +unruly across his forehead, and under it his gray-green eyes looked, +half-anxious, half-smiling, into hers. His face was rather pale, and he +was a little unsteady in his weakness. But the look in his eyes was the +only thing she saw. It unlocked her speech at last. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, why did you come back?" she cried. "Why did you come back? If you +had never come I should have kept my dream to the end of my life. But +now even when you go I shall never get it again. You have destroyed +what was not there." +</P> + +<P> +He was silent for a moment, still keeping his arm round her. Then he +said, "Look what's here." And he opened his hand and showed her his +metal box without its lid; in it were the mummies of seven ears of +corn. Some were only husks, but some had grain in them still. +</P> + +<P> +She stared at them through her tears, and drew from her breast her hand +with the shell in it. Suddenly her mouth quivered and she cried +passionately, "What's the use?" And she snatched the old corn from him +and flung it to the millstones with her shell. And the millstones +ground them to eternal atoms.... +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"My boy! my boy! it was you over there in the tree!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, child, you came at last in your blue gown!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't you call to me?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'd no breath. I was spent. And I knew you'd seen me and would do your +best." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll never forget that sight of you in the tree, with your old jersey +and your hair as red as ever." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall always see your free young figure standing on the high bank +against the sky." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I was desperate." +</P> + +<P> +"I wondered what you'd do. I knew you'd do something." +</P> + +<P> +"I thought I'd never get across the water." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know what I thought as I saw you coming so bravely and so +badly? I thought, I'll teach her to swim one day. Shall I, child?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can't swim without you, my boy," she whispered. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"But you pretended not to know me!" +</P> + +<P> +"I couldn't help it, it was such fun." +</P> + +<P> +"How COULD you make fun of me then?" +</P> + +<P> +"I always shall, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes," she said, "do, always." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"What DID you think when you saw me in the tree? What did you see when +you got there? Not what you expected." +</P> + +<P> +"No. I saw twenty years come flying upon me, twenty years I'd forgotten +all about. Because for me it has always been twenty years ago." +</P> + +<P> +"And you expected to see a boy, and you saw a grizzled man." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Helen, her eyes shining with tears, "I expected to see a +boy, and I saw a gray-haired woman. I've seen her ever since." +</P> + +<P> +"I've only seen her once," said Peter. "I saw her rise up from the +water and sit in my tree. And when she spoke and looked at me, it was a +child." He put his hand over her wet eyes. "You must stop seeing her, +child," he said. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"When I told you my name, were you disappointed?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. It's the loveliest name in the world." +</P> + +<P> +"You said it at once." +</P> + +<P> +"I had to. I'd wanted to say it for twenty years. But I sha'n't say it +often, Helen." +</P> + +<P> +"Won't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, child." +</P> + +<P> +"Now and then, for a treat?" she looked up at him half-shy, half-merry. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you CAN smile, can you?" +</P> + +<P> +"You were to teach me that too." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I've a lot to teach you, haven't I?—I've yet to teach you to say +my name." +</P> + +<P> +"Have you?" +</P> + +<P> +"You've never said it once." +</P> + +<P> +"I've said it a thousand times." +</P> + +<P> +"You've never let me hear you." +</P> + +<P> +"Haven't I?" +</P> + +<P> +"Let me hear you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Peter." +</P> + +<P> +"Say it again!" +</P> + +<P> +"Peter! Peter! Peter!" +</P> + +<P> +"Again!" +</P> + +<P> +"My boy!"... +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"When we got back to the mill-door the last of the twenty years, that +had been melting faster and faster, melted away for ever. And you and I +were standing there as we'd stood then; and I wanted to kiss your mouth +as I'd wanted to then." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, why didn't you?—both times!" +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I now, for both times?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!—oh, that's for a hundred times." +</P> + +<P> +"Think of all the times I've wanted to, and been without you." +</P> + +<P> +"You've never been without me." +</P> + +<P> +"I know that. How often I came to the mill." +</P> + +<P> +"Did you come to the mill?" +</P> + +<P> +"As often as I ate your grain. Didn't you know?" +</P> + +<P> +"I know how often your sea brought me to you." +</P> + +<P> +"Did it?" +</P> + +<P> +"And, oh, my boy! at last the sea brought you to me." +</P> + +<P> +"And the mill," he said. "Where has that brought us?" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"I thought perhaps you'd die." +</P> + +<P> +"I couldn't have died so close on finding you. I was fighting the +demons all the time—fighting my way through to you. And at last I +opened my eyes and saw you again, your black hair edged with light +against the window." +</P> + +<P> +"My black hair? you mean my brown hair, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, weren't you cross! I loved you for being cross." +</P> + +<P> +"I wasn't cross. Why will you keep on saying I'm things I'm not?" +</P> + +<P> +"You were so cross that you pretended our twenty years were sixty." +</P> + +<P> +"I never said anything about twenty years, OR sixty." +</P> + +<P> +"You did, though. Sixty! why, in sixty years we'd have been very nearly +old. So to punish you I pretended to go to sleep, and I saw you take +your hair down. It was so beautiful. You've seen the threads spiders +spin on blackened furze that gypsies have set fire to? Your hair was +like that. You were angry with those lovely lines of silver, and you +wanted to get rid of them. I nearly called to you to stop hurting what +I loved so much, but you stopped of yourself, as though you had heard +me before I called." +</P> + +<P> +"I was ashamed of myself," whispered Helen. "I was ashamed of trying to +be again what I was the only other time you saw me." +</P> + +<P> +"You've never stopped being that, child," said Peter. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"You knew, didn't you, why it was I had stayed on at the mill? You knew +what it was that held me, and why I could never leave it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I knew. It held you because it held me too. I wondered if you'd +tell me that." +</P> + +<P> +"I longed to, but I couldn't. I've never been able to tell you things. +And I never shall." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, child, don't look so troubled. You've always told me things and +always will. Do you think it's with our tongues we tell each other +things? What can words ever tell? They only circle round the truth like +birds flying in the sun. The light bathes their flight, yet they are +millions of miles away from the light they fly in. We listen to each +other's words, but we watch each other's eyes." +</P> + +<P> +"Some people half-shut their eyes, Peter." +</P> + +<P> +"Some people, Helen, can't shut their eyes at all. Your eyes will never +stop telling me things. And the strangest thing about them is that +looking into them is like being able to see in the dark. They are +darkness, not light. And in darkness dreams are born. When I look into +your eyes I go into your dream." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall never shut my eyes again," she whispered. "I will keep you in +my dream for ever." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Women aren't all the same, Peter." +</P> + +<P> +"Aren't they?" +</P> + +<P> +"And yet—they are." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I give it up." +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't you know?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. I told you the truth that time. I've not had very much to do with +women." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I've something to teach you, Peter." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know what you can prove," said Peter. "One woman by herself +can't prove a difference." +</P> + +<P> +"Can't she?" said Helen; and laughed and cried at once. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"But why did you call me a nuisance?" +</P> + +<P> +"You were one—you are one. You leave a man no peace—you're like the +sea. You're full of storms, aren't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not only storms." +</P> + +<P> +"I know. But the sea wouldn't be the sea without her storms. They're +one of her ways of holding us, too. And there are more storms in her +than ever break. I see them in you, big ones and little ones, brooding. +Then you're a—nuisance. You always will be, won't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not to wreck you." +</P> + +<P> +"You won't do that. Or if you do—I can survive shipwreck." +</P> + +<P> +"I know." +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know? I nearly gave up once, but the thought of you stopped +me. I wanted to come back—I'd always meant to. So I held on." +</P> + +<P> +"I know." +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know? I never told you, did I?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Peter, the things we have to tell each other. The times you +thought you were alone—the times I thought I was! You've had a life +you never dreamed of—and I another life that was not in my dreams." +</P> + +<P> +"You've saved me from death more than once," said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +"You've done more than that," said Helen, "you've given me the only +life I've had. But a thing doesn't belong to you because you've saved +its life or given it life. It only belongs to you because you love it. +I know you belong to me. But you only know if I belong to you." +</P> + +<P> +"That's not true now. You do know. And I know." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; and we know that as that belonging has nothing to do with death, +it can't have anything either to do with the saving or even the giving +of life. So you must never thank me, or I you. There are no thanks in +love. And that was why I couldn't bear your asking me to marry you +to-day. I thought you were thanking me." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"When you played with the seagull..." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes?" +</P> + +<P> +"How you loved it!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"I looked to see how you felt when you loved a thing. I wanted so much +to be the seagull in your hands." +</P> + +<P> +"When I touched it I was touching you." +</P> + +<P> +She put his hand to her breast and whispered, "I love birds." +</P> + +<P> +He smiled. "I knew you loved them; and best free. All birds must fly in +their own air." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said. "But their freedom only means their power to choose +what air they'll fly in. And every choice is a cage too." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall leave the door open, child." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall never fly out," said Helen. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"You talked of going away." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. But not from you." +</P> + +<P> +"Am I to go with you always, following chance and making no plans?" +</P> + +<P> +"Will you? You are the only plan I ever made. Will you leave everything +else but me to chance? Perhaps it will lead us all over the earth; and +perhaps after all we shall not go very far. But I never could see +ahead, except one thing." +</P> + +<P> +"What was it?" +</P> + +<P> +"The mill-door and you in your old blue gown. And for seven days I've +stopped seeing that. I haven't it to steer by. Will you chance it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Must you be playing with meanings even in dreams? Don't you +know—don't you know that for a woman who loves, and is not sure that +she is loved, her days and nights are all chances, every minute she +lives is a chance? It might be...it might not be...oh, those ghosts of +joy and pain! they are almost too much to bear. For the joy isn't pure +joy, or the pain pure pain, and she cannot come to rest in either of +them. Sometimes the joy is nearly as great as though she knew; yet at +the instant she tries to take it, it looks at her with the eyes of +doubt, and she trembles, and dare not take it yet. And sometimes the +pain is all but the death she foresees; yet even as she submits to it, +it lays upon her heart the finger of hope. And then she trembles again, +because she need not take it yet. Those are her chances, Peter. But +when she knows that her beloved is her lover, life may do what it will +with her; but she is beyond its chances for ever." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Your corn! you kept my corn!" +</P> + +<P> +"Till it should bear. And your shell there—you've kept my shell." +</P> + +<P> +"Till it should speak. And now—oh, see these things that have held our +dreams for twenty years! The life is threshed from them for ever—they +are only husks. They can hold our dreams no more. Oh, I can't go on +dreaming by myself, I can't, it's no use. I thought my heart had +learned to bear its dream alone, but the time comes when love in its +beauty is too near to pain. There is more love than the single heart +can bear. Good-by, my boy—good-by!" +</P> + +<P> +"Helen! don't suffer so! oh, child, what are you doing?—" +</P> + +<P> +"Letting my dear dreams go...it's no use, Peter..." +</P> + +<P> +The millstones took them and crushed them. +</P> + +<P> +She uttered a sharp cry.... +</P> + +<P> +His arm tightened round her. "What is it, child?" she heard him say. +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him bewildered, and saw that he too was dazed. She looked +into the gray-green eyes of a boy of twenty. She said in a voice of +wonder, "Oh, my boy!" as he felt her soft hair. +</P> + +<P> +"Such a fuss about an empty shell and a bit of dead wheat." +</P> + +<P> +She hid her face on his jersey. +</P> + +<P> +"You are a silly, aren't you?" said Peter. "I wish you'd look up." +</P> + +<P> +Helen looked up, and they kissed each other for the first time. +</P> + +<P> +I defy you now, Mistress Jennifer, to prove that your grassblade is +greener than mine. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="interlude3"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THIRD INTERLUDE +</H3> + +<P> +The girls now turned their attention to their neglected apples, varying +this more serious business with comments on the story that had just +been related. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: I should be glad to know, Jane, what you make of this matter. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Indeed, Jessica, it is difficult to make anything at all of +matter so bewildering. For who could have divined reality to be the +illusion and dreams the truth? so that by the light of their dreams the +lovers in this tale mistook each other for that which they were not. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Who indeed, Mistress Jane, save students of human nature like +yourselves?—who have doubtless long ago observed how men and women +begin by filling a dim dream with a golden thing, such as youth, and +end by putting a shining dream into a gray thing, such as age. And in +the end it is all one, and lovers will see to the last in each other +that which they loved at the first, since things are only what we dream +them to be, as you have of course also observed. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: We have observed nothing of the sort, and if we dreamed at +all we would dream of things exactly as they are, and never dream of +mistaking age for youth. But we do not dream. Women are not given to +dreams. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: They are the fortunate sex. Men are such incurable dreamers +that they even dream women to be worse preys of the delusive habit than +themselves. But I trust you found my story sufficiently wide-awake to +keep you so. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: It did not make me yawn. Is this mill still to be found on +the Sidlesham marshes? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: It is where it was. But what sort of gold it grinds now, +whether corn or dreams, or nothing, I cannot say. Yet such is the power +of what has been that I think, were the stones set in motion, any right +listener might hear what Helen and Peter once heard, and even more; for +they would hear the tale of those lovers' journeys over the changing +waters, and their return time and again to the unchanging plot of earth +that kept their secrets. Until in the end they were together delivered +up to the millstones which thresh the immortal grain from its mortal +husk. But this was after long years of gladness and a life kept young +by the child which each was always re-discovering in the other's heart. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: Oh, I am glad they were glad. Do you know, I had begun to +think they would not be. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: It was exactly so with me. For suppose Peter had never +returned, or when he did she had found him dead in the tree? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: And even after he returned and recovered, how nearly they were +removed from ever understanding each other! +</P> + +<P> +Joan: Oh, no, Jane! once they came together there could be no doubt of +the understanding. As soon as Peter came back, I felt sure it would be +all right. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: And I too, all along, was convinced the tale must end happily. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Strange! so was I. For Love, in his daily labors, is as swift +in averting the nature of perils as he is deft in diverting the causes +of misunderstanding. I know in fact of but one thing that would have +foiled him. +</P> + +<P> +Four of the Milkmaids: What then? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Had Helen not been given to dreams. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Not a word was said in the Apple-Orchard. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Joscelyn: It would have done her no harm had she not been, singer. Nor +would your story have suffered, being, like all stories, a thing as +important as thistledown. In either event, though Peter had perished, +or misunderstood her for ever, it would not have concerned me a whit. +Or even in both events. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Nor me. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Nor me. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Then farewell my story. A thing as important as thistledown is +as unimportantly dismissed. And yonder in heaven the moon sulks at us +through a cloud with a quarter of her eye, reproaching us for our +peace-destroying chatter. It destroys our own no less than hers. To +dream is forbidden, but at least let us sleep. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +One by one the milkmaids settled in the grass and covered their faces +with their hands, and went to sleep. But Jennifer remained where she +was. She sat with downcast eyes, softly drawing the grassblade through +and through her fingers, and the swing swayed a little like a branch +moving in an imperceptible wind, and her breast heaved a little as +though stirred with inaudible sighs. She sat so long like that that +Martin knew she had forgotten he was beside her, and he quietly put out +his hand to draw the grassblade from hers. But before he had even +touched it he felt something fall upon his palm that was not rain or +dew. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear Mistress Jennifer," said Martin gently, "why do you weep?" +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head, since there are times when the voice plays a girl +false, and will not serve her. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it," said Martin, "because the grass is not green enough?" +</P> + +<P> +She nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"Pray let me judge," entreated Martin, and took the grassblade from her +fingers. Whereupon she put her face into her two hands, whispering: +</P> + +<P> +"Master Pippin, Master Pippin, oh, Master Pippin." +</P> + +<P> +"Let me judge," said Martin again, but in a whisper too. +</P> + +<P> +Then Jennifer took her hands from her wet face, and looked at him with +her wet eyes, and said with great braveness and much faltering: +</P> + +<P> +"I will be nineteen in November." +</P> + +<P> +At this Martin looked very grave, and he got down from the tree and +walked to the end of the orchard full of thought. But when he turned +there he found that she had stolen after him, and was standing near him +hanging her head, yet watching him with deep anxiety. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: It is t-t-too old, isn't it? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Too old for what? +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: I—I—I don't know. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: It is, of course, extremely old. There are things you will +never be able to do again, because you are so old. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer sobbed. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You are too old to be rocked in a cradle. You are too old to +write pothooks and hangers, and too old, alas, to steal pickles and jam +when the house is abed. Yet there are still a few things you might do +if— +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: Oh, if? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: If you could find a friend as old as yourself, or even a little +older, to help you. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: But think how old h—h—h— the friend would have to be. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: What would that matter? For all grass is green enough if it not +near grass that looks greener. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: Oh, is this true? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: It is indeed. And I believe too that were your friend's hair +red enough, and your friend's freckled nose snub enough, since youth +resides long in these qualities, you might even, with such a companion, +begin once more to steal pickles and jam by night, to learn your +pothooks and hangers, and even in time to be rocked asleep by a cradle. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: D-d-dear Master Pippin. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: They look quite green, don't they? +</P> + +<P> +And he laid the two blades side by side on her palm, and Jennifer, +whose voice once more would not serve her, nodded and put the two +blades in her pocket. Then Martin took out his handkerchief and very +carefully dried her eyes and cheeks, saying as he did so, "Now that I +have explained this to your satisfaction, won't you, please, explain +something to mine?" +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: I will if I can. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Then explain what it is you have against men. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: I don't know how to tell you, it is so terrible. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I will try to bear it. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: They say women cannot—cannot— +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Cannot? +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: Keep secrets! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Men say so? +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: Yes! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: MEN say so? +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: They do, they do! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Men! Oh, Jupiter! if this were true—but it is not—these men +would be blabbing the greatest of secrets in saying so. If I had a +secret—but I have not—do you think I would trust it to a man? Not I! +What does a man do with a secret? Forgets it, throws it behind him into +some empty chamber of his brain and lets the cobwebs smother it! buries +it in some deserted corner of his heart, and lets the weeds grow over +it! Is this keeping a secret? Would you keep a garden or a baby so? I +will a thousand times sooner give my secret to a woman. She will tend +it and cherish it, laugh and cry with it, dress it in a new dress every +day and dandle it in the world's eye for joy and pride in it—nay, she +will bid the whole world come into her nursery to admire the pretty +secret she keeps so well. And under her charge a little secret will +grow into a big one, with a hundred charms and additions it had not +when I confided it to her, so that I shall hardly know it again when I +ask for it: so beautiful, so important, so mysterious will it have +become in the woman's care. Oh, believe me, Mistress Jennifer, it is +women who keep secrets and men who neglect them. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: If I had only thought of these things to say! But I am not +clever at argument like men. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I suspect these clever arguers. They can always find the right +thing to say, even if they are in the wrong. Women are not to be blamed +for washing their hands of them for ever. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: I know. Yet I cannot help wondering who bakes them +gingerbread for Sunday. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Let them go without. They do not deserve gingerbread. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: I know, I know. But they like it so much. And it is nice +making it, too. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Then I suppose it will have to be made till the last of +Sundays. What a bother it all is. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: I know. Good night, dear Master Pippin. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Dear milkmaid, good night. There lie your fellows, careless of +the color of the grass they lie on, and of the years that lie on them. +They have forsworn the baking of cakes, the eating of which begets +dreams, to which women are not given. Go lie with them, and be if you +can as careless and dreamless as they are. +</P> + +<P> +And then, seeing the tears refilling her eyes, he hastily pulled out +his handkerchief again and wiped them as they fell, saying, "But if you +cannot—if you cannot (don't cry so fast!)—if you cannot, then give me +your key (dear Jennifer, please dry up!) to Gillian's Well-House, +because you were glad that my tale ended gladly, and also because all +lovers, no matter of what age, are green enough, and chiefly because my +handkerchief's sopping." +</P> + +<P> +Then Jennifer caught his hands in hers and whispered, "Oh, Martin! are +they? ALL lovers?—are they green enough?" +</P> + +<P> +"God help them, yes!" said Martin Pippin. +</P> + +<P> +She dropped his hands, leaving her key in them, and looked up at him +with wet lashes, but happiness behind them. So he stooped and kissed +the last tears from her eyes. Since his handkerchief had become quite +useless for the purpose. +</P> + +<P> +And she stole back to her place, and he lay down in his, and Jennifer +dreamed that she was baking gingerbread, and Martin that he was eating +it. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Maids! maids! maids!" +</P> + +<P> +It was Old Gillman on the heels of dawn. +</P> + +<P> +"A pest on him and all farmers," groaned Martin, "who would harvest +men's slumbers as soon as they're sown." +</P> + +<P> +"Get into hiding!" commanded Joscelyn. +</P> + +<P> +"I will not budge," said Martin. "I am going to sleep again. For at +that moment I had a lion in one hand and a unicorn in the other—" +</P> + +<P> +"WILL you conceal yourself!" whispered Joscelyn, with as much fury as a +whisper can compass. +</P> + +<P> +"And the lion had comfits in his crown, and the unicorn a gilded horn. +And both were so sticky and spicy and sweet—" +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn flung herself upon her knees before him, spreading her yellow +skirts which barely concealed him, as Old Gillman thrust his head +through the hawthorn gap. +</P> + +<P> +"Good morrow, maids," he grunted. +</P> + +<P> +"—that I knew not, dear Mistress Joscelyn," murmured Martin, "which to +bite first." +</P> + +<P> +"Good morrow, master!" cried the milkmaids loudly; and they fluttered +their petticoats like sunshine between the man at the hedge and the man +in the grass. +</P> + +<P> +"Is my daughter any merrier this morning?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, master," said Jennifer, "yet I think I see smiles on their way." +</P> + +<P> +"If they lag much longer," muttered the farmer, "they'll be on the +wrong side of her mouth when they do come. For what sort of a home will +she return to?—a pothouse! and what sort of a father?—a drunkard! And +the fault's hers that deprives him of the drink he loved in his sober +days. Gillian!" he exclaimed, "when will ye give up this child's whim +to learn by experience, and take an old man's word for it?" +</P> + +<P> +But Gillian was as deaf to him as to the cock crowing in the barnyard. +</P> + +<P> +"Come fetch your portion," said Old Gillman to the milkmaids, "since +there's no help for it. And good day to ye, and a better morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"Wait a bit, master!" entreated Jennifer, "and tell me if Daisy, my +Lincoln Red, lacks for anything." +</P> + +<P> +"For nothing that Tom can help her to, maid. But she lacks you, and +lacking you, her milk. So that being a cow she may be said to lack +everything. And so do I, and the men, and the farm—ruin's our portion, +nothing but rack and ruin." +</P> + +<P> +Saying which he departed. +</P> + +<P> +"To breakfast," said Martin cheerfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Suppose you'd been seen," scolded Joscelyn. +</P> + +<P> +"Then our tales would have been at an end," said Martin. "Would this +have distressed you?" +</P> + +<P> +"The sooner they're ended the better," said Joscelyn, "if you can do +nothing but babble of sticky unicorns." +</P> + +<P> +"It was fresh from the oven," explained Martin meekly. "I wish we could +have gingerbread for breakfast instead of bread." +</P> + +<P> +"Do not be sure," said Joscelyn severely, "that you will get even +bread." +</P> + +<P> +"I am in your hands," said Martin, "but please be kinder to the ducks." +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn, all of a fluster, then put new bread in the place of +Gillian's old; but her annoyance was turned to pleasure when she +discovered that the little round top of yesterday's loaf had entirely +disappeared. +</P> + +<P> +"Upon my word!" cried she, "the cure is taking effect." +</P> + +<P> +"I believe you are right," said Martin. "How sorry the ducks will be." +</P> + +<P> +They quickly fed the ducks, and then themselves; and Martin received +his usual share, Joscelyn having so far relented that she even advised +him as to the best tree for apples in the whole orchard. +</P> + +<P> +After breakfast Martin found six pair of eyes fixed so earnestly upon +him that he began to laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"Why do you laugh?" asked little Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"Because of my thoughts," said he. So she took a new penny from her +pocket and gave it to him. +</P> + +<P> +"I was thinking," said Martin, "how strange it is that girls are all so +exactly alike." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" cried six different voices in a single key of indignation. +</P> + +<P> +"What a fib!" said Joyce. "I am like nobody but me." +</P> + +<P> +"Nor am!" cried all the others in a breath. +</P> + +<P> +"Yet a moment ago," said Martin, "you, Mistress Joyce, were wondering +with all your might what diversion I had hit upon for this morning. And +so were Jane and Jessica and Jennifer and Joan and Joscelyn." +</P> + +<P> +"I was NOT!" cried six voices at once. +</P> + +<P> +"What, none of you?" said Martin. "Did I not say so?" +</P> + +<P> +And they were very provoked, not knowing what to answer for fear it +might be on the tip of her neighbor's tongue. So they said nothing at +all, and with one accord tossed their heads and turned their backs on +him. And Martin laughed, leaving them to guess why. On which, greatly +put out, every girl without even consulting one another they decided to +have nothing further to do with him, and each girl went and sat under a +different apple-tree and began to do her hair. +</P> + +<P> +"Heigho!" said Martin. "Then this morning I must divert myself." And he +began to spin his golden penny in the sun, sometimes spinning it very +dexterously from his elbow and never letting it fall. But the girls +wouldn't look, or if they did, it was through stray bits of their hair; +when they could not be suspected of looking. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall certainly lose this penny," communed Martin with himself, +quite audibly, "if somebody does not lend me a purse to keep it in." +But nobody offered him one, so he plucked a blade of Shepherd's Purse +from the grass, soliloquizing, "Now had I been a shepherd, or had the +shepherd's name been Martin, here was my purse to my hand. And then, +having saved my riches I might have got married. Yet I never was a +shepherd, nor ever knew a shepherd of my name; and a penny is in any +case a great deal too much money for a man to marry on, be he a +shepherd or no. For it is always best to marry on next-to-nothing, from +which a penny is three times removed." +</P> + +<P> +Then he went on spinning his penny in the air again, humming to himself +a song of no value, which, so far as the girls could tell for the hair +over their ears, went as follows: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + If I should be so lucky<BR> + As a farthing for to find.<BR> + I wouldn't spend the farthing<BR> + According to my mind,<BR> + But I'd beat it and I'd bend it<BR> + And I'd break it into two,<BR> + And give one half to a Shepherd<BR> + And the other half to you.<BR> + And as for both your fortunes,<BR> + I'd wish you nothing worse<BR> + Than that YOUR half and HIS half<BR> + Should lie in the Shepherd's Purse.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +At the end of the song he spun the penny so high that it fell into the +Well-House; and endeavoring to catch it he flung the spire of +wild-flower after it, and so lost both. And nobody took the least +notice of his song or his loss. +</P> + +<P> +Then Martin said, "Who cares?" and took a new clay pipe and a little +packet from his pocket; and he wandered about the orchard till he had +found an old tin pannikin, and he scooped up some water from the +duckpond and made a lather in it with the soap in the packet, and sat +on the gate and blew bubbles. The first bubble in the pipe was always +crystal, and sometimes had a jewel hanging from it which made it fall +to the earth; and the second was tinged with color, and the third +gleamed like sunset, or like peacocks' wings, or rainbows, or opals. +All the colors of earth and heaven chased each other on their surfaces +in all the swift and changing shapes that tobacco smoke plays at on the +air; but of all their colors they take the deepest glow of one or two, +and now Martin would blow a world of flame and orange through the +trees, or one of blue and gold, or another of green and rose. And, as +he might have watched his dreams, he watched the bubbles float away; +and break. But one of the loveliest at last sailed over the Well-House +and between the ropes of the swing and among the fruit-laden boughs, +miraculously escaping all perils; and over the hedge, where a small +wind bore it up and up out of sight. And Martin, who had been looking +after it with a rapt gaze, sighed, "Oh!" And six other "Ohs!" echoed +his. Then he looked up and saw the six milkmaids standing quite close +to him, full of hesitation and longing. So he took six more pipes from +his pockets, and soon the air was glistening with bubbles, big and +little. Sometimes they blew the bubbles very quickly, shaking the tiny +globes as fast as they could from the bowl, till the air was filled +with a treasure of opals and diamonds and moonstones and pearls, as +though the king of the east had emptied his casket there. And sometimes +they blew steadily and with care, endeavoring to create the best and +biggest bubble of all; but generally they blew an instant too long, and +the bubble burst before it left the pipe. Whenever a great sphere was +launched the blower cried in ecstasy, "Oh, look at mine!" and her +comrades, merely glancing, cried in equal ecstasy, "Yes, but see mine!" +And each had a moment's delight in the others' bubbles, but everlasting +joy in her own, and was secretly certain that of all the bubbles hers +were the biggest and brightest. The biggest and brightest of all was +really blown by little Joan: as Martin, in a whisper, assured her. He +whispered the same thing, however, to each of her friends, and for one +truth told five lies. Sometimes they played together, taking their +bubbles delicately from one pipe to another, and sometimes blew their +bubbles side by side till they united, and made their venture into the +world like man and wife. And often they put all their pipes at once +into the pannikin, and blew in the water, rearing a great palace of +crystal hemispheres, that rose until it hit their chins and cheeks and +the tips of their noses, and broke on them, leaving on their fair skin +a trace of glistening foam. And as the six laughing faces bent over the +pannikin on his knees, Martin observed that Joscelyn's hair was coiled +like two great lovely roses over her ears, and that Joyce's was in +clusters of ringlets, and that Jane's was folded close and smooth and +shining round her small head, and that Jessica's was tucked under like +a boy's, while Jennifer's lay in a soft knot on her neck. But little +Joan's was hanging still in its plaits over her shoulders, and one +thick plait was half undone, and the loose hair got in her own and +everybody's way, and was such a nuisance that Martin was obliged at +last to gather it in his hand and hold it aside for the sake of the +bubble-blowers. And when they lifted their heads he was looking at them +so gravely that Joyce laughed, and Jessica's eyes were a question, and +Jane looked demure, and Jennifer astonished, and Joscelyn extremely +composed and indifferent. And little Joan blushed. To cover her +blushing she offered him another penny. +</P> + +<P> +"I was thinking," said Martin, "how strange it is that girls are so +absolutely different." +</P> + +<P> +Then six demure shadows appeared at the very corners of their mouths, +and they rose from their knees and said with one accord, "It must be +dinner-time." And it was. +</P> + +<P> +"Bread is a good thing," said Martin, twirling a buttercup as he +swallowed his last crumb, "but I also like butter. Do not you, Mistress +Joscelyn?" +</P> + +<P> +"It depends on who makes it," said she. "There is butter and butter." +</P> + +<P> +"I believe," said Martin, "that you do not like butter at all." +</P> + +<P> +"I do not like other people's butter," said Joscelyn. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us be sure," said Martin. And he twirled his buttercup under her +chin. "Fie, Mistress Joscelyn!" he cried. "What a golden chin! I never +saw any one so fond of butter in all my days." +</P> + +<P> +"Is it very gold?" asked Joscelyn, and ran to the duckpond to look, but +couldn't see because she was on the wrong side of the gate. +</P> + +<P> +"Do I like butter?" cried Jessica. +</P> + +<P> +"Do I?" cried Jennifer. +</P> + +<P> +"Do I?" cried Joyce. +</P> + +<P> +"Do I?" cried Jane. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, do I?" cried Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll soon find out," said Martin, and put buttercups under all their +chins, turn by turn. And they all liked butter exceedingly. +</P> + +<P> +"Do YOU like butter, Master Pippin?" asked little Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"Try me," said he. +</P> + +<P> +And six buttercups were simultaneously presented to his chin, and it +was discovered that he liked butter the best of them all. +</P> + +<P> +Then every girl had to prove it on every other girl, and again on +Martin one at a time, and he on them again. And in this delicious +pastime the afternoon wore by, and evening fell, and they came +golden-chinned to dinner. +</P> + +<P> +Supper was scarcely ended—indeed, her mouth was still full—when +Jessica, looking straight at Martin, said, "I'm dying to swing." +</P> + +<P> +"I never saved a lady's life easier," said Martin; and in one moment +she found herself where she wished to be, and in the next saw him close +beside her on the apple-bough. The five other girls went to their own +branches as naturally as hens to the roost. Joscelyn inspected them +like a captain marshalling his men, and when each was armed with an +apple she said: +</P> + +<P> +"We are ready now, Master Pippin." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish I were too," said he, "but my tale has taken a fit of the +shivers on the threshold, like an unexpected guest who doubts his +welcome." +</P> + +<P> +"Are we not all bidding it in?" said Joscelyn impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, like sweet daughters of the house," said Martin. "But what of the +mistress?" And he looked across at Gillian by the well, but she looked +only into the grass and her thoughts. +</P> + +<P> +"Let the daughters do to begin with," said Joscelyn, "and make it your +business to stay till the mistress shall appear." +</P> + +<P> +"That might be to outstay my welcome," said Martin, "and then her +appearance would be my discomfiture. For a hostess has, according to +her guests, as many kinds of face as a wildflower, according to its +counties, names." +</P> + +<P> +"Some kinds have only one name," said Jessica, plucking a stalk crowned +with flowers as fine as spray. "What would you call this but Cow +Parsley?" +</P> + +<P> +"If I were in Anglia," said Martin, "I would call it Queen's Lace." +</P> + +<P> +"That's a pretty name," said Jessica. +</P> + +<P> +"Pretty enough to sing about," said Martin; and looking carelessly at +the Well-House he thrummed his lute and sang— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + The Queen netted lace<BR> + On the first April day,<BR> + The Queen wore her lace<BR> + In the first week of May,<BR> + The Queen soiled her lace<BR> + Ere May was out again,<BR> + So the Queen washed her lace<BR> + In the first June rain.<BR> + The Queen bleached her lace<BR> + On the first of July,<BR> + She spread it in the orchard<BR> + And left it there to dry,<BR> + But on the first of August<BR> + It wasn't in its place<BR> + Because my sweetheart picked it up<BR> + And hung it o'er her face.<BR> + She laughed at me, she blushed at me,<BR> + With such a pretty grace<BR> + That I kissed her in September<BR> + Through the Queen's own lace.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +At the end of the song Gillian sat up in the grass, and looked with all +her heart over the duckpond. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: I find your songs singularly lacking in point, singer. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You surprise me, Mistress Joscelyn. The kiss was the point. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: It is like you to think so. It is just like you to think +a—a—a— +</P> + +<P> +Martin: —kiss— +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: Sufficient conclusion to any circumstances. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Isn't it? +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: My goodness! You might as soon ask, is a peardrop sufficient +for a body's dinner. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: It would suffice me. I love peardrops. But then I am a man. +Women doubtless need more substance, being in themselves more +insubstantial. Now as to your quarrel with my song— +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: It is of no consequence. You raise expectations which you do +not fulfill. But it is not of the least consequence. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Dear Mistress Joscelyn, my only desire is to please you. We +will not conclude on a kiss. You shall fulfill your own expectations. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: Mine?—I have no expectations whatever. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: But I have disappointed you. What shall I do with my +sweetheart? Shall she be whipped for her theft? Shall she be shut in a +dungeon? Shall she be thrown before elephants? Choose your conclusion. +</P> + +<P> +Joan: But, Master Pippin!—why must the poor sweetheart be punished? I +am sure Joscelyn never wished her to be punished. There are other +conclusions. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Dunderhead that I am, I can't think of any! What, Mistress +Joscelyn, was the conclusion you expected? +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: I tell you, I expected none! +</P> + +<P> +Joan: Why, Master Pippin! I should have fancied that, seeing the dear +sweetheart had hung the veil over her face, she might— +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Yes? +</P> + +<P> +Joan: Be expected— +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Yes! +</P> + +<P> +Joan: To be about to be— +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: I am sick to death of this silly sweetheart. And since our +mistress appears to be listening with both her ears, it would be more +to the point to begin whatever story you propose to relate to-night, +and be done with it. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You are always right. Therefore add your ears to hers, while I +tell you the tale of Open Winkins. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="tale4"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +OPEN WINKINS +</H3> + +<P> +There were once, dear maidens, five lords in the east of Sussex, who +owned between them a single Burgh; for they were brothers. Their names +were Lionel and Hugh and Heriot and Ambrose and Hobb. Lionel was ten +years of age and Hobb was twenty-two, there being exactly three years +all but a month between the birthdays of the brothers. And Lionel had a +merry spirit, and Hugh great courage and daring, and Heriot had beauty +past any man's share, and Ambrose had a wise mind; but Hobb had nothing +at all for the world's praise, for he only had a loving heart, which he +spent upon his brothers and his garden. And since love begets love, +they all loved him dearly, and leaned heavily on his affection, though +neither they nor any man looked up to him because he was a lord. +Although he was the eldest, and in his quiet way administered the +affairs of the Burgh and of the people of Alfriston under the Burgh, it +was Ambrose who was always thinking of new schemes for improvement, and +Heriot who undertook the festivities. As for the younger boys, they +kept the old place alive with their youth and spirits; and it was +evident that later on Hugh would win honor to the Burgh in battle and +adventure, and Lionel would draw the world thither with his charm. But +Hobb, to whom they all brought their shapeless dreams white-hot, since +sympathy helps us to create bodies for the things which begin their +existence as souls—Hobb differed from the four others not only in his +name, but in his plain appearance and simple tastes. And all these +things, as well as his tender heart, he got from his mother, who was +the only daughter of a gardener of Alfriston. The gardener, to whom she +was the very apple of his eye, had kept her privately in a place on a +hill, fearing lest in her youth and inexperience she should fall to the +lot of some man not worthy of her; for her knew, or believed, that a +young girl of her sweetness and tenderness and devotedness of +disposition would by her sweetness attract a lover too early, and by +her tenderness respond to him too readily, and by her devotedness +follow him too blindly, before she had time to know herself or men. And +he also knew, or believed, that first love is as often a +will-o'-the-wisp as the star for which all young things take it. Five +days in the week he tended the gardens of Alfriston, the sixth he gave +to the Lord of the Burgh that lay among the hills, and the seventh he +kept for his daughter on the hill a few miles distant, which was +afterwards known as Hobb's Hawth. She on her part spent her week in +endeavoring to grow a perfect rose of a certain golden species, and her +heart was given wholly to her father and her flower. And he watched her +efforts with interest and advice, and for the first she thanked him but +of the second took no heed. "For," said she, "this is MY garden, +father, and MY rose, and I will grow it in my own way or not at all. +Have you not had a lifetime of gardens and roses which you have brought +to perfection? And would you let any man take your own upon his +shoulders, even your own mistakes, and shoulder at last the praise +after the blame?" Then Hobb, her father, laughed at her indulgently and +said, "Nay, not any man; yet once I let a woman, and without her aid I +would never have brought my rarest and dearest flower to perfection. So +if I should let a woman help me, why not you a man?" "Was the woman +your mother?" said she. And her father was silent. Then a day came when +he trudged up and down the hills from Alfriston, and standing at the +gate of her garden saw his child in the arms of a stranger; and her +face, as it lay against his heart, seemed to her father also to be the +face of a stranger, and not of his child. He recognized in the stranger +the Lord of the Burgh. And he saw that what he had feared had come to +pass, and that his daughter's heart would be no more divided between +her father and her flower, for it was given whole to the lover who had +first assailed it. Hobb came into the garden, and they looked up as the +gate clicked, and their faces grew as red as though one had caught the +reflection from the other. But both looked straight into his eyes. And +his daughter, pointing to her bush, said, "Father, my rose is grown at +last," and he saw that the bush was crowned with a glorious golden +bloom, perfect in every detail. Then it was the turn of the Lord of the +Burgh, and he said, "Sir, I ask leave to rob your garden of its rose." +"Do robbers ask leave?" said Hobb. And he shook his head, adding, "Nay, +when the thief and the theft are in collusion, what say is left to the +owner of the treasure? Yet I do not like this. Sir, have you considered +that she is a gardener's child? Daughter, have you considered that he +is a lord?" And neither of them had considered these questions, and +they did not propose to do so. Then Hobb shook his head again and said, +"I will not waste words. I know when a plant can drink no more water. +And though you pretend to ask my leave, I know that you are prepared to +dispense with it. But by way of consent I will say this: whatever you +may call your other sons, you shall call your first Hobb, to remind you +to-morrow of what you will not consider to-day. For my daughter, when +she is a lord's wife, will none the less still be a gardener's +daughter, and your children will be grafted of two stocks. And if this +seems to you a hard condition, then kiss and bid farewell." And they +both laughed with joy at the lightness of the condition; but the +gardener did not laugh. And so the Lord of the Burgh married the +gardener's daughter, and they called their first son Hobb. He was born +on a first of August, and thirty-five months later Ambrose was born on +the first of July, and in due course Heriot in June, and Hugh in May, +and Lionel in April. And the Lord, loving his sons equally, made them +equal possessors of the Burgh when in time it should pass out of his +hands. Which, since men are mortal, presently came to pass, and there +were five lords instead of one. +</P> + +<P> +It happened on a roaring night of March, when the wind was blustering +over the barren ocean of the east Downs, and Lionel was still a boy of +ten, but soon to be eleven, that the five brothers sat clustered about +the great hearth in the hall, roasting apples and talking of this and +that. But their talk was fitful, and had long pauses in which they +listened to the gusty night, which had so much more to say than they. +And after one of the silences Lionel shuddered slightly, and drawing +his little stool close to Hobb he said: +</P> + +<P> +"It sounds like witches." Hobb put his big hand round the child's head +and face, and Lionel pressed his cheek against his brother's knee. +</P> + +<P> +"Or lions," said Hugh, jumping up and running to the window, where he +flattened his nose to stare into the night. "I wish it were lions +coming over the Downs." +</P> + +<P> +"What would you do with them?" said Hobb, smiling broadly. +</P> + +<P> +"Fight them," said Hugh, "and chain them up. I should like to have +lions instead of dogs—a red lion and a white one." +</P> + +<P> +"I never heard tell of lions of those colors," said Hobb. "But perhaps +Ambrose has with all his reading." +</P> + +<P> +"Not I," said Ambrose, "but I haven't read half the books yet. The wind +still knows more than I, and it may be that he knows where red and +white lions are to be found. For he knows everything." +</P> + +<P> +"And has seen everything," murmured Heriot, watching a lovely flame of +blue and green that flickered among the red and gold on the hearth. +</P> + +<P> +"And has been everywhere," muttered Hugh. "If I could find and catch +him, I'd ask him for a red and a white lion." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd rather have peacocks," said Heriot, his eyes on the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"What would you choose, Ambrose?" asked Hobb. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing," said he, "but it's the hardest of all things to have, and I +doubt if I'd get it. But what business have we to be choosing presents? +That is Lionel's right before ours, for isn't his birthday next month? +What will you ask of the wind for your birthday, Lal?" +</P> + +<P> +Then Lionel, who was getting very drowsy, smiled a sleepy smile, and +said, "I'd like a farm of my own in the Downs, a very little farm with +pink pigs and black cocks and white donkeys and chestnut horses no +bigger than grasshoppers and mice, and a very little well as big as my +mug to draw up my water from, and a little green paddock the size of my +pocket-handkerchief, and another of yellow corn, and another of crimson +trefoil. And I would have a blue farm-wagon no larger than Hobb's shoe, +and a haystack half as big as a seed-cake, and a duckpond that I could +cover with my platter. And I'd live there and play with it all day +long, if only I knew where the wind lives, and could ask him how to get +it." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't start till to-morrow," jested Ambrose, "to-night you're too +sleepy to find the way." +</P> + +<P> +Then he turned to his book, and Hugh was still at the window, and +Heriot gazing into the fire. And as he felt the child's head droop in +his hand, Hobb picked him up in his arms and carried him to bed. And he +alone of all those brothers had made no choice, nor had they thought to +ask him, so accustomed were they to see him jog along without the +desires that lead men to their goals—such as Ambrose's thirst for +knowledge, and Heriot's passion for beauty, and Hugh's lust for +adventure, and Lionel's pursuit of delight. And yet, unknown to them +all, he had a heartfelt wish, which, among other things, he had +inherited from his mother. For on a height west of the Burgh he had +made a garden where, like her, he labored to produce a perfect golden +rose. But so far luck was against him, though his height, which was +therefore spoken of as the Gardener's Hill, bloomed with the loveliest +flowers of all sorts imaginable. But year by year his rose was attacked +by a special pest, the nature of which he had not succeeded in +discovering. Yet his patience was inexhaustible, and his brothers who +sometimes came to his garden when they needed a listener for their +achieved or unachieved ambitions, never suspected that he too had an +ambition he had not realized, for they saw only a lovely garden of his +creating, where wisdom, beauty, adventure, and delight were made +equally welcome by the gardener. +</P> + +<P> +Now on the March day following the night of the brothers' windy talk— +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(But suddenly Martin, with a nimble movement, stood upright on his +bough, and grasping that to which the swing was attached, shook it with +such frenzy that a tempest seemed to pass through the tree, and the +girls shrieked and clung to the trunk, and leaves and apples flew in +all directions; and Jessica, between clutching at her ropes, and +letting go to ward off the cannonade of fruit, gasped in a tumult of +laughter and indignation. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Have you gone mad, Master Pippin? have you gone mad? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Mad, Mistress Jessica, stark staring mad! March hares are pet +rabbits to me! +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Sit down this instant! do you hear? this instant! That's +better. What fun it was! Aha, you thought you could shake me off, but +you didn't. Are you still mad? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Melancholy mad, since you will not let me rave. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: You are the less dangerous. But I hate you to be melancholy. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: It is no one's fault but yours. How can I be jolly when my +story upsets you? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: How do you know it upsets me? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You put out your tongue at me. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Did I? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Yes, without reason. So what could I do but whistle mine to the +winds? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: You were too hasty, for I had my reason. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: If it was a good one I'll whistle mine back again. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: It was this. That no man in a love-tale should be wiser or +braver or more beautiful or more happy than the hero; or how can he be +the hero? Yet I am sure Hobb is the hero and none of the others, +because he is the only one old enough to be married. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Ambrose in nineteen, and will very soon be twenty. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: What's nineteen, or even twenty, in a man? Fie! a man's not a +man till he comes of age, and the hero's not Ambrose for all his +wisdom, though wisdom becomes a hero. Nor Heriot for all his beauty, +though a hero should be beautiful. Nor Hugh, who will one day be brave +enough for any hero, though now he's but a boy. Nor the happy Lionel, +who is only a child—yet I love a gay hero. It's none of these, full +though they be of the qualities of heroes. And here is your Hobb with +nothing to show but a fondness for roses. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You deserve to be stood in a corner for that nothing, Mistress +Jessica. Your reason was such a bad one that I see I must return to +sense if only to teach you a little of it. Did I not say Hobb had a +loving heart? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: But he was plain and simple and patient and contented. Are +these things for a hero? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Mistress Jessica, I will ask you a riddle. What is it—? Oh, +but first, I take it you love apple-trees? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Who doesn't? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: What is it, then, you love in an apple-tree? Is it the dancing +of the leaves in the wind? Is it the boldness of the boughs? Or perhaps +the loveliness of the flower in spring? Or again the fruit that ripens +of the flower amongst the leaves on the boughs? What is it you love in +an apple-tree? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: All riddles are traps. I must consider before I answer. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You shall consider until the conclusion of my story, and not +till you are satisfied that many things can be contained in one, will I +require your solution. And as for traps, it is always the solver of +riddles who lays his own trap, by looking all round the question and +never straight at it. Put on your thinking-cap, I beg, while I go on +babbling.) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +On the March day following the brothers' talk (continued Martin) Lionel +was missing. It was some time before his absence was noticed, for Hobb +was in his distant garden, and Ambrose among his books, and Heriot had +ridden north to the market-town to buy stuff for a jerkin, and Hugh had +run south to the sea to watch the ships. So Lionel was left to his own +devices, and what they were none tried to guess till evening, when the +brothers met again and he was not there. Then there was hue and cry +among the hills, but to no purpose. The child had vanished like a +cloud. And the month wore by, and their hearts grew heavier day by day. +</P> + +<P> +It was in the last week of March that Hugh one morning came red-eyed to +his brothers and said, "I am going away, and I will not come back until +I have found Lionel. For I can't rest." +</P> + +<P> +"None of us can do that," said Ambrose, "and we have searched and sent +messengers everywhere. You are too young to go alone." +</P> + +<P> +"I am nearly fourteen," said Hugh, "and stronger than Heriot, and even +than you, Ambrose, and I can take care of myself and Lionel too. There +are more ways than one to seek, and I'll go my way while you go yours. +But I will find him or die." And he looked with defiance at Ambrose, +and then turned to Hobb and said doggedly, "I'm going, Hobb." +</P> + +<P> +Hobb, who himself sought the hills unwearingly day after day, and then +sat up three parts of the night attending to the duties of the Burgh, +said, "Go, and God bless you." +</P> + +<P> +And Hugh's mouth grew less set, and he kissed his brothers, and put his +knife in his belt, and took food in his wallet, and walked out of the +Burgh. He followed the grass-track to the north, and had walked less +than half-an-hour when the wind took his cap and blew it into the +middle of a pond, where it lay soddening out of reach. So he took off +his shoes and walked into the pond to fetch it out, stirring up the +yellow mud in thick soft clouds. But as he stooped to grab his cap, +something else stirred the mud in the middle, and a body heaved itself +sluggishly into view. At first Hugh thought it must be the body of a +sheep that had tumbled into the water, but to his amazement the sulky +head of an old man appeared. He was barely distinguishable from the mud +out of which he had risen. +</P> + +<P> +"Drat the boys!" said the muddy man. "Will they never be done with +disturbing the newts and me? Drat em, I say!" +</P> + +<P> +"Who are you?" demanded Hugh, staring with all his might. +</P> + +<P> +"Jerry I am, and this is my pond. Why can't you leave me in peace?" +</P> + +<P> +"The wind took my cap," said Hugh. +</P> + +<P> +"Finding's keepings," said the muddy man, taking the cap himself, "and +windfalls on this water is mine. So I'll keep your cap, and it's the +second wind's brought me this March. And if you're in want of another +you'd best go to where Wind lives and ask him for it, like t'other one. +But he said he'd ask for a toy farm instead." +</P> + +<P> +"A toy farm?" shouted Hugh. +</P> + +<P> +"Go away and don't deafen a body," said Jerry, and prepared to sink +again. But Hugh caught him by the hair and said fiercely, "Keep my cap +if you like, but I won't let you go until you tell me where my brother +went." +</P> + +<P> +"Your brother was it?" growled the muddy man. "He went to High and +Over, dancing like a sunbeam." +</P> + +<P> +"What's High and Over?" +</P> + +<P> +"Where Wind lives." +</P> + +<P> +"Where's that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Find out," mumbled the muddy man; and he wriggled himself out of +Hugh's clutch and buried himself like a monstrous newt in the mud. And +though Hugh groped and fumbled shoulder-deep he could not feel a trace +of him. +</P> + +<P> +"But," said he, "there's at least a name to go on." And he got out of +the pond and went in search of High and Over. And his brothers waited +in vain for his return. And the heaviness of four hearts was now +divided between three, and doubled because of another brother lost. +</P> + +<P> +But on the first of April, which was Lionel's birthday, Lionel came +back. Or rather, Hobb found him in a valley north of his garden hill, +when he was wandering on one of his forlorn searches. And when he found +him Hobb could not believe his eyes. For the child was sitting in the +middle of the prettiest plaything in the world. It was a tiny farm, +covering perhaps a quarter of an acre, with minute barns and yards and +stables, and pigmy livestock in the little pastures, and hand-high +crops in the little meadows; and smoke came from the tiny chimney of +the farmhouse, and Lionel was drawing water from a well in a bucket the +size of a thimble. And all the colors were so bright and painted that +the little farmstead seemed to have been conceived of the gayest mind +on earth. But through his amazement Hobb had no thought except for the +child, and he ran calling him by his name, but Lionel never looked up. +And then Hobb lifted him in his arms, and embraced him closely, but the +child did not respond. +</P> + +<P> +Then Hobb looked at him anxiously, and was so shocked that he forgot +the strange blithe little farm entirely. For Lionel was as wan and +wasted as though he had been through a fever, and his rosy face was +white, and his merry eyes were melancholy. And suddenly, as Hobb +clasped him, he flung his arms round his big brother's neck and buried +his face in his bosom and wept bitterly. +</P> + +<P> +Then Hobb tried to soothe and comfort him, asking him little questions +in a coaxing voice—"Where has the child been? Why did he run away and +leave us? Where did he get this pretty, wonderful toy? Is he hurt, or +hungry? Does he remember it is his birthday? There will be presents for +him at the Burgh, and a cake for tea. Did Hugh bring him home? Has he +seen Hugh? Lal, Lal, where is Hugh?" +</P> + +<P> +But Lionel answered none of these questions, he only sobbed and sobbed, +and suddenly slipped out of Hobb's arms, and began to play once more +with his farm, while the tears ran down his thin cheeks. Presently he +let Hobb take him home, and there Heriot and Ambrose rejoiced and +sorrowed over him. For he would scarcely speak or eat, and only shook +his head at their questions. At Hugh's name his tears flowed twice as +fast, but he would tell them nothing of him. Very soon Hobb carried him +to bed, and in undressing him noticed that he had no shirt. This too +Lionel would not explain, and Hobb ceased troubling him with talk, and +knelt and prayed by him, and laid him down to sleep, hoping that in the +morning he would be better. But morning brought no change. Lionel from +that day was given up to grief. Each morning he went dejectedly to play +with his marvelous toy in the valley, but how he came by it he would +not say. +</P> + +<P> +Towards the end of April Heriot came to Hobb and Ambrose and said, "I +cannot bear this; Lionel is home and we are none the better for it, and +Hugh is gone and we are all the worse. Hugh is capable of looking after +himself, yet perhaps danger has befallen him; and even if not, he will +roam the country fruitlessly for months, and it may be years; since +Lionel is restored and he does not know it. The Burgh can spare me +better than it can you, and I will ride abroad and see if I can find +him, and return in seven days, whether or no." +</P> + +<P> +So they embraced him, and he departed. But at the end of seven days he +did not appear. And Ambrose and Hobb were dismayed at his vanishing +like the others, and so heavy a gloom descended on the Burgh that each +could scarcely have endured it without the other. And every day they +went forth in search of Hugh and Heriot, or of traces of them, but +found none. +</P> + +<P> +Then it happened that on the first of May, which was Hugh's birthday, +Hobb, wandering further north than usual, to the brow of the great +ridge east of the Ouse, heard a wild roaring and bellowing on the +Downs; or rather, it was two separate roarings, as you may sometimes +hear two separate storms thundering at once over two ranges of hills. +And in astonishment he went first to Beddingham, and there, bound by an +iron chain to a stake beside a pond, he found a mighty lion, as white +as a young lamb. But he had not a lamb's meekness, for he ramped and +raved in a great circle around the stake, and his open throat set in +his shaggy mane looked like the red sun seen upon white mist. Hobb +rubbed his eyes and turned towards Ilford, where the second roaring +sought to outdo the first. And there beside another pond he found +another stake and chain, and a lion exactly similar, except that he was +as red as a rose. But he had not a rose's sweetness, for he snarled and +leaped with fury at the end of his chain, and his flashing teeth under +his red muzzle looked like the blossom of the scarlet runner. +</P> + +<P> +And then, turning about for an explanation of these wonders, Hobb saw +what drove them from his mind—the figure of Hugh crouched in a little +hollow, and shaking like a leaf. Hobb ran towards him with a shout, and +at the shout Hugh leaped to his feet, with the eyes of a hunted hare, +and looked on all sides as though seeking where to hide. But Hobb was +soon beside him, with his arm round the boy's shoulder, and gazing +earnestly into his face. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, lad," said he, "do you not know me again?" +</P> + +<P> +Hugh stole a glance at him, and suddenly smiled and nodded, and tried +to answer, but could not for the chattering of his teeth. And he clung +hard to his brother's side, and shuddered from head to foot. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you ill, Hugh?" Hobb asked him, bewildered at the boy's unlikeness +to himself. +</P> + +<P> +"No, Hobb," said Hugh, "but need we stay here now?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, no," said Hobb gently, "we will go when you like. Where do these +beasts come from?" +</P> + +<P> +Hugh set his lips and began to move away. +</P> + +<P> +Hobb went beside him and said, "Lionel is home, but Heriot is lost. +Have you seen Heriot?" +</P> + +<P> +Hugh hesitated, and then stammered, "No, I have not seen him." +</P> + +<P> +And Hobb knew that he had lied, Hugh who had always been as fearless of +the truth as of anything else. So after that he asked no more, fearing +to get another lie for an answer; and he led Hugh home, supporting him +with his arm, for he was full of fits and starts and shiverings. If a +lump of chalk rolled under his shoe he blanched and cried, "What's +that?" and once when a field-mouse ran across the path he swooned. Then +Hobb, opening his tunic at the neck, saw that nothing was between it +and his body; for he, like Lionel, was without his shirt. +</P> + +<P> +They got back to the Burgh, and Hobb found Ambrose and told him how it +was. And Ambrose came to Hugh and talked with him, and turned away with +knitted brows. For here was a puzzle not dealt with in his books. And +May went by in miserable fashion, with Lionel spending the days in +playing mournfully beside his farm, and Hugh in cowering abjectly +between his lions. And sometimes Ambrose and Hobb, after searching for +Heriot or news of him, or spending their spirits in endeavoring to +hearten their two brothers, or to elicit from them something that +should give them the key to the mystery, would meet in Hobb's +hill-garden, where seemed to be the only peace and loveliness left upon +earth. And Hobb would weed and tend his neglected flowers, and they +bloomed for him as though they knew he loved them—as indeed they did. +Only his golden rose-tree would not flourish, but this small sorrow was +unguessed by Ambrose. +</P> + +<P> +One evening as they sat in the garden in the last week of May, Ambrose +said to his brother, "I have been thinking, Hobb, that at all costs +Heriot must be found, and not for his own sake only. He is younger than +we, and nearer in spirit to the boys; and he may be able to help them +as we cannot. For if this goes on, Hugh will die of his fears and +Lionel of his melancholy. You must stay and administer our affairs as +usual, and look after the boys; and I will go further afield in search +of Heriot." +</P> + +<P> +Hobb was silent for a moment, and then he sighed and said, "No good has +come of these seekings. Our lads returned of themselves, as Heriot may. +And their return was worse than anything we feared of their absence, +as, if he come back, I pray Heriot's will not be. And for you, +Ambrose—" But then he paused, not saying what was in his mind. And +Ambrose said, "Do not be afraid for me. These boys are young, and I am +older than my years. And though I cannot face danger with a stouter +heart than our brothers, I can perhaps see into it a little further +than they. And foresight is sometimes a still better tool than courage." +</P> + +<P> +Then he took Hobb's hand in his, and they gripped with the grip of men +who love each other; and Ambrose went out of the garden, and Hobb was +left alone. For Hugh and Lionel were companions to none but themselves. +</P> + +<P> +But on the first of June Hobb, coming to the gate of his garden, saw +with surprise a peacock strutting on the hillbrow, his fan spread in +the sun, a luster of green and blue and gold, and behind him was +another, and further south three more. So Hobb went out to look at +them, and found not five but fifty peacocks sweeping the Downs with +their heavy trains, or opening and shutting them like gigantic magical +flowers. Following the throng of birds, he came shortly to a barn +already known to him, but he had never seen it as he saw it now. For +the roof was crowded with peacocks, and peacocks strayed in flocks +within and without; and sitting in the doorway was Heriot, the sight of +whom so overjoyed his brother that Hobb forgot the thousand peacocks in +the one man. And he made speed to greet him, but within a few yards +halted full of doubt. For was this Heriot? He had Heriot's air and +attitude, yet the grace was gone from his body; and Heriot's features, +surely, but the beauty had melted away like morning dew. And his dress, +which had always been orderly and beautiful, was neglected; so that +under the half-laced jerkin Hobb saw that he was shirtless. Yet after +the first moment's shock, he knew this gaunt and ugly youth was Heriot. +And Heriot seeing his coming hung his head, and made a shamed movement +of retreat into the shadow of the barn. But Hobb hurried to him, and +took him by the shoulders, and beheld him with the eyes of love which +always find its object beautiful. Then the flush faded from Heriot's +haggard cheeks, and he looked as full at Hobb as Hobb at him. And as at +the steadfast meeting of eyes men see no longer the physical +appearance, but for an eternal instance the appearance of the soul, +these brothers knew that they were to each other what they had always +been. And Heriot saw that Hobb was full of questions, and he laid his +hand over Hobb's mouth and said, "Hobb, do not ask me anything, for I +can tell you nothing." +</P> + +<P> +"Neither of yourself nor of Ambrose?" said Hobb. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing," repeated Heriot. +</P> + +<P> +So Hobb left his questions unspoken, and as they went home together +told Heriot of Hugh's return, and what had happened to him. And Heriot +heard it without comment. And in the evening, when Lionel and Hugh +returned, they had nothing to say to Heriot, nor he to them; and it +seemed to Hobb that this was because these three everything was +understood. +</P> + +<P> +It was a lonely June for Hobb, with his eldest brother away, and the +three others spending all their days beside their strange possessions, +which brought them no tittle of joy; and had it not been for his garden +he would have felt utterly bereft. Yet here too failure sat heavily on +his heart; for an many a night he saw upon his bush a bud that promised +perfection to come, and in the morning it hung dead and rotten on its +stem. +</P> + +<P> +So the month wore on, and Hobb began to feel that the Burgh, where now +his brothers only came to sleep, was a dead shell, too desolate to +inhabit if Ambrose did not soon return. And he was impelled to go in +search of him, yet decided to remain until Ambrose's birthday had +dawned, for had not their birthdays brought his three youngest brothers +home? And it might be so with Ambrose. And so it was. +</P> + +<P> +For on the first of July, before going to his garden, he stayed at +Heriot's barn to try to induce him to leave his peacocks for once, and +spend the day with him in search of Ambrose; but Heriot, who was +feeding his fowl, never looked up, and said sadly, "What need to seek +Ambrose to-day? Ambrose has returned." +</P> + +<P> +"Have you seen him?" cried Hobb joyfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Early this morning," said Heriot. +</P> + +<P> +"Where?" +</P> + +<P> +"Down yonder in Poverty Bottom," said Heriot, pointing south of his +barn to a hollow that went by that name. For there was a dismal +habitation that had fallen into decay, a skeleton of a hut with only +two rotting walls, and a riddled thatch for a roof. And it was worse +than no habitation at all, for what might have been a green and lovely +vale was made desolate and rank with disused things, rusting among the +lumber of bricks and nettles. It was enough to have been there once +never to go again. And Hobb had been there once. +</P> + +<P> +But now, at Heriot's tidings, he ran down the hill a second time as +though it led to Paradise, calling Ambrose as he went. And getting no +answer he began to fear that either Heriot was mistaken, or Ambrose had +gone away. His fears were unfounded, for coming to the Bottom he found +Ambrose; yet he had to look twice to make sure it was he. For he was +dressed only in rags, and less in rags than nakedness; and his skin was +dirty and his hair unkempt. He was stooping about the ground gathering +flints dropped through, and a small trail of them marked his passage +over the rank grass. +</P> + +<P> +Hobb strode towards him with dread in his bosom, and laid his hand on +Ambrose's wild head, saying his name again. And at this his brother +looked up and eyed him childishly, and said "Who is Ambrose?" And then +the dread in Hobb took a definite shape, and he saw with horror that +Ambrose had lost his wits. At that knowledge, and the sight of his +neglected body and pitiful foolish smile, Hobb turned away and sobbed. +But Ambrose with a little random laugh continued to drop flints in his +bottomless bucket. And no word of Hobb's could win him from that place. +</P> + +<P> +Then Hobb went back to the Burgh alone, and buried his face in his +hands, and thought. He thought of the evil which had fallen upon his +house, the nature of which was past his brothers' telling, and far +beyond his guessing. And he said to himself, "I have done the best I +could in governing the affairs of the Burgh and of our people, since +the others were younger than I; but I see I have been selfish, keeping +safety for my portion while they went into danger. And now there is +none to set this evil right but I, and if I can I must follow the way +they went, and do better than they at the end of it. And if I fail—as +how should I succeed where they have not?—and if like them I too must +suffer the dreadful loss of a part of myself, let it be so, and I shall +at least fare as they have fared, and we will share an equal fate. +Though what I have to lose I know not, to match their bright and noble +qualities." +</P> + +<P> +Then he called his steward, and gave all the affairs of the Burgh into +his hands, and bade him have an eye to his brothers as far as possible, +and to consult Heriot in any need, since he was the only one who could +in the least be relied on. And then he walked out of the Burgh as he +was, and went where his feet took him. He had not been walking +half-an-hour when a sudden blast of wind tore the cap from his head, +and blew it into the very middle of a pond. +</P> + +<P> +Now the pond was exceedingly muddy, and as it seemed to Hobb rather +deep, and he was wondering whether his old cap were worth wading for, +and had almost decided to abandon it, when he saw a skinny yellow arm, +like a frog's leg, stretch up through the water, and a hand that +dripped with slime grope for his cap. With three strides he was in the +pond, and he caught the cap and the hand together in his fist. The hand +writhed in his, but Hobb was too strong for it; and with a mighty tug +he dragged first the shoulder and then the head belonging to the hand +into view. They were the shoulder and head of the muddy man whom you, +dear maidens, have seen once before in this tale, but whom Hobb had +never seen till then. And Jerry said, "Drat these losers of caps! will +they NEVER be done with disturbing the newts and me? Tis the fifth in +a summer. And first there's one with a step like a wagtail, and next +there's one as bold as a hawk, and after him one as comely as a wild +swan, and last was one as wise as an owl. And now there's this one with +nothing particular to him, but he grips as hard as all the rest rolled +into one. Drat these cap-losers!" +</P> + +<P> +Then Hobb who, for all his surprise to begin with, and his increase of +excitement as the muddy creature spoke, had never slackened his grasp, +said, "Old man, you are welcome to my cap if you will tell me what +happened to the wearers of the four other caps after they left you." +</P> + +<P> +"How do I know what happened to em?" growled the muddy man. "For they +all went to High and Over, and after that twas nobody's business but +Wind's, who lives there." +</P> + +<P> +"Where's High and Over?" said Hobb. +</P> + +<P> +"Find out," said the muddy man, and gave a wriggle that did him no good. +</P> + +<P> +"I will," said Hobb, "for you shall tell me." And he looked so sternly +at the muddy man that Jerry cringed, moaning: +</P> + +<P> +"I thought by his voice twas a turtle, but I see by his eye tis an +eagle. If you must know you must. And south of Cradle Hill that's south +of Pinchem that's south of Hobb's Hawth that's south of the Burgh +that's south of this pond is where High and Over is. And I'll thank you +to let me go." +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless, when Hobb released him Jerry forgot the thanks and +disappeared into the mud taking the cap with him. But Hobb did not care +for his thanks. He hurried south as fast as his feet would carry him, +going by the places he knew and then by those he did not, till he came +at nightfall to High and Over. +</P> + +<P> +And on High and Over a great wind was blowing from all the four +quarters of heaven at once. And Hobb was caught up in the crossways of +the wind, and turned about and about till he was dizzy, and all his +thoughts were churning in his brain, so that he could not tell one from +the other. And at the very crisis of the churning a voice in the wind +from the north roared in his ear: +</P> + +<P> +"What do you want that you lack?" +</P> + +<P> +And a voice from the south murmured, "What is the wish of your heart?" +</P> + +<P> +And a voice from the west sighed, "What is it that life has not given +you?" +</P> + +<P> +And a voice from the east shrieked, "What will you have, and lose +yourself to have?" +</P> + +<P> +And Hobb forgot his brothers and why he was there, he forgot everything +but the dream of his soul which had been churned uppermost in that +turmoil, and he cried aloud, "A golden rose!" +</P> + +<P> +Then the four voices together roared and murmured and sighed and +shrieked, "Open Winkins! Open Winkins! Open Winkins! Open Winkins!" And +the tumult ceased with a shock, and the shock of silence overwhelmed +Hobb with sickness and darkness, and his senses deserted him. As he +became unconscious he seemed to be, not falling to earth, but rising in +the air. +</P> + +<P> +When he opened his eyes he was lying on his back in a strange world, a +world of trees, whose noble trunks rose up as though they were columns +of the sky, but their heaven was a green one, shutting out daylight, +yet enclosing a luminous haunted air of its own. Such forests were +unknown in Hobb's open barren land, and this alone would have made his +coming to his senses appear rather to be a coming away from them. But +he scarcely noticed his surroundings, he was only vaguely aware of them +as the strange and beautiful setting of the strangest and most +beautiful thing he had ever seen. For he was looking into the eyes of +the loveliest woman in the world. She was bending above him, tall and +slim and supple, her perfect body clad in a deep black gown, the hem +and bosom of which were embroidered with celandines, and it had a +golden belt and was lined with gold, as he could see when the loose +sleeves fell open on her round and slender arms; and the bodice of the +gown hung a little away from her stooping body, and was embroidered +inside, as well as outside, with celandines, which made reflections on +her white neck, as they will on a pure pool where they lean to watch +their April loveliness. Her skin was as creamy as the petals of a +burnet rose, and her eyes were the color of peat-smoke, and her hair +was as soft as spun silk and fell in two great shining waves of the +purest gold over her bosom as she bent above him, and lay on the earth +like golden grass on green water. A tress of the hair had flowed across +his hand. And about her small fine head it was bound with a black +fillet, a narrow coil so sleek and glossy that it was touched with +silver lights, and this intense blackness made the gold of her head +more dazzling. And Hobb lay there bewildered under the spell of her +loveliness, asking nothing but to lie and gaze at it for ever. +</P> + +<P> +But presently as he did not move she did, sinking upon her knees and +stooping closer so that her breast nearly rested on his own, and she +put her white hand softly on his forehead, and the smoke of her eyes +was washed with tears that did not fall, and she said in a tremulous +voice that fell on his ears like music heard in a dream, "Oh, stranger, +if you are not dying, speak and move." +</P> + +<P> +Then Hobb raised himself slowly on his elbow, and as she did not stir +their faces were brought very close together; and not for an instant +had they taken their eyes from each other. And he said in a low voice, +not knowing either his voice or his own words, "I am not dying, but I +think I must be dead." And suddenly the woman broke into a rain of +tears, and she sank into his arms with her own about his neck, and she +wept upon his heart as though her own were breaking. After a few +moments she lifted her head and Hobb bent his to meet her quivering +mouth. But before his lips touched hers she tore herself from his hold +and fled away through the trees. +</P> + +<P> +Hobb leaped to his feet, and scarcely knowing what he said cried, +"Love! don't be afraid!" and he made no attempt to follow her, but +stood where he was. He saw her halt in the distance, and turn, and +hesitate, and struggle with herself as to her coming or going. At last +she decided for the former, and came slowly between the pillars of the +trees until she stood but a few paces from him with lowered lids. And +she said sweetly, "Forgive me, stranger. But I found you here like one +dead, and when you opened your eyes the fear was still on me, and when +you moved and spoke the relief was too great, and I forgot myself and +did what I did." +</P> + +<P> +Then Hobb said gently, but with his heart beating on his ribs as fast +as a swallow's wings beat the air, "I thought you did what you did +because at that moment you knew, and I knew also, that it was your +right for ever to weep and to laugh on my heart, and mine to bear for +ever your laughing and weeping. But if it was not with you as with me, +say so, and I will go away and not trouble you or your strange woods +again." +</P> + +<P> +Then the woman came quickly to him, and seized his hands saying, half +agitated, half commanding, "It was with me as with you. And you shall +stay with me for ever in these woods, and I will give you the desire of +your life." +</P> + +<P> +"And what shall I give you?" said Hobb. +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever is nearest to yourself," she whispered, "the dearest treasure +of your soul." And she looked at him with eyes full of passions which +he could not fathom, but among them he saw terror. And with great +tenderness he drew her once more to his heart, putting his strong and +steady arms around her like a shield, and he said: +</P> + +<P> +"Love whose name I do not know, what is nearer to myself than you, what +dearer treasure has my soul than you? If I am to give you this, it is +yourself I must give you; and I will restore to you whatever it is that +you have lost through the agony of your soul. Be at peace, my love +whose name I do not know." And holding her closely to him he bent his +head and kissed her lips; and a great shudder passed through her, and +then she lay still in his arms, with her strange eyes half-closed, and +slow tears welling between the lids and hanging on her cheeks like the +rain on the rose. And she let him quiet her with his big hands that +were so used to care for flowers. Presently she lifted his right hand +to her mouth, and kissed it before he could prevent her. Next she drew +herself a little away from him, hanging back in his arms and gazing +into his face as though her soul were all a question and his was the +answer that she could not wholly read. And last she broke away from him +with a strange laugh that ended on a sob. +</P> + +<P> +Hobb said, "Will you not tell me what makes you unhappy?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have no unhappiness," she answered, and quenched her sob with a +smile as strange as her laugh. "My foolish lover, are you amazed that +when her hour comes a woman knows not whether she is happy or unhappy? +Oh, when joy is so great that it has come full circle with pain, what +wonder that laughter and weeping are one?" +</P> + +<P> +And Hobb believed her, for ever since he had opened his eyes upon her, +he had felt in his own heart more joy than he could bear; and he knew +that for this there is no remedy except to find a second heart to help +in the bearing. And he knew it was the same with her. But now he saw +that she was free for awhile from the excess of joy; and indeed these +respites must happen even to lovers for their own sakes, lest they sink +beneath the heavenly burden of their hearts. And her smile was like the +diver's rise from his enchanted deeps to take again the common breath +of man; and Hobb also smiled and said, "Come now, and tell me your +name. For though love needs none for its object, I think the name +itself is eager to be made known and loved beyond all other names for +love's sake. As I love yours, whatever it be." +</P> + +<P> +"My name," she said, "is Margaret." +</P> + +<P> +"It is an easy name to love," said Hobb, "for its own sake." +</P> + +<P> +"And what is yours?" asked she. +</P> + +<P> +And Hobb's smile broadened as he answered, "Try to love it, for my +sake. For it is Hobb. Yet it is as fitting to me, who am as plain as my +name, as your lovely name is fitting to you." +</P> + +<P> +She cast a quick sly look at him and said, "If love knows not how to +distinguish between joy and pain, since all that comes from the heart +of love is joy, neither can it tell the plain from the beautiful, since +all that comes under the eye of love is beauty. And I will find all +things beautiful in my lover, from his name to the mole on his cheek." +</P> + +<P> +For I know now, dear maidens, whether in describing him I had mentioned +this peculiarity of Hobb's. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(Jessica: You hadn't described him at all. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Well, now the omission is remedied. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Oh fie! as though it were enough to say the man had a mole on +his left cheek! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Dear Mistress Jessica, did I say it was his left cheek? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Why—why!—where else would it be? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Nowhere else, on my honor. It WAS his left cheek.) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Then Hobb said to Margaret, "What place is this?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is called Open Winkins," said she, and at the name he started to +his feet, remembering much that he had forgotten. She looked at him +anxiously and cajolingly and said, "You are not going away?" But he +hardly heard her question. "Margaret," he said, "I have come from a +place that may be far or near, for I do not know how I came; but I +think it must be far, since I never saw this forest, or even heard of +it, till a moment before my coming. But I am seeking a clue to a +trouble that has come upon me this year, and I think the clue may be +here. And now tell me, have you in these last four months seen in these +woods anything of your people that are my brothers?—a child that once +was merry, and a boy that once was brave, and a youth that once was +beautiful, and a young man that once was wise? Have these ever been to +Open Winkins?" +</P> + +<P> +Margaret looked at him thoughtfully and said, "If they have, I have not +seen them here. And I think they could not have been here without my +knowledge. For no one lives here but I, and I live nowhere else." +</P> + +<P> +Hobb sighed and said, "I had hoped otherwise. For, dear, I cannot rest +until I have helped them." Then he told her as much as he knew of his +four brothers; and her face clouded as he spoke, and her eyes looked +hurt and angry by turns, and her beautiful mouth turned sulky. So then +Hobb put his arm round her and said, "Do not be too troubled, for I +know I shall presently find the cause and cure of these boys' ills." +But Margaret pushed his arm away and rose restlessly to her feet, and +paced up and down, muttering, "What do I care for these boys? It is not +for them I am troubled, but for myself and you." +</P> + +<P> +"For us?" said Hobb. "How can trouble touch us who love each other?" +</P> + +<P> +At this Margaret threw herself on the grass beside him, and laid her +head against his knee, and drew his hands to her, pressing them against +her eyes and lips and throat and bosom as though she would never let +them go; and through her kisses she whispered passionately, "Do you +love me? do you truly love me? Oh, if you love me do not go away +immediately. For I have only just found you, but your brothers have had +you all their lives. And presently you shall go where you please for +their sakes, but now stay a little in this wood for mine. Stay a month +with me, only a month! oh, my heart, is a month much to ask when you +and I found each other but an hour ago? For this time of love will +never come again, and whatever other times there are to follow, if you +go now you will be shutting your eyes upon the lovely dawn just as the +sun is rising through the colors. And when you return, you will return +perhaps to love's high-noon, but you will have missed the dawn for +ever." And then she lifted her prone body a little higher until it +rested once more in the curve of his arm against his heart, and she lay +with her white face upturned to his, and her dark soft eyes full of +passion and pleading, and she put up her fingers to caress his cheek, +and whispered, "Give me my little month, oh, my heart, and at the end +of it I will give you your soul's desire." +</P> + +<P> +And not Hobb or any man could have resisted her. +</P> + +<P> +So he promised to remain with her in Open Winkins, and not to go +further on his quest till the next moon. And indeed, with all time +before and behind him it did not seem much to promise, nor did he think +it could hurt his brothers' case. But the kernel of it was that he +longed to make the promise, and could not do otherwise than make the +promise, and so, in short, he made the promise. +</P> + +<P> +Then Margaret led him to two small lodges on the skirts of the forest; +they were made of round logs, with moss and lichen still upon them, and +they were overgrown with the loveliest growths of summer—with +blackberry blossoms, a wonderful ghostly white, spread over the bushes +like fairies' linen out to dry, and wild roses more than were in any +other lovers' forest on earth, and the maddest sweetest confusion of +honeysuckle you ever saw. Within, the rooms were strewn with green +rushes, and hung with green cloths on which Margaret had embroidered +all the flowers and berries in their seasons, from the first small +violets blue and white to the last spindle-berries with their orange +hearts splitting their rosy rinds. And there was nothing else under +each roof but a round beech-stump for a stool, and a coffer of carved +oak with metal locks, and a low mattress stuffed with lamb's-fleece +picked from the thorns, and pillows filled with thistledown; and each +couch had a green covering worked with waterlily leaves and white and +golden lilies. "These are the Pilleygreen Lodges," said she, "and one +is mine and one is yours; and when we want cover we will find it here, +but when we do not we will eat and sleep in the open." +</P> + +<P> +And so the whole of that July Hobb dwelt in the Pilleygreen Lodges in +Open Winkins with his love Margaret. And by the month's end they had +not done their talking. For did not a young lifetime lie behind them, +and did they not foresee a longer life ahead, and between lovers must +not all be told and dreamed upon? and beyond these lives in time, which +were theirs in any case, had not love opened to them a timeless life of +which inexhaustible dreams were to be exchanged, not always by words, +though indeed by their mouths, and by the speech of their hands and +arms and eyes? Hobb told her all there was to tell of the Burgh and his +life with his brothers, both before and after their tragedies, but he +did not often speak of them for it was a tale she hated to hear, and +sometimes she wept so bitterly that he had ado to comfort her, and +sometimes was so angry that he could hardly conciliate her. But such +was his own gentleness that her caprices could withstand it no more +than the shifting clouds the sun. And Margaret told him of herself, but +her tale was short and simple—that her parents had died in the forest +when she was young, and that she had lived there all her life working +with her needle, twice yearly taking her work to the Cathedral Town to +sell; and with the proceeds buying what she needed, and other cloths +and silk and gold with which to work. She opened the coffer in Hobb's +lodge and showed him what she did: veils that she had embroidered with +cobwebs hung with dew, so that you feared to touch them lest you should +destroy the cobweb and disperse the dew; and girdles thick-set with +flowers, so that you thought Spring's self on a warm day had loosed the +girdle from her middle, and lost it; and gowns worked like the feathers +of a bird, some like the plumage on the wood-dove's breast, and others +like a jay's wing; and there was a pair of blue skippers so embroidered +that they appeared and disappeared beneath a flowing skirt with reeds +and sallows rising from a hem of water, you thought you had seen +kingfishers; and there were tunics overlaid with dragonflies' wings and +their delicate jointed bodies of green and black-and-yellow and +Chalk-Hill blue; and caps all gay with autumn berries, scarlet +rose-hips and wine-red haws, and the bright briony, and spindle with +its twofold gayety, and one cap was all of wild clematis, with the vine +of the Traveler's Joy twined round the brim and the cloud of the Old +Man's Beard upon the crown. And Hobb said, "It is magic. Who taught you +to do this?" And Margaret said, "Open Winkins." +</P> + +<P> +Early in their talks he told her of his garden, and of the golden rose +he tried to grow there, and of his failures; and Margaret knew by his +voice and his eyes more than by his words that this was the wish of his +heart. And she smiled and said, "Now I know with what I must redeem my +promise. Yet I think I shall be jealous of your golden rose." And Hobb, +lifting a wave of her glittering hair and making a rose of it between +his fingers, asked, "How can you be jealous of yourself?" "Yet I think +I am," said she again, "for it was something of myself you promised to +give me presently, and I would rather have something of you." "They are +the same thing," said Hobb, and he twisted up the great rose of her +hair till it lay beside her temple under the ebony fillet. And as his +hand touched the fillet he looked puzzled, and he ran his finger round +its shining blackness and exclaimed, "But this too is hair!" Margaret +laughed her strange laugh and said, "Yes, my own hair, you discoverer +of open secrets!" And putting up her hands she unbound the fillet, and +it fell, a slender coil of black amongst the golden flood of her head, +like a serpent gliding down the sunglade on a river. +</P> + +<P> +"Why is it like that?" said Hobb simply. +</P> + +<P> +With one of her quick changes Margaret frowned and answered, "Why is +the black yew set with little lamps? Why does a black cloud have an +edge of light? Why does a blackbird have white feathers in his body? +Must things be ALL dark or ALL light?" And she stamped her foot and +turned hastily away, and began to do up her hair with trembling hands. +And Hobb came behind her and kissed the top of her head. She turned on +him half angrily, half smiling, saying, "No! for you do not like my +black lock." And Hobb said very gravely, "I will find all things +beautiful in my beloved, from her black lock to her blacker temper." +Margaret shot a swift look at him and saw that he was laughing at her +with an echo of her own words; and she flung her arms about him, +laughing too. "Oh, Hobb!" said she, "you pluck out my black temper by +the roots!" +</P> + +<P> +So with teasing and talking and quarreling and kissing, and +ever-growing love, July came near its close; and as love discovers or +creates all miracles in what it loves, Hobb for pure joy grew light of +spirit, and laughed and played with his beloved till she knew not +whether she had given her heart to a child or a man; and again when the +happiness that was in his soul shone through his eyes, he was so +transfigured that, gazing on his beauty, she knew not whether she had +received the heart of a man or a god. And the truth was that at this +time Hobb was all three, since love, dear maidens, commands a region +that extends beyond birth and death, and includes all that is mortal in +all that is eternal. And as for Margaret, she was all things by turns, +sometimes as gay as sunbeams so that Hobb could scarcely follow her +dancing spirit, but could only sun himself in the delight of it; and +sometimes she was full of folly and daring, and made him climb with her +the highest trees, and drop great distances from bough to bough, +mocking at all his fears for her though he had none for himself; and +sometimes when he was downcast, as happened now and then for thinking +on his brothers, she forgot her jealousy in tenderness of his sorrow, +and made him lean his head upon her breast, and talked to him low as a +mother to her baby, words that perhaps were only words of comfort, yet +seemed to him infinite wisdom, as the child believes of its mother's +tender speech. And at all times she was lovelier than his dreams of +her. Not once in this month did Hobb go out of the forest, which was +confined on the north and north-west by big roads running to the world, +and on all other sides by sloped of Downland. But whenever in their +wanderings they arrived at any of these boundaries, Margaret turned him +back and said, "I do not love the open; come away." +</P> + +<P> +But on the last day of the month they came upon a very narrow neck of +the treeless down, a green ride carved between their wood and a dark +plantation that lay beyond, so close as to be almost a part of Open +Winkins, but for that one little channel of space; and Hobb pointed to +it and said, "That's a strange place, let us go there." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Margaret. +</P> + +<P> +"But is it not our own wood?" +</P> + +<P> +"How can you think so?" she said petulantly. "Do you not see how black +it is in there? How can you want to go there? Come away." +</P> + +<P> +"What is it called?" asked Hobb. +</P> + +<P> +"The Red Copse," said she. +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" asked Hobb. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know," said she. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you never been there?" asked Hobb. +</P> + +<P> +"No, never. I don't like it. It frightens me." And she clung to him +like a child. "Oh, come away!" +</P> + +<P> +She was trembling so that he turned instantly, and they went back to +the Pilleygreen Lodges, getting wild raspberries for supper on the way. +And after supper they sang songs, one against the other, each sweeter +than the last, and told stories by turns, outdoing each other in fancy +and invention; and at last went happily to bed. +</P> + +<P> +But Hobb could not sleep. For in the night a wind came up and blew four +times round his lodge, shaking it once on every wall. And it stirred in +him the memory of High and Over, and with the memory misgivings that he +could not name. And he rose restlessly from his couch and went out +under the troubled moon, for a windy rack of clouds was blowing over +the sky. But through it she often poured her amber light, and by it +Hobb saw that Margaret's door was blowing on its hinges. He called her +softly, but he got no answer; and then he called more loudly, but still +she did not answer. +</P> + +<P> +"She cannot be sleeping through this," said Hobb to himself; and with +an uneasy heart he stood beside the door and looked into the lodge. And +she was not there, and the couch had not been slept on. But on it lay +her empty dress, its gold and black all tumbled in a heap, and on top +of it was an embroidered smock. And something in the smock attracted +him, so that he went quickly forward to examine it; and he saw that it +was Heriot's shirt, that had been cut and changed and worked all over +with peacocks' feathers. And he stood staring at it, astounded and +aghast. Recovering himself, he turned to leave the lodge, but stumbled +on the open coffer, hanging out of which was a second smock; and this +one had two lions worked on the back and front, and one was red and the +other white, and the smock had been Hugh's shirt. Then Hobb fell on the +coffer and searched its contents till he had found Lionel's little +shirt fashioned into a linen vest, with a tiny border of fantastic +animals dancing round it, pink pigs, and black cocks, and white +donkeys, and chestnut horses. And last of all he found the shirt of +Ambrose, tattered and frayed, and every tatter was worked at the edge +with a different hue, and here and there small mocking patches of color +had been stitched above the holes. +</P> + +<P> +And at each discovery the light in Hobb's eyes grew calmer, and the +beat of his heart more steady. And he walked out of the Pilleygreen +Lodge and as straight as his feet would carry him across Open Winkins +and the green ride, and into the Red Copse. As he went he shut down the +dread in his heart of what he should find there, "For," said Hobb to +himself, "I shall need more courage now than I have ever had." It was +black in the Red Copse, with a blackness blacker than night, and the +wild races of moonlight that splashed the floors of Open Winkins were +here unseen. But a line of ruddy fireflies made a track on the +blackness, and Hobb, going as softly as he might, followed in their +wake. Just before the middle of the Copse they stopped and flew away, +and one by one, as each reached the point deserted by its leader, +darted back as though unable to penetrate with its tiny fire the +fearful shadows that lay just ahead. But Hobb went where the fireflies +could not go. And he found a dark silent hollow in the wood, where +neither moon nor sun could ever come; and at the bottom of it a long +straggling pool, with a surface as black as ebony, and mud and slime +below. Here toads and bats and owls and nightjars had come to drink, +with rats and stoats who left their footprints in the mud. And on the +ground and bushes Hobb saw slugs and snails, woodlice, beetles and +spiders, and creeping things without number. The gloom of the place was +awful, and turned the rank foliage of trees and shrubs black in +perpetual twilight. But what Hobb saw he saw by a light that had no +place in heaven. For kneeling beside the pool was his love Margaret, +her naked body crouched and bowed among the creatures of the mud; and +her two waves of gold were flung behind her like a smooth mantle, but +the one black lock was drawn forward over her head, and she was dipping +and dipping it into the dank waters. And every time she drew the +dripping lock from its stagnant bath, it glimmered with an unearthly +phosphorescence, that shed a ghostly light upon the hollow, and all +that it contained. And at each dipping the lock of hair came out +blacker than before. +</P> + +<P> +At last she was done, and she slowly squeezed the water from her +unnatural tress, and laid it back in its place among the gold. And then +she stretched her arms and sighed so heavily that the crawling +creatures by the pool were startled. But less started than she, when +lifting her head she saw the eyes of Hobb looking down on her. And such +terror came into her own eyes that the look rang on his heart as though +it had been a cry. Yet not a sound issued between her lips. And he said +to himself, "Now I need more wisdom than I have ever had." And he +continued to look steadily at her with eyes that she could not read. +And presently he spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"We have some promises to redeem to-night," he said, "and we will +redeem them now. You promised me my perfect golden rose, and this night +I am going out of Open Winkins and back to my own Burgh. And to-morrow, +since I now know something of your power of gifts, I shall find the +rose upon my hill, and in exchange for it I will keep my word and give +you back yourself. But there is something more than this." And he went +a little apart, and soon came back to her with his jerkin undone and +his shirt in his hand. "You have my brothers' shirts and here is mine," +he said. "To-night when I am gone you shall return to Open Winkins, and +spend the hours in taking out the work you have put into their shirts. +And in the morning when I meet them at the Burgh I shall know if you +have done this. But in exchange for theirs I give you mine to do with +as you will. And the only other thing I ask of you is this; that when +you have taken out the work in their shirts, you will spend the day in +making a white garment for the lady who will one day be my wife. And +whatever other embroidery you put upon it, let it bear on the left +breast a golden rose. And to-morrow night, if all is well at the Burgh, +I will come here for the last time and fetch it from you." +</P> + +<P> +Then Hobb laid his shirt beside her on the ground, and turned and went +away. And she had not even tried to speak to him. +</P> + +<P> +When Hobb got out of the Red Copse he presently found a road and +followed it, hoping for the best. After awhile he saw a tramp asleep in +a ditch, and woke him and asked him the way to the Burgh of the Five +Lords. But the tramp had never heard of it. So then Hobb asked the way +to Firle, and the tramp said "That's another matter," for Sussex tramps +know all the beacons of the Downs, and he told him to go east. Which +Hobb did, walking without rest through the night and dawn and day, here +and there getting a lift that helped him forward. And in his heart he +carried hope like a lovely flower, but under it a quick pain like a +reptile's sting that felt to him like death. And he would not give way +to the pain, but went as fast and as steadily as he could; and at last, +with strained eyes and aching feet, and limbs he could scarcely drag +for weariness, and the dust of many miles upon his shoes and clothes, +he came to his own bare country and the Burgh. He rested heavily on the +gate, and the first thing he saw was Lionel on the steps, laughing and +playing with a litter of young puppies. And the next was Hugh climbing +the castle wall to get an arrow that had lodged in a high chink. And +out of a window leaned Heriot in all his young beauty, picking sweet +clusters of the seven-sisters roses that climbed to his room. And in +the doorway sat Ambrose, with a book on his knee, but his eyes fixed on +the gate. And when he saw Hobb standing there he came quickly down the +steps, calling to the others, "Lionel! Hugh! Heriot! our brother has +come home." And Lionel rushed through the puppies, and Hugh dropped +bodily from the wall, and Heriot leaped through the window. And the +four boys clung to Hobb and kissed him and wrung his hands, and seemed +as they would fight for very possession of him. And Hobb, with his arms +about the younger boys, and Heriot's hand in his, leaned his forehead +on Ambrose's cheek, and Ambrose felt his face grow wet with Hobb's +tears. Then Ambrose looked at him with apprehension, and said in a low +voice, "Hobb, what have you lost?" And Hobb understood him. And he +answered in a voice as low, "My heart. But I have found my four +brothers." They took him in and prepared a bath and fresh clothes for +him, and a meal was ready when he was refreshed. He came among them +steady and calm again, and the three youngest had nothing but rejoicing +for him. And he saw that all memory of what had happened had been +washed from them. But with Ambrose it was different, for he who had had +his very mind effaced, in recovering his mind remembered all. And after +the meal he took Hobb aside and said, "Tell me what has happened to +you." +</P> + +<P> +Then Hobb said, "Some things happen which are between two people only, +and they can never be told. And what has passed in this last month, +dear Ambrose, is only for her knowledge and mine. But as to what is +going to happen, I do not yet know." +</P> + +<P> +After a moment's silence Ambrose said, "Tell me this at least. Has she +given you a gift?" +</P> + +<P> +"She has given me you again," said Hobb. +</P> + +<P> +"That is different," said Ambrose. "She has given us ourselves again, +and our power to pursue the destiny of our natures. But no man is +another man's destiny. And it was our error to barter our own powers to +another in exchange for the small goals our natures desired. And so we +lost a treasure for a trifle. For every man's power is greater than the +thing he achieves by it. But what has she given you in exchange for +what she has taken from you?" And as he spoke he looked into Hobb's +gentle eyes, and thought that if he had lost his heart it was a loss +that had somehow multiplied his possession of it. "What has she given +you?" he said again. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall not know," said Hobb, "until I have been to my garden. And I +must go alone. And afterwards, Ambrose, I must ride away for another +night and day, but then I will return to the Burgh for ever." +</P> + +<P> +So he got his horse, and went to the Gardener's Hill, and his garden +was blazing with flowers like a joyous welcome. But when he approached +the bush on which his heart was set, he saw a great gold bloom upon it +that startled him with its beauty; until coming closer he perceived +that all the petals were rotten at the heart, and coiled in the center +was a small black snake. +</P> + +<P> +He plucked the rose from its stem, and as he looked at it his face grew +bright, and he suddenly laughed aloud for joy; and he ran out of the +garden and got on his horse, and rode with all his speed to Open +Winkins. When he got there the moon had risen over the Pilleygreen +Lodges. +</P> + +<P> +And Margaret sat at the door of her lodge in the moonlight, putting the +last stitches into her work. +</P> + +<P> +But when she saw him coming she broke her thread, and rose and averted +her head. Then Hobb dismounted and came and stood beside her, and saw +that in some way she was changed from the woman he knew. Margaret, +still not turning to him, muttered, "Do not look at me, please. For I +am ugly and unhappy and afraid and nearly mad. And here are your +brothers' shirts." She gave him the four shirts, restored to +themselves. He took them silently. "And here," continued Margaret, "is +her wedding-smock." +</P> + +<P> +And Hobb took it from her, and saw that out of his own shirt, washed +and bleached, she had made a lovely garment. And round it, from the hem +upward, ran a climbing briar of exquisite delicacy, and with a +beautiful design of spines and leaves; but the only flower upon it was +a golden rose, worked on the heart of the smock in her own gold hair. +And Hobb took it from her and again said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +Then Margaret with a great cry, as though her heart were breaking, +gasped, "Go! go quickly! I have done what you wanted. Go!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, dear," said Hobb, "but you must come with me." +</P> + +<P> +She turned then, whispering, "How can I go with you? What do you mean?" +And she looked in his eyes and saw in them such infinite compassion and +tenderness that she was overwhelmed, and swayed where she stood. And +then his arms, which she had never expected to feel again, closed round +her body, and she lay helplessly against him, and heard him say, "Love +Margaret, you are my only love, and you worked the wedding-smock for +yourself. Oh, Margaret, did you think I had another love?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him blankly as though she could not understand, and her +face was full of wonder and joy and fright. And she hung away from him +sobbing, "No, no, no! I cannot. I must not. I am not good enough." +</P> + +<P> +"Which of us is good enough?" said Hobb. "So then we must all come to +love for help." +</P> + +<P> +And she cried again in an agony, "No, no, no! There is evil in me. And +I lived alone and had nothing, nothing that ever lasted, for I was born +on High and Over in the crossways of the winds, and they were the +godfathers of my birth. And all my life they have blown things to and +from me. And I tried to keep what they blew me; and I gave their +hearts' desire to all comers, and took in exchange the best they could +give me; for I thought that if it was fair for them to take, it was +fair for me to take too. But nothing that I took mattered longer than a +week or a day or an hour, neither laughter nor courage nor beauty nor +wisdom—all, all were unstable till the winds blew me you. And as I +looked at you lying there unconscious, something, I knew not what, +seemed different from anything I had ever known, but when you opened +your eyes I knew what it was, and my heart seemed to fly from my body. +And I longed, as I had never longed with the others, to give you your +soul's desire, and I have tried and tried, and I could not. I could not +give you anything at all, but every hour of the day and night I seemed +to be taking from you. And yet what you had to give me was never +exhausted. And the evil in me often fought against you, when I dreaded +your knowing the truth about me, and would have lied my soul away to +keep you from knowing it; and when I was jealous of your love for your +brothers. So again and again I failed, when I should have thought of +nothing but that you loved me as I loved you. For did I not know of my +own love that it could never give you cause to be jealous, nor would +ever shrink from any truth it might know of you?—but now—but +now!—oh, my heart, had I known, when you spoke last night of your +bride, that I was she! I will never be she! I was not good enough. I +fought myself in vain." And she drooped in his arms, nearly fainting. +</P> + +<P> +"Love Margaret!" said Hobb, and the tears ran down his face, "I will +fight for you, yes, and you will fight for me. And if you have +sacrificed joy and courage and beauty and wisdom for my sake, I will +give them all to you again; and yet you must also give them to me, for +they are things in which without you I am wanting. But together we can +make them. And when I went to my garden this morning, I thanked God +that my rose was not perfect, and that you had not taken my heart, as +you had taken joy and courage and beauty and wisdom, as a penalty for a +gift. Their desires you could give them, and take their best in +payment, but mine you could not give me in the same way. For in love +there are no penalties and no payments, and what is given is +indistinguishable from what is received." And he bent his head and +kissed her long and deeply, and in that kiss neither knew themselves, +or even each other, but something beyond all consciousness that was +both of them. +</P> + +<P> +Presently Hobb said, "Now let us go away from Open Winkins together, +and I will take you to the Burgh. But you must go as my bride." +</P> + +<P> +And Margaret, pale as death from that long kiss, withdrew herself very +slowly from his arms. And her dark eyes looked strange in the moonlight +as he had never seen them, and more beautiful, with a beauty beyond +beauty; and deep joy too was in them, and an infinite wisdom, and a +strength of courage, that seemed more than courage, wisdom and joy, for +they had come from the very fountain of all these things. And very +slowly, with that unfading look, she took off her black gown and put on +the white bridal-smock she had made; and as soon as she had put it on +she fell dead at his feet. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +("I think," said Martin Pippin, "that you have now had plenty of time, +Mistress Jessica, to ponder my riddle." +</P> + +<P> +"Your riddle?" exclaimed Jessica. "But—good heavens! bother your +riddle! get on with the story." +</P> + +<P> +"How can I get on with it?" said Martin. "It's got there." +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: No, no, no! oh, it's impossible! oh, I can't bear it! oh, how +angry I am with you! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Dear Mistress Joscelyn, why are you so agitated? +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: I? I am not at all agitated. I am quite collected. I only +wish you were as collected, for I think you must be out of your wits. +How DARE you leave this story where it is? How dare you! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Dear, dear Mistress Joscelyn, what more is there to be told? +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: I do not care what more is to be told. Only some of it must +be re-told. You must bring that girl instantly to life! +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: Of course you must! And explain why she died, though she mustn't +die. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: No, indeed! and if it had to do with her black hair, you must +pluck it out by the roots. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Yes, indeed! and you must do something about the horrible pool +in the Red Copse, for perhaps that is what killed her. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Oh, it is too dreadful not to have a story with a wedding in it! +</P> + +<P> +And little Joan leaned out of her branch and took Martin's hand in +hers, and looked at him pleadingly, and said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"Will women NEVER let a man make a thing in his own way?" said Martin. +"Will they ALWAYS be adding and changing this detail and that? For what +a detail is death once lovers have kissed. However—!") +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Not less than yourselves, my silly dears, was Hobb overwhelmed by that +down-sinking of his love Margaret. And he fell on his knees beside her, +and took her in his arms, and put his hand over the rose on her heart, +that had ceased to beat. Suddenly it seemed to him that his hand had +been stung, and he drew it away quickly, his eyes on the golden rose. +And where she had left it just incomplete at his coming, he saw a +jet-black speck. A light broke over him swiftly, and one by one he +broke the strands at the rose's heart, and under it revealed a small +black snake; and as the rose had been done from her own gold locks, so +the snake had been done from the one black lock in the gold. Then at +last Hobb understood why she had cried she was not good enough to be +his bride, for she had fought in vain her last dark impulse to prepare +death for the woman who should wear the bridal-smock. And he understood +too the meaning of her last wonderful look, as she took the death upon +herself. And he loved her, both for her fault and her redemption of it, +more than he had ever thought that he could love her; for he had +believed that in their kiss love had reached its uttermost. But love +has no uttermost, as the stars have no number and the sea no rest. +</P> + +<P> +Now at first Hobb thought to pluck the serpent from her breast, but +then he said, "Of what use to destroy the children of evil? It is evil +itself we must destroy at the roots." And very carefully he undid her +beautiful hair, and laid its two gold waves on either side; but the +slim black tress he gathered up in his hand until he held every hair of +it, and one by one he plucked them from her head. And every time he +plucked a hair the pain that had been under his heart stabbed him with +a sting that seemed like death, and with each sting the mortal agony +grew more acute, till it was as though the powers of evil were spitting +burning venom on that steadfast heart, to wither it before it could +frustrate them. But he did not falter once; and as he plucked the last +hair out, Margaret opened her eyes. Then all pain leapt like a winged +snake from his heart, and he forgot everything but the joy and wonder +in her eyes as she lay looking up at him, and said, "What has happened +to me? and what have you done?" And she saw the tress in his hand and +understood, and she kissed the hand that had plucked the evil from her. +Then, her smoky eyes shining with tears, but a smile on her pale lips, +she said, "Come, and we will drown that hair for ever." So hand-in-hand +they went across Open Winkins and over the way that led to the Red +Copse. And as they pushed and scrambled through the bushes, what do you +think they saw? First a shimmering light round the edge of the pool, +and then a sheet of moon-daisies, the largest, whitest, purest blooms +that ever were. And they stood there on their tall straight stems of +tender green in hundreds and hundreds, guarding and sanctifying the +place. It was like a dark cathedral with white lilies on the high +altar. And they saw a cock blackbird wetting his whistle at the pool, +and heard two others and a green woodpecker chuckling in the trees +close by. And they had no eyes for slimy goblin things, even if there +were any. And I don't believe there were. +</P> + +<P> +They bound the black tress about a stone, and it sank among the +reflections of the daisies in the water, there to be purified for ever. +And the next day he put her behind him on his horse, and they rode to +the garden on the eastern hills, and found on his bush a single perfect +rose. And as she had given it to him, Hobb straightway plucked and gave +it to her. For that is the only way to possess a gift. +</P> + +<P> +And then they went together to the Burgh, and very soon after there was +a wedding. +</P> + +<P> +I am now all impatience, Mistress Jessica, to hear you solve my riddle. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="interlude4"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FOURTH INTERLUDE +</H3> + +<P> +Like contented mice, the milkmaids began once more to nibble at their +half-finished apples, and simultaneously nibbled at the just-finished +story. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Do, pray, Jane, let us hear what conclusions you draw from all +this. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: I confess, Jessica, I am all at sea. The good and the evil were +so confused in this tale that even now I can scarcely distinguish +between black and gold. For had Margaret not done ill, who would have +discovered how well Hobb could do? Yet who would wish her, or any +woman, to do ill? even for the proof of his, or any man's, good? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: True, Mistress Jane. Yet women are so strangely constructed +that they have in them darkness as well as light, though it be but a +little curtain hung across the sun. And love is the hand that takes the +curtain down, a stronger hand than fear, which hung it up. For all the +ill that is in us comes from fear, and all the good from love. And +where there is fear to combat, love is life's warrior; but where there +is no fear he is life's priest. And his prayer is even stronger than +his sword. But men, always less aware of prayers than of blows, +recognize him chiefly when he is in arms, and so are deluded into +thinking that love depends on fear to prove his force. But this is a +fallacy; love's force is independent. For how can what is immortal +depend on what is mortal? Yet human beings must, by the very fact of +being alive at all, partake of both qualities. And strongly opposed as +we shall find the complexing elements of light and darkness in a woman, +still more strongly opposed shall we discover them in a man. As I +presume I have no need to tell you. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: You presume too much. The elements that go to make a man are +not to our taste. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: My story I hope was so. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: To some extent. And this pool in the Red Copse, is it hard to +find? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Neither harder nor easier than all fairies' secrets. And at +certain times in summer, when the wood is altogether lovely with +centaury and purple loosestrife, you can hardly miss the pool for the +fairies that flock there. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: What dresses do they wear? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: The most beautiful in the world. The dresses of White Admirals +and Red, and Silver-Washed Fritillaries and Pearl-Bordered +Fritillaries, and Large Whites and Small Whites and Marbled Whites and +Green-Veined Whites, and Ringlets, and Azure Blues, and Painted Ladies, +and Meadow Browns. And they go there for a Feast Day in honor of some +Saint of the Fairies' Church. Which Hobb and Margaret also attended +once yearly on each first of August, bringing a golden rose to lay upon +the altars of the pool. And the year in which they brought it no more, +two Sulphurs, with dresses like sunlight on a charlock-field, came with +the rest to the moon-daisies' Feast; because not once in all their +years of marriage had the perfect rose been lacking. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: It relieves me to hear that. For I had dreaded lest their rose +was blighted for ever. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: And I too, Jessica. Especially when she died at his feet. +</P> + +<P> +Joan: And yet, Jane, she did not really die, and somehow I was sure she +would live. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: Yes, I was confident that Hobb would be as happy as he deserved +to be. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: I do not know why, but even at the worst I could not imagine +a love-story ending in tears. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Neither could I. Since love's spear is for woe and his shield +for joy. Why, I know of but one thing that could have lost him that +battle. +</P> + +<P> +Three of the Milkmaids: What thing? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Had the elements that go to make a man not been to Margaret's +taste. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Conversation ceased in the Apple-Orchard. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Joscelyn: Her taste would have been the more commendable, singer. And +your tale might have been the better worth listening to. But since +tales have nothing in common with truth, it's a matter of indifference +to me whether Hobb's rose suffered perpetual blight or not. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: And to me. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Then let the tale wilt, since indifference is a blight no story +can suffer and live. And see! overhead the moon hangs undecided under a +cloud, one half of her lovely body unveiled, the other half draped in a +ghostly garment lit from within by the beauties she still keeps +concealed; like a maid half-ready for her pillow, turned motionless on +the brink of her couch by the oncoming dreams to which she so soon will +wholly yield herself. Let us not linger, for her chamber is sacred, and +we too have dreams that await our up-yielding. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Like a flock of clouds at sundown, the milkmaids made a golden group +upon the grass, and soon, by their breathing, had sunk into their +slumbers. All but Jessica, who instead of following their example, +pushed the ground with her foot to keep herself in motion; and as she +swung she bit a strand of her hair and knitted her brows. And Martin +amused himself watching her. And presently as she swung she plucked a +leaf from the apple-tree and looked at it, and let it go. And then she +snapped off a twig, and flung it after the leaf. And next she caught at +an apple, and tossed it after the twig. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" said Martin Pippin. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't be in such a hurry," said Jessica. She got off the swing and +walked round the tree, touching it here and there. And all of a sudden +she threw an arm up into the branches and leaned the whole weight of +her body against the trunk, and began to whistle. +</P> + +<P> +"Give it up?" said Martin Pippin. +</P> + +<P> +"Stupid!" said Jessica. "I've guessed it." +</P> + +<P> +"Impossible!" said Martin. "Nobody ever guesses riddles. Riddles were +only invented to be given up. Because the pleasure of not being guessed +is so much greater than the pleasure of having guessed. Do give it up +and let me tell you the answer. Even if you know the answer, please, +please give it up, for I am dying to tell it you." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall never have saved a young man's life easier," said Jessica, +"and as you saved mine before the story, I suppose I ought to save +yours after it. How often, by the way, have you saved a lady's life?" +</P> + +<P> +"As often as she thought herself in danger of losing it," said Martin. +"It happens every other minute with ladies, who are always dying to +have, or to do, or to know—this thing or that." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope," said Jessica, "I shall not die before I know everything there +is to know." +</P> + +<P> +"What a small wish," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you a bigger one?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said he; "to know everything, there is not to know." +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Oh, but those are the only things I do know. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: It is a knowledge common to women. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: How do YOU know? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I'm sure I don't know. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: I don't think, Master Pippin, that you know a great deal about +women. +</P> + +<P> +And she put out her tongue at him. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: (Take care!) I know nothing at all about women. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: (Why?) Yet you pretend to tell love-stories. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: (Because if you do that I can't answer for the consequences.) +It is only by women's help that I tell them at all. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: (I'm not afraid of consequences. I'm not afraid of anything.) +Who helped you tell this one? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: (Your courage will have to be tested.) You did. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Did I? How? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Because what you love in an apple-tree is not the leaf or the +flower or the bough or the fruit—it is the apple-tree. Which is all of +the things and everything besides; for it is the roots and the rind and +the sap, it is motion and rest and color and shape and scent, and the +shadows on the earth and the lights in the air—and still I have not +said what the tree is that you love, for thought I should recapitulate +it through the four seasons I should only be telling you those parts, +none of which is what you love in an apple-tree. For no one can love +the part more than the whole till love can be measured in pint-pots. +And who can measure fountains? That's the answer, Mistress Jessica. I +knew you'd have to give it up. (Take care, child, take care!) +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: (I won't take care!). I knew the answer all the time. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Then you know what your apple-tree has to do with my story. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Yes, I suppose so. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Please tell me. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: No. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: But I give it up. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: No. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: That's not fair. People who give it up must always be told, in +triumph if not in pity. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: I sha'n't tell. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You don't know. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: I'll box your ears. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: If you do—! +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Quarreling's silly. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Who began it? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: You did. Men always do. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Always. What was the beginning of your quarrel with men? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: They say girls can't throw straight. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Silly asses! I'd like to see them throw as straight as girls. +Did you ever watch them at it? Men can throw straight in one direction +only—but watch a girl! she'll throw straight all round the compass. +Why, a man will throw straight at the moon and miss it by the eighth of +an inch; but a girl will throw at the sun and hit the moon as straight +as a die. I never saw a girl throw yet without straightway finding some +mark or other. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Yes, but you can't convince a man till he's hit. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Hit him then. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: It didn't convince him. He said I'd missed. And he said he had +hi—he wasn't convinced. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Did he really say that? These men can no more talk straight +than throw straight. Can you talk straight, Jessica? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Yes, Martin. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Then tell me what your apple-tree has to do with my story. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Bother. All right. Because wisdom and beauty and courage and +laughter can all be measured in pint-pots. And any or all of these +things can be dipped out of a fountain. You thought I didn't know, but +I do know. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: (Take care!) Where did you get all this knowledge? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: And that was why Margaret could take what she took from Lionel +and Hugh and Heriot and Ambrose, because it was something measurable. +Yes, because even a gay spirit can be sad at times, and a strong nerve +weak, and a beautiful face ugly, and a clever brain dull. But when it +came to taking what Hobb had, she could take and take without +exhausting it, and give and give and always have something left to +give, because that wasn't measurable. And the tree is the tree, and +love is never anything else but love. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Oh, Jessica! who has been your schoolmaster? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: And so when she threw away her four pints what did it matter, +any more than when the tree loses its leaves, or its flowers, or snaps +a twig, or drops its apples? For though nobody else thought them lovely +or clever or witty or splendid, she and Hobb were so to each other for +ever and ever; because— +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Because? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: It doesn't matter. I've told you enough, and you thought I +couldn't tell you anything, and I simply hated saying it, but you +thought I couldn't throw straight and I can, and your riddle was as +simple as pie. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: (Look out, I tell you!) You have thrown as straight as a die. +And now I will ask you a straight question. Will you give me your key +to Gillian's prison? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Yes. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Because you dreaded lest Hobb's rose was blighted for ever? +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: No. Because it's a shame she should be there at all. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +And she gave him the key. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Martin: You honest dear. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: You thought I was going to beg the question—didn't you, +Martin? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Put in your tongue, or— +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Or what? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You know what. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: I don't know what. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Then you must take the consequences. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +And she took the consequences on both cheeks. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Jessica: Oh! Oh, if I had guessed you meant that, do you suppose for a +moment that I would have—? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You dishonest dear. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: I don't know what you mean. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: How crooked girls throw! +</P> + +<P> +She boxed his ears heartily and ran to her comrades. When she was +perfectly safe she turned round and put out her tongue at him. +</P> + +<P> +Then they both lay down and went to sleep. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Martin was wakened by water squeezed on his eyelids. He looked up and +saw Joscelyn wringing out her little handkerchief in the pannikin. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us have no nonsense this morning," said she. +</P> + +<P> +"I like that!" mumbled Martin. "What's this but nonsense?" He sat up, +drying his face on his sleeve. "What a silly trick," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Rubbish," said Joscelyn. "Our master is due, and yesterday you +overslept yourself and were troublesome. Go to your tree this instant." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall go when I choose," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"Maids! maids! maids!" +</P> + +<P> +"This instant!" said Joscelyn, and dipped her handkerchief in the +pannikin. +</P> + +<P> +Martin crawled into the tree. +</P> + +<P> +"Is a dog got into the orchard, maids?" said Old Gillman, looking +through the hedge. +</P> + +<P> +"What an idea, master," said Joscelyn. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought I seed one wagging his tail in the grass." +</P> + +<P> +The girls burst out laughing; they laughed till the apples shook, and +Old Gillman laughed too, because laughter is catching. And then he +stopped laughing and said, "Is an echo got into the orchard?" +</P> + +<P> +And the startled girls laughed louder than ever, and they grew red in +the face, and tears stood in their eyes, and Joscelyn had to go and +lean against the russet tree, where she stood frowning like a +stepmother. +</P> + +<P> +"Tis well to be laughing," said Old Gillman, "but have ye heard my +daughter laughing yet?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, master," said Jessica, "but I shouldn't wonder if it happened any +day." +</P> + +<P> +"Any day may be no day," groaned Gillman, "and though it were some day, +as like as not I'd not be here to see the day. For I'm drinking myself +into my grave, as Parson warned me yesternight, coming for my receipt +for mulled beer. Gillian!" he implored, "when will ye think better of +it, and save an old man's life?" +</P> + +<P> +But for all the notice she took of him, he might have been the dog +barking in his kennel. +</P> + +<P> +"Bitter bread for me, maids, and sweet bread for you," said the farmer, +passing the loaves through the gap. "Tis plain fare for all these days. +May the morrow bring cake." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, master, please!" called Jessica. "I would like to know how Clover, +the Aberdeen, gets on without me." +</P> + +<P> +"Gets on as best she can with Oliver," said Gillman, "though that +fretty at times tis as well for him she's polled. Yet all he says is +Patience.' But I say, will patience keep us all from rack and ruin?" +</P> + +<P> +And he went away shaking his head. +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you laugh?" stormed Joscelyn, as soon as he was out of earshot. +</P> + +<P> +"How could I help it?" pleaded Martin. "When the old man laughed +because you laughed, and you laughed for another reason—hadn't I a +third reason to laugh? But how you glared at me! I am sorry I laughed. +Let us have breakfast." +</P> + +<P> +"You think of nothing but mealtimes," said Joscelyn crossly; and she +carried Gillian's bread to the Well-House, where she discovered only +the little round top of yesterday's loaf. For every crumb of the bigger +half had been eaten. So Joscelyn came away all smiles, tossing the ball +of bread in the air, and saying as she caught it, "I do believe Gillian +is forgetting her sorrow." +</P> + +<P> +"I am certain of it," agreed Martin, clapping his hands. And she flung +the top of the loaf to his right, and he made a great leap to the left +and caught it. And then he threw it to Jessica, who tossed it to Joan, +who sent it to Joyce, who whirled it to Jennifer, who spun it to Jane, +who missed it. And all the girls ran to pick it up first, but Martin +with a dexterous kick landed it in the duckpond, where the drake got +it. And he and the ducks squabbled over it during the next hour, while +Martin and the milkmaids breakfasted on bread and apples with no +squabbling and great good spirits. +</P> + +<P> +And after breakfast Martin lay on his back, chewing a grassblade and +counting the florets on another, whispering to himself as he plucked +them one by one. And the girls watched him. He did it several times +with several blades of grass, and always looked disappointed at the end. +</P> + +<P> +"Won't it come right?" asked little Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"Won't what come right?" said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I know what you're doing," said little Joan; and she too plucked a +blade and began to count— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Tinker,<BR> + Tailor,<BR> + Soldier,<BR> + Sailor"—<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure I wasn't," said Martin. "Tailor indeed!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, something like that," said Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing at all like that. Oh, Mistress Joan! a tailor. Why, even if I +were a maid like yourselves, do you think I'd give fate the chance to +set me on my husband's cross-knees for the rest of my life?" +</P> + +<P> +"What would you do then if you were a maid?" asked Joyce. +</P> + +<P> +"If I were a town-maid," said Martin, "I should choose the most +delightful husbands in the city streets." And plucking a fresh blade he +counted aloud, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Ballad-<BR> + singer,<BR> + Churchbell-<BR> + ringer,<BR> + Chimneysweep,<BR> + Muffin-man,<BR> + Lamplighter,<BR> + King!<BR> + Ballad-<BR> + singer,<BR> + Churchbell-<BR> + ringer,<BR> + Chimneysweep"—<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"There, Mistress Joyce," said Martin Pippin, "I should marry a Sweep +and sit in the tall chimneys and see stars by daylight." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, let me try!" cried Joyce. +</P> + +<P> +And—"Let me!" cried five other voices at once. +</P> + +<P> +So he chose each girl a blade, and she counted her fate on it, with +Martin to prompt her. And Jessica got the Chimney-sweep, and vowed she +saw Orion's belt round the sun, and Jennifer got the Lamplighter and +looked sorrowful, for she too wished to see stars in the morning; but +Martin consoled her by saying that she would make the dark to shine, +and set whispering lights in the fog, when men had none other to see +by. And Joyce got the Muffin-man, and Martin told her that wherever she +went men, women, and children would run to their snowy doorsteps, for +she would be as welcome as swallows in spring. And Jane got the +Bell-Ringer, and Martin said an angel must have blessed her birth, +since she was to live and die with the peals of heaven in her ears. And +Joscelyn got the Ballad-Singer. +</P> + +<P> +"What about Ballad-Singers, Master Pippin?" asked Joscelyn. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing at all about Ballad-Singers," said Martin. "They're a poor +lot. I'm sorry for you." +</P> + +<P> +And Joscelyn threw her stripped blade away saying, "It's only a silly +game." +</P> + +<P> +But little Joan got the King. And she looked at Martin, and he smiled +at her, and had no need to say anything, because a king is a king. And +suddenly every girl must needs grow out of sorts with her fate, and +find other blades to count, until each one had achieved a king to her +satisfaction. All but Joscelyn, who said she didn't care. +</P> + +<P> +"You are quite right," said Martin, "because none of this applies to +any of you. These are town-fortunes, and you are country-maids." +</P> + +<P> +And he plucked a new blade, reciting, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Mower,<BR> + Reaper,<BR> + Poacher,<BR> + Keeper,<BR> + Cowman,<BR> + Thatcher,<BR> + Plowman,<BR> + Herd."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"How dull!" said Jessica. "These are men for every day." +</P> + +<P> +"So is a husband," said Martin. "And to your town-girls, who no longer +see romance in a Chimneysweep, your Poacher's a Pirate and your +Shepherd a Poet. Could you not find it in your heart, Mistress Jessica, +to put up with a Thatcher?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's enough of husbands," said Jessica. +</P> + +<P> +"Then what of houses?" said Martin. "Where shall we live when we're +wed?— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + 'Under a thatch,<BR> + In a ship's hatch,<BR> + An inn, a castle,<BR> + A brown paper parcel'—<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"Stuff and nonsense!" said Joscelyn. +</P> + +<P> +"For the sake of the rime," begged Martin. But the girls were not +interested in houses. Yet the rest of the morning they went searching +the orchard for the grass of fortune, and not telling. But once Martin, +coming behind Jessica, distinctly heard her murmur "Thatcher!" and +smile. And at another time he saw Joyce deliberately count her blade +before beginning, and nip off a floret, and then begin; and the end was +"Plowman." And presently little Joan came and knelt beside him where he +sat counting on his own behalf, and said timidly, "Martin." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, dear?" said Martin absentmindedly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh. Martin, is it very wicked to poach?" +</P> + +<P> +"The best men all do it," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh. Please, what are you counting?" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"You swear you won't tell?" said Martin, with a side-glance at her. +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head, and he pulled at his grass whispering— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Jennifer,<BR> + Jessica,<BR> + Jane,<BR> + Joan,<BR> + Joyce,<BR> + Joscelyn,<BR> + Gillian—"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"And the last one?" said little Joan, with a rosy face; for he had +paused at the eighth. +</P> + +<P> +"Sh!" said Martin, and stuck his blade behind his ear and called +"Dinner!" +</P> + +<P> +So they came to dinner. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you not found," said Martin, "that after thinking all the morning +it is necessary to jump all the afternoon?" And he got the ropes of the +swing and began to skip with great clumsiness, always failing before +ten, and catching the cord round his ankles. At which the girls plied +him with derision, and said they would show him how. And Jane showed +him how to skip forwards, and Jessica how to skip backwards, and +Jennifer how to skip with both feet and stay in one spot, and Joyce how +to skip on either foot, on a run. And Joscelyn showed him how to skip +with the rope crossed and uncrossed by turns. But little Joan showed +him how to skip so high and so lightly that she could whirl the rope +twice under her feet before they came down to earth like birds. And +then the girls took the ropes by turns, ringing the changes on all +these ways of skipping; or two of them would turn a rope for the +others, while they skipped the games of their grandmothers: "Cross the +Bible," "All in together," "Lady, lady, drop your purse!" and +"Cinderella lost her shoe;" or they turned two ropes at once for the +Double Dutch; and Martin took his run with the rest. And at first he +did very badly, but as the day wore on improved, until by evening he +was whirling the rope three times under his feet that glanced against +each other in mid-air like the knife and the steel. And the girls +clapped their hands because they couldn't help it, and Joan said +breathlessly: +</P> + +<P> +"How quick you are! it took me ten days to do that." +</P> + +<P> +And Martin answered breathlessly, "How quick you were! it took me ten +years." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you ever honest about anything, Master Pippin?" said Joscelyn +petulantly. +</P> + +<P> +"Three times a day," said Martin, "I am honestly hungry." +</P> + +<P> +So they had supper. +</P> + +<P> +Supper done, they clustered as usual about the story-telling tree, and +Martin looked inquiringly from Jane to Joscelyn and from Joscelyn to +Jane. And Joscelyn's expression was one of uncontrolled indifference, +and Jane's expression was one of bridled excitement. So Martin ignored +Joscelyn and asked Jane what she was thinking about. +</P> + +<P> +"A great number of things, Master Pippin," said she. "There is always +so much to think about." +</P> + +<P> +"Is there?" said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, surely you know there is. How could you tell stories else?" +</P> + +<P> +"I never think when I tell stories," said Martin. "I give them a push +and let them swing." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh but," said Jane, "it is very dangerous to speak without thinking. +One might say anything." +</P> + +<P> +"One does," agreed Martin, "and then anything happens. But people who +think before speaking often end by saying nothing. And so nothing +happens." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps it's as well," said Joyce slyly. +</P> + +<P> +"Yet the world must go round, Mistress Joyce. And swings were made to +swing. Do you think, Mistress Jane, if you sat in the swing I should +think twice, or even once, before giving it a push?" +</P> + +<P> +Jane considered this, and then said gravely, "I think, Master Pippin, +you would have to think at least once before pushing the swing +to-night; because it isn't there." +</P> + +<P> +"What a wise little milkmaid you are," said Martin, looking about for +the skipping-ropes. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Jessica, "Jane is wiser than any of us. She is extremely +wise. I wonder you hadn't noticed it." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but I had," said Martin earnestly, fixing the swinging ropes to +their places. "There, Mistress Jane, let me help you in, and I will +give you a push." +</P> + +<P> +He offered her his hand respectfully, and Jane took it saying, "I don't +like swinging very high." +</P> + +<P> +"I will think before I push," said Martin. And when she was settled, +with her skirts in order and her little feet tucked back, he rocked the +swing so gently that not an apple fell nor a milkmaid slipped, +clambering to her place. And Martin leaned back in his and shut his +eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"We are waiting," observed Joscelyn overhead. +</P> + +<P> +"So am I," sighed Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"For what?" +</P> + +<P> +"For a push." +</P> + +<P> +"But you're not swinging." +</P> + +<P> +"Neither's my story. And it will take seven pair of arms to set it +going." And he fixed his eyes on Gillian in her sorrow, but she did not +lift her face. +</P> + +<P> +"Here's six to start the motion of themselves," said Joscelyn, "and it +only remains to you to attract the seventh willy-nilly." +</P> + +<P> +"It were easier," said Martin, "to unlock Saint Peter's Gates with +cowslips." +</P> + +<P> +"I was not talking of impossibilities, Master Pippin," said Joscelyn. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, neither was I," said Martin; "for did you never hear that +cowslips, among all the golden flowers of spring, are the Keys of +Heaven?" +</P> + +<P> +And sending a little chime from his lute across the Well-House he sang— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + She lost the keys of heaven<BR> + Walking in a shadow,<BR> + Sighing for her lad O<BR> + She lost her keys of heaven.<BR> + She saw the boys and girls who flocked<BR> + Beyond the gates all barred and locked—<BR> + And oh! sighed she, the locks are seven<BR> + Betwixt me and my lad O,<BR> + And I have lost my keys of heaven<BR> + Walking in a shadow.<BR> + She found the keys of heaven<BR> + All in a May meadow,<BR> + Singing for her lad O<BR> + She found her keys of heaven.<BR> + She found them made of cowslip gold<BR> + Springing seven-thousandfold—<BR> + And oh! sang she, ere fall of even<BR> + Shall I not be wed O?<BR> + For I have found my keys of heaven<BR> + All in a May meadow.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +By the end of the song Gillian was kneeling upright among the mallows, +and with her hands clasped under her chin was gazing across the +duckpond. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, well!" exclaimed Joscelyn, "cowslips may, or may not, have the +power to unlock the heavenly gates. But there's no denying that a very +silly song has unlocked our Mistress's lethargy. So I advise you to +seize the occasion to swing your tale on its way." +</P> + +<P> +"Then here goes," said Martin, "and I only pray you to set your +sympathies also in motion while I endeavor to keep them going with the +story of Proud Rosalind and the Hart-Royal." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="tale5"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PROUD ROSALIND AND THE HART-ROYAL +</H3> + +<P> +There was once, dear maidens, a man-of-all-trades who lived by the +Ferry at Bury. And nobody knew where he came from. For the chief of his +trades he was an armorer, for it was in the far-away times when men +thought danger could only be faced and honor won in a case of steel; +not having learned that either against danger or for honor the naked +heart is the fittest wear. So this man, whose name was Harding, kept +his fires going for men's needs, and women's too; for besides making +and mending swords and knives and greaves for the one, he would also +make brooches and buckles and chains for the other; and tools for the +peasants. They sometimes called him the Red Smith. In person Harding +was ruddy, though his fairness differed from the fairness of the +natives, and his speech was not wholly their speech. He was a man of +mighty brawn and stature, his eyes gleamed like blue ice seen under a +fierce sun, the hair of his head and his beard glittered like red gold, +and the finer hair on his great arms and breast overlaid with an amber +sheen the red-bronze of his skin. He seemed a man made to move the +mountains of the world; yet truth to tell, he was a most indifferent +smith. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(Martin: Are you not quite comfortable, Mistress Jane? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: I am perfectly comfortable, thank you, Master Pippin. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I fancied you were a trifle unsettled. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: No, indeed. What would unsettle me? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I haven't the ghost of a notion.) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +I have heard gossips tell, but it has since been forgotten or +discredited, that this part of the river was then known as Wayland's +Ferry; for this, it was said, was one of the several places in England +where the spirit lurked of Wayland the Smith, who was the cunningest +worker in metal ever told of in song or story, and he had come overseas +from the North where men worshiped him as a god. No one in Bury had +ever seen the shape of Wayland, but all believed in him devoutly, for +this was told of him, and truly: that any one coming to the ferry with +an unshod steed had only to lay a penny on the ground and cry aloud, +"Wayland Smith, shoe me my horse!" and so withdraw. And on coming again +he would find his horse shod with a craft unknown to human hands, and +his penny gone. And nobody thought of attributing to Harding the work +of Wayland, partly because no human smith would have worked for so mean +a fee as was accepted by the god, and chiefly because the quality of +the workmanship of the man and the god was as dissimilar as that of +clay and gold. +</P> + +<P> +Besides his trade in metal, Harding also plied the ferry; and then men +would speak of him as the Red Boatman. But he could not be depended on, +for he was often absent. His boat was of a curious shape, not like any +other boat seen on the Arun. Its prow was curved like a bird's beak. +And when folk wished to go across to the Amberley flats that lie under +the splendid shell which was once a castle, Harding would carry them, +if he was there and neither too busy nor too surly. And when they asked +the fee he always said, "When I work in metal I take metal. But for +that which flows I take only that which flows. So give me whatever you +have heart to give, as long as it is not coin." And they gave him +willingly anything they had: a flower, or an egg, or a bird's feather. +A child once gave him her curl, and a man his hand. +</P> + +<P> +And when he was neither in his workshop or his boat, he hunted on the +hills. But this was a trade he put to no man's service. Harding hunted +only for himself. And because he served his own pleasure more +passionately than he served others', and was oftener seen with his bow +than with hammer or oar, he was chiefly known as the Red Hunter. Often +in the late of the year he would be away on the great hills of Bury and +Bignor and Houghton and Rewell, with their beech-woods burning on their +sides and in their hollows, and their rolling shoulders lifted out of +those autumn fires to meet in freedom the freedom of the clouds. +</P> + +<P> +It was on one of his huntings he came on the Wishing-Pool. This pool +had for long been a legend in the neighborhood, and it was said that +whoever had courage to seek it in the hour before midnight on Midsummer +Eve, and thrice utter her wish aloud, would surely have that wish +granted within the year. But with time it had become a lost secret, +perhaps because its ancient reputation as the haunt of goblin things +had long since sapped the courage of the maidens of those parts; and +only great-grandmothers remembered how that once their grandmothers had +tried their fortunes there. And its whereabouts had been forgotten. +</P> + +<P> +But one September Harding saw a calf-stag on Great Down. There were +wild deer on the hills then, but such a calf he had never seen before. +So he stalked it over Madehurst and Rewell, and followed it into the +thick of Rewell Wood. And when it led him to its drinking-place, he +knew that he had discovered one more secret of the hills, and that this +somber mere wherein strange waters bubbled in whispers could be no +other than the lost Wishing-Pool. The young calf might have been its +magic guard. To Harding it was a discovery more precious than the mere. +For all that it was of the first year, with its prickets only showing +where its antlers would branch in time, it was of a breed so fine and a +build so noble that its matchless noon could already be foretold from +its matchless dawn; and added to all its strength and grace and beauty +was this last marvel, that though it was of the tribe of the Red Deer, +its skin was as white and speckless as falling snow. Watching it, the +Red Smith said to himself, "Not yet my quarry. You are of king's stock, +and if after the sixth year you show twelve points, you shall be for +me. But first, my hart-royal, you shall get your growth." And he came +away and told no man of the calf or of the pool. +</P> + +<P> +And in the second year he watched for it by the mere, and saw it come +to drink, no longer a calf, but a lovely brocket, with its brow antlers +making its first two points. And in the third year he watched for it +again, no brocket now but a splendid spayade, which to its brows had +added its shooting bays; and in the fourth year the spayade had become +a proud young staggarde, with its trays above its bays. And in the +fifth year the staggarde was a full-named stag, crowned with the +exquisite twin crowns of its crockets, surmounting tray and bay and +brow. And Harding lying hidden gloried in it, thinking, "All your +points now but two, my quarry. And next year you shall add the beam to +the crown, and I will hunt my hart." +</P> + +<P> +Now at the time when Harding first saw the calf, and the ruin of the +castle across the ferry was only a ruin, not fit for habitation, it was +nevertheless inhabited by the Proud Rosalind, who dwelt there without +kith or kin. And if time had crumbled the castle to its last nobility, +so that all that was strong and beautiful in it was preserved and, as +it were, exposed in nakedness to the eyes of men: so in her, who was +the ruins of her family, was preserved and exposed all that had been +most noble, strong and beautiful in her race. She was as poor as she +was friendless, but her pride outmatched both these things. So great +was her pride that she learned to endure shame for the sake of it. She +had a tall straight figure that was both strong and graceful, and she +carried herself like a tree. Her hair was neither bronze nor gold nor +copper, yet seemed to be an alloy of all the precious mines of the +turning year—the vigorous dusky gold of November elms, the rust of +dead bracken made living by heavy rains, the color of beechmast +drenched with sunlight after frost, and all the layers of glory on the +boughs before it fell, when it needed neither sun nor dew to make it +glow. All these could be seen in different lights upon her heavy hair, +which when unbound hung as low as her knees. Her thick brows were dark +gold, and her fearless eyes dark gray with gold gleams in them. They +may have been reflections from her lashes, or even from her skin, which +had upon it the bloom of a golden plum. Dim ages since her fathers had +been kings in Sussex; gradually their estate had diminished, but with +the lessening of their worldly possessions they burnished the brighter +the possession of their honor, and bred the care of it in their +children jealously. So it came to pass that Rosalind, who possessed +less than any serf or yeoman in the countryside, trod among these as +though she were a queen, dreaming of a degree which she had never +known, ignored or shrugged at by those whom she accounted her equals, +insulted or gibed at by those she thought her inferiors. For the +dwellers in the neighboring hamlets, to whom the story of her fathers' +fathers was only a legend, saw in her just a shabby girl, less worthy +than themselves because much poorer, whose pride and very beauty +aroused their mockery and wrath. They did not dispute her possession of +the castle. For what to them were four vast roofless walls, enclosing a +square of greensward underfoot and another of blue air overhead, and +pierced with doorless doorways and windowless casements that let in all +the lights of all the quarters of the sky? What to them were these +traces of old chambers etched on the surface of the old gray stone, +these fragments of lovely arches that were but channels for the winds? +In the thick of the great towered gateway one little room remained +above the arch, and here the maiden slept. And all her company was the +ghosts of her race. She saw them feasting in the halls of the air, and +moving on the courtyard of the grass. At night in the galleries of the +stars she heard their singing; and often, looking through the empty +windows over the flats to which the great west wall dropped down, she +saw them ride in cavalcade out of the sunset, from battle or hunt or +tourney. But the peasants, who did not know what she saw and heard, +preferred their snug squalor to this shivering nobility, and despised +the girl who, in a fallen fortress, defended her life from theirs. +</P> + +<P> +At first she had kept her distance with a kind of graciousness, but one +day in her sixteenth year a certain boor met her under the castle wall +as she was returning with sticks for kindling, and was struck by her +free and noble carriage; for though she was little more than a child, +through all her rags she shone with the grace and splendor not only of +her race, but of the wild life she lived on the hills when she was not +in her ruins. She was as strong and fine as a young hind, and could run +like any deer upon the Downs, and climb like any squirrel. And the +dull-sighted peasant, seeing as though for the first time her untamed +beauty, on an impulse offered to kiss her and make her his woman. +</P> + +<P> +Rosalind stared at him like one aroused from sleep with a rude blow. +The color flamed in her cheek. "YOU to accost so one of my blood?" she +cried. "Mongrel, go back to your kennel!" +</P> + +<P> +The lout gaped between rage and mortification, and, muttering, made a +step towards her; but suddenly seeming to think better of it, stumbled +away. +</P> + +<P> +Then Rosalind, lifting her glowing face, as beautiful as sunset with +its double flush, rose under gold, saw Harding the Red Hunter gazing at +her. Some business had brought him over the ferry, and on his road he +had lit upon the suit and its rejection. Rosalind, her spirit chafed +with what had passed, returned his gaze haughtily. But he maintained +his steadfast look as though he had been hewn out of stone; and +presently, impatient and disdainful, she turned away. Then, and +instantly, Harding pursued his way in silence. And Rosalind grew +somehow aware that he had determined to stand at gaze until her eyes +were lowered. Thereupon she classed his presumption with that of the +other who had dared address her, and hated him for taking part against +her. Near as their dwellings were, divided only by the river and a +breadth of water-meadow, their intercourse had always been of the +slightest, for Harding possessed a reserve as great as her own. But +from this hour their intercourse ceased entirely. +</P> + +<P> +The boor mis-spread the tale of her overweening pride through the +hamlet, and when next she appeared there she was greeted with derision. +</P> + +<P> +"This is she that holds herself unfit to mate with an honest man!" +cried some. And others, "Nay, do but see the silken gown of the great +lady Rosalind, see the fine jewels of her!" "She thinks she outshines +the Queen of Bramber's self!" scoffed a woman. And a man demanded, +"What blood's good enough to mix with hers, if ours be not?" +</P> + +<P> +"A king's!" flashed Rosalind. And even as she spoke the jeering throng +parted to let one by that elbowed his way among them; and a second time +she saw the Red Hunter come to halt and fix her before all the people. +Now this time, she vowed silently, you may gaze till night fall and day +rise again, Red Man, if you think to lower my eyes in the presence of +these! So she stood and looked him in the face like a queen, all her +spirit nerving her, and the people knew it to be battle between them. +Harding's great arms were folded across his breast, and on his +countenance was no expressiveness at all; but a strange light grew and +brightened in his eyes, till little by little all else was blurred and +hazy in the girl's sight, and blue fire seemed to lap her from her +tawny hair to her bare feet. Then she knew nothing except that she must +look away or burn. And her eyes fell. Harding walked past her as he had +done before, and not till he was out of hearing did the bystanders +begin their cruelty. +</P> + +<P> +"A king's blood for the lady that droops to a common smith!" cried they. +</P> + +<P> +"She shall swing his hammer for a scepter!" cried they. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall sit on's anvil for a throne!" cried they. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall queen it in a leathern apron o' Sundays!" cried they. +</P> + +<P> +Rosalind fled amid their howls of laughter. She hated them all, and far +beyond them all she hated him who had lowered her head in their sight. +</P> + +<P> +It was after this that the Proud Rosalind— +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(But here, without even trouble to finish his sentence, Martin Pippin +suddenly thrust with his foot at the seat of the swing, nearly +dislodging Jane with the action; who screamed and clutched first at the +ropes, and next at the branches as she went up, and last of all at +Martin as she came down. She clutched him so piteously that in pure +pity he clutched her, and lifting her bodily out of her peril set her +on his knee. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: (with great concern): Are you better, Mistress Jane? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Where are your manners, Master Pippin? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: My mother mislaid them before I was born. But are you better +now? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: I am not sure. I was very much upset. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: So was I. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: It was all your doing. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I could have sworn it was half yours. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Who disturbed the swing, pray? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Every effect proceeds from its cause. The swing was disturbed +because I was disturbed. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Every cause once had its effect. What effected your disturbance, +Master Pippin? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Yours, Mistress Jane. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Mine? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Confess that you were disturbed. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Yes, and with good cause. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I can't doubt it. Yet that was the mischief. I could find no +logical cause for your disturbance. And an illogical world proceeds +from confusion to chaos. For want of a little logic my foot and your +swing passed out of control. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: The logic had only to be asked for, and it would have been +forthcoming. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Is it too late to ask? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: It is never too late to be reasonable. But why am I sitting on— +Why am I sitting here? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: For the best of reasons. You are sitting where you are sitting +because the swing is so disturbed. Please teach me to be reasonable, +dear Mistress Jane. Why were you disturbed? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Very well. I was naturally greatly disturbed to learn that your +heroine hated your hero. Because it is your errand to relate +love-stories; and I cannot see the connection between love and hate. +Could two things more antagonistic conclude in union? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Yes. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: What? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: A button and buttonhole. For one is something and the other +nothing, and what in the very nature of things could be more +antagonistic than these? +</P> + +<P> +So saying, he tore a button from his shirt and put it into her hand. +"Don't drop it," said Martin, "because I haven't another; and besides, +every button-hole prefers its own button. Yet I will never ask you to +re-unite them until my tale proves to your satisfaction that out of +antagonisms unions can spring." +</P> + +<P> +"Very well," said Jane; and she took out of her pocket a neat little +housewife and put the button carefully inside it. Then she said, "The +swing is quite still now." +</P> + +<P> +"But are you sure you feel better?" said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, thank you," said Jane.) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It was after this (said Martin) that the Proud Rosalind became known by +her title. It was fastened on her in derision, and when she heard it +she set her lips and thought: "What they speak in mockery shall be the +truth." And the more men sought to shame her, the prouder she bore +herself. She ceased all commerce with them from this time. So for five +years she lived in great loneliness and want. +</P> + +<P> +But gradually she came to know that even this existence of friendless +want was not to be life, but a continual struggle-with-death. For she +had no resources, and was put to bitter shifts if she would live. +Hunger nosed at her door, and she had need of her pride to clothe her. +For the more she went wan and naked, the more men mocked her to see her +hold herself so high; and out of their hearts she shut that charity +which she would never have endured of them. If she had gone kneeling to +their doors with pitiful hands, saying, "I starve, not having +wherewithal to eat; I perish, not having wherewithal to cover me"—they +would perhaps have fed and clothed her, aglow with self-content. But +they were not prompt with the charity which warms the object only and +not the donor; and she on her part tried to appear as though she needed +nothing at their hands. +</P> + +<P> +One evening when the woods were in full leaf, and summer on the edge of +its zenith, Proud Rosalind walked among the trees seeking green herbs +for soup. She had wandered far afield, because there were no woods near +the castle, standing on its high ground above the open flats and the +river beyond. But gazing over the water she could see the groves and +crests upon the hills where some sustenance was. The swift way was over +the river, but there was no boat to serve her except Harding's; and +this was a service she had never asked of old, and lately would rather +have died than ask. So she took daily to the winding roads that led to +a distant bridge and the hills with their forests. This day her need +was at its sorest. When she had gathered a meager crop she sat down +under a tree, and began to sort out the herbs upon her knees. One +tender leaf she could not resist taking between her teeth, that had had +so little else of late to bite on; and as she did so coarse laughter +broke upon her. It was her rude suitor who had chanced across her path, +and he mocked at her, crying, "This is the Proud Rosalind that will not +eat at an honest man's board, choosing rather to dine after the high +fashion of the kine and asses!" Then from his pouch he snatched a crust +of bread and flung it to her, and said, "Proud Rosalind, will you stoop +for your supper?" +</P> + +<P> +She rose, letting the precious herbs drop from her lap, and she trod +them into the earth as weeds gathered at hazard, so that the putting of +the leaf between her lips might wear an idle aspect; and then she +walked away, with her head very high. But she was nearly desperate at +leaving them there, and when she was alone her pain of hunger increased +beyond all bounds. And she sat down on the limb of a great beech and +leaned her brow against his mighty body, and shut her eyes, while the +light changed in the sky. And presently the leaves of the forest were +lit by the moon instead of the sun, and the spaces in the top boughs +were dark blue instead of saffron, and the small clouds were no longer +fragments of amber, but bits of mottled pearl seen through sea-water. +But Rosalind witnessed none of these slow changes, and when after a +great while she lifted her faint head, she saw only that the day was +changed to night. And on the other side of the beech-tree, touched with +moonlight, a motionless white stag stood watching her. It was a hart of +the sixth year, and stood already higher than any hart of the twelfth; +full five foot high it stood, and its grand soft shining flanks seemed +to be molded of marble for their grandeur, and silk for their +smoothness, and moonlight for their sheen. Its new antlers were +branching towards their yearly strength, and the triple-pointed crowns +rose proudly from the beam that was their last perfection. The eyes of +the girl and the beast met full, and neither wavered. The hart came to +her noiselessly, and laid its muzzle on her hair, and when she put her +hand on its pure side it arched its noble neck and licked her cheek. +Then, stepping as proudly and as delicately as Rosalind's self, it +moved on through the trees; and she followed it. +</P> + +<P> +The forest changed from beech to pine and fir. It deepened and grew +strange to her. She did not know it. And the light of the sky turned +here from silver to gray, and she felt about her the stir of unseen +things. But she looked neither to the right nor the left, but followed +the snow-white hart that went before her. It brought her at last to its +own drinking-place, and as soon as she saw it old rumors gathered +themselves into a truth, and she knew that this was the lost +Wishing-Pool. And she remembered that this night was Midsummer Eve, and +by the position of the ghostly moon she saw it was close on midnight. +So she knelt down by the edge of the mere, and stretched her hands +above it, the palms to the stars, and in a low clear voice she made her +prayer. +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever spirit dwells under these waters," said she, "I know not +whether you are a power for good or ill. But if it is true that you +will answer in this hour the need of any that calls on you—oh, Spirit, +my need is very great to-night. Hunger is bitter in my body, and my +strength is nearly wasted. A hind cast me his crust to-day, and five +hours I have battled with myself not to creep back to the place where +it still lies and eat of that vile bread. I do not fear to die, but I +fear to die of my hunger lest they sneer at the last of my race brought +low to so mean a death. Neither will I die by my own act, lest they +think my courage broken by these breaking days. On my knees," said she, +"I beseech you to send me in some wise a little money, if it be but a +handful of pennies now and then throughout the year, so that I may keep +my head unbowed. Or if this is too much to ask, and even of you the +asking is not easy, then send some high and sudden accident of death to +blot me out before I grow too humble, and the lofty spirits of my +fathers deny one whose spirit ends as lowly as their dust. Death or +life I beg of you, and I care not which you send." +</P> + +<P> +Then clasping her hands tightly, she called twice more her plea across +the mere: "Spirit of these waters, grant me life or death! Oh, Spirit, +grant me life or death!" +</P> + +<P> +There was a stir in the forest as she made an end, and she remained +stock still, waiting and wondering. But though she knelt there till the +moon had crossed the bar of midnight, nothing happened. +</P> + +<P> +Then the white hart, which had lain beside the water while she prayed, +rose silently and drank; and when it was satisfied, laid once more its +muzzle on her hair and licked her cheek again and moved away. Not a +twig snapped under its slender stepping. Its whiteness was soon covered +by the blackness. +</P> + +<P> +Faint and exhausted, Rosalind arose. She dragged herself through the +wood and presently found the broad road that curled down the deserted +hill and over the bridge, and at last by a branching lane to her ruined +dwelling. The door of her tower creaked desolately to and fro a little, +open as she had left it. She pushed it further ajar and stumbled in and +up the narrow stair. But the pale moonlight entered her chamber with +her, silvering the oaken stump that was her table; and there, where +there had been nothing, she beheld two little heaps of copper coins. +</P> + +<P> +The gold year waned, and the next passed from white to green; and in +the gold Harding began to hunt his hart, and by the green had not +succeeded in bringing it to bay. Twice he had seen it at a distance on +the hills, and once had started it from cover in Coombe Wood and +followed it through the Denture and Stammers, Great Bottom and Gumber, +Earthem Wood and Long Down, Nore Hill and Little Down; and at Punchbowl +Green he lost it. He did not care. A long chase had whetted him, and he +had waited so long that he was willing to wait another year, and if +need were two or three, for his royal quarry. He knew it must be his at +last, and he loved it the more for the speed and strength and cunning +with which it defied him. It had a secret lair he could never discover; +but one day that secret too should be his own. Meanwhile his blood was +heated, and the Red Hunter dreamed of the hart and of one other thing. +</P> + +<P> +And while he dreamed Proud Rosalind grew glad and strong on her +miraculous dole of money, that was always to her hand when she had need +of it. Fear went out of her life, for she knew certainly now that she +was in the keeping of unseen powers, and would not lack again. And +little by little she too began to build a dream out of her pride; for +she thought, I am all my fathers' house, and there will be no honor to +it more except that which can come through me. And whenever tales went +about of the fame of the fair young Queen of Bramber Castle, and the +crowning of her name in this tourney and in that, or of the great lords +and princes that would have died for one smile of her (yet her smiles +came easily, and her kisses too, men said), Rosalind knit her brows, +and her longing grew a little stronger, and she thought: If arrows and +steel might once flash lightnings about my father's daughter, and +cleave the shadows that have hung their webs about my fathers' hearth! +</P> + +<P> +She now began to put by a little hoard of pennies, for she meant to buy +flax to spin the finest of linen for her body, and purple for sleeves +for her arms, and scarlet leather for shoes for her feet, and gold for +a fillet for her head; and so, attired at last as became her birth, one +day to attend a tourney where perhaps some knight would fight his +battle in her name. And she had no other thought in this than glory to +her dead race. But her precious store mounted slowly; and she had laid +by nothing but the money for the fine linen for her robe, when a thing +happened that shattered her last foothold among men. +</P> + +<P> +For suddenly all the countryside was alive with a strange rumor. Some +one had seen a hart upon the hills, a hart of twelve points, fit for +royal hunting. Kings will hunt no lesser game than this. But this of +all harts was surely born to be hunted only by a maiden queen, for, +said the rumor, it was as white as snow. Such a hart had never before +been heard of, and at first the tale of it was not believed. But the +tale was repeated from mouth to mouth until at last all men swore to it +and all winds carried it; and amongst others some wind of the Downs +bore it across the land from Arun to Adur, and so it reached the ears +of Queen Maudlin of Bramber. Then she, a creature of quick whims, who +was sated with the easy conquests of her beauty, yet eager always for +triumphs to cap triumphs, devised a journey from Adur to Arun, and a +great summer season of revelry to end in an autumn chase. "And," said +she, "we will have joustings and dancings in beauty's honor, but she +whose knight at the end of all brings her the antlers of the snow-white +hart shall be known for ever in Sussex as the queen of beauty; since, +once I have hunted it, the hart will be hart-royal." For this, as +perhaps you know, dear maidens, is the degree of any hart that has been +chased by royalty. +</P> + +<P> +However, before the festival was undertaken, the Queen of Bramber must +needs know if the Arun could show any habitation worthy of her; and her +messengers went and came with a tale of a noble castle fallen into +ruins, but with its four-square walls intact, and a sward within so +smooth and fair that it seemed only to await the coming of archers and +dancers. So the Queen called a legion of workmen and bade them go there +and build a dwelling in one part of the green court for her to stay in +with her company. "And see it be done by midsummer," said she. +"Castles, madam," said the head workman, "are not built in a month, or +even in two." "Then for a frolic we'll be commoners," said the Queen, +"and you shall build on the sward not a castle, but a farm." So the +workmen hurried away, and set to work; and by June they had raised +within the castle walls the most beautiful farmhouse in Sussex; and +over the door made a room fit for a queen. +</P> + +<P> +But alas for Proud Rosalind! +</P> + +<P> +When the men first came she confronted them angrily and commanded them +to depart from her fathers' halls. And the head workman looked at the +ruin and her rags and said, "What halls, girl? and where are these +fathers? and who are you?"—and bade his men get about the Queen's +work. And Rosalind was helpless. The men from the Adur asked the people +of the Arun about her, and what rights she had to be where she was. And +they, being unfriendly to her, said, "None. She is a beggar with a bee +in her bonnet, and thinks she was once a queen because her housing was +once a castle. She has been suffered to stay as long as it was +unwanted; but since your Queen wants it, now let her go." And they came +in a body to drive her forth. But they got there too late. The Proud +Rosalind had abandoned her conquered stronghold, and where she lived +from this time nobody knew. She was still seen on the roads and hills +now and again, and once as she passed through Bury on washing-day the +women by the river called to her, "Where do you live now, Proud +Rosalind, instead of in a castle?" And Rosalind glanced down at the +kneeling women and said in her clear voice, "I live in a castle nobler +than Bramber's, or even than Amberley's; I live in the mightiest castle +in Sussex, and Queen Maudlin herself could not build such another to +live in." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you'll doubtless be making her a great entertainment there, Proud +Rosalind," scoffed the washers. +</P> + +<P> +"I entertain none but the kings of the earth there," said Rosalind. And +she made to walk on. +</P> + +<P> +"Why then," mocked they, "you'd best seek one out to hunt the white +hart in your name this autumn, and crown you queen over young Maudlin, +Proud Rosalind." +</P> + +<P> +And Rosalind stopped and looked at them, longing to say, "The white +hart? What do you mean?" Yet for all her longing to know, she could not +bring herself to ask anything of them. But as though her thoughts had +taken voice of themselves, she heard the sharp questions uttered aloud, +"What white hart, chatterers? Of what hunt are you talking?" And there +in mid-stream stood Harding in his boat, keeping it steady with the +great pole of the oar. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Red Boatman," said they, "did you not know that the Queen of +Bramber was coming to make merry at Amberley?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay," said Harding. +</P> + +<P> +"And that our proud lady Rosalind, having, it seems, found a grander +castle to live in, has given hers up to young Maudlin?" +</P> + +<P> +Harding glanced to and from the scornful tawny girl and said, "Well?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Red Boatman! On Midsummer Eve the Queen comes with her court, +and on Midsummer Day there will be a great tourney to open the revels +that will last, so they say, all through summer. But the end of it all +is to be a great chase, for a white hart of twelve points has been seen +on the hills, and the Queen will hunt it in autumn till some lucky lord +kneels at her feet with its antlers; and him, they say, she'll marry." +</P> + +<P> +Then Harding once more looked at Rosalind over the water, and she flung +back a look at him, and each was surprised to see dismay on the other's +brow. And Harding thought, "Is she angry because SHE is not the Queen +of the chase?" And Rosalind, "Would HE be the lord who kneels to Queen +Maudlin?" But neither knew that the trouble in each was really because +their precious secret was now public, and the white hart endangered. +And Rosalind's thought was, "It shall be no Queen's quarry!" And +Harding's, "It shall be no man's but mine!" Then Harding plied his way +to the ferry, and Rosalind went hers to none knew where; though some +had tried vainly to track her. +</P> + +<P> +In due course June passed its middle, and the Queen rode under the +Downs from Bramber to Amberley. And early on Midsummer Eve, while her +servants made busy about the coming festival, Queen Maudlin went over +the fields to the waterside and lay in the grass looking to Bury, and +teased some seven of her court, each of whom had sworn to bring her the +Crown of Beauty at his sword's point on the morrow. Her four maidens +were with her, all maids of great loveliness. There was Linoret who was +like morning dew on grass in spring, and Clarimond queenly as day at +its noon, and Damarel like a rose grown languorous of its own grace, +and Amelys, mysterious as the spirit of dusk with dreams in its hair. +But Maudlin was the pale gold wonder of the dawn, a creature of +ethereal light, a vision of melting stars and wakening flowers. And she +delighted in making seem cheap the palpable prettiness of this, or too +robust the fuller beauty of that, or dim and dull the elusive charm of +such-an-one. She would have scorned to set her beauty to compete with +those who were not beautiful, even as a proved knight would scorn to +joust with an unskilled boor. So now amongst her beautiful attendants, +knowing that in their midst her greater beauty shone forth a diamond +among crystals, she laughed at her seven lovers; and her four friends +laughed with her. +</P> + +<P> +"You do well, Queen Maudlin, to make merry," said one of the knights, +"for I know none that gains so much service for so little portion. What +will you give to-morrow's victor?" +</P> + +<P> +"What will to-morrow's victor think his due?" said she. +</P> + +<P> +The seven said in a breath, "A kiss!" and the five laughed louder than +ever. +</P> + +<P> +Then Maudlin said, "For so great an honor as victory, I should feel +ashamed to bestow a thing of such little worth." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you call that thing a little worth," said one, "which to us were +more than a star plucked out of heaven?" +</P> + +<P> +"The thing, it is true," said Maudlin, "has two values. Those who are +over-eager make it a thing of naught, those from whom it is hard-won +render it priceless. But, sirs, you are all too eager, I could scatter +you baubles by the hour and leave you still desiring. But if ever I +wooed reluctance to receive at last my solitary favor, I should know I +was bestowing a jewel." +</P> + +<P> +"When did Maudlin ever meet reluctance?" sighed one, the youngest. +</P> + +<P> +A long shadow fell upon her where she lay in the grass, and she looked +up to see the great form of Harding passing at a little distance. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is that?" said she. +</P> + +<P> +"It must be he they call the Red Smith," said Damarel idly. +</P> + +<P> +"He looks a rough, silent creature," remarked Amelys. And Clarimond +added in loud and insolent tones, "He knows little enough of kissings, +I would wager this clasp." +</P> + +<P> +"It's one I've a fancy for," said young Queen Maudlin. "Red Smith!" +called she. +</P> + +<P> +Harding turned at the sweet sound of her voice, and came and stood +beside her among the group of girls and knights. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you come from my castle?" said she, smiling up at him with her +dawn-blue eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay," he answered. +</P> + +<P> +"What drew you there, big man? My serving-wench?" +</P> + +<P> +The Red Smith stared down at her light alluring loveliness. +"Serving-wenches do not draw me." +</P> + +<P> +"What metal then? Gold?" Maudlin tossed him a yellow disc from her +purse. He let it fall and lie. +</P> + +<P> +"No, nor gold." His eyes traveled over her gleaming locks. "The things +you name are too cheap," said he. +</P> + +<P> +Maudlin smiled a little and raised herself, till she stood, fair and +slender, as high as his shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"What thing draws you, Red Smith?" +</P> + +<P> +"Steel." And he showed her a fine sword-blade, lacking its hilt. "I was +sent for to mend this against the morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"I know that blade," said Maudlin, "it was snapped in my cause. Have +you the hilt too?" +</P> + +<P> +"In my pouch," said Harding, his hand upon it. +</P> + +<P> +Hers touched his fingers delicately. "I will see it." +</P> + +<P> +He brushed her hand aside and unbuttoned his pouch; but as he drew out +the hilt of the broken sword, she caught a glimpse of that within which +held her startled gaze. +</P> + +<P> +"What jewels are those?" she asked quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"Old relics," Harding said with sudden gruffness. +</P> + +<P> +"Show them to me!" +</P> + +<P> +Reluctantly he obeyed, and brought forth a ring, a circlet, and a +girdle of surpassing workmanship, wrought in gold thick-crusted with +emeralds. A cry of wonder went up from all the maidens. +</P> + +<P> +"There's something else," said Maudlin; and without waiting thrust her +hand into the bottom of the pouch and drew out a mesh of silver. It was +so fine that it could be held and hidden in her two hands; yet when it +fell apart it was a garment, as supple as rich silk. The four maids +touched it softly and looked their longings. +</P> + +<P> +"Are these your handicraft?" said Maudlin. +</P> + +<P> +"Mine?" Harding uttered a short laugh. "Not I or any man can make such +things." +</P> + +<P> +"You are right," said Maudlin. "Wayland's self might acknowledge them. +Smith, I will buy them of you." +</P> + +<P> +"You cannot give me my price." +</P> + +<P> +"Gold I know does not tempt you." She smiled and came close beside him. +</P> + +<P> +"Then do not offer it." +</P> + +<P> +"Shall it be steel?" +</P> + +<P> +Harding's eyes swept her flower-like beauty. "Not from Queen Maudlin." +</P> + +<P> +"True. My bid is costlier." +</P> + +<P> +"Name it." +</P> + +<P> +"A kiss from my mouth." +</P> + +<P> +At the sound of his laughter the rose flowed into her cheek. +</P> + +<P> +"What, a bauble for my jewel, too-eager lady?" he said harshly. "Do the +women of this land hold themselves so light? In mine men carve their +kisses with the sword. Hark ye, young Queen! set a better value on that +red mouth if you'd continue to have it valued." +</P> + +<P> +"I could have you whipped for this," said Maudlin. +</P> + +<P> +"I do not think so," Harding answered, and stepped down the river-bank +into his waiting boat. +</P> + +<P> +"I keep my clasp," said Clarimond. +</P> + +<P> +Seven men sprang hotly to their feet. "What's your will, Queen?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing," said Maudlin slowly, as she watched him row over the water. +"Let the smith go. This test was between him and me and no man's +business else. Well, he is of a temper to come through fire unmelted." +She flashed a smile upon the seven that made them tremble. "But he is a +mannerless churl, we will not think of him. Which among YOU would spurn +my kiss?" She offered her mouth in turn, and seven flames passed over +its scarlet. Maudlin laughed a little and beckoned her watching maids. +"Well!" she said, taking the path to the castle, "He that had had +strength to refuse me might have worn my favor to-morrow and for ever." +</P> + +<P> +And meanwhile by the further river-bank came Rosalind, with mushrooms +in her skirt. And as she walked by the water in the evening she looked +across to her lost castle-walls, and touched the pennies in her pouch +and dreamed, while the sun dressed the running flood in his royalest +colors. +</P> + +<P> +"Linen and purple and scarlet and gold," mused she; "and so I might sit +there to-morrow among the rest. But linen and purple!" she said in +scorn, "what should they profit my fathers' house? It is no silken +daughter we lack, but a son of steel." +</P> + +<P> +And as she pondered a shadow crossed her, and out of his boat stepped +Harding, new from his encounter with the Queen. He did not glance at +her nor she at him; but the gleam of the broken weapon he carried cut +for a single instant across her sight, and her hands hungered for it. +</P> + +<P> +"A sword!" thought she. "Ay, but an arm to wield the sword. Nay, if I +had the sword it may be I could find an arm to wield it." She dropped +her chin on her breast, and brooded on the vanishing shape of the Red +Smith. "If I had been my fathers' son—oh!" cried she, shaken with new +dreams, "what would I not give to the man who would strike a blow for +our house?" +</P> + +<P> +Then she recalled what day it was. A year of miracles and changes had +sped over her life; if she desired new miracles, this was the night to +ask them. +</P> + +<P> +So close on midnight Proud Rosalind once more crept up to Rewell Wood; +and on its beechen skirts the white hart came to her. It came now as to +a friend, not to a stranger. And she threw her arm over its neck, and +they walked together. As they walked it lowered its noble antlers so +cunningly that not a twig snapped from the boughs; and its antlers were +as beautiful as the boughs with their branches and twigs, and to each +crown it had added not one, but two more crockets, so that now its +points were sixteen. Safe under its guard the maiden ventured into the +mysteries of the hour, and when they came to the mere the hart lay down +and she knelt beside it with her brow on its soft panting neck, and +thought awhile how she would shape her wish. And feeling the strength +of its sinews she said aloud, "Oh, champion among stags! were there a +champion among men to match you, I think even I could love him. Yet +love is not my prayer. I do not pray for myself." And then she stood +upright and stretched her hands towards the water and said again, less +in supplication than command: +</P> + +<P> +"Spirit, you hear—I do not pray for myself. Of old it may be maidens +often came in sport or fear, to make a mid-summer pastime of their +love-dreams. Oh, Spirit! of love I ask nothing for myself. But if you +will send me a man to strike one blow in my name that is my fathers' +name, he may have of me what he will!" +</P> + +<P> +Never so proudly yet had the Proud Rosalind held herself as when she +lifted her radiant face to the moon and sent her low clear call thrice +over the mystic waters. Gloriously she stood with arms extended, as +though she would give welcome to any hero stepping through the night to +consummate her wish. But none came. Only the subdued rustling that had +stirred the woods a year ago whispered out of the dark and died to +silence. +</P> + +<P> +The arms of the Proud Rosalind dropped to her sides. +</P> + +<P> +"Is the time not yet?" said she, "and will it never be? Why, then, let +me belong for ever to the champion that strikes for me to-morrow in the +lists. A sorry champion," said she a wan smile, "yet I will hold me +bound to him according to my vow. But first I must win him a sword." +</P> + +<P> +Then she kissed the white hart between the eyes and said, "Go where you +will. I shall be gone till daylight." And it rose up to run the moonlit +hills, and she went down through the trees, and left the Wishing-Pool +to its unruffled peace. +</P> + +<P> +Straight down towards sleeping Bury Rosalind went, full of her purpose; +and after an hour passed through the silent village. +</P> + +<P> +Her errand was not wholly easy to her, but she thought, "I do not go to +ask favors, but plain dealings; and it must be done secretly or not at +all." As she came near the ferry a red glow broke on her vision. +</P> + +<P> +"Does the water burn?" she said, and quickened her steps. To her +surprise she saw that Harding's forge was busy; the light she had seen +sprang from it. She had expected to find it locked and silent, but now +the little space it held in the night was lit with fire and resounded +with the stroke of the Red Smith's hammer. Proud Rosalind stood fast as +though he were fashioning a spell to chain her eyes. And so he was, for +he hammered on a sword. +</P> + +<P> +He did not turn his head at her approach; but when at last she stood +beside his door, and did not move away, he spoke to her. +</P> + +<P> +"You walk late," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"May not people walk late," said she, "as well as work late?" +</P> + +<P> +Without answering he set himself to his task again and heeded her no +more. "Smith!" she cried imperiously. +</P> + +<P> +"What then?" +</P> + +<P> +"I came to speak with you." +</P> + +<P> +"Even so?" She barely heard the words for the din of his great hammer. +</P> + +<P> +"You are unmannerly, Smith." +</P> + +<P> +"Speak then," said he, dropping his tools, "and never forget, maid, +that it is not I invited this encounter." +</P> + +<P> +At that she cried out hotly, "Does not your shop invite trade?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay; but what's that to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"My only purpose in talking with you," she said in a flame of wrath. "I +require what you have, but I would rather buy it of any man than you." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you require?" +</P> + +<P> +"That!" She pointed to the sword. +</P> + +<P> +"I cannot sell it. It is a young knight's blade I am mending against +the jousting." +</P> + +<P> +"Have you no other?" +</P> + +<P> +"You cannot give me my price," said the Red Smith. +</P> + +<P> +She took from her girdle the little purse containing all her store. "Do +you think I am here to bargain? There's more than your price." +</P> + +<P> +"However much it be," said Harding, "it is too little." +</P> + +<P> +"Then say no more that I cannot buy of you, but rather that you will +not sell to me." +</P> + +<P> +"And yet that is as the Proud Rosalind shall please." +</P> + +<P> +She flushed deeply, and as though in shame of seeming ashamed said +firmly, "No, Smith, it is not in my hands. For I have offered you every +penny I possess." +</P> + +<P> +"I do not ask for pence." Harding left his anvil and stepped outside +and stood close, gazing hard upon her face. "You have a thing I will +take in exchange for my sword, a very simple thing. Women part with it +most lightly, I have learned. The loveliest hold it cheap at the price +of a golden gawd. How easily then will you barter it for an inch or so +of steel!" +</P> + +<P> +"What need of so many words?" she said with a scornful lip, that +quivered in her own despite at his nearness. "Name the thing you want." +</P> + +<P> +"A kiss from your mouth, Proud Rosalind." +</P> + +<P> +It was as though the request had turned her into ice. When she could +speak she said, "Smith, for your inch of steel you have asked what I +would not part with to ransom my soul." +</P> + +<P> +She turned and left him and Harding went back to his work and laughed +softly in his beard. "Dream on, my gold queen up yonder," said he, and +blew on his waning fires. "You are not the metal I work in," said he, +and the river rang again to his hammer on the steel. +</P> + +<P> +But Rosalind went rapidly down to the waterside saying in her heart, +"Now I will see whether I cannot get me a lordlier weapon of a better +craftsman than you, and at my own price, Red Smith." And when she had +come to the ferry she laid her full purse on the bank and cried softly +into the night: +</P> + +<P> +"Wayland Smith, give me a sword!" +</P> + +<P> +And then she went away for awhile, and paced the fields till the first +light glimmered on the east; and not daring to wait longer for fear of +encountering early risers, she turned back to the ferry. And there, +shining in the dawn, she found such a blade as made the father in her +soul exult. In all its glorious fashioning and splendid temper the hand +of the god was manifest. And in the grass beside it lay her purse, of +its full store lightened by one penny-piece. +</P> + +<P> +Now to this tale of legends revived and then forgotten, gossips' tales +of Wishing-Pools and Snow-white Harts and a God who worked in the dark, +we must begin to add the legend of the Rusty Knight. It lasted little +longer than the three months of that strange summer of sports within +the castle-walls of Amberley. It was at the jousting on Midsummer Day +that he first was seen. The lists were open and the roll of knights had +answered to their names, and cried in all men's ears their ladies' +praises; and nine in ten cried Maudlin. And as the last knight spoke, +there suddenly stood in the great gateway an unknown man with his +vizard closed, and his coming was greeted with a roar of laughter. For +he was clothed from head to foot in antique arms, battered and rusted +like old pots and pans that have seen a twelvemonths' weather in a +ditch. Out of the merriment occasioned by his appearance, certain of +the spectators began to cry, "A champion! a champion!" And others +nudged with their elbows, chuckling, "It is the Queen's jester." +</P> + +<P> +But the newcomer stood his ground unflinchingly, and when he could be +heard cried fiercely, "They who call me jester shall find they jest +before their time. I claim by my kingly birth to take part in this +day's fray; and men shall meet me to their rue!" +</P> + +<P> +"By what name shall we know you?" he was asked. +</P> + +<P> +"You shall call me the Knight of the Royal Heart," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"And whose cause do you serve?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hers whose beauty outshines the five-fold beauty in the Queen's +Gallery," said he, "hers who was mistress here and wrongly ousted—the +most peerless lady of Sussex, Proud Rosalind." +</P> + +<P> +With that the stranger drew forth and flourished a blade of so +surpassing a kind that the knights, in whom scorn had vanquished mirth, +found envy vanquishing scorn. As for the ladies, they had ceased to +smile at the mention of Rosalind, whom none had seen, though all had +heard of the girl who had been turned from her ruin at Maudlin's whim; +and that this ragged lady should be vaunted over their heads was an +insult only equaled by the presence among their shining champions of +the Rusty Knight. For by this name only was he spoken thereafter. +</P> + +<P> +Now you may think that the imperious stranger who warned his opponents +against laughing before their time, might well have been warned against +crowing before his. And alas! it transpired that he crowed not as the +cock crows, who knows the sun will rise; for at the first clash he +fell, almost unnoticed. And when the combatants disengaged, he had +disappeared. He was a subject for much mirth that evening; though the +men rankled for his sword and the women for a sight of his lady. +</P> + +<P> +But from this day there was not a jousting held in Maudlin's revels at +which the Rusty Knight did not appear; and none from which he bore away +the crown. The procedure was always the same: at the last instant he +appeared in his ignominious arms, and stung the mockers to silence by +the glory of his sword and his undaunted proclamation of his lady. So +ardent was his manner that it was difficult not to believe him a +conqueror among men and her the loveliest of women, until the fray +began; when he was instantly overcome, and in the confusion managed to +escape. He was so cunning in this that though traps were laid to catch +him he was never traced. By degrees he became, instead of a joke, a +thorn in the flesh. It was the women now who itched to see his face, +and the men who desired to find out the Proud Rosalind; for by his +repeated assertion her beauty came to be believed in, and if the ladies +still spoke slightingly of her, the lords in their thoughts did not. +But the summer drew to its close without unraveling the mystery. The +Rusty Knight was never followed nor the Proud Rosalind found. And now +they were on the eve of a different hunting. +</P> + +<P> +For now all the days were to be given up to the pursuit of the rumored +hart, whom none had yet beheld; and Queen Maudlin said, "For a month we +will hunt by day and dance by night, and if by that time no man can +boast of bringing the hart to bay and no woman of owning his antlers, +we will acknowledge ourselves outwitted; and so go back to Adur. And it +may prove that we have been brought to Arun by an idle tale, to hunt a +myth; but be that as it may, see to your bowstrings, for to-morrow we +ride forth." +</P> + +<P> +And the men laid by their swords and filled their quivers. +</P> + +<P> +And in the midnight Rosalind came once more from her secret lair to +Bury, and laying her purse by the ferry called softly: +</P> + +<P> +"Wayland Smith, give me a bow!" +</P> + +<P> +And in the dawn, before people were astir, she found a bow the unlike +of any fashioned by mortal craft, and a quiverful of true arrows; and +for these the god had taken his penny fee. +</P> + +<P> +On a lovely day of autumn the chase began. And the red deer and the red +fox started from their covers; and the small rabbits stopped their +kitten-play on the steep warrens of the Downs, and fled into their +burrows; and birds whirred up in screaming coveys, and the kestrel +hovered high and motionless on the watch. There was game in plenty, and +many men were tempted and forgot the prize they sought. The hunt +separated, some going this way and some that. And in the evening all +met again in Amberley. And some had game to show and some had none. And +one had seen the hart. +</P> + +<P> +When he said so a cry went up from the company, and they pressed round +to hear his tale, and it was a strange one. +</P> + +<P> +"For," said he, "where Great Down clothes itself with the North Wood I +saw a flash against the dark of the trees, and out of them bounded the +very hart, taller than any hart I ever dreamed of, and, as the tale has +told, as pure as snow; and the crockets spring from its crowns like +rays from a summer cloud. I could not count them, but its points are +more than twelve. When it saw me it stood motionless, and trembling +with joy I fitted my arrow to the string; but even as I did so out of +the trees ran another creature, as strange as the white hart. It was +none other than the Rusty Knight; I knew him by his battered vizard, +which was closed. But for the rest he wore now, not rust, but rags—a +tattered jerkin in place of battered mail. Yet in his hands was a bow +which among weapons could only be matched by his sword. He took his +stand beside the snow-white hart, and cried in that angry voice we have +all heard, These crowns grow only to the glory of the Proud Rosalind, +the most peerless daughter of Sussex, and no woman but she shall ever +boast of them!' And before I could move or answer for surprise, he had +set his arrow to his bow, and drawn the string back to his shoulder, +and let fly. It was well I did not start aside, or it might have hit +me; for I never saw an arrow fly so wild of its mark. But the whole +circumstance amazed me too much for quick action, and before I could +come up and chastise this unskillful archer, or even aim at the prize +which stood beside him, he and the hart had plunged through the wood +again, the man running swiftfoot as the beast; and when I followed I +could not find them, and unhappily my dogs were astray." +</P> + +<P> +The strange tale stung the tempers of all listeners, both men and women. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, now," laughed Maudlin, "it has at least been seen that the hart +is the whitest of harts." +</P> + +<P> +"But it has not yet been seen," fumed Clarimond, "that this Rosalind is +the most beautiful of women." +</P> + +<P> +"Nor have we seen," said the knight who told the tale, "who it is that +insults our manhood with valiant words and no deeds to prove them. Yet +with such a sword and such a bow a man might prove anything." +</P> + +<P> +The next day all rode forth on fire with eagerness. And at the end of +it another knight brought back the selfsame tale. He sword that in the +tattered archer was no harm at all but his arrogance, since he was +clearly incapable of hitting where he aimed. But his very presence and +his swift escape, running beside the hart, made failure seem double; +for the derision he excited recoiled on the deriders, who could not +bring this contemptible foe to book. After that day many saw him, +sometimes at a great distance, sometimes near enough to be lashed by +his insolent tongue. He always kept beside the coveted quarry, as +though to guard it, and ran when it ran, with incredible speed; but +once when he flagged after a longer chase than usual, he had been seen +to leap on its back, and so they escaped together. From dawn to dusk +through that bright month of autumn the man and the hart were hunted in +vain; and in all that while their lair was never discovered. It was now +taken for granted that where one would be the other would be; and in +all likelihood Proud Rosalind also. +</P> + +<P> +At last the final day of the month and the chase arrived, and Maudlin +spoke to her mortified company. Among them all she was the only one who +laughed now, for her nature was like that of running water, reflecting +all things, retaining none; she could never retain her disappointments +longer than a day, or her affections either. +</P> + +<P> +"Sirs and dames," said she, "I see by your clouded faces it is time we +departed, but we will depart as we came in the sun. If this day bring +no more fruit than its fellows, neither victory to a lord nor +sovereignty to his lady, we will to-morrow hold the mightiest tourney +of the year, and he who wins the crown shall give it to his love, and +she shall be called for ever the fairest of Sussex; but for that, if +her lord desire it, she shall wed him—yes, though it be myself she +shall!" +</P> + +<P> +And at this the hearts of nine men in ten leapt in their breasts for +longing of her, and in the tenth for longing of Linoret or Clarimond or +Damarel or Amelys; and all went to the chase thinking as much of the +morrow as of the day. +</P> + +<P> +It was the day when the forests burned their brightest. The earth was +fuller of color than in the painted spring; the hedgerows were hung +with brilliant berries in wreaths and clusters, luminous briony and +honeysuckle, and the ebony gloss of the privet making more vivid the +bright red of the hips and the dark red of the haws. The smooth flat +meadows and smooth round sides of the Downs were not greener in June; +nor in that crystal air did the river ever run bluer than under that +blue sky. The elms were getting already their dusky gold and the +beeches their brighter reds and golds and coppers; where they were +young and in thin leaf the sun-flood watered them to transparent pinks +and lemons, as bright, though not as burning, as the massed colors of +the older trees. That day there was magic on the western hills, for +those who could see it, and trees that were not trees. +</P> + +<P> +So Rosalind who, like all the world, was early abroad, though not with +all the world, saw a silver cloud pretending to be white flowers upon a +hawthorn; never in spring sunlight had the bush shone whiter. But when +Maudlin rode by later she saw, not a cloud in flower, but a flowerless +tree, dressed with the new-puffed whiteness of wild clematis, its +silver-green tendrils shining through their own mist. +</P> + +<P> +Then Rosalind saw a sunset pretending to be a spindle-tree, scattering +flecks of red and yellow light upon the ground, till the grass threw up +a reflection of the tree, as a cloud in the east will reflect another +in the west. But when Maudlin came riding the spots of light upon the +ground were little pointed leaves, and the sunset a little tree as +round as a clipped yew, mottled like an artist's palette with every +shade from primrose to orange and from rose to crimson. +</P> + +<P> +And last, in a green glade under a steep hollow overhung with ash, +Rosalind saw a fairy pretending to be a silver birch turned golden. For +her leaves hung like the shaking water of a sunlit fountain, and she +stood alone in the very middle of the glade as though on tip-toe for a +dance; and all the green trees that had retreated from her +dancing-floor seemed ready to break into music, so that Rosalind held +her breath lest she should shatter the moment and the magic, and stayed +spell-bound where she was. But an hour afterwards Maudlin, riding the +chalky ledge on the ash-grown height, looked down on that same sight +and uttered a sharp cry; for she saw, no fairy, but a little yellowing +birch, and under it the snow-white hart with the Rusty Knight beside +him. Then all the company with her echoed the cry, and the forest was +filled with the round sounds of horns and belling hounds. And while in +great excitement men sought a way down into the steep glen, the hart +and his ragged guard had started up, and vanished through the +underworld of trees. +</P> + +<P> +The hue and cry was taken up. Not one or two, but fifty had now seen +the quarry, and panted for the glory of the prize. And so, near the +very beginning of the day, the chase began. +</P> + +<P> +The scent was found and lost and found again. The stag swam the river +twice, once at South Stoke, and once at Houghton Bridge, and the man +swam with it; and then, keeping over the fields they ran up Coombe and +went west and north, over Bignor Hill and Farm Hill, through the +Kennels and Tegleaze. They were sighted on Lamb Lea and lost in +Charlton. They were seen again on Heyshott and vanished in Herringdean +Copse. They crossed the last high-road in Sussex and ran over Linch +Down and Treyford nearly into Hampshire; and there the quarry turned +and tried to double home by Winden Wood and Cotworth Down. The marvel +was that the Rusty Knight was always with it, sometimes beside it, +often on its back; and even when he bestrode it, it flew over the green +hills like a white sail driven by a wind at sea, or a cloud flying the +skies. When it doubled it had shaken off the greater part of the hunt. +But through Wellhanger and over Levin some followed it still. In the +woods of Malecomb only the seven knights who most loved Maudlin +remained staunch; and they were spurred by hope, because when they now +sighted it it seemed as though the hart began to tire, and its rider +drooped. Their own steeds panted, and their dogs' tongues lolled; but +over the dells and rises, woods and fields, they still pressed on, +exulting that they of all the hunt remained to bring the weary gallant +thing to bay. +</P> + +<P> +Once more they were in the home country, and the day was drawing to a +glorious close. In the great woods of Rewell the hart tried to confuse +the scent and conceal itself with its spent comrade, but it was too +late; for it too was nearly spent. Yet it plunged forward to the ridge +of Arundel with its high fret of trees like harp-strings, filled with +the music of the evening sky. And here again among the dipping valleys, +the quarry sought to shake off the pursuit; but as vainly as before. In +that exhausted close for hunters and hunted, the first had triumph to +spur the last of their strength, and the second despair to eke out +theirs. At Whiteways the hart struck down through a secret dip, into +the loveliest hidden valley of all the Downs; and descending after it +the knights saw suddenly before them a great curve of the steely river, +lying under the sunset like a scimitar dyed with blood. And in a last +desperate effort the hart swerved round a narrow footway by the river, +and disappeared. +</P> + +<P> +The knights followed shouting with their baying dogs, and the next +instant were struck mute with astonishment. For the narrow wooded path +by the water suddenly swung open into a towering semi-circle of +dazzling cliffs, uprising like the loftiest castle upon earth: such +castles as heaven builds of gigantic clouds, to scatter their solid +piles with a wind again. But only the hurricanes of the first day or +the last could bring this mighty pile to dissolution. The forefront of +the vast theater was a perfect sward, lying above the water like a +green half-moon; beyond and around it small hills and dells rose and +fell in waves until they reached the brink of the great cliffs. At the +further point of the semi-circle the narrow way by the river began +again, and steep woods came down to the water cutting off the north. +</P> + +<P> +And somewhere hidden in the hemisphere of little hills the hart was +hidden, without a path of escape. +</P> + +<P> +The men sprang from their horses, and followed the barking dogs across +the sward. At the end of it they turned up a neck of grass that coiled +about a hollow like the rim of a cup. It led to a little plateau ringed +with bushes, and smelling sweet of thyme. At first it seemed as though +there were no other ingress; but the dogs nosed on and pointed to an +opening through the thick growth on the left, and disappeared with +hoarse wild barks and yelps; and their masters made to follow. +</P> + +<P> +But at the same instant they heard a voice come from the bushes, a +voice well known to them; but now it was exhausted of its power, though +not of its anger. +</P> + +<P> +"This quarry and this place," it cried, "are sacred to the Proud +Rosalind and in her name I warn you, trespassers, that you proceed at +your peril!" +</P> + +<P> +At this the seven knights burst into laughter, and one cried, "Why, +then, it seems we have brought the lady to bay with the hart—a double +quarry, friends. Come, for the dogs are full of music now, and we must +see the kill." +</P> + +<P> +As they moved forward an arrow sped far above their heads. +</P> + +<P> +Then a second man cried, "We could shoot into the dark more surely than +this clumsy marksman out of it. Let us shoot among the trees and give +him his deserts. And after that let nothing hold us from the dogs, for +their voices turn the blood in me to fire." +</P> + +<P> +So each man plucked an arrow from his quiver. +</P> + +<P> +And as he fitted it, lo! with incredible swiftness seven arrows shot +through the air, and one by one each arrow split in two a knight's +yew-bow. The men looked at their broken bows amazed. And as they looked +at each other the dogs stopped baying, one by one. +</P> + +<P> +One of the knights said, breathing heavily, "This must be seen to. The +man who could shoot like this has been playing with us since midsummer. +Let us come in and call him to account, and make him show us his Proud +Rosalind." +</P> + +<P> +They made a single movement towards the opening; at the same moment +there was a great movement behind it, and they came face to face with +the hart-royal. It stood at bay, its terrible antlers lowered; its eyes +were danger-lights, as red as rubies. And the seven weaponless men +stood rooted there, and one said, "Where are the dogs?" +</P> + +<P> +But they knew the dogs were dead. +</P> + +<P> +So they turned and went out of that place, and found their horses and +rode away. +</P> + +<P> +And when they had gone the hart too turned again, and went slowly down +a little slipping path through the bushes and came to the very inmost +chamber of its castle, a round and roofless shrine, walled half by the +bird-haunted cliffs and half by woods. Within on the grass lay the dead +hounds, each pierced by an arrow; and on a bowlder near them sat the +Rusty Knight, with drooping head and body, regarding them through the +vizard he was too weary to raise. He was exhausted past bearing +himself. The hart lay down beside him, as exhausted as he. +</P> + +<P> +But a sound in the forest that thickly clothed the cliff made both look +up. And down between the trees, almost from the height of the cliff, +climbed Harding the Red Hunter, bow in hand. He strode across the +little space that divided them still, and stood over the Rusty Knight +and the white Hart-Royal. And both might have been petrified, for +neither stirred. +</P> + +<P> +After a little Harding began to speak. "Are you satisfied, Rusty +Knight," said he, "with what you have done in Proud Rosalind's honor?" +</P> + +<P> +The Rusty Knight did not answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Did ever lady have a sorrier champion?" Harding laughed roughly. "She +would have beggared herself to get you a sword. And she got you a sword +the like of which no knight ever had before. And how have you used it? +All through a summer you have brought laughter upon her. She would have +beggared herself again to get you a bow that only a god was worthy to +draw. And how have you drawn it? For a month you have drawn it to men's +scorn of her and of you. You have cried her praises only to forfeit +them. You have vaunted her beauty and never crowned it. And what have +you got for it?" The Rusty Knight was as dumb as the dead. Harding +stepped closer. "Shall I tell you, Rusty Knight, what you have got for +it? Last Midsummer Eve by the Wishing-Well the Proud Rosalind forswore +love if heaven would send her a man to strike a blow in her name for +her fathers' sake. She did not say what sort of man or what sort of +blow. She asked in her simplicity only that a blow should be struck. +And like a woman she was ready to find it enough, and in gratitude +repay it with that which could only in honor be exchanged for what +honored her. Yet I myself heard her swear to hold herself bound to the +sorry champion who should strike for her in the tourney. And you struck +and fell. Did you tell her you fell when you came to her, crownless? +And how did she crown you for your fall, Rusty Knight?" +</P> + +<P> +The Knight sprang to his feet and stood quivering. +</P> + +<P> +"That moves you," said Harding, "but I will move you more. The Proud +Rosalind is not your woman. She is mine. She was mine from the moment +her eyes fell. She was only a child then, but I knew she was mine as +surely as I knew this hart was mine and no other's, when first I saw it +as a calf drink at its pool. But I was patient and waited till he, my +calf, should become a king, and she, my heifer, a queen. And I am her +man because I am of king's stock in my own land, and she of king's +stock in hers. And I am her man because for a year I have kept her, +without her knowledge, with the pence I earned by my sweat, that were +earned for a different purpose. And I am her man because the hart you +have defended so ill, and hampered for a month, was saved to-day by my +arrows, not yours. It was my arrows slew the hounds from the top of the +cliff. It was my arrows split the bows of the seven knights. And it is +my arrow now that will kill the White Hart that in all men's sight I +may give her the antlers to-morrow, and hear my Proud Rosalind called +queen among women." +</P> + +<P> +And as he spoke Harding drew back suddenly, and fitted a shaft to his +string as though he would shoot the hart where it lay. +</P> + +<P> +But the Rusty Knight sprang forward and caught his hands crying, "Not +my Hart! you shall not shoot my Hart!" And he tore off his casque, and +the great tawny mantle of Rosalind's hair fell over her rags, and her +face was on fire and her bosom heaving; and she sank down murmuring, "I +beg you to spare my Hart." +</P> + +<P> +But Harding, uttering a great laugh of pride and joy, caught her up +before she could kneel, saying, "Not even to me, my Proud Rosalind!" +And without even kissing her lips, he put her from him and knelt before +her, and kissed her feet. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +("Will you be so good, Mistress Jane," said Martin, "as to sew on my +button?" +</P> + +<P> +"I will not knot my thread, Master Pippin," said Jane, "till you have +snapped yours." +</P> + +<P> +"It is snapped," said Martin. "The story is done." +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: It is too much! it is TOO much! You do it on purpose! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Oh, Mistress Joscelyn! I never do anything on purpose. And +therefore I am always doing either too much or too little. But in what +have I exceeded? My story? I am sorry if it is too long. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: It was too short—and you are quibbling. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I?—But never mind. What more can I say? It is a fault, I know; +but as soon as my lovers understand each other I can see no further. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: There are a thousand things more you can say. Who this +Harding was, for one. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: And what he meant by saying his pennies had kept her, for +another. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: And for what other purpose he had intended them. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: And you must describe all that happened at the last tourney. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: And what about the ring and the girdle and the circlet and the +silver gown? +</P> + +<P> +"I would so like to know," said little Joan, "if Harding and Rosalind +lived happily ever after. Please won't you tell us how it all ended?" +</P> + +<P> +"Will women NEVER see what lies under their noses?" groaned Martin. +"Will they ALWAYS stare over a wall, and if they're not tall enough to +try to stare through it? Will they ONLY know that a thing has come to +its end when they see it making a new beginning? Why, after the first +kiss all tales start afresh, though they start on the second, which is +as different from the first as a garden rose from a wild one. Here have +I galloped you to a conclusion, and now you would set me ambling again." +</P> + +<P> +"Then make up your mind to it," said Joscelyn, "and amble." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear heaven!" went on Martin, "I begin to believe that when a woman is +being kissed she doesn't even notice it for thinking, How sweet it will +be when he kisses me next Tuesday fortnight!" +</P> + +<P> +"Then get on to Tuesday fortnight," scolded Joscelyn, "if that be the +end." +</P> + +<P> +"The end indeed!" said Martin. "On Tuesday fortnight, at the very +instant, the slippery creature is thinking, How delicious it was when +he kissed me two weeks ago last Saturday! There's no end with a woman, +either backwards or forwards!" +</P> + +<P> +"For goodness' sake," cried Joscelyn, "stop grumbling and get on with +it!" +</P> + +<P> +"There's no end to a man's grumbling either," said Martin; "but I'll +get on with it.") +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The tale that Harding had to tell Proud Rosalind was a long one, but I +will make as short of it as I can. He told her how in his own country +he was sprung of the race of Volundr, who was a God and a King and a +Smith all in one; but he had been ill-used and banished, and had since +haunted England where men knew him as Wayland, and he did miracles. But +in his own northern land his strain continued, until Harding's father, +a king himself, was like his ancestor defeated and banished, and +crossed the water with his young son and a chest of relics of Old +Wayland's work—a ring, a girdle, a crown, and a silver robe; a sword +and bow which Rosalind knew already; and other things as well. And the +boy grew up filled with the ancient wrongs of his ancestor, and he went +about the country seeking Wayland's haunts; and wherever he found them +he found a mossy legend, neglected and unproved, of how the god worked, +or had worked, for any man's pence, and put his divine craft to +laborers' service. And as in Rosalind the dream had grown of building +up her fathers' honor again, so Harding had from boyhood nursed his +dream of establishing that of the half-forgotten god. And he, who had +inherited his ancestor's craft in metal, coming at last through Sussex +settled at Bury, where the legend lay on its sick-bed; and he set up +his shop by the ferry so that he might doctor it. And there he did his +work in two ways; for as the Red Smith he did such work as might be +done better by a hundred men, but as Wayland he did what could only +have been done better by the god. And the toll he collected for that +work he saved, year-in-year-out, till he should have enough to build +the god a shrine. And, leaving this visible evidence behind him, he +meant to depart to his own land, and let the faith in Wayland wax of +itself. And then Harding told Rosalind how he had first seen the hart +when it was a calf six years before at midsummer, and how it had led +him to the Wishing-Well; and he had marked it for his own. And how in +the same year he had first noticed Rosalind, a girl not yet sixteen, +and, for the fire of kings in her that all her poverty could not +extinguish, chosen her for his mate. +</P> + +<P> +"And year by year," said Harding, "I watched to see whether the direst +want could bring you to humbleness, and saw you only grow in nobleness; +and year by year I lay in wait for my four-footed quarry each Midsummer +Eve beside the Wishing-Pool, and saw it grow in kingliness. And last +year, as you know, I saw you come to the Pool beside the hart, and +heard you make your high prayer for life or death. And if I had not +been able to give you the life, I would have given you the death you +prayed for. But I went before you, and going by the ferry put my old +god's money in your room before you could be there. And from time to +time I robbed his store to keep you. But when in spring they drove you +from the castle I did not know where to find you; and I hunted for your +lair as I hunted for the hart's, and never knew they were the same. +Then this year came the wishing-time again, and lying hidden I heard +you cry for a man to strike for you. And I was tempted then to reveal +myself and make you know to what man you were committed. But I decided +that I would wait and strike for you in the tourney, and come to you +for the first time with a crown. And so I went back to the ferry and +set to work; and to my amazement you followed me, and for the first +time of your own will addressed me. I wondered whether you had come to +be humble before your time, and if you had been I would have let you go +for ever; but when you spoke with scorn as to a servant who had once +forgotten himself so far as to play the man to you, I laughed in my +heart and prized your scorn more dearly than your favor; and said to +myself, To-morrow she shall know me for her man. But when you went down +to the water and made your demand of Wayland, for his sake and yours I +was ready to give you a weapon worthy of your steel. So I gave you the +god's own sword and waited to see what use you would make of it. And +you made as ill an use as after you made of the god's bow. And while +men spoke betwixt wrath and mockery of the Rusty Knight, I loved more +dearly that champion who was doing so ill so bravely for a championless +lady." Then Harding looked her steadily in the eyes, and though her +face was all on fire again as he alone had power to make it, she did +not flinch from his gaze, and he took her hand and said, "No man has +ever struck a blow for you yet, Proud Rosalind, but the Rusty Knight +will strike for you to-morrow; and as to-day there was no marksman, so +to-morrow there shall be no swordsman who can match him. And when he +has won the crown of Sussex for you, you shall redeem your pledge of +the Wishing-Well and give him what he will. Till then, be free." And he +dropped her hand again and let her go. +</P> + +<P> +She turned and went quickly into the bushes and soon she came out +bearing the miserable arms of the Rusty Knight and the glorious sword. +</P> + +<P> +"These are all that were in my fathers' castle for many years," she +said, "and I took them when I went away and the white hart brought me +to his own castle. But though these are big for me, they will be small +for you." +</P> + +<P> +And Harding looked at them and laughed his short laugh. "The casque +alone will serve," he said. "By that and the sword men shall know me. I +have my own arms else; and I will take on myself the shame of this +ludicrous casque, and redeem it in your name. And you shall have these +in exchange." And he handed her his pouch and bade her what to do in +the morning, and went away. He still had not kissed her mouth, nor had +she offered it. +</P> + +<P> +Now there is very little left to tell. On the morrow, when the roll of +knights had been called, all eyes instinctively turned to the great +gateway, by which the Rusty Knight had always come at the last moment. +And as they looked they saw whom they expected, but not what they +expected. For though his head was hidden in the rusty casque, and +though he held the sword which all men covet, he was clad from neck to +foot in arms and mail so marvelously chased and inwrought with red gold +that his whole body shone ruddy in the sunshaft. And men and women, +dazzled and confused, wondered what trick of light made him appear more +tall and broad than they remembered him; so that he seemed to dwarf all +other men. The murmur and the doubt went round, "Is it the Rusty +Knight?" +</P> + +<P> +Then in a voice of thunder he replied, "Ay, if you will, it is the +Rusty Knight; or the Red Knight, or the Knight of the Royal Heart, or +of the Hart-Royal; but by any name, the knight of the Proud Rosalind, +who is the proudest and most peerless of all the maids of Sussex, as +this day's work shall prove." +</P> + +<P> +And none laughed. +</P> + +<P> +The joust began; and before the Rusty Knight the rest went down like +corn beaten by hail. And all men marveled at him, and all women +likewise. And the young Queen Maudlin of Bramber, a prey to her whims, +loved him as long as the tourney lasted. And when it was ended, and he +alone stood upright, she rose in her seat and held out to him the crown +of gold and flowers upon a silken pillow, crying, "You have won this, +you unknown, unseen champion, and it is your right to give it where you +will; and none will dispute her supremacy in beauty for ever." And as +he strode and knelt to receive the crown she added quickly, "And I know +not whether the promise has reached your ears which yesterday was +made—that she who accepts the crown is to wed the victor, although he +choose the Queen herself to wear it." +</P> + +<P> +And she smiled down at him like morning smiling out of the sky; and her +beauty was such as to make a man forget all other beauty and all +resolutions. But Harding took the crown from her and touched her hand +with the rusty brow of his casque and said, "A Queen will wear it, for +my lady's fathers were once Kings of Amberley." +</P> + +<P> +Then Maudlin stamped her foot as a butterfly might, and cried, "Where +is this lady whom you keep as hidden as your face?" +</P> + +<P> +And Harding rose and turned towards the gateway, and all turned with +him; and into the arch rode Rosalind on the white hart. And she was +clothed from her neck to the soles of her naked feet in a sheath of +silver that seemed molded to her lovely body; and about her waist a +golden girdle hung, set with green stones, and from her finger a great +emerald shot green fire, and on her head a golden fillet lay in the +likeness of close-set leaves with clusters of gleaming green berries +that were other emeralds; and under it her glory of hair fell like +liquid metal down her back and over the hart's neck, as low as her +silver hem. And the hart with its splendid antlers stood motionless and +proud as though it knew it carried a young Queen. But indeed men +wondered whether it were not a young goddess. And so for a very few +moments this carven vision of gold and silver and ivory and molten +bronze and copper and green jewels stood in their gaze. And then +Harding bore the crown to her and knelt, and stood up again and crowned +her before them all; and laying his hand upon the white hart's neck, +moved away with it and its beautiful rider through the gateway. And no +one moved or spoke or tried to stop them. But by the footway over the +water-meadows they went, and at the river's edge found Harding's broad +flat boat with the bird's beak. And Harding said, "Will you come over +the ferry with me, Proud Rosalind?" +</P> + +<P> +And Rosalind answered, "What is your fee, Red Boatman?" +</P> + +<P> +Then Harding answered, "For that which flows I take only that which +flows." +</P> + +<P> +And Rosalind, stooping of her own accord from the white hart's back, +kissed him. +</P> + +<P> +I shall be very uncomfortable, Mistress Jane, till you have sewed on my +button. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="interlude5"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FIFTH INTERLUDE +</H3> + +<P> +The milkmaids had not thought of their apples for the last hour, but +now, remembering them, they fell to refreshing their tongues with the +sweet flavors of fruit and talk. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: I cannot rest, Jane, till you have pronounced upon this story. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: I never found pronouncement harder, Jessica. For who can +pronounce upon anything but a plain truth or a plain falsehood? and I +am too confused to extricate either from such a hotch-potch of magic as +came to pass without the help of any real magician. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Oh, Mistress Jane! are you sure of that? Did not Rosalind's +wishes come true, and can there be magic without a magician? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Her wishes came true, I know, both by the pool and by the ferry; +but that the pool and the ferry were supernatural remains unproved. +Because in both cases her wishes were brought about by a man. And if +there was any other magician at all, you never showed him to us. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Dear Mistress Jane, where were your eyes? I showed you the +greatest of all the magicians that give ear to the wishes of women; and +when it is necessary to bring them about, he puts his power on a man +and the man makes them come true. Which is a magic you must often have +noticed in men, though you may never have known the magician's name. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: We have never noticed any magic whatever in men. And we don't +want to know the magician's name. We don't believe in anything so silly +as magic. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I hope, Mistress Joscelyn, there were moments in my story not +too silly to be believed in. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: Silliness in stories is more or less excusable, since they +are not even supposed to be believed. And is there still a Wishing-Pool +on Rewell and a ferry at Bury? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: The ferry is there, but Harding's hammer is silent. And where +his shop stood is a little cottage where children live, who dabble in +summer on the ferry-step. And their mother will run from her washing or +cooking to take you over the water for the same fee that Wayland asked +for shoeing a poor man's donkey or making a rich man's sword. And this +is the only miracle men call for from those banks to-day; and if ever +you tried to take a boat across the Bury currents, you would not only +believe in miracles but pray for one, while your boat turned in +mid-stream like a merry-go-round. So there's no doubt that the +ferry-wife is a witch. But as for the Wishing-Pool, it is as lost as it +was before the white hart led two lovers to discover it at separate +times, and having brought them together passed with them and its secret +out of men's knowledge. For neither it nor Harding nor Rosalind was +seen again in Sussex after that day. And yet I can tell you this much +of their fortunes: that whatever befell them wherever they wandered, he +was a king and she a queen in the sight of the whole world, which to +all lovers consists of one woman and one man; and their lives were +crowned lives, and they carried their crown with them even when they +came in the same hour to exchange one life for another. But this was +only a long and cloudless reign on earth. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Well, it is a satisfaction to know that. For at certain times +your story seemed so overshadowed with clouds that I was filled with +doubts. +</P> + +<P> +Joan: Oh, but Jane! even when we walk in the thickest clouds on the +Downs, we are certain that presently some light will melt them, or some +wind blow them away. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: Yes, it never once occurred to me to doubt the end of the story. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: Nor to me. And so the clouds only kept one in a delicious +palpitation, at which one could secretly smile, without having to stop +trembling. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: Was it possible, Jane, that YOU could be deceived as to the +conclusion of this love-story? Why, even I saw joy coming as plain as a +pikestaff. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: And I, with love for its bearer. For that magician, who touches +the plainest things with a radiance, makes plain girls and boys look +queens and kings, and plain staves flowering branches of joy. And in +this case I can think of only one catastrophe that could have obscured +or distorted that vision. +</P> + +<P> +Two of the Milkmaids: What catastrophe, pray? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: If Rosalind had refused to believe in anything so silly as +magic. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The silence of the Seven Sleepers hung over the Apple-Orchard. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Joscelyn: Then she would have proved herself a girl of sense, singer, +and your tale would have gained in virtue. As it stands, I should not +have grieved though the clouds had never been dispersed from so foolish +a medley of magic and make-believe. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: So be it, if it must be so. We will push back our lovers into +their obscurities, and praise night for the round moon above us, who +has pushed three parts of her circle clear of all obstacles, and awaits +only some movement of heaven to blow the last remnant of cloud from her +happy soul. And because more of her is now in the light than in the +dark, she knows it is only a question of time. But the last hours of +waiting are always the longest, and we like herself can do no better +than spend them in dreams, where if we are lucky we shall catch a +glimpse of the angels of truth. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Like the last five leaves blown from an autumn branch, the milkmaids +fluttered from the apple-tree and couched their sleepy heads on their +tired arms, and went each by herself into her particular dream; where +if she found company or not she never told. But Jane sat prim and +thoughtful with her elbow in her hand and her finger making a dimple in +her cheek, considering deeply. And presently Martin began to cough a +little, and then a little more, and finally so troublesomely that she +was obliged to lay her profound thoughts aside, to attend to him with a +little frown. Was even Euclid impervious to midges? +</P> + +<P> +"Have you taken cold, Master Pippin?" said Jane. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid so," he confessed humbly; "for we all know that when we +catch cold the grievance is not ours, but our nurse's." +</P> + +<P> +"How did it happen?" demanded Jane, rightly affronted. "Have you been +getting your feet wet in the duckpond again?" +</P> + +<P> +"The trouble lies higher," murmured Martin, and held his shirt together +at the throat. +</P> + +<P> +Jane looked at him and colored and said, "That is the merest pretense. +It was only one button and it is a very warm night. I think you must be +mistaken about your cold." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps I am," said Martin hopefully. +</P> + +<P> +"And you only coughed and coughed and kept on coughing," continued +Jane, "because I had forgotten all about you and was thinking of +something quite different." +</P> + +<P> +"It is almost impossible to deceive you," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Master Pippin," said Jane earnestly, "since I turned seventeen I +have seen into people's motives so clearly that I often wish I did not; +but I cannot help it." +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You poor darling! +</P> + +<P> +Jane: You must not say that word to me, Master Pippin. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: It was very wrong of me. The word slipped out by mistake. I +meant to say clever, not poor. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Did you? I see. Oh, but— +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Please don't be modest. We must always stand by the truth, +don't you think? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Above all things. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: How long did it take you to discover my paltry ruse? How long +did you hear me coughing? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: From the very beginning. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: And can you think of two things at once? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Of course not. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: No? I wish two was the least number of things I ever think of +at once. Mine's an untidy way of thinking. Still, now we know where we +are. What were you thinking about me so earnestly when I was coughing +and you had forgotten all about me? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: I—I—I wasn't thinking about you at all. +</P> + +<P> +And she got down from the swing and walked away. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Now we DON'T know where we are. +</P> + +<P> +And he got down from the branch and walked after her. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Please, Mistress Jane, are you in a temper? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: I am never in a temper. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Hurrah. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Being in a temper is silly. It isn't normal. And it clouds +people's judgments. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: So do lots of things, don't they? Like leapfrog, and mad bulls, +and rum punch, and very full moons, and love— +</P> + +<P> +Jane: All these things are, as you say, abnormal. And I have no more +use for them than I have for tempers. But being disheartened isn't +being in a temper; and I am always disheartened when people argue +badly. And above all, men, who, I find, can never keep to the point. +Although they say— +</P> + +<P> +Martin: What do they say? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: That girls can't. +</P> + +<P> +Martin began to cough again, and Jane looked at him closely, and Martin +apologized and said it was that tickle in his throat, and Jane said +gravely, "Do you think I can't see through you? Come along, do!" and +opened her housewife, and put on her thimble, and threaded her needle, +and got out the button, and made Martin stand in a patch of moonlight, +and stood herself in front of him, and took the neck of his shirt +deftly between her left finger and thumb, and began to stitch. And +Martin looking down on the top of her smooth little head, which was all +he could see of her, said anxiously, "You won't prick me, will you?" +and Jane answered, "I'll try not to, but it is very awkward." Because +to get behind the button she had to lean her right elbow on his +shoulder and stand a little on tiptoe. So that Martin had good cause to +be frightened; but after several stitches he realized that he was in +safe hands, and drew a big breath of relief which made Jane look up +rather too hastily, and down more hastily still; so that her hand +shook, and the needle slipped, and Martin said "Ow!" and clutched the +hand with the needle and held it tightly just where it was. And Jane +got flustered and said, "I'm so sorry." +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Why should you be? You've proved your point. If I knew any man +that could stick to his so well and drive it home so truly, I would +excuse him for ever from politics and the law, and bid him sit at home +with his work-basket minding the world's business in its cradle. It is +only because men cannot stick to the point that life puts them off with +the little jobs which shift and change color with every generation. But +the great point of life which never changes was given from the first +into woman's keeping because, as all the divine powers of reason knew, +only she could be trusted to stick to it. I should be glad to have your +opinion, Jane, as to whether this is true or not. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Yes, Martin, I am convinced it is true. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Then let the men shilly-shally as much as they like. And so, as +long as the cradle is there to be minded, we shall have proved that out +of two differences unions can spring. My buttonhole feels empty. What +about my button? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: I was just about to break off the thread when you— +</P> + +<P> +Martin: When I what? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Sighed. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Was it a sigh? Did I sigh? How unreasonable of me. What was I +sighing for? Do you know? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Of course I know. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Will you tell me? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: That's enough. (And she tried to break off the thread.) +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Ah, but you mustn't keep your wisdom to yourself. Give me the +key, dear Jane. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: The key? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Because how else can the clouds which overshadow our stories be +cleared away? How else can we allay our doubts and our confusions and +our sorrows if you who are wise, and see motives so clearly, will not +give us the key? Why did I sigh, Jane? And why does Gillian sigh? And, +oh, Jane, why are you sighing? Do you know? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: Of course I know. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: And won't you give me the key? +</P> + +<P> +Jane: That's quite enough. +</P> + +<P> +And this time she broke off the thread. And she put the needle in and +out of the pinked flannel in her housewife, and she tucked the thimble +in its place. And then she felt in a little pocket where something +clinked against her scissors, and Martin watched her. And she took it +out and put it in his hand. And his hand tightened again over hers and +he said gravely, "Is it a needle?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, it is not," said Jane primly, "but it's very much to the point." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you wise woman!" whispered Martin (and Jane colored with +satisfaction, because she was turned seventeen). "What would poor men +do without your help?" +</P> + +<P> +Then he kissed very respectfully the hand that had pricked him: on the +back and on the palm and on the four fingers and thumb and on the +wrist. And then he began looking for a new place, but before he could +make up his mind Jane had taken her hand and herself away, saying "Good +night" very politely as she went. So he lay down to dream that for the +first time in his life he had made up his mind. But Jane, whose mind +was always made up, for the first time in her life dreamed otherwise. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It happened that by some imprudence Martin had laid himself down +exactly under the gap in the hedge, and when Old Gillman came along the +other side crying "Maids!" in the morning, the careless fellow had no +time to retreat across the open to safe cover; so there was nothing for +it but to conceal himself under the very nose of danger and roll into +the ditch. Which he hurriedly did, while the milkmaids ran here and +there like yellow chickens frightened by a hawk. Not knowing what else +to do, they at last clustered above him about the gap, filling it so +with their pretty faces that the farmer found room for not so much as +an eyelash when he arrived with his bread. And it was for all the world +as though the hedge, forgetting it was autumn, had broken out at that +particular spot into pink-and-white may. So that even Old Gillman had +no fault to find with the arrangement. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"All astir, my maids?" said he. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, master, yes!" they answered breathlessly; all but Joscelyn, who +cried, "Oh! oh! oh!" and bit her lip hard, and stood suddenly on one +foot. +</P> + +<P> +"What's amiss with ye?" asked Gillman. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing, master," said she, very red in the face. "A nettle stung my +ankle." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'd not weep for t," said Gillman. +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed I'm not weeping!" cried Joscelyn loudly. +</P> + +<P> +"Then it did but tickle ye, I doubt," said Gillman slyly, "to +blushing-point." +</P> + +<P> +"Master, I AM not blushing!" protested Joscelyn. "The sun's on my face +and in my eyes, don't you see?" +</P> + +<P> +"I would he were on my daughter's, then," said Gillman. "Does Gillian +still sit in her own shadow?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, master," answered Jane, "but I think she will be in the light +very shortly." +</P> + +<P> +"If she be not," groaned Gillman, "it's a shadow she'll find instead of +a father when she comes back to the farmstead; for who can sow wild +oats at my time o' life, and not show it at last in his frame? Yet I +was a stout man once." +</P> + +<P> +"Take heart, master," urged Joyce eyeing his waistcoat. But he shook +his head. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't be deceived, maid. Drink makes neither flesh nor gristle; only +inflation. Gillian!" he shouted, "when will ye make the best of a bad +job and a solid man of your dad again?" +</P> + +<P> +But the donkey braying in its paddock got as much answer as he. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's lean days for all, maids," said Gillman, and doled out the +loaves from his basket, "and you must suffer even as I. Yet another day +may see us grow fat." And he turned his basket upside down on his head +and moved away. +</P> + +<P> +"Excuse me, master," said Jane, "but is Nellie, my little Dexter Kerry, +doing nicely?" +</P> + +<P> +"As nicely as she ever does with any man," said Gillman, "which is to +kick John twice a day, mornings and evenings. He say he's getting used +to it, and will miss it when you come back to manage her. But before +that happens I misdoubt we'll all be plunged in rack and ruin." +</P> + +<P> +And he departed, making his usual parrot-cry. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm getting fond of old Gillman," said Martin sitting up and picking +dead leaves out of his hair; "I like his hawker's cry of + Maids, maids, maids!' for all the world as though he had pretty<BR> +girls to sell, and I like the way he groans regrets over his empty +basket as he goes away. But if I had those wares for market I'd ask +such unfair prices for them that I'd never be out of stock." +</P> + +<P> +"What's an unfair price for a pretty girl, Master Pippin?" asked +Jessica. +</P> + +<P> +"It varies," said Martin. "Joan I'd not sell for less than an apple, or +Joyce for a gold-brown hair. I might accept a blade of grass for +Jennifer and be tempted by a button for Jane. You, Jessica, I rate as +high as a saucy answer." +</P> + +<P> +"Simple fees all," laughed Joyce. +</P> + +<P> +"Not so simple," said Martin, "for it must be the right apple and the +particular hair; only one of all the grass-blades in the world will do, +and it must be a certain button or none. Also there are answers and +answers." +</P> + +<P> +"In that case," said Jessica, "I'm afraid you've got us all on your +hands for ever. But at what price would you sell Joscelyn?" +</P> + +<P> +"At nothing less," said Martin, "than a yellow shoe-string." +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn stamped her left foot so furiously that her shoe came off. And +little Joan, anxious to restore peace, ran and picked it up for her and +said, "Why, Joscelyn, you've lost your lace! Where can it be?" But +Joscelyn only looked angrier still, and went without answering to set +Gillian's bread by the Well-House; where she found nothing whatever but +a little crust of yesterday's loaf. And surprised out of her vexation +she ran back again exclaiming, "Look, look! as surely as Gillian is +finding her appetite I think she is losing her grief." +</P> + +<P> +"The argument is as absolute," said Martin, "as that if we do not soon +breakfast my appetite will become my grief. But those miserable ducks!" +</P> + +<P> +And he snatched the crust from Joscelyn's hand and flung it mightily +into the pond; where the drake gobbled it whole and the ducks got +nothing. +</P> + +<P> +And the girls cried "What a shame!" and burst out laughing, all but +Joscelyn who said under her breath to Martin, "Give it back at once!" +But he didn't seem to hear her, and raced the others gayly to the tree +where they always picnicked; and they all fell to in such good spirits +that Joscelyn looked from one to another very doubtfully, and suddenly +felt left out in the cold. And she came slowly and sat down not quite +in the circle, and kept her left foot under her all the time. +</P> + +<P> +As soon as breakfast was over Jennifer sighed, "I wish it were +dinner-time." +</P> + +<P> +"What a greedy wish," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"And then," said she, "I wish it were supper-time." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" said he. +</P> + +<P> +"Because it would be nearer to-morrow," said Jennifer pensively. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you want it to be to-morrow so much?" asked Martin. And five of the +milkmaids cried, "oh, yes!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's better than wanting it to be yesterday," said Martin, "yet I'm +always so pleased with to-day that I never want it to be either. And as +for old time, I read him by a dial which makes it any hour I choose." +</P> + +<P> +"What dial's that?" asked Joyce. And Martin looked about for a +Dandelion Clock, and having found one blew it all away with a single +puff and cried, "One o'clock and dinner-time!" +</P> + +<P> +Then Jennifer got a second puff and blew on it so carefully that she +was able to say, "Seven o'clock and supper-time!" +</P> + +<P> +And then all the girls hastened to get clocks of their own, and make +their favorite time o'day. +</P> + +<P> +"When I can't make it come right," confided little Joan to Martin, "I +pull them off and say six o'clock in the morning." +</P> + +<P> +"It's a very good way," agreed Martin, "and six o'clock in the morning +is a very good hour, except for lazy lie-abeds. Isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nancy always looked for me at six of a summer morning," said little +Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Martin, "milkmaids must always turn their cows in before +the dew's dry. And carters their horses." +</P> + +<P> +"Sometimes they get so mixed in the lane," said Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"I am sure they do," said Martin. "How glad your cows will be to see +you all again." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you certain we shall be out of the orchard to-morrow, Master +Pippin?" asked Jane. +</P> + +<P> +"Heaven help us otherwise," said he, "for I've but one tale left in my +quiver, and if it does not make an end of the job, here we must stay +for the rest of our lives, puffing time away in gossamer." +</P> + +<P> +Then Jessica, blowing, cried, "Four o'clock! come in to tea!" +</P> + +<P> +And Joyce said, "Twelve o'clock! baste the goose in the oven." +</P> + +<P> +"Three o'clock! change your frock!" said Jane. +</P> + +<P> +"Eight o'clock! postman's knock!" said Jennifer. +</P> + +<P> +"Ten o'clock! to bed, to bed!" cried Jessica again. +</P> + +<P> +"Nine o'clock!—let me run down the lane for a moment first," begged +little Joan. +</P> + +<P> +Then Martin blew eighteen o'clock and said it was six o'clock tomorrow +morning. And all the girls clapped their hands for joy—all except +Joscelyn, who sat quite by herself in a corner of the orchard, and +neither blew nor listened. And so they continued to change the hour and +the occupation: now washing, now wringing, now drying; now milking, now +baking, now mending; now cooking their meal, now eating it; now +strolling in the cool of the evening, now going to market on +marketing-day:—till by dinner they had filled the morning with a week +of hours, and the air with downy seedlings, as exquisite as crystals of +frost. +</P> + +<P> +At dinner the maids ate very little, and Jessica said, "I think I'm +getting tired of bread." +</P> + +<P> +"And apples?" said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"One never gets tired of apples," said Jessica, "but I would like to +have them roasted for a change, with cream. Or in a dumpling with brown +sugar. And instead of bread I would like plum-cake." +</P> + +<P> +"What wouldn't I give for a bowl of curds and whey!" exclaimed Joyce. +</P> + +<P> +"Fruit salad and custard is nice," sighed Jennifer. +</P> + +<P> +"I could fancy a lemon cheesecake," observed Jane, "or a jam tart." +</P> + +<P> +"I should like bread-and-honey," said little Joan. "Bread-and-honey's +the best of all." +</P> + +<P> +"So it is," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"You always have to suck your fingers afterwards," said Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"That's why," said Martin. "Quince jelly is good too, and treacle +because if you're quick you can write your name in it, and picked +walnuts, and mushrooms, and strawberries, and green salad, and plovers' +eggs, and cherries are ripping especially in earrings, and macaroons, +and cheesestraws, and gingerbread, and—" +</P> + +<P> +"Stop! stop! stop! stop! stop!" cried the milkmaids. +</P> + +<P> +"I can hardly bear it myself," said Martin. "Let's play See-Saw." +</P> + +<P> +So the maids rolled up a log from one part of the orchard, and Martin +got a plank from another part, because the orchard was full of all +manner of things as well as girls and apples, and he straddled one end +and said, "Who's first?" And Jessica straddled the other as quick as a +boy, and went up with a whoop. But Joyce, who presently turned her off, +sat sideways as gay and graceful as a lady in a circus. And Jennifer +crouched a little and clung rather hard with her hands, but laughed +bravely all the time. And Jane thought she wouldn't, and then she +thought she would, and squeaked when she went up and fell off when she +came down, so that Martin tumbled too, and apologized to her earnestly +for his clumsiness; and while he rubbed his elbows she said it didn't +matter at all. But little Joan took off her shoes, and with her hands +behind her head stood on the end of the see-saw as lightly as a sunray +standing on a wave, and she looked up and down at Martin, half shyly +because she was afraid she was showing off, and half smiling because +she was happy as a bird. And Joscelyn wouldn't play. Then the girls +told Martin he'd had more than his share, and made him get off, and +struggled for possession of the see-saw like Kings of the Castle. And +Martin strolled up to Joscelyn and said persuasively, "It's such fun!" +but Joscelyn only frowned and answered, "Give it back to me!" and +Martin didn't seem to understand her and returned to the see-saw, and +suggested three a side and he would look after Jane very carefully. So +he and Jane and Jennifer got on one end, and Jessica, Joyce and Joan +sat on the other, and screaming and laughing they tossed like a boat on +a choppy sea: until Jessica without any warning jumped off her perch in +mid-air and destroyed the balance, and down they all came +helter-skelter, laughing and screaming more than ever. But Jane +reproved Jessica for her trick and said nobody would believe her +another time, and that it was a bad thing to destroy people's +confidence in you; and Jessica wiped her hot face on her sleeve and +said she was awfully sorry, because she admired Jane more than anybody +else in the world. Then Martin looked at the sun and said, "You've +barely time to get tidy for supper." So the milkmaids ran off to smooth +their hair and their kerchiefs and do up ribbons and buttons or +whatever else was necessary. And came fresh and rosy to their meal, of +which not one of them could touch a morsel, she declared. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear, dear, dear!" said Martin anxiously. "What's the matter with you +all?" +</P> + +<P> +But they really didn't know. They just weren't hungry. So please +wouldn't he tell them a story? +</P> + +<P> +"This will never do," said Martin. "I shall have you ill on my hands. +An apple apiece, or no story to-night." +</P> + +<P> +At this dreadful threat Joan plucked the nearest apple she could find, +which was luckily a Cox's Pippin. +</P> + +<P> +"Must I eat it all, Martin?" she asked. (And Joscelyn looked at her +quickly with that doubtful look which had been growing on her all day.) +</P> + +<P> +"All but the skin," said Martin kindly. And taking the apple from her +he peeled it cleverly from bud to stem, and handed her back nothing but +the peel. And she twirled the peel three times round her head, and +dropped it in the grass behind her. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it? what is it?" cried the milkmaids, crowding. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a C," said Martin. And he gave Joan her apple, and she ate it. +</P> + +<P> +Then Joyce came to Martin with a Beauty of Bath, and he peeled it as he +had Joan's, and withheld the fruit until she had performed her rite. +And her letter was M. Jennifer brought a Worcester Pearmain, and threw +a T. And Jessica chose a Curlytail and made a perfect O. And Jane, who +preferred a Russet, threw her own initial, and Martin said seriously, +"You're to be an old maid, Jane." (And Joscelyn looked at him.) And +Jane replied, "I don't see that at all. There are lots of lots of J's, +Martin." (And Joscelyn looked at her.) Then Martin turned inquiringly +to Joscelyn, and she said, "I don't want one." "No stories then," said +Martin as firm as Nurse at bedtime. And she shook her shoulders +impatiently. But he himself picked her a King of Pippins, the biggest +and reddest in the orchard, and peeled it like the rest and gave her +the peel. And very crossly she jerked it thrice round her head, so that +it broke into three bits, and they fell on the grass in the shape of an +agitated H. And Martin gave her also her Pippin. +</P> + +<P> +"But what about your own supper?" said little Joan. +</P> + +<P> +And Martin, glancing from one to another, gathered a Cox, a Beauty, a +Pearmain, a Curlytail, a Russet, and a King of Pippins; and he peeled +and ate them one after another, and then, one after another, whirled +the parings. And every one of the parings was a J. +</P> + +<P> +Then, while Martin stood looking down at the six J's among the +clover-grass, and the milkmaids looked anywhere else and said nothing: +little Joan slipped away and came back with the smallest, prettiest, +and rosiest Lady Apple in Gillman's Orchard, and said softly, "This +one's for you." +</P> + +<P> +So Martin pared it slenderly, and the peel lay in his hand like a +ribbon of rose-red silk shot with gold; and he coiled it lightly three +times round his head and dropped it over his left shoulder. And as +suddenly as bubbles sucked into the heart of a little whirlpool, the +milkmaids ran to get a look at the letter. But Martin looked first, and +when the ring of girls stood round about him he put his foot quickly on +the apple-peel and rubbed it into the grass. And without even tasting +it he tossed his little Lady Apple right over the wicket, and beyond +the duckpond, and, for all the girls could see, to Adversane. +</P> + +<P> +Then Jane and Jessica and Jennifer and Joyce and little Joan, as by a +single instinct, each climbed to a bough of the center apple-tree, and +left the swing empty. And Martin sat on his own bough and waited for +Joscelyn. And very slowly she came and sat on the swing and said +without looking at him: +</P> + +<P> +"We're all ready now." +</P> + +<P> +"All?" said Martin. And he fixed his eyes on the Well-House, where it +made no difference. +</P> + +<P> +"Most of us, anyhow," said Joscelyn; "and whoever isn't ready +is—nearly ready." +</P> + +<P> +"Yet most is not all, and nearly is not quite," said Martin, "and would +you be satisfied if I could only tell you most of my story, and was +obliged to break off when it was nearly done? Alas, with me it must be +the whole or nothing, and I cannot make a beginning unless I can see +the end." +</P> + +<P> +"All beginnings must have endings," said Joscelyn, "so begin at once, +and the end will follow of itself." +</P> + +<P> +"Yet suppose it were some other end than I set out for?" said Martin. +"There's no telling with these endings that go of themselves. We mean +one thing, but they mistake our meaning and show us another. Like the +simple maid who was sent to fetch her lady's slippers and her lady's +smock, and brought the wrong ones." +</P> + +<P> +"She must have been some ignorant maid from a town," said Jane, "if she +did not know lady-smocks and lady's-slippers when she saw them." +</P> + +<P> +"It was either her mistake or her lady's," said Martin carelessly. "You +shall judge which." And he tuned his lute and, still looking at the +Well-House, sang: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + The Lady sat in a flood of tears<BR> + All of her sweet eyes' shedding.<BR> + "To-morrow, to-morrow the paths of sorrow<BR> + Are the paths that I'll be treading."<BR> + So she sent her lass for her slippers of black,<BR> + But the careless lass came running back<BR> + With slippers as bright<BR> + As fairy gold<BR> + Or noonday light,<BR> + That were heeled and soled<BR> + To dance in at a wedding.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + The Lady sat in a storm of sighs<BR> + Raised by her own heart-searching.<BR> + "To-morrow must I in the churchyard lie<BR> + Because love is an urchin."<BR> + So she sent her lass for her sable frock,<BR> + But the silly lass brought a silken smock<BR> + So fair to be seen<BR> + With a rosy shade<BR> + And a lavender sheen,<BR> + That was only made<BR> + For a bride to come from church in.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Now as Martin sang, Gillian got first on her elbow, and then on her +knees, and last upright on her two feet. And her face was turned full +on the duckpond, and her eyes gazed as though she could see more and +further than any other woman in the world, and her two hands held her +heart as though but for this it must follow her eyes and be lost to her +for ever. +</P> + +<P> +"So far as I can see," said Joscelyn, "there's nothing to choose +between the foolishness of the maid and that of the mistress. But since +Gillian appears to have risen to some sense in it, for goodness' sake, +before she sinks back on her own folly, tell us your tale and be done +with it!" +</P> + +<P> +"It is ready now," said Martin, "from start to finish. Glass is not +clearer nor daylight plainer to me than the conclusion of the whole, +and if you will listen for a very few instants, you shall see as +certainly as I the ending of The Imprisoned Princess." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="tale6"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE IMPRISONED PRINCESS +</H3> + +<P> +There was once, dear maidens, a Princess who was kept on an island. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(Joscelyn: There are no islands in Sussex. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: This didn't happen in Sussex. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: But I thought it was a true story. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: It is the only true story of them all.) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +She was kept on the island locked up in a tower, for the best of all +the reasons in the world. She had fallen in love. She had fallen in +love with her father's Squire. So the King banished him for ever and +locked up his daughter in a tower on an island, and had it guarded by +six Gorgons. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(Joscelyn: It's NOT a true story! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: It IS a true story! If you don't say so at the end I'll give +you— +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: What?—I don't want you to give me anything! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: All right then. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: What will you give me? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: A yellow shoe-string.) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +By six Gorgons (repeated Martin) who had the sharpest claws and the +snakiest hair of any Gorgons there ever were. And their faces— +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(Joscelyn: Leave their faces alone! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You're being a perfect nuisance! +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: I simply HATE this story! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Tell it yourself then! +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: What ABOUT their faces?) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Their faces (said Martin) were as beautiful as day and night and the +four seasons of the year. They were so beautiful that I must stop +talking about them or I shall never talk about anything else. So I'd +better talk about the young Squire, who was a great deal less +interesting, except for one thing: that he was in love. Which is a big +advantage to have over Gorgons, who never are. The only other +noteworthy thing about him was that his voice was breaking because he +was merely fifteen years old. He was just a sort of Odd Boy about the +King's court. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(Martin: Mistress Joscelyn, if you keep on wiggling so much you'll get +a nasty tumble. Kindly sit still and let me get on. This isn't a very +long story.) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +One morning in April this Squire sat down at the end of the world, and +he sobbed and he sighed like any poor soul; and a sort of wandering +fellow who was going by had enough curiosity to stop and ask him what +was the matter. And the Squire told him, and added that his heart was +breaking for longing of the flower that his lady wore in her hair. So +this fellow said, "Is that all?" And he got into his boat, which had a +painted prow, and a light green pennon, and a gilded sail, and called +itself The Golden Truant, and he sailed away a thousand leagues over +the water till he came to the island where the princess was imprisoned; +and the six Gorgons came hissing to the shore, and asked him what he +wanted. And he said he wanted nothing but to play and sing to them; so +they let him. And while he did so they danced and forgot, and he ran to +the tower and found the Princess with her beautiful head bowed on the +windowsill behind the bars, weeping like January rain. And he climbed +up the wall and took from her hair the flower as she wept, in exchange +for another which—which the Squire had sent her. And she whispered a +word of sorrow, and he another of comfort, and came away. And the +Gorgons suspected nothing; except perhaps the littlest Gorgon, and she +looked the other way. +</P> + +<P> +So in the summer the Squire told the Wanderer that he would surely die +unless he had his lady's ring to kiss; and the fellow went again to the +island. The Gorgons were not sorry to see him, and were willing to +dance while he played and sang as before; and as before he took +advantage of their pleasure, and stole the gold ring from the +Princess's hand as she lay in tears behind her bars. But in place of +the gold ring he left a silver one which had belonged to—to the +Squire. And the voice of her despair spoke through her tears, and he +answered it as best he could with the voice of hope. And went away as +before, leaving the Gorgons dancing. +</P> + +<P> +Then in the autumn the Squire said to the Wanderer, "Who can live on +flowers and rings? If you do not get me my lady herself, let me lie in +my grave." So the Wanderer set sail for the third time, though he knew +that the dangers and difficulties of this last adventure were supreme; +and once more he landed on the island of the Imprisoned Princess. And +this time the Gorgons even appeared a little pleased to see him, and +let him stay with them six days and nights, telling them stories, and +singing them songs, and inventing games to keep them amused. For he was +very sorry for them. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(Joscelyn: Why? Why? Why? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Because he discovered that they were even unhappier than the +Princess in her tower. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: It isn't true! It isn't true! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Look out! you're losing your slipper.) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Of course the Gorgons were unhappier than the Princess. She was only +parted from her lover; but they were parted from love itself. +</P> + +<P> +But as the week wore on, miracles happened; for every night one of the +Gorgons turned into the beautiful girl she used to be before the +Goddess of Reason, infuriated with the Irrational God who bestows on +girls their quite unreasonable loveliness, had made her what she was. +And night by night the Wanderer rubbed his eyes and wondered if he had +been dreaming; for the guardians of the tower no longer hissed, but +sighed at love, and instead of claws for the destructions of lovers had +beautiful kind hands that longed to help them. Until on the sixth night +only one remained this fellow's enemy. But alas! she was the strongest +and fiercest of them all. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(Joscelyn: How dare you!) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +And her case (said Martin) was hopeless, because she alone of them all +had never known what love was, and so had nothing to be restored to. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(Joscelyn: How DARE you!) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +And without her (said Martin) there was nothing to be done. She had +always had the others under her thumb, and by this time she had the +Wanderer in exactly the same place. And so—and so— +</P> + +<P> +And so here is your shoe-string, Mistress Joscelyn; and I am sorry the +want of it has been such an inconvenience to you all day, so that you +could not make merry with us. But I must forfeit it now, for the story +is ended, and I think you must own it is true. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(Joscelyn: I won't take it! The story is NOT true! The story is NOT +ended! Finish it at once! None of the others ended like this. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: The others weren't true. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: I don't care. You are to say what happened to the Gorgons. +</P> + +<P> +Joyce: And to the Squire. +</P> + +<P> +Jennifer: And to the Princess. +</P> + +<P> +Jessica: And what she looked like. +</P> + +<P> +Jane: And what happened to the King. +</P> + +<P> +"Please, Martin," said little Joan, "please don't let the story come to +an end before we know what happened to the Wanderer." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm tired of telling stories," said Martin, "and I'll never tell +another as long as I live. But I suppose I must add the trimmings to +this one, or I shall get no peace.") +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +All these things, dear maidens, are very quickly told, except what the +Princess looked like, for that is impossible. No man ever knew. He +never got further than her eyes, and then he was drowned. But what does +it matter how she looked? She died a thousand years ago of a broken +heart. And her Squire, hearing of her death, died too, a thousand +leagues away. And the King her father expired of remorse, and his +country went to rack and ruin. And the five kind Gorgons had to pay the +penalty of their regained humanity, and wilted into their maiden +graves. Only the Sixth Gorgon lived on for ever and ever. I dare not +think of her solitary eternity. But as for the Wanderer, he is of no +importance. A little while he still went wandering, singing these +lovers' sorrows to the world, and what became of him I never knew. +</P> + +<P> +That's the end. +</P> + +<P> +And now, dear Mistress Joscelyn, let me lace up your shoe. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(Joscelyn buried her face in her hands and burst out crying.) +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="postlude1"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +POSTLUDE +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PART I +</H3> + +<P> +There was consternation in the Apple-Orchard. +</P> + +<P> +All the milkmaids came tumbling from their perches to run and comfort +their weeping comrade. And as they passed Martin, Joyce cried, "It's a +shame!" and Jennifer murmured "How could you?" and Jessica exclaimed +"You brute!" and Jane said "I'm surprised at you!" and even little Joan +shook her head at him, and, while all the others fondled Joscelyn, and +petted and consoled her, took her hand and held it very tight. But with +her other hand she took Martin's and held it just as tight, and looked +a little anxious, with tears in her blue eyes. Yet she looked a little +smiling too. And there were tears also in the eyes of all the +milkmaids, because the story had ended so badly, and because they did +not in the least know what was going to happen, and because a man had +made one of them cry. And Martin suddenly realized that all these girls +were against him as much as though it were six months ago. And he swung +his feet and looked as though he didn't care, so that Joan knew he was +feeling rather sheepish inside, and held his hand a little tighter. +</P> + +<P> +Then Joscelyn, who had the loveliest brown, as Joan had the loveliest +blue, eyes in England, lifted her young head and looked at Martin so +defiantly through her tears that he knew she had given up the game at +last; and he pressed Joan's hand for all he was worth, and began to +look ashamed of himself, so that Joan knew he had stopped feeling +sheepish in the least. And Joscelyn, in a voice that shook like +birch-leaves, said, "I don't want it to end like that." +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Dear Mistress Joscelyn, is it my fault? I promised you the +truth, and with your help I have told it. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: How dare you say it's with my help? If I had my way—! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: You shall have it. We will leave the end of the story in your +hands. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: I won't have anything to do with it! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Then I'm afraid it's your fault. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: That's what a man always says! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Did he? +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: Yes, he did! he said it was Eve's fault. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: So it was. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: How dare you! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: He said nothing but the truth. And what did you say? +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: I said it was Adam's fault. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: So it was. YOU said nothing but the truth. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: How could it be two people's fault? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: How could it be anything else? Oh, Joscelyn! there are two +things in this world that one person alone cannot bring to perfection. +And one of them is a fault. It takes two people to make a perfect +fault. Eve tempted Adam; and Adam was jolly glad to get tempted if he +was half as sensible as he ought to have been. And Eve knew it. And +Adam let her know it. And if after that she had not tempted him he +would never have forgiven her. When it came to fault-making they +understood each other perfectly. And between them they made the most +perfect fault in the world. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: (after a very long pause): You said there were two things. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Two things? +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: That one person alone can't bring to perfection. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Did I? +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: What is the other thing? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Love. Isn't it? +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: How dare you ask me? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: I dare ask more than that. Joscelyn, how old are you? +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: I sha'n't tell you. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Joscelyn, you are the tallest of the milkmaids, but you can't +help that. How old are you? +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: Mind your own business. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Joscelyn, the first three times I saw you, you had your hair +down your back. But ever since I told you my first story you have done +it up, like beautiful dark flowers, on each side of your head. And it +is my belief that you have no business to have it up at all. +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn (very angrily): How dare you! Of course I have! Am I not +nearly sixteen? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Nearly? +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: Well, next June. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Oh, Hebe! it's worse than I thought. How dare I? You +whipper-snapper! How dare YOU have us all under your thumb? How dare +YOU play the Gorgon to Gillian? How dare YOU cry your eyes out because +my lovers had an unhappy ending? Go back to your dolls'-house! What +does sixteen next June know about Adam? What does sixteen next June +know about love? +</P> + +<P> +Joscelyn: Everything! how dare you? everything! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Am I to believe you? Then by all you know, you baby, give me +the sixth key of the Well-House! +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +And he took from his pocket the five keys he already had, and held out +his hand for the last one. Joscelyn's eyes grew bigger and bigger, and +the doubt that had troubled her all day became a certainty as she +looked from the keys to her comrades, who all got very red and hung +their heads. +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you give them up?" demanded Joscelyn. +</P> + +<P> +"Because," Martin answered for them, "they know everything about love. +But then they are all more than sixteen years of age, and capable of +making the right sort of ending which is so impossible to children like +you and me." +</P> + +<P> +Then Joscelyn looked as old as she could and said, "Not so impossible, +Master Pippin, if—if—" +</P> + +<P> +But all of a sudden she began to laugh. It was the first time Martin +had ever heard her laugh, or her comrades for six months. Their faces +cleared like magic, and they all clapped their hands and ran away. And +Martin got down from his bough, because when Joscelyn laughed she +didn't look more than fourteen. +</P> + +<P> +"If what, Joscelyn?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"If you'd stolen the right shoe-string, Martin," said she. And she +stuck out her right foot with its neatly-laced yellow slipper. Then +Martin knelt down, and instead of lacing the left shoe unlaced the +right one, and inside the yellow slipper found the sixth key just under +the instep. "Is that the right ending?" said Joscelyn. And Martin held +the little foot in his hands rubbing it gently, and said +compassionately, "It must have been dreadfully uncomfortable." +</P> + +<P> +"It was sometimes," said Joscelyn. +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't it hurt?" asked Martin, beginning to lace up her shoes for her. +</P> + +<P> +"Now and then," said Joscelyn. +</P> + +<P> +"It was an awfully kiddish place to hide it in," said Martin finishing, +and as he looked up Joscelyn laughed again, rubbing her tear-stained +cheeks with the back of her hand, and for all the great growing girl +that she was looked no more than twelve. So he slid under the swing and +stood up behind her and kissed her on the back of the neck where babies +are kissed. +</P> + +<P> +Then all the milkmaids came back again. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="postlude2"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PART II +</H3> + +<P> +To every girl Martin handed her key. "This is your business," said he. +And first Joan, and next Joyce, and then Jennifer, and then Jessica, +and then Jane, and last of all Joscelyn, put her key into its lock and +turned. And not one of the keys would turn. They bit their lips and +held their breath, and turned and turned in vain. +</P> + +<P> +"This is dreadful," said Martin. "Are you sure the keys are in the +right keyholes?" +</P> + +<P> +"They all fit," said little Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"Let me try," said Martin. And he tried, one after another, and then +tried each key singly in each lock, but without result. Jane said, "I +expect they've gone rusty," and Jessica said, "That must be it," and +Jennifer turned pale and said, "Then Gillian can never get out of the +Well-House or we out of the orchard." And Martin sat down in the swing +and thought and thought. As he thought he began to swing a little, and +then a little more, and suddenly he cried "Push me!" and the six girls +came behind him and pushed with all their strength. Up he went with his +legs pointed as straight as an arrow, and back he flew and up again. +The third time the swing flew clean over the Well-House, and as true as +a diving gannet Martin dropped from mid-air into the little court, and +stood face to face with Gillian. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="postlude3"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PART III +</H3> + +<P> +She was not weeping. She was bathed in blushes and laughter. She held +out her hands to him, and Martin took them. She had golden hair of +lights and shadows like a wheatfield that fell in two thick plaits over +her white gown, and she had gray eyes where smiles met you like an +invitation, but you had to learn later that they were really a little +guard set between you and her inward tenderness, and that her gayety, +like a will-o'-the-wisp, led you into the flowery by-ways of her spirit +where fairies played, but not to the heart of it where angels dwelled. +Few succeeded in surprising her behind her bright shield, but sometimes +when she wasn't thinking it fell aside, and what men saw then took +their breath from them, for it was as though they were falling through +endless wells of infinite sweetness. And afterwards they could have +told you nothing further of her loveliness; when they got as far as her +eyes they were drowned. Her features, the curves of her cheeks and lips +and chin and delicate nostrils, were as finely-turned as the edge of a +wild-rose petal, and her skin had the freshness of dew. The sight of +her brought the same sense of delight as the sight of a meadow of +cowslips. As sweet and sunny a scent breathed out from her beauty. +</P> + +<P> +But all this Martin only felt without seeing, for he was drowned. +Gillian, I suppose, wasn't thinking. So they held each other's hands +and looked at each other. +</P> + +<P> +Presently Martin said, "It's time now, Gillian, and you can go." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Martin," said Gillian. "How shall I go?" +</P> + +<P> +"As I came," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"Before I go," said she, "I am going to ask you a question. You have +asked my friends a lot of questions these six nights, which they have +answered frankly, and you have twisted their answers round your little +finger. Now you must answer my question as frankly." +</P> + +<P> +"And what will you do?" asked Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"I won't twist your answer," said Gillian gently. "I'll take it for +what it is worth. You have been laughing up your sleeve a little at my +friends because, having a quarrel with men, they were sworn to live +single. But you live single too. Tell me, if you please, what is your +quarrel with girls?" +</P> + +<P> +Martin dropped her hands until he held each by the little finger only, +and then he answered, "That they are so much too good for us, Gillian." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, Martin," said Gillian, taking her hands away. "And now +please ask them to send over the swing, for it is time for me to go to +Adversane." And as she spoke the light played over her eyes again and +floated him up to the surface of things where he could swim without +drowning. He saw now the flowers of her loveliness, but no longer the +deeps of those gray pools where the light shimmered between herself and +him. So he turned and climbed to the pent roof of the Well-House, and +looked towards the group of shadows clustered under the apple-tree +around the swing; and they understood and launched it through the air, +and he caught it as it came. And Gillian in a moment was up beside him. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you ready?" said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she answered getting on the swing, "thank you. And thank you for +everything. Thank you for coming three times this year. Thank you for +the stories. Thank you for giving their happiness again to my darling +friends. Thank you for all the songs. Thank you for drying my tears." +</P> + +<P> +"Are they all dried up?" said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"All," said Gillian. +</P> + +<P> +"If they were not," said he, "you shall find Herb-Robert growing along +the roadside, and the Herbman himself in Adversane." +</P> + +<P> +And holding the swing fast as he sat on the roof, Martin sang her his +last song, not very loud, but so clearly that the shadows under the +apple-tree heard every note and syllable. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Good morrow, good morrow, dear Herbman Robert!<BR> + Good morrow, sweet sir, good morrow!<BR> + Oh, sell me a herb, good Robert, good Robert,<BR> + To cure a young maid of her sorrow.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + And hath her sorrow a name, sweet sir?<BR> + No lovelier name or purer,<BR> + With its root in her heart and its flower in her eyes,<BR> + Yet sell me a herb shall cure her.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Oh, touch with this rosy herb of spring<BR> + Both heart and eyes when she's sleeping,<BR> + And joy will come out of her sorrowing,<BR> + And laughter out of her weeping.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"Good-by, Martin." +</P> + +<P> +"Good-by, Gillian." +</P> + +<P> +"I want to ask you a lot more questions, Martin." +</P> + +<P> +"Off you go!" cried he. And let the swing fly. Back it came. +</P> + +<P> +"Martin! why didn't—" +</P> + +<P> +"Jump when you're clear!" called Martin. But back it came. +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't the young Squire in the story—" +</P> + +<P> +"Jump this time!" And back it came. +</P> + +<P> +"—come to fetch her himself, Martin?" +</P> + +<P> +"Jump!" shouted Martin; and shut his eyes and put his hands over his +ears. But it was no use; again and again he felt the rush of air, and +questions falling through it like shooting-stars about his head. +</P> + +<P> +"Martin! what was the name on the eighth floret of grass?" +</P> + +<P> +"Martin! what was the letter you threw with the Lady-peel?" +</P> + +<P> +"Martin! why is my silver ring all chased with little apples?" +</P> + +<P> +"Martin! do you—do you—do you—?" +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I never be rid of this swing?" cried Martin. "Jump, you +nuisance, jump when I tell you!" +</P> + +<P> +And she jumped, and was caught and kissed among the shadows. +</P> + +<P> +"Gillian!" +</P> + +<P> +"Gillian!" +</P> + +<P> +"Gillian!" +</P> + +<P> +"Gillian!" +</P> + +<P> +"Gillian!" +</P> + +<P> +"Dear Gillian!" +</P> + +<P> +And then like a golden wave and she the foam, they bore her over the +moonlit grass to the green wicket, and they threw it open, and she went +like a skipping stone across the duckpond and over the fields to +Adversane. +</P> + +<P> +When she had vanished Martin slid down the roof, walked across to the +coping, put one leg over, and stepped out of the Well-House. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="postlude4"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PART IV +</H3> + +<P> +The six milkmaids were waiting for him in the apple-tree—no; Joscelyn +was in the swing. +</P> + +<P> +"And so," said Martin, sitting down on the bough, "on the sixth night +the sixth Gorgon also became a maiden as lovely as her fellows, and +gave the Wanderer the sixth key to the Tower. And they let out the +Princess and set her in The Golden Truant, and she sailed away to her +Squire a thousand leagues over the water. And everybody lived happily +ever after." +</P> + +<P> +"What a beautiful story!" said Jane. And they all thought so too. +</P> + +<P> +"I knew from the first," said Joscelyn, "that it would have a happy +ending." +</P> + +<P> +"And so did I," said Joyce. +</P> + +<P> +"And I," said Jennifer, +</P> + +<P> +"And I," said Jessica, +</P> + +<P> +"And I," said Jane and +</P> + +<P> +"And I," said little Joan. +</P> + +<P> +"The verdict is passed," said Martin. "And look! over our heads hangs +the moon, as round and beautiful as a penny balloon, with an eye as +wide awake as a child's at six in the morning. If she will not go to +sleep in heaven to-night, why on earth should we? Let's have a party!" +</P> + +<P> +The girls looked at one another in amazement and delight. "A party? +Oh!" cried they. "But who will give it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I will," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"And who will come to it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Whoever luck sends us," said Martin. "But we'll begin with ourselves. +Joan and Joyce and Jennifer and Jessica and Jane and Joscelyn, will you +come to my party in the Apple-Orchard?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, thank you, Martin!" cried they. And ran away to change. But the +only change possible was to take the kerchiefs off their white necks, +and the shoes and stockings off their little feet, and let down their +pretty hair. So they did these things, and made wreaths for one +another, and posies for their yellow dresses. And it is time for you to +know that Jennifer's dress was primrose and Jane's cowslip yellow, and +that Joyce looked like buttercups and Jessica like marigolds; and +Joscelyn's was the glory of the kingcups that rise like magic golden +isles above the Amberley floods in May. But little Joan had not been +able to decide between the two yellows that go to make wild daffodils, +so she had them both. Under their flowerlike skirts their white ankles +and rosy heels moved as lightly as windflowers swaying in the grass. +And just when they were ready they heard Martin Pippin's lute under the +apple-tree, so they came to the party dancing. Round and round the tree +they danced in the moonlight till they were out of breath. But when +they could dance no more they stood stock still and stared without +speaking; for spread under the trees was such a feast as they had not +seen for months and months. +</P> + +<P> +In the middle was a great heap of apples, red and brown and green and +gold; but besides these was a dish of roasted apples and another of +apple dumplings, and between them a bowl of brown sugar and a full +pitcher of cream. The cream had spilled, and you could see where Martin +had run his finger up the round of the pitcher to its lip, where one +drip lingered still. Near these there was a plum-cake of the sort our +grannies make. It is of these cakes we say that twenty men could not +put their arms round them. There were nuts in it too, and spices. And +there was a big basin of curds and whey, and a bigger one of fruit +salad, and another of custard; and plates of jam tarts and lemon +cheesecakes and cheesestraws and macaroons; and gingerbread in cakes +and also in figures of girls and boys with caraway comfits for eyes, +and a unicorn and a lion with gilded horn and crown; and pots of honey +and quince jelly and treacle; and mushrooms and pickled walnuts and +green salads. Even Mr. Ringdaly did not provide a bigger feast when he +married Mrs. Ringdaly. For there were also all the best sorts of sweets +in the world: sugar-candy on a string, and twisted barley-sticks, and +bulls'-eyes, and peardrops, and licorice shoe-strings, and Turkish +Delight, and pink and white sugar mice; besides these there was +sherbet, not to drink of course, but to dip your finger in. There were +a good many other things, but these were what the milkmaids took in at +a glance. +</P> + +<P> +"OH!" cried six voices at once. "Where did they come from?" +</P> + +<P> +"Through the gap," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"But who brought them?" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't ask me," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +At first the girls were rather shy—you can't help that at parties. But +as they ate (and you know what each ate first) they got more and more +at their ease, and by the time they were licking their sticky fingers +were in the mood for any game. So they played all the best games there +are, such as "Cobbler! Cobbler!" (Joscelyn's shoe), and Hunt the +Thimble (Jane's thimble), and Mulberry Bush, and Oranges and Lemons, +and Nuts in May. And in Nuts in May Martin insisted on being a side all +by himself, and one after another he fetched each girl away from her +side to his. And Joan came like a bird, and Joyce pretended to +struggle, and Jennifer had no fight in her at all, and Jessica really +tried, and Jane didn't like it because it was undignified and so rough. +But when Joscelyn's turn came to be fetched as she stood all alone on +her side deserted by her supporters, she put her hands behind her back, +and jumped over the handkerchief of her own accord, and walked up to +Martin and said, "All right, you've won." For when it comes to fetching +away it is a game that boys are better at than girls. +</P> + +<P> +"In that case," said Martin, "it's time for Hide-and-Seek." And he sat +down on the swing and shut his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +At the same moment the moon went behind a cloud. +</P> + +<P> +And as he waited a light drop fell on Martin's cheek, and another, and +another, like the silent weeping of a girl; so that he couldn't help +opening his eyes quickly and looking by instinct toward the empty +Well-House. It was still empty, for wherever the girls had hidden +themselves, it was not there. +</P> + +<P> +Then through the shadowed raining orchard a low voice called "Cuckoo!" +and "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" called another. And softly, clearly, laughingly, +mockingly, defiantly, teasingly, sweetly, caressingly, "Cuckoo! Cuckoo! +Cuckoo!" they called on every side. Martin stood up and stole among the +trees. At first he went quietly, but soon he ran and darted. And never +a girl could he find. For this after all is the game that girls are +better at than boys, and when it comes to hiding if they will not be +found they will not. And if they will they will. But their will was not +for Martin Pippin. Through the pattering moonless orchard he hunted +them in vain; and the place was full of slipping shadows and whispers. +And every now and then those cuckooing milkmaids called him, sometimes +at a distance, sometimes at his very ear. But he could not catch a +single one. +</P> + +<P> +And now it seemed to Martin that there were more of these elusive +shadows than he could have believed, and whisperings that needed +accounting for. +</P> + +<P> +For once he heard somebody whisper, "Oh, you were right! the world IS +flat—for six months it's been as flat as a pancake!" And a second +voice whispered, "Then I was wrong! for pancakes are round." And Martin +said to himself, "That's Joyce!" but the first voice he couldn't +recognize. And then followed a sound that was not exactly a whisper, +yet not exactly unlike one; and Martin darted towards it, but touched +only air. +</P> + +<P> +And again he heard a mysterious voice whisper, "How could you keep +yourself so secret all these months? I couldn't have. However can girls +keep secrets so long?" And the answer was, "They can't keep them a +single instant if you come and ask them—but you didn't come!" "What a +fool I was!" whispered the first voice, but whose Martin could not for +the life of him imagine. Yet he was sure that the other was Jennifer's. +And again he heard that misleading sound which seemed to be something, +yet, when he sought it, was nothing. +</P> + +<P> +And now he heard another unknown whisperer say, "You should have seen +my drills in the wheatfield last April! How the drill did wobble! Why, +I was that upset, any girl could have thrown straighter than I drilled +that wheat." And a second whisperer replied, "It MUST have been a +sight, then, for girls throw crookeder than swallows fly!" This was +surely Jessica; but who was the first speaker? +</P> + +<P> +He was as strange to Martin as another one who whispered, "It was the +silence got on my nerves most—it was having nobody to listen to of an +evening. Of course there were the lads, but they never talk to the +point." "I often fear," whispered a second voice, "that I talk too much +at random." "Good Lord! you couldn't, if you talked for ever!" Each of +these two cases ended as the first two had ended; and for Martin in as +little result. +</P> + +<P> +He hastened to another part of the orchard where the whispers were +falling fast and fierce. "It was Adam's fault after all!" "No, I've +found out that it was Eve's fault!" "But I've been looking it up." "And +I've been thinking it over." "Rubbish! it WAS Adam's fault." "It was +NOT Adam's fault. What can a stupid little boy know about it?" "I'm a +month older than you are." "I don't care if you are. It was Eve's +fault." "Well, don't make a fuss if it was." "Wasn't it?" "Stuff!" +"WASN'T it?" "Oh, all right, if you like, it was Eve's fault." "Here's +an apple for you," said Joscelyn quite distinctly. "Oh, ripping! but +I'd rather have a—" "Sh-h! RUN!" Martin was just too late. "Rather +have a what?" said Martin to himself. +</P> + +<P> +He was beginning to feel lonely. His hair was wet with rain. He hadn't +seen a milkmaid for an hour. He prowled low in the grass hoping to +catch one unawares. In the swing he saw a shadow—or was it two +shadows? It looked like one. And yet— +</P> + +<P> +One half of the shadow whispered, "Do you like my new corduroys?" "Ever +so much," whispered the other half. "I'm rather bucked about them +myself," whispered the first half, "or ought I to say about IT?" "I +think it's them," said the second half. The first half reflected, "It +might be either one thing or two. But arithmetic's a nuisance—I never +was good at it." The second half confessed, "I always have to guess at +it myself. I'm only really sure of one bit." "Which bit's that?" +whispered the first half, and the second half whispered, "That one and +one make two." "Oh, you darling! of course they don't, and never did +and never will." "Well, I don't really mind," said little Joan. And +then there was a pause in which the two shadows were certainly one, +until the second half whispered, "Oh! oh, you've shaved it off!" And +this delighted the first half beyond all bounds; because even in the +circumstances it was clever of the second half to have noticed it. +</P> + +<P> +But Martin could bear no more. He sprang forward crying "Joan!"—and he +grasped the empty swing. And round the orchard he flew, his hands +before him, calling now "Joyce!" now "Jane!" now "Jessica!" "Jennifer!" +"Joscelyn!" and again "Joan! Joan! Joan!" And all his answer was +rustlings and shadows and whispers, and faint laughter like far-away +echoes, and empty air. +</P> + +<P> +All of a sudden the light rain stopped and the moon came out of her +cloud. And Martin found himself standing beside the Well-House, and +nobody near him. He gazed all around at the familiar things, the +apple-trees, the swing, the green wicket, the broken feast in the +grass. And then at the far end of the orchard he saw an unfamiliar +thing. It was a double ladder, arched over the hawthorn. And up the +ladder, like a golden shaft of the moon, went six quick girls, and +ahead of each her lad.* And on the topmost rung each took his milkmaid +by the hand and vanished over the hedge. +</P> + +<P> +Martin Pippin was left alone in the Apple-Orchard. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +*It is not important, but their names were Michael, Tom, Oliver, John, +Henry, and Charles. And Michael had dark hair and light lashes, and Tom +freckles and a snub-nose, and Oliver a mole on his left cheek, and John +fine red-gold hair on his bronzed skin; and Henry was merely the +Odd-Job Boy whose voice was breaking, so he imagined that it was he +alone who ran the farm. But Charles was a dear. He had a tuft of white +hair at the back of his dark head, like the cotton-tail of a rabbit, +and as well as corduroy breeches he wore a rabbit-skin waistcoat, and +he was a great nuisance to gamekeepers, who called him a poacher; +whereas all he did was to let the rabbits out of the snares when it was +kind to, and destroy the snares. And he used the bring "bunny-rabbits" +(which other people call snapdragons) of the loveliest colors to plant +in the little garden known as Joan's Corner. I should like to tell you +more about Charles (but there isn't time) because I am fond of him. If +I hadn't been I shouldn't have let him have Joan. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="epilog"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +EPILOGUE +</H3> + +<P> +At cockcrow came the call which in that orchard was now as familiar as +the rooster's. +</P> + +<P> +"Maids! Maids! Maids!" +</P> + +<P> +Martin Pippin was leaning over the green wicket throwing jam tarts to +the ducks. Because in the Well-House Gillian had not left so much as a +crumb. But when he heard Old Gillman's voice, he flicked a bull's-eye +at the drake, getting it very accurately on the bill, and walked across +to the gap. +</P> + +<P> +"Good morning, master," said Martin cheerfully. "Pray how does Lemon, +Joscelyn's Sussex, fare?" +</P> + +<P> +Old Gillman put down his loaves with great deliberation, and spent a +few minutes taking Martin in. Then he answered, "There's scant milk to +a Sussex, and allus will be. And if there was not, there'd be none to +Joscelyn's Lemon. And if there was, it would take more than Henry to +draw it. And so that's you, is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's me," said Martin Pippin. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Old Gillman, "I've spent the best of six mornings trying +not to see ye. And has my daughter taken the right road yet?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, master," said Martin, "she has taken the road to Adversane." +</P> + +<P> +"Which SHE'S spent the best of six months trying not to see," said Old +Gillman. "Women's a nuisance. Allus for taking the long cut round." +</P> + +<P> +"I've known many a short cut," said Martin, "to end in a blind alley." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, well, so long as they gets there," grunted Gillman. "And what's +this here?" +</P> + +<P> +"A pair of steps," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"What for?" said Gillman. +</P> + +<P> +"Milkmaids and milkmen," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"So they maids have cut too, have they?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was a full moon, you see." +</P> + +<P> +"I dessay. But if they'd gone by the stile they could have hopped it in +the dark six months agone," said Old Gillman. And he got over the +stile, which was the other way into the orchard and has not been +mentioned till now, and came and clapped Martin on the shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"Women's more trouble," said he, "than they're worth." +</P> + +<P> +"They're plenty of trouble," said Martin; "I've never discovered yet +what they're worth." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll not talk of em more. Come up to the house for a drink, boy," +said Old Gillman. +</P> + +<P> +Martin said pleasantly, "You can drink milk now, master, to your +heart's content. Or even water." And he walked over to the Well-House, +and pointed invitingly to the bucket. +</P> + +<P> +Old Gillman followed him with one eye open. "It's too late for that, +boy. When you've turned toper for six months, after sixty sober years, +it'll take you another six to drop the habit. That's what these +daughters do for their dads. But we'll not talk of em." He stood +beside Martin and stared down at the padlock. "How did the pretty go?" +</P> + +<P> +"In the swing, like a swift." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not through the gate like a gal?" +</P> + +<P> +"The keys wouldn't turn." +</P> + +<P> +"Which way?" +</P> + +<P> +"The right way." +</P> + +<P> +"You should ha' tried em the wrong way, boy." +</P> + +<P> +"That would have locked it," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"Azactly," said Old Gillman; and slipped the padlock from the staple +and put it in his pocket. "Come along up now." +</P> + +<P> +Martin followed him through the orchard and the paddock and the garden +and the farmyard to the house. He noticed that everything was in the +pink of condition. But as he passed the stables he heard the cows +lowing badly. +</P> + +<P> +The farm-kitchen was a big one. It had all the things that go to make +the best farm-kitchens: such as red bricks and heavy smoke-blackened +beams, and a deep hearth with a great fire on it and settles inside, +from which one could look up at the chimney-shaft to the sky, and clay +pipes and spills alongside, and a muller for wine or beer; and hams and +sides of bacon and strings on onions and bunches of herbs; much pewter, +and a copper warming-pan, and brass candlesticks, and a grandfather +clock; a cherrywood dresser and wheelback chairs polished with age; and +a great scrubbed oaken table to seat a harvest-supper, planed from a +single mighty plank. It was as clean as everything else in that good +room, but all the scrubbing would not efface the circular stains +wherever men had sat and drunk; and that was all the way round and in +the middle. There were mugs and a Toby jug upon it now. Old Gillman +filled two of the mugs, and lifted one to Martin, and Martin echoed the +action like a looking-glass. And they toasted each other in good Audit +Ale. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Old Gillman stuffing his pipe, "it's been a peaceful time, +and now us must just see how things go." +</P> + +<P> +"They look shipshape enough at the moment," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," said Old Gillman shaking his head, "that's the lads. They're good +lads when you let em alone. But what it'll be now they maids get +meddling again us can't foretell. It were bad enough afore, wi' their +quarrelsomeness and their shilly-shally. It sends all things to rack +and ruin." +</P> + +<P> +"What does?" said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"This here love." Old Gillman refilled his mug. "We'll not talk of it. +She were a handy gal afore Robin began unmaking her mind along of his +own. Lord! why can't these young things be plain and say what they +want, and get it? Wasn't I plain wi' her mother?" +</P> + +<P> +"Were you?" said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, worse luck!" said Gillman, "and me a happy bachelor as I was. What +did I want wi' a minx about the place?" He filled his mug again. +</P> + +<P> +"What do any of us?" said Martin. "These women are the deuce." +</P> + +<P> +"They are," said Gillman. "We'll not talk of em." +</P> + +<P> +"There are a thousand better things to talk of," agreed Martin. "There +is Sloe Gin." +</P> + +<P> +Old Gillman's eye brightened. "Ah!" said Old Gillman, and puffed at his +pipe. "Her name," he said, "was Juniper, but as oft as not I'd call her +June, for she was like that. A rose in the house, boy. Maybe you think +my Jill has her share of looks? She has her mother's leavings, let me +tell ye. So you may judge. But what's this Robin to dilly-dally with +her daughter, till the gal can't sleep o' nights for wondering will he +speak in the morning or will he be mum? And so she becomes worse than +no use in kitchen and dairy, and since sickness is catching the maids +follow suit. It's all off and on wi' them and their lads. In the +morning they will, in the evening they won't. Ah, twas a tarrible +life. And all along o' Robin Rue. Young man, the farm, I tell ye, was +going to fair rack and ruin." +</P> + +<P> +"You seem to have found a remedy," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"If they silly maids couldn't make up their minds," said Old Gillman, +"there was nothing for it but to turn em out neck and crop till they +learned what they wanted. And Robin into the bargain. He's no better +than a maid when it comes to taking the bull by the horns. Yet that's +the man's part, mark ye. Don't I know? Smockalley she come from, the +Rose of Smockalley they called her, for a Rose in June she were. There +weren't a lass to match her south of Hagland and north of Roundabout. +And the lads would ha' died for her from Picketty to Chiltington. But +twas a Billinghurst lad got her, d'ye see?" Old Gillman filled his mug. +</P> + +<P> +"How did that come about?" asked Martin, filling his. +</P> + +<P> +"All along o' the Murray River." +</P> + +<P> +"WHAT'S that!" said Martin Pippin. But Old Gillman thought he said, +"What's THAT?" +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis the biggest river in Sussex, young man, and the littlest known, +and the fullest of dangers, and the hardest to find; because nobody's +ever found it yet but her and me. And she'd sworn to wed none but him +as could find it with her. Don't I remember the day! +Twas the day the Carrier come, and that was the day o' the week for +us folk then. He had a blue wagon, had George, with scarlet wheels and +a green awning; and his horse was a red-and-white skewbald and jingled +bells on its bridle. A small bandy-legged man was George, wi' a jolly +face and a squint, and as he drives up he toots on a tin trumpet wi' +red tassels on it. Didn't it bring the crowd running! and didn't the +crowd bring HIM to a standstill, some holding old Scarlet Runner by the +bridle, and others standing on the very axles. And the hubbub, young +man! It was Where's my six yards of dimity?' from one, and Have you +my coral necklace?' from another. Where's my bag of comfits? where's +my hundreds and thousands?' from the children; and I can't wait for my +ivory fan?' 'My bandanna hanky!' +'My two ounces of snuff!' 'My guitar!' 'My clogs!' 'My satin +dancing-shoes!' 'My onion-seed!' 'My new spindle!' 'My fiddle-bow!' +'My powder-puff!' And some little 'un would lisp, 'I'm sure you've +forgotten my blue balloon!' And then they'd cry, one-and-all, in a +breath, 'George! what's the news?' And he'd say, 'Give a body +elbow-room!' and handing the packages right and left would allus have +something to tell. But on this day he says, 'News? There BE no news +excepting THE News.' 'And what's THE News?' cries one-and-all. +'Why,' says George, 'that the Rose of Smockalley consents to be wed +at last.' 'The Rose!' they cries, and me the loudest, 'to whom?' To +him,' says George, as can find her the Murray River. For a sailor come +by last Tuesday wi' a tale o' the Murray River where he'd been wrecked +and seen wonders; and a woman tormented by curiosity will go as far as +a man tormented by love. And so she's willing to be wed at last. But +she's liker to die a maid.' Then I ups and asks why. And George he +says, For that the sailor breathed such perils that the lasses was +taken wi' the trembles and the lads with the shudders. For, he says, +the river's haunted by spirits, and a mystery at the end of it which +none has ever come back from. And no man dares hazard so dark and +dangerous an adventure, even for love of the Rose.' 'That pricks a man's +pride to hear, boy, and Shame,' says I, 'on all West Sussex if that be +so. Here be one man as is ready, and here be fifty others. What d'ye +say, lads?' But Lord! as I looks from one to another they trickles away +like sand through an hourglass, and before we knows it me and George has +the road to ourselves. So he says, 'I must be getting on to Wisboro', but +first I'll deliver ye your baggage.' 'You've no baggage o' mine,' says I. +Yes, if you'll excuse me,' says he; and wi' that he parts the green +awning and says, There she be.' And there she were, sitting on a +barrel o' cider." +</P> + +<P> +"What was she like to look at?" asked Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"Yaller hair and gray eyes," said Gillman. "And me a bachelor." +</P> + +<P> +"It was hopeless," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"It were," said Old Gillman. "And it were the end o' my peace of life. +She looks me straight in the eye and she says, Juniper's my name, but +I'm June to them as loves me. And June I'll be to you. For I have +traveled his rounds wi' this Carrier for a week, and sat behind his +curtain while he told men my wishes. And you be the only one of them +all as is willing to do a difficult thing for an idle whim, if what is +the heart's desire can ever be idle. So I will sit behind the curtain +no longer, and if you will let me I will follow you to the ends of +Sussex till the Murray River be found, or we be dead.' And I says +Jump, lass!' and down she jumps and puts up her mouth." Gillman filled +his mug. +</P> + +<P> +Martin filled his. "Well," said he, "a man must take his bull by the +horns. And did you ever succeed in finding the Murray River?" +</P> + +<P> +"Wi' a child's help. It can only be found by a child's help. Tis the +child's river of all Sussex. Any child can help you to it." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Martin, "and all children know it." +</P> + +<P> +Old Gillman put down his mug. "Do YOU know it, boy?" +</P> + +<P> +"I live by it," said Martin Pippin, "when I live anywhere." +</P> + +<P> +"Do children play in it still?" asked Gillman. +</P> + +<P> +"None but children," said Martin Pippin. "And above all the child which +boys and girls are always rediscovering in each other's hearts, even +when they've turned gray in other folks' sight. And at the end of it is +a mystery." +</P> + +<P> +"She were a child to the end," said Old Gillman. "A fair nuisance, so +she were. And Jill takes after her." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, SHE'S off your hands anyhow," said Martin getting up. "She's to +be some other body's nuisance now, and your maids have come back to +their milking." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, have they?" grunted Gillman. "The lads did it better. And they +cooked better. And they cleaned better. There is nothing men cannot do +better than women." +</P> + +<P> +"I know it," said Martin Pippin, "but it would be unkind to let on." +</P> + +<P> +"Then we'll wash our hands of em. But don't go, boy," said Old +Gillman. "Talking of Sloe Gin—" +</P> + +<P> +Martin sat down again. +</P> + +<P> +They talked of Sloe Gin for a very long time. They did not agree about +it. They got out some bottles to see if they could not manage to agree. +Martin thought one bottle hadn't enough sugar-candy in it, so they put +in some more; and Old Gillman thought another bottle hadn't enough gin +in it, so they also put in some more. But they couldn't get it right, +though they tried and tried. Old Gillman thought it should be filtered +drop by drop seventy times through seven hundred sheets of +blotting-paper, but Martin thought seven hundred times through seventy +sheets was better; and Martin thought it should then be kept for seven +thousand years, but Old Gillman thought seven years sufficient. But +neither of these points had ever been really proved, and was not that +day. +</P> + +<P> +After this, as they couldn't reach an agreement, they changed the +subject to rum punch, and argued a good deal as to the right quantities +of lemon and sugar and nutmeg; and whether it was or was not improved +by the addition of brandy, and how much; and an orange or so, and how +many; and a tangerine, if you had it; and a tot of gin, if you had it +left. Yet in this case too the most repeated practice proved as +inadequate as the most confirmed theory. +</P> + +<P> +So after a bit Old Gillman said, "This is child's play, boy. After all, +there's but one drink for kings and men. Give us a song over our cup, +and I'll sing along o' ye." +</P> + +<P> +"Right," said Martin, "if you can fetch me the only cup worthy to sing +over." +</P> + +<P> +"What cup's that, boy?" +</P> + +<P> +"What but a kingcup?" said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"A king once drank from this," said Gillman, fetching down a goblet as +golden as ale. "He looked like a shepherd, and had a fold just across +the road, but he was a king for all that. So strike up." +</P> + +<P> +"After me, then," said Martin; and they pushed the cup between them, +and the song too. +</P> + +<P> +Martin: What shall we drink of when we sup? +</P> + +<P> +Gillman: What d'ye say to the King's own cup? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: What's the drink? +</P> + +<P> +Gillman: What d'ye think? +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Farmer, say! Water? +</P> + +<P> +Gillman: Nay! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Wine? +</P> + +<P> +Gillman: Aye! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Red wine? +</P> + +<P> +Gillman: Fie! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: White wine? +</P> + +<P> +Gillman: No! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: Yellow wine? +</P> + +<P> +Gillman: Oh! +</P> + +<P> +Martin: What in fine, What wine then? +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Gillman: The only wine<BR> + That's fit for men<BR> + Who drink of the King's Cup when they dine,<BR> + And that is the Old Brown Barley Wine!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> + From This I'll drink ye high,<BR> + Point I I'll drink ye low,<BR> + Don't Know Till the stars run dry<BR> + Which Of Of their juices oh!<BR> + Them Was I'll drink ye up,<BR> + Singing; I'll drink ye down,<BR> + And No More Till the old moon's cup<BR> + Did They: Is cracked all round,<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> + And the pickled sun<BR> + Jumps out of his brine,<BR> + And you cry Done!<BR> + To the Barley Wine.<BR> + Come, boy, sup! Come, fill up!<BR> + Here's King's own drink for the King's own cup!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +What happened after this I really don't know. For I was not there, +though I should like to have been. +</P> + +<P> +I only know that when Martin Pippin stepped out of Gillman's Farm with +his lute on his back, Old Gillman was fast asleep on the settle. But +Martin had never been wider awake. +</P> + +<P> +It was late in the afternoon. There was no sign of human life anywhere. +In their stables the cows were lowing very badly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, maids, maids, maids!" sighed Martin Pippin. "Rack and ruin, my +dears, rack and ruin!" +</P> + +<P> +And he fetched the milkpails and went into the stalls, and did the +milkmaids' business for them. And Joyce's Blossom, and Jennifer's +Daisy, and Jessica's Clover stood as still for him as they stand in the +shade of the willows on Midsummer Day. And Jane's Nellie whisked her +tail over his mouth, but seemed sorry afterwards. And Joscelyn's Lemon +kicked the bucket and would not let down her milk till he sang to her, +and then she gave in. But little Joan's little Jersey Nancy, with her +soft dark eyes, and soft dun sides, and slender legs like a deer's, +licked his cheek. And this was Martin's milking-song. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + You Milkmaids in the hedgerows,<BR> + Get up and milk your kine!<BR> + The satin Lords and Ladies<BR> + Are all dressed up so fine,<BR> + But if you do not skim and churn<BR> + How can they dine?<BR> + Get up, you idle Milkmaids,<BR> + And call in your kine.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + You milkmaids in the hedgerows,<BR> + You lazy lovely crew,<BR> + Get up and churn the buttercups<BR> + And skim the milkweed, do!<BR> + But the Milkmaids in their country prints<BR> + And faces washed with dew,<BR> + They laughed at Lords and Ladies<BR> + And sang "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!"<BR> + And if you know their reason<BR> + I'm not so wise as you.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +When he had done, Martin carried the pails to the dairy and turned his +back on Gillman's. For his business there was ended. So he went out at +the gate and lifted his face to the Downs. +</P> + +<P> +It was a lovely evening. Half the sky was clear and blue, and the other +half full of silky gold clouds—they wanted to be heavy and wet, but +the sun was having such fun on the edge of the Downs, somewhere about +Duncton, that they had to be gold in spite of themselves. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="conclusion"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CONCLUSION +</H3> + +<P> +One evening at the end of the first week in September, Martin Pippin +walked along the Roman Road to Adversane. And as he approached he said +to himself, "There are many sweet corners in Sussex, but few sweeter +than this, and I thank my stars that I have been led to see it once in +my life." +</P> + +<P> +While he was thanking his stars, which were already in the sky waiting +for the light to go out and give them a chance, he heard the sound of +weeping. It came from the malthouse, which is the most beautiful +building in Sussex. So persistent was it that after he had listened to +it for six minutes it seemed to Martin that he had been listening to it +for six months, and for one moment he believed himself to be sitting in +an orchard with his eyes shut, and warm tears from heaven falling on +his face. But knowing himself to be too much given to fancies he +decided to lay those ghosts by investigation, and he went up to the +malthouse and looked inside. +</P> + +<P> +There he found a young man flooring the barley. As he turned and +re-turned it with his spade he wept so copiously above it that he was +frequently obliged to pause and wipe away his tears with his arm, for +he could no longer see the barley he was spreading. When the maltster +had interrupted himself thus for the third occasion, Martin Pippin +concluded that it was time to address him. +</P> + +<P> +"Young master," said Martin, "the bitters that are brewed from your +barley will need no adulterating behind the bar, and that's flat." +</P> + +<P> +The maltster leaned on his spade to reply. +</P> + +<P> +"There are no waters in all the world," said he, "plentiful enough to +adulterate the bitterness of my despair." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I would preserve these rivers for better sport," said Martin. +"And if memory plays me no tricks, your name was once Robin Rue." +</P> + +<P> +"And Rue it will be to my last hour," said Robin, "for a man can no +more escape from his name than from his nature." +</P> + +<P> +"Men," observed Martin, "have been in this respect worse served than +women. And when will Gillian Gillman change her name?" +</P> + +<P> +"No sooner than I," sighed Robin Rue; "a maid she must die, as I a +bachelor. And if she do not outlive me, we shall both be buried before +Christmas." +</P> + +<P> +"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Martin. And stepping into the malthouse he +offered Robin six keys. +</P> + +<P> +"How will these help us?" said Robin Rue. +</P> + +<P> +"They are the keys of your lady's Well-House," said Martin Pippin, "and +how I have outpaced her I cannot imagine, for she was on the road to +you twenty hours ago." +</P> + +<P> +"This is no news," said Robin. "There she is." +</P> + +<P> +And he turned his face to the dark of the malthouse, and there, sitting +on a barrel, with a slice of the sunset falling through a slit on her +corn-colored hair, was Gillian. +</P> + +<P> +"In love's name," cried Martin Pippin, putting his hands to his head, +"what more do you want?" +</P> + +<P> +"A husband worthy of her," moaned Robin Rue, "and how can I suppose +that I am he? Oh, that I were only good enough for her! oh, that she +could be happily mated, as after all her sorrows she deserves to be!" +</P> + +<P> +Then Martin looked down at the patch on his shoe saying, "And tell me +now, if you knew Gillian happily wed, would you ask nothing more of +life?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, sir," cried Robin Rue, "if I knew any man who could give her all I +cannot, I would contrive at least to live long enough to drown my +sorrows in the beer brewed from this barley." +</P> + +<P> +"It is a solace," said Martin, "that must be denied to no man. It seems +that I must help you out to the last. And if you will take one glance +out of doors, you will see that the working-day is over." +</P> + +<P> +Robin Rue looked out of doors, saw by the sun that it was so, put down +his spade, and went home to supper. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Gillian," said Martin Pippin, "the Squire did not come himself to +fetch her away because he was a young fool. There was no eighth floret +on the grass-blade, so the rime stayed at the seventh. The letter I +threw with the Lady-peel was a G. There are apples all round your +silver ring because it was once my ring. I do, you dear, I do, I do. +And now I have answered your many questions, answer me one. Why did you +sit six months in the Well-House weeping for love?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Martin," said Gillian softly, "could you tell my friends so much +they did not know, and not know this?—girls do not weep for love, they +weep for want of it." And she lifted her heavenly eyes, and out of the +last of the sunlight looked at him without thinking. And Martin, like a +drowning man catching at straws, caught her corn-colored plaits one in +either hand, and drawing himself to her by them, whispered, "Do girls +do that? But they are so much too good for us, Gillian." +</P> + +<P> +"I know they are," whispered Gillian, "but if all men were like Robin +Rue, what would become of us? Must we be punished for what we can't +help?" +</P> + +<P> +And she put her little finger on his mouth, and he kissed it. +</P> + +<P> +Then Martin himself sat down on the barrel where there was only room +for one; but it was Martin who sat on it. And after a while he said, +"You mightn't think it, but I have got a cottage, and there is nothing +whatever in it but a table which I made myself, and I think that is +enough to begin with. On the way to it we shall pass Hardham, where in +the Priory Ruins lives a Hermit who is sometimes in the mood. Beyond +Hardham is the sunken bed of the old canal that is a secret not known +to everybody; all flowering reeds and plants that love water grow +there, and you have to push your way between water-loving trees under +which grass and nettles in their season grow taller than children; but +at other times, when the pussy-willows bloom with gray and golden bees, +the way is clear. Beyond this presently is a little glade, the +loveliest in Sussex; in spring it is patterned with primroses, and +windflowers shake their fragile bells and show their silver stars above +them. Some are pure and colorless, like maidens who know nothing of +love, and others are faintly stained with streaks of purple-rose. So +exquisite is the beauty of these earthly flowers that it is like a +heavenly dream, but it is a dream come true; and you will never pass it +in April without longing to turn aside and, kneeling among all that +pallid gold and silver, offer up a prayer to the fairies. And I shall +always kneel there with you. But beyond this is a land of bracken and +undiscovered forests that hides a special secret. And you may run round +it on all sides within fifty yards, yet never find it; unless you +happen to light upon a land where grass springs under your feet among +deep cart-ruts, and blackberry branches scramble on the ground from the +flowery sides. The lane is called Shelley's Lane, for a reason too +beautiful to be told; since all the most beautiful reasons in the world +are kept secrets. And this is why, dear Gillian, the world never knows, +and cannot for the life of it imagine, what this man sees in that maid +and that maid in this man. The world cannot think why they fell in love +with each other. But they have their reason, their beautiful secret, +that never gets told to more than one person; and what they see in each +other is what they show to each other; and it is the truth. Only they +kept it hidden in their hearts until the time came. And though you and +I may never know why this lane is called Shelley's, to us both it will +always be the greenest lane in Sussex, because it leads to the special +secret I spoke of. At the end of it is an old gate, clambered with blue +periwinkle, and the gate opens into a garden in the midst of the +forest, a garden so gay and so scented, so full of butterflies and bees +and flower-borders and grass-plots with fruit-trees on them, that it +might be Eden grown tiny. The garden runs down a slope, and is divided +from a wild meadow by a brook crossed by a plank, fringed with young +hazel and alder and, at the right time, thick-set with primroses. +Behind the meadow, in a glimpse of the distance full of soft blue +shadows and pale yellow lights, lie the lovely sides of the Downs, +rounded and dimpled like human beings, dimpled like babies, rounded +like women. The flow of their lines is like the breathing of a sleeper; +you can almost see the tranquil heaving of a bosom. All about and +around the garden are the trees of the forest. Crouched in one of the +hollows is my cottage with the table in it. And the brook at the bottom +of the garden is the Murray River." +</P> + +<P> +Gillian looked up from his shoulder. "I always meant to find that some +day," she said, "with some one to help me." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll help you," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"Do children play there now?" +</P> + +<P> +"Children with names as lovely as Sylvia, who are even lovelier than +their names. They are the only spirits who haunt it. And at the source +of it is a mystery so beautiful that one day, when you and I have +discovered it together, we shall never come back again. But this will +be after long years of gladness, and a life kept always young, not only +by our children, but by the child which each will continually +rediscover in the other's heart." +</P> + +<P> +"What is this you are telling me?" whispered Gillian, hiding her face +again. +</P> + +<P> +"The Seventh Story." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad it ends happily," said Gillian. "But somehow, all the time, I +thought it would." +</P> + +<P> +"I rather thought so too," said Martin Pippin. "For what does furniture +matter as long as Sussex grows bedstraw for ladies to sleep on?" +</P> + +<P> +And tuning his lute he sang her his very last song. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + My Lady sha'n't lie between linen,<BR> + My Lady sha'n't lie upon down,<BR> + She shall not have blankets to cover her feet<BR> + Or a pillow put under her crown;<BR> + But my Lady shall lie on the sweetest of beds<BR> + That ever a lady saw,<BR> + For my Lady, my beautiful Lady,<BR> + My Lady shall lie upon straw.<BR> + Strew the sweet white straw, he said,<BR> + Strew the straw for my Lady's bed—<BR> + Two ells wide from foot to head,<BR> + Strew my Lady's bedstraw.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + My Lady sha'n't sleep in a castle,<BR> + My Lady sha'n't sleep in a hall,<BR> + She shall not be sheltered away from the stars<BR> + By curtain or casement or wall;<BR> + But my lady shall sleep in the grassiest mead<BR> + That ever a Lady saw,<BR> + Where my Lady, my beautiful Lady,<BR> + My Lady shall lie upon straw.<BR> + Strew the warm white straw, said he,<BR> + My arms shall all her shelter be,<BR> + Her castle-walls and her own roof-tree—<BR> + Strew my Lady's bedstraw.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +When he had done Martin Said, "Will you go traveling, Gillian?" +</P> + +<P> +And Gillian answered, "With joy, Martin. But before I go traveling, I +will sing to you." +</P> + +<P> +And taking the lute from him she sang him her very first song. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + I saw an Old Man by the wayside<BR> + Sit down with his crutch to rest,<BR> + Like the smoke of an angry kettle<BR> + Was the beard puffed over his breast.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + But when I tugged at the Old Man's beard<BR> + He turned to a beardless boy,<BR> + And the boy and myself went traveling,<BR> + Traveling wild with joy.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + With eyes that twinkled and hearts that danced<BR> + And feet that skipped as they ran—<BR> + Now welcome, you blithe young Traveler!<BR> + And fare you well, Old Man!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +When she had done Martin caught her in his arms and kissed her on the +mouth and on the eyes and on both cheeks and on her two hands, and on +the back of the neck where babies are kissed; and standing her up on +the barrel and himself on the ground, he kissed her feet, one after the +other. Then he cried, "Jump, lass! jump when I tell you!" and Gillian +jumped. And as happy as children they ran hand-in-hand out of the +Malthouse and down the road to Hardham. +</P> + +<P> +Overhead the sun was running away from the clouds with all his might, +and they were trying to catch hold of him one by one, in vain; for he +rolled through their soft grasp, leaving their hands bright with +gold-dust. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +THE END +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard, by +Eleanor Farjeon + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARTIN PIPPIN IN THE APPLE ORCHARD *** + +***** This file should be named 2032-h.htm or 2032-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/3/2032/ + +Produced by Batsy. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard + +Author: Eleanor Farjeon + +Posting Date: November 19, 2008 [EBook #2032] +Release Date: January, 2000 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARTIN PIPPIN IN THE APPLE ORCHARD *** + + + + +Produced by Batsy. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + +Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard + + +by + +Eleanor Farjeon + + + + +FOREWORD + +I have been asked to introduce Miss Farjeon to the American public, and +although I believe that introductions of this kind often do more harm +than good, I have consented in this case because the instance is rare +enough to justify an exception. If Miss Farjeon had been a promising +young novelist either of the realistic or the romantic school, I should +not have dared to express an opinion on her work, even if I had +believed that she had greater gifts than the ninety-nine other +promising young novelists who appear in the course of each decade. But +she has a far rarer gift than any of those that go to the making of a +successful novelist. She is one of the few who can conceive and tell a +fairy-tale; the only one to my knowledge--with the just possible +exceptions of James Stephens and Walter de la Mare--in my own +generation. She has, in fact, the true gift of fancy. It has already +been displayed in her verse--a form in which it is far commoner than in +prose--but Martin Pippin is her first book in this kind. + +I am afraid to say too much about it for fear of prejudicing both the +reviewers and the general public. My taste may not be theirs and in +this matter there is no opportunity for argument. Let me, therefore, do +no more than tell the story of how the manuscript affected me. I was a +little overworked. I had been reading a great number of manuscripts in +the preceding weeks, and the mere sight of typescript was a burden to +me. But before I had read five pages of Martin Pippin, I had forgotten +that it was a manuscript submitted for my judgment. I had forgotten who +I was and where I lived. I was transported into a world of sunlight, of +gay inconsequence, of emotional surprise, a world of poetry, delight, +and humor. And I lived and took my joy in that rare world, until all +too soon my reading was done. + +My most earnest wish is that there may be many minds and imaginations +among the American people who will be able to share that pleasure with +me. For every one who finds delight in this book I can claim as a +kindred spirit. + +J. D. Beresford. + + + +CONTENTS + + Foreword + Introduction + Prologue--Part I + Part II + Part III + Prelude to the First Tale + The First Tale: The King's Barn + First Interlude + The Second Tale: Young Gerard + Second Interlude + The Third Tale: The Mill of Dreams + Third Interlude + The Fourth Tale: Open Winkins + Fourth Interlude + The Fifth Tale: Proud Rosalind and the Hart-Royal + Fifth Interlude + The Sixth Tale: The Imprisoned Princess + Postlude--Part I + Part II + Part III + Part IV + Epilogue + Conclusion + + + +INTRODUCTION + +In Adversane in Sussex they still sing the song of The Spring-Green +Lady; any fine evening, in the streets or in the meadows, you may come +upon a band of children playing the old game that is their heritage, +though few of them know its origin, or even that it had one. It is to +them as the daisies in the grass and the stars in the sky. Of these +things, and such as these, they ask no questions. But there you will +still find one child who takes the part of the Emperor's Daughter, and +another who is the Wandering Singer, and the remaining group (there +should be no more than six in it) becomes the Spring-Green Lady, the +Rose-White Lady, the Apple-Gold Lady, of the three parts of the game. +Often there are more than six in the group, for the true number of the +damsels who guarded their fellow in her prison is as forgotten as their +names: Joscelyn, Jane and Jennifer, Jessica, Joyce and Joan. Forgotten, +too, the name of Gillian, the lovely captive. And the Wandering Singer +is to them but the Wandering Singer, not Martin Pippin the Minstrel. +Worse and worse, he is even presumed to be the captive's sweetheart, +who wheedles the flower, the ring, and the prison-key out of the strict +virgins for his own purposes, and flies with her at last in his shallop +across the sea, to live with her happily ever after. But this is a +fallacy. Martin Pippin never wheedled anything out of anybody for his +own purposes--in fact, he had none of his own. On this adventure he was +about the business of young Robin Rue. There are further discrepancies; +for the Emperor's Daughter was not an emperor's daughter, but a +farmer's; nor was the Sea the sea, but a duckpond; nor-- + +But let us begin with the children's version, as they sing and dance it +on summer days and evenings in Adversane. + +THE SINGING-GAME OF "THE SPRING-GREEN LADY" + +(The Emperor's Daughter sits weeping in her Tower. Around her, with +their backs to her, stand six maids in a ring, with joined hands. They +are in green dresses. The Wandering Singer approaches them with his +lute.) + +THE WANDERING SINGER + + Lady, lady, my spring-green lady, + May I come into your orchard, lady? + For the leaf is now on the apple-bough + And the sun is high and the lawn is shady, + Lady, lady, + My fair lady! + O my spring-green lady! + +THE LADIES + + You may not come into our orchard, singer, + Because we must guard the Emperor's Daughter + Who hides in her hair at the windows there + With her thoughts a thousand leagues over the water, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +THE WANDERING SINGER + + Lady, lady, my spring-green lady, + But will you not hear an Alba, lady? + I'll play for you now neath the apple-bough + And you shall dance on the lawn so shady, + Lady, lady, + My fair lady, + O my spring-green lady! + +THE LADIES + + O if you play us an Alba, singer, + How can that harm the Emperor's Daughter? + No word would she say though we danced all day, + With her thoughts a thousand leagues over the water, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +THE WANDERING SINGER + + But if I play you an Alba, lady, + Get me a boon from the Emperor's Daughter-- + The flower from her hair for my heart to wear + Though hers be a thousand leagues over the water, + Lady, lady, + My fair lady, + O my spring-green lady! + +THE LADIES + +(They give him the flower from the hair of the Emperor's Daughter, and +sing--) + + Now you may play us an Alba, singer, + A dance of dawn for a spring-green lady, + For the leaf is now on the apple-bough, + And the sun is high and the lawn is shady, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +The Wandering Singer plays on his lute, and The Ladies break their +ranks and dance. The Singer steals up behind The Emperor's Daughter, +who uncovers her face and sings--) + +THE EMPEROR'S DAUGHTER + + Mother, mother, my fair dead mother, + They have stolen the flower from your weeping daughter! + +THE WANDERING SINGER + + O dry your eyes, you shall have this other + When yours is a thousand leagues over the water, + Daughter, daughter, + My sweet daughter! + Love is not far, my daughter! + +The Singer then drops a second flower into the lap of the child in the +middle, and goes away, and this ends the first part of the game. The +Emperor's Daughter is not yet released, for the key of her tower is +understood to be still in the keeping of the dancing children. Very +likely it is bed-time by this, and mothers are calling from windows and +gates, and the children must run home to their warm bread-and-milk and +their cool sheets. But if time is still to spare, the second part of +the game is played like this. The dancers once more encircle their +weeping comrade, and now they are gowned in white and pink. They will +indicate these changes perhaps by colored ribbons, or by any flower in +its season, or by imagining themselves first in green and then in rose, +which is really the best way of all. Well then-- + +(The Ladies, in gowns of white and rose-color, stand around The +Emperor's Daughter, weeping in her Tower. To them once more comes The +Wandering Singer with his lute.) + +THE WANDERING SINGER + + Lady, lady, my rose-white lady, + May I come into your orchard, lady? + For the blossom's now on the apple-bough + And the stars are near and the lawn is shady, + Lady, lady, + My fair lady, + O my rose-white lady! + +THE LADIES + + You may not come into our orchard, singer, + Lest you bear a word to the Emperor's Daughter + From one who was sent to banishment + Away a thousand leagues over the water, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +THE WANDERING SINGER + + Lady, lady, my rose-white lady, + But will you not hear a Roundel, lady? + I'll play for you now neath the apple-bough + And you shall trip on the lawn so shady, + Lady, lady, + My fair lady, + O my rose-white lady! + +THE LADIES + + O if you play us a Roundel, singer, + How can that harm the Emperor's Daughter? + She would not speak though we danced a week, + With her thoughts a thousand leagues over the water, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +THE WANDERING SINGER + + But if I play you a Roundel, lady, + Get me a gift from the Emperor's Daughter-- + Her finger-ring for my finger bring + Though she's pledged a thousand leagues over the water, + Lady, lady + My fair lady, + O my rose-white lady! + +THE LADIES + +(They give him the ring from the finger of The Emperor's Daughter, and +sing--) + + Now you may play us a Roundel, singer, + A sunset-dance for a rose-white lady, + For the blossom's now on the apple-bough, + And the stars are near and the lawn is shady, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +As before, The Singer plays and The Ladies dance; and through the +broken circle The Singer comes behind The Emperor's Daughter, who +uncovers her face to sing--) + +THE EMPEROR'S DAUGHTER + + Mother, mother, my fair dead mother, + They've stolen the ring from your heart-sick daughter. + +THE WANDERING SINGER + + O mend your heart, you shall wear this other + When yours is a thousand leagues over the water, + Daughter, daughter, + My sweet daughter! + Love is at hand, my daughter! + +The third part of the game is seldom played. If it is not bed-time, or +tea-time, or dinner-time, or school-time, by this time at all events +the players have grown weary of the game, which is tiresomely long; and +most likely they will decide to play something else, such as Bertha +Gentle Lady, or The Busy Lass, or Gypsy, Gypsy, Raggetty Loon!, or The +Crock of Gold, or Wayland, Shoe me my Mare!--which are all good games +in their way, though not, like The Spring-Green Lady, native to +Adversane. But I did once have the luck to hear and see The Lady played +in entirety--the children had been granted leave to play "just one more +game" before bed-time, and of course they chose the longest and played +it without missing a syllable. + +(The Ladies, in yellow dresses, stand again in a ring about The +Emperor's Daughter, and are for the last time accosted by The Singer +with his lute.) + +THE WANDERING SINGER + + Lady, lady, my apple-gold lady, + May I come into your orchard, lady? + For the fruit is now on the apple-bough, + And the moon is up and the lawn is shady, + Lady, lady, + My fair lady, + O my apple-gold lady! + +THE LADIES + + You may not come into our orchard, singer, + In case you set free the Emperor's Daughter + Who pines apart to follow her heart + That's flown a thousand leagues over the water, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +THE WANDERING SINGER + + Lady, lady, my apple-gold lady, + But will you not hear a Serena, lady? + I'll play for you now neath the apple-bough + And you shall dream on the lawn so shady, + Lady, lady, + My fair lady, + O my apple-gold lady! + +THE LADIES + + O if you play a Serena, singer, + How can that harm the Emperor's Daughter? + She would not hear though we danced a year + With her heart a thousand leagues over the water, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +THE WANDERING SINGER + + But if I play a Serena, lady, + Let me guard the key of the Emperor's Daughter, + Lest her body should follow her heart like a swallow + And fly a thousand leagues over the water, + Lady, lady, + My fair lady, + O my apple-gold lady! + +THE LADIES + +(They give the key of the Tower into his hands.) + + Now you may play a Serena, singer, + A dream of night for an apple-gold lady, + For the fruit is now on the apple-bough + And the moon is up and the lawn is shady, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +(Once more The Singer plays and The Ladies dance; but one by one they +fall asleep to the drowsy music, and then The Singer steps into the +ring and unlocks the Tower and kisses The Emperor's Daughter. They have +the end of the game to themselves.) + + Lover, lover, thy/my own true lover + Has opened a way for the Emperor's Daughter! + The dawn is the goal and the dark the cover + As we sail a thousand leagues over the water-- + Lover, lover, + My dear lover, + O my own true lover! + +(The Wandering Singer and The Emperor's Daughter float a thousand +leagues in his shallop and live happily ever after. I don't know what +becomes of The Ladies.) + +"Bed-time, children!" + +In they go. + +You see the treatment is a trifle fanciful. But romance gathers round +an old story like lichen on an old branch. And the story of Martin +Pippin in the Apple-Orchard is so old now--some say a year old, some +say even two. How can the children be expected to remember? + +But here's the truth of it. + + + + +MARTIN PIPPIN IN THE APPLE-ORCHARD + + + +PROLOGUE + +PART I + +One morning in April Martin Pippin walked in the meadows near +Adversane, and there he saw a young fellow sowing a field with oats +broadcast. So pleasant a sight was enough to arrest Martin for an hour, +though less important things, such as making his living, could not +occupy him for a minute. So he leaned upon the gate, and presently +noticed that for every handful he scattered the young man shed as many +tears as seeds, and now and then he stopped his sowing altogether, and +putting his face between his hands sobbed bitterly. When this had +happened three or four times, Martin hailed the youth, who was then +fairly close to the gate. + +"Young master!" said he. "The baker of this crop will want no salt to +his baking, and that's flat." + +The young man dropped his hands and turned his brown and tear-stained +countenance upon the Minstrel. He was so young a man that he wanted his +beard. + +"They who taste of my sorrow," he replied, "will have no stomach for +bread." + +And with that he fell anew to his sowing and sighing, and passed up the +field. + +When he came down again Martin observed, "It must be a very bitter +sorrow that will put a man off his dinner." + +"It is the bitterest," said the youth, and went his way. + +At his next coming Martin inquired, "What is the name of your sorrow?" + +"Love," said the youth. By now he was somewhat distant from the gate +when he came abreast of it, and Martin Pippin did not catch the word. +So he called louder: + +"What?" + +"Love!" shouted the youth. His voice cracked on it. He appeared +slightly annoyed. Martin chewed a grass and watched him up and down the +meadow. + +At the right moment he bellowed: + +"I was never yet put off my feed by love." + +"Then," roared the youth, "you have never loved." + +At this Martin jumped over the gate and ran along the furrow behind the +boy. + +"I have loved," he vowed, "as many times as I have tuned lute-strings." + +"Then," said the youth, not turning his head, "you have never loved in +vain." + +"Always, thank God!" said Martin fervently. + +The youth, whose name was Robin Rue, suddenly dropped all his seed in +one heap, flung up his arms, and, + +"Alas!" he cried. "Oh, Gillian! Gillian!" And began to sob more heavily +than ever. + +"Tell me your trouble," said the Minstrel kindly. + +"Sir," said the youth, "I do not know your name, and your clothes are +very tattered. But you are the first who has cared whether or no my +heart should break since my lovely Gillian was locked with six keys +into her father's Well-House, and six young milkmaids, sworn virgins +and man-haters all, to keep the keys." + +"The thirsty," said Martin, "make little of padlocks when within a +rope's length of water." + +"But, sir," continued the youth earnestly, "this Well-House is set in +the midst of an Apple-Orchard enclosed in a hawthorn hedge full six +feet high, and no entrance thereto but one small green wicket, bolted +on the inner side." + +"Indeed?" said Martin. + +"And worse to come. The length of the hedge there is a great duckpond, +nine yards broad, and three wild ducks swimming on it. Alas!" he cried, +"I shall never see my lovely girl again!" + +"Love is a mighty power," said Martin Pippin, "but there are doubtless +things it cannot do." + +"I ask so little," sighed Robin Rue. "Only to send her a primrose for +her hair-band, and have again whatever flower she wears there now." + +"Would this really content you?" said Martin Pippin. + +"I would then consent to live," swore Robin Rue, "long enough at all +events to make an end of my sowing." + +"Well, that would be something," said Martin cheerfully, "for fields +must not go fallow that are appointed to bear. Direct me to your +Gillian's Apple-Orchard." + +"It is useless," Robin said. "For even if you could cross the duckpond, +and evade the ducks, and compass the green gate, my sweetheart's +father's milkmaids are not to be come over by any man; and they watch +the Well-House day and night." + +"Yet direct me to the orchard," repeated Martin Pippin, and thrummed +his lute a little. + +"Oh, sir," said Robin anxiously, "I must warn you that it is a long and +weary way, it may be as much as two mile by the road." And he looked +disconsolately at the Minstrel, as though in fear that he would be +discouraged from the adventure. + +"It can but be attempted," answered Martin, "and now tell me only +whether I go north or south as the road runs." + +"Gillman the farmer, her father," said Robin Rue, "has moreover a very +big stick--" + +"Heaven help us!" cried Martin, and took to his heels. + +"That ends it!" sighed the sorry lover. + +"At least let us make a beginning!" quoth Martin Pippin. + +He leaped the gate, mocked at a cuckoo, plucked a primrose, and went +singing up the road. + +Robin Rue resumed his sowing and his tears. + + +"Maids," said Joscelyn, "what is this coming across the duckpond?" + +"It is a man," said little Joan. + +The six girls came running and crowding to the wicket, standing +a-tiptoe and peeping between each other's sunbonnets. Their sunbonnets +and their gowns were as green as lettuce-leaves. + +"Is he coming on a raft?" asked Jessica, who stood behind. + +"No," said Jane, "he is coming on his two feet. He has taken off his +shoes, but I fear his breeches will suffer." + +"He is giving bread to the ducks," said Jennifer. + +"He has a lute on his back," said Joyce. + +"Man!" cried Joscelyn, who was the tallest and the sternest of the +milkmaids, "go away at once!" + +Martin Pippin was by now within arm's-length of the green gate. He +looked with pleasure at the six virgins fluttering in their green +gowns, and peeping bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked under their green +bonnets. Beyond them he saw the forbidden orchard, with cuckoo-flower +and primrose, daffodil and celandine, silver windflower and sweet +violets blue and white, spangling the gay grass. The twisted +apple-trees were in young leaf. + +"Go away!" cried all the milkmaids in a breath. "Go away!" + +"My green maidens," said Martin, "may I not come into your orchard? The +sun is up, and the shadow lies fresh on the grass. Let me in to rest a +little, dear maidens--if maidens indeed you be, and not six leaflets +blown from the apple-branches." + +"You cannot come in," said Joscelyn, "because we are guarding our +master's daughter, who sits yonder weeping in the Well-House." + +"That is a noble and a tender duty," said Martin. "From what do you +guard her?" + +The milkmaids looked primly at one another, and little Joan said, "It +is a secret." + +Martin: I will ask no more. And what do you do all day long? + +Joyce: Nothing, and it is very dull. + +Martin: It must be still duller for your master's daughter. + +Joan: Oh, no, she has her thoughts to play with. + +Martin: And what of your thoughts? + +Joscelyn: We have no thoughts. I should think not indeed! + +Martin: I beg your pardon. But since you find the hours so tedious, +will you not let me sing and play to you upon my lute? I will sing you +a song for a spring morning, and you shall dance in the grass like any +leaf in the wind. + +Jane: I think there can be no harm in that. + +Jessica: It can't matter a straw to Gillian. + +Joyce: She would not look up from her thoughts though we footed it all +day. + +Joscelyn: So long as he is on one side of the gate-- + +Jennifer: --and we on the other. + +"I love to dance," said little Joan. + +"Man!" cried the milkmaids in a breath, "play and sing to us!" + +"Oh, maidens," answered Martin merrily, "every tune deserves its fee. +But don't look so troubled--my hire shall be of the lightest. Let me +see! You shall fetch me the flower from the hair of your little +mistress who sits weeping on the coping with her face hidden in her +shining locks." + +At this the milkmaids clapped their hands, and little Joan, running to +the Well-House, with a touch like thistledown drew from the weeper's +yellow hair a yellow primrose. She brought it to the gate and laid it +in Martin's hand. + +"Now you will play for us, won't you?" said she. "A dance for a +spring-morning when the leaves dance on the apple-trees." + +Then Martin tuned his lute and played and sang as follows, while the +girls took hands and danced in a green chain among the twisty trees. + + The green leaf dances now, + The green leaf dances now, + The green leaf with its tilted wings + Dances on the bough, + And every rustling air + Says, I've caught you, caught you, + Leaf with tilted wings, + Caught you in a snare! + Whose snare? Spring's, + That bound you to the bough + Where you dance now, + Dance, but cannot fly, + For all your tilted wings + Pointing to the sky; + Where like martins you would dart + But for Spring's delicious art + That caught you to the bough, + Caught, yet left you free + To dance if not to fly--oh see! + As you are dancing now, + Dancing on the bough, + Dancing on the bough, + Dancing with your tilted wings + On the apple-bough. + +Now as Martin sang and the milkmaids danced, it seemed that Gillian in +her prison heard and saw nothing except the music and the movement of +her sorrows. But presently she raised her hand and touched her +hair-band, and then she lifted up the fairest face Martin had ever +seen, so that he needs must see it nearer; and he took the green gate +in one stride, and the green dancers never observed him. Then Gillian's +tender mouth parted like an opening quince-blossom, and-- + +"Oh, Mother, Mother!" she said, "if you had only lived they would not +have stolen the flower from my hair while I sat weeping." + +Above her head a whispering voice made answer, "Oh, Daughter, Daughter, +dry your sweet eyes. You shall wear this other flower when yours is +gone over the duckpond to Adversane." + +And lo! A second primrose dropped out of the skies into her lap. And +that day the lovely Gillian wept no more. + + + +PART II + +It happened that on an afternoon in May Martin Pippin passed again +through Adversane, and as he passed he thought, "Now certainly I have +been here before," but he could not remember when or how, for a full +month had run under the bridges of time since then, and man's memory is +not infinite. + +But in walking by a certain garden he heard a sound of sobbing; and +curiosity, of which he was largely made, caused him to climb the old +brick wall that he might discover the cause. What he saw from his perch +was a garden laid out in neat plots between grassy walks edged with +double daisies, red, white and pink, or bordered with sweet herbs, or +with lavender and wallflower; and here and there were cordons of +fruit-trees, apple, plum and cherry, and in a sunny corner a clump of +flowering currant heavy with humming bees; and against the inner walls +flat pear-trees stretched their long straight lines, like music-staves +whereon a lovely melody was written in notes of snow. And in the midst +of all this stood a very young man with a face as brown as a berry. He +was spraying the cordons with quassia-water. But whenever he filled his +syringe he wept so many tears above the bucket that it was always full +to the brim. + +When he had watched this happen several times, Martin hailed the young +man. + +"Young master!" said Martin, "the eater of your plums will need sugar +thereto, and that's flat." + +The young man turned his eyes upward. + +"There is not sugar enough in all the world," he answered, "to sweeten +the fruits that are watered by my sorrows." + +"Then here is a waste of good quassia," said Martin, "and I think your +name is Robin Rue." + +"It is," said Robin, "and you are Martin Pippin, to whom I owe more +than to any man living. But the primrose you brought me is dead this +five-and-twenty days." + +"And what of your Gillian?" + +"Alas! How can I tell what of her? She is where she was and I am here +where I am. What will become of me?" + +"There are riddles without answers," observed Martin. + +"I can answer this one. I shall fall into a decline and die. And yet I +ask no more than to send her a ring to wear on her finger, and have her +ring to wear on mine." + +"Would this satisfy you?" asked Martin. + +"I could then cling to life," said Robin Rue, "long enough at least to +finish my spraying." + +"We may praise God as much for small mercies," said Martin pleasantly, +"as for great ones; and trees must not be blighted that were appointed +to fruit." + +So saying, he unstraddled his legs and dropped into the road, tickled +an armadillo with his toe, twirled the silver ring on his finger, and +went away singing. + + +"Maidens," said Joscelyn, "here is that man come again." + +Maids' memories are longer than men's. At all events, the milkmaids +knew instantly to whom she referred, although nearly a month had passed +since his coming. + +"Has he his lute with him?" asked little Joan. + +"He has. And he is giving cake to the ducks; they take it from his +hand. Man, go away immediately!" + +Martin Pippin propped his elbows on the little gate, and looked smiling +into the orchard, all pink and white blossom. The trees that had been +longest in bloom were white cascades of flower, others there were +flushed like the cheek of a sleeping child, and some were still studded +with rose-red buds. The grass was high and full of spotted orchis, and +tall wild parsley spread its nets of lace almost abreast of the lowest +boughs of blossom. So that the milkmaids stood embraced in meeting +flowers, waist-deep in the orchard growth: all gowned in pink lawn with +loose white sleeves, and their faces flushed it may have been with the +pink linings to their white bonnets, or with the evening rose in the +west, or with I know not what. + +"Go away!" they cried at the intruder. "Go away!" + +"My rose-white maidens," said Martin, "will you not let me into your +orchard? For the stars are rising with the dew, and the hour is at +peace. Let me in to rest, dear maidens--if maidens indeed you be, and +not six blossoms fallen from the apple-boughs." + +"You cannot come in," said Joscelyn, "lest you are the bearer of a word +to our master's daughter who sits weeping in the Well-House." + +"From whom should I bear her a word?" asked Martin Pippin in great +amazement. + +The milkmaids cast down their eyes, and little Joan said, "It is a +secret." + +Martin: I will inquire no further. But shall I not play a little on my +lute? It is as good an hour for song and dance as any other, and I will +make a tune for a sunny May evening, and you shall sway among the +grasses like any flower on the bough. + +Jane: In my opinion that can hurt nobody. + +Jessica: Gillian wouldn't care two pins. + +Joyce: She would utter no word though we tripped it for a week. + +Joscelyn: So long as he keeps to his side of the hedge-- + +Jennifer: --and we to ours. + +"Oh, I do love to dance!" cried little Joan. + +"Man!" they commanded him as one voice, "play and sing to us instantly!" + +"My pretty ones," laughed Martin Pippin, "songs are as light as air, +but worth more than pearls and diamonds. What will you give me for my +song? Wait, now!--I have it. You shall fetch me the ring from the +finger of your little mistress, who sits hidden beneath the fountain of +her own bright tresses." + +The milkmaids at these words nodded gayly, and little Joan tip-toed to +the Well-House, and slipped the ring from Gillian's finger as lightly +as a daisy may be slipped from its fellow on the chain. Then she ran +with it to the gate, and Martin held up his little finger, and she put +it on, saying: + +"Now you will keep your promise, honey-sweet singer, and play a dance +for a May evening when the blossom blows for happiness on the +apple-trees." + +So Martin Pippin tuned his lute and sang what follows, while the girls +floated in ones and twos among the orchard grass: + + A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating? + Fairy ships rocking with pink sails and white + Smoothly as swans on a river of light + Saw I a-floating? + No, it was apple-bloom, rosy and fair, + Softly obeying the nod of the air + I saw a-floating. + A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating? + White clouds at eventide blown to and fro + Lightly as bubbles the cherubim blow, + Saw I a-floating? + No, it was pretty girls gowned like a flower + Blown in a ring round their own apple-bower + I saw a-floating. + Or was it my dream, my dream only--who knows?-- + As frail as a snowflake, as flushed as a rose, + I saw a-floating? + A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating? + +Martin sang, and the milkmaids danced, and Gillian in her prison only +heard the dropping of her tears, and only saw the rainbow prisms on her +lashes. But presently she laid her cheek against her hand, and missed a +touch she knew; and on that revealed her lovely face so full of woe, +that Martin needs must comfort her or weep himself. And the dancers +took no heed when he made one step across the gate and went under the +trees to the Well-House. + +"Oh, Mother, Mother!" sighed Gillian, "if you had only lived they would +never have stolen the ring from my finger while I sat heartsick." + +Above her head a whispering voice replied, "Oh, Daughter, Daughter, +mend your dear heart! You shall wear this other ring when yours is gone +over the duckpond to Adversane." + +Oh wonder! Out of the very heavens fell a silver ring into her bosom. +And if that night Gillian slept not, neither wept she. + + + +PART III + +In the beginning of the first week in September Martin Pippin came once +more to Adversane, and he said to himself when he saw it: + +"Now this is the prettiest hamlet I ever had the luck to light on in my +wanderings. And if chance or fortune will, I shall some day come this +way again." + +While he was thinking these thoughts, his ears were assailed by groans +and sighs, so that he wet his finger and held it up to find which way +the wind blew on this burning day of blue and gold. But no wind coming, +he sought some other agency for these gusts, and discovered it in a +wheat-field where was a young fellow stooking sheaves. A very young +fellow he was, turned copper by the sun; and as he stooked he heaved +such sighs that for every shock he stooked two tumbled at his feet. +When Martin had seen this happen more than once he called aloud to the +harvester. + +"Young master!" said Martin, "the mill that grinds your grain will need +no wind to its sails, and that's flat." + +The young man looked up from his labors to reply. + +"There are no mill-stones in all the world," said he, "strong enough to +grind the grain of my grief." + +"Then I would save these gales till they may be put to more use," +remarked Martin, "and if I remember rightly you wear a lady's ring on +your little finger, though I cannot remember her name or yours." + +"Her heavenly name is Gillian," said the youth, "and mine is Robin Rue." + +"And are you wedded yet?" asked Martin. + +"Wedded?" he cried. "Have you forgotten that she is locked with six +keys inside her father's Well-House?" + +"But this was long ago," said Martin. "Is she there yet?" + +"She is," said Robin Rue, "and here am I." + +"Well, all states must end some time," said Martin Pippin. + +"Even life," sighed Robin, "and therefore before the month is out I +shall wilt and be laid in the earth." + +"That would be a pity," said Martin. "Can nothing save you?" + +"Nothing but the keys to her prison, and they are in the keeping of +them that will not give them up." + +"I remember," said Martin. "Six milkmaids." + +"With hearts of flint!" cried Robin. + +"Sparks may be struck from flint," said Martin, in his inconsequential +way. "But tell me, if Gillian's prison were indeed unlocked, would all +be well with you for ever?" + +"Oh," said Robin Rue, "if her prison were unlocked and the prisoner in +these arms, this wheat should be flour for a wedding-cake." + +"It is the best of all cakes," said Martin Pippin, "and the grain that +is destined thereto must not rot in the husk." + +With these words he strolled out of the cornfield, gathered a harebell, +rang it so loudly in the ear of a passing rabbit that it is said never +to have stopped running till it found itself in France, and went up the +road humming and thrumming his lute. + +On the road he met a Gypsy. + + +"Maids," said Joscelyn, "somebody is at the gate." + +The milkmaids, who were eating apples, came clustering about her +instantly. + +"Is it a man?" asked little Joan, pausing between her bites. + +"No, thank all our stars," said Joscelyn, "it is a gypsy." + +The milkmaids withdrew, their fears allayed. Joan bit her apple and +said, "It puckers my mouth." + +Joyce: Mine's sour. + +Jessica: Mine's hard. + +Jane: Mine's bruised. + +Jennifer: There's a maggot in mine. + +They threw their apples away. + +"Who'll buy trinkets?" said the Gypsy at the gate. + +"What have you to sell?" asked Joscelyn. + +"Knick-knacks and gew-gaws of all sorts. Rings and ribbons, mirrors and +beads, silken shoe-strings and colored lacings, sweetmeats and scents +and gilded pins; silver buckles, belts and bracelets, gay kerchiefs, +spotted ones, striped ones; ivory bobbins, sprigs of coral, and +sea-shells from far places, they'll murmur you secrets o' nights if you +put em under your pillow; here are patterns for patchwork, and here's +a sheet of ballads, and here's a pack of cards for telling fortunes. +What will ye buy? A dream-book, a crystal, a charmed powder that shall +make you see your sweetheart in the dark?" + +"Oh!" six voices cried in one. + +"Or this other powder shall charm him to love you, if he love you not?" + +"Fie!" exclaimed Joscelyn severely. "We want no love-charms." + +"I warrant you!" laughed the Gypsy. "What will ye buy?" + +Jennifer: I'll have this flasket of scent. + +Joyce: I'll have this looking-glass. + +Jessica: And I this necklet of beads. + +Jane: A pair of shoe-buckles, if you please. + +Joan: This bunch of ribbons for me. + +Joscelyn: Have you a corset-lace of yellow silk? + +The Gypsy: Here's for you and you. No love-charms, no. Here's for you +and you and you. I warrant, no love-charms! Ay, I've a yellow lace, +twill keep you in as tight as jealousy, my pretty. Out upon all +love-charms!--And what will she have that sits crouched in the +Well-House? + +"Oh, Gypsy!" cried Joscelyn, "have you among your charms one that will +make a maid fall OUT of love?" + +"Nay, nay," said the Gypsy, growing suddenly grave. "That is a charm +takes more black art than I am mistress of. I know indeed of but one +remedy. Is the case so bad?" + +"She has been shut into the Well-House to cure her of loving," said +Joscelyn, "and in six months she has scarcely ceased to weep, and has +never uttered a word. If you know the physic that shall heal her of her +foolishness, I pray you tell us of it. For it is extremely dull in this +orchard, with nothing to do except watch the changes of the +apple-trees, and meanwhile the farmstead lacks water and milk, there +being no entry to the well nor maids to milk the cows. Daily comes Old +Gillman to tell us how, from morning till night, he is forced to drink +cider and ale, and so the farm goes to rack and ruin, and all because +he has a lovesick daughter. What is your remedy? He would give you gold +and silver for it." + +"I do not know if it can be bought," said the Gypsy, "I do not even +know if it exists. But when a maid broods too much on her own +love-tale, the like weapons only will vanquish her thoughts. Nothing +but a new love-tale will overcome her broodings, and where the case is +obstinate one only will not suffice. You say she has pined upon her +love six months. Let her be told six brand-new love-tales, tales which +no woman ever heard before, and I think she will be cured. These +counter-poisons will so work in her that little by little her own case +will be obliterated from her blood. But for my part I doubt whether +there be six untold love-tales left on earth, and if there be I know +not who keeps them buttoned under his jacket." + +"Alas!" cried Joscelyn, "then we must stay here for ever until we die." + +"It looks very like it," said the Gypsy, "and my wares are a penny +apiece." + +So saying she collected her moneys and withdrew, and for all I know was +never seen again by man, woman, or child. + + +"My apple-gold maidens," said Martin Pippin, leaning on the gate in the +bright night, "may I come into your orchard?" + +As he addressed them he gazed with delight at the enclosure. By the +light of the Queen Moon, now at her full in heaven, he saw that the +orchard grass was clipped, and patterned with small clover, but against +the hedges rose wild banks of meadow-sweet and yarrow and the jolly +ragwort, and briony with its heart-shaped leaf and berry as red as +heart's-blood made a bower above them all. And all the apple-trees were +decked with little golden moons hanging in clusters on the drooping +boughs, and glimmering in the recesses of the leaves. Under each tree a +ring of windfalls lay in the grass. But prettiest sight of all was the +ring of girls in yellow gowns and caps, that lay around the midmost +apple-tree like fallen fruit. + +"Dear maidens," pleaded the Minstrel, "let me come in." + +At the sound of his voice the six milkmaids rose up in the grass like +golden fountains. And fountains indeed they were, for their eyes were +running over with tears. + +"We did not hear you coming," said little Joan. + +"Go away at once!" commanded Joscelyn. + +Then all the girls cried "Go away!" together. + +"My apple-gold maidens," said Martin Pippin, "I entreat you to let me +in. For the moon is up, and it is time to be sleeping or waking, in +sweet company. So I beseech you to admit me, dear maidens--if maidens +in truth you be, and not six apples bobbed off their stems." + +"You may not come in," said Joscelyn, "in case you should release our +master's daughter, who sits in the Well-House pining to follow her +heart." + +"Why, whither would she follow it?" asked Martin much surprised. + +The milkmaids turned their faces away, and little Joan murmured, "It is +a secret." + +Martin: I will put chains on my thoughts. But shall I not sing you a +tune you may dance to? I will make you a song for an August night, when +the moon rocks her way up and down the cradle of the sky, and you shall +rock on earth like any apple on the twig. + +Jane: For my part, I see nothing against it. + +Jessica: Gillian won't care little apples. + +Joyce: She would not hear though we danced the round of the year. + +Joscelyn: So long as he does not come in-- + +Jennifer: --or we go out. + +"Oh, let us dance, do let us dance!" cried little Joan. + +"Man," they importuned him in a single breath, "play for us and sing +for us, as quickly as you can!" + +"Sweet ones," said Martin Pippin, shaking his head, "songs must be paid +for. And yet I do not know what to ask you, some trifle in kind it +should be. Why, now, I have it! If I give you the keys to the dance, +give me the keys to your little mistress, that I may keep her secure +from following her heart like a bird of passage, whither it's no +business of mine to ask." + +At this request, made so gayly and so carelessly, the girls all looked +at one another in consternation. Then Joscelyn drew herself up to full +height, and pointing with her arm straight across the duckpond she +cried: + +"Minstrel, begone!" + +And the six girls, turning their backs upon him, moved away into the +shadows of the moon. + +"Well-a-day!" sighed Martin Pippin, "how a fool may trip and never know +it till his nose hits the earth. I will sing to you for nothing." + +But the girls did not answer. + +Then Martin touched his lute and sang as follows, so softly and sweetly +that they, not regarding, hardly knew the sound of his song from the +heavy-sweet scent of the ungathered apples over their heads. + + Toss me your golden ball, laughing maid, lovely maid, + Lovely maid, laughing maid, toss me your ball! + I'll catch it and throw it, and hide it and show it, + And spin it to heaven and not let it fall. + Boy, run away with you! I will not play with you-- + This is no ball! + We are too old to be playing at ball. + + Toss me the golden sun, laughing maid, lovely maid, + Lovely maid, laughing maid, toss me the sun! + I'll wheel it, I'll whirl it, I'll twist it and twirl it + Till cocks crow at midnight and day breaks at one. + Boy, I'll not sport with you! Boy, to be short with you, + This is no sun! + We are too young to play tricks with the sun. + + Toss me your golden toy, laughing maid, lovely maid, + Lovely maid, laughing maid, toss me your toy! + It's all one to me, girl, whatever it be, girl + So long as it's round that's enough for a boy. + Boy, come and catch it then!--there now! Don't snatch it then! + Here comes your toy! + Apples were made for a girl and a boy. + +There was no sound or movement from the girls in the shadows. + +"Farewell, then," said Martin. "I must carry my tunes and tales +elsewhere." + +Like pebbles from a catapult the milkmaids shot to the gate. + +"Tales?" cried Jessica. + +"Do you know tales?" exclaimed Jennifer. + +"What kind of tales?" demanded Jane. + +"Love-tales?" panted Joyce. + +"Six of them?" urged little Joan. + +"A thousand!" said Martin Pippin. + +Joscelyn's hand lay on the bolt. + +"Man," she said, "come in." + +She opened the wicket, and Martin Pippin walked into the Apple Orchard. + + + +PRELUDE TO THE FIRST TALE + +"And now," said Martin Pippin, "what exactly do you require of me?" + +"If you please," said little Joan, "you are to tell us a love-story +that has never been told before." + +"But we have reason to fear," added Jane, "that there is no such story +left in all the world." + +"There you are wrong," said Martin, "for on the contrary no love-story +has ever been told twice. I never heard any tale of lovers that did not +seem to me as new as the world on its first morning. I am glad you have +a taste for love-stories." + +"We have not," said Joscelyn, very quickly. + +"No, indeed!" cried her five fellows. + +"Then shall it be some other kind of tale?" + +"No other kind will do," said Joscelyn, still more quickly. + +"We must all bear our burdens," said Martin; "so let us make ourselves +as happy as we can in an apple-tree, and when the tale becomes too +little to your taste you shall munch apples and forget it." + +"Will you sit in the swing?" asked Jennifer, pointing to the midmost +apple-tree, which was the largest in the orchard, and had a little +swing hanging from a long upper limb. + +Close to the apple-tree, a branch of which indeed brushed its mossed +pent-roof, stood the Well-House. It had a round wall of old red bricks +growing green with time, and a pillar of oak rose up at each point of +the compass to support the pent. Between the south and west pillars was +a green door, held by a rusty chain and a padlock with six keyholes. +The little circular court within was flagged, and three rings of worn +steps led to the well-head and the green wooden bucket inverted on the +coping. Between the cracks of the flags sprang grass, and pink-starred +centaury, and even a trail of mallow sprawled over the steps where +Gillian lay in tears, as though to wreathe her head with its striped +blooms. + +"What luck you have," said Martin, "not only to live in an orchard, but +to have a swing to swing in." + +"It is our one diversion," said Joyce, "except when you come to play to +us." + +"It is delightful to swing," said little Joan invitingly. + +"So it is," agreed Martin, "and I beg you to sit in the swing while I +sit on this bough, and when I see your eyelids growing heavy with my +tale I will start the rope and rouse you--thus!" + +So saying, he lifted the littlest milkmaid lightly into her perch and +gave her so vigorous a push that she cried out with delight, as at one +moment the point of her shoe cleared the door of the Well-House, and at +the next her heels were up among the apples. Then Martin ensconced +himself upon a lower limb of the tree, which had a mossy cushion +against the trunk as though nature or time had designed it for a teller +of tales. The milkmaids sprang quickly into other branches around him, +shaking a hail of sweet apples about his head. What he could he caught, +and dropped into the swinger's lap, whence from time to time he helped +himself; and she did likewise. + +"Begin," said Joscelyn. + +"A thought has occurred to me," said Martin Pippin, "and it is that my +tale may disturb your master's daughter." + +"We desire it to," said Joscelyn looking down on the Well-House and the +yellow head of Gillian. "The fear is rather that you may not arouse her +attention, so I hope that when you speak you will speak clearly. For to +tell you the truth we have heard that nothing but six love-tales will +wash from her mind the image of--" + +"Of whom?" inquired Martin as she paused. + +"It does not matter whom," said Joscelyn, "but I think the time is ripe +to confess to you that the silly damsel is in love." + +"The world is so full of wonders," said Martin Pippin, "that one ceases +to be surprised at almost anything." + +"Is love then," said little Joan, "so rare a thing in the world?" + +"The rarest of all things," answered Martin, looking gravely into her +eyes. "It is as rare as flowers in Spring." + +"I am glad of that," said Joan; while Joscelyn objected, "But nothing +is commoner." + +"Do you think so?" said Martin. "Perhaps you are right. Yet Spring +after Spring the flowers quicken my heart as though I were perceiving +them for the first time in my life--yes, even the very commonest of +them." + +"What do you call the commonest?" asked Jessica. + +"Could any be commoner," said Martin, "than Robin-run-by-the-Wall? Yet +I think he has touched many a heart in his day." + +And fixing his eyes on the weeper in the Well-House, Martin Pippin +tried his lute and sang this song. + + Run by the wall, Robin, + Run by the wall! + You might hear a secret + A lady once let fall. + If you hear her secret + Tell it in my ear, + And I'll whisper you another + For her to overhear. + +The weeper stirred very slightly. + +"The song makes little sense," said Joscelyn, "and would make none at +all if you called this flower by its right name of Jack-in-the-Hedge." + +"Let us do so," said Martin readily, "and then the nonsense will run +this way as easily as that." + + Hide in the hedge, Jack, + Hide in the hedge! + You might catch a letter + Dropped over the edge. + If you catch her letter + Slip it in my hand, + And I'll write another + That she'll understand. + +As he concluded, Gillian lifted up her head, and putting her hair from +her face gazed over the duckpond beyond the green wicket. + +"The lady," said Joscelyn with some impatience, "who understand the +letter must outdo me in wits, for I find no understanding whatever in +your silly song. However, it seems to have brought our master's +daughter out of her lethargy, and the moment is favorable to your tale. +Therefore without further ado I beg you to begin." + +"I will," said Martin, "and on my part entreat your forbearance while I +relate to you the story of The King's Barn." + + + +THE KING'S BARN + +There was once, dear maidens, a King in Sussex of whose kingdom and +possessions nothing remained but a single Barn and a change of linen. +It was no fault of his. He was a very young king when he came into his +heritage, and it was already dwindled to these proportions. Once his +fathers had owned a beautiful city on the banks of the Adur, and all +the lands to the north and the west were theirs, for a matter of +several miles indeed, including many strange things that were on them: +such as the Wapping Thorp, the Huddle Stone, the Bush Hovel where a +Wise Woman lived, and the Guess Gate; likewise those two communities +known as the Doves and the Hawking Sopers, whose ways of life were as +opposite as the Poles. The Doves were simple men, and religious; but +the Hawking Sopers were indeed a wild and rowdy crew, and it is said +that the King's father had hunted and drunk with them until his estates +were gambled away and his affairs decayed of neglect, and nothing was +left at last but the solitary Barn which marked the northern boundary +of his possessions. And here, when his father was dead, our young King +sat on a tussock of hay with his golden crown on his head and his +golden scepter in his hand, and ate bread and cheese thrice a day, +throwing the rind to the rats and the crumbs to the swallows. His name +was William, and beyond the rats and the swallows he had no other +company than a nag called Pepper, whom he fed daily from the tussock he +sat on. + +But at the end of a week he said: + +"It is a dull life. What should a King do in a Barn?" + +So saying, he pulled the last handful of hay from under him, rising up +quickly before he had time to fall down, and gave it to his nag; and +next he tied up his scepter and crown with his change of linen in a +blue handkerchief; and last he fetched a rope and a sack and put them +on Pepper for bridle and saddle, and rode out of the Barn leaving the +door to swing. + +"Let us go south, Pepper," said he, "for it is warmer to ride into the +sun than away from it, and so we shall visit my Father's lands that +might have been mine." + +South they went, with the great Downs ahead of them, and who knew what +beyond? And first they came to the Hawking Sopers, who when they saw +William approaching tumbled out of their dwelling with a great racket, +crying to him to come and drink and play with them. + +"Not I," said he. "For so I should lose my Barn to you, and such as it +is it is a shelter, and my only one. But tell me, if you can, what +should a King do in a Barn?" + +"He should dance in it," said they, and went laughing and singing back +to their cups. + +"What sort of advice is this, Pepper?" said the King. "Shall we try +elsewhere?" + +The nag whinnied with unusual vehemence, and the King, taking this for +yea, and not observing that she limped as she went, rode on to the +Doves: the gentle gray-gowned Brothers who spent their days in pious +works and their nights in meditation. Between the twelve hours of +twilight and dawn they were pledged not to utter speech, but the King +arriving there at noon they welcomed him with kind words, and offered +him a bowl of rice and milk. + +He thanked them, and when he had eaten and drink put to them his riddle. + +"What should a King do in a Barn?" + +They answered, "He should pray in it." + +"This may be good advice," said the King. "Pepper, should we go +further?" + +The little nag whinnied till her sides shook, which the King took, as +before, to be an affirmative. However, because it was Sunday he +remained with the Doves a day and a night, and during such time as +their lips were not sealed they urged him to become one of them, and +found a new settlement of Brothers in his Barn. He spent his night in +reflection, but by morning had come to no decision. + +"To what better use could you dedicate it?" asked the Chief Brother, +who was known as the Ringdove because he was the leader. + +"None that I can think of," said the King, "but I fear I am not good +enough." + +"When you have passed our initiation," said the Ringdove, "you will be." + +"Is it difficult?" asked William. + +"No, it is very easy, and can be accomplished within a month. You have +only to ride south till you come to the hills, on the highest of which +you will see a Ring of beech-trees. Under the hills lies the little +village of Washington, and there you may dwell in comfort through the +week. But on each of the four Saturdays of the lunar month you must +mount the hill at sunset and keep a vigil among the beeches till +sunrise. And you must see that these Saturdays occur on the fourth +quarters of the moon--once when she is in her crescent, once at the +half, again at the full, and lastly when she is waning." + +"And is this all?" said William. "It sounds very simple." + +"Not quite all, but the rest is nearly as simple. You have but to +observe four rules. First, to tell no living soul of your resolve +during the month of initiation. Second, to keep your vigil always +between the two great beeches in the middle of the Ring. Third, to +issue forth at midnight and immerse your head in the Dewpond which lies +on the hilltop to the west, and having done so to return to your watch +between the trees. And fourth, to make no utterance on any account +whatever from sunset to sunrise." + +"Suppose I should sneeze?" inquired the King anxiously. + +"There's no supposing about it," said the Ringdove. "Sneezing, seeing +that your head will be extremely wet, is practically inevitable. But +the rule applies only to such utterance as lies within human control. +When the fourth vigil has been successfully accomplished, return to us +for a blessing and the gray robe of our Order." + +"But how," asked the King, "during my vigils shall I know when midnight +is due?" + +"In the third quarter after eleven a bird sings. At the beginning of +its song go forth from the Ring, and at the ending plunge your head +into the Pond. For on these nights the bird sings ceaselessly for +fifteen minutes, but stops at the very moment of midnight." + +"And is this really all?" + +"This is all." + +"How easy it is to become good," said William cheerfully. "I will begin +at once." + +So impatient was he to become a Brother Dove-- + + +(But here Martin Pippin broke off abruptly, and catching the rope of +the swing in his left hand he gave it a great lurch. + +Joan: Oh! Oh! Oh! + +Martin: I perceive, Mistress Joan, that you lose interest in my story. +Your mouth droops. + +Joan: Oh, no! Oh, no! It is only--it is a very nice story--but-- + +Martin: What cannot be said aloud can frequently be whispered. + +He leaned his ear close to her mouth, and very shyly she whispered into +it. + +Joan (whispering very shyly): Why must the young King join a +Brotherhood? I thought...this was to be a...love story. + +Martin smiled and chose an apple from her lap. + +"Keep this for me," said he, "until I ask for it; and if you are not +then satisfied, neither will I be") + + +So impatient (resumed Martin) was the King to enter the Brotherhood, +that he abandoned his idea of visiting the Huddle Stone and the Wapping +Thorp (which would have taken him out of his course), and, without even +waiting to break his fast, leaped on to Pepper's back and turned her +head southwest towards the hills. And in his eagerness he failed to +remark how Pepper stumbled at every second step. Before he had gone a +mile he came to the Guess Gate. + +Of the Guess Gate, as you may know, all men ask a question in passing +through, and in the back-swing of the Gate it creaks an answer. So +nothing more natural than that the King, having flung the Gate open, +should cry aloud once more: + +"Gate, Gate! What should a King do in a Barn?" + +"Now at last," thought he, "I shall be told whether to dance or to pray +in it." And he stood listening eagerly as the Gate hung an instant on +its outward journey and then began to creak home. + +"He--should--rule--in--it--he--should--rule--in--it--he--should--" +squeaked the Guess Gate, and then latch clicked and it was silent. + +This disconcerted William. + +"Now I am worse off than ever," he sighed. "Pray, Pepper, can this +advice be bettered?" + +As usual when he questioned her, the nag pricked up her ears and +whinnied so violently that he nearly fell off her back. Nevertheless, +he kept Pepper's head in a beeline for Chanctonbury, never noticing how +very ill she was going, and presently crossed the great High Road +beyond which lay the Bush Hovel. The Wise Woman was at home; from afar +the King saw her sitting outside the Hovel mending her broom with a +withe from the Bush. + +"Here if anywhere," rejoiced William, "I shall learn the truth." + +He dismounted and approached the old woman, cap in hand. + +"Wise Woman," he said respectfully, "you know most things, but do you +know this--whether a King should dance or pray or rule in his Barn?" + +"He should do all three, young man," said the Wise Woman. + +"But--!" exclaimed William. + +"I'm busy," snapped the Wise Woman. "You men will always be chattering, +as though pots need never be stewed nor cobwebs swept." So saying, she +went into the Hovel and slammed the door. + +"Pepper," said the poor King, "I am at my wits' ends. Go where yours +lead you." + +At this Pepper whinnied in a perfect frenzy of delight, and the King +had to clasp both arms round her neck to avoid tumbling off. + +Now the little nag preferred roads to beelines over copses and ditches, +and she turned back and ambled along the highway so very lamely that it +became impossible even for her preoccupied rider not to perceive that +she had cast all her four shoes. + +"Poor beast!" he cried dismayed, "how has this happened, and where? Oh, +Pepper, how could you be so careless? I have not a penny in my purse to +buy you new shoes, my poor Pepper. Do you not remember where you lost +them?" + +The little nag licked her master's hand (for he had dismounted to +examine her trouble), and looked at him with great eyes full of +affection, and then she flung up her head and whinnied louder than +ever. The sound of it was like nothing so much as laughter. Then she +went on, hobbling as best she could, and the King walked by her side +with his hand on her neck. In this way they came to a small village, +and here the nag turned up a by-road and halted outside the +blacksmith's forge. The smith's Lad stood within, clinking at the +anvil, the smuttiest Lad smith ever had. + +"Lad!" cried the King. + +The Lad looked up from his work and came at once to the door, wiping +his hands upon his leather apron. + +"Where am I?" asked the King. + +"In the village of Washington," said the Lad. + +"What! Under the Ring?" cried the King. + +"Yes, sir," said the Lad. + +"A blessing on you!" said the King joyfully, and clapped his hand on +the Lad's shoulder. "Pepper, you have solved the problem and led me to +my destiny." + +"Is Pepper your nag's name?" asked the blacksmith's Lad. + +"It is," said the King; "her only one." + +"Then she has one more name than she has shoes," said the Lad. "How +came she to lose them?" + +"I didn't notice," confessed the King. + +"You must have been thinking very deeply," remarked the Lad. "Are you +in love?" + +"I am not quite twenty-one," said the King. + +"I see. Do you want your nag shod?" + +"I do. But I have spent my last penny." + +"Earn another then," said the Lad. + +"I did not even earn the last one," said the King shamefacedly. "I have +never worked in my life." + +"Why, where have you lived?" exclaimed the Lad. + +"In a Barn." + +"But one works in a Barn--" + +"Stop!" cried the king, putting his fingers in his ears. "One prays in +a Barn." + +"Very likely," said the Lad, looking at him curiously. "Are you going +to pray in one?" + +"Yes," said the King. "When is the New Moon?" + +"Next Saturday." + +"Hurrah!" cried the King. "That settles it. But what's to-day?" + +"Monday, sir." + +"Alas!" sighed William, wondering how he should make shift to live for +five days. + +"I don't know what you mean, sir," said the Lad. + +"I would tell you my meaning," said the King, "but am pledged not to." + +Then the Lad said, "Let it pass. I have a proposal to make. My father +is dead, and for two years I have worked the forge single-handed. Now I +am willing to teach you to shoe your nag with four good shoes and +strong, if you will meanwhile blow the bellows for whatever other jobs +come to the forge; and if the shoes are not done by dinner-time you +shall have a meal thrown in." + +The King looked at the Lad kindly. + +"I shall blow your bellows very badly," he said, "and shoe my nag still +worse." + +Said the Lad, "You'll learn in time." + +"Not before dinner-time, I hope," said the King, "for I am very hungry." + +"You look hungry," said the Lad. "It's a bargain then." + +The King held out his hand, but the Lad suddenly whipped his behind his +back. "It's so dirty, sir," he said. + +"Give it me all the same," said the King; and they clasped hands. + +The rest of that morning the King spent in blowing the bellows, and by +dinner-time not so much as the first of Pepper's hoofs was shod. For a +great deal of business came into the forge, and there was no time for a +lesson. So the King and the Lad took their meal together, and the King +was by this time nearly as black as his master. He would have washed +himself, but the Lad said it was no matter, he himself having no time +to wash from week's end to week's end. In the afternoon they changed +places, and the King stood at the anvil and the Lad at the bellows. He +was a good teacher, but the King made a poor job of it. By nightfall he +had produced shoes resembling all the letters of the alphabet excepting +U, and when at last he submitted to the Lad a shoe like nothing so much +as a drunken S, his master shrugged and said: + +"Zeal is praiseworthy within its limits, but the best of smiths does +not attempt to make two shoes at once. Let us sup." + +They supped; and afterwards the Lad showed the King a small bedroom as +neat as a new pin. + +"I shall sully the sheets," said William, "and you will excuse me if I +fetch the kettle, which is on the boil." + +"As you please," said the Lad, and took himself off. + +In the morning the King came clean to breakfast, but the Lad was as +black as he had been. + +Tuesday passed as Monday had passed; now William took the bellows, +marveling at his youthful master's deftness, and now the Lad blew, +groaning at his pupil's clumsiness. By nightfall, however, he had +achieved a shoe faintly recognizable as such. For a second time the +King washed himself and slept again in the little trim chamber, but the +Lad in the morning resembled midnight. In this way the week went by, +the King's heart beating a little faster each morning as Saturday +approached, and he wondered by what ruse he could explain his absence +without creating suspicion or breaking his pledge. + +On Saturday morning the Lad said to the King: "This is a half-day. You +must make your shoe this morning or not at all. It is my custom at one +o'clock to close the forge and go to visit my Great-Aunt. I will be +work again on Monday, till when you must shift for yourself." + +The King could hardly believe his luck in having matters so well +settled, and he spent the morning so diligently that by noon he had +produced a shoe which, if not that of a master-craftsman, was at least +adaptable to the purpose for which it had been fashioned. + +The Lad examined it and said reluctantly, "It will do," and proceeded +to show the King how to fasten it to Pepper's hoof. + +"Why," said the King, having the nag's off forefoot in his hand, +"here's a stone in it. Small wonder she limped." + +"It isn't a stone," said the Lad, extracting it, "it is a ruby." + +And he exhibited to the King a ruby of such a glowing red that it was +as though the souls of all the grapes of Burgundy had been pressed to +create it. + +"You are a rich man now," said the Lad quietly, "and can live as you +will." + +But William closed the Lad's fingers over the stone. "Keep it," he +said, "for you have filled me for a week, and I have paid you with +nothing but my breath." + +"As you please," said the Lad carelessly, and, tossing the stone upon a +shelf, locked up the forge. "Now I am going to my Great-Aunt. There's a +cake in the larder." + +So saying, he strolled away, and the King was left to his own devices. +These consisted in bathing himself from head to foot till his body was +as pure without as he desired his heart to be within; and in donning +his fresh suit of linen. He would not break his fast, but waited, +trembling and eager, till an hour before sundown, and then at last he +set forth to mount the great hill with the sacred crown of trees upon +its crest. + +When at last he stood upon the boundary of the Ring, his heart sprang +for joy in his breast, and his breath nearly failed him with amazement +at the beauty of the world which lay outspread for leagues below him. + +"Oh, lovely earth!" he cried aloud, "never till now have I known what +beauty I lived in. How is it that we cannot see the wonder of our +surroundings until we gaze upon them from afar? But if you look so fair +from the hilltops, what must you appear from the very sky?" And lost in +delight he turned his eyes upward, and was recalled to his senses by +the sight of the sinking sun. "Lovely one, how nearly you have betrayed +me!" he said, and smiling waved his hand to the dear earth, sealed up +his lips, and entered the Ring. + +And here between two midmost beeches he knelt down and buried his face +in his hands, and prayed the spirits of that place to make him worthy. + +The hours passed, quarter by quarter, and the King stayed motionless +like one in a dream. Presently, however, the dream was faintly shaken +by a little lirrup of sound, as light as rain dropping from leaves +above a pool. Again and again the sweet round notes fell on the +meditations of the King, and he remembered with entrancement that this +was the tender signal by which he was summoned to the Pond. So, rising +silently, he wandered through the trees, and keeping his eyes fixed on +the soft dim turf, lest some new beauty should tempt him to speech, he +went across the open hill the Pond. Here he knelt down again, listening +to the childlike bird, until at last the young piping ceased with a +joyous chuckle. And at that instant, reflected in the Pond, he saw the +silver star that watches the invisible young moon, and dipped his head. + +Oh, my dear maids! When he lifted it again, all wet and bewildered, he +saw upon the opposite border of the Pond, a figure, the white figure +of--a woman! a girl! a child! He could not tell, for she lay three +parts in the shadowy water with her back towards him, and his gaze and +senses swam; but in that faint starlight one bare and lovely arm, as +white as the crescent moon, was clear to him, upcurved to her shadowy +hair. So she reclined, and so he knelt, both motionless, and his heart +trembled (even as it had trembled at the bird's song) with a wish to go +near to her, or at least to whisper to her across the water. Indeed, he +was on the point of doing so, when a sudden contraction seized him, his +eyes closed in a delicious agony, and he sneezed once vigorously; and +in that moment of shattering blackness he recalled his vow, and rising +turned his back upon the vision and groped his way again to the shelter +of the trees. + +Here he remained till dawn in meditation, but as to the nature of his +meditations I am, dear maidens, ignorant. Nor do I know in what +restless wise he passed his Sunday. + +It is enough to know that on Monday when he went into the forge he +found the Lad already at work, and if he had been pitch-black at their +parting he was no less so at their meeting. He appeared to be out of +humor, and for some time regarded his apprentice with dissatisfaction, +but only remarked at last: + +"You look fatigued." + +"My sleep was broken with dreams," said the King. "I am sorry if I am +late. Let me to my shoeing. Since Saturday ended in success, I suppose +I shall now finish the business without more ado." + +He was, however, too hopeful as it appeared, for though he managed to +fashion a shoe which was in his eyes the equal of the other, the Lad +was captious and would not commend it. + +"I should be an ill craftmaster," said he, "if I let you rest content +on what you have already done. I made such a shoe as this on my +thirteenth birthday, and my father's only praise was, You must do +better yet.'" + +So particular was the young smith that William spent the whole of +another week in endeavoring to please him. This might have chafed the +King, but that it agreed entirely with his desires to remain in that +place, sleeping and eating at no cost to himself, and working so +strenuously that his hands grew almost as hard as the metal he worked +in; for the Lad now began to entrust him with small jobs of various +sorts, although in the matter of the second shoe he refused to be +satisfied. + +When Saturday came, however, the King contrived a shoe so much superior +to any he had yet made that the Lad, examining it, was compelled to +say, "It is better than the other." Then Pepper, who always stood in a +noose beside the door awaiting her moment, lifted up her near forefoot +of her own accord, and the King took it in his hand. + +"How odd!" he exclaimed a moment later. "The nag has a stone in this +foot also. It is not strange that she went so ill." + +"It is not a stone," said the Lad. "It is a pearl." + +And he held out to the King a pearl of such a shining purity that it +was as though it had been rounded within the spirit of a saint. + +"This makes you a rich man," said the Lad moodily, "and you can journey +whither you please." + +But the King shook his head. "Keep it," he said, "for you have lodged +me for a week, and I have given you only the clumsy service of my +hands." + +"Very well," said the Lad simply, and put the pearl in his pocket. "My +Great-Aunt is expecting me. There's a cake in the larder." + +So saying he walked off, and the King was left alone. As before, he +bathed himself and changed his linen, and left the contents of the +larder untouched; and an hour before sunset he climbed the hill for the +second time, and presently stood panting on the edge of the Ring. And +again a pang of wonder that was akin to pain shot through his heart at +the loveliness of the world below him. + +"Beautiful earth!" he cried once more, "how fair and dear you are +become to me in your remoteness. But oh, if you appear so beautiful +from this summit, what must you appear from the summit of the clouds?" +And he glanced from the earth to the sky, and saw the sun running down +his airy hill. "Dear Temptress!" he said, "how cunningly you would +snare me from my purpose." And he kissed his hand to her thrice, sealed +up his lips, and entered the Ring. + +Between the two tall beeches he knelt down, and drowned the following +hours in thought and prayer; till that deep lake of meditation was +divided by the sound of singing, as though a shoal of silver fishes +swam and leaped upon its surface, putting all quietness to flight, and +troubling its waters with a million lovelinesses. For now it was as +though the bird's enchanting song came partly from within and partly +from without, and if the fall of its music shattered his dream like +falling fish, certain it seemed to him that the fish had first leaped +from his own heart, out of whose unsuspected caves darted a shoal of +nameless longings. He too leaped up and darted through the trees, and +with head bent down, for fear of he knew not what, made his way to the +Pond. Here he knelt again, drinking in the tremulous song of the bird, +as tremulous as youth and maidenhood, until at last it ceased with a +sweet uncompleted cry of longing. And at that instant, in the mirror of +the Pond, he saw the uncompleted disc of the half-moon, and dipped his +head. + +Ah wonder! when he lifted it again, dazzled and dripping, he saw across +the Pond a figure rising from the water, the figure, as he could now +perceive in the fuller light, of a girl, clear to the waist. Her face +was half turned from him, and her hair flowed half to him and half +away, but within that cloudy setting gleamed the lines of her lovely +neck and one white shoulder and one moonlit breast, whose undercurve +appeared to float upon the Pond like the petal of a waterlily. So he +knelt on his side and she on hers, both motionless, and he heart leaped +(even as it had leaped at the bird's song) with a longing to kneel +beside and even touch that loveliness; or, if he could not, at least to +call to her across the Pond so that he would turn and reveal to him +what still was hidden. He was in fact about to do so, when suddenly his +senses were overwhelmed with a sweet anguish, darkness fell on him, and +from its very core he sneezed twice, violently. This interruption of +the previous spell was sufficient to bring him to a realization of his +peril, and rising hastily he ran back to the Ring, where he remained +till morning. But to what pious thoughts he then committed himself I +cannot tell you; neither in what feverish fashion he got through Sunday. + +On Monday morning when he arrived at the forge he found the Lad at work +before him, and ebony was not blacker than his face. He glanced at the +King with some show of temper, but only said: + +"You look worn out." + +"I have had bad dreams," said the King. "Excuse me for being behind my +time. I will try to make up for it by wasting no more, and fashioning +instantly two shoes as good as that I made on Saturday." + +But though he handled his tools with more dexterity than he had yet +exhibited, the Lad petulantly pushed aside the first shoe he made, +which to the King appeared to be, if anything, superior to the one he +had made on Saturday. The Lad, however, quickly explained himself, +saying: + +"A master-smith who intends to make his apprentice his equal will not +let him rest at the halfway house. I made a shoe like this when I was +fourteen, and all my father said was, I have hopes of you.'" + +So for yet another week the King's nose was kept to the grindstone, and +it would have irritated most men to find their good work repeatedly +condemned; but William was, as you may have observed, singularly +sweet-tempered, besides which he desired nothing so much as to remain +where he was. And for another five days he slept and ate and worked, +until the muscles of his arms began to swell, and he swung the hammer +with as much ease as his master, who now left a great part of the work +entirely in his hands. Although in this matter of the third shoe he +refused to be satisfied. + +Nevertheless on Saturday morning the King, making a last effort before +the forge was shut, submitted a shoe so far beyond anything he had yet +achieved, that the Lad could not but say, "This is a good shoe." And +Pepper, seeing them coming, lifted her off hind-foot to be shod. + +"Now as I live!" cried the King. "Another stone! And how she contrived +to hobble so far is a miracle." + +"It isn't a stone," said the Lad, "it is a diamond." + +And he presented to the King a diamond of such triumphant brilliance +that it might have been conceived of the ambitions of the mightiest +monarch of the earth. + +"You now own surpassing wealth," said the Lad dejectedly, "and you have +no more need to work." + +But William would not even touch the stone. "Keep it," he said, "for +you have befriended me for a week, and I have given you only the +strength of my arms." + +"Let it be so," said the Lad gently, and put the diamond in his belt. +"I must not keep my Great-Aunt waiting. There's a cake in the larder." + +So saying he went his way, and the King went his; which, as you may +surmise, was to the bath and his clean clothes. He did not go into the +larder, and an hour before sunset made the ascent of the hill, and for +the third time stood like a conqueror upon the crest. And as he gazed +over the lands below his heart throbbed with a passion for the earth +that was half agony and half love, unless indeed it was the whole agony +of love. + +"Most beautiful earth!" he cried aloud, "only as you recede from me do +I realize how necessary it is for me to possess you. How is it that +when I possess you I know you not as I know you now? But oh! if you are +so wonderful from these great hills, what must you be from the greater +hills of air?" And he looked up, and saw the sun descending in the +west. "Sweet earth," he sighed, "you would hold me when I should be +gone, and never remind me that the moment to depart is due." And he +stretched out his arms to her, sealed up his lips, and went into the +Ring. + +Once more he knelt between the giant beeches, and sank all thoughts in +pious contemplation; till suddenly those still waters were convulsed as +though with stormy currents, and a wild song beat through his breast, +so that he could not believe it was the bird singing from a short +distance: it was as though the storm of music broke from his singing +heart--yes, from his own heart singing for some unexpressed +fulfillment. He was barely conscious of going through the trees, with +eyes shut tight against the outer world, but soon he was kneeling at +the brink of the Pond, while the surge of joy and pain in the song +broke on his spirit like waves upon a shore, or love upon a man and a +woman--washed back, towered up, and broke on him again. At last on one +full glorious phrase it ceased. And at that instant, deep in the Pond, +he saw the full orb of the moon, and dipped his head. + +Oh, when he lifted it, startled and illuminated, he saw on the further +side of the Pond a woman standing. The moonlight bathed her form from +head to foot, her hair was thrown behind her, and she stood facing him, +so that in the cold clear light he could see her fully revealed: her +strong tender face, her strong soft body, her strong slim legs, her +strong and lovely arms. As white as mayblossom she was, and beauty went +forth from her like fragrance from the shaken bough. So he knelt on his +side and she stood on hers, both motionless, but gazing into each +other's eyes, and his heart broke (even as it had broken at the bird's +song) with a passion to take her in his arms, for it seemed to him that +this alone would mend its breaking. Or if he might not do this, at +least to send his need of her in a great cry across the Pond. And as +his passion grew she slowly lifted her arms and opened them to him as +though to bid him enter; and her lips parted, and she cried out, as +though she were uttering the cry of his own soul: + +"Beloved!" + +All the joy and the pain, fulfilled, of the bird's song were gathered +in that word. + +Glorified he leaped up, his whole being answering the cry of hers, but +before his lips could translate it he was gripped by a mighty agony, +and sneeze after sneeze shook all his senses, so that he was utterly +helpless. When he was able to look up again he saw the woman moving +towards him round the Pond, and suddenly he clapped his hands over his +eyes and fled towards the Ring, as though pursued by demons. Here he +passed the remainder of the night, but in what sort of prayers I leave +you to imagine; as also amid what ravings he passed his Sunday. + +On Monday the Lad was again before him at the forge, and a crow's wing +had looked milky beside his face. He did not raise his eyes as the King +came in, but said: + +"You look very ill." He said it furiously. + +"I have had nightmares," said the King. "Pardon me if you can. I will +get to work and make my final shoe." + +But though he now had little more to learn in his craft, the Lad, when +the shoe was made, picked it up in his pincers and flung it to the +other end of the forge; yet the King now knew enough to know that few +smiths could have made its equal. So he looked surprised; at which the +Lad, controlling himself, said: + +"When I pass your fourth shoe you will need no more masters--I forged a +shoe like that one yonder when I was fifteen, and my father said of it, +You will make a smith one day.'" + +And on neither Tuesday nor Wednesday nor Thursday nor Friday could the +King succeed in pleasing the Lad; the better his shoes the angrier grew +his young master that they were not good enough. Yet between these +gusts of temper he was gentle and remorseful, and once the King saw +tears in his eyes, and another time the Lad came humbly to ask for +pardon. Then William laughed and put out his hand, but, as once before, +the Lad slipped his behind his back and said: + +"It is so dirty, friend." + +And this time he would not let William take it. So the King was forced +instead to lay his arm about the Lad's shoulder, and press it tenderly; +but the Lad made no response, and only stood hanging his head until the +King removed his arm. All the same, when next the King made a shoe he +was full of rage, and stamped on it, and ran out of the forge. Which +surprised the King all the more because it was so excellent a shoe. Yet +he was secretly glad of its rejection, for he felt it would break his +heart to go away from that place; and he could think of no good cause +for remaining, once Pepper was shod. So there he stayed, eating, +sleeping, and working, while the thews of his back became as strong +under the smooth skin as the thews of a beech-tree under the smooth +bark; and his craft was such that the Lad at last left the whole of the +work of the forge in his charge. For there was nothing he could not do +surpassingly well. And this the Lad admitted, save only in the case of +the fourth shoe. + +But on Saturday, just before closing-time, the King set to and made a +shoe so fine that when the Lad saw it he said quietly, "I could not +make a better." Had he not said so he must have lied, or proved that he +did know a masterpiece when he saw it. And he too good a craftsman for +that, besides being honest. + +Pepper instantly lifted up her near hind-foot. + +"Upon my word!" exclaimed the King, "the world is full of stones, and +Pepper has found them all. The wonder is that she did not fall down on +the road." + +"This is not a stone," said the Lad, "it is an opal." + +And he displayed an opal of such marvelous changeability, such milk and +fire shot with such shifting rainbows, that it was as though it had had +birth of all the moods of all the women of all time. + +"This enriches you for life," said the Lad gloomily, "and now you are +free of masters for ever." + +But William thrust his hands into his pockets. "Keep it," he said, "for +this week you have given me love, and I have given you nothing but the +sinews of my body." + +The Lad looked at him and said, "I have given you hard words, and fits +of temper, and much injustice." + +"Have you?" said William. "I remember only your tenderness and your +tears. So keep the opal in love's name." + +The Lad tried to answer, but could not; and he slipped the opal under +his shirt. Then he faltered, "My Great-Aunt--" and still he could not +speak. But he made a third effort, and said, "There is a cake in the +larder," and turned on his heel and went away quickly. And the King +looked after him till he was out of sight, and then very slowly went to +his bath and his fresh linen. But he left the cake where it was. + +And he sat by the door of the forge with his face in his hands until +the length of his shadow warned him that he must go. And he rose and +went for the last time up the hill, but with a sinking heart; and when +he stood on the top and gazed upon the beauty of the earth he had left +below, in his breast was the ache of loss and longing for one he had +loved, and with his eyes he tried to draw that beauty into himself, but +the void in him remained unfulfilled. Yet never had her beauty been so +great. + +"Beloved and lovely earth!" he whispered, "why do you appear most fair +and most desirable now that I am about to lose you? Why when I had you +did you not hold me by force, and tell me what you were? Only now I +discover you from mid-heaven--but oh! in what way should I discover you +from heaven itself?" And he looked upward, and lo! a blurred sun shone +upon him, swimming to its rest. "Farewell, dear earth!" said the King. +"Since you cannot mount to me, and I may not descend to you." And he +knelt upon the turf and laid his cheek and forehead to it, and then he +rose, sealed up his lips, and passed into the Ring. + +Between the two tall beeches he sank down, and all sense and thought +and consciousness sank with him, as though his being had become a dead +forgotten lake, hidden in a lifeless wood; where birds sang not, nor +rain fell, nor fishes played, nor currents moved below the stagnant +waters. But presently a wind seemed to wail among the trees, and the +sound of it traveled over the King's senses, stirred them, and passed. +But only to return again, moan over him, and trail away; and so it kept +coming and going till first he heard, then listened to, and at last +realized the haunting signal of the bird. And he went forth into the +open night, his eyes wide apart but seeing nothing until he stumbled at +the Pond and crouched beside it. The bird grew fainter and fainter, and +presently the sound, like a ghost at dawn, ceased to exist; and at that +instant, under the Pond, he beheld the lessening circle of the moon, +and dipped his head. + +Alas! when he lifted it, shivering and stunned, he saw the form he +longed to see on the other side of the Pond; but not, as he had longed +to see it, gazing at him with the love and glory of seven nights ago. +Now she stood on the turf, half turned from him, and the wave of her +hair blew to and fro like a cloud, now revealing her white side, now +concealing it. And he looked, but she would not look. So he knelt on +his side and she remained on hers, both motionless. And suddenly the +impulse to sneeze arose within him, and at that instant she began to +move--not towards him, as before, but away from him, downhill. + +At that he could bear no more, and quelling the impulse with a mighty +effort, he got upon his feet crying, "Beloved, stay! Beloved, stay, +beloved!" + +And he staggered round the Pound as quickly as his shaking knees would +let him; but quicker still she slid away, and when he came where she +had been the place was as empty as the sky in its moonless season. He +called and ran about and called again; but he got no answer, nor found +what he sought. All that night he spent in calling and running to and +fro. What he did on Sunday you may know, and I may know, but he did +not. On Sunday night he stayed beside the Pond, but whatever his hopes +were they received no fulfillment. On Monday night he was there again, +and on Tuesday, and on Wednesday; and between the mornings and the +nights he went from hill to hill, seeking her hiding-place who came to +bathe in the lake. There was not a hill within a day's march that did +not know him, from Duncton to Mount Harry. But on none of them he found +the Woman. How he lived is a puzzle. Perhaps upon wild raspberries. + +After the sun had set on Chanctonbury on Saturday night, he came +exhausted to the Ring again, and stood on that high hill gazing +earthward. But there was no light above or below, and he said: + +"I have lost all. For the earth is swallowed in blackness, and the +Woman has disappeared into space, and I myself have cast away my +spiritual initiation. I will sit by the Pond till midnight, and if the +bird sings then I will still hope, but if it does not I will dip my +head in the water and not lift it again." + +So he went and lay down by the Pond in the darkness, and the hours wore +away. But as the time of the bird's song drew near he clasped his hands +and prayed. But the bird did not sing; and when he judged that midnight +was come, he got upon his knees and prepared to put his head under the +water. And as he did so he saw, on the opposite side of the Pond, the +feeble light of a lantern. He could not see who held it, because even +as he looked the bearer blew out the light; but in that moment it +appeared to him that she was as black as the night itself. + +So for awhile he knelt upon his side, and she remained on hers, both +trembling; but at last the King, dreading to startle her away, rose +softly and went round the Pond to where he had seen her. + +He said into the night in a shaking voice, "I cannot see you. If you +are there, give me your hand." + +And out of the night a shaking voice replied: + +"It is so dirty, beloved." + +Then he took her in his arms, and felt how she trembled, and he held +her closely to him to still her, whispering: + +"You are my Lad." + +"Yes," she said in a low voice. "But wait." + +And she slipped out of his embrace, and he heard her enter the Pond, +and she stayed there as it seemed to him a lifetime; but presently she +rose up, and even in that black night the whiteness of her body was +visible to him, and she came to him as she was and laid her head on his +breast and said: + +"I am your Woman." + + +("I want my apple," said Martin Pippin. + +"But is this the end?" cried little Joan. + +"Why not?" said Martin. "The lovers are united." + +Joscelyn: Nonsense! Of course it is not the end! You must tell us a +thousand other things. Why was the Woman a woman on Saturday night and +a lad all the rest of the week? + +Joyce: What of the four jewels? + +Jennifer: Which of the answers to the King's riddle was the right one? + +Jessica: What happened to the cake? + +Jane: What was her name? + +"Please," said little Joan, "do not let this be the end, but tell us +what they did next." + +"Women will be women," observed Martin, "and to the end of time prefer +unessentials to the essential. But I will endeavor to satisfy you on +the points you name.") + + +In the morning William said to his beloved: + +"Now tell me something of yourself. How come you to be so masterful a +smith? Why do you live as a black Lad all the week and turn only into a +white Woman on Saturdays? Have you really got a Great-Aunt, and where +does she live? How old are you? Why were you so hard to please about +the shoeing of Pepper? And why, the better my shoes the worse your +temper? Why did you run away from me a week ago? Why did you never tell +me who you were? Why have you tormented me for a whole month? What is +your name?" + +"Trust a man to ask questions!" said his beloved, laughing and +blushing. "Is it not enough that I am your beloved?" + +"More than enough, yet not nearly enough," said the King, "for there is +nothing of yourself which you must not tell me in time, from the moment +when you first stole barley sugar behind your father's back, down to +that in which you first loved me." + +"Then I had best begin at once," she smiled, "or a lifetime will not be +long enough. I am eighteen years old and my name is Viola. I was born +in Falmer, and my father was the best smith in all Sussex, and because +he had no other child he made me his bellows-boy, and in time, as you +know, taught me his trade. But he was, as you also know, a stern +master, and it was not until, on my sixteenth birthday, I forged a shoe +the equal of your last, that he said I could not make a better.' And +so saying he died. Now I had no other relative in all the world except +my Great-Aunt, the Wise Woman of the Bush Hovel, and her I had never +seen; but I thought I could not do better in my extremity than go to +her for counsel. So, shouldering my father's tools, I journeyed west +until I came to her place, and found her trying to break in a new +birch-broom that was still too green and full of sap to be easily +mastered; and she was in a very bad temper. Good day, Great-Aunt,' I +said, I am your Great-Niece Viola.' I have no more use for great +nieces,' she snapped, than for little ones.' And she continued to +tussle with the broomstick and took no further notice of me. Then I +went into the Hovel, where a fire burned on the hearth, and I took out +my tools and fashioned a bit on the hob; and when it was ready I took +it to her and said, This will teach it its manners'; and she put the +bit on the broom, which became as docile as a lamb. Great-Niece,' said +she, it appears that I told you a lie this morning. What can I do for +you?' Tell me, if you please, how I am to live now that my father is +dead.' There is no need to tell you,' said she; you have your living +at your fingers' ends.' But women cannot be smiths,' said I. Then +become a lad,' said she, and ply your trade where none knows you; and +lest men should suspect you by your face, which fools though they be +they might easily do, let it be so sooted from week's end to week's end +that none can discover what you look like; and if any one remarks on +it, put it down to your trade.' + +But Great-Aunt,' I said, I could not bear to go dirty from week's +end to week's end.' If you will be so particular,' she said, take a +bath every Saturday night and spend your Sundays with me, as fair as +when you were a babe. And before you go to work again on Monday you +shall once more conceal your fairness past all men's penetration.' +But, dear Great-Aunt,' I pleaded, it may be that the day will come +when I might not wish--'" + +And here, dear maidens, Viola faltered. And William put his arm about +her a little tighter--because it was there already--and said, "What +might you not wish, beloved?" And she murmured, "To be concealed past +one man's penetration. And my Great-Aunt said I need not worry. Because +though men, she said, were fools, there was one time in every man's +life when he was quick enough to penetrate all obscurities, whether it +were a layer of soot or a night without a moon." And she hid her face +on the King's shoulder, and he tried to kiss her but could not make her +look up until he said, "Or even a woman's waywardness?" Then she looked +up of her own accord and kissed him. + +"In this way," she resumed, "it became my custom on each Saturday, +after closing the forge, to come here with my woman's raiment, and wait +in a hollow until night had fallen, and make myself clean of the week's +blackness. For I dared not do this by daylight, or be seen going forth +from my forge in my proper person." + +"But why did you choose to bathe at midnight?" asked the King. + +She was silent for a few moments, and then said hurriedly, "I did not +choose to bathe at midnight until a month ago.--For the rest," she +resumed, "I was hard to please in the matter of the shoes because I +knew that when they were finished you would ride away. And therefore +the more you improved the crosser I became. And if I have tormented you +for a month it was because you tormented me by refusing to speak when +you saw me here, in spite of your hateful vow; and you would not even +look at my cake in the larder." + +"Women are strange," said the King. "How do you know I did not look at +the cake?" + +"I do know," she said as hurriedly as before. "And if I would not tell +you who I was, it was because I could not bear, on the other hand, to +extort from you a love you seemed so reluctant to endure; until indeed +it became of its own accord too strong even for the purpose which +brought you every week to the Ring. For I knew that purpose, since all +dwellers in Washington know why men go up the hill with the new moon." + +"But when my love did become too strong for my vow, and opened my lips +at last," said the King, "why did you run away?" + +Viola said, "Had you not run away the week before? And now I have +answered all your questions." + +"No," said the King, "not all. You haven't told me yet when you first +loved me." + +Viola smiled and said, "I first stole barley sugar when my father said +This is for the other little girl over the way'; and I first loved you +when, seeing you had been too absent-minded to know that Pepper had +cast her shoes, I feared you were in love." + +"But that was three minutes after we met!" cried the King. + +"Was it as much as that!" said she. + +Now after awhile Viola said, "Let us get down to the world again. We +cannot stay here for ever." + +"Why not?" said the King. However, they walked to the brow of the hill, +and stood together gazing awhile over the sunlit earth that had never +been so beautiful to either of them; for their sight was newly-washed +with love, and all things were changed. + +"Now I know how she looks from heaven," said the King, "and that is +like heaven itself. Let us go; for I think she will still look so at +our coming, seeing that we carry heaven with us." + +So they went downhill to the forge, and there Viola said to her lover, +"I can stay no longer in this place where all men have known me as a +lad; and besides, a woman's home is where her husband lives." + +"But I live only in a Barn," said William the King. + +"Then I will live there with you," said Viola, "and from this very +night. But first I will shoe Pepper anew, for she is so unequally shod +that she might spill us on the road. And that she may be shod worthily +of herself and of us, give me what you have tied up in your blue +handkerchief." The King fetched his handkerchief and unknotted it, and +gave her his crown and scepter; and she set him at the bellows and made +three golden shoes and shod the nag on her two fore-feet and her off +hind-foot. But when she looked at the near hind-foot, which the King +had shod last of all, she said: "I could not make a better. And +therefore, like his father, the Lad must shut his smithy, for he is +dead." Then she put the three shoes she had removed into a bag with +some other trifles; and while she did so the King took what remained of +the gold and made it into two rings. This done, they got on to Pepper's +back, and with her three shoes of gold and one of iron she bore them +the way the King had come. When they passed the Bush Hovel they saw the +Wise Woman currying her broomstick, and Viola cried: + +"Great-Aunt, give us a blessing." + +"Great-Niece," said the Wise Woman, "how can I give you what you +already have? But I will give you this." And she held out a horseshoe. + +"Good gracious," said the King, "this was once Pepper's." + +"It was," said the Wise Woman. "In her merriment at hearing you ask a +silly question, she cast it outside my door." + +A little further on they came to the Guess Gate, but when the King, +dismounting, swung it open, it grated on something in the road. He +stooped and lifted--a horseshoe. + +"Wonder of wonders!" exclaimed the King. "This also was Pepper's. What +shall we do with it?" + +"Hang--it--up--hang--it--up--hang--" creaked the Gate; and clicked home. + +In due course they reached the Doves, and at the sound of Pepper's +hoofs the Brothers flocked out to meet them. + +"Is all well?" cried the Ringdove, seeing the King only. "And have you +returned to us for the final blessing?" + +"I have," replied the King, "for I bring my bride behind me, and now +you must make us one." + +The gentle Brothers, rejoicing at the sight of their happiness and +their beauty, led them in; and there they were wedded. The Doves +offered them to eat, but the King was impatient to reach his Barn by +nightfall; so they got again on Pepper's back, and as they were about +to leave the Ringdove said: + +"I have something of yours which is in itself a thing of no moment; +yet, because it is of good augury, take it with you." + +And he gave the King Pepper's third shoe. + +"Thank you," said the King, "I will hang it over my Barn door." + +Now he urged Pepper to her full speed, and they went at a gallop past +the Hawking Sopers, who, hearing the clatter, came running into the +road. + +"Stay, gallopers, stay!" they cried, "and make merry with us." + +"We cannot," called the King, "for we are newly married." + +"Good luck to you then!" shouted the Sopers, and with huzzas and +laughter flung something after them. Viola stretched out her hand and +caught it in mid-air, and it was a horseshoe. + +"The tale is complete," she laughed, "and now you know where Pepper +picked up her stones." + +Soon after the King said, "Here is my Barn." And he sprang down and +lifted his bride from the nag's back and brought her in. + +"It is a poor place," he said gently, "but it is all I have. What can I +do for you in such a home?" + +"I will tell you," said Viola, and putting her hand into her left +pocket, she drew out the ruby winking with the wine of mirth. "You can +dance in it." And suddenly they caught each other by the hands and went +capering and laughing round the Barn like children. + +"Hurrah!" cried William, "now I know what a King should do in a Barn!" + +"But he should do more than dance in it," said Viola; and putting her +hand into her right pocket she gave him the pearl, as pure as a prayer; +"beloved, he should pray in it too." + +And William looked at her and knelt, and she knelt by him, and in +silence they prayed the same prayer, side by side. + +Then William rose and said simply, "Now I know." + +But she knelt still, and took from her girdle the diamond, as bright as +power, and she put it in his hand, saying very low, "Oh, my dear King! +but he should also rule in it." And she kissed his hand. But the King +lifted her very quickly so that she stood equal with his heart, and +embracing her he said, with tears in his eyes: + +"And you, beloved! what will a Queen do in a Barn?" + +"The same as a King," she whispered, and drew from her bosom the opal, +as lovely and as variable as the human spirit. "With the other three +stones you may, if you will, buy back your father's kingdom. But this, +which contains all qualities in one, let us keep for ever, for our +children and theirs, that they may know there is nothing a King and a +Queen may not do in a Barn, or a man and a woman anywhere. But the best +thing they can do is to work in it." + +Then, going out, she came back with the bag which she had slung on +Pepper's back, and took from it her father's tools. + +"In three weeks you learned all I learned in three years," said she. +"When I shod Pepper this morning I did my last job as a smith; for now +I shall have other work to do. But you, whether you choose to get your +father's lands again or no, I pray to work in the trade I have given +you, for I have made you the very king of smiths, and all men should do +the thing they can do best. So take the hammer and nail up the +horseshoes over the door while I get supper; for you look as hungry as +I feel." + +"But there's nothing to eat," said the King ruefully. + +However, he went outside, and over the door he hung as many shoes as +there are nails in one--the four Pepper had cast on the road, and the +three he had first made for her. As he drove the last nail home Viola +called: + +"Supper is ready." + +And the King went into the Barn and saw a Wedding Cake. + +And now, if you please, Mistress Joan, I have earned my apple. + + + +FIRST INTERLUDE + +Now there was a great munching of apples in the tree, for to tell the +truth during the latter part of the story this business had been +suspended, and between bites the milkmaids discussed the merits of what +they had just heard. + +Jessica: What is your opinion of this tale, Jane? + +Jane: It surprised me more than anything. For who could have suspected +that the Lad was a Woman? + +Martin: Lads are to be suspected of any mischief, Mistress Jane. + +Joscelyn: It is not to be supposed, Master Pippin, that we are +acquainted with the habits of lads. + +Martin: I suppose nothing. But did the story please you? + +Joscelyn: As a story it was well enough to pass an hour. I would be +willing to learn whether the King regained his kingdom or no. + +Martin: I think he did, since you may go to this day to the little city +on the banks of the Adur which is re-named after his Barn. But I doubt +whether he lived there, or anywhere but in the Barn where he and his +beloved began their life of work and prayer and mirth and loving-rule. +And died as happily as they had lived. + +Joan: I am glad they lived happily. I was afraid the tale would end +unhappily. + +Joyce: And so was I. For when the King roamed the hills for a whole +week without success, I began to fear he would never find the Woman +again. + +Jennifer: I for my part feared lest he should not open his lips during +the fourth vigil, and so must become a Dove for the remainder of his +days. + +Jane: It was but by the grace of a moment he did not drown himself in +the Pond. + +Jessica: Or what if, by some unlucky chance, he had never come to the +forge at all? + +Martin: In any of these events, I grant you, the tale must have ended +in disaster. And this is the special wonder of love-tales: that though +they may end unhappily in a thousand ways, and happily in only one, yet +that one will vanquish the thousand as often as the desires of lovers +run in tandem. But there is one accident you have left out of count, +and it is the worst stumbling-block I know of in the path of happy +endings. + +All the Milkmaids: What is it? + +Martin: Suppose the lovely Viola had been a sworn virgin and a hater of +men. + + +There was silence in the Apple-Orchard. + + +Joscelyn: She would have been none the worse for that, singer. And the +tale would have been none the less a tale, which is all we look for +from you. This talk of happy endings is silly talk. The King might have +sought the Woman in vain, or kept his vow, or drowned himself, or +ridden to the confines of Kent, for aught I care. + +Joyce: Or I. + +Jennifer: Or I. + +Jessica: Or I. + +Jane: Or I. + +Martin: I am silenced. Tales are but tales, and not worth speculation. +And see, the moon is gone to sleep behind a cloud, which shows us +nothing save the rainbow of her dreams. It is time we did as she does. + + +Like shooting-stars in August the milkmaids slid from their leafy +heaven and dropped to the grass. And here they pillowed their heads on +their soft arms and soon were breathing the breath of sleep. But little +Joan sat on in the swing. + +Now all this while she had kept between her hands the promised apple, +turning and turning it like one in doubt; and presently Martin looked +aside at her with a smile, and held his open palm to receive his +reward. And first she glanced at him, and then at the sleepers, and +last she tossed the apple lightly in the air. But by some mishap she +tossed it too high, and it made an arc clean over the tree and fell in +a distant corner by the hedge. So she ran quickly to recover it for +him, and he ran likewise, and they stooped and rose together, she with +the apple in her hands, he with his hands on hers. At which she blushed +a little, but held fast to the fruit. + +"What!" said Martin Pippin, "am I never to have my apple?" + +She answered softly, "Only when I am satisfied, as you promised." + +"And are you not? What have I left undone?" + +Joan: Please, Master Pippin. What did the young King look like? + +Martin: Fool that I am to leave these vital things untold! I shall +avoid this error in future. He was more than middle tall, and broad in +the shoulders; and he had gray-blue eyes, and a fresh color, and a kind +and merry look, and dark brown hair that was not always as sleek as he +wished it to be. + +Joan: Oh! + +Martin: With this further oddity, that above the nape of his neck was a +whitish tuft which, though he took great pains to conceal it, +continually obtruded through the darker hair like the cottontail on the +back of a rabbit. + +Joan: Oh! Oh! + +And she became as red as a cherry. + +Martin: May I have my apple? + +Joan: But had not he a--mustache? + +Martin: He fondly believed so. + +Joan (with unexpected fire): It was a big and beautiful mustache! + +Martin (fervently): There was never a King of twenty years with one so +big and beautiful. + +She gave him the apple. + +Martin: Thank you. Will you, because I have answered many questions, +now answer one? + +Joan: Yes. + +Martin: Then tell me this--what is your quarrel with men? + +Joan: Oh, Master Pippin! they say that one and one make two. + +Martin: Is this possible? Good heavens, are men such numskulls! When +they have but to go to the littlest woman on earth to learn--what you +and I well know--that one and one make one, and sometimes three, or +four, or even half-a-dozen; but never two. Fie upon these men! + +Joan: I am glad you think I am in the right. But how obstinate they are! + +Martin: As obstinate as children, and should be birched as roundly. + +Joan: Oh! but-- You would not birch children. + +Martin: You are right again. They should be coaxed. + +Joan: Yes. No. I mean-- Good night, dear singer. + +Martin: Good night, dear milkmaid. Sleep sweetly among your comrades +who are wiser than we, being so indifferent to happy endings that they +would never unpadlock sorrow, though they had the key in their keeping. + + +Then he took her hands in one of his, and put his other hand very +gently under her chin, and lifted it till he could look into her face, +and he said: "Give me the key to Gillian's prison, little Joan, because +you love happy endings." + + +Joan: Dear Martin, I cannot give you the key. + +Martin: Why not? + +Joan: Because I stuck it inside your apple. + + +So he kissed her and they parted, and lay down and slept; she among her +comrades under the apple-tree, and he under the briony in the hedge; +and the moon came out of her dream and watched theirs. + + +With morning came a hoarse voice calling along the hedge: + +"Maids! maids! maids!" + +Up sprang the milkmaids, rubbing their eyes and stretching their arms; +and up sprang Martin likewise. And seeing him, Joscelyn was stricken +with dismay. + +"It is Old Gillman, our master," she whispered, "come with bread and +questions. Quick, singer, quick! into the hollow russet before he +reaches the hole in the hedge." + +Swiftly the milkmaids hustled Martin into the russet tree, and +concealed him at the very moment when the Farmer was come to the +peephole, filling it with his round red face and broad gray fringe of +whiskers, like the winter sun on a sky that is going to snow. + +"Good morrow, maids," quoth old Gillman. + +"Good morrow, master," said they. + +"Is my daughter come to her mind yet?" + +"No, master," said little Joan, "but I begin to have hopes that she +may." + +"If she do not," groaned Gillman, "I know not what will happen to the +farmstead. For it is six months now since I tasted water, and how can a +man follow his business who is fuddled day and night with Barley Wine? +Life is full of hardships, of which daughters are the greatest. +Gillian!" he cried, "when will ye come into your senses and out of the +Well-House?" + +But Gillian took no more heed of him than of the quacking of the drake +on the duckpond. + +"Well, here is your bread," said Gillman, and he thrust a basket with +seven loaves in it through the gap. "And may to-morrow bring better +tidings." + +"One moment, dear master," entreated little Joan. "Tell me, please, how +Nancy my Jersey fares." + +"Pines for you, pines for you, maid, though Charles does his best by +her. But it is as though she had taken a vow to let down no milk till +you come again. Rack and ruin, rack and ruin!" + +And the old man retreated as he had come, muttering "Rack and ruin!" +the length of the hedge. + +The maids then set about preparing breakfast, which was simplicity +itself, being bread and apples than which no breakfast could be +sweeter. There was a loaf for each maid and one over for Gillian, which +they set upon the wall of the Well-House, taking away yesterday's loaf +untouched and stale. + +"Does she never eat?" asked Martin. + +"She has scarcely broken bread in six months," said Joscelyn, "and what +she lives on besides her thoughts we do not know." + +"Thoughts are a fast or a feast according to their nature," said +Martin, "so let us feed the ducks, who have none." + +They broke the stale bread into fragments, and when the ducks had made +a meal, returned to their own; and of two loaves made seven parts, that +Martin might have his share, and to this they added apples according to +their fancies, red or russet, green or golden. + +After breakfast, at Martin's suggestion, they made little boats of +twigs and leaves and sailed them on the duckpond, where they met with +many adventures and calamities from driftweed, small breezes, and the +curiosity of the ducks. And before they were aware of it the dinner +hour was upon them, when they divided two more loaves as before and ate +apples at will. + +Then Martin, taking a handkerchief from his pocket, proposed a game of +Blindman's-Buff, and the girls, delighted, counter +Eener-Meener-Meiner-Mo to find the Blindman. And Joyce was He. So +Martin tied the handkerchief over her eyes. + +"Can you see?" asked Martin. + +"Of course I can't see!" said Joyce. + +"Promise?" said Martin. + +"I hope, Master Pippin," said Jane reprovingly, "that you can take a +girl's word for it." + +"I'm sure I hope I can," said Martin, and turned Joyce round three +times, and ran for his life. And Joyce caught Jane on the spot and +guessed her immediately. + +Then Jane was blindfolded, and she was so particular about not seeing +that it was quite ten minutes before she caught Jennifer, but she knew +who she was by the feel of her gown; and Jennifer caught Joscelyn, and +guessed her by her girdle; and Joscelyn caught Jessica and guessed her +by the darn in her sleeve; and Jessica caught Joan, and guessed her by +her ribbon; and Joan caught Martin, and guessed him by his difference. + +So then Martin was Blindman, and it seemed as though he would never +have eyes again; for though he caught all the girls, one after another, +he couldn't guess which was which, and gave Jane's nose to Jessica, and +Jessica's hands to Joscelyn, and Joscelyn's chin to Joyce, and Joyce's +hair to Jennifer, and Jennifer's eyebrows to Joan; but when he caught +Joan he guessed her at once by her littleness. + +In due course the change of light told them it was supper-time; and +with great surprise they ate the last two loaves to the sweet +accompaniment of the apples. + +"I would never have supposed," said Joscelyn, as they gathered under +the central tree at the close of the meal, "that a day could pass so +quickly." + +"Bait time with a diversion," said Martin, "and he will run like a +donkey after a dangled carrot." + +"It has nearly been the happiest day of my life," said Joyce with a sly +glance at Martin. + +"And why not quite?" said he. + +"Because it lacked a story, singer," she said demurely. + +"What can be rectified," said Martin, "must be; and the day is not yet +departed, but still lingers like a listener on the threshold of night. +So set the swing in motion, dear Mistress Joyce, and to its measure I +will endeavor to swing my thoughts, which have till now been laggards." + +With these words he set Joyce in the swing and himself upon the branch +beside it as before. And the other milkmaids climbed into their +perches, rustling the fruit down from the shaken boughs; and he made of +Joyce's lap a basket for the harvest. And he and each of the maids +chose an apple as though supper had not been. + +"We are listening," said Joscelyn from above. + +"Not all of you," said Martin. And he looked up at Joscelyn alert on +her branch, and down at Gillian prone on the steps. + +"You are here for no other purpose," said Joscelyn, "than to make them +listen that will not. I would not have you think we desire to listen." + +"I think nothing but that you are the prey of circumstances," said +Martin, "constrained like flowers to bear witness to that which is +against all nature." + +"What do you mean by that?" said Joscelyn. "Flowers are nature itself." + +"So men have agreed," replied Martin, "yet who but men have compelled +them repeatedly to assert such unnaturalnesses as that foxes wear +gloves and cuckoos shoes? Out on the pretty fibbers!" + +"Please do not be angry with the flowers," said Joan. + +"How could I be?" said Martin. "The flowers must always be forgiven, +because their inconsistencies lie always at men's doors. Besides, who +does not love fairy-tales?" + +Then Martin kicked his heels against the tree and sang idly: + + When cuckoos fly in shoes + And foxes run in gloves, + Then butterflies won't go in twos + And boys will leave their loves. + +"A silly song," said Joscelyn. + +Martin: If you say so. For my part I can never tell the difference +between silliness and sense. + +Jane: Then how can a good song be told from a bad? You must go by +something. + +Martin: I go by the sound. But since Mistress Joscelyn pronounces my +song silly, I can only suppose she has seen cuckoos flying in shoes. + +Joscelyn: You are always supposing nonsense. Who ever heard of cuckoos +flying in shoes? + +Jane: Or of foxes running in gloves? + +Joan: Or of butterflies going in ones? + +Martin: Or of boys-- + +Joscelyn: I have frequently seen butterflies going in ones, foolish +Joan. And the argument was not against butterflies, but cuckoos. + +Martin: And their shoes. Please, dear Mistress Joan, do not look so +downcast, nor you, dear Mistress Joscelyn, so vexed. Let us see if we +cannot turn a more sensible song upon this theme. + +And he sang-- + + Cuckoo Shoes aren't cuckoos' shoes, + They're shoes which cuckoos never don; + And cuckoo nests aren't cuckoos' nests, + But other birds' for a moment gone; + And nothing that the cuckoo has + But he does make a mock upon. + For even when the cuckoo sings + He only says what isn't true-- + When happy lovers first swore oaths + An artful cuckoo called and flew, + Yes! and when lovers weep like dew + The teasing cuckoo laughs Cuckoo! + What need for tears? Cuckoo, cuckoo! + +As Martin ended, Gillian raised herself upon an elbow, and looked no +more into the green grass, but across the green duckpond. + +"The second song seems to me as irrelevant as the first," said +Joscelyn, "but I observe that you cuckooed so loudly as to startle our +mistress out of her inattention. So if you mean to tell us another +story, by all means tell it now. Not that I care, except for our +extremity." + +"It is my only object to ease it," said Martin, "so bear with me as +well as you may during the recital of Young Gerard." + + + +YOUNG GERARD + +There was once, dear maidens, a shepherd who kept his master's sheep on +Amberley Mount. His name was Gerard, and he was always called Young +Gerard to distinguish him from the other shepherd who was known as Old +Gerard, yet was not, as you might suppose, his father. Their master was +the Lord of Combe Ivy that lay in the southern valleys of the hills +toward the sea; he owned the grazing on the whole circle of the Downs +between the two great roads--on Amberley and Perry and Wepham and +Blackpatch and Cockhill and Highdown and Barnsfarm and Sullington and +Chantry. But the two Gerards lived together in the great shed behind +the copse between Rackham Hill and Kithurst, and the way they came to +do so was this. + +One night in April when Old Gerard's gray beard was still brown, the +door of the shed was pushed open, letting in not only the winds of +Spring but a woman wrapped in a green cloak, with a lining of +cherry-color and a border of silver flowers and golden cherries. In one +hand she swung a crystal lantern set in a silver frame, but it had no +light in it; and in the other she held a small slip of a cherry-tree, +but it had no bloom on it. Her dress was white, or had been; for the +skirts of it, and her mantle, were draggled and sodden, and her green +shoes stained and torn, and her long fair hair lay limp and dank upon +her mantle whose hood had fallen away, and the shadows round her blue +eyes were as black as pools under hedgerows thawing after a frost, and +her lovely face was as white as the snowbanks they bed in. Behind her +came another woman in a duffle cloak, a crone with eyes as black as +sloes, and a skin as brown as beechnuts, and unkempt hair like the +fireless smoke of Old Man's Beard straying where it will on the +November woodsides. She too was wet and soiled, but full of life where +the young one seemed full of death. + +The Shepherd looked at this strange pair and said surlily, "What want +ye?" + +"Shelter," replied the crone. + +She pushed the lady, who never spoke, into the shed, and took from her +shoulders the wet mantle, and from her hands the lantern and the tree; +and led her to the Shepherd's bed and laid her down. Then she spread +the mantle over the Shepherd's bench and, + +"Lie there," said she, "till love warms ye." + +Next she hung the lantern up on a nail in the wall, and, + +"Swing there," said she, "till love lights ye." + +Last she took the Shepherd's trowel and went outside the shed, and set +the cherry-slip beside the door. And she said: + +"Grow there, till love blossoms ye." + +After this she came inside and sat down at the bedhead. + +Gerard the Shepherd, who had watched her proceedings without word or +gesture, said to himself, "They've come through the floods." + +He looked across at the women and raised his voice to ask, "Did ye come +through the floods?" + +The lady moaned a little, and the crone said, "Let her be and go to +sleep. What does it matter where we came from by night? By daybreak we +shall both of us be gone no matter whither." + +The Shepherd said no more, for though he was both curious and +ill-tempered he had not the courage to disturb the lady, knowing by the +richness of her attire that she was of the quality; and the iron of +serfdom was driven deep into his soul. So he went to sleep on his +stool, as he had been bidden. But in the middle of the night he was +awakened by a gusty wind and the banging of his door; and he started up +rubbing his knuckles in his eyes, saying, "I've been dreaming of +strange women, but was it a dream or no?" He peered about the shed, and +the crone had vanished utterly, but the lady still lay on his bed. And +when he went over to look at her, she was dead. But beside her lay a +newborn child that opened its eyes and wailed at him. + +Then the Shepherd ran to his open door and stared into the blowing +night, but there were no more signs of the crone without than there +were within. So he fastened the latch and came back to the bedside, and +examined the child.-- + + +(But at this point Martin Pippin interrupted himself, and seizing the +rope of the swing set it rocking violently. + +Joyce: I shall fall! I shall fall! + +Martin: Then you will be no worse off than I, who have fallen already. +For I see you do not like my story. + +Joyce: What makes you say so? + +Martin: Till now you listened with all your ears, but a moment ago you +turned away your head a moment too late to hide the disappointment in +your eyes. + +Joyce: It is true I am disappointed. Because the beautiful lady is +dead, and how can a love-story be, if half the lovers are dead? + +Martin: Dear Mistress Joyce, what has love to do with death? Love and +death are strangers and speak in different tongues. Women may die and +men may die, but lovers are ignorant of mortality. + +Joyce (pouting): That may be, singer. But lovers are also a man and a +woman, and the woman is dead, and the love-tale ended before we have +even heard it. You should not have let the woman die. What sort of +love-tale is this, now the woman is dead? + +Martin: Are not more nests than one built in a spring-time?--Give me, I +pray you, two hairs of your head. + +She plucked two and gave them to him, turning her pouting to laughing. +One of them Martin coiled and held before his lips, and blew on it. + +"There it flies," said he, and gave her back the second hair. "Hold +fast by this and keep it from its fellow with all your might, for to +part true mates baffles the forces of the universe. And when you give +me this second hair again I swear I will send it where it will find its +fellow. But I will never ask for it until, my story ended, you say to +me, I am content.'") + + +Examining the child (repeated Martin) the Shepherd discovered it to be +a lusty boy-child, and this rejoiced him, so that while the baby wept +he laughed aloud. + +"It is better to weep for something than for nothing," said he, "and to +laugh for something likewise. Tears are for serfs and laughter is for +freedmen." For he had conceived the plan of selling the child to his +master, the Lord of Combe Ivy, and buying his freedom with the purchase +money. So in the morning he carried the body of the lady into the heart +of the copse, and there he dug a grave and laid her in it in her white +gown. And afterwards he went up hill and down dale to his master, and +said he had a man for sale. The Lord of Combe Ivy, who was a jovial +lord and a bachelor, laughed at the tale he had to tell; but being +always of the humor for a jest he paid the Shepherd a gold piece for +the child, and promised him another each midnight on the anniversary of +its birth; but on the twenty-first anniversary, he said, the Shepherd +was to bring back the twenty-one gold pieces he had received, and +instead of adding another to them he would take them again, and make +the serf a freedman, and the child his serf. + +"For," said the Lord of Combe Ivy, "an infant is a poor deal for a man +in his prime, as you are, but a youth come to manhood is a good +exchange for a graybeard, as you will be. Therefore rear this babe as +you please, and if he live to manhood so much the better for you, but +if he die first it's all one to me." + +The Shepherd had hoped for a better bargain, but he must needs be +content with seeing liberty at a distance. So he returned to his shed +on the hills and made a leather purse to keep his gold-piece in, and +hung it round his neck, touching it fifty times a day under his shirt +to be sure it was still there. And presently he sought among his ewes +one who had borne her young, saying, "You shall mother two instead of +one." And the baby sucked the ewe like her very lamb, and thrived upon +the milk. And the shepherd called the child Gerard after himself, +"since," he said, "it is as good a name for a shepherd as another"; and +from that time they became the Young and Old Gerards to all who knew +them. + +So the Young Gerard grew up, and as he grew the cherry-tree grew +likewise, but in the strangest fashion; for though it flourished past +all expectation, it never put forth either leaf or blossom. This +bitterly vexed Old Gerard, who had hoped in time for fruit, and the +frustration of his hopes became to him a cause of grievance against the +boy. A further grudge was that by no manner of means could he succeed +in lighting any wick or candle in the silver lantern, of which he +desired to make use. + +"But if your tree and your lantern won't work," said he, "it's no +reason why you shouldn't." So he put Young Gerard to work, first as +sheepboy to his own flock, but later the boy had a flock of his own. +There was no love lost between these two, and kicks and curses were the +young one's fare; for he was often idle and often a truant, and none +was held responsible for him except the old shepherd who was selling +him piece-meal, year by year, to their master. Because of what depended +on him, Old Gerard was constrained to show him some sort of care when +he would liever have wrung his neck. The boy's fits exasperated the +man; whether he was cutting strange capers and laughing without reason, +as he frequently did, or sitting a whole evening in a morose dream, +staring at the fire or at the stars, and saying never a word. The boy's +coloring was as mingled as his moods, a blend of light and dark--black +hair, brown skin, blue eyes and golden lashes, a very odd anomaly. + + +(Martin: What is it, Mistress Joyce? + +Joyce: I said nothing, Master Pippin. + +Martin: I thought I heard you sigh. + +Joyce: I did not--you did not. + +Martin: My imagination exceeds all bounds.) + + +Because of their mutual dislike, when the boy was put in charge of his +own sheep the two shepherds spent their days apart. The Old Gerard +grazed his flock to the east as far as Chantry, but the Young Gerard +grazed his flock to the west as far as Amberley, whose lovely dome was +dearer to him than all the other hills of Sussex. And here he would sit +all day watching the cloud-shadows stalk over the face of the Downs, or +slipping along the land below him, with the sun running swiftly after, +like a carpet of light unrolling itself upon a dusky floor. And in the +evening he watched the smoke going up from the tiny cottages till it +was almost dark, and a hundred tiny lights were lit in a hundred tiny +windows. Sometimes on his rare holidays, and on other days too, he ran +away to the Wildbrooks to watch the herons, or to find in the +water-meadows the tallest kingcups in the whole world, and the myriad +treasures of the river--the giant comfrey, purple and white, +meadowsweet, St. John's Wort, purple loose-strife, willowherb, and the +ninety-nine-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-five others, or whatever +number else you please, that go to make a myriad. He came to know more +about the ways of the Wildbrooks than any other lad of those parts, and +one day he rediscovered the Lost Causeway that can be traveled even in +the floods, when the land lies under a lake at the foot of the hills. +He kept this, like many other things, a secret; but he had one more +precious still. + +For as he lay and watched the play of sun and shadow on the plains, he +fancied a world of strange places he had known, somewhere beyond the +veils of light and mist that hung between his vision and the distance, +and he fell into a frequent dream of tunes and laughter, and sunlit +boughs in blossom, and dancing under the boughs; or of fires burning in +the open night, and a wilder singing and dancing in the starlight; and +often when his body was lying on the round hill, or by the smoky +hearth, his thoughts were running with lithe boys as strong and +careless as he was, or playing with lovely free-limbed girls with +flowing hair. Sometimes these people were fair and bright-haired and in +light and lovely clothing, and at others they were dark, with eyes of +mischief, and clad in the gayest rags; and sometimes they came to him +in a mingled company, made one by their careless hearts. + +One evening in April, on the twelfth anniversary, when Young Gerard +came to gather his flock, a lamb was missing; so to escape a scolding +he waited awhile on the hills till Old Gerard should be gone about his +business. What this was Young Gerard did not know, he only knew that +each year on this night the old shepherd left him to his own devices, +and returned in the small hours of the morning. Not therefore until he +judged that the master must have left the hut, did the boy fold his +sheep; and this done he ran out on the hills again, seeking the lost +lamb. For careless though he was he cared for his sheep, as he did for +all things that ran on legs or flew on wings. So he went swinging his +lantern under the stars, singing and whistling and smelling the spring. +Now and then he paused and bleated like a ewe; and presently a small +whimper answered his signal. + +"My lost lamb crying on the hills," said Young Gerard. He called again, +but at the sound of his voice the other stopped, and for a moment he +stood quite still, listening and perplexed. + +"Where are you, my lamb?" said he. + +"Here," said a little frightened voice behind a bush. + +He laughed aloud and went forward, and soon discovered a tiny girl +cowering under a thorn. When she saw him she ran quickly and grasped +his sleeve and hid her face in it and wept. She was small for her +years, which were not more than eight. + +Young Gerard, who was big for his, picked her up and looked at her +kindly and curiously. + +"What is it, you little thing?" said he. + +"I got lost," said the child shyly through her tears. + +"Well, now you're found," said Young Gerard, "so don't cry any more." + +"Yes, but I'm hungry," sobbed the child. + +"Then come with me. Will you?" + +"Where to?" + +"To a feast in a palace." + +"Oh, yes!" she said. + +Young Gerard set her on his shoulder, and went back the way he had +come, till the dark shape of his wretched shed stood big between them +and the sky. + +"Is this your palace?" said the child. + +"That's it," said Young Gerard. + +"I didn't know palaces had cracks in the walls," said she. + +"This one has," explained Young Gerard, "because it's so old." And she +was satisfied. + +Then she asked, "What is that funny tree by the door?" + +"It's a cherry-tree." + +"My father's cherry-trees have flowers on them," said she. + +"This one hasn't," said Young Gerard, "because it's not old enough." + +"One day will it be?" she asked. + +"One day," he said. And that contented her. + +He then carried her into the shed, and she looked around eagerly to see +what a palace might be like inside; and it was full of flickering +lights and shadows and the scent of burning wood, and she did not see +how poor and dirty the room was; for the firelight gleamed upon a mass +of golden fruit and silver bloom embroidered on the covering of the +settle by the hearth, and sparkled against a silver and crystal lantern +hanging in the chimney. And between the cracks on the walls Young +Gerard had stuck wands of gold and silver palm and branches of snowy +blackthorn, and on the floor was a dish full of celandine and daisies, +and a broken jar of small wild daffodils. And the child knew that all +these things were the treasures of queens and kings. + +"Why don't you have that?" she asked, pointing to the crystal lantern +as Young Gerard set down his horn one. + +"Because I can't light it," said he. + +"Let ME light it!" she begged; so he fetched it from its nail, and +thrust a pine twig in the fire and gave her the sweet-smoking torch. +But in vain she tried to light the wick, which always spluttered and +went out again. So seeing her disappointment Young Gerard hung the +lantern up, saying, "Firelight is prettier." And he set her by the fire +and filled her lap with cones and dry leaves and dead bracken to burn +and make crackle and turn into fiery ferns. And she was pleased. + +Then he looked about and found his own wooden cup, and went away and +came back with the cup full of milk, set on a platter heaped with +primroses, and when he brought it to her she looked at it with shining +eyes and asked: + +"Is this the feast?" + +"That's it," said Young Gerard. + +And she drank it eagerly. And while she drank Young Gerard fetched a +pipe and began to whistle tunes on it as mad as any thrush, and the +child began to laugh, and jumped up, spilling her leaves and primroses, +and danced between the fitful lights and shadows as though she were, +now a shadow taken shape, and now a flame. Whenever he paused she +cried, "Oh, let me dance! Don't stop! Let me go on dancing!" until at +the same moment she dropped panting on the hearth and he flung his pipe +behind him and fell on his back with his heels in the air, crying, +"Pouf! d'you think I've the four quarters of heaven in my lungs, or +what?" But as though to prove he had yet a capful of wind under his +ribs, he suddenly began to sing a song she'd never heard before, and it +went like this: + + I looked before me and behind, + I looked beyond the sun and wind, + Beyond the rainbow and the snow, + And saw a land I used to know. + The floods rolled up to keep me still + A captive on my heavenly hill, + And on their bright and dangerous glass + Was written, Boy, you shall not pass! + I laughed aloud, You shining seas, + I'll run away the day I please! + I am not winged like any plover + Yet I've a way shall take me over, + I am not finned like any bream + Yet I can cross you, lake and stream. + And I my hidden land shall find + That lies beyond the sun and wind-- + Past drowned grass and drowning trees + I'll run away the day I please, + I'll run like one whom nothing harms + With my bonny in my arms. + +"What does that mean?" asked the child. + +"I'm sure I don't know," said Young Gerard. He kicked at the dying log +on the hearth, and sent a fountain of sparks up the chimney. The child +threw a dry leaf and saw it shrivel, and Young Gerard stirred the white +ash and blew up the embers, and held a fan of bracken to them, till the +fire ran up its veins like life in the veins of a man, and the frond +that had already lived and died became a gleaming spirit, and then it +too fell in ashes among the ash. Then Young Gerard took a handful of +twigs and branches, and began to build upon the ash a castle of many +sorts of wood, and the child helped him, laying hazel on his beech and +fir upon his oak; and often before their turret was quite reared a +spark would catch at the dry fringes of the fir, or the brown +oakleaves, and one twig or another would vanish from the castle. + +"How quickly wood burns," said the child. + +"That's the lovely part of it," said Young Gerard, "the fire is always +changing and doing different things with it." + +And they watched the fire together, and smelled its smoke, that had as +many smells as there were sorts of wood. Sometimes it was like roast +coffee, and sometimes like roast chestnuts, and sometimes like incense. +And they saw the lichen on old stumps crinkle into golden ferns, or +fire run up a dead tail of creeper in a red S, and vanish in mid-air +like an Indian boy climbing a rope, or crawl right through the middle +of a birch-twig, making hieroglyphics that glowed and faded between the +gray scales of the bark. And then suddenly it caught the whole +scaffolding of their castle, and blazed up through the fir and oak and +spiny thorns and dead leaves, and the bits of old bark all over +blue-gray-green rot, and the young sprigs almost budding, and hissing +with sap. And for one moment they saw all the skeleton and soul of the +castle without its body, before it fell in. + +The child sighed a little and yawned a little and said: + +"How nice it is to live in a palace. Who lives here with you?" + +"My friends," said Young Gerard, poking at the log with a bit of stick. + +"What are your friends like?" she asked him, rubbing her knuckles in +her eyes. + +He was silent for a little, stirring up sparks and smoke. Then he +answered, "They are gay in their hearts, and they're dressed in bright +clothes, and they come with singing and dancing." + +"Who else lives in your palace with you?" she asked drowsily. + +"You do," said Young Gerard. + +The child's head dropped against his shoulder and she said, "My name's +Dorothea, but my father calls me Thea, and he is the Lord of Combe +Ivy." And she fell fast asleep. + +For a little while Young Gerard held and watched her in the firelight, +and then he rose and wrapped her in the old embroidered mantle on the +settle, and went out. And sure-foot as a goat he carried her over the +dark hills by the tracks he knew, for roads there were none, and his +arms ached with his burden, but he would not wake her till they stood +at her father's gates. Then he shook her gently and set her down, and +she clung to him a little dazed, trying to remember. + +"This is Combe Ivy," he whispered. "You must go in alone. Will you come +again?" + +"One day," said Thea. + +"One day there'll be flowers on my cherry-tree," said Young Gerard. +"Don't forget." + +"No, I won't," she said. + +He returned through the night up hill and down dale, but did not go +back to the shed until he had recovered his lamb. By then it was almost +dawn, and he found his master awake and cursing. He had feared the boy +had made off, and he had had curt treatment at Combe Ivy, which was in +a stir about the loss of the little daughter. Young Gerard showed the +lamb as his excuse, nevertheless the old shepherd leathered the young +one soundly, as he did six days in seven. + +After this when Young Gerard sat dreaming on the hills, he dreamed not +only of his happy land and laughing friends, but of the next coming of +little Thea. But Combe Ivy was far away, and the months passed and the +years, and she did not come again. Meanwhile Young Gerard and his tree +grew apace, and the limbs of the boy became longer and stronger, and +the branches of the tree spread up to the roof and even began to thrust +their way through the holes in the wall; but the boy's life, save for +his dreaming, was as friendless as the tree's was flowerless. And of a +tree's dreaming who shall speak? Meanwhile Old Gerard thrashed and +rated him, and reckoned his gold pieces, and counted the years that +still lay between him and his freedom. At last came another April +bringing its hour. + +For as he sat on the Mount in the early morning, when he was in his +seventeenth year, Young Gerard saw a slender girl running over the turf +and laughing in the sunlight, sometimes stopping to watch a bird +flying, or stooping to pluck one of the tiny Down-flowers at her feet. +So she came with a dancing step to the top of the Mount, and then she +saw him, and her glee left her and shyness took its place. But a little +pride in her prevented her from turning away, and she still came +forward until she stood beside him, and said: + +"Good morning, Shepherd. Is it true that in April the country north of +the hills is filled with lakes?" + +"Yes, sometimes, Mistress Thea," said Young Gerard. + +She looked at him with surprise and said, "You must be one of my +father's shepherds, but I do not remember seeing you at Combe Ivy." + +"I was only once near Combe Ivy," said Young Gerard, "when I took you +there five years ago the night you were lost on these hills." + +"Oh, I remember," she said with a faint smile. "How they did scold me. +Is your cherry-tree in flower yet, Shepherd?" + +"No, mistress," said Young Gerard. + +"I want to see it," she said suddenly. + +Young Gerard left his flock to the dog, and walked with her along the +hillbrow. + +"I have run away," she told him as they went. "I had to get up very +early while they were asleep. I shall be scolded again. But travelers +come who talk of the lakes, and I wanted to see them, and to swim in +them." + +"I wouldn't do that," said Young Gerard, hiding a smile. "It's +dangerous to swim in the April floods. And it would be rather cold." + +"What lies beyond?" she asked. + +"I'm not able to know," said Young Gerard. + +"Some day I mean to know, shepherd." + +"Yes, mistress," he said, "you'll be free to." + +She looked at him quickly and reddened a little, it might have been +from shame or pity, Young Gerard did not know which. And her shyness +once more enveloped her; it always came over her unexpectedly, taking +her breath away like a breaking wave. So she said no more, and they +walked together, she looking at the ground, he at the soft brown hair +blowing over the curve of her young cheek. She was fine and delicate in +every line, and in her color, and in the touch of her too, Young Gerard +knew. He wanted to touch her cheek with his finger as he would have +touched the petal of a flower. Her neck, the back of it especially, was +one of the loveliest bits of her, like a primrose stalk. He fell a step +behind so that he could look at it. They did not speak as they went. He +did not want to, and she did not know what to say. + +When they reached the shed she lingered a moment by the tree, tracing a +bare branch with her finger, and he waited, content, till she should +speak or act, to watch her. At last she said with her faint smile, "I +am very thirsty." Then he went into the shed and came out with his +wooden cup filled with milk. She drank and said, "Thank you, shepherd. +How pretty the violets are in your copse." + +"Would you like some?" he asked. + +"Not now," she said. "Perhaps another day. I must go now." She gave him +back his cup and went away, slowly at first, but when she was at some +distance he saw her begin to run like a fawn. + +She did not come again that spring. And so the stark lives of the boy +and the tree went forward for another year. But one evening in the +following April, when the green was quivering on wood and hedgerow, he +came to the door of the shed and saw her bending like a flower at the +edge of the copse, filling her little basket and singing to herself. +She looked up soon and said: + +"Good evening, shepherd. How does your cherry-tree?" + +"As usual, Mistress Thea." + +"So I see. What a lazy tree it is. Have you some milk for me?" + +He brought her his cup and she drank of it for the third time, and left +him before he had had time to realize that she had come and gone, but +only how greatly her delicate beauty had increased in the last year. + +However, before the summer was over she came again--to swim in the +river, she told him, as she passed him on the hills, without lingering. +And in the autumn she came to gather blackberries, and he showed her +the best place to find them. Any of these things she might have done as +easily nearer Combe Ivy, but it seemed she must always offer him some +reason for her small truancies--whether to gather berries or flowers, +or to swim in the river. He knew that her chief delight lay in escaping +from her father's manor. + +Winter closed her visits; but Young Gerard was as patient as the earth, +and did not begin to look for her till April. As surely as it brought +leaves to the trees and flowers to the grass, it would, he knew, bring +his little mistress's question, half shy, half smiling, "Is your +cherry-tree in blossom, shepherd?" And later her request, smiling and +shy, for milk. + +They seldom exchanged more than a few words at any time. Sometimes they +did not speak at all. For he, who was her father's servant, never spoke +first; and she, growing in years and loveliness, grew also in timidity, +so that it seemed to cost her more and more to address her greeting or +her question even to her father's servant. The sweet quick reddening of +her cheek was one of Young Gerard's chief remembrances of her. + +But after a while, when they met by those sly chances which she could +control and he could not; and when she did not speak, but glanced and +hesitated and passed on; or glanced and passed without hesitation; or +passed without a glance; he came to know that she would not mind if he +arose and walked with her, if he could control the pretext, which she +could not. And he did so quietly, having always something to show her. + +He showed her his most secret nests and his greatest treasures of +flowers, his because he loved them so much. He would have been jealous +of showing these things to any one but her. In a great water-meadow in +the valley, he had once shown her kingcups making sheets of gold, +enameled with every green grass ever seen in spring--thousands of +kingcups and a myriad of milkmaids in between, dancing attendance in +all their faint shades of silver-white and rosy-mauve. When a breeze +blew, this world of milkmaids swayed and curtsied above the kings' +daughters in their glory. Then Gerard and Thea looked at each other +smiling, because the same delight was in each, and soon she looked away +again at the gentle maids and the royal ladies, but he looked still at +her, who was both to him. + +In silence he showed her what he loved. + +But you must not suppose that she came frequently to those hills. She +was to be seen no more often than you will see a kingfisher when you +watch for it under a willow. Yet because in the season of kingfishers +you know you may see one flash at any instant, so to Young Gerard each +day of spring and summer was an expectancy; and this it was that kept +his lift alight. This and his young troop of friends in a land of fruit +in blossom and a sky in stars. For men, dear maids, live by the daily +bread of their dreams; on realizations they would starve. + +At last came the winter that preceded Young Gerard's twenty-first year. +With the stripping of the boughs he stripped his heart of all thoughts +of seeing her again till the green of the coming year. The snows came, +and he tended his sheep and counted his memories; and Old Gerard tended +his sheep and counted his coins. The count was full now, and he dreamed +of April and the freeing of his body. Young Gerard also dreamed of +April, and the freeing of his heart. And under the ice that bound the +flooded meadows doubtless the earth dreamed of the freeing of her +waters and the blooming of the land. The snows and the frosts lasted +late that year as though the winter would never be done, and to the two +Gerards the days crawled like snails; but in time March blew himself +off the face of the earth, and April dawned, and the swollen river went +rushing to the sea above the banks it had drowned with its wild +overflow. And as Old Gerard began to mark the days off on a tally, +Young Gerard began to listen on the hills. When the day came whose +midnight was to make the old man a freedman, Thea had not appeared. + +On the morning of this day, as the two shepherds stood outside their +shed before they separated with their flocks, their ears were accosted +with shoutings and halloos on the other side of the copse, and soon +they saw coming through the trees a man in gay attire. He had a +scalloped jerkin of orange leather, and his shoes and cap were of the +same, but his sleeves and hose and feather were of a vivid green, like +nothing in nature. He looked garish in the sun. Seeing the shepherds he +took off his cap, and solemnly thanked heaven for having after all +created something besides hills and valleys. "For," said he, "after +being lost among them I know not how many hours, with no other company +than my own shadow, I had begun to doubt whether I was not the only man +on earth, and my name Adam. A curse of all lords who do not live by +highroads!" + +"Where are you bound for, master?" asked Old Gerard. + +"Combe Ivy," said the stranger, "and the wedding." + +Old Gerard nodded, as one little surprised; but to Young Gerard this +mention of a wedding at Combe Ivy came as news. It did not stir him +much, however, for he was not curious about the doings of the master +and the house he never saw; all that concerned him was that to-day, at +least, he must cease to listen on the hills, since his young mistress +would be at the wedding with the others. + +Old Gerard said to the stranger, "Keep the straight track to the south +till you come under Wepham, then follow the valley to the east, and so +you'll be in time for the feasting, master." + +"That's certain," said the stranger, "for the Lord of Combe Ivy and the +Rough Master of Coates have had no peers at junketing since Gay Street +lost its Lord; and the feast is like to go on till midnight." + +With that he went on his way, and Old Gerard followed him with his +eyes, muttering, + +"Would I also were there! But for you," he said, turning on the young +man with a sudden snarl, "I should be! Had ye not come a day too late, +I'd be a freedman to-night instead of to-morrow, and junketing at the +wedding with the rest." + +Young Gerard did not understand him. He was not in the habit of +questioning the old man, and if he had would not have expected answers. +But certain words of the stranger had pricked his attention, and now he +said: + +"Where is Gay Street?" + +"Far away over the Stor and the Chill," growled Old Gerard. + +"It's a jolly name." + +"Maybe. But they say it's a sorry place now that it lacks its Lord." + +"What became of him?" + +"How should I know? What can a man know who lives all his life on a +hill with pewits for gossips?" + +"You know more than I," said Young Gerard indolently. "You know there's +a wedding down yonder. Who's the Rough Master of Coates?" + +"The bridegroom, young know-nothing. You've a tongue in your head +to-day." + +"Why do they call him the Rough Master?" + +"Because that's what he is, and so are his people, as rough as furze on +a common, they say. Have you any more questions?" + +"Yes," said Young Gerard. "Who is the bride?" + +"Who should the bride be? Combe Ivy's mother?" + +"She's dead," said Young Gerard. + +"His daughter then," scoffed Old Gerard. + +Young Gerard stared at him. + +"Get about your business," shouted the old shepherd with sudden wrath. +"Why do ye stare so? You're not drunk. Ah! down yonder they'll be +getting drunk without me. Enough of your idling and staring!" + +He raised his staff, but Young Gerard thrust it aside so violently that +he staggered, and the boy went away to his sheep and they met no more +till evening. The whole of that day Young Gerard sat on the Mount, not +looking as usual to the busy north dreaming of the unknown land beyond +the water, but over the silent slopes and valleys of the south, whose +peoples were only birds and foxes and rabbits, and whose only cities +were built of lights and shadows. Somewhere beyond them was Combe Ivy, +and little Thea getting married to the Rough Master of Coates, in the +midst of feasting and singing and dancing. He thought of her dancing +over the Downs for joy of being free, he thought of her singing to +herself as she gathered flowers in his copse, and he thought of her +feasting on wild berries he had helped her to find--that also was a +feasting and singing and dancing. All day long his thoughts ran, "She +will not come any more in the mornings to bathe in the river over the +hill. She will not come with her little basket to gather flowers and +berries. She will not stop and ask for a cup of milk, or say, Let me +see the young lambs, or say, Is your cherry-tree in flower yet, +shepherd? She will not ask me with her eyes to come with her--oh, she +will not ask me by turning her eyes away, with her little head bent. +You! you Rough Master of Coates, what are you like, what are you like?" + +In the evening when he gathered his sheep, one was missing. He had to +take the flock back without it. Old Gerard was furious with him; it +seemed as though on this last night that separated him from the long +fulfillment of his hopes he must be more furious than he had ever been +before. He was furious at being thwarted of the fun in the valley, +furious at the loss of the lamb, most furious at young Gerard's +indifference to his fury. He told the boy he must search on the hills, +and Young Gerard only sat down by the side of the shed and looked to +the south and made no answer. So he went himself, leaving the boy to +prepare the mess for supper; for he feared that if he went to Combe Ivy +that night with a bad tale to tell, his master for a whim might say +that a young sheep was a fair deal for an old shepherd, and take his +gold, and keep him a bondman still. For the Lord of Combe Ivy lived by +his whimsies. But Old Gerard could not find the lost sheep, and when he +came back the boy was where he had left him, looking over the darkening +hills. + +"Is the mess ready?" said Old Gerard. + +"No," said Young Gerard. + +"Why not?" + +"Because I forgot." + +Old Gerard slashed at him with a rope he had taken in case of need. +"That will make you remember." + +"No," said Young Gerard. + +"Why not?" + +Young Gerard said, "You beat me too often, I cannot remember all the +reasons." + +"Then," said Old Gerard full of wrath, "I will beat you out of all +reason." + +And he began to thrash Young Gerard will all his might, talking between +the blows. "Haven't you been the curse of my life for twenty-one +years?" snarled he. "Can I trust you? Can I leave you? Would the sheep +get their straw? Would the lambs be brought alive into the world? Bah! +for all you care the sheep would go cold and their young would die. And +down yonder they are getting drunk without me!" + +"Old shepherd," said a voice behind him. + +The angry man, panting with his rage and the exertion of his blows, +paused and turned. Near the corner of the shed he saw a woman in a +duffle cloak standing, or rather stooping, on her crutch. She was so +ancient that it seemed as though Death himself must have forgotten her, +but her eyes in their wrinkled sockets were as piercing as thorns. Old +Gerard, staring at them, felt as though his own eyes were pricked. + +"Where have I seen you before, hag?" he said. + +"Have you ever seen me before?" asked the old woman. + +"I thought so, I thought so"--he fumbled with his memory. + +"Then it must have been when we went courting in April, nine-and-ninety +years ago," said the old woman dryly, "but you lads remember me better +than I do you. Can I sleep by your hearth to-night?" + +"Where are you going to?" asked Old Gerard, half grinning, half sour. + +"Where I'll be welcome," said she. + +"You're not welcome here. But there's nothing to steal, you may sleep +by the hearth." + +"Thank you, shepherd," said the crone, "for your courtesy. Why were you +beating the boy?" + +"Because he's one that won't work." + +"Is he your slave?" + +"He's my master's slave. But he's idle." + +"I am not idle," said Young Gerard. "The year round I'm busy long +before dawn and long after dark." + +"Then why are you idle to-day," sneered Old Gerard, "of all the days in +the year?" + +"I've something else to think of," said the boy. + +"You see," said the old man to the crone. + +"Well," said she, "a boy cannot always be working. A boy will sometimes +be dreaming. Life isn't all labor, shepherd." + +"What else is it?" said Old Gerard. + +"Joy." + +"Ho, ho, ho!" went Old Gerard. + +"And power." + +"Ho, ho, ho!" + +"And triumph." + +"Not for serfs," said Old Gerard. + +"For serfs and lords," she said. + +"Ho, ho, ho!" + +"You were young once," said the crone. + +Old Gerard said, "What if I was?" + +"Good night," said the crone; and she went into the shed. + +The shepherds looked after her, the old one stupidly, the young one +with lighted eyes. + +"Will you get supper?" growled Old Gerard. + +"No," said Young Gerard, "I won't. I want no supper. Put down that +rope. I am taller and stronger than you, and why I've let you go on +beating me so long I don't know, unless it is that you began to beat me +when you were taller and stronger than I. If you want any supper, get +it yourself." + +Old Gerard turned red and purple. "The boy's mad!" he gasped. "Do you +know what happens to servants who defy their masters?" + +"Yes," said Young Gerard, "then they're lords." And he too went into +the shed. + +"Try that on Combe Ivy!" bawled Old Gerard, "and see what you'll get +for it. I thank fortune, I'll be quit of you tomorrow-- What's that +to-do in the valley?" he muttered, and stared down the hill. + +Away in the hollows and shadows he saw splashes of moving light, and +heard far-off snatches of song and laughter, but the movements and +sounds were still so distant that they seemed to be only those of +ghosts and echoes. Nearer they came and nearer, and now in the night he +could discern a great rabble stumbling among the dips and rises of the +hills. + +"They're heading this way," said Old Gerard. "Why, tis the +wedding-party," he said amazed, "if it's not witchcraft. But why are +they coming here?" + +"Hola! hola! hola!" shouted a tipsy voice hard by. + +"Here's dribblings from the wineskin," said Old Gerard; and up the +track struggled a drunken man, waving a torch above his head. It was +the guest whom he had directed in the morning. + +"Hola!" he shouted again on seeing Old Gerard. + +"Well, racketer?" said the shepherd, with a chuckle. + +"Shall a man not racket at another man's wedding?" he cried. "Let some +one be jolly, say I!" + +"The bridegroom," said Old Gerard. + +"Ha, ha!" laughed the other, "the bridegroom! He was first in high +feather and last in the sulks." + +"The bride, then." + +"Ha, ha! ha, ha! during the toasts he tried to kiss her." + +"Wouldn't she?" + +"She wouldn't." + +"Hark!" said Old Gerard, "here they come." The sound of rollicking +increased as the rout drew nearer. + +"He's taking her home across the river," said the guest. "I wouldn't be +she. There she sat, her pretty face fixed and frozen, but a fright in +her that shook her whole body. You could see it shake. And we drank, +how we drank! to the bride and the groom and their daughters and sons, +to the sire and the priest, and the ring and the bed, to the kiss and +the quarrel, to love which is one thing and marriage which is +another--Lord, how we drank! But she drank nothing. And for all her +terror the Rough could do no more with her than with a stone. Something +in her turned him cold every time. Suddenly up he gets. We'll have no +more of this,' he says, we'll go.' Combe Ivy would have had them stay, +but She's where she's used to lord it here,' says Rough, I'll take +her where I lord it, and teach her who's master,' And he pushes down +his chair and takes her hand and pulls her away; and out we tumble +after him. Combe Ivy cries to him to wait for the horses, but no, +We'll foot it,' says he, up hill and down dale as the crow flies, and +if she hates me now without a cause I swear she'll love me with one at +the end of the dance.' We're dancing them as far as the Wildbrooks; on +t'other side they may dance for themselves. Here they come +dancing--dance, you!" cried the guest, and whirled his torch like a +madman. And as he whirled and staggered, up the hill came the +wedding-party as tipsy as he was: a motley procession, waving torches +and garlands, winecups, flagons, colored napkins, shouting and singing +and beating on trenchers and salvers--on anything that they could +snatch from the table as they quitted it. They came in all their +bravery--in doublets of flame-colored silk and blue, in scarlet leather +and green velvet, in purple slashed with silver and crimson fringed +with bronze; but their vests were unlaced, their hose sagged, and silk +and velvet and leather were stained bright or dark with wine. Some had +stuck leaves and flowers in their hair, others had tied their forelocks +with ribbons like horses on a holiday, and one had torn his yellow +mantle in two and capered in advance, waving the halves in either hand +like monstrous banners, or the flapping wings of some golden bird of +prey. In the midst of them, pressing forward and pressed on by the riot +behind, was the Rough Master of Coates, and with him, always hanging a +little away and shrinking under her veil, Thea, whose right wrist he +grasped in his left hand. Breathless she was among the breathless +rabble, who, gaining the hilltop seized each other suddenly and broke +into antics, shaking their napkins and rattling on their plates. Their +voices were hoarse with laughter and drink, and their faces flushed +with it; only among those red and swollen faces, the bridegroom's, in +the flare of the torches, looked as black as the bride's looked white. +The night about the newly-wedded pair was one great din and flutter. + +Then in a trice the dancers all lost breath, and the dance parted as +they staggered aside; and at the door of the shed Young Gerard stood, +and gazed through the broken revel at little Thea, and she stood gazing +at him. And behind and above him, along the walls of the hut, and over +the doorway, and making lovely the very roof, she saw a cloud of +snowwhite blossom. + +Somebody cried, "Here's a boy. He shall dance too. Boy, is there drink +within?" + +The others took up the clamor. "Drink! bring us something to drink!" + +"The red grape!" cried one. + +"The yellow grape!" cried another. + +"The sap of the apple!" + +"The juice of the pear!" + +"Nut-brown ale!" + +"The spirit that burns!" + +"Bring us drink!" they cried in a breath. + +"Will you have milk?" said Young Gerard. + +At this the company burst into a roar of laughter. They laughed till +they rocked. But when they were silent little Thea spoke. She said in a +faint clear voice: + +"I would like a cup of milk." + +Young Gerard went into the hut and came out with his wooden cup filled +with milk, and brought it to her, and she drank. None spoke or moved +while she drank, but when she gave him the cup again one of the crew +said chuckling, "Now she has drunk, now she's merrier. Try her again, +Rough, try her on milk!" + +Again the night reeled with their laughter. They surrounded the wedded +pair crying, "Kiss her! kiss her! kiss her!" Then the Rough Master of +Coates pulled her round to him, dark with anger, and tried to kiss her. +But she turned sharply in his arms, bending her head away. And despite +his force, and though he was a man and she little more than a child, he +could not make her mouth meet his. And the laughter of the guests rose +higher, and infuriated him. + +Then he who had spoken before said, "By Hymen, the bride should kiss +something. If the lord's not good enough, let her kiss the churl!" At +this the revelers, wild with delight, beat on their trenchers and +shouted, "Ay, let her!" + +And suddenly they surged in, parting Thea from the Rough; while some +pulled him back others dragged Young Gerard forward, till he stood +where the bridegroom had stood; and in that seething throng of mockery +he felt her clinging helplessly to him, and his arm went round her. + +"Kiss him! kiss him! kiss him!" cried the guests. + +She looked up pitifully at him, and he bent his head. And she heard him +whisper: + +"My cherry-tree's in flower." + +She whispered, "Yes." + +And they kissed each other. + +Then the tumult of laughter passed all bounds, so that it was a wonder +if it was not heard at Combe Ivy; and the guests clashed their +trenchers one against another, and whirled their torches till the +sparks flew, yelling, "The bride's kiss! Ha, ha! the bride's kiss!" + +But the Rough Master of Coates had had enough; snarling like a mad dog +he thrust his way through the crowd on one side, as Old Gerard, seeing +his purpose, thrust through on the other, and both at the same instant +fell on the boy, the one with his scabbard, the other with his staff. + +"Kisses, will ye?" cried the Rough Master of Coates, "here's kisses for +ye!" + +"Ha, ha!" cried the guests, "more kisses, more kisses for him that +kissed the bride!" + +And then they all struck him at once, kicking and beating him without +mercy, till he lay prone on the earth. When he had fallen, the Rough +shouted, "Away to the Wildbrooks, away!" + +And he seized Thea in his arms, and rushed along the brow of the hill, +and all the company followed in a confusion, and were swallowed up in +the night. + +But Young Gerard raised himself a little, and groaned, "The +Wildbrooks--are they going to the Wildbrooks?" + +"Ay, and over the Wildbrooks," said Old Gerard. + +"But they're in flood," gasped Young Gerard. "They'll never cross it in +the spring floods." + +"They'll manage it somehow. The Rough--did you see his eyes when you--? +ho, ho! he'll cross it somehow." + +"He can't," the boy muttered. "The April tide's too strong. He will +drown in the flood." + +"And she," said Old Gerard. + +"Perhaps she will swim on the flood," said Young Gerard faintly. And he +sighed and sank back on the earth. + +"Ay, you'll be sore," chuckled the old man. "You had your salve before +you had your drubbing. Lie there. I must be gone on business." + +He took up his staff and went down the hill for the last time to Combe +Ivy, to purchase his freedom. + +But Young Gerard lay with his face pressed to the turf. "And that was +the bridegroom," he said, and shook where he lay. + +"Young shepherd," said a voice beside him. He looked up and saw the +hooded crone, come out of the hut. "Why do you water the earth?" said +she. "Have not the rains done their work?" + +"What work, dame?" + +"You've as fine a cherry in flower," said she, "as ever blossomed in +Gay Street in the season of singing and dancing." + +"Singing and dancing!" he cried, his voice choking, and he sprang up +despite his pains. "Don't speak to me, dame, of singing and dancing. +You're old, like the withered branch of a tree, but did you not see +with your old eyes, and hear with your old ears? Did you not see her +come up the green hillside with singing and dancing? Oh, yes, my +cherry's in flower, like a crown for a bride, and the spring is all in +movement, and the birds are all in song, and she--she came up the +hillside with singing and dancing." + +"I saw," said the crone, "and I heard. I'm not so old, young shepherd, +that I do not remember the curse of youth." + +"What's that?" he said moodily. + +"To bear the soul of a master in the body of a slave," said she; "to be +a flower in a sealed bud, the moon in a cloud, water locked in ice, +Spring in the womb of the year, love that does not know itself." + +"But when it does know?" said Young Gerard slowly. + +"Oh, when it knows!" said she. "Then the flower of the fruit will leap +through the bud, and the moon will leap like a lamb on the hills of the +sky, and April will leap in the veins of the year, and the river will +leap with the fury of Spring, and the headlong heart will cry in the +body of youth, I will not be a slave, but I will be the lord of life, +because--" + +"Because?" said Young Gerard. + +"Because I will!" + +Young Gerard said nothing, and they sat together in a long silence in +the darkness, and time went by filling the sky with stars. + +Now as they sat the hilltop once more began to waver with shadows and +voices, but this time the shadows came on heavy feet and weary, and the +voices were forlorn. One feebly cried, "Hola!" And round the belt of +trees straggled the rout that had left them an hour or so earlier. But +now they were sodden and dejected, draggled and woebegone, as sorry a +spectacle as so many drowned rats. + +"Fire!" moaned one. "Fire! fire!" + +"Who's burning?" said Young Gerard, and got quickly on his feet; but he +did not see the two he looked for. + +"None's burning, fool, but many are drowning. Do we not look like +drowned men? How shall we ever get back to Combe Ivy, and warmth and +drink and comforts? Would we were burning!" + +"What has happened?" the boy demanded. + +"We went in search of the ferry," he said, "but the ferry was drowned +too." + +"We couldn't find the ferry," said a second. + +"No," mumbled a third, "the river had drunk it up. Where there were +paths there are brooks, and where there were meadows, lakes." + +The miserable crew broke out into plaints and questions--"Have you no +fire? have you no food? no coverings?" + +"None," said Young Gerard. "Where is the bride?" + +"Have you do drink?" + +"Where is the bride?" + +"The groom stumbled," said one. "Let us to Combe Ivy, in comfort's +name. There'll be drink there." + +He staggered down the hill, and his fellows made after him. But Young +Gerard sprang upon one, and gripped him by the shoulder and shook him, +and for the third time cried: + +"Where is the bride?" + +"In the water," he answered heavily, "because--there was--no wine." + +Then he dragged himself out of the boy's grasp, and fell down the hill +after his companions. + +Young Gerard stood for one instant listening and holding his breath. +Suddenly he said, "My lost lamb, crying on the hills." He ran into the +shed and looked about, and snatched from the settle the green and +cherry cloak, and from the wall the crystal and silver lantern. He +struck a spark from a flint and lit the wick. It burned brightly and +steadily. Then he ran out of the shed. The old woman rose up in his +path. + +"That's a good light," said she, "and a warm cloak." + +"Don't stop me!" said Young Gerard, and ran on. She nodded, and as he +vanished in one direction, she vanished in the other. + +He had not run far when he saw one more shadow on the hills; and it +came with faltering steps, and a trembling sobbing breath, and he held +up his lantern and the light fell on Thea, shivering in her wet veil. +As the flame struck her eyes she sighed, "Oh, I can't see the way--I +can't see!" + +Young Gerard hurried to her and said, "Come this way," and he took her +hand; but she snatched it quickly from him. + +"Go, man!" she said. "Don't touch me. Go!" + +"Don't be frightened of me," said Young Gerard gently. + +Then she looked at him and whispered, "Oh--it is you--shepherd. I was +trying to find you. I'm cold." + +Young Gerard wrapped the cloak about her, and said, "Come with me. I'll +make you a fire." + +He took her back to the shed. But she did not go in. She crouched on +the ground under the cherry-tree. Young Gerard moved about collecting +brushwood. They scarcely looked at each other; but once when he passed +her he said, "You're shivering." + +"It's because I'm so wet," said Thea. + +"Did you fall in the water?" + +She nodded. "The floods were so strong." + +"It's a bad night for swimming," said Young Gerard. + +"Yes, shepherd." She then said again, "Yes." He could tell by her voice +that she was smiling faintly. He glanced at her and saw her looking at +him; both smiled a little and glanced away again. He began to pile his +brushwood for the fire. + +After a short pause she said timidly, "Are you sore, shepherd?" + +"No, I feel nothing," said he. + +"They beat you very hard." + +"I did not feel their blows." + +"How could you not feel them?" she said in a low voice. He looked at +her again, and again their eyes met, and again parted quickly. + +"Now I'll strike a spark," said Young Gerard, "and you'll be warm soon." + +He kindled his fire; the branches crackled and burned, and she knelt +beside the blaze and held her hands to it. + +"I was never here by night before," she said. + +"Yes, once," said Young Gerard. "You often came, didn't you, to gather +flowers in the morning and to swim in the river at noon. But once +before you were here in the night." + +"Was I?" said she. + +He dropped a handful of cones into her lap, throwing the last on the +fire. She threw another after it, and smiled as it crackled. + +"I remember," she said. "Thank you, shepherd. You were always kind and +found me the things I wanted, and gave me your cup to drink of. Who'll +drink of it now?" + +"No one," he said, "ever again." + +He went and fetched the cup and gave it to her. "Burn that too," said +Young Gerard. Thea put it into the fire and trembled. When it was +burned she asked very low, "Will you be lonely?" + +"I'll have my sheep and my thoughts." + +"Yes," said Thea, "and stars when the sheep are folded. The stars are +good to be with too." + +"Good to see and not be seen by," he said. + +"How do you know they don't see you?" she asked shyly. + +"One shepherd on a hill isn't much for the eye of a star. He may watch +them unwatched, while they come and go in their months. Sometimes there +aren't any, and sometimes not more than one pricking the sky near the +moon. But to-night, look! the sky's like a tree with full branches." + +Thea looked up and said with a child's laugh, "Break me a branch!" + +"I'd want Jacob's Ladder for that," smiled Young Gerard. + +"Then shake the tree and bring them down!" she insisted. + +"Here come your stars," said Young Gerard. Suddenly she was enveloped +in a falling shower, white and heavenly. + +"The stars--!" she cried. "Oh, what is it?" + +"My cherry-tree--it's in flower--" said Young Gerard, and his voice +trembled. She looked up quickly and saw that he was standing beside +her, shaking the tree above her head. And now their eyes met and did +not separate. He put out his hand and broke a branch from the tree and +offered it to her. She took it from him slowly, as though she were in a +dream, and laid it in her lap, and put her face in her hands and began +to cry. + +Young Gerard whispered, "Why are you crying?" + +Thea said, "Oh, my wedding, my wedding! Only last year I thought of the +night of my wedding and how it would be. It was not with torchlight and +shouting and wine, but moonlight and silence and the scent of wild +blossoms. And now I know that it was not the night of my wedding I +dreamed of." + +"What did you dream of?" asked Young Gerard. + +"The night of my first love." + +"Thea," said Young Gerard, and he knelt beside her. + +"And my love's first kiss." + +"Oh, Thea," said Young Gerard, and he took her hands. + +"Why did you not feel their blows?" she said. "I felt them." + +Their arms went round each other, and for the second time that night +they kissed. + +Young Gerard said, "I've always wondered if this would happen." + +And Thea answered, "I didn't know it would be you." + +"Didn't you? didn't you?" he whispered, stroking her head, wondering at +himself doing what he had so often dreamed of doing. + +"Oh," she faltered, "sometimes I thought--it might--be you, darling." + +"Thea, Thea!" + +"When I came over the Mount to swim in the river, and saw you in the +distance among your sheep, there was a swifter river running through +all my body. When I came every April to ask for your cherry-tree, what +did it matter to me that it was not in bloom? for all my heart was wild +with bloom, oh, Gerard, my--lover!" + +"Oh, Thea, my love! What can I give you, Thea, I, a shepherd?" + +"You were the lord of the earth, and you gave me its flowers and its +birds and its secret waters. What more could you give me, you, a +shepherd and my lord?" + +"The wild white bloom of its fruit-trees that comes to the branches in +April like love to the heart. I'll give it you now. Sit here, sit here! +I'll make you a bower of the cherry, and a crown, and a carpet too. +There's nothing in all April lovely and wild enough for you to-night, +your bridal night, my lady and my darling!" + +And in a great fit of joy he broke branch after branch from the tree as +she sat at its foot, and set them about her, and filled her arms to +overflowing, and crowned her with blossoms, and shook the bloom under +her feet, till her shy happy face, paling and reddening by turns, +looked out from a world of flowers and she cried between laughing and +weeping, "Oh, Gerard, oh, you're drowning me!" + +"It's the April floods," shouted Young Gerard, "and I must drown with +you, Thea, Thea, Thea!" And he cast himself down beside her, and +clasped her amid all the blossoming, and with his head on her shoulder +kissed and kissed her till he was breathless and she as pale as the +flowers that smothered their kisses. + +And then suddenly he folded her in the green mantle, blossoms and all, +and sprang up and lifted her to his breast till she lay like a child in +the arms of its mother; and he picked up the lantern and said, "Now we +will go away for ever." + +"Where are we going?" she whispered with shining eyes. + +"To the Wildbrooks," he said. + +"To drown in the floods together?" She closed her eyes. + +"There's a way through all floods," said Young Gerard. + +And he ran with her over the hills with all his speed. + +And Old Gerard returned to a hut as empty as it had been one-and-twenty +years ago. And they say that Combe Ivy, having never set eyes on the +boy in his life, swore that the shepherd's tale had been a fiction from +first to last, and kept him a serf to the end of his days. + + +("What a night of stars it is!" said Martin Pippin, stretching his arms. + +"Good heavens, Master Pippin," cried Joyce, "what a moment to mention +it!" + +"It is worth mentioning," said Martin, "at all moments when it is so. I +would not think of mentioning it in the middle of a snowstorm." + +"You should as little think of mentioning it," said Joyce, "in the +middle of a story." + +"But I am at the end of my story, Mistress Joyce." + +Joscelyn: Preposterous! Oh! Oh, how can you say so? I am ashamed of you! + +Martin: Dear Mistress Joscelyn, I thank you in charity's name for being +that for me which I have never yet succeeded in being for myself. + +Joscelyn: What! are you not ashamed to offer us a broken gift? Your +story is like a cracked pitcher with half the milk leaked out. What was +the secret of the Lantern, the Cloak, and the Cherry-tree? + +Joyce: Who was the lovely lady, his mother? and who the old crone? + +Jennifer: What was the end of the Rough Master of Coates? + +Jessica: Did not the lovers drown in the floods? + +Jane: And if they did not, what became of them? + +"Please," said little Joan, "tell us why Young Gerard dreamed those +dreams. Oh, please tell us what happened." + +"Women's taste is for trifles," said Martin. "I have offered you my +cake, and you wish only to pick off the nuts and the cherries." + +"No," said Joan, "we wish you to put them on. Do you not love nuts and +cherries on a cake?" + +"More than anything," said Martin.) + + +A long while ago, dear maidens, there were Lords in Gay Street, and up +and down the Street the cherry-trees bloomed in Spring as they bloomed +nowhere else in Sussex, and under the trees sang and danced the +loveliest lads and lasses in all England, with hearts like children. +And on all their holiday clothes they worked the leaf and branch and +flower and fruit of the cherry. And they never wore anything else but +their holiday clothes, because in Gay Street it was always holidays. + +And a long while ago there were Gypsies on Nyetimber Common, the +merriest Gypsies in the southlands, with the gayest tatters and the +brightest eyes, and the maddest hearts for mirth-making. They were also +makers of lanterns when they were anything else but what all Gypsies +are. + +And once the son of a Gypsy King loved the daughter of a Lord of Gay +Street, and she loved him. And because of this there was wrath in Gay +Street and scorn on Nyetimber, and all things were done to keep the +lovers apart. But they who attempt this might more profitably chase +wild geese. So one night in April they were taken under one of her +father's own wild cherries by the light of one of his father's own +lanterns. And it was her father and his father who found them, as they +had missed them, in the same moment, and were come hunting for +sweethearts by night with their people behind them. + +Then the Lord of Gay Street pronounced a curse of banishment on his own +daughter, that she must go far away beyond the country of the floods, +and another on his own tree, that it might never blossom more. And +there and then it withered. And the Gypsy King pronounced as dark a +curse of banishment on his own son, and a second on his own lantern, +that it might never more give light. And there and then it went out. + +Then from the crowd of gypsies came the oldest of them all, who was the +King's great-grandmother, and she looked from the angry parents to the +unhappy lovers and said, "You can blight the tree and make the lantern +dark; nevertheless you cannot extinguish the flower and the light of +love. And till these things lift the curse and are seen again united +among you, there will be no Lords in Gay Street nor Kings on Nyetimber." + +And she broke a shoot from the cherry and picked up the lantern and +gave them to the lady and her lover; and then she took them one by each +hand and went away. And the Lord of Gay Street and the Gypsy King died +soon after without heirs, and the joy went out of the hearts of both +peoples, and they dressed in sad colors for one-and-twenty years. + +But the three traveled south through the country of the floods, and on +the way the King's son was drowned, as others had been before him, and +after him the Rough Master of Coates. But the crone brought the lady +safely through, and how she was at once delivered of her son and her +sorrow, dear maidens, you know. + +And for one-and-twenty years the crone was seen no more, and then of a +sudden she re-appeared at daybreak and bade her people put on their +bright apparel because their King was coming with a young Queen; and +after this she led them to Gay Street where she bade the folk to don +their holiday attire, because their Lord was on his way with a fair +Lady. And all those girls and boys, the dark and the light, felt the +child of joy in their hearts again, and they went in the morning with +singing and dancing to welcome the comers under the cherry-trees. + +I entreat you now, Mistress Joyce, for the second hair from your head. + + + +SECOND INTERLUDE + +The milkmaids put their forgotten apples to their mouths, and the +chatter began to run out of them like juice from bitten fruit. + +Jessica: What did you think of this story, Jane? + +Jane: I did not know what to think, Jessica, until the very conclusion, +and then I was too amazed to think anything. For who would have +imagined the young Shepherd to be in reality a lord? + +Martin: Few of us are what we seem, Mistress Jane. Even chimney-sweeps +are Jacks-in-Green on May-Days; for the other +three-hundred-and-sixty-four days in the year they pretend to be +chimney-sweeps. And I have actually known men who appeared to be haters +of women, when they secretly loved them most tenderly. + +Joscelyn: It does not surprise me to hear this. I have always +understood men to be composed of caprices. + +Martin: They are composed of nothing else. I see you know them through +and through. + +Joscelyn: I do not know anything at all about them. We do not study +what does not interest us. + +Martin: I hope, Mistress Joscelyn, you found my story worthy of study? + +Joscelyn: It served its turn. Might one, by going to Rackham Hill, see +this same cherry-tree and this same shed? + +Martin: Alas, no. The shed rotted with time and weather, and bit by bit +its sides were rebuilt with stone. And the cherry-tree Old Gerard +chopped down in a fury, and made firewood of it. But it too had served +its turn. For as every man's life (and perhaps, but you must answer for +this, every woman's life), awaits the hour of blossoming that makes it +immortal, so this tree passed in a single night from sterility to +immortality; and it mattered as little if its body were burned the next +day, as it would have mattered had Gerard and Thea gone down through +the waters that night instead of many years later, after a life-time of +great joy and delight. + +Joyce: I am glad of that. There were moments when I feared it would not +be so. + +Jennifer: I too. For how could it be otherwise, seeing that he was a +shepherd and she a lord's daughter? + +Jessica: And when it was related how she was to wed the Rough Master of +Coates, my hopes were dashed entirely. + +Jane: And when they beat Young Gerard I was perfectly certain he was +dead. + +Joan: I rather fancied the tale would end happily, all the same. + +Martin: I fancied so too. For though any of these accidents would have +marred the ending, love is a divinity above all accidents, and guards +his own with extraordinary obstinacy. Nothing could have thwarted him +of his way but one thing. + +Five of the Milkmaids: Oh, what? + +Martin: Had Thea been one of those who are not interested in the study +of men. + + +Nobody said anything in the Apple-Orchard. + +Joscelyn: She need not have been condemned to unhappiness on that +account, singer. And what does the happiness or unhappiness of an idle +story weigh? Whether she wedded another, or whether they were parted by +whatever cause, such as her superior station, or even his death, it's +all one to me. + +Jennifer: And me. + +Jessica: And me. + +Jane: And me. + +Martin: The tale is judged. Let it go hang. For a cloud has dropped +over nine-tenths of the moon, like the eyelid of a girl who still peeps +through her lashes, but will soon fall asleep for weariness. I have +made her lids as heavy as yours with my poor story. Let us all sleep +and forget it. + + +So the girls lay down in the grass and slept. But Joyce went on +swinging. And every time she swayed past him she looked at Martin, and +her lips opened and shut again, nothing having escaped them but a very +little laughter. The tenth time this happened Martin said: + +"What keeps your lashes open, Mistress Joyce, when your comrades' lie +tangled on their cheeks? Is it the same thing that opens your lips and +peeps through the doorway and runs away again?" + +"MUST my lashes shut because others' do?" said Joyce. "May not lashes +have whims of their own?" + +"Nothing is more whimsical," said Martin Pippin. "I have known, for +instance, lashes that WILL be golden though the hair of the head be +dark. It is a silly trick." + +"I don't dislike such lashes," said Joyce. "That is, I think I should +not if ever I saw them." + + +Martin: Perhaps you are right. I should love them in a woman. + +Joyce: I never saw them in a woman. + +Martin: In a man they would be regrettable. + +Joyce: Then why did you give them to Young Gerard? + +Martin: Did I? It was pure carelessness. Let us change the color of his +lashes. + +Joyce: No, no! I will not have them changed. I would not for the world. + +Martin: Dear Mistress Joyce, if I had the world to offer you, I would +sit by the road and break it with a pickax rather than change a single +eyelash in Young Gerard's lids. Since you love them. + +Joyce: Oh, did I say so? + +Martin: Didn't you?--Mistress Joyce, when you laugh I am ready to +forgive you all your debts. + +Joyce: Why, what do I owe you? + +Martin: An eyelash. + +Joyce: I am sure I do not. + +Martin: No? Then a hair of some sort. How will you be able to sleep +to-night with a hair on your conscience? For your own sake, lift that +crowbar. + +Joyce: To tell you the truth, I fear to redeem my promise lest you are +unable to redeem yours. + +Martin: Which was? + +Joyce: To blow it to its fellow, who is now wandering in the night like +thistledown. + +Martin: I will do it, nevertheless. + +Joyce: It is easier promised than proved. But here is the hair. + +Martin: Are you certain it is the same hair? + +Joyce: I kept it wound round my finger. + +Martin: I know no better way of keeping a hair. So here it goes! + +And he held the hair to his lips and blew on it. + +Martin: A blessing on it. It will soon be wedded. + +Joyce: I have your word on it. + +Martin: You shall have your eyes on it if you will tell me one thing. + +Joyce: Is it a little thing? + +Martin: It's as trifling as a hair. I wish only to know why you have +fallen out with men. + +Joyce: For the best of reasons. Why, Master Pippin! they say the world +is round! + +Martin: Heaven preserve us! was ever so giddy a statement? Round? Why, +the world's as full of edges as the dealings of men and women, in which +you can scarcely go a day's march without reaching the end of all +things and tumbling into heaven. I tell you I have traveled the world +more than any man living, and it takes me all my time to keep from +falling off the brink. Round? The world is one great precipice! + +Joyce: I said so! I said so! I know I was right! I should like to +tell--them so. + +Martin: Were you only able to go out of the Orchard, you would be free +to tell--them so. They are such fools, these men. + +Joyce: Not in all matters, Master Pippin, but certainly in this. They +are good at some things. + +Martin: For my part I can't think what. + +Joyce: They whitewash cowsheds beautifully. + +Martin: Who wouldn't? Whitewash is such beautiful stuff. No, let us be +done with these round-minded men and go to bed. Good night, dear +milkmaid. + +Joyce: Ah, but singer! you have not yet proved your fable of the two +hairs, which you swore were as hard to keep apart as the two lovers in +your tale. + +"Whom love guarded against accidents," said Martin; and he held out to +her the third finger of his left hand, and wound at its base were the +two hairs, in a ring as fine as a cobweb. She took his finger between +two of hers and laughed, and examined it, and laughed again. + +"You have been playing the god of love to my hairs," said Joyce. + +"Somebody must protect those that cannot, or will not, be kind to +themselves," said Martin. And then his other fingers closed quickly on +her hand, and he said: "Dear Mistress Joyce, help me to play the god of +love to Gillian, and give me your key to the Well-House, because there +were moments when you feared my tale would end unhappily." + +She pulled her hand away and began to swing rapidly, without answering. +But presently she exclaimed, "Oh, oh! it has dropped!" + +"What? what?" said Martin anxiously. + +But she only cried again, "Oh, my heart! it has dropped under the +swing." + +"In love's name," said Martin, "let me recover your heart." + +He groped in the grass and found what she had dropped, and then was +obliged to fall flat on his back to escape her feet as she swung. + +"Well, any time's a time for laughing," said Martin, crawling forth and +getting on his knees. "Here's the key to your heart, laughing Joyce." + +"Oh, Martin! how can I take it with my hands on the ropes?" + +"Then I'll lay it on your lap." + +"Oh, Martin! how do you expect it to stay there while I swing?" + +"Then you must stop swinging." + +"Oh, Martin! I will never stop swinging as long as I live!" + +"Then what must I do with this key?" + +"Oh, Martin! why do you bother me so about an old key? Can't you see +I'm busy?" + +"Oh, Joyce! when you laugh I must--I must--" + +"Yes?" + +"I must!" + +And he caught her two little feet in his hands as she next flew by, and +kissed each one upon the instep. + +Then he ran to his bed under the hedge, and she sat where she was till +her laughing turned to smiling, and her smiling to sleeping. + + +"Maids! maids! maids!" + +It was morning. + +"To your hiding-place, Master Pippin!" urged Joscelyn. "It's our master +come again." + +Martin concealed himself with speed, and an instant later the farmer's +burly face peered through the gap in the hedge. + +"Good morrow, maids." + +"Good morrow, master." + +"Has my daughter stopped weeping yet?" + +"No, master," said Joyce, "but I begin to think that she will before +long." + +"A little longer will be too long," moaned Gillman, "for my purse is +running dry with these droughty times, and I shall have to mortgage the +farm to buy me ale, since I am foiled of both water and milk. Who would +have daughters when he might have sons? Gillian!" he cried, "when will +ye learn that old heads are wiser than young ones?" + +But Gillian paid no more attention to him than to the cawing rooks in +the elms in the oatfield. + +"Take your bread, maids," said Gillman, "and heaven send us grace +to-morrow." + +"Just an instant, master," said Joyce. "I would like to know if Blossom +my Shorthorn is well?" + +"As well as a child without its mother, maid, though Michael has turned +nurse to her. But she seems sworn to hold back her milk till you come +again. Rack and ruin, nothing but rack and ruin!" + +And off he went. + +Then breakfast was prepared as on the previous day, and Gillian's stale +loaf was broken for the ducks. But Joscelyn pointed out that one of the +kissing-crusts had been pulled off in the night. + +"Your stories, Master Pippin, are doing their work," said she. + +"I begin to think so," said Martin cheerfully. And then they fell to on +their own white loaves and sweet apples. + +When they had breakfasted Martin observed that he could make better and +longer daisy-chains than any one else in the world, and his statement +was pooh-poohed by six voices at once. For girls' fingers, said these +voices, had been especially fashioned by nature for the making of +daisy-chains. Martin challenged them to prove this, and they plucked +lapfuls of the small white daisies with big yellow eyes, and threaded +chains of great length, and hung them about each other's necks. And so +deft and dainty was their touch that the chains never broke in the +making or, what is still more delicate a matter, in the hanging. But +Martin's chains always broke before he had joined the last daisy to the +first, and the girls jeered at him for having no necklace to match +their necklaces of pearls and gold, and for failing so contemptibly in +his boast. And he appeared so abashed by their jeers that little Joan +relented and made a longer chain than any that had been made yet, and +hung it round his neck. At which he was merry again, and confessed +himself beaten, and the girls became very gracious, being in their +triumph even more pleased with him than with themselves. Which was a +great deal. And by then it was dinner-time. + +After dinner Martin proposed that as they had sat all the morning they +should run all the afternoon, so they played Touchwood. And Martin was +He. But an orchard is so full of wood that he had a hard job of it. And +he observed that Jennifer had very little daring, and scarcely ever +lifted her finger from the wood as she ran from one tree to another; +and that Jane had no daring at all, and never even left her tree. And +that Joscelyn was extremely daring when it was safe to be so; and that +Jessica was daring enough to tweak him and run away, while Joyce was +more daring still, for she tweaked him and did not run. As for little +Joan, she puzzled him most of all; for half the time she outdid them +all in daring, and then she was uncatchable, slipping through his very +fingers like a ray of sunlight a child tries to hold; but the other +half of the time she was timidity itself, and crept from tree to tree, +and if he were near became like a little frightened rabbit, forgetting, +or being through fear unable, to touch safety; and then she was snared +more easily than any. + +By supper, however, every maid had been He but Jane. For no man can +catch what doesn't run. + +"How the time has flown," said Joscelyn, when they were all seated +about the middle tree after the meal. + +"It makes such a difference," said Jennifer, "when there's something to +do. We never used to have anything to do till Master Pippin came, and +now life is all games and stories." + +"The games," said Joscelyn, "are well enough." + +"Shall we," said Martin, "forego the stories?" + +"Oh, Master Pippin!" said Jennifer anxiously, "we surely are to have a +story to-night?" + +"Unless we are to remain here for ever," said Martin, "I fear we must. +But for my part I am quite happy here. Are not you, Mistress Joscelyn?" + +"Your questions are idle," said she. "You know very well that we cannot +escape a story." + +"You see, Mistress Jennifer," said Martin. "Let us resign ourselves +therefore. And for your better diversion, please sit in the swing, and +when the story is tedious you will have a remedy at hand." + +So saying, he put Jennifer on the seat and her hands on the ropes, and +the five other girls climbed into the tree, while he took the bough +that had become his own. And all provided themselves with apples. + +"Begin," said Joscelyn. + +"A story-teller," said Martin, "as much as any other craftsman, needs +his instruments, of which his auditors are the chief. And of these I +lack one." And he fixed his eyes of the weeper in the Well-House. + +"You have six already," said Joscelyn. "The seventh you must acquire as +you proceed. So begin." + +"Without the vital tool?" cried Martin. "As well might you bid Madam +Toad to spin flax without her distaff." + +"What folly is this?" said Joscelyn. "Toads don't spin." + +"Don't they?" said Martin, much astonished. "I thought they did. What +then is toadflax? Do the wildflowers not know?" + +And still keeping his eyes fixed on Gillian he thrummed and sang-- + + Toad, toad, old toad, + What are you spinning? + Seven hanks of yellow flax + Into snow-white linen. + What will you do with it + Then, toad, pray? + Make shifts for seven brides + Against their wedding-day. + Suppose e'er a one of them + Refuses to be wed? + Then she shall not see the jewel + I wear in my head. + +As he concluded, Gillian raised herself on her two elbows, and with her +chin on her palms gazed steadily over the duckpond. + +Joscelyn: Why seven? + +Martin: Is it not as good a number as another? + +Jennifer: What is the jewel like in the toad's head, Master Pippin? + +Martin: How can I say, Mistress Jennifer? There's but one way of +knowing, according to the song, and like a fool I refused it. + +Jennifer: I wish I knew. + +Martin: The way lies open to all. + +Joscelyn: These are silly legends, Jennifer. It is as little likely +that there are jewels in toads' heads as that toads spin flax. But +Master Pippin pins his faith to any nonsense. + +Martin: True, Mistress Joscelyn. My faith cries for elbow-room, and he +who pins his faith to common-sense is like to get a cramp in it. +Therefore since women, as I hear tell, have ceased to spin brides' +shifts, I am obliged to believe that these things are spun by toads. +Because brides there must be though the wells should run dry. + +Joscelyn: I do not see the connection. However, it is obvious that the +bad logic of your song has aroused even Gillian's attention, so for +mercy's sake make short work of your tale before it flags again. + +Martin: I will follow your advice. And do you follow me with your best +attention while I turn the wheel of The Mill of Dreams. + + + +THE MILL OF DREAMS + +There was once, dear maidens, a girl who lived in a mill on the +Sidlesham marshes. But in those days the marshlands were meadowlands, +with streams running in from the coast, so that their water was +brackish and salt. And sometimes the girl dipped her finger in the +water and sucked it and tasted the sea. And the taste made storms rise +in her heart. Her name was Helen. + +The mill-house was a gaunt and gloomy building of stone, as gray as +sleep, weatherstained with dreams. It had fine proportions, and looked +like a noble prison. And in fact, if a prison is the lockhouse of +secrets, it was one. The great millstones ground day and night, and +what the world sent in as corn it got back as flour. And as to the +secrets of the grinding it asked no questions, because to the world +results are everything. It understands death better than sorrow, +marriage better than love, and birth better than creation. And the +millstones of joy and pain, grinding dreams into bread, it seldom +hears. But Helen heard them, and they were all the knowledge she had of +life; for if the mill was a prison of dreams it was her prison too. + +Her father the miller was a harsh man and dark; he was dark within and +without. Her mother was dead; she did not remember her. As she grew up +she did little by little the work of the big place. She was her +father's servant, and he kept her as close to her work as he kept his +millstones to theirs. He was morose, and welcomed no company. Gayety he +hated. Helen knew no songs, for she had heard none. From morning till +night she worked for her father. When she had done all her other work +she spun flax into linen for shirts and gowns, and wool for stockings +and vests. If she went outside the mill-house, it was only for a few +steps for a few moments. She wasn't two miles from the sea, but she had +never seen it. But she tasted the salt water and smelt the salt wind. + +Like all things that grow up away from the light, she was pale. Her +oval face was like ivory, and her lips, instead of being scarlet, had +the tender red of apple-blossom, after the unfolding of the bright bud. +Her hair was black and smooth and heavy, and lay on either side of her +face like a starling's wings. Her eyes too were as black as midnight, +and sometimes like midnight they were deep and sightless. But when she +was neither working nor spinning she would steal away to the +millstones, and stand there watching and listening. And then there were +two stars in the midnight. She came away from those stolen times +powdered with flour. Her black hair and her brows and lashes, her old +blue gown, her rough hands and fair neck, and her white face--all that +was dark and pale in her was merged in a mist, and seen only through +the clinging dust of the millstones. She would try to wipe off all the +evidences of her secret occasions, but her father generally knew. Had +he known by nothing else, he need only have looked at her eyes before +they lost their starlight. + +One day when she was seventeen years old there was a knock at the +mill-house door. Nobody ever knocked. Her father was the only man who +came in and went out. The mill stood solitary in those days. The face +of the country has since been changed by man and God, but at that time +there were no habitations in sight. At regular times the peasants +brought their grain and fetched their meal; but the miller kept his +daughter away from his custom. He never said why. Doubtless at the back +of his mind was the thought of losing what was useful to him. Most +parents have their ways of trying to keep their children; in some it is +this way, in others that; not many learn to keep them by letting them +go. + +So when the knock came at the door, it was the strangest thing that had +ever happened in Helen's life. She ran to the door and stood with her +hand on the heavy wooden bar that fell across it into a great socket. +Her heart beat fast. Before we know a thing it is a thousand things. +Only one thing would be there when she lifted the bar. But as she stood +with her hand upon it, a host of presences hovered on the other side. A +knight in armor, a king in his gold crown, a god in the guise of a +beggar, an angel with a sword; a dragon even; a woman to be her friend; +her mother...a child... + +"Would it be better not to open?" thought Helen. For then she would +never know. Yes, then she could run to her millstones and fling them +her thoughts in the husk, and listen, listen while they ground them +into dreams. What knowledge would be better than that? What would she +lose by opening the door? + +But she had to open the door. + +Outside on the stones stood a common lad. He might have been three +years older than she. He had a cap with a hole in it in his hand, and a +shabby jersey that left his brown neck bare. He was whistling when she +lifted the bar, but he stopped as the door fell back, and gave Helen a +quick and careless look. + +"Can I have a bit of bread?" he asked. + +Helen stared at him without answering. She was so unused to people that +her mind had to be summoned from a world of ghosts before she could +hear and utter real words. The boy waited for her to speak, but, as she +did not, shrugged his shoulders and turned away whistling his tune. + +Then she understood that he was going, and she ran after him quickly +and touched his sleeve. He turned again, expecting her to speak; but +she was still dumb. + +"Thought better of it?" he said. + +Helen said slowly, "Why did you ask me for bread?" + +"Why?" He looked her up and down. "To mend my boots with, of course." + +She looked at his boots. + +"You silly thing," grinned the boy. + +A faint color came under her skin. "I'm sorry for being stupid. I +suppose you're hungry." + +"As a hunter. But there's no call to trouble you. I'll be where I can +get bread, and meat too, in forty minutes. Good-by, child." + +"No," said Helen. "Please don't go. I'd like to give you some bread." + +"Oh, all right," said the boy. "What frightened you? Did you think I +was a scamp?" + +"I wasn't frightened," said Helen. + +"Don't tell me," mocked the boy. "You couldn't get a word out." + +"I wasn't frightened." + +"You thought I was a bad lot. You don't know I'm not one now." + +Helen's eyes filled with tears. She turned away quickly. "I'll get you +your bread," she said. + +"You are a silly, aren't you?" said the boy as she disappeared. + +Before long she came back with half a loaf in one hand, and something +in the other which she kept behind her back. + +"Thanks," said the boy, taking the bit of loaf. "What else have you got +there?" + +"It's something better than bread," said Helen slowly. + +"Well, let's have a look at it." + +She took her hand from behind her, and offered him seven ears of wheat. +They were heavy with grain, and bowed on their ripe stems. + +"Is this what you call better than bread?" he asked. + +"It is better." + +"Oh, all right. I sha'n't eat it though--not all at once." + +"No," said Helen, "keep it till you're hungry. The grains go quite a +long way when you're hungry." + +"I'll eat one a year," said the boy, "and then they'll go so far +they'll outlast me my lifetime." + +"Yes," said Helen, "but the bread will be gone in forty minutes. And +then you'll be where you can get meat." + +"You funny thing," said the boy, puzzled because she never smiled. + +"Where can you get meat?" she asked. + +"In a boat, fishing for rabbits." + +But she took no notice of the rabbits. She said eagerly, "A boat? are +you going in a boat?" + +"Yes." + +"Are you a sailor?" + +"You've hit it." + +"You've seen the sea! you've been on the sea!--sailors do that..." + +"Oh, dear no," said the boy, "we sail three times round the duckpond +and come home for tea." + +Helen hung her head. The boy put his hand up to his mouth and watched +her over it. + +"Well," he said presently, "I must get along to Pagham." He stuck the +little sheaf of wheat through the hole in his cap, and it bobbed like a +ruddy-gold plume over his ear. Then he felt in his pocket and after +some fumbling got hold of what he wanted and pulled it out. "Here you +are, child," he said, "and thank you again." + +He put his present into her hand and swung off whistling. He turned +once to wave to her, and the corn in his cap nodded with its weight and +his light gait. She stood gazing till he was out of sight, and then she +looked at what he had given her. It was a shell. + +She had heard of shells, of course, but she had never seen one. Yet she +knew this was no English shell. It was as large as the top of a teacup, +but more oval than round. Over its surface, like pearl, rippled waves +of sea-green and sea-blue, under a luster that was like golden +moonlight on the ocean. She could not define or trace the waves of +color; they flowed in and out of each other with interchangeable +movement. One half of the outer rim, which was transparently thin and +curled like the fantastic edge of a surf wave, was flecked with a faint +play of rose and cream and silver, that melted imperceptibly into the +moonlit sea. When she turned the shell over she found that she could +not see its heart. The blue-green side of the shell curled under like a +smooth billow, and then broke into a world of caves, and caves within +caves, whose final secret she could not discover. But within and within +the color grew deeper and deeper, bottomless blues and unfathomable +greens, shot with such gleams of light as made her heart throb, for +they were like the gleams that shoot through our dreams, the light that +just eludes us when we wake. + +She went into the mill, trembling from head to foot. She was not +conscious of moving, but she found herself presently standing by the +grinding stones, with sound rushing through her and white dust whirling +round her. She gazed and gazed into the labyrinth of the shell as +though she must see to its very core; but she could not. So she +unfastened her blue gown and laid the shell against her young heart. It +was for the first time of so many times that I know not whether when, +twenty years later, she did it for the last time, they outnumbered the +silver hairs among her black ones. And the silver by then were +uncountable. Yet on the day when Helen began her twenty years of lonely +listening-- + + +(But having said this, Martin Pippin grasped the rope just above +Jennifer's hand, and pulled it with such force that the swing, instead +of swinging back and forth, as a swing should, reeled sideways so that +the swinger had much ado to keep her seat. + +Jennifer: Heaven help me! + +Martin: Heaven help ME! I need its help more sorely than you do. + +Jennifer: Oh, you should be punished, not helped! + +Martin: I have been punished, and the punished require help more than +censure, or scorn, or anger, or any other form of righteousness. + +Jennifer: Who has punished you? And for what? + +Martin: You, Mistress Jennifer. For my bad story. + +Jennifer: I do not remember doing so. The story is only begun. I am +sure it will be a very good story. + +Martin: Now you are compassionate, because I need comfort. But the +truth is that, good or bad, you care no more for my story. For I saw a +tear of vexation come into your eye. + +Jennifer: It was not vexation. Not exactly vexation. And doubtless +Helen will have experiences which we shall all be glad to hear. But all +the same I wish-- + +Martin: You wish? + +Jennifer: That she was not going to grow old in her loneliness. Because +all lovers are young. + +Martin: You have spoken the most beautiful of all truths. Does the +grass grow high enough by the swing for you to pluck me two blades? + +Jennifer: I think so. Yes. What do you want with them? + +Martin: I want but one of them now. You shall only give me the other +if, at the end of my tale, you agree that its lovers are as green as +this blade and that.) + + +On the day (resumed Martin) when Helen began her lonely listening of +heart and ears betwixt the seashell and the millstones of her dreams, +there was not, dear Mistress Jennifer, a silver thread in her black +locks to vex you with. For a girl of seventeen is but a child. Yet old +enough to begin spinning the stuff of the spirit... + + +"My boy!-- + +"Oh, how strange it was, your coming like that, so suddenly. Before I +opened the door I stood there guessing...And how could I have guessed +this? Did you guess too on the other side?" + +"No, not much. I thought it might be a cross old woman. What did YOU +guess?" + +"Oh, such stupid things. Kings and knights and even women. And it was +you!" + +"And it was you!" + +"Suppose I'd been a cross old woman?" + +"Suppose I'd been a king?" + +"And you were just my boy." + +"And you--my sulky girl." + +"Oh, I wasn't sulky. Oh, didn't you understand? How could I speak to +you? I couldn't hear you, I couldn't see you, even!" + +"Can you see me now?" + +She was lying with her cheek against his heart, and she turned her face +suddenly inwards, because she saw him bend his head, and the sweetness +of his first kiss was going to be more than she could bear. + +"Why don't you look up, you silly child? Why don't you look at me, +dear?" + +"How can I yet? Can I ever? It's so hard looking in a person's eyes. +But I am looking at you, I AM, though you can't see me." + +"Then tell me what color my eyes are." + +"They're gray-green, and your hair is dark red, a sort of chestnut but +a little redder and rough over your forehead, and your nose is all over +freckles with very very snub--" + + +(Martin: Heaven help you, Mistress Jennifer! + +Jennifer: W-w-w-w-why, Master Pippin? + +Martin: Were you not about to fall again? + +Jennifer: N-n-n-n-no. I-I-I-I-I-- + +Martin: I see you are as firm as a rock. How could I have been so +deceived?) + + +He shook her a little in his arms, saying: "How rude you are to my +nose. I wish you'd look up." + +"No, not yet...presently. But you, did you look at me?" + +"Didn't you see me look?" + +"When?" + +"As soon as you opened the door." + +"What did you see?" + +"The loveliest thing I'd ever seen." + +"I'm not really--am I?" + +"I used to dream about you at night on my watches. I made you up out of +bits of the night--white moonlight, black clouds, and stars. Sometimes +I would take the last cloud of sunset for your lips. And the wind, when +it was gentle, for your voice. And the movements of the sea for your +movements, and the rise and fall of it for your breathing, and the lap +of it against the boat for your kisses. Oh, child, look up!..." + +She looked up.... + + +"What's your name?" + +"Helen." + +"I can't hear you." + +"Helen. Say it." + +"I'm trying to." + +"I can't hear YOU now. And I want to hear your voice say my name. Oh, +my boy, do say it, so that I can remember it when you're away." + +"I can't say it, child. Why didn't you tell me your name?" + +"What is yours?" + +"I'm trying to tell you." + +"Please--please!" + +"I'm trying with all my might. Listen with all yours." + +"I am listening. I can't hear anything. Yet I'm listening so hard that +it hurts. I want to say your name over and over and over to myself when +you're away. CAN'T you say it louder?" + +"No, it's no good." + +"Oh, why didn't you tell me, boy?" + +"Oh, child, why didn't you tell me?" + + +"Is my bread sweet to you?" + +"The sweetest I ever ate. I ate it slowly, and took each bit from your +hand. I kept one crust." + +"And my corn." + +"Oh, your corn! that is everlasting. You have sown your seed. I have +eaten a grain, and it bore its harvest. One by one I shall eat them, +and every grain will bear its full harvest. You have replenished the +unknown earth with fields of golden corn, and set me walking there for +ever." + +"And you have thrown golden light upon strange waters, and set me +floating there for ever. Oh, you on my earth and I on your ocean, how +shall we meet?" + +"Your corn is my waters, my waters are your corn. They move on one +wave. Oh, child, we are borne on it together, for ever." + + +"But how you teased me!" + +"I couldn't help it." + +"You and your boats and your duckponds." + +"It was such fun. You were so serious. It was so easy to tease you." + +"Why did you put your hand over your mouth?" + +"To keep myself from--" + +"Laughing at me?" + +"Kissing you. You looked so sorry because sailors only sail round +duckponds, when you thought they always sailed out by the West and home +by the East. You believed the duckponds." + +"I didn't really." + +"For a moment!" + +"I felt so stupid." + +"You blushed." + +"Oh, did I?" + +"A very little. Like the inside of a shell. I'd always tease you to +make you blush like that. Don't you ever smile or laugh, child?" + +"You might teach me to. I haven't had the sort of life that makes one +smile and laugh. Oh, but I could. I could smile and laugh for you if +you wished. I could do anything you wanted. I could be anything you +wanted." + +"Shall I make something of you? What shall it be?" + +"I don't care, so long as it is yours. Oh, make something of me. I've +been lonely always. I don't want to be any more. I want to be able to +come to you when I please, not only because I need so much to come, but +because you need me to come. Can you make me sure that you need me? +When no one has ever needed you, how can you believe...? Oh, no, no! +don't look sorry. I do believe it. And will you always stand with me +here in the loneliness that has been so dark? Then it won't be dark any +more. Why do two people make light? One alone only wanders and holds +out her hand and finds no one--nothing. Sometimes not even herself. +Will you be with me always?" + +"Always." + +"Why?" + +"Because I love you." + +"No," said Helen, "but because I love you." + + +"Tell me--WERE you frightened?" + +"Of you? when I saw you at the door?" + +"Yes. Were you?" + +"Oh, my boy." + +"But didn't you think I might be a scamp?" + +"I didn't think about it at all. It wouldn't have made any difference." + +"Then why were you as mum as a fish?" + +"Oh, my boy." + +"Why? why? why?--if you weren't frightened? Of course you were +frightened." + +"No, no, I wasn't. I told you I wasn't. Why don't you believe me?-- Oh, +you're laughing at me again." + +"You're blushing again." + +"It's so easy to make me ashamed when I've been silly. Of course you +know now why I couldn't speak. You know what took my words away. Didn't +you know then?" + +"How could I know? How could I dream it would be as quick for you as +for me?" + +"One can dream anything...oh!" + +"What is it, child?" For she had caught at her heart. + +"Dreams...and not truth. Oh, are you here? Am I? Where are you--where +are you? Hold me, hold me fast. Don't let it be just empty dreams." + +"Hush, hush, my dear. Dreams aren't empty. Dreams are as near the truth +as we can come. What greater truth can you ever have than this? For as +men and women dream, they drop one by one the veils between them and +the mystery. But when they meet they are shrouded in the veils again, +and though they long to strip them off, they cannot. And each sees of +each but dimly the truth which in their dreams was as clear as light. +Oh, child, it's not our dreams that are our illusions." + +"No," she whispered. "But still it is not enough. Not quite enough for +the beloved that they shall dream apart and find their truths apart. In +life too they must touch, and find the mystery together. Though it be +only for one eternal instant. Touch me not only in my dreams, but in +life. Turn life itself into the dream at last. Oh, hold me fast, my +boy, my boy..." + +"Hush, hush, child, I'm holding you..." + + +"You wept." + +"Oh, did you see? I turned my head away." + +"Why did you weep?" + +"Because you thought I had misjudged you." + +"Then I misjudged you." + +"But I did not weep for that." + +"Would you, if I misjudged you?" + +"It would not be so hard to bear." + +"And you went away with tears and brought me the corn of your mill." + +"And you took it with smiles, and gave me the shell of your seas." + +"Your corn rustled through my head." + +"Your shell whispers at my heart." + +"You shall always hear it whispering there. It will tell you what I can +never tell you, or only tell you in other ways." + +"Of your life on the sea? Of the countries over the water? Of storms +and islands and flashing birds, and strange bright flowers? Of all the +lands and life I've never seen, and dream of all wrong? Will it tell me +those things?--of your life that I don't know." + +"Yes, perhaps. But I could tell you of that life." + +"Of what other life will it tell me?" + +"Of my life that you do know." + +"Is there one?" + +"Look in your own heart." + +"I am looking." + +"And listen." + +"Yes." + +"What do you hear?" + +"Oh, boy, the whispering of your shell!" + +"Oh, child, the rustling of your corn!" + +Oh, maids! the grinding of the millstones. + + +This is only a little part of what she heard. But if I told you the +whole we should rise from the story gray-headed. For every day she +carried her boy's shell to the grinding stones, and stood there while +it spoke against her heart. And at other times of the day it lay in her +pocket, while she swept and cooked and spun, and she saw shadows of her +mill-dreams in the cobwebs and the rising steam, and heard echos of +them in her singing kettle and her singing wheel. And at night it lay +on her pillow against her ear, and the voice of the waters went through +her sleep. + +So the years slipped one by one, and she grew from a girl into a young +woman; and presently passed out of her youth. But her eyes and her +heart were still those of a girl, for life had touched them with +nothing but a girl's dream. And it is not time that leaves its traces +on the spirit, whatever it may do to the body. Her father meanwhile +grew harder and more tyrannical with years. There was little for him to +fear now that any man would come to take her from him; but the habit of +the oppressor was on him, and of the oppressed on her. And when this +has been many years established, it is hard for either to realize that, +to escape, the oppressed has only to open the door and go. + +Yet Helen, if she had ever thought of escape into another world and +life, would not have desired it. For in leaving her millstones she +would have lost a world whose boundaries she had never touched, and a +life whose sweetness she had never exhausted. And she would have lost +her clue to knowledge of him who was to her always the boy in the old +jersey who had knocked at her door so many years ago. + +Once he was shipwrecked... + + +...The waters had sucked her under twice already, when her helpless +hands hit against some floating substance on the waves. She could not +have grasped it by herself, for her strength was gone; but a hand +gripped her in the darkness, and dragged her, almost insensible, to +safety. For a long while she lay inert across the knees of her rescuer. +Consciousness was at its very boundary. She knew that in some dim +distance strong hands were chafing a wet and frozen body...but whose +hands?...whose body?...Presently it was lifted to the shelter of strong +arms; and now she was conscious of her own heart-beats, but it was like +a heart beating in air, not in a body. Then warmth and breath began to +fall like garments about this bodiless heart, and they were indeed not +her own warmth and breath, but these things given to her by +another--the warmth was that of his own body where he had laid her cold +hands and breast to take what heat there was in him, and the breath was +of his own lungs, putting life into hers through their two +mouths....She opened her eyes. It was dark. The darkness she had come +out of was bright beside this pitchy night, and her struggle back to +life less painful than the fierce labor of the wind and waves. Their +frail precarious craft was in ceaseless peril. His left arm held her +like a vice, but for greater safety he had bound a rope round their two +bodies and the small mast of their craft. With his right arm he clasped +the mast low down, and his right hand came round to grip her shaking +knees. In this close hold she lay a long while without speaking. Then +she said faintly: + +"Is it my boy?" + +"Yes, child. Didn't you know?" + +"I wanted to hear you say it. How long have you been in danger?" + +"I don't know. Some hours. I thought you would never come to yourself." + +"I tried to come to you. I can't swim." + +"The sea brought you to me. You were nearly drowned. You slipped me +once. If you had again--!" + +"What would you have done?" + +"Jumped in. I couldn't have stayed on here without you." + +"Ah, but you mustn't ever do that--promise, promise! For then you'd +lose me for ever. Promise." + +"I promise. But there's no for ever of that sort. There's no losing +each other, whatever happens. You know that, don't you?" + +"Yes, I do know. When people love, they find each other for ever. But I +don't want you to die, and I don't want to die--yet. But if it is +to-night it will be together. Will it be to-night, do you think?" + +"I don't know, dear. The storm's breaking up over there, but that's not +the only danger." + +"But nothing matters, nothing matters at all while I'm with you." She +lay heavily against him; her eyes closed, and she shook violently. + +"Child, you're shuddering, you're as cold as ice." He put his hand upon +her chilly bosom, and hugged her more fiercely to his own. With a +sudden movement of despair and anger at the little he could do, he +slipped his arms from his jacket, and stripping open his shirt pulled +her to him, re-fastening his jacket around them both, tying it tightly +about their bodies by the empty sleeves. She felt his lips on her hair +and heard him whisper, "You're not frightened of me, are you, child? +You never will be, will you?" + +She shook her head and whispered, "I never have been." + +"Sleep, if you can, dear." + +"I'll try." + +So closely was she held by his coat and his arms, so near she lay to +his beloved heart, that she knew no longer what part of that union was +herself; they were one body, and one spirit. Her shivering grew less, +and with her lips pressed to his neck she fell asleep. + + +It was noon. + +The hemisphere of the sky was an unbroken blue washed with a silver +glare. She could not look up. The sea was no longer wild, but it was +not smooth; it was a dancing sea, and every small wave rippled with +crested rainbows. A flight of gulls wheeled and screamed over their +heads; their movements were so swift that the mid-air seemed to be +filled with visible lines described by their flight, silver lines that +gleamed and melted on transparent space like curved lightnings. + +"Oh, look! oh, look!" cried Helen. + +He smiled, but he was not watching the gulls. "Yes, you've never seen +that, have you, child?" His eyes searched the distance. + +"But you aren't looking. What are you looking at?" + +"Nothing. I can't see what I'm looking for. But the gulls might mean +land, or icebergs, or a ship." + +"I don't want land or a ship, or even icebergs," said Helen suddenly. + +He looked at her with the fleeting look that had been her first +impression of him. + +"Why not? Why don't you?" + +"I'm so happy where I am." + +"That's all very well," said her boy, with his eyes on the distance. + +For awhile she lay enjoying the warmth of the sun, watching the gulls +sliding down the unseen slopes of the air. Presently high up she saw +one hover and pause, settling on nothingness by the swift, almost +imperceptible beat of its wings. And suddenly it dropped like a stone +upon a wave, and darted up again so quickly that she could not follow +what had happened. + +"What is it doing?" she asked. + +"Fishing," said the boy. "It wanted its dinner." + +"So do I," said Helen. + +He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a packet wrapped in +oilskin. There was biscuit in it. He gave some to her, bit by bit; +though it was soft and dull, she was glad of it. But soon she drew away +from the hand that fed her. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. + +"You must have some too." + +"That's all right. I'm not greedy like you birds." + +"I'm not a bird. And I'm not greedy. Being hungry's not being greedy. +I'd be greedy if I ate while you're hungry." + +"I'm not hungry." + +"Then neither am I." + +To satisfy her he ate a biscuit. Soon after she began to feel thirst, +but she dared not ask for water. She knew he had none. He looked at her +lying pale in his arms, and said with a smile that was not like a real +smile, "It's a pity about the icebergs." She smiled and nodded, and lay +still in the heat, watching the gulls, and thinking of ice. Some of the +birds settled on the raft. One sat on the mast; another hovered at her +knee, picking at crumbs. They played in the sun, rising and falling, +and turned in her vision into a whirl of snowflakes, enormous +snowflakes....She began to dream of snow, and her lips parted in the +hope that some might fall upon her tongue. Presently she ceased to +dream of snow....The boy looked down at her closed lids, and at her +cheeks, as white as the breasts of the gulls. He could not bear to look +long, and returned to his distances. + + +It was night again. + +The circle of the sea was as smooth as silk. Pale light played over it +like dreams and ghosts. The sky was a crowded arc of stars, millions of +stars, she had never seen or imagined so many. They glittered, +glittered restlessly, in an ecstasy that caught her spirit. She too was +filled with millions of stars, through her senses they flashed and +glittered--a delirium of stars in heaven and her heart.... + +"My boy!" + +"Yes, child." + +"Do you see the stars?" + +"Yes, child." + +"Do you feel them?" + +"Yes." + +"Oh, can't we die now?" + +She felt him move stiffly. "There's a ship! I'm certain of it now--I'm +certain! Oh, if it were day!" + +The stars went on dazzling. She did not understand about the ship. Time +moved forward, or stood still. For her the night was timeless. It was +eternity. + +But things were happening outside in time and space. By what means they +had been seen or had attracted attention she did not know. But the +floating dreamlight and the shivering starlight on the sea were broken +by a dark movement on the waveless waters. A boat was coming. For some +time there had been shouting and calling in strange voices, one of them +her boy's. But once again she hovered on the dim verge of +consciousness. She had flown from the body he was painfully unbinding +from his own. What he had suffered in holding it there so long she +never knew. From leagues away she heard him whispering, "Child, can you +help yourself a little?" And now for an instant her soul re-approached +her body, and looked at him through the soft midnight of her eyes, and +he saw in them such starlight as never was in sky or on sea. + +"Kiss me," said Helen. + +He kissed her. + +With a great effort she lifted herself and stood upright on the raft, +swaying a little and holding by the mast. The boat was still a little +distant. + +"Good-by, my boy." + +"Child--!" + +"Don't jump. You promised not to. You promised. But I can't come with +you now. You must let me go." + +He looked at her, and saw she was in a fever. He made a desperate +clutch at her blue gown. But he was not quick enough. "Keep your +promise!" she cried, and disappeared in the dreamlit waters; she +disappeared like a dream, without a sound. As she sank, she heard him +calling her by the only name he knew.... + + +When she was thirty-five her father died. Now she was free to go where +she pleased. But she did not go anywhere. + +Ever since, as a child, she had first tasted salt water, she had longed +to travel and see other lands. What held her now? Was it that her +longing had been satisfied? that she had a host of memories of great +mountains and golden shores, of jungles and strange cities of the +coast, of islands lost in seas of sapphire and emerald? of caravans and +towers of ivory? of haunted caverns and deserted temples? where, a +child always, with her darling boy, she had had such adventures as +would have filled a hundred earthly lives. They had built huts in +uninhabited places, or made a twisted bower of strong green creepers, +and lived their primitive paradisal life wanting nothing but each +other; sometimes, through accidents and illness, they had nursed each +other, with such unwearied tenderness that death himself had to +withdraw, defeated by love. Once on a ship there had been mutiny, and +she alone stood by him against a throng; once savages had captured her, +and he, outwitting them, had rescued her, riding through leagues of +prairie-land and forest, holding her before him on the saddle. In +nearly all these adventures it was as though they had met for the first +time, and were struck anew with the dumb wonder of first love, and the +strange shy sweetness of wooing and confession. Yet they were but +playing above truth. For the knowledge was always between them that +they were bound immortally by a love which, having no end, seemed also +to have had no beginning. They quarreled sometimes--this was playing +too. She put, now herself, now him, in the wrong. And either +reconciliation was sweet. But it was she who was oftenest at fault, his +forgiveness was so dear to her. And still, this was but playing at it. +When all these adventures and pretenses were done, they stood heart to +heart, and out of their only meeting in life built up eternal truth and +told each other. They told it inexhaustibly. + +And so, when her father left her free to go, Helen lived on still in +the mill of dreams, and kept her millstones grinding. Two years went +by. And her hard gray lonely life laid its hand on her hair and her +countenance. Her father had worn her out before her time. + +It was only invisible grain in the mill now. The peasants came no +longer with their corn. She had enough to live on, and her long +seclusion unfitted her for strange men in the mill, and people she must +talk to. And so long was the habit of the recluse on her, that though +her soul flew leagues her body never wandered more than a few hundred +yards from her home. Some who had heard of her, and had glimpses of +her, spoke to her when they met; but they could make no headway with +this sweet, shy, silent woman. Yet children and boys and girls felt +drawn to her. It was the dream in her eyes that stirred the love in +their hearts; though they knew it no more than the soup in the pipkin +knows why it bubbles and boils. For it cannot see the fire. But to them +she did not seem old; her strength and eagerness were still upon her, +and that silver needlework with which time broiders all men had in her +its special beauty, setting her aloof in the unabandoned dream which +the young so often desert as their youth deserts them. Those of her +age, seeing that unyouthful gleam of her hair combined with the +still-youthful dream of her eyes, felt as though they could not touch +her; for no man can break another's web, he can only break his own, and +these had torn their films to tatters long ago, and shouldered their +way through the smudgy rents, and no more walked where she walked. But +very young people knew the places she walked in, and saw her clearly, +for they walked there too, though they were growing up and she was +growing old. + +At the end of the second year there was a storm. It lasted three days +without stopping. Such fury of rain and thunder she had never heard. +The gaunt rooms of the mill were steeped in gloom, except when +lightning stared through the flat windows or split into fierce cracks +on the dingy glass. Those three days she spent by candle-light. Outside +the world seemed to lie under a dark doom. + +On the third morning she woke early. She had had restless nights, but +now and then slept heavily; and out of one dull slumber she awakened to +the certainty that something strange had happened. The storm had lulled +at last. Through her window, set high in the wall, she could see the +dead light of a blank gray dawn. She had seen other eyeless mornings on +her windowpane; but this was different, the air in her room was +different. Something unknown had been taken from or added to it. As she +lay there wondering, but not yet willing to discover, the flat light at +the window was blocked out. A seagull beat against it with its wings +and settled on the sill. + +The flutter and the settling of the bird overcame her. It was as though +reality were more than she could bear. The birds of memory and pain +flew through her heart. + +She got up and went to the window. The gull did not move. It was broken +and exhausted by the storm. And beyond it she looked down upon the sea. + +Yes, it was true. The sea itself washed at the walls of the mill. + +She did not understand these gray-green waters. She knew them in +vision, not in reality. She cried out sharply and threw the window up. +The draggled bird fluttered in and sank on the floor. A sea-wind blew +in with it. The bird's wings shivered on her feet, and the wind on her +bosom. She stared over the land, swallowed up in the sea. Wreckage of +all sorts tossed and floated on it. Fences and broken gates and +branches of trees; and fragments of boats and nets and bits of cork; +and grass and flowers and seaweed--She thought--what did she think? She +thought she must be dreaming. + +She felt like one drowning. Where could she find a shore? + +She hurried to the bed and got her shell; its touch on her heart was +her first safety. In her nightgown as she was she ran with her naked +feet through the dim passages until she stood beside the grinding +stones.... + + +"Child! child! child!" + +"Where are you, my boy, where are you?" + +"Aren't you coming? Must I lose you after all this?--Oh, come!" + +"But tell me where you are!" + +"In a few hours I should have been with you--a few hours after many +years." + +"Oh, boy, for pity, tell me where to find you!" + +"You are there waiting for me, aren't you, child? I know you are--I've +always known you were. What would you have said to me when you opened +the door in your blue gown?--" + +"Oh, but say only where you are, my boy!" + +"Do you know what I should have said? I shouldn't have said anything. I +should have kissed you--" + +"Oh, let me come to you and you shall kiss me...." + + +But she listened in vain. + +She went back to her room. The gull was still on the floor. Its wing +was broken. Her actions from this moment were mechanical; she did what +she did without will. First she bound the broken wing, and fetched +bread and water for the wounded bird. Then she dressed herself and went +out of the mill. She had a rope in her hands. + +The water was not all around the mill. Strips and stretches of land +were still unflooded, or only thinly covered. But the face of the earth +had been altered by one of those great inland swoops of the sea that +have for centuries changed and re-changed the point of Sussex, +advancing, receding, shifting the coast-line, making new shores, +restoring old fields, wedding the soil with the sand. + +Helen walked where she could. She had no choice of ways. She kept by +the edge of the water and went into no-man's land. A bank of rotting +grasses and dry reeds, which the waves had left uncovered, rose from +the marshes. She mounted it, and beheld the unnatural sea on either +hand. Here and there in the desolate water mounds of gray-green grass +lifted themselves like drifting islands. Trees stricken or still in +leaf reared from the unfamiliar element. Many of those which were +leafless had put on a strange greenness, for their boughs dripped with +seaweed. Over the floods, which were littered with such flotsam as she +had seen from her window, flew sea-birds and land-birds, crying and +cheeping. There was no other presence in that desolation except her own. + +And then at last her commanded feet stood still, and her will came back +to her. For she saw what she had come to find. + +He was hanging, as though it had caught him in a snare, in a tree +standing solitary in the middle of a wide waste of water. He was +hanging there like a dead man. She could distinguish his dark red hair +and his blue jersey. + +She paused to think what to do. She couldn't swim. She would not have +hesitated to try; but she wanted to save him. She looked about, and saw +among the bits of stuff washing against the foot of the bank a large +dismembered tree-trunk. It bobbed back and forth among the hollow +reeds. She thought it would serve her if she had an oar. She went in +search of one, and found a broken plank cast up among the tangled +growth of the bank. When she had secured it she fastened one end of her +rope around the stump of an old pollard squatting on the bank like a +sturdy gnome, and the other end she knotted around herself. Then, +gathering all the middle of the rope into a coil, and using her plank +as a prop, she let herself down the bank and slid shuddering into the +water. But she had her tree-trunk now; with some difficulty she +scrambled on to it, and paddled her way into the open water. + +It was not really a great distance to his tree, but to her it seemed +immeasurable. She was unskillful, and her awkwardness often put her +into danger. But her will made her do what she otherwise might not have +done; presently she was under the branches of the tree. + +She pulled herself up to a limb beside him and looked at him. And it +was not he. + +It was not her boy. It was a man, middle-aged, rough and weatherbeaten, +but pallid under his red-and-tan. His hair was grizzled. And his face +was rough with a growth of grizzled hair. His whole body lurched +heavily and helplessly in a fork of the tree, and one arm hung limp. +His eyes were half-shut. + +But they were not quite shut. He was not unconscious. And under the +drooping lids he was watching her. + +For a few minutes they sat gazing at each other in silence. She had her +breath to get. She thought it would never come back. + +The man spoke first. + +"Well, you made a job of it," he said. + +She didn't answer. + +"But you don't know much about the water, do you?" + +"I've never seen the sea till to-day," said Helen slowly. + +He laughed a little. "I expect you've seen enough of it to-day. But +where do you live, then, that you've never seen the sea? In the middle +of the earth?" + +"No," said Helen, "I live in a mill." + +His eyelids flickered. "Do you? Yes, of course you do. I might have +guessed it." + +"How should you guess it?" + +"By your blue dress," said the man. Then he fainted. + +She sat there miserably, waiting, ready to prop him if he fell. She did +not know what else to do. Before very long he opened his eyes. + +"Did I go off again?" he asked. + +She nodded. + +"Yes. Well, it's time to be making a move. I dare say I can now you're +here. What's your name?" + +"Helen." + +"Well, Helen, we'd better put that rope to some use. Will that tree at +the other end hold?" + +"Yes." + +"Then just you untie yourself and we'll get aboard and haul ourselves +home." + +She unfastened the rope from her body, and helped him down to her +makeshift boat. + +"You take the paddle," he said. "My arm's damaged. But I can pull on +the rope with the other." + +"Are you sure? Are you all right? What's your name?" + +"Yes, I can manage. My name's Peter. This would have been a lark thirty +years ago, wouldn't it? It's rather a lark now." + +She nodded vaguely, wondering what she would do if he fell off the log +in mid-water. + +"Suppose you faint again?" + +"Don't look for trouble," said the man. "Push off, now." + +Pulling and paddling they got to the bank. He took her helping-hand up +it, and she saw by his movements that he was very feeble. He leaned on +her as they went back to the mill; they walked without speaking. + +When they reached the door Peter said, "It's twenty years since I was +here, but I expect you don't remember." + +"Oh, yes," said Helen, "I remember." + +"Do you now?" said Peter. "It's funny you should remember." + +And with that he did faint again. And this time when he recovered he +was in a fever. His staying-power was gone. + +She put him to bed and nursed him. She sat day and night in his room, +doing by instinct what was right and needful. At first he lay either +unconscious or delirious. She listened to his incoherent speech in a +sort of agony, as though it might contain some clue to a riddle; and +sat with her passionate eyes brooding on his countenance, as though in +that too might lie the answer. But if there was one, neither his words +nor his face revealed it. "When he wakes," she whispered to herself, +"he'll tell me. How can there be barriers between us any more?" + +After three days he came to himself. She was sitting by the window +preparing sheep's-wool for her spindle. She bent over her task, using +the last of the light, which fell upon her head. She did not know that +he was conscious, or had been watching her, until he spoke. + +"Your hair used to be quite brown, didn't it?" he said. "Nut-brown." + +She started and turned to him, and a faint flush stained her cheeks. + +"Ah, you're not pleased," said Peter with a slight grin. "None of us +like getting old, do we?" + +Helen put by the question. "You're yourself again." + +"Doing my best," said he. "How long is it?" + +"Three days." + +"As much as that? I could have sworn it was only yesterday. Well, time +passes." + +He said no more, and fell into a doze. Helen was as grateful for this +as she could have been for anything just then. She couldn't have gone +on talking. She was stunned with misgivings. How could he ever have +thought her hair was brown? Couldn't he see even now that it had once +been as black as jet? She put her hand up to her head, and unpinned a +coil of her heavy hair, and spread it over her breast and looked at it. +Yes, the silver was there, too much and too soon. But there was less +silver than black. It was still time's stitchery, not his fabric. The +man who was not her boy need never have seen her before to know that +once her hair had been black. This was worse than forgetfulness in him; +it was misremembrance. She pulled at the silver hairs passionately as +though she would pluck them out and make him see her as she had been. +But soon she stopped her futile effort to uncount the years. "I am +foolish," she whispered to herself, and coiled her lock again and bound +it in its place. "There are other ways of making him remember. +Presently when he wakes again I will talk to him. I will remind him of +everything, yes, and I'll tell him everything. I WON'T be afraid." She +waited with longing his next consciousness. + +But to her woe she found herself defeated. While he slept she was able, +as when he had been delirious or absent, to create the occasion and the +talk between them. She dropped all fears, and in frank tenderness +brought him her twenty years of dreams. And in her thought he accepted +and answered them. But when he woke and spoke to her from the bed, she +knew at once that the man who lay there was not the man with whom she +had been speaking. His personality fenced with hers; it had barriers +she could not pass. She dared not try, for dread of his indifference or +his smiles. + +"What made you stick on in this place?" he asked her. + +"I don't know," said Helen. "Places hold one, don't they?" + +"None ever held me. I couldn't have been content to stay the best half +of my life in one spot. But I suppose women are different." + +"You speak as though all women were the same." + +"Aren't they? I thought they might be. I don't know much about them," +said Peter, rubbing his chin. "Rough as a porcupine, aren't I? You must +have thought me a savage when you found me stuck upside-down in that +tree like a sloth. What DID you think?" + +She looked at him, longing to tell him what she had thought. She longed +to tell him of the boy she had expected to find in the tree. She longed +to tell him how the finding had shocked her by bringing home to her her +loss--not of the boy, but of something in that moment still more +precious to her. Because (she longed to tell him) she had so swiftly +rediscovered the lost boy, not in his face but in his glance, not in +his words but in the tones of his voice. + +But when she looked at him and saw him leaning on his elbow waiting for +her answer with his half-shut lids and the half-smile on his lips, she +answered only, "I was thinking how to get you back to the bank." + +"Was that it? Well, you managed it. I've never thanked you, have I?" + +"Don't!" said Helen with a quick breath, and looked out of the window. + +He waited for a few moments and then said, "I'm a bad hand at thanking. +I can't help being a savage, you know. I'm not fit for women's company. +I don't look so rough when I'm trimmed." + +"I don't want to be thanked," said Helen controlling her voice; and +added with a faint smile, "No one looks his best when he's ill." + +"Wait till I'm well," grinned Peter, "and see if I'm not fit to walk +you out o' Sundays." He lay back on his pillow and whistled a snatch of +tune. Her heart almost stopped beating, because it was the tune he had +whistled at the door twenty years ago. For a moment she thought she +could speak to him as she wished. But desire choked her power to choose +her words; so many rushed through her brain that she had to pause, +seeking which of them to utter; and that long pause, in which she +really seemed to have uttered them all aloud, checked the impulse. But +surely he had heard her? No; for she had not spoken yet. And before she +could make the effort he had stopped whistling, and when she looked at +him to speak, he was fumbling restlessly about his pillow. + +"What is it?" she asked. + +"Something I had--where's my clothes?" + +She brought them to him, and he searched them till he had found among +them a small metal box which he thrust under the pillow; and then he +lay back, as though too tired to notice her. So her impulse died in +her, unacted on. + +And during the next four days it was always so. A dozen times in their +talks she tried to come near him, and could not. Was it because he +would not let her? or because the thing she wished to find in him was +not really there? Sometimes by his manner only, and sometimes by his +words, he baffled her when she attempted to approach him--and the +attempt had been so painful to conceive, and its still-birth was such +agony to her. He would talk frequently of the time when he would be +making tracks again. + +"Where to?" asked Helen. + +"I leave it to chance. I always have. I've never made plans. Or very +seldom. And I'm not often twice in the same place. You look tired. I'm +sorry to be a bother to you. But it'll be for the last time, most +likely. Go and lie down." + +"I don't want to," said Helen under her breath. And in her thoughts she +was crying, "The last time? Then it must be soon, soon! I'll make you +listen to me now!" + +"I want to sleep," said Peter. + +She left the room. Tears of helplessness and misery filled her eyes. +She was almost angry with him, but more angry with herself; but her +self-anger was mixed with shame. She was ashamed that he made her feel +so much, while he felt nothing. Did he feel nothing? + +"It's my stupidity that keeps us apart," she whispered. "I will break +through it!" As quickly as she had left him she returned, and stood by +the bed. He was lying with his hand pressed over his eyes. When he was +conscious of her being there, his hand fell, and his keen eyes shot +into hers. His brows contracted. + +"You nuisance," he muttered, and hid his eyes again. She turned and +left him. When she got outside the door she leaned against it and shook +from head to foot. She hovered on the brink of her delusions and felt +as though she would soon crash into a precipice. She longed for him to +go before she fell. Yes, she began to long for the time when he should +go, and end this pain, and leave her to the old strange life that had +been so sweet. His living presence killed it. + +After that third day she had had no more fears for his safety, and he +was strong and rallied quickly. The gull too was saved. He saved it. It +had drooped and sickened with her. She did not know what to do with it. +On the fourth day as he was so much better, she brought it to him. He +reset its wing and kept it by him, making it his patient and his +playfellow. It thrived at once and grew tame to his hand. He fondled +and talked to it like a lover. She would watch him silently with her +smoldering eyes as he fed and caressed the bird, and jabbered to it in +scraps of a dozen foreign tongues. His tenderness smote her heart. + +"You're not very fond of birds," he said to her once, when she had been +sitting in one of her silences while he played with his pet. + +The words, question or statement, filled her with anger. She would not +trust herself to protest or deny. "I don't know much about them," she +said. + +"That's a pity," said Peter coolly. "The more you know em the more you +have to love em. Yet you could love them for all sorts of things +without knowing them, I'd have thought." + +She said nothing. + +"For their beauty, now. That's worth loving. Look at this one--you're a +beauty all right, aren't you, my pretty? Not many girls to match you." +He paused, and ran his finger down the bird's throat and breast. +"Perhaps you don't think she's beautiful," he said to Helen. + +"Yes, she's beautiful," said Helen, with a difficulty that sounded like +reluctance. + +"Ah, you don't think so. You ought to see her flying. You shall some +day. When her hurt's mended she'll fly--I'll let her go." + +"Perhaps she won't go," said Helen. + +"Oh, yes, she will. How can she stop in a place like this? This is no +air for her--she must fly in her own." + +"You'll be sorry to see her go," said Helen. + +"To see her free? No, not a bit. I want her to fly. Why should I keep +her? I'd not let her keep me. I'd hate her for it. Why should I make +her hate me?" + +"Perhaps she wouldn't," said Helen, in a low voice. + +"Oh, I expect she would. Ungrateful little beggar. I've saved her life, +and she ought to know she belongs to me. So she might stay out of +gratitude. But she'd come to hate me for it, all the same. Not at +first; after a bit. Because we change. Bound to, aren't we?" + +"Perhaps." + +"I know I do. We can none of us stay what we were. You haven't either." + +"You haven't much to go by," said Helen. + +"Seven minutes at the door, wasn't it? This time it's been seven days." + +"Yes." + +"It's a long time for me," said Peter. + +"It's not much out of a lifetime." + +"No. But suppose it were more than seven days?" + +Helen looked at him and said slowly, "It will be, won't it? You won't +be able to go to-morrow." + +"No," said Peter, "not to-morrow, or next day perhaps. Perhaps I won't +be able to go for the rest of my life." + +This time Helen looked at him and said nothing. + +Peter stroked his bird and whistled his tune and stopped abruptly and +said, "Will you marry me, Helen?" + +"I'd rather die," said Helen. + +And she got up and went out of the room. + + +("Oh, the green grass!" chuckled Martin like a bird. + +"Nobody asked her you to begin a song, Master Pippin," quavered +Jennifer. + +"It was not the beginning of a song, Mistress Jennifer. It was the +epilogue of a story." + +"But the epilogue comes at the end of a story," said Jennifer. + +"And hasn't my story come to its end?" said Martin. + +Joscelyn: Ridiculous! oh, dear! there's no bearing with you. How CAN +this be the end? How can it be, with him on one side of the door and +her on the other? + +Joyce: And her heart's breaking--you must make an end of that. + +Jennifer: And you must tell us the end of the shell. + +Jessica: And of the millstones. + +Jane: What did he have in his box? + +"Please," said little Joan, "tell us whether she ever found her boy +again--oh, please tell us the end of her dreams." + +"Do these things matter?" said Martin. "Hasn't he asked her to marry +him?" + +"But she said no," said Jennifer with tears in her eyes. + +"Did she?" said Martin. "Who said so?" + +"Master Pippin," said Joscelyn, and her voice shook with the agitation +of her anger, "tell us immediately the things we want to know!" + +"When, I wonder," said Martin, "will women cease to want to know little +things more than big ones? However, I suppose they must be indulged in +little things, lest--" + +"Lest?" said little Joan. + +"There is such a thing," said Martin, "as playing for safety.") + + +Well, then, my dear maids, when Helen ran out of his room she went to +her own, and she threw herself on the bed and sobbed without weeping. +Because everything in her life seemed to have been taken away from her. +She lay there for a long time, and when she moved at last her head was +so heavy that she took the pins from her hair to relieve herself of its +weight. But still the pain weighed on her forehead, which burned on her +cold fingers when she pressed them over her eyes, trying to think and +find some gleam of hope among her despairing thoughts. And then she +remembered that one thing at least was left her--her shell. During his +illness she had never carried it to the millstones. It was as though +his being there had been the only answer to her daily dreams, an answer +that had failed them all the time. But now in spite of him she would +try to find the old answers again. So she went once more to the +millstones with her shell. And when she got there she held it so +tightly to her heart that it marked her skin. + +And the millstones had nothing to say. For the first time they refused +to grind her corn. + +Then Helen knew that she really had nothing left, and that the +home-coming of the man had robbed her of her boy and of the child she +had been. Nothing was left but the man and woman who had lost their +youth. And the man had nothing to give the woman. Nothing but gratitude +and disillusion. And now a still bitterer thought came to her--the +thought that the boy had had nothing to give the girl. For twenty years +it had been the girl's illusion. The storms in her heart broke out. She +put her face in her hands and wept like wild rain on the sea. She wept +so violently that between her passion and the speechless grinding of +the stones she did not hear him coming. She only knew he was there when +he put his arm round her. + +"What is it, you silly thing?" said Peter. + +She looked up at him through her hair that fell like a girl's in soft +masses on either side of her face. There was a change in him, but she +didn't know then what it was. He had got into his clothes and made +himself kempt. His beard was no longer rough, though his hair was still +unruly across his forehead, and under it his gray-green eyes looked, +half-anxious, half-smiling, into hers. His face was rather pale, and he +was a little unsteady in his weakness. But the look in his eyes was the +only thing she saw. It unlocked her speech at last. + +"Oh, why did you come back?" she cried. "Why did you come back? If you +had never come I should have kept my dream to the end of my life. But +now even when you go I shall never get it again. You have destroyed +what was not there." + +He was silent for a moment, still keeping his arm round her. Then he +said, "Look what's here." And he opened his hand and showed her his +metal box without its lid; in it were the mummies of seven ears of +corn. Some were only husks, but some had grain in them still. + +She stared at them through her tears, and drew from her breast her hand +with the shell in it. Suddenly her mouth quivered and she cried +passionately, "What's the use?" And she snatched the old corn from him +and flung it to the millstones with her shell. And the millstones +ground them to eternal atoms.... + + +"My boy! my boy! it was you over there in the tree!" + +"Oh, child, you came at last in your blue gown!" + +"Why didn't you call to me?" + +"I'd no breath. I was spent. And I knew you'd seen me and would do your +best." + +"I'll never forget that sight of you in the tree, with your old jersey +and your hair as red as ever." + +"I shall always see your free young figure standing on the high bank +against the sky." + +"Oh, I was desperate." + +"I wondered what you'd do. I knew you'd do something." + +"I thought I'd never get across the water." + +"Do you know what I thought as I saw you coming so bravely and so +badly? I thought, I'll teach her to swim one day. Shall I, child?" + +"I can't swim without you, my boy," she whispered. + + +"But you pretended not to know me!" + +"I couldn't help it, it was such fun." + +"How COULD you make fun of me then?" + +"I always shall, you know." + +"Oh, yes," she said, "do, always." + + +"What DID you think when you saw me in the tree? What did you see when +you got there? Not what you expected." + +"No. I saw twenty years come flying upon me, twenty years I'd forgotten +all about. Because for me it has always been twenty years ago." + +"And you expected to see a boy, and you saw a grizzled man." + +"No," said Helen, her eyes shining with tears, "I expected to see a +boy, and I saw a gray-haired woman. I've seen her ever since." + +"I've only seen her once," said Peter. "I saw her rise up from the +water and sit in my tree. And when she spoke and looked at me, it was a +child." He put his hand over her wet eyes. "You must stop seeing her, +child," he said. + + +"When I told you my name, were you disappointed?" + +"No. It's the loveliest name in the world." + +"You said it at once." + +"I had to. I'd wanted to say it for twenty years. But I sha'n't say it +often, Helen." + +"Won't you?" + +"No, child." + +"Now and then, for a treat?" she looked up at him half-shy, half-merry. + +"Oh, you CAN smile, can you?" + +"You were to teach me that too." + +"Yes, I've a lot to teach you, haven't I?--I've yet to teach you to say +my name." + +"Have you?" + +"You've never said it once." + +"I've said it a thousand times." + +"You've never let me hear you." + +"Haven't I?" + +"Let me hear you!" + +"Peter." + +"Say it again!" + +"Peter! Peter! Peter!" + +"Again!" + +"My boy!"... + + +"When we got back to the mill-door the last of the twenty years, that +had been melting faster and faster, melted away for ever. And you and I +were standing there as we'd stood then; and I wanted to kiss your mouth +as I'd wanted to then." + +"Oh, why didn't you?--both times!" + +"Shall I now, for both times?" + +"Oh!--oh, that's for a hundred times." + +"Think of all the times I've wanted to, and been without you." + +"You've never been without me." + +"I know that. How often I came to the mill." + +"Did you come to the mill?" + +"As often as I ate your grain. Didn't you know?" + +"I know how often your sea brought me to you." + +"Did it?" + +"And, oh, my boy! at last the sea brought you to me." + +"And the mill," he said. "Where has that brought us?" + + +"I thought perhaps you'd die." + +"I couldn't have died so close on finding you. I was fighting the +demons all the time--fighting my way through to you. And at last I +opened my eyes and saw you again, your black hair edged with light +against the window." + +"My black hair? you mean my brown hair, don't you?" + +"Oh, weren't you cross! I loved you for being cross." + +"I wasn't cross. Why will you keep on saying I'm things I'm not?" + +"You were so cross that you pretended our twenty years were sixty." + +"I never said anything about twenty years, OR sixty." + +"You did, though. Sixty! why, in sixty years we'd have been very nearly +old. So to punish you I pretended to go to sleep, and I saw you take +your hair down. It was so beautiful. You've seen the threads spiders +spin on blackened furze that gypsies have set fire to? Your hair was +like that. You were angry with those lovely lines of silver, and you +wanted to get rid of them. I nearly called to you to stop hurting what +I loved so much, but you stopped of yourself, as though you had heard +me before I called." + +"I was ashamed of myself," whispered Helen. "I was ashamed of trying to +be again what I was the only other time you saw me." + +"You've never stopped being that, child," said Peter. + + +"You knew, didn't you, why it was I had stayed on at the mill? You knew +what it was that held me, and why I could never leave it?" + +"Yes, I knew. It held you because it held me too. I wondered if you'd +tell me that." + +"I longed to, but I couldn't. I've never been able to tell you things. +And I never shall." + +"Oh, child, don't look so troubled. You've always told me things and +always will. Do you think it's with our tongues we tell each other +things? What can words ever tell? They only circle round the truth like +birds flying in the sun. The light bathes their flight, yet they are +millions of miles away from the light they fly in. We listen to each +other's words, but we watch each other's eyes." + +"Some people half-shut their eyes, Peter." + +"Some people, Helen, can't shut their eyes at all. Your eyes will never +stop telling me things. And the strangest thing about them is that +looking into them is like being able to see in the dark. They are +darkness, not light. And in darkness dreams are born. When I look into +your eyes I go into your dream." + +"I shall never shut my eyes again," she whispered. "I will keep you in +my dream for ever." + + +"Women aren't all the same, Peter." + +"Aren't they?" + +"And yet--they are." + +"Well, I give it up." + +"Didn't you know?" + +"No. I told you the truth that time. I've not had very much to do with +women." + +"Then I've something to teach you, Peter." + +"I don't know what you can prove," said Peter. "One woman by herself +can't prove a difference." + +"Can't she?" said Helen; and laughed and cried at once. + + +"But why did you call me a nuisance?" + +"You were one--you are one. You leave a man no peace--you're like the +sea. You're full of storms, aren't you?" + +"Not only storms." + +"I know. But the sea wouldn't be the sea without her storms. They're +one of her ways of holding us, too. And there are more storms in her +than ever break. I see them in you, big ones and little ones, brooding. +Then you're a--nuisance. You always will be, won't you?" + +"Not to wreck you." + +"You won't do that. Or if you do--I can survive shipwreck." + +"I know." + +"How do you know? I nearly gave up once, but the thought of you stopped +me. I wanted to come back--I'd always meant to. So I held on." + +"I know." + +"How do you know? I never told you, did I?" + +"Oh, Peter, the things we have to tell each other. The times you +thought you were alone--the times I thought I was! You've had a life +you never dreamed of--and I another life that was not in my dreams." + +"You've saved me from death more than once," said Peter. + +"You've done more than that," said Helen, "you've given me the only +life I've had. But a thing doesn't belong to you because you've saved +its life or given it life. It only belongs to you because you love it. +I know you belong to me. But you only know if I belong to you." + +"That's not true now. You do know. And I know." + +"Yes; and we know that as that belonging has nothing to do with death, +it can't have anything either to do with the saving or even the giving +of life. So you must never thank me, or I you. There are no thanks in +love. And that was why I couldn't bear your asking me to marry you +to-day. I thought you were thanking me." + + +"When you played with the seagull..." + +"Yes?" + +"How you loved it!" + +"Yes." + +"I looked to see how you felt when you loved a thing. I wanted so much +to be the seagull in your hands." + +"When I touched it I was touching you." + +She put his hand to her breast and whispered, "I love birds." + +He smiled. "I knew you loved them; and best free. All birds must fly in +their own air." + +"Yes," she said. "But their freedom only means their power to choose +what air they'll fly in. And every choice is a cage too." + +"I shall leave the door open, child." + +"I shall never fly out," said Helen. + + +"You talked of going away." + +"Yes. But not from you." + +"Am I to go with you always, following chance and making no plans?" + +"Will you? You are the only plan I ever made. Will you leave everything +else but me to chance? Perhaps it will lead us all over the earth; and +perhaps after all we shall not go very far. But I never could see +ahead, except one thing." + +"What was it?" + +"The mill-door and you in your old blue gown. And for seven days I've +stopped seeing that. I haven't it to steer by. Will you chance it?" + +"Must you be playing with meanings even in dreams? Don't you +know--don't you know that for a woman who loves, and is not sure that +she is loved, her days and nights are all chances, every minute she +lives is a chance? It might be...it might not be...oh, those ghosts of +joy and pain! they are almost too much to bear. For the joy isn't pure +joy, or the pain pure pain, and she cannot come to rest in either of +them. Sometimes the joy is nearly as great as though she knew; yet at +the instant she tries to take it, it looks at her with the eyes of +doubt, and she trembles, and dare not take it yet. And sometimes the +pain is all but the death she foresees; yet even as she submits to it, +it lays upon her heart the finger of hope. And then she trembles again, +because she need not take it yet. Those are her chances, Peter. But +when she knows that her beloved is her lover, life may do what it will +with her; but she is beyond its chances for ever." + + +"Your corn! you kept my corn!" + +"Till it should bear. And your shell there--you've kept my shell." + +"Till it should speak. And now--oh, see these things that have held our +dreams for twenty years! The life is threshed from them for ever--they +are only husks. They can hold our dreams no more. Oh, I can't go on +dreaming by myself, I can't, it's no use. I thought my heart had +learned to bear its dream alone, but the time comes when love in its +beauty is too near to pain. There is more love than the single heart +can bear. Good-by, my boy--good-by!" + +"Helen! don't suffer so! oh, child, what are you doing?--" + +"Letting my dear dreams go...it's no use, Peter..." + +The millstones took them and crushed them. + +She uttered a sharp cry.... + +His arm tightened round her. "What is it, child?" she heard him say. + +She looked at him bewildered, and saw that he too was dazed. She looked +into the gray-green eyes of a boy of twenty. She said in a voice of +wonder, "Oh, my boy!" as he felt her soft hair. + +"Such a fuss about an empty shell and a bit of dead wheat." + +She hid her face on his jersey. + +"You are a silly, aren't you?" said Peter. "I wish you'd look up." + +Helen looked up, and they kissed each other for the first time. + +I defy you now, Mistress Jennifer, to prove that your grassblade is +greener than mine. + + + +THIRD INTERLUDE + +The girls now turned their attention to their neglected apples, varying +this more serious business with comments on the story that had just +been related. + +Jessica: I should be glad to know, Jane, what you make of this matter. + +Jane: Indeed, Jessica, it is difficult to make anything at all of +matter so bewildering. For who could have divined reality to be the +illusion and dreams the truth? so that by the light of their dreams the +lovers in this tale mistook each other for that which they were not. + +Martin: Who indeed, Mistress Jane, save students of human nature like +yourselves?--who have doubtless long ago observed how men and women +begin by filling a dim dream with a golden thing, such as youth, and +end by putting a shining dream into a gray thing, such as age. And in +the end it is all one, and lovers will see to the last in each other +that which they loved at the first, since things are only what we dream +them to be, as you have of course also observed. + +Joscelyn: We have observed nothing of the sort, and if we dreamed at +all we would dream of things exactly as they are, and never dream of +mistaking age for youth. But we do not dream. Women are not given to +dreams. + +Martin: They are the fortunate sex. Men are such incurable dreamers +that they even dream women to be worse preys of the delusive habit than +themselves. But I trust you found my story sufficiently wide-awake to +keep you so. + +Joscelyn: It did not make me yawn. Is this mill still to be found on +the Sidlesham marshes? + +Martin: It is where it was. But what sort of gold it grinds now, +whether corn or dreams, or nothing, I cannot say. Yet such is the power +of what has been that I think, were the stones set in motion, any right +listener might hear what Helen and Peter once heard, and even more; for +they would hear the tale of those lovers' journeys over the changing +waters, and their return time and again to the unchanging plot of earth +that kept their secrets. Until in the end they were together delivered +up to the millstones which thresh the immortal grain from its mortal +husk. But this was after long years of gladness and a life kept young +by the child which each was always re-discovering in the other's heart. + +Jennifer: Oh, I am glad they were glad. Do you know, I had begun to +think they would not be. + +Jessica: It was exactly so with me. For suppose Peter had never +returned, or when he did she had found him dead in the tree? + +Jane: And even after he returned and recovered, how nearly they were +removed from ever understanding each other! + +Joan: Oh, no, Jane! once they came together there could be no doubt of +the understanding. As soon as Peter came back, I felt sure it would be +all right. + +Joyce: And I too, all along, was convinced the tale must end happily. + +Martin: Strange! so was I. For Love, in his daily labors, is as swift +in averting the nature of perils as he is deft in diverting the causes +of misunderstanding. I know in fact of but one thing that would have +foiled him. + +Four of the Milkmaids: What then? + +Martin: Had Helen not been given to dreams. + + +Not a word was said in the Apple-Orchard. + + +Joscelyn: It would have done her no harm had she not been, singer. Nor +would your story have suffered, being, like all stories, a thing as +important as thistledown. In either event, though Peter had perished, +or misunderstood her for ever, it would not have concerned me a whit. +Or even in both events. + +Jessica: Nor me. + +Jane: Nor me. + +Martin: Then farewell my story. A thing as important as thistledown is +as unimportantly dismissed. And yonder in heaven the moon sulks at us +through a cloud with a quarter of her eye, reproaching us for our +peace-destroying chatter. It destroys our own no less than hers. To +dream is forbidden, but at least let us sleep. + + +One by one the milkmaids settled in the grass and covered their faces +with their hands, and went to sleep. But Jennifer remained where she +was. She sat with downcast eyes, softly drawing the grassblade through +and through her fingers, and the swing swayed a little like a branch +moving in an imperceptible wind, and her breast heaved a little as +though stirred with inaudible sighs. She sat so long like that that +Martin knew she had forgotten he was beside her, and he quietly put out +his hand to draw the grassblade from hers. But before he had even +touched it he felt something fall upon his palm that was not rain or +dew. + +"Dear Mistress Jennifer," said Martin gently, "why do you weep?" + +She shook her head, since there are times when the voice plays a girl +false, and will not serve her. + +"Is it," said Martin, "because the grass is not green enough?" + +She nodded. + +"Pray let me judge," entreated Martin, and took the grassblade from her +fingers. Whereupon she put her face into her two hands, whispering: + +"Master Pippin, Master Pippin, oh, Master Pippin." + +"Let me judge," said Martin again, but in a whisper too. + +Then Jennifer took her hands from her wet face, and looked at him with +her wet eyes, and said with great braveness and much faltering: + +"I will be nineteen in November." + +At this Martin looked very grave, and he got down from the tree and +walked to the end of the orchard full of thought. But when he turned +there he found that she had stolen after him, and was standing near him +hanging her head, yet watching him with deep anxiety. + +Jennifer: It is t-t-too old, isn't it? + +Martin: Too old for what? + +Jennifer: I--I--I don't know. + +Martin: It is, of course, extremely old. There are things you will +never be able to do again, because you are so old. + +Jennifer sobbed. + +Martin: You are too old to be rocked in a cradle. You are too old to +write pothooks and hangers, and too old, alas, to steal pickles and jam +when the house is abed. Yet there are still a few things you might do +if-- + +Jennifer: Oh, if? + +Martin: If you could find a friend as old as yourself, or even a little +older, to help you. + +Jennifer: But think how old h--h--h-- the friend would have to be. + +Martin: What would that matter? For all grass is green enough if it not +near grass that looks greener. + +Jennifer: Oh, is this true? + +Martin: It is indeed. And I believe too that were your friend's hair +red enough, and your friend's freckled nose snub enough, since youth +resides long in these qualities, you might even, with such a companion, +begin once more to steal pickles and jam by night, to learn your +pothooks and hangers, and even in time to be rocked asleep by a cradle. + +Jennifer: D-d-dear Master Pippin. + +Martin: They look quite green, don't they? + +And he laid the two blades side by side on her palm, and Jennifer, +whose voice once more would not serve her, nodded and put the two +blades in her pocket. Then Martin took out his handkerchief and very +carefully dried her eyes and cheeks, saying as he did so, "Now that I +have explained this to your satisfaction, won't you, please, explain +something to mine?" + +Jennifer: I will if I can. + +Martin: Then explain what it is you have against men. + +Jennifer: I don't know how to tell you, it is so terrible. + +Martin: I will try to bear it. + +Jennifer: They say women cannot--cannot-- + +Martin: Cannot? + +Jennifer: Keep secrets! + +Martin: Men say so? + +Jennifer: Yes! + +Martin: MEN say so? + +Jennifer: They do, they do! + +Martin: Men! Oh, Jupiter! if this were true--but it is not--these men +would be blabbing the greatest of secrets in saying so. If I had a +secret--but I have not--do you think I would trust it to a man? Not I! +What does a man do with a secret? Forgets it, throws it behind him into +some empty chamber of his brain and lets the cobwebs smother it! buries +it in some deserted corner of his heart, and lets the weeds grow over +it! Is this keeping a secret? Would you keep a garden or a baby so? I +will a thousand times sooner give my secret to a woman. She will tend +it and cherish it, laugh and cry with it, dress it in a new dress every +day and dandle it in the world's eye for joy and pride in it--nay, she +will bid the whole world come into her nursery to admire the pretty +secret she keeps so well. And under her charge a little secret will +grow into a big one, with a hundred charms and additions it had not +when I confided it to her, so that I shall hardly know it again when I +ask for it: so beautiful, so important, so mysterious will it have +become in the woman's care. Oh, believe me, Mistress Jennifer, it is +women who keep secrets and men who neglect them. + +Jennifer: If I had only thought of these things to say! But I am not +clever at argument like men. + +Martin: I suspect these clever arguers. They can always find the right +thing to say, even if they are in the wrong. Women are not to be blamed +for washing their hands of them for ever. + +Jennifer: I know. Yet I cannot help wondering who bakes them +gingerbread for Sunday. + +Martin: Let them go without. They do not deserve gingerbread. + +Jennifer: I know, I know. But they like it so much. And it is nice +making it, too. + +Martin: Then I suppose it will have to be made till the last of +Sundays. What a bother it all is. + +Jennifer: I know. Good night, dear Master Pippin. + +Martin: Dear milkmaid, good night. There lie your fellows, careless of +the color of the grass they lie on, and of the years that lie on them. +They have forsworn the baking of cakes, the eating of which begets +dreams, to which women are not given. Go lie with them, and be if you +can as careless and dreamless as they are. + +And then, seeing the tears refilling her eyes, he hastily pulled out +his handkerchief again and wiped them as they fell, saying, "But if you +cannot--if you cannot (don't cry so fast!)--if you cannot, then give me +your key (dear Jennifer, please dry up!) to Gillian's Well-House, +because you were glad that my tale ended gladly, and also because all +lovers, no matter of what age, are green enough, and chiefly because my +handkerchief's sopping." + +Then Jennifer caught his hands in hers and whispered, "Oh, Martin! are +they? ALL lovers?--are they green enough?" + +"God help them, yes!" said Martin Pippin. + +She dropped his hands, leaving her key in them, and looked up at him +with wet lashes, but happiness behind them. So he stooped and kissed +the last tears from her eyes. Since his handkerchief had become quite +useless for the purpose. + +And she stole back to her place, and he lay down in his, and Jennifer +dreamed that she was baking gingerbread, and Martin that he was eating +it. + + +"Maids! maids! maids!" + +It was Old Gillman on the heels of dawn. + +"A pest on him and all farmers," groaned Martin, "who would harvest +men's slumbers as soon as they're sown." + +"Get into hiding!" commanded Joscelyn. + +"I will not budge," said Martin. "I am going to sleep again. For at +that moment I had a lion in one hand and a unicorn in the other--" + +"WILL you conceal yourself!" whispered Joscelyn, with as much fury as a +whisper can compass. + +"And the lion had comfits in his crown, and the unicorn a gilded horn. +And both were so sticky and spicy and sweet--" + +Joscelyn flung herself upon her knees before him, spreading her yellow +skirts which barely concealed him, as Old Gillman thrust his head +through the hawthorn gap. + +"Good morrow, maids," he grunted. + +"--that I knew not, dear Mistress Joscelyn," murmured Martin, "which to +bite first." + +"Good morrow, master!" cried the milkmaids loudly; and they fluttered +their petticoats like sunshine between the man at the hedge and the man +in the grass. + +"Is my daughter any merrier this morning?" + +"No, master," said Jennifer, "yet I think I see smiles on their way." + +"If they lag much longer," muttered the farmer, "they'll be on the +wrong side of her mouth when they do come. For what sort of a home will +she return to?--a pothouse! and what sort of a father?--a drunkard! And +the fault's hers that deprives him of the drink he loved in his sober +days. Gillian!" he exclaimed, "when will ye give up this child's whim +to learn by experience, and take an old man's word for it?" + +But Gillian was as deaf to him as to the cock crowing in the barnyard. + +"Come fetch your portion," said Old Gillman to the milkmaids, "since +there's no help for it. And good day to ye, and a better morrow." + +"Wait a bit, master!" entreated Jennifer, "and tell me if Daisy, my +Lincoln Red, lacks for anything." + +"For nothing that Tom can help her to, maid. But she lacks you, and +lacking you, her milk. So that being a cow she may be said to lack +everything. And so do I, and the men, and the farm--ruin's our portion, +nothing but rack and ruin." + +Saying which he departed. + +"To breakfast," said Martin cheerfully. + +"Suppose you'd been seen," scolded Joscelyn. + +"Then our tales would have been at an end," said Martin. "Would this +have distressed you?" + +"The sooner they're ended the better," said Joscelyn, "if you can do +nothing but babble of sticky unicorns." + +"It was fresh from the oven," explained Martin meekly. "I wish we could +have gingerbread for breakfast instead of bread." + +"Do not be sure," said Joscelyn severely, "that you will get even +bread." + +"I am in your hands," said Martin, "but please be kinder to the ducks." + +Joscelyn, all of a fluster, then put new bread in the place of +Gillian's old; but her annoyance was turned to pleasure when she +discovered that the little round top of yesterday's loaf had entirely +disappeared. + +"Upon my word!" cried she, "the cure is taking effect." + +"I believe you are right," said Martin. "How sorry the ducks will be." + +They quickly fed the ducks, and then themselves; and Martin received +his usual share, Joscelyn having so far relented that she even advised +him as to the best tree for apples in the whole orchard. + +After breakfast Martin found six pair of eyes fixed so earnestly upon +him that he began to laugh. + +"Why do you laugh?" asked little Joan. + +"Because of my thoughts," said he. So she took a new penny from her +pocket and gave it to him. + +"I was thinking," said Martin, "how strange it is that girls are all so +exactly alike." + +"Oh!" cried six different voices in a single key of indignation. + +"What a fib!" said Joyce. "I am like nobody but me." + +"Nor am!" cried all the others in a breath. + +"Yet a moment ago," said Martin, "you, Mistress Joyce, were wondering +with all your might what diversion I had hit upon for this morning. And +so were Jane and Jessica and Jennifer and Joan and Joscelyn." + +"I was NOT!" cried six voices at once. + +"What, none of you?" said Martin. "Did I not say so?" + +And they were very provoked, not knowing what to answer for fear it +might be on the tip of her neighbor's tongue. So they said nothing at +all, and with one accord tossed their heads and turned their backs on +him. And Martin laughed, leaving them to guess why. On which, greatly +put out, every girl without even consulting one another they decided to +have nothing further to do with him, and each girl went and sat under a +different apple-tree and began to do her hair. + +"Heigho!" said Martin. "Then this morning I must divert myself." And he +began to spin his golden penny in the sun, sometimes spinning it very +dexterously from his elbow and never letting it fall. But the girls +wouldn't look, or if they did, it was through stray bits of their hair; +when they could not be suspected of looking. + +"I shall certainly lose this penny," communed Martin with himself, +quite audibly, "if somebody does not lend me a purse to keep it in." +But nobody offered him one, so he plucked a blade of Shepherd's Purse +from the grass, soliloquizing, "Now had I been a shepherd, or had the +shepherd's name been Martin, here was my purse to my hand. And then, +having saved my riches I might have got married. Yet I never was a +shepherd, nor ever knew a shepherd of my name; and a penny is in any +case a great deal too much money for a man to marry on, be he a +shepherd or no. For it is always best to marry on next-to-nothing, from +which a penny is three times removed." + +Then he went on spinning his penny in the air again, humming to himself +a song of no value, which, so far as the girls could tell for the hair +over their ears, went as follows: + + If I should be so lucky + As a farthing for to find. + I wouldn't spend the farthing + According to my mind, + But I'd beat it and I'd bend it + And I'd break it into two, + And give one half to a Shepherd + And the other half to you. + And as for both your fortunes, + I'd wish you nothing worse + Than that YOUR half and HIS half + Should lie in the Shepherd's Purse. + +At the end of the song he spun the penny so high that it fell into the +Well-House; and endeavoring to catch it he flung the spire of +wild-flower after it, and so lost both. And nobody took the least +notice of his song or his loss. + +Then Martin said, "Who cares?" and took a new clay pipe and a little +packet from his pocket; and he wandered about the orchard till he had +found an old tin pannikin, and he scooped up some water from the +duckpond and made a lather in it with the soap in the packet, and sat +on the gate and blew bubbles. The first bubble in the pipe was always +crystal, and sometimes had a jewel hanging from it which made it fall +to the earth; and the second was tinged with color, and the third +gleamed like sunset, or like peacocks' wings, or rainbows, or opals. +All the colors of earth and heaven chased each other on their surfaces +in all the swift and changing shapes that tobacco smoke plays at on the +air; but of all their colors they take the deepest glow of one or two, +and now Martin would blow a world of flame and orange through the +trees, or one of blue and gold, or another of green and rose. And, as +he might have watched his dreams, he watched the bubbles float away; +and break. But one of the loveliest at last sailed over the Well-House +and between the ropes of the swing and among the fruit-laden boughs, +miraculously escaping all perils; and over the hedge, where a small +wind bore it up and up out of sight. And Martin, who had been looking +after it with a rapt gaze, sighed, "Oh!" And six other "Ohs!" echoed +his. Then he looked up and saw the six milkmaids standing quite close +to him, full of hesitation and longing. So he took six more pipes from +his pockets, and soon the air was glistening with bubbles, big and +little. Sometimes they blew the bubbles very quickly, shaking the tiny +globes as fast as they could from the bowl, till the air was filled +with a treasure of opals and diamonds and moonstones and pearls, as +though the king of the east had emptied his casket there. And sometimes +they blew steadily and with care, endeavoring to create the best and +biggest bubble of all; but generally they blew an instant too long, and +the bubble burst before it left the pipe. Whenever a great sphere was +launched the blower cried in ecstasy, "Oh, look at mine!" and her +comrades, merely glancing, cried in equal ecstasy, "Yes, but see mine!" +And each had a moment's delight in the others' bubbles, but everlasting +joy in her own, and was secretly certain that of all the bubbles hers +were the biggest and brightest. The biggest and brightest of all was +really blown by little Joan: as Martin, in a whisper, assured her. He +whispered the same thing, however, to each of her friends, and for one +truth told five lies. Sometimes they played together, taking their +bubbles delicately from one pipe to another, and sometimes blew their +bubbles side by side till they united, and made their venture into the +world like man and wife. And often they put all their pipes at once +into the pannikin, and blew in the water, rearing a great palace of +crystal hemispheres, that rose until it hit their chins and cheeks and +the tips of their noses, and broke on them, leaving on their fair skin +a trace of glistening foam. And as the six laughing faces bent over the +pannikin on his knees, Martin observed that Joscelyn's hair was coiled +like two great lovely roses over her ears, and that Joyce's was in +clusters of ringlets, and that Jane's was folded close and smooth and +shining round her small head, and that Jessica's was tucked under like +a boy's, while Jennifer's lay in a soft knot on her neck. But little +Joan's was hanging still in its plaits over her shoulders, and one +thick plait was half undone, and the loose hair got in her own and +everybody's way, and was such a nuisance that Martin was obliged at +last to gather it in his hand and hold it aside for the sake of the +bubble-blowers. And when they lifted their heads he was looking at them +so gravely that Joyce laughed, and Jessica's eyes were a question, and +Jane looked demure, and Jennifer astonished, and Joscelyn extremely +composed and indifferent. And little Joan blushed. To cover her +blushing she offered him another penny. + +"I was thinking," said Martin, "how strange it is that girls are so +absolutely different." + +Then six demure shadows appeared at the very corners of their mouths, +and they rose from their knees and said with one accord, "It must be +dinner-time." And it was. + +"Bread is a good thing," said Martin, twirling a buttercup as he +swallowed his last crumb, "but I also like butter. Do not you, Mistress +Joscelyn?" + +"It depends on who makes it," said she. "There is butter and butter." + +"I believe," said Martin, "that you do not like butter at all." + +"I do not like other people's butter," said Joscelyn. + +"Let us be sure," said Martin. And he twirled his buttercup under her +chin. "Fie, Mistress Joscelyn!" he cried. "What a golden chin! I never +saw any one so fond of butter in all my days." + +"Is it very gold?" asked Joscelyn, and ran to the duckpond to look, but +couldn't see because she was on the wrong side of the gate. + +"Do I like butter?" cried Jessica. + +"Do I?" cried Jennifer. + +"Do I?" cried Joyce. + +"Do I?" cried Jane. + +"Oh, do I?" cried Joan. + +"We'll soon find out," said Martin, and put buttercups under all their +chins, turn by turn. And they all liked butter exceedingly. + +"Do YOU like butter, Master Pippin?" asked little Joan. + +"Try me," said he. + +And six buttercups were simultaneously presented to his chin, and it +was discovered that he liked butter the best of them all. + +Then every girl had to prove it on every other girl, and again on +Martin one at a time, and he on them again. And in this delicious +pastime the afternoon wore by, and evening fell, and they came +golden-chinned to dinner. + +Supper was scarcely ended--indeed, her mouth was still full--when +Jessica, looking straight at Martin, said, "I'm dying to swing." + +"I never saved a lady's life easier," said Martin; and in one moment +she found herself where she wished to be, and in the next saw him close +beside her on the apple-bough. The five other girls went to their own +branches as naturally as hens to the roost. Joscelyn inspected them +like a captain marshalling his men, and when each was armed with an +apple she said: + +"We are ready now, Master Pippin." + +"I wish I were too," said he, "but my tale has taken a fit of the +shivers on the threshold, like an unexpected guest who doubts his +welcome." + +"Are we not all bidding it in?" said Joscelyn impatiently. + +"Yes, like sweet daughters of the house," said Martin. "But what of the +mistress?" And he looked across at Gillian by the well, but she looked +only into the grass and her thoughts. + +"Let the daughters do to begin with," said Joscelyn, "and make it your +business to stay till the mistress shall appear." + +"That might be to outstay my welcome," said Martin, "and then her +appearance would be my discomfiture. For a hostess has, according to +her guests, as many kinds of face as a wildflower, according to its +counties, names." + +"Some kinds have only one name," said Jessica, plucking a stalk crowned +with flowers as fine as spray. "What would you call this but Cow +Parsley?" + +"If I were in Anglia," said Martin, "I would call it Queen's Lace." + +"That's a pretty name," said Jessica. + +"Pretty enough to sing about," said Martin; and looking carelessly at +the Well-House he thrummed his lute and sang-- + + The Queen netted lace + On the first April day, + The Queen wore her lace + In the first week of May, + The Queen soiled her lace + Ere May was out again, + So the Queen washed her lace + In the first June rain. + The Queen bleached her lace + On the first of July, + She spread it in the orchard + And left it there to dry, + But on the first of August + It wasn't in its place + Because my sweetheart picked it up + And hung it o'er her face. + She laughed at me, she blushed at me, + With such a pretty grace + That I kissed her in September + Through the Queen's own lace. + +At the end of the song Gillian sat up in the grass, and looked with all +her heart over the duckpond. + +Joscelyn: I find your songs singularly lacking in point, singer. + +Martin: You surprise me, Mistress Joscelyn. The kiss was the point. + +Joscelyn: It is like you to think so. It is just like you to think +a--a--a-- + +Martin: --kiss-- + +Joscelyn: Sufficient conclusion to any circumstances. + +Martin: Isn't it? + +Joscelyn: My goodness! You might as soon ask, is a peardrop sufficient +for a body's dinner. + +Martin: It would suffice me. I love peardrops. But then I am a man. +Women doubtless need more substance, being in themselves more +insubstantial. Now as to your quarrel with my song-- + +Joscelyn: It is of no consequence. You raise expectations which you do +not fulfill. But it is not of the least consequence. + +Martin: Dear Mistress Joscelyn, my only desire is to please you. We +will not conclude on a kiss. You shall fulfill your own expectations. + +Joscelyn: Mine?--I have no expectations whatever. + +Martin: But I have disappointed you. What shall I do with my +sweetheart? Shall she be whipped for her theft? Shall she be shut in a +dungeon? Shall she be thrown before elephants? Choose your conclusion. + +Joan: But, Master Pippin!--why must the poor sweetheart be punished? I +am sure Joscelyn never wished her to be punished. There are other +conclusions. + +Martin: Dunderhead that I am, I can't think of any! What, Mistress +Joscelyn, was the conclusion you expected? + +Joscelyn: I tell you, I expected none! + +Joan: Why, Master Pippin! I should have fancied that, seeing the dear +sweetheart had hung the veil over her face, she might-- + +Martin: Yes? + +Joan: Be expected-- + +Martin: Yes! + +Joan: To be about to be-- + +Joscelyn: I am sick to death of this silly sweetheart. And since our +mistress appears to be listening with both her ears, it would be more +to the point to begin whatever story you propose to relate to-night, +and be done with it. + +Martin: You are always right. Therefore add your ears to hers, while I +tell you the tale of Open Winkins. + + + +OPEN WINKINS + +There were once, dear maidens, five lords in the east of Sussex, who +owned between them a single Burgh; for they were brothers. Their names +were Lionel and Hugh and Heriot and Ambrose and Hobb. Lionel was ten +years of age and Hobb was twenty-two, there being exactly three years +all but a month between the birthdays of the brothers. And Lionel had a +merry spirit, and Hugh great courage and daring, and Heriot had beauty +past any man's share, and Ambrose had a wise mind; but Hobb had nothing +at all for the world's praise, for he only had a loving heart, which he +spent upon his brothers and his garden. And since love begets love, +they all loved him dearly, and leaned heavily on his affection, though +neither they nor any man looked up to him because he was a lord. +Although he was the eldest, and in his quiet way administered the +affairs of the Burgh and of the people of Alfriston under the Burgh, it +was Ambrose who was always thinking of new schemes for improvement, and +Heriot who undertook the festivities. As for the younger boys, they +kept the old place alive with their youth and spirits; and it was +evident that later on Hugh would win honor to the Burgh in battle and +adventure, and Lionel would draw the world thither with his charm. But +Hobb, to whom they all brought their shapeless dreams white-hot, since +sympathy helps us to create bodies for the things which begin their +existence as souls--Hobb differed from the four others not only in his +name, but in his plain appearance and simple tastes. And all these +things, as well as his tender heart, he got from his mother, who was +the only daughter of a gardener of Alfriston. The gardener, to whom she +was the very apple of his eye, had kept her privately in a place on a +hill, fearing lest in her youth and inexperience she should fall to the +lot of some man not worthy of her; for her knew, or believed, that a +young girl of her sweetness and tenderness and devotedness of +disposition would by her sweetness attract a lover too early, and by +her tenderness respond to him too readily, and by her devotedness +follow him too blindly, before she had time to know herself or men. And +he also knew, or believed, that first love is as often a +will-o'-the-wisp as the star for which all young things take it. Five +days in the week he tended the gardens of Alfriston, the sixth he gave +to the Lord of the Burgh that lay among the hills, and the seventh he +kept for his daughter on the hill a few miles distant, which was +afterwards known as Hobb's Hawth. She on her part spent her week in +endeavoring to grow a perfect rose of a certain golden species, and her +heart was given wholly to her father and her flower. And he watched her +efforts with interest and advice, and for the first she thanked him but +of the second took no heed. "For," said she, "this is MY garden, +father, and MY rose, and I will grow it in my own way or not at all. +Have you not had a lifetime of gardens and roses which you have brought +to perfection? And would you let any man take your own upon his +shoulders, even your own mistakes, and shoulder at last the praise +after the blame?" Then Hobb, her father, laughed at her indulgently and +said, "Nay, not any man; yet once I let a woman, and without her aid I +would never have brought my rarest and dearest flower to perfection. So +if I should let a woman help me, why not you a man?" "Was the woman +your mother?" said she. And her father was silent. Then a day came when +he trudged up and down the hills from Alfriston, and standing at the +gate of her garden saw his child in the arms of a stranger; and her +face, as it lay against his heart, seemed to her father also to be the +face of a stranger, and not of his child. He recognized in the stranger +the Lord of the Burgh. And he saw that what he had feared had come to +pass, and that his daughter's heart would be no more divided between +her father and her flower, for it was given whole to the lover who had +first assailed it. Hobb came into the garden, and they looked up as the +gate clicked, and their faces grew as red as though one had caught the +reflection from the other. But both looked straight into his eyes. And +his daughter, pointing to her bush, said, "Father, my rose is grown at +last," and he saw that the bush was crowned with a glorious golden +bloom, perfect in every detail. Then it was the turn of the Lord of the +Burgh, and he said, "Sir, I ask leave to rob your garden of its rose." +"Do robbers ask leave?" said Hobb. And he shook his head, adding, "Nay, +when the thief and the theft are in collusion, what say is left to the +owner of the treasure? Yet I do not like this. Sir, have you considered +that she is a gardener's child? Daughter, have you considered that he +is a lord?" And neither of them had considered these questions, and +they did not propose to do so. Then Hobb shook his head again and said, +"I will not waste words. I know when a plant can drink no more water. +And though you pretend to ask my leave, I know that you are prepared to +dispense with it. But by way of consent I will say this: whatever you +may call your other sons, you shall call your first Hobb, to remind you +to-morrow of what you will not consider to-day. For my daughter, when +she is a lord's wife, will none the less still be a gardener's +daughter, and your children will be grafted of two stocks. And if this +seems to you a hard condition, then kiss and bid farewell." And they +both laughed with joy at the lightness of the condition; but the +gardener did not laugh. And so the Lord of the Burgh married the +gardener's daughter, and they called their first son Hobb. He was born +on a first of August, and thirty-five months later Ambrose was born on +the first of July, and in due course Heriot in June, and Hugh in May, +and Lionel in April. And the Lord, loving his sons equally, made them +equal possessors of the Burgh when in time it should pass out of his +hands. Which, since men are mortal, presently came to pass, and there +were five lords instead of one. + +It happened on a roaring night of March, when the wind was blustering +over the barren ocean of the east Downs, and Lionel was still a boy of +ten, but soon to be eleven, that the five brothers sat clustered about +the great hearth in the hall, roasting apples and talking of this and +that. But their talk was fitful, and had long pauses in which they +listened to the gusty night, which had so much more to say than they. +And after one of the silences Lionel shuddered slightly, and drawing +his little stool close to Hobb he said: + +"It sounds like witches." Hobb put his big hand round the child's head +and face, and Lionel pressed his cheek against his brother's knee. + +"Or lions," said Hugh, jumping up and running to the window, where he +flattened his nose to stare into the night. "I wish it were lions +coming over the Downs." + +"What would you do with them?" said Hobb, smiling broadly. + +"Fight them," said Hugh, "and chain them up. I should like to have +lions instead of dogs--a red lion and a white one." + +"I never heard tell of lions of those colors," said Hobb. "But perhaps +Ambrose has with all his reading." + +"Not I," said Ambrose, "but I haven't read half the books yet. The wind +still knows more than I, and it may be that he knows where red and +white lions are to be found. For he knows everything." + +"And has seen everything," murmured Heriot, watching a lovely flame of +blue and green that flickered among the red and gold on the hearth. + +"And has been everywhere," muttered Hugh. "If I could find and catch +him, I'd ask him for a red and a white lion." + +"I'd rather have peacocks," said Heriot, his eyes on the fire. + +"What would you choose, Ambrose?" asked Hobb. + +"Nothing," said he, "but it's the hardest of all things to have, and I +doubt if I'd get it. But what business have we to be choosing presents? +That is Lionel's right before ours, for isn't his birthday next month? +What will you ask of the wind for your birthday, Lal?" + +Then Lionel, who was getting very drowsy, smiled a sleepy smile, and +said, "I'd like a farm of my own in the Downs, a very little farm with +pink pigs and black cocks and white donkeys and chestnut horses no +bigger than grasshoppers and mice, and a very little well as big as my +mug to draw up my water from, and a little green paddock the size of my +pocket-handkerchief, and another of yellow corn, and another of crimson +trefoil. And I would have a blue farm-wagon no larger than Hobb's shoe, +and a haystack half as big as a seed-cake, and a duckpond that I could +cover with my platter. And I'd live there and play with it all day +long, if only I knew where the wind lives, and could ask him how to get +it." + +"Don't start till to-morrow," jested Ambrose, "to-night you're too +sleepy to find the way." + +Then he turned to his book, and Hugh was still at the window, and +Heriot gazing into the fire. And as he felt the child's head droop in +his hand, Hobb picked him up in his arms and carried him to bed. And he +alone of all those brothers had made no choice, nor had they thought to +ask him, so accustomed were they to see him jog along without the +desires that lead men to their goals--such as Ambrose's thirst for +knowledge, and Heriot's passion for beauty, and Hugh's lust for +adventure, and Lionel's pursuit of delight. And yet, unknown to them +all, he had a heartfelt wish, which, among other things, he had +inherited from his mother. For on a height west of the Burgh he had +made a garden where, like her, he labored to produce a perfect golden +rose. But so far luck was against him, though his height, which was +therefore spoken of as the Gardener's Hill, bloomed with the loveliest +flowers of all sorts imaginable. But year by year his rose was attacked +by a special pest, the nature of which he had not succeeded in +discovering. Yet his patience was inexhaustible, and his brothers who +sometimes came to his garden when they needed a listener for their +achieved or unachieved ambitions, never suspected that he too had an +ambition he had not realized, for they saw only a lovely garden of his +creating, where wisdom, beauty, adventure, and delight were made +equally welcome by the gardener. + +Now on the March day following the night of the brothers' windy talk-- + + +(But suddenly Martin, with a nimble movement, stood upright on his +bough, and grasping that to which the swing was attached, shook it with +such frenzy that a tempest seemed to pass through the tree, and the +girls shrieked and clung to the trunk, and leaves and apples flew in +all directions; and Jessica, between clutching at her ropes, and +letting go to ward off the cannonade of fruit, gasped in a tumult of +laughter and indignation. + +Jessica: Have you gone mad, Master Pippin? have you gone mad? + +Martin: Mad, Mistress Jessica, stark staring mad! March hares are pet +rabbits to me! + +Jessica: Sit down this instant! do you hear? this instant! That's +better. What fun it was! Aha, you thought you could shake me off, but +you didn't. Are you still mad? + +Martin: Melancholy mad, since you will not let me rave. + +Jessica: You are the less dangerous. But I hate you to be melancholy. + +Martin: It is no one's fault but yours. How can I be jolly when my +story upsets you? + +Jessica: How do you know it upsets me? + +Martin: You put out your tongue at me. + +Jessica: Did I? + +Martin: Yes, without reason. So what could I do but whistle mine to the +winds? + +Jessica: You were too hasty, for I had my reason. + +Martin: If it was a good one I'll whistle mine back again. + +Jessica: It was this. That no man in a love-tale should be wiser or +braver or more beautiful or more happy than the hero; or how can he be +the hero? Yet I am sure Hobb is the hero and none of the others, +because he is the only one old enough to be married. + +Martin: Ambrose in nineteen, and will very soon be twenty. + +Jessica: What's nineteen, or even twenty, in a man? Fie! a man's not a +man till he comes of age, and the hero's not Ambrose for all his +wisdom, though wisdom becomes a hero. Nor Heriot for all his beauty, +though a hero should be beautiful. Nor Hugh, who will one day be brave +enough for any hero, though now he's but a boy. Nor the happy Lionel, +who is only a child--yet I love a gay hero. It's none of these, full +though they be of the qualities of heroes. And here is your Hobb with +nothing to show but a fondness for roses. + +Martin: You deserve to be stood in a corner for that nothing, Mistress +Jessica. Your reason was such a bad one that I see I must return to +sense if only to teach you a little of it. Did I not say Hobb had a +loving heart? + +Jessica: But he was plain and simple and patient and contented. Are +these things for a hero? + +Martin: Mistress Jessica, I will ask you a riddle. What is it--? Oh, +but first, I take it you love apple-trees? + +Jessica: Who doesn't? + +Martin: What is it, then, you love in an apple-tree? Is it the dancing +of the leaves in the wind? Is it the boldness of the boughs? Or perhaps +the loveliness of the flower in spring? Or again the fruit that ripens +of the flower amongst the leaves on the boughs? What is it you love in +an apple-tree? + +Jessica: All riddles are traps. I must consider before I answer. + +Martin: You shall consider until the conclusion of my story, and not +till you are satisfied that many things can be contained in one, will I +require your solution. And as for traps, it is always the solver of +riddles who lays his own trap, by looking all round the question and +never straight at it. Put on your thinking-cap, I beg, while I go on +babbling.) + + +On the March day following the brothers' talk (continued Martin) Lionel +was missing. It was some time before his absence was noticed, for Hobb +was in his distant garden, and Ambrose among his books, and Heriot had +ridden north to the market-town to buy stuff for a jerkin, and Hugh had +run south to the sea to watch the ships. So Lionel was left to his own +devices, and what they were none tried to guess till evening, when the +brothers met again and he was not there. Then there was hue and cry +among the hills, but to no purpose. The child had vanished like a +cloud. And the month wore by, and their hearts grew heavier day by day. + +It was in the last week of March that Hugh one morning came red-eyed to +his brothers and said, "I am going away, and I will not come back until +I have found Lionel. For I can't rest." + +"None of us can do that," said Ambrose, "and we have searched and sent +messengers everywhere. You are too young to go alone." + +"I am nearly fourteen," said Hugh, "and stronger than Heriot, and even +than you, Ambrose, and I can take care of myself and Lionel too. There +are more ways than one to seek, and I'll go my way while you go yours. +But I will find him or die." And he looked with defiance at Ambrose, +and then turned to Hobb and said doggedly, "I'm going, Hobb." + +Hobb, who himself sought the hills unwearingly day after day, and then +sat up three parts of the night attending to the duties of the Burgh, +said, "Go, and God bless you." + +And Hugh's mouth grew less set, and he kissed his brothers, and put his +knife in his belt, and took food in his wallet, and walked out of the +Burgh. He followed the grass-track to the north, and had walked less +than half-an-hour when the wind took his cap and blew it into the +middle of a pond, where it lay soddening out of reach. So he took off +his shoes and walked into the pond to fetch it out, stirring up the +yellow mud in thick soft clouds. But as he stooped to grab his cap, +something else stirred the mud in the middle, and a body heaved itself +sluggishly into view. At first Hugh thought it must be the body of a +sheep that had tumbled into the water, but to his amazement the sulky +head of an old man appeared. He was barely distinguishable from the mud +out of which he had risen. + +"Drat the boys!" said the muddy man. "Will they never be done with +disturbing the newts and me? Drat em, I say!" + +"Who are you?" demanded Hugh, staring with all his might. + +"Jerry I am, and this is my pond. Why can't you leave me in peace?" + +"The wind took my cap," said Hugh. + +"Finding's keepings," said the muddy man, taking the cap himself, "and +windfalls on this water is mine. So I'll keep your cap, and it's the +second wind's brought me this March. And if you're in want of another +you'd best go to where Wind lives and ask him for it, like t'other one. +But he said he'd ask for a toy farm instead." + +"A toy farm?" shouted Hugh. + +"Go away and don't deafen a body," said Jerry, and prepared to sink +again. But Hugh caught him by the hair and said fiercely, "Keep my cap +if you like, but I won't let you go until you tell me where my brother +went." + +"Your brother was it?" growled the muddy man. "He went to High and +Over, dancing like a sunbeam." + +"What's High and Over?" + +"Where Wind lives." + +"Where's that?" + +"Find out," mumbled the muddy man; and he wriggled himself out of +Hugh's clutch and buried himself like a monstrous newt in the mud. And +though Hugh groped and fumbled shoulder-deep he could not feel a trace +of him. + +"But," said he, "there's at least a name to go on." And he got out of +the pond and went in search of High and Over. And his brothers waited +in vain for his return. And the heaviness of four hearts was now +divided between three, and doubled because of another brother lost. + +But on the first of April, which was Lionel's birthday, Lionel came +back. Or rather, Hobb found him in a valley north of his garden hill, +when he was wandering on one of his forlorn searches. And when he found +him Hobb could not believe his eyes. For the child was sitting in the +middle of the prettiest plaything in the world. It was a tiny farm, +covering perhaps a quarter of an acre, with minute barns and yards and +stables, and pigmy livestock in the little pastures, and hand-high +crops in the little meadows; and smoke came from the tiny chimney of +the farmhouse, and Lionel was drawing water from a well in a bucket the +size of a thimble. And all the colors were so bright and painted that +the little farmstead seemed to have been conceived of the gayest mind +on earth. But through his amazement Hobb had no thought except for the +child, and he ran calling him by his name, but Lionel never looked up. +And then Hobb lifted him in his arms, and embraced him closely, but the +child did not respond. + +Then Hobb looked at him anxiously, and was so shocked that he forgot +the strange blithe little farm entirely. For Lionel was as wan and +wasted as though he had been through a fever, and his rosy face was +white, and his merry eyes were melancholy. And suddenly, as Hobb +clasped him, he flung his arms round his big brother's neck and buried +his face in his bosom and wept bitterly. + +Then Hobb tried to soothe and comfort him, asking him little questions +in a coaxing voice--"Where has the child been? Why did he run away and +leave us? Where did he get this pretty, wonderful toy? Is he hurt, or +hungry? Does he remember it is his birthday? There will be presents for +him at the Burgh, and a cake for tea. Did Hugh bring him home? Has he +seen Hugh? Lal, Lal, where is Hugh?" + +But Lionel answered none of these questions, he only sobbed and sobbed, +and suddenly slipped out of Hobb's arms, and began to play once more +with his farm, while the tears ran down his thin cheeks. Presently he +let Hobb take him home, and there Heriot and Ambrose rejoiced and +sorrowed over him. For he would scarcely speak or eat, and only shook +his head at their questions. At Hugh's name his tears flowed twice as +fast, but he would tell them nothing of him. Very soon Hobb carried him +to bed, and in undressing him noticed that he had no shirt. This too +Lionel would not explain, and Hobb ceased troubling him with talk, and +knelt and prayed by him, and laid him down to sleep, hoping that in the +morning he would be better. But morning brought no change. Lionel from +that day was given up to grief. Each morning he went dejectedly to play +with his marvelous toy in the valley, but how he came by it he would +not say. + +Towards the end of April Heriot came to Hobb and Ambrose and said, "I +cannot bear this; Lionel is home and we are none the better for it, and +Hugh is gone and we are all the worse. Hugh is capable of looking after +himself, yet perhaps danger has befallen him; and even if not, he will +roam the country fruitlessly for months, and it may be years; since +Lionel is restored and he does not know it. The Burgh can spare me +better than it can you, and I will ride abroad and see if I can find +him, and return in seven days, whether or no." + +So they embraced him, and he departed. But at the end of seven days he +did not appear. And Ambrose and Hobb were dismayed at his vanishing +like the others, and so heavy a gloom descended on the Burgh that each +could scarcely have endured it without the other. And every day they +went forth in search of Hugh and Heriot, or of traces of them, but +found none. + +Then it happened that on the first of May, which was Hugh's birthday, +Hobb, wandering further north than usual, to the brow of the great +ridge east of the Ouse, heard a wild roaring and bellowing on the +Downs; or rather, it was two separate roarings, as you may sometimes +hear two separate storms thundering at once over two ranges of hills. +And in astonishment he went first to Beddingham, and there, bound by an +iron chain to a stake beside a pond, he found a mighty lion, as white +as a young lamb. But he had not a lamb's meekness, for he ramped and +raved in a great circle around the stake, and his open throat set in +his shaggy mane looked like the red sun seen upon white mist. Hobb +rubbed his eyes and turned towards Ilford, where the second roaring +sought to outdo the first. And there beside another pond he found +another stake and chain, and a lion exactly similar, except that he was +as red as a rose. But he had not a rose's sweetness, for he snarled and +leaped with fury at the end of his chain, and his flashing teeth under +his red muzzle looked like the blossom of the scarlet runner. + +And then, turning about for an explanation of these wonders, Hobb saw +what drove them from his mind--the figure of Hugh crouched in a little +hollow, and shaking like a leaf. Hobb ran towards him with a shout, and +at the shout Hugh leaped to his feet, with the eyes of a hunted hare, +and looked on all sides as though seeking where to hide. But Hobb was +soon beside him, with his arm round the boy's shoulder, and gazing +earnestly into his face. + +"Why, lad," said he, "do you not know me again?" + +Hugh stole a glance at him, and suddenly smiled and nodded, and tried +to answer, but could not for the chattering of his teeth. And he clung +hard to his brother's side, and shuddered from head to foot. + +"Are you ill, Hugh?" Hobb asked him, bewildered at the boy's unlikeness +to himself. + +"No, Hobb," said Hugh, "but need we stay here now?" + +"Why, no," said Hobb gently, "we will go when you like. Where do these +beasts come from?" + +Hugh set his lips and began to move away. + +Hobb went beside him and said, "Lionel is home, but Heriot is lost. +Have you seen Heriot?" + +Hugh hesitated, and then stammered, "No, I have not seen him." + +And Hobb knew that he had lied, Hugh who had always been as fearless of +the truth as of anything else. So after that he asked no more, fearing +to get another lie for an answer; and he led Hugh home, supporting him +with his arm, for he was full of fits and starts and shiverings. If a +lump of chalk rolled under his shoe he blanched and cried, "What's +that?" and once when a field-mouse ran across the path he swooned. Then +Hobb, opening his tunic at the neck, saw that nothing was between it +and his body; for he, like Lionel, was without his shirt. + +They got back to the Burgh, and Hobb found Ambrose and told him how it +was. And Ambrose came to Hugh and talked with him, and turned away with +knitted brows. For here was a puzzle not dealt with in his books. And +May went by in miserable fashion, with Lionel spending the days in +playing mournfully beside his farm, and Hugh in cowering abjectly +between his lions. And sometimes Ambrose and Hobb, after searching for +Heriot or news of him, or spending their spirits in endeavoring to +hearten their two brothers, or to elicit from them something that +should give them the key to the mystery, would meet in Hobb's +hill-garden, where seemed to be the only peace and loveliness left upon +earth. And Hobb would weed and tend his neglected flowers, and they +bloomed for him as though they knew he loved them--as indeed they did. +Only his golden rose-tree would not flourish, but this small sorrow was +unguessed by Ambrose. + +One evening as they sat in the garden in the last week of May, Ambrose +said to his brother, "I have been thinking, Hobb, that at all costs +Heriot must be found, and not for his own sake only. He is younger than +we, and nearer in spirit to the boys; and he may be able to help them +as we cannot. For if this goes on, Hugh will die of his fears and +Lionel of his melancholy. You must stay and administer our affairs as +usual, and look after the boys; and I will go further afield in search +of Heriot." + +Hobb was silent for a moment, and then he sighed and said, "No good has +come of these seekings. Our lads returned of themselves, as Heriot may. +And their return was worse than anything we feared of their absence, +as, if he come back, I pray Heriot's will not be. And for you, +Ambrose--" But then he paused, not saying what was in his mind. And +Ambrose said, "Do not be afraid for me. These boys are young, and I am +older than my years. And though I cannot face danger with a stouter +heart than our brothers, I can perhaps see into it a little further +than they. And foresight is sometimes a still better tool than courage." + +Then he took Hobb's hand in his, and they gripped with the grip of men +who love each other; and Ambrose went out of the garden, and Hobb was +left alone. For Hugh and Lionel were companions to none but themselves. + +But on the first of June Hobb, coming to the gate of his garden, saw +with surprise a peacock strutting on the hillbrow, his fan spread in +the sun, a luster of green and blue and gold, and behind him was +another, and further south three more. So Hobb went out to look at +them, and found not five but fifty peacocks sweeping the Downs with +their heavy trains, or opening and shutting them like gigantic magical +flowers. Following the throng of birds, he came shortly to a barn +already known to him, but he had never seen it as he saw it now. For +the roof was crowded with peacocks, and peacocks strayed in flocks +within and without; and sitting in the doorway was Heriot, the sight of +whom so overjoyed his brother that Hobb forgot the thousand peacocks in +the one man. And he made speed to greet him, but within a few yards +halted full of doubt. For was this Heriot? He had Heriot's air and +attitude, yet the grace was gone from his body; and Heriot's features, +surely, but the beauty had melted away like morning dew. And his dress, +which had always been orderly and beautiful, was neglected; so that +under the half-laced jerkin Hobb saw that he was shirtless. Yet after +the first moment's shock, he knew this gaunt and ugly youth was Heriot. +And Heriot seeing his coming hung his head, and made a shamed movement +of retreat into the shadow of the barn. But Hobb hurried to him, and +took him by the shoulders, and beheld him with the eyes of love which +always find its object beautiful. Then the flush faded from Heriot's +haggard cheeks, and he looked as full at Hobb as Hobb at him. And as at +the steadfast meeting of eyes men see no longer the physical +appearance, but for an eternal instance the appearance of the soul, +these brothers knew that they were to each other what they had always +been. And Heriot saw that Hobb was full of questions, and he laid his +hand over Hobb's mouth and said, "Hobb, do not ask me anything, for I +can tell you nothing." + +"Neither of yourself nor of Ambrose?" said Hobb. + +"Nothing," repeated Heriot. + +So Hobb left his questions unspoken, and as they went home together +told Heriot of Hugh's return, and what had happened to him. And Heriot +heard it without comment. And in the evening, when Lionel and Hugh +returned, they had nothing to say to Heriot, nor he to them; and it +seemed to Hobb that this was because these three everything was +understood. + +It was a lonely June for Hobb, with his eldest brother away, and the +three others spending all their days beside their strange possessions, +which brought them no tittle of joy; and had it not been for his garden +he would have felt utterly bereft. Yet here too failure sat heavily on +his heart; for an many a night he saw upon his bush a bud that promised +perfection to come, and in the morning it hung dead and rotten on its +stem. + +So the month wore on, and Hobb began to feel that the Burgh, where now +his brothers only came to sleep, was a dead shell, too desolate to +inhabit if Ambrose did not soon return. And he was impelled to go in +search of him, yet decided to remain until Ambrose's birthday had +dawned, for had not their birthdays brought his three youngest brothers +home? And it might be so with Ambrose. And so it was. + +For on the first of July, before going to his garden, he stayed at +Heriot's barn to try to induce him to leave his peacocks for once, and +spend the day with him in search of Ambrose; but Heriot, who was +feeding his fowl, never looked up, and said sadly, "What need to seek +Ambrose to-day? Ambrose has returned." + +"Have you seen him?" cried Hobb joyfully. + +"Early this morning," said Heriot. + +"Where?" + +"Down yonder in Poverty Bottom," said Heriot, pointing south of his +barn to a hollow that went by that name. For there was a dismal +habitation that had fallen into decay, a skeleton of a hut with only +two rotting walls, and a riddled thatch for a roof. And it was worse +than no habitation at all, for what might have been a green and lovely +vale was made desolate and rank with disused things, rusting among the +lumber of bricks and nettles. It was enough to have been there once +never to go again. And Hobb had been there once. + +But now, at Heriot's tidings, he ran down the hill a second time as +though it led to Paradise, calling Ambrose as he went. And getting no +answer he began to fear that either Heriot was mistaken, or Ambrose had +gone away. His fears were unfounded, for coming to the Bottom he found +Ambrose; yet he had to look twice to make sure it was he. For he was +dressed only in rags, and less in rags than nakedness; and his skin was +dirty and his hair unkempt. He was stooping about the ground gathering +flints dropped through, and a small trail of them marked his passage +over the rank grass. + +Hobb strode towards him with dread in his bosom, and laid his hand on +Ambrose's wild head, saying his name again. And at this his brother +looked up and eyed him childishly, and said "Who is Ambrose?" And then +the dread in Hobb took a definite shape, and he saw with horror that +Ambrose had lost his wits. At that knowledge, and the sight of his +neglected body and pitiful foolish smile, Hobb turned away and sobbed. +But Ambrose with a little random laugh continued to drop flints in his +bottomless bucket. And no word of Hobb's could win him from that place. + +Then Hobb went back to the Burgh alone, and buried his face in his +hands, and thought. He thought of the evil which had fallen upon his +house, the nature of which was past his brothers' telling, and far +beyond his guessing. And he said to himself, "I have done the best I +could in governing the affairs of the Burgh and of our people, since +the others were younger than I; but I see I have been selfish, keeping +safety for my portion while they went into danger. And now there is +none to set this evil right but I, and if I can I must follow the way +they went, and do better than they at the end of it. And if I fail--as +how should I succeed where they have not?--and if like them I too must +suffer the dreadful loss of a part of myself, let it be so, and I shall +at least fare as they have fared, and we will share an equal fate. +Though what I have to lose I know not, to match their bright and noble +qualities." + +Then he called his steward, and gave all the affairs of the Burgh into +his hands, and bade him have an eye to his brothers as far as possible, +and to consult Heriot in any need, since he was the only one who could +in the least be relied on. And then he walked out of the Burgh as he +was, and went where his feet took him. He had not been walking +half-an-hour when a sudden blast of wind tore the cap from his head, +and blew it into the very middle of a pond. + +Now the pond was exceedingly muddy, and as it seemed to Hobb rather +deep, and he was wondering whether his old cap were worth wading for, +and had almost decided to abandon it, when he saw a skinny yellow arm, +like a frog's leg, stretch up through the water, and a hand that +dripped with slime grope for his cap. With three strides he was in the +pond, and he caught the cap and the hand together in his fist. The hand +writhed in his, but Hobb was too strong for it; and with a mighty tug +he dragged first the shoulder and then the head belonging to the hand +into view. They were the shoulder and head of the muddy man whom you, +dear maidens, have seen once before in this tale, but whom Hobb had +never seen till then. And Jerry said, "Drat these losers of caps! will +they NEVER be done with disturbing the newts and me? Tis the fifth in +a summer. And first there's one with a step like a wagtail, and next +there's one as bold as a hawk, and after him one as comely as a wild +swan, and last was one as wise as an owl. And now there's this one with +nothing particular to him, but he grips as hard as all the rest rolled +into one. Drat these cap-losers!" + +Then Hobb who, for all his surprise to begin with, and his increase of +excitement as the muddy creature spoke, had never slackened his grasp, +said, "Old man, you are welcome to my cap if you will tell me what +happened to the wearers of the four other caps after they left you." + +"How do I know what happened to em?" growled the muddy man. "For they +all went to High and Over, and after that twas nobody's business but +Wind's, who lives there." + +"Where's High and Over?" said Hobb. + +"Find out," said the muddy man, and gave a wriggle that did him no good. + +"I will," said Hobb, "for you shall tell me." And he looked so sternly +at the muddy man that Jerry cringed, moaning: + +"I thought by his voice twas a turtle, but I see by his eye tis an +eagle. If you must know you must. And south of Cradle Hill that's south +of Pinchem that's south of Hobb's Hawth that's south of the Burgh +that's south of this pond is where High and Over is. And I'll thank you +to let me go." + +Nevertheless, when Hobb released him Jerry forgot the thanks and +disappeared into the mud taking the cap with him. But Hobb did not care +for his thanks. He hurried south as fast as his feet would carry him, +going by the places he knew and then by those he did not, till he came +at nightfall to High and Over. + +And on High and Over a great wind was blowing from all the four +quarters of heaven at once. And Hobb was caught up in the crossways of +the wind, and turned about and about till he was dizzy, and all his +thoughts were churning in his brain, so that he could not tell one from +the other. And at the very crisis of the churning a voice in the wind +from the north roared in his ear: + +"What do you want that you lack?" + +And a voice from the south murmured, "What is the wish of your heart?" + +And a voice from the west sighed, "What is it that life has not given +you?" + +And a voice from the east shrieked, "What will you have, and lose +yourself to have?" + +And Hobb forgot his brothers and why he was there, he forgot everything +but the dream of his soul which had been churned uppermost in that +turmoil, and he cried aloud, "A golden rose!" + +Then the four voices together roared and murmured and sighed and +shrieked, "Open Winkins! Open Winkins! Open Winkins! Open Winkins!" And +the tumult ceased with a shock, and the shock of silence overwhelmed +Hobb with sickness and darkness, and his senses deserted him. As he +became unconscious he seemed to be, not falling to earth, but rising in +the air. + +When he opened his eyes he was lying on his back in a strange world, a +world of trees, whose noble trunks rose up as though they were columns +of the sky, but their heaven was a green one, shutting out daylight, +yet enclosing a luminous haunted air of its own. Such forests were +unknown in Hobb's open barren land, and this alone would have made his +coming to his senses appear rather to be a coming away from them. But +he scarcely noticed his surroundings, he was only vaguely aware of them +as the strange and beautiful setting of the strangest and most +beautiful thing he had ever seen. For he was looking into the eyes of +the loveliest woman in the world. She was bending above him, tall and +slim and supple, her perfect body clad in a deep black gown, the hem +and bosom of which were embroidered with celandines, and it had a +golden belt and was lined with gold, as he could see when the loose +sleeves fell open on her round and slender arms; and the bodice of the +gown hung a little away from her stooping body, and was embroidered +inside, as well as outside, with celandines, which made reflections on +her white neck, as they will on a pure pool where they lean to watch +their April loveliness. Her skin was as creamy as the petals of a +burnet rose, and her eyes were the color of peat-smoke, and her hair +was as soft as spun silk and fell in two great shining waves of the +purest gold over her bosom as she bent above him, and lay on the earth +like golden grass on green water. A tress of the hair had flowed across +his hand. And about her small fine head it was bound with a black +fillet, a narrow coil so sleek and glossy that it was touched with +silver lights, and this intense blackness made the gold of her head +more dazzling. And Hobb lay there bewildered under the spell of her +loveliness, asking nothing but to lie and gaze at it for ever. + +But presently as he did not move she did, sinking upon her knees and +stooping closer so that her breast nearly rested on his own, and she +put her white hand softly on his forehead, and the smoke of her eyes +was washed with tears that did not fall, and she said in a tremulous +voice that fell on his ears like music heard in a dream, "Oh, stranger, +if you are not dying, speak and move." + +Then Hobb raised himself slowly on his elbow, and as she did not stir +their faces were brought very close together; and not for an instant +had they taken their eyes from each other. And he said in a low voice, +not knowing either his voice or his own words, "I am not dying, but I +think I must be dead." And suddenly the woman broke into a rain of +tears, and she sank into his arms with her own about his neck, and she +wept upon his heart as though her own were breaking. After a few +moments she lifted her head and Hobb bent his to meet her quivering +mouth. But before his lips touched hers she tore herself from his hold +and fled away through the trees. + +Hobb leaped to his feet, and scarcely knowing what he said cried, +"Love! don't be afraid!" and he made no attempt to follow her, but +stood where he was. He saw her halt in the distance, and turn, and +hesitate, and struggle with herself as to her coming or going. At last +she decided for the former, and came slowly between the pillars of the +trees until she stood but a few paces from him with lowered lids. And +she said sweetly, "Forgive me, stranger. But I found you here like one +dead, and when you opened your eyes the fear was still on me, and when +you moved and spoke the relief was too great, and I forgot myself and +did what I did." + +Then Hobb said gently, but with his heart beating on his ribs as fast +as a swallow's wings beat the air, "I thought you did what you did +because at that moment you knew, and I knew also, that it was your +right for ever to weep and to laugh on my heart, and mine to bear for +ever your laughing and weeping. But if it was not with you as with me, +say so, and I will go away and not trouble you or your strange woods +again." + +Then the woman came quickly to him, and seized his hands saying, half +agitated, half commanding, "It was with me as with you. And you shall +stay with me for ever in these woods, and I will give you the desire of +your life." + +"And what shall I give you?" said Hobb. + +"Whatever is nearest to yourself," she whispered, "the dearest treasure +of your soul." And she looked at him with eyes full of passions which +he could not fathom, but among them he saw terror. And with great +tenderness he drew her once more to his heart, putting his strong and +steady arms around her like a shield, and he said: + +"Love whose name I do not know, what is nearer to myself than you, what +dearer treasure has my soul than you? If I am to give you this, it is +yourself I must give you; and I will restore to you whatever it is that +you have lost through the agony of your soul. Be at peace, my love +whose name I do not know." And holding her closely to him he bent his +head and kissed her lips; and a great shudder passed through her, and +then she lay still in his arms, with her strange eyes half-closed, and +slow tears welling between the lids and hanging on her cheeks like the +rain on the rose. And she let him quiet her with his big hands that +were so used to care for flowers. Presently she lifted his right hand +to her mouth, and kissed it before he could prevent her. Next she drew +herself a little away from him, hanging back in his arms and gazing +into his face as though her soul were all a question and his was the +answer that she could not wholly read. And last she broke away from him +with a strange laugh that ended on a sob. + +Hobb said, "Will you not tell me what makes you unhappy?" + +"I have no unhappiness," she answered, and quenched her sob with a +smile as strange as her laugh. "My foolish lover, are you amazed that +when her hour comes a woman knows not whether she is happy or unhappy? +Oh, when joy is so great that it has come full circle with pain, what +wonder that laughter and weeping are one?" + +And Hobb believed her, for ever since he had opened his eyes upon her, +he had felt in his own heart more joy than he could bear; and he knew +that for this there is no remedy except to find a second heart to help +in the bearing. And he knew it was the same with her. But now he saw +that she was free for awhile from the excess of joy; and indeed these +respites must happen even to lovers for their own sakes, lest they sink +beneath the heavenly burden of their hearts. And her smile was like the +diver's rise from his enchanted deeps to take again the common breath +of man; and Hobb also smiled and said, "Come now, and tell me your +name. For though love needs none for its object, I think the name +itself is eager to be made known and loved beyond all other names for +love's sake. As I love yours, whatever it be." + +"My name," she said, "is Margaret." + +"It is an easy name to love," said Hobb, "for its own sake." + +"And what is yours?" asked she. + +And Hobb's smile broadened as he answered, "Try to love it, for my +sake. For it is Hobb. Yet it is as fitting to me, who am as plain as my +name, as your lovely name is fitting to you." + +She cast a quick sly look at him and said, "If love knows not how to +distinguish between joy and pain, since all that comes from the heart +of love is joy, neither can it tell the plain from the beautiful, since +all that comes under the eye of love is beauty. And I will find all +things beautiful in my lover, from his name to the mole on his cheek." + +For I know now, dear maidens, whether in describing him I had mentioned +this peculiarity of Hobb's. + + +(Jessica: You hadn't described him at all. + +Martin: Well, now the omission is remedied. + +Jessica: Oh fie! as though it were enough to say the man had a mole on +his left cheek! + +Martin: Dear Mistress Jessica, did I say it was his left cheek? + +Jessica: Why--why!--where else would it be? + +Martin: Nowhere else, on my honor. It WAS his left cheek.) + + +Then Hobb said to Margaret, "What place is this?" + +"It is called Open Winkins," said she, and at the name he started to +his feet, remembering much that he had forgotten. She looked at him +anxiously and cajolingly and said, "You are not going away?" But he +hardly heard her question. "Margaret," he said, "I have come from a +place that may be far or near, for I do not know how I came; but I +think it must be far, since I never saw this forest, or even heard of +it, till a moment before my coming. But I am seeking a clue to a +trouble that has come upon me this year, and I think the clue may be +here. And now tell me, have you in these last four months seen in these +woods anything of your people that are my brothers?--a child that once +was merry, and a boy that once was brave, and a youth that once was +beautiful, and a young man that once was wise? Have these ever been to +Open Winkins?" + +Margaret looked at him thoughtfully and said, "If they have, I have not +seen them here. And I think they could not have been here without my +knowledge. For no one lives here but I, and I live nowhere else." + +Hobb sighed and said, "I had hoped otherwise. For, dear, I cannot rest +until I have helped them." Then he told her as much as he knew of his +four brothers; and her face clouded as he spoke, and her eyes looked +hurt and angry by turns, and her beautiful mouth turned sulky. So then +Hobb put his arm round her and said, "Do not be too troubled, for I +know I shall presently find the cause and cure of these boys' ills." +But Margaret pushed his arm away and rose restlessly to her feet, and +paced up and down, muttering, "What do I care for these boys? It is not +for them I am troubled, but for myself and you." + +"For us?" said Hobb. "How can trouble touch us who love each other?" + +At this Margaret threw herself on the grass beside him, and laid her +head against his knee, and drew his hands to her, pressing them against +her eyes and lips and throat and bosom as though she would never let +them go; and through her kisses she whispered passionately, "Do you +love me? do you truly love me? Oh, if you love me do not go away +immediately. For I have only just found you, but your brothers have had +you all their lives. And presently you shall go where you please for +their sakes, but now stay a little in this wood for mine. Stay a month +with me, only a month! oh, my heart, is a month much to ask when you +and I found each other but an hour ago? For this time of love will +never come again, and whatever other times there are to follow, if you +go now you will be shutting your eyes upon the lovely dawn just as the +sun is rising through the colors. And when you return, you will return +perhaps to love's high-noon, but you will have missed the dawn for +ever." And then she lifted her prone body a little higher until it +rested once more in the curve of his arm against his heart, and she lay +with her white face upturned to his, and her dark soft eyes full of +passion and pleading, and she put up her fingers to caress his cheek, +and whispered, "Give me my little month, oh, my heart, and at the end +of it I will give you your soul's desire." + +And not Hobb or any man could have resisted her. + +So he promised to remain with her in Open Winkins, and not to go +further on his quest till the next moon. And indeed, with all time +before and behind him it did not seem much to promise, nor did he think +it could hurt his brothers' case. But the kernel of it was that he +longed to make the promise, and could not do otherwise than make the +promise, and so, in short, he made the promise. + +Then Margaret led him to two small lodges on the skirts of the forest; +they were made of round logs, with moss and lichen still upon them, and +they were overgrown with the loveliest growths of summer--with +blackberry blossoms, a wonderful ghostly white, spread over the bushes +like fairies' linen out to dry, and wild roses more than were in any +other lovers' forest on earth, and the maddest sweetest confusion of +honeysuckle you ever saw. Within, the rooms were strewn with green +rushes, and hung with green cloths on which Margaret had embroidered +all the flowers and berries in their seasons, from the first small +violets blue and white to the last spindle-berries with their orange +hearts splitting their rosy rinds. And there was nothing else under +each roof but a round beech-stump for a stool, and a coffer of carved +oak with metal locks, and a low mattress stuffed with lamb's-fleece +picked from the thorns, and pillows filled with thistledown; and each +couch had a green covering worked with waterlily leaves and white and +golden lilies. "These are the Pilleygreen Lodges," said she, "and one +is mine and one is yours; and when we want cover we will find it here, +but when we do not we will eat and sleep in the open." + +And so the whole of that July Hobb dwelt in the Pilleygreen Lodges in +Open Winkins with his love Margaret. And by the month's end they had +not done their talking. For did not a young lifetime lie behind them, +and did they not foresee a longer life ahead, and between lovers must +not all be told and dreamed upon? and beyond these lives in time, which +were theirs in any case, had not love opened to them a timeless life of +which inexhaustible dreams were to be exchanged, not always by words, +though indeed by their mouths, and by the speech of their hands and +arms and eyes? Hobb told her all there was to tell of the Burgh and his +life with his brothers, both before and after their tragedies, but he +did not often speak of them for it was a tale she hated to hear, and +sometimes she wept so bitterly that he had ado to comfort her, and +sometimes was so angry that he could hardly conciliate her. But such +was his own gentleness that her caprices could withstand it no more +than the shifting clouds the sun. And Margaret told him of herself, but +her tale was short and simple--that her parents had died in the forest +when she was young, and that she had lived there all her life working +with her needle, twice yearly taking her work to the Cathedral Town to +sell; and with the proceeds buying what she needed, and other cloths +and silk and gold with which to work. She opened the coffer in Hobb's +lodge and showed him what she did: veils that she had embroidered with +cobwebs hung with dew, so that you feared to touch them lest you should +destroy the cobweb and disperse the dew; and girdles thick-set with +flowers, so that you thought Spring's self on a warm day had loosed the +girdle from her middle, and lost it; and gowns worked like the feathers +of a bird, some like the plumage on the wood-dove's breast, and others +like a jay's wing; and there was a pair of blue skippers so embroidered +that they appeared and disappeared beneath a flowing skirt with reeds +and sallows rising from a hem of water, you thought you had seen +kingfishers; and there were tunics overlaid with dragonflies' wings and +their delicate jointed bodies of green and black-and-yellow and +Chalk-Hill blue; and caps all gay with autumn berries, scarlet +rose-hips and wine-red haws, and the bright briony, and spindle with +its twofold gayety, and one cap was all of wild clematis, with the vine +of the Traveler's Joy twined round the brim and the cloud of the Old +Man's Beard upon the crown. And Hobb said, "It is magic. Who taught you +to do this?" And Margaret said, "Open Winkins." + +Early in their talks he told her of his garden, and of the golden rose +he tried to grow there, and of his failures; and Margaret knew by his +voice and his eyes more than by his words that this was the wish of his +heart. And she smiled and said, "Now I know with what I must redeem my +promise. Yet I think I shall be jealous of your golden rose." And Hobb, +lifting a wave of her glittering hair and making a rose of it between +his fingers, asked, "How can you be jealous of yourself?" "Yet I think +I am," said she again, "for it was something of myself you promised to +give me presently, and I would rather have something of you." "They are +the same thing," said Hobb, and he twisted up the great rose of her +hair till it lay beside her temple under the ebony fillet. And as his +hand touched the fillet he looked puzzled, and he ran his finger round +its shining blackness and exclaimed, "But this too is hair!" Margaret +laughed her strange laugh and said, "Yes, my own hair, you discoverer +of open secrets!" And putting up her hands she unbound the fillet, and +it fell, a slender coil of black amongst the golden flood of her head, +like a serpent gliding down the sunglade on a river. + +"Why is it like that?" said Hobb simply. + +With one of her quick changes Margaret frowned and answered, "Why is +the black yew set with little lamps? Why does a black cloud have an +edge of light? Why does a blackbird have white feathers in his body? +Must things be ALL dark or ALL light?" And she stamped her foot and +turned hastily away, and began to do up her hair with trembling hands. +And Hobb came behind her and kissed the top of her head. She turned on +him half angrily, half smiling, saying, "No! for you do not like my +black lock." And Hobb said very gravely, "I will find all things +beautiful in my beloved, from her black lock to her blacker temper." +Margaret shot a swift look at him and saw that he was laughing at her +with an echo of her own words; and she flung her arms about him, +laughing too. "Oh, Hobb!" said she, "you pluck out my black temper by +the roots!" + +So with teasing and talking and quarreling and kissing, and +ever-growing love, July came near its close; and as love discovers or +creates all miracles in what it loves, Hobb for pure joy grew light of +spirit, and laughed and played with his beloved till she knew not +whether she had given her heart to a child or a man; and again when the +happiness that was in his soul shone through his eyes, he was so +transfigured that, gazing on his beauty, she knew not whether she had +received the heart of a man or a god. And the truth was that at this +time Hobb was all three, since love, dear maidens, commands a region +that extends beyond birth and death, and includes all that is mortal in +all that is eternal. And as for Margaret, she was all things by turns, +sometimes as gay as sunbeams so that Hobb could scarcely follow her +dancing spirit, but could only sun himself in the delight of it; and +sometimes she was full of folly and daring, and made him climb with her +the highest trees, and drop great distances from bough to bough, +mocking at all his fears for her though he had none for himself; and +sometimes when he was downcast, as happened now and then for thinking +on his brothers, she forgot her jealousy in tenderness of his sorrow, +and made him lean his head upon her breast, and talked to him low as a +mother to her baby, words that perhaps were only words of comfort, yet +seemed to him infinite wisdom, as the child believes of its mother's +tender speech. And at all times she was lovelier than his dreams of +her. Not once in this month did Hobb go out of the forest, which was +confined on the north and north-west by big roads running to the world, +and on all other sides by sloped of Downland. But whenever in their +wanderings they arrived at any of these boundaries, Margaret turned him +back and said, "I do not love the open; come away." + +But on the last day of the month they came upon a very narrow neck of +the treeless down, a green ride carved between their wood and a dark +plantation that lay beyond, so close as to be almost a part of Open +Winkins, but for that one little channel of space; and Hobb pointed to +it and said, "That's a strange place, let us go there." + +"No," said Margaret. + +"But is it not our own wood?" + +"How can you think so?" she said petulantly. "Do you not see how black +it is in there? How can you want to go there? Come away." + +"What is it called?" asked Hobb. + +"The Red Copse," said she. + +"Why?" asked Hobb. + +"I don't know," said she. + +"Have you never been there?" asked Hobb. + +"No, never. I don't like it. It frightens me." And she clung to him +like a child. "Oh, come away!" + +She was trembling so that he turned instantly, and they went back to +the Pilleygreen Lodges, getting wild raspberries for supper on the way. +And after supper they sang songs, one against the other, each sweeter +than the last, and told stories by turns, outdoing each other in fancy +and invention; and at last went happily to bed. + +But Hobb could not sleep. For in the night a wind came up and blew four +times round his lodge, shaking it once on every wall. And it stirred in +him the memory of High and Over, and with the memory misgivings that he +could not name. And he rose restlessly from his couch and went out +under the troubled moon, for a windy rack of clouds was blowing over +the sky. But through it she often poured her amber light, and by it +Hobb saw that Margaret's door was blowing on its hinges. He called her +softly, but he got no answer; and then he called more loudly, but still +she did not answer. + +"She cannot be sleeping through this," said Hobb to himself; and with +an uneasy heart he stood beside the door and looked into the lodge. And +she was not there, and the couch had not been slept on. But on it lay +her empty dress, its gold and black all tumbled in a heap, and on top +of it was an embroidered smock. And something in the smock attracted +him, so that he went quickly forward to examine it; and he saw that it +was Heriot's shirt, that had been cut and changed and worked all over +with peacocks' feathers. And he stood staring at it, astounded and +aghast. Recovering himself, he turned to leave the lodge, but stumbled +on the open coffer, hanging out of which was a second smock; and this +one had two lions worked on the back and front, and one was red and the +other white, and the smock had been Hugh's shirt. Then Hobb fell on the +coffer and searched its contents till he had found Lionel's little +shirt fashioned into a linen vest, with a tiny border of fantastic +animals dancing round it, pink pigs, and black cocks, and white +donkeys, and chestnut horses. And last of all he found the shirt of +Ambrose, tattered and frayed, and every tatter was worked at the edge +with a different hue, and here and there small mocking patches of color +had been stitched above the holes. + +And at each discovery the light in Hobb's eyes grew calmer, and the +beat of his heart more steady. And he walked out of the Pilleygreen +Lodge and as straight as his feet would carry him across Open Winkins +and the green ride, and into the Red Copse. As he went he shut down the +dread in his heart of what he should find there, "For," said Hobb to +himself, "I shall need more courage now than I have ever had." It was +black in the Red Copse, with a blackness blacker than night, and the +wild races of moonlight that splashed the floors of Open Winkins were +here unseen. But a line of ruddy fireflies made a track on the +blackness, and Hobb, going as softly as he might, followed in their +wake. Just before the middle of the Copse they stopped and flew away, +and one by one, as each reached the point deserted by its leader, +darted back as though unable to penetrate with its tiny fire the +fearful shadows that lay just ahead. But Hobb went where the fireflies +could not go. And he found a dark silent hollow in the wood, where +neither moon nor sun could ever come; and at the bottom of it a long +straggling pool, with a surface as black as ebony, and mud and slime +below. Here toads and bats and owls and nightjars had come to drink, +with rats and stoats who left their footprints in the mud. And on the +ground and bushes Hobb saw slugs and snails, woodlice, beetles and +spiders, and creeping things without number. The gloom of the place was +awful, and turned the rank foliage of trees and shrubs black in +perpetual twilight. But what Hobb saw he saw by a light that had no +place in heaven. For kneeling beside the pool was his love Margaret, +her naked body crouched and bowed among the creatures of the mud; and +her two waves of gold were flung behind her like a smooth mantle, but +the one black lock was drawn forward over her head, and she was dipping +and dipping it into the dank waters. And every time she drew the +dripping lock from its stagnant bath, it glimmered with an unearthly +phosphorescence, that shed a ghostly light upon the hollow, and all +that it contained. And at each dipping the lock of hair came out +blacker than before. + +At last she was done, and she slowly squeezed the water from her +unnatural tress, and laid it back in its place among the gold. And then +she stretched her arms and sighed so heavily that the crawling +creatures by the pool were startled. But less started than she, when +lifting her head she saw the eyes of Hobb looking down on her. And such +terror came into her own eyes that the look rang on his heart as though +it had been a cry. Yet not a sound issued between her lips. And he said +to himself, "Now I need more wisdom than I have ever had." And he +continued to look steadily at her with eyes that she could not read. +And presently he spoke. + +"We have some promises to redeem to-night," he said, "and we will +redeem them now. You promised me my perfect golden rose, and this night +I am going out of Open Winkins and back to my own Burgh. And to-morrow, +since I now know something of your power of gifts, I shall find the +rose upon my hill, and in exchange for it I will keep my word and give +you back yourself. But there is something more than this." And he went +a little apart, and soon came back to her with his jerkin undone and +his shirt in his hand. "You have my brothers' shirts and here is mine," +he said. "To-night when I am gone you shall return to Open Winkins, and +spend the hours in taking out the work you have put into their shirts. +And in the morning when I meet them at the Burgh I shall know if you +have done this. But in exchange for theirs I give you mine to do with +as you will. And the only other thing I ask of you is this; that when +you have taken out the work in their shirts, you will spend the day in +making a white garment for the lady who will one day be my wife. And +whatever other embroidery you put upon it, let it bear on the left +breast a golden rose. And to-morrow night, if all is well at the Burgh, +I will come here for the last time and fetch it from you." + +Then Hobb laid his shirt beside her on the ground, and turned and went +away. And she had not even tried to speak to him. + +When Hobb got out of the Red Copse he presently found a road and +followed it, hoping for the best. After awhile he saw a tramp asleep in +a ditch, and woke him and asked him the way to the Burgh of the Five +Lords. But the tramp had never heard of it. So then Hobb asked the way +to Firle, and the tramp said "That's another matter," for Sussex tramps +know all the beacons of the Downs, and he told him to go east. Which +Hobb did, walking without rest through the night and dawn and day, here +and there getting a lift that helped him forward. And in his heart he +carried hope like a lovely flower, but under it a quick pain like a +reptile's sting that felt to him like death. And he would not give way +to the pain, but went as fast and as steadily as he could; and at last, +with strained eyes and aching feet, and limbs he could scarcely drag +for weariness, and the dust of many miles upon his shoes and clothes, +he came to his own bare country and the Burgh. He rested heavily on the +gate, and the first thing he saw was Lionel on the steps, laughing and +playing with a litter of young puppies. And the next was Hugh climbing +the castle wall to get an arrow that had lodged in a high chink. And +out of a window leaned Heriot in all his young beauty, picking sweet +clusters of the seven-sisters roses that climbed to his room. And in +the doorway sat Ambrose, with a book on his knee, but his eyes fixed on +the gate. And when he saw Hobb standing there he came quickly down the +steps, calling to the others, "Lionel! Hugh! Heriot! our brother has +come home." And Lionel rushed through the puppies, and Hugh dropped +bodily from the wall, and Heriot leaped through the window. And the +four boys clung to Hobb and kissed him and wrung his hands, and seemed +as they would fight for very possession of him. And Hobb, with his arms +about the younger boys, and Heriot's hand in his, leaned his forehead +on Ambrose's cheek, and Ambrose felt his face grow wet with Hobb's +tears. Then Ambrose looked at him with apprehension, and said in a low +voice, "Hobb, what have you lost?" And Hobb understood him. And he +answered in a voice as low, "My heart. But I have found my four +brothers." They took him in and prepared a bath and fresh clothes for +him, and a meal was ready when he was refreshed. He came among them +steady and calm again, and the three youngest had nothing but rejoicing +for him. And he saw that all memory of what had happened had been +washed from them. But with Ambrose it was different, for he who had had +his very mind effaced, in recovering his mind remembered all. And after +the meal he took Hobb aside and said, "Tell me what has happened to +you." + +Then Hobb said, "Some things happen which are between two people only, +and they can never be told. And what has passed in this last month, +dear Ambrose, is only for her knowledge and mine. But as to what is +going to happen, I do not yet know." + +After a moment's silence Ambrose said, "Tell me this at least. Has she +given you a gift?" + +"She has given me you again," said Hobb. + +"That is different," said Ambrose. "She has given us ourselves again, +and our power to pursue the destiny of our natures. But no man is +another man's destiny. And it was our error to barter our own powers to +another in exchange for the small goals our natures desired. And so we +lost a treasure for a trifle. For every man's power is greater than the +thing he achieves by it. But what has she given you in exchange for +what she has taken from you?" And as he spoke he looked into Hobb's +gentle eyes, and thought that if he had lost his heart it was a loss +that had somehow multiplied his possession of it. "What has she given +you?" he said again. + +"I shall not know," said Hobb, "until I have been to my garden. And I +must go alone. And afterwards, Ambrose, I must ride away for another +night and day, but then I will return to the Burgh for ever." + +So he got his horse, and went to the Gardener's Hill, and his garden +was blazing with flowers like a joyous welcome. But when he approached +the bush on which his heart was set, he saw a great gold bloom upon it +that startled him with its beauty; until coming closer he perceived +that all the petals were rotten at the heart, and coiled in the center +was a small black snake. + +He plucked the rose from its stem, and as he looked at it his face grew +bright, and he suddenly laughed aloud for joy; and he ran out of the +garden and got on his horse, and rode with all his speed to Open +Winkins. When he got there the moon had risen over the Pilleygreen +Lodges. + +And Margaret sat at the door of her lodge in the moonlight, putting the +last stitches into her work. + +But when she saw him coming she broke her thread, and rose and averted +her head. Then Hobb dismounted and came and stood beside her, and saw +that in some way she was changed from the woman he knew. Margaret, +still not turning to him, muttered, "Do not look at me, please. For I +am ugly and unhappy and afraid and nearly mad. And here are your +brothers' shirts." She gave him the four shirts, restored to +themselves. He took them silently. "And here," continued Margaret, "is +her wedding-smock." + +And Hobb took it from her, and saw that out of his own shirt, washed +and bleached, she had made a lovely garment. And round it, from the hem +upward, ran a climbing briar of exquisite delicacy, and with a +beautiful design of spines and leaves; but the only flower upon it was +a golden rose, worked on the heart of the smock in her own gold hair. +And Hobb took it from her and again said nothing. + +Then Margaret with a great cry, as though her heart were breaking, +gasped, "Go! go quickly! I have done what you wanted. Go!" + +"Yes, dear," said Hobb, "but you must come with me." + +She turned then, whispering, "How can I go with you? What do you mean?" +And she looked in his eyes and saw in them such infinite compassion and +tenderness that she was overwhelmed, and swayed where she stood. And +then his arms, which she had never expected to feel again, closed round +her body, and she lay helplessly against him, and heard him say, "Love +Margaret, you are my only love, and you worked the wedding-smock for +yourself. Oh, Margaret, did you think I had another love?" + +She looked at him blankly as though she could not understand, and her +face was full of wonder and joy and fright. And she hung away from him +sobbing, "No, no, no! I cannot. I must not. I am not good enough." + +"Which of us is good enough?" said Hobb. "So then we must all come to +love for help." + +And she cried again in an agony, "No, no, no! There is evil in me. And +I lived alone and had nothing, nothing that ever lasted, for I was born +on High and Over in the crossways of the winds, and they were the +godfathers of my birth. And all my life they have blown things to and +from me. And I tried to keep what they blew me; and I gave their +hearts' desire to all comers, and took in exchange the best they could +give me; for I thought that if it was fair for them to take, it was +fair for me to take too. But nothing that I took mattered longer than a +week or a day or an hour, neither laughter nor courage nor beauty nor +wisdom--all, all were unstable till the winds blew me you. And as I +looked at you lying there unconscious, something, I knew not what, +seemed different from anything I had ever known, but when you opened +your eyes I knew what it was, and my heart seemed to fly from my body. +And I longed, as I had never longed with the others, to give you your +soul's desire, and I have tried and tried, and I could not. I could not +give you anything at all, but every hour of the day and night I seemed +to be taking from you. And yet what you had to give me was never +exhausted. And the evil in me often fought against you, when I dreaded +your knowing the truth about me, and would have lied my soul away to +keep you from knowing it; and when I was jealous of your love for your +brothers. So again and again I failed, when I should have thought of +nothing but that you loved me as I loved you. For did I not know of my +own love that it could never give you cause to be jealous, nor would +ever shrink from any truth it might know of you?--but now--but +now!--oh, my heart, had I known, when you spoke last night of your +bride, that I was she! I will never be she! I was not good enough. I +fought myself in vain." And she drooped in his arms, nearly fainting. + +"Love Margaret!" said Hobb, and the tears ran down his face, "I will +fight for you, yes, and you will fight for me. And if you have +sacrificed joy and courage and beauty and wisdom for my sake, I will +give them all to you again; and yet you must also give them to me, for +they are things in which without you I am wanting. But together we can +make them. And when I went to my garden this morning, I thanked God +that my rose was not perfect, and that you had not taken my heart, as +you had taken joy and courage and beauty and wisdom, as a penalty for a +gift. Their desires you could give them, and take their best in +payment, but mine you could not give me in the same way. For in love +there are no penalties and no payments, and what is given is +indistinguishable from what is received." And he bent his head and +kissed her long and deeply, and in that kiss neither knew themselves, +or even each other, but something beyond all consciousness that was +both of them. + +Presently Hobb said, "Now let us go away from Open Winkins together, +and I will take you to the Burgh. But you must go as my bride." + +And Margaret, pale as death from that long kiss, withdrew herself very +slowly from his arms. And her dark eyes looked strange in the moonlight +as he had never seen them, and more beautiful, with a beauty beyond +beauty; and deep joy too was in them, and an infinite wisdom, and a +strength of courage, that seemed more than courage, wisdom and joy, for +they had come from the very fountain of all these things. And very +slowly, with that unfading look, she took off her black gown and put on +the white bridal-smock she had made; and as soon as she had put it on +she fell dead at his feet. + + +("I think," said Martin Pippin, "that you have now had plenty of time, +Mistress Jessica, to ponder my riddle." + +"Your riddle?" exclaimed Jessica. "But--good heavens! bother your +riddle! get on with the story." + +"How can I get on with it?" said Martin. "It's got there." + +Joscelyn: No, no, no! oh, it's impossible! oh, I can't bear it! oh, how +angry I am with you! + +Martin: Dear Mistress Joscelyn, why are you so agitated? + +Joscelyn: I? I am not at all agitated. I am quite collected. I only +wish you were as collected, for I think you must be out of your wits. +How DARE you leave this story where it is? How dare you! + +Martin: Dear, dear Mistress Joscelyn, what more is there to be told? + +Joscelyn: I do not care what more is to be told. Only some of it must +be re-told. You must bring that girl instantly to life! + +Joyce: Of course you must! And explain why she died, though she mustn't +die. + +Jennifer: No, indeed! and if it had to do with her black hair, you must +pluck it out by the roots. + +Jessica: Yes, indeed! and you must do something about the horrible pool +in the Red Copse, for perhaps that is what killed her. + +Jane: Oh, it is too dreadful not to have a story with a wedding in it! + +And little Joan leaned out of her branch and took Martin's hand in +hers, and looked at him pleadingly, and said nothing. + +"Will women NEVER let a man make a thing in his own way?" said Martin. +"Will they ALWAYS be adding and changing this detail and that? For what +a detail is death once lovers have kissed. However--!") + + +Not less than yourselves, my silly dears, was Hobb overwhelmed by that +down-sinking of his love Margaret. And he fell on his knees beside her, +and took her in his arms, and put his hand over the rose on her heart, +that had ceased to beat. Suddenly it seemed to him that his hand had +been stung, and he drew it away quickly, his eyes on the golden rose. +And where she had left it just incomplete at his coming, he saw a +jet-black speck. A light broke over him swiftly, and one by one he +broke the strands at the rose's heart, and under it revealed a small +black snake; and as the rose had been done from her own gold locks, so +the snake had been done from the one black lock in the gold. Then at +last Hobb understood why she had cried she was not good enough to be +his bride, for she had fought in vain her last dark impulse to prepare +death for the woman who should wear the bridal-smock. And he understood +too the meaning of her last wonderful look, as she took the death upon +herself. And he loved her, both for her fault and her redemption of it, +more than he had ever thought that he could love her; for he had +believed that in their kiss love had reached its uttermost. But love +has no uttermost, as the stars have no number and the sea no rest. + +Now at first Hobb thought to pluck the serpent from her breast, but +then he said, "Of what use to destroy the children of evil? It is evil +itself we must destroy at the roots." And very carefully he undid her +beautiful hair, and laid its two gold waves on either side; but the +slim black tress he gathered up in his hand until he held every hair of +it, and one by one he plucked them from her head. And every time he +plucked a hair the pain that had been under his heart stabbed him with +a sting that seemed like death, and with each sting the mortal agony +grew more acute, till it was as though the powers of evil were spitting +burning venom on that steadfast heart, to wither it before it could +frustrate them. But he did not falter once; and as he plucked the last +hair out, Margaret opened her eyes. Then all pain leapt like a winged +snake from his heart, and he forgot everything but the joy and wonder +in her eyes as she lay looking up at him, and said, "What has happened +to me? and what have you done?" And she saw the tress in his hand and +understood, and she kissed the hand that had plucked the evil from her. +Then, her smoky eyes shining with tears, but a smile on her pale lips, +she said, "Come, and we will drown that hair for ever." So hand-in-hand +they went across Open Winkins and over the way that led to the Red +Copse. And as they pushed and scrambled through the bushes, what do you +think they saw? First a shimmering light round the edge of the pool, +and then a sheet of moon-daisies, the largest, whitest, purest blooms +that ever were. And they stood there on their tall straight stems of +tender green in hundreds and hundreds, guarding and sanctifying the +place. It was like a dark cathedral with white lilies on the high +altar. And they saw a cock blackbird wetting his whistle at the pool, +and heard two others and a green woodpecker chuckling in the trees +close by. And they had no eyes for slimy goblin things, even if there +were any. And I don't believe there were. + +They bound the black tress about a stone, and it sank among the +reflections of the daisies in the water, there to be purified for ever. +And the next day he put her behind him on his horse, and they rode to +the garden on the eastern hills, and found on his bush a single perfect +rose. And as she had given it to him, Hobb straightway plucked and gave +it to her. For that is the only way to possess a gift. + +And then they went together to the Burgh, and very soon after there was +a wedding. + +I am now all impatience, Mistress Jessica, to hear you solve my riddle. + + + +FOURTH INTERLUDE + +Like contented mice, the milkmaids began once more to nibble at their +half-finished apples, and simultaneously nibbled at the just-finished +story. + +Jessica: Do, pray, Jane, let us hear what conclusions you draw from all +this. + +Jane: I confess, Jessica, I am all at sea. The good and the evil were +so confused in this tale that even now I can scarcely distinguish +between black and gold. For had Margaret not done ill, who would have +discovered how well Hobb could do? Yet who would wish her, or any +woman, to do ill? even for the proof of his, or any man's, good? + +Martin: True, Mistress Jane. Yet women are so strangely constructed +that they have in them darkness as well as light, though it be but a +little curtain hung across the sun. And love is the hand that takes the +curtain down, a stronger hand than fear, which hung it up. For all the +ill that is in us comes from fear, and all the good from love. And +where there is fear to combat, love is life's warrior; but where there +is no fear he is life's priest. And his prayer is even stronger than +his sword. But men, always less aware of prayers than of blows, +recognize him chiefly when he is in arms, and so are deluded into +thinking that love depends on fear to prove his force. But this is a +fallacy; love's force is independent. For how can what is immortal +depend on what is mortal? Yet human beings must, by the very fact of +being alive at all, partake of both qualities. And strongly opposed as +we shall find the complexing elements of light and darkness in a woman, +still more strongly opposed shall we discover them in a man. As I +presume I have no need to tell you. + +Joscelyn: You presume too much. The elements that go to make a man are +not to our taste. + +Martin: My story I hope was so. + +Joscelyn: To some extent. And this pool in the Red Copse, is it hard to +find? + +Martin: Neither harder nor easier than all fairies' secrets. And at +certain times in summer, when the wood is altogether lovely with +centaury and purple loosestrife, you can hardly miss the pool for the +fairies that flock there. + +Joyce: What dresses do they wear? + +Martin: The most beautiful in the world. The dresses of White Admirals +and Red, and Silver-Washed Fritillaries and Pearl-Bordered +Fritillaries, and Large Whites and Small Whites and Marbled Whites and +Green-Veined Whites, and Ringlets, and Azure Blues, and Painted Ladies, +and Meadow Browns. And they go there for a Feast Day in honor of some +Saint of the Fairies' Church. Which Hobb and Margaret also attended +once yearly on each first of August, bringing a golden rose to lay upon +the altars of the pool. And the year in which they brought it no more, +two Sulphurs, with dresses like sunlight on a charlock-field, came with +the rest to the moon-daisies' Feast; because not once in all their +years of marriage had the perfect rose been lacking. + +Jessica: It relieves me to hear that. For I had dreaded lest their rose +was blighted for ever. + +Jane: And I too, Jessica. Especially when she died at his feet. + +Joan: And yet, Jane, she did not really die, and somehow I was sure she +would live. + +Joyce: Yes, I was confident that Hobb would be as happy as he deserved +to be. + +Jennifer: I do not know why, but even at the worst I could not imagine +a love-story ending in tears. + +Martin: Neither could I. Since love's spear is for woe and his shield +for joy. Why, I know of but one thing that could have lost him that +battle. + +Three of the Milkmaids: What thing? + +Martin: Had the elements that go to make a man not been to Margaret's +taste. + + +Conversation ceased in the Apple-Orchard. + + +Joscelyn: Her taste would have been the more commendable, singer. And +your tale might have been the better worth listening to. But since +tales have nothing in common with truth, it's a matter of indifference +to me whether Hobb's rose suffered perpetual blight or not. + +Jane: And to me. + +Martin: Then let the tale wilt, since indifference is a blight no story +can suffer and live. And see! overhead the moon hangs undecided under a +cloud, one half of her lovely body unveiled, the other half draped in a +ghostly garment lit from within by the beauties she still keeps +concealed; like a maid half-ready for her pillow, turned motionless on +the brink of her couch by the oncoming dreams to which she so soon will +wholly yield herself. Let us not linger, for her chamber is sacred, and +we too have dreams that await our up-yielding. + + +Like a flock of clouds at sundown, the milkmaids made a golden group +upon the grass, and soon, by their breathing, had sunk into their +slumbers. All but Jessica, who instead of following their example, +pushed the ground with her foot to keep herself in motion; and as she +swung she bit a strand of her hair and knitted her brows. And Martin +amused himself watching her. And presently as she swung she plucked a +leaf from the apple-tree and looked at it, and let it go. And then she +snapped off a twig, and flung it after the leaf. And next she caught at +an apple, and tossed it after the twig. + +"Well?" said Martin Pippin. + +"Don't be in such a hurry," said Jessica. She got off the swing and +walked round the tree, touching it here and there. And all of a sudden +she threw an arm up into the branches and leaned the whole weight of +her body against the trunk, and began to whistle. + +"Give it up?" said Martin Pippin. + +"Stupid!" said Jessica. "I've guessed it." + +"Impossible!" said Martin. "Nobody ever guesses riddles. Riddles were +only invented to be given up. Because the pleasure of not being guessed +is so much greater than the pleasure of having guessed. Do give it up +and let me tell you the answer. Even if you know the answer, please, +please give it up, for I am dying to tell it you." + +"I shall never have saved a young man's life easier," said Jessica, +"and as you saved mine before the story, I suppose I ought to save +yours after it. How often, by the way, have you saved a lady's life?" + +"As often as she thought herself in danger of losing it," said Martin. +"It happens every other minute with ladies, who are always dying to +have, or to do, or to know--this thing or that." + +"I hope," said Jessica, "I shall not die before I know everything there +is to know." + +"What a small wish," said Martin. + +"Have you a bigger one?" + +"Yes," said he; "to know everything, there is not to know." + +Jessica: Oh, but those are the only things I do know. + +Martin: It is a knowledge common to women. + +Jessica: How do YOU know? + +Martin: I'm sure I don't know. + +Jessica: I don't think, Master Pippin, that you know a great deal about +women. + +And she put out her tongue at him. + +Martin: (Take care!) I know nothing at all about women. + +Jessica: (Why?) Yet you pretend to tell love-stories. + +Martin: (Because if you do that I can't answer for the consequences.) +It is only by women's help that I tell them at all. + +Jessica: (I'm not afraid of consequences. I'm not afraid of anything.) +Who helped you tell this one? + +Martin: (Your courage will have to be tested.) You did. + +Jessica: Did I? How? + +Martin: Because what you love in an apple-tree is not the leaf or the +flower or the bough or the fruit--it is the apple-tree. Which is all of +the things and everything besides; for it is the roots and the rind and +the sap, it is motion and rest and color and shape and scent, and the +shadows on the earth and the lights in the air--and still I have not +said what the tree is that you love, for thought I should recapitulate +it through the four seasons I should only be telling you those parts, +none of which is what you love in an apple-tree. For no one can love +the part more than the whole till love can be measured in pint-pots. +And who can measure fountains? That's the answer, Mistress Jessica. I +knew you'd have to give it up. (Take care, child, take care!) + +Jessica: (I won't take care!). I knew the answer all the time. + +Martin: Then you know what your apple-tree has to do with my story. + +Jessica: Yes, I suppose so. + +Martin: Please tell me. + +Jessica: No. + +Martin: But I give it up. + +Jessica: No. + +Martin: That's not fair. People who give it up must always be told, in +triumph if not in pity. + +Jessica: I sha'n't tell. + +Martin: You don't know. + +Jessica: I'll box your ears. + +Martin: If you do--! + +Jessica: Quarreling's silly. + +Martin: Who began it? + +Jessica: You did. Men always do. + +Martin: Always. What was the beginning of your quarrel with men? + +Jessica: They say girls can't throw straight. + +Martin: Silly asses! I'd like to see them throw as straight as girls. +Did you ever watch them at it? Men can throw straight in one direction +only--but watch a girl! she'll throw straight all round the compass. +Why, a man will throw straight at the moon and miss it by the eighth of +an inch; but a girl will throw at the sun and hit the moon as straight +as a die. I never saw a girl throw yet without straightway finding some +mark or other. + +Jessica: Yes, but you can't convince a man till he's hit. + +Martin: Hit him then. + +Jessica: It didn't convince him. He said I'd missed. And he said he had +hi--he wasn't convinced. + +Martin: Did he really say that? These men can no more talk straight +than throw straight. Can you talk straight, Jessica? + +Jessica: Yes, Martin. + +Martin: Then tell me what your apple-tree has to do with my story. + +Jessica: Bother. All right. Because wisdom and beauty and courage and +laughter can all be measured in pint-pots. And any or all of these +things can be dipped out of a fountain. You thought I didn't know, but +I do know. + +Martin: (Take care!) Where did you get all this knowledge? + +Jessica: And that was why Margaret could take what she took from Lionel +and Hugh and Heriot and Ambrose, because it was something measurable. +Yes, because even a gay spirit can be sad at times, and a strong nerve +weak, and a beautiful face ugly, and a clever brain dull. But when it +came to taking what Hobb had, she could take and take without +exhausting it, and give and give and always have something left to +give, because that wasn't measurable. And the tree is the tree, and +love is never anything else but love. + +Martin: Oh, Jessica! who has been your schoolmaster? + +Jessica: And so when she threw away her four pints what did it matter, +any more than when the tree loses its leaves, or its flowers, or snaps +a twig, or drops its apples? For though nobody else thought them lovely +or clever or witty or splendid, she and Hobb were so to each other for +ever and ever; because-- + +Martin: Because? + +Jessica: It doesn't matter. I've told you enough, and you thought I +couldn't tell you anything, and I simply hated saying it, but you +thought I couldn't throw straight and I can, and your riddle was as +simple as pie. + +Martin: (Look out, I tell you!) You have thrown as straight as a die. +And now I will ask you a straight question. Will you give me your key +to Gillian's prison? + +Jessica: Yes. + +Martin: Because you dreaded lest Hobb's rose was blighted for ever? + +Jessica: No. Because it's a shame she should be there at all. + + +And she gave him the key. + + +Martin: You honest dear. + +Jessica: You thought I was going to beg the question--didn't you, +Martin? + +Martin: Put in your tongue, or-- + +Jessica: Or what? + +Martin: You know what. + +Jessica: I don't know what. + +Martin: Then you must take the consequences. + + +And she took the consequences on both cheeks. + + +Jessica: Oh! Oh, if I had guessed you meant that, do you suppose for a +moment that I would have--? + +Martin: You dishonest dear. + +Jessica: I don't know what you mean. + +Martin: How crooked girls throw! + +She boxed his ears heartily and ran to her comrades. When she was +perfectly safe she turned round and put out her tongue at him. + +Then they both lay down and went to sleep. + + +Martin was wakened by water squeezed on his eyelids. He looked up and +saw Joscelyn wringing out her little handkerchief in the pannikin. + +"Let us have no nonsense this morning," said she. + +"I like that!" mumbled Martin. "What's this but nonsense?" He sat up, +drying his face on his sleeve. "What a silly trick," he said. + +"Rubbish," said Joscelyn. "Our master is due, and yesterday you +overslept yourself and were troublesome. Go to your tree this instant." + +"I shall go when I choose," said Martin. + +"Maids! maids! maids!" + +"This instant!" said Joscelyn, and dipped her handkerchief in the +pannikin. + +Martin crawled into the tree. + +"Is a dog got into the orchard, maids?" said Old Gillman, looking +through the hedge. + +"What an idea, master," said Joscelyn. + +"I thought I seed one wagging his tail in the grass." + +The girls burst out laughing; they laughed till the apples shook, and +Old Gillman laughed too, because laughter is catching. And then he +stopped laughing and said, "Is an echo got into the orchard?" + +And the startled girls laughed louder than ever, and they grew red in +the face, and tears stood in their eyes, and Joscelyn had to go and +lean against the russet tree, where she stood frowning like a +stepmother. + +"Tis well to be laughing," said Old Gillman, "but have ye heard my +daughter laughing yet?" + +"No, master," said Jessica, "but I shouldn't wonder if it happened any +day." + +"Any day may be no day," groaned Gillman, "and though it were some day, +as like as not I'd not be here to see the day. For I'm drinking myself +into my grave, as Parson warned me yesternight, coming for my receipt +for mulled beer. Gillian!" he implored, "when will ye think better of +it, and save an old man's life?" + +But for all the notice she took of him, he might have been the dog +barking in his kennel. + +"Bitter bread for me, maids, and sweet bread for you," said the farmer, +passing the loaves through the gap. "Tis plain fare for all these days. +May the morrow bring cake." + +"Oh, master, please!" called Jessica. "I would like to know how Clover, +the Aberdeen, gets on without me." + +"Gets on as best she can with Oliver," said Gillman, "though that +fretty at times tis as well for him she's polled. Yet all he says is +Patience.' But I say, will patience keep us all from rack and ruin?" + +And he went away shaking his head. + +"Why did you laugh?" stormed Joscelyn, as soon as he was out of earshot. + +"How could I help it?" pleaded Martin. "When the old man laughed +because you laughed, and you laughed for another reason--hadn't I a +third reason to laugh? But how you glared at me! I am sorry I laughed. +Let us have breakfast." + +"You think of nothing but mealtimes," said Joscelyn crossly; and she +carried Gillian's bread to the Well-House, where she discovered only +the little round top of yesterday's loaf. For every crumb of the bigger +half had been eaten. So Joscelyn came away all smiles, tossing the ball +of bread in the air, and saying as she caught it, "I do believe Gillian +is forgetting her sorrow." + +"I am certain of it," agreed Martin, clapping his hands. And she flung +the top of the loaf to his right, and he made a great leap to the left +and caught it. And then he threw it to Jessica, who tossed it to Joan, +who sent it to Joyce, who whirled it to Jennifer, who spun it to Jane, +who missed it. And all the girls ran to pick it up first, but Martin +with a dexterous kick landed it in the duckpond, where the drake got +it. And he and the ducks squabbled over it during the next hour, while +Martin and the milkmaids breakfasted on bread and apples with no +squabbling and great good spirits. + +And after breakfast Martin lay on his back, chewing a grassblade and +counting the florets on another, whispering to himself as he plucked +them one by one. And the girls watched him. He did it several times +with several blades of grass, and always looked disappointed at the end. + +"Won't it come right?" asked little Joan. + +"Won't what come right?" said Martin. + +"Oh, I know what you're doing," said little Joan; and she too plucked a +blade and began to count-- + + "Tinker, + Tailor, + Soldier, + Sailor"-- + +"I'm sure I wasn't," said Martin. "Tailor indeed!" + +"Well, something like that," said Joan. + +"Nothing at all like that. Oh, Mistress Joan! a tailor. Why, even if I +were a maid like yourselves, do you think I'd give fate the chance to +set me on my husband's cross-knees for the rest of my life?" + +"What would you do then if you were a maid?" asked Joyce. + +"If I were a town-maid," said Martin, "I should choose the most +delightful husbands in the city streets." And plucking a fresh blade he +counted aloud, + + Ballad- + singer, + Churchbell- + ringer, + Chimneysweep, + Muffin-man, + Lamplighter, + King! + Ballad- + singer, + Churchbell- + ringer, + Chimneysweep"-- + +"There, Mistress Joyce," said Martin Pippin, "I should marry a Sweep +and sit in the tall chimneys and see stars by daylight." + +"Oh, let me try!" cried Joyce. + +And--"Let me!" cried five other voices at once. + +So he chose each girl a blade, and she counted her fate on it, with +Martin to prompt her. And Jessica got the Chimney-sweep, and vowed she +saw Orion's belt round the sun, and Jennifer got the Lamplighter and +looked sorrowful, for she too wished to see stars in the morning; but +Martin consoled her by saying that she would make the dark to shine, +and set whispering lights in the fog, when men had none other to see +by. And Joyce got the Muffin-man, and Martin told her that wherever she +went men, women, and children would run to their snowy doorsteps, for +she would be as welcome as swallows in spring. And Jane got the +Bell-Ringer, and Martin said an angel must have blessed her birth, +since she was to live and die with the peals of heaven in her ears. And +Joscelyn got the Ballad-Singer. + +"What about Ballad-Singers, Master Pippin?" asked Joscelyn. + +"Nothing at all about Ballad-Singers," said Martin. "They're a poor +lot. I'm sorry for you." + +And Joscelyn threw her stripped blade away saying, "It's only a silly +game." + +But little Joan got the King. And she looked at Martin, and he smiled +at her, and had no need to say anything, because a king is a king. And +suddenly every girl must needs grow out of sorts with her fate, and +find other blades to count, until each one had achieved a king to her +satisfaction. All but Joscelyn, who said she didn't care. + +"You are quite right," said Martin, "because none of this applies to +any of you. These are town-fortunes, and you are country-maids." + +And he plucked a new blade, reciting, + + Mower, + Reaper, + Poacher, + Keeper, + Cowman, + Thatcher, + Plowman, + Herd." + +"How dull!" said Jessica. "These are men for every day." + +"So is a husband," said Martin. "And to your town-girls, who no longer +see romance in a Chimneysweep, your Poacher's a Pirate and your +Shepherd a Poet. Could you not find it in your heart, Mistress Jessica, +to put up with a Thatcher?" + +"That's enough of husbands," said Jessica. + +"Then what of houses?" said Martin. "Where shall we live when we're +wed?-- + + 'Under a thatch, + In a ship's hatch, + An inn, a castle, + A brown paper parcel'-- + +"Stuff and nonsense!" said Joscelyn. + +"For the sake of the rime," begged Martin. But the girls were not +interested in houses. Yet the rest of the morning they went searching +the orchard for the grass of fortune, and not telling. But once Martin, +coming behind Jessica, distinctly heard her murmur "Thatcher!" and +smile. And at another time he saw Joyce deliberately count her blade +before beginning, and nip off a floret, and then begin; and the end was +"Plowman." And presently little Joan came and knelt beside him where he +sat counting on his own behalf, and said timidly, "Martin." + +"Yes, dear?" said Martin absentmindedly. + +"Oh. Martin, is it very wicked to poach?" + +"The best men all do it," said Martin. + +"Oh. Please, what are you counting?" + + +"You swear you won't tell?" said Martin, with a side-glance at her. + +She shook her head, and he pulled at his grass whispering-- + + Jennifer, + Jessica, + Jane, + Joan, + Joyce, + Joscelyn, + Gillian--" + +"And the last one?" said little Joan, with a rosy face; for he had +paused at the eighth. + +"Sh!" said Martin, and stuck his blade behind his ear and called +"Dinner!" + +So they came to dinner. + +"Have you not found," said Martin, "that after thinking all the morning +it is necessary to jump all the afternoon?" And he got the ropes of the +swing and began to skip with great clumsiness, always failing before +ten, and catching the cord round his ankles. At which the girls plied +him with derision, and said they would show him how. And Jane showed +him how to skip forwards, and Jessica how to skip backwards, and +Jennifer how to skip with both feet and stay in one spot, and Joyce how +to skip on either foot, on a run. And Joscelyn showed him how to skip +with the rope crossed and uncrossed by turns. But little Joan showed +him how to skip so high and so lightly that she could whirl the rope +twice under her feet before they came down to earth like birds. And +then the girls took the ropes by turns, ringing the changes on all +these ways of skipping; or two of them would turn a rope for the +others, while they skipped the games of their grandmothers: "Cross the +Bible," "All in together," "Lady, lady, drop your purse!" and +"Cinderella lost her shoe;" or they turned two ropes at once for the +Double Dutch; and Martin took his run with the rest. And at first he +did very badly, but as the day wore on improved, until by evening he +was whirling the rope three times under his feet that glanced against +each other in mid-air like the knife and the steel. And the girls +clapped their hands because they couldn't help it, and Joan said +breathlessly: + +"How quick you are! it took me ten days to do that." + +And Martin answered breathlessly, "How quick you were! it took me ten +years." + +"Are you ever honest about anything, Master Pippin?" said Joscelyn +petulantly. + +"Three times a day," said Martin, "I am honestly hungry." + +So they had supper. + +Supper done, they clustered as usual about the story-telling tree, and +Martin looked inquiringly from Jane to Joscelyn and from Joscelyn to +Jane. And Joscelyn's expression was one of uncontrolled indifference, +and Jane's expression was one of bridled excitement. So Martin ignored +Joscelyn and asked Jane what she was thinking about. + +"A great number of things, Master Pippin," said she. "There is always +so much to think about." + +"Is there?" said Martin. + +"Oh, surely you know there is. How could you tell stories else?" + +"I never think when I tell stories," said Martin. "I give them a push +and let them swing." + +"Oh but," said Jane, "it is very dangerous to speak without thinking. +One might say anything." + +"One does," agreed Martin, "and then anything happens. But people who +think before speaking often end by saying nothing. And so nothing +happens." + +"Perhaps it's as well," said Joyce slyly. + +"Yet the world must go round, Mistress Joyce. And swings were made to +swing. Do you think, Mistress Jane, if you sat in the swing I should +think twice, or even once, before giving it a push?" + +Jane considered this, and then said gravely, "I think, Master Pippin, +you would have to think at least once before pushing the swing +to-night; because it isn't there." + +"What a wise little milkmaid you are," said Martin, looking about for +the skipping-ropes. + +"Yes," said Jessica, "Jane is wiser than any of us. She is extremely +wise. I wonder you hadn't noticed it." + +"Oh, but I had," said Martin earnestly, fixing the swinging ropes to +their places. "There, Mistress Jane, let me help you in, and I will +give you a push." + +He offered her his hand respectfully, and Jane took it saying, "I don't +like swinging very high." + +"I will think before I push," said Martin. And when she was settled, +with her skirts in order and her little feet tucked back, he rocked the +swing so gently that not an apple fell nor a milkmaid slipped, +clambering to her place. And Martin leaned back in his and shut his +eyes. + +"We are waiting," observed Joscelyn overhead. + +"So am I," sighed Martin. + +"For what?" + +"For a push." + +"But you're not swinging." + +"Neither's my story. And it will take seven pair of arms to set it +going." And he fixed his eyes on Gillian in her sorrow, but she did not +lift her face. + +"Here's six to start the motion of themselves," said Joscelyn, "and it +only remains to you to attract the seventh willy-nilly." + +"It were easier," said Martin, "to unlock Saint Peter's Gates with +cowslips." + +"I was not talking of impossibilities, Master Pippin," said Joscelyn. + +"Why, neither was I," said Martin; "for did you never hear that +cowslips, among all the golden flowers of spring, are the Keys of +Heaven?" + +And sending a little chime from his lute across the Well-House he sang-- + + She lost the keys of heaven + Walking in a shadow, + Sighing for her lad O + She lost her keys of heaven. + She saw the boys and girls who flocked + Beyond the gates all barred and locked-- + And oh! sighed she, the locks are seven + Betwixt me and my lad O, + And I have lost my keys of heaven + Walking in a shadow. + She found the keys of heaven + All in a May meadow, + Singing for her lad O + She found her keys of heaven. + She found them made of cowslip gold + Springing seven-thousandfold-- + And oh! sang she, ere fall of even + Shall I not be wed O? + For I have found my keys of heaven + All in a May meadow. + +By the end of the song Gillian was kneeling upright among the mallows, +and with her hands clasped under her chin was gazing across the +duckpond. + +"Well, well!" exclaimed Joscelyn, "cowslips may, or may not, have the +power to unlock the heavenly gates. But there's no denying that a very +silly song has unlocked our Mistress's lethargy. So I advise you to +seize the occasion to swing your tale on its way." + +"Then here goes," said Martin, "and I only pray you to set your +sympathies also in motion while I endeavor to keep them going with the +story of Proud Rosalind and the Hart-Royal." + + +PROUD ROSALIND AND THE HART-ROYAL + +There was once, dear maidens, a man-of-all-trades who lived by the +Ferry at Bury. And nobody knew where he came from. For the chief of his +trades he was an armorer, for it was in the far-away times when men +thought danger could only be faced and honor won in a case of steel; +not having learned that either against danger or for honor the naked +heart is the fittest wear. So this man, whose name was Harding, kept +his fires going for men's needs, and women's too; for besides making +and mending swords and knives and greaves for the one, he would also +make brooches and buckles and chains for the other; and tools for the +peasants. They sometimes called him the Red Smith. In person Harding +was ruddy, though his fairness differed from the fairness of the +natives, and his speech was not wholly their speech. He was a man of +mighty brawn and stature, his eyes gleamed like blue ice seen under a +fierce sun, the hair of his head and his beard glittered like red gold, +and the finer hair on his great arms and breast overlaid with an amber +sheen the red-bronze of his skin. He seemed a man made to move the +mountains of the world; yet truth to tell, he was a most indifferent +smith. + + +(Martin: Are you not quite comfortable, Mistress Jane? + +Jane: I am perfectly comfortable, thank you, Master Pippin. + +Martin: I fancied you were a trifle unsettled. + +Jane: No, indeed. What would unsettle me? + +Martin: I haven't the ghost of a notion.) + + +I have heard gossips tell, but it has since been forgotten or +discredited, that this part of the river was then known as Wayland's +Ferry; for this, it was said, was one of the several places in England +where the spirit lurked of Wayland the Smith, who was the cunningest +worker in metal ever told of in song or story, and he had come overseas +from the North where men worshiped him as a god. No one in Bury had +ever seen the shape of Wayland, but all believed in him devoutly, for +this was told of him, and truly: that any one coming to the ferry with +an unshod steed had only to lay a penny on the ground and cry aloud, +"Wayland Smith, shoe me my horse!" and so withdraw. And on coming again +he would find his horse shod with a craft unknown to human hands, and +his penny gone. And nobody thought of attributing to Harding the work +of Wayland, partly because no human smith would have worked for so mean +a fee as was accepted by the god, and chiefly because the quality of +the workmanship of the man and the god was as dissimilar as that of +clay and gold. + +Besides his trade in metal, Harding also plied the ferry; and then men +would speak of him as the Red Boatman. But he could not be depended on, +for he was often absent. His boat was of a curious shape, not like any +other boat seen on the Arun. Its prow was curved like a bird's beak. +And when folk wished to go across to the Amberley flats that lie under +the splendid shell which was once a castle, Harding would carry them, +if he was there and neither too busy nor too surly. And when they asked +the fee he always said, "When I work in metal I take metal. But for +that which flows I take only that which flows. So give me whatever you +have heart to give, as long as it is not coin." And they gave him +willingly anything they had: a flower, or an egg, or a bird's feather. +A child once gave him her curl, and a man his hand. + +And when he was neither in his workshop or his boat, he hunted on the +hills. But this was a trade he put to no man's service. Harding hunted +only for himself. And because he served his own pleasure more +passionately than he served others', and was oftener seen with his bow +than with hammer or oar, he was chiefly known as the Red Hunter. Often +in the late of the year he would be away on the great hills of Bury and +Bignor and Houghton and Rewell, with their beech-woods burning on their +sides and in their hollows, and their rolling shoulders lifted out of +those autumn fires to meet in freedom the freedom of the clouds. + +It was on one of his huntings he came on the Wishing-Pool. This pool +had for long been a legend in the neighborhood, and it was said that +whoever had courage to seek it in the hour before midnight on Midsummer +Eve, and thrice utter her wish aloud, would surely have that wish +granted within the year. But with time it had become a lost secret, +perhaps because its ancient reputation as the haunt of goblin things +had long since sapped the courage of the maidens of those parts; and +only great-grandmothers remembered how that once their grandmothers had +tried their fortunes there. And its whereabouts had been forgotten. + +But one September Harding saw a calf-stag on Great Down. There were +wild deer on the hills then, but such a calf he had never seen before. +So he stalked it over Madehurst and Rewell, and followed it into the +thick of Rewell Wood. And when it led him to its drinking-place, he +knew that he had discovered one more secret of the hills, and that this +somber mere wherein strange waters bubbled in whispers could be no +other than the lost Wishing-Pool. The young calf might have been its +magic guard. To Harding it was a discovery more precious than the mere. +For all that it was of the first year, with its prickets only showing +where its antlers would branch in time, it was of a breed so fine and a +build so noble that its matchless noon could already be foretold from +its matchless dawn; and added to all its strength and grace and beauty +was this last marvel, that though it was of the tribe of the Red Deer, +its skin was as white and speckless as falling snow. Watching it, the +Red Smith said to himself, "Not yet my quarry. You are of king's stock, +and if after the sixth year you show twelve points, you shall be for +me. But first, my hart-royal, you shall get your growth." And he came +away and told no man of the calf or of the pool. + +And in the second year he watched for it by the mere, and saw it come +to drink, no longer a calf, but a lovely brocket, with its brow antlers +making its first two points. And in the third year he watched for it +again, no brocket now but a splendid spayade, which to its brows had +added its shooting bays; and in the fourth year the spayade had become +a proud young staggarde, with its trays above its bays. And in the +fifth year the staggarde was a full-named stag, crowned with the +exquisite twin crowns of its crockets, surmounting tray and bay and +brow. And Harding lying hidden gloried in it, thinking, "All your +points now but two, my quarry. And next year you shall add the beam to +the crown, and I will hunt my hart." + +Now at the time when Harding first saw the calf, and the ruin of the +castle across the ferry was only a ruin, not fit for habitation, it was +nevertheless inhabited by the Proud Rosalind, who dwelt there without +kith or kin. And if time had crumbled the castle to its last nobility, +so that all that was strong and beautiful in it was preserved and, as +it were, exposed in nakedness to the eyes of men: so in her, who was +the ruins of her family, was preserved and exposed all that had been +most noble, strong and beautiful in her race. She was as poor as she +was friendless, but her pride outmatched both these things. So great +was her pride that she learned to endure shame for the sake of it. She +had a tall straight figure that was both strong and graceful, and she +carried herself like a tree. Her hair was neither bronze nor gold nor +copper, yet seemed to be an alloy of all the precious mines of the +turning year--the vigorous dusky gold of November elms, the rust of +dead bracken made living by heavy rains, the color of beechmast +drenched with sunlight after frost, and all the layers of glory on the +boughs before it fell, when it needed neither sun nor dew to make it +glow. All these could be seen in different lights upon her heavy hair, +which when unbound hung as low as her knees. Her thick brows were dark +gold, and her fearless eyes dark gray with gold gleams in them. They +may have been reflections from her lashes, or even from her skin, which +had upon it the bloom of a golden plum. Dim ages since her fathers had +been kings in Sussex; gradually their estate had diminished, but with +the lessening of their worldly possessions they burnished the brighter +the possession of their honor, and bred the care of it in their +children jealously. So it came to pass that Rosalind, who possessed +less than any serf or yeoman in the countryside, trod among these as +though she were a queen, dreaming of a degree which she had never +known, ignored or shrugged at by those whom she accounted her equals, +insulted or gibed at by those she thought her inferiors. For the +dwellers in the neighboring hamlets, to whom the story of her fathers' +fathers was only a legend, saw in her just a shabby girl, less worthy +than themselves because much poorer, whose pride and very beauty +aroused their mockery and wrath. They did not dispute her possession of +the castle. For what to them were four vast roofless walls, enclosing a +square of greensward underfoot and another of blue air overhead, and +pierced with doorless doorways and windowless casements that let in all +the lights of all the quarters of the sky? What to them were these +traces of old chambers etched on the surface of the old gray stone, +these fragments of lovely arches that were but channels for the winds? +In the thick of the great towered gateway one little room remained +above the arch, and here the maiden slept. And all her company was the +ghosts of her race. She saw them feasting in the halls of the air, and +moving on the courtyard of the grass. At night in the galleries of the +stars she heard their singing; and often, looking through the empty +windows over the flats to which the great west wall dropped down, she +saw them ride in cavalcade out of the sunset, from battle or hunt or +tourney. But the peasants, who did not know what she saw and heard, +preferred their snug squalor to this shivering nobility, and despised +the girl who, in a fallen fortress, defended her life from theirs. + +At first she had kept her distance with a kind of graciousness, but one +day in her sixteenth year a certain boor met her under the castle wall +as she was returning with sticks for kindling, and was struck by her +free and noble carriage; for though she was little more than a child, +through all her rags she shone with the grace and splendor not only of +her race, but of the wild life she lived on the hills when she was not +in her ruins. She was as strong and fine as a young hind, and could run +like any deer upon the Downs, and climb like any squirrel. And the +dull-sighted peasant, seeing as though for the first time her untamed +beauty, on an impulse offered to kiss her and make her his woman. + +Rosalind stared at him like one aroused from sleep with a rude blow. +The color flamed in her cheek. "YOU to accost so one of my blood?" she +cried. "Mongrel, go back to your kennel!" + +The lout gaped between rage and mortification, and, muttering, made a +step towards her; but suddenly seeming to think better of it, stumbled +away. + +Then Rosalind, lifting her glowing face, as beautiful as sunset with +its double flush, rose under gold, saw Harding the Red Hunter gazing at +her. Some business had brought him over the ferry, and on his road he +had lit upon the suit and its rejection. Rosalind, her spirit chafed +with what had passed, returned his gaze haughtily. But he maintained +his steadfast look as though he had been hewn out of stone; and +presently, impatient and disdainful, she turned away. Then, and +instantly, Harding pursued his way in silence. And Rosalind grew +somehow aware that he had determined to stand at gaze until her eyes +were lowered. Thereupon she classed his presumption with that of the +other who had dared address her, and hated him for taking part against +her. Near as their dwellings were, divided only by the river and a +breadth of water-meadow, their intercourse had always been of the +slightest, for Harding possessed a reserve as great as her own. But +from this hour their intercourse ceased entirely. + +The boor mis-spread the tale of her overweening pride through the +hamlet, and when next she appeared there she was greeted with derision. + +"This is she that holds herself unfit to mate with an honest man!" +cried some. And others, "Nay, do but see the silken gown of the great +lady Rosalind, see the fine jewels of her!" "She thinks she outshines +the Queen of Bramber's self!" scoffed a woman. And a man demanded, +"What blood's good enough to mix with hers, if ours be not?" + +"A king's!" flashed Rosalind. And even as she spoke the jeering throng +parted to let one by that elbowed his way among them; and a second time +she saw the Red Hunter come to halt and fix her before all the people. +Now this time, she vowed silently, you may gaze till night fall and day +rise again, Red Man, if you think to lower my eyes in the presence of +these! So she stood and looked him in the face like a queen, all her +spirit nerving her, and the people knew it to be battle between them. +Harding's great arms were folded across his breast, and on his +countenance was no expressiveness at all; but a strange light grew and +brightened in his eyes, till little by little all else was blurred and +hazy in the girl's sight, and blue fire seemed to lap her from her +tawny hair to her bare feet. Then she knew nothing except that she must +look away or burn. And her eyes fell. Harding walked past her as he had +done before, and not till he was out of hearing did the bystanders +begin their cruelty. + +"A king's blood for the lady that droops to a common smith!" cried they. + +"She shall swing his hammer for a scepter!" cried they. + +"Shall sit on's anvil for a throne!" cried they. + +"Shall queen it in a leathern apron o' Sundays!" cried they. + +Rosalind fled amid their howls of laughter. She hated them all, and far +beyond them all she hated him who had lowered her head in their sight. + +It was after this that the Proud Rosalind-- + + +(But here, without even trouble to finish his sentence, Martin Pippin +suddenly thrust with his foot at the seat of the swing, nearly +dislodging Jane with the action; who screamed and clutched first at the +ropes, and next at the branches as she went up, and last of all at +Martin as she came down. She clutched him so piteously that in pure +pity he clutched her, and lifting her bodily out of her peril set her +on his knee. + +Martin: (with great concern): Are you better, Mistress Jane? + +Jane: Where are your manners, Master Pippin? + +Martin: My mother mislaid them before I was born. But are you better +now? + +Jane: I am not sure. I was very much upset. + +Martin: So was I. + +Jane: It was all your doing. + +Martin: I could have sworn it was half yours. + +Jane: Who disturbed the swing, pray? + +Martin: Every effect proceeds from its cause. The swing was disturbed +because I was disturbed. + +Jane: Every cause once had its effect. What effected your disturbance, +Master Pippin? + +Martin: Yours, Mistress Jane. + +Jane: Mine? + +Martin: Confess that you were disturbed. + +Jane: Yes, and with good cause. + +Martin: I can't doubt it. Yet that was the mischief. I could find no +logical cause for your disturbance. And an illogical world proceeds +from confusion to chaos. For want of a little logic my foot and your +swing passed out of control. + +Jane: The logic had only to be asked for, and it would have been +forthcoming. + +Martin: Is it too late to ask? + +Jane: It is never too late to be reasonable. But why am I sitting on-- +Why am I sitting here? + +Martin: For the best of reasons. You are sitting where you are sitting +because the swing is so disturbed. Please teach me to be reasonable, +dear Mistress Jane. Why were you disturbed? + +Jane: Very well. I was naturally greatly disturbed to learn that your +heroine hated your hero. Because it is your errand to relate +love-stories; and I cannot see the connection between love and hate. +Could two things more antagonistic conclude in union? + +Martin: Yes. + +Jane: What? + +Martin: A button and buttonhole. For one is something and the other +nothing, and what in the very nature of things could be more +antagonistic than these? + +So saying, he tore a button from his shirt and put it into her hand. +"Don't drop it," said Martin, "because I haven't another; and besides, +every button-hole prefers its own button. Yet I will never ask you to +re-unite them until my tale proves to your satisfaction that out of +antagonisms unions can spring." + +"Very well," said Jane; and she took out of her pocket a neat little +housewife and put the button carefully inside it. Then she said, "The +swing is quite still now." + +"But are you sure you feel better?" said Martin. + +"Yes, thank you," said Jane.) + + +It was after this (said Martin) that the Proud Rosalind became known by +her title. It was fastened on her in derision, and when she heard it +she set her lips and thought: "What they speak in mockery shall be the +truth." And the more men sought to shame her, the prouder she bore +herself. She ceased all commerce with them from this time. So for five +years she lived in great loneliness and want. + +But gradually she came to know that even this existence of friendless +want was not to be life, but a continual struggle-with-death. For she +had no resources, and was put to bitter shifts if she would live. +Hunger nosed at her door, and she had need of her pride to clothe her. +For the more she went wan and naked, the more men mocked her to see her +hold herself so high; and out of their hearts she shut that charity +which she would never have endured of them. If she had gone kneeling to +their doors with pitiful hands, saying, "I starve, not having +wherewithal to eat; I perish, not having wherewithal to cover me"--they +would perhaps have fed and clothed her, aglow with self-content. But +they were not prompt with the charity which warms the object only and +not the donor; and she on her part tried to appear as though she needed +nothing at their hands. + +One evening when the woods were in full leaf, and summer on the edge of +its zenith, Proud Rosalind walked among the trees seeking green herbs +for soup. She had wandered far afield, because there were no woods near +the castle, standing on its high ground above the open flats and the +river beyond. But gazing over the water she could see the groves and +crests upon the hills where some sustenance was. The swift way was over +the river, but there was no boat to serve her except Harding's; and +this was a service she had never asked of old, and lately would rather +have died than ask. So she took daily to the winding roads that led to +a distant bridge and the hills with their forests. This day her need +was at its sorest. When she had gathered a meager crop she sat down +under a tree, and began to sort out the herbs upon her knees. One +tender leaf she could not resist taking between her teeth, that had had +so little else of late to bite on; and as she did so coarse laughter +broke upon her. It was her rude suitor who had chanced across her path, +and he mocked at her, crying, "This is the Proud Rosalind that will not +eat at an honest man's board, choosing rather to dine after the high +fashion of the kine and asses!" Then from his pouch he snatched a crust +of bread and flung it to her, and said, "Proud Rosalind, will you stoop +for your supper?" + +She rose, letting the precious herbs drop from her lap, and she trod +them into the earth as weeds gathered at hazard, so that the putting of +the leaf between her lips might wear an idle aspect; and then she +walked away, with her head very high. But she was nearly desperate at +leaving them there, and when she was alone her pain of hunger increased +beyond all bounds. And she sat down on the limb of a great beech and +leaned her brow against his mighty body, and shut her eyes, while the +light changed in the sky. And presently the leaves of the forest were +lit by the moon instead of the sun, and the spaces in the top boughs +were dark blue instead of saffron, and the small clouds were no longer +fragments of amber, but bits of mottled pearl seen through sea-water. +But Rosalind witnessed none of these slow changes, and when after a +great while she lifted her faint head, she saw only that the day was +changed to night. And on the other side of the beech-tree, touched with +moonlight, a motionless white stag stood watching her. It was a hart of +the sixth year, and stood already higher than any hart of the twelfth; +full five foot high it stood, and its grand soft shining flanks seemed +to be molded of marble for their grandeur, and silk for their +smoothness, and moonlight for their sheen. Its new antlers were +branching towards their yearly strength, and the triple-pointed crowns +rose proudly from the beam that was their last perfection. The eyes of +the girl and the beast met full, and neither wavered. The hart came to +her noiselessly, and laid its muzzle on her hair, and when she put her +hand on its pure side it arched its noble neck and licked her cheek. +Then, stepping as proudly and as delicately as Rosalind's self, it +moved on through the trees; and she followed it. + +The forest changed from beech to pine and fir. It deepened and grew +strange to her. She did not know it. And the light of the sky turned +here from silver to gray, and she felt about her the stir of unseen +things. But she looked neither to the right nor the left, but followed +the snow-white hart that went before her. It brought her at last to its +own drinking-place, and as soon as she saw it old rumors gathered +themselves into a truth, and she knew that this was the lost +Wishing-Pool. And she remembered that this night was Midsummer Eve, and +by the position of the ghostly moon she saw it was close on midnight. +So she knelt down by the edge of the mere, and stretched her hands +above it, the palms to the stars, and in a low clear voice she made her +prayer. + +"Whatever spirit dwells under these waters," said she, "I know not +whether you are a power for good or ill. But if it is true that you +will answer in this hour the need of any that calls on you--oh, Spirit, +my need is very great to-night. Hunger is bitter in my body, and my +strength is nearly wasted. A hind cast me his crust to-day, and five +hours I have battled with myself not to creep back to the place where +it still lies and eat of that vile bread. I do not fear to die, but I +fear to die of my hunger lest they sneer at the last of my race brought +low to so mean a death. Neither will I die by my own act, lest they +think my courage broken by these breaking days. On my knees," said she, +"I beseech you to send me in some wise a little money, if it be but a +handful of pennies now and then throughout the year, so that I may keep +my head unbowed. Or if this is too much to ask, and even of you the +asking is not easy, then send some high and sudden accident of death to +blot me out before I grow too humble, and the lofty spirits of my +fathers deny one whose spirit ends as lowly as their dust. Death or +life I beg of you, and I care not which you send." + +Then clasping her hands tightly, she called twice more her plea across +the mere: "Spirit of these waters, grant me life or death! Oh, Spirit, +grant me life or death!" + +There was a stir in the forest as she made an end, and she remained +stock still, waiting and wondering. But though she knelt there till the +moon had crossed the bar of midnight, nothing happened. + +Then the white hart, which had lain beside the water while she prayed, +rose silently and drank; and when it was satisfied, laid once more its +muzzle on her hair and licked her cheek again and moved away. Not a +twig snapped under its slender stepping. Its whiteness was soon covered +by the blackness. + +Faint and exhausted, Rosalind arose. She dragged herself through the +wood and presently found the broad road that curled down the deserted +hill and over the bridge, and at last by a branching lane to her ruined +dwelling. The door of her tower creaked desolately to and fro a little, +open as she had left it. She pushed it further ajar and stumbled in and +up the narrow stair. But the pale moonlight entered her chamber with +her, silvering the oaken stump that was her table; and there, where +there had been nothing, she beheld two little heaps of copper coins. + +The gold year waned, and the next passed from white to green; and in +the gold Harding began to hunt his hart, and by the green had not +succeeded in bringing it to bay. Twice he had seen it at a distance on +the hills, and once had started it from cover in Coombe Wood and +followed it through the Denture and Stammers, Great Bottom and Gumber, +Earthem Wood and Long Down, Nore Hill and Little Down; and at Punchbowl +Green he lost it. He did not care. A long chase had whetted him, and he +had waited so long that he was willing to wait another year, and if +need were two or three, for his royal quarry. He knew it must be his at +last, and he loved it the more for the speed and strength and cunning +with which it defied him. It had a secret lair he could never discover; +but one day that secret too should be his own. Meanwhile his blood was +heated, and the Red Hunter dreamed of the hart and of one other thing. + +And while he dreamed Proud Rosalind grew glad and strong on her +miraculous dole of money, that was always to her hand when she had need +of it. Fear went out of her life, for she knew certainly now that she +was in the keeping of unseen powers, and would not lack again. And +little by little she too began to build a dream out of her pride; for +she thought, I am all my fathers' house, and there will be no honor to +it more except that which can come through me. And whenever tales went +about of the fame of the fair young Queen of Bramber Castle, and the +crowning of her name in this tourney and in that, or of the great lords +and princes that would have died for one smile of her (yet her smiles +came easily, and her kisses too, men said), Rosalind knit her brows, +and her longing grew a little stronger, and she thought: If arrows and +steel might once flash lightnings about my father's daughter, and +cleave the shadows that have hung their webs about my fathers' hearth! + +She now began to put by a little hoard of pennies, for she meant to buy +flax to spin the finest of linen for her body, and purple for sleeves +for her arms, and scarlet leather for shoes for her feet, and gold for +a fillet for her head; and so, attired at last as became her birth, one +day to attend a tourney where perhaps some knight would fight his +battle in her name. And she had no other thought in this than glory to +her dead race. But her precious store mounted slowly; and she had laid +by nothing but the money for the fine linen for her robe, when a thing +happened that shattered her last foothold among men. + +For suddenly all the countryside was alive with a strange rumor. Some +one had seen a hart upon the hills, a hart of twelve points, fit for +royal hunting. Kings will hunt no lesser game than this. But this of +all harts was surely born to be hunted only by a maiden queen, for, +said the rumor, it was as white as snow. Such a hart had never before +been heard of, and at first the tale of it was not believed. But the +tale was repeated from mouth to mouth until at last all men swore to it +and all winds carried it; and amongst others some wind of the Downs +bore it across the land from Arun to Adur, and so it reached the ears +of Queen Maudlin of Bramber. Then she, a creature of quick whims, who +was sated with the easy conquests of her beauty, yet eager always for +triumphs to cap triumphs, devised a journey from Adur to Arun, and a +great summer season of revelry to end in an autumn chase. "And," said +she, "we will have joustings and dancings in beauty's honor, but she +whose knight at the end of all brings her the antlers of the snow-white +hart shall be known for ever in Sussex as the queen of beauty; since, +once I have hunted it, the hart will be hart-royal." For this, as +perhaps you know, dear maidens, is the degree of any hart that has been +chased by royalty. + +However, before the festival was undertaken, the Queen of Bramber must +needs know if the Arun could show any habitation worthy of her; and her +messengers went and came with a tale of a noble castle fallen into +ruins, but with its four-square walls intact, and a sward within so +smooth and fair that it seemed only to await the coming of archers and +dancers. So the Queen called a legion of workmen and bade them go there +and build a dwelling in one part of the green court for her to stay in +with her company. "And see it be done by midsummer," said she. +"Castles, madam," said the head workman, "are not built in a month, or +even in two." "Then for a frolic we'll be commoners," said the Queen, +"and you shall build on the sward not a castle, but a farm." So the +workmen hurried away, and set to work; and by June they had raised +within the castle walls the most beautiful farmhouse in Sussex; and +over the door made a room fit for a queen. + +But alas for Proud Rosalind! + +When the men first came she confronted them angrily and commanded them +to depart from her fathers' halls. And the head workman looked at the +ruin and her rags and said, "What halls, girl? and where are these +fathers? and who are you?"--and bade his men get about the Queen's +work. And Rosalind was helpless. The men from the Adur asked the people +of the Arun about her, and what rights she had to be where she was. And +they, being unfriendly to her, said, "None. She is a beggar with a bee +in her bonnet, and thinks she was once a queen because her housing was +once a castle. She has been suffered to stay as long as it was +unwanted; but since your Queen wants it, now let her go." And they came +in a body to drive her forth. But they got there too late. The Proud +Rosalind had abandoned her conquered stronghold, and where she lived +from this time nobody knew. She was still seen on the roads and hills +now and again, and once as she passed through Bury on washing-day the +women by the river called to her, "Where do you live now, Proud +Rosalind, instead of in a castle?" And Rosalind glanced down at the +kneeling women and said in her clear voice, "I live in a castle nobler +than Bramber's, or even than Amberley's; I live in the mightiest castle +in Sussex, and Queen Maudlin herself could not build such another to +live in." + +"Then you'll doubtless be making her a great entertainment there, Proud +Rosalind," scoffed the washers. + +"I entertain none but the kings of the earth there," said Rosalind. And +she made to walk on. + +"Why then," mocked they, "you'd best seek one out to hunt the white +hart in your name this autumn, and crown you queen over young Maudlin, +Proud Rosalind." + +And Rosalind stopped and looked at them, longing to say, "The white +hart? What do you mean?" Yet for all her longing to know, she could not +bring herself to ask anything of them. But as though her thoughts had +taken voice of themselves, she heard the sharp questions uttered aloud, +"What white hart, chatterers? Of what hunt are you talking?" And there +in mid-stream stood Harding in his boat, keeping it steady with the +great pole of the oar. + +"Why, Red Boatman," said they, "did you not know that the Queen of +Bramber was coming to make merry at Amberley?" + +"Ay," said Harding. + +"And that our proud lady Rosalind, having, it seems, found a grander +castle to live in, has given hers up to young Maudlin?" + +Harding glanced to and from the scornful tawny girl and said, "Well?" + +"Well, Red Boatman! On Midsummer Eve the Queen comes with her court, +and on Midsummer Day there will be a great tourney to open the revels +that will last, so they say, all through summer. But the end of it all +is to be a great chase, for a white hart of twelve points has been seen +on the hills, and the Queen will hunt it in autumn till some lucky lord +kneels at her feet with its antlers; and him, they say, she'll marry." + +Then Harding once more looked at Rosalind over the water, and she flung +back a look at him, and each was surprised to see dismay on the other's +brow. And Harding thought, "Is she angry because SHE is not the Queen +of the chase?" And Rosalind, "Would HE be the lord who kneels to Queen +Maudlin?" But neither knew that the trouble in each was really because +their precious secret was now public, and the white hart endangered. +And Rosalind's thought was, "It shall be no Queen's quarry!" And +Harding's, "It shall be no man's but mine!" Then Harding plied his way +to the ferry, and Rosalind went hers to none knew where; though some +had tried vainly to track her. + +In due course June passed its middle, and the Queen rode under the +Downs from Bramber to Amberley. And early on Midsummer Eve, while her +servants made busy about the coming festival, Queen Maudlin went over +the fields to the waterside and lay in the grass looking to Bury, and +teased some seven of her court, each of whom had sworn to bring her the +Crown of Beauty at his sword's point on the morrow. Her four maidens +were with her, all maids of great loveliness. There was Linoret who was +like morning dew on grass in spring, and Clarimond queenly as day at +its noon, and Damarel like a rose grown languorous of its own grace, +and Amelys, mysterious as the spirit of dusk with dreams in its hair. +But Maudlin was the pale gold wonder of the dawn, a creature of +ethereal light, a vision of melting stars and wakening flowers. And she +delighted in making seem cheap the palpable prettiness of this, or too +robust the fuller beauty of that, or dim and dull the elusive charm of +such-an-one. She would have scorned to set her beauty to compete with +those who were not beautiful, even as a proved knight would scorn to +joust with an unskilled boor. So now amongst her beautiful attendants, +knowing that in their midst her greater beauty shone forth a diamond +among crystals, she laughed at her seven lovers; and her four friends +laughed with her. + +"You do well, Queen Maudlin, to make merry," said one of the knights, +"for I know none that gains so much service for so little portion. What +will you give to-morrow's victor?" + +"What will to-morrow's victor think his due?" said she. + +The seven said in a breath, "A kiss!" and the five laughed louder than +ever. + +Then Maudlin said, "For so great an honor as victory, I should feel +ashamed to bestow a thing of such little worth." + +"Do you call that thing a little worth," said one, "which to us were +more than a star plucked out of heaven?" + +"The thing, it is true," said Maudlin, "has two values. Those who are +over-eager make it a thing of naught, those from whom it is hard-won +render it priceless. But, sirs, you are all too eager, I could scatter +you baubles by the hour and leave you still desiring. But if ever I +wooed reluctance to receive at last my solitary favor, I should know I +was bestowing a jewel." + +"When did Maudlin ever meet reluctance?" sighed one, the youngest. + +A long shadow fell upon her where she lay in the grass, and she looked +up to see the great form of Harding passing at a little distance. + +"Who is that?" said she. + +"It must be he they call the Red Smith," said Damarel idly. + +"He looks a rough, silent creature," remarked Amelys. And Clarimond +added in loud and insolent tones, "He knows little enough of kissings, +I would wager this clasp." + +"It's one I've a fancy for," said young Queen Maudlin. "Red Smith!" +called she. + +Harding turned at the sweet sound of her voice, and came and stood +beside her among the group of girls and knights. + +"Have you come from my castle?" said she, smiling up at him with her +dawn-blue eyes. + +"Ay," he answered. + +"What drew you there, big man? My serving-wench?" + +The Red Smith stared down at her light alluring loveliness. +"Serving-wenches do not draw me." + +"What metal then? Gold?" Maudlin tossed him a yellow disc from her +purse. He let it fall and lie. + +"No, nor gold." His eyes traveled over her gleaming locks. "The things +you name are too cheap," said he. + +Maudlin smiled a little and raised herself, till she stood, fair and +slender, as high as his shoulder. + +"What thing draws you, Red Smith?" + +"Steel." And he showed her a fine sword-blade, lacking its hilt. "I was +sent for to mend this against the morrow." + +"I know that blade," said Maudlin, "it was snapped in my cause. Have +you the hilt too?" + +"In my pouch," said Harding, his hand upon it. + +Hers touched his fingers delicately. "I will see it." + +He brushed her hand aside and unbuttoned his pouch; but as he drew out +the hilt of the broken sword, she caught a glimpse of that within which +held her startled gaze. + +"What jewels are those?" she asked quickly. + +"Old relics," Harding said with sudden gruffness. + +"Show them to me!" + +Reluctantly he obeyed, and brought forth a ring, a circlet, and a +girdle of surpassing workmanship, wrought in gold thick-crusted with +emeralds. A cry of wonder went up from all the maidens. + +"There's something else," said Maudlin; and without waiting thrust her +hand into the bottom of the pouch and drew out a mesh of silver. It was +so fine that it could be held and hidden in her two hands; yet when it +fell apart it was a garment, as supple as rich silk. The four maids +touched it softly and looked their longings. + +"Are these your handicraft?" said Maudlin. + +"Mine?" Harding uttered a short laugh. "Not I or any man can make such +things." + +"You are right," said Maudlin. "Wayland's self might acknowledge them. +Smith, I will buy them of you." + +"You cannot give me my price." + +"Gold I know does not tempt you." She smiled and came close beside him. + +"Then do not offer it." + +"Shall it be steel?" + +Harding's eyes swept her flower-like beauty. "Not from Queen Maudlin." + +"True. My bid is costlier." + +"Name it." + +"A kiss from my mouth." + +At the sound of his laughter the rose flowed into her cheek. + +"What, a bauble for my jewel, too-eager lady?" he said harshly. "Do the +women of this land hold themselves so light? In mine men carve their +kisses with the sword. Hark ye, young Queen! set a better value on that +red mouth if you'd continue to have it valued." + +"I could have you whipped for this," said Maudlin. + +"I do not think so," Harding answered, and stepped down the river-bank +into his waiting boat. + +"I keep my clasp," said Clarimond. + +Seven men sprang hotly to their feet. "What's your will, Queen?" + +"Nothing," said Maudlin slowly, as she watched him row over the water. +"Let the smith go. This test was between him and me and no man's +business else. Well, he is of a temper to come through fire unmelted." +She flashed a smile upon the seven that made them tremble. "But he is a +mannerless churl, we will not think of him. Which among YOU would spurn +my kiss?" She offered her mouth in turn, and seven flames passed over +its scarlet. Maudlin laughed a little and beckoned her watching maids. +"Well!" she said, taking the path to the castle, "He that had had +strength to refuse me might have worn my favor to-morrow and for ever." + +And meanwhile by the further river-bank came Rosalind, with mushrooms +in her skirt. And as she walked by the water in the evening she looked +across to her lost castle-walls, and touched the pennies in her pouch +and dreamed, while the sun dressed the running flood in his royalest +colors. + +"Linen and purple and scarlet and gold," mused she; "and so I might sit +there to-morrow among the rest. But linen and purple!" she said in +scorn, "what should they profit my fathers' house? It is no silken +daughter we lack, but a son of steel." + +And as she pondered a shadow crossed her, and out of his boat stepped +Harding, new from his encounter with the Queen. He did not glance at +her nor she at him; but the gleam of the broken weapon he carried cut +for a single instant across her sight, and her hands hungered for it. + +"A sword!" thought she. "Ay, but an arm to wield the sword. Nay, if I +had the sword it may be I could find an arm to wield it." She dropped +her chin on her breast, and brooded on the vanishing shape of the Red +Smith. "If I had been my fathers' son--oh!" cried she, shaken with new +dreams, "what would I not give to the man who would strike a blow for +our house?" + +Then she recalled what day it was. A year of miracles and changes had +sped over her life; if she desired new miracles, this was the night to +ask them. + +So close on midnight Proud Rosalind once more crept up to Rewell Wood; +and on its beechen skirts the white hart came to her. It came now as to +a friend, not to a stranger. And she threw her arm over its neck, and +they walked together. As they walked it lowered its noble antlers so +cunningly that not a twig snapped from the boughs; and its antlers were +as beautiful as the boughs with their branches and twigs, and to each +crown it had added not one, but two more crockets, so that now its +points were sixteen. Safe under its guard the maiden ventured into the +mysteries of the hour, and when they came to the mere the hart lay down +and she knelt beside it with her brow on its soft panting neck, and +thought awhile how she would shape her wish. And feeling the strength +of its sinews she said aloud, "Oh, champion among stags! were there a +champion among men to match you, I think even I could love him. Yet +love is not my prayer. I do not pray for myself." And then she stood +upright and stretched her hands towards the water and said again, less +in supplication than command: + +"Spirit, you hear--I do not pray for myself. Of old it may be maidens +often came in sport or fear, to make a mid-summer pastime of their +love-dreams. Oh, Spirit! of love I ask nothing for myself. But if you +will send me a man to strike one blow in my name that is my fathers' +name, he may have of me what he will!" + +Never so proudly yet had the Proud Rosalind held herself as when she +lifted her radiant face to the moon and sent her low clear call thrice +over the mystic waters. Gloriously she stood with arms extended, as +though she would give welcome to any hero stepping through the night to +consummate her wish. But none came. Only the subdued rustling that had +stirred the woods a year ago whispered out of the dark and died to +silence. + +The arms of the Proud Rosalind dropped to her sides. + +"Is the time not yet?" said she, "and will it never be? Why, then, let +me belong for ever to the champion that strikes for me to-morrow in the +lists. A sorry champion," said she a wan smile, "yet I will hold me +bound to him according to my vow. But first I must win him a sword." + +Then she kissed the white hart between the eyes and said, "Go where you +will. I shall be gone till daylight." And it rose up to run the moonlit +hills, and she went down through the trees, and left the Wishing-Pool +to its unruffled peace. + +Straight down towards sleeping Bury Rosalind went, full of her purpose; +and after an hour passed through the silent village. + +Her errand was not wholly easy to her, but she thought, "I do not go to +ask favors, but plain dealings; and it must be done secretly or not at +all." As she came near the ferry a red glow broke on her vision. + +"Does the water burn?" she said, and quickened her steps. To her +surprise she saw that Harding's forge was busy; the light she had seen +sprang from it. She had expected to find it locked and silent, but now +the little space it held in the night was lit with fire and resounded +with the stroke of the Red Smith's hammer. Proud Rosalind stood fast as +though he were fashioning a spell to chain her eyes. And so he was, for +he hammered on a sword. + +He did not turn his head at her approach; but when at last she stood +beside his door, and did not move away, he spoke to her. + +"You walk late," said he. + +"May not people walk late," said she, "as well as work late?" + +Without answering he set himself to his task again and heeded her no +more. "Smith!" she cried imperiously. + +"What then?" + +"I came to speak with you." + +"Even so?" She barely heard the words for the din of his great hammer. + +"You are unmannerly, Smith." + +"Speak then," said he, dropping his tools, "and never forget, maid, +that it is not I invited this encounter." + +At that she cried out hotly, "Does not your shop invite trade?" + +"Ay; but what's that to you?" + +"My only purpose in talking with you," she said in a flame of wrath. "I +require what you have, but I would rather buy it of any man than you." + +"What do you require?" + +"That!" She pointed to the sword. + +"I cannot sell it. It is a young knight's blade I am mending against +the jousting." + +"Have you no other?" + +"You cannot give me my price," said the Red Smith. + +She took from her girdle the little purse containing all her store. "Do +you think I am here to bargain? There's more than your price." + +"However much it be," said Harding, "it is too little." + +"Then say no more that I cannot buy of you, but rather that you will +not sell to me." + +"And yet that is as the Proud Rosalind shall please." + +She flushed deeply, and as though in shame of seeming ashamed said +firmly, "No, Smith, it is not in my hands. For I have offered you every +penny I possess." + +"I do not ask for pence." Harding left his anvil and stepped outside +and stood close, gazing hard upon her face. "You have a thing I will +take in exchange for my sword, a very simple thing. Women part with it +most lightly, I have learned. The loveliest hold it cheap at the price +of a golden gawd. How easily then will you barter it for an inch or so +of steel!" + +"What need of so many words?" she said with a scornful lip, that +quivered in her own despite at his nearness. "Name the thing you want." + +"A kiss from your mouth, Proud Rosalind." + +It was as though the request had turned her into ice. When she could +speak she said, "Smith, for your inch of steel you have asked what I +would not part with to ransom my soul." + +She turned and left him and Harding went back to his work and laughed +softly in his beard. "Dream on, my gold queen up yonder," said he, and +blew on his waning fires. "You are not the metal I work in," said he, +and the river rang again to his hammer on the steel. + +But Rosalind went rapidly down to the waterside saying in her heart, +"Now I will see whether I cannot get me a lordlier weapon of a better +craftsman than you, and at my own price, Red Smith." And when she had +come to the ferry she laid her full purse on the bank and cried softly +into the night: + +"Wayland Smith, give me a sword!" + +And then she went away for awhile, and paced the fields till the first +light glimmered on the east; and not daring to wait longer for fear of +encountering early risers, she turned back to the ferry. And there, +shining in the dawn, she found such a blade as made the father in her +soul exult. In all its glorious fashioning and splendid temper the hand +of the god was manifest. And in the grass beside it lay her purse, of +its full store lightened by one penny-piece. + +Now to this tale of legends revived and then forgotten, gossips' tales +of Wishing-Pools and Snow-white Harts and a God who worked in the dark, +we must begin to add the legend of the Rusty Knight. It lasted little +longer than the three months of that strange summer of sports within +the castle-walls of Amberley. It was at the jousting on Midsummer Day +that he first was seen. The lists were open and the roll of knights had +answered to their names, and cried in all men's ears their ladies' +praises; and nine in ten cried Maudlin. And as the last knight spoke, +there suddenly stood in the great gateway an unknown man with his +vizard closed, and his coming was greeted with a roar of laughter. For +he was clothed from head to foot in antique arms, battered and rusted +like old pots and pans that have seen a twelvemonths' weather in a +ditch. Out of the merriment occasioned by his appearance, certain of +the spectators began to cry, "A champion! a champion!" And others +nudged with their elbows, chuckling, "It is the Queen's jester." + +But the newcomer stood his ground unflinchingly, and when he could be +heard cried fiercely, "They who call me jester shall find they jest +before their time. I claim by my kingly birth to take part in this +day's fray; and men shall meet me to their rue!" + +"By what name shall we know you?" he was asked. + +"You shall call me the Knight of the Royal Heart," he said. + +"And whose cause do you serve?" + +"Hers whose beauty outshines the five-fold beauty in the Queen's +Gallery," said he, "hers who was mistress here and wrongly ousted--the +most peerless lady of Sussex, Proud Rosalind." + +With that the stranger drew forth and flourished a blade of so +surpassing a kind that the knights, in whom scorn had vanquished mirth, +found envy vanquishing scorn. As for the ladies, they had ceased to +smile at the mention of Rosalind, whom none had seen, though all had +heard of the girl who had been turned from her ruin at Maudlin's whim; +and that this ragged lady should be vaunted over their heads was an +insult only equaled by the presence among their shining champions of +the Rusty Knight. For by this name only was he spoken thereafter. + +Now you may think that the imperious stranger who warned his opponents +against laughing before their time, might well have been warned against +crowing before his. And alas! it transpired that he crowed not as the +cock crows, who knows the sun will rise; for at the first clash he +fell, almost unnoticed. And when the combatants disengaged, he had +disappeared. He was a subject for much mirth that evening; though the +men rankled for his sword and the women for a sight of his lady. + +But from this day there was not a jousting held in Maudlin's revels at +which the Rusty Knight did not appear; and none from which he bore away +the crown. The procedure was always the same: at the last instant he +appeared in his ignominious arms, and stung the mockers to silence by +the glory of his sword and his undaunted proclamation of his lady. So +ardent was his manner that it was difficult not to believe him a +conqueror among men and her the loveliest of women, until the fray +began; when he was instantly overcome, and in the confusion managed to +escape. He was so cunning in this that though traps were laid to catch +him he was never traced. By degrees he became, instead of a joke, a +thorn in the flesh. It was the women now who itched to see his face, +and the men who desired to find out the Proud Rosalind; for by his +repeated assertion her beauty came to be believed in, and if the ladies +still spoke slightingly of her, the lords in their thoughts did not. +But the summer drew to its close without unraveling the mystery. The +Rusty Knight was never followed nor the Proud Rosalind found. And now +they were on the eve of a different hunting. + +For now all the days were to be given up to the pursuit of the rumored +hart, whom none had yet beheld; and Queen Maudlin said, "For a month we +will hunt by day and dance by night, and if by that time no man can +boast of bringing the hart to bay and no woman of owning his antlers, +we will acknowledge ourselves outwitted; and so go back to Adur. And it +may prove that we have been brought to Arun by an idle tale, to hunt a +myth; but be that as it may, see to your bowstrings, for to-morrow we +ride forth." + +And the men laid by their swords and filled their quivers. + +And in the midnight Rosalind came once more from her secret lair to +Bury, and laying her purse by the ferry called softly: + +"Wayland Smith, give me a bow!" + +And in the dawn, before people were astir, she found a bow the unlike +of any fashioned by mortal craft, and a quiverful of true arrows; and +for these the god had taken his penny fee. + +On a lovely day of autumn the chase began. And the red deer and the red +fox started from their covers; and the small rabbits stopped their +kitten-play on the steep warrens of the Downs, and fled into their +burrows; and birds whirred up in screaming coveys, and the kestrel +hovered high and motionless on the watch. There was game in plenty, and +many men were tempted and forgot the prize they sought. The hunt +separated, some going this way and some that. And in the evening all +met again in Amberley. And some had game to show and some had none. And +one had seen the hart. + +When he said so a cry went up from the company, and they pressed round +to hear his tale, and it was a strange one. + +"For," said he, "where Great Down clothes itself with the North Wood I +saw a flash against the dark of the trees, and out of them bounded the +very hart, taller than any hart I ever dreamed of, and, as the tale has +told, as pure as snow; and the crockets spring from its crowns like +rays from a summer cloud. I could not count them, but its points are +more than twelve. When it saw me it stood motionless, and trembling +with joy I fitted my arrow to the string; but even as I did so out of +the trees ran another creature, as strange as the white hart. It was +none other than the Rusty Knight; I knew him by his battered vizard, +which was closed. But for the rest he wore now, not rust, but rags--a +tattered jerkin in place of battered mail. Yet in his hands was a bow +which among weapons could only be matched by his sword. He took his +stand beside the snow-white hart, and cried in that angry voice we have +all heard, These crowns grow only to the glory of the Proud Rosalind, +the most peerless daughter of Sussex, and no woman but she shall ever +boast of them!' And before I could move or answer for surprise, he had +set his arrow to his bow, and drawn the string back to his shoulder, +and let fly. It was well I did not start aside, or it might have hit +me; for I never saw an arrow fly so wild of its mark. But the whole +circumstance amazed me too much for quick action, and before I could +come up and chastise this unskillful archer, or even aim at the prize +which stood beside him, he and the hart had plunged through the wood +again, the man running swiftfoot as the beast; and when I followed I +could not find them, and unhappily my dogs were astray." + +The strange tale stung the tempers of all listeners, both men and women. + +"Well, now," laughed Maudlin, "it has at least been seen that the hart +is the whitest of harts." + +"But it has not yet been seen," fumed Clarimond, "that this Rosalind is +the most beautiful of women." + +"Nor have we seen," said the knight who told the tale, "who it is that +insults our manhood with valiant words and no deeds to prove them. Yet +with such a sword and such a bow a man might prove anything." + +The next day all rode forth on fire with eagerness. And at the end of +it another knight brought back the selfsame tale. He sword that in the +tattered archer was no harm at all but his arrogance, since he was +clearly incapable of hitting where he aimed. But his very presence and +his swift escape, running beside the hart, made failure seem double; +for the derision he excited recoiled on the deriders, who could not +bring this contemptible foe to book. After that day many saw him, +sometimes at a great distance, sometimes near enough to be lashed by +his insolent tongue. He always kept beside the coveted quarry, as +though to guard it, and ran when it ran, with incredible speed; but +once when he flagged after a longer chase than usual, he had been seen +to leap on its back, and so they escaped together. From dawn to dusk +through that bright month of autumn the man and the hart were hunted in +vain; and in all that while their lair was never discovered. It was now +taken for granted that where one would be the other would be; and in +all likelihood Proud Rosalind also. + +At last the final day of the month and the chase arrived, and Maudlin +spoke to her mortified company. Among them all she was the only one who +laughed now, for her nature was like that of running water, reflecting +all things, retaining none; she could never retain her disappointments +longer than a day, or her affections either. + +"Sirs and dames," said she, "I see by your clouded faces it is time we +departed, but we will depart as we came in the sun. If this day bring +no more fruit than its fellows, neither victory to a lord nor +sovereignty to his lady, we will to-morrow hold the mightiest tourney +of the year, and he who wins the crown shall give it to his love, and +she shall be called for ever the fairest of Sussex; but for that, if +her lord desire it, she shall wed him--yes, though it be myself she +shall!" + +And at this the hearts of nine men in ten leapt in their breasts for +longing of her, and in the tenth for longing of Linoret or Clarimond or +Damarel or Amelys; and all went to the chase thinking as much of the +morrow as of the day. + +It was the day when the forests burned their brightest. The earth was +fuller of color than in the painted spring; the hedgerows were hung +with brilliant berries in wreaths and clusters, luminous briony and +honeysuckle, and the ebony gloss of the privet making more vivid the +bright red of the hips and the dark red of the haws. The smooth flat +meadows and smooth round sides of the Downs were not greener in June; +nor in that crystal air did the river ever run bluer than under that +blue sky. The elms were getting already their dusky gold and the +beeches their brighter reds and golds and coppers; where they were +young and in thin leaf the sun-flood watered them to transparent pinks +and lemons, as bright, though not as burning, as the massed colors of +the older trees. That day there was magic on the western hills, for +those who could see it, and trees that were not trees. + +So Rosalind who, like all the world, was early abroad, though not with +all the world, saw a silver cloud pretending to be white flowers upon a +hawthorn; never in spring sunlight had the bush shone whiter. But when +Maudlin rode by later she saw, not a cloud in flower, but a flowerless +tree, dressed with the new-puffed whiteness of wild clematis, its +silver-green tendrils shining through their own mist. + +Then Rosalind saw a sunset pretending to be a spindle-tree, scattering +flecks of red and yellow light upon the ground, till the grass threw up +a reflection of the tree, as a cloud in the east will reflect another +in the west. But when Maudlin came riding the spots of light upon the +ground were little pointed leaves, and the sunset a little tree as +round as a clipped yew, mottled like an artist's palette with every +shade from primrose to orange and from rose to crimson. + +And last, in a green glade under a steep hollow overhung with ash, +Rosalind saw a fairy pretending to be a silver birch turned golden. For +her leaves hung like the shaking water of a sunlit fountain, and she +stood alone in the very middle of the glade as though on tip-toe for a +dance; and all the green trees that had retreated from her +dancing-floor seemed ready to break into music, so that Rosalind held +her breath lest she should shatter the moment and the magic, and stayed +spell-bound where she was. But an hour afterwards Maudlin, riding the +chalky ledge on the ash-grown height, looked down on that same sight +and uttered a sharp cry; for she saw, no fairy, but a little yellowing +birch, and under it the snow-white hart with the Rusty Knight beside +him. Then all the company with her echoed the cry, and the forest was +filled with the round sounds of horns and belling hounds. And while in +great excitement men sought a way down into the steep glen, the hart +and his ragged guard had started up, and vanished through the +underworld of trees. + +The hue and cry was taken up. Not one or two, but fifty had now seen +the quarry, and panted for the glory of the prize. And so, near the +very beginning of the day, the chase began. + +The scent was found and lost and found again. The stag swam the river +twice, once at South Stoke, and once at Houghton Bridge, and the man +swam with it; and then, keeping over the fields they ran up Coombe and +went west and north, over Bignor Hill and Farm Hill, through the +Kennels and Tegleaze. They were sighted on Lamb Lea and lost in +Charlton. They were seen again on Heyshott and vanished in Herringdean +Copse. They crossed the last high-road in Sussex and ran over Linch +Down and Treyford nearly into Hampshire; and there the quarry turned +and tried to double home by Winden Wood and Cotworth Down. The marvel +was that the Rusty Knight was always with it, sometimes beside it, +often on its back; and even when he bestrode it, it flew over the green +hills like a white sail driven by a wind at sea, or a cloud flying the +skies. When it doubled it had shaken off the greater part of the hunt. +But through Wellhanger and over Levin some followed it still. In the +woods of Malecomb only the seven knights who most loved Maudlin +remained staunch; and they were spurred by hope, because when they now +sighted it it seemed as though the hart began to tire, and its rider +drooped. Their own steeds panted, and their dogs' tongues lolled; but +over the dells and rises, woods and fields, they still pressed on, +exulting that they of all the hunt remained to bring the weary gallant +thing to bay. + +Once more they were in the home country, and the day was drawing to a +glorious close. In the great woods of Rewell the hart tried to confuse +the scent and conceal itself with its spent comrade, but it was too +late; for it too was nearly spent. Yet it plunged forward to the ridge +of Arundel with its high fret of trees like harp-strings, filled with +the music of the evening sky. And here again among the dipping valleys, +the quarry sought to shake off the pursuit; but as vainly as before. In +that exhausted close for hunters and hunted, the first had triumph to +spur the last of their strength, and the second despair to eke out +theirs. At Whiteways the hart struck down through a secret dip, into +the loveliest hidden valley of all the Downs; and descending after it +the knights saw suddenly before them a great curve of the steely river, +lying under the sunset like a scimitar dyed with blood. And in a last +desperate effort the hart swerved round a narrow footway by the river, +and disappeared. + +The knights followed shouting with their baying dogs, and the next +instant were struck mute with astonishment. For the narrow wooded path +by the water suddenly swung open into a towering semi-circle of +dazzling cliffs, uprising like the loftiest castle upon earth: such +castles as heaven builds of gigantic clouds, to scatter their solid +piles with a wind again. But only the hurricanes of the first day or +the last could bring this mighty pile to dissolution. The forefront of +the vast theater was a perfect sward, lying above the water like a +green half-moon; beyond and around it small hills and dells rose and +fell in waves until they reached the brink of the great cliffs. At the +further point of the semi-circle the narrow way by the river began +again, and steep woods came down to the water cutting off the north. + +And somewhere hidden in the hemisphere of little hills the hart was +hidden, without a path of escape. + +The men sprang from their horses, and followed the barking dogs across +the sward. At the end of it they turned up a neck of grass that coiled +about a hollow like the rim of a cup. It led to a little plateau ringed +with bushes, and smelling sweet of thyme. At first it seemed as though +there were no other ingress; but the dogs nosed on and pointed to an +opening through the thick growth on the left, and disappeared with +hoarse wild barks and yelps; and their masters made to follow. + +But at the same instant they heard a voice come from the bushes, a +voice well known to them; but now it was exhausted of its power, though +not of its anger. + +"This quarry and this place," it cried, "are sacred to the Proud +Rosalind and in her name I warn you, trespassers, that you proceed at +your peril!" + +At this the seven knights burst into laughter, and one cried, "Why, +then, it seems we have brought the lady to bay with the hart--a double +quarry, friends. Come, for the dogs are full of music now, and we must +see the kill." + +As they moved forward an arrow sped far above their heads. + +Then a second man cried, "We could shoot into the dark more surely than +this clumsy marksman out of it. Let us shoot among the trees and give +him his deserts. And after that let nothing hold us from the dogs, for +their voices turn the blood in me to fire." + +So each man plucked an arrow from his quiver. + +And as he fitted it, lo! with incredible swiftness seven arrows shot +through the air, and one by one each arrow split in two a knight's +yew-bow. The men looked at their broken bows amazed. And as they looked +at each other the dogs stopped baying, one by one. + +One of the knights said, breathing heavily, "This must be seen to. The +man who could shoot like this has been playing with us since midsummer. +Let us come in and call him to account, and make him show us his Proud +Rosalind." + +They made a single movement towards the opening; at the same moment +there was a great movement behind it, and they came face to face with +the hart-royal. It stood at bay, its terrible antlers lowered; its eyes +were danger-lights, as red as rubies. And the seven weaponless men +stood rooted there, and one said, "Where are the dogs?" + +But they knew the dogs were dead. + +So they turned and went out of that place, and found their horses and +rode away. + +And when they had gone the hart too turned again, and went slowly down +a little slipping path through the bushes and came to the very inmost +chamber of its castle, a round and roofless shrine, walled half by the +bird-haunted cliffs and half by woods. Within on the grass lay the dead +hounds, each pierced by an arrow; and on a bowlder near them sat the +Rusty Knight, with drooping head and body, regarding them through the +vizard he was too weary to raise. He was exhausted past bearing +himself. The hart lay down beside him, as exhausted as he. + +But a sound in the forest that thickly clothed the cliff made both look +up. And down between the trees, almost from the height of the cliff, +climbed Harding the Red Hunter, bow in hand. He strode across the +little space that divided them still, and stood over the Rusty Knight +and the white Hart-Royal. And both might have been petrified, for +neither stirred. + +After a little Harding began to speak. "Are you satisfied, Rusty +Knight," said he, "with what you have done in Proud Rosalind's honor?" + +The Rusty Knight did not answer. + +"Did ever lady have a sorrier champion?" Harding laughed roughly. "She +would have beggared herself to get you a sword. And she got you a sword +the like of which no knight ever had before. And how have you used it? +All through a summer you have brought laughter upon her. She would have +beggared herself again to get you a bow that only a god was worthy to +draw. And how have you drawn it? For a month you have drawn it to men's +scorn of her and of you. You have cried her praises only to forfeit +them. You have vaunted her beauty and never crowned it. And what have +you got for it?" The Rusty Knight was as dumb as the dead. Harding +stepped closer. "Shall I tell you, Rusty Knight, what you have got for +it? Last Midsummer Eve by the Wishing-Well the Proud Rosalind forswore +love if heaven would send her a man to strike a blow in her name for +her fathers' sake. She did not say what sort of man or what sort of +blow. She asked in her simplicity only that a blow should be struck. +And like a woman she was ready to find it enough, and in gratitude +repay it with that which could only in honor be exchanged for what +honored her. Yet I myself heard her swear to hold herself bound to the +sorry champion who should strike for her in the tourney. And you struck +and fell. Did you tell her you fell when you came to her, crownless? +And how did she crown you for your fall, Rusty Knight?" + +The Knight sprang to his feet and stood quivering. + +"That moves you," said Harding, "but I will move you more. The Proud +Rosalind is not your woman. She is mine. She was mine from the moment +her eyes fell. She was only a child then, but I knew she was mine as +surely as I knew this hart was mine and no other's, when first I saw it +as a calf drink at its pool. But I was patient and waited till he, my +calf, should become a king, and she, my heifer, a queen. And I am her +man because I am of king's stock in my own land, and she of king's +stock in hers. And I am her man because for a year I have kept her, +without her knowledge, with the pence I earned by my sweat, that were +earned for a different purpose. And I am her man because the hart you +have defended so ill, and hampered for a month, was saved to-day by my +arrows, not yours. It was my arrows slew the hounds from the top of the +cliff. It was my arrows split the bows of the seven knights. And it is +my arrow now that will kill the White Hart that in all men's sight I +may give her the antlers to-morrow, and hear my Proud Rosalind called +queen among women." + +And as he spoke Harding drew back suddenly, and fitted a shaft to his +string as though he would shoot the hart where it lay. + +But the Rusty Knight sprang forward and caught his hands crying, "Not +my Hart! you shall not shoot my Hart!" And he tore off his casque, and +the great tawny mantle of Rosalind's hair fell over her rags, and her +face was on fire and her bosom heaving; and she sank down murmuring, "I +beg you to spare my Hart." + +But Harding, uttering a great laugh of pride and joy, caught her up +before she could kneel, saying, "Not even to me, my Proud Rosalind!" +And without even kissing her lips, he put her from him and knelt before +her, and kissed her feet. + + +("Will you be so good, Mistress Jane," said Martin, "as to sew on my +button?" + +"I will not knot my thread, Master Pippin," said Jane, "till you have +snapped yours." + +"It is snapped," said Martin. "The story is done." + +Joscelyn: It is too much! it is TOO much! You do it on purpose! + +Martin: Oh, Mistress Joscelyn! I never do anything on purpose. And +therefore I am always doing either too much or too little. But in what +have I exceeded? My story? I am sorry if it is too long. + +Joscelyn: It was too short--and you are quibbling. + +Martin: I?--But never mind. What more can I say? It is a fault, I know; +but as soon as my lovers understand each other I can see no further. + +Joscelyn: There are a thousand things more you can say. Who this +Harding was, for one. + +Joyce: And what he meant by saying his pennies had kept her, for +another. + +Jennifer: And for what other purpose he had intended them. + +Jessica: And you must describe all that happened at the last tourney. + +Jane: And what about the ring and the girdle and the circlet and the +silver gown? + +"I would so like to know," said little Joan, "if Harding and Rosalind +lived happily ever after. Please won't you tell us how it all ended?" + +"Will women NEVER see what lies under their noses?" groaned Martin. +"Will they ALWAYS stare over a wall, and if they're not tall enough to +try to stare through it? Will they ONLY know that a thing has come to +its end when they see it making a new beginning? Why, after the first +kiss all tales start afresh, though they start on the second, which is +as different from the first as a garden rose from a wild one. Here have +I galloped you to a conclusion, and now you would set me ambling again." + +"Then make up your mind to it," said Joscelyn, "and amble." + +"Dear heaven!" went on Martin, "I begin to believe that when a woman is +being kissed she doesn't even notice it for thinking, How sweet it will +be when he kisses me next Tuesday fortnight!" + +"Then get on to Tuesday fortnight," scolded Joscelyn, "if that be the +end." + +"The end indeed!" said Martin. "On Tuesday fortnight, at the very +instant, the slippery creature is thinking, How delicious it was when +he kissed me two weeks ago last Saturday! There's no end with a woman, +either backwards or forwards!" + +"For goodness' sake," cried Joscelyn, "stop grumbling and get on with +it!" + +"There's no end to a man's grumbling either," said Martin; "but I'll +get on with it.") + + +The tale that Harding had to tell Proud Rosalind was a long one, but I +will make as short of it as I can. He told her how in his own country +he was sprung of the race of Volundr, who was a God and a King and a +Smith all in one; but he had been ill-used and banished, and had since +haunted England where men knew him as Wayland, and he did miracles. But +in his own northern land his strain continued, until Harding's father, +a king himself, was like his ancestor defeated and banished, and +crossed the water with his young son and a chest of relics of Old +Wayland's work--a ring, a girdle, a crown, and a silver robe; a sword +and bow which Rosalind knew already; and other things as well. And the +boy grew up filled with the ancient wrongs of his ancestor, and he went +about the country seeking Wayland's haunts; and wherever he found them +he found a mossy legend, neglected and unproved, of how the god worked, +or had worked, for any man's pence, and put his divine craft to +laborers' service. And as in Rosalind the dream had grown of building +up her fathers' honor again, so Harding had from boyhood nursed his +dream of establishing that of the half-forgotten god. And he, who had +inherited his ancestor's craft in metal, coming at last through Sussex +settled at Bury, where the legend lay on its sick-bed; and he set up +his shop by the ferry so that he might doctor it. And there he did his +work in two ways; for as the Red Smith he did such work as might be +done better by a hundred men, but as Wayland he did what could only +have been done better by the god. And the toll he collected for that +work he saved, year-in-year-out, till he should have enough to build +the god a shrine. And, leaving this visible evidence behind him, he +meant to depart to his own land, and let the faith in Wayland wax of +itself. And then Harding told Rosalind how he had first seen the hart +when it was a calf six years before at midsummer, and how it had led +him to the Wishing-Well; and he had marked it for his own. And how in +the same year he had first noticed Rosalind, a girl not yet sixteen, +and, for the fire of kings in her that all her poverty could not +extinguish, chosen her for his mate. + +"And year by year," said Harding, "I watched to see whether the direst +want could bring you to humbleness, and saw you only grow in nobleness; +and year by year I lay in wait for my four-footed quarry each Midsummer +Eve beside the Wishing-Pool, and saw it grow in kingliness. And last +year, as you know, I saw you come to the Pool beside the hart, and +heard you make your high prayer for life or death. And if I had not +been able to give you the life, I would have given you the death you +prayed for. But I went before you, and going by the ferry put my old +god's money in your room before you could be there. And from time to +time I robbed his store to keep you. But when in spring they drove you +from the castle I did not know where to find you; and I hunted for your +lair as I hunted for the hart's, and never knew they were the same. +Then this year came the wishing-time again, and lying hidden I heard +you cry for a man to strike for you. And I was tempted then to reveal +myself and make you know to what man you were committed. But I decided +that I would wait and strike for you in the tourney, and come to you +for the first time with a crown. And so I went back to the ferry and +set to work; and to my amazement you followed me, and for the first +time of your own will addressed me. I wondered whether you had come to +be humble before your time, and if you had been I would have let you go +for ever; but when you spoke with scorn as to a servant who had once +forgotten himself so far as to play the man to you, I laughed in my +heart and prized your scorn more dearly than your favor; and said to +myself, To-morrow she shall know me for her man. But when you went down +to the water and made your demand of Wayland, for his sake and yours I +was ready to give you a weapon worthy of your steel. So I gave you the +god's own sword and waited to see what use you would make of it. And +you made as ill an use as after you made of the god's bow. And while +men spoke betwixt wrath and mockery of the Rusty Knight, I loved more +dearly that champion who was doing so ill so bravely for a championless +lady." Then Harding looked her steadily in the eyes, and though her +face was all on fire again as he alone had power to make it, she did +not flinch from his gaze, and he took her hand and said, "No man has +ever struck a blow for you yet, Proud Rosalind, but the Rusty Knight +will strike for you to-morrow; and as to-day there was no marksman, so +to-morrow there shall be no swordsman who can match him. And when he +has won the crown of Sussex for you, you shall redeem your pledge of +the Wishing-Well and give him what he will. Till then, be free." And he +dropped her hand again and let her go. + +She turned and went quickly into the bushes and soon she came out +bearing the miserable arms of the Rusty Knight and the glorious sword. + +"These are all that were in my fathers' castle for many years," she +said, "and I took them when I went away and the white hart brought me +to his own castle. But though these are big for me, they will be small +for you." + +And Harding looked at them and laughed his short laugh. "The casque +alone will serve," he said. "By that and the sword men shall know me. I +have my own arms else; and I will take on myself the shame of this +ludicrous casque, and redeem it in your name. And you shall have these +in exchange." And he handed her his pouch and bade her what to do in +the morning, and went away. He still had not kissed her mouth, nor had +she offered it. + +Now there is very little left to tell. On the morrow, when the roll of +knights had been called, all eyes instinctively turned to the great +gateway, by which the Rusty Knight had always come at the last moment. +And as they looked they saw whom they expected, but not what they +expected. For though his head was hidden in the rusty casque, and +though he held the sword which all men covet, he was clad from neck to +foot in arms and mail so marvelously chased and inwrought with red gold +that his whole body shone ruddy in the sunshaft. And men and women, +dazzled and confused, wondered what trick of light made him appear more +tall and broad than they remembered him; so that he seemed to dwarf all +other men. The murmur and the doubt went round, "Is it the Rusty +Knight?" + +Then in a voice of thunder he replied, "Ay, if you will, it is the +Rusty Knight; or the Red Knight, or the Knight of the Royal Heart, or +of the Hart-Royal; but by any name, the knight of the Proud Rosalind, +who is the proudest and most peerless of all the maids of Sussex, as +this day's work shall prove." + +And none laughed. + +The joust began; and before the Rusty Knight the rest went down like +corn beaten by hail. And all men marveled at him, and all women +likewise. And the young Queen Maudlin of Bramber, a prey to her whims, +loved him as long as the tourney lasted. And when it was ended, and he +alone stood upright, she rose in her seat and held out to him the crown +of gold and flowers upon a silken pillow, crying, "You have won this, +you unknown, unseen champion, and it is your right to give it where you +will; and none will dispute her supremacy in beauty for ever." And as +he strode and knelt to receive the crown she added quickly, "And I know +not whether the promise has reached your ears which yesterday was +made--that she who accepts the crown is to wed the victor, although he +choose the Queen herself to wear it." + +And she smiled down at him like morning smiling out of the sky; and her +beauty was such as to make a man forget all other beauty and all +resolutions. But Harding took the crown from her and touched her hand +with the rusty brow of his casque and said, "A Queen will wear it, for +my lady's fathers were once Kings of Amberley." + +Then Maudlin stamped her foot as a butterfly might, and cried, "Where +is this lady whom you keep as hidden as your face?" + +And Harding rose and turned towards the gateway, and all turned with +him; and into the arch rode Rosalind on the white hart. And she was +clothed from her neck to the soles of her naked feet in a sheath of +silver that seemed molded to her lovely body; and about her waist a +golden girdle hung, set with green stones, and from her finger a great +emerald shot green fire, and on her head a golden fillet lay in the +likeness of close-set leaves with clusters of gleaming green berries +that were other emeralds; and under it her glory of hair fell like +liquid metal down her back and over the hart's neck, as low as her +silver hem. And the hart with its splendid antlers stood motionless and +proud as though it knew it carried a young Queen. But indeed men +wondered whether it were not a young goddess. And so for a very few +moments this carven vision of gold and silver and ivory and molten +bronze and copper and green jewels stood in their gaze. And then +Harding bore the crown to her and knelt, and stood up again and crowned +her before them all; and laying his hand upon the white hart's neck, +moved away with it and its beautiful rider through the gateway. And no +one moved or spoke or tried to stop them. But by the footway over the +water-meadows they went, and at the river's edge found Harding's broad +flat boat with the bird's beak. And Harding said, "Will you come over +the ferry with me, Proud Rosalind?" + +And Rosalind answered, "What is your fee, Red Boatman?" + +Then Harding answered, "For that which flows I take only that which +flows." + +And Rosalind, stooping of her own accord from the white hart's back, +kissed him. + +I shall be very uncomfortable, Mistress Jane, till you have sewed on my +button. + + + +FIFTH INTERLUDE + +The milkmaids had not thought of their apples for the last hour, but +now, remembering them, they fell to refreshing their tongues with the +sweet flavors of fruit and talk. + +Jessica: I cannot rest, Jane, till you have pronounced upon this story. + +Jane: I never found pronouncement harder, Jessica. For who can +pronounce upon anything but a plain truth or a plain falsehood? and I +am too confused to extricate either from such a hotch-potch of magic as +came to pass without the help of any real magician. + +Martin: Oh, Mistress Jane! are you sure of that? Did not Rosalind's +wishes come true, and can there be magic without a magician? + +Jane: Her wishes came true, I know, both by the pool and by the ferry; +but that the pool and the ferry were supernatural remains unproved. +Because in both cases her wishes were brought about by a man. And if +there was any other magician at all, you never showed him to us. + +Martin: Dear Mistress Jane, where were your eyes? I showed you the +greatest of all the magicians that give ear to the wishes of women; and +when it is necessary to bring them about, he puts his power on a man +and the man makes them come true. Which is a magic you must often have +noticed in men, though you may never have known the magician's name. + +Joscelyn: We have never noticed any magic whatever in men. And we don't +want to know the magician's name. We don't believe in anything so silly +as magic. + +Martin: I hope, Mistress Joscelyn, there were moments in my story not +too silly to be believed in. + +Joscelyn: Silliness in stories is more or less excusable, since they +are not even supposed to be believed. And is there still a Wishing-Pool +on Rewell and a ferry at Bury? + +Martin: The ferry is there, but Harding's hammer is silent. And where +his shop stood is a little cottage where children live, who dabble in +summer on the ferry-step. And their mother will run from her washing or +cooking to take you over the water for the same fee that Wayland asked +for shoeing a poor man's donkey or making a rich man's sword. And this +is the only miracle men call for from those banks to-day; and if ever +you tried to take a boat across the Bury currents, you would not only +believe in miracles but pray for one, while your boat turned in +mid-stream like a merry-go-round. So there's no doubt that the +ferry-wife is a witch. But as for the Wishing-Pool, it is as lost as it +was before the white hart led two lovers to discover it at separate +times, and having brought them together passed with them and its secret +out of men's knowledge. For neither it nor Harding nor Rosalind was +seen again in Sussex after that day. And yet I can tell you this much +of their fortunes: that whatever befell them wherever they wandered, he +was a king and she a queen in the sight of the whole world, which to +all lovers consists of one woman and one man; and their lives were +crowned lives, and they carried their crown with them even when they +came in the same hour to exchange one life for another. But this was +only a long and cloudless reign on earth. + +Jane: Well, it is a satisfaction to know that. For at certain times +your story seemed so overshadowed with clouds that I was filled with +doubts. + +Joan: Oh, but Jane! even when we walk in the thickest clouds on the +Downs, we are certain that presently some light will melt them, or some +wind blow them away. + +Joyce: Yes, it never once occurred to me to doubt the end of the story. + +Jennifer: Nor to me. And so the clouds only kept one in a delicious +palpitation, at which one could secretly smile, without having to stop +trembling. + +Jessica: Was it possible, Jane, that YOU could be deceived as to the +conclusion of this love-story? Why, even I saw joy coming as plain as a +pikestaff. + +Martin: And I, with love for its bearer. For that magician, who touches +the plainest things with a radiance, makes plain girls and boys look +queens and kings, and plain staves flowering branches of joy. And in +this case I can think of only one catastrophe that could have obscured +or distorted that vision. + +Two of the Milkmaids: What catastrophe, pray? + +Martin: If Rosalind had refused to believe in anything so silly as +magic. + + +The silence of the Seven Sleepers hung over the Apple-Orchard. + + +Joscelyn: Then she would have proved herself a girl of sense, singer, +and your tale would have gained in virtue. As it stands, I should not +have grieved though the clouds had never been dispersed from so foolish +a medley of magic and make-believe. + +Martin: So be it, if it must be so. We will push back our lovers into +their obscurities, and praise night for the round moon above us, who +has pushed three parts of her circle clear of all obstacles, and awaits +only some movement of heaven to blow the last remnant of cloud from her +happy soul. And because more of her is now in the light than in the +dark, she knows it is only a question of time. But the last hours of +waiting are always the longest, and we like herself can do no better +than spend them in dreams, where if we are lucky we shall catch a +glimpse of the angels of truth. + + +Like the last five leaves blown from an autumn branch, the milkmaids +fluttered from the apple-tree and couched their sleepy heads on their +tired arms, and went each by herself into her particular dream; where +if she found company or not she never told. But Jane sat prim and +thoughtful with her elbow in her hand and her finger making a dimple in +her cheek, considering deeply. And presently Martin began to cough a +little, and then a little more, and finally so troublesomely that she +was obliged to lay her profound thoughts aside, to attend to him with a +little frown. Was even Euclid impervious to midges? + +"Have you taken cold, Master Pippin?" said Jane. + +"I'm afraid so," he confessed humbly; "for we all know that when we +catch cold the grievance is not ours, but our nurse's." + +"How did it happen?" demanded Jane, rightly affronted. "Have you been +getting your feet wet in the duckpond again?" + +"The trouble lies higher," murmured Martin, and held his shirt together +at the throat. + +Jane looked at him and colored and said, "That is the merest pretense. +It was only one button and it is a very warm night. I think you must be +mistaken about your cold." + +"Perhaps I am," said Martin hopefully. + +"And you only coughed and coughed and kept on coughing," continued +Jane, "because I had forgotten all about you and was thinking of +something quite different." + +"It is almost impossible to deceive you," said Martin. + +"Oh, Master Pippin," said Jane earnestly, "since I turned seventeen I +have seen into people's motives so clearly that I often wish I did not; +but I cannot help it." + +Martin: You poor darling! + +Jane: You must not say that word to me, Master Pippin. + +Martin: It was very wrong of me. The word slipped out by mistake. I +meant to say clever, not poor. + +Jane: Did you? I see. Oh, but-- + +Martin: Please don't be modest. We must always stand by the truth, +don't you think? + +Jane: Above all things. + +Martin: How long did it take you to discover my paltry ruse? How long +did you hear me coughing? + +Jane: From the very beginning. + +Martin: And can you think of two things at once? + +Jane: Of course not. + +Martin: No? I wish two was the least number of things I ever think of +at once. Mine's an untidy way of thinking. Still, now we know where we +are. What were you thinking about me so earnestly when I was coughing +and you had forgotten all about me? + +Jane: I--I--I wasn't thinking about you at all. + +And she got down from the swing and walked away. + +Martin: Now we DON'T know where we are. + +And he got down from the branch and walked after her. + +Martin: Please, Mistress Jane, are you in a temper? + +Jane: I am never in a temper. + +Martin: Hurrah. + +Jane: Being in a temper is silly. It isn't normal. And it clouds +people's judgments. + +Martin: So do lots of things, don't they? Like leapfrog, and mad bulls, +and rum punch, and very full moons, and love-- + +Jane: All these things are, as you say, abnormal. And I have no more +use for them than I have for tempers. But being disheartened isn't +being in a temper; and I am always disheartened when people argue +badly. And above all, men, who, I find, can never keep to the point. +Although they say-- + +Martin: What do they say? + +Jane: That girls can't. + +Martin began to cough again, and Jane looked at him closely, and Martin +apologized and said it was that tickle in his throat, and Jane said +gravely, "Do you think I can't see through you? Come along, do!" and +opened her housewife, and put on her thimble, and threaded her needle, +and got out the button, and made Martin stand in a patch of moonlight, +and stood herself in front of him, and took the neck of his shirt +deftly between her left finger and thumb, and began to stitch. And +Martin looking down on the top of her smooth little head, which was all +he could see of her, said anxiously, "You won't prick me, will you?" +and Jane answered, "I'll try not to, but it is very awkward." Because +to get behind the button she had to lean her right elbow on his +shoulder and stand a little on tiptoe. So that Martin had good cause to +be frightened; but after several stitches he realized that he was in +safe hands, and drew a big breath of relief which made Jane look up +rather too hastily, and down more hastily still; so that her hand +shook, and the needle slipped, and Martin said "Ow!" and clutched the +hand with the needle and held it tightly just where it was. And Jane +got flustered and said, "I'm so sorry." + +Martin: Why should you be? You've proved your point. If I knew any man +that could stick to his so well and drive it home so truly, I would +excuse him for ever from politics and the law, and bid him sit at home +with his work-basket minding the world's business in its cradle. It is +only because men cannot stick to the point that life puts them off with +the little jobs which shift and change color with every generation. But +the great point of life which never changes was given from the first +into woman's keeping because, as all the divine powers of reason knew, +only she could be trusted to stick to it. I should be glad to have your +opinion, Jane, as to whether this is true or not. + +Jane: Yes, Martin, I am convinced it is true. + +Martin: Then let the men shilly-shally as much as they like. And so, as +long as the cradle is there to be minded, we shall have proved that out +of two differences unions can spring. My buttonhole feels empty. What +about my button? + +Jane: I was just about to break off the thread when you-- + +Martin: When I what? + +Jane: Sighed. + +Martin: Was it a sigh? Did I sigh? How unreasonable of me. What was I +sighing for? Do you know? + +Jane: Of course I know. + +Martin: Will you tell me? + +Jane: That's enough. (And she tried to break off the thread.) + +Martin: Ah, but you mustn't keep your wisdom to yourself. Give me the +key, dear Jane. + +Jane: The key? + +Martin: Because how else can the clouds which overshadow our stories be +cleared away? How else can we allay our doubts and our confusions and +our sorrows if you who are wise, and see motives so clearly, will not +give us the key? Why did I sigh, Jane? And why does Gillian sigh? And, +oh, Jane, why are you sighing? Do you know? + +Jane: Of course I know. + +Martin: And won't you give me the key? + +Jane: That's quite enough. + +And this time she broke off the thread. And she put the needle in and +out of the pinked flannel in her housewife, and she tucked the thimble +in its place. And then she felt in a little pocket where something +clinked against her scissors, and Martin watched her. And she took it +out and put it in his hand. And his hand tightened again over hers and +he said gravely, "Is it a needle?" + +"No, it is not," said Jane primly, "but it's very much to the point." + +"Oh, you wise woman!" whispered Martin (and Jane colored with +satisfaction, because she was turned seventeen). "What would poor men +do without your help?" + +Then he kissed very respectfully the hand that had pricked him: on the +back and on the palm and on the four fingers and thumb and on the +wrist. And then he began looking for a new place, but before he could +make up his mind Jane had taken her hand and herself away, saying "Good +night" very politely as she went. So he lay down to dream that for the +first time in his life he had made up his mind. But Jane, whose mind +was always made up, for the first time in her life dreamed otherwise. + + +It happened that by some imprudence Martin had laid himself down +exactly under the gap in the hedge, and when Old Gillman came along the +other side crying "Maids!" in the morning, the careless fellow had no +time to retreat across the open to safe cover; so there was nothing for +it but to conceal himself under the very nose of danger and roll into +the ditch. Which he hurriedly did, while the milkmaids ran here and +there like yellow chickens frightened by a hawk. Not knowing what else +to do, they at last clustered above him about the gap, filling it so +with their pretty faces that the farmer found room for not so much as +an eyelash when he arrived with his bread. And it was for all the world +as though the hedge, forgetting it was autumn, had broken out at that +particular spot into pink-and-white may. So that even Old Gillman had +no fault to find with the arrangement. + + +"All astir, my maids?" said he. + +"Yes, master, yes!" they answered breathlessly; all but Joscelyn, who +cried, "Oh! oh! oh!" and bit her lip hard, and stood suddenly on one +foot. + +"What's amiss with ye?" asked Gillman. + +"Nothing, master," said she, very red in the face. "A nettle stung my +ankle." + +"Well, I'd not weep for t," said Gillman. + +"Indeed I'm not weeping!" cried Joscelyn loudly. + +"Then it did but tickle ye, I doubt," said Gillman slyly, "to +blushing-point." + +"Master, I AM not blushing!" protested Joscelyn. "The sun's on my face +and in my eyes, don't you see?" + +"I would he were on my daughter's, then," said Gillman. "Does Gillian +still sit in her own shadow?" + +"Yes, master," answered Jane, "but I think she will be in the light +very shortly." + +"If she be not," groaned Gillman, "it's a shadow she'll find instead of +a father when she comes back to the farmstead; for who can sow wild +oats at my time o' life, and not show it at last in his frame? Yet I +was a stout man once." + +"Take heart, master," urged Joyce eyeing his waistcoat. But he shook +his head. + +"Don't be deceived, maid. Drink makes neither flesh nor gristle; only +inflation. Gillian!" he shouted, "when will ye make the best of a bad +job and a solid man of your dad again?" + +But the donkey braying in its paddock got as much answer as he. + +"Well, it's lean days for all, maids," said Gillman, and doled out the +loaves from his basket, "and you must suffer even as I. Yet another day +may see us grow fat." And he turned his basket upside down on his head +and moved away. + +"Excuse me, master," said Jane, "but is Nellie, my little Dexter Kerry, +doing nicely?" + +"As nicely as she ever does with any man," said Gillman, "which is to +kick John twice a day, mornings and evenings. He say he's getting used +to it, and will miss it when you come back to manage her. But before +that happens I misdoubt we'll all be plunged in rack and ruin." + +And he departed, making his usual parrot-cry. + +"I'm getting fond of old Gillman," said Martin sitting up and picking +dead leaves out of his hair; "I like his hawker's cry of + Maids, maids, maids!' for all the world as though he had pretty +girls to sell, and I like the way he groans regrets over his empty +basket as he goes away. But if I had those wares for market I'd ask +such unfair prices for them that I'd never be out of stock." + +"What's an unfair price for a pretty girl, Master Pippin?" asked +Jessica. + +"It varies," said Martin. "Joan I'd not sell for less than an apple, or +Joyce for a gold-brown hair. I might accept a blade of grass for +Jennifer and be tempted by a button for Jane. You, Jessica, I rate as +high as a saucy answer." + +"Simple fees all," laughed Joyce. + +"Not so simple," said Martin, "for it must be the right apple and the +particular hair; only one of all the grass-blades in the world will do, +and it must be a certain button or none. Also there are answers and +answers." + +"In that case," said Jessica, "I'm afraid you've got us all on your +hands for ever. But at what price would you sell Joscelyn?" + +"At nothing less," said Martin, "than a yellow shoe-string." + +Joscelyn stamped her left foot so furiously that her shoe came off. And +little Joan, anxious to restore peace, ran and picked it up for her and +said, "Why, Joscelyn, you've lost your lace! Where can it be?" But +Joscelyn only looked angrier still, and went without answering to set +Gillian's bread by the Well-House; where she found nothing whatever but +a little crust of yesterday's loaf. And surprised out of her vexation +she ran back again exclaiming, "Look, look! as surely as Gillian is +finding her appetite I think she is losing her grief." + +"The argument is as absolute," said Martin, "as that if we do not soon +breakfast my appetite will become my grief. But those miserable ducks!" + +And he snatched the crust from Joscelyn's hand and flung it mightily +into the pond; where the drake gobbled it whole and the ducks got +nothing. + +And the girls cried "What a shame!" and burst out laughing, all but +Joscelyn who said under her breath to Martin, "Give it back at once!" +But he didn't seem to hear her, and raced the others gayly to the tree +where they always picnicked; and they all fell to in such good spirits +that Joscelyn looked from one to another very doubtfully, and suddenly +felt left out in the cold. And she came slowly and sat down not quite +in the circle, and kept her left foot under her all the time. + +As soon as breakfast was over Jennifer sighed, "I wish it were +dinner-time." + +"What a greedy wish," said Martin. + +"And then," said she, "I wish it were supper-time." + +"Why?" said he. + +"Because it would be nearer to-morrow," said Jennifer pensively. + +"Do you want it to be to-morrow so much?" asked Martin. And five of the +milkmaids cried, "oh, yes!" + +"That's better than wanting it to be yesterday," said Martin, "yet I'm +always so pleased with to-day that I never want it to be either. And as +for old time, I read him by a dial which makes it any hour I choose." + +"What dial's that?" asked Joyce. And Martin looked about for a +Dandelion Clock, and having found one blew it all away with a single +puff and cried, "One o'clock and dinner-time!" + +Then Jennifer got a second puff and blew on it so carefully that she +was able to say, "Seven o'clock and supper-time!" + +And then all the girls hastened to get clocks of their own, and make +their favorite time o'day. + +"When I can't make it come right," confided little Joan to Martin, "I +pull them off and say six o'clock in the morning." + +"It's a very good way," agreed Martin, "and six o'clock in the morning +is a very good hour, except for lazy lie-abeds. Isn't it?" + +"Nancy always looked for me at six of a summer morning," said little +Joan. + +"Yes," said Martin, "milkmaids must always turn their cows in before +the dew's dry. And carters their horses." + +"Sometimes they get so mixed in the lane," said Joan. + +"I am sure they do," said Martin. "How glad your cows will be to see +you all again." + +"Are you certain we shall be out of the orchard to-morrow, Master +Pippin?" asked Jane. + +"Heaven help us otherwise," said he, "for I've but one tale left in my +quiver, and if it does not make an end of the job, here we must stay +for the rest of our lives, puffing time away in gossamer." + +Then Jessica, blowing, cried, "Four o'clock! come in to tea!" + +And Joyce said, "Twelve o'clock! baste the goose in the oven." + +"Three o'clock! change your frock!" said Jane. + +"Eight o'clock! postman's knock!" said Jennifer. + +"Ten o'clock! to bed, to bed!" cried Jessica again. + +"Nine o'clock!--let me run down the lane for a moment first," begged +little Joan. + +Then Martin blew eighteen o'clock and said it was six o'clock tomorrow +morning. And all the girls clapped their hands for joy--all except +Joscelyn, who sat quite by herself in a corner of the orchard, and +neither blew nor listened. And so they continued to change the hour and +the occupation: now washing, now wringing, now drying; now milking, now +baking, now mending; now cooking their meal, now eating it; now +strolling in the cool of the evening, now going to market on +marketing-day:--till by dinner they had filled the morning with a week +of hours, and the air with downy seedlings, as exquisite as crystals of +frost. + +At dinner the maids ate very little, and Jessica said, "I think I'm +getting tired of bread." + +"And apples?" said Martin. + +"One never gets tired of apples," said Jessica, "but I would like to +have them roasted for a change, with cream. Or in a dumpling with brown +sugar. And instead of bread I would like plum-cake." + +"What wouldn't I give for a bowl of curds and whey!" exclaimed Joyce. + +"Fruit salad and custard is nice," sighed Jennifer. + +"I could fancy a lemon cheesecake," observed Jane, "or a jam tart." + +"I should like bread-and-honey," said little Joan. "Bread-and-honey's +the best of all." + +"So it is," said Martin. + +"You always have to suck your fingers afterwards," said Joan. + +"That's why," said Martin. "Quince jelly is good too, and treacle +because if you're quick you can write your name in it, and picked +walnuts, and mushrooms, and strawberries, and green salad, and plovers' +eggs, and cherries are ripping especially in earrings, and macaroons, +and cheesestraws, and gingerbread, and--" + +"Stop! stop! stop! stop! stop!" cried the milkmaids. + +"I can hardly bear it myself," said Martin. "Let's play See-Saw." + +So the maids rolled up a log from one part of the orchard, and Martin +got a plank from another part, because the orchard was full of all +manner of things as well as girls and apples, and he straddled one end +and said, "Who's first?" And Jessica straddled the other as quick as a +boy, and went up with a whoop. But Joyce, who presently turned her off, +sat sideways as gay and graceful as a lady in a circus. And Jennifer +crouched a little and clung rather hard with her hands, but laughed +bravely all the time. And Jane thought she wouldn't, and then she +thought she would, and squeaked when she went up and fell off when she +came down, so that Martin tumbled too, and apologized to her earnestly +for his clumsiness; and while he rubbed his elbows she said it didn't +matter at all. But little Joan took off her shoes, and with her hands +behind her head stood on the end of the see-saw as lightly as a sunray +standing on a wave, and she looked up and down at Martin, half shyly +because she was afraid she was showing off, and half smiling because +she was happy as a bird. And Joscelyn wouldn't play. Then the girls +told Martin he'd had more than his share, and made him get off, and +struggled for possession of the see-saw like Kings of the Castle. And +Martin strolled up to Joscelyn and said persuasively, "It's such fun!" +but Joscelyn only frowned and answered, "Give it back to me!" and +Martin didn't seem to understand her and returned to the see-saw, and +suggested three a side and he would look after Jane very carefully. So +he and Jane and Jennifer got on one end, and Jessica, Joyce and Joan +sat on the other, and screaming and laughing they tossed like a boat on +a choppy sea: until Jessica without any warning jumped off her perch in +mid-air and destroyed the balance, and down they all came +helter-skelter, laughing and screaming more than ever. But Jane +reproved Jessica for her trick and said nobody would believe her +another time, and that it was a bad thing to destroy people's +confidence in you; and Jessica wiped her hot face on her sleeve and +said she was awfully sorry, because she admired Jane more than anybody +else in the world. Then Martin looked at the sun and said, "You've +barely time to get tidy for supper." So the milkmaids ran off to smooth +their hair and their kerchiefs and do up ribbons and buttons or +whatever else was necessary. And came fresh and rosy to their meal, of +which not one of them could touch a morsel, she declared. + +"Dear, dear, dear!" said Martin anxiously. "What's the matter with you +all?" + +But they really didn't know. They just weren't hungry. So please +wouldn't he tell them a story? + +"This will never do," said Martin. "I shall have you ill on my hands. +An apple apiece, or no story to-night." + +At this dreadful threat Joan plucked the nearest apple she could find, +which was luckily a Cox's Pippin. + +"Must I eat it all, Martin?" she asked. (And Joscelyn looked at her +quickly with that doubtful look which had been growing on her all day.) + +"All but the skin," said Martin kindly. And taking the apple from her +he peeled it cleverly from bud to stem, and handed her back nothing but +the peel. And she twirled the peel three times round her head, and +dropped it in the grass behind her. + +"What is it? what is it?" cried the milkmaids, crowding. + +"It's a C," said Martin. And he gave Joan her apple, and she ate it. + +Then Joyce came to Martin with a Beauty of Bath, and he peeled it as he +had Joan's, and withheld the fruit until she had performed her rite. +And her letter was M. Jennifer brought a Worcester Pearmain, and threw +a T. And Jessica chose a Curlytail and made a perfect O. And Jane, who +preferred a Russet, threw her own initial, and Martin said seriously, +"You're to be an old maid, Jane." (And Joscelyn looked at him.) And +Jane replied, "I don't see that at all. There are lots of lots of J's, +Martin." (And Joscelyn looked at her.) Then Martin turned inquiringly +to Joscelyn, and she said, "I don't want one." "No stories then," said +Martin as firm as Nurse at bedtime. And she shook her shoulders +impatiently. But he himself picked her a King of Pippins, the biggest +and reddest in the orchard, and peeled it like the rest and gave her +the peel. And very crossly she jerked it thrice round her head, so that +it broke into three bits, and they fell on the grass in the shape of an +agitated H. And Martin gave her also her Pippin. + +"But what about your own supper?" said little Joan. + +And Martin, glancing from one to another, gathered a Cox, a Beauty, a +Pearmain, a Curlytail, a Russet, and a King of Pippins; and he peeled +and ate them one after another, and then, one after another, whirled +the parings. And every one of the parings was a J. + +Then, while Martin stood looking down at the six J's among the +clover-grass, and the milkmaids looked anywhere else and said nothing: +little Joan slipped away and came back with the smallest, prettiest, +and rosiest Lady Apple in Gillman's Orchard, and said softly, "This +one's for you." + +So Martin pared it slenderly, and the peel lay in his hand like a +ribbon of rose-red silk shot with gold; and he coiled it lightly three +times round his head and dropped it over his left shoulder. And as +suddenly as bubbles sucked into the heart of a little whirlpool, the +milkmaids ran to get a look at the letter. But Martin looked first, and +when the ring of girls stood round about him he put his foot quickly on +the apple-peel and rubbed it into the grass. And without even tasting +it he tossed his little Lady Apple right over the wicket, and beyond +the duckpond, and, for all the girls could see, to Adversane. + +Then Jane and Jessica and Jennifer and Joyce and little Joan, as by a +single instinct, each climbed to a bough of the center apple-tree, and +left the swing empty. And Martin sat on his own bough and waited for +Joscelyn. And very slowly she came and sat on the swing and said +without looking at him: + +"We're all ready now." + +"All?" said Martin. And he fixed his eyes on the Well-House, where it +made no difference. + +"Most of us, anyhow," said Joscelyn; "and whoever isn't ready +is--nearly ready." + +"Yet most is not all, and nearly is not quite," said Martin, "and would +you be satisfied if I could only tell you most of my story, and was +obliged to break off when it was nearly done? Alas, with me it must be +the whole or nothing, and I cannot make a beginning unless I can see +the end." + +"All beginnings must have endings," said Joscelyn, "so begin at once, +and the end will follow of itself." + +"Yet suppose it were some other end than I set out for?" said Martin. +"There's no telling with these endings that go of themselves. We mean +one thing, but they mistake our meaning and show us another. Like the +simple maid who was sent to fetch her lady's slippers and her lady's +smock, and brought the wrong ones." + +"She must have been some ignorant maid from a town," said Jane, "if she +did not know lady-smocks and lady's-slippers when she saw them." + +"It was either her mistake or her lady's," said Martin carelessly. "You +shall judge which." And he tuned his lute and, still looking at the +Well-House, sang: + + The Lady sat in a flood of tears + All of her sweet eyes' shedding. + "To-morrow, to-morrow the paths of sorrow + Are the paths that I'll be treading." + So she sent her lass for her slippers of black, + But the careless lass came running back + With slippers as bright + As fairy gold + Or noonday light, + That were heeled and soled + To dance in at a wedding. + + The Lady sat in a storm of sighs + Raised by her own heart-searching. + "To-morrow must I in the churchyard lie + Because love is an urchin." + So she sent her lass for her sable frock, + But the silly lass brought a silken smock + So fair to be seen + With a rosy shade + And a lavender sheen, + That was only made + For a bride to come from church in. + +Now as Martin sang, Gillian got first on her elbow, and then on her +knees, and last upright on her two feet. And her face was turned full +on the duckpond, and her eyes gazed as though she could see more and +further than any other woman in the world, and her two hands held her +heart as though but for this it must follow her eyes and be lost to her +for ever. + +"So far as I can see," said Joscelyn, "there's nothing to choose +between the foolishness of the maid and that of the mistress. But since +Gillian appears to have risen to some sense in it, for goodness' sake, +before she sinks back on her own folly, tell us your tale and be done +with it!" + +"It is ready now," said Martin, "from start to finish. Glass is not +clearer nor daylight plainer to me than the conclusion of the whole, +and if you will listen for a very few instants, you shall see as +certainly as I the ending of The Imprisoned Princess." + + + +THE IMPRISONED PRINCESS + +There was once, dear maidens, a Princess who was kept on an island. + + +(Joscelyn: There are no islands in Sussex. + +Martin: This didn't happen in Sussex. + +Joscelyn: But I thought it was a true story. + +Martin: It is the only true story of them all.) + + +She was kept on the island locked up in a tower, for the best of all +the reasons in the world. She had fallen in love. She had fallen in +love with her father's Squire. So the King banished him for ever and +locked up his daughter in a tower on an island, and had it guarded by +six Gorgons. + + +(Joscelyn: It's NOT a true story! + +Martin: It IS a true story! If you don't say so at the end I'll give +you-- + +Joscelyn: What?--I don't want you to give me anything! + +Martin: All right then. + +Joscelyn: What will you give me? + +Martin: A yellow shoe-string.) + + +By six Gorgons (repeated Martin) who had the sharpest claws and the +snakiest hair of any Gorgons there ever were. And their faces-- + + +(Joscelyn: Leave their faces alone! + +Martin: You're being a perfect nuisance! + +Joscelyn: I simply HATE this story! + +Martin: Tell it yourself then! + +Joscelyn: What ABOUT their faces?) + + +Their faces (said Martin) were as beautiful as day and night and the +four seasons of the year. They were so beautiful that I must stop +talking about them or I shall never talk about anything else. So I'd +better talk about the young Squire, who was a great deal less +interesting, except for one thing: that he was in love. Which is a big +advantage to have over Gorgons, who never are. The only other +noteworthy thing about him was that his voice was breaking because he +was merely fifteen years old. He was just a sort of Odd Boy about the +King's court. + + +(Martin: Mistress Joscelyn, if you keep on wiggling so much you'll get +a nasty tumble. Kindly sit still and let me get on. This isn't a very +long story.) + + +One morning in April this Squire sat down at the end of the world, and +he sobbed and he sighed like any poor soul; and a sort of wandering +fellow who was going by had enough curiosity to stop and ask him what +was the matter. And the Squire told him, and added that his heart was +breaking for longing of the flower that his lady wore in her hair. So +this fellow said, "Is that all?" And he got into his boat, which had a +painted prow, and a light green pennon, and a gilded sail, and called +itself The Golden Truant, and he sailed away a thousand leagues over +the water till he came to the island where the princess was imprisoned; +and the six Gorgons came hissing to the shore, and asked him what he +wanted. And he said he wanted nothing but to play and sing to them; so +they let him. And while he did so they danced and forgot, and he ran to +the tower and found the Princess with her beautiful head bowed on the +windowsill behind the bars, weeping like January rain. And he climbed +up the wall and took from her hair the flower as she wept, in exchange +for another which--which the Squire had sent her. And she whispered a +word of sorrow, and he another of comfort, and came away. And the +Gorgons suspected nothing; except perhaps the littlest Gorgon, and she +looked the other way. + +So in the summer the Squire told the Wanderer that he would surely die +unless he had his lady's ring to kiss; and the fellow went again to the +island. The Gorgons were not sorry to see him, and were willing to +dance while he played and sang as before; and as before he took +advantage of their pleasure, and stole the gold ring from the +Princess's hand as she lay in tears behind her bars. But in place of +the gold ring he left a silver one which had belonged to--to the +Squire. And the voice of her despair spoke through her tears, and he +answered it as best he could with the voice of hope. And went away as +before, leaving the Gorgons dancing. + +Then in the autumn the Squire said to the Wanderer, "Who can live on +flowers and rings? If you do not get me my lady herself, let me lie in +my grave." So the Wanderer set sail for the third time, though he knew +that the dangers and difficulties of this last adventure were supreme; +and once more he landed on the island of the Imprisoned Princess. And +this time the Gorgons even appeared a little pleased to see him, and +let him stay with them six days and nights, telling them stories, and +singing them songs, and inventing games to keep them amused. For he was +very sorry for them. + + +(Joscelyn: Why? Why? Why? + +Martin: Because he discovered that they were even unhappier than the +Princess in her tower. + +Joscelyn: It isn't true! It isn't true! + +Martin: Look out! you're losing your slipper.) + + +Of course the Gorgons were unhappier than the Princess. She was only +parted from her lover; but they were parted from love itself. + +But as the week wore on, miracles happened; for every night one of the +Gorgons turned into the beautiful girl she used to be before the +Goddess of Reason, infuriated with the Irrational God who bestows on +girls their quite unreasonable loveliness, had made her what she was. +And night by night the Wanderer rubbed his eyes and wondered if he had +been dreaming; for the guardians of the tower no longer hissed, but +sighed at love, and instead of claws for the destructions of lovers had +beautiful kind hands that longed to help them. Until on the sixth night +only one remained this fellow's enemy. But alas! she was the strongest +and fiercest of them all. + + +(Joscelyn: How dare you!) + + +And her case (said Martin) was hopeless, because she alone of them all +had never known what love was, and so had nothing to be restored to. + + +(Joscelyn: How DARE you!) + + +And without her (said Martin) there was nothing to be done. She had +always had the others under her thumb, and by this time she had the +Wanderer in exactly the same place. And so--and so-- + +And so here is your shoe-string, Mistress Joscelyn; and I am sorry the +want of it has been such an inconvenience to you all day, so that you +could not make merry with us. But I must forfeit it now, for the story +is ended, and I think you must own it is true. + + +(Joscelyn: I won't take it! The story is NOT true! The story is NOT +ended! Finish it at once! None of the others ended like this. + +Martin: The others weren't true. + +Joscelyn: I don't care. You are to say what happened to the Gorgons. + +Joyce: And to the Squire. + +Jennifer: And to the Princess. + +Jessica: And what she looked like. + +Jane: And what happened to the King. + +"Please, Martin," said little Joan, "please don't let the story come to +an end before we know what happened to the Wanderer." + +"I'm tired of telling stories," said Martin, "and I'll never tell +another as long as I live. But I suppose I must add the trimmings to +this one, or I shall get no peace.") + + +All these things, dear maidens, are very quickly told, except what the +Princess looked like, for that is impossible. No man ever knew. He +never got further than her eyes, and then he was drowned. But what does +it matter how she looked? She died a thousand years ago of a broken +heart. And her Squire, hearing of her death, died too, a thousand +leagues away. And the King her father expired of remorse, and his +country went to rack and ruin. And the five kind Gorgons had to pay the +penalty of their regained humanity, and wilted into their maiden +graves. Only the Sixth Gorgon lived on for ever and ever. I dare not +think of her solitary eternity. But as for the Wanderer, he is of no +importance. A little while he still went wandering, singing these +lovers' sorrows to the world, and what became of him I never knew. + +That's the end. + +And now, dear Mistress Joscelyn, let me lace up your shoe. + + +(Joscelyn buried her face in her hands and burst out crying.) + + + +POSTLUDE + +PART I + +There was consternation in the Apple-Orchard. + +All the milkmaids came tumbling from their perches to run and comfort +their weeping comrade. And as they passed Martin, Joyce cried, "It's a +shame!" and Jennifer murmured "How could you?" and Jessica exclaimed +"You brute!" and Jane said "I'm surprised at you!" and even little Joan +shook her head at him, and, while all the others fondled Joscelyn, and +petted and consoled her, took her hand and held it very tight. But with +her other hand she took Martin's and held it just as tight, and looked +a little anxious, with tears in her blue eyes. Yet she looked a little +smiling too. And there were tears also in the eyes of all the +milkmaids, because the story had ended so badly, and because they did +not in the least know what was going to happen, and because a man had +made one of them cry. And Martin suddenly realized that all these girls +were against him as much as though it were six months ago. And he swung +his feet and looked as though he didn't care, so that Joan knew he was +feeling rather sheepish inside, and held his hand a little tighter. + +Then Joscelyn, who had the loveliest brown, as Joan had the loveliest +blue, eyes in England, lifted her young head and looked at Martin so +defiantly through her tears that he knew she had given up the game at +last; and he pressed Joan's hand for all he was worth, and began to +look ashamed of himself, so that Joan knew he had stopped feeling +sheepish in the least. And Joscelyn, in a voice that shook like +birch-leaves, said, "I don't want it to end like that." + +Martin: Dear Mistress Joscelyn, is it my fault? I promised you the +truth, and with your help I have told it. + +Joscelyn: How dare you say it's with my help? If I had my way--! + +Martin: You shall have it. We will leave the end of the story in your +hands. + +Joscelyn: I won't have anything to do with it! + +Martin: Then I'm afraid it's your fault. + +Joscelyn: That's what a man always says! + +Martin: Did he? + +Joscelyn: Yes, he did! he said it was Eve's fault. + +Martin: So it was. + +Joscelyn: How dare you! + +Martin: He said nothing but the truth. And what did you say? + +Joscelyn: I said it was Adam's fault. + +Martin: So it was. YOU said nothing but the truth. + +Joscelyn: How could it be two people's fault? + +Martin: How could it be anything else? Oh, Joscelyn! there are two +things in this world that one person alone cannot bring to perfection. +And one of them is a fault. It takes two people to make a perfect +fault. Eve tempted Adam; and Adam was jolly glad to get tempted if he +was half as sensible as he ought to have been. And Eve knew it. And +Adam let her know it. And if after that she had not tempted him he +would never have forgiven her. When it came to fault-making they +understood each other perfectly. And between them they made the most +perfect fault in the world. + +Joscelyn: (after a very long pause): You said there were two things. + +Martin: Two things? + +Joscelyn: That one person alone can't bring to perfection. + +Martin: Did I? + +Joscelyn: What is the other thing? + +Martin: Love. Isn't it? + +Joscelyn: How dare you ask me? + +Martin: I dare ask more than that. Joscelyn, how old are you? + +Joscelyn: I sha'n't tell you. + +Martin: Joscelyn, you are the tallest of the milkmaids, but you can't +help that. How old are you? + +Joscelyn: Mind your own business. + +Martin: Joscelyn, the first three times I saw you, you had your hair +down your back. But ever since I told you my first story you have done +it up, like beautiful dark flowers, on each side of your head. And it +is my belief that you have no business to have it up at all. + +Joscelyn (very angrily): How dare you! Of course I have! Am I not +nearly sixteen? + +Martin: Nearly? + +Joscelyn: Well, next June. + +Martin: Oh, Hebe! it's worse than I thought. How dare I? You +whipper-snapper! How dare YOU have us all under your thumb? How dare +YOU play the Gorgon to Gillian? How dare YOU cry your eyes out because +my lovers had an unhappy ending? Go back to your dolls'-house! What +does sixteen next June know about Adam? What does sixteen next June +know about love? + +Joscelyn: Everything! how dare you? everything! + +Martin: Am I to believe you? Then by all you know, you baby, give me +the sixth key of the Well-House! + + +And he took from his pocket the five keys he already had, and held out +his hand for the last one. Joscelyn's eyes grew bigger and bigger, and +the doubt that had troubled her all day became a certainty as she +looked from the keys to her comrades, who all got very red and hung +their heads. + +"Why did you give them up?" demanded Joscelyn. + +"Because," Martin answered for them, "they know everything about love. +But then they are all more than sixteen years of age, and capable of +making the right sort of ending which is so impossible to children like +you and me." + +Then Joscelyn looked as old as she could and said, "Not so impossible, +Master Pippin, if--if--" + +But all of a sudden she began to laugh. It was the first time Martin +had ever heard her laugh, or her comrades for six months. Their faces +cleared like magic, and they all clapped their hands and ran away. And +Martin got down from his bough, because when Joscelyn laughed she +didn't look more than fourteen. + +"If what, Joscelyn?" he said. + +"If you'd stolen the right shoe-string, Martin," said she. And she +stuck out her right foot with its neatly-laced yellow slipper. Then +Martin knelt down, and instead of lacing the left shoe unlaced the +right one, and inside the yellow slipper found the sixth key just under +the instep. "Is that the right ending?" said Joscelyn. And Martin held +the little foot in his hands rubbing it gently, and said +compassionately, "It must have been dreadfully uncomfortable." + +"It was sometimes," said Joscelyn. + +"Didn't it hurt?" asked Martin, beginning to lace up her shoes for her. + +"Now and then," said Joscelyn. + +"It was an awfully kiddish place to hide it in," said Martin finishing, +and as he looked up Joscelyn laughed again, rubbing her tear-stained +cheeks with the back of her hand, and for all the great growing girl +that she was looked no more than twelve. So he slid under the swing and +stood up behind her and kissed her on the back of the neck where babies +are kissed. + +Then all the milkmaids came back again. + + +PART II + +To every girl Martin handed her key. "This is your business," said he. +And first Joan, and next Joyce, and then Jennifer, and then Jessica, +and then Jane, and last of all Joscelyn, put her key into its lock and +turned. And not one of the keys would turn. They bit their lips and +held their breath, and turned and turned in vain. + +"This is dreadful," said Martin. "Are you sure the keys are in the +right keyholes?" + +"They all fit," said little Joan. + +"Let me try," said Martin. And he tried, one after another, and then +tried each key singly in each lock, but without result. Jane said, "I +expect they've gone rusty," and Jessica said, "That must be it," and +Jennifer turned pale and said, "Then Gillian can never get out of the +Well-House or we out of the orchard." And Martin sat down in the swing +and thought and thought. As he thought he began to swing a little, and +then a little more, and suddenly he cried "Push me!" and the six girls +came behind him and pushed with all their strength. Up he went with his +legs pointed as straight as an arrow, and back he flew and up again. +The third time the swing flew clean over the Well-House, and as true as +a diving gannet Martin dropped from mid-air into the little court, and +stood face to face with Gillian. + + +PART III + +She was not weeping. She was bathed in blushes and laughter. She held +out her hands to him, and Martin took them. She had golden hair of +lights and shadows like a wheatfield that fell in two thick plaits over +her white gown, and she had gray eyes where smiles met you like an +invitation, but you had to learn later that they were really a little +guard set between you and her inward tenderness, and that her gayety, +like a will-o'-the-wisp, led you into the flowery by-ways of her spirit +where fairies played, but not to the heart of it where angels dwelled. +Few succeeded in surprising her behind her bright shield, but sometimes +when she wasn't thinking it fell aside, and what men saw then took +their breath from them, for it was as though they were falling through +endless wells of infinite sweetness. And afterwards they could have +told you nothing further of her loveliness; when they got as far as her +eyes they were drowned. Her features, the curves of her cheeks and lips +and chin and delicate nostrils, were as finely-turned as the edge of a +wild-rose petal, and her skin had the freshness of dew. The sight of +her brought the same sense of delight as the sight of a meadow of +cowslips. As sweet and sunny a scent breathed out from her beauty. + +But all this Martin only felt without seeing, for he was drowned. +Gillian, I suppose, wasn't thinking. So they held each other's hands +and looked at each other. + +Presently Martin said, "It's time now, Gillian, and you can go." + +"Yes, Martin," said Gillian. "How shall I go?" + +"As I came," said he. + +"Before I go," said she, "I am going to ask you a question. You have +asked my friends a lot of questions these six nights, which they have +answered frankly, and you have twisted their answers round your little +finger. Now you must answer my question as frankly." + +"And what will you do?" asked Martin. + +"I won't twist your answer," said Gillian gently. "I'll take it for +what it is worth. You have been laughing up your sleeve a little at my +friends because, having a quarrel with men, they were sworn to live +single. But you live single too. Tell me, if you please, what is your +quarrel with girls?" + +Martin dropped her hands until he held each by the little finger only, +and then he answered, "That they are so much too good for us, Gillian." + +"Thank you, Martin," said Gillian, taking her hands away. "And now +please ask them to send over the swing, for it is time for me to go to +Adversane." And as she spoke the light played over her eyes again and +floated him up to the surface of things where he could swim without +drowning. He saw now the flowers of her loveliness, but no longer the +deeps of those gray pools where the light shimmered between herself and +him. So he turned and climbed to the pent roof of the Well-House, and +looked towards the group of shadows clustered under the apple-tree +around the swing; and they understood and launched it through the air, +and he caught it as it came. And Gillian in a moment was up beside him. + +"Are you ready?" said Martin. + +"Yes," she answered getting on the swing, "thank you. And thank you for +everything. Thank you for coming three times this year. Thank you for +the stories. Thank you for giving their happiness again to my darling +friends. Thank you for all the songs. Thank you for drying my tears." + +"Are they all dried up?" said Martin. + +"All," said Gillian. + +"If they were not," said he, "you shall find Herb-Robert growing along +the roadside, and the Herbman himself in Adversane." + +And holding the swing fast as he sat on the roof, Martin sang her his +last song, not very loud, but so clearly that the shadows under the +apple-tree heard every note and syllable. + + Good morrow, good morrow, dear Herbman Robert! + Good morrow, sweet sir, good morrow! + Oh, sell me a herb, good Robert, good Robert, + To cure a young maid of her sorrow. + + And hath her sorrow a name, sweet sir? + No lovelier name or purer, + With its root in her heart and its flower in her eyes, + Yet sell me a herb shall cure her. + + Oh, touch with this rosy herb of spring + Both heart and eyes when she's sleeping, + And joy will come out of her sorrowing, + And laughter out of her weeping. + +"Good-by, Martin." + +"Good-by, Gillian." + +"I want to ask you a lot more questions, Martin." + +"Off you go!" cried he. And let the swing fly. Back it came. + +"Martin! why didn't--" + +"Jump when you're clear!" called Martin. But back it came. + +"Why didn't the young Squire in the story--" + +"Jump this time!" And back it came. + +"--come to fetch her himself, Martin?" + +"Jump!" shouted Martin; and shut his eyes and put his hands over his +ears. But it was no use; again and again he felt the rush of air, and +questions falling through it like shooting-stars about his head. + +"Martin! what was the name on the eighth floret of grass?" + +"Martin! what was the letter you threw with the Lady-peel?" + +"Martin! why is my silver ring all chased with little apples?" + +"Martin! do you--do you--do you--?" + +"Shall I never be rid of this swing?" cried Martin. "Jump, you +nuisance, jump when I tell you!" + +And she jumped, and was caught and kissed among the shadows. + +"Gillian!" + +"Gillian!" + +"Gillian!" + +"Gillian!" + +"Gillian!" + +"Dear Gillian!" + +And then like a golden wave and she the foam, they bore her over the +moonlit grass to the green wicket, and they threw it open, and she went +like a skipping stone across the duckpond and over the fields to +Adversane. + +When she had vanished Martin slid down the roof, walked across to the +coping, put one leg over, and stepped out of the Well-House. + + +PART IV + +The six milkmaids were waiting for him in the apple-tree--no; Joscelyn +was in the swing. + +"And so," said Martin, sitting down on the bough, "on the sixth night +the sixth Gorgon also became a maiden as lovely as her fellows, and +gave the Wanderer the sixth key to the Tower. And they let out the +Princess and set her in The Golden Truant, and she sailed away to her +Squire a thousand leagues over the water. And everybody lived happily +ever after." + +"What a beautiful story!" said Jane. And they all thought so too. + +"I knew from the first," said Joscelyn, "that it would have a happy +ending." + +"And so did I," said Joyce. + +"And I," said Jennifer, + +"And I," said Jessica, + +"And I," said Jane and + +"And I," said little Joan. + +"The verdict is passed," said Martin. "And look! over our heads hangs +the moon, as round and beautiful as a penny balloon, with an eye as +wide awake as a child's at six in the morning. If she will not go to +sleep in heaven to-night, why on earth should we? Let's have a party!" + +The girls looked at one another in amazement and delight. "A party? +Oh!" cried they. "But who will give it?" + +"I will," said Martin. + +"And who will come to it?" + +"Whoever luck sends us," said Martin. "But we'll begin with ourselves. +Joan and Joyce and Jennifer and Jessica and Jane and Joscelyn, will you +come to my party in the Apple-Orchard?" + +"Yes, thank you, Martin!" cried they. And ran away to change. But the +only change possible was to take the kerchiefs off their white necks, +and the shoes and stockings off their little feet, and let down their +pretty hair. So they did these things, and made wreaths for one +another, and posies for their yellow dresses. And it is time for you to +know that Jennifer's dress was primrose and Jane's cowslip yellow, and +that Joyce looked like buttercups and Jessica like marigolds; and +Joscelyn's was the glory of the kingcups that rise like magic golden +isles above the Amberley floods in May. But little Joan had not been +able to decide between the two yellows that go to make wild daffodils, +so she had them both. Under their flowerlike skirts their white ankles +and rosy heels moved as lightly as windflowers swaying in the grass. +And just when they were ready they heard Martin Pippin's lute under the +apple-tree, so they came to the party dancing. Round and round the tree +they danced in the moonlight till they were out of breath. But when +they could dance no more they stood stock still and stared without +speaking; for spread under the trees was such a feast as they had not +seen for months and months. + +In the middle was a great heap of apples, red and brown and green and +gold; but besides these was a dish of roasted apples and another of +apple dumplings, and between them a bowl of brown sugar and a full +pitcher of cream. The cream had spilled, and you could see where Martin +had run his finger up the round of the pitcher to its lip, where one +drip lingered still. Near these there was a plum-cake of the sort our +grannies make. It is of these cakes we say that twenty men could not +put their arms round them. There were nuts in it too, and spices. And +there was a big basin of curds and whey, and a bigger one of fruit +salad, and another of custard; and plates of jam tarts and lemon +cheesecakes and cheesestraws and macaroons; and gingerbread in cakes +and also in figures of girls and boys with caraway comfits for eyes, +and a unicorn and a lion with gilded horn and crown; and pots of honey +and quince jelly and treacle; and mushrooms and pickled walnuts and +green salads. Even Mr. Ringdaly did not provide a bigger feast when he +married Mrs. Ringdaly. For there were also all the best sorts of sweets +in the world: sugar-candy on a string, and twisted barley-sticks, and +bulls'-eyes, and peardrops, and licorice shoe-strings, and Turkish +Delight, and pink and white sugar mice; besides these there was +sherbet, not to drink of course, but to dip your finger in. There were +a good many other things, but these were what the milkmaids took in at +a glance. + +"OH!" cried six voices at once. "Where did they come from?" + +"Through the gap," said Martin. + +"But who brought them?" + +"Don't ask me," said Martin. + +At first the girls were rather shy--you can't help that at parties. But +as they ate (and you know what each ate first) they got more and more +at their ease, and by the time they were licking their sticky fingers +were in the mood for any game. So they played all the best games there +are, such as "Cobbler! Cobbler!" (Joscelyn's shoe), and Hunt the +Thimble (Jane's thimble), and Mulberry Bush, and Oranges and Lemons, +and Nuts in May. And in Nuts in May Martin insisted on being a side all +by himself, and one after another he fetched each girl away from her +side to his. And Joan came like a bird, and Joyce pretended to +struggle, and Jennifer had no fight in her at all, and Jessica really +tried, and Jane didn't like it because it was undignified and so rough. +But when Joscelyn's turn came to be fetched as she stood all alone on +her side deserted by her supporters, she put her hands behind her back, +and jumped over the handkerchief of her own accord, and walked up to +Martin and said, "All right, you've won." For when it comes to fetching +away it is a game that boys are better at than girls. + +"In that case," said Martin, "it's time for Hide-and-Seek." And he sat +down on the swing and shut his eyes. + +At the same moment the moon went behind a cloud. + +And as he waited a light drop fell on Martin's cheek, and another, and +another, like the silent weeping of a girl; so that he couldn't help +opening his eyes quickly and looking by instinct toward the empty +Well-House. It was still empty, for wherever the girls had hidden +themselves, it was not there. + +Then through the shadowed raining orchard a low voice called "Cuckoo!" +and "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" called another. And softly, clearly, laughingly, +mockingly, defiantly, teasingly, sweetly, caressingly, "Cuckoo! Cuckoo! +Cuckoo!" they called on every side. Martin stood up and stole among the +trees. At first he went quietly, but soon he ran and darted. And never +a girl could he find. For this after all is the game that girls are +better at than boys, and when it comes to hiding if they will not be +found they will not. And if they will they will. But their will was not +for Martin Pippin. Through the pattering moonless orchard he hunted +them in vain; and the place was full of slipping shadows and whispers. +And every now and then those cuckooing milkmaids called him, sometimes +at a distance, sometimes at his very ear. But he could not catch a +single one. + +And now it seemed to Martin that there were more of these elusive +shadows than he could have believed, and whisperings that needed +accounting for. + +For once he heard somebody whisper, "Oh, you were right! the world IS +flat--for six months it's been as flat as a pancake!" And a second +voice whispered, "Then I was wrong! for pancakes are round." And Martin +said to himself, "That's Joyce!" but the first voice he couldn't +recognize. And then followed a sound that was not exactly a whisper, +yet not exactly unlike one; and Martin darted towards it, but touched +only air. + +And again he heard a mysterious voice whisper, "How could you keep +yourself so secret all these months? I couldn't have. However can girls +keep secrets so long?" And the answer was, "They can't keep them a +single instant if you come and ask them--but you didn't come!" "What a +fool I was!" whispered the first voice, but whose Martin could not for +the life of him imagine. Yet he was sure that the other was Jennifer's. +And again he heard that misleading sound which seemed to be something, +yet, when he sought it, was nothing. + +And now he heard another unknown whisperer say, "You should have seen +my drills in the wheatfield last April! How the drill did wobble! Why, +I was that upset, any girl could have thrown straighter than I drilled +that wheat." And a second whisperer replied, "It MUST have been a +sight, then, for girls throw crookeder than swallows fly!" This was +surely Jessica; but who was the first speaker? + +He was as strange to Martin as another one who whispered, "It was the +silence got on my nerves most--it was having nobody to listen to of an +evening. Of course there were the lads, but they never talk to the +point." "I often fear," whispered a second voice, "that I talk too much +at random." "Good Lord! you couldn't, if you talked for ever!" Each of +these two cases ended as the first two had ended; and for Martin in as +little result. + +He hastened to another part of the orchard where the whispers were +falling fast and fierce. "It was Adam's fault after all!" "No, I've +found out that it was Eve's fault!" "But I've been looking it up." "And +I've been thinking it over." "Rubbish! it WAS Adam's fault." "It was +NOT Adam's fault. What can a stupid little boy know about it?" "I'm a +month older than you are." "I don't care if you are. It was Eve's +fault." "Well, don't make a fuss if it was." "Wasn't it?" "Stuff!" +"WASN'T it?" "Oh, all right, if you like, it was Eve's fault." "Here's +an apple for you," said Joscelyn quite distinctly. "Oh, ripping! but +I'd rather have a--" "Sh-h! RUN!" Martin was just too late. "Rather +have a what?" said Martin to himself. + +He was beginning to feel lonely. His hair was wet with rain. He hadn't +seen a milkmaid for an hour. He prowled low in the grass hoping to +catch one unawares. In the swing he saw a shadow--or was it two +shadows? It looked like one. And yet-- + +One half of the shadow whispered, "Do you like my new corduroys?" "Ever +so much," whispered the other half. "I'm rather bucked about them +myself," whispered the first half, "or ought I to say about IT?" "I +think it's them," said the second half. The first half reflected, "It +might be either one thing or two. But arithmetic's a nuisance--I never +was good at it." The second half confessed, "I always have to guess at +it myself. I'm only really sure of one bit." "Which bit's that?" +whispered the first half, and the second half whispered, "That one and +one make two." "Oh, you darling! of course they don't, and never did +and never will." "Well, I don't really mind," said little Joan. And +then there was a pause in which the two shadows were certainly one, +until the second half whispered, "Oh! oh, you've shaved it off!" And +this delighted the first half beyond all bounds; because even in the +circumstances it was clever of the second half to have noticed it. + +But Martin could bear no more. He sprang forward crying "Joan!"--and he +grasped the empty swing. And round the orchard he flew, his hands +before him, calling now "Joyce!" now "Jane!" now "Jessica!" "Jennifer!" +"Joscelyn!" and again "Joan! Joan! Joan!" And all his answer was +rustlings and shadows and whispers, and faint laughter like far-away +echoes, and empty air. + +All of a sudden the light rain stopped and the moon came out of her +cloud. And Martin found himself standing beside the Well-House, and +nobody near him. He gazed all around at the familiar things, the +apple-trees, the swing, the green wicket, the broken feast in the +grass. And then at the far end of the orchard he saw an unfamiliar +thing. It was a double ladder, arched over the hawthorn. And up the +ladder, like a golden shaft of the moon, went six quick girls, and +ahead of each her lad.* And on the topmost rung each took his milkmaid +by the hand and vanished over the hedge. + +Martin Pippin was left alone in the Apple-Orchard. + + +*It is not important, but their names were Michael, Tom, Oliver, John, +Henry, and Charles. And Michael had dark hair and light lashes, and Tom +freckles and a snub-nose, and Oliver a mole on his left cheek, and John +fine red-gold hair on his bronzed skin; and Henry was merely the +Odd-Job Boy whose voice was breaking, so he imagined that it was he +alone who ran the farm. But Charles was a dear. He had a tuft of white +hair at the back of his dark head, like the cotton-tail of a rabbit, +and as well as corduroy breeches he wore a rabbit-skin waistcoat, and +he was a great nuisance to gamekeepers, who called him a poacher; +whereas all he did was to let the rabbits out of the snares when it was +kind to, and destroy the snares. And he used the bring "bunny-rabbits" +(which other people call snapdragons) of the loveliest colors to plant +in the little garden known as Joan's Corner. I should like to tell you +more about Charles (but there isn't time) because I am fond of him. If +I hadn't been I shouldn't have let him have Joan. + + +EPILOGUE + +At cockcrow came the call which in that orchard was now as familiar as +the rooster's. + +"Maids! Maids! Maids!" + +Martin Pippin was leaning over the green wicket throwing jam tarts to +the ducks. Because in the Well-House Gillian had not left so much as a +crumb. But when he heard Old Gillman's voice, he flicked a bull's-eye +at the drake, getting it very accurately on the bill, and walked across +to the gap. + +"Good morning, master," said Martin cheerfully. "Pray how does Lemon, +Joscelyn's Sussex, fare?" + +Old Gillman put down his loaves with great deliberation, and spent a +few minutes taking Martin in. Then he answered, "There's scant milk to +a Sussex, and allus will be. And if there was not, there'd be none to +Joscelyn's Lemon. And if there was, it would take more than Henry to +draw it. And so that's you, is it?" + +"That's me," said Martin Pippin. + +"Well," said Old Gillman, "I've spent the best of six mornings trying +not to see ye. And has my daughter taken the right road yet?" + +"Yes, master," said Martin, "she has taken the road to Adversane." + +"Which SHE'S spent the best of six months trying not to see," said Old +Gillman. "Women's a nuisance. Allus for taking the long cut round." + +"I've known many a short cut," said Martin, "to end in a blind alley." + +"Well, well, so long as they gets there," grunted Gillman. "And what's +this here?" + +"A pair of steps," said Martin. + +"What for?" said Gillman. + +"Milkmaids and milkmen," said Martin. + +"So they maids have cut too, have they?" + +"It was a full moon, you see." + +"I dessay. But if they'd gone by the stile they could have hopped it in +the dark six months agone," said Old Gillman. And he got over the +stile, which was the other way into the orchard and has not been +mentioned till now, and came and clapped Martin on the shoulder. + +"Women's more trouble," said he, "than they're worth." + +"They're plenty of trouble," said Martin; "I've never discovered yet +what they're worth." + +"We'll not talk of em more. Come up to the house for a drink, boy," +said Old Gillman. + +Martin said pleasantly, "You can drink milk now, master, to your +heart's content. Or even water." And he walked over to the Well-House, +and pointed invitingly to the bucket. + +Old Gillman followed him with one eye open. "It's too late for that, +boy. When you've turned toper for six months, after sixty sober years, +it'll take you another six to drop the habit. That's what these +daughters do for their dads. But we'll not talk of em." He stood +beside Martin and stared down at the padlock. "How did the pretty go?" + +"In the swing, like a swift." + +"Why not through the gate like a gal?" + +"The keys wouldn't turn." + +"Which way?" + +"The right way." + +"You should ha' tried em the wrong way, boy." + +"That would have locked it," said Martin. + +"Azactly," said Old Gillman; and slipped the padlock from the staple +and put it in his pocket. "Come along up now." + +Martin followed him through the orchard and the paddock and the garden +and the farmyard to the house. He noticed that everything was in the +pink of condition. But as he passed the stables he heard the cows +lowing badly. + +The farm-kitchen was a big one. It had all the things that go to make +the best farm-kitchens: such as red bricks and heavy smoke-blackened +beams, and a deep hearth with a great fire on it and settles inside, +from which one could look up at the chimney-shaft to the sky, and clay +pipes and spills alongside, and a muller for wine or beer; and hams and +sides of bacon and strings on onions and bunches of herbs; much pewter, +and a copper warming-pan, and brass candlesticks, and a grandfather +clock; a cherrywood dresser and wheelback chairs polished with age; and +a great scrubbed oaken table to seat a harvest-supper, planed from a +single mighty plank. It was as clean as everything else in that good +room, but all the scrubbing would not efface the circular stains +wherever men had sat and drunk; and that was all the way round and in +the middle. There were mugs and a Toby jug upon it now. Old Gillman +filled two of the mugs, and lifted one to Martin, and Martin echoed the +action like a looking-glass. And they toasted each other in good Audit +Ale. + +"Well," said Old Gillman stuffing his pipe, "it's been a peaceful time, +and now us must just see how things go." + +"They look shipshape enough at the moment," said Martin. + +"Ah," said Old Gillman shaking his head, "that's the lads. They're good +lads when you let em alone. But what it'll be now they maids get +meddling again us can't foretell. It were bad enough afore, wi' their +quarrelsomeness and their shilly-shally. It sends all things to rack +and ruin." + +"What does?" said Martin. + +"This here love." Old Gillman refilled his mug. "We'll not talk of it. +She were a handy gal afore Robin began unmaking her mind along of his +own. Lord! why can't these young things be plain and say what they +want, and get it? Wasn't I plain wi' her mother?" + +"Were you?" said Martin. + +"Ah, worse luck!" said Gillman, "and me a happy bachelor as I was. What +did I want wi' a minx about the place?" He filled his mug again. + +"What do any of us?" said Martin. "These women are the deuce." + +"They are," said Gillman. "We'll not talk of em." + +"There are a thousand better things to talk of," agreed Martin. "There +is Sloe Gin." + +Old Gillman's eye brightened. "Ah!" said Old Gillman, and puffed at his +pipe. "Her name," he said, "was Juniper, but as oft as not I'd call her +June, for she was like that. A rose in the house, boy. Maybe you think +my Jill has her share of looks? She has her mother's leavings, let me +tell ye. So you may judge. But what's this Robin to dilly-dally with +her daughter, till the gal can't sleep o' nights for wondering will he +speak in the morning or will he be mum? And so she becomes worse than +no use in kitchen and dairy, and since sickness is catching the maids +follow suit. It's all off and on wi' them and their lads. In the +morning they will, in the evening they won't. Ah, twas a tarrible +life. And all along o' Robin Rue. Young man, the farm, I tell ye, was +going to fair rack and ruin." + +"You seem to have found a remedy," said Martin. + +"If they silly maids couldn't make up their minds," said Old Gillman, +"there was nothing for it but to turn em out neck and crop till they +learned what they wanted. And Robin into the bargain. He's no better +than a maid when it comes to taking the bull by the horns. Yet that's +the man's part, mark ye. Don't I know? Smockalley she come from, the +Rose of Smockalley they called her, for a Rose in June she were. There +weren't a lass to match her south of Hagland and north of Roundabout. +And the lads would ha' died for her from Picketty to Chiltington. But +twas a Billinghurst lad got her, d'ye see?" Old Gillman filled his mug. + +"How did that come about?" asked Martin, filling his. + +"All along o' the Murray River." + +"WHAT'S that!" said Martin Pippin. But Old Gillman thought he said, +"What's THAT?" + +"'Tis the biggest river in Sussex, young man, and the littlest known, +and the fullest of dangers, and the hardest to find; because nobody's +ever found it yet but her and me. And she'd sworn to wed none but him +as could find it with her. Don't I remember the day! Twas the day the +Carrier come, and that was the day o' the week for us folk then. He had +a blue wagon, had George, with scarlet wheels and a green awning; and +his horse was a red-and-white skewbald and jingled bells on its bridle. +A small bandy-legged man was George, wi' a jolly face and a squint, and +as he drives up he toots on a tin trumpet wi' red tassels on it. Didn't +it bring the crowd running! and didn't the crowd bring HIM to a +standstill, some holding old Scarlet Runner by the bridle, and others +standing on the very axles. And the hubbub, young man! It was Where's +my six yards of dimity?' from one, and Have you my coral necklace?' +from another. Where's my bag of comfits? where's my hundreds and +thousands?' from the children; and I can't wait for my ivory fan?' +'My bandanna hanky!' My two ounces of snuff!' My guitar!' My clogs!' +'My satin dancing-shoes!' My onion-seed!' My new spindle!' My +fiddle-bow!' 'My powder-puff!' And some little 'un would lisp, 'I'm +sure you've forgotten my blue balloon!' And then they'd cry, +one-and-all, in a breath, George! what's the news?' And he'd say, +'Give a body elbow-room!' and handing the packages right and left +would allus have something to tell. But on this day he says, News? +There BE no news excepting THE News.' 'And what's THE News?' cries +one-and-all. 'Why,' says George, 'that the Rose of Smockalley consents +to be wed at last.' The Rose!' they cries, and me the loudest, 'to +whom?' To him,' says George, as can find her the Murray River. For a +sailor come by last Tuesday wi' a tale o' the Murray River where he'd +been wrecked and seen wonders; and a woman tormented by curiosity will +go as far as a man tormented by love. And so she's willing to be wed at +last. But she's liker to die a maid.' Then I ups and asks why. And +George he says, For that the sailor breathed such perils that the +lasses was taken wi' the trembles and the lads with the shudders. For, +he says, the river's haunted by spirits, and a mystery at the end of it +which none has ever come back from. And no man dares hazard so dark and +dangerous an adventure, even for love of the Rose.' That pricks a man's +pride to hear, boy, and Shame,' says I, on all West Sussex if that be +so. Here be one man as is ready, and here be fifty others. What d'ye say, +lads?' But Lord! as I looks from one to another they trickles away like +sand through an hourglass, and before we knows it me and George has the +road to ourselves. So he says, I must be getting on to Wisboro', but +first I'll deliver ye your baggage.' You've no baggage o' mine,' says I. +'Yes, if you'll excuse me,' says he; and wi' that he parts the green +awning and says, There she be.' And there she were, sitting on a +barrel o' cider." + +"What was she like to look at?" asked Martin. + +"Yaller hair and gray eyes," said Gillman. "And me a bachelor." + +"It was hopeless," said Martin. + +"It were," said Old Gillman. "And it were the end o' my peace of life. +She looks me straight in the eye and she says, Juniper's my name, but +I'm June to them as loves me. And June I'll be to you. For I have +traveled his rounds wi' this Carrier for a week, and sat behind his +curtain while he told men my wishes. And you be the only one of them +all as is willing to do a difficult thing for an idle whim, if what is +the heart's desire can ever be idle. So I will sit behind the curtain +no longer, and if you will let me I will follow you to the ends of +Sussex till the Murray River be found, or we be dead.' And I says +Jump, lass!' and down she jumps and puts up her mouth." Gillman filled +his mug. + +Martin filled his. "Well," said he, "a man must take his bull by the +horns. And did you ever succeed in finding the Murray River?" + +"Wi' a child's help. It can only be found by a child's help. Tis the +child's river of all Sussex. Any child can help you to it." + +"Yes," said Martin, "and all children know it." + +Old Gillman put down his mug. "Do YOU know it, boy?" + +"I live by it," said Martin Pippin, "when I live anywhere." + +"Do children play in it still?" asked Gillman. + +"None but children," said Martin Pippin. "And above all the child which +boys and girls are always rediscovering in each other's hearts, even +when they've turned gray in other folks' sight. And at the end of it is +a mystery." + +"She were a child to the end," said Old Gillman. "A fair nuisance, so +she were. And Jill takes after her." + +"Well, SHE'S off your hands anyhow," said Martin getting up. "She's to +be some other body's nuisance now, and your maids have come back to +their milking." + +"Ah, have they?" grunted Gillman. "The lads did it better. And they +cooked better. And they cleaned better. There is nothing men cannot do +better than women." + +"I know it," said Martin Pippin, "but it would be unkind to let on." + +"Then we'll wash our hands of em. But don't go, boy," said Old +Gillman. "Talking of Sloe Gin--" + +Martin sat down again. + +They talked of Sloe Gin for a very long time. They did not agree about +it. They got out some bottles to see if they could not manage to agree. +Martin thought one bottle hadn't enough sugar-candy in it, so they put +in some more; and Old Gillman thought another bottle hadn't enough gin +in it, so they also put in some more. But they couldn't get it right, +though they tried and tried. Old Gillman thought it should be filtered +drop by drop seventy times through seven hundred sheets of +blotting-paper, but Martin thought seven hundred times through seventy +sheets was better; and Martin thought it should then be kept for seven +thousand years, but Old Gillman thought seven years sufficient. But +neither of these points had ever been really proved, and was not that +day. + +After this, as they couldn't reach an agreement, they changed the +subject to rum punch, and argued a good deal as to the right quantities +of lemon and sugar and nutmeg; and whether it was or was not improved +by the addition of brandy, and how much; and an orange or so, and how +many; and a tangerine, if you had it; and a tot of gin, if you had it +left. Yet in this case too the most repeated practice proved as +inadequate as the most confirmed theory. + +So after a bit Old Gillman said, "This is child's play, boy. After all, +there's but one drink for kings and men. Give us a song over our cup, +and I'll sing along o' ye." + +"Right," said Martin, "if you can fetch me the only cup worthy to sing +over." + +"What cup's that, boy?" + +"What but a kingcup?" said Martin. + +"A king once drank from this," said Gillman, fetching down a goblet as +golden as ale. "He looked like a shepherd, and had a fold just across +the road, but he was a king for all that. So strike up." + +"After me, then," said Martin; and they pushed the cup between them, +and the song too. + +Martin: What shall we drink of when we sup? + +Gillman: What d'ye say to the King's own cup? + +Martin: What's the drink? + +Gillman: What d'ye think? + +Martin: Farmer, say! Water? + +Gillman: Nay! + +Martin: Wine? + +Gillman: Aye! + +Martin: Red wine? + +Gillman: Fie! + +Martin: White wine? + +Gillman: No! + +Martin: Yellow wine? + +Gillman: Oh! + +Martin: What in fine, What wine then? + +Gillman: The only wine + That's fit for men + Who drink of the King's Cup when they dine, + And that is the Old Brown Barley Wine! + + From This I'll drink ye high, + Point I I'll drink ye low, + Don't Know Till the stars run dry + Which Of Of their juices oh! + Them Was I'll drink ye up, + Singing; I'll drink ye down, + And No More Till the old moon's cup + Did They: Is cracked all round, + + And the pickled sun + Jumps out of his brine, + And you cry Done! + To the Barley Wine. + Come, boy, sup! Come, fill up! + Here's King's own drink for the King's own cup! + +What happened after this I really don't know. For I was not there, +though I should like to have been. + +I only know that when Martin Pippin stepped out of Gillman's Farm with +his lute on his back, Old Gillman was fast asleep on the settle. But +Martin had never been wider awake. + +It was late in the afternoon. There was no sign of human life anywhere. +In their stables the cows were lowing very badly. + +"Oh, maids, maids, maids!" sighed Martin Pippin. "Rack and ruin, my +dears, rack and ruin!" + +And he fetched the milkpails and went into the stalls, and did the +milkmaids' business for them. And Joyce's Blossom, and Jennifer's +Daisy, and Jessica's Clover stood as still for him as they stand in the +shade of the willows on Midsummer Day. And Jane's Nellie whisked her +tail over his mouth, but seemed sorry afterwards. And Joscelyn's Lemon +kicked the bucket and would not let down her milk till he sang to her, +and then she gave in. But little Joan's little Jersey Nancy, with her +soft dark eyes, and soft dun sides, and slender legs like a deer's, +licked his cheek. And this was Martin's milking-song. + + You Milkmaids in the hedgerows, + Get up and milk your kine! + The satin Lords and Ladies + Are all dressed up so fine, + But if you do not skim and churn + How can they dine? + Get up, you idle Milkmaids, + And call in your kine. + + You milkmaids in the hedgerows, + You lazy lovely crew, + Get up and churn the buttercups + And skim the milkweed, do! + But the Milkmaids in their country prints + And faces washed with dew, + They laughed at Lords and Ladies + And sang "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" + And if you know their reason + I'm not so wise as you. + +When he had done, Martin carried the pails to the dairy and turned his +back on Gillman's. For his business there was ended. So he went out at +the gate and lifted his face to the Downs. + +It was a lovely evening. Half the sky was clear and blue, and the other +half full of silky gold clouds--they wanted to be heavy and wet, but +the sun was having such fun on the edge of the Downs, somewhere about +Duncton, that they had to be gold in spite of themselves. + + + +CONCLUSION + +One evening at the end of the first week in September, Martin Pippin +walked along the Roman Road to Adversane. And as he approached he said +to himself, "There are many sweet corners in Sussex, but few sweeter +than this, and I thank my stars that I have been led to see it once in +my life." + +While he was thanking his stars, which were already in the sky waiting +for the light to go out and give them a chance, he heard the sound of +weeping. It came from the malthouse, which is the most beautiful +building in Sussex. So persistent was it that after he had listened to +it for six minutes it seemed to Martin that he had been listening to it +for six months, and for one moment he believed himself to be sitting in +an orchard with his eyes shut, and warm tears from heaven falling on +his face. But knowing himself to be too much given to fancies he +decided to lay those ghosts by investigation, and he went up to the +malthouse and looked inside. + +There he found a young man flooring the barley. As he turned and +re-turned it with his spade he wept so copiously above it that he was +frequently obliged to pause and wipe away his tears with his arm, for +he could no longer see the barley he was spreading. When the maltster +had interrupted himself thus for the third occasion, Martin Pippin +concluded that it was time to address him. + +"Young master," said Martin, "the bitters that are brewed from your +barley will need no adulterating behind the bar, and that's flat." + +The maltster leaned on his spade to reply. + +"There are no waters in all the world," said he, "plentiful enough to +adulterate the bitterness of my despair." + +"Then I would preserve these rivers for better sport," said Martin. +"And if memory plays me no tricks, your name was once Robin Rue." + +"And Rue it will be to my last hour," said Robin, "for a man can no +more escape from his name than from his nature." + +"Men," observed Martin, "have been in this respect worse served than +women. And when will Gillian Gillman change her name?" + +"No sooner than I," sighed Robin Rue; "a maid she must die, as I a +bachelor. And if she do not outlive me, we shall both be buried before +Christmas." + +"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Martin. And stepping into the malthouse he +offered Robin six keys. + +"How will these help us?" said Robin Rue. + +"They are the keys of your lady's Well-House," said Martin Pippin, "and +how I have outpaced her I cannot imagine, for she was on the road to +you twenty hours ago." + +"This is no news," said Robin. "There she is." + +And he turned his face to the dark of the malthouse, and there, sitting +on a barrel, with a slice of the sunset falling through a slit on her +corn-colored hair, was Gillian. + +"In love's name," cried Martin Pippin, putting his hands to his head, +"what more do you want?" + +"A husband worthy of her," moaned Robin Rue, "and how can I suppose +that I am he? Oh, that I were only good enough for her! oh, that she +could be happily mated, as after all her sorrows she deserves to be!" + +Then Martin looked down at the patch on his shoe saying, "And tell me +now, if you knew Gillian happily wed, would you ask nothing more of +life?" + +"Oh, sir," cried Robin Rue, "if I knew any man who could give her all I +cannot, I would contrive at least to live long enough to drown my +sorrows in the beer brewed from this barley." + +"It is a solace," said Martin, "that must be denied to no man. It seems +that I must help you out to the last. And if you will take one glance +out of doors, you will see that the working-day is over." + +Robin Rue looked out of doors, saw by the sun that it was so, put down +his spade, and went home to supper. + + +"Gillian," said Martin Pippin, "the Squire did not come himself to +fetch her away because he was a young fool. There was no eighth floret +on the grass-blade, so the rime stayed at the seventh. The letter I +threw with the Lady-peel was a G. There are apples all round your +silver ring because it was once my ring. I do, you dear, I do, I do. +And now I have answered your many questions, answer me one. Why did you +sit six months in the Well-House weeping for love?" + +"Oh, Martin," said Gillian softly, "could you tell my friends so much +they did not know, and not know this?--girls do not weep for love, they +weep for want of it." And she lifted her heavenly eyes, and out of the +last of the sunlight looked at him without thinking. And Martin, like a +drowning man catching at straws, caught her corn-colored plaits one in +either hand, and drawing himself to her by them, whispered, "Do girls +do that? But they are so much too good for us, Gillian." + +"I know they are," whispered Gillian, "but if all men were like Robin +Rue, what would become of us? Must we be punished for what we can't +help?" + +And she put her little finger on his mouth, and he kissed it. + +Then Martin himself sat down on the barrel where there was only room +for one; but it was Martin who sat on it. And after a while he said, +"You mightn't think it, but I have got a cottage, and there is nothing +whatever in it but a table which I made myself, and I think that is +enough to begin with. On the way to it we shall pass Hardham, where in +the Priory Ruins lives a Hermit who is sometimes in the mood. Beyond +Hardham is the sunken bed of the old canal that is a secret not known +to everybody; all flowering reeds and plants that love water grow +there, and you have to push your way between water-loving trees under +which grass and nettles in their season grow taller than children; but +at other times, when the pussy-willows bloom with gray and golden bees, +the way is clear. Beyond this presently is a little glade, the +loveliest in Sussex; in spring it is patterned with primroses, and +windflowers shake their fragile bells and show their silver stars above +them. Some are pure and colorless, like maidens who know nothing of +love, and others are faintly stained with streaks of purple-rose. So +exquisite is the beauty of these earthly flowers that it is like a +heavenly dream, but it is a dream come true; and you will never pass it +in April without longing to turn aside and, kneeling among all that +pallid gold and silver, offer up a prayer to the fairies. And I shall +always kneel there with you. But beyond this is a land of bracken and +undiscovered forests that hides a special secret. And you may run round +it on all sides within fifty yards, yet never find it; unless you +happen to light upon a land where grass springs under your feet among +deep cart-ruts, and blackberry branches scramble on the ground from the +flowery sides. The lane is called Shelley's Lane, for a reason too +beautiful to be told; since all the most beautiful reasons in the world +are kept secrets. And this is why, dear Gillian, the world never knows, +and cannot for the life of it imagine, what this man sees in that maid +and that maid in this man. The world cannot think why they fell in love +with each other. But they have their reason, their beautiful secret, +that never gets told to more than one person; and what they see in each +other is what they show to each other; and it is the truth. Only they +kept it hidden in their hearts until the time came. And though you and +I may never know why this lane is called Shelley's, to us both it will +always be the greenest lane in Sussex, because it leads to the special +secret I spoke of. At the end of it is an old gate, clambered with blue +periwinkle, and the gate opens into a garden in the midst of the +forest, a garden so gay and so scented, so full of butterflies and bees +and flower-borders and grass-plots with fruit-trees on them, that it +might be Eden grown tiny. The garden runs down a slope, and is divided +from a wild meadow by a brook crossed by a plank, fringed with young +hazel and alder and, at the right time, thick-set with primroses. +Behind the meadow, in a glimpse of the distance full of soft blue +shadows and pale yellow lights, lie the lovely sides of the Downs, +rounded and dimpled like human beings, dimpled like babies, rounded +like women. The flow of their lines is like the breathing of a sleeper; +you can almost see the tranquil heaving of a bosom. All about and +around the garden are the trees of the forest. Crouched in one of the +hollows is my cottage with the table in it. And the brook at the bottom +of the garden is the Murray River." + +Gillian looked up from his shoulder. "I always meant to find that some +day," she said, "with some one to help me." + +"I'll help you," said Martin. + +"Do children play there now?" + +"Children with names as lovely as Sylvia, who are even lovelier than +their names. They are the only spirits who haunt it. And at the source +of it is a mystery so beautiful that one day, when you and I have +discovered it together, we shall never come back again. But this will +be after long years of gladness, and a life kept always young, not only +by our children, but by the child which each will continually +rediscover in the other's heart." + +"What is this you are telling me?" whispered Gillian, hiding her face +again. + +"The Seventh Story." + +"I'm glad it ends happily," said Gillian. "But somehow, all the time, I +thought it would." + +"I rather thought so too," said Martin Pippin. "For what does furniture +matter as long as Sussex grows bedstraw for ladies to sleep on?" + +And tuning his lute he sang her his very last song. + + My Lady sha'n't lie between linen, + My Lady sha'n't lie upon down, + She shall not have blankets to cover her feet + Or a pillow put under her crown; + But my Lady shall lie on the sweetest of beds + That ever a lady saw, + For my Lady, my beautiful Lady, + My Lady shall lie upon straw. + Strew the sweet white straw, he said, + Strew the straw for my Lady's bed-- + Two ells wide from foot to head, + Strew my Lady's bedstraw. + + My Lady sha'n't sleep in a castle, + My Lady sha'n't sleep in a hall, + She shall not be sheltered away from the stars + By curtain or casement or wall; + But my lady shall sleep in the grassiest mead + That ever a Lady saw, + Where my Lady, my beautiful Lady, + My Lady shall lie upon straw. + Strew the warm white straw, said he, + My arms shall all her shelter be, + Her castle-walls and her own roof-tree-- + Strew my Lady's bedstraw. + +When he had done Martin Said, "Will you go traveling, Gillian?" + +And Gillian answered, "With joy, Martin. But before I go traveling, I +will sing to you." + +And taking the lute from him she sang him her very first song. + + I saw an Old Man by the wayside + Sit down with his crutch to rest, + Like the smoke of an angry kettle + Was the beard puffed over his breast. + + But when I tugged at the Old Man's beard + He turned to a beardless boy, + And the boy and myself went traveling, + Traveling wild with joy. + + With eyes that twinkled and hearts that danced + And feet that skipped as they ran-- + Now welcome, you blithe young Traveler! + And fare you well, Old Man! + +When she had done Martin caught her in his arms and kissed her on the +mouth and on the eyes and on both cheeks and on her two hands, and on +the back of the neck where babies are kissed; and standing her up on +the barrel and himself on the ground, he kissed her feet, one after the +other. Then he cried, "Jump, lass! jump when I tell you!" and Gillian +jumped. And as happy as children they ran hand-in-hand out of the +Malthouse and down the road to Hardham. + +Overhead the sun was running away from the clouds with all his might, +and they were trying to catch hold of him one by one, in vain; for he +rolled through their soft grasp, leaving their hands bright with +gold-dust. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard, by +Eleanor Farjeon + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARTIN PIPPIN IN THE APPLE ORCHARD *** + +***** This file should be named 2032.txt or 2032.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/3/2032/ + +Produced by Batsy. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard +by Eleanor Farjeon + + + + +FOREWORD + +I have been asked to introduce Miss Farjeon to the American public, +and although I believe that introductions of this kind often do more +harm than good, I have consented in this case because the instance +is rare enough to justify an exception. If Miss Farjeon had been a +promising young novelist either of the realistic or the romantic +school, I should not have dared to express an opinion on her work, +even if I had believed that she had greater gifts than the +ninety-nine other promising young novelists who appear in the course +of each decade. But she has a far rarer gift than any of those that +go to the making of a successful novelist. She is one of the few who +can conceive and tell a fairy-tale; the only one to my +knowledge--with the just possible exceptions of James Stephens and +Walter de la Mare--in my own generation. She has, in fact, the true +gift of fancy. It has already been displayed in her verse--a form in +which it is far commoner than in prose--but Martin Pippin is her +first book in this kind. + +I am afraid to say too much about it for fear of prejudicing both +the reviewers and the general public. My taste may not be theirs and +in this matter there is no opportunity for argument. Let me, +therefore, do no more than tell the story of how the manuscript +affected me. I was a little overworked. I had been reading a great +number of manuscripts in the preceding weeks, and the mere sight of +typescript was a burden to me. But before I had read five pages of +Martin Pippin, I had forgotten that it was a manuscript submitted +for my judgment. I had forgotten who I was and where I lived. I was +transported into a world of sunlight, of gay inconsequence, of +emotional surprise, a world of poetry, delight, and humor. And I +lived and took my joy in that rare world, until all too soon my +reading was done. + +My most earnest wish is that there may be many minds and +imaginations among the American people who will be able to share +that pleasure with me. For every one who finds delight in this book +I can claim as a kindred spirit. +J. D. Beresford. + + + +CONTENTS + +Foreword +Introduction +Prologue--Part I + Part II + Part III +Prelude to the First Tale +The First Tale: The King's Barn +First Interlude +The Second Tale: Young Gerard +Second Interlude +The Third Tale: The Mill of Dreams +Third Interlude +The Fourth Tale: Open Winkins +Fourth Interlude +The Fifth Tale: Proud Rosalind and the Hart-Royal +Fifth Interlude +The Sixth Tale: The Imprisoned Princess +Postlude--Part I + Part II + Part III + Part IV +Epilogue +Conclusion + + + +INTRODUCTION + +In Adversane in Sussex they still sing the song of The Spring-Green +Lady; any fine evening, in the streets or in the meadows, you may +come upon a band of children playing the old game that is their +heritage, though few of them know its origin, or even that it had +one. It is to them as the daisies in the grass and the stars in the +sky. Of these things, and such as these, they ask no questions. But +there you will still find one child who takes the part of the +Emperor's Daughter, and another who is the Wandering Singer, and the +remaining group (there should be no more than six in it) becomes the +Spring-Green Lady, the Rose-White Lady, the Apple-Gold Lady, of the +three parts of the game. Often there are more than six in the group, +for the true number of the damsels who guarded their fellow in her +prison is as forgotten as their names: Joscelyn, Jane and Jennifer, +Jessica, Joyce and Joan. Forgotten, too, the name of Gillian, the +lovely captive. And the Wandering Singer is to them but the +Wandering Singer, not Martin Pippin the Minstrel. Worse and worse, +he is even presumed to be the captive's sweetheart, who wheedles the +flower, the ring, and the prison-key out of the strict virgins for +his own purposes, and flies with her at last in his shallop across +the sea, to live with her happily ever after. But this is a fallacy. +Martin Pippin never wheedled anything out of anybody for his own +purposes--in fact, he had none of his own. On this adventure he was +about the business of young Robin Rue. There are further +discrepancies; for the Emperor's Daughter was not an emperor's +daughter, but a farmer's; nor was the Sea the sea, but a duckpond; +nor--- + +But let us begin with the children's version, as they sing and dance +it on summer days and evenings in Adversane. + +THE SINGING-GAME OF "THE SPRING-GREEN LADY" + +(The Emperor's Daughter sits weeping in her Tower. Around her, with +their backs to her, stand six maids in a ring, with joined hands. +They are in green dresses. The Wandering Singer approaches them with +his lute.) + +THE WANDERING SINGER +Lady, lady, my spring-green lady, +May I come into your orchard, lady? +For the leaf is now on the apple-bough +And the sun is high and the lawn is shady, + Lady, lady, + My fair lady! + O my spring-green lady! + +THE LADIES +You may not come into our orchard, singer, +Because we must guard the Emperor's Daughter +Who hides in her hair at the windows there +With her thoughts a thousand leagues over the water, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +THE WANDERING SINGER +Lady, lady, my spring-green lady, +But will you not hear an Alba, lady? +I'll play for you now neath the apple-bough +And you shall dance on the lawn so shady, + Lady, lady, + My fair lady, + O my spring-green lady! + +THE LADIES +O if you play us an Alba, singer, +How can that harm the Emperor's Daughter? +No word would she say though we danced all day, +With her thoughts a thousand leagues over the water, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +THE WANDERING SINGER +But if I play you an Alba, lady, +Get me a boon from the Emperor's Daughter-- +The flower from her hair for my heart to wear +Though hers be a thousand leagues over the water, + Lady, lady, + My fair lady, + O my spring-green lady! + +THE LADIES +(They give him the flower from the hair of the Emperor's Daughter, +and sing--) +Now you may play us an Alba, singer, +A dance of dawn for a spring-green lady, +For the leaf is now on the apple-bough, +And the sun is high and the lawn is shady, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +The Wandering Singer plays on his lute, and The Ladies break their +ranks and dance. The Singer steals up behind The Emperor's Daughter, +who uncovers her face and sings--) + +THE EMPEROR'S DAUGHTER +Mother, mother, my fair dead mother, +They have stolen the flower from your weeping daughter! + +THE WANDERING SINGER +O dry your eyes, you shall have this other +When yours is a thousand leagues over the water, + Daughter, daughter, + My sweet daughter! + Love is not far, my daughter! + +The Singer then drops a second flower into the lap of the child in +the middle, and goes away, and this ends the first part of the game. +The Emperor's Daughter is not yet released, for the key of her tower +is understood to be still in the keeping of the dancing children. +Very likely it is bed-time by this, and mothers are calling from +windows and gates, and the children must run home to their warm +bread-and-milk and their cool sheets. But if time is still to spare, +the second part of the game is played like this. The dancers once +more encircle their weeping comrade, and now they are gowned in +white and pink. They will indicate these changes perhaps by colored +ribbons, or by any flower in its season, or by imagining themselves +first in green and then in rose, which is really the best way of +all. Well then-- + +(The Ladies, in gowns of white and rose-color, stand around The +Emperor's Daughter, weeping in her Tower. To them once more comes +The Wandering Singer with his lute.) + +THE WANDERING SINGER +Lady, lady, my rose-white lady, +May I come into your orchard, lady? +For the blossom's now on the apple-bough +And the stars are near and the lawn is shady, + Lady, lady, + My fair lady, + O my rose-white lady! + + THE LADIES +You may not come into our orchard, singer, +Lest you bear a word to the Emperor's Daughter +>From one who was sent to banishment +Away a thousand leagues over the water, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +THE WANDERING SINGER +Lady, lady, my rose-white lady, +But will you not hear a Roundel, lady? +I'll play for you now neath the apple-bough +And you shall trip on the lawn so shady, + Lady, lady, + My fair lady, + O my rose-white lady! + +THE LADIES +O if you play us a Roundel, singer, +How can that harm the Emperor's Daughter? +She would not speak though we danced a week, +With her thoughts a thousand leagues over the water, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +THE WANDERING SINGER +But if I play you a Roundel, lady, +Get me a gift from the Emperor's Daughter-- +Her finger-ring for my finger bring +Though she's pledged a thousand leagues over the water, + Lady, lady + My fair lady, + O my rose-white lady! + +THE LADIES +(They give him the ring from the finger of The Emperor's Daughter, +and sing--) +Now you may play us a Roundel, singer, +A sunset-dance for a rose-white lady, +For the blossom's now on the apple-bough, +And the stars are near and the lawn is shady, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +As before, The Singer plays and The Ladies dance; and through the +broken circle The Singer comes behind The Emperor's Daughter, who +uncovers her face to sing--) + +THE EMPEROR'S DAUGHTER +Mother, mother, my fair dead mother, +They've stolen the ring from your heart-sick daughter. + +THE WANDERING SINGER +O mend your heart, you shall wear this other +When yours is a thousand leagues over the water, + Daughter, daughter, + My sweet daughter! + Love is at hand, my daughter! + +The third part of the game is seldom played. If it is not bed-time, +or tea-time, or dinner-time, or school-time, by this time at all +events the players have grown weary of the game, which is tiresomely +long; and most likely they will decide to play something else, such +as Bertha Gentle Lady, or The Busy Lass, or Gypsy, Gypsy, Raggetty +Loon!, or The Crock of Gold, or Wayland, Shoe me my Mare!--which are +all good games in their way, though not, like The Spring-Green Lady, +native to Adversane. But I did once have the luck to hear and see +The Lady played in entirety--the children had been granted leave to +play "just one more game" before bed-time, and of course they chose +the longest and played it without missing a syllable. + +(The Ladies, in yellow dresses, stand again in a ring about The +Emperor's Daughter, and are for the last time accosted by The Singer +with his lute.) + +THE WANDERING SINGER +Lady, lady, my apple-gold lady, +May I come into your orchard, lady? +For the fruit is now on the apple-bough, +And the moon is up and the lawn is shady, + Lady, lady, + My fair lady, + O my apple-gold lady! + +THE LADIES +You may not come into our orchard, singer, +In case you set free the Emperor's Daughter +Who pines apart to follow her heart +That's flown a thousand leagues over the water, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +THE WANDERING SINGER +Lady, lady, my apple-gold lady, +But will you not hear a Serena, lady? +I'll play for you now neath the apple-bough +And you shall dream on the lawn so shady, + Lady, lady, + My fair lady, + O my apple-gold lady! + +THE LADIES +O if you play a Serena, singer, +How can that harm the Emperor's Daughter? +She would not hear though we danced a year +With her heart a thousand leagues over the water, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +THE WANDERING SINGER +But if I play a Serena, lady, +Let me guard the key of the Emperor's Daughter, +Lest her body should follow her heart like a swallow +And fly a thousand leagues over the water, + Lady, lady, + My fair lady, + O my apple-gold lady! + +THE LADIES +(They give the key of the Tower into his hands.) +Now you may play a Serena, singer, +A dream of night for an apple-gold lady, +For the fruit is now on the apple-bough +And the moon is up and the lawn is shady, + Singer, singer, + Wandering singer, + O my honey-sweet singer! + +(Once more The Singer plays and The Ladies dance; but one by one +they fall asleep to the drowsy music, and then The Singer steps into +the ring and unlocks the Tower and kisses The Emperor's Daughter. +They have the end of the game to themselves.) + +Lover, lover, thy/my own true lover +Has opened a way for the Emperor's Daughter! +The dawn is the goal and the dark the cover +As we sail a thousand leagues over the water-- + Lover, lover, + My dear lover, + O my own true lover! + +(The Wandering Singer and The Emperor's Daughter float a thousand +leagues in his shallop and live happily ever after. I don't know +what becomes of The Ladies.) + +"Bed-time, children!" + +In they go. + +You see the treatment is a trifle fanciful. But romance gathers +round an old story like lichen on an old branch. And the story of +Martin Pippin in the Apple-Orchard is so old now--some say a year +old, some say even two. How can the children be expected to +remember? + +But here's the truth of it. + + + + +MARTIN PIPPIN IN THE APPLE-ORCHARD + + +PROLOGUE +PART I + +One morning in April Martin Pippin walked in the meadows near +Adversane, and there he saw a young fellow sowing a field with oats +broadcast. So pleasant a sight was enough to arrest Martin for an +hour, though less important things, such as making his living, could +not occupy him for a minute. So he leaned upon the gate, and +presently noticed that for every handful he scattered the young man +shed as many tears as seeds, and now and then he stopped his sowing +altogether, and putting his face between his hands sobbed bitterly. +When this had happened three or four times, Martin hailed the youth, +who was then fairly close to the gate. + +"Young master!" said he. "The baker of this crop will want no salt +to his baking, and that's flat." + +The young man dropped his hands and turned his brown and +tear-stained countenance upon the Minstrel. He was so young a man +that he wanted his beard. + +"They who taste of my sorrow," he replied, "will have no stomach for +bread." + +And with that he fell anew to his sowing and sighing, and passed up +the field. + +When he came down again Martin observed, "It must be a very bitter +sorrow that will put a man off his dinner." + +"It is the bitterest," said the youth, and went his way. + +At his next coming Martin inquired, "What is the name of your +sorrow?" + +"Love," said the youth. By now he was somewhat distant from the gate +when he came abreast of it, and Martin Pippin did not catch the +word. So he called louder: + +"What?" + +"Love!" shouted the youth. His voice cracked on it. He appeared +slightly annoyed. Martin chewed a grass and watched him up and down +the meadow. + +At the right moment he bellowed: + +"I was never yet put off my feed by love." + +"Then," roared the youth, "you have never loved." + +At this Martin jumped over the gate and ran along the furrow behind +the boy. + +"I have loved," he vowed, "as many times as I have tuned lute-strings." + +"Then," said the youth, not turning his head, "you have never loved +in vain." + +"Always, thank God!" said Martin fervently. + +The youth, whose name was Robin Rue, suddenly dropped all his seed +in one heap, flung up his arms, and, + +"Alas!" he cried. "Oh, Gillian! Gillian!" And began to sob more +heavily than ever. + +"Tell me your trouble," said the Minstrel kindly. + +"Sir," said the youth, "I do not know your name, and your clothes +are very tattered. But you are the first who has cared whether or no +my heart should break since my lovely Gillian was locked with six +keys into her father's Well-House, and six young milkmaids, sworn +virgins and man-haters all, to keep the keys." + +"The thirsty," said Martin, "make little of padlocks when within a +rope's length of water." + +"But, sir," continued the youth earnestly, "this Well-House is set +in the midst of an Apple-Orchard enclosed in a hawthorn hedge full +six feet high, and no entrance thereto but one small green wicket, +bolted on the inner side." + +"Indeed?" said Martin. + +"And worse to come. The length of the hedge there is a great +duckpond, nine yards broad, and three wild ducks swimming on it. +Alas!" he cried, "I shall never see my lovely girl again!" + +"Love is a mighty power," said Martin Pippin, "but there are +doubtless things it cannot do." + +"I ask so little," sighed Robin Rue. "Only to send her a primrose +for her hair-band, and have again whatever flower she wears there +now." + +"Would this really content you?" said Martin Pippin. + +"I would then consent to live," swore Robin Rue, "long enough at all +events to make an end of my sowing." + +"Well, that would be something," said Martin cheerfully, "for fields +must not go fallow that are appointed to bear. Direct me to your +Gillian's Apple-Orchard." + +"It is useless," Robin said. "For even if you could cross the +duckpond, and evade the ducks, and compass the green gate, my +sweetheart's father's milkmaids are not to be come over by any man; +and they watch the Well-House day and night." + +"Yet direct me to the orchard," repeated Martin Pippin, and thrummed +his lute a little. + +"Oh, sir," said Robin anxiously, "I must warn you that it is a long +and weary way, it may be as much as two mile by the road." And he +looked disconsolately at the Minstrel, as though in fear that he +would be discouraged from the adventure. + +"It can but be attempted," answered Martin, "and now tell me only +whether I go north or south as the road runs." + +"Gillman the farmer, her father," said Robin Rue, "has moreover a +very big stick--" + +"Heaven help us!" cried Martin, and took to his heels. + +"That ends it!" sighed the sorry lover. + +"At least let us make a beginning!" quoth Martin Pippin. + +He leaped the gate, mocked at a cuckoo, plucked a primrose, and went +singing up the road. + +Robin Rue resumed his sowing and his tears. + + +"Maids," said Joscelyn, "what is this coming across the duckpond?" + +"It is a man," said little Joan. + +The six girls came running and crowding to the wicket, standing +a-tiptoe and peeping between each other's sunbonnets. Their +sunbonnets and their gowns were as green as lettuce-leaves. + +"Is he coming on a raft?" asked Jessica, who stood behind. + +"No," said Jane, "he is coming on his two feet. He has taken off his +shoes, but I fear his breeches will suffer." + +"He is giving bread to the ducks," said Jennifer. + +"He has a lute on his back," said Joyce. + +"Man!" cried Joscelyn, who was the tallest and the sternest of the +milkmaids, "go away at once!" + +Martin Pippin was by now within arm's-length of the green gate. He +looked with pleasure at the six virgins fluttering in their green +gowns, and peeping bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked under their green +bonnets. Beyond them he saw the forbidden orchard, with +cuckoo-flower and primrose, daffodil and celandine, silver +windflower and sweet violets blue and white, spangling the gay +grass. The twisted apple-trees were in young leaf. + +"Go away!" cried all the milkmaids in a breath. "Go away!" + +"My green maidens," said Martin, "may I not come into your orchard? +The sun is up, and the shadow lies fresh on the grass. Let me in to +rest a little, dear maidens--if maidens indeed you be, and not six +leaflets blown from the apple-branches." + +"You cannot come in," said Joscelyn, "because we are guarding our +master's daughter, who sits yonder weeping in the Well-House." + +"That is a noble and a tender duty," said Martin. "From what do you +guard her?" + +The milkmaids looked primly at one another, and little Joan said, +"It is a secret." + +Martin: I will ask no more. And what do you do all day long? + +Joyce: Nothing, and it is very dull. + +Martin: It must be still duller for your master's daughter. + +Joan: Oh, no, she has her thoughts to play with. + +Martin: And what of your thoughts? + +Joscelyn: We have no thoughts. I should think not indeed! + +Martin: I beg your pardon. But since you find the hours so tedious, +will you not let me sing and play to you upon my lute? I will sing +you a song for a spring morning, and you shall dance in the grass +like any leaf in the wind. + +Jane: I think there can be no harm in that. + +Jessica: It can't matter a straw to Gillian. + +Joyce: She would not look up from her thoughts though we footed it +all day. + +Joscelyn: So long as he is on one side of the gate-- + +Jennifer: --and we on the other. + +"I love to dance," said little Joan. + +"Man!" cried the milkmaids in a breath, "play and sing to us!" + +"Oh, maidens," answered Martin merrily, "every tune deserves its +fee. But don't look so troubled--my hire shall be of the lightest. +Let me see! You shall fetch me the flower from the hair of your +little mistress who sits weeping on the coping with her face hidden +in her shining locks." + +At this the milkmaids clapped their hands, and little Joan, running +to the Well-House, with a touch like thistledown drew from the +weeper's yellow hair a yellow primrose. She brought it to the gate +and laid it in Martin's hand. + +"Now you will play for us, won't you?" said she. "A dance for a +spring-morning when the leaves dance on the apple-trees." + +Then Martin tuned his lute and played and sang as follows, while the +girls took hands and danced in a green chain among the twisty trees. + +The green leaf dances now, +The green leaf dances now, +The green leaf with its tilted wings +Dances on the bough, +And every rustling air +Says, I've caught you, caught you, +Leaf with tilted wings, +Caught you in a snare! +Whose snare? Spring's, +That bound you to the bough +Where you dance now, +Dance, but cannot fly, +For all your tilted wings +Pointing to the sky; +Where like martins you would dart +But for Spring's delicious art +That caught you to the bough, +Caught, yet left you free +To dance if not to fly--oh see! +As you are dancing now, +Dancing on the bough, +Dancing on the bough, +Dancing with your tilted wings +On the apple-bough. + +Now as Martin sang and the milkmaids danced, it seemed that Gillian +in her prison heard and saw nothing except the music and the +movement of her sorrows. But presently she raised her hand and +touched her hair-band, and then she lifted up the fairest face +Martin had ever seen, so that he needs must see it nearer; and he +took the green gate in one stride, and the green dancers never +observed him. Then Gillian's tender mouth parted like an opening +quince-blossom, and-- + +"Oh, Mother, Mother!" she said, "if you had only lived they would +not have stolen the flower from my hair while I sat weeping." + +Above her head a whispering voice made answer, "Oh, Daughter, +Daughter, dry your sweet eyes. You shall wear this other flower when +yours is gone over the duckpond to Adversane." + +And lo! A second primrose dropped out of the skies into her lap. And +that day the lovely Gillian wept no more. + + + +PART II + +It happened that on an afternoon in May Martin Pippin passed again +through Adversane, and as he passed he thought, "Now certainly I +have been here before," but he could not remember when or how, for a +full month had run under the bridges of time since then, and man's +memory is not infinite. + +But in walking by a certain garden he heard a sound of sobbing; and +curiosity, of which he was largely made, caused him to climb the old +brick wall that he might discover the cause. What he saw from his +perch was a garden laid out in neat plots between grassy walks edged +with double daisies, red, white and pink, or bordered with sweet +herbs, or with lavender and wallflower; and here and there were +cordons of fruit-trees, apple, plum and cherry, and in a sunny +corner a clump of flowering currant heavy with humming bees; and +against the inner walls flat pear-trees stretched their long +straight lines, like music-staves whereon a lovely melody was +written in notes of snow. And in the midst of all this stood a very +young man with a face as brown as a berry. He was spraying the +cordons with quassia-water. But whenever he filled his syringe he +wept so many tears above the bucket that it was always full to the +brim. + +When he had watched this happen several times, Martin hailed the +young man. + +"Young master!" said Martin, "the eater of your plums will need +sugar thereto, and that's flat." + +The young man turned his eyes upward. + +"There is not sugar enough in all the world," he answered, "to +sweeten the fruits that are watered by my sorrows." + +"Then here is a waste of good quassia," said Martin, "and I think +your name is Robin Rue." + +"It is," said Robin, "and you are Martin Pippin, to whom I owe more +than to any man living. But the primrose you brought me is dead this +five-and-twenty days." + +"And what of your Gillian?" + +"Alas! How can I tell what of her? She is where she was and I am +here where I am. What will become of me?" + +"There are riddles without answers," observed Martin. + +"I can answer this one. I shall fall into a decline and die. And yet +I ask no more than to send her a ring to wear on her finger, and +have her ring to wear on mine." + +"Would this satisfy you?" asked Martin. + +"I could then cling to life," said Robin Rue, "long enough at least +to finish my spraying." + +"We may praise God as much for small mercies," said Martin +pleasantly, "as for great ones; and trees must not be blighted that +were appointed to fruit." + +So saying, he unstraddled his legs and dropped into the road, +tickled an armadillo with his toe, twirled the silver ring on his +finger, and went away singing. + + +"Maidens," said Joscelyn, "here is that man come again." + +Maids' memories are longer than men's. At all events, the milkmaids +knew instantly to whom she referred, although nearly a month had +passed since his coming. + +"Has he his lute with him?" asked little Joan. + +"He has. And he is giving cake to the ducks; they take it from his +hand. Man, go away immediately!" + +Martin Pippin propped his elbows on the little gate, and looked +smiling into the orchard, all pink and white blossom. The trees that +had been longest in bloom were white cascades of flower, others +there were flushed like the cheek of a sleeping child, and some were +still studded with rose-red buds. The grass was high and full of +spotted orchis, and tall wild parsley spread its nets of lace almost +abreast of the lowest boughs of blossom. So that the milkmaids stood +embraced in meeting flowers, waist-deep in the orchard growth: all +gowned in pink lawn with loose white sleeves, and their faces +flushed it may have been with the pink linings to their white +bonnets, or with the evening rose in the west, or with I know not +what. + +"Go away!" they cried at the intruder. "Go away!" + +"My rose-white maidens," said Martin, "will you not let me into your +orchard? For the stars are rising with the dew, and the hour is at +peace. Let me in to rest, dear maidens--if maidens indeed you be, +and not six blossoms fallen from the apple-boughs." + +"You cannot come in," said Joscelyn, "lest you are the bearer of a +word to our master's daughter who sits weeping in the Well-House." + +"From whom should I bear her a word?" asked Martin Pippin in great +amazement. + +The milkmaids cast down their eyes, and little Joan said, "It is a +secret." + +Martin: I will inquire no further. But shall I not play a little on +my lute? It is as good an hour for song and dance as any other, and +I will make a tune for a sunny May evening, and you shall sway among +the grasses like any flower on the bough." + +Jane: In my opinion that can hurt nobody. + +Jessica: Gillian wouldn't care two pins. + +Joyce: She would utter no word though we tripped it for a week. + +Joscelyn: So long as he keeps to his side of the hedge-- + +Jennifer: --and we to ours. + +"Oh, I do love to dance!" cried little Joan. + +"Man!" they commanded him as one voice, "play and sing to us +instantly!" + +"My pretty ones," laughed Martin Pippin, "songs are as light as air, +but worth more than pearls and diamonds. What will you give me for +my song? Wait, now!--I have it. You shall fetch me the ring from the +finger of your little mistress, who sits hidden beneath the fountain +of her own bright tresses." + +The milkmaids at these words nodded gayly, and little Joan tip-toed +to the Well-House, and slipped the ring from Gillian's finger as +lightly as a daisy may be slipped from its fellow on the chain. Then +she ran with it to the gate, and Martin held up his little finger, +and she put it on, saying: + +"Now you will keep your promise, honey-sweet singer, and play a +dance for a May evening when the blossom blows for happiness on the +apple-trees." + +So Martin Pippin tuned his lute and sang what follows, while the +girls floated in ones and twos among the orchard grass: + +A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating? +Fairy ships rocking with pink sails and white +Smoothly as swans on a river of light +Saw I a-floating? +No, it was apple-bloom, rosy and fair, +Softly obeying the nod of the air +I saw a-floating. +A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating? +White clouds at eventide blown to and fro +Lightly as bubbles the cherubim blow, +Saw I a-floating? +No, it was pretty girls gowned like a flower +Blown in a ring round their own apple-bower +I saw a-floating. +Or was it my dream, my dream only--who knows?-- +As frail as a snowflake, as flushed as a rose, +I saw a-floating? +A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating? + +Martin sang, and the milkmaids danced, and Gillian in her prison +only heard the dropping of her tears, and only saw the rainbow +prisms on her lashes. But presently she laid her cheek against her +hand, and missed a touch she knew; and on that revealed her lovely +face so full of woe, that Martin needs must comfort her or weep +himself. And the dancers took no heed when he made one step across +the gate and went under the trees to the Well-House. + +"Oh, Mother, Mother!" sighed Gillian, "if you had only lived they +would never have stolen the ring from my finger while I sat +heartsick." + +Above her head a whispering voice replied, "Oh, Daughter, Daughter, +mend your dear heart! You shall wear this other ring when yours is +gone over the duckpond to Adversane." + +Oh wonder! Out of the very heavens fell a silver ring into her +bosom. And if that night Gillian slept not, neither wept she. + + + +PART III + +In the beginning of the first week in September Martin Pippin came +once more to Adversane, and he said to himself when he saw it: + +"Now this is the prettiest hamlet I ever had the luck to light on in +my wanderings. And if chance or fortune will, I shall some day come +this way again." + +While he was thinking these thoughts, his ears were assailed by +groans and sighs, so that he wet his finger and held it up to find +which way the wind blew on this burning day of blue and gold. But no +wind coming, he sought some other agency for these gusts, and +discovered it in a wheat-field where was a young fellow stooking +sheaves. A very young fellow he was, turned copper by the sun; and +as he stooked he heaved such sighs that for every shock he stooked +two tumbled at his feet. When Martin had seen this happen more than +once he called aloud to the harvester. + +"Young master!" said Martin, "the mill that grinds your grain will +need no wind to its sails, and that's flat." + +The young man looked up from his labors to reply. + +"There are no mill-stones in all the world," said he, "strong enough +to grind the grain of my grief." + +"Then I would save these gales till they may be put to more use," +remarked Martin, "and if I remember rightly you wear a lady's ring +on your little finger, though I cannot remember her name or yours." + +"Her heavenly name is Gillian," said the youth, "and mine is Robin +Rue." + +"And are you wedded yet?" asked Martin. + +"Wedded?" he cried. "Have you forgotten that she is locked with six +keys inside her father's Well-House?" + +"But this was long ago," said Martin. "Is she there yet?" + +"She is," said Robin Rue, "and here am I." + +"Well, all states must end some time," said Martin Pippin. + +"Even life, sighed Robin, "and therefore before the month is out I +shall wilt and be laid in the earth." + +"That would be a pity," said Martin. "Can nothing save you?" + +"Nothing but the keys to her prison, and they are in the keeping of +them that will not give them up." + +"I remember," said Martin. "Six milkmaids." + +"With hearts of flint!" cried Robin. + +"Sparks may be struck from flint," said Martin, in his +inconsequential way. "But tell me, if Gillian's prison were indeed +unlocked, would all be well with you for ever?" + +"Oh," said Robin Rue, "if her prison were unlocked and the prisoner +in these arms, this wheat should be flour for a wedding-cake." + +"It is the best of all cakes," said Martin Pippin, "and the grain +that is destined thereto must not rot in the husk." + +With these words he strolled out of the cornfield, gathered a +harebell, rang it so loudly in the ear of a passing rabbit that it +is said never to have stopped running till it found itself in +France, and went up the road humming and thrumming his lute. + +On the road he met a Gypsy. + + +"Maids," said Joscelyn, "somebody is at the gate." + +The milkmaids, who were eating apples, came clustering about her +instantly. + +"Is it a man?" asked little Joan, pausing between her bites. + +"No, thank all our stars," said Joscelyn, "it is a gypsy." + +The milkmaids withdrew, their fears allayed. Joan bit her apple and +said, "It puckers my mouth." + +Joyce: Mine's sour. + +Jessica: Mine's hard. + +Jane: Mine's bruised. + +Jennifer: There's a maggot in mine. + +They threw their apples away. + +"Who'll buy trinkets?" said the Gypsy at the gate. + +"What have you to sell?" asked Joscelyn. + +"Knick-knacks and gew-gaws of all sorts. Rings and ribbons, mirrors +and beads, silken shoe-strings and colored lacings, sweetmeats and +scents and gilded pins; silver buckles, belts and bracelets, gay +kerchiefs, spotted ones, striped ones; ivory bobbins, sprigs of +coral, and sea-shells from far places, they'll murmur you secrets o' +nights if you put em under your pillow; here are patterns for +patchwork, and here's a sheet of ballads, and here's a pack of cards +for telling fortunes. What will ye buy? A dream-book, a crystal, a +charmed powder that shall make you see your sweetheart in the dark?" + +"Oh!" six voices cried in one. + +"Or this other powder shall charm him to love you, if he love you +not?" + +"Fie!" exclaimed Joscelyn severely. "We want no love-charms." + +"I warrant you!" laughed the Gypsy. "What will ye buy?" + +Jennifer: I'll have this flasket of scent. + +Joyce: I'll have this looking-glass. + +Jessica: And I this necklet of beads. + +Jane: A pair of shoe-buckles, if you please. + +Joan: This bunch of ribbons for me. + +Joscelyn: Have you a corset-lace of yellow silk? + +The Gypsy: Here's for you and you. No love-charms, no. Here's for +you and you and you. I warrant, no love-charms! Ay, I've a yellow +lace, twill keep you in as tight as jealousy, my pretty. Out upon +all love-charms!--And what will she have that sits crouched in the +Well-House? + +"Oh, Gypsy!" cried Joscelyn, "have you among your charms one that +will make a maid fall OUT of love?" + +"Nay, nay," said the Gypsy, growing suddenly grave. "That is a charm +takes more black art than I am mistress of. I know indeed of but one +remedy. Is the case so bad?" + +"She has been shut into the Well-House to cure her of loving," said +Joscelyn, "and in six months she has scarcely ceased to weep, and +has never uttered a word. If you know the physic that shall heal her +of her foolishness, I pray you tell us of it. For it is extremely +dull in this orchard, with nothing to do except watch the changes of +the apple-trees, and meanwhile the farmstead lacks water and milk, +there being no entry to the well nor maids to milk the cows. Daily +comes Old Gillman to tell us how, from morning till night, he is +forced to drink cider and ale, and so the farm goes to rack and +ruin, and all because he has a lovesick daughter. What is your +remedy? He would give you gold and silver for it." + +"I do not know if it can be bought," said the Gypsy, "I do not even +know if it exists. But when a maid broods too much on her own +love-tale, the like weapons only will vanquish her thoughts. Nothing +but a new love-tale will overcome her broodings, and where the case +is obstinate one only will not suffice. You say she has pined upon +her love six months. Let her be told six brand-new love-tales, tales +which no woman ever heard before, and I think she will be cured. +These counter-poisons will so work in her that little by little her +own case will be obliterated from her blood. But for my part I doubt +whether there be six untold love-tales left on earth, and if there +be I know not who keeps them buttoned under his jacket." + +"Alas!" cried Joscelyn, "then we must stay here for ever until we +die." + +"It looks very like it," said the Gypsy, "and my wares are a penny +apiece." + +So saying she collected her moneys and withdrew, and for all I know +was never seen again by man, woman, or child. + + +My apple-gold maidens," said Martin Pippin, leaning on the gate in +the bright night, "may I come into your orchard?" + +As he addressed them he gazed with delight at the enclosure. By the +light of the Queen Moon, now at her full in heaven, he saw that the +orchard grass was clipped, and patterned with small clover, but +against the hedges rose wild banks of meadow-sweet and yarrow and +the jolly ragwort, and briony with its heart-shaped leaf and berry +as red as heart's-blood made a bower above them all. And all the +apple-trees were decked with little golden moons hanging in clusters +on the drooping boughs, and glimmering in the recesses of the +leaves. Under each tree a ring of windfalls lay in the grass. But +prettiest sight of all was the ring of girls in yellow gowns and +caps, that lay around the midmost apple-tree like fallen fruit. + +"Dear maidens," pleaded the Minstrel, "let me come in." + +At the sound of his voice the six milkmaids rose up in the grass +like golden fountains. And fountains indeed they were, for their +eyes were running over with tears. + +"We did not hear you coming," said little Joan. + +"Go away at once!" commanded Joscelyn. + +Then all the girls cried "Go away!" together. + +"My apple-gold maidens," said Martin Pippin, "I entreat you to let +me in. For the moon is up, and it is time to be sleeping or waking, +in sweet company. So I beseech you to admit me, dear maidens--if +maidens in truth you be, and not six apples bobbed off their stems." + +"You may not come in," said Joscelyn, "in case you should release +our master's daughter, who sits in the Well-House pining to follow +her heart." + +"Why, whither would she follow it?" asked Martin much surprised. + +The milkmaids turned their faces away, and little Joan murmured, "It +is a secret." + +Martin: I will put chains on my thoughts. But shall I not sing you a +tune you may dance to? I will make you a song for an August night, +when the moon rocks her way up and down the cradle of the sky, and +you shall rock on earth like any apple on the twig. + +Jane: For my part, I see nothing against it. + +Jessica: Gillian won't care little apples. + +Joyce: She would not hear though we danced the round of the year. + +Joscelyn: So long as he does not come in-- + +Jennifer: --or we go out. + +"Oh, let us dance, do let us dance!" cried little Joan. + +"Man," they importuned him in a single breath, "play for us and sing +for us, as quickly as you can!" + +"Sweet ones," said Martin Pippin, shaking his head, "songs must be +paid for. And yet I do not know what to ask you, some trifle in kind +it should be. Why, now, I have it! If I give you the keys to the +dance, give me the keys to your little mistress, that I may keep her +secure from following her heart like a bird of passage, whither it's +no business of mine to ask." + +At this request, made so gayly and so carelessly, the girls all +looked at one another in consternation. Then Joscelyn drew herself +up to full height, and pointing with her arm straight across the +duckpond she cried: + +"Minstrel, begone!" + +And the six girls, turning their backs upon him, moved away into the +shadows of the moon. + +"Well-a-day!" sighed Martin Pippin, "how a fool may trip and never +know it till his nose hits the earth. I will sing to you for +nothing." + +But the girls did not answer. + +Then Martin touched his lute and sang as follows, so softly and +sweetly that they, not regarding, hardly knew the sound of his song +from the heavy-sweet scent of the ungathered apples over their +heads. + +Toss me your golden ball, laughing maid, lovely maid, +Lovely maid, laughing maid, toss me your ball! +I'll catch it and throw it, and hide it and show it, +And spin it to heaven and not let it fall. +Boy, run away with you! I will not play with you-- + This is no ball! +We are too old to be playing at ball. + +Toss me the golden sun, laughing maid, lovely maid, +Lovely maid, laughing maid, toss me the sun! +I'll wheel it, I'll whirl it, I'll twist it and twirl it +Till cocks crow at midnight and day breaks at one. +Boy, I'll not sport with you! Boy, to be short with you, + This is no sun! +We are too young to play tricks with the sun. + +Toss me your golden toy, laughing maid, lovely maid, +Lovely maid, laughing maid, toss me your toy! +It's all one to me, girl, whatever it be, girl +So long as it's round that's enough for a boy. +Boy, come and catch it then!--there now! Don't snatch it then! + Here comes your toy! +Apples were made for a girl and a boy. + +There was no sound or movement from the girls in the shadows. + +"Farewell, then," said Martin. "I must carry my tunes and tales +elsewhere." + +Like pebbles from a catapult the milkmaids shot to the gate. + +"Tales?" cried Jessica. + +"Do you know tales?" exclaimed Jennifer. + +"What kind of tales?" demanded Jane. + +"Love-tales?" panted Joyce. + +"Six of them?" urged little Joan. + +"A thousand!" said Martin Pippin. + +Joscelyn's hand lay on the bolt. + +"Man," she said, "come in." + +She opened the wicket, and Martin Pippin walked into the Apple +Orchard. + + + +PRELUDE TO THE FIRST TALE + +"And now," said Martin Pippin, "what exactly do you require of me?" + +"If you please," said little Joan, "you are to tell us a love-story +that has never been told before." + +"But we have reason to fear," added Jane, "that there is no such +story left in all the world." + +"There you are wrong," said Martin, "for on the contrary no love-story +has ever been told twice. I never heard any tale of lovers +that did not seem to me as new as the world on its first morning. I +am glad you have a taste for love-stories." + +"We have not," said Joscelyn, very quickly. + +"No, indeed!" cried her five fellows. + +"Then shall it be some other kind of tale?" + +"No other kind will do," said Joscelyn, still more quickly. + +"We must all bear our burdens," said Martin; "so let us make +ourselves as happy as we can in an apple-tree, and when the tale +becomes too little to your taste you shall munch apples and forget +it." + +"Will you sit in the swing?" asked Jennifer, pointing to the midmost +apple-tree, which was the largest in the orchard, and had a little +swing hanging from a long upper limb. + +Close to the apple-tree, a branch of which indeed brushed its mossed +pent-roof, stood the Well-House. It had a round wall of old red +bricks growing green with time, and a pillar of oak rose up at each +point of the compass to support the pent. Between the south and west +pillars was a green door, held by a rusty chain and a padlock with +six keyholes. The little circular court within was flagged, and +three rings of worn steps led to the well-head and the green wooden +bucket inverted on the coping. Between the cracks of the flags +sprang grass, and pink-starred centaury, and even a trail of mallow +sprawled over the steps where Gillian lay in tears, as though to +wreathe her head with its striped blooms. + +"What luck you have," said Martin, "not only to live in an orchard, +but to have a swing to swing in." + +"It is our one diversion," said Joyce, "except when you come to play +to us." + +"It is delightful to swing," said little Joan invitingly. + +"So it is," agreed Martin, "and I beg you to sit in the swing while +I sit on this bough, and when I see your eyelids growing heavy with +my tale I will start the rope and rouse you--thus!" + +So saying, he lifted the littlest milkmaid lightly into her perch +and gave her so vigorous a push that she cried out with delight, as +at one moment the point of her shoe cleared the door of the Well-House, +and at the next her heels were up among the apples. Then +Martin ensconced himself upon a lower limb of the tree, which had a +mossy cushion against the trunk as though nature or time had +designed it for a teller of tales. The milkmaids sprang quickly into +other branches around him, shaking a hail of sweet apples about his +head. What he could he caught, and dropped into the swinger's lap, +whence from time to time he helped himself; and she did likewise. + +"Begin," said Joscelyn. + +"A thought has occurred to me," said Martin Pippin, "and it is that +my tale may disturb your master's daughter." + +"We desire it to," said Joscelyn looking down on the Well-House and +the yellow head of Gillian. "The fear is rather that you may not +arouse her attention, so I hope that when you speak you will speak +clearly. For to tell you the truth we have heard that nothing but +six love-tales will wash from her mind the image of--" + +"Of whom?" inquired Martin as she paused. + +"It does not matter whom," said Joscelyn, "but I think the time is +ripe to confess to you that the silly damsel is in love." + +"The world is so full of wonders," said Martin Pippin, "that one +ceases to be surprised at almost anything." + +"Is love then," said little Joan, "so rare a thing in the world?" + +"The rarest of all things," answered Martin, looking gravely into +her eyes. "It is as rare as flowers in Spring." + +"I am glad of that," said Joan; while Joscelyn objected, "But +nothing is commoner." + +"Do you think so?" said Martin. "Perhaps you are right. Yet Spring +after Spring the flowers quicken my heart as though I were +perceiving them for the first time in my life--yes, even the very +commonest of them." + +"What do you call the commonest?" asked Jessica. + +"Could any be commoner," said Martin, "than Robin-run-by-the-Wall? +Yet I think he has touched many a heart in his day." + +And fixing his eyes on the weeper in the Well-House, Martin Pippin +tried his lute and sang this song. + +Run by the wall, Robin, +Run by the wall! +You might hear a secret +A lady once let fall. +If you hear her secret +Tell it in my ear, +And I'll whisper you another +For her to overhear. + +The weeper stirred very slightly. + +"The song makes little sense," said Joscelyn, "and would make none +at all if you called this flower by its right name of Jack-in-the-Hedge." + +"Let us do so," said Martin readily, "and then the nonsense will run +this way as easily as that." + +Hide in the hedge, Jack, +Hide in the hedge! +You might catch a letter +Dropped over the edge. +If you catch her letter +Slip it in my hand, +And I'll write another +That she'll understand. + +As he concluded, Gillian lifted up her head, and putting her hair +from her face gazed over the duckpond beyond the green wicket. + +"The lady," said Joscelyn with some impatience, "who understand the +letter must outdo me in wits, for I find no understanding whatever +in your silly song. However, it seems to have brought our master's +daughter out of her lethargy, and the moment is favorable to your +tale. Therefore without further ado I beg you to begin." + +"I will," said Martin, "and on my part entreat your forbearance +while I relate to you the story of The King's Barn." + + + +THE KING'S BARN + +There was once, dear maidens, a King in Sussex of whose kingdom and +possessions nothing remained but a single Barn and a change of +linen. It was no fault of his. He was a very young king when he came +into his heritage, and it was already dwindled to these proportions. +Once his fathers had owned a beautiful city on the banks of the +Adur, and all the lands to the north and the west were theirs, for a +matter of several miles indeed, including many strange things that +were on them: such as the Wapping Thorp, the Huddle Stone, the Bush +Hovel where a Wise Woman lived, and the Guess Gate; likewise those +two communities known as the Doves and the Hawking Sopers, whose +ways of life were as opposite as the Poles. The Doves were simple +men, and religious; but the Hawking Sopers were indeed a wild and +rowdy crew, and it is said that the King's father had hunted and +drunk with them until his estates were gambled away and his affairs +decayed of neglect, and nothing was left at last but the solitary +Barn which marked the northern boundary of his possessions. And +here, when his father was dead, our young King sat on a tussock of +hay with his golden crown on his head and his golden scepter in his +hand, and ate bread and cheese thrice a day, throwing the rind to +the rats and the crumbs to the swallows. His name was William, and +beyond the rats and the swallows he had no other company than a nag +called Pepper, whom he fed daily from the tussock he sat on. + +But at the end of a week he said: + +"It is a dull life. What should a King do in a Barn?" + +So saying, he pulled the last handful of hay from under him, rising +up quickly before he had time to fall down, and gave it to his nag; +and next he tied up his scepter and crown with his change of linen +in a blue handkerchief; and last he fetched a rope and a sack and +put them on Pepper for bridle and saddle, and rode out of the Barn +leaving the door to swing. + +"Let us go south, Pepper," said he, "for it is warmer to ride into +the sun than away from it, and so we shall visit my Father's lands +that might have been mine." + +South they went, with the great Downs ahead of them, and who knew +what beyond? And first they came to the Hawking Sopers, who when +they saw William approaching tumbled out of their dwelling with a +great racket, crying to him to come and drink and play with them. + +"Not I," said he. "For so I should lose my Barn to you, and such as +it is it is a shelter, and my only one. But tell me, if you can, +what should a King do in a Barn?" + +"He should dance in it," said they, and went laughing and singing +back to their cups. + +"What sort of advice is this, Pepper?" said the King. "Shall we try +elsewhere?" + +The nag whinnied with unusual vehemence, and the King, taking this +for yea, and not observing that she limped as she went, rode on to +the Doves: the gentle gray-gowned Brothers who spent their days in +pious works and their nights in meditation. Between the twelve hours +of twilight and dawn they were pledged not to utter speech, but the +King arriving there at noon they welcomed him with kind words, and +offered him a bowl of rice and milk. + +He thanked them, and when he had eaten and drink put to them his +riddle. + +"What should a King do in a Barn?" + +They answered, "He should pray in it." + +"This may be good advice," said the King. "Pepper, should we go +further?" + +The little nag whinnied till her sides shook, which the King took, +as before, to be an affirmative. However, because it was Sunday he +remained with the Doves a day and a night, and during such time as +their lips were not sealed they urged him to become one of them, and +found a new settlement of Brothers in his Barn. He spent his night +in reflection, but by morning had come to no decision. + +"To what better use could you dedicate it?" asked the Chief Brother, +who was known as the Ringdove because he was the leader. + +"None that I can think of," said the King, "but I fear I am not good +enough." + +"When you have passed our initiation," said the Ringdove, "you will +be." + +"Is it difficult?" asked William. + +"No, it is very easy, and can be accomplished within a month. You +have only to ride south till you come to the hills, on the highest +of which you will see a Ring of beech-trees. Under the hills lies +the little village of Washington, and there you may dwell in comfort +through the week. But on each of the four Saturdays of the lunar +month you must mount the hill at sunset and keep a vigil among the +beeches till sunrise. And you must see that these Saturdays occur on +the fourth quarters of the moon--once when she is in her crescent, +once at the half, again at the full, and lastly when she is waning." + +"And is this all?" said William. "It sounds very simple." + +"Not quite all, but the rest is nearly as simple. You have but to +observe four rules. First, to tell no living soul of your resolve +during the month of initiation. Second, to keep your vigil always +between the two great beeches in the middle of the Ring. Third, to +issue forth at midnight and immerse your head in the Dewpond which +lies on the hilltop to the west, and having done so to return to +your watch between the trees. And fourth, to make no utterance on +any account whatever from sunset to sunrise." + +"Suppose I should sneeze?" inquired the King anxiously. + +"There's no supposing about it," said the Ringdove. "Sneezing, +seeing that your head will be extremely wet, is practically +inevitable. But the rule applies only to such utterance as lies +within human control. When the fourth vigil has been successfully +accomplished, return to us for a blessing and the gray robe of our +Order." + +"But how," asked the King, "during my vigils shall I know when +midnight is due?" + +"In the third quarter after eleven a bird sings. At the beginning of +its song go forth from the Ring, and at the ending plunge your head +into the Pond. For on these nights the bird sings ceaselessly for +fifteen minutes, but stops at the very moment of midnight." + +"And is this really all?" + +"This is all." + +"How easy it is to become good," said William cheerfully. "I will +begin at once." + +So impatient was he to become a Brother Dove-- + + +(But here Martin Pippin broke off abruptly, and catching the rope of +the swing in his left hand he gave it a great lurch. + +Joan: Oh! Oh! Oh! + +Martin: I perceive, Mistress Joan, that you lose interest in my +story. Your mouth droops. + +Joan: Oh, no! Oh, no! It is only--it is a very nice story--but-- + +Martin: What cannot be said aloud can frequently be whispered. + +He leaned his ear close to her mouth, and very shyly she whispered +into it. + +Joan (whispering very shyly): Why must the young King join a +Brotherhood? I thought...this was to be a...love story. + +Martin smiled and chose an apple from her lap. + +"Keep this for me," said he, "until I ask for it; and if you are not +then satisfied, neither will I be") + + +So impatient (resumed Martin) was the King to enter the Brotherhood, +that he abandoned his idea of visiting the Huddle Stone and the +Wapping Thorp (which would have taken him out of his course), and, +without even waiting to break his fast, leaped on to Pepper's back +and turned her head southwest towards the hills. And in his +eagerness he failed to remark how Pepper stumbled at every second +step. Before he had gone a mile he came to the Guess Gate. + +Of the Guess Gate, as you may know, all men ask a question in +passing through, and in the back-swing of the Gate it creaks an +answer. So nothing more natural than that the King, having flung the +Gate open, should cry aloud once more: + +"Gate, Gate! What should a King do in a Barn?" + +"Now at last," thought he, "I shall be told whether to dance or to +pray in it." And he stood listening eagerly as the Gate hung an +instant on its outward journey and then began to creak home. + +"He--should--rule--in--it--he--should--rule--in--it--he--should--" +squeaked the Guess Gate, and then latch clicked and it was silent. + +This disconcerted William. + +"Now I am worse off than ever," he sighed. "Pray, Pepper, can this +advice be bettered?" + +As usual when he questioned her, the nag pricked up her ears and +whinnied so violently that he nearly fell off her back. +Nevertheless, he kept Pepper's head in a beeline for Chanctonbury, +never noticing how very ill she was going, and presently crossed the +great High Road beyond which lay the Bush Hovel. The Wise Woman was +at home; from afar the King saw her sitting outside the Hovel +mending her broom with a withe from the Bush. + +"Here if anywhere," rejoiced William, "I shall learn the truth." + +He dismounted and approached the old woman, cap in hand. + +"Wise Woman," he said respectfully, "you know most things, but do +you know this--whether a King should dance or pray or rule in his +Barn?" + +"He should do all three, young man," said the Wise Woman. + +"But--!" exclaimed William. + +"I'm busy," snapped the Wise Woman. "You men will always be +chattering, as though pots need never be stewed nor cobwebs swept." +So saying, she went into the Hovel and slammed the door. + +"Pepper," said the poor King, "I am at my wits' ends. Go where yours +lead you." + +At this Pepper whinnied in a perfect frenzy of delight, and the King +had to clasp both arms round her neck to avoid tumbling off. + +Now the little nag preferred roads to beelines over copses and +ditches, and she turned back and ambled along the highway so very +lamely that it became impossible even for her preoccupied rider not +to perceive that she had cast all her four shoes. + +"Poor beast!" he cried dismayed, "how has this happened, and where? +Oh, Pepper, how could you be so careless? I have not a penny in my +purse to buy you new shoes, my poor Pepper. Do you not remember +where you lost them?" + +The little nag licked her master's hand (for he had dismounted to +examine her trouble), and looked at him with great eyes full of +affection, and then she flung up her head and whinnied louder than +ever. The sound of it was like nothing so much as laughter. Then she +went on, hobbling as best she could, and the King walked by her side +with his hand on her neck. In this way they came to a small village, +and here the nag turned up a by-road and halted outside the +blacksmith's forge. The smith's Lad stood within, clinking at the +anvil, the smuttiest Lad smith ever had. + +"Lad!" cried the King. + +The Lad looked up from his work and came at once to the door, wiping +his hands upon his leather apron. + +"Where am I?" asked the King. + +"In the village of Washington," said the Lad. + +"What! Under the Ring?" cried the King. + +"Yes, sir," said the Lad. + +"A blessing on you!" said the King joyfully, and clapped his hand on +the Lad's shoulder. "Pepper, you have solved the problem and led me +to my destiny." + +"Is Pepper your nag's name?" asked the blacksmith's Lad. + +"It is," said the King; "her only one." + +"Then she has one more name than she has shoes," said the Lad. "How +came she to lose them?" + +"I didn't notice," confessed the King. + +"You must have been thinking very deeply," remarked the Lad. "Are +you in love?" + +"I am not quite twenty-one," said the King. + +"I see. Do you want your nag shod?" + +"I do. But I have spent my last penny." + +"Earn another then," said the Lad. + +"I did not even earn the last one," said the King shamefacedly. "I +have never worked in my life." + +"Why, where have you lived?" exclaimed the Lad. + +"In a Barn." + +"But one works in a Barn--" + +"Stop!" cried the king, putting his fingers in his ears. "One prays +in a Barn." + +"Very likely," said the Lad, looking at him curiously. "Are you +going to pray in one?" + +"Yes," said the King. "When is the New Moon?" + +"Next Saturday." + +"Hurrah!" cried the King. "That settles it. But what's to-day?" + +"Monday, sir." + +"Alas!" sighed William, wondering how he should make shift to live +for five days. + +"I don't know what you mean, sir," said the Lad. + +"I would tell you my meaning," said the King, "but am pledged not +to." + +Then the Lad said, "Let it pass. I have a proposal to make. My +father is dead, and for two years I have worked the forge +single-handed. Now I am willing to teach you to shoe your nag with four +good shoes and strong, if you will meanwhile blow the bellows for +whatever other jobs come to the forge; and if the shoes are not done +by dinner-time you shall have a meal thrown in." + +The King looked at the Lad kindly. + +"I shall blow your bellows very badly," he said, "and shoe my nag +still worse." + +Said the Lad, "You'll learn in time." + +"Not before dinner-time, I hope," said the King, "for I am very +hungry." + +"You look hungry," said the Lad. "It's a bargain then." + +The King held out his hand, but the Lad suddenly whipped his behind +his back. "It's so dirty, sir," he said. + +"Give it me all the same," said the King; and they clasped hands. + +The rest of that morning the King spent in blowing the bellows, and +by dinner-time not so much as the first of Pepper's hoofs was shod. +For a great deal of business came into the forge, and there was no +time for a lesson. So the King and the Lad took their meal together, +and the King was by this time nearly as black as his master. He +would have washed himself, but the Lad said it was no matter, he +himself having no time to wash from week's end to week's end. In the +afternoon they changed places, and the King stood at the anvil and +the Lad at the bellows. He was a good teacher, but the King made a +poor job of it. By nightfall he had produced shoes resembling all +the letters of the alphabet excepting U, and when at last he +submitted to the Lad a shoe like nothing so much as a drunken S, his +master shrugged and said: + +"Zeal is praiseworthy within its limits, but the best of smiths does +not attempt to make two shoes at once. Let us sup." + +They supped; and afterwards the Lad showed the King a small bedroom +as neat as a new pin. + +"I shall sully the sheets," said William, "and you will excuse me if +I fetch the kettle, which is on the boil." + +"As you please," said the Lad, and took himself off. + +In the morning the King came clean to breakfast, but the Lad was as +black as he had been. + +Tuesday passed as Monday had passed; now William took the bellows, +marveling at his youthful master's deftness, and now the Lad blew, +groaning at his pupil's clumsiness. By nightfall, however, he had +achieved a shoe faintly recognizable as such. For a second time the +King washed himself and slept again in the little trim chamber, but +the Lad in the morning resembled midnight. In this way the week went +by, the King's heart beating a little faster each morning as +Saturday approached, and he wondered by what ruse he could explain +his absence without creating suspicion or breaking his pledge. + +On Saturday morning the Lad said to the King: "This is a half-day. +You must make your shoe this morning or not at all. It is my custom +at one o'clock to close the forge and go to visit my Great-Aunt. I +will be work again on Monday, till when you must shift for +yourself." + +The King could hardly believe his luck in having matters so well +settled, and he spent the morning so diligently that by noon he had +produced a shoe which, if not that of a master-craftsman, was at +least adaptable to the purpose for which it had been fashioned. + +The Lad examined it and said reluctantly, "It will do," and +proceeded to show the King how to fasten it to Pepper's hoof. + +"Why," said the King, having the nag's off forefoot in his hand, +"here's a stone in it. Small wonder she limped." + +"It isn't a stone," said the Lad, extracting it, "it is a ruby." + +And he exhibited to the King a ruby of such a glowing red that it +was as though the souls of all the grapes of Burgundy had been +pressed to create it. + +"You are a rich man now," said the Lad quietly, "and can live as you +will." + +But William closed the Lad's fingers over the stone. "Keep it," he +said, "for you have filled me for a week, and I have paid you with +nothing but my breath." + +"As you please," said the Lad carelessly, and, tossing the stone +upon a shelf, locked up the forge. "Now I am going to my Great-Aunt. +There's a cake in the larder." + +So saying, he strolled away, and the King was left to his own +devices. These consisted in bathing himself from head to foot till +his body was as pure without as he desired his heart to be within; +and in donning his fresh suit of linen. He would not break his fast, +but waited, trembling and eager, till an hour before sundown, and +then at last he set forth to mount the great hill with the sacred +crown of trees upon its crest. + +When at last he stood upon the boundary of the Ring, his heart +sprang for joy in his breast, and his breath nearly failed him with +amazement at the beauty of the world which lay outspread for leagues +below him. + +"Oh, lovely earth!" he cried aloud, "never till now have I known +what beauty I lived in. How is it that we cannot see the wonder of +our surroundings until we gaze upon them from afar? But if you look +so fair from the hilltops, what must you appear from the very sky?" +And lost in delight he turned his eyes upward, and was recalled to +his senses by the sight of the sinking sun. "Lovely one, how nearly +you have betrayed me!" he said, and smiling waved his hand to the +dear earth, sealed up his lips, and entered the Ring. + +And here between two midmost beeches he knelt down and buried his +face in his hands, and prayed the spirits of that place to make him +worthy. + +The hours passed, quarter by quarter, and the King stayed motionless +like one in a dream. Presently, however, the dream was faintly +shaken by a little lirrup of sound, as light as rain dropping from +leaves above a pool. Again and again the sweet round notes fell on +the meditations of the King, and he remembered with entrancement +that this was the tender signal by which he was summoned to the +Pond. So, rising silently, he wandered through the trees, and +keeping his eyes fixed on the soft dim turf, lest some new beauty +should tempt him to speech, he went across the open hill the Pond. +Here he knelt down again, listening to the childlike bird, until at +last the young piping ceased with a joyous chuckle. And at that +instant, reflected in the Pond, he saw the silver star that watches +the invisible young moon, and dipped his head. + +Oh, my dear maids! When he lifted it again, all wet and bewildered, +he saw upon the opposite border of the Pond, a figure, the white +figure of--a woman! a girl! a child! He could not tell, for she lay +three parts in the shadowy water with her back towards him, and his +gaze and senses swam; but in that faint starlight one bare and +lovely arm, as white as the crescent moon, was clear to him, +upcurved to her shadowy hair. So she reclined, and so he knelt, both +motionless, and his heart trembled (even as it had trembled at the +bird's song) with a wish to go near to her, or at least to whisper +to her across the water. Indeed, he was on the point of doing so, +when a sudden contraction seized him, his eyes closed in a delicious +agony, and he sneezed once vigorously; and in that moment of +shattering blackness he recalled his vow, and rising turned his back +upon the vision and groped his way again to the shelter of the +trees. + +Here he remained till dawn in meditation, but as to the nature of +his meditations I am, dear maidens, ignorant. Nor do I know in what +restless wise he passed his Sunday. + +It is enough to know that on Monday when he went into the forge he +found the Lad already at work, and if he had been pitch-black at +their parting he was no less so at their meeting. He appeared to be +out of humor, and for some time regarded his apprentice with +dissatisfaction, but only remarked at last: + +"You look fatigued." + +"My sleep was broken with dreams," said the King. "I am sorry if I +am late. Let me to my shoeing. Since Saturday ended in success, I +suppose I shall now finish the business without more ado." + +He was, however, too hopeful as it appeared, for though he managed +to fashion a shoe which was in his eyes the equal of the other, the +Lad was captious and would not commend it. + +"I should be an ill craftmaster," said he, "if I let you rest +content on what you have already done. I made such a shoe as this on +my thirteenth birthday, and my father's only praise was, You must +do better yet.'" + +So particular was the young smith that William spent the whole of +another week in endeavoring to please him. This might have chafed +the King, but that it agreed entirely with his desires to remain in +that place, sleeping and eating at no cost to himself, and working +so strenuously that his hands grew almost as hard as the metal he +worked in; for the Lad now began to entrust him with small jobs of +various sorts, although in the matter of the second shoe he refused +to be satisfied. + +When Saturday came, however, the King contrived a shoe so much +superior to any he had yet made that the Lad, examining it, was +compelled to say, "It is better than the other." Then Pepper, who +always stood in a noose beside the door awaiting her moment, lifted +up her near forefoot of her own accord, and the King took it in his +hand. + +"How odd!" he exclaimed a moment later. "The nag has a stone in this +foot also. It is not strange that she went so ill." + +"It is not a stone," said the Lad. "It is a pearl." + +And he held out to the King a pearl of such a shining purity that it +was as though it had been rounded within the spirit of a saint. + +"This makes you a rich man," said the Lad moodily, "and you can +journey whither you please." + +But the King shook his head. "Keep it," he said, "for you have +lodged me for a week, and I have given you only the clumsy service +of my hands." + +"Very well," said the Lad simply, and put the pearl in his pocket. +"My Great-Aunt is expecting me. There's a cake in the larder." + +So saying he walked off, and the King was left alone. As before, he +bathed himself and changed his linen, and left the contents of the +larder untouched; and an hour before sunset he climbed the hill for +the second time, and presently stood panting on the edge of the +Ring. And again a pang of wonder that was akin to pain shot through +his heart at the loveliness of the world below him. + +"Beautiful earth!" he cried once more, "how fair and dear you are +become to me in your remoteness. But oh, if you appear so beautiful +from this summit, what must you appear from the summit of the +clouds?" And he glanced from the earth to the sky, and saw the sun +running down his airy hill. "Dear Temptress!" he said, "how +cunningly you would snare me from my purpose." And he kissed his +hand to her thrice, sealed up his lips, and entered the Ring. + +Between the two tall beeches he knelt down, and drowned the +following hours in thought and prayer; till that deep lake of +meditation was divided by the sound of singing, as though a shoal of +silver fishes swam and leaped upon its surface, putting all +quietness to flight, and troubling its waters with a million +lovelinesses. For now it was as though the bird's enchanting song +came partly from within and partly from without, and if the fall of +its music shattered his dream like falling fish, certain it seemed +to him that the fish had first leaped from his own heart, out of +whose unsuspected caves darted a shoal of nameless longings. He too +leaped up and darted through the trees, and with head bent down, for +fear of he knew not what, made his way to the Pond. Here he knelt +again, drinking in the tremulous song of the bird, as tremulous as +youth and maidenhood, until at last it ceased with a sweet +uncompleted cry of longing. And at that instant, in the mirror of +the Pond, he saw the uncompleted disc of the half-moon, and dipped +his head. + +Ah wonder! when he lifted it again, dazzled and dripping, he saw +across the Pond a figure rising from the water, the figure, as he +could now perceive in the fuller light, of a girl, clear to the +waist. Her face was half turned from him, and her hair flowed half +to him and half away, but within that cloudy setting gleamed the +lines of her lovely neck and one white shoulder and one moonlit +breast, whose undercurve appeared to float upon the Pond like the +petal of a waterlily. So he knelt on his side and she on hers, both +motionless, and he heart leaped (even as it had leaped at the bird's +song) with a longing to kneel beside and even touch that loveliness; +or, if he could not, at least to call to her across the Pond so that +he would turn and reveal to him what still was hidden. He was in +fact about to do so, when suddenly his senses were overwhelmed with +a sweet anguish, darkness fell on him, and from its very core he +sneezed twice, violently. This interruption of the previous spell +was sufficient to bring him to a realization of his peril, and +rising hastily he ran back to the Ring, where he remained till +morning. But to what pious thoughts he then committed himself I +cannot tell you; neither in what feverish fashion he got through +Sunday. + +On Monday morning when he arrived at the forge he found the Lad at +work before him, and ebony was not blacker than his face. He glanced +at the King with some show of temper, but only said: + +"You look worn out." + +"I have had bad dreams," said the King. "Excuse me for being behind +my time. I will try to make up for it by wasting no more, and +fashioning instantly two shoes as good as that I made on Saturday." + +But though he handled his tools with more dexterity than he had yet +exhibited, the Lad petulantly pushed aside the first shoe he made, +which to the King appeared to be, if anything, superior to the one +he had made on Saturday. The Lad, however, quickly explained +himself, saying: + +"A master-smith who intends to make his apprentice his equal will +not let him rest at the halfway house. I made a shoe like this when +I was fourteen, and all my father said was, I have hopes of you.'" + +So for yet another week the King's nose was kept to the grindstone, +and it would have irritated most men to find their good work +repeatedly condemned; but William was, as you may have observed, +singularly sweet-tempered, besides which he desired nothing so much +as to remain where he was. And for another five days he slept and +ate and worked, until the muscles of his arms began to swell, and he +swung the hammer with as much ease as his master, who now left a +great part of the work entirely in his hands. Although in this +matter of the third shoe he refused to be satisfied. + +Nevertheless on Saturday morning the King, making a last effort +before the forge was shut, submitted a shoe so far beyond anything +he had yet achieved, that the Lad could not but say, "This is a good +shoe." And Pepper, seeing them coming, lifted her off hind-foot to +be shod. + +"Now as I live!" cried the King. "Another stone! And how she +contrived to hobble so far is a miracle." + +"It isn't a stone," said the Lad, "it is a diamond." + +And he presented to the King a diamond of such triumphant brilliance +that it might have been conceived of the ambitions of the mightiest +monarch of the earth. + +"You now own surpassing wealth," said the Lad dejectedly, "and you +have no more need to work." + +But William would not even touch the stone. "Keep it," he said, "for +you have befriended me for a week, and I have given you only the +strength of my arms." + +"Let it be so," said the Lad gently, and put the diamond in his +belt. "I must not keep my Great-Aunt waiting. There's a cake in the +larder." + +So saying he went his way, and the King went his; which, as you may +surmise, was to the bath and his clean clothes. He did not go into +the larder, and an hour before sunset made the ascent of the hill, +and for the third time stood like a conqueror upon the crest. And as +he gazed over the lands below his heart throbbed with a passion for +the earth that was half agony and half love, unless indeed it was +the whole agony of love. + +"Most beautiful earth!" he cried aloud, "only as you recede from me +do I realize how necessary it is for me to possess you. How is it +that when I possess you I know you not as I know you now? But oh! if +you are so wonderful from these great hills, what must you be from +the greater hills of air?" And he looked up, and saw the sun +descending in the west. "Sweet earth," he sighed, "you would hold me +when I should be gone, and never remind me that the moment to depart +is due." And he stretched out his arms to her, sealed up his lips, +and went into the Ring. + +Once more he knelt between the giant beeches, and sank all thoughts +in pious contemplation; till suddenly those still waters were +convulsed as though with stormy currents, and a wild song beat +through his breast, so that he could not believe it was the bird +singing from a short distance: it was as though the storm of music +broke from his singing heart--yes, from his own heart singing for +some unexpressed fulfillment. He was barely conscious of going +through the trees, with eyes shut tight against the outer world, but +soon he was kneeling at the brink of the Pond, while the surge of +joy and pain in the song broke on his spirit like waves upon a +shore, or love upon a man and a woman--washed back, towered up, and +broke on him again. At last on one full glorious phrase it ceased. +And at that instant, deep in the Pond, he saw the full orb of the +moon, and dipped his head. + +Oh, when he lifted it, startled and illuminated, he saw on the +further side of the Pond a woman standing. The moonlight bathed her +form from head to foot, her hair was thrown behind her, and she +stood facing him, so that in the cold clear light he could see her +fully revealed: her strong tender face, her strong soft body, her +strong slim legs, her strong and lovely arms. As white as mayblossom +she was, and beauty went forth from her like fragrance from the +shaken bough. So he knelt on his side and she stood on hers, both +motionless, but gazing into each other's eyes, and his heart broke +(even as it had broken at the bird's song) with a passion to take +her in his arms, for it seemed to him that this alone would mend its +breaking. Or if he might not do this, at least to send his need of +her in a great cry across the Pond. And as his passion grew she +slowly lifted her arms and opened them to him as though to bid him +enter; and her lips parted, and she cried out, as though she were +uttering the cry of his own soul: + +"Beloved!" + +All the joy and the pain, fulfilled, of the bird's song were +gathered in that word. + +Glorified he leaped up, his whole being answering the cry of hers, +but before his lips could translate it he was gripped by a mighty +agony, and sneeze after sneeze shook all his senses, so that he was +utterly helpless. When he was able to look up again he saw the woman +moving towards him round the Pond, and suddenly he clapped his hands +over his eyes and fled towards the Ring, as though pursued by +demons. Here he passed the remainder of the night, but in what sort +of prayers I leave you to imagine; as also amid what ravings he +passed his Sunday. + +On Monday the Lad was again before him at the forge, and a crow's +wing had looked milky beside his face. He did not raise his eyes as +the King came in, but said: + +"You look very ill." He said it furiously. + +"I have had nightmares," said the King. "Pardon me if you can. I +will get to work and make my final shoe." + +But though he now had little more to learn in his craft, the Lad, +when the shoe was made, picked it up in his pincers and flung it to +the other end of the forge; yet the King now knew enough to know +that few smiths could have made its equal. So he looked surprised; +at which the Lad, controlling himself, said: + +"When I pass your fourth shoe you will need no more masters--I +forged a shoe like that one yonder when I was fifteen, and my father +said of it, You will make a smith one day.'" + +And on neither Tuesday nor Wednesday nor Thursday nor Friday could +the King succeed in pleasing the Lad; the better his shoes the +angrier grew his young master that they were not good enough. Yet +between these gusts of temper he was gentle and remorseful, and once +the King saw tears in his eyes, and another time the Lad came humbly +to ask for pardon. Then William laughed and put out his hand, but, +as once before, the Lad slipped his behind his back and said: + +"It is so dirty, friend." + +And this time he would not let William take it. So the King was +forced instead to lay his arm about the Lad's shoulder, and press it +tenderly; but the Lad made no response, and only stood hanging his +head until the King removed his arm. All the same, when next the +King made a shoe he was full of rage, and stamped on it, and ran out +of the forge. Which surprised the King all the more because it was +so excellent a shoe. Yet he was secretly glad of its rejection, for +he felt it would break his heart to go away from that place; and he +could think of no good cause for remaining, once Pepper was shod. So +there he stayed, eating, sleeping, and working, while the thews of +his back became as strong under the smooth skin as the thews of a +beech-tree under the smooth bark; and his craft was such that the +Lad at last left the whole of the work of the forge in his charge. +For there was nothing he could not do surpassingly well. And this +the Lad admitted, save only in the case of the fourth shoe. + +But on Saturday, just before closing-time, the King set to and made +a shoe so fine that when the Lad saw it he said quietly, "I could +not make a better." Had he not said so he must have lied, or proved +that he did know a masterpiece when he saw it. And he too good a +craftsman for that, besides being honest. + +Pepper instantly lifted up her near hind-foot. + +"Upon my word!" exclaimed the King, "the world is full of stones, +and Pepper has found them all. The wonder is that she did not fall +down on the road." + +"This is not a stone," said the Lad, "it is an opal." + +And he displayed an opal of such marvelous changeability, such milk +and fire shot with such shifting rainbows, that it was as though it +had had birth of all the moods of all the women of all time. + +"This enriches you for life," said the Lad gloomily, "and now you +are free of masters for ever." + +But William thrust his hands into his pockets. "Keep it," he said, +"for this week you have given me love, and I have given you nothing +but the sinews of my body." + +The Lad looked at him and said, "I have given you hard words, and +fits of temper, and much injustice." + +"Have you?" said William. "I remember only your tenderness and your +tears. So keep the opal in love's name." + +The Lad tried to answer, but could not; and he slipped the opal +under his shirt. Then he faltered, "My Great-Aunt--" and still he +could not speak. But he made a third effort, and said, "There is a +cake in the larder," and turned on his heel and went away quickly. +And the King looked after him till he was out of sight, and then +very slowly went to his bath and his fresh linen. But he left the +cake where it was. + +And he sat by the door of the forge with his face in his hands until +the length of his shadow warned him that he must go. And he rose and +went for the last time up the hill, but with a sinking heart; and +when he stood on the top and gazed upon the beauty of the earth he +had left below, in his breast was the ache of loss and longing for +one he had loved, and with his eyes he tried to draw that beauty +into himself, but the void in him remained unfulfilled. Yet never +had her beauty been so great. + +"Beloved and lovely earth!" he whispered, "why do you appear most +fair and most desirable now that I am about to lose you? Why when I +had you did you not hold me by force, and tell me what you were? +Only now I discover you from mid-heaven--but oh! in what way should +I discover you from heaven itself?" And he looked upward, and lo! a +blurred sun shone upon him, swimming to its rest. "Farewell, dear +earth!" said the King. "Since you cannot mount to me, and I may not +descend to you." And he knelt upon the turf and laid his cheek and +forehead to it, and then he rose, sealed up his lips, and passed +into the Ring. + +Between the two tall beeches he sank down, and all sense and thought +and consciousness sank with him, as though his being had become a +dead forgotten lake, hidden in a lifeless wood; where birds sang +not, nor rain fell, nor fishes played, nor currents moved below the +stagnant waters. But presently a wind seemed to wail among the +trees, and the sound of it traveled over the King's senses, stirred +them, and passed. But only to return again, moan over him, and trail +away; and so it kept coming and going till first he heard, then +listened to, and at last realized the haunting signal of the bird. +And he went forth into the open night, his eyes wide apart but +seeing nothing until he stumbled at the Pond and crouched beside it. +The bird grew fainter and fainter, and presently the sound, like a +ghost at dawn, ceased to exist; and at that instant, under the Pond, +he beheld the lessening circle of the moon, and dipped his head. + +Alas! when he lifted it, shivering and stunned, he saw the form he +longed to see on the other side of the Pond; but not, as he had +longed to see it, gazing at him with the love and glory of seven +nights ago. Now she stood on the turf, half turned from him, and the +wave of her hair blew to and fro like a cloud, now revealing her +white side, now concealing it. And he looked, but she would not +look. So he knelt on his side and she remained on hers, both +motionless. And suddenly the impulse to sneeze arose within him, and +at that instant she began to move--not towards him, as before, but +away from him, downhill. + +At that he could bear no more, and quelling the impulse with a +mighty effort, he got upon his feet crying, "Beloved, stay! Beloved, +stay, beloved!" + +And he staggered round the Pound as quickly as his shaking knees +would let him; but quicker still she slid away, and when he came +where she had been the place was as empty as the sky in its moonless +season. He called and ran about and called again; but he got no +answer, nor found what he sought. All that night he spent in calling +and running to and fro. What he did on Sunday you may know, and I +may know, but he did not. On Sunday night he stayed beside the Pond, +but whatever his hopes were they received no fulfillment. On Monday +night he was there again, and on Tuesday, and on Wednesday; and +between the mornings and the nights he went from hill to hill, +seeking her hiding-place who came to bathe in the lake. There was +not a hill within a day's march that did not know him, from Duncton +to Mount Harry. But on none of them he found the Woman. How he lived +is a puzzle. Perhaps upon wild raspberries. + +After the sun had set on Chanctonbury on Saturday night, he came +exhausted to the Ring again, and stood on that high hill gazing +earthward. But there was no light above or below, and he said: + +"I have lost all. For the earth is swallowed in blackness, and the +Woman has disappeared into space, and I myself have cast away my +spiritual initiation. I will sit by the Pond till midnight, and if +the bird sings then I will still hope, but if it does not I will dip +my head in the water and not lift it again." + +So he went and lay down by the Pond in the darkness, and the hours +wore away. But as the time of the bird's song drew near he clasped +his hands and prayed. But the bird did not sing; and when he judged +that midnight was come, he got upon his knees and prepared to put +his head under the water. And as he did so he saw, on the opposite +side of the Pond, the feeble light of a lantern. He could not see +who held it, because even as he looked the bearer blew out the +light; but in that moment it appeared to him that she was as black +as the night itself. + +So for awhile he knelt upon his side, and she remained on hers, both +trembling; but at last the King, dreading to startle her away, rose +softly and went round the Pond to where he had seen her. + +He said into the night in a shaking voice, "I cannot see you. If you +are there, give me your hand." + +And out of the night a shaking voice replied: + +"It is so dirty, beloved." + +Then he took her in his arms, and felt how she trembled, and he held +her closely to him to still her, whispering: + +"You are my Lad." + +"Yes," she said in a low voice. "But wait." + +And she slipped out of his embrace, and he heard her enter the Pond, +and she stayed there as it seemed to him a lifetime; but presently +she rose up, and even in that black night the whiteness of her body +was visible to him, and she came to him as she was and laid her head +on his breast and said: + +"I am your Woman." + + +("I want my apple," said Martin Pippin. + +"But is this the end?" cried little Joan. + +"Why not?" said Martin. "The lovers are united." + +Joscelyn: Nonsense! Of course it is not the end! You must tell us a +thousand other things. Why was the Woman a woman on Saturday night +and a lad all the rest of the week? + +Joyce: What of the four jewels? + +Jennifer: Which of the answers to the King's riddle was the right +one? + +Jessica: What happened to the cake? + +Jane: What was her name? + +"Please," said little Joan, "do not let this be the end, but tell us +what they did next." + +"Women will be women," observed Martin, "and to the end of time +prefer unessentials to the essential. But I will endeavor to satisfy +you on the points you name.") + + +In the morning William said to his beloved: + +"Now tell me something of yourself. How come you to be so masterful +a smith? Why do you live as a black Lad all the week and turn only +into a white Woman on Saturdays? Have you really got a Great-Aunt, +and where does she live? How old are you? Why were you so hard to +please about the shoeing of Pepper? And why, the better my shoes the +worse your temper? Why did you run away from me a week ago? Why did +you never tell me who you were? Why have you tormented me for a +whole month? What is your name?" + +"Trust a man to ask questions!" said his beloved, laughing and +blushing. "Is it not enough that I am your beloved?" + +"More than enough, yet not nearly enough," said the King, "for there +is nothing of yourself which you must not tell me in time, from the +moment when you first stole barley sugar behind your father's back, +down to that in which you first loved me." + +"Then I had best begin at once," she smiled, "or a lifetime will not +be long enough. I am eighteen years old and my name is Viola. I was +born in Falmer, and my father was the best smith in all Sussex, and +because he had no other child he made me his bellows-boy, and in +time, as you know, taught me his trade. But he was, as you also +know, a stern master, and it was not until, on my sixteenth +birthday, I forged a shoe the equal of your last, that he said I +could not make a better.' And so saying he died. Now I had no other +relative in all the world except my Great-Aunt, the Wise Woman of +the Bush Hovel, and her I had never seen; but I thought I could not +do better in my extremity than go to her for counsel. So, +shouldering my father's tools, I journeyed west until I came to her +place, and found her trying to break in a new birch-broom that was +still too green and full of sap to be easily mastered; and she was +in a very bad temper. Good day, Great-Aunt,' I said, I am your +Great-Niece Viola.' I have no more use for great nieces,' she +snapped, than for little ones.' And she continued to tussle with +the broomstick and took no further notice of me. Then I went into +the Hovel, where a fire burned on the hearth, and I took out my +tools and fashioned a bit on the hob; and when it was ready I took +it to her and said, This will teach it its manners'; and she put +the bit on the broom, which became as docile as a lamb. Great-Niece,' +said she, it appears that I told you a lie this morning. +What can I do for you?' Tell me, if you please, how I am to live +now that my father is dead.' There is no need to tell you,' said +she; you have your living at your fingers' ends.' But women cannot +be smiths,' said I. Then become a lad,' said she, and ply your +trade where none knows you; and lest men should suspect you by your +face, which fools though they be they might easily do, let it be so +sooted from week's end to week's end that none can discover what you +look like; and if any one remarks on it, put it down to your trade.' + But Great-Aunt,' I said, I could not bear to go dirty from week's +end to week's end.' If you will be so particular,' she said, take +a bath every Saturday night and spend your Sundays with me, as fair +as when you were a babe. And before you go to work again on Monday +you shall once more conceal your fairness past all men's +penetration.' But, dear Great-Aunt,' I pleaded, it may be that the +day will come when I might not wish--'" + +And here, dear maidens, Viola faltered. And William put his arm +about her a little tighter--because it was there already--and said, +"What might you not wish, beloved?" And she murmured, "To be +concealed past one man's penetration. And my Great-Aunt said I need +not worry. Because though men, she said, were fools, there was one +time in every man's life when he was quick enough to penetrate all +obscurities, whether it were a layer of soot or a night without a +moon." And she hid her face on the King's shoulder, and he tried to +kiss her but could not make her look up until he said, "Or even a +woman's waywardness?" Then she looked up of her own accord and +kissed him. + +"In this way," she resumed, "it became my custom on each Saturday, +after closing the forge, to come here with my woman's raiment, and +wait in a hollow until night had fallen, and make myself clean of +the week's blackness. For I dared not do this by daylight, or be +seen going forth from my forge in my proper person." + +"But why did you choose to bathe at midnight?" asked the King. + +She was silent for a few moments, and then said hurriedly, "I did +not choose to bathe at midnight until a month ago.--For the rest," +she resumed, "I was hard to please in the matter of the shoes +because I knew that when they were finished you would ride away. And +therefore the more you improved the crosser I became. And if I have +tormented you for a month it was because you tormented me by +refusing to speak when you saw me here, in spite of your hateful +vow; and you would not even look at my cake in the larder." + +"Women are strange," said the King. "How do you know I did not look +at the cake?" + +"I do know," she said as hurriedly as before. "And if I would not +tell you who I was, it was because I could not bear, on the other +hand, to extort from you a love you seemed so reluctant to endure; +until indeed it became of its own accord too strong even for the +purpose which brought you every week to the Ring. For I knew that +purpose, since all dwellers in Washington know why men go up the +hill with the new moon." + +"But when my love did become too strong for my vow, and opened my +lips at last," said the King, "why did you run away?" + +Viola said, "Had you not run away the week before? And now I have +answered all your questions." + +"No," said the King, "not all. You haven't told me yet when you +first loved me." + +Viola smiled and said, "I first stole barley sugar when my father +said This is for the other little girl over the way'; and I first +loved you when, seeing you had been too absent-minded to know that +Pepper had cast her shoes, I feared you were in love." + +"But that was three minutes after we met!" cried the King. + +"Was it as much as that!" said she. + +Now after awhile Viola said, "Let us get down to the world again. We +cannot stay here for ever." + +"Why not?" said the King. However, they walked to the brow of the +hill, and stood together gazing awhile over the sunlit earth that +had never been so beautiful to either of them; for their sight was +newly-washed with love, and all things were changed. + +"Now I know how she looks from heaven," said the King, "and that is +like heaven itself. Let us go; for I think she will still look so at +our coming, seeing that we carry heaven with us." + +So they went downhill to the forge, and there Viola said to her +lover, "I can stay no longer in this place where all men have known +me as a lad; and besides, a woman's home is where her husband +lives." + +"But I live only in a Barn," said William the King. + +"Then I will live there with you," said Viola, "and from this very +night. But first I will shoe Pepper anew, for she is so unequally +shod that she might spill us on the road. And that she may be shod +worthily of herself and of us, give me what you have tied up in your +blue handkerchief." The King fetched his handkerchief and unknotted +it, and gave her his crown and scepter; and she set him at the +bellows and made three golden shoes and shod the nag on her two +fore-feet and her off hind-foot. But when she looked at the near +hind-foot, which the King had shod last of all, she said: "I could +not make a better. And therefore, like his father, the Lad must shut +his smithy, for he is dead." Then she put the three shoes she had +removed into a bag with some other trifles; and while she did so the +King took what remained of the gold and made it into two rings. This +done, they got on to Pepper's back, and with her three shoes of gold +and one of iron she bore them the way the King had come. When they +passed the Bush Hovel they saw the Wise Woman currying her +broomstick, and Viola cried: + +"Great-Aunt, give us a blessing." + +"Great-Niece," said the Wise Woman, "how can I give you what you +already have? But I will give you this." And she held out a +horseshoe. + +"Good gracious," said the King, "this was once Pepper's." + +"It was," said the Wise Woman. "In her merriment at hearing you ask +a silly question, she cast it outside my door." + +A little further on they came to the Guess Gate, but when the King, +dismounting, swung it open, it grated on something in the road. He +stooped and lifted--a horseshoe. + +"Wonder of wonders!" exclaimed the King. "This also was Pepper's. +What shall we do with it?" + +"Hang--it--up--hang--it--up--hang--" creaked the Gate; and clicked +home. + +In due course they reached the Doves, and at the sound of Pepper's +hoofs the Brothers flocked out to meet them. + +"Is all well?" cried the Ringdove, seeing the King only. "And have +you returned to us for the final blessing?" + +"I have," replied the King, "for I bring my bride behind me, and now +you must make us one." + +The gentle Brothers, rejoicing at the sight of their happiness and +their beauty, led them in; and there they were wedded. The Doves +offered them to eat, but the King was impatient to reach his Barn by +nightfall; so they got again on Pepper's back, and as they were +about to leave the Ringdove said: + +"I have something of yours which is in itself a thing of no moment; +yet, because it is of good augury, take it with you." + +And he gave the King Pepper's third shoe. + +"Thank you," said the King, "I will hang it over my Barn door." + +Now he urged Pepper to her full speed, and they went at a gallop +past the Hawking Sopers, who, hearing the clatter, came running into +the road. + +"Stay, gallopers, stay!" they cried, "and make merry with us." + +"We cannot," called the King, "for we are newly married." + +"Good luck to you then!" shouted the Sopers, and with huzzas and +laughter flung something after them. Viola stretched out her hand +and caught it in mid-air, and it was a horseshoe. + +"The tale is complete," she laughed, "and now you know where Pepper +picked up her stones." + +Soon after the King said, "Here is my Barn." And he sprang down and +lifted his bride from the nag's back and brought her in. + +"It is a poor place," he said gently, "but it is all I have. What +can I do for you in such a home?" + +"I will tell you," said Viola, and putting her hand into her left +pocket, she drew out the ruby winking with the wine of mirth. "You +can dance in it." And suddenly they caught each other by the hands +and went capering and laughing round the Barn like children. + +"Hurrah!" cried William, "now I know what a King should do in a +Barn!" + +"But he should do more than dance in it," said Viola; and putting +her hand into her right pocket she gave him the pearl, as pure as a +prayer; "beloved, he should pray in it too." + +And William looked at her and knelt, and she knelt by him, and in +silence they prayed the same prayer, side by side. + +Then William rose and said simply, "Now I know." + +But she knelt still, and took from her girdle the diamond, as bright +as power, and she put it in his hand, saying very low, "Oh, my dear +King! but he should also rule in it." And she kissed his hand. But +the King lifted her very quickly so that she stood equal with his +heart, and embracing her he said, with tears in his eyes: + +"And you, beloved! what will a Queen do in a Barn?" + +"The same as a King," she whispered, and drew from her bosom the +opal, as lovely and as variable as the human spirit. "With the other +three stones you may, if you will, buy back your father's kingdom. +But this, which contains all qualities in one, let us keep for ever, +for our children and theirs, that they may know there is nothing a +King and a Queen may not do in a Barn, or a man and a woman +anywhere. But the best thing they can do is to work in it." + +Then, going out, she came back with the bag which she had slung on +Pepper's back, and took from it her father's tools. + +"In three weeks you learned all I learned in three years," said she. +"When I shod Pepper this morning I did my last job as a smith; for +now I shall have other work to do. But you, whether you choose to +get your father's lands again or no, I pray to work in the trade I +have given you, for I have made you the very king of smiths, and all +men should do the thing they can do best. So take the hammer and +nail up the horseshoes over the door while I get supper; for you +look as hungry as I feel." + +"But there's nothing to eat," said the King ruefully. + +However, he went outside, and over the door he hung as many shoes as +there are nails in one--the four Pepper had cast on the road, and +the three he had first made for her. As he drove the last nail home +Viola called: + +"Supper is ready." + +And the King went into the Barn and saw a Wedding Cake. + +And now, if you please, Mistress Joan, I have earned my apple. + + + +FIRST INTERLUDE + +Now there was a great munching of apples in the tree, for to tell +the truth during the latter part of the story this business had been +suspended, and between bites the milkmaids discussed the merits of +what they had just heard. + +Jessica: What is your opinion of this tale, Jane? + +Jane: It surprised me more than anything. For who could have +suspected that the Lad was a Woman? + +Martin: Lads are to be suspected of any mischief, Mistress Jane. + +Joscelyn: It is not to be supposed, Master Pippin, that we are +acquainted with the habits of lads. + +Martin: I suppose nothing. But did the story please you? + +Joscelyn: As a story it was well enough to pass an hour. I would be +willing to learn whether the King regained his kingdom or no. + +Martin: I think he did, since you may go to this day to the little +city on the banks of the Adur which is re-named after his Barn. But +I doubt whether he lived there, or anywhere but in the Barn where he +and his beloved began their life of work and prayer and mirth and +loving-rule. And died as happily as they had lived. + +Joan: I am glad they lived happily. I was afraid the tale would end +unhappily. + +Joyce: And so was I. For when the King roamed the hills for a whole +week without success, I began to fear he would never find the Woman +again. + +Jennifer: I for my part feared lest he should not open his lips +during the fourth vigil, and so must become a Dove for the remainder +of his days. + +Jane: It was but by the grace of a moment he did not drown himself +in the Pond. + +Jessica: Or what if, by some unlucky chance, he had never come to +the forge at all? + +Martin: In any of these events, I grant you, the tale must have +ended in disaster. And this is the special wonder of love-tales: +that though they may end unhappily in a thousand ways, and happily +in only one, yet that one will vanquish the thousand as often as the +desires of lovers run in tandem. But there is one accident you have +left out of count, and it is the worst stumbling-block I know of in +the path of happy endings. + +All the Milkmaids: What is it? + +Martin: Suppose the lovely Viola had been a sworn virgin and a hater +of men. + + +There was silence in the Apple-Orchard. + + +Joscelyn: She would have been none the worse for that, singer. And +the tale would have been none the less a tale, which is all we look +for from you. This talk of happy endings is silly talk. The King +might have sought the Woman in vain, or kept his vow, or drowned +himself, or ridden to the confines of Kent, for aught I care. + +Joyce: Or I. + +Jennifer: Or I. + +Jessica: Or I. + +Jane: Or I. + +Martin: I am silenced. Tales are but tales, and not worth +speculation. And see, the moon is gone to sleep behind a cloud, +which shows us nothing save the rainbow of her dreams. It is time we +did as she does. + + +Like shooting-stars in August the milkmaids slid from their leafy +heaven and dropped to the grass. And here they pillowed their heads +on their soft arms and soon were breathing the breath of sleep. But +little Joan sat on in the swing. + +Now all this while she had kept between her hands the promised +apple, turning and turning it like one in doubt; and presently +Martin looked aside at her with a smile, and held his open palm to +receive his reward. And first she glanced at him, and then at the +sleepers, and last she tossed the apple lightly in the air. But by +some mishap she tossed it too high, and it made an arc clean over +the tree and fell in a distant corner by the hedge. So she ran +quickly to recover it for him, and he ran likewise, and they stooped +and rose together, she with the apple in her hands, he with his +hands on hers. At which she blushed a little, but held fast to the +fruit. + +"What!" said Martin Pippin, "am I never to have my apple?" + +She answered softly, "Only when I am satisfied, as you promised." + +"And are you not? What have I left undone?" + +Joan: Please, Master Pippin. What did the young King look like? + +Martin: Fool that I am to leave these vital things untold! I shall +avoid this error in future. He was more than middle tall, and broad +in the shoulders; and he had gray-blue eyes, and a fresh color, and +a kind and merry look, and dark brown hair that was not always as +sleek as he wished it to be. + +"Joan: Oh! + +Martin: With this further oddity, that above the nape of his neck +was a whitish tuft which, though he took great pains to conceal it, +continually obtruded through the darker hair like the cottontail on +the back of a rabbit. + +Joan: Oh! Oh! + +And she became as red as a cherry. + +Martin: May I have my apple? + +Joan: But had not he a--mustache? + +Martin: He fondly believed so. + +Joan (with unexpected fire): It was a big and beautiful mustache! + +Martin (fervently): There was never a King of twenty years with one +so big and beautiful. + +She gave him the apple. + +Martin: Thank you. Will you, because I have answered many questions, +now answer one? + +Joan: Yes. + +Martin: Then tell me this--what is your quarrel with men? + +Joan: Oh, Master Pippin! they say that one and one make two. + +Martin: Is this possible? Good heavens, are men such numskulls! When +they have but to go to the littlest woman on earth to learn--what +you and I well know--that one and one make one, and sometimes three, +or four, or even half-a-dozen; but never two. Fie upon these men! + +Joan: I am glad you think I am in the right. But how obstinate they +are! + +Martin: As obstinate as children, and should be birched as roundly. + +Joan: Oh! but-- You would not birch children. + +Martin: You are right again. They should be coaxed. + +Joan: Yes. No. I mean-- Good night, dear singer. + +Martin: Good night, dear milkmaid. Sleep sweetly among your comrades +who are wiser than we, being so indifferent to happy endings that +they would never unpadlock sorrow, though they had the key in their +keeping. + + +Then he took her hands in one of his, and put his other hand very +gently under her chin, and lifted it till he could look into her +face, and he said: "Give me the key to Gillian's prison, little +Joan, because you love happy endings." + + +Joan: Dear Martin, I cannot give you the key. + +Martin: Why not? + +Joan: Because I stuck it inside your apple. + + +So he kissed her and they parted, and lay down and slept; she among +her comrades under the apple-tree, and he under the briony in the +hedge; and the moon came out of her dream and watched theirs. + + +With morning came a hoarse voice calling along the hedge: + +"Maids! maids! maids!" + +Up sprang the milkmaids, rubbing their eyes and stretching their +arms; and up sprang Martin likewise. And seeing him, Joscelyn was +stricken with dismay. + +"It is Old Gillman, our master," she whispered, "come with bread and +questions. Quick, singer, quick! into the hollow russet before he +reaches the hole in the hedge." + +Swiftly the milkmaids hustled Martin into the russet tree, and +concealed him at the very moment when the Farmer was come to the +peephole, filling it with his round red face and broad gray fringe +of whiskers, like the winter sun on a sky that is going to snow. + +"Good morrow, maids," quoth old Gillman. + +"Good morrow, master," said they. + +"Is my daughter come to her mind yet?" + +"No, master," said little Joan, "but I begin to have hopes that she +may." + +"If she do not," groaned Gillman, "I know not what will happen to +the farmstead. For it is six months now since I tasted water, and +how can a man follow his business who is fuddled day and night with +Barley Wine? Life is full of hardships, of which daughters are the +greatest. Gillian!" he cried, "when will ye come into your senses +and out of the Well-House?" + +But Gillian took no more heed of him than of the quacking of the +drake on the duckpond. + +"Well, here is your bread," said Gillman, and he thrust a basket +with seven loaves in it through the gap. "And may to-morrow bring +better tidings." + +"One moment, dear master," entreated little Joan. "Tell me, please, +how Nancy my Jersey fares." + +"Pines for you, pines for you, maid, though Charles does his best by +her. But it is as though she had taken a vow to let down no milk +till you come again. Rack and ruin, rack and ruin!" + +And the old man retreated as he had come, muttering "Rack and ruin!" +the length of the hedge. + +The maids then set about preparing breakfast, which was simplicity +itself, being bread and apples than which no breakfast could be +sweeter. There was a loaf for each maid and one over for Gillian, +which they set upon the wall of the Well-House, taking away +yesterday's loaf untouched and stale. + +"Does she never eat?" asked Martin. + +"She has scarcely broken bread in six months," said Joscelyn, "and +what she lives on besides her thoughts we do not know." + +"Thoughts are a fast or a feast according to their nature," said +Martin, "so let us feed the ducks, who have none." + +They broke the stale bread into fragments, and when the ducks had +made a meal, returned to their own; and of two loaves made seven +parts, that Martin might have his share, and to this they added +apples according to their fancies, red or russet, green or golden. + +After breakfast, at Martin's suggestion, they made little boats of +twigs and leaves and sailed them on the duckpond, where they met +with many adventures and calamities from driftweed, small breezes, +and the curiosity of the ducks. And before they were aware of it the +dinner hour was upon them, when they divided two more loaves as +before and ate apples at will. + +Then Martin, taking a handkerchief from his pocket, proposed a game +of Blindman's-Buff, and the girls, delighted, counter Eener-Meener- +Meiner-Mo to find the Blindman. And Joyce was He. So Martin tied the +handkerchief over her eyes. + +"Can you see?" asked Martin. + +"Of course I can't see!" said Joyce. + +"Promise?" said Martin. + +"I hope, Master Pippin," said Jane reprovingly, "that you can take a +girl's word for it." + +"I'm sure I hope I can," said Martin, and turned Joyce round three +times, and ran for his life. And Joyce caught Jane on the spot and +guessed her immediately. + +Then Jane was blindfolded, and she was so particular about not +seeing that it was quite ten minutes before she caught Jennifer, but +she knew who she was by the feel of her gown; and Jennifer caught +Joscelyn, and guessed her by her girdle; and Joscelyn caught Jessica +and guessed her by the darn in her sleeve; and Jessica caught Joan, +and guessed her by her ribbon; and Joan caught Martin, and guessed +him by his difference. + +So then Martin was Blindman, and it seemed as though he would never +have eyes again; for though he caught all the girls, one after +another, he couldn't guess which was which, and gave Jane's nose to +Jessica, and Jessica's hands to Joscelyn, and Joscelyn's chin to +Joyce, and Joyce's hair to Jennifer, and Jennifer's eyebrows to +Joan; but when he caught Joan he guessed her at once by her +littleness. + +In due course the change of light told them it was supper-time; and +with great surprise they ate the last two loaves to the sweet +accompaniment of the apples. + +"I would never have supposed," said Joscelyn, as they gathered under +the central tree at the close of the meal, "that a day could pass so +quickly." + +"Bait time with a diversion," said Martin, "and he will run like a +donkey after a dangled carrot." + +"It has nearly been the happiest day of my life," said Joyce with a +sly glance at Martin. + +"And why not quite?" said he. + +"Because it lacked a story, singer," she said demurely. + +"What can be rectified," said Martin, "must be; and the day is not +yet departed, but still lingers like a listener on the threshold of +night. So set the swing in motion, dear Mistress Joyce, and to its +measure I will endeavor to swing my thoughts, which have till now +been laggards." + +With these words he set Joyce in the swing and himself upon the +branch beside it as before. And the other milkmaids climbed into +their perches, rustling the fruit down from the shaken boughs; and +he made of Joyce's lap a basket for the harvest. And he and each of +the maids chose an apple as though supper had not been. + +"We are listening," said Joscelyn from above. + +"Not all of you," said Martin. And he looked up at Joscelyn alert on +her branch, and down at Gillian prone on the steps. + +"You are here for no other purpose," said Joscelyn, "than to make +them listen that will not. I would not have you think we desire to +listen." + +"I think nothing but that you are the prey of circumstances," said +Martin, "constrained like flowers to bear witness to that which is +against all nature." + +"What do you mean by that?" said Joscelyn. "Flowers are nature +itself." + +"So men have agreed," replied Martin, "yet who but men have +compelled them repeatedly to assert such unnaturalnesses as that +foxes wear gloves and cuckoos shoes? Out on the pretty fibbers!" + +"Please do not be angry with the flowers," said Joan. + +"How could I be?" said Martin. "The flowers must always be forgiven, +because their inconsistencies lie always at men's doors. Besides, +who does not love fairy-tales?" + +Then Martin kicked his heels against the tree and sang idly: + +When cuckoos fly in shoes +And foxes run in gloves, +Then butterflies won't go in twos +And boys will leave their loves. + +"A silly song," said Joscelyn. + +Martin: If you say so. For my part I can never tell the difference +between silliness and sense. + +Jane: Then how can a good song be told from a bad? You must go by +something. + +Martin: I go by the sound. But since Mistress Joscelyn pronounces my +song silly, I can only suppose she has seen cuckoos flying in shoes. + +Joscelyn: You are always supposing nonsense. Who ever heard of +cuckoos flying in shoes? + +Jane: Or of foxes running in gloves? + +Joan: Or of butterflies going in ones? + +Martin: Or of boys-- + +Joscelyn: I have frequently seen butterflies going in ones, foolish +Joan. And the argument was not against butterflies, but cuckoos. + +Martin: And their shoes. Please, dear Mistress Joan, do not look so +downcast, nor you, dear Mistress Joscelyn, so vexed. Let us see if +we cannot turn a more sensible song upon this theme. + +And he sang-- + +Cuckoo Shoes aren't cuckoos' shoes, + They're shoes which cuckoos never don; +And cuckoo nests aren't cuckoos' nests, + But other birds' for a moment gone; +And nothing that the cuckoo has + But he does make a mock upon. +For even when the cuckoo sings + He only says what isn't true-- +When happy lovers first swore oaths + An artful cuckoo called and flew, +Yes! and when lovers weep like dew + The teasing cuckoo laughs Cuckoo! + What need for tears? Cuckoo, cuckoo! + +As Martin ended, Gillian raised herself upon an elbow, and looked no +more into the green grass, but across the green duckpond. + +"The second song seems to me as irrelevant as the first," said +Joscelyn, "but I observe that you cuckooed so loudly as to startle +our mistress out of her inattention. So if you mean to tell us +another story, by all means tell it now. Not that I care, except for +our extremity." + +"It is my only object to ease it," said Martin, "so bear with me as +well as you may during the recital of Young Gerard." + + + +YOUNG GERARD + +There was once, dear maidens, a shepherd who kept his master's sheep +on Amberley Mount. His name was Gerard, and he was always called +Young Gerard to distinguish him from the other shepherd who was +known as Old Gerard, yet was not, as you might suppose, his father. +Their master was the Lord of Combe Ivy that lay in the southern +valleys of the hills toward the sea; he owned the grazing on the +whole circle of the Downs between the two great roads--on Amberley +and Perry and Wepham and Blackpatch and Cockhill and Highdown and +Barnsfarm and Sullington and Chantry. But the two Gerards lived +together in the great shed behind the copse between Rackham Hill and +Kithurst, and the way they came to do so was this. + +One night in April when Old Gerard's gray beard was still brown, the +door of the shed was pushed open, letting in not only the winds of +Spring but a woman wrapped in a green cloak, with a lining of +cherry-color and a border of silver flowers and golden cherries. In +one hand she swung a crystal lantern set in a silver frame, but it +had no light in it; and in the other she held a small slip of a +cherry-tree, but it had no bloom on it. Her dress was white, or had +been; for the skirts of it, and her mantle, were draggled and +sodden, and her green shoes stained and torn, and her long fair hair +lay limp and dank upon her mantle whose hood had fallen away, and +the shadows round her blue eyes were as black as pools under +hedgerows thawing after a frost, and her lovely face was as white as +the snowbanks they bed in. Behind her came another woman in a duffle +cloak, a crone with eyes as black as sloes, and a skin as brown as +beechnuts, and unkempt hair like the fireless smoke of Old Man's +Beard straying where it will on the November woodsides. She too was +wet and soiled, but full of life where the young one seemed full of +death. + +The Shepherd looked at this strange pair and said surlily, "What +want ye?" + +"Shelter," replied the crone. + +She pushed the lady, who never spoke, into the shed, and took from +her shoulders the wet mantle, and from her hands the lantern and the +tree; and led her to the Shepherd's bed and laid her down. Then she +spread the mantle over the Shepherd's bench and, + +"Lie there," said she, "till love warms ye." + +Next she hung the lantern up on a nail in the wall, and, + +"Swing there," said she, "till love lights ye." + +Last she took the Shepherd's trowel and went outside the shed, and +set the cherry-slip beside the door. And she said: + +"Grow there, till love blossoms ye." + +After this she came inside and sat down at the bedhead. + +Gerard the Shepherd, who had watched her proceedings without word or +gesture, said to himself, "They've come through the floods." + +He looked across at the women and raised his voice to ask, "Did ye +come through the floods?" + +The lady moaned a little, and the crone said, "Let her be and go to +sleep. What does it matter where we came from by night? By daybreak +we shall both of us be gone no matter whither." + +The Shepherd said no more, for though he was both curious and +ill-tempered he had not the courage to disturb the lady, knowing by the +richness of her attire that she was of the quality; and the iron of +serfdom was driven deep into his soul. So he went to sleep on his +stool, as he had been bidden. But in the middle of the night he was +awakened by a gusty wind and the banging of his door; and he started +up rubbing his knuckles in his eyes, saying, "I've been dreaming of +strange women, but was it a dream or no?" He peered about the shed, +and the crone had vanished utterly, but the lady still lay on his +bed. And when he went over to look at her, she was dead. But beside +her lay a newborn child that opened its eyes and wailed at him. + +Then the Shepherd ran to his open door and stared into the blowing +night, but there were no more signs of the crone without than there +were within. So he fastened the latch and came back to the bedside, +and examined the child.-- + + +(But at this point Martin Pippin interrupted himself, and seizing +the rope of the swing set it rocking violently. + +Joyce: I shall fall! I shall fall! + +Martin: Then you will be no worse off than I, who have fallen +already. For I see you do not like my story. + +Joyce: What makes you say so? + +Martin: Till now you listened with all your ears, but a moment ago +you turned away your head a moment too late to hide the +disappointment in your eyes. + +Joyce: It is true I am disappointed. Because the beautiful lady is +dead, and how can a love-story be, if half the lovers are dead? + +Martin: Dear Mistress Joyce, what has love to do with death? Love +and death are strangers and speak in different tongues. Women may +die and men may die, but lovers are ignorant of mortality. + +Joyce (pouting): That may be, singer. But lovers are also a man and +a woman, and the woman is dead, and the love-tale ended before we +have even heard it. You should not have let the woman die. What sort +of love-tale is this, now the woman is dead? + +Martin: Are not more nests than one built in a spring-time?--Give +me, I pray you, two hairs of your head. + +She plucked two and gave them to him, turning her pouting to +laughing. One of them Martin coiled and held before his lips, and +blew on it. + +"There it flies," said he, and gave her back the second hair. "Hold +fast by this and keep it from its fellow with all your might, for to +part true mates baffles the forces of the universe. And when you +give me this second hair again I swear I will send it where it will +find its fellow. But I will never ask for it until, my story ended, +you say to me, I am content.'") + + +Examining the child (repeated Martin) the Shepherd discovered it to +be a lusty boy-child, and this rejoiced him, so that while the baby +wept he laughed aloud. + +"It is better to weep for something than for nothing," said he, "and +to laugh for something likewise. Tears are for serfs and laughter is +for freedmen." For he had conceived the plan of selling the child to +his master, the Lord of Combe Ivy, and buying his freedom with the +purchase money. So in the morning he carried the body of the lady +into the heart of the copse, and there he dug a grave and laid her +in it in her white gown. And afterwards he went up hill and down +dale to his master, and said he had a man for sale. The Lord of +Combe Ivy, who was a jovial lord and a bachelor, laughed at the tale +he had to tell; but being always of the humor for a jest he paid the +Shepherd a gold piece for the child, and promised him another each +midnight on the anniversary of its birth; but on the twenty-first +anniversary, he said, the Shepherd was to bring back the twenty-one +gold pieces he had received, and instead of adding another to them +he would take them again, and make the serf a freedman, and the +child his serf. + +"For," said the Lord of Combe Ivy, "an infant is a poor deal for a +man in his prime, as you are, but a youth come to manhood is a good +exchange for a graybeard, as you will be. Therefore rear this babe +as you please, and if he live to manhood so much the better for you, +but if he die first it's all one to me." + +The Shepherd had hoped for a better bargain, but he must needs be +content with seeing liberty at a distance. So he returned to his +shed on the hills and made a leather purse to keep his gold-piece +in, and hung it round his neck, touching it fifty times a day under +his shirt to be sure it was still there. And presently he sought +among his ewes one who had borne her young, saying, "You shall +mother two instead of one." And the baby sucked the ewe like her +very lamb, and thrived upon the milk. And the shepherd called the +child Gerard after himself, "since," he said, "it is as good a name +for a shepherd as another"; and from that time they became the Young +and Old Gerards to all who knew them. + +So the Young Gerard grew up, and as he grew the cherry-tree grew +likewise, but in the strangest fashion; for though it flourished +past all expectation, it never put forth either leaf or blossom. +This bitterly vexed Old Gerard, who had hoped in time for fruit, and +the frustration of his hopes became to him a cause of grievance +against the boy. A further grudge was that by no manner of means +could he succeed in lighting any wick or candle in the silver +lantern, of which he desired to make use. + +"But if your tree and your lantern won't work," said he, "it's no +reason why you shouldn't." So he put Young Gerard to work, first as +sheepboy to his own flock, but later the boy had a flock of his own. +There was no love lost between these two, and kicks and curses were +the young one's fare; for he was often idle and often a truant, and +none was held responsible for him except the old shepherd who was +selling him piece-meal, year by year, to their master. Because of +what depended on him, Old Gerard was constrained to show him some +sort of care when he would liever have wrung his neck. The boy's +fits exasperated the man; whether he was cutting strange capers and +laughing without reason, as he frequently did, or sitting a whole +evening in a morose dream, staring at the fire or at the stars, and +saying never a word. The boy's coloring was as mingled as his moods, +a blend of light and dark--black hair, brown skin, blue eyes and +golden lashes, a very odd anomaly. + + +(Martin: What is it, Mistress Joyce? + +Joyce: I said nothing, Master Pippin. + +Martin: I thought I heard you sigh. + +Joyce: I did not--you did not. + +Martin: My imagination exceeds all bounds.) + + +Because of their mutual dislike, when the boy was put in charge of +his own sheep the two shepherds spent their days apart. The Old +Gerard grazed his flock to the east as far as Chantry, but the Young +Gerard grazed his flock to the west as far as Amberley, whose lovely +dome was dearer to him than all the other hills of Sussex. And here +he would sit all day watching the cloud-shadows stalk over the face +of the Downs, or slipping along the land below him, with the sun +running swiftly after, like a carpet of light unrolling itself upon +a dusky floor. And in the evening he watched the smoke going up from +the tiny cottages till it was almost dark, and a hundred tiny lights +were lit in a hundred tiny windows. Sometimes on his rare holidays, +and on other days too, he ran away to the Wildbrooks to watch the +herons, or to find in the water-meadows the tallest kingcups in the +whole world, and the myriad treasures of the river--the giant +comfrey, purple and white, meadowsweet, St. John's Wort, purple +loose-strife, willowherb, and the ninety-nine-thousand-nine-hundred- +and-ninety-five others, or whatever number else you please, that go +to make a myriad. He came to know more about the ways of the +Wildbrooks than any other lad of those parts, and one day he +rediscovered the Lost Causeway that can be traveled even in the +floods, when the land lies under a lake at the foot of the hills. He +kept this, like many other things, a secret; but he had one more +precious still. + +For as he lay and watched the play of sun and shadow on the plains, +he fancied a world of strange places he had known, somewhere beyond +the veils of light and mist that hung between his vision and the +distance, and he fell into a frequent dream of tunes and laughter, +and sunlit boughs in blossom, and dancing under the boughs; or of +fires burning in the open night, and a wilder singing and dancing in +the starlight; and often when his body was lying on the round hill, +or by the smoky hearth, his thoughts were running with lithe boys as +strong and careless as he was, or playing with lovely free-limbed +girls with flowing hair. Sometimes these people were fair and +bright-haired and in light and lovely clothing, and at others they +were dark, with eyes of mischief, and clad in the gayest rags; and +sometimes they came to him in a mingled company, made one by their +careless hearts. + +One evening in April, on the twelfth anniversary, when Young Gerard +came to gather his flock, a lamb was missing; so to escape a +scolding he waited awhile on the hills till Old Gerard should be +gone about his business. What this was Young Gerard did not know, he +only knew that each year on this night the old shepherd left him to +his own devices, and returned in the small hours of the morning. Not +therefore until he judged that the master must have left the hut, +did the boy fold his sheep; and this done he ran out on the hills +again, seeking the lost lamb. For careless though he was he cared +for his sheep, as he did for all things that ran on legs or flew on +wings. So he went swinging his lantern under the stars, singing and +whistling and smelling the spring. Now and then he paused and +bleated like a ewe; and presently a small whimper answered his +signal. + +"My lost lamb crying on the hills," said Young Gerard. He called +again, but at the sound of his voice the other stopped, and for a +moment he stood quite still, listening and perplexed. + +"Where are you, my lamb?" said he. + +"Here," said a little frightened voice behind a bush. + +He laughed aloud and went forward, and soon discovered a tiny girl +cowering under a thorn. When she saw him she ran quickly and grasped +his sleeve and hid her face in it and wept. She was small for her +years, which were not more than eight. + +Young Gerard, who was big for his, picked her up and looked at her +kindly and curiously. + +"What is it, you little thing?" said he. + +"I got lost," said the child shyly through her tears. + +"Well, now you're found," said Young Gerard, "so don't cry any +more." + +"Yes, but I'm hungry," sobbed the child. + +"Then come with me. Will you?" + +"Where to?" + +"To a feast in a palace." + +"Oh, yes!" she said. + +Young Gerard set her on his shoulder, and went back the way he had +come, till the dark shape of his wretched shed stood big between +them and the sky. + +"Is this your palace?" said the child. + +"That's it," said Young Gerard. + +"I didn't know palaces had cracks in the walls," said she. + +"This one has," explained Young Gerard, "because it's so old." And +she was satisfied. + +Then she asked, "What is that funny tree by the door?" + +"It's a cherry-tree." + +"My father's cherry-trees have flowers on them," said she. + +"This one hasn't," said Young Gerard, "because it's not old enough." + +"One day will it be?" she asked. + +"One day," he said. And that contented her. + +He then carried her into the shed, and she looked around eagerly to +see what a palace might be like inside; and it was full of +flickering lights and shadows and the scent of burning wood, and she +did not see how poor and dirty the room was; for the firelight +gleamed upon a mass of golden fruit and silver bloom embroidered on +the covering of the settle by the hearth, and sparkled against a +silver and crystal lantern hanging in the chimney. And between the +cracks on the walls Young Gerard had stuck wands of gold and silver +palm and branches of snowy blackthorn, and on the floor was a dish +full of celandine and daisies, and a broken jar of small wild +daffodils. And the child knew that all these things were the +treasures of queens and kings. + +"Why don't you have that?" she asked, pointing to the crystal +lantern as Young Gerard set down his horn one. + +"Because I can't light it," said he. + +"Let ME light it!" she begged; so he fetched it from its nail, and +thrust a pine twig in the fire and gave her the sweet-smoking torch. +But in vain she tried to light the wick, which always spluttered and +went out again. So seeing her disappointment Young Gerard hung the +lantern up, saying, "Firelight is prettier." And he set her by the +fire and filled her lap with cones and dry leaves and dead bracken +to burn and make crackle and turn into fiery ferns. And she was +pleased. + +Then he looked about and found his own wooden cup, and went away and +came back with the cup full of milk, set on a platter heaped with +primroses, and when he brought it to her she looked at it with +shining eyes and asked: + +"Is this the feast?" + +"That's it," said Young Gerard. + +And she drank it eagerly. And while she drank Young Gerard fetched a +pipe and began to whistle tunes on it as mad as any thrush, and the +child began to laugh, and jumped up, spilling her leaves and +primroses, and danced between the fitful lights and shadows as +though she were, now a shadow taken shape, and now a flame. Whenever +he paused she cried, "Oh, let me dance! Don't stop! Let me go on +dancing!" until at the same moment she dropped panting on the hearth +and he flung his pipe behind him and fell on his back with his heels +in the air, crying, "Pouf! d'you think I've the four quarters of +heaven in my lungs, or what?" But as though to prove he had yet a +capful of wind under his ribs, he suddenly began to sing a song +she'd never heard before, and it went like this: + +I looked before me and behind, +I looked beyond the sun and wind, +Beyond the rainbow and the snow, +And saw a land I used to know. +The floods rolled up to keep me still +A captive on my heavenly hill, +And on their bright and dangerous glass +Was written, Boy, you shall not pass! +I laughed aloud, You shining seas, +I'll run away the day I please! +I am not winged like any plover +Yet I've a way shall take me over, +I am not finned like any bream +Yet I can cross you, lake and stream. +And I my hidden land shall find +That lies beyond the sun and wind-- +Past drowned grass and drowning trees +I'll run away the day I please, +I'll run like one whom nothing harms +With my bonny in my arms. + +"What does that mean?" asked the child. + +"I'm sure I don't know," said Young Gerard. He kicked at the dying +log on the hearth, and sent a fountain of sparks up the chimney. The +child threw a dry leaf and saw it shrivel, and Young Gerard stirred +the white ash and blew up the embers, and held a fan of bracken to +them, till the fire ran up its veins like life in the veins of a +man, and the frond that had already lived and died became a gleaming +spirit, and then it too fell in ashes among the ash. Then Young +Gerard took a handful of twigs and branches, and began to build upon +the ash a castle of many sorts of wood, and the child helped him, +laying hazel on his beech and fir upon his oak; and often before +their turret was quite reared a spark would catch at the dry fringes +of the fir, or the brown oakleaves, and one twig or another would +vanish from the castle. + +"How quickly wood burns," said the child. + +"That's the lovely part of it," said Young Gerard, "the fire is +always changing and doing different things with it." + +And they watched the fire together, and smelled its smoke, that had +as many smells as there were sorts of wood. Sometimes it was like +roast coffee, and sometimes like roast chestnuts, and sometimes like +incense. And they saw the lichen on old stumps crinkle into golden +ferns, or fire run up a dead tail of creeper in a red S, and vanish +in mid-air like an Indian boy climbing a rope, or crawl right +through the middle of a birch-twig, making hieroglyphics that glowed +and faded between the gray scales of the bark. And then suddenly it +caught the whole scaffolding of their castle, and blazed up through +the fir and oak and spiny thorns and dead leaves, and the bits of +old bark all over blue-gray-green rot, and the young sprigs almost +budding, and hissing with sap. And for one moment they saw all the +skeleton and soul of the castle without its body, before it fell in. + +The child sighed a little and yawned a little and said: + +"How nice it is to live in a palace. Who lives here with you?" + +"My friends," said Young Gerard, poking at the log with a bit of +stick. + +"What are your friends like?" she asked him, rubbing her knuckles in +her eyes. + +He was silent for a little, stirring up sparks and smoke. Then he +answered, "They are gay in their hearts, and they're dressed in +bright clothes, and they come with singing and dancing." + +"Who else lives in your palace with you?" she asked drowsily. + +"You do," said Young Gerard. + +The child's head dropped against his shoulder and she said, "My +name's Dorothea, but my father calls me Thea, and he is the Lord of +Combe Ivy." And she fell fast asleep. + +For a little while Young Gerard held and watched her in the +firelight, and then he rose and wrapped her in the old embroidered +mantle on the settle, and went out. And sure-foot as a goat he +carried her over the dark hills by the tracks he knew, for roads +there were none, and his arms ached with his burden, but he would +not wake her till they stood at her father's gates. Then he shook +her gently and set her down, and she clung to him a little dazed, +trying to remember. + +"This is Combe Ivy," he whispered. "You must go in alone. Will you +come again?" + +"One day," said Thea. + +"One day there'll be flowers on my cherry-tree," said Young Gerard. +"Don't forget." + +"No, I won't," she said. + +He returned through the night up hill and down dale, but did not go +back to the shed until he had recovered his lamb. By then it was +almost dawn, and he found his master awake and cursing. He had +feared the boy had made off, and he had had curt treatment at Combe +Ivy, which was in a stir about the loss of the little daughter. +Young Gerard showed the lamb as his excuse, nevertheless the old +shepherd leathered the young one soundly, as he did six days in +seven. + +After this when Young Gerard sat dreaming on the hills, he dreamed +not only of his happy land and laughing friends, but of the next +coming of little Thea. But Combe Ivy was far away, and the months +passed and the years, and she did not come again. Meanwhile Young +Gerard and his tree grew apace, and the limbs of the boy became +longer and stronger, and the branches of the tree spread up to the +roof and even began to thrust their way through the holes in the +wall; but the boy's life, save for his dreaming, was as friendless +as the tree's was flowerless. And of a tree's dreaming who shall +speak? Meanwhile Old Gerard thrashed and rated him, and reckoned his +gold pieces, and counted the years that still lay between him and +his freedom. At last came another April bringing its hour. + +For as he sat on the Mount in the early morning, when he was in his +seventeenth year, Young Gerard saw a slender girl running over the +turf and laughing in the sunlight, sometimes stopping to watch a +bird flying, or stooping to pluck one of the tiny Down-flowers at +her feet. So she came with a dancing step to the top of the Mount, +and then she saw him, and her glee left her and shyness took its +place. But a little pride in her prevented her from turning away, +and she still came forward until she stood beside him, and said: + +"Good morning, Shepherd. Is it true that in April the country north +of the hills is filled with lakes?" + +"Yes, sometimes, Mistress Thea," said Young Gerard. + +She looked at him with surprise and said, "You must be one of my +father's shepherds, but I do not remember seeing you at Combe Ivy." + +"I was only once near Combe Ivy," said Young Gerard, "when I took +you there five years ago the night you were lost on these hills." + +"Oh, I remember," she said with a faint smile. "How they did scold +me. Is your cherry-tree in flower yet, Shepherd?" + +"No, mistress," said Young Gerard. + +"I want to see it," she said suddenly. + +Young Gerard left his flock to the dog, and walked with her along +the hillbrow. + +"I have run away," she told him as they went. "I had to get up very +early while they were asleep. I shall be scolded again. But +travelers come who talk of the lakes, and I wanted to see them, and +to swim in them." + +"I wouldn't do that," said Young Gerard, hiding a smile. "It's +dangerous to swim in the April floods. And it would be rather cold." + +"What lies beyond?" she asked. + +"I'm not able to know," said Young Gerard. + +"Some day I mean to know, shepherd." + +"Yes, mistress," he said, "you'll be free to." + +She looked at him quickly and reddened a little, it might have been +from shame or pity, Young Gerard did not know which. And her shyness +once more enveloped her; it always came over her unexpectedly, +taking her breath away like a breaking wave. So she said no more, +and they walked together, she looking at the ground, he at the soft +brown hair blowing over the curve of her young cheek. She was fine +and delicate in every line, and in her color, and in the touch of +her too, Young Gerard knew. He wanted to touch her cheek with his +finger as he would have touched the petal of a flower. Her neck, the +back of it especially, was one of the loveliest bits of her, like a +primrose stalk. He fell a step behind so that he could look at it. +They did not speak as they went. He did not want to, and she did not +know what to say. + +When they reached the shed she lingered a moment by the tree, +tracing a bare branch with her finger, and he waited, content, till +she should speak or act, to watch her. At last she said with her +faint smile, "I am very thirsty." Then he went into the shed and +came out with his wooden cup filled with milk. She drank and said, +"Thank you, shepherd. How pretty the violets are in your copse." + +"Would you like some?" he asked. + +"Not now," she said. "Perhaps another day. I must go now." She gave +him back his cup and went away, slowly at first, but when she was at +some distance he saw her begin to run like a fawn. + +She did not come again that spring. And so the stark lives of the +boy and the tree went forward for another year. But one evening in +the following April, when the green was quivering on wood and +hedgerow, he came to the door of the shed and saw her bending like a +flower at the edge of the copse, filling her little basket and +singing to herself. She looked up soon and said: + +"Good evening, shepherd. How does your cherry-tree?" + +"As usual, Mistress Thea." + +"So I see. What a lazy tree it is. Have you some milk for me?" + +He brought her his cup and she drank of it for the third time, and +left him before he had had time to realize that she had come and +gone, but only how greatly her delicate beauty had increased in the +last year. + +However, before the summer was over she came again--to swim in the +river, she told him, as she passed him on the hills, without +lingering. And in the autumn she came to gather blackberries, and he +showed her the best place to find them. Any of these things she +might have done as easily nearer Combe Ivy, but it seemed she must +always offer him some reason for her small truancies--whether to +gather berries or flowers, or to swim in the river. He knew that her +chief delight lay in escaping from her father's manor. + +Winter closed her visits; but Young Gerard was as patient as the +earth, and did not begin to look for her till April. As surely as it +brought leaves to the trees and flowers to the grass, it would, he +knew, bring his little mistress's question, half shy, half smiling, +"Is your cherry-tree in blossom, shepherd?" And later her request, +smiling and shy, for milk. + +They seldom exchanged more than a few words at any time. Sometimes +they did not speak at all. For he, who was her father's servant, +never spoke first; and she, growing in years and loveliness, grew +also in timidity, so that it seemed to cost her more and more to +address her greeting or her question even to her father's servant. +The sweet quick reddening of her cheek was one of Young Gerard's +chief remembrances of her. + +But after a while, when they met by those sly chances which she +could control and he could not; and when she did not speak, but +glanced and hesitated and passed on; or glanced and passed without +hesitation; or passed without a glance; he came to know that she +would not mind if he arose and walked with her, if he could control +the pretext, which she could not. And he did so quietly, having +always something to show her. + +He showed her his most secret nests and his greatest treasures of +flowers, his because he loved them so much. He would have been +jealous of showing these things to any one but her. In a great +water-meadow in the valley, he had once shown her kingcups making +sheets of gold, enameled with every green grass ever seen in spring-- +thousands of kingcups and a myriad of milkmaids in between, dancing +attendance in all their faint shades of silver-white and rosy-mauve. +When a breeze blew, this world of milkmaids swayed and curtsied +above the kings' daughters in their glory. Then Gerard and Thea +looked at each other smiling, because the same delight was in each, +and soon she looked away again at the gentle maids and the royal +ladies, but he looked still at her, who was both to him. + +In silence he showed her what he loved. + +But you must not suppose that she came frequently to those hills. +She was to be seen no more often than you will see a kingfisher when +you watch for it under a willow. Yet because in the season of +kingfishers you know you may see one flash at any instant, so to +Young Gerard each day of spring and summer was an expectancy; and +this it was that kept his lift alight. This and his young troop of +friends in a land of fruit in blossom and a sky in stars. For men, +dear maids, live by the daily bread of their dreams; on realizations +they would starve. + +At last came the winter that preceded Young Gerard's twenty-first +year. With the stripping of the boughs he stripped his heart of all +thoughts of seeing her again till the green of the coming year. The +snows came, and he tended his sheep and counted his memories; and +Old Gerard tended his sheep and counted his coins. The count was +full now, and he dreamed of April and the freeing of his body. Young +Gerard also dreamed of April, and the freeing of his heart. And +under the ice that bound the flooded meadows doubtless the earth +dreamed of the freeing of her waters and the blooming of the land. +The snows and the frosts lasted late that year as though the winter +would never be done, and to the two Gerards the days crawled like +snails; but in time March blew himself off the face of the earth, +and April dawned, and the swollen river went rushing to the sea +above the banks it had drowned with its wild overflow. And as Old +Gerard began to mark the days off on a tally, Young Gerard began to +listen on the hills. When the day came whose midnight was to make +the old man a freedman, Thea had not appeared. + +On the morning of this day, as the two shepherds stood outside their +shed before they separated with their flocks, their ears were +accosted with shoutings and halloos on the other side of the copse, +and soon they saw coming through the trees a man in gay attire. He +had a scalloped jerkin of orange leather, and his shoes and cap were +of the same, but his sleeves and hose and feather were of a vivid +green, like nothing in nature. He looked garish in the sun. Seeing +the shepherds he took off his cap, and solemnly thanked heaven for +having after all created something besides hills and valleys. "For," +said he, "after being lost among them I know not how many hours, +with no other company than my own shadow, I had begun to doubt +whether I was not the only man on earth, and my name Adam. A curse +of all lords who do not live by highroads!" + +"Where are you bound for, master?" asked Old Gerard. + +"Combe Ivy," said the stranger, "and the wedding." + +Old Gerard nodded, as one little surprised; but to Young Gerard this +mention of a wedding at Combe Ivy came as news. It did not stir him +much, however, for he was not curious about the doings of the master +and the house he never saw; all that concerned him was that to-day, +at least, he must cease to listen on the hills, since his young +mistress would be at the wedding with the others. + +Old Gerard said to the stranger, "Keep the straight track to the +south till you come under Wepham, then follow the valley to the +east, and so you'll be in time for the feasting, master." + +"That's certain," said the stranger, "for the Lord of Combe Ivy and +the Rough Master of Coates have had no peers at junketing since Gay +Street lost its Lord; and the feast is like to go on till midnight." + +With that he went on his way, and Old Gerard followed him with his +eyes, muttering, + +"Would I also were there! But for you," he said, turning on the +young man with a sudden snarl, "I should be! Had ye not come a day +too late, I'd be a freedman to-night instead of to-morrow, and +junketing at the wedding with the rest." + +Young Gerard did not understand him. He was not in the habit of +questioning the old man, and if he had would not have expected +answers. But certain words of the stranger had pricked his +attention, and now he said: + +"Where is Gay Street?" + +"Far away over the Stor and the Chill," growled Old Gerard. + +"It's a jolly name." + +"Maybe. But they say it's a sorry place now that it lacks its Lord." + +"What became of him?" + +"How should I know? What can a man know who lives all his life on a +hill with pewits for gossips?" + +"You know more than I," said Young Gerard indolently. "You know +there's a wedding down yonder. Who's the Rough Master of Coates?" + +"The bridegroom, young know-nothing. You've a tongue in your head +to-day." + +"Why do they call him the Rough Master?" + +"Because that's what he is, and so are his people, as rough as furze +on a common, they say. Have you any more questions?" + +"Yes," said Young Gerard. "Who is the bride?" + +"Who should the bride be? Combe Ivy's mother?" + +"She's dead," said Young Gerard. + +"His daughter then," scoffed Old Gerard. + +Young Gerard stared at him. + +"Get about your business," shouted the old shepherd with sudden +wrath. "Why do ye stare so? You're not drunk. Ah! down yonder +they'll be getting drunk without me. Enough of your idling and +staring!" + +He raised his staff, but Young Gerard thrust it aside so violently +that he staggered, and the boy went away to his sheep and they met +no more till evening. The whole of that day Young Gerard sat on the +Mount, not looking as usual to the busy north dreaming of the +unknown land beyond the water, but over the silent slopes and +valleys of the south, whose peoples were only birds and foxes and +rabbits, and whose only cities were built of lights and shadows. +Somewhere beyond them was Combe Ivy, and little Thea getting married +to the Rough Master of Coates, in the midst of feasting and singing +and dancing. He thought of her dancing over the Downs for joy of +being free, he thought of her singing to herself as she gathered +flowers in his copse, and he thought of her feasting on wild berries +he had helped her to find--that also was a feasting and singing and +dancing. All day long his thoughts ran, "She will not come any more +in the mornings to bathe in the river over the hill. She will not +come with her little basket to gather flowers and berries. She will +not stop and ask for a cup of milk, or say, Let me see the young +lambs, or say, Is your cherry-tree in flower yet, shepherd? She will +not ask me with her eyes to come with her--oh, she will not ask me +by turning her eyes away, with her little head bent. You! you Rough +Master of Coates, what are you like, what are you like?" + +In the evening when he gathered his sheep, one was missing. He had +to take the flock back without it. Old Gerard was furious with him; +it seemed as though on this last night that separated him from the +long fulfillment of his hopes he must be more furious than he had +ever been before. He was furious at being thwarted of the fun in the +valley, furious at the loss of the lamb, most furious at young +Gerard's indifference to his fury. He told the boy he must search on +the hills, and Young Gerard only sat down by the side of the shed +and looked to the south and made no answer. So he went himself, +leaving the boy to prepare the mess for supper; for he feared that +if he went to Combe Ivy that night with a bad tale to tell, his +master for a whim might say that a young sheep was a fair deal for +an old shepherd, and take his gold, and keep him a bondman still. +For the Lord of Combe Ivy lived by his whimsies. But Old Gerard +could not find the lost sheep, and when he came back the boy was +where he had left him, looking over the darkening hills. + +"Is the mess ready?" said Old Gerard. + +"No," said Young Gerard. + +"Why not?" + +"Because I forgot." + +Old Gerard slashed at him with a rope he had taken in case of need. +"That will make you remember." + +"No," said Young Gerard. + +"Why not?" + +Young Gerard said, "You beat me too often, I cannot remember all the +reasons." + +"Then," said Old Gerard full of wrath, "I will beat you out of all +reason." + +And he began to thrash Young Gerard will all his might, talking +between the blows. "Haven't you been the curse of my life for +twenty-one years?" snarled he. "Can I trust you? Can I leave you? +Would the sheep get their straw? Would the lambs be brought alive +into the world? Bah! for all you care the sheep would go cold and +their young would die. And down yonder they are getting drunk +without me!" + +"Old shepherd," said a voice behind him. + +The angry man, panting with his rage and the exertion of his blows, +paused and turned. Near the corner of the shed he saw a woman in a +duffle cloak standing, or rather stooping, on her crutch. She was so +ancient that it seemed as though Death himself must have forgotten +her, but her eyes in their wrinkled sockets were as piercing as +thorns. Old Gerard, staring at them, felt as though his own eyes +were pricked. + +"Where have I seen you before, hag?" he said. + +"Have you ever seen me before?" asked the old woman. + +"I thought so, I thought so"--he fumbled with his memory. + +"Then it must have been when we went courting in April, nine-and- +ninety years ago," said the old woman dryly, "but you lads remember +me better than I do you. Can I sleep by your hearth to-night?" + +"Where are you going to?" asked Old Gerard, half grinning, half +sour. + +"Where I'll be welcome," said she. + +"You're not welcome here. But there's nothing to steal, you may +sleep by the hearth." + +"Thank you, shepherd," said the crone, "for your courtesy. Why were +you beating the boy?" + +"Because he's one that won't work." + +"Is he your slave?" + +"He's my master's slave. But he's idle." + +"I am not idle," said Young Gerard. "The year round I'm busy long +before dawn and long after dark." + +"Then why are you idle to-day," sneered Old Gerard, "of all the days +in the year?" + +"I've something else to think of," said the boy. + +"You see," said the old man to the crone. + +"Well," said she, "a boy cannot always be working. A boy will +sometimes be dreaming. Life isn't all labor, shepherd." + +"What else is it?" said Old Gerard. + +"Joy." + +"Ho, ho, ho!" went Old Gerard. + +"And power." + +"Ho, ho, ho!" + +"And triumph." + +"Not for serfs," said Old Gerard. + +"For serfs and lords," she said. + +"Ho, ho, ho!" + +"You were young once," said the crone. + +Old Gerard said, "What if I was?" + +"Good night," said the crone; and she went into the shed. + +The shepherds looked after her, the old one stupidly, the young one +with lighted eyes. + +"Will you get supper?" growled Old Gerard. + +"No," said Young Gerard, "I won't. I want no supper. Put down that +rope. I am taller and stronger than you, and why I've let you go on +beating me so long I don't know, unless it is that you began to beat +me when you were taller and stronger than I. If you want any supper, +get it yourself." + +Old Gerard turned red and purple. "The boy's mad!" he gasped. "Do +you know what happens to servants who defy their masters?" + +"Yes," said Young Gerard, "then they're lords." And he too went into +the shed. + +"Try that on Combe Ivy!" bawled Old Gerard, "and see what you'll get +for it. I thank fortune, I'll be quit of you tomorrow-- What's that +to-do in the valley?" he muttered, and stared down the hill. + +Away in the hollows and shadows he saw splashes of moving light, and +heard far-off snatches of song and laughter, but the movements and +sounds were still so distant that they seemed to be only those of +ghosts and echoes. Nearer they came and nearer, and now in the night +he could discern a great rabble stumbling among the dips and rises +of the hills. + +"They're heading this way," said Old Gerard. "Why, tis the +wedding-party," he said amazed, "if it's not witchcraft. But why are they +coming here?" + +"Hola! hola! hola!" shouted a tipsy voice hard by. + +"Here's dribblings from the wineskin," said Old Gerard; and up the +track struggled a drunken man, waving a torch above his head. It was +the guest whom he had directed in the morning. + +"Hola!" he shouted again on seeing Old Gerard. + +"Well, racketer?" said the shepherd, with a chuckle. + +"Shall a man not racket at another man's wedding?" he cried. "Let +some one be jolly, say I!" + +"The bridegroom," said Old Gerard. + +"Ha, ha!" laughed the other, "the bridegroom! He was first in high +feather and last in the sulks." + +"The bride, then." + +"Ha, ha! ha, ha! during the toasts he tried to kiss her." + +"Wouldn't she?" + +"She wouldn't." + +"Hark!" said Old Gerard, "here they come." The sound of rollicking +increased as the rout drew nearer. + +"He's taking her home across the river," said the guest. "I wouldn't +be she. There she sat, her pretty face fixed and frozen, but a +fright in her that shook her whole body. You could see it shake. And +we drank, how we drank! to the bride and the groom and their +daughters and sons, to the sire and the priest, and the ring and the +bed, to the kiss and the quarrel, to love which is one thing and +marriage which is another--Lord, how we drank! But she drank +nothing. And for all her terror the Rough could do no more with her +than with a stone. Something in her turned him cold every time. +Suddenly up he gets. We'll have no more of this,' he says, we'll +go.' Combe Ivy would have had them stay, but She's where she's used +to lord it here,' says Rough, I'll take her where I lord it, and +teach her who's master,' And he pushes down his chair and takes her +hand and pulls her away; and out we tumble after him. Combe Ivy +cries to him to wait for the horses, but no, We'll foot it,' says +he, up hill and down dale as the crow flies, and if she hates me +now without a cause I swear she'll love me with one at the end of +the dance.' We're dancing them as far as the Wildbrooks; on t'other +side they may dance for themselves. Here they come dancing--dance, +you!" cried the guest, and whirled his torch like a madman. And as +he whirled and staggered, up the hill came the wedding-party as +tipsy as he was: a motley procession, waving torches and garlands, +winecups, flagons, colored napkins, shouting and singing and beating +on trenchers and salvers--on anything that they could snatch from +the table as they quitted it. They came in all their bravery--in +doublets of flame-colored silk and blue, in scarlet leather and +green velvet, in purple slashed with silver and crimson fringed with +bronze; but their vests were unlaced, their hose sagged, and silk +and velvet and leather were stained bright or dark with wine. Some +had stuck leaves and flowers in their hair, others had tied their +forelocks with ribbons like horses on a holiday, and one had torn +his yellow mantle in two and capered in advance, waving the halves +in either hand like monstrous banners, or the flapping wings of some +golden bird of prey. In the midst of them, pressing forward and +pressed on by the riot behind, was the Rough Master of Coates, and +with him, always hanging a little away and shrinking under her veil, +Thea, whose right wrist he grasped in his left hand. Breathless she +was among the breathless rabble, who, gaining the hilltop seized +each other suddenly and broke into antics, shaking their napkins and +rattling on their plates. Their voices were hoarse with laughter and +drink, and their faces flushed with it; only among those red and +swollen faces, the bridegroom's, in the flare of the torches, looked +as black as the bride's looked white. The night about the newly-wedded +pair was one great din and flutter. + +Then in a trice the dancers all lost breath, and the dance parted as +they staggered aside; and at the door of the shed Young Gerard +stood, and gazed through the broken revel at little Thea, and she +stood gazing at him. And behind and above him, along the walls of +the hut, and over the doorway, and making lovely the very roof, she +saw a cloud of snowwhite blossom. + +Somebody cried, "Here's a boy. He shall dance too. Boy, is there +drink within?" + +The others took up the clamor. "Drink! bring us something to drink!" + +"The red grape!" cried one. + +"The yellow grape!" cried another. + +"The sap of the apple!" + +"The juice of the pear!" + +"Nut-brown ale!" + +"The spirit that burns!" + +"Bring us drink!" they cried in a breath. + +"Will you have milk?" said Young Gerard. + +At this the company burst into a roar of laughter. They laughed till +they rocked. But when they were silent little Thea spoke. She said +in a faint clear voice: + +"I would like a cup of milk." + +Young Gerard went into the hut and came out with his wooden cup +filled with milk, and brought it to her, and she drank. None spoke +or moved while she drank, but when she gave him the cup again one of +the crew said chuckling, "Now she has drunk, now she's merrier. Try +her again, Rough, try her on milk!" + +Again the night reeled with their laughter. They surrounded the +wedded pair crying, "Kiss her! kiss her! kiss her!" Then the Rough +Master of Coates pulled her round to him, dark with anger, and tried +to kiss her. But she turned sharply in his arms, bending her head +away. And despite his force, and though he was a man and she little +more than a child, he could not make her mouth meet his. And the +laughter of the guests rose higher, and infuriated him. + +Then he who had spoken before said, "By Hymen, the bride should kiss +something. If the lord's not good enough, let her kiss the churl!" +At this the revelers, wild with delight, beat on their trenchers and +shouted, "Ay, let her!" + +And suddenly they surged in, parting Thea from the Rough; while some +pulled him back others dragged Young Gerard forward, till he stood +where the bridegroom had stood; and in that seething throng of +mockery he felt her clinging helplessly to him, and his arm went +round her. + +"Kiss him! kiss him! kiss him!" cried the guests. + +She looked up pitifully at him, and he bent his head. And she heard +him whisper: + +"My cherry-tree's in flower." + +She whispered, "Yes." + +And they kissed each other. + +Then the tumult of laughter passed all bounds, so that it was a +wonder if it was not heard at Combe Ivy; and the guests clashed +their trenchers one against another, and whirled their torches till +the sparks flew, yelling, "The bride's kiss! Ha, ha! the bride's +kiss!" + +But the Rough Master of Coates had had enough; snarling like a mad +dog he thrust his way through the crowd on one side, as Old Gerard, +seeing his purpose, thrust through on the other, and both at the +same instant fell on the boy, the one with his scabbard, the other +with his staff. + +"Kisses, will ye?" cried the Rough Master of Coates, "here's kisses +for ye!" + +"Ha, ha!" cried the guests, "more kisses, more kisses for him that +kissed the bride!" + +And then they all struck him at once, kicking and beating him +without mercy, till he lay prone on the earth. When he had fallen, +the Rough shouted, "Away to the Wildbrooks, away!" + +And he seized Thea in his arms, and rushed along the brow of the +hill, and all the company followed in a confusion, and were +swallowed up in the night. + +But Young Gerard raised himself a little, and groaned, "The +Wildbrooks--are they going to the Wildbrooks?" + +"Ay, and over the Wildbrooks," said Old Gerard. + +"But they're in flood," gasped Young Gerard. "They'll never cross it +in the spring floods." + +"They'll manage it somehow. The Rough--did you see his eyes when +you--? ho, ho! he'll cross it somehow." + +"He can't," the boy muttered. "The April tide's too strong. He will +drown in the flood." + +"And she," said Old Gerard. + +"Perhaps she will swim on the flood," said Young Gerard faintly. And +he sighed and sank back on the earth. + +"Ay, you'll be sore," chuckled the old man. "You had your salve +before you had your drubbing. Lie there. I must be gone on +business." + +He took up his staff and went down the hill for the last time to +Combe Ivy, to purchase his freedom. + +But Young Gerard lay with his face pressed to the turf. "And that +was the bridegroom," he said, and shook where he lay. + +"Young shepherd," said a voice beside him. He looked up and saw the +hooded crone, come out of the hut. "Why do you water the earth?" +said she. "Have not the rains done their work?" + +"What work, dame?" + +"You've as fine a cherry in flower," said she, "as ever blossomed in +Gay Street in the season of singing and dancing." + +"Singing and dancing!" he cried, his voice choking, and he sprang up +despite his pains. "Don't speak to me, dame, of singing and dancing. +You're old, like the withered branch of a tree, but did you not see +with your old eyes, and hear with your old ears? Did you not see her +come up the green hillside with singing and dancing? Oh, yes, my +cherry's in flower, like a crown for a bride, and the spring is all +in movement, and the birds are all in song, and she--she came up the +hillside with singing and dancing." + +"I saw," said the crone, "and I heard. I'm not so old, young +shepherd, that I do not remember the curse of youth." + +"What's that?" he said moodily. + +"To bear the soul of a master in the body of a slave," said she; "to +be a flower in a sealed bud, the moon in a cloud, water locked in +ice, Spring in the womb of the year, love that does not know +itself." + +"But when it does know?" said Young Gerard slowly. + +"Oh, when it knows!" said she. "Then the flower of the fruit will +leap through the bud, and the moon will leap like a lamb on the +hills of the sky, and April will leap in the veins of the year, and +the river will leap with the fury of Spring, and the headlong heart +will cry in the body of youth, I will not be a slave, but I will be +the lord of life, because--" + +"Because?" said Young Gerard. + +"Because I will!" + +Young Gerard said nothing, and they sat together in a long silence +in the darkness, and time went by filling the sky with stars. + +Now as they sat the hilltop once more began to waver with shadows +and voices, but this time the shadows came on heavy feet and weary, +and the voices were forlorn. One feebly cried, "Hola!" And round the +belt of trees straggled the rout that had left them an hour or so +earlier. But now they were sodden and dejected, draggled and +woebegone, as sorry a spectacle as so many drowned rats. + +"Fire!" moaned one. "Fire! fire!" + +"Who's burning?" said Young Gerard, and got quickly on his feet; but +he did not see the two he looked for. + +"None's burning, fool, but many are drowning. Do we not look like +drowned men? How shall we ever get back to Combe Ivy, and warmth and +drink and comforts? Would we were burning!" + +"What has happened?" the boy demanded. + +"We went in search of the ferry," he said, "but the ferry was +drowned too." + +"We couldn't find the ferry," said a second. + +"No," mumbled a third, "the river had drunk it up. Where there were +paths there are brooks, and where there were meadows, lakes." + +The miserable crew broke out into plaints and questions--"Have you +no fire? have you no food? no coverings?" + +"None," said Young Gerard. "Where is the bride?" + +"Have you do drink?" + +"Where is the bride?" + +"The groom stumbled," said one. "Let us to Combe Ivy, in comfort's +name. There'll be drink there." + +He staggered down the hill, and his fellows made after him. But +Young Gerard sprang upon one, and gripped him by the shoulder and +shook him, and for the third time cried: + +"Where is the bride?" + +"In the water," he answered heavily, "because--there was--no wine." + +Then he dragged himself out of the boy's grasp, and fell down the +hill after his companions. + +Young Gerard stood for one instant listening and holding his breath. +Suddenly he said, "My lost lamb, crying on the hills." He ran into +the shed and looked about, and snatched from the settle the green +and cherry cloak, and from the wall the crystal and silver lantern. +He struck a spark from a flint and lit the wick. It burned brightly +and steadily. Then he ran out of the shed. The old woman rose up in +his path. + +"That's a good light," said she, "and a warm cloak." + +"Don't stop me!" said Young Gerard, and ran on. She nodded, and as +he vanished in one direction, she vanished in the other. + +He had not run far when he saw one more shadow on the hills; and it +came with faltering steps, and a trembling sobbing breath, and he +held up his lantern and the light fell on Thea, shivering in her wet +veil. As the flame struck her eyes she sighed, "Oh, I can't see the +way--I can't see!" + +Young Gerard hurried to her and said, "Come this way," and he took +her hand; but she snatched it quickly from him. + +"Go, man!" she said. "Don't touch me. Go!" + +"Don't be frightened of me," said Young Gerard gently. + +Then she looked at him and whispered, "Oh--it is you--shepherd. I +was trying to find you. I'm cold." + +Young Gerard wrapped the cloak about her, and said, "Come with me. +I'll make you a fire." + +He took her back to the shed. But she did not go in. She crouched on +the ground under the cherry-tree. Young Gerard moved about +collecting brushwood. They scarcely looked at each other; but once +when he passed her he said, "You're shivering." + +"It's because I'm so wet," said Thea. + +"Did you fall in the water?" + +She nodded. "The floods were so strong." + +"It's a bad night for swimming," said Young Gerard. + +"Yes, shepherd." She then said again, "Yes." He could tell by her +voice that she was smiling faintly. He glanced at her and saw her +looking at him; both smiled a little and glanced away again. He +began to pile his brushwood for the fire. + +After a short pause she said timidly, "Are you sore, shepherd?" + +"No, I feel nothing," said he. + +"They beat you very hard." + +"I did not feel their blows." + +"How could you not feel them?" she said in a low voice. He looked at +her again, and again their eyes met, and again parted quickly. + +"Now I'll strike a spark," said Young Gerard, "and you'll be warm +soon." + +He kindled his fire; the branches crackled and burned, and she knelt +beside the blaze and held her hands to it. + +"I was never here by night before," she said. + +"Yes, once," said Young Gerard. "You often came, didn't you, to +gather flowers in the morning and to swim in the river at noon. But +once before you were here in the night." + +"Was I?" said she. + +He dropped a handful of cones into her lap, throwing the last on the +fire. She threw another after it, and smiled as it crackled. + +"I remember," she said. "Thank you, shepherd. You were always kind +and found me the things I wanted, and gave me your cup to drink of. +Who'll drink of it now?" + +"No one," he said, "ever again." + +He went and fetched the cup and gave it to her. "Burn that too," +said Young Gerard. Thea put it into the fire and trembled. When it +was burned she asked very low, "Will you be lonely?" + +"I'll have my sheep and my thoughts." + +"Yes," said Thea, "and stars when the sheep are folded. The stars +are good to be with too." + +"Good to see and not be seen by," he said. + +"How do you know they don't see you?" she asked shyly. + +"One shepherd on a hill isn't much for the eye of a star. He may +watch them unwatched, while they come and go in their months. +Sometimes there aren't any, and sometimes not more than one pricking +the sky near the moon. But to-night, look! the sky's like a tree +with full branches." + +Thea looked up and said with a child's laugh, "Break me a branch!" + +"I'd want Jacob's Ladder for that," smiled Young Gerard. + +"Then shake the tree and bring them down!" she insisted. + +"Here come your stars," said Young Gerard. Suddenly she was +enveloped in a falling shower, white and heavenly. + +"The stars--!" she cried. "Oh, what is it?" + +"My cherry-tree--it's in flower--" said Young Gerard, and his voice +trembled. She looked up quickly and saw that he was standing beside +her, shaking the tree above her head. And now their eyes met and did +not separate. He put out his hand and broke a branch from the tree +and offered it to her. She took it from him slowly, as though she +were in a dream, and laid it in her lap, and put her face in her +hands and began to cry. + +Young Gerard whispered, "Why are you crying?" + +Thea said, "Oh, my wedding, my wedding! Only last year I thought of +the night of my wedding and how it would be. It was not with +torchlight and shouting and wine, but moonlight and silence and the +scent of wild blossoms. And now I know that it was not the night of +my wedding I dreamed of." + +"What did you dream of?" asked Young Gerard. + +"The night of my first love." + +"Thea," said Young Gerard, and he knelt beside her. + +"And my love's first kiss." + +"Oh, Thea," said Young Gerard, and he took her hands. + +"Why did you not feel their blows?" she said. "I felt them." + +Their arms went round each other, and for the second time that night +they kissed. + +Young Gerard said, "I've always wondered if this would happen." + +And Thea answered, "I didn't know it would be you." + +"Didn't you? didn't you?" he whispered, stroking her head, wondering +at himself doing what he had so often dreamed of doing. + +"Oh," she faltered, "sometimes I thought--it might--be you, +darling." + +"Thea, Thea!" + +"When I came over the Mount to swim in the river, and saw you in the +distance among your sheep, there was a swifter river running through +all my body. When I came every April to ask for your cherry-tree, +what did it matter to me that it was not in bloom? for all my heart +was wild with bloom, oh, Gerard, my--lover!" + +"Oh, Thea, my love! What can I give you, Thea, I, a shepherd?" + +"You were the lord of the earth, and you gave me its flowers and its +birds and its secret waters. What more could you give me, you, a +shepherd and my lord?" + +"The wild white bloom of its fruit-trees that comes to the branches +in April like love to the heart. I'll give it you now. Sit here, sit +here! I'll make you a bower of the cherry, and a crown, and a carpet +too. There's nothing in all April lovely and wild enough for you +to-night, your bridal night, my lady and my darling!" + +And in a great fit of joy he broke branch after branch from the tree +as she sat at its foot, and set them about her, and filled her arms +to overflowing, and crowned her with blossoms, and shook the bloom +under her feet, till her shy happy face, paling and reddening by +turns, looked out from a world of flowers and she cried between +laughing and weeping, "Oh, Gerard, oh, you're drowning me!" + +"It's the April floods," shouted Young Gerard, "and I must drown +with you, Thea, Thea, Thea!" And he cast himself down beside her, +and clasped her amid all the blossoming, and with his head on her +shoulder kissed and kissed her till he was breathless and she as +pale as the flowers that smothered their kisses. + +And then suddenly he folded her in the green mantle, blossoms and +all, and sprang up and lifted her to his breast till she lay like a +child in the arms of its mother; and he picked up the lantern and +said, "Now we will go away for ever." + +"Where are we going?" she whispered with shining eyes. + +"To the Wildbrooks," he said. + +"To drown in the floods together?" She closed her eyes. + +"There's a way through all floods," said Young Gerard. + +And he ran with her over the hills with all his speed. + +And Old Gerard returned to a hut as empty as it had been +one-and-twenty years ago. And they say that Combe Ivy, having never set eyes +on the boy in his life, swore that the shepherd's tale had been a +fiction from first to last, and kept him a serf to the end of his +days. + + +("What a night of stars it is!" said Martin Pippin, stretching his +arms. + +"Good heavens, Master Pippin," cried Joyce, "what a moment to +mention it!" + +"It is worth mentioning," said Martin, "at all moments when it is +so. I would not think of mentioning it in the middle of a +snowstorm." + +"You should as little think of mentioning it," said Joyce, "in the +middle of a story." + +"But I am at the end of my story, Mistress Joyce." + +Joscelyn: Preposterous! Oh! Oh, how can you say so? I am ashamed of +you! + +Martin: Dear Mistress Joscelyn, I thank you in charity's name for +being that for me which I have never yet succeeded in being for +myself. + +Joscelyn: What! are you not ashamed to offer us a broken gift? Your +story is like a cracked pitcher with half the milk leaked out. What +was the secret of the Lantern, the Cloak, and the Cherry-tree? + +Joyce: Who was the lovely lady, his mother? and who the old crone? + +Jennifer: What was the end of the Rough Master of Coates? + +Jessica: Did not the lovers drown in the floods? + +Jane: And if they did not, what became of them? + +"Please," said little Joan, "tell us why Young Gerard dreamed those +dreams. Oh, please tell us what happened." + +"Women's taste is for trifles," said Martin. "I have offered you my +cake, and you wish only to pick off the nuts and the cherries." + +"No," said Joan, "we wish you to put them on. Do you not love nuts +and cherries on a cake?" + +"More than anything," said Martin.) + + +A long while ago, dear maidens, there were Lords in Gay Street, and +up and down the Street the cherry-trees bloomed in Spring as they +bloomed nowhere else in Sussex, and under the trees sang and danced +the loveliest lads and lasses in all England, with hearts like +children. And on all their holiday clothes they worked the leaf and +branch and flower and fruit of the cherry. And they never wore +anything else but their holiday clothes, because in Gay Street it +was always holidays. + +And a long while ago there were Gypsies on Nyetimber Common, the +merriest Gypsies in the southlands, with the gayest tatters and the +brightest eyes, and the maddest hearts for mirth-making. They were +also makers of lanterns when they were anything else but what all +Gypsies are. + +And once the son of a Gypsy King loved the daughter of a Lord of Gay +Street, and she loved him. And because of this there was wrath in +Gay Street and scorn on Nyetimber, and all things were done to keep +the lovers apart. But they who attempt this might more profitably +chase wild geese. So one night in April they were taken under one of +her father's own wild cherries by the light of one of his father's +own lanterns. And it was her father and his father who found them, +as they had missed them, in the same moment, and were come hunting +for sweethearts by night with their people behind them. + +Then the Lord of Gay Street pronounced a curse of banishment on his +own daughter, that she must go far away beyond the country of the +floods, and another on his own tree, that it might never blossom +more. And there and then it withered. And the Gypsy King pronounced +as dark a curse of banishment on his own son, and a second on his +own lantern, that it might never more give light. And there and then +it went out. + +Then from the crowd of gypsies came the oldest of them all, who was +the King's great-grandmother, and she looked from the angry parents +to the unhappy lovers and said, "You can blight the tree and make +the lantern dark; nevertheless you cannot extinguish the flower and +the light of love. And till these things lift the curse and are seen +again united among you, there will be no Lords in Gay Street nor +Kings on Nyetimber." + +And she broke a shoot from the cherry and picked up the lantern and +gave them to the lady and her lover; and then she took them one by +each hand and went away. And the Lord of Gay Street and the Gypsy +King died soon after without heirs, and the joy went out of the +hearts of both peoples, and they dressed in sad colors for +one-and-twenty years. + +But the three traveled south through the country of the floods, and +on the way the King's son was drowned, as others had been before +him, and after him the Rough Master of Coates. But the crone brought +the lady safely through, and how she was at once delivered of her +son and her sorrow, dear maidens, you know. + +And for one-and-twenty years the crone was seen no more, and then of +a sudden she re-appeared at daybreak and bade her people put on +their bright apparel because their King was coming with a young +Queen; and after this she led them to Gay Street where she bade the +folk to don their holiday attire, because their Lord was on his way +with a fair Lady. And all those girls and boys, the dark and the +light, felt the child of joy in their hearts again, and they went in +the morning with singing and dancing to welcome the comers under the +cherry-trees. + +I entreat you now, Mistress Joyce, for the second hair from your +head. + + +SECOND INTERLUDE + +The milkmaids put their forgotten apples to their mouths, and the +chatter began to run out of them like juice from bitten fruit. + +Jessica: What did you think of this story, Jane? + +Jane: I did not know what to think, Jessica, until the very +conclusion, and then I was too amazed to think anything. For who +would have imagined the young Shepherd to be in reality a lord? + +Martin: Few of us are what we seem, Mistress Jane. Even chimney- +sweeps are Jacks-in-Green on May-Days; for the other three-hundred- +and-sixty-four days in the year they pretend to be chimney-sweeps. +And I have actually known men who appeared to be haters of women, +when they secretly loved them most tenderly. + +Joscelyn: It does not surprise me to hear this. I have always +understood men to be composed of caprices. + +Martin: They are composed of nothing else. I see you know them +through and through. + +Joscelyn: I do not know anything at all about them. We do not study +what does not interest us. + +Martin: I hope, Mistress Joscelyn, you found my story worthy of +study? + +Joscelyn: It served its turn. Might one, by going to Rackham Hill, +see this same cherry-tree and this same shed? + +Martin: Alas, no. The shed rotted with time and weather, and bit by +bit its sides were rebuilt with stone. And the cherry-tree Old +Gerard chopped down in a fury, and made firewood of it. But it too +had served its turn. For as every man's life (and perhaps, but you +must answer for this, every woman's life), awaits the hour of +blossoming that makes it immortal, so this tree passed in a single +night from sterility to immortality; and it mattered as little if +its body were burned the next day, as it would have mattered had +Gerard and Thea gone down through the waters that night instead of +many years later, after a life-time of great joy and delight. + +Joyce: I am glad of that. There were moments when I feared it would +not be so. + +Jennifer: I too. For how could it be otherwise, seeing that he was a +shepherd and she a lord's daughter? + +Jessica: And when it was related how she was to wed the Rough Master +of Coates, my hopes were dashed entirely. + +Jane: And when they beat Young Gerard I was perfectly certain he was +dead. + +Joan: I rather fancied the tale would end happily, all the same. + +Martin: I fancied so too. For though any of these accidents would +have marred the ending, love is a divinity above all accidents, and +guards his own with extraordinary obstinacy. Nothing could have +thwarted him of his way but one thing. + +Five of the Milkmaids: Oh, what? + +Martin: Had Thea been one of those who are not interested in the +study of men. + + +Nobody said anything in the Apple-Orchard. + +Joscelyn: She need not have been condemned to unhappiness on that +account, singer. And what does the happiness or unhappiness of an +idle story weigh? Whether she wedded another, or whether they were +parted by whatever cause, such as her superior station, or even his +death, it's all one to me. + +Jennifer: And me. + +Jessica: And me. + +Jane: And me. + +Martin: The tale is judged. Let it go hang. For a cloud has dropped +over nine-tenths of the moon, like the eyelid of a girl who still +peeps through her lashes, but will soon fall asleep for weariness. I +have made her lids as heavy as yours with my poor story. Let us all +sleep and forget it. + + +So the girls lay down in the grass and slept. But Joyce went on +swinging. And every time she swayed past him she looked at Martin, +and her lips opened and shut again, nothing having escaped them but +a very little laughter. The tenth time this happened Martin said: + +"What keeps your lashes open, Mistress Joyce, when your comrades' +lie tangled on their cheeks? Is it the same thing that opens your +lips and peeps through the doorway and runs away again?" + +"MUST my lashes shut because others' do?" said Joyce. "May not +lashes have whims of their own?" + +"Nothing is more whimsical," said Martin Pippin. "I have known, for +instance, lashes that WILL be golden though the hair of the head be +dark. It is a silly trick." + +"I don't dislike such lashes," said Joyce. "That is, I think I +should not if ever I saw them." + + +Martin: Perhaps you are right. I should love them in a woman. + +Joyce: I never saw them in a woman. + +Martin: In a man they would be regrettable. + +Joyce: Then why did you give them to Young Gerard? + +Martin: Did I? It was pure carelessness. Let us change the color of +his lashes. + +Joyce: No, no! I will not have them changed. I would not for the +world. + +Martin: Dear Mistress Joyce, if I had the world to offer you, I +would sit by the road and break it with a pickax rather than change +a single eyelash in Young Gerard's lids. Since you love them. + +Joyce: Oh, did I say so? + +Martin: Didn't you?--Mistress Joyce, when you laugh I am ready to +forgive you all your debts. + +Joyce: Why, what do I owe you? + +Martin: An eyelash. + +Joyce: I am sure I do not. + +Martin: No? Then a hair of some sort. How will you be able to sleep +to-night with a hair on your conscience? For your own sake, lift +that crowbar. + +Joyce: To tell you the truth, I fear to redeem my promise lest you +are unable to redeem yours. + +Martin: Which was? + +Joyce: To blow it to its fellow, who is now wandering in the night +like thistledown. + +Martin: I will do it, nevertheless. + +Joyce: It is easier promised than proved. But here is the hair. + +Martin: Are you certain it is the same hair? + +Joyce: I kept it wound round my finger. + +Martin: I know no better way of keeping a hair. So here it goes! + +And he held the hair to his lips and blew on it. + +Martin: A blessing on it. It will soon be wedded. + +Joyce: I have your word on it. + +Martin: You shall have your eyes on it if you will tell me one +thing. + +Joyce: Is it a little thing? + +Martin: It's as trifling as a hair. I wish only to know why you have +fallen out with men. + +Joyce: For the best of reasons. Why, Master Pippin! they say the +world is round! + +Martin: Heaven preserve us! was ever so giddy a statement? Round? +Why, the world's as full of edges as the dealings of men and women, +in which you can scarcely go a day's march without reaching the end +of all things and tumbling into heaven. I tell you I have traveled +the world more than any man living, and it takes me all my time to +keep from falling off the brink. Round? The world is one great +precipice! + +Joyce: I said so! I said so! I know I was right! I should like to +tell--them so. + +Martin: Were you only able to go out of the Orchard, you would be +free to tell--them so. They are such fools, these men. + +Joyce: Not in all matters, Master Pippin, but certainly in this. +They are good at some things. + +Martin: For my part I can't think what. + +Joyce: They whitewash cowsheds beautifully. + +Martin: Who wouldn't? Whitewash is such beautiful stuff. No, let us +be done with these round-minded men and go to bed. Good night, dear +milkmaid. + +Joyce: Ah, but singer! you have not yet proved your fable of the two +hairs, which you swore were as hard to keep apart as the two lovers +in your tale. + +"Whom love guarded against accidents," said Martin; and he held out +to her the third finger of his left hand, and wound at its base were +the two hairs, in a ring as fine as a cobweb. She took his finger +between two of hers and laughed, and examined it, and laughed again. + +"You have been playing the god of love to my hairs," said Joyce. + +"Somebody must protect those that cannot, or will not, be kind to +themselves," said Martin. And then his other fingers closed quickly +on her hand, and he said: "Dear Mistress Joyce, help me to play the +god of love to Gillian, and give me your key to the Well-House, +because there were moments when you feared my tale would end +unhappily." + +She pulled her hand away and began to swing rapidly, without +answering. But presently she exclaimed, "Oh, oh! it has dropped!" + +"What? what?" said Martin anxiously. + +But she only cried again, "Oh, my heart! it has dropped under the +swing." + +"In love's name," said Martin, "let me recover your heart." + +He groped in the grass and found what she had dropped, and then was +obliged to fall flat on his back to escape her feet as she swung. + +"Well, any time's a time for laughing," said Martin, crawling forth +and getting on his knees. "Here's the key to your heart, laughing +Joyce." + +"Oh, Martin! how can I take it with my hands on the ropes?" + +"Then I'll lay it on your lap." + +"Oh, Martin! how do you expect it to stay there while I swing?" + +"Then you must stop swinging." + +"Oh, Martin! I will never stop swinging as long as I live!" + +"Then what must I do with this key?" + +"Oh, Martin! why do you bother me so about an old key? Can't you see +I'm busy?" + +"Oh, Joyce! when you laugh I must--I must--" + +"Yes?" + +"I must!" + +And he caught her two little feet in his hands as she next flew by, +and kissed each one upon the instep. + +Then he ran to his bed under the hedge, and she sat where she was +till her laughing turned to smiling, and her smiling to sleeping. + + +"Maids! maids! maids!" + +It was morning. + +"To your hiding-place, Master Pippin!" urged Joscelyn. "It's our +master come again." + +Martin concealed himself with speed, and an instant later the +farmer's burly face peered through the gap in the hedge. + +"Good morrow, maids." + +"Good morrow, master." + +"Has my daughter stopped weeping yet?" + +"No, master," said Joyce, "but I begin to think that she will before +long." + +"A little longer will be too long," moaned Gillman, "for my purse is +running dry with these droughty times, and I shall have to mortgage +the farm to buy me ale, since I am foiled of both water and milk. +Who would have daughters when he might have sons? Gillian!" he +cried, "when will ye learn that old heads are wiser than young +ones?" + +But Gillian paid no more attention to him than to the cawing rooks +in the elms in the oatfield. + +"Take your bread, maids," said Gillman, "and heaven send us grace +to-morrow." + +"Just an instant, master," said Joyce. "I would like to know if +Blossom my Shorthorn is well?" + +"As well as a child without its mother, maid, though Michael has +turned nurse to her. But she seems sworn to hold back her milk till +you come again. Rack and ruin, nothing but rack and ruin!" + +And off he went. + +Then breakfast was prepared as on the previous day, and Gillian's +stale loaf was broken for the ducks. But Joscelyn pointed out that +one of the kissing-crusts had been pulled off in the night. + +"Your stories, Master Pippin, are doing their work," said she. + +"I begin to think so," said Martin cheerfully. And then they fell to +on their own white loaves and sweet apples. + +When they had breakfasted Martin observed that he could make better +and longer daisy-chains than any one else in the world, and his +statement was pooh-poohed by six voices at once. For girls' fingers, +said these voices, had been especially fashioned by nature for the +making of daisy-chains. Martin challenged them to prove this, and +they plucked lapfuls of the small white daisies with big yellow +eyes, and threaded chains of great length, and hung them about each +other's necks. And so deft and dainty was their touch that the +chains never broke in the making or, what is still more delicate a +matter, in the hanging. But Martin's chains always broke before he +had joined the last daisy to the first, and the girls jeered at him +for having no necklace to match their necklaces of pearls and gold, +and for failing so contemptibly in his boast. And he appeared so +abashed by their jeers that little Joan relented and made a longer +chain than any that had been made yet, and hung it round his neck. +At which he was merry again, and confessed himself beaten, and the +girls became very gracious, being in their triumph even more pleased +with him than with themselves. Which was a great deal. And by then +it was dinner-time. + +After dinner Martin proposed that as they had sat all the morning +they should run all the afternoon, so they played Touchwood. And +Martin was He. But an orchard is so full of wood that he had a hard +job of it. And he observed that Jennifer had very little daring, and +scarcely ever lifted her finger from the wood as she ran from one +tree to another; and that Jane had no daring at all, and never even +left her tree. And that Joscelyn was extremely daring when it was +safe to be so; and that Jessica was daring enough to tweak him and +run away, while Joyce was more daring still, for she tweaked him and +did not run. As for little Joan, she puzzled him most of all; for +half the time she outdid them all in daring, and then she was +uncatchable, slipping through his very fingers like a ray of +sunlight a child tries to hold; but the other half of the time she +was timidity itself, and crept from tree to tree, and if he were +near became like a little frightened rabbit, forgetting, or being +through fear unable, to touch safety; and then she was snared more +easily than any. + +By supper, however, every maid had been He but Jane. For no man can +catch what doesn't run. + +"How the time has flown," said Joscelyn, when they were all seated +about the middle tree after the meal. + +"It makes such a difference," said Jennifer, "when there's something +to do. We never used to have anything to do till Master Pippin came, +and now life is all games and stories." + +"The games," said Joscelyn, "are well enough." + +"Shall we," said Martin, "forego the stories?" + +"Oh, Master Pippin!" said Jennifer anxiously, "we surely are to have +a story to-night?" + +"Unless we are to remain here for ever," said Martin, "I fear we +must. But for my part I am quite happy here. Are not you, Mistress +Joscelyn?" + +"Your questions are idle," said she. "You know very well that we +cannot escape a story." + +"You see, Mistress Jennifer," said Martin. "Let us resign ourselves +therefore. And for your better diversion, please sit in the swing, +and when the story is tedious you will have a remedy at hand." + +So saying, he put Jennifer on the seat and her hands on the ropes, +and the five other girls climbed into the tree, while he took the +bough that had become his own. And all provided themselves with +apples. + +"Begin," said Joscelyn. + +"A story-teller," said Martin, "as much as any other craftsman, +needs his instruments, of which his auditors are the chief. And of +these I lack one." And he fixed his eyes of the weeper in the Well-House. + +"You have six already," said Joscelyn. "The seventh you must acquire +as you proceed. So begin." + +"Without the vital tool?" cried Martin. "As well might you bid Madam +Toad to spin flax without her distaff." + +"What folly is this?" said Joscelyn. "Toads don't spin." + +"Don't they?" said Martin, much astonished. "I thought they did. +What then is toadflax? Do the wildflowers not know?" + +And still keeping his eyes fixed on Gillian he thrummed and sang-- + +Toad, toad, old toad, + What are you spinning? +Seven hanks of yellow flax + Into snow-white linen. +What will you do with it + Then, toad, pray? +Make shifts for seven brides + Against their wedding-day. +Suppose e'er a one of them + Refuses to be wed? +Then she shall not see the jewel + I wear in my head. + +As he concluded, Gillian raised herself on her two elbows, and with +her chin on her palms gazed steadily over the duckpond. + +Joscelyn: Why seven? + +Martin: Is it not as good a number as another? + +Jennifer: What is the jewel like in the toad's head, Master Pippin? + +Martin: How can I say, Mistress Jennifer? There's but one way of +knowing, according to the song, and like a fool I refused it. + +Jennifer: I wish I knew. + +Martin: The way lies open to all. + +Joscelyn: These are silly legends, Jennifer. It is as little likely +that there are jewels in toads' heads as that toads spin flax. But +Master Pippin pins his faith to any nonsense. + +Martin: True, Mistress Joscelyn. My faith cries for elbow-room, and +he who pins his faith to common-sense is like to get a cramp in it. +Therefore since women, as I hear tell, have ceased to spin brides' +shifts, I am obliged to believe that these things are spun by toads. +Because brides there must be though the wells should run dry. + +Joscelyn: I do not see the connection. However, it is obvious that +the bad logic of your song has aroused even Gillian's attention, so +for mercy's sake make short work of your tale before it flags again. + +Martin: I will follow your advice. And do you follow me with your +best attention while I turn the wheel of The Mill of Dreams. + + + +THE MILL OF DREAMS + +There was once, dear maidens, a girl who lived in a mill on the +Sidlesham marshes. But in those days the marshlands were +meadowlands, with streams running in from the coast, so that their +water was brackish and salt. And sometimes the girl dipped her +finger in the water and sucked it and tasted the sea. And the taste +made storms rise in her heart. Her name was Helen. + +The mill-house was a gaunt and gloomy building of stone, as gray as +sleep, weatherstained with dreams. It had fine proportions, and +looked like a noble prison. And in fact, if a prison is the +lockhouse of secrets, it was one. The great millstones ground day +and night, and what the world sent in as corn it got back as flour. +And as to the secrets of the grinding it asked no questions, because +to the world results are everything. It understands death better +than sorrow, marriage better than love, and birth better than +creation. And the millstones of joy and pain, grinding dreams into +bread, it seldom hears. But Helen heard them, and they were all the +knowledge she had of life; for if the mill was a prison of dreams it +was her prison too. + +Her father the miller was a harsh man and dark; he was dark within +and without. Her mother was dead; she did not remember her. As she +grew up she did little by little the work of the big place. She was +her father's servant, and he kept her as close to her work as he +kept his millstones to theirs. He was morose, and welcomed no +company. Gayety he hated. Helen knew no songs, for she had heard +none. From morning till night she worked for her father. When she +had done all her other work she spun flax into linen for shirts and +gowns, and wool for stockings and vests. If she went outside the +mill-house, it was only for a few steps for a few moments. She +wasn't two miles from the sea, but she had never seen it. But she +tasted the salt water and smelt the salt wind. + +Like all things that grow up away from the light, she was pale. Her +oval face was like ivory, and her lips, instead of being scarlet, +had the tender red of apple-blossom, after the unfolding of the +bright bud. Her hair was black and smooth and heavy, and lay on +either side of her face like a starling's wings. Her eyes too were +as black as midnight, and sometimes like midnight they were deep and +sightless. But when she was neither working nor spinning she would +steal away to the millstones, and stand there watching and +listening. And then there were two stars in the midnight. She came +away from those stolen times powdered with flour. Her black hair and +her brows and lashes, her old blue gown, her rough hands and fair +neck, and her white face--all that was dark and pale in her was +merged in a mist, and seen only through the clinging dust of the +millstones. She would try to wipe off all the evidences of her +secret occasions, but her father generally knew. Had he known by +nothing else, he need only have looked at her eyes before they lost +their starlight. + +One day when she was seventeen years old there was a knock at the +mill-house door. Nobody ever knocked. Her father was the only man +who came in and went out. The mill stood solitary in those days. The +face of the country has since been changed by man and God, but at +that time there were no habitations in sight. At regular times the +peasants brought their grain and fetched their meal; but the miller +kept his daughter away from his custom. He never said why. Doubtless +at the back of his mind was the thought of losing what was useful to +him. Most parents have their ways of trying to keep their children; +in some it is this way, in others that; not many learn to keep them +by letting them go. + +So when the knock came at the door, it was the strangest thing that +had ever happened in Helen's life. She ran to the door and stood +with her hand on the heavy wooden bar that fell across it into a +great socket. Her heart beat fast. Before we know a thing it is a +thousand things. Only one thing would be there when she lifted the +bar. But as she stood with her hand upon it, a host of presences +hovered on the other side. A knight in armor, a king in his gold +crown, a god in the guise of a beggar, an angel with a sword; a +dragon even; a woman to be her friend; her mother...a child... + +"Would it be better not to open?" thought Helen. For then she would +never know. Yes, then she could run to her millstones and fling them +her thoughts in the husk, and listen, listen while they ground them +into dreams. What knowledge would be better than that? What would +she lose by opening the door? + +But she had to open the door. + +Outside on the stones stood a common lad. He might have been three +years older than she. He had a cap with a hole in it in his hand, +and a shabby jersey that left his brown neck bare. He was whistling +when she lifted the bar, but he stopped as the door fell back, and +gave Helen a quick and careless look. + +"Can I have a bit of bread?" he asked. + +Helen stared at him without answering. She was so unused to people +that her mind had to be summoned from a world of ghosts before she +could hear and utter real words. The boy waited for her to speak, +but, as she did not, shrugged his shoulders and turned away +whistling his tune. + +Then she understood that he was going, and she ran after him quickly +and touched his sleeve. He turned again, expecting her to speak; but +she was still dumb. + +"Thought better of it?" he said. + +Helen said slowly, "Why did you ask me for bread?" + +"Why?" He looked her up and down. "To mend my boots with, of +course." + +She looked at his boots. + +"You silly thing," grinned the boy. + +A faint color came under her skin. "I'm sorry for being stupid. I +suppose you're hungry." + +"As a hunter. But there's no call to trouble you. I'll be where I +can get bread, and meat too, in forty minutes. Good-by, child." + +"No," said Helen. "Please don't go. I'd like to give you some +bread." + +"Oh, all right," said the boy. "What frightened you? Did you think I +was a scamp?" + +"I wasn't frightened," said Helen. + +"Don't tell me," mocked the boy. "You couldn't get a word out." + +"I wasn't frightened." + +"You thought I was a bad lot. You don't know I'm not one now." + +Helen's eyes filled with tears. She turned away quickly. "I'll get +you your bread," she said. + +"You are a silly, aren't you?" said the boy as she disappeared. + +Before long she came back with half a loaf in one hand, and +something in the other which she kept behind her back. + +"Thanks," said the boy, taking the bit of loaf. "What else have you +got there?" + +"It's something better than bread," said Helen slowly. + +"Well, let's have a look at it." + +She took her hand from behind her, and offered him seven ears of +wheat. They were heavy with grain, and bowed on their ripe stems. + +"Is this what you call better than bread?" he asked. + +"It is better." + +"Oh, all right. I sha'n't eat it though--not all at once." + +"No," said Helen, "keep it till you're hungry. The grains go quite a +long way when you're hungry." + +"I'll eat one a year," said the boy, "and then they'll go so far +they'll outlast me my lifetime." + +"Yes," said Helen, "but the bread will be gone in forty minutes. And +then you'll be where you can get meat." + +"You funny thing," said the boy, puzzled because she never smiled. + +"Where can you get meat?" she asked. + +"In a boat, fishing for rabbits." + +But she took no notice of the rabbits. She said eagerly, "A boat? +are you going in a boat?" + +"Yes." + +"Are you a sailor?" + +"You've hit it." + +"You've seen the sea! you've been on the sea!--sailors do that..." + +"Oh, dear no," said the boy, "we sail three times round the duckpond +and come home for tea." + +Helen hung her head. The boy put his hand up to his mouth and +watched her over it. + +"Well," he said presently, "I must get along to Pagham." He stuck +the little sheaf of wheat through the hole in his cap, and it bobbed +like a ruddy-gold plume over his ear. Then he felt in his pocket and +after some fumbling got hold of what he wanted and pulled it out. +"Here you are, child," he said, "and thank you again." + +He put his present into her hand and swung off whistling. He turned +once to wave to her, and the corn in his cap nodded with its weight +and his light gait. She stood gazing till he was out of sight, and +then she looked at what he had given her. It was a shell. + +She had heard of shells, of course, but she had never seen one. Yet +she knew this was no English shell. It was as large as the top of a +teacup, but more oval than round. Over its surface, like pearl, +rippled waves of sea-green and sea-blue, under a luster that was +like golden moonlight on the ocean. She could not define or trace +the waves of color; they flowed in and out of each other with +interchangeable movement. One half of the outer rim, which was +transparently thin and curled like the fantastic edge of a surf +wave, was flecked with a faint play of rose and cream and silver, +that melted imperceptibly into the moonlit sea. When she turned the +shell over she found that she could not see its heart. The blue-green +side of the shell curled under like a smooth billow, and then +broke into a world of caves, and caves within caves, whose final +secret she could not discover. But within and within the color grew +deeper and deeper, bottomless blues and unfathomable greens, shot +with such gleams of light as made her heart throb, for they were +like the gleams that shoot through our dreams, the light that just +eludes us when we wake. + +She went into the mill, trembling from head to foot. She was not +conscious of moving, but she found herself presently standing by the +grinding stones, with sound rushing through her and white dust +whirling round her. She gazed and gazed into the labyrinth of the +shell as though she must see to its very core; but she could not. So +she unfastened her blue gown and laid the shell against her young +heart. It was for the first time of so many times that I know not +whether when, twenty years later, she did it for the last time, they +outnumbered the silver hairs among her black ones. And the silver by +then were uncountable. Yet on the day when Helen began her twenty +years of lonely listening-- + + +(But having said this, Martin Pippin grasped the rope just above +Jennifer's hand, and pulled it with such force that the swing, +instead of swinging back and forth, as a swing should, reeled +sideways so that the swinger had much ado to keep her seat. + +Jennifer: Heaven help me! + +Martin: Heaven help ME! I need its help more sorely than you do. + +Jennifer: Oh, you should be punished, not helped! + +Martin: I have been punished, and the punished require help more +than censure, or scorn, or anger, or any other form of +righteousness. + +Jennifer: Who has punished you? And for what? + +Martin: You, Mistress Jennifer. For my bad story. + +Jennifer: I do not remember doing so. The story is only begun. I am +sure it will be a very good story. + +Martin: Now you are compassionate, because I need comfort. But the +truth is that, good or bad, you care no more for my story. For I saw +a tear of vexation come into your eye. + +Jennifer: It was not vexation. Not exactly vexation. And doubtless +Helen will have experiences which we shall all be glad to hear. But +all the same I wish-- + +Martin: You wish? + +Jennifer: That she was not going to grow old in her loneliness. +Because all lovers are young. + +Martin: You have spoken the most beautiful of all truths. Does the +grass grow high enough by the swing for you to pluck me two blades? + +Jennifer: I think so. Yes. What do you want with them? + +Martin: I want but one of them now. You shall only give me the other +if, at the end of my tale, you agree that its lovers are as green as +this blade and that.) + + +On the day (resumed Martin) when Helen began her lonely listening of +heart and ears betwixt the seashell and the millstones of her +dreams, there was not, dear Mistress Jennifer, a silver thread in +her black locks to vex you with. For a girl of seventeen is but a +child. Yet old enough to begin spinning the stuff of the spirit... + + +"My boy!-- + +"Oh, how strange it was, your coming like that, so suddenly. Before +I opened the door I stood there guessing...And how could I have +guessed this? Did you guess too on the other side?" + +"No, not much. I thought it might be a cross old woman. What did YOU +guess?" + +"Oh, such stupid things. Kings and knights and even women. And it +was you!" + +"And it was you!" + +"Suppose I'd been a cross old woman?" + +"Suppose I'd been a king?" + +"And you were just my boy." + +"And you--my sulky girl." + +"Oh, I wasn't sulky. Oh, didn't you understand? How could I speak to +you? I couldn't hear you, I couldn't see you, even!" + +"Can you see me now?" + +She was lying with her cheek against his heart, and she turned her +face suddenly inwards, because she saw him bend his head, and the +sweetness of his first kiss was going to be more than she could +bear. + +"Why don't you look up, you silly child? Why don't you look at me, +dear?" + +"How can I yet? Can I ever? It's so hard looking in a person's eyes. +But I am looking at you, I AM, though you can't see me." + +"Then tell me what color my eyes are." + +"They're gray-green, and your hair is dark red, a sort of chestnut +but a little redder and rough over your forehead, and your nose is +all over freckles with very very snub--" + + +(Martin: Heaven help you, Mistress Jennifer! + +Jennifer: W-w-w-w-why, Master Pippin? + +Martin: Were you not about to fall again? + +Jennifer: N-n-n-n-no. I-I-I-I-I-- + +Martin: I see you are as firm as a rock. How could I have been so +deceived?) + + +He shook her a little in his arms, saying: "How rude you are to my +nose. I wish you'd look up." + +"No, not yet...presently. But you, did you look at me?" + +"Didn't you see me look?" + +"When?" + +"As soon as you opened the door." + +"What did you see?" + +"The loveliest thing I'd ever seen." + +"I'm not really--am I?" + +"I used to dream about you at night on my watches. I made you up out +of bits of the night--white moonlight, black clouds, and stars. +Sometimes I would take the last cloud of sunset for your lips. And +the wind, when it was gentle, for your voice. And the movements of +the sea for your movements, and the rise and fall of it for your +breathing, and the lap of it against the boat for your kisses. Oh, +child, look up!..." + +She looked up.... + + +"What's your name?" + +"Helen." + +"I can't hear you." + +"Helen. Say it." + +"I'm trying to." + +"I can't hear YOU now. And I want to hear your voice say my name. +Oh, my boy, do say it, so that I can remember it when you're away." + +"I can't say it, child. Why didn't you tell me your name?" + +"What is yours?" + +"I'm trying to tell you." + +"Please--please!" + +"I'm trying with all my might. Listen with all yours." + +"I am listening. I can't hear anything. Yet I'm listening so hard +that it hurts. I want to say your name over and over and over to +myself when you're away. CAN'T you say it louder?" + +"No, it's no good." + +"Oh, why didn't you tell me, boy?" + +"Oh, child, why didn't you tell me?" + + +"Is my bread sweet to you?" + +"The sweetest I ever ate. I ate it slowly, and took each bit from +your hand. I kept one crust." + +"And my corn." + +"Oh, your corn! that is everlasting. You have sown your seed. I have +eaten a grain, and it bore its harvest. One by one I shall eat them, +and every grain will bear its full harvest. You have replenished the +unknown earth with fields of golden corn, and set me walking there +for ever." + +"And you have thrown golden light upon strange waters, and set me +floating there for ever. Oh, you on my earth and I on your ocean, +how shall we meet?" + +"Your corn is my waters, my waters are your corn. They move on one +wave. Oh, child, we are borne on it together, for ever." + + +"But how you teased me!" + +"I couldn't help it." + +"You and your boats and your duckponds." + +"It was such fun. You were so serious. It was so easy to tease you." + +"Why did you put your hand over your mouth?" + +"To keep myself from--" + +"Laughing at me?" + +"Kissing you. You looked so sorry because sailors only sail round +duckponds, when you thought they always sailed out by the West and +home by the East. You believed the duckponds." + +"I didn't really." + +"For a moment!" + +"I felt so stupid." + +"You blushed." + +"Oh, did I?" + +"A very little. Like the inside of a shell. I'd always tease you to +make you blush like that. Don't you ever smile or laugh, child?" + +"You might teach me to. I haven't had the sort of life that makes +one smile and laugh. Oh, but I could. I could smile and laugh for +you if you wished. I could do anything you wanted. I could be +anything you wanted." + +"Shall I make something of you? What shall it be?" + +"I don't care, so long as it is yours. Oh, make something of me. +I've been lonely always. I don't want to be any more. I want to be +able to come to you when I please, not only because I need so much +to come, but because you need me to come. Can you make me sure that +you need me? When no one has ever needed you, how can you +believe...? Oh, no, no! don't look sorry. I do believe it. And will +you always stand with me here in the loneliness that has been so +dark? Then it won't be dark any more. Why do two people make light? +One alone only wanders and holds out her hand and finds no one-- +nothing. Sometimes not even herself. Will you be with me always?" + +"Always." + +"Why?" + +"Because I love you." + +"No," said Helen, "but because I love you." + + +"Tell me--WERE you frightened?" + +"Of you? when I saw you at the door?" + +"Yes. Were you?" + +"Oh, my boy." + +"But didn't you think I might be a scamp?" + +"I didn't think about it at all. It wouldn't have made any +difference." + +"Then why were you as mum as a fish?" + +"Oh, my boy." + +"Why? why? why?--if you weren't frightened? Of course you were +frightened." + +"No, no, I wasn't. I told you I wasn't. Why don't you believe me?-- +Oh, you're laughing at me again." + +"You're blushing again." + +"It's so easy to make me ashamed when I've been silly. Of course you +know now why I couldn't speak. You know what took my words away. +Didn't you know then?" + +"How could I know? How could I dream it would be as quick for you as +for me?" + +"One can dream anything...oh!" + +"What is it, child?" For she had caught at her heart. + +"Dreams...and not truth. Oh, are you here? Am I? Where are you-- +where are you? Hold me, hold me fast. Don't let it be just empty +dreams." + +"Hush, hush, my dear. Dreams aren't empty. Dreams are as near the +truth as we can come. What greater truth can you ever have than +this? For as men and women dream, they drop one by one the veils +between them and the mystery. But when they meet they are shrouded +in the veils again, and though they long to strip them off, they +cannot. And each sees of each but dimly the truth which in their +dreams was as clear as light. Oh, child, it's not our dreams that +are our illusions." + +"No," she whispered. "But still it is not enough. Not quite enough +for the beloved that they shall dream apart and find their truths +apart. In life too they must touch, and find the mystery together. +Though it be only for one eternal instant. Touch me not only in my +dreams, but in life. Turn life itself into the dream at last. Oh, +hold me fast, my boy, my boy..." + +"Hush, hush, child, I'm holding you..." + + +"You wept." + +"Oh, did you see? I turned my head away." + +"Why did you weep?" + +"Because you thought I had misjudged you." + +"Then I misjudged you." + +"But I did not weep for that." + +"Would you, if I misjudged you?" + +"It would not be so hard to bear." + +"And you went away with tears and brought me the corn of your mill." + +"And you took it with smiles, and gave me the shell of your seas." + +"Your corn rustled through my head." + +"Your shell whispers at my heart." + +"You shall always hear it whispering there. It will tell you what I +can never tell you, or only tell you in other ways." + +"Of your life on the sea? Of the countries over the water? Of storms +and islands and flashing birds, and strange bright flowers? Of all +the lands and life I've never seen, and dream of all wrong? Will it +tell me those things?--of your life that I don't know." + +"Yes, perhaps. But I could tell you of that life." + +"Of what other life will it tell me?" + +"Of my life that you do know." + +"Is there one?" + +"Look in your own heart." + +"I am looking." + +"And listen." + +"Yes." + +"What do you hear?" + +"Oh, boy, the whispering of your shell!" + +"Oh, child, the rustling of your corn!" + +Oh, maids! the grinding of the millstones. + + +This is only a little part of what she heard. But if I told you the +whole we should rise from the story gray-headed. For every day she +carried her boy's shell to the grinding stones, and stood there +while it spoke against her heart. And at other times of the day it +lay in her pocket, while she swept and cooked and spun, and she saw +shadows of her mill-dreams in the cobwebs and the rising steam, and +heard echos of them in her singing kettle and her singing wheel. And +at night it lay on her pillow against her ear, and the voice of the +waters went through her sleep. + +So the years slipped one by one, and she grew from a girl into a +young woman; and presently passed out of her youth. But her eyes and +her heart were still those of a girl, for life had touched them with +nothing but a girl's dream. And it is not time that leaves its +traces on the spirit, whatever it may do to the body. Her father +meanwhile grew harder and more tyrannical with years. There was +little for him to fear now that any man would come to take her from +him; but the habit of the oppressor was on him, and of the oppressed +on her. And when this has been many years established, it is hard +for either to realize that, to escape, the oppressed has only to +open the door and go. + +Yet Helen, if she had ever thought of escape into another world and +life, would not have desired it. For in leaving her millstones she +would have lost a world whose boundaries she had never touched, and +a life whose sweetness she had never exhausted. And she would have +lost her clue to knowledge of him who was to her always the boy in +the old jersey who had knocked at her door so many years ago. + +Once he was shipwrecked... + + +...The waters had sucked her under twice already, when her helpless +hands hit against some floating substance on the waves. She could +not have grasped it by herself, for her strength was gone; but a +hand gripped her in the darkness, and dragged her, almost +insensible, to safety. For a long while she lay inert across the +knees of her rescuer. Consciousness was at its very boundary. She +knew that in some dim distance strong hands were chafing a wet and +frozen body...but whose hands?...whose body?...Presently it was +lifted to the shelter of strong arms; and now she was conscious of +her own heart-beats, but it was like a heart beating in air, not in +a body. Then warmth and breath began to fall like garments about +this bodiless heart, and they were indeed not her own warmth and +breath, but these things given to her by another--the warmth was +that of his own body where he had laid her cold hands and breast to +take what heat there was in him, and the breath was of his own +lungs, putting life into hers through their two mouths....She opened +her eyes. It was dark. The darkness she had come out of was bright +beside this pitchy night, and her struggle back to life less painful +than the fierce labor of the wind and waves. Their frail precarious +craft was in ceaseless peril. His left arm held her like a vice, but +for greater safety he had bound a rope round their two bodies and +the small mast of their craft. With his right arm he clasped the +mast low down, and his right hand came round to grip her shaking +knees. In this close hold she lay a long while without speaking. +Then she said faintly: + +"Is it my boy?" + +"Yes, child. Didn't you know?" + +"I wanted to hear you say it. How long have you been in danger?" + +"I don't know. Some hours. I thought you would never come to +yourself." + +"I tried to come to you. I can't swim." + +"The sea brought you to me. You were nearly drowned. You slipped me +once. If you had again--!" + +"What would you have done?" + +"Jumped in. I couldn't have stayed on here without you." + +"Ah, but you mustn't ever do that--promise, promise! For then you'd +lose me for ever. Promise." + +"I promise. But there's no for ever of that sort. There's no losing +each other, whatever happens. You know that, don't you?" + +"Yes, I do know. When people love, they find each other for ever. +But I don't want you to die, and I don't want to die--yet. But if it +is to-night it will be together. Will it be to-night, do you think?" + +"I don't know, dear. The storm's breaking up over there, but that's +not the only danger." + +"But nothing matters, nothing matters at all while I'm with you." +She lay heavily against him; her eyes closed, and she shook +violently. + +"Child, you're shuddering, you're as cold as ice." He put his hand +upon her chilly bosom, and hugged her more fiercely to his own. With +a sudden movement of despair and anger at the little he could do, he +slipped his arms from his jacket, and stripping open his shirt +pulled her to him, re-fastening his jacket around them both, tying +it tightly about their bodies by the empty sleeves. She felt his +lips on her hair and heard him whisper, "You're not frightened of +me, are you, child? You never will be, will you?" + +She shook her head and whispered, "I never have been." + +"Sleep, if you can, dear." + +"I'll try." + +So closely was she held by his coat and his arms, so near she lay to +his beloved heart, that she knew no longer what part of that union +was herself; they were one body, and one spirit. Her shivering grew +less, and with her lips pressed to his neck she fell asleep. + + +It was noon. + +The hemisphere of the sky was an unbroken blue washed with a silver +glare. She could not look up. The sea was no longer wild, but it was +not smooth; it was a dancing sea, and every small wave rippled with +crested rainbows. A flight of gulls wheeled and screamed over their +heads; their movements were so swift that the mid-air seemed to be +filled with visible lines described by their flight, silver lines +that gleamed and melted on transparent space like curved lightnings. + +"Oh, look! oh, look!" cried Helen. + +He smiled, but he was not watching the gulls. "Yes, you've never +seen that, have you, child?" His eyes searched the distance. + +"But you aren't looking. What are you looking at?" + +"Nothing. I can't see what I'm looking for. But the gulls might mean +land, or icebergs, or a ship." + +"I don't want land or a ship, or even icebergs," said Helen +suddenly. + +He looked at her with the fleeting look that had been her first +impression of him. + +"Why not? Why don't you?" + +"I'm so happy where I am." + +"That's all very well," said her boy, with his eyes on the distance. + +For awhile she lay enjoying the warmth of the sun, watching the +gulls sliding down the unseen slopes of the air. Presently high up +she saw one hover and pause, settling on nothingness by the swift, +almost imperceptible beat of its wings. And suddenly it dropped like +a stone upon a wave, and darted up again so quickly that she could +not follow what had happened. + +"What is it doing?" she asked. + +"Fishing," said the boy. "It wanted its dinner." + +"So do I," said Helen. + +He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a packet wrapped in +oilskin. There was biscuit in it. He gave some to her, bit by bit; +though it was soft and dull, she was glad of it. But soon she drew +away from the hand that fed her. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. + +"You must have some too." + +"That's all right. I'm not greedy like you birds." + +"I'm not a bird. And I'm not greedy. Being hungry's not being +greedy. I'd be greedy if I ate while you're hungry." + +"I'm not hungry." + +"Then neither am I." + +To satisfy her he ate a biscuit. Soon after she began to feel +thirst, but she dared not ask for water. She knew he had none. He +looked at her lying pale in his arms, and said with a smile that was +not like a real smile, "It's a pity about the icebergs." She smiled +and nodded, and lay still in the heat, watching the gulls, and +thinking of ice. Some of the birds settled on the raft. One sat on +the mast; another hovered at her knee, picking at crumbs. They +played in the sun, rising and falling, and turned in her vision into +a whirl of snowflakes, enormous snowflakes....She began to dream of +snow, and her lips parted in the hope that some might fall upon her +tongue. Presently she ceased to dream of snow....The boy looked down +at her closed lids, and at her cheeks, as white as the breasts of +the gulls. He could not bear to look long, and returned to his +distances. + + +It was night again. + +The circle of the sea was as smooth as silk. Pale light played over +it like dreams and ghosts. The sky was a crowded arc of stars, +millions of stars, she had never seen or imagined so many. They +glittered, glittered restlessly, in an ecstasy that caught her +spirit. She too was filled with millions of stars, through her +senses they flashed and glittered--a delirium of stars in heaven and +her heart.... + +"My boy!" + +"Yes, child." + +"Do you see the stars?" + +"Yes, child." + +"Do you feel them?" + +"Yes." + +"Oh, can't we die now?" + +She felt him move stiffly. "There's a ship! I'm certain of it now-- +I'm certain! Oh, if it were day!" + +The stars went on dazzling. She did not understand about the ship. +Time moved forward, or stood still. For her the night was timeless. +It was eternity. + +But things were happening outside in time and space. By what means +they had been seen or had attracted attention she did not know. But +the floating dreamlight and the shivering starlight on the sea were +broken by a dark movement on the waveless waters. A boat was coming. +For some time there had been shouting and calling in strange voices, +one of them her boy's. But once again she hovered on the dim verge +of consciousness. She had flown from the body he was painfully +unbinding from his own. What he had suffered in holding it there so +long she never knew. From leagues away she heard him whispering, +"Child, can you help yourself a little?" And now for an instant her +soul re-approached her body, and looked at him through the soft +midnight of her eyes, and he saw in them such starlight as never was +in sky or on sea. + +"Kiss me," said Helen. + +He kissed her. + +With a great effort she lifted herself and stood upright on the +raft, swaying a little and holding by the mast. The boat was still a +little distant. + +"Good-by, my boy." + +"Child--!" + +"Don't jump. You promised not to. You promised. But I can't come +with you now. You must let me go." + +He looked at her, and saw she was in a fever. He made a desperate +clutch at her blue gown. But he was not quick enough. "Keep your +promise!" she cried, and disappeared in the dreamlit waters; she +disappeared like a dream, without a sound. As she sank, she heard +him calling her by the only name he knew.... + + +When she was thirty-five her father died. Now she was free to go +where she pleased. But she did not go anywhere. + +Ever since, as a child, she had first tasted salt water, she had +longed to travel and see other lands. What held her now? Was it that +her longing had been satisfied? that she had a host of memories of +great mountains and golden shores, of jungles and strange cities of +the coast, of islands lost in seas of sapphire and emerald? of +caravans and towers of ivory? of haunted caverns and deserted +temples? where, a child always, with her darling boy, she had had +such adventures as would have filled a hundred earthly lives. They +had built huts in uninhabited places, or made a twisted bower of +strong green creepers, and lived their primitive paradisal life +wanting nothing but each other; sometimes, through accidents and +illness, they had nursed each other, with such unwearied tenderness +that death himself had to withdraw, defeated by love. Once on a ship +there had been mutiny, and she alone stood by him against a throng; +once savages had captured her, and he, outwitting them, had rescued +her, riding through leagues of prairie-land and forest, holding her +before him on the saddle. In nearly all these adventures it was as +though they had met for the first time, and were struck anew with +the dumb wonder of first love, and the strange shy sweetness of +wooing and confession. Yet they were but playing above truth. For +the knowledge was always between them that they were bound +immortally by a love which, having no end, seemed also to have had +no beginning. They quarreled sometimes--this was playing too. She +put, now herself, now him, in the wrong. And either reconciliation +was sweet. But it was she who was oftenest at fault, his forgiveness +was so dear to her. And still, this was but playing at it. When all +these adventures and pretenses were done, they stood heart to heart, +and out of their only meeting in life built up eternal truth and +told each other. They told it inexhaustibly. + +And so, when her father left her free to go, Helen lived on still in +the mill of dreams, and kept her millstones grinding. Two years went +by. And her hard gray lonely life laid its hand on her hair and her +countenance. Her father had worn her out before her time. + +It was only invisible grain in the mill now. The peasants came no +longer with their corn. She had enough to live on, and her long +seclusion unfitted her for strange men in the mill, and people she +must talk to. And so long was the habit of the recluse on her, that +though her soul flew leagues her body never wandered more than a few +hundred yards from her home. Some who had heard of her, and had +glimpses of her, spoke to her when they met; but they could make no +headway with this sweet, shy, silent woman. Yet children and boys +and girls felt drawn to her. It was the dream in her eyes that +stirred the love in their hearts; though they knew it no more than +the soup in the pipkin knows why it bubbles and boils. For it cannot +see the fire. But to them she did not seem old; her strength and +eagerness were still upon her, and that silver needlework with which +time broiders all men had in her its special beauty, setting her +aloof in the unabandoned dream which the young so often desert as +their youth deserts them. Those of her age, seeing that unyouthful +gleam of her hair combined with the still-youthful dream of her +eyes, felt as though they could not touch her; for no man can break +another's web, he can only break his own, and these had torn their +films to tatters long ago, and shouldered their way through the +smudgy rents, and no more walked where she walked. But very young +people knew the places she walked in, and saw her clearly, for they +walked there too, though they were growing up and she was growing +old. + +At the end of the second year there was a storm. It lasted three +days without stopping. Such fury of rain and thunder she had never +heard. The gaunt rooms of the mill were steeped in gloom, except +when lightning stared through the flat windows or split into fierce +cracks on the dingy glass. Those three days she spent by candle-light. +Outside the world seemed to lie under a dark doom. + +On the third morning she woke early. She had had restless nights, +but now and then slept heavily; and out of one dull slumber she +awakened to the certainty that something strange had happened. The +storm had lulled at last. Through her window, set high in the wall, +she could see the dead light of a blank gray dawn. She had seen +other eyeless mornings on her windowpane; but this was different, +the air in her room was different. Something unknown had been taken +from or added to it. As she lay there wondering, but not yet willing +to discover, the flat light at the window was blocked out. A seagull +beat against it with its wings and settled on the sill. + +The flutter and the settling of the bird overcame her. It was as +though reality were more than she could bear. The birds of memory +and pain flew through her heart. + +She got up and went to the window. The gull did not move. It was +broken and exhausted by the storm. And beyond it she looked down +upon the sea. + +Yes, it was true. The sea itself washed at the walls of the mill. + +She did not understand these gray-green waters. She knew them in +vision, not in reality. She cried out sharply and threw the window +up. The draggled bird fluttered in and sank on the floor. A sea-wind +blew in with it. The bird's wings shivered on her feet, and the wind +on her bosom. She stared over the land, swallowed up in the sea. +Wreckage of all sorts tossed and floated on it. Fences and broken +gates and branches of trees; and fragments of boats and nets and +bits of cork; and grass and flowers and seaweed--She thought--what +did she think? She thought she must be dreaming. + +She felt like one drowning. Where could she find a shore? + +She hurried to the bed and got her shell; its touch on her heart was +her first safety. In her nightgown as she was she ran with her naked +feet through the dim passages until she stood beside the grinding +stones.... + + +"Child! child! child!" + +"Where are you, my boy, where are you?" + +"Aren't you coming? Must I lose you after all this?--Oh, come!" + +"But tell me where you are!" + +"In a few hours I should have been with you--a few hours after many +years." + +"Oh, boy, for pity, tell me where to find you!" + +"You are there waiting for me, aren't you, child? I know you are-- +I've always known you were. What would you have said to me when you +opened the door in your blue gown?--" + +"Oh, but say only where you are, my boy!" + +"Do you know what I should have said? I shouldn't have said +anything. I should have kissed you--" + +"Oh, let me come to you and you shall kiss me...." + + +But she listened in vain. + +She went back to her room. The gull was still on the floor. Its wing +was broken. Her actions from this moment were mechanical; she did +what she did without will. First she bound the broken wing, and +fetched bread and water for the wounded bird. Then she dressed +herself and went out of the mill. She had a rope in her hands. + +The water was not all around the mill. Strips and stretches of land +were still unflooded, or only thinly covered. But the face of the +earth had been altered by one of those great inland swoops of the +sea that have for centuries changed and re-changed the point of +Sussex, advancing, receding, shifting the coast-line, making new +shores, restoring old fields, wedding the soil with the sand. + +Helen walked where she could. She had no choice of ways. She kept by +the edge of the water and went into no-man's land. A bank of rotting +grasses and dry reeds, which the waves had left uncovered, rose from +the marshes. She mounted it, and beheld the unnatural sea on either +hand. Here and there in the desolate water mounds of gray-green +grass lifted themselves like drifting islands. Trees stricken or +still in leaf reared from the unfamiliar element. Many of those +which were leafless had put on a strange greenness, for their boughs +dripped with seaweed. Over the floods, which were littered with such +flotsam as she had seen from her window, flew sea-birds and +land-birds, crying and cheeping. There was no other presence in that +desolation except her own. + +And then at last her commanded feet stood still, and her will came +back to her. For she saw what she had come to find. + +He was hanging, as though it had caught him in a snare, in a tree +standing solitary in the middle of a wide waste of water. He was +hanging there like a dead man. She could distinguish his dark red +hair and his blue jersey. + +She paused to think what to do. She couldn't swim. She would not +have hesitated to try; but she wanted to save him. She looked about, +and saw among the bits of stuff washing against the foot of the bank +a large dismembered tree-trunk. It bobbed back and forth among the +hollow reeds. She thought it would serve her if she had an oar. She +went in search of one, and found a broken plank cast up among the +tangled growth of the bank. When she had secured it she fastened one +end of her rope around the stump of an old pollard squatting on the +bank like a sturdy gnome, and the other end she knotted around +herself. Then, gathering all the middle of the rope into a coil, and +using her plank as a prop, she let herself down the bank and slid +shuddering into the water. But she had her tree-trunk now; with some +difficulty she scrambled on to it, and paddled her way into the open +water. + +It was not really a great distance to his tree, but to her it seemed +immeasurable. She was unskillful, and her awkwardness often put her +into danger. But her will made her do what she otherwise might not +have done; presently she was under the branches of the tree. + +She pulled herself up to a limb beside him and looked at him. And it +was not he. + +It was not her boy. It was a man, middle-aged, rough and +weatherbeaten, but pallid under his red-and-tan. His hair was +grizzled. And his face was rough with a growth of grizzled hair. His +whole body lurched heavily and helplessly in a fork of the tree, and +one arm hung limp. His eyes were half-shut. + +But they were not quite shut. He was not unconscious. And under the +drooping lids he was watching her. + +For a few minutes they sat gazing at each other in silence. She had +her breath to get. She thought it would never come back. + +The man spoke first. + +"Well, you made a job of it," he said. + +She didn't answer. + +"But you don't know much about the water, do you?" + +"I've never seen the sea till to-day," said Helen slowly. + +He laughed a little. "I expect you've seen enough of it to-day. But +where do you live, then, that you've never seen the sea? In the +middle of the earth?" + +"No," said Helen, "I live in a mill." + +His eyelids flickered. "Do you? Yes, of course you do. I might have +guessed it." + +"How should you guess it?" + +"By your blue dress," said the man. Then he fainted. + +She sat there miserably, waiting, ready to prop him if he fell. She +did not know what else to do. Before very long he opened his eyes. + +"Did I go off again?" he asked. + +She nodded. + +"Yes. Well, it's time to be making a move. I dare say I can now +you're here. What's your name?" + +"Helen." + +"Well, Helen, we'd better put that rope to some use. Will that tree +at the other end hold?" + +"Yes." + +"Then just you untie yourself and we'll get aboard and haul +ourselves home." + +She unfastened the rope from her body, and helped him down to her +makeshift boat. + +"You take the paddle," he said. "My arm's damaged. But I can pull on +the rope with the other." + +"Are you sure? Are you all right? What's your name?" + +"Yes, I can manage. My name's Peter. This would have been a lark +thirty years ago, wouldn't it? It's rather a lark now." + +She nodded vaguely, wondering what she would do if he fell off the +log in mid-water. + +"Suppose you faint again?" + +"Don't look for trouble," said the man. "Push off, now." + +Pulling and paddling they got to the bank. He took her helping-hand +up it, and she saw by his movements that he was very feeble. He +leaned on her as they went back to the mill; they walked without +speaking. + +When they reached the door Peter said, "It's twenty years since I +was here, but I expect you don't remember." + +"Oh, yes," said Helen, "I remember." + +"Do you now?" said Peter. "It's funny you should remember." + +And with that he did faint again. And this time when he recovered he +was in a fever. His staying-power was gone. + +She put him to bed and nursed him. She sat day and night in his +room, doing by instinct what was right and needful. At first he lay +either unconscious or delirious. She listened to his incoherent +speech in a sort of agony, as though it might contain some clue to a +riddle; and sat with her passionate eyes brooding on his +countenance, as though in that too might lie the answer. But if +there was one, neither his words nor his face revealed it. "When he +wakes," she whispered to herself, "he'll tell me. How can there be +barriers between us any more?" + +After three days he came to himself. She was sitting by the window +preparing sheep's-wool for her spindle. She bent over her task, +using the last of the light, which fell upon her head. She did not +know that he was conscious, or had been watching her, until he +spoke. + +"Your hair used to be quite brown, didn't it?" he said. "Nut-brown." + +She started and turned to him, and a faint flush stained her cheeks. + +"Ah, you're not pleased," said Peter with a slight grin. "None of us +like getting old, do we?" + +Helen put by the question. "You're yourself again." + +"Doing my best," said he. "How long is it?" + +"Three days." + +"As much as that? I could have sworn it was only yesterday. Well, +time passes." + +He said no more, and fell into a doze. Helen was as grateful for +this as she could have been for anything just then. She couldn't +have gone on talking. She was stunned with misgivings. How could he +ever have thought her hair was brown? Couldn't he see even now that +it had once been as black as jet? She put her hand up to her head, +and unpinned a coil of her heavy hair, and spread it over her breast +and looked at it. Yes, the silver was there, too much and too soon. +But there was less silver than black. It was still time's stitchery, +not his fabric. The man who was not her boy need never have seen her +before to know that once her hair had been black. This was worse +than forgetfulness in him; it was misremembrance. She pulled at the +silver hairs passionately as though she would pluck them out and +make him see her as she had been. But soon she stopped her futile +effort to uncount the years. "I am foolish," she whispered to +herself, and coiled her lock again and bound it in its place. "There +are other ways of making him remember. Presently when he wakes again +I will talk to him. I will remind him of everything, yes, and I'll +tell him everything. I WON'T be afraid." She waited with longing his +next consciousness. + +But to her woe she found herself defeated. While he slept she was +able, as when he had been delirious or absent, to create the +occasion and the talk between them. She dropped all fears, and in +frank tenderness brought him her twenty years of dreams. And in her +thought he accepted and answered them. But when he woke and spoke to +her from the bed, she knew at once that the man who lay there was +not the man with whom she had been speaking. His personality fenced +with hers; it had barriers she could not pass. She dared not try, +for dread of his indifference or his smiles. + +"What made you stick on in this place?" he asked her. + +"I don't know," said Helen. "Places hold one, don't they?" + +"None ever held me. I couldn't have been content to stay the best +half of my life in one spot. But I suppose women are different." + +"You speak as though all women were the same." + +"Aren't they? I thought they might be. I don't know much about +them," said Peter, rubbing his chin. "Rough as a porcupine, aren't +I? You must have thought me a savage when you found me stuck +upside-down in that tree like a sloth. What DID you think?" + +She looked at him, longing to tell him what she had thought. She +longed to tell him of the boy she had expected to find in the tree. +She longed to tell him how the finding had shocked her by bringing +home to her her loss--not of the boy, but of something in that +moment still more precious to her. Because (she longed to tell him) +she had so swiftly rediscovered the lost boy, not in his face but in +his glance, not in his words but in the tones of his voice. + +But when she looked at him and saw him leaning on his elbow waiting +for her answer with his half-shut lids and the half-smile on his +lips, she answered only, "I was thinking how to get you back to the +bank." + +"Was that it? Well, you managed it. I've never thanked you, have I?" + +"Don't!" said Helen with a quick breath, and looked out of the +window. + +He waited for a few moments and then said, "I'm a bad hand at +thanking. I can't help being a savage, you know. I'm not fit for +women's company. I don't look so rough when I'm trimmed." + +"I don't want to be thanked," said Helen controlling her voice; and +added with a faint smile, "No one looks his best when he's ill." + +"Wait till I'm well," grinned Peter, "and see if I'm not fit to walk +you out o' Sundays." He lay back on his pillow and whistled a snatch +of tune. Her heart almost stopped beating, because it was the tune +he had whistled at the door twenty years ago. For a moment she +thought she could speak to him as she wished. But desire choked her +power to choose her words; so many rushed through her brain that she +had to pause, seeking which of them to utter; and that long pause, +in which she really seemed to have uttered them all aloud, checked +the impulse. But surely he had heard her? No; for she had not spoken +yet. And before she could make the effort he had stopped whistling, +and when she looked at him to speak, he was fumbling restlessly +about his pillow. + +"What is it?" she asked. + +"Something I had--where's my clothes?" + +She brought them to him, and he searched them till he had found +among them a small metal box which he thrust under the pillow; and +then he lay back, as though too tired to notice her. So her impulse +died in her, unacted on. + +And during the next four days it was always so. A dozen times in +their talks she tried to come near him, and could not. Was it +because he would not let her? or because the thing she wished to +find in him was not really there? Sometimes by his manner only, and +sometimes by his words, he baffled her when she attempted to +approach him--and the attempt had been so painful to conceive, and +its still-birth was such agony to her. He would talk frequently of +the time when he would be making tracks again. + +"Where to?" asked Helen. + +"I leave it to chance. I always have. I've never made plans. Or very +seldom. And I'm not often twice in the same place. You look tired. +I'm sorry to be a bother to you. But it'll be for the last time, +most likely. Go and lie down." + +"I don't want to," said Helen under her breath. And in her thoughts +she was crying, "The last time? Then it must be soon, soon! I'll +make you listen to me now!" + +"I want to sleep," said Peter. + +She left the room. Tears of helplessness and misery filled her eyes. +She was almost angry with him, but more angry with herself; but her +self-anger was mixed with shame. She was ashamed that he made her +feel so much, while he felt nothing. Did he feel nothing? + +"It's my stupidity that keeps us apart," she whispered. "I will +break through it!" As quickly as she had left him she returned, and +stood by the bed. He was lying with his hand pressed over his eyes. +When he was conscious of her being there, his hand fell, and his +keen eyes shot into hers. His brows contracted. + +"You nuisance," he muttered, and hid his eyes again. She turned and +left him. When she got outside the door she leaned against it and +shook from head to foot. She hovered on the brink of her delusions +and felt as though she would soon crash into a precipice. She longed +for him to go before she fell. Yes, she began to long for the time +when he should go, and end this pain, and leave her to the old +strange life that had been so sweet. His living presence killed it. + +After that third day she had had no more fears for his safety, and +he was strong and rallied quickly. The gull too was saved. He saved +it. It had drooped and sickened with her. She did not know what to +do with it. On the fourth day as he was so much better, she brought +it to him. He reset its wing and kept it by him, making it his +patient and his playfellow. It thrived at once and grew tame to his +hand. He fondled and talked to it like a lover. She would watch him +silently with her smoldering eyes as he fed and caressed the bird, +and jabbered to it in scraps of a dozen foreign tongues. His +tenderness smote her heart. + +"You're not very fond of birds," he said to her once, when she had +been sitting in one of her silences while he played with his pet. + +The words, question or statement, filled her with anger. She would +not trust herself to protest or deny. "I don't know much about +them," she said. + +"That's a pity," said Peter coolly. "The more you know em the more +you have to love em. Yet you could love them for all sorts of +things without knowing them, I'd have thought." + +She said nothing. + +"For their beauty, now. That's worth loving. Look at this one-- +you're a beauty all right, aren't you, my pretty? Not many girls to +match you." He paused, and ran his finger down the bird's throat and +breast. "Perhaps you don't think she's beautiful," he said to Helen. + +"Yes, she's beautiful," said Helen, with a difficulty that sounded +like reluctance. + +"Ah, you don't think so. You ought to see her flying. You shall some +day. When her hurt's mended she'll fly--I'll let her go." + +"Perhaps she won't go," said Helen. + +"Oh, yes, she will. How can she stop in a place like this? This is +no air for her--she must fly in her own." + +"You'll be sorry to see her go," said Helen. + +"To see her free? No, not a bit. I want her to fly. Why should I +keep her? I'd not let her keep me. I'd hate her for it. Why should I +make her hate me?" + +"Perhaps she wouldn't," said Helen, in a low voice. + +"Oh, I expect she would. Ungrateful little beggar. I've saved her +life, and she ought to know she belongs to me. So she might stay out +of gratitude. But she'd come to hate me for it, all the same. Not at +first; after a bit. Because we change. Bound to, aren't we?" + +"Perhaps." + +"I know I do. We can none of us stay what we were. You haven't +either." + +"You haven't much to go by," said Helen. + +"Seven minutes at the door, wasn't it? This time it's been seven +days." + +"Yes." + +"It's a long time for me," said Peter. + +"It's not much out of a lifetime." + +"No. But suppose it were more than seven days?" + +Helen looked at him and said slowly, "It will be, won't it? You +won't be able to go to-morrow." + +"No," said Peter, "not to-morrow, or next day perhaps. Perhaps I +won't be able to go for the rest of my life." + +This time Helen looked at him and said nothing. + +Peter stroked his bird and whistled his tune and stopped abruptly +and said, "Will you marry me, Helen?" + +"I'd rather die," said Helen. + +And she got up and went out of the room. + + +("Oh, the green grass!" chuckled Martin like a bird. + +"Nobody asked her you to begin a song, Master Pippin," quavered +Jennifer. + +"It was not the beginning of a song, Mistress Jennifer. It was the +epilogue of a story." + +"But the epilogue comes at the end of a story," said Jennifer. + +"And hasn't my story come to its end?" said Martin. + +Joscelyn: Ridiculous! oh, dear! there's no bearing with you. How CAN +this be the end? How can it be, with him on one side of the door and +her on the other?" + +Joyce: And her heart's breaking--you must make an end of that. + +Jennifer: And you must tell us the end of the shell. + +Jessica: And of the millstones. + +Jane: What did he have in his box? + +"Please," said little Joan, "tell us whether she ever found her boy +again--oh, please tell us the end of her dreams." + +"Do these things matter?" said Martin. "Hasn't he asked her to marry +him?" + +"But she said no," said Jennifer with tears in her eyes. + +"Did she?" said Martin. "Who said so?" + +"Master Pippin," said Joscelyn, and her voice shook with the +agitation of her anger, "tell us immediately the things we want to +know!" + +"When, I wonder," said Martin, "will women cease to want to know +little things more than big ones? However, I suppose they must be +indulged in little things, lest--" + +"Lest?" said little Joan. + +"There is such a thing," said Martin, "as playing for safety.") + + +Well, then, my dear maids, when Helen ran out of his room she went +to her own, and she threw herself on the bed and sobbed without +weeping. Because everything in her life seemed to have been taken +away from her. She lay there for a long time, and when she moved at +last her head was so heavy that she took the pins from her hair to +relieve herself of its weight. But still the pain weighed on her +forehead, which burned on her cold fingers when she pressed them +over her eyes, trying to think and find some gleam of hope among her +despairing thoughts. And then she remembered that one thing at least +was left her--her shell. During his illness she had never carried it +to the millstones. It was as though his being there had been the +only answer to her daily dreams, an answer that had failed them all +the time. But now in spite of him she would try to find the old +answers again. So she went once more to the millstones with her +shell. And when she got there she held it so tightly to her heart +that it marked her skin. + +And the millstones had nothing to say. For the first time they +refused to grind her corn. + +Then Helen knew that she really had nothing left, and that the +home-coming of the man had robbed her of her boy and of the child she had +been. Nothing was left but the man and woman who had lost their +youth. And the man had nothing to give the woman. Nothing but +gratitude and disillusion. And now a still bitterer thought came to +her--the thought that the boy had had nothing to give the girl. For +twenty years it had been the girl's illusion. The storms in her +heart broke out. She put her face in her hands and wept like wild +rain on the sea. She wept so violently that between her passion and +the speechless grinding of the stones she did not hear him coming. +She only knew he was there when he put his arm round her. + +"What is it, you silly thing?" said Peter. + +She looked up at him through her hair that fell like a girl's in +soft masses on either side of her face. There was a change in him, +but she didn't know then what it was. He had got into his clothes +and made himself kempt. His beard was no longer rough, though his +hair was still unruly across his forehead, and under it his gray-green +eyes looked, half-anxious, half-smiling, into hers. His face +was rather pale, and he was a little unsteady in his weakness. But +the look in his eyes was the only thing she saw. It unlocked her +speech at last. + +"Oh, why did you come back?" she cried. "Why did you come back? If +you had never come I should have kept my dream to the end of my +life. But now even when you go I shall never get it again. You have +destroyed what was not there." + +He was silent for a moment, still keeping his arm round her. Then he +said, "Look what's here." And he opened his hand and showed her his +metal box without its lid; in it were the mummies of seven ears of +corn. Some were only husks, but some had grain in them still. + +She stared at them through her tears, and drew from her breast her +hand with the shell in it. Suddenly her mouth quivered and she cried +passionately, "What's the use?" And she snatched the old corn from +him and flung it to the millstones with her shell. And the +millstones ground them to eternal atoms.... + + +"My boy! my boy! it was you over there in the tree!" + +"Oh, child, you came at last in your blue gown!" + +"Why didn't you call to me?" + +"I'd no breath. I was spent. And I knew you'd seen me and would do +your best." + +"I'll never forget that sight of you in the tree, with your old +jersey and your hair as red as ever." + +"I shall always see your free young figure standing on the high bank +against the sky." + +"Oh, I was desperate." + +"I wondered what you'd do. I knew you'd do something." + +"I thought I'd never get across the water." + +"Do you know what I thought as I saw you coming so bravely and so +badly? I thought, I'll teach her to swim one day. Shall I, child?" + +"I can't swim without you, my boy," she whispered. + + +"But you pretended not to know me!" + +"I couldn't help it, it was such fun." + +"How COULD you make fun of me then?" + +"I always shall, you know." + +"Oh, yes," she said, "do, always." + + +"What DID you think when you saw me in the tree? What did you see +when you got there? Not what you expected." + +"No. I saw twenty years come flying upon me, twenty years I'd +forgotten all about. Because for me it has always been twenty years +ago." + +"And you expected to see a boy, and you saw a grizzled man." + +"No," said Helen, her eyes shining with tears, "I expected to see a +boy, and I saw a gray-haired woman. I've seen her ever since." + +"I've only seen her once," said Peter. "I saw her rise up from the +water and sit in my tree. And when she spoke and looked at me, it +was a child." He put his hand over her wet eyes. "You must stop +seeing her, child," he said. + + +"When I told you my name, were you disappointed?" + +"No. It's the loveliest name in the world." + +"You said it at once." + +"I had to. I'd wanted to say it for twenty years. But I sha'n't say +it often, Helen." + +"Won't you?" + +"No, child." + +"Now and then, for a treat?" she looked up at him half-shy, half-merry. + +"Oh, you CAN smile, can you?" + +"You were to teach me that too." + +"Yes, I've a lot to teach you, haven't I?--I've yet to teach you to +say my name." + +"Have you?" + +"You've never said it once." + +"I've said it a thousand times." + +"You've never let me hear you." + +"Haven't I?" + +"Let me hear you!" + +"Peter." + +"Say it again!" + +"Peter! Peter! Peter!" + +"Again!" + +"My boy!"... + + +"When we got back to the mill-door the last of the twenty years, +that had been melting faster and faster, melted away for ever. And +you and I were standing there as we'd stood then; and I wanted to +kiss your mouth as I'd wanted to then." + +"Oh, why didn't you?--both times!" + +"Shall I now, for both times?" + +"Oh!--oh, that's for a hundred times." + +"Think of all the times I've wanted to, and been without you." + +"You've never been without me." + +"I know that. How often I came to the mill." + +"Did you come to the mill?" + +"As often as I ate your grain. Didn't you know?" + +"I know how often your sea brought me to you." + +"Did it?" + +"And, oh, my boy! at last the sea brought you to me." + +"And the mill," he said. "Where has that brought us?" + + +"I thought perhaps you'd die." + +"I couldn't have died so close on finding you. I was fighting the +demons all the time--fighting my way through to you. And at last I +opened my eyes and saw you again, your black hair edged with light +against the window." + +"My black hair? you mean my brown hair, don't you?" + +"Oh, weren't you cross! I loved you for being cross." + +"I wasn't cross. Why will you keep on saying I'm things I'm not?" + +"You were so cross that you pretended our twenty years were sixty." + +"I never said anything about twenty years, OR sixty." + +"You did, though. Sixty! why, in sixty years we'd have been very +nearly old. So to punish you I pretended to go to sleep, and I saw +you take your hair down. It was so beautiful. You've seen the +threads spiders spin on blackened furze that gypsies have set fire +to? Your hair was like that. You were angry with those lovely lines +of silver, and you wanted to get rid of them. I nearly called to you +to stop hurting what I loved so much, but you stopped of yourself, +as though you had heard me before I called." + +"I was ashamed of myself," whispered Helen. "I was ashamed of trying +to be again what I was the only other time you saw me." + +"You've never stopped being that, child," said Peter. + + +"You knew, didn't you, why it was I had stayed on at the mill? You +knew what it was that held me, and why I could never leave it?" + +"Yes, I knew. It held you because it held me too. I wondered if +you'd tell me that." + +"I longed to, but I couldn't. I've never been able to tell you +things. And I never shall." + +"Oh, child, don't look so troubled. You've always told me things and +always will. Do you think it's with our tongues we tell each other +things? What can words ever tell? They only circle round the truth +like birds flying in the sun. The light bathes their flight, yet +they are millions of miles away from the light they fly in. We +listen to each other's words, but we watch each other's eyes." + +"Some people half-shut their eyes, Peter." + +"Some people, Helen, can't shut their eyes at all. Your eyes will +never stop telling me things. And the strangest thing about them is +that looking into them is like being able to see in the dark. They +are darkness, not light. And in darkness dreams are born. When I +look into your eyes I go into your dream." + +"I shall never shut my eyes again," she whispered. "I will keep you +in my dream for ever." + + +"Women aren't all the same, Peter." + +"Aren't they?" + +"And yet--they are." + +"Well, I give it up." + +"Didn't you know?" + +"No. I told you the truth that time. I've not had very much to do +with women." + +"Then I've something to teach you, Peter." + +"I don't know what you can prove," said Peter. "One woman by herself +can't prove a difference." + +"Can't she?" said Helen; and laughed and cried at once. + + +"But why did you call me a nuisance?" + +"You were one--you are one. You leave a man no peace--you're like +the sea. You're full of storms, aren't you?" + +"Not only storms." + +"I know. But the sea wouldn't be the sea without her storms. They're +one of her ways of holding us, too. And there are more storms in her +than ever break. I see them in you, big ones and little ones, +brooding. Then you're a--nuisance. You always will be, won't you?" + +"Not to wreck you." + +"You won't do that. Or if you do--I can survive shipwreck." + +"I know." + +"How do you know? I nearly gave up once, but the thought of you +stopped me. I wanted to come back--I'd always meant to. So I held +on." + +"I know." + +"How do you know? I never told you, did I?" + +"Oh, Peter, the things we have to tell each other. The times you +thought you were alone--the times I thought I was! You've had a life +you never dreamed of--and I another life that was not in my dreams." + +"You've saved me from death more than once," said Peter. + +"You've done more than that," said Helen, "you've given me the only +life I've had. But a thing doesn't belong to you because you've +saved its life or given it life. It only belongs to you because you +love it. I know you belong to me. But you only know if I belong to +you." + +"That's not true now. You do know. And I know." + +"Yes; and we know that as that belonging has nothing to do with +death, it can't have anything either to do with the saving or even +the giving of life. So you must never thank me, or I you. There are +no thanks in love. And that was why I couldn't bear your asking me +to marry you to-day. I thought you were thanking me." + + +"When you played with the seagull..." + +"Yes?" + +"How you loved it!" + +"Yes." + +"I looked to see how you felt when you loved a thing. I wanted so +much to be the seagull in your hands." + +"When I touched it I was touching you." + +She put his hand to her breast and whispered, "I love birds." + +He smiled. "I knew you loved them; and best free. All birds must fly +in their own air." + +"Yes," she said. "But their freedom only means their power to choose +what air they'll fly in. And every choice is a cage too." + +"I shall leave the door open, child." + +"I shall never fly out," said Helen. + + + +"You talked of going away." + +"Yes. But not from you." + +"Am I to go with you always, following chance and making no plans?" + +"Will you? You are the only plan I ever made. Will you leave +everything else but me to chance? Perhaps it will lead us all over +the earth; and perhaps after all we shall not go very far. But I +never could see ahead, except one thing." + +"What was it?" + +"The mill-door and you in your old blue gown. And for seven days +I've stopped seeing that. I haven't it to steer by. Will you chance +it?" + +"Must you be playing with meanings even in dreams? Don't you +know--don't you know that for a woman who loves, and is not sure that she +is loved, her days and nights are all chances, every minute she +lives is a chance? It might be...it might not be...oh, those ghosts +of joy and pain! they are almost too much to bear. For the joy isn't +pure joy, or the pain pure pain, and she cannot come to rest in +either of them. Sometimes the joy is nearly as great as though she +knew; yet at the instant she tries to take it, it looks at her with +the eyes of doubt, and she trembles, and dare not take it yet. And +sometimes the pain is all but the death she foresees; yet even as +she submits to it, it lays upon her heart the finger of hope. And +then she trembles again, because she need not take it yet. Those are +her chances, Peter. But when she knows that her beloved is her +lover, life may do what it will with her; but she is beyond its +chances for ever." + + +"Your corn! you kept my corn!" + +"Till it should bear. And your shell there--you've kept my shell." + +"Till it should speak. And now--oh, see these things that have held +our dreams for twenty years! The life is threshed from them for +ever--they are only husks. They can hold our dreams no more. Oh, I +can't go on dreaming by myself, I can't, it's no use. I thought my +heart had learned to bear its dream alone, but the time comes when +love in its beauty is too near to pain. There is more love than the +single heart can bear. Good-by, my boy--good-by!" + +"Helen! don't suffer so! oh, child, what are you doing?--" + +"Letting my dear dreams go...it's no use, Peter..." + +The millstones took them and crushed them. + +She uttered a sharp cry.... + +His arm tightened round her. "What is it, child?" she heard him say. + +She looked at him bewildered, and saw that he too was dazed. She +looked into the gray-green eyes of a boy of twenty. She said in a +voice of wonder, "Oh, my boy!" as he felt her soft hair. + +"Such a fuss about an empty shell and a bit of dead wheat." + +She hid her face on his jersey. + +"You are a silly, aren't you?" said Peter. "I wish you'd look up." + +Helen looked up, and they kissed each other for the first time. + +I defy you now, Mistress Jennifer, to prove that your grassblade is +greener than mine. + + + +THIRD INTERLUDE + +The girls now turned their attention to their neglected apples, +varying this more serious business with comments on the story that +had just been related. + +Jessica: I should be glad to know, Jane, what you make of this +matter. + +Jane: Indeed, Jessica, it is difficult to make anything at all of +matter so bewildering. For who could have divined reality to be the +illusion and dreams the truth? so that by the light of their dreams +the lovers in this tale mistook each other for that which they were +not. + +Martin: Who indeed, Mistress Jane, save students of human nature +like yourselves?--who have doubtless long ago observed how men and +women begin by filling a dim dream with a golden thing, such as +youth, and end by putting a shining dream into a gray thing, such as +age. And in the end it is all one, and lovers will see to the last +in each other that which they loved at the first, since things are +only what we dream them to be, as you have of course also observed. + +Joscelyn: We have observed nothing of the sort, and if we dreamed at +all we would dream of things exactly as they are, and never dream of +mistaking age for youth. But we do not dream. Women are not given to +dreams. + +Martin: They are the fortunate sex. Men are such incurable dreamers +that they even dream women to be worse preys of the delusive habit +than themselves. But I trust you found my story sufficiently +wide-awake to keep you so. + +Joscelyn: It did not make me yawn. Is this mill still to be found on +the Sidlesham marshes? + +Martin: It is where it was. But what sort of gold it grinds now, +whether corn or dreams, or nothing, I cannot say. Yet such is the +power of what has been that I think, were the stones set in motion, +any right listener might hear what Helen and Peter once heard, and +even more; for they would hear the tale of those lovers' journeys +over the changing waters, and their return time and again to the +unchanging plot of earth that kept their secrets. Until in the end +they were together delivered up to the millstones which thresh the +immortal grain from its mortal husk. But this was after long years +of gladness and a life kept young by the child which each was always +re-discovering in the other's heart. + +Jennifer: Oh, I am glad they were glad. Do you know, I had begun to +think they would not be. + +Jessica: It was exactly so with me. For suppose Peter had never +returned, or when he did she had found him dead in the tree? + +Jane: And even after he returned and recovered, how nearly they were +removed from ever understanding each other! + +Joan: Oh, no, Jane! once they came together there could be no doubt +of the understanding. As soon as Peter came back, I felt sure it +would be all right. + +Joyce: And I too, all along, was convinced the tale must end +happily. + +Martin: Strange! so was I. For Love, in his daily labors, is as +swift in averting the nature of perils as he is deft in diverting +the causes of misunderstanding. I know in fact of but one thing that +would have foiled him. + +Four of the Milkmaids: What then? + +Martin: Had Helen not been given to dreams. + + +Not a word was said in the Apple-Orchard. + + +Joscelyn: It would have done her no harm had she not been, singer. +Nor would your story have suffered, being, like all stories, a thing +as important as thistledown. In either event, though Peter had +perished, or misunderstood her for ever, it would not have concerned +me a whit. Or even in both events. + +Jessica: Nor me. + +Jane: Nor me. + +Martin: Then farewell my story. A thing as important as thistledown +is as unimportantly dismissed. And yonder in heaven the moon sulks +at us through a cloud with a quarter of her eye, reproaching us for +our peace-destroying chatter. It destroys our own no less than hers. +To dream is forbidden, but at least let us sleep. + + +One by one the milkmaids settled in the grass and covered their +faces with their hands, and went to sleep. But Jennifer remained +where she was. She sat with downcast eyes, softly drawing the +grassblade through and through her fingers, and the swing swayed a +little like a branch moving in an imperceptible wind, and her breast +heaved a little as though stirred with inaudible sighs. She sat so +long like that that Martin knew she had forgotten he was beside her, +and he quietly put out his hand to draw the grassblade from hers. +But before he had even touched it he felt something fall upon his +palm that was not rain or dew. + +"Dear Mistress Jennifer," said Martin gently, "why do you weep?" + +She shook her head, since there are times when the voice plays a +girl false, and will not serve her. + +"Is it," said Martin, "because the grass is not green enough?" + +She nodded. + +"Pray let me judge," entreated Martin, and took the grassblade from +her fingers. Whereupon she put her face into her two hands, +whispering: + +"Master Pippin, Master Pippin, oh, Master Pippin." + +"Let me judge," said Martin again, but in a whisper too. + +Then Jennifer took her hands from her wet face, and looked at him +with her wet eyes, and said with great braveness and much faltering: + +"I will be nineteen in November." + +At this Martin looked very grave, and he got down from the tree and +walked to the end of the orchard full of thought. But when he turned +there he found that she had stolen after him, and was standing near +him hanging her head, yet watching him with deep anxiety. + +Jennifer: It is t-t-too old, isn't it? + +Martin: Too old for what? + +Jennifer: I--I--I don't know. + +Martin: It is, of course, extremely old. There are things you will +never be able to do again, because you are so old. + +Jennifer sobbed. + +Martin: You are too old to be rocked in a cradle. You are too old to +write pothooks and hangers, and too old, alas, to steal pickles and +jam when the house is abed. Yet there are still a few things you +might do if-- + +Jennifer: Oh, if? + +Martin: If you could find a friend as old as yourself, or even a +little older, to help you. + +Jennifer: But think how old h--h--h-- the friend would have to be. + +Martin: What would that matter? For all grass is green enough if it +not near grass that looks greener. + +Jennifer: Oh, is this true? + +Martin: It is indeed. And I believe too that were your friend's hair +red enough, and your friend's freckled nose snub enough, since youth +resides long in these qualities, you might even, with such a +companion, begin once more to steal pickles and jam by night, to +learn your pothooks and hangers, and even in time to be rocked +asleep by a cradle. + +Jennifer: D-d-dear Master Pippin. + +Martin: They look quite green, don't they? + +And he laid the two blades side by side on her palm, and Jennifer, +whose voice once more would not serve her, nodded and put the two +blades in her pocket. Then Martin took out his handkerchief and very +carefully dried her eyes and cheeks, saying as he did so, "Now that +I have explained this to your satisfaction, won't you, please, +explain something to mine?" + +Jennifer: I will if I can. + +Martin: Then explain what it is you have against men. + +Jennifer: I don't know how to tell you, it is so terrible. + +Martin: I will try to bear it. + +Jennifer: They say women cannot--cannot-- + +Martin: Cannot? + +Jennifer: Keep secrets! + +Martin: Men say so? + +Jennifer: Yes! + +Martin: MEN say so? + +Jennifer: They do, they do! + +Martin: Men! Oh, Jupiter! if this were true--but it is not--these +men would be blabbing the greatest of secrets in saying so. If I had +a secret--but I have not--do you think I would trust it to a man? +Not I! What does a man do with a secret? Forgets it, throws it +behind him into some empty chamber of his brain and lets the cobwebs +smother it! buries it in some deserted corner of his heart, and lets +the weeds grow over it! Is this keeping a secret? Would you keep a +garden or a baby so? I will a thousand times sooner give my secret +to a woman. She will tend it and cherish it, laugh and cry with it, +dress it in a new dress every day and dandle it in the world's eye +for joy and pride in it--nay, she will bid the whole world come into +her nursery to admire the pretty secret she keeps so well. And under +her charge a little secret will grow into a big one, with a hundred +charms and additions it had not when I confided it to her, so that I +shall hardly know it again when I ask for it: so beautiful, so +important, so mysterious will it have become in the woman's care. +Oh, believe me, Mistress Jennifer, it is women who keep secrets and +men who neglect them. + +Jennifer: If I had only thought of these things to say! But I am not +clever at argument like men. + +Martin: I suspect these clever arguers. They can always find the +right thing to say, even if they are in the wrong. Women are not to +be blamed for washing their hands of them for ever. + +Jennifer: I know. Yet I cannot help wondering who bakes them +gingerbread for Sunday. + +Martin: Let them go without. They do not deserve gingerbread. + +Jennifer: I know, I know. But they like it so much. And it is nice +making it, too. + +Martin: Then I suppose it will have to be made till the last of +Sundays. What a bother it all is. + +Jennifer: I know. Good night, dear Master Pippin. + +Martin: Dear milkmaid, good night. There lie your fellows, careless +of the color of the grass they lie on, and of the years that lie on +them. They have forsworn the baking of cakes, the eating of which +begets dreams, to which women are not given. Go lie with them, and +be if you can as careless and dreamless as they are. + +And then, seeing the tears refilling her eyes, he hastily pulled out +his handkerchief again and wiped them as they fell, saying, "But if +you cannot--if you cannot (don't cry so fast!)--if you cannot, then +give me your key (dear Jennifer, please dry up!) to Gillian's +Well-House, because you were glad that my tale ended gladly, and also +because all lovers, no matter of what age, are green enough, and +chiefly because my handkerchief's sopping." + +Then Jennifer caught his hands in hers and whispered, "Oh, Martin! +are they? ALL lovers?--are they green enough?" + +"God help them, yes!" said Martin Pippin. + +She dropped his hands, leaving her key in them, and looked up at him +with wet lashes, but happiness behind them. So he stooped and kissed +the last tears from her eyes. Since his handkerchief had become +quite useless for the purpose. + +And she stole back to her place, and he lay down in his, and +Jennifer dreamed that she was baking gingerbread, and Martin that he +was eating it. + + +"Maids! maids! maids!" + +It was Old Gillman on the heels of dawn. + +"A pest on him and all farmers," groaned Martin, "who would harvest +men's slumbers as soon as they're sown." + +"Get into hiding!" commanded Joscelyn. + +"I will not budge," said Martin. "I am going to sleep again. For at +that moment I had a lion in one hand and a unicorn in the other--" + +"WILL you conceal yourself!" whispered Joscelyn, with as much fury +as a whisper can compass. + +"And the lion had comfits in his crown, and the unicorn a gilded +horn. And both were so sticky and spicy and sweet--" + +Joscelyn flung herself upon her knees before him, spreading her +yellow skirts which barely concealed him, as Old Gillman thrust his +head through the hawthorn gap. + +"Good morrow, maids," he grunted. + +"--that I knew not, dear Mistress Joscelyn," murmured Martin, "which +to bite first." + +"Good morrow, master!" cried the milkmaids loudly; and they +fluttered their petticoats like sunshine between the man at the +hedge and the man in the grass. + +"Is my daughter any merrier this morning?" + +"No, master," said Jennifer, "yet I think I see smiles on their +way." + +"If they lag much longer," muttered the farmer, "they'll be on the +wrong side of her mouth when they do come. For what sort of a home +will she return to?--a pothouse! and what sort of a father?--a +drunkard! And the fault's hers that deprives him of the drink he +loved in his sober days. Gillian!" he exclaimed, "when will ye give +up this child's whim to learn by experience, and take an old man's +word for it?" + +But Gillian was as deaf to him as to the cock crowing in the +barnyard. + +"Come fetch your portion," said Old Gillman to the milkmaids, "since +there's no help for it. And good day to ye, and a better morrow." + +"Wait a bit, master!" entreated Jennifer, "and tell me if Daisy, my +Lincoln Red, lacks for anything." + +"For nothing that Tom can help her to, maid. But she lacks you, and +lacking you, her milk. So that being a cow she may be said to lack +everything. And so do I, and the men, and the farm--ruin's our +portion, nothing but rack and ruin." + +Saying which he departed. + +"To breakfast," said Martin cheerfully. + +"Suppose you'd been seen," scolded Joscelyn. + +"Then our tales would have been at an end," said Martin. "Would this +have distressed you?" + +"The sooner they're ended the better," said Joscelyn, "if you can do +nothing but babble of sticky unicorns." + +"It was fresh from the oven," explained Martin meekly. "I wish we +could have gingerbread for breakfast instead of bread." + +"Do not be sure," said Joscelyn severely, "that you will get even +bread." + +"I am in your hands," said Martin, "but please be kinder to the +ducks." + +Joscelyn, all of a fluster, then put new bread in the place of +Gillian's old; but her annoyance was turned to pleasure when she +discovered that the little round top of yesterday's loaf had +entirely disappeared. + +"Upon my word!" cried she, "the cure is taking effect." + +"I believe you are right," said Martin. "How sorry the ducks will +be." + +They quickly fed the ducks, and then themselves; and Martin received +his usual share, Joscelyn having so far relented that she even +advised him as to the best tree for apples in the whole orchard. + +After breakfast Martin found six pair of eyes fixed so earnestly +upon him that he began to laugh. + +"Why do you laugh?" asked little Joan. + +"Because of my thoughts," said he. So she took a new penny from her +pocket and gave it to him. + +"I was thinking," said Martin, "how strange it is that girls are all +so exactly alike." + +"Oh!" cried six different voices in a single key of indignation. + +"What a fib!" said Joyce. "I am like nobody but me." + +"Nor am !" cried all the others in a breath. + +"Yet a moment ago," said Martin, "you, Mistress Joyce, were +wondering with all your might what diversion I had hit upon for this +morning. And so were Jane and Jessica and Jennifer and Joan and +Joscelyn." + +"I was NOT!" cried six voices at once. + +"What, none of you?" said Martin. "Did I not say so?" + +And they were very provoked, not knowing what to answer for fear it +might be on the tip of her neighbor's tongue. So they said nothing +at all, and with one accord tossed their heads and turned their +backs on him. And Martin laughed, leaving them to guess why. On +which, greatly put out, every girl without even consulting one +another they decided to have nothing further to do with him, and +each girl went and sat under a different apple-tree and began to do +her hair. + +"Heigho!" said Martin. "Then this morning I must divert myself." And +he began to spin his golden penny in the sun, sometimes spinning it +very dexterously from his elbow and never letting it fall. But the +girls wouldn't look, or if they did, it was through stray bits of +their hair; when they could not be suspected of looking. + +"I shall certainly lose this penny," communed Martin with himself, +quite audibly, "if somebody does not lend me a purse to keep it in." +But nobody offered him one, so he plucked a blade of Shepherd's +Purse from the grass, soliloquizing, "Now had I been a shepherd, or +had the shepherd's name been Martin, here was my purse to my hand. +And then, having saved my riches I might have got married. Yet I +never was a shepherd, nor ever knew a shepherd of my name; and a +penny is in any case a great deal too much money for a man to marry +on, be he a shepherd or no. For it is always best to marry on +next-to-nothing, from which a penny is three times removed." + +Then he went on spinning his penny in the air again, humming to +himself a song of no value, which, so far as the girls could tell +for the hair over their ears, went as follows: + +If I should be so lucky +As a farthing for to find. +I wouldn't spend the farthing +According to my mind, +But I'd beat it and I'd bend it +And I'd break it into two, +And give one half to a Shepherd +And the other half to you. +And as for both your fortunes, +I'd wish you nothing worse +Than that YOUR half and HIS half +Should lie in the Shepherd's Purse. + +At the end of the song he spun the penny so high that it fell into +the Well-House; and endeavoring to catch it he flung the spire of +wild-flower after it, and so lost both. And nobody took the least +notice of his song or his loss. + +Then Martin said, "Who cares?" and took a new clay pipe and a little +packet from his pocket; and he wandered about the orchard till he +had found an old tin pannikin, and he scooped up some water from the +duckpond and made a lather in it with the soap in the packet, and +sat on the gate and blew bubbles. The first bubble in the pipe was +always crystal, and sometimes had a jewel hanging from it which made +it fall to the earth; and the second was tinged with color, and the +third gleamed like sunset, or like peacocks' wings, or rainbows, or +opals. All the colors of earth and heaven chased each other on their +surfaces in all the swift and changing shapes that tobacco smoke +plays at on the air; but of all their colors they take the deepest +glow of one or two, and now Martin would blow a world of flame and +orange through the trees, or one of blue and gold, or another of +green and rose. And, as he might have watched his dreams, he watched +the bubbles float away; and break. But one of the loveliest at last +sailed over the Well-House and between the ropes of the swing and +among the fruit-laden boughs, miraculously escaping all perils; and +over the hedge, where a small wind bore it up and up out of sight. +And Martin, who had been looking after it with a rapt gaze, sighed, +"Oh!" And six other "Ohs!" echoed his. Then he looked up and saw the +six milkmaids standing quite close to him, full of hesitation and +longing. So he took six more pipes from his pockets, and soon the +air was glistening with bubbles, big and little. Sometimes they blew +the bubbles very quickly, shaking the tiny globes as fast as they +could from the bowl, till the air was filled with a treasure of +opals and diamonds and moonstones and pearls, as though the king of +the east had emptied his casket there. And sometimes they blew +steadily and with care, endeavoring to create the best and biggest +bubble of all; but generally they blew an instant too long, and the +bubble burst before it left the pipe. Whenever a great sphere was +launched the blower cried in ecstasy, "Oh, look at mine!" and her +comrades, merely glancing, cried in equal ecstasy, "Yes, but see +mine!" And each had a moment's delight in the others' bubbles, but +everlasting joy in her own, and was secretly certain that of all the +bubbles hers were the biggest and brightest. The biggest and +brightest of all was really blown by little Joan: as Martin, in a +whisper, assured her. He whispered the same thing, however, to each +of her friends, and for one truth told five lies. Sometimes they +played together, taking their bubbles delicately from one pipe to +another, and sometimes blew their bubbles side by side till they +united, and made their venture into the world like man and wife. And +often they put all their pipes at once into the pannikin, and blew +in the water, rearing a great palace of crystal hemispheres, that +rose until it hit their chins and cheeks and the tips of their +noses, and broke on them, leaving on their fair skin a trace of +glistening foam. And as the six laughing faces bent over the +pannikin on his knees, Martin observed that Joscelyn's hair was +coiled like two great lovely roses over her ears, and that Joyce's +was in clusters of ringlets, and that Jane's was folded close and +smooth and shining round her small head, and that Jessica's was +tucked under like a boy's, while Jennifer's lay in a soft knot on +her neck. But little Joan's was hanging still in its plaits over her +shoulders, and one thick plait was half undone, and the loose hair +got in her own and everybody's way, and was such a nuisance that +Martin was obliged at last to gather it in his hand and hold it +aside for the sake of the bubble-blowers. And when they lifted their +heads he was looking at them so gravely that Joyce laughed, and +Jessica's eyes were a question, and Jane looked demure, and Jennifer +astonished, and Joscelyn extremely composed and indifferent. And +little Joan blushed. To cover her blushing she offered him another +penny. + +"I was thinking," said Martin, "how strange it is that girls are so +absolutely different." + +Then six demure shadows appeared at the very corners of their +mouths, and they rose from their knees and said with one accord, "It +must be dinner-time." And it was. + +"Bread is a good thing," said Martin, twirling a buttercup as he +swallowed his last crumb, "but I also like butter. Do not you, +Mistress Joscelyn?" + +"It depends on who makes it," said she. "There is butter and +butter." + +"I believe," said Martin, "that you do not like butter at all." + +"I do not like other people's butter," said Joscelyn. + +"Let us be sure," said Martin. And he twirled his buttercup under +her chin. "Fie, Mistress Joscelyn!" he cried. "What a golden chin! I +never saw any one so fond of butter in all my days." + +"Is it very gold?" asked Joscelyn, and ran to the duckpond to look, +but couldn't see because she was on the wrong side of the gate. + +"Do I like butter?" cried Jessica. + +"Do I?" cried Jennifer. + +"Do I?" cried Joyce. + +"Do I?" cried Jane. + +"Oh, do I?" cried Joan. + +"We'll soon find out," said Martin, and put buttercups under all +their chins, turn by turn. And they all liked butter exceedingly. + +"Do YOU like butter, Master Pippin?" asked little Joan. + +"Try me," said he. + +And six buttercups were simultaneously presented to his chin, and it +was discovered that he liked butter the best of them all. + +Then every girl had to prove it on every other girl, and again on +Martin one at a time, and he on them again. And in this delicious +pastime the afternoon wore by, and evening fell, and they came +golden-chinned to dinner. + +Supper was scarcely ended--indeed, her mouth was still full--when +Jessica, looking straight at Martin, said, "I'm dying to swing." + +"I never saved a lady's life easier," said Martin; and in one moment +she found herself where she wished to be, and in the next saw him +close beside her on the apple-bough. The five other girls went to +their own branches as naturally as hens to the roost. Joscelyn +inspected them like a captain marshalling his men, and when each was +armed with an apple she said: + +"We are ready now, Master Pippin." + +"I wish I were too," said he, "but my tale has taken a fit of the +shivers on the threshold, like an unexpected guest who doubts his +welcome." + +"Are we not all bidding it in?" said Joscelyn impatiently. + +"Yes, like sweet daughters of the house," said Martin. "But what of +the mistress?" And he looked across at Gillian by the well, but she +looked only into the grass and her thoughts. + +"Let the daughters do to begin with," said Joscelyn, "and make it +your business to stay till the mistress shall appear." + +"That might be to outstay my welcome," said Martin, "and then her +appearance would be my discomfiture. For a hostess has, according to +her guests, as many kinds of face as a wildflower, according to its +counties, names." + +"Some kinds have only one name," said Jessica, plucking a stalk +crowned with flowers as fine as spray. "What would you call this but +Cow Parsley?" + +"If I were in Anglia," said Martin, "I would call it Queen's Lace." + +"That's a pretty name," said Jessica. + +"Pretty enough to sing about," said Martin; and looking carelessly +at the Well-House he thrummed his lute and sang-- + +The Queen netted lace +On the first April day, +The Queen wore her lace +In the first week of May, +The Queen soiled her lace +Ere May was out again, +So the Queen washed her lace +In the first June rain. +The Queen bleached her lace +On the first of July, +She spread it in the orchard +And left it there to dry, +But on the first of August +It wasn't in its place +Because my sweetheart picked it up +And hung it o'er her face. +She laughed at me, she blushed at me, +With such a pretty grace +That I kissed her in September +Through the Queen's own lace. + +At the end of the song Gillian sat up in the grass, and looked with +all her heart over the duckpond. + +Joscelyn: I find your songs singularly lacking in point, singer. + +Martin: You surprise me, Mistress Joscelyn. The kiss was the point. + +Joscelyn: It is like you to think so. It is just like you to think +a--a--a-- + +Martin: --kiss-- + +Joscelyn: Sufficient conclusion to any circumstances. + +Martin: Isn't it? + +Joscelyn: My goodness! You might as soon ask, is a peardrop +sufficient for a body's dinner. + +Martin: It would suffice me. I love peardrops. But then I am a man. +Women doubtless need more substance, being in themselves more +insubstantial. Now as to your quarrel with my song-- + +Joscelyn: It is of no consequence. You raise expectations which you +do not fulfill. But it is not of the least consequence. + +Martin: Dear Mistress Joscelyn, my only desire is to please you. We +will not conclude on a kiss. You shall fulfill your own +expectations. + +Joscelyn: Mine?--I have no expectations whatever. + +Martin: But I have disappointed you. What shall I do with my +sweetheart? Shall she be whipped for her theft? Shall she be shut in +a dungeon? Shall she be thrown before elephants? Choose your +conclusion. + +Joan: But, Master Pippin!--why must the poor sweetheart be punished? +I am sure Joscelyn never wished her to be punished. There are other +conclusions. + +Martin: Dunderhead that I am, I can't think of any! What, Mistress +Joscelyn, was the conclusion you expected? + +Joscelyn: I tell you, I expected none! + +Joan: Why, Master Pippin! I should have fancied that, seeing the +dear sweetheart had hung the veil over her face, she might-- + +Martin: Yes? + +Joan: Be expected-- + +Martin: Yes! + +Joan: To be about to be-- + +Joscelyn: I am sick to death of this silly sweetheart. And since our +mistress appears to be listening with both her ears, it would be +more to the point to begin whatever story you propose to relate +to-night, and be done with it. + +Martin: You are always right. Therefore add your ears to hers, while +I tell you the tale of Open Winkins. + + + +OPEN WINKINS + +There were once, dear maidens, five lords in the east of Sussex, who +owned between them a single Burgh; for they were brothers. Their +names were Lionel and Hugh and Heriot and Ambrose and Hobb. Lionel +was ten years of age and Hobb was twenty-two, there being exactly +three years all but a month between the birthdays of the brothers. +And Lionel had a merry spirit, and Hugh great courage and daring, +and Heriot had beauty past any man's share, and Ambrose had a wise +mind; but Hobb had nothing at all for the world's praise, for he +only had a loving heart, which he spent upon his brothers and his +garden. And since love begets love, they all loved him dearly, and +leaned heavily on his affection, though neither they nor any man +looked up to him because he was a lord. Although he was the eldest, +and in his quiet way administered the affairs of the Burgh and of +the people of Alfriston under the Burgh, it was Ambrose who was +always thinking of new schemes for improvement, and Heriot who +undertook the festivities. As for the younger boys, they kept the +old place alive with their youth and spirits; and it was evident +that later on Hugh would win honor to the Burgh in battle and +adventure, and Lionel would draw the world thither with his charm. +But Hobb, to whom they all brought their shapeless dreams white-hot, +since sympathy helps us to create bodies for the things which begin +their existence as souls--Hobb differed from the four others not +only in his name, but in his plain appearance and simple tastes. And +all these things, as well as his tender heart, he got from his +mother, who was the only daughter of a gardener of Alfriston. The +gardener, to whom she was the very apple of his eye, had kept her +privately in a place on a hill, fearing lest in her youth and +inexperience she should fall to the lot of some man not worthy of +her; for her knew, or believed, that a young girl of her sweetness +and tenderness and devotedness of disposition would by her sweetness +attract a lover too early, and by her tenderness respond to him too +readily, and by her devotedness follow him too blindly, before she +had time to know herself or men. And he also knew, or believed, that +first love is as often a will-o'-the-wisp as the star for which all +young things take it. Five days in the week he tended the gardens of +Alfriston, the sixth he gave to the Lord of the Burgh that lay among +the hills, and the seventh he kept for his daughter on the hill a +few miles distant, which was afterwards known as Hobb's Hawth. She +on her part spent her week in endeavoring to grow a perfect rose of +a certain golden species, and her heart was given wholly to her +father and her flower. And he watched her efforts with interest and +advice, and for the first she thanked him but of the second took no +heed. "For," said she, "this is MY garden, father, and MY rose, and +I will grow it in my own way or not at all. Have you not had a +lifetime of gardens and roses which you have brought to perfection? +And would you let any man take your own upon his shoulders, even +your own mistakes, and shoulder at last the praise after the blame?" +Then Hobb, her father, laughed at her indulgently and said, "Nay, +not any man; yet once I let a woman, and without her aid I would +never have brought my rarest and dearest flower to perfection. So if +I should let a woman help me, why not you a man?" "Was the woman +your mother?" said she. And her father was silent. Then a day came +when he trudged up and down the hills from Alfriston, and standing +at the gate of her garden saw his child in the arms of a stranger; +and her face, as it lay against his heart, seemed to her father also +to be the face of a stranger, and not of his child. He recognized in +the stranger the Lord of the Burgh. And he saw that what he had +feared had come to pass, and that his daughter's heart would be no +more divided between her father and her flower, for it was given +whole to the lover who had first assailed it. Hobb came into the +garden, and they looked up as the gate clicked, and their faces grew +as red as though one had caught the reflection from the other. But +both looked straight into his eyes. And his daughter, pointing to +her bush, said, "Father, my rose is grown at last," and he saw that +the bush was crowned with a glorious golden bloom, perfect in every +detail. Then it was the turn of the Lord of the Burgh, and he said, +"Sir, I ask leave to rob your garden of its rose." "Do robbers ask +leave?" said Hobb. And he shook his head, adding, "Nay, when the +thief and the theft are in collusion, what say is left to the owner +of the treasure? Yet I do not like this. Sir, have you considered +that she is a gardener's child? Daughter, have you considered that +he is a lord?" And neither of them had considered these questions, +and they did not propose to do so. Then Hobb shook his head again +and said, "I will not waste words. I know when a plant can drink no +more water. And though you pretend to ask my leave, I know that you +are prepared to dispense with it. But by way of consent I will say +this: whatever you may call your other sons, you shall call your +first Hobb, to remind you to-morrow of what you will not consider +to-day. For my daughter, when she is a lord's wife, will none the +less still be a gardener's daughter, and your children will be +grafted of two stocks. And if this seems to you a hard condition, +then kiss and bid farewell." And they both laughed with joy at the +lightness of the condition; but the gardener did not laugh. And so +the Lord of the Burgh married the gardener's daughter, and they +called their first son Hobb. He was born on a first of August, and +thirty-five months later Ambrose was born on the first of July, and +in due course Heriot in June, and Hugh in May, and Lionel in April. +And the Lord, loving his sons equally, made them equal possessors of +the Burgh when in time it should pass out of his hands. Which, since +men are mortal, presently came to pass, and there were five lords +instead of one. + +It happened on a roaring night of March, when the wind was +blustering over the barren ocean of the east Downs, and Lionel was +still a boy of ten, but soon to be eleven, that the five brothers +sat clustered about the great hearth in the hall, roasting apples +and talking of this and that. But their talk was fitful, and had +long pauses in which they listened to the gusty night, which had so +much more to say than they. And after one of the silences Lionel +shuddered slightly, and drawing his little stool close to Hobb he +said: + +"It sounds like witches." Hobb put his big hand round the child's +head and face, and Lionel pressed his cheek against his brother's +knee. + +"Or lions," said Hugh, jumping up and running to the window, where +he flattened his nose to stare into the night. "I wish it were lions +coming over the Downs." + +"What would you do with them?" said Hobb, smiling broadly. + +"Fight them," said Hugh, "and chain them up. I should like to have +lions instead of dogs--a red lion and a white one." + +"I never heard tell of lions of those colors," said Hobb. "But +perhaps Ambrose has with all his reading." + +"Not I," said Ambrose, "but I haven't read half the books yet. The +wind still knows more than I, and it may be that he knows where red +and white lions are to be found. For he knows everything." + +"And has seen everything," murmured Heriot, watching a lovely flame +of blue and green that flickered among the red and gold on the +hearth. + +"And has been everywhere," muttered Hugh. "If I could find and catch +him, I'd ask him for a red and a white lion." + +"I'd rather have peacocks," said Heriot, his eyes on the fire. + +"What would you choose, Ambrose?" asked Hobb. + +"Nothing," said he, "but it's the hardest of all things to have, and +I doubt if I'd get it. But what business have we to be choosing +presents? That is Lionel's right before ours, for isn't his birthday +next month? What will you ask of the wind for your birthday, Lal?" + +Then Lionel, who was getting very drowsy, smiled a sleepy smile, and +said, "I'd like a farm of my own in the Downs, a very little farm +with pink pigs and black cocks and white donkeys and chestnut horses +no bigger than grasshoppers and mice, and a very little well as big +as my mug to draw up my water from, and a little green paddock the +size of my pocket-handkerchief, and another of yellow corn, and +another of crimson trefoil. And I would have a blue farm-wagon no +larger than Hobb's shoe, and a haystack half as big as a seed-cake, +and a duckpond that I could cover with my platter. And I'd live +there and play with it all day long, if only I knew where the wind +lives, and could ask him how to get it." + +"Don't start till to-morrow," jested Ambrose, "to-night you're too +sleepy to find the way." + +Then he turned to his book, and Hugh was still at the window, and +Heriot gazing into the fire. And as he felt the child's head droop +in his hand, Hobb picked him up in his arms and carried him to bed. +And he alone of all those brothers had made no choice, nor had they +thought to ask him, so accustomed were they to see him jog along +without the desires that lead men to their goals--such as Ambrose's +thirst for knowledge, and Heriot's passion for beauty, and Hugh's +lust for adventure, and Lionel's pursuit of delight. And yet, +unknown to them all, he had a heartfelt wish, which, among other +things, he had inherited from his mother. For on a height west of +the Burgh he had made a garden where, like her, he labored to +produce a perfect golden rose. But so far luck was against him, +though his height, which was therefore spoken of as the Gardener's +Hill, bloomed with the loveliest flowers of all sorts imaginable. +But year by year his rose was attacked by a special pest, the nature +of which he had not succeeded in discovering. Yet his patience was +inexhaustible, and his brothers who sometimes came to his garden +when they needed a listener for their achieved or unachieved +ambitions, never suspected that he too had an ambition he had not +realized, for they saw only a lovely garden of his creating, where +wisdom, beauty, adventure, and delight were made equally welcome by +the gardener. + +Now on the March day following the night of the brothers' windy +talk-- + + +(But suddenly Martin, with a nimble movement, stood upright on his +bough, and grasping that to which the swing was attached, shook it +with such frenzy that a tempest seemed to pass through the tree, and +the girls shrieked and clung to the trunk, and leaves and apples +flew in all directions; and Jessica, between clutching at her ropes, +and letting go to ward off the cannonade of fruit, gasped in a +tumult of laughter and indignation. + +Jessica: Have you gone mad, Master Pippin? have you gone mad? + +Martin: Mad, Mistress Jessica, stark staring mad! March hares are +pet rabbits to me! + +Jessica: Sit down this instant! do you hear? this instant! That's +better. What fun it was! Aha, you thought you could shake me off, +but you didn't. Are you still mad? + +Martin: Melancholy mad, since you will not let me rave. + +Jessica: You are the less dangerous. But I hate you to be +melancholy. + +Martin: It is no one's fault but yours. How can I be jolly when my +story upsets you? + +Jessica: How do you know it upsets me? + +Martin: You put out your tongue at me. + +Jessica: Did I? + +Martin: Yes, without reason. So what could I do but whistle mine to +the winds? + +Jessica: You were too hasty, for I had my reason. + +Martin: If it was a good one I'll whistle mine back again. + +Jessica: It was this. That no man in a love-tale should be wiser or +braver or more beautiful or more happy than the hero; or how can he +be the hero? Yet I am sure Hobb is the hero and none of the others, +because he is the only one old enough to be married. + +Martin: Ambrose in nineteen, and will very soon be twenty. + +Jessica: What's nineteen, or even twenty, in a man? Fie! a man's not +a man till he comes of age, and the hero's not Ambrose for all his +wisdom, though wisdom becomes a hero. Nor Heriot for all his beauty, +though a hero should be beautiful. Nor Hugh, who will one day be +brave enough for any hero, though now he's but a boy. Nor the happy +Lionel, who is only a child--yet I love a gay hero. It's none of +these, full though they be of the qualities of heroes. And here is +your Hobb with nothing to show but a fondness for roses. + +Martin: You deserve to be stood in a corner for that nothing, +Mistress Jessica. Your reason was such a bad one that I see I must +return to sense if only to teach you a little of it. Did I not say +Hobb had a loving heart? + +Jessica: But he was plain and simple and patient and contented. Are +these things for a hero? + +Martin: Mistress Jessica, I will ask you a riddle. What is it--? Oh, +but first, I take it you love apple-trees? + +Jessica: Who doesn't? + +Martin: What is it, then, you love in an apple-tree? Is it the +dancing of the leaves in the wind? Is it the boldness of the boughs? +Or perhaps the loveliness of the flower in spring? Or again the +fruit that ripens of the flower amongst the leaves on the boughs? +What is it you love in an apple-tree? + +Jessica: All riddles are traps. I must consider before I answer. + +Martin: You shall consider until the conclusion of my story, and not +till you are satisfied that many things can be contained in one, +will I require your solution. And as for traps, it is always the +solver of riddles who lays his own trap, by looking all round the +question and never straight at it. Put on your thinking-cap, I beg, +while I go on babbling.) + + +On the March day following the brothers' talk (continued Martin) +Lionel was missing. It was some time before his absence was noticed, +for Hobb was in his distant garden, and Ambrose among his books, and +Heriot had ridden north to the market-town to buy stuff for a +jerkin, and Hugh had run south to the sea to watch the ships. So +Lionel was left to his own devices, and what they were none tried to +guess till evening, when the brothers met again and he was not +there. Then there was hue and cry among the hills, but to no +purpose. The child had vanished like a cloud. And the month wore by, +and their hearts grew heavier day by day. + +It was in the last week of March that Hugh one morning came red-eyed +to his brothers and said, "I am going away, and I will not come back +until I have found Lionel. For I can't rest." + +"None of us can do that," said Ambrose, "and we have searched and +sent messengers everywhere. You are too young to go alone." + +"I am nearly fourteen," said Hugh, "and stronger than Heriot, and +even than you, Ambrose, and I can take care of myself and Lionel +too. There are more ways than one to seek, and I'll go my way while +you go yours. But I will find him or die." And he looked with +defiance at Ambrose, and then turned to Hobb and said doggedly, "I'm +going, Hobb." + +Hobb, who himself sought the hills unwearingly day after day, and +then sat up three parts of the night attending to the duties of the +Burgh, said, "Go, and God bless you." + +And Hugh's mouth grew less set, and he kissed his brothers, and put +his knife in his belt, and took food in his wallet, and walked out +of the Burgh. He followed the grass-track to the north, and had +walked less than half-an-hour when the wind took his cap and blew it +into the middle of a pond, where it lay soddening out of reach. So +he took off his shoes and walked into the pond to fetch it out, +stirring up the yellow mud in thick soft clouds. But as he stooped +to grab his cap, something else stirred the mud in the middle, and a +body heaved itself sluggishly into view. At first Hugh thought it +must be the body of a sheep that had tumbled into the water, but to +his amazement the sulky head of an old man appeared. He was barely +distinguishable from the mud out of which he had risen. + +"Drat the boys!" said the muddy man. "Will they never be done with +disturbing the newts and me? Drat em, I say!" + +"Who are you?" demanded Hugh, staring with all his might. + +"Jerry I am, and this is my pond. Why can't you leave me in peace?" + +"The wind took my cap," said Hugh. + +"Finding's keepings," said the muddy man, taking the cap himself, +"and windfalls on this water is mine. So I'll keep your cap, and +it's the second wind's brought me this March. And if you're in want +of another you'd best go to where Wind lives and ask him for it, +like t'other one. But he said he'd ask for a toy farm instead." + +"A toy farm?" shouted Hugh. + +"Go away and don't deafen a body," said Jerry, and prepared to sink +again. But Hugh caught him by the hair and said fiercely, "Keep my +cap if you like, but I won't let you go until you tell me where my +brother went." + +"Your brother was it?" growled the muddy man. "He went to High and +Over, dancing like a sunbeam." + +"What's High and Over?" + +"Where Wind lives." + +"Where's that?" + +"Find out," mumbled the muddy man; and he wriggled himself out of +Hugh's clutch and buried himself like a monstrous newt in the mud. +And though Hugh groped and fumbled shoulder-deep he could not feel a +trace of him. + +"But," said he, "there's at least a name to go on." And he got out +of the pond and went in search of High and Over. And his brothers +waited in vain for his return. And the heaviness of four hearts was +now divided between three, and doubled because of another brother +lost. + +But on the first of April, which was Lionel's birthday, Lionel came +back. Or rather, Hobb found him in a valley north of his garden +hill, when he was wandering on one of his forlorn searches. And when +he found him Hobb could not believe his eyes. For the child was +sitting in the middle of the prettiest plaything in the world. It +was a tiny farm, covering perhaps a quarter of an acre, with minute +barns and yards and stables, and pigmy livestock in the little +pastures, and hand-high crops in the little meadows; and smoke came +from the tiny chimney of the farmhouse, and Lionel was drawing water +from a well in a bucket the size of a thimble. And all the colors +were so bright and painted that the little farmstead seemed to have +been conceived of the gayest mind on earth. But through his +amazement Hobb had no thought except for the child, and he ran +calling him by his name, but Lionel never looked up. And then Hobb +lifted him in his arms, and embraced him closely, but the child did +not respond. + +Then Hobb looked at him anxiously, and was so shocked that he forgot +the strange blithe little farm entirely. For Lionel was as wan and +wasted as though he had been through a fever, and his rosy face was +white, and his merry eyes were melancholy. And suddenly, as Hobb +clasped him, he flung his arms round his big brother's neck and +buried his face in his bosom and wept bitterly. + +Then Hobb tried to soothe and comfort him, asking him little +questions in a coaxing voice--"Where has the child been? Why did he +run away and leave us? Where did he get this pretty, wonderful toy? +Is he hurt, or hungry? Does he remember it is his birthday? There +will be presents for him at the Burgh, and a cake for tea. Did Hugh +bring him home? Has he seen Hugh? Lal, Lal, where is Hugh?" + +But Lionel answered none of these questions, he only sobbed and +sobbed, and suddenly slipped out of Hobb's arms, and began to play +once more with his farm, while the tears ran down his thin cheeks. +Presently he let Hobb take him home, and there Heriot and Ambrose +rejoiced and sorrowed over him. For he would scarcely speak or eat, +and only shook his head at their questions. At Hugh's name his tears +flowed twice as fast, but he would tell them nothing of him. Very +soon Hobb carried him to bed, and in undressing him noticed that he +had no shirt. This too Lionel would not explain, and Hobb ceased +troubling him with talk, and knelt and prayed by him, and laid him +down to sleep, hoping that in the morning he would be better. But +morning brought no change. Lionel from that day was given up to +grief. Each morning he went dejectedly to play with his marvelous +toy in the valley, but how he came by it he would not say. + +Towards the end of April Heriot came to Hobb and Ambrose and said, +"I cannot bear this; Lionel is home and we are none the better for +it, and Hugh is gone and we are all the worse. Hugh is capable of +looking after himself, yet perhaps danger has befallen him; and even +if not, he will roam the country fruitlessly for months, and it may +be years; since Lionel is restored and he does not know it. The +Burgh can spare me better than it can you, and I will ride abroad +and see if I can find him, and return in seven days, whether or no." + +So they embraced him, and he departed. But at the end of seven days +he did not appear. And Ambrose and Hobb were dismayed at his +vanishing like the others, and so heavy a gloom descended on the +Burgh that each could scarcely have endured it without the other. +And every day they went forth in search of Hugh and Heriot, or of +traces of them, but found none. + +Then it happened that on the first of May, which was Hugh's +birthday, Hobb, wandering further north than usual, to the brow of +the great ridge east of the Ouse, heard a wild roaring and bellowing +on the Downs; or rather, it was two separate roarings, as you may +sometimes hear two separate storms thundering at once over two +ranges of hills. And in astonishment he went first to Beddingham, +and there, bound by an iron chain to a stake beside a pond, he found +a mighty lion, as white as a young lamb. But he had not a lamb's +meekness, for he ramped and raved in a great circle around the +stake, and his open throat set in his shaggy mane looked like the +red sun seen upon white mist. Hobb rubbed his eyes and turned +towards Ilford, where the second roaring sought to outdo the first. +And there beside another pond he found another stake and chain, and +a lion exactly similar, except that he was as red as a rose. But he +had not a rose's sweetness, for he snarled and leaped with fury at +the end of his chain, and his flashing teeth under his red muzzle +looked like the blossom of the scarlet runner. + +And then, turning about for an explanation of these wonders, Hobb +saw what drove them from his mind--the figure of Hugh crouched in a +little hollow, and shaking like a leaf. Hobb ran towards him with a +shout, and at the shout Hugh leaped to his feet, with the eyes of a +hunted hare, and looked on all sides as though seeking where to +hide. But Hobb was soon beside him, with his arm round the boy's +shoulder, and gazing earnestly into his face. + +"Why, lad," said he, "do you not know me again?" + +Hugh stole a glance at him, and suddenly smiled and nodded, and +tried to answer, but could not for the chattering of his teeth. And +he clung hard to his brother's side, and shuddered from head to +foot. + +"Are you ill, Hugh?" Hobb asked him, bewildered at the boy's +unlikeness to himself. + +"No, Hobb," said Hugh, "but need we stay here now?" + +"Why, no," said Hobb gently, "we will go when you like. Where do +these beasts come from?" + +Hugh set his lips and began to move away. + +Hobb went beside him and said, "Lionel is home, but Heriot is lost. +Have you seen Heriot?" + +Hugh hesitated, and then stammered, "No, I have not seen him." + +And Hobb knew that he had lied, Hugh who had always been as fearless +of the truth as of anything else. So after that he asked no more, +fearing to get another lie for an answer; and he led Hugh home, +supporting him with his arm, for he was full of fits and starts and +shiverings. If a lump of chalk rolled under his shoe he blanched and +cried, "What's that?" and once when a field-mouse ran across the +path he swooned. Then Hobb, opening his tunic at the neck, saw that +nothing was between it and his body; for he, like Lionel, was +without his shirt. + +They got back to the Burgh, and Hobb found Ambrose and told him how +it was. And Ambrose came to Hugh and talked with him, and turned +away with knitted brows. For here was a puzzle not dealt with in his +books. And May went by in miserable fashion, with Lionel spending +the days in playing mournfully beside his farm, and Hugh in cowering +abjectly between his lions. And sometimes Ambrose and Hobb, after +searching for Heriot or news of him, or spending their spirits in +endeavoring to hearten their two brothers, or to elicit from them +something that should give them the key to the mystery, would meet +in Hobb's hill-garden, where seemed to be the only peace and +loveliness left upon earth. And Hobb would weed and tend his +neglected flowers, and they bloomed for him as though they knew he +loved them--as indeed they did. Only his golden rose-tree would not +flourish, but this small sorrow was unguessed by Ambrose. + +One evening as they sat in the garden in the last week of May, +Ambrose said to his brother, "I have been thinking, Hobb, that at +all costs Heriot must be found, and not for his own sake only. He is +younger than we, and nearer in spirit to the boys; and he may be +able to help them as we cannot. For if this goes on, Hugh will die +of his fears and Lionel of his melancholy. You must stay and +administer our affairs as usual, and look after the boys; and I will +go further afield in search of Heriot." + +Hobb was silent for a moment, and then he sighed and said, "No good +has come of these seekings. Our lads returned of themselves, as +Heriot may. And their return was worse than anything we feared of +their absence, as, if he come back, I pray Heriot's will not be. And +for you, Ambrose--" But then he paused, not saying what was in his +mind. And Ambrose said, "Do not be afraid for me. These boys are +young, and I am older than my years. And though I cannot face danger +with a stouter heart than our brothers, I can perhaps see into it a +little further than they. And foresight is sometimes a still better +tool than courage." + +Then he took Hobb's hand in his, and they gripped with the grip of +men who love each other; and Ambrose went out of the garden, and +Hobb was left alone. For Hugh and Lionel were companions to none but +themselves. + +But on the first of June Hobb, coming to the gate of his garden, saw +with surprise a peacock strutting on the hillbrow, his fan spread in +the sun, a luster of green and blue and gold, and behind him was +another, and further south three more. So Hobb went out to look at +them, and found not five but fifty peacocks sweeping the Downs with +their heavy trains, or opening and shutting them like gigantic +magical flowers. Following the throng of birds, he came shortly to a +barn already known to him, but he had never seen it as he saw it +now. For the roof was crowded with peacocks, and peacocks strayed in +flocks within and without; and sitting in the doorway was Heriot, +the sight of whom so overjoyed his brother that Hobb forgot the +thousand peacocks in the one man. And he made speed to greet him, +but within a few yards halted full of doubt. For was this Heriot? He +had Heriot's air and attitude, yet the grace was gone from his body; +and Heriot's features, surely, but the beauty had melted away like +morning dew. And his dress, which had always been orderly and +beautiful, was neglected; so that under the half-laced jerkin Hobb +saw that he was shirtless. Yet after the first moment's shock, he +knew this gaunt and ugly youth was Heriot. And Heriot seeing his +coming hung his head, and made a shamed movement of retreat into the +shadow of the barn. But Hobb hurried to him, and took him by the +shoulders, and beheld him with the eyes of love which always find +its object beautiful. Then the flush faded from Heriot's haggard +cheeks, and he looked as full at Hobb as Hobb at him. And as at the +steadfast meeting of eyes men see no longer the physical appearance, +but for an eternal instance the appearance of the soul, these +brothers knew that they were to each other what they had always +been. And Heriot saw that Hobb was full of questions, and he laid +his hand over Hobb's mouth and said, "Hobb, do not ask me anything, +for I can tell you nothing." + +"Neither of yourself nor of Ambrose?" said Hobb. + +"Nothing," repeated Heriot. + +So Hobb left his questions unspoken, and as they went home together +told Heriot of Hugh's return, and what had happened to him. And +Heriot heard it without comment. And in the evening, when Lionel and +Hugh returned, they had nothing to say to Heriot, nor he to them; +and it seemed to Hobb that this was because these three everything +was understood. + +It was a lonely June for Hobb, with his eldest brother away, and the +three others spending all their days beside their strange +possessions, which brought them no tittle of joy; and had it not +been for his garden he would have felt utterly bereft. Yet here too +failure sat heavily on his heart; for an many a night he saw upon +his bush a bud that promised perfection to come, and in the morning +it hung dead and rotten on its stem. + +So the month wore on, and Hobb began to feel that the Burgh, where +now his brothers only came to sleep, was a dead shell, too desolate +to inhabit if Ambrose did not soon return. And he was impelled to go +in search of him, yet decided to remain until Ambrose's birthday had +dawned, for had not their birthdays brought his three youngest +brothers home? And it might be so with Ambrose. And so it was. + +For on the first of July, before going to his garden, he stayed at +Heriot's barn to try to induce him to leave his peacocks for once, +and spend the day with him in search of Ambrose; but Heriot, who was +feeding his fowl, never looked up, and said sadly, "What need to +seek Ambrose to-day? Ambrose has returned." + +"Have you seen him?" cried Hobb joyfully. + +"Early this morning," said Heriot. + +"Where?" + +"Down yonder in Poverty Bottom," said Heriot, pointing south of his +barn to a hollow that went by that name. For there was a dismal +habitation that had fallen into decay, a skeleton of a hut with only +two rotting walls, and a riddled thatch for a roof. And it was worse +than no habitation at all, for what might have been a green and +lovely vale was made desolate and rank with disused things, rusting +among the lumber of bricks and nettles. It was enough to have been +there once never to go again. And Hobb had been there once. + +But now, at Heriot's tidings, he ran down the hill a second time as +though it led to Paradise, calling Ambrose as he went. And getting +no answer he began to fear that either Heriot was mistaken, or +Ambrose had gone away. His fears were unfounded, for coming to the +Bottom he found Ambrose; yet he had to look twice to make sure it +was he. For he was dressed only in rags, and less in rags than +nakedness; and his skin was dirty and his hair unkempt. He was +stooping about the ground gathering flints dropped through, and a +small trail of them marked his passage over the rank grass. + +Hobb strode towards him with dread in his bosom, and laid his hand +on Ambrose's wild head, saying his name again. And at this his +brother looked up and eyed him childishly, and said "Who is +Ambrose?" And then the dread in Hobb took a definite shape, and he +saw with horror that Ambrose had lost his wits. At that knowledge, +and the sight of his neglected body and pitiful foolish smile, Hobb +turned away and sobbed. But Ambrose with a little random laugh +continued to drop flints in his bottomless bucket. And no word of +Hobb's could win him from that place. + +Then Hobb went back to the Burgh alone, and buried his face in his +hands, and thought. He thought of the evil which had fallen upon his +house, the nature of which was past his brothers' telling, and far +beyond his guessing. And he said to himself, "I have done the best I +could in governing the affairs of the Burgh and of our people, since +the others were younger than I; but I see I have been selfish, +keeping safety for my portion while they went into danger. And now +there is none to set this evil right but I, and if I can I must +follow the way they went, and do better than they at the end of it. +And if I fail--as how should I succeed where they have not?--and if +like them I too must suffer the dreadful loss of a part of myself, +let it be so, and I shall at least fare as they have fared, and we +will share an equal fate. Though what I have to lose I know not, to +match their bright and noble qualities." + +Then he called his steward, and gave all the affairs of the Burgh +into his hands, and bade him have an eye to his brothers as far as +possible, and to consult Heriot in any need, since he was the only +one who could in the least be relied on. And then he walked out of +the Burgh as he was, and went where his feet took him. He had not +been walking half-an-hour when a sudden blast of wind tore the cap +from his head, and blew it into the very middle of a pond. + +Now the pond was exceedingly muddy, and as it seemed to Hobb rather +deep, and he was wondering whether his old cap were worth wading +for, and had almost decided to abandon it, when he saw a skinny +yellow arm, like a frog's leg, stretch up through the water, and a +hand that dripped with slime grope for his cap. With three strides +he was in the pond, and he caught the cap and the hand together in +his fist. The hand writhed in his, but Hobb was too strong for it; +and with a mighty tug he dragged first the shoulder and then the +head belonging to the hand into view. They were the shoulder and +head of the muddy man whom you, dear maidens, have seen once before +in this tale, but whom Hobb had never seen till then. And Jerry +said, "Drat these losers of caps! will they NEVER be done with +disturbing the newts and me? Tis the fifth in a summer. And first +there's one with a step like a wagtail, and next there's one as bold +as a hawk, and after him one as comely as a wild swan, and last was +one as wise as an owl. And now there's this one with nothing +particular to him, but he grips as hard as all the rest rolled into +one. Drat these cap-losers!" + +Then Hobb who, for all his surprise to begin with, and his increase +of excitement as the muddy creature spoke, had never slackened his +grasp, said, "Old man, you are welcome to my cap if you will tell me +what happened to the wearers of the four other caps after they left +you." + +"How do I know what happened to em?" growled the muddy man. "For +they all went to High and Over, and after that twas nobody's +business but Wind's, who lives there." + +"Where's High and Over?" said Hobb. + +"Find out," said the muddy man, and gave a wriggle that did him no +good. + +"I will," said Hobb, "for you shall tell me." And he looked so +sternly at the muddy man that Jerry cringed, moaning: + +"I thought by his voice twas a turtle, but I see by his eye tis an +eagle. If you must know you must. And south of Cradle Hill that's +south of Pinchem that's south of Hobb's Hawth that's south of the +Burgh that's south of this pond is where High and Over is. And I'll +thank you to let me go." + +Nevertheless, when Hobb released him Jerry forgot the thanks and +disappeared into the mud taking the cap with him. But Hobb did not +care for his thanks. He hurried south as fast as his feet would +carry him, going by the places he knew and then by those he did not, +till he came at nightfall to High and Over. + +And on High and Over a great wind was blowing from all the four +quarters of heaven at once. And Hobb was caught up in the crossways +of the wind, and turned about and about till he was dizzy, and all +his thoughts were churning in his brain, so that he could not tell +one from the other. And at the very crisis of the churning a voice +in the wind from the north roared in his ear: + +"What do you want that you lack?" + +And a voice from the south murmured, "What is the wish of your +heart?" + +And a voice from the west sighed, "What is it that life has not +given you?" + +And a voice from the east shrieked, "What will you have, and lose +yourself to have?" + +And Hobb forgot his brothers and why he was there, he forgot +everything but the dream of his soul which had been churned +uppermost in that turmoil, and he cried aloud, "A golden rose!" + +Then the four voices together roared and murmured and sighed and +shrieked, "Open Winkins! Open Winkins! Open Winkins! Open Winkins!" +And the tumult ceased with a shock, and the shock of silence +overwhelmed Hobb with sickness and darkness, and his senses deserted +him. As he became unconscious he seemed to be, not falling to earth, +but rising in the air. + +When he opened his eyes he was lying on his back in a strange world, +a world of trees, whose noble trunks rose up as though they were +columns of the sky, but their heaven was a green one, shutting out +daylight, yet enclosing a luminous haunted air of its own. Such +forests were unknown in Hobb's open barren land, and this alone +would have made his coming to his senses appear rather to be a +coming away from them. But he scarcely noticed his surroundings, he +was only vaguely aware of them as the strange and beautiful setting +of the strangest and most beautiful thing he had ever seen. For he +was looking into the eyes of the loveliest woman in the world. She +was bending above him, tall and slim and supple, her perfect body +clad in a deep black gown, the hem and bosom of which were +embroidered with celandines, and it had a golden belt and was lined +with gold, as he could see when the loose sleeves fell open on her +round and slender arms; and the bodice of the gown hung a little +away from her stooping body, and was embroidered inside, as well as +outside, with celandines, which made reflections on her white neck, +as they will on a pure pool where they lean to watch their April +loveliness. Her skin was as creamy as the petals of a burnet rose, +and her eyes were the color of peat-smoke, and her hair was as soft +as spun silk and fell in two great shining waves of the purest gold +over her bosom as she bent above him, and lay on the earth like +golden grass on green water. A tress of the hair had flowed across +his hand. And about her small fine head it was bound with a black +fillet, a narrow coil so sleek and glossy that it was touched with +silver lights, and this intense blackness made the gold of her head +more dazzling. And Hobb lay there bewildered under the spell of her +loveliness, asking nothing but to lie and gaze at it for ever. + +But presently as he did not move she did, sinking upon her knees and +stooping closer so that her breast nearly rested on his own, and she +put her white hand softly on his forehead, and the smoke of her eyes +was washed with tears that did not fall, and she said in a tremulous +voice that fell on his ears like music heard in a dream, "Oh, +stranger, if you are not dying, speak and move." + +Then Hobb raised himself slowly on his elbow, and as she did not +stir their faces were brought very close together; and not for an +instant had they taken their eyes from each other. And he said in a +low voice, not knowing either his voice or his own words, "I am not +dying, but I think I must be dead." And suddenly the woman broke +into a rain of tears, and she sank into his arms with her own about +his neck, and she wept upon his heart as though her own were +breaking. After a few moments she lifted her head and Hobb bent his +to meet her quivering mouth. But before his lips touched hers she +tore herself from his hold and fled away through the trees. + +Hobb leaped to his feet, and scarcely knowing what he said cried, +"Love! don't be afraid!" and he made no attempt to follow her, but +stood where he was. He saw her halt in the distance, and turn, and +hesitate, and struggle with herself as to her coming or going. At +last she decided for the former, and came slowly between the pillars +of the trees until she stood but a few paces from him with lowered +lids. And she said sweetly, "Forgive me, stranger. But I found you +here like one dead, and when you opened your eyes the fear was still +on me, and when you moved and spoke the relief was too great, and I +forgot myself and did what I did." + +Then Hobb said gently, but with his heart beating on his ribs as +fast as a swallow's wings beat the air, "I thought you did what you +did because at that moment you knew, and I knew also, that it was +your right for ever to weep and to laugh on my heart, and mine to +bear for ever your laughing and weeping. But if it was not with you +as with me, say so, and I will go away and not trouble you or your +strange woods again." + +Then the woman came quickly to him, and seized his hands saying, +half agitated, half commanding, "It was with me as with you. And you +shall stay with me for ever in these woods, and I will give you the +desire of your life." + +"And what shall I give you?" said Hobb. + +"Whatever is nearest to yourself," she whispered, "the dearest +treasure of your soul." And she looked at him with eyes full of +passions which he could not fathom, but among them he saw terror. +And with great tenderness he drew her once more to his heart, +putting his strong and steady arms around her like a shield, and he +said: + +"Love whose name I do not know, what is nearer to myself than you, +what dearer treasure has my soul than you? If I am to give you this, +it is yourself I must give you; and I will restore to you whatever +it is that you have lost through the agony of your soul. Be at +peace, my love whose name I do not know." And holding her closely to +him he bent his head and kissed her lips; and a great shudder passed +through her, and then she lay still in his arms, with her strange +eyes half-closed, and slow tears welling between the lids and +hanging on her cheeks like the rain on the rose. And she let him +quiet her with his big hands that were so used to care for flowers. +Presently she lifted his right hand to her mouth, and kissed it +before he could prevent her. Next she drew herself a little away +from him, hanging back in his arms and gazing into his face as +though her soul were all a question and his was the answer that she +could not wholly read. And last she broke away from him with a +strange laugh that ended on a sob. + +Hobb said, "Will you not tell me what makes you unhappy?" + +"I have no unhappiness," she answered, and quenched her sob with a +smile as strange as her laugh. "My foolish lover, are you amazed +that when her hour comes a woman knows not whether she is happy or +unhappy? Oh, when joy is so great that it has come full circle with +pain, what wonder that laughter and weeping are one?" + +And Hobb believed her, for ever since he had opened his eyes upon +her, he had felt in his own heart more joy than he could bear; and +he knew that for this there is no remedy except to find a second +heart to help in the bearing. And he knew it was the same with her. +But now he saw that she was free for awhile from the excess of joy; +and indeed these respites must happen even to lovers for their own +sakes, lest they sink beneath the heavenly burden of their hearts. +And her smile was like the diver's rise from his enchanted deeps to +take again the common breath of man; and Hobb also smiled and said, +"Come now, and tell me your name. For though love needs none for its +object, I think the name itself is eager to be made known and loved +beyond all other names for love's sake. As I love yours, whatever it +be." + +"My name," she said, "is Margaret." + +"It is an easy name to love," said Hobb, "for its own sake." + +"And what is yours?" asked she. + +And Hobb's smile broadened as he answered, "Try to love it, for my +sake. For it is Hobb. Yet it is as fitting to me, who am as plain as +my name, as your lovely name is fitting to you." + +She cast a quick sly look at him and said, "If love knows not how to +distinguish between joy and pain, since all that comes from the +heart of love is joy, neither can it tell the plain from the +beautiful, since all that comes under the eye of love is beauty. And +I will find all things beautiful in my lover, from his name to the +mole on his cheek." + +For I know now, dear maidens, whether in describing him I had +mentioned this peculiarity of Hobb's. + + +(Jessica: You hadn't described him at all. + +Martin: Well, now the omission is remedied. + +Jessica: Oh fie! as though it were enough to say the man had a mole +on his left cheek! + +Martin: Dear Mistress Jessica, did I say it was his left cheek? + +Jessica: Why--why!--where else would it be? + +Martin: Nowhere else, on my honor. It WAS his left cheek.) + + +Then Hobb said to Margaret, "What place is this?" + +"It is called Open Winkins," said she, and at the name he started to +his feet, remembering much that he had forgotten. She looked at him +anxiously and cajolingly and said, "You are not going away?" But he +hardly heard her question. "Margaret," he said, "I have come from a +place that may be far or near, for I do not know how I came; but I +think it must be far, since I never saw this forest, or even heard +of it, till a moment before my coming. But I am seeking a clue to a +trouble that has come upon me this year, and I think the clue may be +here. And now tell me, have you in these last four months seen in +these woods anything of your people that are my brothers?--a child +that once was merry, and a boy that once was brave, and a youth that +once was beautiful, and a young man that once was wise? Have these +ever been to Open Winkins?" + +Margaret looked at him thoughtfully and said, "If they have, I have +not seen them here. And I think they could not have been here +without my knowledge. For no one lives here but I, and I live +nowhere else." + +Hobb sighed and said, "I had hoped otherwise. For, dear, I cannot +rest until I have helped them." Then he told her as much as he knew +of his four brothers; and her face clouded as he spoke, and her eyes +looked hurt and angry by turns, and her beautiful mouth turned +sulky. So then Hobb put his arm round her and said, "Do not be too +troubled, for I know I shall presently find the cause and cure of +these boys' ills." But Margaret pushed his arm away and rose +restlessly to her feet, and paced up and down, muttering, "What do I +care for these boys? It is not for them I am troubled, but for +myself and you." + +"For us?" said Hobb. "How can trouble touch us who love each other?" + +At this Margaret threw herself on the grass beside him, and laid her +head against his knee, and drew his hands to her, pressing them +against her eyes and lips and throat and bosom as though she would +never let them go; and through her kisses she whispered +passionately, "Do you love me? do you truly love me? Oh, if you love +me do not go away immediately. For I have only just found you, but +your brothers have had you all their lives. And presently you shall +go where you please for their sakes, but now stay a little in this +wood for mine. Stay a month with me, only a month! oh, my heart, is +a month much to ask when you and I found each other but an hour ago? +For this time of love will never come again, and whatever other +times there are to follow, if you go now you will be shutting your +eyes upon the lovely dawn just as the sun is rising through the +colors. And when you return, you will return perhaps to love's +high-noon, but you will have missed the dawn for ever." And then she +lifted her prone body a little higher until it rested once more in +the curve of his arm against his heart, and she lay with her white +face upturned to his, and her dark soft eyes full of passion and +pleading, and she put up her fingers to caress his cheek, and +whispered, "Give me my little month, oh, my heart, and at the end of +it I will give you your soul's desire." + +And not Hobb or any man could have resisted her. + +So he promised to remain with her in Open Winkins, and not to go +further on his quest till the next moon. And indeed, with all time +before and behind him it did not seem much to promise, nor did he +think it could hurt his brothers' case. But the kernel of it was +that he longed to make the promise, and could not do otherwise than +make the promise, and so, in short, he made the promise. + +Then Margaret led him to two small lodges on the skirts of the +forest; they were made of round logs, with moss and lichen still +upon them, and they were overgrown with the loveliest growths of +summer--with blackberry blossoms, a wonderful ghostly white, spread +over the bushes like fairies' linen out to dry, and wild roses more +than were in any other lovers' forest on earth, and the maddest +sweetest confusion of honeysuckle you ever saw. Within, the rooms +were strewn with green rushes, and hung with green cloths on which +Margaret had embroidered all the flowers and berries in their +seasons, from the first small violets blue and white to the last +spindle-berries with their orange hearts splitting their rosy rinds. +And there was nothing else under each roof but a round beech-stump +for a stool, and a coffer of carved oak with metal locks, and a low +mattress stuffed with lamb's-fleece picked from the thorns, and +pillows filled with thistledown; and each couch had a green covering +worked with waterlily leaves and white and golden lilies. "These are +the Pilleygreen Lodges," said she, "and one is mine and one is +yours; and when we want cover we will find it here, but when we do +not we will eat and sleep in the open." + +And so the whole of that July Hobb dwelt in the Pilleygreen Lodges +in Open Winkins with his love Margaret. And by the month's end they +had not done their talking. For did not a young lifetime lie behind +them, and did they not foresee a longer life ahead, and between +lovers must not all be told and dreamed upon? and beyond these lives +in time, which were theirs in any case, had not love opened to them +a timeless life of which inexhaustible dreams were to be exchanged, +not always by words, though indeed by their mouths, and by the +speech of their hands and arms and eyes? Hobb told her all there was +to tell of the Burgh and his life with his brothers, both before and +after their tragedies, but he did not often speak of them for it was +a tale she hated to hear, and sometimes she wept so bitterly that he +had ado to comfort her, and sometimes was so angry that he could +hardly conciliate her. But such was his own gentleness that her +caprices could withstand it no more than the shifting clouds the +sun. And Margaret told him of herself, but her tale was short and +simple--that her parents had died in the forest when she was young, +and that she had lived there all her life working with her needle, +twice yearly taking her work to the Cathedral Town to sell; and with +the proceeds buying what she needed, and other cloths and silk and +gold with which to work. She opened the coffer in Hobb's lodge and +showed him what she did: veils that she had embroidered with cobwebs +hung with dew, so that you feared to touch them lest you should +destroy the cobweb and disperse the dew; and girdles thick-set with +flowers, so that you thought Spring's self on a warm day had loosed +the girdle from her middle, and lost it; and gowns worked like the +feathers of a bird, some like the plumage on the wood-dove's breast, +and others like a jay's wing; and there was a pair of blue skippers +so embroidered that they appeared and disappeared beneath a flowing +skirt with reeds and sallows rising from a hem of water, you thought +you had seen kingfishers; and there were tunics overlaid with +dragonflies' wings and their delicate jointed bodies of green and +black-and-yellow and Chalk-Hill blue; and caps all gay with autumn +berries, scarlet rose-hips and wine-red haws, and the bright briony, +and spindle with its twofold gayety, and one cap was all of wild +clematis, with the vine of the Traveler's Joy twined round the brim +and the cloud of the Old Man's Beard upon the crown. And Hobb said, +"It is magic. Who taught you to do this?" And Margaret said, "Open +Winkins." + +Early in their talks he told her of his garden, and of the golden +rose he tried to grow there, and of his failures; and Margaret knew +by his voice and his eyes more than by his words that this was the +wish of his heart. And she smiled and said, "Now I know with what I +must redeem my promise. Yet I think I shall be jealous of your +golden rose." And Hobb, lifting a wave of her glittering hair and +making a rose of it between his fingers, asked, "How can you be +jealous of yourself?" "Yet I think I am," said she again, "for it +was something of myself you promised to give me presently, and I +would rather have something of you." "They are the same thing," said +Hobb, and he twisted up the great rose of her hair till it lay +beside her temple under the ebony fillet. And as his hand touched +the fillet he looked puzzled, and he ran his finger round its +shining blackness and exclaimed, "But this too is hair!" Margaret +laughed her strange laugh and said, "Yes, my own hair, you +discoverer of open secrets!" And putting up her hands she unbound +the fillet, and it fell, a slender coil of black amongst the golden +flood of her head, like a serpent gliding down the sunglade on a +river. + +"Why is it like that?" said Hobb simply. + +With one of her quick changes Margaret frowned and answered, "Why is +the black yew set with little lamps? Why does a black cloud have an +edge of light? Why does a blackbird have white feathers in his body? +Must things be ALL dark or ALL light?" And she stamped her foot and +turned hastily away, and began to do up her hair with trembling +hands. And Hobb came behind her and kissed the top of her head. She +turned on him half angrily, half smiling, saying, "No! for you do +not like my black lock." And Hobb said very gravely, "I will find +all things beautiful in my beloved, from her black lock to her +blacker temper." Margaret shot a swift look at him and saw that he +was laughing at her with an echo of her own words; and she flung her +arms about him, laughing too. "Oh, Hobb!" said she, "you pluck out +my black temper by the roots!" + +So with teasing and talking and quarreling and kissing, and +ever-growing love, July came near its close; and as love discovers or +creates all miracles in what it loves, Hobb for pure joy grew light +of spirit, and laughed and played with his beloved till she knew not +whether she had given her heart to a child or a man; and again when +the happiness that was in his soul shone through his eyes, he was so +transfigured that, gazing on his beauty, she knew not whether she +had received the heart of a man or a god. And the truth was that at +this time Hobb was all three, since love, dear maidens, commands a +region that extends beyond birth and death, and includes all that is +mortal in all that is eternal. And as for Margaret, she was all +things by turns, sometimes as gay as sunbeams so that Hobb could +scarcely follow her dancing spirit, but could only sun himself in +the delight of it; and sometimes she was full of folly and daring, +and made him climb with her the highest trees, and drop great +distances from bough to bough, mocking at all his fears for her +though he had none for himself; and sometimes when he was downcast, +as happened now and then for thinking on his brothers, she forgot +her jealousy in tenderness of his sorrow, and made him lean his head +upon her breast, and talked to him low as a mother to her baby, +words that perhaps were only words of comfort, yet seemed to him +infinite wisdom, as the child believes of its mother's tender +speech. And at all times she was lovelier than his dreams of her. +Not once in this month did Hobb go out of the forest, which was +confined on the north and north-west by big roads running to the +world, and on all other sides by sloped of Downland. But whenever in +their wanderings they arrived at any of these boundaries, Margaret +turned him back and said, "I do not love the open; come away." + +But on the last day of the month they came upon a very narrow neck +of the treeless down, a green ride carved between their wood and a +dark plantation that lay beyond, so close as to be almost a part of +Open Winkins, but for that one little channel of space; and Hobb +pointed to it and said, "That's a strange place, let us go there." + +"No," said Margaret. + +"But is it not our own wood?" + +"How can you think so?" she said petulantly. "Do you not see how +black it is in there? How can you want to go there? Come away." + +"What is it called?" asked Hobb. + +"The Red Copse," said she. + +"Why?" asked Hobb. + +"I don't know," said she. + +"Have you never been there?" asked Hobb. + +"No, never. I don't like it. It frightens me." And she clung to him +like a child. "Oh, come away!" + +She was trembling so that he turned instantly, and they went back to +the Pilleygreen Lodges, getting wild raspberries for supper on the +way. And after supper they sang songs, one against the other, each +sweeter than the last, and told stories by turns, outdoing each +other in fancy and invention; and at last went happily to bed. + +But Hobb could not sleep. For in the night a wind came up and blew +four times round his lodge, shaking it once on every wall. And it +stirred in him the memory of High and Over, and with the memory +misgivings that he could not name. And he rose restlessly from his +couch and went out under the troubled moon, for a windy rack of +clouds was blowing over the sky. But through it she often poured her +amber light, and by it Hobb saw that Margaret's door was blowing on +its hinges. He called her softly, but he got no answer; and then he +called more loudly, but still she did not answer. + +"She cannot be sleeping through this," said Hobb to himself; and +with an uneasy heart he stood beside the door and looked into the +lodge. And she was not there, and the couch had not been slept on. +But on it lay her empty dress, its gold and black all tumbled in a +heap, and on top of it was an embroidered smock. And something in +the smock attracted him, so that he went quickly forward to examine +it; and he saw that it was Heriot's shirt, that had been cut and +changed and worked all over with peacocks' feathers. And he stood +staring at it, astounded and aghast. Recovering himself, he turned +to leave the lodge, but stumbled on the open coffer, hanging out of +which was a second smock; and this one had two lions worked on the +back and front, and one was red and the other white, and the smock +had been Hugh's shirt. Then Hobb fell on the coffer and searched its +contents till he had found Lionel's little shirt fashioned into a +linen vest, with a tiny border of fantastic animals dancing round +it, pink pigs, and black cocks, and white donkeys, and chestnut +horses. And last of all he found the shirt of Ambrose, tattered and +frayed, and every tatter was worked at the edge with a different +hue, and here and there small mocking patches of color had been +stitched above the holes. + +And at each discovery the light in Hobb's eyes grew calmer, and the +beat of his heart more steady. And he walked out of the Pilleygreen +Lodge and as straight as his feet would carry him across Open +Winkins and the green ride, and into the Red Copse. As he went he +shut down the dread in his heart of what he should find there, +"For," said Hobb to himself, "I shall need more courage now than I +have ever had." It was black in the Red Copse, with a blackness +blacker than night, and the wild races of moonlight that splashed +the floors of Open Winkins were here unseen. But a line of ruddy +fireflies made a track on the blackness, and Hobb, going as softly +as he might, followed in their wake. Just before the middle of the +Copse they stopped and flew away, and one by one, as each reached +the point deserted by its leader, darted back as though unable to +penetrate with its tiny fire the fearful shadows that lay just +ahead. But Hobb went where the fireflies could not go. And he found +a dark silent hollow in the wood, where neither moon nor sun could +ever come; and at the bottom of it a long straggling pool, with a +surface as black as ebony, and mud and slime below. Here toads and +bats and owls and nightjars had come to drink, with rats and stoats +who left their footprints in the mud. And on the ground and bushes +Hobb saw slugs and snails, woodlice, beetles and spiders, and +creeping things without number. The gloom of the place was awful, +and turned the rank foliage of trees and shrubs black in perpetual +twilight. But what Hobb saw he saw by a light that had no place in +heaven. For kneeling beside the pool was his love Margaret, her +naked body crouched and bowed among the creatures of the mud; and +her two waves of gold were flung behind her like a smooth mantle, +but the one black lock was drawn forward over her head, and she was +dipping and dipping it into the dank waters. And every time she drew +the dripping lock from its stagnant bath, it glimmered with an +unearthly phosphorescence, that shed a ghostly light upon the +hollow, and all that it contained. And at each dipping the lock of +hair came out blacker than before. + +At last she was done, and she slowly squeezed the water from her +unnatural tress, and laid it back in its place among the gold. And +then she stretched her arms and sighed so heavily that the crawling +creatures by the pool were startled. But less started than she, when +lifting her head she saw the eyes of Hobb looking down on her. And +such terror came into her own eyes that the look rang on his heart +as though it had been a cry. Yet not a sound issued between her +lips. And he said to himself, "Now I need more wisdom than I have +ever had." And he continued to look steadily at her with eyes that +she could not read. And presently he spoke. + +"We have some promises to redeem to-night," he said, "and we will +redeem them now. You promised me my perfect golden rose, and this +night I am going out of Open Winkins and back to my own Burgh. And +to-morrow, since I now know something of your power of gifts, I +shall find the rose upon my hill, and in exchange for it I will keep +my word and give you back yourself. But there is something more than +this." And he went a little apart, and soon came back to her with +his jerkin undone and his shirt in his hand. "You have my brothers' +shirts and here is mine," he said. "To-night when I am gone you +shall return to Open Winkins, and spend the hours in taking out the +work you have put into their shirts. And in the morning when I meet +them at the Burgh I shall know if you have done this. But in +exchange for theirs I give you mine to do with as you will. And the +only other thing I ask of you is this; that when you have taken out +the work in their shirts, you will spend the day in making a white +garment for the lady who will one day be my wife. And whatever +other embroidery you put upon it, let it bear on the left breast a +golden rose. And to-morrow night, if all is well at the Burgh, +I will come here for the last time and fetch it from you." + +Then Hobb laid his shirt beside her on the ground, and turned and +went away. And she had not even tried to speak to him. + +When Hobb got out of the Red Copse he presently found a road and +followed it, hoping for the best. After awhile he saw a tramp asleep +in a ditch, and woke him and asked him the way to the Burgh of the +Five Lords. But the tramp had never heard of it. So then Hobb asked +the way to Firle, and the tramp said "That's another matter," for +Sussex tramps know all the beacons of the Downs, and he told him to +go east. Which Hobb did, walking without rest through the night and +dawn and day, here and there getting a lift that helped him forward. +And in his heart he carried hope like a lovely flower, but under it +a quick pain like a reptile's sting that felt to him like death. And +he would not give way to the pain, but went as fast and as steadily +as he could; and at last, with strained eyes and aching feet, and +limbs he could scarcely drag for weariness, and the dust of many +miles upon his shoes and clothes, he came to his own bare country +and the Burgh. He rested heavily on the gate, and the first thing he +saw was Lionel on the steps, laughing and playing with a litter of +young puppies. And the next was Hugh climbing the castle wall to get +an arrow that had lodged in a high chink. And out of a window leaned +Heriot in all his young beauty, picking sweet clusters of the +seven-sisters roses that climbed to his room. And in the doorway sat +Ambrose, with a book on his knee, but his eyes fixed on the gate. +And when he saw Hobb standing there he came quickly down the steps, +calling to the others, "Lionel! Hugh! Heriot! our brother has come +home." And Lionel rushed through the puppies, and Hugh dropped +bodily from the wall, and Heriot leaped through the window. And the +four boys clung to Hobb and kissed him and wrung his hands, and +seemed as they would fight for very possession of him. And Hobb, +with his arms about the younger boys, and Heriot's hand in his, +leaned his forehead on Ambrose's cheek, and Ambrose felt his face +grow wet with Hobb's tears. Then Ambrose looked at him with +apprehension, and said in a low voice, "Hobb, what have you lost?" +And Hobb understood him. And he answered in a voice as low, "My +heart. But I have found my four brothers." They took him in and +prepared a bath and fresh clothes for him, and a meal was ready when +he was refreshed. He came among them steady and calm again, and the +three youngest had nothing but rejoicing for him. And he saw that +all memory of what had happened had been washed from them. But with +Ambrose it was different, for he who had had his very mind effaced, +in recovering his mind remembered all. And after the meal he took +Hobb aside and said, "Tell me what has happened to you." + +Then Hobb said, "Some things happen which are between two people +only, and they can never be told. And what has passed in this last +month, dear Ambrose, is only for her knowledge and mine. But as to +what is going to happen, I do not yet know." + +After a moment's silence Ambrose said, "Tell me this at least. Has +she given you a gift?" + +"She has given me you again," said Hobb. + +"That is different," said Ambrose. "She has given us ourselves +again, and our power to pursue the destiny of our natures. But no +man is another man's destiny. And it was our error to barter our own +powers to another in exchange for the small goals our natures +desired. And so we lost a treasure for a trifle. For every man's +power is greater than the thing he achieves by it. But what has she +given you in exchange for what she has taken from you?" And as he +spoke he looked into Hobb's gentle eyes, and thought that if he had +lost his heart it was a loss that had somehow multiplied his +possession of it. "What has she given you?" he said again. + +"I shall not know," said Hobb, "until I have been to my garden. And +I must go alone. And afterwards, Ambrose, I must ride away for +another night and day, but then I will return to the Burgh for +ever." + +So he got his horse, and went to the Gardener's Hill, and his garden +was blazing with flowers like a joyous welcome. But when he +approached the bush on which his heart was set, he saw a great gold +bloom upon it that startled him with its beauty; until coming closer +he perceived that all the petals were rotten at the heart, and +coiled in the center was a small black snake. + +He plucked the rose from its stem, and as he looked at it his face +grew bright, and he suddenly laughed aloud for joy; and he ran out +of the garden and got on his horse, and rode with all his speed to +Open Winkins. When he got there the moon had risen over the +Pilleygreen Lodges. + +And Margaret sat at the door of her lodge in the moonlight, putting +the last stitches into her work. + +But when she saw him coming she broke her thread, and rose and +averted her head. Then Hobb dismounted and came and stood beside +her, and saw that in some way she was changed from the woman he +knew. Margaret, still not turning to him, muttered, "Do not look at +me, please. For I am ugly and unhappy and afraid and nearly mad. And +here are your brothers' shirts." She gave him the four shirts, +restored to themselves. He took them silently. "And here," continued +Margaret, is her wedding-smock." + +And Hobb took it from her, and saw that out of his own shirt, washed +and bleached, she had made a lovely garment. And round it, from the +hem upward, ran a climbing briar of exquisite delicacy, and with a +beautiful design of spines and leaves; but the only flower upon it +was a golden rose, worked on the heart of the smock in her own gold +hair. And Hobb took it from her and again said nothing. + +Then Margaret with a great cry, as though her heart were breaking, +gasped, "Go! go quickly! I have done what you wanted. Go!" + +"Yes, dear," said Hobb, "but you must come with me." + +She turned then, whispering, "How can I go with you? What do you +mean?" And she looked in his eyes and saw in them such infinite +compassion and tenderness that she was overwhelmed, and swayed where +she stood. And then his arms, which she had never expected to feel +again, closed round her body, and she lay helplessly against him, +and heard him say, "Love Margaret, you are my only love, and you +worked the wedding-smock for yourself. Oh, Margaret, did you think I +had another love?" + +She looked at him blankly as though she could not understand, and +her face was full of wonder and joy and fright. And she hung away +from him sobbing, "No, no, no! I cannot. I must not. I am not good +enough." + +"Which of us is good enough?" said Hobb. "So then we must all come +to love for help." + +And she cried again in an agony, "No, no, no! There is evil in me. +And I lived alone and had nothing, nothing that ever lasted, for I +was born on High and Over in the crossways of the winds, and they +were the godfathers of my birth. And all my life they have blown +things to and from me. And I tried to keep what they blew me; and I +gave their hearts' desire to all comers, and took in exchange the +best they could give me; for I thought that if it was fair for them +to take, it was fair for me to take too. But nothing that I took +mattered longer than a week or a day or an hour, neither laughter +nor courage nor beauty nor wisdom--all, all were unstable till the +winds blew me you. And as I looked at you lying there unconscious, +something, I knew not what, seemed different from anything I had +ever known, but when you opened your eyes I knew what it was, and my +heart seemed to fly from my body. And I longed, as I had never +longed with the others, to give you your soul's desire, and I have +tried and tried, and I could not. I could not give you anything at +all, but every hour of the day and night I seemed to be taking from +you. And yet what you had to give me was never exhausted. And the +evil in me often fought against you, when I dreaded your knowing the +truth about me, and would have lied my soul away to keep you from +knowing it; and when I was jealous of your love for your brothers. +So again and again I failed, when I should have thought of nothing +but that you loved me as I loved you. For did I not know of my own +love that it could never give you cause to be jealous, nor would +ever shrink from any truth it might know of you?--but now--but now!-- +oh, my heart, had I known, when you spoke last night of your bride, +that I was she! I will never be she! I was not good enough. I fought +myself in vain." And she drooped in his arms, nearly fainting. + +"Love Margaret!" said Hobb, and the tears ran down his face, "I will +fight for you, yes, and you will fight for me. And if you have +sacrificed joy and courage and beauty and wisdom for my sake, I will +give them all to you again; and yet you must also give them to me, +for they are things in which without you I am wanting. But together +we can make them. And when I went to my garden this morning, I +thanked God that my rose was not perfect, and that you had not taken +my heart, as you had taken joy and courage and beauty and wisdom, as +a penalty for a gift. Their desires you could give them, and take +their best in payment, but mine you could not give me in the same +way. For in love there are no penalties and no payments, and what is +given is indistinguishable from what is received." And he bent his +head and kissed her long and deeply, and in that kiss neither knew +themselves, or even each other, but something beyond all +consciousness that was both of them. + +Presently Hobb said, "Now let us go away from Open Winkins together, +and I will take you to the Burgh. But you must go as my bride." + +And Margaret, pale as death from that long kiss, withdrew herself +very slowly from his arms. And her dark eyes looked strange in the +moonlight as he had never seen them, and more beautiful, with a +beauty beyond beauty; and deep joy too was in them, and an infinite +wisdom, and a strength of courage, that seemed more than courage, +wisdom and joy, for they had come from the very fountain of all +these things. And very slowly, with that unfading look, she took off +her black gown and put on the white bridal-smock she had made; and +as soon as she had put it on she fell dead at his feet. + + +("I think," said Martin Pippin, "that you have now had plenty of +time, Mistress Jessica, to ponder my riddle." + +"Your riddle?" exclaimed Jessica. "But--good heavens! bother your +riddle! get on with the story." + +"How can I get on with it?" said Martin. "It's got there." + +Joscelyn: No, no, no! oh, it's impossible! oh, I can't bear it! oh, +how angry I am with you! + +Martin: Dear Mistress Joscelyn, why are you so agitated? + +Joscelyn: I? I am not at all agitated. I am quite collected. I only +wish you were as collected, for I think you must be out of your +wits. How DARE you leave this story where it is? How dare you! + +Martin: Dear, dear Mistress Joscelyn, what more is there to be told? + +Joscelyn: I do not care what more is to be told. Only some of it +must be re-told. You must bring that girl instantly to life! + +Joyce: Of course you must! And explain why she died, though she +mustn't die. + +Jennifer: No, indeed! and if it had to do with her black hair, you +must pluck it out by the roots. + +Jessica: Yes, indeed! and you must do something about the horrible +pool in the Red Copse, for perhaps that is what killed her. + +Jane: Oh, it is too dreadful not to have a story with a wedding in +it! + +And little Joan leaned out of her branch and took Martin's hand in +hers, and looked at him pleadingly, and said nothing. + +"Will women NEVER let a man make a thing in his own way?" said +Martin. "Will they ALWAYS be adding and changing this detail and +that? For what a detail is death once lovers have kissed. However--!") + + +Not less than yourselves, my silly dears, was Hobb overwhelmed by +that down-sinking of his love Margaret. And he fell on his knees +beside her, and took her in his arms, and put his hand over the rose +on her heart, that had ceased to beat. Suddenly it seemed to him +that his hand had been stung, and he drew it away quickly, his eyes +on the golden rose. And where she had left it just incomplete at his +coming, he saw a jet-black speck. A light broke over him swiftly, +and one by one he broke the strands at the rose's heart, and under +it revealed a small black snake; and as the rose had been done from +her own gold locks, so the snake had been done from the one black +lock in the gold. Then at last Hobb understood why she had cried she +was not good enough to be his bride, for she had fought in vain her +last dark impulse to prepare death for the woman who should wear the +bridal-smock. And he understood too the meaning of her last +wonderful look, as she took the death upon herself. And he loved +her, both for her fault and her redemption of it, more than he had +ever thought that he could love her; for he had believed that in +their kiss love had reached its uttermost. But love has no +uttermost, as the stars have no number and the sea no rest. + +Now at first Hobb thought to pluck the serpent from her breast, but +then he said, "Of what use to destroy the children of evil? It is +evil itself we must destroy at the roots." And very carefully he +undid her beautiful hair, and laid its two gold waves on either +side; but the slim black tress he gathered up in his hand until he +held every hair of it, and one by one he plucked them from her head. +And every time he plucked a hair the pain that had been under his +heart stabbed him with a sting that seemed like death, and with each +sting the mortal agony grew more acute, till it was as though the +powers of evil were spitting burning venom on that steadfast heart, +to wither it before it could frustrate them. But he did not falter +once; and as he plucked the last hair out, Margaret opened her eyes. +Then all pain leapt like a winged snake from his heart, and he +forgot everything but the joy and wonder in her eyes as she lay +looking up at him, and said, "What has happened to me? and what have +you done?" And she saw the tress in his hand and understood, and she +kissed the hand that had plucked the evil from her. Then, her smoky +eyes shining with tears, but a smile on her pale lips, she said, +"Come, and we will drown that hair for ever." So hand-in-hand they +went across Open Winkins and over the way that led to the Red Copse. +And as they pushed and scrambled through the bushes, what do you +think they saw? First a shimmering light round the edge of the pool, +and then a sheet of moon-daisies, the largest, whitest, purest +blooms that ever were. And they stood there on their tall straight +stems of tender green in hundreds and hundreds, guarding and +sanctifying the place. It was like a dark cathedral with white +lilies on the high altar. And they saw a cock blackbird wetting his +whistle at the pool, and heard two others and a green woodpecker +chuckling in the trees close by. And they had no eyes for slimy +goblin things, even if there were any. And I don't believe there +were. + +They bound the black tress about a stone, and it sank among the +reflections of the daisies in the water, there to be purified for +ever. And the next day he put her behind him on his horse, and they +rode to the garden on the eastern hills, and found on his bush a +single perfect rose. And as she had given it to him, Hobb +straightway plucked and gave it to her. For that is the only way to +possess a gift. + +And then they went together to the Burgh, and very soon after there +was a wedding. + +I am now all impatience, Mistress Jessica, to hear you solve my +riddle. + + +FOURTH INTERLUDE + +Like contented mice, the milkmaids began once more to nibble at +their half-finished apples, and simultaneously nibbled at the just-finished story. + +Jessica: Do, pray, Jane, let us hear what conclusions you draw from +all this. + +Jane: I confess, Jessica, I am all at sea. The good and the evil +were so confused in this tale that even now I can scarcely +distinguish between black and gold. For had Margaret not done ill, +who would have discovered how well Hobb could do? Yet who would wish +her, or any woman, to do ill? even for the proof of his, or any +man's, good? + +Martin: True, Mistress Jane. Yet women are so strangely constructed +that they have in them darkness as well as light, though it be but a +little curtain hung across the sun. And love is the hand that takes +the curtain down, a stronger hand than fear, which hung it up. For +all the ill that is in us comes from fear, and all the good from +love. And where there is fear to combat, love is life's warrior; but +where there is no fear he is life's priest. And his prayer is even +stronger than his sword. But men, always less aware of prayers than +of blows, recognize him chiefly when he is in arms, and so are +deluded into thinking that love depends on fear to prove his force. +But this is a fallacy; love's force is independent. For how can what +is immortal depend on what is mortal? Yet human beings must, by the +very fact of being alive at all, partake of both qualities. And +strongly opposed as we shall find the complexing elements of light +and darkness in a woman, still more strongly opposed shall we +discover them in a man. As I presume I have no need to tell you. + +Joscelyn: You presume too much. The elements that go to make a man +are not to our taste. + +Martin: My story I hope was so. + +Joscelyn: To some extent. And this pool in the Red Copse, is it hard +to find? + +Martin: Neither harder nor easier than all fairies' secrets. And at +certain times in summer, when the wood is altogether lovely with +centaury and purple loosestrife, you can hardly miss the pool for +the fairies that flock there. + +Joyce: What dresses do they wear? + +Martin: The most beautiful in the world. The dresses of White +Admirals and Red, and Silver-Washed Fritillaries and Pearl-Bordered +Fritillaries, and Large Whites and Small Whites and Marbled Whites +and Green-Veined Whites, and Ringlets, and Azure Blues, and Painted +Ladies, and Meadow Browns. And they go there for a Feast Day in +honor of some Saint of the Fairies' Church. Which Hobb and Margaret +also attended once yearly on each first of August, bringing a golden +rose to lay upon the altars of the pool. And the year in which they +brought it no more, two Sulphurs, with dresses like sunlight on a +charlock-field, came with the rest to the moon-daisies' Feast; +because not once in all their years of marriage had the perfect rose +been lacking. + +Jessica: It relieves me to hear that. For I had dreaded lest their +rose was blighted for ever. + +Jane: And I too, Jessica. Especially when she died at his feet. + +Joan: And yet, Jane, she did not really die, and somehow I was sure +she would live. + +Joyce: Yes, I was confident that Hobb would be as happy as he +deserved to be. + +Jennifer: I do not know why, but even at the worst I could not +imagine a love-story ending in tears. + +Martin: Neither could I. Since love's spear is for woe and his +shield for joy. Why, I know of but one thing that could have lost +him that battle. + +Three of the Milkmaids: What thing? + +Martin: Had the elements that go to make a man not been to +Margaret's taste. + + +Conversation ceased in the Apple-Orchard. + + +Joscelyn: Her taste would have been the more commendable, singer. +And your tale might have been the better worth listening to. But +since tales have nothing in common with truth, it's a matter of +indifference to me whether Hobb's rose suffered perpetual blight or +not. + +Jane: And to me. + +Martin: Then let the tale wilt, since indifference is a blight no +story can suffer and live. And see! overhead the moon hangs +undecided under a cloud, one half of her lovely body unveiled, the +other half draped in a ghostly garment lit from within by the +beauties she still keeps concealed; like a maid half-ready for her +pillow, turned motionless on the brink of her couch by the oncoming +dreams to which she so soon will wholly yield herself. Let us not +linger, for her chamber is sacred, and we too have dreams that await +our up-yielding. + + +Like a flock of clouds at sundown, the milkmaids made a golden group +upon the grass, and soon, by their breathing, had sunk into their +slumbers. All but Jessica, who instead of following their example, +pushed the ground with her foot to keep herself in motion; and as +she swung she bit a strand of her hair and knitted her brows. And +Martin amused himself watching her. And presently as she swung she +plucked a leaf from the apple-tree and looked at it, and let it go. +And then she snapped off a twig, and flung it after the leaf. And +next she caught at an apple, and tossed it after the twig. + +"Well?" said Martin Pippin. + +"Don't be in such a hurry," said Jessica. She got off the swing and +walked round the tree, touching it here and there. And all of a +sudden she threw an arm up into the branches and leaned the whole +weight of her body against the trunk, and began to whistle. + +"Give it up?" said Martin Pippin. + +"Stupid!" said Jessica. "I've guessed it." + +"Impossible!" said Martin. "Nobody ever guesses riddles. Riddles +were only invented to be given up. Because the pleasure of not being +guessed is so much greater than the pleasure of having guessed. Do +give it up and let me tell you the answer. Even if you know the +answer, please, please give it up, for I am dying to tell it you." + +"I shall never have saved a young man's life easier," said Jessica, +"and as you saved mine before the story, I suppose I ought to save +yours after it. How often, by the way, have you saved a lady's +life?" + +"As often as she thought herself in danger of losing it," said +Martin. "It happens every other minute with ladies, who are always +dying to have, or to do, or to know--this thing or that." + +"I hope," said Jessica, "I shall not die before I know everything +there is to know." + +"What a small wish," said Martin. + +"Have you a bigger one?" + +"Yes," said he; "to know everything, there is not to know." + +Jessica: Oh, but those are the only things I do know. + +Martin: It is a knowledge common to women. + +Jessica: How do YOU know? + +Martin: I'm sure I don't know. + +Jessica: I don't think, Master Pippin, that you know a great deal +about women. + +And she put out her tongue at him. + +Martin: (Take care!) I know nothing at all about women. + +Jessica: (Why?) Yet you pretend to tell love-stories. + +Martin: (Because if you do that I can't answer for the +consequences.) It is only by women's help that I tell them at all. + +Jessica: (I'm not afraid of consequences. I'm not afraid of +anything.) Who helped you tell this one? + +Martin: (Your courage will have to be tested.) You did. + +Jessica: Did I? How? + +Martin: Because what you love in an apple-tree is not the leaf or +the flower or the bough or the fruit--it is the apple-tree. Which is +all of the things and everything besides; for it is the roots and +the rind and the sap, it is motion and rest and color and shape and +scent, and the shadows on the earth and the lights in the air--and +still I have not said what the tree is that you love, for thought I +should recapitulate it through the four seasons I should only be +telling you those parts, none of which is what you love in an +apple-tree. For no one can love the part more than the whole till love can +be measured in pint-pots. And who can measure fountains? That's the +answer, Mistress Jessica. I knew you'd have to give it up. (Take +care, child, take care!) + +Jessica: (I won't take care!). I knew the answer all the time. + +Martin: Then you know what your apple-tree has to do with my story. + +Jessica: Yes, I suppose so. + +Martin: Please tell me. + +Jessica: No. + +Martin: But I give it up. + +Jessica: No. + +Martin: That's not fair. People who give it up must always be told, +in triumph if not in pity. + +Jessica: I sha'n't tell. + +Martin: You don't know. + +Jessica: I'll box your ears. + +Martin: If you do--! + +Jessica: Quarreling's silly. + +Martin: Who began it? + +Jessica: You did. Men always do. + +Martin: Always. What was the beginning of your quarrel with men? + +Jessica: They say girls can't throw straight. + +Martin: Silly asses! I'd like to see them throw as straight as +girls. Did you ever watch them at it? Men can throw straight in one +direction only--but watch a girl! she'll throw straight all round +the compass. Why, a man will throw straight at the moon and miss it +by the eighth of an inch; but a girl will throw at the sun and hit +the moon as straight as a die. I never saw a girl throw yet without +straightway finding some mark or other. + +Jessica: Yes, but you can't convince a man till he's hit. + +Martin: Hit him then. + +Jessica: It didn't convince him. He said I'd missed. And he said he +had hi--he wasn't convinced. + +Martin: Did he really say that? These men can no more talk straight +than throw straight. Can you talk straight, Jessica? + +Jessica: Yes, Martin. + +Martin: Then tell me what your apple-tree has to do with my story. + +Jessica: Bother. All right. Because wisdom and beauty and courage +and laughter can all be measured in pint-pots. And any or all of +these things can be dipped out of a fountain. You thought I didn't +know, but I do know. + +Martin: (Take care!) Where did you get all this knowledge? + +Jessica: And that was why Margaret could take what she took from +Lionel and Hugh and Heriot and Ambrose, because it was something +measurable. Yes, because even a gay spirit can be sad at times, and +a strong nerve weak, and a beautiful face ugly, and a clever brain +dull. But when it came to taking what Hobb had, she could take and +take without exhausting it, and give and give and always have +something left to give, because that wasn't measurable. And the tree +is the tree, and love is never anything else but love. + +Martin: Oh, Jessica! who has been your schoolmaster? + +Jessica: And so when she threw away her four pints what did it +matter, any more than when the tree loses its leaves, or its +flowers, or snaps a twig, or drops its apples? For though nobody +else thought them lovely or clever or witty or splendid, she and +Hobb were so to each other for ever and ever; because-- + +Martin: Because? + +Jessica: It doesn't matter. I've told you enough, and you thought I +couldn't tell you anything, and I simply hated saying it, but you +thought I couldn't throw straight and I can, and your riddle was as +simple as pie. + +Martin: (Look out, I tell you!) You have thrown as straight as a +die. And now I will ask you a straight question. Will you give me +your key to Gillian's prison? + +Jessica: Yes. + +Martin: Because you dreaded lest Hobb's rose was blighted for ever? + +Jessica: No. Because it's a shame she should be there at all. + + +And she gave him the key. + + +Martin: You honest dear. + +Jessica: You thought I was going to beg the question--didn't you, +Martin? + +Martin: Put in your tongue, or-- + +Jessica: Or what? + +Martin: You know what. + +Jessica: I don't know what. + +Martin: Then you must take the consequences. + + +And she took the consequences on both cheeks. + + +Jessica: Oh! Oh, if I had guessed you meant that, do you suppose for +a moment that I would have--? + +Martin: You dishonest dear. + +Jessica: I don't know what you mean. + +Martin: How crooked girls throw! + +She boxed his ears heartily and ran to her comrades. When she was +perfectly safe she turned round and put out her tongue at him. + +Then they both lay down and went to sleep. + + +Martin was wakened by water squeezed on his eyelids. He looked up +and saw Joscelyn wringing out her little handkerchief in the +pannikin. + +"Let us have no nonsense this morning," said she. + +"I like that!" mumbled Martin. "What's this but nonsense?" He sat +up, drying his face on his sleeve. "What a silly trick," he said. + +"Rubbish," said Joscelyn. "Our master is due, and yesterday you +overslept yourself and were troublesome. Go to your tree this +instant." + +"I shall go when I choose," said Martin. + +"Maids! maids! maids!" + +"This instant!" said Joscelyn, and dipped her handkerchief in the +pannikin. + +Martin crawled into the tree. + +"Is a dog got into the orchard, maids?" said Old Gillman, looking +through the hedge. + +"What an idea, master," said Joscelyn. + +"I thought I seed one wagging his tail in the grass." + +The girls burst out laughing; they laughed till the apples shook, +and Old Gillman laughed too, because laughter is catching. And then +he stopped laughing and said, "Is an echo got into the orchard?" + +And the startled girls laughed louder than ever, and they grew red +in the face, and tears stood in their eyes, and Joscelyn had to go +and lean against the russet tree, where she stood frowning like a +stepmother. + +" Tis well to be laughing," said Old Gillman, "but have ye heard my +daughter laughing yet?" + +"No, master," said Jessica, "but I shouldn't wonder if it happened +any day." + +"Any day may be no day," groaned Gillman, "and though it were some +day, as like as not I'd not be here to see the day. For I'm drinking +myself into my grave, as Parson warned me yesternight, coming for my +receipt for mulled beer. Gillian!" he implored, "when will ye think +better of it, and save an old man's life?" + +But for all the notice she took of him, he might have been the dog +barking in his kennel. + +"Bitter bread for me, maids, and sweet bread for you," said the +farmer, passing the loaves through the gap. " Tis plain fare for all +these days. May the morrow bring cake." + +"Oh, master, please!" called Jessica. "I would like to know how +Clover, the Aberdeen, gets on without me." + +"Gets on as best she can with Oliver," said Gillman, "though that +fretty at times tis as well for him she's polled. Yet all he says +is Patience.' But I say, will patience keep us all from rack and +ruin?" + +And he went away shaking his head. + +"Why did you laugh?" stormed Joscelyn, as soon as he was out of +earshot. + +"How could I help it?" pleaded Martin. "When the old man laughed +because you laughed, and you laughed for another reason--hadn't I a +third reason to laugh? But how you glared at me! I am sorry I +laughed. Let us have breakfast." + +"You think of nothing but mealtimes," said Joscelyn crossly; and she +carried Gillian's bread to the Well-House, where she discovered only +the little round top of yesterday's loaf. For every crumb of the +bigger half had been eaten. So Joscelyn came away all smiles, +tossing the ball of bread in the air, and saying as she caught it, +"I do believe Gillian is forgetting her sorrow." + +"I am certain of it," agreed Martin, clapping his hands. And she +flung the top of the loaf to his right, and he made a great leap to +the left and caught it. And then he threw it to Jessica, who tossed +it to Joan, who sent it to Joyce, who whirled it to Jennifer, who +spun it to Jane, who missed it. And all the girls ran to pick it up +first, but Martin with a dexterous kick landed it in the duckpond, +where the drake got it. And he and the ducks squabbled over it +during the next hour, while Martin and the milkmaids breakfasted on +bread and apples with no squabbling and great good spirits. + +And after breakfast Martin lay on his back, chewing a grassblade and +counting the florets on another, whispering to himself as he plucked +them one by one. And the girls watched him. He did it several times +with several blades of grass, and always looked disappointed at the +end. + +"Won't it come right?" asked little Joan. + +"Won't what come right?" said Martin. + +"Oh, I know what you're doing," said little Joan; and she too +plucked a blade and began to count-- + +Tinker, +Tailor, +Soldier, +Sailor"-- + +"I'm sure I wasn't," said Martin. "Tailor indeed!" + +"Well, something like that," said Joan. + +"Nothing at all like that. Oh, Mistress Joan! a tailor. Why, even if +I were a maid like yourselves, do you think I'd give fate the chance +to set me on my husband's cross-knees for the rest of my life?" + +"What would you do then if you were a maid?" asked Joyce. + +"If I were a town-maid," said Martin, "I should choose the most +delightful husbands in the city streets." And plucking a fresh blade +he counted aloud, + +Ballad- +singer, +Churchbell- +ringer, +Chimneysweep, +Muffin-man, +Lamplighter, +King! +Ballad- +singer, +Churchbell- +ringer, +Chimneysweep"-- + +"There, Mistress Joyce," said Martin Pippin, "I should marry a Sweep +and sit in the tall chimneys and see stars by daylight." + +"Oh, let me try!" cried Joyce. + +And--"Let me!" cried five other voices at once. + +So he chose each girl a blade, and she counted her fate on it, with +Martin to prompt her. And Jessica got the Chimney-sweep, and vowed +she saw Orion's belt round the sun, and Jennifer got the Lamplighter +and looked sorrowful, for she too wished to see stars in the +morning; but Martin consoled her by saying that she would make the +dark to shine, and set whispering lights in the fog, when men had +none other to see by. And Joyce got the Muffin-man, and Martin told +her that wherever she went men, women, and children would run to +their snowy doorsteps, for she would be as welcome as swallows in +spring. And Jane got the Bell-Ringer, and Martin said an angel must +have blessed her birth, since she was to live and die with the peals +of heaven in her ears. And Joscelyn got the Ballad-Singer. + +"What about Ballad-Singers, Master Pippin?" asked Joscelyn. + +"Nothing at all about Ballad-Singers," said Martin. "They're a poor +lot. I'm sorry for you." + +And Joscelyn threw her stripped blade away saying, "It's only a +silly game." + +But little Joan got the King. And she looked at Martin, and he +smiled at her, and had no need to say anything, because a king is a +king. And suddenly every girl must needs grow out of sorts with her +fate, and find other blades to count, until each one had achieved a +king to her satisfaction. All but Joscelyn, who +said she didn't care. + +"You are quite right," said Martin, "because none of this applies to +any of you. These are town-fortunes, and you are country-maids." + +And he plucked a new blade, reciting, + +Mower, +Reaper, +Poacher, +Keeper, +Cowman, +Thatcher, +Plowman, +Herd." + +"How dull!" said Jessica. "These are men for every day." + +"So is a husband," said Martin. "And to your town-girls, who no +longer see romance in a Chimneysweep, your Poacher's a Pirate and +your Shepherd a Poet. Could you not find it in your heart, Mistress +Jessica, to put up with a Thatcher?" + +"That's enough of husbands," said Jessica. + +"Then what of houses?" said Martin. "Where shall we live when we're +wed?-- + +'Under a thatch, +In a ship's hatch, +An inn, a castle, +A brown paper parcel'-- + +"Stuff and nonsense!" said Joscelyn. + +"For the sake of the rime," begged Martin. But the girls were not +interested in houses. Yet the rest of the morning they went +searching the orchard for the grass of fortune, and not telling. But +once Martin, coming behind Jessica, distinctly heard her murmur +"Thatcher!" and smile. And at another time he saw Joyce deliberately +count her blade before beginning, and nip off a floret, and then +begin; and the end was "Plowman." And presently little Joan came and +knelt beside him where he sat counting on his own behalf, and said +timidly, "Martin." + +"Yes, dear?" said Martin absentmindedly. + +"Oh. Martin, is it very wicked to poach?" + +"The best men all do it," said Martin. + +"Oh. Please, what are you counting?" + + +"You swear you won't tell?" said Martin, with a side-glance at her. +She shook her head, and he pulled at his grass whispering-- + +Jennifer, +Jessica, +Jane, +Joan, +Joyce, +Joscelyn, +Gillian--" + +"And the last one?" said little Joan, with a rosy face; for he had +paused at the eighth. + +"Sh!" said Martin, and stuck his blade behind his ear and called +"Dinner!" + +So they came to dinner. + +"Have you not found," said Martin, "that after thinking all the +morning it is necessary to jump all the afternoon?" And he got the +ropes of the swing and began to skip with great clumsiness, always +failing before ten, and catching the cord round his ankles. At which +the girls plied him with derision, and said they would show him how. +And Jane showed him how to skip forwards, and Jessica how to skip +backwards, and Jennifer how to skip with both feet and stay in one +spot, and Joyce how to skip on either foot, on a run. And Joscelyn +showed him how to skip with the rope crossed and uncrossed by turns. +But little Joan showed him how to skip so high and so lightly that +she could whirl the rope twice under her feet before they came down +to earth like birds. And then the girls took the ropes by turns, +ringing the changes on all these ways of skipping; or two of them +would turn a rope for the others, while they skipped the games of +their grandmothers: "Cross the Bible," "All in together," "Lady, +lady, drop your purse!" and "Cinderella lost her shoe;" or they +turned two ropes at once for the Double Dutch; and Martin took his +run with the rest. And at first he did very badly, but as the day +wore on improved, until by evening he was whirling the rope three +times under his feet that glanced against each other in mid-air like +the knife and the steel. And the girls clapped their hands because +they couldn't help it, and Joan said breathlessly: + +"How quick you are! it took me ten days to do that." + +And Martin answered breathlessly, "How quick you were! it took me +ten years." + +"Are you ever honest about anything, Master Pippin?" said Joscelyn +petulantly. + +"Three times a day," said Martin, "I am honestly hungry." + +So they had supper. + +Supper done, they clustered as usual about the story-telling tree, +and Martin looked inquiringly from Jane to Joscelyn and from +Joscelyn to Jane. And Joscelyn's expression was one of uncontrolled +indifference, and Jane's expression was one of bridled excitement. +So Martin ignored Joscelyn and asked Jane what she was thinking +about. + +"A great number of things, Master Pippin," said she. "There is +always so much to think about." + +"Is there?" said Martin. + +"Oh, surely you know there is. How could you tell stories else?" + +"I never think when I tell stories," said Martin. "I give them a +push and let them swing." + +"Oh but," said Jane, "it is very dangerous to speak without +thinking. One might say anything." + +"One does," agreed Martin, "and then anything happens. But people +who think before speaking often end by saying nothing. And so +nothing happens." + +"Perhaps it's as well," said Joyce slyly. + +"Yet the world must go round, Mistress Joyce. And swings were made +to swing. Do you think, Mistress Jane, if you sat in the swing I +should think twice, or even once, before giving it a push?" + +Jane considered this, and then said gravely, "I think, Master +Pippin, you would have to think at least once before pushing the +swing to-night; because it isn't there." + +"What a wise little milkmaid you are," said Martin, looking about +for the skipping-ropes. + +"Yes," said Jessica, "Jane is wiser than any of us. She is extremely +wise. I wonder you hadn't noticed it." + +"Oh, but I had," said Martin earnestly, fixing the swinging ropes to +their places. "There, Mistress Jane, let me help you in, and I will +give you a push." + +He offered her his hand respectfully, and Jane took it saying, "I +don't like swinging very high." + +"I will think before I push," said Martin. And when she was settled, +with her skirts in order and her little feet tucked back, he rocked +the swing so gently that not an apple fell nor a milkmaid slipped, +clambering to her place. And Martin leaned back in his and shut his +eyes. + +"We are waiting," observed Joscelyn overhead. + +"So am I," sighed Martin. + +"For what?" + +"For a push." + +"But you're not swinging." + +"Neither's my story. And it will take seven pair of arms to set it +going." And he fixed his eyes on Gillian in her sorrow, but she did +not lift her face. + +"Here's six to start the motion of themselves," said Joscelyn, "and +it only remains to you to attract the seventh willy-nilly." + +"It were easier," said Martin, "to unlock Saint Peter's Gates with +cowslips." + +"I was not talking of impossibilities, Master Pippin," said +Joscelyn. + +"Why, neither was I," said Martin; "for did you never hear that +cowslips, among all the golden flowers of spring, are the Keys of +Heaven?" + +And sending a little chime from his lute across the Well-House he +sang-- + +She lost the keys of heaven + Walking in a shadow, + Sighing for her lad O +She lost her keys of heaven. +She saw the boys and girls who flocked +Beyond the gates all barred and locked-- +And oh! sighed she, the locks are seven + Betwixt me and my lad O, +And I have lost my keys of heaven + Walking in a shadow. + She found the keys of heaven + All in a May meadow, + Singing for her lad O +She found her keys of heaven. +She found them made of cowslip gold +Springing seven-thousandfold-- +And oh! sang she, ere fall of even + Shall I not be wed O? +For I have found my keys of heaven + All in a May meadow. + +By the end of the song Gillian was kneeling upright among the +mallows, and with her hands clasped under her chin was gazing across +the duckpond. + +"Well, well!" exclaimed Joscelyn, "cowslips may, or may not, have +the power to unlock the heavenly gates. But there's no denying that +a very silly song has unlocked our Mistress's lethargy. So I advise +you to seize the occasion to swing your tale on its way." + +"Then here goes," said Martin, "and I only pray you to set your +sympathies also in motion while I endeavor to keep them going with +the story of Proud Rosalind and the Hart-Royal." + + +PROUD ROSALIND AND THE HART-ROYAL + +There was once, dear maidens, a man-of-all-trades who lived by the +Ferry at Bury. And nobody knew where he came from. For the chief of +his trades he was an armorer, for it was in the far-away times when +men thought danger could only be faced and honor won in a case of +steel; not having learned that either against danger or for honor +the naked heart is the fittest wear. So this man, whose name was +Harding, kept his fires going for men's needs, and women's too; for +besides making and mending swords and knives and greaves for the +one, he would also make brooches and buckles and chains for the +other; and tools for the peasants. They sometimes called him the Red +Smith. In person Harding was ruddy, though his fairness differed +from the fairness of the natives, and his speech was not wholly +their speech. He was a man of mighty brawn and stature, his eyes +gleamed like blue ice seen under a fierce sun, the hair of his head +and his beard glittered like red gold, and the finer hair on his +great arms and breast overlaid with an amber sheen the red-bronze of +his skin. He seemed a man made to move the mountains of the world; +yet truth to tell, he was a most indifferent smith. + + +(Martin: Are you not quite comfortable, Mistress Jane? + +Jane: I am perfectly comfortable, thank you, Master Pippin. + +Martin: I fancied you were a trifle unsettled. + +Jane: No, indeed. What would unsettle me? + +Martin: I haven't the ghost of a notion.) + + +I have heard gossips tell, but it has since been forgotten or +discredited, that this part of the river was then known as Wayland's +Ferry; for this, it was said, was one of the several places in +England where the spirit lurked of Wayland the Smith, who was the +cunningest worker in metal ever told of in song or story, and he had +come overseas from the North where men worshiped him as a god. No +one in Bury had ever seen the shape of Wayland, but all believed in +him devoutly, for this was told of him, and truly: that any one +coming to the ferry with an unshod steed had only to lay a penny on +the ground and cry aloud, "Wayland Smith, shoe me my horse!" and so +withdraw. And on coming again he would find his horse shod with a +craft unknown to human hands, and his penny gone. And nobody thought +of attributing to Harding the work of Wayland, partly because no +human smith would have worked for so mean a fee as was accepted by +the god, and chiefly because the quality of the workmanship of the +man and the god was as dissimilar as that of clay and gold. + +Besides his trade in metal, Harding also plied the ferry; and then +men would speak of him as the Red Boatman. But he could not be +depended on, for he was often absent. His boat was of a curious +shape, not like any other boat seen on the Arun. Its prow was curved +like a bird's beak. And when folk wished to go across to the +Amberley flats that lie under the splendid shell which was once a +castle, Harding would carry them, if he was there and neither too +busy nor too surly. And when they asked the fee he always said, +"When I work in metal I take metal. But for that which flows I take +only that which flows. So give me whatever you have heart to give, +as long as it is not coin." And they gave him willingly anything +they had: a flower, or an egg, or a bird's feather. A child once +gave him her curl, and a man his hand. + +And when he was neither in his workshop or his boat, he hunted on +the hills. But this was a trade he put to no man's service. Harding +hunted only for himself. And because he served his own pleasure more +passionately than he served others', and was oftener seen with his +bow than with hammer or oar, he was chiefly known as the Red Hunter. +Often in the late of the year he would be away on the great hills of +Bury and Bignor and Houghton and Rewell, with their beech-woods +burning on their sides and in their hollows, and their rolling +shoulders lifted out of those autumn fires to meet in freedom the +freedom of the clouds. + +It was on one of his huntings he came on the Wishing-Pool. This pool +had for long been a legend in the neighborhood, and it was said that +whoever had courage to seek it in the hour before midnight on +Midsummer Eve, and thrice utter her wish aloud, would surely have +that wish granted within the year. But with time it had become a +lost secret, perhaps because its ancient reputation as the haunt of +goblin things had long since sapped the courage of the maidens of +those parts; and only great-grandmothers remembered how that once +their grandmothers had tried their fortunes there. And its +whereabouts had been forgotten. + +But one September Harding saw a calf-stag on Great Down. There were +wild deer on the hills then, but such a calf he had never seen +before. So he stalked it over Madehurst and Rewell, and followed it +into the thick of Rewell Wood. And when it led him to its drinking- +place, he knew that he had discovered one more secret of the hills, +and that this somber mere wherein strange waters bubbled in whispers +could be no other than the lost Wishing-Pool. The young calf might +have been its magic guard. To Harding it was a discovery more +precious than the mere. For all that it was of the first year, with +its prickets only showing where its antlers would branch in time, it +was of a breed so fine and a build so noble that its matchless noon +could already be foretold from its matchless dawn; and added to all +its strength and grace and beauty was this last marvel, that though +it was of the tribe of the Red Deer, its skin was as white and +speckless as falling snow. Watching it, the Red Smith said to +himself, "Not yet my quarry. You are of king's stock, and if after +the sixth year you show twelve points, you shall be for me. But +first, my hart-royal, you shall get your growth." And he came away +and told no man of the calf or of the pool. + +And in the second year he watched for it by the mere, and saw it +come to drink, no longer a calf, but a lovely brocket, with its brow +antlers making its first two points. And in the third year he +watched for it again, no brocket now but a splendid spayade, which +to its brows had added its shooting bays; and in the fourth year the +spayade had become a proud young staggarde, with its trays above its +bays. And in the fifth year the staggarde was a full-named stag, +crowned with the exquisite twin crowns of its crockets, surmounting +tray and bay and brow. And Harding lying hidden gloried in it, +thinking, "All your points now but two, my quarry. And next year you +shall add the beam to the crown, and I will hunt my hart." + +Now at the time when Harding first saw the calf, and the ruin of the +castle across the ferry was only a ruin, not fit for habitation, it +was nevertheless inhabited by the Proud Rosalind, who dwelt there +without kith or kin. And if time had crumbled the castle to its last +nobility, so that all that was strong and beautiful in it was +preserved and, as it were, exposed in nakedness to the eyes of men: +so in her, who was the ruins of her family, was preserved and +exposed all that had been most noble, strong and beautiful in her +race. She was as poor as she was friendless, but her pride +outmatched both these things. So great was her pride that she +learned to endure shame for the sake of it. She had a tall straight +figure that was both strong and graceful, and she carried herself +like a tree. Her hair was neither bronze nor gold nor copper, yet +seemed to be an alloy of all the precious mines of the turning year-- +the vigorous dusky gold of November elms, the rust of dead bracken +made living by heavy rains, the color of beechmast drenched with +sunlight after frost, and all the layers of glory on the boughs +before it fell, when it needed neither sun nor dew to make it glow. +All these could be seen in different lights upon her heavy hair, +which when unbound hung as low as her knees. Her thick brows were +dark gold, and her fearless eyes dark gray with gold gleams in them. +They may have been reflections from her lashes, or even from her +skin, which had upon it the bloom of a golden plum. Dim ages since +her fathers had been kings in Sussex; gradually their estate had +diminished, but with the lessening of their worldly possessions they +burnished the brighter the possession of their honor, and bred the +care of it in their children jealously. So it came to pass that +Rosalind, who possessed less than any serf or yeoman in the +countryside, trod among these as though she were a queen, dreaming +of a degree which she had never known, ignored or shrugged at by +those whom she accounted her equals, insulted or gibed at by those +she thought her inferiors. For the dwellers in the neighboring +hamlets, to whom the story of her fathers' fathers was only a +legend, saw in her just a shabby girl, less worthy than themselves +because much poorer, whose pride and very beauty aroused their +mockery and wrath. They did not dispute her possession of the +castle. For what to them were four vast roofless walls, enclosing a +square of greensward underfoot and another of blue air overhead, and +pierced with doorless doorways and windowless casements that let in +all the lights of all the quarters of the sky? What to them were +these traces of old chambers etched on the surface of the old gray +stone, these fragments of lovely arches that were but channels for +the winds? In the thick of the great towered gateway one little room +remained above the arch, and here the maiden slept. And all her +company was the ghosts of her race. She saw them feasting in the +halls of the air, and moving on the courtyard of the grass. At night +in the galleries of the stars she heard their singing; and often, +looking through the empty windows over the flats to which the great +west wall dropped down, she saw them ride in cavalcade out of the +sunset, from battle or hunt or tourney. But the peasants, who did +not know what she saw and heard, preferred their snug squalor to +this shivering nobility, and despised the girl who, in a fallen +fortress, defended her life from theirs. + +At first she had kept her distance with a kind of graciousness, but +one day in her sixteenth year a certain boor met her under the +castle wall as she was returning with sticks for kindling, and was +struck by her free and noble carriage; for though she was little +more than a child, through all her rags she shone with the grace and +splendor not only of her race, but of the wild life she lived on the +hills when she was not in her ruins. She was as strong and fine as a +young hind, and could run like any deer upon the Downs, and climb +like any squirrel. And the dull-sighted peasant, seeing as though +for the first time her untamed beauty, on an impulse offered to kiss +her and make her his woman. + +Rosalind stared at him like one aroused from sleep with a rude blow. +The color flamed in her cheek."YOU to accost so one of my blood?" +she cried. "Mongrel, go back to your kennel!" + +The lout gaped between rage and mortification, and, muttering, made +a step towards her; but suddenly seeming to think better of it, +stumbled away. + +Then Rosalind, lifting her glowing face, as beautiful as sunset with +its double flush, rose under gold, saw Harding the Red Hunter gazing +at her. Some business had brought him over the ferry, and on his +road he had lit upon the suit and its rejection. Rosalind, her +spirit chafed with what had passed, returned his gaze haughtily. But +he maintained his steadfast look as though he had been hewn out of +stone; and presently, impatient and disdainful, she turned away. +Then, and instantly, Harding pursued his way in silence. And +Rosalind grew somehow aware that he had determined to stand at gaze +until her eyes were lowered. Thereupon she classed his presumption +with that of the other who had dared address her, and hated him for +taking part against her. Near as their dwellings were, divided only +by the river and a breadth of water-meadow, their intercourse had +always been of the slightest, for Harding possessed a reserve as +great as her own. But from this hour their intercourse ceased +entirely. + +The boor mis-spread the tale of her overweening pride through the +hamlet, and when next she appeared there she was greeted with +derision. + +"This is she that holds herself unfit to mate with an honest man!" +cried some. And others, "Nay, do but see the silken gown of the +great lady Rosalind, see the fine jewels of her!" "She thinks she +outshines the Queen of Bramber's self!" scoffed a woman. And a man +demanded, "What blood's good enough to mix with hers, if ours be +not?" + +"A king's!" flashed Rosalind. And even as she spoke the jeering +throng parted to let one by that elbowed his way among them; and a +second time she saw the Red Hunter come to halt and fix her before +all the people. Now this time, she vowed silently, you may gaze till +night fall and day rise again, Red Man, if you think to lower my +eyes in the presence of these! So she stood and looked him in the +face like a queen, all her spirit nerving her, and the people knew +it to be battle between them. Harding's great arms were folded +across his breast, and on his countenance was no expressiveness at +all; but a strange light grew and brightened in his eyes, till +little by little all else was blurred and hazy in the girl's sight, +and blue fire seemed to lap her from her tawny hair to her bare +feet. Then she knew nothing except that she must look away or burn. +And her eyes fell. Harding walked past her as he had done before, +and not till he was out of hearing did the bystanders begin their +cruelty. + +"A king's blood for the lady that droops to a common smith!" cried +they. + +"She shall swing his hammer for a scepter!" cried they. + +" Shall sit on's anvil for a throne!" cried they. + +" Shall queen it in a leathern apron o' Sundays!" cried they. + +Rosalind fled amid their howls of laughter. She hated them all, and +far beyond them all she hated him who had lowered her head in their +sight. + +It was after this that the Proud Rosalind-- + + +(But here, without even trouble to finish his sentence, Martin +Pippin suddenly thrust with his foot at the seat of the swing, +nearly dislodging Jane with the action; who screamed and clutched +first at the ropes, and next at the branches as she went up, and +last of all at Martin as she came down. She clutched him so +piteously that in pure pity he clutched her, and lifting her bodily +out of her peril set her on his knee. + +Martin: (with great concern): Are you better, Mistress Jane? + +Jane: Where are your manners, Master Pippin? + +Martin: My mother mislaid them before I was born. But are you better +now? + +Jane: I am not sure. I was very much upset. + +Martin: So was I. + +Jane: It was all your doing. + +Martin: I could have sworn it was half yours. + +Jane: Who disturbed the swing, pray? + +Martin: Every effect proceeds from its cause. The swing was +disturbed because I was disturbed. + +Jane: Every cause once had its effect. What effected your +disturbance, Master Pippin? + +Martin: Yours, Mistress Jane. + +Jane: Mine? + +Martin: Confess that you were disturbed. + +Jane: Yes, and with good cause. + +Martin: I can't doubt it. Yet that was the mischief. I could find no +logical cause for your disturbance. And an illogical world proceeds +from confusion to chaos. For want of a little logic my foot and your +swing passed out of control. + +Jane: The logic had only to be asked for, and it would have been +forthcoming. + +Martin: Is it too late to ask? + +Jane: It is never too late to be reasonable. But why am I sitting +on-- Why am I sitting here? + +Martin: For the best of reasons. You are sitting where you are +sitting because the swing is so disturbed. Please teach me to be +reasonable, dear Mistress Jane. Why were you disturbed? + +Jane: Very well. I was naturally greatly disturbed to learn that +your heroine hated your hero. Because it is your errand to relate +love-stories; and I cannot see the connection between love and hate. +Could two things more antagonistic conclude in union? + +Martin: Yes. + +Jane: What? + +Martin: A button and buttonhole. For one is something and the other +nothing, and what in the very nature of things could be more +antagonistic than these? + +So saying, he tore a button from his shirt and put it into her hand. +"Don't drop it," said Martin,"because I haven't another; and +besides, every button-hole prefers its own button. Yet I will never +ask you to re-unite them until my tale proves to your satisfaction +that out of antagonisms unions can spring." + +"Very well," said Jane; and she took out of her pocket a neat little +housewife and put the button carefully inside it. Then she said, +"The swing is quite still now." + +"But are you sure you feel better?" said Martin. + +"Yes, thank you," said Jane.) + + +It was after this (said Martin) that the Proud Rosalind became known +by her title. It was fastened on her in derision, and when she heard +it she set her lips and thought: "What they speak in mockery shall +be the truth." And the more men sought to shame her, the prouder she +bore herself. She ceased all commerce with them from this time. So +for five years she lived in great loneliness and want. + +But gradually she came to know that even this existence of +friendless want was not to be life, but a continual struggle-with- +death. For she had no resources, and was put to bitter shifts if she +would live. Hunger nosed at her door, and she had need of her pride +to clothe her. For the more she went wan and naked, the more men +mocked her to see her hold herself so high; and out of their hearts +she shut that charity which she would never have endured of them. If +she had gone kneeling to their doors with pitiful hands, saying, "I +starve, not having wherewithal to eat; I perish, not having +wherewithal to cover me"--they would perhaps have fed and clothed +her, aglow with self-content. But they were not prompt with the +charity which warms the object only and not the donor; and she on +her part tried to appear as though she needed nothing at their +hands. + +One evening when the woods were in full leaf, and summer on the edge +of its zenith, Proud Rosalind walked among the trees seeking green +herbs for soup. She had wandered far afield, because there were no +woods near the castle, standing on its high ground above the open +flats and the river beyond. But gazing over the water she could see +the groves and crests upon the hills where some sustenance was. The +swift way was over the river, but there was no boat to serve her +except Harding's; and this was a service she had never asked of old, +and lately would rather have died than ask. So she took daily to the +winding roads that led to a distant bridge and the hills with their +forests. This day her need was at its sorest. When she had gathered +a meager crop she sat down under a tree, and began to sort out the +herbs upon her knees. One tender leaf she could not resist taking +between her teeth, that had had so little else of late to bite on; +and as she did so coarse laughter broke upon her. It was her rude +suitor who had chanced across her path, and he mocked at her, +crying, "This is the Proud Rosalind that will not eat at an honest +man's board, choosing rather to dine after the high fashion of the +kine and asses!" Then from his pouch he snatched a crust of bread +and flung it to her, and said, "Proud Rosalind, will you stoop for +your supper?" + +She rose, letting the precious herbs drop from her lap, and she trod +them into the earth as weeds gathered at hazard, so that the putting +of the leaf between her lips might wear an idle aspect; and then she +walked away, with her head very high. But she was nearly desperate +at leaving them there, and when she was alone her pain of hunger +increased beyond all bounds. And she sat down on the limb of a great +beech and leaned her brow against his mighty body, and shut her +eyes, while the light changed in the sky. And presently the leaves +of the forest were lit by the moon instead of the sun, and the +spaces in the top boughs were dark blue instead of saffron, and the +small clouds were no longer fragments of amber, but bits of mottled +pearl seen through sea-water. But Rosalind witnessed none of these +slow changes, and when after a great while she lifted her faint +head, she saw only that the day was changed to night. And on the +other side of the beech-tree, touched with moonlight, a motionless +white stag stood watching her. It was a hart of the sixth year, and +stood already higher than any hart of the twelfth; full five foot +high it stood, and its grand soft shining flanks seemed to be molded +of marble for their grandeur, and silk for their smoothness, and +moonlight for their sheen. Its new antlers were branching towards +their yearly strength, and the triple-pointed crowns rose proudly +from the beam that was their last perfection. The eyes of the girl +and the beast met full, and neither wavered. The hart came to her +noiselessly, and laid its muzzle on her hair, and when she put her +hand on its pure side it arched its noble neck and licked her cheek. +Then, stepping as proudly and as delicately as Rosalind's self, it +moved on through the trees; and she followed it. + +The forest changed from beech to pine and fir. It deepened and grew +strange to her. She did not know it. And the light of the sky turned +here from silver to gray, and she felt about her the stir of unseen +things. But she looked neither to the right nor the left, but +followed the snow-white hart that went before her. It brought her at +last to its own drinking-place, and as soon as she saw it old rumors +gathered themselves into a truth, and she knew that this was the +lost Wishing-Pool. And she remembered that this night was Midsummer +Eve, and by the position of the ghostly moon she saw it was close on +midnight. So she knelt down by the edge of the mere, and stretched +her hands above it, the palms to the stars, and in a low clear voice +she made her prayer. + +"Whatever spirit dwells under these waters," said she, "I know not +whether you are a power for good or ill. But if it is true that you +will answer in this hour the need of any that calls on you--oh, +Spirit, my need is very great to-night. Hunger is bitter in my body, +and my strength is nearly wasted. A hind cast me his crust to-day, +and five hours I have battled with myself not to creep back to the +place where it still lies and eat of that vile bread. I do not fear +to die, but I fear to die of my hunger lest they sneer at the last +of my race brought low to so mean a death. Neither will I die by my +own act, lest they think my courage broken by these breaking days. +On my knees," said she, "I beseech you to send me in some wise a +little money, if it be but a handful of pennies now and then +throughout the year, so that I may keep my head unbowed. Or if this +is too much to ask, and even of you the asking is not easy, then +send some high and sudden accident of death to blot me out before I +grow too humble, and the lofty spirits of my fathers deny one whose +spirit ends as lowly as their dust. Death or life I beg of you, and +I care not which you send." + +Then clasping her hands tightly, she called twice more her plea +across the mere: "Spirit of these waters, grant me life or death! +Oh, Spirit, grant me life or death!" + +There was a stir in the forest as she made an end, and she remained +stock still, waiting and wondering. But though she knelt there till +the moon had crossed the bar of midnight, nothing happened. + +Then the white hart, which had lain beside the water while she +prayed, rose silently and drank; and when it was satisfied, laid +once more its muzzle on her hair and licked her cheek again and +moved away. Not a twig snapped under its slender stepping. Its +whiteness was soon covered by the blackness. + +Faint and exhausted, Rosalind arose. She dragged herself through the +wood and presently found the broad road that curled down the +deserted hill and over the bridge, and at last by a branching lane +to her ruined dwelling. The door of her tower creaked desolately to +and fro a little, open as she had left it. She pushed it further +ajar and stumbled in and up the narrow stair. But the pale moonlight +entered her chamber with her, silvering the oaken stump that was her +table; and there, where there had been nothing, she beheld two +little heaps of copper coins. + +The gold year waned, and the next passed from white to green; and in +the gold Harding began to hunt his hart, and by the green had not +succeeded in bringing it to bay. Twice he had seen it at a distance +on the hills, and once had started it from cover in Coombe Wood and +followed it through the Denture and Stammers, Great Bottom and +Gumber, Earthem Wood and Long Down, Nore Hill and Little Down; and +at Punchbowl Green he lost it. He did not care. A long chase had +whetted him, and he had waited so long that he was willing to wait +another year, and if need were two or three, for his royal quarry. +He knew it must be his at last, and he loved it the more for the +speed and strength and cunning with which it defied him. It had a +secret lair he could never discover; but one day that secret too +should be his own. Meanwhile his blood was heated, and the Red +Hunter dreamed of the hart and of one other thing. + +And while he dreamed Proud Rosalind grew glad and strong on her +miraculous dole of money, that was always to her hand when she had +need of it. Fear went out of her life, for she knew certainly now +that she was in the keeping of unseen powers, and would not lack +again. And little by little she too began to build a dream out of +her pride; for she thought, I am all my fathers' house, and there +will be no honor to it more except that which can come through me. +And whenever tales went about of the fame of the fair young Queen of +Bramber Castle, and the crowning of her name in this tourney and in +that, or of the great lords and princes that would have died for one +smile of her (yet her smiles came easily, and her kisses too, men +said), Rosalind knit her brows, and her longing grew a little +stronger, and she thought: If arrows and steel might once flash +lightnings about my father's daughter, and cleave the shadows that +have hung their webs about my fathers' hearth! + +She now began to put by a little hoard of pennies, for she meant to +buy flax to spin the finest of linen for her body, and purple for +sleeves for her arms, and scarlet leather for shoes for her feet, +and gold for a fillet for her head; and so, attired at last as +became her birth, one day to attend a tourney where perhaps some +knight would fight his battle in her name. And she had no other +thought in this than glory to her dead race. But her precious store +mounted slowly; and she had laid by nothing but the money for the +fine linen for her robe, when a thing happened that shattered her +last foothold among men. + +For suddenly all the countryside was alive with a strange rumor. +Some one had seen a hart upon the hills, a hart of twelve points, +fit for royal hunting. Kings will hunt no lesser game than this. But +this of all harts was surely born to be hunted only by a maiden +queen, for, said the rumor, it was as white as snow. Such a hart had +never before been heard of, and at first the tale of it was not +believed. But the tale was repeated from mouth to mouth until at +last all men swore to it and all winds carried it; and amongst +others some wind of the Downs bore it across the land from Arun to +Adur, and so it reached the ears of Queen Maudlin of Bramber. Then +she, a creature of quick whims, who was sated with the easy +conquests of her beauty, yet eager always for triumphs to cap +triumphs, devised a journey from Adur to Arun, and a great summer +season of revelry to end in an autumn chase. "And," said she, "we +will have joustings and dancings in beauty's honor, but she whose +knight at the end of all brings her the antlers of the snow-white +hart shall be known for ever in Sussex as the queen of beauty; +since, once I have hunted it, the hart will be hart-royal." For +this, as perhaps you know, dear maidens, is the degree of any hart +that has been chased by royalty. + +However, before the festival was undertaken, the Queen of Bramber +must needs know if the Arun could show any habitation worthy of her; +and her messengers went and came with a tale of a noble castle +fallen into ruins, but with its four-square walls intact, and a +sward within so smooth and fair that it seemed only to await the +coming of archers and dancers. So the Queen called a legion of +workmen and bade them go there and build a dwelling in one part of +the green court for her to stay in with her company. "And see it be +done by midsummer," said she. "Castles, madam," said the head +workman, "are not built in a month, or even in two." "Then for a +frolic we'll be commoners," said the Queen, "and you shall build on +the sward not a castle, but a farm." So the workmen hurried away, +and set to work; and by June they had raised within the castle walls +the most beautiful farmhouse in Sussex; and over the door made a +room fit for a queen. + +But alas for Proud Rosalind! + +When the men first came she confronted them angrily and commanded +them to depart from her fathers' halls. And the head workman looked +at the ruin and her rags and said, "What halls, girl? and where are +these fathers? and who are you?"--and bade his men get about the +Queen's work. And Rosalind was helpless. The men from the Adur asked +the people of the Arun about her, and what rights she had to be +where she was. And they, being unfriendly to her, said, "None. She +is a beggar with a bee in her bonnet, and thinks she was once a +queen because her housing was once a castle. She has been suffered +to stay as long as it was unwanted; but since your Queen wants it, +now let her go." And they came in a body to drive her forth. But +they got there too late. The Proud Rosalind had abandoned her +conquered stronghold, and where she lived from this time nobody +knew. She was still seen on the roads and hills now and again, and +once as she passed through Bury on washing-day the women by the +river called to her, "Where do you live now, Proud Rosalind, instead +of in a castle?" And Rosalind glanced down at the kneeling women and +said in her clear voice, "I live in a castle nobler than Bramber's, +or even than Amberley's; I live in the mightiest castle in Sussex, +and Queen Maudlin herself could not build such another to live in." + +"Then you'll doubtless be making her a great entertainment there, +Proud Rosalind," scoffed the washers. + +"I entertain none but the kings of the earth there," said Rosalind. +And she made to walk on. + +"Why then," mocked they, "you'd best seek one out to hunt the white +hart in your name this autumn, and crown you queen over young +Maudlin, Proud Rosalind." + +And Rosalind stopped and looked at them, longing to say, "The white +hart? What do you mean?" Yet for all her longing to know, she could +not bring herself to ask anything of them. But as though her +thoughts had taken voice of themselves, she heard the sharp +questions uttered aloud, "What white hart, chatterers? Of what hunt +are you talking?" And there in mid-stream stood Harding in his boat, +keeping it steady with the great pole of the oar. + +"Why, Red Boatman," said they, "did you not know that the Queen of +Bramber was coming to make merry at Amberley?" + +"Ay," said Harding. + +"And that our proud lady Rosalind, having, it seems, found a grander +castle to live in, has given hers up to young Maudlin?" + +Harding glanced to and from the scornful tawny girl and said, +"Well?" + +"Well, Red Boatman! On Midsummer Eve the Queen comes with her court, +and on Midsummer Day there will be a great tourney to open the +revels that will last, so they say, all through summer. But the end +of it all is to be a great chase, for a white hart of twelve points +has been seen on the hills, and the Queen will hunt it in autumn +till some lucky lord kneels at her feet with its antlers; and him, +they say, she'll marry." + +Then Harding once more looked at Rosalind over the water, and she +flung back a look at him, and each was surprised to see dismay on +the other's brow. And Harding thought, "Is she angry because SHE is +not the Queen of the chase?" And Rosalind, "Would HE be the lord who +kneels to Queen Maudlin?" But neither knew that the trouble in each +was really because their precious secret was now public, and the +white hart endangered. And Rosalind's thought was, "It shall be no +Queen's quarry!" And Harding's, "It shall be no man's but mine!" +Then Harding plied his way to the ferry, and Rosalind went hers to +none knew where; though some had tried vainly to track her. + +In due course June passed its middle, and the Queen rode under the +Downs from Bramber to Amberley. And early on Midsummer Eve, while +her servants made busy about the coming festival, Queen Maudlin went +over the fields to the waterside and lay in the grass looking to +Bury, and teased some seven of her court, each of whom had sworn to +bring her the Crown of Beauty at his sword's point on the morrow. +Her four maidens were with her, all maids of great loveliness. There +was Linoret who was like morning dew on grass in spring, and +Clarimond queenly as day at its noon, and Damarel like a rose grown +languorous of its own grace, and Amelys, mysterious as the spirit of +dusk with dreams in its hair. But Maudlin was the pale gold wonder +of the dawn, a creature of ethereal light, a vision of melting stars +and wakening flowers. And she delighted in making seem cheap the +palpable prettiness of this, or too robust the fuller beauty of +that, or dim and dull the elusive charm of such-an-one. She would +have scorned to set her beauty to compete with those who were not +beautiful, even as a proved knight would scorn to joust with an +unskilled boor. So now amongst her beautiful attendants, knowing +that in their midst her greater beauty shone forth a diamond among +crystals, she laughed at her seven lovers; and her four friends +laughed with her. + +"You do well, Queen Maudlin, to make merry," said one of the +knights, "for I know none that gains so much service for so little +portion. What will you give to-morrow's victor?" + +"What will to-morrow's victor think his due?" said she. + +The seven said in a breath, "A kiss!" and the five laughed louder +than ever. + +Then Maudlin said, "For so great an honor as victory, I should feel +ashamed to bestow a thing of such little worth." + +"Do you call that thing a little worth," said one, "which to us were +more than a star plucked out of heaven?" + +"The thing, it is true," said Maudlin, "has two values. Those who +are over-eager make it a thing of naught, those from whom it is +hard-won render it priceless. But, sirs, you are all too eager, I +could scatter you baubles by the hour and leave you still desiring. +But if ever I wooed reluctance to receive at last my solitary favor, +I should know I was bestowing a jewel." + +"When did Maudlin ever meet reluctance?" sighed one, the youngest. + +A long shadow fell upon her where she lay in the grass, and she +looked up to see the great form of Harding passing at a little +distance. + +"Who is that?" said she. + +"It must be he they call the Red Smith," said Damarel idly. + +"He looks a rough, silent creature," remarked Amelys. And Clarimond +added in loud and insolent tones, "He knows little enough of +kissings, I would wager this clasp." + +"It's one I've a fancy for," said young Queen Maudlin. "Red Smith!" +called she. + +Harding turned at the sweet sound of her voice, and came and stood +beside her among the group of girls and knights. + +"Have you come from my castle?" said she, smiling up at him with her +dawn-blue eyes. + +"Ay," he answered. + +"What drew you there, big man? My serving-wench?" + +The Red Smith stared down at her light alluring loveliness. +"Serving-wenches do not draw me." + +"What metal then? Gold?" Maudlin tossed him a yellow disc from her +purse. He let it fall and lie. + +"No, nor gold." His eyes traveled over her gleaming locks. "The +things you name are too cheap," said he. + +Maudlin smiled a little and raised herself, till she stood, fair and +slender, as high as his shoulder. + +"What thing draws you, Red Smith?" + +"Steel." And he showed her a fine sword-blade, lacking its hilt. "I +was sent for to mend this against the morrow." + +"I know that blade," said Maudlin, "it was snapped in my cause. Have +you the hilt too?" + +"In my pouch," said Harding, his hand upon it. + +Hers touched his fingers delicately. "I will see it." + +He brushed her hand aside and unbuttoned his pouch; but as he drew +out the hilt of the broken sword, she caught a glimpse of that +within which held her startled gaze. + +"What jewels are those?" she asked quickly. + +"Old relics," Harding said with sudden gruffness. + +"Show them to me!" + +Reluctantly he obeyed, and brought forth a ring, a circlet, and a +girdle of surpassing workmanship, wrought in gold thick-crusted with +emeralds. A cry of wonder went up from all the maidens. + +"There's something else," said Maudlin; and without waiting thrust +her hand into the bottom of the pouch and drew out a mesh of silver. +It was so fine that it could be held and hidden in her two hands; +yet when it fell apart it was a garment, as supple as rich silk. The +four maids touched it softly and looked their longings. + +"Are these your handicraft?" said Maudlin. + +"Mine?" Harding uttered a short laugh. "Not I or any man can make +such things." + +"You are right," said Maudlin. "Wayland's self might acknowledge +them. Smith, I will buy them of you." + +"You cannot give me my price." + +"Gold I know does not tempt you." She smiled and came close beside +him. + +"Then do not offer it." + +"Shall it be steel?" + +Harding's eyes swept her flower-like beauty. "Not from Queen +Maudlin." + +"True. My bid is costlier." + +"Name it." + +"A kiss from my mouth." + +At the sound of his laughter the rose flowed into her cheek. + +"What, a bauble for my jewel, too-eager lady?" he said harshly. "Do +the women of this land hold themselves so light? In mine men carve +their kisses with the sword. Hark ye, young Queen! set a better +value on that red mouth if you'd continue to have it valued." + +"I could have you whipped for this," said Maudlin. + +"I do not think so," Harding answered, and stepped down the river- +bank into his waiting boat. + +"I keep my clasp," said Clarimond. + +Seven men sprang hotly to their feet. "What's your will, Queen?" + +"Nothing," said Maudlin slowly, as she watched him row over the +water. "Let the smith go. This test was between him and me and no +man's business else. Well, he is of a temper to come through fire +unmelted." She flashed a smile upon the seven that made them +tremble. "But he is a mannerless churl, we will not think of him. +Which among YOU would spurn my kiss?" She offered her mouth in turn, +and seven flames passed over its scarlet. Maudlin laughed a little +and beckoned her watching maids. "Well!" she said, taking the path +to the castle, "He that had had strength to refuse me might have +worn my favor to-morrow and for ever." + +And meanwhile by the further river-bank came Rosalind, with +mushrooms in her skirt. And as she walked by the water in the +evening she looked across to her lost castle-walls, and touched the +pennies in her pouch and dreamed, while the sun dressed the running +flood in his royalest colors. + +"Linen and purple and scarlet and gold," mused she; "and so I might +sit there to-morrow among the rest. But linen and purple!" she said +in scorn, "what should they profit my fathers' house? It is no +silken daughter we lack, but a son of steel." + +And as she pondered a shadow crossed her, and out of his boat +stepped Harding, new from his encounter with the Queen. He did not +glance at her nor she at him; but the gleam of the broken weapon he +carried cut for a single instant across her sight, and her hands +hungered for it. + +"A sword!" thought she. "Ay, but an arm to wield the sword. Nay, if +I had the sword it may be I could find an arm to wield it." She +dropped her chin on her breast, and brooded on the vanishing shape +of the Red Smith. "If I had been my fathers' son--oh!" cried she, +shaken with new dreams, "what would I not give to the man who would +strike a blow for our house?" + +Then she recalled what day it was. A year of miracles and changes +had sped over her life; if she desired new miracles, this was the +night to ask them. + +So close on midnight Proud Rosalind once more crept up to Rewell +Wood; and on its beechen skirts the white hart came to her. It came +now as to a friend, not to a stranger. And she threw her arm over +its neck, and they walked together. As they walked it lowered its +noble antlers so cunningly that not a twig snapped from the boughs; +and its antlers were as beautiful as the boughs with their branches +and twigs, and to each crown it had added not one, but two more +crockets, so that now its points were sixteen. Safe under its guard +the maiden ventured into the mysteries of the hour, and when they +came to the mere the hart lay down and she knelt beside it with her +brow on its soft panting neck, and thought awhile how she would +shape her wish. And feeling the strength of its sinews she said +aloud, "Oh, champion among stags! were there a champion among men to +match you, I think even I could love him. Yet love is not my prayer. +I do not pray for myself." And then she stood upright and stretched +her hands towards the water and said again, less in supplication +than command: + +"Spirit, you hear--I do not pray for myself. Of old it may be +maidens often came in sport or fear, to make a mid-summer pastime of +their love-dreams. Oh, Spirit! of love I ask nothing for myself. But +if you will send me a man to strike one blow in my name that is my +fathers' name, he may have of me what he will!" + +Never so proudly yet had the Proud Rosalind held herself as when she +lifted her radiant face to the moon and sent her low clear call +thrice over the mystic waters. Gloriously she stood with arms +extended, as though she would give welcome to any hero stepping +through the night to consummate her wish. But none came. Only the +subdued rustling that had stirred the woods a year ago whispered out +of the dark and died to silence. + +The arms of the Proud Rosalind dropped to her sides. + +"Is the time not yet?" said she, "and will it never be? Why, then, +let me belong for ever to the champion that strikes for me to-morrow +in the lists. A sorry champion," said she a wan smile, "yet I will +hold me bound to him according to my vow. But first I must win him a +sword." + +Then she kissed the white hart between the eyes and said, "Go where +you will. I shall be gone till daylight." And it rose up to run the +moonlit hills, and she went down through the trees, and left the +Wishing-Pool to its unruffled peace. + +Straight down towards sleeping Bury Rosalind went, full of her +purpose; and after an hour passed through the silent village. + +Her errand was not wholly easy to her, but she thought, "I do not go +to ask favors, but plain dealings; and it must be done secretly or +not at all." As she came near the ferry a red glow broke on her +vision. + +"Does the water burn?" she said, and quickened her steps. To her +surprise she saw that Harding's forge was busy; the light she had +seen sprang from it. She had expected to find it locked and silent, +but now the little space it held in the night was lit with fire and +resounded with the stroke of the Red Smith's hammer. Proud Rosalind +stood fast as though he were fashioning a spell to chain her eyes. +And so he was, for he hammered on a sword. + +He did not turn his head at her approach; but when at last she stood +beside his door, and did not move away, he spoke to her. + +"You walk late," said he. + +"May not people walk late," said she, "as well as work late?" + +Without answering he set himself to his task again and heeded her no +more. "Smith!" she cried imperiously. + +"What then?" + +"I came to speak with you." + +"Even so?" She barely heard the words for the din of his great +hammer. + +"You are unmannerly, Smith." + +"Speak then," said he, dropping his tools, "and never forget, maid, +that it is not I invited this encounter." + +At that she cried out hotly, "Does not your shop invite trade?" + +"Ay; but what's that to you?" + +"My only purpose in talking with you," she said in a flame of wrath. +"I require what you have, but I would rather buy it of any man than +you." + +"What do you require?" + +"That!" She pointed to the sword. + +"I cannot sell it. It is a young knight's blade I am mending against +the jousting." + +"Have you no other?" + +"You cannot give me my price," said the Red Smith. + +She took from her girdle the little purse containing all her store. +"Do you think I am here to bargain? There's more than your price." + +"However much it be," said Harding, "it is too little." + +"Then say no more that I cannot buy of you, but rather that you will +not sell to me." + +"And yet that is as the Proud Rosalind shall please." + +She flushed deeply, and as though in shame of seeming ashamed said +firmly, "No, Smith, it is not in my hands. For I have offered you +every penny I possess." + +"I do not ask for pence." Harding left his anvil and stepped outside +and stood close, gazing hard upon her face. "You have a thing I will +take in exchange for my sword, a very simple thing. Women part with +it most lightly, I have learned. The loveliest hold it cheap at the +price of a golden gawd. How easily then will you barter it for an +inch or so of steel!" + +"What need of so many words?" she said with a scornful lip, that +quivered in her own despite at his nearness. "Name the thing you +want." + +"A kiss from your mouth, Proud Rosalind." + +It was as though the request had turned her into ice. When she could +speak she said, "Smith, for your inch of steel you have asked what I +would not part with to ransom my soul." + +She turned and left him and Harding went back to his work and +laughed softly in his beard. "Dream on, my gold queen up yonder," +said he, and blew on his waning fires. "You are not the metal I work +in," said he, and the river rang again to his hammer on the steel. + +But Rosalind went rapidly down to the waterside saying in her heart, +"Now I will see whether I cannot get me a lordlier weapon of a +better craftsman than you, and at my own price, Red Smith." And when +she had come to the ferry she laid her full purse on the bank and +cried softly into the night: + +"Wayland Smith, give me a sword!" + +And then she went away for awhile, and paced the fields till the +first light glimmered on the east; and not daring to wait longer for +fear of encountering early risers, she turned back to the ferry. And +there, shining in the dawn, she found such a blade as made the +father in her soul exult. In all its glorious fashioning and +splendid temper the hand of the god was manifest. And in the grass +beside it lay her purse, of its full store lightened by one penny-piece. + +Now to this tale of legends revived and then forgotten, gossips' +tales of Wishing-Pools and Snow-white Harts and a God who worked in +the dark, we must begin to add the legend of the Rusty Knight. It +lasted little longer than the three months of that strange summer of +sports within the castle-walls of Amberley. It was at the jousting +on Midsummer Day that he first was seen. The lists were open and the +roll of knights had answered to their names, and cried in all men's +ears their ladies' praises; and nine in ten cried Maudlin. And as +the last knight spoke, there suddenly stood in the great gateway an +unknown man with his vizard closed, and his coming was greeted with +a roar of laughter. For he was clothed from head to foot in antique +arms, battered and rusted like old pots and pans that have seen a +twelvemonths' weather in a ditch. Out of the merriment occasioned by +his appearance, certain of the spectators began to cry, "A champion! +a champion!" And others nudged with their elbows, chuckling, "It is +the Queen's jester." + +But the newcomer stood his ground unflinchingly, and when he could +be heard cried fiercely, "They who call me jester shall find they +jest before their time. I claim by my kingly birth to take part in +this day's fray; and men shall meet me to their rue!" + +"By what name shall we know you?" he was asked. + +"You shall call me the Knight of the Royal Heart," he said. + +"And whose cause do you serve?" + +"Hers whose beauty outshines the five-fold beauty in the Queen's +Gallery," said he, "hers who was mistress here and wrongly ousted-- +the most peerless lady of Sussex, Proud Rosalind." + +With that the stranger drew forth and flourished a blade of so +surpassing a kind that the knights, in whom scorn had vanquished +mirth, found envy vanquishing scorn. As for the ladies, they had +ceased to smile at the mention of Rosalind, whom none had seen, +though all had heard of the girl who had been turned from her ruin +at Maudlin's whim; and that this ragged lady should be vaunted over +their heads was an insult only equaled by the presence among their +shining champions of the Rusty Knight. For by this name only was he +spoken thereafter. + +Now you may think that the imperious stranger who warned his +opponents against laughing before their time, might well have been +warned against crowing before his. And alas! it transpired that he +crowed not as the cock crows, who knows the sun will rise; for at +the first clash he fell, almost unnoticed. And when the combatants +disengaged, he had disappeared. He was a subject for much mirth that +evening; though the men rankled for his sword and the women for a +sight of his lady. + +But from this day there was not a jousting held in Maudlin's revels +at which the Rusty Knight did not appear; and none from which he +bore away the crown. The procedure was always the same: at the last +instant he appeared in his ignominious arms, and stung the mockers +to silence by the glory of his sword and his undaunted proclamation +of his lady. So ardent was his manner that it was difficult not to +believe him a conqueror among men and her the loveliest of women, +until the fray began; when he was instantly overcome, and in the +confusion managed to escape. He was so cunning in this that though +traps were laid to catch him he was never traced. By degrees he +became, instead of a joke, a thorn in the flesh. It was the women +now who itched to see his face, and the men who desired to find out +the Proud Rosalind; for by his repeated assertion her beauty came to +be believed in, and if the ladies still spoke slightingly of her, +the lords in their thoughts did not. But the summer drew to its +close without unraveling the mystery. The Rusty Knight was never +followed nor the Proud Rosalind found. And now they were on the eve +of a different hunting. + +For now all the days were to be given up to the pursuit of the +rumored hart, whom none had yet beheld; and Queen Maudlin said, "For +a month we will hunt by day and dance by night, and if by that time +no man can boast of bringing the hart to bay and no woman of owning +his antlers, we will acknowledge ourselves outwitted; and so go back +to Adur. And it may prove that we have been brought to Arun by an +idle tale, to hunt a myth; but be that as it may, see to your +bowstrings, for to-morrow we ride forth." + +And the men laid by their swords and filled their quivers. + +And in the midnight Rosalind came once more from her secret lair to +Bury, and laying her purse by the ferry called softly: + +"Wayland Smith, give me a bow!" + +And in the dawn, before people were astir, she found a bow the +unlike of any fashioned by mortal craft, and a quiverful of true +arrows; and for these the god had taken his penny fee. + +On a lovely day of autumn the chase began. And the red deer and the +red fox started from their covers; and the small rabbits stopped +their kitten-play on the steep warrens of the Downs, and fled into +their burrows; and birds whirred up in screaming coveys, and the +kestrel hovered high and motionless on the watch. There was game in +plenty, and many men were tempted and forgot the prize they sought. +The hunt separated, some going this way and some that. And in the +evening all met again in Amberley. And some had game to show and +some had none. And one had seen the hart. + +When he said so a cry went up from the company, and they pressed +round to hear his tale, and it was a strange one. + +"For," said he, "where Great Down clothes itself with the North Wood +I saw a flash against the dark of the trees, and out of them bounded +the very hart, taller than any hart I ever dreamed of, and, as the +tale has told, as pure as snow; and the crockets spring from its +crowns like rays from a summer cloud. I could not count them, but +its points are more than twelve. When it saw me it stood motionless, +and trembling with joy I fitted my arrow to the string; but even as +I did so out of the trees ran another creature, as strange as the +white hart. It was none other than the Rusty Knight; I knew him by +his battered vizard, which was closed. But for the rest he wore now, +not rust, but rags--a tattered jerkin in place of battered mail. Yet +in his hands was a bow which among weapons could only be matched by +his sword. He took his stand beside the snow-white hart, and cried +in that angry voice we have all heard, These crowns grow only to +the glory of the Proud Rosalind, the most peerless daughter of +Sussex, and no woman but she shall ever boast of them!' And before I +could move or answer for surprise, he had set his arrow to his bow, +and drawn the string back to his shoulder, and let fly. It was well +I did not start aside, or it might have hit me; for I never saw an +arrow fly so wild of its mark. But the whole circumstance amazed me +too much for quick action, and before I could come up and chastise +this unskillful archer, or even aim at the prize which stood beside +him, he and the hart had plunged through the wood again, the man +running swiftfoot as the beast; and when I followed I could not find +them, and unhappily my dogs were astray." + +The strange tale stung the tempers of all listeners, both men and +women. + +"Well, now," laughed Maudlin, "it has at least been seen that the +hart is the whitest of harts." + +"But it has not yet been seen," fumed Clarimond, "that this Rosalind +is the most beautiful of women." + +"Nor have we seen," said the knight who told the tale, "who it is +that insults our manhood with valiant words and no deeds to prove +them. Yet with such a sword and such a bow a man might prove +anything." + +The next day all rode forth on fire with eagerness. And at the end +of it another knight brought back the selfsame tale. He sword that +in the tattered archer was no harm at all but his arrogance, since +he was clearly incapable of hitting where he aimed. But his very +presence and his swift escape, running beside the hart, made failure +seem double; for the derision he excited recoiled on the deriders, +who could not bring this contemptible foe to book. After that day +many saw him, sometimes at a great distance, sometimes near enough +to be lashed by his insolent tongue. He always kept beside the +coveted quarry, as though to guard it, and ran when it ran, with +incredible speed; but once when he flagged after a longer chase than +usual, he had been seen to leap on its back, and so they escaped +together. From dawn to dusk through that bright month of autumn the +man and the hart were hunted in vain; and in all that while their +lair was never discovered. It was now taken for granted that where +one would be the other would be; and in all likelihood Proud +Rosalind also. + +At last the final day of the month and the chase arrived, and +Maudlin spoke to her mortified company. Among them all she was the +only one who laughed now, for her nature was like that of running +water, reflecting all things, retaining none; she could never retain +her disappointments longer than a day, or her affections either. + +"Sirs and dames," said she, "I see by your clouded faces it is time +we departed, but we will depart as we came in the sun. If this day +bring no more fruit than its fellows, neither victory to a lord nor +sovereignty to his lady, we will to-morrow hold the mightiest +tourney of the year, and he who wins the crown shall give it to his +love, and she shall be called for ever the fairest of Sussex; but +for that, if her lord desire it, she shall wed him--yes, though it +be myself she shall!" + +And at this the hearts of nine men in ten leapt in their breasts for +longing of her, and in the tenth for longing of Linoret or Clarimond +or Damarel or Amelys; and all went to the chase thinking as much of +the morrow as of the day. + +It was the day when the forests burned their brightest. The earth +was fuller of color than in the painted spring; the hedgerows were +hung with brilliant berries in wreaths and clusters, luminous briony +and honeysuckle, and the ebony gloss of the privet making more vivid +the bright red of the hips and the dark red of the haws. The smooth +flat meadows and smooth round sides of the Downs were not greener in +June; nor in that crystal air did the river ever run bluer than +under that blue sky. The elms were getting already their dusky gold +and the beeches their brighter reds and golds and coppers; where +they were young and in thin leaf the sun-flood watered them to +transparent pinks and lemons, as bright, though not as burning, as +the massed colors of the older trees. That day there was magic on +the western hills, for those who could see it, and trees that were +not trees. + +So Rosalind who, like all the world, was early abroad, though not +with all the world, saw a silver cloud pretending to be white +flowers upon a hawthorn; never in spring sunlight had the bush shone +whiter. But when Maudlin rode by later she saw, not a cloud in +flower, but a flowerless tree, dressed with the new-puffed whiteness +of wild clematis, its silver-green tendrils shining through their +own mist. + +Then Rosalind saw a sunset pretending to be a spindle-tree, +scattering flecks of red and yellow light upon the ground, till the +grass threw up a reflection of the tree, as a cloud in the east will +reflect another in the west. But when Maudlin came riding the spots +of light upon the ground were little pointed leaves, and the sunset +a little tree as round as a clipped yew, mottled like an artist's +palette with every shade from primrose to orange and from rose to +crimson. + +And last, in a green glade under a steep hollow overhung with ash, +Rosalind saw a fairy pretending to be a silver birch turned golden. +For her leaves hung like the shaking water of a sunlit fountain, and +she stood alone in the very middle of the glade as though on tip-toe +for a dance; and all the green trees that had retreated from her +dancing-floor seemed ready to break into music, so that Rosalind +held her breath lest she should shatter the moment and the magic, +and stayed spell-bound where she was. But an hour afterwards +Maudlin, riding the chalky ledge on the ash-grown height, looked +down on that same sight and uttered a sharp cry; for she saw, no +fairy, but a little yellowing birch, and under it the snow-white +hart with the Rusty Knight beside him. Then all the company with her +echoed the cry, and the forest was filled with the round sounds of +horns and belling hounds. And while in great excitement men sought a +way down into the steep glen, the hart and his ragged guard had +started up, and vanished through the underworld of trees. + +The hue and cry was taken up. Not one or two, but fifty had now seen +the quarry, and panted for the glory of the prize. And so, near the +very beginning of the day, the chase began. + +The scent was found and lost and found again. The stag swam the +river twice, once at South Stoke, and once at Houghton Bridge, and +the man swam with it; and then, keeping over the fields they ran up +Coombe and went west and north, over Bignor Hill and Farm Hill, +through the Kennels and Tegleaze. They were sighted on Lamb Lea and +lost in Charlton. They were seen again on Heyshott and vanished in +Herringdean Copse. They crossed the last high-road in Sussex and ran +over Linch Down and Treyford nearly into Hampshire; and there the +quarry turned and tried to double home by Winden Wood and Cotworth +Down. The marvel was that the Rusty Knight was always with it, +sometimes beside it, often on its back; and even when he bestrode +it, it flew over the green hills like a white sail driven by a wind +at sea, or a cloud flying the skies. When it doubled it had shaken +off the greater part of the hunt. But through Wellhanger and over +Levin some followed it still. In the woods of Malecomb only the +seven knights who most loved Maudlin remained staunch; and they were +spurred by hope, because when they now sighted it it seemed as +though the hart began to tire, and its rider drooped. Their own +steeds panted, and their dogs' tongues lolled; but over the dells +and rises, woods and fields, they still pressed on, exulting that +they of all the hunt remained to bring the weary gallant thing to +bay. + +Once more they were in the home country, and the day was drawing to +a glorious close. In the great woods of Rewell the hart tried to +confuse the scent and conceal itself with its spent comrade, but it +was too late; for it too was nearly spent. Yet it plunged forward to +the ridge of Arundel with its high fret of trees like harp-strings, +filled with the music of the evening sky. And here again among the +dipping valleys, the quarry sought to shake off the pursuit; but as +vainly as before. In that exhausted close for hunters and hunted, +the first had triumph to spur the last of their strength, and the +second despair to eke out theirs. At Whiteways the hart struck down +through a secret dip, into the loveliest hidden valley of all the +Downs; and descending after it the knights saw suddenly before them +a great curve of the steely river, lying under the sunset like a +scimitar dyed with blood. And in a last desperate effort the hart +swerved round a narrow footway by the river, and disappeared. + +The knights followed shouting with their baying dogs, and the next +instant were struck mute with astonishment. For the narrow wooded +path by the water suddenly swung open into a towering semi-circle of +dazzling cliffs, uprising like the loftiest castle upon earth: such +castles as heaven builds of gigantic clouds, to scatter their solid +piles with a wind again. But only the hurricanes of the first day or +the last could bring this mighty pile to dissolution. The forefront +of the vast theater was a perfect sward, lying above the water like +a green half-moon; beyond and around it small hills and dells rose +and fell in waves until they reached the brink of the great cliffs. +At the further point of the semi-circle the narrow way by the river +began again, and steep woods came down to the water cutting off the +north. + +And somewhere hidden in the hemisphere of little hills the hart was +hidden, without a path of escape. + +The men sprang from their horses, and followed the barking dogs +across the sward. At the end of it they turned up a neck of grass +that coiled about a hollow like the rim of a cup. It led to a little +plateau ringed with bushes, and smelling sweet of thyme. At first it +seemed as though there were no other ingress; but the dogs nosed on +and pointed to an opening through the thick growth on the left, and +disappeared with hoarse wild barks and yelps; and their masters made +to follow. + +But at the same instant they heard a voice come from the bushes, a +voice well known to them; but now it was exhausted of its power, +though not of its anger. + +"This quarry and this place," it cried, "are sacred to the Proud +Rosalind and in her name I warn you, trespassers, that you proceed +at your peril!" + +At this the seven knights burst into laughter, and one cried, "Why, +then, it seems we have brought the lady to bay with the hart--a +double quarry, friends. Come, for the dogs are full of music now, +and we must see the kill." + +As they moved forward an arrow sped far above their heads. + +Then a second man cried, "We could shoot into the dark more surely +than this clumsy marksman out of it. Let us shoot among the trees +and give him his deserts. And after that let nothing hold us from +the dogs, for their voices turn the blood in me to fire." + +So each man plucked an arrow from his quiver. + +And as he fitted it, lo! with incredible swiftness seven arrows shot +through the air, and one by one each arrow split in two a knight's +yew-bow. The men looked at their broken bows amazed. And as they +looked at each other the dogs stopped baying, one by one. + +One of the knights said, breathing heavily, "This must be seen to. +The man who could shoot like this has been playing with us since +midsummer. Let us come in and call him to account, and make him show +us his Proud Rosalind." + +They made a single movement towards the opening; at the same moment +there was a great movement behind it, and they came face to face +with the hart-royal. It stood at bay, its terrible antlers lowered; +its eyes were danger-lights, as red as rubies. And the seven +weaponless men stood rooted there, and one said, "Where are the +dogs?" + +But they knew the dogs were dead. + +So they turned and went out of that place, and found their horses +and rode away. + +And when they had gone the hart too turned again, and went slowly +down a little slipping path through the bushes and came to the very +inmost chamber of its castle, a round and roofless shrine, walled +half by the bird-haunted cliffs and half by woods. Within on the +grass lay the dead hounds, each pierced by an arrow; and on a +bowlder near them sat the Rusty Knight, with drooping head and body, +regarding them through the vizard he was too weary to raise. He was +exhausted past bearing himself. The hart lay down beside him, as +exhausted as he. + +But a sound in the forest that thickly clothed the cliff made both +look up. And down between the trees, almost from the height of the +cliff, climbed Harding the Red Hunter, bow in hand. He strode across +the little space that divided them still, and stood over the Rusty +Knight and the white Hart-Royal. And both might have been petrified, +for neither stirred. + +After a little Harding began to speak. "Are you satisfied, Rusty +Knight," said he, "with what you have done in Proud Rosalind's +honor?" + +The Rusty Knight did not answer. + +"Did ever lady have a sorrier champion?" Harding laughed roughly. +"She would have beggared herself to get you a sword. And she got you +a sword the like of which no knight ever had before. And how have +you used it? All through a summer you have brought laughter upon +her. She would have beggared herself again to get you a bow that +only a god was worthy to draw. And how have you drawn it? For a +month you have drawn it to men's scorn of her and of you. You have +cried her praises only to forfeit them. You have vaunted her beauty +and never crowned it. And what have you got for it?" The Rusty +Knight was as dumb as the dead. Harding stepped closer. "Shall I +tell you, Rusty Knight, what you have got for it? Last Midsummer Eve +by the Wishing-Well the Proud Rosalind forswore love if heaven would +send her a man to strike a blow in her name for her fathers' sake. +She did not say what sort of man or what sort of blow. She asked in +her simplicity only that a blow should be struck. And like a woman +she was ready to find it enough, and in gratitude repay it with that +which could only in honor be exchanged for what honored her. Yet I +myself heard her swear to hold herself bound to the sorry champion +who should strike for her in the tourney. And you struck and fell. +Did you tell her you fell when you came to her, crownless? And how +did she crown you for your fall, Rusty Knight?" + +The Knight sprang to his feet and stood quivering. + +"That moves you," said Harding, "but I will move you more. The Proud +Rosalind is not your woman. She is mine. She was mine from the +moment her eyes fell. She was only a child then, but I knew she was +mine as surely as I knew this hart was mine and no other's, when +first I saw it as a calf drink at its pool. But I was patient and +waited till he, my calf, should become a king, and she, my heifer, a +queen. And I am her man because I am of king's stock in my own land, +and she of king's stock in hers. And I am her man because for a year +I have kept her, without her knowledge, with the pence I earned by +my sweat, that were earned for a different purpose. And I am her man +because the hart you have defended so ill, and hampered for a month, +was saved to-day by my arrows, not yours. It was my arrows slew the +hounds from the top of the cliff. It was my arrows split the bows of +the seven knights. And it is my arrow now that will kill the White +Hart that in all men's sight I may give her the antlers to-morrow, +and hear my Proud Rosalind called queen among women." + +And as he spoke Harding drew back suddenly, and fitted a shaft to +his string as though he would shoot the hart where it lay. + +But the Rusty Knight sprang forward and caught his hands crying, +"Not my Hart! you shall not shoot my Hart!" And he tore off his +casque, and the great tawny mantle of Rosalind's hair fell over her +rags, and her face was on fire and her bosom heaving; and she sank +down murmuring, "I beg you to spare my Hart." + +But Harding, uttering a great laugh of pride and joy, caught her up +before she could kneel, saying, "Not even to me, my Proud Rosalind!" +And without even kissing her lips, he put her from him and knelt +before her, and kissed her feet. + + +("Will you be so good, Mistress Jane," said Martin, "as to sew on my +button?" + +"I will not knot my thread, Master Pippin," said Jane, "till you +have snapped yours." + +"It is snapped," said Martin. "The story is done." + +Joscelyn: It is too much! it is TOO much! You do it on purpose! + +Martin: Oh, Mistress Joscelyn! I never do anything on purpose. And +therefore I am always doing either too much or too little. But in +what have I exceeded? My story? I am sorry if it is too long. + +Joscelyn: It was too short--and you are quibbling. + +Martin: I?--But never mind. What more can I say? It is a fault, I +know; but as soon as my lovers understand each other I can see no +further. + +Joscelyn: There are a thousand things more you can say. Who this +Harding was, for one. + +Joyce: And what he meant by saying his pennies had kept her, for +another. + +Jennifer: And for what other purpose he had intended them. + +Jessica: And you must describe all that happened at the last +tourney. + +Jane: And what about the ring and the girdle and the circlet and the +silver gown? + +"I would so like to know," said little Joan, "if Harding and +Rosalind lived happily ever after. Please won't you tell us how it +all ended?" + +"Will women NEVER see what lies under their noses?" groaned Martin. +"Will they ALWAYS stare over a wall, and if they're not tall enough +to try to stare through it? Will they ONLY know that a thing has +come to its end when they see it making a new beginning? Why, after +the first kiss all tales start afresh, though they start on the +second, which is as different from the first as a garden rose from a +wild one. Here have I galloped you to a conclusion, and now you +would set me ambling again." + +"Then make up your mind to it," said Joscelyn, "and amble." + +"Dear heaven!" went on Martin, "I begin to believe that when a woman +is being kissed she doesn't even notice it for thinking, How sweet +it will be when he kisses me next Tuesday fortnight!" + +"Then get on to Tuesday fortnight," scolded Joscelyn, "if that be +the end." + +"The end indeed!" said Martin. "On Tuesday fortnight, at the very +instant, the slippery creature is thinking, How delicious it was +when he kissed me two weeks ago last Saturday! There's no end with a +woman, either backwards or forwards!" + +"For goodness' sake," cried Joscelyn, "stop grumbling and get on +with it!" + +"There's no end to a man's grumbling either," said Martin; "but I'll +get on with it.") + + +The tale that Harding had to tell Proud Rosalind was a long one, but +I will make as short of it as I can. He told her how in his own +country he was sprung of the race of Volundr, who was a God and a +King and a Smith all in one; but he had been ill-used and banished, +and had since haunted England where men knew him as Wayland, and he +did miracles. But in his own northern land his strain continued, +until Harding's father, a king himself, was like his ancestor +defeated and banished, and crossed the water with his young son and +a chest of relics of Old Wayland's work--a ring, a girdle, a crown, +and a silver robe; a sword and bow which Rosalind knew already; and +other things as well. And the boy grew up filled with the ancient +wrongs of his ancestor, and he went about the country seeking +Wayland's haunts; and wherever he found them he found a mossy +legend, neglected and unproved, of how the god worked, or had +worked, for any man's pence, and put his divine craft to laborers' +service. And as in Rosalind the dream had grown of building up her +fathers' honor again, so Harding had from boyhood nursed his dream +of establishing that of the half-forgotten god. And he, who had +inherited his ancestor's craft in metal, coming at last through +Sussex settled at Bury, where the legend lay on its sick-bed; and he +set up his shop by the ferry so that he might doctor it. And there +he did his work in two ways; for as the Red Smith he did such work +as might be done better by a hundred men, but as Wayland he did what +could only have been done better by the god. And the toll he +collected for that work he saved, year-in-year-out, till he should +have enough to build the god a shrine. And, leaving this visible +evidence behind him, he meant to depart to his own land, and let the +faith in Wayland wax of itself. And then Harding told Rosalind how +he had first seen the hart when it was a calf six years before at +midsummer, and how it had led him to the Wishing-Well; and he had +marked it for his own. And how in the same year he had first noticed +Rosalind, a girl not yet sixteen, and, for the fire of kings in her +that all her poverty could not extinguish, chosen her for his mate. + +"And year by year," said Harding, "I watched to see whether the +direst want could bring you to humbleness, and saw you only grow in +nobleness; and year by year I lay in wait for my four-footed quarry +each Midsummer Eve beside the Wishing-Pool, and saw it grow in +kingliness. And last year, as you know, I saw you come to the Pool +beside the hart, and heard you make your high prayer for life or +death. And if I had not been able to give you the life, I would have +given you the death you prayed for. But I went before you, and going +by the ferry put my old god's money in your room before you could be +there. And from time to time I robbed his store to keep you. But +when in spring they drove you from the castle I did not know where +to find you; and I hunted for your lair as I hunted for the hart's, +and never knew they were the same. Then this year came the wishing- +time again, and lying hidden I heard you cry for a man to strike for +you. And I was tempted then to reveal myself and make you know to +what man you were committed. But I decided that I would wait and +strike for you in the tourney, and come to you for the first time +with a crown. And so I went back to the ferry and set to work; and +to my amazement you followed me, and for the first time of your own +will addressed me. I wondered whether you had come to be humble +before your time, and if you had been I would have let you go for +ever; but when you spoke with scorn as to a servant who had once +forgotten himself so far as to play the man to you, I laughed in my +heart and prized your scorn more dearly than your favor; and said to +myself, To-morrow she shall know me for her man. But when you went +down to the water and made your demand of Wayland, for his sake and +yours I was ready to give you a weapon worthy of your steel. So I +gave you the god's own sword and waited to see what use you would +make of it. And you made as ill an use as after you made of the +god's bow. And while men spoke betwixt wrath and mockery of the +Rusty Knight, I loved more dearly that champion who was doing so ill +so bravely for a championless lady." Then Harding looked her +steadily in the eyes, and though her face was all on fire again as +he alone had power to make it, she did not flinch from his gaze, and +he took her hand and said, "No man has ever struck a blow for you +yet, Proud Rosalind, but the Rusty Knight will strike for you to- +morrow; and as to-day there was no marksman, so to-morrow there +shall be no swordsman who can match him. And when he has won the +crown of Sussex for you, you shall redeem your pledge of the +Wishing-Well and give him what he will. Till then, be free." And he +dropped her hand again and let her go. + +She turned and went quickly into the bushes and soon she came out +bearing the miserable arms of the Rusty Knight and the glorious +sword. + +"These are all that were in my fathers' castle for many years," she +said, "and I took them when I went away and the white hart brought +me to his own castle. But though these are big for me, they will be +small for you." + +And Harding looked at them and laughed his short laugh. "The casque +alone will serve," he said. "By that and the sword men shall know +me. I have my own arms else; and I will take on myself the shame of +this ludicrous casque, and redeem it in your name. And you shall +have these in exchange." And he handed her his pouch and bade her +what to do in the morning, and went away. He still had not kissed +her mouth, nor had she offered it. + +Now there is very little left to tell. On the morrow, when the roll +of knights had been called, all eyes instinctively turned to the +great gateway, by which the Rusty Knight had always come at the last +moment. And as they looked they saw whom they expected, but not what +they expected. For though his head was hidden in the rusty casque, +and though he held the sword which all men covet, he was clad from +neck to foot in arms and mail so marvelously chased and inwrought +with red gold that his whole body shone ruddy in the sunshaft. And +men and women, dazzled and confused, wondered what trick of light +made him appear more tall and broad than they remembered him; so +that he seemed to dwarf all other men. The murmur and the doubt went +round, "Is it the Rusty Knight?" + +Then in a voice of thunder he replied, "Ay, if you will, it is the +Rusty Knight; or the Red Knight, or the Knight of the Royal Heart, +or of the Hart-Royal; but by any name, the knight of the Proud +Rosalind, who is the proudest and most peerless of all the maids of +Sussex, as this day's work shall prove." + +And none laughed. + +The joust began; and before the Rusty Knight the rest went down like +corn beaten by hail. And all men marveled at him, and all women +likewise. And the young Queen Maudlin of Bramber, a prey to her +whims, loved him as long as the tourney lasted. And when it was +ended, and he alone stood upright, she rose in her seat and held out +to him the crown of gold and flowers upon a silken pillow, crying, +"You have won this, you unknown, unseen champion, and it is your +right to give it where you will; and none will dispute her supremacy +in beauty for ever." And as he strode and knelt to receive the crown +she added quickly, "And I know not whether the promise has reached +your ears which yesterday was made--that she who accepts the crown +is to wed the victor, although he choose the Queen herself to wear +it." + +And she smiled down at him like morning smiling out of the sky; and +her beauty was such as to make a man forget all other beauty and all +resolutions. But Harding took the crown from her and touched her +hand with the rusty brow of his casque and said, "A Queen will wear +it, for my lady's fathers were once Kings of Amberley." + +Then Maudlin stamped her foot as a butterfly might, and cried, +"Where is this lady whom you keep as hidden as your face?" + +And Harding rose and turned towards the gateway, and all turned with +him; and into the arch rode Rosalind on the white hart. And she was +clothed from her neck to the soles of her naked feet in a sheath of +silver that seemed molded to her lovely body; and about her waist a +golden girdle hung, set with green stones, and from her finger a +great emerald shot green fire, and on her head a golden fillet lay +in the likeness of close-set leaves with clusters of gleaming green +berries that were other emeralds; and under it her glory of hair +fell like liquid metal down her back and over the hart's neck, as +low as her silver hem. And the hart with its splendid antlers stood +motionless and proud as though it knew it carried a young Queen. But +indeed men wondered whether it were not a young goddess. And so for +a very few moments this carven vision of gold and silver and ivory +and molten bronze and copper and green jewels stood in their gaze. +And then Harding bore the crown to her and knelt, and stood up again +and crowned her before them all; and laying his hand upon the white +hart's neck, moved away with it and its beautiful rider through the +gateway. And no one moved or spoke or tried to stop them. But by the +footway over the water-meadows they went, and at the river's edge +found Harding's broad flat boat with the bird's beak. And Harding +said, "Will you come over the ferry with me, Proud Rosalind?" + +And Rosalind answered, "What is your fee, Red Boatman?" + +Then Harding answered, "For that which flows I take only that which +flows." + +And Rosalind, stooping of her own accord from the white hart's back, +kissed him. + +I shall be very uncomfortable, Mistress Jane, till you have sewed on +my button. + + + +FIFTH INTERLUDE + +The milkmaids had not thought of their apples for the last hour, but +now, remembering them, they fell to refreshing their tongues with +the sweet flavors of fruit and talk. + +Jessica: I cannot rest, Jane, till you have pronounced upon this +story. + +Jane: I never found pronouncement harder, Jessica. For who can +pronounce upon anything but a plain truth or a plain falsehood? and +I am too confused to extricate either from such a hotch-potch of +magic as came to pass without the help of any real magician. + +Martin: Oh, Mistress Jane! are you sure of that? Did not Rosalind's +wishes come true, and can there be magic without a magician? + +Jane: Her wishes came true, I know, both by the pool and by the +ferry; but that the pool and the ferry were supernatural remains +unproved. Because in both cases her wishes were brought about by a +man. And if there was any other magician at all, you never showed +him to us. + +Martin: Dear Mistress Jane, where were your eyes? I showed you the +greatest of all the magicians that give ear to the wishes of women; +and when it is necessary to bring them about, he puts his power on a +man and the man makes them come true. Which is a magic you must +often have noticed in men, though you may never have known the +magician's name. + +Joscelyn: We have never noticed any magic whatever in men. And we +don't want to know the magician's name. We don't believe in anything +so silly as magic. + +Martin: I hope, Mistress Joscelyn, there were moments in my story +not too silly to be believed in. + +Joscelyn: Silliness in stories is more or less excusable, since they +are not even supposed to be believed. And is there still a Wishing- +Pool on Rewell and a ferry at Bury? + +Martin: The ferry is there, but Harding's hammer is silent. And +where his shop stood is a little cottage where children live, who +dabble in summer on the ferry-step. And their mother will run from +her washing or cooking to take you over the water for the same fee +that Wayland asked for shoeing a poor man's donkey or making a rich +man's sword. And this is the only miracle men call for from those +banks to-day; and if ever you tried to take a boat across the Bury +currents, you would not only believe in miracles but pray for one, +while your boat turned in mid-stream like a merry-go-round. So +there's no doubt that the ferry-wife is a witch. But as for the +Wishing-Pool, it is as lost as it was before the white hart led two +lovers to discover it at separate times, and having brought them +together passed with them and its secret out of men's knowledge. For +neither it nor Harding nor Rosalind was seen again in Sussex after +that day. And yet I can tell you this much of their fortunes: that +whatever befell them wherever they wandered, he was a king and she a +queen in the sight of the whole world, which to all lovers consists +of one woman and one man; and their lives were crowned lives, and +they carried their crown with them even when they came in the same +hour to exchange one life for another. But this was only a long and +cloudless reign on earth. + +Jane: Well, it is a satisfaction to know that. For at certain times +your story seemed so overshadowed with clouds that I was filled with +doubts. + +Joan: Oh, but Jane! even when we walk in the thickest clouds on the +Downs, we are certain that presently some light will melt them, or +some wind blow them away. + +Joyce: Yes, it never once occurred to me to doubt the end of the +story. + +Jennifer: Nor to me. And so the clouds only kept one in a delicious +palpitation, at which one could secretly smile, without having to +stop trembling. + +Jessica: Was it possible, Jane, that YOU could be deceived as to the +conclusion of this love-story? Why, even I saw joy coming as plain +as a pikestaff. + +Martin: And I, with love for its bearer. For that magician, who +touches the plainest things with a radiance, makes plain girls and +boys look queens and kings, and plain staves flowering branches of +joy. And in this case I can think of only one catastrophe that could +have obscured or distorted that vision. + +Two of the Milkmaids: What catastrophe, pray? + +Martin: If Rosalind had refused to believe in anything so silly as +magic. + + +The silence of the Seven Sleepers hung over the Apple-Orchard. + + +Joscelyn: Then she would have proved herself a girl of sense, +singer, and your tale would have gained in virtue. As it stands, I +should not have grieved though the clouds had never been dispersed +from so foolish a medley of magic and make-believe. + +Martin: So be it, if it must be so. We will push back our lovers +into their obscurities, and praise night for the round moon above +us, who has pushed three parts of her circle clear of all obstacles, +and awaits only some movement of heaven to blow the last remnant of +cloud from her happy soul. And because more of her is now in the +light than in the dark, she knows it is only a question of time. But +the last hours of waiting are always the longest, and we like +herself can do no better than spend them in dreams, where if we are +lucky we shall catch a glimpse of the angels of truth. + + +Like the last five leaves blown from an autumn branch, the milkmaids +fluttered from the apple-tree and couched their sleepy heads on +their tired arms, and went each by herself into her particular +dream; where if she found company or not she never told. But Jane +sat prim and thoughtful with her elbow in her hand and her finger +making a dimple in her cheek, considering deeply. And presently +Martin began to cough a little, and then a little more, and finally +so troublesomely that she was obliged to lay her profound thoughts +aside, to attend to him with a little frown. Was even Euclid +impervious to midges? + +"Have you taken cold, Master Pippin?" said Jane. + +"I'm afraid so," he confessed humbly; "for we all know that when we +catch cold the grievance is not ours, but our nurse's." + +"How did it happen?" demanded Jane, rightly affronted. "Have you +been getting your feet wet in the duckpond again?" + +"The trouble lies higher," murmured Martin, and held his shirt +together at the throat. + +Jane looked at him and colored and said, "That is the merest +pretense. It was only one button and it is a very warm night. I +think you must be mistaken about your cold." + +"Perhaps I am," said Martin hopefully. + +"And you only coughed and coughed and kept on coughing," continued +Jane, "because I had forgotten all about you and was thinking of +something quite different." + +"It is almost impossible to deceive you," said Martin. + +"Oh, Master Pippin," said Jane earnestly, "since I turned seventeen +I have seen into people's motives so clearly that I often wish I did +not; but I cannot help it." + +Martin: You poor darling! + +Jane: You must not say that word to me, Master Pippin. + +Martin: It was very wrong of me. The word slipped out by mistake. I +meant to say clever, not poor. + +Jane: Did you? I see. Oh, but-- + +Martin: Please don't be modest. We must always stand by the truth, +don't you think? + +Jane: Above all things. + +Martin: How long did it take you to discover my paltry ruse? How +long did you hear me coughing? + +Jane: From the very beginning. + +Martin: And can you think of two things at once? + +Jane: Of course not. + +Martin: No? I wish two was the least number of things I ever think +of at once. Mine's an untidy way of thinking. Still, now we know +where we are. What were you thinking about me so earnestly when I +was coughing and you had forgotten all about me? + +Jane: I--I--I wasn't thinking about you at all. + +And she got down from the swing and walked away. + +Martin: Now we DON'T know where we are. + +And he got down from the branch and walked after her. + +Martin: Please, Mistress Jane, are you in a temper? + +Jane: I am never in a temper. + +Martin: Hurrah. + +Jane: Being in a temper is silly. It isn't normal. And it clouds +people's judgments. + +Martin: So do lots of things, don't they? Like leapfrog, and mad +bulls, and rum punch, and very full moons, and love-- + +Jane: All these things are, as you say, abnormal. And I have no more +use for them than I have for tempers. But being disheartened isn't +being in a temper; and I am always disheartened when people argue +badly. And above all, men, who, I find, can never keep to the point. +Although they say-- + +Martin: What do they say? + +Jane: That girls can't. + +Martin began to cough again, and Jane looked at him closely, and +Martin apologized and said it was that tickle in his throat, and +Jane said gravely, "Do you think I can't see through you? Come +along, do!" and opened her housewife, and put on her thimble, and +threaded her needle, and got out the button, and made Martin stand +in a patch of moonlight, and stood herself in front of him, and took +the neck of his shirt deftly between her left finger and thumb, and +began to stitch. And Martin looking down on the top of her smooth +little head, which was all he could see of her, said anxiously, "You +won't prick me, will you?" and Jane answered, "I'll try not to, but +it is very awkward." Because to get behind the button she had to +lean her right elbow on his shoulder and stand a little on tiptoe. +So that Martin had good cause to be frightened; but after several +stitches he realized that he was in safe hands, and drew a big +breath of relief which made Jane look up rather too hastily, and +down more hastily still; so that her hand shook, and the needle +slipped, and Martin said "Ow!" and clutched the hand with the needle +and held it tightly just where it was. And Jane got flustered and +said, "I'm so sorry." + +Martin: Why should you be? You've proved your point. If I knew any +man that could stick to his so well and drive it home so truly, I +would excuse him for ever from politics and the law, and bid him sit +at home with his work-basket minding the world's business in its +cradle. It is only because men cannot stick to the point that life +puts them off with the little jobs which shift and change color with +every generation. But the great point of life which never changes +was given from the first into woman's keeping because, as all the +divine powers of reason knew, only she could be trusted to stick to +it. I should be glad to have your opinion, Jane, as to whether this +is true or not. + +Jane: Yes, Martin, I am convinced it is true. + +Martin: Then let the men shilly-shally as much as they like. And so, +as long as the cradle is there to be minded, we shall have proved +that out of two differences unions can spring. My buttonhole feels +empty. What about my button? + +Jane: I was just about to break off the thread when you-- + +Martin: When I what? + +Jane: Sighed. + +Martin: Was it a sigh? Did I sigh? How unreasonable of me. What was +I sighing for? Do you know? + +Jane: Of course I know. + +Martin: Will you tell me? + +Jane: That's enough. (And she tried to break off the thread.) + +Martin: Ah, but you mustn't keep your wisdom to yourself. Give me +the key, dear Jane. + +Jane: The key? + +Martin: Because how else can the clouds which overshadow our stories +be cleared away? How else can we allay our doubts and our confusions +and our sorrows if you who are wise, and see motives so clearly, +will not give us the key? Why did I sigh, Jane? And why does Gillian +sigh? And, oh, Jane, why are you sighing? Do you know? + +Jane: Of course I know. + +Martin: And won't you give me the key? + +Jane: That's quite enough. + +And this time she broke off the thread. And she put the needle in +and out of the pinked flannel in her housewife, and she tucked the +thimble in its place. And then she felt in a little pocket where +something clinked against her scissors, and Martin watched her. And +she took it out and put it in his hand. And his hand tightened again +over hers and he said gravely, "Is it a needle?" + +"No, it is not," said Jane primly, "but it's very much to the +point." + +"Oh, you wise woman!" whispered Martin (and Jane colored with +satisfaction, because she was turned seventeen). "What would poor +men do without your help?" + +Then he kissed very respectfully the hand that had pricked him: on +the back and on the palm and on the four fingers and thumb and on +the wrist. And then he began looking for a new place, but before he +could make up his mind Jane had taken her hand and herself away, +saying "Good night" very politely as she went. So he lay down to +dream that for the first time in his life he had made up his mind. +But Jane, whose mind was always made up, for the first time in her +life dreamed otherwise. + + +It happened that by some imprudence Martin had laid himself down +exactly under the gap in the hedge, and when Old Gillman came along +the other side crying "Maids!" in the morning, the careless fellow +had no time to retreat across the open to safe cover; so there was +nothing for it but to conceal himself under the very nose of danger +and roll into the ditch. Which he hurriedly did, while the milkmaids +ran here and there like yellow chickens frightened by a hawk. Not +knowing what else to do, they at last clustered above him about the +gap, filling it so with their pretty faces that the farmer found +room for not so much as an eyelash when he arrived with his bread. +And it was for all the world as though the hedge, forgetting it was +autumn, had broken out at that particular spot into pink-and-white +may. So that even Old Gillman had no fault to find with the +arrangement. + + +"All astir, my maids?" said he. + +"Yes, master, yes!" they answered breathlessly; all but Joscelyn, +who cried, "Oh! oh! oh!" and bit her lip hard, and stood suddenly on +one foot. + +"What's amiss with ye?" asked Gillman. + +"Nothing, master," said she, very red in the face. "A nettle stung +my ankle." + +"Well, I'd not weep for t," said Gillman. + +"Indeed I'm not weeping!" cried Joscelyn loudly. + +"Then it did but tickle ye, I doubt," said Gillman slyly, "to +blushing-point." + +"Master, I AM not blushing!" protested Joscelyn. "The sun's on my +face and in my eyes, don't you see?" + +"I would he were on my daughter's, then," said Gillman. "Does +Gillian still sit in her own shadow?" + +"Yes, master," answered Jane, "but I think she will be in the light +very shortly." + +"If she be not," groaned Gillman, "it's a shadow she'll find instead +of a father when she comes back to the farmstead; for who can sow +wild oats at my time o' life, and not show it at last in his frame? +Yet I was a stout man once." + +"Take heart, master," urged Joyce eyeing his waistcoat. But he shook +his head. + +"Don't be deceived, maid. Drink makes neither flesh nor gristle; +only inflation. Gillian!" he shouted, "when will ye make the best of +a bad job and a solid man of your dad again?" + +But the donkey braying in its paddock got as much answer as he. + +"Well, it's lean days for all, maids," said Gillman, and doled out +the loaves from his basket, "and you must suffer even as I. Yet +another day may see us grow fat." And he turned his basket upside +down on his head and moved away. + +"Excuse me, master," said Jane, "but is Nellie, my little Dexter +Kerry, doing nicely?" + +"As nicely as she ever does with any man," said Gillman, "which is +to kick John twice a day, mornings and evenings. He say he's getting +used to it, and will miss it when you come back to manage her. But +before that happens I misdoubt we'll all be plunged in rack and +ruin." + +And he departed, making his usual parrot-cry. + +"I'm getting fond of old Gillman," said Martin sitting up and +picking dead leaves out of his hair; "I like his hawker's cry of + Maids, maids, maids!' for all the world as though he had pretty +girls to sell, and I like the way he groans regrets over his empty +basket as he goes away. But if I had those wares for market I'd ask +such unfair prices for them that I'd never be out of stock." + +"What's an unfair price for a pretty girl, Master Pippin?" asked +Jessica. + +"It varies," said Martin. "Joan I'd not sell for less than an apple, +or Joyce for a gold-brown hair. I might accept a blade of grass for +Jennifer and be tempted by a button for Jane. You, Jessica, I rate +as high as a saucy answer." + +"Simple fees all," laughed Joyce. + +"Not so simple," said Martin, "for it must be the right apple and +the particular hair; only one of all the grass-blades in the world +will do, and it must be a certain button or none. Also there are +answers and answers." + +"In that case," said Jessica, "I'm afraid you've got us all on your +hands for ever. But at what price would you sell Joscelyn?" + +"At nothing less," said Martin, "than a yellow shoe-string." + +Joscelyn stamped her left foot so furiously that her shoe came off. +And little Joan, anxious to restore peace, ran and picked it up for +her and said, "Why, Joscelyn, you've lost your lace! Where can it +be?" But Joscelyn only looked angrier still, and went without +answering to set Gillian's bread by the Well-House; where she found +nothing whatever but a little crust of yesterday's loaf. And +surprised out of her vexation she ran back again exclaiming, "Look, +look! as surely as Gillian is finding her appetite I think she is +losing her grief." + +"The argument is as absolute," said Martin, "as that if we do not +soon breakfast my appetite will become my grief. But those miserable +ducks!" + +And he snatched the crust from Joscelyn's hand and flung it mightily +into the pond; where the drake gobbled it whole and the ducks got +nothing. + +And the girls cried "What a shame!" and burst out laughing, all but +Joscelyn who said under her breath to Martin, "Give it back at +once!" But he didn't seem to hear her, and raced the others gayly to +the tree where they always picnicked; and they all fell to in such +good spirits that Joscelyn looked from one to another very +doubtfully, and suddenly felt left out in the cold. And she came +slowly and sat down not quite in the circle, and kept her left foot +under her all the time. + +As soon as breakfast was over Jennifer sighed, "I wish it were +dinner-time." + +"What a greedy wish," said Martin. + +"And then," said she, "I wish it were supper-time." + +"Why?" said he. + +"Because it would be nearer to-morrow," said Jennifer pensively. + +"Do you want it to be to-morrow so much?" asked Martin. And five of +the milkmaids cried, "oh, yes!" + +"That's better than wanting it to be yesterday," said Martin, "yet +I'm always so pleased with to-day that I never want it to be either. +And as for old time, I read him by a dial which makes it any hour I +choose." + +"What dial's that?" asked Joyce. And Martin looked about for a +Dandelion Clock, and having found one blew it all away with a single +puff and cried, "One o'clock and dinner-time!" + +Then Jennifer got a second puff and blew on it so carefully that she +was able to say, "Seven o'clock and supper-time!" + +And then all the girls hastened to get clocks of their own, and make +their favorite time o'day. + +"When I can't make it come right," confided little Joan to Martin, +"I pull them off and say six o'clock in the morning." + +"It's a very good way," agreed Martin, "and six o'clock in the +morning is a very good hour, except for lazy lie-abeds. Isn't it?" + +"Nancy always looked for me at six of a summer morning," said little +Joan. + +"Yes," said Martin, "milkmaids must always turn their cows in before +the dew's dry. And carters their horses." + +"Sometimes they get so mixed in the lane," said Joan. + +"I am sure they do," said Martin. "How glad your cows will be to see +you all again." + +"Are you certain we shall be out of the orchard to-morrow, Master +Pippin?" asked Jane. + +"Heaven help us otherwise," said he, "for I've but one tale left in +my quiver, and if it does not make an end of the job, here we must +stay for the rest of our lives, puffing time away in gossamer." + +Then Jessica, blowing, cried, "Four o'clock! come in to tea!" + +And Joyce said, "Twelve o'clock! baste the goose in the oven." + +"Three o'clock! change your frock!" said Jane. + +"Eight o'clock! postman's knock!" said Jennifer. + +"Ten o'clock! to bed, to bed!" cried Jessica again. + +"Nine o'clock!--let me run down the lane for a moment first," begged +little Joan. + +Then Martin blew eighteen o'clock and said it was six o'clock +tomorrow morning. And all the girls clapped their hands for joy--all +except Joscelyn, who sat quite by herself in a corner of the +orchard, and neither blew nor listened. And so they continued to +change the hour and the occupation: now washing, now wringing, now +drying; now milking, now baking, now mending; now cooking their +meal, now eating it; now strolling in the cool of the evening, now +going to market on marketing-day:--till by dinner they had filled +the morning with a week of hours, and the air with downy seedlings, +as exquisite as crystals of frost. + +At dinner the maids ate very little, and Jessica said, "I think I'm +getting tired of bread." + +"And apples?" said Martin. + +"One never gets tired of apples," said Jessica, "but I would like to +have them roasted for a change, with cream. Or in a dumpling with +brown sugar. And instead of bread I would like plum-cake." + +"What wouldn't I give for a bowl of curds and whey!" exclaimed +Joyce. + +"Fruit salad and custard is nice," sighed Jennifer. + +"I could fancy a lemon cheesecake," observed Jane, "or a jam tart." + +"I should like bread-and-honey," said little Joan. "Bread-and- +honey's the best of all." + +"So it is," said Martin. + +"You always have to suck your fingers afterwards," said Joan. + +"That's why," said Martin. "Quince jelly is good too, and treacle +because if you're quick you can write your name in it, and picked +walnuts, and mushrooms, and strawberries, and green salad, and +plovers' eggs, and cherries are ripping especially in earrings, and +macaroons, and cheesestraws, and gingerbread, and--" + +"Stop! stop! stop! stop! stop!" cried the milkmaids. + +"I can hardly bear it myself," said Martin. "Let's play See-Saw." + +So the maids rolled up a log from one part of the orchard, and +Martin got a plank from another part, because the orchard was full +of all manner of things as well as girls and apples, and he +straddled one end and said, "Who's first?" And Jessica straddled the +other as quick as a boy, and went up with a whoop. But Joyce, who +presently turned her off, sat sideways as gay and graceful as a lady +in a circus. And Jennifer crouched a little and clung rather hard +with her hands, but laughed bravely all the time. And Jane thought +she wouldn't, and then she thought she would, and squeaked when she +went up and fell off when she came down, so that Martin tumbled too, +and apologized to her earnestly for his clumsiness; and while he +rubbed his elbows she said it didn't matter at all. But little Joan +took off her shoes, and with her hands behind her head stood on the +end of the see-saw as lightly as a sunray standing on a wave, and +she looked up and down at Martin, half shyly because she was afraid +she was showing off, and half smiling because she was happy as a +bird. And Joscelyn wouldn't play. Then the girls told Martin he'd +had more than his share, and made him get off, and struggled for +possession of the see-saw like Kings of the Castle. And Martin +strolled up to Joscelyn and said persuasively, "It's such fun!" but +Joscelyn only frowned and answered, "Give it back to me!" and Martin +didn't seem to understand her and returned to the see-saw, and +suggested three a side and he would look after Jane very carefully. +So he and Jane and Jennifer got on one end, and Jessica, Joyce and +Joan sat on the other, and screaming and laughing they tossed like a +boat on a choppy sea: until Jessica without any warning jumped off +her perch in mid-air and destroyed the balance, and down they all +came helter-skelter, laughing and screaming more than ever. But Jane +reproved Jessica for her trick and said nobody would believe her +another time, and that it was a bad thing to destroy people's +confidence in you; and Jessica wiped her hot face on her sleeve and +said she was awfully sorry, because she admired Jane more than +anybody else in the world. Then Martin looked at the sun and said, +"You've barely time to get tidy for supper." So the milkmaids ran +off to smooth their hair and their kerchiefs and do up ribbons and +buttons or whatever else was necessary. And came fresh and rosy to +their meal, of which not one of them could touch a morsel, she +declared. + +"Dear, dear, dear!" said Martin anxiously. "What's the matter with +you all?" + +But they really didn't know. They just weren't hungry. So please +wouldn't he tell them a story? + +"This will never do," said Martin. "I shall have you ill on my +hands. An apple apiece, or no story to-night." + +At this dreadful threat Joan plucked the nearest apple she could +find, which was luckily a Cox's Pippin. + +"Must I eat it all, Martin?" she asked. (And Joscelyn looked at her +quickly with that doubtful look which had been growing on her all +day.) + +"All but the skin," said Martin kindly. And taking the apple from +her he peeled it cleverly from bud to stem, and handed her back +nothing but the peel. And she twirled the peel three times round her +head, and dropped it in the grass behind her. + +"What is it? what is it?" cried the milkmaids, crowding. + +"It's a C," said Martin. And he gave Joan her apple, and she ate it. + +Then Joyce came to Martin with a Beauty of Bath, and he peeled it as +he had Joan's, and withheld the fruit until she had performed her +rite. And her letter was M. Jennifer brought a Worcester Pearmain, +and threw a T. And Jessica chose a Curlytail and made a perfect O. +And Jane, who preferred a Russet, threw her own initial, and Martin +said seriously, "You're to be an old maid, Jane." (And Joscelyn +looked at him.) And Jane replied, "I don't see that at all. There +are lots of lots of J's, Martin." (And Joscelyn looked at her.) Then +Martin turned inquiringly to Joscelyn, and she said, "I don't want +one." "No stories then," said Martin as firm as Nurse at bedtime. +And she shook her shoulders impatiently. But he himself picked her a +King of Pippins, the biggest and reddest in the orchard, and peeled +it like the rest and gave her the peel. And very crossly she jerked +it thrice round her head, so that it broke into three bits, and they +fell on the grass in the shape of an agitated H. And Martin gave her +also her Pippin. + +"But what about your own supper?" said little Joan. + +And Martin, glancing from one to another, gathered a Cox, a Beauty, +a Pearmain, a Curlytail, a Russet, and a King of Pippins; and he +peeled and ate them one after another, and then, one after another, +whirled the parings. And every one of the parings was a J. + +Then, while Martin stood looking down at the six J's among the +clover-grass, and the milkmaids looked anywhere else and said +nothing: little Joan slipped away and came back with the smallest, +prettiest, and rosiest Lady Apple in Gillman's Orchard, and said +softly, "This one's for you." + +So Martin pared it slenderly, and the peel lay in his hand like a +ribbon of rose-red silk shot with gold; and he coiled it lightly +three times round his head and dropped it over his left shoulder. +And as suddenly as bubbles sucked into the heart of a little +whirlpool, the milkmaids ran to get a look at the letter. But Martin +looked first, and when the ring of girls stood round about him he +put his foot quickly on the apple-peel and rubbed it into the grass. +And without even tasting it he tossed his little Lady Apple right +over the wicket, and beyond the duckpond, and, for all the girls +could see, to Adversane. + +Then Jane and Jessica and Jennifer and Joyce and little Joan, as by +a single instinct, each climbed to a bough of the center apple-tree, +and left the swing empty. And Martin sat on his own bough and waited +for Joscelyn. And very slowly she came and sat on the swing and said +without looking at him: + +"We're all ready now." + +"All?" said Martin. And he fixed his eyes on the Well-House, where +it made no difference. + +"Most of us, anyhow," said Joscelyn; "and whoever isn't ready +is--nearly ready." + +"Yet most is not all, and nearly is not quite," said Martin, "and +would you be satisfied if I could only tell you most of my story, +and was obliged to break off when it was nearly done? Alas, with me +it must be the whole or nothing, and I cannot make a beginning +unless I can see the end." + +"All beginnings must have endings," said Joscelyn, "so begin at +once, and the end will follow of itself." + +"Yet suppose it were some other end than I set out for?" said +Martin. "There's no telling with these endings that go of +themselves. We mean one thing, but they mistake our meaning and show +us another. Like the simple maid who was sent to fetch her lady's +slippers and her lady's smock, and brought the wrong ones." + +"She must have been some ignorant maid from a town," said Jane, "if +she did not know lady-smocks and lady's-slippers when she saw them." + +"It was either her mistake or her lady's," said Martin carelessly. +"You shall judge which." And he tuned his lute and, still looking at +the Well-House, sang: + +The Lady sat in a flood of tears +All of her sweet eyes' shedding. +"To-morrow, to-morrow the paths of sorrow +Are the paths that I'll be treading." +So she sent her lass for her slippers of black, +But the careless lass came running back + With slippers as bright + As fairy gold + Or noonday light, + That were heeled and soled + To dance in at a wedding. + +The Lady sat in a storm of sighs +Raised by her own heart-searching. +"To-morrow must I in the churchyard lie +Because love is an urchin." +So she sent her lass for her sable frock, +But the silly lass brought a silken smock + So fair to be seen + With a rosy shade + And a lavender sheen, + That was only made + For a bride to come from church in. + +Now as Martin sang, Gillian got first on her elbow, and then on her +knees, and last upright on her two feet. And her face was turned +full on the duckpond, and her eyes gazed as though she could see +more and further than any other woman in the world, and her two +hands held her heart as though but for this it must follow her eyes +and be lost to her for ever. + +"So far as I can see," said Joscelyn, "there's nothing to choose +between the foolishness of the maid and that of the mistress. But +since Gillian appears to have risen to some sense in it, for +goodness' sake, before she sinks back on her own folly, tell us your +tale and be done with it!" + +"It is ready now," said Martin, "from start to finish. Glass is not +clearer nor daylight plainer to me than the conclusion of the whole, +and if you will listen for a very few instants, you shall see as +certainly as I the ending of The Imprisoned Princess." + + + +THE IMPRISONED PRINCESS + +There was once, dear maidens, a Princess who was kept on an island. + + +(Joscelyn: There are no islands in Sussex. + +Martin: This didn't happen in Sussex. + +Joscelyn: But I thought it was a true story. + +Martin: It is the only true story of them all.) + + +She was kept on the island locked up in a tower, for the best of all +the reasons in the world. She had fallen in love. She had fallen in +love with her father's Squire. So the King banished him for ever and +locked up his daughter in a tower on an island, and had it guarded +by six Gorgons. + + +(Joscelyn: It's NOT a true story! + +Martin: It IS a true story! If you don't say so at the end I'll give +you-- + +Joscelyn: What?--I don't want you to give me anything! + +Martin: All right then. + +Joscelyn: What will you give me? + +Martin: A yellow shoe-string.) + + +By six Gorgons (repeated Martin) who had the sharpest claws and the +snakiest hair of any Gorgons there ever were. And their faces-- + + +(Joscelyn: Leave their faces alone! + +Martin: You're being a perfect nuisance! + +Joscelyn: I simply HATE this story! + +Martin: Tell it yourself then! + +Joscelyn: What ABOUT their faces?) + + +Their faces (said Martin) were as beautiful as day and night and the +four seasons of the year. They were so beautiful that I must stop +talking about them or I shall never talk about anything else. So I'd +better talk about the young Squire, who was a great deal less +interesting, except for one thing: that he was in love. Which is a +big advantage to have over Gorgons, who never are. The only other +noteworthy thing about him was that his voice was breaking because +he was merely fifteen years old. He was just a sort of Odd Boy about +the King's court. + + +(Martin: Mistress Joscelyn, if you keep on wiggling so much you'll +get a nasty tumble. Kindly sit still and let me get on. This isn't a +very long story.) + + +One morning in April this Squire sat down at the end of the world, +and he sobbed and he sighed like any poor soul; and a sort of +wandering fellow who was going by had enough curiosity to stop and +ask him what was the matter. And the Squire told him, and added that +his heart was breaking for longing of the flower that his lady wore +in her hair. So this fellow said, "Is that all?" And he got into his +boat, which had a painted prow, and a light green pennon, and a +gilded sail, and called itself The Golden Truant, and he sailed away +a thousand leagues over the water till he came to the island where +the princess was imprisoned; and the six Gorgons came hissing to the +shore, and asked him what he wanted. And he said he wanted nothing +but to play and sing to them; so they let him. And while he did so +they danced and forgot, and he ran to the tower and found the +Princess with her beautiful head bowed on the windowsill behind the +bars, weeping like January rain. And he climbed up the wall and took +from her hair the flower as she wept, in exchange for another +which--which the Squire had sent her. And she whispered a word of sorrow, +and he another of comfort, and came away. And the Gorgons suspected +nothing; except perhaps the littlest Gorgon, and she looked the +other way. + +So in the summer the Squire told the Wanderer that he would surely +die unless he had his lady's ring to kiss; and the fellow went again +to the island. The Gorgons were not sorry to see him, and were +willing to dance while he played and sang as before; and as before +he took advantage of their pleasure, and stole the gold ring from +the Princess's hand as she lay in tears behind her bars. But in +place of the gold ring he left a silver one which had belonged to-- +to the Squire. And the voice of her despair spoke through her tears, +and he answered it as best he could with the voice of hope. And went +away as before, leaving the Gorgons dancing. + +Then in the autumn the Squire said to the Wanderer, "Who can live on +flowers and rings? If you do not get me my lady herself, let me lie +in my grave." So the Wanderer set sail for the third time, though he +knew that the dangers and difficulties of this last adventure were +supreme; and once more he landed on the island of the Imprisoned +Princess. And this time the Gorgons even appeared a little pleased +to see him, and let him stay with them six days and nights, telling +them stories, and singing them songs, and inventing games to keep +them amused. For he was very sorry for them. + + +(Joscelyn: Why? Why? Why? + +Martin: Because he discovered that they were even unhappier than the +Princess in her tower. + +Joscelyn: It isn't true! It isn't true! + +Martin: Look out! you're losing your slipper.) + + +Of course the Gorgons were unhappier than the Princess. She was only +parted from her lover; but they were parted from love itself. + +But as the week wore on, miracles happened; for every night one of +the Gorgons turned into the beautiful girl she used to be before the +Goddess of Reason, infuriated with the Irrational God who bestows on +girls their quite unreasonable loveliness, had made her what she +was. And night by night the Wanderer rubbed his eyes and wondered if +he had been dreaming; for the guardians of the tower no longer +hissed, but sighed at love, and instead of claws for the +destructions of lovers had beautiful kind hands that longed to help +them. Until on the sixth night only one remained this fellow's +enemy. But alas! she was the strongest and fiercest of them all. + + +(Joscelyn: How dare you!) + + +And her case (said Martin) was hopeless, because she alone of them +all had never known what love was, and so had nothing to be restored +to. + + +(Joscelyn: How DARE you!) + + +And without her (said Martin) there was nothing to be done. She had +always had the others under her thumb, and by this time she had the +Wanderer in exactly the same place. And so--and so-- + +And so here is your shoe-string, Mistress Joscelyn; and I am sorry +the want of it has been such an inconvenience to you all day, so +that you could not make merry with us. But I must forfeit it now, +for the story is ended, and I think you must own it is true. + + +(Joscelyn: I won't take it! The story is NOT true! The story is NOT +ended! Finish it at once! None of the others ended like this. + +Martin: The others weren't true. + +Joscelyn: I don't care. You are to say what happened to the Gorgons. + +Joyce: And to the Squire. + +Jennifer: And to the Princess. + +Jessica: And what she looked like. + +Jane: And what happened to the King. + +"Please, Martin," said little Joan, "please don't let the story come +to an end before we know what happened to the Wanderer." + +"I'm tired of telling stories," said Martin, "and I'll never tell +another as long as I live. But I suppose I must add the trimmings to +this one, or I shall get no peace.") + + +All these things, dear maidens, are very quickly told, except what +the Princess looked like, for that is impossible. No man ever knew. +He never got further than her eyes, and then he was drowned. But +what does it matter how she looked? She died a thousand years ago of +a broken heart. And her Squire, hearing of her death, died too, a +thousand leagues away. And the King her father expired of remorse, +and his country went to rack and ruin. And the five kind Gorgons had +to pay the penalty of their regained humanity, and wilted into their +maiden graves. Only the Sixth Gorgon lived on for ever and ever. I +dare not think of her solitary eternity. But as for the Wanderer, he +is of no importance. A little while he still went wandering, singing +these lovers' sorrows to the world, and what became of him I never +knew. + +That's the end. + +And now, dear Mistress Joscelyn, let me lace up your shoe. + + +(Joscelyn buried her face in her hands and burst out crying.) + + + +POSTLUDE + +PART I + +There was consternation in the Apple-Orchard. + +All the milkmaids came tumbling from their perches to run and +comfort their weeping comrade. And as they passed Martin, Joyce +cried, "It's a shame!" and Jennifer murmured "How could you?" and +Jessica exclaimed "You brute!" and Jane said "I'm surprised at you!" +and even little Joan shook her head at him, and, while all the +others fondled Joscelyn, and petted and consoled her, took her hand +and held it very tight. But with her other hand she took Martin's +and held it just as tight, and looked a little anxious, with tears +in her blue eyes. Yet she looked a little smiling too. And there +were tears also in the eyes of all the milkmaids, because the story +had ended so badly, and because they did not in the least know what +was going to happen, and because a man had made one of them cry. And +Martin suddenly realized that all these girls were against him as +much as though it were six months ago. And he swung his feet and +looked as though he didn't care, so that Joan knew he was feeling +rather sheepish inside, and held his hand a little tighter. + +Then Joscelyn, who had the loveliest brown, as Joan had the +loveliest blue, eyes in England, lifted her young head and looked at +Martin so defiantly through her tears that he knew she had given up +the game at last; and he pressed Joan's hand for all he was worth, +and began to look ashamed of himself, so that Joan knew he had +stopped feeling sheepish in the least. And Joscelyn, in a voice that +shook like birch-leaves, said, "I don't want it to end like that." + +Martin: Dear Mistress Joscelyn, is it my fault? I promised you the +truth, and with your help I have told it. + +Joscelyn: How dare you say it's with my help? If I had my way--! + +Martin: You shall have it. We will leave the end of the story in +your hands. + +Joscelyn: I won't have anything to do with it! + +Martin: Then I'm afraid it's your fault. + +Joscelyn: That's what a man always says! + +Martin: Did he? + +Joscelyn: Yes, he did! he said it was Eve's fault. + +Martin: So it was. + +Joscelyn: How dare you! + +Martin: He said nothing but the truth. And what did you say? + +Joscelyn: I said it was Adam's fault. + +Martin: So it was. YOU said nothing but the truth. + +Joscelyn: How could it be two people's fault? + +Martin: How could it be anything else? Oh, Joscelyn! there are two +things in this world that one person alone cannot bring to +perfection. And one of them is a fault. It takes two people to make +a perfect fault. Eve tempted Adam; and Adam was jolly glad to get +tempted if he was half as sensible as he ought to have been. And Eve +knew it. And Adam let her know it. And if after that she had not +tempted him he would never have forgiven her. When it came to +fault-making they understood each other perfectly. And between them +they made the most perfect fault in the world. + +Joscelyn: (after a very long pause): You said there were two things. + +Martin: Two things? + +Joscelyn: That one person alone can't bring to perfection. + +Martin: Did I? + +Joscelyn: What is the other thing? + +Martin: Love. Isn't it? + +Joscelyn: How dare you ask me? + +Martin: I dare ask more than that. Joscelyn, how old are you? + +Joscelyn: I sha'n't tell you. + +Martin: Joscelyn, you are the tallest of the milkmaids, but you +can't help that. How old are you? + +Joscelyn: Mind your own business. + +Martin: Joscelyn, the first three times I saw you, you had your hair +down your back. But ever since I told you my first story you have +done it up, like beautiful dark flowers, on each side of your head. +And it is my belief that you have no business to have it up at all. + +Joscelyn (very angrily): How dare you! Of course I have! Am I not +nearly sixteen? + +Martin: Nearly? + +Joscelyn: Well, next June. + +Martin: Oh, Hebe! it's worse than I thought. How dare I? You +whipper-snapper! How dare YOU have us all under your thumb? How dare +YOU play the Gorgon to Gillian? How dare YOU cry your eyes out +because my lovers had an unhappy ending? Go back to your dolls'- +house! What does sixteen next June know about Adam? What does +sixteen next June know about love? + +Joscelyn: Everything! how dare you? everything! + +Martin: Am I to believe you? Then by all you know, you baby, give me +the sixth key of the Well-House! + + +And he took from his pocket the five keys he already had, and held +out his hand for the last one. Joscelyn's eyes grew bigger and +bigger, and the doubt that had troubled her all day became a +certainty as she looked from the keys to her comrades, who all got +very red and hung their heads. + +"Why did you give them up?" demanded Joscelyn. + +"Because," Martin answered for them, "they know everything about +love. But then they are all more than sixteen years of age, and +capable of making the right sort of ending which is so impossible to +children like you and me." + +Then Joscelyn looked as old as she could and said, "Not so +impossible, Master Pippin, if--if--" + +But all of a sudden she began to laugh. It was the first time Martin +had ever heard her laugh, or her comrades for six months. Their +faces cleared like magic, and they all clapped their hands and ran +away. And Martin got down from his bough, because when Joscelyn +laughed she didn't look more than fourteen. + +"If what, Joscelyn?" he said. + +"If you'd stolen the right shoe-string, Martin," said she. And she +stuck out her right foot with its neatly-laced yellow slipper. Then +Martin knelt down, and instead of lacing the left shoe unlaced the +right one, and inside the yellow slipper found the sixth key just +under the instep. "Is that the right ending?" said Joscelyn. And +Martin held the little foot in his hands rubbing it gently, and said +compassionately, "It must have been dreadfully uncomfortable." + +"It was sometimes," said Joscelyn. + +"Didn't it hurt?" asked Martin, beginning to lace up her shoes for +her. + +"Now and then," said Joscelyn. + +"It was an awfully kiddish place to hide it in," said Martin +finishing, and as he looked up Joscelyn laughed again, rubbing her +tear-stained cheeks with the back of her hand, and for all the great +growing girl that she was looked no more than twelve. So he slid +under the swing and stood up behind her and kissed her on the back +of the neck where babies are kissed. + +Then all the milkmaids came back again. + + +PART II + +To every girl Martin handed her key. "This is your business," said +he. And first Joan, and next Joyce, and then Jennifer, and then +Jessica, and then Jane, and last of all Joscelyn, put her key into +its lock and turned. And not one of the keys would turn. They bit +their lips and held their breath, and turned and turned in vain. + +"This is dreadful," said Martin. "Are you sure the keys are in the +right keyholes?" + +"They all fit," said little Joan. + +"Let me try," said Martin. And he tried, one after another, and then +tried each key singly in each lock, but without result. Jane said, +"I expect they've gone rusty," and Jessica said, "That must be it," +and Jennifer turned pale and said, "Then Gillian can never get out +of the Well-House or we out of the orchard." And Martin sat down in +the swing and thought and thought. As he thought he began to swing a +little, and then a little more, and suddenly he cried "Push me!" and +the six girls came behind him and pushed with all their strength. Up +he went with his legs pointed as straight as an arrow, and back he +flew and up again. The third time the swing flew clean over the +Well-House, and as true as a diving gannet Martin dropped from +mid-air into the little court, and stood face to face with Gillian. + + +PART III + +She was not weeping. She was bathed in blushes and laughter. She +held out her hands to him, and Martin took them. She had golden hair +of lights and shadows like a wheatfield that fell in two thick +plaits over her white gown, and she had gray eyes where smiles met +you like an invitation, but you had to learn later that they were +really a little guard set between you and her inward tenderness, and +that her gayety, like a will-o'-the-wisp, led you into the flowery +by-ways of her spirit where fairies played, but not to the heart of +it where angels dwelled. Few succeeded in surprising her behind her +bright shield, but sometimes when she wasn't thinking it fell aside, +and what men saw then took their breath from them, for it was as +though they were falling through endless wells of infinite +sweetness. And afterwards they could have told you nothing further +of her loveliness; when they got as far as her eyes they were +drowned. Her features, the curves of her cheeks and lips and chin +and delicate nostrils, were as finely-turned as the edge of a +wild-rose petal, and her skin had the freshness of dew. The sight of her +brought the same sense of delight as the sight of a meadow of +cowslips. As sweet and sunny a scent breathed out from her beauty. + +But all this Martin only felt without seeing, for he was drowned. +Gillian, I suppose, wasn't thinking. So they held each other's hands +and looked at each other. + +Presently Martin said, "It's time now, Gillian, and you can go." + +"Yes, Martin," said Gillian. "How shall I go?" + +"As I came," said he. + +"Before I go," said she, "I am going to ask you a question. You have +asked my friends a lot of questions these six nights, which they +have answered frankly, and you have twisted their answers round your +little finger. Now you must answer my question as frankly." + +"And what will you do?" asked Martin. + +"I won't twist your answer," said Gillian gently. "I'll take it for +what it is worth. You have been laughing up your sleeve a little at +my friends because, having a quarrel with men, they were sworn to +live single. But you live single too. Tell me, if you please, what +is your quarrel with girls?" + +Martin dropped her hands until he held each by the little finger +only, and then he answered, "That they are so much too good for us, +Gillian." + +"Thank you, Martin," said Gillian, taking her hands away. "And now +please ask them to send over the swing, for it is time for me to go +to Adversane." And as she spoke the light played over her eyes again +and floated him up to the surface of things where he could swim +without drowning. He saw now the flowers of her loveliness, but no +longer the deeps of those gray pools where the light shimmered +between herself and him. So he turned and climbed to the pent roof +of the Well-House, and looked towards the group of shadows clustered +under the apple-tree around the swing; and they understood and +launched it through the air, and he caught it as it came. And +Gillian in a moment was up beside him. + +"Are you ready?" said Martin. + +"Yes," she answered getting on the swing, "thank you. And thank you +for everything. Thank you for coming three times this year. Thank +you for the stories. Thank you for giving their happiness again to +my darling friends. Thank you for all the songs. Thank you for +drying my tears." + +"Are they all dried up?" said Martin. + +"All," said Gillian. + +"If they were not," said he, "you shall find Herb-Robert growing +along the roadside, and the Herbman himself in Adversane." + +And holding the swing fast as he sat on the roof, Martin sang her +his last song, not very loud, but so clearly that the shadows under +the apple-tree heard every note and syllable. + +Good morrow, good morrow, dear Herbman Robert! +Good morrow, sweet sir, good morrow! +Oh, sell me a herb, good Robert, good Robert, +To cure a young maid of her sorrow. + +And hath her sorrow a name, sweet sir? +No lovelier name or purer, +With its root in her heart and its flower in her eyes, +Yet sell me a herb shall cure her. + +Oh, touch with this rosy herb of spring +Both heart and eyes when she's sleeping, +And joy will come out of her sorrowing, +And laughter out of her weeping. + +"Good-by, Martin." + +"Good-by, Gillian." + +"I want to ask you a lot more questions, Martin." + +"Off you go!" cried he. And let the swing fly. Back it came. + +"Martin! why didn't--" + +"Jump when you're clear!" called Martin. But back it came. + +"Why didn't the young Squire in the story--" + +"Jump this time!" And back it came. + +"--come to fetch her himself, Martin?" + +"Jump!" shouted Martin; and shut his eyes and put his hands over his +ears. But it was no use; again and again he felt the rush of air, +and questions falling through it like shooting-stars about his head. + +"Martin! what was the name on the eighth floret of grass?" + +"Martin! what was the letter you threw with the Lady-peel?" + +"Martin! why is my silver ring all chased with little apples?" + +"Martin! do you--do you--do you--?" + +"Shall I never be rid of this swing?" cried Martin. "Jump, you +nuisance, jump when I tell you!" + +And she jumped, and was caught and kissed among the shadows. + +"Gillian!" + +"Gillian!" + +"Gillian!" + +"Gillian!" + +"Gillian!" + +"Dear Gillian!" + +And then like a golden wave and she the foam, they bore her over the +moonlit grass to the green wicket, and they threw it open, and she +went like a skipping stone across the duckpond and over the fields +to Adversane. + +When she had vanished Martin slid down the roof, walked across to +the coping, put one leg over, and stepped out of the Well-House. + + +PART IV + +The six milkmaids were waiting for him in the apple-tree--no; +Joscelyn was in the swing. + +"And so," said Martin, sitting down on the bough, "on the sixth +night the sixth Gorgon also became a maiden as lovely as her +fellows, and gave the Wanderer the sixth key to the Tower. And they +let out the Princess and set her in The Golden Truant, and she +sailed away to her Squire a thousand leagues over the water. And +everybody lived happily ever after." + +"What a beautiful story!" said Jane. And they all thought so too. + +"I knew from the first," said Joscelyn, "that it would have a happy +ending." + +"And so did I," said Joyce. + +"And I." said Jennifer, + +"And I." said Jessica, + +"And I," said Jane and + +"And I." said little Joan. + +"The verdict is passed," said Martin. "And look! over our heads +hangs the moon, as round and beautiful as a penny balloon, with an +eye as wide awake as a child's at six in the morning. If she will +not go to sleep in heaven to-night, why on earth should we? Let's +have a party!" + +The girls looked at one another in amazement and delight. "A party? +Oh!" cried they. "But who will give it?" + +"I will," said Martin. + +"And who will come to it?" + +"Whoever luck sends us," said Martin. "But we'll begin with +ourselves. Joan and Joyce and Jennifer and Jessica and Jane and +Joscelyn, will you come to my party in the Apple-Orchard?" + +"Yes, thank you, Martin!" cried they. And ran away to change. But +the only change possible was to take the kerchiefs off their white +necks, and the shoes and stockings off their little feet, and let +down their pretty hair. So they did these things, and made wreaths +for one another, and posies for their yellow dresses. And it is time +for you to know that Jennifer's dress was primrose and Jane's +cowslip yellow, and that Joyce looked like buttercups and Jessica +like marigolds; and Joscelyn's was the glory of the kingcups that +rise like magic golden isles above the Amberley floods in May. But +little Joan had not been able to decide between the two yellows that +go to make wild daffodils, so she had them both. Under their +flowerlike skirts their white ankles and rosy heels moved as lightly +as windflowers swaying in the grass. And just when they were ready +they heard Martin Pippin's lute under the apple-tree, so they came +to the party dancing. Round and round the tree they danced in the +moonlight till they were out of breath. But when they could dance no +more they stood stock still and stared without speaking; for spread +under the trees was such a feast as they had not seen for months and +months. + +In the middle was a great heap of apples, red and brown and green +and gold; but besides these was a dish of roasted apples and another +of apple dumplings, and between them a bowl of brown sugar and a +full pitcher of cream. The cream had spilled, and you could see +where Martin had run his finger up the round of the pitcher to its +lip, where one drip lingered still. Near these there was a plum-cake +of the sort our grannies make. It is of these cakes we say that +twenty men could not put their arms round them. There were nuts in +it too, and spices. And there was a big basin of curds and whey, and +a bigger one of fruit salad, and another of custard; and plates of +jam tarts and lemon cheesecakes and cheesestraws and macaroons; and +gingerbread in cakes and also in figures of girls and boys with +caraway comfits for eyes, and a unicorn and a lion with gilded horn +and crown; and pots of honey and quince jelly and treacle; and +mushrooms and pickled walnuts and green salads. Even Mr. Ringdaly +did not provide a bigger feast when he married Mrs. Ringdaly. For +there were also all the best sorts of sweets in the world: sugar- +candy on a string, and twisted barley-sticks, and bulls'-eyes, and +peardrops, and licorice shoe-strings, and Turkish Delight, and pink +and white sugar mice; besides these there was sherbet, not to drink +of course, but to dip your finger in. There were a good many other +things, but these were what the milkmaids took in at a glance. + +"OH!"cried six voices at once. "Where did they come from?" + +"Through the gap," said Martin. + +"But who brought them?" + +"Don't ask me," said Martin. + +At first the girls were rather shy--you can't help that at parties. +But as they ate (and you know what each ate first) they got more and +more at their ease, and by the time they were licking their sticky +fingers were in the mood for any game. So they played all the best +games there are, such as "Cobbler! Cobbler!" (Joscelyn's shoe), and +Hunt the Thimble (Jane's thimble), and Mulberry Bush, and Oranges +and Lemons, and Nuts in May. And in Nuts in May Martin insisted on +being a side all by himself, and one after another he fetched each +girl away from her side to his. And Joan came like a bird, and Joyce +pretended to struggle, and Jennifer had no fight in her at all, and +Jessica really tried, and Jane didn't like it because it was +undignified and so rough. But when Joscelyn's turn came to be +fetched as she stood all alone on her side deserted by her +supporters, she put her hands behind her back, and jumped over the +handkerchief of her own accord, and walked up to Martin and said, +"All right, you've won." For when it comes to fetching away it is a +game that boys are better at than girls. + +"In that case," said Martin, "it's time for Hide-and-Seek." And he +sat down on the swing and shut his eyes. + +At the same moment the moon went behind a cloud. + +And as he waited a light drop fell on Martin's cheek, and another, +and another, like the silent weeping of a girl; so that he couldn't +help opening his eyes quickly and looking by instinct toward the +empty Well-House. It was still empty, for wherever the girls had +hidden themselves, it was not there. + +Then through the shadowed raining orchard a low voice called +"Cuckoo!" and "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" called another. And softly, clearly, +laughingly, mockingly, defiantly, teasingly, sweetly, caressingly, +"Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" they called on every side. Martin stood up +and stole among the trees. At first he went quietly, but soon he ran +and darted. And never a girl could he find. For this after all is +the game that girls are better at than boys, and when it comes to +hiding if they will not be found they will not. And if they will +they will. But their will was not for Martin Pippin. Through the +pattering moonless orchard he hunted them in vain; and the place was +full of slipping shadows and whispers. And every now and then those +cuckooing milkmaids called him, sometimes at a distance, sometimes +at his very ear. But he could not catch a single one. + +And now it seemed to Martin that there were more of these elusive +shadows than he could have believed, and whisperings that needed +accounting for. + +For once he heard somebody whisper, "Oh, you were right! the world +IS flat--for six months it's been as flat as a pancake!" And a +second voice whispered, "Then I was wrong! for pancakes are round." +And Martin said to himself, "That's Joyce!" but the first voice he +couldn't recognize. And then followed a sound that was not exactly a +whisper, yet not exactly unlike one; and Martin darted towards it, +but touched only air. + +And again he heard a mysterious voice whisper, "How could you keep +yourself so secret all these months? I couldn't have. However can +girls keep secrets so long?" And the answer was, "They can't keep +them a single instant if you come and ask them--but you didn't +come!" "What a fool I was!" whispered the first voice, but whose +Martin could not for the life of him imagine. Yet he was sure that +the other was Jennifer's. And again he heard that misleading sound +which seemed to be something, yet, when he sought it, was nothing. + +And now he heard another unknown whisperer say, "You should have +seen my drills in the wheatfield last April! How the drill did +wobble! Why, I was that upset, any girl could have thrown straighter +than I drilled that wheat." And a second whisperer replied, "It MUST +have been a sight, then, for girls throw crookeder than swallows +fly!" This was surely Jessica; but who was the first speaker? + +He was as strange to Martin as another one who whispered, "It was +the silence got on my nerves most--it was having nobody to listen to +of an evening. Of course there were the lads, but they never talk to +the point." "I often fear," whispered a second voice, "that I talk +too much at random." "Good Lord! you couldn't, if you talked for +ever!" Each of these two cases ended as the first two had ended; and +for Martin in as little result. + +He hastened to another part of the orchard where the whispers were +falling fast and fierce. "It was Adam's fault after all!" "No, I've +found out that it was Eve's fault!" "But I've been looking it up." +"And I've been thinking it over." "Rubbish! it WAS Adam's fault." +"It was NOT Adam's fault. What can a stupid little boy know about +it?" "I'm a month older than you are." "I don't care if you are. It +was Eve's fault." "Well, don't make a fuss if it was." "Wasn't it?" +"Stuff!" "WASN'T it?" "Oh, all right, if you like, it was Eve's +fault." "Here's an apple for you," said Joscelyn quite distinctly. +"Oh, ripping! but I'd rather have a--" "Sh-h! RUN!" Martin was just +too late. "Rather have a what?" said Martin to himself. + +He was beginning to feel lonely. His hair was wet with rain. He +hadn't seen a milkmaid for an hour. He prowled low in the grass +hoping to catch one unawares. In the swing he saw a shadow--or was +it two shadows? It looked like one. And yet-- + +One half of the shadow whispered, "Do you like my new corduroys?" +"Ever so much," whispered the other half. "I'm rather bucked about +them myself," whispered the first half, "or ought I to say about +IT?" "I think it's them," said the second half. The first half +reflected, "It might be either one thing or two. But arithmetic's a +nuisance--I never was good at it." The second half confessed, "I +always have to guess at it myself. I'm only really sure of one bit." +"Which bit's that?" whispered the first half, and the second half +whispered, "That one and one make two." "Oh, you darling! of course +they don't, and never did and never will." "Well, I don't really +mind," said little Joan. And then there was a pause in which the two +shadows were certainly one, until the second half whispered, "Oh! +oh, you've shaved it off!" And this delighted the first half beyond +all bounds; because even in the circumstances it was clever of the +second half to have noticed it. + +But Martin could bear no more. He sprang forward crying "Joan!"--and +he grasped the empty swing. And round the orchard he flew, his hands +before him, calling now "Joyce!" now "Jane!" now "Jessica!" +"Jennifer!" "Joscelyn!" and again "Joan! Joan! Joan!" And all his +answer was rustlings and shadows and whispers, and faint laughter +like far-away echoes, and empty air. + +All of a sudden the light rain stopped and the moon came out of her +cloud. And Martin found himself standing beside the Well-House, and +nobody near him. He gazed all around at the familiar things, the +apple-trees, the swing, the green wicket, the broken feast in the +grass. And then at the far end of the orchard he saw an unfamiliar +thing. It was a double ladder, arched over the hawthorn. And up the +ladder, like a golden shaft of the moon, went six quick girls, and +ahead of each her lad.* And on the topmost rung each took his +milkmaid by the hand and vanished over the hedge. + +Martin Pippin was left alone in the Apple-Orchard. + + +*It is not important, but their names were Michael, Tom, Oliver, +John, Henry, and Charles. And Michael had dark hair and light +lashes, and Tom freckles and a snub-nose, and Oliver a mole on his +left cheek, and John fine red-gold hair on his bronzed skin; and +Henry was merely the Odd-Job Boy whose voice was breaking, so he +imagined that it was he alone who ran the farm. But Charles was a +dear. He had a tuft of white hair at the back of his dark head, like +the cotton-tail of a rabbit, and as well as corduroy breeches he +wore a rabbit-skin waistcoat, and he was a great nuisance to +gamekeepers, who called him a poacher; whereas all he did was to let +the rabbits out of the snares when it was kind to, and destroy the +snares. And he used the bring "bunny-rabbits" (which other people +call snapdragons) of the loveliest colors to plant in the little +garden known as Joan's Corner. I should like to tell you more about +Charles (but there isn't time) because I am fond of him. If I hadn't +been I shouldn't have let him have Joan. + + +EPILOGUE + +At cockcrow came the call which in that orchard was now as familiar +as the rooster's. + +"Maids! Maids! Maids!" + +Martin Pippin was leaning over the green wicket throwing jam tarts +to the ducks. Because in the Well-House Gillian had not left so much +as a crumb. But when he heard Old Gillman's voice, he flicked a +bull's-eye at the drake, getting it very accurately on the bill, and +walked across to the gap. + +"Good morning, master," said Martin cheerfully. "Pray how does +Lemon, Joscelyn's Sussex, fare?" + +Old Gillman put down his loaves with great deliberation, and spent a +few minutes taking Martin in. Then he answered, "There's scant milk +to a Sussex, and allus will be. And if there was not, there'd be +none to Joscelyn's Lemon. And if there was, it would take more than +Henry to draw it. And so that's you, is it?" + +"That's me," said Martin Pippin. + +"Well," said Old Gillman, "I've spent the best of six mornings +trying not to see ye. And has my daughter taken the right road yet?" + +"Yes, master," said Martin, "she has taken the road to Adversane." + +"Which SHE'S spent the best of six months trying not to see," said +Old Gillman. "Women's a nuisance. Allus for taking the long cut +round." + +"I've known many a short cut," said Martin, "to end in a blind +alley." + +"Well, well, so long as they gets there," grunted Gillman. "And +what's this here?" + +"A pair of steps," said Martin. + +"What for?" said Gillman. + +"Milkmaids and milkmen," said Martin. + +"So they maids have cut too, have they?" + +"It was a full moon, you see." + +"I dessay. But if they'd gone by the stile they could have hopped it +in the dark six months agone," said Old Gillman. And he got over the +stile, which was the other way into the orchard and has not been +mentioned till now, and came and clapped Martin on the shoulder. + +"Women's more trouble," said he, "than they're worth." + +"They're plenty of trouble," said Martin; "I've never discovered yet +what they're worth." + +"We'll not talk of em more. Come up to the house for a drink, boy," +said Old Gillman. + +Martin said pleasantly, "You can drink milk now, master, to your +heart's content. Or even water." And he walked over to the +Well-House, and pointed invitingly to the bucket. + +Old Gillman followed him with one eye open. "It's too late for that, +boy. When you've turned toper for six months, after sixty sober +years, it'll take you another six to drop the habit. That's what +these daughters do for their dads. But we'll not talk of em." He +stood beside Martin and stared down at the padlock. "How did the +pretty go?" + +"In the swing, like a swift." + +"Why not through the gate like a gal?" + +"The keys wouldn't turn." + +"Which way?" + +"The right way." + +"You should ha' tried em the wrong way, boy." + +"That would have locked it," said Martin. + +"Azactly," said Old Gillman; and slipped the padlock from the staple +and put it in his pocket. "Come along up now." + +Martin followed him through the orchard and the paddock and the +garden and the farmyard to the house. He noticed that everything was +in the pink of condition. But as he passed the stables he heard the +cows lowing badly. + +The farm-kitchen was a big one. It had all the things that go to +make the best farm-kitchens: such as red bricks and heavy smoke- +blackened beams, and a deep hearth with a great fire on it and +settles inside, from which one could look up at the chimney-shaft to +the sky, and clay pipes and spills alongside, and a muller for wine +or beer; and hams and sides of bacon and strings on onions and +bunches of herbs; much pewter, and a copper warming-pan, and brass +candlesticks, and a grandfather clock; a cherrywood dresser and +wheelback chairs polished with age; and a great scrubbed oaken table +to seat a harvest-supper, planed from a single mighty plank. It was +as clean as everything else in that good room, but all the scrubbing +would not efface the circular stains wherever men had sat and drunk; +and that was all the way round and in the middle. There were mugs +and a Toby jug upon it now. Old Gillman filled two of the mugs, and +lifted one to Martin, and Martin echoed the action like a looking- +glass. And they toasted each other in good Audit Ale. + +"Well," said Old Gillman stuffing his pipe, "it's been a peaceful +time, and now us must just see how things go." + +"They look shipshape enough at the moment," said Martin. + +"Ah," said Old Gillman shaking his head, "that's the lads. They're +good lads when you let em alone. But what it'll be now they maids +get meddling again us can't foretell. It were bad enough afore, wi' +their quarrelsomeness and their shilly-shally. It sends all things +to rack and ruin." + +"What does?" said Martin. + +"This here love." Old Gillman refilled his mug. "We'll not talk of +it. She were a handy gal afore Robin began unmaking her mind along +of his own. Lord! why can't these young things be plain and say what +they want, and get it? Wasn't I plain wi' her mother?" + +"Were you?" said Martin. + +"Ah, worse luck!" said Gillman, "and me a happy bachelor as I was. +What did I want wi' a minx about the place?" He filled his mug +again. + +"What do any of us?" said Martin. "These women are the deuce." + +"They are," said Gillman. "We'll not talk of em." + +"There are a thousand better things to talk of," agreed Martin. +"There is Sloe Gin." + +Old Gillman's eye brightened. "Ah!" said Old Gillman, and puffed at +his pipe. "Her name," he said, "was Juniper, but as oft as not I'd +call her June, for she was like that. A rose in the house, boy. +Maybe you think my Jill has her share of looks? She has her mother's +leavings, let me tell ye. So you may judge. But what's this Robin to +dilly-dally with her daughter, till the gal can't sleep o' nights +for wondering will he speak in the morning or will he be mum? And so +she becomes worse than no use in kitchen and dairy, and since +sickness is catching the maids follow suit. It's all off and on wi' +them and their lads. In the morning they will, in the evening they +won't. Ah, twas a tarrible life. And all along o' Robin Rue. Young +man, the farm, I tell ye, was going to fair rack and ruin." + +"You seem to have found a remedy," said Martin. + +"If they silly maids couldn't make up their minds," said Old +Gillman, "there was nothing for it but to turn em out neck and crop +till they learned what they wanted. And Robin into the bargain. He's +no better than a maid when it comes to taking the bull by the horns. +Yet that's the man's part, mark ye. Don't I know? Smockalley she +come from, the Rose of Smockalley they called her, for a Rose in +June she were. There weren't a lass to match her south of Hagland +and north of Roundabout. And the lads would ha' died for her from +Picketty to Chiltington. But twas a Billinghurst lad got her, d'ye +see?" Old Gillman filled his mug. + +"How did that come about?" asked Martin, filling his. + +"All along o' the Murray River." + +"WHAT'S that!" said Martin Pippin. But Old Gillman thought he said, +"What's THAT?" + +" Tis the biggest river in Sussex, young man, and the littlest +known, and the fullest of dangers, and the hardest to find; because +nobody's ever found it yet but her and me. And she'd sworn to wed +none but him as could find it with her. Don't I remember the day! + Twas the day the Carrier come, and that was the day o' the week for +us folk then. He had a blue wagon, had George, with scarlet wheels +and a green awning; and his horse was a red-and-white skewbald and +jingled bells on its bridle. A small bandy-legged man was George, +wi' a jolly face and a squint, and as he drives up he toots on a tin +trumpet wi' red tassels on it. Didn't it bring the crowd running! +and didn't the crowd bring HIM to a standstill, some holding old +Scarlet Runner by the bridle, and others standing on the very axles. +And the hubbub, young man! It was Where's my six yards of dimity?' +from one, and Have you my coral necklace?' from another. Where's +my bag of comfits? where's my hundreds and thousands?' from the +children; and I can't wait for my ivory fan?' My bandanna hanky!' + My two ounces of snuff!' My guitar!' My clogs!' My satin +dancing-shoes!' My onion-seed!' My new spindle!' My fiddle-bow!' + My powder-puff!' And some little un would lisp, I'm sure you've +forgotten my blue balloon!' And then they'd cry, one-and-all, in a +breath, George! what's the news?' And he'd say, Give a body elbow- +room!' and handing the packages right and left would allus have +something to tell. But on this day he says, News? There BE no news +excepting THE News.' And what's THE News?' cries one-and-all. + Why,' says George, that the Rose of Smockalley consents to be wed +at last.' The Rose!' they cries, and me the loudest, to whom?' To +him,' says George, as can find her the Murray River. For a sailor +come by last Tuesday wi' a tale o' the Murray River where he'd been +wrecked and seen wonders; and a woman tormented by curiosity will go +as far as a man tormented by love. And so she's willing to be wed at +last. But she's liker to die a maid.' Then I ups and asks why. And +George he says, For that the sailor breathed such perils that the +lasses was taken wi' the trembles and the lads with the shudders. +For, he says, the river's haunted by spirits, and a mystery at the +end of it which none has ever come back from. And no man dares +hazard so dark and dangerous an adventure, even for love of the +Rose.' That pricks a man's pride to hear, boy, and Shame,' says I, + on all West Sussex if that be so. Here be one man as is ready, and +here be fifty others. What d'ye say, lads?' But Lord! as I looks +from one to another they trickles away like sand through an +hourglass, and before we knows it me and George has the road to +ourselves. So he says, I must be getting on to Wisboro', but first +I'll deliver ye your baggage.' You've no baggage o' mine,' says I. + Yes, if you'll excuse me,' says he; and wi' that he parts the green +awning and says, There she be.' And there she were, sitting on a +barrel o' cider." + +"What was she like to look at?" asked Martin. + +"Yaller hair and gray eyes," said Gillman. "And me a bachelor." + +"It was hopeless," said Martin. + +"It were," said Old Gillman. "And it were the end o' my peace of +life. She looks me straight in the eye and she says, Juniper's my +name, but I'm June to them as loves me. And June I'll be to you. For +I have traveled his rounds wi' this Carrier for a week, and sat +behind his curtain while he told men my wishes. And you be the only +one of them all as is willing to do a difficult thing for an idle +whim, if what is the heart's desire can ever be idle. So I will sit +behind the curtain no longer, and if you will let me I will follow +you to the ends of Sussex till the Murray River be found, or we be +dead.' And I says Jump, lass!' and down she jumps and puts up her +mouth." Gillman filled his mug. + +Martin filled his. "Well," said he, "a man must take his bull by the +horns. And did you ever succeed in finding the Murray River?" + +"Wi' a child's help. It can only be found by a child's help. Tis +the child's river of all Sussex. Any child can help you to it." + +"Yes," said Martin, "and all children know it." + +Old Gillman put down his mug. "Do YOU know it, boy?" + +"I live by it," said Martin Pippin, "when I live anywhere." + +"Do children play in it still?" asked Gillman. + +"None but children," said Martin Pippin. "And above all the child +which boys and girls are always rediscovering in each other's +hearts, even when they've turned gray in other folks' sight. And at +the end of it is a mystery." + +"She were a child to the end," said Old Gillman. "A fair nuisance, +so she were. And Jill takes after her." + +"Well, SHE'S off your hands anyhow," said Martin getting up. "She's +to be some other body's nuisance now, and your maids have come back +to their milking." + +"Ah, have they?" grunted Gillman. "The lads did it better. And they +cooked better. And they cleaned better. There is nothing men cannot +do better than women." + +"I know it," said Martin Pippin, "but it would be unkind to let on." + +"Then we'll wash our hands of em. But don't go, boy," said Old +Gillman. "Talking of Sloe Gin--" + +Martin sat down again. + +They talked of Sloe Gin for a very long time. They did not agree +about it. They got out some bottles to see if they could not manage +to agree. Martin thought one bottle hadn't enough sugar-candy in it, +so they put in some more; and Old Gillman thought another bottle +hadn't enough gin in it, so they also put in some more. But they +couldn't get it right, though they tried and tried. Old Gillman +thought it should be filtered drop by drop seventy times through +seven hundred sheets of blotting-paper, but Martin thought seven +hundred times through seventy sheets was better; and Martin thought +it should then be kept for seven thousand years, but Old Gillman +thought seven years sufficient. But neither of these points had ever +been really proved, and was not that day. + +After this, as they couldn't reach an agreement, they changed the +subject to rum punch, and argued a good deal as to the right +quantities of lemon and sugar and nutmeg; and whether it was or was +not improved by the addition of brandy, and how much; and an orange +or so, and how many; and a tangerine, if you had it; and a tot of +gin, if you had it left. Yet in this case too the most repeated +practice proved as inadequate as the most confirmed theory. + +So after a bit Old Gillman said, "This is child's play, boy. After +all, there's but one drink for kings and men. Give us a song over +our cup, and I'll sing along o' ye." + +"Right," said Martin, "if you can fetch me the only cup worthy to +sing over." + +"What cup's that, boy?" + +"What but a kingcup?" said Martin. + +"A king once drank from this," said Gillman, fetching down a goblet +as golden as ale. "He looked like a shepherd, and had a fold just +across the road, but he was a king for all that. So strike up." + +"After me, then," said Martin; and they pushed the cup between them, +and the song too. + +Martin: What shall we drink of when we sup? +Gillman: What d'ye say to the King's own cup? +Martin: What's the drink? +Gillman: What d'ye think? +Martin: Farmer, say! +Water? +Gillman: Nay! +Martin: Wine? +Gillman: Aye! +Martin: Red wine? +Gillman: Fie! +Martin: White wine? +Gillman: No! +Martin: Yellow wine? +Gillman: Oh! +Martin: What in fine, +What wine then? +Gillman: The only wine +That's fit for men +Who drink of the King's Cup when they dine, +And that is the Old Brown Barley Wine! +>From This I'll drink ye high, +Point I I'll drink ye low, +Don't Know Till the stars run dry +Which Of Of their juices oh! +Them Was I'll drink ye up, +Singing; I'll drink ye down, +And No More Till the old moon's cup +Did They: Is cracked all round, +And the pickled sun +Jumps out of his brine, +And you cry Done! +To the Barley Wine. +Come, boy, sup! Come, fill up! +Here's King's own drink for the King's own cup! + +What happened after this I really don't know. For I was not there, +though I should like to have been. + +I only know that when Martin Pippin stepped out of Gillman's Farm +with his lute on his back, Old Gillman was fast asleep on the +settle. But Martin had never been wider awake. + +It was late in the afternoon. There was no sign of human life +anywhere. In their stables the cows were lowing very badly. + +"Oh, maids, maids, maids!" sighed Martin Pippin. "Rack and ruin, my +dears, rack and ruin!" + +And he fetched the milkpails and went into the stalls, and did the +milkmaids' business for them. And Joyce's Blossom, and Jennifer's +Daisy, and Jessica's Clover stood as still for him as they stand in +the shade of the willows on Midsummer Day. And Jane's Nellie whisked +her tail over his mouth, but seemed sorry afterwards. And Joscelyn's +Lemon kicked the bucket and would not let down her milk till he sang +to her, and then she gave in. But little Joan's little Jersey Nancy, +with her soft dark eyes, and soft dun sides, and slender legs like a +deer's, licked his cheek. And this was Martin's milking-song. + +You Milkmaids in the hedgerows, + Get up and milk your kine! +The satin Lords and Ladies + Are all dressed up so fine, +But if you do not skim and churn + How can they dine? +Get up, you idle Milkmaids, + And call in your kine. + +You milkmaids in the hedgerows, + You lazy lovely crew, +Get up and churn the buttercups + And skim the milkweed, do! +But the Milkmaids in their country prints + And faces washed with dew, +They laughed at Lords and Ladies + And sang "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" +And if you know their reason + I'm not so wise as you. + +When he had done, Martin carried the pails to the dairy and turned +his back on Gillman's. For his business there was ended. So he went +out at the gate and lifted his face to the Downs. + +It was a lovely evening. Half the sky was clear and blue, and the +other half full of silky gold clouds--they wanted to be heavy and +wet, but the sun was having such fun on the edge of the Downs, +somewhere about Duncton, that they had to be gold in spite of +themselves. + + + +CONCLUSION + +One evening at the end of the first week in September, Martin Pippin +walked along the Roman Road to Adversane. And as he approached he +said to himself, "There are many sweet corners in Sussex, but few +sweeter than this, and I thank my stars that I have been led to see +it once in my life." + +While he was thanking his stars, which were already in the sky +waiting for the light to go out and give them a chance, he heard the +sound of weeping. It came from the malthouse, which is the most +beautiful building in Sussex. So persistent was it that after he had +listened to it for six minutes it seemed to Martin that he had been +listening to it for six months, and for one moment he believed +himself to be sitting in an orchard with his eyes shut, and warm +tears from heaven falling on his face. But knowing himself to be too +much given to fancies he decided to lay those ghosts by +investigation, and he went up to the malthouse and looked inside. + +There he found a young man flooring the barley. As he turned and +re-turned it with his spade he wept so copiously above it that he was +frequently obliged to pause and wipe away his tears with his arm, +for he could no longer see the barley he was spreading. When the +maltster had interrupted himself thus for the third occasion, Martin +Pippin concluded that it was time to address him. + +"Young master," said Martin, "the bitters that are brewed from your +barley will need no adulterating behind the bar, and that's flat." + +The maltster leaned on his spade to reply. + +"There are no waters in all the world," said he, "plentiful enough +to adulterate the bitterness of my despair." + +"Then I would preserve these rivers for better sport," said Martin. +"And if memory plays me no tricks, your name was once Robin Rue." + +"And Rue it will be to my last hour," said Robin, "for a man can no +more escape from his name than from his nature." + +"Men," observed Martin, "have been in this respect worse served than +women. And when will Gillian Gillman change her name?" + +"No sooner than I," sighed Robin Rue; "a maid she must die, as I a +bachelor. And if she do not outlive me, we shall both be buried +before Christmas." + +"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Martin. And stepping into the malthouse +he offered Robin six keys. + +"How will these help us?" said Robin Rue. + +"They are the keys of your lady's Well-House," said Martin Pippin, +"and how I have outpaced her I cannot imagine, for she was on the +road to you twenty hours ago." + +"This is no news," said Robin. "There she is." + +And he turned his face to the dark of the malthouse, and there, +sitting on a barrel, with a slice of the sunset falling through a +slit on her corn-colored hair, was Gillian. + +"In love's name," cried Martin Pippin, putting his hands to his +head, "what more do you want?" + +"A husband worthy of her," moaned Robin Rue, "and how can I suppose +that I am he? Oh, that I were only good enough for her! oh, that she +could be happily mated, as after all her sorrows she deserves to +be!" + +Then Martin looked down at the patch on his shoe saying, "And tell +me now, if you knew Gillian happily wed, would you ask nothing more +of life?" + +"Oh, sir," cried Robin Rue, "if I knew any man who could give her +all I cannot, I would contrive at least to live long enough to drown +my sorrows in the beer brewed from this barley." + +"It is a solace," said Martin, "that must be denied to no man. It +seems that I must help you out to the last. And if you will take one +glance out of doors, you will see that the working-day is over." + +Robin Rue looked out of doors, saw by the sun that it was so, put +down his spade, and went home to supper. + + +"Gillian," said Martin Pippin, "the Squire did not come himself to +fetch her away because he was a young fool. There was no eighth +floret on the grass-blade, so the rime stayed at the seventh. The +letter I threw with the Lady-peel was a G. There are apples all +round your silver ring because it was once my ring. I do, you dear, +I do, I do. And now I have answered your many questions, answer me +one. Why did you sit six months in the Well-House weeping for love?" + +"Oh, Martin," said Gillian softly, "could you tell my friends so +much they did not know, and not know this?--girls do not weep for +love, they weep for want of it." And she lifted her heavenly eyes, +and out of the last of the sunlight looked at him without thinking. +And Martin, like a drowning man catching at straws, caught her +corn-colored plaits one in either hand, and drawing himself to her by +them, whispered, "Do girls do that? But they are so much too good +for us, Gillian." + +"I know they are," whispered Gillian, "but if all men were like +Robin Rue, what would become of us? Must we be punished for what we +can't help?" + +And she put her little finger on his mouth, and he kissed it. + +Then Martin himself sat down on the barrel where there was only room +for one; but it was Martin who sat on it. And after a while he said, +"You mightn't think it, but I have got a cottage, and there is +nothing whatever in it but a table which I made myself, and I think +that is enough to begin with. On the way to it we shall pass +Hardham, where in the Priory Ruins lives a Hermit who is sometimes +in the mood. Beyond Hardham is the sunken bed of the old canal that +is a secret not known to everybody; all flowering reeds and plants +that love water grow there, and you have to push your way between +water-loving trees under which grass and nettles in their season +grow taller than children; but at other times, when the pussy- +willows bloom with gray and golden bees, the way is clear. Beyond +this presently is a little glade, the loveliest in Sussex; in spring +it is patterned with primroses, and windflowers shake their fragile +bells and show their silver stars above them. Some are pure and +colorless, like maidens who know nothing of love, and others are +faintly stained with streaks of purple-rose. So exquisite is the +beauty of these earthly flowers that it is like a heavenly dream, +but it is a dream come true; and you will never pass it in April +without longing to turn aside and, kneeling among all that pallid +gold and silver, offer up a prayer to the fairies. And I shall +always kneel there with you. But beyond this is a land of bracken +and undiscovered forests that hides a special secret. And you may +run round it on all sides within fifty yards, yet never find it; +unless you happen to light upon a land where grass springs under +your feet among deep cart-ruts, and blackberry branches scramble on +the ground from the flowery sides. The lane is called Shelley's +Lane, for a reason too beautiful to be told; since all the most +beautiful reasons in the world are kept secrets. And this is why, +dear Gillian, the world never knows, and cannot for the life of it +imagine, what this man sees in that maid and that maid in this man. +The world cannot think why they fell in love with each other. But +they have their reason, their beautiful secret, that never gets told +to more than one person; and what they see in each other is what +they show to each other; and it is the truth. Only they kept it +hidden in their hearts until the time came. And though you and I may +never know why this lane is called Shelley's, to us both it will +always be the greenest lane in Sussex, because it leads to the +special secret I spoke of. At the end of it is an old gate, +clambered with blue periwinkle, and the gate opens into a garden in +the midst of the forest, a garden so gay and so scented, so full of +butterflies and bees and flower-borders and grass-plots with fruit- +trees on them, that it might be Eden grown tiny. The garden runs +down a slope, and is divided from a wild meadow by a brook crossed +by a plank, fringed with young hazel and alder and, at the right +time, thick-set with primroses. Behind the meadow, in a glimpse of +the distance full of soft blue shadows and pale yellow lights, lie +the lovely sides of the Downs, rounded and dimpled like human +beings, dimpled like babies, rounded like women. The flow of their +lines is like the breathing of a sleeper; you can almost see the +tranquil heaving of a bosom. All about and around the garden are the +trees of the forest. Crouched in one of the hollows is my cottage +with the table in it. And the brook at the bottom of the garden is +the Murray River." + +Gillian looked up from his shoulder. "I always meant to find that +some day," she said, "with some one to help me." + +"I'll help you," said Martin. + +"Do children play there now?" + +"Children with names as lovely as Sylvia, who are even lovelier than +their names. They are the only spirits who haunt it. And at the +source of it is a mystery so beautiful that one day, when you and I +have discovered it together, we shall never come back again. But +this will be after long years of gladness, and a life kept always +young, not only by our children, but by the child which each will +continually rediscover in the other's heart." + +"What is this you are telling me?" whispered Gillian, hiding her +face again. + +"The Seventh Story." + +"I'm glad it ends happily," said Gillian. "But somehow, all the +time, I thought it would." + +"I rather thought so too," said Martin Pippin. "For what does +furniture matter as long as Sussex grows bedstraw for ladies to +sleep on?" + +And tuning his lute he sang her his very last song. + +My Lady sha'n't lie between linen, +My Lady sha'n't lie upon down, +She shall not have blankets to cover her feet +Or a pillow put under her crown; +But my Lady shall lie on the sweetest of beds +That ever a lady saw, +For my Lady, my beautiful Lady, +My Lady shall lie upon straw. +Strew the sweet white straw, he said, +Strew the straw for my Lady's bed-- +Two ells wide from foot to head, + Strew my Lady's bedstraw. + +My Lady sha'n't sleep in a castle, +My Lady sha'n't sleep in a hall, +She shall not be sheltered away from the stars +By curtain or casement or wall; +But my lady shall sleep in the grassiest mead +That ever a Lady saw, +Where my Lady, my beautiful Lady, +My Lady shall lie upon straw. +Strew the warm white straw, said he, +My arms shall all her shelter be, +Her castle-walls and her own roof-tree-- + Strew my Lady's bedstraw. + +When he had done Martin Said, "Will you go traveling, Gillian?" + +And Gillian answered, "With joy, Martin. But before I go traveling, +I will sing to you." + +And taking the lute from him she sang him her very first song. + +I saw an Old Man by the wayside +Sit down with his crutch to rest, +Like the smoke of an angry kettle +Was the beard puffed over his breast. + +But when I tugged at the Old Man's beard +He turned to a beardless boy, +And the boy and myself went traveling, +Traveling wild with joy. + +With eyes that twinkled and hearts that danced +And feet that skipped as they ran-- +Now welcome, you blithe young Traveler! +And fare you well, Old Man! + +When she had done Martin caught her in his arms and kissed her on +the mouth and on the eyes and on both cheeks and on her two hands, +and on the back of the neck where babies are kissed; and standing +her up on the barrel and himself on the ground, he kissed her feet, +one after the other. Then he cried, "Jump, lass! jump when I tell +you!" and Gillian jumped. And as happy as children they ran +hand-in-hand out of the Malthouse and down the road to Hardham. + +Overhead the sun was running away from the clouds with all his +might, and they were trying to catch hold of him one by one, in +vain; for he rolled through their soft grasp, leaving their hands +bright with gold-dust. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard + diff --git a/old/mpnao10.zip b/old/mpnao10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..73e6d1e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mpnao10.zip |