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by Eleanor Farjeon


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Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard

by Eleanor Farjeon

January, 2000  [Etext #2032]


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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

