("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.
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 prettygirls 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 tearsAll of her sweet eyes' shedding."To-morrow, to-morrow the paths of sorrowAre the paths that I'll be treading."So she sent her lass for her slippers of black,But the careless lass came running backWith slippers as brightAs fairy goldOr noonday light,That were heeled and soledTo dance in at a wedding.
The Lady sat in a storm of sighsRaised by her own heart-searching."To-morrow must I in the churchyard lieBecause love is an urchin."So she sent her lass for her sable frock,But the silly lass brought a silken smockSo fair to be seenWith a rosy shadeAnd a lavender sheen,That was only madeFor 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."