Chapter VI: Part III (2)

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.