Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard by Eleanor Farjeon (page 4)

“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