Perhaps a crying of bats is heard, but this is not certain. An owl cries somewhere--probably from one of the gable-holes, for it sounds both inside and outside at once; after many tentative Tu-whits it launches a full Tu-whoo and swings out far and low across the valley: a chirping of frogs begins in the nearest ditches._

_A closer sound stills all these, being evidently that of a woman's voice feigning dove-notes; it ceases, light cautious hurried steps are heard; it sounds again, Maudlin slips round the door corner to the left and enters the barn. She is white-capped, her gown skirt is bunched about her waist, her bodice sleeves are turned back beyond her elbows._

MAUDLIN.

Nan ... Ursel ... Nan ... Lib ... Appletoft Lib, hast come?

There's no one here--I wish they might forget And sleep, and let me feel a little lonely.

I need much loneliness wherein to suckle The sadness that alone can bring content: I am too burdened by long laughing days, And as I wavered through this solemn vapour Of the worn earth, the comfort-smelling earth, Where unexpected trees rose wearily And sank again like ashen-bosomed sighs, I felt a new, delighting mournfulness That made me know where I am sensitive To the deep things of life; even the late Maybloom, That stays the tiring Spring in this strange valley, Loses its too self-conscious hope to-night-- The pink would fain be white, and the spent white Still fog and sink to the moon and make an end.

I must be much alone in sorrowful nights.

I should have ease if Summer would but go, Its green-lit glory fail; I am so eager For overgrown too-mellowness loth to pa.s.s, For dripping trees o'er soft decaying gra.s.s, Bare orchards and shorn meadows and stripped gardens, Brown cloudy woods that drooping mists make taller About washed fields and m.u.f.fled hills, subduing All to a low remote romance and charm....

Yet soon with other maids I may behold A change that comes to snirp these buds in me....

_She lays herself on her back among the tumbled hay; soon she sings in a low voice._

Fetch the porridge pot hither to me, The porridge pot and the dairy key, And bring me a clout to wind my hair Or the swarming bees will tangle there: They drip from the hive in the orchard long, And coil the green-cherried boughs among As they follow the tanking tune I ring Under the cherry leaves' shivering....

They settle, they knit--come Ailce with the skep-- Step along, Mistyhead--Smearycap, step-- Steady it while I draw the bough Warily down and shake it.... Now....

_After a little silence she resumes._ The maids went down to dip in the pool When the mirrored moon had cooled the water; But they never told the farmer's daughter, For they knew she would tell her mother, the fool, That the girls were out And awaking the water, With never a clout Though the night was cool.

_She hums the latter melody a little while._

_Without premonition URSEL, NAN and BET enter singly and noiselessly from the right, each holding a hand of the one before her. They are hoodless, white-capped, and barelegged now._

URSEL, _in a low voice._ I bade them hide until we came.... Lib ... Maudlin....

MAUDLIN, _sitting up._ Lib is not here: there's no one nigh at all; And in the lanes nought moves but squirrel whifts, Save that long gazing into the green darkness Seems to show boles half stirred by creeping light Amid the darker dark of trees impending.

BET.

Was it not Lib who was dew-drenched last harvest, Hid in a wheat stook till she fell asleep?

NAN, _as they all seat themselves by_ MAUDLIN.

Could any watch you as you slipped away?

MAUDLIN.

Our lambs and three fat beasts must take the road Ere dawn to reach the morrow's far-off fair; So I said I would sleep along the settle And set the hinds their drinking ere they trudge.

None smelt me, but I must start home by three....

What is the moaning through that little door?

URSEL, _in alarm._ I had forgot the beast; will Mease sleep with her?

NAN.

When I came in to milk soon after seven He said the deathly loosening was pinched And we should keep her without more sitting up....

Yet--the other cows pushed in and nosed her As cows will do to helpless dying things....

_To_ MAUDLIN.

A heifer has milk fever.

MAUDLIN, _rising eagerly._ Let me look-- I have not touched milk fever once, nor seen it; I want to know what sense it can be like, I am made to know with what sick thought it takes them, To watch it wane and learn to handle it.

Ah, let me feel her, Nan, dear Nannie....

NAN. Nay.

The neat-house door is open on her stall And hints the pool out in the yard beyond Dreaming a dew-dull wash of unborn moonlight In darkness sinkingly close as a bat's coat, And the large stillness of her weary eyes Might image that ... although we should not see her....

MAUDLIN.

I know, I know.... But we can shut our eyes-- Nay, fear would lift them--let us enter blindfold; My fingers know just what they ought to do.

BET.

Nay, she might die ... I saw a cow die once: She tried to turn her head across her shoulder And looked at me as if 'twas all my doing, Then laid it down again with a straight throat ...

I fear for that old wrong I never did....

_A deep-voiced woman is heard making low dove-sounds._

Comes Lib....

_They rise to meet the newcomer, but draw back half in laughter, half in uneasy amazement as she appears to the left. She is stockinged and shod, but her topmost apparel is nightgown and nightcap._

BET, _continuing._ Lib ... Lib ... is she asleep or dead?

LIB, _entering the barn._ Do I not seem the shadow of a husband?

Am I too late? I could not choose my coming: 'Tis churning day to-morrow, and nought would serve The old one but that we must scald the churn And wipe the cream-pots' lips and set them nigh Before we slept--she was so cross because One cow had broken, one cast before its time, Some hens had laid away, farmer had blamed her For standing over us to make us strip The cows too hard; so she was queer with us.

That kept us late from bed, and when at last Our fallen skirts were cooling on the floor I had to lay me down beside Ruth Until she slept; for Candle-Face tells tales-- 'Twas she who lost us the low garden-chamber Where hang the dry sweet herbs, and earned instead One with a lattice up against the stars, By peaching of my clambering through the cas.e.m.e.nt 'Mid dropping plums that night I went somewhere; But when I heard her wet mouth on the pillow I left her, stuffed my coats within my arm And out along the landing. As I neared The old one's chamber-door a warped board chirped, My limbs went loose and motionless with fear; On I slid again and down the stairs, And in the kitchen found I had no raiment.

I dared not grope for it nor make a light; So two unmended stockings on the settle, My shoes upon the hearth, were all I had: But in the warm night it was comforting To feel myself half indistinguishable From the grey, stirless oats I stood among, Or the evasive gleams and thinner places Of mist-lit woodlands, or from slim birch boles; And when a woman met me by the brook I was so pale and slow she ran from me.

_The others laugh as they lead her to crouch with them in the hay._

Why is there moaning through that little door?

NAN.

A heifer has milk fever. _There is a silence._

LIB, _in a low voice._ Women have that....

Why are we thankful for a deal of trouble?...

My sister Jen was pleased and proud with herself; And when her second obedience came to her She was well eased--but goody Slippy-Stockings, Who went for wisdom-dame, bore the hot jug Too brimmed when it was time to draw the milk....

They had to dry the milk, and it, being eager, Went the wrong way and oozed into her head: The little one died so soon. She lay there Sooing the oldest milking-croon of all-- "Baby calf-lips nuzzle not nigh you, 'Tis my fingers firm that try you Knowingly; Patch-Eye, Teaty, I'll not wry you, Let your warm milk down to me...."

Then she would wear her wedding gown all night, And in the orchard we could hear her sing Mall, go, gather a Posy--La.s.ses turn Grey-- Wander, Wonder--and, Peg was clouting her Nightcaps; She sank heavily to uneasy stillness, Then mooed a baby-noise; till, the fourth dawn, She hollowed her arms gently across her body, "Cold, cold," she said, and then "Cover us up"....

And she grew colder....

MAUDLIN. Much strangeness comes in it: I've wondered what there is in me to gather So secretly, why life can leak such whiteness, And if we feel it change, and how in it We sow hid things that never were in us-- Can it be that our thoughts go into it, And all we feel and see must alter it From white to white that seems but white to us?

I knew a woman and her daughter once Who went together.... The young one's died; she cried, O she did cry, until the mother said "Here, la.s.s, have mine; I know, and you shall know."

Girls, she did that quite calmly: ere he would take, Mab had to cover his eyes with a warm cloth, And even o' nights to wear her mother's clothes.

'Tis grave to suckle across the brood like that-- It threads the mind....

BET. Mothering, mothering, mothering-- Cannot we find our lives except that way?

_The moon seems to be high over the mist now, for there is light everywhere outside; so that, on peering into the night, it is with surprise all is found obscure and not easily definable or detachable amid the faint daze of light that feigns to illumine the valley. The women have become only black shapes upon the square litten patch which is the doorway surrounded by the blackness of the barn. A dog howls somewhere far away._

LIB.

That dog sounds from some low-set roadside farm; What does it hear? _There is a short silence._

MAUDLIN. Women, what does it see?

They say dogs howl when someone's fetch goes by.