Jane: I think there can be no harm in that.

Jessica: It can't matter a straw to Gillian.

Joyce: She would not look up from her thoughts though we footed it all day.

Joscelyn: So long as he is on one side of the gate--

Jennifer: --and we on the other.

"I love to dance," said little Joan.

"Man!" cried the milkmaids in a breath, "play and sing to us!"

"Oh, maidens," answered Martin merrily, "every tune deserves its fee.

But don't look so troubled--my hire shall be of the lightest. Let me see! You shall fetch me the flower from the hair of your little mistress who sits weeping on the coping with her face hidden in her shining locks."

At this the milkmaids clapped their hands, and little Joan, running to the Well-House, with a touch like thistledown drew from the weeper's yellow hair a yellow primrose. She brought it to the gate and laid it in Martin's hand.

"Now you will play for us, won't you?" said she. "A dance for a spring-morning when the leaves dance on the apple-trees."

Then Martin tuned his lute and played and sang as follows, while the girls took hands and danced in a green chain among the twisty trees.

The green leaf dances now, The green leaf dances now, The green leaf with its tilted wings Dances on the bough, And every rustling air Says, I've caught you, caught you, Leaf with tilted wings, Caught you in a snare!

Whose snare? Spring's, That bound you to the bough Where you dance now, Dance, but cannot fly, For all your tilted wings Pointing to the sky; Where like martins you would dart But for Spring's delicious art That caught you to the bough, Caught, yet left you free To dance if not to fly--oh see!

As you are dancing now, Dancing on the bough, Dancing on the bough, Dancing with your tilted wings On the apple-bough.

Now as Martin sang and the milkmaids danced, it seemed that Gillian in her prison heard and saw nothing except the music and the movement of her sorrows. But presently she raised her hand and touched her hair-band, and then she lifted up the fairest face Martin had ever seen, so that he needs must see it nearer; and he took the green gate in one stride, and the green dancers never observed him. Then Gillian's tender mouth parted like an opening quince-blossom, and--

"Oh, Mother, Mother!" she said, "if you had only lived they would not have stolen the flower from my hair while I sat weeping."

Above her head a whispering voice made answer, "Oh, Daughter, Daughter, dry your sweet eyes. You shall wear this other flower when yours is gone over the duckpond to Adversane."

And lo! A second primrose dropped out of the skies into her lap. And that day the lovely Gillian wept no more.

PART II

It happened that on an afternoon in May Martin Pippin pa.s.sed again through Adversane, and as he pa.s.sed he thought, "Now certainly I have been here before," but he could not remember when or how, for a full month had run under the bridges of time since then, and man's memory is not infinite.

But in walking by a certain garden he heard a sound of sobbing; and curiosity, of which he was largely made, caused him to climb the old brick wall that he might discover the cause. What he saw from his perch was a garden laid out in neat plots between gra.s.sy walks edged with double daisies, red, white and pink, or bordered with sweet herbs, or with lavender and wallflower; and here and there were cordons of fruit-trees, apple, plum and cherry, and in a sunny corner a clump of flowering currant heavy with humming bees; and against the inner walls flat pear-trees stretched their long straight lines, like music-staves whereon a lovely melody was written in notes of snow. And in the midst of all this stood a very young man with a face as brown as a berry. He was spraying the cordons with qua.s.sia-water. But whenever he filled his syringe he wept so many tears above the bucket that it was always full to the brim.

When he had watched this happen several times, Martin hailed the young man.

"Young master!" said Martin, "the eater of your plums will need sugar thereto, and that's flat."

The young man turned his eyes upward.

"There is not sugar enough in all the world," he answered, "to sweeten the fruits that are watered by my sorrows."

"Then here is a waste of good qua.s.sia," said Martin, "and I think your name is Robin Rue."

"It is," said Robin, "and you are Martin Pippin, to whom I owe more than to any man living. But the primrose you brought me is dead this five-and-twenty days."

"And what of your Gillian?"

"Alas! How can I tell what of her? She is where she was and I am here where I am. What will become of me?"

"There are riddles without answers," observed Martin.

"I can answer this one. I shall fall into a decline and die. And yet I ask no more than to send her a ring to wear on her finger, and have her ring to wear on mine."

"Would this satisfy you?" asked Martin.

"I could then cling to life," said Robin Rue, "long enough at least to finish my spraying."

"We may praise G.o.d as much for small mercies," said Martin pleasantly, "as for great ones; and trees must not be blighted that were appointed to fruit."

So saying, he unstraddled his legs and dropped into the road, tickled an armadillo with his toe, twirled the silver ring on his finger, and went away singing.

"Maidens," said Joscelyn, "here is that man come again."

Maids' memories are longer than men's. At all events, the milkmaids knew instantly to whom she referred, although nearly a month had pa.s.sed since his coming.

"Has he his lute with him?" asked little Joan.

"He has. And he is giving cake to the ducks; they take it from his hand. Man, go away immediately!"

Martin Pippin propped his elbows on the little gate, and looked smiling into the orchard, all pink and white blossom. The trees that had been longest in bloom were white cascades of flower, others there were flushed like the cheek of a sleeping child, and some were still studded with rose-red buds. The gra.s.s was high and full of spotted orchis, and tall wild parsley spread its nets of lace almost abreast of the lowest boughs of blossom. So that the milkmaids stood embraced in meeting flowers, waist-deep in the orchard growth: all gowned in pink lawn with loose white sleeves, and their faces flushed it may have been with the pink linings to their white bonnets, or with the evening rose in the west, or with I know not what.

"Go away!" they cried at the intruder. "Go away!"

"My rose-white maidens," said Martin, "will you not let me into your orchard? For the stars are rising with the dew, and the hour is at peace. Let me in to rest, dear maidens--if maidens indeed you be, and not six blossoms fallen from the apple-boughs."

"You cannot come in," said Joscelyn, "lest you are the bearer of a word to our master's daughter who sits weeping in the Well-House."

"From whom should I bear her a word?" asked Martin Pippin in great amazement.

The milkmaids cast down their eyes, and little Joan said, "It is a secret."

Martin: I will inquire no further. But shall I not play a little on my lute? It is as good an hour for song and dance as any other, and I will make a tune for a sunny May evening, and you shall sway among the gra.s.ses like any flower on the bough.

Jane: In my opinion that can hurt n.o.body.

Jessica: Gillian wouldn't care two pins.

Joyce: She would utter no word though we tripped it for a week.