Joscelyn: So long as he keeps to his side of the hedge--

Jennifer: --and we to ours.

"Oh, I do love to dance!" cried little Joan.

"Man!" they commanded him as one voice, "play and sing to us instantly!"

"My pretty ones," laughed Martin Pippin, "songs are as light as air, but worth more than pearls and diamonds. What will you give me for my song? Wait, now!--I have it. You shall fetch me the ring from the finger of your little mistress, who sits hidden beneath the fountain of her own bright tresses."

The milkmaids at these words nodded gayly, and little Joan tip-toed to the Well-House, and slipped the ring from Gillian's finger as lightly as a daisy may be slipped from its fellow on the chain. Then she ran with it to the gate, and Martin held up his little finger, and she put it on, saying:

"Now you will keep your promise, honey-sweet singer, and play a dance for a May evening when the blossom blows for happiness on the apple-trees."

So Martin Pippin tuned his lute and sang what follows, while the girls floated in ones and twos among the orchard gra.s.s:

A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating?

Fairy ships rocking with pink sails and white Smoothly as swans on a river of light Saw I a-floating?

No, it was apple-bloom, rosy and fair, Softly obeying the nod of the air I saw a-floating.

A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating?

White clouds at eventide blown to and fro Lightly as bubbles the cherubim blow, Saw I a-floating?

No, it was pretty girls gowned like a flower Blown in a ring round their own apple-bower I saw a-floating.

Or was it my dream, my dream only--who knows?-- As frail as a snowflake, as flushed as a rose, I saw a-floating?

A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating?

Martin sang, and the milkmaids danced, and Gillian in her prison only heard the dropping of her tears, and only saw the rainbow prisms on her lashes. But presently she laid her cheek against her hand, and missed a touch she knew; and on that revealed her lovely face so full of woe, that Martin needs must comfort her or weep himself. And the dancers took no heed when he made one step across the gate and went under the trees to the Well-House.

"Oh, Mother, Mother!" sighed Gillian, "if you had only lived they would never have stolen the ring from my finger while I sat heartsick."

Above her head a whispering voice replied, "Oh, Daughter, Daughter, mend your dear heart! You shall wear this other ring when yours is gone over the duckpond to Adversane."

Oh wonder! Out of the very heavens fell a silver ring into her bosom.

And if that night Gillian slept not, neither wept she.

PART III

In the beginning of the first week in September Martin Pippin came once more to Adversane, and he said to himself when he saw it:

"Now this is the prettiest hamlet I ever had the luck to light on in my wanderings. And if chance or fortune will, I shall some day come this way again."

While he was thinking these thoughts, his ears were a.s.sailed by groans and sighs, so that he wet his finger and held it up to find which way the wind blew on this burning day of blue and gold. But no wind coming, he sought some other agency for these gusts, and discovered it in a wheat-field where was a young fellow stooking sheaves. A very young fellow he was, turned copper by the sun; and as he stooked he heaved such sighs that for every shock he stooked two tumbled at his feet.

When Martin had seen this happen more than once he called aloud to the harvester.

"Young master!" said Martin, "the mill that grinds your grain will need no wind to its sails, and that's flat."

The young man looked up from his labors to reply.

"There are no mill-stones in all the world," said he, "strong enough to grind the grain of my grief."

"Then I would save these gales till they may be put to more use,"

remarked Martin, "and if I remember rightly you wear a lady's ring on your little finger, though I cannot remember her name or yours."

"Her heavenly name is Gillian," said the youth, "and mine is Robin Rue."

"And are you wedded yet?" asked Martin.

"Wedded?" he cried. "Have you forgotten that she is locked with six keys inside her father's Well-House?"

"But this was long ago," said Martin. "Is she there yet?"

"She is," said Robin Rue, "and here am I."

"Well, all states must end some time," said Martin Pippin.

"Even life," sighed Robin, "and therefore before the month is out I shall wilt and be laid in the earth."

"That would be a pity," said Martin. "Can nothing save you?"

"Nothing but the keys to her prison, and they are in the keeping of them that will not give them up."

"I remember," said Martin. "Six milkmaids."

"With hearts of flint!" cried Robin.

"Sparks may be struck from flint," said Martin, in his inconsequential way. "But tell me, if Gillian's prison were indeed unlocked, would all be well with you for ever?"

"Oh," said Robin Rue, "if her prison were unlocked and the prisoner in these arms, this wheat should be flour for a wedding-cake."

"It is the best of all cakes," said Martin Pippin, "and the grain that is destined thereto must not rot in the husk."

With these words he strolled out of the cornfield, gathered a harebell, rang it so loudly in the ear of a pa.s.sing rabbit that it is said never to have stopped running till it found itself in France, and went up the road humming and thrumming his lute.

On the road he met a Gypsy.

"Maids," said Joscelyn, "somebody is at the gate."

The milkmaids, who were eating apples, came cl.u.s.tering about her instantly.

"Is it a man?" asked little Joan, pausing between her bites.

"No, thank all our stars," said Joscelyn, "it is a gypsy."

The milkmaids withdrew, their fears allayed. Joan bit her apple and said, "It puckers my mouth."

Joyce: Mine's sour.

Jessica: Mine's hard.