"Then make up your mind to it," said Joscelyn, "and amble."

"Dear heaven!" went on Martin, "I begin to believe that when a woman is being kissed she doesn't even notice it for thinking, How sweet it will be when he kisses me next Tuesday fortnight!"

"Then get on to Tuesday fortnight," scolded Joscelyn, "if that be the end."

"The end indeed!" said Martin. "On Tuesday fortnight, at the very instant, the slippery creature is thinking, How delicious it was when he kissed me two weeks ago last Sat.u.r.day! There's no end with a woman, either backwards or forwards!"

"For goodness' sake," cried Joscelyn, "stop grumbling and get on with it!"

"There's no end to a man's grumbling either," said Martin; "but I'll get on with it.")

The tale that Harding had to tell Proud Rosalind was a long one, but I will make as short of it as I can. He told her how in his own country he was sprung of the race of Volundr, who was a G.o.d and a King and a Smith all in one; but he had been ill-used and banished, and had since haunted England where men knew him as Wayland, and he did miracles. But in his own northern land his strain continued, until Harding's father, a king himself, was like his ancestor defeated and banished, and crossed the water with his young son and a chest of relics of Old Wayland's work--a ring, a girdle, a crown, and a silver robe; a sword and bow which Rosalind knew already; and other things as well. And the boy grew up filled with the ancient wrongs of his ancestor, and he went about the country seeking Wayland's haunts; and wherever he found them he found a mossy legend, neglected and unproved, of how the G.o.d worked, or had worked, for any man's pence, and put his divine craft to laborers' service. And as in Rosalind the dream had grown of building up her fathers' honor again, so Harding had from boyhood nursed his dream of establishing that of the half-forgotten G.o.d. And he, who had inherited his ancestor's craft in metal, coming at last through Suss.e.x settled at Bury, where the legend lay on its sick-bed; and he set up his shop by the ferry so that he might doctor it. And there he did his work in two ways; for as the Red Smith he did such work as might be done better by a hundred men, but as Wayland he did what could only have been done better by the G.o.d. And the toll he collected for that work he saved, year-in-year-out, till he should have enough to build the G.o.d a shrine. And, leaving this visible evidence behind him, he meant to depart to his own land, and let the faith in Wayland wax of itself. And then Harding told Rosalind how he had first seen the hart when it was a calf six years before at midsummer, and how it had led him to the Wishing-Well; and he had marked it for his own. And how in the same year he had first noticed Rosalind, a girl not yet sixteen, and, for the fire of kings in her that all her poverty could not extinguish, chosen her for his mate.

"And year by year," said Harding, "I watched to see whether the direst want could bring you to humbleness, and saw you only grow in n.o.bleness; and year by year I lay in wait for my four-footed quarry each Midsummer Eve beside the Wishing-Pool, and saw it grow in kingliness. And last year, as you know, I saw you come to the Pool beside the hart, and heard you make your high prayer for life or death. And if I had not been able to give you the life, I would have given you the death you prayed for. But I went before you, and going by the ferry put my old G.o.d's money in your room before you could be there. And from time to time I robbed his store to keep you. But when in spring they drove you from the castle I did not know where to find you; and I hunted for your lair as I hunted for the hart's, and never knew they were the same.

Then this year came the wishing-time again, and lying hidden I heard you cry for a man to strike for you. And I was tempted then to reveal myself and make you know to what man you were committed. But I decided that I would wait and strike for you in the tourney, and come to you for the first time with a crown. And so I went back to the ferry and set to work; and to my amazement you followed me, and for the first time of your own will addressed me. I wondered whether you had come to be humble before your time, and if you had been I would have let you go for ever; but when you spoke with scorn as to a servant who had once forgotten himself so far as to play the man to you, I laughed in my heart and prized your scorn more dearly than your favor; and said to myself, To-morrow she shall know me for her man. But when you went down to the water and made your demand of Wayland, for his sake and yours I was ready to give you a weapon worthy of your steel. So I gave you the G.o.d's own sword and waited to see what use you would make of it. And you made as ill an use as after you made of the G.o.d's bow. And while men spoke betwixt wrath and mockery of the Rusty Knight, I loved more dearly that champion who was doing so ill so bravely for a championless lady." Then Harding looked her steadily in the eyes, and though her face was all on fire again as he alone had power to make it, she did not flinch from his gaze, and he took her hand and said, "No man has ever struck a blow for you yet, Proud Rosalind, but the Rusty Knight will strike for you to-morrow; and as to-day there was no marksman, so to-morrow there shall be no swordsman who can match him. And when he has won the crown of Suss.e.x for you, you shall redeem your pledge of the Wishing-Well and give him what he will. Till then, be free." And he dropped her hand again and let her go.

She turned and went quickly into the bushes and soon she came out bearing the miserable arms of the Rusty Knight and the glorious sword.

"These are all that were in my fathers' castle for many years," she said, "and I took them when I went away and the white hart brought me to his own castle. But though these are big for me, they will be small for you."

And Harding looked at them and laughed his short laugh. "The casque alone will serve," he said. "By that and the sword men shall know me. I have my own arms else; and I will take on myself the shame of this ludicrous casque, and redeem it in your name. And you shall have these in exchange." And he handed her his pouch and bade her what to do in the morning, and went away. He still had not kissed her mouth, nor had she offered it.

Now there is very little left to tell. On the morrow, when the roll of knights had been called, all eyes instinctively turned to the great gateway, by which the Rusty Knight had always come at the last moment.

And as they looked they saw whom they expected, but not what they expected. For though his head was hidden in the rusty casque, and though he held the sword which all men covet, he was clad from neck to foot in arms and mail so marvelously chased and inwrought with red gold that his whole body shone ruddy in the sunshaft. And men and women, dazzled and confused, wondered what trick of light made him appear more tall and broad than they remembered him; so that he seemed to dwarf all other men. The murmur and the doubt went round, "Is it the Rusty Knight?"

Then in a voice of thunder he replied, "Ay, if you will, it is the Rusty Knight; or the Red Knight, or the Knight of the Royal Heart, or of the Hart-Royal; but by any name, the knight of the Proud Rosalind, who is the proudest and most peerless of all the maids of Suss.e.x, as this day's work shall prove."

And none laughed.

The joust began; and before the Rusty Knight the rest went down like corn beaten by hail. And all men marveled at him, and all women likewise. And the young Queen Maudlin of Bramber, a prey to her whims, loved him as long as the tourney lasted. And when it was ended, and he alone stood upright, she rose in her seat and held out to him the crown of gold and flowers upon a silken pillow, crying, "You have won this, you unknown, unseen champion, and it is your right to give it where you will; and none will dispute her supremacy in beauty for ever." And as he strode and knelt to receive the crown she added quickly, "And I know not whether the promise has reached your ears which yesterday was made--that she who accepts the crown is to wed the victor, although he choose the Queen herself to wear it."

And she smiled down at him like morning smiling out of the sky; and her beauty was such as to make a man forget all other beauty and all resolutions. But Harding took the crown from her and touched her hand with the rusty brow of his casque and said, "A Queen will wear it, for my lady's fathers were once Kings of Amberley."

Then Maudlin stamped her foot as a b.u.t.terfly might, and cried, "Where is this lady whom you keep as hidden as your face?"

And Harding rose and turned towards the gateway, and all turned with him; and into the arch rode Rosalind on the white hart. And she was clothed from her neck to the soles of her naked feet in a sheath of silver that seemed molded to her lovely body; and about her waist a golden girdle hung, set with green stones, and from her finger a great emerald shot green fire, and on her head a golden fillet lay in the likeness of close-set leaves with cl.u.s.ters of gleaming green berries that were other emeralds; and under it her glory of hair fell like liquid metal down her back and over the hart's neck, as low as her silver hem. And the hart with its splendid antlers stood motionless and proud as though it knew it carried a young Queen. But indeed men wondered whether it were not a young G.o.ddess. And so for a very few moments this carven vision of gold and silver and ivory and molten bronze and copper and green jewels stood in their gaze. And then Harding bore the crown to her and knelt, and stood up again and crowned her before them all; and laying his hand upon the white hart's neck, moved away with it and its beautiful rider through the gateway. And no one moved or spoke or tried to stop them. But by the footway over the water-meadows they went, and at the river's edge found Harding's broad flat boat with the bird's beak. And Harding said, "Will you come over the ferry with me, Proud Rosalind?"

And Rosalind answered, "What is your fee, Red Boatman?"

Then Harding answered, "For that which flows I take only that which flows."

And Rosalind, stooping of her own accord from the white hart's back, kissed him.

I shall be very uncomfortable, Mistress Jane, till you have sewed on my b.u.t.ton.

FIFTH INTERLUDE

The milkmaids had not thought of their apples for the last hour, but now, remembering them, they fell to refreshing their tongues with the sweet flavors of fruit and talk.

Jessica: I cannot rest, Jane, till you have p.r.o.nounced upon this story.

Jane: I never found p.r.o.nouncement harder, Jessica. For who can p.r.o.nounce upon anything but a plain truth or a plain falsehood? and I am too confused to extricate either from such a hotch-potch of magic as came to pa.s.s without the help of any real magician.

Martin: Oh, Mistress Jane! are you sure of that? Did not Rosalind's wishes come true, and can there be magic without a magician?

Jane: Her wishes came true, I know, both by the pool and by the ferry; but that the pool and the ferry were supernatural remains unproved.

Because in both cases her wishes were brought about by a man. And if there was any other magician at all, you never showed him to us.

Martin: Dear Mistress Jane, where were your eyes? I showed you the greatest of all the magicians that give ear to the wishes of women; and when it is necessary to bring them about, he puts his power on a man and the man makes them come true. Which is a magic you must often have noticed in men, though you may never have known the magician's name.

Joscelyn: We have never noticed any magic whatever in men. And we don't want to know the magician's name. We don't believe in anything so silly as magic.

Martin: I hope, Mistress Joscelyn, there were moments in my story not too silly to be believed in.

Joscelyn: Silliness in stories is more or less excusable, since they are not even supposed to be believed. And is there still a Wishing-Pool on Rewell and a ferry at Bury?

Martin: The ferry is there, but Harding's hammer is silent. And where his shop stood is a little cottage where children live, who dabble in summer on the ferry-step. And their mother will run from her washing or cooking to take you over the water for the same fee that Wayland asked for shoeing a poor man's donkey or making a rich man's sword. And this is the only miracle men call for from those banks to-day; and if ever you tried to take a boat across the Bury currents, you would not only believe in miracles but pray for one, while your boat turned in mid-stream like a merry-go-round. So there's no doubt that the ferry-wife is a witch. But as for the Wishing-Pool, it is as lost as it was before the white hart led two lovers to discover it at separate times, and having brought them together pa.s.sed with them and its secret out of men's knowledge. For neither it nor Harding nor Rosalind was seen again in Suss.e.x after that day. And yet I can tell you this much of their fortunes: that whatever befell them wherever they wandered, he was a king and she a queen in the sight of the whole world, which to all lovers consists of one woman and one man; and their lives were crowned lives, and they carried their crown with them even when they came in the same hour to exchange one life for another. But this was only a long and cloudless reign on earth.

Jane: Well, it is a satisfaction to know that. For at certain times your story seemed so overshadowed with clouds that I was filled with doubts.

Joan: Oh, but Jane! even when we walk in the thickest clouds on the Downs, we are certain that presently some light will melt them, or some wind blow them away.

Joyce: Yes, it never once occurred to me to doubt the end of the story.

Jennifer: Nor to me. And so the clouds only kept one in a delicious palpitation, at which one could secretly smile, without having to stop trembling.

Jessica: Was it possible, Jane, that YOU could be deceived as to the conclusion of this love-story? Why, even I saw joy coming as plain as a pikestaff.

Martin: And I, with love for its bearer. For that magician, who touches the plainest things with a radiance, makes plain girls and boys look queens and kings, and plain staves flowering branches of joy. And in this case I can think of only one catastrophe that could have obscured or distorted that vision.

Two of the Milkmaids: What catastrophe, pray?

Martin: If Rosalind had refused to believe in anything so silly as magic.

The silence of the Seven Sleepers hung over the Apple-Orchard.

Joscelyn: Then she would have proved herself a girl of sense, singer, and your tale would have gained in virtue. As it stands, I should not have grieved though the clouds had never been dispersed from so foolish a medley of magic and make-believe.

Martin: So be it, if it must be so. We will push back our lovers into their obscurities, and praise night for the round moon above us, who has pushed three parts of her circle clear of all obstacles, and awaits only some movement of heaven to blow the last remnant of cloud from her happy soul. And because more of her is now in the light than in the dark, she knows it is only a question of time. But the last hours of waiting are always the longest, and we like herself can do no better than spend them in dreams, where if we are lucky we shall catch a glimpse of the angels of truth.

Like the last five leaves blown from an autumn branch, the milkmaids fluttered from the apple-tree and couched their sleepy heads on their tired arms, and went each by herself into her particular dream; where if she found company or not she never told. But Jane sat prim and thoughtful with her elbow in her hand and her finger making a dimple in her cheek, considering deeply. And presently Martin began to cough a little, and then a little more, and finally so troublesomely that she was obliged to lay her profound thoughts aside, to attend to him with a little frown. Was even Euclid impervious to midges?