Martin: Oh, Hebe! it's worse than I thought. How dare I? You whipper-snapper! How dare YOU have us all under your thumb? How dare YOU play the Gorgon to Gillian? How dare YOU cry your eyes out because my lovers had an unhappy ending? Go back to your dolls'-house! What does sixteen next June know about Adam? What does sixteen next June know about love?

Joscelyn: Everything! how dare you? everything!

Martin: Am I to believe you? Then by all you know, you baby, give me the sixth key of the Well-House!

And he took from his pocket the five keys he already had, and held out his hand for the last one. Joscelyn's eyes grew bigger and bigger, and the doubt that had troubled her all day became a certainty as she looked from the keys to her comrades, who all got very red and hung their heads.

"Why did you give them up?" demanded Joscelyn.

"Because," Martin answered for them, "they know everything about love.

But then they are all more than sixteen years of age, and capable of making the right sort of ending which is so impossible to children like you and me."

Then Joscelyn looked as old as she could and said, "Not so impossible, Master Pippin, if--if--"

But all of a sudden she began to laugh. It was the first time Martin had ever heard her laugh, or her comrades for six months. Their faces cleared like magic, and they all clapped their hands and ran away. And Martin got down from his bough, because when Joscelyn laughed she didn't look more than fourteen.

"If what, Joscelyn?" he said.

"If you'd stolen the right shoe-string, Martin," said she. And she stuck out her right foot with its neatly-laced yellow slipper. Then Martin knelt down, and instead of lacing the left shoe unlaced the right one, and inside the yellow slipper found the sixth key just under the instep. "Is that the right ending?" said Joscelyn. And Martin held the little foot in his hands rubbing it gently, and said compa.s.sionately, "It must have been dreadfully uncomfortable."

"It was sometimes," said Joscelyn.

"Didn't it hurt?" asked Martin, beginning to lace up her shoes for her.

"Now and then," said Joscelyn.

"It was an awfully kiddish place to hide it in," said Martin finishing, and as he looked up Joscelyn laughed again, rubbing her tear-stained cheeks with the back of her hand, and for all the great growing girl that she was looked no more than twelve. So he slid under the swing and stood up behind her and kissed her on the back of the neck where babies are kissed.

Then all the milkmaids came back again.

PART II

To every girl Martin handed her key. "This is your business," said he.

And first Joan, and next Joyce, and then Jennifer, and then Jessica, and then Jane, and last of all Joscelyn, put her key into its lock and turned. And not one of the keys would turn. They bit their lips and held their breath, and turned and turned in vain.

"This is dreadful," said Martin. "Are you sure the keys are in the right keyholes?"

"They all fit," said little Joan.

"Let me try," said Martin. And he tried, one after another, and then tried each key singly in each lock, but without result. Jane said, "I expect they've gone rusty," and Jessica said, "That must be it," and Jennifer turned pale and said, "Then Gillian can never get out of the Well-House or we out of the orchard." And Martin sat down in the swing and thought and thought. As he thought he began to swing a little, and then a little more, and suddenly he cried "Push me!" and the six girls came behind him and pushed with all their strength. Up he went with his legs pointed as straight as an arrow, and back he flew and up again.

The third time the swing flew clean over the Well-House, and as true as a diving gannet Martin dropped from mid-air into the little court, and stood face to face with Gillian.

PART III

She was not weeping. She was bathed in blushes and laughter. She held out her hands to him, and Martin took them. She had golden hair of lights and shadows like a wheatfield that fell in two thick plaits over her white gown, and she had gray eyes where smiles met you like an invitation, but you had to learn later that they were really a little guard set between you and her inward tenderness, and that her gayety, like a will-o'-the-wisp, led you into the flowery by-ways of her spirit where fairies played, but not to the heart of it where angels dwelled.

Few succeeded in surprising her behind her bright shield, but sometimes when she wasn't thinking it fell aside, and what men saw then took their breath from them, for it was as though they were falling through endless wells of infinite sweetness. And afterwards they could have told you nothing further of her loveliness; when they got as far as her eyes they were drowned. Her features, the curves of her cheeks and lips and chin and delicate nostrils, were as finely-turned as the edge of a wild-rose petal, and her skin had the freshness of dew. The sight of her brought the same sense of delight as the sight of a meadow of cowslips. As sweet and sunny a scent breathed out from her beauty.

But all this Martin only felt without seeing, for he was drowned.

Gillian, I suppose, wasn't thinking. So they held each other's hands and looked at each other.

Presently Martin said, "It's time now, Gillian, and you can go."

"Yes, Martin," said Gillian. "How shall I go?"

"As I came," said he.

"Before I go," said she, "I am going to ask you a question. You have asked my friends a lot of questions these six nights, which they have answered frankly, and you have twisted their answers round your little finger. Now you must answer my question as frankly."

"And what will you do?" asked Martin.

"I won't twist your answer," said Gillian gently. "I'll take it for what it is worth. You have been laughing up your sleeve a little at my friends because, having a quarrel with men, they were sworn to live single. But you live single too. Tell me, if you please, what is your quarrel with girls?"

Martin dropped her hands until he held each by the little finger only, and then he answered, "That they are so much too good for us, Gillian."

"Thank you, Martin," said Gillian, taking her hands away. "And now please ask them to send over the swing, for it is time for me to go to Adversane." And as she spoke the light played over her eyes again and floated him up to the surface of things where he could swim without drowning. He saw now the flowers of her loveliness, but no longer the deeps of those gray pools where the light shimmered between herself and him. So he turned and climbed to the pent roof of the Well-House, and looked towards the group of shadows cl.u.s.tered under the apple-tree around the swing; and they understood and launched it through the air, and he caught it as it came. And Gillian in a moment was up beside him.

"Are you ready?" said Martin.

"Yes," she answered getting on the swing, "thank you. And thank you for everything. Thank you for coming three times this year. Thank you for the stories. Thank you for giving their happiness again to my darling friends. Thank you for all the songs. Thank you for drying my tears."

"Are they all dried up?" said Martin.

"All," said Gillian.

"If they were not," said he, "you shall find Herb-Robert growing along the roadside, and the Herbman himself in Adversane."

And holding the swing fast as he sat on the roof, Martin sang her his last song, not very loud, but so clearly that the shadows under the apple-tree heard every note and syllable.

Good morrow, good morrow, dear Herbman Robert!

Good morrow, sweet sir, good morrow!

Oh, sell me a herb, good Robert, good Robert, To cure a young maid of her sorrow.

And hath her sorrow a name, sweet sir?

No lovelier name or purer, With its root in her heart and its flower in her eyes, Yet sell me a herb shall cure her.

Oh, touch with this rosy herb of spring Both heart and eyes when she's sleeping, And joy will come out of her sorrowing, And laughter out of her weeping.

"Good-by, Martin."

"Good-by, Gillian."

"I want to ask you a lot more questions, Martin."

"Off you go!" cried he. And let the swing fly. Back it came.

"Martin! why didn't--"