Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard/Prologue II

IT happened that on an afternoon in May Martin Pippin passed again through Adversane, and as he passed 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 grassy 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 quassia-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 quassia,' 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 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 God 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 passed 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 grass 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 grasses like any flower on the bough.

Jane. In my opinion that can hurt nobody.

Jessica. Gillian wouldn't care two pins.

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

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 gaily, and little Joan tiptoed 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 grass:

'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 heart-sick.'

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 duck-pond 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.