OPEN WINKINS

THERE were once, dear maidens, five lords in the east of Sussex, who owned between them a single Burgh; for they were brothers. Their names were Lionel and Hugh and Heriot and Ambrose and Hobb. Lionel was ten years of age and Hobb was twenty-two, there being exactly three years all but a month between the birthdays of the brothers. And Lionel had a merry spirit, and Hugh great courage and daring, and Heriot had beauty past any man's share, and Ambrose had a wise mind; but Hobb had nothing at all for the world's praise, for he only had a loving heart, which he spent upon his brothers and his garden. And since love begets love, they all loved him dearly, and leaned heavily on his affection, though neither they nor any man looked up to him because he was a lord. Although he was the eldest, and in his quiet way administered the affairs of the Burgh and of the people of Alfriston under the Burgh, it was Ambrose who was always thinking of new schemes for improvement, and Heriot who undertook the festivities. As for the younger boys, they kept the old place alive with their youth and spirits; and it was evident that later on Hugh would win honor to the Burgh in battle and adventure, and Lionel would draw the world thither with his charm. But Hobb, to whom they all brought their shapeless dreams white-hot, since sympathy helps us to create bodies for the things which begin their existence as souls–Hobb differed from the four others not only in his name, but in his plain appearance and simple tastes. And all these things, as well as his tender heart, he got from his mother, who was the only daughter of a gardener of Alfriston. The gardener, to whom she was the very apple of his eye, had kept her privately in a place on a hill, fearing lest in her youth and inexperience she should fall to the lot of some man not worthy of her; for he knew, or believed, that a young girl of her sweetness and tenderness and devotedness of disposition would by her sweetness attract a lover too early, and by her tenderness respond to him too readily, and by her devotedness follow him too blindly, before she had time to know herself or men. And he also knew, or believed, that first love is as often a will-o'-the-wisp as the star for which all young things take it. Five days in the week he tended the gardens of Alfriston, the sixth he gave to the Lord of the Burgh that lay among the hills, and the seventh he kept for his daughter on the hill a few miles distant, which was afterwards known as Hobb's Hawth. She on her part spent her week in endeavoring to grow a perfect rose of a certain golden species, and her heart was given wholly to her father and her flower. And he watched her efforts with interest and advice, and for the first she thanked him but of the second took no heed. "For," said she, "this is my garden, father, and my rose, and I will grow it in my own way or not at all. Have you not had a lifetime of gardens and roses which you have brought to perfection? And would you let any man take your own upon his shoulders, even your own mistakes, and shoulder at last the praise after the blame?" Then Hobb, her father, laughed at her indulgently and said, "Nay, not any man; yet once I let a woman, and without her aid I would never have brought my rarest and dearest flower to perfection. So if I should let a woman help me, why not you a man?" "Was the woman your mother?" said she. And her father was silent. Then a day came when he trudged up and down the hills from Alfriston, and standing at the gate of her garden saw his child in the arms of a stranger; and her face, as it lay against his heart, seemed to her father also to be the face of a stranger, and not of his child. He recognized in the stranger the Lord of the Burgh. And he saw that what he had feared had come to pass, and that his daughter's heart would be no more divided between her father and her flower, for it was given whole to the lover who had first assailed it. Hobb came into the garden, and they looked up as the gate clicked, and their faces grew as red as though one had caught the reflection from the other. But both looked straight into his eyes. And his daughter, pointing to her bush, said, "Father, my rose is grown at last," and he saw that the bush was crowned with a glorious golden bloom, perfect in every detail. Then it was the turn of the Lord of the Burgh, and he said, "Sir, I ask leave to rob your garden of its rose." "Do robbers ask leave?" said Hobb. And he shook his head, adding, "Nay, when the thief and the theft are in collusion, what say is left to the owner of the treasure? Yet I do not like this. Sir, have you considered that she is a gardener's child? Daughter, have you considered that he is a lord?" And neither of them had considered these questions, and they did not propose to do so. Then Hobb shook his head again and said, "I will not waste words. I know when a plant can drink no more water. And though you pretend to ask my leave, I know that you are prepared to dispense with it. But by way of consent I will say this: whatever you may call your other sons, you shall call your first Hobb, to remind you to-morrow of what you will not consider to-day. For my daughter, when she is a lord's wife, will none the less still be a gardener's daughter, and your children will be grafted of two stocks. And if this seems to you a hard condition, then kiss and bid farewell." And they both laughed with joy at the lightness of the condition; but the gardener did not laugh. And so the Lord of the Burgh married the gardener's daughter, and they called their first son Hobb. He was born on a first of August, and thirty-five months later Ambrose was born on the first of July, and in due course Heriot in June, and Hugh in May, and Lionel in April. And the Lord, loving his sons equally, made them equal possessors of the Burgh when in time it should pass out of his hands. Which, since men are mortal, presently came to pass, and there were five lords instead of one.

It happened on a roaring night of March, when the wind was blustering over the barren ocean of the east Downs, and Lionel was still a boy of ten, but soon to be eleven, that the five brothers sat clustered about the great hearth in the hall, roasting apples and talking of this and that. But their talk was fitful, and had long pauses in which they listened to the gusty night, which had so much more to say than they. And after one of the silences Lionel shuddered slightly, and drawing his little stool close to Hobb he said:

"It sounds like witches." Hobb put his big hand round the child's head and face, and Lionel pressed his cheek against his brother's knee.

"Or lions," said Hugh, jumping up and running to the window, where he flattened his nose to stare into the night. "I wish it were lions coming over the Downs."

"What would you do with them?" said Hobb, smiling broadly.

"Fight them," said Hugh, "and chain them up. I should like to have lions instead of dogs–a red lion and a white one."

"I never heard tell of lions of those colours," said Hobb. "But perhaps Ambrose has with all his reading."

"Not I," said Ambrose, "but I haven't read half the books yet. The wind still knows more than I, and it may be that he knows where red and white lions are to be found. For he knows everything."

"And has seen everything," murmured Heriot, watching a lovely flame of blue and green that flickered among the red and gold on the hearth.

"And has been everywhere," muttered Hugh. "If I could find and catch him, I'd ask him for a red and a white lion."

"I'd rather have peacocks," said Heriot, his eyes on the fire.

"What would you choose, Ambrose?" asked Hobb.

"Nothing," said he, "but it's the hardest of all things to have, and I doubt if I'd get it. But what business have we to be choosing presents? That is Lionel's right before ours, for isn't his birthday next month? What will you ask of the wind for your birthday, Lal?"

Then Lionel, who was getting very drowsy, smiled a sleepy smile, and said, "I'd like a farm of my own in the Downs, a very little farm with pink pigs and black cocks and white donkeys and chestnut horses no bigger than grasshoppers and mice, and a very little well as big as my mug to draw up my water from, and a little green paddock the size of my pocket-handkerchief, and another of yellow corn, and another of crimson trefoil. And I would have a blue farm-wagon no larger than Hobb's shoe, and a haystack half as big as a seed-cake, and a duckpond that I could cover with my platter. And I'd live there and play with it all day long, if only I knew where the wind lives, and could ask him how to get it."

"Don't start till to-morrow," jested Ambrose, "to-night you're too sleepy to find the way."

Then he turned to his book, and Hugh was still at the window, and Heriot gazing into the fire. And as he felt the child's head droop in his hand, Hobb picked him up in his arms and carried him to bed. And he alone of all those brothers had made no choice, nor had they thought to ask him, so accustomed were they to see him jog along without the desires that lead men to their goals–such as Ambrose's thirst for knowledge, and Heriot's passion for beauty, and Hugh's lust for adventure, and Lionel's pursuit of delight. And yet, unknown to them all, he had a heartfelt wish, which, among other things, he had inherited from his mother. For on a height west of the Burgh he had made a garden where, like her, he labored to produce a perfect golden rose. But so far luck was against him, though his height, which was therefore spoken of as the Gardener's Hill, bloomed with the loveliest flowers of all sorts imaginable. But year by year his rose was attacked by a special pest, the nature of which he had not succeeded in discovering. Yet his patience was inexhaustible, and his brothers who sometimes came to his garden when they needed a listener for their achieved or unachieved ambitions, never suspected that he too had an ambition he had not realized, for they saw only a lovely garden of his creating, where wisdom, beauty, adventure, and delight were made equally welcome by the gardener.

Now on the March day following the night of the brothers' windy talk–

(But suddenly Martin, with a nimble movement, stood upright on his bough, and grasping that to which the swing was attached, shook it with such frenzy that a tempest seemed to pass through the tree, and the girls shrieked and clung to the trunk, and leaves and apples flew in all directions; and Jessica, between clutching at her ropes, and letting go to ward off the cannonade of fruit, gasped in a tumult of laughter and indignation.

JESSICA: Have you gone mad, Master Pippin? have you gone mad?

MARTIN: Mad, Mistress Jessica, stark staring mad! March hares are pet rabbits to me!

JESSICA: Sit down this instant! do you hear? this instant! That's better. What fun it was! Aha, you thought you could shake me off, but you didn't. Are you still mad?

MARTIN: Melancholy mad, since you will not let me rave.

JESSICA: You are the less dangerous. But I hate you to be melancholy.

MARTIN: It is no one's fault but yours. How can I be jolly when my story upsets you?

JESSICA: How do you know it upsets me?

MARTIN: You put out your tongue at me.

JESSICA: Did I?

MARTIN: Yes, without reason. So what could I do but whistle mine to the winds?

JESSICA: You were too hasty, for I had my reason.

MARTIN: If it was a good one I'll whistle mine back again.

JESSICA: It was this. That no man in a love-tale should be wiser or braver or more beautiful or more happy than the hero; or how can he be the hero? Yet I am sure Hobb is the hero and none of the others, because he is the only one old enough to be married.

MARTIN: Ambrose is nineteen, and will very soon be twenty.

JESSICA: What's nineteen, or even twenty, in a man? Fie! a man's not a man till he comes of age, and the hero's not Ambrose for all his wisdom, though wisdom becomes a hero. Nor Heriot for all his beauty, though a hero should be beautiful. Nor Hugh, who will one day be brave enough for any hero, though now he's but a boy. Nor the happy Lionel, who is only a child–yet I love a gay hero. It's none of these, full though they be of the qualities of heroes. And here is your Hobb with nothing to show but a fondness for roses.

MARTIN: You deserve to be stood in a corner for that nothing, Mistress Jessica. Your reason was such a bad one that I see I must return to sense if only to teach you a little of it. Did I not say Hobb had a loving heart?

JESSICA: But he was plain and simple and patient and contented. Are these things for a hero?

MARTIN: Mistress Jessica, I will ask you a riddle. What is it–? Oh, but first, I take it you love apple-trees?

JESSICA: Who doesn't?

MARTIN: What is it, then, you love in an apple-tree? Is it the dancing of the leaves in the wind? Is it the boldness of the boughs? Or perhaps the loveliness of the flower in spring? Or again the fruit that ripens of the flower amongst the leaves on the boughs? What is it you love in an apple-tree?

JESSICA: All riddles are traps. I must consider before I answer.

MARTIN: You shall consider until the conclusion of my story, and not till you are satisfied that many things can be contained in one, will I require your solution. And as for traps, it is always the solver of riddles who lays his own trap, by looking all round the question and never straight at it. Put on your thinking-cap, I beg, while I go on babbling.)

On the March day following the brothers' talk (continued Martin ) Lionel was missing. It was some time before his absence was noticed, for Hobb was in his distant garden, and Ambrose among his books, and Heriot had ridden north to the market-town to buy stuff for a jerkin, and Hugh had run south to the sea to watch the ships. So Lionel was left to his own devices, and what they were none tried to guess till evening, when the brothers met again and he was not there. Then there was hue and cry among the hills, but to no purpose. The child had vanished like a cloud. And the month wore by, and their hearts grew heavier day by day.

It was in the last week of March that Hugh one morning came red-eyed to his brothers and said, "I am going away, and I will not come back until I have found Lionel. For I can't rest."

"None of us can do that," said Ambrose, "and we have searched and sent messengers everywhere. You are too young to go alone."

"I am nearly fourteen," said Hugh, "and stronger than Heriot, and even than you, Ambrose, and I can take care of myself and Lionel too. There are more ways than one to seek, and I'll go my way while you go yours. But I will find him or die." And he looked with defiance at Ambrose, and then turned to Hobb and said doggedly, "I'm going, Hobb."

Hobb, who himself sought the hills unwearingly day after day, and then sat up three parts of the night attending to the duties of the Burgh, said, "Go, and God bless you."

And Hugh's mouth grew less set, and he kissed his brothers, and put his knife in his belt, and took food in his wallet, and walked out of the Burgh. He followed the grass-track to the north, and had walked less than half-an-hour when the wind took his cap and blew it into the middle of a pond, where it lay soddening out of reach. So he took off his shoes and walked into the pond to fetch it out, stirring up the yellow mud in thick soft clouds. But as he stooped to grab his cap, something else stirred the mud in the middle, and a body heaved itself sluggishly into view. At first Hugh thought it must be the body of a sheep that had tumbled into the water, but to his amazement the sulky head of an old man appeared. He was barely distinguishable from the mud out of which he had risen.

"Drat the boys!" said the muddy man. "Will they never be done with disturbing the newts and me? Drat 'em, I say!"

"Who are you?" demanded Hugh, staring with all his might.

"Jerry I am, and this is my pond. Why can't you leave me in peace?"

"The wind took my cap," said Hugh.

"Finding's keepings," said the muddy man, taking the cap himself, "and windfalls on this water is mine. So I'll keep your cap, and it's the second wind's brought me this March. And if you're in want of another you'd best go to where Wind lives and ask him for it, like t'other one. But he said he'd ask for a toy farm instead."

"A toy farm?" shouted Hugh.

"Go away and don't deafen a body," said Jerry, and prepared to sink again. But Hugh caught him by the hair and said fiercely, "Keep my cap if you like, but I won't let you go until you tell me where my brother went."

"Your brother was it?" growled the muddy man. "He went to High and Over, dancing like a sunbeam."

"What's High and Over?"

"Where Wind lives."

"Where's that?"

"Find out," mumbled the muddy man; and he wriggled himself out of Hugh's clutch and buried himself like a monstrous newt in the mud. And though Hugh groped and fumbled shoulder-deep he could not feel a trace of him.

"But," said he, "there's at least a name to go on." And he got out of the pond and went in search of High and Over. And his brothers waited in vain for his return. And the heaviness of four hearts was now divided between three, and doubled because of another brother lost.

But on the first of April, which was Lionel's birthday, Lionel came back. Or rather, Hobb found him in a valley north of his garden hill, when he was wandering on one of his forlorn searches. And when he found him Hobb could not believe his eyes. For the child was sitting in the middle of the prettiest plaything in the world. It was a tiny farm, covering perhaps a quarter of an acre, with minute barns and yards and stables, and pigmy livestock in the little pastures, and hand-high crops in the little meadows; and smoke came from the tiny chimney of the farmhouse, and Lionel was drawing water from a well in a bucket the size of a thimble. And all the colours were so bright and painted that the little farmstead seemed to have been conceived of the gayest mind on earth. But through his amazement Hobb had no thought except for the child, and he ran calling him by his name, but Lionel never looked up. And then Hobb lifted him in his arms, and embraced him closely, but the child did not respond.

Then Hobb looked at him anxiously, and was so shocked that he forgot the strange blithe little farm entirely. For Lionel was as wan and wasted as though he had been through a fever, and his rosy face was white, and his merry eyes were melancholy. And suddenly, as Hobb clasped him, he flung his arms round his big brother's neck and buried his face in his bosom and wept bitterly.

Then Hobb tried to soothe and comfort him, asking him little questions in a coaxing voice–"Where has the child been? Why did he run away and leave us? Where did he get this pretty, wonderful toy? Is he hurt, or hungry? Does he remember it is his birthday? There will be presents for him at the Burgh, and a cake for tea. Did Hugh bring him home? Has he seen Hugh? Lal, Lal, where is Hugh?"

But Lionel answered none of these questions, he only sobbed and sobbed, and suddenly slipped out of Hobb's arms, and began to play once more with his farm, while the tears ran down his thin cheeks. Presently he let Hobb take him home, and there Heriot and Ambrose rejoiced and sorrowed over him. For he would scarcely speak or eat, and only shook his head at their questions. At Hugh's name his tears flowed twice as fast, but he would tell them nothing of him. Very soon Hobb carried him to bed, and in undressing him noticed that he had no shirt. This too Lionel would not explain, and Hobb ceased troubling him with talk, and knelt and prayed by him, and laid him down to sleep, hoping that in the morning he would be better. But morning brought no change. Lionel from that day was given up to grief. Each morning he went dejectedly to play with his marvelous toy in the valley, but how he came by it he would not say.

Towards the end of April Heriot came to Hobb and Ambrose and said, "I cannot bear this; Lionel is home and we are none the better for it, and Hugh is gone and we are all the worse. Hugh is capable of looking after himself, yet perhaps danger has befallen him; and even if not, he will roam the country fruitlessly for months, and it may be years; since Lionel is restored and he does not know it. The Burgh can spare me better than it can you, and I will ride abroad and see if I can find him, and return in seven days, whether or no."

So they embraced him, and he departed. But at the end of seven days he did not appear. And Ambrose and Hobb were dismayed at his vanishing like the others, and so heavy a gloom descended on the Burgh that each could scarcely have endured it without the other. And every day they went forth in search of Hugh and Heriot, or of traces of them, but found none.

Then it happened that on the first of May, which was Hugh's birthday, Hobb, wandering further north than usual, to the brow of the great ridge east of the Ouse, heard a wild roaring and bellowing on the Downs; or rather, it was two separate roarings, as you may sometimes hear two separate storms thundering at once over two ranges of hills. And in astonishment he went first to Beddingham, and there, bound by an iron chain to a stake beside a pond, he found a mighty lion, as white as a young lamb. But he had not a lamb's meekness, for he ramped and raved in a great circle around the stake, and his open throat set in his shaggy mane looked like the red sun seen upon white mist. Hobb rubbed his eyes and turned towards Ilford, where the second roaring sought to outdo the first. And there beside another pond he found another stake and chain, and a lion exactly similar, except that he was as red as a rose. But he had not a rose's sweetness, for he snarled and leaped with fury at the end of his chain, and his flashing teeth under his red muzzle looked like the blossom of the scarlet runner.

And then, turning about for an explanation of these wonders, Hobb saw what drove them from his mind–the figure of Hugh crouched in a little hollow, and shaking like a leaf. Hobb ran towards him with a shout, and at the shout Hugh leaped to his feet, with the eyes of a hunted hare, and looked on all sides as though seeking where to hide. But Hobb was soon beside him, with his arm round the boy's shoulder, and gazing earnestly into his face.

"Why, lad," said he, "do you not know me again?"

Hugh stole a glance at him, and suddenly smiled and nodded, and tried to answer, but could not for the chattering of his teeth. And he clung hard to his brother's side, and shuddered from head to foot.

"Are you ill, Hugh?" Hobb asked him, bewildered at the boy's unlikeness to himself.

"No, Hobb," said Hugh, "but need we stay here now?"

"Why, no," said Hobb gently, "we will go when you like. Where do these beasts come from?"

Hugh set his lips and began to move away.

Hobb went beside him and said, "Lionel is home, but Heriot is lost. Have you seen Heriot?"

Hugh hesitated, and then stammered, "No, I have not seen him."

And Hobb knew that he had lied, Hugh who had always been as fearless of the truth as of anything else. So after that he asked no more, fearing to get another lie for an answer; and he led Hugh home, supporting him with his arm, for he was full of fits and starts and shiverings. If a lump of chalk rolled under his shoe he blanched and cried, "What's that?" and once when a field-mouse ran across the path he swooned. Then Hobb, opening his tunic at the neck, saw that nothing was between it and his body; for he, like Lionel, was without his shirt.

They got back to the Burgh, and Hobb found Ambrose and told him how it was. And Ambrose came to Hugh and talked with him, and turned away with knitted brows. For here was a puzzle not dealt with in his books. And May went by in miserable fashion, with Lionel spending the days in playing mournfully beside his farm, and Hugh in cowering abjectly between his lions. And sometimes Ambrose and Hobb, after searching for Heriot or news of him, or spending their spirits in endeavoring to hearten their two brothers, or to elicit from them something that should give them the key to the mystery, would meet in Hobb's hill-garden, where seemed to be the only peace and loveliness left upon earth. And Hobb would weed and tend his neglected flowers, and they bloomed for him as though they knew he loved them–as indeed they did. Only his golden rose-tree would not flourish, but this small sorrow was unguessed by Ambrose.

One evening as they sat in the garden in the last week of May, Ambrose said to his brother, "I have been thinking, Hobb, that at all costs Heriot must be found, and not for his own sake only. He is younger than we, and nearer in spirit to the boys; and he may be able to help them as we cannot. For if this goes on, Hugh will die of his fears and Lionel of his melancholy. You must stay and administer our affairs as usual, and look after the boys; and I will go further afield in search of Heriot."

Hobb was silent for a moment, and then he sighed and said, "No good has come of these seekings. Our lads returned of themselves, as Heriot may. And their return was worse than anything we feared of their absence, as, if he come back, I pray Heriot's will not be. And for you, Ambrose–" But then he paused, not saying what was in his mind. And Ambrose said, "Do not be afraid for me. These boys are young, and I am older than my years. And though I cannot face danger with a stouter heart than our brothers, I can perhaps see into it a little further than they. And foresight is sometimes a still better tool than courage."

Then he took Hobb's hand in his, and they gripped with the grip of men who love each other; and Ambrose went out of the garden, and Hobb was left alone. For Hugh and Lionel were companions to none but themselves.

But on the first of June Hobb, coming to the gate of his garden, saw with surprise a peacock strutting on the hillbrow, his fan spread in the sun, a luster of green and blue and gold, and behind him was another, and further south three more. So Hobb went out to look at them, and found not five but fifty peacocks sweeping the Downs with their heavy trains, or opening and shutting them like gigantic magical flowers. Following the throng of birds, he came shortly to a barn already known to him, but he had never seen it as he saw it now. For the roof was crowded with peacocks, and peacocks strayed in flocks within and without; and sitting in the doorway was Heriot, the sight of whom so overjoyed his brother that Hobb forgot the thousand peacocks in the one man. And he made speed to greet him, but within a few yards halted full of doubt. For was this Heriot? He had Heriot's air and attitude, yet the grace was gone from his body; and Heriot's features, surely, but the beauty had melted away like morning dew. And his dress, which had always been orderly and beautiful, was neglected; so that under the half-laced jerkin Hobb saw that he was shirtless. Yet after the first moment's shock, he knew this gaunt and ugly youth was Heriot. And Heriot seeing his coming hung his head, and made a shamed movement of retreat into the shadow of the barn. But Hobb hurried to him, and took him by the shoulders, and beheld him with the eyes of love which always find its object beautiful. Then the flush faded from Heriot's haggard cheeks, and he looked as full at Hobb as Hobb at him. And as at the steadfast meeting of eyes men see no longer the physical appearance, but for an eternal instance the appearance of the soul, these brothers knew that they were to each other what they had always been. And Heriot saw that Hobb was full of questions, and he laid his hand over Hobb's mouth and said, "Hobb, do not ask me anything, for I can tell you nothing."

"Neither of yourself nor of Ambrose?" said Hobb.

"Nothing," repeated Heriot.

So Hobb left his questions unspoken, and as they went home together told Heriot of Hugh's return, and what had happened to him. And Heriot heard it without comment. And in the evening, when Lionel and Hugh returned, they had nothing to say to Heriot, nor he to them; and it seemed to Hobb that this was because between these three everything was understood.

It was a lonely June for Hobb, with his eldest brother away, and the three others spending all their days beside their strange possessions, which brought them no tittle of joy; and had it not been for his garden he would have felt utterly bereft. Yet here too failure sat heavily on his heart; for on many a night he saw upon his bush a bud that promised perfection to come, and in the morning it hung dead and rotten on its stem.

So the month wore on, and Hobb began to feel that the Burgh, where now his brothers only came to sleep, was a dead shell, too desolate to inhabit if Ambrose did not soon return. And he was impelled to go in search of him, yet decided to remain until Ambrose's birthday had dawned, for had not their birthdays brought his three youngest brothers home? And it might be so with Ambrose. And so it was.

For on the first of July, before going to his garden, he stayed at Heriot's barn to try to induce him to leave his peacocks for once, and spend the day with him in search of Ambrose; but Heriot, who was feeding his fowl, never looked up, and said sadly, "What need to seek Ambrose to-day? Ambrose has returned."

"Have you seen him?" cried Hobb joyfully.

"Early this morning," said Heriot.

"Where?"

"Down yonder in Poverty Bottom," said Heriot, pointing south of his barn to a hollow that went by that name. For there was a dismal habitation that had fallen into decay, a skeleton of a hut with only two rotting walls, and a riddled thatch for a roof. And it was worse than no habitation at all, for what might have been a green and lovely vale was made desolate and rank with disused things, rusting among the lumber of bricks and nettles. It was enough to have been there once never to go again. And Hobb had been there once.

But now, at Heriot's tidings, he ran down the hill a second time as though it led to Paradise, calling Ambrose as he went. And getting no answer he began to fear that either Heriot was mistaken, or Ambrose had gone away. His fears were unfounded, for coming to the Bottom he found Ambrose; yet he had to look twice to make sure it was he. For he was dressed only in rags, and less in rags than nakedness; and his skin was dirty and his hair unkempt. He was stooping about the ground gathering flints which he dropped into a battered pail he had found among the litter; but as the pail had no bottom the flints dropped through, and a small trail of them marked his passage over the rank grass.

Hobb strode towards him with dread in his bosom, and laid his hand on Ambrose's wild head, saying his name again. And at this his brother looked up and eyed him childishly, and said "Who is Ambrose?" And then the dread in Hobb took a definite shape, and he saw with horror that Ambrose had lost his wits. At that knowledge, and the sight of his neglected body and pitiful foolish smile, Hobb turned away and sobbed. But Ambrose with a little random laugh continued to drop flints in his bottomless bucket. And no word of Hobb's could win him from that place.

Then Hobb went back to the Burgh alone, and buried his face in his hands, and thought. He thought of the evil which had fallen upon his house, the nature of which was past his brothers' telling, and far beyond his guessing. And he said to himself, "I have done the best I could in governing the affairs of the Burgh and of our people, since the others were younger than I; but I see I have been selfish, keeping safety for my portion while they went into danger. And now there is none to set this evil right but I, and if I can I must follow the way they went, and do better than they at the end of it. And if I fail–as how should I succeed where they have not?–and if like them I too must suffer the dreadful loss of a part of myself, let it be so, and I shall at least fare as they have fared, and we will share an equal fate. Though what I have to lose I know not, to match their bright and noble qualities."

Then he called his steward, and gave all the affairs of the Burgh into his hands, and bade him have an eye to his brothers as far as possible, and to consult Heriot in any need, since he was the only one who could in the least be relied on. And then he walked out of the Burgh as he was, and went where his feet took him. He had not been walking half-an-hour when a sudden blast of wind tore the cap from his head, and blew it into the very middle of a pond.

Now the pond was exceedingly muddy, and as it seemed to Hobb rather deep, and he was wondering whether his old cap were worth wading for, and had almost decided to abandon it, when he saw a skinny yellow arm, like a frog's leg, stretch up through the water, and a hand that dripped with slime grope for his cap. With three strides he was in the pond, and he caught the cap and the hand together in his fist. The hand writhed in his, but Hobb was too strong for it; and with a mighty tug he dragged first the shoulder and then the head belonging to the hand into view. They were the shoulder and head of the muddy man whom you, dear maidens, have seen once before in this tale, but whom Hobb had never seen till then. And Jerry said, "Drat these losers of caps! will they never be done with disturbing the newts and me? 'Tis the fifth in a summer. And first there's one with a step like a wagtail, and next there's one as bold as a hawk, and after him one as comely as a wild swan, and last was one as wise as an owl. And now there's this one with nothing particular to him, but he grips as hard as all the rest rolled into one. Drat these cap-losers!"

Then Hobb who, for all his surprise to begin with, and his increase of excitement as the muddy creature spoke, had never slackened his grasp, said, "Old man, you are welcome to my cap if you will tell me what happened to the wearers of the four other caps after they left you."

"How do I know what happened to 'em?" growled the muddy man. "For they all went to High and Over, and after that 'twas nobody's business but Wind's, who lives there."

"Where's High and Over?" said Hobb.

"Find out," said the muddy man, and gave a wriggle that did him no good.

"I will," said Hobb, "for you shall tell me." And he looked so sternly at the muddy man that Jerry cringed, moaning:

"I thought by his voice 'twas a turtle, but I see by his eye 'tis an eagle. If you must know you must. And south of Cradle Hill that's south of Pinchem that's south of Hobb's Hawth that's south of the Burgh that's south of this pond is where High and Over is. And I'll thank you to let me go."

Nevertheless, when Hobb released him Jerry forgot the thanks and disappeared into the mud taking the cap with him. But Hobb did not care for his thanks. He hurried south as fast as his feet would carry him, going by the places he knew and then by those he did not, till he came at nightfall to High and Over.

And on High and Over a great wind was blowing from all the four quarters of heaven at once. And Hobb was caught up in the crossways of the wind, and turned about and about till he was dizzy, and all his thoughts were churning in his brain, so that he could not tell one from the other. And at the very crisis of the churning a voice in the wind from the north roared in his ear:

"What do you want that you lack?"

And a voice from the south murmured, "What is the wish of your heart?"

And a voice from the west sighed, "What is it that life has not given you?"

And a voice from the east shrieked, "What will you have, and lose yourself to have?"

And Hobb forgot his brothers and why he was there, he forgot everything but the dream of his soul which had been churned uppermost in that turmoil, and he cried aloud, "A golden rose!"

Then the four voices together roared and murmured and sighed and shrieked, "Open Winkins! Open Winkins! Open Winkins! Open Winkins!" And the tumult ceased with a shock, and the shock of silence overwhelmed Hobb with sickness and darkness, and his senses deserted him. As he became unconscious he seemed to be, not falling to earth, but rising in the air.

When he opened his eyes he was lying on his back in a strange world, a world of trees, whose noble trunks rose up as though they were columns of the sky, but their heaven was a green one, shutting out daylight, yet enclosing a luminous haunted air of its own. Such forests were unknown in Hobb's open barren land, and this alone would have made his coming to his senses appear rather to be a coming away from them. But he scarcely noticed his surroundings, he was only vaguely aware of them as the strange and beautiful setting of the strangest and most beautiful thing he had ever seen. For he was looking into the eyes of the loveliest woman in the world. She was bending above him, tall and slim and supple, her perfect body clad in a deep black gown, the hem and bosom of which were embroidered with celandines, and it had a golden belt and was lined with gold, as he could see when the loose sleeves fell open on her round and slender arms; and the bodice of the gown hung a little away from her stooping body, and was embroidered inside, as well as outside, with celandines, which made reflections on her white neck, as they will on a pure pool where they lean to watch their April loveliness. Her skin was as creamy as the petals of a burnet rose, and her eyes were the colour of peat-smoke, and her hair was as soft as spun silk and fell in two great shining waves of the purest gold over her bosom as she bent above him, and lay on the earth like golden grass on green water. A tress of the hair had flowed across his hand. And about her small fine head it was bound with a black fillet, a narrow coil so sleek and glossy that it was touched with silver lights, and this intense blackness made the gold of her head more dazzling. And Hobb lay there bewildered under the spell of her loveliness, asking nothing but to lie and gaze at it for ever.

But presently as he did not move she did, sinking upon her knees and stooping closer so that her breast nearly rested on his own, and she put her white hand softly on his forehead, and the smoke of her eyes was washed with tears that did not fall, and she said in a tremulous voice that fell on his ears like music heard in a dream, "Oh, stranger, if you are not dying, speak and move."

Then Hobb raised himself slowly on his elbow, and as she did not stir their faces were brought very close together; and not for an instant had they taken their eyes from each other. And he said in a low voice, not knowing either his voice or his own words, "I am not dying, but I think I must be dead." And suddenly the woman broke into a rain of tears, and she sank into his arms with her own about his neck, and she wept upon his heart as though her own were breaking. After a few moments she lifted her head and Hobb bent his to meet her quivering mouth. But before his lips touched hers she tore herself from his hold and fled away through the trees.

Hobb leaped to his feet, and scarcely knowing what he said cried, "Love! don't be afraid!" and he made no attempt to follow her, but stood where he was. He saw her halt in the distance, and turn, and hesitate, and struggle with herself as to her coming or going. At last she decided for the former, and came slowly between the pillars of the trees until she stood but a few paces from him with lowered lids. And she said sweetly, "Forgive me, stranger. But I found you here like one dead, and when you opened your eyes the fear was still on me, and when you moved and spoke the relief was too great, and I forgot myself and did what I did."

Then Hobb said gently, but with his heart beating on his ribs as fast as a swallow's wings beat the air, "I thought you did what you did because at that moment you knew, and I knew also, that it was your right for ever to weep and to laugh on my heart, and mine to bear for ever your laughing and weeping. But if it was not with you as with me, say so, and I will go away and not trouble you or your strange woods again."

Then the woman came quickly to him, and seized his hands saying, half agitated, half commanding, "It was with me as with you. And you shall stay with me for ever in these woods, and I will give you the desire of your life."

"And what shall I give you?" said Hobb.

"Whatever is nearest to yourself," she whispered, "the dearest treasure of your soul." And she looked at him with eyes full of passions which he could not fathom, but among them he saw terror. And with great tenderness he drew her once more to his heart, putting his strong and steady arms around her like a shield, and he said:

"Love whose name I do not know, what is nearer to myself than you, what dearer treasure has my soul than you? If I am to give you this, it is yourself I must give you; and I will restore to you whatever it is that you have lost through the agony in your soul. Be at peace, my love whose name I do not know." And holding her closely to him he bent his head and kissed her lips; and a great shudder passed through her, and then she lay still in his arms, with her strange eyes half-closed, and slow tears welling between the lids and hanging on her cheeks like the rain on the rose. And she let him quiet her with his big hands that were so used to care for flowers. Presently she lifted his right hand to her mouth, and kissed it before he could prevent her. Next she drew herself a little away from him, hanging back in his arms and gazing into his face as though her soul were all a question and his was the answer that she could not wholly read. And last she broke away from him with a strange laugh that ended on a sob.

Hobb said, "Will you not tell me what makes you unhappy?"

"I have no unhappiness," she answered, and quenched her sob with a smile as strange as her laugh. "My foolish lover, are you amazed that when her hour comes a woman knows not whether she is happy or unhappy? Oh, when joy is so great that it has come full circle with pain, what wonder that laughter and weeping are one?"

And Hobb believed her, for ever since he had opened his eyes upon her, he had felt in his own heart more joy than he could bear; and he knew that for this there is no remedy except to find a second heart to help in the bearing. And he knew it was the same with her. But now he saw that she was free for awhile from the excess of joy; and indeed these respites must happen even to lovers for their own sakes, lest they sink beneath the heavenly burden of their hearts. And her smile was like the diver's rise from his enchanted deeps to take again the common breath of man; and Hobb also smiled and said, "Come now, and tell me your name. For though love needs none for its object, I think the name itself is eager to be made known and loved beyond all other names for love's sake. As I will love yours, whatever it be."

"My name," she said, "is Margaret."

"It is an easy name to love," said Hobb, "for its own sake."

"And what is yours?" asked she.

And Hobb's smile broadened as he answered, "Try to love it, for my sake. For it is Hobb. Yet it is as fitting to me, who am as plain as my name, as your lovely name is fitting to you."

She cast a quick sly look at him and said, "If love knows not how to distinguish between joy and pain, since all that comes from the heart of love is joy, neither can it tell the plain from the beautiful, since all that comes under the eye of love is beauty. And I will find all things beautiful in my lover, from his name to the mole on his cheek."

For I know not, dear maidens, whether in describing him I had mentioned this peculiarity of Hobb's.

(JESSICA: You hadn't described him at all.

MARTIN: Well, now the omission is remedied.

JESSICA: Oh fie! as though it were enough to say the man had a mole on his left cheek!

MARTIN: Dear Mistress Jessica, did I say it was his left cheek?

JESSICA: Why–why!–where else would it be?

MARTIN: Nowhere else, on my honor. It was his left cheek.)

Then Hobb said to Margaret, "What place is this?"

"It is called Open Winkins," said she, and at the name he started to his feet, remembering much that he had forgotten. She looked at him anxiously and cajolingly and said, "You are not going away?" But he hardly heard her question. "Margaret," he said, "I have come from a place that may be far or near, for I do not know how I came; but I think it must be far, since I never saw this forest, or even heard of it, till a moment before my coming. But I am seeking a clue to a trouble that has come upon me this year, and I think the clue may be here. And now tell me, have you in these last four months seen in these woods anything of your people that are my brothers?–a child that once was merry, and a boy that once was brave, and a youth that once was beautiful, and a young man that once was wise? Have these ever been to Open Winkins?"

Margaret looked at him thoughtfully and said, "If they have, I have not seen them here. And I think they could not have been here without my knowledge. For no one lives here but I, and I live nowhere else."

Hobb sighed and said, "I had hoped otherwise. For, dear, I cannot rest until I have helped them." Then he told her as much as he knew of his four brothers; and her face clouded as he spoke, and her eyes looked hurt and angry by turns, and her beautiful mouth turned sulky. So then Hobb put his arm round her and said, "Do not be too troubled, for I know I shall presently find the cause and cure of these boys' ills." But Margaret pushed his arm away and rose restlessly to her feet, and paced up and down, muttering, "What do I care for these boys? It is not for them I am troubled, but for myself and you."

"For us?" said Hobb. "How can trouble touch us who love each other?"

At this Margaret threw herself on the grass beside him, and laid her head against his knee, and drew his hands to her, pressing them against her eyes and lips and throat and bosom as though she would never let them go; and through her kisses she whispered passionately, "Do you love me? do you truly love me? Oh, if you love me do not go away immediately. For I have only just found you, but your brothers have had you all their lives. And presently you shall go where you please for their sakes, but now stay a little in this wood for mine. Stay a month with me, only a month! oh, my heart, is a month much to ask when you and I found each other but an hour ago? For this time of love will never come again, and whatever other times there are to follow, if you go now you will be shutting your eyes upon the lovely dawn just as the sun is rising through the colours. And when you return, you will return perhaps to love's high-noon, but you will have missed the dawn for ever." And then she lifted her prone body a little higher until it rested once more in the curve of his arm against his heart, and she lay with her white face upturned to his, and her dark soft eyes full of passion and pleading, and she put up her fingers to caress his cheek, and whispered, "Give me my little month, oh, my heart, and at the end of it I will give you your soul's desire."

And not Hobb or any man could have resisted her.

So he promised to remain with her in Open Winkins, and not to go further on his quest till the next moon. And indeed, with all time before and behind him it did not seem much to promise, nor did he think it could hurt his brothers' case. But the kernel of it was that he longed to make the promise, and could not do otherwise than make the promise, and so, in short, he made the promise.

Then Margaret led him to two small lodges on the skirts of the forest; they were made of round logs, with moss and lichen still upon them, and they were overgrown with the loveliest growths of summer–with blackberry blossoms, a wonderful ghostly white, spread over the bushes like fairies' linen out to dry, and wild roses more than were in any other lovers' forest on earth, and the maddest sweetest confusion of honeysuckle you ever saw. Within, the rooms were strewn with green rushes, and hung with green cloths on which Margaret had embroidered all the flowers and berries in their seasons, from the first small violets blue and white to the last spindle-berries with their orange hearts splitting their rosy rinds. And there was nothing else under each roof but a round beech-stump for a stool, and a coffer of carved oak with metal locks, and a low mattress stuffed with lamb's-fleece picked from the thorns, and pillows filled with thistledown; and each couch had a green covering worked with waterlily leaves and white and golden lilies. "These are the Pilleygreen Lodges," said she, "and one is mine and one is yours; and when we want cover we will find it here, but when we do not we will eat and sleep in the open."

And so the whole of that July Hobb dwelt in the Pilleygreen Lodges in Open Winkins with his love Margaret. And by the month's end they had not done their talking. For did not a young lifetime lie behind them, and did they not foresee a longer life ahead, and between lovers must not all be told and dreamed upon? and beyond these lives in time, which were theirs in any case, had not love opened to them a timeless life of which inexhaustible dreams were to be exchanged, not always by words, though indeed by their mouths, and by the speech of their hands and arms and eyes? Hobb told her all there was to tell of the Burgh and his life with his brothers, both before and after their tragedies, but he did not often speak of them for it was a tale she hated to hear, and sometimes she wept so bitterly that he had ado to comfort her, and sometimes was so angry that he could hardly conciliate her. But such was his own gentleness that her caprices could withstand it no more than the shifting clouds the sun. And Margaret told him of herself, but her tale was short and simple–that her parents had died in the forest when she was young, and that she had lived there all her life working with her needle, twice yearly taking her work to the Cathedral Town to sell; and with the proceeds buying what she needed, and other cloths and silk and gold with which to work. She opened the coffer in Hobb's lodge and showed him what she did: veils that she had embroidered with cobwebs hung with dew, so that you feared to touch them lest you should destroy the cobweb and disperse the dew; and girdles thick-set with flowers, so that you thought Spring's self on a warm day had loosed the girdle from her middle, and lost it; and gowns worked like the feathers of a bird, some like the plumage on the wood-dove's breast, and others like a jay's wing; and there was a pair of blue slippers so embroidered that as they appeared and disappeared beneath a flowing skirt with reeds and sallows rising from a hem of water, you thought you had seen kingfishers; and there were tunics overlaid with dragonflies' wings and their delicate jointed bodies of green and black-and-yellow and Chalk-Hill blue; and caps all gay with autumn berries, scarlet rose-hips and wine-red haws, and the bright briony, and spindle with its twofold gayety, and one cap was all of wild clematis, with the vine of the Traveler's Joy twined round the brim and the cloud of the Old Man's Beard upon the crown. And Hobb said, "It is magic. Who taught you to do this?" And Margaret said, "Open Winkins."

Early in their talks he told her of his garden, and of the golden rose he tried to grow there, and of his failures; and Margaret knew by his voice and his eyes more than by his words that this was the wish of his heart. And she smiled and said, "Now I know with what I must redeem my promise. Yet I think I shall be jealous of your golden rose." And Hobb, lifting a wave of her glittering hair and making a rose of it between his fingers, asked, "How can you be jealous of yourself?" "Yet I think I am," said she again, "for it was something of myself you promised to give me presently, and I would rather have something of you." "They are the same thing," said Hobb, and he twisted up the great rose of her hair till it lay beside her temple under the ebony fillet. And as his hand touched the fillet he looked puzzled, and he ran his finger round its shining blackness and exclaimed, "But this too is hair!" Margaret laughed her strange laugh and said, "Yes, my own hair, you discoverer of open secrets!" And putting up her hands she unbound the fillet, and it fell, a slender coil of black amongst the golden flood of her head, like a serpent gliding down the sunglade on a river.

"Why is it like that?" said Hobb simply.

With one of her quick changes Margaret frowned and answered, "Why is the black yew set with little lamps? Why does a black cloud have an edge of light? Why does a blackbird have white feathers in his body? Must things be all dark or all light?" And she stamped her foot and turned hastily away, and began to do up her hair with trembling hands. And Hobb came behind her and kissed the top of her head. She turned on him half angrily, half smiling, saying, "No! for you do not like my black lock." And Hobb said very gravely, "I will find all things beautiful in my beloved, from her black lock to her blacker temper." Margaret shot a swift look at him and saw that he was laughing at her with an echo of her own words; and she flung her arms about him, laughing too. "Oh, Hobb!" said she, "you pluck out my black temper by the roots!"

So with teasing and talking and quarreling and kissing, and ever-growing love, July came near its close; and as love discovers or creates all miracles in what it loves, Hobb for pure joy grew light of spirit, and laughed and played with his beloved till she knew not whether she had given her heart to a child or a man; and again when the happiness that was in his soul shone through his eyes, he was so transfigured that, gazing on his beauty, she knew not whether she had received the heart of a man or a god. And the truth was that at this time Hobb was all three, since love, dear maidens, commands a region that extends beyond both birth and death, and includes all that is mortal in all that is eternal. And as for Margaret, she was all things by turns, sometimes as gay as sunbeams so that Hobb could scarcely follow her dancing spirit, but could only sun himself in the delight of it; and sometimes she was full of folly and daring, and made him climb with her the highest trees, and drop great distances from bough to bough, mocking at all his fears for her though he had none for himself; and sometimes when he was downcast, as happened now and then for thinking on his brothers, she forgot her jealousy in tenderness of his sorrow, and made him lean his head upon her breast, and talked to him low as a mother to her baby, words that perhaps were only words of comfort, yet seemed to him infinite wisdom, as the child believes of its mother's tender speech. And at all times she was lovelier than his dreams of her. Not once in this month did Hobb go out of the forest, which was confined on the north and north-west by big roads running to the world, and on all other sides by slopes of Downland. But whenever in their wanderings they arrived at any of these boundaries, Margaret turned him back and said, "I do not love the open; come away."

But on the last day of the month they came upon a very narrow neck of the treeless down, a green ride carved between their wood and a dark plantation that lay beyond, so close as to be almost a part of Open Winkins, but for that one little channel of space; and Hobb pointed to it and said, "That's a strange place, let us go there."

"No," said Margaret.

"But is it not our own wood?"

"How can you think so?" she said petulantly. "Do you not see how black it is in there? How can you want to go there? Come away."

"What is it called?" asked Hobb.

"The Red Copse," said she.

"Why?" asked Hobb.

"I don't know," said she.

"Have you never been there?" asked Hobb.

"No, never. I don't like it. It frightens me." And she clung to him like a child. "Oh, come away!"

She was trembling so that he turned instantly, and they went back to the Pilleygreen Lodges, getting wild raspberries for supper on the way. And after supper they sang songs, one against the other, each sweeter than the last, and told stories by turns, outdoing each other in fancy and invention; and at last went happily to bed.

But Hobb could not sleep. For in the night a wind came up and blew four times round his lodge, shaking it once on every wall. And it stirred in him the memory of High and Over, and with the memory misgivings that he could not name. And he rose restlessly from his couch and went out under the troubled moon, for a windy rack of clouds was blowing over the sky. But through it she often poured her amber light, and by it Hobb saw that Margaret's door was blowing on its hinges. He called her softly, but he got no answer; and then he called more loudly, but still she did not answer.

"She cannot be sleeping through this," said Hobb to himself; and with an uneasy heart he stood beside the door and looked into the lodge. And she was not there, and the couch had not been slept on. But on it lay her empty dress, its gold and black all tumbled in a heap, and on top of it was an embroidered smock. And something in the smock attracted him, so that he went quickly forward to examine it; and he saw that it was Heriot's shirt, that had been cut and changed and worked all over with peacocks' feathers. And he stood staring at it, astounded and aghast. Recovering himself, he turned to leave the lodge, but stumbled on the open coffer, hanging out of which was a second smock; and this one had two lions worked on the back and front, and one was red and the other white, and the smock had been Hugh's shirt. Then Hobb fell on the coffer and searched its contents till he had found Lionel's little shirt fashioned into a linen vest, with a tiny border of fantastic animals dancing round it, pink pigs, and black cocks, and white donkeys, and chestnut horses. And last of all he found the shirt of Ambrose, tattered and frayed, and every tatter was worked at the edge with a different hue, and here and there small mocking patches of colour had been stitched above the holes.

And at each discovery the light in Hobb's eyes grew calmer, and the beat of his heart more steady. And he walked out of the Pilleygreen Lodge and as straight as his feet would carry him across Open Winkins and the green ride, and into the Red Copse. As he went he shut down the dread in his heart of what he should find there, "For," said Hobb to himself, "I shall need more courage now than I have ever had." It was black in the Red Copse, with a blackness blacker than night, and the wild races of moonlight that splashed the floors of Open Winkins were here unseen. But a line of ruddy fireflies made a track on the blackness, and Hobb, going as softly as he might, followed in their wake. Just before the middle of the Copse they stopped and flew away, and one by one, as each reached the point deserted by its leader, darted back as though unable to penetrate with its tiny fire the fearful shadows that lay just ahead. But Hobb went where the fireflies could not go. And he found a dark silent hollow in the wood, where neither moon nor sun could ever come; and at the bottom of it a long straggling pool, with a surface as black as ebony, and mud and slime below. Here toads and bats and owls and nightjars had come to drink, with rats and stoats who left their footprints in the mud. And on the ground and bushes Hobb saw slugs and snails, woodlice, beetles and spiders, and creeping things without number. The gloom of the place was awful, and turned the rank foliage of trees and shrubs black in perpetual twilight. But what Hobb saw he saw by a light that had no place in heaven. For kneeling beside the pool was his love Margaret, her naked body crouched and bowed among the creatures of the mud; and her two waves of gold were flung behind her like a smooth mantle, but the one black lock was drawn forward over her head, and she was dipping and dipping it into the dank waters. And every time she drew the dripping lock from its stagnant bath, it glimmered with an unearthly phosphorescence, that shed a ghostly light upon the hollow, and all that it contained. And at each dipping the lock of hair came out blacker than before.

At last she was done, and she slowly squeezed the water from her unnatural tress, and laid it back in its place among the gold. And then she stretched her arms and sighed so heavily that the crawling creatures by the pool were startled. But less started than she, when lifting her head she saw the eyes of Hobb looking down on her. And such terror came into her own eyes that the look rang on his heart as though it had been a cry. Yet not a sound issued between her lips. And he said to himself, "Now I need more wisdom than I have ever had." And he continued to look steadily at her with eyes that she could not read. And presently he spoke.

"We have some promises to redeem to-night," he said, "and we will redeem them now. You promised me my perfect golden rose, and this night I am going out of Open Winkins and back to my own Burgh. And to-morrow, since I now know something of your power of gifts, I shall find the rose upon my hill, and in exchange for it I will keep my word and give you back yourself. But there is something more than this." And he went a little apart, and soon came back to her with his jerkin undone and his shirt in his hand. "You have my brothers' shirts and here is mine," he said. "To-night when I am gone you shall return to Open Winkins, and spend the hours in taking out the work you have put into their shirts. And in the morning when I meet them at the Burgh I shall know if you have done this. But in exchange for theirs I give you mine to do with as you will. And the only other thing I ask of you is this; that when you have taken out the work in their shirts, you will spend the day in making a white garment for the lady who will one day be my wife. And whatever other embroidery you put upon it, let it bear on the left breast a golden rose. And to-morrow night, if all is well at the Burgh, I will come here for the last time and fetch it from you."

Then Hobb laid his shirt beside her on the ground, and turned and went away. And she had not even tried to speak to him.

When Hobb got out of the Red Copse he presently found a road and followed it, hoping for the best. After awhile he saw a tramp asleep in a ditch, and woke him and asked him the way to the Burgh of the Five Lords. But the tramp had never heard of it. So then Hobb asked the way to Firle, and the tramp said "That's another matter," for Sussex tramps know all the beacons of the Downs, and he told him to go east. Which Hobb did, walking without rest through the night and dawn and day, here and there getting a lift that helped him forward. And in his heart he carried hope like a lovely flower, but under it a quick pain like a reptile's sting that felt to him like death. And he would not give way to the pain, but went as fast and as steadily as he could; and at last, with strained eyes and aching feet, and limbs he could scarcely drag for weariness, and the dust of many miles upon his shoes and clothes, he came to his own bare country and the Burgh. He rested heavily on the gate, and the first thing he saw was Lionel on the steps, laughing and playing with a litter of young puppies. And the next was Hugh climbing the castle wall to get an arrow that had lodged in a high chink. And out of a window leaned Heriot in all his young beauty, picking sweet clusters of the seven-sisters roses that climbed to his room. And in the doorway sat Ambrose, with a book on his knee, but his eyes fixed on the gate. And when he saw Hobb standing there he came quickly down the steps, calling to the others, "Lionel! Hugh! Heriot! our brother has come home." And Lionel rushed through the puppies, and Hugh dropped bodily from the wall, and Heriot leaped through the window. And the four boys clung to Hobb and kissed him and wrung his hands, and seemed as they would fight for very possession of him. And Hobb, with his arms about the younger boys, and Heriot's hand in his, leaned his forehead on Ambrose's cheek, and Ambrose felt his face grow wet with Hobb's tears. Then Ambrose looked at him with apprehension, and said in a low voice, "Hobb, what have you lost?" And Hobb understood him. And he answered in a voice as low, "My heart. But I have found my four brothers." They took him in and prepared a bath and fresh clothes for him, and a meal was ready when he was refreshed. He came among them steady and calm again, and the three youngest had nothing but rejoicing for him. And he saw that all memory of what had happened had been washed from them. But with Ambrose it was different, for he who had had his very mind effaced, in recovering his mind remembered all. And after the meal he took Hobb aside and said, "Tell me what has happened to you."

Then Hobb said, "Some things happen which are between two people only, and they can never be told. And what has passed in this last month, dear Ambrose, is only for her knowledge and mine. But as to what is going to happen, I do not yet know."

After a moment's silence Ambrose said, "Tell me this at least. Has she given you a gift?"

"She has given me you again," said Hobb.

"That is different," said Ambrose. "She has given us ourselves again, and our power to pursue the destiny of our natures. But no man is another man's destiny. And it was our error to barter our own powers to another in exchange for the small goals our natures desired. And so we lost a treasure for a trifle. For every man's power is greater than the thing he achieves by it. But what has she given you in exchange for what she has taken from you?" And as he spoke he looked into Hobb's gentle eyes, and thought that if he had lost his heart it was a loss that had somehow multiplied his possession of it. "What has she given you?" he said again.

"I shall not know," said Hobb, "until I have been to my garden. And I must go alone. And afterwards, Ambrose, I must ride away for another night and day, but then I will return to the Burgh for ever."

So he got his horse, and went to the Gardener's Hill, and his garden was blazing with flowers like a joyous welcome. But when he approached the bush on which his heart was set, he saw a great gold bloom upon it that startled him with its beauty; until coming closer he perceived that all the petals were rotten at the heart, and coiled in the center was a small black snake.

He plucked the rose from its stem, and as he looked at it his face grew bright, and he suddenly laughed aloud for joy; and he ran out of the garden and got on his horse, and rode with all his speed to Open Winkins. When he got there the moon had risen over the Pilleygreen Lodges.

And Margaret sat at the door of her lodge in the moonlight, putting the last stitches into her work.

But when she saw him coming she broke her thread, and rose and averted her head. Then Hobb dismounted and came and stood beside her, and saw that in some way she was changed from the woman he knew. Margaret, still not turning to him, muttered, "Do not look at me, please. For I am ugly and unhappy and afraid and nearly mad. And here are your brothers' shirts." She gave him the four shirts, restored to themselves. He took them silently. "And here," continued Margaret, "is her wedding-smock."

And Hobb took it from her, and saw that out of his own shirt, washed and bleached, she had made a lovely garment. And round it, from the hem upward, ran a climbing briar of exquisite delicacy, and with a beautiful design of spines and leaves; but the only flower upon it was a golden rose, worked on the heart of the smock in her own gold hair. And Hobb took it from her and again said nothing.

Then Margaret with a great cry, as though her heart were breaking, gasped, "Go! go quickly! I have done what you wanted. Go!"

"Yes, dear," said Hobb, "but you must come with me."

She turned then, whispering, "How can I go with you? What do you mean?" And she looked in his eyes and saw in them such infinite compassion and tenderness that she was overwhelmed, and swayed where she stood. And then his arms, which she had never expected to feel again, closed round her body, and she lay helplessly against him, and heard him say, "Love Margaret, you are my only love, and you worked the wedding-smock only for yourself. Oh, Margaret, did you think I had another love?"

She looked at him blankly as though she could not understand, and her face was full of wonder and joy and fright. And she hung away from him sobbing, "No, no, no! I cannot. I must not. I am not good enough."

"Which of us is good enough?" said Hobb. "So then we must all come to love for help."

And she cried again in an agony, "No, no, no! There is evil in me. And I lived alone and had nothing, nothing that ever lasted, for I was born on High and Over in the crossways of the winds, and they were the godfathers of my birth. And all my life they have blown things to and from me. And I tried to keep what they blew me; and I gave their hearts' desire to all comers, and took in exchange the best they could give me; for I thought that if it was fair for them to take, it was fair for me to take too. But nothing that I took mattered longer than a week or a day or an hour, neither laughter nor courage nor beauty nor wisdom–all, all were unstable till the winds blew me you. And as I looked at you lying there unconscious, something, I knew not what, seemed different from anything I had ever known, but when you opened your eyes I knew what it was, and my heart seemed to fly from my body. And I longed, as I had never longed with the others, to give you your soul's desire, and I have tried and tried, and I could not. I could not give you anything at all, but every hour of the day and night I seemed to be taking from you. And yet what you had to give me was never exhausted. And the evil in me often fought against you, when I dreaded your knowing the truth about me, and would have lied my soul away to keep you from knowing it; and when I was jealous of your love for your brothers. So again and again I failed, when I should have thought of nothing but that you loved me as I loved you. For did I not know of my own love that it could never give you cause to be jealous, nor would ever shrink from any truth it might know of you?–but now–but now!–oh, my heart, had I known, when you spoke last night of your bride, that I was she! I will never be she! I was not good enough. I fought myself in vain." And she drooped in his arms, nearly fainting.

"Love Margaret!" said Hobb, and the tears ran down his face, "I will fight for you, yes, and you will fight for me. And if you have sacrificed joy and courage and beauty and wisdom for my sake, I will give them all to you again; and yet you must also give them to me, for they are things in which without you I am wanting. But together we can make them. And when I went to my garden this morning, I thanked God that my rose was not perfect, and that you had not taken my heart, as you had taken joy and courage and beauty and wisdom, as a penalty for a gift. Their desires you could give them, and take their best in payment, but mine you could not give me in the same way. For in love there are no penalties and no payments, and what is given is indistinguishable from what is received." And he bent his head and kissed her long and deeply, and in that kiss neither knew themselves, or even each other, but something beyond all consciousness that was both of them.

Presently Hobb said, "Now let us go away from Open Winkins together, and I will take you to the Burgh. But you must go as my bride."

And Margaret, pale as death from that long kiss, withdrew herself very slowly from his arms. And her dark eyes looked strange in the moonlight as he had never seen them, and more beautiful, with a beauty beyond beauty; and deep joy too was in them, and an infinite wisdom, and a strength of courage, that seemed more than courage, wisdom and joy, for they had come from the very fountain of all these things. And very slowly, with that unfading look, she took off her black gown and put on the white bridal-smock she had made; and as soon as she had put it on she fell dead at his feet.

("I think," said Martin Pippin, "that you have now had plenty of time, Mistress Jessica, to ponder my riddle."

"Your riddle?" exclaimed Jessica. "But–good heavens! bother your riddle! get on with the story."

"How can I get on with it?" said Martin. "It's got there."

JOSCELYN: No, no, no! oh, it's impossible! oh, I can't bear it! oh, how angry I am with you!

MARTIN: Dear Mistress Joscelyn, why are you so agitated?

JOSCELYN: I? I am not at all agitated. I am quite collected. I only wish you were as collected, for I think you must be out of your wits. How dare you leave this story where it is? How dare you!

MARTIN: Dear, dear Mistress Joscelyn, what more is there to be told?

JOSCELYN: I do not care what more is to be told. Only some of it must be re-told. You must bring that girl instantly to life!

JOYCE: Of course you must! And explain why she died, though she mustn't die.

JENNIFER: No, indeed! and if it had to do with her black hair, you must pluck it out by the roots.

JESSICA: Yes, indeed! and you must do something about the horrible pool in the Red Copse, for perhaps that is what killed her.

JANE: Oh, it is too dreadful not to have a story with a wedding in it!

And little Joan leaned out of her branch and took Martin's hand in hers, and looked at him pleadingly, and said nothing.

"Will women never let a man make a thing in his own way?" said Martin. "Will they always be adding and changing this detail and that? For what a detail is death once lovers have kissed. However–!")

Not less than yourselves, my silly dears, was Hobb overwhelmed by that down-sinking of his love Margaret. And he fell on his knees beside her, and took her in his arms, and put his hand over the rose on her heart, that had ceased to beat. Suddenly it seemed to him that his hand had been stung, and he drew it away quickly, his eyes on the golden rose. And where she had left it just incomplete at his coming, he saw a jet-black speck. A light broke over him swiftly, and one by one he broke the strands at the rose's heart, and under it revealed a small black snake; and as the rose had been done from her own gold locks, so the snake had been done from the one black lock in the gold. Then at last Hobb understood why she had cried she was not good enough to be his bride, for she had fought in vain her last dark impulse to prepare death for the woman who should wear the bridal-smock. And he understood too the meaning of her last wonderful look, as she took the death upon herself. And he loved her, both for her fault and her redemption of it, more than he had ever thought that he could love her; for he had believed that in their kiss love had reached its uttermost. But love has no uttermost, as the stars have no number and the sea no rest.

Now at first Hobb thought to pluck the serpent from her breast, but then he said, "Of what use to destroy the children of evil? It is evil itself we must destroy at the roots." And very carefully he undid her beautiful hair, and laid its two gold waves on either side; but the slim black tress he gathered up in his hand until he held every hair of it, and one by one he plucked them from her head. And every time he plucked a hair the pain that had been under his heart stabbed him with a sting that seemed like death, and with each sting the mortal agony grew more acute, till it was as though the powers of evil were spitting burning venom on that steadfast heart, to wither it before it could frustrate them. But he did not falter once; and as he plucked the last hair out, Margaret opened her eyes. Then all pain leapt like a winged snake from his heart, and he forgot everything but the joy and wonder in her eyes as she lay looking up at him, and said, "What has happened to me? and what have you done?" And she saw the tress in his hand and understood, and she kissed the hand that had plucked the evil from her. Then, her smoky eyes shining with tears, but a smile on her pale lips, she said, "Come, and we will drown that hair for ever." So hand-in-hand they went across Open Winkins and over the way that led to the Red Copse. And as they pushed and scrambled through the bushes, what do you think they saw? First a shimmering light round the edge of the pool, and then a sheet of moon-daisies, the largest, whitest, purest blooms that ever were. And they stood there on their tall straight stems of tender green in hundreds and hundreds, guarding and sanctifying the place. It was like a dark cathedral with white lilies on the high altar. And they saw a cock blackbird wetting his whistle at the pool, and heard two others and a green woodpecker chuckling in the trees close by. And they had no eyes for slimy goblin things, even if there were any. And I don't believe there were.

They bound the black tress about a stone, and it sank among the reflections of the daisies in the water, there to be purified for ever. And the next day he put her behind him on his horse, and they rode to the garden on the eastern hills, and found on his bush a single perfect rose. And as she had given it to him, Hobb straightway plucked and gave it to her. For that is the only way to possess a gift.

And then they went together to the Burgh, and very soon after there was a wedding.

I am now all impatience, Mistress Jessica, to hear you solve my riddle.

FOURTH INTERLUDE

LIKE contented mice, the milkmaids began once more to nibble at their half-finished apples, and simultaneously nibbled at the just-finished story.

JESSICA: Do, pray, Jane, let us hear what conclusions you draw from all this.

JANE: I confess, Jessica, I am all at sea. The good and the evil were so confused in this tale that even now I can scarcely distinguish between black and gold. For had Margaret not done ill, who would have discovered how well Hobb could do? Yet who would wish her, or any woman, to do ill? even for the proof of his, or any man's, good?

MARTIN: True, Mistress Jane. Yet women are so strangely constructed that they have in them darkness as well as light, though it be but a little curtain hung across the sun. And love is the hand that takes the curtain down, a stronger hand than fear, which hung it up. For all the ill that is in us comes from fear, and all the good from love. And where there is fear to combat, love is life's warrior; but where there is no fear he is life's priest. And his prayer is even stronger than his sword. But men, always less aware of prayers than of blows, recognize him chiefly when he is in arms, and so are deluded into thinking that love depends on fear to prove his force. But this is a fallacy; love's force is independent. For how can what is immortal depend on what is mortal? Yet human beings must, by the very fact of being alive at all, partake of both qualities. And strongly opposed as we shall find the complexing elements of light and darkness in a woman, still more strongly opposed shall we discover them in a man. As I presume I have no need to tell you.

JOSCELYN: You presume too much. The elements that go to make a man are not to our taste.

MARTIN: My story I hope was so.

JOSCELYN: To some extent. And this pool in the Red Copse, is it hard to find?

MARTIN: Neither harder nor easier than all fairies' secrets. And at certain times in summer, when the wood is altogether lovely with centaury and purple loosestrife, you can hardly miss the pool for the fairies that flock there.

JOYCE: What dresses do they wear?

MARTIN: The most beautiful in the world. The dresses of White Admirals and Red, and Silver-Washed Fritillaries and Pearl-Bordered Fritillaries, and Large Whites and Small Whites and Marbled Whites and Green-Veined Whites, and Ringlets, and Azure Blues, and Painted Ladies, and Meadow Browns. And they go there for a Feast Day in honor of some Saint of the Fairies' Church. Which Hobb and Margaret also attended once yearly on each first of August, bringing a golden rose to lay upon the altars of the pool. And the year in which they brought it no more, two Sulphurs, with dresses like sunlight on a charlock-field, came with the rest to the moon-daisies' Feast; because not once in all their years of marriage had the perfect rose been lacking.

JESSICA: It relieves me to hear that. For I had dreaded lest their rose was blighted for ever.

JANE: And I too, Jessica. Especially when she died at his feet.

JOAN: And yet, Jane, she did not really die, and somehow I was sure she would live.

JOYCE: Yes, I was confident that Hobb would be as happy as he deserved to be.

JENNIFER: I do not know why, but even at the worst I could not imagine a love-story ending in tears.

MARTIN: Neither could I. Since love's spear is for woe and his shield for joy. Why, I know of but one thing that could have lost him that battle.

THREE OF THE MILKMAIDS: What thing?

MARTIN: Had the elements that go to make a man not been to Margaret's taste.

Conversation ceased in the Apple-Orchard.

JOSCELYN: Her taste would have been the more commendable, singer. And your tale might have been the better worth listening to. But since tales have nothing in common with truth, it's a matter of indifference to me whether Hobb's rose suffered perpetual blight or not.

JANE: And to me.

MARTIN: Then let the tale wilt, since indifference is a blight no story can suffer and live. And see! overhead the moon hangs undecided under a cloud, one half of her lovely body unveiled, the other half draped in a ghostly garment lit from within by the beauties she still keeps concealed; like a maid half-ready for her pillow, turned motionless on the brink of her couch by the oncoming dreams to which she so soon will wholly yield herself. Let us not linger, for her chamber is sacred, and we too have dreams that await our up-yielding.

Like a flock of clouds at sundown, the milkmaids made a golden group upon the grass, and soon, by their breathing, had sunk into their slumbers. All but Jessica, who instead of following their example, pushed the ground with her foot to keep herself in motion; and as she swung she bit a strand of her hair and knitted her brows. And Martin amused himself watching her. And presently as she swung she plucked a leaf from the apple-tree and looked at it, and let it go. And then she snapped off a twig, and flung it after the leaf. And next she caught at an apple, and tossed it after the twig.

"Well?" said Martin Pippin.

"Don't be in such a hurry," said Jessica. She got off the swing and walked round the tree, touching it here and there. And all of a sudden she threw an arm up into the branches and leaned the whole weight of her body against the trunk, and began to whistle.

"Give it up?" said Martin Pippin.

"Stupid!" said Jessica. "I've guessed it."

"Impossible!" said Martin. "Nobody ever guesses riddles. Riddles were only invented to be given up. Because the pleasure of not being guessed is so much greater than the pleasure of having guessed. Do give it up and let me tell you the answer. Even if you know the answer, please, please give it up, for I am dying to tell it you."

"I shall never have saved a young man's life easier," said Jessica, "and as you saved mine before the story, I suppose I ought to save yours after it. How often, by the way, have you saved a lady's life?"

"As often as she thought herself in danger of losing it," said Martin. "It happens every other minute with ladies, who are always dying to have, or to do, or to know–this thing or that."

"I hope," said Jessica, "I shall not die before I know everything there is to know."

"What a small wish," said Martin.

"Have you a bigger one?"

"Yes," said he; "to know everything, there is not to know."

JESSICA: Oh, but those are the only things I do know.

MARTIN: It is a knowledge common to women.

JESSICA: How do you know?

MARTIN: I'm sure I don't know.

JESSICA: I don't think, Master Pippin, that you know a great deal about women.

And she put out her tongue at him.

MARTIN: (Take care!) I know nothing at all about women.

JESSICA: (Why?) Yet you pretend to tell love-stories.

MARTIN: (Because if you do that I can't answer for the consequences.) It is only by women's help that I tell them at all.

JESSICA: (I'm not afraid of consequences. I'm not afraid of anything.) Who helped you tell this one?

MARTIN: (Your courage will have to be tested.) You did.

JESSICA: Did I? How?

MARTIN: Because what you love in an apple-tree is not the leaf or the flower or the bough or the fruit–it is the apple-tree. Which is all of these things and everything besides; for it is the roots and the rind and the sap, it is motion and rest and colour and shape and scent, and the shadows on the earth and the lights in the air–and still I have not said what the tree is that you love, for thought I should recapitulate it through the four seasons I should only be telling you those parts, none of which is what you love in an apple-tree. For no one can love the part more than the whole till love can be measured in pint-pots. And who can measure fountains? That's the answer, Mistress Jessica. I knew you'd have to give it up. (Take care, child, take care!)

JESSICA: (I won't take care!). I knew the answer all the time.

MARTIN: Then you know what your apple-tree has to do with my story.

JESSICA: Yes, I suppose so.

MARTIN: Please tell me.

JESSICA: No.

MARTIN: But I give it up.

JESSICA: No.

MARTIN: That's not fair. People who give it up must always be told, in triumph if not in pity.

JESSICA: I shan't tell.

MARTIN: You don't know.

JESSICA: I'll box your ears.

MARTIN: If you do–!

JESSICA: Quarreling's silly.

MARTIN: Who began it?

JESSICA: You did. Men always do.

MARTIN: Always. What was the beginning of your quarrel with men?

JESSICA: They said girls can't throw straight.

MARTIN: Silly asses! I'd like to see them throw as straight as girls. Did you ever watch them at it? Men can throw straight in one direction only–but watch a girl! she'll throw straight all round the compass. Why, a man will throw straight at the moon and miss it by the eighth of an inch; but a girl will throw at the sun and hit the moon as straight as a die. I never saw a girl throw yet without straightway finding some mark or other.

JESSICA: Yes, but you can't convince a man till he's hit.

MARTIN: Hit him then.

JESSICA: It didn't convince him. He said I'd missed. And he said he had hi– he wasn't convinced.

MARTIN: Did he really say that? These men can no more talk straight than throw straight. Can you talk straight, Jessica?

JESSICA: Yes, Martin.

MARTIN: Then tell me what your apple-tree has to do with my story.

JESSICA: Bother. All right. Because wisdom and beauty and courage and laughter can all be measured in pint-pots. And any or all of these things can be dipped out of a fountain– You thought I didn't know, but I do know.

MARTIN: (Take care!) Where did you get all this knowledge?

JESSICA: And that was why Margaret could take what she took from Lionel and Hugh and Heriot and Ambrose, because it was something measurable. Yes, because even a gay spirit can be sad at times, and a strong nerve weak, and a beautiful face ugly, and a clever brain dull. But when it came to taking what Hobb had, she could take and take without exhausting it, and give and give and always have something left to give, because that wasn't measurable. And the tree is the tree, and love is never anything else but love.

MARTIN: Oh, Jessica, who has been your schoolmaster?

JESSICA: And so when she threw away her four pints what did it matter, any more than when the tree loses its leaves, or its flowers, or snaps a twig, or drops its apples? For though nobody else thought them lovely or clever or witty or splendid, she and Hobb were so to each other for ever and ever; because–

MARTIN: Because?

JESSICA: It doesn't matter. I've told you enough, and you thought I couldn't tell you anything, and I simply hated saying it, but you thought I couldn't throw straight and I can, and your riddle was as simple as pie.

MARTIN: (Look out, I tell you!) You have thrown as straight as a die. And now I will ask you a straight question. Will you give me your key to Gillian's prison?

JESSICA: Yes.

MARTIN: Because you dreaded lest Hobb's rose was blighted for ever?

JESSICA: No. Because it's a shame she should be there at all.

And she gave him the key.

MARTIN: You honest dear.

JESSICA: You thought I was going to beg the question–didn't you, Martin?

MARTIN: Put in your tongue, or–

JESSICA: Or what?

MARTIN: You know what.

JESSICA: I don't know what.

MARTIN: Then you must take the consequences.

And she took the consequences on both cheeks.

JESSICA: Oh! Oh, if I had guessed you meant that, do you suppose for a moment that I would have–?

MARTIN: You dishonest dear.

JESSICA: I don't know what you mean.

MARTIN: How crooked girls throw!

She boxed his ears heartily and ran to her comrades. When she was perfectly safe she turned round and put out her tongue at him.

Then they both lay down and went to sleep.

Martin was wakened by water squeezed on his eyelids. He looked up and saw Joscelyn wringing out her little handkerchief in the pannikin.

"Let us have no nonsense this morning," said she.

"I like that!" mumbled Martin. "What's this but nonsense?" He sat up, drying his face on his sleeve. "What a silly trick," he said.

"Rubbish," said Joscelyn. "Our master is due, and yesterday you overslept yourself and were troublesome. Go to your tree this instant."

"I shall go when I choose," said Martin.

"Maids! maids! maids!"

"This instant!" said Joscelyn, and dipped her handkerchief in the pannikin.

Martin crawled into the tree.

"Is a dog got into the orchard, maids?" said Old Gillman, looking through the hedge.

"What an idea, master," said Joscelyn.

"I thought I seed one wagging his tail in the grass."

The girls burst out laughing; they laughed till the apples shook, and Old Gillman laughed too, because laughter is catching. And then he stopped laughing and said, "Is an echo got into the orchard?"

And the startled girls laughed louder than ever, and they grew red in the face, and tears stood in their eyes, and Joscelyn had to go and lean against the russet tree, where she stood frowning like a stepmother.

"'Tis well to be laughing," said Old Gillman, "but have ye heard my daughter laughing yet?"

"No, master," said Jessica, "but I shouldn't wonder if it happened any day."

"Any day may be no day," groaned Gillman, "and though it were some day, as like as not I'd not be here to see the day. For I'm drinking myself into my grave, as Parson warned me yesternight, coming for my receipt for mulled beer. Gillian!" he implored, "when will ye think better of it, and save an old man's life?"

But for all the notice she took of him, he might have been the dog barking in his kennel.

"Bitter bread for me, maids, and sweet bread for you," said the farmer, passing the loaves through the gap. "'Tis plain fare for all these days. May the morrow bring cake."

"Oh, master, please!" called Jessica. "I would like to know how Clover, the Aberdeen, gets on without me."

"Gets on as best she can with Oliver," said Gillman, "though that fretty at times 'tis as well for him she's polled. Yet all he says is 'Patience.' But I say, will patience keep us all from rack and ruin?"

And he went away shaking his head.

"Why did you laugh?" stormed Joscelyn, as soon as he was out of earshot.

"How could I help it?" pleaded Martin. "When the old man laughed because you laughed, and you laughed for another reason–hadn't I a third reason to laugh? But how you glared at me! I am sorry I laughed. Let us have breakfast."

"You think of nothing but mealtimes," said Joscelyn crossly; and she carried Gillian's bread to the Well-House, where she discovered only the little round top of yesterday's loaf. For every crumb of the bigger half had been eaten. So Joscelyn came away all smiles, tossing the ball of bread in the air, and saying as she caught it, "I do believe Gillian is forgetting her sorrow."

"I am certain of it," agreed Martin, clapping his hands. And she flung the top of the loaf to his right, and he made a great leap to the left and caught it. And then he threw it to Jessica, who tossed it to Joan, who sent it to Joyce, who whirled it to Jennifer, who spun it to Jane, who missed it. And all the girls ran to pick it up first, but Martin with a dexterous kick landed it in the duckpond, where the drake got it. And he and the ducks squabbled over it during the next hour, while Martin and the milkmaids breakfasted on bread and apples with no squabbling and great good spirits.

And after breakfast Martin lay on his back, chewing a grassblade and counting the florets on another, whispering to himself as he plucked them one by one. And the girls watched him. He did it several times with several blades of grass, and always looked disappointed at the end.

"Won't it come right?" asked little Joan.

"Won't what come right?" said Martin.

"Oh, I know what you're doing," said little Joan; and she too plucked a blade and began to count–

"Tinker,
Tailor,
Soldier,
Sailor "–

"I'm sure I wasn't," said Martin. "Tailor indeed!"

"Well, something like that," said Joan.

"Nothing at all like that. Oh, Mistress Joan! a tailor. Why, even if I were a maid like yourselves, do you think I'd give fate the chance to set me on my husband's cross-knees for the rest of my life?"

"What would you do then if you were a maid?" asked Joyce.

"If I were a town-maid," said Martin, "I should choose the most delightful husbands in the city streets." And plucking a fresh blade he counted aloud,

"Ballad-
singer,
Churchbell-
ringer,
Chimneysweep,
Muffin-man,
Lamplighter,
King!
Ballad-
singer,
Churchbell-
ringer,
Chimneysweep"–

"There, Mistress Joyce," said Martin Pippin, "I should marry a Sweep and sit in the tall chimneys and see stars by daylight."

"Oh, let me try!" cried Joyce.

And–"Let me!" cried five other voices at once.

So he chose each girl a blade, and she counted her fate on it, with Martin to prompt her. And Jessica got the Chimney-sweep, and vowed she saw Orion's belt round the sun, and Jennifer got the Lamplighter and looked sorrowful, for she too wished to see stars in the morning; but Martin consoled her by saying that she would make the dark to shine, and set whispering lights in the fog, when men had none other to see by. And Joyce got the Muffin-man, and Martin told her that wherever she went men, women, and children would run to their snowy doorsteps, for she would be as welcome as swallows in spring. And Jane got the Bell-Ringer, and Martin said an angel must have blessed her birth, since she was to live and die with the peals of heaven in her ears. And Joscelyn got the Ballad-Singer.

"What about Ballad-Singers, Master Pippin?" asked Joscelyn.

"Nothing at all about Ballad-Singers," said Martin. "They're a poor lot. I'm sorry for you."

And Joscelyn threw her stripped blade away saying, "It's only a silly game."

But little Joan got the King. And she looked at Martin, and he smiled at her, and had no need to say anything, because a king is a king. And suddenly every girl must needs grow out of sorts with her fate, and find other blades to count, until each one had achieved a king to her satisfaction. All but Joscelyn, who said she didn't care.

"You are quite right," said Martin, "because none of this applies to any of you. These are town-fortunes, and you are country-maids."

And he plucked a new blade, reciting,

"Mower,
Reaper,
Poacher,
Keeper,
Cowman,
Thatcher,
Plowman,
Herd."

"How dull!" said Jessica. "These are men for every day."

"So is a husband," said Martin. "And to your town-girls, who no longer see romance in a Chimneysweep, your Poacher's a Pirate and your Shepherd a Poet. Could you not find it in your heart, Mistress Jessica, to put up with a Thatcher?"

"That's enough of husbands," said Jessica.

"Then what of houses?" said Martin. "Where shall we live when we're wed?–

'Under a thatch,
In a ship's hatch,
An inn, a castle,
A brown paper parcel '–

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Joscelyn.

"For the sake of the rime," begged Martin. But the girls were not interested in houses. Yet the rest of the morning they went searching the orchard for the grass of fortune, and not telling. But once Martin, coming behind Jessica, distinctly heard her murmur "Thatcher!" and smile. And at another time he saw Joyce deliberately count her blade before beginning, and nip off a floret, and then begin; and the end was "Plowman." And presently little Joan came and knelt beside him where he sat counting on his own behalf, and said timidly, "Martin."

"Yes, dear?" said Martin absentmindedly.

"Oh. Martin, is it very wicked to poach?"

"The best men all do it," said Martin.

"Oh. Please, what are you counting?"

"You swear you won't tell?" said Martin, with a side-glance at her. She shook her head, and he pulled at his grass whispering–

"Jennifer,
Jessica,
Jane,
Joan,
Joyce,
Joscelyn,
Gillian –"

"And the last one?" said little Joan, with a rosy face; for he had paused at the eighth.

"Sh!" said Martin, and stuck his blade behind his ear and called "Dinner!"

So they came to dinner.

"Have you not found," said Martin, "that after thinking all the morning it is necessary to jump all the afternoon?" And he got the ropes of the swing and began to skip with great clumsiness, always failing before ten, and catching the cord round his ankles. At which the girls plied him with derision, and said they would show him how. And Jane showed him how to skip forwards, and Jessica how to skip backwards, and Jennifer how to skip with both feet and stay in one spot, and Joyce how to skip on either foot, on a run. And Joscelyn showed him how to skip with the rope crossed and uncrossed by turns. But little Joan showed him how to skip so high and so lightly that she could whirl the rope twice under her feet before they came down to earth like birds. And then the girls took the ropes by turns, ringing the changes on all these ways of skipping; or two of them would turn a rope for the others, while they skipped the games of their grandmothers: "Cross the Bible," "All in together," "Lady, lady, drop your purse!" and "Cinderella lost her shoe;" or they turned two ropes at once for the Double Dutch; and Martin took his run with the rest. And at first he did very badly, but as the day wore on improved, until by evening he was whirling the rope three times under his feet that glanced against each other in mid-air like the knife and the steel. And the girls clapped their hands because they couldn't help it, and Joan said breathlessly:

"How quick you are! it took me ten days to do that."

And Martin answered breathlessly, "How quick you were! it took me ten years."

"Are you ever honest about anything, Master Pippin?" said Joscelyn petulantly.

"Three times a day," said Martin, "I am honestly hungry."

So they had supper.

Supper done, they clustered as usual about the story-telling tree, and Martin looked inquiringly from Jane to Joscelyn and from Joscelyn to Jane. And Joscelyn's expression was one of uncontrolled indifference, and Jane's expression was one of bridled excitement. So Martin ignored Joscelyn and asked Jane what she was thinking about.

"A great number of things, Master Pippin," said she. "There is always so much to think about."

"Is there?" said Martin.

"Oh, surely you know there is. How could you tell stories else?"

"I never think when I tell stories," said Martin. "I give them a push and let them swing."

"Oh but," said Jane, "it is very dangerous to speak without thinking. One might say anything."

"One does," agreed Martin, "and then anything happens. But people who think before speaking often end by saying nothing. And so nothing happens."

"Perhaps it's as well," said Joyce slyly.

"Yet the world must go round, Mistress Joyce. And swings were made to swing. Do you think, Mistress Jane, if you sat in the swing I should think twice, or even once, before giving it a push?"

Jane considered this, and then said gravely, "I think, Master Pippin, you would have to think at least once before pushing the swing to-night; because it isn't there."

"What a wise little milkmaid you are," said Martin, looking about for the skipping-ropes.

"Yes," said Jessica, "Jane is wiser than any of us. She is extremely wise. I wonder you hadn't noticed it."

"Oh, but I had," said Martin earnestly, fixing the swinging ropes to their places. "There, Mistress Jane, let me help you in, and I will give you a push."

He offered her his hand respectfully, and Jane took it saying, "I don't like swinging very high."

"I will think before I push," said Martin. And when she was settled, with her skirts in order and her little feet tucked back, he rocked the swing so gently that not an apple fell nor a milkmaid slipped, clambering to her place. And Martin leaned back in his and shut his eyes.

"We are waiting," observed Joscelyn overhead.

"So am I," sighed Martin.

"For what?"

"For a push."

"But you're not swinging."

"Neither's my story. And it will take seven pair of arms to set it going." And he fixed his eyes on Gillian in her sorrow, but she did not lift her face.

"Here's six to start the motion of themselves," said Joscelyn, "and it only remains to you to attract the seventh willy-nilly."

"It were easier," said Martin, "to unlock Saint Peter's Gates with cowslips."

"I was not talking of impossibilities, Master Pippin," said Joscelyn.

"Why, neither was I," said Martin; "for did you never hear that cowslips, among all the golden flowers of spring, are the Keys of Heaven?"

And sending a little chime from his lute across the Well-House he sang–

She lost the keys of heaven
  Walking in a shadow,
  Sighing for her lad O
She lost her keys of heaven.
She saw the boys and girls who flocked
Beyond the gates all barred and locked–
And oh! sighed she, the locks are seven
  Betwixt me and my lad O,
And I have lost my keys of heaven
  Walking in a shadow.

She found the keys of heaven
  All in a May meadow,
  Singing for her lad O
She found her keys of heaven.
She found them made of cowslip gold
Springing seven-thousandfold–
And oh! sang she, ere fall of even
  Shall I not be wed O?
For I have found my keys of heaven
  All in a May meadow.

By the end of the song Gillian was kneeling upright among the mallows, and with her hands clasped under her chin was gazing across the duckpond.

"Well, well!" exclaimed Joscelyn, "cowslips may, or may not, have the power to unlock the heavenly gates. But there's no denying that a very silly song has unlocked our Mistress's lethargy. So I advise you to seize the occasion to swing your tale on its way."

"Then here goes," said Martin, "and I only pray you to set your sympathies also in motion while I endeavor to keep them going with the story of Proud Rosalind and the Hart-Royal."

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