Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard | Page 8

cause. What he saw from his perch was a garden laid out in neat plots between grassy walks edged with double daisies, red, white and pink, or bordered with sweet herbs, or with lavender and wallflower; and here and there were cordons of fruit-trees, apple, plum and cherry, and in a sunny corner a clump of flowering currant heavy with humming bees; and against the inner walls flat pear-trees stretched their long straight lines, like music-staves whereon a lovely melody was written in notes of snow. And in the midst of all this stood a very young man with a face as brown as a berry. He was spraying the cordons with quassia-water. But whenever he filled his syringe he wept so many tears above the bucket that it was always full to the brim.
When he had watched this happen several times, Martin hailed the young man.
"Young master!" said Martin, "the eater of your plums will need sugar thereto, and that's flat."
The young man turned his eyes upward.
"There is not sugar enough in all the world," he answered, "to sweeten the fruits that are watered by my sorrows."
"Then here is a waste of good quassia," said Martin, "and I think your name is Robin Rue."
"It is," said Robin, "and you are Martin Pippin, to whom I owe more than to any man living. But the primrose you brought me is dead this five-and-twenty days."
"And what of your Gillian?"
"Alas! How can I tell what of her? She is where she was and I am here where I am. What will become of me?"
"There are riddles without answers," observed Martin.
"I can answer this one. I shall fall into a decline and die. And yet I ask no more than to send her a ring to wear on her finger, and have her ring to wear on mine."
"Would this satisfy you?" asked Martin.
"I could then cling to life," said Robin Rue, "long enough at least to finish my spraying."
"We may praise God as much for small mercies," said Martin?pleasantly, "as for great ones; and trees must not be blighted that were appointed to fruit."
So saying, he unstraddled his legs and dropped into the road, tickled an armadillo with his toe, twirled the silver ring on his finger, and went away singing.
"Maidens," said Joscelyn, "here is that man come again."
Maids' memories are longer than men's. At all events, the milkmaids knew instantly to whom she referred, although nearly a month had passed since his coming.
"Has he his lute with him?" asked little Joan.
"He has. And he is giving cake to the ducks; they take it from his hand. Man, go away immediately!"
Martin Pippin propped his elbows on the little gate, and looked smiling into the orchard, all pink and white blossom. The trees that had been longest in bloom were white cascades of flower, others there were flushed like the cheek of a sleeping child, and some were still studded with rose-red buds. The grass was high and full of spotted orchis, and tall wild parsley spread its nets of lace almost abreast of the lowest boughs of blossom. So that the milkmaids stood embraced in meeting flowers, waist-deep in the orchard growth: all gowned in pink lawn with loose white sleeves, and their faces flushed it may have been with the pink linings to their white bonnets, or with the evening rose in the west, or with I know not what.
"Go away!" they cried at the intruder. "Go away!"
"My rose-white maidens," said Martin, "will you not let me into your orchard? For the stars are rising with the dew, and the hour is at peace. Let me in to rest, dear maidens--if maidens indeed you be, and not six blossoms fallen from the apple-boughs."
"You cannot come in," said Joscelyn, "lest you are the bearer of a word to our master's daughter who sits weeping in the Well-House."
"From whom should I bear her a word?" asked Martin Pippin in great amazement.
The milkmaids cast down their eyes, and little Joan said, "It is a secret."
Martin: I will inquire no further. But shall I not play a little on my lute? It is as good an hour for song and dance as any other, and I will make a tune for a sunny May evening, and you shall sway among the grasses like any flower on the bough."
Jane: In my opinion that can hurt nobody.
Jessica: Gillian wouldn't care two pins.
Joyce: She would utter no word though we tripped it for a week.
Joscelyn: So long as he keeps to his side of the hedge--
Jennifer: --and we to ours.
"Oh, I do love to dance!" cried little Joan.
"Man!" they commanded him as one voice, "play and sing to us instantly!"
"My pretty ones," laughed Martin Pippin, "songs are as light as air, but worth more than pearls and diamonds. What