Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard | Page 7

leaped the gate, mocked at a cuckoo, plucked a primrose, and went
singing up the road.
Robin Rue resumed his sowing and his tears.
"Maids," said Joscelyn, "what is this coming across the duckpond?"
"It is a man," said little Joan.
The six girls came running and crowding to the wicket, standing
a-tiptoe and peeping between each other's sunbonnets. Their
sunbonnets and their gowns were as green as lettuce-leaves.
"Is he coming on a raft?" asked Jessica, who stood behind.
"No," said Jane, "he is coming on his two feet. He has taken off his
shoes, but I fear his breeches will suffer."
"He is giving bread to the ducks," said Jennifer.

"He has a lute on his back," said Joyce.
"Man!" cried Joscelyn, who was the tallest and the sternest of the
milkmaids, "go away at once!"
Martin Pippin was by now within arm's-length of the green gate. He
looked with pleasure at the six virgins fluttering in their green gowns,
and peeping bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked under their green bonnets.
Beyond them he saw the forbidden orchard, with
cuckoo-flower and
primrose, daffodil and celandine, silver
windflower and sweet violets
blue and white, spangling the gay grass. The twisted apple-trees were in
young leaf.
"Go away!" cried all the milkmaids in a breath. "Go away!"
"My green maidens," said Martin, "may I not come into your orchard?
The sun is up, and the shadow lies fresh on the grass. Let me in to rest a
little, dear maidens--if maidens indeed you be, and not six leaflets
blown from the apple-branches."
"You cannot come in," said Joscelyn, "because we are guarding our
master's daughter, who sits yonder weeping in the Well-House."
"That is a noble and a tender duty," said Martin. "From what do you
guard her?"
The milkmaids looked primly at one another, and little Joan said, "It is
a secret."
Martin: I will ask no more. And what do you do all day long?
Joyce: Nothing, and it is very dull.
Martin: It must be still duller for your master's daughter.
Joan: Oh, no, she has her thoughts to play with.
Martin: And what of your thoughts?

Joscelyn: We have no thoughts. I should think not indeed!
Martin: I beg your pardon. But since you find the hours so tedious, will
you not let me sing and play to you upon my lute? I will sing you a
song for a spring morning, and you shall dance in the grass like any
leaf in the wind.
Jane: I think there can be no harm in that.
Jessica: It can't matter a straw to Gillian.
Joyce: She would not look up from her thoughts though we footed it all
day.
Joscelyn: So long as he is on one side of the gate--
Jennifer: --and we on the other.
"I love to dance," said little Joan.
"Man!" cried the milkmaids in a breath, "play and sing to us!"
"Oh, maidens," answered Martin merrily, "every tune deserves its fee.
But don't look so troubled--my hire shall be of the lightest. Let me see!
You shall fetch me the flower from the hair of your little mistress who
sits weeping on the coping with her face hidden in her shining locks."
At this the milkmaids clapped their hands, and little Joan, running to
the Well-House, with a touch like thistledown drew from the weeper's
yellow hair a yellow primrose. She brought it to the gate and laid it in
Martin's hand.
"Now you will play for us, won't you?" said she. "A dance for a
spring-morning when the leaves dance on the apple-trees."
Then Martin tuned his lute and played and sang as follows, while the
girls took hands and danced in a green chain among the twisty trees.
The green leaf dances now,
The green leaf dances now,
The green

leaf with its tilted wings
Dances on the bough,
And every rustling
air
Says, I've caught you, caught you,
Leaf with tilted wings,

Caught you in a snare!
Whose snare? Spring's,
That bound you to
the bough
Where you dance now,
Dance, but cannot fly,
For all
your tilted wings
Pointing to the sky;
Where like martins you would
dart
But for Spring's delicious art
That caught you to the bough,

Caught, yet left you free
To dance if not to fly--oh see!
As you are
dancing now,
Dancing on the bough,
Dancing on the bough,

Dancing with your tilted wings
On the apple-bough.
Now as Martin sang and the milkmaids danced, it seemed that Gillian
in her prison heard and saw nothing except the music and the
movement of her sorrows. But presently she raised her hand and
touched her hair-band, and then she lifted up the fairest face Martin had
ever seen, so that he needs must see it nearer; and he took the green
gate in one stride, and the green dancers never observed him. Then
Gillian's tender mouth parted like an opening quince-blossom, and--
"Oh, Mother,