Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard | Page 8

Mother!" she said, "if you had only lived they would not
have stolen the flower from my hair while I sat weeping."
Above her head a whispering voice made answer, "Oh, Daughter,
Daughter, dry your sweet eyes. You shall wear this other flower when
yours is gone over the duckpond to Adversane."
And lo! A second primrose dropped out of the skies into her lap. And
that day the lovely Gillian wept no more.
PART II
It happened that on an afternoon in May Martin Pippin passed again
through Adversane, and as he passed he thought, "Now certainly I have
been here before," but he could not remember when or how, for a full
month had run under the bridges of time since then, and man's memory
is not infinite.
But in walking by a certain garden he heard a sound of sobbing; and

curiosity, of which he was largely made, caused him to climb the old
brick wall that he might discover the cause. What he saw from his
perch was a garden laid out in neat plots between grassy walks edged
with double daisies, red, white and pink, or bordered with sweet herbs,
or with lavender and wallflower; and here and there were cordons of
fruit-trees, apple, plum and cherry, and in a sunny corner a clump of
flowering currant heavy with humming bees; and against the inner
walls flat pear-trees stretched their long straight lines, like music-staves
whereon a lovely melody was written in notes of snow. And in the
midst of all this stood a very young man with a face as brown as a berry.
He was spraying the cordons with quassia-water. But whenever he
filled his syringe he wept so many tears above the bucket that it was
always full to the brim.
When he had watched this happen several times, Martin hailed the
young man.
"Young master!" said Martin, "the eater of your plums will need sugar
thereto, and that's flat."
The young man turned his eyes upward.
"There is not sugar enough in all the world," he answered, "to sweeten
the fruits that are watered by my sorrows."
"Then here is a waste of good quassia," said Martin, "and I think your
name is Robin Rue."
"It is," said Robin, "and you are Martin Pippin, to whom I owe more
than to any man living. But the primrose you brought me is dead this
five-and-twenty days."
"And what of your Gillian?"
"Alas! How can I tell what of her? She is where she was and I am 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