Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard (36 page)

"What dial's that?" asked Joyce. And Martin looked about for a Dandelion Clock, and having found one blew it all away with a single puff and cried, "One o'clock and dinner-time!"

Then Jennifer got a second puff and blew on it so carefully that she was able to say, "Seven o'clock and supper-time!"

And then all the girls hastened to get clocks of their own, and make their favorite time o'day.

"When I can't make it come right," confided little Joan to Martin, "I pull them off and say six o'clock in the morning."

"It's a very good way," agreed Martin, "and six o'clock in the morning is a very good hour, except for lazy lie-abeds. Isn't it?"

"Nancy always looked for me at six of a summer morning," said little Joan.

"Yes," said Martin, "milkmaids must always turn their cows in before the dew's dry. And carters their horses."

"Sometimes they get so mixed in the lane," said Joan.

"I am sure they do," said Martin. "How glad your cows will be to see you all again."

"Are you certain we shall be out of the orchard to-morrow, Master Pippin?" asked Jane.

"Heaven help us otherwise," said he, "for I've but one tale left in my quiver, and if it does not make an end of the job, here we must stay for the rest of our lives, puffing time away in gossamer."

Then Jessica, blowing, cried, "Four o'clock! come in to tea!"

And Joyce said, "Twelve o'clock! baste the goose in the oven."

"Three o'clock! change your frock!" said Jane.

"Eight o'clock! postman's knock!" said Jennifer.

"Ten o'clock! to bed, to bed!" cried Jessica again.

"Nine o'clock!--let me run down the lane for a moment first," begged little Joan.

Then Martin blew eighteen o'clock and said it was six o'clock tomorrow morning. And all the girls clapped their hands for joy--all except Joscelyn, who sat quite by herself in a corner of the orchard, and neither blew nor listened. And so they continued to change the hour and the occupation: now washing, now wringing, now drying; now milking, now baking, now mending; now cooking their meal, now eating it; now strolling in the cool of the evening, now going to market on marketing-day:--till by dinner they had filled the morning with a week of hours, and the air with downy seedlings, as exquisite as crystals of frost.

At dinner the maids ate very little, and Jessica said, "I think I'm getting tired of bread."

"And apples?" said Martin.

"One never gets tired of apples," said Jessica, "but I would like to have them roasted for a change, with cream. Or in a dumpling with brown sugar. And instead of bread I would like plum-cake."

"What wouldn't I give for a bowl of curds and whey!" exclaimed Joyce.

"Fruit salad and custard is nice," sighed Jennifer.

"I could fancy a lemon cheesecake," observed Jane, "or a jam tart."

"I should like bread-and-honey," said little Joan. "Bread-and- honey's the best of all."

"So it is," said Martin.

"You always have to suck your fingers afterwards," said Joan.

"That's why," said Martin. "Quince jelly is good too, and treacle because if you're quick you can write your name in it, and picked walnuts, and mushrooms, and strawberries, and green salad, and plovers' eggs, and cherries are ripping especially in earrings, and macaroons, and cheesestraws, and gingerbread, and--"

"Stop! stop! stop! stop! stop!" cried the milkmaids.

"I can hardly bear it myself," said Martin. "Let's play See-Saw."

So the maids rolled up a log from one part of the orchard, and Martin got a plank from another part, because the orchard was full of all manner of things as well as girls and apples, and he straddled one end and said, "Who's first?" And Jessica straddled the other as quick as a boy, and went up with a whoop. But Joyce, who presently turned her off, sat sideways as gay and graceful as a lady in a circus. And Jennifer crouched a little and clung rather hard with her hands, but laughed bravely all the time. And Jane thought she wouldn't, and then she thought she would, and squeaked when she went up and fell off when she came down, so that Martin tumbled too, and apologized to her earnestly for his clumsiness; and while he rubbed his elbows she said it didn't matter at all. But little Joan took off her shoes, and with her hands behind her head stood on the end of the see-saw as lightly as a sunray standing on a wave, and she looked up and down at Martin, half shyly because she was afraid she was showing off, and half smiling because she was happy as a bird. And Joscelyn wouldn't play. Then the girls told Martin he'd had more than his share, and made him get off, and struggled for possession of the see-saw like Kings of the Castle. And Martin strolled up to Joscelyn and said persuasively, "It's such fun!" but Joscelyn only frowned and answered, "Give it back to me!" and Martin didn't seem to understand her and returned to the see-saw, and suggested three a side and he would look after Jane very carefully. So he and Jane and Jennifer got on one end, and Jessica, Joyce and Joan sat on the other, and screaming and laughing they tossed like a boat on a choppy sea: until Jessica without any warning jumped off her perch in mid-air and destroyed the balance, and down they all came helter-skelter, laughing and screaming more than ever. But Jane reproved Jessica for her trick and said nobody would believe her another time, and that it was a bad thing to destroy people's confidence in you; and Jessica wiped her hot face on her sleeve and said she was awfully sorry, because she admired Jane more than anybody else in the world. Then Martin looked at the sun and said, "You've barely time to get tidy for supper." So the milkmaids ran off to smooth their hair and their kerchiefs and do up ribbons and buttons or whatever else was necessary. And came fresh and rosy to their meal, of which not one of them could touch a morsel, she declared.

"Dear, dear, dear!" said Martin anxiously. "What's the matter with you all?"

But they really didn't know. They just weren't hungry. So please wouldn't he tell them a story?

"This will never do," said Martin. "I shall have you ill on my hands. An apple apiece, or no story to-night."

At this dreadful threat Joan plucked the nearest apple she could find, which was luckily a Cox's Pippin.

"Must I eat it all, Martin?" she asked. (And Joscelyn looked at her quickly with that doubtful look which had been growing on her all day.)

"All but the skin," said Martin kindly. And taking the apple from her he peeled it cleverly from bud to stem, and handed her back nothing but the peel. And she twirled the peel three times round her head, and dropped it in the grass behind her.

"What is it? what is it?" cried the milkmaids, crowding.

"It's a C," said Martin. And he gave Joan her apple, and she ate it.

Then Joyce came to Martin with a Beauty of Bath, and he peeled it as he had Joan's, and withheld the fruit until she had performed her rite. And her letter was M. Jennifer brought a Worcester Pearmain, and threw a T. And Jessica chose a Curlytail and made a perfect O. And Jane, who preferred a Russet, threw her own initial, and Martin said seriously, "You're to be an old maid, Jane." (And Joscelyn looked at him.) And Jane replied, "I don't see that at all. There are lots of lots of J's, Martin." (And Joscelyn looked at her.) Then Martin turned inquiringly to Joscelyn, and she said, "I don't want one." "No stories then," said Martin as firm as Nurse at bedtime. And she shook her shoulders impatiently. But he himself picked her a King of Pippins, the biggest and reddest in the orchard, and peeled it like the rest and gave her the peel. And very crossly she jerked it thrice round her head, so that it broke into three bits, and they fell on the grass in the shape of an agitated H. And Martin gave her also her Pippin.

"But what about your own supper?" said little Joan.

And Martin, glancing from one to another, gathered a Cox, a Beauty, a Pearmain, a Curlytail, a Russet, and a King of Pippins; and he peeled and ate them one after another, and then, one after another, whirled the parings. And every one of the parings was a J.

Then, while Martin stood looking down at the six J's among the clover-grass, and the milkmaids looked anywhere else and said nothing: little Joan slipped away and came back with the smallest, prettiest, and rosiest Lady Apple in Gillman's Orchard, and said softly, "This one's for you."

So Martin pared it slenderly, and the peel lay in his hand like a ribbon of rose-red silk shot with gold; and he coiled it lightly three times round his head and dropped it over his left shoulder. And as suddenly as bubbles sucked into the heart of a little whirlpool, the milkmaids ran to get a look at the letter. But Martin looked first, and when the ring of girls stood round about him he put his foot quickly on the apple-peel and rubbed it into the grass. And without even tasting it he tossed his little Lady Apple right over the wicket, and beyond the duckpond, and, for all the girls could see, to Adversane.

Then Jane and Jessica and Jennifer and Joyce and little Joan, as by a single instinct, each climbed to a bough of the center apple-tree, and left the swing empty. And Martin sat on his own bough and waited for Joscelyn. And very slowly she came and sat on the swing and said without looking at him:

"We're all ready now."

"All?" said Martin. And he fixed his eyes on the Well-House, where it made no difference.

"Most of us, anyhow," said Joscelyn; "and whoever isn't ready is--nearly ready."

"Yet most is not all, and nearly is not quite," said Martin, "and would you be satisfied if I could only tell you most of my story, and was obliged to break off when it was nearly done? Alas, with me it must be the whole or nothing, and I cannot make a beginning unless I can see the end."

"All beginnings must have endings," said Joscelyn, "so begin at once, and the end will follow of itself."

"Yet suppose it were some other end than I set out for?" said Martin. "There's no telling with these endings that go of themselves. We mean one thing, but they mistake our meaning and show us another. Like the simple maid who was sent to fetch her lady's slippers and her lady's smock, and brought the wrong ones."

"She must have been some ignorant maid from a town," said Jane, "if she did not know lady-smocks and lady's-slippers when she saw them."

"It was either her mistake or her lady's," said Martin carelessly. "You shall judge which." And he tuned his lute and, still looking at the Well-House, sang:

The Lady sat in a flood of tears All of her sweet eyes' shedding. "To-morrow, to-morrow the paths of sorrow Are the paths that I'll be treading." So she sent her lass for her slippers of black, But the careless lass came running back With slippers as bright As fairy gold Or noonday light, That were heeled and soled To dance in at a wedding.

The Lady sat in a storm of sighs Raised by her own heart-searching. "To-morrow must I in the churchyard lie Because love is an urchin." So she sent her lass for her sable frock, But the silly lass brought a silken smock So fair to be seen With a rosy shade And a lavender sheen, That was only made For a bride to come from church in.

Now as Martin sang, Gillian got first on her elbow, and then on her knees, and last upright on her two feet. And her face was turned full on the duckpond, and her eyes gazed as though she could see more and further than any other woman in the world, and her two hands held her heart as though but for this it must follow her eyes and be lost to her for ever.

"So far as I can see," said Joscelyn, "there's nothing to choose between the foolishness of the maid and that of the mistress. But since Gillian appears to have risen to some sense in it, for goodness' sake, before she sinks back on her own folly, tell us your tale and be done with it!"

"It is ready now," said Martin, "from start to finish. Glass is not clearer nor daylight plainer to me than the conclusion of the whole, and if you will listen for a very few instants, you shall see as certainly as I the ending of The Imprisoned Princess."

THE IMPRISONED PRINCESS

There was once, dear maidens, a Princess who was kept on an island.

(Joscelyn: There are no islands in Sussex.

Martin: This didn't happen in Sussex.

Joscelyn: But I thought it was a true story.

Martin: It is the only true story of them all.)

She was kept on the island locked up in a tower, for the best of all the reasons in the world. She had fallen in love. She had fallen in love with her father's Squire. So the King banished him for ever and locked up his daughter in a tower on an island, and had it guarded by six Gorgons.

(Joscelyn: It's NOT a true story!

Martin: It IS a true story! If you don't say so at the end I'll give you--

Joscelyn: What?--I don't want you to give me anything!

Martin: All right then.

Joscelyn: What will you give me?

Martin: A yellow shoe-string.)

By six Gorgons (repeated Martin) who had the sharpest claws and the snakiest hair of any Gorgons there ever were. And their faces--

(Joscelyn: Leave their faces alone!

Martin: You're being a perfect nuisance!

Joscelyn: I simply HATE this story!

Martin: Tell it yourself then!

Joscelyn: What ABOUT their faces?)

Their faces (said Martin) were as beautiful as day and night and the four seasons of the year. They were so beautiful that I must stop talking about them or I shall never talk about anything else. So I'd better talk about the young Squire, who was a great deal less interesting, except for one thing: that he was in love. Which is a big advantage to have over Gorgons, who never are. The only other noteworthy thing about him was that his voice was breaking because he was merely fifteen years old. He was just a sort of Odd Boy about the King's court.

(Martin: Mistress Joscelyn, if you keep on wiggling so much you'll get a nasty tumble. Kindly sit still and let me get on. This isn't a very long story.)

One morning in April this Squire sat down at the end of the world, and he sobbed and he sighed like any poor soul; and a sort of wandering fellow who was going by had enough curiosity to stop and ask him what was the matter. And the Squire told him, and added that his heart was breaking for longing of the flower that his lady wore in her hair. So this fellow said, "Is that all?" And he got into his boat, which had a painted prow, and a light green pennon, and a gilded sail, and called itself The Golden Truant, and he sailed away a thousand leagues over the water till he came to the island where the princess was imprisoned; and the six Gorgons came hissing to the shore, and asked him what he wanted. And he said he wanted nothing but to play and sing to them; so they let him. And while he did so they danced and forgot, and he ran to the tower and found the Princess with her beautiful head bowed on the windowsill behind the bars, weeping like January rain. And he climbed up the wall and took from her hair the flower as she wept, in exchange for another which--which the Squire had sent her. And she whispered a word of sorrow, and he another of comfort, and came away. And the Gorgons suspected nothing; except perhaps the littlest Gorgon, and she looked the other way.