FIRST INTERLUDE

FIRST INTERLUDE

Now there was a great munching of apples in the tree, for to tell the truth during the latter part of the story this business had been suspended, and between bites the milkmaids discussed the merits of what they had just heard.

Jessica: What is your opinion of this tale, Jane?

Jane: It surprised me more than anything. For who could have suspected that the Lad was a Woman?

Martin: Lads are to be suspected of any mischief, Mistress Jane.

Joscelyn: It is not to be supposed, Master Pippin, that we are acquainted with the habits of lads.

Martin: I suppose nothing. But did the story please you?

Joscelyn: As a story it was well enough to pass an hour. I would be willing to learn whether the King regained his kingdom or no.

Martin: I think he did, since you may go to this day to the little city on the banks of the Adur which is re-named after his Barn. But I doubt whether he lived there, or anywhere but in the Barn where he and his beloved began their life of work and prayer and mirth and loving-rule. And died as happily as they had lived.

Joan: I am glad they lived happily. I was afraid the tale would end unhappily.

Joyce: And so was I. For when the King roamed the hills for a whole week without success, I began to fear he would never find the Woman again.

Jennifer: I for my part feared lest he should not open his lips during the fourth vigil, and so must become a Dove for the remainder of his days.

Jane: It was but by the grace of a moment he did not drown himself in the Pond.

Jessica: Or what if, by some unlucky chance, he had never come to the forge at all?

Martin: In any of these events, I grant you, the tale must have ended in disaster. And this is the special wonder of love-tales: that though they may end unhappily in a thousand ways, and happily in only one, yet that one will vanquish the thousand as often as the desires of lovers run in tandem. But there is one accident you have left out of count, and it is the worst stumbling-block I know of in the path of happy endings.

All the Milkmaids: What is it?

Martin: Suppose the lovely Viola had been a sworn virgin and a hater of men.

There was silence in the Apple-Orchard.

Joscelyn: She would have been none the worse for that, singer. And the tale would have been none the less a tale, which is all we look for from you. This talk of happy endings is silly talk. The King might have sought the Woman in vain, or kept his vow, or drowned himself, or ridden to the confines of Kent, for aught I care.

Joyce: Or I.

Jennifer: Or I.

Jessica: Or I.

Jane: Or I.

Martin: I am silenced. Tales are but tales, and not worth speculation. And see, the moon is gone to sleep behind a cloud, which shows us nothing save the rainbow of her dreams. It is time we did as she does.

Like shooting-stars in August the milkmaids slid from their leafy heaven and dropped to the grass. And here they pillowed their heads on their soft arms and soon were breathing the breath of sleep. But little Joan sat on in the swing.

Now all this while she had kept between her hands the promised apple, turning and turning it like one in doubt; and presently Martin looked aside at her with a smile, and held his open palm to receive his reward. And first she glanced at him, and then at the sleepers, and last she tossed the apple lightly in the air. But by some mishap she tossed it too high, and it made an arc clean over the tree and fell in a distant corner by the hedge. So she ran quickly to recover it for him, and he ran likewise, and they stooped and rose together, she with the apple in her hands, he with his hands on hers. At which she blushed a little, but held fast to the fruit.

"What!" said Martin Pippin, "am I never to have my apple?"

She answered softly, "Only when I am satisfied, as you promised."

"And are you not? What have I left undone?"

Joan: Please, Master Pippin. What did the young King look like?

Martin: Fool that I am to leave these vital things untold! I shall avoid this error in future. He was more than middle tall, and broad in the shoulders; and he had gray-blue eyes, and a fresh color, and a kind and merry look, and dark brown hair that was not always as sleek as he wished it to be.

Joan: Oh!

Martin: With this further oddity, that above the nape of his neck was a whitish tuft which, though he took great pains to conceal it, continually obtruded through the darker hair like the cottontail on the back of a rabbit.

Joan: Oh! Oh!

And she became as red as a cherry.

Martin: May I have my apple?

Joan: But had not he a—mustache?

Martin: He fondly believed so.

Joan (with unexpected fire): It was a big and beautiful mustache!

Martin (fervently): There was never a King of twenty years with one so big and beautiful.

She gave him the apple.

Martin: Thank you. Will you, because I have answered many questions, now answer one?

Joan: Yes.

Martin: Then tell me this—what is your quarrel with men?

Joan: Oh, Master Pippin! they say that one and one make two.

Martin: Is this possible? Good heavens, are men such numskulls! When they have but to go to the littlest woman on earth to learn—what you and I well know—that one and one make one, and sometimes three, or four, or even half-a-dozen; but never two. Fie upon these men!

Joan: I am glad you think I am in the right. But how obstinate they are!

Martin: As obstinate as children, and should be birched as roundly.

Joan: Oh! but— You would not birch children.

Martin: You are right again. They should be coaxed.

Joan: Yes. No. I mean— Good night, dear singer.

Martin: Good night, dear milkmaid. Sleep sweetly among your comrades who are wiser than we, being so indifferent to happy endings that they would never unpadlock sorrow, though they had the key in their keeping.

Then he took her hands in one of his, and put his other hand very gently under her chin, and lifted it till he could look into her face, and he said: "Give me the key to Gillian's prison, little Joan, because you love happy endings."

Joan: Dear Martin, I cannot give you the key.

Martin: Why not?

Joan: Because I stuck it inside your apple.

So he kissed her and they parted, and lay down and slept; she among her comrades under the apple-tree, and he under the briony in the hedge; and the moon came out of her dream and watched theirs.

With morning came a hoarse voice calling along the hedge:

"Maids! maids! maids!"

Up sprang the milkmaids, rubbing their eyes and stretching their arms; and up sprang Martin likewise. And seeing him, Joscelyn was stricken with dismay.

"It is Old Gillman, our master," she whispered, "come with bread and questions. Quick, singer, quick! into the hollow russet before he reaches the hole in the hedge."

Swiftly the milkmaids hustled Martin into the russet tree, and concealed him at the very moment when the Farmer was come to the peephole, filling it with his round red face and broad gray fringe of whiskers, like the winter sun on a sky that is going to snow.

"Good morrow, maids," quoth old Gillman.

"Good morrow, master," said they.

"Is my daughter come to her mind yet?"

"No, master," said little Joan, "but I begin to have hopes that she may."

"If she do not," groaned Gillman, "I know not what will happen to the farmstead. For it is six months now since I tasted water, and how can a man follow his business who is fuddled day and night with Barley Wine? Life is full of hardships, of which daughters are the greatest. Gillian!" he cried, "when will ye come into your senses and out of the Well-House?"

But Gillian took no more heed of him than of the quacking of the drake on the duckpond.

"Well, here is your bread," said Gillman, and he thrust a basket with seven loaves in it through the gap. "And may to-morrow bring better tidings."

"One moment, dear master," entreated little Joan. "Tell me, please, how Nancy my Jersey fares."

"Pines for you, pines for you, maid, though Charles does his best by her. But it is as though she had taken a vow to let down no milk till you come again. Rack and ruin, rack and ruin!"

And the old man retreated as he had come, muttering "Rack and ruin!" the length of the hedge.

The maids then set about preparing breakfast, which was simplicity itself, being bread and apples than which no breakfast could be sweeter. There was a loaf for each maid and one over for Gillian, which they set upon the wall of the Well-House, taking away yesterday's loaf untouched and stale.

"Does she never eat?" asked Martin.

"She has scarcely broken bread in six months," said Joscelyn, "and what she lives on besides her thoughts we do not know."

"Thoughts are a fast or a feast according to their nature," said Martin, "so let us feed the ducks, who have none."

They broke the stale bread into fragments, and when the ducks had made a meal, returned to their own; and of two loaves made seven parts, that Martin might have his share, and to this they added apples according to their fancies, red or russet, green or golden.

After breakfast, at Martin's suggestion, they made little boats of twigs and leaves and sailed them on the duckpond, where they met with many adventures and calamities from driftweed, small breezes, and the curiosity of the ducks. And before they were aware of it the dinner hour was upon them, when they divided two more loaves as before and ate apples at will.

Then Martin, taking a handkerchief from his pocket, proposed a game of Blindman's-Buff, and the girls, delighted, counter Eener-Meener-Meiner-Mo to find the Blindman. And Joyce was He. So Martin tied the handkerchief over her eyes.

"Can you see?" asked Martin.

"Of course I can't see!" said Joyce.

"Promise?" said Martin.

"I hope, Master Pippin," said Jane reprovingly, "that you can take a girl's word for it."

"I'm sure I hope I can," said Martin, and turned Joyce round three times, and ran for his life. And Joyce caught Jane on the spot and guessed her immediately.

Then Jane was blindfolded, and she was so particular about not seeing that it was quite ten minutes before she caught Jennifer, but she knew who she was by the feel of her gown; and Jennifer caught Joscelyn, and guessed her by her girdle; and Joscelyn caught Jessica and guessed her by the darn in her sleeve; and Jessica caught Joan, and guessed her by her ribbon; and Joan caught Martin, and guessed him by his difference.

So then Martin was Blindman, and it seemed as though he would never have eyes again; for though he caught all the girls, one after another, he couldn't guess which was which, and gave Jane's nose to Jessica, and Jessica's hands to Joscelyn, and Joscelyn's chin to Joyce, and Joyce's hair to Jennifer, and Jennifer's eyebrows to Joan; but when he caught Joan he guessed her at once by her littleness.

In due course the change of light told them it was supper-time; and with great surprise they ate the last two loaves to the sweet accompaniment of the apples.

"I would never have supposed," said Joscelyn, as they gathered under the central tree at the close of the meal, "that a day could pass so quickly."

"Bait time with a diversion," said Martin, "and he will run like a donkey after a dangled carrot."

"It has nearly been the happiest day of my life," said Joyce with a sly glance at Martin.

"And why not quite?" said he.

"Because it lacked a story, singer," she said demurely.

"What can be rectified," said Martin, "must be; and the day is not yet departed, but still lingers like a listener on the threshold of night. So set the swing in motion, dear Mistress Joyce, and to its measure I will endeavor to swing my thoughts, which have till now been laggards."

With these words he set Joyce in the swing and himself upon the branch beside it as before. And the other milkmaids climbed into their perches, rustling the fruit down from the shaken boughs; and he made of Joyce's lap a basket for the harvest. And he and each of the maids chose an apple as though supper had not been.

"We are listening," said Joscelyn from above.

"Not all of you," said Martin. And he looked up at Joscelyn alert on her branch, and down at Gillian prone on the steps.

"You are here for no other purpose," said Joscelyn, "than to make them listen that will not. I would not have you think we desire to listen."

"I think nothing but that you are the prey of circumstances," said Martin, "constrained like flowers to bear witness to that which is against all nature."

"What do you mean by that?" said Joscelyn. "Flowers are nature itself."

"So men have agreed," replied Martin, "yet who but men have compelled them repeatedly to assert such unnaturalnesses as that foxes wear gloves and cuckoos shoes? Out on the pretty fibbers!"

"Please do not be angry with the flowers," said Joan.

"How could I be?" said Martin. "The flowers must always be forgiven, because their inconsistencies lie always at men's doors. Besides, who does not love fairy-tales?"

Then Martin kicked his heels against the tree and sang idly:

When cuckoos fly in shoes

And foxes run in gloves,

Then butterflies won't go in twos

And boys will leave their loves.

"A silly song," said Joscelyn.

Martin: If you say so. For my part I can never tell the difference between silliness and sense.

Jane: Then how can a good song be told from a bad? You must go by something.

Martin: I go by the sound. But since Mistress Joscelyn pronounces my song silly, I can only suppose she has seen cuckoos flying in shoes.

Joscelyn: You are always supposing nonsense. Who ever heard of cuckoos flying in shoes?

Jane: Or of foxes running in gloves?

Joan: Or of butterflies going in ones?

Martin: Or of boys—

Joscelyn: I have frequently seen butterflies going in ones, foolish Joan. And the argument was not against butterflies, but cuckoos.

Martin: And their shoes. Please, dear Mistress Joan, do not look so downcast, nor you, dear Mistress Joscelyn, so vexed. Let us see if we cannot turn a more sensible song upon this theme.

And he sang—

Cuckoo Shoes aren't cuckoos' shoes,

     They're shoes which cuckoos never don;

And cuckoo nests aren't cuckoos' nests,

     But other birds' for a moment gone;

And nothing that the cuckoo has

     But he does make a mock upon.

For even when the cuckoo sings

     He only says what isn't true—

When happy lovers first swore oaths

     An artful cuckoo called and flew,

Yes! and when lovers weep like dew

     The teasing cuckoo laughs Cuckoo!

     What need for tears? Cuckoo, cuckoo!

As Martin ended, Gillian raised herself upon an elbow, and looked no more into the green grass, but across the green duckpond.

"The second song seems to me as irrelevant as the first," said Joscelyn, "but I observe that you cuckooed so loudly as to startle our mistress out of her inattention. So if you mean to tell us another story, by all means tell it now. Not that I care, except for our extremity."

"It is my only object to ease it," said Martin, "so bear with me as well as you may during the recital of Young Gerard."