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  • 1921
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seek Ambrose to-day? Ambrose has returned.”

“Have you seen him?” cried Hobb joyfully.

“Early this morning,” said Heriot.

“Where?”

“Down yonder in Poverty Bottom,” said Heriot, pointing south of his barn to a hollow that went by that name. For there was a dismal habitation that had fallen into decay, a skeleton of a hut with only two rotting walls, and a riddled thatch for a roof. And it was worse than no habitation at all, for what might have been a green and lovely vale was made desolate and rank with disused things, rusting among the lumber of bricks and nettles. It was enough to have been there once never to go again. And Hobb had been there once.

But now, at Heriot’s tidings, he ran down the hill a second time as though it led to Paradise, calling Ambrose as he went. And getting no answer he began to fear that either Heriot was mistaken, or Ambrose had gone away. His fears were unfounded, for coming to the Bottom he found Ambrose; yet he had to look twice to make sure it was he. For he was dressed only in rags, and less in rags than nakedness; and his skin was dirty and his hair unkempt. He was stooping about the ground gathering flints dropped through, and a small trail of them marked his passage over the rank grass.

Hobb strode towards him with dread in his bosom, and laid his hand on Ambrose’s wild head, saying his name again. And at this his brother looked up and eyed him childishly, and said “Who is Ambrose?” And then the dread in Hobb took a definite shape, and he saw with horror that Ambrose had lost his wits. At that knowledge, and the sight of his neglected body and pitiful foolish smile, Hobb turned away and sobbed. But Ambrose with a little random laugh continued to drop flints in his bottomless bucket. And no word of Hobb’s could win him from that place.

Then Hobb went back to the Burgh alone, and buried his face in his hands, and thought. He thought of the evil which had fallen upon his house, the nature of which was past his brothers’ telling, and far beyond his guessing. And he said to himself, “I have done the best I could in governing the affairs of the Burgh and of our people, since the others were younger than I; but I see I have been selfish, keeping safety for my portion while they went into danger. And now there is none to set this evil right but I, and if I can I must follow the way they went, and do better than they at the end of it. And if I fail–as how should I succeed where they have not?–and if like them I too must suffer the dreadful loss of a part of myself, let it be so, and I shall at least fare as they have fared, and we will share an equal fate. Though what I have to lose I know not, to match their bright and noble qualities.”

Then he called his steward, and gave all the affairs of the Burgh into his hands, and bade him have an eye to his brothers as far as possible, and to consult Heriot in any need, since he was the only one who could in the least be relied on. And then he walked out of the Burgh as he was, and went where his feet took him. He had not been walking half-an-hour when a sudden blast of wind tore the cap from his head, and blew it into the very middle of a pond.

Now the pond was exceedingly muddy, and as it seemed to Hobb rather deep, and he was wondering whether his old cap were worth wading for, and had almost decided to abandon it, when he saw a skinny yellow arm, like a frog’s leg, stretch up through the water, and a hand that dripped with slime grope for his cap. With three strides he was in the pond, and he caught the cap and the hand together in his fist. The hand writhed in his, but Hobb was too strong for it; and with a mighty tug he dragged first the shoulder and then the head belonging to the hand into view. They were the shoulder and head of the muddy man whom you, dear maidens, have seen once before in this tale, but whom Hobb had never seen till then. And Jerry said, “Drat these losers of caps! will they NEVER be done with disturbing the newts and me? Tis the fifth in a summer. And first there’s one with a step like a wagtail, and next there’s one as bold as a hawk, and after him one as comely as a wild swan, and last was one as wise as an owl. And now there’s this one with nothing particular to him, but he grips as hard as all the rest rolled into one. Drat these cap-losers!”

Then Hobb who, for all his surprise to begin with, and his increase of excitement as the muddy creature spoke, had never slackened his grasp, said, “Old man, you are welcome to my cap if you will tell me what happened to the wearers of the four other caps after they left you.”

“How do I know what happened to em?” growled the muddy man. “For they all went to High and Over, and after that twas nobody’s business but Wind’s, who lives there.”

“Where’s High and Over?” said Hobb.

“Find out,” said the muddy man, and gave a wriggle that did him no good.

“I will,” said Hobb, “for you shall tell me.” And he looked so sternly at the muddy man that Jerry cringed, moaning:

“I thought by his voice twas a turtle, but I see by his eye tis an eagle. If you must know you must. And south of Cradle Hill that’s south of Pinchem that’s south of Hobb’s Hawth that’s south of the Burgh that’s south of this pond is where High and Over is. And I’ll thank you to let me go.”

Nevertheless, when Hobb released him Jerry forgot the thanks and disappeared into the mud taking the cap with him. But Hobb did not care for his thanks. He hurried south as fast as his feet would carry him, going by the places he knew and then by those he did not, till he came at nightfall to High and Over.

And on High and Over a great wind was blowing from all the four quarters of heaven at once. And Hobb was caught up in the crossways of the wind, and turned about and about till he was dizzy, and all his thoughts were churning in his brain, so that he could not tell one from the other. And at the very crisis of the churning a voice in the wind from the north roared in his ear:

“What do you want that you lack?”

And a voice from the south murmured, “What is the wish of your heart?”

And a voice from the west sighed, “What is it that life has not given you?”

And a voice from the east shrieked, “What will you have, and lose yourself to have?”

And Hobb forgot his brothers and why he was there, he forgot everything but the dream of his soul which had been churned uppermost in that turmoil, and he cried aloud, “A golden rose!”

Then the four voices together roared and murmured and sighed and shrieked, “Open Winkins! Open Winkins! Open Winkins! Open Winkins!” And the tumult ceased with a shock, and the shock of silence overwhelmed Hobb with sickness and darkness, and his senses deserted him. As he became unconscious he seemed to be, not falling to earth, but rising in the air.

When he opened his eyes he was lying on his back in a strange world, a world of trees, whose noble trunks rose up as though they were columns of the sky, but their heaven was a green one, shutting out daylight, yet enclosing a luminous haunted air of its own. Such forests were unknown in Hobb’s open barren land, and this alone would have made his coming to his senses appear rather to be a coming away from them. But he scarcely noticed his surroundings, he was only vaguely aware of them as the strange and beautiful setting of the strangest and most beautiful thing he had ever seen. For he was looking into the eyes of the loveliest woman in the world. She was bending above him, tall and slim and supple, her perfect body clad in a deep black gown, the hem and bosom of which were embroidered with celandines, and it had a golden belt and was lined with gold, as he could see when the loose sleeves fell open on her round and slender arms; and the bodice of the gown hung a little away from her stooping body, and was embroidered inside, as well as outside, with celandines, which made reflections on her white neck, as they will on a pure pool where they lean to watch their April loveliness. Her skin was as creamy as the petals of a burnet rose, and her eyes were the color of peat-smoke, and her hair was as soft as spun silk and fell in two great shining waves of the purest gold over her bosom as she bent above him, and lay on the earth like golden grass on green water. A tress of the hair had flowed across his hand. And about her small fine head it was bound with a black fillet, a narrow coil so sleek and glossy that it was touched with silver lights, and this intense blackness made the gold of her head more dazzling. And Hobb lay there bewildered under the spell of her loveliness, asking nothing but to lie and gaze at it for ever.

But presently as he did not move she did, sinking upon her knees and stooping closer so that her breast nearly rested on his own, and she put her white hand softly on his forehead, and the smoke of her eyes was washed with tears that did not fall, and she said in a tremulous voice that fell on his ears like music heard in a dream, “Oh, stranger, if you are not dying, speak and move.”

Then Hobb raised himself slowly on his elbow, and as she did not stir their faces were brought very close together; and not for an instant had they taken their eyes from each other. And he said in a low voice, not knowing either his voice or his own words, “I am not dying, but I think I must be dead.” And suddenly the woman broke into a rain of tears, and she sank into his arms with her own about his neck, and she wept upon his heart as though her own were breaking. After a few moments she lifted her head and Hobb bent his to meet her quivering mouth. But before his lips touched hers she tore herself from his hold and fled away through the trees.

Hobb leaped to his feet, and scarcely knowing what he said cried, “Love! don’t be afraid!” and he made no attempt to follow her, but stood where he was. He saw her halt in the distance, and turn, and hesitate, and struggle with herself as to her coming or going. At last she decided for the former, and came slowly between the pillars of the trees until she stood but a few paces from him with lowered lids. And she said sweetly, “Forgive me, stranger. But I found you here like one dead, and when you opened your eyes the fear was still on me, and when you moved and spoke the relief was too great, and I forgot myself and did what I did.”

Then Hobb said gently, but with his heart beating on his ribs as fast as a swallow’s wings beat the air, “I thought you did what you did because at that moment you knew, and I knew also, that it was your right for ever to weep and to laugh on my heart, and mine to bear for ever your laughing and weeping. But if it was not with you as with me, say so, and I will go away and not trouble you or your strange woods again.”

Then the woman came quickly to him, and seized his hands saying, half agitated, half commanding, “It was with me as with you. And you shall stay with me for ever in these woods, and I will give you the desire of your life.”

“And what shall I give you?” said Hobb.

“Whatever is nearest to yourself,” she whispered, “the dearest treasure of your soul.” And she looked at him with eyes full of passions which he could not fathom, but among them he saw terror. And with great tenderness he drew her once more to his heart, putting his strong and steady arms around her like a shield, and he said:

“Love whose name I do not know, what is nearer to myself than you, what dearer treasure has my soul than you? If I am to give you this, it is yourself I must give you; and I will restore to you whatever it is that you have lost through the agony of your soul. Be at peace, my love whose name I do not know.” And holding her closely to him he bent his head and kissed her lips; and a great shudder passed through her, and then she lay still in his arms, with her strange eyes half-closed, and slow tears welling between the lids and hanging on her cheeks like the rain on the rose. And she let him quiet her with his big hands that were so used to care for flowers. Presently she lifted his right hand to her mouth, and kissed it before he could prevent her. Next she drew herself a little away from him, hanging back in his arms and gazing into his face as though her soul were all a question and his was the answer that she could not wholly read. And last she broke away from him with a strange laugh that ended on a sob.

Hobb said, “Will you not tell me what makes you unhappy?”

“I have no unhappiness,” she answered, and quenched her sob with a smile as strange as her laugh. “My foolish lover, are you amazed that when her hour comes a woman knows not whether she is happy or unhappy? Oh, when joy is so great that it has come full circle with pain, what wonder that laughter and weeping are one?”

And Hobb believed her, for ever since he had opened his eyes upon her, he had felt in his own heart more joy than he could bear; and he knew that for this there is no remedy except to find a second heart to help in the bearing. And he knew it was the same with her. But now he saw that she was free for awhile from the excess of joy; and indeed these respites must happen even to lovers for their own sakes, lest they sink beneath the heavenly burden of their hearts. And her smile was like the diver’s rise from his enchanted deeps to take again the common breath of man; and Hobb also smiled and said, “Come now, and tell me your name. For though love needs none for its object, I think the name itself is eager to be made known and loved beyond all other names for love’s sake. As I love yours, whatever it be.”

“My name,” she said, “is Margaret.”

“It is an easy name to love,” said Hobb, “for its own sake.”

“And what is yours?” asked she.

And Hobb’s smile broadened as he answered, “Try to love it, for my sake. For it is Hobb. Yet it is as fitting to me, who am as plain as my name, as your lovely name is fitting to you.”

She cast a quick sly look at him and said, “If love knows not how to distinguish between joy and pain, since all that comes from the heart of love is joy, neither can it tell the plain from the beautiful, since all that comes under the eye of love is beauty. And I will find all things beautiful in my lover, from his name to the mole on his cheek.”

For I know now, dear maidens, whether in describing him I had mentioned this peculiarity of Hobb’s.

(Jessica: You hadn’t described him at all.

Martin: Well, now the omission is remedied.

Jessica: Oh fie! as though it were enough to say the man had a mole on his left cheek!

Martin: Dear Mistress Jessica, did I say it was his left cheek?

Jessica: Why–why!–where else would it be?

Martin: Nowhere else, on my honor. It WAS his left cheek.)

Then Hobb said to Margaret, “What place is this?”

“It is called Open Winkins,” said she, and at the name he started to his feet, remembering much that he had forgotten. She looked at him anxiously and cajolingly and said, “You are not going away?” But he hardly heard her question. “Margaret,” he said, “I have come from a place that may be far or near, for I do not know how I came; but I think it must be far, since I never saw this forest, or even heard of it, till a moment before my coming. But I am seeking a clue to a trouble that has come upon me this year, and I think the clue may be here. And now tell me, have you in these last four months seen in these woods anything of your people that are my brothers?–a child that once was merry, and a boy that once was brave, and a youth that once was beautiful, and a young man that once was wise? Have these ever been to Open Winkins?”

Margaret looked at him thoughtfully and said, “If they have, I have not seen them here. And I think they could not have been here without my knowledge. For no one lives here but I, and I live nowhere else.”

Hobb sighed and said, “I had hoped otherwise. For, dear, I cannot rest until I have helped them.” Then he told her as much as he knew of his four brothers; and her face clouded as he spoke, and her eyes looked hurt and angry by turns, and her beautiful mouth turned sulky. So then Hobb put his arm round her and said, “Do not be too troubled, for I know I shall presently find the cause and cure of these boys’ ills.” But Margaret pushed his arm away and rose restlessly to her feet, and paced up and down, muttering, “What do I care for these boys? It is not for them I am troubled, but for myself and you.”

“For us?” said Hobb. “How can trouble touch us who love each other?”

At this Margaret threw herself on the grass beside him, and laid her head against his knee, and drew his hands to her, pressing them against her eyes and lips and throat and bosom as though she would never let them go; and through her kisses she whispered passionately, “Do you love me? do you truly love me? Oh, if you love me do not go away immediately. For I have only just found you, but your brothers have had you all their lives. And presently you shall go where you please for their sakes, but now stay a little in this wood for mine. Stay a month with me, only a month! oh, my heart, is a month much to ask when you and I found each other but an hour ago? For this time of love will never come again, and whatever other times there are to follow, if you go now you will be shutting your eyes upon the lovely dawn just as the sun is rising through the colors. And when you return, you will return perhaps to love’s high-noon, but you will have missed the dawn for ever.” And then she lifted her prone body a little higher until it rested once more in the curve of his arm against his heart, and she lay with her white face upturned to his, and her dark soft eyes full of passion and pleading, and she put up her fingers to caress his cheek, and whispered, “Give me my little month, oh, my heart, and at the end of it I will give you your soul’s desire.”

And not Hobb or any man could have resisted her.

So he promised to remain with her in Open Winkins, and not to go further on his quest till the next moon. And indeed, with all time before and behind him it did not seem much to promise, nor did he think it could hurt his brothers’ case. But the kernel of it was that he longed to make the promise, and could not do otherwise than make the promise, and so, in short, he made the promise.

Then Margaret led him to two small lodges on the skirts of the forest; they were made of round logs, with moss and lichen still upon them, and they were overgrown with the loveliest growths of summer–with blackberry blossoms, a wonderful ghostly white, spread over the bushes like fairies’ linen out to dry, and wild roses more than were in any other lovers’ forest on earth, and the maddest sweetest confusion of honeysuckle you ever saw. Within, the rooms were strewn with green rushes, and hung with green cloths on which Margaret had embroidered all the flowers and berries in their seasons, from the first small violets blue and white to the last spindle-berries with their orange hearts splitting their rosy rinds. And there was nothing else under each roof but a round beech-stump for a stool, and a coffer of carved oak with metal locks, and a low mattress stuffed with lamb’s-fleece picked from the thorns, and pillows filled with thistledown; and each couch had a green covering worked with waterlily leaves and white and golden lilies. “These are the Pilleygreen Lodges,” said she, “and one is mine and one is yours; and when we want cover we will find it here, but when we do not we will eat and sleep in the open.”

And so the whole of that July Hobb dwelt in the Pilleygreen Lodges in Open Winkins with his love Margaret. And by the month’s end they had not done their talking. For did not a young lifetime lie behind them, and did they not foresee a longer life ahead, and between lovers must not all be told and dreamed upon? and beyond these lives in time, which were theirs in any case, had not love opened to them a timeless life of which inexhaustible dreams were to be exchanged, not always by words, though indeed by their mouths, and by the speech of their hands and arms and eyes? Hobb told her all there was to tell of the Burgh and his life with his brothers, both before and after their tragedies, but he did not often speak of them for it was a tale she hated to hear, and sometimes she wept so bitterly that he had ado to comfort her, and sometimes was so angry that he could hardly conciliate her. But such was his own gentleness that her caprices could withstand it no more than the shifting clouds the sun. And Margaret told him of herself, but her tale was short and simple–that her parents had died in the forest when she was young, and that she had lived there all her life working with her needle, twice yearly taking her work to the Cathedral Town to sell; and with the proceeds buying what she needed, and other cloths and silk and gold with which to work. She opened the coffer in Hobb’s lodge and showed him what she did: veils that she had embroidered with cobwebs hung with dew, so that you feared to touch them lest you should destroy the cobweb and disperse the dew; and girdles thick-set with flowers, so that you thought Spring’s self on a warm day had loosed the girdle from her middle, and lost it; and gowns worked like the feathers of a bird, some like the plumage on the wood-dove’s breast, and others like a jay’s wing; and there was a pair of blue skippers so embroidered that they appeared and disappeared beneath a flowing skirt with reeds and sallows rising from a hem of water, you thought you had seen kingfishers; and there were tunics overlaid with dragonflies’ wings and their delicate jointed bodies of green and black-and-yellow and Chalk-Hill blue; and caps all gay with autumn berries, scarlet rose-hips and wine-red haws, and the bright briony, and spindle with its twofold gayety, and one cap was all of wild clematis, with the vine of the Traveler’s Joy twined round the brim and the cloud of the Old Man’s Beard upon the crown. And Hobb said, “It is magic. Who taught you to do this?” And Margaret said, “Open Winkins.”

Early in their talks he told her of his garden, and of the golden rose he tried to grow there, and of his failures; and Margaret knew by his voice and his eyes more than by his words that this was the wish of his heart. And she smiled and said, “Now I know with what I must redeem my promise. Yet I think I shall be jealous of your golden rose.” And Hobb, lifting a wave of her glittering hair and making a rose of it between his fingers, asked, “How can you be jealous of yourself?” “Yet I think I am,” said she again, “for it was something of myself you promised to give me presently, and I would rather have something of you.” “They are the same thing,” said Hobb, and he twisted up the great rose of her hair till it lay beside her temple under the ebony fillet. And as his hand touched the fillet he looked puzzled, and he ran his finger round its shining blackness and exclaimed, “But this too is hair!” Margaret laughed her strange laugh and said, “Yes, my own hair, you discoverer of open secrets!” And putting up her hands she unbound the fillet, and it fell, a slender coil of black amongst the golden flood of her head, like a serpent gliding down the sunglade on a river.

“Why is it like that?” said Hobb simply.

With one of her quick changes Margaret frowned and answered, “Why is the black yew set with little lamps? Why does a black cloud have an edge of light? Why does a blackbird have white feathers in his body? Must things be ALL dark or ALL light?” And she stamped her foot and turned hastily away, and began to do up her hair with trembling hands. And Hobb came behind her and kissed the top of her head. She turned on him half angrily, half smiling, saying, “No! for you do not like my black lock.” And Hobb said very gravely, “I will find all things beautiful in my beloved, from her black lock to her blacker temper.” Margaret shot a swift look at him and saw that he was laughing at her with an echo of her own words; and she flung her arms about him, laughing too. “Oh, Hobb!” said she, “you pluck out my black temper by the roots!”

So with teasing and talking and quarreling and kissing, and ever-growing love, July came near its close; and as love discovers or creates all miracles in what it loves, Hobb for pure joy grew light of spirit, and laughed and played with his beloved till she knew not whether she had given her heart to a child or a man; and again when the happiness that was in his soul shone through his eyes, he was so transfigured that, gazing on his beauty, she knew not whether she had received the heart of a man or a god. And the truth was that at this time Hobb was all three, since love, dear maidens, commands a region that extends beyond birth and death, and includes all that is mortal in all that is eternal. And as for Margaret, she was all things by turns, sometimes as gay as sunbeams so that Hobb could scarcely follow her dancing spirit, but could only sun himself in the delight of it; and sometimes she was full of folly and daring, and made him climb with her the highest trees, and drop great distances from bough to bough, mocking at all his fears for her though he had none for himself; and sometimes when he was downcast, as happened now and then for thinking on his brothers, she forgot her jealousy in tenderness of his sorrow, and made him lean his head upon her breast, and talked to him low as a mother to her baby, words that perhaps were only words of comfort, yet seemed to him infinite wisdom, as the child believes of its mother’s tender speech. And at all times she was lovelier than his dreams of her. Not once in this month did Hobb go out of the forest, which was confined on the north and north-west by big roads running to the world, and on all other sides by sloped of Downland. But whenever in their wanderings they arrived at any of these boundaries, Margaret turned him back and said, “I do not love the open; come away.”

But on the last day of the month they came upon a very narrow neck of the treeless down, a green ride carved between their wood and a dark plantation that lay beyond, so close as to be almost a part of Open Winkins, but for that one little channel of space; and Hobb pointed to it and said, “That’s a strange place, let us go there.”

“No,” said Margaret.

“But is it not our own wood?”

“How can you think so?” she said petulantly. “Do you not see how black it is in there? How can you want to go there? Come away.”

“What is it called?” asked Hobb.

“The Red Copse,” said she.

“Why?” asked Hobb.

“I don’t know,” said she.

“Have you never been there?” asked Hobb.

“No, never. I don’t like it. It frightens me.” And she clung to him like a child. “Oh, come away!”

She was trembling so that he turned instantly, and they went back to the Pilleygreen Lodges, getting wild raspberries for supper on the way. And after supper they sang songs, one against the other, each sweeter than the last, and told stories by turns, outdoing each other in fancy and invention; and at last went happily to bed.

But Hobb could not sleep. For in the night a wind came up and blew four times round his lodge, shaking it once on every wall. And it stirred in him the memory of High and Over, and with the memory misgivings that he could not name. And he rose restlessly from his couch and went out under the troubled moon, for a windy rack of clouds was blowing over the sky. But through it she often poured her amber light, and by it Hobb saw that Margaret’s door was blowing on its hinges. He called her softly, but he got no answer; and then he called more loudly, but still she did not answer.

“She cannot be sleeping through this,” said Hobb to himself; and with an uneasy heart he stood beside the door and looked into the lodge. And she was not there, and the couch had not been slept on. But on it lay her empty dress, its gold and black all tumbled in a heap, and on top of it was an embroidered smock. And something in the smock attracted him, so that he went quickly forward to examine it; and he saw that it was Heriot’s shirt, that had been cut and changed and worked all over with peacocks’ feathers. And he stood staring at it, astounded and aghast. Recovering himself, he turned to leave the lodge, but stumbled on the open coffer, hanging out of which was a second smock; and this one had two lions worked on the back and front, and one was red and the other white, and the smock had been Hugh’s shirt. Then Hobb fell on the coffer and searched its contents till he had found Lionel’s little shirt fashioned into a linen vest, with a tiny border of fantastic animals dancing round it, pink pigs, and black cocks, and white donkeys, and chestnut horses. And last of all he found the shirt of Ambrose, tattered and frayed, and every tatter was worked at the edge with a different hue, and here and there small mocking patches of color had been stitched above the holes.

And at each discovery the light in Hobb’s eyes grew calmer, and the beat of his heart more steady. And he walked out of the Pilleygreen Lodge and as straight as his feet would carry him across Open Winkins and the green ride, and into the Red Copse. As he went he shut down the dread in his heart of what he should find there, “For,” said Hobb to himself, “I shall need more courage now than I have ever had.” It was black in the Red Copse, with a blackness blacker than night, and the wild races of moonlight that splashed the floors of Open Winkins were here unseen. But a line of ruddy fireflies made a track on the blackness, and Hobb, going as softly as he might, followed in their wake. Just before the middle of the Copse they stopped and flew away, and one by one, as each reached the point deserted by its leader, darted back as though unable to penetrate with its tiny fire the fearful shadows that lay just ahead. But Hobb went where the fireflies could not go. And he found a dark silent hollow in the wood, where neither moon nor sun could ever come; and at the bottom of it a long straggling pool, with a surface as black as ebony, and mud and slime below. Here toads and bats and owls and nightjars had come to drink, with rats and stoats who left their footprints in the mud. And on the ground and bushes Hobb saw slugs and snails, woodlice, beetles and spiders, and creeping things without number. The gloom of the place was awful, and turned the rank foliage of trees and shrubs black in perpetual twilight. But what Hobb saw he saw by a light that had no place in heaven. For kneeling beside the pool was his love Margaret, her naked body crouched and bowed among the creatures of the mud; and her two waves of gold were flung behind her like a smooth mantle, but the one black lock was drawn forward over her head, and she was dipping and dipping it into the dank waters. And every time she drew the dripping lock from its stagnant bath, it glimmered with an unearthly phosphorescence, that shed a ghostly light upon the hollow, and all that it contained. And at each dipping the lock of hair came out blacker than before.

At last she was done, and she slowly squeezed the water from her unnatural tress, and laid it back in its place among the gold. And then she stretched her arms and sighed so heavily that the crawling creatures by the pool were startled. But less started than she, when lifting her head she saw the eyes of Hobb looking down on her. And such terror came into her own eyes that the look rang on his heart as though it had been a cry. Yet not a sound issued between her lips. And he said to himself, “Now I need more wisdom than I have ever had.” And he continued to look steadily at her with eyes that she could not read. And presently he spoke.

“We have some promises to redeem to-night,” he said, “and we will redeem them now. You promised me my perfect golden rose, and this night I am going out of Open Winkins and back to my own Burgh. And to-morrow, since I now know something of your power of gifts, I shall find the rose upon my hill, and in exchange for it I will keep my word and give you back yourself. But there is something more than this.” And he went a little apart, and soon came back to her with his jerkin undone and his shirt in his hand. “You have my brothers’ shirts and here is mine,” he said. “To-night when I am gone you shall return to Open Winkins, and spend the hours in taking out the work you have put into their shirts. And in the morning when I meet them at the Burgh I shall know if you have done this. But in exchange for theirs I give you mine to do with as you will. And the only other thing I ask of you is this; that when you have taken out the work in their shirts, you will spend the day in making a white garment for the lady who will one day be my wife. And whatever other embroidery you put upon it, let it bear on the left breast a golden rose. And to-morrow night, if all is well at the Burgh, I will come here for the last time and fetch it from you.”

Then Hobb laid his shirt beside her on the ground, and turned and went away. And she had not even tried to speak to him.

When Hobb got out of the Red Copse he presently found a road and followed it, hoping for the best. After awhile he saw a tramp asleep in a ditch, and woke him and asked him the way to the Burgh of the Five Lords. But the tramp had never heard of it. So then Hobb asked the way to Firle, and the tramp said “That’s another matter,” for Sussex tramps know all the beacons of the Downs, and he told him to go east. Which Hobb did, walking without rest through the night and dawn and day, here and there getting a lift that helped him forward. And in his heart he carried hope like a lovely flower, but under it a quick pain like a reptile’s sting that felt to him like death. And he would not give way to the pain, but went as fast and as steadily as he could; and at last, with strained eyes and aching feet, and limbs he could scarcely drag for weariness, and the dust of many miles upon his shoes and clothes, he came to his own bare country and the Burgh. He rested heavily on the gate, and the first thing he saw was Lionel on the steps, laughing and playing with a litter of young puppies. And the next was Hugh climbing the castle wall to get an arrow that had lodged in a high chink. And out of a window leaned Heriot in all his young beauty, picking sweet clusters of the seven-sisters roses that climbed to his room. And in the doorway sat Ambrose, with a book on his knee, but his eyes fixed on the gate. And when he saw Hobb standing there he came quickly down the steps, calling to the others, “Lionel! Hugh! Heriot! our brother has come home.” And Lionel rushed through the puppies, and Hugh dropped bodily from the wall, and Heriot leaped through the window. And the four boys clung to Hobb and kissed him and wrung his hands, and seemed as they would fight for very possession of him. And Hobb, with his arms about the younger boys, and Heriot’s hand in his, leaned his forehead on Ambrose’s cheek, and Ambrose felt his face grow wet with Hobb’s tears. Then Ambrose looked at him with apprehension, and said in a low voice, “Hobb, what have you lost?” And Hobb understood him. And he answered in a voice as low, “My heart. But I have found my four brothers.” They took him in and prepared a bath and fresh clothes for him, and a meal was ready when he was refreshed. He came among them steady and calm again, and the three youngest had nothing but rejoicing for him. And he saw that all memory of what had happened had been washed from them. But with Ambrose it was different, for he who had had his very mind effaced, in recovering his mind remembered all. And after the meal he took Hobb aside and said, “Tell me what has happened to you.”

Then Hobb said, “Some things happen which are between two people only, and they can never be told. And what has passed in this last month, dear Ambrose, is only for her knowledge and mine. But as to what is going to happen, I do not yet know.”

After a moment’s silence Ambrose said, “Tell me this at least. Has she given you a gift?”

“She has given me you again,” said Hobb.

“That is different,” said Ambrose. “She has given us ourselves again, and our power to pursue the destiny of our natures. But no man is another man’s destiny. And it was our error to barter our own powers to another in exchange for the small goals our natures desired. And so we lost a treasure for a trifle. For every man’s power is greater than the thing he achieves by it. But what has she given you in exchange for what she has taken from you?” And as he spoke he looked into Hobb’s gentle eyes, and thought that if he had lost his heart it was a loss that had somehow multiplied his possession of it. “What has she given you?” he said again.

“I shall not know,” said Hobb, “until I have been to my garden. And I must go alone. And afterwards, Ambrose, I must ride away for another night and day, but then I will return to the Burgh for ever.”

So he got his horse, and went to the Gardener’s Hill, and his garden was blazing with flowers like a joyous welcome. But when he approached the bush on which his heart was set, he saw a great gold bloom upon it that startled him with its beauty; until coming closer he perceived that all the petals were rotten at the heart, and coiled in the center was a small black snake.

He plucked the rose from its stem, and as he looked at it his face grew bright, and he suddenly laughed aloud for joy; and he ran out of the garden and got on his horse, and rode with all his speed to Open Winkins. When he got there the moon had risen over the Pilleygreen Lodges.

And Margaret sat at the door of her lodge in the moonlight, putting the last stitches into her work.

But when she saw him coming she broke her thread, and rose and averted her head. Then Hobb dismounted and came and stood beside her, and saw that in some way she was changed from the woman he knew. Margaret, still not turning to him, muttered, “Do not look at me, please. For I am ugly and unhappy and afraid and nearly mad. And here are your brothers’ shirts.” She gave him the four shirts, restored to themselves. He took them silently. “And here,” continued Margaret, is her wedding-smock.”

And Hobb took it from her, and saw that out of his own shirt, washed and bleached, she had made a lovely garment. And round it, from the hem upward, ran a climbing briar of exquisite delicacy, and with a beautiful design of spines and leaves; but the only flower upon it was a golden rose, worked on the heart of the smock in her own gold hair. And Hobb took it from her and again said nothing.

Then Margaret with a great cry, as though her heart were breaking, gasped, “Go! go quickly! I have done what you wanted. Go!”

“Yes, dear,” said Hobb, “but you must come with me.”

She turned then, whispering, “How can I go with you? What do you mean?” And she looked in his eyes and saw in them such infinite compassion and tenderness that she was overwhelmed, and swayed where she stood. And then his arms, which she had never expected to feel again, closed round her body, and she lay helplessly against him, and heard him say, “Love Margaret, you are my only love, and you worked the wedding-smock for yourself. Oh, Margaret, did you think I had another love?”

She looked at him blankly as though she could not understand, and her face was full of wonder and joy and fright. And she hung away from him sobbing, “No, no, no! I cannot. I must not. I am not good enough.”

“Which of us is good enough?” said Hobb. “So then we must all come to love for help.”

And she cried again in an agony, “No, no, no! There is evil in me. And I lived alone and had nothing, nothing that ever lasted, for I was born on High and Over in the crossways of the winds, and they were the godfathers of my birth. And all my life they have blown things to and from me. And I tried to keep what they blew me; and I gave their hearts’ desire to all comers, and took in exchange the best they could give me; for I thought that if it was fair for them to take, it was fair for me to take too. But nothing that I took mattered longer than a week or a day or an hour, neither laughter nor courage nor beauty nor wisdom–all, all were unstable till the winds blew me you. And as I looked at you lying there unconscious, something, I knew not what, seemed different from anything I had ever known, but when you opened your eyes I knew what it was, and my heart seemed to fly from my body. And I longed, as I had never longed with the others, to give you your soul’s desire, and I have tried and tried, and I could not. I could not give you anything at all, but every hour of the day and night I seemed to be taking from you. And yet what you had to give me was never exhausted. And the evil in me often fought against you, when I dreaded your knowing the truth about me, and would have lied my soul away to keep you from knowing it; and when I was jealous of your love for your brothers. So again and again I failed, when I should have thought of nothing but that you loved me as I loved you. For did I not know of my own love that it could never give you cause to be jealous, nor would ever shrink from any truth it might know of you?–but now–but now!– oh, my heart, had I known, when you spoke last night of your bride, that I was she! I will never be she! I was not good enough. I fought myself in vain.” And she drooped in his arms, nearly fainting.

“Love Margaret!” said Hobb, and the tears ran down his face, “I will fight for you, yes, and you will fight for me. And if you have sacrificed joy and courage and beauty and wisdom for my sake, I will give them all to you again; and yet you must also give them to me, for they are things in which without you I am wanting. But together we can make them. And when I went to my garden this morning, I thanked God that my rose was not perfect, and that you had not taken my heart, as you had taken joy and courage and beauty and wisdom, as a penalty for a gift. Their desires you could give them, and take their best in payment, but mine you could not give me in the same way. For in love there are no penalties and no payments, and what is given is indistinguishable from what is received.” And he bent his head and kissed her long and deeply, and in that kiss neither knew themselves, or even each other, but something beyond all consciousness that was both of them.

Presently Hobb said, “Now let us go away from Open Winkins together, and I will take you to the Burgh. But you must go as my bride.”

And Margaret, pale as death from that long kiss, withdrew herself very slowly from his arms. And her dark eyes looked strange in the moonlight as he had never seen them, and more beautiful, with a beauty beyond beauty; and deep joy too was in them, and an infinite wisdom, and a strength of courage, that seemed more than courage, wisdom and joy, for they had come from the very fountain of all these things. And very slowly, with that unfading look, she took off her black gown and put on the white bridal-smock she had made; and as soon as she had put it on she fell dead at his feet.

(“I think,” said Martin Pippin, “that you have now had plenty of time, Mistress Jessica, to ponder my riddle.”

“Your riddle?” exclaimed Jessica. “But–good heavens! bother your riddle! get on with the story.”

“How can I get on with it?” said Martin. “It’s got there.”

Joscelyn: No, no, no! oh, it’s impossible! oh, I can’t bear it! oh, how angry I am with you!

Martin: Dear Mistress Joscelyn, why are you so agitated?

Joscelyn: I? I am not at all agitated. I am quite collected. I only wish you were as collected, for I think you must be out of your wits. How DARE you leave this story where it is? How dare you!

Martin: Dear, dear Mistress Joscelyn, what more is there to be told?

Joscelyn: I do not care what more is to be told. Only some of it must be re-told. You must bring that girl instantly to life!

Joyce: Of course you must! And explain why she died, though she mustn’t die.

Jennifer: No, indeed! and if it had to do with her black hair, you must pluck it out by the roots.

Jessica: Yes, indeed! and you must do something about the horrible pool in the Red Copse, for perhaps that is what killed her.

Jane: Oh, it is too dreadful not to have a story with a wedding in it!

And little Joan leaned out of her branch and took Martin’s hand in hers, and looked at him pleadingly, and said nothing.

“Will women NEVER let a man make a thing in his own way?” said Martin. “Will they ALWAYS be adding and changing this detail and that? For what a detail is death once lovers have kissed. However–!”)

Not less than yourselves, my silly dears, was Hobb overwhelmed by that down-sinking of his love Margaret. And he fell on his knees beside her, and took her in his arms, and put his hand over the rose on her heart, that had ceased to beat. Suddenly it seemed to him that his hand had been stung, and he drew it away quickly, his eyes on the golden rose. And where she had left it just incomplete at his coming, he saw a jet-black speck. A light broke over him swiftly, and one by one he broke the strands at the rose’s heart, and under it revealed a small black snake; and as the rose had been done from her own gold locks, so the snake had been done from the one black lock in the gold. Then at last Hobb understood why she had cried she was not good enough to be his bride, for she had fought in vain her last dark impulse to prepare death for the woman who should wear the bridal-smock. And he understood too the meaning of her last wonderful look, as she took the death upon herself. And he loved her, both for her fault and her redemption of it, more than he had ever thought that he could love her; for he had believed that in their kiss love had reached its uttermost. But love has no uttermost, as the stars have no number and the sea no rest.

Now at first Hobb thought to pluck the serpent from her breast, but then he said, “Of what use to destroy the children of evil? It is evil itself we must destroy at the roots.” And very carefully he undid her beautiful hair, and laid its two gold waves on either side; but the slim black tress he gathered up in his hand until he held every hair of it, and one by one he plucked them from her head. And every time he plucked a hair the pain that had been under his heart stabbed him with a sting that seemed like death, and with each sting the mortal agony grew more acute, till it was as though the powers of evil were spitting burning venom on that steadfast heart, to wither it before it could frustrate them. But he did not falter once; and as he plucked the last hair out, Margaret opened her eyes. Then all pain leapt like a winged snake from his heart, and he forgot everything but the joy and wonder in her eyes as she lay looking up at him, and said, “What has happened to me? and what have you done?” And she saw the tress in his hand and understood, and she kissed the hand that had plucked the evil from her. Then, her smoky eyes shining with tears, but a smile on her pale lips, she said, “Come, and we will drown that hair for ever.” So hand-in-hand they went across Open Winkins and over the way that led to the Red Copse. And as they pushed and scrambled through the bushes, what do you think they saw? First a shimmering light round the edge of the pool, and then a sheet of moon-daisies, the largest, whitest, purest blooms that ever were. And they stood there on their tall straight stems of tender green in hundreds and hundreds, guarding and sanctifying the place. It was like a dark cathedral with white lilies on the high altar. And they saw a cock blackbird wetting his whistle at the pool, and heard two others and a green woodpecker chuckling in the trees close by. And they had no eyes for slimy goblin things, even if there were any. And I don’t believe there were.

They bound the black tress about a stone, and it sank among the reflections of the daisies in the water, there to be purified for ever. And the next day he put her behind him on his horse, and they rode to the garden on the eastern hills, and found on his bush a single perfect rose. And as she had given it to him, Hobb straightway plucked and gave it to her. For that is the only way to possess a gift.

And then they went together to the Burgh, and very soon after there was a wedding.

I am now all impatience, Mistress Jessica, to hear you solve my riddle.

FOURTH INTERLUDE

Like contented mice, the milkmaids began once more to nibble at their half-finished apples, and simultaneously nibbled at the just-finished story.

Jessica: Do, pray, Jane, let us hear what conclusions you draw from all this.

Jane: I confess, Jessica, I am all at sea. The good and the evil were so confused in this tale that even now I can scarcely distinguish between black and gold. For had Margaret not done ill, who would have discovered how well Hobb could do? Yet who would wish her, or any woman, to do ill? even for the proof of his, or any man’s, good?

Martin: True, Mistress Jane. Yet women are so strangely constructed that they have in them darkness as well as light, though it be but a little curtain hung across the sun. And love is the hand that takes the curtain down, a stronger hand than fear, which hung it up. For all the ill that is in us comes from fear, and all the good from love. And where there is fear to combat, love is life’s warrior; but where there is no fear he is life’s priest. And his prayer is even stronger than his sword. But men, always less aware of prayers than of blows, recognize him chiefly when he is in arms, and so are deluded into thinking that love depends on fear to prove his force. But this is a fallacy; love’s force is independent. For how can what is immortal depend on what is mortal? Yet human beings must, by the very fact of being alive at all, partake of both qualities. And strongly opposed as we shall find the complexing elements of light and darkness in a woman, still more strongly opposed shall we discover them in a man. As I presume I have no need to tell you.

Joscelyn: You presume too much. The elements that go to make a man are not to our taste.

Martin: My story I hope was so.

Joscelyn: To some extent. And this pool in the Red Copse, is it hard to find?

Martin: Neither harder nor easier than all fairies’ secrets. And at certain times in summer, when the wood is altogether lovely with centaury and purple loosestrife, you can hardly miss the pool for the fairies that flock there.

Joyce: What dresses do they wear?

Martin: The most beautiful in the world. The dresses of White Admirals and Red, and Silver-Washed Fritillaries and Pearl-Bordered Fritillaries, and Large Whites and Small Whites and Marbled Whites and Green-Veined Whites, and Ringlets, and Azure Blues, and Painted Ladies, and Meadow Browns. And they go there for a Feast Day in honor of some Saint of the Fairies’ Church. Which Hobb and Margaret also attended once yearly on each first of August, bringing a golden rose to lay upon the altars of the pool. And the year in which they brought it no more, two Sulphurs, with dresses like sunlight on a charlock-field, came with the rest to the moon-daisies’ Feast; because not once in all their years of marriage had the perfect rose been lacking.

Jessica: It relieves me to hear that. For I had dreaded lest their rose was blighted for ever.

Jane: And I too, Jessica. Especially when she died at his feet.

Joan: And yet, Jane, she did not really die, and somehow I was sure she would live.

Joyce: Yes, I was confident that Hobb would be as happy as he deserved to be.

Jennifer: I do not know why, but even at the worst I could not imagine a love-story ending in tears.

Martin: Neither could I. Since love’s spear is for woe and his shield for joy. Why, I know of but one thing that could have lost him that battle.

Three of the Milkmaids: What thing?

Martin: Had the elements that go to make a man not been to Margaret’s taste.

Conversation ceased in the Apple-Orchard.

Joscelyn: Her taste would have been the more commendable, singer. And your tale might have been the better worth listening to. But since tales have nothing in common with truth, it’s a matter of indifference to me whether Hobb’s rose suffered perpetual blight or not.

Jane: And to me.

Martin: Then let the tale wilt, since indifference is a blight no story can suffer and live. And see! overhead the moon hangs undecided under a cloud, one half of her lovely body unveiled, the other half draped in a ghostly garment lit from within by the beauties she still keeps concealed; like a maid half-ready for her pillow, turned motionless on the brink of her couch by the oncoming dreams to which she so soon will wholly yield herself. Let us not linger, for her chamber is sacred, and we too have dreams that await our up-yielding.

Like a flock of clouds at sundown, the milkmaids made a golden group upon the grass, and soon, by their breathing, had sunk into their slumbers. All but Jessica, who instead of following their example, pushed the ground with her foot to keep herself in motion; and as she swung she bit a strand of her hair and knitted her brows. And Martin amused himself watching her. And presently as she swung she plucked a leaf from the apple-tree and looked at it, and let it go. And then she snapped off a twig, and flung it after the leaf. And next she caught at an apple, and tossed it after the twig.

“Well?” said Martin Pippin.

“Don’t be in such a hurry,” said Jessica. She got off the swing and walked round the tree, touching it here and there. And all of a sudden she threw an arm up into the branches and leaned the whole weight of her body against the trunk, and began to whistle.

“Give it up?” said Martin Pippin.

“Stupid!” said Jessica. “I’ve guessed it.”

“Impossible!” said Martin. “Nobody ever guesses riddles. Riddles were only invented to be given up. Because the pleasure of not being guessed is so much greater than the pleasure of having guessed. Do give it up and let me tell you the answer. Even if you know the answer, please, please give it up, for I am dying to tell it you.”

“I shall never have saved a young man’s life easier,” said Jessica, “and as you saved mine before the story, I suppose I ought to save yours after it. How often, by the way, have you saved a lady’s life?”

“As often as she thought herself in danger of losing it,” said Martin. “It happens every other minute with ladies, who are always dying to have, or to do, or to know–this thing or that.”

“I hope,” said Jessica, “I shall not die before I know everything there is to know.”

“What a small wish,” said Martin.

“Have you a bigger one?”

“Yes,” said he; “to know everything, there is not to know.”

Jessica: Oh, but those are the only things I do know.

Martin: It is a knowledge common to women.

Jessica: How do YOU know?

Martin: I’m sure I don’t know.

Jessica: I don’t think, Master Pippin, that you know a great deal about women.

And she put out her tongue at him.

Martin: (Take care!) I know nothing at all about women.

Jessica: (Why?) Yet you pretend to tell love-stories.

Martin: (Because if you do that I can’t answer for the consequences.) It is only by women’s help that I tell them at all.

Jessica: (I’m not afraid of consequences. I’m not afraid of anything.) Who helped you tell this one?

Martin: (Your courage will have to be tested.) You did.

Jessica: Did I? How?

Martin: Because what you love in an apple-tree is not the leaf or the flower or the bough or the fruit–it is the apple-tree. Which is all of the things and everything besides; for it is the roots and the rind and the sap, it is motion and rest and color and shape and scent, and the shadows on the earth and the lights in the air–and still I have not said what the tree is that you love, for thought I should recapitulate it through the four seasons I should only be telling you those parts, none of which is what you love in an apple-tree. For no one can love the part more than the whole till love can be measured in pint-pots. And who can measure fountains? That’s the answer, Mistress Jessica. I knew you’d have to give it up. (Take care, child, take care!)

Jessica: (I won’t take care!). I knew the answer all the time.

Martin: Then you know what your apple-tree has to do with my story.

Jessica: Yes, I suppose so.

Martin: Please tell me.

Jessica: No.

Martin: But I give it up.

Jessica: No.

Martin: That’s not fair. People who give it up must always be told, in triumph if not in pity.

Jessica: I sha’n’t tell.

Martin: You don’t know.

Jessica: I’ll box your ears.

Martin: If you do–!

Jessica: Quarreling’s silly.

Martin: Who began it?

Jessica: You did. Men always do.

Martin: Always. What was the beginning of your quarrel with men?

Jessica: They say girls can’t throw straight.

Martin: Silly asses! I’d like to see them throw as straight as girls. Did you ever watch them at it? Men can throw straight in one direction only–but watch a girl! she’ll throw straight all round the compass. Why, a man will throw straight at the moon and miss it by the eighth of an inch; but a girl will throw at the sun and hit the moon as straight as a die. I never saw a girl throw yet without straightway finding some mark or other.

Jessica: Yes, but you can’t convince a man till he’s hit.

Martin: Hit him then.

Jessica: It didn’t convince him. He said I’d missed. And he said he had hi–he wasn’t convinced.

Martin: Did he really say that? These men can no more talk straight than throw straight. Can you talk straight, Jessica?

Jessica: Yes, Martin.

Martin: Then tell me what your apple-tree has to do with my story.

Jessica: Bother. All right. Because wisdom and beauty and courage and laughter can all be measured in pint-pots. And any or all of these things can be dipped out of a fountain. You thought I didn’t know, but I do know.

Martin: (Take care!) Where did you get all this knowledge?

Jessica: And that was why Margaret could take what she took from Lionel and Hugh and Heriot and Ambrose, because it was something measurable. Yes, because even a gay spirit can be sad at times, and a strong nerve weak, and a beautiful face ugly, and a clever brain dull. But when it came to taking what Hobb had, she could take and take without exhausting it, and give and give and always have something left to give, because that wasn’t measurable. And the tree is the tree, and love is never anything else but love.

Martin: Oh, Jessica! who has been your schoolmaster?

Jessica: And so when she threw away her four pints what did it matter, any more than when the tree loses its leaves, or its flowers, or snaps a twig, or drops its apples? For though nobody else thought them lovely or clever or witty or splendid, she and Hobb were so to each other for ever and ever; because–

Martin: Because?

Jessica: It doesn’t matter. I’ve told you enough, and you thought I couldn’t tell you anything, and I simply hated saying it, but you thought I couldn’t throw straight and I can, and your riddle was as simple as pie.

Martin: (Look out, I tell you!) You have thrown as straight as a die. And now I will ask you a straight question. Will you give me your key to Gillian’s prison?

Jessica: Yes.

Martin: Because you dreaded lest Hobb’s rose was blighted for ever?

Jessica: No. Because it’s a shame she should be there at all.

And she gave him the key.

Martin: You honest dear.

Jessica: You thought I was going to beg the question–didn’t you, Martin?

Martin: Put in your tongue, or–

Jessica: Or what?

Martin: You know what.

Jessica: I don’t know what.

Martin: Then you must take the consequences.

And she took the consequences on both cheeks.

Jessica: Oh! Oh, if I had guessed you meant that, do you suppose for a moment that I would have–?

Martin: You dishonest dear.

Jessica: I don’t know what you mean.

Martin: How crooked girls throw!

She boxed his ears heartily and ran to her comrades. When she was perfectly safe she turned round and put out her tongue at him.

Then they both lay down and went to sleep.

Martin was wakened by water squeezed on his eyelids. He looked up and saw Joscelyn wringing out her little handkerchief in the pannikin.

“Let us have no nonsense this morning,” said she.

“I like that!” mumbled Martin. “What’s this but nonsense?” He sat up, drying his face on his sleeve. “What a silly trick,” he said.

“Rubbish,” said Joscelyn. “Our master is due, and yesterday you overslept yourself and were troublesome. Go to your tree this instant.”

“I shall go when I choose,” said Martin.

“Maids! maids! maids!”

“This instant!” said Joscelyn, and dipped her handkerchief in the pannikin.

Martin crawled into the tree.

“Is a dog got into the orchard, maids?” said Old Gillman, looking through the hedge.

“What an idea, master,” said Joscelyn.

“I thought I seed one wagging his tail in the grass.”

The girls burst out laughing; they laughed till the apples shook, and Old Gillman laughed too, because laughter is catching. And then he stopped laughing and said, “Is an echo got into the orchard?”

And the startled girls laughed louder than ever, and they grew red in the face, and tears stood in their eyes, and Joscelyn had to go and lean against the russet tree, where she stood frowning like a stepmother.

” Tis well to be laughing,” said Old Gillman, “but have ye heard my daughter laughing yet?”

“No, master,” said Jessica, “but I shouldn’t wonder if it happened any day.”

“Any day may be no day,” groaned Gillman, “and though it were some day, as like as not I’d not be here to see the day. For I’m drinking myself into my grave, as Parson warned me yesternight, coming for my receipt for mulled beer. Gillian!” he implored, “when will ye think better of it, and save an old man’s life?”

But for all the notice she took of him, he might have been the dog barking in his kennel.

“Bitter bread for me, maids, and sweet bread for you,” said the farmer, passing the loaves through the gap. ” Tis plain fare for all these days. May the morrow bring cake.”

“Oh, master, please!” called Jessica. “I would like to know how Clover, the Aberdeen, gets on without me.”

“Gets on as best she can with Oliver,” said Gillman, “though that fretty at times tis as well for him she’s polled. Yet all he says is Patience.’ But I say, will patience keep us all from rack and ruin?”

And he went away shaking his head.

“Why did you laugh?” stormed Joscelyn, as soon as he was out of earshot.

“How could I help it?” pleaded Martin. “When the old man laughed because you laughed, and you laughed for another reason–hadn’t I a third reason to laugh? But how you glared at me! I am sorry I laughed. Let us have breakfast.”

“You think of nothing but mealtimes,” said Joscelyn crossly; and she carried Gillian’s bread to the Well-House, where she discovered only the little round top of yesterday’s loaf. For every crumb of the bigger half had been eaten. So Joscelyn came away all smiles, tossing the ball of bread in the air, and saying as she caught it, “I do believe Gillian is forgetting her sorrow.”

“I am certain of it,” agreed Martin, clapping his hands. And she flung the top of the loaf to his right, and he made a great leap to the left and caught it. And then he threw it to Jessica, who tossed it to Joan, who sent it to Joyce, who whirled it to Jennifer, who spun it to Jane, who missed it. And all the girls ran to pick it up first, but Martin with a dexterous kick landed it in the duckpond, where the drake got it. And he and the ducks squabbled over it during the next hour, while Martin and the milkmaids breakfasted on bread and apples with no squabbling and great good spirits.

And after breakfast Martin lay on his back, chewing a grassblade and counting the florets on another, whispering to himself as he plucked them one by one. And the girls watched him. He did it several times with several blades of grass, and always looked disappointed at the end.

“Won’t it come right?” asked little Joan.

“Won’t what come right?” said Martin.

“Oh, I know what you’re doing,” said little Joan; and she too plucked a blade and began to count–

Tinker,
Tailor,
Soldier,
Sailor”–

“I’m sure I wasn’t,” said Martin. “Tailor indeed!”

“Well, something like that,” said Joan.

“Nothing at all like that. Oh, Mistress Joan! a tailor. Why, even if I were a maid like yourselves, do you think I’d give fate the chance to set me on my husband’s cross-knees for the rest of my life?”

“What would you do then if you were a maid?” asked Joyce.

“If I were a town-maid,” said Martin, “I should choose the most delightful husbands in the city streets.” And plucking a fresh blade he counted aloud,

Ballad-
singer,
Churchbell-
ringer,
Chimneysweep,
Muffin-man,
Lamplighter,
King!
Ballad-
singer,
Churchbell-
ringer,
Chimneysweep”–

“There, Mistress Joyce,” said Martin Pippin, “I should marry a Sweep and sit in the tall chimneys and see stars by daylight.”

“Oh, let me try!” cried Joyce.

And–“Let me!” cried five other voices at once.

So he chose each girl a blade, and she counted her fate on it, with Martin to prompt her. And Jessica got the Chimney-sweep, and vowed she saw Orion’s belt round the sun, and Jennifer got the Lamplighter and looked sorrowful, for she too wished to see stars in the morning; but Martin consoled her by saying that she would make the dark to shine, and set whispering lights in the fog, when men had none other to see by. And Joyce got the Muffin-man, and Martin told her that wherever she went men, women, and children would run to their snowy doorsteps, for she would be as welcome as swallows in spring. And Jane got the Bell-Ringer, and Martin said an angel must have blessed her birth, since she was to live and die with the peals of heaven in her ears. And Joscelyn got the Ballad-Singer.

“What about Ballad-Singers, Master Pippin?” asked Joscelyn.

“Nothing at all about Ballad-Singers,” said Martin. “They’re a poor lot. I’m sorry for you.”

And Joscelyn threw her stripped blade away saying, “It’s only a silly game.”

But little Joan got the King. And she looked at Martin, and he smiled at her, and had no need to say anything, because a king is a king. And suddenly every girl must needs grow out of sorts with her fate, and find other blades to count, until each one had achieved a king to her satisfaction. All but Joscelyn, who said she didn’t care.

“You are quite right,” said Martin, “because none of this applies to any of you. These are town-fortunes, and you are country-maids.”

And he plucked a new blade, reciting,

Mower,
Reaper,
Poacher,
Keeper,
Cowman,
Thatcher,
Plowman,
Herd.”

“How dull!” said Jessica. “These are men for every day.”

“So is a husband,” said Martin. “And to your town-girls, who no longer see romance in a Chimneysweep, your Poacher’s a Pirate and your Shepherd a Poet. Could you not find it in your heart, Mistress Jessica, to put up with a Thatcher?”

“That’s enough of husbands,” said Jessica.

“Then what of houses?” said Martin. “Where shall we live when we’re wed?–

‘Under a thatch,
In a ship’s hatch,
An inn, a castle,
A brown paper parcel’–

“Stuff and nonsense!” said Joscelyn.

“For the sake of the rime,” begged Martin. But the girls were not interested in houses. Yet the rest of the morning they went searching the orchard for the grass of fortune, and not telling. But once Martin, coming behind Jessica, distinctly heard her murmur “Thatcher!” and smile. And at another time he saw Joyce deliberately count her blade before beginning, and nip off a floret, and then begin; and the end was “Plowman.” And presently little Joan came and knelt beside him where he sat counting on his own behalf, and said timidly, “Martin.”

“Yes, dear?” said Martin absentmindedly.

“Oh. Martin, is it very wicked to poach?”

“The best men all do it,” said Martin.

“Oh. Please, what are you counting?”

“You swear you won’t tell?” said Martin, with a side-glance at her. She shook her head, and he pulled at his grass whispering–

Jennifer,
Jessica,
Jane,
Joan,
Joyce,
Joscelyn,
Gillian–“

“And the last one?” said little Joan, with a rosy face; for he had paused at the eighth.

“Sh!” said Martin, and stuck his blade behind his ear and called “Dinner!”

So they came to dinner.

“Have you not found,” said Martin, “that after thinking all the morning it is necessary to jump all the afternoon?” And he got the ropes of the swing and began to skip with great clumsiness, always failing before ten, and catching the cord round his ankles. At which the girls plied him with derision, and said they would show him how. And Jane showed him how to skip forwards, and Jessica how to skip backwards, and Jennifer how to skip with both feet and stay in one spot, and Joyce how to skip on either foot, on a run. And Joscelyn showed him how to skip with the rope crossed and uncrossed by turns. But little Joan showed him how to skip so high and so lightly that she could whirl the rope twice under her feet before they came down to earth like birds. And then the girls took the ropes by turns, ringing the changes on all these ways of skipping; or two of them would turn a rope for the others, while they skipped the games of their grandmothers: “Cross the Bible,” “All in together,” “Lady, lady, drop your purse!” and “Cinderella lost her shoe;” or they turned two ropes at once for the Double Dutch; and Martin took his run with the rest. And at first he did very badly, but as the day wore on improved, until by evening he was whirling the rope three times under his feet that glanced against each other in mid-air like the knife and the steel. And the girls clapped their hands because they couldn’t help it, and Joan said breathlessly:

“How quick you are! it took me ten days to do that.”

And Martin answered breathlessly, “How quick you were! it took me ten years.”

“Are you ever honest about anything, Master Pippin?” said Joscelyn petulantly.

“Three times a day,” said Martin, “I am honestly hungry.”

So they had supper.

Supper done, they clustered as usual about the story-telling tree, and Martin looked inquiringly from Jane to Joscelyn and from Joscelyn to Jane. And Joscelyn’s expression was one of uncontrolled indifference, and Jane’s expression was one of bridled excitement. So Martin ignored Joscelyn and asked Jane what she was thinking about.

“A great number of things, Master Pippin,” said she. “There is always so much to think about.”

“Is there?” said Martin.

“Oh, surely you know there is. How could you tell stories else?”

“I never think when I tell stories,” said Martin. “I give them a push and let them swing.”

“Oh but,” said Jane, “it is very dangerous to speak without thinking. One might say anything.”

“One does,” agreed Martin, “and then anything happens. But people who think before speaking often end by saying nothing. And so nothing happens.”

“Perhaps it’s as well,” said Joyce slyly.

“Yet the world must go round, Mistress Joyce. And swings were made to swing. Do you think, Mistress Jane, if you sat in the swing I should think twice, or even once, before giving it a push?”

Jane considered this, and then said gravely, “I think, Master Pippin, you would have to think at least once before pushing the swing to-night; because it isn’t there.”

“What a wise little milkmaid you are,” said Martin, looking about for the skipping-ropes.

“Yes,” said Jessica, “Jane is wiser than any of us. She is extremely wise. I wonder you hadn’t noticed it.”

“Oh, but I had,” said Martin earnestly, fixing the swinging ropes to their places. “There, Mistress Jane, let me help you in, and I will give you a push.”

He offered her his hand respectfully, and Jane took it saying, “I don’t like swinging very high.”

“I will think before I push,” said Martin. And when she was settled, with her skirts in order and her little feet tucked back, he rocked the swing so gently that not an apple fell nor a milkmaid slipped, clambering to her place. And Martin leaned back in his and shut his eyes.

“We are waiting,” observed Joscelyn overhead.

“So am I,” sighed Martin.

“For what?”

“For a push.”

“But you’re not swinging.”

“Neither’s my story. And it will take seven pair of arms to set it going.” And he fixed his eyes on Gillian in her sorrow, but she did not lift her face.

“Here’s six to start the motion of themselves,” said Joscelyn, “and it only remains to you to attract the seventh willy-nilly.”

“It were easier,” said Martin, “to unlock Saint Peter’s Gates with cowslips.”

“I was not talking of impossibilities, Master Pippin,” said Joscelyn.

“Why, neither was I,” said Martin; “for did you never hear that cowslips, among all the golden flowers of spring, are the Keys of Heaven?”

And sending a little chime from his lute across the Well-House he sang–

She lost the keys of heaven
Walking in a shadow,
Sighing for her lad O
She lost her keys of heaven.
She saw the boys and girls who flocked Beyond the gates all barred and locked– And oh! sighed she, the locks are seven
Betwixt me and my lad O,
And I have lost my keys of heaven
Walking in a shadow.
She found the keys of heaven
All in a May meadow,
Singing for her lad O
She found her keys of heaven.
She found them made of cowslip gold Springing seven-thousandfold–
And oh! sang she, ere fall of even
Shall I not be wed O?
For I have found my keys of heaven
All in a May meadow.

By the end of the song Gillian was kneeling upright among the mallows, and with her hands clasped under her chin was gazing across the duckpond.

“Well, well!” exclaimed Joscelyn, “cowslips may, or may not, have the power to unlock the heavenly gates. But there’s no denying that a very silly song has unlocked our Mistress’s lethargy. So I advise you to seize the occasion to swing your tale on its way.”

“Then here goes,” said Martin, “and I only pray you to set your sympathies also in motion while I endeavor to keep them going with the story of Proud Rosalind and the Hart-Royal.”

PROUD ROSALIND AND THE HART-ROYAL

There was once, dear maidens, a man-of-all-trades who lived by the Ferry at Bury. And nobody knew where he came from. For the chief of his trades he was an armorer, for it was in the far-away times when men thought danger could only be faced and honor won in a case of steel; not having learned that either against danger or for honor the naked heart is the fittest wear. So this man, whose name was Harding, kept his fires going for men’s needs, and women’s too; for besides making and mending swords and knives and greaves for the one, he would also make brooches and buckles and chains for the other; and tools for the peasants. They sometimes called him the Red Smith. In person Harding was ruddy, though his fairness differed from the fairness of the natives, and his speech was not wholly their speech. He was a man of mighty brawn and stature, his eyes gleamed like blue ice seen under a fierce sun, the hair of his head and his beard glittered like red gold, and the finer hair on his great arms and breast overlaid with an amber sheen the red-bronze of his skin. He seemed a man made to move the mountains of the world; yet truth to tell, he was a most indifferent smith.

(Martin: Are you not quite comfortable, Mistress Jane?

Jane: I am perfectly comfortable, thank you, Master Pippin.

Martin: I fancied you were a trifle unsettled.

Jane: No, indeed. What would unsettle me?

Martin: I haven’t the ghost of a notion.)

I have heard gossips tell, but it has since been forgotten or discredited, that this part of the river was then known as Wayland’s Ferry; for this, it was said, was one of the several places in England where the spirit lurked of Wayland the Smith, who was the cunningest worker in metal ever told of in song or story, and he had come overseas from the North where men worshiped him as a god. No one in Bury had ever seen the shape of Wayland, but all believed in him devoutly, for this was told of him, and truly: that any one coming to the ferry with an unshod steed had only to lay a penny on the ground and cry aloud, “Wayland Smith, shoe me my horse!” and so withdraw. And on coming again he would find his horse shod with a craft unknown to human hands, and his penny gone. And nobody thought of attributing to Harding the work of Wayland, partly because no human smith would have worked for so mean a fee as was accepted by the god, and chiefly because the quality of the workmanship of the man and the god was as dissimilar as that of clay and gold.

Besides his trade in metal, Harding also plied the ferry; and then men would speak of him as the Red Boatman. But he could not be depended on, for he was often absent. His boat was of a curious shape, not like any other boat seen on the Arun. Its prow was curved like a bird’s beak. And when folk wished to go across to the Amberley flats that lie under the splendid shell which was once a castle, Harding would carry them, if he was there and neither too busy nor too surly. And when they asked the fee he always said, “When I work in metal I take metal. But for that which flows I take only that which flows. So give me whatever you have heart to give, as long as it is not coin.” And they gave him willingly anything they had: a flower, or an egg, or a bird’s feather. A child once gave him her curl, and a man his hand.

And when he was neither in his workshop or his boat, he hunted on the hills. But this was a trade he put to no man’s service. Harding hunted only for himself. And because he served his own pleasure more passionately than he served others’, and was oftener seen with his bow than with hammer or oar, he was chiefly known as the Red Hunter. Often in the late of the year he would be away on the great hills of Bury and Bignor and Houghton and Rewell, with their beech-woods burning on their sides and in their hollows, and their rolling shoulders lifted out of those autumn fires to meet in freedom the freedom of the clouds.

It was on one of his huntings he came on the Wishing-Pool. This pool had for long been a legend in the neighborhood, and it was said that whoever had courage to seek it in the hour before midnight on Midsummer Eve, and thrice utter her wish aloud, would surely have that wish granted within the year. But with time it had become a lost secret, perhaps because its ancient reputation as the haunt of goblin things had long since sapped the courage of the maidens of those parts; and only great-grandmothers remembered how that once their grandmothers had tried their fortunes there. And its whereabouts had been forgotten.

But one September Harding saw a calf-stag on Great Down. There were wild deer on the hills then, but such a calf he had never seen before. So he stalked it over Madehurst and Rewell, and followed it into the thick of Rewell Wood. And when it led him to its drinking- place, he knew that he had discovered one more secret of the hills, and that this somber mere wherein strange waters bubbled in whispers could be no other than the lost Wishing-Pool. The young calf might have been its magic guard. To Harding it was a discovery more precious than the mere. For all that it was of the first year, with its prickets only showing where its antlers would branch in time, it was of a breed so fine and a build so noble that its matchless noon could already be foretold from its matchless dawn; and added to all its strength and grace and beauty was this last marvel, that though it was of the tribe of the Red Deer, its skin was as white and speckless as falling snow. Watching it, the Red Smith said to himself, “Not yet my quarry. You are of king’s stock, and if after the sixth year you show twelve points, you shall be for me. But first, my hart-royal, you shall get your growth.” And he came away and told no man of the calf or of the pool.

And in the second year he watched for it by the mere, and saw it come to drink, no longer a calf, but a lovely brocket, with its brow antlers making its first two points. And in the third year he watched for it again, no brocket now but a splendid spayade, which to its brows had added its shooting bays; and in the fourth year the spayade had become a proud young staggarde, with its trays above its bays. And in the fifth year the staggarde was a full-named stag, crowned with the exquisite twin crowns of its crockets, surmounting tray and bay and brow. And Harding lying hidden gloried in it, thinking, “All your points now but two, my quarry. And next year you shall add the beam to the crown, and I will hunt my hart.”

Now at the time when Harding first saw the calf, and the ruin of the castle across the ferry was only a ruin, not fit for habitation, it was nevertheless inhabited by the Proud Rosalind, who dwelt there without kith or kin. And if time had crumbled the castle to its last nobility, so that all that was strong and beautiful in it was preserved and, as it were, exposed in nakedness to the eyes of men: so in her, who was the ruins of her family, was preserved and exposed all that had been most noble, strong and beautiful in her race. She was as poor as she was friendless, but her pride outmatched both these things. So great was her pride that she learned to endure shame for the sake of it. She had a tall straight figure that was both strong and graceful, and she carried herself like a tree. Her hair was neither bronze nor gold nor copper, yet seemed to be an alloy of all the precious mines of the turning year– the vigorous dusky gold of November elms, the rust of dead bracken made living by heavy rains, the color of beechmast drenched with sunlight after frost, and all the layers of glory on the boughs before it fell, when it needed neither sun nor dew to make it glow. All these could be seen in different lights upon her heavy hair, which when unbound hung as low as her knees. Her thick brows were dark gold, and her fearless eyes dark gray with gold gleams in them. They may have been reflections from her lashes, or even from her skin, which had upon it the bloom of a golden plum. Dim ages since her fathers had been kings in Sussex; gradually their estate had diminished, but with the lessening of their worldly possessions they burnished the brighter the possession of their honor, and bred the care of it in their children jealously. So it came to pass that Rosalind, who possessed less than any serf or yeoman in the countryside, trod among these as though she were a queen, dreaming of a degree which she had never known, ignored or shrugged at by those whom she accounted her equals, insulted or gibed at by those she thought her inferiors. For the dwellers in the neighboring hamlets, to whom the story of her fathers’ fathers was only a legend, saw in her just a shabby girl, less worthy than themselves because much poorer, whose pride and very beauty aroused their mockery and wrath. They did not dispute her possession of the castle. For what to them were four vast roofless walls, enclosing a square of greensward underfoot and another of blue air overhead, and pierced with doorless doorways and windowless casements that let in all the lights of all the quarters of the sky? What to them were these traces of old chambers etched on the surface of the old gray stone, these fragments of lovely arches that were but channels for the winds? In the thick of the great towered gateway one little room remained above the arch, and here the maiden slept. And all her company was the ghosts of her race. She saw them feasting in the halls of the air, and moving on the courtyard of the grass. At night in the galleries of the stars she heard their singing; and often, looking through the empty windows over the flats to which the great west wall dropped down, she saw them ride in cavalcade out of the sunset, from battle or hunt or tourney. But the peasants, who did not know what she saw and heard, preferred their snug squalor to this shivering nobility, and despised the girl who, in a fallen fortress, defended her life from theirs.

At first she had kept her distance with a kind of graciousness, but one day in her sixteenth year a certain boor met her under the castle wall as she was returning with sticks for kindling, and was struck by her free and noble carriage; for though she was little more than a child, through all her rags she shone with the grace and splendor not only of her race, but of the wild life she lived on the hills when she was not in her ruins. She was as strong and fine as a young hind, and could run like any deer upon the Downs, and climb like any squirrel. And the dull-sighted peasant, seeing as though for the first time her untamed beauty, on an impulse offered to kiss her and make her his woman.

Rosalind stared at him like one aroused from sleep with a rude blow. The color flamed in her cheek.”YOU to accost so one of my blood?” she cried. “Mongrel, go back to your kennel!”

The lout gaped between rage and mortification, and, muttering, made a step towards her; but suddenly seeming to think better of it, stumbled away.

Then Rosalind, lifting her glowing face, as beautiful as sunset with its double flush, rose under gold, saw Harding the Red Hunter gazing at her. Some business had brought him over the ferry, and on his road he had lit upon the suit and its rejection. Rosalind, her spirit chafed with what had passed, returned his gaze haughtily. But he maintained his steadfast look as though he had been hewn out of stone; and presently, impatient and disdainful, she turned away. Then, and instantly, Harding pursued his way in silence. And Rosalind grew somehow aware that he had determined to stand at gaze until her eyes were lowered. Thereupon she classed his presumption with that of the other who had dared address her, and hated him for taking part against her. Near as their dwellings were, divided only by the river and a breadth of water-meadow, their intercourse had always been of the slightest, for Harding possessed a reserve as great as her own. But from this hour their intercourse ceased entirely.

The boor mis-spread the tale of her overweening pride through the hamlet, and when next she appeared there she was greeted with derision.

“This is she that holds herself unfit to mate with an honest man!” cried some. And others, “Nay, do but see the silken gown of the great lady Rosalind, see the fine jewels of her!” “She thinks she outshines the Queen of Bramber’s self!” scoffed a woman. And a man demanded, “What blood’s good enough to mix with hers, if ours be not?”

“A king’s!” flashed Rosalind. And even as she spoke the jeering throng parted to let one by that elbowed his way among them; and a second time she saw the Red Hunter come to halt and fix her before all the people. Now this time, she vowed silently, you may gaze till night fall and day rise again, Red Man, if you think to lower my eyes in the presence of these! So she stood and looked him in the face like a queen, all her spirit nerving her, and the people knew it to be battle between them. Harding’s great arms were folded across his breast, and on his countenance was no expressiveness at all; but a strange light grew and brightened in his eyes, till little by little all else was blurred and hazy in the girl’s sight, and blue fire seemed to lap her from her tawny hair to her bare feet. Then she knew nothing except that she must look away or burn. And her eyes fell. Harding walked past her as he had done before, and not till he was out of hearing did the bystanders begin their cruelty.

“A king’s blood for the lady that droops to a common smith!” cried they.

“She shall swing his hammer for a scepter!” cried they.

” Shall sit on’s anvil for a throne!” cried they.

” Shall queen it in a leathern apron o’ Sundays!” cried they.

Rosalind fled amid their howls of laughter. She hated them all, and far beyond them all she hated him who had lowered her head in their sight.

It was after this that the Proud Rosalind–

(But here, without even trouble to finish his sentence, Martin Pippin suddenly thrust with his foot at the seat of the swing, nearly dislodging Jane with the action; who screamed and clutched first at the ropes, and next at the branches as she went up, and last of all at Martin as she came down. She clutched him so piteously that in pure pity he clutched her, and lifting her bodily out of her peril set her on his knee.

Martin: (with great concern): Are you better, Mistress Jane?

Jane: Where are your manners, Master Pippin?

Martin: My mother mislaid them before I was born. But are you better now?

Jane: I am not sure. I was very much upset.

Martin: So was I.

Jane: It was all your doing.

Martin: I could have sworn it was half yours.

Jane: Who disturbed the swing, pray?

Martin: Every effect proceeds from its cause. The swing was disturbed because I was disturbed.

Jane: Every cause once had its effect. What effected your disturbance, Master Pippin?

Martin: Yours, Mistress Jane.

Jane: Mine?

Martin: Confess that you were disturbed.

Jane: Yes, and with good cause.

Martin: I can’t doubt it. Yet that was the mischief. I could find no logical cause for your disturbance. And an illogical world proceeds from confusion to chaos. For want of a little logic my foot and your swing passed out of control.

Jane: The logic had only to be asked for, and it would have been forthcoming.

Martin: Is it too late to ask?

Jane: It is never too late to be reasonable. But why am I sitting on– Why am I sitting here?

Martin: For the best of reasons. You are sitting where you are sitting because the swing is so disturbed. Please teach me to be reasonable, dear Mistress Jane. Why were you disturbed?

Jane: Very well. I was naturally greatly disturbed to learn that your heroine hated your hero. Because it is your errand to relate love-stories; and I cannot see the connection between love and hate. Could two things more antagonistic conclude in union?

Martin: Yes.

Jane: What?

Martin: A button and buttonhole. For one is something and the other nothing, and what in the very nature of things could be more antagonistic than these?

So saying, he tore a button from his shirt and put it into her hand. “Don’t drop it,” said Martin,”because I haven’t another; and besides, every button-hole prefers its own button. Yet I will never ask you to re-unite them until my tale proves to your satisfaction that out of antagonisms unions can spring.”

“Very well,” said Jane; and she took out of her pocket a neat little housewife and put the button carefully inside it. Then she said, “The swing is quite still now.”

“But are you sure you feel better?” said Martin.

“Yes, thank you,” said Jane.)

It was after this (said Martin) that the Proud Rosalind became known by her title. It was fastened on her in derision, and when she heard it she set her lips and thought: “What they speak in mockery shall be the truth.” And the more men sought to shame her, the prouder she bore herself. She ceased all commerce with them from this time. So for five years she lived in great loneliness and want.

But gradually she came to know that even this existence of friendless want was not to be life, but a continual struggle-with- death. For she had no resources, and was put to bitter shifts if she would live. Hunger nosed at her door, and she had need of her pride to clothe her. For the more she went wan and naked, the more men mocked her to see her hold herself so high; and out of their hearts she shut that charity which she would never have endured of them. If she had gone kneeling to their doors with pitiful hands, saying, “I starve, not having wherewithal to eat; I perish, not having wherewithal to cover me”–they would perhaps have fed and clothed her, aglow with self-content. But they were not prompt with the charity which warms the object only and not the donor; and she on her part tried to appear as though she needed nothing at their hands.

One evening when the woods were in full leaf, and summer on the edge of its zenith, Proud Rosalind walked among the trees seeking green herbs for soup. She had wandered far afield, because there were no woods near the castle, standing on its high ground above the open flats and the river beyond. But gazing over the water she could see the groves and crests upon the hills where some sustenance was. The swift way was over the river, but there was no boat to serve her except Harding’s; and this was a service she had never asked of old, and lately would rather have died than ask. So she took daily to the winding roads that led to a distant bridge and the hills with their forests. This day her need was at its sorest. When she had gathered a meager crop she sat down under a tree, and began to sort out the herbs upon her knees. One tender leaf she could not resist taking between her teeth, that had had so little else of late to bite on; and as she did so coarse laughter broke upon her. It was her rude