There was once, dear maidens, a shepherd who kept his master's sheep on Amberley Mount. His name was Gerard, and he was always called Young Gerard to distinguish him from the other shepherd who was known as Old Gerard, yet was not, as you might suppose, his father. Their master was the Lord of Combe Ivy that lay in the southern valleys of the hills toward the sea; he owned the grazing on the whole circle of the Downs between the two great roads—on Amberley and Perry and Wepham and Blackpatch and Cockhill and Highdown and Barnsfarm and Sullington and Chantry. But the two Gerards lived together in the great shed behind the copse between Rackham Hill and Kithurst, and the way they came to do so was this.
One night in April when Old Gerard's gray beard was still brown, the door of the shed was pushed open, letting in not only the winds of Spring but a woman wrapped in a green cloak, with a lining of cherry-color and a border of silver flowers and golden cherries. In one hand she swung a crystal lantern set in a silver frame, but it had no light in it; and in the other she held a small slip of a cherry-tree, but it had no bloom on it. Her dress was white, or had been; for the skirts of it, and her mantle, were draggled and sodden, and her green shoes stained and torn, and her long fair hair lay limp and dank upon her mantle whose hood had fallen away, and the shadows round her blue eyes were as black as pools under hedgerows thawing after a frost, and her lovely face was as white as the snowbanks they bed in. Behind her came another woman in a duffle cloak, a crone with eyes as black as sloes, and a skin as brown as beechnuts, and unkempt hair like the fireless smoke of Old Man's Beard straying where it will on the November woodsides. She too was wet and soiled, but full of life where the young one seemed full of death.
The Shepherd looked at this strange pair and said surlily, "What want ye?"
"Shelter," replied the crone.
She pushed the lady, who never spoke, into the shed, and took from her shoulders the wet mantle, and from her hands the lantern and the tree; and led her to the Shepherd's bed and laid her down. Then she spread the mantle over the Shepherd's bench and,
"Lie there," said she, "till love warms ye."
Next she hung the lantern up on a nail in the wall, and,
"Swing there," said she, "till love lights ye."
Last she took the Shepherd's trowel and went outside the shed, and set the cherry-slip beside the door. And she said:
"Grow there, till love blossoms ye."
After this she came inside and sat down at the bedhead.
Gerard the Shepherd, who had watched her proceedings without word or gesture, said to himself, "They've come through the floods."
He looked across at the women and raised his voice to ask, "Did ye come through the floods?"
The lady moaned a little, and the crone said, "Let her be and go to sleep. What does it matter where we came from by night? By daybreak we shall both of us be gone no matter whither."
The Shepherd said no more, for though he was both curious and ill-tempered he had not the courage to disturb the lady, knowing by the richness of her attire that she was of the quality; and the iron of serfdom was driven deep into his soul. So he went to sleep on his stool, as he had been bidden. But in the middle of the night he was awakened by a gusty wind and the banging of his door; and he started up rubbing his knuckles in his eyes, saying, "I've been dreaming of strange women, but was it a dream or no?" He peered about the shed, and the crone had vanished utterly, but the lady still lay on his bed. And when he went over to look at her, she was dead. But beside her lay a newborn child that opened its eyes and wailed at him.
Then the Shepherd ran to his open door and stared into the blowing night, but there were no more signs of the crone without than there were within. So he fastened the latch and came back to the bedside, and examined the child.—
(But at this point Martin Pippin interrupted himself, and seizing the rope of the swing set it rocking violently.
Joyce: I shall fall! I shall fall!
Martin: Then you will be no worse off than I, who have fallen already. For I see you do not like my story.
Joyce: What makes you say so?
Martin: Till now you listened with all your ears, but a moment ago you turned away your head a moment too late to hide the disappointment in your eyes.
Joyce: It is true I am disappointed. Because the beautiful lady is dead, and how can a love-story be, if half the lovers are dead?
Martin: Dear Mistress Joyce, what has love to do with death? Love and death are strangers and speak in different tongues. Women may die and men may die, but lovers are ignorant of mortality.
Joyce (pouting): That may be, singer. But lovers are also a man and a woman, and the woman is dead, and the love-tale ended before we have even heard it. You should not have let the woman die. What sort of love-tale is this, now the woman is dead?
Martin: Are not more nests than one built in a spring-time?—Give me, I pray you, two hairs of your head.
She plucked two and gave them to him, turning her pouting to laughing. One of them Martin coiled and held before his lips, and blew on it.
"There it flies," said he, and gave her back the second hair. "Hold fast by this and keep it from its fellow with all your might, for to part true mates baffles the forces of the universe. And when you give me this second hair again I swear I will send it where it will find its fellow. But I will never ask for it until, my story ended, you say to me, I am content.'")
Examining the child (repeated Martin) the Shepherd discovered it to be a lusty boy-child, and this rejoiced him, so that while the baby wept he laughed aloud.
"It is better to weep for something than for nothing," said he, "and to laugh for something likewise. Tears are for serfs and laughter is for freedmen." For he had conceived the plan of selling the child to his master, the Lord of Combe Ivy, and buying his freedom with the purchase money. So in the morning he carried the body of the lady into the heart of the copse, and there he dug a grave and laid her in it in her white gown. And afterwards he went up hill and down dale to his master, and said he had a man for sale. The Lord of Combe Ivy, who was a jovial lord and a bachelor, laughed at the tale he had to tell; but being always of the humor for a jest he paid the Shepherd a gold piece for the child, and promised him another each midnight on the anniversary of its birth; but on the twenty-first anniversary, he said, the Shepherd was to bring back the twenty-one gold pieces he had received, and instead of adding another to them he would take them again, and make the serf a freedman, and the child his serf.
"For," said the Lord of Combe Ivy, "an infant is a poor deal for a man in his prime, as you are, but a youth come to manhood is a good exchange for a graybeard, as you will be. Therefore rear this babe as you please, and if he live to manhood so much the better for you, but if he die first it's all one to me."
The Shepherd had hoped for a better bargain, but he must needs be content with seeing liberty at a distance. So he returned to his shed on the hills and made a leather purse to keep his gold-piece in, and hung it round his neck, touching it fifty times a day under his shirt to be sure it was still there. And presently he sought among his ewes one who had borne her young, saying, "You shall mother two instead of one." And the baby sucked the ewe like her very lamb, and thrived upon the milk. And the shepherd called the child Gerard after himself, "since," he said, "it is as good a name for a shepherd as another"; and from that time they became the Young and Old Gerards to all who knew them.
So the Young Gerard grew up, and as he grew the cherry-tree grew likewise, but in the strangest fashion; for though it flourished past all expectation, it never put forth either leaf or blossom. This bitterly vexed Old Gerard, who had hoped in time for fruit, and the frustration of his hopes became to him a cause of grievance against the boy. A further grudge was that by no manner of means could he succeed in lighting any wick or candle in the silver lantern, of which he desired to make use.
"But if your tree and your lantern won't work," said he, "it's no reason why you shouldn't." So he put Young Gerard to work, first as sheepboy to his own flock, but later the boy had a flock of his own. There was no love lost between these two, and kicks and curses were the young one's fare; for he was often idle and often a truant, and none was held responsible for him except the old shepherd who was selling him piece-meal, year by year, to their master. Because of what depended on him, Old Gerard was constrained to show him some sort of care when he would liever have wrung his neck. The boy's fits exasperated the man; whether he was cutting strange capers and laughing without reason, as he frequently did, or sitting a whole evening in a morose dream, staring at the fire or at the stars, and saying never a word. The boy's coloring was as mingled as his moods, a blend of light and dark—black hair, brown skin, blue eyes and golden lashes, a very odd anomaly.
(Martin: What is it, Mistress Joyce?
Joyce: I said nothing, Master Pippin.
Martin: I thought I heard you sigh.
Joyce: I did not—you did not.
Martin: My imagination exceeds all bounds.)
Because of their mutual dislike, when the boy was put in charge of his own sheep the two shepherds spent their days apart. The Old Gerard grazed his flock to the east as far as Chantry, but the Young Gerard grazed his flock to the west as far as Amberley, whose lovely dome was dearer to him than all the other hills of Sussex. And here he would sit all day watching the cloud-shadows stalk over the face of the Downs, or slipping along the land below him, with the sun running swiftly after, like a carpet of light unrolling itself upon a dusky floor. And in the evening he watched the smoke going up from the tiny cottages till it was almost dark, and a hundred tiny lights were lit in a hundred tiny windows. Sometimes on his rare holidays, and on other days too, he ran away to the Wildbrooks to watch the herons, or to find in the water-meadows the tallest kingcups in the whole world, and the myriad treasures of the river—the giant comfrey, purple and white, meadowsweet, St. John's Wort, purple loose-strife, willowherb, and the ninety-nine-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-five others, or whatever number else you please, that go to make a myriad. He came to know more about the ways of the Wildbrooks than any other lad of those parts, and one day he rediscovered the Lost Causeway that can be traveled even in the floods, when the land lies under a lake at the foot of the hills. He kept this, like many other things, a secret; but he had one more precious still.
For as he lay and watched the play of sun and shadow on the plains, he fancied a world of strange places he had known, somewhere beyond the veils of light and mist that hung between his vision and the distance, and he fell into a frequent dream of tunes and laughter, and sunlit boughs in blossom, and dancing under the boughs; or of fires burning in the open night, and a wilder singing and dancing in the starlight; and often when his body was lying on the round hill, or by the smoky hearth, his thoughts were running with lithe boys as strong and careless as he was, or playing with lovely free-limbed girls with flowing hair. Sometimes these people were fair and bright-haired and in light and lovely clothing, and at others they were dark, with eyes of mischief, and clad in the gayest rags; and sometimes they came to him in a mingled company, made one by their careless hearts.
One evening in April, on the twelfth anniversary, when Young Gerard came to gather his flock, a lamb was missing; so to escape a scolding he waited awhile on the hills till Old Gerard should be gone about his business. What this was Young Gerard did not know, he only knew that each year on this night the old shepherd left him to his own devices, and returned in the small hours of the morning. Not therefore until he judged that the master must have left the hut, did the boy fold his sheep; and this done he ran out on the hills again, seeking the lost lamb. For careless though he was he cared for his sheep, as he did for all things that ran on legs or flew on wings. So he went swinging his lantern under the stars, singing and whistling and smelling the spring. Now and then he paused and bleated like a ewe; and presently a small whimper answered his signal.
"My lost lamb crying on the hills," said Young Gerard. He called again, but at the sound of his voice the other stopped, and for a moment he stood quite still, listening and perplexed.
"Where are you, my lamb?" said he.
"Here," said a little frightened voice behind a bush.
He laughed aloud and went forward, and soon discovered a tiny girl cowering under a thorn. When she saw him she ran quickly and grasped his sleeve and hid her face in it and wept. She was small for her years, which were not more than eight.
Young Gerard, who was big for his, picked her up and looked at her kindly and curiously.
"What is it, you little thing?" said he.
"I got lost," said the child shyly through her tears.
"Well, now you're found," said Young Gerard, "so don't cry any more."
"Yes, but I'm hungry," sobbed the child.
"Then come with me. Will you?"
"Where to?"
"To a feast in a palace."
"Oh, yes!" she said.
Young Gerard set her on his shoulder, and went back the way he had come, till the dark shape of his wretched shed stood big between them and the sky.
"Is this your palace?" said the child.
"That's it," said Young Gerard.
"I didn't know palaces had cracks in the walls," said she.
"This one has," explained Young Gerard, "because it's so old." And she was satisfied.
Then she asked, "What is that funny tree by the door?"
"It's a cherry-tree."
"My father's cherry-trees have flowers on them," said she.
"This one hasn't," said Young Gerard, "because it's not old enough."
"One day will it be?" she asked.
"One day," he said. And that contented her.
He then carried her into the shed, and she looked around eagerly to see what a palace might be like inside; and it was full of flickering lights and shadows and the scent of burning wood, and she did not see how poor and dirty the room was; for the firelight gleamed upon a mass of golden fruit and silver bloom embroidered on the covering of the settle by the hearth, and sparkled against a silver and crystal lantern hanging in the chimney. And between the cracks on the walls Young Gerard had stuck wands of gold and silver palm and branches of snowy blackthorn, and on the floor was a dish full of celandine and daisies, and a broken jar of small wild daffodils. And the child knew that all these things were the treasures of queens and kings.
"Why don't you have that?" she asked, pointing to the crystal lantern as Young Gerard set down his horn one.
"Because I can't light it," said he.
"Let ME light it!" she begged; so he fetched it from its nail, and thrust a pine twig in the fire and gave her the sweet-smoking torch. But in vain she tried to light the wick, which always spluttered and went out again. So seeing her disappointment Young Gerard hung the lantern up, saying, "Firelight is prettier." And he set her by the fire and filled her lap with cones and dry leaves and dead bracken to burn and make crackle and turn into fiery ferns. And she was pleased.
Then he looked about and found his own wooden cup, and went away and came back with the cup full of milk, set on a platter heaped with primroses, and when he brought it to her she looked at it with shining eyes and asked:
"Is this the feast?"
"That's it," said Young Gerard.
And she drank it eagerly. And while she drank Young Gerard fetched a pipe and began to whistle tunes on it as mad as any thrush, and the child began to laugh, and jumped up, spilling her leaves and primroses, and danced between the fitful lights and shadows as though she were, now a shadow taken shape, and now a flame. Whenever he paused she cried, "Oh, let me dance! Don't stop! Let me go on dancing!" until at the same moment she dropped panting on the hearth and he flung his pipe behind him and fell on his back with his heels in the air, crying, "Pouf! d'you think I've the four quarters of heaven in my lungs, or what?" But as though to prove he had yet a capful of wind under his ribs, he suddenly began to sing a song she'd never heard before, and it went like this:
I looked before me and behind,
I looked beyond the sun and wind,
Beyond the rainbow and the snow,
And saw a land I used to know.
The floods rolled up to keep me still
A captive on my heavenly hill,
And on their bright and dangerous glass
Was written, Boy, you shall not pass!
I laughed aloud, You shining seas,
I'll run away the day I please!
I am not winged like any plover
Yet I've a way shall take me over,
I am not finned like any bream
Yet I can cross you, lake and stream.
And I my hidden land shall find
That lies beyond the sun and wind—
Past drowned grass and drowning trees
I'll run away the day I please,
I'll run like one whom nothing harms
With my bonny in my arms.
"What does that mean?" asked the child.
"I'm sure I don't know," said Young Gerard. He kicked at the dying log on the hearth, and sent a fountain of sparks up the chimney. The child threw a dry leaf and saw it shrivel, and Young Gerard stirred the white ash and blew up the embers, and held a fan of bracken to them, till the fire ran up its veins like life in the veins of a man, and the frond that had already lived and died became a gleaming spirit, and then it too fell in ashes among the ash. Then Young Gerard took a handful of twigs and branches, and began to build upon the ash a castle of many sorts of wood, and the child helped him, laying hazel on his beech and fir upon his oak; and often before their turret was quite reared a spark would catch at the dry fringes of the fir, or the brown oakleaves, and one twig or another would vanish from the castle.
"How quickly wood burns," said the child.
"That's the lovely part of it," said Young Gerard, "the fire is always changing and doing different things with it."
And they watched the fire together, and smelled its smoke, that had as many smells as there were sorts of wood. Sometimes it was like roast coffee, and sometimes like roast chestnuts, and sometimes like incense. And they saw the lichen on old stumps crinkle into golden ferns, or fire run up a dead tail of creeper in a red S, and vanish in mid-air like an Indian boy climbing a rope, or crawl right through the middle of a birch-twig, making hieroglyphics that glowed and faded between the gray scales of the bark. And then suddenly it caught the whole scaffolding of their castle, and blazed up through the fir and oak and spiny thorns and dead leaves, and the bits of old bark all over blue-gray-green rot, and the young sprigs almost budding, and hissing with sap. And for one moment they saw all the skeleton and soul of the castle without its body, before it fell in.
The child sighed a little and yawned a little and said:
"How nice it is to live in a palace. Who lives here with you?"
"My friends," said Young Gerard, poking at the log with a bit of stick.
"What are your friends like?" she asked him, rubbing her knuckles in her eyes.
He was silent for a little, stirring up sparks and smoke. Then he answered, "They are gay in their hearts, and they're dressed in bright clothes, and they come with singing and dancing."
"Who else lives in your palace with you?" she asked drowsily.
"You do," said Young Gerard.
The child's head dropped against his shoulder and she said, "My name's Dorothea, but my father calls me Thea, and he is the Lord of Combe Ivy." And she fell fast asleep.
For a little while Young Gerard held and watched her in the firelight, and then he rose and wrapped her in the old embroidered mantle on the settle, and went out. And sure-foot as a goat he carried her over the dark hills by the tracks he knew, for roads there were none, and his arms ached with his burden, but he would not wake her till they stood at her father's gates. Then he shook her gently and set her down, and she clung to him a little dazed, trying to remember.
"This is Combe Ivy," he whispered. "You must go in alone. Will you come again?"
"One day," said Thea.
"One day there'll be flowers on my cherry-tree," said Young Gerard. "Don't forget."
"No, I won't," she said.
He returned through the night up hill and down dale, but did not go back to the shed until he had recovered his lamb. By then it was almost dawn, and he found his master awake and cursing. He had feared the boy had made off, and he had had curt treatment at Combe Ivy, which was in a stir about the loss of the little daughter. Young Gerard showed the lamb as his excuse, nevertheless the old shepherd leathered the young one soundly, as he did six days in seven.
After this when Young Gerard sat dreaming on the hills, he dreamed not only of his happy land and laughing friends, but of the next coming of little Thea. But Combe Ivy was far away, and the months passed and the years, and she did not come again. Meanwhile Young Gerard and his tree grew apace, and the limbs of the boy became longer and stronger, and the branches of the tree spread up to the roof and even began to thrust their way through the holes in the wall; but the boy's life, save for his dreaming, was as friendless as the tree's was flowerless. And of a tree's dreaming who shall speak? Meanwhile Old Gerard thrashed and rated him, and reckoned his gold pieces, and counted the years that still lay between him and his freedom. At last came another April bringing its hour.
For as he sat on the Mount in the early morning, when he was in his seventeenth year, Young Gerard saw a slender girl running over the turf and laughing in the sunlight, sometimes stopping to watch a bird flying, or stooping to pluck one of the tiny Down-flowers at her feet. So she came with a dancing step to the top of the Mount, and then she saw him, and her glee left her and shyness took its place. But a little pride in her prevented her from turning away, and she still came forward until she stood beside him, and said:
"Good morning, Shepherd. Is it true that in April the country north of the hills is filled with lakes?"
"Yes, sometimes, Mistress Thea," said Young Gerard.
She looked at him with surprise and said, "You must be one of my father's shepherds, but I do not remember seeing you at Combe Ivy."
"I was only once near Combe Ivy," said Young Gerard, "when I took you there five years ago the night you were lost on these hills."
"Oh, I remember," she said with a faint smile. "How they did scold me. Is your cherry-tree in flower yet, Shepherd?"
"No, mistress," said Young Gerard.
"I want to see it," she said suddenly.
Young Gerard left his flock to the dog, and walked with her along the hillbrow.
"I have run away," she told him as they went. "I had to get up very early while they were asleep. I shall be scolded again. But travelers come who talk of the lakes, and I wanted to see them, and to swim in them."
"I wouldn't do that," said Young Gerard, hiding a smile. "It's dangerous to swim in the April floods. And it would be rather cold."
"What lies beyond?" she asked.
"I'm not able to know," said Young Gerard.
"Some day I mean to know, shepherd."
"Yes, mistress," he said, "you'll be free to."
She looked at him quickly and reddened a little, it might have been from shame or pity, Young Gerard did not know which. And her shyness once more enveloped her; it always came over her unexpectedly, taking her breath away like a breaking wave. So she said no more, and they walked together, she looking at the ground, he at the soft brown hair blowing over the curve of her young cheek. She was fine and delicate in every line, and in her color, and in the touch of her too, Young Gerard knew. He wanted to touch her cheek with his finger as he would have touched the petal of a flower. Her neck, the back of it especially, was one of the loveliest bits of her, like a primrose stalk. He fell a step behind so that he could look at it. They did not speak as they went. He did not want to, and she did not know what to say.
When they reached the shed she lingered a moment by the tree, tracing a bare branch with her finger, and he waited, content, till she should speak or act, to watch her. At last she said with her faint smile, "I am very thirsty." Then he went into the shed and came out with his wooden cup filled with milk. She drank and said, "Thank you, shepherd. How pretty the violets are in your copse."
"Would you like some?" he asked.
"Not now," she said. "Perhaps another day. I must go now." She gave him back his cup and went away, slowly at first, but when she was at some distance he saw her begin to run like a fawn.
She did not come again that spring. And so the stark lives of the boy and the tree went forward for another year. But one evening in the following April, when the green was quivering on wood and hedgerow, he came to the door of the shed and saw her bending like a flower at the edge of the copse, filling her little basket and singing to herself. She looked up soon and said:
"Good evening, shepherd. How does your cherry-tree?"
"As usual, Mistress Thea."
"So I see. What a lazy tree it is. Have you some milk for me?"
He brought her his cup and she drank of it for the third time, and left him before he had had time to realize that she had come and gone, but only how greatly her delicate beauty had increased in the last year.
However, before the summer was over she came again—to swim in the river, she told him, as she passed him on the hills, without lingering. And in the autumn she came to gather blackberries, and he showed her the best place to find them. Any of these things she might have done as easily nearer Combe Ivy, but it seemed she must always offer him some reason for her small truancies—whether to gather berries or flowers, or to swim in the river. He knew that her chief delight lay in escaping from her father's manor.
Winter closed her visits; but Young Gerard was as patient as the earth, and did not begin to look for her till April. As surely as it brought leaves to the trees and flowers to the grass, it would, he knew, bring his little mistress's question, half shy, half smiling, "Is your cherry-tree in blossom, shepherd?" And later her request, smiling and shy, for milk.
They seldom exchanged more than a few words at any time. Sometimes they did not speak at all. For he, who was her father's servant, never spoke first; and she, growing in years and loveliness, grew also in timidity, so that it seemed to cost her more and more to address her greeting or her question even to her father's servant. The sweet quick reddening of her cheek was one of Young Gerard's chief remembrances of her.
But after a while, when they met by those sly chances which she could control and he could not; and when she did not speak, but glanced and hesitated and passed on; or glanced and passed without hesitation; or passed without a glance; he came to know that she would not mind if he arose and walked with her, if he could control the pretext, which she could not. And he did so quietly, having always something to show her.
He showed her his most secret nests and his greatest treasures of flowers, his because he loved them so much. He would have been jealous of showing these things to any one but her. In a great water-meadow in the valley, he had once shown her kingcups making sheets of gold, enameled with every green grass ever seen in spring—thousands of kingcups and a myriad of milkmaids in between, dancing attendance in all their faint shades of silver-white and rosy-mauve. When a breeze blew, this world of milkmaids swayed and curtsied above the kings' daughters in their glory. Then Gerard and Thea looked at each other smiling, because the same delight was in each, and soon she looked away again at the gentle maids and the royal ladies, but he looked still at her, who was both to him.
In silence he showed her what he loved.
But you must not suppose that she came frequently to those hills. She was to be seen no more often than you will see a kingfisher when you watch for it under a willow. Yet because in the season of kingfishers you know you may see one flash at any instant, so to Young Gerard each day of spring and summer was an expectancy; and this it was that kept his lift alight. This and his young troop of friends in a land of fruit in blossom and a sky in stars. For men, dear maids, live by the daily bread of their dreams; on realizations they would starve.
At last came the winter that preceded Young Gerard's twenty-first year. With the stripping of the boughs he stripped his heart of all thoughts of seeing her again till the green of the coming year. The snows came, and he tended his sheep and counted his memories; and Old Gerard tended his sheep and counted his coins. The count was full now, and he dreamed of April and the freeing of his body. Young Gerard also dreamed of April, and the freeing of his heart. And under the ice that bound the flooded meadows doubtless the earth dreamed of the freeing of her waters and the blooming of the land. The snows and the frosts lasted late that year as though the winter would never be done, and to the two Gerards the days crawled like snails; but in time March blew himself off the face of the earth, and April dawned, and the swollen river went rushing to the sea above the banks it had drowned with its wild overflow. And as Old Gerard began to mark the days off on a tally, Young Gerard began to listen on the hills. When the day came whose midnight was to make the old man a freedman, Thea had not appeared.
On the morning of this day, as the two shepherds stood outside their shed before they separated with their flocks, their ears were accosted with shoutings and halloos on the other side of the copse, and soon they saw coming through the trees a man in gay attire. He had a scalloped jerkin of orange leather, and his shoes and cap were of the same, but his sleeves and hose and feather were of a vivid green, like nothing in nature. He looked garish in the sun. Seeing the shepherds he took off his cap, and solemnly thanked heaven for having after all created something besides hills and valleys. "For," said he, "after being lost among them I know not how many hours, with no other company than my own shadow, I had begun to doubt whether I was not the only man on earth, and my name Adam. A curse of all lords who do not live by highroads!"
"Where are you bound for, master?" asked Old Gerard.
"Combe Ivy," said the stranger, "and the wedding."
Old Gerard nodded, as one little surprised; but to Young Gerard this mention of a wedding at Combe Ivy came as news. It did not stir him much, however, for he was not curious about the doings of the master and the house he never saw; all that concerned him was that to-day, at least, he must cease to listen on the hills, since his young mistress would be at the wedding with the others.
Old Gerard said to the stranger, "Keep the straight track to the south till you come under Wepham, then follow the valley to the east, and so you'll be in time for the feasting, master."
"That's certain," said the stranger, "for the Lord of Combe Ivy and the Rough Master of Coates have had no peers at junketing since Gay Street lost its Lord; and the feast is like to go on till midnight."
With that he went on his way, and Old Gerard followed him with his eyes, muttering,
"Would I also were there! But for you," he said, turning on the young man with a sudden snarl, "I should be! Had ye not come a day too late, I'd be a freedman to-night instead of to-morrow, and junketing at the wedding with the rest."
Young Gerard did not understand him. He was not in the habit of questioning the old man, and if he had would not have expected answers. But certain words of the stranger had pricked his attention, and now he said:
"Where is Gay Street?"
"Far away over the Stor and the Chill," growled Old Gerard.
"It's a jolly name."
"Maybe. But they say it's a sorry place now that it lacks its Lord."
"What became of him?"
"How should I know? What can a man know who lives all his life on a hill with pewits for gossips?"
"You know more than I," said Young Gerard indolently. "You know there's a wedding down yonder. Who's the Rough Master of Coates?"
"The bridegroom, young know-nothing. You've a tongue in your head to-day."
"Why do they call him the Rough Master?"
"Because that's what he is, and so are his people, as rough as furze on a common, they say. Have you any more questions?"
"Yes," said Young Gerard. "Who is the bride?"
"Who should the bride be? Combe Ivy's mother?"
"She's dead," said Young Gerard.
"His daughter then," scoffed Old Gerard.
Young Gerard stared at him.
"Get about your business," shouted the old shepherd with sudden wrath. "Why do ye stare so? You're not drunk. Ah! down yonder they'll be getting drunk without me. Enough of your idling and staring!"
He raised his staff, but Young Gerard thrust it aside so violently that he staggered, and the boy went away to his sheep and they met no more till evening. The whole of that day Young Gerard sat on the Mount, not looking as usual to the busy north dreaming of the unknown land beyond the water, but over the silent slopes and valleys of the south, whose peoples were only birds and foxes and rabbits, and whose only cities were built of lights and shadows. Somewhere beyond them was Combe Ivy, and little Thea getting married to the Rough Master of Coates, in the midst of feasting and singing and dancing. He thought of her dancing over the Downs for joy of being free, he thought of her singing to herself as she gathered flowers in his copse, and he thought of her feasting on wild berries he had helped her to find—that also was a feasting and singing and dancing. All day long his thoughts ran, "She will not come any more in the mornings to bathe in the river over the hill. She will not come with her little basket to gather flowers and berries. She will not stop and ask for a cup of milk, or say, Let me see the young lambs, or say, Is your cherry-tree in flower yet, shepherd? She will not ask me with her eyes to come with her—oh, she will not ask me by turning her eyes away, with her little head bent. You! you Rough Master of Coates, what are you like, what are you like?"
In the evening when he gathered his sheep, one was missing. He had to take the flock back without it. Old Gerard was furious with him; it seemed as though on this last night that separated him from the long fulfillment of his hopes he must be more furious than he had ever been before. He was furious at being thwarted of the fun in the valley, furious at the loss of the lamb, most furious at young Gerard's indifference to his fury. He told the boy he must search on the hills, and Young Gerard only sat down by the side of the shed and looked to the south and made no answer. So he went himself, leaving the boy to prepare the mess for supper; for he feared that if he went to Combe Ivy that night with a bad tale to tell, his master for a whim might say that a young sheep was a fair deal for an old shepherd, and take his gold, and keep him a bondman still. For the Lord of Combe Ivy lived by his whimsies. But Old Gerard could not find the lost sheep, and when he came back the boy was where he had left him, looking over the darkening hills.
"Is the mess ready?" said Old Gerard.
"No," said Young Gerard.
"Why not?"
"Because I forgot."
Old Gerard slashed at him with a rope he had taken in case of need. "That will make you remember."
"No," said Young Gerard.
"Why not?"
Young Gerard said, "You beat me too often, I cannot remember all the reasons."
"Then," said Old Gerard full of wrath, "I will beat you out of all reason."
And he began to thrash Young Gerard will all his might, talking between the blows. "Haven't you been the curse of my life for twenty-one years?" snarled he. "Can I trust you? Can I leave you? Would the sheep get their straw? Would the lambs be brought alive into the world? Bah! for all you care the sheep would go cold and their young would die. And down yonder they are getting drunk without me!"
"Old shepherd," said a voice behind him.
The angry man, panting with his rage and the exertion of his blows, paused and turned. Near the corner of the shed he saw a woman in a duffle cloak standing, or rather stooping, on her crutch. She was so ancient that it seemed as though Death himself must have forgotten her, but her eyes in their wrinkled sockets were as piercing as thorns. Old Gerard, staring at them, felt as though his own eyes were pricked.
"Where have I seen you before, hag?" he said.
"Have you ever seen me before?" asked the old woman.
"I thought so, I thought so"—he fumbled with his memory.
"Then it must have been when we went courting in April, nine-and-ninety years ago," said the old woman dryly, "but you lads remember me better than I do you. Can I sleep by your hearth to-night?"
"Where are you going to?" asked Old Gerard, half grinning, half sour.
"Where I'll be welcome," said she.
"You're not welcome here. But there's nothing to steal, you may sleep by the hearth."
"Thank you, shepherd," said the crone, "for your courtesy. Why were you beating the boy?"
"Because he's one that won't work."
"Is he your slave?"
"He's my master's slave. But he's idle."
"I am not idle," said Young Gerard. "The year round I'm busy long before dawn and long after dark."
"Then why are you idle to-day," sneered Old Gerard, "of all the days in the year?"
"I've something else to think of," said the boy.
"You see," said the old man to the crone.
"Well," said she, "a boy cannot always be working. A boy will sometimes be dreaming. Life isn't all labor, shepherd."
"What else is it?" said Old Gerard.
"Joy."
"Ho, ho, ho!" went Old Gerard.
"And power."
"Ho, ho, ho!"
"And triumph."
"Not for serfs," said Old Gerard.
"For serfs and lords," she said.
"Ho, ho, ho!"
"You were young once," said the crone.
Old Gerard said, "What if I was?"
"Good night," said the crone; and she went into the shed.
The shepherds looked after her, the old one stupidly, the young one with lighted eyes.
"Will you get supper?" growled Old Gerard.
"No," said Young Gerard, "I won't. I want no supper. Put down that rope. I am taller and stronger than you, and why I've let you go on beating me so long I don't know, unless it is that you began to beat me when you were taller and stronger than I. If you want any supper, get it yourself."
Old Gerard turned red and purple. "The boy's mad!" he gasped. "Do you know what happens to servants who defy their masters?"
"Yes," said Young Gerard, "then they're lords." And he too went into the shed.
"Try that on Combe Ivy!" bawled Old Gerard, "and see what you'll get for it. I thank fortune, I'll be quit of you tomorrow— What's that to-do in the valley?" he muttered, and stared down the hill.
Away in the hollows and shadows he saw splashes of moving light, and heard far-off snatches of song and laughter, but the movements and sounds were still so distant that they seemed to be only those of ghosts and echoes. Nearer they came and nearer, and now in the night he could discern a great rabble stumbling among the dips and rises of the hills.
"They're heading this way," said Old Gerard. "Why, tis the wedding-party," he said amazed, "if it's not witchcraft. But why are they coming here?"
"Hola! hola! hola!" shouted a tipsy voice hard by.
"Here's dribblings from the wineskin," said Old Gerard; and up the track struggled a drunken man, waving a torch above his head. It was the guest whom he had directed in the morning.
"Hola!" he shouted again on seeing Old Gerard.
"Well, racketer?" said the shepherd, with a chuckle.
"Shall a man not racket at another man's wedding?" he cried. "Let some one be jolly, say I!"
"The bridegroom," said Old Gerard.
"Ha, ha!" laughed the other, "the bridegroom! He was first in high feather and last in the sulks."
"The bride, then."
"Ha, ha! ha, ha! during the toasts he tried to kiss her."
"Wouldn't she?"
"She wouldn't."
"Hark!" said Old Gerard, "here they come." The sound of rollicking increased as the rout drew nearer.
"He's taking her home across the river," said the guest. "I wouldn't be she. There she sat, her pretty face fixed and frozen, but a fright in her that shook her whole body. You could see it shake. And we drank, how we drank! to the bride and the groom and their daughters and sons, to the sire and the priest, and the ring and the bed, to the kiss and the quarrel, to love which is one thing and marriage which is another—Lord, how we drank! But she drank nothing. And for all her terror the Rough could do no more with her than with a stone. Something in her turned him cold every time. Suddenly up he gets. We'll have no more of this,' he says, we'll go.' Combe Ivy would have had them stay, but She's where she's used to lord it here,' says Rough, I'll take her where I lord it, and teach her who's master,' And he pushes down his chair and takes her hand and pulls her away; and out we tumble after him. Combe Ivy cries to him to wait for the horses, but no, We'll foot it,' says he, up hill and down dale as the crow flies, and if she hates me now without a cause I swear she'll love me with one at the end of the dance.' We're dancing them as far as the Wildbrooks; on t'other side they may dance for themselves. Here they come dancing—dance, you!" cried the guest, and whirled his torch like a madman. And as he whirled and staggered, up the hill came the wedding-party as tipsy as he was: a motley procession, waving torches and garlands, winecups, flagons, colored napkins, shouting and singing and beating on trenchers and salvers—on anything that they could snatch from the table as they quitted it. They came in all their bravery—in doublets of flame-colored silk and blue, in scarlet leather and green velvet, in purple slashed with silver and crimson fringed with bronze; but their vests were unlaced, their hose sagged, and silk and velvet and leather were stained bright or dark with wine. Some had stuck leaves and flowers in their hair, others had tied their forelocks with ribbons like horses on a holiday, and one had torn his yellow mantle in two and capered in advance, waving the halves in either hand like monstrous banners, or the flapping wings of some golden bird of prey. In the midst of them, pressing forward and pressed on by the riot behind, was the Rough Master of Coates, and with him, always hanging a little away and shrinking under her veil, Thea, whose right wrist he grasped in his left hand. Breathless she was among the breathless rabble, who, gaining the hilltop seized each other suddenly and broke into antics, shaking their napkins and rattling on their plates. Their voices were hoarse with laughter and drink, and their faces flushed with it; only among those red and swollen faces, the bridegroom's, in the flare of the torches, looked as black as the bride's looked white. The night about the newly-wedded pair was one great din and flutter.
Then in a trice the dancers all lost breath, and the dance parted as they staggered aside; and at the door of the shed Young Gerard stood, and gazed through the broken revel at little Thea, and she stood gazing at him. And behind and above him, along the walls of the hut, and over the doorway, and making lovely the very roof, she saw a cloud of snowwhite blossom.
Somebody cried, "Here's a boy. He shall dance too. Boy, is there drink within?"
The others took up the clamor. "Drink! bring us something to drink!"
"The red grape!" cried one.
"The yellow grape!" cried another.
"The sap of the apple!"
"The juice of the pear!"
"Nut-brown ale!"
"The spirit that burns!"
"Bring us drink!" they cried in a breath.
"Will you have milk?" said Young Gerard.
At this the company burst into a roar of laughter. They laughed till they rocked. But when they were silent little Thea spoke. She said in a faint clear voice:
"I would like a cup of milk."
Young Gerard went into the hut and came out with his wooden cup filled with milk, and brought it to her, and she drank. None spoke or moved while she drank, but when she gave him the cup again one of the crew said chuckling, "Now she has drunk, now she's merrier. Try her again, Rough, try her on milk!"
Again the night reeled with their laughter. They surrounded the wedded pair crying, "Kiss her! kiss her! kiss her!" Then the Rough Master of Coates pulled her round to him, dark with anger, and tried to kiss her. But she turned sharply in his arms, bending her head away. And despite his force, and though he was a man and she little more than a child, he could not make her mouth meet his. And the laughter of the guests rose higher, and infuriated him.
Then he who had spoken before said, "By Hymen, the bride should kiss something. If the lord's not good enough, let her kiss the churl!" At this the revelers, wild with delight, beat on their trenchers and shouted, "Ay, let her!"
And suddenly they surged in, parting Thea from the Rough; while some pulled him back others dragged Young Gerard forward, till he stood where the bridegroom had stood; and in that seething throng of mockery he felt her clinging helplessly to him, and his arm went round her.
"Kiss him! kiss him! kiss him!" cried the guests.
She looked up pitifully at him, and he bent his head. And she heard him whisper:
"My cherry-tree's in flower."
She whispered, "Yes."
And they kissed each other.
Then the tumult of laughter passed all bounds, so that it was a wonder if it was not heard at Combe Ivy; and the guests clashed their trenchers one against another, and whirled their torches till the sparks flew, yelling, "The bride's kiss! Ha, ha! the bride's kiss!"
But the Rough Master of Coates had had enough; snarling like a mad dog he thrust his way through the crowd on one side, as Old Gerard, seeing his purpose, thrust through on the other, and both at the same instant fell on the boy, the one with his scabbard, the other with his staff.
"Kisses, will ye?" cried the Rough Master of Coates, "here's kisses for ye!"
"Ha, ha!" cried the guests, "more kisses, more kisses for him that kissed the bride!"
And then they all struck him at once, kicking and beating him without mercy, till he lay prone on the earth. When he had fallen, the Rough shouted, "Away to the Wildbrooks, away!"
And he seized Thea in his arms, and rushed along the brow of the hill, and all the company followed in a confusion, and were swallowed up in the night.
But Young Gerard raised himself a little, and groaned, "The Wildbrooks—are they going to the Wildbrooks?"
"Ay, and over the Wildbrooks," said Old Gerard.
"But they're in flood," gasped Young Gerard. "They'll never cross it in the spring floods."
"They'll manage it somehow. The Rough—did you see his eyes when you—? ho, ho! he'll cross it somehow."
"He can't," the boy muttered. "The April tide's too strong. He will drown in the flood."
"And she," said Old Gerard.
"Perhaps she will swim on the flood," said Young Gerard faintly. And he sighed and sank back on the earth.
"Ay, you'll be sore," chuckled the old man. "You had your salve before you had your drubbing. Lie there. I must be gone on business."
He took up his staff and went down the hill for the last time to Combe Ivy, to purchase his freedom.
But Young Gerard lay with his face pressed to the turf. "And that was the bridegroom," he said, and shook where he lay.
"Young shepherd," said a voice beside him. He looked up and saw the hooded crone, come out of the hut. "Why do you water the earth?" said she. "Have not the rains done their work?"
"What work, dame?"
"You've as fine a cherry in flower," said she, "as ever blossomed in Gay Street in the season of singing and dancing."
"Singing and dancing!" he cried, his voice choking, and he sprang up despite his pains. "Don't speak to me, dame, of singing and dancing. You're old, like the withered branch of a tree, but did you not see with your old eyes, and hear with your old ears? Did you not see her come up the green hillside with singing and dancing? Oh, yes, my cherry's in flower, like a crown for a bride, and the spring is all in movement, and the birds are all in song, and she—she came up the hillside with singing and dancing."
"I saw," said the crone, "and I heard. I'm not so old, young shepherd, that I do not remember the curse of youth."
"What's that?" he said moodily.
"To bear the soul of a master in the body of a slave," said she; "to be a flower in a sealed bud, the moon in a cloud, water locked in ice, Spring in the womb of the year, love that does not know itself."
"But when it does know?" said Young Gerard slowly.
"Oh, when it knows!" said she. "Then the flower of the fruit will leap through the bud, and the moon will leap like a lamb on the hills of the sky, and April will leap in the veins of the year, and the river will leap with the fury of Spring, and the headlong heart will cry in the body of youth, I will not be a slave, but I will be the lord of life, because—"
"Because?" said Young Gerard.
"Because I will!"
Young Gerard said nothing, and they sat together in a long silence in the darkness, and time went by filling the sky with stars.
Now as they sat the hilltop once more began to waver with shadows and voices, but this time the shadows came on heavy feet and weary, and the voices were forlorn. One feebly cried, "Hola!" And round the belt of trees straggled the rout that had left them an hour or so earlier. But now they were sodden and dejected, draggled and woebegone, as sorry a spectacle as so many drowned rats.
"Fire!" moaned one. "Fire! fire!"
"Who's burning?" said Young Gerard, and got quickly on his feet; but he did not see the two he looked for.
"None's burning, fool, but many are drowning. Do we not look like drowned men? How shall we ever get back to Combe Ivy, and warmth and drink and comforts? Would we were burning!"
"What has happened?" the boy demanded.
"We went in search of the ferry," he said, "but the ferry was drowned too."
"We couldn't find the ferry," said a second.
"No," mumbled a third, "the river had drunk it up. Where there were paths there are brooks, and where there were meadows, lakes."
The miserable crew broke out into plaints and questions—"Have you no fire? have you no food? no coverings?"
"None," said Young Gerard. "Where is the bride?"
"Have you do drink?"
"Where is the bride?"
"The groom stumbled," said one. "Let us to Combe Ivy, in comfort's name. There'll be drink there."
He staggered down the hill, and his fellows made after him. But Young Gerard sprang upon one, and gripped him by the shoulder and shook him, and for the third time cried:
"Where is the bride?"
"In the water," he answered heavily, "because—there was—no wine."
Then he dragged himself out of the boy's grasp, and fell down the hill after his companions.
Young Gerard stood for one instant listening and holding his breath. Suddenly he said, "My lost lamb, crying on the hills." He ran into the shed and looked about, and snatched from the settle the green and cherry cloak, and from the wall the crystal and silver lantern. He struck a spark from a flint and lit the wick. It burned brightly and steadily. Then he ran out of the shed. The old woman rose up in his path.
"That's a good light," said she, "and a warm cloak."
"Don't stop me!" said Young Gerard, and ran on. She nodded, and as he vanished in one direction, she vanished in the other.
He had not run far when he saw one more shadow on the hills; and it came with faltering steps, and a trembling sobbing breath, and he held up his lantern and the light fell on Thea, shivering in her wet veil. As the flame struck her eyes she sighed, "Oh, I can't see the way—I can't see!"
Young Gerard hurried to her and said, "Come this way," and he took her hand; but she snatched it quickly from him.
"Go, man!" she said. "Don't touch me. Go!"
"Don't be frightened of me," said Young Gerard gently.
Then she looked at him and whispered, "Oh—it is you—shepherd. I was trying to find you. I'm cold."
Young Gerard wrapped the cloak about her, and said, "Come with me. I'll make you a fire."
He took her back to the shed. But she did not go in. She crouched on the ground under the cherry-tree. Young Gerard moved about collecting brushwood. They scarcely looked at each other; but once when he passed her he said, "You're shivering."
"It's because I'm so wet," said Thea.
"Did you fall in the water?"
She nodded. "The floods were so strong."
"It's a bad night for swimming," said Young Gerard.
"Yes, shepherd." She then said again, "Yes." He could tell by her voice that she was smiling faintly. He glanced at her and saw her looking at him; both smiled a little and glanced away again. He began to pile his brushwood for the fire.
After a short pause she said timidly, "Are you sore, shepherd?"
"No, I feel nothing," said he.
"They beat you very hard."
"I did not feel their blows."
"How could you not feel them?" she said in a low voice. He looked at her again, and again their eyes met, and again parted quickly.
"Now I'll strike a spark," said Young Gerard, "and you'll be warm soon."
He kindled his fire; the branches crackled and burned, and she knelt beside the blaze and held her hands to it.
"I was never here by night before," she said.
"Yes, once," said Young Gerard. "You often came, didn't you, to gather flowers in the morning and to swim in the river at noon. But once before you were here in the night."
"Was I?" said she.
He dropped a handful of cones into her lap, throwing the last on the fire. She threw another after it, and smiled as it crackled.
"I remember," she said. "Thank you, shepherd. You were always kind and found me the things I wanted, and gave me your cup to drink of. Who'll drink of it now?"
"No one," he said, "ever again."
He went and fetched the cup and gave it to her. "Burn that too," said Young Gerard. Thea put it into the fire and trembled. When it was burned she asked very low, "Will you be lonely?"
"I'll have my sheep and my thoughts."
"Yes," said Thea, "and stars when the sheep are folded. The stars are good to be with too."
"Good to see and not be seen by," he said.
"How do you know they don't see you?" she asked shyly.
"One shepherd on a hill isn't much for the eye of a star. He may watch them unwatched, while they come and go in their months. Sometimes there aren't any, and sometimes not more than one pricking the sky near the moon. But to-night, look! the sky's like a tree with full branches."
Thea looked up and said with a child's laugh, "Break me a branch!"
"I'd want Jacob's Ladder for that," smiled Young Gerard.
"Then shake the tree and bring them down!" she insisted.
"Here come your stars," said Young Gerard. Suddenly she was enveloped in a falling shower, white and heavenly.
"The stars—!" she cried. "Oh, what is it?"
"My cherry-tree—it's in flower—" said Young Gerard, and his voice trembled. She looked up quickly and saw that he was standing beside her, shaking the tree above her head. And now their eyes met and did not separate. He put out his hand and broke a branch from the tree and offered it to her. She took it from him slowly, as though she were in a dream, and laid it in her lap, and put her face in her hands and began to cry.
Young Gerard whispered, "Why are you crying?"
Thea said, "Oh, my wedding, my wedding! Only last year I thought of the night of my wedding and how it would be. It was not with torchlight and shouting and wine, but moonlight and silence and the scent of wild blossoms. And now I know that it was not the night of my wedding I dreamed of."
"What did you dream of?" asked Young Gerard.
"The night of my first love."
"Thea," said Young Gerard, and he knelt beside her.
"And my love's first kiss."
"Oh, Thea," said Young Gerard, and he took her hands.
"Why did you not feel their blows?" she said. "I felt them."
Their arms went round each other, and for the second time that night they kissed.
Young Gerard said, "I've always wondered if this would happen."
And Thea answered, "I didn't know it would be you."
"Didn't you? didn't you?" he whispered, stroking her head, wondering at himself doing what he had so often dreamed of doing.
"Oh," she faltered, "sometimes I thought—it might—be you, darling."
"Thea, Thea!"
"When I came over the Mount to swim in the river, and saw you in the distance among your sheep, there was a swifter river running through all my body. When I came every April to ask for your cherry-tree, what did it matter to me that it was not in bloom? for all my heart was wild with bloom, oh, Gerard, my—lover!"
"Oh, Thea, my love! What can I give you, Thea, I, a shepherd?"
"You were the lord of the earth, and you gave me its flowers and its birds and its secret waters. What more could you give me, you, a shepherd and my lord?"
"The wild white bloom of its fruit-trees that comes to the branches in April like love to the heart. I'll give it you now. Sit here, sit here! I'll make you a bower of the cherry, and a crown, and a carpet too. There's nothing in all April lovely and wild enough for you to-night, your bridal night, my lady and my darling!"
And in a great fit of joy he broke branch after branch from the tree as she sat at its foot, and set them about her, and filled her arms to overflowing, and crowned her with blossoms, and shook the bloom under her feet, till her shy happy face, paling and reddening by turns, looked out from a world of flowers and she cried between laughing and weeping, "Oh, Gerard, oh, you're drowning me!"
"It's the April floods," shouted Young Gerard, "and I must drown with you, Thea, Thea, Thea!" And he cast himself down beside her, and clasped her amid all the blossoming, and with his head on her shoulder kissed and kissed her till he was breathless and she as pale as the flowers that smothered their kisses.
And then suddenly he folded her in the green mantle, blossoms and all, and sprang up and lifted her to his breast till she lay like a child in the arms of its mother; and he picked up the lantern and said, "Now we will go away for ever."
"Where are we going?" she whispered with shining eyes.
"To the Wildbrooks," he said.
"To drown in the floods together?" She closed her eyes.
"There's a way through all floods," said Young Gerard.
And he ran with her over the hills with all his speed.
And Old Gerard returned to a hut as empty as it had been one-and-twenty years ago. And they say that Combe Ivy, having never set eyes on the boy in his life, swore that the shepherd's tale had been a fiction from first to last, and kept him a serf to the end of his days.
("What a night of stars it is!" said Martin Pippin, stretching his arms.
"Good heavens, Master Pippin," cried Joyce, "what a moment to mention it!"
"It is worth mentioning," said Martin, "at all moments when it is so. I would not think of mentioning it in the middle of a snowstorm."
"You should as little think of mentioning it," said Joyce, "in the middle of a story."
"But I am at the end of my story, Mistress Joyce."
Joscelyn: Preposterous! Oh! Oh, how can you say so? I am ashamed of you!
Martin: Dear Mistress Joscelyn, I thank you in charity's name for being that for me which I have never yet succeeded in being for myself.
Joscelyn: What! are you not ashamed to offer us a broken gift? Your story is like a cracked pitcher with half the milk leaked out. What was the secret of the Lantern, the Cloak, and the Cherry-tree?
Joyce: Who was the lovely lady, his mother? and who the old crone?
Jennifer: What was the end of the Rough Master of Coates?
Jessica: Did not the lovers drown in the floods?
Jane: And if they did not, what became of them?
"Please," said little Joan, "tell us why Young Gerard dreamed those dreams. Oh, please tell us what happened."
"Women's taste is for trifles," said Martin. "I have offered you my cake, and you wish only to pick off the nuts and the cherries."
"No," said Joan, "we wish you to put them on. Do you not love nuts and cherries on a cake?"
"More than anything," said Martin.)
A long while ago, dear maidens, there were Lords in Gay Street, and up and down the Street the cherry-trees bloomed in Spring as they bloomed nowhere else in Sussex, and under the trees sang and danced the loveliest lads and lasses in all England, with hearts like children. And on all their holiday clothes they worked the leaf and branch and flower and fruit of the cherry. And they never wore anything else but their holiday clothes, because in Gay Street it was always holidays.
And a long while ago there were Gypsies on Nyetimber Common, the merriest Gypsies in the southlands, with the gayest tatters and the brightest eyes, and the maddest hearts for mirth-making. They were also makers of lanterns when they were anything else but what all Gypsies are.
And once the son of a Gypsy King loved the daughter of a Lord of Gay Street, and she loved him. And because of this there was wrath in Gay Street and scorn on Nyetimber, and all things were done to keep the lovers apart. But they who attempt this might more profitably chase wild geese. So one night in April they were taken under one of her father's own wild cherries by the light of one of his father's own lanterns. And it was her father and his father who found them, as they had missed them, in the same moment, and were come hunting for sweethearts by night with their people behind them.
Then the Lord of Gay Street pronounced a curse of banishment on his own daughter, that she must go far away beyond the country of the floods, and another on his own tree, that it might never blossom more. And there and then it withered. And the Gypsy King pronounced as dark a curse of banishment on his own son, and a second on his own lantern, that it might never more give light. And there and then it went out.
Then from the crowd of gypsies came the oldest of them all, who was the King's great-grandmother, and she looked from the angry parents to the unhappy lovers and said, "You can blight the tree and make the lantern dark; nevertheless you cannot extinguish the flower and the light of love. And till these things lift the curse and are seen again united among you, there will be no Lords in Gay Street nor Kings on Nyetimber."
And she broke a shoot from the cherry and picked up the lantern and gave them to the lady and her lover; and then she took them one by each hand and went away. And the Lord of Gay Street and the Gypsy King died soon after without heirs, and the joy went out of the hearts of both peoples, and they dressed in sad colors for one-and-twenty years.
But the three traveled south through the country of the floods, and on the way the King's son was drowned, as others had been before him, and after him the Rough Master of Coates. But the crone brought the lady safely through, and how she was at once delivered of her son and her sorrow, dear maidens, you know.
And for one-and-twenty years the crone was seen no more, and then of a sudden she re-appeared at daybreak and bade her people put on their bright apparel because their King was coming with a young Queen; and after this she led them to Gay Street where she bade the folk to don their holiday attire, because their Lord was on his way with a fair Lady. And all those girls and boys, the dark and the light, felt the child of joy in their hearts again, and they went in the morning with singing and dancing to welcome the comers under the cherry-trees.
I entreat you now, Mistress Joyce, for the second hair from your head.
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