Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard by Eleanor Farjeon (top 10 novels to read .TXT) 📗

up so fine, But if you do not skim and churn How can they dine? Get up, you idle Milkmaids, And call in your kine.

You milkmaids in the hedgerows, You lazy lovely crew, Get up and churn the buttercups And skim the milkweed, do! But the Milkmaids in their country prints And faces washed with dew, They laughed at Lords and Ladies And sang "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" And if you know their reason I'm not so wise as you.

When he had done, Martin carried the pails to the dairy and turned his back on Gillman's. For his business there was ended. So he went out at the gate and lifted his face to the Downs.

It was a lovely evening. Half the sky was clear and blue, and the other half full of silky gold clouds--they wanted to be heavy and wet, but the sun was having such fun on the edge of the Downs, somewhere about Duncton, that they had to be gold in spite of themselves.

CONCLUSION

One evening at the end of the first week in September, Martin Pippin walked along the Roman Road to Adversane. And as he approached he said to himself, "There are many sweet corners in Sussex, but few sweeter than this, and I thank my stars that I have been led to see it once in my life."

While he was thanking his stars, which were already in the sky waiting for the light to go out and give them a chance, he heard the sound of weeping. It came from the malthouse, which is the most beautiful building in Sussex. So persistent was it that after he had listened to it for six minutes it seemed to Martin that he had been listening to it for six months, and for one moment he believed himself to be sitting in an orchard with his eyes shut, and warm tears from heaven falling on his face. But knowing himself to be too much given to fancies he decided to lay those ghosts by investigation, and he went up to the malthouse and looked inside.

There he found a young man flooring the barley. As he turned and re-turned it with his spade he wept so copiously above it that he was frequently obliged to pause and wipe away his tears with his arm, for he could no longer see the barley he was spreading. When the maltster had interrupted himself thus for the third occasion, Martin Pippin concluded that it was time to address him.

"Young master," said Martin, "the bitters that are brewed from your barley will need no adulterating behind the bar, and that's flat."

The maltster leaned on his spade to reply.

"There are no waters in all the world," said he, "plentiful enough to adulterate the bitterness of my despair."

"Then I would preserve these rivers for better sport," said Martin. "And if memory plays me no tricks, your name was once Robin Rue."

"And Rue it will be to my last hour," said Robin, "for a man can no more escape from his name than from his nature."

"Men," observed Martin, "have been in this respect worse served than women. And when will Gillian Gillman change her name?"

"No sooner than I," sighed Robin Rue; "a maid she must die, as I a bachelor. And if she do not outlive me, we shall both be buried before Christmas."

"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Martin. And stepping into the malthouse he offered Robin six keys.

"How will these help us?" said Robin Rue.

"They are the keys of your lady's Well-House," said Martin Pippin, "and how I have outpaced her I cannot imagine, for she was on the road to you twenty hours ago."

"This is no news," said Robin. "There she is."

And he turned his face to the dark of the malthouse, and there, sitting on a barrel, with a slice of the sunset falling through a slit on her corn-colored hair, was Gillian.

"In love's name," cried Martin Pippin, putting his hands to his head, "what more do you want?"

"A husband worthy of her," moaned Robin Rue, "and how can I suppose that I am he? Oh, that I were only good enough for her! oh, that she could be happily mated, as after all her sorrows she deserves to be!"

Then Martin looked down at the patch on his shoe saying, "And tell me now, if you knew Gillian happily wed, would you ask nothing more of life?"

"Oh, sir," cried Robin Rue, "if I knew any man who could give her all I cannot, I would contrive at least to live long enough to drown my sorrows in the beer brewed from this barley."

"It is a solace," said Martin, "that must be denied to no man. It seems that I must help you out to the last. And if you will take one glance out of doors, you will see that the working-day is over."

Robin Rue looked out of doors, saw by the sun that it was so, put down his spade, and went home to supper.

"Gillian," said Martin Pippin, "the Squire did not come himself to fetch her away because he was a young fool. There was no eighth floret on the grass-blade, so the rime stayed at the seventh. The letter I threw with the Lady-peel was a G. There are apples all round your silver ring because it was once my ring. I do, you dear, I do, I do. And now I have answered your many questions, answer me one. Why did you sit six months in the Well-House weeping for love?"

"Oh, Martin," said Gillian softly, "could you tell my friends so much they did not know, and not know this?--girls do not weep for love, they weep for want of it." And she lifted her heavenly eyes, and out of the last of the sunlight looked at him without thinking. And Martin, like a drowning man catching at straws, caught her corn-colored plaits one in either hand, and drawing himself to her by them, whispered, "Do girls do that? But they