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

Lover, lover, thy/my own true lover Has opened a way for the Emperor's Daughter! The dawn is the goal and the dark the cover As we sail a thousand leagues over the water-- Lover, lover, My dear lover, O my own true lover!

(The Wandering Singer and The Emperor's Daughter float a thousand leagues in his shallop and live happily ever after. I don't know what becomes of The Ladies.)

"Bed-time, children!"

In they go.

You see the treatment is a trifle fanciful. But romance gathers round an old story like lichen on an old branch. And the story of Martin Pippin in the Apple-Orchard is so old now--some say a year old, some say even two. How can the children be expected to remember?

But here's the truth of it.

MARTIN PIPPIN IN THE APPLE-ORCHARD

PROLOGUE PART I

One morning in April Martin Pippin walked in the meadows near Adversane, and there he saw a young fellow sowing a field with oats broadcast. So pleasant a sight was enough to arrest Martin for an hour, though less important things, such as making his living, could not occupy him for a minute. So he leaned upon the gate, and presently noticed that for every handful he scattered the young man shed as many tears as seeds, and now and then he stopped his sowing altogether, and putting his face between his hands sobbed bitterly. When this had happened three or four times, Martin hailed the youth, who was then fairly close to the gate.

"Young master!" said he. "The baker of this crop will want no salt to his baking, and that's flat."

The young man dropped his hands and turned his brown and tear-stained countenance upon the Minstrel. He was so young a man that he wanted his beard.

"They who taste of my sorrow," he replied, "will have no stomach for bread."

And with that he fell anew to his sowing and sighing, and passed up the field.

When he came down again Martin observed, "It must be a very bitter sorrow that will put a man off his dinner."

"It is the bitterest," said the youth, and went his way.

At his next coming Martin inquired, "What is the name of your sorrow?"

"Love," said the youth. By now he was somewhat distant from the gate when he came abreast of it, and Martin Pippin did not catch the word. So he called louder:

"What?"

"Love!" shouted the youth. His voice cracked on it. He appeared slightly annoyed. Martin chewed a grass and watched him up and down the meadow.

At the right moment he bellowed:

"I was never yet put off my feed by love."

"Then," roared the youth, "you have never loved."

At this Martin jumped over the gate and ran along the furrow behind the boy.

"I have loved," he vowed, "as many times as I have tuned lute-strings."

"Then," said the youth, not turning his head, "you have never loved in vain."

"Always, thank God!" said Martin fervently.

The youth, whose name was Robin Rue, suddenly dropped all his seed in one heap, flung up his arms, and,

"Alas!" he cried. "Oh, Gillian! Gillian!" And began to sob more heavily than ever.

"Tell me your trouble," said the Minstrel kindly.

"Sir," said the youth, "I do not know your name, and your clothes are very tattered. But you are the first who has cared whether or no my heart should break since my lovely Gillian was locked with six keys into her father's Well-House, and six young milkmaids, sworn virgins and man-haters all, to keep the keys."

"The thirsty," said Martin, "make little of padlocks when within a rope's length of water."

"But, sir," continued the youth earnestly, "this Well-House is set in the midst of an Apple-Orchard enclosed in a hawthorn hedge full six feet high, and no entrance thereto but one small green wicket, bolted on the inner side."

"Indeed?" said Martin.

"And worse to come. The length of the hedge there is a great duckpond, nine yards broad, and three wild ducks swimming on it. Alas!" he cried, "I shall never see my lovely girl again!"

"Love is a mighty power," said Martin Pippin, "but there are doubtless things it cannot do."

"I ask so little," sighed Robin Rue. "Only to send her a primrose for her hair-band, and have again whatever flower she wears there now."

"Would this really content you?" said Martin Pippin.

"I would then consent to live," swore Robin Rue, "long enough at all events to make an end of my sowing."

"Well, that would be something," said Martin cheerfully, "for fields must not go fallow that are appointed to bear. Direct me to your Gillian's Apple-Orchard."

"It is useless," Robin said. "For even if you could cross the duckpond, and evade the ducks, and compass the green gate, my sweetheart's father's milkmaids are not to be come over by any man; and they watch the Well-House day and night."

"Yet direct me to the orchard," repeated Martin Pippin, and thrummed his lute a little.

"Oh, sir," said Robin anxiously, "I must warn you that it is a long and weary way, it may be as much as two mile by the road." And he looked disconsolately at the Minstrel, as though in fear that he would be discouraged from the adventure.

"It can but be attempted," answered Martin, "and now tell me only whether I go north or south as the road runs."

"Gillman the farmer, her father," said Robin Rue, "has moreover a very big stick--"

"Heaven help us!" cried Martin, and took to his heels.

"That ends it!" sighed the sorry lover.

"At least let us make a beginning!" quoth Martin Pippin.

He leaped the gate, mocked at a cuckoo, plucked a primrose, and went singing up the road.

Robin Rue resumed his sowing and his tears.

"Maids," said Joscelyn, "what is this coming across the duckpond?"

"It is a man," said little Joan.

The six girls came running and crowding to the wicket, standing a-tiptoe and peeping between each other's sunbonnets. Their sunbonnets and their gowns were as green as lettuce-leaves.

"Is he coming on a raft?" asked Jessica, who stood behind.

"No," said Jane, "he is coming on his