Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard (30 page)

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 suitor who had chanced across her path, and he mocked at her, crying, "This is the Proud Rosalind that will not eat at an honest man's board, choosing rather to dine after the high fashion of the kine and asses!" Then from his pouch he snatched a crust of bread and flung it to her, and said, "Proud Rosalind, will you stoop for your supper?"

She rose, letting the precious herbs drop from her lap, and she trod them into the earth as weeds gathered at hazard, so that the putting of the leaf between her lips might wear an idle aspect; and then she walked away, with her head very high. But she was nearly desperate at leaving them there, and when she was alone her pain of hunger increased beyond all bounds. And she sat down on the limb of a great beech and leaned her brow against his mighty body, and shut her eyes, while the light changed in the sky. And presently the leaves of the forest were lit by the moon instead of the sun, and the spaces in the top boughs were dark blue instead of saffron, and the small clouds were no longer fragments of amber, but bits of mottled pearl seen through sea-water. But Rosalind witnessed none of these slow changes, and when after a great while she lifted her faint head, she saw only that the day was changed to night. And on the other side of the beech-tree, touched with moonlight, a motionless white stag stood watching her. It was a hart of the sixth year, and stood already higher than any hart of the twelfth; full five foot high it stood, and its grand soft shining flanks seemed to be molded of marble for their grandeur, and silk for their smoothness, and moonlight for their sheen. Its new antlers were branching towards their yearly strength, and the triple-pointed crowns rose proudly from the beam that was their last perfection. The eyes of the girl and the beast met full, and neither wavered. The hart came to her noiselessly, and laid its muzzle on her hair, and when she put her hand on its pure side it arched its noble neck and licked her cheek. Then, stepping as proudly and as delicately as Rosalind's self, it moved on through the trees; and she followed it.

The forest changed from beech to pine and fir. It deepened and grew strange to her. She did not know it. And the light of the sky turned here from silver to gray, and she felt about her the stir of unseen things. But she looked neither to the right nor the left, but followed the snow-white hart that went before her. It brought her at last to its own drinking-place, and as soon as she saw it old rumors gathered themselves into a truth, and she knew that this was the lost Wishing-Pool. And she remembered that this night was Midsummer Eve, and by the position of the ghostly moon she saw it was close on midnight. So she knelt down by the edge of the mere, and stretched her hands above it, the palms to the stars, and in a low clear voice she made her prayer.

"Whatever spirit dwells under these waters," said she, "I know not whether you are a power for good or ill. But if it is true that you will answer in this hour the need of any that calls on you--oh, Spirit, my need is very great to-night. Hunger is bitter in my body, and my strength is nearly wasted. A hind cast me his crust to-day, and five hours I have battled with myself not to creep back to the place where it still lies and eat of that vile bread. I do not fear to die, but I fear to die of my hunger lest they sneer at the last of my race brought low to so mean a death. Neither will I die by my own act, lest they think my courage broken by these breaking days. On my knees," said she, "I beseech you to send me in some wise a little money, if it be but a handful of pennies now and then throughout the year, so that I may keep my head unbowed. Or if this is too much to ask, and even of you the asking is not easy, then send some high and sudden accident of death to blot me out before I grow too humble, and the lofty spirits of my fathers deny one whose spirit ends as lowly as their dust. Death or life I beg of you, and I care not which you send."

Then clasping her hands tightly, she called twice more her plea across the mere: "Spirit of these waters, grant me life or death! Oh, Spirit, grant me life or death!"

There was a stir in the forest as she made an end, and she remained stock still, waiting and wondering. But though she knelt there till the moon had crossed the bar of midnight, nothing happened.

Then the white hart, which had lain beside the water while she prayed, rose silently and drank; and when it was satisfied, laid once more its muzzle on her hair and licked her cheek again and moved away. Not a twig snapped under its slender stepping. Its whiteness was soon covered by the blackness.

Faint and exhausted, Rosalind arose. She dragged herself through the wood and presently found the broad road that curled down the deserted hill and over the bridge, and at last by a branching lane to her ruined dwelling. The door of her tower creaked desolately to and fro a little, open as she had left it. She pushed it further ajar and stumbled in and up the narrow stair. But the pale moonlight entered her chamber with her, silvering the oaken stump that was her table; and there, where there had been nothing, she beheld two little heaps of copper coins.

The gold year waned, and the next passed from white to green; and in the gold Harding began to hunt his hart, and by the green had not succeeded in bringing it to bay. Twice he had seen it at a distance on the hills, and once had started it from cover in Coombe Wood and followed it through the Denture and Stammers, Great Bottom and Gumber, Earthem Wood and Long Down, Nore Hill and Little Down; and at Punchbowl Green he lost it. He did not care. A long chase had whetted him, and he had waited so long that he was willing to wait another year, and if need were two or three, for his royal quarry. He knew it must be his at last, and he loved it the more for the speed and strength and cunning with which it defied him. It had a secret lair he could never discover; but one day that secret too should be his own. Meanwhile his blood was heated, and the Red Hunter dreamed of the hart and of one other thing.

And while he dreamed Proud Rosalind grew glad and strong on her miraculous dole of money, that was always to her hand when she had need of it. Fear went out of her life, for she knew certainly now that she was in the keeping of unseen powers, and would not lack again. And little by little she too began to build a dream out of her pride; for she thought, I am all my fathers' house, and there will be no honor to it more except that which can come through me. And whenever tales went about of the fame of the fair young Queen of Bramber Castle, and the crowning of her name in this tourney and in that, or of the great lords and princes that would have died for one smile of her (yet her smiles came easily, and her kisses too, men said), Rosalind knit her brows, and her longing grew a little stronger, and she thought: If arrows and steel might once flash lightnings about my father's daughter, and cleave the shadows that have hung their webs about my fathers' hearth!