Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard by Eleanor Farjeon (best new books to read txt) 📕

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