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

Then, her smoky eyes shining with tears, but a smile on her pale lips, she said, "Come, and we will drown that hair for ever." So hand-in-hand they went across Open Winkins and over the way that led to the Red Copse. And as they pushed and scrambled through the bushes, what do you think they saw? First a shimmering light round the edge of the pool, and then a sheet of moon-daisies, the largest, whitest, purest blooms that ever were. And they stood there on their tall straight stems of tender green in hundreds and hundreds, guarding and sanctifying the place. It was like a dark cathedral with white lilies on the high altar. And they saw a cock blackbird wetting his whistle at the pool, and heard two others and a green woodpecker chuckling in the trees close by. And they had no eyes for slimy goblin things, even if there were any. And I don't believe there were.

They bound the black tress about a stone, and it sank among the reflections of the daisies in the water, there to be purified for ever. And the next day he put her behind him on his horse, and they rode to the garden on the eastern hills, and found on his bush a single perfect rose. And as she had given it to him, Hobb straightway plucked and gave it to her. For that is the only way to possess a gift.

And then they went together to the Burgh, and very soon after there was a wedding.

I am now all impatience, Mistress Jessica, to hear you solve my riddle.

FOURTH INTERLUDE

Like contented mice, the milkmaids began once more to nibble at their half-finished apples, and simultaneously nibbled at the just-finished story.

Jessica: Do, pray, Jane, let us hear what conclusions you draw from all this.

Jane: I confess, Jessica, I am all at sea. The good and the evil were so confused in this tale that even now I can scarcely distinguish between black and gold. For had Margaret not done ill, who would have discovered how well Hobb could do? Yet who would wish her, or any woman, to do ill? even for the proof of his, or any man's, good?

Martin: True, Mistress Jane. Yet women are so strangely constructed that they have in them darkness as well as light, though it be but a little curtain hung across the sun. And love is the hand that takes the curtain down, a stronger hand than fear, which hung it up. For all the ill that is in us comes from fear, and all the good from love. And where there is fear to combat, love is life's warrior; but where there is no fear he is life's priest. And his prayer is even stronger than his sword. But men, always less aware of prayers than of blows, recognize him chiefly when he is in arms, and so are deluded into thinking that love depends on fear to prove his force. But this is a fallacy; love's force is independent. For how can what is immortal depend on what is mortal? Yet human beings must, by the very fact of being alive at all, partake of both qualities. And strongly opposed as we shall find the complexing elements of light and darkness in a woman, still more strongly opposed shall we discover them in a man. As I presume I have no need to tell you.

Joscelyn: You presume too much. The elements that go to make a man are not to our taste.

Martin: My story I hope was so.

Joscelyn: To some extent. And this pool in the Red Copse, is it hard to find?

Martin: Neither harder nor easier than all fairies' secrets. And at certain times in summer, when the wood is altogether lovely with centaury and purple loosestrife, you can hardly miss the pool for the fairies that flock there.

Joyce: What dresses do they wear?

Martin: The most beautiful in the world. The dresses of White Admirals and Red, and Silver-Washed Fritillaries and Pearl-Bordered Fritillaries, and Large Whites and Small Whites and Marbled Whites and Green-Veined Whites, and Ringlets, and Azure Blues, and Painted Ladies, and Meadow Browns. And they go there for a Feast Day in honor of some Saint of the Fairies' Church. Which Hobb and Margaret also attended once yearly on each first of August, bringing a golden rose to lay upon the altars of the pool. And the year in which they brought it no more, two Sulphurs, with dresses like sunlight on a charlock-field, came with the rest to the moon-daisies' Feast; because not once in all their years of marriage had the perfect rose been lacking.

Jessica: It relieves me to hear that. For I had dreaded lest their rose was blighted for ever.

Jane: And I too, Jessica. Especially when she died at his feet.

Joan: And yet, Jane, she did not really die, and somehow I was sure she would live.

Joyce: Yes, I was confident that Hobb would be as happy as he deserved to be.

Jennifer: I do not know why, but even at the worst I could not imagine a love-story ending in tears.

Martin: Neither could I. Since love's spear is for woe and his shield for joy. Why, I know of but one thing that could have lost him that battle.

Three of the Milkmaids: What thing?

Martin: Had the elements that go to make a man not been to Margaret's taste.

Conversation ceased in the Apple-Orchard.

Joscelyn: Her taste would have been the more commendable, singer. And your tale might have been the better worth listening to. But since tales have nothing in common with truth, it's a matter of indifference to me whether Hobb's rose suffered perpetual blight or not.

Jane: And to me.

Martin: Then let the tale wilt, since indifference is a blight no story can suffer and live. And see! overhead the moon hangs undecided under a cloud, one half of her lovely body unveiled, the other half draped in a ghostly garment lit from within