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

breast, and brooded on the vanishing shape of the Red Smith. "If I had been my fathers' son--oh!" cried she, shaken with new dreams, "what would I not give to the man who would strike a blow for our house?"

Then she recalled what day it was. A year of miracles and changes had sped over her life; if she desired new miracles, this was the night to ask them.

So close on midnight Proud Rosalind once more crept up to Rewell Wood; and on its beechen skirts the white hart came to her. It came now as to a friend, not to a stranger. And she threw her arm over its neck, and they walked together. As they walked it lowered its noble antlers so cunningly that not a twig snapped from the boughs; and its antlers were as beautiful as the boughs with their branches and twigs, and to each crown it had added not one, but two more crockets, so that now its points were sixteen. Safe under its guard the maiden ventured into the mysteries of the hour, and when they came to the mere the hart lay down and she knelt beside it with her brow on its soft panting neck, and thought awhile how she would shape her wish. And feeling the strength of its sinews she said aloud, "Oh, champion among stags! were there a champion among men to match you, I think even I could love him. Yet love is not my prayer. I do not pray for myself." And then she stood upright and stretched her hands towards the water and said again, less in supplication than command:

"Spirit, you hear--I do not pray for myself. Of old it may be maidens often came in sport or fear, to make a mid-summer pastime of their love-dreams. Oh, Spirit! of love I ask nothing for myself. But if you will send me a man to strike one blow in my name that is my fathers' name, he may have of me what he will!"

Never so proudly yet had the Proud Rosalind held herself as when she lifted her radiant face to the moon and sent her low clear call thrice over the mystic waters. Gloriously she stood with arms extended, as though she would give welcome to any hero stepping through the night to consummate her wish. But none came. Only the subdued rustling that had stirred the woods a year ago whispered out of the dark and died to silence.

The arms of the Proud Rosalind dropped to her sides.

"Is the time not yet?" said she, "and will it never be? Why, then, let me belong for ever to the champion that strikes for me to-morrow in the lists. A sorry champion," said she a wan smile, "yet I will hold me bound to him according to my vow. But first I must win him a sword."

Then she kissed the white hart between the eyes and said, "Go where you will. I shall be gone till daylight." And it rose up to run the moonlit hills, and she went down through the trees, and left the Wishing-Pool to its unruffled peace.

Straight down towards sleeping Bury Rosalind went, full of her purpose; and after an hour passed through the silent village.

Her errand was not wholly easy to her, but she thought, "I do not go to ask favors, but plain dealings; and it must be done secretly or not at all." As she came near the ferry a red glow broke on her vision.

"Does the water burn?" she said, and quickened her steps. To her surprise she saw that Harding's forge was busy; the light she had seen sprang from it. She had expected to find it locked and silent, but now the little space it held in the night was lit with fire and resounded with the stroke of the Red Smith's hammer. Proud Rosalind stood fast as though he were fashioning a spell to chain her eyes. And so he was, for he hammered on a sword.

He did not turn his head at her approach; but when at last she stood beside his door, and did not move away, he spoke to her.

"You walk late," said he.

"May not people walk late," said she, "as well as work late?"

Without answering he set himself to his task again and heeded her no more. "Smith!" she cried imperiously.

"What then?"

"I came to speak with you."

"Even so?" She barely heard the words for the din of his great hammer.

"You are unmannerly, Smith."

"Speak then," said he, dropping his tools, "and never forget, maid, that it is not I invited this encounter."

At that she cried out hotly, "Does not your shop invite trade?"

"Ay; but what's that to you?"

"My only purpose in talking with you," she said in a flame of wrath. "I require what you have, but I would rather buy it of any man than you."

"What do you require?"

"That!" She pointed to the sword.

"I cannot sell it. It is a young knight's blade I am mending against the jousting."

"Have you no other?"

"You cannot give me my price," said the Red Smith.

She took from her girdle the little purse containing all her store. "Do you think I am here to bargain? There's more than your price."

"However much it be," said Harding, "it is too little."

"Then say no more that I cannot buy of you, but rather that you will not sell to me."

"And yet that is as the Proud Rosalind shall please."

She flushed deeply, and as though in shame of seeming ashamed said firmly, "No, Smith, it is not in my hands. For I have offered you every penny I possess."

"I do not ask for pence." Harding left his anvil and stepped outside and stood close, gazing hard upon her face. "You have a thing I will take in exchange for my sword, a very simple thing. Women part with it most lightly, I have learned. The loveliest hold it cheap at the price of a golden gawd. How easily then