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

Whiteways the hart struck down through a secret dip, into the loveliest hidden valley of all the Downs; and descending after it the knights saw suddenly before them a great curve of the steely river, lying under the sunset like a scimitar dyed with blood. And in a last desperate effort the hart swerved round a narrow footway by the river, and disappeared.

The knights followed shouting with their baying dogs, and the next instant were struck mute with astonishment. For the narrow wooded path by the water suddenly swung open into a towering semi-circle of dazzling cliffs, uprising like the loftiest castle upon earth: such castles as heaven builds of gigantic clouds, to scatter their solid piles with a wind again. But only the hurricanes of the first day or the last could bring this mighty pile to dissolution. The forefront of the vast theater was a perfect sward, lying above the water like a green half-moon; beyond and around it small hills and dells rose and fell in waves until they reached the brink of the great cliffs. At the further point of the semi-circle the narrow way by the river began again, and steep woods came down to the water cutting off the north.

And somewhere hidden in the hemisphere of little hills the hart was hidden, without a path of escape.

The men sprang from their horses, and followed the barking dogs across the sward. At the end of it they turned up a neck of grass that coiled about a hollow like the rim of a cup. It led to a little plateau ringed with bushes, and smelling sweet of thyme. At first it seemed as though there were no other ingress; but the dogs nosed on and pointed to an opening through the thick growth on the left, and disappeared with hoarse wild barks and yelps; and their masters made to follow.

But at the same instant they heard a voice come from the bushes, a voice well known to them; but now it was exhausted of its power, though not of its anger.

"This quarry and this place," it cried, "are sacred to the Proud Rosalind and in her name I warn you, trespassers, that you proceed at your peril!"

At this the seven knights burst into laughter, and one cried, "Why, then, it seems we have brought the lady to bay with the hart--a double quarry, friends. Come, for the dogs are full of music now, and we must see the kill."

As they moved forward an arrow sped far above their heads.

Then a second man cried, "We could shoot into the dark more surely than this clumsy marksman out of it. Let us shoot among the trees and give him his deserts. And after that let nothing hold us from the dogs, for their voices turn the blood in me to fire."

So each man plucked an arrow from his quiver.

And as he fitted it, lo! with incredible swiftness seven arrows shot through the air, and one by one each arrow split in two a knight's yew-bow. The men looked at their broken bows amazed. And as they looked at each other the dogs stopped baying, one by one.

One of the knights said, breathing heavily, "This must be seen to. The man who could shoot like this has been playing with us since midsummer. Let us come in and call him to account, and make him show us his Proud Rosalind."

They made a single movement towards the opening; at the same moment there was a great movement behind it, and they came face to face with the hart-royal. It stood at bay, its terrible antlers lowered; its eyes were danger-lights, as red as rubies. And the seven weaponless men stood rooted there, and one said, "Where are the dogs?"

But they knew the dogs were dead.

So they turned and went out of that place, and found their horses and rode away.

And when they had gone the hart too turned again, and went slowly down a little slipping path through the bushes and came to the very inmost chamber of its castle, a round and roofless shrine, walled half by the bird-haunted cliffs and half by woods. Within on the grass lay the dead hounds, each pierced by an arrow; and on a bowlder near them sat the Rusty Knight, with drooping head and body, regarding them through the vizard he was too weary to raise. He was exhausted past bearing himself. The hart lay down beside him, as exhausted as he.

But a sound in the forest that thickly clothed the cliff made both look up. And down between the trees, almost from the height of the cliff, climbed Harding the Red Hunter, bow in hand. He strode across the little space that divided them still, and stood over the Rusty Knight and the white Hart-Royal. And both might have been petrified, for neither stirred.

After a little Harding began to speak. "Are you satisfied, Rusty Knight," said he, "with what you have done in Proud Rosalind's honor?"

The Rusty Knight did not answer.

"Did ever lady have a sorrier champion?" Harding laughed roughly. "She would have beggared herself to get you a sword. And she got you a sword the like of which no knight ever had before. And how have you used it? All through a summer you have brought laughter upon her. She would have beggared herself again to get you a bow that only a god was worthy to draw. And how have you drawn it? For a month you have drawn it to men's scorn of her and of you. You have cried her praises only to forfeit them. You have vaunted her beauty and never crowned it. And what have you got for it?" The Rusty Knight was as dumb as the dead. Harding stepped closer. "Shall I tell you, Rusty Knight, what you have got for it? Last Midsummer Eve by the Wishing-Well the Proud Rosalind forswore love if heaven would send her a man to strike