Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard Part 16

(Martin: What is it, Mistress Joyce?

Joyce: I said nothing, Master Pippin.

Martin: I thought I heard you sigh.

Joyce: I did not--you did not.

Martin: My imagination exceeds all bounds.)

Because of their mutual dislike, when the boy was put in charge of his own sheep the two shepherds spent their days apart. The Old Gerard grazed his flock to the east as far as Chantry, but the Young Gerard grazed his flock to the west as far as Amberley, whose lovely dome was dearer to him than all the other hills of Suss.e.x. And here he would sit all day watching the cloud-shadows stalk over the face of the Downs, or slipping along the land below him, with the sun running swiftly after, like a carpet of light unrolling itself upon a dusky floor. And in the evening he watched the smoke going up from the tiny cottages till it was almost dark, and a hundred tiny lights were lit in a hundred tiny windows. Sometimes on his rare holidays, and on other days too, he ran away to the Wildbrooks to watch the herons, or to find in the water-meadows the tallest kingcups in the whole world, and the myriad treasures of the river--the giant comfrey, purple and white, meadowsweet, St. John's Wort, purple loose-strife, willowherb, and the ninety-nine-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-five others, or whatever number else you please, that go to make a myriad. He came to know more about the ways of the Wildbrooks than any other lad of those parts, and one day he rediscovered the Lost Causeway that can be traveled even in the floods, when the land lies under a lake at the foot of the hills.

He kept this, like many other things, a secret; but he had one more precious still.

For as he lay and watched the play of sun and shadow on the plains, he fancied a world of strange places he had known, somewhere beyond the veils of light and mist that hung between his vision and the distance, and he fell into a frequent dream of tunes and laughter, and sunlit boughs in blossom, and dancing under the boughs; or of fires burning in the open night, and a wilder singing and dancing in the starlight; and often when his body was lying on the round hill, or by the smoky hearth, his thoughts were running with lithe boys as strong and careless as he was, or playing with lovely free-limbed girls with flowing hair. Sometimes these people were fair and bright-haired and in light and lovely clothing, and at others they were dark, with eyes of mischief, and clad in the gayest rags; and sometimes they came to him in a mingled company, made one by their careless hearts.

One evening in April, on the twelfth anniversary, when Young Gerard came to gather his flock, a lamb was missing; so to escape a scolding he waited awhile on the hills till Old Gerard should be gone about his business. What this was Young Gerard did not know, he only knew that each year on this night the old shepherd left him to his own devices, and returned in the small hours of the morning. Not therefore until he judged that the master must have left the hut, did the boy fold his sheep; and this done he ran out on the hills again, seeking the lost lamb. For careless though he was he cared for his sheep, as he did for all things that ran on legs or flew on wings. So he went swinging his lantern under the stars, singing and whistling and smelling the spring.

Now and then he paused and bleated like a ewe; and presently a small whimper answered his signal.

"My lost lamb crying on the hills," said Young Gerard. He called again, but at the sound of his voice the other stopped, and for a moment he stood quite still, listening and perplexed.

"Where are you, my lamb?" said he.

"Here," said a little frightened voice behind a bush.

He laughed aloud and went forward, and soon discovered a tiny girl cowering under a thorn. When she saw him she ran quickly and grasped his sleeve and hid her face in it and wept. She was small for her years, which were not more than eight.

Young Gerard, who was big for his, picked her up and looked at her kindly and curiously.

"What is it, you little thing?" said he.

"I got lost," said the child shyly through her tears.

"Well, now you're found," said Young Gerard, "so don't cry any more."

"Yes, but I'm hungry," sobbed the child.

"Then come with me. Will you?"

"Where to?"

"To a feast in a palace."

"Oh, yes!" she said.

Young Gerard set her on his shoulder, and went back the way he had come, till the dark shape of his wretched shed stood big between them and the sky.

"Is this your palace?" said the child.

"That's it," said Young Gerard.

"I didn't know palaces had cracks in the walls," said she.

"This one has," explained Young Gerard, "because it's so old." And she was satisfied.

Then she asked, "What is that funny tree by the door?"

"It's a cherry-tree."

"My father's cherry-trees have flowers on them," said she.

"This one hasn't," said Young Gerard, "because it's not old enough."

"One day will it be?" she asked.

"One day," he said. And that contented her.

He then carried her into the shed, and she looked around eagerly to see what a palace might be like inside; and it was full of flickering lights and shadows and the scent of burning wood, and she did not see how poor and dirty the room was; for the firelight gleamed upon a ma.s.s of golden fruit and silver bloom embroidered on the covering of the settle by the hearth, and sparkled against a silver and crystal lantern hanging in the chimney. And between the cracks on the walls Young Gerard had stuck wands of gold and silver palm and branches of snowy blackthorn, and on the floor was a dish full of celandine and daisies, and a broken jar of small wild daffodils. And the child knew that all these things were the treasures of queens and kings.

"Why don't you have that?" she asked, pointing to the crystal lantern as Young Gerard set down his horn one.

"Because I can't light it," said he.

"Let ME light it!" she begged; so he fetched it from its nail, and thrust a pine twig in the fire and gave her the sweet-smoking torch.

But in vain she tried to light the wick, which always spluttered and went out again. So seeing her disappointment Young Gerard hung the lantern up, saying, "Firelight is prettier." And he set her by the fire and filled her lap with cones and dry leaves and dead bracken to burn and make crackle and turn into fiery ferns. And she was pleased.

Then he looked about and found his own wooden cup, and went away and came back with the cup full of milk, set on a platter heaped with primroses, and when he brought it to her she looked at it with shining eyes and asked:

"Is this the feast?"

"That's it," said Young Gerard.

And she drank it eagerly. And while she drank Young Gerard fetched a pipe and began to whistle tunes on it as mad as any thrush, and the child began to laugh, and jumped up, spilling her leaves and primroses, and danced between the fitful lights and shadows as though she were, now a shadow taken shape, and now a flame. Whenever he paused she cried, "Oh, let me dance! Don't stop! Let me go on dancing!" until at the same moment she dropped panting on the hearth and he flung his pipe behind him and fell on his back with his heels in the air, crying, "Pouf! d'you think I've the four quarters of heaven in my lungs, or what?" But as though to prove he had yet a capful of wind under his ribs, he suddenly began to sing a song she'd never heard before, and it went like this:

I looked before me and behind, I looked beyond the sun and wind, Beyond the rainbow and the snow, And saw a land I used to know.

The floods rolled up to keep me still A captive on my heavenly hill, And on their bright and dangerous gla.s.s Was written, Boy, you shall not pa.s.s!

I laughed aloud, You shining seas, I'll run away the day I please!

I am not winged like any plover Yet I've a way shall take me over, I am not finned like any bream Yet I can cross you, lake and stream.

And I my hidden land shall find That lies beyond the sun and wind-- Past drowned gra.s.s and drowning trees I'll run away the day I please, I'll run like one whom nothing harms With my bonny in my arms.

"What does that mean?" asked the child.

"I'm sure I don't know," said Young Gerard. He kicked at the dying log on the hearth, and sent a fountain of sparks up the chimney. The child threw a dry leaf and saw it shrivel, and Young Gerard stirred the white ash and blew up the embers, and held a fan of bracken to them, till the fire ran up its veins like life in the veins of a man, and the frond that had already lived and died became a gleaming spirit, and then it too fell in ashes among the ash. Then Young Gerard took a handful of twigs and branches, and began to build upon the ash a castle of many sorts of wood, and the child helped him, laying hazel on his beech and fir upon his oak; and often before their turret was quite reared a spark would catch at the dry fringes of the fir, or the brown oakleaves, and one twig or another would vanish from the castle.

"How quickly wood burns," said the child.

"That's the lovely part of it," said Young Gerard, "the fire is always changing and doing different things with it."

And they watched the fire together, and smelled its smoke, that had as many smells as there were sorts of wood. Sometimes it was like roast coffee, and sometimes like roast chestnuts, and sometimes like incense.