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 by the beauties she still keeps concealed; like a maid half-ready for her pillow, turned motionless on the brink of her couch by the oncoming dreams to which she so soon will wholly yield herself. Let us not linger, for her chamber is sacred, and we too have dreams that await our up-yielding.

Like a flock of clouds at sundown, the milkmaids made a golden group upon the grass, and soon, by their breathing, had sunk into their slumbers. All but Jessica, who instead of following their example, pushed the ground with her foot to keep herself in motion; and as she swung she bit a strand of her hair and knitted her brows. And Martin amused himself watching her. And presently as she swung she plucked a leaf from the apple-tree and looked at it, and let it go. And then she snapped off a twig, and flung it after the leaf. And next she caught at an apple, and tossed it after the twig.

"Well?" said Martin Pippin.

"Don't be in such a hurry," said Jessica. She got off the swing and walked round the tree, touching it here and there. And all of a sudden she threw an arm up into the branches and leaned the whole weight of her body against the trunk, and began to whistle.

"Give it up?" said Martin Pippin.

"Stupid!" said Jessica. "I've guessed it."

"Impossible!" said Martin. "Nobody ever guesses riddles. Riddles were only invented to be given up. Because the pleasure of not being guessed is so much greater than the pleasure of having guessed. Do give it up and let me tell you the answer. Even if you know the answer, please, please give it up, for I am dying to tell it you."

"I shall never have saved a young man's life easier," said Jessica, "and as you saved mine before the story, I suppose I ought to save yours after it. How often, by the way, have you saved a lady's life?"

"As often as she thought herself in danger of losing it," said Martin. "It happens every other minute with ladies, who are always dying to have, or to do, or to know—this thing or that."

"I hope," said Jessica, "I shall not die before I know everything there is to know."

"What a small wish," said Martin.

"Have you a bigger one?"

"Yes," said he; "to know everything, there is not to know."

Jessica: Oh, but those are the only things I do know.

Martin: It is a knowledge common to women.

Jessica: How do YOU know?

Martin: I'm sure I don't know.

Jessica: I don't think, Master Pippin, that you know a great deal about women.

And she put out her tongue at him.

Martin: (Take care!) I know nothing at all about women.

Jessica: (Why?) Yet you pretend to tell love-stories.

Martin: (Because if you do that I can't answer for the consequences.) It is only by women's help that I tell them at all.

Jessica: (I'm not afraid of consequences. I'm not afraid of anything.) Who helped you tell this one?

Martin: (Your courage will have to be tested.) You did.

Jessica: Did I? How?

Martin: Because what you love in an apple-tree is not the leaf or the flower or the bough or the fruit—it is the apple-tree. Which is all of the things and everything besides; for it is the roots and the rind and the sap, it is motion and rest and color and shape and scent, and the shadows on the earth and the lights in the air—and still I have not said what the tree is that you love, for thought I should recapitulate it through the four seasons I should only be telling you those parts, none of which is what you love in an apple-tree. For no one can love the part more than the whole till love can be measured in pint-pots. And who can measure fountains? That's the answer, Mistress Jessica. I knew you'd have to give it up. (Take care, child, take care!)

Jessica: (I won't take care!). I knew the answer all the time.

Martin: Then you know what your apple-tree has to do with my story.

Jessica: Yes, I suppose so.

Martin: Please tell me.

Jessica: No.

Martin: But I give it up.

Jessica: No.

Martin: That's not fair. People who give it up must always be told, in triumph if not in pity.

Jessica: I sha'n't tell.

Martin: You don't know.

Jessica: I'll box your ears.

Martin: If you do—!

Jessica: Quarreling's silly.

Martin: Who began it?

Jessica: You did. Men always do.

Martin: Always. What was the beginning of your quarrel with men?

Jessica: They say girls can't throw straight.

Martin: Silly asses! I'd like to see them throw as straight as girls. Did you ever watch them at it? Men can throw straight in one direction only—but watch a girl! she'll throw straight all round the compass. Why, a man will throw straight at the moon and miss it by the eighth of an inch; but a girl will throw at the sun and hit the moon as straight as a die. I never saw a girl throw yet without straightway finding some mark or other.

Jessica: Yes, but you can't convince a man till he's hit.

Martin: Hit him then.

Jessica: It didn't convince him. He said I'd missed. And he said he had hi—he wasn't convinced.

Martin: Did he really say that? These men can no more talk straight than throw straight. Can you talk straight, Jessica?

Jessica: Yes, Martin.

Martin: Then tell me what your apple-tree has to do with my story.

Jessica: Bother. All right. Because wisdom and beauty and courage and laughter can all be measured in pint-pots. And any or all of these things can be dipped out of a fountain. You thought I didn't know, but I do know.

Martin: (Take care!) Where did you get all this knowledge?

Jessica: And that was why Margaret could take what she took from Lionel and Hugh and Heriot and Ambrose, because it was something measurable. Yes, because even a gay spirit can be sad at times, and a strong nerve weak, and a beautiful face ugly, and a clever brain dull. But when it came to taking what Hobb had, she could take and take without exhausting it, and give and give and always have something left to give, because that wasn't measurable. And the tree is the tree, and love is never anything else but love.

Martin: Oh, Jessica! who has been your schoolmaster?

Jessica: And so when she threw away her four pints what did it matter, any more than when the tree loses its leaves, or its flowers, or snaps a twig, or drops its apples? For though nobody else thought them lovely or clever or witty or splendid, she and Hobb were so to each other for ever and ever; because—

Martin: Because?

Jessica: It doesn't matter. I've told you enough, and you thought I couldn't tell you anything, and I simply hated saying it, but you thought I couldn't throw straight and I can, and your riddle was as simple as pie.

Martin: (Look out, I tell you!) You have thrown as straight as a die. And now I will ask you a straight question. Will you give me your key to Gillian's prison?

Jessica: Yes.

Martin: Because you dreaded lest Hobb's rose was blighted for ever?

Jessica: No. Because it's a shame she should be there at all.

And she gave him the key.

Martin: You honest dear.

Jessica: You thought I was going to beg the question—didn't you, Martin?

Martin: Put in your tongue, or—

Jessica: Or what?

Martin: You know what.

Jessica: I don't know what.

Martin: Then you must take the consequences.

And she took the consequences on both cheeks.

Jessica: Oh! Oh, if I had guessed you meant that, do you suppose for a moment that I would have—?

Martin: You dishonest dear.

Jessica: I don't know what you mean.

Martin: How crooked girls throw!

She boxed his ears heartily and ran to her comrades. When she was perfectly safe she turned round and put out her tongue at him.

Then they both lay down and went to sleep.

Martin was wakened by water squeezed on his eyelids. He looked up and saw Joscelyn wringing out her little handkerchief in the pannikin.

"Let us have no nonsense this morning," said she.

"I like that!" mumbled Martin. "What's this but nonsense?" He sat up, drying his face on his sleeve. "What a silly trick," he said.

"Rubbish," said Joscelyn. "Our master is due, and yesterday you overslept yourself and were troublesome. Go to your tree this instant."

"I shall go when I choose," said Martin.

"Maids! maids! maids!"

"This instant!" said Joscelyn, and dipped her handkerchief in the pannikin.

Martin crawled into the tree.

"Is a dog got into the orchard, maids?" said Old Gillman, looking through the hedge.

"What an idea, master," said Joscelyn.

"I thought I seed one wagging his tail in the grass."

The girls burst out laughing; they laughed till the apples shook, and Old Gillman laughed too, because laughter is catching. And then he stopped laughing and said, "Is an echo got into the orchard?"

And the startled girls laughed louder than ever, and they grew red in the face, and tears stood in their eyes, and Joscelyn had to go and lean against the russet tree, where she stood frowning like a stepmother.

"Tis well to be laughing," said Old Gillman, "but have ye heard my daughter laughing yet?"

"No, master," said Jessica, "but I shouldn't wonder if it happened any day."

"Any day may be no day," groaned Gillman, "and though it were some day, as like as not I'd not be here to see the day. For I'm drinking myself into my grave, as Parson warned me yesternight, coming for my receipt for mulled beer. Gillian!" he implored, "when will ye think better of it, and save an old man's life?"

But for all the notice she took of him, he might have been the dog barking in his kennel.

"Bitter bread for me, maids, and sweet bread for you," said the farmer, passing the loaves through the gap. "Tis plain fare for all these days. May the morrow bring cake."

"Oh, master, please!" called Jessica. "I would like to know how Clover, the Aberdeen, gets on without me."

"Gets on as best she can with Oliver," said Gillman, "though that fretty at times tis as well for him she's polled. Yet all he says is Patience.' But I say, will patience keep us all from rack and ruin?"

And he went away shaking his head.

"Why did you laugh?" stormed Joscelyn, as soon as he was out of earshot.

"How could I help it?" pleaded Martin. "When the old man laughed because you laughed, and you laughed for another reason—hadn't I a third reason to laugh? But how you glared at me! I am sorry I laughed. Let us have breakfast."

"You think of nothing but mealtimes," said Joscelyn crossly; and she carried Gillian's bread to the Well-House, where she discovered only the little round top of yesterday's loaf. For every crumb of the bigger half had been eaten. So Joscelyn came away all smiles, tossing the ball of bread in the air, and saying as she caught it, "I do believe Gillian is forgetting her sorrow."

"I am certain of it," agreed Martin, clapping his hands. And she flung the top of the loaf to his right, and he made a great leap to the left and caught it. And then he threw it to Jessica, who tossed it to Joan, who sent it to Joyce, who whirled it to Jennifer, who spun it to Jane, who missed it. And all the girls ran to pick it up first, but Martin with a dexterous kick landed it in the duckpond, where the drake got it. And he and the ducks squabbled over it during the next hour, while Martin and the milkmaids breakfasted on bread and apples with no squabbling and great good spirits.

And after breakfast Martin lay on his back, chewing a grassblade and counting the florets on another, whispering to himself as he plucked them one by one. And the girls watched him. He did it several times with several blades of grass, and always looked disappointed at the end.

"Won't it come right?" asked little Joan.

"Won't what come right?" said Martin.

"Oh, I know what you're doing," said little Joan; and she too plucked a blade and began to count—

"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor"—

"I'm sure I wasn't," said Martin. "Tailor indeed!"

"Well, something like that," said Joan.

"Nothing at all like that. Oh, Mistress Joan! a tailor. Why, even if I were a maid like yourselves, do you think I'd give fate the chance to set me on my husband's cross-knees for the rest of my life?"

"What would you do then if you were a maid?" asked Joyce.

"If I were a town-maid," said Martin, "I should choose the most delightful husbands in the city streets." And plucking a fresh blade he counted aloud,

Ballad- singer, Churchbell- ringer, Chimneysweep, Muffin-man, Lamplighter, King! Ballad- singer, Churchbell- ringer, Chimneysweep"—

"There, Mistress Joyce," said Martin Pippin, "I should marry a Sweep and sit in the tall chimneys and see stars by daylight."

"Oh, let me try!" cried Joyce.

And—"Let me!" cried five other voices at once.

So he chose each girl a blade, and she counted her fate on it, with Martin to prompt her. And Jessica got the Chimney-sweep, and vowed she saw Orion's belt round the sun, and Jennifer got the Lamplighter and looked sorrowful, for she too wished to see stars in the morning; but Martin consoled her by saying that she would make the dark to shine, and set whispering lights in the fog, when men had none other to see by. And Joyce got the Muffin-man, and Martin told her that wherever she went men, women, and children would run to their snowy doorsteps, for she would be as welcome as swallows in spring. And Jane got the Bell-Ringer, and Martin said an angel must have blessed her birth, since she was to live and die with the peals of heaven in her ears. And Joscelyn got the Ballad-Singer.

"What about Ballad-Singers, Master Pippin?" asked Joscelyn.

"Nothing at all about Ballad-Singers," said Martin. "They're a poor lot. I'm sorry for you."

And Joscelyn threw her stripped blade away saying, "It's only a silly game."

But little Joan got the King. And she looked at Martin, and he smiled at her, and had no need to say anything, because a king is a king. And suddenly every girl must needs grow out of sorts with her fate, and find other blades to count, until each one had achieved a king to her satisfaction. All but Joscelyn, who said she didn't care.

"You are quite right," said Martin, "because none of this applies to any of you. These are town-fortunes, and you are country-maids."

And he plucked a new blade, reciting,

Mower, Reaper, Poacher, Keeper, Cowman, Thatcher, Plowman, Herd."

"How dull!" said Jessica. "These are men for every day."

"So is a husband," said Martin. "And to your town-girls, who no longer see romance in a Chimneysweep, your Poacher's a Pirate and your Shepherd a Poet. Could you not find it in your heart, Mistress Jessica, to put up with a Thatcher?"

"That's enough of husbands," said Jessica.

"Then what of houses?" said Martin. "Where shall we live when we're wed?—

'Under a thatch, In a ship's hatch, An inn, a castle, A brown paper parcel'—

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Joscelyn.

"For the sake of the rime," begged Martin. But the girls were not interested in houses. Yet the rest of the morning they went searching the orchard for the grass of fortune, and not telling. But once Martin, coming behind Jessica, distinctly heard her murmur "Thatcher!" and smile. And at another time he saw Joyce deliberately count her blade before beginning, and nip off a floret, and then begin; and the end was "Plowman." And presently little Joan came and knelt beside him where he sat counting on his own behalf, and said timidly, "Martin."

"Yes, dear?" said Martin absentmindedly.

"Oh. Martin, is it very wicked to poach?"

"The best men all do it," said Martin.

"Oh. Please, what are you counting?"

"You swear you won't tell?" said Martin, with a side-glance at her.

She shook her head, and he pulled at his grass whispering—

Jennifer, Jessica, Jane, Joan, Joyce, Joscelyn, Gillian—"

"And the last one?" said little Joan, with a rosy face; for he had paused at the eighth.

"Sh!" said Martin, and stuck his blade behind his ear and called "Dinner!"

So they came to dinner.

"Have you not found," said Martin, "that after thinking all the morning it is necessary to jump all the afternoon?" And he got the ropes of the swing and began to skip with great clumsiness, always failing before ten, and catching the cord round his ankles. At which the girls plied him with derision, and said they would show him how. And Jane showed him how to skip forwards, and Jessica how to skip backwards, and Jennifer how to skip with both feet and stay in one spot, and Joyce how to skip on either foot, on a run. And Joscelyn showed him how to skip with the rope crossed and uncrossed by turns. But little Joan showed him how to skip so high and so lightly that she could whirl the rope twice under her feet before they came down to earth like birds. And then the girls took the ropes by turns, ringing the changes on all these ways of skipping; or two of them would turn a rope for the others, while they skipped the games of their grandmothers: "Cross the Bible," "All in together," "Lady, lady, drop your purse!" and "Cinderella lost her shoe;" or they turned two ropes at once for the Double Dutch; and Martin took his run with the rest. And at first he did very badly, but as the day wore on improved, until by evening he was whirling the rope three times under his feet that glanced against each other in mid-air like the knife and the steel. And the girls clapped their hands because they couldn't help it, and Joan said breathlessly:

"How quick you are! it took me ten days to do that."

And Martin answered breathlessly, "How quick you were! it took me ten years."

"Are you ever honest about anything, Master Pippin?" said Joscelyn petulantly.

"Three times a day," said Martin, "I am honestly hungry."

So they had supper.

Supper done, they clustered as usual about the story-telling tree, and Martin looked inquiringly from Jane to Joscelyn and from Joscelyn to Jane. And Joscelyn's expression was one of uncontrolled indifference, and Jane's expression was one of bridled excitement. So Martin ignored Joscelyn and asked Jane what she was thinking about.

"A great number of things, Master Pippin," said she. "There is always so much to think about."

"Is there?" said Martin.

"Oh, surely you know there is. How could you tell stories else?"

"I never think when I tell stories," said Martin. "I give them a push and let them swing."

"Oh but," said Jane, "it is very dangerous to speak without thinking. One might say anything."

"One does," agreed Martin, "and then anything happens. But people who think before speaking often end by saying nothing. And so nothing happens."

"Perhaps it's as well," said Joyce slyly.

"Yet the world must go round, Mistress Joyce. And swings were made to swing. Do you think, Mistress Jane, if you sat in the swing I should think twice, or even once, before giving it a push?"

Jane considered this, and then said gravely, "I think, Master Pippin, you would have to think at least once before pushing the swing to-night; because it isn't there."

"What a wise little milkmaid you are," said Martin, looking about for the skipping-ropes.

"Yes," said Jessica, "Jane is wiser than any of us. She is extremely wise. I wonder you hadn't noticed it."

"Oh, but I had," said Martin earnestly, fixing the swinging ropes to their places. "There, Mistress Jane, let me help you in, and I will give you a push."

He offered her his hand respectfully, and Jane took it saying, "I don't like swinging very high."

"I will think before I push," said Martin. And when she was settled, with her skirts in order and her little feet tucked back, he rocked the swing so gently that not an apple fell nor a milkmaid slipped, clambering to her place. And Martin leaned back in his and shut his eyes.

"We are waiting," observed Joscelyn overhead.

"So am I," sighed Martin.

"For what?"

"For a push."

"But you're not swinging."

"Neither's my story. And it will take seven pair of arms to set it going." And he fixed his eyes on Gillian in her sorrow, but she did not lift her face.

"Here's six to start the motion of themselves," said Joscelyn, "and it only remains to you to attract the seventh willy-nilly."

"It were easier," said Martin, "to unlock Saint Peter's Gates with cowslips."

"I was not talking of impossibilities, Master Pippin," said Joscelyn.

"Why, neither was I," said Martin; "for did you never hear that cowslips, among all the golden flowers of spring, are the Keys of Heaven?"

And sending a little chime from his lute across the Well-House he sang—

She lost the keys of heaven Walking in a shadow, Sighing for her lad O She lost her keys of heaven. She saw the boys and girls who flocked Beyond the gates all barred and locked— And oh! sighed she, the locks are seven Betwixt me and my lad O, And I have lost my keys of heaven Walking in a shadow. She found the keys of heaven All in a May meadow, Singing for her lad O She found her keys of heaven. She found them made of cowslip gold Springing seven-thousandfold— And oh! sang she, ere fall of even Shall I not be wed O? For I have found my keys of heaven All in a May meadow.

By the end of the song Gillian was kneeling upright among the mallows, and with her hands clasped under her chin was gazing across the duckpond.

"Well, well!" exclaimed Joscelyn, "cowslips may, or may not, have the power to unlock the heavenly gates. But there's no denying that a very silly song has unlocked our Mistress's lethargy. So I advise you to seize the occasion to swing your tale on its way."

"Then here goes," said Martin, "and I only pray you to set your sympathies also in motion while I endeavor to keep them going with the story of Proud Rosalind and the Hart-Royal."

PROUD ROSALIND AND THE HART-ROYAL

There was once, dear maidens, a man-of-all-trades who lived by the Ferry at Bury. And nobody knew where he came from. For the chief of his trades he was an armorer, for it was in the far-away times when men thought danger could only be faced and honor won in a case of steel; not having learned that either against danger or for honor the naked heart is the fittest wear. So this man, whose name was Harding, kept his fires going for men's needs, and women's too; for besides making and mending swords and knives and greaves for the one, he would also make brooches and buckles and chains for the other; and tools for the peasants. They sometimes called him the Red Smith. In person Harding was ruddy, though his fairness differed from the fairness of the natives, and his speech was not wholly their speech. He was a man of mighty brawn and stature, his eyes gleamed like blue ice seen under a fierce sun, the hair of his head and his beard glittered like red gold, and the finer hair on his great arms and breast overlaid with an amber sheen the red-bronze of his skin. He seemed a man made to move the mountains of the world; yet truth to tell, he was a most indifferent smith.

(Martin: Are you not quite comfortable, Mistress Jane?

Jane: I am perfectly comfortable, thank you, Master Pippin.

Martin: I fancied you were a trifle unsettled.

Jane: No, indeed. What would unsettle me?

Martin: I haven't the ghost of a notion.)

I have heard gossips tell, but it has since been forgotten or discredited, that this part of the river was then known as Wayland's Ferry; for this, it was said, was one of the several places in England where the spirit lurked of Wayland the Smith, who was the cunningest worker in metal ever told of in song or story, and he had come overseas from the North where men worshiped him as a god. No one in Bury had ever seen the shape of Wayland, but all believed in him devoutly, for this was told of him, and truly: that any one coming to the ferry with an unshod steed had only to lay a penny on the ground and cry aloud, "Wayland Smith, shoe me my horse!" and so withdraw. And on coming again he would find his horse shod with a craft unknown to human hands, and his penny gone. And nobody thought of attributing to Harding the work of Wayland, partly because no human smith would have worked for so mean a fee as was accepted by the god, and chiefly because the quality of the workmanship of the man and the god was as dissimilar as that of clay and gold.

Besides his trade in metal, Harding also plied the ferry; and then men would speak of him as the Red Boatman. But he could not be depended on, for he was often absent. His boat was of a curious shape, not like any other boat seen on the Arun. Its prow was curved like a bird's beak. And when folk wished to go across to the Amberley flats that lie under the splendid shell which was once a castle, Harding would carry them, if he was there and neither too busy nor too surly. And when they asked the fee he always said, "When I work in metal I take metal. But for that which flows I take only that which flows. So give me whatever you have heart to give, as long as it is not coin." And they gave him willingly anything they had: a flower, or an egg, or a bird's feather. A child once gave him her curl, and a man his hand.

And when he was neither in his workshop or his boat, he hunted on the hills. But this was a trade he put to no man's service. Harding hunted only for himself. And because he served his own pleasure more passionately than he served others', and was oftener seen with his bow than with hammer or oar, he was chiefly known as the Red Hunter. Often in the late of the year he would be away on the great hills of Bury and Bignor and Houghton and Rewell, with their beech-woods burning on their sides and in their hollows, and their rolling shoulders lifted out of those autumn fires to meet in freedom the freedom of the clouds.

It was on one of his huntings he came on the Wishing-Pool. This pool had for long been a legend in the neighborhood, and it was said that whoever had courage to seek it in the hour before midnight on Midsummer Eve, and thrice utter her wish aloud, would surely have that wish granted within the year. But with time it had become a lost secret, perhaps because its ancient reputation as the haunt of goblin things had long since sapped the courage of the maidens of those parts; and only great-grandmothers remembered how that once their grandmothers had tried their fortunes there. And its whereabouts had been forgotten.

But one September Harding saw a calf-stag on Great Down. There were wild deer on the hills then, but such a calf he had never seen before. So he stalked it over Madehurst and Rewell, and followed it into the thick of Rewell Wood. And when it led him to its drinking-place, he knew that he had discovered one more secret of the hills, and that this somber mere wherein strange waters bubbled in whispers could be no other than the lost Wishing-Pool. The young calf might have been its magic guard. To Harding it was a discovery more precious than the mere. For all that it was of the first year, with its prickets only showing where its antlers would branch in time, it was of a breed so fine and a build so noble that its matchless noon could already be foretold from its matchless dawn; and added to all its strength and grace and beauty was this last marvel, that though it was of the tribe of the Red Deer, its skin was as white and speckless as falling snow. Watching it, the Red Smith said to himself, "Not yet my quarry. You are of king's stock, and if after the sixth year you show twelve points, you shall be for me. But first, my hart-royal, you shall get your growth." And he came away and told no man of the calf or of the pool.

And in the second year he watched for it by the mere, and saw it come to drink, no longer a calf, but a lovely brocket, with its brow antlers making its first two points. And in the third year he watched for it again, no brocket now but a splendid spayade, which to its brows had added its shooting bays; and in the fourth year the spayade had become a proud young staggarde, with its trays above its bays. And in the fifth year the staggarde was a full-named stag, crowned with the exquisite twin crowns of its crockets, surmounting tray and bay and brow. And Harding lying hidden gloried in it, thinking, "All your points now but two, my quarry. And next year you shall add the beam to the crown, and I will hunt my hart."

Now at the time when Harding first saw the calf, and the ruin of the castle across the ferry was only a ruin, not fit for habitation, it was nevertheless inhabited by the Proud Rosalind, who dwelt there without kith or kin. And if time had crumbled the castle to its last nobility, so that all that was strong and beautiful in it was preserved and, as it were, exposed in nakedness to the eyes of men: so in her, who was the ruins of her family, was preserved and exposed all that had been most noble, strong and beautiful in her race. She was as poor as she was friendless, but her pride outmatched both these things. So great was her pride that she learned to endure shame for the sake of it. She had a tall straight figure that was both strong and graceful, and she carried herself like a tree. Her hair was neither bronze nor gold nor copper, yet seemed to be an alloy of all the precious mines of the turning year—the vigorous dusky gold of November elms, the rust of dead bracken made living by heavy rains, the color of beechmast drenched with sunlight after frost, and all the layers of glory on the boughs before it fell, when it needed neither sun nor dew to make it glow. All these could be seen in different lights upon her heavy hair, which when unbound hung as low as her knees. Her thick brows were dark gold, and her fearless eyes dark gray with gold gleams in them. They may have been reflections from her lashes, or even from her skin, which had upon it the bloom of a golden plum. Dim ages since her fathers had been kings in Sussex; gradually their estate had diminished, but with the lessening of their worldly possessions they burnished the brighter the possession of their honor, and bred the care of it in their children jealously. So it came to pass that Rosalind, who possessed less than any serf or yeoman in the countryside, trod among these as though she were a queen, dreaming of a degree which she had never known, ignored or shrugged at by those whom she accounted her equals, insulted or gibed at by those she thought her inferiors. For the dwellers in the neighboring hamlets, to whom the story of her fathers' fathers was only a legend, saw in her just a shabby girl, less worthy than themselves because much poorer, whose pride and very beauty aroused their mockery and wrath. They did not dispute her possession of the castle. For what to them were four vast roofless walls, enclosing a square of greensward underfoot and another of blue air overhead, and pierced with doorless doorways and windowless casements that let in all the lights of all the quarters of the sky? What to them were these traces of old chambers etched on the surface of the old gray stone, these fragments of lovely arches that were but channels for the winds? In the thick of the great towered gateway one little room remained above the arch, and here the maiden slept. And all her company was the ghosts of her race. She saw them feasting in the halls of the air, and moving on the courtyard of the grass. At night in the galleries of the stars she heard their singing; and often, looking through the empty windows over the flats to which the great west wall dropped down, she saw them ride in cavalcade out of the sunset, from battle or hunt or tourney. But the peasants, who did not know what she saw and heard, preferred their snug squalor to this shivering nobility, and despised the girl who, in a fallen fortress, defended her life from theirs.

At first she had kept her distance with a kind of graciousness, but one day in her sixteenth year a certain boor met her under the castle wall as she was returning with sticks for kindling, and was struck by her free and noble carriage; for though she was little more than a child, through all her rags she shone with the grace and splendor not only of her race, but of the wild life she lived on the hills when she was not in her ruins. She was as strong and fine as a young hind, and could run like any deer upon the Downs, and climb like any squirrel. And the dull-sighted peasant, seeing as though for the first time her untamed beauty, on an impulse offered to kiss her and make her his woman.

Rosalind stared at him like one aroused from sleep with a rude blow. The color flamed in her cheek. "YOU to accost so one of my blood?" she cried. "Mongrel, go back to your kennel!"

The lout gaped between rage and mortification, and, muttering, made a step towards her; but suddenly seeming to think better of it, stumbled away.

Then Rosalind, lifting her glowing face, as beautiful as sunset with its double flush, rose under gold, saw Harding the Red Hunter gazing at her. Some business had brought him over the ferry, and on his road he had lit upon the suit and its rejection. Rosalind, her spirit chafed with what had passed, returned his gaze haughtily. But he maintained his steadfast look as though he had been hewn out of stone; and presently, impatient and disdainful, she turned away. Then, and instantly, Harding pursued his way in silence. And Rosalind grew somehow aware that he had determined to stand at gaze until her eyes were lowered. Thereupon she classed his presumption with that of the other who had dared address her, and hated him for taking part against her. Near as their dwellings were, divided only by the river and a breadth of water-meadow, their intercourse had always been of the slightest, for Harding possessed a reserve as great as her own. But from this hour their intercourse ceased entirely.

The boor mis-spread the tale of her overweening pride through the hamlet, and when next she appeared there she was greeted with derision.

"This is she that holds herself unfit to mate with an honest man!" cried some. And others, "Nay, do but see the silken gown of the great lady Rosalind, see the fine jewels of her!" "She thinks she outshines the Queen of Bramber's self!" scoffed a woman. And a man demanded, "What blood's good enough to mix with hers, if ours be not?"

"A king's!" flashed Rosalind. And even as she spoke the jeering throng parted to let one by that elbowed his way among them; and a second time she saw the Red Hunter come to halt and fix her before all the people. Now this time, she vowed silently, you may gaze till night fall and day rise again, Red Man, if you think to lower my eyes in the presence of these! So she stood and looked him in the face like a queen, all her spirit nerving her, and the people knew it to be battle between them. Harding's great arms were folded across his breast, and on his countenance was no expressiveness at all; but a strange light grew and brightened in his eyes, till little by little all else was blurred and hazy in the girl's sight, and blue fire seemed to lap her from her tawny hair to her bare feet. Then she knew nothing except that she must look away or burn. And her eyes fell. Harding walked past her as he had done before, and not till he was out of hearing did the bystanders begin their cruelty.

"A king's blood for the lady that droops to a common smith!" cried they.

"She shall swing his hammer for a scepter!" cried they.

"Shall sit on's anvil for a throne!" cried they.

"Shall queen it in a leathern apron o' Sundays!" cried they.

Rosalind fled amid their howls of laughter. She hated them all, and far beyond them all she hated him who had lowered her head in their sight.

It was after this that the Proud Rosalind—

(But here, without even trouble to finish his sentence, Martin Pippin suddenly thrust with his foot at the seat of the swing, nearly dislodging Jane with the action; who screamed and clutched first at the ropes, and next at the branches as she went up, and last of all at Martin as she came down. She clutched him so piteously that in pure pity he clutched her, and lifting her bodily out of her peril set her on his knee.

Martin: (with great concern): Are you better, Mistress Jane?

Jane: Where are your manners, Master Pippin?

Martin: My mother mislaid them before I was born. But are you better now?

Jane: I am not sure. I was very much upset.

Martin: So was I.

Jane: It was all your doing.

Martin: I could have sworn it was half yours.

Jane: Who disturbed the swing, pray?

Martin: Every effect proceeds from its cause. The swing was disturbed because I was disturbed.

Jane: Every cause once had its effect. What effected your disturbance, Master Pippin?

Martin: Yours, Mistress Jane.

Jane: Mine?

Martin: Confess that you were disturbed.

Jane: Yes, and with good cause.

Martin: I can't doubt it. Yet that was the mischief. I could find no logical cause for your disturbance. And an illogical world proceeds from confusion to chaos. For want of a little logic my foot and your swing passed out of control.

Jane: The logic had only to be asked for, and it would have been forthcoming.

Martin: Is it too late to ask?

Jane: It is never too late to be reasonable. But why am I sitting on— Why am I sitting here?

Martin: For the best of reasons. You are sitting where you are sitting because the swing is so disturbed. Please teach me to be reasonable, dear Mistress Jane. Why were you disturbed?

Jane: Very well. I was naturally greatly disturbed to learn that your heroine hated your hero. Because it is your errand to relate love-stories; and I cannot see the connection between love and hate. Could two things more antagonistic conclude in union?

Martin: Yes.

Jane: What?

Martin: A button and buttonhole. For one is something and the other nothing, and what in the very nature of things could be more antagonistic than these?

So saying, he tore a button from his shirt and put it into her hand. "Don't drop it," said Martin, "because I haven't another; and besides, every button-hole prefers its own button. Yet I will never ask you to re-unite them until my tale proves to your satisfaction that out of antagonisms unions can spring."

"Very well," said Jane; and she took out of her pocket a neat little housewife and put the button carefully inside it. Then she said, "The swing is quite still now."

"But are you sure you feel better?" said Martin.

"Yes, thank you," said Jane.)

It was after this (said Martin) that the Proud Rosalind became known by her title. It was fastened on her in derision, and when she heard it she set her lips and thought: "What they speak in mockery shall be the truth." And the more men sought to shame her, the prouder she bore herself. She ceased all commerce with them from this time. So for five years she lived in great loneliness and want.

But gradually she came to know that even this existence of friendless want was not to be life, but a continual struggle-with-death. For she had no resources, and was put to bitter shifts if she would live. Hunger nosed at her door, and she had need of her pride to clothe her. For the more she went wan and naked, the more men mocked her to see her hold herself so high; and out of their hearts she shut that charity which she would never have endured of them. If she had gone kneeling to their doors with pitiful hands, saying, "I starve, not having wherewithal to eat; I perish, not having wherewithal to cover me"—they would perhaps have fed and clothed her, aglow with self-content. But they were not prompt with the charity which warms the object only and not the donor; and she on her part tried to appear as though she needed nothing at their hands.

One evening when the woods were in full leaf, and summer on the edge of its zenith, Proud Rosalind walked among the trees seeking green herbs for soup. She had wandered far afield, because there were no woods near the castle, standing on its high ground above the open flats and the river beyond. But gazing over the water she could see the groves and crests upon the hills where some sustenance was. The swift way was over the river, but there was no boat to serve her except Harding's; and this was a service she had never asked of old, and lately would rather have died than ask. So she took daily to the winding roads that led to a distant bridge and the hills with their forests. This day her need was at its sorest. When she had gathered a meager crop she sat down under a tree, and began to sort out the herbs upon her knees. One tender leaf she could not resist taking between her teeth, that had had so little else of late to bite on; and as she did so coarse laughter broke upon her. It was her rude suitor who had chanced across her path, and he mocked at her, crying, "This is the Proud Rosalind that will not eat at an honest man's board, choosing rather to dine after the high fashion of the kine and asses!" Then from his pouch he snatched a crust of bread and flung it to her, and said, "Proud Rosalind, will you stoop for your supper?"

She rose, letting the precious herbs drop from her lap, and she trod them into the earth as weeds gathered at hazard, so that the putting of the leaf between her lips might wear an idle aspect; and then she walked away, with her head very high. But she was nearly desperate at leaving them there, and when she was alone her pain of hunger increased beyond all bounds. And she sat down on the limb of a great beech and leaned her brow against his mighty body, and shut her eyes, while the light changed in the sky. And presently the leaves of the forest were lit by the moon instead of the sun, and the spaces in the top boughs were dark blue instead of saffron, and the small clouds were no longer fragments of amber, but bits of mottled pearl seen through sea-water. But Rosalind witnessed none of these slow changes, and when after a great while she lifted her faint head, she saw only that the day was changed to night. And on the other side of the beech-tree, touched with moonlight, a motionless white stag stood watching her. It was a hart of the sixth year, and stood already higher than any hart of the twelfth; full five foot high it stood, and its grand soft shining flanks seemed to be molded of marble for their grandeur, and silk for their smoothness, and moonlight for their sheen. Its new antlers were branching towards their yearly strength, and the triple-pointed crowns rose proudly from the beam that was their last perfection. The eyes of the girl and the beast met full, and neither wavered. The hart came to her noiselessly, and laid its muzzle on her hair, and when she put her hand on its pure side it arched its noble neck and licked her cheek. Then, stepping as proudly and as delicately as Rosalind's self, it moved on through the trees; and she followed it.

The forest changed from beech to pine and fir. It deepened and grew strange to her. She did not know it. And the light of the sky turned here from silver to gray, and she felt about her the stir of unseen things. But she looked neither to the right nor the left, but followed the snow-white hart that went before her. It brought her at last to its own drinking-place, and as soon as she saw it old rumors gathered themselves into a truth, and she knew that this was the lost Wishing-Pool. And she remembered that this night was Midsummer Eve, and by the position of the ghostly moon she saw it was close on midnight. So she knelt down by the edge of the mere, and stretched her hands above it, the palms to the stars, and in a low clear voice she made her prayer.

"Whatever spirit dwells under these waters," said she, "I know not whether you are a power for good or ill. But if it is true that you will answer in this hour the need of any that calls on you—oh, Spirit, my need is very great to-night. Hunger is bitter in my body, and my strength is nearly wasted. A hind cast me his crust to-day, and five hours I have battled with myself not to creep back to the place where it still lies and eat of that vile bread. I do not fear to die, but I fear to die of my hunger lest they sneer at the last of my race brought low to so mean a death. Neither will I die by my own act, lest they think my courage broken by these breaking days. On my knees," said she, "I beseech you to send me in some wise a little money, if it be but a handful of pennies now and then throughout the year, so that I may keep my head unbowed. Or if this is too much to ask, and even of you the asking is not easy, then send some high and sudden accident of death to blot me out before I grow too humble, and the lofty spirits of my fathers deny one whose spirit ends as lowly as their dust. Death or life I beg of you, and I care not which you send."

Then clasping her hands tightly, she called twice more her plea across the mere: "Spirit of these waters, grant me life or death! Oh, Spirit, grant me life or death!"

There was a stir in the forest as she made an end, and she remained stock still, waiting and wondering. But though she knelt there till the moon had crossed the bar of midnight, nothing happened.

Then the white hart, which had lain beside the water while she prayed, rose silently and drank; and when it was satisfied, laid once more its muzzle on her hair and licked her cheek again and moved away. Not a twig snapped under its slender stepping. Its whiteness was soon covered by the blackness.

Faint and exhausted, Rosalind arose. She dragged herself through the wood and presently found the broad road that curled down the deserted hill and over the bridge, and at last by a branching lane to her ruined dwelling. The door of her tower creaked desolately to and fro a little, open as she had left it. She pushed it further ajar and stumbled in and up the narrow stair. But the pale moonlight entered her chamber with her, silvering the oaken stump that was her table; and there, where there had been nothing, she beheld two little heaps of copper coins.

The gold year waned, and the next passed from white to green; and in the gold Harding began to hunt his hart, and by the green had not succeeded in bringing it to bay. Twice he had seen it at a distance on the hills, and once had started it from cover in Coombe Wood and followed it through the Denture and Stammers, Great Bottom and Gumber, Earthem Wood and Long Down, Nore Hill and Little Down; and at Punchbowl Green he lost it. He did not care. A long chase had whetted him, and he had waited so long that he was willing to wait another year, and if need were two or three, for his royal quarry. He knew it must be his at last, and he loved it the more for the speed and strength and cunning with which it defied him. It had a secret lair he could never discover; but one day that secret too should be his own. Meanwhile his blood was heated, and the Red Hunter dreamed of the hart and of one other thing.

And while he dreamed Proud Rosalind grew glad and strong on her miraculous dole of money, that was always to her hand when she had need of it. Fear went out of her life, for she knew certainly now that she was in the keeping of unseen powers, and would not lack again. And little by little she too began to build a dream out of her pride; for she thought, I am all my fathers' house, and there will be no honor to it more except that which can come through me. And whenever tales went about of the fame of the fair young Queen of Bramber Castle, and the crowning of her name in this tourney and in that, or of the great lords and princes that would have died for one smile of her (yet her smiles came easily, and her kisses too, men said), Rosalind knit her brows, and her longing grew a little stronger, and she thought: If arrows and steel might once flash lightnings about my father's daughter, and cleave the shadows that have hung their webs about my fathers' hearth!

She now began to put by a little hoard of pennies, for she meant to buy flax to spin the finest of linen for her body, and purple for sleeves for her arms, and scarlet leather for shoes for her feet, and gold for a fillet for her head; and so, attired at last as became her birth, one day to attend a tourney where perhaps some knight would fight his battle in her name. And she had no other thought in this than glory to her dead race. But her precious store mounted slowly; and she had laid by nothing but the money for the fine linen for her robe, when a thing happened that shattered her last foothold among men.

For suddenly all the countryside was alive with a strange rumor. Some one had seen a hart upon the hills, a hart of twelve points, fit for royal hunting. Kings will hunt no lesser game than this. But this of all harts was surely born to be hunted only by a maiden queen, for, said the rumor, it was as white as snow. Such a hart had never before been heard of, and at first the tale of it was not believed. But the tale was repeated from mouth to mouth until at last all men swore to it and all winds carried it; and amongst others some wind of the Downs bore it across the land from Arun to Adur, and so it reached the ears of Queen Maudlin of Bramber. Then she, a creature of quick whims, who was sated with the easy conquests of her beauty, yet eager always for triumphs to cap triumphs, devised a journey from Adur to Arun, and a great summer season of revelry to end in an autumn chase. "And," said she, "we will have joustings and dancings in beauty's honor, but she whose knight at the end of all brings her the antlers of the snow-white hart shall be known for ever in Sussex as the queen of beauty; since, once I have hunted it, the hart will be hart-royal." For this, as perhaps you know, dear maidens, is the degree of any hart that has been chased by royalty.

However, before the festival was undertaken, the Queen of Bramber must needs know if the Arun could show any habitation worthy of her; and her messengers went and came with a tale of a noble castle fallen into ruins, but with its four-square walls intact, and a sward within so smooth and fair that it seemed only to await the coming of archers and dancers. So the Queen called a legion of workmen and bade them go there and build a dwelling in one part of the green court for her to stay in with her company. "And see it be done by midsummer," said she. "Castles, madam," said the head workman, "are not built in a month, or even in two." "Then for a frolic we'll be commoners," said the Queen, "and you shall build on the sward not a castle, but a farm." So the workmen hurried away, and set to work; and by June they had raised within the castle walls the most beautiful farmhouse in Sussex; and over the door made a room fit for a queen.

But alas for Proud Rosalind!

When the men first came she confronted them angrily and commanded them to depart from her fathers' halls. And the head workman looked at the ruin and her rags and said, "What halls, girl? and where are these fathers? and who are you?"—and bade his men get about the Queen's work. And Rosalind was helpless. The men from the Adur asked the people of the Arun about her, and what rights she had to be where she was. And they, being unfriendly to her, said, "None. She is a beggar with a bee in her bonnet, and thinks she was once a queen because her housing was once a castle. She has been suffered to stay as long as it was unwanted; but since your Queen wants it, now let her go." And they came in a body to drive her forth. But they got there too late. The Proud Rosalind had abandoned her conquered stronghold, and where she lived from this time nobody knew. She was still seen on the roads and hills now and again, and once as she passed through Bury on washing-day the women by the river called to her, "Where do you live now, Proud Rosalind, instead of in a castle?" And Rosalind glanced down at the kneeling women and said in her clear voice, "I live in a castle nobler than Bramber's, or even than Amberley's; I live in the mightiest castle in Sussex, and Queen Maudlin herself could not build such another to live in."

"Then you'll doubtless be making her a great entertainment there, Proud Rosalind," scoffed the washers.

"I entertain none but the kings of the earth there," said Rosalind. And she made to walk on.

"Why then," mocked they, "you'd best seek one out to hunt the white hart in your name this autumn, and crown you queen over young Maudlin, Proud Rosalind."

And Rosalind stopped and looked at them, longing to say, "The white hart? What do you mean?" Yet for all her longing to know, she could not bring herself to ask anything of them. But as though her thoughts had taken voice of themselves, she heard the sharp questions uttered aloud, "What white hart, chatterers? Of what hunt are you talking?" And there in mid-stream stood Harding in his boat, keeping it steady with the great pole of the oar.

"Why, Red Boatman," said they, "did you not know that the Queen of Bramber was coming to make merry at Amberley?"

"Ay," said Harding.

"And that our proud lady Rosalind, having, it seems, found a grander castle to live in, has given hers up to young Maudlin?"

Harding glanced to and from the scornful tawny girl and said, "Well?"

"Well, Red Boatman! On Midsummer Eve the Queen comes with her court, and on Midsummer Day there will be a great tourney to open the revels that will last, so they say, all through summer. But the end of it all is to be a great chase, for a white hart of twelve points has been seen on the hills, and the Queen will hunt it in autumn till some lucky lord kneels at her feet with its antlers; and him, they say, she'll marry."

Then Harding once more looked at Rosalind over the water, and she flung back a look at him, and each was surprised to see dismay on the other's brow. And Harding thought, "Is she angry because SHE is not the Queen of the chase?" And Rosalind, "Would HE be the lord who kneels to Queen Maudlin?" But neither knew that the trouble in each was really because their precious secret was now public, and the white hart endangered. And Rosalind's thought was, "It shall be no Queen's quarry!" And Harding's, "It shall be no man's but mine!" Then Harding plied his way to the ferry, and Rosalind went hers to none knew where; though some had tried vainly to track her.

In due course June passed its middle, and the Queen rode under the Downs from Bramber to Amberley. And early on Midsummer Eve, while her servants made busy about the coming festival, Queen Maudlin went over the fields to the waterside and lay in the grass looking to Bury, and teased some seven of her court, each of whom had sworn to bring her the Crown of Beauty at his sword's point on the morrow. Her four maidens were with her, all maids of great loveliness. There was Linoret who was like morning dew on grass in spring, and Clarimond queenly as day at its noon, and Damarel like a rose grown languorous of its own grace, and Amelys, mysterious as the spirit of dusk with dreams in its hair. But Maudlin was the pale gold wonder of the dawn, a creature of ethereal light, a vision of melting stars and wakening flowers. And she delighted in making seem cheap the palpable prettiness of this, or too robust the fuller beauty of that, or dim and dull the elusive charm of such-an-one. She would have scorned to set her beauty to compete with those who were not beautiful, even as a proved knight would scorn to joust with an unskilled boor. So now amongst her beautiful attendants, knowing that in their midst her greater beauty shone forth a diamond among crystals, she laughed at her seven lovers; and her four friends laughed with her.

"You do well, Queen Maudlin, to make merry," said one of the knights, "for I know none that gains so much service for so little portion. What will you give to-morrow's victor?"

"What will to-morrow's victor think his due?" said she.

The seven said in a breath, "A kiss!" and the five laughed louder than ever.

Then Maudlin said, "For so great an honor as victory, I should feel ashamed to bestow a thing of such little worth."

"Do you call that thing a little worth," said one, "which to us were more than a star plucked out of heaven?"

"The thing, it is true," said Maudlin, "has two values. Those who are over-eager make it a thing of naught, those from whom it is hard-won render it priceless. But, sirs, you are all too eager, I could scatter you baubles by the hour and leave you still desiring. But if ever I wooed reluctance to receive at last my solitary favor, I should know I was bestowing a jewel."

"When did Maudlin ever meet reluctance?" sighed one, the youngest.

A long shadow fell upon her where she lay in the grass, and she looked up to see the great form of Harding passing at a little distance.

"Who is that?" said she.

"It must be he they call the Red Smith," said Damarel idly.

"He looks a rough, silent creature," remarked Amelys. And Clarimond added in loud and insolent tones, "He knows little enough of kissings, I would wager this clasp."

"It's one I've a fancy for," said young Queen Maudlin. "Red Smith!" called she.

Harding turned at the sweet sound of her voice, and came and stood beside her among the group of girls and knights.

"Have you come from my castle?" said she, smiling up at him with her dawn-blue eyes.

"Ay," he answered.

"What drew you there, big man? My serving-wench?"

The Red Smith stared down at her light alluring loveliness. "Serving-wenches do not draw me."

"What metal then? Gold?" Maudlin tossed him a yellow disc from her purse. He let it fall and lie.

"No, nor gold." His eyes traveled over her gleaming locks. "The things you name are too cheap," said he.

Maudlin smiled a little and raised herself, till she stood, fair and slender, as high as his shoulder.

"What thing draws you, Red Smith?"

"Steel." And he showed her a fine sword-blade, lacking its hilt. "I was sent for to mend this against the morrow."

"I know that blade," said Maudlin, "it was snapped in my cause. Have you the hilt too?"

"In my pouch," said Harding, his hand upon it.

Hers touched his fingers delicately. "I will see it."

He brushed her hand aside and unbuttoned his pouch; but as he drew out the hilt of the broken sword, she caught a glimpse of that within which held her startled gaze.

"What jewels are those?" she asked quickly.

"Old relics," Harding said with sudden gruffness.

"Show them to me!"

Reluctantly he obeyed, and brought forth a ring, a circlet, and a girdle of surpassing workmanship, wrought in gold thick-crusted with emeralds. A cry of wonder went up from all the maidens.

"There's something else," said Maudlin; and without waiting thrust her hand into the bottom of the pouch and drew out a mesh of silver. It was so fine that it could be held and hidden in her two hands; yet when it fell apart it was a garment, as supple as rich silk. The four maids touched it softly and looked their longings.

"Are these your handicraft?" said Maudlin.

"Mine?" Harding uttered a short laugh. "Not I or any man can make such things."

"You are right," said Maudlin. "Wayland's self might acknowledge them. Smith, I will buy them of you."

"You cannot give me my price."

"Gold I know does not tempt you." She smiled and came close beside him.

"Then do not offer it."

"Shall it be steel?"

Harding's eyes swept her flower-like beauty. "Not from Queen Maudlin."

"True. My bid is costlier."

"Name it."

"A kiss from my mouth."

At the sound of his laughter the rose flowed into her cheek.

"What, a bauble for my jewel, too-eager lady?" he said harshly. "Do the women of this land hold themselves so light? In mine men carve their kisses with the sword. Hark ye, young Queen! set a better value on that red mouth if you'd continue to have it valued."

"I could have you whipped for this," said Maudlin.

"I do not think so," Harding answered, and stepped down the river-bank into his waiting boat.

"I keep my clasp," said Clarimond.

Seven men sprang hotly to their feet. "What's your will, Queen?"

"Nothing," said Maudlin slowly, as she watched him row over the water. "Let the smith go. This test was between him and me and no man's business else. Well, he is of a temper to come through fire unmelted." She flashed a smile upon the seven that made them tremble. "But he is a mannerless churl, we will not think of him. Which among YOU would spurn my kiss?" She offered her mouth in turn, and seven flames passed over its scarlet. Maudlin laughed a little and beckoned her watching maids. "Well!" she said, taking the path to the castle, "He that had had strength to refuse me might have worn my favor to-morrow and for ever."

And meanwhile by the further river-bank came Rosalind, with mushrooms in her skirt. And as she walked by the water in the evening she looked across to her lost castle-walls, and touched the pennies in her pouch and dreamed, while the sun dressed the running flood in his royalest colors.

"Linen and purple and scarlet and gold," mused she; "and so I might sit there to-morrow among the rest. But linen and purple!" she said in scorn, "what should they profit my fathers' house? It is no silken daughter we lack, but a son of steel."

And as she pondered a shadow crossed her, and out of his boat stepped Harding, new from his encounter with the Queen. He did not glance at her nor she at him; but the gleam of the broken weapon he carried cut for a single instant across her sight, and her hands hungered for it.

"A sword!" thought she. "Ay, but an arm to wield the sword. Nay, if I had the sword it may be I could find an arm to wield it." She dropped her chin on her 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 will you barter it for an inch or so of steel!"

"What need of so many words?" she said with a scornful lip, that quivered in her own despite at his nearness. "Name the thing you want."

"A kiss from your mouth, Proud Rosalind."

It was as though the request had turned her into ice. When she could speak she said, "Smith, for your inch of steel you have asked what I would not part with to ransom my soul."

She turned and left him and Harding went back to his work and laughed softly in his beard. "Dream on, my gold queen up yonder," said he, and blew on his waning fires. "You are not the metal I work in," said he, and the river rang again to his hammer on the steel.

But Rosalind went rapidly down to the waterside saying in her heart, "Now I will see whether I cannot get me a lordlier weapon of a better craftsman than you, and at my own price, Red Smith." And when she had come to the ferry she laid her full purse on the bank and cried softly into the night:

"Wayland Smith, give me a sword!"

And then she went away for awhile, and paced the fields till the first light glimmered on the east; and not daring to wait longer for fear of encountering early risers, she turned back to the ferry. And there, shining in the dawn, she found such a blade as made the father in her soul exult. In all its glorious fashioning and splendid temper the hand of the god was manifest. And in the grass beside it lay her purse, of its full store lightened by one penny-piece.

Now to this tale of legends revived and then forgotten, gossips' tales of Wishing-Pools and Snow-white Harts and a God who worked in the dark, we must begin to add the legend of the Rusty Knight. It lasted little longer than the three months of that strange summer of sports within the castle-walls of Amberley. It was at the jousting on Midsummer Day that he first was seen. The lists were open and the roll of knights had answered to their names, and cried in all men's ears their ladies' praises; and nine in ten cried Maudlin. And as the last knight spoke, there suddenly stood in the great gateway an unknown man with his vizard closed, and his coming was greeted with a roar of laughter. For he was clothed from head to foot in antique arms, battered and rusted like old pots and pans that have seen a twelvemonths' weather in a ditch. Out of the merriment occasioned by his appearance, certain of the spectators began to cry, "A champion! a champion!" And others nudged with their elbows, chuckling, "It is the Queen's jester."

But the newcomer stood his ground unflinchingly, and when he could be heard cried fiercely, "They who call me jester shall find they jest before their time. I claim by my kingly birth to take part in this day's fray; and men shall meet me to their rue!"

"By what name shall we know you?" he was asked.

"You shall call me the Knight of the Royal Heart," he said.

"And whose cause do you serve?"

"Hers whose beauty outshines the five-fold beauty in the Queen's Gallery," said he, "hers who was mistress here and wrongly ousted—the most peerless lady of Sussex, Proud Rosalind."

With that the stranger drew forth and flourished a blade of so surpassing a kind that the knights, in whom scorn had vanquished mirth, found envy vanquishing scorn. As for the ladies, they had ceased to smile at the mention of Rosalind, whom none had seen, though all had heard of the girl who had been turned from her ruin at Maudlin's whim; and that this ragged lady should be vaunted over their heads was an insult only equaled by the presence among their shining champions of the Rusty Knight. For by this name only was he spoken thereafter.

Now you may think that the imperious stranger who warned his opponents against laughing before their time, might well have been warned against crowing before his. And alas! it transpired that he crowed not as the cock crows, who knows the sun will rise; for at the first clash he fell, almost unnoticed. And when the combatants disengaged, he had disappeared. He was a subject for much mirth that evening; though the men rankled for his sword and the women for a sight of his lady.

But from this day there was not a jousting held in Maudlin's revels at which the Rusty Knight did not appear; and none from which he bore away the crown. The procedure was always the same: at the last instant he appeared in his ignominious arms, and stung the mockers to silence by the glory of his sword and his undaunted proclamation of his lady. So ardent was his manner that it was difficult not to believe him a conqueror among men and her the loveliest of women, until the fray began; when he was instantly overcome, and in the confusion managed to escape. He was so cunning in this that though traps were laid to catch him he was never traced. By degrees he became, instead of a joke, a thorn in the flesh. It was the women now who itched to see his face, and the men who desired to find out the Proud Rosalind; for by his repeated assertion her beauty came to be believed in, and if the ladies still spoke slightingly of her, the lords in their thoughts did not. But the summer drew to its close without unraveling the mystery. The Rusty Knight was never followed nor the Proud Rosalind found. And now they were on the eve of a different hunting.

For now all the days were to be given up to the pursuit of the rumored hart, whom none had yet beheld; and Queen Maudlin said, "For a month we will hunt by day and dance by night, and if by that time no man can boast of bringing the hart to bay and no woman of owning his antlers, we will acknowledge ourselves outwitted; and so go back to Adur. And it may prove that we have been brought to Arun by an idle tale, to hunt a myth; but be that as it may, see to your bowstrings, for to-morrow we ride forth."

And the men laid by their swords and filled their quivers.

And in the midnight Rosalind came once more from her secret lair to Bury, and laying her purse by the ferry called softly:

"Wayland Smith, give me a bow!"

And in the dawn, before people were astir, she found a bow the unlike of any fashioned by mortal craft, and a quiverful of true arrows; and for these the god had taken his penny fee.

On a lovely day of autumn the chase began. And the red deer and the red fox started from their covers; and the small rabbits stopped their kitten-play on the steep warrens of the Downs, and fled into their burrows; and birds whirred up in screaming coveys, and the kestrel hovered high and motionless on the watch. There was game in plenty, and many men were tempted and forgot the prize they sought. The hunt separated, some going this way and some that. And in the evening all met again in Amberley. And some had game to show and some had none. And one had seen the hart.

When he said so a cry went up from the company, and they pressed round to hear his tale, and it was a strange one.

"For," said he, "where Great Down clothes itself with the North Wood I saw a flash against the dark of the trees, and out of them bounded the very hart, taller than any hart I ever dreamed of, and, as the tale has told, as pure as snow; and the crockets spring from its crowns like rays from a summer cloud. I could not count them, but its points are more than twelve. When it saw me it stood motionless, and trembling with joy I fitted my arrow to the string; but even as I did so out of the trees ran another creature, as strange as the white hart. It was none other than the Rusty Knight; I knew him by his battered vizard, which was closed. But for the rest he wore now, not rust, but rags—a tattered jerkin in place of battered mail. Yet in his hands was a bow which among weapons could only be matched by his sword. He took his stand beside the snow-white hart, and cried in that angry voice we have all heard, These crowns grow only to the glory of the Proud Rosalind, the most peerless daughter of Sussex, and no woman but she shall ever boast of them!' And before I could move or answer for surprise, he had set his arrow to his bow, and drawn the string back to his shoulder, and let fly. It was well I did not start aside, or it might have hit me; for I never saw an arrow fly so wild of its mark. But the whole circumstance amazed me too much for quick action, and before I could come up and chastise this unskillful archer, or even aim at the prize which stood beside him, he and the hart had plunged through the wood again, the man running swiftfoot as the beast; and when I followed I could not find them, and unhappily my dogs were astray."

The strange tale stung the tempers of all listeners, both men and women.

"Well, now," laughed Maudlin, "it has at least been seen that the hart is the whitest of harts."

"But it has not yet been seen," fumed Clarimond, "that this Rosalind is the most beautiful of women."

"Nor have we seen," said the knight who told the tale, "who it is that insults our manhood with valiant words and no deeds to prove them. Yet with such a sword and such a bow a man might prove anything."

The next day all rode forth on fire with eagerness. And at the end of it another knight brought back the selfsame tale. He sword that in the tattered archer was no harm at all but his arrogance, since he was clearly incapable of hitting where he aimed. But his very presence and his swift escape, running beside the hart, made failure seem double; for the derision he excited recoiled on the deriders, who could not bring this contemptible foe to book. After that day many saw him, sometimes at a great distance, sometimes near enough to be lashed by his insolent tongue. He always kept beside the coveted quarry, as though to guard it, and ran when it ran, with incredible speed; but once when he flagged after a longer chase than usual, he had been seen to leap on its back, and so they escaped together. From dawn to dusk through that bright month of autumn the man and the hart were hunted in vain; and in all that while their lair was never discovered. It was now taken for granted that where one would be the other would be; and in all likelihood Proud Rosalind also.

At last the final day of the month and the chase arrived, and Maudlin spoke to her mortified company. Among them all she was the only one who laughed now, for her nature was like that of running water, reflecting all things, retaining none; she could never retain her disappointments longer than a day, or her affections either.

"Sirs and dames," said she, "I see by your clouded faces it is time we departed, but we will depart as we came in the sun. If this day bring no more fruit than its fellows, neither victory to a lord nor sovereignty to his lady, we will to-morrow hold the mightiest tourney of the year, and he who wins the crown shall give it to his love, and she shall be called for ever the fairest of Sussex; but for that, if her lord desire it, she shall wed him—yes, though it be myself she shall!"

And at this the hearts of nine men in ten leapt in their breasts for longing of her, and in the tenth for longing of Linoret or Clarimond or Damarel or Amelys; and all went to the chase thinking as much of the morrow as of the day.

It was the day when the forests burned their brightest. The earth was fuller of color than in the painted spring; the hedgerows were hung with brilliant berries in wreaths and clusters, luminous briony and honeysuckle, and the ebony gloss of the privet making more vivid the bright red of the hips and the dark red of the haws. The smooth flat meadows and smooth round sides of the Downs were not greener in June; nor in that crystal air did the river ever run bluer than under that blue sky. The elms were getting already their dusky gold and the beeches their brighter reds and golds and coppers; where they were young and in thin leaf the sun-flood watered them to transparent pinks and lemons, as bright, though not as burning, as the massed colors of the older trees. That day there was magic on the western hills, for those who could see it, and trees that were not trees.

So Rosalind who, like all the world, was early abroad, though not with all the world, saw a silver cloud pretending to be white flowers upon a hawthorn; never in spring sunlight had the bush shone whiter. But when Maudlin rode by later she saw, not a cloud in flower, but a flowerless tree, dressed with the new-puffed whiteness of wild clematis, its silver-green tendrils shining through their own mist.

Then Rosalind saw a sunset pretending to be a spindle-tree, scattering flecks of red and yellow light upon the ground, till the grass threw up a reflection of the tree, as a cloud in the east will reflect another in the west. But when Maudlin came riding the spots of light upon the ground were little pointed leaves, and the sunset a little tree as round as a clipped yew, mottled like an artist's palette with every shade from primrose to orange and from rose to crimson.

And last, in a green glade under a steep hollow overhung with ash, Rosalind saw a fairy pretending to be a silver birch turned golden. For her leaves hung like the shaking water of a sunlit fountain, and she stood alone in the very middle of the glade as though on tip-toe for a dance; and all the green trees that had retreated from her dancing-floor seemed ready to break into music, so that Rosalind held her breath lest she should shatter the moment and the magic, and stayed spell-bound where she was. But an hour afterwards Maudlin, riding the chalky ledge on the ash-grown height, looked down on that same sight and uttered a sharp cry; for she saw, no fairy, but a little yellowing birch, and under it the snow-white hart with the Rusty Knight beside him. Then all the company with her echoed the cry, and the forest was filled with the round sounds of horns and belling hounds. And while in great excitement men sought a way down into the steep glen, the hart and his ragged guard had started up, and vanished through the underworld of trees.

The hue and cry was taken up. Not one or two, but fifty had now seen the quarry, and panted for the glory of the prize. And so, near the very beginning of the day, the chase began.

The scent was found and lost and found again. The stag swam the river twice, once at South Stoke, and once at Houghton Bridge, and the man swam with it; and then, keeping over the fields they ran up Coombe and went west and north, over Bignor Hill and Farm Hill, through the Kennels and Tegleaze. They were sighted on Lamb Lea and lost in Charlton. They were seen again on Heyshott and vanished in Herringdean Copse. They crossed the last high-road in Sussex and ran over Linch Down and Treyford nearly into Hampshire; and there the quarry turned and tried to double home by Winden Wood and Cotworth Down. The marvel was that the Rusty Knight was always with it, sometimes beside it, often on its back; and even when he bestrode it, it flew over the green hills like a white sail driven by a wind at sea, or a cloud flying the skies. When it doubled it had shaken off the greater part of the hunt. But through Wellhanger and over Levin some followed it still. In the woods of Malecomb only the seven knights who most loved Maudlin remained staunch; and they were spurred by hope, because when they now sighted it it seemed as though the hart began to tire, and its rider drooped. Their own steeds panted, and their dogs' tongues lolled; but over the dells and rises, woods and fields, they still pressed on, exulting that they of all the hunt remained to bring the weary gallant thing to bay.

Once more they were in the home country, and the day was drawing to a glorious close. In the great woods of Rewell the hart tried to confuse the scent and conceal itself with its spent comrade, but it was too late; for it too was nearly spent. Yet it plunged forward to the ridge of Arundel with its high fret of trees like harp-strings, filled with the music of the evening sky. And here again among the dipping valleys, the quarry sought to shake off the pursuit; but as vainly as before. In that exhausted close for hunters and hunted, the first had triumph to spur the last of their strength, and the second despair to eke out theirs. At 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.