"And now," said Martin Pippin, "what exactly do you require of me?"
"If you please," said little Joan, "you are to tell us a love-story that has never been told before."
"But we have reason to fear," added Jane, "that there is no such story left in all the world."
"There you are wrong," said Martin, "for on the contrary no love-story has ever been told twice. I never heard any tale of lovers that did not seem to me as new as the world on its first morning. I am glad you have a taste for love-stories."
"We have not," said Joscelyn, very quickly.
"No, indeed!" cried her five fellows.
"Then shall it be some other kind of tale?"
"No other kind will do," said Joscelyn, still more quickly.
"We must all bear our burdens," said Martin; "so let us make ourselves as happy as we can in an apple-tree, and when the tale becomes too little to your taste you shall munch apples and forget it."
"Will you sit in the swing?" asked Jennifer, pointing to the midmost apple-tree, which was the largest in the orchard, and had a little swing hanging from a long upper limb.
Close to the apple-tree, a branch of which indeed brushed its mossed pent-roof, stood the Well-House. It had a round wall of old red bricks growing green with time, and a pillar of oak rose up at each point of the compass to support the pent. Between the south and west pillars was a green door, held by a rusty chain and a padlock with six keyholes. The little circular court within was flagged, and three rings of worn steps led to the well-head and the green wooden bucket inverted on the coping. Between the cracks of the flags sprang grass, and pink-starred centaury, and even a trail of mallow sprawled over the steps where Gillian lay in tears, as though to wreathe her head with its striped blooms.
"What luck you have," said Martin, "not only to live in an orchard, but to have a swing to swing in."
"It is our one diversion," said Joyce, "except when you come to play to us."
"It is delightful to swing," said little Joan invitingly.
"So it is," agreed Martin, "and I beg you to sit in the swing while I sit on this bough, and when I see your eyelids growing heavy with my tale I will start the rope and rouse you—thus!"
So saying, he lifted the littlest milkmaid lightly into her perch and gave her so vigorous a push that she cried out with delight, as at one moment the point of her shoe cleared the door of the Well-House, and at the next her heels were up among the apples. Then Martin ensconced himself upon a lower limb of the tree, which had a mossy cushion against the trunk as though nature or time had designed it for a teller of tales. The milkmaids sprang quickly into other branches around him, shaking a hail of sweet apples about his head. What he could he caught, and dropped into the swinger's lap, whence from time to time he helped himself; and she did likewise.
"Begin," said Joscelyn.
"A thought has occurred to me," said Martin Pippin, "and it is that my tale may disturb your master's daughter."
"We desire it to," said Joscelyn looking down on the Well-House and the yellow head of Gillian. "The fear is rather that you may not arouse her attention, so I hope that when you speak you will speak clearly. For to tell you the truth we have heard that nothing but six love-tales will wash from her mind the image of—"
"Of whom?" inquired Martin as she paused.
"It does not matter whom," said Joscelyn, "but I think the time is ripe to confess to you that the silly damsel is in love."
"The world is so full of wonders," said Martin Pippin, "that one ceases to be surprised at almost anything."
"Is love then," said little Joan, "so rare a thing in the world?"
"The rarest of all things," answered Martin, looking gravely into her eyes. "It is as rare as flowers in Spring."
"I am glad of that," said Joan; while Joscelyn objected, "But nothing is commoner."
"Do you think so?" said Martin. "Perhaps you are right. Yet Spring after Spring the flowers quicken my heart as though I were perceiving them for the first time in my life—yes, even the very commonest of them."
"What do you call the commonest?" asked Jessica.
"Could any be commoner," said Martin, "than Robin-run-by-the-Wall? Yet I think he has touched many a heart in his day."
And fixing his eyes on the weeper in the Well-House, Martin Pippin tried his lute and sang this song.
Run by the wall, Robin,
Run by the wall!
You might hear a secret
A lady once let fall.
If you hear her secret
Tell it in my ear,
And I'll whisper you another
For her to overhear.
The weeper stirred very slightly.
"The song makes little sense," said Joscelyn, "and would make none at all if you called this flower by its right name of Jack-in-the-Hedge."
"Let us do so," said Martin readily, "and then the nonsense will run this way as easily as that."
Hide in the hedge, Jack,
Hide in the hedge!
You might catch a letter
Dropped over the edge.
If you catch her letter
Slip it in my hand,
And I'll write another
That she'll understand.
As he concluded, Gillian lifted up her head, and putting her hair from her face gazed over the duckpond beyond the green wicket.
"The lady," said Joscelyn with some impatience, "who understand the letter must outdo me in wits, for I find no understanding whatever in your silly song. However, it seems to have brought our master's daughter out of her lethargy, and the moment is favorable to your tale. Therefore without further ado I beg you to begin."
"I will," said Martin, "and on my part entreat your forbearance while I relate to you the story of The King's Barn."
THE KING'S BARN
There was once, dear maidens, a King in Sussex of whose kingdom and possessions nothing remained but a single Barn and a change of linen. It was no fault of his. He was a very young king when he came into his heritage, and it was already dwindled to these proportions. Once his fathers had owned a beautiful city on the banks of the Adur, and all the lands to the north and the west were theirs, for a matter of several miles indeed, including many strange things that were on them: such as the Wapping Thorp, the Huddle Stone, the Bush Hovel where a Wise Woman lived, and the Guess Gate; likewise those two communities known as the Doves and the Hawking Sopers, whose ways of life were as opposite as the Poles. The Doves were simple men, and religious; but the Hawking Sopers were indeed a wild and rowdy crew, and it is said that the King's father had hunted and drunk with them until his estates were gambled away and his affairs decayed of neglect, and nothing was left at last but the solitary Barn which marked the northern boundary of his possessions. And here, when his father was dead, our young King sat on a tussock of hay with his golden crown on his head and his golden scepter in his hand, and ate bread and cheese thrice a day, throwing the rind to the rats and the crumbs to the swallows. His name was William, and beyond the rats and the swallows he had no other company than a nag called Pepper, whom he fed daily from the tussock he sat on.
But