"He has. And he is giving cake to the ducks; they take it from his hand. Man, go away immediately!"
Martin Pippin propped his elbows on the little gate, and looked smiling into the orchard, all pink and white blossom. The trees that had been longest in bloom were white cascades of flower, others there were flushed like the cheek of a sleeping child, and some were still studded with rose-red buds. The grass was high and full of spotted orchis, and tall wild parsley spread its nets of lace almost abreast of the lowest boughs of blossom. So that the milkmaids stood embraced in meeting flowers, waist-deep in the orchard growth: all gowned in pink lawn with loose white sleeves, and their faces flushed it may have been with the pink linings to their white bonnets, or with the evening rose in the west, or with I know not what.
"Go away!" they cried at the intruder. "Go away!"
"My rose-white maidens," said Martin, "will you not let me into your orchard? For the stars are rising with the dew, and the hour is at peace. Let me in to rest, dear maidens—if maidens indeed you be, and not six blossoms fallen from the apple-boughs."
"You cannot come in," said Joscelyn, "lest you are the bearer of a word to our master's daughter who sits weeping in the Well-House."
"From whom should I bear her a word?" asked Martin Pippin in great amazement.
The milkmaids cast down their eyes, and little Joan said, "It is a secret."
Martin: I will inquire no further. But shall I not play a little on my lute? It is as good an hour for song and dance as any other, and I will make a tune for a sunny May evening, and you shall sway among the grasses like any flower on the bough.
Jane: In my opinion that can hurt nobody.
Jessica: Gillian wouldn't care two pins.