Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard

by Eleanor Farjeon

Joscelyn: I am sick to death of this silly sweetheart. And since our mistress appears to be listening with both her ears, it would be more to the point to begin whatever story you propose to relate to-night, and be done with it.

Martin: You are always right. Therefore add your ears to hers, while I tell you the tale of Open Winkins.

OPEN WINKINS

There were once, dear maidens, five lords in the east of Sussex, who owned between them a single Burgh; for they were brothers. Their names were Lionel and Hugh and Heriot and Ambrose and Hobb. Lionel was ten years of age and Hobb was twenty-two, there being exactly three years all but a month between the birthdays of the brothers. And Lionel had a merry spirit, and Hugh great courage and daring, and Heriot had beauty past any man's share, and Ambrose had a wise mind; but Hobb had nothing at all for the world's praise, for he only had a loving heart, which he spent upon his brothers and his garden. And since love begets love, they all loved him dearly, and leaned heavily on his affection, though neither they nor any man looked up to him because he was a lord. Although he was the eldest, and in his quiet way administered the affairs of the Burgh and of the people of Alfriston under the Burgh, it was Ambrose who was always thinking of new schemes for improvement, and Heriot who undertook the festivities. As for the younger boys, they kept the old place alive with their youth and spirits; and it was evident that later on Hugh would win honor to the Burgh in battle and adventure, and Lionel would draw the world thither with his charm. But Hobb, to whom they all brought their shapeless dreams white-hot, since sympathy helps us to create bodies for the things which begin their existence as souls—Hobb differed from the four others not only in his name, but in his plain appearance and simple tastes. And all these things, as well as his tender heart, he got from his mother, who was the only daughter of a gardener of Alfriston. The gardener, to whom she was the very apple of his eye, had kept her privately in a place on a hill, fearing lest in her youth and inexperience she should fall to the lot of some man not worthy of her; for her knew, or believed, that a young girl of her sweetness and tenderness and devotedness of disposition would by her sweetness attract a lover too early, and by her tenderness respond to him too readily, and by her devotedness follow him too blindly, before she had time to know herself or men. And he also knew, or believed, that first love is as often a will-o'-the-wisp as the star for which all young things take it. Five days in the week he tended the gardens of Alfriston, the sixth he gave to the Lord of the Burgh that lay among the hills, and the seventh he kept for his daughter on the hill a few miles distant, which was afterwards known as Hobb's Hawth. She on her part spent her week in endeavoring to grow a perfect rose of a certain golden species, and her heart was given wholly to her father and her flower. And he watched her efforts with interest and advice, and for the first she thanked him but of the second took no heed. "For," said she, "this is MY garden, father, and MY rose, and I will grow it in my own way or not at all. Have you not had a lifetime of gardens and roses which you have brought to perfection? And would you let any man take your own upon his shoulders, even your own mistakes, and shoulder at last the praise after the blame?" Then Hobb, her father, laughed at her indulgently and said, "Nay, not any man; yet once I let a woman, and without her aid I would never have brought my rarest and dearest flower to perfection. So if I should let a woman help me, why not you a man?" "Was the woman your mother?" said she. And her father was silent. Then a day came when he trudged up and down the hills from Alfriston, and standing at the gate of her garden saw his child in the arms of a stranger; and her face, as it lay against his heart, seemed to her father also to be the face of a stranger, and not of his child. He recognized in the stranger the Lord of the Burgh. And he saw that what he had feared had come to pass, and that his daughter's heart would be no more divided between her father and her flower, for it was given whole to the lover who had first assailed it. Hobb came into the garden, and they looked up as the gate clicked, and their faces grew as red as though one had caught the reflection from the other. But both looked straight into his eyes. And his daughter, pointing to her bush, said, "Father, my rose is grown at last," and he saw that the bush was crowned with a glorious golden bloom, perfect in every detail. Then it was the turn of the Lord of the Burgh, and he said, "Sir, I ask leave to rob your garden of its rose." "Do robbers ask leave?" said Hobb. And he shook his head, adding, "Nay, when the thief and the theft are in collusion, what say is left to the owner of the treasure? Yet I do not like this. Sir, have you considered that she is a gardener's child? Daughter, have you considered that he is a lord?" And neither of them had considered these questions, and they did not propose to do so. Then Hobb shook his head again and said, "I will not waste words. I know when a plant can drink no more water. And though you pretend to ask my leave, I know that you are prepared to dispense with it. But by way of consent I will say this: whatever you may call your other sons, you shall call your first Hobb, to remind you to-morrow of what you will not consider to-day. For my daughter, when she is a lord's wife, will none the less still be a gardener's daughter, and your children will be grafted of two stocks. And if this seems to you a hard condition, then kiss and bid farewell." And they both laughed with joy at the lightness of the condition; but the gardener did not laugh. And so the Lord of the Burgh married the gardener's daughter, and they called their first son Hobb. He was born on a first of August, and thirty-five months later Ambrose was born on the first of July, and in due course Heriot in June, and Hugh in May, and Lionel in April. And the Lord, loving his sons equally, made them equal possessors of the Burgh when in time it should pass out of his hands. Which, since men are mortal, presently came to pass, and there were five lords instead of one.

It happened on a roaring night of March, when the wind was blustering over the barren ocean of the east Downs, and Lionel was still a boy of ten, but soon to be eleven, that the five brothers sat clustered about the great hearth in the hall, roasting apples and talking of this and that. But their talk was fitful, and had long pauses in which they listened to the gusty night, which had so much more to say than they. And after one of the silences Lionel shuddered slightly, and drawing his little stool close to Hobb he said:

"It sounds like witches." Hobb put his big hand round the child's head and face, and Lionel pressed his cheek against his brother's knee.

"Or lions," said Hugh, jumping up and running to the window, where he flattened his nose to stare into the night. "I wish it were lions coming over the Downs."

"What would you do with them?" said Hobb, smiling broadly.

"Fight them," said Hugh, "and chain them up. I should like to have lions instead of dogs—a red lion and a white one."