Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard

by Eleanor Farjeon

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.

The knights followed shouting with their baying dogs, and the next instant were struck mute with astonishment. For the narrow wooded path by the water suddenly swung open into a towering semi-circle of dazzling cliffs, uprising like the loftiest castle upon earth: such castles as heaven builds of gigantic clouds, to scatter their solid piles with a wind again. But only the hurricanes of the first day or the last could bring this mighty pile to dissolution. The forefront of the vast theater was a perfect sward, lying above the water like a green half-moon; beyond and around it small hills and dells rose and fell in waves until they reached the brink of the great cliffs. At the further point of the semi-circle the narrow way by the river began again, and steep woods came down to the water cutting off the north.

And somewhere hidden in the hemisphere of little hills the hart was hidden, without a path of escape.

The men sprang from their horses, and followed the barking dogs across the sward. At the end of it they turned up a neck of grass that coiled about a hollow like the rim of a cup. It led to a little plateau ringed with bushes, and smelling sweet of thyme. At first it seemed as though there were no other ingress; but the dogs nosed on and pointed to an opening through the thick growth on the left, and disappeared with hoarse wild barks and yelps; and their masters made to follow.

But at the same instant they heard a voice come from the bushes, a voice well known to them; but now it was exhausted of its power, though not of its anger.