She lays herself on her back among the tumbled hay; soon she sings in a low voice.
Fetch the porridge pot hither to me,
The porridge pot and the dairy key,
And bring me a clout to wind my hair
Or the swarming bees will tangle there:
They drip from the hive in the orchard long,
And coil the green-cherried boughs among
As they follow the tanking tune I ring
Under the cherry leaves' shivering....
They settle, they knit—come Ailce with the skep—
Step along, Mistyhead—Smearycap, step—
Steady it while I draw the bough
Warily down and shake it.... Now....
After a little silence she resumes.
The maids went down to dip in the pool
When the mirrored moon had cooled the water;
But they never told the farmer's daughter,
For they knew she would tell her mother, the fool,
That the girls were out
And awaking the water,
With never a clout
Though the night was cool.
She hums the latter melody a little while.
Without premonition Ursel, Nan and Bet enter singly and noiselessly from the right, each holding a hand of the one before her. They are hoodless, white-capped, and barelegged now.
Ursel, in a low voice.
I bade them hide until we came.... Lib ... Maudlin....
Maudlin, sitting up.
Lib is not here: there's no one nigh at all;
And in the lanes nought moves but squirrel whifts,
Save that long gazing into the green darkness
Seems to show boles half stirred by creeping light
Amid the darker dark of trees impending.
Bet.
Was it not Lib who was dew-drenched last harvest,
Hid in a wheat stook till she fell asleep?
Nan, as they all seat themselves by Maudlin.
Could any watch you as you slipped away?
Maudlin.
Our lambs and three fat beasts must take the road
Ere dawn to reach the morrow's far-off fair;
So I said I would sleep along the settle
And set the hinds their drinking ere they trudge.
None smelt me, but I must start home by three....
What is the moaning through that little door?
Ursel, in alarm.
I had forgot the beast; will Mease sleep with her?
Nan.
When I came in to milk soon after seven
He said the deathly loosening was pinched
And we should keep her without more sitting up....
Yet—the other cows pushed in and nosed her
As cows will do to helpless dying things....
To Maudlin.
A heifer has milk fever.
Maudlin, rising eagerly. Let me look—
I have not touched milk fever once, nor seen it;
I want to know what sense it can be like,
I am made to know with what sick thought it takes them,
To watch it wane and learn to handle it.
Ah, let me feel her, Nan, dear Nannie....
Nan. Nay.
The neat-house door is open on her stall
And hints the pool out in the yard beyond
Dreaming a dew-dull wash of unborn moonlight
In darkness sinkingly close as a bat's coat,
And the large stillness of her weary eyes
Might image that ... although we should not see her....
Maudlin.
I know, I know.... But we can shut our eyes—
Nay, fear would lift them—let us enter blindfold;
My fingers know just what they ought to do.
Bet.
Nay, she might die ... I saw a cow die once:
She tried to turn her head across her shoulder
And looked at me as if 'twas all my doing,
Then laid it down again with a straight throat ...
I fear for that old wrong I never did....
A deep-voiced woman is heard making low dove-sounds.
Comes Lib....
They rise to meet the newcomer, but draw back half in laughter, half in uneasy amazement as she appears to the left. She is stockinged and shod, but her topmost apparel is nightgown and nightcap.
Bet, continuing.
Lib ... Lib ... is she asleep or dead?
Lib, entering the barn.
Do I not seem the shadow of a husband?
Am I too late? I could not choose my coming:
'Tis churning day to-morrow, and nought would serve
The old one but that we must scald the churn
And wipe the cream-pots' lips and set them nigh
Before we slept—she was so cross because
One cow had broken, one cast before its time,
Some hens had laid away, farmer had blamed her
For standing over us to make us strip
The cows too hard; so she was queer with us.
That kept us late from bed, and when at last
Our fallen skirts were cooling on the floor
I had to lay me down beside Ruth
Until she slept; for Candle-Face tells tales—
'Twas she who lost us the low garden-chamber
Where hang the dry sweet herbs, and earned instead
One with a lattice up against the stars,
By peaching of my clambering through the casement
'Mid dropping plums that night I went somewhere;
But when I heard her wet mouth on the pillow
I left her, stuffed my coats within my arm
And out along the landing. As I neared
The old one's chamber-door a warped board chirped,
My limbs went loose and motionless with fear;
On I slid again and down the stairs,
And in the kitchen found I had no raiment.
I dared not grope for it nor make a light;
So two unmended stockings on the settle,
My shoes upon the hearth, were all I had:
But in the warm night it was comforting
To feel myself half indistinguishable
From the grey, stirless oats I stood among,
Or the evasive gleams and thinner places
Of mist-lit woodlands, or from slim birch boles;
And when a woman met me by the brook
I was so pale and slow she ran from me.