!" cried Joscelyn, who was the tallest and the sternest of the
milkmaids, "go away at once!"

Martin Pippin was by now within arm's-length of the green gate. He
looked with pleasure at the six virgins fluttering in their green
gowns, and peeping bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked under their green
bonnets. Beyond them he saw the forbidden orchard, with cuckoo-flower
and primrose, daffodil and celandine, silver windflower and sweet
violets blue and white, spangling the gay grass. The twisted
apple-trees were in young leaf.

"Go away!" cried all the milkmaids in a breath. "Go away!"

"My green maidens," said Martin, "may I not come into your orchard? The
sun is up, and the shadow lies fresh on the grass. Let me in to rest a
little, dear maidens--if maidens indeed you be, and not six leaflets
blown from the apple-branches."

"You cannot come in," said Joscelyn, "because we are guarding our
master's daughter, who sits yonder weeping in the Well-House."

"That is a noble and a tender duty," said Martin. "From what do you
guard her?"

The milkmaids looked primly at one another, and little Joan said, "It
is a secret."

Martin: I will ask no more. And what do you do all day long?

Joyce: Nothing, and it is very dull.

Martin: It must be still duller for your master's daughter.

Joan: Oh, no, she has her thoughts to play with.

Martin: And what of your thoughts?

Joscelyn: We have no thoughts. I should think not indeed!

Martin: I beg your pardon. But since you find the hours so tedious,
will you not let me sing and play to you upon my lute? I will sing you
a song for a spring morning, and you shall dance in the grass like any
leaf in the wind.

Jane: I think there can be no harm in that.

Jessica: It can't matter a straw to Gillian.

Joyce: She would not look up from her thoughts though we footed it all
day.

Joscelyn: So long as he is on one side of the gate--

Jennifer: --and we on the other.

"I love to dance," said little Joan.

"Man!" cried the milkmaids in a breath, "play and sing to us!"

"Oh, maidens," answered Martin merrily, "every tune deserves its fee.
But don't look so troubled--my hire shall be of the lightest. Let me
see! You shall fetch me the flower from the hair of your little
mistress who sits weeping on the coping with her face hidden in her
shining locks."

At this the milkmaids clapped their hands, and little Joan, running to
the Well-House, with a touch like thistledown drew from th