him and all farmers," groaned Martin, "who would harvest
men's slumbers as soon as they're sown."

"Get into hiding!" commanded Joscelyn.

"I will not budge," said Martin. "I am going to sleep again. For at
that moment I had a lion in one hand and a unicorn in the other--"

"WILL you conceal yourself!" whispered Joscelyn, with as much fury as a
whisper can compass.

"And the lion had comfits in his crown, and the unicorn a gilded horn.
And both were so sticky and spicy and sweet--"

Joscelyn flung herself upon her knees before him, spreading her yellow
skirts which barely concealed him, as Old Gillman thrust his head
through the hawthorn gap.

"Good morrow, maids," he grunted.

"--that I knew not, dear Mistress Joscelyn," murmured Martin, "which to
bite first."

"Good morrow, master!" cried the milkmaids loudly; and they fluttered
their petticoats like sunshine between the man at the hedge and the man
in the grass.

"Is my daughter any merrier this morning?"

"No, master," said Jennifer, "yet I think I see smiles on their way."

"If they lag much longer," muttered the farmer, "they'll be on the
wrong side of her mouth when they do come. For what sort of a home will
she return to?--a pothouse! and what sort of a father?--a drunkard! And
the fault's hers that deprives him of the drink he loved in his sober
days. Gillian!" he exclaimed, "when will ye give up this child's whim
to learn by experience, and take an old man's word for it?"

But Gillian was as deaf to him as to the cock crowing in the barnyard.

"Come fetch your portion," said Old Gillman to the milkmaids, "since
there's no help for it. And good day to ye, and a better morrow."

"Wait a bit, master!" entreated Jennifer, "and tell me if Daisy, my
Lincoln Red, lacks for anything."

"For nothing that Tom can help her to, maid. But she lacks you, and
lacking you, her milk. So that being a cow she may be said to lack
everything. And so do I, and the men, and the farm--ruin's our portion,
nothing but rack and ruin."

Saying which he departed.

"To breakfast," said Martin cheerfully.

"Suppose you'd been seen," scolded Joscelyn.

"Then our tales would have been at an end," said Martin. "Would this
have distressed you?"

"The sooner they're ended the better," said Joscelyn, "if you can do
nothing but babble of sticky unicorns."

"It was fresh from the oven," explained Martin meekly. "I wish we could
have gingerbread for breakfast instead of br