d slipped,
clambering to her place. And Martin leaned back in his and shut his
eyes.

"We are waiting," observed Joscelyn overhead.

"So am I," sighed Martin.

"For what?"

"For a push."

"But you're not swinging."

"Neither's my story. And it will take seven pair of arms to set it
going." And he fixed his eyes on Gillian in her sorrow, but she did not
lift her face.

"Here's six to start the motion of themselves," said Joscelyn, "and it
only remains to you to attract the seventh willy-nilly."

"It were easier," said Martin, "to unlock Saint Peter's Gates with
cowslips."

"I was not talking of impossibilities, Master Pippin," said Joscelyn.

"Why, neither was I," said Martin; "for did you never hear that
cowslips, among all the golden flowers of spring, are the Keys of
Heaven?"

And sending a little chime from his lute across the Well-House he sang--

She lost the keys of heaven
Walking in a shadow,
Sighing for her lad O
She lost her keys of heaven.
She saw the boys and girls who flocked
Beyond the gates all barred and locked--
And oh! sighed she, the locks are seven
Betwixt me and my lad O,
And I have lost my keys of heaven
Walking in a shadow.
She found the keys of heaven
All in a May meadow,
Singing for her lad O
She found her keys of heaven.
She found them made of cowslip gold
Springing seven-thousandfold--
And oh! sang she, ere fall of even
Shall I not be wed O?
For I have found my keys of heaven
All in a May meadow.

By the end of the song Gillian was kneeling upright among the mallows,
and with her hands clasped under her chin was gazing across the
duckpond.

"Well, well!" exclaimed Joscelyn, "cowslips may, or may not, have the
power to unlock the heavenly gates. But there's no denying that a very
silly song has unlocked our Mistress's lethargy. So I advise you to
seize the occasion to swing your tale on its way."

"Then here goes," said Martin, "and I only pray you to set your
sympathies also in motion while I endeavor to keep them going with the
story of Proud Rosalind and the Hart-Royal."

PROUD ROSALIND AND THE HART-ROYAL

There was once, dear maidens, a man-of-all-trades who lived by the
Ferry at Bury. And nobody knew where he came from. For the chief of his
trades he was an armorer, for it was in the far-away times when men
thought danger could only be faced and honor won in a case of steel;
not having learned