King Lear's Wife; The Crier by Night; The Riding to Lithend; Midsummer-Eve Part 25

We knew we must not tell you ere the hour, Or ... or ... too many hinds might creep to be Their own drowsed leering loutish prophecies.

BET.

Am I so old or wistful to be ringed That I must feign to be content with one?

Where is this moon-swayed peeping, then, to be, This blest eavesdropping on a mood of fate?

NAN.

Here in the barn, where we may crouch un-thought-of By moon-estranged eyes in gradual darkness.

And lest we startle at o'er-expected footfalls Or with night-carried voices rouse the farm, Maudlin and Lib will warn us by dove-cooings-- Sometimes I hear a cooing up warm nights From dove pairs far too wise to be asleep, But mistress bides awake for no such music.

BET.

Dove-cooing Lib will be a thing to brood on-- I'll miss nought here, although you count me least.

NAN.

All works with us; for at the forenoon drinking I heard dame Stir-Wench mutter "These kesh-pithed la.s.ses Shall sleep no longer three-a-bed beneath The dark damp closeness of the garret thatch, That nigh their heads leans low upon the floor, Until this heat is past; or they will grow Yet more slob-cheeked and sodden and dough-limbed I never saw maids look more like green sickness."

And then she bade Giles carry our gear and bedding Into the empty meal-webbed granary.

Nought could have fallen better; now we have No moaning ladder's and open doors' groped pa.s.sing, No stocking feet need pad the dairy flags; Only a silverly weathered latchless board Keeps out the bats that flap toward pale shapes, And waits to let us into the large night Throughout the holiest of the mothering year.

BET.

She said green sickness but she meant green apples.

The codlin tree that o'er each moonset stretches A creeping spider-shadow on the gable Fills out its fruit weeks earlier this year, And the one bough with apples onion-roped Is one the mended ladder will not reach; It is weight-arched against our garret window, So that the curled leaves finger on the panes When midnight winds are st.u.r.dy enough to lift it; Mam Pantry knows and fears bare orchard-shelves And herds us to an outhouse. Girls, those apples Will all be basketed before their time, Ere thres.h.i.+ng heaps the granary once more And sharp nights make her yield our loft again Because she finds us cuddled on its threshold.

URSEL.

Mam Patch-Waist counts more eggs than four--she knows Spring wenches' whifts let loose to sniff the night; So straightway to the granary Mease she sped To oil the lock and drive a staple in.

Small is our chance of watching now....

NAN. Quick-Pattens Even ere she rounded must have been a likely, A very likely maid for her to know Our scapemell moods howe'er we prim our mouths.

BET.

Mease for two kisses left the staple loose.

URSEL, _laughing with_ NAN.

Ay, Bet's the market woman, to be sure.

BET.

Mouths, even as eyes, were made to earn our wills.

NAN.

But how came Bet near Mease up in the corn-spot?

And if she knows the need o' the staple loose Why will she care to watch with us to-night?

BET.

To learn which one it is, Nanikin sly.

NAN.

Had it been Mease he'd not have chaffered kisses....

You know more now than you will learn to-night, You will wed more than all we see to-night-- We shall win nought beyond a secret spice Of unclipt gossip in a tasty hour....

_A loitering dull sound is heard of cart-wheels and horse-hooves out in the lane._

URSEL.

Hush, Nan--here come the lads....

_They lift their burdens, and stand aside for the cart to enter the barn; but as it comes in sight it pa.s.ses along the road from the left to the right. It is piled with a roped load of hay; ROGER and MEASE, in long smocks and flapping hats, knee-breeches and ribbed stockings, accompany it, ROGER leading the horse, MEASE holding to the shelvings behind with one hand and with the other slanting several hay-forks and a scythe against his shoulder._

URSEL, _continuing._ What, Roger, Mease....

Why bring you not the cart and top the mow, To feel in each limb's ebb hay harvest's spent?

ROGER, _halting._ As we trailed up from Pear-tree Dale past Sheep-mires Under a thick dew-breath we seemed to steal As 'tween chill bed-clothes in December nights; Into the load it soaked two fingers' length, So now we needs must throw it off and spread it To wait to-morrow's sun out in the yard Ere it is ripe to top the sweating stack.

MEASE.

Moreover, we are wetter than the crop; Wherefore be homing, russet-apple-faces, To take our smocks and dry them off while we Drink the mulled cider you are going to make.

_ROGER and MEASE go forward with the horse and cart up the road to the right._

URSEL.

Come, maids, we'd best get in ere mistress seeks us-- Beside, the longer we do loiter here The longer shall we hold the house from sleep; There's bowl and bucket rinsing to be done, And supper to set out if we would eat it.

Be neither meek nor eager in your toil, Or Mother Dish-Clout in our gust will read Some deed afoot; we'll wrangle sluggishly Until she drives us off to bed unwashed.

Then, though we hear the lock shoot and her steps Sink down the out-stair as she dips the key Down the long pocket of her petticoat, Do nought but cast your shoes--there's but one wall Between her chamber and the granary-- Lie dim along the bed, and never whisper; But, when we hear her bed-stocks creak and know Her ears are well tied up beneath her night-cap, Out slip Bet's staple and ourselves as well.

Seek the pale hollyhocks across the garden (They glimmer a little in all Summer darkness), And touch behind the hive-house shadow-hung....

NAN.

And in the barn make happiness till dawn.

BET.

Dare we lie still, inside the dark, and wait In such suppression for such unknown things?

_As BET speaks they leave the barn to the right; NAN resumes her song faintly and more faintly._

NAN.

Dusked seemed the eve as the cows trod in Under the roof-drip each to her stalling; Full udders crusht s.h.a.gged thighs between Were warm to my hands in the chill air's palling; And through the wind's drifting of leaves yet green "Hou, hou," neared the neatherd's calling....

_The song ceases in the distance._

ROGER _turns into the barn with_ MEASE'S _bundle of hay-forks, and lays them in the empty cart as he sings._

I get no sleep in lambing nights, My woman gets no sleep; We fold the ewes if we sniff a thaw, And when they yean as we crouch i' their straw She takes the lambs by our horn-fogged lights While I do handle the sheep.

_Footsteps are heard within the neat-house._

ROGER, _calling through the neat-house door._ Is the sick beast grown easier by now?

MEASE, _entering from the neat-house._ Poor Dapple-Back, milk fever's bad on her.

'Twas her first calf and though 'twas smoothly dropped She could not gather, but heaped a shapeless flank Like a maid swooning; when the farrier came "She'll die, she'll die," he said. "She'll not," said I: But nothing served at first--her slackened fell Dried hard and never any sweat would stir, The udder turned a dull and s.h.i.+vering white; Yet now her ears twitch up to greet my voice, The hide-hair moistens and the udder shrinks.

There'll be no need to wake with her to-night-- I'll not unwrap her till an hour ere dawn.

Come through and look at her as we wend in....

When you got up the cider for the meadows Was there a b.u.t.t still left?

ROGER, _as they go into the mistal together._ Surely there was; But the girls say she'll make it wait till harvest.

I never hired to any stead before Where last year's cider trickled into June....

_All is soundless again save for the cow's moaning. The twilight deepens no farther, and presently its dead gold brownness becomes cooler in tone; the mist, which had been merged in the nightfall's dimness, imperceptibly becomes apparent again, being suffused by an oozing of silveriness through the pervading brownness; moon-rise is evident, although the moon is hidden by the permeating mist which it fills.