AN ORCHARD EGOIST
WHEN Peregrine left Dieuporte he struck straight through the valley
between the wooded slopes of the hills. The autumn morning was very
fair, as we have seen. This, added to his recent escape from blackness,
lent zest to his spirit. For the first time for many a long month he
found his heart going out to Nature. It winged freely to meet her, as a
bird escaped from a cage. He welcomed the breath of the wind upon his
forehead, he exulted in the sunshine, in the good clean smell of the
earth around him.
Extraordinarily light-hearted, he pursued his way, giving gay greeting
to peasants as he passed them at cottage doors. The intoxication of the
morning caught him; he was drunk with its beauty and brightness. Around
him lay orchards aglow with red and russet apples. In one, a girl was
standing on a rough ladder, gathering the fruit into a blue apron. As
she worked she sang:
“_When Autumn brings her goodly store
Of fruit and corn to ev’ry door,
We garner all with care.
Then bird and beast and man always,
Throughout the colder, bleaker days,
The harvesting shall share._
“_When Autumn purple, gold, and red,
Brings to us Winter’s daily bread
In glowing croft and field,
We bless the rain that watered earth,
The sun that brought the crops to birth,
A gracious store to yield._
“_When Autumn bids the brown leaves fall,
When earth half drowsing hears her call
To sleep through Winter days,
We gather all there is of good,
Of earth’s most bounteous wholesome food,
Give God the heartfelt praise._”
She sang in a low round contralto, a voice as ripe as her beauty.
Peregrine, plucking the tabor from beneath his cloak, joined in with the
last verse. She turned her head at the sound, gave him a gay
good-morning at the end of words and music.
“So you are a musician,” quoth she.
“Of a sort,” smiled Peregrine.
“No bad sort,” she returned with a motherly air which sat well on her.
“Sing you to me.”
“What should I sing?” demanded Peregrine.
“That which likes you,” returned the girl. “We ever perform best that
which pleases us most.”
Peregrine laughed, and struck a couple of chords on the tabor.
“I see freedom pleasing me most at the moment,” he said. And set himself
to sing:
“_Of all good gifts is freedom more
To man than other good gifts be,
By it he sets most gracious store.
To roam at will o’er hill and lea
Is truly more to him than gold,
Or silver very freely given.
Methinks the heart grows never old
That ne’er has been in thraldom driven.
Who lives in freedom lives at ease,
Knows naught of ill or irksome care._
_There’s little else a man may please
In freedom’s stead; no goodly share
Of oil or wine or golden corn.
Since freedom is both blythe and gay,
And like to earth’s most fairest morn,
Of freedom will I sing alway._”
His voice died away. The girl looked down upon him.
“A fair song,” she said appraisingly, setting her teeth in the side of a
red apple. And then she laughed.
“Why do you laugh?” asked Peregrine.
She stretched one arm wide, embracing Nature, as it were.
“Because the day is very good, and because the apple is sweet, and
because—because I am alive.” She bit again into the apple.
Peregrine eyed her approvingly. “Three most excellent reasons. You find
happiness in life?”
“Why not?” quoth she between her munching. “Is it not well to be alive?
Does not the sun shine for me, the wind blow for me, the earth bear
fruit for me, the birds sing to me? Truly I find happiness in life.”
“You envy none?” asked Peregrine.
She laughed. “Whom should I envy? Old Mother Esther down yonder, who has
three cows, and is toothless, and has a wart as big as a hazel-nut on
her nose? Grizel Burnside, who has a husband who beats her six nights
out of the seven, and half a dozen squalling brats tugging at her
skirts? Lambert Groot, who they say has a bag of gold pieces he counts
the while he yells with rheumatic pains? For my part, I say let Esther
keep her cows and her wart and her lack of teeth; Grizel, her husband
and her brats; Lambert, his gold and his rheumatism. I am happier with
our one cow, my own teeth, my freedom, and my health. I’d barter no jot
nor tittle of my own self for all their belongings in a heap at my feet.
I am I, and glad on it.” An unconscious egoist, she faced him laughing
from the ladder.
“Yet,” suggested Peregrine, “there are others rich, well-fed, and with
good health,—plenty of them in the world. Do you not envy them?”
“Not I,” laughed the girl. “How know I that, for all their solid riches,
they love the gold of the buttercups in April? that, for all their good
feeding, they would pluck and eat blackberries from the hedges along
with a juicy apple? that, for all their health they could, race the dewy
meadows bare-footed, face the August sun uncovered, or meet a January
snow-storm unshrinking. Sooner be myself with the likings I know, than
they with tastes more than perchance foreign to me.”
“My child,” said Peregrine gaily, “I appreciate your confidence in
yourself. An’ a man have confidence in himself ’twill lead him far.”
She looked at him from beneath her eyelashes. “Whither hath it led you?”
she asked demurely.
This caused Peregrine a slight inward wince, brought his light statement
closer to book. In a sudden flash he saw his words not too wise. Truly
may confidence in himself lead a man far, and yet no nearer his goal.
Her question, drawn at a venture, shot very near home. Yet he had no
mind to betray this thought to the laughing girl.
“Truly,” he said airily enough, “at the moment it hath led me to the
company of a very fair egoist.”
Head on one side she surveyed him, doubtful, questioning. “I know not
that word,” she said.
“I see it meaning one exceeding conscious of their own personality,”
remarked Peregrine. “An’ you be not conscious of yours, I stand
rebuked.”
She mused a moment. “An’ you mean that I know well that I am Méllisande
the Fair, as men call me, that I take pleasure in my beauty and my
health, then you need no rebuke.”
“Indeed,” said Peregrine smiling at her _naïveté_, “I mean that very
precisely.”
“Then,” quoth she, with her ever ready laugh, “the word suits well
enough.” She dropped to silence a moment; then spoke. “Whither fare you
now?”
“I fear me,” said Peregrine, “that I fare on a very elusive quest.”
“What manner of quest?”
“The quest of a woman.”
“Oh!” Méllisande opened dark eyes, braced herself against the ladder.
“Tell me more,” said she interested.
“There is little enough to tell,” returned Peregrine, “and that being
so, the quest appears the more mad.”
Briefly he gave her the history of the past months, eliminating matter
he held undesirable to repeat. She listened, gravely intent.
“I have heard tell of the woman,” she said as he came to an end of the
story, “veiled, and with quiet eyes.”
“You have heard tell of her!” cried Peregrine.
She nodded. “Listen. ’Tis my little brother who has spoken of her. Truly
I have thought his words but imagining, since he is a dreamer and
over-apt to fancies, at least so I have held. But more than once he has
spoken of this woman, and in much the same words that you have given me.
Once I thought ’twas the Blessed Virgin he had believed to see, but he
assured me to the contrary. This woman, he avows, is purple-robed, her
face white as jasmine flowers, and half hidden in a veil; her eyes, when
she looks at you, are like moonlit lakes among mountains,—lakes
unruffled by the least breath of wind. This is what my brother Aelred
has told me.”
“Then,” said Peregrine very firmly, “I will speak with Aelred.”
Méllisande pointed to the right.
“You will find him yonder, most like,” she said. “Follow the road
through the village, bear upwards along a rocky path, and you will hear
the sound of falling water. Make for the sound. A stream comes out of
the rock near here, emptying itself into a cup-shaped hollow. ’Tis there
where Aelred plays most often, or dreams rather, for he is not
over-given to play, being somewhat crippled. Question him gently, and
perchance he will tell you more. But he cares not to speak too freely of
such matters, since men are apt to mock at him.”
“I thank you well,” said Peregrine, and turned to go.
“Not too fast,” cried Méllisande, “first you must have reward for your
song. Hold out your cloak.”
Peregrine, laughing, spread out his cloak as bidden. She tossed apples
to him till he vowed he could carry no more. Bestowing them about his
person, he gave merry thanks.
“Farewell, orchard egoist,” he said, “perchance we meet again.”
“Who knows!” she nodded. “Fare you well.” She saw him depart
light-footed. Once again she turned singing to her apples.
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