HE orchard was on a hill, the farmhouse lay at the foot. There was a long field, in spring a palace of cowslips, between the orchard and the house.
This September dawn Pomona came through it and left a dark track of green along the dew-bepearled grass. Little swathes of mist hung over the cowslip field, but up in the orchard the air was already clear. It was sweet with the scent of the ripe fruit, and the tart, clean autumn puugency left by the light frost.
Pomona shifted the empty basket that she had borne on her head to the ground and began to fill it with rosy-cheeked apples. Some she shook from the laden boughs, some she picked up from the sward where they had fallen from the tree; but she chose only the best and ripest.
A shaft of sunlight broke over the purple hills. It shone on her ruddy hair and on her smooth cheek. She straightened herself to look out across the valley at the eastern sky: all sights of Nature were beautiful to her and gave her a joy that, yet, she had never learnt to put into words, hardly into thoughts. Now as she stood gazing, someone came along the road that skirted the orchard, and catching sight of her, halted and became lost in contemplation of her, even as she of the sunrise pageant.
As evidently as Pomona in her homespun skirt and bodice belonged to the farmhouse, so did he to the great castle near by. The gentleman had made as careful a toilet for his early walk as if he had been bound for St. James's. His riding-coat was of delicate hue, and laces fluttered at his wrists and throat. His black lovelocks hung carefully combed on either shoulder from under his beplumed hat. A rapier swung at his side, and as he stood he flicked at it with the glove in his bare hand. He had a long, pale face and long eyes with drooping lids and haughty eyebrows; a small, upturned moustache gave a tilt of mockery to the grave lips. He looked very young, and yet so sedate and self-possessed and scornful that he might have known the emptiness of the world a hundred years.
Pomona turned with a start, feeling herself watched. She gazed for a moment in surprise, and a deep blush rose in her cheeks; then, still staring, she made a slow country curtsy. Off went the befeathered hat: the gentleman returned her salutation by a profound bow. Then he leaped the little ditch into the orchard and threaded his way through the trees towards her. She watched him come; her great eyes were like the eyes of a deer, as shy, as innocent.
"Good morrow, sir," said she, with another curtsy, and then corrected herself quickly, "good morrow, my lord." For, if he came from the Castle, he was surely a lord.
"Good morrow, madam," returned he pleasantly. His glance appraised her with open admiration.
What a glorious creature! What proportions; what amber and red on those smooth cheeks; what ruddy radiance in that sun-illumined hair! What a column of a throat, and how white the skin where the coarse kerchief parted above the laced bodice! What lines of bust and hip, of arm and wrist; generous but perfect! A goddess! He glanced at the strong, sun-burnt hands; they were ringless. Unowned then, as yet, this superb nymph.
His long eyes moved at their pleasure; and she stood waiting in repose, though the colour came and went richly on her rich cheek. Then he bowed again, the hat clasped to his bosom.
"Thank you," said he, and replaced his beaver with a turn of the wrist that set all the grey and white plumes rippling round the crown.
"Sir?" she queried, startled, and on her second thought, "my lord?"
At this he broke into a smile. When he smiled, his haughty face gained a rare sweetness.
"Thank you for rising thus early and coming into the orchard and standing in the sun-rays and being, my maid, so beautiful. I little thought to find so fair a vision. 'Twill be a sweet one to carry forth with me … if it be the last on earth."
Her wits were never quick to work. She went her country way as a rule as straight and sweetly and unthinkingly as the lilies grow. To question why a noble visitor at the Castle—and a visitor it must be, since his countenance was unfamiliar—should walk forth at the dawn and speak as if this morning saunter were to death, never entered her head.
She stammered: "Oh, sir!" to his compliment, and paused, her lip quivering over the inarticulate sense of her own awkwardness.
"Have you been gathering apples?" quoth he, still smiling on her.
"Aye, sir," she said, "to make preserve withal"; and faltered yet again, "my lord!"
"Aye," approved he. "It has a fair sound in your mouth. Would I were your lord! What is your name?"