As he addressed them he gazed with delight at the enclosure. By the light of the Queen Moon, now at her full in heaven, he saw that the orchard grass was clipped, and patterned with small clover, but against the hedges rose wild banks of meadow-sweet and yarrow and the jolly ragwort, and briony with its heart-shaped leaf and berry as red as heart's-blood made a bower above them all. And all the apple-trees were decked with little golden moons hanging in clusters on the drooping boughs, and glimmering in the recesses of the leaves. Under each tree a ring of windfalls lay in the grass. But prettiest sight of all was the ring of girls in yellow gowns and caps, that lay around the midmost apple-tree like fallen fruit. "Dear maidens," pleaded the Minstrel, "let me come in." At the sound of his voice the six milkmaids rose up in the grass like golden fountains. And fountains indeed they were, for their eyes were running over with tears. "We did not hear you coming," said little Joan. "Go away at once!" commanded Joscelyn. Then all the girls cried "Go away!" together. "My apple-gold maidens," said Martin Pippin, "I entreat you to let me in. For the moon is up, and it is time to be sleeping or waking, in sweet company. So I beseech you to admit me, dear maidens--if maidens in truth you be, and not six apples bobbed off their stems." "You may not come in," said Joscelyn, "in case you should release our master's daughter, who sits in the Well-House pining to follow her heart." "Why, whither would she follow it?" asked Martin much surprised. The milkmaids turned their faces away, and little Joan murmured, "It is a secret." Martin: I will put chains on my thoughts. But shall I not sing you a tune you may dance to? I will make you a song for an August night, when the moon rocks her way up and down the cradle of the sky, and you shall rock on earth like any apple on the twig. Jane: For my part, I see nothing against it. Jessica: Gillian won't care little apples. Joyce: She would not hear though we danced the round of the year. Joscelyn: So long as he does not come in-- Jennifer: --or we go out. "Oh, let us dance, do let us dance!" cried little Joan. "Man," they importuned him in a single breath, "play for us and sing for us, as quickly as you can!" "Sweet ones," said Martin Pippin, shaking his head, "songs must be paid for. And yet I do not know what to ask you, some trifle in kind it should be. Why, now, I have it! If I give you the keys to the dance, give me the keys to your little mistress, that I may keep her secure from following her heart like a bird of passage, whither it's no business of mine to ask." At this request, made so gayly and so carelessly, the girls all looked at one another in consternation. Then Joscelyn drew herself up to full height, and pointing with her arm straight across the duckpond she cried: "Minstrel, begone!" And the six girls, turning their backs upon him, moved away into the shadows of the moon.