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Speaker 1: The Haunted Orchard by Richard le Galienne. Spring was once

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Speaker 1: more in the world. As she sang to herself in

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Speaker 1: the far away woodlands, her voice reached even the ears

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Speaker 1: of the city, weary with the long winter. Daffodils flowered

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Speaker 1: at the entrances to the subway, furniture removing vans blocked

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Speaker 1: to the side streets, children clustered like blossoms on the doorsteps.

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Speaker 1: The open cars were running, and the cry of the

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Speaker 1: cash clow man was once more heard in the land. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it was the spring, and the city dreamed wistfully of

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Speaker 1: lilacs and the dewy piping of birds in gnarled old apple,

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Speaker 1: trees of dogwood lighting up with sudden silver, the thickening

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Speaker 1: woods of water plants unfolding their glossy scrolls in pools

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Speaker 1: of morning freshness. On Sunday mornings, the outbound trains were

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Speaker 1: thronged with eager pilgrims, hastening out of the city to

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Speaker 1: behold once more the ancient marvel of the spring. And

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Speaker 1: on Sunday evenings the railway termini were a flower with

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Speaker 1: banners of blossom from rifle, woodland and orchard, carried in

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Speaker 1: the hands of the returning pilgrims, whose eyes still shone

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Speaker 1: with the spring magic, in whose ears still sang the

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Speaker 1: fairy music. And as I beheld these signs of the

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Speaker 1: vernal equinox, I knew that I too must follow the

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Speaker 1: music forsake a while a beautiful siren we call the city,

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Speaker 1: and in the green silences, meet once more, my sweetheart Solitude.

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Speaker 1: As the train drew out of the grand Central, I

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Speaker 1: hummed to myself, I V a neater, sweeter maiden in

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Speaker 1: a greener, cleaner land. And so I said good bye

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Speaker 1: to the city, and went forth with beating heart to

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Speaker 1: meet the Spring. I had been told of an almost

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Speaker 1: forgotten corner on the south coast of Connecticut, where the

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Speaker 1: Spring and I could live in an inviolate loneliness, a

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Speaker 1: place uninhabited save by birds and blossoms, woods and thick grass,

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Speaker 1: and an occasional silent farmer, and pervaded by the breath

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Speaker 1: and shimmer of the sound. Nor had rumor lied for

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Speaker 1: when the train set me down at my destination, I

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Speaker 1: stepped out into the most wonderful green hush, a leafy

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Speaker 1: sabbath silence through which the very train, as it went

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Speaker 1: farther on its way, seemed to steal as noiselessly as possible,

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Speaker 1: for fear of breaking the spell. After a winter in

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Speaker 1: the town, to be dropped thus suddenly into the intense

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Speaker 1: quiet of the countryside makes an almost ghostly impression upon one,

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Speaker 1: as of an enchanted silence, a silence that listens and watches,

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Speaker 1: but never speaks. Finger on lip. There is a spectral

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Speaker 1: quality about everything upon which the eye falls. The woods

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Speaker 1: like great green clouds, the wayside flowers, the still farm

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Speaker 1: houses half lost in orchard bloom, all seemed to exist

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Speaker 1: in a dream. Everything is so still, everything so supernaturally green.

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Speaker 1: Nothing moves or talks except the gentle sasceress of the

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Speaker 1: spring wind swaying the young buds high up in the

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Speaker 1: quiet sky, or a bird now and again, or a

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Speaker 1: little brook singing softly to itself among the crowding rushes.

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Speaker 1: Though from the houses one notes here and there there

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Speaker 1: are evidently human inhabitants of this green silence, none are

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Speaker 1: to be seen. I have often wondered where the country

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Speaker 1: folk hide themselves, as I have walked hour after hour

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Speaker 1: past farm and croft and lonely door yards, and never

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Speaker 1: caught sight of a human face. If you should want

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Speaker 1: to ask the way a farmer is as shy as

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Speaker 1: a squirrel, and if you knock at a farmhouse door,

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Speaker 1: all is as silent as a rabbit warren. As I

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Speaker 1: walk along in the enchanted stillness, I came at length

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Speaker 1: to a quaint old farmhouse, old colonial in its architecture,

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Speaker 1: embowered in white lilacs, and surrounded by an orchard of

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Speaker 1: ancient apple trees which cast a rich shade on the

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Speaker 1: deep spring grass. The orchard had the impressiveness of those

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Speaker 1: old religious groves dedicated to the strange worship of Sylvan gods,

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Speaker 1: gods to be found now only in Horace or Catullus,

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Speaker 1: and in the hearts of young poets, to whom the

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Speaker 1: beautiful antique Latin is still dear. The old house seemed

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Speaker 1: already the abode of solitude. As I lifted the latch

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Speaker 1: of the white gate and walked across the forgotten grass

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Speaker 1: and up on to the verandah, already festooned with wisteria,

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Speaker 1: and looked into the window, I saw solitude sitting by

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Speaker 1: an old piano on which no composer later than Bach

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Speaker 1: had ever been played. In other words, the house was

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Speaker 1: empty and going round to the back, where old barns

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Speaker 1: and stables leaned together as if falling asleep. I found

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Speaker 1: a broken pane, and so climbed in and walked through

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Speaker 1: the echoing rooms. The house was very lonely, evidently no

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Speaker 1: one had lived in it for a long time, yet

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Speaker 1: it was all ready for some occupant, for whom it

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Speaker 1: seemed to be waiting. Quaint old four poster bedsteads stood

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Speaker 1: in three rooms, dimity curtains and spotless linen, old oak

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Speaker 1: chests and mahogany presses, and opening drawers in chippendale sideboards.

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Speaker 1: I came upon beautiful, frail, old silver and exquisite china

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Speaker 1: that set me thinking of a beautiful grandmother of mine,

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Speaker 1: made out of old lace and laughing wrinkles and mischievous

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Speaker 1: old blue eyes. There was one little room that particularly

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Speaker 1: interested me, a tiny bedroom, all white, and at the

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Speaker 1: window the red roses were already in bud. But what

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Speaker 1: caught my eye with peculiar sympathy was a small bookcase,

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Speaker 1: in which were some twenty or thirty volumes wearing the

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Speaker 1: same forgotten expression, forgotten and yet cared for, which lay

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Speaker 1: like a kind of memorial charm upon everything in the

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Speaker 1: old house. Yes, everything seemed forgotten, and yet everything curiously,

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Speaker 1: even religiously remembered. I took out book after book from

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Speaker 1: the shelves, once or twice flowers fell out from the pages,

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Speaker 1: and I caught sight of a delicate handwriting here and there,

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Speaker 1: and frail markings. It was evidently the little intimate library

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Speaker 1: of a young girl. What surprised me most was to

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Speaker 1: find that quite half the books were in French, French

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Speaker 1: poets and French romances. A charming, very rare edition of Ronsar,

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Speaker 1: a beautifully printed edition of Alfred de Mussy, and a

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Speaker 1: copy of Teoffield Gautier's Mademoiselle de Mopa. How did these

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Speaker 1: exotic books come to be there alone, in a deserted

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Speaker 1: New England farmhouse. This question was to be answered later

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Speaker 1: in a strange way. Meanwhile, I had fallen in love

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Speaker 1: with the sad, old, silent place, and as I closed

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Speaker 1: the white gate and was once more on the road,

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Speaker 1: I looked about for someone who could tell me whether

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Speaker 1: or not this house of ghosts might be rented for

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Speaker 1: the summer by a comparatively living man. I was referred

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Speaker 1: to a fine old New England farmhouse shining white through

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Speaker 1: the trees. A quarter of a mile away. There I

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Speaker 1: met an ancient couple, a typical New England farmer and

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Speaker 1: his wife. The old man, lean chin bearded with keen

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Speaker 1: gray eyes flickering occasionally with a shrewd humor, the old

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Speaker 1: lady with a kindly old face of the withered apple type,

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Speaker 1: and ruddy. They were evidently prosperous people, but their minds,

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Speaker 1: for some reason I could not at the moment divine,

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Speaker 1: seemed to be divided between their New England desire to

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Speaker 1: drive a hard bargain and their disinclination to let the

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Speaker 1: house at all. Over and over again they spoke of

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Speaker 1: the loneliness of the place. They feared I would find

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Speaker 1: it very lonely, no one had lived in it for

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Speaker 1: a long time, and so on. It seemed to me

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Speaker 1: that afterwards I understood their curious hesitation, but at the

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Speaker 1: moment only regarded it as a part of the circuitous

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Speaker 1: New England method of bargaining. At all events. The rent

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Speaker 1: I offered finally overcame their disinclination, whatever its cause, and

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Speaker 1: so I came into possession for four months of that

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Speaker 1: silent old house with the white lilacs and the drowsy barns,

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Speaker 1: and the old piano, and the strange orchard. And as

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Speaker 1: the summer came on and the year changed its name

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Speaker 1: from May to June, I used to lie under the

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Speaker 1: apple trees in the afternoons, dreamily reading some old book,

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Speaker 1: and through half sleepy eyelids, watching the silken shimmer of

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Speaker 1: the sound. I had lived in the old house for

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Speaker 1: about a month when one afternoon a strange thing happened

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Speaker 1: to me. I remember the date well. It was the

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Speaker 1: afternoon of Tuesday, June thirteenth. I was reading, or rather

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Speaker 1: dipping here and there in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. As

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Speaker 1: I read, I remember that a little unripe apple, with

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Speaker 1: a petal or two of blossom still clinging to it,

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Speaker 1: fell upon the old yellow page. Then I suppose I

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Speaker 1: must have fallen into a dream, though it seems to

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Speaker 1: me that both my eyes and my ears were wide open,

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Speaker 1: for I suddenly became aware of a beautiful young voice

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Speaker 1: singing very softly somewhere among the leaves. The singing was

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Speaker 1: very frail, almost imperceptible, as though it came out of

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Speaker 1: the air. It came and went fitfully, like the elusive

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Speaker 1: fragrance of sweet briar, as though a girl was walking

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Speaker 1: to and fro dreamily humming to herself in the still afternoon.

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Speaker 1: Yet there was no one to be seen. The orchard

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Speaker 1: had never seemed more lonely. And another fact that struck

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Speaker 1: me as strange was that the words that floated to

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Speaker 1: me out of the aerial music were French, half sad,

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Speaker 1: half gay, snatches of some long dead singer of old France.

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Speaker 1: I looked about for the origin of the sweet sounds,

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Speaker 1: but in vain could it be the birds that were

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Speaker 1: singing in French in this strange orchard. Presently the voice

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Speaker 1: seemed to come quite close to me, so near that

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Speaker 1: it might have been the voice of a dryad singing

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Speaker 1: to me out of the tree against which I was leaning.

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Speaker 1: And this time I distinctly caught the words of the

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Speaker 1: sad little song shot ra signor shod to aquia loocod

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Speaker 1: geert ah looqueurarri wa jelleta bleue. But though the voice

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Speaker 1: was at my shoulder, I could see no one. And

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Speaker 1: then the singing stopped with what sounded like a sob,

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Speaker 1: And a moment or two later I seemed to hear

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Speaker 1: a sound of sobbing far down the orchard. Then there

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Speaker 1: followed sigh, and I was left to ponder on the

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Speaker 1: strange occurrence. Naturally, I decided it was just a day

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Speaker 1: dream between sleeping and waking over the pages of an

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Speaker 1: old book. Yet when next day and the day after,

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Speaker 1: the invisible singer was in the orchard again, I could

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Speaker 1: not be satisfied with such a mere matter of fact explanation.

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Speaker 1: All Clarifonte went to the voice to and fro through

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Speaker 1: the thick orchard bows more, a little proud jee true,

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Speaker 1: lowcip goodsure me, sweet louis easier, lord o koster jama journatubble.

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Speaker 1: It was certainly uncanny to hear that voice going to

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Speaker 1: and fro the orchard there somewhere amid the bright sun

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Speaker 1: dazzled bows. Yet not a human creature to be seen,

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Speaker 1: not another house even within half a mile. The most

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Speaker 1: materialistic mind could hardly but conclude that here was something

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Speaker 1: not dreamed of in our philosophy. It seemed to me

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Speaker 1: that the only reasonable explanation was the entirely irrational one

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Speaker 1: that my orchard was haunted, haunted by some beautiful young

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Speaker 1: spirit with some sorrow of lost joy, that would not

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Speaker 1: let her sleep quietly in her grave. And next day

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Speaker 1: I had a curious confirmation of my theory. Once more,

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Speaker 1: I was lying under my face ever it apple tree,

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Speaker 1: half reading and half watching the sound lulled into a

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Speaker 1: dream by the whir of insects and the spices called

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Speaker 1: up from the earth by the hot sun. As I

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Speaker 1: bent over the page, I suddenly had the startling impression

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Speaker 1: that some one was leaning over my shoulder and reading

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Speaker 1: with me, And as a girl's long hair was falling

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Speaker 1: over me down on to the page the book was

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Speaker 1: the run star I had found in the little bedroom.

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Speaker 1: I turned, but again there was nothing there. Yet this

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Speaker 1: time I knew that I had not been dreaming, and

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Speaker 1: I cried out, poor child, tell me of your grief,

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Speaker 1: that I may help your sorrowing hearts to rest. But

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Speaker 1: of course there was no answer. Yet that night I

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Speaker 1: dreamed a strange dream. I thought I was in the

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Speaker 1: orchard again in the afternoon, and once again heard the

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Speaker 1: strange singing, But this time, as I looked up, the

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Speaker 1: singer was no longer invisible. Coming toward me was a

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Speaker 1: young girl with wonderful blue eyes filled with tears, and

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Speaker 1: gold hair that fell to her waist. She wore a

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Speaker 1: straight white robe that might have been a shroud or

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Speaker 1: a bridal dress. She appeared not to see me, though

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Speaker 1: she came directly to the tree where I was sitting,

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Speaker 1: and there she knelt and buried her face in the

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Speaker 1: grass and sobbed as if her heart would break. Her

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Speaker 1: long hair fell over her like a mantle, and in

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Speaker 1: my dream I stroked it pityingly and murmured words of

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Speaker 1: comfort for a sorrow I did not understand. Then I

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Speaker 1: woke suddenly, as one does from dreams. It was almost

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Speaker 1: as bright as day. I could plainly see the tree

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Speaker 1: of which I had been dreaming, and then a fantastic

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Speaker 1: notion possessed me. Slipping on my clothes, I went out

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Speaker 1: into one of the old barns and found a spade.

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Speaker 1: Then I went to the tree where I had seen

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Speaker 1: the girl weeping in my dream, and dug down at

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Speaker 1: its foot. I had dug little more than a foot

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Speaker 1: when my spade struck upon some hard substance, And in

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Speaker 1: a few more moments I had uncovered and exhumed a

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Speaker 1: small box, which on examination proved to be one of

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Speaker 1: those pretty old fashioned chippendale work boxes used by our

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Speaker 1: grandmothers to keep their thimbles and needles in their reels

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Speaker 1: of cotton and skeins of silk. After smoothing down the

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Speaker 1: little grave in which I had found it, I carried

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Speaker 1: the box into the house, and under the lamplight examined

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Speaker 1: its contents. Then at once I understood why that sad

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Speaker 1: young spirit went to and fro the orchard, singing those

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Speaker 1: little French songs for the treasure trove I had found

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Speaker 1: under the apple tree. The buried treasure of an unquiet,

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Speaker 1: suffering soul proved to be a number of love letters,

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Speaker 1: written mostly in French, in a very picture scanned letters

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Speaker 1: to written but some five or six years before. Perhaps

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Speaker 1: I should not have read them. Yet I read them

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Speaker 1: with such reverence for the beautiful, impassioned love that animated

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Speaker 1: them and literally made them smell sweet and blossom in

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Speaker 1: the dust, that I felt I had the sanction of

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Speaker 1: the dead to make myself the confidant of their story.

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Speaker 1: Among the letters were little songs, two of which I

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Speaker 1: had heard the strange young voice singing in the orchard.

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Speaker 1: And of course there were many withered flowers and suchlike

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Speaker 1: remembrances of bygone rapture, not that night could I make

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Speaker 1: out all the story, though it was not difficult to

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Speaker 1: define its essential tragedy. And later on a gossip in

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Speaker 1: the neighborhood and a headstone in the churchyard told me

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Speaker 1: the rest. The unquiet young soul that had sung so

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Speaker 1: whisked fully to and fro the orchard was my landlord's daughter.

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Speaker 1: She was the only child of her parents, a beautiful,

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Speaker 1: wilful girl, exotically unlike those from whom she was sprung,

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Speaker 1: and among whom she lived with a disdainful air of exile.

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Speaker 1: She was, as a child a little creature of fairy fancies,

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Speaker 1: and as she grew up it was plain to her

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Speaker 1: father and mother that she had come from another world

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Speaker 1: than theirs. To them, she seemed like a child in

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Speaker 1: an old fairy tale, strangely found on his hearth by

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Speaker 1: some shepherd as he returns from the fields at evening,

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Speaker 1: a little fairy girl, swaddled in fine linen and dowered

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Speaker 1: with a mysterious bag of gold. Soon she developed delicate

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Speaker 1: spiritual needs to which her simple parents were strangers. From

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Speaker 1: long truances in the woods, she would come home laden

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Speaker 1: with mysterious flowers, and soon she came to ask for

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Speaker 1: books and pictures and music of which the poor soul

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Speaker 1: that had given her birth had never heard. Finally, she

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Speaker 1: had her way and went to study at a certain

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Speaker 1: fashionable college, and there the brief romance of her life began.

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Speaker 1: There she met a romantic young Frenchman who had read

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Speaker 1: ronsar to her and written her those picturesque letters I

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Speaker 1: had found in the old mahogany workbox. And after a

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Speaker 1: while the young Frenchman had gone back to France, and

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Speaker 1: the letters had ceased. Months by months went by, and

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Speaker 1: at length one day, as she sat wistful at the window,

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Speaker 1: looking out at the foolish sunlit road, a message came.

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Speaker 1: He was dead. That headstone in the village churchyard tells

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Speaker 1: the rest. She was very young to die, scarcely nineteen years.

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Speaker 1: And the dead who have died young, with all their

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Speaker 1: hopes and dreams still like unfolded buds within their hearts,

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Speaker 1: do not rest so quietly in the grave as those

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Speaker 1: who have gone through the long day from morning until evening,

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Speaker 1: and are only too glad to sleep. Next day I

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Speaker 1: took the little box to a quiet corner of the

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Speaker 1: orchard and made a little pyre of fragrant boughs. For

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Speaker 1: so I interpreted the wish of that young, unquiet spirit,

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Speaker 1: and the beautiful words are now safe, taken up again

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Speaker 1: into the aerial spaces from which they came. But since

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Speaker 1: then the birds sing no more little French songs in

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Speaker 1: my old orchard. The Haunted Orchard by Richard Le Gallienne

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Speaker 1: recording by Peter Yearsley, adapted by Alexander Williams. For more

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Speaker 1: podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio Apple

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite showy

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Speaker 1: be