Chapter IX
Mellis and her brother had left Gawdy Town lying behind them on the blue edge of the sea. The day was very young, and a north wind came over the marshes about the mouth of the Rondel river, bending the reeds in the dykes and rousing ripples in the lengthening grass. Mellis was mounted on a modest nag whose brown coat and sleepy ears were more suited to the russet cloak she wore than to the brighter colors underneath it. Gilbert marched at her side. His eyes looked gray in the morning; the north wind had pinched his courage a little; and he and Mellis were to part for a while.
“Keep your heart up, sweet sister.”
She looked down at him and smiled. Her eyes were steadier than his, and more determined, and she was less touched by the north wind. His nature was more mercurial, more restless, not so patient when life’s adventure dragged.
“I feel near home, Gilbert. I think I could live in the Forest—like a wild thing.”
“Woodmere must be all green, and the lilies white on the water. The house is but a shell, they say.”
Her eyes filled with a great tenderness.
“My heart is there,” she said, sighing.
A flock of sheep passed them, being driven to the river pastures. A great wood-wain came rumbling along, loaded high with brown fagots. Mellis’s nostrils dilated, and her eyes shone.
“What a good ship, and what merchandise! I can smell the Forest.”
He laughed, with a note of recklessness.
“Oh the merry, merry life, with the horn and the hound, and the bed under the greenwood tree. Why did our people wear the wrong color, sister? Our hearts were red, and the color beggared us.”
“My heart is the color of fire,” she answered him, “and I let it burn with the thought of vengeance. When will you begin to tell me your secrets?”
“Very soon, sister. I want no listeners within a mile of us. You see how discreet I am! Gawdy Town is a pest of a place; even the dogs do their spying; and there is always the chance of your getting a knife in your back. That is why I thought it better that you should go.”
“Have you ever found me a coward?”
“Dear heart, you are too brave, and such courage may be dangerous.”
They were leaving the marshes behind them, and the Rondel had taken to itself glimmering green lines of pollard willows. Little farmsteads dotted the long northward slope of the hills. Here and there the Forest showed itself, thrusting a green headland into the cornlands and the meadows.
Gilbert was on the alert. Presently he pointed to an open beech wood that spread down close to the road.
“There is our council chamber, Mellis.”
“It should serve.”
“We can tie up the nag and see how my friend the cook has filled your saddle-bags.”
They turned aside into the beech wood, tethered the horse, and sat down under a tree. They were hidden from the road; the gray trunks hemmed them in.
Gilbert was examining the saddle-bags.
“That cook is a brave creature! Good slices of bread with meat in between. And a bottle of wine. There is enough stuff here to last you for days. Dear Lord, what trouble I was at to explain my buying of that sorry old nag!”
He set one of the bags between them.
“Now for dinner and a gossip. There are two words that you must never utter, Mellis, save when some one challenges you with the question, ‘What of Wales?’ ”
“And those words?”
“Are ‘Owen Tudor.’ They will win you friends where friends are to be had, but also they might hang you.”
“Of course.”
“Our plans have not gone so badly. Our king across the water is a shrewd gentleman. Our business is to stir up a hornets’ nest in these parts; others will play the same game elsewhere, so that Crooked Dick shall be stung in a hundred places while Lord Harry is crossing the sea. Roger Bland is our arch enemy.”
She drew in a deep breath.
“Do I forget it?”
“Tsst!—not too much fire! He is the very devil for cunning. We have got to hold him in these parts, so worry him that he cannot march and join the Hunchback when spears will be precious to that king. They will find a dozen fires alight in every corner of the kingdom, and if our Harry wins the day, Woodmere will be ours again.”
She uttered a fiercer cry.
“And blood shall pay for blood. Oh, I am no sweet saint, Gilbert. That man dragged our father at his horse’s heels, and then——”
She broke off as though the words were too bitter to be spoken.
Gilbert’s eyes had hardened.
“God forgive me for feeling merry at times. Well, sister, I stay on in Gawdy Town, as you know, to wait for news, and to watch for the men who will come over the sea. Old John Falconer is our watchdog in the Forest. The Blounts and the Ropers are with us; also a dozen more. We ought to muster three hundred men when the day comes. The Flemming is a jewel. His pack mules have smuggled war gear and stores into the Forest. There are three suits of armor, besides bills and salets and jacks hidden in our cellar under the south tower. There is a big beam, too, in the sluice ditch to throw across the gap in the trestle bridge.”
He lay back against the tree, thinking deeply.
“This Father Jude on the Black Moor is a close-mouthed old worthy. He is a man who asks no questions, and there is money to be made by such people; a fellow who can mind his own business is worth his wage. There is not a wilder place in the Forest. You will lodge there in the pilgrim’s house; the Benedictines of Paradise are bound to feed and lodge any traveler who passes that way. Besides, Father Jude is one of us; the man has some bitter grudge against the Lord of Troy.”
She looked at him questioningly.
“And I am a pilgrim.”
“Under a vow.”
“And how shall I serve you, on the top of a moor? It seems foolishness.”
“If a man goes to shrive himself or to pray at a holy place, can folk quarrel with him? That butcher villain of a Vance has his spies everywhere. A bird does not fly straight to its nest when a cat is about.”
“True.”
“And, sister, it would be well if you could steal your way to Woodmere, and see with your own eyes that things are as old Falconer and the Flemming say they are. The cellar trap is hidden under a pile of loose stones; a stout stake through the ring will raise it.”
“I could find my way to Woodmere in the dark.”
“What a wench you are for wandering! You have that money safely? I might have my purse cut in Gawdy. You must play Jew.”
She put her hand to her bosom.
“It is here.”
They talked awhile of all that was in their hearts and of the great adventure that lay before them. Mellis was as serious as he was gay; his flippancy increased as the time slipped by.
“I shall have a tale to spin, oh false woman who passed as my sister! I am a Jack without a Jill.”
Yet his eyes were sad. A gradual melancholy took hold of him.
“Kiss me, child; we must be parting. Keep a brave heart.”
She kissed him with sudden tenderness.
“God guard you, my brother.”
“Oh, I have a cat’s lives!”
He jumped up and went to unfasten her nag.
“Remember, this good priest will ask no questions. He is a kind soul, and will swear to any lie, so they tell me. Up with you, sweetheart.”
He strapped on the saddle-bags, helped her to mount, and led her horse out of the wood. There was not a soul to be seen on the road, and still he seemed loth to leave her.
“I will go with you a little way.”
She looked at him dearly.
“No, I am brave. And there is no one here to see us part, and to gape and wonder concerning us.”
“True, oh queen! And so, farewell.”
He tossed his cap at her, laughed, and went off whistling.
And a sudden strange sadness assailed her. She held her horse in and sat there watching him. He was so gallant, so debonair, this brother of hers.
And she would never set eyes on him again. No prophetic instinct could tell her that.
Chapter X
Brother Geraint made his way through the dusk to Widow Greensleeve’s house at Cherry Acre. It was a warm, still night, and the scent of the white thorn blossom in the hedges hung heavy on the air.
He came to the gate and stood listening. There was no sound to be heard save the rush of the river through the sluices of the mill.
Geraint pushed the gate open and peered about under the apple trees.
“Good evening to you, holy sir.”
Some one was laughing close to him in the dusk.
“Who’s there?”
“What, not know my voice?”
“It is you?”
“Come and see. Have you forgotten the seat by the hedge?”
He thrust the apple boughs aside, and saw the white kerchief that covered her shoulders.
“Where is the girl?”
“Saying her prayers somewhere. I have not seen her since noon. She is touched in the head, and goes wandering for hours together.”
Geraint sat down on the bench beside the dame. He was in a sullen mood, and very bitter.
“The fool! Send her back to the moor.”
“She swears she will not go.”
“This Martin Valliant is the devil. She could make nothing of him?”
“Why, my good man, it was he who made a Magdalene of her. She came back crying, ‘He is a saint. There is no man in Paradise fit to lace his shoes!’ ”
Geraint cursed under his breath.
“A pest take both of them!”
She rapped his shoulder sharply with her knuckles.
“A word of warning, Dom Geraint. If the man is dangerous, the girl may prove more so. I tell you he has worked a miracle with her, and women are strange creatures. She says openly, ‘Some day Martin Valliant will come down from the moor, and make an end of the wickedness in Paradise.’ ”
“She says that!”
“Aye, and dreams of it. I tell you women are strange creatures when love has its way. She is all for turning anchoress, and praying all day to St. Martin. For half a cup of milk she would go running through the valley, screaming the truth. Be very careful, Dom Geraint.”
He leaned forward, glowering and biting his nails.
“We have made a poor throw, dame. And here is that pestilent pedant of an abbot threatening us with a visitation. We have heard of the storm he raised at Birchhanger; he trampled on the whole priory there, had one of the brothers hanged by the judge on circuit. Privilege of clergy, forsooth! The Church is to be regenerated!”
He rocked to and fro.
“And this Martin Valliant, the very man to play the holy sneak! A pretty pass indeed! A cub we took in and nurtured!”
The woman touched his sleeve.
“Some men are too good for this world. They are so much in love with the next world——”
He laughed discordantly.
“That they should be kicked into it! By my bones, there’s truth in that! It had entered my head, dame. And after all it is but doing a saint a service to help him to a halo.”
“Tsst—you are too noisy! Have a care.”
They drew closer together on the bench till their heads were nearly touching.
“Kate is not about?”
“She’ll come back singing a litany. We shall hear her.”
Yet the girl was nearer than either of them dreamed. She had come wandering silently along the path soon after Geraint had entered the garden, and their voices had warned her. She was standing on the other side of the hedge within two yards of the bench, her hands clenched, her face white and sharp.
She could hear all that they said to each other, and it was sufficient to make her wise as to what was in Geraint’s heart. She realized how his brethren at Paradise hated Martin, and how they wished him out of the way.
Kate heard Geraint stirring at last. There were sounds from the other side of the hedge, sounds that made her wince. She crept away, step by step, till a turn of the path hid her from view.
The gate shut with a clatter. She heard the monk give a great yawn, and then his heavy steps dying away beyond the orchard.
Kate stood very close to the hedge and shivered. Life had so changed for her; she was horrified at things that she had hardly understood before; men seemed contemptible creatures. She was thinking of what she had overheard, and of the treachery that threatened Martin Valliant.
Kate had kept her promise, and the very keeping of it had strengthened her heart; but that night she was persuaded to break it, nor could her conscience find fault with her.
There would be a moon in an hour. She crept around to the stable that stood some way from the house, put a halter on the old gray donkey, and got the beast out with scarcely a sound. He was as stubborn as any ass could be in most people’s hands, but he had a liking for humoring Kate. She led him down the orchard, through the slip gate into the dame’s meadow, and so away over the open country to the bridge at the mill. No one saw her cross the river, though the miller nudged his wife when he heard the donkey’s hoofs on the timber of the bridge.
“Now who would you guess that to be?”
The good wife ran to the window, but saw nothing, since the moon was not up.
“An ass, by the sound.”
“Two of them, more likely. And supposing it were Kate Succory, where would she be going?”
“It is best to mind one’s business, John, when we live at the prior’s mill.”
“Remember it, dame, by all means,” he said, somewhat sullenly, “there is not an honest man among them now that Martin Valliant is away on the moor.”
His wife clapped her hands.
“Maybe that ass travels as far as the moor.”
“Get you to bed. A woman’s tongue stirs up too much mire.”
Kate did not trouble her head as to whether anyone had seen her from the mill. She set the donkey’s nose for the Forest, and helped him with her heels. Luckily, she knew the way, and soon the moon came over the hill to help her.
“A blessing on you, Master Moon,” she said quite solemnly, looking over the donkey’s tail.
The clock at Paradise was striking midnight when Kate saw the Black Moor lying dim and mysterious under the moon. More than once she had been shrewdly frightened in the deeps of the woods; but old Jock was the most stolid of mokes, and the beast’s steadiness had comforted her. She had stretched herself on his back, her arms about his neck, her face close to his flopping ears, and had talked to him.
“Who’s afraid, Jock? I can say a Mater Maria and a Pater. Besides, we are on a good errand, and the saints will watch over us.”
Jock, by his silence, most heartily agreed with her.
“Dom Geraint is a treacherous villain. The lean, black rat! Some day Abbot Hilary will send for Martin Valliant and will make him prior.”
She sat up straight on Jock’s back as the donkey climbed the moor. The place had a magic for her. She could imagine all sorts of miraculous things happening where Martin Valliant lived.
“Assuredly he will be a very great saint,” she said to herself, “and people will come to him to be healed.”
Presently she saw the cross standing out against the sky, and it stirred her almost to passionate tears. She slipped off Jock’s back, fastened him to a stunted thorn, and went on alone.
Everything was very still. In the far south the sea glimmered under the moon. Kate went forward with a strange, exultant awe in her heart. Martin would pardon her for breaking her promise when he knew why she had come.
The buildings were black and solemn, though a faint ray of light shone from the window of the chapel. It was the vigil of St. Florence, and Martin had left two candles burning on the altar while he slept for an hour.
Kate looked into the chapel and found it empty. She knelt on the threshold, put her hands together, and said a prayer.
Martin Valliant was sound asleep in his cell, but he awoke to the sound of some one knocking. He sat up on his pallet, and listened.
“Martin Valliant—Martin Valliant!”
He knew her voice, and for a moment he would not answer her.
“Martin Valliant, be not angry with me. I am not breaking my vow to you; no, not in the spirit. I have come to warn you.”
“Child, what mean you?”
“Beware of Brother Geraint, beware of the monks of Paradise. They go about to do you a great wrong.”
He rose to his knees.
“How should you know?”
“Listen. I speak what is true.”
She told him of the things she had heard Geraint whisper in the garden.
“They are evil men, and mean treachery toward you. I could not rest, Martin Valliant, because you are a good man, and taught me to see the Christ.”
There was silence.
Then she said, “Pray for me, Martin Valliant,” and was gone.
Martin rose up and opened the door of the cell, but she was out of sight over the edge of the moor.
He stood there a long while, rigid, wide-eyed, a young man amazed that older men should be so base.
Chapter XI
Mellis Dale had passed the night sleeping under a thorn tree in Bracknell Wood, with a pile of last year’s bracken for a bed. The thorn tree had stood as a green and white pavilion, and there was a forest pool among the birch trees of Bracknell that had served her both as a labrum and a mirror. She broke her fast to the sound of the singing of the woodlarks, and with the sunlight playing through the delicate tracery of the birches. Her brown nag was cropping the wet grass in a little clearing where she had tethered him.
Mellis’s eyes were full of a quiet tenderness that morning. She was a Forest child, and its sounds and scents and colors were very familiar and very dear. She was as forest-wise as any ranger or woodman, and was as much part of its life as the birds or the deer or the mysterious woodland streams and the brown pools where the dead leaves lay buried. A great content possessed her. She had no fear of the wild life or of a bed under the stars.
The sun had been up some hours before she saddled her nag and rode forward through Bracknell Deep. She knew all the ways, though Woodmere lay three leagues to the north-west, and the Black Moor two leagues to the east of it. She felt no need of hurrying. The deep woods delighted her; her dark eyes seemed to fill with their mystery; their silence soothed her heart. Life was a great adventure, a game of hide-and-seek in a garden where every path and nook and thicket were unknown. She was strong and comely and full of the pride of her youth; her breath was sweet, her black hair fell to her knees, her lips were as red as the berries on a briar.
Martin Valliant was hoeing weeds in Father Jude’s garden when Mellis rode her brown nag up the southern slope of the Black Moor. There was no life in Martin’s labor; his eyes had a dull look as though some pain gnawed at his vitals. His heart had discovered a new bitterness in life, for the words that Kate Succory had spoken to him in the night kept up a tumult in his brain. He had begun to understand many things that had seemed obscure and meaningless. He even realized why he was hoeing weeds on the top of a lonely moor. The very men whose life he had shared were filled with malice against him, and, like Joseph’s brethren, were trying to sell him into bondage.
He heard the tramp of Mellis’s horse, and his new-born mistrust stood on the alert.
“Why should I fear anything that walks the earth,” he thought, “man, woman, or beast? They are but creatures of flesh.”
And then he discovered himself standing straight as a young ash tree, resting his hands on the top of the handle of the hoe, and staring over the hedge into a woman’s eyes. He could see her head, shoulders and bosom; the green hedge hid the rest of her. But if Martin had dared to scoff at Dame Nature, that good lady was quick and vigorous with her retort. She showed him this girl, black-haired, red-lipped, flushed with riding, sitting her horse with a certain haughtiness, her head held high, her white throat showing proudly.
“You are Father Jude?”
Martin could have stammered with a sudden, wondering awe of her. Her eyes were fixed on him questioningly, and with an intentness that heralded an incipient frown.
“Father Jude is no longer here.”
“Not here!”
“He lies sick at Paradise.”
The frown showed now on her forehead. Her eyes lifted and gazed beyond him, and Martin Valliant had never seen such eyes before. His mistrust of her had vanished, he knew not why. Paradise had no knowledge of such a creature as this. She had ridden out of the heart of a mystery, and her face was the face of June.
“Fools!”
She was angry, perplexed. And then she smiled down at Martin with quick subtlety.
“Your pardon, father.”
She smiled whole-heartedly as she took stock of his youth.
“What am I saying! I have a vow of silence upon me, save that I may speak to such as you. I am a pilgrim. I had a fellow-pilgrim with me, but she fell sick at Burchester, and I rode on alone. Father Jude’s name was put in my mouth by the prioress of Burchester. Is there not a pilgrim’s rest-house here?”
Martin Valliant was still full of his wonder at her beauty.
“Assuredly. This is the chapelry of St. Florence. The good saint so willed it that all who passed this way should have food and lodging.”
Her face had changed its expression. She showed a sudden reticence, a cold pride.
“St. Florence has my thanks. Will you send your servant to take my horse?”
He gaped at her, as though overcome by the thought that this creature of mystery was to move and breathe in the guest-house next his cell.
He tried to save his dignity by taking refuge in sententiousness.
“I am the servant of St. Florence and of all those who tarry here.”
She glanced at him guardedly, and seemed to realize his unworldliness.
“I shall be no great burden. A stall for the horse and a roof for my own head. I can look to my own horse, if you will show me the stable.”
Martin let the hoe drop out of his hands. He went striding along the hedge as though some enchantment had fallen upon him. But she was out of the saddle by the time he reached the gate, and, by the way she carried herself, more than fit to deal with her own affairs.
“That is the stable, there by the woodstack?”
“Yes.”
“Is the door locked? No? I thank you, good father.”
He loitered about there like a great boy, feeling that he ought to help her, but that she did not desire his help. She seemed to have a way of taking possession of things. He could see her removing the saddle and bridle from her horse, and presently she was at the haystack gathering up some of the loose hay in her arms. She had left her brown cloak in the stable, and her blue spencer and green gown made Martin think of some rich blue flower on a green stalk.
Next he saw her handling a bucket, and this time the spirit moved him. He went across to her with boyish gravity.
“The spring is down the hill. I will fetch the water.”
She gave him the bucket with an air of unconcern. Her hand touched his, and thrilled him to the shoulder, but she did not so much as notice that she had touched him.
“Thank you, Father——”
“Martin.”
“Martin.”
“It would be too heavy for you to carry,” he said bluntly.
But she turned back into the stable as though she had not heard him.
Martin Valliant went down to the spring with a most strange sense of self-dissatisfaction. He filled the bucket, balanced it on the rough stones that formed a wall around the spring, and stared at his own reflection in the water. The thought struck him that he had never looked at himself in that same way before, critically, with a personal inquisitiveness. A new self-consciousness was being born in him. He stood there brooding, wondering if other men——
Then he rebuked himself with fierce severity, and carried the bucket back up the hill. Mellis was not in the stable, so he watered the horse and stared at the saddle and bridle hanging on the wall as though they could tell him who she was and whence she came. It occurred to him that she might be hungry, and at the same time he remembered that the food in his larder was hardly fit for a sturdy beggar.
This struck him as an absolute disaster. He went guiltily to his cell, and took out what by courtesy he called bread. It was of his own baking, a detestable piece of alchemy.
He weighed it in his hand, and found himself thinking of the lithe way in which she moved.
“They bake good bread at Paradise,” he said to himself.
A quite ridiculous anger attacked him.
“Mean hounds! This chapelry should be better served. A couple of mules with panniers——”
He went forth, stroking his chin dubiously, and looking at the bread he carried.
“Poor stuff for such a pilgrim.”
The door of the little rest-house stood open, showing its oak table and benches, and the rude wooden pallets that served as beds. Mellis was standing behind the table, unpacking one of her saddle-bags.
“This bread——”
He felt his face growing hot. Her eyes regarded him with momentary amusement.
“Is that—bread?”
“It is as God made me make it.”
She was smiling. His quaint humility touched her.
“I will take your bread, Father Martin, and in exchange you shall eat some of mine.”
She took out a manchet wrapped in white butter cloth and held it out to him.
“Put your bread upon the table. I dare vow it cost you much honest—labor.”
She had nearly said “cursing,” but his solemn face chastened her.
Martin Valliant took her manchet, handling it as though it were something that would break. His eyes wandered around the room and noticed the wooden pallets.
“There should be some sweet hay spread there,” he said to himself.
Mellis was watching him, but with no great interest. For the moment life called to her as a fierce and impetuous adventure. She had no use for a man who wore the dress of a priest.
“I will keep this bread for the altar,” he said suddenly, feeling that he had no excuse for loitering any longer in the room.
For an hour or more Martin Valliant went about his work with grim thoroughness. He fetched more water from the spring, cut up wood for kindling, swept out the chapel and his cell, and looked into the press where he kept his vestments to see that the moths had not been at work. Yet all the while he had his mind’s eye on the door of the rest-house; his thoughts wandered, no matter how busy he kept his hands.
He was standing at the doorway of the chapel, polishing one of the silver candlesticks that stood on the altar, when Mellis came out of the rest-house and turned her steps toward the great wooden cross. She passed close to the chapel in wandering toward the highest point of the moor, and her eyes rested for a moment on Martin Valliant and his silver candlestick.
It may have been that she asked herself what this tall fellow meant by living the life of an old woman when he was built for the trade of the sword. At all events, Martin Valliant saw a look in her eyes that was very like pity touched with scorn.
He watched her go to the cross and sit down on the mound. Her chin was raised, and she turned her head slowly from side to side, as though to bring all the Forest under her ken. There was something finely adventurous about her pose. She made Martin think of a wild-eyed bird surveying the world before spreading her wings for a flight.
He conceived a sudden distaste for polishing such a thing as a candlestick. He studied his own hands; they were big and brown, and he knew how strong they were. He remembered how he had straightened an iron crowbar across his knee, to the delight of the prior’s woodcutters. And when the big wain had got bogged by Lady’s Brook, Martin Valliant had crawled under the axle beam and lifted it out.
The candlestick was returned to the altar, and Martin went down to the haystack to fetch hay for Mellis’s bed. The hay knife was in the stack, and he cut out a good truss of fresh stuff and carried it to the rest-house. He had spread it on one of the wooden beds and was crossing the threshold, when he met Mellis face to face.
“I have brought some hay for a bed.”
He colored like fire, but her voice was casual when she answered him.
“You vex yourself too much on my account, father. Last night I slept out under a tree.”
Martin spent an hour walking up and down behind the chapel, raging with sudden self-humiliation. Why did she treat him as though he were an old man or a child?
Chapter XII
The next day came and went, a pageant of white clouds in a deep blue sky, and the earth all green to the purple of the distant hills.
Martin Valliant began the morning with a queer flush of excitement, even of trepidation. The woman with the dark hair and the wild woodland eyes would mount her horse and ride away out of his life. And somehow he did not want her to go, nor was he ashamed of the desire. He found himself in awe of her, but he did not fear her as he had feared poor Kate Succory. She was a mystery, a vision, a strange new world that made him stand wide-eyed with wonder. Her lips made him think of the holy wine, pure drink, red as blood, and undefiled.
His restlessness began with the dawn. He rang the chapel bell, went through the services, with his thoughts wandering out and waiting expectantly outside the rest-house door. For the very first time the spirit of dissimulation entered Brother Martin’s life, prompting him to walk up and down the grassy space outside his cell, hands folded, head bent, as though in meditation.
He saw her door open. She came out, her black hair hanging loose, wished him a calm “good morning,” and went down toward the spring. She had gone to wash herself there, to dabble her hands in the water. Martin paced up and down.
She returned, disappeared into the rest-house, and there was silence—suspense. Martin Valliant kept passing the open doorway, but he had not the courage to look in.
“Father Martin——”
He faced around with a guileless air, as though she had been very distant from his thoughts.
“Did you speak to me, Mistress——”
“And I have not told you my name! I am called Catharine Lovel. I wish to tarry here for some days, if St. Florence does not forbid it.”
Martin looked grave.
“I never heard that St. Florence had set a boundary to his charity,” he said.
“Then I am the more his debtor in the spirit. This is so sweet and calm a place. I come from a forest country, Father Martin.”
“It is a very wonderful country,” he agreed.
“And should be pleasant to one who has been vowed to a month’s silence?”
Again Martin agreed with her. She stood at gaze, her hands clasped in front of her.
“One cannot lose oneself with this moor as a guide post. I shall ride out, Father Martin, and go down into the woods.”
“In the valley there the beech trees are very noble,” he said; “I love them.”
“Sometimes, Father Martin, trees are nobler than men.”
He pondered those words of hers all day.
Dusk was falling before she returned. The brown horse’s ears hung limp, as though she had ridden him many miles, and his coat was stained with sweat. Martin Valliant had been standing in the doorway of his cell. He went forward to hold her horse.
“I so managed it that I lost myself,” she said.
Her face looked white in the dusk, and her eyes tired.
“I reached a river, a fine stream.”
“The Rondel. It runs a league away, and the woods are great and very thick.”
“That lured me on—perhaps. I found a ford, and pushed my horse over, there are wild grasslands beyond all full of flowers.”
“I have never been so far,” he confessed.
“It is a great country, even wilder than my own. I saw as splendid a hart as ever swam a stream come down and cross the river. And now I am as hungry as though I had followed the hounds.”
He saw that she was weary.
“I will look to the horse.”
She glided down from the saddle.
“The poor beast has had to suffer for my whims, father. He will bless you, no doubt. And so good-night to you; I shall be asleep almost before I have supped.”
Martin Valliant led the horse to the stable, took off the saddle and bridle, and rubbed the beast down with a handful of hay. He found the animal muddied above the knees, and there were other matters to set Martin thinking. The fords of the Roding were floored with sand, for the Roding was a clean river and ran at a good pace. Of course, the mud might have come from some piece of bog or a forest stream. He was the more astonished that she should have reached the river, and having reached it, found her way back again through one of the wildest and most savage parts of the Forest. The ways were few and treacherous, and known only to the forest folk, and yet what reason was there for her to lie?
The second day resembled the first in its happenings, save that Martin Valliant betrayed a more flagrant interest in this mysterious woman’s pilgrimage. She rode out early, and he hid himself behind a thorn bush on the moor and watched her progress. She chose neither the path that led to the beech woods, nor the road going west, but turned aside along the track that made for Oakshot Bottom. Martin watched her till she was out of sight, hidden by the belt of birches that bounded the northern rim of the moor.
She returned earlier that day, and in a strange and sullen temper. She let Martin take the horse, but her eyes avoided his, and she had little to say to him.
“I struck a fool’s country—all sand.”
“That would be the White Plain.”
“ ‘White’ they call it! A good jest!”
“Because of the birch trees.”
“Ah, the birch trees! I remember.”
He looked at her curiously, but she went straight to the rest-house and shut herself in. Something seemed to have gone very amiss with her that day, and Martin was honestly perplexed. Were women made of such wayward stuff that some dust, a wood of birch trees, and perhaps a few flies, could stir such spirited discontent?
He took her horse to the stable, fed and groomed him as though he were my lady’s servant. And again he examined the beast’s feet, only to discover something that was singular. One of the hind hoofs had red clay balled in it, and Martin Valliant knew that red clay was not to be found in that part of the Forest.
He picked the stuff out and stared at it, holding it in one palm.
“Oakshot is yellow, Bracknell is black,Troy is as white as a miller’s sack,The Paradise fields are as brown as wood,But red is the color of Bloody Rood.”
“Oakshot is yellow, Bracknell is black,Troy is as white as a miller’s sack,The Paradise fields are as brown as wood,But red is the color of Bloody Rood.”
“Oakshot is yellow, Bracknell is black,Troy is as white as a miller’s sack,The Paradise fields are as brown as wood,But red is the color of Bloody Rood.”
“Oakshot is yellow, Bracknell is black,
Troy is as white as a miller’s sack,
The Paradise fields are as brown as wood,
But red is the color of Bloody Rood.”
He called to mind the old Forest jingle, and the reddish-yellow lump in his hand rhymed with it.
“Bloody Rood? That is the Blount’s lordship. Young Nigel holds the fee.”
He frowned and tossed the clay into the stall.
Martin saw no more of Mellis that evening; she remained shut up in the rest-house, nor did he leave the limits of his cell. A new emotion had been born in Martin Valliant’s heart—an emotion that was so utterly human that the saint was fast losing himself in the man. Mellis was growing more mysterious, more elusive, and Martin Valliant’s imagination had carried him away at a gallop in pursuit of her.
Why had she ridden all the way to Bloody Rood? Chance could not have carried her there, and what reason had she for hiding the truth? The adventure had not gone smoothly, to judge by the temper of her return. And what sort of adventure could befall a woman in the Forest?
From the moment of that thought an utterly new look came into Martin Valliant’s eyes. His nostrils dilated, he stared fixedly at some imaginary scene, his hands clenched themselves. Dame Nature had flicked him with her scourge of jealousy, set him thinking about a certain young Nigel Blount of Bloody Rood.
Martin Valliant discovered his own manhood that night. He had ceased to be an onlooker, a creature in petticoats, an impersonal, passionless saint. He was going to take a part in the adventure: to see for himself how life stood.