He had to talk, and as the girl gave him no help, Prosper found himself asking questions and puzzling out the answers he got, trying to make them fit with the facts. He was amazed that one so delicately formed should go barefooted and bareheaded, clad in torn rags. To all his questions she replied in a voice low and tremulous, and very simply—that is to say, to such of them as she would answer at all. To many—to all which touched upon Galors and his business with her in the quarry—she was as dumb as a fish. Prosper was as patient as you could expect.
He asked her who she was, and how called. She told him—"I amMatt-of-the-Moors child, and men call me Isoult la Desirous."
"That is a strange name," said he. "How came you by such a name as that?"
"Sir," said Isoult, "I have never had any other; and I suppose that I have it because I am unhappy, and not at peace with those who seek me."
"Who seeks you, Isoult?"
To that she gave no reply. So Prosper went on.
"If many sought you, child," he said, "you were rightly called Isoult la Desirée, but if you, on the other hand, sought something or somebody, then you were Isoult la Desirous. Is it not so?"
"My lord," said Isoult, "the last is my name."
"Then it must be that you too seek something. What is it that you seek, that all the tithing knows of it?"
But she hung her head and had nothing to say. He went on to speak of Galors, to her visible disease. When he asked what the monk wanted with her, he felt her tremble on his arm. She began to cry, suddenly turned her face into his shoulder, and kept it there while her sobs shook through her.
"Well, child," said he, "dry your tears, and turn your face to such light as there is, being well assured of this, that whatever he asked of you he did not get, and that he will ask no more."
"I fear him, I fear him," she said very low—and again, "I fear him, I fear him."
"Drat the monk," said Prosper, laughing, "is he to cut me out of a compliment?"
Whereupon she turned a very woebegone and tearful face up to his. He looked smilingly down; a sudden wave of half-humbrous pity for a thing so frail and amazed swam about him; before he knew he had kissed her cheek. This set her blushing a little; but she seemed to take heart, smiled rather pitifully, and turned again with a sigh, like a baby's for sleep.
The night gathered apace with a chill wind; some fine rain began to fall, then heavy drops. Gradually the wind increased, and the rain with it. "Now we shall have it," said Prosper, sniffing for the storm. He covered Isoult with his cloak, folded it about her as best he could, and tucked it in; she lay in his arms snug enough, and slept while he urged his horse over the stubbed heath. The water hissed and ran over the baked earth; where had been dry channels, rents and scars, full of dust, were now singing torrents and broad pools fetlock deep. Prosper let his good beast go his own gait, which was a sober trot, and ever and again as he heard the ripple of running water and the swirl and suck of the eddies in it, he judged that he must soon or late touch the Wan river, whereon stood the Abbey and his bed. What to do with the girl when he got there? That puzzled him. "A well-ordered abbey," he thought, "has no place for a girl, and one ill-ordered has too many. In the first case, therefore, Holy Thorn would leave her at the gate, and in the second, that is where I myself would let her stay. So it seems that she must needs have a wet skin." He felt carefully about the sleeping child; the cloak kept her dry and warm as a toast. She was sound asleep. "Good Lord!" cried Prosper, "it's a pity to disturb this baby of mine. Saracen and I had better souse. Moreover, I make no nearer, by all that appears, to river Wan or Holy Thorn. Come up, horse; keep us moving."
The stream he had followed he now had lost. It was pitchy dark, with a most villainous storm of rain and wind. Saracen caught the infection of his master's doubts; he stopped short, and bowed his head to snuff the ground. Prosper laughed at the plight they were both in, and looked about him, considering what he should do. Very far off he could see a feeble light flickering; it was the only speck of brightness within his vision, and he judged it too steady for a fen-flame. Lodging of some sort should be there, for where there is a candle there is a candlestick. This was not firelight. To it he turned his tired beast, and found that he had been well advised. He was before a mud-walled hovel; there through the horn he saw the candle-flame. He drew his sword and beat upon the door. For answer the light was blown swiftly out, and the darkness swam about him like ink.
"Scared folk!" he laughed to himself, hammering at the door with a will.
Then Isoult stirred on his arm and awoke with a little whimper, half dreaming still, and not knowing where she was. She sat up in the saddle dazed with sleep.
"The night is wild," said Prosper, "and I have found us the shadow of a shade, but as yet we lack the substance." Then he set-to, pounding at the door again, and crying to those within to open for the sake of all the saints he could remember.
Isoult freed herself from the cloak, and slid down from her seat in the saddle. Putting her face close to the door she whistled a low note. The candle was re-lit, many bolts were withdrawn; finally the door opened a little way, and an old man put his head through the chink, staring out into the dark.
"God's life, you little rip," said the anxious rogue, "you gave us a turn!"
Isoult spoke eagerly and fast, but too low for Prosper to hear what she said. The man was in no mind to open further, and the more he speered at the horseman the less he seemed to like it. Nevertheless, after a time the girl was let into the hut, and the door slammed and bolted as before. Between the shocks of the storm Prosper could now hear a confusion of voices—Isoult's, low, even, clear and quick; the grating comments of the old rogue who kept the door, and another voice that trembled and wailed as if passion struggled with the age in it, to see which should be master. Once he thought to catch a fourth—a brisk man's voice, with laughter and some sort of authority in it, which seemed familiar; but he could not be sure about this. In the main three persons held the debate.
After a long wrangle it seemed that the women were to have their way. Again the door-bolts were drawn, again the door opened by the old man, and this time opened wide. With bows lower than the occasion demanded, Prosper was invited to be pleased to enter. He saw to his horse first, and made what provision he could for him in an outhouse. Then he stooped his head and entered the cottage.
He came directly into a bare room, which was, you may say, crouched under a pent of turves and ling, and stank very vilely. The floor was of beaten clay, like the walls; for furniture it had a table and bench. Sooty cobwebs dripped from the joists, and great spiders ran nimbly over them; there were no beds, but on a heap of rotting skins in one corner two rats were busy, and in another were some dry leaves and bracken. There was no chimney either, though there was a peat fire smouldering in what you must call the hearth. The place was dense with the fog of it; it was some time, therefore, before Prosper could leave blinking and fit his eyes to see the occupants of his lodging…. Isoult, he saw, stood in the middle of the room leaning on the table with both her hands; her bead was hanging, and her hair veiled all her face. Near her, also standing, was the old man—a sturdy knowing old villain, with a world of cunning and mischief in his pair of pig's eyes. His scanty hair, his beard, were white; his eyebrows were white and altogether monstrous. He blinked at Prosper, but said nothing. The third was a woman, infinitely old as it seemed, crouched over the fired peats with her back to the room. She never looked up at all, but muttered and sighed vainly to herself and warmed her hands. Lastly, in a round-backed chair, cross-legged, twirling his thumbs, twinkling with comfortable repletion, sat Prosper's friend of the road, Brother Bonaccord of Lucca.
"God save you, gentleman," he chirped. "I see we have the same taste in lodgings. None of your Holy Thorns for us—hey? But a shakedown under a snug thatch, with a tap of red wine such as I have not had out of my own country. What a port for what a night—hey?"
Prosper nodded back a greeting as he looked from one to another of these ill-assorted hosts of his, and whenever he chanced on the motionless girl he felt that he could not understand it. Look at her! how sweet and delicate she was, how small and well-set her head, her feet and hands how fine, her shape how tender. "How should a lily spring in so foul a bed?" thought he to himself. Morgraunt had already taught him an odd thing or two; no doubt it was Morgraunt's way.
The old man set bread and onions on the table, with some sour red wine in a jug. "Sit and eat, my lord, while you may," he said.
So Prosper and Isoult sat upon the bench and made the most of it, and he, being a cheerful soul, talked and joked with Brother Bonaccord. Isoult never raised her eyes once, nor spoke a word; as for the numbed old soul by the fire; she kept her back resolutely on the room, muttered her charms and despair, and warmed her dry hands as before.
When they had eaten what they could there came a change. The friar ceased talking; the old man faced Prosper with a queer look. "Sir, have you well-eaten and drunken?" he asked.
Prosper thanked him; he had done excellently.
"Well, now," said the man, "as I have heard, after the bride-feast comes the bridal. Will your worship rest with the bride brought home?"
Prosper got up in an awkward pause. He looked at the man as if he were possessed of the devil. Then he laughed, saying, "Are you merry, old rogue?"
"Nay, sir," said the ancient, "it is no jest. If she mate not this night—and it's marriage for choice with this holy man—come sunrise she'll be hanged on the Abbot's new gallows. For, she is suspected of witchcraft and many abominations."
"Is she your daughter, you dog, and do you speak thus of your daughter?" cried Prosper in a fury.
"Sir," said the man, "who would own himself father to a witch?Nevertheless she is my daughter indeed."
"What is the meaning of all this? Would you have me marry a witch, old fool?" Prosper shouted at him. The man shrugged.
"Nay, sir, but I said it was marriage for choice—seeing the friar was to hand. We know their way, to marry as soon as look at you. But it's as you will, so you get a title to her, to take her out of the country."
Prosper turned to look at Isoult. He saw her standing before the board, her head hung and her two hands clasped together. Her breathing was troubled—that also he saw. "God's grace!" thought he to himself, "is she so fair without and within so rotten? Who has been ill-ordering the world to this pass?" He watched her thoughtfully for some time; then he turned to her father.
"See now, old scamp," he said, "I have sworn an oath to high God to succour the weak, to right wrong, and to serve ladies. Nine times under the moon I sware it, watching my arms before the cross on Starning Waste. Judge you, therefore, whether I intend to keep it or not. As for your daughter, she can tell you whether some part of it I have not kept even now. But understand me, that I do not marry on compulsion or where love is not. For that were a sin done toward God, and me, and a maid."
The old rascal blinked his eyes, jerking his head many times at the shameful girl. Then he said, "Love is there fast and sure. She is all for loving. They call her Isoult la Desirous, you must know."
"Yes," said Prosper, "I do know it, for she has told me so already.'
"And to-morrow she will desire no more, since she will be hanged," saidMatt-o'-the-Moor.
Prosper started and flushed, and—
"That is a true gospel, brother," put in the friar. "The Abbot means to air his gallows at her expense; but there is worse than a gallows to it. What did I tell you of the Black Monks when you called 'em White? There is a coal-black among them who'll have her if the gallows have her not. It is Galors or gallows, fast and sure."
Prosper rubbed his chin, looked at the friar, looked at Matt, looked at Isoult. She neither lifted her head nor eyes, though the others had met him sturdily enough. She stood like a saint on a church porch; he thought her a desperate Magdalen.
"Isoult, come here," said he. She came as obediently as you please, and stood before him; but she would not look up until he said again, "Isoult, look me in the face." Then she did as she was told, and her eyes were unwinking and very wide open, full of dark. She parted her lips and sighed a little, shivering somewhat. It seemed to him as if she had been with the dead already and seen their kingdom. Prosper said, "Isoult is this true that thou wilt be hanged to-morrow?"
"Yes, lord," said Isoult in a whisper.
"Or worse?"
"Yes, lord," she said again, quivering.
"Save only thy lot be a marriage this night?"
"Yes, lord," she said a third time. So he asked,
"Art thou verily what this old man thy father hath testified against thee—a witch, a worker of iniquity and black things, and of abominations with the devil?"
Isoult said in a very still voice—"Men say that I am all this, my lord."
But Prosper with a cry called out, "Isoult, Isoult, now tell me the truth. Dost thou deserve this death?"
She sighed, and smiled rather pitifully as she said—
"I cannot tell, lord; but I desire it."
"Dost thou desire death, child?" cried he, "and is this why thou art called La Desirous?"
"I desire to be what I am not, my lord, and to have that which I have never had," she answered, and her lip trembled.
"And what is that which you are not, Isoult?"
She answered him "Clean."
"And what is that which you have never had, my child?"
"Peace," said Isoult, and wept bitterly.
Then Prosper crossed himself very devoutly, and covered his face while he prayed to his saint. When he had done he said, "Cease crying, Isoult, and tell me the truth, by God and His Christ, and Saint Mary, and by the face of the sky. Art thou such a one as I would wed if love were to grow between me and thee, or art thou other?"
She ceased her crying at this and looked him full in the face, deadly pale. "What is the truth to you concerning me?" she said.
He answered her, "The truth is everything, for without it nothing can have good beginning or good ending."
This made her meek again and her eyes misty. She held out a hand to him, saying, "Come into the night, and I will tell my lord."
He took it. Hand-in-hand they went out of the cottage, and hand-in-hand stood together alone under the sky. It was still black and heavy weather, but without rain. Isoult dropped his hand and stood before him. She shut her arms over her breast so that her two wrists crossed at her throat. Looking full at him from under her brows she said—
"By God and His Christ, and Saint Mary, and by the face of the sky, I will tell you the truth, lord. If the witch's wax be not as abominable as the witch, or the vessel not foul that hath held a foul liquor, then thou couldst never point scorn at me."
"Speak openly to me, my child," said Prosper, "and fear nothing."
So she said, "I will speak openly. I am no witch, albeit I have seen witchcraft and the revelry of witches on Deerleap. And though I have seen evil also I am a maiden, my lord, and such as you would have your own sister to be before she were wed."
But Prosper put her from him at an arm's-length. He was not yet satisfied.
"What was thy meaning then," he asked, "to say that thou wouldst be that which thou wert not?" He could not bring himself to use the word which she had used; but she used it again.
"Ah, clean!" she said with a weary gesture. "Lord, how shall I be clean in this place? Or how shall I be clean when all say that I am unclean, and so use towards me?" She began to cry again, quite silently. Prosper could hear the drips fall from her cheeks to her breast, but no other sound. She began to moan in her trouble—"Ah, no, no, no!" she whispered, "I would not wed with thee, I dare not wed with thee."
"Why not?" said Prosper.
"I dare not, I dare not!" she answered through her teeth, and he felt her trembling under his hand. He thought before he spoke again. Then he said—
"I have vowed a vow to my saint that I will save you, soul and body; and if it can be done only by a wedding, then we will be married, you and I, Isoult. But if by battle I can serve your case as well, and rid the suspicion and save your neck, why, I will do battle."
"Nay, lord," said the girl, "I must be hanged, for so the Lord Abbot has decreed." And then she told him all that Galors had given her to understand when he had her in the quarry.
Prosper heard her to the end: it was clear that she spoke as she believed.
"Well, child," said he, "I see that all this is likely enough, though for the life of me I cannot bottom it. But how then," he cried, after a little more thinking, "shall I let you be hanged, and your neck so fine and smooth!"
"Lord," she said, "let be for that; for since I was born I have heard of my low condition, and if my neck be slim 'tis the sooner broke. Let me go then, but only grant me this grace, to stand beside me at the tree and not leave me till I am dead. For there may be a worse thing than death preparing for me." Again she cried out at her own thoughts "Ah, no, no, no, I dare not let thee wed me!" He heard the wringing of her hands, and guessed her beside herself.
He stood, therefore, reasoning it all out something after this fashion. "Look now, Prosper," thought he, "this child says truer than she knows. It is an ill thing to be hanged, but a worse to deserve a hanging, and worst of all for her, it seems, to escape a hanging. And it is good to find death sweet when he comes (since come he must), but better to prove life also a pleasant thing. And life is here urgent, though in fetters, in this child's breast; but death is not yet here. Yet if I leave her she gains death, or life (which is worse), and if I take her with me it can only be one way. What then! a man can lay down his life in many ways, giving it for the life that needeth, whether by jumping a red grave or by means slower but not less sure. And if by any deed of mine I pluck this child out of the mire, put clear light into her eyes (which now are all dark), and set the flush on her grey cheeks which she was assuredly designed to carry there; and if she breathe sweet air and grow in the grace of God and sight of men—why then I have done well, however else I do."
He thought no more, but took the girl's hand again in both of his. "Well, Isoult," he said cheerfully, "thou shalt not be hanged yet awhile, nor shall that worse thing befall thee. I will wed thee as soon as I may. At cock-crow we two will seek a priest."
"Lord," she said, "a priest is here in this place."
"Why, yes! Brother Bonaccord. Well," said Prosper, "let us go in."
But Isoult was troubled afresh, and put her hand against his chest to stay him; breathing very short.
"Lord," she said, "thou wilt wed me to save my soul from hell and my body from hanging; but thou hast no love for me in thy heart, as I know very well."
Here was a bother indeed. The girl was fair enough in her peaked elfin way; but the fact was that he did not love her—nor anybody. He had nothing to say therefore. She waited a little, and then, with her voice sunk to a low murmur, she said—
"We two will never come together except in love. Shall it not be so?"
Prosper bowed, saying—
"It shall be so."
The girl knelt suddenly down and kissed his foot. Then she rose and stood near him.
"Let us go in," she said.
Looking up, they saw the field of heaven strewn thick with stars, the clouds driven off, the wind dropt. And then they went into the hovel hand-in-hand, as they had gone out.
As soon as he saw them come in together the old man fell to chuckling and rubbing his hands.
"Wife Mald, wife Mald, look up!" cried he; "there will be a wedding this night. See, they are hand-fasted already."
Mald the witch rose up from the hearth at last and faced the betrothed. She was terrible to view in her witless old age; her face drawn into furrows and dull as lead, her bleared eyes empty of sight or conscience, and her thin hair scattered before them. It was despair, not sorrow, that Prosper read on such a face. Now she peered upon the hand-locked couple, now she parted the hair from her eyes, now slowly pointed a finger at them. Her hand shook with palsy, but she raised it up to bless them. To Prosper she said—
"Thou who art as pitiful as death, shalt have thy reward. And it shall be more than thou knowest."
To the girl she gave no promises, but with her crutch hobbled over the floor to where she stood. She put her hand into her daughter's bosom and felt there; she seemed contented, for she said to her very earnestly—
"Keep thou what thou hast there till the hour of thy greatest peril.Then it shall not fail thee to whomsoever thou shalt show it."
Then she withdrew her hand and crawled back to crouch over the ashes of the fire; nor did she open her lips again that night, nor take any part or lot in what followed.
"Call the priest, old man," said Prosper, "for the night is spending, and to-morrow we should be up before the sun."
The old thief went to a little door and opened it, whispering,
"Come, father;" and there came out Brother Bonaccord of Lucca, very solemn, vested in a frayed vestment.
"Young sir," he said, wagging a portentous finger, "you are of the simple folk our good Father Francis loved. No harm should come of this. And I pray our Lady that I never may play a worse trick on a maid than this which I shall play now."
"We have no ring," said Prosper to all this prelude.
"Content you, my master," replied Matt-o'-the-Moor; "here is what you need."
And he gave him a silver ring made of three thin wires curiously knotted in an endless plait.
"The ring will serve the purpose," Prosper said. "Now, brother, at your disposition."
Brother Bonaccord had no book, but seemed none the worse for that. He took the ring, blessed it, gave it to Prosper, and saw that he put it in its proper place; he said all the words, blessed the kneeling couple, and gave them a brisk little homily, which I spare the reader. There they were wedded.
Matt-o'-the-Moor at the end of the ceremony gave Prosper a nudge in the ribs. He pointed to a heap of leaves and litter.
"The marriage-bed," he said waggishly, and blew out the light.
Isoult lay down on the bed; Prosper took off his body-armour and lay beside her, and his naked sword lay between them.
Dom Galors knew a woman in East Morgraunt whose name was Maulfry. She lived in Tortsentier, a lonely tower hidden deep in the woods, and had an unwholesome reputation. She was held to be a courtesan. Many gentlemen adventurous in the forest, it was said, had found dishonourable ease and shameful death at her hands. She would make them great cheer at first with hunting parties, dancing in the grass-rides, and love everywhere: so much had been seen, the rest was surmise. It was supposed that, being tired, or changing for caprice, she had them drugged, rifled them at leisure, slew them one way or another, and set her nets for the next newcomer. This, I say, was surmise, and so it remained. Tortsentier was hard to come at, Morgraunt wide, death as easy as lying. Men in it had other uses for their eyes than to spy at their neighbours, and found their weapons too often needed in their own quarrels to spare them for others. To see a man once did not set you looking for him to come again. You might wander for a month in Morgraunt before you got out. True, the odds were against your doing either; but whose business was that?
Galors probably knew the truth of it, for he was very often at Tortsentier. He knew, for instance, of Maulfry's taste for armour. The place was full of it, and had a frieze of shields, which Maulfry herself polished every day, as brave with blazonry as on the day they first went out before their masters. Maulfry was very fond of heraldry. It was a great delight of hers to go through her collection with such a man as Galors, who thoroughly understood the science, conning over the quarterings, the legends, the badges and differences, and capping each with its appropriate story, its little touch of romance, its personal reference to each owner in turn. There was no harm in all this, and for Galors' part he would be able to testify that there was no luxurious company there when he came, and no dark hints of violence, treachery, or mischief for the most suspicious eye to catch at. Tortsentier was not so far from the Abbey liberties that one might not fetch at it in a six hours' ride, provided one knew the road. Galors was a great rider and knew the road by heart. He was a frequent visitor of Maulfry's, therefore, and would have seen what there was to see. If the cavillers had known that it would have quieted many a whisper over the fire. They might have been told, further, that Maulfry and he were very old friends, and from a time long before his entry into religion at Holy Thorn. If there had been love between them, it had left no scar. Love with Galors was a pastime: he might make a woman his mistress, but he could never allow her to be his master. And whatever there had been in this sort, any love now left in Maulfry for the monk was largely tempered with respect. They were excellent friends.
It was to Tortsentier and to Maulfry that Dom Galors rode through the rain when he had finished biting his nails in the quarry. Very late that night he knocked at her door. Maulfry, who slept by day, opened at once, and when she saw who it was made him very welcome. She sent her page up with dry clothes, heaped logs on the fire, and set a table against his return, with venison, and white bread, and sweet wine. Galors, who was ravenous by now, needed no pressing: he sat down and ate without speaking, nor did she urge him for a message or for news, but kept her place by the fire, smiling into it until he had done. She was a tall, dark woman, very handsome and finely shaped, having the neck, arms, and bosom of Juno, or of that lady whom Nicholas the Pisan sculptor fashioned on her model to be Queen of Heaven and Earth. And Maulfry suffered no one to be in doubt as to the abundance and glory of her treasure.
When Galors was well fed she beckoned him with a nod to his place on the settle. He came and sat by the side of her, blinking into the fire for some minutes without a word.
"Well, friend," said Maulfry at last, "and what do you want with your servant at such an hour? For though I am not unused to have guests, it is seldom that you are of the party in these days."
Galors, who never made prefaces, told her everything, except the real rank and condition of Isoult. As to that, he said that the lady in question was undoubtedly an heiress, as she was undeniably a beauty, but he was careful to make it plain that her inheritance, and not her person, tempted him. This I believe to have been the truth by now. He then related what had passed in the quarry, and what he intended to do next. He added—
"Whether I succeed or not—and as to that much depends upon you—I am resolved to abjure my frock and my vows, and to aim henceforward for a temporal crown."
"I think the frock is all that need concern you," said Maulfry.
"You are right, pretty lady," he replied "and that shall concern me no more. You shall furnish me with a suit of mail out of your store, with a shield, a good spear and a sword. I have already a horse, which I owe to the vicarious bounty of the Lord Abbot, exercised through me, his right-hand man. This then will be all I shall ask of you on my account, so far as I can see at present. With what I know to back them they may win me an earldom and a pretty partner. At least they will enable me to pay Master Red-Feather my little score."
The pupils of Maulfry's eyes narrowed to a pair of pin points.
"What is this?" she said quickly. "Red feathers? A surcoat white and green? A gold baldrick? Did he bear afesse dancettéeupon his shield, a hooded falcon for his crest?" Her questions chimed with her panting.
"By baldrick and shield I know him for a Gai of Starning," said Galors. "So much is certain, but which of them in particular I cannot tell certainly. There were half-a-dozen at one time. Not Malise, I think. He is too thin-lipped for such work as that. He can do sums in his head, is a ready reckoner. This lad was quick enough to act, but not quick enough to refrain from acting. Malise would not have acted. He can see too far ahead. Nor is it Osric. He would have made speeches and let vapours. This lad was quiet."
"Quiet as God," said Maulfry with a stare.
"But," Galors went on, "you need not think for him, who or what he was. I shall meet him to-morrow, and if things go as they should you shall see me again very soon. You shall come to a wedding. A wedding in Tortsentier will not be amiss, dame. Moreover, it will be new. If I fail—well, then also you shall see me, and serve me other ways. Will you do this?"
Maulfry frowned a little as she thought. Then she laughed.
"You know very well I will do more for you than this. And how much will you do for me, Galors?"
"Ask and see," said Galors.
"I too may have accounts to settle."
"You will find me a good bailiff, Maulfry. Punctual at the audit."
Maulfry laughed again as she looked up at her armour. Galors' look followed hers.
"Choose, Galors," she said; "choose, my champion. Choose, Sir Galors deBorn!"
Galors took a long and deliberate survey.
"I will go in black," said he, "and for the rest, since I am no man of race, the coat is indifferent to me." So he began to read and comment upon his texts. "Je tiendray—why, so I shall, but it savours of forecast, brags a little."
"None the worse for my knight," said Maulfry.
"No, no," he laughed, "but let me get something of which to brag first. Hum.Dieu m'en garde—we will leave God out of the reckoning, I think.Designando—I will do more than point out, by the Rood!Jesus, Amor, Ma Dame—I know none of these.Entra per me—Oh brave, brave! 'Tis your latest, dame?"
Maulfry's eyes grew hard and bright. "Choose it, choose, my Galors!" she cried. "And if with that you beat down the red feather, and blind the hooded hawk, you will serve me more than you dream. Oh, choose, choose!"
"Entra per mepleases me, I confess. But what are the arms? Wickets?"
"Three white wicket-gates on a sable field. It was the coat of Salomon de Montguichet."
"Salomon?" said Galors all in a whisper. "Never Salomon? Do you not remember?"
Maulfry laughed. "I should remember, I think. But there is no monopoly. What we choose others can choose. The name is free to the world, and a great name."
Galors, visibly uneasy; thought hard about it. Then he swore. "And I go for great deeds, by Heaven! Give it me, Dame. I will have it.Entra per me! And shut the wickets when I am in!"
He kissed Maulfry then and there, and they went to bed.
On the morning after his strange wedding Prosper rose up early, quite himself. He left Isoult asleep in the bed, but could see neither old man, old woman, nor friar; so far as he could tell, he and his wife were alone in the cottage. Now he must think what to do. He admitted freely enough to himself that he had not been in a condition for this overnight; the girl's mood had exalted him; he had acted, and rightly acted (he was clear about this); now he must think what to do. The first duty was plain: he went out into the air and bathed in a pool; he took a quick run and set his blood galloping; then he groomed and fed his horse; put on his armour, and said his prayers. In the course of this last exercise he again remembered his wife, on whose account he had determined to make up his mind. He rose from his knees at once and walked about the heath, thinking it out.
"It is clear enough," he said to himself, "that neither my wife nor I desired marriage. We are not of the same condition; we have not—I speak for myself and by implication for her also—we have not those desires which draw men and women towards each other. Love, no doubt, is a strange and terrible thing: it may lead a man to the writing of verses and a most fatiguing search for words, but it will not allow him to be happy in anything except its own satisfaction; and in that it seems absurd to be happy. Marriage is in the same plight: it may be a good or a bad thing; without love it is a ridiculous thing. Nevertheless my wife and I are of agreement in this, that we think marriage better than being hanged. I do not understand the alternatives, but I accept them, and am married. My wife will not be hanged. For the rest, I shall take her to Gracedieu. The devout ladies there will no doubt make a nun of her; she will be out of harm's way, and all will be well."
He said another prayer, and rose up much comforted. And then as he got up Isoult came out of the cottage.
She ran towards him quickly, knelt down before he could prevent her, took his hand and kissed it. She was very shy of him, and when he raised her up and kissed her forehead, suffered the caress with lowered eyes and a face all rosy. Prosper found her very different from the tattered bride of over-night. She had changed her rags for a cotton gown of dark blue, her clouds of hair were now drawn back over her ears into a knot and covered with a silk hood of Indian work. On her feet, then bare, he now saw sandals, round her waist a leather belt with a thin dagger attached to it in a silver sheath. She looked very timidly, even humbly up at him whenever he spoke to her—with the long faithfulness of a dog shining in her big eyes: but she looked like a girl who was to be respected, and even Prosper could not but perceive what a dark beauty she was. Pale she was, no doubt, except when she blushed; but this she did as freely as hill-side clouds in March.
"Where is your wedding-ring, my child?" he asked her, when he had noticed that it was not where he had put it.
"Lord, it is here," said she, blushing again. She drew from her neck a fine gold chain whereon were the ring and another trinket which beamed like glass.
"Is that where you would have it, Isoult?"
"Yes, lord," she answered. "For this present it must be there."
"As you will," said Prosper. "Let us break our fast and make ready, for we must be on our journey before we see the sun." Isoult went into the cottage as Brother Bonaccord came out with good-morning all over his puckered face.
Isoult brought bread and goats'-milk cheese, and they broke their fast sitting on the threshold, while the sun slowly rose behind the house and lit up the ground before them—a broken moorland with heather-clumps islanded in pools of black water. The white forest mist hid every distance and the air was shrewdly cold; but Prosper and the friar gossiped cheerfully as they munched.
"We friars," said Brother Bonaccord, "have been accused of a foible for wedding-rings. I grant you I had rather marry a healthy couple than leave them aching, and that the sooner there's a christening the better I am pleased. Another soul for Christ to save; another point against the devil, thinks I! I have heard priests say otherwise: they will christen if they must, and marry if it is not too late; but they would sooner bury you any day. Go to! They live in the world (which I vow is an excellent place), and eat and drink of it; yet they shut their eyes, pretending all the time that they are not there, but rather in skyey mansions. If this is not a fit and proper place for us men, why did God Almighty take six days a-thinking before He bid it out of the cooking pot? For a gift to the devil? Not He! 'Stop bubbling, you rogue,' says He; 'out of the pot with you and on to the platter, that these gentlemen and ladies of mine may cease sucking their fingers and dip in the dish!' Pooh! Look at your mother Mary and your little brother Gesulino. There was a wedding for you, there was a sacring! Beloved sons are ye all, young men; full of grace are ye, young women! God be good, who told me to couple ye and keep the game a-going! Take my blessing, brother, and the sleek and tidy maid you have gotten to wife; I must be on the road. I am for Hauterive out of the hanging Abbot's country. He'll be itching about that new gallows of his, thinking how I should look up there."
He kissed them both very heartily and trudged out into the mist, waving his hand.
"There goes a good soul," said Prosper. "Give me something to drink, child, I beseech you."
Isoult brought a great bowl of milk and gave it into his hands, afterwards (though he never saw her) she drank of it from the place where he had put his lips. Then it was time for them also to take the road. Isoult went away again, and returned leading Prosper's horse and shield; she brought an ass for herself to ride on. Curtseying to him she asked—
"Is my lord ready?"
"Ready for anything in life, my child," said he as he took her up and put her on the ass. Then he mounted his horse. They set off at once over the heath, striking north. None watched them go.
The sky was now without cloud. White all about, it swam into clear blue overhead. A light breeze, brisk and fresh, blew the land clear, only little patches of the morning mist hung torn and ragged about the furze-bushes. The forest was still densely veiled, but the sun was up, the larks afloat; the rains of over-night crisped and sparkled on the grass: there was promise of great weather. Presently with its slant roofs shining, its gilded spires and cross, Prosper saw on his left the great Abbey of Holy Thorn. He saw the river with a boat's sail, the village of Malbank Saint Thorn on the further bank and the cloud of thin blue smoke over it; far across the heath came the roar of the weirs. Behind it and on all sides began to rise before him the dark rampart of trees—Morgraunt.
Prosper's heart grew merry within him at the sight of all this freshness, the splendour of the morning. He was disposed to be well contented with everything, even with Isoult, upon whom he looked down once or twice, to see her pacing gently beside him, a guarded and graceful possession. "Well, friend," he said to himself, "you have a proper-seeming wife, it appears, of whom it would be well to know something."
He began to question her, and this time she told him everything he asked her, except why she was called Isoult la Desirous. As to this, she persisted that she could not tell him. He took it good-temperedly, with a shrug.
"I see something mysterious in all this, child," said he, "and am not fond of mysteries. But I married thee to draw thee from the hangman and not thy secrets from thee. Keep thy counsel therefore."
She hung her head.
To all other questions she was as open as he could wish. From her earliest childhood, he learned, she had known servitude, and been familiar with scorn and reproach. She had been swineherd, goose-girl, scare-crow, laundress, scullery-wench, and what not, as her mother could win for her. She could never better herself, because of the taint of witchcraft and all the unholiness it brought upon her. As laundress and scullery-maid she had been at the Abbey; that had been her happiest time but for one circumstance, of which she told him later. Of her father she spoke little, save that he had often beaten her; of her mother more tenderly—it seemed they loved each other—but with an air of constraint. Her parents were undoubtedly in ill-savour throughout the tithing; her father, a rogue who would cut a throat as easily as a purse, her mother, a wise woman patently in league with the devil. But she said that, although she could not tell the reason of it, the Abbot had protected them from judgment many a time—whether it was her father for breaking the forest-law, deer-stealing, wood-cutting, or keeping running dogs; or her mother from the hatred and suspicion of the Malbank people, on account of her sorceries and enchantments. More especially did the Abbot take notice of her, and, while he never hesitated to expose her to every infamous reproach or report, and (apparently) to take a delight in them, yet guarded her from the direct consequences as if she had been sacred. This her parents knew very well, and never scrupled to turn to their advantage. For when hard put to it they would bring her forward between them, set her before the Abbot, and say, "For the sake of the child, my lord, let us go." Which the Abbot always did.
Cried Prosper here, "What did he want, this fatherly Abbot?"
"My lord," said Isoult, "he sought to have me put away."
"Well, child," Prosper chuckled, "he has got his wish."
"He wished it long ago, lord," she said; "before I was marriageable."
"And it was not to thy taste?"
"No, lord."
"It was not of that then that thou wert La Desirous?"
"No, lord," said Isoult in a low voice.
"So I thought," was Prosper's comment to himself. "The friar was out."
She went on to tell him of her service with the Abbey as laundry-maid, then as scullery-girl; then she spoke of Galors. She told him how this monk had seen her by chance in the Abbey kitchen; how he sought to get too well acquainted with her; how she had fled the service and refused to go back. Nevertheless, and in spite of that, she had had no peace because of him. He chanced upon her again when she was among the crowd at the Alms Gate waiting for the dole, had kept her to the end, and spoken with her then and there, telling her all his desire, opening all his wicked heart. She fled from him again for the time; but every day she must needs go up for the dole, so every day she saw him and endured his importunities. This had lasted up to the very day she saw Prosper: at that time he had nearly prevailed upon her by his own frenzy and her terror of the Abbot's, threat. She never doubted the truth of what he told her, for the Abbot's privy mind had been declared to much the same purpose to Mald her mother.
"But this privy mind of his," said Prosper, "must have swung wide from its first leaning, which seems to have been to preserve thee. Could he not have ruined thee without a charter? An Abbot and a cook-maid! Could he not have ruined thee without a rope?"
"My lord," she replied, "I think he was merciful. I was to be hanged by his desire; but there was worse with Galors."
"Ah, I had forgotten him," Prosper said.
She had spoken all this in a low voice through which ran a trembling, as when a great string on a harp is touched and thrills all the music. Prosper thought she would have said more if she dared. Although she spoke great scorn of herself and hid nothing, yet he knew without asking that she had been truthful when she told him she was pure. He looked at her again and made assurance double; yet he wondered how it could be.
"Tell me, Isoult," he said presently, "when thou sawest me come into the quarry, didst thou know that I should take thee away?"
"Yes, lord," said she, "when I saw your face I knew it."
"What of my face, child? Hadst thou seen me before that day?"
She did not answer this.
"It is likely enough," he went on. "For in my father's day we often rode, I and my brothers, with him in the Abbey fees, hawking or hunting the deer. And if thou wert gooseherd or shepherdess thou mightest easily have seen us."
Isoult said, "My lord, if I had seen thee twenty times before or none,I had trusted thee when I saw thy face."
"How so, child?" asked he.
For answer to this she looked quickly up at him for a moment, and then hung her head, blushing. He had had time to see that dog's look of trust again in her eyes.
"My wife takes kindly to me!" he thought. "Let us hope she will findGracedieu even more to her mind."
They rode on, being now very near the actual forest. Prosper began again with his questions.
"What enmity," he said, "the Abbot had for thee, Isoult, or what lurking pity, or what grain of doubt, I cannot understand. It seems that he wished thy ruin most devoutly, but that being a Christian and a man of honour he sought to compass it in a Christian and gentlemanly way. Might not marriage have appeared to him the appointed means? And should I not tell him that thou art ruined according to his aspirations?"
"Lord," said she, "he will know it."
"Saints and angels!" Prosper cried, "who will tell him? Not BrotherBonaccord, who loves no monks."
"Nay, lord, but my mother will tell him for the ruin of Galors, who hates her and is hated again. Moreover, there are many in Malbank who will find it out soon enough."
"How is that, child?"
"Lord, many of them sought to have me."
"I can well believe it," said Prosper; and after a pause he said again—"I would like to meet this Galors of thine out of his frock. He looked a long-armed, burly rogue; it seemed that there might be some fighting in him. Further, some chastisement of him, if it could conveniently be done, would seem to be my duty, since he has touched at thy honour, which is now mine. I should certainly like to meet him unfrocked."
"Lord,"' answered the girl, "that will come soon enough. I pray that thine arm be strong, for he is very fierce, and a terrible man in Malbank, more often armed than in his robe."
"He must be an indifferent monk," Prosper said; "God seems not well served in such a man's life. Holy Church would be holier without him."
"He is a great hunter, my lord," said Isoult.
"It would certainly seem so," said Prosper grimly. "Where should I find him likeliest?"
"Lord, look for him in Martle Brush."
"Ah! And where is that?"
"Lord, it is here by," said Isoult.
Prosper looked about him sharply. He found that they had left the heath, and were riding down a smooth grassy place into a deep valley. The decline was dotted with young oak-trees, sparse at the top but thickening in clusters and ranks lower down. Between the stems, but at some distance, he could see a herd of deer feeding on the rank grass by a brook at the bottom. Beyond the brook again the wood grew still thicker with holly trees and yews interspersed with the oaks: the land he could see rose more abruptly on that side, and was densely wooded to the top of another ridge as high as that which he and Isoult descended. The ridge itself was impenetrably dark with a forest gloom which never left it at this season of the year. As he studied the place, Martle Brush as he supposed it to be, he saw a hart in the herd stop feeding and lift his head to snuff the air, then with his antlers thrown back, trot off along the brook, and all the herd behind him. This set him thinking; he knew the deer had not winded him. The breeze set from them rather, over the valley, from the north-east. He said nothing to his companion, but kept his eyes open as they began to descend deeper into the gorge. Presently he saw three or four crows which had been wheeling over the tops of the trees come and settle on a dead oak by the brook-side. Still there was no sign of a man. Again he glanced down at Isoult; this time she too was alert, with a little flush in her cheeks, but no words on her lips to break the silence they kept. So they descended the steep place, picking their way as best they could among the loose rocks and boulders, with eyes painfully at gaze, yet with no reward, until they reached a place where the track went narrowly between great rooted rocks with holly trees thick on either side. Immediately before them was the brook, shallow and fordable, with muddy banks; the track ran on across it and steeply up the opposite ridge. Midway of this Prosper now saw a knight fully armed in black (but with a white plume to his helmet), sitting a great black horse, his spear erect and his shield before him. He could even make out the cognizance upon it—three white wicket-gates argent on a field sable—but not the motto. The shield set him thinking where he could have seen it before, for he knew it perfectly well. Then suddenly Isoult said, "Lord, this is Galors the Monk."
"Ho, ho!" said Prosper, "is this Galors? I like him better than I did."
"Lord," she asked in a tremble, "what wilt thou do?"
"Do!" he cried; "are there so many things to do? You are not afraid, child?"
"No, lord, I am not afraid," she replied, and looked down at her belt.
"Now, Isoult," said Prosper, "you are to stay here on your beast whileI go down and clear the road."
She obeyed him at once, and sat very still looking at Galors and at Prosper, who rode forward to the level ground by the ford. There he stopped to see what the other man would be at. Galors played the impenetrable part which had served him so well with the Abbot Richard, in other words, did nothing but sit where he was with his spear erect, like a bronze figure on a bridge. Impassivity had always been the strength of Galors; women had bruised themselves against it: but Prosper had little to do with women's ways.
"Sir, why do you bar my passage?" he sang out, irrepressibly cheerful at present. Galors never answered him a word. Prosper divined him at this; he was to climb the hill, and so be at the double disadvantage of having no spear and of being below him that had one. "The pale rascal means to make this a game of skittles," he thought to himself. "We shall see, my man. In the mean time I wish I knew your shield." So saying he forded the brook, stayed, called out again, "Whose shield is that, Galors?" and again got no reply. "Black dog!" cried he in a rage, "take your vantage and expect no more." Whereupon he set his horse at the hill and rode up with his shield before him.
The black knight feutred his spear, clapped spurs to his horse's flanks, and bore down the hill. He rode magnificently: horse and man had the impetus of a charging bull, and it looked ill for the man below. But Prosper had learned a trick from his father, which he in turn had had at Acre from the Moslems in one of the intervals of the business there. In those days men fought like heroes, but between whiles remembered that they were gentlemen and good fellows pitted against others equally happy in these respects.
The consequence was that many a throat was cut by many a hand which the day before had poured out wine for its delight, and nobody was any the worse. The infidels loved Mahomet, but they loved a horse too, and Baron Jocelyn was not the man to forget a lesson in riding. So soon, therefore, as Galors was upon him, Prosper slid his left foot from the stirrup and slipt round his horse almost to the belly, clinging with his shield arm to the bow of the saddle. The spear struck his shield at a tangent and glanced off. It was a bad miss for Galors, since horse and man drove down the incline and were floundering in the brook before they could stay. Prosper whipped round to see Galors mired, was close on his quarter and had cut through the shank of the spear, close to the guard, in a trice.
"Fight equal, my friend, and you will fight more at ease in the long run," was all he said. Galors let fly an oath at him, furious. He drew his great sword and cut at him with all his force; Prosper parried and let out at his shoulder. He got in between the armour plates; first blow went to him. This did not improve Galors' temper or mend his fighting. There was a sharp rally in the brook, some shrewd knocks passed. The lighter man and horse had all the advantage; Galors never reached his enemy fairly. He set himself to draw Prosper out of the slush of mud and water, and once on firmer ground went more warily to work. Then a chance blow from Prosper struck his horse on the crest and went deep. The beast stumbled and fell with his rider upon him both lay still.
"A broken neck," thought Prosper, cursing his luck. Galors never moved. "What an impassive rogue it is!" Prosper cried, with all his anger clean gone from him. He dismounted and went to where his man lay, threw his sword on the grass beside him, and proceeded to unlace Galors's hauberk. Galors sprang up and sent Prosper flying; he set his heel on the sword blade and broke it short. Then he turned his own upon the unarmed man. "By God, the man is for a murder!" Prosper grew white with a cold rage: he was on his feet, the flame of his anger licked up his poverty: Galors had little chance. Prosper made a quick rush and drove at the monk with his shield arm, using the shield like an axe; he broke down his guard, got at close quarters, dropt his shield and caught Galors under the arms. They swayed and rocked together like storm-driven trees, Prosper transported with his new-lighted rage, Galors struggling to justify his treachery by its only excuse. Below his armpits he felt Prosper's grip upon him; he was encumbered with shield and sword, both useless—the sword, in fact, sawing the air. Then they fell together, Prosper above; and that was the end of the bout. Prosper slipped out his poniard and drove it in between the joints of the gorget. Then he got up, breathing hard, and looked at his enemy as he lay jerking on the grass, and at the bright stream coming from his neck.
"The price of treachery is heavy," said he. "I ought to kill him. And there are villainies behind that to be reckoned with, to say nothing of all the villainies to do when that hole shall be stuffed. The shield—ah, the shield! No, monk, on second thoughts, I will not kill you yet. It would be dealing as you dealt, it would prevent our meeting again; it would cut me off all chance of learning the history of your arms. White wicket-gates! Where, under heaven's eye, have I been brought up against three white wicket-gates? Ha! there is a motto too."Entra per me, he read, and was no wiser. "This man and I will meet again," he said. "Meantime I will rememberEntra per me." He raised his voice to call to Isoult—"Come, child; the way is clear enough."
She came over the brook at once, alighted on the further side, and came creeping up to her husband to kneel before him as once before that morning; but he put his hand on her shoulder to stay her. "Come," he said, smiling, "no more ceremony between you and me, my dear. Rather let us get forward out of the reach of hue-and-cry. For when the foresters find him that will be the next move in the game." To Galors he turned with a "By your leave, my friend," and took his sword; then having put Isoult upon her donkey and mounted his own beast, he led the way up the ridge wondering where they had best turn to avoid hue-and-cry. Isoult, who guessed his thoughts, told him of the minster at Gracedieu.
Sanctuary attached to the Church, she said, as all the woodlanders knew.
"Excellent indeed," Prosper cried; "that jumps with what I had determined on before. Moreover, I suppose that Gracedieu is outside the Malbank fee?"
"Yes, lord, it is far beyond that."
"And how far is it to Gracedieu?"
"It is the journey of two days and nights, my lord."
"Well," said he, "then those nights we must sleep in the forest. How will that suit you, child?"
"Ah, my lord," breathed the girl, "I have very often slept there."
"And what shall we do for food, Isoult?"
"I will provide for that, my lord."
It was by this time high noon, hot and still. Having climbed the ridge, they found themselves at the edge of a dense beech-wood, to which there appeared no end. From their vantage-ground they could see that the land sloped very gradually away into the distance; upon it the giant trees stood like pillars of a church, whose floor was brown with the waste and litter of a hundred years. Long alleys of shade stretched out on all sides of them into the dark unknown of Mid-Morgraunt; there seemed either no way or countless ways before them, and one as good as the other. They rested themselves in sheer bewilderment, ate of the bread and apples which Isoult had brought with her; then Prosper found out how tired he was.
"Wife," said he, "if all the devils in Christendom were after me it would not keep me awake. I must sleep for half-an-hour."
"Sleep, sleep, my lord; I will take the watch," said Isoult, longing to serve him.
He unlaced his helm and body-armour without more ado, and laid his head in the girl's lap. She had very cool and soft hands, and now she put one of them upon his forehead for a solace, peering down nervously to see how he would take such daring from his servant. What she saw comforted her not a little, indeed she thought herself like to die of joy. He wondered again that such delicate little hands should have been reared on Spurnt Heath, and endured the service of the lowest; it was a half-comical content that made him send her a smiling acknowledgment; but she took it for a friendly message between them, and though the laughter in his eyes brought a mist over hers she was content. Prosper dropped asleep. Through the soft veil of her happiness she watched him patiently and still as a mouse. She was serving him at last; she could dare look tenderly at him when he was asleep—and she did. Something of the mother, something of the manumitted slave, something of the dumb creature brought up against a crisis which only speech can make tolerable,—something of these three lay in her wet eyes; she wanted ineffably more, but she was happy (she thought). She was not apt to look further than this, that she was in love, and suffered to serve her master. The dull torment of her life past, the doubts or despair which might beset and perplex her life to come, were all blurred and stilled by this boon of service, as a rosy mist makes beautiful the space of time between a day of storms and a dripping night. When the roaring of the wind dies down and the sun rays out in a clear pool of heaven, men have ease and forget their buffetings; they walk abroad to bathe their vexed souls in the evening calms. So now Isoult la Desirous, with no soul to speak of, bathed her quickened instincts. She felt at peace with a world which had used her but ill so long as she was in touch with all that was noble in it. This glorious youth, this almost god, suffered her to touch his brow, to look at him, to throne his head, to adore him. Oh, wonderful! And as tears are never far from a girl's eyes, and never slow to answer the messages of her heart, so hers flowed freely and quietly as from a brimming well; nor did she check them or wish them away, but let them fall where they would until they encroached upon the privileged hand.Lèse majesté!She threw her head back and shook them from her; she was more guarded how she did after that.
Then she heard something over the valley below which gave her heart-beats a new tune. A great ado down there, horses, dogs, voices of men shouting for more. She guessed in a moment that the foresters had come upon the body of Galors, knew that hue-and-cry was now only a question of hours, and all her joys at an end. She took her hand from Prosper's forehead, and he awoke then and there, and smiled up at her.
"Lord," said she, "it is time for us to be going, for they have foundDom Galors; and at the Abbey they have many slot-hounds."
"Good, my child," he answered. "I am ready for anything in the world.Let us go."
He got up instantly and armed himself; they mounted their animals and plunged into the great shade of the beeches. All the steering they could do now was by such hints of the sun as they could glean here and there. Prosper by himself would have been fogged in a mile, but Isoult had not lived her fifteen years of wild life for nothing: she had the fox's instinct for an earth, and the hare's for doubling on a trail. The woods spoke to her as they spoke to each other, as they spoke to the beasts, or the beasts among themselves. What indeed was this poor little doubtful wretch but one of those, with a stray itching to be more? Soul or none, she had an instinct which Prosper discovered and learned to trust. For the rest of the day she tacitly led the knight-at-arms in the way he should go.
But with all her help they made a slow pace. The forest grew more and more dense; there seemed no opening, no prospect of an opening. She knew what must be in store for them if the Abbot had uncoupled his bloodhounds, so she strained every nerve in her young body, listened to every murmur or swish of the trees, every one of the innumerable, inexplicable noises a great wood gives forth. She suffered, indeed, intensely; yet Prosper never knew it. He played upon her, quite unconsciously, by wondering over the difficulties of the road, the slowness of their going, the probable speed of the Abbot's dogs and foresters, and so on. Her meekness and cheerful diligence delighted him. The nuns of Gracedieu, he promised himself, should know what a likely novice he was bringing them. He should miss her,pardieu! after two or three days' companionship. So they struggled on.
Towards the time of dusk, which was very soon in that gloomy solitude, Isoult heard in the far distance the baying of the dogs, and began to tremble, knowing too well what all that meant. Yet she said nothing. Prosper rode on, singing softly to himself as his custom was, his head carried high, his light and alert look taking in every dark ambush as a thing to be conquered—very lordly to look upon. The girl, who had never seen his like, adored him, thought him a god; the fact was, she had no other. Therefore, as one does not lightly warn the blessed gods, she rode silent but quaking by his side, with her ears still on the strain for the coming danger, and all her mind set on the fear that Prosper would find out. Above all she heard a sound which shocked her more, her own heart knocking at her side.
Then at last Prosper reined up, listening too. "Hush!" he said, "what is that?"
This was a new sound, more hasty and murmurous than any girl's heart, and much more dreadful than the music of the still distant hounds; it was very near, a rushing and pattering sound, as of countless beasts running. Isoult knew it.
"Wolves!" she said; "let be, there is no harm from them save in the winter."
As she spoke a grey bitch-wolf came trotting through the trees, swiftly but in pain, and breathing very short. She was covered with slaver and red foam, her tongue lolled out at the side of her mouth long and loose, she let blood freely from a wound in the throat, and one of her ears was torn and bleeding. She looked neither to right nor left, did not stay to smell at the scent of the horse; all her pains were spent to keep running. She broke now and again into a rickety canter, but for the most part trotted straight forward, with many a stumble and missed step, all picked up with indescribable feverish diligence; and as she went her blood flowed, and her panting kept pace with her padding feet. So she came and so went, hunted by what followed close upon her; the murmur of the host, the host itself—dogs and bitches in a pack, making great pace. They came on at a gallop, a sea of wolves that surged restlessly, yet were one rolling tide. Here and there a grinning head cast up suddenly out of the press seemed like the broken crest of some hastier wave impatient with his fellows; so they snarled, jostled, and snapped at each other. Then one, playing choragus, would break into a howl, and there would be a long anthem of howls until the forest rang with the terror; but the haste, the panting and the padding of feet were the most dreadful, because incessant; the thrust head would be whelmed, the sharp voice drowned in howls; the grey tide and the lapping of it never stopped.
The fugitives watched this chase, in which they might have read a parable of their own affair, sweep past them like a bad dream. In the dead hush that followed they heard what was a good deal more significant for them, the baying of the dogs.
"What now?" said Prosper to himself, "there are the dogs. If I make haste they can make it better; if I stay, how on earth shall I keep my convoy out of their teeth?"
It was too late to wonder; even at that moment Isoult gasped and caught at his arm, leaning from her saddle to cling to him as she had done once before. But this was a danger not to be shamed away by a man armed. He followed her look, and saw the first dog come on with his nose to the ground. A thought struck him. "Wait," he said.
Sure enough, the great dog hit on the line of the wolves and got the blood in his nostrils. He was puzzled, his tail went like a flag in a gale as he nosed it out.
Prosper watched him keenly, it was touch-and-go, but never troubled his breath. "Take your choice, friend," he said. The dog beat to and fro for some long minutes. He could not deny himself—he followed the wolves.
"That love-chase is like to be our salvation," said Prosper. "Wait now. Here are some more of the Abbot's friends." It was as good as a play to him—a hunter; but to Isoult, the wild little outcast, it was deadly work. Like all her class, she held dogs in more fear than their masters. You may cajole a man; to a dog the very attempt at it is a damning proof against you.
As Prosper had predicted, the dogs, coming on by twos and threes, got entangled in the cross-trail. They hesitated over it, circled about it as the first had done, and like him they followed the hotter and fresher scent. One, however, in a mighty hurry, ran clean through it, and singled out his own again. They saw him coming; in his time he saw them. He stopped, threw up his head, and bayed a succession of deep bell-notes at them, enough to wake the dead.
"I must deal with this beast," Prosper said. "Leave me to manage him, and stay you here." He dismounted, ungirt his sword, which he gave to Isoult to hold, then began to run through the wood as if he was afraid. This brought the dog on furiously; in fifty yards he was up with his quarry. Prosper went on running; the dog chose his time, and sprang for his throat. Prosper, who had been waiting for this, ducked at the same minute; his dagger was in his hand. He struck upwards at the dog as he rose, and ripped his belly open. "That was your last jump, my friend," quoth he, "but I hope there are no more of you. It is a game that not always answers."
It was while he was away upon this errand that Isoult thought she saw a tall woman in a black cloak half-hidden behind a tree. The woman, she could have sworn, stood there in the dusk looking fixedly at her; it was too dark to distinguish anything but the white disk of a face and the black mass she made in her cloak, yet there was that about her, some rigid aspect of attention, which frightened the girl. She turned her head for a moment to see Prosper homing, and when she looked again into the trees there was certainly no woman. She thought she must have fancied it all, and dismissed the thought without saying anything to Prosper.