Yet the certainty—for that it was—coincided with her lurking suspicion of the virtue lying in her own strong love. It made that suspicion hardy; it budded, as I have said, and bore a flower. She could feel and fondle her ring again, and talk to it at night. "Lie snug," she would say, "lie close. He will come again and put thee in place, for such love as mine, which endureth all things, is not to be gainsaid." Thus she grew healthy as she grew full of heart, and gained sleek looks for any who had had eyes to see them.
Luckily for her, at present there was none. It is providence for the earth-born that their mother's lap soon takes furrows in which they may run. The charcoal-burners' life was no exception: hard work from dawn to dusk, food your only recreation, sleep your only solace. The weather is no new thing to you, to gape at and talk about. As well might the gentry talk about the joys of their daily bath. You have no quarrels, do no sins, for you have neither women nor strong waters in your forest tents. And if you knew how, you would thank God that you are incapable of thought, since a thinking vegetable were a lost vegetable. To think is to hope, and to hope is to sin against religion, which says, God saw that it was good. More than any reflecting man your earth-born believes in God, or the devil. It comes to much the same, if you will but work it out. He is a deist, his God an autocrat.
Isoult, the demure little freethinker, had another secret god—him of the iris wings. She loved, she was loved; she dared hope to be happy. So far of the earth as to be humble, so far from it as to hope, she grew in the image of her god and was lovely; she remembered the precepts of her mother earth and was patient. Whenever she could she washed herself in the forest brooks; so woods and running water saw in her the blossoming rod. At these times she could have hymned her god had she known how; but Prosper had only taught her what his priests had taught him, that this was a world where every one is for himself, and to him that asks shall be given. To him that asks twice should be twice given. The consequence is that life is a great hunting, with no time for thanksgiving unalloyed. You must end yourGloriain a whining petition. Having, however, nothing to ask, she sat at these times in ecstasy inarticulate, her rags laid by for a season, looking long and far through the green lattice towards the blue, bent upon exploration of the joyful mysteries. A beam of the sun would fall upon her to warm her pale beauty and make it glow, the wind of mid-June play softly in her hair, and fold her in a child's embrace. Then again she would toy with her ring. "Ring, ring, he will come again, and put thee where thou shouldest be. Meantime lie still until he lie there instead of thee."
July heats stilled the forest leaves; the coal-stacks grew apace. The charcoal-burners' Jack had hair to his waist and had to hide it in his cap; the charcoal-burners' beards were six weeks old. There was talk of nights of a market in Hauterive, where Falve's mother kept a huckster's shop.
Prosper's aim on leaving High March after his gests of arms had been Goltres, for there he had believed to find Galors. But Galors was a man of affairs just now who had gone far since Isoult overheard his plans. His troop of some sixty spears had grown like the avalanche it resembled. For what the avalanche does not crush it turns to crushing. Galors harrying had won harriers. In fact, he headed within a fortnight of his coming into North Morgraunt a force which was the largest known since Earl Roger of Bellesme had made a quietness like death over those parts. By the time of Prosper's exodus, that is by mid-May, his tactical situation was this—it is as well to be precise. He had Hauterive and Waisford. Goltres was in the hollow of his hand. If he could get Wanmeeting he would be master of the whole of the north forest, west of Wan. Here would be enormous advantage. By a forced march and a night surprise he might get Market Basing, on the east side of the river; and if he did that he would cut the Countess of Hauterive practically off the whole of Morgraunt. Going further, so far as to cut her off March, whence she drew her supplies, she would be at his mercy. He could pen her in High March like a sheep, and make such terms as a sheep and a butcher were likely to arrange.
For, strategically, North Morgraunt would be his; with that to the goodSouth Morgraunt could await his leisure. The key will show how theHauterive saltire stood with the Galors pale.
Now the whole of this pretty scheming was based upon one simple supposed fact, that the Countess's daughter was then actually in her mother's castle. Galors knew quite well that he could not hold Morgraunt indefinitely without the lady. Even Morgraunt was part of the kingdom; and though rumour of the King's troubles came down, with wild talk of Aquardente from the north and Bottetort from the south-west combining to slaughter their sovereign, the King's writ would continue to run though the king that writ it were under the earth: it was unlikely that a shire would be let fall to a nameless outlaw when five hundred men out of Kings-hold could keep it where it was. But a name would come by marriage as well as by birth. All his terms with his penned Countess would have been, amnesty and the heiress.
At first he prospered in everything he undertook. Waisford and Hauterive were under-garrisoned, and fell. Goltres, very remote, was unimportant except as a base. The Countess at this time, if not engaged philandering with Prosper, was troubled on the northern borders. As a matter of fact Galors had been able to secure that no messengers to High March should cross Wan, and that none from it, having once crossed, should ever re-cross. This was the state of affairs when Prosper passed the edge of the High March demesnes and took the road for Wanmeeting and Goltres.
He had not gone far out of the Countess's borders before he saw what had happened. The country had been wasted by fire and sword: cottages burnt out, trampled gardens, green cornlands black and bruised—desolation everywhere, but no life. Death he did come upon. In one cottage he saw two children dead and bound together in the doorway; at a four-went way a man and woman hung from an ash-tree; of a farmstead the four walls stood, with a fire yet burning in the rick-yard; in the duck-pond before the house the bodies of the owners were floating amid the scum of green weed. That night he slept by a roadside shrine, and next morning betimes took the lonely track again. Considering all this as he rode, he reached a sign-post which told him that here the ways of Wanmeeting and Waisford parted company. "Wanmeeting is my plain road," thought he, "but plainer still it is that of Galors—and not of Galors alone. I think the longer going is like to be my shorter. I will go to Waisford." He did so. After a patch of woodland was a sandy stretch of road fringed with heather and a few pines. A man was sitting here, by whose side lay his dead young wife with a handkerchief over her face. Prosper asked him what all this misery meant; for at High March, he added, they had no conception of it.
The man turned his gaunt eyes upon him. "We call it the hand of God, sir."
"Do you though? I see only the hand of man or the devil," said Prosper.
"May be you are in the right, Messire. Only we think that if God is Almighty He might stay all this havoc if He would. And since He stays it not we say He winks at it, which is as good as a nod any day."
"You are out, sir," said Prosper. "As I read, God hath given men wits, and suffers the devil in order that they may prove them. If they fail in the test, and of two ways choose the wrong, is God to be blamed?"
"Some of us have no such choice. It is hard that the battle of the wits should be over our acres, and that our skulls should be cracked to prove which of them be the tougher."
"God is mighty enough to make laws and too mighty to break them, as I understand the matter," said Prosper. "But who, under God or devil, hath done this wrong?"
"Sir," said the man, "it is the Lord of Hauterive (so styled), who hath taken Waisford and destroyed it with the country for ten miles round about it, and killed all the women who could not run fast enough, and such of the men as did not run to him. And this he did upon the admirable conceit that the men, having no women of their own, would take pains that they should not be singular in the country, but full of lessons in butchery, would become butchers themselves. It seems that there was ground for the opinion. As for me, I should certainly have been killed had he found me, for butchering is not to my taste—or was not then. But I was on a journey, and came back to find my house in ashes and my new wife, what you see."
"But who," cried Prosper, "in the name of the true Lord, is your lord of Hauterive? And how dare he take upon himself the style and fee of the Countess of Hauterive, Bellesme, and March? I have no reason to love that lady, but I thought all Morgraunt was hers."
"Morgraunt is hers, and Hauterive, and all the country from March unto Wanmouth," said the countryman. "But this lord is an outlaw who was once a monk down at Malbank in the south; and hath renounced his flock and gathered together a crew as unholy as himself. And the story goes that he did it all for the sake of a girl who scorned him. Now then he holdeth Hauterive as his tower of strength, has harried Waisford, and threatens Wanmeeting town, giving out that he will edge in the lady, besiege High March itself, wed the Countess, and have the girl (when he finds her) as his concubine. So he will be lord of all, and God of no account so far as I can see. And the name of this almighty scamp, Messire-"
"Is Galors de Born," put in Prosper.
The countryman got up and faced him.
"Are you a fellow of his?" he asked. "For, look you, though I must die for it, I will die killing."
"Friend," Prosper said gently, "the man is my enemy whom I had thought disabled longer by a split throat which he got of me. I see I have yet to deal with him. Tell me now where he is."
"I can tell you no more," said the fellow, "than that his tower is in Hauterive. He hath guards along the river and a post at Waisford. We shall have trouble to cross the water. He is said to be for Wanmeeting; but I know he has High March in his eye, because the girl he wants is believed to be there. He has been here also, as you see, God damn him."
"God hath damned him," said Prosper, "but the work is in my hands."
"You will need more than your hands for the business, my gentleman. He hath five hundred spears."
"The battle is between his and mine nevertheless."
"Then there is the Golden Knight, as they call him, come from hell knows where; not a fighter but a schemer; and swift, my word! And cruel as the cold. Will you tackle him?"
"I shall indeed," said Prosper. "Farewell, I am for my luck atWaisford."
"I would come with you if I might," said the man slowly.
"Come then. Two go better than one against five hundred."
"Let me bury my pretty dead and I am yours, Messire."
"Ah, I will help you there if I may," Prosper replied.
They dug a shallow grave and laid in it the body of the young girl. Prosper never saw her face, nor did her husband dare to look again on what he had covered up. Prosper said the prayers; but the other lay on his face on the grass, and got up tearless. Then they set off.
Five miles below Waisford they swam the river without any trouble from Galors' outposts: a wary canter over turf brought them to the flank of the hill; they climbed it, and from the top could see the Wan valley and what should be the town. It was a heap of stones, scorched and shapeless. The church tower still stood for a mockery, its conical cap of shingles had fallen in, its vane stuck out at an angle. Prosper, whose eyes were good, made out a flag-staff pointing the perpendicular. It had a flag,Party per pale argent and sable. A dun smoke hung over the litter.
"We shall do little good there," said he; "we are some days too late.We will try Wanmeeting."
Agreed. They fetched a wide detour to the north-west, climbed the long ridge of rock which binds Hauterive to the place of their election, and made way along the overside of it, taking to cover as much as they could. By six o'clock in the evening they were as near as they dared to be until nightfall. As they stood they could see the ridge rear its ragged head to watch over the cleft where-through the two Wans race to be free. Upon the slope of this bluff was the town itself, a walled town the colour of the bare rock, with towers and belfries. The westering sun threw the whole into warmth and mellow light.
"The saltire still floats," cried Prosper; "we are not too late for this time."
They were let in at dusk by the Martin Gate, not without some parley. The only word Prosper would give had been, "Death to Galors de Born." This did not happen to be the right word. Matters were not to be adjusted either by "Life to the Countess," for Prosper did not happen to wish it her.
The High Bailiff and the Jurats argued at some length whether what he had said did not imply the other of necessity.
"If you talk of necessity, gentlemen," finally said the High Bailiff, "in my advice it is written that our necessity is too fine for dialectic. Our present need is to kill the common enemy. Here is a gentleman who asks for no other pleasure. Let him in." And they did.
Prosper was in love at last; but he did not lose his head on that account. It was not his way. The girl he had first pitied, next desired, then respected, then learned, finally adored, was gone. Well, he would find her no doubt. She had but two enemies, Galors and Maulfry; who hunted in couple just now. She might be anywhere in the world, but it was most likely that where she was they were also. If he found them he should find her. That was why, without having any desire to befriend the Countess, who had in his judgment made a fool of herself first and an enemy of him afterwards, he undertook the defences of Wanmeeting.
For it came to that. He found a thin garrison, a pompous bailiff, wordy and precise, headboroughs without heads, and a panic-stricken horde of shopkeepers with things to lose, who spent the day in crying "Danger," and the night in drinking beer. Outside, somewhere, was an enemy who might be a rascal, but was certainly a man. Professional honour was touched on a raw. Since he was in, in God's name let him do something. After a day spent in observing the manners and customs of Wanmeeting in a state of semi-siege, he got very precise ideas of what they were likely to be in a whole one. He called on the High Bailiff and spoke his mind.
"Bailiff," he said very quietly, "your defences are not good, but they are too good to defend nothing. I am sorry I cannot put your citizens at a higher figure. There does not seem to me to be a man among them. They chatter like pies, they drink like fishes, they herd like sheep, they scream like gulls. They love their wives and children, but so do rabbits; they are snug at home, but so are pigs in a stye; they say many prayers, they give alms to the poor. But no prayers will ever stay Galors, and the alms your people want I spell with an 'r.' I know Master Galors, and he me. If he comes here the town will be carried, the men hanged, the women ravished, and I shall be killed like a rat in a drain. Now I set little store by my life, but I and the man I have brought with me intend to die in the open. Do what you choose, but understand that unless things alter to my liking, I take myself, my sword, and my head for affairs into the country."
"And who are you, Messire, and what do I know of your head for affairs?" cried the High Bailiff, on his dignity.
"My name is Prosper le Gai, at your service," the youth replied; "and as for my head, it becomes me not to speak."
"If you will not speak of it, why are you here?" asked the HighBailiff, at the mercy of his logic.
"I am here, sir, for the purpose of killing Dom Galors de Born."
"You speak very confidently, young gentleman."
"There is no boasting where there is no doubt."
"Is there no doubt, pray, whether he might kill you?"
"I intend to remove that doubt," said Prosper.
"Pray how, sir?"
"By killing him first."
The end of it all was that the High Bailiff, in the presence of the Jurats and citizens, solemnly girt on Prosper the sword of the borough, and declared Messire Prosper le Gai of Starning to be generalissimo of its forces. Prosper at once paraded the garrison.
He rated the men roundly, flogged two of them with his own hand for some small insubordination, and made fast friends in all ranks. Having established a pleasant relationship by these simple means, he spoke to them as follows.
"Gentlemen," he said, "have the goodness to remark that I have taught you how to parade. In time I doubt not you will follow me with as good a will as you have hitherto followed your own devices. These, I take leave to tell you, were very foolish. If you follow me I shall lead you in the thick of the fighting, should there be any. If you leave me, or if I have the honour to be killed, you will all have your throats cut. I do not mean to be killed, gentlemen, and rely upon you in the alternative which remains."
He took a guard and went the round of the defences. Wherever he went he brought heart with him. As for the burgesses and the burgesses' wives, they thought him a god. The result was, that in six weeks he had half the place under arms, a fighting force of one thousand pikes and five hundred archers, an outer wall of defence ten feet by six, and provision to stand a two months' siege. This brought the time to July.
On July 14 one of his scouts brought home the news that Galors had concentrated on Hauterive, while keeping close watch along Wan. He himself was no one knew where, scouring the country for traces of the girl Isoult la Desirous, who had escaped from High March. Meantime a detached force under the Golden Knight had surprised Goltres, and put the inhabitants to the sword. They held that stronghold, and were said still to be there.
Prosper sent for his horse, and rode down to the council house to see the High Bailiff.
"Bailiff," he said, "Galors will not be here yet awhile. If he comes you will know what to do. But I do not think he will come just yet."
"Ah, Messire, will you desert us?" cried the good soul.
"If you put it so, yes."
"You are tired of warfare, Messire?"
"Warfare, pardieu! I am tired of no warfare. I am going to make some for default of it."
"And leave us all here?"
"And leave you all here."
"Would you have us assume the offensive, sir?"
"By no means, Bailiff. I would have you mind your walls. But forgive me, I must be off."
"Where are you going, Messire?"
"I am going to find Galors, or at least those who will save me the trouble. Adieu, Bailiff."
Prosper galloped away as if the devil were in him. The High Bailiff assumed command.
While Prosper is galloping after Dom Galors, and Dom Galors is galloping after Isoult, let us turn to that unconscious lady who hides her limbs in a pair of ragged breeches, and her bloom under the grime of coal-dust. Her cloud of hair, long now and lustrous, out of all measure to her pretence, she was accustomed to shorten by doubling it under her cap. An odd fancy had taken her which prevented a second shearing. If Prosper loved her she dared not go unlovely any more. Her hair curtained her when she bathed in the brook and the sun. Beyond doubt it was beautiful; it was Prosper's; she must keep it untouched. This gave her an infinity of bother, but at the same time an infinity of delight. She took pride in it, observed its rate of growth very minutely; another fancy was, that before it reached her knees she should give it with all herself to its master. It is so easy to confuse desires with gratifications, and hopes with accomplishments, that you will not be surprised if I go on to say, that she soon made the growth of her hairdataby which to calculate her restoration to his side. She was to have a rude awakening, as you shall judge.
The July heats lay over the forest like a pall, stilled all the leaves and beat upon the parched ground. Isoult, seduced by the water and her joy to be alone with her ring, audacious too by use, took longer leave. So long leave she took one day that it became a question of dinner. The one solemn hour of the twenty-four was in peril. Falve was sent to find her, and took his stick. But he never used it; for he found, not Roy indeed, but Roy's rags on the brookside, and over the brook on the high bank a lady, veiled only in her hair, singing to herself. He stood transported, Actaeon in his own despite, then softly withdrew. Roy got back in his time, cooked the dinner, and had no drubbing. Then came the meal, with an ominous innovation.
They sat in a ring on the grass round an iron pot. Each had a fork with which he fished for himself. Down came Falve smirking, and sat himself by Isoult. He had a flower in his hand.
"I plucked this for my mistress," says he, "but failing her I give it to my master."
She had to take it, with a sick smile. She had a sicker heart.
The horrid play went on. Falve grinned and shrugged like a Frenchman. He fed her with his fork—"Eat of this, my minion;" forced his cup to her lips—"Drink, honey, where I have drunk." He drank deep and, blinking like a night-bird, said solemnly—
"We have called you Jack, to our shame. Your name shall properly be called Roy, for you should be a king."
The men made merry over this comedy, finding appetite for it; but to the girl came back that elfin look she had almost lost since she had known Prosper. She had worn it the night she came plump on Galors, but never since. Now again hers were a hare's eyes, wide and quaking.
From that hour her peace left her, for Falve never did. Escape was impossible; the man eyed her as a cat a mouse, and seemed to play upon her nerve as if she had been a fine instrument. He became astonishingly subtle, dealt in images like a modern poet, had the same art of meaning more than he said to those who had the misfortune to understand him. He never declared what he knew, though she could not but guess it; did not betray her to the others; seemed to enjoy the equivoque, content to wait. So he kept her on tenterhooks; she felt a cheat, and what is worse, a detected cheat. This filled her deep with shame. It made her more coy and more a prude than she had ever need to be had she gone among them kirtled and coifed. At last came the day when that happened which she had darkly dreaded. A load of coals went off to Market Basing; to dinner came herself only, and Falve.
She trembled, and could neither eat nor drink. Falve made amends, ate for three and drank for a dozen. He grew sportive anon. He sang tavern songs, ventured on heavy play, would pinch her ear or her cheek, must have her sit on his knee. But at this her fortitude gave way; she jumped up to shake herself free. There was a short tussle. Her cap fell off, and all the dusky curtain of her hair about her shoulders ran rippling to her middle. No concealment could avail between them now. She stood a maid confessed, by her looks confessing, who watched him guardedly with lips a-quiver.
Falve did not hesitate to take her hand. "Come and see," he said, and led her away. Across the brook he showed her a but newly made, covered with green boughs—his work, it appeared, under the cover of a week of sweating nights. He led her in, she saw all his simple preparations: the new-stamped floor, the new-joisted roof, a great bed in the corner. Then he turned to her and said—
"Your name is not Roy, but Royne. And you shall be queen of me, and of the green wood, and of this bed."
Isoult began to shake so violently that she could hardly stand.
"How! does not the prospect please you?" said Falve. She could only plead for time.
"Time?" asked he, "time for what? There is time for all in the forest.Moreover, you have had time."
"Would you have me wed you, Falve?" she faltered.
"Why, I set no store by your church-music, myself," rejoined Falve.
"But I set great store by Holy Church. You would never dishonour me,Falve?"
"My dear," said Falve, "you will have guessed by now that I am a lady's man. I am wax in their pretty hands—red wax or white wax. According as you squeeze me, my dear, you make me a Golias or a bishop, as you wish. You would have me a bishop, eh?"
"I do not understand, Falve."
"The husband of one wife, my lass, as the Scripture saith. Is that your fancy?"
"I would like to be a wife."
"Then a wife you shall be, my honey, though a friend or a bondmaid is equally good Scripture, to say nothing of simplicity. Now that being settled, and a bargain a bargain, let us seal."
She escaped with his tarnish on her hand; but he respected her promise, and troubled her no more by contact. Nevertheless she had to pay. His dwarfish propensity to wit led him the wildest lengths. The rogue began to sigh and gesture and slap his ribs. He affected the lover preposterously; he was over weary of his rough life, he would say; he must marry and settle down in the hut by the brook.
"And then," he ran on, "thou, Roy, shalt come and live there, serving me and my wife. For I love thee, boy, and will not leave thee. And I warrant that she will not be jealous when I play with thee; nor shall I grudge thy love of her—nay, not if thou shouldst love her as myself. For thus Moses bade us in the Commandments." And so on. "By Saint Christopher, that long man of God," he swore at another bout, "thou and my wife shall sleep in one bed, and I not be dishonoured!"
The other men began to prick up their ears at these speeches, and looked shrewdly at their boy more than once. As for Isoult, she knew not where to turn. She seemed to be quavering over an abyss.
Meantime the hour of her wedding, as Falve had appointed it, drew near. In middle July the whole gang were to go to Hauterive with coal for the Castle. Falve's mother, I have told you, lived there in a little huckster's shop she had. Falve's plan was to harbour Isoult there for the night, and wed her on the morrow as early as might be. But he told the girl nothing of all this.
They set out, then, betimes in the morning, and by travelling late and early reached Hauterive in two days. And this in spite of the weather, which was cold and stormy. The town stands high on the hither shoulder of that ridge which ends at Wanmeeting, but by reason of the dense growth of timber in that walk of the forest you do not get a view of it from below until you are actually under the walls. Isoult, who had no reason to be interested in any but her own affairs just then, and was, moreover, wet through and shivering, did not notice the flag flying over the Castle—Party per pale argent and sable.It was not till the whole caravan stood within the drawbridge that she saw over the portcullis an escutcheon whereon were the redoubtable three white wicket-gates, with the legend,Entra per me.She realized then that she was being drawn into the trap-teeth of her grim enemy, and went rather grey. There was nothing for it, she must trust to her disguise. It had deceived the colliers, it might deceive Galors. Ah! but there was Maulfry. It would never deceive her. All the comfort she could take was that Galors was lord of the town, and she collier's knave. Now colliers' knaves do not see much of their lords paramount, nor rulers of cities look into the love-affairs of colliers or seek for such among them. If Maulfry were there, Heaven help her! But she began to think she might cope with Galors.
When the asses were unloaded in the inn-yard, and the coal stacked under cover, Falve took his prisoner by the hand and led her by many winding lanes to his mother's shop. This was in Litany Row, a crazy dark entry over against the Dominican convent. The streets and alleys were empty, the rain coursed down all the gutters of the steep little town; its music and their own plashy steps were all they could hear. Knocking at a little barred door in Litany Row, they were admitted by a wrinkled old woman with wet eyes.
"Mother," said the fellow, "this boy is no boy, but a maid with whom I intend to marry at cockcrow. Let her sleep with thee this night, and in the morning dress her in a good gown against I come to fetch her."
The old woman looked her up and down in a way that made the girl blush.
"Well," she said, "thou art a proper boy enough, I see, and I will make thee a proper girl, if God hath done His part."
"That He hath done, mother," says Falve with a grin. "See here, then."
With that he pulls off Isoult's green cap. All her hair tumbled about her shoulders in a fan.
"Mother of God," cried the old woman, "this is a proper girl indeed, if other things are as they should be, to accord with these tresses."
"Never fear for that, mother," said Falve. "Trust me, she will be a good wife out and in. For, let alone the good looks of the girl, she is very meek and doeth all things well, even to speaking little."
"And what is she named, this pretty miss?" asked the crone.
"Tell her your fancy name, wife," said Falve, giving her a nudge; "show her that you have a tongue in your round head."
"I am called Isoult la Desirous, ma'am," said the girl.
"La, la, la!" cried the old dame, "say you so? The name hath promise of plenty; but for whose good I say not. And who gave you such a name as that, pray?"
"I have never known any other, ma'am."
"Hum, hum," mumbled the dame. "I've heard more Christian names and names less Christian, but never one that went better on a bride."
"Mother, a word in your ear," said Falve.
The couple drew apart and the man whispered—
"Keep her close; let her never out of your sight, that I may marry her to-morrow, for since I set eyes on her as a maiden whom I first took to be a boy, I have had no peace for longing after her."
"Have no fear, my son Falve," said his mother, "she shall be as safe with me as the stone in a peach. I'll get her dry and her natural shape to begin with, and come morning light, if you have not the comeliest bride in the Nor'-West Walk, 'twill be the Church's doing or yours, but none o' mine. Have ye feed a priest, boy?"
"Why, no," said the fellow.
"Seek out Father Bonaccord of the new Grey Friars. 'Tis the happiest-go-lucky, ruddiest rogue of a priest that ever hand-fasted a couple. He'll wed ye and housel ye for a couple of roses. [Footnote: Silver coins of those parts, worth about three shillings a-piece.] The Black Friars 'ull take three off ye and tie ye with a sour face at that. Bonaccord's the man, Brother Bonaccord of the Grey Brothers, hard by Botchergate."
"Bonaccord for ever!" roared Falve. He blew a kiss to his wife and went off on his errand.
The first thing the old lady did was to go to an oak chest which was in the room, and rummage there. With many grunts and wheezes (for she was eaten with rheumatism) she drew out a bundle done up in an old shawl. This she opened upon the floor.
"I belonged to a great lady once," said she, "though I don't look like it, my dear. These fal-lals have been over as dainty a body as your own in their day; and that was fifteen years ago to a tick. She gave 'em all to me when she took to the black, and now they shall go to my son's wife. Think of that, you who come from who knows who or where. If they fit you not like a glove, let me eat 'em."
There were silks and damasks and brocades; webbed tissues of the East, Coän gauzes blue and green, Damascus purples, shot gold from Samarcand, crimson stuffs dipped in Syrian vats, rose-coloured silk from Trebizond, and embroidered jackets which smelt of Cairo or Bagdad, and glowed with the hues of Byzantium itself. Out of these she made choice. The girl shed her rags, and stood up at last in a gown of thin red silk, which from throat to ankle clung close about her shape. The dark beauty went imperially robed.
"Wait a bit," said her dresser; "we'll look at you presently when you are shod and coifed to fit."
She gave her a pair of red stockings and Moorish slippers for her feet; she massed up her black hair into a tower upon her head, and roped it about with a chain of sequins which had served their last chaffer at Venice; she girt a belt of filigree gold and turquoise about her waist, gave her a finishing pat, and stood out to spy at her.
"Eh, eh! there you go for a jolly gentlewoman," she chuckled, and kissed her. "Give you a pair of sloe-black eyes for your violets, tip your nails with henna red, and you'd be a mate for the Soldan of Babylon in his glory. As you stand you're my bonny Countess Bel warmed in the blood—as she might have been if Bartlemy had had no vigil that one year."
They sat to table and ate together. The old dame grew very friendly, and, as usual with her class, showed a spice of malice.
"There is one here, let me tell you," she said as she munched her bacon, "even the lord of this town, who would be glad to know his way to Litany Row before morning." Isoult paled and watched her unconscious host; she knew that much already. "Yes, yes," she went on, the old ruminant, "he hath a rare twist for women, if they speak the truth who know him. There is one he hath hunted high and low, in forest and out, they say, and hath made himself a lord for her sake, whereas he was but a stalled ox in Malbank cloister. He hath made himself a lord, and killed his hundreds of honest men, and now he hath lost her. He—he!"
The good woman chuckled at her thoughts over all this irony of events.
"I might do son Falve a sorry turn," she pursued, "if I would. I should get paid for it in minted money, and Saint Mary knows how little of that has come my way of late. And I dare say that you would not take the exchange for a robbery. A lord for a smutty collier." She looked slyly at Isoult as she spoke. The girl's eyes wide with fear made her change her tune. If the daughter-elect were loyal, loyalty beseemed the mother.
"What!" she quavered, "you are all for love and the man of your heart then? Well, well! I like you for it, child."
Isoult's heart began to knock at her ribs. "Can I trust her? Can I trust her?" she thought; and her heart beat back, "Trust her, trust her, trust her."
With bed-time came her chance. The old woman, whose geniality never endangered her shrewdness, bid the girl undress and get into bed first. The meek beauty obeyed. She was undressed, but not in bed, when there came a rain of knocks at the door.
"Slip into bed, child, slip into bed," cried the other; "that's a man at the door."
Isoult, half-dead with fright, once more obeyed. The knocking continued till the door was opened.
"Who are you, in the name of Jesus?" said the woman, trembling.
"Jesus be my witness, I come in His name. I am Brother Bonaccord," said a man without.
"Save you, father," the woman replied, "but you cannot come in this night. There's a naked maid in the room."
Isoult's plight was pitiable. She could do absolutely nothing but stay where she was. She dared not so much as cry out.
"If she is a maid, it is very well," said Brother Bonaccord; "but I am quite sure she is not."
"Heyday, what is this?" cried Falve's mother, highly scandalized.
"Listen to me, Dame Ursula," the friar went on with a wagging finger."Your son came with gossip of a marriage he was to make with a certainIsoult—"
"'Tis so, 'tis so, indeed, father. Isoult la Desirous is her name—a most sweet maid."
"No maiden at all, good woman, but a wife of my own making."
"Ah, joys of Mary, what is this?"
"Ask her, mistress, ask her."
"I shall ask her, never you fear. Stay you there, father, for your life."
"Trust me, ma'am."
Dame Ursula went straight up to the bed and whipped off the blankets.There cowered the girl.
"Tell me the sober truth by all the pains ofDies Irae," whispered her hostess. "Are you a maiden or none?"
It was a shrewd torment that, double-forked. To deny was infamy, to affirm ruin. However, there was no escape from it: Isoult had never been a learned liar.
"I am a maid, ma'am," she said in a whisper.
"Cover yourself warm, my lamb, I'll twist him," said the delighted mother. She went quickly to the door.
"May our lord the holy Pope of Rome find you mercy, father," she vowed, "but you'll find none here. The girl has testified against you. Now will you marry 'em?"
"That I will not, by our Lord," replied the friar.
"There's infamy abroad, and I'll leave it, for it's none of my making.I wish you good-night, mistress. Bid your son to the Black Brothers.Saint Dominic may deal with him. Saint Francis was a clean man, and somust we be clean."
"Then get ye clean tongues lest ye lick others foul, ye brown viper," screamed Mrs. Ursula, as he splashed down the kennel.
Isoult was desperate; but luck pointed her one road yet. You will remember the trinkets round her neck: Prosper's ring was one, the other was that which old Mald had felt for and found safe in her bosom on her wedding night. When, therefore, Mrs. Ursula came bridling into the light full of her recent victory, she saw the girl before her trembling, and holding out a gold chain at a stretch.
"Lord's name, child, you'll catch your death," cried she. "Slip on your night-gown and into the bed."
"Trust her now, trust her now," went Isoult's wild heart. "Not yet, mother," said she, "you must hear me now."
Ursula dropped into a chair. Isoult knelt before her and put the ring in her old hand.
"Mother, look at this ring," she began, out of breath already, "and look at me, and then let me go. For with this ring I was wed a year ago to a certain lord whom I love dearly, and to whom I have never yet come as a wife. So what I told you was true, and what the Grey Friar told you was true also, when he said that I was a wife of his wedding. He wed me to my lord sure and fast to save me from a hanging; but not for love of me was I taken by my husband, and not for desire of his to mate his soul to mine. But for love of the love I bore him I dared not let him come, even when he would have come. We have been a year wedded, and many days and nights we have wandered the forest and dwelt together here and there, until now by some fate we are put apart. But I know we shall come together again, and he whom I love so bitterly shall set the ring in its place again where he first put it, and himself lie where now it lies. And so the wound and the pain I have shall be at last assuaged, and, Love, who had struck me so deep, shall crown me."
So said Isoult, kneeling and crying. Whatever else she may have touched in her who listened, she touched her curiosity. The old woman dropped the ring to look at the girl. True enough, below her left breast there was a small red wound, and upon it a drop of fresh blood.
Mrs. Ursula took the wet face between her two chapped hands and laughed at it, not unkindly.
"My bonny lass," said she, "if this be all thou hast to tell me it will not stay my son Falve. Here in this forest we think little of the giving of rings, but much of what should follow it. But thy wedding stopped at the ringing, from what I can learn. That is no wedding at all. Doubt not this knight of thine will never return; they never do return, my lassie. Neither doubt but that Falve will wed thee faster than any ring can do. And as for thy scratch and crying heart, my child, trust Falve again to stanch the one and still the other. For that is a man's way. And now get into bed, child; it grows late."
There was nothing for it but to obey. Her game had been played and had failed. She got into bed and Ursula followed.
Then as she lay there quaking, crying quietly to herself, her heart's message went on that bid her trust. Trust! What could she trust? The thought shaped itself and grew clearer every minute; the answer pealed in her brain. The token! she recalled her mother's words, the only words she had spoken on her marriage night. "It shall not fail thee to whomsoever thou shalt show it."
"Help, Saint Isidore!" she breathed, and sat up in the bed.
This made the old woman very cross.
"Drat the girl," she muttered, "why don't she sleep while she can?"
Isoult leaned over her and put the token in her hand. "Look also at this token, mother, before we sleep," she said.
Mrs. Ursula, grumbling and only half awake, took the thing in one hand and hoisted herself with the other. She sat up, peered at it in the light of the cresset, dropped it to rub her eyes, fumbled for it again, and peered again; she whispered prayers to herself and adjurations, called on Christ and Christ's mother, vehemently crossed herself many times, scrambled out of bed, and plumped down beside it on her two knees.
"Mild Mary," she quavered, "mild Mary, that is enough! That I should live to see this day. Oh, saints in glory! Let us look at it again."
Isoult drooped over the edge of the bed; Ursula looked and was astounded, she wondered and prayed, she laughed and cried. Isoult grew frightened.
"Wed her!" cried the old dame in ecstasy. "Wed the Queen of Sheba next!" Then she grew mighty serious. She got up and dropped a curtesy.
"It is enough, Princess. He dare not look at you again. At dawn you shall leave this place. Now sleep easy, for if I hurt a hair of your head I might never hope for heaven's gate."
She made the girl sleep alone.
"This is my proper station before you, madam," said she, and lay down on the floor at the foot of the bed.
It was no dream. In the morning she was up before the light. Isoult found a bath prepared, and in her gaoler of over-night a dresser who was as brisk as a bee and as humble as a spaniel.
"Old servants are the best," said the crone in her defence; "they're not so slippery, but they know how things should go on and off. Ah, and give me a young mistress and a beauty," she went on to sigh, "such as God Almighty hath sent me this night."
Either Saint Isidore had entered the token, or the token had been swallowed by Saint Isidore.
When the girl was dressed in her red silk gown of the night before, with a hood of the same for her head, her red stockings and her red shoes, she was set at table, and waited upon hand and foot. No questions were asked, but very much was taken for granted. Ursula had her finger to her lip every sentence; she wallowed in mystery.
"You are not safe here, Princess," she whispered, "but I will put you where only safety is for the moment—in Mid-Morgraunt. Affairs, as you know, are not well where they should be; but as soon as you are bestowed, I will go forth with that which will make them as bright as day. I will see one I never thought to face again; I shall win honour which God knows I am late a-winning. Leave everything to me."
Isoult asked nothing better, for the very sufficient reason that she knew nothing. Her earth-born habit of taking all things as they came in order stood her in good part; she had no temptation to ask what all this meant. But she did not forget to thank the great Saint Isidore latent in the crystal.
Everything being ready, the old woman threw a long brown cloak over her charge before they ventured out into the still twilight streets. The wet was steaming off the ground, but the day promised fair. Hauterive was nearly empty: they were not challenged at the gate, met nobody terrific. Once outside the walls they descended a sharp incline, struck almost immediately a forest path, and in half-an-hour from that were deep in the dewy woods. Old Ursula held on briskly for a mile or so in and out of fern and brake. Then she stopped, out of breath, but beaming benevolence and humility.
"We are safe enough now, madam," she said, and went on to explain, "Hold you by that path, Princess, until beech and holly end and oaks begin. Follow the dip of the land, you will come to Thornyhold Brush; with those you find there you may stay until you know who shall send for you. That may be likely a week or more, for I am not so young as I would be, and the roads are thick with Galordians. Now kiss me quickly if you will stoop so low: it is the last time I shall ask it of you."
Isoult thanked her with sparkling eyes and warm red lips; then she stood alone in the wood watching her old friend go. Afterwards she herself took to the path, wondering, but light-hearted and minded to run.
The spruce Falve, curled and anointed for the bridal, found no wife, but his mother, who called him a fool, a knave, a notorious evil-liver and contemner of holy persons. This was hard to bear, for part of it at least he knew to be quite true. What was harder was, that hitherto he had always believed his mother of his party. But there is no pietist like your reformed rake; so Falve left the huckster's shop vowing vengeance. The day was July 18, and all the town astir, for Galors de Born and his riders were just in from a raid.
On July 14 Prosper left Wanmeeting at a gallop, in the driving rain. There had been thunder and a change in the weather; the roads were heavy and the brooks brimming; but by noon he was in the plain, and by night at One Ash, a lonely dead tree as often gallows as not. There he slept in his cloak. Next morning he was early in the saddle, and had reached the fringe of Goltres Heath by breakfast time—if the hour without the thing can be called by such a comfortable name.
He knew there was a cross-road somewhere near by from Goltres to Hauterive Town. He should go warily, for if the first were invested there must needs be communications with the base, which was Hauterive. Sure enough, he had not seen the finger-post before he saw the pikes. There were three mounted men there, one of whom had his face to the north and was shading his eyes to spy over the heath. In a dozen more strides (for he was at no pains to skulk from three troopers) a man saw him, gave a shout and spurred over the heather. Prosper pulled his horse into a gallop, resolved to bring things to a quick conclusion. Spear in rest he came down on his fellow like a gale of wind.
The man swerved at the onset; Prosper rocketed into him; horse and man went over in a heap. "Bungler," cried Prosper, and went on. The other two faced him together standing. Prosper drove in between them, and had one of them off at the cost of a snapt spear. He turned on the other with his sword whirling round his head.
"Quarter, Messire!" cried the trooper, "here comes one of my betters for you."
In effect, a knight on a chestnut horse was coming from Goltres, a most resplendent knight in golden armour, with yellow trappings slashed and fluttering about him.
"The Gold Knight!" said Prosper, drawing a sharpish breath; "this is better than I looked for. My man," he went on, turning, "I have measured you with my eye. I think the sign-post will bear you."
"I have no doubt of it, Messire," said the man ruefully. "You shall put it to the proof so sure as I live," continued Prosper, "if you stir from where you stand. I have to speak with your master."
"Oh, make yourself quite easy, Messire, and trust me," said the man; "I see with whom I have to deal."
"Then deal not with him, my friend," said Prosper, and went to meet theGolden Knight.
The Golden Knight set spear in rest and came cantering down the track. Prosper let him come. When he was within hail, "Put up your spear, dame," said he, "and listen."
The Golden Knight pulled up short, but held his spear couched against the worst. Prosper spoke again quite cheerfully.
"You and I have met, Dame Maulfry."
"You are speaking foolishness and wasting my time, Messire. I neither know you nor your dame."
"You may have known my shield in more gaudy trim. Did I not turn grave-digger for you some years ago?"
"Oh, oh! you are Prosper le Gai?"
"That is my name, Madam Maulfry. You know me at last."
"Yes, I know you. Take care. You are in no friendly country."
"I am a very friendly soul, but I will take care. You, I think, have many friends in these parts—one in special, a holy person, a man of religion. Is it so?"
"He is a man of many parts, Prosper. He hath an arm."
"He hath a gullet, I know," said Prosper cheerfully. "It is of him I would speak, dame, at this moment. I shall meet him before long, I hope, and should like to be advised by an old acquaintance. Will you tell me why he chose out the arms of the man you and I put into the ground?"
"Why would you know that, Prosper?"
"It seems to me an odd choice. There is a story about them. I am curious."
"What is your story, Prosper? I will tell you this, that I tried to dissuade him."
"Ah!"
"Well, sir, your story?"
"You told me they were the arms of De Genlis. Surely you were mistaken in that?"
"I will be frank with you, Prosper. I was mistaken. They are the arms of Salomon de Montguichet."
"Pardon me, dame," said Prosper, "they are the arms of Salomon de Born."
He never dealt cleaner blow with a spear. The Golden Knight stood up rocking in his stirrups. Then he dropped his weapon and began to wail like a woman.
"Oh no, no, no! Oh, Prosper, be merciful! Oh, God, kill me, kill me, kill me! Tell me you have lied, Prosper, or I must die."
"I have not lied, madam. You have lied," said Prosper, watching with a bleak smile.
On a sudden the Golden Knight spurred his horse violently. The beast lunged forward and shot off at a mad gallop with his flanks streaming blood. Prosper watched him go.
"Follow! follow!" cried the Golden Knight to the man by the sign-post.
"I cannot, my lord," the man shouted as his master flew, "I am a man of my word."
"Be off with you, you rascal," cheered Prosper; "I have said my say."
The man did not hesitate. Prosper watched the flying pair, a quiet smile hovering about his mouth. "My shot told it seems," he said to himself. "If Salomon de Born were not what I believe him to have been, what is the grief of Madam Maulfry? Well, we will see next what Galors de Born has to say to it."
He turned his face towards the north and rode on. If he had followed the two-out of sight by now—he would have got nearer his heart's desire; but he could not do that. He had formed a judgment calmly. If he wanted Isoult he must find Galors. Galors had Hauterive but had not Goltres. Therefore Galors was at Goltres. Prosper always accredited his enemies with his own quality. So he rode away from Isoult as proud as a pope.
We will follow the Golden Knight while our breath endures. We can track him to Hauterive. He never stayed rein till he reached it, and there at the gates dropped his chestnut dead of a broken heart. In the hall of the citadel it was no Golden Knight but a grey-faced old woman who knelt before Galors in his chair. Her voice was dry as bare branches.
"If ever you owe me thanks for what I have done and will yet do for you, Galors, my lover, you shall pay them now. Prosper is at Goltres. He and Spiridion will be there alone. I give you back Spiridion. Give me the life of Prosper, give me his head and his tongue, give me his heart, and I will be your slave who was once your world. Will you do it, Galors? Will you do it this night?"
"By God I will," said Galors.
"There is one other thing"—the woman was gasping for breath—"one little thing. Give me back the arms you bear. You must never wear them again. I always hated them; no good can ensue them. Give them to me, Galors, and wear them no more."
"By God again," said Galors, "that is impossible! I will never do it. What! when the whole forest rings withEntra per me, and wicket-gates dazzle every eye on this side Wan? My friend, where are your wits? That droll of a Montguichet did me a turn there before you had him, mistress."
"Ah, Galors," was all she could say, "he has found me again. I am sick of the work, Galors; let me go home."
"Speed me first, my delight," cried Galors, jumping up. He shouted through the door, "Ho, there! My horse and arms! Turn the guard out! In three minutes we are off."
The woman crept away. She had worked her hardest for him, but he wanted nothing of her.
"Dirty weather, by the Rood," said Galors, looking out at the rain. "Dirty weather and a smell of worse. Hearken to the wind in the turrets. Gentlemen, we are for Goltres. Spare no horseflesh. Forward!" and he was gone through the dripping streets at the falling in of a wild day. It was the day Falve had brought in his bride-expectant to Litany Row.
Half-an-hour later Maulfry rode out of the east gate alone, and never held or looked back till she was safe in Tortsentier.
A scud of wind and rain hampered Prosper on his ride over Goltres Heath. The steady increase of both in volume and force kept him at work all day; but towards dusk the wind dropped a little, the clouds split and drifted in black shreds over a clear sky full of the yellow evening light. Just at the twilight he came to a shallow mere edged with reeds, with wild fowl swimming upon it, and others flying swiftly over on their way to the nest. At the far end of the lake, but yet in the water, was a dim castle settling down into the murk. A gaunt shell it was, rather than a habitable place; its windows were sightless black; only in the towers you could see through them the pale sky behind. The wind ruffled the mere, little cold waves lapped in the reeds; there was no other house in sight whichever way you turned. In all the dun waste of raw and cold it was Goltres or nothing for a night's lodging.
"Galors has been before me again," thought Prosper. "The place is a skeleton, the husk of a house. Well, there must be a corner left which will keep the rain out. We shall have more before day, if I am anything of a prophet."
There was a huge bank of cloud to windward; the wind came uneasily, in puffs, with a smell of rain. Prosper's horse shivered and shook himself from head to heels.
"As I live," cried Prosper suddenly, "there is a light in the house." In a high window there was certainly a flickering light. "Where there's a light there's a man or a woman. Where there's one there is room for two. I am for Goltres if I can win a passage."
Riding up the shore of the lake he found an old punt.
"Saracen," said he to his horse, "I shall take to the water. Thou shalt go thy will this night, and may heaven send thee the luck of thy master." So saying he unbridled him, took off his saddle and let him go, himself got into the punt and pushed out over the mere.
The great hulk of Goltres rose threatening above him, fretted by little waves, staring down from a hundred empty eyes. He made out a water-gate and drove his punt towards it. It was open. He pushed in, found a rotting stair, above it a door which was broken away and hanging by one hinge.
"The welcome, withal free, is cold," quoth Prosper, "but we cannot stand on ceremony. It might be well to make sure of my punt." He manoeuvred it under the stair with some trouble, lashed it fore and aft, and entered Goltres by the slippery ascent, addressing himself as he went to God and Saint Mary the Virgin.
The wooden stair led him into a flagged passage which smelt strongly of fungus. He went down this as far as it would go, found a flight of stone steps with a swing door a-top, pushed up here, and burst into a vast hall. It was waste and empty, echoing like a vault, crying desolation with all its tongues. There seemed to have been wild work; benches, tables, tressles, chairs, torn up, dismembered and scattered abroad. There were the ashes of a fire in the midst, some broken weapons and head-pieces, and many dark patches which looked uncommonly like blood. Prosper made what haste he could out of this haunted place; the rats scuttled and squeaked as he traversed it from end to end.
Beyond its great folding doors he found another corridor hung with the ribbons of arras; in the midst of it a broad stone staircase. Up he went three steps at a time, and stood in the counter-part of the lower passage—a corridor equally flagged, equally gloomy, and smelling equally of damp and death. There were, so far as he could see, open doors on either side which stretched for what seemed an interminable distance. But at the far end was the light he was after; he cared little how many empty chambers there might be so that there was one tenanted. He started off accordingly in pursuit of the light. The passage ran the whole length of the house; the empty doors as he passed them gave on to bare walls and broken windows. Over many of them hung thick curtains of cobwebs and dust; white fungus cropped in the cracks; the rats seemed everywhere. Now and then he caught sight of a shredded arras on the walls; in one room a disordered bed; on the floor of another a woman's glove. Never a sight of life but rats, and never a sound but his own steps, the shrieking of the wind, the rattle of crazy windows.
The door of the lighted chamber was set open. Prosper stood on the threshold and looked in.
It was a narrow dusty place heaped with books on tables, chairs, and floor. The lamp which had beaconed him from over the water was of brass, and hung from the ceiling by a chain. At the window end sat a young man with long yellow hair, which was streaked over his bowed back; he was reading in a Hebrew book. The book was on a reading-stand, and the young man kept his place in it with his thin finger. He seemed short-sighted to judge by the space betwixt his nose and his book. By his side on a little lacquered table was a deepish bowl of dull red porphyry filled with water. Every now and again the young man, having secured his place firmly with his finger, would gaze into the bowl through a little crystal mace which he kept in his other hand. Then he would fetch a deep sigh and return to his book.
Beyond the man, his bowl, and his books, Prosper could see little else in the room. There was, it is true, a shelf full of bottles, and another full of images; but that was all.
Prosper stepped lightly into the room and laid a hand upon the reader's shoulder. The young man did not start; he carefully recorded his place before he lifted a thin face from his work to his visitor. You were conscious of an extravagantly peaked nose, like the beak of some water-fowl, of the wandering glance of two pale eyes, and of little else except a mild annoyance.
"What is your pleasure, fair sir?" asked the young man.
"Sir," began Prosper, "I fear I have intruded upon your labours."
"You have," said the young man.
It was an uncompromising beginning. The young man beamed upon him, waiting.
"Nevertheless, sir," Prosper went on, "I am driven to force myself upon your hospitality for the night. Your house is large and apparently roomy. It is dark and wild weather, with a prospect of tempest. I must sleep here or on the moors."
"Sir," said the other, "you shall be welcome to my poor house, and that notwithstanding the last guests I harboured murdered everybody in it but myself. If it had not been for the intercession of a very charming lady, who has but now left me, I had been dead ere this and unable to play the host either to her or you. This I say not as casting any imputation upon you, of whom I am willing to believe as much as, nay, more than, our limited acquaintance may warrant. Regard it rather as my excuse for affording you little more than a roof."
"By my faith," said Prosper, "I had believed the castle to be deserted or sacked. But I am sorry enough to hear that my foreboding was so near the truth."
"It was a certain lord calling himself Galors de Born, he and his company, who did these harms upon my house," the young man explained. "Me too he will assuredly murder before many days. Unless indeed the lady of whom I spoke just now should return."
"I think I may say that she will not return, and that it will be better for you if she do not. Galors, too, has other fish to fry. But if he should happen to come, I pray God that I may be by with a company to fight at your back." So Prosper.
"If God hear your prayer, which I should have thought more than dubious," returned his host, "I only hope He may see fit to help you to a company as well, for I have none. And as to fighting at my back, I promise you I am a most indifferent leader, being, as you see, somewhat immersed in other affairs."
Prosper had really very little to say in answer to this. By way of changing the talk, he asked if the castle were not Goltres.
"You are quite right, sir," replied the other, "it is Goltres; and I am Spiridion, the lord of Goltres, of a most ancient stock—yet much at your service."
Prosper bowed to his host, who at once resumed his prying and gazing. This did not suit the other's temper at all, for he was above all things a sociable soul. So after a minute he cut in again on another tack.
"You are a great student, fair sir," said he.
"Yes, I am," said the young man.
"Then may I know what it is you search out so diligently, first in the book, and then in your bowl of water?"
"Most certainly you may," replied his host. "I seek to find out whatGod may be."
Prosper grew grave. "I had thought you a student of fishes," said he, "but I find you dive deeper. Yet indeed, sir, for my part I think we had best be content to love and serve God as best we may, discerning Him chiefly in the voice of honour and in His fair works. Moreover, Holy Church biddeth us nourish a lively faith. Therefore, as I think, the harder our understanding of God is to come at, the more abundant our merit who nevertheless believe."
"That may be so," said the other. "But I can hardly be expected to love that which I know not, or to believe that which I cannot express. And as for Holy Church, what Holy Church may consider I know not; but when you speak of discerning God in honour and fair works, I understand you, and take up your argument in this manner. For what you think most eloquent of God may be a beautiful lady."
"God is truly there for me," said Prosper, and thought of Isoult's good eyes.
"And for me, fair sir," cried his host kindling, "if all women were as lovely and wise as my friend of late. There indeed was a woman redolent of God."
"Ah, you are out there, sir," said Prosper; "you are terribly out."
The young man smiled. "Look now, my friend, where we are with our definitions," said he. "We divide at the onset. Now, say that instead of a woman, I found a turnip-field the most adorable thing in the world. Can we both be right? No, indeed. Now my reading tells me of all the gods whom men have worshipped—of Klepht and Put and Ra; of Melkarth also, and Bel; of Moloch, Thammuz, and Astarte (a Phoenician deity). I learn next of the gods of Olympus, of those of Rome and Etruria; of the Scandinavians, and of many modern gods. Now either these peoples have made their own gods, in which case I too can make one; or God hath revealed Himself to some one alone—and then He would seem to have dealt ungenerously with the others, equally His creatures, and left blind; or He hath never revealed Himself, which is against Nature; or He is not. These are the questions I would solve, if Galors give me time."
"Sir, sir," cried Prosper, "you do but fog yourself to little purpose! But you should live honestly and sanely, going much abroad, and you would have no doubts."
"My author," said Spiridion calmly, indicating his Hebrew text, "tells me that there are one-and-thirty different ways of finding God out. Of which crystal-gazing, says he in a famous passage, is the readiest. But as yet I have not found it so. Maybe I shall try yours another day—if I have another day."
Whereupon, as if reminded of his delaying, he would have turned again to his work; but Prosper clapped a hand to his shoulder.
"Have done with groping in books, Spiridion," cried he, "and tell me if you think this a time for such folly, when your life is threatened by Galors and his riders?"
"It is the time of all times," returned Spiridion; "for if I know not who is really God of all the host with claims to His rank, how shall I pray when my visitation comes, or how pray that it come not? It was for lack of this knowledge that my people were murdered the other day. So you see that the affair is urgent."
"I think the defence of the house and a long sword would fit your case better," said Prosper dryly. "Meanwhile, you must forgive me if I remind you that I have ridden all day without food or rest, and beg of you to afford me one or the other."
"Ten thousand pardons!" said Spiridion, getting up at once, "that my little griefs should make me forget your serious claims upon my hospitality. Come, sir, here are bread and olives, here is a flask of a very passable wine—all at your service. Afterwards we will share a bed."