The Forest Lovers

M >> Maurice Hewlett >> The Forest Lovers

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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 bad 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 find
Gracedieu 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 Brother
Bonaccord, 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 while
I 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 remember _Entra 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."

CHAPTER IX

THE BLOOD-CHASE AND THE LOVE-CHASE

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.
_Lese majeste!_ 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 found
Dom 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.

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