The Forest Lovers

The Forest Lovers.

by Maurice Hewlett.

CHAPTER I

PROSPER LE GAI RIDES OUT

My story will take you into times and s.p.a.ces alike rude and uncivil.

Blood will be spilt, virgins suffer distresses; the horn will sound through woodland glades; dogs, wolves, deer, and men, Beauty and the Beasts, will tumble each other, seeking life or death with their proper tools. There should be mad work, not devoid of entertainment.

When you read the word _Explicit_, if you have laboured so far, you will know something of Morgraunt Forest and the Countess Isabel; the Abbot of Holy Thorn will have postured and schemed (with you behind the arras); you will have wandered with Isoult and will know why she was called La Desirous, with Prosper le Gai, and will understand how a man may fall in love with his own wife. Finally, of Galors and his affairs, of the great difference there may be between a Christian and the brutes, of love and hate, grudging and open humour, faith and works, cloisters and thoughts uncloistered--all in the green wood--you will know as much as I do if you have cared to follow the argument. I hope you will not ask me what it all means, or what the moral of it is. I rank myself with the historian in this business of tale-telling, and consider that my sole affair is to hunt the argument dispa.s.sionately. Your romancer must be neither a lover of his heroine nor (as the fashion now sets) of his chief rascal. He must affect a genial height, that of a jigger of strings; and his att.i.tude should be that of the Pulpiteer:--Heaven help you, gentlemen, but I know what is best for you! Leave everything to me.

It is related of Prosper le Gai, that when his brother Malise, Baron of Starning and Parrox, showed him the door of their father"s house, and showed it with a meaning not to be mistaken, he stuck a sprig of green holly in his cap. He put on his armour; his horse and sword also he took: he was for the wilds. Baron Jocelyn"s soul, the priests reported, was with G.o.d; his body lay indubitably under a black effigy in Starning Church. Baron Malise was lord of the fee, with a twisted face for Prosper whenever they met in the hall: had there been scores no deeper this was enough. Prosper was a youth to whom life was a very pretty thing; he could not afford to have tarnish on the gla.s.s; he must have pleasant looks about him and a sweet air, or at least scope for the making of them. Baron Malise blew like a miasma and cramped him like a church-pew: then Adventure beaconed from far off, and his heart leapt to greet the light. He left at dawn, and alone. Roy, his page, had begged as hard as he dared for pillion or a donkey. He was his master"s only friend, but Prosper"s temper needed no props. "Roy,"

said he, "what I do I will do alone, nor will I imperil any man"s bread. The bread of my brother Malise may be a trifle over-salt to my taste, but to you it is better than none at all. Season your tongue, Roy, enure it. Drink water, dry your eyes, and forget me not."

He kissed him twice and went his way without any more farewells than the boy"s snivelling. He never looked behind at Starning demesne, where he had been born and bred and might have followed his father to church, nor sideways at the broad oaks, nor over to the well-tilled fields on either side his road; but rather p.r.i.c.ked forward at a nimble pace which tuned to the running of his blood. The blood of a lad sings sharpest in the early morning; the air tingles, the light thrills, all the great day is to come. This lad therefore rode with a song towards the West, following his own shadow, down the deep Starning lanes, through the woods and pastures of Parrox, over the gra.s.sy s.p.a.ces of the Downs, topping the larks in thought, and shining beam for beam against the new-risen sun. The time of his going-out was September of the harvest: a fresh wet air was abroad. He looked at the thin blue of the sky, he saw dew and gossamer lie heavy on the hedge-rows. All his heart laughed. Prosper was merry.

Whither he should go, what find, how fare, he knew not at all.

Morgraunt was before him, and of Morgraunt all the country spoke in a whisper. It as far, it was deep, it was dark as night, haunted with the waving of perpetual woods; it lay between the mountains and the sea, a mystery as inviolate as either. In it outlaws, men desperate and hungry, ran wild. It was a den of thieves as well as of wolves.

Men, young men too, had ridden in, high-hearted, proud of their trappings, horses, curls, and what not; none had ever seen them come out. They might be roaming there yet, grown old with roaming, and gaunt with the everlasting struggle to kill before they were killed: who could tell? Or they might have struck upon the vein of savage life; they might go roaring and loving and robbing with the beasts-- why not? Morgraunt had swallowed them up; who could guess to what wild uses she turned her thralls? That was a place, pardieu! Prosper, very certain that at twenty-three it is a great thing to be hale and astride a horse, felt also that to grow old without having given Morgraunt a chance of killing you young would be an insipid performance. "As soon be a priest!" he would cry, "or, by the Rood, one of those flat-polled monks kept there by the Countess Isabel."

Morgraunt then for Prosper, and the West; beyond that--"One thing at a time," thought he, for he was a wise youth in his way, and held to the legend round his arms. Seeing that south of him he could now smell the sea, and beyond him lay Morgraunt, he would look no further till Morgraunt lay below him appeased or subjugate.

A tall and lean youth was Prosper le Gai, fair-haired and sanguine, square-built and square-chinned. He smiled at you; you saw two capital rows of white teeth, two humorous blue eyes; you would think, what a sweet-tempered lad! So in the main he was; but you would find out that he could be dangerous, and that (curiously) the more dangerous he was, the sweeter his temper seemed to be. If you crossed him once, he would stare; twice, he would laugh; three times, you would swear he was your humble servant; but before you could cross him again he would have knocked you down. The next moment he would give you a hand up, and apologize; after that, so far as he was concerned, you might count him your friend for life. The fact is, that he was one of those men who, like kings, require a nominal fealty before they can love you with a whole heart: it is a mere nothing. But somebody, they think, must lead. Prosper always felt so desperately sure it must be he. That was apt to lend a frenzy to his stroke and a cool survey to his eye (as being able to take so much for granted), which made him a good friend and a nasty enemy.

It also made him, as you will have occasion to see, a born fighter. He went, indeed, through those years of his life on tiptoe, as it were, for a fight. He had a light and springing carriage of the head, enough to set his forelock nodding; his eye roved like a sea-bird"s; his lips often parted company, for his breath was eager. He had a trick of laughing to himself softly as he went about his business; or else he sang, as he was now singing. These qualities, little habits, affectations, whatever you choose to call them, sound immaterial, but they really point to the one thing that made him remarkable--the curious blend of opposites in him. He blent benevolence with savagery, reflectiveness with activity. He could think best when thought and act might jump together, laugh most quietly when the din of swords and horses drowned the voice, love his neighbour most sincerely when about to cut his throat. The smell of blood, the sight of wounds, or the flicker of blades, made him drunk; but he was one of those who grow steady in their cups. You might count upon him at a pinch. Lastly, he was no fool, and was disposed to credit other people with a balance of wit.

He disliked frippery, yet withal made a brave show in the sun. His plain black mail was covered with a surcoat of white and green linen; over this a narrow baldrick of red bore in gold st.i.tches his device of a hooded falcon, and his legend on a scroll, many times repeated and intercrossed--_I bide my time_. In his helmet were three red feathers, on his shield the blazon of his house of Gai--_On a field sable, a fesse dancettee or_, with a mullet for difference. He carried no spear; for a man of his light build the sword was the arm.

Thus then, within and without, was Messire Prosper le Gai, youngest son of old Baron Jocelyn, deceased, riding into the heart of the noon, pleased with himself and the world, light-minded, singing of the movement and the road.

Labourers stayed their reaping to listen to him; but there was nothing for them. He sang of adventure. Girls leaned at cottage doorways to watch him down the way. There was nothing for them either, for all he sang of love.

"She who now hath my heart is so in every part;" etc., etc.

The words came tripping as a learnt lesson; but he had never loved a girl, and fancied he never would. Women? Petticoats! For him there was more than one adventure in life. Rather, my lady"s chamber was the last place in which he would have looked for adventure.

On the second day of his journey--in a country barren and stony, yet with a hint of the leafy wildernesses to come in the ridges spiked with pines, the cropping of heather here and there, and the ever- increasing solitude of his way--he was set upon by four foot-pads, who thought to beat the life out of his body as easily as boys that of a dog. He asked nothing better than that they should begin; and he asked so civilly that they very soon did. The fancy of glorious youth transformed them into knights-at-arms, and their ashen cudgels into blades. The only pity was that the end came so soon.

His sword dug its first sod, and might have carved four cowards instead of one; but he was no vampire, so thereafter laid about him with the flat of the tool. The three survivors claimed quarter.

"Quarter, you rogues!" cried he. "Kindly lend me one of your staves for the purpose." He gave them a drubbing as one horsed his brother in turn, and dropped them, a chapfallen trio, beside their dead. "Now,"

said he, "take that languid gentleman with you, and be so good for the rest of your journey as to imitate his indifference to strangers. Thus you will have a prosperous pa.s.sage. Good day to you."

He slept on the scene of his exploit, rose early, rode fast, and by noon was plainly in the selvage of the great woods. The country was split into bleak ravines, a pell-mell of rocks and boulders, and a st.u.r.dy crop of black pines between them. An overgrowth of brambles and briony ran riot over all. Prosper rode up a dry river-bed, keeping steadily west, so far as it would serve him; found himself quagged ere a dozen painful miles, floundered out as best he might, and by evening was making good pace over a rolling bit of moorland through which ran a sandy road. It was the highway from Wanmouth to Market Basing and the north, if he had known. Ahead of him a solitary wayfarer, a brown bunch of a friar, from whose hood rose a thin neck and a s.h.a.g of black hair round his tonsure--like storm-clouds gathering about a full moon --struck manfully forward on a pair of bare feet.

"G.o.d be with you, brother gentleman," cried the friar, turning a crab- apple face upwards.

"And with you, my brother, who carry your slippers," Prosper replied.

"Eh, eh, brother! They go softer than steel for a gouty toe."

"Poor gout, Master Friar, I hope, for Saint Francis" peace of mind."

"My gentleman," said the friar, "let me tell you the truth. I am a poor devil out of Lucca, built for matrimony and the chimney corner, as Grandfather Adam was before me. Brother Bonaccord of Outremer they call me in religion, but ill-accord I am in temper, by reason of the air of this accursed land, and a most tempestuous blood of my own. For why! I go to the Dominicans of Wanmouth, supplicating that I am new landed, and have no convent to my name and establishment in the Church. They take me in. Ha! they do that. Look now. "A sop of bread and wine," I cry, "for the love of G.o.d." It is a Catholic food, very comfortable for the stomach. Ha! they give me beer. Beer? Wet death! I am by now as gouty as a cardinal, and my eye is inflamed. I think of the Lucchese--those shafts of joy miscalled women--when I should be thinking of my profession. I am ready as ever to admit two vows, but Saint Paul himself cannot reconcile me to the third. Beer, my friend, beer."

"You will do well enough, friar, if you are going the forest road. You will find no Lucchesan ladies thereabouts."

"I am none so sure, gentleman. There were tales told at the Wanmouth hostel. Do you know anything of a very holy place in these parts, the Abbey of Saint Giles of the Thorn? Black monks, my brother; black as your stallion."

"I think they are white monks," said Prosper, "Bernardines."

"I spoke of the colour of their deeds, young sir," answered Brother Bonaccord.

"I know as little of them as of any monks in Christendom, friar,"

Prosper said. "But I have seen the Abbot and spoken with him. Richard Dieudonne is his name, well friended by the Countess."

"He is well friended by many ladies, some of account, and some of none at all, by what I hear," said the friar, rather dryly for such a twinkling spirit.

"Ah, with ladies," Prosper put in, "you have me again; for I know less of them than of monks, save that both have petticoats. Your pardon, brother."

"Not a bit, not a bit, brother again," replied the friar. "I admit the hindrance; and could tell you of the advantages if I had the mind. But as to the ladies, suffer me to predict that you will know more of them before you have done."

"I think not," said Prosper. Brother Bonaccord began to laugh.

"They will give you no peace yet awhile," said he. "And let me tell you this, from a man who knows what he is talking about, that if you think to escape them by neglecting them, you are going the devil"s way to work. If you wish them to let you alone, speak them fair, drop easily to your knee, be a hand-kisser, a cushion-disposer, a goer on your toes. They will think you a lover and shrug you away. Never do a woman a service as if to oblige her; do it as if to oblige yourself.

Then she will believe you her slave. Then you are safe. That is your game, brother."

"You have studied ladies, friar?"

"Ah, ah! I have indeed. They are a wondrous fair book. I know no other. Why should I?"

"Oh, why indeed?" Prosper a.s.sented. "For my part, I find other studies more engrossing."

With such talk they went until they reached a little wood, and then disposed of themselves for the night. When Prosper woke next morning the good man had gone. He had left a written message to the effect that, petticoats or none, he had stolen a march on steel, and might be looked for at Malbank.

"I wonder how much stuff for his mind that student of ladies will win at Malbank," laughed Prosper to himself, little knowing, indeed.

CHAPTER II

MORGRAUNT, AND A DEAD KNIGHT

Leaving the high road on his right hand, Prosper struck over the heath towards a solemn beech-wood, which he took to be the very threshold of Morgraunt. As a fact it was no more than an outstretched finger of its hand, by name Cadnam Thicket. He skirted this place, seeking an entry, but found nothing to suit him for an hour or more. Then at last he came to a gap in the sandy bank, and saw that a little mossy ride ran straight in among the trees. He put his horse at the gap, and was soon cantering happily through the wood. Thus he came short upon an adventure. The path ran ahead of him in a tapering vista, but just where it should meet in a point it broadened out suddenly so as to make a double bay. The light fell splashing upon this cleared s.p.a.ce, and he saw what he saw.

This was a tall lady, richly dressed in some gauzy purple stuff, dragging a dead man by the heels, and making a very bad business of it. She was dainty to view, her hands and arms shone like white marble; but apart from all this it was clear to Prosper that she lacked the mere strength for the office she had proposed herself. The dead man was not very tall, but he was too tall for the lady. The roughness of the ground, the resistance of the underwood, the incapacity of the performers, made the procession unseemly.

Prosper, forgetting Brother Bonaccord, quickened his horse to a gallop, and was soon up with the toiling lady. She stopped when she heard him coming, stood up to wait for him, quick-breathing and a little flushed, and never took her eyes off him.