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.



CHAPTER XXIV

SECRET THINGS AT HAUTERIVE

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, Coaen 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 certain Isoult—"

"'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 of Dies 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 so must 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.



CHAPTER XXV

THE ROAD TO GOLTRES

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 the Golden 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 with Entra 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.



CHAPTER XXVI

GUESS-WORK AT GOLTRES

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 what God 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."

They sat on books, and ate what there was. Outside the wind had freshened; it buffeted fitfully but fiercely at the window, and came with dashes of rain. Down the corridor they could hear the casements swinging and banging, and over all the wind itself roaring through the great bare passages as if they had been tunnels.

"A wild night, Spiridion," said Prosper. "And what a night," thought he, "for a surprise."

"Wild enough," replied Spiridion, "but I am indifferent to weather, being seldom abroad. How do you find this wine?"

"Excellent," said Prosper, and drained his glass.

"Of this Galors, whom I think you know," Spiridion continued, "I hear bad reports. Not only has he cut the throats of my household, but from the account given me by my fair friend (concerning whom," he said with a bow, "we are agreed to differ), I fear he is otherwise of a wild and irregular conversation."

"You are right there, my friend," laughed Prosper.

"If he murders me," the other went on, sipping his wine, "it will be on some such night as this."

"I have just said as much to myself," Prosper replied; "but I will do my best to prevent him, I assure you."

"You are so courteous a defender, fair sir," said Spiridion, "I could wish you a more worthy client."

Prosper inwardly agreed with him. Shortly afterwards Spiridion bowed him to bed. For himself he carefully undressed and put on his night- shirt; then, lying down, he was asleep in a moment. The storm was by this time a gale, the noise of it continuous out doors and in. Prosper judged it expedient to have his arms within reach; the more so as he could not help fancying he had heard the sound of rowlocks on the mere. He stripped himself therefore to his doublet and breeches, heaped his armour by the bedside, slung his shield and sword over the foot, and then lay down by his peaceful companion. He had not forgotten either to look to the trimming and feeding of the lamp.

Sleep, however, was miles from him in such a pandemonium of noise. The wind wailed and screamed, the windows volleyed, wainscots creaked, doors rattled on their locks. Sometimes with a shock like a thunder- clap the body of the storm hurled against the walls; the great house seemed to shudder and groan; then there would be a lull as if the spirits of riot had spent themselves. In one of these pauses Prosper was pretty sure he heard a step on the stairs. Not at all surprised, for it was just such a night as he would have chosen, he listened painfully; but the noise drowned all. Came another moment of recoil, he heard it again, nearer. He got out of bed, went to the door, opened it silently, and listened. There were certainly movements in the house, feet coming up the stairs; he thought to catch hoarse whisperings, and once the clang of metal. There was no time to lose, He shut, bolted, and locked the door; then turned to his armour. A swift step undisguised in the corridor put all beyond question; there was an attack preparing. He had no time to do any more than snatch up shield and sword, before he saw the flame of a torch under the door and heard the voices of men.

Prosper stood sword in hand, waiting.

"Spiridion," he said, "wake up!"

Spiridion moaned, stirred a little, and sank again. A high voice called out—

"Spiridion, thou thin traitor, open the door and deliver up him thou harbourest."

The wind shrieked and mocked; then Spiridion woke up with a shiver.

"The hour is come before my God is ready. Now I must die unknowing," said he, and sat up in bed with his yellow hair all about his face.

"It is me they seek," said Prosper. "Now then if it will save thee I will open and go out to them." He went straight to the door, put his face against the key-hole, and cried out—"If I come out, will ye save Spiridion alive?"

There followed a babble of voices speaking all at once; afterwards the same shrill voice took up his challenge, wailing like the wind— "Spiridion, open the door before we break it in."

Prosper said again—"Will you have me for Spiridion?"

"We will have both, by God," rang a deep note, the voice of Galors.

As if at a signal swords began to batter at the door, pommels and blades. One pierced the panel and struck through on the inside. Prosper snapped it off short. "One less," he said; "but they will soon be done with it."

"My friend," said Spiridion, who was shivering with cold (his night- shirt being over short for the season), "my friend, I must die. What can I do for thee? The time is short."

"Brother," answered Prosper, "get a sword and harness, and I will keep the door till thou art ready. Then we will open it suddenly, and do what becomes us."

"Dear friend," Spiridion said mildly, "I have no sword. And since I am to die, I will die as well in my shirt as in a suit of mail."

"Certainly you are a great fool," said Prosper. "Yet I will defend you as well as I can. Get behind me now, for the door is shaking, and cannot hold out much longer."

Their assailants, without any further speech among themselves, beat at the door furiously, or with short runs hurtled against it with their shoulders. It seemed impossible it should stand, yet stand it did. Then one, Galors, cried suddenly out, "Fetch a hatchet!" and another ran helter-skelter down the corridor. The rest seemed to be waiting for him; the battering ceased.

"Here," said Spiridion, standing in his night-shirt before the shelf of images, "here are images of Christ on the Cross, of Mahound (made by a Maltese Jew), of Diana of the Ephesians, and Jupiter Ammon. Here too, are a Thammuz wrought in jade, and a cat-faced woman sitting naked in a chair. All are gods, and any one of them may be very God. Before which should I kneel? For to one I will as surely kneel as I shall surely die."

Prosper flushed red with annoyance. "Brother," said he, "thou art a greater fool than I thought possible. Die how you will. God knows how little of a god am I; but I will do what I can. Hey, now! look about!" he called out the next minute, and leapt back into the room. The door split in the midst and fell apart. Two men fully armed, with their vizors down, burst into the light; they were upon him in a flash. Prosper up with his shield and drove at them. They were no match for him with swords, as they very soon found when he penned them back in the entry. One of the pair, indeed, lost his arm in the first passes of the game, but the press of men behind forced them suddenly and violently forward whether they would or no. Prosper skewered one of them like a capon, against his own will, for he knew what must happen of that. Precisely; before he could disengage his weapon two more were at him in front, and one dodging round behind him with the hatchet slogged at his head with the back of it. Prosper tottered; it was all up with him. Another assailant slipped in under his guard with a pike, which he drove into his ribs. A second stinging blow from the hatchet dropped him. Prone on his face he fell, and never knew of the trampling he had from the freed pass.

They cut down and slew Spiridion as he was kneeling in his shirt before the crucifix; and then Galors came into the room to see that the work was done.

Prosper was lying on his face as he had fallen, with a great hole in his head. Galors suffered a contempt which he could not afford to such an enemy. He kicked the body. "Rot there, carrion," he said; then, with an after-thought, "No—rot in the water. Throw the pair of them by the window," he ordered his men, "and wait outside the gates for, me. I have things to do here." This was done.

When he was alone he stripped off all his armour, and put on instead Prosper's equipment. The defaced shield vexed him. Nothing was left of the blazon; nothing was left at all but the legend, "I bide my time."

"That, is what I will do no longer," said Galors with a heavy oath. "I have bided long enough; now, friend Prosper, do you bide yours. As for the cognizance, I know it very well by this; it shall be on again by the morning. Then we will see if I can do as Prosper what I have failed to do as Galors."

He headed his troop for Hauterive, reached it before daylight, and ended (as he thought) a signal chapter in his progress. As for Prosper, he bided his time with a broken head in Peering Pool.



CHAPTER XXVII

GALORS RIDES HUNTING

On the morning after the storm at Goltres, July 18, Galors sat in the hall of his stronghold habited as he had ridden in but a few hours before. In came a red-haired peasant, asking to be made his man.

"Why so, fellow?" asked Galors.

"Lording," said Falve, "because my mother hath done me a wrong."

"Why, thou dog?" cried Galors. "Would'st thou cut thy mother's throat under my flag?"

"Lording," Falve answered, "I would not cut my mother's throat under the Pope's flag. But I know thee to be a great lord, master of all these walks of Morgraunt. If I were made free of thy company I could ask thee a mercy; and if I asked thee a mercy it would be that thou should'st order my mother to give me back my wife."

"How, thy wife, rogue?" said Galors, who was weary of the man.

"Lording, she was to have been my wife this day. But she lay last night with my mother, and by the show of a certain token, which unknown to me she wore about her, prevailed upon my mother to let her go. So now she has escaped into the forest, and I am beggared of her without thy help."

By this Galors was awake. He leaned forward in his chair, put chin to hand, and asked quietly—"How was she called, this wife of thine, my knave?"

"Lording," replied the poor eager rogue, "she was a boy at first, called Roy; then she revealed herself a maiden."

"I asked her maiden name, red fool."

"Her name, my lording, was Isoult la Desirous."

"Ah! At last!"

He got up from his chair, saying shortly, "Take me this instant to thy mother."

"But lord—"

"Silence, lout, or I swing you sky-high. To your mother without a word."

Poor Falve, in a cold sweat, obeyed. They found the old lady making breathless preparations for departure.

"Mother," began Falve, "my Lord Galors—"

"Peace, fool!" broke in Galors. "Dame," he said civilly, "I must thank you for the great charge you have been at with a certain lady much in both our hearts. No doubt she has spoken to you of Messire Prosper le Gai. Madam, I am he."

"As God is great," Falve cried, "I could have sworn the lord of this town was Messire Galors de Born."

"And so he was but yesterday," said Galors. "But now I hold it for the Countess Isabel."

The old woman was convinced at this name. She caught Galors by the arm.

"And will you take back the lamb to the dam?" she bleated.

"That is all I ask," replied Galors, speaking the truth.

"You may catch her, Messire—you may catch her. Ah, if I could only have known of you yester-e'en! She's had but seven hours' start of you. Take the path for Thornyhold Brush, and you'll find her. Jesu Christ! when I saw the bleeding bird again I could have died, had there not been better work before me."

"The bleeding bird? Ah! the token, you would say."

"Yes, Messire, yes! The pelican in piety—the torn breast! The I and F. Ah! blood enough shed, blood enough. Go quickly, Sir Prosper, and testify for your name; 'tis of good omen and better report. And have you killed that sick wolf Galors, Messire? There, there, God will bless you for that, and prosper you as you have prospered us!"

Galors swallowed the pill and went out with no more ceremony. Falve ran after him.

"Eh, eh, Messire!" he spluttered. Galors let him splutter till they were within the courtyard. Then he called to a trooper.

"Take this man and flog him well," said he. Falve was seized.

"Ah, my lording," cried he, "what do you there? Must I be flogged because I have lost my wife?"

"No, dog. But because you have married mine."

"Nay, nay, mercy, my lording! I have not yet married her."

"Ha!" said Galors, "then you shall be flogged for jilting her."

And flogged he was. And the flogging cost Galors his prize.

Galors now bestirred himself. First he sat down and wrote a letter to the Countess, thus conceived.

"To the high lady, the Lady Isabel de Forz, Countess of Hauterive, Countess Dowager of March and Bellesme, Lady of Morgraunt—Galors de Born, Lord of Hauterive, Goltres, and West Wan, sendeth greeting in the Lord everlasting.

"That which your Serenity lost early is not too late found, and by us. The crystal locket, having the pelican in the Crown of Thorns, when we bring it upon the bosom where it hath ever slept waiting for the day which shall reveal it to you, will testify whether we lie or lie not. Know, however, that she shall assuredly come, and not unattended; but as, befits her condition, under the hand of him who, having found her, will provide that she be not lost again. It is not unknown to you, High Mightiness, how our power and estate have grown in these days to the threatening of your own. So it is, indeed, that now, in blood, in fees, in renown, in power of life and member, we are near enough to you to seek alliance still more close. And this is the last word of Galors; let the wearer of the crystal locket come home as the betrothed of the Lord Galors de Born, and heiress of High March and Morgraunt, Countess of Hauterive in time to be, and she shall come indeed. Otherwise she comes not; but Hauterive wears the crown which High March looks to put on. Thus we commend you to the holy keeping of God. From our tower of Hauterive, on the feast of Saint Arnulphus, bishop and martyr, the 15th calends of August, in the first year of our principality West of Wan."

This letter, sealed with the three wicket-gates and the circumscript, Entra per me, he sent forward at once by a party of six riders, one of whom carried a flag of truce. Then with but three to follow him, he rode out of the town, taking the path for Thornyhold Brush.



CHAPTER XXVIII

MERCY WITH THE BEASTS

Isoult, so soon as she had seen the last of old Ursula, turned her face to the south and the sun. She walked a mile through bush and bramble with picked-up skirts; then she sat down and took off her scarlet shoes and stockings, threw them aside, and went on with a lighter tread. Not that she was above the glory of silk robes and red slippers, or unconscious that they heightened the charm of her person —the old woman's glass, the old woman's face had told her better than that. Indeed, if she could have believed she would meet with Prosper at the end of that day, she would have borne with them, hindrance or none. But this was not to be. Her hair was yet a good six inches from her knees. So now, bare-legged and bare-footed, her skirts pulled back and pinned behind her, she felt the glad tune of the woods singing in her veins, and ran against the stream of cool air deeper into the fountain-heart whence it flowed, the great silence and shade of the forest. The path showed barer, the stems more sparse, the roof above her denser. Soon there was no more grass, neither any moss; nothing but mast and the leaves of many autumns. Keeping always down the slope, and a little in advance of the sun, by mid-day she had run clear of the beech forest into places where there grew hornbeams, with one or two sapling oaks. There was tall bracken here, and dewy grass again for her feet. She rested herself, sat deep in shade listening to the murmur of bees in the sunlight and the gentle complaining of wood- pigeons in the tree-tops far toward the blue. She lay down luxuriously in the fern, pillowed her cheek on her folded hands, closed her eyes, and let all the forest peace fan her to happy dreaming. It was impossible to be ill at ease in such a harbour. The alien faces and brawl of the town, the grime, the sweat, the blows of the charcoal- burners, her secret life there in the midst of them, the shame, the hooting and the stunning of her last day at distant High March, Maulfry, Galors, leering Falve—all these grim apparitions sank back into the green woodland vistas; all the shocks and alarums of her timid little soul were subdued by the rustling boughs and the crooning voices of the doves. She saw bright country in her dreams. Prosper was abroad on a spurred horse; his helmet gleamed in the sun; his enemies fell at his onset. The deer browsed about her, from the branches a squirrel peeped down, the woodbirds with kindly peering eyes hopped within reach of her cradled arms. Soon, soon, soon, she should see him! She would be sitting at his knees; her cheek would be on his breast, his arm hold her close, his kind eyes read all her love story. What a reward for what a little aching! She fell asleep in the fern and smiled at her own dreams. When she awoke two girls sat sentinel beside her.

They were ruddy, handsome, cheerful girls, with scarcely a pin's point of difference between them. They had brown eyes, brown loose hair, the bloom of healthy blood on their skin. One was more fully formed, more assured; perhaps she laughed rather less than the other; it was not noticeable. Isoult, with sleepy eyes, regarded them languidly, half awake. They sat on either side of her; each clasped a knee with her two hands; both watched her. Then the elder with a little laugh shook her hair back from her shoulders, stooped quickly forward, and kissed her. Isoult sat up.

"Oh, who are you?" she wondered.

"I am Belvisee," said the kissing girl.

"I am Mellifont," said the laugher.

"Do you live here?"

"Yes."

"Is this Thornyhold?"

"Thornyhold Brush is very near."

"Will you take me? I am to wait there."

"Come, sister."

Belvisee helped her up by the hand. When she was afoot Mellifont caught her other hand and kissed her in her turn—a glad and friendly little embrace. Friends indeed they looked as they stood hand-linked in the fern. All three were of a height, Isoult a shade shorter than the sisters.

She contrasted her attire with theirs; her own so ceremonious, theirs, what there was of it, simple in the extreme. A smock of coarse green flax, cut at a slant, which left one shoulder and breast bare, was looped on to the other shoulder, and caught at the waist by a leather strap. It bagged over the belt, and below it fell to brush the knees. Arms, legs, and feet were bare and brown. Visibly they wore nothing else. Mellifont laughed to see the scrutiny.

"We must undress you," she said.

"Why?"

"You cannot run like that."

"No, that is quite true. But——"

"Oh," said Belvisee, "you are quite safe. No men come where the king is."

"The king!"

"King of the herd."

"Ah, the deer are near by."

"All Thornhold is theirs. The great herd is here."

"Do you live with them?"

"Yes."

"And they feed you?"

"Yes."

"Ah," said Isoult, "then I shall be at peace till my lord comes, if there are no men."

"Have you a lord, a lover?"

"Yes, he is my lord, and I love him dearly."

"We have none. What is your name?"

"I am called Isoult la Desirous."

"Because you are a lover?"

"Yes. I am a lover."

"I will never love a man," said Belvisee rather gravely. "All men are cruel."

"I will never have a lover, nor be a lover, until men know what love is," said Mellifont in her turn.

"And what is love, do you think?" Isoult asked her thrilling.

"Love! Love! It is service," said Belvisee.

"Service and giving," said Mellifont.

Isoult turned aside and kissed Mellifont's cheek.

They had reached the low ground, for they had been walking during this colloquy. Oaks stood all about them, with bracken shoulder high. Into this the three girls plunged, and held on till they were stopped by a shallow brook. The sisters waded in, so did Isoult when she had picked up her skirts and petticoats. After a little course up stream through water joyfully cool they reached a place where the brook made a bend round the roots of an enormous oak; turning this they opened on a pool broad and deep.

"We will robe you here," said Belvisee, meaning rather to unrobe her.

The great gnarly roots of the oak were as pillars to a chamber which ran far into the bank. Here the two girls undressed Isoult, and here they folded and laid by her red silk gown. She became a pearly copy of themselves in all but her hair. Her hair! They had never seen such hair. Measuring it they found it almost to her knees.

"You cannot go with it loose," said they. "We must knot it up again; but we will go first to the herd."

"Let us go now," added Mellifont on an impulse, and took Isoult by the hand.

Crossing the brook below the pool, they climbed the bank and found themselves in a sunny broad place. The light glanced in and out of the slim grey trees. The bracken was thinner, the grass rich and dewy. Here Isoult saw the great herd of red deer—hundreds of hundreds— hinds and calves with some brockets and harts, busy feeding. Over all that spacious glade the herd was spread out till there seemed no end to it.

A sentinel stag left feeding as they came on. He looked up for a moment, stamped his foot, and went back to grass. One or two others copied him; but mostly the three girls could go among them without notice. Imperceptibly, however, the herd followed them feeding on their way to the king, so that by the time they reached him there was a line of deer behind them, and deer at either flank.

The great hart also stamped his foot and stood at gaze, with towering antlers and dewy nostrils very wide. Before him Belvisee and Mellifont let go of Isoult's hand: she was to make her entry alone. She put them behind her back, hardly knowing what was expected of her, shrank a little into herself and waited timidly. Slowly then the great hart advanced before his peering courtiers, pacing on with nodding head and horns. Exactly in front of Isoult he planted his forefeet, thence he looked down from his height upon her. She had always loved the deer, and was not now afraid; but she covered herself with her hair.

The king stag smelt her over, beginning at her feet. He snuffed for a long time at the nape of her neck, blew in her hair so as to spray it out like a fountain scattered to the wind; then he fell to licking her cheek. She, made bold, put a hand and laid it on his mane. Shyly she stood thus, waiting events. The great beast lifted his head high and gave a loud bellow; all the deer chorused him; the forest rang. So Isoult was made free of the herd.

Belvisee and Mellifont lay beside her on the grass. Isoult lay on her face, while Mellifont coiled and knotted up her hair.

"If love is giving, and you are a lover, Isoult," said she, "you would give your hair."

"I have given it," said Isoult, and told them her story as they all lay there together.

"And to think that you have endured all this from men, and yet love a man!" cried flushed Mellifont, when she had made an end.

But Isoult smiled wisely at her.

"Ah, Mellifont," she said, "the more you saw of men, the more you would find to love in him."

"Indeed, I should do no such thing," said Mellifont, firing up again.

"You could not help it. Everyone must love him."

"That might not suit you, Isoult," said Belvisee.

"Why should it not? Would it prevent my love to know him loved? I should love him all the more."

"Hark!" cried Mellifont on a sudden. She laid her ear to the ground, then jumped to her feet.

"Come to the herd, come to the herd," she whispered.

Belvisee was on her feet also in a trice. Both girls were hot and bright.

"What disturbs you?" asked Isoult, who had heard nothing.

"Horsemen! quick, quick." They all ran between the trees to regain the deer. Isoult could hear no horses; but the sisters had, and now she saw that the deer had. Every head was up, every ear still, every nostril on the stretch. Listening now intently, faint and far she did hear a muffled knocking—it was like a beating heart, she thought. Whatever it was, the deer guessed an enemy. Upon a sudden stamp, the whole herd was in motion. Led by the hart-royal, they trotted noiselessly down the wood, till in the thick fern they lay still. The girls lay down with them.

The sound gained rapidly upon them. Soon they heard the crackling of twigs, then the swish of swept brushwood, then the creaking of girths. Isoult hid her face, lying prone on her breast.

Galors and his men came thundering through the wood. Their horses were reeking, dripping from the flanks. The riders, four of them, looking neither right nor left, past over the open ground, where a few minutes before she whom they desperately sought had been lying at their mercy. But Galors, fled by all things living in Morgraunt, scourged on like a destroying wind and was gone. Isoult little knew how near she had been to the unclean thing. If she had seen him she would have run straight to him without a thought, for he bore the red feathers in his helmet, and behind him, on the shield, danced in the glory of new gilt the fesse dancettee.

It may be doubted if the instincts of the earth-born can ever pierce the trappings of a knight-at-arms. They trust in emotions which such gear is designed to hide or transfigure. Isoult, observe, had caught Prosper out of his harness, when before the face of the sky she had thrilled him to pity. But when once he had stooped to her, for the very fact, she made haste to set him up on high in her heart, and in more seemly guise. There and thenceforward he stood on his pedestal figured, not as a pitiful saviour (whom a girl must be taught to worship), but as an armed god who suffered her homage. She was no better (or no worse, if you will) than the rest of her sex in this, that she loved to love, and was bewildered to be loved. So she would never get him out of armour again. Her god might not stoop.



CHAPTER XXIX

WANMEETING CRIES, 'HA! SAINT JAMES!'

The story returns to Prosper le Gai and his broken head. The blow had been sharp, but Peering Pool was sharper. It brought him to consciousness, of a sort sufficient to give him a disrelish for drowning. Lucky for him he was unarmed. He found himself swimming, paddling, rolling at random; he swallowed quantities of water, and liked drowning none the better. By the little light there was he could make out the line of the dark hull of Goltres, by the little wit he had he remembered that the water-gate was midway the building or thereabouts. He turned his face to the wall and, half clinging, half swimming, edged along it till he reached port. The last ebb of his strength sufficed to drag him up the stair; then he floated off into blankness again.

When he stirred he was stiff, and near blind with fever. A cold light silvered the pool; it was not yet dawn. His plight was pitiable. He ached and shivered and burned, he drowsed and muttered, dreamed horribly, sweated and was cold, shuddered and was hot. One of his arms he could not lift at all; at one of his sides, there was a great stiff cake of cloth and blood and water. He became light-headed, sang, shouted, raved, swore, prayed.

"To me, to me, Isoult! Ah, dogs of the devil, this to a young maid! Yes, madam, the Lady Isoult, and my wife. Love her! O God, I love her at last. Hounded, hounded, hounded out! Love of Christ, how I love her! Bailiff, Galors will come—a white-faced, sullen dog. Cut him down, bailiff, without mercy, for he hath shown no mercy. The man in the wood—ha! dead—Salomon de Born. Green froth on his lips—fie, poison! She has killed Galors' only son. Galors, she has poisoned him —oh, mercy, mercy, Lord, must I die?" And then with tears, and the whining of a child—"Isoult, Isoult, Isoult!"

In tears his delirium spent itself, and again he was still, in a broken sleep. The sun rose, the sky warmed itself and glowed, the crispy waves of Peering Pool glittered, the white burden it bore floated face upwards, an object of interest and suspicion for the coots; soon a ray of generous heat shot obliquely down upon the sleeper on the stairs. Prosper woke again, stretched, and yawned. Most of his pains seemed now to centre in the pit of his stomach, a familiar grief. Prosper was hungry.

"Pest!" said the youth, "how hungry I am. I can do nothing till I have eaten."

He tried to get up, and did succeed in raising himself on all fours. But for the life of him he could do no more. He sat down again and thought about eating. He remembered the bread and olives, the not unkindly red wine of the night before. Then he remembered Spiridion, dispenser of meat and many questions.

"That poor doubting rogue!" he laughed. But he sobered himself. "I do ill to laugh, God knows! The man must be dead by now, and all his doubts with him. I must go find him. But I must eat some of his bread and olives first."

Once more he got on all fours, and this time he crawled to the stop of the stairway. Clinging to the lintel and hoisting himself by degrees, he at last stood fairly on his feet—but with a spinning head, and a sickness as unto death. He tottered and flickered; but he stuck to his door-post.

"Bread and olives!" he cried. "I am to die, it seems, but by the Lord I will eat first."

He made a rush for it, gained so the great hall, dizzied through it somehow, and out into the corridor. He flung himself at the stone stairs with the desperation of his last agony, half crawled, half swarmed up to the top (dragging his legs after him at the end, like a hare shot in the back), and finished his course to Spiridion's chamber on hands and knees. He had probably never in his life before worked so hard for a breakfast. He was dripping with sweat, shaking like gossamer; but his fever had left him. Bread and a bottle of wine did wonders for him. He felt very drunk when he had done, and was conscious that pot-valiancy only gave him the heart to tear off his clothes. A flask of sweet oil from Spiridion's shelf helped him here. Next he probed the rents. He found a deepish wound in the groin, a sword-cut in the fleshy part of his left arm; then there was his head! He assured himself that the skull was whole.

"I never respected my ancestors before," he cried. "Such a headpiece is worthy of a Crusader."

He kindled a fire, heated water, washed out his hurts, oiled them and bound them up with one of Spiridion's bed-sheets.

"Now," he reflected, "by rights I should go and hunt for my poor host. But I am still drunk unfortunately. Let me consider. Spiridion must pass for a man. If he is dead he will wait for me. If he is not dead he is no worse off than I am. Good. I will sleep." And he slept round the clock.

Next morning when he awoke he was stiff and sore, but himself. He finished the bread, drank another bottle of wine, and looked about for his armour. It was not there. Instead, the white wicket-gates gleamed at him from a black shield, white plumes from a black headpiece, and the rest of a concatenation.

"Entra per me," he read. "Enter I will," said Prosper, "and by you. This device," he went on, as he fitted the cuisses, "this device is not very worthy of Dom Galors. It speaks of hurry. It speaks, even, of precipitation, for if he must needs wear my harness, at least he might have carried his own. Galors was flurried. If he was flurried he must have had news. If, having news, he took my arms, it must have been news of Isoult. He intended to deceive her by passing for me. Good; I will deceive his allies by passing for himself. But first I must find Spiridion."

He had too much respect for his enemy, as you will observe if I have made anything of Galors. Galors was no refiner, not subtle; he was direct. When he had to think he held his tongue, so that you should believe him profound. When he got a thought he made haste to act upon it, because it really embarrassed him. None of Prosper's imaginings were correct. If the monk had been capable of harbouring two thoughts at a time, there would not have been a shred of mail in the room.

That sodden thing lipped by the restless water was Spiridion. He lay on his back, thinner and more peaked than ever in life; his yellow hair made him an aureole. He looked like some martyred ascetic, with his tightened smile and the gash half-way through his neck.

Prosper leaned upon his punt-pole looking sorrowfully at him.

"Alas, my brother," he said half whimsically, "do you smile? Even so I think God should smile that He had let such a thing be made. And if, as I believe, you know the truth at last, that is why you also smile. But shut your eyes, my brother," he added, stooping to do the office, "shut your eyes, for you wore them thin with searching and now can see without them. Let them rest."

Very tenderly he pulled him out of the water, very reverently took him to land. He buried him before his own gates, and over him set the crucifix, which in the end he had found grace to see. He was too good a Christian not to pray over the grave, and not sufficient of a hero to be frank about his tears. At the end of all this business he found his horse. Then he rode off at a canter for Hauterive.

* * * * *

It is one thing to kindle military fires in the breast of a High Bailiff, quite another to bid them out. Prosper had overstepped his authority. The High Bailiff of Wanmeeting held himself in check for the better part of a week after his generalissimo's departure; at the end of five days he could endure it no more. His harness clamoured, his sword tarnished for blood; he had fifteen hundred men in steel. That would mean fifteen hundred and one tarnishing blades, and the unvoiced reproaches of fifteen hundred and one suits of mail. In a word, the High Bailiff itched to try a fall with the redoubtable Galors de Born.

He sent, therefore, a man to ring the great bell of the parish church. This assembled the citizens pell-mell, for the times were stirring. The High Bailiff, being assured of his auditory, summoned the garrison, put himself at the head of them on a black stallion, sounded trumpets, and marched into the Market-place. The cheers clipped him like heady wine; but it was the eloquence of the women's handkerchiefs that really gave him heart. Standing in his stirrups, hat in hand, he made a short speech.

"Men of Wanmeeting and brothers," he said, "to-day you shall prove yourselves worthy of your Lady Paramount, of your late master, and of me. Galors de Born, the arch-enemy, is skulking in his strong tower, not daring to attack us. Men of Wanmeeting, we will go and bait him. Hauterive is ours. Follow me, crying, Ha! Saint James!"

"Ha! Saint James!" shouted the men, with their caps pike-high.

The Bailiff glowed in his skin. He drew his sword.

"Forward!" He gave the word.

The entire ardent garrison marched out of the town, and Wanmeeting was left with its women and elders, anybody's capture.

The consequence of these heroical attitudes was, that Prosper, riding hard to Hauterive, came in sight of a besieging army round about it—a tented field, a pavilion, wherefrom drooped the saltire of De Forz, a long line of attack, in fine, a notable scheme of offence. He saw a sortie from the gates driven back by as mettlesome a cavalry charge as he could have wished to lead.

"The Bailiff of Wanmeeting, as I live by bread!" he cried out.

He stayed for some time watching the fray from a little rising ground. The cavalry, having beaten in the defenders, retired in good order; the archers advanced to cover a party of pikemen with scaling-ladders.

"Now is my time to board the Bailiff," said Prosper, and rode coolly across the field.

The High Bailiff saw, as he thought, Galors himself riding unattended towards him.

"Ha! negotiations," said he; "and in person! I have hit a mark it seems. I may take a high tone. Unconditional surrender and all arms, hey?"

Prosper rode up, saluting.

"Messire de Born," said the Bailiff.

"Prosper le Gai," said the other.

"Madam Virgin! I thought you had perished, Messire."

"Not at all, Bailiff. Was that why you took over my command?"

The Bailiff bowed. "I gladly relinquish it, Messire."

Prosper nodded pleasantly.

"That last charge of yours could hardly have been bettered, though I think you might have got in. How many men did you drop?"

"Ten, Messire. We brought off the wounded."

"Ten is enough. You shall lose no more. Call off that scaling party."

The Bailiff repeated the order.

"Your men know their work," said Prosper; "but why do they cry for Saint James?"

The High Bailiff coloured.

"Well, Messire," he said, "there is undoubtedly a Saint James, an Apostle and a great Saint."

"Of the greatest," said Prosper. "But, pardon. I thought your burgh was devoted to Saint Crispin?"

"Messire, it is so. But there were reasons. First, your battle-cry should be familiar——"

"As Saint Crispin to Wanmeeting?"

"As the name of James, Messire. For it is my own poor name."

"Ah," said Prosper, "I begin to see."

"Then," said the Bailiff, pursuing his reasons, "a battle-cry should be short, of one syllable——"

"Like Saint Dennis?" Prosper asked.

"Like Saint George, Messire."

"Or Saint Andrew?" said Prosper sweetly.

"Or—"

Or Montjoy, or Bide the Time, eh, Bailiff?"

"Messire, you have me at a disadvantage for the moment. The name is, however, that of a Saint."

"Say no more, Bailiff, but listen. There need be no more bloodshed over this place. Get your men together, to advance at a signal from within. I will go alone into the town. Now, do you notice that little square window in the citadel? When you see the Saltire hang there you will march in and meet me at the Bishop's Gate."

"Oh, Messire, what will you do?"

"Leave that to me," Prosper said, as he rode off.

He rode close to the moat and kept by it, making a half circuit of the walls. He had calculated on Galors' armour, and calculated well, for nobody molested him from the defenders' side. At the Bishop's Gate he reined up, and stood with his spear erect at the length of his arm.

"Who comes?" cried the sentry.

"Entra per me," growled Prosper, with a shot for Galors' sulky note.

The gate swung apart, the bridge fell, the portcullis was drawn up. Prosper rode through the streets of Hauterive amid the silence of the inhabitants and the cheers of the garrison—two very different sets of persons. He went into the citadel, displayed the appointed signal, then returned on horseback to the Bishop's Gate. He had not a word to say, but this was quite in character. So he stood waiting.

There was presently a fine commotion at the gate; a man came running up to him.

"Messire, they are going to attack the gate!"

"Open it," said Prosper.

"Messire?"

"Open it, hound!"

The man reeled, but carried the order. Prosper rode stately out; and when he returned a second time it was at the head of the Countess Isabel's troops.

"Bailiff," said he, when they were in the citadel and all the news out, "I am no friend of your mistress, as you know; but I am not a thief. Hauterive is hers. To-morrow morning I shall declare it so; until then Galors, if you please, is Lord. Let me now say this," he continued. "I admire you because you have a high heart. But you lack one requisite of generalship, as it appears to me. You have no head. Get back at once to Wanmeeting with one thousand of your men, and leave me five hundred of them to work with. You may think yourself lucky if you find one stone on another or one man's wife as she should be. By the time you are there you will no doubt have orders from High March. You may send news thither that this place is quiet and restored, as from to-morrow morning, to its allegiance. Good morning, Bailiff"

The Bailiff was very much struck with Prosper's sagacity, and went at once. Prosper and his five hundred men held the citadel.

He confided his secret to those whom he could trust; the remainder fraternized in the wine shops and dealt liberally in surmise. The general opinion seemed to be that Galors had married the Countess Isabel.

* * * * *

Having thus ridded him of all his charges, Prosper could steer the ship of his mind whither his soul had long looked—to Isoult and marriage. Marriage was become a holy thing, a holy sepulchre of peace to be won at all costs. No crusader was he, mind you, fighting for honour, but a pitiful beaten wayfarer longing for ease from his aching. He did not seek, he did not know, to account for the change in him. It had come slowly. Slowly the girl had transfigured before him, slowly risen from below him to the level of his eyes; and now she was above him. He shrined her high as she had shrined him, but for different reasons as became a man. What a woman loves in man is strength, what a man loves in women is also strength, the strength of weak things. The strength of the weak thing Isoult had been that, she had known how to hold him off because of her love's sake. There is always pity (which should become reverence) in a man's love. He had never pitied her till she fought so hard for the holiness of her lover.

Oddly enough, Isoult loved him the more for the very attack which she had foiled. Odd as it may be, that is where the truth lies. As for him, gratitude for what she had endured for his sake might go for nothing. Men do not feel gratitude—they accept tribute. But if they pity, and their pity is quickened by knowledge of the pitiful, then they love. Her pleading lips, her dear startled eyes stung him out of himself. And then he found out why her eyes were startled and why her lips were mute. She was lovely. Yes, for she loved. This beseeching child, then, loved him. He knew himself homeless now until she took him in.



CHAPTER XXX

THE CHAINED VIRGIN OF SAINT THORN

The Abbot Richard of Malbank Saint Thorn went hunting the deer in Morgraunt with a good company of prickers and dogs. In Spenshaw he unharboured a stag, and he followed him hard. The hart made straight for Thornyhold Brush where the great herd lay; there Mellifont, who was sentry for the time, heard him and gave the alarm. Fern brakes will hide man from man, but here were dogs. The hunted hart drove sheer into the thicket on his way to the water; a dog was at his heels, half-a-dozen more were hard on him. The herd had scattered on all hands long before this. Mellifont saved herself with them, but Belvisee tarrying to help Isoult was caught. A great hound snapped at her as he passed; she limped away with a wounded side. Isoult, too much of a woman and too little of a hind, stood still. She had closed with Fate before.

Up came the Abbot's men with horns and shouting voices for the baying of the deer. He, brave beast, was knifed in the brook and broken up, the dogs called off and leashed. Then one of the huntsmen saw Isoult. She had let down her hair for a curtain and stood watching them intently, neither defiant nor fearful, but with a long, steady, unwinking gaze. Her bosom rose quick and short, there was no other stressful sign; she was flushed rather than white. One of the men thought she was a wood-girl—they all knew of such beings; he crossed himself. Another knew better. Her mother Mald was a noted witch; he whistled.

A third thought she was uncommonly handsome; he could only look. The dogs whimpered and tugged at the leash; they doubtless knew that there was blood in her. So all waited till the Abbot came up much out of breath.

Isoult, cloaked in her panoply of silence, saw him first. In fact the Abbot had eyes only for the dead hart which had led him such a race. One of the prickers ran forward and caught at his stirrup-leather.

"Lord Abbot, here is the strangest thing my eyes have ever seen in Morgraunt. As we followed the chase we drove into a great herd which ran this way and that way. And in the thick of the deer were three young women scantily attired, as the one you see yonder, going with the beasts. Of whom two have got clear (one bitten by the mouse- coloured hound), and this one remains speechless. And who the others were, whether flesh and blood or wind and breath, I cannot tell you; but if this laggard is not Isoult, whom we call La Desirous, Matt-o'- the-Moor's daughter, I am no fit servant for your Holiness' diversions."

The Abbot had pricked up his ears; now he looked sharply at Isoult.

"You are right, Sweyn," he said; "leave her to me. Girl," he turned to her, "this time it shall likely go hard with thee. Trees are plenty and ropes easy to come by. I warned thee before. I shall not warn thee now."

Isoult bowed her head.

"What dost thou do here, herding in the wood with wild beasts?" he went on.

"Lord, none but the beasts will give me food or rest or any kindness at all. There is no pity in man nor woman that I have seen, save in two, and one is dead. Prosper le Gai, my lord, and husband, hath pity, and will come to me at last. And whether he shall come to my body alone or my spirit alone, he will come. And now, lord, hang me to a tree."

"Dost thou want to be hanged?" he asked.

"Nay, lord, I am too young to be hanged," she said. "Moreover, though I am wedded to my lord, I am not a wife. For only lately he hath loved me, and that since we were put apart."

"Wed, and a virgin, girl? Where is thy husband?"

"Lord, he is searching for me."

"Where hath he been, what hath he done—or thou, what hast thou done, for such a droll fate as this?"

Isoult very simply told him everything. Of Galors he already had some news—enough to dread more. But when he heard that the girl had actually been in High March Castle, had been expelled from it, he crossed himself and thanked God for all His mercies. He became a devout Christian at this critical point in Isoult's career, whereby her neck was saved a second time from the rope. He felt a certain pity—she a handsome girl, too, though his type for choice was blonde —for her simplicity, and, as he certainly wished to obtain mercy, reflected upon the possible blessings of the merciful. Besides, Galors was at large, Galors who knew the story, to say nothing of Prosper, also at large, who did not know the story, but did know, on the other hand, the Countess Isabel. Difficult treading! But so the habits of a lifetime for once chimed in with its professions. Even as he stood pitying he roughed out another set of shifts. Prosper and his unconsummated marriage might be set aside—the fool, he thought with a chuckle, deserved it. There remained Galors. He would get the girl married to a mesne of the abbey, or stay! he would marry her elsewhere and get a dowry. She had filled out astonishingly, every line of her spoke of blood: there would be no trouble about a dowry. Then he might supplant Galors by being beforehand with him at the Countess's ear. Gratitude of the mother, gratitude of the daughter, gratitude of the son-in-law! Thus Charity walked hand in hand with Policy. The girl was a beauty. What a picture she made there, short-frocked, flushed and loose-haired, like an Amazon—but, by Mars, not maimed liked an Amazon. The Abbot was a connoisseur of women, as became a confessor and man of the world.

"If I do not hang thee, Isoult, wilt thou come with me to Saint Thom?"

"Yes, lord, I will come."

"Up with you then before me," said the Abbot, and stooped to lift her. Her hair fell back as she was swung into the saddle. "My lady," thought the Abbot, "it is clear you are no Amazon; but I should like to know what you wear round that fine little neck of yours."

He bided his time, and sent the men and dogs on ahead. Then at starting he spurred his horse so that the beast plunged both his riders forward. The burden of the chain slipt its harbourage, and the next minute the Abbot had ring and locket in the palm of his hand.

"What is this ring, my girl?" he asked.

"My lord, it is my wedding-ring, wherewith I was wed in the cottage."

"Ah, is that it? Well, I will keep it until there is need."

Isoult began to cry at this, which cut her deeper than all the severances she had known. She could confess to the ring.

"Don't cry, child," said the Abbot, whom women's tears troubled; "believe me when I say that you shall have it for your next wedding."

"Oh, my ring! my ring! What shall I do? It is all I have. Oh, my lord, my lord!"

This pained the Abbot extremely. He got what satisfaction there was from the thought that, having dropt it behind him, he could not give it back for all the tears in the world. He was busy now examining the other token—a crystal locket whereon were a pelican in piety circled with a crown of thorns, and on the other side the letters I and F interlaced. He knew it better than most people.

"Isoult, stop crying," he said. "Take off this chain and locket and give them to me."

So she did.

"Ah, my lord," she pleaded as she tendered, "I ask only for the ring."

"Plague take the ring," cried the Abbot very much annoyed. "I will throw it away if you say another word about it."

The threat chilled her. She dried her eyes, hoping against hope, for even hope needs a sign.

When he had his prize safe in Holy Thorn, the Abbot Richard, who had a fantastic twist in him, and loved to do his very rogueries in the mode, set himself to embroider his projects when he should have been executing them. His lure was a good lure, but she would be none the worse for a little gilding; there must be a pretty cage, with a spice of malice in its devising, to excite the tenderer feelings. It should be polite malice, however—a mere hint at a possible tragedy behind a smirk.

He dressed her in green silk because she was fresh-coloured and had black hair. If she had been pale, as when he first knew her, and as she was to be again before he knew her no more, the dress would have been red, depend upon it. He put a gold ring on her finger, a jewel on her forehead, a silver mirror and a Book of Hours bound in silver leaves to swing at her girdle. Her chamber was hung with silk arras,— the loving history of Aristotle and a princess of Cyprus;—she had two women to wait upon her, to tire her hair in new ways and set new crowns upon it; she had a close garden of her own, with roses and a fountain, grass lawns, peacocks. She had pages to serve her kneeling, musical instruments, singing boys and girls. He gave her a lap-dog. Finally he kissed her and said—