The Forest Lovers Part 42

"Yes, she has," said Mellifont gravely.

Prosper stooped in his saddle and laid a hand on her head.

"My dear," said he, "I love that hunted lady beyond everything in the world; I never knew how much until I had lost her. But no wrong will happen to her till she hears me tell her the truth. If you know anything you must not hide it from me."

Mellifont peered up at him through her hair.

"Are you Prosper?" she asked.

"Yes, I am indeed. Did she speak to you about me?"

"Often."

"Is she--ah, Lord of Hosts! she is not here?"

"No, not now. She was here. Come with me. But you must leave your horse and sword behind you."

Prosper obeyed her without a thought. Mellifont took his hand and led him to the hollow under the oak. Belvisee was there, dumbly nursing her side, which a stooping hind was licking when the pair came up.

Prosper received the red robe and the sequins from her hands, and in time pieced the story together. It cut him to the soul.

"Take me to the place where the dogs got her," he said in a whisper.

Belvisee and Mellifont led him there. Once more, then, he wasted his eyes on crushed herbage, black fern, and stained earth; again loathed himself very heartily for what he had not done; but in time understood what he had done. He turned deliberately to the sisters. "Belvisee and Mellifont, listen to what I shall tell you. There is no strength like a woman's, and no blindness like that of a man. For the woman is strong because she is blind and cannot see the man she loves as he is; therefore she makes him in her own glorious image. But the man is blind because he is strong, and because he seeth himself so glorious that he can abide no other near him save as a servant. In that he doth deadly sin to Love, because the food of Love is service, and he that serves not Love starves him. But the woman feedeth him with her own milk; so Love is with her till she dies. I, by the mercy of G.o.d, have learned what Love is, and can feed him with service. And Isoult la Desirous has taught me, who is now Isoult la Desiree."

Prosper ceased. Mellifont was crying on Belvisee's shoulder. The latter said--

"Prosper, if all men were like thee, we might leave the forest and dwell with them."

"Come with me," he said, "and I will see you safely bestowed."

"No, no; we will stay where we are known and with whom we know. All men are not like you."

"As you must, it must needs be," replied Prosper. He kissed each on the cheek, and watched them go hand-in-hand down the glade. The herd closed in upon them, so neither he nor the Argument knows them any more.

Prosper knelt down to pray; but what he found set him to better work.

He found Isoult's wedding-ring.

"By G.o.d," he cried, "who made men to labour, I will pray with my hands this turn!"

He ran for his horse and sword. Courage came with his gallop, courage and self-esteem, without which no man ever did anything yet. With self-esteem returned sober thought.

"I can do Malbank in three or four hours. There is light enough for what I have to settle there. I will spare my horse and save time in the end. Meantime I will think this affair out." So said Prosper galloping to Prosper on his feet, the late moralist. His plan was very simply to confront the Abbot with his ring. If that failed he would scour his own country, raise a troop, and lay leaguer on Saint Thorn.

He had forgotten Galors. He was soon to have a reminder of that grim fighter.

The doors of the great church stood open, so Prosper rode in. It was cold and dark, and smelt of death and candle-fumes. The pilasters of the nave were already swathed in black velvet; in the choir were great lights set on the floor, in the midst of them a bier. A priest was at a little altar by the bier's head, other cowled figures crouched about it. There was a low murmur of praying, even, whining, and mechanical.

On the bier Prosper saw the comely Abbot Richard Dieudonne, in cope and mitre, holding in his hand the staff of his high office. This pastor of the Church was at peace; the man of the world was sober with access of wisdom; the man of modes smiled pleasantly at his secret thoughts. Very handsome, very remote, very pure he looked; for so death purges off the dross which we work into the good clay.

Prosper, meditative always at the sight of death, stood and pondered upon it. Everything was well, no doubt; such things should be! but the indifference of the defunct seemed almost shocking. Do they not care for decent interment? Then he turned to a bystander.

"You mourn for your father?" he asked.

"Master, we do indeed. What! a great lord, a throned and pompous priest, to be felled like a calf; his body spitted like a lark's! No leave asked! You may well judge whether we mourn. I suppose there never was such a mournful affair since a king died in this country."

"Murdered?" cried Prosper, highly scandalized.

"Murdered by Prosper le Gai for the sake of the Chained Virgin."

"By Prosper le Gai?"

"'Tis so indeed. And well he did his work, if there's anything in wrist play. For first he spits the Abbot, and then he sunders the chain, and next he overhauls the girl, and next the Abbot. And he puts her under his arm like a marketable hen, and away he gallops over the heath. Hot work!"

"Galors' work," said Prosper to himself as he turned away.

He prayed at three altars for the man's soul, turned, mounted, and galloped. He forded Wan. A horseman met him on the further bank, shouting. Prosper lowered his head and shot at him as from a catapult.

The spear drove deep, the man threw his arms out, sobbed, and dropped like a stone. Prosper went on his race.

It was growing dusk when he stood on the threshold of Matt's intake, battering at the door. The hag-ridden face of old Mald stared out. She parted her tattered hair from her eyes and pointed a shaky finger at him.

"Galors," she wailed, "Galors, thou monk forsworn, thinkest thou to have the Much-Desired? No, but her husband has her at last, and shall have her with all that is hers--ah, though he have done murder to get her. Swear back, Galors, and pray for thy dead master."

Prosper held up his hand to stay the tide.

"Mother, I am Prosper, the husband of the Much-Desired. No murder have I done, though I have seen murder. And I have not my wife; but I believe she is with Galors."

Old Mald came fawning out to him at this, and took his hands in her own trembling hands.

"He pa.s.sed an hour agone," said she. "He will do her no wrong till he hath her at High March, trust him for that. And by now he should be near Martle, and she before him on the saddle-bow."

She began to weep and wag her silly head. Prosper made to go, having no time to waste; but, "Stop," she quavered, "and hear me out. Though the Abbot Richard was murdered at his prayers, yet withal he got his deserts, for he hatched a worse wrong than ever Galors did. The child was chained by the middle, and came to me chained riding a white palfrey. In green and white she came, and round her middle was a chain, long and supple, and a monk on horse-back held the end thereof.

She came to me to the hearth at the length of her chain, and held me in her dear arms, and kissed me, cheeks and forehead. Down I sat on my stool and she on the knees of me, and she hid her face on my leanness while she spoke of you, my lord--called you her dear heart, and told of all the bitter longings she had. Ah, now! Ah, now! If you but knew."

"G.o.d forgive me," cried the lacerated wretch, "but I know it all! Yet tell me what else she said."

"There was little more," said Mald, "for the monk pulled at her, and she went as she came."

"Have they pa.s.sed an hour gone?" said Prosper in a dry whisper.

"Ah, and more."

"G.o.d be with you," said he; "pray for her."

"Pray!" mocked the crone in a rage; "and pray what will that do?"

"No more than I, mother, just now. G.o.d is all about us. Farewell!"

And he was gone amid flying peats.

Midway of the heath a second knight met him, challenged him, and charged. Prosper was not for small game that night. His head grew cooler, as always, for his haste, his arm steady as a rock. Thereupon he ran his man through the breastbone. He broke his spear, but took the other's, and away. At the edge of the wood the moon-rays gleamed a third time upon mail. It was Galors' last sentry, who hallooed to stay him. Prosper was on him before he was ready, and hurled him from the saddle. He never moved. Prosper galloped through the wood.

The snapping branches, thunder of hoofs, labouring belly and hard-won breath of his beast, more than all the wind that sang in his ears, prevented him from hearing what Galors and his prey had already heard.