The Forest Lovers

by Maurice Hewlett

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  MERCY WITH THE BEASTS

  Isoult, so soon as she had seen the last of old Ursula, turned her faceto the south and the sun. She walked a mile through bush and bramblewith picked-up skirts; then she sat down and took off her scarlet shoesand stockings, threw them aside, and went on with a lighter tread. Notthat she was above the glory of silk robes and red slippers, orunconscious that they heightened the charm of her person--the oldwoman'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 theend of that day, she would have borne with them, hindrance or none. Butthis 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 pinnedbehind 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-heartwhence it flowed, the great silence and shade of the forest. The pathshowed barer, the stems more sparse, the roof above her denser. Soonthere was no more grass, neither any moss; nothing but mast and theleaves of many autumns. Keeping always down the slope, and a little inadvance of the sun, by mid-day she had run clear of the beech forestinto places where there grew hornbeams, with one or two sapling oaks.There was tall bracken here, and dewy grass again for her feet. Sherested herself, sat deep in shade listening to the murmur of bees inthe sunlight and the gentle complaining of wood-pigeons in thetree-tops far toward the blue. She lay down luxuriously in the fern,pillowed her cheek on her folded hands, closed her eyes, and let allthe forest peace fan her to happy dreaming. It was impossible to be illat ease in such a harbour. The alien faces and brawl of the town, thegrime, the sweat, the blows of the charcoal-burners, her secret lifethere in the midst of them, the shame, the hooting and the stunning ofher last day at distant High March, Maulfry, Galors, leering Falve--allthese grim apparitions sank back into the green woodland vistas; allthe shocks and alarums of her timid little soul were subdued by therustling boughs and the crooning voices of the doves. She saw brightcountry in her dreams. Prosper was abroad on a spurred horse; hishelmet gleamed in the sun; his enemies fell at his onset. The deerbrowsed about her, from the branches a squirrel peeped down, thewoodbirds with kindly peering eyes hopped within reach of her cradledarms. Soon, soon, soon, she should see him! She would be sitting at hisknees; her cheek would be on his breast, his arm hold her close, hiskind eyes read all her love story. What a reward for what a littleaching! She fell asleep in the fern and smiled at her own dreams. Whenshe awoke two girls sat sentinel beside her.

  They were ruddy, handsome, cheerful girls, with scarcely a pin's pointof difference between them. They had brown eyes, brown loose hair, thebloom of healthy blood on their skin. One was more fully formed, moreassured; perhaps she laughed rather less than the other; it was notnoticeable. Isoult, with sleepy eyes, regarded them languidly, halfawake. They sat on either side of her; each clasped a knee with her twohands; both watched her. Then the elder with a little laugh shook herhair 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 caughther other hand and kissed her in her turn--a glad and friendly littleembrace. Friends indeed they looked as they stood hand-linked in thefern. All three were of a height, Isoult a shade shorter than thesisters.

  She contrasted her attire with theirs; her own so ceremonious, theirs,what there was of it, simple in the extreme. A smock of coarse greenflax, cut at a slant, which left one shoulder and breast bare, waslooped on to the other shoulder, and caught at the waist by a leatherstrap. It bagged over the belt, and below it fell to brush the knees.Arms, legs, and feet were bare and brown. Visibly they wore nothingelse. 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 kingis."

  "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, ifthere 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 arecruel."

  "I will never have a lover, nor be a lover, until men know what loveis," 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 thiscolloquy. Oaks stood all about them, with bracken shoulder high. Intothis the three girls plunged, and held on till they were stopped by ashallow brook. The sisters waded in, so did Isoult when she had pickedup her skirts and petticoats. After a little course up stream throughwater joyfully cool they reached a place where the brook made a bendround the roots of an enormous oak; turning this they opened on a poolbroad 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 whichran far into the bank. Here the two girls undressed Isoult, and herethey folded and laid by her red silk gown. She became a pearly copy ofthemselves in all but her hair. Her hair! They had never seen suchhair. 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 thehand.

  Crossing the brook below the pool, they climbed the bank and foundthemselves in a sunny broad place. The light glanced in and out of theslim grey trees. The bracken was thinner, the grass rich and dewy. HereIsoult saw the great herd of red deer--hundreds of hundreds--hinds andcalves with some brockets and harts, busy feeding. Over all thatspacious 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 amoment, stamped his foot, and went back to grass. One or two otherscopied him; but mostly the three girls could go among them withoutnotice. Imperceptibly, however, the herd followed them feeding on theirway to the king, so that by the time they reached him there was a lineof deer behind them, and deer at either flank.

  The great hart also stamped his foot and stood at gaze, with toweringantlers and dewy nostrils very wide. Before him Belvisee and Mellifontlet go of Isoult's hand: she was to make her entry alone. She put thembehind her back, hardly knowing what was expected of her, shrank alittle into herself and waited timidly. Slowly then the great hartadvanced before his peering courtiers, pacing on with nodding head andhorns. Exactly in front of Isoult he planted his forefeet, thence helooked 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 along time at the nape of her neck, blew in her hair so as to spray itout like a fountain scattered to the wind; then he fell to licking herchee
k. She, made bold, put a hand and laid it on his mane. Shyly shestood thus, waiting events. The great beast lifted his head high andgave a loud bellow; all the deer chorused him; the forest rang. SoIsoult was made free of the herd.

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

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

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

  "And to think that you have endured all this from men, and yet love aman!" 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 wouldfind 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? Ishould 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 andbright.

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

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

  The sound gained rapidly upon them. Soon they heard the crackling oftwigs, 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 werereeking, dripping from the flanks. The riders, four of them, lookingneither right nor left, past over the open ground, where a few minutesbefore she whom they desperately sought had been lying at their mercy.But Galors, fled by all things living in Morgraunt, scourged on like adestroying wind and was gone. Isoult little knew how near she had beento the unclean thing. If she had seen him she would have run straightto 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 piercethe trappings of a knight-at-arms. They trust in emotions which suchgear is designed to hide or transfigure. Isoult, observe, had caughtProsper out of his harness, when before the face of the sky she hadthrilled him to pity. But when once he had stooped to her, for the veryfact, she made haste to set him up on high in her heart, and in moreseemly guise. There and thenceforward he stood on his pedestal figured,not as a pitiful saviour (whom a girl must be taught to worship), butas an armed god who suffered her homage. She was no better (or noworse, if you will) than the rest of her sex in this, that she loved tolove, and was bewildered to be loved. So she would never get him out ofarmour again. Her god might not stoop.