MARTIN VALLIANT
MARTIN VALLIANT
_By_
WARWICK DEEPING
_Author of “Sorrell and Son”_
[Illustration]
ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
_New York_
MARTIN VALLIANT
BY WARWICK DEEPING
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA
FIRST EDITION
MARTIN VALLIANT
_Chapter I_
Brother Geraint pulled his black cowl forward over his head, and stepped
out into the porch. Some one thrust the door to behind him, and there
was the sound of an oak bar being dropped into the slots.
A full moon stared at Brother Geraint over the top of a thorn hedge. He
stood there for a while in the deep shadow, licking his lips, and
listening.
Somewhere down the valley a dog was baying the moon, a little trickle of
discord running through the supreme silence of the night. Brother
Geraint tucked his hands into his sleeves, grinned at the moon, and
started down the path with his shadow following at his heels. He
loitered a moment at the gate, glancing back over his shoulder at the
house that blinked never a light at him, but stood solid and black and
silent in the thick of a smother of apple trees.
The man at the gate nodded his head gloatingly.
“Peace be with you.”
He gave a self-pleased, triumphant snuffle, swung the gate open, glanced
up and down the path that crossed the meadows, and then turned homewards
through the moonlight.
In Orchard Valley the dew lay like silver samite on the grass, and the
boughs of the apple trees were white as snow. Between the willows the
Rondel river ran toward the sea, sleek and still and glassy, save where
it thundered over the weir beside the prior’s mill. The bell-tower of
Paradise cut the northern sky into two steel-bright halves. Over yonder
beyond the river the Forest held up a cloak of mystery across the west.
Its great beech trees were glimmering into green splendor and lifting a
thousand crowded domes against the brilliance of the moon.
Brother Geraint had no care for any of these things. He swung along
toward Paradise like a dog returning from an adventure, his fat chin
showing white under his cowl, his arms folded across his chest. The
cluster of hovels and cottages that stretched between the river and the
priory gate was discreetly dark and silent, with no Peeping Tom to watch
the devout figure moving between the hedges and under the orchard trees.
Paradise slept peacefully in its valley, and left the ordering of things
spiritual to St. Benedict.
The priory, lying there in the midst of the smooth meadows, looked white
and chaste and very beautiful. The night was so still that even the
aspen trees that sheltered it on the north would not have fluttered
their leaves had the month been June. The gold weathercock at the top of
the flèche glittered in the moonlight. The bell-tower, with its four
pinnacles, seemed up among the stars. Sanctity, calm, devout splendor!
And yet the gargoyles ranged below the battlements of the gate opened
their black mouths with a suggestion of obscene and gloating laughter.
It was as though they hailed Brother Geraint as a boon comrade, a human
hungry creature with wanton eyes and scoffing lips:
“Ho, you sly sinner! Hallo, you dog!”
The black holes in the stone masks up above mouthed at him in silent
exultation.
Brother Geraint did not make his entry by the great gate. There was a
door in the precinct wall that opened into the kitchen court, and this
door served. The monk passed along the slope under the infirmary, and so
into the cloisters. He had taken off his shoes, and went noiselessly on
his stockinged feet.
Suddenly he paused like a big, black, listening bird, his head on one
side. For some one was chanting in the priory church. Geraint knew the
voice, and his teeth showed in the dark slit of his mouth.
“Brre—pious bastard!”
Hate gleamed under his black cowl. He crept noiselessly up the steps
that led to the doorway, and along the transept, and craning his head
around the pillar of the chancel arch, looked up into the choir. The
great window was lit by the moon, its tracery dead black in a sheet of
silver. The light shone on the lower half of Brother Geraint’s face, but
his eyes were in the shadow.
A man was kneeling in one of the choir stalls, a young man with his hood
turned back and his hair shining like golden wire. He knelt very
straight and erect, his head thrown back, his arms folded over his
chest. He had ceased his chanting, and his eyes seemed to be looking at
something a long way off.
There was a grotesque and ferocious sneer on Brother Geraint’s face.
Then his lips moved silently. He was speaking to his own heart.
“How bold the whelp is before God! A bladder of lard hung up in a shop
could not look more innocent. Innocent! Damnation! This bit of green
pork needs curing.”
He nodded his head significantly at the man in the choir, and crept back
out of the church. In going from the cloisters toward the prior’s house
he met a little old fellow carrying a leather bottle, and walking with
his head thrust forward as though he were in a hurry.
“God’s speed, brother.”
They stood close together under the wall, leering at each other in the
darkness.
“Is the prior abed yet?”
The little man held up the bottle.
“I have just been filling his jack for him.”
“Empty, is it?”
“Try, brother.”
Geraint took the bottle and drank.
“Burgundy.”
He licked his lips.
“Ale is all very well, Holt, but a stomachful of this red stuff is good
after a night of prayer.”
The little man sniggered, and nodded his head.
“Warms up the blood again. Ssst—listen to that young dog yelping.”
They could hear Brother Martin chanting in the choir. Geraint’s hand
shot out and gripped the cellarer’s shoulder.
“Assuredly you love him, friend Holt. Why, the young man is a saint; he
brings us glory and reputation.”
“Stuffed glory and geese!”
Holt mouthed and jiggered like an angry ape.
“It was a bad day for us when old Valliant renounced the devil and
dedicated his bastard to God. Why, the young hound is getting too big
for his kennel.”
“Even preaches against the leather jack, my friend!”
“Aye, more than that. Sniffing at older men’s heels, hunting them when
they go a-hunting.”
Geraint laughed.
“We’ll find a cure for that. He shall be one of us before Abbot Hilary
comes poking his holy nose into Paradise. Why, the young fool is green
as grass, but there must be some of old Valliant’s blood in him.”
“The blood of Simon Zelotes.”
“We shall see, Holt; we shall see.”
The prior’s parlor was a noble room carried upon arches, its three
windows looking out on the prior’s garden and the fruit trees of the
orchard. A roofed staircase, the roof carried by carved stone
balustrades, led up to the vestibule. Geraint, still carrying his shoes,
went up the stairway with the briskness of a man who did not vex his
soul with ceremonious deliberations. Nor did he trouble to rap on the
prior’s door, but thrust it open and walked in.
An old man was sitting in an oak chair before the fire, his paunch
making a very visible outline, his feet cocked up so that their soles
caught the blaze. His lower lip hung querulously. His bold, high
forehead glistened in the fire-light, and his rather protuberant blue
eyes had a bemused, dull look.
He turned, glanced at Brother Geraint, and grunted.
“So you are not abed.”
“No, I am here—as you see.”
“Shut the door, brother. What a man it is for draughts and windy
adventures!”
Geraint closed the door, and throwing back his cowl, pulled a stool up
to the fire. He was a lusty, lean, big-jawed creature, as unlike Prior
Globulus as an eagle is unlike a fat farmyard cock. His eyes were
restless and very shrewd. The backs of his hands were covered with black
hair, and one guessed that his chest was like the chest of an ape. He
had a trick of moistening his lower lip with his tongue, a big red lip
that jutted out like the spout of a jug.
“It is passing cold, sir, when a man has to walk without his shoes.”
He thrust his gray-stockinged feet close to the fire.
“You observe, sir, I am a careful man. Our young house-dog is awake.”
He watched Prior Globulus with shrewd, sidelong attention; but the old
man lay inert in his chair and blinked at the fire.
“Brother Martin is very careful for our reputation, sir. He has become
the thorn in our mortal flesh. It is notorious that he eschews wine,
fasts like a saint, and has no eyes or ears for anything that is
carnal—save, sir, when he discovers such frailties in others.”
The prior turned on Geraint with peevish impatience.
“A pest on the fellow; he is no more than a vexatious fool. Let him be,
brother.”
Geraint leaned forward and spread his hands before the fire.
“Brother Martin is no fool, sir; I am beginning to believe that the
fellow is very sly. He watches and says but little, yet there is a
something in those eyes of his. He lives like a fanatic, while we, sir,
are but mortal men.”
He smiled and rubbed his hands together.
“As you know, sir, it was mooted that Abbot Hilary has his eyes on
Paradise. Some one whispered shame of us, and Abbot Hilary is the
devil.”
Prior Globulus sat up straight in his chair, his face full of querulous
anger and dismay.
“Foul lies, brother.”
“Foul lies, sir.”
Geraint’s voice was ironical. His eyes met the older man’s, and Prior
Globulus could not meet the look.
“Well, well,” and he grinned peevishly. “What does your wisdom say, my
brother?”
Geraint edged his stool a little closer.
“Brother Martin must be taught to be mortal,” he said; “he must become
one of us.”
“And how shall that befall?”
“I will tell you, sir. Is not the fellow old Valliant’s son—old
Valliant whose blood was like Spanish wine? Brother Martin is a young
man, and the spring is here.”
They talked together for a long while before the fire, their heads
almost touching, their eyes watching the flames playing in the throat of
the chimney.
_Chapter II_
White mist filled the valley, for there was no wind moving, and the
night had been very still. The moon had sunk into the Forest, but though
the sun had not yet climbed over the edge of the day a faint yellow
radiance showed in the east. As for the birds, they had begun their
piping, and the whole valley was filled with a mysterious exultation.
Into this world of white mist and of song walked Brother Martin, old
Roger Valliant’s son—old Valliant, the soldier of fortune who had
fought for pay under all manner of kings and captains, and had come back
to take his peace in England with an iron box full of silver and gold.
Old Valliant was dead, with the flavor of sundry rude romances still
clinging to his memory, for even when his hair was gray he had caught
the eyes of the women. Then in his later years a sudden devoutness had
fallen upon him; there had been a toddling boy in his house and no
mother to care for the child. Old Valliant had made great efforts to
escape the devil; that was what his neighbors had said of him. At all
events, he had left the child and his money to the monks of Paradise,
and had made a most comely and tranquil end.
Brother Martin was three-and-twenty, and the tallest man in Orchard
Valley. The women whispered that it was a pity that such a man should be
a monk and take his state so seriously. There was a tinge of red in his
hair; his blue eyes looked at life with a bold mildness; men said that
he was built more finely than his father, and old Valliant had been a
mighty man-at-arms. Yet Brother Martin often had the look of a dreamer,
though his flesh was so rich and admirable in its youth. He loved the
forest, he loved the soft meadows and the orchards, the path beside the
river where the willows trailed their branches in the water, his stall
in the choir, the mill where the wheel thundered. The children could not
let him be when he walked through the village. As for the white pigeons
in the priory dovecot, they would perch on his hands and shoulders. And
yet there was a mild severity about the man, a clear-sighted and
unfoolish chastity that brooked no meanness. He was awake even though he
could dream. He had had his wrestling matches with the devil.
Brother Martin went down to the river that May morning, stripped
himself, piled his clothes on the trunk of a fallen pollard willow, and
took his swim. He let himself drift within ten yards of the weir, and
then struck back against the swiftly gliding water. There had been heavy
rains on the Forest ridge, and the Rondel was running fast—so fast that
Martin had to fight hard to make headway against the stream. The youth
in him had challenged the river; it was a favorite trick of his to let
himself be carried close to the weir and then to fight back against the
suck of the water.
And a woman was watching him. She had been standing all the while under
a willow, leaning her body against the trunk of the tree, her gray cloak
and hood part of the grayness of the dawn. Nothing could be seen of her
face save the white curve of her chin. She kept absolutely still, so
still that Martin did not notice her.
The Rondel river gave Martin a fair fight that morning. All his
litheness and his strength were needed in the tussle; he conquered the
river by inches, and drew away very slowly from the thundering weir. The
woman hidden behind the willow leaned forward and watched him.
The sun had risen, a great yellow circle, when Martin reached the spot
where he had left his clothes. The mist was rising, and long yellow
slants of light struck the water and lined the scalloped ripples with
gold. The water was very black under the near bank, and as Martin
climbed out, holding to the trailing branches of a willow, he saw the
dew-wet meadows shining like a sheet of silver. The birds were still
exulting. The sunlight struck his dripping body and made it gleam like
the body of a god.
Martin had frocked himself and was knotting his girdle when he heard the
woman speak.
“Oh, Mother Mary, but I thought death had you!” She threw herself on her
knees and seized one of his hands in both of hers. “The saints be
thanked, holy father; but we in Paradise would be wrath with you for
thinking so little of us.”
Martin stared at her, and in his astonishment he suffered her to keep a
hold upon his hand. Her hood had fallen back, and showed her ripe,
audacious face, and her black-brown eyes that were full of a seeming
innocence. Her hair was the color of polished bronze, and her teeth very
white behind her soft, red lips.
“What are you doing here, child?”
He was austere, yet gentle, and strangely unembarrassed. The girl was a
ward of Widow Greensleeve’s, of Cherry Acre.
She made a show of confusion.
“I was out to gather herbs, holy father—herbs that must have the dew on
them—and I saw you struggling in the river—and was afraid.”
He smiled at her, and withdrew his hand.
“I thank you for your fear, child.”
“Sir, you are so well loved in the valley.”
She stood up, smoothing her gown, and looking shyly at the grass.
“You are not angry with me, Father Martin?”
“How should I be angry?”
“In truth, but my fear for you ran away with me.”
She gave him a quick and eloquent flash of the eyes, and turned to go.
“I must gather my herbs, holy father.”
“Peace be with you,” he said simply.
Martin went on his way, as though nothing singular had happened. The
girl loitered under the willows, looking back at him with mischievous
curiosity. He was very innocent, but somehow she liked him none the less
for that.
“Maybe it is very pleasant to be so saintly,” she said; “yet he is a
fine figure of a man. I wonder how long it will be before Father Satan
comes stalking across the meadows.”
Kate Succory made a pretense of searching for herbs, so ordering her
steps that she found herself on the path that led to the house at Cherry
Acre. The path ran between high hawthorn hedges that sheltered the
orchards, and since the hedges were in green leaf, the way was like a
narrow winding alley between high walls. She did not hurry herself, and
presently she heard some one following her along the path.
“Good-morrow, Kate.”
She halted and turned a mock-demure face.
“Good-morrow, holy father.”
Geraint was grinning under his cowl.
“You are up betimes, sweeting.”
She walked on with a shrug of the shoulders.
“I have been gathering herbs, and I have the cow to milk.”
“Excellent maid. And nothing wonderful has happened to you?”
“Oh, I have fallen in love with some one,” she said tartly; “it is a
girl’s business to fall in love.”
Geraint sniggered.
“I commend such humanity.”
“It is not with you, holy father. Do not flatter yourself as to that.”
She tossed her head, and walked daintily, swinging her shoulders. And
Geraint looked at her brown neck, and opened and shut his hairy hands.
“Perhaps Dame Greensleeve will give me a cup of hot milk?” he said.
“Oh, to be sure.”
And she began to whistle like a boy.
Brother Martin was a mile away, brushing his feet through the dew of the
upland meadows. He had crossed the footbridge at the mill, and spoken a
few words with Gregory, the miller, who had thrust a shock of sandy hair
out of an upper window. Rising like a black mound on the edge of the
Forest purlieus stood a grove of yews, and it was toward these yews that
Martin’s footsteps tended.
The yews were very ancient, with huge red-black trunks and dense green
spires crowded together against the blue. No grass grew under them, for
the great trees starved all other growth and cheated it of sunlight. A
path cut its way through the solemn gloom, but the yew boughs met
overhead.
And yet there was life in the midst of this black wood, life that was
grotesque and piteous. The path broadened to a spacious glade, and in
the glade stood a little rude stone house thatched with heather. The
dwellers here labored with their hands, for a great part of the glade
was cultivated, and about the house itself were borders of herbs, roses,
and flowering plants. A couple of goats were browsing outside the wattle
fence that closed in the garden, and a blue pigeon strutted and cooed to
its mate on the roof ridge of the house.
Martin stopped at the swinging hurdle that served as a gate. A man was
hoeing between the rows of broad beans, an old man to judge by the stoop
of his shoulders and the slow and careful way he used the hoe. He wore a
coarse white smock with a hood to it; a kind of linen mask covered his
face.
“You are working early, Master Christopher.”
The man turned and straightened himself with curious deliberation. There
was something ghastly about that white mask of his with its two black
slits for eye-holes. He looked more like a piece of mummery than a man,
a grotesque figure in some rustic play.
He lifted up a cracked voice and shouted:
“Giles, Peter—Brother Martin is at the gate.”
Two be-cowled and masked creatures came out of the house. All three were
so alike and so much of a size that a stranger would not have told one
from the other. They formed themselves into a kind of procession, and
shuffling to the gate, knelt down on a patch of grass inside it.
Martin’s voice was very gentle.
“Shall I chant the Mass, brothers?”
The three lepers looked at him like lost souls gazing at Christ.
“The Lord be merciful to us and cast His blessing upon you,” said one of
them.
So Martin chanted the Mass.
The three bowed their heads before him, as though it gave them joy to
listen to the sound of his voice, for Martin chanted like a priest and a
soldier and a woman all in one. He had no fear of these poor creatures,
did not shrink from them and hold aloof. When he brought them the
Sacrament he did not pass God’s body through a hole in the wall. The
birds had ceased their singing, and the world was very still, and
Martin’s voice went up to heaven with a strong and valiant tenderness.
When he had ended the Mass the three lepers got up off their knees and
began to talk like children.
“Can you smell my gillyflowers, Brother Martin?”
“The speckled hen has hatched out twelve chicks.”
“You should see what Peter has been making; three maple cups all
polished like glass.”
“If the Lord keeps the frosts away there will be a power of fruit on the
trees.”
Martin opened the gate and walked into the garden, and the three
followed him as though he had come straight out of heaven. No other
living soul ever came nearer than the place where the path entered the
yew wood. Alms were left there, and such goods as the lepers could buy.
But Brother Martin had no fear of the horror that had fallen on them,
and had such a fear shown itself he would have crushed it out of his
heart. And so he had to see and smell Christopher’s gillyflowers, handle
the speckled hen’s chicks, and admire the maple cups that Peter had
made. Nature was beautiful and clean even though she had cast a foul
blight upon these three poor creatures. They hung upon Martin’s words,
watched him with a kind of timid devotion. God walked with them in that
lonely place when Brother Martin came from Paradise and through the wood
of yews.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, Brother Geraint had followed Kate Succory to Widow
Greensleeve’s house in Cherry Acre, where the maze of high hedges and
orchard trees hid his black frock completely. The girl had gone
a-milking, and Brother Geraint had certain things to say to the widow.
He sat on a settle in the kitchen, and she moved to and fro before him,
a big breeze of a woman, plump, voluble, very rosy, with roguish eyes
and an incipient double chin. She laughed a great deal, nodded her head
at him, and snapped her fingers, for she and Brother Geraint understood
each other.
“Kate will dance to that tune. Bless me, she’ll need no persuading.”
Geraint spoke very solemnly.
“If she can cure the young man of his self-righteousness she shall be
well remembered by us all. See to it, dame.”
The widow curtsied, making a capacious lap.
“Your servant, holy father.”
And then she fell a-laughing in a sly, shrewd way.
“God be merciful to us, my friend; yet I do believe that it is more
pleasant to live with sinners than with saints. The over-pious man rides
the poor ass to death. Now you—my friend——”
She laughed so that her bosom shook.
“We would all confess to Brother Geraint. I know the kind of penance
that you would set me, good sir.”
Geraint got up and kissed her, and her brown eyes challenged his.
“Leave it to me,” she said; “I will physic the young man for you.”
_Chapter III_
Martin had gone down the valley to watch the woodmen felling oaks in the
Prior’s Wood when old Holt rode out on a mule in search of him. He found
Martin stripped like the men and working with them, for he loved
laboring with his hands.
“Brother Martin—Brother Martin!”
Old Holt squeaked at him imperiously.
“Brother Martin, a word with you.”
Martin passed the felling ax that he had been swinging to one of the
men, and crossed over to Father Holt.
“The prior has been asking for you. Get you back at once. Brother Jude
has been taken sick, and is lying in the infirmary.”
Martin glanced up at old Holt’s wrinkled, crab-apple of a face.
“Who has gone to the Black Moor in Jude’s place?”
“I did not ride here to gossip, brother. See to it that you make haste
home.”
Martin let old Holt’s testiness fly over his shoulders, and went and put
on his black frock. The cellarer pushed his mule deeper into the wood
where the men were barking one of the fallen trees, and Martin left him
there and started alone for Paradise. The great oaks were just coming
into leaf, the golden buds opening against the blue of the sky. The
young bracken fronds were uncurling themselves from the brown tangle of
last year’s growth, and here and there masses of wild hyacinth made
pools of blue. The gorse had begun to burn with a lessened splendor, but
the broom had taken fire, and waved its yellow torches everywhere.
Martin found Prior Globulus in his parlor, sitting by a window with a
book in his lap. The prior had been dozing; his eyes looked misty and
dull.
“You have sent for me, sir.”
“Come you here, Brother Martin. Assuredly—I have been asleep. Yes—I
remember. Brother Jude has been taken sick. He rode in two hours ago,
with a sharp fever. I have chosen you to take his place, my son.”
His dull eyes watched Martin’s face.
“The chapel on the Black Moor must have a priest. There are people, my
son, who would not pardon us if we left that altar unserved even for a
day. Get you a mule and ride there. To-morrow I will send two pack mules
with food and wine and new altar cloths and vestments. No cell of ours
shall be served in niggardly fashion. And remember, my son, that it is
part of our trust to serve all wayfarers with bread and wine, should
they ask for bread and wine. Holy St. Florence so ordered it before she
died. And there is the little hostelry where wayfarers may lodge
themselves for the night. All these matters will be in your keeping.”
He groped in a gypsire that lay on the window seat.
“Here is the key of the chapel, Brother Martin. Now speed you, and bear
my blessing.”
Martin kissed the ring on the old man’s hand, and went forth to take up
his trust.
The Forest was the great lord of all those parts. From Gawdy Town, by
the sea, to Merlin Water it stretched ten leagues or more, a green,
rolling wilderness, very mysterious and very beautiful. There were
castles, little towns and villages hidden in it, and a stranger might
never have known of them but for the sound of their bells. In the north
the Great Ridge bounded the Forest like a huge vallum, and on one of the
chalk hills stood Troy Castle, its towers gray against the northern sky.
Gawdy Town, where the Rondel river reached the sea, held itself in no
small esteem. It was a free town, boasted its own mayor and jurats,
appointed its own port reeve, sent out its own ships, and hoarded much
rich merchandise in its storehouses and cellars.
The day had an April waywardness when Martin mounted his mule and set
out for the Black Moor. Masses of cloud moved across the sky, some of
them trailing rain showers from the edges, and letting in wet floods of
sunlight when they had passed. The Forest was just breaking into leaf;
the birch trees had clothed themselves; so had the hazels; the beeches
were greener than the oaks, whose domes varied from yellow to bronze;
the ash buds were still black, promising a good season. The wild
cherries were in flower. The hollies glistened after the rain, and the
warm, wet smell of the earth was the smell of spring.
Not till Martin reached Heron Hill did the Forest show itself to him in
all its mystery. The Black Moor hung like a thunder-cloud ahead of him,
splashed to the south with sunlight after the passing of a shower. He
could see the sea, covered with purple shadows and patches of gold.
Below him, and stretching for miles, the wet green of the woods lost
itself in a blue gray haze, with the Rondel river a silver streak in the
valleys. Here and there a wood of yews or firs made a blackness in the
thick of the lighter foliage. Martin saw deer moving along the edge of
Mogry Heath. Larks were in the air, and the green woodpecker laughed in
the woods.
The sun was low in the west when the mule plodded up the sandy track
that led over the Black Moor. The gorse had lost its freshness, but the
yellow broom and the white of the stunted thorns lightened the heavy
green of the heather. The chapelry stood on the top-most swell of the
moor, marked by a big oak wayside cross, its heather-thatched roofs
clustering close together like sheep in a pen. There were a chapel, a
priest’s cell, a little guest-house, a stable, a small lodge or barn,
and a stack of fagots standing together in a grassy space. Father Jude
was a homely soul, a man of the soil; he had fought with the sour soil,
made a small garden, and hedged it with thorns, though the apple trees
that he had planted were all blown one way and looked stunted and
grotesque. He had cut and stacked bracken for litter, and there was a
small haystack in the hollow over the hill.
Martin stabled the mule, carried his saddle-bags into the cell, and took
stock of his new home. He went first to the little chapel, unlocked the
door, and saw that the holy vessels were safe in the aumbry beside the
altar, and that no one had been tampering with the iron-bound alms-box
that was fastened to the wall close to the holy water stoup. The chapel
pleased him with its stone walls and the rough forest-hewn timber in its
roof. He knelt down in front of the altar and prayed that in his lonely
place he might not be found wanting.
There was the mule to be watered and fed, and Martin saw to the beast
before he thought of his own supper. Father Jude’s larder suggested to
him that hunger was an excellent necessity. He found a stale loaf of
bread, a big earthen jar full of salted meat, half a bowl of herrings, a
pot of honey, a paper of spices, and the remains of a rabbit pie.
Obviously Father Jude had been something of a cook, and Martin stared
reflectively at the brick oven in the corner of the cell. Cooking was an
art that he had not studied, but on the top of the Black Moor a man had
a chance of completing a thoroughly practical education. For instance,
there was the question of bread. How much yeast went to how much flour,
and how long had the loaves to be left in the oven? Martin saw that life
was full of housewifely problems. A man’s body might be more importunate
than his soul.
When he had made a meal and washed his hollywood cup and platter, he
found that dusk was falling over the Forest like a purple veil. The
wayside cross spread its black arms against a saffron afterglow. The
world was very peaceful and very still, and a heavy dew was falling.
Martin went and sat at the foot of the cross, leaning his broad back
against the massive post. His face grew dim in the dusk, and a kind of a
sadness descended on him. There were times when a strange unrest stirred
in him, when he yearned for something—he knew not what. The beauty of
the earth, the wet scent of the woods, the singing of birds filled him
with a vague emotion that was near to pain. It was like the spring
stirring in his blood while a wind still blew keenly out of the north.
But Martin Valliant’s faith was very simple as yet, and crowned with a
tender severity.
“The Devil goeth about cunningly to tempt men.”
His thoughts wandered back to Paradise, and set him frowning. He was not
so young as not to know that all was not well with the world down
yonder.
“Our Lord was tempted in the wilderness.”
He stared up at the stars, and then watched the yellow face of the moon
rise over Heron Hill.
“It is good for a man to be alone, to keep watch and to know his own
heart. God does nothing blindly. When we are alone we are both very weak
and very strong. There are voices that speak in the wilderness.”
He felt comforted, and a great calm descended on him. Those taunting
lights had died out of the western sky; the beauty of the earth no
longer looked slantwise at him like a young girl whose eyes are tender
and whose breasts are the breasts of a woman.
The pallet bed in the cell had a mattress of sacking filled with straw.
It served Martin well enough. He slept soundly and without dreams.
But at Paradise Geraint had gone a-prowling through the orchards. He
loitered outside Widow Greensleeve’s gate till some one came out with
smothered laughter and spoke to him under the apple boughs.
“The pan is on the fire, dame. Brother Martin has gone to the Black
Moor.”
“And the fat is ready for frying, my master.”
“A few pinches of spice—eh!”
“And a pretty dish fit for a king.”
_Chapter IV_
A tall ship, the Rose, came footing it toward Gawdy Town with a wash of
foam at her bluff bows, and the green seas lifting her poop. Gawdy Town
was very proud of the Rose, for she was fit to be a king’s ship, and to
carry an admiral’s flag if needs be. Her towering poop and forecastle
had their walls pierced for guns, and their little turrets loopholed for
archers, and all her top gear was painted to match her name. She carried
three masts and a fine spread of canvas, and Master Hamden, her captain,
loved to come into port with streamers flying and all the gilding of her
vanes and bulwarks shining like gold.
The Rose struck her canvas and dropped her tow ropes when she was under
the shelter of the high ground west of the harbor. A couple of galleys
came out to tow her in, and she was berthed at the Great Wharf under the
walls.
She carried merchandise and wine from Spain and Bordeaux, also a few
passengers; but the passengers were of small account. Two of them, a
girl and a young man, were leaning over the poop rail and watching the
people on the wharf below. The young man’s face was yellow as a guinea;
he was dressed like a strolling player, with bunches of ribbons at his
elbows and bells in his cap. The girl looked the taller of the two,
perhaps because the sea had not humbled her; she wore a light blue coat
edged with fur, and a gown of apple green; her green hood had white
strings tied under her chin.
“Holy saints, what an adventure!”
The man straightened himself, and managed to smile.
“I never knew what cowardice was like till I got aboard a ship. My
courage came out of my mouth. And now an impudent tongue and a laughing
eye are necessities——”
The girl’s dark eyes were on the alert.
“There’s old Adam Rick, or am I blind?”
“Master Port Reeve—so it is! The bridge is ashore. We had best be
putting our fortune to the test. Have I anything of the gay devil left
about me?”
He shook himself with the air of a bird that had been moping on a perch,
but the girl did not laugh; she held her head high, and seemed to take
life with fierce seriousness.
They climbed down to the waist of the ship where Master Hamden stood by
the gangway, talking to some of the fathers of Gawdy Town who were
gathered on the wharf.
“News, sirs, what would you with news? If Crookback is still king, I
have no news for you.”
“There have been rumors of landings.”
“Rumors of old wives’ petticoats!”
The man and the girl were close at his elbow, ready to leave the ship.
The man carried a leather-covered casket in one hand, and a viol under
his arm, while the girl carried a lute. She kept her eyes fixed on the
tower of the town church; they were very dark eyes, blue almost to
blackness, her skin was softly browned like the skin of a Frenchwoman,
but her lips were very red. The hair under her hood was the color of
charcoal. Her attitude toward her neighbors seemed one of aloofness; men
might have voted her a proud, fierce-tempered wench.
Master Hamden looked at the pair with his red-lidded, angry eyes. The
man nodded to him.
“Good-day, master.”
“Give you good-day, Jack Jester. Go and get some wine in you, and wash
the yellow out of your skin.”
He looked slantwise at the girl as she passed him, but he did not speak
to her. Had she been all that she pretended to be she would not have
left old Hamden’s ship without a coarse jest of some kind.
Her brother was pushing his way toward a handsome, ruddy man in a black
camlet cloak, and the man in the cloak was eying him intently.
“Sir Adam, a word with you.”
The Port Reeve appeared lost in thought. He drew a quill from his
girdle, and meditated while he picked his teeth. And very much at his
leisure, he chose to notice the young man with the viol.
“Where have you come from, my friend?”
“France, sir. My sister and I are poor players, makers of music.”
The Port Reeve scanned the pair with intelligent brown eyes.
“Queer that such a Jack and Jill should come out of France.”
“We were in the service of my Lord of Dunster.”
“And he sent you packing? How are you called?”
The young man answered in a low voice:
“Lambert Lovel.”
The Port Reeve’s eyelids flickered curiously.
“You would lodge in Gawdy Town?”
“If it pleases you, sir.”
“Our laws are strict against vagabonds and strollers. Well, get you in,
Lovel, my lad, and your sister with you. You make no tarrying, I
gather.”
“But to make a little money for the road, sir.”
“Well, try the ‘Painted Lady,’ my man. It is the merchants’ tavern.”
He gave them something very like a solemn wink, and then turned aside to
talk to a sea-captain who wanted to quarrel about the port dues.
The strolling singers entered Gawdy Town by the sea-gate, and chose a
winding street that went up toward the castle. Lambert carried himself
with a jaunty and half-insolent air, fluttering his ribbons and making
grimaces at the people in the doorways.
“Do you remember your name, sweeting?”
“Am I a fool, Gilbert!”
“God save us,” and he glanced at her impatiently, “but you have
forgotten mine! Lambert Lovel, brother to Kate Lovel. Be wary; the
Crookback has spies in every port.”
“Why stay in the town—at all?”
“Oh, you wild falcon! Are there not things to be done here? Are we not
hungry? Besides, the Forest is seven miles away.”
“I know—but it is home.”
Her brother laughed. He was built on lighter, gayer lines than the girl;
he had not her strength. A sort of adventurous vanity carried him along,
and life pleased him when it was not too grim.
“Robin, sweet Robin under the greenwood tree! A pile of stones and a few
burnt beams! Scramble, you brats—scramble!”
With a lordly air he pretended to throw money to a number of children
who seemed inclined to follow them.
“You will have to play your part, sweeting. Where the devil is that
gaudy inn? Ha! we have it!”
A broad square paved with cobbles opened in front of them, its timber
and plaster houses built out on brackets and pillars, many of them
carrying painted signs hung out on poles. A stone cross stood in the
center of the square, and above the lichened roof of the town hall the
great round tower of the castle showed like a crown resting on a
cushion. The “Inn of the Painted Lady” stood by the guild house of the
Armourers’ Guild, a noisy, buxom, deep-chested house, its plaster-work
painted green and red, its sign looking like a Roman mosaic. A white
mule and a couple of palfreys were waiting outside the entry, and from
an open window came the sound of some one singing:
“Cuckolds, cuckolds, list to my tale——”
It was a big, brawling voice that sang, the voice of a man who was
hearty with liquor.
Lovel looked at the place a little doubtfully.
“Fat—and bountiful! I will go and beard my friend—the host.”
The girl turned aside.
“I shall be there—on the steps of the cross.”
“Be brave, sweeting.” And he went off humming a song.
He reappeared shortly with a certain whimsical look.
“You will be suffered to sleep with the sluts, Kate.”
“And you?”
“With the scullions! What men must stomach for the sake of—adventure!”
Her nostrils dilated.
“The Forest would be sweeter.”
“True, dear sister; but shall we be frightened by having to sleep on
musty straw with fellow Christians who wash under the pump but once a
week? I trust not. Besides, I have to see the Flemming to-night.”
Her pride was in revolt, the pride of a kestrel put to perch with
flea-ridden hens.
“Had I known this I would have chosen to cross the sea in some other
dress.”
Her brother shrugged his shoulders, and then sat down beside her on the
stone steps of the cross.
“I’m sorry, Kate, but what would you? We have begun this game in cap and
bells, and we must go through with it—or pay forfeit. And the forfeit
may be our lives. Crooked Dick shows no mercy.”
He was right, and she knew it. There could be no turning back.
“What must be—must be. I shall not fail you, brother.”
“That’s brave; but one word more, Kate.”
“Speak out.”
“Your pride may be sorely touched in yonder, for you are a singing-girl,
no more, no less. Take it not to heart, child, and do not let it anger
you. I would stab the man who offered to do you harm, even though the
dagger blow meant ruin for both of us. I, too, have my pride.”
“Those are a man’s words. You shall not be disappointed in me.”
Half an hour later Mellis Dale stood at an attic window overlooking the
inn yard. She had liked the part she was playing still less when she had
seen the attic, but for the moment it was empty; the wenches who were to
be her bed-fellows were at their work below. She could see her brother
Gilbert sitting on an overturned tub in the yard, twanging the strings
of his viol, and making the ostlers and loiterers laugh with his
whimsies. His color had come back to him; he was playing a man’s game,
even though it brought his feet very close to the gutter.
She caught some of her brother’s spirit, some of his cynical and gay
audacity. After all, they were not the sport of fools, but players who
made the fools dance to their piping. Her pride caught a note of
mockery. There were enemies to be outwitted; there was the thought of
revenge.
The inn simmered with life like a kettle about to boil. She could feel
the bubbling of its activities, the reverberations of its crude, animal
energy. There was much clattering of pots and pans, and much loud
talking in the kitchen. She could hear girls giggling, and a woman
scolding somewhere with a voice that suggested the rending of linen. The
gentleman with the big, brawling bass was still singing in the deeps of
the house, and other voices took up the chorus. A knife-grinder appeared
with his barrow and wheel and started to sharpen knives. Two dogs fell
to fighting over a sheep’s foot that had been flung out of the kitchen.
A man rolled out from the guest-room and was sick in the kennel.
Mellis saw her brother draw his bow from its case, and begin playing his
viol, and the music brought six bouncing girls from somewhere, all ready
to dance. They footed it up and down the yard, holding up their gowns,
and laughing to each other, while the men stood around and made jests.
The windows of the inn filled with faces; all sorts of unsuspected folk
poked out their heads to watch the fun. This living picture-show
included a little old lawyer, blue and wrinkled, with a dewdrop hanging
at the end of his nose; a red-faced widow with a headdress like a
steeple; a couple of priests; a vintner from London who munched
something as though he were chewing the cud; a country squire with the
eyes of an ox; a young bachelor who kept looking up at Mellis and
showing off his slashed doublet and the jewel in his ear.
The members of one of the Merchant Guilds were supping together in the
great guest-room, and servants began to go to and fro across the yard
with dishes from the kitchen. Mellis saw a big man with a face as round
and as sallow as a cream cheese come out and speak to her brother.
Gilbert glanced up at her, and then beckoned her to come down.
She appeared in the yard, with her lute hanging from her shoulders by a
cherry-colored ribbon. The man with the sallow face stared her over, and
nodded his approval.
“If her voice prove as good as her face, my guests will have no cause to
grumble. I will hire the two of you for the evening, for a silver groat
and your suppers.”
Mellis had to suffer the insolence of the fat fellow’s eye. Her brother
grimaced, and shook an empty gypsire.
“We shall not die of a surfeit of wealth.”
“Take it or leave it,” said the innkeeper roughly. “I have my choice of
all the wastrels and wenches in Gawdy Town.”
Mellis’s face showed white and cold. The beast’s churlishness roused
such scorn in her that she soared above such a thing as anger.
And so for two hours she stood in the guest-room of the “Painted Lady,”
making music for men who over-ate and over-drank themselves, and who
looked at her as none of them would have looked at their neighbors’
daughters or wives. Her scorn filled her with a kind of devilry. She
sang to see what manner of swine these men were; sang to them as though
each had the soul of a Dan Chaucer. And not a few of them grew very
silent, and sat and stared at her with a brutish wonder. An oldish man
sniveled and wept. Her brother Gilbert was kept busy scraping at the
strings of his viol, and all the passage-ways were crowded with servants
and scullions who crowded to listen.
“That was famous, Kate,” he said to her as he saw her safe to the
stairs, “I passed around the cap and drew five pence out of the
worthies.”
“I think I would sooner have sung to lost souls in Hell,” she answered
him.
In the attic she stripped off her spencer and gown, and lay down on one
of the straw pallets in her shift. Her bed-fellows came up anon, three
rollicking girls who smelt of the kitchen.
Said one of them:
“That brother of thine is a pretty fellow. I warrant I’d tramp to
Jerusalem with such a brother.”
They tittered, and squeaked like mice. Mellis sat up and looked at them
by the glimmer of the rushlight.
“My dears,” she said, “I am very weary. Let me sleep. One may have to
sing when one’s heart is heavy.”
And so she silenced them. They crept to bed as quietly as birds going to
roost.
_Chapter V_
Brother Martin said matins to the sparrows who had built their nests in
the thatch of the chapel, and having drunk a cup of spring water and
eaten a crust of bread, he set out early to try to lose himself in the
Forest.
For life on the Black Moor was not all that it had seemed, and a young
man, however devout and determined he may be, cannot satisfy his soul
with prayers and the planting of seeds in a garden. Martin had entered
upon the life with methodical enthusiasm, tolled the chapel bell at
matins and vespers, swept out his cell, set the little guest-house in
order, and done to death all the weeds in Father Jude’s garden. But a
man must be fed, and it was in a struggle with this prime necessity that
Martin suffered his first defeat. He started out cheerfully to bake
bread, but the Devil was in the business; the oven was either too hot or
too cold, and there were mysteries about such a simple thing as dough
that Martin had not fathomed. He tore a great hole in his cassock in
climbing up the woodstack to throw down fagots, and then discovered that
he had no needle and thread for the mending of the rent. These trivial
domestic humiliations were discouraging. He conceived a most human
hatred of salt meat, herrings, and the obstinate and adhesive pulp that
he produced in the place of bread. Milk and eggs, fresh meat and honey!
He was carnally minded with regard to such simple desires.
Moreover, he was most abominably lonely—the more so, perhaps, because
he had not realized his own loneliness. Paradise appeared to have melted
into the dim distance; there might have been a conspiracy against him;
Martin had not seen a human face since Prior Globulus had sent a servant
to fetch away the mule, on the plea that the beast was needed. And
Martin had taken the loss of the mule most unkindly. It was a
confession, but he had found the beast good company; it had been alive;
it had needed food and drink; had given signs of friendship; had been a
warm, live thing that he could touch. The birds were very well in their
way; but he was not necessary to them, and they were wild. He saw deer
moving in the distance, but they were no more than the figures of beasts
worked in thread upon a tapestry.
This morning restlessness of his was a kind of impulsive pilgrimage in
quest of something that he lacked—a flight from that part of himself
that remained unsatisfied. He went striding over the heather toward the
beech woods in the valley. They were very green, and soft, and beautiful
and had seemed mysteriously alive when seen from the brow of the Black
Moor, but even in the woods some essential thing was lacking. The great
trees stood spaced at a distance, their branches rising from the huge
gray trunks. The greenness and the listening gloom went on and on,
promising him something that was never seen, never discovered.
More than once he came on an open glade where rabbits were feeding, and
the little brown fellows went off at a scamper, showing the whites of
their tails. Martin felt aggrieved, even like a child who wanted
playmates. He leaned against a beech tree and consoled himself with
asking ridiculous questions.
“Why should the beasts fear man?”
And yet he would have welcomed fresh venison!
“If the Lord Christ were here in my place, would not all the wild things
come to Him?”
His simple faith could provide him with only one answer, and that was
not flattering to his self-knowledge. He had not climbed to that state
of complete purity; he was no St. Francis. Perhaps Original Sin was at
the bottom of everything. And yet he had always mastered his own body.
Martin Valliant passed some hours in the woods before turning back
across the heather of the Black Moor. A hawk, poised against the blue,
took no more notice of him than if he had been a sheep, and for a while
Martin stood watching the bird of prey. The hawk went boldly on with his
hunting; he would have had no pity for a poor fool of a priest who was
spending his powers in trying to contradict Nature.
A puzzled look came into Martin Valliant’s eyes as he neared the
chapelry. A little tuft of smoke was drifting from the chimney of his
cell, and he knew that he had lit no sticks under the oven that morning.
“They have sent a servant from Paradise.”
He quickened his steps, but saw no live thing moving about the place. He
looked into the stable, and found it empty; but the garden hedge offered
him his first surprise. Certainly the thing that he saw was nothing but
a shirt spread on the hedge to dry, and looking as white and clean as
one of the big clouds overhead.