her body, and a great change came over Martin Valliant. He let his head
drop on the root of a beech tree; he shut his eyes, spread his arms like
a suppliant. In losing sight of her he had rediscovered himself, that
striving, perplexed, mistrustful self nurtured on self-starvation and
physical nothingness. A passion of wonder, shame, and doubt shook him.
He lay prone at the feet of Nature, trying to see the face of his God
through the smoke of a new sacrifice. Had he sinned, had he shamed
himself? And yet a deep and passionate voice cried out in him, fiercely
denying that he had erred. What wickedness was there in chancing to gaze
upon a creature whom God had created, upon a beauty that was unsoiled?
He strove with himself, with clenched hands and closed eyes.
And presently a great stillness seemed to fall upon his heart. It was
like the silence of the dawn, born to be broken only by the singing of
birds. He opened his eyes, looked about him at the green spaces, the
blue sky, the water shining in the valley. What had happened to him? Why
all this wrestling and anguish? Where was the thing that men called sin
when earth and the heavens were so beautiful?
And what shame was there in the vision that he had seen?
He sat up, drew aside, and leaned against the trunk of the tree. The
stillness still held in his heart, but somewhere a long way off he
seemed to hear a voice singing. A great tenderness thrilled him. The
earth was transfigured, bathed in a glory of a light. Never had he known
such deep and mysterious exultation. He felt strong, stronger than
death; he feared nothing; his heart was full of a sweet sound of
singing.
Mellis never knew of the great thing that happened to Martin Valliant in
that beech wood. She crossed the water, dressed herself, mounted her
horse, and rode back through the Forest, followed by a man whose eyes
shone and whose face had a kind of awed radiance. She never guessed that
a great love haunted her through the green glooms, and that a man had
discovered his own soul.
And when she reached the cross on the Black Moor, Martin Valliant was
there, waiting. He had run three miles like a madman across country that
he knew. She looked at him and his face astonished her—it was so
strangely luminous, so strong, so human.
_Chapter XIV_
Toward dusk the same day a beggar came trudging over the moor. He was a
most unclean and grotesquely ragged creature, almost too ragged to be
genuine, nor had he the characteristic and unstudied gestures of the
true vagrant who cannot let ten minutes pass without scratching some
part of him. The fellow wore a dirty old hood that once had been lined
with scarlet cloth. A white bandage covered his mouth and chin as though
he had some foul disease that had to be hidden. His brown smock hung in
tatters around his knees, and his wallet was such a thing of patches
that no one could have told what color it had been in the beginning.
This ragamuffin scouted his way toward the chapelry with stolid
circumspection. He seemed to have a liking for the gorse and a hatred of
the heather; his love of cover led him a somewhat devious but successful
course, in that he reached the top of the moor without Martin Valliant
seeing him. Once there he crawled into a patch of furze, and so fitted
himself under the ragged stems that he could see the chapel, cell, and
rest-house and anyone who came and went. Mellis was sitting on the bench
outside the rest-house, looking at nothing with sad and vacant eyes.
Martin Valliant stood reading in the doorway of his cell.
The beggar had a particular interest in Martin’s movements, in that he
wanted him out of the way. The afterglow had faded, and night was
settling over the moor.
“The devil take that priest! They should have learned before that old
Jude was sick. And this damnable business——”
The furze was pricking the back of his neck.
“A pest on the stuff! And I have to tell the poor wench——”
He saw Martin Valliant put down his book and come out of the cell with a
bucket in his hand. He was going down to the spring for water. The man
in the furze perked up like a bird.
“God bless him, he has a thirst, or believes in being clean.”
He crawled out as soon as Martin had disappeared over the edge of the
hill, and went quickly toward the rest-house, making signs with his
hand.
Now Martin Valliant, being in a mood when a man walks with his head
among the stars, had loitered just over the edge of the hill, staring at
a broom bush as though it were the miraculous bush of Moses. But
Martin’s eyes did not see the yellow flowers. He was looking inwards at
himself, and at some wonderful vision that had painted itself upon his
memory.
Therefore he was near enough to hear Mellis cry out as though some one
had stabbed at her in the dark.
His dreams were gone in a moment. He turned, dropped the bucket, head in
the air, nostrils quivering, and began to run with great strides across
the heather.
Then the sound of voices reached him, one of them speaking in short,
agonized jerks. The other voice was answering in a cautious and
half-soothing murmur; the other voice was a man’s.
Martin’s stride shortened; he faltered, paused, stopped dead, and then
went on again, skirting the thorn hedge of the garden. It led him close
to the back of the rest-house, and he went no farther.
He heard Mellis cry out:
“My God! Oh! my God!”
The man tried to calm her.
“Softly, Mistress Mellis, or that priest fellow may hear you. A man
would rather cut his tongue out than bring you such news.”
“And you were with him?”
“Why, we had just turned out of the ‘Cock’ Tavern. The fellow dodged out
of a dark alley behind us, and the knife was in before you could think
of an oath. The bloody rogue went off at a run. I stayed with your
brother.”
There was silence for a moment—a tense silence.
“Did he die there—in the gutter?”
The words were like the limping movements of a wounded dog.
“He was dead,” said the man softly, “before the watch came along. There
will be a crowner’s quest, but we can keep a secret—for your sake.”
“My sake! What does it matter? Oh, if I but knew!”
“And that?”
“Who struck that blow.”
“Some hired beast.”
“I can guess that. But who ordered it—paid the blood money?”
The man seemed to hesitate.
“It has scared me, I grant you; one is afraid of a blank wall or a
bush.”
“Roger Bland of Troy?”
“It may be that you have said it.”
He was in a hurry to go; his voice betrayed his restlessness.
“The Flemming is at work. Bide here for a day or two, Mistress Dale. It
is time I disappeared.”
“Yes, go. Let me try and think.”
“Gawdy Town is too dangerous now.”
“Man, I am not afraid, but I think my heart is broken.”
He gabbled a few words of comfort, and by the silence that followed
Martin guessed that he had fled.
The light in the west had faded to a steely grayness, and the stars were
out. Martin Valliant stood there for a while, picking loose mortar from
between the stones, his whole heart yearning to do something, he knew
not what. He could hear no sound of weeping or of movement. The silence
was utter, poignant, unbroken.
Suddenly he heard her speaking, and he knew that it was half to herself
and half to God.
“So he is dead! Dear God—you have heard. Why did you suffer it? Oh,
what a fool I am! Picked up in the gutter!”
Martin’s hands were clenched.
“Did I see the old place to-day? The sun was shining. Oh, dear God, why
am I all alone? The boy is dead; you let him die. And I cannot bear
it—I cannot bear it.”
Nor could Martin Valliant bear that lonely, wounded agony of hers. It
was as though she were drowning in the waters of despair, and there was
no one to leap in and save her.
Mellis stood leaning against the wall, her face turned toward it, her
arms outspread against the rough stones. She did not hear Martin
Valliant coming, but she felt a hand touch one of hers.
She twisted around with startled fierceness.
“Who touched me?”
She saw him recoil. It was so dark now that his face showed as a pale
surface; she could not see his eyes.
“Martin Valliant.”
His voice was awed, humble.
“Do not be angry with me. I will go away if you wish it. I heard you cry
out—and——”
She guessed in an instant that he had overheard everything; that touch
of his hand upon hers had been like the mute, tentative touch of a dog’s
cold muzzle. Her flash of anger melted away.
“It is you? How long——?”
“I was there—behind the rest-house. I had run up, hearing you cry out.
I think it was God Who made me listen.”
“Ah, God is a great listener!”
She was quivering with bitter emotion.
“He listens, but He does not help. He has no pity. Yes, it is quite
true; you know all that should have been kept secret. You know that I
lied to you——”
Martin made the sign of the cross.
“I do not remember it,” he said.
“That I called myself Catharine Lovel—that I was vowed to silence, and
on a pilgrimage!”
“I forgot all those things,” he answered, “when I heard the truth and
your anguish.”
She covered her face with her hands.
“Now you will begin preaching a sermon.”
“God forbid,” he said; “I think that this night is teaching me that I
was not born to be a priest.”
There was silence between them for a while. Martin Valliant did not
move; he seemed set there like a statue. She could hear his deep
breathing, a strangely human sound in the soft darkness.
She began to speak again.
“Perhaps you know that they murdered my father years ago, and now they
have slain my brother. We were the Dales of Woodmere, and the Lord of
Troy was our enemy. Why am I here? Why was my brother in Gawdy Town?
Perhaps you can guess, if you are a man as well as a priest. We wanted
our home and the lands that had been ours; we wanted revenge, we wanted
a new king.”
She looked at him challengingly in the darkness.
“Now you know all. We were traitors to Richard Hunchback. We serve Henry
Tudor. Now you can go to Troy Castle—if it pleases you—and tell the
truth.”
His voice began to sound a deeper note.
“God’s curse be upon me if I do any such thing.”
He walked up and down, and then came back to her.
“Will you not sit down, Mistress Dale?”
“I have not the heart to feel weary.”
“It is very still and calm by the great cross up yonder. I will spread a
cloak for you. We must speak of certain things, you and I.”
A new manhood spoke in him. She seemed to question it, and to wonder at
the change in him.
“I am suspect, and have made you share my outlawry—is that it?”
He answered with sudden passion.
“No.”
She surrendered to him of a sudden.
“The cross? Oh, very well. What have you to say to me?”
“What a man with the heart of a man might say. Am I so poor a thing that
I cannot take part in a quarrel?”
“Ah!”
He turned abruptly, went to the cell, and came back with a heavy winter
cloak.
“The dew is heavy on such a night.”
“Yes.”
They walked side by side to the great cross, with a sudden and subtle
sense of comradeship drawing them together.
Martin spread the cloak on the grass at the foot of the cross. She sat
down with her back to the beam, and looked up at him in the darkness.
“You told me your man’s name—not the priest’s.”
“Valliant.”
“You are not the son of old Roger Valliant?”
“He was my father.”
Her eyes gave a gleam.
“Son of that old fire-eater! Strange!”
“He was a man of blood, my father.”
She looked at him with a new interest, a new curiosity. His bigness took
on a different meaning.
“A great fighter and a fine man-at-arms, though he fought for pay. And
he made a priest of you!”
Martin felt her veiled scorn of all men-women, and his flesh tingled.
“I have never questioned his wisdom.”
“Never yet! Have you ever heard the trumpets calling? But what am I
saying? Yet men must fight, Father Martin, sometimes, or be dishonored.”
“It is possible,” he confessed.
“Bishops and abbots have ridden into battle before now.”
“True. The cause may sanctify the deed.”
Her bitterness returned of a sudden. She seemed to clasp her grief, and
press her lips to it with fanatical passion.
“Son of old Valliant—listen. Your father would have understood these
words of mine. Why do I not lie down and weep? Why do I thirst to go on
living? Because my heart cries out against a great wrong—my wrong. Yes,
I am a wild wolf—an eagle. This is a world of teeth and talons; your
father knew it, and lived by his sword. And I tell you, Martin Valliant,
that I shall fight to the death—hate to the death. My holy wine is the
blood of my brother—and I am not ashamed.”
He stood swaying slightly, with a tumult, like the clashing of swords,
in his brain.
“Does the soul of the father dwell in the son?” he asked himself.
He clenched his hands and answered her.
“You will tarry here, Mistress Dale, so long as you may please. No man
shall lay a hand upon you. The Church can protect—with the sword of the
spirit.”
By her silence he knew that his words rang hollow.
“I would rather have old Valliant’s sword,” she said grimly; “but I
thank you, Father Martin. My need may be fierce, God knows!”
_Chapter XV_
Noble Vance, the Forest Warden, came riding into Paradise on his black
horse, with two archers in russet and green following at his heels. He
crossed the Rondel at the mill, and his scarlet coat went burning
through the orchards and over the fields. Such common folk as saw him
louted very low to the man, for, though he rode over Church lands, he
was a fellow to be feared, being merciless and very cunning. Poachers
and laborers whom he caught chasing the deer had but one thing to hope
for from Noble Vance. He loved tying a man to a tree and thrashing him
with his own whip, and the fellows he caught red-handed would rather
have it so than be sent to Roger Bland of Troy Castle.
About a furlong from the priory gate the Forest Warden overtook Dom
Geraint.
“The best of a May morning to you, man of God.”
“And God’s grace be upon you, defender of the deer!”
They were gossips, these two, men of animal energy who understood each
other, and looked at life with the same shrewd cynicism. Their eyes met
whimsically. Neither had any solid respect for the dignity of the other.
Their appetites and prejudices were alike; they met on common ground and
made life a gloating, full-blooded jest.
“You ride early, Master Warden.”
“All for the joy of being shrived by you, Dom Geraint.”
“Tut-tut—I am busy to-day. It would be a long affair.”
“Not so long, either; for you have only to name me any sin, good sir,
and I will say that I have committed it.”
“What a mass of guilt is here—riding in scarlet!”
“The black coat has its red in the lining!”
They laughed in each other’s faces.
“You will come in and drink some of our ale?”
“Such brown Paradise is not to be despised. I have an hour to spare.”
“I will give you a penance: not to look at a woman for two months.”
“Fudge, good sir, I am out to tie one behind me on the saddle this very
day.”
The archers were sent to the buttery hatch, while the prior’s parlor
served Vance and Dom Geraint. Prior Globulus had ridden out on a white
mule to visit one of his farms, and Geraint had no prejudices against
sitting in the old man’s chair.
Vance drank to him.
“May you have the filling of it, dear gossip. Then Paradise will lack
nothing.”
Geraint gave blow for blow.
“And no man will stay me when I go a-hunting, whether it be the red
deer——”
“Or others. You have a park of your own, man.”
“And you—the whole Forest.”
“Thin, sir—very thin. Game is scarce, though I am trapping a fine young
doe this very day. And here is the jest, gossip Geraint; she has taken
cover in one of your thickets.”
Geraint looked hard at Vance over the top of his mug.
“Here—in Paradise! Rabbits, man! I know everything that happens in
Paradise.”
“Who doubts it? But this is a great gibe, with that woolly-noddled saint
of yours serving as father confessor!”
“I miss the scent, my friend.”
“You and I can keep each other’s secrets. There is some trouble brewing
about here, though I have not got to the bottom of it as yet. Old Dale’s
cubs had sneaked back out of France; we sighted them in Gawdy Town. We
have the young man’s brush, and now I am after the girl. She is going to
ride to Troy with me.”
Geraint’s black eyes were on the alert.
“I know nothing of all this, gossip. Where are you going to find the
lady?”
“On the Black Moor.”
“What!”
“Under the protection of St. Florence and Brother Martin, and taking her
sleep in your rest-house.”
Geraint gaped like a great bird.
“Blood and wounds, but this is—miraculous!”
He began to laugh—deep, gloating laughter.
“Dear gossip, I have not heard such monstrous good news for many months.
Brother Martin playing the nurse to a woman! Why, sir, we sent him one,
and he would have none of her, the pious fool!”
“I dare say Brother Martin could not help himself.”
“How so?”
“The young woman arrived, claimed St. Florence’s charity, and friend
Martin had to give it. I could swear he has kept the door of his cell
shut all the while, and only gone out after dark.”
Geraint’s mouth showed its typical snarl.
“It’s probable, most probable, but such a tale does not suit us, good
sir.”
“What has the fool done that you hate him so heartily?”
“He is too good for this world, Vance; I would that you could help us to
be rid of him.”
The red man grinned.
“Why, anything in reason! One bruises one’s toe against these
incorruptible lumps. And your toe may be swollen, holy friend.”
“Have done. This is serious to us.”
“Speak out, then; confess to me, Dom Geraint; I am no suckling.”
Geraint poured out more ale.
“But for Abbot Hilary we should not care a snap of the fingers.”
“Every man has a man over him, gossip, even if it be only a
grave-digger. My Lord of Troy—well, I would not lose Roger Bland’s
good-will. I should be a broken man in a month, and I know it. You are
afraid of this pup’s yelping?”
Geraint nodded, and sat biting the nail of his thumb.
“Teach him to gnaw bones.”
“We have tried it.”
“But here is a pretty tale that could be told. Why, souse me in vinegar,
one only has to lie hard enough in this world—see things crooked!
Supposing I and my two fellows dream that we found——”
He painted the picture with a few coarse flourishes, and Geraint
wriggled in his chair.
“Great, sweet gossip—great! But supposing he calls for a court?”
“Let him have it. He can call no witnesses. Madame Mellis will not be
forthcoming, and we shall be ready to swear—for the jest of it. Of
course a gold piece or two for my fellows! These little mazes please me,
gossip; brains—brains! I’m tickled by a rebus! Now—what of it?”
Geraint stretched out one of his hairy paws.
“A bargain, Vance.”
“I’ll hold the debt over you, and call it some day. Prayers put up for
me in Paradise—hey! No, a priest may be useful on occasions.”
Half an hour later he called his men, mounted his horse, and set out for
the Black Moor.
_Chapter XVI_
It was Martin Valliant who prayed for the soul of Gilbert Dale, and not
Mellis his sister.
She was bitter and fierce, and wounded.
“I will not ask God or the saints for anything—no, nor Mother Mary. My
brother had no sin upon him. Let them look to their own.”
So Martin tolled the bell, lit candles, and chanted a death Mass, yet
all the while he was thinking of the rebel woman out yonder and of the
despair in her eyes. Nature was striking shrewd blows at Martin’s
simplicity, using the lecherous treachery of Geraint and the bloody
heartlessness of the Lord of Troy to prove to him that there are great
violences on earth, lusts and cruelties and loves that no mere saint can
conquer. Even Mellis’s wild words of revolt sounded more real and human
than the patter of his prayers. He knelt a long while in silence,
wondering, asking himself grim questions. How would his father, old
Valliant, have acted? Would he have put up a prayer, or donned harness
and taken the sword?
Mellis would not enter the chapel or kneel before the altar. She went
wandering over the moor, recklessly, with that fever of anguish and
hatred burning in her blood. She wanted to hurt those men who had killed
her brother. She wanted to take the Lord of Troy and give him to some
strong man to be throttled. All the love and tenderness that were in her
were like perfumes thrown upon the flames.
Wearied at last, she came back to the great cross, passed under its
shadow, and entering the rest-house, lay down upon her bed. The room was
cool and silent, with its massive walls of stone and thickly thatched
roof, and not a sound disturbed her; but she could neither sleep nor
rest because of the knowledge of the peril that threatened her. Mellis
felt herself betrayed, hunted, and her instincts warned her that she
would be shown no mercy. She did not believe that her brother’s death
had come about casually, or that he had been stabbed wantonly or in
error. The shadow of Troy Castle loomed over her. She was fey that
morning; the Forest whispered a warning.
About noon Martin Valliant took his spade and went out to dig in the
garden. He was shy of Mellis, shy of her despair, and the new manhood
that had been born in him chafed and raged at the vows that held it. The
blood of old Roger Valliant was alive in him; he was more the son of his
father than he knew.
The garden hedge shut Martin in upon himself, and he could see nothing
of the moor, so that one of Noble Vance’s archers was able to come
scouting right to the foot of the great cross and creep away again
unnoticed. The fellow went back to a heathy hollow where the Forest
Warden waited, sitting on his black horse in the sun.
“The woman is there, lording. I saw her in the doorway of the
rest-house.”
“And the monk?”
“I heard the sound of a spade in the garden.”
“Good. Now listen to me, you men. There is no cause to be too gentle
with the jade; they say she is a fierce wench, and may carry a knife,
and a knife in an angry woman’s hands is not to be despised.”
“Will you take her, or shall we, lording?”
“We’ll see what we shall see.”
Martin Valliant was just turning a new spit when he heard a sound that
made him raise his head and listen. A horse was moving somewhere; he
heard the thudding of hoofs and the jingle of a bridle. The horse came
on at a canter, and a man’s voice shouted an order.
“A view—a view! Run, Jack; head her off, or she’ll have the door shut
in our faces.”
Then Martin heard Mellis cry out.
“Martin Valliant—Martin Valliant!”
Something seemed to twist itself in his head and snap like a broken
bowstring. He plucked his spade out of the ground and went running, his
nostrils agape, his eyes hard as blue glass.
And this was what Martin saw when he pushed through the gate and rounded
the corner of the thorn hedge. Mellis had her back to the wall of the
rest-house, and a light dagger in her hand. A man in red was sucking a
bloody wrist, and two archers were crouching behind him like dogs
waiting to be let loose.
Martin saw the man in red raise the butt of his riding whip and strike
at Mellis, shouting savagely:
“Break the jade—break her!”
Then Martin Valliant went mad. He was no more than the male thing
answering the wild call of its mate. He saw Noble Vance’s whip strike
Mellis’s arm.
It was all over in twenty seconds, for that spade was a grim weapon
whirled like a battle-ax by old Valliant’s son. The two archers had
stood and gaped, too astonished to think of bending a bow. One of them,
indeed, had plucked out a knife, but he was dead before he could use it.
Vance the Forest Warden lay all huddled up, grinning horribly, gashed to
the brain pulp. The other archer had taken to his heels, mounted his
master’s horse, and galloped off with the fear of God in him. And Martin
Valliant was standing leaning on his spade, his face deathly white, his
eyes staring at the dead men on the grass.
_Chapter XVII_
For a long while Martin Valliant neither moved nor spoke, and Mellis
watched him in silence. His rage had passed, and a kind of wondering
horror dulled his eyes. He was afraid of his own handiwork, this death
that he had brought into the world, these bloody things at his feet. And
yet they fascinated him, for there were two men struggling in Martin
Valliant—the poor monk and the soldier.
The monk in him, being the elder, stood shocked to the heart, and most
tragically dismayed. Such a bloody deed as this seemed the end of
everything, even though it had been done in generous wrath. Martin’s
monastic soul shrank away, horrified, covering its face with its hands.
He had spilled blood, he was a murderer, he had sinned against the God
Who had given him life.
For a while the monk in him possessed his whole consciousness, but there
was a man stronger and fiercer than the monk waiting to be heard. The
soul of old Valliant lived more nobly in his son, old Valliant who had
looked on dead men with the pity of a soldier, but who would have had no
pity for such a fellow as Noble Vance.