him no mercy. It was like the great wooden cross on the Black Moor,
standing bleak and clear against the sunset, bidding mortals remember
that Christ suffered. He understood why these men hated and mistrusted
him, and grudged him the right of guarding Mellis.
Words were spoken that were meant for his ears.
“The monks of Paradise have earned a foul name.”
“They have reared a fine, upstanding rogue in that fellow.”
“Old Valliant’s son. A pretty mate for Mellis Dale! What shame for the
woman!”
Martin Valliant could bear no more. If his homage meant shame for her,
then it had better end.
He went in search of Mellis, but for a long time he could not find her,
and the house and island seemed full of fools who stared at him. Martin
Valliant’s humility was in the dust. Had he been a fiercer and more
carnal man, a strong and striving selfishness might have carried him
through; but the rebel spirit faltered in him when voices whispered that
the woman suffered shame because he loved her. Generous souls are always
at the mercy of the meaner and more cunning spirits. A clever lie, like
a snake crawling from the mouth of a sorcerer, has bitten many a strong
man’s heel.
Martin found his love in a far corner of the orchard where an old tree
had been blown down, but still lived and threw out green leaves. Mellis
was seated on the trunk and half among the boughs, so that she was
hidden like a bird, and discoverable only by some one who came quite
near, for the weeds and grass were rank and tall, and melted into the
green of the tree.
He stood before her, sorrowful and heavy-eyed, and she knew why he had
come to her and what was in his heart.
“Martin!”
Her eyes loved him.
“So these clowns have been pulling ugly faces.”
He answered her simply and sadly.
“It may be that the clowns are right. We live our lives among clowns; we
must not live too finely, or the clowns will be displeased. Is it not a
sin to offend even against fools?”
She left her seat on the tree and stood facing him.
“So they would drive you out—send you to beggary or death.”
“They think me accursed.”
Her hands went to his shoulders, but his arms remained rigid, and he did
not move.
“Martin Valliant, the rebel in me fights for you. Why should we truckle
to this clowns’ world? What does it know of my heart or of yours? Why,
we could go on living to the mean level of the beasts, throwing our
pearls in the troughs, forever and ever.”
“But what I was—and what I am!”
“Man, man, I love you! Is there shame or sin in my eyes? Why, there was
no true beauty in the world till we began to love each other. And am I
to disown you, send you back to your death, because these lords and
gentlemen have unclean, grudging hearts? No—by my God, I will not let
you go.”
He stood rigid, opening and shutting his hands. His eyes looked into
hers appealingly.
“But, child, they speak shameful things.”
“Let them call me all the foul names that ever were. Am I touched by
them? It is for me to choose. And I say to you that they shall not part
us. For if you love me, Martin——”
She gripped his arms, and her face lay close to his, her lips open, her
eyes full of soft gleams. Her voice was quick, passionate, and
challenging.
“For if you love me, dear——”
He stared at her, head thrown back, his eyes filling with a strange,
wild light.
“Mellis!”
“Death—what would death be? But here is life and desire—and beauty.
Oh, my heart, play me not false! They shall not take you from me!”
“Mellis—dear heart!”
He held her at arm’s length, his face transfigured.
“God help me! If this is sin—then let them write it down against me.
Why, all that I hold here, the most adorable thing in all the world——”
“Martin!”
“The beauty, the mystery of you, the white light in my soul!”
“Ah! ah! Can mortal men harm us? We will hold to each other, you and I.
Is not the whole world open, and can these so-called comrades say us
nay? Where you go, I go also.”
“So be it, child,” he said.
_Chapter XXXIV_
About dusk that day, as Martin was passing through the courtyard, some
one touched him on the shoulder. He turned, and found himself looking
into Peter Swartz’s face. The soldier gave a significant jerk of the
head, closed one eye, and lounged casually in the direction of the
doorway opening on the garden. The courtyard was full of men who had
been cooking and eating their supper; one side of it had been turned
into a stable; the south-east corner had become a kitchen where a huge
fire blazed. The men lay about on piles of bracken, their arms hanging
from wooden pegs that had been driven into the wall. There seemed to be
an abundance of ale. One of the women from Gawdy Town was sitting on a
saddle and singing to the men, while she thrummed her lute. Martin had
to pass close to her, and she looked at him insolently and laughed.
Martin followed Swartz into the garden. The place was so wild and
overgrown and tangled that no one troubled to enter it, save when there
was a reason for lying concealed. Swartz was waiting by the yews near
the sundial, and Martin joined him.
“A word with you, man.”
His eyes were restless and alert.
“Come this way, under the nut trees. Those sluts are still at supper,
and not looking for dark corners.”
They pushed into the tunnel of leaves and stood listening. Then Swartz
began.
“The Forest is full of swine, and I go elsewhere. Look to yourself.”
He jerked a thumb toward the house.
“Swine! I know the nature of the beasts. If I stayed here a day longer I
should have my throat slit, just to make matters certain. Dead men need
not be watched.”
He drew Martin close to him.
“Guard yourself, my friend; the pigs do not love you. If you are wise
you will come with me and leave these gentry to be hunted by my Lord of
Troy. Thunder, but what a man-at-arms I could make of you! In France and
in Italy a good sword wins much gold; they offer you a gay life, plenty
of wine, and honor to be won. These English have no souls; they are all
butchers and brewers.”
He looked into Martin’s face.
“What say you? Would she come also? Three comrades in arms! I have money
on me; you can buy any ship-master, and he will sail you to hell or
heaven. Come—what do you say?”
Martin’s answer showed on his face.
“Swartz, no man has been more brotherly to me——”
“Damnation, man, I have a sort of foolish liking for you. Good men are
rare, men who can fight, and throw the whole world over for a bit of
honor. And here they are ready to play some foul trick on you.”
“Swartz—I cannot come.”
“And why not, man? If——”
“I have a doom here to work out; I feel it in my blood. Nor would she
go—as yet.”
“Try her.”
“No; the word would come from her—if it ever came. I stay here, on
guard, her man-at-arms. I have set myself on this path, and I shall not
leave it.”
Swartz knew his man, and that he was not to be persuaded.
“One word. I shall make for Gawdy Town; I shall lie there for seven
days; if your mind changes you will find Swartz at a tavern near the
harbor, at the sign of the ‘Crossed Keys.’ Much may happen in seven
days.”
They gripped hands.
“Look to yourself, Martin.”
“There are things a man never forgets.”
“Tush! I have the soul of a soldier. Remember the ‘Crossed Keys.’”
When Martin Valliant went to his post that night outside the door of
Mellis’s room he found a drunken man trying to open her door. It was
barred on the inside, but the fellow was fumbling with the latch,
sottishly enraged and babbling oaths. Martin took him by the shoulder,
sent him rolling down the stairs, and followed to see whether he
betrayed any desire to return. The man went down the newel stairway with
absurd contortions, like a beetle rolling over and over and kicking as
he rolled. He gathered himself up at the bottom, clasped his head
between his hands, and disappeared unsteadily through the doorway.
Martin returned to the landing outside Mellis’s room, and stood
listening.
“Mellis!”
Her voice answered him from the other side of the door.
“I am here. What has happened?”
“Nothing. A clown had lost his way, and I showed it to him with some
briskness. These knights and gentlemen keep but poor order among their
men.”
He heard her sigh.
“Martin!”
“Dear lady!”
“I have a feeling of strange restlessness to-night. I know not what ails
me.”
“What is there to fear?”
He spoke with calmness, but her voice had made him think of a wind
blowing sadly in the distant woods at night, plaintive and forlorn. His
own heart was heavy in him with deep foreboding, though he would not
confess to it before her.
“Is John Falconer in the house?”
“I saw him an hour ago.”
“One friend, please God. Where is Swartz?”
Martin hesitated, and then gave her the truth.
“Escaped—or on the verge of it. He does not trust to promises—fears to
be treated as a traitor.”
“Ah! he is right. Martin, I have come by a most evil fear of my own
people; their eyes do not look straight into mine. That man, Sir
Gregory, is no friend of ours. Oh, I know; we women are quick. I feel a
shadow over us.”
He heard her move the bar that closed the door, and the rustling of her
dress.
“The shadow is mine,” he said.
“No—no.”
There was passion in her voice.
“It is the evil in the hearts of other men. I feel it—feel it like a
fog creeping into my window. And I loved this place; we were so happy,
even though death was near; I was not afraid. But now—a dread of
something seizes me.”
The bar was in her hands, and the door moved so that Martin saw a little
streak of light. His heart seemed to stand still, and then beat like the
heart of a man who is afraid.
“Martin!”
He did not answer her.
“There is danger for you—there. They might creep up while you are
sleeping. Oh! what am I saying, what is this dread that makes me a
coward? But I am not a coward, and I love you. See—you can sleep here,
across my door, so that no one can touch you.”
She threw the door open, and the gray light from her room fell upon his
face. She was all shadow, wrapped in a cloak that had been found for
her—a vague, soft outline that seemed to yearn toward him, a dream
begotten of the night, tender, mysterious.
He covered his face with his hands.
“Mellis!”
“Is there pride between us, and no sweet faith? Am I asking you to do a
shameful thing? Why, this is no more than a simple room, where I breathe
and move—and sleep. I have a great fear for you to-night; I want you
near me.”
He was silent.
“Martin, would you shame me, hold aloof as though I had tempted you?”
She caught his hands, and drew them from his face.
“Oh! I am wounded—if you have no faith!”
“Mellis!”
“Yes—wounded, to the heart! Oh! my dear love!”
He lifted her hands and kissed them almost fiercely.
“It shall be as you wish. This room is a chapel, its altar—where you
sleep.”
He was over the threshold, and freeing a hand, she softly closed the
door. Her breath came quickly, with a flutter of exultation.
“Oh, my dear lord, my man, is this not a great sacrament between us?
Now—you have made me happy; is it not strange? See—you will lie here;
there is bracken, and I will spread it; and here—is a wallet for a
pillow.”
She glided about the room with innocent joy.
“Set your sword there. Now, we are in our castle, and I have no fear.
Shall we pray, kneel down like children?”
She caught his hand, and they knelt down side by side. Their prayers
were said in silence, such prayers as save this world of ours from the
doom that it has earned.
She started up suddenly, took his face between her hands, and kissed
him.
“Dear heart, good-night!”
Mellis stretched herself on the bed, and Martin went to his couch of
bracken by the door. Neither of them spoke again, but they lay awake for
a long while, listening to each other’s breathing.
_Chapter XXXV_
Martin Valliant was asleep when a man crawled up the stairs, groped his
way to the closed door, lay there a moment listening, and then crawled
back by the way he had come.
A number of figures showed black about a fire that had been lit in the
center of the roofless hall. John Falconer was there, sullen,
heavy-eyed—a man who found no pleasure in looking at his own thoughts;
also Sir Gregory, skull-faced and ominous, with blue eyes that stared. A
hot posset was going around in a big tankard. These gentlemen had but
little to say to one another; they were waiting; the case had been
heard, and judgment given.
The man who had gone a-spying up the tower came and stood before Sir
Gregory.
“The priest is not this side of the door, lording.”
John Falconer’s sullen eyes seemed to catch the light of the fire.
“You lie!”
“See for yourself, Master Falconer. What’s more, he is asleep across the
door, for I could hear a sound of breathing.”
A grim laugh went around the fire. Ironical looks were thrown at
Falconer, who was frowning and biting his beard.
Sir Gregory spoke.
“Such insolence must be chastened; we must be rid of this bastard.
Hallo, there! Axes for the breaking of a door.”
A little man with a sallow face and bright black eyes stood forward.
“The room has a window, sir.”
“Well?”
“Breaking the door is a clumsy device, and this Valliant is desperate
strong. Why not use the window, gentlemen, and crawl in upon him while
he is asleep?”
“Most excellent! But will God give us a ladder twenty feet long?”
“There is no need for a ladder. Strain a stout rope over the battlement
so that it runs in front of the window, and men can slide down the
rope.”
“Well thought of.”
John Falconer appeared to rouse himself from a sort of stupor.
“Wait, gentlemen. Let no violence be done this man. He has served us,
and will suffer for it.”
“What would you, John Falconer?”
“Let him be taken, mastered, stripped of his harness and his arms, and
turned out into the woods. His blood should not be upon our hands.”
“Plausible, very plausible!”
“I stand for that—or nothing.”
Sir Gregory chuckled.
“By my soul, such a punishment is better than blows. There is a certain
subtlety about it. I put my seal to the document. Some one fetch the
rope.”
The work was done noiselessly by men who crept about on bare feet, and
without as much as a whisper. John Falconer and a dozen of his own
fellows were ready on the stairs. Four men were to slide down the rope,
enter by the window, and while three of them fell upon Martin Valliant,
the fourth was to unbar the door.
Nature willed it that Mellis and her man should sleep heavily that
night, solaced by the innocent sweetness of being so near each other, so
full of a happy faith in their great love. They slept like children,
Mellis on her bed, Martin lying across the door, his arms folded, his
naked sword beside him.
He woke to a cry from Mellis.
“Martin—Martin! Guard yourself!”
The last man to enter by the window had slipped on the sill, and
blundered against the man in front of him; and Mellis, opening her eyes,
had seen him outlined dimly against the window.
Her warning came too late. The fellows had thrown themselves on Martin
before he could rise, and had dragged him from the door. One of them
pulled out the bar, and threw the door open.
He shouted to those on the stairs, and Falconer’s voice took up the cry.
“Torches—torches! Forward! Up with you, and follow me.”
Mellis had slipped out of bed and was trying to find the sword that
Martin had brought her out of the vault. She could hear men struggling
in the room, but the light was too dim for her to see what was passing.
A horror of helplessness seized her; she shrank back against the wall,
with her hands pressed to her ears.
“Help, there—help!”
Martin had broken free and was on his feet. One man lay writhing with a
bone in his throat broken; another had been thrown against the wall and
stunned. Martin had another fellow lying bent across his knees and was
choking him, while the fourth man clung to his feet.
Then Falconer and his torches came up the stairs; the doorway filled
with smoke and glare and steel.
A sudden palsy seemed to strike all the players in that tragedy.
Valliant let go of the man whom he was throttling, while the fellow who
had been clinging to Martin’s ankles squirmed away toward the door.
Martin stood motionless, like a wrestler touched by enchantment and
turned into a statue; Mellis, her hands to her ears, her eyes two great
black circles, leaned against the wall; Falconer, with torch and sword
in the doorway, held back the men who were behind him.
Martin’s sword lay close to Mellis’s bed. His eyes looked at it, but he
did not move.
Then Falconer spoke.
“Martin Valliant, no harm is meant you. Leave the sword lying there; it
will not avail.”
Mellis’s lips moved, but no sound came from them. She moved forward into
the room, and her eyes were on John Falconer’s face.
“Traitor!”
His mouth twitched; he looked at Martin, and passed her over.
“Valliant, we captains have sworn not to keep you as one of us. It is
our right to choose; we have our reasons. No harm shall be done you; you
shall go out into the Forest—as you came from it. Take your life, man;
this room is no place for you, and no place for brawls and violence.”
Martin’s face was gray and haggard. The muscles stood out like cords in
his throat, and he drew his breath heavily. He gave one glance at
Mellis, and moved suddenly toward the door.
“Explicit,” he said, crossing his hands upon his chest. “God have mercy
on us all, John Falconer.”
The men seized him and hurried him down the stairway, nor did he resist.
In the courtyard they stripped him of his armor, leaving him nothing but
his old cassock, a girdle and a knife. He was taken across the bridge
and through the camp to the beech wood. A knight in black harness was
waiting there, leaning on his sword. One of the men gave Martin a wallet
full of food.
The knight—it was Sir Gregory—went close to Martin, and stared into
his face.
“Let us not see you again,” he said. “Go—and take your shame and your
sin away from us.”
He pointed with his sword into the gloom of the beeches.
“Show your face again, and there shall be no mercy for you, you thing of
evil omen. Go!”
And Martin Valliant went from them into the darkness like a broken man
carrying a curse.
John Falconer had cleared the men from the room, and set his torch in a
rusty bracket on the wall, where it threw a wayward, draughty flare upon
his face. Mellis stood by the window with her back turned to him, rigid,
motionless, her hands at her throat.
“There will come a time when you will thank me for this.”
She was struggling for self-mastery, and against the bitter shame that
they had thrust upon her, while her heart had gone out into the darkness
with Martin Valliant, and in a way she was desperate, robbed of her
love. She might have come through her anguish in silence had John
Falconer been less of a dull and jealous fool.
“Now get you to bed, child; there will be peace in this house.”
“Peace!”
She flashed around on him with generous fury.
“Peace—for me, when you have treated me as though I were a harlot? Oh,
you blind fools, you souls full of foul imaginings! That man was a
saint, white as God’s own self. And you have robbed me of such a love as
a man but seldom gives to a woman. Yes, he could have taken that sword
and given death to many of your curs, but there was a nobleness, a
humility, that did not touch you. He knew what was in your hearts, that
you hated him, were jealous, breathed foul lies. He besought me to let
him go. And I—I bade him stay. I would that he had taken all that a
woman has to give; yes, my very body and soul. There is the truth; I
fling it in your face, John Falconer, you sour and godly and grudging
hound!”
Her anger scorched him like a flame. He answered her hoarsely.
“It was for your sake I did it. For you are precious to us.”
“My sake! Ye gods! Is a woman’s love to be put in pawn by gray fools and
wiseacres? I tell you I am his; I shall die his; I would that he had
taken all that I had to give. And I am precious to you? Never, by my
soul! I cast you off! I am your enemy henceforth, and every man here is
my mortal foe. May disaster befall you all! May you be cut off, slain,
trampled into the earth! Get you gone out of this room; my love has
slept here, and you do foul it.”
She advanced on him, and he went back before her, covering his face with
his arm.
“You will thank me—yet,” he said.
“Nay, I shall die before I thank you,” and she closed the door on him as
he went out.
_Chapter XXXVI_
Martin Valliant had fallen into great darkness of soul.
The Forest lay about him, vast, silent, and mysterious; the sky was
overclouded, and the moon obscured; and life seemed like the Forest, all
black and without a purpose, a wilderness where wild beasts wandered and
outcast men hid themselves from the law.
For a while he wandered about among the beech trees like a blind man who
had lost his way, for in very truth he was blind of soul, so smitten
through with anguish that he could neither think nor pray. A stupor
gripped him, a stupor of misery and helplessness. It was as though a
great hand had swept down and put out the white light that had burned
within him; blackness, nothingness, remained.
As he went to and fro under the great trees, Martin Valliant struggled
to break through this human anguish and all this coil and tumult of
loving and being loved. He tried to stand as his old self, calm,
patient, gentle, a watcher of other men’s lives. Things had been so
quietly ordered in the old days; nothing had been able to master him, to
send him like a blown leaf whirling with the wind.
But now—what had happened? Was God mocking him, or had he been cheated
by the devil? Who was God, and who was the devil? What was this thing
that men called sin? Was life only a huge fable, a piece of tapestry,
behind which lay the burning, passionate reality, the being and
becoming, the great glowing flux of fire?
He fell on his knees and clasped his head between his hands.
Who was calling him, and why did his heart answer?
“Mellis! Mellis! Mellis!”
She was in the darkness, she was among the stars, in the leaves of the
trees, in the stillness of the night. She was light and shadow, sound
and silence, colors and perfumes; she held the round world in her hands,
and heaven was behind her eyes. He loved her, and her love was his.
Where was the sin? Where was the shame?
Martin made a cloister of the beech wood all that night, pacing up and
down between the black boles, sometimes lying prone in the dead leaves
or the bracken. He saw nothing but Mellis—Mellis white and speechless,
stretching out her hands to him, looking at him with eyes of anguish.
She was a white flame burning in the darkness, and he could see nothing,
think of nothing but her.
So Dame Nature, Mother of all the gods, led Martin to the deep waters
and showed him in their blackness the image of a woman. And into these
waters a man must cast himself naked, madman and rebel, leaving his
manifold hypocrisies behind him, stripped of the shreds and the
patchwork and the cap of the moral fool. Before dawn came Martin
Valliant had taken that great plunge. He was a rebel, naked and
unashamed, most bitterly refusing to surrender the great thing that was
his, and ready to fight for it with savage fierceness against saints and
devils, priests and men.
With the first grayness of the dawn Martin turned his face toward
Woodmere, and stealing from tree to tree, worked his way slowly through
the beech wood. There were no more than three or four great trees left
between him and the open sky, and he could see the mere lying in the
valley and the tower where Mellis had slept; the birds were singing; the
camp still seemed asleep.
Something whirred past him and struck the trunk of a tree away on his
left, and Martin threw himself flat, for he knew that a cross-bow bolt
had been loosed at him. Though he raised his head cautiously, and peered
about him, he could see nothing but the bracken below, the green gloom
of the branches above, the great gray trunks standing like the pillars
of a church. But the man who had fired the shot could still see Martin.
A second bolt whizzed over his head and buried itself in the ground.
“Run, you dog! Off with you, or the next shot shall be in your body.”
The voice came from the fork of a tree, and Martin was shrewd enough to
believe in the man’s sincerity. He sprang up, and dashed back into the
deeps of the wood, furious at the thought that Falconer had set men to
watch for him. He tried another part of the wood, but with no better
luck. This time an arrow from a long bow drove into the ground within a
yard of his feet, warning him that he was shadowed and that the Forest’s
eyes were wide awake.