to comb it with a little ivory comb that she took from her gypsire. It
was growing very dark now, and the stars were bright between the trees.
Martin strode up and down, discovering a new torment in her silence, and
in the darkness that seemed to be taking her from him. He could see her
white hands moving, but her face was hidden by her hair.
“Mellis!”
He spoke to her at last, but she did not answer him.
Martin went nearer, trying not to be troubled by her silence.
“Mellis!”
A passionate whisper came back to him.
“You are breaking my heart. What does it matter? You shall not hear me
humble myself again.”
He slunk away, threw himself flat on the grass, utterly shaken and
distraught. The silence of the Forest seemed heavy in his ears, for he
was listening for some sound from Mellis, and he could not even hear her
breathing. A kind of fury seized him. He tore up handfuls of grass,
pressed his mouth against the earth. Why was this agony being thrust
upon him? Had he not tried to deal honestly with his own heart? And he
had wounded Mellis, humbled her, turned away from her love as though it
were a poor thing easily abandoned. She was beginning to hate him; or
perhaps her pride would never forgive.
What could he say to her? Should he leave her while she slept? But that
would be cowardly; he could not desert her till she was in the midst of
friends.
He sat up, staring toward where she was, for he thought he had heard a
rustling of the bracken. But it was so dark now that he could not see
Mellis, only the vague outline of the great tree with the stars studding
the sky over it.
Of a sudden Martin stopped breathing, every fiber of him tense and
strained. It was not the rustling of the bracken that he had heard. The
sound grew louder, less smothered, as though it was too bitter and
poignant to be stifled. Mellis was weeping—weeping as though the pain
could not be borne.
Martin began to tremble. All his blood seemed to be rising to his
throat.
Then he uttered a strange, sharp cry, and went blindly through the
darkness.
“Mellis!”
He was on his knees beside her. She was lying on her face, her arms
spread out.
“Mellis, I can’t bear it. Oh! my love!”
She twisted around, threw her arms around him, and cried:
“My man! My most dear!”
_Chapter XLII_
A brisk breeze blew from the sea over the marshes north of Gawdy Town,
turning the willows that grew by the banks of the Rondel a soft gray,
and making a great flutter among the aspen leaves. The reeds bowed and
swayed in the dykes. The purple shadows of the clouds raced over the
marshland meadows where the red cattle stood knee-deep in the lush
grass. Gawdy Town itself spread its ruddy roofs to the evening sunlight,
and flashed its vanes and flèches against a summer sky.
Along the road between the dykes came Mellis and Martin Valliant,
trudging it on foot, their horses left wandering in the Forest. They
looked like a country couple, Mellis in her rough shoes and russet gown,
Martin in Lincoln green, a cudgel on his shoulder, and a couple of
saddle-bags slung from it. He had thrown Fulk de Lisle’s sword and
dagger into the Rondel, for such fine gear did not suit the cut of his
clothes.
Mellis’s face seemed to shine with an inward light, and when Martin
looked at her it was with eyes that said that she was the most wonderful
thing in the wide world. He marched with a slight swing of the shoulders
and a more adventurous carriage of the head. His manhood had lost its
monkish distemper. Mellis had rescued him, and made him the lord of his
own youth.
So they came to Gawdy Town, just before sunset and the closing of the
gates. Women and children were coming in from the meadows and gardens
without the walls, carrying baskets of flowers and herbs; there were
wenches, too, who had been out milking, stepping along with pails of
milk hanging from the yoke chains. Old gaffers toddled along the road,
gossiping about swine and the hay crop. Not a soul had heard a whisper
of the battle of Bracknell Plain.
Mellis and her man entered the north gate with this stream of milkmaids,
children, gardeners, and farmer folk, and no one said them nay. The
porter had his face buried in a black jack as they passed, and Mellis
laughed and glimmered her eyes at Martin.
“That fellow is a good Christian. He sees only that which God meant him
to see.”
Bells were ringing in Gawdy Town, bells great and small, for the people
of Gawdy Town loved their bells. They were a folk, too, who delighted in
color, on the fronts of their houses, in their signs, and in their
clothes, and there was not a richer town in all the south. The great
street between the gates looked as though it had been garnished for a
pageant; the plaster fronts of the houses were painted in reds and blues
and greens and yellows; many of the barge-boards of the gables were
gilded; the people who filled the streets were a chequer of moving
color, a gay and buxom crowd delighting in scarlets and bright greens
and blues. Women leaned out of the windows and gossiped across the
street, showing off their stomachers and the sleeves of their gowns.
Martin Valliant had never seen such a sight before. He shouldered a way
for Mellis, trying not to stare at all these strange people, and at the
quaint signs, and the rich stuffs in the shops. Some one blundered
against his wounded shoulder, and he was not so meek over it as he would
have been a month ago.
“Are they holding a fair in Gawdy Town?”
Mellis glanced at him mischievously.
“I sent a herald forward, dear lad, and they are looking for us. This is
but an ant-heap after all. Some day I will show you Rouen and Paris.”
“A quieter street would please me. Where is this Inn of the ‘Crossed
Keys’?”
“I know it, down by the harbor. This way.”
She turned aside into a dark and narrow lane, where the gables of the
houses nearly met overhead. Lines festooned the alley, carrying all
manner of garments hung out to dry. It was a lane of slatterns, and of
dirty children playing in the gutters, and the smell of it was not
sweet.
“How does this please my lord?”
“I would sooner sleep in the woods.”
She drew close in under his arm.
“And so say I. A clean attic at the ‘Crossed Keys’ will serve. Pray God
old Swartz is there.”
The lane led them down toward the harbor, where the painted masts and
tops of the ships showed above the town wall. Here were the shops of the
ships’ chandlers, and the place began to smell of tar and the sea. There
were yards full of timber, spars, anchors, casks, old iron, chains,
oars, gratings, lanterns, and pumps. A rope-walk ran along the town
wall, with pent-roofs for the storage of cables. The taverns and inns
were for the men of the sea, boisterous houses full of strong liquor and
loose women and foreign ship-men who were handy with their knives.
The Inn of the “Crossed Keys” lay a little way from the harbor and next
to “Little Spain.” It was a solid and orderly inn, and no “stew” house;
men of substance and many merchants lodged there in their comings and
goings, and for the ordering of their affairs. No man had ever been
found stabbed in the “Crossed Keys,” nor had a robbery ever been
committed there within the memory of any living gossip.
Dusk was falling when Martin walked into the inn yard and asked for the
master. An old fellow with white hair and a lame leg came out of the
parlor, buttoned up in a sober black cloak, and with a black velvet cap
on his head. He looked more like an Oxford clerk than an innkeeper, but
his eyes were shrewd enough in his smooth, debonair face.
Mellis was waiting in the shadow of the stairway leading to the gallery
around the yard. The old man’s eyes did not fail to see her. He looked
straight at Martin as though he had weighed him from shoe-latchet to
cap.
“Next door, my lad. ‘Little Spain’ is the place for you, I gather.”
Martin knew nothing of “Little Spain,” and his soul took no offense.
“This is the ‘Crossed Keys’?”
“It has been called that these fifty years.”
“Is there a Peter Swartz in the house?”
The old man blinked his bright eyes, glanced right and left, and poked
his nose into Martin’s face.
“Of the name of Valliant?”
“I am Valliant.”
“Tsst! Not so loud! I am at your service. Come this way, Master
Valliant, and you, madam. Up the stairway; yes—yes—the gentleman is
here; to the right, if you please, and down that passage. Let me pass,
sir; I know the door.”
The room into which he showed them was a private chamber, hung with
green arras and lit by a couple of candles set in tall pewter sticks on
the oak table. A man sat at supper, with a meat pasty, a jug of wine,
bread, cheese, and fresh fruit heaped up in a bowl before him. He was
making himself a salad of herbs when the door opened and the old man
poked his head into the room.
“Master Valliant, sir!”
Swartz threw the wooden spoon and fork on the table and stood up.
“Ye gods, this is magnificent!”
The old man closed the door on Mellis and Martin Valliant, and they
stood before Peter Swartz like a couple of shy children. Then Martin’s
arm crept over Mellis’s shoulders. She was red as a rose, but her eyes
looked proudly at Peter Swartz.
That most magnanimous soldier of fortune scanned the faces of the pair
before him, smiled, gave a wag of the head, and filled a glass with
wine. He bowed to Mellis, raised the glass, and drank to her.
“Madam, I pledge you my homage. I am, and shall always be, your devoted
servant. As for this fellow——”
He stepped up to Martin, smiling, and gave him a blow on the chest.
“Here is a man who has learned the greater wisdom. Good comrade, shake
hands with me; the whole world is ours.”
Swartz went to the door, and shouted for the old gentleman in the black
gown.
“Mine host, mine ancient and most sweet angel, more wine here, and
platters, and more light.”
The wine came, also two more candles, and a rush-seated chair for
Mellis. Swartz was in a joyous mood, and the shy yet exultant faces of
these two young people filled him with an amused delight.
“Come—sit you down. The place of honor for Madam Mellis. Russet and
green, two good colors; friend Martin there has been fighting, a
sword-thrust through the shoulder—eh? Take off your cap, man; there are
no spies here. And now for the news; I’ll tell mine afterwards.”
It was Mellis who told the tale of their adventures as far as the
slaying of Fulk de Lisle, Martin watching her with a rapt look, and
forgetting that there was food on his plate. She had nothing to say of
the journey to Gawdy Town, but Swartz had but to look at their faces to
know that Martin had played the man.
“So the old Fox of Troy was too cunning for your friends. Well,
well—what is it to be—France and the open road, service with some fine
Frenchman or a rich Italian, and our friend Martin here becoming a great
captain with a helmet full of gold pieces? This wet island has wearied
me. I can show you sunny lands and a world of adventure.”
Martin’s eyes watched Mellis’s face.
“I am but a beggar,” he said simply.
She looked at him dearly, and then at Swartz.
“We have twenty gold pieces, Martin and I. I carried them about with me,
and hid them while we were at Woodmere. They are here—in a leather
purse.”
“Shrewd wench—and great lady! Martin, my man, you may do the fighting,
but you should leave all else to your wife. She will be wiser than any
Lombard. Well, old Swartz can put his hand on fifty gold pieces, and I
brought a little plunder away with me that night I left the island.
These English drink too much, and some one must have missed a suit of
harness and a couple of horses. Old Master Hilary here has bought the
horses, and Martin can have the harness. Why, we are ripe and ready for
sword-hire, and there is a ship sailing to-morrow for France.”
He leaned over and filled the drinking cups.
“Here’s to our good fortune, and the Knave of Hearts. Give me the gay,
vagabond, generous, fighting life. Here’s to you, madam, and here’s to
Martin Valliant, and here’s to old Peter Swartz! Martin, my lad, I’ll
make you the finest sworder and swashbuckler this side of Rome.”
He grew quiet when he had had his jest with them, and it was Mellis who
spoke for Martin and herself.
“The life will be rough, but I do not fear it. My man will guard me, and
I shall be his mate. What are riches, and acres—and a lordly house? The
sun and the green earth are for all, and youth goes where it pleases.
Let the old folk count their cattle, and warm their hands at the fire.”
She looked at Martin, and he nodded.
“I will do good deeds—with the sword,” he said; “let us go out into the
world and see the great cities. A man was given eyes to see with.”
Swartz raised his cup.
“And a heart—to love with! Oh, brave youth, never to grow old in the
same bed, and to cross the same dull doorstep day by day! Here’s to the
wander life—here’s to adventure! Assuredly I must get me a wife, and
there shall be four of us. Peter Swartz is young again; God be praised!”
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without
note. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
[End of _Martin Valliant_ by Warwick Deeping]