THE BLOOD-CHASE AND THE LOVE-CHASE
It was by this time high noon, hot and still. Having climbed the ridge,
they found themselves at the edge of a dense beech-wood, to which there
appeared no end. From their vantage-ground they could see that the land
sloped very gradually away into the distance; upon it the giant trees
stood like pillars of a church, whose floor was brown with the waste
and litter of a hundred years. Long alleys of shade stretched out on
all sides of them into the dark unknown of Mid-Morgraunt; there seemed
either no way or countless ways before them, and one as good as the
other. They rested themselves in sheer bewilderment, ate of the bread
and apples which Isoult had brought with her; then Prosper found out
how tired he was.
"Wife," said he, "if all the devils in Christendom were after me it
would not keep me awake. I must sleep for half-an-hour."
"Sleep, sleep, my lord; I will take the watch," said Isoult, longing to
serve him.
He unlaced his helm and body-armour without more ado, and laid his head
in the girl's lap. She had very cool and soft hands, and now she put
one of them upon his forehead for a solace, peering down nervously to
see how he would take such daring from his servant. What she saw
comforted her not a little, indeed she thought herself like to die of
joy. He wondered again that such delicate little hands should have been
reared on Spurnt Heath, and endured the service of the lowest; it was a
half-comical content that made him send her a smiling acknowledgment;
but she took it for a friendly message between them, and though the
laughter in his eyes brought a mist over hers she was content. Prosper
dropped asleep. Through the soft veil of her happiness she watched him
patiently and still as a mouse. She was serving him at last; she could
dare look tenderly at him when he was asleep--and she did. Something of
the mother, something of the manumitted slave, something of the dumb
creature brought up against a crisis which only speech can make
tolerable,--something of these three lay in her wet eyes; she wanted
ineffably more, but she was happy (she thought). She was not apt to
look further than this, that she was in love, and suffered to serve her
master. The dull torment of her life past, the doubts or despair which
might beset and perplex her life to come, were all blurred and stilled
by this boon of service, as a rosy mist makes beautiful the space of
time between a day of storms and a dripping night. When the roaring of
the wind dies down and the sun rays out in a clear pool of heaven, men
have ease and forget their buffetings; they walk abroad to bathe their
vexed souls in the evening calms. So now Isoult la Desirous, with no
soul to speak of, bathed her quickened instincts. She felt at peace
with a world which had used her but ill so long as she was in touch
with all that was noble in it. This glorious youth, this almost god,
suffered her to touch his brow, to look at him, to throne his head, to
adore him. Oh, wonderful! And as tears are never far from a girl's
eyes, and never slow to answer the messages of her heart, so hers
flowed freely and quietly as from a brimming well; nor did she check
them or wish them away, but let them fall where they would until they
encroached upon the privileged hand. _Lèse majesté!_ She threw her head
back and shook them from her; she was more guarded how she did after
that.
Then she heard something over the valley below which gave her
heart-beats a new tune. A great ado down there, horses, dogs, voices of
men shouting for more. She guessed in a moment that the foresters had
come upon the body of Galors, knew that hue-and-cry was now only a
question of hours, and all her joys at an end. She took her hand from
Prosper's forehead, and he awoke then and there, and smiled up at her.
"Lord," said she, "it is time for us to be going, for they have found
Dom Galors; and at the Abbey they have many slot-hounds."
"Good, my child," he answered. "I am ready for anything in the world.
Let us go."
He got up instantly and armed himself; they mounted their animals and
plunged into the great shade of the beeches. All the steering they
could do now was by such hints of the sun as they could glean here and
there. Prosper by himself would have been fogged in a mile, but Isoult
had not lived her fifteen years of wild life for nothing: she had the
fox's instinct for an earth, and the hare's for doubling on a trail.
The woods spoke to her as they spoke to each other, as they spoke to
the beasts, or the beasts among themselves. What indeed was this poor
little doubtful wretch but one of those, with a stray itching to be
more? Soul or none, she had an instinct which Prosper discovered and
learned to trust. For the rest of the day she tacitly led the
knight-at-arms in the way he should go.
But with all her help they made a slow pace. The forest grew more and
more dense; there seemed no opening, no prospect of an opening. She
knew what must be in store for them if the Abbot had uncoupled his
bloodhounds, so she strained every nerve in her young body, listened to
every murmur or swish of the trees, every one of the innumerable,
inexplicable noises a great wood gives forth. She suffered, indeed,
intensely; yet Prosper never knew it. He played upon her, quite
unconsciously, by wondering over the difficulties of the road, the
slowness of their going, the probable speed of the Abbot's dogs and
foresters, and so on. Her meekness and cheerful diligence delighted
him. The nuns of Gracedieu, he promised himself, should know what a
likely novice he was bringing them. He should miss her, _pardieu_!
after two or three days' companionship. So they struggled on.
Towards the time of dusk, which was very soon in that gloomy solitude,
Isoult heard in the far distance the baying of the dogs, and began to
tremble, knowing too well what all that meant. Yet she said nothing.
Prosper rode on, singing softly to himself as his custom was, his head
carried high, his light and alert look taking in every dark ambush as a
thing to be conquered--very lordly to look upon. The girl, who had
never seen his like, adored him, thought him a god; the fact was, she
had no other. Therefore, as one does not lightly warn the blessed gods,
she rode silent but quaking by his side, with her ears still on the
strain for the coming danger, and all her mind set on the fear that
Prosper would find out. Above all she heard a sound which shocked her
more, her own heart knocking at her side.
Then at last Prosper reined up, listening too. "Hush!" he said, "what
is that?"
This was a new sound, more hasty and murmurous than any girl's heart,
and much more dreadful than the music of the still distant hounds; it
was very near, a rushing and pattering sound, as of countless beasts
running. Isoult knew it.
"Wolves!" she said; "let be, there is no harm from them save in the
winter."
As she spoke a grey bitch-wolf came trotting through the trees, swiftly
but in pain, and breathing very short. She was covered with slaver and
red foam, her tongue lolled out at the side of her mouth long and
loose, she let blood freely from a wound in the throat, and one of her
ears was torn and bleeding. She looked neither to right nor left, did
not stay to smell at the scent of the horse; all her pains were spent
to keep running. She broke now and again into a rickety canter, but for
the most part trotted straight forward, with many a stumble and missed
step, all picked up with indescribable feverish diligence; and as she
went her blood flowed, and her panting kept pace with her padding feet.
So she came and so went, hunted by what followed close upon her; the
murmur of the host, the host itself--dogs and bitches in a pack, making
great pace. They came on at a gallop, a sea of wolves that surged
restlessly, yet were one rolling tide. Here and there a grinning head
cast up suddenly out of the press seemed like the broken crest of some
hastier wave impatient with his fellows; so they snarled, jostled, and
snapped at each other. Then one, playing choragus, would break into a
howl, and there would be a long anthem of howls until the forest rang
with the terror; but the haste, the panting and the padding of feet
were the most dreadful, because incessant; the thrust head would be
whelmed, the sharp voice drowned in howls; the grey tide and the
lapping of it never stopped.
The fugitives watched this chase, in which they might have read a
parable of their own affair, sweep past them like a bad dream. In the
dead hush that followed they heard what was a good deal more
significant for them, the baying of the dogs.
"What now?" said Prosper to himself, "there are the dogs. If I make
haste they can make it better; if I stay, how on earth shall I keep my
convoy out of their teeth?"
It was too late to wonder; even at that moment Isoult gasped and caught
at his arm, leaning from her saddle to cling to him as she had done
once before. But this was a danger not to be shamed away by a man
armed. He followed her look, and saw the first dog come on with his
nose to the ground. A thought struck him. "Wait," he said.
Sure enough, the great dog hit on the line of the wolves and got the
blood in his nostrils. He was puzzled, his tail went like a flag in a
gale as he nosed it out.
Prosper watched him keenly, it was touch-and-go, but never troubled his
breath. "Take your choice, friend," he said. The dog beat to and fro
for some long minutes. He could not deny himself--he followed the
wolves.
"That love-chase is like to be our salvation," said Prosper. "Wait now.
Here are some more of the Abbot's friends." It was as good as a play to
him--a hunter; but to Isoult, the wild little outcast, it was deadly
work. Like all her class, she held dogs in more fear than their
masters. You may cajole a man; to a dog the very attempt at it is a
damning proof against you.
As Prosper had predicted, the dogs, coming on by twos and threes, got
entangled in the cross-trail. They hesitated over it, circled about it
as the first had done, and like him they followed the hotter and
fresher scent. One, however, in a mighty hurry, ran clean through it,
and singled out his own again. They saw him coming; in his time he saw
them. He stopped, threw up his head, and bayed a succession of deep
bell-notes at them, enough to wake the dead.
"I must deal with this beast," Prosper said. "Leave me to manage him,
and stay you here." He dismounted, ungirt his sword, which he gave to
Isoult to hold, then began to run through the wood as if he was afraid.
This brought the dog on furiously; in fifty yards he was up with his
quarry. Prosper went on running; the dog chose his time, and sprang for
his throat. Prosper, who had been waiting for this, ducked at the same
minute; his dagger was in his hand. He struck upwards at the dog as he
rose, and ripped his belly open. "That was your last jump, my friend,"
quoth he, "but I hope there are no more of you. It is a game that not
always answers."
It was while he was away upon this errand that Isoult thought she saw a
tall woman in a black cloak half-hidden behind a tree. The woman, she
could have sworn, stood there in the dusk looking fixedly at her; it
was too dark to distinguish anything but the white disk of a face and
the black mass she made in her cloak, yet there was that about her,
some rigid aspect of attention, which frightened the girl. She turned
her head for a moment to see Prosper homing, and when she looked again
into the trees there was certainly no woman. She thought she must have
fancied it all, and dismissed the thought without saying anything to
Prosper.
They took up their journey again, safe from dogs for the time. The
music had died away in the distance; they knew that if the wolf-pack
were caught there would be work enough for more hounds than the Abbey
could furnish. Then it grew dark, and Isoult weary and heavy with
sleep. She swayed in her saddle.
"Ah," said Prosper, "we will stay here. You shall sleep while I keep
watch."
"It is very still, my lord. Wilt thou not let me watch for a little?"
she asked.
Prosper laughed. "There are many things a man's wife can do for him, my
dear," he said, "but she cannot fight dogs or men. And she cannot sleep
with one eye open Eat what you have, and then shut your pair of eyes.
You are not afraid for me?"
Isoult looked at him quickly. Then she said--"My lord is--," and
stopped confused.
"What is thy lord, my girl?" asked he.
"He is good to his servant," she whispered in her low thrilled voice.
They ate what bread was left, and drank a little water. Before all was
finished Isoult was nodding. Prosper bestirred himself to do the best
he could for her; he collected a heap of dried leaves, laid his cloak
upon them, and picked up Isoult to lay her upon the cloak. His arms
about her woke her up. Scarce knowing what she did, dreaming possibly
of her mother, she put up her face towards his; but if Prosper noticed
it, no errant mercy from him sent her to bed comforted. He put her
down, covered her about with the cloak, and patted her shoulder with an
easy--"Good-night, my lass." This was cold cheer to the poor girl, who
had to be content with his ministry of the cloak. It was too dark to
tell if he was looking at her as he stooped; and ah, heavens! why
should he look at her? The dark closed round his form, stiffly erect,
sitting on the root of the great tree which made a tent for them both,
and then it claimed her soul. She lost her trouble in sleep; he kept
the watch all night.