الفصل الفصل 9 · HOW STRANGE THINGS BEFELL IN MINSTEAD WOOD.

. HOW STRANGE THINGS BEFELL IN MINSTEAD WOOD.

The path which the young clerk had now to follow lay through a

magnificent forest of the very heaviest timber, where the giant bowls

of oak and of beech formed long aisles in every direction, shooting

up their huge branches to build the majestic arches of Nature's own

cathedral. Beneath lay a broad carpet of the softest and greenest moss,

flecked over with fallen leaves, but yielding pleasantly to the foot of

the traveller. The track which guided him was one so seldom used that in

places it lost itself entirely among the grass, to reappear as a reddish

rut between the distant tree trunks. It was very still here in the heart

of the woodlands. The gentle rustle of the branches and the distant

cooing of pigeons were the only sounds which broke in upon the silence,

save that once Alleyne heard afar off a merry call upon a hunting bugle

and the shrill yapping of the hounds.

It was not without some emotion that he looked upon the scene around

him, for, in spite of his secluded life, he knew enough of the ancient

greatness of his own family to be aware that the time had been when they

had held undisputed and paramount sway over all that tract of country.

His father could trace his pure Saxon lineage back to that Godfrey Malf

who had held the manors of Bisterne and of Minstead at the time when the

Norman first set mailed foot upon English soil. The afforestation of the

district, however, and its conversion into a royal demesne had

clipped off a large section of his estate, while other parts had been

confiscated as a punishment for his supposed complicity in an abortive

Saxon rising. The fate of the ancestor had been typical of that of his

descendants. During three hundred years their domains had gradually

contracted, sometimes through royal or feudal encroachment, and

sometimes through such gifts to the Church as that with which Alleyne's

father had opened the doors of Beaulieu Abbey to his younger son. The

importance of the family had thus dwindled, but they still retained the

old Saxon manor-house, with a couple of farms and a grove large enough

to afford pannage to a hundred pigs--“sylva de centum porcis,” as the

old family parchments describe it. Above all, the owner of the soil

could still hold his head high as the veritable Socman of Minstead--that

is, as holding the land in free socage, with no feudal superior, and

answerable to no man lower than the king. Knowing this, Alleyne felt

some little glow of worldly pride as he looked for the first time

upon the land with which so many generations of his ancestors had been

associated. He pushed on the quicker, twirling his staff merrily, and

looking out at every turn of the path for some sign of the old Saxon

residence. He was suddenly arrested, however, by the appearance of a

wild-looking fellow armed with a club, who sprang out from behind a tree

and barred his passage. He was a rough, powerful peasant, with cap and

tunic of untanned sheepskin, leather breeches, and galligaskins round

legs and feet.

“Stand!” he shouted, raising his heavy cudgel to enforce the order. “Who

are you who walk so freely through the wood? Whither would you go, and

what is your errand?”

“Why should I answer your questions, my friend?” said Alleyne, standing

on his guard.

“Because your tongue may save your pate. But where have I looked upon

your face before?”

“No longer ago than last night at the 'Pied Merlin,'” the clerk

answered, recognizing the escaped serf who had been so outspoken as to

his wrongs.

“By the Virgin! yes. You were the little clerk who sat so mum in the

corner, and then cried fy on the gleeman. What hast in the scrip?”

“Naught of any price.”

“How can I tell that, clerk? Let me see.”

“Not I.”

“Fool! I could pull you limb from limb like a pullet. What would you

have? Hast forgot that we are alone far from all men? How can your

clerkship help you? Wouldst lose scrip and life too?”

“I will part with neither without fight.”

“A fight, quotha? A fight betwixt spurred cock and new hatched chicken!

Thy fighting days may soon be over.”

“Hadst asked me in the name of charity I would have given freely,” cried

Alleyne. “As it stands, not one farthing shall you have with my free

will, and when I see my brother, the Socman of Minstead, he will raise

hue and cry from vill to vill, from hundred to hundred, until you are

taken as a common robber and a scourge to the country.”

The outlaw sank his club. “The Socman's brother!” he gasped. “Now,

by the keys of Peter! I had rather that hand withered and tongue was

palsied ere I had struck or miscalled you. If you are the Socman's

brother you are one of the right side, I warrant, for all your clerkly

dress.”

“His brother I am,” said Alleyne. “But if I were not, is that reason why

you should molest me on the king's ground?”

“I give not the pip of an apple for king or for noble,” cried the serf

passionately. “Ill have I had from them, and ill I shall repay them. I

am a good friend to my friends, and, by the Virgin! an evil foeman to my

foes.”

“And therefore the worst of foemen to thyself,” said Alleyne. “But I

pray you, since you seem to know him, to point out to me the shortest

path to my brother's house.”

The serf was about to reply, when the clear ringing call of a bugle

burst from the wood close behind them, and Alleyne caught sight for

an instant of the dun side and white breast of a lordly stag glancing

swiftly betwixt the distant tree trunks. A minute later came the shaggy

deer-hounds, a dozen or fourteen of them, running on a hot scent, with

nose to earth and tail in air. As they streamed past the silent forest

around broke suddenly into loud life, with galloping of hoofs, crackling

of brushwood, and the short, sharp cries of the hunters. Close behind

the pack rode a fourrier and a yeoman-pricker, whooping on the laggards

and encouraging the leaders, in the shrill half-French jargon which was

the language of venery and woodcraft. Alleyne was still gazing

after them, listening to the loud “Hyke-a-Bayard! Hyke-a-Pomers!

Hyke-a-Lebryt!” with which they called upon their favorite hounds, when

a group of horsemen crashed out through the underwood at the very spot

where the serf and he were standing.

The one who led was a man between fifty and sixty years of age, war-worn

and weather-beaten, with a broad, thoughtful forehead and eyes which

shone brightly from under his fierce and overhung brows. His beard,

streaked thickly with gray, bristled forward from his chin, and spoke

of a passionate nature, while the long, finely cut face and firm mouth

marked the leader of men. His figure was erect and soldierly, and he

rode his horse with the careless grace of a man whose life had been

spent in the saddle. In common garb, his masterful face and flashing

eye would have marked him as one who was born to rule; but now, with his

silken tunic powdered with golden fleurs-de-lis, his velvet mantle lined

with the royal minever, and the lions of England stamped in silver upon

his harness, none could fail to recognize the noble Edward, most warlike

and powerful of all the long line of fighting monarchs who had ruled

the Anglo-Norman race. Alleyne doffed hat and bowed head at the sight

of him, but the serf folded his hands and leaned them upon his cudgel,

looking with little love at the knot of nobles and knights-in-waiting

who rode behind the king.

“Ha!” cried Edward, reining up for an instant his powerful black steed.

“Le cerf est passe? Non? Ici, Brocas; tu parles Anglais.”

“The deer, clowns?” said a hard-visaged, swarthy-faced man, who rode at

the king's elbow. “If ye have headed it back it is as much as your ears

are worth.”

“It passed by the blighted beech there,” said Alleyne, pointing, “and

the hounds were hard at its heels.”

“It is well,” cried Edward, still speaking in French: for, though he

could understand English, he had never learned to express himself in so

barbarous and unpolished a tongue. “By my faith, sirs,” he continued,

half turning in his saddle to address his escort, “unless my woodcraft

is sadly at fault, it is a stag of six tines and the finest that we have

roused this journey. A golden St. Hubert to the man who is the first to

sound the mort.” He shook his bridle as he spoke, and thundered away,

his knights lying low upon their horses and galloping as hard as whip

and spur would drive them, in the hope of winning the king's prize. Away

they drove down the long green glade--bay horses, black and gray, riders

clad in every shade of velvet, fur, or silk, with glint of brazen horn

and flash of knife and spear. One only lingered, the black-browed Baron

Brocas, who, making a gambade which brought him within arm-sweep of

the serf, slashed him across the face with his riding-whip. “Doff, dog,

doff,” he hissed, “when a monarch deigns to lower his eyes to such as

you!”--then spurred through the underwood and was gone, with a gleam of

steel shoes and flutter of dead leaves.

The villein took the cruel blow without wince or cry, as one to whom

stripes are a birthright and an inheritance. His eyes flashed, however,

and he shook his bony hand with a fierce wild gesture after the

retreating figure.

“Black hound of Gascony,” he muttered, “evil the day that you and those

like you set foot in free England! I know thy kennel of Rochecourt. The

night will come when I may do to thee and thine what you and your class

have wrought upon mine and me. May God smite me if I fail to smite thee,

thou French robber, with thy wife and thy child and all that is under

thy castle roof!”

“Forbear!” cried Alleyne. “Mix not God's name with these unhallowed

threats! And yet it was a coward's blow, and one to stir the blood and

loose the tongue of the most peaceful. Let me find some soothing simples

and lay them on the weal to draw the sting.”

“Nay, there is but one thing that can draw the sting, and that the

future may bring to me. But, clerk, if you would see your brother you

must on, for there is a meeting to-day, and his merry men will await him

ere the shadows turn from west to east. I pray you not to hold him back,

for it would be an evil thing if all the stout lads were there and the

leader a-missing. I would come with you, but sooth to say I am stationed

here and may not move. The path over yonder, betwixt the oak and the

thorn, should bring you out into his nether field.”

Alleyne lost no time in following the directions of the wild, masterless

man, whom he left among the trees where he had found him. His heart was

the heavier for the encounter, not only because all bitterness and wrath

were abhorrent to his gentle nature, but also because it disturbed him

to hear his brother spoken of as though he were a chief of outlaws or

the leader of a party against the state. Indeed, of all the things which

he had seen yet in the world to surprise him there was none more

strange than the hate which class appeared to bear to class. The talk

of laborer, woodman and villein in the inn had all pointed to the

wide-spread mutiny, and now his brother's name was spoken as though he

were the very centre of the universal discontent. In good truth, the

commons throughout the length and breadth of the land were heart-weary

of this fine game of chivalry which had been played so long at their

expense. So long as knight and baron were a strength and a guard to the

kingdom they might be endured, but now, when all men knew that the great

battles in France had been won by English yeomen and Welsh stabbers,

warlike fame, the only fame to which his class had ever aspired,

appeared to have deserted the plate-clad horsemen. The sports of the

lists had done much in days gone by to impress the minds of the people,

but the plumed and unwieldy champion was no longer an object either of

fear or of reverence to men whose fathers and brothers had shot into the

press at Crecy or Poitiers, and seen the proudest chivalry in the world

unable to make head against the weapons of disciplined peasants. Power

had changed hands. The protector had become the protected, and the whole

fabric of the feudal system was tottering to a fall. Hence the fierce

mutterings of the lower classes and the constant discontent, breaking

out into local tumult and outrage, and culminating some years later in

the great rising of Tyler. What Alleyne saw and wondered at in Hampshire

would have appealed equally to the traveller in any other English county

from the Channel to the marches of Scotland.

He was following the track, his misgivings increasing with every step

which took him nearer to that home which he had never seen, when of a

sudden the trees began to thin and the sward to spread out onto a broad,

green lawn, where five cows lay in the sunshine and droves of black

swine wandered unchecked. A brown forest stream swirled down the centre

of this clearing, with a rude bridge flung across it, and on the other

side was a second field sloping up to a long, low-lying wooden house,

with thatched roof and open squares for windows. Alleyne gazed across

at it with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes--for this, he knew, must

be the home of his fathers. A wreath of blue smoke floated up through a

hole in the thatch, and was the only sign of life in the place, save a

great black hound which lay sleeping chained to the door-post. In the

yellow shimmer of the autumn sunshine it lay as peacefully and as still

as he had oft pictured it to himself in his dreams.

He was roused, however, from his pleasant reverie by the sound of

voices, and two people emerged from the forest some little way to his

right and moved across the field in the direction of the bridge. The one

was a man with yellow flowing beard and very long hair of the same tint

drooping over his shoulders; his dress of good Norwich cloth and his

assured bearing marked him as a man of position, while the sombre hue

of his clothes and the absence of all ornament contrasted with the flash

and glitter which had marked the king's retinue. By his side walked

a woman, tall and slight and dark, with lithe, graceful figure and

clear-cut, composed features. Her jet-black hair was gathered back under

a light pink coif, her head poised proudly upon her neck, and her step

long and springy, like that of some wild, tireless woodland creature.

She held her left hand in front of her, covered with a red velvet glove,

and on the wrist a little brown falcon, very fluffy and bedraggled,

which she smoothed and fondled as she walked. As she came out into the

sunshine, Alleyne noticed that her light gown, slashed with pink, was

all stained with earth and with moss upon one side from shoulder to hem.

He stood in the shadow of an oak staring at her with parted lips, for

this woman seemed to him to be the most beautiful and graceful creature

that mind could conceive of. Such had he imagined the angels, and such

he had tried to paint them in the Beaulieu missals; but here there was

something human, were it only in the battered hawk and discolored dress,

which sent a tingle and thrill through his nerves such as no dream of

radiant and stainless spirit had ever yet been able to conjure up. Good,

quiet, uncomplaining mother Nature, long slighted and miscalled, still

bides her time and draws to her bosom the most errant of her children.

The two walked swiftly across the meadow to the narrow bridge, he in

front and she a pace or two behind. There they paused, and stood for

a few minutes face to face talking earnestly. Alleyne had read and

had heard of love and of lovers. Such were these, doubtless--this

golden-bearded man and the fair damsel with the cold, proud face. Why

else should they wander together in the woods, or be so lost in talk by

rustic streams? And yet as he watched, uncertain whether to advance from

the cover or to choose some other path to the house, he soon came

to doubt the truth of this first conjecture. The man stood, tall and

square, blocking the entrance to the bridge, and throwing out his hands

as he spoke in a wild eager fashion, while the deep tones of his stormy

voice rose at times into accents of menace and of anger. She stood

fearlessly in front of him, still stroking her bird; but twice she threw

a swift questioning glance over her shoulder, as one who is in search

of aid. So moved was the young clerk by these mute appeals, that he came

forth from the trees and crossed the meadow, uncertain what to do, and

yet loth to hold back from one who might need his aid. So intent were

they upon each other that neither took note of his approach; until, when

he was close upon them, the man threw his arm roughly round the damsel's

waist and drew her towards him, she straining her lithe, supple figure

away and striking fiercely at him, while the hooded hawk screamed with

ruffled wings and pecked blindly in its mistress's defence. Bird and

maid, however, had but little chance against their assailant who,

laughing loudly, caught her wrist in one hand while he drew her towards

him with the other.

“The best rose has ever the longest thorns,” said he. “Quiet, little

one, or you may do yourself a hurt. Must pay Saxon toll on Saxon land,

my proud Maude, for all your airs and graces.”

“You boor!” she hissed. “You base underbred clod! Is this your care and

your hospitality? I would rather wed a branded serf from my father's

fields. Leave go, I say----Ah! good youth, Heaven has sent you. Make him

loose me! By the honor of your mother, I pray you to stand by me and to

make this knave loose me.”

“Stand by you I will, and that blithely,” said Alleyne. “Surely, sir,

you should take shame to hold the damsel against her will.”

The man turned a face upon him which was lion-like in its strength and

in its wrath. With his tangle of golden hair, his fierce blue eyes, and

his large, well-marked features, he was the most comely man whom Alleyne

had ever seen, and yet there was something so sinister and so fell in

his expression that child or beast might well have shrunk from him. His

brows were drawn, his cheek flushed, and there was a mad sparkle in his

eyes which spoke of a wild, untamable nature.

“Young fool!” he cried, holding the woman still to his side, though

every line of her shrinking figure spoke her abhorrence. “Do you keep

your spoon in your own broth. I rede you to go on your way, lest worse

befall you. This little wench has come with me and with me she shall

bide.”

“Liar!” cried the woman; and, stooping her head, she suddenly bit

fiercely into the broad brown hand which held her. He whipped it back

with an oath, while she tore herself free and slipped behind Alleyne,

cowering up against him like the trembling leveret who sees the falcon

poising for the swoop above him.

“Stand off my land!” the man said fiercely, heedless of the blood which

trickled freely from his fingers. “What have you to do here? By your

dress you should be one of those cursed clerks who overrun the land like

vile rats, poking and prying into other men's concerns, too caitiff to

fight and too lazy to work. By the rood! if I had my will upon ye, I

should nail you upon the abbey doors, as they hang vermin before their

holes. Art neither man nor woman, young shaveling. Get thee back to thy

fellows ere I lay hands upon you: for your foot is on my land, and I may

slay you as a common draw-latch.”

“Is this your land, then?” gasped Alleyne.

“Would you dispute it, dog? Would you wish by trick or quibble to juggle

me out of these last acres? Know, base-born knave, that you have dared

this day to stand in the path of one whose race have been the advisers

of kings and the leaders of hosts, ere ever this vile crew of Norman

robbers came into the land, or such half-blood hounds as you were let

loose to preach that the thief should have his booty and the honest man

should sin if he strove to win back his own.”

“You are the Socman of Minstead?”

“That am I; and the son of Edric the Socman, of the pure blood of

Godfrey the thane, by the only daughter of the house of Aluric, whose

forefathers held the white-horse banner at the fatal fight where our

shield was broken and our sword shivered. I tell you, clerk, that my

folk held this land from Bramshaw Wood to the Ringwood road; and, by the

soul of my father! it will be a strange thing if I am to be bearded upon

the little that is left of it. Begone, I say, and meddle not with my

affair.”

“If you leave me now,” whispered the woman, “then shame forever upon

your manhood.”

“Surely, sir,” said Alleyne, speaking in as persuasive and soothing a

way as he could, “if your birth is gentle, there is the more reason that

your manners should be gentle too. I am well persuaded that you did but

jest with this lady, and that you will now permit her to leave your land

either alone or with me as a guide, if she should need one, through the

wood. As to birth, it does not become me to boast, and there is sooth in

what you say as to the unworthiness of clerks, but it is none the less

true that I am as well born as you.”

“Dog!” cried the furious Socman, “there is no man in the south who can

say as much.”

“Yet can I,” said Alleyne smiling; “for indeed I also am the son of

Edric the Socman, of the pure blood of Godfrey the thane, by the only

daughter of Aluric of Brockenhurst. Surely, dear brother,” he continued,

holding out his hand, “you have a warmer greeting than this for me.

There are but two boughs left upon this old, old Saxon trunk.”

His elder brother dashed his hand aside with an oath, while an

expression of malignant hatred passed over his passion-drawn features.

“You are the young cub of Beaulieu, then,” said he. “I might have known

it by the sleek face and the slavish manner too monk-ridden and craven

in spirit to answer back a rough word. Thy father, shaveling, with all

his faults, had a man's heart; and there were few who could look him in

the eyes on the day of his anger. But you! Look there, rat, on yonder

field where the cows graze, and on that other beyond, and on the orchard

hard by the church. Do you know that all these were squeezed out of

your dying father by greedy priests, to pay for your upbringing in the

cloisters? I, the Socman, am shorn of my lands that you may snivel Latin

and eat bread for which you never did hand's turn. You rob me first, and

now you would come preaching and whining, in search mayhap of another

field or two for your priestly friends. Knave! my dogs shall be set upon

you; but, meanwhile, stand out of my path, and stop me at your peril!”

As he spoke he rushed forward, and, throwing the lad to one side, caught

the woman's wrist. Alleyne, however, as active as a young deer-hound,

sprang to her aid and seized her by the other arm, raising his iron-shod

staff as he did so.

“You may say what you will to me,” he said between his clenched

teeth--“it may be no better than I deserve; but, brother or no, I swear

by my hopes of salvation that I will break your arm if you do not leave

hold of the maid.”

There was a ring in his voice and a flash in his eyes which promised

that the blow would follow quick at the heels of the word. For a moment

the blood of the long line of hot-headed thanes was too strong for the

soft whisperings of the doctrine of meekness and mercy. He was conscious

of a fierce wild thrill through his nerves and a throb of mad gladness

at his heart, as his real human self burst for an instant the bonds

of custom and of teaching which had held it so long. The socman sprang

back, looking to left and to right for some stick or stone which might

serve him for weapon; but finding none, he turned and ran at the top of

his speed for the house, blowing the while upon a shrill whistle.

“Come!” gasped the woman. “Fly, friend, ere he come back.”

“Nay, let him come!” cried Alleyne. “I shall not budge a foot for him or

his dogs.”

“Come, come!” she cried, tugging at his arm. “I know the man: he will

kill you. Come, for the Virgin's sake, or for my sake, for I cannot go

and leave you here.”

“Come, then,” said he; and they ran together to the cover of the woods.

As they gained the edge of the brushwood, Alleyne, looking back, saw his

brother come running out of the house again, with the sun gleaming upon

his hair and his beard. He held something which flashed in his right

hand, and he stooped at the threshold to unloose the black hound.

“This way!” the woman whispered, in a low eager voice. “Through the

bushes to that forked ash. Do not heed me; I can run as fast as you, I

trow. Now into the stream--right in, over ankles, to throw the dog off,

though I think it is but a common cur, like its master.” As she spoke,

she sprang herself into the shallow stream and ran swiftly up the

centre of it, with the brown water bubbling over her feet and her

hand out-stretched toward the clinging branches of bramble or sapling.

Alleyne followed close at her heels, with his mind in a whirl at this

black welcome and sudden shifting of all his plans and hopes. Yet, grave

as were his thoughts, they would still turn to wonder as he looked at

the twinkling feet of his guide and saw her lithe figure bend this way

and that, dipping under boughs, springing over stones, with a lightness

and ease which made it no small task for him to keep up with her. At

last, when he was almost out of breath, she suddenly threw herself down

upon a mossy bank, between two holly-bushes, and looked ruefully at her

own dripping feet and bedraggled skirt.

“Holy Mary!” said she, “what shall I do? Mother will keep me to my

chamber for a month, and make me work at the tapestry of the nine bold

knights. She promised as much last week, when I fell into Wilverley bog,

and yet she knows that I cannot abide needle-work.”

Alleyne, still standing in the stream, glanced down at the graceful

pink-and-white figure, the curve of raven-black hair, and the proud,

sensitive face which looked up frankly and confidingly at his own.

“We had best on,” he said. “He may yet overtake us.”

“Not so. We are well off his land now, nor can he tell in this great

wood which way we have taken. But you--you had him at your mercy. Why

did you not kill him?”

“Kill him! My brother!”

“And why not?”--with a quick gleam of her white teeth. “He would have

killed you. I know him, and I read it in his eyes. Had I had your staff

I would have tried--aye, and done it, too.” She shook her clenched white

hand as she spoke, and her lips tightened ominously.

“I am already sad in heart for what I have done,” said he, sitting down

on the bank, and sinking his face into his hands. “God help me!--all

that is worst in me seemed to come uppermost. Another instant, and I

had smitten him: the son of my own mother, the man whom I have longed to

take to my heart. Alas! that I should still be so weak.”

“Weak!” she exclaimed, raising her black eyebrows. “I do not think that

even my father himself, who is a hard judge of manhood, would call you

that. But it is, as you may think, sir, a very pleasant thing for me to

hear that you are grieved at what you have done, and I can but rede

that we should go back together, and you should make your peace with the

Socman by handing back your prisoner. It is a sad thing that so small a

thing as a woman should come between two who are of one blood.”

Simple Alleyne opened his eyes at this little spurt of feminine

bitterness. “Nay, lady,” said he, “that were worst of all. What man

would be so caitiff and thrall as to fail you at your need? I have

turned my brother against me, and now, alas! I appear to have given you

offence also with my clumsy tongue. But, indeed, lady, I am torn both

ways, and can scarce grasp in my mind what it is that has befallen.”

“Nor can I marvel at that,” said she, with a little tinkling laugh. “You

came in as the knight does in the jongleur's romances, between dragon

and damsel, with small time for the asking of questions. Come,” she went

on, springing to her feet, and smoothing down her rumpled frock, “let us

walk through the shaw together, and we may come upon Bertrand with the

horses. If poor Troubadour had not cast a shoe, we should not have had

this trouble. Nay, I must have your arm: for, though I speak lightly,

now that all is happily over I am as frightened as my brave Roland. See

how his chest heaves, and his dear feathers all awry--the little knight

who would not have his lady mishandled.” So she prattled on to her hawk,

while Alleyne walked by her side, stealing a glance from time to time at

this queenly and wayward woman. In silence they wandered together over

the velvet turf and on through the broad Minstead woods, where the

old lichen-draped beeches threw their circles of black shadow upon the

sunlit sward.

“You have no wish, then, to hear my story?” said she, at last.

“If it pleases you to tell it me,” he answered.

“Oh!” she cried tossing her head, “if it is of so little interest to

you, we had best let it bide.”

“Nay,” said he eagerly, “I would fain hear it.”

“You have a right to know it, if you have lost a brother's favor through

it. And yet----Ah well, you are, as I understand, a clerk, so I

must think of you as one step further in orders, and make you my

father-confessor. Know then that this man has been a suitor for my hand,

less as I think for my own sweet sake than because he hath ambition and

had it on his mind that he might improve his fortunes by dipping into

my father's strong box--though the Virgin knows that he would have found

little enough therein. My father, however, is a proud man, a gallant

knight and tried soldier of the oldest blood, to whom this man's

churlish birth and low descent----Oh, lackaday! I had forgot that he was

of the same strain as yourself.”

“Nay, trouble not for that,” said Alleyne, “we are all from good mother

Eve.”

“Streams may spring from one source, and yet some be clear and some be

foul,” quoth she quickly. “But, to be brief over the matter, my father

would have none of his wooing, nor in sooth would I. On that he swore

a vow against us, and as he is known to be a perilous man, with many

outlaws and others at his back, my father forbade that I should hawk or

hunt in any part of the wood to the north of the Christchurch road. As

it chanced, however, this morning my little Roland here was loosed at a

strong-winged heron, and page Bertrand and I rode on, with no thoughts

but for the sport, until we found ourselves in Minstead woods. Small

harm then, but that my horse Troubadour trod with a tender foot upon a

sharp stick, rearing and throwing me to the ground. See to my gown, the

third that I have befouled within the week. Woe worth me when Agatha the

tire-woman sets eyes upon it!”

“And what then, lady?” asked Alleyne.

“Why, then away ran Troubadour, for belike I spurred him in falling,

and Bertrand rode after him as hard as hoofs could bear him. When I rose

there was the Socman himself by my side, with the news that I was on

his land, but with so many courteous words besides, and such gallant

bearing, that he prevailed upon me to come to his house for shelter,

there to wait until the page return. By the grace of the Virgin and the

help of my patron St. Magdalen, I stopped short ere I reached his

door, though, as you saw, he strove to hale me up to it. And

then--ah-h-h-h!”--she shivered and chattered like one in an ague-fit.

“What is it?” cried Alleyne, looking about in alarm.

“Nothing, friend, nothing! I was but thinking how I bit into his hand.

Sooner would I bite living toad or poisoned snake. Oh, I shall loathe my

lips forever! But you--how brave you were, and how quick! How meek for

yourself, and how bold for a stranger! If I were a man, I should wish to

do what you have done.”

“It was a small thing,” he answered, with a tingle of pleasure at these

sweet words of praise. “But you--what will you do?”

“There is a great oak near here, and I think that Bertrand will bring

the horses there, for it is an old hunting-tryst of ours. Then hey for

home, and no more hawking to-day! A twelve-mile gallop will dry feet and

skirt.”

“But your father?”

“Not one word shall I tell him. You do not know him; but I can tell you

he is not a man to disobey as I have disobeyed him. He would avenge me,

it is true, but it is not to him that I shall look for vengeance. Some

day, perchance, in joust or in tourney, knight may wish to wear my

colors, and then I shall tell him that if he does indeed crave my favor

there is wrong unredressed, and the wronger the Socman of Minstead. So

my knight shall find a venture such as bold knights love, and my debt

shall be paid, and my father none the wiser, and one rogue the less in

the world. Say, is not that a brave plan?”

“Nay, lady, it is a thought which is unworthy of you. How can such as

you speak of violence and of vengeance. Are none to be gentle and kind,

none to be piteous and forgiving? Alas! it is a hard, cruel world, and I

would that I had never left my abbey cell. To hear such words from your

lips is as though I heard an angel of grace preaching the devil's own

creed.”

She started from him as a young colt who first feels the bit. “Gramercy

for your rede, young sir!” she said, with a little curtsey. “As I

understand your words, you are grieved that you ever met me, and look

upon me as a preaching devil. Why, my father is a bitter man when he is

wroth, but hath never called me such a name as that. It may be his right

and duty, but certes it is none of thine. So it would be best, since you

think so lowly of me, that you should take this path to the left while

I keep on upon this one; for it is clear that I can be no fit companion

for you.” So saying, with downcast lids and a dignity which was somewhat

marred by her bedraggled skirt, she swept off down the muddy track,

leaving Alleyne standing staring ruefully after her. He waited in vain

for some backward glance or sign of relenting, but she walked on with

a rigid neck until her dress was only a white flutter among the leaves.

Then, with a sunken head and a heavy heart, he plodded wearily down the

other path, wroth with himself for the rude and uncouth tongue which had

given offence where so little was intended.

He had gone some way, lost in doubt and in self-reproach, his mind all

tremulous with a thousand new-found thoughts and fears and wonderments,

when of a sudden there was a light rustle of the leaves behind him, and,

glancing round, there was this graceful, swift-footed creature, treading

in his very shadow, with her proud head bowed, even as his was--the

picture of humility and repentance.

“I shall not vex you, nor even speak,” she said; “but I would fain keep

with you while we are in the wood.”

“Nay, you cannot vex me,” he answered, all warm again at the very sight

of her. “It was my rough words which vexed you; but I have been thrown

among men all my life, and indeed, with all the will, I scarce know how

to temper my speech to a lady's ear.”

“Then unsay it,” cried she quickly; “say that I was right to wish to

have vengeance on the Socman.”

“Nay, I cannot do that,” he answered gravely.

“Then who is ungentle and unkind now?” she cried in triumph. “How stern

and cold you are for one so young! Art surely no mere clerk, but bishop

or cardinal at the least. Shouldst have crozier for staff and mitre

for cap. Well, well, for your sake I will forgive the Socman and take

vengeance on none but on my own wilful self who must needs run into

danger's path. So will that please you, sir?”

“There spoke your true self,” said he; “and you will find more pleasure

in such forgiveness than in any vengeance.”

She shook her head, as if by no means assured of it, and then with a

sudden little cry, which had more of surprise than of joy in it, “Here

is Bertrand with the horses!”

Down the glade there came a little green-clad page with laughing eyes,

and long curls floating behind him. He sat perched on a high bay horse,

and held on to the bridle of a spirited black palfrey, the hides of both

glistening from a long run.

“I have sought you everywhere, dear Lady Maude,” said he in a

piping voice, springing down from his horse and holding the stirrup.

“Troubadour galloped as far as Holmhill ere I could catch him. I trust

that you have had no hurt or scath?” He shot a questioning glance at

Alleyne as he spoke.

“No, Bertrand,” said she, “thanks to this courteous stranger. And now,

sir,” she continued, springing into her saddle, “it is not fit that I

leave you without a word more. Clerk or no, you have acted this day as

becomes a true knight. King Arthur and all his table could not have done

more. It may be that, as some small return, my father or his kin may

have power to advance your interest. He is not rich, but he is honored

and hath great friends. Tell me what is your purpose, and see if he may

not aid it.”

“Alas! lady, I have now no purpose. I have but two friends in the world,

and they have gone to Christchurch, where it is likely I shall join

them.”

“And where is Christchurch?”

“At the castle which is held by the brave knight, Sir Nigel Loring,

constable to the Earl of Salisbury.”

To his surprise she burst out a-laughing, and, spurring her palfrey,

dashed off down the glade, with her page riding behind her. Not one word

did she say, but as she vanished amid the trees she half turned in her

saddle and waved a last greeting. Long time he stood, half hoping that

she might again come back to him; but the thud of the hoofs had died

away, and there was no sound in all the woods but the gentle rustle and

dropping of the leaves. At last he turned away and made his way back to

the high-road--another person from the light-hearted boy who had left it

a short three hours before.