The argument, which, holding as I do steadfastly with Socrates, I must follow whithersoever it runs, assures me that charcoal-burning is a grimy trade, and the charcoal-burners' Jack the blackest of the party; for if he be not black with coal-smoke, he will be black and blue with his drubbings. Isoult, in the shreds of Roy, grew, you may judge, as black and uncombed as any of the crew. She had not a three-weeks' beard, but her hair began to grow faster; the roses in her cheek were in flower under the soot. Her hair curled and waved about her neck, her eyes shone and were limpid, her roses bloomed unawares; she grew sinewy and healthy in the kind forest airs. She worked very hard, ate very little, was as often beaten as not. All this made for health; in addition, she nursed a gentle thought in her heart, which probably accounted for as much as the open air. This was the news of Prosper's return to High March, and of the fine works he performed there in the hall. It came to her in a roundabout way through some pony drovers, who had it from Market Basing. The pietist at March, who made the image of Saint Isolda, may have spread the news. At any rate it came, it seeded in her heart, and as she felt the creeping of the little flower she blushed. It told her that Prosper had avenged her—more, had owned her for his. This last grain of news it was which held her seed. If he owned her abroad—amazing thought!—it must be that he loved her. As she so concluded, a delicate, throbbing fire fluttered in her side, and stole up to burn unreproved and undetected in her cheeks. Her reasoning was no reasoning, of course; but she knew nothing of knightly honour or the dramatic sense, so it seemed incontrovertible. At this discovery she was as full of shame as if she had done a sin. A sin indeed it seemed almost to be in her, that one so high should stoop to one so low, and she not die at once. Sacrilege—should not one die rather than suffer a sacrilege to be thrust upon one? So Clytie may have felt, and Oreithyia, when they discerned the God in the sun, or wild embraces of the wind.
Yet the certainty—for that it was—coincided with her lurking suspicion of the virtue lying in her own strong love. It made that suspicion hardy; it budded, as I have said, and bore a flower. She could feel and fondle her ring again, and talk to it at night. "Lie snug," she would say, "lie close. He will come again and put thee in place, for such love as mine, which endureth all things, is not to be gainsaid." Thus she grew healthy as she grew full of heart, and gained sleek looks for any who had had eyes to see them.
Luckily for her, at present there was none. It is providence for the earth-born that their mother's lap soon takes furrows in which they may run. The charcoal-burners' life was no exception: hard work from dawn to dusk, food your only recreation, sleep your only solace. The weather is no new thing to you, to gape at and talk about. As well might the gentry talk about the joys of their daily bath. You have no quarrels, do no sins, for you have neither women nor strong waters in your forest tents. And if you knew how, you would thank God that you are incapable of thought, since a thinking vegetable were a lost vegetable. To think is to hope, and to hope is to sin against religion, which says, God saw that it was good. More than any reflecting man your earth-born believes in God, or the devil. It comes to much the same, if you will but work it out. He is a deist, his God an autocrat.
Isoult, the demure little freethinker, had another secret god—him of the iris wings. She loved, she was loved; she dared hope to be happy. So far of the earth as to be humble, so far from it as to hope, she grew in the image of her god and was lovely; she remembered the precepts of her mother earth and was patient. Whenever she could she washed herself in the forest brooks; so woods and running water saw in her the blossoming rod. At these times she could have hymned her god had she known how; but Prosper had only taught her what his priests had taught him, that this was a world where every one is for himself, and to him that asks shall be given. To him that asks twice should be twice given. The consequence is that life is a great hunting, with no time for thanksgiving unalloyed. You must end your Gloria in a whining petition. Having, however, nothing to ask, she sat at these times in ecstasy inarticulate, her rags laid by for a season, looking long and far through the green lattice towards the blue, bent upon exploration of the joyful mysteries. A beam of the sun would fall upon her to warm her pale beauty and make it glow, the wind of mid-June play softly in her hair, and fold her in a child's embrace. Then again she would toy with her ring. "Ring, ring, he will come again, and put thee where thou shouldest be. Meantime lie still until he lie there instead of thee."
July heats stilled the forest leaves; the coal-stacks grew apace. The charcoal-burners' Jack had hair to his waist and had to hide it in his cap; the charcoal-burners' beards were six weeks old. There was talk of nights of a market in Hauterive, where Falve's mother kept a huckster's shop.
CHAPTER XXII
GALORS CONQUAESTOR
Prosper's aim on leaving High March after his gests of arms had been Goltres, for there he had believed to find Galors. But Galors was a man of affairs just now who had gone far since Isoult overheard his plans. His troop of some sixty spears had grown like the avalanche it resembled. For what the avalanche does not crush it turns to crushing. Galors harrying had won harriers. In fact, he headed within a fortnight of his coming into North Morgraunt a force which was the largest known since Earl Roger of Bellesme had made a quietness like death over those parts. By the time of Prosper's exodus, that is by mid-May, his tactical situation was this—it is as well to be precise. He had Hauterive and Waisford. Goltres was in the hollow of his hand. If he could get Wanmeeting he would be master of the whole of the north forest, west of Wan. Here would be enormous advantage. By a forced march and a night surprise he might get Market Basing, on the east side of the river; and if he did that he would cut the Countess of Hauterive practically off the whole of Morgraunt. Going further, so far as to cut her off March, whence she drew her supplies, she would be at his mercy. He could pen her in High March like a sheep, and make such terms as a sheep and a butcher were likely to arrange.
For, strategically, North Morgraunt would be his; with that to the good
South Morgraunt could await his leisure. The key will show how the
Hauterive saltire stood with the Galors pale.
Now the whole of this pretty scheming was based upon one simple supposed fact, that the Countess's daughter was then actually in her mother's castle. Galors knew quite well that he could not hold Morgraunt indefinitely without the lady. Even Morgraunt was part of the kingdom; and though rumour of the King's troubles came down, with wild talk of Aquardente from the north and Bottetort from the south-west combining to slaughter their sovereign, the King's writ would continue to run though the king that writ it were under the earth: it was unlikely that a shire would be let fall to a nameless outlaw when five hundred men out of Kings-hold could keep it where it was. But a name would come by marriage as well as by birth. All his terms with his penned Countess would have been, amnesty and the heiress.