A wind had risen in the night, brisk and eager as a blithe breath from the sea. The clouds raced athwart the blue; shadows scampered over the grass; the trees shook their heads and laughed. The water was smitten into a thousand golden wrinkles by the wind. The lilies danced in the shallows; the rushes shivered as the ripples plashed amid the sedge.
As Ogier and Tristan got to horse, a last shrill clamour reached them from the madhouse in the mere. A swift swirl of sound, wild and wordless; it was the wailing of the wretches mocked in their dark dens by the ever-returning dawn. To Tristan the air seemed cleaner since he had crossed the water; the dawn had a deeper gold, the sky a richer colour. The trees cheered him, waved their dark green shields. “Rosamunde, Rosamunde, Rosamunde!” cried the wind. All the alleys and wells of that deep wild seemed to breathe adventure and to mouth romance.
The valley, with its dark pines and stunted olives, sank back under the dawn, while the madhouse stood like black marble in a sheet of gold. Rabbits scurried into the thickets. A herd of swine ran from them, squealing and grunting into the gloom. Wild life was with Tristan, the solitary piping of the birds. The wilderness seemed part of his own soul, where strength and grim nature flourished in the good prime of youth.
Ogier was in a coarse, boastful mood that morning. What little spirit he had seemed to smack of the wine-cask and the brothel. He twitted Tristan, jested against the Bishop, let his loose tongue revel over unclean food. The man was a mere mountain of flesh, corrupt and noisome, and Tristan glanced over his carcass with the grim glee of a smiter. He marked the man’s fat and ungainly girth, smiled when he pictured his good sword falling across the giant’s throat.
“Come, lad,” said Ogier, in his ranting mood, “what though I am a butcher’s son, I am not ashamed of the shambles. I have eaten good meat in my time, and drunk such wine as warms the belly. This great carcass of mine has served me well.”
“A stout arm, comrade, and a stout sword.”
“Man, there is not a fellow in the south who can match me in arms. Goliath, why, I would have cloven that Philistine to the chin. As for you, my little one, I could break your back as I could wring the neck of a pigeon.”
“Doubtless, doubtless,” said Tristan, with a smile.
He was content to listen to the man’s vapourings, for if Ogier waxed garrulous, so much the better. He might betray himself and Jocelyn also.
“To serve the Church, sir,” Ogier ran on, “you must play the pander and keep your mouth shut like an alms coffer. I have been purveyor to the Bishop. Wine, meat, gold, glory, love, and the like—why, sir, I have played with them all, and to my credit.”