seemed to regard the horizon from west to east and from east to west. Then she said, “In a hut, two miles yonder. But his men went that way.”
“Then you cannot go there now.”
“No.—Not now.”
Garin pondered. “It is less than two leagues,” he said, “to the Convent of Our Lady in Egypt. I could take you there. The good nuns will give you shelter and send you safe to-morrow to your people.”
The herd-girl seemed to consider it, then she nodded her head. She said something, but her voice was half lost in the black torrent of her loosened hair. The sun’s rays were slant—it was growing late.
Garin mounted and drew her up behind him. At a little distance the road forked.
“They went that way,” she said, pointing.
“Then it’s as well,” said Garin, “that we go this. Now we had best ride fast for a time.”
They rode fast for a good long way; then, as no hoof-sound or cry came from behind, the squire checked Paladin, and they went slowly enough to talk.
“I have hopes,” said Garin, “that he swooned, and when they found him could tell them naught. Do you know his name?”
“No. I was asleep in the sun.”
“What is your name?”
“Jael.”
“The nuns will care for you.”
“I will ask them to let me stay and keep their sheep.”
They rode on through a fair, smiling country. Garin fell silent and the herd-girl was not talkative. He could not but ride wondering about that knight back there, and who he might be and how powerful. He saw that it was possible that he had provided a hornet’s nest for the ears of Castel-Noir and Foulque. He drew a sigh, half-frighted and half-proud of a proved prowess.
The girl behind him moved slightly. “I had forgot to say it,” she murmured. “I will say it now. Fair sir, I am humbly grateful—”
Garin had a great idiosyncrasy. He disliked to be thanked. “I liked that fighting,” he said. “It was no sacrifice. That is,” he thought, “it will not be if he never find out my name.”
Paladin carried them a way farther. Said Garin, remembering chivalry, “It is man’s part to protect the weaker being, that is woman.”
“It puzzles so!” said the herd-girl. “I am not very weak. Is it man’s part, too, to lay hands upon a woman against her will? If man did not that, then man need not do, at such cost, the other. What credit to put water on the house you yourself set afire?”
“Now by Our Lady,” said Garin, “you are a strange herd-girl!” He twisted in the saddle so that he might look at her. She sat still—young, slim and forlorn to the eye, dark as a berry, her feet bare and her dress so torn that her limbs showed. Her long, black loosened hair almost hid her face, which seemed thin, with irregular features. She had her distaff still, the forlorn serf’s daughter, herself a serf.
“If we plume ourselves it is a mistake, and foolishness,” said Garin. “But yet though one man act villainously, another may act well.”
“Just,” said the herd-girl. “And I thank the one who has acted well—but not all men. I thank a man, but not mankind.”
“How old are you?”
“I am eighteen.”
“Where got you your thoughts?”
“There is time and need for thinking,” said the herd-girl, “when you keep sheep.”
With that she sighed and fell silent. They were going now by a swift stream; when, presently, they came to the ford and crossed, they were upon convent lands. Our Lady in Egypt was a Cistercian convent, ample and rich, and her grey-clad nuns came from noble houses. There were humbly born lay sisters. The abbess was the sister of a prince. The place had wealth, and being of the order of Saint Bernard, then in its first strength, was like a hive for work. From the ford on, the road was mended, the fields fat, the hedges trim. The convent had its serfs, and the huts of these people were not miserable, nor did the people themselves look hunger-stricken and woe-begone. The hillsides smiled with vineyards, the sky arched all with an Egyptian blue, the westering sun, tempering his fierceness, looked benignly on. Presently, in a vale beside the stream, they saw the great place, set four-square, a tiny hamlet clinging like an infant to its skirts. Behind, covering a pleasant slope, were olive groves with tall cypresses mounting like spires. Grey sisters worked among the grey trees. A bell rang slowly, with a silver tone.
“I will take you to the gate,” said Garin. “Then you can knock and the sister will let you in.”
“Aye, that will she. And you, fair squire, where will you go? Where is your home?”
Now Garin was thinking, “If that knight is a powerful man it is well that I gave him no inkling of where to find me!” Assuredly he had no thought nor fear that the herd-girl might betray. And yet he did not say, “I was born at Castel-Noir,” or “I live now in the castle of Raimbaut the Six-fingered.” He said, “I dwell by the sea, a long way from here.”
“Dusk is at hand,” said the herd-girl. “There, among those houses, is one set apart for benighted travellers.”
“How do you know that? Have you been here before?”
“Aye, once.—If you have far to ride, or the way is not clear before you, you had best rest to-night in the traveller’s house.”
But Garin shook his head. “I will go on.”
With that they came, just before the sun went down, to the wall of the convent, and the door beneath a round arch where the needy applied for shelter or relief. The squire checked Paladin. He made a motion to dismount, but the girl put a brown hand upon his knee.
“Stay,” she said, “where you are! I will ring the bell and speak to the portress.” So saying, she slipped to the earth like brown running water; then turned and spoke to the rescuer. “Fair squire,” she said, “take again my thanks. If ever I can pay good turn with good turn, be sure that I will do it!” She moved within the arch, put her hand to the bell and set it jangling, then again turned her head. “Will you remove from so close before the door? You will frighten the sister. And the sun is down and you had best be going. Farewell!”
Involuntarily Garin backed Paladin further from the round arch. The horse was eager for his stable, wheeled in that direction, and chafed at the yet restraining hand. Garin looked as in a dream at the herd-girl. Even now he could not see her face for that streaming hair. A grating in the convent door opened and the sister who was portress looked forth. The herd-girl spoke, but he could not hear what was the word she said. A key grated, the convent door swung open. “Lord God!” cried the grey sister. He heard that, and had a glimpse of her standing with lifted hands. The herd-girl crossed the threshold. Paladin, insisting upon the road, took for a moment the squire’s full attention. When he looked back the convent wall was blank; door and grating alike were closed.
CHAPTER III
