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THE NIGHTINGALE
Foulque the Cripple listened with a perturbed brow. “You should have left him alone! A wretched herd-girl!”
“If I am to be knight,” said Garin hotly, “I will not read knighthood so.”
“Psha!” said Foulque. “They put resistance on! It is a mask when they seem unwilling. And if it were real, what then?—Saint Pol, what then?—And you saw naught to tell you who he was?”
“No.”
Foulque fretted. “If I had been there, I should have found some colour or sign! But you go as dreamily as if you were bewitched! You see naught that’s to the point.”
“He had a blue robe and a surcoat of crimson, and shoes of brown cordovan,” said Garin. “His sword had a rich hilt, and his gloves were embroidered. I noted them where he had thrust them in the bosom of his robe when I knelt to look at his wound. He was red-gold of hair and hawk nosed, full-lipped, and with a scar on his cheek. I think that he is older than I, but not much older.”
“Well, well!” said Foulque, “he may have been some wanderer from a distance, with no recourse but his own hand. Moreover, for fame’s sake, he will not be quick to talk about a younger man, and one of less degree. If he found out neither your name nor house—perhaps we’ll hear no more of it. … Well, what have you to say? I have news for you! The abbot hath been to Roche-de-Frêne, and on his way home is pleased to sleep one night at Castel-Noir. A man of his brought notice this morning. This is Tuesday—Friday he will be here.” Foulque rose and limped across the hall in some excitement. “Poor and bare, God knows! is Castel-Noir, but we will do what we can! My bed here he shall have, and we will put up the hangings from Genoa, and strew the floor with fair herbs. There’s wine enough, and Pierre shall begin his baking to-morrow morn! Friday.—He will have, his man said, twenty in his train. The sub-prior—five or six brothers—the rest stout serfs with staves.—Friday!—Every man of ours must be set to fishing!”
When every man was sent to the stream, the company of fishermen covered no great length of bank. Moreover all could not settle to fishing, for some must forth to forage for the approaching horse, and to find venison, fowls, and other matters for the Saturday morn. For poor was the small black tower in the black wood! Foulque could furnish to his lord a young brother for esquire, and, if a levy were made, ten men, by no means prize men, with ten horses, by no means horses for a king’s stable. Paladin was the only horse of that nature. A poor, small fief was Castel-Noir—black keep and tower on a crag, set in a dark wood, with a few fields beyond, and all under shadow of the mountains to the north. South of it, only, ran the bright stream where fish were to be caught.
Thursday sunrise, Garin took a fishing-rod and went down the crag by the road cut, long since, in the rock, and through the wood to this stream. In a great leather pouch slung over his shoulder he had, with other matters, bread and meat. He meant to make a day of it, bringing home in the evening good fish for Pierre’s larder. When he reached the stream, he found there old Jean and his two grandsons and they had a great basket, its bottom already flashing silver and iris.
“Good-morning, Jean and Pol and Arnaut,” said Garin.
“Good-morning, master! The Blessed Maries have sent good fishing! They snap as soon as you touch the water.”
Farther down the stream he found Sicart. “How great a man, master, is the abbot? Very great he must be if he eats all the fish we are taking! It is a miracle!”
Garin moved down the stream seeking for a place that should seize his fancy. The eagerness with which he had risen and sallied forth disappeared. They would have enough for the Abbot and his train—more than enough. At times he cared for fishing, but not, he found, to-day. Why then fish, if there was no need? He still carried the rod, but he continued to walk, making no motion to stop and put it into use. There was a foot-path by the stream, and it and the gliding water led him on. He wanted to think, or, more truly, to dream. Back in the black castle all was topsy-turvy, and Foulque concerned only with family fortunes.
Now Garin walked, and now he leaned against some tree and gazed at the flowing water; but on the whole he moved forward with such steadiness that before the sun was much above the tree-tops the foot-path ceased, having brought him to a great round stone and an overhanging pine, and the end, on this side, of the fief of Castel-Noir. Beyond came a strip of stony and unprofitable land, a debated possession, claimed by two barons and of no especial use to any man. Garin threw himself down upon the boundary stone and, chin in hand, regarded the sliding stream.
It was this stone, perhaps, that brought into mind Tuesday’s boulder and the jongleur. Rather than the jongleur came the figure of the jongleur’s lute. Garin’s fingers moved as though they felt beneath them the strings. A verse was running, running through his head. Only after a slow, lilting, inward saying of it over twice or thrice did it come to him, like the opening of a flower, that it was his own, not another’s. He had made it, lying there. He rose from the stone and walked forward, still going with the gliding stream. As he walked, the second verse came to him. He said over the two, said over his first poem and said it over again, tasting it, savouring it, hearing it now with music. He was in a dream of dawn. …
There was no longer a path, but he went on over the stony soil, beneath old gnarled and stunted trees. The sun rode high and made the water a flood of diamonds. Garin walked with a light and rapid step. When a tree came in his way he swerved and rounded it and went on, but he was hardly conscious that it had been there. The fishing-rod was yet in his hand, but he did not think of the rod, nor of fishing, nor of Castel-Noir, nor Foulque, nor the abbot, nor of the decision which the abbot’s visit would force. He hardly knew of what he was thinking. It was diffused—the world was diffused—drifting and swinging, and in the mist he touched a new power.
A hawk shot downwards, plunged beak in water, rose with the taken fish and soared into the eye of day. Garin started, shook himself, and looked about him. He had come farther than he meant. He half-turned, then stood irresolute, then again faced downstream. The day was not old, and a distaste seized him for going back and listening to Foulque on what the abbot might or might not do. He wandered on.
An hour later he came upon another boundary mark. This was a cross cut in stone, with a rude carving upon the block that formed the base. Garin sat down to rest, and sitting so, fell to scraping with his knife the encrusting lichen from this carving. There was a palm tree and a pyramid, which stamped Egypt in mind. Here was Saint Joseph, and here was the ass bearing the Mother and Child. Above was Latin, to the effect that you were upon the lands of the Convent of Our Lady in Egypt. Garin knew that, and that two miles down the stream the nuns would be now at the noon office. He wondered if, yesterday or to-day, they had sent Jael the herd back to her own. But, on the surface, at least, of consciousness there floated no long thought of that matter. His mood was one of half-melancholy, half-exaltation, all threaded with the warm wonder of making verses.
The nature of the land changed here. For stone and dwarfed growth there began a richer soil and nobler trees. The latter made, all along the water’s edge, a narrow grove, with here and there a fairy opening and lawn of fine grass. Garin, having scraped away the lichen, looked at the sun, which was now past the meridian, and thought that he would retrace his steps.
Before him, out of a covert a little way down the stream, a nightingale sang suddenly. Garin listened, and it might be his mood of to-day that made him think that never before had he heard any bird sing so sweetly. It carolled on, rich and deep, and the young man went toward it. The ribbon of wood was dark and sweet; the bird sang like a soul imprisoned. When it silenced itself Garin still stood looking up into its tree. Presently it flew from that bower and, crossing one of the elfin lawns,
