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 outstretched to ward off 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[107]. 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 needlework[108].”
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 – ay, 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[109] 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[110], 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 favour 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[111], 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, lack-a-day! 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 tirewoman 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
made it no small task for him to keep up with her – (
cannot abide needlework – (
What man would be so caitiff and thrall – (
had not cast a shoe – (
has been a suitor for my hand – (
