The Forest Lovers

"By God he has, I'll warrant," chuckled the man who had found her.

"Hum," said Falve. "Are you hungry, Roy?"

"No."

"Then do you cook the supper and I'll eat it. Do you see this little

belt o' mine?"

"Yes."

"It's a terror, this belt. Don't seek to be nearer acquaint. Go and

cook."

The ram proved excellent eating--tender and full of blood. Humane,

even liberal, counsels prevailed over the sated assembly. The boy

seemed docile enough, and likely; just a Jack of the build needful to

climb the stacks of smouldering boughs, see to the fires, cord the cut

wood and the burnt wood, lead the asses, cook the dinner, call the men

--to be, in fact, what Jack should be. Jack he was, and Jack he should

be called. Falve held out for a thrashing as a set-off; it seemed

unnatural, he said, to have a belt and a boy at arms'-length. It was

outvoted on account of the lateness of the hour, but only delayed. The

beds were made ready, and Jack and his masters went to sleep.

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.