The Forest Lovers

Yet the certainty--for that it was--coincided with her lurking

suspicion of the virtue lying in her own strong love. It made that

suspicion hardy; it budded, as I have said, and bore a flower. She

could feel and fondle her ring again, and talk to it at night. "Lie

snug," she would say, "lie close. He will come again and put thee in

place, for such love as mine, which endureth all things, is not to be

gainsaid." Thus she grew healthy as she grew full of heart, and gained

sleek looks for any who had had eyes to see them.

Luckily for her, at present there was none. It is providence for the

earth-born that their mother's lap soon takes furrows in which they

may run. The charcoal-burners' life was no exception: hard work from

dawn to dusk, food your only recreation, sleep your only solace. The

weather is no new thing to you, to gape at and talk about. As well

might the gentry talk about the joys of their daily bath. You have no

quarrels, do no sins, for you have neither women nor strong waters in

your forest tents. And if you knew how, you would thank God that you

are incapable of thought, since a thinking vegetable were a lost

vegetable. To think is to hope, and to hope is to sin against

religion, which says, God saw that it was good. More than any

reflecting man your earth-born believes in God, or the devil. It comes

to much the same, if you will but work it out. He is a deist, his God

an autocrat.

Isoult, the demure little freethinker, had another secret god--him of

the iris wings. She loved, she was loved; she dared hope to be happy.

So far of the earth as to be humble, so far from it as to hope, she

grew in the image of her god and was lovely; she remembered the

precepts of her mother earth and was patient. Whenever she could she

washed herself in the forest brooks; so woods and running water saw in

her the blossoming rod. At these times she could have hymned her god

had she known how; but Prosper had only taught her what his priests

had taught him, that this was a world where every one is for himself,

and to him that asks shall be given. To him that asks twice should be

twice given. The consequence is that life is a great hunting, with no

time for thanksgiving unalloyed. You must end your Gloria in a

whining petition. Having, however, nothing to ask, she sat at these

times in ecstasy inarticulate, her rags laid by for a season, looking

long and far through the green lattice towards the blue, bent upon

exploration of the joyful mysteries. A beam of the sun would fall upon

her to warm her pale beauty and make it glow, the wind of mid-June

play softly in her hair, and fold her in a child's embrace. Then again

she would toy with her ring. "Ring, ring, he will come again, and put

thee where thou shouldest be. Meantime lie still until he lie there

instead of thee."