"Would you have me wed you, Falve?" she faltered.
"Why, I set no store by your church-music, myself," rejoined Falve.
"But I set great store by Holy Church. You would never dishonour me,
Falve?"
"My dear," said Falve, "you will have guessed by now that I am a
lady's man. I am wax in their pretty hands--red wax or white wax.
According as you squeeze me, my dear, you make me a Golias or a
bishop, as you wish. You would have me a bishop, eh?"
"I do not understand, Falve."
"The husband of one wife, my lass, as the Scripture saith. Is that
your fancy?"
"I would like to be a wife."
"Then a wife you shall be, my honey, though a friend or a bondmaid is
equally good Scripture, to say nothing of simplicity. Now that being
settled, and a bargain a bargain, let us seal."
She escaped with his tarnish on her hand; but he respected her
promise, and troubled her no more by contact. Nevertheless she had to
pay. His dwarfish propensity to wit led him the wildest lengths. The
rogue began to sigh and gesture and slap his ribs. He affected the
lover preposterously; he was over weary of his rough life, he would
say; he must marry and settle down in the hut by the brook.
"And then," he ran on, "thou, Roy, shalt come and live there, serving
me and my wife. For I love thee, boy, and will not leave thee. And I
warrant that she will not be jealous when I play with thee; nor shall
I grudge thy love of her--nay, not if thou shouldst love her as
myself. For thus Moses bade us in the Commandments." And so on. "By
Saint Christopher, that long man of God," he swore at another bout,
"thou and my wife shall sleep in one bed, and I not be dishonoured!"
The other men began to prick up their ears at these speeches, and
looked shrewdly at their boy more than once. As for Isoult, she knew
not where to turn. She seemed to be quavering over an abyss.
Meantime the hour of her wedding, as Falve had appointed it, drew
near. In middle July the whole gang were to go to Hauterive with coal
for the Castle. Falve's mother, I have told you, lived there in a
little huckster's shop she had. Falve's plan was to harbour Isoult
there for the night, and wed her on the morrow as early as might be.
But he told the girl nothing of all this.
They set out, then, betimes in the morning, and by travelling late and
early reached Hauterive in two days. And this in spite of the weather,
which was cold and stormy. The town stands high on the hither shoulder
of that ridge which ends at Wanmeeting, but by reason of the dense
growth of timber in that walk of the forest you do not get a view of
it from below until you are actually under the walls. Isoult, who had
no reason to be interested in any but her own affairs just then, and
was, moreover, wet through and shivering, did not notice the flag
flying over the Castle--Party per pale argent and sable. It was
not till the whole caravan stood within the drawbridge that she saw
over the portcullis an escutcheon whereon were the redoubtable three
white wicket-gates, with the legend, Entra per me. She realized
then that she was being drawn into the trap-teeth of her grim enemy,
and went rather grey. There was nothing for it, she must trust to her
disguise. It had deceived the colliers, it might deceive Galors. Ah!
but there was Maulfry. It would never deceive her. All the comfort she
could take was that Galors was lord of the town, and she collier's
knave. Now colliers' knaves do not see much of their lords paramount,
nor rulers of cities look into the love-affairs of colliers or seek
for such among them. If Maulfry were there, Heaven help her! But she
began to think she might cope with Galors.