The Forest Lovers

The king stag smelt her over, beginning at her feet. He snuffed for a

long time at the nape of her neck, blew in her hair so as to spray it

out like a fountain scattered to the wind; then he fell to licking her

cheek. She, made bold, put a hand and laid it on his mane. Shyly she

stood thus, waiting events. The great beast lifted his head high and

gave a loud bellow; all the deer chorused him; the forest rang. So

Isoult was made free of the herd.

Belvisée and Mellifont lay beside her on the grass. Isoult lay on her

face, while Mellifont coiled and knotted up her hair.

"If love is giving, and you are a lover, Isoult," said she, "you would

give your hair."

"I have given it," said Isoult, and told them her story as they all

lay there together.

"And to think that you have endured all this from men, and yet love a

man!" cried flushed Mellifont, when she had made an end.

But Isoult smiled wisely at her.

"Ah, Mellifont," she said, "the more you saw of men, the more you

would find to love in him."

"Indeed, I should do no such thing," said Mellifont, firing up again.

"You could not help it. Everyone must love him."

"That might not suit you, Isoult," said Belvisée.

"Why should it not? Would it prevent my love to know him loved? I

should love him all the more."

"Hark!" cried Mellifont on a sudden. She laid her ear to the ground,

then jumped to her feet.

"Come to the herd, come to the herd," she whispered.

Belvisée was on her feet also in a trice. Both girls were hot and

bright.

"What disturbs you?" asked Isoult, who had heard nothing.

"Horsemen! quick, quick." They all ran between the trees to regain the

deer. Isoult could hear no horses; but the sisters had, and now she

saw that the deer had. Every head was up, every ear still, every

nostril on the stretch. Listening now intently, faint and far she did

hear a muffled knocking--it was like a beating heart, she thought.

Whatever it was, the deer guessed an enemy. Upon a sudden stamp, the

whole herd was in motion. Led by the hart-royal, they trotted

noiselessly down the wood, till in the thick fern they lay still. The

girls lay down with them.

The sound gained rapidly upon them. Soon they heard the crackling of

twigs, then the swish of swept brushwood, then the creaking of girths.

Isoult hid her face, lying prone on her breast.

Galors and his men came thundering through the wood. Their horses were

reeking, dripping from the flanks. The riders, four of them, looking

neither right nor left, past over the open ground, where a few minutes

before she whom they desperately sought had been lying at their mercy.

But Galors, fled by all things living in Morgraunt, scourged on like a

destroying wind and was gone. Isoult little knew how near she had been

to the unclean thing. If she had seen him she would have run straight

to him without a thought, for he bore the red feathers in his helmet,

and behind him, on the shield, danced in the glory of new gilt the

fesse dancettée.