The Forest Lovers

There was presently a fine commotion at the gate; a man came running

up to him.

"Messire, they are going to attack the gate!"

"Open it," said Prosper.

"Messire?"

"Open it, hound!"

The man reeled, but carried the order. Prosper rode stately out; and

when he returned a second time it was at the head of the Countess

Isabel's troops.

"Bailiff," said he, when they were in the citadel and all the news

out, "I am no friend of your mistress, as you know; but I am not a

thief. Hauterive is hers. To-morrow morning I shall declare it so;

until then Galors, if you please, is Lord. Let me now say this," he

continued. "I admire you because you have a high heart. But you lack

one requisite of generalship, as it appears to me. You have no head.

Get back at once to Wanmeeting with one thousand of your men, and

leave me five hundred of them to work with. You may think yourself

lucky if you find one stone on another or one man's wife as she should

be. By the time you are there you will no doubt have orders from High

March. You may send news thither that this place is quiet and

restored, as from to-morrow morning, to its allegiance. Good morning,

Bailiff"

The Bailiff was very much struck with Prosper's sagacity, and went at

once. Prosper and his five hundred men held the citadel.

He confided his secret to those whom he could trust; the remainder

fraternized in the wine shops and dealt liberally in surmise. The

general opinion seemed to be that Galors had married the Countess

Isabel.

* * * * *

Having thus ridded him of all his charges, Prosper could steer the

ship of his mind whither his soul had long looked--to Isoult and

marriage. Marriage was become a holy thing, a holy sepulchre of peace

to be won at all costs. No crusader was he, mind you, fighting for

honour, but a pitiful beaten wayfarer longing for ease from his

aching. He did not seek, he did not know, to account for the change in

him. It had come slowly. Slowly the girl had transfigured before him,

slowly risen from below him to the level of his eyes; and now she was

above him. He shrined her high as she had shrined him, but for

different reasons as became a man. What a woman loves in man is

strength, what a man loves in women is also strength, the strength of

weak things. The strength of the weak thing Isoult had been that, she

had known how to hold him off because of her love's sake. There is

always pity (which should become reverence) in a man's love. He had

never pitied her till she fought so hard for the holiness of her

lover.