The Forest Lovers

The Abbot Richard of Malbank Saint Thorn went hunting the deer in

Morgraunt with a good company of prickers and dogs. In Spenshaw he

unharboured a stag, and he followed him hard. The hart made straight

for Thornyhold Brush where the great herd lay; there Mellifont, who

was sentry for the time, heard him and gave the alarm. Fern brakes

will hide man from man, but here were dogs. The hunted hart drove

sheer into the thicket on his way to the water; a dog was at his

heels, half-a-dozen more were hard on him. The herd had scattered on

all hands long before this. Mellifont saved herself with them, but

Belvisée tarrying to help Isoult was caught. A great hound snapped at

her as he passed; she limped away with a wounded side. Isoult, too

much of a woman and too little of a hind, stood still. She had closed

with Fate before.

Up came the Abbot's men with horns and shouting voices for the baying

of the deer. He, brave beast, was knifed in the brook and broken up,

the dogs called off and leashed. Then one of the huntsmen saw Isoult.

She had let down her hair for a curtain and stood watching them

intently, neither defiant nor fearful, but with a long, steady,

unwinking gaze. Her bosom rose quick and short, there was no other

stressful sign; she was flushed rather than white. One of the men

thought she was a wood-girl--they all knew of such beings; he crossed

himself. Another knew better. Her mother Mald was a noted witch; he

whistled.

A third thought she was uncommonly handsome; he could only look. The

dogs whimpered and tugged at the leash; they doubtless knew that there

was blood in her. So all waited till the Abbot came up much out of

breath.

Isoult, cloaked in her panoply of silence, saw him first. In fact the

Abbot had eyes only for the dead hart which had led him such a race.

One of the prickers ran forward and caught at his stirrup-leather.

"Lord Abbot, here is the strangest thing my eyes have ever seen in

Morgraunt. As we followed the chase we drove into a great herd which

ran this way and that way. And in the thick of the deer were three

young women scantily attired, as the one you see yonder, going with

the beasts. Of whom two have got clear (one bitten by the mouse-

coloured hound), and this one remains speechless. And who the others

were, whether flesh and blood or wind and breath, I cannot tell you;

but if this laggard is not Isoult, whom we call La Desirous, Matt-o'-

the-Moor's daughter, I am no fit servant for your Holiness'

diversions."

The Abbot had pricked up his ears; now he looked sharply at Isoult.