The Forest Lovers

It was by this time high noon, hot and still. Having climbed the

ridge, they found themselves at the edge of a dense beech-wood, to

which there appeared no end. From their vantage-ground they could see

that the land sloped very gradually away into the distance; upon it

the giant trees stood like pillars of a church, whose floor was brown

with the waste and litter of a hundred years. Long alleys of shade

stretched out on all sides of them into the dark unknown of Mid-

Morgraunt; there seemed either no way or countless ways before them,

and one as good as the other. They rested themselves in sheer

bewilderment, ate of the bread and apples which Isoult had brought

with her; then Prosper found out how tired he was.

"Wife," said he, "if all the devils in Christendom were after me it

would not keep me awake. I must sleep for half-an-hour."

"Sleep, sleep, my lord; I will take the watch," said Isoult, longing

to serve him.

He unlaced his helm and body-armour without more ado, and laid his

head in the girl's lap. She had very cool and soft hands, and now she

put one of them upon his forehead for a solace, peering down nervously

to see how he would take such daring from his servant. What she saw

comforted her not a little, indeed she thought herself like to die of

joy. He wondered again that such delicate little hands should have

been reared on Spurnt Heath, and endured the service of the lowest; it

was a half-comical content that made him send her a smiling

acknowledgment; but she took it for a friendly message between them,

and though the laughter in his eyes brought a mist over hers she was

content. Prosper dropped asleep. Through the soft veil of her

happiness she watched him patiently and still as a mouse. She was

serving him at last; she could dare look tenderly at him when he was

asleep--and she did. Something of the mother, something of the

manumitted slave, something of the dumb creature brought up against a

crisis which only speech can make tolerable,--something of these three

lay in her wet eyes; she wanted ineffably more, but she was happy (she

thought). She was not apt to look further than this, that she was in

love, and suffered to serve her master. The dull torment of her life

past, the doubts or despair which might beset and perplex her life to

come, were all blurred and stilled by this boon of service, as a rosy

mist makes beautiful the space of time between a day of storms and a

dripping night. When the roaring of the wind dies down and the sun

rays out in a clear pool of heaven, men have ease and forget their

buffetings; they walk abroad to bathe their vexed souls in the evening

calms. So now Isoult la Desirous, with no soul to speak of, bathed her

quickened instincts. She felt at peace with a world which had used her

but ill so long as she was in touch with all that was noble in it.

This glorious youth, this almost god, suffered her to touch his brow,

to look at him, to throne his head, to adore him. Oh, wonderful! And

as tears are never far from a girl's eyes, and never slow to answer

the messages of her heart, so hers flowed freely and quietly as from a

brimming well; nor did she check them or wish them away, but let them

fall where they would until they encroached upon the privileged hand.

Lèse majesté! She threw her head back and shook them from her;

she was more guarded how she did after that.