Towards the grey of the morning, seeing that the whole forest was at
peace, with no sign of dogs or men all that night, and now even a rest
from the far howling of the wolves, Prosper's head dropt to his
breast. In a few seconds he slept profoundly. Isoult awoke and saw
that he slept: she lay watching him, longing but not daring. When she
saw that he looked blue and pinched about the cheekbones, that his
cheeks were yellow where they should be red, and grey where they had
been white, she knew he was cold; and her humbleness was not proof
against this justification of her desires. She crept out of her snug
nest, crawled towards her lord and felt his hands; they were ice.
"Asleep he is mine," she thought. She picked up the cloak, then crept
again towards him, seated herself behind and a little above him, threw
the cloak over both and snuggled it well in. She put her arms about
him and drew him close to her bosom. His head fell back at her gentle
constraint; so he lay like a child at the breast. The mother in her
was wild and throbbing. Stooped over him she pored into his face. A
divine pity, a divine sense of the power of life over death, of waking
over sleep, drew her lower and nearer. She kissed his face--the lids
of his eyes, his forehead and cheeks. Like an unwatched bird she
foraged at will, like a hardy sailor touched at every port but one.
His mouth was too much his own, too firm; it kept too much of his
sovereignty absolute. Otherwise she was free to roam; and she roamed,
very much to his material advantage, since the love that made her rosy
to the finger-tips, in time warmed him also. He slept long in her
arms.
She began to be very hungry.
"He too will be hungry when he wakes," she thought; "what shall I do?
We have nothing to eat." She looked down wistfully at his head where
it lay pillowed. "What would I not give him of mine?" The thought
flooded her. But what could she do?
She heard the pattering of dry leaves, the crackle of dry twigs snapt,
and looking up, saw a herd of deer feeding in a glade not very far
off.
Idly as she watched them, it came home to her that there were hinds
among them with calves. One she noticed in particular feed a little
apart, having two calves near her which had just begun to nibble a
little grass. Vaguely wondering still over her plight, she pictured
her days of shepherding in the downs where food had often failed her,
and the ewes perforce mothered another lamb. That hind's udder was
full of milk: a sudden thought ran like wine through her blood. She
slid from Prosper, got up very softly, took her cup, and went towards
the browsing deer. The hind looked up (like all the herd) but did not
start nor run. A brief gaze satisfied it that here was no enemy,
neither a stranger to the forest walks; it fell-to again, and suffered
Isoult to come quite close, even to lay her hand upon its neck. Then
she stood for a while stroking the red hind, while all the herd
watched her. She knelt before the beast, clasping both arms about its
neck; she fondled it with her face, as if asking the boon she would
have. Some message passed between them, some assurance, for she let go
of the hind's neck and crawled on hands and knees towards the udder.
The deer never moved, though it turned its head to watch her. She took
the teat in her mouth, sucked and drew milk. The herd stood all about
her motionless; the hind nuzzled her as if she had been one of its own
calves; so she was filled.