Mellis Dale had passed the night sleeping under a thorn tree in Bracknell Wood, with a pile of last year’s bracken for a bed. The thorn tree had stood as a green and white pavilion, and there was a forest pool among the birch trees of Bracknell that had served her both as a labrum and a mirror. She broke her fast to the sound of the singing of the woodlarks, and with the sunlight playing through the delicate tracery of the birches. Her brown nag was cropping the wet grass in a little clearing where she had tethered him.
Mellis’s eyes were full of a quiet tenderness that morning. She was a Forest child, and its sounds and scents and colors were very familiar and very dear. She was as forest-wise as any ranger or woodman, and was as much part of its life as the birds or the deer or the mysterious woodland streams and the brown pools where the dead leaves lay buried. A great content possessed her. She had no fear of the wild life or of a bed under the stars.
The sun had been up some hours before she saddled her nag and rode forward through Bracknell Deep. She knew all the ways, though Woodmere lay three leagues to the north-west, and the Black Moor two leagues to the east of it. She felt no need of hurrying. The deep woods delighted her; her dark eyes seemed to fill with their mystery; their silence soothed her heart. Life was a great adventure, a game of hide-and-seek in a garden where every path and nook and thicket were unknown. She was strong and comely and full of the pride of her youth; her breath was sweet, her black hair fell to her knees, her lips were as red as the berries on a briar.
Martin Valliant was hoeing weeds in Father Jude’s garden when Mellis rode her brown nag up the southern slope of the Black Moor. There was no life in Martin’s labor; his eyes had a dull look as though some pain gnawed at his vitals. His heart had discovered a new bitterness in life, for the words that Kate Succory had spoken to him in the night kept up a tumult in his brain. He had begun to understand many things that had seemed obscure and meaningless. He even realized why he was hoeing weeds on the top of a lonely moor. The very men whose life he had shared were filled with malice against him, and, like Joseph’s brethren, were trying to sell him into bondage.
He heard the tramp of Mellis’s horse, and his new-born mistrust stood on the alert.
“Why should I fear anything that walks the earth,” he thought, “man, woman, or beast? They are but creatures of flesh.”
And then he discovered himself standing straight as a young ash tree, resting his hands on the top of the handle of the hoe, and staring over the hedge into a woman’s eyes. He could see her head, shoulders and bosom; the green hedge hid the rest of her. But if Martin had dared to scoff at Dame Nature, that good lady was quick and vigorous with her retort. She showed him this girl, black-haired, red-lipped, flushed with riding, sitting her horse with a certain haughtiness, her head held high, her white throat showing proudly.
“You are Father Jude?”
Martin could have stammered with a sudden, wondering awe of her. Her eyes were fixed on him questioningly, and with an intentness that heralded an incipient frown.
“Father Jude is no longer here.”
“Not here!”
“He lies sick at Paradise.”
The frown showed now on her forehead. Her eyes lifted and gazed beyond him, and Martin Valliant had never seen such eyes before. His mistrust of her had vanished, he knew not why. Paradise had no knowledge of such a creature as this. She had ridden out of the heart of a mystery, and her face was the face of June.
“Fools!”
She was angry, perplexed. And then she smiled down at Martin with quick subtlety.
“Your pardon, father.”
She smiled whole-heartedly as she took stock of his youth.
“What am I saying! I have a vow of silence upon me, save that I may speak to such as you. I am a pilgrim. I had a fellow-pilgrim with me, but she fell sick at Burchester, and I rode on alone. Father Jude’s name was put in my mouth by the prioress of Burchester. Is there not a pilgrim’s rest-house here?”
Martin Valliant was still full of his wonder at her beauty.
“Assuredly. This is the chapelry of St. Florence. The good saint so willed it that all who passed this way should have food and lodging.”
Her face had changed its expression. She showed a sudden reticence, a cold pride.
“St. Florence has my thanks. Will you send your servant to take my horse?”
He gaped at her, as though overcome by the thought that this creature of mystery was to move and breathe in the guest-house next his cell.
He tried to save his dignity by taking refuge in sententiousness.
“I am the servant of St. Florence and of all those who tarry here.”
She glanced at him guardedly, and seemed to realize his unworldliness.
“I shall be no great burden. A stall for the horse and a roof for my own head. I can look to my own horse, if you will show me the stable.”
Martin let the hoe drop out of his hands. He went striding along the hedge as though some enchantment had fallen upon him. But she was out of the saddle by the time he reached the gate, and, by the way she carried herself, more than fit to deal with her own affairs.
“That is the stable, there by the woodstack?”
“Yes.”
“Is the door locked? No? I thank you, good father.”
He loitered about there like a great boy, feeling that he ought to help her, but that she did not desire his help. She seemed to have a way of taking possession of things. He could see her removing the saddle and bridle from her horse, and presently she was at the haystack gathering up some of the loose hay in her arms. She had left her brown cloak in the stable, and her blue spencer and green gown made Martin think of some rich blue flower on a green stalk.
Next he saw her handling a bucket, and this time the spirit moved him. He went across to her with boyish gravity.
“The spring is down the hill. I will fetch the water.”
She gave him the bucket with an air of unconcern. Her hand touched his, and thrilled him to the shoulder, but she did not so much as notice that she had touched him.
“Thank you, Father——”
“Martin.”
“Martin.”
“It would be too heavy for you to carry,” he said bluntly.
But she turned back into the stable as though she had not heard him.
Martin Valliant went down to the spring with a most strange sense of self-dissatisfaction. He filled the bucket, balanced it on the rough stones that formed a wall around the spring, and stared at his own reflection in the water. The thought struck him that he had never looked at himself in that same way before, critically, with a personal inquisitiveness. A new self-consciousness was being born in him. He stood there brooding, wondering if other men——
Then he rebuked himself with fierce severity, and carried the bucket back up the hill. Mellis was not in the stable, so he watered the horse and stared at the saddle and bridle hanging on the wall as though they could tell him who she was and whence she came. It occurred to him that she might be hungry, and at the same time he remembered that the food in his larder was hardly fit for a sturdy beggar.
This struck him as an absolute disaster. He went guiltily to his cell, and took out what by courtesy he called bread. It was of his own baking, a detestable piece of alchemy.
He weighed it in his hand, and found himself thinking of the lithe way in which she moved.
“They bake good bread at Paradise,” he said to himself.
A quite ridiculous anger attacked him.
“Mean hounds! This chapelry should be better served. A couple of mules with panniers——”
He went forth, stroking his chin dubiously, and looking at the bread he carried.
“Poor stuff for such a pilgrim.”
The door of the little rest-house stood open, showing its oak table and benches, and the rude wooden pallets that served as beds. Mellis was standing behind the table, unpacking one of her saddle-bags.
“This bread——”
He felt his face growing hot. Her eyes regarded him with momentary amusement.
“Is that—bread?”
“It is as God made me make it.”
She was smiling. His quaint humility touched her.
“I will take your bread, Father Martin, and in exchange you shall eat some of mine.”
She took out a manchet wrapped in white butter cloth and held it out to him.
“Put your bread upon the table. I dare vow it cost you much honest—labor.”
She had nearly said “cursing,” but his solemn face chastened her.
Martin Valliant took her manchet, handling it as though it were something that would break. His eyes wandered around the room and noticed the wooden pallets.
“There should be some sweet hay spread there,” he said to himself.
Mellis was watching him, but with no great interest. For the moment life called to her as a fierce and impetuous adventure. She had no use for a man who wore the dress of a priest.
“I will keep this bread for the altar,” he said suddenly, feeling that he had no excuse for loitering any longer in the room.
For an hour or more Martin Valliant went about his work with grim thoroughness. He fetched more water from the spring, cut up wood for kindling, swept out the chapel and his cell, and looked into the press where he kept his vestments to see that the moths had not been at work. Yet all the while he had his mind’s eye on the door of the rest-house; his thoughts wandered, no matter how busy he kept his hands.
He was standing at the doorway of the chapel, polishing one of the silver candlesticks that stood on the altar, when Mellis came out of the rest-house and turned her steps toward the great wooden cross. She passed close to the chapel in wandering toward the highest point of the moor, and her eyes rested for a moment on Martin Valliant and his silver candlestick.
It may have been that she asked herself what this tall fellow meant by living the life of an old woman when he was built for the trade of the sword. At all events, Martin Valliant saw a look in her eyes that was very like pity touched with scorn.
He watched her go to the cross and sit down on the mound. Her chin was raised, and she turned her head slowly from side to side, as though to bring all the Forest under her ken. There was something finely adventurous about her pose. She made Martin think of a wild-eyed bird surveying the world before spreading her wings for a flight.
He conceived a sudden distaste for polishing such a thing as a candlestick. He studied his own hands; they were big and brown, and he knew how strong they were. He remembered how he had straightened an iron crowbar across his knee, to the delight of the prior’s woodcutters. And when the big wain had got bogged by Lady’s Brook, Martin Valliant had crawled under the axle beam and lifted it out.
The candlestick was returned to the altar, and Martin went down to the haystack to fetch hay for Mellis’s bed. The hay knife was in the stack, and he cut out a good truss of fresh stuff and carried it to the rest-house. He had spread it on one of the wooden beds and was crossing the threshold, when he met Mellis face to face.
“I have brought some hay for a bed.”
He colored like fire, but her voice was casual when she answered him.
“You vex yourself too much on my account, father. Last night I slept out under a tree.”
Martin spent an hour walking up and down behind the chapel, raging with sudden self-humiliation. Why did she treat him as though he were an old man or a child?