Toward dusk the same day a beggar came trudging over the moor. He was a most unclean and grotesquely ragged creature, almost too ragged to be genuine, nor had he the characteristic and unstudied gestures of the true vagrant who cannot let ten minutes pass without scratching some part of him. The fellow wore a dirty old hood that once had been lined with scarlet cloth. A white bandage covered his mouth and chin as though he had some foul disease that had to be hidden. His brown smock hung in tatters around his knees, and his wallet was such a thing of patches that no one could have told what color it had been in the beginning.
This ragamuffin scouted his way toward the chapelry with stolid circumspection. He seemed to have a liking for the gorse and a hatred of the heather; his love of cover led him a somewhat devious but successful course, in that he reached the top of the moor without Martin Valliant seeing him. Once there he crawled into a patch of furze, and so fitted himself under the ragged stems that he could see the chapel, cell, and rest-house and anyone who came and went. Mellis was sitting on the bench outside the rest-house, looking at nothing with sad and vacant eyes. Martin Valliant stood reading in the doorway of his cell.
The beggar had a particular interest in Martin’s movements, in that he wanted him out of the way. The afterglow had faded, and night was settling over the moor.
“The devil take that priest! They should have learned before that old Jude was sick. And this damnable business——”
The furze was pricking the back of his neck.
“A pest on the stuff! And I have to tell the poor wench——”
He saw Martin Valliant put down his book and come out of the cell with a bucket in his hand. He was going down to the spring for water. The man in the furze perked up like a bird.
“God bless him, he has a thirst, or believes in being clean.”
He crawled out as soon as Martin had disappeared over the edge of the hill, and went quickly toward the rest-house, making signs with his hand.
Now Martin Valliant, being in a mood when a man walks with his head among the stars, had loitered just over the edge of the hill, staring at a broom bush as though it were the miraculous bush of Moses. But Martin’s eyes did not see the yellow flowers. He was looking inwards at himself, and at some wonderful vision that had painted itself upon his memory.
Therefore he was near enough to hear Mellis cry out as though some one had stabbed at her in the dark.
His dreams were gone in a moment. He turned, dropped the bucket, head in the air, nostrils quivering, and began to run with great strides across the heather.
Then the sound of voices reached him, one of them speaking in short, agonized jerks. The other voice was answering in a cautious and half-soothing murmur; the other voice was a man’s.
Martin’s stride shortened; he faltered, paused, stopped dead, and then went on again, skirting the thorn hedge of the garden. It led him close to the back of the rest-house, and he went no farther.
He heard Mellis cry out:
“My God! Oh! my God!”
The man tried to calm her.
“Softly, Mistress Mellis, or that priest fellow may hear you. A man would rather cut his tongue out than bring you such news.”
“And you were with him?”
“Why, we had just turned out of the ‘Cock’ Tavern. The fellow dodged out of a dark alley behind us, and the knife was in before you could think of an oath. The bloody rogue went off at a run. I stayed with your brother.”
There was silence for a moment—a tense silence.
“Did he die there—in the gutter?”
The words were like the limping movements of a wounded dog.
“He was dead,” said the man softly, “before the watch came along. There will be a crowner’s quest, but we can keep a secret—for your sake.”
“My sake! What does it matter? Oh, if I but knew!”
“And that?”
“Who struck that blow.”
“Some hired beast.”
“I can guess that. But who ordered it—paid the blood money?”
The man seemed to hesitate.
“It has scared me, I grant you; one is afraid of a blank wall or a bush.”
“Roger Bland of Troy?”
“It may be that you have said it.”
He was in a hurry to go; his voice betrayed his restlessness.
“The Flemming is at work. Bide here for a day or two, Mistress Dale. It is time I disappeared.”
“Yes, go. Let me try and think.”
“Gawdy Town is too dangerous now.”
“Man, I am not afraid, but I think my heart is broken.”
He gabbled a few words of comfort, and by the silence that followed Martin guessed that he had fled.
The light in the west had faded to a steely grayness, and the stars were out. Martin Valliant stood there for a while, picking loose mortar from between the stones, his whole heart yearning to do something, he knew not what. He could hear no sound of weeping or of movement. The silence was utter, poignant, unbroken.
Suddenly he heard her speaking, and he knew that it was half to herself and half to God.
“So he is dead! Dear God—you have heard. Why did you suffer it? Oh, what a fool I am! Picked up in the gutter!”
Martin’s hands were clenched.
“Did I see the old place to-day? The sun was shining. Oh, dear God, why am I all alone? The boy is dead; you let him die. And I cannot bear it—I cannot bear it.”
Nor could Martin Valliant bear that lonely, wounded agony of hers. It was as though she were drowning in the waters of despair, and there was no one to leap in and save her.
Mellis stood leaning against the wall, her face turned toward it, her arms outspread against the rough stones. She did not hear Martin Valliant coming, but she felt a hand touch one of hers.
She twisted around with startled fierceness.
“Who touched me?”
She saw him recoil. It was so dark now that his face showed as a pale surface; she could not see his eyes.
“Martin Valliant.”
His voice was awed, humble.
“Do not be angry with me. I will go away if you wish it. I heard you cry out—and——”
She guessed in an instant that he had overheard everything; that touch of his hand upon hers had been like the mute, tentative touch of a dog’s cold muzzle. Her flash of anger melted away.
“It is you? How long——?”
“I was there—behind the rest-house. I had run up, hearing you cry out. I think it was God Who made me listen.”
“Ah, God is a great listener!”
She was quivering with bitter emotion.
“He listens, but He does not help. He has no pity. Yes, it is quite true; you know all that should have been kept secret. You know that I lied to you——”
Martin made the sign of the cross.
“I do not remember it,” he said.
“That I called myself Catharine Lovel—that I was vowed to silence, and on a pilgrimage!”
“I forgot all those things,” he answered, “when I heard the truth and your anguish.”
She covered her face with her hands.
“Now you will begin preaching a sermon.”
“God forbid,” he said; “I think that this night is teaching me that I was not born to be a priest.”
There was silence between them for a while. Martin Valliant did not move; he seemed set there like a statue. She could hear his deep breathing, a strangely human sound in the soft darkness.
She began to speak again.
“Perhaps you know that they murdered my father years ago, and now they have slain my brother. We were the Dales of Woodmere, and the Lord of Troy was our enemy. Why am I here? Why was my brother in Gawdy Town? Perhaps you can guess, if you are a man as well as a priest. We wanted our home and the lands that had been ours; we wanted revenge, we wanted a new king.”
She looked at him challengingly in the darkness.
“Now you know all. We were traitors to Richard Hunchback. We serve Henry Tudor. Now you can go to Troy Castle—if it pleases you—and tell the truth.”
His voice began to sound a deeper note.
“God’s curse be upon me if I do any such thing.”
He walked up and down, and then came back to her.
“Will you not sit down, Mistress Dale?”
“I have not the heart to feel weary.”
“It is very still and calm by the great cross up yonder. I will spread a cloak for you. We must speak of certain things, you and I.”
A new manhood spoke in him. She seemed to question it, and to wonder at the change in him.
“I am suspect, and have made you share my outlawry—is that it?”
He answered with sudden passion.
“No.”
She surrendered to him of a sudden.
“The cross? Oh, very well. What have you to say to me?”
“What a man with the heart of a man might say. Am I so poor a thing that I cannot take part in a quarrel?”
“Ah!”
He turned abruptly, went to the cell, and came back with a heavy winter cloak.
“The dew is heavy on such a night.”
“Yes.”
They walked side by side to the great cross, with a sudden and subtle sense of comradeship drawing them together.
Martin spread the cloak on the grass at the foot of the cross. She sat down with her back to the beam, and looked up at him in the darkness.
“You told me your man’s name—not the priest’s.”
“Valliant.”
“You are not the son of old Roger Valliant?”
“He was my father.”
Her eyes gave a gleam.
“Son of that old fire-eater! Strange!”
“He was a man of blood, my father.”
She looked at him with a new interest, a new curiosity. His bigness took on a different meaning.
“A great fighter and a fine man-at-arms, though he fought for pay. And he made a priest of you!”
Martin felt her veiled scorn of all men-women, and his flesh tingled.
“I have never questioned his wisdom.”
“Never yet! Have you ever heard the trumpets calling? But what am I saying? Yet men must fight, Father Martin, sometimes, or be dishonored.”
“It is possible,” he confessed.
“Bishops and abbots have ridden into battle before now.”
“True. The cause may sanctify the deed.”
Her bitterness returned of a sudden. She seemed to clasp her grief, and press her lips to it with fanatical passion.
“Son of old Valliant—listen. Your father would have understood these words of mine. Why do I not lie down and weep? Why do I thirst to go on living? Because my heart cries out against a great wrong—my wrong. Yes, I am a wild wolf—an eagle. This is a world of teeth and talons; your father knew it, and lived by his sword. And I tell you, Martin Valliant, that I shall fight to the death—hate to the death. My holy wine is the blood of my brother—and I am not ashamed.”
He stood swaying slightly, with a tumult, like the clashing of swords, in his brain.
“Does the soul of the father dwell in the son?” he asked himself.
He clenched his hands and answered her.
“You will tarry here, Mistress Dale, so long as you may please. No man shall lay a hand upon you. The Church can protect—with the sword of the spirit.”
By her silence he knew that his words rang hollow.
“I would rather have old Valliant’s sword,” she said grimly; “but I thank you, Father Martin. My need may be fierce, God knows!”