Chapter XVIII
So Martin Valliant became an outlaw, Nature being stronger than the ingenious folly of dead saints.
It was Mellis who captained the adventure, for she was quicker in thought than Martin, and the day’s happenings had stunned him not a little.
She had her eyes on Woodmere, and both heart and head justified the choice. It was nearer to Troy Castle than the Black Moor, but this disadvantage was overbalanced by many virtues. The place lay in the thick of the woods; its broad mere made it very safe; and with but little labor the house itself could be put into a good state for defense. Arms and stores were hidden there. Moreover, it lay in the Red Rose country, where the Forest folk were most bitter against the Lord of Troy. John Falconer held Badger Hill; the Blounts were at Bloody Rood, just south of the Rondel toward the west. Mellis counted on the Forest rallying to her when the secret word went forth that Richmond was crossing the seas.
“To horse, good comrade; or rather you and I will have to march and load the baggage on my horse. Have you much store of food?”
“Half a sack of flour, and some yeast.”
“Empty your cupboard into a couple of sacks. I will go and harness the horse.”
Martin Valliant was looking at the dead men. He loitered a moment, as though he could not decide what should be done with them.
“No, I’ll not touch them,” he said to himself. “I am a man of blood; let others do what is right and good.”
He locked up the chapel and left the key hanging on a nail in his cell, nor did he touch anything in the cell itself save the food in the cupboard and larder. A couple of sacks served for the stowing away of the flour, the yeast, a bottle or two of wine, a paper of dried herbs, and some salted meat. He tied up the mouths of the sacks and carried them down to the stable.
Mellis showed herself a very practical young woman.
“Fasten those two sacks together, and we can sling them like panniers. Now, what else would make useful plunder? A coil of rope, if you have such a thing.”
Martin remembered seeing a coil hanging in Father Jude’s tool-house.
“Wait—and a felling ax and a crowbar. I’ll come with you.”
They ransacked the tool-house, and Mellis blessed Father Jude.
“The rope, yes, and that felling ax. This is a treasury, good comrade. Take that saw, and the mattock and spade.”
“Here’s a crowbar.”
“Oh, brave man! We shall bless these tools to-morrow. That big maul, too, and the billhook, and that auger hanging there.”
“I can use the rope to lash them into a bundle.”
“Of course. Give me the saw, the auger, and the billhook.”
Martin laid the rest of the tools on the ground, and lashed them together by the handles. He tried the weight of the bundle.
“Your horse will not bless us. I could shoulder these things.”
“Seven miles?”
“It is not the weight, but an awkward bale to tie on a horse’s back.”
“Here’s a sack and some cord; wrap it around the handles; we can sling the food one side and the tools the other. The horse must make the best of it.”
Her word was law for the moment, both to Martin Valliant and the beast. She stood by while he loaded the things on to the horse’s back, watching him critically and the way he used his big brown hands.
“Can you ride a horse?” she asked him.
He smiled around at her gravely.
“I have broken in colts at Paradise.”
“Was that monk’s work?”
“I was young, and even a monk is none the worse for learning to handle an untamed thing and to keep his temper.”
She nodded approvingly.
“That may help us. Can you use a bow?”
“Passably. As a boy I used to carry a prodd and shoot at the crows.”
“The long bow for a forester; the arbalist is only for townsmen.”
“I could hit a sheaf of corn at fifty paces when I was younger.”
“You will have to grow young again. And traps—can you set a snare as a bird-trap?”
“No.”
“I am thinking of our larder,” she explained. “Outlaws are not fed by ravens.”
The sun had swung well into the west when they were ready to start upon their journey. Mellis went to the great cross, and from its knoll she scanned the moor, but could see no live thing moving anywhere. Martin stood by the horse, leaning on his hollywood staff and staring at the ground, trying to convince himself that he was not dreaming. He saw Mellis come back and turn her head so as not to see those dead things lying by the rest-house. Yes, the business was real enough. He had but to look at Mellis, and the knowledge leaped in him that the Martin Valliant of yesterday was dead.
“I can see no one moving. The sooner we are lost to view in the woods, the better it will be for us.”
His tragic face touched her, but she let him alone, and taking the horse’s bridle, started over the moor.
Martin followed her like a dog. He moved mechanically, watching her with a kind of sorrowful bewilderment, marching toward the new world with a heart that was very heavy. A man’s whole life cannot be overturned and broken in a day without the shock of it leaving him dazed and full of a dull distrust. To have become a murderer, to find himself tramping at the heels of a young woman whose eyes bewitched him, to know that there was a likelihood of both of them being hanged—these amazing realities hung heavy about Martin Valliant’s neck.
Once or twice Mellis glanced back over her shoulder. She had divined what was passing in Martin Valliant’s heart; she half expected to find herself alone, or to see him stalking away over the moor. Had she suffered less herself, she might have reasoned with him, tried to spur him against the world; but her own heart was full of sadness, and sorrow is a great teacher. She had fought to save him from his own fanaticism, and she had won a victory; but she was too full of pity for the man to torture him with more grim home-truths. Fate seemed to have tossed them together into the unknown. She chose to let Fate settle the matter. The man should be free to repent and go.
They crossed the moor and reached the beech woods without adventure, and Mellis’s heart beat with a lessened feeling of suspense when the green trees hid them. It was one of those soft, cloudy, windless days when the Forest seemed to gather an added mystery, and the great aisles looked more solemn, hiding strange secrets.
“It is good to be here.”
She breathed the words like a prayer.
“There is no cleaner thing than the Forest. The trees have no sins to remember.”
Martin did not answer her. He was gazing along the green aisles and up into the tops of the great trees where a vague shimmer of light played above the black branches. The stillness was miraculous; not a leaf was moving; the huge gray trunks looked strong enough to carry the world.
Then he fell to watching the figure of the girl in front of him, with its gown of green that seemed part of the woodland. She walked lightly, bravely, the horse plodding placidly at her heels as though he recognized in her a wise power that was to be trusted and obeyed. And in watching her Martin Valliant was led toward a new humility, and an unforeseen conquest of his own perplexities.
It was her loneliness, and her courage in bearing it, that routed the scandalized selfishness of the monk and stirred the deeper compassion of the man. He remembered yesterday’s despair in her eyes and the words of anguish he had heard her utter. She seemed to stand alone in this great wilderness, a wounded thing at the mercy of some brutal chance, a white martyr to be torn and ravished by such ruffians as Noble Vance. What were his own sorrows compared with hers? How much more grim and real the dangers that threatened her!
A sudden shame seized him; his eyes lost their sullen, doubting look; his face became transfigured. He had been worshiping self all the while, and, like a Pharisee, he had broken into pious wailings because blood had spotted his precious robe. Yes, he had made an idol of his own sinlessness, bowed down to it, thought of it as the one great thing in the world.
The soft green light under the trees seemed like the light of a sanctuary, and an awed look stole into Martin’s eyes. He followed Mellis in silence, nor did she speak to him, and all the while that great change was working in his soul. Here was something to serve, a thing of flesh and blood, nobler than any altar of stone. He felt that he could lay down his life for her, and that God Himself would not turn from such a sacrifice.
From that moment Martin Valliant’s soul felt strong and calm in him. His eyes no longer looked back at the old life; he set his face steadily toward the future.
Now Mellis knew nothing of all this, of the man’s uprising from the wounded horror of his blood-stained self. They had come to the high ground, above the Rondel, and could see the river glimmering in the green deeps below. It was time to eat and rest, and she called a halt.
“Are you footsore, comrade?”
“No; nor sore at heart.”
She gave him a quick, searching look, and his face surprised her. It was serene, steadfast, and its eyes were very gentle. All that tangle of doubt and self-horror had been wiped away.
She said nothing. He made a movement to take the horse’s bridle from her.
“I will unload the horse and let him feed. There is a patch of grass there. Sit down and rest.”
They looked into each other’s eyes.
“Pain wearies the heart,” she said.
“You shall ride the horse and I will carry the baggage.”
“No, but you shall not.”
“We will see,” he answered her.
It was Martin who served. He unbuckled the horse’s bridle and made a tether of it, so that the beast could feed. Then he unloaded the baggage, opened one of the sacks, and took out bread, meat, and some wine. Mellis had thrown herself down under a beech tree where the moss was like a green carpet, and Martin served her with wine and bread.
Her eyes met his with a new softness. Something had happened to Martin Valliant; he was a changed man. He offered her a new calm strength upon which she could lean, and in her loneliness her heart thanked him. She wanted to rest, to close her eyes for a moment, to let the burden of her fate lie for a moment on a man’s shoulders.
He watched her eat, and forgot that he was hungry. She had to chide him.
“No man is strong enough to go hungry. And there is much work to be done.”
They sat and looked at the river flowing in the valley at their feet. Martin’s memories of yesterday were growing sacred; he hoarded them in his heart.
“Yonder is the ford.”
She pointed with her poniard.
“It was wise of us to halt here. That might be a dangerous passage for us if enemies were near.”
But no hostile thing showed itself; the river was like a silver dream in the green slumber of the woods.
When they had finished their meal and rested awhile, Martin roped up the baggage and untethered the horse.
“You will ride for an hour.”
Mellis rebelled.
“No; you cannot shoulder all that gear.”
“Let us see.”
He slung the sacks over one shoulder, one in front and one behind, and hoisted the tools on to the other.
“I am younger than the horse.”
Something in his eyes persuaded her to humor him.
“It is good to be strong,” she said.
And Martin felt strangely happy.
She mounted, and they went down to the ford. Mellis rode in to show the way, and Martin splashed after her, planting his feet carefully, for the bottom was full of pebbles.
She looked back.
“Remember the flour.”
For the first time he saw a gleam of laughter in her eyes, a glimmer of sweet youthfulness.
“It shall come to no harm,” he answered, smiling back, and thinking her the most beautiful thing in the world.