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The Line of Love; Dizain des Mariages

by James Branch Cabell · English · Gutenberg #9488 · 343,906 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Line of Love; Dizain des Mariages

Author: James Branch Cabell

Author of introduction, etc.: H. L. Mencken


        
Release date: December 1, 2005 [eBook #9488]
                Most recently updated: April 20, 2013

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9488

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Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and PG Distributed Proofreaders








                            THE LINE OF LOVE

                                   BY

                           JAMES BRANCH CABELL


                                  1921




TO

ROBERT GAMBLE CABELL I




  "He loved chivalrye,
  Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisye.
  And of his port as meek as is a mayde,
  He never yet no vileinye ne sayde
  In al his lyf, unto no maner wight.
  He was a verray parfit gentil knyght."




_Introduction_


The Cabell case belongs to comedy in the grand manner. For fifteen years
or more the man wrote and wrote--good stuff, sound stuff, extremely
original stuff, often superbly fine stuff--and yet no one in the whole of
this vast and incomparable Republic arose to his merit--no one, that is,
save a few encapsulated enthusiasts, chiefly somewhat dubious. It would
be difficult to imagine a first-rate artist cloaked in greater obscurity,
even in the remotest lands of Ghengis Khan. The newspapers, reviewing
him, dismissed him with a sort of inspired ill-nature; the critics of a
more austere kidney--the Paul Elmer Mores, Brander Matthewses, Hamilton
Wright Mabies, and other such brummagem dons--were utterly unaware of
him. Then, of a sudden, the imbeciles who operate the Comstock Society
raided and suppressed his "Jurgen," and at once he was a made man. Old
book-shops began to be ransacked for his romances and extravaganzas--many
of them stored, I daresay, as "picture-books," and under the name of the
artist who illustrated them, Howard Pyle. And simultaneously, a great
gabble about him set up in the newspapers, and then in the literary
weeklies, and finally even in the learned reviews. An Englishman, Hugh
Walpole, magnified the excitement with some startling _hochs_; a single
_hoch_ from the Motherland brings down the professors like firemen
sliding down a pole. To-day every literate American has heard of Cabell,
including even those presidents of women's clubs who lately confessed
that they had never heard of Lizette Woodworth Reese. More of his books
are sold in a week than used to be sold in a year. Every flapper in the
land has read "Jurgen" behind the door; two-thirds of the grandmothers
east of the Mississippi have tried to borrow it from me. Solemn _Privat
Dozenten_ lecture upon the author; he is invited to take to the
chautauqua himself; if the donkeys who manage the National Institute of
Arts and Letters were not afraid of his reply he would be offered its
gilt-edged ribbon, vice Sylvanus Cobb, deceased. And all because a few
pornographic old fellows thrust their ever-hopeful snouts into the man's
tenth (or was it eleventh or twelfth?) book!

Certainly, the farce must appeal to Cabell himself--a sardonic mocker,
not incapable of making himself a character in his own _revues_. But I
doubt that he enjoys the actual pawing that he has been getting--any more
than he resented the neglect that he got for so long. Very lately, in the
midst of the carnival, he announced his own literary death and burial,
and even preached a burlesque funeral sermon upon his life and times.
Such an artist, by the very nature of his endeavors, must needs stand
above all public-clapper-clawing, pro or con. He writes, not to please
his customers in general, nor even to please his partisans in particular,
but to please himself. He is his own criterion, his own audience, his own
judge and hangman. When he does bad work, he suffers for it as no holy
clerk ever suffered from a gnawing conscience or Freudian suppressions;
when he does good work he gets his pay in a form of joy that only artists
know. One could no more think of him exposing himself to the stealthy,
uneasy admiration of a women's club--he is a man of agreeable exterior,
with handsome manners and an eye for this and that--than one could
imagine him taking to the stump for some political mountebank or getting
converted at a camp-meeting. What moves such a man to write is the
obscure, inner necessity that Joseph Conrad has told us of, and what
rewards him when he has done is his own searching and accurate judgment,
his own pride and delight in a beautiful piece of work.

At once, I suppose, you visualize a somewhat smug fellow, loftily
complacent and superior--in brief, the bogus artist of Greenwich Village,
posturing in a pot-hat before a cellar full of visiting schoolmarms, all
dreaming of being betrayed. If so, you see a ghost. It is the curse of
the true artist that his work never stands before him in all its imagined
completeness--that he can never look at it without feeling an impulse to
add to it here or take away from it there--that the beautiful, to him, is
not a state of being, but an eternal becoming. Satisfaction, like the
praise of dolts, is the compensation of the aesthetic cheese-monger--the
popular novelist, the Broadway dramatist, the Massenet and Kipling, the
Maeterlinck and Augustus Thomas. Cabell, in fact, is forever fussing over
his books, trying to make them one degree better. He rewrites almost as
pertinaciously as Joseph Conrad, Henry James, or Brahms. Compare "Domnei"
in its present state to "The Soul of Melicent," its first state, circa
1913. The obvious change is the change in title, but of far more
importance are a multitude of little changes--a phrase made more musical,
a word moved from one place to another, some small banality tracked down
and excised, a brilliant adjective inserted, the plan altered in small
ways, the rhythm of it made more delicate and agreeable. Here, in "The
Line of Love," there is another curious example of his high capacity for
revision. It is not only that the book, once standing isolated, has been
brought into the Cabellian canon, and so related to "Jurgen" and "Figures
of Earth" at one end, and to the tales of latter-day Virginia at the
other; it is that the whole texture has been worked over, and the colors
made more harmonious, and the inner life of the thing given a fresh
energy. Once a flavor of the rococo hung about it; now it breathes and
moves. For Cabell knows a good deal more than he knew in 1905. He is an
artist whose work shows constant progress toward the goals he aims
at--principally the goal of a perfect style. Content, with him, is always
secondary. He has ideas, and they are often of much charm and
plausibility, but his main concern is with the manner of stating them. It
is surely not ideas that make "Jurgen" stand out so saliently from the
dreadful prairie of modern American literature; it is the magnificent
writing that is visible on every page of it--writing apparently simple
and spontaneous, and yet extraordinarily cunning and painstaking. The
current notoriety of "Jurgen" will pass. The Comstocks will turn to new
imbecilities, and the followers of literary parades to new marvels. But
it will remain an author's book for many a year.

By author, of course, I mean artist--not mere artisan. It was certainly
not surprising to hear that Maurice Hewlett found "Jurgen" exasperating.
So, too, there is exasperation in Richard Strauss for plodding
music-masters. Hewlett is simply a British Civil Servant turned author,
which is not unsuggestive of an American Congressman turned philosopher.
He has a pretty eye for color, and all the gusto that goes with
beefiness, but like all the men of his class and race and time he can
think only within the range of a few elemental ideas, chiefly of a
sentimental variety, and when he finds those ideas flouted he is
horrified. The bray, in fact, revealed the ass. It is Cabell's
skepticism that saves him from an Americanism as crushing as Hewlett's
Briticism, and so sets him free as an artist. Unhampered by a mission,
happily ignorant of what is commended by all good men, disdainful of the
petty certainties of pedagogues and green-grocers, not caring a damn
what becomes of the Republic, or the Family, or even snivelization
itself, he is at liberty to disport himself pleasantly with his nouns,
verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions and pronouns,
arranging them with the same free hand, the same innocent joy, the same
superb skill and discretion with which the late Jahveh arranged carbon,
nitrogen, sulphur, hydrogen, oxygen and phosphorus in the sublime form
of the human carcass. He, too, has his jokes. He knows the arch effect
of a strange touch; his elaborate pedantries correspond almost exactly
to the hook noses, cock eyes, outstanding ears and undulating Adam's
apples which give so sinister and Rabelaisian a touch to the human
scene. But in the main he sticks to more seemly materials and designs.
His achievement, in fact, consists precisely in the success with which
he gives those materials a striking newness, and gets a novel vitality
into those designs. He takes the ancient and mouldy parts of speech--the
liver and lights of harangues by Dr. Harding, of editorials in the New
York _Times_, of "Science and Health, with a Key to the Scriptures," of
department-store advertisements, of college yells, of chautauqual
oratory, of smoke-room anecdote--and arranges them in mosaics that
glitter with an almost fabulous light. He knows where a red noun should
go, and where a peacock-blue verb, and where an adjective as darkly
purple as a grape. He is an imagist in prose. You may like his story and
you may not like it, but if you don't like the way he tells it then
there is something the matter with your ears. As for me, his experiments
with words caress me as I am caressed by the tunes of old Johannes
Brahms. How simple it seems to manage them--and how infernally difficult
it actually is!

H. L. MENCKEN.

_Baltimore, October 1st, 1921_.




_Contents_

CHAPTER

THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY

    I THE EPISODE CALLED THE WEDDING JEST

   II THE EPISODE CALLED ADHELMAR AT PUYSANGE

  III THE EPISODE CALLED LOVE-LETTERS OF FALSTAFF

   IV THE EPISODE CALLED "SWEET ADELAIS"

    V THE EPISODE CALLED IN NECESSITY'S MORTAR

   VI THE EPISODE CALLED THE CONSPIRACY OF ARNAYE

  VII THE EPISODE CALLED THE CASTLE OF CONTENT

 VIII THE EPISODE CALLED IN URSULA'S GARDEN

   IX THE EPISODE CALLED PORCELAIN CUPS

    X THE ENVOI CALLED SEMPER IDEM




THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY

_"In elect utteraunce to make memoriall,
To thee for souccour, to thee for helpe I call,
Mine homely rudeness and dryghness to expell
With the freshe waters of Elyconys well."_


MY DEAR MRS. GRUNDY: You may have observed that nowadays we rank the
love-story among the comfits of literature; and we do this for the
excellent reason that man is a thinking animal by courtesy rather
than usage.

Rightly considered, the most trivial love-affair is of staggering import.
Who are we to question this, when nine-tenths of us owe our existence to
a summer flirtation? And while our graver economic and social and psychic
"problems" (to settle some one of which is nowadays the object of all
ponderable fiction) are doubtless worthy of most serious consideration,
you will find, my dear madam, that frivolous love-affairs, little and
big, were shaping history and playing spillikins with sceptres long
before any of these delectable matters were thought of.

Yes, even the most talked-about "questions of the day" are sometimes
worthy of consideration; but were it not for the kisses of remote years
and the high gropings of hearts no longer animate, there would be none to
accord them this same consideration, and a void world would teeter about
the sun, silent and naked as an orange. Love is an illusion, if you
will; but always through this illusion, alone, has the next generation
been rendered possible, and all endearing human idiocies, including
"questions of the day," have been maintained.

Love, then, is no trifle. And literature, mimicking life at a
respectful distance, may very reasonably be permitted an occasional
reference to the corner-stone of all that exists. For in life "a
trivial little love-story" is a matter more frequently aspersed than
found. Viewed in the light of its consequences, any love-affair is of
gigantic signification, inasmuch as the most trivial is a part of
Nature's unending and, some say, her only labor, toward the peopling of
the worlds.

She is uninventive, if you will, this Nature, but she is tireless.
Generation by generation she brings it about that for a period weak men
may stalk as demigods, while to every woman is granted at least one hour
wherein to spurn the earth, a warm, breathing angel. Generation by
generation does Nature thus betrick humanity, that humanity may endure.

Here for a little--with the gracious connivance of Mr. R. E. Townsend,
to whom all lyrics hereinafter should be accredited--I have followed
Nature, the arch-trickster. Through her monstrous tapestry I have traced
out for you the windings of a single thread. It is parti-colored, this
thread--now black for a mourning sign, and now scarlet where blood has
stained it, and now brilliancy itself--for the tinsel of young love
(if, as wise men tell us, it be but tinsel), at least makes a
prodigiously fine appearance until time tarnish it. I entreat you, dear
lady, to accept this traced-out thread with assurances of my most
distinguished regard.

The gift is not great. Hereinafter is recorded nothing more weighty than
the follies of young persons, perpetrated in a lost world which when
compared with your ladyship's present planet seems rather callow.
Hereinafter are only love-stories, and nowadays nobody takes love-making
very seriously....

And truly, my dear madam, I dare say the Pompeiians did not take Vesuvius
very seriously; it was merely an eligible spot for a _fête champêtre_.
And when gaunt fishermen first preached Christ about the highways, depend
upon it, that was not taken very seriously, either. _Credat Judaeus_; but
all sensible folk--such as you and I, my dear madam--passed on with a
tolerant shrug, knowing "their doctrine could be held of no sane man."

       *       *       *       *       *

APRIL 30, 1293--MAY 1, 1323

"_Pus vezem de novelh florir pratz, e vergiers reverdezir rius e fontanas
esclarzir, ben deu quascus lo joy jauzir don es jauzens_."


It would in ordinary circumstances be my endeavor to tell you, first of
all, just whom the following tale concerns. Yet to do this is not
expedient, since any such attempt could not but revive the question as to
whose son was Florian de Puysange?

No gain is to be had by resuscitating the mouldy scandal: and, indeed,
it does not matter a button, nowadays, that in Poictesme, toward the end
of the thirteenth century, there were elderly persons who considered the
young Vicomte de Puysange to exhibit an indiscreet resemblance to Jurgen
the pawnbroker. In the wild youth of Jurgen, when Jurgen was a
practising poet (declared these persons), Jurgen had been very intimate
with the former Vicomte de Puysange, now dead, for the two men had much
in common. Oh, a great deal more in common, said these gossips, than the
poor vicomte ever suspected, as you can see for yourself. That was the
extent of the scandal, now happily forgotten, which we must at outset
agree to ignore.

All this was in Poictesme, whither the young vicomte had come a-wooing
the oldest daughter of the Comte de la Forêt. The whispering and the
nods did not much trouble Messire Jurgen, who merely observed that he
was used to the buffets of a censorious world; young Florian never heard
of this furtive chatter; and certainly what people said in Poictesme did
not at all perturb the vicomte's mother, that elderly and pious lady,
Madame Félise de Puysange, at her remote home in Normandy. The
principals taking the affair thus quietly, we may with profit emulate
them. So I let lapse this delicate matter of young Florian's paternity,
and begin with his wedding._




CHAPTER I

_The Episode Called The Wedding Jest_


1. _Concerning Several Compacts_

It is a tale which they narrate in Poictesme, telling how love began
between Florian de Puysange and Adelaide de la Forêt. They tell also how
young Florian had earlier fancied other women for one reason or another;
but that this, he knew, was the great love of his life, and a love which
would endure unchanged as long as his life lasted.

And the tale tells how the Comte de la Forêt stroked a gray beard, and
said, "Well, after all, Puysange is a good fief--"

"As if that mattered!" cried his daughter, indignantly. "My father, you
are a deplorably sordid person."

"My dear," replied the old gentleman, "it does matter. Fiefs last."

So he gave his consent to the match, and the two young people were
married on Walburga's Eve, on the day that ends April.

And they narrate how Florian de Puysange was vexed by a thought that was
in his mind. He did not know what this thought was. But something he had
overlooked; something there was he had meant to do, and had not done: and
a troubling consciousness of this lurked at the back of his mind like a
small formless cloud. All day, while bustling about other matters, he had
groped toward this unapprehended thought.

Now he had it: Tiburce.

The young Vicomte de Puysange stood in the doorway, looking back into the
bright hall where they of Storisende were dancing at his marriage feast.
His wife, for a whole half-hour his wife, was dancing with handsome
Etienne de Nérac. Her glance met Florian's, and Adelaide flashed him an
especial smile. Her hand went out as though to touch him, for all that
the width of the hall severed them.

Florian remembered presently to smile back at her. Then he went out of
the castle into a starless night that was as quiet as an unvoiced menace.
A small and hard and gnarled-looking moon ruled over the dusk's secrecy.
The moon this night, afloat in a luminous gray void, somehow reminded
Florian of a glistening and unripe huge apple.

The foliage about him moved at most as a sleeper breathes, while Florian
descended eastward through walled gardens, and so came to the graveyard.
White mists were rising, such mists as the witches of Amneran
notoriously evoked in these parts on each Walburga's Eve to purchase
recreations which squeamishness leaves undescribed.

For five years now Tiburce d'Arnaye had lain there. Florian thought of
his dead comrade and of the love which had been between them--a love more
perfect and deeper and higher than commonly exists between men--and the
thought came to Florian, and was petulantly thrust away, that Adelaide
loved ignorantly where Tiburce d'Arnaye had loved with comprehension.
Yes, he had known almost the worst of Florian de Puysange, this dear lad
who, none the less, had flung himself between Black Torrismond's sword
and the breast of Florian de Puysange. And it seemed to Florian unfair
that all should prosper with him, and Tiburce lie there imprisoned in
dirt which shut away the color and variousness of things and the
drollness of things, wherein Tiburce d'Arnaye had taken such joy. And
Tiburce, it seemed to Florian--for this was a strange night--was
struggling futilely under all that dirt, which shut out movement, and
clogged the mouth of Tiburce, and would not let him speak; and was
struggling to voice a desire which was unsatisfied and hopeless.

"O comrade dear," said Florian, "you who loved merriment, there is a
feast afoot on this strange night, and my heart is sad that you are not
here to share in the feasting. Come, come, Tiburce, a right trusty
friend you were to me; and, living or dead, you should not fail to make
merry at my wedding."

Thus he spoke. White mists were rising, and it was Walburga's Eve.

So a queer thing happened, and it was that the earth upon the grave
began to heave and to break in fissures, as when a mole passes through
the ground. And other queer things happened after that, and presently
Tiburce d'Arnaye was standing there, gray and vague in the moonlight as
he stood there brushing the mold from his brows, and as he stood there
blinking bright wild eyes. And he was not greatly changed, it seemed to
Florian; only the brows and nose of Tiburce cast no shadows upon his
face, nor did his moving hand cast any shadow there, either, though the
moon was naked overhead.

"You had forgotten the promise that was between us," said Tiburce; and
his voice had not changed much, though it was smaller.

"It is true. I had forgotten. I remember now." And Florian shivered a
little, not with fear, but with distaste.

"A man prefers to forget these things when he marries. It is natural
enough. But are you not afraid of me who come from yonder?"

"Why should I be afraid of you, Tiburce, who gave your life for mine?"

"I do not say. But we change yonder."

"And does love change, Tiburce? For surely love is immortal."

"Living or dead, love changes. I do not say love dies in us who may hope
to gain nothing more from love. Still, lying alone in the dark clay,
there is nothing to do, as yet, save to think of what life was, and of
what sunlight was, and of what we sang and whispered in dark places when
we had lips; and of how young grass and murmuring waters and the high
stars beget fine follies even now; and to think of how merry our loved
ones still contrive to be, even now, with their new playfellows. Such
reflections are not always conducive to philanthropy."

"Tell me," said Florian then, "and is there no way in which we who are
still alive may aid you to be happier yonder?"

"Oh, but assuredly," replied Tiburce d'Arnaye, and he discoursed of
curious matters; and as he talked, the mists about the graveyard
thickened. "And so," Tiburce said, in concluding his tale, "it is not
permitted that I make merry at your wedding after the fashion of those
who are still in the warm flesh. But now that you recall our ancient
compact, it is permitted I have my peculiar share in the merriment, and I
may drink with you to the bride's welfare."

"I drink," said Florian, as he took the proffered cup, "to the welfare of
my beloved Adelaide, whom alone of women I have really loved, and whom I
shall love always."

"I perceive," replied the other, "that you must still be having your
joke."

Then Florian drank, and after him Tiburce. And Florian said, "But it is a
strange drink, Tiburce, and now that you have tasted it you are changed."

"You have not changed, at least," Tiburce answered; and for the first
time he smiled, a little perturbingly by reason of the change in him.

"Tell me," said Florian, "of how you fare yonder."

So Tiburce told him of yet more curious matters. Now the augmenting mists
had shut off all the rest of the world. Florian could see only vague
rolling graynesses and a gray and changed Tiburce sitting there, with
bright wild eyes, and discoursing in a small chill voice. The appearance
of a woman came, and sat beside him on the right. She, too, was gray, as
became Eve's senior: and she made a sign which Florian remembered, and it
troubled him.

Tiburce said then, "And now, young Florian, you who were once so dear to
me, it is to your welfare I drink."

"I drink to yours, Tiburce."

Tiburce drank first: and Florian, having drunk in turn, cried out, "You
have changed beyond recognition!"

"You have not changed," Tiburce d'Arnaye replied again. "Now let me tell
you of our pastimes yonder."

With that he talked of exceedingly curious matters. And Florian began to
grow dissatisfied, for Tiburce was no longer recognizable, and Tiburce
whispered things uncomfortable to believe; and other eyes, as wild as
his, but lit with red flarings from behind, like a beast's eyes, showed
in the mists to this side and to that side, for unhappy beings were
passing through the mists upon secret errands which they discharged
unwillingly. Then, too, the appearance of a gray man now sat to the left
of that which had been Tiburce d'Arnaye, and this newcomer was marked so
that all might know who he was: and Florian's heart was troubled to note
how handsome and how admirable was that desecrated face even now.

"But I must go," said Florian, "lest they miss me at Storisende, and
Adelaide be worried."

"Surely it will not take long to toss off a third cup. Nay, comrade, who
were once so dear, let us two now drink our last toast together. Then go,
in Sclaug's name, and celebrate your marriage. But before that let us
drink to the continuance of human mirth-making everywhere."

Florian drank first. Then Tiburce took his turn, looking at Florian as
Tiburce drank slowly. As he drank, Tiburce d'Arnaye was changed even
more, and the shape of him altered, and the shape of him trickled as
though Tiburce were builded of sliding fine white sand. So Tiburce
d'Arnaye returned to his own place. The appearances that had sat to his
left and to his right were no longer there to trouble Florian with
memories. And Florian saw that the mists of Walburga's Eve had departed,
and that the sun was rising, and that the graveyard was all overgrown
with nettles and tall grass.

He had not remembered the place being thus, and it seemed to him the
night had passed with unnatural quickness. But he thought more of the
fact that he had been beguiled into spending his wedding-night in a
graveyard, in such questionable company, and of what explanation he could
make to Adelaide.


2. _Of Young Persons in May_

The tale tells how Florian de Puysange came in the dawn through flowering
gardens, and heard young people from afar, already about their maying.
Two by two he saw them from afar as they went with romping and laughter
into the tall woods behind Storisende to fetch back the May-pole with
dubious old rites. And as they went they sang, as was customary, that
song which Raimbaut de Vaqueiras made in the ancient time in honor of
May's ageless triumph.

Sang they:

  "_May shows with godlike showing
  To-day for each that sees
  May's magic overthrowing
  All musty memories
  In him whom May decrees
  To be love's own. He saith,
  'I wear love's liveries
  Until released by death_.'

  "_Thus all we laud May's sowing,
  Nor heed how harvests please
  When nowhere grain worth growing
  Greets autumn's questing breeze,
  And garnerers garner these--
  Vain words and wasted breath
  And spilth and tasteless lees--
  Until released by death._

  "_Unwillingly foreknowing
  That love with May-time flees,
  We take this day's bestowing,
  And feed on fantasies
  Such as love lends for ease
  Where none but travaileth,
  With lean infrequent fees,
  Until released by death_."

And Florian shook his sleek black head. "A very foolish and pessimistical
old song, a superfluous song, and a song that is particularly out of
place in the loveliest spot in the loveliest of all possible worlds."

Yet Florian took no inventory of the gardens. There was but a happy sense
of green and gold, with blue topping all; of twinkling, fluent, tossing
leaves and of the gray under side of elongated, straining leaves; a sense
of pert bird noises, and of a longer shadow than usual slanting before
him, and a sense of youth and well-being everywhere. Certainly it was
not a morning wherein pessimism might hope to flourish.

Instead, it was of Adelaide that Florian thought: of the tall, impulsive,
and yet timid, fair girl who was both shrewd and innocent, and of her
tenderly colored loveliness, and of his abysmally unmerited felicity in
having won her. Why, but what, he reflected, grimacing--what if he had
too hastily married somebody else? For he had earlier fancied other women
for one reason or another: but this, he knew, was the great love of his
life, and a love which would endure unchanged as long as his life lasted.


3. _What Comes of Marrying Happily_

The tale tells how Florian de Puysange found Adelaide in the company of
two ladies who were unknown to him. One of these was very old, the other
an imposing matron in middle life. The three were pleasantly shaded by
young oak-trees; beyond was a tall hedge of clipped yew. The older women
were at chess, while Adelaide bent her meek golden head to some of that
fine needlework in which the girl delighted. And beside them rippled a
small sunlit stream, which babbled and gurgled with silver flashes.
Florian hastily noted these things as he ran laughing to his wife.

"Heart's dearest--!" he cried. And he saw, perplexed, that Adelaide had
risen with a faint wordless cry, and was gazing at him as though she
were puzzled and alarmed a very little.

"Such an adventure as I have to tell you of!" says Florian then.

"But, hey, young man, who are you that would seem to know my daughter so
well?" demands the lady in middle life, and she rose majestically from
her chess-game.

Florian stared, as he well might. "Your daughter, madame! But certainly
you are not Dame Melicent."

At this the old, old woman raised her nodding head. "Dame Melicent? And
was it I you were seeking, sir?"

Now Florian looked from one to the other of these incomprehensible
strangers, bewildered: and his eyes came back to his lovely wife, and his
lips smiled irresolutely. "Is this some jest to punish me, my dear?"

But then a new and graver trouble kindled in his face, and his eyes
narrowed, for there was something odd about his wife also.

"I have been drinking in queer company," he said. "It must be that my
head is not yet clear. Now certainly it seems to me that you are Adelaide
de la Forêt, and certainly it seems to me that you are not Adelaide."

The girl replied, "Why, no, messire; I am Sylvie de Nointel."

"Come, come," says the middle-aged lady, briskly, "let us make an end to
this play-acting, and, young fellow, let us have a sniff at you. No, you
are not tipsy, after all. Well, I am glad of that. So let us get to the
bottom of this business. What do they call you when you are at home?"

"Florian de Puysange," he answered, speaking meekly enough. This capable
large person was to the young man rather intimidating.

"La!" said she. She looked at him very hard. She nodded gravely two or
three times, so that her double chin opened and shut. "Yes, and you favor
him. How old are you?"

He told her twenty-four.

She said, inconsequently: "So I was a fool, after all. Well, young man,
you will never be as good-looking as your father, but I trust you have an
honester nature. However, bygones are bygones. Is the old rascal still
living? and was it he that had the impudence to send you to me?"

"My father, madame, was slain at the battle of Marchfeld--"

"Some fifty years ago! And you are twenty-four. Young man, your
parentage had unusual features, or else we are at cross-purposes. Let us
start at the beginning of this. You tell us you are called Florian de
Puysange and that you have been drinking in queer company. Now let us
have the whole story."

Florian told of last night's happenings, with no more omissions than
seemed desirable with feminine auditors.

Then the old woman said: "I think this is a true tale, my daughter, for
the witches of Amneran contrive strange things, with mists to aid them,
and with Lilith and Sclaug to abet. Yes, and this fate has fallen before
to men that were over-friendly with the dead."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said the stout lady.

"But, no, my daughter. Thus seven persons slept at Ephesus, from the time
of Decius to the time of Theodosius--"

"Still, Mother--"

"--And the proof of it is that they were called Constantine and Dionysius
and John and Malchus and Marcian and Maximian and Serapion. They were
duly canonized. You cannot deny that this thing happened without
asserting no less than seven blessed saints to have been unprincipled
liars, and that would be a very horrible heresy--"

"Yet, Mother, you know as well as I do--"

"--And thus Epimenides, another excellently spoken-of saint, slept at
Athens for fifty-seven years. Thus Charlemagne slept in the Untersberg,
and will sleep until the ravens of Miramon Lluagor have left his
mountains. Thus Rhyming Thomas in the Eildon Hills, thus Ogier in Avalon,
thus Oisin--"

The old lady bade fair to go on interminably in her gentle resolute
piping old voice, but the other interrupted.

"Well, Mother, do not excite yourself about it, for it only makes your
asthma worse, and does no especial good to anybody. Things may be as you
say. Certainly I intended nothing irreligious. Yet these extended naps,
appropriate enough for saints and emperors, are out of place in one's own
family. So, if it is not stuff and nonsense, it ought to be. And that I
stick to."

"But we forget the boy, my dear," said the old lady. "Now listen, Florian
de Puysange. Thirty years ago last night, to the month and the day, it
was that you vanished from our knowledge, leaving my daughter a forsaken
bride. For I am what the years have made of Dame Melicent, and this is my
daughter Adelaide, and yonder is her daughter Sylvie de Nointel."

"La, Mother," observed the stout lady, "but are you certain it was the
last of April? I had been thinking it was some time in June. And I
protest it could not have been all of thirty years. Let me see now,
Sylvie, how old is your brother Richard? Twenty-eight, you say. Well,
Mother, I always said you had a marvelous memory for things like that,
and I often envy you. But how time does fly, to be sure!"

And Florian was perturbed. "For this is an awkward thing, and Tiburce has
played me an unworthy trick. He never did know when to leave off joking;
but such posthumous frivolity is past endurance. For, see now, in what a
pickle it has landed me! I have outlived my friends, I may encounter
difficulty in regaining my fiefs, and certainly I have lost the fairest
wife man ever had. Oh, can it be, madame, that you are indeed my
Adelaide!"

"Yes, every pound of me, poor boy, and that says much."

"--And that you have been untrue to the eternal fidelity which you vowed
to me here by this very stream! Oh, but I cannot believe it was thirty
years ago, for not a grass-blade or a pebble has been altered; and I
perfectly remember the lapping of water under those lichened rocks, and
that continuous file of ripples yonder, which are shaped like
arrowheads."

Adelaide rubbed her nose. "Did I promise eternal fidelity? I can hardly
remember that far back. But I remember I wept a great deal, and my
parents assured me you were either dead or a rascal, so that tears could
not help either way. Then Ralph de Nointel came along, good man, and made
me a fair husband, as husbands go--"

"As for that stream," then said Dame Melicent, "it is often I have
thought of that stream, sitting here with my grandchildren where I once
sat with gay young men whom nobody remembers now save me. Yes, it is
strange to think that instantly, and within the speaking of any simple
word, no drop of water retains the place it had before the word was
spoken: and yet the stream remains unchanged, and stays as it was when I
sat here with those young men who are gone. Yes, that is a strange
thought, and it is a sad thought, too, for those of us who are old."

"But, Mother, of course the stream remains unchanged," agreed Dame
Adelaide. "Streams always do except after heavy rains. Everybody knows
that, and I can see nothing very remarkable about it. As for you,
Florian, if you stickle for love's being an immortal affair," she added,
with a large twinkle, "I would have you know I have been a widow for
three years. So the matter could be arranged."

Florian looked at her sadly. To him the situation was incongruous with
the terrible archness of a fat woman. "But, madame, you are no longer the
same person."

She patted him upon the shoulder. "Come, Florian, there is some sense in
you, after all. Console yourself, lad, with the reflection that if you
had stuck manfully by your wife instead of mooning about graveyards, I
would still be just as I am to-day, and you would be tied to me. Your
friend probably knew what he was about when he drank to our welfare, for
we would never have suited each other, as you can see for yourself. Well,
Mother, many things fall out queerly in this world, but with age we learn
to accept what happens without flustering too much over it. What are we
to do with this resurrected old lover of mine?"

It was horrible to Florian to see how prosaically these women dealt with
his unusual misadventure. Here was a miracle occurring virtually before
their eyes, and these women accepted it with maddening tranquillity as an
affair for which they were not responsible. Florian began to reflect that
elderly persons were always more or less unsympathetic and inadequate.

"First of all," says Dame Melicent, "I would give him some breakfast. He
must be hungry after all these years. And you could put him in
Adhelmar's room--"

"But," Florian said wildly, to Dame Adelaide, "you have committed the
crime of bigamy, and you are, after all, my wife!"

She replied, herself not untroubled: "Yes, but, Mother, both the cook and
the butler are somewhere in the bushes yonder, up to some nonsense that I
prefer to know nothing about. You know how servants are, particularly on
holidays. I could scramble him some eggs, though, with a rasher. And
Adhelmar's room it had better be, I suppose, though I had meant to have
it turned out. But as for bigamy and being your wife," she concluded more
cheerfully, "it seems to me the least said the soonest mended. It is to
nobody's interest to rake up those foolish bygones, so far as I can see."

"Adelaide, you profane equally love, which is divine, and marriage, which
is a holy sacrament."

"Florian, do you really love Adelaide de Nointel?" asked this terrible
woman. "And now that I am free to listen to your proposals, do you wish
to marry me?"

"Well, no," said Florian: "for, as I have just said; you are no longer
the same person."

"Why, then, you see for yourself. So do you quit talking nonsense about
immortality and sacraments."

"But, still," cried Florian, "love is immortal. Yes, I repeat to you,
precisely as I told Tiburce, love is immortal."

Then says Dame Melicent, nodding her shriveled old head: "When I was
young, and was served by nimbler senses and desires, and was housed in
brightly colored flesh, there were a host of men to love me. Minstrels
yet tell of the men that loved me, and of how many tall men were slain
because of their love for me, and of how in the end it was Perion who won
me. For the noblest and the most faithful of all my lovers was Perion of
the Forest, and through tempestuous years he sought me with a love that
conquered time and chance: and so he won me. Thereafter he made me a fair
husband, as husbands go. But I might not stay the girl he had loved, nor
might he remain the lad that Melicent had dreamed of, with dreams
be-drugging the long years in which Demetrios held Melicent a prisoner,
and youth went away from her. No, Perion and I could not do that, any
more than might two drops of water there retain their place in the
stream's flowing. So Perion and I grew old together, friendly enough;
and our senses and desires began to serve us more drowsily, so that we
did not greatly mind the falling away of youth, nor greatly mind to note
what shriveled hands now moved before us, performing common tasks; and we
were content enough. But of the high passion that had wedded us there was
no trace, and of little senseless human bickerings there were a great
many. For one thing"--and the old lady's voice was changed--"for one
thing, he was foolishly particular about what he would eat and what he
would not eat, and that upset my housekeeping, and I had never any
patience with such nonsense."

"Well, none the less," said Florian, "it is not quite nice of you to
acknowledge it."

Then said Dame Adelaide: "That is a true word, Mother. All men get
finicky about their food, and think they are the only persons to be
considered, and there is no end to it if once you begin to humor them. So
there has to be a stand made. Well, and indeed my poor Ralph, too, was
all for kissing and pretty talk at first, and I accepted it willingly
enough. You know how girls are. They like to be made much of, and it is
perfectly natural. But that leads to children. And when the children
began to come, I had not much time to bother with him: and Ralph had his
farming and his warfaring to keep him busy. A man with a growing family
cannot afford to neglect his affairs. And certainly, being no fool, he
began to notice that girls here and there had brighter eyes and trimmer
waists than I. I do not know what such observations may have led to when
he was away from me: I never inquired into it, because in such matters
all men are fools. But I put up with no nonsense at home, and he made me
a fair husband, as husbands go. That much I will say for him gladly: and
if any widow says more than that, Florian, do you beware of her, for she
is an untruthful woman."

"Be that as it may," replied Florian, "it is not quite becoming to speak
thus of your dead husband. No doubt you speak the truth: there is no
telling what sort of person you may have married in what still seems to
me unseemly haste to provide me with a successor: but even so, a little
charitable prevarication would be far more edifying."

He spoke with such earnestness that there fell a silence. The women
seemed to pity him. And in the silence Florian heard from afar young
persons returning from the woods behind Storisende, and bringing with
them the May-pole. They were still singing.

Sang they:

  "_Unwillingly foreknowing
  That love with May-time flees,
  We take this day's bestowing,
  And feed on fantasies_--"


4. _Youth Solves It_

The tale tells how lightly and sweetly, and compassionately, too, then
spoke young Sylvie de Nointel.

"Ah, but, assuredly, Messire Florian, you do not argue with my pets
quite seriously! Old people always have some such queer notions. Of
course love all depends upon what sort of person you are. Now, as I see
it, Mama and Grandmama are not the sort of persons who have real
love-affairs. Devoted as I am to both of them, I cannot but perceive they
are lacking in real depth of sentiment. They simply do not understand or
care about such matters. They are fine, straightforward, practical
persons, poor dears, and always have been, of course, for in things like
that one does not change, as I have often noticed. And Father, and
Grandfather Perion, too, as I remember him, was kind-hearted and
admirable and all that, but nobody could ever have expected him to be a
satisfactory lover. Why, he was bald as an egg, the poor pet!"

And Sylvie laughed again at the preposterous notions of old people. She
flashed an especial smile at Florian. Her hand went out as though to
touch him, in an unforgotten gesture. "Old people do not understand,"
said Sylvie de Nointel, in tones which took this handsome young fellow
ineffably into confidence.

"Mademoiselle," said Florian, with a sigh that was part relief and all
approval, "it is you who speak the truth, and your elders have fallen
victims to the cynicism of a crassly material age. Love is immortal when
it is really love and when one is the right sort of person. There is the
love--known to how few, alas! and a passion of which I regret to find
your mother incapable--that endures unchanged until the end of life."

"I am so glad you think so, Messire Florian," she answered demurely.

"And do you not think so, mademoiselle?"

"How should I know," she asked him, "as yet?" He noted she had incredibly
long lashes.

"Thrice happy is he that convinces you!" says Florian. And about them,
who were young in the world's recaptured youth, spring triumphed with an
ageless rural pageant, and birds cried to their mates. He noted the red
brevity of her lips and their probable softness.

Meanwhile the elder women regarded each other.

"It is the season of May. They are young and they are together. Poor
children!" said Dame Melicent. "Youth cries to youth for the toys of
youth, and saying, 'Lo, I cry with the voice of a great god!'"

"Still," said Madame Adelaide, "Puysange is a good fief--"

But Florian heeded neither of them as he stood there by the sunlit
stream, in which no drop of water retained its place for a moment, and
which yet did not alter in appearance at all. He did not heed his elders
for the excellent reason that Sylvie de Nointel was about to speak, and
he preferred to listen to her. For this girl, he knew, was lovelier than
any other person had ever been since Eve first raised just such admiring,
innocent, and venturesome eyes to inspect what must have seemed to her
the quaintest of all animals, called man. So it was with a shrug that
Florian remembered how he had earlier fancied other women for one reason
or another; since this, he knew, was the great love of his life, and a
love which would endure unchanged as long as his life lasted.

       *       *       *       *       *

APRIL 14, 1355--OCTOBER 23, 1356

"_D'aquest segle flac, plen de marrimen,
S'amor s'en vai, son jot teinh mensongier_."


_So Florian married Sylvie, and made her, they relate, a fair husband,
as husbands go. And children came to them, and then old age, and, lastly,
that which comes to all._

Which reminds me that it was an uncomfortable number of years ago, in an
out-of-the-way corner of the library at Allonby Shaw, that I first came
upon_ Les Aventures d'Adhelmar de Nointel. _This manuscript dates from
the early part of the fifteenth century and is attributed--though on no
very conclusive evidence, says Hinsauf,--to the facile pen of Nicolas de
Caen (circa 1450), until lately better known as a lyric poet and
satirist._

_The story, told in decasyllabic couplets, interspersed after a rather
unusual fashion with innumerable lyrics, seems in the main authentic. Sir
Adhelmar de Nointel, born about 1332, was once a real and stalwart
personage, a younger brother to that Henri de Nointel, the fighting
Bishop of Mantes, whose unsavory part in the murder of Jacques van
Arteveldt history has recorded at length; and it is with the exploits of
this Adhelmar that the romance deals, not, it may be, without
exaggeration._

_In any event, the following is, with certain compressions and omissions
that have seemed desirable, the last episode of the_ Aventures. _The tale
concerns the children of Florian and Sylvie: and for it I may claim, at
least, the same merit that old Nicolas does at the very outset; since as
he veraciously declares--yet with a smack of pride:_

  _Cette bonne ystoire n'est pas usée,
  Ni guère de lieux jadis trouvée,
  Ni ècrite par clercz ne fut encore._




CHAPTER II

_The Episode Called Adhelmar at Puysange_


I. _April-magic_

When Adhelmar had ended the tale of Dame Venus and the love which she
bore the knight Tannhäuser (here one overtakes Nicolas midcourse in
narrative), Adhelmar put away the book and sighed. The Demoiselle Mélite
laughed a little--her laughter, as I have told you, was high and
delicate, with the resonance of thin glass--and demanded the reason of
his sudden grief.

"I sigh," he answered, "for sorrow that this Dame Venus is dead."

"Surely," said she, wondering at his glum face, "that is no great
matter."

"By Saint Vulfran, yes!" Adhelmar protested; "for the same Lady Venus was
the fairest of women, as all learned clerks avow; and she is dead these
many years, and now there is no woman left alive so beautiful as
she--saving one alone, and she will have none of me. And therefore," he
added, very slowly, "I sigh for desire of Dame Venus and for envy of the
knight Tannhäuser."

Again Mélite laughed, but she forbore--discreetly enough--to question him
concerning the lady who was of equal beauty with Dame Venus.

It was an April morning, and they set in the hedged garden of Puysange.
Adhelmar read to her of divers ancient queens and of the love-business
wherein each took part, relating the histories of the Lady Heleine and of
her sweethearting with Duke Paris, the Emperor of Troy's son, and of the
Lady Melior that loved Parthénopex of Blois, and of the Lady Aude, for
love of whom Sieur Roland slew the pagan Angoulaffre, and of the Lady
Cresseide that betrayed love, and of the Lady Morgaine la Fée, whose
Danish lover should yet come from Avalon to save France in her black hour
of need. All these he read aloud, suavely, with bland modulations, for he
was a man of letters, as letters went in those days. Originally, he had
been bred for the Church; but this vocation he had happily forsaken long
since, protesting with some show of reason that France at this particular
time had a greater need of spears than of aves.

For the rest, Sir Adhelmar de Nointel was known as a valiant knight, who
had won glory in the wars with the English. He had lodged for a fortnight
at Puysange, of which castle the master, Sire Reinault (son to the late
Vicomte Florian) was Adhelmar's cousin: and on the next day Adhelmar
proposed to set forth for Paris, where the French King--Jehan the
Luckless--was gathering his lieges about him to withstand his kinsman,
Edward of England.

Now, as I have said, Adhelmar was cousin to Reinault, and, in
consequence, to Reinault's sister, the Demoiselle Mélite; and the latter
Adhelmar loved, at least, as much as a cousin should. That was well
known; and Reinault de Puysange had sworn very heartily that this was a
great pity when he affianced her to Hugues d'Arques. Both Hugues and
Adhelmar had loved Mélite since boyhood,--so far their claims ran
equally. But while Adhelmar had busied himself in the acquisition of some
scant fame and a vast number of scars, Hugues had sensibly inherited the
fief of Arques, a snug property with fertile lands and a stout fortress.
How, then, should Reinault hesitate between them?

He did not. For the Château d'Arques, you must understand, was builded in
Lower Normandy, on the fringe of the hill-country, just where the
peninsula of Cotentin juts out into the sea; Puysange stood not far
north, among the level lands of Upper Normandy: and these two being the
strongest castles in those parts, what more natural and desirable than
that the families should be united by marriage? Reinault informed his
sister of his decision; she wept a little, but did not refuse to comply.

So Adhelmar, come again to Puysange after five years' absence, found
Mélite troth-plighted, fast and safe, to Hugues. Reinault told him.
Adhelmar grumbled and bit his nails in a corner, for a time; then
laughed shortly.

"I have loved Mélite," he said. "It may be that I love her still. Hah,
Saint Vulfran! why should I not? Why should a man not love his cousin?"

Adhelmar grinned, while the vicomte twitched his beard and wished
Adhelmar at the devil.

But the young knight stuck fast at Puysange, for all that, and he and
Mélite were much together. Daily they made parties to dance, and to hunt
the deer, and to fish, but most often to rehearse songs. For Adhelmar
made good songs.

[Footnote: Nicolas indeed declares of Adhelmar, earlier in the tale, in
such high terms as are not uncommon to this chronicle:

  Hardi estait et fier comme lions,
  Et si faisait balades et chançons,
  Rondeaulx et laiz, très bans et pleins de grâce,
  Comme Orpheus, cet menestrier de Thrace.]

To-day, the summer already stirring in the womb of the year, they sat, as
I have said, in the hedged garden; and about them the birds piped and
wrangled over their nest-building, and daffodils danced in spring's honor
with lively saltations, and overhead the sky was colored like a robin's
egg. It was very perilous weather for young folk. By reason of this, when
he had ended his reading about the lady of the hollow hill, Sir Adhelmar
sighed again, and stared at his companion with hungry eyes, wherein
desire strained like a hound at the leash.

Said Mélite, "Was this Lady Venus, then, exceedingly beautiful?"

Adhelmar swore an oath of sufficient magnitude that she was.

Whereupon Mélite, twisting her fingers idly and evincing a sudden
interest in her own feet, demanded if this Venus were more beautiful than
the Lady Ermengarde of Arnaye or the Lady Ysabeau of Brieuc.

"Holy Ouen!" scoffed Adhelmar; "these ladies, while well enough, I grant
you, would seem to be callow howlets blinking about that Arabian Phoenix
which Plinius tells of, in comparison with this Lady Venus that is dead!"

"But how," asked Mélite, "was this lady fashioned that you commend so
highly?--and how can you know of her beauty who have never seen her?"

Said Adhelmar: "I have read of her fairness in the chronicles of Messire
Stace of Thebes, and of Dares, who was her husband's bishop. And she was
very comely, neither too little nor too big; she was fairer and whiter
and more lovely than any flower of the lily or snow upon the branch, but
her eyebrows had the mischance of meeting. She had wide-open, beautiful
eyes, and her wit was quick and ready. She was graceful and of demure
countenance. She was well-beloved, and could herself love well, but her
heart was changeable--"

"Cousin Adhelmar," declared Mélite, flushing somewhat, for the portrait
was like enough, "I think that you tell of a woman, not of a goddess of
heathenry."

"Her eyes," said Adhelmar, and his voice shook, and his hands, lifting a
little, trembled,--"her eyes were large and very bright and of a color
like that of the June sunlight falling upon deep waters. Her hair
was of a curious gold color like the Fleece that the knight Jason sought,
and it curled marvellously about her temples. For mouth she had but a
small red wound; and her throat was a tower builded of ivory."

But now, still staring at her feet and glowing with the even complexion
of a rose, (though not ill-pleased), the Demoiselle Mélite bade him
desist and make her a song. Moreover, she added, beauty was but a
fleeting thing, and she considered it of little importance; and then she
laughed again.

Adhelmar took up the lute that lay beside them and fingered it for a
moment, as though wondering of what he would rhyme. Afterward he sang for
her as they sat in the gardens.

Sang Adhelmar:

  _"It is in vain I mirror forth the praise
  In pondered virelais
  Of her that is the lady of my love;
  Far-sought and curious phrases fail to tell
  The tender miracle
  Of her white body and the grace thereof.

  "Thus many and many an artful-artless strain
  Is fashioned all in vain:
  Sound proves unsound; and even her name, that is
  To me more glorious than the glow of fire
  Or dawn or love's desire
  Or opals interlinked with turquoises,
  Mocks utterance.

  "So, lacking skill to praise
  That perfect bodily beauty which is hers,
  Even as those worshippers
  Who bore rude offerings of honey and maize,
  Their all, into the gold-paved ministers
  Of Aphrodite, I have given her these
  My faltering melodies,
  That are Love's lean and ragged messengers."_

When he had ended, Adhelmar cast aside the lute, and caught up both of
Mélite's hands, and strained them to his lips. There needed no wizard to
read the message in his eyes.

Mélite sat silent for a moment. Presently, "Ah, cousin, cousin!" she
sighed, "I cannot love you as you would have me love. God alone knows
why, true heart, for I revere you as a strong man and a proven knight and
a faithful lover; but I do not love you. There are many women who would
love you, Adhelmar, for the world praises you, and you have done brave
deeds and made good songs and have served your King potently; and
yet"--she drew her hands away and laughed a little wearily--"yet I, poor
maid, must needs love Hugues, who has done nothing. This love is a
strange, unreasoning thing, my cousin."

"But do you in truth love Hugues?" asked Adhelmar, in a harsh voice.

"Yes," said Mélite, very softly, and afterward flushed and wondered
dimly if she had spoken the truth. Then, somehow, her arms clasped about
Adhelmar's neck, and she kissed him, from pure pity, as she told
herself; for Mélite's heart was tender, and she could not endure the
anguish in his face.

This was all very well. But Hugues d'Arques, coming suddenly out of a
pleached walk, at this juncture, stumbled upon them and found their
postures distasteful. He bent black brows upon the two.

"Adhelmar," said he, at length, "this world is a small place."

Adhelmar rose. "Indeed," he assented, with a wried smile, "I think there
is scarce room in it for both of us, Hugues."

"That was my meaning," said the Sieur d'Arques.

"Only," Adhelmar pursued, somewhat wistfully, "my sword just now, Hugues,
is vowed to my King's quarrel. There are some of us who hope to save
France yet, if our blood may avail. In a year, God willing, I shall come
again to Puysange; and till then you must wait."

Hugues conceded that, perforce, he must wait, since a vow was sacred;
and Adhelmar, who suspected Hugues' natural appetite for battle to be
lamentably squeamish, grinned. After that, in a sick rage, Adhelmar
struck Hugues in the face, and turned about.

The Sieur d'Arques rubbed his cheek ruefully. Then he and Mélite stood
silent for a moment, and heard Adhelmar in the court-yard calling his men
to ride forth; and Mélite laughed; and Hugues scowled.


2. _Nicolas as Chorus_

The year passed, and Adhelmar did not return; and there was much fighting
during that interval, and Hugues began to think the knight was slain and
would never return to fight with him. The reflection was borne with
equanimity.

So Adhelmar was half-forgot, and the Sieur d'Arques turned his mind to
other matters. He was still a bachelor, for Reinault considered the
burden of the times in ill-accord with the chinking of marriage-bells.
They were grim times for Frenchmen: right and left the English pillaged
and killed and sacked and guzzled and drank, as if they would never have
done; and Edward of England began, to subscribe himself _Rex Franciae_
with some show of excuse.

In Normandy men acted according to their natures. Reinault swore lustily
and looked to his defences; Hugues, seeing the English everywhere
triumphant, drew a long face and doubted, when the will of God was made
thus apparent, were it the part of a Christian to withstand it? Then he
began to write letters, but to whom no man at either Arques or Puysange
knew, saving One-eyed Peire, who carried them.


3. _Treats of Huckstering_

It was in the dusk of a rain-sodden October day that Adhelmar rode to the
gates of Puysange, with some score men-at-arms behind him. They came from
Poictiers, where again the English had conquered, and Adhelmar rode with
difficulty, for in that disastrous business in the field of Maupertuis he
had been run through the chest, and his wound was scarce healed.
Nevertheless, he came to finish his debate with the Sieur d'Arques, wound
or no wound.

But at Puysange he heard a strange tale of Hugues. Reinault, whom
Adhelmar found in a fine rage, told the story as they sat over
their supper.

It had happened, somehow, (Reinault said), that the Marshal Arnold
d'Andreghen--newly escaped from prison and with his disposition
unameliorated by Lord Audley's gaolership,--had heard of these letters
that Hugues wrote so constantly; and the Marshal, being no scholar, had
frowned at such doings, and waited presently, with a company of horse, on
the road to Arques. Into their midst, on the day before Adhelmar came,
rode Peire, the one-eyed messenger; and it was not an unconscionable
while before Peire was bound hand and foot, and d'Andreghen was reading
the letter they had found in Peire's jerkin. "Hang the carrier on that
oak," said d'Andreghen, when he had ended, "but leave that largest branch
yonder for the writer. For by the Blood of Christ, our common salvation!
I will hang him there on Monday!"

So Peire swung in the air ere long and stuck out a black tongue at the
crows, who cawed and waited for supper; and presently they feasted while
d'Andreghen rode to Arques, carrying a rope for Hugues.

For the Marshal, you must understand, was a man of sudden action. Only
two months ago, he had taken the Comte de Harcourt with other gentlemen
from the Dauphin's own table to behead them that afternoon in a field
behind Rouen. It was true they had planned to resist the _gabelle_, the
King's immemorial right to impose a tax on salt; but Harcourt was Hugues'
cousin, and the Sieur d'Arques, being somewhat of an epicurean
disposition, esteemed the dessert accorded his kinsman unpalatable.

There was no cause for great surprise to d'Andreghen, then, to find that
the letter Hugues had written was meant for Edward, the Black Prince of
England, now at Bordeaux, where he held the French King, whom the Prince
had captured at Poictiers, as a prisoner; for this prince, though he had
no particular love for a rogue, yet knew how to make use of one when
kingcraft demanded it,--and, as he afterward made use of Pedro the
Castilian, he was now prepared to make use of Hugues, who hung like a
ripe pear ready to drop into Prince Edward's mouth. "For," as the Sieur
d'Arques pointed out in his letter, "I am by nature inclined to favor you
brave English, and so, beyond doubt, is the good God. And I will deliver
Arques to you; and thus and thus you may take Normandy and the major
portion of France; and thus and thus will I do, and thus and thus must
you reward me."

Said d'Andreghen, "I will hang him at dawn; and thus and thus may the
devil do with his soul!"

Then with his company d'Andreghen rode to Arques. A herald declared to
the men of that place how the matter stood, and bade Hugues come forth
and dance upon nothing. The Sieur d'Arques spat curses, like a cat driven
into a corner, and wished to fight, but the greater part of his garrison
were not willing to do so in such a cause: and so d'Andreghen took him
and carried him off.

In anger having sworn by the Blood of Christ to hang Hugues d'Arques to a
certain tree, d'Andreghen had no choice in calm but to abide by his oath.
This day being the Sabbath, he deferred the matter; but the Marshal
promised to see to it that when morning broke the Sieur d'Arques should
dangle side by side with his messenger.

Thus far the Vicomte de Puysange. He concluded his narrative with a dry
chuckle. "And I think we are very well rid of him, Adhelmar. Holy Maclou!
that I should have taken the traitor for a true man, though! He would
sell France, you observe,--chaffered, they tell me, like a pedlar over
the price of Normandy. Heh, the huckster, the triple-damned Jew!"

"And Mélite?" asked Adhelmar, after a little.

Again Reinault shrugged. "In the White Turret," he said; then, with a
short laugh: "Oy Dieus, yes! The girl has been caterwauling for this
shabby rogue all day. She would have me--me, the King's man, look
you!--save Hugues at the peril of my seignory! And I protest to you, by
the most high and pious Saint Nicolas the Confessor," Reinault swore,
"that sooner than see this huckster go unpunished, I would lock Hell's
gate on him with my own hands!"

For a moment Adhelmar stood with his jaws puffed out, as if in thought,
and then he laughed like a wolf. Afterward he went to the White Turret,
leaving Reinault smiling over his wine.


4. _Folly Diversely Attested_

He found Mélite alone. She had robed herself in black, and had gathered
her gold hair about her face like a heavy veil, and sat weeping into it
for the plight of Hugues d'Arques.

"Mélite!" cried Adhelmar; "Mélite!" The Demoiselle de Puysange rose with
a start, and, seeing him standing in the doorway, ran to him, incompetent
little hands fluttering before her like frightened doves. She was very
tired, by that day-long arguing with her brother's notions about honor
and knightly faith and such foolish matters, and to her weariness
Adhelmar seemed strength incarnate; surely he, if any one, could aid
Hugues and bring him safe out of the grim marshal's claws. For the
moment, perhaps, she had forgotten the feud which existed between
Adhelmar and the Sieur d'Arques; but in any event, I am convinced, she
knew that Adhelmar could refuse her nothing. So she ran toward him, her
cheeks flushing arbutus-like, and she was smiling through her tears.

Oh, thought Adhelmar, were it not very easy to leave Hugues to the dog's
death he merits and to take this woman for my own? For I know that she
loves me a little. And thinking of this, he kissed her, quietly, as one
might comfort a sobbing child; afterward he held her in his arms for a
moment, wondering vaguely at the pliant thickness of her hair and the
sweet scent of it. Then he put her from him gently, and swore in his soul
that Hugues must die, so that this woman might be Adhelmar's.

"You will save him?" Mélite asked, and raised her face to his. There was
that in her eyes which caused Adhelmar to muse for a little on the nature
of women's love, and, subsequently, to laugh harshly and make vehement
utterance.

"Yes!" said Adhelmar.

He demanded how many of Hugues' men were about. Some twenty of them had
come to Puysange, Mélite said, in the hope that Reinault might aid them
to save their master. She protested that her brother was a coward for not
doing so; but Adhelmar, having his own opinion on this subject, and
thinking in his heart that Hugues' skin might easily be ripped off him
without spilling a pint of honest blood, said, simply: "Twenty and twenty
is two-score. It is not a large armament, but it may serve."

He told her his plan was to fall suddenly upon d'Andreghen and his men
that night, and in the tumult to steal Hugues away; whereafter, as
Adhelmar pointed out, Hugues might readily take ship for England, and
leave the marshal to blaspheme Fortune in Normandy, and the French King
to gnaw at his chains in Bordeaux, while Hugues toasts his shins in
comfort at London. Adhelmar admitted that the plan was a mad one, but
added, reasonably enough, that needs must when the devil drives. And so
firm was his confidence, so cheery his laugh--he managed to laugh
somehow, though it was a stiff piece of work,--that Mélite began to be
comforted somewhat, and bade him go and Godspeed.

So then Adhelmar left her. In the main hall he found the vicomte still
sitting over his wine of Anjou.

"Cousin," said Adhelmar, "I must ride hence to-night."

Reinault stared at him: a mastering wonder woke in Reinault's face.
"Ta, ta, ta!" he clicked his tongue, very softly. Afterward he sprang
to his feet and clutched Adhelmar by both arms. "No, no!" Reinault
cried. "No, Adhelmar, you must not try that! It is death, lad,--sure
death! It means hanging, boy!" the vicomte pleaded, for, hard man that
he was, he loved Adhelmar.

"That is likely enough," Adhelmar conceded.

"They will hang you,"' Reinault said again: "d'Andreghen and the Count
Dauphin of Vienna will hang you as blithely as they would Iscariot."

"That, too," said Adhelmar, "is likely enough, if I remain in France."

"Oy Dieus! will you flee to England, then?" the vicomte scoffed,
bitterly. "Has King Edward not sworn to hang you these eight years past?
Was it not you, then, cousin, who took Almerigo di Pavia, that Lombard
knave whom he made governor of Calais,--was it not you, then, who
delivered Edward's loved Almerigo to Geoffrey de Chargny, who had him
broken on the wheel? Eh, holy Maclou! but you will get hearty welcome and
a chaplain and a rope in England."

Adhelmar admitted that this was true. "Still," said he, "I must ride
hence to-night."

"For her?" Reinault asked, and jerked his thumb upward.

"Yes," said Adhelmar,--"for her."

Reinault stared in his face for a while. "You are a fool, Adhelmar," said
he, at last, "but you are a brave man, and you love as becomes a
chevalier. It is a great pity that a flibbertigibbet wench with a
tow-head should be the death of you. For my part, I am the King's vassal;
I shall not break faith with him; but you are my guest and my kinsman.
For that reason I am going to bed, and I shall sleep very soundly. It is
likely I shall hear nothing of the night's doings,--ohimé, no! not if you
murder d'Andreghen in the court-yard!" Reinault ended, and smiled,
somewhat sadly.

Afterward he took Adhelmar's hand and said: "Farewell, lord Adhelmar! O
true knight, sturdy and bold! terrible and merciless toward your enemies,
gentle and simple toward your friends, farewell!"

He kissed Adhelmar on either cheek and left him. In those days men
encountered death with very little ado.

Then Adhelmar rode off in the rain with thirty-four armed followers.
Riding thus, he reflected upon the nature of women and upon his love
for the Demoiselle de Puysange; and, to himself, he swore gloomily that
if she had a mind to Hugues she must have Hugues, come what might.
Having reached this conclusion, Adhelmar wheeled upon his men, and
cursed them for tavern-idlers and laggards and flea-hearted snails, and
bade them spur.

Mélite, at her window, heard them depart, and heard the noise of their
going lapse into the bland monotony of the rain's noise. This dank night
now divulged no more, and she turned back into the room. Adhelmar's
glove, which he had forgotten in his haste, lay upon the floor, and
Mélite lifted it and twisted it idly.

"I wonder--?" said she.

She lighted four wax candles and set them before a mirror that was in the
room. Mélite stood among them and looked into the mirror. She seemed very
tall and very slender, and her loosened hair hung heavily about her
beautiful shallow face and fell like a cloak around her black-robed body,
showing against the black gown like melting gold; and about her were the
tall, white candles tipped with still flames of gold. Mélite laughed--her
laughter was high and delicate, with the resonance of thin glass,--and
raised her arms above her, head, stretching tensely like a cat before a
fire, and laughed yet again.

"After all," said she, "I do not wonder."

Mélite sat before the mirror, and braided her hair, and sang to herself
in a sweet, low voice, brooding with unfathomable eyes upon her image in
the glass, while the October rain beat about Puysange, and Adhelmar rode
forth to save Hugues that must else be hanged.

Sang Mélite:

  "_Rustling leaves of the willow-tree
  Peering downward at you and me,
  And no man else in the world to see,

  "Only the birds, whose dusty coats
  Show dark in the green,--whose throbbing throats
  Turn joy to music and love to notes_.

  "Lean your body against the tree,
  Lifting your red lips up to me,
  Mélite, and kiss, with no man to see!

  "And let us laugh for a little:--Yea,
  Let love and laughter herald the day
  When laughter and love will be put away.

  "Then you will remember the willow-tree
  And this very hour, and remember me,
  Mélite,--whose face you will no more see!

  "So swift, so swift the glad time goes,
  And Eld and Death with their countless woes
  Draw near, and the end thereof no man knows,

  "Lean your body against the tree,
  Lifting your red lips up to me,
  Mélite, and kiss, with no man to see!"_

Mélite smiled as she sang; for this was a song that Adhelmar had made for
her upon a May morning at Nointel, before he was a knight, when both were
very young. So now she smiled to remember the making of the verses which
she sang while the October rain was beating about Puysange.


5. _Night-work_

It was not long before they came upon d'Andreghen and his men camped
about a great oak, with One-eyed Peire a-swing over their heads for a
lamentable banner. A shrill sentinel, somewhere in the dark, demanded the
newcomers' business, but without receiving any adequate answer, for at
that moment Adhelmar gave the word to charge.

Then it was as if all the devils in Pandemonium had chosen Normandy for
their playground; and what took place in the night no man saw for the
darkness, so that I cannot tell you of it. Let it suffice that Adhelmar
rode away before d'Andreghen had rubbed sleep well out of his eyes; and
with Adhelmar were Hugues d'Arques and some half of Adhelmar's men. The
rest were dead, and Adhelmar was badly hurt, for he had burst open his
old wound and it was bleeding under his armor. Of this he said nothing.

"Hugues," said he, "do you and these fellows ride to the coast; thence
take ship for England."

He would have none of Hugues' thanks; instead, he turned and left Hugues
to whimper out his gratitude to the skies, which spat a warm, gusty rain
at him. Adhelmar rode again to Puysange, and as he went he sang.

Sang Adhelmar:

  "D'Andreghen in Normandy
  Went forth to slay mine enemy;
  But as he went
  Lord God for me wrought marvellously;

  "Wherefore, I may call and cry
  That am now about to die,
  'I am content!'

  "Domine! Domine!
  Gratias accipe!
  Et meum animum
  Recipe in coelum_!"


6. They Kiss at Parting

When he had come to Puysange, Adhelmar climbed the stairs of the White
Turret,--slowly, for he was growing very feeble now,--and so came again
to Mélite crouching among the burned-out candles in the slate-colored
twilight which heralded dawn.

"He is safe," said Adhelmar. He told Mélite how Hugues was rescued and
shipped to England, and how, if she would, she might straightway follow
him in a fishing-boat. "For there is likely to be ugly work at Puysange,"
Adhelmar said, "when the marshal comes. And he will come."

"But what will you do now, my cousin?" asked Mélite.

"Holy Ouen!" said Adhelmar; "since I needs must die, I will die in
France, not in the cold land of England."

"Die!" cried Mélite. "Are you hurt so sorely, then?"

He grinned like a death's-head. "My injuries are not incurable," said
he, "yet must I die very quickly, for all that. The English King will
hang me if I go thither, as he has sworn to do these eight years, because
of that matter of Almerigo di Pavia: and if I stay in France, I must hang
because of this night's work."

Mélite wept. "O God! O God!" she quavered, two or three times, like one
hurt in the throat. "And you have done this for me! Is there no way to
save you, Adhelmar?" she pleaded, with wide, frightened eyes that were
like a child's.

"None," said Adhelmar. He took both her hands in his, very tenderly. "Ah,
my sweet," said he, "must I, whose grave is already digged, waste breath
upon this idle talk of kingdoms and the squabbling men who rule them? I
have but a brief while to live, and I wish to forget that there is aught
else in the world save you, and that I love you. Do not weep, Mélite! In
a little time you will forget me and be happy with this Hugues whom you
love; and I?--ah, my sweet, I think that even in my grave I shall dream
of you and of your great beauty and of the exceeding love that I bore you
in the old days."

"Ah, no, I shall not ever forget, O true and faithful lover! And, indeed,
indeed, Adhelmar, I would give my life right willingly that yours might
be saved!"

She had almost forgotten Hugues. Her heart was sad as she thought of
Adhelmar, who must die a shameful death for her sake, and of the love
which she had cast away. Beside it, the Sieur d'Arques' affection showed
somewhat tawdry, and Mélite began to reflect that, after all, she had
liked Adhelmar almost as well.

"Sweet," said Adhelmar, "do I not know you to the marrow? You will forget
me utterly, for your heart is very changeable. Ah, Mother of God!"
Adhelmar cried, with a quick lift of speech; "I am afraid to die, for the
harsh dust will shut out the glory of your face, and you will forget!"

"No; ah, no!" Mélite whispered, and drew near to him. Adhelmar smiled, a
little wistfully, for he did not believe that she spoke the truth; but it
was good to feel her body close to his, even though he was dying, and he
was content.

But by this time the dawn had come completely, flooding the room with its
first thin radiance, and Mélite saw the pallor of his face and so knew
that he was wounded.

"Indeed, yes," said Adhelmar, when she had questioned him, "for my breast
is quite cloven through." And when she disarmed him, Mélite found a great
cut in his chest which had bled so much that it was apparent he must die,
whether d'Andreghen and Edward of England would or no.

Mélite wept again, and cried, "Why had you not told me of this?"

"To have you heal me, perchance?" said Adhelmar. "Ah, love, is hanging,
then, so sweet a death that I should choose it, rather than to die very
peacefully in your arms? Indeed, I would not live if I might; for I have
proven traitor to my King, and it is right that traitors should die; and,
chief of all, I know that life can bring me naught more desirable than I
have known this night. What need, then, have I to live?"

Mélite bent over him; for as he spoke he had lain back in a tall carven
chair by the east window. She was past speech. But now, for a moment, her
lips clung to his, and her warm tears fell upon his face. What better
death for a lover? thought Adhelmar.

Yet he murmured somewhat. "Pity, always pity!" he said, wearily. "I shall
never win aught else of you, Mélite. For before this you have kissed me,
pitying me because you could not love me. And you have kissed me now,
pitying me because I may not live."

But Mélite, clasping her arms about his neck, whispered into his ear the
meaning of this last kiss, and at the honeyed sound of her whispering
his strength came back for a moment, and he strove to rise. The level
sunlight through the open window smote full upon his face, which was
very glad. Mélite was conscious of her nobility in causing him such
delight at the last.

"God, God!" cried Adhelmar, and he spread out his arms toward the dear,
familiar world that was slowly taking form beneath them,--a world now
infinitely dear to him; "all, my God, have pity and let me live a
little longer!"

As Mélite, half frightened, drew back from him, he crept out of his
chair and fell prone at her feet. Afterward his hands stretched forward
toward her, clutching, and then trembled and were still.

Mélite stood looking downward, wondering vaguely when she would next
know either joy or sorrow again. She was now conscious of no emotion
whatever. It seemed to her she ought to be more greatly moved. So the
new day found them.

       *       *       *       *       *

MARCH 2, 1414

"_Jack, how agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest
him for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon's leg_?"


_In the chapel at Puysange you may still see the tomb of Adhelmar; but
Mélite's bones lie otherwhere. "Her heart was changeable," as old Nicolas
says, justly enough; and so in due time it was comforted.

For Hugues d'Arques--or Hugh Darke, as his name was Anglicized--presently
stood high in the favor of King Edward. A fief was granted to Messire
Darke, in Norfolk, where Hugues shortly built for himself a residence at
Yaxham, and began to look about for a wife: it was not long before he
found one.

This befell at Brétigny when, in 1360, the Great Peace was signed
between France and England, and Hugues, as one of the English embassy,
came face to face with Reinault and Mélite. History does not detail the
meeting; but, inasmuch as the Sieur d'Arques and Mélite de Puysange were
married at Rouen the following October, doubtless it passed off
pleasantly enough.

The couple had sufficient in common to have qualified them for several
decades of mutual toleration. But by ill luck, Mélite died in child-birth
three years after her marriage. She had borne, in 1361, twin daughters,
of whom Adelais died a spinster; the other daughter, Sylvia, circa 1378,
figured in an unfortunate love-affair with one of Sir Thomas Mowbray's
attendants, but subsequently married Robert Vernon of Winstead. Mélite
left also a son, Hugh, born in 1363, who succeeded to his father's estate
of Yaxham in 1387, in which year Hugues fell at the battle of Radcot
Bridge, fighting in behalf of the ill-fated Richard of Bordeaux.

Now we turn to certain happenings in Eastcheap, at the Boar's Head
Tavern._




CHAPTER III

_The Episode Called Love-Letters of Falstaff_


I. "_That Gray Iniquity_"

There was a sound of scuffling within as Sir John Falstaff--much
broken since his loss of the King's favor, and now equally decayed in
wit and health and reputation--stood fumbling at the door of the Angel
room. He was particularly shaky this morning after a night of
particularly hard drinking.

But he came into the apartment singing, and, whatever the scuffling had
meant, found Bardolph in one corner employed in sorting garments from a
clothes-chest, while at the extreme end of the room Mistress Quickly
demurely stirred the fire; which winked at the old knight rather
knowingly.

"_Then came the bold Sir Caradoc_," carolled Sir John. "Ah, mistress,
what news?--_And eke Sir Pellinore_.--Did I rage last night, Bardolph?
Was I a Bedlamite?"

"As mine own bruises can testify," Bardolph assented. "Had each one of
them a tongue, they would raise a clamor beside which Babel were as an
heir weeping for his rich uncle's death; their testimony would qualify
you for any mad-house in England. And if their evidence go against the
doctor's stomach, the watchman at the corner hath three teeth--or,
rather, hath them no longer, since you knocked them out last night--that
will, right willingly, aid him to digest it."

"Three, say you?" asked the knight, rather stiffly lowering his great
body into his great chair set ready for him beside the fire. "I would
have my valor in all men's mouths, but not in this fashion, for it is too
biting a jest. Three, say you? Well, I am glad it was no worse; I have a
tender conscience, and that mad fellow of the north, Hotspur, sits
heavily upon it, so that thus this Percy, being slain by my valor, is
_per se_ avenged, a plague on him! Three, say you? I would to God my name
were not so terrible to the enemy as it is; I would I had 'bated my
natural inclination somewhat, and had slain less tall fellows by some
threescore. I doubt Agamemnon slept not well o' nights. Three, say you?
Give the fellow a crown apiece for his mouldy teeth, if thou hast them;
if thou hast them not, bid him eschew this vice of drunkenness, whereby
his misfortune hath befallen him, and thus win him heavenly crowns."

"Indeed, sir," began Bardolph, "I doubt--"

"Doubt not, sirrah!" cried Sir John, testily; and continued, in a
virtuous manner: "Was not the apostle reproved for that same sin? Thou
art a Didymus, Bardolph;--an incredulous paynim, a most unspeculative
rogue! Have I carracks trading in the Indies? Have I robbed the exchequer
of late? Have I the Golden Fleece for a cloak? Nay, it is paltry gimlet,
and that augurs badly. Why, does this knavish watchman take me for a
raven to feed him in the wilderness? Tell him there are no such ravens
hereabout; else had I ravenously limed the house-tops and set springes in
the gutters. Inform him that my purse is no better lined than his own
broken skull: it is void as a beggar's protestations, or a butcher's
stall in Lent; light as a famished gnat, or the sighing of a new-made
widower; more empty than a last year's bird-nest, than a madman's eye,
or, in fine, than the friendship of a king."

"But you have wealthy friends, Sir John," suggested the hostess of the
Boar's Head Tavern, whose impatience had but very hardly waited for this
opportunity to join in the talk. "Yes, I warrant you, Sir John. Sir John,
you have a many wealthy friends; you cannot deny that, Sir John."

"Friends, dame?" asked the knight, and cowered closer to the fire, as
though he were a little cold. "I have no friends since Hal is King. I
had, I grant you, a few score of acquaintances whom I taught to play at
dice; paltry young blades of the City, very unfledged juvenals! Setting
my knighthood and my valor aside, if I did swear friendship with these,
I did swear to a lie. But this is a censorious and muddy-minded world, so
that, look you, even these sprouting aldermen, these foul bacon-fed
rogues, have fled my friendship of late, and my reputation hath grown
somewhat more murky than Erebus. No matter! I walk alone, as one that
hath the pestilence. No matter! But I grow old; I am not in the vaward of
my youth, mistress."

He nodded his head with extreme gravity; then reached for a cup of sack
that Bardolph held at the knight's elbow.

"Indeed, I know not what your worship will do," said Mistress Quickly,
rather sadly.

"Faith!" answered Sir John, finishing the sack and grinning in a somewhat
ghastly fashion; "unless the Providence that watches over the fall of a
sparrow hath an eye to the career of Sir John Falstaff, Knight, and so
comes to my aid shortly, I must needs convert my last doublet into a
mask, and turn highwayman in my shirt. I can take purses yet, ye Uzzite
comforters, as gaily as I did at Gadshill, where that scurvy Poins, and
he that is now King, and some twoscore other knaves did afterward assault
me in the dark; yet I peppered some of them, I warrant you!"

"You must be rid of me, then, master," Bardolph interpolated. "I for one
have no need of a hempen collar."

"Ah, well!" said the knight, stretching himself in his chair as the
warmth of the liquor coursed through his inert blood; "I, too, would be
loth to break the gallows' back! For fear of halters, we must alter our
way of living; we must live close, Bardolph, till the wars make us
Croesuses or food for crows. And if Hal but hold to his bias, there will
be wars: I will eat a piece of my sword, if he have not need of it
shortly. Ah, go thy ways, tall Jack; there live not three good men
unhanged in England, and one of them is fat and grows old. We must live
close, Bardolph; we must forswear drinking and wenching! But there is
lime in this sack, you rogue; give me another cup."

The old knight drained this second cup, and unctuously sucked at and
licked his lips. Thereafter,

"I pray you, hostess," he continued, "remember that Doll Tearsheet sups
with me to-night; have a capon of the best, and be not sparing of the
wine. I will repay you, upon honor, when we young fellows return from
France, all laden with rings and brooches and such trumperies like your
Norfolkshire pedlars at Christmas-tide. We will sack a town for you, and
bring you back the Lord Mayor's beard to stuff you a cushion; the Dauphin
shall be your tapster yet; we will walk on lilies, I warrant you, to the
tune of _Hey, then up go we!"_

"Indeed, sir," said Mistress Quickly, in perfect earnest, "your worship
is as welcome to my pantry as the mice--a pox on 'em!--think themselves;
you are heartily welcome. Ah, well, old Puss is dead; I had her of
Goodman Quickly these ten years since;--but I had thought you looked for
the lady who was here but now;--she was a roaring lion among the mice."

"What lady?" cried Sir John, with great animation. "Was it Flint the
mercer's wife, think you? Ah, she hath a liberal disposition, and will,
without the aid of Prince Houssain's carpet or the horse of Cambuscan,
transfer the golden shining pieces from her husband's coffers to mine."

"No mercer's wife, I think," Mistress Quickly answered, after
consideration. "She came with two patched footmen, and smacked of
gentility;--Master Dumbleton's father was a mercer; but he had red
hair;--she is old;--and I could never abide red hair."

"No matter!" cried the knight. "I can love this lady, be she a very Witch
of Endor. Observe, what a thing it is to be a proper man, Bardolph! She
hath marked me;--in public, perhaps; on the street, it may be;--and then,
I warrant you, made such eyes! and sighed such sighs! and lain awake o'
nights, thinking of a pleasing portly gentleman, whom, were I not
modesty's self, I might name;--and I, all this while, not knowing! Fetch
me my Book of Riddles and my Sonnets, that I may speak smoothly. Why was
my beard not combed this morning? No matter, it will serve. Have I no
better cloak than this?" Sir John was in a tremendous bustle, all a-beam
with pleasurable anticipation.

But Mistress Quickly, who had been looking out of the window, said,
"Come, but your worship must begin with unwashed hands, for old Madam
Wish-for't and her two country louts are even now at the door."

"Avaunt, minions!" cried the knight. "Avaunt! Conduct the lady hither,
hostess; Bardolph, another cup of sack. We will ruffle it, lad, and go to
France all gold, like Midas! Are mine eyes too red? I must look sad, you
know, and sigh very pitifully. Ah, we will ruffle it! Another cup of
sack, Bardolph;--I am a rogue if I have drunk to-day. And avaunt! vanish!
for the lady comes."

He threw himself into a gallant attitude, suggestive of one suddenly
palsied, and with the mien of a turkey-cock strutted toward the door to
greet his unknown visitor.


2. _"Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a Boy"_

The woman who entered was not the jolly City dame one looked for: and, at
first sight, you estimated her age as a trifle upon the staider side of
sixty. But to this woman the years had shown unwonted kindliness, as
though time touched her less with intent to mar than to caress; her form
was still unbent, and her countenance, bloodless and deep-furrowed, bore
the traces of great beauty; and, whatever the nature of her errand, the
woman who stood in the doorway was unquestionably a person of breeding.

Sir John advanced toward her with as much elegance as he might muster;
for gout when coupled with such excessive bulk does not beget an
overpowering amount of grace.

"_See, from the glowing East, Aurora comes_," he chirped. "Madam, permit
me to welcome you to my poor apartments; they are not worthy--"

"I would see Sir John Falstaff, sir," declared the lady, courteously,
but with some reserve of manner, and looking him full in the face as she
said this.

"Indeed, madam," suggested Sir John, "if those bright eyes--whose glances
have already cut my poor heart into as many pieces as the man in the
front of the almanac--will but desist for a moment from such butcher's
work and do their proper duty, you will have little trouble in finding
the bluff soldier you seek."

"Are you Sir John?" asked the lady, as though suspecting a jest. "The son
of old Sir Edward Falstaff, of Norfolk?"

"His wife hath frequently assured me so," Sir John protested, very
gravely; "and to confirm her evidence I have about me a certain
villainous thirst that did plague Sir Edward sorely in his lifetime, and
came to me with his other chattels. The property I have expended long
since; but no Jew will advance me a maravedi on the Falstaff thirst. It
is a priceless commodity, not to be bought or sold; you might as soon
quench it."

"I would not have known you," said the lady, wonderingly; "but," she
added, "I have not seen you these forty years."

"Faith, madam," grinned the knight, "the great pilferer Time hath since
then taken away a little from my hair, and added somewhat (saving your
presence) to my belly; and my face hath not been improved by being the
grindstone for some hundred swords. But I do not know you."

"I am Sylvia Vernon," said the lady. "And once, a long while ago, I was
Sylvia Darke."

"I remember," said the knight. His voice was altered. Bardolph would
hardly have known it; nor, perhaps, would he have recognized his master's
manner as he handed Dame Sylvia to the best chair.

"A long while ago," she repeated, sadly, after a pause during which
the crackling of the fire was very audible. "Time hath dealt harshly
with us both, John;--the name hath a sweet savor. I am an old woman
now. And you--"

"I would not have known you," said Sir John; then asked, almost
resentfully, "What do you here?"

"My son goes to the wars," she answered, "and I am come to bid him
farewell; yet I should not tarry in London, for my lord is feeble and
hath constant need of me. But I, an old woman, am yet vain enough to
steal these few moments from him who needs me, to see for the last time,
mayhap, him who was once my very dear friend."

"I was never your friend, Sylvia," said Sir John.

"Ah, the old wrangle!" said the lady, and smiled a little wistfully. "My
dear and very honored lover, then; and I am come to see him here."

"Ay!" interrupted Sir John, rather hastily; and he proceeded, glowing
with benevolence: "A quiet, orderly place, where I bestow my patronage;
the woman of the house had once a husband in my company. God rest his
soul! he bore a good pike. He retired in his old age and 'stablished this
tavern, where he passed his declining years, till death called him gently
away from this naughty world. God rest his soul, say I!"

This was a somewhat euphemistic version of the taking-off of Goodman
Quickly, who had been knocked over the head with a joint-stool while
rifling the pockets of a drunken guest; but perhaps Sir John wished to
speak well of the dead, even at the price of conferring upon the present
home of Sir John an idyllic atmosphere denied it by the London
constabulary.

"And you for old memories' sake yet aid his widow?" the lady murmured.
"That is like you, John."

There was another silence, and the fire crackled more loudly than ever.

"And are you sorry that I come again, in a worse body, John, strange and
time-ruined?"

"Sorry?" echoed Sir John; and, ungallant as it was, he hesitated a
moment before replying: "No, faith! But there are some ghosts that will
not easily bear raising, and you have raised one."

"We have summoned up no very fearful spectre, I think," replied the lady;
"at most, no worse than a pallid, gentle spirit that speaks--to me, at
least--of a boy and a girl who loved each other and were very happy a
great while ago."

"Are you come hither to seek that boy?" asked the knight, and chuckled,
though not merrily. "The boy that went mad and rhymed of you in those
far-off dusty years? He is quite dead, my lady; he was drowned, mayhap,
in a cup of wine. Or he was slain, perchance, by a few light women. I
know not how he died. But he is quite dead, my lady, and I had not been
haunted by his ghost until to-day."

He stared at the floor as he ended; then choked, and broke into a fit of
coughing which unromantic chance brought on just now, of all times.

"He was a dear boy," she said, presently; "a boy who loved a young maid
very truly; a boy that found the maid's father too strong and shrewd for
desperate young lovers--Eh, how long ago it seems, and what a flood of
tears the poor maid shed at being parted from that dear boy!"

"Faith!" admitted Sir John, "the rogue had his good points."

"Ah, John, you have not forgotten, I know," the lady said, looking up
into his face, "and, you will believe me that I am very heartily sorry
for the pain I brought into your life?"

"My wounds heal easily," said Sir John.

"For though my dear dead father was too wise for us, and knew it was for
the best that I should not accept your love, believe me, John, I always
knew the value of that love, and have held it an honor that any woman
must prize."

"Dear lady," the knight suggested, with a slight grimace, "the world is
not altogether of your opinion."

"I know not of the world," she said; "for we live away from it. But we
have heard of you ever and anon; I have your life quite letter-perfect
for these forty years or more."

"You have heard of me?" asked Sir John; and, for a seasoned knave, he
looked rather uncomfortable.

"As a gallant and brave soldier," she answered; "of how you fought at sea
with Mowbray that was afterward Duke of Norfolk; of your knighthood by
King Richard; of how you slew the Percy at Shrewsbury; and captured
Coleville o' late in Yorkshire; and how the Prince, that now is King, did
love you above all men; and, in fine, of many splendid doings in the
great world."

Sir John raised a protesting hand. He said, with commendable modesty: "I
have fought somewhat. But we are not Bevis of Southampton; we have slain
no giants. Heard you naught else?"

"Little else of note," replied the lady; and went on, very quietly: "But
we are proud of you at home in Norfolk. And such tales as I have heard I
have woven together in one story; and I have told it many times to my
children as we sat on the old Chapel steps at evening, and the shadows
lengthened across the lawn, and I bid them emulate this, the most perfect
knight and gallant gentleman that I have known. And they love you, I
think, though but by repute."

Once more silence fell between them; and the fire grinned wickedly at the
mimic fire reflected by the old chest, as though it knew of a most
entertaining secret.

"Do you yet live at Winstead?" asked Sir John, half idly.

"Yes," she answered; "in the old house. It is little changed, but there
are many changes about."

"Is Moll yet with you that did once carry our letters?"

"Married to Hodge, the tanner," the lady said; "and dead long since."

"And all our merry company?" Sir John demanded. "Marian? And Tom and
little Osric? And Phyllis? And Adelais? Zounds, it is like a breath of
country air to speak their names once more."

"All dead," she answered, in a hushed voice, "save Adelais, and even to
me poor Adelais seems old and strange. Walter was slain in the French
wars, and she hath never married."

"All dead," Sir John informed the fire, as if confidentially; then he
laughed, though his bloodshot eyes were not merry. "This same Death hath
a wide maw! It is not long before you and I, my lady, will be at supper
with the worms. But you, at least, have had a happy life."

"I have been content enough," she said, "but all that seems run by; for,
John, I think that at our age we are not any longer very happy nor very
miserable."

"Faith!" agreed Sir John, "we are both old; and I had not known it, my
lady, until to-day."

Again there was silence; and again the fire leapt with delight at the
jest.

Sylvia Vernon arose suddenly and cried, "I would I had not come!"

Then said Sir John: "Nay, this is but a feeble grieving you have wakened.
For, madam--you whom I loved once!--you are in the right. Our blood runs
thinner than of yore; and we may no longer, I think, either sorrow or
rejoice very deeply."

"It is true," she said; "but I must go; and, indeed, I would to God I had
not come!"

Sir John was silent; he bowed his head, in acquiescence perhaps, in
meditation it may have been; but he stayed silent.

"Yet," said she, "there is something here which I must keep no longer:
for here are all the letters you ever writ me."

Whereupon she handed Sir John a little packet of very old and very faded
papers. He turned them awkwardly in his hand once or twice; then stared
at them; then at the lady.

"You have kept them--always?" he cried.

"Yes," she responded, wistfully; "but I must not be guilty of continuing
such follies. It is a villainous example to my grandchildren," Dame
Sylvia told him, and smiled. "Farewell."

Sir John drew close to her and took her hands in his. He looked into her
eyes for an instant, holding himself very erect,--and it was a rare event
when Sir John looked any one squarely in the eyes,--and he said,
wonderingly, "How I loved you!"

"I know," she murmured. Sylvia Vernon gazed up into his bloated old face
with a proud tenderness that was half-regretful. A quavering came into
her gentle voice. "And I thank you for your gift, my lover,--O brave true
lover, whose love I was not ever ashamed to own! Farewell, my dear; yet a
little while, and I go to seek the boy and girl we know of."

"I shall not be long, madam," said Sir John. "Speak a kind word for me in
Heaven; for I shall have sore need of it."

She had reached the door by this. "You are not sorry that I came?"

Sir John answered, very sadly: "There are many wrinkles now in your dear
face, my lady; the great eyes are a little dimmed, and the sweet
laughter is a little cracked; but I am not sorry to have seen you thus.
For I have loved no woman truly save you alone; and I am not sorry.
Farewell." And for a moment he bowed his unreverend gray head over her
shrivelled fingers.


3. "_This Pitch, as Ancient Writers do Report, doth Defile_"

"Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to the vice of lying!"
chuckled Sir John, and leaned back rheumatically in his chair and
mumbled over the jest.

"Yet it was not all a lie," he confided, as if in perplexity, to the
fire; "but what a coil over a youthful green-sickness 'twixt a lad and a
wench more than forty years syne!

"I might have had money of her for the asking," he presently went on;
"yet I am glad I did not; which is a parlous sign and smacks of dotage."

He nodded very gravely over this new and alarming phase of his character.

"Were it not a quaint conceit, a merry tickle-brain of Fate," he asked of
the leaping flames, after a still longer pause, "that this mountain of
malmsey were once a delicate stripling with apple cheeks and a clean
breath, smelling of civet, and as mad for love, I warrant you, as any
Amadis of them all? For, if a man were to speak truly, I did love her.

"I had the special marks of the pestilence," he assured a particularly
incredulous--and obstinate-looking coal,--a grim, black fellow that,
lurking in a corner, scowled forbiddingly and seemed to defy both the
flames and Sir John. "Not all the flagons and apples in the universe
might have comforted me; I was wont to sigh like a leaky bellows; to weep
like a wench that hath lost her grandam; to lard my speech with the
fag-ends of ballads like a man milliner; and did, indeed, indite sonnets,
canzonets, and what not of mine own elaboration.

"And Moll did carry them," he continued; "plump brown-eyed Moll, that
hath married Hodge the tanner, and reared her tannerkins, and died
long since."

But the coal remained incredulous, and the flames crackled merrily.

"Lord, Lord, what did I not write?" said Sir John, drawing out a paper
from the packet, and deciphering by the firelight the faded writing.

Read Sir John:

  "_Have pity, Sylvia? Cringing at thy door
  Entreats with dolorous cry and clamoring,
  That mendicant who quits thee nevermore;
  Now winter chills the world, and no birds sing
  In any woods, yet as in wanton Spring
  He follows thee; and never will have done,
  Though nakedly he die, from following
  Whither thou leadest.

  "Canst thou look upon
  His woes, and laugh to see a goddess' son
  Of wide dominion, and in strategy

  "More strong than Jove, more wise than Solomon,
  Inept to combat thy severity?
  Have pity, Sylvia! And let Love be one
  Among the folk that bear thee company_."

"Is it not the very puling speech of your true lover?" he chuckled; and
the flames spluttered assent. "_Among the folk that bear thee company_,"
he repeated, and afterward looked about him with a smack of gravity.
"Faith, Adam Cupid hath forsworn my fellowship long since; he hath no
score chalked up against him at the Boar's Head Tavern; or, if he have, I
doubt not the next street-beggar might discharge it."

"And she hath commended me to her children as a very gallant gentleman
and a true knight," Sir John went on, reflectively. He cast his eyes
toward the ceiling, and grinned at invisible deities. "Jove that sees all
hath a goodly commodity of mirth; I doubt not his sides ache at times, as
if they had conceived another wine-god."

"Yet, by my honor," he insisted to the fire; then added,
apologetically,--"if I had any, which, to speak plain, I have not,--I am
glad; it is a brave jest; and I did love her once."

Then the time-battered, bloat rogue picked out another paper, and read:

"'_My dear lady,--That I am not with thee to-night is, indeed, no fault
of mine; for Sir Thomas Mowbray hath need of me, he saith. Yet the
service that I have rendered him thus far is but to cool my heels in his
antechamber and dream of two great eyes and of that net of golden hair
wherewith Lord Love hath lately snared my poor heart. For it comforts
me_--' And so on, and so on, the pen trailing most juvenal sugar, like a
fly newly crept out of the honey-pot. And ending with a posy, filched, I
warrant you, from some ring.

"I remember when I did write her this," he explained to the fire. "Lord,
Lord, if the fire of grace were not quite out of me, now should I be
moved. For I did write it; and it was sent with a sonnet, all of Hell,
and Heaven, and your pagan gods, and other tricks of speech. It should be
somewhere."

He fumbled with uncertain fingers among the papers. "Ah, here it is," he
said at last, and he again began to read aloud.

Read Sir John:

  "_Cupid invaded Hell, and boldly drove
  Before him all the hosts of Erebus,
  Till he had conquered: and grim Cerberus
  Sang madrigals, the Furies rhymed of love,
  Old Charon sighed, and sonnets rang above
  The gloomy Styx; and even as Tantalus
  Was Proserpine discrowned in Tartarus,
  And Cupid regnant in the place thereof_.

  "_Thus Love is monarch throughout Hell to-day;
  In Heaven we know his power was always great;
  And Earth acclaimed Love's mastery straightway
  When Sylvia came to gladden Earth's estate:--
  Thus Hell and Heaven and Earth his rule obey,
  And Sylvia's heart alone is obdurate_.

"Well, well," sighed Sir John, "it was a goodly rogue that writ it,
though the verse runs but lamely! A goodly rogue!

"He might," Sir John suggested, tentatively, "have lived cleanly, and
forsworn sack; he might have been a gallant gentleman, and begotten
grandchildren, and had a quiet nook at the ingleside to rest his old
bones: but he is dead long since. He might have writ himself _armigero_
in many a bill, or obligation, or quittance, or what not; he might have
left something behind him save unpaid tavern bills; he might have heard
cases, harried poachers, and quoted old saws; and slept in his own family
chapel through sermons yet unwrit, beneath his presentment, done in
stone, and a comforting bit of Latin: but he is dead long since."

Sir John sat meditating for a while; it had grown quite dark in the room
as he muttered to himself. He rose now, rather cumbrously and
uncertainly, but with a fine rousing snort of indignation.

"Zooks!" he said, "I prate like a death's-head. A thing done hath an end,
God have mercy on us all! And I will read no more of the rubbish."

He cast the packet into the heart of the fire; the yellow papers curled
at the edges, rustled a little, and blazed; he watched them burn to the
last spark.

"A cup of sack to purge the brain!" cried Sir John, and filled one to the
brim. "And I will go sup with Doll Tearsheet."

       *       *       *       *       *

SEPTEMBER 29, 1422

"_Anoon her herte hath pitee of his wo,
And with that pitee, love com in also;
Thus is this quene in pleasaunce and in loye_."


_Meanwhile had old Dome Sylvia returned contentedly to the helpmate whom
she had accepted under compulsion, and who had made her a fair husband,
as husbands go. It is duly recorded, indeed, on their shared tomb, that
their forty years of married life were of continuous felicity, and set a
pattern to all Norfolk. The more prosaic verbal tradition is that Lady
Vernon retained Sir Robert well in hand by pointing out, at judicious
intervals, that she had only herself to blame for having married such a
selfish person in preference to a hero of the age and an ornament of the
loftiest circles.

I find, on consultation of the Allonby records, that Sylvia Vernon died
of a quinsy, in 1419, surviving Sir Robert by some three months. She had
borne him four sons and four daughters: of these there remained at
Winstead in 1422 only Sir Hugh Vernon, the oldest son, knighted by Henry
V at Agincourt, where Vernon had fought with distinction; and Adelais
Vernon, the youngest daughter, with whom the following has to do._




CHAPTER IV

_The Episode Called "Sweet Adelais"_


1. _Gruntings at Aeaea_

It was on a clear September day that the Marquis of Falmouth set out for
France. John of Bedford had summoned him posthaste when Henry V was
stricken at Senlis with what bid fair to prove a mortal distemper; for
the marquis was Bedford's comrade-in-arms, veteran of Shrewsbury,
Agincourt and other martial disputations, and the Duke-Regent suspected
that, to hold France in case of the King's death, he would presently need
all the help he could muster.

"And I, too, look for warm work," the marquis conceded to Mistress
Adelais Vernon, at parting. "But, God willing, my sweet, we shall be wed
at Christmas for all that. The Channel is not very wide. At a pinch I
might swim it, I think, to come to you."

He kissed her and rode away with his men. Adelais stared after them,
striving to picture her betrothed rivalling Leander in this fashion, and
subsequently laughed. The marquis was a great lord and a brave captain,
but long past his first youth; his actions went somewhat too deliberately
ever to be roused to the high lunacies of the Sestian amorist. So Adelais
laughed, but a moment later, recollecting the man's cold desire of her,
his iron fervors, Adelais shuddered.

This was in the court-yard at Winstead. Roger Darke of Yaxham, the girl's
cousin, standing beside her, noted the gesture, and snarled.

"Think twice of it, Adelais," said he.

Whereupon Mistress Vernon flushed like a peony. "I honor him," she said,
with some irrelevance, "and he loves me."

Roger scoffed. "Love, love! O you piece of ice! You gray-stone saint!
What do you know of love?" Master Darke caught both her hands in his.
"Now, by Almighty God, our Saviour and Redeemer, Jesus Christ!" he said,
between his teeth, his eyes flaming; "I, Roger Darke, have offered you
undefiled love and you have mocked at it. Ha, Tears of Mary! how I love
you! And you mean to marry this man for his title! Do you not believe
that I love you, Adelais?" he whimpered.

Gently she disengaged herself. This was of a pattern with Roger's
behavior any time during the past two years. "I suppose you do," Adelais
conceded, with the tiniest possible shrug. "Perhaps that is why I find
you so insufferable."

Afterward Mistress Vernon turned on her heel and left Master Darke. In
his fluent invocation of Mahound and Termagaunt and other overseers of
the damned he presently touched upon eloquence.


2. _Comes One with Moly_

Adelais came into the walled garden of Winstead, aflame now with autumnal
scarlet and gold. She seated herself upon a semicircular marble bench,
and laughed for no apparent reason, and contentedly waited what Dame Luck
might send.

She was a comely maid, past argument or (as her lovers habitually
complained) any adequate description. Circe, Colchian Medea, Viviane du
Lac, were their favorite analogues; and what old romancers had fabled
concerning these ladies they took to be the shadow of which Adelais
Vernon was the substance. At times these rhapsodists might have supported
their contention with a certain speciousness, such as was apparent
to-day, for example, when against the garden's hurly-burly of color, the
prodigal blazes of scarlet and saffron and wine-yellow, the girl's green
gown glowed like an emerald, and her eyes, too, seemed emeralds, vivid,
inscrutable, of a clear verdancy that was quite untinged with either blue
or gray. Very black lashes shaded them. The long oval of her face (you
might have objected), was of an absolute pallor, rarely quickening to a
flush; but her petulant lips burned crimson, and her hair mimicked the
dwindling radiance of the autumn sunlight and shamed it. All in all, the
aspect of Adelais Vernon was, beyond any questioning, spiced with a
sorcerous tang; say, the look of a young witch shrewd at love-potions,
but ignorant of their flavor; yet before this the girl's comeliness had
stirred men's hearts to madness, and the county boasted of it.

Presently Adelais lifted her small imperious head, and then again she
smiled, for out of the depths of the garden, with an embellishment of
divers trills and roulades, came a man's voice that carolled blithely.

Sang the voice:

  _"Had you lived when earth was new
  What had bards of old to do
  Save to sing in praise of you?

  "Had you lived in ancient days,
  Adelais, sweet Adelais,
  You had all the ancients' praise,--
  You whose beauty would have won
  Canticles of Solomon,
  Had the sage Judean king
  Gazed upon this goodliest thing
  Earth of Heaven's grace hath got.

  "Had you gladdened Greece, were not
  All the nymphs of Greece forgot?

  "Had you trod Sicilian ways,
  Adelais, sweet Adelais_,

  "You had pilfered all their praise:
  Bion and Theocritus
  Had transmitted unto us
  Honeyed harmonies to tell
  Of your beauty's miracle,
  Delicate, desirable,
  And their singing skill were bent
  You-ward tenderly,--content,
  While the world slipped by, to gaze
  On the grace of you, and praise
  Sweet Adelais_."

Here the song ended, and a man, wheeling about the hedge, paused to
regard her with adoring eyes. Adelais looked up at him, incredibly
surprised by his coming.

This was the young Sieur d'Arnaye, Hugh Vernon's prisoner, taken at
Agincourt seven years earlier and held since then, by the King's command,
without ransom; for it was Henry's policy to release none of the
important French prisoners. Even on his death-bed he found time to
admonish his brother, John of Bedford, that four of these,--Charles
d'Orleans and Jehan de Bourbon and Arthur de Rougemont and Fulke
d'Arnaye,--should never be set at liberty. "Lest," as the King said, with
a savor of prophecy, "more fire be kindled in one day than all your
endeavors can quench in three."

Presently the Sieur d'Arnaye sighed, rather ostentatiously; and Adelais
laughed, and demanded the cause of his grief.

"Mademoiselle," he said,--his English had but a trace of accent,--"I am
afflicted with a very grave malady."

"What is the name of this malady?" said she.

"They call it love, mademoiselle."

Adelais laughed yet again and doubted if the disease were incurable. But
Fulke d'Arnaye seated himself beside her and demonstrated that, in his
case, it might not ever be healed.

"For it is true," he observed, "that the ancient Scythians, who lived
before the moon was made, were wont to cure this distemper by
blood-letting under the ears; but your brother, mademoiselle, denies me
access to all knives. And the leech Aelian avers that it may be cured by
the herb agnea; but your brother, mademoiselle, will not permit that I go
into the fields in search of this herb. And in Greece--he, mademoiselle,
I might easily be healed of my malady in Greece! For in Greece is the
rock, Leucata Petra, from which a lover may leap and be cured; and the
well of the Cyziceni, from which a lover may drink and be cured; and the
river Selemnus, in which a lover may bathe and be cured: but your brother
will not permit that I go to Greece. You have a very cruel brother,
mademoiselle; seven long years, no less, he has penned me here like a
starling in a cage."

And Fulke d'Arnaye shook his head at her reproachfully.

Afterward he laughed. Always this Frenchman found something at which to
laugh; Adelais could not remember in all the seven years a time when she
had seen him downcast. But while his lips jested of his imprisonment, his
eyes stared at her mirthlessly, like a dog at his master, and her gaze
fell before the candor of the passion she saw in them.

"My lord," said Adelais, "why will you not give your parole? Then you
would be free to come and go as you elected." A little she bent toward
him, a covert red showing in her cheeks. "To-night at Halvergate the Earl
of Brudenel holds the feast of Saint Michael. Give your parole, my lord,
and come with us. There will be in our company fair ladies who may
perhaps heal your malady."

But the Sieur d'Arnaye only laughed. "I cannot give my parole," he said,
"since I mean to escape for all your brother's care." Then he fell to
pacing up and down before her. "Now, by Monseigneur Saint Médard and the
Eagle that sheltered him!" he cried, in half-humorous self-mockery;
"however thickly troubles rain upon me, I think that I shall never give
up hoping!" After a pause, "Listen, mademoiselle," he went on, more
gravely, and gave a nervous gesture toward the east, "yonder is France,
sacked, pillaged, ruinous, prostrate, naked to her enemy. But at
Vincennes, men say, the butcher of Agincourt is dying. With him dies the
English power in France. Can his son hold that dear realm? Are those tiny
hands with which this child may not yet feed himself capable to wield a
sceptre? Can he who is yet beholden to nurses for milk distribute
sustenance to the law and justice of a nation? He, I think not,
mademoiselle! France will have need of me shortly. Therefore, I cannot
give my parole."

"Then must my brother still lose his sleep, lord, for always your
safe-keeping is in his mind. To-day at cock-crow he set out for the coast
to examine those Frenchmen who landed yesterday."

At this he wheeled about. "Frenchmen!"

"Only Norman fishermen, lord, whom the storm drove to seek shelter in
England. But he feared they had come to rescue you."

Fulke d'Arnaye shrugged his shoulders. "That was my thought, too," he
admitted, with a laugh. "Always I dream of escape, mademoiselle. Have a
care of me, sweet enemy! I shall escape yet, it may be."

"But I will not have you escape," said Adelais. She tossed her glittering
little head. "Winstead would not be Winstead without you. Why, I was but
a child, my lord, when you came. Have you forgotten, then, the lank,
awkward child who used to stare at you so gravely?"

"Mademoiselle," he returned, and now his voice trembled and still the
hunger in his eyes grew more great, "I think that in all these years I
have forgotten nothing--not even the most trivial happening,
mademoiselle,--wherein you had a part. You were a very beautiful child.
Look you, I remember as if it were yesterday that you never wept when
your good lady mother--whose soul may Christ have in his keeping!--was
forced to punish you for some little misdeed. No, you never wept; but
your eyes would grow wistful, and you would come to me here in the
garden, and sit with me for a long time in silence. 'Fulke,' you would
say, quite suddenly, 'I love you better than my mother.' And I told you
that it was wrong to make such observations, did I not, mademoiselle? My
faith, yes! but I may confess now that I liked it," Fulke d'Arnaye ended,
with a faint chuckle.

Adelais sat motionless. Certainly it was strange, she thought, how the
sound of this man's voice had power to move her. Certainly, too, this man
was very foolish.

"And now the child is a woman,--a woman who will presently be Marchioness
of Falmouth. Look you, when I get free of my prison--and I shall get
free, never fear, mademoiselle,--I shall often think of that great lady.
For only God can curb a man's dreams, and God is compassionate. So I hope
to dream nightly of a gracious lady whose hair is gold and whose eyes are
colored like the summer sea and whose voice is clear and low and very
wonderfully sweet. Nightly, I think, the vision of that dear enemy will
hearten me to fight for France by day. In effect, mademoiselle, your
traitor beauty will yet aid me to destroy your country."

The Sieur d'Arnaye laughed, somewhat cheerlessly, as he lifted her hand
to his lips.

And certainly also (she concluded her reflections) it was absurd how this
man's touch seemed an alarm to her pulses. Adelais drew away from him.

"No!" she said: "remember, lord, I, too, am not free."

"Indeed, we tread on dangerous ground," the Frenchman assented, with a
sad little smile. "Pardon me, mademoiselle. Even were you free of your
trothplight--even were I free of my prison, most beautiful lady, I have
naught to offer you yonder in that fair land of France. They tell me that
the owl and the wolf hunt undisturbed where Arnaye once stood. My château
is carpeted with furze and roofed with God's Heaven. That gives me a
large estate--does it not?--but I may not reasonably ask a woman to share
it. So I pray you pardon me for my nonsense, mademoiselle, and I pray
that the Marchioness of Falmouth may be very happy."

And with that he vanished into the autumn-fired recesses of the garden,
singing, his head borne stiff. Oh, the brave man who esteemed misfortune
so slightly! thought Adelais. She remembered that the Marquis of Falmouth
rarely smiled; and once only--at a bull-baiting--had she heard him laugh.
It needed bloodshed, then, to amuse him, Adelais deduced, with that
self-certainty in logic which is proper to youth; and the girl shuddered.

But through the scarlet coppices of the garden, growing fainter and yet
more faint, rang the singing of Fulke d'Arnaye.

Sang the Frenchman:

  "Had you lived in Roman times
  No Catullus in his rhymes
  Had lamented Lesbia's sparrow:
  He had praised your forehead, narrow
  As the newly-crescent moon,
  White as apple-trees in June;
  He had made some amorous tune
  Of the laughing light Eros
  Snared as Psyche-ward he goes
  By your beauty,--by your slim,
  White, perfect beauty.

  "After him
  Horace, finding in your eyes
  Horace limned in lustrous wise,
  Would have made you melodies
  Fittingly to hymn your praise,
  Sweet Adelais."


3. Roger is Explicit

Into the midst of the Michaelmas festivities at Halvergate that night,
burst a mud-splattered fellow in search of Sir Hugh Vernon. Roger Darke
brought him to the knight. The fellow then related that he came from
Simeon de Beck, the master of Castle Rising, with tidings that a strange
boat, French-rigged, was hovering about the north coast. Let Sir Hugh
have a care of his prisoner.

Vernon swore roundly. "I must look into this," he said. "But what shall I
do with Adelais?"

"Will you not trust her to me?" Roger asked. "If so, cousin, I will very
gladly be her escort to Winstead. Let the girl dance her fill while she
may, Hugh. She will have little heart for dancing after a month or so of
Falmouth's company."

"That is true," Vernon assented; "but the match is a good one, and she is
bent upon it."

So presently he rode with his men to the north coast. An hour later Roger
Darke and Adelais set out for Winstead, in spite of all Lady Brudenel's
protestations that Mistress Vernon had best lie with her that night at
Halvergate.

It was a clear night of restless winds, neither warm nor chill, but fine
September weather. About them the air was heavy with the damp odors of
decaying leaves, for the road they followed was shut in by the autumn
woods, that now arched the way with sere foliage, rustling and whirring
and thinly complaining overhead, and now left it open to broad splashes
of moonlight, where fallen leaves scuttled about in the wind vortices.
Adelais, elate with dancing, chattered of this and that as her gray mare
ambled homeward, but Roger was moody.

Past Upton the road branched in three directions; here Master Darke
caught the gray mare's bridle and turned both horses to the left.

"Why, of whatever are you thinking!" the girl derided him. "Roger, this
is not the road to Winstead!"

He grinned evilly over his shoulder. "It is the road to Yaxham, Adelais,
where my chaplain expects us."

In a flash she saw it all as her eyes swept these desolate woods. "You
will not dare!"

"Will I not?" said Roger. "Faith, for my part, I think you have mocked me
for the last time, Adelais, since it is the wife's duty, as Paul very
justly says, to obey."

Swiftly she slipped from the mare. But he followed her. "Oh, infamy!" the
girl cried. "You have planned this, you coward!"

"Yes, I planned it," said Roger Darke. "Yet I take no great credit
therefor, for it was simple enough. I had but to send a feigned message
to your block-head brother. Ha, yes, I planned it, Adelais, and I planned
it well. But I deal honorably. To-morrow you will be Mistress Darke,
never fear."

He grasped at her cloak as she shrank from him. The garment fell, leaving
the girl momentarily free, her festival jewels shimmering in the
moonlight, her bared shoulders glistening like silver. Darke, staring at
her, giggled horribly. An instant later Adelais fell upon her knees.

"Sweet Christ, have pity upon Thy handmaiden! Do not forsake me, sweet
Christ, in my extremity! Save me from this man!" she prayed, with
entire faith.

"My lady wife," said Darke, and his hot, wet hand sank heavily upon her
shoulder, "you had best finish your prayer before my chaplain, I think,
since by ordinary Holy Church is skilled to comfort the sorrowing."

"A miracle, dear lord Christ!" the girl wailed. "O sweet Christ, a
miracle!"

"Faith of God!" said Roger, in a flattish tone; "what was that?"

For faintly there came the sound of one singing.

Sang the distant voice:

  _"Had your father's household been
  Guelfic-born or Ghibelline,
  Beatrice were unknown
  On her star-encompassed throne.

  "For, had Dante viewed your grace,
  Adelais, sweet Adelais,
  You had reigned in Bice's place,--
  Had for candles, Hyades,
  Rastaben, and Betelguese,--
  And had heard Zachariel
  Chaunt of you, and, chaunting, tell
  All the grace of you, and praise
  Sweet Adelais."_


4. _Honor Brings a Padlock_

Adelais sprang to her feet. "A miracle!" she cried, her voice shaking.
"Fulke, Fulke! to me, Fulke!"

Master Darke hurried her struggling toward his horse. Darke was muttering
curses, for there was now a beat of hoofs in the road yonder that led to
Winstead. "Fulke, Fulke!" the girl shrieked.

Then presently, as Roger put foot to stirrup, two horsemen wheeled about
the bend in the road, and one of them leapt to the ground.

"Mademoiselle," said Fulke d'Arnaye, "am I, indeed, so fortunate as to be
of any service to you?"

"Ho!" cried Roger, with a gulp of relief, "it is only the French
dancing-master taking French leave of poor cousin Hugh! Man, but you
startled me!"

Now Adelais ran to the Frenchman, clinging to him the while that she told
of Roger's tricks. And d'Arnaye's face set mask-like.

"Monsieur," he said, when she had ended, "you have wronged a sweet and
innocent lady. As God lives, you shall answer to me for this."

"Look you," Roger pointed out, "this is none of your affair, Monsieur
Jackanapes. You are bound for the coast, I take it. Very well,--ka me,
and I ka thee. Do you go your way in peace, and let us do the same."

Fulke d'Arnaye put the girl aside and spoke rapidly in French to his
companion. Then with mincing agility he stepped toward Master Darke.

Roger blustered. "You hop-toad! you jumping-jack!" said he, "what do
you mean?"

"Chastisement!" said the Frenchman, and struck him in the face.

"Very well!" said Master Darke, strangely quiet. And with that they
both drew.

The Frenchman laughed, high and shrill, as they closed, and afterward
he began to pour forth a voluble flow of discourse. Battle was wine
to the man.

"Not since Agincourt, Master Coward--he, no!--have I held sword in hand.
It is a good sword, this,--a sharp sword, is it not? Ah, the poor
arm--but see, your blood is quite black-looking in this moonlight, and I
had thought cowards yielded a paler blood than brave men possess. We live
and learn, is it not? Observe, I play with you like a child,--as I played
with your tall King at Agincourt when I cut away the coronet from his
helmet. I did not kill him--no!--but I wounded him, you conceive?
Presently, I shall wound you, too. My compliments--you have grazed my
hand. But I shall not kill you, because you are the kinsman of the
fairest lady earth may boast, and I would not willingly shed the least
drop of any blood that is partly hers. Ohé, no! Yet since I needs must do
this ungallant thing--why, see, monsieur, how easy it is!"

Thereupon he cut Roger down at a blow and composedly set to wiping his
sword on the grass. The Englishman lay like a log where he had fallen.

"Lord," Adelais quavered, "lord, have you killed him?"

Fulke d'Arnaye sighed. "Hélas, no!" said he, "since I knew that you
did not wish it. See, mademoiselle,--I have but made a healthful and
blood-letting small hole in him here. He will return himself to
survive to it long time--Fie, but my English fails me, after these so
many years--"

D'Arnaye stood for a moment as if in thought, concluding his
meditations with a grimace. After that he began again to speak in
French to his companion. The debate seemed vital. The stranger
gesticulated, pleaded, swore, implored, summoned all inventions between
the starry spheres and the mud of Cocytus to judge of the affair; but
Fulke d'Arnaye was resolute.

"Behold, mademoiselle," he said, at length, "how my poor Olivier excites
himself over a little matter. Olivier is my brother, most beautiful lady,
but he speaks no English, so that I cannot present him to you. He came to
rescue me, this poor Olivier, you conceive. Those Norman fishermen of
whom you spoke to-day--but you English are blinded, I think, by the fogs
of your cold island. Eight of the bravest gentlemen in France,
mademoiselle, were those same fishermen, come to bribe my gaoler,--the
incorruptible Tompkins, no less. Hé, yes, they came to tell me that Henry
of Monmouth, by the wrath of God King of France, is dead at Vincennes
yonder, mademoiselle, and that France will soon be free of you English.
France rises in her might--" His nostrils dilated, he seemed taller; then
he shrugged. "And poor Olivier grieves that I may not strike a blow for
her,--grieves that I must go back to Winstead."

D'Arnaye laughed as he caught the bridle of the gray mare and turned her
so that Adelais might mount. But the girl, with a faint, wondering cry,
drew away from him.

"You will go back! You have escaped, lord, and you will go back!"

"Why, look you," said the Frenchman, "what else may I conceivably do? We
are some miles from your home, most beautiful lady,--can you ride those
four long miles alone? in this night so dangerous? Can I leave you here
alone in this so tall forest? Hé, surely not. I am desolated,
mademoiselle, but I needs must burden you with my company homeward."

Adelais drew a choking breath. He had fretted out seven years of
captivity. Now he was free; and lest she be harmed or her name be
smutched, however faintly, he would go back to his prison, jesting. "No,
no!" she cried aloud.

But he raised a deprecating hand. "You cannot go alone. Olivier here
would go with you gladly. Not one of those brave gentlemen who await me
at the coast yonder but would go with you very, very gladly, for they
love France, these brave gentlemen, and they think that I can serve her
better than most other men. That is very flattering, is it not? But all
the world conspires to flatter me, mademoiselle. Your good brother, by
example, prizes my company so highly that he would infallibly hang the
gentleman who rode back with you. So, you conceive, I cannot avail myself
of their services. But with me it is different, hein? Ah, yes, Sir Hugh
will merely lock me up again and for the future guard me more vigilantly.
Will you not mount, mademoiselle?"

His voice was quiet, and his smile never failed him. It was this steady
smile which set her heart to aching. Adelais knew that no natural power
could dissuade him; he would go back with her; but she knew how
constantly he had hoped for liberty, with what fortitude he had awaited
his chance of liberty; and that he should return to captivity, smiling,
thrilled her to impotent, heart-shaking rage. It maddened her that he
dared love her thus infinitely.

"But, mademoiselle," Fulke d'Arnaye went on, when she had mounted, "let
us proceed, if it so please you, by way of Filby. For then we may ride a
little distance with this rogue Olivier. I may not hope to see Olivier
again in this life, you comprehend, and Olivier is, I think, the one
person who loves me in all this great wide world. Me, I am not very
popular, you conceive. But you do not object, mademoiselle?"

"No!" she said, in a stifled voice.

Afterward they rode on the way to Filby, leaving Roger Darke to regain at
discretion the mastership of his faculties. The two Frenchmen as they
went talked vehemently; and Adelais, following them, brooded on the
powerful Marquis of Falmouth and the great lady she would shortly be; but
her eyes strained after Fulke d'Arnaye.

Presently he fell a-singing; and still his singing praised her in a
desirous song, yearning but very sweet, as they rode through the autumn
woods; and his voice quickened her pulses as always it had the power to
quicken them, and in her soul an interminable battling dragged on.

Sang Fulke d'Arnaye:

  _"Had you lived when earth was new
  What had bards of old to do
  Save to sing in praise of you?

  "They had sung of you always,
  Adelais, sweet Adelais,
  As worthiest of all men's praise;
  Nor had undying melodies,
  Wailed soft as love may sing of these
  Dream-hallowed names,--of Héloïse,
  Ysoude, Salomê, Semelê,
  Morgaine, Lucrece, Antiopê,
  Brunhilda, Helen, Mélusine,
  Penelope, and Magdalene:
  --But you alone had all men's praise,
  Sweet Adelais"_


5. _"Thalatta!"_

When they had crossed the Bure, they had come into the open country,--a
great plain, gray in the moonlight, that descended, hillock by hillock,
toward the shores of the North Sea. On the right the dimpling lustre of
tumbling waters stretched to a dubious sky-line, unbroken save for the
sail of the French boat, moored near the ruins of the old Roman
station, Garianonum, and showing white against the unresting sea, like
a naked arm; to the left the lights of Filby flashed their unblinking,
cordial radiance.

Here the brothers parted. Vainly Olivier wept and stormed before
Fulke's unwavering smile; the Sieur d'Arnaye was adamantean: and
presently the younger man kissed him on both cheeks and rode slowly
away toward the sea.

D'Arnaye stared after him. "Ah, the brave lad!" said Fulke d'Arnaye. "And
yet how foolish! Look you, mademoiselle, that rogue is worth ten of me,
and he does not even suspect it."

His composure stung her to madness.

"Now, by the passion of our Lord and Saviour!" Adelais cried, wringing
her hands in impotence; "I conjure you to hear me, Fulke! You must not do
this thing. Oh, you are cruel, cruel! Listen, my lord," she went on with
more restraint, when she had reined up her horse by the side of his,
"yonder in France the world lies at your feet. Our great King is dead.
France rises now, and France needs a brave captain. You, you! it is you
that she needs. She has sent for you, my lord, that mother France whom
you love. And you will go back to sleep in the sun at Winstead when
France has need of you. Oh, it is foul!"

But he shook his head. "France is very dear to me," he said, "yet there
are other men who can serve France. And there is no man save me who may
to-night serve you, most beautiful lady."

"You shame me!" she cried, in a gust of passion. "You shame my
worthlessness with this mad honor of yours that drags you jesting to your
death! For you must die a prisoner now, without any hope. You and Orleans
and Bourbon are England's only hold on France, and Bedford dare not let
you go. Fetters, chains, dungeons, death, torture perhaps--that is what
you must look for now. And you will no longer be held at Winstead, but in
the strong Tower at London."

"Hélas, you speak more truly than an oracle," he gayly assented.

And hers was the ageless thought of women. "This man is rather foolish
and peculiarly dear to me. What shall I do with him? and how much must I
humor him in his foolishness?"

D'Arnaye stayed motionless: but still his eyes strained after Olivier.

Well, she would humor him. There was no alternative save that of perhaps
never seeing Fulke again.

Adelais laid her hand upon his arm. "You love me. God knows, I am not
worthy of it, but you love me. Ever since I was a child you have loved
me,--always, always it was you who indulged me, shielded me, protected me
with this fond constancy that I have not merited. Very well,"--she
paused, for a single heartbeat,--"go! and take me with you."

The hand he raised shook as though palsied. "O most beautiful!" the
Frenchman cried, in an extreme of adoration; "you would do that! You
would do that in pity to save me--unworthy me! And it is I whom you call
brave--me, who annoy you with my woes so petty!" Fulke d'Arnaye slipped
from his horse, and presently stood beside the gray mare, holding a
small, slim hand in his. "I thank you," he said, simply. "You know that
it is impossible. But yes, I have loved you these long years. And
now--Ah, my heart shakes, my words tumble, I cannot speak! You know that
I may not--may not let you do this thing. Why, but even if, of your
prodigal graciousness, mademoiselle, you were so foolish as to waste a
little liking upon my so many demerits--" He gave a hopeless gesture.
"Why, there is always our brave marquis to be considered, who will so
soon make you a powerful, rich lady. And I?--I have nothing."

But Adelais had rested either hand upon a stalwart shoulder, bending down
to him till her hair brushed his. Yes, this man was peculiarly dear to
her: she could not bear to have him murdered when in equity he deserved
only to have his jaws boxed for his toplofty nonsense about her; and,
after all, she did not much mind humoring him in his foolishness.

"Do you not understand?" she whispered. "Ah, my paladin, do you think I
speak in pity? I wished to be a great lady,--yes. Yet always, I think, I
loved you, Fulke, but until to-night I had believed that love was only
the man's folly, the woman's diversion. See, here is Falmouth's ring."
She drew it from her finger, and flung it awkwardly, as every woman
throws. Through the moonlight it fell glistening. "Yes, I hungered for
Falmouth's power, but you have shown me that which is above any temporal
power. Ever I must crave the highest, Fulke--Ah, fair sweet friend, do
not deny me!" Adelais cried, piteously. "Take me with you, Fulke! I will
ride with you to the wars, my lord, as your page; I will be your wife,
your slave, your scullion. I will do anything save leave you. Lord, it is
not the maid's part to plead thus!"

Fulke d'Arnaye drew her warm, yielding body toward him and stood in
silence. Then he raised his eyes to heaven. "Dear Lord God," he cried, in
a great voice, "I entreat of Thee that if through my fault this woman
ever know regret or sorrow I be cast into the nethermost pit of Hell for
all eternity!" Afterward he kissed her.

And presently Adelais lifted her head, with a mocking little laugh.
"Sorrow!" she echoed. "I think there is no sorrow in all the world.
Mount, my lord, mount! See where brother Olivier waits for us yonder."

       *       *       *       *       *

JUNE 5, 1455--AUGUST 4, 1462

_"Fortune fuz par clercs jadis nominée, Qui toi, François, crie et nomme
meurtrière."_


_So it came about that Adelais went into France with the great-grandson
of Tiburce d'Arnaye: and Fulke, they say, made her a very fair husband.
But he had not, of course, much time for love-making.

For in France there was sterner work awaiting Fulke d'Arnaye, and he set
about it: through seven dreary years he and Rougemont and Dunois managed,
somehow, to bolster up the cause of the fat-witted King of Bourges (as
the English then called him), who afterward became King Charles VII of
France. But in the February of 1429--four days before the Maid of Domremy
set forth from her voice-haunted Bois Chenu to bring about a certain
coronation in Rheims Church and in Rouen Square a flamy martyrdom--four
days before the coming of the good Lorrainer, Fulke d'Arnaye was slain at
Rouvray-en-Beausse in that encounter between the French and the English
which history has commemorated as the Battle of the Herrings.

Adelais was wooed by, and betrothed to, the powerful old Comte de
Vaudremont; but died just before the date set for this second marriage,
in October, 1429. She left two sons: Noël, born in 1425, and Raymond,
born in 1426; who were reared by their uncle, Olivier d'Arnaye. It was
said of them that Noel was the handsomest man of his times, and Raymond
the most shrewd; concerning that you will judge hereafter. Both of these
d'Arnayes, on reaching manhood, were identified with the Dauphin's party
in the unending squabbles between Charles VII and the future Louis XI.

Now you may learn how Noël d'Arnaye came to be immortalized by a legacy
of two hundred and twenty blows from an osierwhip--since (as the testator
piously affirms), "chastoy est une belle aulmosne."_




CHAPTER V

_The Episode Called In Necessity's Mortar_


1. "Bon Bec de Paris"

There went about the Rue Saint Jacques a notable shaking of heads on the
day that Catherine de Vaucelles was betrothed to François de Montcorbier.

"Holy Virgin!" said the Rue Saint Jacques; "the girl is a fool. Why has
she not taken Noël d'Arnaye,--Noël the Handsome? I grant you Noël is an
ass, but, then, look you, he is of the nobility. He has the Dauphin's
favor. Noël will be a great man when our exiled Dauphin comes back from
Geneppe to be King of France. Then, too, she might have had Philippe
Sermaise. Sermaise is a priest, of course, and one may not marry a
priest, but Sermaise has money, and Sermaise is mad for love of her. She
might have done worse. But François! Ho, death of my life, what is
François? Perhaps--he, he!--perhaps Ysabeau de Montigny might inform us,
you say? Doubtless Ysabeau knows more of him than she would care to
confess, but I measure the lad by other standards. François is
inoffensive enough, I dare assert, but what does Catherine see in him? He
is a scholar?--well, the College of Navarre has furnished food for the
gallows before this. A poet?--rhyming will not fill the pot. Rhymes are a
thin diet for two lusty young folk like these. And who knows if Guillaume
de Villon, his foster-father, has one sou to rub against another? He is
canon at Saint Benôit-le-Bétourné yonder, but canons are not Midases. The
girl will have a hard life of it, neighbor, a hard life, I tell you,
if--but, yes!--if Ysabeau de Montigny does not knife her some day. Oh,
beyond doubt, Catherine has played the fool."

Thus far the Rue Saint Jacques.

This was on the day of the Fête-Dieu. It was on this day that Noël
d'Arnaye blasphemed for a matter of a half-hour and then went to the
Crowned Ox, where he drank himself into a contented insensibility; that
Ysabeau de Montigny, having wept a little, sent for Gilles Raguyer, a
priest and aforetime a rival of François de Montcorbier for her favors;
and that Philippe Sermaise grinned and said nothing. But afterward
Sermaise gnawed at his under lip like a madman as he went about seeking
for François de Montcorbier.


2. "_Deux estions, et n'avions qu'ung Cueur_"

It verged upon nine in the evening--a late hour in those days--when
François climbed the wall of Jehan de Vaucelles' garden.

A wall!--and what is a wall to your true lover? What bones, pray, did the
Sieur Pyramus, that ill-starred Babylonish knight, make of a wall? did
not his protestations slip through a chink, mocking at implacable granite
and more implacable fathers? Most assuredly they did; and Pyramus was a
pattern to all lovers. Thus ran the meditations of Master François as he
leapt down into the garden.

He had not, you must understand, seen Catherine for three hours. Three
hours! three eternities rather, and each one of them spent in Malebolge.
Coming to a patch of moonlight, François paused there and cut an agile
caper, as he thought of that approaching time when he might see Catherine
every day.

"Madame François de Montcorbier," he said, tasting each syllable with
gusto. "Catherine de Montcorbier. Was there ever a sweeter juxtaposition
of sounds? It is a name for an angel. And an angel shall bear it,--eh,
yes, an angel, no less. O saints in Paradise, envy me! Envy me," he
cried, with a heroical gesture toward the stars, "for François would
change places with none of you."

He crept through ordered rows of chestnuts and acacias to a window
wherein burned a dim light. He unslung a lute from his shoulder and
began to sing, secure in the knowledge that deaf old Jehan de Vaucelles
was not likely to be disturbed by sound of any nature till that time
when it should please high God that the last trump be noised about the
tumbling heavens.

It was good to breathe the mingled odor of roses and mignonette that was
thick about him. It was good to sing to her a wailing song of unrequited
love and know that she loved him. François dallied with his bliss,
parodied his bliss, and--as he complacently reflected,--lamented in the
moonlight with as tuneful a dolor as Messire Orpheus may have evinced
when he carolled in Hades.

Sang François:

  _"O Beauty of her, whereby I am undone!
  O Grace of her, that hath no grace for me!
  O Love of her, the bit that guides me on
  To sorrow and to grievous misery!
  O felon Charms, my poor heart's enemy!
  O furtive murderous Pride! O pitiless, great
  Cold Eyes of her! have done with cruelty!
  Have pity upon me ere it be too late!

  "Happier for me if elsewhere I had gone
  For pity--ah, far happier for me,
  Since never of her may any grace be won,
  And lest dishonor slay me, I must flee.
  'Haro!' I cry, (and cry how uselessly!)
  'Haro!' I cry to folk of all estate,

  "For I must die unless it chance that she
  Have pity upon me ere it be too late.

  "M'amye, that day in whose disastrous sun
  Your beauty's flower must fade and wane and be
  No longer beautiful, draws near,--whereon
  I will nor plead nor mock;--not I, for we
  Shall both be old and vigorless! M'amye,
  Drink deep of love, drink deep, nor hesitate
  Until the spring run dry, but speedily
  Have pity upon me--ere it be too late!

  "Lord Love, that all love's lordship hast in fee,
  Lighten, ah, lighten thy displeasure's weight,
  For all true hearts should, of Christ's charity,
  Have pity upon me ere it be too late."_

Then from above a delicate and cool voice was audible. "You have mistaken
the window, Monsieur de Montcorbier. Ysabeau de Montigny dwells in the
Rue du Fouarre."

"Ah, cruel!" sighed François. "Will you never let that kite hang upon
the wall?"

"It is all very well to groan like a bellows. Guillemette Moreau did not
sup here for nothing. I know of the verses you made her,--and the gloves
you gave her at Candlemas, too. Saint Anne!" observed the voice, somewhat
sharply; "she needed gloves. Her hands are so much raw beef. And the
head-dress at Easter,--she looks like the steeple of Saint Benoit in it.
But every man to his taste, Monsieur de Montcorbier. Good-night, Monsieur
de Montcorbier." But, for all that, the window did not close.

"Catherine--!" he pleaded; and under his breath he expressed uncharitable
aspirations as to the future of Guillemette Moreau.

"You have made me very unhappy," said the voice, with a little sniff.

"It was before I knew you, Catherine. The stars are beautiful, m'amye,
and a man may reasonably admire them; but the stars vanish and are
forgotten when the sun appears."

"Ysabeau is not a star," the voice pointed out; "she is simply a lank,
good-for-nothing, slovenly trollop."

"Ah, Catherine--!"

"You are still in love with her."

"Catherine--!"

"Otherwise, you will promise me for the future to avoid her as you would
the Black Death."

"Catherine, her brother is my friend--!"

"René de Montigny is, to the knowledge of the entire Rue Saint Jacques, a
gambler and a drunkard and, in all likelihood, a thief. But you prefer,
it appears, the Montignys to me. An ill cat seeks an ill rat. Very
heartily do I wish you joy of them. You will not promise? Good-night,
then, Monsieur de Montcorbier."

"Mother of God! I promise, Catherine."

From above Mademoiselle de Vaucelles gave a luxurious sigh. "Dear
François!" said she.

"You are a tyrant," he complained. "Madame Penthesilea was not more
cruel. Madame Herodias was less implacable, I think. And I think that
neither was so beautiful."

"I love you," said Mademoiselle de Vaucelles, promptly.

"But there was never any one so many fathoms deep in love as I. Love
bandies me from the postern to the frying-pan, from hot to cold. Ah,
Catherine, Catherine, have pity upon my folly! Bid me fetch you Prester
John's beard, and I will do it; bid me believe the sky is made of
calf-skin, that morning is evening, that a fat sow is a windmill, and I
will do it. Only love me a little, dear."

"My king, my king of lads!" she murmured.

"My queen, my tyrant of unreason! Ah, yes, you are all that is ruthless
and abominable, but then what eyes you have! Oh, very pitiless, large,
lovely eyes--huge sapphires that in the old days might have ransomed
every monarch in Tamerlane's stable! Even in the night I see them,
Catherine."

"Yet Ysabeau's eyes are brown."

"Then are her eyes the gutter's color. But Catherine's eyes are twin
firmaments."

And about them the acacias rustled lazily, and the air was sweet
with the odors of growing things, and the world, drenched in
moonlight, slumbered. Without was Paris, but old Jehan's garden-wall
cloistered Paradise.

"Has the world, think you, known lovers, long dead now, that were once as
happy as we?"

"Love was not known till we discovered it."

"I am so happy, François, that I fear death."

"We have our day. Let us drink deep of love, not waiting until the spring
run dry. Catherine, death comes to all, and yonder in the church-yard the
poor dead lie together, huggermugger, and a man may not tell an
archbishop from a rag-picker. Yet they have exulted in their youth, and
have laughed in the sun with some lass or another lass. We have our day,
Catherine."

"Our day wherein I love you!"

"And wherein I love you precisely seven times as much!"

So they prattled in the moonlight. Their discourse was no more
overburdened with wisdom than has been the ordinary communing of lovers
since Adam first awakened ribless. Yet they were content, who, were young
in the world's recaptured youth.

Fate grinned and went on with her weaving.


3. "Et Ysabeau, Qui Dit: Enné!"

Somewhat later François came down the deserted street, treading on air.
It was a bland summer night, windless, moon-washed, odorous with
garden-scents; the moon, nearing its full, was a silver egg set on
end--("Leda-hatched," he termed it; "one may look for the advent of Queen
Heleine ere dawn"); and the sky he likened to blue velvet studded with
the gilt nail-heads of a seraphic upholsterer. François was a poet, but a
civic poet; then, as always, he pilfered his similes from shop-windows.

But the heart of François was pure magnanimity, the heels of François
were mercury, as he tripped past the church of Saint Benoit-le-Bétourné,
stark snow and ink in the moonlight. Then with a jerk François paused.

On a stone bench before the church sat Ysabeau de Montigny and Gilles
Raguyer. The priest was fuddled, hiccuping in his amorous dithyrambics as
he paddled with the girl's hand. "You tempt me to murder," he was saying.
"It is a deadly sin, my soul, and I have no mind to fry in Hell while my
body swings on the Saint Denis road, a crow's dinner. Let François live,
my soul! My soul, he would stick little Gilles like a pig."

Raguyer began to blubber at the thought.

"Holy Macaire!" said François; "here is a pretty plot a-brewing." Yet
because his heart was filled just now with loving-kindness, he forgave
the girl. _"Tantaene irae?"_ said François; and aloud, "Ysabeau, it is
time you were abed."

She wheeled upon him in apprehension; then, with recognition, her rage
flamed. "Now, Gilles!" cried Ysabeau de Montigny; "now, coward! He is
unarmed, Gilles. Look, Gilles! Kill for me this betrayer of women!"

Under his mantle Francois loosened the short sword he carried. But the
priest plainly had no mind to the business. He rose, tipsily fumbling a
knife, and snarling like a cur at sight of a strange mastiff. "Vile
rascal!" said Gilles Raguyer, as he strove to lash himself into a rage.
"O coward! O parricide! O Tarquin!"

François began to laugh. "Let us have done with this farce," said he.
"Your man has no stomach for battle, Ysabeau. And you do me wrong, my
lass, to call me a betrayer of women. Doubtless, that tale seemed the
most apt to kindle in poor Gilles some homicidal virtue: but you and I
and God know that naught has passed between us save a few kisses and a
trinket or so. It is no knifing matter. Yet for the sake of old time,
come home, Ysabeau; your brother is my friend, and the hour is somewhat
late for honest women to be abroad."

"Enné?" shrilled Ysabeau; "and yet, if I cannot strike a spark of courage
from this clod here, there come those who may help me, François de
Montcorbier. 'Ware Sermaise, Master François!"

François wheeled. Down the Rue Saint Jacques came Philippe Sermaise, like
a questing hound, with drunken Jehan le Merdi at his heels. "Holy
Virgin!" thought François; "this is likely to be a nasty affair. I would
give a deal for a glimpse of the patrol lanterns just now."

He edged his way toward the cloister, to get a wall at his back. But
Gilles Raguyer followed him, knife in hand. "O hideous Tarquin! O
Absalom!" growled Gilles; "have you, then, no respect for churchmen?"

With an oath, Sermaise ran up. "Now, may God die twice," he panted, "if I
have not found the skulker at last! There is a crow needs picking between
us two, Montcorbier."

Hemmed in by his enemies, François temporized. "Why do you accost me thus
angrily, Master Philippe?" he babbled. "What harm have I done you? What
is your will of me?"

But his fingers tore feverishly at the strap by which the lute was swung
over his shoulder, and now the lute fell at their feet, leaving François
unhampered and his sword-arm free.

This was fuel to the priest's wrath. "Sacred bones of Benoit!" he
snarled; "I could make a near guess as to what window you have been
caterwauling under."

From beneath his gown he suddenly hauled out a rapier and struck at the
boy while Francois was yet tugging at his sword.

Full in the mouth Sermaise struck him, splitting the lower lip through.
Francois felt the piercing cold of the steel, the tingling of it against
his teeth, then the warm grateful spurt of blood; through a red mist, he
saw Gilles and Ysabeau run screaming down the Rue Saint Jacques.

He drew and made at Sermaise, forgetful of le Merdi. It was shrewd work.
Presently they were fighting in the moonlight, hammer-and-tongs, as the
saying is, and presently Sermaise was cursing like a madman, for François
had wounded him in the groin. Window after window rattled open as the Rue
Saint Jacques ran nightcapped to peer at the brawl. Then as Francois
hurled back his sword to slash at the priest's shaven head--Frenchmen had
not yet learned to thrust with the point in the Italian manner--Jehan le
Merdi leapt from behind, nimble as a snake, and wrested away the boy's
weapon. Sermaise closed with a glad shout.

"Heart of God!" cried Sermaise. "Pray, bridegroom, pray!"

But François jumped backward, tumbling over le Merdi, and with apish
celerity caught up a great stone and flung it full in the priest's
countenance.

The rest was hideous. For a breathing space Sermaise kept his feet, his
outspread arms making a tottering cross. It was curious to see him peer
about irresolutely now that he had no face. François, staring at the
black featureless horror before him, began to choke. Standing thus, with
outstretched arms, the priest first let fall his hands, so that they hung
limp from the wrists; his finger-nails gleamed in the moonlight. His
rapier tinkled on the flagstones with the sound of shattering glass, and
Philippe Sermaise slid down, all a-jumble, crumpling like a broken toy.
Afterward you might have heard a long, awed sibilance go about the
windows overhead as the watching Rue Saint Jacques breathed again.

Francois de Montcorbier ran. He tore at his breast as he ran, stifling.
He wept as he ran through the moon-washed Rue Saint Jacques, making
animal-like and whistling noises. His split lip was a clammy dead thing
that napped against his chin as he ran.

"François!" a man cried, meeting him; "ah, name of a name, François!"

It was René de Montigny, lurching from the Crowned Ox, half-tipsy. He
caught the boy by the shoulder and hurried François, still sobbing, to
Fouquet the barber-surgeon's, where they sewed up his wound. In
accordance with the police regulations, they first demanded an account of
how he had received it. René lied up-hill and down-dale, while in a
corner of the room François monotonously wept.

Fate grinned and went on with her weaving.


4. "_Necessité Faict Gens Mesprende_"

The Rue Saint Jacques had toothsome sauce for its breakfast. The quarter
smacked stiff lips over the news, as it pictured François de Montcorbier
dangling from Montfaucon. "Horrible!" said the Rue Saint Jacques, and
drew a moral of suitably pious flavor.

Guillemette Moreau had told Catherine of the affair before the day was
aired. The girl's hurt vanity broke tether.

"Sermaise!" said she. "Bah, what do I care for Sermaise! He killed him in
fair fight. But within an hour, Guillemette,--within a half-hour after
leaving me, he is junketing on church-porches with that trollop. They
were not there for holy-water. Midnight, look you! And he swore to
me--chaff, chaff! His honor is chaff, Guillemette, and his heart a
bran-bag. Oh, swine, filthy swine! Eh, well, let the swine stick to his
sty. Send Noël d'Arnaye to me."

The Sieur d'Arnaye came, his head tied in a napkin.

"Foh!" said she; "another swine fresh from the gutter? No, this is a
bottle, a tun, a walking wine-barrel! Noël, I despise you. I will marry
you if you like."

He fell to mumbling her hand. An hour later Catherine told Jehan de
Vaucelles she intended to marry Noël the Handsome when he should come
back from Geneppe with the exiled Dauphin. The old man, having wisdom,
lifted his brows, and returned to his reading in _Le Pet au Diable_.

The patrol had transported Sermaise to the prison of Saint Benoit, where
he lay all night. That day he was carried to the hospital of the Hôtel
Dieu. He died the following Saturday.

Death exalted the man to some nobility. Before one of the apparitors of
the Châtelet he exonerated Montcorbier, under oath, and asked that no
steps be taken against him. "I forgive him my death," said Sermaise,
manly enough at the last, "by reason of certain causes moving him
thereunto." Presently he demanded the peach-colored silk glove they would
find in the pocket of his gown. It was Catherine's glove. The priest
kissed it, and then began to laugh. Shortly afterward he died, still
gnawing at the glove.

François and René had vanished. "Good riddance," said the Rue Saint
Jacques. But Montcorbier was summoned to answer before the court of the
Châtelet for the death of Philippe Sermaise, and in default of his
appearance, was subsequently condemned to banishment from the kingdom.

The two young men were at Saint Pourçain-en-Bourbonnais, where René had
kinsmen. Under the name of des Loges, François had there secured a place
as tutor, but when he heard that Sermaise in the article of death had
cleared him of all blame, François set about procuring a pardon.
[Footnote: There is humor in his deposition that Gilles and Ysabeau and
he were loitering before Saint Benoît's in friendly discourse,--"pour soy
esbatre." Perhaps René prompted this; but in itself, it is characteristic
of Montcorbier that he trenched on perjury, blithely, in order to screen
Ysabeau.] It was January before he succeeded in obtaining it.

Meanwhile he had learned a deal of René's way of living. "You are a
thief," François observed to Montigny the day the pardon came, "but you
have played a kindly part by me. I think you are Dysmas, René, not
Gestas. Heh, I throw no stones. You have stolen, but I have killed. Let
us go to Paris, lad, and start afresh."

Montigny grinned. "I shall certainly go to Paris," he said. "Friends wait
for me there,--Guy Tabary, Petit Jehan and Colin de Cayeux. We are
planning to visit Guillaume Coiffier, a fat priest with some six hundred
crowns in the cupboard. You will make one of the party, François."

"René, René," said the other, "my heart bleeds for you."

Again Montigny grinned. "You think a great deal about blood nowadays," he
commented. "People will be mistaking you for such a poet as was crowned
Nero, who, likewise, gave his time to ballad-making and to murdering
fathers of the Church. Eh, dear Ahenabarbus, let us first see what the
Rue Saint Jacques has to say about your recent gambols. After that, I
think you will make one of our party."


5. "_Yeulx sans Pitié!_"

There was a light crackling frost under foot the day that François came
back to the Rue Saint Jacques. Upon this brisk, clear January day it was
good to be home again, an excellent thing to be alive.

"Eh, Guillemette, Guillemette," he laughed. "Why, lass--!"

"Faugh!" said Guillemette Moreau, as she passed him, nose in air. "A
murderer, a priest-killer."

Then the sun went black for François. Such welcoming was a bucket of
cold water, full in the face. He gasped, staring after her; and pursy
Thomas Tricot, on his way from mass, nudged Martin Blaru in the ribs.

"Martin," said he, "fruit must be cheap this year. Yonder in the gutter
is an apple from the gallows-tree, and no one will pick it up."

Blaru turned and spat out, "Cain! Judas!"

This was only a sample. Everywhere François found rigid faces, sniffs,
and skirts drawn aside. A little girl in a red cap, Robin Troussecaille's
daughter, flung a stone at François as he slunk into the cloister of
Saint Benoit-le-Bétourné. In those days a slain priest was God's servant
slain, no less; and the Rue Saint Jacques was a respectable God-fearing
quarter of Paris.

"My father!" the boy cried, rapping upon the door of the Hôtel de la
Porte-Rouge; "O my father, open to me, for I think that my heart is
breaking."

Shortly his foster-father, Guillaume de Villon, came to the window.
"Murderer!" said he. "Betrayer of women! Now, by the caldron of John! how
dare you show your face here? I gave you my name and you soiled it. Back
to your husks, rascal!"

"O God, O God!" François cried, one or two times, as he looked up into
the old man's implacable countenance. "You, too, my father!"

He burst into a fit of sobbing.

"Go!" the priest stormed; "go, murderer!"

It was not good to hear François' laughter. "What a world we live in!"
he giggled. "You gave me your name and I soiled it? Eh, Master Priest,
Master Pharisee, beware! _Villon_ is good French for _vagabond_, an
excellent name for an outcast. And as God lives, I will presently drag
that name through every muckheap in France."

Yet he went to Jehan de Vaucelles' home. "I will afford God one more
chance at my soul," said François.

In the garden he met Catherine and Noël d'Arnaye coming out of the house.
They stopped short. Her face, half-muffled in the brown fur of her cloak,
flushed to a wonderful rose of happiness, the great eyes glowed, and
Catherine reached out her hands toward François with a glad cry.

His heart was hot wax as he fell before her upon his knees. "O heart's
dearest, heart's dearest!" he sobbed; "forgive me that I doubted you!"

And then for an instant, the balance hung level. But after a while,
"Ysabeau de Montigny dwells in the Rue du Fouarre," said Catherine, in a
crisp voice,--"having served your purpose, however, I perceive that
Ysabeau, too, is to be cast aside as though she were an old glove.
Monsieur d'Arnaye, thrash for me this betrayer of women."

Noël was a big, handsome man, like an obtuse demi-god, a foot taller
than François. Noel lifted the boy by his collar, caught up a stick and
set to work. Catherine watched them, her eyes gemlike and cruel.

François did not move a muscle. God had chosen.

After a little, though, the Sieur d'Arnaye flung François upon the
ground, where he lay quite still for a moment. Then slowly he rose
to his feet. He never looked at Noël. For a long time Francois
stared at Catherine de Vaucelles, frost-flushed, defiant, incredibly
beautiful. Afterward the boy went out of the garden, staggering like
a drunken person.

He found Montigny at the Crowned Ox. "René," said François, "there is no
charity on earth, there is no God in Heaven. But in Hell there is most
assuredly a devil, and I think that he must laugh a great deal. What was
that you were telling me about the priest with six hundred crowns in his
cupboard?"

René slapped him on the shoulder. "Now," said he, "you talk like a man."
He opened the door at the back and cried: "Colin, you and Petit Jehan and
that pig Tabary may come out. I have the honor, messieurs, to offer you a
new Companion of the Cockleshell--Master François de Montcorbier."

But the recruit raised a protesting hand. "No," said he,--"François
Villon. The name is triply indisputable, since it has been put upon me
not by one priest but by three."


6. _"Volia l'Estat Divers d'entre Eulx"_

When the Dauphin came from Geneppe to be crowned King of France, there
rode with him Noël d'Arnaye and Noël's brother Raymond. And the
longawaited news that Charles the Well-Served was at last servitor to
Death, brought the exiled Louis post-haste to Paris, where the Rue Saint
Jacques turned out full force to witness his triumphal entry. They
expected, in those days, Saturnian doings of Louis XI, a recrudescence of
the Golden Age; and when the new king began his reign by granting Noël a
snug fief in Picardy, the Rue Saint Jacques applauded.

"Noël has followed the King's fortunes these ten years," said the Rue
Saint Jacques; "it is only just. And now, neighbor, we may look to see
Noel the Handsome and Catherine de Vaucelles make a match of it. The
girl has a tidy dowry, they say; old Jehan proved wealthier than the
quarter suspected. But death of my life, yes! You may see his tomb in
the Innocents' yonder, with weeping seraphim and a yard of Latin on it.
I warrant you that rascal Montcorbier has lain awake in half the prisons
in France thinking of what he flung away. Seven years, no less, since he
and Montigny showed their thieves' faces here. La, the world wags,
neighbor, and they say there will be a new tax on salt if we go to war
with the English."

Not quite thus, perhaps, ran the meditations of Catherine de Vaucelles
one still August night as she sat at her window, overlooking the acacias
and chestnuts of her garden. Noël, conspicuously prosperous in blue and
silver, had but now gone down the Rue Saint Jacques, singing, clinking
the fat purse whose plumpness was still a novelty. That evening she had
given her promise to marry him at Michaelmas.

This was a black night, moonless, windless. There were a scant half-dozen
stars overhead, and the thick scent of roses and mignonette came up to
her in languid waves. Below, the tree-tops conferred, stealthily, and the
fountain plashed its eternal remonstrance against the conspiracy they
lisped of.

After a while Catherine rose and stood contemplative before a long mirror
that was in her room. Catherine de Vaucelles was now, at twenty-three, in
the full flower of her comeliness. Blue eyes the mirror showed
her,--luminous and tranquil eyes, set very far apart; honey-colored hair
massed heavily about her face, a mouth all curves, the hue of a
strawberry, tender but rather fretful, and beneath it a firm chin; only
her nose left something to be desired,--for that feature, though
well-formed, was diminutive and bent toward the left, by perhaps the
thickness of a cobweb. She might reasonably have smiled at what the
mirror showed her, but, for all that, she sighed.

"O Beauty of her, whereby I am undone," said Catherine, wistfully. "Ah,
God in Heaven, forgive me for my folly! Sweet Christ, intercede for me
who have paid dearly for my folly!"

Fate grinned in her weaving. Through the open window came the sound of a
voice singing.

Sang the voice:

  _"O Beauty of her, whereby I am undone!
  O Grace of her, that hath no grace for me!
  O Love of her, the bit that guides me on
  To sorrow and to grievous misery!
  O felon Charms, my poor heart's enemy--"_

and the singing broke off in a fit of coughing.

Catherine had remained motionless for a matter of two minutes, her head
poised alertly. She went to the gong and struck it seven or eight times.

"Macée, there is a man in the garden. Bring him to me, Macée,--ah, love
of God, Macée, make haste!"

Blinking, he stood upon the threshold. Then, without words, their lips
met.

"My king!" said Catherine; "heart's emperor!"

"O rose of all the world!" he cried.

There was at first no need of speech.

But after a moment she drew away and stared at him. François, though he
was but thirty, seemed an old man. His bald head shone in the
candle-light. His face was a mesh of tiny wrinkles, wax-white, and his
lower lip, puckered by the scar of his wound, protruded in an eternal
grimace. As Catherine steadfastly regarded him, the faded eyes,
half-covered with a bluish film, shifted, and with a jerk he glanced over
his shoulder. The movement started a cough tearing at his throat.

"Holy Macaire!" said he. "I thought that somebody, if not Henri Cousin,
the executioner, was at my heels. Why do you stare so, lass? Have you
anything to eat? I am famished."

In silence she brought him meat and wine, and he fell upon it. He ate
hastily, chewing with his front teeth, like a sheep.

When he had ended, Catherine came to him and took both his hands in hers
and lifted them to her lips. "The years have changed you, François," she
said, curiously meek.

François put her away. Then he strode to the mirror and regarded it
intently. With a snarl, he turned about. "The years!" said he. "You are
modest. It was you who killed François de Montcorbier, as surely as
Montcorbier killed Sermaise. Eh, Sovereign Virgin! that is scant cause
for grief. You made François Villon. What do you think of him, lass?"

She echoed the name. It was in many ways a seasoned name, but
unaccustomed to mean nothing. Accordingly François sneered.

"Now, by all the fourteen joys and sorrows of Our Lady! I believe that
you have never heard of François Villon! The Rue Saint Jacques has not
heard of François Villon! The pigs, the gross pigs, that dare not peep
out of their sty! Why, I have capped verses with the Duke of Orleans. The
very street-boys know my Ballad of the Women of Paris. Not a drunkard in
the realm but has ranted my jolly Orison for Master Cotard's Soul when
the bottle passed. The King himself hauled me out of Meung gaol last
September, swearing that in all France there was not my equal at a
ballad. And you have never heard of me!"

Once more a fit of coughing choked him mid-course in his indignant
chattering.

She gave him a woman's answer: "I do not care if you are the greatest
lord in the kingdom or the most sunken knave that steals ducks from Paris
Moat. I only know that I love you, François."

For a long time he kept silence, blinking, peering quizzically at her
lifted face. She did love him; no questioning that. But presently he
again put her aside, and went toward the open window. This was a matter
for consideration.

The night was black as a pocket. Staring into it, François threw back his
head and drew a deep, tremulous breath. The rising odor of roses and
mignonette, keen and intolerably sweet, had roused unforgotten pulses in
his blood, had set shame and joy adrum in his breast.

The woman loved him! Through these years, with a woman's unreasoning
fidelity, she had loved him. He knew well enough how matters stood
between her and Noel d'Arnaye; the host of the Crowned Ox had been
garrulous that evening. But it was François whom she loved. She was
well-to-do. Here for the asking was a competence, love, an ingleside of
his own. The deuce of it was that Francois feared to ask.

"--Because I am still past reason in all that touches this ignorant,
hot-headed, Pharisaical, rather stupid wench! That is droll. But love is
a resistless tyrant, and, Mother of God! has there been in my life a day,
an hour, a moment when I have not loved her! To see her once was all that
I had craved,--as a lost soul might covet, ere the Pit take him, one
splendid glimpse of Heaven and the Nine Blessed Orders at their fiddling.
And I find that she loves me--me! Fate must have her jest, I perceive,
though the firmament crack for it. She would have been content enough
with Noel, thinking me dead. And with me?" Contemplatively he spat out of
the window. "Eh, if I dared hope that this last flicker of life left in
my crazy carcass might burn clear! I have but a little while to live; if
I dared hope to live that little cleanly! But the next cup of wine, the
next light woman?--I have answered more difficult riddles. Choose, then,
François Villon,--choose between the squalid, foul life yonder and her
well-being. It is true that starvation is unpleasant and that hanging is
reported to be even less agreeable. But just now these considerations are
irrelevant."

Staring into the darkness he fought the battle out. Squarely he faced the
issue; for that instant he saw François Villon as the last seven years
had made him, saw the wine-sodden soul of François Villon, rotten and
weak and honeycombed with vice. Moments of nobility it had; momentarily,
as now, it might be roused to finer issues; but François knew that no
power existent could hearten it daily to curb the brutish passions. It
was no longer possible for François Villon to live cleanly. "For what am
I?--a hog with a voice. And shall I hazard her life's happiness to get me
a more comfortable sty? Ah, but the deuce of it is that I so badly need
that sty!"

He turned with a quick gesture.

"Listen," François said. "Yonder is Paris,--laughing, tragic Paris, who
once had need of a singer to proclaim her splendor and all her misery.
Fate made the man; in necessity's mortar she pounded his soul into the
shape Fate needed. To king's courts she lifted him; to thieves' hovels
she thrust him down; and past Lutetia's palaces and abbeys and taverns
and lupanars and gutters and prisons and its very gallows--past each in
turn the man was dragged, that he might make the Song of Paris. He could
not have made it here in the smug Rue Saint Jacques. Well! the song is
made, Catherine. So long as Paris endures, François Villon will be
remembered. Villon the singer Fate fashioned as was needful: and, in this
fashioning, Villon the man was damned in body and soul. And by God! the
song was worth it!"

She gave a startled cry and came to him, her hands fluttering toward his
breast. "François!" she breathed.

It would not be good to kill the love in her face.

"You loved François de Montcorbier. François de Montcorbier is dead. The
Pharisees of the Rue Saint Jacques killed him seven years ago, and that
day François Villon was born. That was the name I swore to drag through
every muckheap in France. And I have done it, Catherine. The Companions
of the Cockleshell--eh, well, the world knows us. We robbed Guillamme
Coiffier, we robbed the College of Navarre, we robbed the Church of Saint
Maturin,--I abridge the list of our gambols. Now we harvest. René de
Montigny's bones swing in the wind yonder at Montfaucon. Colin de Cayeux
they broke on the wheel. The rest--in effect, I am the only one that
justice spared,--because I had diverting gifts at rhyming, they said.
Pah! if they only knew! I am immortal, lass. _Exegi monumentum_. Villon's
glory and Villon's shame will never die."

He flung back his bald head and laughed now, tittering over that
calamitous, shabby secret between all-seeing God and François Villon. She
had drawn a little away from him. This well-reared girl saw him exultant
in infamy, steeped to the eyes in infamy. But still the nearness of her,
the faint perfume of her, shook in his veins, and still he must play the
miserable comedy to the end, since the prize he played for was to him
peculiarly desirable.

"A thief--a common thief!" But again her hands fluttered back. "I drove
you to it. Mine is the shame."

"Holy Macaire! what is a theft or two? Hunger that causes the wolf to
sally from the wood, may well make a man do worse than steal. I could
tell you--For example, you might ask in Hell of one Thevenin Pensete, who
knifed him in the cemetery of Saint John."

He hinted a lie, for it was Montigny who killed Thevenin Pensete. Villon
played without scruple now.

Catherine's face was white. "Stop," she pleaded; "no more, François,--ah,
Holy Virgin! do not tell me any more."

But after a little she came to him, touching him almost as if with
unwillingness. "Mine is the shame. It was my jealousy, my vanity,
François, that thrust you back into temptation. And we are told by those
in holy orders that the compassion of God is infinite. If you still care
for me, I will be your wife."

Yet she shuddered.

He saw it. His face, too, was paper, and François laughed horribly.

"If I still love you! Go, ask of Denise, of Jacqueline, or of Pierrette,
of Marion the Statue, of Jehanne of Brittany, of Blanche Slippermaker, of
Fat Peg,--ask of any trollop in all Paris how François Villon loves. You
thought me faithful! You thought that I especially preferred you to any
other bed-fellow! Eh, I perceive that the credo of the Rue Saint Jacques
is somewhat narrow-minded. For my part I find one woman much the same as
another." And his voice shook, for he saw how pretty she was, saw how she
suffered. But he managed a laugh.

"I do not believe you," Catherine said, in muffled tones. "François! You
loved me, François. Ah, boy, boy!" she cried, with a pitiable wail; "come
back to me, boy that I loved!"

It was a difficult business. But he grinned in her face.

"He is dead. Let François de Montcorbier rest in his grave. Your voice is
very sweet, Catherine, and--and he could refuse you nothing, could he,
lass? Ah, God, God, God!" he cried, in his agony; "why can you not
believe me? I tell you Necessity pounds us in her mortar to what shape
she will. I tell you that Montcorbier loved you, but François Villon
prefers Fat Peg. An ill cat seeks an ill rat." And with this,
tranquillity fell upon his soul, for he knew that he had won.

Her face told him that. Loathing was what he saw there.

"I am sorry," Catherine said, dully. "I am sorry. Oh, for high God's
sake! go, go! Do you want money? I will give you anything if you will
only go. Oh, beast! Oh, swine, swine, swine!"

He turned and went, staggering like a drunken person.

Once in the garden he fell prone upon his face in the wet grass. About
him the mingled odor of roses and mignonette was sweet and heavy; the
fountain plashed interminably in the night, and above him the chestnuts
and acacias rustled and lisped as they had done seven years ago. Only he
was changed.

"O Mother of God," the thief prayed, "grant that Noël may be kind to
her! Mother of God, grant that she may be happy! Mother of God, grant
that I may not live long!"

And straightway he perceived that triple invocation could be, rather
neatly, worked out in ballade form. Yes, with a separate prayer to each
verse. So, dismissing for the while his misery, he fell to considering,
with undried cheeks, what rhymes he needed.

       *       *       *       *       *

JULY 17, 1484

"_Et puis il se rencontre icy une avanture merveilleuse, c'est que le
fils de Grand Turc ressemble à Cléonte, à peu de chose prés_."


_Noël d'Arnaye and Catherine de Vaucelles were married in the September
of 1462, and afterward withdrew to Noël's fief in Picardy. There Noël
built him a new Chateau d'Arnaye, and through the influence of Nicole
Beaupertuys, the King's mistress, (who was rumored in court by-ways to
have a tenderness for the handsome Noël), obtained large grants for its
maintenance. Madame d'Arnaye, also, it is gratifying to record, appears
to have lived in tolerable amity with Sieur Noël, and neither of them
pried too closely into the other's friendships.

Catherine died in 1470, and Noël outlived her but by three years. Of the
six acknowledged children surviving him, only one was legitimate--a
daughter called Matthiette. The estate and title thus reverted to Raymond
d'Arnaye, Noël's younger brother, from whom the present family of Arnaye
is descended.

Raymond was a far shrewder man than his predecessor. For ten years'
space, while Louis XI, that royal fox of France, was destroying feudalism
piecemeal,--trimming its power day by day as you might pare an
onion,--the new Sieur d'Arnaye steered his shifty course between France
and Burgundy, always to the betterment of his chances in this world
however he may have modified them in the next. At Arras he fought beneath
the orifiamme; at Guinegate you could not have found a more staunch
Burgundian: though he was no warrior, victory followed him like a
lap-dog. So that presently the Sieur d'Arnaye and the Vicomte de
Puysange--with which family we have previously concerned ourselves--were
the great lords of Northern France.

But after the old King's death came gusty times for Sieur Raymond. It is
with them we have here to do_.




CHAPTER VI

_The Episode Called The Conspiracy of Arnaye_


1. _Policy Tempered with Singing_

"And so," said the Sieur d'Arnaye, as he laid down the letter, "we may
look for the coming of Monsieur de Puysange to-morrow."

The Demoiselle Matthiette contorted her features in an expression of
disapproval. "So soon!" said she. "I had thought--"

"Ouais, my dear niece, Love rides by ordinary with a dripping spur, and
is still as arbitrary as in the day when Mars was taken with a net and
amorous Jove bellowed in Europa's kail-yard. My faith! if Love distemper
thus the spectral ichor of the gods, is it remarkable that the warmer
blood of man pulses rather vehemently at his bidding? It were the least
of Cupid's miracles that a lusty bridegroom of some twenty-and-odd should
be pricked to outstrip the dial by a scant week. For love--I might tell
you such tales--"

Sieur Raymond crossed his white, dimpled hands over a well-rounded
paunch and chuckled reminiscently; had he spoken doubtless he would have
left Master Jehan de Troyes very little to reveal in his Scandalous
Chronicle: but now, as if now recalling with whom Sieur Raymond
conversed, d'Arnaye's lean face assumed an expression of placid sanctity,
and the somewhat unholy flame died out of his green eyes. He was like no
other thing than a plethoric cat purring over the follies of kittenhood.
You would have taken oath that a cultured taste for good living was the
chief of his offences, and that this benevolent gentleman had some sixty
well-spent years to his credit. True, his late Majesty, King Louis XI,
had sworn Pacque Dieu! that d'Arnaye loved underhanded work so heartily
that he conspired with his gardener concerning the planting of cabbages,
and within a week after his death would be heading some treachery against
Lucifer; but kings are not always infallible, as his Majesty himself had
proven at Peronne.

"--For," said the Sieur d'Arnaye, "man's flesh is frail, and the devil is
very cunning to avail himself of the weaknesses of lovers."

"Love!" Matthiette cried. "Ah, do not mock me, my uncle! There can be no
pretence of love between Monsieur de Puysange and me. A man that I have
never seen, that is to wed me of pure policy, may look for no Alcestis in
his wife."

"You speak like a very sensible girl," said Sieur Raymond, complacently.
"However, so that he find her no Guinevere or Semiramis or other
loose-minded trollop of history, I dare say Monsieur de Puysange will
hold to his bargain with indifferent content. Look you, niece, he, also,
is buying--though the saying is somewhat rustic--a pig in a poke."

Matthiette glanced quickly toward the mirror which hung in her apartment.
The glass reflected features which went to make up a beauty already
be-sonneted in that part of France; and if her green gown was some months
behind the last Italian fashion, it undeniably clad one who needed few
adventitious aids. The Demoiselle Matthiette at seventeen was very tall,
and was as yet too slender for perfection of form, but her honey-colored
hair hung heavily about the unblemished oval of a countenance whose nose
alone left something to be desired; for this feature, though well shaped,
was unduly diminutive. For the rest, her mouth curved in an
irreproachable bow, her complexion was mingled milk and roses, her blue
eyes brooded in a provoking calm; taking matters by and large, the smile
that followed her inspection of the mirror's depths was far from
unwarranted. Catherine de Vaucelles reanimate, you would have sworn; and
at the abbey of Saint Maixent-en-Poitou there was a pot-belly monk, a
Brother François, who would have demonstrated it to you, in an
unanswerable ballad, that Catherine's daughter was in consequence all
that an empress should be and so rarely is. Harembourges and Bertha
Broadfoot and white Queen Blanche would have been laughed to scorn,
demolished and proven, in comparison (with a catalogue of very intimate
personal detail), the squalidest sluts conceivable, by Brother François.

But Sieur Raymond merely chuckled wheezily, as one discovering a fault in
his companion of which he disapproves in theory, but in practice finds
flattering to his vanity.

"I grant you, Monsieur de Puysange drives a good bargain," said Sieur
Raymond. "Were Cleopatra thus featured, the Roman lost the world very
worthily. Yet, such is the fantastic disposition of man that I do not
doubt the vicomte looks forward to the joys of to-morrow no whit more
cheerfully than you do: for the lad is young, and, as rumor says, has
been guilty of divers verses,--ay, he has bearded common-sense in the
vext periods of many a wailing rhyme. I will wager a moderate amount,
however, that the vicomte, like a sensible young man, keeps these
whimsies of flames and dames laid away in lavender for festivals and the
like; they are somewhat too fine for everyday wear."

Sieur Raymond sipped the sugared wine which stood beside him. "Like
any sensible young man," he repeated, in a meditative fashion that was
half a query.

Matthiette stirred uneasily. "Is love, then, nothing?" she murmured.

"Love!" Sieur Raymond barked like a kicked mastiff. "It is very
discreetly fabled that love was brought forth at Cythera by the ocean
fogs. Thus, look you, even ballad-mongers admit it comes of a
short-lived family, that fade as time wears on. I may have a passion for
cloud-tatters, and, doubtless, the morning mists are beautiful; but if I
give rein to my admiration, breakfast is likely to grow cold. I deduce
that beauty, as represented by the sunrise, is less profitably considered
than utility, as personified by the frying-pan. And love! A niece of mine
prating of love!" The idea of such an occurrence, combined with a fit of
coughing which now came upon him, drew tears to the Sieur d'Arnaye's
eyes. "Pardon me," said he, when he had recovered his breath, "if I speak
somewhat brutally to maiden ears."

Matthiette sighed. "Indeed," said she, "you have spoken very brutally!"
She rose from her seat, and went to the Sieur d'Arnaye. "Dear uncle,"
said she, with her arms about his neck, and with her soft cheek brushing
his withered countenance, "are you come to my apartments to-night to tell
me that love is nothing--you who have shown me that even the roughest,
most grizzled bear in all the world has a heart compact of love and
tender as a woman's?"

The Sieur d'Arnaye snorted. "Her mother all over again!" he complained;
and then, recovering himself, shook his head with a hint of sadness.

He said: "I have sighed to every eyebrow at court, and I tell you this
moonshine is--moonshine pure and simple. Matthiette, I love you too
dearly to deceive you in, at all events, this matter, and I have learned
by hard knocks that we of gentle quality may not lightly follow our own
inclinations. Happiness is a luxury which the great can very rarely
afford. Granted that you have an aversion to this marriage. Yet consider
this: Arnaye and Puysange united may sit snug and let the world wag;
otherwise, lying here between the Breton and the Austrian, we are so many
nuts in a door-crack, at the next wind's mercy. And yonder in the South,
Orléans and Dunois are raising every devil in Hell's register! Ah, no, ma
mie; I put it to you fairly is it of greater import that a girl have her
callow heart's desire than that a province go free of Monsieur War and
Madame Rapine?"

"Yes, but--" said Matthiette.

Sieur Raymond struck his hand upon the table with considerable heat.
"Everywhere Death yawps at the frontier; will you, a d'Arnaye, bid him
enter and surfeit? An alliance with Puysange alone may save us. Eheu, it
is, doubtless, pitiful that a maid may not wait and wed her chosen
paladin, but our vassals demand these sacrifices. For example, do you
think I wedded my late wife in any fervor of adoration? I had never seen
her before our marriage day; yet we lived much as most couples do for
some ten years afterward, thereby demonstrating--"

He smiled, evilly; Matthiette sighed.

"--Well, thereby demonstrating nothing new," said Sieur Raymond. "So do
you remember that Pierre must have his bread and cheese; that the cows
must calve undisturbed; that the pigs--you have not seen the sow I had
to-day from Harfleur?--black as ebony and a snout like a rose-leaf!--must
be stied in comfort: and that these things may not be, without an
alliance with Puysange. Besides, dear niece, it is something to be the
wife of a great lord."

A certain excitement awoke in Matthiette's eyes. "It must be very
beautiful at Court," said she, softly. "Masques, fêtes, tourneys every
day;--and they say the new King is exceedingly gallant--"

Sieur Raymond caught her by the chin, and for a moment turned her
face toward his. "I warn you," said he, "you are a d'Arnaye; and
King or not--"

He paused here. Through the open window came the voice of one singing to
the demure accompaniment of a lute.

"Hey?" said the Sieur d'Arnaye.

Sang the voice:

  "_When you are very old, and I am gone,
  Not to return, it may be you will say--
  Hearing my name and holding me as one
  Long dead to you,--in some half-jesting way
  Of speech, sweet as vague heraldings of May
  Rumored in woods when first the throstles sing--
  'He loved me once.' And straightway murmuring
  My half-forgotten rhymes, you will regret
  Evanished times when I was wont to sing
  So very lightly, 'Love runs into debt.'_"

"Now, may I never sit among the saints," said the Sieur d'Arnaye, "if
that is not the voice of Raoul de Prison, my new page."

"Hush," Matthiette whispered. "He woos my maid, Alys. He often sings
under the window, and I wink at it."

Sang the voice:

  _"I shall not heed you then. My course being run
  For good or ill, I shall have gone my way,
  And know you, love, no longer,--nor the sun,
  Perchance, nor any light of earthly day,
  Nor any joy nor sorrow,--while at play
  The world speeds merrily, nor reckoning
  Our coming or our going. Lips will cling,
  Forswear, and be forsaken, and men forget
  Where once our tombs were, and our children sing--
  So very lightly!--'Love runs into debt.'

  "If in the grave love have dominion
  Will that wild cry not quicken the wise clay,
  And taunt with memories of fond deeds undone,--
  Some joy untasted, some lost holiday,--
  All death's large wisdom? Will that wisdom lay
  The ghost of any sweet familiar thing
  Come haggard from the Past, or ever bring
  Forgetfulness of those two lovers met
  When all was April?--nor too wise to sing
  So very lightly, 'Love runs into debt.'

  "Yet, Matthiette, though vain remembering
  Draw nigh, and age be drear, yet in the spring
  We meet and kiss, whatever hour beset
  Wherein all hours attain to harvesting,--
  So very lightly love runs into debt."_

"Dear, dear!" said the Sieur d'Arnaye. "You mentioned your maid's
name, I think?"

"Alys," said Matthiette, with unwonted humbleness.

Sieur Raymond spread out his hands in a gesture of commiseration. "This
is very remarkable," he said. "Beyond doubt, the gallant beneath has made
some unfortunate error. Captain Gotiard," he called, loudly, "will you
ascertain who it is that warbles in the garden such queer aliases for our
good Alys?"


2. _Age Glosses the Text of Youth_

Gotiard was not long in returning; he was followed by two men-at-arms,
who held between them the discomfited minstrel. Envy alone could have
described the lutanist as ill-favored; his close-fitting garb, wherein
the brave reds of autumn were judiciously mingled, at once set off a
well-knit form and enhanced the dark comeliness of features less French
than Italian in cast. The young man now stood silent, his eyes mutely
questioning the Sieur d'Arnaye.

"Oh, la, la, la!" chirped Sieur Raymond. "Captain, I think you are at
liberty to retire." He sipped his wine meditatively, as the men filed
out. "Monsieur de Frison," d'Arnaye resumed, when the arras had fallen,
"believe me, I grieve to interrupt your very moving and most excellently
phrased ballad in this fashion. But the hour is somewhat late for melody,
and the curiosity of old age is privileged. May one inquire, therefore,
why you outsing my larks and linnets and other musical poultry that are
now all abed? and warble them to rest with this pleasing but--if I may
venture a suggestion--rather ill-timed madrigal?"

The young man hesitated for an instant before replying. "Sir," said he,
at length, "I confess that had I known of your whereabouts, the birds had
gone without their lullaby. But you so rarely come to this wing of the
chateau, that your presence here to-night is naturally unforeseen. As it
is, since chance has betrayed my secret to you, I must make bold to
acknowledge it; and to confess that I love your niece."

"Hey, no doubt you do," Sieur Raymond assented, pleasantly. "Indeed, I
think half the young men hereabout are in much the same predicament. But,
my question, if I mistake not, related to your reason for chaunting
canzonets beneath her window."

Raoul de Frison stared at him in amazement. "I love her," he said.

"You mentioned that before," Sieur Raymond suggested. "And I agreed, as I
remember, that it was more than probable; for my niece here--though it be
I that speak it--is by no means uncomely, has a commendable voice, the
walk of a Hebe, and sufficient wit to deceive her lover into happiness.
My faith, young man, you show excellent taste! But, I submit, the purest
affection is an insufficient excuse for outbaying a whole kennel of
hounds beneath the adored one's casement."

"Sir," said Raoul, "I believe that lovers have rarely been remarkable for
sanity; and it is an immemorial custom among them to praise the object of
their desires with fitting rhymes. Conceive, sir, that in your youth, had
you been accorded the love of so fair a lady, you yourself had scarcely
done otherwise. For I doubt if your blood runs so thin as yet that you
have quite forgot young Raymond d'Arnaye and the gracious ladies whom he
loved,--I think that your heart must needs yet treasure the memories of
divers moonlit nights, even such as this, when there was a great silence
in the world, and the nested trees were astir with desire of the dawn,
and your waking dreams were vext with the singular favor of some woman's
face. It is in the name of that young Raymond I now appeal to you."

"H'm!" said the Sieur d'Arnaye. "As I understand it, you appeal on the
ground that you were coerced by the moonlight and led astray by the
bird-nests in my poplar-trees; and you desire me to punish your
accomplices rather than you."

"Sir,--" said Raoul.

Sieur Raymond snarled. "You young dog, you know that in the most prosaic
breast a minor poet survives his entombment,--and you endeavor to make
capital of the knowledge. You know that I have a most sincere affection
for your father, and have even contracted since you came to Arnaye more
or less tolerance for you,--which emboldens you, my friend, to keep me
out of a comfortable bed at this hour of the night with an idiotic
discourse of moonlight and dissatisfied shrubbery! As it happens, I am
not a lank wench in her first country dance. Remember that, Raoul de
Frison, and praise the good God who gave me at birth a very placable
disposition! There is not a seigneur in all France, save me, but would
hang you at the crack of that same dawn for which you report your
lackadaisical trees to be whining; but the quarrel will soon be Monsieur
de Puysange's, and I prefer that he settle it at his own discretion. I
content myself with advising you to pester my niece no more."

Raoul spoke boldly. "She loves me," said he, standing very erect.

Sieur Raymond glanced at Matthiette, who sat with downcast head. "H'm!"
said he. "She moderates her transports indifferently well. Though, again,
why not? You are not an ill-looking lad. Indeed, Monsieur de Frison, I am
quite ready to admit that my niece is breaking her heart for you. The
point on which I wish to dwell is that she weds Monsieur de Puysange
early to-morrow morning."

"Uncle," Matthiette cried, as she started to her feet, "such a marriage
is a crime! I love Raoul!"

"Undoubtedly," purred Sieur Raymond, "you love the lad unboundedly,
madly, distractedly! Now we come to the root of the matter." He sank back
in his chair and smiled. "Young people," said he, "be seated, and hearken
to the words of wisdom. Love is a divine insanity, in which the sufferer
fancies the world mad. And the world is made up of madmen who condemn and
punish one another."

"But," Matthiette dissented, "ours is no ordinary case!"

"Surely not," Sieur Raymond readily agreed; "for there was never an
ordinary case in all the history of the universe. Oh, but I, too, have
known this madness; I, too, have perceived how infinitely my own
skirmishes with the blind bow-god differed in every respect from all that
has been or will ever be. It is an infallible sign of this frenzy.
Surely, I have said, the world will not willingly forget the vision of
Chloris in her wedding garments, or the wonder of her last clinging kiss.
Or, say Phyllis comes to-morrow: will an uninventive sun dare to rise in
the old, hackneyed fashion on such a day of days? Perish the thought!
There will probably be six suns, and, I dare say, a meteor or two."

"I perceive, sir," Raoul said here, "that after all you have not
forgotten the young Raymond of whom I spoke."

"That was a long while ago," snapped Sieur Raymond. "I know a deal more
of the world nowadays; and a level-headed world would be somewhat
surprised at such occurrences, and suggest that for the future Phyllis
remain at home. For whether you--or I--or any one--be in love or no is to
our fellow creatures an affair of astonishingly trivial import. Not since
Noé that great admiral, repeopled the world by begetting three sons upon
Dame Noria has there been a love-business worthy of consideration; nor,
if you come to that, not since sagacious Solomon went a-wenching has a
wise man wasted his wisdom on a lover. So love one another, my children,
by all means: but do you, Matthiette, make ready to depart into Normandy
as a true and faithful wife to Monsieur de Puysange; and do you, Raoul de
Prison, remain at Arnaye, and attend to my falcons more carefully than
you have done of late,--or, by the cross of Saint Lo! I will clap the
wench in a convent and hang the lad as high as Haman!"

Whereon Sieur Raymond smiled pleasantly, and drained his wine-cup as one
considering the discussion ended.

Raoul sat silent for a moment. Then he rose. "Monsieur d'Arnaye, you know
me to be a gentleman of unblemished descent, and as such entitled to a
hearing. I forbid you before all-seeing Heaven to wed your niece to a man
she does not love! And I have the honor to request of you her hand in
marriage."

"Which offer I decline," said Sieur Raymond, grinning placidly,--"with
every imaginable civility. Niece," he continued, "here is a

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