Part 2 (1/2)
Before noon they had threaded the wild waste of woodland that girded the tower like a black lagoon. They came out from the trees to a heath, a track that struck green and purple into the west, and boasted nought that could infringe the blue monotony of the sky. It was a wild region, swept by a wind that sighed perpetually amid the gorse and heather. By the black rim of the forest they had dismounted and partaken of bread and water before pus.h.i.+ng on with a listless persistence that won many miles to their credit.
The man Jaspar was a phlegmatic soul in the hot sphere of action. He was a circ.u.mspect being who preferred heading for the blue calm of a haven in stormy weather, to thrusting out into the tossing spume of the unknown. The girl Yeoland, on the contrary, had an abundant spirit, and an untamed temper. Her black eyes roved restlessly over the world, and she tilted her chin in the face of Fate. Jaspar, knowing her fibre, feared for her moods with the more level prudence of stagnant blood.
Her obstinacy was a hazardous virtue, hawk-like in sentiment, not given to perching on the boughs of reason. Moreover, being c.u.mbered with a generous burden of pity, he was in mortal dread of wounding her pale proud grief.
By way of being diplomatic, he began by hinting that there were necessities in life, trivial no doubt, but inevitable, as sleep and supper.
”Lord John of Brissac is your friend,” he meandered, ”a strong lord, and a great; moreover, he hates those of Gambrevault, G.o.d chasten their souls! Fontenaye is no long ride from Gilderoy. Madame will lodge there till she can come by redress?”
Madame had no thought of being beholden to the gentleman in question.
Jaspar understood as much from a very brief debate. Lord John of Brissac was forbidden favour, being as black a pard when justly blazoned as any seigneur of Gambrevault. The harper's chin wagged on maugre her contradiction.
”We have bread for a day,” he chirped, dropping upon ba.n.a.lities by way of seeming wise. ”The nights are cold, madame, damp as a marsh. As for the water-pot----”
”Water may be had--for the asking.”
”And bread?”
”I have money.”
”Then we ride for Gilderoy?”
The a.s.sumption was made with an excellent unction that betrayed the seeming sincerity of the philosopher. Yeoland stared ahead over her horse's ears, with a clear disregard for Jaspar and his discretion.
”We are like leaves blown about in autumn,” she said to him, ”wanderers with fortune. You have not grasped my temper. I warrant you, there is method in me.”
Jaspar looked blank.
”Strange method, madame, to ride nowhere, to compa.s.s nothing.”
She turned on him with a sudden rapid gleam out of her pa.s.sionate eyes.
”Nothing! You call revenge nothing?”
The harper appealed to his favourite saint.
”St. Jude forfend that madame should follow such a marsh fire,” he said.
They had drawn towards the margin of the heath. Southwards it sloped to the rim of a great pine forest, that seemed to clasp it with ebonian arms. The place was black, mysterious, impenetrable, fringed with a palisading of dark stiff trunks, but all else, a vast undulation of sombre plumes. Its spires waved with the wind. There was a soundless awe about its sable galleries, a saturnine gloom that hung like a curtain. In the vague distance, a misty height seemed to struggle above the ocean of trees, like the back of some great beast.
Yeoland, keen of face, reined in her jennet, and pointed Jaspar to this landscape of sombre hues. There was an alert l.u.s.tre in her eyes; she drew her breath more quickly, like one whose courage kindles at the cry of a trumpet.
”The Black Wild,” she said with a little hiss of eagerness, and a glance that was almost fierce under her coal-black brows.
Jaspar shook his head with the c.u.mbersome wit of an ogre.
”Ha, yes, madame, a b.l.o.o.d.y region, packed with rumours, dark as its own trees; no stint of terror, I warrant ye. See yonder, the road to Gilderoy.”
The girl in the green cloak seemed strongly stirred by her own thoughts.