CHAPTER III
THE NIGHTINGALE
FOULQUE the Cripple listened with a perturbed brow. “You should haveleft him alone! A wretched herd-girl!”
“If I am to be knight,” said Garin hotly, “I will not read knighthoodso.”
“Psha!” said Foulque. “They put resistance on! It is a mask when theyseem unwilling. And if it were real, what then?—Saint Pol, whatthen?—And you saw naught to tell you who he was?”
“No.”
Foulque fretted. “If I had been there, I should have found some colouror sign! But you go as dreamily as if you were bewitched! You seenaught that’s to the point.”
“He had a blue robe and a surcoat of crimson, and shoes of browncordovan,” said Garin. “His sword had a rich hilt, and his gloves wereembroidered. I noted them where he had thrust them in the bosom of hisrobe when I knelt to look at his wound. He was red-gold of hair andhawk nosed, full-lipped, and with a scar on his cheek. I think that heis older than I, but not much older.”
“Well, well!” said Foulque, “he may have been some wanderer from adistance, with no recourse but his own hand. Moreover, for fame’ssake, he will not be quick to talk about a younger man, and one of lessdegree. If he found out neither your name nor house,—perhaps we’llhear no more of it.... Well, what have you to say? I have news for you!The abbot hath been to Roche-de-Frêne, and on his way home is pleasedto sleep one night at Castel-Noir. A man of his brought notice thismorning. This is Tuesday—Friday he will be here.” Foulque rose andlimped across the hall in some excitement. “Poor and bare, God knows!is Castel-Noir, but we will do what we can! My bed here he shall have,and we will put up the hangings from Genoa, and strew the floor withfair herbs. There’s wine enough, and Pierre shall begin his bakingto-morrow morn! Friday.—He will have, his man said, twenty in histrain. The sub-prior—five or six brothers—the rest stout serfs withstaves.—Friday!—Every man of ours must be set to fishing!”
When every man was sent to the stream, the company of fishermen coveredno great length of bank. Moreover all could not settle to fishing,for some must forth to forage for the approaching horse, and to findvenison, fowls, and other matters for the Saturday morn. For poor wasthe small black tower in the black wood! Foulque could furnish to hislord a young brother for esquire, and, if a levy were made, ten men, byno means prize men, with ten horses, by no means horses for a king’sstable. Paladin was the only horse of that nature. A poor, small fiefwas Castel-Noir—black keep and tower on a crag, set in a dark wood,with a few fields beyond, and all under shadow of the mountains to thenorth. South of it, only, ran the bright stream where fish were to becaught.
Thursday sunrise, Garin took a fishing-rod and went down the crag bythe road cut, long since, in the rock, and through the wood to thisstream. In a great leather pouch slung over his shoulder he had, withother matters, bread and meat. He meant to make a day of it, bringinghome in the evening good fish for Pierre’s larder. When he reached thestream, he found there old Jean and his two grandsons and they had agreat basket, its bottom already flashing silver and iris.
“Good-morning, Jean and Pol and Arnaut,” said Garin.
“Good-morning, master! The Blessed Maries have sent good fishing! Theysnap as soon as you touch the water.”
Farther down the stream he found Sicart. “How great a man, master, isthe abbot? Very great he must be if he eats all the fish we are taking!It is a miracle!”
Garin moved down the stream seeking for a place that should seizehis fancy. The eagerness with which he had risen and sallied forthdisappeared. They would have enough for the Abbot and his train—morethan enough. At times he cared for fishing, but not, he found, to-day.Why then fish, if there was no need? He still carried the rod, but hecontinued to walk, making no motion to stop and put it into use. Therewas a foot-path by the stream, and it and the gliding water led him on.He wanted to think, or, more truly, to dream. Back in the black castleall was topsy-turvy, and Foulque concerned only with family fortunes.
Now Garin walked, and now he leaned against some tree and gazed at theflowing water; but on the whole he moved forward with such steadinessthat before the sun was much above the tree-tops the foot-path ceased,having brought him to a great round stone and an overhanging pine, andthe end, on this side, of the fief of Castel-Noir. Beyond came a stripof stony and unprofitable land, a debated possession, claimed by twobarons and of no especial use to any man. Garin threw himself down uponthe boundary stone and, chin in hand, regarded the sliding stream.
It was this stone, perhaps, that brought into mind Tuesday’s boulderand the jongleur. Rather than the jongleur came the figure of thejongleur’s lute. Garin’s fingers moved as though they felt beneaththem the strings. A verse was running, running through his head. Onlyafter a slow, lilting, inward saying of it over twice or thrice did itcome to him, like the opening of a flower, that it was his own, notanother’s. He had made it, lying there. He rose from the stone andwalked forward, still going with the gliding stream. As he walked, thesecond verse came to him. He said over the two, said over his firstpoem and said it over again, tasting it, savouring it, hearing it nowwith music. He was in a dream of dawn....
There was no longer a path, but he went on over the stony soil, beneathold gnarled and stunted trees. The sun rode high and made the watera flood of diamonds. Garin walked with a light and rapid step. Whena tree came in his way he swerved and rounded it and went on, but hewas hardly conscious that it had been there. The fishing-rod was yetin his hand, but he did not think of the rod, nor of fishing, nor ofCastel-Noir, nor Foulque, nor the abbot, nor of the decision which theabbot’s visit would force. He hardly knew of what he was thinking. Itwas diffused,—the world was diffused,—drifting and swinging, and inthe mist he touched a new power.
A hawk shot downwards, plunged beak in water, rose with the taken fishand soared into the eye of day. Garin started, shook himself, andlooked about him. He had come farther than he meant. He half-turned,then stood irresolute, then again faced downstream. The day was notold, and a distaste seized him for going back and listening to Foulqueon what the abbot might or might not do. He wandered on.
An hour later he came upon another boundary mark. This was a cross cutin stone, with a rude carving upon the block that formed the base.Garin sat down to rest, and sitting so, fell to scraping with hisknife the encrusting lichen from this carving. There was a palm treeand a pyramid, which stamped Egypt in mind. Here was Saint Joseph, andhere was the ass bearing the Mother and Child. Above was Latin, tothe effect that you were upon the lands of the Convent of Our Lady inEgypt. Garin knew that, and that two miles down the stream the nunswould be now at the noon office. He wondered if, yesterday or to-day,they had sent Jael the herd back to her own. But, on the surface, atleast, of consciousness there floated no long thought of that matter.His mood was one of half-melancholy, half-exaltation, all threaded withthe warm wonder of making verses.
The nature of the land changed here. For stone and dwarfed growth therebegan a richer soil and nobler trees. The latter made, all along thewater’s edge, a narrow grove, with here and there a fairy opening andlawn of fine grass. Garin, having scraped away the lichen, looked atthe sun, which was now past the meridian, and thought that he wouldretrace his steps.
Before him, out of a covert a little way down the stream, a nightingalesang suddenly. Garin listened, and it might be his mood of to-daythat made him think that never before had he heard any bird sing sosweetly. It carolled on, rich and deep, and the young man went towardit. The ribbon of wood was dark and sweet; the bird sang like a soulimprisoned. When it silenced itself Garin still stood looking up intoits tree. Presently it flew from that bower and, crossing one of theelfin lawns, lost itself in the farther trees. Garin went on to thisgrove and it sang for him again. When it ceased he did not go back tothe boundary stone. This country pleased him and he thought, “I will goon and see how Our Lady in Egypt looks from this side.”
He followed the stream a mile and more. It was slipping
now beneathmighty trees. Their arching boughs made a roof; it was like walkingin cloisters. Between the pillars, inland, could be seen fields andvineyards and, at last, the convent’s self, with her olive trees behindher. Garin came now to thickly planted laurels, a grove within a grove.This he threaded, pushing aside the heavy leaves. The laurels endedsuddenly, standing close and trim, a high green wall. This followed acurving line and half enclosed a goodly space of turf, a shaven floorof emerald, laved by the little river and shaded by a plane, a poplar,and a cedar. The cedar stood close to the laurels and close to Garin,and beneath the cedar was placed a seat of stone carved like a greatchair. The spot was all chequered with light and shade, the air wassweet and fine, and the water sang as it passed. A fairer place fordreaming, for talk or sober merry-making, might not be found. Just nowit was as clean as fairyland of human occupancy.
Garin stepped from the laurel wall and sat in the stone seat. Itpleased him, this place! A sense of mystery gathered; he began todream, dream. All manner of coloured, gleaming thought-motes dancedover the threshold. The minutes passed.
Voices—women’s voices! Doubly a trespasser that he was, he was notwilling to be found here, reigning it from this seat over the sweep oflawn, the three trees, and the singing water. He rose, and stepped backinto the wall of laurel; then, being young and not incurious, waitedto see who it was that was coming. Lay sisters, perhaps, going fromvineyard to vineyard, or bringing clothes for the washing to the riverbank which here was rightly shelving. A gleam of grey garments betweenthe tree-trunks on the other side of the sylvan theatre seemed to provehim right; and indeed, in a moment, there did emerge three or four ofthese same lay sisters—strong, tanned, peasant women, roughly dressed,fit for outdoor labour. They carried on their heads huge osier baskets,but when they set these down, what was taken out was not linen orwoollen for washing, but rugs of Eastern weave and cushions of Easternmake.
Moreover, with or following the lay sisters came others—youngwomen—who were certainly not under convent rule. These seized the rugsand cushions and scattered them here and there, to advantage, over thegrass. They also set out dishes of fruit and Eastern comfits, and oneplaced a harp upon a square of gold silk which she spread beneath thepoplar. As they worked they chattered like magpies. They were dressedwell and fancifully but not richly; it was to be made out that theywere waiting-women of those who did dress richly. One cocked her ear,then raised her hand in a gesture to the others, whereupon all fellinto a demure silence. The lay sisters who had been stolid and stillthroughout, now drew off by a path which carried them to the vineyards.The waiting women cast a look around, then, with nods of satisfaction,picked up the empty baskets and found for them and for themselves somepleasant subordinate haven down by the stream, around the corner of thelawn.
The little lawn lay prepared, festive and a desert. Now was the momentwhen Garin might withdraw and the rustle of the laurel leaves tell notale where were no ears to hear. Truly, he thought once and twice ofdeparting, but then before the third thought which might have passedinto action, he caught, floating out of the opposite wood, delightfulvoices, laughter that rippled, and a sheen and flash of colours. Whathe forthwith determined to do was to please a little longer eye andear and sate curiosity. Then—and it need not be long—he would turn,and as noiselessly as an innocent green-and-brown serpent, slip awaytoward Castel-Noir. Given that he were discovered, plain truth-tellingwere not bad. Discovery might bring him rebuke not too scornful, with,perhaps, some laughter in her eye.
He laid his fishing-rod down, then knelt beside it upon the brownearth between the laurel stems. Couched so, he could look past thestone seat and the cedar trunk, and so observe what pageant mightappear. Had he had a wand in his hand he could have touched with itthis carven chair.
Out from the shadowy opposite grove came bright ladies, seven or eight.One was dressed in violet and one in rose, one in green and white, andone in daffodil, one in a bright medley, one in white sprigged withgold, and one in the colour of the sky. After the fashion of the timetheir hair hung in long braids from beneath fillet, or garland, orveil of gauze twisted turban-wise or floating loose. Their shoes wereof soft-coloured leather or of silk, their dress close-fitting andsweeping the grass. The wide and long mantles that were worn by bothsexes were not in evidence here—the day was warm and the convent,whence alone these fair ones could have come, at no distance. Garinwondered, and then he bethought himself that some great reigningcountess—perhaps some duchess or princess of Italy or Spain or furtheryet afield, perhaps some queen—might be travelling through the land,going from one court to another and by the way pausing to refreshherself in the house of Our Lady in Egypt. From Roche-de-Frêne, heknew, there was no such absence. The man-at-arms at the inn had saidthat the princesses Alazais and Audiart were seated with their ladiesto mark the jousts.... He lay and watched.
Of the bright apparitions two seemed of their full summer and prime,more stately, more authoritative than the others. The others were intheir spring and early spring. Light or dark, blonde or brunette, allhad beauty. Garin’s eyes darkened and softened, and the corners ofhis lips moved upward to see such an array, and the swimming movementwith which they dispersed themselves over the lawn, and to hear theirtrained voices. All seemed gay and laughing, and yet there presentlyappeared a discontent. The dame in daffodil took up the harp and sweptthe strings.
“Ah!” cried the one in azure, “for a true troubadour!”
“For even a jongleur!”
“Ah, what is life without men!”
“Ah, for the tourney!”
“Ah, if there were in sight but a monastery!”
The older two, who had an air of responsibility, rebuked the others.“Life is made up of to and fro, and sounds and silences! Be content! Itis but one month out of many.”
“As if months were as plentiful as cherries!”
“Ah, if I were a princess—”
“Hush!” warned the daffodil-clad, and began to play upon the harp.
Garin saw that another two were coming through the grove. One of thesewould be the noble lady for whom it was all planned. His imaginationwas active to-day with a deep, involuntary pulsing. Foix or Toulouse,or the greater domains to the north and west, or it might be Aragon,or it might be Italy? Or she might have come from Sicily, or likePrince Rudel’s far lady, from a kingdom or duchy carved from Paynimlands. Some Eastern touch in the scene made him dwell upon that.No matter whence now she came, she must have lived on a day in thelong, the outspread, the curving and sunny lands of this very south.The tongue of her ladies proved that. Wedded she might have been tosome great prince and borne away, and now returned for a time anda pilgrimage to the land of birth.... All this and more was of hisimaging. He lay upon the dark earth and parted the laurel leaves thathe might see more clearly.
The two were now plain among the trees. One was a blonde of muchbeauty, dressed in grey cendal and carrying a book which seemed tobelong to her companion. The latter was a little in advance, and shecame on without speaking, and so stepped from the wood upon the lawn.The seven already arrived beneath the plane, the poplar, and the cedarmade a formal movement of courtesy, then gathered like a rainbow aboutthe one of first importance. Plaintiveness and discontent retired fromevidence, court habit came up paramount. You might have thought thatthese were dryads or Dian’s nymphs, and no other spot than this woodtheir loved home! There came to Garin’s ear a ripple of sweet voices,but it seemed that their lady for whom had been spread the feastwas either silent or seldom-and low-speaking. She stood beneath theshimmering, tremulous poplar, a slender shape of fair height. She wasdressed in some fine weave of dark blue with a girdle of samite studdedwith gems. The ends of this girdle hung to her silken shoe. Her hair,black and long, was braided with gems. She seemed young, young as theyoungest there. “Seemed” is used, because Garin saw not her face. Shewore, as did several of the others, a veil of Eastern device, but herswas long and wide and threaded with gold and silver, and so worn thatit overhun
g and shielded every feature.
Attention was called to the placing of the rugs, the cushions, theharp, the dishes of fruit and comfits. The one for whom they had waitednodded her head and seemed to approve. She was not garrulous; thereseemed to breathe about her, he knew not what, a tone of difference.All now moved to the water-edge, and for a time loitered there upon thegreen and rushy bank. One raised her voice and sang,—
“Green are the boughs when lovers meet, Grey when they part—”
The bevy turned and came up the sloping lawn to the three trees andthe cushions upon the grass. The shape in dark blue with the Easternveil moved beyond them to the cedar and the stone chair. Here she tookher seat, and when the others would have gathered about her waved themback with a slender, long-fingered hand. One brought to her a basket ofgrapes. She chose a purple cluster resting upon a web of vine leavesbut laid it untouched beside her upon the wide seat. There was a spacebetween her and the dark enshadowing cedar and those others restingnow upon the cushions. She sat quite still, a hand upon each arm ofthe chair, the deep blue of her dress flowing about her, the gems ofthe girdle ends making a sombre gleaming. The veil hid all her facefrom Garin, lying so near. He felt in her something solitary, somethingpowerful, yet felt that she was young, young—She sat with her gazestraight before her upon the blue crests that showed afar. She sat asstill as though an enchanter had bid her stay. And between her and theyoung man crouching in the laurels streamed no wide ocean of the autumnair, of the subtle ether. The moments passed, slow, plangent, like thenotes of the harp that was being played....
What happened to one or both? Did one only feel it, the one that knewthere were two—or did, in some degree, the other also, and thinkit was a day-dream? All that Garin knew, kneeling there, was thatsomething touched him, entered him. It came across that space, or itcame from some background and space not perceived. It was measureless,or it seemed to him without measure. It was clothed in marvel; it wasfulness and redoubling, it was more life. It was as loud as thunder,and as still as the stillest inner whisper. It was so sweet that hewished to weep, and yet he wished too to leap and spring and exultaloud, to send his cry of possession to the skies. He felt akin to allthat his senses touched. But as for the form in the stone chair—he satwith her there, she knelt with him here, they were one body.... Witha swimming feeling, her being seemed to pass from his. He knelt here,Garin of the Black Castle, squire of Raimbaut the Six-fingered, and shesat there whose face he had not seen—a great dame, lady doubtless ofsome lord of a hundred barons each worthier than Raimbaut.
Garin gazed across the little space between, and now it was as thoughit were half the firmament. She sat like a figure among the stars,blue-robed, amid the deep blue, and the cloudy world was between them.She grew like to a goddess—like to the Unattainable Ideal, and hefelt no longer like a king, but like the acolyte that lights the lampand kneels as he places it. Now it was the Age for this to happen,and for one man to act as had acted that knight in the wood towardRoche-de-Frêne, and for another to do as now did Garin.
For now he wished no longer to play the spy, and he turned verycarefully and silently in the laurels and crept away. In all hismovements he was lithe and clean, and he made no sound that thebrooding young figure in the stone chair attended to. Presently,looking back, his eyes saw only the great height of the cedar, its darkhead against the blue heaven. The liquid, dropping notes of the harppursued him a little farther, but when he was forth from the laurelgrove they, too, passed upon the air. He was soon at the boundarycross of Our Lady in Egypt, and then upon the waste and stony land thatset toward the fief of Castel-Noir. Was it only this morning, thoughtGarin, that he had come this way? And the nightingale that sang so deepand full—it was not in the boughs above—it was singing now in his ownheart!