Warwick Deeping

“ For Bertrand that season of the world’s awakening had been a season of storm, of weary nights and troubled dawns. He had slain his own self, to find his manhood reincarnated in the second life that had risen for him like a gold cloud out of the east. He was as a man who had much to remember, and much more to foreshadow. The woods and moors had a sudden awe for him, an awe that played like sacred fire upon the solemn summits of the hills.
As a man’s life is, so are his desires. ”

“ The truest courage is that which meets fate in the mists of twilight, and passes the valley of shadows with set mouth and dogged will. It is easy to be brave when trumpets scream and the flush of fame burns upon the clouds. To defeat defeat, alone, and with the bitterness of failure in the heart—then is it that the iron in the man must prove its temper. As yet Bertrand had not learned the highest courage. He was as a petulant boy who cries “Shame! Shame!” when the world baffles his first venture. ”

“ The din of their fighting had wakened Tinteniac, and he had dragged himself from the straw to join Tiphaïne at the window. They stood shoulder to shoulder, silent, and half awed by the fury of these two men, who neither desired nor craved for mercy. Tinteniac had seen such battles before, but to the woman there was something horrible and repulsive in its animal frenzy, a reversion to the brutal past, when the lusts of man made him an ape or a bull. She shuddered at Croquart’s dangling hand, and at the mad biting of his breath as he lashed at Bertrand with his sword. ”

“ Yet all the gentry knew that Olivier de Manny stood in the gallery making love to Yolande of Vitré. He alone knew the secret of the borrowed arms, and would confess nothing, even to Yolande when she smiled at him.
Bertrand had broken two spears. His heart was beating like a bell, and he was drunk with delight, yet very grim for all his glory. Again the trumpets were screaming and another falcon ready to fly in the face of the young eagle of the Breton moors. Bertrand wheeled his horse into position, put forward his battered shield, set his teeth, and feutred his spear. ”

“ No man ever drifted into strength or dreamed into nobleness by lying on a bed with a wine-cup at his elbow. We gather life or lose it. God strikes no balance for us. We may labor blindly, but we must labor—to be men.
As for Bertrand, he had grown young and old in the same breath—young in that he had won the brave ardor of his youth again; old, because he had taken the temper of the world, and learned to behold the conquering good even in the darkness of disloyalty and shame. He had come to true manhood by throwing that same manhood bound and broken at the feet of honor. ”

“ Black water, mist-drenched grass, towering woodlands desolate under the blue! A melancholy that might have seemed beautiful had not the place been cursed with something more than sorrow! Such silence, such emptiness! The Black Death had supped in the Aspen Tower. That was why the place seemed terrible.
Many years had passed since the tournament at Rennes, and as for Tiphaïne of the May-bough—well, Bertrand would hardly have remembered her as she bent over the fire in the lord’s solar and stirred some concoction of herbs and wine that was steaming in a brazen pot. ”

“ She seemed to hear the whimpering of this poor wretch, caged like an animal awaiting the butcher’s knife. What though he was “a common thief,” a rogue, an outcast, her soul had found something on which to pour the divine dew that God gives to those who suffer. The purpose came to her as she wandered slowly over the fields. One man’s life should be spared that day; she would beg it of Dubois before the sword could spill more blood.
As for Bertrand, he had heard Tiphaïne’s voice, and sat shaking as with an ague, his eyes staring vacantly at the wattled wall of the hovel. ”

“ Of all this by-play Bertrand had a distant view as he followed Tiphaïne through the green mystery of May. What were the golden meads to him, the winding woodways wonderful with spring, the dawn song of the birds, the scent of the wild flowers rising like incense out of the grass? To Bertrand that silent and unseen journey towards Morlaix seemed like a pilgrimage for the humbling of his heart. He followed, watched, planned, yet felt himself forgotten, reading into every incident that passed a woman’s tenderness for a man whom he himself could easily have loved. ”

“ From amid the jumble of roofs, sharp-peaked, like waves in a choppy sea, Bertrand could hear the shouting of the soldiery who idled in the streets. In the east a full moon was rising, a huge buckler of burnished bronze, its light glimmering on the little river that wound about the town, and making the roofs and steeples white like glass. Between two houses Bertrand could get a glimpse of the market square and of the hostel where Croquart had his quarters. The fretted windows were red with torchlight, and Bertrand could see figures moving to and fro in the rooms within. ”

“ She loved Bertrand—loved him with the zeal of a wild thing for its mate. She loved him because he was stronger than other men, because his strength had made him her master. Many a night she had lain awake, smiling over some bold trick of his, the plunder he had taken, the devil-may-care courage dear to the heart of such a woman as Arletta. She had never thought that she was holding him back from nobler things, and that her hands were strangling the ambitions of his manhood. ”

“ The vision of yesterday shone ever before Bertrand’s mind, the vision of Stephen Raguenel’s face glowing with a reflected light, a light falling from Tiphaïne’s face, with its great eyes and splendid sheen of hair. Nor would Bertrand have grudged the old man this, or have reproached Tiphaïne for having a woman’s heart. Men look for piety in priests, patience in a philosopher, tenderness and loyalty in a daughter towards her sire. The true man desires to find a beautiful completeness in the creature of his heart’s creation. ”

“ Tiphaïne’s heart misgave her for Tinteniac, as she watched the man Tête Bois at work upon his master under the shadows of a great beech. The Fleming’s girth of chest and limb seemed almost monstrous when compared with Tinteniac’s Grecian stateliness. The one was like a Norman pillar, massive and ponderous, giving a sense of uncrushable strength; the other like a fluted shaft of a more decorative age, its lines the lines of well-balanced beauty, its power concealed by perfection of design. The faces of the men were as vividly in contrast as their bodies. ”

“ Bertrand loitered behind his men, slouching in the saddle and looking straight before him into the forest. The emotions in him were complex for the moment, so much so that they might have taken their temper from Broceliande itself. The rustling of leaves, for falling memories; the shrill piping of the wind, all human in its infinite anxiousness and dread. Humiliation and gloom were heavy on Bertrand’s soul. He had been shown his own likeness in the mirror of Tiphaïne’s honor, and the ugliness thereof had made him consider what manner of man he was. ”

“ She left the bed of heather, and Bertrand heard the rustle of her footsteps in the grass. He turned, looking like one who has been watching the sunrise and finding the woods dark and mist-fogged after the brightness of the broadening east.
Tiphaïne’s eyes had the strangeness of eyes that are half happy and half sad.
“And I have let you watch all night!”
He looked at her and smiled.
“It has seemed short enough.”
“Then Bertrand du Guesclin is never weary?”
“I had my own thoughts. With some thoughts—a man is never tired.”
The secrets of the heart escape in the uttering of a few simple words. ”

“ Had he not lost all the pride of life, that emulative madness that turns men into heroes? He was a thief, a bully, the lover of loose women, and for months he had been content to be nothing more. And yet the old youth cried in him at times, and a child’s face haunted him, half lost in a mist of shimmering gold. He remembered the pride he had taken in his armor, the nobleness he had striven for, the brave creed he had cherished. Great God, how he had changed since he had plucked Tiphaïne a white May-bough in the meadows at Motte Broon! ”