Yeoland

“ As for the girl Yeoland, her joy was dim and flickering, mocked with constant prophecies of woe. The sounds of the siege haunted her perpetually. Shafts wailed and whistled, bombards roared, the walls reeked and cracked. A corner in the garden under the yew walk was the single nook left her open to the blue hope of heaven. The clamour of the leaguer woke a hundred echoes in her heart. Above all shone the man's strong face and passionate eyes; above the moon, the stars, the blue vault of day, death spread his sable wings, a cloud of gloom. ”

“ Fulviac thrust Yeoland forward up the slope. She understood the dramatic pause in an instant. Prosper's words had been like the orisons of birds preluding the dawn. She climbed the rocks, and stepped out at the kneeling monk's side.
The scene below dazed her for the moment. Many hundred faces were turned to her from the slopes at her feet. Innumerable eyes seemed fixed upon her with a mesmeric stare. She saw the whole cliff below her packed with men, every rock crowned with humanity, even the pine trees had their living burden. She saw swords waving like innumerable streaks of light ”

“ Before the tree burnt a fire, the draught sweeping upwards to fan the fringe of the green fir's gown. The man in the black harness took Yeoland to the seat under the tree. The boughs arched them like a canopy, and the wood fire gave a lusty heat in the gloaming.
A boy had run forward to unhelm the knight in the red cloak. Casque and sword lay on the bench of boughs and skins. The girl's glance framed for the first time the man's face. She surveyed him at her leisure under drooping lids, with a species of reticent interest that escaped boldness. ”

“ Yeoland started.
"You mean that I was wrong, then, and Mr. Endicott right? But don't you see how infernally greedy and unreasonable you are? Either that, or you continue to misunderstand me of set purpose. I gave you Honor for your own; yet you grudge me my place at Godleigh—at the footstool of the throne you share with her. What do I rob you of? Do the birds rob you when they eat the crumbs fallen from your table? I cannot remotely judge of your attitude."
"That is true; but every other man can. And it may be that many do." ”

“ We're all agreed that Yeoland's no hypocrite, whatever else he may be. Three days since I had speech with him, and your name was on his lips, and he rejoiced that you were his friend and Honor's husband. He does not dream that his return to life has either gladdened her or troubled you. He only sees her now pretty much as she was when he went away. He hasn't seen what you and I have—her sorrows. But, remember that Honor's real happiness rests with you—nobody else—and she knows it, and trusts to you for it. ”

“ At certain rare seasons in life, virgin light floods down into the heart, as from some oriel opened in heaven. The world stands under a grander scheme of chiaroscuro; men comprehend where they once scoffed. It was thus that Yeoland rose inspired, like a spiritual Venus from a sea of dreams. As molten glass is shaped speedily into fair and exquisite device, so the red wax of her heart had taken the impress of the hour. Gilderoy had stirred her like a blazoned page of romance.
Fulviac caught the girl's half glance at him; read in measure the meaning of her mood. ”

“ Granite crowned this elevation, and Teign turned about, like a silver ribbon, far beneath it.
Here the last of his line passed with Honor Endicott beside the river, and she mourned presently that the sole care of such noble woods rested with the Mother only, and that never a forester came to remove the dead or clear overgrowth of brake and thicket.
"Nature's so untidy," said Honor.
"She is," Yeoland admitted, "and she takes her own time, which seems long from our point of view. But then there's no pay-day for her, thank God. ”

“ I am named Fulviac, and I am an outlaw. Let that grant you satisfaction."
Yeoland glanced over the glade, walled in with the gloom of the woods, the stream foaming in the dusk, the armed men gathered about the further fire.
"And these?" she asked.
"Are mine."
"Outcasts also?"
"Say no hard things of them; they are folk whom the world has treated scurvily; therefore they are at feud with the world. The times are out of joint, tyrannous and heavy to bear. The nobles like millstones grind the poor into pulp, tread out the life from them, that the wine of pleasure may flow into gilded chalices. ”

“ Yeoland, with her poniard bare in her hand, stood and watched the tragic despair of that last fight, the struggling press of figures at the door--the few holding for a while a mob at bay. Her eyes followed the man in the black harness; she saw him before the tossing thicket of pikes and partisans; she saw his sword dealing out death in that Gehenna of blasphemy and blood.
A crash of shattered glass came unheard in the uproar. Men had planted ladders against the wall, and broken in by the oriel ”

“ Being an egotist, I choose the latter alternative."
Yeoland still evaded his eyes.
"And the woman loves you?"
"Not an atom; she only cares to be called the Lady of Gambrevault, Signoress of Avalon, the first dame in the south."
"Why do you tell me this?"
"Madame, have I need of more words? It is for this: that you might not picture me as I am not, or form any false conception of me. I have bared my moral skeleton to you. Perhaps you will never know what it costs a man at times to make his mind as glass to the woman he honours above the whole world." ”

“ The first crept round by the wainscotting, climbed the dais, seized Yeoland from behind, and held her fast.
As by instinct the poniard had been pointed at her own throat; the thing was twisted out of her hand, and tossed away along the floor. She struggled with the man in a kind of frenzy, but his brute strength was too stiff and stark for her. Even above the moil and din Flavian heard her cry to him, turned, sprang back, to be met by the men who had entered by the oriel. They hemmed him round and hewed at him, as he charged like a boar at bay. One, two were down. Swords rang on his harness. ”

“ Yeoland drew quite close to him, so that her skirt almost brushed his horse's flank. Fulviac's shadow fell athwart her. Only her face shone clear in the moonlight.
"I have ceased," she said, "to look upon life as a stretch of blue, a laughing dawn."
"Good."
"I have learnt that woe is the crown of years."
"Good again."
"That life is full of violence and wrong."
"A platitude. Yes. Life consists in learning platitudes."
"I am only one woman among thousands." ”

“ Parley with pity, and the white banner flutters on the keep.
Provided her emotions inspire her, a woman is strong; let her take to logic, and she is a rushlight wavering in the wind. In her red heart lies her divinity; her feet are of clay when reason rules her head.
The girl Yeoland took doubt to her chamber that night, a malicious sprite, sharp of wit and wild of eye. All the demons of discord were loosed in the silence of the night. Pandora's box stood open, and the hours were void of sleep; faces crowded the shadows, voices wailed in the gloom. ”

“ Fulviac had drawn back into the gloom of the gallery. He turned suddenly upon his heel, and his scabbard smote and rang against the rock.
"I take all the men I have," he said to her, "even the dotard Jaspar, for he knows the ways. Gregory and Adrian I leave on guard; they are tough gentlemen, and loyal. As for the lordling, he is well shackled."
Yeoland was still cowering in her chair with the mysterious passions of the moment.
"You will return?" she asked him.
"By nightfall, if we prosper; as we shall." ”

“ Conscious of the strong stimulus of personal heroism, he kept to the breach himself, and fought on through every assault with Modred's great axe swinging at his side. He owed his life more than once to those gorilla-like arms and that crescent of steel.
In the outer court, certain of the women folk with Yeoland dealt out wine and food, and tended the wounded. In the chapel, tapers glimmered, lighting the frescoes and the saints, the priest chanting at the altar, the women and children who knelt in the shadowy aisles praying for those who fought upon the walls. ”

“ This effort to ameliorate the lonely life of Honor by bringing Yeoland back into it was indeed laudable; but mere consciousness of right has no power to diminish the force of great blows or obliterate the awful meaning of a reverse in love. His future stretched desolate as the weather before Myles Stapledon, and these physical exercises under the storm, together with his attempts on behalf of others, might serve to postpone, but could not diminish by one pang, the personal misery in store for him. ”

“ When Christopher Yeoland received his sweetheart's letter at the hand of Tommy Bates, he read it thrice, then whistled a Dead March to himself for the space of half an hour.
He retired early with his tribulation, and spent a night absolutely devoid of sleep; but Nature yielded about daybreak, when usually he rose, and from that hour the man slumbered heavily until noon. Then, having regarded the ceiling for a considerable time, he found that Honor had receded to the background of his mind, while Myles Stapledon bulked large in the forefront of it. ”

“ The man in the red cloak was wondrous mute at first, an iron pillar of silence gleaming under the trees. The girl knew that he was watching her from behind his salade, for she caught often the white glimmer of his stare. He bulked largely in the descending gloom, a big man deep of chest, with shoulders like the broad ledges of some sea-washed rock. He was richly appointed both as to his armour and his trappings; to Yeoland his shield showed a blank face, and he carried no crest or token in his helmet. ”

“ Yeoland answered him quietly enough. She had set her will on the venture, was in a desperate mood, and could therefore scorn reason.
"Jaspar, my friend," she said, "I am in a wild humour, and ripe for the wild region. Peril pleases me. The unknown ever draweth the heart, making promise of greater, stranger things. What have I to lose? If you play the craven, I can go alone."
III
The avenues of the pine forest engulfed the harper and the lady. The myriad crowded trunks hemmed them with a stubborn and impassive gloom. A faint wind moved in the tree-tops. ”

“ Labouring folk moved through the long July twilight upon their own concerns, as private pleasure or business led them; and now, under the huge shadow of the Moor, there unfolded a little drama, slight enough, yet reflecting sensibly upon the future concerns of those who played in the scene. Christopher Yeoland, his mind quite full of Honor, overtook Sally Cramphorn in the valley, and being upon friendly terms with all the countryside, marched awhile beside her. He allowed no social differences at any time to obtain between him and a pretty face. ”

“ He dinned this assurance upon his own mind; but his heart remained dead, even before such a determination, and the cloud by no means lifted itself from off him. He presented the somewhat uncommon spectacle of a man trying to deceive himself and failing. His natural instincts of justice and probity thrust Christopher Yeoland again and again into his thoughts. He began three letters to the traveller on three separate occasions, but these efforts ended in fire, and the letter that was written and posted went to Bear Down. ”

“ Secondly, I will rebuild the tower, refit it royally, attach to it cottars and borderers from mine own lands. Lastly, mass shall be said and tapers burnt for your kinsfolk in every church in the south. I myself will do such penance as the Lord Bishop shall ordain for my soul."
The man was hotly in earnest over the vow--red as a ruby set in the sun. Yeoland looked down upon him with the glimmer of a smile upon her lips as he kissed the cross of the sword.
"You seem honest," she said to him.
"Madame, on this sword I swear it. It is hard to believe any good of an enemy. ”

“ But the news of the thunderbolt in Godleigh Park by no means tended to make Honor more content, and she returned home in tribulation despite the sunshine. After breakfast she went out alone, and Christopher, true to his promise, made a wide perambulation on horseback; while others, who had planned no special pleasure for their holiday, also assisted the search, some upon ponies and some upon foot. Yet no news had reached Bear Down by midday, and then Christopher Yeoland arrived, after a ride of twenty miles. ”

“ Like a pale pearl set in ebony, Yeoland the Saint had been established again in her bower of stone. The room was even as she had left it that misty summer dawn. Prayer-desk, lute, and crucifix were there, mute relics of a passionate past. How much had befallen her in those packed weeks of peril; how great a guerdon of woe had been lavished on her heart! Love was as the last streak of gold in a fading west; only the stars recalled the unwavering lamps of heaven.
The cliff-room and its relics tortured her very soul. ”

“ There was the dull, rhythmic onrush of many thousand feet, the hurrying, multitudinous tramp of men marching. Armour gleamed through the glooms; casque and bassinet, salade and cap of steel flowed on and on as phosphorescent ripples on a subterranean stream. Pike, glaive, gisarme shone like stubble over the forest slopes. The sullen tramp of men, the clashing clamour of arms, the blaring of a solitary clarion, such were songs of the great pine forest on that July morning.
Yeoland, rebel lady and saint, on a great white horse, rode at Fulviac's side in full armour, save for her helmet. ”