The Forest Lovers | Page 2

was a youth to whom life was a very pretty
thing; he could not afford to have tarnish on the glass; he must have
pleasant looks about him and a sweet air, or at least scope for the
making of them. Baron Malise blew like a miasma and cramped him
like a church-pew: then Adventure beaconed from far off, and his heart
leapt to greet the light. He left at dawn, and alone. Roy, his page, had
begged as hard as he dared for pillion or a donkey. He was his master's
only friend, but Prosper's temper needed no props. "Roy," said he,
"what I do I will do alone, nor will I imperil any man's bread. The
bread of my brother Malise may be a trifle over-salt to my taste, but to
you it is better than none at all. Season your tongue, Roy, enure it.
Drink water, dry your eyes, and forget me not."
He kissed him twice and went his way without any more farewells than
the boy's snivelling. He never looked behind at Starning demesne,
where he had been born and bred and might have followed his father to
church, nor sideways at the broad oaks, nor over to the well-tilled fields
on either side his road; but rather pricked forward at a nimble pace
which tuned to the running of his blood. The blood of a lad sings
sharpest in the early morning; the air tingles, the light thrills, all the

great day is to come. This lad therefore rode with a song towards the
West, following his own shadow, down the deep Starning lanes,
through the woods and pastures of Parrox, over the grassy spaces of the
Downs, topping the larks in thought, and shining beam for beam
against the new-risen sun. The time of his going-out was September of
the harvest: a fresh wet air was abroad. He looked at the thin blue of the
sky, he saw dew and gossamer lie heavy on the hedge-rows. All his
heart laughed. Prosper was merry.
Whither he should go, what find, how fare, he knew not at all.
Morgraunt was before him, and of Morgraunt all the country spoke in a
whisper. It as far, it was deep, it was dark as night, haunted with the
waving of perpetual woods; it lay between the mountains and the sea, a
mystery as inviolate as either. In it outlaws, men desperate and hungry,
ran wild. It was a den of thieves as well as of wolves. Men, young men
too, had ridden in, high-hearted, proud of their trappings, horses, curls,
and what not; none had ever seen them come out. They might be
roaming there yet, grown old with roaming, and gaunt with the
everlasting struggle to kill before they were killed: who could tell? Or
they might have struck upon the vein of savage life; they might go
roaring and loving and robbing with the beasts-- why not? Morgraunt
had swallowed them up; who could guess to what wild uses she turned
her thralls? That was a place, pardieu! Prosper, very certain that at
twenty-three it is a great thing to be hale and astride a horse, felt also
that to grow old without having given Morgraunt a chance of killing
you young would be an insipid performance. "As soon be a priest!" he
would cry, "or, by the Rood, one of those flat-polled monks kept there
by the Countess Isabel." Morgraunt then for Prosper, and the West;
beyond that--"One thing at a time," thought he, for he was a wise youth
in his way, and held to the legend round his arms. Seeing that south of
him he could now smell the sea, and beyond him lay Morgraunt, he
would look no further till Morgraunt lay below him appeased or
subjugate.
A tall and lean youth was Prosper le Gai, fair-haired and sanguine,
square-built and square-chinned. He smiled at you; you saw two capital
rows of white teeth, two humorous blue eyes; you would think, what a

sweet-tempered lad! So in the main he was; but you would find out that
he could be dangerous, and that (curiously) the more dangerous he was,
the sweeter his temper seemed to be. If you crossed him once, he would
stare; twice, he would laugh; three times, you would swear he was your
humble servant; but before you could cross him again he would have
knocked you down. The next moment he would give you a hand up,
and apologize; after that, so far as he was concerned, you might count
him your friend for life. The fact is, that he was one of those men who,
like kings, require a nominal fealty before they can love you with a
whole heart: it is a mere nothing. But somebody, they