Denise stood and watched these flames that waved and flickered5 yonder through the dusk where the smoke spread out between the hills into a kind of pearly haze7. It was so still under the boughs8 of the great beeches9 that the distant fire seemed strange and ghostly, burning without a sound. The little pool where Denise had filled her pitcher10 was not more silent, the pool fed by an invisible spring, and believed to be miraculous11 and holy.
Yet though those far flames were so silent, Denise could set a sound to them, a crackling roar that would be very real to those who looked on the thing as on a sacrifice. There would be many watchers on the hills that night, sullen12 and silent folk to whom that blaze would speak like a war cresset teased by the wind on some great lord’s tower. Peter of Savoy’s riders, those hired “spears” from over the sea, Gascons, Flemings, Bretons, were out to keep the King’s peace in the Rapes13 of Pevensey and of Hastings. Denise knew that private war had been let loose, for had she not heard from the priest of Goldspur, and from Aymery the manor14 lord, that many of the lesser15 gentry16 and the Cinque Port towns were calling for Earl Simon? The pot that had long been simmering, had boiled over of a sudden. And those who had scalded toes had only their own perversity17 to thank.
In such a fashion began the Barons’ war in many a quiet corner of the land. Lawyers might orate and scribble18, but when men quarrelled over a great issue, and the heart of a people was full of bitterness and discontent, the rush was towards the primitive19 ordeal20 of the sword. “God—and the King!”—“Earl Simon and the Charter!” These two rallying cries cut off brother from brother, and father from son. There had been years of verbiage21, oath breaking, famine, peculation22, and cynical23 corruption24 in high places. The law was no law, the King’s oath a byword in brothels and in taverns25. The great Father—even the Pope—had had both fists in the English money pots. Poitevins, Provençals, and Italians had scrambled27 together. The country was sick of it. Men who were in grim earnest hastened to get to blows.
As Denise, half hermitess, half saint, went back through the beech wood, the fire, like a great red brazier, still shone out on her, latticed by the black boughs, or hidden for a moment behind a tree bole. And though the wood was as still and solemn as a temple, it seemed full of a hushed and listening dread28, waiting for the wind that should come roaring through the tops of the trees. Unrest was upon the hills, and in the deeps of the valleys. Denise felt it as she might have felt the nearness of thunder on a sultry night in June.
But if no wind stirred in the wood that night, there were other sounds more human and more passionate29 than the voice of the wind. Denise had said her prayers in her cell when the dead leaves under the beech trees whispered with the moving of many feet. Indistinct figures went in and out among the tree boles, the muttering of voices mingling30 with the rustle31 of the leaves. A full moon had risen, and begun to throw long slants33 of light into the darkness of the wood, outlining the black branches, and splashing the trunks of the trees with silver. In and out, through the still moonlight and the shadows, came the moving figures whose feet filled the whole wood with the shiver of dead leaves.
They straggled along by twos and threes, some silent and morose34, others talking with the quick muttering intensity35 of men who have given and taken blows. A darker core moved along the woodland path in the midst of this scattered36 company. Men were carrying a litter of boughs piled upon the trunks of two young ash trees. The moonlight played intermittently38 upon the men about the litter, showing so many white faces, intent and silent, and a body that lay upon the bed of boughs with a shield covering its face.
A breadth of clear sky in the thick of the wood showed them that they were close on the glade39 where Denise of the Forest had her cell. The place was sacred and full of mystery to the woodlanders of those parts, and the scattered figures drew together under a tree where the path came out of the wood into the glade. Only the litter of boughs and the men with it went forward into the moonlight; the rest held aloof40 like dogs left by their master at the door of a church.
The men who carried the litter set it down outside the gate in the wattle fence that shut in Denise’s garden. There was some whispering, but the men’s voices were no longer harsh and angry. Grimbald, the parish priest, sent them back into the wood to wait. Two men remained beside the litter, one standing41 a little apart with a cloak wrapped round him, and a hood42 drawn43 forward over his face.
Grimbald, the priest from Goldspur village, opened the gate, and went up the path paved with rough, flat stones that led to the cell. Denise had heard the sound of voices, and the rustling44 of the dead leaves in the wood. Grimbald’s voice warned her that they were friends.
The door opened, under the broad black eaves of the hermitage. Denise stood there on the threshold, wearing a grey cloak that shone white in the light of the moon. Her hair clouded past her shoulders to her knees. It was miraculous hair, red as rust32 in the shade, but burning in the sunlight with a sheen of gold. Denise herself was miraculous, and this beech wood of hers was said to be full of many marvels45. People who came for holy water from her pool, or to be treated by her for sickness, swore that they had seen a moving radiance, like a marsh46 fire, in the wood, and heard the voices of angels and the murmur47 of their wings. Denise was famed for her powers of healing. She knew all the precious herbs, and the touch of her hands could bring a blessing48.
Grimbald told her the news.
“It is Waleran de Monceaux’s lad,” he said. “Come and see, Sanctissima, whether God will be merciful.”
“There is war with us—then?”
Grimbald spread his arms.
“Peter of Savoy sent out his free-lances from Pevensey. They were too strong for us. The lad was shot through the body when they drove us into the woods.”
“I saw a fire—about dusk.”
“Waleran’s hall—and outhouses! That was the end of it.”
He stood aside, and Denise went down the path, her bare feet making no sound upon the stones. Aymery, lord of the manor of Goldspur, knelt in the grass beside the litter holding the lad’s cold hands. Waleran still stood aloof, his face hidden under his hood. No one spoke50 to him. They left him alone, knowing his mood, and the manner of man that he was.
Denise went on her knees beside the litter, her two hands putting back the masses of her hair. Aymery lifted the shield from the lad’s face. The sleeve of his hauberk brushed against Denise’s cloak. She glanced round at him, and their eyes smiled faintly at one another.
“We brought the boy to you. The arrow drove right through him. You can feel the point under his tunic51.”
Denise laid a hand over the lad’s heart. There was not a flicker6 of movement there, but she could feel the arrow’s head standing out a hand’s breadth beyond the ribs52. The lad must have died very quickly.
“He is dead,” she said to the man at her side.
Aymery was staring at the boy’s face. He turned, and glanced meaningly at the figure that stood apart in silent isolation53.
“It is Waleran,” he said in a whisper, “he would not believe the worst.”
“Pray for the boy, Denise. What is death, but a miracle! And an hour ago——”
She spread her hands helplessly.
“Lord, death is beyond me; I am not blessed with so much power. Someone must tell him.”
“The pity of it!”
And she echoed him.
“The pity of it!”
A compassionate55 humility57 made her bow her head over the rough litter, for there was no place for the smaller remembrance of self in the conscious awe58 of her own helplessness. Denise had healed sick people, but she who could play the lady of healing, knew herself human in the presence of death.
“Tell him,” she said, “it is almost shame to me that you should have brought the boy here.”
Aymery covered the lad’s face again with the shield.
“Pray for Waleran,” he said.
“For the living rather than the dead.”
Aymery rose and joined Grimbald the priest, who was standing by the gate. Denise still knelt beside the litter, holding the dead boy’s hands. And if compassion56 could have given him life, compassion for that silent man who stood aloof, life might have flowed miraculously59 from Denise’s body, and spread like fire into the limbs of the dead.
Grimbald left Aymery, and crossed the grass to where Waleran stood, Waleran that sturdy man with the fierce red shock of hair. Waleran had been the first mesne lord in those parts to bristle60 his mane against Count Peter of Savoy. This hardihood had lost him his only child, and made a bonfire of his home, though he would not believe at first that the boy was dead.
Aymery of Goldspur turned again to Denise. He could see that she was praying, and his eyes, that were frosty with the cold anger of a strong man helpless in the face of death, flashed suddenly as he saw the moonlight touching61 Denise’s hair.
Grimbald had Waleran by the shoulders. They heard a short, sharp oath scatter37 the priest’s whisperings as a puff62 of wind scatters63 a handful of feathers.
“Dead!”
There was the sound of heavy breathing.
“Let me alone! Am I a fool of a girl?”
“Patience, brother.”
“Patience be cursed! What is the use of an idiot saint if an arrow between the ribs is too much for her?”
Denise let the boy’s hands fall; Aymery saw her bow her head, and heard her whisper words that he could not catch. Then Waleran came forward, swinging his arms as though to keep off Grimbald who towered beside him like a great ship. Waleran stopped at the foot of the litter, and stood staring at the shield that covered the dead boy’s face. Some impulse drove him to his knees, and he began to feel for the arrow, breathing heavily through set teeth.
Denise’s nearness seemed to come between him and the savage64 tenderness of a dog for its dead whelp. Her humility and her compassion were not tuned65 to the cry of nature.
“Get up,” he said. “This is my affair.”
He leant forward, and pushed her back with a rough thrust of the open hand. Aymery caught Denise, and drew her aside.
“Forgive——”
His arms lingered about her like the arms of a lover.
“Lord, I understand.”
“That arrow has stricken two hearts.”
Her eyes looked into Aymery’s as he let her go.
“God have pity,” she said.
Waleran had broken off the head of the arrow. He held it up in the moonlight, and his hood fell back from his face. The three who watched him saw his face contorted with laughter, though no sound came from the open mouth.
He ran the arrow’s head through his cloak, as a woman pins her tunic with a splinter of bone.
“Here is a keepsake,” he said. “Lord, but I shall cherish it! They have lit a candle for the boy, yonder. Some day I shall hang a bell on a rope, and ring him a passing.”
He scrambled up, swaggering, and shaking his shoulders. It was his way of carrying the burden that the night had laid on him. He shouted to the men, roughly, and they came out from the shadows of the trees.
When they had lifted the litter, Waleran jerked himself on to it, and putting the shield aside, sat fingering his boy’s face.
“A puff of wind, and the candle is out,” he said.
The litter swayed under his weight.
“Spill me, you fools, and I shall have something to say to you. Off with you. To-morrow we must put this poor pigeon under the grass.”
The men moved away, and Grimbald would have followed them, but Waleran ordered him back.
“Have I nothing better to do than to cut my own throat!” he said. “Shifts and cassocks are no good for me. The puppy is mine, by God! Let no one meddle66 between him and me.”
Grimbald followed them no farther, and heard the swish of their feet die away through the dead leaves into the darkness.
In an hour from their first coming the beech wood was silent and empty, and Denise’s cell lay with its dark thatch67 like an islet in the midst of a quiet mere68. Not a ripple69 of sound played over the surface of the night. Aymery and Grimbald had gone to warn their own people that death was abroad on the White Horse. And Denise, sitting on her bed, wakeful, and filled with a great pity for Waleran and the lad, felt that the stealthy glamour70 of the moonlight was cold and unreal. If her compassion followed Waleran, a feeling more deep and more mysterious followed Aymery under the boughs of the beeches. Yet this feeling of Denise’s was as miraculous as the moonlight which she thought so cold and mute.
The two men made their way through the wood by a broad green ride, and stood listening where the heathland began for any sound that might steal out of the vast silence of the night. Grimbald’s great head, with its gaunt, eagle face, the colour of smoked oak, had the full moon behind it for a halo. Aymery of Goldspur stood a little below him on the hillside, leaning on his sword. His thoughts were back among the trees about Denise’s glade, those towering trees whose boughs seemed hung with the stars.
Below them stretched wastes of whin and heather, hills black with forests, valleys full of moonlit mist. They could see the sea shining in the distance, a whole land beneath them, ghostly, strange, and still.
“It is all quiet yonder.”
“They have done enough for one night,” he said.
“To make us keep troth with the King!”
Both were silent for a moment. Grimbald spoke the thought that was uppermost in Aymery’s mind.
“It is no longer safe for the girl alone, yonder,” he said.
Aymery, that man with the iron mouth and the square chin, and eyes the colour of the winter sea, spread his shoulders as an archer73 spreads them before drawing a six-foot bow.
“I will see to it,” he said quietly. “Nothing must happen to Denise.”
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收听单词发音
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1
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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tawny
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| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
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upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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beeches
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| n.山毛榉( beech的名词复数 )；山毛榉木材 | |
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pitcher
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| n.(有嘴和柄的)大水罐；(棒球)投手 | |
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miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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rapes
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| n.芸苔( rape的名词复数 )；强奸罪；强奸案；肆意损坏v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的第三人称单数 )；强奸 | |
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14
manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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gentry
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| n.绅士阶级，上层阶级 | |
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perversity
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| n.任性；刚愎自用 | |
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scribble
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| v.潦草地书写，乱写，滥写；n.潦草的写法，潦草写成的东西，杂文 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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verbiage
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| n.冗词；冗长 | |
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peculation
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| n.侵吞公款[公物] | |
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cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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taverns
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| n.小旅馆，客栈，酒馆( tavern的名词复数 ) | |
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pro
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| n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者 | |
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scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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30
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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rust
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| n.锈；v.生锈；(脑子)衰退 | |
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slants
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| （使）倾斜，歪斜( slant的第三人称单数 )； 有倾向性地编写或报道 | |
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morose
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| adj.脾气坏的，不高兴的 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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scatter
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| vt.撒，驱散，散开；散布/播；vi.分散，消散 | |
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intermittently
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| adv.间歇地；断断续续 | |
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glade
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| n.林间空地，一片表面有草的沼泽低地 | |
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aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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45
marvels
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| n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 )；令人惊奇的事物（或事例）；不平凡的成果；成就v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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46
marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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49
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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50
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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51
tunic
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| n.束腰外衣 | |
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ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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53
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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54
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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compassionate
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| adj.有同情心的，表示同情的 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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bristle
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| v.（毛发）直立，气势汹汹，发怒；n.硬毛发 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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puff
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| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
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scatters
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| v.（使）散开， （使）分散，驱散( scatter的第三人称单数 )；撒 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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tuned
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| adj.调谐的，已调谐的v.调音( tune的过去式和过去分词 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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66
meddle
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| v.干预，干涉，插手 | |
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67
thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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68
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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69
ripple
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| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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70
glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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71
hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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72
watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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73
archer
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| n.射手，弓箭手 | |
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