The rest of the day had dragged slowly for her in the great beech wood, and she had found her thoughts wandering like children into a forbidden place. And Denise’s pride would start up after these same thoughts, seize on them in that little pleasaunce of dreams, drag them forth8, and bar the door. But there was a restless refrain in the mood of the day. The future seemed to fly open before her eyes like the magic gate of an enchanted9 garden, and she had a glimpse of paradise bathed in a mist of gold. Her thoughts were lured10 thither11, though her pride arose and drove them back.
With the dusk the spirit of unrest in her had deepened, and she had seemed to hear voices calling through the twilight12 of the woods. A thrush had perched on the topmost bough13 of a beech tree, and had uttered his desire, till the plaint had rung and rung into Denise’s heart. She had tossed her cloak at the bird, but none of the wild things feared her. And though the dusk fell, the song of the thrush seemed to thrill through the brown gloom.
Then night had come, and her cell had seemed small and stifling14, a vault15 for a live soul. She had thrown her grey cloak over her shoulders, and gone out into the beech wood, following the path that led towards Goldspur manor. Her brown eyes had more than human vision in the darkness, and she knew the wood ways even at night. It was as though she went out to watch over the place, and to dispel16 the shadow of dread17 that had settled over her own heart.
Denise had come to the end of the wood where the grassland18 swept down into the valley, when she stopped to listen, putting her hood19 back so that she might hear more clearly. Her face was towards Goldspur, and she merged20 her body into shadow of the trunk of a great tree. Abruptly21 out of the night came the sudden sound of men shouting, a vague clamour that rose and fell like the noise of a wind through trees. Dots of light shone out in the darkness, jerking to and fro like sparks blown hither and thither by the wind.
Denise stood there watching these dots of fire, afraid yet not afraid, striving to understand what was happening down there in the darkness. The shouting died down suddenly, to change into the scattered22 cries of men running to and fro. The torches tossed this way and that as though Gaillard’s fellows were hunting for fugitives23, calling to one another as they doubled upon their tracks. One of the torches came some little distance up the hill towards the beech wood and then halted, and remained motionless, flaming like the eye of a cyclops.
Denise had drawn24 back behind the tree, when she heard the sound of something moving in the darkness. A black shape passed momentarily between her and the torch burning below upon the hillside. Footsteps came near to her, the stumbling, irregular, running steps of a man hard put for breath, and perhaps—for blood. He passed close to her in the darkness, labouring for breath, and staggering from side to side. She could still see the moving shadow in the gloom, when it plunged25 like a man falling forward over a cliff, and she heard the sound of a body striking the crisp, dead leaves. Fear was beneath Denise’s feet for the moment. The man had fallen over the straggling root of a tree, and he was struggling to rise as Denise came up with him.
He had gained his feet, and stood rocking like a drunken man, trying to steady himself, and to win forward into the wood. But his legs would not carry him, and he went swaying as though struck on the chest, to stagger against Denise before she could avoid him. She felt the hard rings of his hauberk against her bosom26, and to save herself she held the man, throwing an arm about his body.
Caught thus from behind, he turned his head and looked at her, not questioning the strangeness of it, being dazed and almost dead with what had passed. His face was so close to hers that Denise could not but know him, even in the darkness.
“Aymery!”
Her voice set his dull brain thrilling.
“Denise!”
She kept her arm about him, for there was nothing else for her to do, and he would have fallen had she not held him. Aymery’s face was as white as linen27, and she could feel him quivering as he stood.
“Peter of Savoy’s men, we were caught yonder, Grimbald and I.”
He spoke28 in jerks, and tried to stand apart from her, as though one purpose had carried him so far, and as though the same purpose dominated him still.
“I want breath, that is all; they pressed us hard, there, at Goldspur; we broke through, and I ran for the hills. You must go, Denise, to-night; make for one of the coast towns. I can look to myself.”
He was at the end of his strength, however, for all his hardihood, with a sword cut through the shoulder, an arrow broken in his thigh29. Denise could see nothing of all this, but she knew that he could hardly stand. Moreover, he had struggled up into the wood to warn her, and her heart was the heart of a woman though the people called her a saint.
Looking back over her shoulder she saw tongues of yellow flame rising from Goldspur in the valley. Gaillard’s men had set fire to the place. The glow from it caught Aymery’s eyes as he stood, swaying at the knees, great sickness upon him, even his wrath30 feeble in him because of his wounds and his weariness.
“They have lit me a torch to travel by,” he said bitterly.
Denise was shading her eyes with her hand. She turned swiftly upon Aymery, for she had seen mounted men moving on the hillside between her, and the burning house.
“Lord,” she said simply, “yesterday, you were afraid for my sake; to-night, it is I who fear.”
Her eyes met his, and held them. The secret thoughts of the day no longer had their half treacherous31 significance. Denise had no thought of self in her that moment; the succouring hands hid the dull radiance of the heart beneath.
“To-night you must rest and sleep.”
He looked at her, as though trying to understand. The darkness began to deepen about him, and he felt cold, and numb32 to the core.
“I can crawl to cover. If you could bring me wine and food, and a little linen——”
She went close to him suddenly, and passed her hands over his hauberk. Touch told her the whole truth. She had no false shame to make her weak and careful.
“Wounds, and you would have hidden them!”
“A little blood, nothing more. Let me lie here, Denise.”
“To die,” and her voice had a deep, quiet passion in it; “lord, would you choose death for a piece of pride! Come, I know the ways.”
She put an arm about him, as though she was stronger than Aymery that night, and had the will and courage to do for him what he, in his full strength, would have done for her. Suffering and sickness sweep the small prides of life aside. The heart of a woman is as elemental, then, as the wind or the sea.
“Lean on me.”
He looked at her half rebelliously33, and then hung his head, and obeyed.
How great his need was became apparent before they had reached the clearing amid the beech trees. The man stumbled and faltered34 at every step, his head fell forward, he muttered incoherently, like one in the heat of a fever. Denise felt his weight bearing more heavily upon her arm. His head drooped35, and rested upon her shoulder. Before they reached the wattle gate of the garden the conscious life was out of him, and Denise, borne down like a vine-ladened sapling bent36 by the wind, let the man slip from her gently to the ground.
She stood irresolute37 a moment, then stooping and putting her two hands under his shoulders, she found that she could drag him slowly up the stone path into her cell. Once within she closed the door, and slipping off her cloak, she covered the slit38 of a window with it. There was a little earthen lamp in the cell, and Denise sought and found it in the darkness, also tinder, flint, and steel. Yet her hands shook so with her labour of bearing up under Aymery’s weight, that it was a minute or more before she had the lamp burning.
Setting it upon a stone sconce in the wall, she bent over Aymery, the light of the lamp making his face seem white as the face of the dead. Her brown eyes grew frightened at the sight of his wounds, and at the way he lay so quiet, and so still. But there was something greater than fear in Denise’s heart that night. In a corner of the cell were some rough boards covered with dry bracken, a coarse white sheet, and a coverlet of wool. Denise, putting her arms once more under the man’s body, half dragged and half lifted him to her own rough bed.
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1
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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ruffled
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| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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3
insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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scoffing
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| n. 嘲笑, 笑柄, 愚弄 v. 嘲笑, 嘲弄, 愚弄, 狼吞虎咽 | |
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5
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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6
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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7
manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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8
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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9
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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10
lured
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| 吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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11
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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12
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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13
bough
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| n.大树枝，主枝 | |
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stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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15
vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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16
dispel
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| vt.驱走，驱散，消除 | |
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17
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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18
grassland
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| n.牧场，草地，草原 | |
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19
hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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20
merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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22
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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23
fugitives
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| n.亡命者，逃命者( fugitive的名词复数 ) | |
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24
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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26
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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27
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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28
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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29
thigh
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| n.大腿；股骨 | |
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30
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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31
treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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32
numb
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| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
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33
rebelliously
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| adv.造反地，难以控制地 | |
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34
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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35
drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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36
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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37
irresolute
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| adj.无决断的，优柔寡断的，踌躇不定的 | |
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38
slit
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| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
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