In the forest there was an old stone quarry1, and in the wall thereof some hermit2 of long ago had cut himself a little chamber3; but the hermit had died in the time of the Barons’ war, and the quarry was full of briers and brambles, broom and bracken. A tall beech4 wood shut it on every side, so that the place was like a pit into which sunlight fell only at noon and when the sun was high in summer.
In the doorway5 of this hermit’s cell Fulk of the Forest sat on a truss of dead bracken, and stared moodily6 at the beech trees. His hands and feet were free enough, but the sides of the quarry went up like a castle wall, and Guy the Stallion and twenty men lay night and day among the bushes that half closed the entry. At night a large fire was lit, and he could hear those who kept guard laughing and singing, and telling lewd7 tales.
This royal falcon8, mewed up and fed upon dainties, was in no mood to be patient. He thought of the “fence” month that was so near, of the deer harried9 and hunted by boors10 and thieves, of the hinds11, big with fawn12, driven hither and thither13. The personal part of the adventure balked14 his wit; he could read no meaning into it, nothing perhaps save the whim15 of a woman. As for Isoult, he felt no gratitude16 towards her, but brooded like a Samson shorn of his hair. He was tempted17 to believe that she had used her woman’s wiles18 to steal his sword away; that she was playing off a jest on him, and that some day soon he would catch its meaning.
As he stared at the young beech leaves spreading in bright green glooms above the mouse-coloured trunks, he saw a figure appear in one of the woodland aisles19, a figure that was all green and blue. He knew Isoult instantly by the way she walked, and the nearer she came the keener grew his anger against her. If she had but left well alone he would have driven the boors like sheep out of the White Lodge20. He had been a fool to let her trick him and take away his sword.
Guy’s men started up and louted to her, and Fulk saw her wave them back into the beech wood. As she entered the quarry he saw that she had his sword buckled21 to her under her green cloak, the leather belt clasping the sky-blue cloth of her cote-hardie She picked her way at her leisure through the brambles, looking at Fulk with eyes that were full of baffling lights and shadows.
Just without the cell’s mouth a broom bush was in bloom, its yellow spikes22 very brilliant against the green of the young beech leaves. There was a rough stone seat at the entry under the broom bush, and Isoult sat herself down there within a bow’s length of the man on the bracken.
Fulk kept his eyes from her, and stared at the beech wood as though no woman with black hair and red lips sat there under the yellow broom.
“Messire Fulk, am I to laugh or to weep?”
He seemed in no mind to answer her, and his shut mouth and haughty23 nostrils24 made her smile to herself with an air of intimate and adventurous25 mystery.
“I am to snivel then, and ask your pardon because I saved you from having your neck put on a chopping-block? And men are said to be grateful!”
He answered her, without turning his head.
“This is a fool’s business. I can make nothing of it, save that I was a fool to give up my sword.”
“You think that?”
“I have said so.”
“Then I made you act like a fool?”
“So it seems. For the rest, I can see no sense in anything. And if it is a jest it is the dullest one I ever heard of.”
She regarded him with intent and curious eyes, and, unbuckling the sword, laid it across her knees.
“See, here lies your sword. Stretch out your hand and take it, and I’ll neither stir nor cry out.”
For the first time since she had come to sit under the yellow broom Fulk looked straight into her face.
“More tricks!”
“Fulk of the Forest, I play fair. Take your sword and rush out against these fellows yonder. But, before your hawk’s pride flies in the face of Fate, listen.”
He did not move, but kept his eyes on hers.
“Well?”
“I offer you this sword of yours to prove that you do not know the temper of Isoult. Take the sword, play the madman if it pleases you; but I warn you it will make you look the greater fool. Those fellows yonder have had their orders, and each man has his bow. I have heard the orders that were given them, to keep clear, and shoot you through those long legs of yours so that you could neither run nor fight.”
She took the sword by the scabbard and held the hilt towards him.
“Choose.”
“A fool’s business. I can make nothing of it, save that these hedgers and ditchers and horse-thieves are the lords of the forest. Why am I so marked a stag?”
“Because you are—what you are.”
“More words.”
“Listen to me, Fulk Ferrers. Have you been on a wild hill in the thick of a thunderstorm, when the sky is like the lid of a black hell and the lightning stabs the earth here, there, and everywhere? Have you not felt like a hare in the grass, a little thing of no account, a wisp of straw in the wind? But perhaps Messire Fulk Ferrers is too stiffnecked and proud to listen while the doom29 vault30 cracks over his head!”
Her eyes were intensely black for the moment, her face the face of a witch. Fulk sat rigid31, as though he listened to the sound of elf’s horns in the forest.
“True; I have felt it,” he said.
Her hand dropped to her knee.
“Messire Fulk, you and I are but children on the edge of a strange, storm-swept country. We cannot help ourselves; we are but little people stumbling over the heather. You ask for the why and the wherefore, but it is not for me to answer the riddle32 for you. What am I but a storm bird blown by wild winds from over the sea? I tell you there is great wrath33 and dread34 and violence afoot. You are here because the chance has seized on you as a red shrike seizes a beetle35 for its larder36.”
Her face was a new world to him, intense and white, the red lips uttering words that made him think of the moan of a wind through winter trees, or the clang of swords in a charge of horsemen upon some sunset heath. His manhood bridled37, and reared like a startled horse. This voice of hers had reached some primitive38 instinct in him. His mistrust passed of a sudden and gave place to wonder.
“Strange words!”
Her eyes flashed out at him.
“You may go one way—I another. Someone will speak more plainly before many days have gone. Watch—consider. I know not how you may regard it—as a light adventure, a glorious treason. Do not mistrust me. I charge you, do not mistrust me!”
“There is the beech wood yonder, and out of it will come a dragon, and I shall have no sword!”
“No sword could help you.”
His stare was long and shrewd.
“It may be that Isoult of the Rose will ride on the dragon’s back!”
“If so, I shall be the master,” she said, looking at his hands.
Betimes she left him, and whither she went he knew not, save that she passed away into the beech wood, carrying his sword.
The next morning she came again, and her mood was full of laughter and of the joy of living. She had broken off a white may bough40 and carried it on her shoulder, and as she came through the woods Fulk heard her singing.
He would not suffer himself to believe that he had looked for her coming, or that her red mouth and her mysterious eyes had any message to move him. Yet that his manhood should leap in him when he saw her among the beech trees in her green cloak and blue cote-hardie, and with the white may bough over her shoulder, was a challenge to his pride. She brought some of the exultant41 rush of the year with her in the way she walked and the way she carried her head.
“I have come five miles.”
Life was at high noon in her, with a glow of the eyes and face. Fulk took some of the dry bracken and spread it upon the stone bench, and the casual haughtiness42 of the deed was a part of the morning’s comedy.
“I tell you, Fulk of the Forest, it is good to live. Run through the names of all the wines—malmsey, ypocrasse, basturde, clove43, pyment, muscabell. They are nothing to the wind and the sun on the heath.”
“Whence have you come?”
“That would be telling! Lying awake under the stars in Gascony and listening to the aspens chattering45! Messire Fulk, change with me; take my body and give me yours.”
“No, no; to take my arms and mount my horse on a May morning and gallop47 after adventures. To fight and break spears, and drink with my comrade in arms; to make love to women! Oh! the brave world, the valour and fun, the cry of the trumpets48, the snow and the winter sunsets! The wind on the heath has blown itself into my blood!”
Fulk looked at her curiously49. She was like no woman of his imaginings—no soft, sleek50, sly thing to be kissed for a month and then left to her needle and her prayer desk.
“If I changed with you,” he said, “I promise you that you would love the forest and the red deer, and the heath in bloom, and the laugh of the woodpecker, and the smell of the fern.”
“Ah, I promise you. The rich earth, and the red sap of our life. The great woods, the rivers that go down to the sea, the armed hosts in their battle harness, the strength and the valour, the galloping51 horses, the scorn of treachery, the eyes that look straight.”
He nodded towards the mouth of the quarry.
“There are eyes over yonder that look round corners and through bushes. The red beard is watching us, his head all swaddled up so that he looks like an old woman in a wimple.”
“That fool! He must have his tongue and his nose in everything! I can play with such bumblebees.”
She stood up and called the swashbuckler.
“Guy, hallo there—friend Guy!”
The Stallion came out from behind a holly52 bush, carrying his sword on his shoulder, the red twists of his beard ferocious53 as ever.
“Bring me Blanche’s lute54. I saw her over yonder as I came through the wood; and for my touching55 of her strings56 she can boast of Isoult as her comrade.”
Guy saluted57 Isoult with his sword, and disappeared into the beech wood, where Blanche was sitting in a shelter of boughs58 under a tree, mending a hole in her hose, one bare foot thrust out, her hair bundled up anyhow in a torn net. Her lute lay in a red bag beside her, but as to lending it to Isoult that was another matter. Guy had but to grab at the thing for her to scratch at his face and start screaming like a jay.
Isoult laughed.
“Between them they will break the strings, yet I shall get the lute.”
The squabble was soon over, Big Blanche’s voice oozing59 away into a futile60 whimpering that was smothered61 by the big oaths and blasphemies62 of her man. She had wriggled63 away and was cowering64 against the tree trunk in order to escape from a foot that was none too delicate in the use of its big toe.
“You sing, you big slug! You have a voice like the bung-hole of a barrel!”
He marched off, and coming to Isoult, presented the lute to her with a fine obeisance65, his sword cocked over his shoulder. One red eye looked slantwise at Fulk of the Forest.
“Madame Isoult, sing, and we shall forget to be hungry.”
“Or to quarrel—or boast!”
She took the lute to her bosom66, and struck the strings, waiting for Guy the Stallion to take himself off.
“What shall I sing, good comrade?”
“Just what comes to the bird’s throat.”
And so she sang to him of Ipomedon, and Gingamor, and the Romaunt of the Rose, and of strange forests and haunted meres67, and of the banners of kings red as the sunset. Fulk’s heart went out to her because of her singing, and all his mistrust of her melted like wax.
“Isoult, who and what are you? For some day I needs must know.”
“Good comrade, I am but a bird from over the sea, and yet I have no ring on my foot.”
“I marvel——”
“That I should sing?”
“No. That you should fly with these jays and stormcocks.”
“Why should I tell you what no man in the land knows?”
“Why, indeed?” he echoed her.
“We are two riddles70, you and I,” she said, “to be guessed, some time or never. But whether we shall guess each other, God and our need may show.”
Meanwhile, Guy the Stallion lay flat on his belly71 behind a bush, gnawing72 grass, and watching them with hungry eyes. The beast in him desired Isoult and hated the man beside her. And from a little distance Big Blanche watched her man, her round, white face sullen73, and glum74, and jealous.
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收听单词发音
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1
quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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2
hermit
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| n.隐士，修道者；隐居 | |
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3
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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moodily
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| adv.喜怒无常地；情绪多变地；心情不稳地；易生气地 | |
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7
lewd
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| adj.淫荡的 | |
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falcon
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| n.隼，猎鹰 | |
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harried
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| v.使苦恼( harry的过去式和过去分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
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boors
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| n.农民( boor的名词复数 )；乡下佬；没礼貌的人；粗野的人 | |
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hinds
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| n.（常指动物腿）后面的( hind的名词复数 )；在后的；（通常与can或could连用）唠叨不停；滔滔不绝 | |
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fawn
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| n.未满周岁的小鹿；v.巴结，奉承 | |
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13
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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14
balked
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| v.畏缩不前，犹豫( balk的过去式和过去分词 )；（指马）不肯跑 | |
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15
whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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16
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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18
wiles
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| n.（旨在欺骗或吸引人的）诡计，花招；欺骗，欺诈( wile的名词复数 ) | |
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19
aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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21
buckled
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| a. 有带扣的 | |
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22
spikes
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| n.穗( spike的名词复数 )；跑鞋；（防滑）鞋钉；尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 )；偷偷地给某人的饮料加入（更多）酒精（ 或药物）；把尖状物钉入；打乱某人的计划 | |
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23
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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24
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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25
adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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26
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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27
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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28
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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29
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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30
vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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31
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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32
riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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33
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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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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35
beetle
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| n.甲虫，近视眼的人 | |
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larder
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| n.食物贮藏室，食品橱 | |
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37
bridled
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| 给…套龙头( bridle的过去式和过去分词 )； 控制； 昂首表示轻蔑（或怨忿等）； 动怒，生气 | |
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38
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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40
bough
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| n.大树枝，主枝 | |
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41
exultant
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| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
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42
haughtiness
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| n.傲慢；傲气 | |
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43
clove
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| n.丁香味 | |
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44
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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45
chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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46
braggart
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| n.吹牛者；adj.吹牛的，自夸的 | |
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47
gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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48
trumpets
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| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
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49
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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50
sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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51
galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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52
holly
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| n.[植]冬青属灌木 | |
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53
ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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54
lute
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| n.琵琶，鲁特琴 | |
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55
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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56
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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57
saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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58
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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59
oozing
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| v.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出( ooze的现在分词 )；使（液体）缓缓流出；（浓液）渗出，慢慢流出 | |
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60
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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61
smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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62
blasphemies
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| n.对上帝的亵渎，亵渎的言词[行为]( blasphemy的名词复数 )；侮慢的言词（或行为） | |
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63
wriggled
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的过去式和过去分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等） | |
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64
cowering
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| v.畏缩，抖缩( cower的现在分词 ) | |
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65
obeisance
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| n.鞠躬，敬礼 | |
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66
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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67
meres
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| abbr.matrix of environmental residuals for energy systems 能源系统环境残留矩阵 | |
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68
fathom
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| v.领悟，彻底了解 | |
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69
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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70
riddles
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| n.谜（语）( riddle的名词复数 )；猜不透的难题，难解之谜 | |
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71
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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gnawing
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| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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73
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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glum
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| adj.闷闷不乐的，阴郁的 | |
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