since the fight at goldspur father grimbald had lain hidden in a saw-pit on one of the forest manors, the swineherd who had hidden him being also woodman and sawyer when his hogs were rooting amid the beech mast and the acorns. saw-dust with heather spread over it made none so miserable a bed, and the swineherd had fortified grimbald against wind, rain, and the inquisitiveness of enemies by covering the mouth of the pit with faggots. for a month grimbald had lain there, his shirt and cassock clotted to great wounds that no man dared to touch. at first a fever had taken him, and he had roared and stormed at night like some sturdy saint at grips with apollyon in a corner of hell. the swineherd had banked up the faggots to deaden the sound, praying god to abate father grimbald’s fever, for a dozen of gaillard’s men were camped that very night not two furlongs from the saw-pit. yet grimbald’s shouts had come rumbling out of the earth, “strike, strike, st. george!” “shine, brown bills, and beat the frenchmen into the sea!” and so strenuous and bellicose had the fever grown in him, that the swineherd, staking purgatory or peace on a pail of water, had lifted the faggots and doused grimbald to cool him. nor had any harm come of it, but rather good, for grimbald had grown less fiery, and fallen into a deep sleep.
about the time that dom silvius made his second pilgrimage to the beech wood above goldspur, grimbald was so well recovered of his wounds that he could sit up on his bed, and take his food with great relish. being also an industrious soul he made the swineherd throw him down billets of seasoned oak, a knife, and a hatchet, and set himself to carve heads of the saints for decorating the corbels of his little church. but either st. paul and st. simon were in an ill humour, or grimbald knew little of his craft, for the saints emerged pulling most villainous faces, sour, evil, and grotesque, with flat noses, and slits for eyes. so grimbald gave up his struggle with them, and heaved them up out of the pit to be burnt, and took to pointing and feathering arrows, for your woodlander was often his own fletcher.
the flesh prospering so well with him, and the end of his sojourn in the saw-pit seeming near, grimbald sent the swineherd for some of the goldspur folk. the very same evening the swineherd brought in the two men oswald and peter, both of them full to the brim with gossip, and ready to empty themselves at their spiritual father’s feet. grimbald sat on his bed in the pit, whittling a yew bough with his knife; oswald and peter squatted side by side on a faggot like a couple of solemn brown owls on a bough.
“father,” quoth oswald, “we have seen the devil in st. denise’s wood.”
peter chimed in to add to the impression.
“a black devil with a black horse that breathed fire and smoke.”
“and he came and went like the wind, father!”
even such honest men as these had imaginations wherewith to decorate an experience. grimbald’s face looked the colour of brown earth in the darkness of the pit, and to oswald and peter his eyeballs seemed to glare like two white pebbles at the bottom of a well.
“and you ran away from this devil?” he said. “yes, you ran, my sons, as fast as your legs could carry you. when shall i come by a christian who is not afraid to stand on his own feet, and to astonish us by making the devil run?”
though grimbald scoffed at them, the two men knew his methods. no one had anything to fear from grimbald so long as he looked him straight in the face and spoke the simple truth. but a liar or a fawner were likely to be thrashed, since grimbald’s chastening of souls was not wholly a matter of the tongue. he used his hands like a christian, and for the love of their flesh he did not spare them.
“assuredly, father, it was the devil we saw in the beech wood. night was just falling——”
“so! and he was very black was he? just as black as charcoal, and had two live coals for eyes?”
the good man’s grim irony drove neither oswald nor peter from his breastwork of conviction.
“we would take oath it was the devil, father.”
“oswald, oswald, you seem too familiar with the face of satan! you are too fond of the mead-horn, my man.”
the accused one accepted the charge meekly, knowing that it was true in the abstract, and that father grimbald knew it, for there had been an occasion of second baptism in a somewhat dirty ditch. but oswald was stolidly sure of his innocence on the night in question, nor had he as yet finished his confessions.
“i had no mead froth on my beard that day, father,” said he. “whether it was the devil or no we saw, we saw him with these eyes of ours. and he rode like a black north wind. but what is worse, father, we have never had sight of our saint since then.”
this was news that struck the irony out of grimbald’s mouth. he laid the yew bough aside on the heather, and became at once the demi-god, and the seer.
“what is that you are saying, man oswald? why are you troubled for denise?”
oswald looked like a wise dog that has come by kicks undeservedly, and is now to be commended.
“the door of the cell is always shut,” he said, “and never a word or a sound have we now from our lady. what is more, father, the stuff we took there two days ago was still by the wicket when one of the lads went up this morning.”
grimbald looked thoughtful.
“have you tried the door?” he asked.
“we durst not, thinking she might be in a vision or in prayer.”
“did you call to her?”
“not above asking her blessing, father, and telling of the food, and news of you. and it was four days ago that her voice answered us, but since then we have heard no sound.”
grimbald stood up slowly on the bed, propping himself with his arms against the walls of the pit.
“god helping me, i could sit a horse,” he said. “this must be looked to. oswald, my son, you had a fat pony. bring the beast here to-morrow, at dawn.”
“it shall be done, father.”
and they departed with his blessing, but grimbald was awake all that night, troubled lest any harm should have befallen denise.
“devil!” thought he. “oswald’s devil was one of good human kidney, or i have no sense of smell. satan need not heat himself with galloping in these parts. we have enough of him in the flesh.”
meanwhile at pevensey, aymery of goldspur had thrown the preaching part of himself aside, for that which gaillard had thrust under his door had stung the manhood in him, and left the poison of a great fear in his blood. the hair was denise’s hair; he could have sworn to that on the relics of the cross. how had they come by it, here in pevensey? was denise also a caged bird, and if not, what had happened in that beech wood, where the great trees built dark winding ways with the sweep of their mighty branches? aymery’s thoughts plunged in amid those trees, grimly and passionately, yet with the sheen of a woman’s hair luring him on like the mystic light from the holy grael. had evil befallen her because of him? what devil’s mockery might there be in the way the truth had been thrust into his ken! had gaillard any hand in it? and at the thought of gaillard, aymery twisted denise’s hair about his wrists, and yearned to feel those hands of his leaping at the gascon’s throat. god! what did it avail him to pretend that he feared for denise as he would have feared for a sister? she was the ripe earth to him, the dawn of dawns, the freshness of june woods after rain. he could cover his eyes no longer as to what was in his heart.
to break out into the world, to gallop a horse, to feel his muscles in their strength, that was the fever in him, the restless fever of a chained hawk beating his wings upon a perch. to be out of this hole in a stone tower, but how? he had no weapons, not so much as a piece of wood, or the rag of a linen sheet. they had taken his leather belt, but left him his shirt, tunic and shoes, and he laughed despite his grimness, for they might as well have left him naked. the man who brought him bread and water, filled a cracked flask for him, and took the water-pot away. and what a weapon that great earthen jar would have made, swung with the verve and sinew of a young man’s arm.
impatient with his own impotence, he stood at the narrow window looking seawards, drawing denise’s hair to and fro between his fingers as he would have drawn a swath of silk. a thought came to him, but at first he revolted from it as from a piece of sacrilege. his sturdy sense saved him, however, from being fooled by a shred of sentiment, and he twisted the strands of hair till he had wound them into a fine and silken cord. wrapping the ends about his wrists he looped the cord over his bent knee, tried the strength thereof, and smiled as though satisfied.
that evening there was the sound of a scuffle when the bread bringer drew back the bolts and pushed the heavy door open with his foot. the fellow had made light of his duty of late, for aymery had seemed quiet and tame, and still feeble after his wounds. he had marched in perfunctorily while aymery waited for him behind the door. there was the crash of the pitcher on the stones. the jailer’s knees gave under him; he sank sideways driving the door to with his weight.
aymery had no wish to end the poor devil’s life, so he left him there to get back breath and consciousness, after robbing him of his rough cloak and the knife he carried at his girdle. pushing the body aside, he swung the door to cautiously, and shot the bolts. almost instinctively he had wound denise’s hair about his wrist, and as he descended the winding stair he tossed the man’s cloak over his shoulders, turned up the hood, and kept the knife hidden but ready for any hazard. going down boldly he came out into the inner court, crossed it and reached the gate without being challenged by any of the men who loitered there.
aymery’s heels were itching for a gallop, but he held himself in hand, and walked on coolly, whistling through his teeth. he was under the gateway, through it, and crossing the bridge. someone called to him, but he laughed, crowed like a cock, and gave a wave of the hand.
the outer court with its great garden still lay before him, and he followed the paved track, praying god to keep all officious fools at a distance. fifty paces, twenty paces, ten paces, and he was at the outer gate, with the cypresses black behind him, and no betrayal as yet. the gate still stood open, though it was closed at sunset, and to aymery it was an arch of gold, a dark tunnel way with a tympanum cut from the evening sky.
he was half through it, when a lounger at the guard-room door lurched forward and caught him roughly by the cloak. it may have been a mere challenge to horse-play or the grip of a swift suspicion. aymery did not wait to decide the matter, but struck the man across the face with the knife, broke loose, and ran.
