Part 75 (1/2)
”For that sleep doth fly my wooing, holy mother.”
”Then fain would I share thy vigil awhile.”
Forthwith Beltane brought her a stool, rough and rudely fas.h.i.+oned, and while she sat, he lay beside her in the firelight; and thus, despite her hood and wimple, he saw her face was of a calm and n.o.ble beauty, smooth and unwrinkled despite the silver hair that peeped forth of her loosened hood. A while they sat thus, nothing speaking, he viewing her, she gazing ever on the fire; at last:
”Thou'rt young, messire,” she said wistfully, ”yet in thy life hath been much of strife, I've heard. Thou hast known much of hards.h.i.+p, my son, and sorrow methinks?”
”So do I live for that fair day when Peace shall come again, n.o.ble lady.”
”Full oft have I heard tell of thee, my son, strange tales and marvellous. Some do liken thee to a demon joying in slaughter, and some to an archangel bearing the sword of G.o.d.”
”And how think you, reverend mother?”
”I think of thee as a man, my son. I have heard thee named 'outlaw' and 'lawless ravener,' and some do call thee 'Beltane the Smith.' Now wherefore smith?”
”For that smith was I bred, lady.”
”But thou'rt of n.o.ble blood, lord Beltane.”
”Yet knew I nought of it until I was man grown.”
”Thy youth--they tell me--hath been very lonely, my son--and desolate.”
”Not desolate, for in my loneliness was the hermit Ambrose who taught me many things and most of all, how to love him. So lived I in the greenwood, happy and content, until on a day this saintly Ambrose told me a woeful tale--so did I know this humble hermit for the n.o.ble Duke, my father.”
”Thy father! The Duke! A hermit! Told he of--all his sorrows, my son?”
”All, reverend mother, and thereafter bade me beware the falsity of women.”
The pale cheek of the Abbess grew suddenly suffused, the slim hand clenched rigid upon the crucifix at her bosom, but she stirred not nor lifted her sad gaze from the fire.
”Liveth thy father yet, my son?”
”'Tis so I pray G.o.d, lady.”
”And--thy mother?”
”'Tis so I've heard.”
”Pray you not for--for her also?”
”I never knew my mother, lady.”
”Alas! poor lonely mother! So doth she need thy prayers the more. Ah, think you she hath not perchance yearned with breaking heart for her babe? To have kissed him into rosy slumber! To have cherished his boyish hurts and sorrows! To have gloried in his youthful might and manhood! O sure there is no sorrow like the loneliness of desolate motherhood. Would'st seek this unknown mother, lord Beltane?”
”Truly there be times when I do yearn to find her--and there be times when I do fear--”
”Fear, my lord?”