Part 8

"You have asked me many questions," she said, looking straightly at him from under level brows; "now answer some for me. Is it the manner of mortal man to make love in your fashion?"

Simon looked awkward and fumbled with his beard.

"There are many ways of making love," he confessed. "Some are more formal," he admitted, after a moment's pause.

The nymph looked thoughtful.

"Such would please me better," she said. She eyed Simon circumspectly, then questioned, suddenly, "Why do you carry that lantern?"

Simon unhooked it from his girdle and held it at arm's-length, a formidable piece of furniture for a traveller.

"There was some fellow of old time did the like for my reason--looking for an honest man or an honest woman."

The dryad smiled at memories.

"I have heard of that; it was a mad Athenian called Diogenes."

"I care not what his name was," said Simon, "but I like his humor and I follow his quest. Not that the lantern is of much use to me in the daytime, but it shows my good faith."

"Have you found no honest folk?" Argathona asked, sympathetically. Simon shook his red head.

"Never since I came to these regions of Greece," Simon protested. "There were honest folk in Rouen, or, at least, I used to think so. Alain, the armorer, he was an honest man. He made this blade," and Simon patted the stout sword at his side. "I never met with a better. But since I came to Corinth to serve the duke I have found no honest soul or body."

Argathona gave a little shiver.

"I am glad that I dwell here in the greenwood, and not with your clan."

Simon rambled on with his narrative.

"When I came to these parts I still had the bulk of a pretty little patrimony. Where is it now? Every light o' love in Corinth has filched her bit of it; every cozener with the dice has picked his share. While I was rich my friends fawned on me; when I fell poor they turned their backs, lads and lassies. I have written some rhymes on my misfortune."

He paused, hoping that the maid might ask to hear them, but as she did no such thing he resumed, plaintively:

"So now I trample this planet seeking an honest human."

"Do you hope to find such in Athens?" Argathona asked.

She was quite interested in this queer, russet-colored man, with his wild words and his wild wits--as interested as she would be if she came upon some new kind of fawn or unfamiliar moth in the forest. Simon grunted uncertainly.

"I have my doubts," he said, "though every great lord and every little lord in Attica will be there. But I do not go to Athens solely to that end. I hope to find service with the Duke of Athens, who loves, so they tell me, such stout fellows as I be."

He stretched his great arms apart as he spoke, in pride at their mighty muscles. Then, remembering how little their strength had availed him against the witchery of the nymph, he grinned a thought sheepishly. But Argathona was honestly admiring his force, and only pitying him for not being comely. They sat for a moment looking at each other, thinking their own thoughts. About them all was very still in the moonlight, silence only troubled by the wheeling of bats and the droning of insects. Suddenly from the distance came loud shouts, furious cries, and then the angry clash of steel on steel and the clattering of a horse's hoofs in furious flight.

THE MYSTIC ROSE

The young prince lay in the shadow while his horse cropped at the fresh grass, and he read the Romance of the Rose, and as he read it seemed as if he, too, lay there dreaming with the dreamer, and that all the amazing pageant of the tale moved before him as the figures on the woven arras of a great room move, stirred by the wind. For he, like the teller of the tale, seemed to wake from sleep on a May morning and to stray into the meadows to hearken to the matins of the birds. Like the dreamer, he wandered over flower-starred fields beside a river broader and shallower than the Seine till he came to the garden and the castle whose walls were adorned in gold and colors with the hideous images of Hate, Felony, Villany, Covetousness, Avarice, Envy, Sorrow, Eld, Hypocrisy, and Poverty; and it seemed to him that after he had sated his awed fancy with the study of those strange devices, he, too, sought if by any means he might get into the garden. Then in this waking sleep he found at last a small wicket, and he smote thereon, and the gate was opened to him by a damsel who told him that her name was Idleness, and that she was the friend of the master of the castle and garden, whose name was Mirth, and she gleefully bade him enter, and he obeyed and found himself straightway in so fair a garden that he deemed himself to have arrived at the earthly paradise. His dream spirit, following fast on the dainty heels of Idleness, came to where apple-faced Mirth and his jolly company, fair men and fair women, entertained themselves with song and dance.

But while he was with that genial congress and sharing in their sports, the God of Love came over the grass with Sweet-Looking by his side, and Sweet-Looking carried two bows, one crooked and knotty, the other even and comely, and two quivers, each holding five arrows, and the arrows in the quiver in the right hand were Beauty, Simplesse, Franchise, Company, and Fair-Semblance, and those in the left hand were the arrows of Pride, Villany, Shame, Wanhope, and New-Thought. Then the dreamer fled away from these presences, and as he went the God of Love dogged his footsteps with the fair bow and the fair arrow in his hand, and the dreamer came to that clear fountain where Narcissus drowned himself for self-love. In the waters of this fountain the dreamer beheld the reflection of a rose-bush all on fire with roses, and the desire of that rose-bush filled his heart so hotly that he would not have parted with one bud thereof, might he hope to gain so much, for the city of Paris or the city of Pavia. And while he hungered for the rose, the God of Love came up with him and pierced him with the five arrows of Beauty and Simplesse and Franchise and Company and Fair-Semblance, and with each wound he became more and more Love's servant and vassal, and then Love locked his heart with a golden key and left him with but one desire in that shut heart, the desire to obtain the noble rose.

And so in his dream the youth pursued his adventure till he came to where the rose-bush flourished and found it guarded by all manner of evil passions, who grinned defiance at him and knotted their gnarled hands to make a barrier to hold him from the lovely, lonely rose. And even as he despaired of success Queen Venus came to his aid--Venus with roses in her hair and roses at her feet, a beautiful, alluring presence, and cheered him with sweet smiles and urged him with sweet words to complete the achievement of the rose. Line by line and page by page the story of the wonderful book seemed to tell itself over in living pictures to his dreaming eyes, and the gracious women with the gracious names courtesied to him and kissed their pink finger-tips, and the evil faces mowed at him, and behind and beyond the fair faces and the foul he could see the glorious flower that he longed for. And he thought that Venus led him by the hand till he was close to the flower, and gave him leave to kiss it, and he stooped and kissed the rose, and his blood ran fire and his spirit was sanctified.

Then, with a shiver, Rainouart woke, and realized that he was lying alone by the highway to Athens, and that the day had darkened and the shadows were falling, and that his horse was fretting impatiently at his tether, and that the book had fallen from his relaxed fingers, and that he was very much alone on the earth. And he wished with all his unblemished soul that he could slip from the world he lived in, from the world where he loved no woman, into that kingdom of dreams, and achieve through all impediments and obstacles the love of his unknown lady. Wishing thus with a deep sigh, and realizing the vanity of the wish with a deeper, he thrust the book back into his bosom, and unfastened his horse and mounted him and turned his head towards Athens, letting him go at his own gait. Muffled in his melancholy musings, he suffered the bridle to drop on his horse's neck and rode with folded arms, meditating upon the power of poesy, and wondering if it were truly well for him that it had pleased Heaven to make his spirit so unhappily different from the spirits of the light-hearted knights of his father's court, who loved and were content, or who loved and were discontent, but who were always blithe of spirit and seemed to ask nothing better of fortune.

As he thus jogged and mused, trusting to his horse to find its way to the city, suddenly from the shadow of the trees that bordered the white highway came leaping from either side menacing figures, and the dusk was troubled with the gleam of naked steel. And then, before the prince could realize what had happened, his horse gave a great scream of pain, for one of the skulkers had wounded the animal in the side, aiming to hamstring it, and missing his mark in the dusk and flurry. The horse reared, and the prince, taken unawares, lost his stirrups. But Rainouart was too skilful a rider to be thrown, for instinctively he gripped the sides of his horse with his thighs and caught at the crupper, and if he had chosen could have escaped from his assailants easily enough astride of the galloping steed. But it was not in him to avoid danger thus or to fly from any odds; so, leaning forward, he caught on the bridle and brought the frightened animal to a moment's stand-still, and then deftly swinging himself from the saddle alighted on his feet on the highway. In another moment his sword was out to meet the swords of his antagonists, who rushed on him, a hurly-burly of shouts and swords, and the quiet of the night was broken by the fierce clash of steel on steel and the thundering of the frightened horse's hoofs as he sped along the highway towards Athens.