next day john bulmer rode through the forest of acaire, and sang as he went. yet he disapproved of the country.
"for i am of the opinion," john bulmer meditated, "that france just now is too much like a flower-garden situate upon the slope of a volcano. the eye is pleasantly titillated, but the ear catches eloquent rumblings. this is not a very healthy country, i think. these shaggy-haired, dumb peasants trouble me. i had thought france a nation of de puysanges; i find it rather a nation of beasts who are growing hungry. presently they will begin to feed, and i am not at all certain as to the urbanity of their table manners."
however, it was no affair of his; so he put the matter out of mind, and as he rode through the forest, carolled blithely. trees were marshalled on each side with an effect of colonnades; everywhere there was a sniff of the cathedral, of a cheery cathedral all green and gold and full-bodied browns, where the industrious motes swam, like the fishes fairies angle for, in every long and rigid shaft of sunlight,—or rather (john bulmer decided), as though time had just passed by with a broom, intent to garnish the least nook of acaire against spring's occupancy of it. then there were tiny white butterflies, frail as dream-stuff. there were anemones; and john bulmer sighed at their insolent perfection. theirs was a frank allure; in the solemn forest they alone of growing things were wanton, for they coquetted with the wind, and their pink was the pink of flesh.
he recollected that he was corpulent—and forty-five. "and yet, praise
heaven," said john bulmer, "something stirs in this sleepy skull of mine."
sang john bulmer:
"april wakes, and the gifts are good
which april grants in this lonely wood
mid the wistful sounds of a solitude,
whose immemorial murmuring
is the voice of spring
and murmurs the burden of burgeoning.
"april wakes, and her heart is high,
for the bassarids and the fauns are nigh,
and prosperous leaves lisp busily
over flattered brakes, whence the breezes bring
vext twittering
to swell the burden of burgeoning.
"april wakes, and afield, astray,
she calls to whom at the end i say.
heart o' my heart, i am thine alway,—
and i follow, follow her carolling,
for i hear her sing
above the burden of burgeoning.
"april wakes;—it were good to live
(yet april passes), though april give
no other gift for our pleasuring
than the old, old burden of burgeoning—"
he paused here. not far ahead a woman's voice had given a sudden scream, followed by continuous calls for aid.
"now, if i choose, will begin the first fytte of john bulmer's adventures," he meditated, leisurely. "the woman is in some sort of trouble. if i go to her assistance i shall probably involve myself in a most unattractive mess, and eventually be arrested by the constable,—if they have any constables in this operatic domain, the which i doubt. i shall accordingly emulate the example of the long-headed levite, and sensibly pass by on the other side. halt! i there recognize the voice of the duke of ormskirk. i came into this country to find john bulmer; and john bulmer would most certainly have spurred his gallant charger upon the craven who is just now molesting yonder female. in consequence, my gallant charger, we will at once proceed to confound the dastardly villain."
he came presently into an open glade, which the keen sunlight lit without obstruction. obviously arranged, was his first appraisal of the tableau there presented. a woman in blue half-knelt, half-lay, upon the young grass, while a man, bending over, fettered her hands behind her back. a swarthy and exuberantly bearded fellow, attired in green-and-russet, stood beside them, displaying magnificent teeth in exactly the grin which hieratic art imputes to devils. yet farther off a dominican friar sat upon a stone and displayed rather more unctuous amusement. three horses and a mule diversified the background. all in all, a thought larger than life, a shade too obviously posed, a sign-painter's notion of a heroic picture, was john bulmer's verdict. from his holster he drew a pistol.
the lesser rascal rose from the prostrate woman. "finished, my captain,—" he began. against the forest verdure he made an excellent mark. john bulmer shot him neatly through the head.
startled by the detonation, the friar and the man in green-and-russet wheeled about to find mr. bulmer, with his most heroical bearing, negligently replacing the discharged pistol. the woman lay absolutely still, face downward, in a clump of fern.
"gentlemen," said john bulmer, "i lament that your sylvan diversions should be thus interrupted by the fact that an elderly person like myself, quite old enough to know better, has seen fit to adopt the pursuit of knight-errantry. you need not trouble yourselves about your companion, for i have blown out most of the substance nature intended him to think with. one of you, i regret to observe, is rendered immune by the garb of an order which i consider misguided, indeed, but with which i have no quarrel. with the other i beg leave to request the honor of exchanging a few passes as the recumbent lady's champion."
"sacred blue!" remarked the bearded man; "you presume to oppose, then, of all persons, me! you fool, i am achille cazaio!"
"i deplore the circumstance that i am not overwhelmed by the revelation," john bulmer said, as he dismounted, "and i entreat you to bear in mind, friend achille, that in poictesme i am a stranger. and, unhappily, the names of many estimable persons have not an international celebrity." thus speaking, he drew and placed himself on guard.
with a shrug the friar turned and reseated himself upon the stone. he appeared a sensible man. but cazaio flashed out a long sword and hurled himself upon john bulmer.
cazaio thus obtained a butcherly thrust in the shoulder, "friend achille," said john bulmer, "that was tolerably severe for a first hit. does it content you?"
the hairy man raged. "eh, my god!" cazaio shrieked, "do you mock me, you misbegotten one! before you can give me such another i shall have settled you outright. already hell gapes for you. fool, i am achille cazaio!"
"yes, yes, you had mentioned that," said his opponent. "and, in return, allow me to present mr. john bulmer, thoroughly enjoying himself for the first time in a quarter of a century, angelo taught me this thrust. can you parry it, friend achille?" mr. bulmer cut open the other's forehead.
"well done!" cazaio grunted. he attacked with renewed fury, but now the blood was streaming down his face and into his eyes in such a manner that he was momentarily compelled to carry his hand toward his countenance in order to wipe away the heavy trickle. john bulmer lowered his point.
"friend achille, it is not reasonable i should continue our engagement to its dénouement, since by that boastful parade of skill i have inadvertently turned you into a blind man. can you not stanch your wound sufficiently to make possible a renewal of our exercise on somewhat more equal terms?"
"not now," the other replied, breathing heavily,—"not now, monsieur bulmaire. you have conquered, and the woman is yours. yet lend me my life for a little till i may meet you more equitably. i will not fail you,—i swear it—i, achille cazaio."
"why, god bless my soul!" said john bulmer, "do you imagine that i am forming a collection of vagrant females? permit me, pray, to assist you to your horse. and if you would so far honor me as to accept the temporary loan of my handkerchief—"
solicitously mr. bulmer bound up his opponent's head, and more lately aided him to mount one of the grazing horses. cazaio was moved to say:
"you are a gallant enemy, monsieur bulmaire. i shall have the pleasure of cutting your throat on thursday next, if that date be convenient to you."
"believe me," said john bulmer, "i am always at your disposal. let this spot, then, be our rendezvous, since i am wofully ignorant concerning your local geography. and meantime, my friend, if i may be so bold, i would suggest a little practice in parrying. you are of boisrobert's school, i note, and in attack undeniably brilliant, whereas your defence—unvarying defect of boisrobert's followers!—is lamentably weak."
"i perceive that monsieur is a connoisseur in these matters," said cazaio; "i am the more highly honored. till thursday, then." and with an inclination of his bandaged head—and a furtive glance toward the insensate woman,—he rode away singing.
sang achille cazaio:
"but, oh, the world is wide, dear lass,
that i must wander through,
and many a wind and tide, dear lass,
must flow 'twixt me and you,
ere love that may not be denied
shall bring me back to you,
—dear lass!
shall bring me back to you."
thus singing, he disappeared; meantime john bulmer had turned toward the woman. the dominican sat upon the stone, placidly grinning.
"and now," said john bulmer, "we revert to the origin of all this tomfoolery,—who, true to every instinct of her sex, has caused as much trouble as lay within her power and then fainted. a little water from the brook, if you will be so good. master friar,—hey!—why, you damned rascal!"
as john bulmer bent above the woman, the friar had stabbed john bulmer between the shoulders. the dagger broke like glass.
"oh, the devil!" said the churchman; "what sort of a duellist is this who fights in a shirt of milanese armor!" he stood for a moment, silent, in sincere horror. "i lack words," he said,—"oh, vile coward! i lack words to arraign this hideous revelation! there is a code of honor that obtains all over the world, and any duellist who descends to secret armor is, as you are perfectly aware, guilty of supersticery. he is no fit associate for gentlemen, he is rather the appropriate companion of korah, dathan, and abiram in their fiery pit. faugh, you sneak-thief!"
john bulmer was a thought abashed, and for an instant showed it. then, "permit me," he equably replied, "to point out that i did not come hither with any belligerent intent. my undershirt, therefore, i was entitled to regard as a purely natural advantage,—as much so as would have been a greater length of arm, which, you conceive, does not obligate a gentleman to cut off his fingers before he fights."
"i scent the casuist," said the friar, shaking his head. "frankly, you had hoodwinked me: i was admiring you as a second palmerin; and all the while you were letting off those gasconades, adopting those heroic postures, and exhibiting such romantic magnanimity, you were actually as safe from poor cazaio as though you had been in crim tartary rather than acaire!"
"but the pose was magnificent," john bulmer pleaded, "and i have a leaning that way when one loses nothing by it. besides, i consider secret armor to be no more than a rational precaution in any country where the clergy are addicted to casual assassination."
"it is human to err," the friar replied, "and cazaio would have given me a thousand crowns for your head. believe me, the man is meditating some horrible mischief against you, for otherwise he would not have been so damnably polite."
"the information is distressing," said john bulmer; and added, "this cazaio appears to be a personage?"
"i retort," said the friar, "that your ignorance is even more remarkable than my news. achille cazaio is the bugbear of all poictesme, he is as powerful in these parts as ever old manuel was."
"but i have never heard of this old manuel either—"
"in fact, your ignorance seems limitless. for any child could tell you that cazaio roosts in the taunenfels yonder, with some hundreds of brigands in his company. poictesme is, in effect, his pocket-book, from which he takes whatever he has need of, and the duc de puysange, our nominal lord, pays him an annual tribute to respect bellegarde."
"this appears to be an unusual country," quoth john bulmer; "where a brigand rules, and the forests are infested by homicidal clergymen and harassed females. which reminds me that i have been guilty of an act of ungallantry,—and faith! while you and i have been chatting, the lady, with a rare discretion, has peacefully come back to her senses."
"she has regained nothing very valuable," said the friar, with a shrug, "alone in acaire!" but john bulmer had assisted the woman to her feet, and had given a little cry at sight of her face, and now he stood quite motionless, holding both her unfettered hands.
"you!" he said. and when speech returned to him, after a lengthy interval, he spoke with odd irrelevance. "now i appear to understand why god created me."
he was puzzled. for there had come to him, unheralded and simply, a sense of something infinitely greater than his mind could conceive; and analysis might only pluck at it, impotently, as a wearied swimmer might pluck at the sides of a well. ormskirk and ormskirk's powers now somehow dwindled from the zone of serious consideration, as did the radiant world, and even the woman who stood before him; trifles, these: and his contentment spurned the stars to know that, somehow, this woman and he were but a part, an infinitesimal part, of a scheme which was ineffably vast and perfect…. that was the knowledge he sensed, unwordably, as he regarded this woman now.
she was tall, just as tall as he. it was a blunt-witted devil who whispered john bulmer that, inch paralleling inch, the woman is taller than the man and subtly renders him absurd; and that in a decade this woman would be stout. there was no meaning now in any whispering save hers. john bulmer perceived, with a blurred thrill,—as if of memory, as if he were recollecting something once familiar to him, a great while ago,—that the girl was tall and deep-bosomed, and that her hair was dark, all crinkles, but (he somehow knew) very soft to the touch. the full oval of her face had throughout the rich tint of cream, so that he now understood the blowziness of pink cheeks; but her mouth was vivid. it was a mouth not wholly deficient in attractions, he estimated. her nose managed to be roman without overdoing it. and her eyes, candid and appraising, he found to be the color that blue is in paradise; it was odd their lower lids should be straight lines, so that when she laughed her eyes were converted into right-angled triangles; and it was still more odd that when you gazed into them your reach of vision should be extended until you saw without effort for miles and miles.
and now for a longish while these eyes returned his scrutiny, without any trace of embarrassment; and whatever may have been the thoughts of mademoiselle de puysange, she gave them no expression. but presently the girl glanced down toward the dead man.
"it was you who killed him?" she said. "you!"
"i had that privilege," john bulmer admitted. "and on thursday afternoon,
god willing, i shall kill the other."
"you are kind, monsieur bulmer. and i am not ungrateful. and for that which happened yesterday i entreat your pardon."
"i can pardon you for calling me a lackey, mademoiselle, only upon condition that you permit me to be your lackey for the remainder of your jaunt. poictesme appears a somewhat too romantic country for unaccompanied women to traverse in any comfort."
"my thought to a comma," the dominican put in,—"unaccompanied ladies do not ordinarily drop from the forest oaks like acorns. i said as much to cazaio a half-hour ago. look you, we two and michault,—who formerly incited this carcass and, from what i know of him, is by this time occupying hell's hottest gridiron,—were riding peacefully toward beauséant. then this lady pops out of nowhere, and cazaio promptly expresses an extreme admiration for her person."
"the rest," john bulmer said, "i can imagine. oh, believe me, i look forward to next thursday!"
"but for you," the girl said, "i would now be the prisoner of that devil upon the taunenfels! three to one you fought,—and you conquered! i have misjudged you, monsieur bulmer. i had thought you only an indolent old gentleman, not very brave,—because—"
"because otherwise i would not have been the devil's lackey?" said john bulmer. "eh, mademoiselle, i have been inspecting the world for more years than i care to confess; i have observed the king upon his throne, and the caught thief upon his coffin in passage for the gallows: and i suspect they both came thither through taking such employment as chance offered. meanwhile, we waste daylight. you were journeying—?"
"to perdigon," claire answered. she drew nearer to him and laid one hand upon his arm. "you are a gallant man, monsieur bulmer. surely you understand. two weeks ago my brother affianced me to the duke of ormskirk. ormskirk!—ah, i know he is your kinsman,—your patron,—but you yourself could not deny that the world reeks with his infamy. and my own brother, monsieur, had betrothed me to this perjurer, to that lewd rake, to that inhuman devil who slaughters defenceless prisoners, men, women, and children alike. why, i had sooner marry the first beggar or the ugliest fiend in hell!" the girl wailed, and she wrung her plump little hands in desperation.
"good, good!" he cried, in his soul. "it appears my eloquence of yesterday was greater than i knew of!"
claire resumed: "but you cannot argue with gaston—he merely shrugs. so i decided to go over to perdigon and marry gérard des roches. he has wanted to marry me for a long while, but gaston said he was too poor. and, o monsieur bulmer, gérard is so very, very stupid!—but he was the only person available, and in any event," she concluded, with a sigh of resignation, "he is preferable to that terrible ormskirk."
john bulmer gazed on her considerately. "'beautiful as an angel, and headstrong as a devil,'" was his thought, "you have an eye, gaston!" aloud john bulmer said: "your remedy against your brother's tyranny, mademoiselle, is quite masterly, though perhaps a trifle draconic. yet if on his return he find you already married, he undoubtedly cannot hand you over to this wicked ormskirk. marry, therefore, by all means,—but not with this stupid gérard."
"with whom, then?" she wondered.
"fate has planned it," he laughed; "here are you and i, and yonder is the clergyman whom madam destiny has thoughtfully thrown in our way."
"not you," she answered, gravely. "i am too deeply in your debt, monsieur
bulmer, to think of marrying you."
"you refuse," he said, "because you have known for some days past that i loved you. yet it is really this fact which gives me my claim to become your husband. you have need of a man to do you this little service. i know of at least one person whose happiness it would be to die if thereby he might save you a toothache. this man you cannot deny—you have not the right to deny this man his single opportunity of serving you."
"i like you very much," she faltered; and then, with disheartening hastiness, "of course, i like you very much; but i am not in love with you."
he shook his head at her, "i would think the worse of your intellect if you were. i adore you. granted: but that constitutes no cut-throat mortgage. it is merely a state of mind which i have somehow blundered into, and with which you have no concern. so i ask nothing of you save to marry me. you may, if you like, look upon me as insane; it is the view toward which i myself incline. however, mine is a domesticated mania and vexes no one save myself; and even i derive no little amusement from its manifestations. eh, monsieur jourdain may laugh at me for a puling lover!" cried john bulmer; "but, heavens! if only he could see the unplumbed depths of ludicrousness i discover in my own soul! the mirth of atlas could not do it justice."
claire meditated for a while, her eyes inscrutable and yet not unkindly. "it shall be as you will," she said at last. "yes, certainly, i will marry you."
"o mother of god!" said the dominican, in profound disgust; "i cannot marry two maniacs." but, in view of john bulmer's sword and pistol, he went through the ceremony without further protest.
and something embryonic in john bulmer seemed to come, with the knave's benediction, into flowerage. he saw, as if upon a sudden, how fine she was; all the gracious and friendly youth of her: and he deliberated, dizzily, the awe of her spirited and alert eyes; why, the woman was afraid of him! that sunny and vivid glade had become, to him, an island about which past happenings lapped like a fretted sea. "dear me!" he reflected, "but i am really in a very bad way indeed."
now mistress bulmer gazed shyly at her husband. "we will go back to
bellegarde," claire began, "and inform louis de soyecourt that i cannot
marry the duke of ormskirk, because i have already married you, jean
bulmer,—"
"i would follow you," said john bulmer, "though hell yawned between us. i employ the particular expression as customary in all these cases of romantic infatuation."
"yet i," the friar observed, "would, to the contrary, advise removal from
poictesme as soon as may be possible. for i warn you that if you return to
bellegarde, monsieur de soyecourt will have you hanged."
"reverend sir," john bulmer replied, "do you actually believe this consideration would be to me of any moment?"
the friar inspected his countenance. by and by the friar said: "i emphatically do not. and to think that at the beginning of our acquaintanceship i took you for a sensible person!" afterward the friar mounted his mule and left them.
then silently john bulmer assisted his wife to the back of one of the horses, and they turned eastward into the forest of acaire. mr. bulmer's countenance was politely interested, and he chatted pleasantly of the forenoon's adventure. claire told him something of her earlier memories of cazaio. so the two returned to bellegarde. then claire led the way toward the western façade, where her apartments were, and they came to a postern-door, very narrow and with a grating.
"help me down," the girl said. immediately this was done; claire remained quite still. her cheeks were smouldering and her left hand was lying inert in john bulmer's broader palm.
"wait here," she said, "and let me go in first. someone may be on watch.
there is perhaps danger—"
"my dear," said john bulmer, "i perfectly comprehend you are about to enter that postern, and close it in my face, and afterward hold discourse with me through that little wicket. i assent, because i love you so profoundly that i am capable not merely of tearing the world asunder like paper at your command, but even of leaving you if you bid me do so."
"your suspicions," she replied, "are prematurely marital. i am trying to protect you, and you are the first to accuse me of underhand dealing! i will prove to you how unjust are your notions." she entered the postern, closed and bolted it, and appeared at the wicket.
"the friar was intelligent," said claire de puysange, "and beyond doubt the most sensible thing you can do is to get out of poictesme as soon as possible. you have been serviceable to me, and for that i thank you: but the master of bellegarde has the right of the low, the middle, and the high justice, and if my husband show his face at bellegarde he will infallibly be hanged. if you claim me in england, ormskirk will have you knifed in some dark alleyway, just as, you tell me, he disposed of monsieur traquair and captain dungelt. i am sorry, because i like you, even though you are fat."
"you bid me leave you?" said john bulmer. he was comfortably seated upon the turf.
"for your own good," said she, "i advise you to." and she closed the wicket.
"the acceptance of advice," said john bulmer, "is luckily optional. i shall therefore go down into the village, purchase a lute, have supper, and i shall be here at sunrise to greet you with an aubade, according to the ancient custom of poictesme."
the wicket remained closed.
