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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Martin Valliant," Warwick Deeping crafts a compelling narrative that delves into the complexities of the human spirit through the adventures of its eponymous protagonist. Set against the backdrop of early 20th-century England, the novel intricately weaves themes of ambition, love, and moral rectitude, showcasing Deeping's rich, descriptive prose and keen psychological insight. The literary style oscillates between vivid characterization and philosophical introspection, reflecting the author's acute awareness of societal change and personal struggle during a time of transformation. Warwick Deeping, a prolific writer of the early 20th century, drew from his experiences and observations of the social milieu surrounding him, which is evident in Valliant's multifaceted personality. Deeping's varied career, encompassing roles as a physician and soldier, likely informed his adeptness in portraying the moral dilemmas faced by his characters. His grasp of human emotion and societal expectations lends an authentic depth to Valliant's journey, enriching the narrative's exploration of self-discovery amidst external challenges. Readers looking for an engaging introspective journey should immerse themselves in "Martin Valliant." The novel serves not only as a reflection of its time but also as a timeless exploration of ambition and integrity. Deeping's thoughtful narrative resonates with readers seeking both the beauty of language and the complexity of human experience. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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Martin Valliant
Table of Contents
Introduction
A life is tempered by conflict as private conscience contends with the demands of loyalty and the hard edge of duty, asking whether integrity can endure when tested by storm, ambition, and the shifting allegiances of a restless world, and whether courage means standing fast, yielding wisely, or transforming the path altogether, so that the battle within becomes as decisive as any outward contest, and the quiet reckonings of the heart prove equal to the clamor of trumpets, the pressure of expectation, and the brooding silences that follow choices that cannot easily be recalled.
Martin Valliant is a novel by the British writer Warwick Deeping, whose long career stretched across the first half of the twentieth century. The book was first published in the early decades of that century, a period when popular fiction was reaching wide audiences through magazines and circulating libraries. Within Deeping’s body of work, it stands as an example of his interest in stories that test character under stress and chart the costs of conviction. Readers encountering it today find a self-contained narrative by a prolific author whose name became well known in the interwar years.
Without unveiling its turns, the premise centers on the eponymous figure drawn into trials that quickly outgrow private concerns, bringing public pressures and personal vows into uneasy proximity. The opening movements establish a world in which order is unstable and reputation matters, and then steadily tighten the screws of circumstance. What follows is not a puzzle-box but a journey of temperament and resolve, attentive to the way one choice catalyzes another. The experience on offer blends momentum with reflection, foregrounding character over contrivance, and inviting the reader to weigh motives as carefully as outcomes.
Themes of allegiance and self-mastery dominate, joined by questions of responsibility, the ethics of leadership, and the fragile boundary between valor and pride. The book probes how ideals are maintained—or compromised—when they collide with necessity, and how the self is shaped by promises made under pressure. Affection, friendship, and rivalry provide the human texture against which principles are tested. Rather than offering a neat moral, the narrative preserves ambiguity around what constitutes the honorable course, encouraging readers to consider the difference between public deeds and private reckonings, and the cost of choosing clarity over comfort.
The tone is grave yet humane, balancing urgency with quiet passages that let landscapes, interiors, and pauses in conversation carry meaning. Deeping’s prose favors clarity and cadence, pushing the story forward while allowing moments of stillness that illuminate motive. Dialogue bears the weight of social codes and personal stance; scenes of movement and confrontation are staged to reveal character as much as to quicken the pulse. The result is a book that feels both direct and atmospheric, confident in narrative through-line but generous with the textures—gesture, glance, setting—that give consequence to decisions and lend gravity to turning points.
For contemporary readers, its concerns remain recognizably modern: What do we owe to others when our values diverge, how do we tell courage from stubbornness, and when does loyalty become complicity? The novel’s scrutiny of power, reputation, and communal judgment resonates in an age of swift opinion and public stakes. Its insistence that ethical clarity is worked out in action, not abstraction, offers an appealing seriousness. At the same time, the story’s emotional registers—regret, aspiration, steadfastness—invite an empathetic response, making the book not only an exploration of principle but also a study of how principles inhabit flawed, striving people.
Approached as an immersion rather than a riddle to solve, Martin Valliant rewards patient attention to its cadences and an openness to moral complexity. Readers who value character-driven narrative will find a steady accumulation of insight, while those drawn to narrative drive will encounter decisive moments that alter trajectories without forfeiting nuance. Because it grounds significance in choices rather than spectacle, the book lends itself to rereading, its balance of resolve and reflection revealing new emphasis with each pass. Enter expecting a sober, engaging story about the ways conviction is tested, and you will meet a work of durable seriousness.
Synopsis
Warwick Deeping’s Martin Valliant is a historical novel set in seventeenth-century England during the turmoil of civil war. The story follows Martin Valliant, a young man raised under strict, godly discipline in a coastal district where forest and sea shape daily life. His reputation for honesty and quiet resolve precedes him, yet the wider conflict steadily approaches his secluded world. As rival factions press their claims, Martin witnesses the war’s reach into parishes, farms, and small harbors. The narrative introduces him as observant and inwardly committed, but not yet enlisted, his loyalties defined more by conscience and duty than by banners or slogans.
The war intrudes decisively when soldiers and officials begin to patrol the roads and commandeer supplies. A chance encounter brings Martin into contact with Royalist sympathizers, including a fugitive whose safety carries political significance. Asked to help, he faces a practical and moral dilemma. His upbringing inclines him toward stern judgment, yet local ties and immediate human needs challenge that stance. The request is not simply to hide a stranger but to guide and protect a person whose capture would echo far beyond the village. Martin’s decision sets the plot in motion, drawing him from private devotions into the unpredictable currents of public strife.
Martin’s first steps as an escort and guide lead through marsh paths, woodland tracks, and discreet coastal lanes. He learns quickly to read patrol patterns, use the land’s cover, and balance caution with speed. Deeping presents both Parliamentarian and Royalist figures as complex individuals, and Martin’s encounters emphasize motives that range from idealism to pragmatism. The fugitive’s identity—kept understated—adds urgency without changing Martin’s method: careful planning, minimal violence, and reliance on trust. These early chapters establish a rhythm of movement and concealment, with small tests of nerve that foreshadow larger trials. The war becomes immediate through checkpoints, rumors, and the watchful tension of inns and farmsteads.
Challenges gather as Martin’s path crosses a relentless Parliamentarian officer and a swaggering Royalist adventurer, each pursuing advantage. The officer embodies the disciplined face of the new order; the adventurer, the impulsive bravado of a cause under pressure. Both complicate Martin’s task and question his neutrality. Meanwhile, a restrained understanding grows between Martin and the person he protects, grounded in necessity rather than declared sentiment. Ambushes are evaded by local knowledge, not spectacle. The narrative uses landscape as a tactical map—hedgerows, fords, and tidal creeks become tools. The stakes rise with each narrow escape, compelling Martin to define his position beyond mere self-effacement.
A turning point arrives when a raid disrupts a supposed haven, forcing action that cannot be reversed. Martin, previously intent on keeping to the margins, must accept visible responsibility for outcomes. The episode tests his principles: whether to cling to rigid prohibitions or adopt a broader reading of duty centered on protection and mercy. The consequences ripple outward, changing how allies and adversaries perceive him. Having chosen, he becomes more than a cautious guide; he is now bound to a cause through deeds rather than words. This section deepens the personal cost of commitment while maintaining the narrative’s forward thrust toward a larger objective.
The story widens into a concerted mission requiring coordination across villages, safe houses, and a guarded coastline. Martin gathers a small, practical company: an older retainer with local standing, a quick-witted youth skilled at carrying messages, and a soldier uneasy with his own orders. Each contributes specialized help, and their interactions show the period’s strained loyalties and makeshift alliances. The objective involves a passage to safety and the delivery of intelligence capable of influencing a campaign. Preparation emphasizes logistics—boats, tides, signals, and timing—over grand declarations. The planning scenes reinforce the novel’s attention to method, illustrating how ordinary people shape outcomes in a larger conflict.
Pursuit intensifies. A misstep exposes part of the network, and the threat of betrayal becomes real. Martin confronts the gap between harsh doctrinal judgments and the immediate need to spare lives, including those of enemies. His moral center shifts from prohibition to responsibility, guided by the practical demands of keeping faith with those under his protection. Interrogations, feints, and night movements highlight the strain of constant vigilance. The opposing officer grows more focused, narrowing options. Yet Martin’s reliance on precise timing and quiet courage steadies the group. Thematically, the narrative examines how conscience can adapt without dissolving, and how leadership often means choosing measured risks.
The climax gathers around a hazardous transit under pressure, where sea, weather, and watchful guns combine to deny easy success. Signals must align, and any delay could break the effort. A confrontation with the chief adversary tests Martin’s resolve and resourcefulness more than his prowess in arms. Sacrifices are made to preserve the mission’s core purpose, with outcomes shaped by discipline rather than spectacle. Deeping keeps focus on process: oars muffled, lanterns shaded, and orders whispered against wind and surf. The resolution of the episode turns on judgment in a narrow window, while the full consequences of this crossing are reserved for the novel’s closing movement.
In the aftermath, the novel considers the personal and communal costs of civil war—fragmented loyalties, altered reputations, and the quiet resilience of households. Martin’s arc reflects a central message: courage grounded in conscience can evolve from rigid certainty to active care without losing integrity. The closing pages affirm the value of measured action, humane restraint, and fidelity to promises. While immediate political tides continue to shift, the narrative leaves characters oriented toward rebuilding rather than triumph. Martin Valliant thus presents a tale of duty shaped by circumstance, emphasizing steady resolve over zeal, and portraying historical conflict through the choices of those who carry burdens without acclaim.
Historical Context
Warwick Deeping’s Martin Valliant is set in mid-seventeenth-century England during the convulsions of the Civil Wars (1642–1651). The narrative moves through a provincial landscape of cathedral closes, market towns, and manor houses, where parishes, guilds, and gentry households anchor social life. The period’s rhythms—assizes, fairs, harvests—are disrupted by billeted troops, requisitions, and sudden skirmishes on lanes and commons. Confessional identity—Anglican, Puritan, sectarian—shapes civic authority and domestic discipline. Town walls, river crossings, and bridges matter strategically; church towers serve as lookouts; barns as magazines. Deeping dramatizes this geography of conflict, mapping private loyalties onto contested spaces where local routine collides with national upheaval.
The political origins of the war lie in the breakdown between Charles I and Parliament. After the king’s Personal Rule (1629–1640) and fiscal expedients such as Ship Money, the Bishops’ Wars (1639–1640) forced the summoning of the Long Parliament (November 1640). The Grand Remonstrance (1641) and the failed arrest of the Five Members (January 1642) polarized factions. War commenced when Charles raised his standard at Nottingham on 22 August 1642. The novel mirrors this fracture by staging divided households—royalist patrons and parliamentarian stewards—and town councils pulled between county committees and royal warrants. Muster-days, the raising of trained bands, and hurried oaths of allegiance give texture to characters’ choices.
Siege warfare dominated the conflict and shaped civilian experience. Notable examples include the Siege of Gloucester (August–September 1643), relieved by the Earl of Essex; the bitter fighting over Lichfield Cathedral Close (captured by Royalists in March 1643, retaken by Parliamentarians under Sir John Gell and Colonel William Brereton); and the protracted fall of Basing House (1644–October 1645), stormed by Oliver Cromwell. Artillery shattered medieval fabric; star-works and earth ramparts encircled towns; starvation and disease often killed more than shot. Martin Valliant evokes this world by centering on a fortified ecclesiastical precinct and cramped streets, where sorties, mining, and the storm of a gate blur sacred space and military necessity, forcing lay and clerical characters into perilous proximity.
Religious contention is a second axis of the era’s crisis. Parliament’s 1643 “Ordinance for the utter demolition of monuments of superstition and idolatry” encouraged iconoclasm; William Dowsing’s 1643–1644 visitations in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire recorded the defacement of images, windows, and altar rails. The Directory for Public Worship (1644) displaced the Book of Common Prayer; maypoles and holy-day customs were suppressed. These measures, alongside episcopacy’s abolition (1646), altered parish life. The novel represents these pressures through disputes over choral music, communion tables, and the preaching license, juxtaposing a puritan household’s austere godliness with the ceremonial loyalties of clergy and laity who risk penalties to preserve inherited rites within storm-battered chancels.
The creation of the New Model Army (Self-Denying Ordinance, April 1645) professionalized Parliament’s war effort under Sir Thomas Fairfax, with Oliver Cromwell’s cavalry pivotal. Victory at Naseby (14 June 1645) destroyed the main royalist field army and captured Charles I’s correspondence, exposing foreign and Irish negotiations. The army also became a forum for radical political discourse: the Agitators, the Levellers’ influence, and the Putney Debates (October–November 1647) aired ideas about suffrage, law, and conscience. Martin Valliant’s soldierly world reflects this transformation—contrasting provincial militias with disciplined “New Model” troopers—and filters the novel’s ethical conflicts through confrontations between command, scripture, and individual resolve amid billets, musters, and courts-martial.
The war’s denouement reshaped sovereignty and property. After Pride’s Purge (December 1648) excluded moderates, the High Court of Justice tried and executed Charles I on 30 January 1649 at Whitehall. The Commonwealth and later the Protectorate (1653–1658) instituted sequestration and compounding of delinquent royalists, decimations, and local oversight by Major-Generals (1655–1657). Oaths such as the Engagement (1649) tested consciences; clandestine Anglican worship and royalist networks persisted. Deeping threads these realities into the fates of dispossessed gentry, coded correspondence, and perilous returns from exile, using sequestration lists and quartering levies as narrative motors that push characters to barter land, honor, or faith for survival.
Restoration politics framed the settlement of memory and loyalty. General Monck’s march from Scotland (January 1660) enabled the Declaration of Breda (April 1660) and the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion (August 1660), pardoning many but excluding regicides. The Clarendon Code—Corporation Act (1661), Act of Uniformity (1662), Conventicle Act (1664), Five Mile Act (1665)—reimposed Anglican conformity while penalizing dissenters. Royalist martyrs were commemorated; parish hierarchies revived, yet wartime fractures endured in property disputes and pulpits. Martin Valliant alludes to this settlement through reconciliations shadowed by exclusions, showing how restored ceremonies cannot wholly efface the scars of sieges, informers, and the remembered calculus of betrayal and mercy.
As social and political critique, the book exposes the human cost of ideological absolutism and militarized governance. It scrutinizes class privilege in compounding and sequestration, where well-connected delinquents salvage estates while lesser folk forfeit livelihoods. The novel highlights summary justice, billeting burdens, and puritan moral surveillance as erosions of customary liberties, yet it also indicts cavalier license and clientelism. By staging disputes over worship, it critiques state coercion in conscience. The recurring image of a sacred precinct turned redoubt indicts the sacrilege of partisan zeal. In tracing women’s precarious negotiations of property and honor, Deeping underscores how war’s settlements deepen, rather than resolve, structural inequalities.
Martin Valliant
Chapter I
Brother Geraint[1] pulled his black cowl forward over his head, and stepped out into the porch. Some one thrust the door to behind him, and there was the sound of an oak bar being dropped into the slots.
A full moon stared at Brother Geraint over the top of a thorn hedge. He stood there for a while in the deep shadow, licking his lips, and listening.
Somewhere down the valley a dog was baying the moon, a little trickle of discord running through the supreme silence of the night. Brother Geraint tucked his hands into his sleeves, grinned at the moon, and started down the path with his shadow following at his heels. He loitered a moment at the gate, glancing back over his shoulder at the house that blinked never a light at him, but stood solid and black and silent in the thick of a smother of apple trees.
The man at the gate nodded his head gloatingly.
“Peace be with you[1q].”
He gave a self-pleased, triumphant snuffle, swung the gate open, glanced up and down the path that crossed the meadows, and then turned homewards through the moonlight.
In Orchard Valley the dew lay like silver samite on the grass, and the boughs of the apple trees were white as snow. Between the willows the Rondel river ran toward the sea, sleek and still and glassy, save where it thundered over the weir beside the prior’s mill. The bell-tower of Paradise cut the northern sky into two steel-bright halves. Over yonder beyond the river the Forest held up a cloak of mystery across the west. Its great beech trees were glimmering into green splendor and lifting a thousand crowded domes against the brilliance of the moon.
Brother Geraint had no care for any of these things. He swung along toward Paradise like a dog returning from an adventure, his fat chin showing white under his cowl, his arms folded across his chest. The cluster of hovels and cottages that stretched between the river and the priory gate was discreetly dark and silent, with no Peeping Tom to watch the devout figure moving between the hedges and under the orchard trees. Paradise slept peacefully in its valley, and left the ordering of things spiritual to St. Benedict.
The priory, lying there in the midst of the smooth meadows, looked white and chaste and very beautiful. The night was so still that even the aspen trees that sheltered it on the north would not have fluttered their leaves had the month been June. The gold weathercock at the top of the flèche glittered in the moonlight. The bell-tower, with its four pinnacles, seemed up among the stars. Sanctity, calm, devout splendor! And yet the gargoyles ranged below the battlements of the gate opened their black mouths with a suggestion of obscene and gloating laughter. It was as though they hailed Brother Geraint as a boon comrade, a human hungry creature with wanton eyes and scoffing lips:
“Ho, you sly sinner! Hallo, you dog!”
The black holes in the stone masks up above mouthed at him in silent exultation.
Brother Geraint did not make his entry by the great gate. There was a door in the precinct wall that opened into the kitchen court, and this door served. The monk passed along the slope under the infirmary, and so into the cloisters. He had taken off his shoes, and went noiselessly on his stockinged feet.
Suddenly he paused like a big, black, listening bird, his head on one side. For some one was chanting in the priory church. Geraint knew the voice, and his teeth showed in the dark slit of his mouth.
“Brre—pious bastard!”
Hate gleamed under his black cowl. He crept noiselessly up the steps that led to the doorway, and along the transept, and craning his head around the pillar of the chancel arch, looked up into the choir. The great window was lit by the moon, its tracery dead black in a sheet of silver. The light shone on the lower half of Brother Geraint’s face, but his eyes were in the shadow.
A man was kneeling in one of the choir stalls, a young man with his hood turned back and his hair shining like golden wire. He knelt very straight and erect, his head thrown back, his arms folded over his chest. He had ceased his chanting, and his eyes seemed to be looking at something a long way off.
There was a grotesque and ferocious sneer on Brother Geraint’s face. Then his lips moved silently. He was speaking to his own heart.
“How bold the whelp is before God! A bladder of lard hung up in a shop could not look more innocent. Innocent! Damnation! This bit of green pork needs curing.”
He nodded his head significantly at the man in the choir, and crept back out of the church. In going from the cloisters toward the prior’s house he met a little old fellow carrying a leather bottle, and walking with his head thrust forward as though he were in a hurry.
“God’s speed, brother.”
They stood close together under the wall, leering at each other in the darkness.
“Is the prior abed yet?”
The little man held up the bottle.
“I have just been filling his jack for him.”
“Empty, is it?”
“Try, brother.”
Geraint took the bottle and drank.
“Burgundy.”
He licked his lips.
“Ale is all very well, Holt, but a stomachful of this red stuff is good after a night of prayer.”
The little man sniggered, and nodded his head.
“Warms up the blood again. Ssst—listen to that young dog yelping.”
They could hear Brother Martin chanting in the choir. Geraint’s hand shot out and gripped the cellarer’s shoulder.
“Assuredly you love him, friend Holt. Why, the young man is a saint; he brings us glory and reputation.”
“Stuffed glory and geese!”
Holt mouthed and jiggered like an angry ape.
“It was a bad day for us when old Valliant renounced the devil and dedicated his bastard to God. Why, the young hound is getting too big for his kennel.”
“Even preaches against the leather jack, my friend!”
“Aye, more than that. Sniffing at older men’s heels, hunting them when they go a-hunting.”
Geraint laughed.
“We’ll find a cure for that. He shall be one of us before Abbot Hilary comes poking his holy nose into Paradise. Why, the young fool is green as grass, but there must be some of old Valliant’s blood in him.”
“The blood of Simon Zelotes.”
“We shall see, Holt; we shall see.”
The prior’s parlor was a noble room carried upon arches, its three windows looking out on the prior’s garden and the fruit trees of the orchard. A roofed staircase, the roof carried by carved stone balustrades, led up to the vestibule. Geraint, still carrying his shoes, went up the stairway with the briskness of a man who did not vex his soul with ceremonious deliberations. Nor did he trouble to rap on the prior’s door, but thrust it open and walked in.
An old man was sitting in an oak chair before the fire, his paunch making a very visible outline, his feet cocked up so that their soles caught the blaze. His lower lip hung querulously. His bold, high forehead glistened in the fire-light, and his rather protuberant blue eyes had a bemused, dull look.
He turned, glanced at Brother Geraint, and grunted.
“So you are not abed.”
“No, I am here—as you see.”
“Shut the door, brother. What a man it is for draughts and windy adventures!”
Geraint closed the door, and throwing back his cowl, pulled a stool up to the fire. He was a lusty, lean, big-jawed creature, as unlike Prior Globulus[2] as an eagle is unlike a fat farmyard cock. His eyes were restless and very shrewd. The backs of his hands were covered with black hair, and one guessed that his chest was like the chest of an ape. He had a trick of moistening his lower lip with his tongue, a big red lip that jutted out like the spout of a jug.
“It is passing cold, sir, when a man has to walk without his shoes.”
He thrust his gray-stockinged feet close to the fire.
“You observe, sir, I am a careful man. Our young house-dog is awake.”
He watched Prior Globulus with shrewd, sidelong attention; but the old man lay inert in his chair and blinked at the fire.
“Brother Martin is very careful for our reputation, sir. He has become the thorn in our mortal flesh. It is notorious that he eschews wine, fasts like a saint, and has no eyes or ears for anything that is carnal—save, sir, when he discovers such frailties in others.”
The prior turned on Geraint with peevish impatience.
“A pest on the fellow; he is no more than a vexatious fool. Let him be, brother.”
Geraint leaned forward and spread his hands before the fire.
“Brother Martin is no fool, sir; I am beginning to believe that the fellow is very sly. He watches and says but little, yet there is a something in those eyes of his. He lives like a fanatic, while we, sir, are but mortal men.”
He smiled and rubbed his hands together.
“As you know, sir, it was mooted that Abbot Hilary has his eyes on Paradise. Some one whispered shame of us, and Abbot Hilary is the devil.”
Prior Globulus sat up straight in his chair, his face full of querulous anger and dismay.
“Foul lies, brother.”
“Foul lies, sir.”
Geraint’s voice was ironical. His eyes met the older man’s, and Prior Globulus could not meet the look.
“Well, well,” and he grinned peevishly. “What does your wisdom say, my brother?”
Geraint edged his stool a little closer.
“Brother Martin must be taught to be mortal,” he said; “he must become one of us.”
“And how shall that befall?”
“I will tell you, sir. Is not the fellow old Valliant’s son—old Valliant whose blood was like Spanish wine[4]? Brother Martin is a young man, and the spring is here.”
They talked together for a long while before the fire, their heads almost touching, their eyes watching the flames playing in the throat of the chimney.
Chapter II
White mist filled the valley, for there was no wind moving, and the night had been very still. The moon had sunk into the Forest, but though the sun had not yet climbed over the edge of the day a faint yellow radiance showed in the east. As for the birds, they had begun their piping, and the whole valley was filled with a mysterious exultation.
Into this world of white mist and of song walked Brother Martin, old Roger Valliant’s son—old Valliant, the soldier of fortune who had fought for pay under all manner of kings and captains, and had come back to take his peace in England with an iron box full of silver and gold. Old Valliant was dead, with the flavor of sundry rude romances still clinging to his memory, for even when his hair was gray he had caught the eyes of the women. Then in his later years a sudden devoutness had fallen upon him; there had been a toddling boy in his house and no mother to care for the child. Old Valliant had made great efforts to escape the devil; that was what his neighbors had said of him. At all events, he had left the child and his money to the monks of Paradise, and had made a most comely and tranquil end.
Brother Martin was three-and-twenty, and the tallest man in Orchard Valley. The women whispered that it was a pity that such a man should be a monk and take his state so seriously. There was a tinge of red in his hair; his blue eyes looked at life with a bold mildness; men said that he was built more finely than his father, and old Valliant had been a mighty man-at-arms. Yet Brother Martin often had the look of a dreamer, though his flesh was so rich and admirable in its youth. He loved the forest, he loved the soft meadows and the orchards, the path beside the river where the willows trailed their branches in the water, his stall in the choir, the mill where the wheel thundered. The children could not let him be when he walked through the village. As for the white pigeons in the priory dovecot, they would perch on his hands and shoulders. And yet there was a mild severity about the man, a clear-sighted and unfoolish chastity that brooked no meanness. He was awake even though he could dream. He had had his wrestling matches with the devil.
Brother Martin went down to the river that May morning, stripped himself, piled his clothes on the trunk of a fallen pollard willow, and took his swim. He let himself drift within ten yards of the weir, and then struck back against the swiftly gliding water. There had been heavy rains on the Forest ridge, and the Rondel was running fast—so fast that Martin had to fight hard to make headway against the stream. The youth in him had challenged the river; it was a favorite trick of his to let himself be carried close to the weir and then to fight back against the suck of the water.
And a woman was watching him. She had been standing all the while under a willow, leaning her body against the trunk of the tree, her gray cloak and hood part of the grayness of the dawn. Nothing could be seen of her face save the white curve of her chin. She kept absolutely still, so still that Martin did not notice her.
The Rondel river gave Martin a fair fight that morning. All his litheness and his strength were needed in the tussle; he conquered the river by inches, and drew away very slowly from the thundering weir. The woman hidden behind the willow leaned forward and watched him.
The sun had risen, a great yellow circle, when Martin reached the spot where he had left his clothes. The mist was rising, and long yellow slants of light struck the water and lined the scalloped ripples with gold. The water was very black under the near bank, and as Martin climbed out, holding to the trailing branches of a willow, he saw the dew-wet meadows shining like a sheet of silver. The birds were still exulting. The sunlight struck his dripping body and made it gleam like the body of a god.
Martin had frocked himself and was knotting his girdle when he heard the woman speak.
“Oh, Mother Mary, but I thought death had you!” She threw herself on her knees and seized one of his hands in both of hers. “The saints be thanked, holy father; but we in Paradise would be wrath with you for thinking so little of us.”
Martin stared at her, and in his astonishment he suffered her to keep a hold upon his hand. Her hood had fallen back, and showed her ripe, audacious face, and her black-brown eyes that were full of a seeming innocence. Her hair was the color of polished bronze, and her teeth very white behind her soft, red lips.
“What are you doing here, child?”
He was austere, yet gentle, and strangely unembarrassed. The girl was a ward of Widow Greensleeve’s, of Cherry Acre.
She made a show of confusion.
“I was out to gather herbs, holy father—herbs that must have the dew on them—and I saw you struggling in the river—and was afraid.”
He smiled at her, and withdrew his hand.
“I thank you for your fear, child.”
“Sir, you are so well loved in the valley.”
She stood up, smoothing her gown, and looking shyly at the grass.
“You are not angry with me, Father Martin?”
“How should I be angry?”
“In truth, but my fear for you ran away with me.”
She gave him a quick and eloquent flash of the eyes, and turned to go.
“I must gather my herbs, holy father.”
“Peace be with you,” he said simply.
Martin went on his way, as though nothing singular had happened. The girl loitered under the willows, looking back at him with mischievous curiosity. He was very innocent, but somehow she liked him none the less for that.
“Maybe it is very pleasant to be so saintly,” she said; “yet he is a fine figure of a man. I wonder how long it will be before Father Satan comes stalking across the meadows.”
Kate Succory made a pretense of searching for herbs, so ordering her steps that she found herself on the path that led to the house at Cherry Acre. The path ran between high hawthorn hedges that sheltered the orchards, and since the hedges were in green leaf, the way was like a narrow winding alley between high walls. She did not hurry herself, and presently she heard some one following her along the path.
“Good-morrow, Kate.”
She halted and turned a mock-demure face.
“Good-morrow, holy father.”
Geraint was grinning under his cowl.
“You are up betimes, sweeting.”
She walked on with a shrug of the shoulders.
“I have been gathering herbs, and I have the cow to milk.”
“Excellent maid. And nothing wonderful has happened to you?”
“Oh, I have fallen in love with some one,” she said tartly; “it is a girl’s business to fall in love.”
Geraint sniggered.
“I commend such humanity.”
“It is not with you, holy father. Do not flatter yourself as to that.”
She tossed her head, and walked daintily, swinging her shoulders. And Geraint looked at her brown neck, and opened and shut his hairy hands.
“Perhaps Dame Greensleeve will give me a cup of hot milk?” he said.
“Oh, to be sure.”
And she began to whistle like a boy.
Brother Martin was a mile away, brushing his feet through the dew of the upland meadows. He had crossed the footbridge at the mill, and spoken a few words with Gregory, the miller, who had thrust a shock of sandy hair out of an upper window. Rising like a black mound on the edge of the Forest purlieus stood a grove of yews, and it was toward these yews that Martin’s footsteps tended.
The yews were very ancient, with huge red-black trunks and dense green spires crowded together against the blue. No grass grew under them, for the great trees starved all other growth and cheated it of sunlight. A path cut its way through the solemn gloom, but the yew boughs met overhead.
And yet there was life in the midst of this black wood, life that was grotesque and piteous. The path broadened to a spacious glade, and in the glade stood a little rude stone house thatched with heather. The dwellers here labored with their hands, for a great part of the glade was cultivated, and about the house itself were borders of herbs, roses, and flowering plants. A couple of goats were browsing outside the wattle fence that closed in the garden, and a blue pigeon strutted and cooed to its mate on the roof ridge of the house.
Martin stopped at the swinging hurdle that served as a gate. A man was hoeing between the rows of broad beans, an old man to judge by the stoop of his shoulders and the slow and careful way he used the hoe. He wore a coarse white smock with a hood to it; a kind of linen mask covered his face.
“You are working early, Master Christopher.”
The man turned and straightened himself with curious deliberation. There was something ghastly about that white mask of his with its two black slits for eye-holes. He looked more like a piece of mummery than a man, a grotesque figure in some rustic play.
He lifted up a cracked voice and shouted:
“Giles, Peter—Brother Martin is at the gate.”
Two be-cowled and masked creatures came out of the house. All three were so alike and so much of a size that a stranger would not have told one from the other. They formed themselves into a kind of procession, and shuffling to the gate, knelt down on a patch of grass inside it.
Martin’s voice was very gentle.
“Shall I chant the Mass, brothers?”
The three lepers looked at him like lost souls gazing at Christ.
“The Lord be merciful to us and cast His blessing upon you,” said one of them.
So Martin chanted the Mass.
The three bowed their heads before him, as though it gave them joy to listen to the sound of his voice, for Martin chanted like a priest and a soldier and a woman all in one. He had no fear of these poor creatures, did not shrink from them and hold aloof. When he brought them the Sacrament he did not pass God’s body through a hole in the wall. The birds had ceased their singing, and the world was very still, and Martin’s voice went up to heaven with a strong and valiant tenderness.
When he had ended the Mass the three lepers got up off their knees and began to talk like children.
“Can you smell my gillyflowers, Brother Martin?”
“The speckled hen has hatched out twelve chicks.”
“You should see what Peter has been making; three maple cups all polished like glass.”
“If the Lord keeps the frosts away there will be a power of fruit on the trees.”
Martin opened the gate and walked into the garden, and the three followed him as though he had come straight out of heaven. No other living soul ever came nearer than the place where the path entered the yew wood. Alms were left there, and such goods as the lepers could buy. But Brother Martin had no fear of the horror that had fallen on them, and had such a fear shown itself he would have crushed it out of his heart. And so he had to see and smell Christopher’s gillyflowers, handle the speckled hen’s chicks, and admire the maple cups that Peter had made. Nature was beautiful and clean even though she had cast a foul blight upon these three poor creatures. They hung upon Martin’s words, watched him with a kind of timid devotion. God walked with them in that lonely place when Brother Martin came from Paradise and through the wood of yews.
Meanwhile, Brother Geraint had followed Kate Succory to Widow Greensleeve’s house in Cherry Acre, where the maze of high hedges and orchard trees hid his black frock completely. The girl had gone a-milking, and Brother Geraint had certain things to say to the widow. He sat on a settle in the kitchen, and she moved to and fro before him, a big breeze of a woman, plump, voluble, very rosy, with roguish eyes and an incipient double chin. She laughed a great deal, nodded her head at him, and snapped her fingers, for she and Brother Geraint understood each other.
“Kate will dance to that tune. Bless me, she’ll need no persuading.”
Geraint spoke very solemnly.
“If she can cure the young man of his self-righteousness she shall be well remembered by us all. See to it, dame.”
The widow curtsied, making a capacious lap.
“Your servant, holy father.”
And then she fell a-laughing in a sly, shrewd way.
“God be merciful to us, my friend; yet I do believe that it is more pleasant to live with sinners than with saints. The over-pious man rides the poor ass to death[2q]. Now you—my friend——”
She laughed so that her bosom shook.
“We would all confess to Brother Geraint. I know the kind of penance that you would set me, good sir.”
Geraint got up and kissed her, and her brown eyes challenged his.
“Leave it to me,” she said; “I will physic the young man for you.”
Chapter III
Martin had gone down the valley to watch the woodmen felling oaks in the Prior’s Wood when old Holt rode out on a mule in search of him. He found Martin stripped like the men and working with them, for he loved laboring with his hands.
“Brother Martin—Brother Martin!”
Old Holt squeaked at him imperiously.
“Brother Martin, a word with you.”
Martin passed the felling ax that he had been swinging to one of the men, and crossed over to Father Holt.
