Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. The Fortunes of Garin by Mary Johnston (romantic novels in english .txt) 📖
- Author: Mary Johnston
Book online «The Fortunes of Garin by Mary Johnston (romantic novels in english .txt) 📖». Author Mary Johnston
There, presently, Garin found her, lying beneath a green bank, her head buried in her arms.
“You were right,” said Garin, standing with Paladin beside her, “to take your distaff away. I am sorry that I did that.—Now what will you do? He had those with him who will come to seek him.”
The girl stood up. “I have been a fool,” she said, succinctly. “But there! we learn by folly.” She looked about her. “Where will I go? Well, that is the question.”
“Where do you live?”
The herd-girl seemed to regard the horizon from west to east and from east to west. Then she said, “In a hut, two miles yonder. But his men went that way.”
“Then you cannot go there now.”
“No.—Not now.”
Garin pondered. “It is less than two leagues,” he said, “to the Convent of Our Lady in Egypt. I could[26] take you there. The good nuns will give you shelter and send you safe to-morrow to your people.”
The herd-girl seemed to consider it, then she nodded her head. She said something, but her voice was half lost in the black torrent of her loosened hair. The sun’s rays were slant—it was growing late.
Garin mounted and drew her up behind him. At a little distance the road forked.
“They went that way,” she said, pointing.
“Then it’s as well,” said Garin, “that we go this. Now we had best ride fast for a time.”
They rode fast for a good long way; then, as no hoof-sound or cry came from behind, the squire checked Paladin, and they went slowly enough to talk.
“I have hopes,” said Garin, “that he swooned, and when they found him could tell them naught. Do you know his name?”
“No. I was asleep in the sun.”
“What is your name?”
“Jael.”
“The nuns will care for you.”
“I will ask them to let me stay and keep their sheep.”
They rode on through a fair, smiling country. Garin fell silent and the herd-girl was not talkative. He could not but ride wondering about that knight back there, and who he might be and how powerful. He saw that it was possible that he had provided a hornet’s nest for the ears of Castel-Noir and Foulque.[27] He drew a sigh, half-frighted and half-proud of a proved prowess.
The girl behind him moved slightly. “I had forgot to say it,” she murmured. “I will say it now. Fair sir, I am humbly grateful—”
Garin had a great idiosyncrasy. He disliked to be thanked. “I liked that fighting,” he said. “It was no sacrifice. That is,” he thought, “it will not be if he never find out my name.”
Paladin carried them a way farther. Said Garin, remembering chivalry, “It is man’s part to protect the weaker being, that is woman.”
“It puzzles so!” said the herd-girl. “I am not very weak. Is it man’s part, too, to lay hands upon a woman against her will? If man did not that, then man need not do, at such cost, the other. What credit to put water on the house you yourself set afire?”
“Now by Our Lady,” said Garin, “you are a strange herd-girl!” He twisted in the saddle so that he might look at her. She sat still,—young, slim and forlorn to the eye, dark as a berry, her feet bare and her dress so torn that her limbs showed. Her long, black loosened hair almost hid her face, which seemed thin, with irregular features. She had her distaff still, the forlorn serf’s daughter, herself a serf.
“If we plume ourselves it is a mistake, and foolishness,” said Garin. “But yet though one man act villainously, another may act well.”
“Just,” said the herd-girl. “And I thank the one[28] who has acted well—but not all men. I thank a man, but not mankind.”
“How old are you?”
“I am eighteen.”
“Where got you your thoughts?”
“There is time and need for thinking,” said the herd-girl, “when you keep sheep.”
With that she sighed and fell silent. They were going now by a swift stream; when, presently, they came to the ford and crossed, they were upon convent lands. Our Lady in Egypt was a Cistercian convent, ample and rich, and her grey-clad nuns came from noble houses. There were humbly born lay sisters. The abbess was the sister of a prince. The place had wealth, and being of the order of Saint Bernard, then in its first strength, was like a hive for work. From the ford on, the road was mended, the fields fat, the hedges trim. The convent had its serfs, and the huts of these people were not miserable, nor did the people themselves look hunger-stricken and woe-begone. The hillsides smiled with vineyards, the sky arched all with an Egyptian blue, the westering sun, tempering his fierceness, looked benignly on. Presently, in a vale beside the stream, they saw the great place, set four-square, a tiny hamlet clinging like an infant to its skirts. Behind, covering a pleasant slope, were olive groves with tall cypresses mounting like spires. Grey sisters worked among the grey trees. A bell rang slowly, with a silver tone.
[29]
“I will take you to the gate,” said Garin. “Then you can knock and the sister will let you in.”
“Aye, that will she. And you, fair squire, where will you go? Where is your home?”
Now Garin was thinking, “If that knight is a powerful man it is well that I gave him no inkling of where to find me!” Assuredly he had no thought nor fear that the herd-girl might betray. And yet he did not say, “I was born at Castel-Noir,” or “I live now in the castle of Raimbaut the Six-fingered.” He said, “I dwell by the sea, a long way from here.”
“Dusk is at hand,” said the herd-girl. “There, among those houses, is one set apart for benighted travellers.”
“How do you know that? Have you been here before?”
“Aye, once.—If you have far to ride, or the way is not clear before you, you had best rest to-night in the traveller’s house.”
But Garin shook his head. “I will go on.”
With that they came, just before the sun went down, to the wall of the convent, and the door beneath a round arch where the needy applied for shelter or relief. The squire checked Paladin. He made a motion to dismount, but the girl put a brown hand upon his knee.
“Stay,” she said, “where you are! I will ring the bell and speak to the portress.” So saying, she slipped to the earth like brown running water; then turned and spoke to the rescuer. “Fair squire,” she[30] said, “take again my thanks. If ever I can pay good turn with good turn, be sure that I will do it!” She moved within the arch, put her hand to the bell and set it jangling, then again turned her head. “Will you remove from so close before the door? You will frighten the sister. And the sun is down and you had best be going. Farewell!”
Involuntarily Garin backed Paladin further from the round arch. The horse was eager for his stable, wheeled in that direction, and chafed at the yet restraining hand. Garin looked as in a dream at the herd-girl. Even now he could not see her face for that streaming hair. A grating in the convent door opened and the sister who was portress looked forth. The herd-girl spoke, but he could not hear what was the word she said. A key grated, the convent door swung open. “Lord God!” cried the grey sister. He heard that, and had a glimpse of her standing with lifted hands. The herd-girl crossed the threshold. Paladin, insisting upon the road, took for a moment the squire’s full attention. When he looked back the convent wall was blank; door and grating alike were closed.
[31]
THE NIGHTINGALE
Foulque the Cripple listened with a perturbed brow. “You should have left him alone! A wretched herd-girl!”
“If I am to be knight,” said Garin hotly, “I will not read knighthood so.”
“Psha!” said Foulque. “They put resistance on! It is a mask when they seem unwilling. And if it were real, what then?—Saint Pol, what then?—And you saw naught to tell you who he was?”
“No.”
Foulque fretted. “If I had been there, I should have found some colour or sign! But you go as dreamily as if you were bewitched! You see naught that’s to the point.”
“He had a blue robe and a surcoat of crimson, and shoes of brown cordovan,” said Garin. “His sword had a rich hilt, and his gloves were embroidered. I noted them where he had thrust them in the bosom of his robe when I knelt to look at his wound. He was red-gold of hair and hawk nosed, full-lipped, and with a scar on his cheek. I think that he is older than I, but not much older.”
“Well, well!” said Foulque, “he may have been some wanderer from a distance, with no recourse but[32] his own hand. Moreover, for fame’s sake, he will not be quick to talk about a younger man, and one of less degree. If he found out neither your name nor house,—perhaps we’ll hear no more of it.... Well, what have you to say? I have news for you! The abbot hath been to Roche-de-Frêne, and on his way home is pleased to sleep one night at Castel-Noir. A man of his brought notice this morning. This is Tuesday—Friday he will be here.” Foulque rose and limped across the hall in some excitement. “Poor and bare, God knows! is Castel-Noir, but we will do what we can! My bed here he shall have, and we will put up the hangings from Genoa, and strew the floor with fair herbs. There’s wine enough, and Pierre shall begin his baking to-morrow morn! Friday.—He will have, his man said, twenty in his train. The sub-prior—five or six brothers—the rest stout serfs with staves.—Friday!—Every man of ours must be set to fishing!”
When every man was sent to the stream, the company of fishermen covered no great length of bank. Moreover all could not settle to fishing, for some must forth to forage for the approaching horse, and to find venison, fowls, and other matters for the Saturday morn. For poor was the small black tower in the black wood! Foulque could furnish to his lord a young brother for esquire, and, if a levy were made, ten men, by no means prize men, with ten horses, by no means horses for a king’s stable. Paladin was the only horse of that nature. A poor, small fief was[33] Castel-Noir—black keep and tower on a crag, set in a dark wood, with a few fields beyond, and all under shadow of the mountains to the north. South of it, only, ran the bright stream where fish were to be caught.
Thursday sunrise, Garin took a fishing-rod and went down the crag by the road cut, long since, in the rock, and through the wood to this stream. In a great leather pouch slung over his shoulder he had, with other matters, bread and meat. He meant to make a day of it, bringing home in the evening good fish for Pierre’s larder. When he reached the stream, he found there old Jean and his two grandsons and they had a great basket, its bottom already flashing silver and iris.
“Good-morning, Jean and Pol and Arnaut,” said Garin.
“Good-morning, master! The Blessed Maries have sent good fishing! They snap as soon as you touch the water.”
Farther down the stream he found Sicart. “How great a man, master, is the abbot? Very great he must be if he eats all the fish we are taking! It is a miracle!”
Garin moved down the stream seeking for a place that should seize his fancy. The eagerness with which he had risen and sallied forth disappeared. They would have enough for the Abbot and his train—more than enough. At times he cared for fishing, but not, he found, to-day. Why then fish, if there[34] was no need? He still carried the rod, but he continued to walk, making no motion to stop and put it into use. There was a foot-path by the stream, and it and the gliding water led him on. He wanted to think, or, more truly, to dream. Back in the black castle all was topsy-turvy, and Foulque concerned only with family fortunes.
Now Garin walked, and now he leaned against some tree and gazed at the flowing water; but on the whole he moved forward with such steadiness that before the sun was much above the tree-tops the foot-path ceased, having brought him to a great round stone and an overhanging pine, and the end, on this side, of the fief of Castel-Noir. Beyond came a strip of stony and
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