THE JONGLEUR AND THE HERD-GIRL

“Jongleur,” said Garin, “some miles from this spot there is a feast day in a fair town. This is the strangest thing that ever I saw, that a jongleur should be here and not there!”

“Esquire,” said the other, “I have certain information that the prince holds to-day a great tourney, and that every knight and baron in forty miles around has gone to the joust. I know not an odder thing than that all the knights should be riding in one direction and all the esquires in another!”

“Two odd things in one day is good measure,” said Garin. “That is a fine lute you have.”

The thin dark person drew the musical instrument in front of him and began to play, and then to sing in a fair-to-middling voice.

“In the spring all hidden close,
Lives many a bud will be a rose.
In the spring ’tis crescent morn,
But then, ah then, the man is born!
In the spring ’tis yea or nay;
Then cometh Love makes gold of clay!
Love is the rose and truest gold,
Love is the day and soldan bold,
Love—”

The jongleur yawned and ceased to sing. “Why,” he asked the air, “why should I sing Guy of Perpignan’s doggerel and give it immortality when Guy of Perpignan, turning on his heel, hath turned me off?”

He drew the ribbon over his head, laid the lute on the grass, and leaning back, closed his eyes. Garin gazed at the lute for a moment then, dismounting, picked it up and tried his hand. He sang a hunting stave, in a better voice by far than was the jongleur’s. None had ever told him that he had a nightingale in his throat.

The jongleur opened his eyes. “Good squire, I could teach you to sing not so badly! But sing of love—sing of love! Hunting is, poetically speaking, out of court favour.”

“I sing of that which I know of,” said Garin.

The other sat up. “Have I found the phoenix? Nay, nay, I trow not! Love is the theme, and I have not found a man—no, not in cloister—who could not rhyme and carol and expound it! Love is extremely in fashion.—Have you a lord?”

“Aye.”

“Has not that lord a lady?”

“Aye, so.”

“Then love thy lady, and sing of it.”

“I know,” said Garin, “that love is the fashion.”

“The height of it,” answered the other. “It has been so now for fifty years and there seems no declining. It rages.”

Garin left his horse to crop the sweet grass and came and sat upon the boulder above the jongleur. “Tell me,” he said, “how it came to be so. I have a brother, older than me, who scoffs and saith that women did not use to be of such account.”

The jongleur took up his lute again. “The troubadour whom, until the other day, I served, discusses that. He is proud and ungrateful, but yet for your edification, I will repeat what he says:—

“As earthly man walks earthly ways,
At times he findeth, God the praise!
Far leagues apart, thousand no less,
Fresh life, fresh light, that will him bless.
It cometh not save he do beckon.
He groweth to it as I reckon.
And when it comes the past seems grey,
And only now the golden day.
Then in its turn the golden day
Fadeth before new gold alway.
And yet he holds the ancient gain,
And carryeth it with him o’er the plain.
And so we fare and so we grow,
Wise men would not have it other so.”

“That is a good rede,” said Garin.

“It continueth thus,” answered the jongleur.

“In time of old came Reason, King,—
Ill fares the bow that lacks that string!
When time was full, to give great light,
Came Jesu’s word and churches’ might.
Then Knighthood rose and Courtesy,
And all we mean by Chivalry.
These had not come, I rede you well,
Save that before them rang a bell,
‘Turn you, and look at Eve beside,
Who with you roameth the world wide,
And look no more as hart on hind.’
Now Love is seen by those were blind.
Full day it is of high Love’s power.
Her sceptre stands; it is her hour.
And well I wis her lovely face
To Time his reign will lend a grace!—
But think ye not is made the ring!
Morn will come a further thing.”

The jongleur ceased to finger his lute; Garin sat silent on the boulder. The light, sifting through the trees, chequered his olive-green, close-fitting dress and his brown mantle. He sat, clasping his knee, his eyes with the blue glints at once bright and dreamy.

“I have read,” he said, “that it is a great thing to be a great lover.”

“So all the troubadours say,” quoth the jongleur.

He put the ribbon of the lute around his neck, stretched himself and rose. “Miles still to the town! The day is getting on, and I will bid you adieu.”

Garin, too, looked at the sun, whistled to Paladin and left the boulder.

“My name is Elias,” said the jongleur, “and I was born at Montaudon. If you make acquaintance with a rich baron who would like to hear a new tale or song each night for a thousand running, bear me in mind. I play harp, viol and lute, and so well and timedly that when they hear me, mourners leave their weeping and fall to dancing. Moreover, I know how to walk upon my hands and to vault and tumble, and I have a trick with eggs and another with platters in the air that no man or woman hath ever seen into. I have also a great store of riddles. In addition, if need be, I can back a horse and thrust with a spear.”

“I know no such lord,” said Garin sadly. “I would I were he myself.”

“Then perhaps you may meet with some famous troubadour. I will serve none,” said Elias, “who is not in some measure famous. I prefer that he be knight as well as poet. Be so kind as to round it in such an one’s ear that you know a famed jongleur. Say to him that if God has not given him voice wherewith to sing or to relate his chansons, tensos, and sirventes, I, who sing like rossignol and who learned narration in Tripoli and Alexandria, will do him at least some justice. But if he sings like rossignol himself or, God-like, speaks his own compositions, then say that I am the best accompanist—harp, lute, or viol—between Spain and Italy. Say that, even though he be armed so cap-À-pie, there will arise occasions when he is not in voice, or is weary or out of spirits. Then how well to have such as I beside him! Then tell him that I have the completest memory, that I learn most quickly and neither forget nor misplace, and that never do I take a liberty with my master’s verse. When you have come that far, make a pause; then, while he ponders, resume. Say that, doubtless, at that moment, a hundred jongleurs, scattered up and down the land, are chance learning and wrongly giving forth his mightiest, sweetest poems. Were it not well—ask him—himself to teach them to one with memory and delivery beyond reproach, who in turn might teach others? So, from mouth to mouth, all would go as it should, and he be published correctly. Let that sink in. Then tell him that I am helpful in lesser ways,—silent when silence is wanted, always discreet, a good bearer of letters and messages, quick at extrications, subtle as an Italian. Say that I am a good servant and honour him who feeds me and never mistake where the salt stands. Say that I am skilful beyond most, and earnest ever for the advancement and honour of my master. Lastly, say that I am agreeable, but not too agreeable, in the eyes of women.”

“That is necessary?” asked Garin.

“Absolutely,” answered the jongleur. “Your lover is as jealous as God. There must not be two Gods in one miracle play.”

“Does every troubadour,” asked Garin, “love greatly?”

“He thinks he does,” said Elias. “Do not forget, if you meet a truly famed one, Elias of Montaudon. You may also say that I have been in the company of many poets, and that I know the secret soul of Guy of Perpignan.”

Both left the boulder and stepped into the road. Garin laid his hand on Paladin’s neck.

“My lord is Raimbaut the Six-fingered,” he said. “His wife, my lady, is half-aged and evil to look upon, and she rails at every one save Raimbaut, whom she fears.”

“That is ill-luck,” said the jongleur. “There is, perhaps, some neighbouring lady—”

“No. Not one.”

“To be very courtly,” said the jongleur, “one must be in love with Love. You need not at all see a woman as she is. It suffices if she is young and not deformed, and of noble station.”

“She must always be noble?”

“It doth not yet descend to shepherdesses,” said the jongleur. “For them the antique way suffices.”

Garin mounted his horse and sat still in saddle, his eyes upon a fair green branch that the sun was transfiguring, making it very lively and intense in hue.

“Great love,” he said. “By the soul of my father, I think it is a great thing! But if there is none set in your eyes to love—”

“Can you not,” said the jongleur, “like Lord Rudel, love one unseen?”

Garin sat regarding the green branch. “I do not know.... We love the unseen when we love Honour.” He sat for a moment in silence, then drew a sigh and spoke as though to himself. “It is with me as if all things were between coming and going, and a half-light, and a fulness that presses and yet knows not its path where it will go. I know not what I shall do, nor how I shall carry life. Now I feel afire and now I am sad—” He broke off and looked beyond the green branch; then, before the other could speak, shook Paladin’s reins and moved down the leafy way. He glanced over his shoulder at the jongleur. “I will remember you.”

“Aye, remember!” returned the jongleur. He faced toward the town, put one leg before the other, and, going, swept his fingers across the strings of his lute. He, too, looked over his shoulder and called across the widening distance. “Choose Love!” he called.

Garin, turning the corner of the jutty hill, lost sight of him. The tinkle of the lute came a moment longer, then it, too, vanished. The wind in the leaves sighed and sighed. “O Our Lady,” prayed Garin, “give thy guidance to the best man within me!”

It was now full afternoon, the road growing narrower and worse, until at last it was a mere track. It ran through a forest large and old, and it grew quite lonely. The squire passed no one at all, saw only the great wood and its inmates that were four-footed or feathered. He was sympathetic to such life, and ordinarily gave it attention and found in an inward and disinterested pleasure attention’s reward. But to-day his mind was divided and troubled, and he rode unseeingly.

“The Abbot and Holy Church,” said part of his mind. “Raimbaut and some day knighthood,” said another part. “There is earthly power,” said the first part, “for those who serve Holy Church—serve Her to Her profit and liking. Earthly power—and in Heaven, prelates still!” Spoke the second part; “Ripe grapes of power fall, too, to the warrior’s hand. Only be tall enough, strong enough to pluck them from the stoutest fortress wall! Knights have become barons, barons counts, counts kings!—And is not a good knight welcome in Heaven? I trow that he is, and that the angels vie with one another to do him honour!”

It seemed to Garin, though it seemed dimly enough, that other voices were trying to make themselves heard. But the first two were the loud ones, the distinct ones. They were the fully formed, the sinewy, the inherited concepts.

He rode on. He was now near the end of the forest. It began to break into grassy glades. In a little time it had so thinned that looking between the tree trunks one saw open country. Paladin raised his head, pricked his ears.

“What is it?” asked Garin. “Those yonder are only sheep upon the hillside.”

The next moment he heard a woman scream, “Help! Help!”

He pricked Paladin forward and together they burst into a little open space, rounded by a thicket and shadowed by oaks. To one of these a horse was tied. Its dismounted rider, a young man, richly dressed, had by the arms and had forced to her knees, a peasant girl, herd, as it seemed, of a few sheep who might be seen upon the hillside beyond the thicket.

She cried again, “A moi! A moi!” She fought like a young tigress, twisting her body this way and that, striving to wrench her arms free, and that failing, bending her face and biting. The man was big-boned and strong, with red-gold locks, inclining to auburn, and face and eyes just now red and gleaming. He was young,—a very few years older than Garin,—but his heel showed a knight’s spur. He bent the girl backward, struck her a blow that fairly stunned her outcry.

Garin burst into the ring. “Thou caitiff! Turn and fight!”

As he spoke he leaped to the ground and drew his dagger—a long and good one it chanced to be.

The attacker turned upon him a face of surprise and fury. “Meddler! Meddler! Begone from here!” Snatching from his belt a small, silver-mounted horn, he blew it shrilly, for he had followers with him whom he had sent ahead when he came upon the herd-girl and would stop for ill passion’s sake. But they had gone too considerable a way, or the wind blew against the horn, or a hill came between. Whatever it was, he summoned in vain.

“O thou coward!” cried Garin. “Turn and fight!”

The knight stamped upon the ground. “Fight with a page or a squire at best! My men shall scourge that green coat from your back! Begone with your life—”

“Now,” answered Garin, “if you were heir of France, yet are you to me churl and recreant!”

Whereupon the other took his hands from the herd-girl, drew his short sword, and sprang upon him.

Raimbaut the Six-fingered had faults many and heavy, but those about him lacked not for instruction in the art of attack and defence. Garin was skilful to make the difference not so pronounced between that long dagger of his and the other’s sword, and he was as strong as his opponent, and his eyes nothing like so clouded with despite and fury. The knight had far the wider experience, was counted bold and successful. But to-day he was at a disadvantage; he knew cold rages in which he fought or tilted well; but this was a hot rage, and his arm shook and he struck wide. Still the summoned men did not come, and still the two struggled for mastery. As for the herd-girl—she had risen to her knees and then to her feet, and now was standing beneath a young oak, her eyes upon the combat. At first she had made a move to leave the place, and then had shaken her head and stayed.

Garin gained, his antagonist fighting now in a blind fury. Presently the squire gave a stroke so effective that the blood spouted and the knight, reeling, let fall his weapon. He himself followed, sinking first upon his knee and then upon his face.

“Now have I slain you?” demanded Garin, and thrusting the sword aside with his foot, kneeled to see.

Whereupon the other turned swiftly and struck upward with his dagger. The squire, jerking aside, went free of the intended hurt.

“Now! by the soul of my father!” swore Garin, “this is a noble knight and must be nobly dealt with!” And so he took the other’s wrists, forced away the dagger, and wrestling with him, bound his hands with his belt, then dragged him to the nearest tree, and, cutting the bridle from his horse, ran the leather beneath his arms and tied him to the trunk. This done, he took from him the horn, and stooping, glanced at his wound. “It will not kill you. Live and learn knightliness!”

The other, bound to the tree, twisted and strove, trying to free himself. His face was no longer flushed but pale from loss of blood and huge anger. His eyes burned like coals and he gnashed his teeth. He had a hawk nose, a sensuous mouth, and across his cheek a long and curiously shaped scar, traced there by a poignard. Garin, gazing upon him, saw that he promised to be a mighty man.

The bound one spoke, his voice shaking with passion. “Who are you and what is your name? Who is your lord? My father and I will come, level your house with earth, flay you alive and nail you head downward to a tree—”

“If you can, fair sir,” said Garin. Stepping back, he saw upon the earth the herd-girl’s distaff where she had dropped it when the knight came against her. The squire picked it up, came back to the captive’s side and thrust it between his tied hands. “Now,” he said, “let your men find you with no sword, but with a distaff!”

But the herd-girl moved at that from beneath the oak. Garin found her at his side, a slim, dark girl, with torn dress and long, black, loosened hair. “You are all alike!” she cried. “You would shame him with my distaff! But I tell you that it is my distaff that you shame!” With that she came to the bound man, caught the distaff from between his hands, and with it burst through the thicket and went again among her sheep.

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 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. 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 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.

“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 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.