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Read Ebook: Martin Valliant by Deeping Warwick
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Ebook has 2607 lines and 72246 words, and 53 pages
as full of housewifely problems. A man's body might be more importunate than his soul.
When he had made a meal and washed his hollywood cup and platter, he found that dusk was falling over the Forest like a purple veil. The wayside cross spread its black arms against a saffron afterglow. The world was very peaceful and very still, and a heavy dew was falling.
Martin went and sat at the foot of the cross, leaning his broad back against the massive post. His face grew dim in the dusk, and a kind of a sadness descended on him. There were times when a strange unrest stirred in him, when he yearned for something--he knew not what. The beauty of the earth, the wet scent of the woods, the singing of birds filled him with a vague emotion that was near to pain. It was like the spring stirring in his blood while a wind still blew keenly out of the north.
But Martin Valliant's faith was very simple as yet, and crowned with a tender severity.
"The Devil goeth about cunningly to tempt men."
His thoughts wandered back to Paradise, and set him frowning. He was not so young as not to know that all was not well with the world down yonder.
"Our Lord was tempted in the wilderness."
He stared up at the stars, and then watched the yellow face of the moon rise over Heron Hill.
"It is good for a man to be alone, to keep watch and to know his own heart. God does nothing blindly. When we are alone we are both very weak and very strong. There are voices that speak in the wilderness."
He felt comforted, and a great calm descended on him. Those taunting lights had died out of the western sky; the beauty of the earth no longer looked slantwise at him like a young girl whose eyes are tender and whose breasts are the breasts of a woman.
The pallet bed in the cell had a mattress of sacking filled with straw. It served Martin well enough. He slept soundly and without dreams.
But at Paradise Geraint had gone a-prowling through the orchards. He loitered outside Widow Greensleeve's gate till some one came out with smothered laughter and spoke to him under the apple boughs.
"The pan is on the fire, dame. Brother Martin has gone to the Black Moor."
"And the fat is ready for frying, my master."
"A few pinches of spice--eh!"
"And a pretty dish fit for a king."
A tall ship, the Rose, came footing it toward Gawdy Town with a wash of foam at her bluff bows, and the green seas lifting her poop. Gawdy Town was very proud of the Rose, for she was fit to be a king's ship, and to carry an admiral's flag if needs be. Her towering poop and forecastle had their walls pierced for guns, and their little turrets loopholed for archers, and all her top gear was painted to match her name. She carried three masts and a fine spread of canvas, and Master Hamden, her captain, loved to come into port with streamers flying and all the gilding of her vanes and bulwarks shining like gold.
The Rose struck her canvas and dropped her tow ropes when she was under the shelter of the high ground west of the harbor. A couple of galleys came out to tow her in, and she was berthed at the Great Wharf under the walls.
She carried merchandise and wine from Spain and Bordeaux, also a few passengers; but the passengers were of small account. Two of them, a girl and a young man, were leaning over the poop rail and watching the people on the wharf below. The young man's face was yellow as a guinea; he was dressed like a strolling player, with bunches of ribbons at his elbows and bells in his cap. The girl looked the taller of the two, perhaps because the sea had not humbled her; she wore a light blue coat edged with fur, and a gown of apple green; her green hood had white strings tied under her chin.
"Holy saints, what an adventure!"
The man straightened himself, and managed to smile.
The girl's dark eyes were on the alert.
"There's old Adam Rick, or am I blind?"
"Master Port Reeve--so it is! The bridge is ashore. We had best be putting our fortune to the test. Have I anything of the gay devil left about me?"
He shook himself with the air of a bird that had been moping on a perch, but the girl did not laugh; she held her head high, and seemed to take life with fierce seriousness.
They climbed down to the waist of the ship where Master Hamden stood by the gangway, talking to some of the fathers of Gawdy Town who were gathered on the wharf.
"News, sirs, what would you with news? If Crookback is still king, I have no news for you."
"There have been rumors of landings."
"Rumors of old wives' petticoats!"
The man and the girl were close at his elbow, ready to leave the ship. The man carried a leather-covered casket in one hand, and a viol under his arm, while the girl carried a lute. She kept her eyes fixed on the tower of the town church; they were very dark eyes, blue almost to blackness, her skin was softly browned like the skin of a Frenchwoman, but her lips were very red. The hair under her hood was the color of charcoal. Her attitude toward her neighbors seemed one of aloofness; men might have voted her a proud, fierce-tempered wench.
Master Hamden looked at the pair with his red-lidded, angry eyes. The man nodded to him.
"Good-day, master."
"Give you good-day, Jack Jester. Go and get some wine in you, and wash the yellow out of your skin."
He looked slantwise at the girl as she passed him, but he did not speak to her. Had she been all that she pretended to be she would not have left old Hamden's ship without a coarse jest of some kind.
Her brother was pushing his way toward a handsome, ruddy man in a black camlet cloak, and the man in the cloak was eying him intently.
"Sir Adam, a word with you."
The Port Reeve appeared lost in thought. He drew a quill from his girdle, and meditated while he picked his teeth. And very much at his leisure, he chose to notice the young man with the viol.
"Where have you come from, my friend?"
"France, sir. My sister and I are poor players, makers of music."
The Port Reeve scanned the pair with intelligent brown eyes.
"Queer that such a Jack and Jill should come out of France."
"We were in the service of my Lord of Dunster."
"And he sent you packing? How are you called?"
The young man answered in a low voice:
"Lambert Lovel."
The Port Reeve's eyelids flickered curiously.
"You would lodge in Gawdy Town?"
"If it pleases you, sir."
"Our laws are strict against vagabonds and strollers. Well, get you in, Lovel, my lad, and your sister with you. You make no tarrying, I gather."
"But to make a little money for the road, sir."
"Well, try the 'Painted Lady,' my man. It is the merchants' tavern."
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