FullReads

V

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.