Yet the certainty--for that it was--coincided with her lurking
suspicion of the virtue lying in her own strong love. It made that
suspicion hardy; it budded, as I have said, and bore a flower. She
could feel and fondle her ring again, and talk to it at night. "Lie
snug," she would say, "lie close. He will come again and put thee in
place, for such love as mine, which endureth all things, is not to be
gainsaid." Thus she grew healthy as she grew full of heart, and gained
sleek looks for any who had had eyes to see them.
Luckily for her, at present there was none. It is providence for the
earth-born that their mother's lap soon takes furrows in which they
may run. The charcoal-burners' life was no exception: hard work from
dawn to dusk, food your only recreation, sleep your only solace. The
weather is no new thing to you, to gape at and talk about. As well
might the gentry talk about the joys of their daily bath. You have no
quarrels, do no sins, for you have neither women nor strong waters in
your forest tents. And if you knew how, you would thank God that you
are incapable of thought, since a thinking vegetable were a lost
vegetable. To think is to hope, and to hope is to sin against
religion, which says, God saw that it was good. More than any
reflecting man your earth-born believes in God, or the devil. It comes
to much the same, if you will but work it out. He is a deist, his God
an autocrat.
Isoult, the demure little freethinker, had another secret god--him of
the iris wings. She loved, she was loved; she dared hope to be happy.
So far of the earth as to be humble, so far from it as to hope, she
grew in the image of her god and was lovely; she remembered the
precepts of her mother earth and was patient. Whenever she could she
washed herself in the forest brooks; so woods and running water saw in
her the blossoming rod. At these times she could have hymned her god
had she known how; but Prosper had only taught her what his priests
had taught him, that this was a world where every one is for himself,
and to him that asks shall be given. To him that asks twice should be
twice given. The consequence is that life is a great hunting, with no
time for thanksgiving unalloyed. You must end your Gloria in a
whining petition. Having, however, nothing to ask, she sat at these
times in ecstasy inarticulate, her rags laid by for a season, looking
long and far through the green lattice towards the blue, bent upon
exploration of the joyful mysteries. A beam of the sun would fall upon
her to warm her pale beauty and make it glow, the wind of mid-June
play softly in her hair, and fold her in a child's embrace. Then again
she would toy with her ring. "Ring, ring, he will come again, and put
thee where thou shouldest be. Meantime lie still until he lie there
instead of thee."