PART THE SECOND

THE WOOD OF MOROIS

They wandered in the depths of the wild wood, restless and in haste like beasts that are hunted, nor did they often dare to return by night to the shelter of yesterday.  They ate but the flesh of wild animals.  Their faces sank and grew white, their clothes ragged; for the briars tore them.  They loved each other and they did not know that they suffered.

One day, as they were wandering in these high woods that had never yet been felled or ordered, they came upon the hermitage of Ogrin.

The old man limped in the sunlight under a light growth of maples near his chapel:  he leant upon his crutch, and cried: 

“Lord Tristan, hear the great oath which the Cornish men have sworn.  The King has published a ban in every parish:  Whosoever may seize you shall receive a hundred marks of gold for his guerdon, and all the barons have sworn to give you up alive or dead.  Do penance, Tristan!  God pardons the sinner who turns to repentance.”

“And of what should I repent, Ogrin, my lord?  Or of what crime?  You that sit in judgment upon us here, do you know what cup it was we drank upon the high sea?  That good, great draught inebriates us both.  I would rather beg my life long and live of roots and herbs with Iseult than, lacking her, be king of a wide kingdom.”

“God aid you, Lord Tristan; for you have lost both this world and the next.  A man that is traitor to his lord is worthy to be torn by horses and burnt upon the faggot, and wherever his ashes fall no grass shall grow and all tillage is waste, and the trees and the green things die.  Lord Tristan, give back the Queen to the man who espoused her lawfully according to the laws of Rome.”

“He gave her to his lepers.  From these lepers I myself conquered her with my own hand; and henceforth she is altogether mine.  She cannot pass from me nor I from her.”

Ogrin sat down; but at his feet Iseult, her head upon the knees of that man of God, wept silently.  The hermit told her and re-told her the words of his holy book, but still while she wept she shook her head, and refused the faith he offered.

“Ah me,” said Ogrin then, “what comfort can one give the dead?  Do penance, Tristan, for a man who lives in sin without repenting is a man quite dead.”

“Oh no,” said Tristan, “I live and I do no penance.  We will go back into the high wood which comforts and wards us all round about.  Come with me, Iseult, my friend.”

Iseult rose up; they held each other’s hands.  They passed into the high grass and the underwood:  the trees hid them with their branches.  They disappeared beyond the leaves.