Simon of Rouen--Simon, the soldier of fortune--trampled the grass of the Eleusinian wood with a heart as light as his wallet. His garments were wrecks of former splendor, degraded now by the tramping of high-road by day and the sleeping beneath hedge by night; but Simon carried himself as if he bobbed on the high tide of prosperity. A great sword clung to his thigh; his right hand brandished a massive oaken cudgel; a rusty iron lantern hung from his girdle, incongruous enough. He whistled as he went a tripping tune, and now and then he shouted some words to it:
"When I was no more than a span,
Honey and gingerbread pleased me highly."
That was the beginning of it, and, for much of the journey, was the middle of it and the end of it as well, for it was Simon's own song, and Simon's first adventure in the lyrical, and Simon was but a child at rhyming. He had a grudge against the world, and he wanted to sing his grievance the better to blow it abroad, but he would have given any man his fist in the face who dared to call him poetical.
It was naught to him that the ground he covered was sown with splendid memories. Truly he knew nothing about them, but he would have cared as little for the condition of his journey had he been wiser. To the mind fanciful those memories might seem as many as the leaves that year by year had greened and withered and fattened the forest soil through long generations of men. Greek gods, Greek kings, Greek heroes, beautiful Greek women, had been the children of that magic land. But Simon, the soldier of fortune, whistling as he fared, cared no jot for his lack of knowledge. Though he had left behind him the land of Agamemnon, and was setting his face steadily towards the city of Theseus, for him Peloponnesus was the place where the French noble dwelt who called himself Duke of Corinth, against whom he nursed his grudge; for him the capital of Attica was the city where the French noble reigned who called himself Duke of Athens, from whom he hoped to gain favor. For Simon, the soldier of fortune, flourished in the dusk of the thirteenth and the dawn of the fourteenth centuries of the world's age since the birth of the world's Saviour; and Simon, the soldier of fortune, took it for granted contentedly that from all time titled French adventurers had held by the hard hand the pleasant land of Greece.
The time of the year was May-time; the time of the day was hard on to sunset. Simon had tramped sturdily since morning and had not broken his fast since noon--his stomach was crying cupboard. There were onions in his wallet, there was nothing in his gourd; he must hope for a spring in the forest to moisten his provender--little cheer. This was why he looked about him so closely as he followed the dubious way between the trees, for his thoughts paid no reverence to the evening glories of the ancient wood.
The young knight whom he had passed on the road an hour or two before saw the forest with other eyes, being a poet and a reader of poets. When Simon, tramping the white highway, had come up with him he was reclining beside his tethered horse in the shade of the trees on the edge of the little wood, reading in a little book. Simon first questioned the young knight if there might be a short cut for him if he quitted the highway and went through the wood. The young knight, laying down his book, answered him that there very well might be such a short cut. But he added that he could not tell him for sure, as he was himself but newly come to Greece. Simon thanked him and decided to try for the short cut. But he saw that the book which the knight held had little painted pictures in it. Simon, ever curious, asked him what he read. The youth answered him civilly that he read what a rhymer had written of a dreamer who became a lover because of his great love for the mystic rose. Whereat Simon grunted his disgust that any one should be fool enough to waste his life in reading of other folk's love-affairs when he might be making love for himself briskly.
"'Tis all one," he averred, "with thinking of tables spread with dainties while the hunger-belt nips your middle."
He had spoken feelingly, for he fasted, and, fasting, fretted. But the young knight carried no provant to temper Simon's edge of appetite, and the young knight smiled at Simon's view of life, and returned to his reading of Good-Greeting and Sweet-Looking and the kiss given to the mystic rose-bud. Whereat Simon rattled angrily the lantern that hung at his girdle and took to his journey again, climbing up the slope into the fringe of the forest, and telling himself as he did so that no man deserved to be called honest who squandered his manhood over love-tales. And so, hot with his scorn, Simon strode into the coolness and the twilight of the wood. If Simon had been travelling from Athens instead of travelling towards Athens he might not have chosen to journey through the wood, at least when night was near. The Athenians believed the wood to be haunted. They knew not why they believed this; they had the tale from their mothers, who had it from their mothers before them; and so the Athenians skirted the forest by day and shunned it by night. The French masters of Attica, taking everything they could take from their Athenian subjects, took their superstitions as well and gave the wood a wide berth. Simon did not know that the forest was haunted; he did think that it made a short cut to go through its avenues instead of following the main road that wound in a great loop below. Others before him that day, ignorant as he, had done as he did--gentles of an ancient guild, devotees of St. Nicholas. If Simon had known of his predecessors it would not have changed his purpose; he still would have chosen to travel by the woodland way.
If Simon had been a poet, like his disdained acquaintance of the road-side, he would have been delighted with the May-day graces of the place--with the new-green livery of the ancient trees; with the deep glades and dim aisles, down which the dying sunlight lingered; with the fantastic shapes that bole and bough put on under the enchantment of the waning day; with all the mystery and piety of the wood. But to Simon a wood, in the main, was a place where enemies love to lurk in ambush, and though Greece was for the hour at peace, custom made Simon look about him as warily as if he walked in time of war. Custom, to his surprise though no whit to his alarm, was justified of her pains. Something glittered in that clump of bushes; something stirred behind that mighty tree. Simon swung his staff to his right hand, and those who waited, guessing themselves detected, came leaping from concealment, left and right, and faced him--two men with drawn swords, ruffians of the kind that follow camps, soldiers in name, robbers in fact and act, never fighters unless the odds were hot on their party. Simon knew the kind well enough and despised them highly, not because they were plunderers, but because they were skulkers, shufflers, fluffers, mean moths in a rich coat. The jack-rascals were clad in habits fitted to their forest play of trap and catch--dull greens and sullen tawnies, good for lurking in, easily commingled, for the unwary, with the green and tawny of a wood. The rogues would have rushed Simon, but he stood so steady and made so mighty a mill-wheel with his monstrous cudgel that they were daunted, and bayed at him.
"Stand and deliver," cried one. "Deliver and stand," the other varied.
Simon eyed them composedly, plainly unperturbed. He felt that he was master of the match, and made merry in the sense of his strength.
"Good-evening, crimps." Thus he greeted them cheerfully. "Why should I stand and what should I deliver?"
"The contents of thy wallet, fat rascal," made answer the man who seemed to hold a kind of chieftainship in the little league of two.
Simon grounded his cudgel.
"Fellow," he said, "I am not a rascal, neither am I fat. What you call fat is brawn, solid brawn. For the other matter, I am as poor as the ancient patriarch."
"We will not take thy word for that," the second robber grumbled, and the brace of knaves moved a little ways nearer to their quarry. Simon guessed that their game was to get at him, one on each side, and to counter their purpose the hunted became the hunter. He moved up on them whirling his baton, so valiant a piece of anger that the robbers yielded ground and their hearts were as water. He thundered at them as he moved:
"Also, I am a little less strong than Samson, the gate-snatcher, and will tackle twenty such as you."
One faintheart called to the other faintheart:
"I like not the looks of this Christopher," and the other faintheart, at one with his comrade, lowered his blade and cried at Simon, to placate him:
"If you be indeed penniless, there is no use in molesting you."
Simon's staff lay at ease again, balanced in his big fist. He was good-humored with the rogues, being tickled at the thought of their possible plunder--the brace of onions in his bag.
"Well reasoned, lads," he laughed. "No logical doctor in Byzantium could have come to a better conclusion. Are you very hot to pick pockets?"
He who seemed the leader of the pair seemed surprised at the simplicity of the question.
"Every honest man is anxious to push his trade," he affirmed, sagaciously.
Simon grinned.
"Is this forest your playground?" he pursued.
The robber shook his head.
"No, no," he said; "we come from Corinth, where we have plied our craft blithely this many a day. Among the light-fingered of that bright city I am Captain Fox, at your service," and the lean, leather-faced rascal made Simon a bow; "and this my comrade goes as Captain Gander," and he pointed to the fat rogue, his companion, who had seated himself on a tree-trunk to await the result of the negotiations.
Simon nodded, and queried:
"Where are you going, good Captain Fox and good Captain Gander?"
"We make for Athens," Captain Fox replied. "There are great doings in Athens--jousts, feasts, dances, banquets, pageants. We should do famously in Athens."
The other ruffian took up the tale.
"Every knight's purse will leak gold pieces, and the lovely ladies will rain pearls from their petticoats. 'Twill be but stooping to pick them up."
Simon leered at the pair maliciously, and his misanthropy hatched a plan.
"Though you take no toll of me, yet the devil is your friend to-night, for yonder on the highway at my heels comes, by-and-by, a young gentleman riding all alone, and one that is sure to carry gold in poke."
Captain Gander rubbed his plump hands.
"St. Nicholas be praised for sending us game," he chuckled.
Simon, in malice, dashed the rascals' hopes with a grin.
"It may be," he suggested, "that it will prove too proud a quarry for two such gibbet-kites as you to pike at. The featherhead in the fine clothes may be a fool, but I do not think such a brace of barn-filchers would show very fearsome even in a fool's eyes."
He that called himself Captain Fox snarled with lips that were as leathern and teeth that were as yellow as his jerkin.
"Do not vex your liver for that," he answered. "We have comrades otherwhere in the wood that we will call to our comfort: Captain Rat and Captain Badger, Captain Bat and Captain Chanticleer, no less--valiant captains all."
Simon laughed heartily as the fantastic catalogue swelled.
"Here is an army out of Noah's ark," he applauded, "with as many generals to it as ever followed Alexander. Ye lack only the leader and the led. Well, go your ways. I give you Golden Jacket for a guerdon."
Again Captain Gander chuckled, but Captain Fox looked at Simon with some show of suspicion.
"Why do you tell us this?" he asked.
Simon answered him in the honesty of his malevolence.
"To help you to the gallows and him to his hurt, for he is a book-reading noodle. Go your ways, I am tired of you," and he pointed with his staff in the direction in which he knew the highway ran, though he could see no sign of it through the clustering trees. "You cannot miss him, for I have seen no other rider this eve, and he shines like a star, for his coat is of cloth of gold and he has jewels in his cap."
The rogues licked their lips. Captain Fox saw himself already in the coat of cloth of gold. Captain Gander, in imagination, pocketed some of those jewels.
"We thank you," Fox cried; and--
"Good-night," cried his fellow. And the pair made off at a pace between a walk and a trot in the direction indicated. Simon looked after them till they disappeared in the deepening dusk.
"I misdoubt me much," he meditated, "if reading of romances of roses will help that lad to tackle these grab-alls." Then he dismissed the matter from his mind and resumed his journey.
A little way farther he came upon a quiet glade which seemed very reposeful in the dying light, and here, in default of water, he decided to rest and munch his onions dryly. He sprawled at his ease on the soft grass and bit thoughtfully at his vegetable, pricking his wits for verses. This ballad was to be his biography, but so far it had not travelled beyond the nursery. The sharpness of his root stimulated fancy:
When I was no more than a span,
Honey and gingerbread pleased me highly;
When I came to the height of a man,
Women and vintages used me vilely.
This quick flow of inspiration fascinated him. The rhymes were as true as they were beautiful. He must needs try again while the fit was on him:
When I went to lovemonger school,
Poppets and fopperies killed my credit;
All my sweethearts thought me a fool
While I had pence; but when poor they said it.
He was hugely amused at this fruition. A man might read verses and yet prove no fool, if the verses were of such stuff as this ballad he fashioned. Here was no nonsense about a rose, but a plain tale of a brave man's life, bravely told, meat for heroes. Thinking it over, he felt that it had gone far enough. It said with a noble simplicity all that he wanted to say; there lay his life by and large. Love of women, love of wine; and for result, your penniless misanthrope yawning in a forest. For Simon was yawning noisily. The unwonted intellectual effort had overmastered his activity; he ought to be up and doing, but sloth pawed at his eyelids and the dusk was all a-humming with lullabies.
"Well, thanks be," he murmured, as he chewed on the last bite of his onion, "there is no woman-thing in this wood to worry me if I choose to slumber."
Even as he spoke he closed his eyes, and, as it seemed to him, had scarcely closed them when he opened them again, suddenly conscious that a woman was standing before him and staring at him.
