That the creature should have set his will against all others,and should resist me with such strength and devilishness,rouses in me the passion of the days when I cursed and raved and struck at those who angered me.'Tis fury that possesses me,and I could curse and shriek at him as I flog him,if 'twould be seemly.As it would not be so,I shut my teeth hard,and shriek and curse within them,and none can hear."Among those who made it their custom to miss no day when she went forth on Devil that they might stand near and behold her,there was one man ever present,and 'twas Sir John Oxon.He would stand as near as might be and watch the battle,a stealthy fire in his eye,and a look as if the outcome of the fray had deadly meaning to him.
He would gnaw his lip until at times the blood started;his face would by turns flush scarlet and turn deadly pale;he would move suddenly and restlessly,and break forth under breath into oaths of exclamation.One day a man close by him saw him suddenly lay his hand upon his sword,and having so done,still keep it there,though 'twas plain he quickly remembered where he was.
As for the horse's rider,my Lady Dunstanwolde,whose way it had been to avoid this man and to thrust him from her path by whatsoever adroit means she could use,on these occasions made no effort to evade him and his glances;in sooth,he knew,though none other did so,that when she fought with her horse she did it with a fierce joy in that he beheld her.'Twas as though the battle was between themselves;and knowing this in the depths of such soul as he possessed,there were times when the man would have exulted to see the brute rise and fall upon her,crushing her out of life,or dash her to the earth and set his hoof upon her dazzling upturned face.
Her scorn and deadly defiance of him,her beauty and maddening charm,which seemed but to increase with every hour that flew by,had roused his love to fury.Despite his youth,he was a villain,as he had ever been;even in his first freshness there had been older men--and hardened ones--who had wondered at the selfish mercilessness and blackness of the heart that was but that of a boy.
They had said among themselves that at his years they had never known a creature who could be so gaily a dastard,one who could plan with such light remorselessness,and using all the gifts given him by Nature solely for his own ends,would take so much and give so little.In truth,as time had gone on,men who had been his companions,and had indeed small consciences to boast of,had begun to draw off a little from him,and frequent his company less.He chose to tell himself that this was because he had squandered his fortune and was less good company,being pursued by creditors and haunted by debts;but though there was somewhat in this,perchance 'twas not the entire truth.
"By Gad!"said one over his cups,"there are things even a rake-hell fellow like me cannot do;but he does them,and seems not to know that they are to his discredit."There had been a time when without this woman's beauty he might have lived--indeed,he had left it of his own free vicious will;but in these days,when his fortunes had changed and she represented all that he stood most desperately in need of,her beauty drove him mad.
In his haunting of her,as he followed her from place to place,his passion grew day by day,and all the more gained strength and fierceness because it was so mixed with hate.He tossed upon his bed at night and cursed her;he remembered the wild past,and the memory all but drove him to delirium.He knew of what stern stuff she was made,and that even if her love had died,she would have held to her compact like grim death,even while loathing him.And he had cast all this aside in one mad moment of boyish cupidity and folly;and now that she was so radiant and entrancing a thing,and wealth,and splendour,and rank,and luxury lay in the hollow of her hand,she fixed her beauteous devil's eyes upon him with a scorn in their black depths which seemed to burn like fires of hell.
The great brute who dashed,and plunged,and pranced beneath her seemed to have sworn to conquer her as he had sworn himself;but let him plunge and kick as he would,there was no quailing in her eye,she sat like a creature who was superhuman,and her hand was iron,her wrist was steel.She held him so that he could not do his worst without such pain as would drive him mad;she lashed him,and rained on him such blows as almost made him blind.Once at the very worst,Devil dancing near him,she looked down from his back into John Oxon's face,and he cursed aloud,her eye so told him his own story and hers.In those days their souls met in such combat as it seemed must end in murder itself.
"You will not conquer him,"he said to her one morning,forcing himself near enough to speak.
"I will,unless he kills me,"she answered,"and that methinks he will find it hard to do.""He will kill you,"he said."I would,were I in his four shoes.""You would if you could,"were her words;"but you could not with his bit in your mouth and my hand on the snaffle.And if he killed me,still 'twould be he,not I,was beaten;since he could only kill what any bloody villain could with any knife.He is a brute beast,and I am that which was given dominion over such.Look on till Ihave done with him."
And thus,with other beholders,though in a different mood from theirs,he did,until a day when even the most sceptical saw that the brute came to the fray with less of courage,as if there had at last come into his brain the dawning of a fear of that which rid him,and all his madness could not displace from its throne upon his back.
"By God!"cried more than one of the bystanders,seeing this,despite the animal's fury,"the beast gives way!He gives way!She has him!"And John Oxon,shutting his teeth,cut short an oath and turned pale as death.