I
Just as the world had once possessed Gian-Luca, the world of the Doric and all that it stood for, so now the forest had begun to possess him. The simple, innocent life of the earth, upon which he wandered or rested or slept, became a part of this man’s life also, until gradually, when he looked about him, he could not conceive of any other. He was faithful to his promise to his wife, however, and once every week he sent her a letter, at the same time calling for her letter to him, addressed: “G. L., The Post Office, Lyndhurst,” in accordance with his written instructions.
He wrote always the same thing: “I am well, Maddalena.”
And she answered: “I am well, Gian-Luca.”
They got to know him by sight in Lyndhurst—a tall, thin man, with a little cleft beard—some said he was an artist, some a writer, some a crank, and some thought him mad but harmless. But nobody really knew anything about him, except that he was living in the forest; and since he apparently did no damage, they allowed him to live there in peace. Apart from that weekly visit to the Post Office, he only went into the town to buy food; and just at first for another reason also, in order to get his hair cut. But after a little he began to feel shy, for his clothes very soon grew worn and earth-stained, so he chopped at his own hair as best he could, sitting with a small looking-glass on his knees.
He had dropped all set rules and all method in his life, shedding them as easily as threadbare garments. He wandered about when and where he listed, sleeping out in the forest, like the beasts and the birds, he got up at dawn, and lay down to rest when the light failed. He washed his body in some secluded stream at sunrise, and again at nightfall; there were many such streams in the forest, he discovered, where a man could bathe unmolested. The washing of his clothes was a far greater problem, yet he managed to accomplish this also; he would soap and then rub them on a smooth stone or boulder, rinsing out the soap in the clear running water, as the peasants in Italy had done. He dried his clothes in the sun when he could, but sometimes it was necessary to kindle a fire, and after the first few abortive efforts he became quite an expert fire-builder. Very crafty he grew in judging the wind, its direction, and where it would carry his smoke—there were woodmen and keepers patrolling the forest, and the lighting of fires was forbidden. Nevertheless it was done pretty often by the passing Brothers of the Road, and from such folk Gian-Luca learnt many harmless ruses for evading the arm of the law. The forest itself was his staunchest ally—so vast that a man might escape detection; and one day he discovered a charcoal-burner, who was kindly and willing to befriend him.
The charcoal-burner was the last of his kind to carry on that very ancient craft; from father to son it had been handed down, but this man was the last of a long line of burners who had earned their living in the forest.
“Me brothers don’t seem to fancy it somehow—looks as though this job would die out with me,” he told Gian-Luca, who was thankfully drying a flannel shirt by his fire. But when Gian-Luca inquired with interest whether it was love of the forest that held him, the charcoal-burner looked rather bewildered. “Maybe,” he answered; “who knows?”
He was always as black as a chimney-sweep, but black with the sweet, pure ashes of the wood; his grey eyes looked out of his round, dusky face like kind lamps shining in darkness. There was skill in his work, very great skill indeed, as Gian-Luca discovered when he watched him. A huge mound of faggots he must build, this small man, and the mound must be dome-topped, and ten feet in height; at its base it must be at least twenty feet wide—no mean funeral pyre for the trees. The whole must be covered with dry forest litter, then thickly powdered with charcoal dust; many hours would be spent in this careful preparation for the ultimate sacrifice. The dome had a deep depression in the middle, like a monster navel in the stomach of a giant, and here it was that the fire would be started, to burn slowly into the entrails. Up and down his old ladder climbed the little black adept, spacing his faggots to admit of a draught; and last, but not least, came the large iron shovel filled with red crematory embers. Then the air would grow fragrant and cloudy with wood smoke, the scent of it reminding the homeless of home—the dear, warm, ingratiating scent of logs burning, so companionable always to man.
Sometimes Gian-Luca would sit watching for hours, lending a helping hand when it was needed; and the charcoal-burner would welcome this stranger, for his was a solitary life. Sometimes he would tell Gian-Luca old legends, old tales of the forest and its pioneer squatters, never forgetting to mention William Rufus, whose body had been carried in a charcoal-burner’s cart.