d beyond the leaves.

The summer passed and the winter came: the two lovers lived, all
hidden in the hollow of a rock, and on the frozen earth the cold
crisped their couch with dead leaves. In the strength of their love
neither one nor the other felt these mortal things. But when the open
skies had come back with the springtime, they built a hut of green
branches under the great trees. Tristan had known, ever since his
childhood, that art by which a man may sing the song of birds in the
woods, and at his fancy, he would call as call the thrush, the
blackbird and the nightingale, and all winged things; and sometimes in
reply very many birds would come on to the branches of his hut and
sing their song full-throated in the new light.

The lovers had ceased to wander through the forest, for none of the
barons ran the risk of their pursuit knowing well that Tristan would
have hanged them to the branches of a tree. One day, however, one of
the four traitors, Guenelon, whom God blast! drawn by the heat of the
hunt, dared enter the Morois. And that morning, on the forest edge in
a ravine, Gorvenal, having unsaddled his horse, had let him graze on
the new grass, while far off in their hut Tristan held the Queen, and
they slept. Then suddenly Gorvenal heard the cry of the pack; the
hounds pursued a deer, which fell into that ravine. And far on the
heath the hunter showed -- and Gorvenal knew him for the man whom his
master hated above all. Alone, with bloody spurs, and striking his
horse's mane, he galloped on; but Gorvenal watched him from ambush: he
came fast, he would return more slowly. He passed and Gorvenal leapt
from his ambush and seized the rein and, suddenly, remembering all the
wrong that man had done, hewed him to death and carried off his head
in his hands. And when the hunters found the body, as they followed,
they thought Tristan came after and they fled in fear of death, and
thereafter no man hunted in that wood. And far off, in the hut upon
their couch of leaves, slept Tristan and the Queen.

There came Gorvenal, noiseless, the dead man's head in his hands that
he might lift his master's heart at his awakening. He hung it by its
hair outside the hut, and the leaves garlanded it about. Tristan woke
and saw it, half hidden in the leaves, and staring at him as he gazed,
and he became afraid. But Gorvenal said: "Fear not, he is dead. I
killed him with this sword."

Then Tristan was glad, and henceforward from tha