Part 26 (1/2)
”That's true, anyway,” said Ringan, and fell to whittling a stick.
”For three days,” I continued, ”you have food enough, and if by the end of it you are not attacked you may safely go hunting for more. If nothing happens in a week's time you will know that I have failed, and you can send another messenger. Ringan would be the best.”
”That can hardly be,” he said, ”because I'm coming with you now.”
I could only stare blankly.
”Two's better than one for this kind of business, and I am no use here--only _fruges consumere natus_, as I learned from the Inveraray dominie. It's my concern as much as yours, for I brought you here, and I'm trysted with Lawrence to take back word. I'm loath to leave my friends, but my place is at your side, Andrew. So say no more about it.”
I knew it was idle to protest. Ringan was as obstinate as a Spanish mule when he chose, and, besides, there was reason in what he said. Two were better than one both for speed in travel and for fighting if the need came, and though I had more woodcraft than he, he had ten times my wisdom. There was something about his matter-of-fact tone which took the enterprise out of the land of impossibilities into a more sober realm. I even began to dream of success.
But when. I looked at Elspeth her eyes were so full of grief and care that my spirits sank again.
”Tell me,” I cried, ”that you think I am doing right, G.o.d knows it is hard to leave you, and I carry the sorest heart in Virginia. But you would not have me stay idle when my plain duty commands. Say that you bid me go, Elspeth.”
”I bid you go,” she said bravely, ”and I will pray G.o.d to keep you safe.” But her eyes belied her voice, for they were swimming with tears. At that moment I got the conviction that I was more to her than a mere companion, that by some miracle I had won a place in that proud and loyal heart. It seemed a cruel stroke of fate that I should get this hope at the very moment when I was to leave her and go into the shadow of death.
But that was no hour to think of love, I took every man apart and swore him, though there was little need, to stand by the girl at all costs.
To Grey I opened my inmost thoughts.
”You and I serve one mistress,” I said, ”and now I confide her to your care. All that I would have done I am a.s.sured you will do. My heart is easier when I know that you are by her side. Once we were foes, and since then we have been friends, and now you are the dearest friend on earth, for I leave you with all I cherish.”
He flushed deeply and gave me his hand.
”Go in peace, sir,” he said. ”If G.o.d wills that we perish, my last act will be to a.s.sure an easy pa.s.sage to heaven for her we wors.h.i.+p. If we meet again, we meet as honourable rivals, and may that day come soon.”
So with pistols in belt, and a supply of cartouches and some little food in our pockets, Ringan and I were enfolded in the silence of the woods.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE HORN OF DIARMAID SOUNDS.
We reached the gap, and made slantwise across the farther hill. I did not dare to go clown Clearwater Glen, and, besides, I was aiming for a point farther south than the Rappahannock. In my wanderings with Shalah I had got a pretty good idea of the lie of the mountains on their eastern side, and I had remarked a long ridge which flung itself like a cape far into the lowlands. If we could leave the hills by this, I thought we might strike the stream called the North Fork, which would bring us in time to the neighbourhood of Frew's dwelling. The ridges were our only safe path, for they were thickly overgrown with woods, and the Indian bands were less likely to choose them for a route. The danger was in the glens, where the trees were spa.r.s.er and the broad stretches of meadow made better going for horses.
The movement of my legs made me pluck up heart. I was embarked at any rate in a venture, and had got rid of my desperate indecision. The two of us held close together, and chose the duskiest thickets, crawling belly-wise over the little clear patches and avoiding the crown of the ridge like the plague. The weather helped us, for the skies hung grey and low, with wisps of vapour curling among the trees. The glens were pits of mist, and my only guide was my recollection of what I had seen, and the easterly course of the streams.
By midday we had mounted to the crest of a long scarp which fell away in a narrow and broken promontory towards the plains. So far we had seen nothing to give us pause, and the only risk lay in some Indian finding and following our trail. We lay close in a scrubby wood, and rested for a little, while we ate some food. Everything around us dripped with moisture, and I could have wrung pints from my coat and breeches.
”Oh for the Dry Tortugas!” Ringan sighed. ”What I would give for a hot sun and the kindly winds o' the sea! I thought I pined for the hills, Andrew, but I would not give a clean beach and a warm sou'-wester for all the mountains on earth.”
Then again: ”Yon's a fine la.s.s,” he would say.
I did not reply, for I had no heart to speak of what I had left behind.
”Cheer up, young one,” he cried. ”There was more lost at Flodden. A gentleman-adventurer must live by the hour, and it's surprising how Fortune favours them that trust her. There was a man I mind, in Breadalbane....” And here he would tell some tale of how light came out of black darkness for the trusting heart.
”Man, Ringan,” I said, ”I see your kindly purpose. But tell me, did ever you hear of such a tangle as ours being straightened out?