Part 46 (1/2)

”It was a good notion, that recess behind my old furnace!” said Glenfernie. ”You took no harm beyond some cobwebs and ashes?”

”None, Senor n.o.body,” said Ian.

That day went by. The laird and Strickland talked together in low voices in the old school-room. Davie, too, appeared there once, and an old, trusted stableman. At sunset came Robin Greenlaw, and stayed an hour. The stars shone out, around drew a high, windy crystal night.

Mrs. Grizel went to bed. Alexander, with Alice and Strickland, sat by the fire in the hall. There was much that the laird wished to say that he said. They spoke in low voices, leaning toward the burning logs, the light playing over their faces, the light laughing upon old armor, crossed weapons, upon the walls. Alice, a bonny woman with sense and courage, sat beside Glenfernie. Strickland, from his corner, saw how much she looked like her mother; how much, to-night, Alexander looked like her.

They talked until late. They came to agreement, quiet, moved, but thorough. Glenfernie rose. He took Alice in his arms and kissed her thrice. Moisture was in the eyes of both.

”Sleep, dear, sleep! So we understand, things grow easy!”

”I think that you are right, and that is a long way to comfort,” said Alice. ”Good night, good night, Alexander!”

When she was gone the two men talked yet a little longer, over the dying fire. Then they, too, wished each other good night. Strickland went to his room, but Alexander left the house and crossed the moon-filled night to the keep. It was now he and Ian.

There was no strain. ”Old Steadfast” and ”Old Saracen,” and a long pilgrimage together, and every difference granted, yet, in the background, a vast, an oceanic unity.... Ian rose from the settle. He and the laird of Glenfernie sat by the table and with pen and paper made a diagram of escape. They bent to the task in hand, and when it was done, and a few more words had been said, they turned to the pallets which Davie had spread on either side of the hearth. The moon and the low fire made a strange half-light in the room. The two lay still, addressed to sleep. They spoke and answered but once.

Said Ian: ”I felt just then the waves of the sea!--The waves of the sea and the roads of France.... The waves and roads of the days and nights and months and years. I there and you here. There is an ether, doubtless, that links, but I don't tread it firmly.... Be sure I'll turn to you, call to you, often, over the long roads, from out of the trough of the waves! _Senor n.o.body! Senor n.o.body!_” He laughed, but with a catch of the breath. ”Good night!”

”Good night, Old Saracen!” said Alexander.

Morn came. That day Glenfernie House heard still that all that region was searched. The day went by, short, gray, with flurries of snow. By afternoon it settled to a great, down-drifting pall of white. It was falling thick and fast when Alexander Jardine and Ian Rullock pa.s.sed through the broken wall beyond the school-room. The pine branches were whitening, the narrow, rugged path ran a zigzag of white.

Strickland had parted from them at the wall, and yet Strickland seemed to be upon the path, following Glenfernie. Ian wore a dress of Strickland's, a hat and cloak that the countryside knew. He and Strickland were nearly of a height. Keeping silence and moving through a dimness of the descending day and the shaken veil of the snow, almost any chance-met neighbor would have said, in pa.s.sing, ”Good day, Mr. Strickland!”

The path led into the wood. Trees rose about them, phantoms in the snowstorm. The snow fell in large flakes, straight, undriven by wind.

Footprints made transient shapes. The snow obliterated them as in the desert moving sand obliterated. Ian and Alexander, leaving the wood, took a way that led by field and moor to Littlefarm.

The earth seemed a Solitary, with no child nor lover of hers abroad.

The day declined, the snow fell. Ian and Alexander moved on, hardly speaking. The outer landscape rolled dimmed, softened, withdrawn. The inner world moved among its own contours. The day flowed toward night, as the night would flow toward day.

They came to the foot of the moor that stretched between White Farm and Littlefarm.

”There is a woman standing by that tree,” said Ian.

”Yes. It is Gilian.”

They moved toward her. Tall, fair, wide-browed and gray-eyed, she leaned against the oak stem and seemed to be at home here, too. The wide falling snow, the mystic light and quietness, were hers for mantle. As they approached she stirred.

”Good day, Glenfernie!--Good day, Ian Rullock!--Glenfernie, you cannot go this way! Soldiers are at Littlefarm.”

”Did Robin--”

”He got word to me an hour since. They are chance-fallen, the second time. They will get no news and soon be gone. He trusted me to give you warning. He says wait for him at the cot that was old Skene's. It stands empty and folk say that it is haunted and go round about.” She left the tree and took the path with them. ”It lies between us and White Farm. This snow is friendly. It covers marks--it keeps folk within-doors--nor does it mean to fall too long or too heavily.”

They moved together through the falling snow.

It was a mile to old Skene's cot. They walked it almost in silence--upon Ian's part in silence. The snow fell; it covered their footprints. All outlines showed vague and looming. The three seemed three vital points moving in a world dissolving or a world forming.

The empty cot rose before them, the thatch whitened, the door-stone whitened. Glenfernie pushed the door. It opened; they found a clean, bare place, twilight now, still, with the falling snow without.