But in time, having cover’d the dead baronet’s body with sprays of the wither’d bracken, I drew her to a little distance and prevail’d on her to nibble a crust of the loaf. Now, all this while, it must be remembered, I was in my shirt sleeves, and the weather bitter cold. Which at length her sorrow allow’d her to notice.
“Why, you are shivering, sore!” she said, and running, drew my buff-coat from her father’s body, and held it out to me.
“Indeed,” I answer’d, “I was thinking of another expedition to warm my blood.” And promising to be back in half an hour, I follow’d down my former tracks toward the stream.
Within twenty minutes I was back, running and well-nigh shouting with joy.
“Come!” I cried to her, “come and see for yourself!”
What had happen’d was this:—Wading cautiously down the brook, I had cause suddenly to prick up my ears and come to a halt. ’Twas the muffled tramp of hoofs that I heard, and creeping a bit further, I caught a glimpse, beyond the hut, of a horse and rider disappearing down the woods. He was the last of the party, as I guess’d from the sound of voices and jingling of bits further down the slope. Advancing on the hut with more boldness, I found it deserted. I scrambled up on the bank and round to the entrance. The snow before it was trampled and sullied by the footmarks of men and horses: and as I noted this, came Settle’s voice calling up the slope—
“Jerry—Jerry Toy!”
A nearer voice hail’d in answer.
“Where’s Reuben?”
“Coming, Captain—close behind!”
“Curse him for a loitering idiot! We’ve wasted time enough, as ’tis,” called back the Captain. “How in thunder is a man to find the road out of this cursed wood?”
“Straight on, Cap’n—you can’t miss it,” shouted another voice, not two gunshots below.
A volcano of oaths pour’d up from Settle. I did not wait for the end of them: but ran back for Mistress Delia.
Together we descended to the hut. By this time the voices had faded away in distance. Yet to make sure that the rascals had really departed, we follow’d their tracks for some way, beside the stream; and suddenly came to a halt with cries of joyful surprise.
The brook had led us to a point where, over a stony fall veil’d with brown bracken, it plunged into a narrow ravine. Standing on the lip, where the water took a smoother glide before leaping, we saw the line of the ravine mark’d by a rift in the pines, and through this a slice of the country that lay below. ’Twas a level plain, well watered, and dotted here and there with houses. A range of wooded hills clos’d the view, and toward them a broad road wound gently, till the eye lost it at their base. All this was plain enough, in spite of the snow that cover’d the landscape. For the sun had burst out above, and the few flakes that still fell looked black against his brilliance and the dazzling country below.
But what caus’d our joy was to see, along the road, a small cavalcade moving away from us, with many bright glances of light and color, as their steel caps and sashes took the sunshine—a pretty sight, and the prettier because it meant our present deliverance.
The girl beside me gave a cry of delight, then sigh’d; and after a minute began to walk back toward the hut: where I left her, and ran up hill for the basket and ham. On my return, I found her examining a heap of rusty tools that, it seem’d, she had found on a shelf of the building. ’Twas no light help to the good fellowship that afterward united us, that from the first I could read her thoughts often without words; and for this reason, that her eyes were as candid as the noonday.
So now I answer’d her aloud—
“This afternoon we may venture down to the plain, where no doubt we shall find a clergyman to sell us a patch of holy ground—”
“Holy ground?” She look’d at me awhile and shook her head. “I am not of your religion,” she said.
“And your father?”
“I think no man ever discovered my father’s religion. Perhaps there was none to discover: but he was no bad father” she steadied her voice and went on:—“He would prefer the hillside to your ‘holy ground.’ ”
So, an hour later, I delv’d his grave in the frosty earth, close by the spot where he lay. Somehow, I shiver’d all the while, and had a cruel shooting pain in my wound that was like to have mastered me before the task was ended. But I managed to lower the body softly into the hole and to cover it reverently from sight: and afterward stood leaning on my spade and feeling very light in the head, while the girl knelt and pray’d for her father’s soul.
And the picture of her as she knelt is the last I remember, till I open’d my eyes, and was amazed to find myself on my back, and staring up at darkness.
“What has happen’d?”
“I think you are very ill,” said a voice: “can you lean on me, and reach the hut?”
“Why, yes: that is, I think so. Why is everything dark?”
“The sun has been down for hours. You have been in a swoon first, and then talk’d—oh, such nonsense! Shame on me, to let you catch this chill!”
She help’d me to my feet and steadied me: and how we reached the hut I cannot tell you. It took more than one weary hour, as I now know; but, at the time, hours and minutes were one to me.
In that hut I lay four nights and four days,
