“Hurts thee, lad?”
“No.” ’Twas not my pain but the sight of the sinking sun that wrung the exclamation from me—“I was thinking,” I muttered.
“Don’t: ’tis bad for health. But bide thee still awhile, and shalt lie ’pon a soft bed.”
By this time, we had come down to the road: and the yells were still going on, louder than ever. We cross’d the road, descended another slope, and came all at once on a low pile of buildings that a moment before had been hid. ’Twas but three hovels of mud, stuck together in the shape of a headless cross, the main arm pointing out toward the moor. Around the whole ran a battered wall, patched with furs; and from this dwelling the screams were issuing—
“Joan!” the voice began, “Joan—Jan Tergagle’s a-clawin’ my legs—Gar‑rout, thou hell cat—Blast thee, let me zog! Pull’n off Joan—Jo‑an!”
The voice died away into a wail; then broke out in a racket of curses. Joan stepped to the door and flung it wide. As my eyes grew used to the gloom inside, they saw this:—
A rude kitchen—the furniture but two rickety chairs, now toss’d on their faces, an oak table, with legs sunk into the earth, a keg of strong waters, tilted over and draining upon the mud floor, a ladder leading up to a loft, and in two of the corners a few bundles of bracken strewn for bedding. To the left, as one entered, was an open hearth; but the glowing peat-turves were now pitch’d to right and left over the hearthstone and about the floor, where they rested, filling the den with smoke. Under one of the chairs a black cat spat and bristled: while in the middle of the room, barefooted in the embers, crouched a man. He was half naked, old and bent, with matted grey hair and beard hanging almost to his waist. His chest and legs were bleeding from a score of scratches; and he pointed at the cat, opening and shutting his mouth like a dog, and barking out curse upon curse.
No way upset, Joan stepped across the kitchen, laid me on one of the bracken beds, and explain’d—
“That’s feyther: he’s drunk.”
With which she turn’d, dealt the old man a cuff that stretch’d him senseless, and gathering up the turves, piled them afresh on the hearth. This done, she took the keg and gave me a drink of it. The stuff scalded me, but I thanked her. And then, when she had shifted my bed a bit, to ease the pain of lying, she righted a chair, drew it up and sat beside me. The old man lay like a log where he had fallen, and was now snoring. Presently, the fumes of the liquor, or mere faintness, mastered me, and my eyes closed. But the picture they closed upon was that of Joan, as she lean’d forward, chin on hand, with the glow of the fire on her brown skin and in the depths of her dark eyes.
XII
How Joan Saved the Army of the West; and Saw the Fight on Braddock Down
But the pain of my hurt followed into my dreams. I woke with a start, and tried to sit up.
Within the kitchen all was quiet. The old savage was still stretch’d on the floor: the cat curled upon the hearth. The girl had not stirr’d: but looking toward the window hole, I saw night out side, and a frosty star sparkling far down in the west.
“Joan, what’s the hour?”
“Sun’s been down these four hours.” She turned her face to look at me.
“I’ve no business lying here.”
“Chose to come, lad: none axed thee, that I knows by.”
“Where’s the mare? Must set me across her back, Joan, and let me ride on.”
“Mare’s in stable, wi’ fetlocks swelled like puddens. Chose to come, lad; an’ choose or no, must bide.”
“ ’Tis for the General Hopton, at Bodmin, I am bound, Joan; and wound or no, must win there this night.”
“And that’s seven mile away: wi’ a bullet in thy skull, and a peat quag thy burial. For they went south, and thy road lieth more south than west.”
“The troopers?”
“Aye, Jack: an’ work I had this day wi’ those same bloody warriors: but take a sup at the keg, and bite this manchet of oat cake while I tell thee.”
And so, having fed me, and set my bed straight, she sat on the floor beside me (for the better hearing), and in her uncouth tongue, told how I had been saved. I cannot write her language; but the tale, in sum, was this:—
When I dropp’d forward into her arms, Joan for a moment was taken aback, thinking me dead. But (to quote her) “ ‘no good,’ said I, ‘in cuddlin’ a lad ’pon the hillside, for folks to see, though he have a-got curls like a wench: an’ dead or ’live, no use to wait for others to make sure.’ ”
So she lifted and carried me to a spot hard by, that she called the Jew’s Kitchen; and where that was, even with such bearings as I had, she defied me to discover. There was no time to tend me, whilst Molly stood near to show my whereabouts: so she let me lie, and went to lead the sorrel down to stable.
Her hand was on the bridle when she heard a Whoop! up the road; and there were half a dozen riders on the crest, and tearing down hill toward her. Joan had nothing left but to feign coolness, and went on leading the mare down the slope.
In a while, up comes the foremost trooper, draws rein, and pants out “Where’s he to?”
“Who?” asks Joan, making out to be surprised.
“Why, the lad whose mare thou’rt leadin’?”
“Mile an’ half
