Alastair’s eyes had never left Edom’s face, and suddenly his mind was made up. He resolved to trust everything to this man’s honesty.
“You can help me if you will. Can I count on you?”
“If it’s onything reasonably possible,” said the cautious Edom.
“I need friends. I want you to summon them.”
“I’ll be blithe to do that.”
“You know the country round and the inns?”
“I’ve traivelled the feck o’t on my twae feet and sampled the maist o’ the publics.”
“Then find a crossroads which has broom on the signpost or an inn with an open eye painted under the sign. Whistle this air,” and he hummed Midwinter’s ditty.
Edom made a tolerable attempt at it. “I mind ye whustled that when we were huntit i’ the big wud. And after that?”
“Someone will come to you and ask your errand. Tell him of my plight and direct him or guide him here.”
Edom nodded, and without more ado turned and swung out for the river-bridge and the high road.
XIII
Journeyman John
The hours passed slowly, for Alastair was in a ferment of hope and fear, into which like lightning-flashes in a dark sky shot now and then a passion of fury, as he remembered Claudia Norreys. He had not seen her as she stood outside the hut, but he could picture the sad disillusionment of her eyes, and the quiver of her mouth as she protested against a damning truth which she yet needs must believe. Her gentle voice sounded maddeningly in his ears. He could not forecast what his fate might be, he could not think settled thoughts, he could not plan; his mind was in that helplessness in which man falls back upon prayer.
The afternoon drew to a quiet sunset. The door of the hut remained open, and through it he saw the leafless knotted limbs of the oaks, which had before been a grey tracery against the smoky brown of the scrub, fire with gold and russet. There was no sign of Edom or his friends, but that at the best he could hardly hope for till late, there was no sign of his gaoler or of any living thing—he was left alone with the open door before him, and the strict fetters on his limbs. The sun sank, the oaks grew grey again, a shiver went through the earth as the night cold descended. The open space in the door had turned to ebony dark before there was a sound of steps.
It was Ben the Gypsy, and he had two others with him, whom Alastair could not see clearly in the light of the single lantern. The man seemed in high excitement.
“ ’Tis time to be stirring, pretty gentleman,” he chirruped. “Hey for the high road and the hills in the dark o’ the moon, says I. No time for supper, neither, but there’ll be a long feast and a fine feast where you’re going. Up with him, Dick lad and Tony lad. I’m running no risks with the bonds of such a fiery fearless gentleman.”
Two stalwart followers swung him in their arms, and marched down one of the glades, the gypsy with the lantern dancing before, like a will-o’-the-wisp. At the foot of the slope were horses, and on one of them—a ragged shelty—they set him, undoing his leg bonds, and fastening them again under the animal’s belly. The seat was not uncomfortable, for he had his feet in stirrups of a sort, but it was impossible for him to escape. His hands they tied, and one of the party took the shelty’s bridle.
The road ran uphill, first through woods and then in a waste of bracken and heather and scree. Black despair was Alastair’s portion. His enemies had triumphed, for even if Edom discovered some of Midwinter’s folk, they would find the hut empty, and how could they trace him by night over such trackless country? His body as well as his heart was broken, for the sudden change from the inertia of the hut made every limb ache and set his head swimming. Soon he was so weary that he lost all count of the way. Dimly he was conscious that they descended into glens and climbed again to ridges, but the growing chill and greater force of the wind told him that they were steadily rising. Presently the wrack was blown off the face of the sky, the winter regiment of stars shone out, and in their faint radiance he saw all about him the dark fields of the hills. Often he thought himself fainting. Repeatedly he would have fallen, but for the belly girth, and more than once he bowed over his horse’s neck in deep weariness. Ben the Gypsy spoke to him, but as he did not answer rode ahead, with his lantern bobbing like a ship’s riding light in a gusty harbour.
Then Alastair fell asleep, and was tortured by nightmares. Indeed all the latter part of the journey was a nightmare, sleeping and waking, for it was a steady anguish, half muffled by a sense of crazy unreality. When the party stopped at last, he came back from caverns of confused misery, and when the belly-girth was cut fell leadenly to the ground. The ride in an unnatural position had given him a violent cramp in his right leg, and the sharp pain woke him to clear consciousness. He was picked up and carried inside some building, and as he crossed the threshold had a vision of steep walls of cliff all about him.
After that he must have slept, for when he next remembered he was lying on a settle before a fire of peat and heather-roots, and, watching him through the smoke, sat Gypsy Ben, whittling a stick with a long, fine shagreen-handled knife.
“Feeling happier now?” the gypsy asked. “Soon it will be supper time and after that the soft bed and the long sleep, my darling
