Peregrine's Progress Part 22

"He hurt you more than I thought."

"It was the blow on the head--slight concussion, I think."

"And you stands up to him like--"

"You mean I ran away like a coward."

"He was twice as big as you--"

"No matter! Cowardice is always despicable, more especially in defence of one of the weaker s.e.x," said I dismally.

"But you saves me, to be sure!"

At this I strove to rise in sheer amazement and thus found my head pillowed in her lap.

"How did I save you?" I demanded bitterly. "I that am a craven!"

"By giving me the chance to reach my little _churi_. However, I was never once afraid of the beast."

"I was!" I confessed miserably. "Afraid beyond words!"

"But you comes running back, and very fierce too!"

"I meant to kill him!"

"Why trouble to kill him?"

"I could not bear he should foul you in his brutal arms!"

Here came her hand to touch my aching brow and I closed my eyes again.

"Does your head ache very much?" she enquired.

"A little!" I groaned.

"Can ye walk?" she enquired. "'Tis goin' to storm and rain on us soon, I think--can ye walk a small ways?"

For answer I got to my knees and, with her ready a.s.sistance, to my feet, but found myself very faint and sick and with my head throbbing as though it would burst.

"Come!" said she, taking my hand in her warm, strong, clasp. "There's rain in this wind--come! I knows a fair, likely place--"

"No, no!" cried I. "Please leave me, I shall be very well here--the rain will do me good, perhaps--besides, I have no money to pay for a night's lodging--"

"But I have!"

"No matter, I cannot live on your money."

"Aye, but you can, for this money is yourn as much as mine, seeing as I prigs it."

"What do you mean?"

"Lord, what should I mean except as I takes it, nabs it--steals it from yon dirty beast while he struggled wi' me. Look!" And taking out a ragged belcher neckerchief she unknotted one corner and showed me three bright, new guineas.

"Ah, throw them away!" I cried. "The man was so vile--"

"He was!" she nodded. "But his money is clean enough and will be useful to us--"

"But you are--a thief!" I exclaimed, aghast.

"And you are a fool!" she retorted, thrusting the money into a small leathern bag she carried at her girdle. "And he was a dirty rogue and his money shall feed us until I can earn more. And now let us hurry afore the storm ketches us."

"Where to?"

"There's a place I know where we can be warm and sheltered and nothing to pay."

And so, because of her persistence and my sickness, I suffered her to lead me where she would, though more than once I tripped and should have fallen but for her ready arm. Presently turning out of the road we came to a meadow and here, half-blinded by the pain of my head and scarcely able to drag one foot after the other, I earnestly besought her to leave me, storm or no storm; to which she merely bade me not to be a fool, with the further a.s.surance that she would leave me when she wished and not before.

I remember stumbling down a gra.s.sy slope and through a tangle of bushes and dense-growing trees, amid whose whispering leaf.a.ge shadows were deepening, and so at last to a half-ruined barn, very remote and desolate, into which she conducted me.

Here, from amid a pile of mouldy hay, she dragged a ladder which she reared to a small hatch or trap in the floor above and bade me mount.

This I did, though very clumsily and presently found myself in an upper chamber or loft, illuminated by a small, unglazed window that opened beneath the eaves at one end. Scarcely was I here than she was beside me and brought me to an adjacent corner where was a great pile of hay that made the place sweet with its fragrance, whereon, at her behest, I sank down and would have expressed my grat.i.tude, but she checked me, frowning.

"Are ye hungry?" she demanded ungraciously.

"Indeed, no, I thank you," I answered, lying back upon my fragrant couch.

"Well, I am!" she retorted sullenly. "And you will be, sooner or later, so I'll go afore the storm ketches me."

"Go where, and for what?"

"To buy supper with money as I stole, for you an' me to eat--"

"I'd rather starve!" quoth I, sitting up the better to say it.

"Starve!" she repeated, with a scornful flash of her great eyes. "You?

d'ye know what starvation means? Ha' you ever tried it?"

"No," I admitted, "but none the less--"

"Then don't talk foolishness!" said she disdainfully. "You'll be glad t' eat an' ask no questions when you're hungry enough! And don't go pitying yourself and grieving over your bruises. If your eyes are bulged and blacked a bit--what of it? Lord! I've seen men get it worse than you an' come up smiling, but then to be sure they were men and stronger than you. However, you'll be better to-morrow! So now go to sleep and forget all about yourself if ye can--sleep till supper's ready and when I say eat--eat."

"Many thanks, but I do not desire any supper."

"Wait till you smell it!"

"I shall neither smell it nor eat it," I answered, frowning, "because I propose to rid you of my presence almost immediately."

"Meaning as you will cut your stick?"