“An’ marvel ’tis thou’rt Marvel yet. Good blood there’s in thee, but little enow.”
She bandaged the sore with linen torn from my shirt, and tied it round with sackcloth from her own dress. ’Twas all most gently done: and then I found her arms under me, and myself lifted as easy as a baby.
“Left arm round my neck, Jack: an’ sing out if ’tis hurtin’ thee.”
It seemed but six steps and we were out on the bright hillside, not fifty paces from where the plough yet stood in the furrow. I caught a glimpse of a brown neck and a pair of firm red lips, of the grey tor stretching above us and, further aloft, a flock of field fare hanging in the pale sky; and then shut my eyes for the dazzle: but could still feel the beat of Joan’s heart as she held me close, and the touch of her breath on my forehead.
Down the hill she carried me, picking the softest turf, and moving with an easeful swing that rather lull’d my hurt than jolted it. I was dozing, even, when a strange noise awoke me.
’Twas a high protracted note, that seem’d at first to swell up toward us, and then broke off in half a dozen or more sharp yells. Joan took no heed of them, but seeing my eyes unclose, and hearing me moan, stopped short.
“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 a-while, 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—