“For Church and King, Joan.”
“H’m: same knowledge ha’ I o’ both—an’ that’s naught. But I dearly loves fair play.”
She was gone. In a minute or so I heard the trampling of a horse: and then, with a scurry of hoofs, Joan was off on the King’s errand, and riding into the darkness.
Little rest had I that night; but lay awake on my bracken bed and watched the burning peat-turves turn to grey, and drop, flake by flake, till only a glowing point remained. The door rattled now and then on the hinge: out on the moor the light winds kept a noise persistent as town dogs at midnight: and all the while my wound was stabbing, and the bracken pricking me till I groaned aloud.
As day began to break, the old man picked himself up, yawned and lounged out, returning after a time with fresh turves for the hearth. He noticed me no more than a stone, but when the fire was restack’d, drew up his chair to the warmth, and breakfasted on oat cake and a liberal deal of liquor. Observing him, the black cat uncoil’d, stretch’d himself, and climbing to his master’s knee, sat there purring, and the best of friends. I also judged it time to breakfast: found my store: took a bite or two, and a pull at the keg, and lay back—this time to sleep.
When I woke, ’twas high noon. The door stood open, and outside on the wall the winter sunshine was lying, very bright and clear. Indoors, the old savage had been drinking steadily; and still sat before the fire, with the cat on one knee, and his keg on the other. I sat up and strain’d my ears. Surely, if Joan had not failed, the royal generals would march out and give battle at once: and surely, if they were fighting, not ten miles away, some sound of it would reach me. But beyond the purring of the cat, I heard nothing.
I crawl’d to my feet, rested a moment to stay the giddiness, and totter’d across to the door, where I lean’d, listening and gazing south. No strip of vapor lay on the moors that stretch’d—all bathed in the most wonderful bright colors—to the lip of the horizon. The air was like a sounding board. I heard the bleat of an old wether, a mile off, upon the tors; and was turning away dejected, when, far down in the south, there ran a sound that set my heart leaping.
’Twas the crackling of musketry.
There was no mistaking it. The noise ran like wildfire along the hills: before echo could overtake it, a low rumbling followed, and then the brisker crackling again. I caught at the door post and cried, faint with the sudden joy—
“Thou angel, Joan!—thou angel!”