"You're not afraid?" I asked.
"Devil a bit, sir! I'd rather fight than eat, but I thought maybe your honors would rather eat."
He cracked his whip, and soon we were over the dangerous ground, travelling along on the Oxford Road at a fine gallop. On reaching the open country the wind gave us its full force, there being no doors to our coach, and soon our rugs were covered with snow. But George and I were wrapped to our chins, and Bettina nestled cozily down in her corner untouched by the storm.
After leaving Westminster, we had no means of knowing our rate of progress, for there were no houses near the road, and, if there had been, we should not have known them. The drivers kept the horses in a strong trot, at times a vigorous gallop, and I judged that we were making nearly three leagues an hour. At that rate it would require perhaps two hours to reach the shrine mentioned by Lilly.
We had instructed the men on the box to watch for a sharp bend in the road just before crossing a bourne, and we, too, began to watch soon after leaving Westminster. After what seemed to be a long time, George asked me to make a flare in my tinder box, while he caught a glimpse of the face of his watch. This I did under the rug, and, much to our disgust, we found that we had been less than twenty minutes on the road, so provokingly had time lagged.
After our disappointment we lay back in the coach, determined to ignore time, and thereby perhaps hasten it. In truth, time's lagging was not unpleasant for me, in one respect, at least, for Bettina was by my side. I found delight in keeping her well tucked about with rugs, so that not even a breath of the storm nor a flake of snow could reach her. She wore a great fur hood which buttoned under her chin, almost covering her face and falling in a soft warm curtain to her shoulders and bosom. She was warm, and aside from our great cause of anxiety, I believe, was happy. I wished a hundred times that George were in another coach, though had he been, I well knew that I should have said a great deal to Betty which on the morrow would have been regretted, both for her sake and my own.
Just at a point when time seemed to have halted, the driver lifted the rug hanging behind him, and said:—
"Here is the bend, sir, and yonder is the bourne."
Presently we knew by the breaking of the ice and the splashing of the water that we were crossing the bourne, and when we were over, George called to the driver, directing him to allow the horses to walk until the order came to stop.
George dropped the front curtain, and turning to Betty and me, said:—