Dorothy, and Other Italian Stories

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

The knife dropped.

"Pick it up," said Dennison to Gray, in English. "Now see if you can lift that girl and carry her down the hill. Get her across the field somehow to that stone wall where we climbed over; wait there for me—unless she should come to on the way, in which case perhaps she will be able to climb over the wall herself. If she does, wait there with her by the phaeton. I sha'n't be long. But I must take this she-wolf back to the house first."

Gray had bent down; he lifted the inert body at their feet, raising it a little, and as he did so the head fell back, and the moonlight, shining on the hair and temples, showed that it was the Swede. Modesta, as she too saw the face, made a spring at it. But Dennison jerked her back. Then, with a snarling sound in her throat, she twisted her head round, and bit savagely at his hand where it held her shoulder.

"Do hurry. She is perfectly insane," he said to Gray.

Gray, having got the Swede off the ground, put his left arm under her back at the shoulders, and his right under her knees, and, lifting her in this position, he carried her down the hill with as much speed as was possible. This was not great, because the ground was uneven, and as he could not see where to place his steps, he was obliged to feel his way with his feet as he advanced—to shuffle along cautiously. In time, however, he reached the bottom of the hill. Then slowly he began to cross the field. This, too, was difficult, owing to the soft, crumbling earth of the freshly ploughed furrows. But here at last the girl opened her eyes.

"Can you stand?" asked Gray, breathlessly. Then he thought, with irritation, "None of them can speak anything!"

But the Swede now made of her own accord the motion of trying to get to her feet, and gladly enough he let her slip down and stand on the ground, as his arms were aching. He still supported her, however, lest she should fall.

But the girl seemed to be more terrified than weak; the instant her feet touched the earth she began to run towards the stone boundary wall, looking back every half-minute to see that no one was following. He went with her, trying to help her over the furrows; and as they hurried onward side by side, her face was such a picture of deathly fear that the feeling took possession of him also; he found himself regretting that their figures were so plainly visible on the moonlit expanse, and he too looked nervously over his shoulder, as though he expected to see the Italian woman coming after them madly, with her glittering eyes and the shining knife.

They reached the wall, and climbed over into the road outside, the Swede needing no help, but quicker in her movements than he was. In the road he tried to stop her, but she pulled herself from him. Still holding her, he showed her the horses tied in the shadow of the hedge. This she comprehended. She waited, therefore; but she kept herself several yards away from him, so that he should not stop her in case she should again wish to flee. She was a slender young creature, and she stood there much as a bird poises itself on a twig; not resting, not bearing its full weight, but perched provisionally, as it were—ready to fly away again in an instant.

Gray, who had now recovered his composure, tried to soothe her. With his most encouraging inflections he repeated: "All safe now. All-ll safe! Stay right here with me."