“It’s o’er late for me,” she said. “I’d like to live to see it, but His will be done.”
Archie rode home the giant hunter, but in two hours he was once more mounted on Scallowa, and feathering back through the snow towards the little cottage. The moon had risen now, and the night was starry and fine.
He tied Scallowa up in the peat shed, and went in unannounced.
He found Bob Cooper sitting before the dying embers of the fire, with his face buried in his hands, and rocking himself to and fro.
“She—just blessed me and wore away.”
That was all he said or could say. And what words of comfort could Archie speak? None. He sat silently beside him all that livelong night, only getting up now and then to replenish the fire. But the poacher scarcely ever changed his position, only now and then he stretched out one of his great hands and patted Archie’s knee as one would pet a dog.
A week passed away, and the widow was laid to rest beneath the frozen ground in the little churchyard by the banks of the river. Archie went slowly back with Bob towards the cottage. On their way thither, the poacher—poacher now no more though—entered a plantation, and with his hunting-knife cut and fashioned a rough ash stick.
“We’ll say good-bye here, Master Archie.”
“What! You are not going back with me to Burley Old Farm?”
Bob took a small parcel from his pocket, and opening it exposed the contents.