He reached out for her hand, and put it to his lips with the reverence learned since he came down from duck-shooting to find a mortal hurt. “As God sees me,” he said, a pleasant note of triumph in his voice—“as God sees me, I die happy.”
And then he turned on his side. And the pert youngster who had coupled Nance’s name with Will’s, coming out in search of the missing leader, saw the girl kneeling in the snow and heard her sobs. And he crept back into the hall, ashamed in some queer way.
“Why, lad, have you seen a ghost out yonder?” asked the red-faced squire.
“No, sir,” the boy answered gravely. “It is as I said—Will is with Nance Demaine, and—and I think we’d better leave them to it.”
CHAPTER XVIII
THE RIDING OUT
Sir Jasper, out at Ben Shackleton’s farm, had been no easy guest to entertain since he sought refuge there from the pursuit of Goldstein’s men. He slept for twelve hours, after they had laid him on the lang-settle and stopped the bleeding from his wound; and then, for an hour, he had lain between sleep and waking; and, after that, he was keen to be up and doing.
Shackleton’s wife, dismayed because her goodman had not returned long since from carrying his message to Windyhough, was sharp of tongue, and lacking in deference a little, as the way of the sturdy farm-folk is when they are troubled.
“As you wish, Sir Jasper,” she said tartly. “Just get up and stand on your two feet, and see how it feels, like.”