Yet she was powerless. The war her men-folk had waged against the adversary—their simple faith in kingship threading all their days, of fight and drink and banter, with a golden skein—had touched the heart that had been cold till now. By his own strength he must win through this combat she had forced on him—or by his own weakness he must take her hand and lead her through the years that must for ever be made up of broken vows.
Kit got to his feet, paced up and down irresolutely. He was fighting for the kingship of his soul, and all the glen went dizzying by him. It was a simple matter that brought back the memory of ancient loyalty and faith—just the song of the water as it splashed down its ferny bed. He glanced sharply round, saw the fall of the stream, with sunlight and the glint of shadowed leafage on its ripples. He remembered just such a waterfall, just such a sheltered glen, away in Yoredale.
The poppy-sleep was on him still. Yoredale was far away, and Joan's tongue was barbed with nettle-stings these days. Better to take his ease, and have done with effort. He glanced again at the water splashing down its steep rock-face; and suddenly he stood at attention, as if the King confronted him. It might be his fancy; it might be some chance play of light and shade, made up of dancing water and leafage swaying in the summer's breeze; but the thing he saw was a sword, silver-bright—a big, two-handed sword with its hilt clear against the sky, and its point hidden in the pool below. He stood for a moment, bewildered. Then a great sob broke up the grief and hardship that had been his since Marston.
She followed the pointing of his finger, but saw nothing save water slipping down the cool rock-front.
Then she glanced at his face, and saw that the days of her sorcery were ended.
A forlorn self-pity numbed her. If he had broken faith with Joan Grant, she would have recompensed him—have been the tenderest wife in Christendom, because he had found her womanhood for her—had taught her heart to beat, instead of fluttering idly to every breeze that roamed.
"Sir, I hate you most devoutly," she said. "Get up the wood again. I used to laugh at all good Puritans, and the memory would hurt me if you stayed."
Kit was never one to hide his light or darkness from a prying world. The whole camp had seen his madness, had marvelled at the change in him—his sudden tempers, his waywardness, his hot impatience for fight of some kind—with his fellows or with any roaming band of enemies that chanced to cross, their path. Now they wondered that he went among them with a new light about his face, a gaiety that was not so heedless as of old, but riper and more charitable.
"The Babe grows up," said Michael to the Squire, as they jogged forward over sultry roads.
"It will be a thrifty growth, lad. If I could say as much of thee, I'd be content."