Carmen's Messenger

by Harold Bindloss

Looking back after a time, he saw the crest of the moor run up behind them against the sky, and the next ravine they came to was awkward to climb down, while he was wet to the knees when he crossed the burn. A mile farther on, he reached another that was worse and they had to work back along the crumbling sides of its channel to find a place to cross. After this their progress was marked by erratic curves, and Foster was soon splashed with black peat-mud and green slime. By and by they came to a broad level, shut in by a ridge on its other side, and picked their way carefully between clumps of rushes and curious round holes filled with dark-colored water. The ground was very soft and walking became a toil, but Pete held steadily to his winding course and Foster, although getting tired, did not lag behind.

They were some time crossing the bog and when they reached the foot of the rise, which ran in a long line between them and the west, the light got dimmer suddenly. A yellow glow that seemed to come from low down flushed the sky, but the rough slope was dark and the hummocks and gullies on its side were losing their distinctness. Foster felt somewhat daunted by the prospect of pushing across the waste after darkness fell, and doggedly kept level with Pete as they went up the hill obliquely, struggling through tangled grass and wiry heath. When they reached the summit, he saw they were on the western edge of the tableland but some distance below its highest point Though it was broken by rolling elevations, the ground ran gradually down to an extensive plain where white mist lay in the hollows. A belt of saffron light lingered on the horizon, with a half-moon in a streak of green above, and one or two twinkling points showed, faint and far off, in the valley.

"Yon," said Pete, "is Bewcastle dale, and I ken where we'll find a welcome when we cross the water o' Line. But I'm thinking we'll keep the big flow in our left han'."

Instead of descending towards the distant farmsteads, he followed the summit of the rise, and Foster, who understood that a flow is a soft bog, plodded after him without objecting. The heather was tangled and rough, and hid the stones he now and then stumbled against, but it was better to hurry than be left with a long distance to cover in the dark. Indeed, as he caught his feet in the wiry stems and fell into holes, he frankly admitted the absurdity of his adventure, a sense of which amused him now and then. He was in a highly civilized country, there were railways and telegraph lines not far off, and he was lurking like an ancient outlaw among the bogs! It looked as if there must be better ways of meeting his difficulties, but he could not see one. Anyhow, he had determined to save his partner, and now, if his plans were hazy and not very wise, it was too late to make a sweeping change.

After a time Pete stopped abruptly, and then dropping into a clump of heather, pointed backwards down the long slope on their right hand. Foster's sight was good, but he admitted that the poacher's was better, because it was a minute or two before he saw any ground for alarm. Although there was some light in the sky, the rough descent was dark and it was only by degrees he distinguished something that moved across the heath, below and some distance away. Then he realized that it was a man, and another became faintly visible. They might be shepherds or sportsmen, but it was significant that there were two and they seemed to be ascending obliquely, as if to cut his line of march. He remembered that as he and Pete had kept the crest of the ridge their figures must have shown, small but sharp, against the fading light.

"It's suspicious, but I wouldn't like to say they're on our trail," he remarked.

"Ye'll soon ken. Watch the bit scaur."

Foster saw a faint dark line down the hill, and supposed it was a gully, torn out of the peat. It ran nearly straight up, crossing the strangers' indirect course to the summit, and would make a very rough means of ascent, but if they entered it the men would be out of sight. He blamed himself for not looking back before but had felt safe in the wilds, and even now it was hard to believe that the men were following him. Straining his eyes, he watched them move towards the gully, and set his lips when they disappeared. It was plain that they meant to get as close as possible before they were seen.

He did not move for the next few moments, but his brain was busy. Graham might have come back down the north road in his car and afterwards taken to the moors, but it was difficult to understand how he had found Foster's track. Chance, however, sometimes favored one in a curious way; the fellow might have found out that he had left the road and expected him to stop the night in Bewcastle dale. Since Foster had Pete with him, he was not, in one sense, afraid of Graham. Although the fellow was, no doubt, dangerous, he was not likely to force an equal fight. The risk would come if Graham found him alone and at a disadvantage, when Foster thought it would go hard with him. This was why he could not have the men on his track, watching for the right moment to strike. It was, however, possible that the strangers were police, and he lay in the heath with knitted brows until Pete touched him.

"They wouldna' find us easy if we keepit still, but I'm no' for spending the night among the bents," he said. "I'm thinking we'll try the big flow and lose them in the mire."