BUT WEAL WHERE I COME AS A GIFT OF LOVE.
It was a marvellously beautiful thing and Ian could not help speculating how the boy had come by it. “If these charms and amulets really had any power, he might well have stolen it,” he thought, shuddering at what he had seen. “But that is a thing we shall never know. However, it would be a pleasing gift for Aline, and some day I will clasp it myself on that little white wrist.”
He pictured Aline to himself wearing the bracelet and then rolling his cloak about him went to sleep.
For a few hours he slept well and then he woke with the cold. He was very tired and sleepy but unable to sleep again for the pains which shot through him. The miserable night seemed endless, he tossed and dozed and tossed again, but at last the dawn broke. It was still misty but he was anxious to get on. He opened his wallet and found it was getting low; there was enough for two fair meals, but he divided it into three portions and took one.
The wind had dropped but he had taken the precaution of marking its direction on the ground before he slept. However, that would not avail him long. He wondered what Aline was doing. He was sure that somehow Providence had intended him to help her. Suppose he had done wrongly and should meet his death and deprive her of his aid! Why was life so continually perplexing?
When he started to move, his swollen blistered feet made every step painful, but gradually he became more used to it and struggled on mechanically.
He was going very slowly, although it was down hill, and it was with joy that in rather less than four hours he came across a mountain track running according to his guess east and west. “This must surely be the road from Alston to Kirkoswald,” he said, and feeling more or less reassured he sat down. But he was so worn out from fatigue and lack of sleep that he almost at once fell into a deep slumber.
When he awoke he found a shepherd-boy looking at him. “You sleep soundly, Master,” he said; “whither are you bound?”
“I am going to Carlisle,” he answered.