“I am not very talkative this morning, Peggy. I have been thinking of your father. He thought that he might return, you remember.”
“Yes, Clifford. And I,” she added tremulously, “have been thinking of Harriet. We have had no word.”
“She hath failed, my cousin. Had it not been so she would have been here. Harriet likes not to confess failure. I was certain that she would not succeed, and consented for her sake alone that she should make the effort.”
“Still, by that means thee had an extra lease of life, Clifford,” Peggy reminded him.
“I wonder if that hath been altogether for the best, Peggy,” he said seriously. “Sometimes, when after all one must undergo such a penalty as lies before me, the kindest thing that can happen is to have it over with without delay.”
“Don’t, Clifford,” she cried shuddering. “I think that none of us could have stood it. It would have broken our hearts. With the delay we cannot but hope and believe that something will prevent this awful measure from being carried out.”
They had reached the five knob tree by this time, and beyond it lay the glen of which Clifford had spoken. It was as he had said romantic in its wildness. Various cascades leaped in foamy beauty across the path of the road which ran through the deep vale. Firs lay thickly strewn about, and the horses had to pick their way carefully through them. Copper mines, whose furnaces had been half destroyed by the English, were now overgrown with vines and half hidden by fallen trees, showed the combined ravages of war and nature. A few yards in advance of them the glen widened into a sylvan amphitheater, waving with firs and pines, and rendered almost impassable by underbrush. A short turning in the road suddenly brought them in front of a romantic waterfall. The cousins drew rein, watching the fall of the water in silence, for the sound of the cascade precluded them from conversation. The sun shone through the tree tops giving a varied hue to the rich greenness of the foliage, and tinging with prismatic hues the sparkling water. So intent were they upon the downpour of the waterfall that they did not notice the dark forms which stole out from the underbrush, and stealthily formed a cordon about them. By the heads of the horses two forms arose suddenly like gnomes from the earth, and a scream escaped Peggy’s lips as a hoarse voice shouted:
“You are our prisoners! Dismount instantly.”