The wailing stopped, but not the snivelling, by whose sound she was led. She peeped round a great buttress of rock and saw a barefoot boy, his face in his arm, crying pitifully. She ran forward and knelt by him—“What is it? Tell me what the matter is.” He showed neither surprise nor alarm—he was beyond that stage—but as she continued to coax him, put her arm round his neck and tried to draw him to her, he turned up presently his bedabbled face and gave her to understand that he was lost and hungry. Mary laughed for joy. Here was one in worse case than she. “But so am I, my dear!” she told him; “we’re lost together. It’s not half so bad when there are two of us, you know. And I’ve still got some food left. Now dry your eyes and come and sit by me—and we’ll see what we shall see.”
He had a pinched, pale face, freckled, and a shock of sandy hair which tumbled about his eyes. So far as could be seen he had no shirt; but he was company, and more—he was poorer-hearted than herself. The mother in all women awoke in her; here was a child to be nursed.
He came to her without preface and sat by her side. She did not scruple to wipe his eyes and mouth with her handkerchief; she embraced him with her arms, snuggled him to her, and fed him with chocolate and biscuits. He seemed hungry, but more frightened than hungry, and more tired than either; for when he had finished what she first gave him he lay still within her arm for some time, with his head against her bosom. Presently she found that he was simply asleep. Happier than she had been for some hours, she let him lie as he was, until presently she also felt drowsy. Then she laid him gently down in the brake, took off her hat, and lay beside the lad. The cloak covered them both; in two minutes she was asleep.
He awoke her in the small grey hours by stretching in his sleep, and then, by a sudden movement, flinging his arm over her and drawing himself close. She took him in her arms and held him fast. He was still deeply asleep. She could hear his regular breath, and feel it too. “Poor dear,” she whispered, “sleep soundly while you can.” Then she kissed him, and herself slept again.
A sense of the full light, of the warmth of the sun upon her, added to the drowsy comfort of the hours between sleep and waking. The boy was still fast, and she hardly conscious, when some shadow between her and the comfort in which she lay basking caused her to open her eyes. Above her, looking down upon her, quietly amused, stood Senhouse, holding his horse by the bridle. The long white sweater, the loose flannel trousers, bare feet, bare head—but he might have been an angel robed in light.
She sat up, blushing and misty-eyed. “It is you! You have come in my sleep. I have been two days looking for you.” The extraordinary comfort she had always felt in the man’s presence was upon her immediately. Nothing to explain, nothing to extenuate, nothing to hide—what a priceless possession, such a friend!
“Two days!” he said. “You might easily have been two months—or two years for that matter. But you have made a mighty good shot. My camp is not six hundred yards away. I’ll show you. But who’s your sleeping friend?”
She looked down at the lad, whose face was buried deep in bracken. She put her hand on his hair.
“I don’t know—some poor boy. I heard him crying last night when I had completely lost myself, and followed the sound. We comforted each other. He gave me a good night, anyhow. We kept each other warm. But I know no more of him than that. We’ll find out where he belongs to when he wakes. He wants food mostly, I think.” And then she laughed in his face—“and so do I, I believe.”
“Of course you do,” said Senhouse. “Come along, and we’ll breakfast. I’ve just been out capturing the Ghost. He had wandered far, the old beggar.”