A Little Wizard

by Stanley John Weyman

Frank nodded. "They think I must have doubled back," he said coolly. "It was a narrow squeak, but I am all right as it is, if I can get three things."

"What are they, Frank?" Jack asked timidly, gazing with awe and admiration at the ragged, blood-stained, sinewy figure beside him.

"Water, food, and a hiding-place," his brother answered tersely; "but first, water. The sun has burned me to a cinder, and I am parched with thirst. I little thought when I rode gaily into Settle yester-even that this would come of it. But the game is not fought out yet."

"Have they not beaten you?" Jack ventured to ask.

"Not a bit of it!" his brother answered with a reckless laugh. "'Twas only an affair of outposts, lad. In a week, Duke Hamilton will be at Preston with thirty thousand gallant fellows at his back. It will not be a handful of disbanded troopers will scatter it. But I thirst, Jack, I thirst."

Jack slid back into the hollow and sprang to his feet. "There is a spring at the back of the house," he said eagerly. "I can go to it through the yew-trees, Frank, and be back in five minutes, or ten at most. But I have nothing to carry the water in, and the pitcher is kept in the house."

In a trice Frank pulled off one of his long boots. "Take that," he said. "It is as nearly water-tight as awl and needle and good leather can make it. Many a man has used a worse blackjack. But can you go and return unseen, lad?"

"Trust me," said Jack, bravely, taking up the boot. "You shall see."

He had just bethought him of the fissure in the moss which had set a limit to his explorations. It ran athwart the slope a few paces behind the hollow in which he lay, and seemed to promise safe and secret access through the yew coppice to the rear of the house where the well was. Nodding confidently to his brother, he crawled back to the rift; then dropping into it where it grew shallow, a little to the right, he turned down it and followed it until it presently opened into the dell in which the yew-trees grew. Their cool shadow no longer terrified him, for he was thinking of another, and had a purpose; two things which form the best of armor against empty fears. Carrying the boot with caution, so that it might not be seen easily or at once were he surprised, he plunged into the gloom under the trees, and creeping along, presently reached the spring, which lay a few paces only from the back of the house.

It was clear of the trees, and here he had to venture something. He waited and listened, and presently heard Mistress Gridley's voice. She was on the farther side of the house talking to some of the Puritan troopers, who had dismounted at the wall of the fold, and were discussing their victory. Taking his courage in his hand the boy advanced to the spring, and dipping the boot, staggered back with it into the shelter of the trees, where he lay a moment under cover to assure himself that he had not been observed. Quickly satisfied on this point, and the more quickly as he discovered that the boot leaked a little, he lost no more time, but hastening back the way he had come, in three or four minutes reached the surface of the moor, and had the satisfaction of seeing his brother plunge his burning face into the boot and quench his thirst with water of his providing.