"Allah il Allah!" sighed Blanch resignedly when I held up the letter to her view.
The road over which we now drove was streaked with grass that tempted the lowered nose of our Rozinante, and graceful clusters of buttercups brushed the slow spokes of our wheels. The forest primeval shut down, solid and precipitous, at our left, and at our right the scrubby spruces clambered and straggled over the ledges with the appearance of having just stopped to look at us; and in a little while we saw through their tops a log house that stood at the head of a rocky lane. A thin wreath of smoke curled from the stone chimney, curtains of spotless whiteness showed inside the tiny hinged windows, and a luxuriant hopvine draped all the wall next us. Not a rod back from the house, and drawn darkly against the sunset sky, was a picture very like Doré's bringing of the ark to Bethsames. A group of cattle stood there motionless, two low-bending spruce-trees unfurled their plumy branches over a square rock, and, as motionless as either, stood a tall, gaunt woman staring fixedly at us.
"Goodness gracious!" cried Blanch sharply, "the child will shoot us!"
Following her glance, I espied a tow-headed urchin of ten, may be, whom our coming had petrified in the act of getting through the bars at the foot of the lane. Against the lower bar rested his rifle, the muzzle looking us directly in the eye.
I seized upon him and changed his aim.
"Your name is Larkin," I said accusingly.
"Yes, ma'am!" he answered in a trembling voice.
"What are you here for?"
"Ma'am sent me to borrow Miss Smith's darn'-needle," he whimpered.
"You have come four miles through the woods to borrow a darning-needle?" I demanded.