"Who's that?" I cried. "Stand back, I say, and let me have a fair chance at you."
"Are you going to knock me down, dear John?" replied the voice I love so well. "I am sure I should never get up again, after one blow from you, John."
"My darling, is it you?" I cried; "and breaking all your orders?
Come back into the house at once; and nothing on your head, dear."
"How could I sleep, while at any moment you might be killed beneath my window? And now is the time of real danger, for men can see to travel."
I saw at once the truth of this. The moon was high and clearly lighting all the watered valleys. To sleep any longer might be death, not only to myself, but all.
"The man on guard at the back of the house is fast asleep," she continued; "Gwenny, who let me out, and came with me, has heard him snoring for two hours. I think the women ought to be the watch, because they have had no traveling. Where do you suppose little Gwenny is?"
"Surely not gone to Glen Doone?" I was not sure, however, for I could believe almost anything of the Cornish maiden's hardihood.
"No," replied Lorna, "although she wanted even to do that. But, of course, I would not hear of it, on account of the swollen waters. But she is perched in yonder tree, which commands the Barrow Valley. She says that they are almost sure to cross the streamlet there."
"What a shame," I cried, "that the men should sleep and the maidens be the soldiers! I will sit in that tree myself, and send little Gwenny back to you. Go to bed, my best and dearest; I will take good care not to sleep again."