“A thousand thanks for your company,” he said cordially. “And you won’t fail us if you can help it, will you?”
“If it’s possible to be there, I’ll be there somehow,” was the reply.
And in that Rhys Walters spoke truth.
[CHAPTER V
REBECCA]
AS though to drop connection with its predecessor and to start the world afresh, the new year brought a change of weather. The wind, which for some time had lain in the south-west, was veering round to the east, and the sodden earth was drying herself rapidly. Rheumatism was becoming a less general theme for conversation in Crishowell, and people’s clothes were again seen hanging out to dry in gardens. Forlorn-looking strings, which had stretched nakedly from pole to pole, now upheld smocks, petticoats, and well-patched trouser-legs, whose active prancings in the breeze almost made the spectators’ legs leap in sympathy. Four or five old men, whose goings-out and comings-in gauged the state of the barometer as accurately as if they had been occupants of pasteboard “weather-houses,” were to be met about; and Bumpett, the pig-driver, whose excursions into foreign parts a few miles away made him an authority on all matters, opined that a frost was not far off. He also added that the roads would be “crewell hard” by the Wye toll-gate, and that we “should see what we should see.” This information made the women look mysterious and snub those of their sex who had not been observed in talk with the great man; the men said less, though they smoked their pipes in a more chastened manner.
Meanwhile, the storm which had been brewed over the Dipping-Pool fire was ready to burst.
In a steep upland lane, about nine o’clock one evening, a little band of horsemen was coming quietly down towards the valley. The high banks crowned with ragged hazel on either hand and the darkness around (for the moon was not due for an hour or so) made it difficult to distinguish who or what they were. As gaps in the bank let in a little extra illumination, and stars began to assert themselves over the dispersing clouds, it could be seen that they were about twenty-five in number, and that all, with one exception, wore masks. They were fairly well mounted, and the strange person who kept a few yards ahead of the rest rode an animal which any one, knowing even a little about a horse, would have picked out at a glance. She was a liver-chestnut mare just under sixteen hands, with a shoulder such as was rarely to be found in the motley crowd of horseflesh at local fairs. Youth and a trifle of inexperience were noticeable in her among the sober-stepping and sturdy beasts following, and she mouthed her ring-snaffle as she went. Her long bang tail swung at each stride, and her length of pastern gave her pace an elasticity like that of a Spanish dancer.
But if the mare was a remarkable figure in the little procession, her rider was immeasurably more so, being, apparently, the tallest female who had ever sat in a saddle. Her long cloak and voluminous brown skirt fell in a dark mass against the beast’s sides, giving her figure a seeming length and height double that of any of her companions. On her head she wore a large sun-bonnet, tied securely over a shock of hair which looked false even in the scant light; the lower part of her face was muffled in her cloak, so that but little feature could be seen. The strange woman rode astride, and, as an occasional puff of wind lifted her skirt, it revealed leggings and boots; one lean, brown hand on the rein was visible under the concealing drapery, and the other carried a heavy thorn stick. From under the shock of hair looked the eyes of Rhys Walters.
The whole company was formed of the same material which had met in the inn kitchen the day after Christmas, with several additions and with the exception of Johnny Watkins, whose heart had failed him at the last moment, and of Charley Turnbull, who was nowhere to be seen. Hosea Evans was there, unrecognizable in his black mask and cropped whiskers, for he had parted with a portion of these adornments, fearing that they might betray him. He had hesitated to shave entirely, lest people should be too curious about his reasons for doing so, and had merely trimmed them into less conspicuous limits with the scissors.