The Hidden Children Part 13

As I came up with her, she said:

"Why are the light dragoons riding on the Bedford road? Is aught amiss?"

"A very large body of horse has pa.s.sed our videttes, making toward Ridgefield. Colonel Sheldon thinks it must be Moylan's regiment."

"Do you?"

"It may be so."

"And if it be the leather-caps?"

"Then we must find ourselves in a sorry pickle."

As I spoke, the little bugle-horn of Sheldon's Horse blew boots and saddles, and four score dragoons scrambled into their saddles down by the barns, and came riding up the sloppy road, their horses slipping badly and floundering through the puddles and across the stream, where, led by a captain, the whole troop took the Meeting House road at a stiff canter.

We watched them out of sight, then she said:

"I have awaited your pleasure, Mr. Loskiel. Pray, in what further manner can I be of service to--my country?"

"I have come back to tell you," said I, "that you can be of no further use. Our errand to the Sagamore has now ended, and most happily. You have served your country better than you can ever understand. I have come to say so, and to thank you with--with a heart--very full."

"Have I then done well?" she asked slowly.

"Indeed you have!" I replied, with such a warmth of feeling that it surprised myself.

"Then why may I not understand this thing that I have done--for my country?"

"I wish I might tell you."

"May you not?"

"No, I dare not."

She bit her lip, gazing at nothing over the ragged collar of her cape, and stood so, musing. And after a while she seemed to come to herself, wearily, and she cast a tragic upward glance at me. Then, dropping her eyes, and with the slightest inclination of her head, not looking at me at all, she started across the trampled gra.s.s.

"Wait----" I was by her side again in the same breath.

"Well, sir?" And she confronted me with cool mien and lifted brows.

Under them her grey eyes hinted of a disdain which I had seen in them more than once.

"May I not suitably express my grat.i.tude to you?" I said.

"You have already done so."

"I have tried to do so properly, but it is not easy for me to say how grateful to you we men of the Northland are--how deeply we must ever remain in your debt. Yet--I will attempt to express our thanks--if you care to listen."

After a pause: "Then--if there is nothing more to say--"

"There is, I tell you. Will you not listen?"

"I have been thanked--suitably.... I will say adieu, sir."

"Would you--would you so far favour me as to make known to me your name?" I said, stammering a little.

"Lois is my name," she said indifferently.

"No more than that?"

"No more than that."

How it was now going with me I did not clearly understand, but it appeared to be my instinct not to let her slip away into the world without something more friendly said--some truer grat.i.tude expressed--some warmth.

"Lois," I said very gravely, "what we Americans give to our country demands no ign.o.ble reward. Therefore, I offer none of any sort. Yet, because you have been a good comrade to me--and because now we are about to go our different ways into the world before us--I ask of you two things. May I do so?"

After a moment, looking away from me across the meadow:

"Ask," she said.

"Then the first is--will you take my hand in adieu--and let us part as good soldiers part?"

Still gazing absently across the meadow, she extended her hand. I retained it for a moment, then released it. Her arm fell inert by her side, but mine tingled to the shoulder.

"And one more thing," I said, while this strange and curious reluctance to let her go was now steadily invading me.

"Yes?"

"Will you wear a comrade's token--in memory of an hour or two with him?"

"What!"

She spoke with a quick intake of breath and her grey eyes were on me now, piercing me to the roots of speech and motive.

I wore a heavy ring beaten out of gold; Guy Johnson gave it. This I took from my trembling finger, scarce knowing why I was doing it at all, and stooping and lifting her little, wind-roughened hand, put it on the first finger I encountered--blindly, now, and clumsily past all belief, my hand was shaking so absurdly.

If my face were now as red as it was hot, hers, on the contrary, had become very strange and still and white. For a moment I seemed to read distrust, scorn, even hatred, in her level stare, and something of fear, too, in every quickening breath that moved the scarlet mantle on her breast. Then, in a flash, she had turned her back on me and was standing there in the grey dawn, with both hands over her face, straight and still as a young pine. But my ring was shining on her finger.

Emotion of a nature to which I was an utter stranger was meddling with my breath and pulses, now checking, now speeding both so that I stood with mind disconcerted in a silly sort of daze.

At length I gathered sufficient composure to step to her side again.

"Once more, little comrade, good-bye," I said. "This ends it all."

Again she turned her shoulder to me, but I heard her low reply:

"Good-bye--Mr. Loskiel."

And so it ended.

A moment later I found myself walking aimlessly across the gra.s.s in no particular direction. Three times I turned in my tracks to watch her.