The Little Red Foot Part 79

Then I called out to the express: "Say to the personage who sent you hither that his letter is destroyed, and his orders shall be instantly obeyed. Burke has fresh horses for those who ride express."

Off downstairs he went in his jack-boots, equipments jingling and clanking, and I unfolded my map but scarce could hold it steady in my excitement.

Immediately I perceived that I did not need the map to find the rendezvous, for, as Brent-Meester, I had known that wilderness as perfectly as I knew the streets in Johnstown.

So I made another torch of the map, laughing under my breath to think that Sir William's late forest warden should require such an article.

All this time, too, I had forgotten Penelope; and turned, now, and saw her watching me, slim and motionless and white as snow.

When her eyes met mine she strove to smile, asking me whether indeed she had not proven a true prophetess.

As she spoke, suddenly a great fear possessed me concerning her; and I stood staring at her in a terrible perplexity.

For now there seemed to be nothing for it but to leave her here, the Schenectady road already being unsafe, or so considered by Schuyler until more certain information could be obtained.

"Do you leave tonight?" she asked calmly.

"Yes, immediately."

She cast a glance at my rifle standing in the corner, and at my pack, which I had always ready in the event of such sudden summons.

Now I went over to the corner where my baggage lay, lifted the pack and strapped it; put on powder horn, bullet pouch, and sack, slung my knife and my light war-hatchet, and took my cap and rifle.

The moment of parting was here. It scared and confused me, so swiftly had it come upon us.

As I went toward her she turned and walked to the door, and leaned against the frame awaiting me.

"If trouble comes," I muttered, "the fort is strong.... But I wish to G.o.d you were in Albany."

"I shall do well enough here.... Will you come again to Johnstown?"

"Yes. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, John Drogue."

"Will you care for Kaya?"

"Yes."

"And if I do not return you are to have all with which I die possessed.

I have written it."

"In that event I keep only my memory of you. The rest I offer to the needy--in your name."

Her voice was steady, and her hand, too, where it lay pa.s.sive in mine.

But it crisped and caught my fingers convulsively when I kissed her; and crept up along my fringed sleeve to my shoulder-cape, and grasped the green thrums.

And now her arm lay tightly around my neck, and I looked down into the whitest face I ever had gazed upon.

"I love you dearly," I said, "and am deep in love.... I want you, Penelope Grant."

"I want you," she said.

My heart was suffocating me:

"Shall we exchange vows?" I managed to say.

"What vows, sir?"

"Such as engage our honour. I want you to wife, Penelope Grant."

"Dear lad! What are you saying? You should travel widely and at leisure before you commit your honour to an unconsidered vow. I desire that you first see great cities, other countries, other women--of your own caste.... And then ... if you return ... and are still of the same mind ... concerning me...."

"But _you_? There are other men in the world. And I must have your vows before I go!"

"Oh, if it be only mine you desire, then I promise you, John Drogue, to look at no man with kindness in your absence, think of no man excepting you, pray for none save only His Excellency and General Schuyler, dream of none, G.o.d willing, but you. And to remain in deed and thought and word and conduct constant and faithful to you alone."

"Then," said I, trembling, "I also promise----"

"No!"

"But I----"

"Wait! For G.o.d's sake mind what you say; for I will not have it that your honour should ever summon you hither and not your heart! No! Let be as it is."

Her sudden warmth and the quick flush of determination on her face checked and silenced me.

She said very coolly: "Any person of sense must know that a marriage is unsuitable between a servant to Douw Fonda and John Murray Drogue _Forbes_, Laird of Northesk, and a Stormont to boot!"

"Where got you that _Forbes_?" I demanded, astonished and angry.

She laughed. "Because I know the clan, _my lord_!"

"How do you know?" I repeated, astounded.

"Because it is my own clan and name. Drogue-Forbes, Grant-Forbes!--a claymore or a pair of scissors can snip the link when some Glencoe or Culloden of adversity scatters families to the four winds and seven seas.... Well, sir, as the saying is in Northesk, 'a Drogue stops at nothing but a Forbes. And a Grant is as stubborn.' Did you ever hear that?"

"Yes.... And _you_ are a Forbes of Northesk?"

"Like yourself, sir, we _stop before a liaison_."

Her rapier wit confused and amazed me; her sudden revelation of our kinship confounded me.

"Good G.o.d," said I, "why have you never told me this, Penelope?"

She shook her yellow head defiantly: "A would na," quoth she, her chin hanging down, but the brown eyes of her watching me. "And it was a servant-maid you asked to wife you, and none other either.... D'ye ken that, you Stormont lad? It was me--me!--who may wear the _Beadlaidh_, too!--me who can cry '_Lonach! Lonach! Creag Ealachaidh!_' with as stout a heart and clean a pride as you, Ian Drogue, Laird o' Northesk!--laird o' my soul and heart--my lord--my dear, dear lord----"

She flung her arms across her face and burst into a fit of weeping; and as I caught her in my arms she leaned so on my breast, sobbing out her happiness and fears and pride and love, and her grat.i.tude to G.o.d that I should have loved her for herself in the body of a maid-servant, and that I had bespoken her fairly where in all the land no man had offered more than that which she might take from him out of his left hand.