Peregrine's Progress

by Jeffery Farnol

  CHAPTER XV

  PROVING THAT A GODDESS IS WHOLLY FEMININE

  I was lying beneath a tree, my head softly pillowed and wet with coolwater that refreshed me wonderfully; thus I presently turned my headand glanced up into eyes that gazed down upon me, very beautiful eyesthese seemed, being soft and tender and darkly grey.

  "Are ye better?" she questioned. Now at this I wondered, for the voicematched the eyes for gentleness.

  "Thank you, much better."

  "He hurt you more than I thought."

  "It was the blow on the head--slight concussion, I think."

  "And you stands up to him like--"

  "You mean I ran away like a coward."

  "He was twice as big as you--"

  "No matter! Cowardice is always despicable, more especially in defenceof one of the weaker sex," said I dismally.

  "But you saves me, to be sure!"

  At this I strove to rise in sheer amazement and thus found my headpillowed in her lap.

  "How did I save you?" I demanded bitterly. "I that am a craven!"

  "By giving me the chance to reach my little _churi_. However, Iwas never once afraid of the beast."

  "I was!" I confessed miserably. "Afraid beyond words!"

  "But you comes running back, and very fierce too!"

  "I meant to kill him!"

  "Why trouble to kill him?"

  "I could not bear he should foul you in his brutal arms!"

  Here came her hand to touch my aching brow and I closed my eyes again.

  "Does your head ache very much?" she enquired.

  "A little!" I groaned.

  "Can ye walk?" she enquired. "'Tis goin' to storm and rain on us soon,I think--can ye walk a small ways?"

  For answer I got to my knees and, with her ready assistance, to myfeet, but found myself very faint and sick and with my head throbbingas though it would burst.

  "Come!" said she, taking my hand in her warm, strong, clasp. "There'srain in this wind--come! I knows a fair, likely place--"

  "No, no!" cried I. "Please leave me, I shall be very well here--therain will do me good, perhaps--besides, I have no money to pay for anight's lodging--"

  "But I have!"

  "No matter, I cannot live on your money."

  "Aye, but you can, for this money is yourn as much as mine, seeing asI prigs it."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Lord, what should I mean except as I takes it, nabs it--steals itfrom yon dirty beast while he struggled wi' me. Look!" And taking outa ragged belcher neckerchief she unknotted one corner and showed methree bright, new guineas.

  "Ah, throw them away!" I cried. "The man was so vile--"

  "He was!" she nodded. "But his money is clean enough and will beuseful to us--"

  "But you are--a thief!" I exclaimed, aghast.

  "And you are a fool!" she retorted, thrusting the money into a smallleathern bag she carried at her girdle. "And he was a dirty rogue andhis money shall feed us until I can earn more. And now let us hurryafore the storm ketches us."

  "Where to?"

  "There's a place I know where we can be warm and sheltered and nothingto pay."

  And so, because of her persistence and my sickness, I suffered her tolead me where she would, though more than once I tripped and shouldhave fallen but for her ready arm. Presently turning out of the roadwe came to a meadow and here, half-blinded by the pain of my head andscarcely able to drag one foot after the other, I earnestly besoughther to leave me, storm or no storm; to which she merely bade me not tobe a fool, with the further assurance that she would leave me when shewished and not before.

  I remember stumbling down a grassy slope and through a tangle ofbushes and dense-growing trees, amid whose whispering leafage shadowswere deepening, and so at last to a half-ruined barn, very remote anddesolate, into which she conducted me.

  Here, from amid a pile of mouldy hay, she dragged a ladder which shereared to a small hatch or trap in the floor above and bade me mount.This I did, though very clumsily and presently found myself in anupper chamber or loft, illuminated by a small, unglazed window thatopened beneath the eaves at one end. Scarcely was I here than she wasbeside me and brought me to an adjacent corner where was a great pileof hay that made the place sweet with its fragrance, whereon, at herbehest, I sank down and would have expressed my gratitude, but shechecked me, frowning.

  "Are ye hungry?" she demanded ungraciously.

  "Indeed, no, I thank you," I answered, lying back upon my fragrantcouch.

  "Well, I am!" she retorted sullenly. "And you will be, sooner orlater, so I'll go afore the storm ketches me."

  "Go where, and for what?"

  "To buy supper with money as I stole, for you an' me to eat--"

  "I'd rather starve!" quoth I, sitting up the better to say it.

  "Starve!" she repeated, with a scornful flash of her great eyes. "You?d'ye know what starvation means? Ha' you ever tried it?"

  "No," I admitted, "but none the less--"

  "Then don't talk foolishness!" said she disdainfully. "You'll be gladt' eat an' ask no questions when you're hungry enough! And don't gopitying yourself and grieving over your bruises. If your eyes arebulged and blacked a bit--what of it? Lord! I've seen men get it worsethan you an' come up smiling, but then to be sure they were men andstronger than you. However, you'll be better to-morrow! So now go tosleep and forget all about yourself if ye can--sleep till supper'sready and when I say eat--eat."

  "Many thanks, but I do not desire any supper."

  "Wait till you smell it!"

  "I shall neither smell it nor eat it," I answered, frowning, "becauseI propose to rid you of my presence almost immediately."

  "Meaning as you will cut your stick?"

  "Certainly not! I mean that I shall take my departure just so soon asI find myself sufficiently recovered."

  "Why, then," said she, compressing her lips and jutting her round chinat me in highly unfeminine fashion, "you'll have to jump or fly."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I shall take away the ladder!"

  "You would never do such a thing!" quoth I, starting.

  "Tush!" she retorted and, turning from me with a disdainful swirl ofher short petticoat, began to descend into the depths below, seeingwhich, I scrambled to my feet and crossed to the trap, only to beholdher standing beneath me, the ladder dragged quite out of my reach.

  "Fly down, little bird!" she cried insolently. "Jump, Jack--jump!" andsnapping finger and thumb at me, was gone before my anger might findvent in words.

  Trapped and imprisoned thus, I presently came wandering disconsolatelyback to the hay-pile and lying there began to ponder upon the extremeunlovely deportment of this strange creature whose almost every speechand look and gesture outraged all my preconceived ideas of "the sex",and bitterly to deplore my present situation.

  Evening was falling apace but there was still sufficient light to showme something of the place wherein I lay and the orderly disorder thatsurrounded me. In one corner, upon a rough board that served for ashelf, stood six battered volumes flanked by divers pots and pans;against the wall near by hung a small, cracked mirror, while danglingfrom nails driven into the warped and twisted timbering of roof andwalls hung a great variety of baskets, large and small and variouslyshaped, of rush or bent withies, many of which seemed in course ofmanufacture. These and many other objects I took casual heed of as Ilay, but often my gaze would rove back to the six books standing soorderly amid the pots and pans; indeed, these so stirred my interestthat I began to wonder what manner of books these might be and whatshould bring them in such a strange and desolate place, so thatdespite my aches and pains I felt much disposed to rise andinvestigate them, but in the end was content to lie and stare at themwhile the light failed and shadows deepened until, my eyes littleserving me, I closed them and fell fast asleep.