23 The Wind Among the Trees

We stopped a moment or two in the forest that Elinor might rest.

“My poor aunt!” she said.

“She will forgive us in time.”

She did not reply, but she looked at me, her face pale and lovely, and then it was suffused with a blush as she said:

“Which way do we go now, Henry? Remember that I follow you.”

“You do not follow; you go with me,” I said. “A good friend of us both is waiting near, and it is well for us to hasten.”

Then I told her of the alarm at my escape, and the shots that had been fired at me.

“Henry! they might have killed you!” she said, and I felt her hands upon my arm. Then I was not sorry that they had fired upon me.

It took us nearly two hours to walk through the forest to the glade where William Penn was waiting with the horses, and it is not a time that I can ever forget. I had triumphed over all dangers and obstacles, and the woman I loved and whom I had so nearly lost, walked beside me, her warm young hand in mine. The night was dark, but the forest was not lonely and we were not afraid.

“What is that?” she asked.

We stopped, and she stood a little closer to me.

“It is only the hooting of an owl,”

“And that?”

“The whirring wings of a bird flying over our heads.”

We walked on, and again she stopped.

“It is only the rising wind among the leaves,” I said.

“I am not afraid while you are with me,” she repeated.

The night grew darker as we advanced. We kept to the thickest of the forest, and looking up I saw that the light of the moon was fading, obscured by drifting clouds.

“You told me that some one was waiting for us?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied; “it is William Penn, that most faithful of souls.”

I had said that we ought to hasten, and she had agreed with me, but we did not go so fast. The night was dark and the way rough, and Elinor needed help and protection.

“A gully!” I said. “Beware, or you will stumble into it,” and my arm went around her to hold her back.

“Be careful,” I continued a minute later, “or you will be torn on those bushes,” and I drew her nearer to me that she might escape the danger.

“Do you think that they will follow us, Henry?”

“Undoubtedly they will try to do so when they discover that you are missing,” I replied.

She shivered, and I said, “Fear not, sweetheart, I would die for you.”

“What noise is that?” she exclaimed, “is it not Varian and his men pursuing us?”

“Listen, and keep close to me,” I said, and with my arm yet around her waist I drew her into the darkest shadows.

“If it is they, we will stand here while they pass,” I said.

But I knew from the first that it was only the wind among the trees.

“It was nothing, or rather fancy tricking us,” I said presently. “I think that now we can go on again.”

We walked ten minutes in silence. Her hand trembled now and then in mine, but her face, though pale, expressed dauntless courage. I could see that it was so, with eyes grown accustomed to the darkness, and then—her face was not far away.

A tremor shook her hand, and she stopped. “Do you not hear a noise, Henry?” she asked. “Perhaps it is they.”

“Yes, I hear it,” I said, bending my head that I might listen better, “and we will stop a little while lest we walk into their arms.”

“Traitor, you are trying to forestall them.”

“But listen, Elinor, the noise is continued and steady.”

“As of armed men searching everywhere.”

“It may be armed men searching the whole forest.”

“Henry, I am afraid!”

“Let me support you.”

We listened a few minutes, and then I said in a tone of great relief:

“It is only the little waterfall. You remember where the brook runs over the rocks.”

“Of course; now I know that sound could be made only by the steady rush of water.”

But I had known it from the first.

We reached the brook and paused a moment on its brink. It flowed in a baby torrent, a sheet of silver over the pebbles, a riotous little stream, as happy in its solitude as we; three feet wide, six inches deep, and as confident as Niagara.

“Oh, I shall get wet if I cross!” said Elinor.

“You need run no such risk,” I replied, and lifting her in my arms I carried her over the stream. I had no regret save that it was not wider.

“Who asked you to do that?” said Elinor.

“I did not need to be asked.”

“You take advantage of every chance.”

“If I had not I would not have won you.”

She made no reply, and we continued our journey.

“Isn’t William Penn near now?” she asked presently.

“I hope not.”

“Why?”

“Because, if he were, the pleasantest journey that I have ever undertaken would be too near its end.”

“But I thought you said we were to be married then?”

“So we are, but ought I not to have a little time for courtship? You know it has been too short.”

She was silent again, and we walked slowly on in the darkness. The clouds increased, and I found it necessary to help Elinor more. But we were approaching the glade in which William Penn waited with the horses.

“Are you sure that he will be there?” she asked.

“As sure as I am that we shall arrive.”

We beheld in another five minutes the rift in the trees that marked the glade.

“Yonder is the place,” I said with a sigh.

We saw, as we approached, William Penn sitting on the stump and holding the three horses by the bridles, which he had gathered in one hand, while the rifle was clasped in the other. He sprang to his feet when he heard our approaching footsteps, and the rifle flew to his shoulder.

“It is only we, William Penn,” I said; “you need not fire.”

“And who are ‘we’?” he demanded in a loud and threatening voice.

“Behold us!” I said, as we stepped into the faint moonlight of the little glade.

“I thought you would never come” he grumbled, letting the stock of his rifle fall to the ground; but he added, with an amazing touch of gallantry for him, “Miss Elinor, we need no moonlight since you have come.”

“What a compliment, William Penn!” she said; “and I wish you to know how much I appreciate it.”

But I felt that we should linger no longer, and, mounting the horses, we rode with speed to the village. I had triumphed in the great object, but I knew that Varian would pursue us unrelentingly. If drawn elsewhere by military duties, he could detach Blanchard and a band of his personal followers and send them after us. I appreciated the dangers that yet lay before us, but I believed that we could triumph over them all as we had triumphed over those past.

Elinor became silent and shy. She even rode nearer to William Penn than to me, and the old man yearned over her like a father.

“How good of you, William Penn,” she said, after a while, “to help us so much, and at such great risks!”

“The young are always foolish,” said William Penn; “but we old people love them, and work for them anyhow. Perhaps it’s because they are such blind ducklings that we feel sorry for them.”

Then he turned in his saddle and shook his fist at me.

“You scamp,” he said, “I’ve been nearly dead with fright for the last twenty hours. I’m a man of peace, and if ever I lift a hand again to help anybody while this war is going on may I be condemned for all eternity as a fool!”

But we rode steadily on, we three, and William Penn was not the least bold among us.

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