field."

"Nay, nay; that you shall not, Dick," I began; but he was half-way
through the narrow passage to the open, trailing the ancient broadsword
and the bearskin from his bed; and I was fain to follow quickly, leaving
the protest all unfinished.




XVIII

IN WHICH WE HEAR NEWS FROM THE SOUTH


As near as might be guessed, it wanted yet an hour or two of daybreak
when we made a landing within the boundaries of Appleby Hundred, and
beached and hid the pirogue in the bushes.

Of the down-stream flitting through the small hours of the warm
midsummer night there is no sharp-etched picture on the memory page. As
I recall it, no spoken word of Jennifer's or mine came in to break the
rhythm of the hasting voyage. Our paddles rose and fell, dipping and
sweeping in unison as if we two, kneeling in bow and stern, were
separate halves of some relentless mechanism driven by a single impulse.
Overhead the starlit dome circled solemnly to the right or left to match
the windings of the stream. On each hand the tree-fringed shores sped
backward in the gloom; and beneath the light shell of poplar wood that
barely kissed the ripples in passing, the river lapped and gurgled,
chuckling weirdly at the paddle plungings, and swirling aft in the