CHAPTER XXVII
IN THE CLOUDSMarcos tied his horse to a tree and led the way towards the cottage. Itseemed to be innocent of bars and bolts. The ford, known to so few, andthe evil name of the Wolf, served instead. The door opened at a push, andMarcos went in. A wood-fire smouldered on an open hearth, while the acridsmoke half-filled the room, blackened by the fumes of peat and charcoal.
Marcos stood on the threshold and called the owner by name. There was ashuffling sound in an inner room and the scraping of a match. A minutelater a door was opened and an old woman stood in the aperture, fullydressed and carrying a lamp above her head.
"Ah!" she said. "It is you. I thought it was the voice of a friend. Andyou have your pretty wife there. What are you doing abroad at this hour... the Carlists?"
"Yes," answered Marcos, rather quickly, "the Carlists. We cannot pass bythe road, so have sent the carriage back and are going across themountains."
The woman held up her hands and shook them from side to side in a gestureof horror.
"Ah! but there!" she cried, "I know what you are. There is no turningyour back on your road. If you say you will go--you will go though itrain rocks. But this child--ah, dear, dear! You do not know what you havemarried--with your bright eyes. Sit down, my child. I will get you what Ican. Some coffee. I am alone in the house. All my men have gone to thehigh valley, now that the snow is gone, to collect wood and to see whatthe winter has done for our hut up in the mountain."
Marcos thanked her, and explained that they wanted nothing but a roofunder which to leave his horse.
"We are going up to the higher valley to-night," he said, "where we shallfind your husband and sons. And at daylight we must hurry on to TorreGarda. But I want to borrow a dress and handkerchief belonging to one ofyour daughters. See, the Senora cannot walk in that one, which is toofine and too long."
"Oh, but my daughters ..." exclaimed the old woman, with deprecatinghands.
"They are very pretty girls," answered Marcos, with a laugh. "All thevalley knows that."
"They are not bad," admitted the mother, "but it is a flower compared toa cabbage. Still, we can hide the flower in the cabbage leaves if youlike."
And she laughed heartily at her own conceit.
"Then see to it while I put my horse away," said Marcos. He quitted thehut and overheard the woman pointing out to Juanita that she had lost hermantilla coming through the trees in the dark. While he attended to hishorse he could hear their laughter and gay conversation over the changeof clothes; for Juanita understood these people as well as he did, andhad grown through childhood to the age of thought in their midst. Thepeasant was still pressing a simple hospitality upon Juanita when Marcosreturned to the cottage and found her ready for the journey.
"I was telling the Senora," explained the woman volubly, "that she mustnot so much as look inside the cottage in the mountains. I have not beenthere for six months and the men--you know what they are. They are nobetter than dogs I tell them. There is plenty of clean hay and drybracken in the sheds up there and you can well make a soft bed for her toget some sleep for a few hours. And here I have unfolded a new blanketfor the lady. See, it is white as I bought it. She can use it. It hasnever been worn--by us others," she added with perfect simplicity.
Marcos took the blanket while Juanita explained that having slept soundlyevery night of her life without exception, she could well now accommodateherself with a rest of two hours in the hay. The woman pressed upon themsome of her small store of coffee and some new bread.
"He can well prepare your breakfast for you," she said, confidentially toJuanita. "He is like one of us. All the valley will tell you that. Agreat gentleman who can yet cook his own breakfast--as the good God meantthem to be."
They set forth at once in the yellow light of the waning moon, Marcosleading the way up a pathway hardly discernible amid the rocks andundergrowth. Once or twice he turned to help Juanita over a hard or adangerous place. But they did not talk, as conversation was not onlydifficult but inexpedient. They had climbed for two hours, slowly andsteadily, when the barking of a dog on the mountainside above themnotified them that they were nearing their destination.
"Who is it?" asked a voice presently.
"Marcos de Sarrion," replied Marcos. "Strike no lights."
"We have no candles up here," answered the man with a laugh. He onlyspoke Basque and it was in this language that Marcos gave a briefexplanation. Juanita sat on a rock. She was tired out. There were threemen--short, thick-set and silent, a father and two sons. They stood infront of Marcos and spoke in monosyllables after the manner of oldfriends. Under his directions they brought a heap of dried bracken andhay. In a shed, little more than a roof and four uprights, they made arough couch for Juanita which they hedged round with heaps of bracken toprotect her from the wind.
"You will see the stars," said the old man shaking out the blanket whichMarcos had carried up from the cottage at the ford. "It is good to seethe stars when you awake in the night. One remembers that the saints arewatching."
In a few minutes Juanita was sleeping, like a child, curled up beneathher blanket, and heard through her dreams the low voices of Marcos andthe peasants talking hurriedly in the half-ruined cottage. For Marcos andthese three were the only men who knew the way over the mountains toTorre Garda.
The dawn was just breaking when Marcos awoke Juanita.
"Oh," she said plaintively. "I have only been asleep ten minutes."
"You have slept three hours," replied Marcos in that hushed voice inwhich it seems natural to speak before the dawn. "I am makingcoffee--come when you are ready."
Juanita found a pail of water and a piece of last year's yellow soapwhich had been carefully scraped clean with a knife. A clean towel hadalso been provided. Juanita noted the manly simplicity of theseattentions with a little tender and wise smile.
"I know what it is that makes men gipsies," she said, when she joinedMarcos who was attending to a fire of sticks on the ground at the cottagedoor. "I shall always have a kindly feeling for them now. They getsomething straight from heaven which is never known to people who sleepin stuffy houses and get up to wash in warm water."
She gave a little shiver at the recollection of her ablutions, andlaughed a clear, low laugh, as fresh as the morning itself.
"Where are the men?" she asked.
"One has gone to Pampeluna, one has taken a note to the officercommanding the reinforcements sent for by Zeneta. The third has gone downto fetch his mother up here to bake bread all day. There will be a littlearmy here to-night."
Juanita stood watching Marcos who seemed entirely absorbed in blowing upthe fire with a pair of dilapidated bellows.
"I suppose," she said lightly, "that it was of these things that you werethinking when you were so silent as we climbed up here last night."
"I suppose so," answered Marcos.
Juanita looked at him with a little frown as if she did not quite believehim. The day had now come and a pink light suffused the topmost peaks. Afaint warmth spread itself like a caress across the valley and turned thecold air into a pearly mist.
"Of what are you thinking?" asked Marcos suddenly; for Juanita had stoodmotionless, watching him.
"I was thinking what a comfort it is that you are not an indoor man," shereplied with a careless laugh.
The peasants had brought their cows to the high pastures. So there wasplenty of milk in the cottage which was little more than a dairy; for ithad no furniture beyond a few straw mattresses thrown on the floor in onecorner. Marcos served breakfast.
"Pedro particularly told me to see that you had the cup which has ahandle," he said, pouring the coffee from a battered coffee-pot. Duringtheir simple breakfast they were silent. There was a subtle constraint.Juanita who had a quick and direct mind, decided that the moment had comefor that explanation for which Marcos did not ask. An explanation doesnot improve by keeping. They were alone here--alone in the world itseemed--for the cows had strayed away. The dogs had go
ne to the valleywith their masters. She and Marcos had always known each other. She knewhis every thought; she was not afraid of him; she never had been. Whyshould she be now?
"Marcos," she said.
"Yes."
"I want you to give me the letter I wrote to you at Torre Garda."
He felt in his pocket and handed her the first paper he found withoutparticularly looking at it. Juanita unfolded it. It was the note, allcrumpled, which she had thrust through the wall of the convent school atSaragossa. She had forgotten it, but Marcos had kept it all this time.
"That is the wrong one," she said gravely, and handed it back to Marcos,who took it with a little jerk of the head as of annoyance at his ownstupidity. He was usually very accurate in details. He gave her inexchange the right paper, which had been torn in two. The other half isin the military despatch office in Madrid to-day. Juanita had arranged inher own mind what to say. She was quite mistress of the situation, andwas ready to move serenely and surely in her own sphere, taking the leadin such subtle matters with the capability and mastery whichcharacterised Marcos' lead in affairs of action. But Marcos' mistakeseemed to have put out her prearranged scheme.
She slowly tore the letter into pieces and threw it on the fire.
"Do you know why I came back?" she asked, which question can hardly haveformed part of the plan of action.
"No."
"Because you never pretended that you cared. If you had pretended thatyou cared for me, I should never have forgiven you."
Marcos did not answer. He looked up slowly, expecting perhaps to find herlooking elsewhere. But her eyes met his and she shrank back with aninvoluntary movement that seemed to be of fear. Her face flushed all overand then the colour faded from it, leaving her white and motionless asshe sat staring into the flickering wood-fire.
Presently she rose and walked to the edge of the plateau upon which thehut was built. She stood there looking across to the mountains.
Marcos busied himself with the simple possessions of his host, settingthem in order where he had found them and treading out the smoulderingembers of the fire. Juanita turned and watched him over her shoulder witha mystic persistency. Beneath her lashes lurked a smile--triumphant andtender.