"Ay, that is best!" agreed the storekeeper. "Warned, he can take the long
way home, and Hugon and this other may be dealt with at his leisure. Come,
my girl; there's no time to lose."
They left behind them the creek, the blooming dooryard, the small white
house, and the gentle Quakeress. The woods received them, and they came
into a world of livid greens and grays dashed here and there with
ebony,--a world that, expectant of the storm, had caught and was holding
its breath. Save for the noise of their feet upon dry leaves that rustled
like paper, the wood was soundless. The light that lay within it, fallen
from skies of iron, was wild and sinister; there was no air, and the heat
wrapped them like a mantle. So motionless were all things, so fixed in
quietude each branch and bough, each leaf or twig or slender needle of the
pine, that they seemed to be fleeing through a wood of stone, jade and
malachite, emerald and agate.
They hurried on, not wasting breath in speech. Now and again MacLean
glanced aside at the girl, who kept beside him, moving as lightly as
presently would move the leaves when the wind arose. He remembered certain
scurrilous words spoken in the store a week agone by a knot of purchasers,
but when he looked at her face he thought of the Highland maiden whose
story he had told. As for Audrey, she saw not the woods that she loved,
heard not the leaves beneath her feet, knew not if the light were gold or
gray. She saw only a horse and rider riding from Williamsburgh, heard only
the rapid hoofbeats. All there was of her was one dumb prayer for the
rider's safety. Her memory told her that it was no great distance to the
road, but her heart cried out that it was so far away,--so far away! When
the wood thinned, and they saw before them the dusty strip, pallid and
lonely beneath the storm clouds, her heart leaped within her; then grew
sick for fear that he had gone by. When they stood, ankle-deep in the
dust, she looked first toward the north, and then to the south. Nothing
moved; all was barren, hushed, and lonely.
"How can we know? How can we know?" she cried, and wrung her hands.
MacLean's keen eyes were busily searching for any sign that a horseman had
lately passed that way. At a little distance above them a shallow stream
of some width flowed across the way, and to this the Highlander hastened,
looked with attention at the road-bed where it emerged from the water,
then came back to Audrey with a satisfied air. "There are no hoof-prints,"
he said. "No marks upon the dust. None can have passed for some hours."