Lisbon

by Valerie Sherwood

  “Consummated," supplied Tom dryly.

  “Consummated"—she stumbled shyly over the word— “when he found us, why, then he’d just go home in defeat and prepare to sell Aldershot Grange to settle his debts instead of selling me for them!"

  “So Scotland it is." Tom was as ready as the next man to take his chances.

  They had sheered away from Keswick, which lay at the head of the Derwent Water, and passed north of Penrith, intending to go around Carlisle to the east and cross the border into the Scottish Lowlands somewhere north of Kingstown, but after riding through rough country all day, Charlotte was so tired and they were both so hungry that when they came down from a steep rise and saw below them a tiny inn with a shingle flapping in the breeze outside, Tom decided to chance it. The horse was near done—after all, the animal had not been fresh when they started.

  “Say nothing," he warned Charlotte. “Follow my lead here."

  He rode boldly down into the narrow valley, dismounted, and handed Charlotte into the Stag and Horn as the flaking paint of the sign above the door announced.

  In the low-ceilinged public room they were the only guests and they seated themselves at the single long board where all travelers dined. Their host, a short pink-cheeked fellow with gray-streaked ginger hair, bustled about in his leathern apron and apologized that there was no proper time to “prepare a bird," but cold venison pie was all his Annie had left when she took the whole family in to market, leaving him behind to mind the inn.

  “Have you no guests then?" Tom inquired with just the right degree of polite interest.

  The landlord shook his head. “Though there’ll be a few lads dropping by later this evening for a drop of ale. Weather’s too good to drive them inside yet!"

  So the inn was deserted save for this smiling fellow before them. . . . Tom’s eyes had gleamed at this piece of good luck. He abandoned his questions and waxed voluble on their own case, explaining that Charlotte was his sister and that they had both come down from Carlisle on their way to visit their mother’s cousin, who lived somewhere near Cross Fell, but they had become lost.

  “Cross Fell? Ah, then you’re going in the wrong direction," the landlord told him.

  “After we’ve eaten, perhaps you would be good enough to point the way?"

  “Indeed, young sir, that I will.”

  “Meantime, I’ll feed and water my horse, since you’re short of help here today, and you can put it on my bill. "

  The landlord nodded and bustled away to bring them their dinner, and Charlotte gave Tom a worried look and whispered, “We’ve no money! How will we pay for it?"

  “We won’t," muttered Tom. He was glancing about, hoping to locate a weapon—a musket perhaps—but none was in sight. “And we need a fresh horse too. Just close your eyes and pretend to be napping, in case someone comes in. I’ll be right back.”

  In the stable, as he fed and watered his stolen mount he surveyed the situation. The landlord had a pair of very decent horses; of the two, the dappled gray mare looked like she had more staying power.

  Wooden plates were laid, tankards of cider filled, the meat pie was brought, and good brown bread. Tom asked if there were apples to take along on their journey to Cross Fell, and the landlord obliged by bringing him a knotted linen square filled with hard delicious pippins.

  Cold food had never tasted so good. They ate their venison pie and brown bread and accepted second helpings. They drank the strong apple cider, and Charlotte, who had been edgy about someone coming in, relaxed and smiled dreamily at Tom across the table and imagined what life would be like once a blacksmith had banged his anvil and pronounced them wed. It would be wonderful, she decided happily.

  The landlord explained sheepishly that his wife had left only enough of a great tart for one serving (she had meant it for him, but he forbore saying that), and Tom quickly told him to give the berry tart to the lady. And while she ate it, would the landlord step outside and point out the way to Cross Fell?

  The landlord would. He led Tom out upon the grassy plot before the inn—which in itself showed that this way was not much traveled—and gestured toward a nearby hill, explaining that if he would go around there to the right—

  He never finished, for Tom’s fist clipped him neatly on the jaw and stretched him out upon the grass, senseless.

  Tom stood over him for a moment. He had hated doing that to this kindly man, but he had to get Charlotte out of here.

  “I’ll pay you when I can,” he muttered to that prone unhearing figure in the leathern apron. “And for the horse too.” He turned and beckoned to Charlotte, who was watching horrified from the window.

  “He still isn’t moving,” Charlotte reported fearfully as Tom saddled the dappled gray mare. “Oh, you don’t think he’s dead, do you?”

  “Of course not.” Tom sighed. “But I’m hoping he’ll stay peacefully where he is until we re out of sight.” He was wishing he had the time to search the inn for a weapon, but “some of the lads from hereabout” could come streaming in at any minute and he dared not linger.

  Just as they cleared the next rise, they heard an angry bellow from the direction of the inn.

  “There’s your answer,” he told Charlotte ironically. “He’s awake.”

  And then came the boom of a a musket.

  “Very much awake.” Tom took a twisting course in case the enraged landlord decided to leap astride the other horse in his stable and follow them.

  “He’ll alert the countryside with all that noise,” worried Charlotte as they heard the musket fire again in the distance.

  “We must take that chance. At least we’ve eaten, we’ve a fresh horse beneath us, and pippins to keep us going— all of which gives us a better chance to reach the border. ”

  But Charlotte was looking back, still upset.

  “We'll come back and pay him when we can. We will come back, won’t we, Tom?”

  “When we can,” he answered absently, his mind more occupied with the pleasant discovery that the dappled gray mare beneath him was thundering down the slope as if she liked to run.

  “What do you think we should do once we re wed at Gretna Green, Tom? Stay in Scotland or come back to England?”

  Tom had been giving that a lot of thought. He answered promptly, “We'll head for Dumfries and sell the horse in the market there and make our way down the coast to Liverpool. And there, if you’re willing, we ll indenture ourselves for the voyage to America. Would you like that?”

  “Oh, yes,” she breathed as they rode away into the gathering dusk. The bagpipes of Scotland already sang a wild refrain in her heart. Ahead lay the Scottish Lowlands— and freedom!

  They carefully skirted Carlisle—and it was there that the first group of pursuers crossed their path. Tom reined in at a shout ahead and a cry of “There they are, lads! Let’s take them!”

  The mare was skittish but she was fast. Tom would always be grateful for the way she responded to being turned about. She wheeled instantly and plunged along a path through some low woods, running like a deer. There Tom turned sharply east and down through a ravine and then south into rougher country until their pursuers had lost them.

  The bands of men pursuing them, Tom realized bitterly, would have had fresh horses at their disposal all along the way, but he and Charlotte would have been ahead of them had the two of them only swooped down on the inn and departed with the mare. Their dinner had cost them their safe, easy passage to the Lowlands of Scotland.

  After that it was hide-and-seek among the hills. They catnapped briefly by a stream and let the mare graze. It was a soft pleasant evening and Tom longed to hold Charlotte in his arms, but he was afraid to touch her because if he did he knew he’d go all the way with her, and that, he felt, would be unfair. She deserved a better “first night’’ than that, hurried and on the run—and she would have one.

  They munched their apples and, strengthened, rode on.

  But when at dawn they once more made their bid
to win through just north of Carlisle, they were again pushed back and they were on the run all day. And now it was night again. They had eaten all their apples and were again famished, and they had almost reached the border when they were again driven back, this time in darkness. It worried Tom that their pursuers had seemed to be gaining in numbers as the day wore on—and seemed to be coming from everywhere.

  He had hoped to make Scotland before the mare’s endurance gave out, but now he saw that it was not to be. They had been trying to go around a tall mountain when Tom had seen the lanterns ahead—and sheered off. At this point there seemed to be no way to go but over that mountain or back the way they had come, so he started the mare up the mountainside. Climbing steadily, the poor beast made ever-slower progress, wavering on the grassy slope. The horse must have rest—and Charlotte too. She had been clinging gamely with her arms wrapped round his waist, her fingers locked over one of the brass buttons of his coat.

  She had not complained, not his Charlotte, but now her head had lolled against his back and her bright hair, loosened by their long ride, was blowing across his face in the freshening breeze.

  That breeze brought with it the promise of rain, and Tom was not sure whether rain would be a good thing or not. It would mean they would leave hoofprints here dug into the short grass or in any muddy patches they chanced to cross—hoofprints fresh and easy to follow. And when it began to rain, the rocky ways would become slick and dangerous. But rain would also obscure sound and vision and might allow them to slip between the parties that thrice had forced them back, and let them win through at last to Scotland.

  The mare stumbled again and instinctively Tom reached out behind him to steady Charlotte, who might have gone to sleep in the saddle. She had, and she came awake with a start, and slid permissively into his arms when he dismounted and reached up to lift her down.

  “Where . . . where are we?” she whispered, afraid the sound of her voice might carry through the darkness.

  “If I’m right, this is Kenlock Crag,” said Tom. “And Scotland is just over there.” He made a sweeping motion with his arm.

  The moon came out and Charlotte s gaze swung round, studying the peaks that rose in silvered silence about her. With the great bulk of the mountain obscuring most of their view at this point, there was not even the faint light of a farmer’s candlelit window or crofter’s hut; they might have been alone in the world.

  “I don’t hear anyone,’’ she said after a moment.

  “No, there were some lanterns, but I think we’ve lost them down in that last valley.’ He hoped he was right.

  “Tom, if this is Kenlock Crag, then somewhere up near the summit there’s a place where we could rest—and hide. Wend's father told me about it last Christmas. He used to be a guide for hunting parties climbing these steep crags—that was the way he got hurt, taking a party up Helvellyn.”

  “Did he tell you how to find it?’’ Tom sounded doubtful.

  “Only that there was this narrow defile that led up to the top, and that branching olf from it was another narrow cleft, and if you followed that branch, you would reach it.”

  Tom peered upward.

  “There looks to be such a place up ahead,” he said doubtfully.

  “Then that must be it,” said Charlotte. “He said it was really the only way to the summit. ”

  Which would mean it would be a good place to defend ... if defense became necessary.

  “Shall we go up and see?”

  Charlotte nodded. She was fully awake now and ready for anything—and she was sure she could trust anything Wend's twinkling-eyed climber father told her. She trudged along beside Tom as he led the mare on their upward journey.

  The defile was farther than it had appeared to be from below, and when they reached it they sank down on the ground to rest before attempting an even more difficult climb toward the summit.

  Beside them the dappled mare stood swaying slightly, her head drooping.

  Tom studied the defile, which narrowed as it trended upward. He could not see the fork Wend's father had described, but there could well be one up there. It was a chance he felt they had to take, for they could not risk letting daylight find them exposed on the mountainside. He looked at the horse. Her hooves would ring on the rocks and the sound would carry. He remembered the lanterns. They might be out of earshot of the men who carried those lanterns—or they might not. Anyway, this was where they and the horse would part company.

  He stood up.

  “She’s been a gallant mount, this mare, and she’s saved us more than once. ’’ Tom stroked the despondent animal’s mane. “But she needs to find water and grazing and she won’t find it up this rocky way, nor have time for it when we make our bid for the border.” In fact a tired, wavering animal would be a liability, for there would be some nearly level terrain to cross between here and the border, and while he and Charlotte could drop to the ground and lie still in reeds or rushes, a horse would stand tall—and it was doubtful that he could persuade a strange horse to lie down on order. “We'll have to manage on foot from here on, Charlotte.”

  He took the mare’s bridle and turned her gently around, gave her a light dismissing slap on the rump. Obediently— thankfully, he thought—the mare sidled off, sliding a little on the slippery short grass, but heading ever downhill.

  They were both silent as they watched the mare depart, because without her they had lost so much of their power to maneuver. They were committed to the mountain.

  They looked at each other for a long moment and then they started up, climbing ever upward until at last Tom thought that Charlotte could stand no more and ordered her to rest.

  “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll go exploring. If I can find this place Wend's father mentioned, it will be a bit of luck for us.”

  Charlotte was glad to rest and wait. When Tom came back he looked well-pleased.

  “It’s a bit tricky to get to,” he said, “but it’s up there, just like he said.”

  He led her upward to a place where there was a fork in the defile. He took the fork to the right and she clambered up after him to a place breathtakingly near the summit. It was indeed a sheltered spot she saw as she looked over a low wall formed by a fallen boulder into a scooped-out place that must have been created when the rain washed out a softer section of rock. On three sides the rock walls rose sheer save for a natural overhang that loomed over one side of an almost level stone “floor,” scoured almost smooth by rain. Off the main defile that led on up to the crest of this rugged peak, this tiny natural terrace was as private—except for the cleft entrance through which she now looked—as if they were in a small courtyard surrounded on three sides by house walls, a terrace over whose low uneven entrance barrier Tom had already vaulted and where he was now standing.

  “Watch out you don’t walk too far that way.” He waved his hand at the fourth side, where the flat terrace wall seemed to disappear. “There’s a sheer drop that goes down forever, with a cascade rushing by at the bottom.”

  “I can hear it,” she said. And indeed she could. The sound was making her thirsty, but there was no water up here. Unless it rained.

  Without waiting for him to help her over, Charlotte leapt over the low boulder to join him. Her skirt caught on a jagged outcrop of rock as she sprang, an outcrop split away by last winter’s frost perhaps. It caught her by surprise and twisted her to the side so that she landed in a tumble of wide skirts on a pile of loose rocks instead of the terrace floor, worn smooth by rain.

  Instantly Tom was bending solicitously over her.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked sharply, for an injury now could be a desperate thing.

  “No.” In the fitful moonlight she gave him a wan look and tried to struggle up, only to fall back with a sharp low cry. “My ankle,” she amended bitterly. “I seem to have wrenched it as I fell.”

  Above her Tom bit his lip and frowned. He bent down and scooped her up. Reproach her he would not, for she had been as ga
llant as the mare, and full of spirit all of this wild ride into the unknown. He carried her to a sheltered spot cupped out of the protruding rocks above them and carefully laid her down.

  “If it rains, you’ll have some shelter here,” he explained.

  “Oh, Tom.” Charlotte’s voice was uneven and filled with anxiety. “I’ve ruined our chances, haven’t I—getting hurt?”

  “Of course not,” he said soothingly. But he had a sinking feeling all the same. How badly her ankle had been injured, they would know by morning. Meantime . . .

  “I’ll climb up to the top and have a look,” he told her restlessly.

  He made his way over the low boulder that resembled a terrace wall, and back down along the way they had come over this broken pathway to the fork in the defile, and then climbed up the main defile until he reached the summit. There atop the highest rocks he looked out across a vista that seemed to include the whole of the British Isles.

  The night wind blew his hair, and the moon was hiding behind a cloud so that the entire wild landscape had a devil’s darkness about it, mysterious, remote. From this high vantage point, seemingly on the roof of the world, he could see the lanterns of his pursuers moving about like fireflies in the darkness far below. So many of them. In an irregular line from east to west those lanterns swung, barring the way to Scotland.

  It was worse than he had thought. He exhaled a deep slow breath. Penetrating that barrier would be difficult enough for a strong man. For an exhausted girl with a strained ankle it would be impossible. But perhaps they could hide here for a time until the searchers decided they had somehow slipped through the net; perhaps then the searchers would go on a wild-goose chase into Scotland; perhaps—