"There, now, lad," said a woman's voice; an old woman. "You are not to blame."
"But I should not have! She is but a lass! Oh, that God would spare her!" the man's voice was choked with tears.
"There now, Rob, there now," said the woman. "We must pray that the will of God be done."
I could not comprehend my surroundings; did not know who was speaking nor of what or whom they spoke. I did not open my eyes, and the sounds faded away at last.
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I heard people speaking all around me, the words running over each other. Voices began to distinguish themselves.
"I must take her home." Robbie.
"Have your senses left you? She cannot travel!" Was that Eleanor?
"You cannot travel now. The road is not safe." Hamish.
"Is it any better for her to die here than at the hands of the outlaws?" Robbie said.
"Either way I must face her father, and her brothers! Let her die at home, where she wishes to be!"
"Robbie, you cannot take her anywhere in her present state. She will surely perish on the road, even if you avoid the outlaws," said Hamish.
Then faintly I heard Robbie say, "She shall not die. She shall not. I will visit the Creek woman and get her medicine."
I drifted away again.
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There was freshness in my nostrils. A faint breeze wafted about me and I could hear the soft dripping of water. Thunder rumbled faintly and far away. The skin of my arms tightened with gooseflesh.
I drew breath into me deeply, and let it out slowly. I opened my eyes. The curtains moved slightly in the cool air. I breathed again. The essence of the rain seemed to be seeping into me, and I tasted a sweetness in my mouth. I licked my lips, and there was more sweetness there.
I closed my eyes again, and remembered Robbie's first kisses, the sweet, hot kisses we had exchanged beneath the maple tree on the road between Brianag and Gillean; then my breath caught and I cast the memory away from me. Why had I awakened? I wanted to remain in the darkness, mercifully unaware of the pain which awaited me upon awakening.
I waited for the darkness to take me again; but after a long time I knew that it would not. I was to face my punishments after all.
I could hear someone else's slow breathing, and when I turned my head, I saw a strange person sleeping in a chair beside the bed, and then I wondered if I was indeed awake. It was an old woman, with gray hair uncombed, and linsey-woolsey clothes, and strange adornments worn about her neck, moccasins upon her feet. I wanted to call out, but I was afraid, for she looked so very odd. As I stared, she came awake.