“Holy Mother!” he regarded me with surprise, contempt and pity, all together: “was ever such a dunderhead! If ever man were fit to die, I am he—and that’s just my reasonable complaint. Heart alive! ’tis unfit to _live_ I am, tied to this absurd body!” I suppose my attitude express’d my lack of comprehension, for he lifted a finger and went on— “Tell me—can you eat beef, and drink beer, and enjoy them?” “Why, yes.” “And fight—hey? and kiss a pretty girl, and be glad you’ve done it? Dear, dear, how I do hate a fool and a fool’s pity! Lift me up and carry me a step. This night’s work has kill’d me: I feel it in my lungs. ’Tis a pity, too; for I was just beginning to enjoy it.” I lifted him as I would a babe, and off we set again, my teeth shutting tight on the pain of my hurt. And presently, coming to a little dingle, about half a mile down the hillside, well hid with dead bracken and blackberry bushes, I consulted with the girl. The place was well shelter’d from the wind that rock’d the treetops, and I fear’d to go much further, for we might come on open country at any moment and so double our peril. It seem’d best, therefore, to lay the old gentleman snugly in the bottom of this dingle and wait for day. And with my buff-coat, and a heap of dried leaves, I made him fairly easy, reserving my cloak to wrap about Mistress Delia’s fair neck and shoulders. But against this at first she protested. “For how are you to manage?” she ask’d. “I shall tramp up and down, and keep watch,” answer’d I, strewing a couch for her beside her father: “and ’tis but fair exchange for the kerchief you gave me from your own throat.” At last I persuaded her, and she crept close to her father, and under the edge of the buff-coat for warmth. There was abundance of dry bracken in the dingle, and with this and some handfuls of pine needles, I cover’d them over, and left them to find what sleep they might. For two hours and more after this, I hobbled to and fro near them, as well as my wound would allow, looking up at the sky through the pine tops, and listening to the sobbing of the wind. Now and then I would swing my arms for warmth, and breathe on my fingers, that were sorely benumb’d; and all the while kept my ears on the alert, but heard nothing. ’Twas, as I said, something over two hours after, that I felt a soft cold touch, and then another, like kisses on my forehead. I put up my hand, and looked up again at the sky. As I did so, the girl gave a long sigh, and awoke from her doze— “Sure, I must have dropp’d asleep,” she said, opening her eyes, and spying my shadow above her: “has aught happened?” “Aye,” replied I, “something is happening that will wipe out our traces and my bloody track.” “And what is that?” “Snow: see, ’tis falling fast.” She bent over, and listen’d to her father’s breathing. “’Twill kill him,” she said simply.