With which she turn’d, dealt the old man a cuff that stretch’d him senseless, and gathering up the turves, piled them afresh on the hearth. This done, she took the keg and gave me a drink of it. The stuff scalded me, but I thanked her. And then, when she had shifted my bed a bit, to ease the pain of lying, she righted a chair, drew it up and sat beside me. The old man lay like a log where he had fallen, and was now snoring. Presently, the fumes of the liquor, or mere faintness, mastered me, and my eyes closed. But the picture they closed upon was that of Joan, as she lean’d forward, chin on hand, with the glow of the fire on her brown skin and in the depths of her dark eyes. [Illustration: Joan] CHAPTER XII. HOW JOAN SAVED THE ARMY OF THE WEST; AND SAW THE FIGHT ON BRADDOCK DOWN. But the pain of my hurt followed into my dreams. I woke with a start, and tried to sit up. Within the kitchen all was quiet. The old savage was still stretch’d on the floor: the cat curled upon the hearth. The girl had not stirr’d: but looking toward the window hole, I saw night out side, and a frosty star sparkling far down in the west. “Joan, what’s the hour?” “Sun’s been down these four hours.” She turned her face to look at me. “I’ve no business lying here.” “Chose to come, lad: none axed thee, that _I_ knows by.” “Where’s the mare? Must set me across her back, Joan, and let me ride on.” “Mare’s in stable, wi’ fetlocks swelled like puddens. Chose to come, lad; an’ choose or no, must bide.” “’Tis for the General Hopton, at Bodmin, I am bound, Joan; and wound or no, must win there this night.” “And that’s seven mile away: wi’ a bullet in thy skull, and a peat quag thy burial. For _they_ went south, and thy road lieth more south than west.” “The troopers?” “Aye, Jack: an’ work I had this day wi’ those same bloody warriors: but take a sup at the keg, and bite this manchet of oat cake while I tell thee.” And so, having fed me, and set my bed straight, she sat on the floor beside me (for the better hearing), and in her uncouth tongue, told how I had been saved. I cannot write her language; but the tale, in sum, was this:— When I dropp’d forward into her arms, Joan for a moment was taken aback, thinking me dead. But (to quote her) “‘no good,’ said I, ‘in cuddlin’ a lad ’pon the hillside, for folks to see, tho’ he _have_ a-got curls like a wench: an’ dead or ‘live, no use to wait for others to make sure.’” So she lifted and carried me to a spot hard by, that she called the “Jew’s Kitchen;” and where that was, even with such bearings as I had, she defied me to discover. There was no time to tend me, whilst Molly stood near to show my whereabouts: so she let me lie, and went to lead the sorrel down to stable. Her hand was on the bridle when she heard a _Whoop!_ up the road; and there were half a dozen riders on the crest, and tearing down hill toward her. Joan had nothing left but to feign coolness, and went on leading the mare down the slope.