I could get my eye to the edge of the window and no farther, and
then I saw much sky and a little desolate moorland running up into a
gauntly-wooded hill country.
I spent my waking hours thinking of Margaret and the others dreaming of
her. Now was my chance to learn to do without her altogether. It would not
be for long. I was in the Duke's clutches, and he would not let me go till
my head rolled off my shoulders. Had I been free and with her, we should
have been farther apart than before--by the width of Donald's grave. But
here, parted for ever, with the block or the gallows just ahead of me,
there was no bar to my lonely love. Time and time again she was so near to
me, so vividly present to my imagination, that I stretched out my arms to
grasp her. The shackles clanked, and I cursed myself for a fool, but I
never cured myself of the habit.
Because this is the dreariest time of my life, I have plumped right into
the middle of it to get it over. And, indeed, there is little worth the
telling between the top of Shap and her smile. I was in jail because I was
no soldier. That, apparently, should go without saying, and if I had come
to grief over some piece of important soldier-craft, no one would have
been surprised and I should not have been to blame.
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