The Highwayman's Footsteps Read Free Page B

was nothing they could do that I could not. But these feelings disappeared when I returned each evening to my home, where bitterness took over and I felt small and weak.
    I put these thoughts away now and tried to decide how to help the girl’s injury and fever. I knew that if this was a wounded horse I should need a mixture of certain herbs, pounded and mashed into a poultice to draw out the poison. Surely the same would work for a person? But I did not have the herbs, nor any way to find them. For now, all I could do was to pray that she would survive the night. In the morning, I would go to the nearby village and buy such physic as I could. And I would find us food.
    Meanwhile, I made a pad of the only clean shirt I had brought with me and pressed it firmly to her wound, keeping it in place with her own torn shirt and jacket. I shut my ears to the pain she suffered while I did this but she knew why it had to be so. The wound must be closed as much as possible and protected from the terrible poisons of the night air. I made her the best pillow that I could with her bag, and covered her with her own warm cloak.
    I explained what I would do in the morning. I could not tell if she grasped this, as she drifted in and out of wakefulness, sometimes muttering words I could not understand. Sliding down onto the ground, leaning against the wall, I sat close to her and began to wait for the morning to come. Once, after a short while, her hand moved towards mine in her sleep and I clasped it in the darkness, unseen by the world. I do not think she knew what she did, though I blushed in the night for such impropriety and hoped she would not remember in the morning. As I took her hand, our fates were sealed, locked together by chance and the foolish things that humans do to each other.
    As the night settled into its heavy silence, my heart slowed and sank and dark thoughts flooded my mind. What had I done? What would happen now? How long could this girl and I survive? She was a criminal – how could I trust her? Would we be caught and face the hangman’s noose or would we manage to escape for a few hours or days or weeks, spending every moment terrified, only to be shot down like dogs in the dirt when the soldiers eventually caught us? What did it feel like to die? And who would ever know or care about us?
    I knew only that at this time, there seemed no choice. I did not wish to be alone. You may say I stayed with her because I was too afraid of loneliness. Or you may say I stayed because I could not honourably leave her to die. I do not, in all honesty, know which would be closer to the truth.

Chapter Five
    I slept little and lightly. This was the fourth night since I had left my comfortable bed at home, and a hard damp floor no longer seemed strange to me. But my head was full of what I must do the next day. Besides, I was afraid to sleep too deeply, in case an intruder came and I did not hear until it was too late.
    The winter iciness seeped through my skin, chilling me to my bones. The girl muttered in her fevered sleep and I fretted for her condition in this hostile cold. I moved my body closer to her, for both our sakes, though not too close. It would not have been proper. And I did not look at her.
    I wondered about her, however. How could I not? What sort of villain was she? She appeared to be a highwayman – not that I had seen one, but I had heard tell of them often enough. I did not believe I had heard of a woman turning to that dangerous way of life, though plenty of women were hanged for robbery of other sorts. A highwayman’s life was no life for a young girl: a life of constant danger, as her pistol wound testified. I could not help but want to know more about my strange companion.
    And oddly, just for a short moment, I envied her the freedom she must have. She could do as she wished, go where she desired. No one would expect anything of her.
    In my wakeful moments, I listened to the sounds of the