We heard Ruth let him out; silence came to us on the backwash of the front door closing. “I guess I’d better go do what he says,” I said vaguely, still staring at the empty stairs. Father started to laugh: the first real laugh we’d heard from him since the trouble began. “They’re all too much for us,” he said. “Bless them, we’d best leave town soon before we have too much to carry away.”
“What is this horse that won’t eat if you leave it behind?” inquired Gervain.
I shook my head. “That’s all rubbish—he’s just giving him to me. I don’t know why. I used to lurk around his stable a lot.”
“Horses are the only things that will take her away from her precious Greek poets,” said Hope. “And Tom says she’s the only woman he knows who can ride properly.”
I ignored her. “One of Tom’s mares died giving birth; he said the foal might have a chance if someone who had the time and patience would bottle-feed it. So I did. I named the poor thing Greatheart—well, I was only eleven. That was four years ago. Tom usually sells them when they’re four or five. He let me do some of the training—not just the basic breaking to saddle; all his Great Horses learn some fancy steps, and how to behave on parade, how to stand at attention. Well. I guess I’d better go.”
“She used to read him her Greek translations,” murmured Grace. “And he survived.”
“It gave her governess fits” said Hope. “But then I’m sure that horse knows more Greek than Miss Stanley did.”
I glowered at her. “He was here for a while, then I took him back to Tom’s stable when he was a yearling—but I’ve visited him nearly every day—except, uh, recently.” I started up the stairs. “I’ll be back in a little. Don’t eat all the biscuits; I still want my tea.”
“Can I come along and meet your horse?” said Ger.
“Of course,” I said.
* * *
Twelve days after the auction I rode Greatheart, with Grace riding pillion, out of the city we’d lived in all our lives, for the last time. The rest of the family rode in the long wooden wagon we followed. Ger was driving, and Hope sat beside him, with her arm around Father, who sat on the outside. None of us looked back. We were traveling with a group of wagoners who made this journey regularly twice a year: It began in the broad farm country south of the city and wound its way from town to town to the far north; they arrived at their final destination with only a few weeks to spare before they turned back and went south again. These men knew the road and what dangers it might offer, and were always willing—for a reasonable fee—to have a few pilgrims journey with them. Conveniently for us, the train passed about ten miles from the village that was to be our new home. Hope and I agreed, during one of our late-evening conversations, that this made us feel a little less desolate, a little less cut off from the rest of humanity and the world.
I remembered, from several years ago, a family we had known a little whose fortunes in the city had suddenly collapsed; they had left in these same wagons with this same group. It had never occurred to me then to consider the possibility that we might one day follow them.
Greatheart clopped along, nearly asleep, chewing meditatively on his bits; one of his easy strides reached as far as two of the small, sturdy wagon horses’. There had been a little difficulty about bringing him at all, for a riding horse was an expensive luxury; he was also a very visible incentive to any bold thief who might be watching us. But spring was well advanced, so there was no shortage of fresh fodder for my massive horse’s matching appetite, and I promised to break him to harness as soon as we were moved into our new home. Gervain shook his head over us, but I don’t think he ever meant to suggest that Greatheart be left behind. The wagoners shook their heads too, and muttered loudly that they who could afford to own a horse like that one could afford to travel in a parry of their own, with hired guards, and not disturb their humble company with flashy lures to robbers and cutthroats. But the train was doing some business for Tom Black’s stable too, and the story must have come out, for several of the wagoners came up to us during the first few days to look at Greatheart a little more carefully, and with a little more sympathy—and curiosity.
One of them said to me: “And so this is the horse that wouldn’t eat if you left him behind, eh, missy?” and slapped the horse’s neck jovially. His name was Tom, also, Tom Bradley; and he began to come to our campfire in the evenings sometimes as the days of the journey mellowed into weeks and we all grew more accustomed to one another. Most of the wagoners kept to themselves; they had seen too many travelers in reduced circumstances going to new, unknown homes and destinies to be particularly interested in them. They ignored us, not unkindly but with indifference, as they ignored almost everything but the arrangement of harness and the stacking of loads, the condition of the horses and wagons, the roads, and the weather. Tom Bradley’s visits were very welcome to us, then, because even with Gervain’s ready cheerfulness and optimism we were all inclined to gloom. None of us was accustomed to long, bruising hours either on horseback—which was preferable—or in the wagon, which was built to carry heavy loads, and not sprung or cushioned for tender human freight.
“Eh, now,” Tom would say; “you’re doing none so bad; and it’ll get better in a week or two, as you get used to the way of it. Have a bit of stew, now, you’ll feel good as new.” Tom knew all there was to know about cooking in a single pot over a small fire, and taught us how to bury potatoes in the embers. And when Grace’s saddle sores grew so painful that she could get no sleep at night, he mysteriously found her a sheepskin to sit on, and would take no payment for it. “They call me the nurse-maid,” he said with a grin, “the rest of ‘em do; but I don’t mind it. Somebody has to look out for you innocents—if nobody—did there’d be trouble soon because you’ve no proper notion how to take care of yourselves. Excepting of course you, sir,” he said with a nod to Ger, who gave a short laugh.
“I’m no less grateful for your help than the others, Tom,” he said. “I know little about wagons, as you’ve found out by now.”
Tom chuckled. “Ah, well, I’ve been twenty—nearer thirty—years at this, and there’s little I don’t know about wagons, or shouldn’t be, for shame. I’ve no family I go home to, you see, so I take to whoever needs me on these journeys. And I’ll say this to you now, as I’ll say it again when you leave us to go your way: I’m wishing you the best of good luck, and I don’t say that often. Nursemaiding is a mixed blessing, more often than not. But I’ll be sorry to see the last of you folks.”
The journey lasted two long months, and by the time we parted company with the wagoners we were all covered with saddle sores, lame and aching in every inch of bone, muscle, and skin, from sleeping on the ground, and heartily sick of the whole business. The only ones relatively unaffected by what seemed to us girls to be desperate hardship were Gervain and Greatheart; Ger was still as certain and cheerful as he had been ever since he first entered our town parlour over three months ago, and Greatheart still strode amiably along at the tail of the train as if he hadn’t a care in the world. We were all thinner, harder, and shaggier. Tom shook hands all around, and tickled Greatheart under his whiskery chin; wished us good luck as he had promised; and said that he’d see us in about six months. He would be coming to say hello, and to collect the wagon and pair of horses we were taking with us now.
The unaccustomed rigours of travel had deadened us to much looking around at the countryside we passed. Mostly we noticed the ruts in the road, the rocks under our blankets, and the way the leaves on the trees we chose to lie under always dripped dew. As we turned off the main road towards our new home, now only a few miles away, we looked around with the first real interest we had felt for the land we were traveling over.