A Kiss and a Promise (43 page)

‘Dunno; mebbe an hour, mebbe two,’ Nan said vaguely. Rain was running down her face and beading her long, dark lashes and she had one arm around the neck of a recalcitrant mule, but Ginny reflected that she did not look unhappy with her lot, as a city child would have done. Nan accepted the rain, the dense fog of the clouds, the awkwardness of the animals and the steepness of the stony track up which they scrambled as no more than slight – and temporary – annoyances. Ginny guessed that the other girl would uncomplainingly help to erect the tents, make the fire and cook the food, stake out the horses, donkeys and mules, and finally crawl into bed in the wet and chilly tent, waking to more rain next morning and simply accepting it as a part of a tinker’s life.

But I shan’t, Ginny found herself thinking. If I can’t get away in all this confusion and with the cloud so thick, then I don’t deserve to escape at all. And a grand thing it would be for me daddy to have to pay a ransom to get his own girl back just because I hadn’t the wit or the courage to run away from a band of tinkers.

Presently, the track, which had been winding upwards, began to descend. They were in wild country now and even when they emerged from the cloud, there was not a farm or a cottage in sight. But I’m sure there’s nowhere in Ireland where you can walk for miles and see no sign of habitation, Ginny told herself. And there’s certainly nowhere suitable here to put up tents, and no wood for a fire either, because the only trees I’ve seen this high in the mountains are puny things which wouldn’t shelter a cat, let alone a crowd of tinkers.

It was at this point that the old women began to slosh cold tea into mugs and hand round the bread and marge. No one even thought of stopping whilst they ate, but continued to trudge. Ginny thought that this was fair enough, since she could imagine, with horror, the difficulties of erecting tents and staking out the livestock with darkness as well as rain to combat.

‘The tea’s got milk in it,’ Nan’s voice said in Ginny’s ear. She giggled, giving Ginny’s shoulder a friendly shove. ‘I wonder who gorrit?’ She giggled again. ‘Someone’s going to think their cow’s gone dry when they milk it tonight.’

Ginny giggled too. She knew that tinkers would frequently nip over a hedge and milk any unattended cows into a bucket before moving on, and though she might disapprove of the habit, on occasion she was extremely glad of it. Tinkers made strong tea and sugared it lavishly but to Ginny’s city-bred taste the addition of milk was welcome. So now she sank her nose enthusiastically into her mug, drained it and handed it back to the old woman in exchange for her share of soda bread. ‘It were cow’s milk, too,’ she said, speaking rather thickly. ‘Goat’s milk is okay, but it’s kind o’ strong, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Aye, that it is,’ Nan agreed. ‘But you can’t see a fat old milch cow keeping up with a tribe, can you? The goats is allus ahead of the rest and young Snicky –he’s our goat herder – stays well up the front with his goats, no matter how bad the path. So that means when we do reach our camping ground, there’s always fresh milk to hand.’

But soon the track began to climb once more and Nan fell back a little. Her plumpness meant that she was slower on an upward slope than Ginny and, though both girls were assisted in the climb by hanging on to the manes of the mules they were leading, she still could not quite keep up. Ginny, realising this, began to move a good deal faster. She heard Nan’s plaintive cry and called reassuringly over her shoulder that she could see Conan ahead and meant to get him to lead her mule so that she and Nan might walk together. In actual fact, she could see nothing ahead, save for a dim shape through the muffling whiteness, and she began to look about her, realising that because of the cloud, the rain and the narrowness of the track, here was an opportunity to get away which might not come again. She told herself that she was bound to find a cottage or a farmhouse if she descended into the valley, and glanced cautiously about her. There was no one really near, for Nan had fallen a good way behind. Ginny felt the heat rush to her cheeks as she contemplated what she should do for the best. Mules are tricky beasts; if she let go of her companion and began to descend into the milky whiteness of the cloud, someone – Nan or Conan – might remark on an unaccompanied mule and set everyone searching for her; but if she took the mule with her, the sound of its unshod hooves on the mountainside might give her away. If she had been able to ride, the mule could have been a real advantage, but Ginny had tried on a couple of occasions to ride one of the ponies and had been unable to stay aboard for more than a few minutes. This particular mule was a large animal and capable, as she well knew, of putting on quite a spurt. No, riding the beast was out of the question. She decided to simply release it and begin to scramble as quietly as possible down the mountainside, trusting that no one would see her go and that the mule would continue doggedly climbing upward. If, on the other hand, the mule followed her and she was spotted, she would say she was trying to recapture the animal and would almost certainly be believed. Heaven knew, she had chased enough mules today to make it the sort of story even the suspicious chief would be unable to fault. Ginny peered down over the side of the path and saw, with some relief, that a grassy bank stretched below her as far as her eyes could see, which was not particularly far. She let go of the mule’s mane and gave it an encouraging pat on its rump, then sat down on the edge of the path, meaning to begin a gentle descent, if necessary on all fours.

She had reckoned without the wetness of the grass and the steepness of the slope. The moment she sat down, she began to slide, with increasing rapidity, into the unseen valley below.

Five breathless – and quite painful – minutes later, Ginny’s hurtling speed began to slow and she came to a halt amongst tufts of heather and gorse. Fortunately, it was the heather which had stopped her rather than the gorse and, glancing about her, she realised how extremely lucky she had been. Not only were there a great many gorse bushes, but there was a multitude of rocks, their grey noses protruding up above the heather. Had she struck one of them, Ginny reflected, she could not have escaped quite serious injuries. She glanced up towards where she guessed the track must be but could see nothing save the swirling white cloud, reminding herself that since she could not see the tinkers, then it was clearly impossible that they should be able to see her. For a few moments longer, however, she sat just where she was, listening intently for a shout which would indicate that she had been missed, but she heard nothing. Oh, she could make out the tribe’s almost silent progress, the occasional clatter of hooves, the creak of the wagons, a quiet murmur of speech, but other than that, nothing. No shouts of alarm, no shrill ejaculations – in fact, no sounds of pursuit.

The desire to get up and run for it, to get as far away from the track as possible, was almost irresistible, but Ginny was firm. If they suspect, that’s just what they’ll be listening for, she reminded herself. And it doesn’t sound to me as though they do suspect, so sit tight, shut up and let them get well away before you move a muscle.

Another reason for not moving, if she was honest, was that she had done herself quite a lot of damage as she slithered at speed down the mountainside. She was pretty sure nothing was broken, but equally sure that she was bruised all over, and she feared that when she eventually did stand up she would find walking both painful and difficult. Accordingly, she lay cautiously down in the heather, actually wriggling deeper into it so that most of her body was hidden, and simply waited. Soon enough, the slight sounds of the tinkers’ progress faded into the distance and at long last Ginny hauled herself, carefully, to her feet. To her relief, she had been right and she was not badly injured; indeed, after she had walked twenty or thirty yards, the slight stiffness caused by remaining still for so long disappeared and she felt sure that the grazes and bruises she had suffered would soon cease to trouble her.

Looking around, she realised she was alone in wild and mountainous country; she was without food or warm clothing and she had no idea in which direction she should go, yet despite all this she felt triumphant. She had escaped from the tribe, which was something to be proud of, and she was certain she would find both shelter and help very soon. It was unfortunate that she would have to turn back rather than go on, but if she continued in the same direction that the tinkers were taking it would only be a matter of time before she was recaptured. She had gone a couple of hundred yards when something else occurred to her. The river lay now to her left and she thought that the tinkers were probably following its course since they always liked to camp by water. She had seen the tribe in the heat of summer, fetching water from the river, occasionally paddling in it, but she had never seen any of them bathing, no matter how hot the day. I don’t believe tinkers are very keen on water, she told herself, changing direction so that she presently stood on the river bank. The water was brown now, with tiny, creamy-topped wavelets, and probably, in the centre, it was quite deep. But there were still plenty of rocks jutting above the water and Ginny decided that no one would ever dream that a girl of her age would cross a river in flood.

For a moment she hesitated on the bank, but the thought of the dogs decided her. She knew them fairly well by now but she had heard stories of fugitives being hunted by dogs and had no desire to feel the mangy tinker pack snapping at her heels. She remembered stories in which the hero had escaped detection by dogs by crossing water and was more determined than ever to do just that. Resolutely, she stepped down into the swirling river.

Ginny had never learned to swim so she clung to the rocks, thinking that, if the worst came to the worst, she could probably scramble aboard one. They were not close enough for her to leap from one to another, but she thought that she could manage to launch herself across the short distance between them without coming to harm. However, the river was a good deal more powerful than she had supposed. The rushing water tore her legs from under her and she realised that it was considerably deeper in the narrow channels between the large rocks.

Clinging to the first rock, soaked to the shoulders and doing her best to resist the water’s desire to prise her fingers from their limpet-like grip, Ginny began to realise that she had done a very foolish thing. Even had she been able to swim, she could not possibly have done so against the force of the current. I’d best go back, she thought, and immediately realised that the moment she released her hold on the rock she would be swept downstream, regardless of which bank she was trying to reach.

Ginny had greeted every obstacle she had met on her journey with courage and determination. When Aunt Amy and Uncle Lew had accused her of telling lies and kicked her out of the house, she had gritted her teeth and decided that somehow she would find her father and explain to him what had happened. She had got aboard the ferry – and off the other side – without being detected as a runaway and had survived in the city of Dublin by accepting the help Conan offered and doing her share of the work, and pilfering, which had been necessary. Her biggest challenge had come in the tinkers’ camp when she had realised that they meant to demand money from her father for her safe return. She had known then that she must escape and had planned and plotted how she would do so with grim determination. She had never allowed herself to despair or to think that she was the unluckiest girl in the world; she had certainly never wept one tear for herself.

But now, with her hands slowly but steadily slipping down the rock and her feet totally unable to find bottom, she acknowledged that she had met her match. She could go neither forward nor back and she could feel her strength ebbing. Desperately, she tried to get a knee-hold somewhere below water so that she might pull herself further up the rock, but her knee found a spur so sharp that she cried out as it gouged into her flesh and she lost her grip. Triumphantly, the river seized her, whirled her round, dragged her along and sent her spinning, helpless as a rag doll, off on its course towards the sea.

Conan discovered Ginny was missing when he turned back to take a look at a loose mule, tapping gently along the path behind him. Although he had only been with the tinkers a short while, his affinity with horses, mules and donkeys was such that he knew each one and was fond of them all. This particular beast, known to Conan as Velvet, because of its soft and velvety muzzle, was definitely the one he had seen Ginny leading an hour or so before. The track was winding downhill now which meant that the cloud cover was lessening. Frowning a little, Conan reached out a hand and patted the mule’s neck, letting it pass him. He slowed his pace, telling himself that the girls had probably dropped back a good way, but as the tail of the procession reached him he saw that Nan was alone. Immediately, warning bells rang in his head. He knew very well that Ginny had been behind him when they started to climb the mountain path, yet she was nowhere in sight, and he knew, too, that Nan would have stuck to her, stuck closer than glue, because, like himself, she was still trying to prove that she was every bit as much a tinker as those kids who had been born in a tent and reared to the wandering life.

Nan reached him and he saw at once that she looked anxious. ‘Where’s Ginny?’ he said, without preamble.

‘She went ahead, said she were goin’ to catch up wi’ you and then wait for me. Only … only I’m slow, walking uphill. Haven’t you seen her, Conan?’

Conan shook his head and for a moment the two stared at one another, wide-eyed, and when Nan spoke it was in a husky whisper, with tears coming into her eyes. ‘Oh my Gawd,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, me mam will half kill me if we’ve lost her. I dunno if you know it, Conan, but they’s goin’ to get a load of money off o’ her daddy. A hunderd pounds, beside a horse and cart packed wi’ farm produce an’ good, dry peats. That’s what one-eyed Ben telled me mammy, anyhow, and she telled me that if it come off and I’d made sure Ginny didn’t gerraway, I should have a pair of golden-hoop earrings for me very own and a red shawl just like Minnie’s.’