The Sherwood Ring (6 page)

Then, from somewhere out of the past, I heard the echo of my own voice speaking to General Washington: "The 'Drummond' sounds more as if she might be Scottish, sir."

Perhaps Peaceable Drummond Sherwood also had an old family plaid which he found useful in the woods.

Or perhaps I was simply making a fool of myself?

Yet there was nobody else named Drummond in this part of the country. Most of the settlers had been Dutch. Piet Cornelius and Joos Van Ghent owned all the land on both sides of the road for miles around.

Yet surely Peaceable Drummond Sherwood would never have been so careless as to catch his fine plaid by accident with the edge of an axe?

But suppose — and I caught my breath hard at the very thought of it — suppose the scrap of tartan had not been caught there by accident? Suppose it had been left on purpose? To mark a particular trail into the woods for someone else to follow?

Yet surely Peaceable Drummond Sherwood would never have marked his trail with a scrap of tartan that might as well have had his name written on it for anybody with the eyes to see.

But who except myself would have had the eyes to see? A thousand other riders might have gone by that tree without realizing the significance of the little rag caught on the sliver any more than the peddler had. Peaceable Sherwood could mark his own gate with his own name, and leave it there quite safely for the public to look at. It was, now I came to think of it, exactly the sort of joke that might appeal to him.

"A fair journey to Your Honor," the voice of the peddler interrupted me. He had risen to his feet, and was yawning and stretching and feeling about for the buckles of his pack. "The road will get no cooler for our sitting beside it, and I want to be over the hills by night. You're sure you wouldn't like to buy a fine ribbon for your young lady, now? Red would adorn her if she's dark like yourself."

"No — her hair is yellow, just like coppery gold," I answered absent-mindedly before I could check myself.

"Have a nice bit of blue, then," said the peddler winningly.

In the end I bought the blue ribbon to get rid of him, and he went away whistling a little tune. He had hardly disappeared around the first bend before I was off my horse to look at the blaze on the tree more closely. As I had thought, the trail was a fresh one. The splinters were still sharp and new, the cut in the bark still almost white. "Probably this morning; certainly not before yesterday," I muttered to myself as I slipped into the wood and on to the next blazed tree like a shadow. Peaceable Sherwood, if it was indeed he, had not made much of an effort to cover his tracks. There was even a path of sorts beaten through the fallen leaves and low bushes.

The path came to an abrupt end at a clearing perhaps a hundred feet in from the road. It was only a little place, all flat mossy rocks with ferns and a whispering thread of water that fell into a tiny pool where —

I took one abrupt step forward and stood looking down at it, while once again the hope died out of my heart.

I
had
made a fool of myself. All my speculations about Peaceable Sherwood and the scrap of tartan must simply have been vaporing. For the little clearing in the woods was obviously nothing but a "secret place" where a child had been coming to play. Barbara and I had once had a "secret place" in our own woods and built ourselves a hut there.

Here there was an old doll crumpled up on a natural seat among the rocks, and a wooden ball lying under a pine farther up the slope. But what had first caught my eye was a sort of toy landscape down by the brook, where the rocks widened to leave a circle of mossy grass. A hole filled with water had been dug in the center for a lake, and moss and pebbles and pine sprigs were heaped about it to represent hills and rocks and trees.

The child, whoever he was, must have worked hard. The little landscape was beautifully made, with a miniature peninsula at one side of the lake, and the hills rounded so naturally that for a moment I had a curious feeling that I was actually gazing at a real landscape from somewhere high in the air. The only thing that spoiled the effect was a withering maple leaf which had been laid, for no apparent reason, over the bare ground where the hills came together at the edge of the water, exactly as they did at Duck's Head Lake.

Then I understood suddenly why the landscape had seemed so real. The child must have modeled it after seeing the view from the big cliff down over the hills and forest to Duck's Head Lake. The peninsula on the right and the rock rising from the water on the left were just the same as those which actually did make Duck's Head Lake look from the cliff extraordinarily like the head of a duck, with the rock for an eye and the peninsula making a bill wide open to quack.

But how could a child still young enough to be playing with toys have ever seen Duck's Head Lake? It was up the mountain, at least four hours' journey away, even for a grown and wood-wise man, in the very heart of the forest. Only hunters had ever gone there, and since the war even the hunters must have stopped coming. It was too dangerous in the present state of the country, when any such lonely place might be the lurking hole of marauders like Peaceable Sherwood or —

Like Peaceable Sherwood?

Peaceable Sherwood and that scrap of tartan which I had thought must be meant to mark a trail for someone to follow.

A trail for someone to follow.

Follow where?

I looked from the scrap of tartan to the toy landscape, my mind working feverishly. Once again my eye was caught by that singular maple leaf lying so awkwardly at the edge of the little lake. There was no reason why it should be there. Had it simply blown down off a tree? Or — ?

I stooped and picked it up.

Underneath, someone had packed the ground with water into a smooth square of mud, and then while the mud was still wet, had stamped it with a signet ring as if it were the seal of a letter. The mud had dried hard and the impression was still perfect — a shield, blank except for three little rayed stars in the upper left corner.

I sat down on the nearest ledge of rock and began to laugh almost hysterically out of sheer triumph and relief. I knew what must have happened now. Everything was becoming clear to me.

I went on sitting on the rock and worked it all out step by step. The scrap of tartan was a signal. A man who had been told to watch for it could slip quietly off the road as he passed and make his way up the blazed trail to the little clearing. There he would find what was actually an excellent relief map showing him that he was to go on to Duck's Head Lake. The mark of the signet ring in the mud indicated the exact spot where he was to look for Peaceable Sherwood.

And how beautifully simple the whole thing was!

No letters that might be captured or stolen; no word-of-mouth messages that might be garbled or forgotten. Nothing that could possibly arouse a shadow of suspicion. Who else would have seen anything amiss with that scrap of tartan? And even if he did, it would only be to find, as I had, that he had stumbled on nothing but a perfectly innocent plaything constructed by some lonely child. That old doll crumpled up among the rocks was enough to touch the hardest heart.

Meanwhile, just how many men had come and gone and received their directions since yesterday or this morning? Not, I thought, very many. One or two, maybe; but ten or even five, no matter how cautious they were, would have left more marks in the woods than I had found — and I did not think from the look of the trail that anyone was trying to be excessively cautious. Perhaps they had not yet all arrived, or perhaps this was some special meeting arranged for only one or two chosen lieutenants. Perhaps — O glory! O possibility! — I was still ahead of the whole field, and if I just got to the rendezvous at Duck's Head Lake quickly enough, Peaceable Sherwood would be waiting there alone.

I came to my feet and out of the clearing in one passionate rush, remembering somehow to kick the toy landscape to pieces with my boot as I went by. The scrap of tartan was already in my pocket, and I paused when I had mounted my horse to pull a trail of wild grapevine down over the blaze on the tree. It did not matter how many men came looking for it now: they would have no way of finding out where to go. At most, there would be only one or two with Peaceable Sherwood at Duck's Head Lake; and a chance — more than a fair chance — that there would be nobody at all, and I could have him entirely to myself at last.

The voice of common sense still kept making itself heard fretfully from time to time above the clatter of my horse's hoofs as I pelted up the mountain road as fast as I could go. It went whining on in a nagging way that I could not be absolutely certain of taking Peaceable Sherwood singlehanded, especially if he had even one or two followers with him. And it was imperative to take Peaceable Sherwood; without him his whole organization would fall apart like beads when the string is pulled out. What I ought to do was return to the Shipley Farm first and come back with ten or fifteen men of my own in order to make sure.

But the Shipley Farm was a good five miles in the opposite direction — by the time I got there and rounded up my reinforcements and returned, Peaceable Sherwood would probably either have finished his business or else become tired of waiting and escaped me again. Besides, if there was any more delay I could not hope to reach Duck's Head Lake much before night, and I did not want to go thrashing through a strange forest with fifteen rangers looking for Peaceable Sherwood in the dark. Fifteen rangers would undoubtedly make too much noise even in broad daylight. It was actually wiser to take care of the whole matter myself. I was a better tracker than anyone else in the company, except possibly Lieutenant Felton — and Lieutenant Felton was sickening at the moment with a touch of malaria; it would really not be fair to drag him out for such a long expedition on such a stifling afternoon. Anyway, I was going to take Peaceable Sherwood singlehanded if it killed me; and that was the end of the question. I would no longer put up with being harried and defeated and mocked as I had been that summer. I wanted to ride triumphantly back to the Shipley Farm with Peaceable Sherwood tied to my stirrup, and find Eleanor Shipley standing at the gate again to watch me come in.

By this time I was well up the mountain, where the road turned first into a rough trail and then petered out altogether. My horse had begun to stumble with weariness too, and I patted him apologetically when I dismounted to cut through the rest of the forest on foot.

"Cheer up, old boy, we'll both be famous in the morning," I said, as I saw to his needs before I left him. "People will be pulling hairs out of your tail to remember us by."

Once afoot in the forest, the going was slower, especially as I had only been in the region twice before on hunting trips, and did not remember the landmarks very clearly. I had also been rather foolish not to go back to the Shipley Farm for my moccasins and hunting shirt. My riding boots were hot and uncomfortable for walking, and my buff-and-blue uniform would have made a fine target for any marauder who happened to catch sight of me among the trees. My sword kept getting in my way too; and it was my only weapon.

Mercifully, however, there seemed to be nobody abroad in the forest. By using every ounce of woodcraft I possessed, I managed to make fair speed. All the same, it was almost evening by the time I came through the last of the pine trees and out under the great rock fall where the hills came together at the edge of Duck's Head Lake. The sun was going down in the west all crimson and gold, and the clear waters of the lake rippled with dissolving colors that melted into dark greens and blacks under the shadow of the towering rocks.

Standing on the highest rock, apparently watching the sunset, was a figure in a scarlet uniform, exactly where the signet on the toy landscape had indicated that he would be.

It was the first time I had ever seen him, and for a moment I could hardly bring myself to believe that he was really Peaceable Sherwood at all. He looked so different from anything I had imagined. He was very slender and extremely young — even younger than I was — with blue eyes and a gentle, curiously calm expression. He stood leaning against a ledge of the rock with an air of careless elegance, as if it were the back of a drawing-room chair, and gazing dreamily down at the dissolving colors in the sunlit water.

Then a twig snapped under my foot as I took an incautious step forward, and I saw him look up.

"That you, Timothy?" he said, without so much as turning his head. He had a lazy, rather drawling voice, and spoke as if it were almost too great an effort to bother.

I came out from under the shelter of the pines, and stood squarely across the only place where it was possible to clamber down from the rock. "It isn't Timothy," I answered.

Peaceable Sherwood stiffened and for an instant seemed to become absolutely still. But when he spoke again his voice sounded only mildly surprised, like a gentleman receiving an unexpected visit from some casual acquaintance.

"Colonel Grahame, I believe?" he inquired courteously. "Won't you come up? Be careful of your riding boots — that rock's slippery. I sometimes think that if I belonged to this country, I would much prefer moccasins and a hunting shirt for work in the woods. As it is, I have to live night and day in this confoundedly uncomfortable uniform to prevent the public from hanging me as a spy when you catch me. Do come up."

Rather taken aback by all this cordiality, I went scrambling across the rocks to him, with a wary eye out for some possible trap or ambush. Peaceable Sherwood merely laughed and shook his head.

"No, I didn't bring anyone with me," he assured me. "There are times when I find the company of even very superior outlaws like my own a little tedious. I fancy all those endless ballads about Robin Hood and his merry men under the greenwood shaws must have been written by virtuous citizens who never even went out of the house. They should have seen old Timothy sitting under a maple tree and eating trout with his fingers. By the way, I hope that nothing is amiss with old Timothy? He had a rather important engagement to meet me here with some other lads in an hour or so."