Chapter Two

Digger might not have understood what Sara had been reading, but he had excellent hearing nonetheless. He darted from the house and made straight across the fields towards the nearby cliffs, which dropped precipitously to the sea rolling in below. The cliffs, at that time of night, were not at all inviting. The path along their edge was scoured by a frigid wind that whipped at the waves and drove clouds before it across the face of a remote, icy moon. The ground all around was frosty, barren and filled with pitfalls for anyone foolish enough to venture into them by night.

Nevertheless, someone, or something, was venturing out that night. Digger had been attracted by a sound — the distant, staccato thunder of hoof beats cutting through the freezing air. A rider suddenly burst into view, hurtling through the night at a full gallop, head bent and a dark cloak billowing out from his shoulders.

He approached so quickly that great clods of mud flew up from the horse’s pounding hooves. The horse was huge and black, blacker than the very midnight it galloped through, its ebony mane streaming backward in the wind, and snorts of steaming breath issuing from its nostrils. The rider whipped it mercilessly for yet more speed, his whip slashing down as he searched the ground before him and scanned the path as far ahead as his eyes could see.

He had to be a stranger, for no quiet inhabitant of Avonlea could have sat so tall and so threateningly in the saddle. No inhabitant of Avonlea could have spurred the horse so ruthlessly, this way and that, as though in search of some unfortunate quarry escaping before him. Lord Doom himself could not have looked more startling as he hunted down his victims through the terrified countryside. And the quarry was real, though even Digger missed it in his rush to make for the rider. A silhouette sped along the cliff’s edge, a figure on foot, running desperately, diving into the shadows when it could. Human quarry, exactly the same as that scurrying about in the corners of Lord Doom’s vast estates.

What’s more, the silhouette belonged to a woman, hooded and cloaked and stumbling as she ran. Though seemingly close to the end of her strength, she forced herself on, her breath coming fast, visible on the chilly air. Then the breaths stopped altogether as the sound of hoofbeats finally reached her. Petrified, she peered behind her just as the dark rider crested a knoll, showing himself for a moment against the moonpaled sky.

A gasp tore from the woman’s throat. She looked about her frantically, catching sight of the only structure visible in that desolate landscape, the old lighthouse that clung to the very edge of the steep red cliffs. Gathering her cloak around her, she began to run towards it. She was in such a hurry to escape the horseman that she didn’t dare pause, even when one of her shoes flew off and lay behind her, its elegant buckle winking in the mud.

The lighthouse, for all its abandoned look, did have an inhabitant. Young Gus Pike lived there. Not seventeen, Gus had arrived in Avonlea fresh off a fishing boat, almost penniless and living by his wits. Rough and illiterate, he ended up working in the fish cannery and seemed destined for life as a drifter. Yet Gus turned out to be different from his coarse fellows at the cannery. Under his unpolished exterior, Gus had the heart of a gentleman, an intelligent mind and a thirst to better himself.

Luckily for him, he had been scooped up in one of Hetty King’s periodic campaigns to expand enrollment in the Avonlea school. Gus had braved the jeers of his fellows, working nights in the cannery so that he could go to school by day. Bravely, he sat cheek by jowl with children years younger than himself as he learned to read and write and not smoke his pipe in school.

Gus always had to scratch to support himself. Since leaving the cannery he had been living off a series of odd jobs, each a little better than the last, as he continued his education. He saved himself the cost of rent by moving into the cramped lighthouse after fierce Captain Crane, who had previously occupied it, had decided to go back to sea.

At the very moment when Digger was bounding across the fields, Gus was fast asleep, his wool stocking cap pulled tightly down over his ears, dark pursuers and ladies in distress about the furthest thing in the world from his mind. When a sudden hammering at the lighthouse door broke in upon his slumber, he sat bolt upright in confusion.

“Why, what’s going on? What’s the commotion?” he cried, at the same time trying to untangle himself from his blanket.

The only answer was more pounding. Fumbling to light a lamp, Gus heaved himself to his feet, clad only in his wool cap, baggy trousers held up by string and an old shirt flapping open to the waist. He unlatched the door—and was almost knocked down by the person who rushed in, sweeping Gus halfway across the room before a veritable storm of rustling skirts and wind-swirled cloak. Not only was the intruder a woman, she was a young one, beautiful and apparently terrified.

“I need sanctuary!” she blurted out in a voice throaty and vulnerable.

Dumfounded, Gus simply stood, staring. “What’s this?” he demanded weakly.

The woman turned in a panic, her cloud of glossy hair tumbling in charming tendrils from its knot.

“May I bar your door, sir?” she begged.

Since no one ever barred a door in the Avonlea vicinity, Gus blinked even harder.

“Well, sure ma’am,” he stammered. “But I don’t usually.”

Swiftly, the mysterious intruder flung the rusty bolt across the door while Gus bestirred himself to light the lamp. In the burst of light, Gus suddenly became aware of his own state of undress, most unseemly in the presence of a lady. He crossed his arms over his chest in a vain attempt to maintain some modesty, as his visitor turned back to him.

Her eyes widened when she saw how young he really was and how astounded by her presence. In the yellow lamplight, the contrast between them was thrown into high relief. Though young herself, the visitor was a woman in her twenties, clad in rich silks and in full command of her own femininity. And she took full advantage of that femininity by flinging one hand to her bosom.

“Oh, please hide me, I’m in grave danger and there isn’t much time.”

Unable to move a muscle, Gus continued to gape. The lady saw that more direct action was necessary if she were to have a hiding place before the hour was out. She swayed forward and promptly swooned straight into Gus’s arms.

In the barest nick of time, Gus caught her, and he was immediately enveloped in a cloud of intoxicating perfume. Stunned, he had absolutely no idea what to do with this beautiful armful.

Outside, not so very far down the track, the galloping rider had pulled his horse up short while he scanned the half-frozen earth around him for clues. As he did so, a tattered cloud slid away from the moon, revealing a man forbidding enough to be an actual relative of Lord Doom. Even taller than he had looked from a distance, he sat ramrod straight in the saddle, his every motion driven, it seemed, by some fearful determination that could only end in the achievement of his purpose. His expression was locked into ominous lines, and a glitter of triumph leaped into his eye as he suddenly spotted the woman’s shoe mired in the mud.

Dismounting, he pounced upon it, gripping it in his fist as he looked around him for the direction in which his quarry might have fled. Just as the woman had, he spied the lighthouse looming up against the moon-touched horizon.

With a grunt of cold satisfaction, he was just turning back to his horse when Digger loped out of the night, determined to investigate the interloper. Though the dog would have been satisfied with a friendly sniff, he suddenly found a hard kick aimed in his direction.

“Get out of here you ... mangy critter.”

Digger, for all his easygoing nature, was not one to be threatened on his own territory. After all, he had a farm and children to protect. He stood his ground and growled back.

The man swung back up into his saddle, clearly meaning to leave Digger behind in the dust. Digger was having none of this. He lunged forward, clamping his teeth onto the edge of the man’s long, trailing cloak. Diggers weight nearly unseated the rider as he struggled to keep his balance atop his rearing mount.

Perhaps the horse really did mistake Digger for a wolf, for it began to bolt. With a curse, the man ripped the cloak from Digger’s grip and went careening off towards the lighthouse. Digger was only prevented from hot pursuit by the calls in the distance of Sara and her cousins, reaching him between the gusts of wind.

Inside the lighthouse, Gus hurriedly thrust the unconscious female into the only possible hiding place, a crawl space that lay unexpectedly behind one of the sections of old wall. He was just dragging a heavy trunk across the opening when his door. was kicked open, as though the rusty bolt had not been there at all. Gus found his home invaded a second time, this time by a glowering stranger clutching a lady’s shoe in his fist. “Hey!” Gus yelped as an icy blast from outside nearly knocked him backward.

The stranger thrust Gus aside as though he were a cobweb and looked about the interior, seeing nothing but bits of rough furniture, Gus’s few precious books and some old fishing tackle. Gus recovered his balance and began to bristle.

“Who said you could just rampage a fella’s door and walk in?” he shouted, outraged. Humble as the place was, it was still his home, and therefore his castle.

The lamplight revealed a man who was very handsome in a hard, frightening sort of way, clad in dashing, well-cut clothes and with a shock of black, wind-tangled hair sweeping across his forehead. Ignoring Gus, he proceeded to search the room, flinging Gus’s meager belongings out of his path, turning over chairs and tables with reckless force. Only when the search proved fruitless did the stranger acknowledge Gus. He did it by suddenly grabbing Gus by his open shirt and shaking him sharply.

“Where is she, or do I have to snap you in two?”

This was certainly no way for a visitor to act. Stubbornly, Gus said nothing, not even when lifted clear off the ground and then flung down again in disgust. The stranger tore up the room a second time, heaving items about even more fiercely than before. When Gus’s battered tin soup pot clanged into a corner and not so much as a trace of any female was revealed, the man finally stopped,. gritting his teeth in frustration.

“You can’t hide from me forever, Amanda Stone!” he shouted out, shaking his fist at the empty air, as if the woman addressed might be hovering invisibly, making fun of him

He seemed about to give up when he spotted the large trunk blocking the crawl space. As the man advanced upon it, Gus valiantly sprang forward.

“Hey! This is my place—”

“Don’t trifle with me, boy!”

The stranger tossed Gus aside with one hand and, with the other, jerked impatiently at the lid of the trunk. The lid came open with a squeal—only to reveal an interior full to the brim with lead fishing weights Before the rude brute got ideas about moving it away from the wall, Gus staggered to his feet and made another run at his opponent. No lady deserved to fall into the hands of a ruffian like this!

Gus barely covered two steps before the man swung round, striking the boy on the side of the head with one of the lead weights The sheer force of the blow sent Gus sprawling into a heap all the way against the far wall, his wool cap knocked off in the skirmish.

Whatever else this terrible man intended to do was prevented by the appearance of Digger in the open doorway. Digger’s temper had been sorely tried by the stranger’s previous behavior. And what’s more, the nasty fellow was now storming about the home of Digger’s good friend, Gus Pike.

Just in case the invader had any thoughts about trying a second kick, Digger began to growl. He growled fiercely enough to make the stranger realize he was cornered in a small room by a large dog that he had very recently mistreated. He eyed Digger warily, then caught the sounds of the children calling in the darkness. In a frustrated rage, he turned to the room behind him.

“I’ll never give up,” he shouted at the upended furniture. “I’ll chase you to the ends of the earth if I must.”

With that, the man flung down the shoe he was holding and stamped towards the door: Feeling he had gained the upper hand, Digger prudently backed up enough to allow the interloper out into the night. When the room was clear, Digger trotted over to where Gus lay in the dust and began licking the boy’s face vigorously. With a grunt, Gus pushed the dog away and struggled to sit up, rubbing the side of his head where the weight had hit him. When he realized the room was empty, he got all the way to his feet and made his way woozily to the window to see what had become of his attacker. All that could be heard were hoof beats receding into the night.

With a huge sigh of relief, Gus at once hurried over to the trunk and placed his back against the wall. Using all his strength, he managed to move it far enough out into the room to reveal the woman he had hidden. She had made a miraculous recovery from her swoon and had curled up quite comfortably in the cramped, dark space.