A foot upon the gravel-walk without now called me to my feet; I sprang towards the door, and before Inez had lifted her head from the sofa, I had reached the garden. A figure muffled in a cavalry cloak passed near me, but without noticing me, and the next moment I had cleared the paling, and was hurrying towards the stable, where I had ordered Mike to be in waiting.
The faint streak of dull pink which announces the coming day stretched beneath the dark clouds of the night, and the chill air of the morning was already stirring in the leaves.
As I passed along by a low beech hedge which skirted the avenue, I was struck by the sound of voices near me. I stopped to listen, and soon detected in one of the speakers my friend Mickey Free; of the other I was not long in ignorance.
“Love you, is it, bathershin? It’s worship you, adore you, my darling,—that’s the word! There, acushla, don’t cry; dry your eyes—Oh, murther, it’s a cruel thing to tear one’s self away from the best of living, with the run of the house in drink and kissing! Bad luck to it for campaigning, any way, I never liked it!”
Catrina’s reply,—for it was she,—I could not gather; but Mike resumed:—
“Ay, just so, sore bones and wet grass, accadenté, and half-rations. Oh, that I ever saw the day when I took to it! Listen to me now, honey; here it is, on my knees I am before you, and throth it’s not more nor three, may be four, young women I’d say the like to; bad scran to me if I wouldn’t marry you out of a face this blessed morning just as soon as I’d look at ye. Arrah, there now, don’t be screeching and bawling; what’ll the neighbors think of us, and my own heart’s destroyed with grief entirely.”
Poor Catrina’s voice returned an inaudible answer, and not wishing any longer to play the eavesdropper, I continued my path towards the stable. The distant noises from the city announced a state of movement and preparation, and more than one orderly passed the road near me at a gallop. As I turned into the wide courtyard, Mike, breathless and flurried with running, overtook me.
“Are the horses ready, Mike?” said I; “we must start this instant?”
“They’ve just finished a peck of oats apiece, and faix, that same may be a stranger to them this day six months.”
“And the baggage, too?”