True enough, Mullane and his companion, who had issued from the fourth set of quarters down to the left, turned northward the moment they reached the walk, the moonlight gleaming on the buttons of their uniform frock-coats, but the sight and faint sound of scuffling on Winn's porch seemed to attract their attention. They stopped as though to reconnoitre, and just then the front door of Brayton's hall opened wide, and, with the broad light at his back, Captain Barclay stepped quietly forth.
"Brayton," he said, "you left the door ajar, and it was impossible not to hear the latter part of this conference.—Mr. Winn, I presume," he continued, with calm, courteous bow, as the two young men, unclasping, turned and faced him. "I infer that you purpose going to Mr. Bralligan's quarters—now. Let me urge that you do nothing of the kind. Brayton is right. I see that, late as it is, some of their party are moving this way. Pray remember that as yet this is entirely my affair."
There was no time for other answer than a bow, a mumbled word or two, an embarrassed acceptance of the hand extended by the captain. Just as he said, Mullane and his friend were coming rapidly up the walk. They passed the Winns' gate, entered that of Brayton, and then it appeared that Mullane's friend was the ubiquitous Hodge, that Mullane was manifestly in his glory, and that both were perceptibly in liquor.
"Gintlemen," said the doughty captain, halting at the foot of the steps and raising his forage-cap with magnificent sweep, "gintlemen, I am the beerer of a missige from me frind Mr. Bralligan. Have I the honor of addhressin' Captain Barclay?" Fondly did Mullane imagine that he impressed his hearers as did Sir Lucius O'Trigger; and much did he remind one of them, at least, of Captain Costigan of blessed memory.
"This is Captain Barclay," that gentleman answered, in low tones, with a smile of amusement at Mullane's grandiloquent prelude, yet stepping quickly forward to meet the envoys. Winn could not but note that the captain's movement accomplished at once two objects. It left him and Brayton in the shade; it kept Mullane and Hodge in the moonlight and off the steps. "Pardon my suggesting that a lady sleeps in the front room aloft there, and that you speak low, so as not to disturb her. Where is your message?"
This was trying. Mullane loved his chest tones as he did his whiskey. His low voice was apt to be thick and husky and unimpressive, and to-night he was over-weighted with the sense of the gravity and importance of his mission, if with nothing else.
"Sorr," he said, with another flourish of the cap, "in accordince with the practice of gintlemen in the old arrumy, I am the bearer of a verrbal missige——"
The Quaker captain had already amazed the old dragoon sergeants by the intricacy and extent of his knowledge of their manners and customs. Now came a surprise for the officers.
"Pardon my interrupting," he said. "I do not assume to instruct in such matters, but there is manifestly only one kind of message 'according to the customs of the old army,'" and here he smiled quietly, "that should come from Mr. Bralligan now, and it must come in writing. I decline to recognize any other." Here Brayton nudged Winn approvingly, but the subalterns maintained a decorous silence.