"Yes; helping Miss Raikes to decorate it for the service to-morrow."
"Miss Raikes!" said I, and a cloud came over me.
I had left head-quarters with only four crowns in my pocket. We soldiers are seldom over-burdened with cash—for though England expects every man to do his duty, England likes it done cheap—and I had well-nigh starved myself on the road home that I might bring something with me for those I loved—some gay ribbons for Bessie, and a lace cap for my mother, who was so proud of her "Bombardier Bob," for so she always called me, heaven bless her!
"I hope she won't be long away, mother, for I've had such a dream——"
"Lor' bless me, Bob," said she, pausing as she bustled about preparing supper, "a dream, have you—about what, or whom?"
"Bessie," said I, with a sigh, as I took the ribbons from my knapsack.
"Was it good or evil, Bob?"
"I can't say, mother," said I, with a sickly smile, as the solemn words of the Scotch pay-sergeant came back to my memory; "for an evil dream, say we, portends good, and a pleasant dream portends evil; they seem to go by contraries. Yet somehow, by the impression this dream made upon me, it seems almost prophetic."
"Don't 'ee say so, Bob, for though in the Old Testament we find many instances of prophetic dreaming, I don't believe in such things nowadays."
The darkness had set completely in now, and I saw that, although mother affected to make light of Bessie's protracted absence, she glanced uneasily, from time to time, through the window, and at the old Dutch clock that ticked in its corner, just as it used to tick when I was a boy, and rode on father's knee; for nothing here seemed changed, save that mother was older, and stooped a trifle more.