CHAPTER XIX
HOW THE MAJOR LOST HIS YOUTH AGAIN
It was a night of midsummer glory; an orbed moon rode high in queenly splendour filling the world with a radiance that lent to all things a beauty new and strange. Not a breath stirred, trees, tall and motionless, seemed asleep, so still were they.
Thus the Major, on his way to bed, paused to lean from the open casement of his study and to gaze, happy-eyed, upon the radiant heaven and to dream of the future as many a man has done before and since. All at once he started and stared to behold Sergeant Zebedee abroad at this witching hour. But the Sergeant was there for other things than dreaming, it seemed, for upon his shoulder he bore a blunderbuss, a broadsword swung at his thigh, and from one of his big side-pockets appeared the heavy, brass-mounted butt of a long-barrelled pistol. Wondering, the Major stepped out through the casement and followed. Sergeant Zebedee marched with elaborate caution and was keeping so sharp a lookout before that he quite overlooked the Major behind him; but all at once a stick snapped, round wheeled the Sergeant, blunderbuss at "the ready" but, seeing the Major, he immediately lowered his weapon and stood easy.
"'S'noggers, sir," said he, "I thought you was it!"
"It, Zebedee?"
"Aye, your honour, it, him, or her. If it ain't a him 'tis a her and if it ain't a her it's an it—or shall us say a apparation, sir. Same being said to walk i' the orchard o' nights lately——"
"An apparition—in the orchard, Zeb? Have you seen it?"
"Why no, sir, not exactly, but what I did see was—hist!"