"Either that girl has bewitched me," he muttered, lying back in his chair, "or else the cut in my head has been making me addlepated all day." And he let his gaze wander out through the window, where the dusk was coming fast, blotting out the fort and town like a dark veil, pierced here and there by the dimly twinkling lights showing from the houses.
"I wonder if she sent the fellow?" his thoughts ran on. "She told me she was sorry for my being hurt, and she looked it. But the other—the fair one—she was a tartar." And he laughed again at the recollection of Mary Broughton's angry blue eyes and dauntless bearing.
"From what I've seen of these folk," he said, now half aloud, "it will be no easy matter to suppress their meetings and make them obey His Majesty's laws. They seem not to know what fear or submission may mean." Then, after pondering a few minutes, "I wonder if it would not be a wise thing for me to call upon this man Devereux, as he is so old and feeble, and assure him and his women-folk that I will see to it they be not molested—annoyed in any way? I might see her again,—I might come to know her; and this would be very pleasant." And now his thoughts trailed away into rosy musings.
If Johnnie Strings had not added fresh fuel to the fire already kindled in the breast of the impetuous young Englishman by Dorothy's sweet face and pitying eyes,—had he not made it burn more fiercely by giving him reason to believe that she had sent to inquire for his welfare,—he might not have thought to carry out his present impulse.
He was seized by a strong desire to see for himself the place where she dwelt,—to look upon her surroundings,—to make more perfect the picture already in his mind, by adding to it the scenes amid which her daily life was passed.
Such was the young man's desire; and his was a nature whose longing was likely to manifest itself by acts, and more especially now, in the very first heart affair of his life.
As soon as the guards were posted and the countersign given out, he discarded his uniform for a fisherman's rough coat, and put on a large slouch hat, which covered his head, bandage and all. And thus attired, he set forth alone to visit the scene of his morning's adventure, and to investigate its surroundings.
CHAPTER XIII
The night was clear, bright, and starlit, with not a wreath of vapor drifting. The rising wind moaned through the woods about the Devereux homestead, that loomed, a dark mass, and silent as a deserted house.