I had kept little account of the direction of our flight, and I was surprised that we had now reached the stile over which I had watched the passing of the suitors on the afternoon of my meeting with Hezekiah in the orchard.
"This is the appointed place," she remarked, taking the pumpkin from me and dropping down on the far side of the stile.
"Hezekiah, I've trotted across most of Westchester County after you, and my arm is paralyzed from carrying that pumpkin. I must know what you're up to right here, or I'll go home. Besides, there's a mist falling and you'll be soaked. What do you suppose your father thinks of your absence at this time of night?"
"Oh, he'll never forgive me for not letting him in on this. This is the grandest thing I ever thought of. Sit on this step and gently incline your ear toward the house. It's about time those gentlemen were leaving Cecilia, and they'll be galloping for their inn in a minute, and then"—
Hezekiah whistled the rest of it.
While we waited, she bade me reset the candle and snuff the wick, which I did of necessity with my fingers. Sitting on a stile with a pretty girl is an experience that has been commended by the balladists, but surely this felicity loses nothing where the night is fine. When you get used to sitting in a drizzle in your dress-suit, while your shirt-bosom assumes the consistency of a gum shoe and your collar glues itself odiously to your neck, I dare say the ordeal may be borne cheerfully, but my expressions of discomfort seemed only to amuse Hezekiah. While we waited for I knew not what, I tried once or twice to revert to the silver note-book, but without success. Hezekiah was a mistress of the art of evasion with her tongue as well as her feet!
"Wait till the evening performance is over and I'll talk about that. 'Sh! Quiet! Crawl over there out of the way, and when I say run, beat it for the road."
These last phrases were uttered in a whisper, her face close to my ear. She gave me a little push, and I withdrew a few yards and waited. The ground, I may say, was wet, and the drizzle had become a monotonous autumn rain.
The light of the lantern fell warmly upon Hezekiah's face as she held its illumined countenance toward her, crouching on the stile-steps. I heard now what her keener ear had caught earlier—the tramp of feet along the path. The suitors were returning to the inn, and the voices of one or two of them reached me. One—I thought it was Ormsby—was execrating the weather. They were stepping along briskly, and my remembrance of their retreat over this same stile through the amber evening dusk was so vivid that I knew just how they would appear if a light suddenly fell upon the path.