“‘Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see;
A night of memories and sighs
I consecrate to thee.’”
“‘These wakeful eyes’—Frank Pollock, whose are they, I pray?” he reflected. “Songs are foolish things. I never saw one yet that really expressed my feeling. I wonder if Mr. Jack Balcomb is there with his sublime nerve. I shall have to punch his head at the earliest opportunity, bad luck to him! Or perhaps it is my young friend, Mr. Leighton, Bachelor of Laws, who is lingering there in the bower of beauty. If it be so, then may he remain forever a bachelor of laws and of all things visible and invisible. Get up, Ajax.”
The horse sprang to a gallop. Pollock had passed the line of fence that marked the boundaries of the Dameron house and turned and glanced back. As he settled again into the saddle something rustled oddly in the corn-field at his right. It was dim starlight and there was no wind stirring; yet directly at his right hand something was moving the corn.
“Mr. Dameron doesn’t take care of his fences. I’d better get that cow out for him.”
Pollock swung himself from the saddle and the horse stood perfectly quiet, while his master jumped the ditch at the side of the road and peered over the fence.
A voice rose suddenly, quite near at hand:
“‘Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves;