“It must be quite late,” he said. “And I have a horse down the road somewhere. Good night. Good night, Mr. Dameron.”
He went slowly back to where his horse was cropping the grass at the roadside.
“If I’d been drinking I’d be sure I had ’em,” he reflected half-aloud. “But I haven’t been. The old man seemed to be as sober as a judge when I picked him up. And he was certainly unusually polite after we started back through the corn. I hope he won’t have another attack and murder those girls in their beds. He’s a deep one. He carried off that situation at the gate like an actor. Of course, I shan’t mention his performance in the corn-field,—not much, my brother!”
Pollock swung himself into the saddle and turned his horse for a moment toward the Dameron house. He lifted his hat sweepingly and bowed low in the saddle.
“Good night, ladies!” Then he swung his horse homeward and went forward at a gallop, singing as he rode under the stars:
“‘Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see;
A night of memories and sighs
I consecrate to thee.’”
He was a little fellow,—and there was much of the heart of a boy in him.