Soon they heard merry voices and laughter on the other side of the hedge. Two milkmaids were at their work, and as the milk foamed into the pails they laughed and chatted about the events of the night before.
“Such a night!” cried one. “Troopers all over the place at one o’clock in the morning; and Miss Hein screamed so loud when the officer caught her in her curl papers that he thought she had certainly concealed the two prisoners in the house.”
“How sorry I am to have missed it!” replied the other one. “This place is so dull, nothing happening from one week’s end to another, that I even like the notion of being routed out as you were last night. The truth is, I don’t fancy living with these quiet, prim ladies, like Miss Hein. I would rather live in a large family, with plenty of servants, and gay doings below stairs.”
Gavin peeped through an opening in the hedge. The milkmaid plunged into a description of the adventures of the night before, when the house and offices had been searched for the two fugitives; and in the excitement of her tale she stopped milking. Her back and that of her companion was toward Gavin, and the milk bucket was just within reach of his arm. He noiselessly thrust his arm through the opening and, reaching the milk pail, raised it as high as he could, and St. Arnaud, tiptoeing over the hedge, took it. There was about a quart of milk in it, and first St. Arnaud taking a pull at it, and then Gavin, it was emptied in a minute. Gavin’s long arm then replaced it, and they resumed their places of concealment. A shriek of dismay presently informed them that the milkmaid had found her bucket empty. The cow having strayed off, too, there was great excitement for a while, but both the women moved away from the hedge, marvelling the while over the strange disappearance of the milk.
St. Arnaud, turning to Gavin, said: “We shall be caught before twelve o’clock if we attempt to make across the country in this clear weather. This place has been searched once, and is not likely to be searched again. I believe our best chance is to remain here.”
“How?” asked Gavin.
“I will show you, if you will have confidence in me.”
A look was Gavin’s only answer to this.
St. Arnaud then, with Gavin, made his way boldly to the front door of the house and knocked loudly. Another maid opened the door, and from the smirk she wore, she, too, thought it rather amusing to have a sensation occasionally as they had had the night before. But there was no smirk upon the face of Miss Hein, a tall, thin, lugubrious-looking lady, with a not unkind face, who appeared behind her.
“Madam,” said St. Arnaud to Miss Hein, with a low bow, “I hear that you were very much disturbed last night by the searching of your house for two runaways from the fortress. I have come to make you every apology. We are officers, as you see. The officer last night was a mere subaltern, and, although zealous, he evidently did not know how to perform an unpleasant duty.”