“Ah,” said he, “and your perplexities and mine are not over even now, poor Paul. This Bernard is like to be the ruin of me yet. For you, however, I have no fear, but it is another matter with the poor old fool from Dixmunde.”
His voice broke, he displayed thus and otherwise so troubled a mind and so great a reluctance to let me know the cause of it that I thought it well to leave him for a while and let him recover his old manner.
To that end I put on my coat and hat and went out rather earlier than usual for my evening walk.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE MAN WITH THE TARTAN WAISTCOAT
It was the first of May. But for Father Hamilton's birds, and some scanty signs of it in the small garden, the lengthened day and the kindlier air of the evenings, I might never have known what season it was out of the almanac, for all seasons were much the same, no doubt, in the Isle of the City where the priest and I sequestered. 'Twas ever the shade of the tenements there; the towers of the churches never greened nor budded; I would have waited long, in truth, for the scent of the lilac and the chatter of the rook among these melancholy temples.
Till that night I had never ventured farther from the gloomy vicinity of the hospital than I thought I could safely retrace without the necessity of asking any one the way; but this night, more courageous, or perhaps more careless than usual, I crossed the bridge of Notre Dame and found myself in something like the Paris of the priest's rhapsodies and the same all thrilling with the passion of the summer. It was not flower nor tree, though these were not wanting, but the spirit in the air—young girls laughing in the by-going with merriest eyes, windows wide open letting out the sounds of songs, the pavements like a river with zesty life of Highland hills when the frosts above are broken and the overhanging boughs have been flattering it all the way in the valleys.
I was fair infected. My step, that had been unco' dull and heavy, I fear, and going to the time of dirges on the Isle, went to a different tune; my being rhymed and sang. I had got the length of the Rue de Richelieu and humming to myself in the friendliest key, with the good-natured people pressing about me, when of a sudden it began to rain. There was no close in the neighbourhood where I could shelter from the elements, but in front of me was the door of a tavern called the Tête du Duc de Burgoyne shining with invitation, and in I went.