I looked up and saw her smiling saucily at me over the rail.
“Would you indeed?” said I. “Then I'll never put them aff till I see ye again, when I come back to Dunkerque.”
“That is kind,” she answered, laughing outright, “but fair reediculous. To wear them to bed would be against your character for sobriety.”
CHAPTER XIX
A RAP IN THE EARLY MORNING AWAKENS ME AND I START IN A GLASS COACH UPON THE ODDEST OF JOURNEYS
It was the last, for many months, I was to see of my countrywoman. Before the crow of the cock next morning I was on the unending roads, trundling in a noisy vehicle through pitch darkness, my companion snoring stertorous at my side, his huge head falling every now and then upon my shoulder, myself peering to catch some revelation of what manner of country-side we went through as the light from the swinging lanthorn lit up briefly passing banks of frosted hedge or sleeping hamlets on whose pave the hoofs of our horses hammered as they had been the very war-steeds of Bellona.
But how came I there? How but by my master's whim, that made him anticipate his departure by three days and drag me from my bed incontinent to set out upon his trip over Europe.
I had been sleeping soundly, dreaming I heard the hopper of the mill of Driepps at home banging to make Jock Alexander's fortune, when I awakened, or rather half-wakened, to discover that 'twas no hopper but a nieve at my door, rapping with a vigour to waken the dead.