"And here I dropped, thinking to find you," continued Holyday, in exasperation, "and to help you out as he helped me in. And now—"
"Well, I am out, nevertheless," she replied, quickly. "So come you out, pray, without more ado; my father may discover at any moment—"
"Why, devil take me!" cried Holyday, in despair. "I cannot climb the wall; there's none here to give me a shoulder."
"Is there nothing there you can climb upon?" queried Cutting Tom.
"Yes," cried Millicent, taking the answer upon herself; "there are benches. Oh, pray, make haste, Master Holyday!"
Soon Master Holyday could be heard dragging a bench across the sward; in its ordinary position it would not give him sufficient height, so he seemed to busy himself in placing it properly for his purpose. "Nomine patris!" he exclaimed as he bruised his fingers. Finally a thud against the upper part of the gate indicated that he had fixed the bench slantwise. Mounting the incline chiefly by means of hands and knees, he stood trembling at the top, high enough to get a purchase of his elbows on the gate, and so to wriggle his body over.
Millicent breathed more freely as soon as his head and shoulders appeared; but, as he was righting himself on the gate-top in order to drop safely outside, there came a voice from within the garden:
"Hey? How now? Good lack, more comings and goings!"
"Oh, God! that meddling Sir Peregrine!" cried Millicent. "We are found out. Hurry, Master Holyday!"
The poet, startled, was still upon the gate, staring back into the garden. With a revival of earlier agility, the old knight came up the sloping bench at a run, took hold of the gate's top with one hand, and of Master Holyday's neck with the other. His eyes fell upon the pair waiting outside. It was not too dark for him to recognise a figure which he had oft observed with the interest of future ownership.