The clock struck eleven, and Jasper proceeded to send Mr. Goffin home with his lantern, and to get his father to bed. Squire Kit had to be carried by the servants to his room on the ground floor. He would groan and curse all the while Jack Bumpstead was undressing him, for Jack acted as valet as well as groom. He would blow all the time while his master was swearing, much to Squire Christopher's indignation.
"Jack, you mud-faced, cockle-headed calf, do ye think you're rubbing down a horse? Don't blow, I say! You make enough draught to give a man a chill."
These matters attended to, Jasper went to his own room, a frown on his face and anger within him.
"Nance Durrell a spy's daughter!"
He refused to believe such a thing. Parson Goffin had been in his cups.
[IX]
Jasper woke very early, just as the day was breaking. A thrush was singing on the topmost spires of one of the cedars. The woods beyond the paddock thrilled with the orisons of the birds.
Jasper left his bed, opened the lattice wide, and took in the dawn. A mysterious ecstasy was in the air. A hundred bird voices were calling, and, with the dew upon the grass, the world was still half asleep. There were little golden rifts in the eastern sky. Here and there a cloud nearer the zenith would burst suddenly into flame.
Jasper's heart was stirred in him. The mystery of the dawn seemed for him alone. Not a soul was stirring. The earth belonged to him and to the birds.
He could use his arm now a little, and he dressed with the haste of a boy eager for a plunge in some still pool. The old house itself seemed full of secrecy, and quiet charm. He went out noiselessly, though the hinges of the stable door filled the court-yard with their creakings. Devil Dick was alert as a dog. Jasper saddled and bridled him, and rode out.