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"What, Conachar!" he replied, as he started from sleep, "is the morning so far advanced?" and, raising his eyes, the person of whom he was dreaming stood before him; and at the same moment, the events of yesterday rushing on his recollection, he saw with surprise that the vision retained the form which sleep had assigned it, and it was not the mail clad Highland chief, with claymore in hand, as he had seen him the preceding night, but Conachar of Curfew Street, in his humble apprentice's garb, holding in his hand a switch of oak.
The feelings of one honorably out of such a conflict, but listening in perfect security, may be better imagined than described. This, like a curfew bell, signaled the close of a day of frightful and probably unparalleled carnage.
Doors were not, as a rule, locked within the court, for though it contained from forty to fifty persons, they were all regarded as a single family, and it was enough to fasten the heavily bolted, iron- studded folding doors of the great gateway leading into Cheapside, the key being brought to the master like that of a castle, seven minutes, measured by the glass, after the last note of the curfew in the belfry outside Saint Paul's.
A thin woman in eye-glasses, the literary editor of the Benham Sentinel, recited "Curfew must not ring to-night," and a visitor from Wisconsin gave an exhibition in melodious whistling. In the intervals, tea, chocolate with whipped cream and little cakes were dispensed. Selma was absorbed and thrilled. What could be more to her taste than this? At the close of the whistling exercise, Mrs.
The fire burned brightly in the ingle-nook, and the dogs, Tocsin and Curfew, slept in perfect peace in close proximity to its grateful heat; but Hollyhock was alone utterly alone. She felt more miserable than she had ever believed it possible to be in her hitherto joyous life.
The bell of Etchezar, the same dear, old bell, that of the tranquil curfew, that of the festivals and that of the agonies, rang joyously in the beautiful sun of June. The village was decorated with white cloths, white embroideries, and the procession of the Fete-Dieu passed slowly, on a green strewing of fennel seed and of reeds cut from the marshes.
Nancy would not cry before her roommate. She spent the evening as usual in apparently close application to the lessons for the next day; scarcely a word was said in Number 30 until curfew at nine. The other girls kept entirely away from the room that evening. Going back and forth might have drawn the suspicion of Miss Maybrick to that particular dormitory.
One evening when the curfew was sounding from all the belfries in Paris, the sergeants of the watch might have observed, had it been granted to them to enter the formidable Court of Miracles, that more tumult than usual was in progress in the vagabonds' tavern, that more drinking was being done, and louder swearing.
Denis, saw my tired horse well cared for by an hostler, who seemed amazed at my rustic solicitude for details, had my portmanteau deposited in a clean, white-washed chamber, overlooking the street, ate a supper such as only a Paris innkeeper can serve and a ravenous youth from the country can devour, and went forth afoot, after curfew, into the now entirely dark and no longer crowded street, to find what might befall me.
Then Cornucopia Coogan arose and gave us a few select recitations. She weighs 295 pounds and she was immense. Just as she started to tell us that curfew would not ring to-night Uncle Peter winked at me, and we sneaked out and began to drown our sorrow. Those musicales would be all to the good if the music didn't suffocate them.
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