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To Nick it seemed scarce midnight yet, so sound had been his sleep. Master Carew having gotten into his high-topped riding-boots with a great puffing and tugging, they washed their faces at the inn-yard pump by the smoky light of the hostler's lantern, and then in a subdued, half-wakened way made a hearty breakfast off the fragments of the last nights feast.
When I knew myself again, I was lying with my head in a maiden's lap, and well I could have believed that the fairies had carried me to their own land, as has befallen many, whereof some have returned to earth with the tale, and some go yet in that unearthly company. "Gentle demoiselle, are you the gracious Queen of Faerie?" I asked, as one half-wakened, not knowing what I said.
The creek tinkled over the pebbles at their feet, and a drowsy bird, half-wakened by the moon, crooned languorously in the sycamores. The girl looked out at the flashing water through downcast lashes. "Is it because it is so transient that beauty is pathetic?" she said; "because we can never come back to it in quite the same way? I am a sentimental girl.
"Who wants me?" asked the half-wakened Dan, springing to his feet. "Dan Dolan! Ye young rapscallion!" burst out Brother Bart, almost sobbing in his relief. "It's down at the bottom of the black sea I thought ye were. Down wid ye now below stairs with the rest, where I can keep an eye on ye. Come down, I say!"
Jocelyn accomplished with some difficulty, but did not mention the presence of Roger, fearing that in his half-wakened condition he might make some remark which would hurt the young man's feelings.
We took in, at a glance, the larger features of the scene; and beheld, with half an eye, bloused fishers and dabbling washerwomen on the bank. Now and again we might be half-wakened by some church spire, by a leaping fish, or by a trail of river grass that clung about the paddle and had to be plucked off and thrown away. But these luminous intervals were only partially luminous.
"No," she assured herself, "it can't be as bad as yesterday." She reached round and about her pillow, groping for the recalcitrant hairpin that always slipped out during the night; found it, and twisted her hair into a hard bathtub bun. With a jangle that tore through her half-wakened senses the telephone at her bedside shrilled into life.
Bowen breathlessly, in sympathy with his reminiscence rather than in agreement with his self-denunciation. Colville broke into a laugh, and then she began to laugh to; but not quite willingly as it seemed. Effie started from her sleep. "What what is it?" she asked, stretching and shivering as half-wakened children do. "Bed-time," said her mother promptly, taking her hand to lead her away.
They did not know where they would be led next and were supposed to push forward further when the priest stopped by the outcropping rock. He stood silent a few minutes quite motionless as if he were listening to the forest and the night. But there was utter stillness. There was not even a breeze to stir a leaf, or a half-wakened bird to sleepily chirp.
He had not been long hidden before he heard near him the sound of a great sigh and the rattling of a chain, as of some animal half-wakened from sleep. "It is some wild animal that is to be taken to Rome," suspected Heraklas, not without a little uneasiness at his own proximity to the beast. It was likely that the creature was well secured, yet the lad crept farther away.
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