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Here, after the labours of the day, come the tradesman with his wife and family, the young clerk with his betrothed and also her mother, alack and well-a-day! the soldier with his sweetheart, the students in twos and threes, the little grisette with her cousin, the shop-boy and the workman.
It was not for their virtue, for one of them proved to be a great villain, and all of them deserted their Master in His need. It was not for their belief, for there were great numbers of believers. And yet it is clear that they were chosen on some principle of selection since they were called in ones and in twos.
On Monday Ishmael arose early and walked over to Rushy Shore, opened his schoolhouse, lighted a fire in it, and sat down at his teacher's desk to await the arrival of his pupils. About eight or nine o'clock they began to come, by ones, twos, and threes; some attended by their parents and some alone.
"Comrades," said the captain, "we have no time to lose. Let us set off at once, well armed and disguised, enter the town by twos, and join at the great square. Meanwhile our comrade who has brought us the good news and I will go and find out the house, and decide what had best be done." Two by two they entered the town. Last of all went the captain and the spy.
They came by ones and twos, a little company of twenty-odd. Many anomalies of race were exhibited. Some showed a Scotch cast of feature, some French, some purely Indian. One or two might have been taken for white men had it not been for an odd cast of the eye. Yet it might happen the Indian and the white man were full brothers. The general character of the faces was stolid rather than passionate.
In twos and threes they came, and he fancied that the complete disregard each set paid the others was rather overdone. At any rate, he ordered a fresh supply of coffee and sought enlightenment from Sobieski. "Just peep at some of those fellows in the street and tell me if they are not soldiers of the Seventh Regiment," he said. The waiter obeyed. He determined the point quickly.
In the very first minute the close group of horsemen drew out, and it could be seen that they were approaching the stream in twos and threes and one behind another. To the spectators it seemed as though they had all started simultaneously, but to the racers there were seconds of difference that had great value to them.
The worshipers rose by twos and threes. But the Chevalier remained kneeling. The next roll of the ship toppled him forward upon his face, where he lay motionless. Several sprang to his aid, the vicomte and Victor being first. Together they lifted the Chevalier to his feet, but his knees doubled up. He was unconscious. "Paul?" cried Victor in alarm.
Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruinous buildings, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, open country, avenues of leafless trees. The hard uneven pavement is under us, the soft deep mud is on either side. Sometimes, we strike into the skirting mud, to avoid the stones that clatter us and shake us; sometimes, we stick in ruts and sloughs there.
There were four or five men in the dingy ends of that low-ceilinged room who gesticulated and muttered softly in twos as men who make a bargain, and now and then more came in, and the eyes of the flabby owner of the house leaped up at them as they entered, seemed to know their errands at once and each one's peculiar need, and fell back again into somnolence, receiving his twenty francs in an almost lifeless hand and biting the coin as though in pure absence of mind.
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