The morning air was soft with the first real touch of spring. A quiet haze lay over the valley; the lofty hills were enjoying a peaceful smoke, and the sky was as blue as the turquoise. Birds shrilled a fresh, gay carol; the song of the anvil had a new thrill of joy in every inspiring note; the cawing of crows travelled melodiously across the fields, roosters split their throats in vociferous acclaim to the distant sun, and hens clucked a complacent chorus. The rattle of kitchen pans was melody to the ear instead of torture; the squeaking of pigs in the sty beyond the stable yard took on the dignity of music; and the blue smoke that rose from chimneys near and far went dancing up to wed the smiling sky.
Barnes was abroad early. Very greatly to his annoyance, he had slept long and soundly throughout the night. He was annoyed because he had made up his mind that as her protector he would be most negligent if he went to sleep at all, with all those frightened varlets hovering around ready to go to any extreme in order to save their skins.
Indeed, he left his door slightly ajar and laid his revolver on a chair beside the bed, in which, with the aid of a lantern, he promised himself to keep the vigil, stretched out in his daytime garb, prepared for instant action, the while he enriched his mind by reading "The Man of Property." But he fell to dreaming with his eyes wide open, and few were the pages he turned.
Suddenly it was broad daylight and the wick in the lantern smelled horribly. He popped from the bed, rubbed his eyes, and then dashed out in the hall, expecting to come upon sanguinary evidence of a raid during the night. To his amazement, there were no visible signs of an attack upon the house. It seemed incredible that his defection had not been attended by results too horrible to contemplate. By all the laws of fate, she should now be either dead or at the very least, frightfully mutilated. Something like that invariably happens when a sentinel sleeps at his post, or an engineer drowses in his cab. But nothing of the sort had happened.
Mr. Bacon, sweeping the front stairs, assured him between yawns that he hadn't heard a sound in the Tavern after half-past ten,--at which hour he went to bed and to sleep.
Barnes was at breakfast when Peter Ames called up. An inspiration seized him when the chauffeur mentioned the wholesale exodus: he hired Peter forthwith and ordered him to report immediately,--with the car. He was going up to Green Fancy for Miss Cameron's "boxes."