For a moment Jack paused. He looked up at the old farm, and at the open casement of the room where he knew Bryda and Betty slept.
His heart beat with mingled feelings of hope and fear.
'If any harm should come to her from going to Bristol I shall have had a hand in it. Yet it's what she wants, and I have done it for her sake. Oh, bless her!' he continued, taking off his hat and gazing at the window. 'I say, God bless her, and keep her safe!'
And Bryda, all unconscious of this benediction, murmured in her sleep the last lines of the stanza of her elegy on the lamb which she had composed the night before, and which was interrupted by the vain hunt for a rhyme to 'won.'
'When all the battle's o'er, the victory won, Ah! whither are they flown?'
Bryda awoke with the question on her lips to which she could find no rhyme and no answer.
Jack Henderson knew his way about Bristol, and found himself in Dowry Square just as the deep-toned cathedral clock struck seven from afar.
The townspeople were not so early in their rising as those in the country and Dowry Square was wrapt in repose when Jack Henderson entered it. The blinds in the upper windows, and the shutters, with their heart-shaped holes, were still closed.
A door in one of the houses opened quickly, and a woman came out in a large frilled nightcap and a big apron. She had a broom in her hand, and began to raise a great dust by sweeping out the entrance and the dirty steps. She watched Jack curiously as he knocked at the door of one of the opposite houses twice and three times with no apparent effect.
'You may knock there till you are tired. Nobody is stirring there yet, I'll lay a wager. Folks who keep no women servants always lie late.'
Jack only nodded in reply to this, and knocking once more, leaned against the side of the door and resigned himself to waiting and patience.
Presently footsteps were heard and the bolts withdrawn and the key turned in the lock.
The face that appeared as the door was partially opened was a remarkable one. The eyes that met Jack's were literally blazing with anger, and the mass of hair tossed back from the wide white brow gave the appearance of a young lion at bay.
'Curse you, Jack Henderson, for knocking like that at this time of the day.'