By all the rules of the great game it was necessary, as Old Paul
carefully explained in a whisper, that he should be waiting in the
carriage in a lane, until the lady could escape and join him. Therefore,
the better to keep up that fiction, Moira hid in the bushes until three
shrill whistles sounded from outside the garden; then she crept out to
meet her lover; and Old Paul (the dog must have been through this
before, to understand it so well!) received her, hat in hand--a
difficult process, because he had to hold the Ancient One with the other
hand, and the Ancient One was kicking; but Moira, radiantly happy, got
into the chaise, and sat bright-eyed and demure; then Old Paul climbed
in beside her, and after a preliminary tussle with the Ancient One,
started him on his journey.
Properly speaking, the Ancient One should have gone at top speed, with
dust flying and the chaise rocking perilously. But there was no top
speed about that animal; instead, he crawled along in a zig-zag fashion,
just as tempting grass lured him at either side of the road; while Old
Paul sat, leaning forward, with the reins hanging loose in his hands,
the while he talked to Moira. For they were going out into the big
world, these two, if only for a day; and it was a wonderful place to
each innocent pair of eyes, unexplored and beautiful. Somewhere or
other, when the Ancient One should have condescended to drag them to the
spot, they were to have breakfast, and to discuss the plans for the day.
In that, again, Old Paul showed his absolute genius; you might have
imagined that he would have stopped in some secluded spot, and have
opened that precious cloth which contained the provisions he had so
artfully prepared; but not a bit of it; he had other ideas than that for
such an occasion. Presently, if you please, the Ancient One was turned
unresisting into an old stable yard attached to an equally old inn;
there to dream in a little while of the Elysian Fields, amid a generous
bounty of hay. By that time a wondering landlady had conducted Old Paul
and the child to a room upstairs, where in the mere twinkling of an eye
a cloth was spread upon the table, and a round-faced, open-eyed young
female had bounced in and out with knives and forks and cups and plates.
For by that time the Ancient One had been examined, and the very chaise
appraised; and the story was abroad of this wonderful young man who had
come suddenly as it were into the deserted place, and had mysteriously
ordered breakfast.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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