It was a night for walking, still and clear.
I did not run, as she had bidden me, but for all that I achieved the beacon hill.
The moon, so nearly full, hovered, with swollen cheek, above the bay, and wore about his face the look of a wizard man who shared my secret.
The bullocks, sheltering for the night in the lea of the stone wall in the valley’s dip, stumbled to their feet at my approach, and scattered.
I could see a light from the Barton, above the meadow, and when I reached the beacon head, and the bays stretched out on either side of me, there were the flickering lights of the little towns along the western coast, and our own harbor lights to the east as well.
Yet presently they dimmed, as the candlelight did within the Barton, and there was nothing about me but that light from the pale moon, making a silver track across the sea.
If it was a night for walking it was a night for swimming too.
No threat of poultices or cordials would keep me from it.
I climbed down, to my favorite point where the rocks jutted, and, laughing to myself at this folly most sublime, plunged into the water.
God!
It was icy cold.
I shook myself like a dog, with chattering teeth, and struck out across the bay, returning, after a bare four minutes, back to the rocks to dress.
Madness.
Worse than madness.
But still I did not care, and still my mood of exultation held me in thrall.
I dried myself, as best I could, upon my shirt, and walked up through the woods, back to the house.
The moonlight made a ghostly path for me, and shadows, eerie and fantastic, lurked behind the trees.
Where my path divided into two, one taking me to the cedar walk and the other to the new terrace above, I heard a rustle where the trees grew thickest, and suddenly to my nostrils came that rank vixen smell about me in the air, tainting the very leaves under my feet; yet I saw nothing, and all the daffodils, leaning from the banks on either side of me, stayed poised and still, without a breath to stir them.
I came to the house at last, and looked up at her window.
It was open wide, and I could not tell if her candle burned still or if she had blown it out.
I looked at my watch.
It wanted five minutes to midnight.
I knew suddenly that if the boys had not been able to wait to give me my present, neither could I wait to give Rachel hers.
I thought of Mrs. Pascoe, and the cabbages, and my mood of folly swept me in full force.
I went and stood under the window of the blue bedroom, and called up to her.
I called her name three times before I had an answer.
She came to the open window, dressed in that white nun’s robe, with the full sleeves and the lace collar.
“What do you want?” she said.
“I was three parts asleep, and you have woken me.”
“Will you wait there,” I said, “just a few moments?
I want to give you something.
The package that Mrs. Pascoe saw me carry.”
“I have not Mrs. Pascoe’s curiosity,” she said.
“Let it wait until the morning.”
“It cannot wait until the morning,” I said, “it has to happen now.”
I let myself in by the side door, and went upstairs to my room and came down again, carrying the cabbage basket.
Round the handles I knotted a great piece of string.
I had with me, also, the document, which I placed in my jacket pocket.
She was still waiting there, beside the window.
“What in the world,” she called softly, “have you got carried in that basket?
Now, Philip, if this is one of your practical jokes, I will not share it.
Have you got crabs hidden there, or lobsters?”
“Mrs. Pascoe believes they are cabbages,” I said.
“At any rate, I give you my promise they won’t bite.
Now, catch the string.”
I threw up the end of the long string to the window.
“Haul away,” I told her, “with both hands, mind.
The basket is some weight.”
She pulled, as she was bidden, and the basket bumped and crashed against the wall, and against the wire that was there to hold the creeper, and I stood below, watching her, shaking with silent laughter.
She pulled the basket onto her windowsill, and there was silence.