I have
travelled here by Russell's waggon,[1] but have trudged a good part
of the way, as you see." He glanced down at his shoes. "The pace
was too slow for my impatience. I could get no sleep. Though it
brought me here no faster, I had to vent my energies in walking."
His sentences followed one another by jerks, in a nervous flurry.
"You are surprised to see me?" he repeated.
"Why, as to that, sir, partly I am and partly I am not. It took me
aback just now to see you standing there by the gate; and," said I
more boldly, "it puzzles me yet how you came there and not to the
front door, for you couldn't have expected to find me here in the
garden at this time in the morning."
"True, Harry; I did not." He paused for a moment, and went on--"It is
truth, lad, that I meant to knock at your front door, by-and-by, and
ask for you. But, the hour being over-early for calling, I had a
mind, before rousing you out of bed, to walk down the lane and have a
look over your garden gate. Nay," he corrected himself, "I do not
put it quite honestly, even yet. I came in search of something."
"I can save you the trouble, perhaps," said I, and, diving a hand
into my breech-pocket, I pulled out the gold-rimmed eyeglasses.
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