sick
man's door--he had not roughed it on shipboard and in the wilderness all
these years without knowing something of the soft side of a plank--and
throwing his heavy ship's coat over him fell fast asleep.

CHAPTER XXVII

When the first glimmer of the gray dawn stole through the small window
at the end of the narrow hall, and laid its chilled fingers on Harry's
upturned face, it found him still asleep. His ride to Moorlands and
back--his muscles unused for months to the exercise--had tired him. The
trials of the day, too, those with his father and his Uncle George,
had tired him the more--and so he had slept on as a child sleeps--as a
perfectly healthy man sleeps--both mind and body drinking in the ozone
of a new courage and a new hope.

With the first ray of the joyous sun riding full tilt across his face,
he opened his eyes, threw off the cloak, and sprang to his feet. For an
instant he looked wonderingly about as if in doubt whether to call the
watch or begin the hunt for his cattle. Then the pine door caught his
eye and the low, measured breathing of his uncle fell upon his ear,
and with a quick lift of his arms, his strong hands thumping his broad
chest, he stretched himself to his full height: he had work to do, and
he must begin at once.

Aunt Jemima was already at her duties. She had tiptoed past his sleeping
body an hour before, and after listening to St. George's breathing had
plunged into her tubs; the cat's cradle in the dingy court-yard being
already gay with various colored fragments, including Harry's red
flannel shirts which Todd had found in a paper parcel, and which the
old woman had pounced upon at sight. She insisted on making him a cup of
coffee, but he had no time for such luxuries. He would keep on, he said,
to Kennedy Square, find Pawson, ascertain if St. George's old rooms were
still unoccupied; notify him of Mr. Temple's return; have his bed made
and fires properly lighted; stop at the livery stable, wake up Todd,
if that darky had overslept himself--quite natural when he had been up
almost all night--engage a carriage to be at Jemima's at four
o'clock, and then return to get everything ready for the
picking-up-and-carrying-downstairs process.

And all this he did do; and all this he told Jemima he had done when
he swung into the court-yard an hour later, a spring to his heels and a
cheery note in his voice that had not been his for years. The reaction
that hope brings to youth