a lover. "Was ever lady in this humour
wooed?" I asked myself, and came near turning back. It is never wise to
risk a critical interview when your spirits are depressed, your clothes
muddy, and your hands wet! But the boisterous night was in itself
favourable to my enterprise: now, or perhaps never, I might find some
way to have an interview with Flora; and if I had one interview (wet
clothes, low spirits and all), I told myself there would certainly be
another.

Arrived in the cottage-garden I found the circumstances mighty
inclement. From the round holes in the shutters of the parlour, shafts
of candle-light streamed forth; elsewhere the darkness was complete. The
trees, the thickets, were saturated; the lower parts of the garden
turned into a morass. At intervals, when the wind broke forth again,
there passed overhead a wild coil of clashing branches; and
between-whiles the whole enclosure continuously and stridently resounded
with the rain. I advanced close to the window and contrived to read the
face of my watch. It was half-past seven; they would not retire before
ten, they might not before midnight, and the prospect was unpleasant. In
a lull of the wind I could hear from the inside the voice of Flora
reading aloud; the words of course inaudible--only a flow of
undecipherable speech, quiet, cordial, colourless, more intimate and
winning, more eloquent of her personality, but not less beautiful than
song. And the next moment the clamour of a fresh squall broke out about
the cottage; the voice was drowned in its bellowing, and I was glad to
retreat from my dangerous post.

For three egregious hours I must now suffer the elements to do their
worst upon me, and continue to hold my ground in patience. I recalled
the least fortunate of my services in the field: being out-sentry of the
pickets in weather no less vile, sometimes unsuppered, and with nothing
to look forward to by way of breakfast but musket-balls; and they seemed
light in comparison. So strangely are we built: so much more strong is
the love of woman than the mere love of life.

At last my patience was rewarded. The light disappeared from the parlour
and reappeared a moment after in the room above. I was pretty well
informed for the enterprise that lay before me. I knew the lair of the
dragon--that which was just illuminated. I knew the bower of my
Rosamond, and how excellently it was placed on the ground-level, round
the flank of the cottage, and out