CHAPTER XXXIX.
WHAT THE MIST HID.
The darkness was already giving way to the gray light of a misty
morning following the attack on Red Wing. The mocking birds, one
after another, were responding to each other's calls, at first
sleepily and unwillingly, as though the imprisoned melody compelled
expression, and then, thoroughly aroused and perched upon the
highest dew-laden branches swaying and tossing beneath them, they
poured forth their rival orisons. Other sounds of rising day were
coming through the mist that still hung over the land, shutting out
the brightness which was marching from the eastward. The crowing of
cocks, the neighing of horses, and the lowing of cattle resounded
from hill to hill across the wide bottom-lands and up and down the
river upon either hand. Nature was waking from slumber--not to the
full, boisterous wakefulness which greets the broad day, but the
half-consciousness with which the sluggard turns himself for the
light, sweet sleep of the summer morning.
There was a tap at the open window that stood at the head of Hesden
Le Moyne's bed. His room was across the hall from his mother's,
and upon the same floor. It had been his room from childhood. The
window opened upon the wide, low porch which ran along three sides
of the great rambling house. Hesden heard the tap, but it only
served to send his half-awakened fancy on a fantastic trip through
dreamland.
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