.

'And you'll not object?'

'I shall leave it to her. I don't think she will agree, even if I do.'

The soldier sighed, and seemed helpless. 'Well, I can but ask her,' he
said.

The spot on which they had finally chosen to wait for the King was by a
field gate, whence the white road could be seen for a long distance
northwards by day, and some little distance now. They lingered and
lingered, but no King came to break the silence of that beautiful summer
night. As half-hour after half-hour glided by, and nobody came, Anne
began to get weary; she knew why her mother did not propose to go back,
and regretted the reason. She would have proposed it herself, but that
Mrs. Garland seemed so cheerful, and as wide awake as at noonday, so that
it was almost a cruelty to disturb her.

The trumpet-major at last made up his mind, and tried to draw Anne into a
private conversation. The feeling which a week ago had been a vague and
piquant aspiration, was to-day altogether too lively for the reasoning of
this warm-hearted soldier to regulate. So he persevered in his intention
to catch her alone, and at last, in spite of her manoeuvres to the
contrary, he succeeded. The miller and Mrs. Garland had walked about
fifty yards further on, and Anne and himself were left standing by the
gate.

But the gallant musician's soul was so much disturbed by tender
vibrations and by the sense of his presumption that he could not begin;
and it may be questioned if he would ever have broached the subject at
all, had not a distant church clock opportunely assisted him by striking
the hour of three. The trumpet-major heaved a breath of relief.

'That clock strikes in G sharp,' he said.

'Indeed--G sharp?' said Anne civilly.

'Yes. 'Tis a fine-toned bell. I used to notice that note when I was a
boy.'

'Did you--the very same?'

'Yes; and since then I had a wager about that bell with the bandmaster of
the North Wessex Militia. He said the note was G; I said it wasn't. When
we found it G sharp we didn't know how to settle it.'

'It is not a deep note for a clock.'

'O no! The finest tenor bell about here is the bell of Peter's,
Casterbridge--in E flat. Tum-m-m-m--that's the note--tum-m-m-m.' The
trumpet-major sounded from far down his throat what he considered to be E
flat, with a parenthetic sense of luxury unquenchable even by his present
distraction.

'Shall we go on to where my mother is?' said Anne, less impressed by t