After a while, however, the harnessing was accomplished somehow and in some way, although whether the breeching was where the bridle should have been or vice versa was more than the harnesser would have dared swear.

After several centuries, as the prospective bridegroom was reckoning time, the horse was between the shafts of the carriage and driven very carefully along the road to the Parker homestead.
He hitched the sleepy animal to a pine tree just off the road and tiptoed toward the hollow, the appointed rendezvous.

To reach this hollow he was obliged to pass through the Parker yard and, although he went on tiptoe, each footstep sounded, in his ears, like the crack of doom.

He tried to think of some explanation to be made to Kenelm in case the latter should hear and hail him, but he could think of nothing more plausible than that he was taking a walk, and this was far from satisfactory.
And then he was hailed.

From a window above, at the extreme end of the kitchen, came a trembling whisper.
"Caleb! Caleb Hammond, is that you ?" Mr.Hammond's heart, which had been thumping anything but a wedding march beneath the summer under-flannels, leaped up and stuck in his throat; but he choked it down and gasped a faint affirmative.
"Oh, my soul and body! Where HAVE you been?
I've been waitin' and waitin'." "What in time did you wait up there for?
Why don't you come down ?" "I can't.