England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Short stories, English
"I wonder if papa would mind opening the portmanteau again?" thought
Katrine, as she hastened to the gun-room, and entered.
"Papa! papa! here's Mr. Reste's Bible left out," she cried, impulsively.
"Can you put it into the portmanteau?"
Mr. Barbary stood by the small safe in the wall, the door of which was
open. In his hand lay some bank-notes; he was holding them towards the
candle on the deal table, and seemed to be counting them. Katrine,
thinking of the Bible and of nothing else, went close to him, and her
eye fell on the notes. He flung them into the cupboard in a covert
manner, gave the door a slam, turned an angry face on Katrine, and a
sharp tongue.
"Why do you come bursting in upon me in this boisterous fashion? I won't
have it. What? Will I undo the portmanteau to put in a Bible? No, I
won't. Keep it till he chooses to come for it."
She shrank away frightened, softly closing the door behind her. Those
bank-notes belonged to Mr. Reste: they were the same she had seen him
put into his pocket-book two days ago. Why had he not taken them with
him?--what brought them in her father's possession? The advance shadow
of the dark trouble, soon to come, crept into Katrine Barbary's heart.
In no mood for reading now, she went to bed, and lay trying to think it
out. What did it all mean? Had her father conjured the pocket-book by
sleight-of-hand out of Mr. Reste's keeping and _stolen_ the notes? She
strove to put the disgraceful thought away from her, and could not. The
distress brought to her by the poaching seemed as nothing to this, bad
though that was.--And would he venture abroad to-night again?
Joan's light foot-fall passed her door, going up to her bed in the roof.
Once there, nothing ever disturbed the old servant or her deafness until
getting-up time in the morning. Katrine lay on, no sleep in her eyes;
half the night it would have seemed, but that she had learned how slowly
time passes with the restless. Still, it was a good while past twelve,
she thought, when curious sounds, as of _digging_, seemed to arise from
the garden. Sounds too faint perhaps to have been heard in the day-time,
but which penetrated to her ear unless she was mistaken, in the deep,
uncanny, undisturbed silence of the night. She sat up in bed to listen.
There, it came again! What could it be? People did not dig up gardens at
midnight. Slipping out of bed, she drew the blind aside and peeped out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account