At the next instant Danny was clambering up the angle of the wall to the
lead flat that covered the projecting part of the library. From this
lead flat there opened the window of his own bedroom, and in a moment he
was striding through it. All was darkness within, but he needed no light
to see his way in that room. He knew every crib and corner; the place
where he kept his fishing lines, the nail from which his moth-net hung,
the bottle on the drawers in which he had his minnows, and the can with
the lid well down that contained the newts that were the terror of all
the women in the house. If Danny had been as blind as old Kerry he could
have found everything his room had in it, except, perhaps, his breeches,
or his shirt, or his other coat, or that cap that was always getting
itself lost, and of course no sight and no light would help a lad to
find things like these.
Hardly had Danny taken a step into his room before he realized that some
one had been there since he left it. Derry, his white-eyed collie, who
had been lying on the bed, dropped on the floor, and frisked about him.
"Down, Derry, down!" he whispered, and for a moment he thought it might
have been Derry that had pushed open the door. But the dog's snout could
not have turned down the counterpane of the bed, or opened the top
drawer that held the fishing flies, or rummaged among the long rods in
the corner. The counterpane lay double, the drawer stood open, the rods
were scattered--some one had been there to look for him, and, not
finding him, had tried to find a reason for his absence, and that some
one had either come into the room in the dark, or--been blind.
"Aw, it's always Kerry that's in it," Danny told himself, and with an
unpleasant remembrance of Kerry's strange faculty, whereof he was the
peculiar victim, he reflected that his race home had been vain. Then on
the instant Danny found himself concocting a trick to defeat
appearances. He had a foot on the stairs to carry out his design, when
he heard the door at the front of the house open and close, and a
familiar step pass through the hall. The Bishop had returned. Danny
waited and listened. Now there was talking in the library. Danny's quick
ear could scarcely distinguish the words, but the voices he could not
mistake--they were the voices of the Bishop and blind Kerry. With a
stealthy stride Danny went up to Ewan's room. Ewan was sleeping. Feeling
hot and cold together, Danny undressed and turned into bed. Before he
had time to bury his head under the clothes he heard the Bishop on the
stairs. The footsteps passed into the room below, and then after an
interval they were again on the stairs. In another moment Danny knew,
though of course his eyes were fast shut, and he was sleeping most
profoundly, that the Bishop with a lighted candle in his hand was
leaning over him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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