down a shower of soot upon him, and, cursing foully, he drew back, and made for the door. “You’ll lie here for the night,” he said to me. “You’ll be safe and snug here for the night. Don’t be trying to break out and get away, for I’ll be within hearing of you the night through. Out of this, Mother Mag.” “What’s your purpose with me?” I asked, dully. “Why was I brought here?” p. 78“You’ll know,” he answered, laughing his hateful laugh. “You’ll know. But I’m paid only to catch and cage you, not to answer questions.” p. 78 “If it’s only pay,” said I, “a word from me to Mr. Bradbury—” “Bah, I’d not trust Bradbury living, and Bradbury lying in the road when we left him looked more like a corpse than Mother Mag there. Lie down and sleep, you’ll get nothing from me,” and pulling the door to with a crash, he left me. I ran instantly to the window, and dragged back the sacking; the bars of iron, set there, I took it, for defence in the old days, were bedded firmly in the stone; there was no hope for me to crawl between them. The recurrent light of the cloud-harried moon showed me the nature of my prison; the dust lay thick upon the rotting floor; the oaken panels were riddled by the rats, and dropping in decay from the stone walls; the black, cobwebbed rafters, were high above me. I believed that a trap-door in the ceiling opened beneath the roof; I could hear the rats scurrying over my head. I turned back to the window; and the moon showed me the cobbled courtyard, the high stone wall, the rim of the bowl, in which the house lay, rising blue-black beyond; boughs p. 79tossing in the wind upon the rim; through the wild crying of the gale overhead, its battering on the house, I thought I heard the distant drumming of the sea. Again I tried to wrench the bars apart; their red rust had run into the stone and mortar and set them there only the more firmly; though I tested each bar with the full strength of my arms, none shifted. Could I but force them sufficiently apart for me to wriggle through, the drop to the ground would be dangerous but not impossible for me. Staring upwards then I could see nothing of the roof owing to the thickness of the wall and the depth of the window. No, I was held securely; when I tried to peer up the chimney, I found it blocked as Mother Mag had said; the door of thick oak, though mouldering, was clamped with iron. I took it that the house had been built years since, maybe in the troublous times of Charles the
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