Part 30 (1/2)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

LIFE AT THE STATION

The late supper in the plain, homely room--where the table was on trestles, the chairs were stools, and the ar, and the hearthrug skins--and the performance in the way of sleep on his arrival, interfered sadly with Nic's night's rest

It was an hour after his father's return before they all retired; and as soon as Nic was in his roo was so new and fresh; the brilliant rand effects that the first thing he did was to take the home-made tallow candle out of its socket and hold it upside down till it was extinct, and then put it back

The rooht in one part, black shadow in the others; and he was going to the opento look out, but just then an idea struck hiun, closed the pan, drew the flint hammer to half-cock, and proceeded to load He carefully e of powder in the top of the copper flask, and poured it into the barrel, in happy unconsciousness that in the future ingenious people would contrive not only guns that would open at the breech for a cartridge containing in itself powder, shot, and explosive cap, to be thrust in with one azine rifles that could be loaded for many shots at once

Then on the top of the powder he rammed down a neatly cut-out disk of felt, the ra the air in the barrel, driving the powder out through the touch-hole into the pan, and amut: pash-- pesh--pish--posh--poosh--push--pud--pod--por--with the wind all out and the powder compressed hard down by the wad Next a little cylindrical shovel full of shot was extracted fro closed as the ently into the barrel, glistening in the lobules of quicksilver Another as rarains, and the ra stood in the corner beside the bed ready for e was to listen and find that the murmur of voices heard beyond the partition had ceased, and he slipped off his shoes and stepped softly to the open

The flowers sht air, and he looked out, leaning his arhly that he was in the place he had so often longed to see when he did a si at the Friary in far-off Kent

It seeh His old schoolfellowsout of theover the Kentish hills, but he was divided frolobe They were in the northern portion of the temperate zone; he, as he leaned out, was in the southern They would be looking at the hills; he was gazing at the rugged mountains Then, too, it was just the opposite season to theirs--summer to their winter, winter to their suht Nic ”I shan't understand it all till I'veone at the Friary e it all seems!”

As he looked out, the place appeared very different He had seen it in the full sunshi+ne; now, in the silence of the night, the trees glistened in the ht as if frosted, and the shadows cast stood out black, sharp, and as if solid

And how still and awful it all seemed! Not a sound,--yes, there was: an impatient stamp from somewhere on the other side of the house He knehat that was, though: the horses were troubled by soht insect

There was another sound, too, as he listened--and another--and another

He rong: there was no awful silence; the night, as his ears grew accustomed to the sounds, was full of noises, which iely or the reverse as he was able to make them out or they remained mysteries

As he tried to pierce the distance, and his eyes wandered through the network of light a the trees on the slopes which ran up toward thealong froh to rush forward to the attack upon the station; and over and over again his excited i slowly from bush to bush or from tree to tree

Once or twice he felt certain that he saw a tall figure standing out in the ested that a savage would not stand in so exposed a position, but would be in hiding

Then, too, as minutes passed on and he was able to see that the objects did not move, he became convinced that they were stuh, was peculiar, and it was repeated It was a cough, and that was startling, just in the neighbourhood of the house But again he was able to explain it, for he had heard that cough in the fields of Kent, and the feeling of awe and dread passed off; for he kneas the very huh of a sheep

But that was no sheep--that peculiar croaking cry that was heard now here, now there, as if the utterer were dashi+ng in all directions That was followed by a hollow tru sound from far ahile close at hand there was a soft, plaintive whistling and a subdued croak

By degrees, though, as he listened, he was able to approxiht-hawks, cranes, curlews, and frogs uilty; and soular stridulation, as of a piece of ivory drawn along the teeth of abuzz, as so by; and beneath all, like a monotonous bass, ca water plunging down froh into some rocky basin

”What a place! what a wonderful place!” thought Nic, as he gazed out-- perfectly sleepless now; and as he thought, the idea of wild beasts ca roar, very suggestive of tiger or lion, till it was answered by a distant lowing, and he knew that the first was the bellow of soe bull, the latter the distant cry of a bullock far up in the hills

The ti, and he could not tear hi that he had better lie down for fear of being very tired next day, he reached out his hand to draw in the casement, but kept it there, for a very familiar sound now struck upon his ear: _Clap, clap, clap, clap_ of wings, and then a thoroughly hearty old English cock-a-doodle-doo! and the boy burst into a ,” he ht--They always do that at home when the moon shi+nes”

But the cock-croas answered fro capie, and soon after the deep chuckle of a great kingfisher, followed by burst of; shrieks and jarring calls froreat tree; and it suddenly struck the watcher that there was a pallid light shed from soular Hibernian spirit, ”it's to- on fast; and all thought of bed being now given over, Nic began to put on his shoes