Part 11 (1/2)

He went wandering about amongst them, like an undecided young bird looking for the very best possible spot to build its nest in. The spot Willie sought was that which would require the least labour and least material to make it into a room.

Before he heard the voice of Tibby, calling him to come to his porridge, he had fixed upon one; and in the following chapter I will tell you what led him to choose it. All the time between morning and afternoon school, he spent in the same place; and when he came home in the evening, he was accompanied by Mr Spelman, who went with him straight to the ruins.

There they were a good while together; and when Willie at length came in, his mother saw that his face was more than usually radiant, and was certain he had some new scheme or other in his head.

CHAPTER XIII.

WILLIE'S NEST IN THE RUINS.

The spot he had fixed upon was in the part of the ruins next the cottage, not many yards from the back door of it. I have said there were still a few vaulted places on the ground-level used by the family. The vault over the wood-house was perfectly sound and weather-tight, and, therefore, as Willie and the carpenter agreed, quite safe to roost upon.

In a corner outside, and now open to the elements, had once been a small winding stone stair, which led to the room above, on the few broken fragments of which, projecting from the two sides of the corner, it was just possible to climb, and so reach the top of the vault. Willie had often got up to look out through a small, flat-arched window into the garden of the manse. When Mr Shepherd, the clergyman, who often walked in his garden, caught sight of him, he always came nearer, and had a chat with him; for he did not mind such people as Willie looking into his garden, and seeing what he was about. Sometimes also little Mona, a girl of his own age, would be running about; and she also, if she caught sight of Willie, was sure to come hopping and skipping like a bird to have a talk with him, and beg him to take her up, which, he as often a.s.sured her, was all but impossible. To this place Mr Spelman and Willie climbed, and there held consultation whether and how it could be made habitable. The main difficulty was, how to cover it in; for although the walls were quite sound a long way up, it lay open to the sky. But about ten feet over their heads they saw the opposing holes in two of the walls where the joists formerly sustaining the floor of the chamber above had rested; and Mr Spelman thought that, without any very large outlay either of time or material, he could there lay a floor, as it were, and then turn it into a roof by covering it with cement, or pitch, or something of the sort, concerning which he would take counsel with his friend Mortimer, the mason.

”But,” said Willie, ”that would turn it into the bottom of a cistern; for the walls above would hold the rain in, and what would happen then?

Either it must gather till it reached the top, or the weight of it would burst the walls, or perhaps break through my roof and drown me.”

”It is easy to avoid that,” said Mr Spelman. ”We have only to lay on the cement a little thicker at one side, and slope the surface down to the other, where a hole through the wall, with a pipe in it, would let the water off.”

”I know!” cried Willie. ”That's what they called a gurgoyle!”

”I don't know anything about that,” said the carpenter; ”I know it will carry off the water.”

”To be sure,” said Willie. ”It's capital.”

”But,” said Mr Spelman, ”it's rather too serious a job this to set about before asking the doctor's leave. It will cost money.”

”Much?” asked Willie, whose heart sank within him.

”Well, that depends on what you count much,” answered Spelman. ”All I can say is, it wouldn't be anything out of your father's pocket.”

”I don't see how that can be,” said Willie. ”--Cost money, and yet be nothing out of my father's pocket! _I've_ only got threepence ha'-penny.”

”Your father and I will talk about it,” said the carpenter mysteriously, and offered no further information.

”There seems to be always some way of doing a thing,” thought Willie to himself.

He little knew by what a roundabout succession of cause and effect his father's kindness to Spelman was at this moment returning to him, one of the links of connection being this project of Willie's own.

The doctor being out at the time, the carpenter called again later in the evening; and they had a long talk together--to the following effect.

Spelman having set forth his scheme, and the doctor having listened in silence until he had finished--

”But,” said Mr Macmichael, ”that will cost a good deal, I fear, and I have no money to spare.”

”Mr Macmichael,” said Spelman solemnly, his long face looking as if some awful doom were about to issue from the middle of it, ”you forget how much I am in your debt.”

”No, I don't,” returned the doctor. ”But neither do I forget that it takes all your time and labour to provide for your family; and what will become of them if you set about this job, with no return in prospect but the satisfaction of clearing off of an old debt?”