Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/22

18 height. About half the height of this room are some posts erected for gymnastics; they are about ten feet from the wall of the house, and the usher looks at them dubiously. He lowers the rope out of the window and attaches one end of it to an iron hook in the wall—a very convenient hook, and very secure apparently, for it looks as if it had been only driven in that very day.

He surveys the distance beneath him, takes another dubious look at the posts in the playground, and is about to step out of the window, when a feeble voice from the little bed cries out—not in any delirious ramblings this time—"What are you doing with that rope? Who are you? What are you doing with that rope?"

Jabez looks round, and although so good a young man, mutters something very much resembling an oath.

"Silly boy, don't you know me? I'm Jabez, your old friend"

"Ah, kind old Jabez; you won't send me back in Virgil, because I've been ill; eh, Mr. North?"

"No, no! See, you want to know what I am doing with this rope; why, making a swing, to be sure."

"A swing? Oh, that's capital. Such a jolly thick rope too! When shall I be well enough to swing, I wonder? It's so dull up here. I'll try and go to sleep; but I dream such bad dreams."

"There, there, go to sleep," says the usher, in a soothing voice. This time, before he goes to the window, he puts out his tallow candle; the rushlight on the hearth he extinguishes also; feels for something in his bosom, clutches this something tightly; takes a firm grasp of the rope, and gets out of the window.

A curious way to make a swing! He lets himself down foot by foot, with wonderful caution and wonderful courage. When he gets on a level with the posts of the gymnasium he gives himself a sudden jerk, and swinging over against them, catches hold of the highest post, and his descent is then an easy one for the post is notched for the purpose of climbing, and Jabez, always good at gymnastics, descends it almost as easily as another man would an ordinary staircase. He leaves the rope still hanging from his bedroom window, scales the playground wall, and when the Slopperton clocks strike twelve is out upon the highroad. He skirts the town of Slopperton by a circuitous route, and in another half hour is on the other side of it, bearing towards the Black Mill. A curious manner of making a swing this midnight ramble. Altogether a curious ramble for this good young usher; but even good men have sometimes strange fancies, and this may be one of them.