Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/164

 it this long time back.' Poor Michael, he will probably be saying charms and repeating spells for good luck all night now."

"Did you stay long enough on the wall to—to see anything?" Betsey asked hesitatingly.

"No," he answered, "I waited minute after minute, but the Thing was so slow, and what you said had worried me too, so in the end I came away. I will have to try again."

It was very late, so that David, after some lingering and wishing that he could be of service, took his leave, Betsey walking with him as far as the gate. Here, in the moonlight they came upon Michael, sitting on a three-legged stool, his pipe in his hand and the collar of his worn coat turned up against the dews of the spring night.

"It is best that I should just wait here for a while," he explained. "I heard a step in the lane and was afraid that blackguard might be back again. Ah, what did I tell you?"

For a figure had come into the moonlit open and Donald Reynolds had laid a hand on the gate.

"You will not be entering here, sir," declared Michael severely. "You have lived up, this night, to what I always thought of you, but you have had your fling and done your work and that has been enough."