Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/185

 She buried herself in the clean, prickly hay, drawing it over her in great sheafs, burrowing into it till she was out of sight.

Long fingers of sunlight quivered between the cracks. She could smell the fresh paint of the text outside the wall. . . . After a time Peake came up the steps to put down hay for the horses. They knew it, for they were stamping and uttering little impatient whinnies. Old Major was kicking his drinking pail about, as he always did when he heard the swish of the falling hay. What if Peake should stick his fork into her, kill her dead? They would find her body and perhaps they would be sorry. Tears of pity for that poor pierced body filled her eyes.

At last there was silence, save for the happy munching below, and, now and again, the rattle of a chain or a sleepy low from the byre, or the anguished cry of a fowl on the perch. Darkness fell.

The blackness of night closed over her like a great wing. She stared, open-eyed, into the dark. She thought:

"Ah, if I only had the tiniest bit of company! If only Lizzie, the cat, knew I was here she'd come and snuggle in beside me, I know. It's an awful thing to be in a big barn alone at night, with a comical text like yonder one on the wall."

As she stared, a firefly darted out from a crack somewhere and began to flit here and there before her eyes. Fiery little dashes it made, like bright stitches on the dark skirt of night. A sense of comfort warmed her. She thought:

"There, now. I hardly wish a thing till I get it. I always was a lucky one. If he will only stop about till I can get to sleep. . . ."

Even when she slept he did not leave her but flew about the loft with his little lamp all night.