Page:Following darkness (IA followingdarknes00reid).pdf/48

 my mind that I was alone here in this part of the house, and that burglars were taking the opportunity to break in, and perhaps they would murder me. The thing was utterly nonsensical, and would never have occurred to me had I been in my normal health, but it had hardly entered my head when I saw a ladder shoot up past the window, and strike with a grating sound against the wall. My heart began to thump. I heard steps on the ladder; somebody was mounting it. The next moment Jim's face, brown and ruddy and grinning, popped in, and I gasped with relief. Jim was a boy who worked in the garden, and was about the same age as I was. He smiled broadly, and his bright, brown eyes gazed at me with evident pleasure. " How are you. Master Peter? "he grinned. " They're nobody about, so I thought I'd look in."

"Oh, I'm all right," I answered, " but you mustn't stay there, or you'll be catching the infection."

"I wanted to see the skin peeling off you. What like is it underneath?"

I felt disappointed at this callous explanation of what I had imagined to be sympathy." You can't see it," I answered crossly. "You'd better clear out before somebody catches you,"

Jim disappeared, but I called after him, "I say . . . Jim"

"Will you do something for me?" I asked. "Ay." "Will you play something to me. I'm sick of lying here, doing nothing."

"I darn't. Oul Thomas 'd stop me, an' I'd get in a row. I be to red up all the grass, an' rake the walk."

"All right."

I took no further interest in Jim, and he again vanished. There was a further scraping noise, and the ladder, too.