"I am going to dress," she announced, as the gust of sobbing spent itself. "If Archelaus Libby is awake, he will tell us what it means."
"Take me with you."
Though prepared to go alone, she had hoped he would ask this, being—to confess the truth—more than half afraid of the dark landing and passages below. The two dressed themselves and crept downstairs. In the hall, remembering their former expedition, Myra felt the bolt of the front door cautiously; but this time it was shut. They stole down the side-passage to the kitchen, where a fire burned all night in the great chimney-place on a bed of white wood ashes. Kneeling in the faint glow of it they drew on and laced their boots, then unlatched the kitchen window and dropped out upon the snow.
Archelaus Libby had been given a garret over the cider house, where he slept or studied in a perpetual odour of dried russet apples and Spanish onions. He was awake and dressed, and welcomed the children gaily by the light of a tallow candle. His simple mind found nothing to wonder at in this nocturnal visit. Was not the Aurora Borealis performing in all its splendour? Then naturally the whole world must be awake with him and excited.
He showed Myra its wonders through the telescope, discoursing on them with glee.
"But what does it mean ?" she asked.
He told her how it was caused, and how a clever man had once made a toy with a bright lamp, a globe sprinkled with ground glass, and the vapour of a sponge pressed on hot iron, repeating the phenomenon on a tiny scale. "We will try it ourselves to-morrow," he promised.
The ribbons of light were playing hide-and-seek behind a distant wooded hill, now and again so vividly that its outline stood up clear against them.
"That will be the moors above Damelioc," said Archelaus. "If you watch through the glass, you will see the monument there—the one on the battle-field, you know. I saw it, just now, plain as plain. And once I thought I saw the taller monument, over Bodmin." "That's where they've put Uncle Vro in gaol."
"I was thinking of him just now, Miss Myra. It will be cold for him to-night over there in his cell."