“This door,” he said, “is, you observe, at the foot of Baliol’s tower, and in that tower is your room; I will show it you.”
He led the way up a spiral stair that might almost have gone inside the newel of the great staircase. Up and up they went, until Donal began to wonder, and still they went up.
“You’re young, sir,” said the butler, “and sound of wind and limb; so you’ll soon think nothing of it.”
“I never was up so high before, except on a hill-side,” returned Donal. “The college-tower is nothing to this!”
“In a day or two you’ll be shooting up and down it like a bird. I used to do so myself. I got into the way of keeping a shoulder foremost, and screwing up as if I was a blob of air! Old age does make fools of us!”
“You don’t like it then?”
“No, I do not: who does?”
“It’s only that you get spent as you go up. The fresh air at the top of the stair will soon revive you,” said Donal.
But his conductor did not understand him.
“That’s all very well so long as you’re young; but when it has got you, you’ll pant and grumble like the rest of us.”