“Ike didn’t like what I said to him, but it won’t do him any harm.”
I looked at him, wondering how he could treat it all so coolly, but he turned off the conversation to something else, and soon after he showed me my bedroom—a neat clean chamber at the back, and as I opened the window to look out at the moon I found that there was a vine growing up a thick trellis right up to and round it, the leaves regularly framing it in.
There was a comfortable-looking bed, and my box just at the foot, and I was so weary and low-spirited that I was not long before I was lying down on my left side, for I could not lie on my right on account of my shoulder being bad.
As I lay there I could look out on the moon shining among the vine leaves, and it seemed to me that I ought to get out and draw down the blind; but while I was still thinking about it I suppose I must have dropped asleep, for the next thing that seemed to occur was that I was looking at the window, and it was morning, and as I lay trying to think where I was I saw something move gently just outside.
At first I thought it was fancy, and that the soft morning light had deceived me, or that one of the vine leaves had been moved by the wind; but no, there was something moving just as Shock’s head used to come among the young shoots of the plum-trees above the wall, and, sure enough, directly after there was that boy’s head with his eyes above the sill, staring right in upon me as I lay in bed.
Chapter Eight.
Shock’s Breakfast.
I lay as if fascinated for a minute or two, staring, and he stared at me. Then without further hesitation I leaped out of bed and indignantly rushed to the window, but only on opening it to find him gone.