“Very much, papa,” said Helen, smiling in a way that put Peter on his mettle, for the moment before he had been ready to beg off.
He went pretty quickly to get his stable lanthorn, and came back with it alight, and looking very pale and sickly, while he bore a stout broomstick in the other hand.
“For shame, man! Put away that absurd thing,” said the doctor, as he led the way through the gate in the wall, followed by Helen, Peter and Dan’l coming behind.
“Go first with the lanthorn,” said the doctor to the old gardener, but Peter was stirred to action now.
“Mayn’t I go first, sir!” he said.
“Oh yes, if you have enough courage,” said the doctor; and Peter, looking very white, led the way to the foot of the ladder, went up, and the others followed him to the loft, and stood together on the old worm-eaten boards.
The lanthorn cast a yellow glow through its horn sides, and this, mingling with the faint pencils of daylight which came between the tiles, gave a very peculiar look to the place, festooned as the blackened beams were with cobwebs, which formed loops and pockets here and there.
“There’s an old door at the extreme end there, or ought to be,” said the doctor. “Go and open it.”
Peter went on in advance.
“Mind the holes, my dear,” said the doctor. “What’s that?”