Michael glanced at his young brother. "Humour returns to you," he said, with an approving nod. "I told you life was not half as serious as you thought it."
They tried the window-bars, the three of them, but found them sturdy. They battered the doorway again with their shoulders; it did not give. Barnaby drew a piece of wire from his pocket, and used great skill to pick the lock; he might as well have tried to pierce steel armour with a needle.
"There's nothing to be done to-night, gentles," he said, with a noisy yawn; "and, when there's nothing to be done, I've found a safe and gallant rule of conduct—one sleeps. Some day, if I find the Muse propitious, I shall write an ode to sleep. It is the fabled elixir of life. It defies all fevers of the daytime; it is the coverlet that Nature spreads about her tired children. But, gentlemen, I weary you."
"You make me laugh," asserted Michael. "Since I left Yoredale, I've met none who had your grasp of life."
They settled themselves by and by to sleep, as best they could, on a wet floor, with the warmth of the new day rousing queer odours from their prison-house. There was the stealthy tread of rats about their bodies. It was Barnaby, after all, who was false to his gospel of deep slumber. At the end of half an hour he reached over and woke Michael from a thrifty dream of Yoredale and corn yellowing to harvest.
"What is it?" growled Michael.
"I cannot sleep, sir. You recall that, in the tavern yesterday, I confessed myself a poet. The rhymes I have made, sir, are like the sands of the sea for multitude. I was never troubled till I came to Banbury."
"Then journey forward. There are other towns."
"You do not understand me. Towns to be taken by assault, by any rhymes that offer, do not entice me. It is the hardship of attack that tempts your true soldier. You will grant me that?"
"I'll grant you anything, Barnaby, so long as you let me sleep on this wet floor. I dreamed I was lying on a feather-bed."