“Vell! vell!” he exclaimed, holding his lantern high, in order to see the more clearly, “uf I don’t see it myself, I don’t haf pelieved it.”
Hanging the lantern on a wooden pin in the framework, and cautioning the boys not to disturb it, and not to strike a match nor make a fire of any kind in the barn, the farmer responded to the chorus of good-nights from the mow, and made his way through the darkness, back across the barnyard to his house. On almost any other occasion there would have been an unlimited amount of horse-play, before these boys could have settled themselves for the night and gone to sleep. But now all the boys were too weary to be gay, and in less than twenty minutes from the time of the mounting of the ladder the whole company was asleep.
Yet not the whole company. Brightly closed his eyes, but sleep would not come to him. In this strange place, in this hour of quiet, with only the heavy breathing around him to break the stillness; with only the dim light of the lantern to make partly visible and wholly weird the huge timbers and vast spaces of the great barn’s interior,—thought took possession of his mind and drove slumber from his eyelids. Regret assailed him; conscience awakened, and began again her vigorous reproach.
[He lay staring into the deep shadows] among the tie-beams and rafters [until it became impossible for him longer to remain quiet]. Gently disengaging himself from Patchy’s arm, which the child had thrown across his protector’s breast at the very moment when sleep conquered him, Brightly arose from his bed of hay, slid softly to the ladder, and crept down it to the floor of the barn.
[He lay staring into the deep shadows, until it became impossible for him longer to remain quiet.]
The carpet of straw that covered the floor-planks deadened the sound of his footsteps, and he was able to walk up and down the entire length of the building without in any way disturbing the sleepers on the mow. Thus walking, he gave himself up to thought,—bitter, laborious, regretful thought.
He went back over the entire history of his troubles at Riverpark, beginning with the appointments six months before, and culminating in this night of adventure and suffering.
With that brief review he recognized his error,—an error founded on jealousy, nurtured in selfish pride, and fed and fostered with a lie. Colonel Silsbee had sought to make it plain to him, but without success; Harple, with all the earnestness of friendship, had brought it up in vain before his mind and conscience.
But now, this night, in this strange place, his eyes were opened, and he saw. One sweep of his own hand at last had brushed away the clinging cobwebs, and the full extent of his folly and guilt lay bare before him.