She tried the door again, then hearing Nip barking mysteriously from within, she went round to the kitchen-door. To her joy and amazement it was wide open, and a ray of moonlight resting on a little pool of beer on the brick floor showed that the tap of the beer-barrel which was kept there was dribbling. Even in that anxious moment her economical instinct prevailed, and as she was tightening the tap, there permeated through the living-room door a heavenly snore—no lesser adjective could convey the relief it brought. With a bound she was up the couple of stone steps and, unlatching the door, she sent a faint blue glimmer from the kitchen into the shuttered darkness, that was relieved only by the flicker of an expiring lamp and a last spark from a dying log. In that dim discord of lights she saw her grandfather’s head on the thumb-holed tray, his hair and beard a dull grey spread, dividing a darker jug from two beery glasses. The absence of his Bible-pillow seemed symbolic of his degradation.
Who had been with him? she wondered. What boon companion had tempted him from his habitual moderation? She could not imagine. She shook him to awaken him, and lifted up his head. But it fell back in a stupor, and under the draught from the kitchen-door the lamp-flicker went out. She groped about, replenishing the lamp and trying to light it with a spill from the fire, but the greying log only charred the paper. She fumbled in vain among the china shepherdesses on the mantelpiece for her flint and the iron and steel gauntlet, and going out to get her lighting-up matches from her cart, she overturned the other arm-chair that stood in a novel situation at the table—probably the guest had drawn it up there. But the noise left the Gaffer’s snore unweakened. Well, at any rate he had solved her problem—at least for the moment—she thought bitterly, as she groped her way back to the glimmering grate. But even the chemical matches would not light, whether by friction or when placed on the charred log: evidently the long damp had impaired them, and they even snapped under her fingers. How lucky it was one need not rely on such new-fangled gewgaws, she thought when—by a happy inspiration—she found the solid steel and stone with the tinder-box in the Gaffer’s pockets; and soon the lamp was lit and the fire glowing ruddily under the bellows. Then she made herself some kettle-broth (hot water with bread soaked in it), which, sipped before the fire, was almost as cheering as the blazing logs, and resisting the temptation to cook one of the bloaters, she fed the still subdued Nip from the bread.
When he was cosily couched in his basket, and with a last summoning of her spent energies, she had rubbed down Methusalem, she tried to fold her third charge, but the old man still snored steadily, and when she sought again to raise his head from the tray, he swore inarticulately in his sleep, and she was too worn out to persist or even to remove the tray and glasses. She wanted to sleep herself, after all these emotions and the long day in the air, and her cracked mirror showed her a drawn face that yawned and closed weary eyes against itself. But it now occurred to her that she could not get to bed with Gran’fer in the room, she must sleep in an arm-chair or on the settle, or stretched on the floor with the cushion for pillow. But the floor through her early start was unswept, the settle was too narrow, and the chair soon got so hard that after a last attempt to rouse the sleeper, she put an old cloak over his shoulders, a stout log on the fire, turned out the lamp—setting her shadow leaping monstrously—and dragged herself up the dark, fusty staircase to his room, where she let herself fall dressed on his bed. She did not dare get between the sheets, for fear he might wake up in the night and come up to bed. Lying there, muttering the prayers she was too tired to kneel for, she had an underthought that Providence was giving her a hint: assuredly in the coming winter nights she must leave him in the room that was warmed all day by the fire, exchanging bedrooms, though not for the reason he had once suggested—a reason that made her last conscious thought a shame-faced memory. But her next thought was one of pleasant wonder—sunshine splashing the whitewashed sloping walls through the undrawn blind of a little lattice. What was this strange spacious room? How came she there in her clothes? Then memory resurged, and feeling she had slept dangerously long, she sprang up, unhooked the casement, and drew a deep breath of fresh air, as she gazed on this unfamiliar morning view of the Common and the hoar-frosted fields, dazzling her eye with floating colour-specks from the sun that cut redly through the foliage of a fir-tree. Particularly she relished the silver rim of the Brad now descried on the horizon. It made her feel sickish to descend from that space and freshness to the dark, airless, shuttered room with its musty, beery smell and its all-pervading snore. Swiftly she threw open the shutters and the casement, and let the light and air stream in.
The chill draught and the noise she made seemed to rouse the Gaffer at last, for as she was returning from the kitchen with some kindlings for the fire in her apron, he opened his eyes with a start and stared at her.
“Where’s Sidrach?”
She was taken aback: she had not yet prepared her story. Indeed the waking in the big attic and the puzzle of his condition had driven her own problem out of her head.
“Sidrach?” she murmured. Should she out with his death and be done with it?
“Ay, he got riled ’cause Oi wouldn’t let him smoke. Where’s he got to?”
It was now her turn to stare at him. “Nonsense, Gran’fer,” she said gently, “that’s a dream you’ve been having.”
“Mebbe.” He blinked in the sunlight, mystified. Suddenly his face darkened. “Why do ye tell me lies agen? There’s his tumbler!”