“Oh, I’m warm enough indeed, thank you,” I assured him. “Couldn’t be more comfortable, sir.”
“Then go to sleep again,” he commanded, with another of his half-jesting, half-cynical laughs. “You’re heartily welcome to my ancient roof.”
He went away then, quietly closing the door behind him, and I obeyed his behest and fell asleep again. Nor did I awake until the old man that I had seen by the kitchen fire the night before appeared in my room, bringing me hot water, shaving tackle, tea. He drew back curtains and blinds, and I saw that the sky was still grey and heavy.
“More snow in the night?” I asked him.
He started, as if unused to being spoken to, and nodded his old head.
“Aye, there’ll have been a deal more snow, master,” he answered. “Many feet deep it is all round the house.”
I got up, drank the tea, made as careful a toilet as I could, and eventually went off to the room in the tower wherein I had spent the evening with my youthful hostess. It was so far untenanted, but there was a great fire of logs blazing in the big open hearth, and the breakfast table was laid before it; from the adjacent kitchen came highly appetizing odours. I warmed myself at the hearth, looking round; now, in the morning light, dull though it was, I could see the room better. It was easy to get from it an idea of its owner’s tastes—the beautiful old furniture, the panelling, the arrangement of the cabinets and their contents, all showed the inclination and love of the collector, who was also a good judge of what he collected. There were many things of great interest in that room—one struck me particularly, perhaps because the fire flames kept glinting sharply on its burnished front. This was a small copper box, a thing some six or seven inches square, which stood in the middle of the ancient sideboard, one out of many curious articles placed there. I could see, from where I stood, that it was a bit of unusually good work, and I presently went closer and took it into my hands. Anything worked in old brass or copper had always appealed to me; this quaint little coffer, or chest, beautifully elegant in its severe simplicity, took my fancy. It was a plain thing throughout, except that on the lid was engraven a coat-of-arms, and on the scroll beneath it a legend—
Thatte I please I wylle.
I had just replaced the copper box and was turning away wondering what these words signified when I caught sight of something which I had certainly not expected to see. There, hung in two panels above the sideboard, obscured in shadow the previous evening but plain enough now, as they faced the big window, hung two small pictures of my own, water-colour sketches of scenery in Teesdale which I had shown at the Royal Academy a year before and had subsequently sold to a Bond Street dealer. I was looking at them when Miss Durham came in, followed by the old woman and the breakfast dishes.
Miss Durham and I shook hands solemnly. Then we both smiled, and eventually laughed. She nodded at a door in the corner of the room.