“Fred was!” exclaimed Rupert, taking his brother up sharply. “Believer in what?”
“MacRae’s superstitions.”
“Nonsense, Slingsby!”
Temple made no rejoinder. In his eye, which chanced to catch mine at the moment, there sat a singular expression. I wondered whether he was recalling that other superstition of Fred’s, that little episode a night or two before he died.
“We had better be turning in,” said Temple, getting up. “It won’t do to sit here too long; and we must be up betimes in the morning.”
So we got to bed at last—if you can call it bed. The farmer’s good straw was strewed thickly underneath us in the tent; we had our rugs; and the tent was fastened back at the entrance to admit air. But there was no air to admit, not a whiff of it; nothing came in but the moonlight. None of us remembered a lighter night, or a hotter one. I and Tod lay in the middle, the Temples on either side, Slingsby nearest the opening.
“I wonder who’s got our sheet?” began Tod, breaking a silence that ensued when we had wished each other good-night.
No one answered.
“I say,” struck in Rupert, by-and-by, “I’ve heard one ought not to go to sleep in the moonlight: it turns people luny. Do any of your faces catch it, outside there?”
“Go to sleep and don’t talk,” said Temple.