"One would think you must ha' been in a dream, lad."
"It's rare and lonely up that other long passage by oneself," hazarded Walter. "You are up at the chapel ruins and out that way in no time."
"Rare and lonely!" sharply retorted the elder man, as though the words offended him. "Are you turning coward, lad?"
"Not I, father," warmly rejoined Walter, perceiving that plea would not find favour. "Any way, I don't know what it was took me to go up to the chapel ruins. I went; and that seems to be all about it."
"It was an unpardonable hazardous thing to do. Suppose you had been seen coming out o' the Keep at that time? And with a pistol!"
"I wish the pistol had been at the bottom o' the sea, I do!" groaned the invalid.
"What did you take the pistol up for?--why didn't you leave it in the usual place with the other pistols?" Walter groaned again, "I don't know."
"Tell ye what, lad: but that I know you b'ain't given to drink, I should say you'd got a drop of the crew's old Hollands into you."
"Janson did offer me some," said young Walter, from under the bedclothes.
"And you took it! Well you must ha' been a fool. Why, your grandmother 'ud be fit to----"