She mouthed at me, and shook her fist at me; but, going out, paused at the door to shriek at me, “Whether you drink or no, master, you’re going from here to-night. Going, and never coming back!” Dragging the door to with a crash, she descended the stair.
Chapter XIII. Out of the Stone House
As the night wore on, the clamour dulled; the roisterers were surely drunken or wearied; few seemed astir. I heard the mumble of voices still from the room below me; occasionally the shred of a chanty from the kitchen; at times, the clatter of shoes over the cobbles of the yard, and the outcry of the hound. But ever the wind blew through the night, seeming to cry to me concerning great waters storm-tossed, whereon I should be sailing after this night to the port of no return. Night drew toward the hour before dawn; the moon was long since lost in massing clouds packed high against the heaven by the wind. Lord, how the wind battered at the house, making new clamour when the clamour died below; always it cried to me of storm-tossed waters,—I had this sense upon me, even when my overwrought mind growing dull, I fell asleep upon the bed, and I had the sense still in my dreams. But suddenly I woke with a start and a cry, to understand that pebbles were pattering through the bars and falling into the room, and that a voice was muttering below the window, “Young Craike,—hey, young Craike!” I snatched the sacking back, and in the grey dawn saw a dark figure perched upon a ladder, his head a foot or so below the sill.
“Galt!” I whispered.
“Hist! They may have heard the stones. Lord, how you slept! D’ye hear them stirring?”
“No! No! Help me!”
“Can you slip through the bars?”
“No, they’re set too close and firm.”
He muttered, “Bart’s sleepin’ on the stair and Martin’s in the hall. The woman’s got the key. Can you reach the roof by the chimney?”
“Blocked with brick!”