Within these walls

by Rupert Hughes

Sometimes he had dared to steal down into the pantry and loot the cooky-jar. The thought of the pantry emboldened him now. He descended the stairway slowly with the awe of an Orpheus in Hades.

The moon poured down on the front of the house; and, streaming through the glass in the front door, carpeted the lower hall with a swaying pattern of moon-dappled tree-shadows. Keith felt as if he waded a little brook of light as he flitted here and there. The sound continued, but always from below.

He went at last to the cellar door. This house boasted to all passers-by that its builders had not placed the cellar out in the yard but had tucked it under the ground floor. There were two doors to the cellar, one in the kitchen, one on the outside of the house.

Keith was interested to find a little glow of light on the kitchen floor, seeping in from the cellar. He listened and heard someone moving about, heard a mystifying chipping noise, such as the stone-cutters had made when they put the new marble hearthstone in place and when they had recently enlarged the cellar and strengthened the foundation with a course or two of stone. The cellar walls were eleven feet thick in places.

They were made, Mr. Albeson said, “in the good old days when builders were honest and houses were solid—none of your modern flimsies.”

Keith had spent much time there on the cellar stairs watching the masons and asking questions. He had learned much of the chemistry of mortar and the dangers of quicklime. He had seen it smoke like milk on fire. He had been told that if he fell in it he would disappear, be just eaten up bones and all.

What could be going on down there now? Masons did not work at night. A burglar would hardly try to cut his way through stone foundations when the windows were usually left unlocked.

Keith reached up and putting his fat hand on the thumb-latch pressed it down with all the gentleness he could command. Not a sound did he make, and the door came open silently. But a damp draught enveloped him and icy water seemed to flow round his ankles.

With the wind that poured up the stairs came a stream of light, and an increase of sound. He leaned through the door and stared down.

He saw his father in rough old clothes splotched with white. He looked like a mason and he was dragging from the thick wall of the chimney a big stone. On the cellar floor were many others ragged with old mortar. In the chimney was a big hole and his father was making it bigger.