Then
she crouched forward, elbows on knees, and relapsed into silence.
None of us dared speak or move. We sat thus for half an hour.
Then Peg jumped up and said briskly in her usual tone,
"Well, I guess yez are all sleepy and ready for bed. You girls
can sleep in my bed over there, and I'll take the sofy. Yez can
put the cat off if yez like, though he won't hurt yez. You boys
can go downstairs. There's a big pile of straw there that'll do
yez for a bed, if yez put your coats on. I'll light yez down, but
I ain't going to leave yez a light for fear yez'd set fire to the
place."
Saying good-night to the girls, who looked as if they thought
their last hour was come, we went to the lower room. It was quite
empty, save for a pile of fire wood and another of clean straw.
Casting a stealthy glance around, ere Peg withdrew the light, I
was relieved to see that there were no skulls in sight. We four
boys snuggled down in the straw. We did not expect to sleep, but
we were very tired and before we knew it our eyes were shut, to
open no more till morning. The poor girls were not so fortunate.
They always averred they never closed an eye. Four things
prevented them from sleeping. In the first place Peg snored
loudly; in the second place the fitful gleams of firelight kept
flickering over the skull for half the night and making gruesome
effects on it; in the third place Peg's pillows and bedclothes
smelled rankly of tobacco smoke; and in the fourth place they were
afraid the rat Peg had spoken of might come out to make their
acquaintance.
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