f
Christmas Day before they finally condescended to turn in and leave us
in peace.

One by one the candles went out, the talk and the laughter gradually
subsided, and even the grunts and twitches of the doughty heroes as they
first gave themselves over to slumber died away in the darkness. For
the first time since we rose that morning, a dead silence reigned in
Jolliffe's.

In fact, as I lay awake and tried to get to sleep the silence seemed
unnaturally profound. The tick of the big clock down in the hall struck
on the ear with almost a thud, and the light breeze outside moaned among
the ventilators and played chromatic scales through the keyhole in a
fashion quite disturbing. I wished that wind would shut up, and that
the clock would run down. How was a fellow to get to sleep with such a
row going on?

And yet, next moment, the utter silence of the place disturbed me even
more than the wind and the clock. Why, I actually seemed to hear the
winking of my own eyes as I lay there. I wished some one would snore,
or breathe hard, or roll over in his bed. But no, in all those thirty
beds there was neither sound nor motion.

Nothing is so unpleasant as listening for sounds in a dead silence. I
half wished--

Hullo! what was that? Rain on the window! Why can't rain drop straight
instead of tapping at a fellow's window? It sounded like some one
wanting to come in. I knew it was only rain; but supposing it _had_
been somebody--a thief, for instance, or--or--Bubbles come to look after
his legs!

I do not know what evil genius put the thought of Bubbles into my head.
But once in, I could not get it out. Downstairs before the big fire I
had laughed as loud as any one, and been as sure as sure could be that
Fergus's story was all an invention of his fertile imagination. But,
somehow, now that the lights were out, and the fellows all asleep, and
the wind was moaning outside, and I lay sleepless on my bed, it did not
seem so utterly preposterous.

Not that I believed in ghosts. Oh dear no. I hoped I was not such a
fool as that, but supposing--

That rain again at the window! Why couldn't it stop startling a fellow
in that way? Yes, supposing Fergus's story had been founded on fact,
what a dreadful end to a boy Bubbles's end must have been!

"And they do say,"--the words seemed to echo in my ears--"that every
Christmas Eve he re-visits Ferriby, and tries to get down the chimney in
search of his lost legs.