moral courage
after listening to the horrible tales of the carters in the stable, or
the old women who used to sit under the hedge in the shade, on an armful
of hay, munching their crusts at luncheon time.

The great cavernous place was full of shadows in the brightest summer
day; for the light came only through the chinks in the shutters. These
were flush with the floor and bolted firmly. The silence was intense, it
being so near the roof and so far away from the inhabited parts of the
house. Yet there were sometimes strange acoustical effects--as when
there came a low tapping at the shutters, enough to make your heart
stand still. There was then nothing for it but to dash through the
doorway into the empty cheese-room adjoining, which was better lighted.
No doubt it was nothing but the labourers knocking the stakes in for the
railing round the rickyard, but why did it sound just exactly outside
the shutters? When that ceased the staircase creaked, or the pear-tree
boughs rustled against the window. The staircase always waited till you
had forgotten all about it before the loose worm-eaten planks sprang
back to their place.

Had it not been for the merry whistling of the starlings on the thatch
above, it would not have been possible to face the gloom and the teeth
of Reynard, ever in the act to snap, and the mystic noises, and the
sense of guilt--for the gun was forbidden. Besides which there was the
black mouth of the open trapdoor overhead yawning fearfully--a standing
terror and temptation; for there was a legend of a pair of pistols
thrown up there out of the way--a treasure-trove tempting enough to make
us face anything. But Orion must have the credit of the courage; I call
him Orion because he was a hunter and had a famous dog. The last I heard
of him he had just ridden through a prairie fire, and says the people
out there think nothing of it.

We dragged an ancient linen-press under the trapdoor, and put some boxes
on that, and finally a straight-backed oaken chair. One or two of those
chairs were split up and helped to do the roasting on the kitchen
hearth. So, climbing the pile, we emerged under the rafters, and could
see daylight faintly in several places coming through the starlings'
holes. One or two bats fluttered to and fro as we groped among the
lumber, but no pistols could be discovered; nothing but a cannon-ball,
rusty enough and about as big as an orange, which they say was found in
the wood, where