Fiction > Book editions > London, 1886 - Kidnapped

32                                      KIDNAPPED.
reasonable degree, and then waited, looking for some
monstrous demand. And yet, when at last he plucked
up courage to speak, it was only to tell me (very
properly, as I thought) that he was growing old and a
little broken, and that he would expect me to help him
with the house and the bit garden.
I answered, and expressed my readiness to serve.
"Well," he said, "let's begin." He pulled out of
his pocket a rusty key. "There," says he, "there's the
key of the stair-tower at the far end of the house. Ye
can only win into it from the outside, for that part of
the house is no finished. Gang ye in there, and up the
stairs, and bring me down the chest that's at the top.
There's papers in't," he added.
"Can I have a light, sir?" said I.
"Na," said he, very cunningly. "Nae lights in my
house."
"Very well, sir," said I.    "Are the stairs good?"
"They're grand," said he; and then as I was going,
"Keep to the wall," he added; "there's nae ban-
nisters. But the stairs are grand under foot."
Out I went into the night. The wind was still
moaning in the distance, though never a breath of it
came near the house of Shaws. It had fallen blacker
than ever; and I was glad to feel along the wall, till I
came the length of the stair-tower door at the far end
of the unfinished wing. I had got the key into the
keyhole and had just turned it, when all upon a sudden,
without sound of wind or thunder, the whole sky