"Do you hear that,Benjamin?"says the old woman."He's at it again,even in the dark,ain't he?P'raps you'd like to see him,sir!"says she,turning on Trottle,and poking her grinning face close to him."Only name it;only say if you'd like to see him before we do our little bit of business--and I'll show good Forley's friend up-stairs,just as if he was good Mr.Forley himself.MYlegs are all right,whatever Benjamin's may be.I get younger and younger,and stronger and stronger,and jollier and jollier,every day--that's what I do!Don't mind the stairs on my account,sir,if you'd like to see him.""Him?"Trottle wondered whether "him"meant a man,or a boy,or a domestic animal of the male species.Whatever it meant,here was a chance of putting off that uncomfortable give-and-take-business,and,better still,a chance perhaps of finding out one of the secrets of the mysterious House.Trottle's spirits began to rise again and he said "Yes,"directly,with the confidence of a man who knew all about it.
Benjamin's mother took the candle at once,and lighted Trottle briskly to the stairs;and Benjamin himself tried to follow as usual.But getting up several flights of stairs,even helped by the bannisters,was more,with his particular complaint,than he seemed to feel himself inclined to venture on.He sat down obstinately on the lowest step,with his head against the wall,and the tails of his big great-coat spreading out magnificently on the stairs behind him and above him,like a dirty imitation of a court lady's train.
"Don't sit there,dear,"says his affectionate mother,stopping to snuff the candle on the first landing.
"I shall sit here,"says Benjamin,agravating to the last,"till the milk comes in the morning."The cheerful old woman went on nimbly up the stairs to the first floor,and Trottle followed,with his eyes and ears wide open.He had seen nothing out of the common in the front-parlour,or up the staircase,so far.The House was dirty and dreary and close-smelling--but there was nothing about it to excite the least curiosity,except the faint scraping sound,which was now beginning to get a little clearer--though still not at all loud--as Trottle followed his leader up the stairs to the second floor.
Nothing on the second-floor landing,but cobwebs above and bits of broken plaster below,cracked off from the ceiling.Benjamin's mother was not a bit out of breath,and looked all ready to go to the top of the monument if necessary.The faint scraping sound had got a little clearer still;but Trottle was no nearer to guessing what it might be,than when he first heard it in the parlour downstairs.
On the third,and last,floor,there were two doors;one,which was shut,leading into the front garret;and one,which was ajar,leading into the back garret.There was a loft in the ceiling above the landing;but the cobwebs all over it vouched sufficiently for its not having been opened for some little time.The scraping noise,plainer than ever here,sounded on the other side of the back garret door;and,to Trottle's great relief,that was precisely the door which the cheerful old woman now pushed open.
Trottle followed her in;and,for once in his life,at any rate,was struck dumb with amazement,at the sight which the inside of the room revealed to him.
The garret was absolutely empty of everything in the shape of furniture.It must have been used at one time or other,by somebody engaged in a profession or a trade which required for the practice of it a great deal of light;for the one window in the room,which looked out on a wide open space at the back of the house,was three or four times as large,every way,as a garret-window usually is.
Close under this window,kneeling on the bare boards with his face to the door,there appeared,of all the creatures in the world to see alone at such a place and at such a time,a mere mite of a child--a little,lonely,wizen,strangely-clad boy,who could not at the most,have been more than five years old.He had a greasy old blue shawl crossed over his breast,and rolled up,to keep the ends from the ground,into a great big lump on his back.A strip of something which looked like the remains of a woman's flannel petticoat,showed itself under the shawl,and,below that again,a pair of rusty black stockings,worlds too large for him,covered his legs and his shoeless feet.A pair of old clumsy muffetees,which had worked themselves up on his little frail red arms to the elbows,and a big cotton nightcap that had dropped down to his very eyebrows,finished off the strange dress which the poor little man seemed not half big enough to fill out,and not near strong enough to walk about in.
But there was something to see even more extraordinary than the clothes the child was swaddled up in,and that was the game which he was playing at,all by himself;and which,moreover,explained in the most unexpected manner the faint scraping noise that had found its way down-stairs,through the half-opened door,in the silence of the empty house.
