Perhaps some of
my readers may wonder that he could go to sleep with such an
expectation; and, indeed, if I had not known him, I should have
wondered at it myself; but it was one of his peculiarities, and
seemed nothing strange in him. He was so full of quietness that
he could go to sleep almost any time, if he only composed
himself and let the sleep come. This time he went fast asleep as
usual.
But he woke in the dim blue night. The moon had vanished.
He thought he heard a knocking at his door. "Somebody wants me,"
he said to himself, and jumping out of bed, ran to open it.
But there was no one there. He closed it again, and, the
noise still continuing, found that another door in the room was
rattling. It belonged to a closet, he thought, but he had never
been able to open it. The wind blowing in at the window must be
shaking it. He would go and see if it was so.
The door now opened quite easily, but to his surprise,
instead of a closet he found a long narrow room. The moon, which
was sinking in the west, shone in at an open window at the
further end. The room was low with a coved ceiling, and occupied
the whole top of the house, immediately under the roof. It was
quite empty. The yellow light of the half-moon streamed over the
dark floor.
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