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There were sounds in the cabin: wet wood sweating on hot coals; a step that went to and fro. Outside, a snow-weighted bough let go its load and sprang up, scraping against the logs. Some heavy soft thing slid off the roof and dropped with a chug.
"A' richt," said Robert, as he looked at the narrow platform, with its weak, inadequate railing, which could hardly prevent anyone from falling down on to the wagon track, some fifteen or twenty feet below on one side, or on to the moving "scree" on the other. "Weel, mind an' no' let any stanes gang past, for there are aye complaints comin' in aboot dirty coals.
"As I look into the fire, and the hot coals shape themselves into a thousand memories of the past, I seem to be staring with childish eyes at a board that stares back at me out of a larch plantation, and gives notice that 'This House is to Let. Then, again, I seem to peep through rusty iron gates at the house itself an old red house, with large windows, through which one could see the white shutters that were always closed.
He rattled the dampers, opened them, and then, with a side glance at his cousin, pulled the paper from within the breast of his jacket and thrust it in upon the black coals before he closed the stove door. "Where's the New York paper, Marty?" Janice was asking, as she arranged the Montpelier and the Albany papers on their files. "Didn't come," grunted Marty, and picked up the empty coal hod.
The first thing we want is a good fire; I'll see to that I always know where to find things. So this is the parlour? Splendid! Your own idea, those little sleeping-bunks in the wall? Capital! Now, I'll fetch the wood and the coals, and you get a duster, Mole you'll find one in the drawer of the kitchen table and try and smarten things up a bit. Bustle about, old chap!"
'Money! said Lady Helen impulsively, her looks warm with sympathy for the pale, harassed young rector. 'Sir Harry shall send you as much as you want. And anything else blankets coals? Out came her notebooks and Robert was drawn into a list.
The boys looked at each other. Neither spoke. Tommy turned to the bellows, and began to blow. "Ain't you warm yet?" said Clare, who had seen his mother careful over the coals. "No, I ain't. I want a blaze." "Leave the fire alone. The coal is the smith's, and he told us not to waste it." "He ain't no count!" said Tommy, as heartless as any grown man or woman set on pleasure.
The servant was directed to close the door. "Are you cold?" I asked. "No." He reconsidered that brief answer, and contradicted himself. "Yes the library fire has burned low, I suppose." In my position at the table, I had seen the fire: the grate was heaped with blazing coals and wood. I said nothing.
Three assailants crept toward him, and his position was such that two at least could assail him front and rear. He counted on that, and measured their approach with pale cheek but glittering eye, and thrust his shovel deep into the white coals. They crept nearer and nearer, and, at last, made an almost simultaneous rush on him back and front.
The landlord poked the fire as if, in his desire to make the most of his answer, he had become indifferent even to the price of coals; and putting his hands in his pockets, said, after inflating himself to give still further effect to his reply: 'That, gentlemen, is the great Mr Pecksniff! The celebrated architect, gentlemen!
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