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Updated: June 27, 2025
In spite of the double disappointment, it was impossible to regard in the light of a failure a visit which was greeted with such a reception; so the sisters talked hopefully about family matters, and about Biler, and about all his brothers and sisters: while the black-eyed, having performed several journeys to Banbury Cross and back, took sharp note of the furniture, the Dutch clock, the cupboard, the castle on the mantel-piece with red and green windows in it, susceptible of illumination by a candle-end within; and the pair of small black velvet kittens, each with a lady's reticule in its mouth; regarded by the Staggs's Gardeners as prodigies of imitative art.
Then we lit our candle-end and ran for shelter, shutting the door of the magazine behind us. It is no joke, my friends, to be among all those tons of powder, with the knowledge that if the flame of the explosion should penetrate through one thin door our blackened limbs would be shot higher than the Castle keep. Who could have believed that a half-inch of candle could take so long to burn?
The last detachment of empty bottles stood or lay about the floor, commingling with boot-jacks, knife-trays, bath-bricks, coat-brushes, candle-end boxes, plates, lanterns, lamp-glasses, oil bottles, corkscrews, wine-strainers the usual miscellaneous appendages of a butler's pantry.
He was dressed like a gentleman, in Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, with a cloth cap upon his head. We watched him staring round with frightened eyes. Then he laid the candle-end upon the table and disappeared from our view into one of the corners. He returned with a large book, one of the logbooks which formed a line upon the shelves.
It was a large parlour, only half furnished, not yet papered, without a carpet, in which it appeared that Mr. Crinkett kept his own belongings. Here he divested himself of his black clothes and put on a suit of miner's garments, real miner's garments, very dirty, with a slouch hat, on the top of which there was a lump of mud in which to stick a candle-end.
Once inside, and feeling out of view of the enemy, I would go round the deserted rooms and lofts by the light of a few matches, and if the house looked as if it would prove of interest, I would return the next night with a candle-end, and make an examination of the whole thing.
An attack of fever, complicated by his wounds, kept Gerrard from all rational conversation for some time, but when he recovered his senses, he thought that it was still the night of the battle. On the roof of the tent brooded the gigantic shadow of Charteris in his shirt-sleeves, writing busily by the usual light of a candle-end stuck into the neck of a bottle. "Bob!" said Gerrard weakly.
She longed to be alone in her own room with the inlaid box, which now assumed a mystery and portent it had never had before, but it was almost midnight before, by the flickering light of a candle-end, she broke it open, smothering the slight sound with the patchwork quilt. She hoped for stationery, but there was none. It contained an old photograph and a letter addressed to Grandmother Starr.
The charred wick of a burnt-out candle was at the bottom of the socket, but a little fragment of wax on the top edge showed that another candle had been stuck in it and had been taken out, for otherwise that fragment would have been melted. I at once thought of the candle-end in the hall, and when I went down again I took that end from the tray and examined it.
Then, gathering up my skirts to deaden their sound, I felt along the wall and crept softly, on tip-toe, so as to take her by surprise. With infinite precautions, I slowly pushed the door open. I first caught sight of a corner of the empty bed, with its white curtains still closed; then of a candle-end burning on the table and of flowers and a broken vase lying on the ground.
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