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Updated: May 24, 2025
The sun was pouring through the uncurtained dormer-window of my room under the roof. And in the sunlight, looking his best in knickerbockers, as only thin men do, with face greased against wind and glare, and blue spectacles in rest upon an Alpine wideawake, stood the lad who had taken his share in keeping me awake. "I'm awfully sorry," he began.
It was a charming sight to watch the motions of her tiny fingers as she pursued her task; and though the posture she adopted was not the most favourable that might have been chosen for the display of her sylphlike figure, there was something in her attitude, and the glow of her countenance, lighted up by the mellow radiance of the setting sun falling upon her through the panes of the little dormer-window, that seemed to the youth inexpressibly beautiful.
They recognized the house by an old walnut-tree which shaded it. Low, and covered with brown tiles, outside it hung, beneath the dormer-window of the garret, a string of onions. Faggots upright against a thorn fence surrounded a bed of lettuces, a few square feet of lavender, and sweet peas strung on sticks.
All the doors and windows in the house are closed, except a single dormer-window in the roof. The men, shut up in the house, hew and slash with their swords right and left to the clash of gongs and the rub-a-dub of drums. Terrified at this onslaught, the devils escape by the dormer-window, and sliding down the rope of palm-leaves take themselves off.
He was so thoroughly vexed by the time when the dormer-window of the loft was suddenly flung open, that he did not observe the apparition of three laughing faces, pink and white and chubby, but as vulgar as the face of Commerce as it is seen in sculpture on certain monuments.
It obtains it from outside by means of the aperture which it has taken the precaution of contriving in the side of its building, a narrow dormer-window just large enough to allow its slender neck to pass. When the store has been taken in, this accessory orifice, which is used only during the last few moments, is closed with a mouthful of mortar, thrust outward from within.
A few steps brought them to the terrace, and there, standing by the west wall and looking up at the closed slats of the dormer-window, Captain Chester retold the story of his night-adventure. Armitage listened attentively, asking few questions. When it was finished, the latter turned and walked to the rear door, which opened on the terrace. It was locked.
Next day was Sunday, and chiefly, I am afraid, because there was neither blind nor curtain to my dormer-window, and the morning sun streamed full upon my pillow, I got up and went to early service in the little tin Protestant Church. It was wonderfully well attended. Quinby was there, a head taller than anybody else, and some sizes smaller in heads.
His study-desk near by, strewn with papers and books, the white bed and bookcase farther off, pictures and mottoes of his own selection on the white walls, a little altar in the depths of the dormer-window; and the lord of the little domain in the foreground, hands on knees, lips parted, cheeks flushed, eyes fixed and dreamy, seeing the rich colors and varied action as soon as words conveyed the story to the ear; a perfect picture of the listening boy, to whom experience like a wandering minstrel sings the glory of the future in the happenings of the past.
Any creature less silent, or in point of movement less soothing to the eye than a cat, would have been torture of the spirit. As it was, this little piece of action contented me so well, that I left every thing else out of my reverie, and could only think how deliciously the cat harmonized with the snow-covered tiles, the chimney-pot, and the dormer-window.
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