A body canna aye be minding. Look
and see not for fun, then."
"Tut, tut!" said the mother, becoming impatient, "can you not begin
at the fifteenth verse? What dos't matter if ye read it before?"
"Aweel, then, the fifteenth verse, 'Now, when he'"--
"Listen, father!" cried Thora, again interrupting, "did you not
hear something?"
"Well did I hear something, and I hear it yet--the rain pelting on
the window. I'm sure you've heard it this two hours and more."
"Nay, but it was like something twirling at the handle of the
door."
"You hear things nobody else hears, Thora. Who could be at the door
on a day like this? You just think you hear things. I was sure
'people' was not the last word."
Carver listened, however, for a time. The rain beat harder than
ever on the windows, and from the neighbouring cliffs came the
sound of the waves like a rumbling of distant thunder. But as he
looked up from his book I knocked gently on the door.
"Who's there?" he asked in a gruff tone that had in it no echo of
charity.
Thora rose from her seat and came towards the door, where I stood
in a stream of water that ran from my wet clothes.
"Oh, Halcro!" she exclaimed as she looked down at my cold, bare
feet and saw the blood issuing from the wound in my ankle. "Oh,
Halcro, what has happened?" and she opened wide the door to admit
me.
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