The sun had long
deserted him before he got behind it.
"I wad sair like to brak throu the buirds, father?" he said, going
again to the laird.
"Onything ye like, I tell ye, laddie! I'm growin' curious mysel',"
he answered.
"I'm feart for makin' ower muckle din, father."
"Nae fear, nae fear! I haena a sair heid. The Lord be praist,
that's a thing I'm seldom triblet wi'. Gang an' get ye what tools
ye want, an' gang at it, an' dinna spare. Gien the hole sud lat in
the win', ye'll mar nae mair, I'm thinkin', nor ye'll be able to
mak again. What timmer is 't o'?"
"Only deal, sae far as I can judge."
Cosmo went and fetched his tool-basket, and set to work. The
partition was strong, of good sound pine, neither rotton nor
worm-eaten--inch-boards matched with groove and tongue, not quite
easy to break through. But having, with a centre-bit and brace,
bored several holes near each other, he knocked out the pieces
between, and introducing a saw, soon made an opening large enough
to creep through. A cold air met him. as if from a cellar, and on
the other side he seemed in another climate.
Feeling with his hands, for there was scarcely any light, he
discovered that the space he had entered was not a closet, inasmuch
as there was no shelf, or anything in it, whatever. It was
certainly most like the end of a deserted passage. His feet told
him the floor was of wood, and his hands that the walls were of
rough stone without plaster, cold and damp.
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