There were two pieces of furniture in the front garret.One,an old stool of the sort that is used to stand a cask of beer on;and the other a great big ricketty straddling old truckle bedstead.In the middle of this bedstead,surrounded by a dim brown waste of sacking,was a kind of little island of poor bedding--an old bolster,with nearly all the feathers out of it,doubled in three for a pillow;a mere shred of patchwork counter-pane,and a blanket;and under that,and peeping out a little on either side beyond the loose clothes,two faded chair cushions of horsehair,laid along together for a sort of makeshift mattress.When Trottle got into the room,the lonely little boy had scrambled up on the bedstead with the help of the beer-stool,and was kneeling on the outer rim of sacking with the shred of counterpane in his hands,just making ready to tuck it in for himself under the chair cushions.
"I'll tuck you up,my man,"says Trottle."Jump into bed,and let me try.""I mean to tuck myself up,"says the poor forlorn child,"and Idon't mean to jump.I mean to crawl,I do--and so I tell you!"With that,he set to work,tucking in the clothes tight all down the sides of the cushions,but leaving them open at the foot.Then,getting up on his knees,and looking hard at Trottle as much as to say,"What do you mean by offering to help such a handy little chap as me?"he began to untie the big shawl for himself,and did it,too,in less than half a minute.Then,doubling the shawl up loose over the foot of the bed,he says,"I say,look here,"and ducks under the clothes,head first,worming his way up and up softly,under the blanket and counterpane,till Trottle saw the top of the large nightcap slowly peep out on the bolster.This over-sized head-gear of the child's had so shoved itself down in the course of his journey to the pillow,under the clothes,that when he got his face fairly out on the bolster,he was all nightcap down to his mouth.He soon freed himself,however,from this slight encumbrance by turning the ends of the cap up gravely to their old place over his eyebrows--looked at Trottle--said,"Snug,ain't it?Good-bye!"--popped his face under the clothes again--and left nothing to be seen of him but the empty peak of the big nightcap standing up sturdily on end in the middle of the bolster.
"What a young limb it is,ain't it?"says Benjamin's mother,giving Trottle a cheerful dig with her elbow."Come on!you won't see no more of him to-night!""And so I tell you!"sings out a shrill,little voice under the bedclothes,chiming in with a playful finish to the old woman's last words.
If Trottle had not been,by this time,positively resolved to follow the wicked secret which accident had mixed him up with,through all its turnings and windings,right on to the end,he would have probably snatched the boy up then and there,and carried him off from his garret prison,bed-clothes and all.As it was,he put a strong check on himself,kept his eye on future possibilities,and allowed Benjamin's mother to lead him down-stairs again.
