I
had done my work too well for any large piece to give
way. But the moment I looked into my coal-bin I saw that
something was amiss. I did not like very well to go
to the outside, but I must risk something; so I took out
a dark lantern which I always kept ready. Sure enough,
as I say, the fellow had struck so hard and so well that
he had split out a piece of board, and a little coal even
had fallen upon the passage-way. I was not much
displeased at this, for if he thought no nearer the truth
than that he had broken into a coal-bin of the church,
why, he was far enough from his mark for me. After
finding this, however, I was anxious enough, lest any of
them should return, not to go to bed again that night;
but all was still as death, and, to tell the truth, I
fell asleep in my chair. I doubt whether my mother
slept, or her frightened charge.
I was at work in the passage early the next morning
with some weather-stained boards I had, and before nine
o'clock I had doubled all that piece of fence, from my
wing where my hand-cart was to the church, and I had
spiked the new boards on, which looked like old boards,
as I said, with tenpenny nails; so that he would be a
stout burglar who would cut through them unless he had
tools for his purpose and daylight to work by. As I was
gathering up my tools to go in, a coarse, brutal-looking
Irishman came walking up the alley and looked round.
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