roaming and to the contraband.

'So understand', she went on, 'that I will not have you out again this
evening, no, nor any other evening, after dusk. Bed is the place for
youth when night falls, but if this seem to you too early you can sit
with me for an hour in the parlour, and I will read you a discourse of
Doctor Sherlock that will banish vain thoughts, and leave you in a fit
frame for quiet sleep.'

So she led the way into the parlour, took the book from the shelf, put it
on the table within the little circle of light cast by a shaded candle,
and began. It was dull enough, though I had borne such tribulations
before, and the drone of my aunt's voice would have sent me to sleep, as
it had done at other times, even in a straight-backed chair, had I not
been so full of my discovery, and chafed at this delay. Thus all the time
my aunt read of spiritualities and saving grace, I had my mind on
diamonds and all kinds of mammon, for I never doubted that Blackbeard's
treasure would be found at the end of that secret passage. The sermon
finished at last, and my aunt closed the book with a stiff 'good night'
for me. I was for giving her my formal kiss, but she made as if she did
not see me and turned away; so we went upstairs each to our own room, and
I never kissed Aunt Jane again.

There was a moon three-quarters full, already in the sky, and on
moonlight nights I was allowed no candle to show me to bed. But on that
night I needed none, for I never took off my clothes, having resolved to
wait till my aunt was asleep, and then, ghosts or no ghosts, to make my
way back to the churchyard. I did not dare to put off that visit even
till the morning, lest some chance passer-by should light upon the hole,
and so forestall me with Blackbeard's treasure.

Thus I lay wide awake on my bed watching the shadow of the tester-post
against the whitewashed wall, and noting how it had moved, by degrees, as
the moon went farther round. At last, just as it touched the picture of
the Good Shepherd which hung over the mantelpiece, I heard my aunt
snoring in her room, and knew that I was free. Yet I waited a few minutes
so that she might get well on with her first sleep, and then took off my
boots, and in stockinged feet slipped past her room and down the stairs.
How stair, handrail, and landing creaked that night, and how my feet and
body struck noisily against things seen quite well but misjudged in the
effort not to misjudge them! And yet