CHAPTER XIV

BEN

   

T would have been a loud sound which
would have awakened them during
those deep sleeping hours of the night.
They did not even stir on their poor
pillows, when long after midnight there was the noise
of heavy, drunken footsteps and heavy, drunken
stumbling in the passage below, and then the raising
of a man’s rough voice, and the upsetting of chairs
and the slamming of doors, mingled with the ex-
postulations of the woman, whose husband had come
home in something even worse than his frequent ill
fashion. They slept sweetly through it all; but
when the morning came, and hours of unbroken
rest had made their slumber lighter, and the sun-
shine streamed in through the broken windows,
they were called back to the world by loud and
angry sounds.

“What is it?” said Meg, sitting bolt upright and

rubbing her eyes. “Somebody’s shouting.”
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