The storm will make us both
sleep all the better."
"Good night, Mr. John," said Julie.
"Good night. Miss Julie."
Once more the stern face of Suzanne softened under a smile, but she and
her charge marched briskly away, and left John alone before the fire. He
had decided that he would not sleep upstairs, but would occupy the
gunroom from which a window looked out upon the front of the house.
There he made himself a bed with blankets and pillows that he brought
from above and lay down amid arms.
The gunroom was certainly well stocked. It held repeating rifles and
fowling-pieces, large and small, and revolvers. One big breech-loader
had the weight of an elephant rifle, and there were also swords,
bayonets and weapons of ancient type. But John looked longest at the
big rifle. He felt that if need be he could hold the lodge against
almost anything except cannon.
"It's the first time I ever had a whole armory to myself," he said,
looking around proudly at the noble array.
But he was quite sure that no one could come for days except Muller, and
the mystery of the forester's absence again troubled him, although not
very long. Another look at the driving snow, and, wrapping himself in
his blankets, he fell asleep to the music of the storm. John awoke once
far in the night, and his sense of comfort, as he lay between the
blankets on the sofa that he had dragged into the gunroom, was so great
that he merely luxuriated there for a little while and listened to the
roar of the storm, which he could yet hear, despite the thickness of the
walls.
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