A MYSTERIOUS CATASTROPHE. 399 



passage which led into ray uncle's study, the door of which we 

 then heard close after him. " He might have left it open, at 

 any rate/' said Mrs. Dove, with a look of fluttering wonder- 

 ment. Then all \vere silent, and, in momentary expectation of 

 Mr. Caligraph's return, minutes went on till they made up 

 perhaps a quarter of an hour but no Caleb re-appeared. 

 What on earth could he be about ? I would have gone to see, 

 but an imploring look from Dolly kept me back, till, thump ! 

 came the sound as of a heavy fall in the direction of the 

 library. We all three started to our feet, and Dolly was the 

 first to reach the kitchen door ; there, however, she hung back, 

 and, holding Lucy back by the hand too, followed me, bearing 

 the candle, up the stairs. 



The book-room door was shut, and something within ob- 

 structed its opening. Open it we however did, wide enough 

 to gain admittance, and then, on the floor behind, found 

 extended the prostrate length of Caleb. Dolly's fears took at 

 the sight a new turn ; she held the candle with a trembling 

 hand over the features of her old fellow-servant, fixed now in 

 even more than usual rigidity ; but when by their scrutiny she 

 had ascertained that nothing serious, in the way at least of 

 bodily disorder, had overtaken him, she drew from that tra- 

 velling dispensary, her ample pocket, some pungent restorer of 

 the wandering senses, and plied it assiduously till Caleb opened 

 his ink-blot eyes, and, with recollection still at fault, recovered 

 slowly sufficient of corporeal energy to rise from his recum- 



