'
I read the name; and Mrs. Rusk was tolerably expert at finding out books,
as she had often been employed in that way before. So she departed.
I suppose that this particular volume was hard to find, for she must have
been a long time away, and I had actually fallen into a doze when I was
roused in an instant by a dreadful crash and a piercing scream from Mrs.
Rusk. Scream followed scream, wilder and more terror-stricken. I shrieked
to Mary Quince, who was sleeping in the room with me:--'Mary, do you hear?
what is it? It is something dreadful.'
The crash was so tremendous that the solid flooring even of my room
trembled under it, and to me it seemed as if some heavy man had burst
through the top of the window, and shook the whole house with his descent.
I found myself standing at my own door, crying, 'Help, help! murder!
murder!' and Mary Quince, frightened half out of her wits, by my side.
I could not think what was going on. It was plainly something most
horrible, for Mrs. Rusk's screams pealed one after the other unabated,
though with a muffled sound, as if the door was shut upon her; and by this
time the bells of my father's room were ringing madly.
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