[Sir Ludar by Talbot Baines Reed]@TWC D-Link book
Sir Ludar

CHAPTER TWO
9/17

I lifted the door cautiously about an inch and peeped below.
The cellar--for cellar it was--was bright with the light of a lamp, by which I could plainly discern my master (or, as I believed for a moment, my master's ghost), with coat off, and sweating with the heat of the place, working like any journeyman at a printing-press, on which lay a forme of type, which he inked with his balls and struck off in print with the noises which had perplexed me above.
Then I pulled up the trap and called out: "Master Walgrave, spare yourself so much toil, I pray you, and let me help you." He turned round, with a face the colour of dough, like a man who had just received an arrow in his vitals; then he rushed as if to put out the lamp.

But his presence of mind returned before he got that length, and he demanded of me angrily enough how I dared to play the spy on him and come where I was not bidden.
I replied I was no spy, and, as for coming where I was not bidden, had I known who it was down there I would have stayed where I was.

But, being there, might I help him, I asked, at the work?
He answered angrily, "No," and bade me begone.

Whereupon I returned to my case, and waited till he should come up to the earth's surface.
Meanwhile I recalled not a few rumours I had heard about Master Walgrave.

One was, that, though he was only licenced to have one press, and seemed to have no more, yet (it was whispered of some), he had another in hiding, which now I found to be true.


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