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A Rough Shaking by George MacDonald
page 173 of 412 (41%)
thought.

He had no inclination to punish Tommy for the trick he had played him;
he had but done after his kind! It would serve a good end too: Tommy
would imagine him lurking about to have his revenge, and would not
venture his nose out. He discovered afterward that the little wretch
had made fast the cellar-door, so that, if he had entered that way, he
would have been caught in a trap, and unable to go or return.

He got the iron roller to the foot of the wall, where he had come over
the night before, and where now first he perceived there had once been
a door; managed, with its broken handle for a lever, to set it up on
end, filled it with earth, and heaped a mound of earth about it to
steady it, placed a few broken tiles and sherds of chimney-pots upon
it, and from this rickety perch found he could reach the top easily.

The next thing was to arrange for getting up from the other side. For
this he threw over earth and stones and whatever rubbish came to his
hand, the sole quality required in his material being, that it should
serve to lift him any fraction of an inch higher. The space was so
narrow that his mound did not require to be sustained by the width of
its base except in one direction; everywhere else the walls kept in
the heap, and he made good speed. At length he descended by it, sure
of being able to get up again.

He had been gone an hour before Tommy dared again leave the room where
the baby was. He had planned what to do if Clare got into it: he would
threaten, if he came a step nearer, to kill the baby! But if he had
him in the coal-cellar, he would make his own conditions! A tramp
would not keep a promise, but Clare would! and until he promised not
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