The Light in the Window, by G. B. Colby.

The Light in the Window,
Strangely Enough, G. B. Colby.

On a train going through Canada one night, some of us were sitting up pretty late telling yarns. One of the chaps in the party told this story:

A friend of his who lived in Ontario became fasci- nated with an old painting he saw in a dingy little store. The picture was of a castle on a hilltop. The scene was dark and gloomy and every window in the castle was dark except for a small one high in a stone tower. The man wondered why anyone would paint a castle with a light in just one window. Was there a story behind it? He bought the painting and hung it in his home, but all he could learn was that it de- picted a castle in Scotland. There was neither signa- ture nor date.

One day, as he was cleaning the painting, he found a few Latin words in a corner. He asked a friend to translate the words for him, and learned that they meant "Every century it will be dark." But this in- scription made little sense to either of them, and so it was soon forgotten. The painting hung in the man's home for many years, and his children took pleasure in speculating about why the window was lighted and who had lived up there in the tower. It was quite a source of conversation for many years, but it was to become even more so.

One evening the owner of the painting was telling some guests about how he had acquired it and all the questions surrounding its background and meaning. The guests wanted to see this unusual and mysterious piece of art, so they all trooped into the hall where it hung. Imagine their astonishment and the consterna- tion of their host to see that, on the painting, the window in the tower was dark!

They examined the painting and were further as- tonished to see that the black paint on the once light yellow window was as old and cracked as the paint on the rest of the picture. There were no signs that it had ever been different, let alone bright yellow.

After the guests had gone, the embarrassed host un- successfully tried to find a solution to the puzzle. The next morning he returned to the painting and felt his skin crawl - for again the window in the tower was lighted. Then he thought of the Latin inscription, "Every century it will be dark." He made a note of the date and began a serious search into Scottish history. Eventually these facts were uncovered: The castle had been the home of an evil character who had two sons. He hated the elder son and kept him locked in the tower, while his younger son had all the wealth and pleasures he could give him. Exactly five hundred years before the night when the painted window was dark, the imprisoned elder son had died in the little room high in the tower.