"'Chickamy, chickamy, crainey crow, went to the well to wash her toe! When she came back her chickens were all gone.' What time is it, old Witch?" murmured Madge, giving Phil's skirt a wicked pull. Phil fell back, almost upsetting Miss Betsey, who clutched feverishly at David's coatsleeve.
"What on earth happened to you, child?" she asked tremulously.
"It was that good-for-nothing Madge's fault," laughed Phyllis.
No one of the party took the first part of their ghost hunt seriously, but when David reported that the hour was growing late, and that it was now time for them to enter the old house, a different feeling stole over each one of them—a kind of curious foreboding of evil, or unhappiness, or some unexplainable mystery.
"Let's give up and go back, Madge," proposed Phyllis. "The old house is so musty, dark and horrible that it is sure to have rats in it, if nothing worse. I feel that it would be better for all of us not to go in. Suppose we should see something queer? What could we do?"
"Phyllis Alden, the very idea of your suggesting that we turn 'quitters'!" expostulated Madge. "Do you suppose we could face Miss Jenny Ann and the girls if we retreat before we even know there is an enemy? Come on, Miss Betsey; you and I will go on ahead. Let Phil come with David if she likes."
Madge danced up the old, tumbled-down veranda steps, guided by the rays of her lantern. Each one of the women had relit her lantern to enter the deserted house. Once inside they might put them out again. But who could tell what they might stumble against in a house that was supposed never to have been entered in nearly forty years?
Madge pushed at the front door, which hung by a broken hinge, and drew Miss Betsey in after her. "Oh, dear me, isn't it awful?" she whispered.
Not one of the ghost party had spoken in an ordinary voice since the start of their adventure. Somehow their errand, the darkness of the night and their own feelings made whispered tones seem more appropriate.
The four explorers gazed silently at the sight that Madge described as "awful." They had expected to find the "ha'nted house" empty of furniture. Yet in the broad hall there was an open fireplace. On either side of it were great oak arm-chairs. Spider webs hung in beautiful silver festoons from the mantel, with their many-legged spinners caught in their mesh. Gray mice, lean and terrified, scuttled across the dusty floor. A bat flapped blindly overhead.