Alas! the door was fast shut and barred, the windows were shuttered, and through a small peephole in a broken shutter, she saw that the inside of the house was empty and unfurnished.
Slowly and reluctantly she turned away; then, seeing a side path near the house, she ran along it, wondering if the back of the house would prove more cheerful than the front. She found a side door, and to her joy, as she turned the handle and pushed, it yielded to her touch. The next moment, she was inside a long wide passage. It was light, and looking up, she saw there was a big glass dome high up in the centre. Rather fearfully she made her way along, till she reached the centre hall. A great staircase wound up to a gallery round it. She was just mounting the stairs, when she suddenly heard a man's laugh.
Now she was frightened. Into her brain rushed stories of ogres, giants, burglars, and criminals. Panic seized her; she fled back along the passage, missed her way, got into another part of the house, and could not find an open door anywhere. Then she screamed. It seemed like some hideous nightmare. She beat and kicked against a door with her hands and feet. The horrible thought came to her that she had been purposely locked in, and that some wicked man would come and kill her.
Suddenly, from behind, a big hand laid hold of her shoulder. She screamed louder than ever in real terror, and then she turned to confront Tom Triggs, and to hear him say with a little gasp of bewilderment:
"Why, I'm blest if it ain't little missy!"
She clung to him in a tempest of sobs.
"Oh, take me out! Dear Tom, save me! Where am I?"
The next moment a door was opened and she was in the fresh air, with the sun shining and the birds singing, and Chris still calmly munching the grass a little distance off. It took some minutes to soothe and calm her, but Tom did it. He was in his working clothes, with his carpenter's apron on, and looked strangely out of place in this great empty house.
"It's the funniest thing out that you should have come straight to the very house I'm workin' at. Me and my mates were havin' our breakfast in the back yard. We are doin' repairs to the stables, and all on a sudden we heard a scream, and it seemed to come from inside the house, an' I come along to find out whether it be a ghost or a h'owl, and then I catches sight of you a-beatin' your fists against a door. Now, do you just tell me what has brought you here. Did you come to find out whether good-for-nothing Tom were keeping off the drink?"
Harebell smiled through her tears, but she kept a tight clutch of Tom's hand.