A Busy Year at the Old Squire's

by C. A. Stephens

"Going to smash that?" I asked.

"No, going to sleep in it," said he. "We'll set it up slantwise before the fire, open the doors and lie down in it. I've a notion that it will keep us warm, even if it isn't very soft."

The wardrobe was about four feet wide, and, after propping up the top end at an easy slant, we lay down in it, and took turns getting up to replenish the blaze in the oven. It was not wholly uncomfortable; but any sense of ease that I had begun to feel was banished by a suspicion that Addison now confided to me.

"I don't certainly know what place this is," he said, "but I'm beginning to think that it must be the old Jim Cronin farm. I've heard that it's over in this vicinity, away off in the woods by itself. If that's so," Addison went on, "nobody has lived here for eight or nine years. Cronin, you know, kept his wife shut up down cellar for a year or two, because she tried to run away from him. Finally she disappeared, and a good many thought that Cronin murdered her. Folks say the old house is haunted, but that's all moonshine. Cronin himself enlisted and was killed in the Civil War. By the way those owls carry on up the chimney I guess nobody ever comes here."

That account quite destroyed my peace of mind. I would much rather have gone out with the sheep, but I did not like to leave Addison. I got up and searched for more fuel, for I could not bear to think of letting the fire go out. No loose boards remained except an old cleated door partly off its hinges, which opened on a flight of dark stairs that led into the cellar. We broke up the door and took turns again tending the fire.

"Oh, well, this isn't so bad," Addison said. "But I wonder what the old Squire will think when he gets to Morey's place with the team and finds that we haven't come. Hope he isn't out looking for us in the storm."

That thought was disquieting; but there was nothing we could do about it, and so we resigned ourselves to pass the night as best we could. The owls still hooted and chortled at times, but their noise did not greatly disturb us now. After a while I dropped off to sleep, and I guess Addison did, too.

It was probably well toward morning when a cry like a loud shriek brought me to my feet outside the old wardrobe! A single dying ember flickered in the oven. Addison, too, was on his feet, with his eyes very wide and round.

"I say!" he whispered. "What was that?"

Before I could speak we heard it again; but this time, now that we were awake, it sounded less like a human shriek than the shrill yelp of an animal. The sounds came from directly under us; and for the instant all I could think of was Cronin's murdered wife!