While the boy was gone, Nann confided merrily, “There now, Dories Moore, you’ve been wishing for an adventure, and here is one all ready made and waiting. Pray, what could be more thrilling than an old ruin surrounded by an uncrossable swamp and a mysterious light which appears at midnight?”
The boy returned with an armful of logs left over from the supply of a previous summer. “Gib,” Nann addressed him in her friendliest fashion, “may we call you that? Gibralter is so long. I’d like to visit your ruin and inspect the ghost in his lair. Really and truly, isn’t there any way to reach the place?”
The boy looked as though he had a secret which he did not care to reveal. “Well, maybe there is, and maybe there isn’t,” he said uncommittedly. Then, with a brightening expression in his red-brown eyes, “Anyway, I’ll show you the old ruin if yo’ll meet me at sun-up tomorrow mornin’ out at the pint o’ rocks.”
“I’m game,” Nann said gleefully. “It sounds interesting to me all right. How about you, Dori?”
“O, I’m quite willing to see the place from a distance,” the other replied, “but nothing could induce me to go very near it.” Neither of the girls thought of asking the advice of their elderly hostess, who, at that very moment, appeared around a corner of the cabin to inquire why it was taking such an endless time to open up the cottage. Luckily Gib had started a fire in the kitchen stove, which partly mollified the woman’s wrath. After bringing in the bags and supplies, the boy took his departure, and they could hear him whistling as he drove away through the fog.
CHAPTER V.
A NEW EXPERIENCE
With the closing in of the fog, twilight settled about the cabin. The old woman, still in her black bonnet with the veil thrown back, drew a wooden armed chair close to the stove and held her hands out toward the warmth. “Open up the box of supplies, Dories,” she commanded, “and get out some candles. Then you can fill a hot-water bottle for me and I’ll go right to bed. No use making a fire in the front room until tomorrow. You girls are to sleep upstairs. You’ll find bedding in a bureau up there. It may be damp, but you’re young. It won’t hurt you any.”
Dories, having opened up the box of supplies, removed each article, placing it on the table. At the very bottom she found a note scribbled on a piece of wrapping paper: “Out of candles. Send some tomorrer.”
Miss Moore sat up ramrod-straight, her sharp gray eyes narrowing angrily. “If that isn’t just like that shiftless, good-for-nothing Simon Strait. How did he suppose we could get on without light? I wish now I had ordered kerosene, but I thought, just at first, that candles would do.” In the dusk Nann had been looking about the kitchen. On a shelf she saw a lantern and two glass lamps. “O, Miss Moore!” she exclaimed, “Don’t you think maybe there might be oil in one of those lamps?”
“No, I don’t,” the old woman replied. “I always had my maid empty them the last thing for fear of fire.” Nann, standing on a chair, had taken down the lantern. Her face brightened. “I hear a swish,” she said hopefully, “and so it must be oil.” With a piece of wrapping paper she wiped off the dust while Dories brought forth a box of matches.