“This won’t do,” he said; “I must keep cool. A child would get the better of me while I am like this; and I mustn’t forget I’ve got to face that wooden-faced woodman. Courage, my boy, courage!”
And with a resolute front he stepped into the clearing.
Yes, there was the cottage, but why on earth were the shutters up.
With a strange misgiving he walked up to the door and knocked.
There was no answer. He knocked again and again—still no answer.
Then he stepped back and looked up at the chimney. There was no smoky trail rising through the trees. He listened—there was no sound. His heart sank and sank till he felt as if it had entered his boots.
With a kind of desperate hope he knelt on the window-sill and looked through a hole in the shutter into the room.
It was bare of furniture—empty, desolate.
He got down again and looked about him like one who, having buried a treasure, goes to the spot and finds that it has gone.
Gone—that was the word—and no sign!