After his harassing journey in the cars, on a zigzag, cross-country route, during which he had had to change trains several times, and twice to wait hours for the connection, he felt it as a sort of relief to walk, to stretch his limbs along a direct road, on this dark, wintry, but bracing night. The wind was in his back, too, and rather helped than impeded his progress.
An hour’s rapid walk, up and down hill, through woods, and across streams rudely bridged by logs, brought him in sight of Lone Lodge. Lights glanced between red curtains of the lower windows, showing that the family had not yet retired.
But it was not to the house of his forefathers that he was going. Before he reached the acacia avenue, leading up to the front of it, he turned to the left and followed a little path down the wooded hill that brought him to the edge of the narrow, singing stream that ran half around the hut.
He crossed it, and looked at the humble cot which had been his mother’s shelter ever since the loss of their home and fortune.
There was a dim light shining through the little window of the kitchen, but none through that of his mother’s room. It struck him as strange and ill-omened, and now, as he came nearer, he saw that there was something the matter with the roof of the house, he could not see what.
Full of misgiving, he went and rapped at the door.
A frightened voice answered him:
“Now, who dar? Wot yo’ want dis time ob night? I got gun! ’Deed is I! I shoot! ’deed will I!”
“It is I, Martha! Open the door and let me in! How is mother?” called Harcourt impatiently.
Open flew the door, disclosing Martha’s tall figure and astonished face. Before she could speak, Harcourt repeated his question: