"We do not know. We do not go there. Two years ago a young man from this village went there seeking a sheep which had gone astray. He never came back. And the sheep skin was found some days later at the foot of the precipice. And scarcely a month ago, a venturesome young man from Bartfa climbed the road to the castle in the dead of night on a wager. What he saw no one will ever know, for he came running down the road to his companion stricken with terror, and has never spoken of the matter from that day to this. It was a ghost he saw, they say——"
"Or a devil," put in the old man.
"And by day? You see no one?"
"The Schloss is well within the gorge. I do not go to look, my friend."
"Have there been no lights at night for three years?"
"None that I remember—until now."
"Then it is only for a month or more that they have been seen?"
"Perhaps. I do not know."
The man was growing reticent and his family followed his example. The character of the occupants of Szolnok was not a popular topic for conversation in Dukla Valley. But this man could help Renwick, and he determined to use him. And so as the woman bade him good night and went upstairs, Renwick rose and went to the door, where the old man followed him.
"It is late, my friend," he said, "and a weary walk for me to Bartfa. I will pay you well for a bed."