He soon came in sight of the deserted windmill, towering black and dismal against the orange-yellow horizon.
He vaulted over the stile, and was quickly close up to the mysterious-looking structure. His friend the great white owl flew out from her nest and greeted him with her mournful call—
“Twhoo—whoo—whoo—whoo—oo—oo!”
Well, it was the best song the poor thing could sing, and Barclay liked to hear it.
The boy walked round the windmill just once. The great sailless, outstretched arms of the mill looked dark and weird against the sky as he gazed upwards, and he was just preparing to go, when to his surprise he perceived light glimmering through the seams of the old door.
His heart beat almost audibly, a cold perspiration burst out on his brow, and his legs for a moment could barely support him.
But some instinct, which I cannot explain, caused him to almost throw himself against the door and dash it open.
If terror had seized him before, it was redoubled now. I am not sure indeed that the poor boy’s hair did not stir under his cap.
And little wonder either!
Here, before his round, staring eyes, stood against the farthest off wall a little rickety table, on which burned a single candle, stuck in a block of wood, and beside it on a stool a strange, strange little old man—or was it an apparition?