VIII.
THE ROVER.
Meanwhile the nocturnal acquaintance from whom Salina had parted took a last look at the house, and shook his envious head darkly at the room where the light and the music were; then, thrusting his hands into his pockets, with a swaggering air, went plodding on his lonely way across the fields, in the starlight.
The direction he took was that from which Penn had arrived; and in the course of twenty minutes he approached the door of the solitary house with the dark windows and the dogs within. He walked all around, and seeing no light, nor any indication of life, drew near, and rapped softly on a pane.
The dogs were roused in an instant, and barked furiously. Nothing daunted, he waited for a lull in the storm he had raised, and rapped again.
"Who's there?" creaked the stridulous voice of good Mrs. Sprowl.
"You know!" said the rover, in a suppressed, confidential tone. "One who has a right."
Now, the excellent relict of the late lamented Sprowl reflected, naturally, that, if anybody had a right there, it was he who paid her for his board in advance.
"You, agin, after all, is it!" she exclaimed, angrily. "Couldn't you find nowhere else to go to? But if you imagine I've thought better on't, and will let you in, you're grandly mistaken! Go away this instant, or I'll let the dogs out!"
"Let 'em out, and be——!"