"Evidently those within are determined to keep out intruders," I said, as I saw the grim forbidding wall.
"I should think so," replied Will. "Now let's go on, for it's only waste of time to stay here."
My love for the mysterious, however, was too strong to allow Will's words to have due effect, and seeing a breach in the wall I climbed it. I found that this enclosure had so far sheltered the grounds of the house that a quantity of vegetation of various kinds had grown there, and although the place was now in a very neglected condition, it must in past years have provided for a great household. The house looked extremely lonely, and no soul was to be seen. I confess I was taken a little aback at this. To gain admittance did not seem either as pleasant or as easy as at first sight. I did not like to shout. The silence of the place, only broken by the sobbing of the waves, hundreds of feet below, forbade it, while to knock at the old iron-studded door was equally unseemly.
Yet I did not like to go away. My curiosity continued to increase, so I came down from the wall and began to examine the door. To my delight I saw fastened to a great gray rock, on which the door was partly hung, a piece of iron at the end of a chain.
Evidently this was in some way a means of communication with the house. I seized, and pulled it.
No sooner had I done so than I heard the clanging of a bell away up in the old house.
"There," I said to Will, who had kept on protesting, "perhaps that is like the bells in the old monasteries; it will frighten away all evil spirits."
Will grumbled about my having "plenty of cheek," while I waited, somewhat anxiously, I confess, for an answer.
Presently I heard a murmur of voices within, and then the withdrawing of bolts. After a few seconds the door turned on its rusty hinges and revealed two men both about fifty years of age.
"What do you want?" asked one sternly.