By this time they had passed through the gateway, flanked by high, ornamental stone posts, and were following a fairly wide, beaten footpath that shone white in the light shed by the rising moon. On their right hand side, the college wall of matched gray stone rose considerably above their heads.
“This wall must be at least ten feet high and about three or four thick.” Jerry calculatingly appraised the wall. “It extends the whole around the campus, so far as I could tell by daylight. I was noticing it as we came into the grounds today.”
“We are not so far from the end of it now.” Marjorie made the announcement with a faint breath of relief. “You can see the corner post from here. I think it about a quarter of a mile from the gate.”
“And only a square from it lies our dinner, thank goodness! Let’s run.” Muriel made a pretended dash forward and was promptly checked by Jerry. “You wouldn’t let me sing. Now you need a clamp. I’ll give you a piece of advice I heard last winter at that same old nursery: ‘Walk pretty. Don’t be runnin’ yourse’f all over the place.’”
“There is Baretti’s across the road.” Marjorie pointed down the road a little, to where, on the opposite side, two posts, topped by cluster electric lights, rose on each side of a fairly wide stone walk that was the approach to the restaurant. It stood fully a hundred feet from the highway, an odd, one-story structure of brown stone, looking like an inn of a bygone period. In sharp contrast to the white radiance of the guide lights at the end of the walk, the light over the doorway was faint and yellow, proceeding from a single lamp, set in a curious wrought-iron frame, which depended from a bell-like hood over the door.
Through the narrow-paned windows streamed the welcome glow of light within. It warmed the hearts of the Five Travelers even as in departed days it had gladdened the eyes of weary wayfarers in search of purchased hospitality.
“What an odd old place!” Lucy Warner cried out in admiration. “It is like the ancient hostelries one reads of. I wonder if it has always been an inn. It must be considerably over a hundred years old.”
“I suppose it is. A good deal of the country around here is historic, I believe. You remember the bulletin said Brooke Hamilton was a young man at the time of La Fayette’s visit to America. That was in 1824. He and La Fayette met and the Marquis was so delighted with him that he invited him to join his suite of friends during his tour of the country. I wish it had said more about both of them, but it didn’t,” finished Marjorie regretfully.
“Perhaps the old Marquis de la Fayette and young Brooke Hamilton walked down the very road we walked tonight and supped at the same old inn,” Veronica said, as they approached the two wide, low steps that formed the entrance to the restaurant.
“Quite likely they did,” agreed Jerry. The foremost of the party, she opened the heavy, paneled door of solid oak.