And everywhere there was dust. It lay thickly on the table and the chairs; the tea-things on the [Pg 28]cupboard were covered with it. It lay upon the floor in a soft grey carpet, thicker at the far side of the room, where the wind through the broken window had swept it in a little drift against the wall.
Peter looked around in bewilderment. During how many years had this dust accumulated? What memories, what secrets, lay buried beneath it?
He looked towards the fireplace. Charred embers were within it. By the hearth lay an old newspaper. Peter picked it up. It tore as he touched it. It bore the date May the nineteenth, eighteen hundred and sixty-six. Forty-five years ago! Had this cottage lain uninhabited for forty-five years?—thirteen years before he was even born! He glanced up at the clock. It had stopped at twelve o’clock—midnight or noon, who was to say?
Peter turned and again looked round the place. At the foot of the bed was another door. He opened it, and found himself in a minute room or scullery. It contained a copper, a row of shelves, a pump, and an iron bucket. The window here, too, was broken, the place as thickly shrouded in dust.
Peter returned to the dwelling-room.
“Apparently I have it all to myself,” he said; “and for to-night at least I intend to quarter here, for if I’m not much mistaken there’s a storm coming up from the west.”
Peter put his wallet and bundle down on the table and went out into the copse. He began collecting bits of dead wood from under the trees, and there was abundance strewn on the ground, also fir-cones, for the trees were Scotch firs. It was already drawing on to dusk, and clouds were being blown across the sky by a soft wet wind from the west.
As Peter had just collected his second armful of sticks, he heard steps coming along the road. He paused before entering the cottage to see who it might be. They were light steps, probably those of children.
In a moment they came in sight—two little girls, chattering eagerly, and walking quickly, for the sky looked threatening. As they neared the copse one of the children looked up. She clutched her companion’s arm.
“Look there!” she said. There was terror in her voice.