“Yes, but I couldn’t hear Libbie’s answer; only when the man said, ‘Well, if that’s so I’d have a try and see what I could make out of it.’ Then I heard Libbie say: ‘Ah! that’s all very pretty, but I expect we’d find some rare awkward customers to deal with on the other side of the door.’ ”
“What could she mean?” speculated Andrew. “It is odd that no one will open that door.”
“Libbie told the man that the missus wouldn’t have it tried, not for any sake,” said Di.
“What can it be?” repeated Andrew, with a very long face.
“I did ask the little farm boy,” proceeded Di, “what all that odd rumbling noise in the cheese-room meant, and he looked dreadfully scared. He said that was what he’d never been able to find out, but people did say it was haunted by the ghosts of some wicked smugglers who lived long ago at the farm; in fact,” went on Di, drawing largely on her own imagination now, “from what Henry said I believe that the room is crammed full of all sorts of beautiful stolen goods, so that no one has ever been able to get the door open. Oh! Andrew, won’t it be grand if we’re the very first people who have ever been brave enough to force our way in?”
“Yes,” said Andrew, but his assent was pitched in a less jubilant key.
“I believe you’re getting into a fright already,” sneered Di.
“No I’m not; only I can’t help wishing that there was a real window, so that we might get a peep at what is inside, before actually going in,” said Andrew.
For though this mysterious room was furnished with a door and a chimney, it had no window. There was only a sham painted semblance of one set in the house wall, to match, as best it might, the other real ones.
“You see,” continued Andrew, “one hasn’t the least idea what one may see when the door bursts open.”