The Rival Campers; Or, The Adventures of Henry Burns

by Ruel Perley Smith

Then they came to the brow of the hill, and could see the haunted house through the trees. They approached cautiously. It looked gloomier than ever, with its sagging, moss-grown roof, its shattered window-panes, and the door in the side hanging awry from a single hinge.

In what once had been the dooryard there were a few straggling clumps of bushes, and thistles and burdocks grew in rank profusion.

It was a sight to dampen the ardour of stouter hunters than this band of boys. But when, added to all this, there suddenly flashed across one of the windows a ray of light, faint and flickering, but discernible to them all, and which the next instant disappeared, they halted irresolutely and debated what they should do.

It was finally determined that Henry Burns and Bob White should go on ahead to the old house, while the rest waited at a little distance till they should reconnoitre. The two set off at once, while the others waited behind a clump of trees. They did not have to wait long, for the two returned shortly, telling them to come on softly. When within a few rods of the house they dropped on their hands and knees and crept along.

All at once the two ahead stopped and whispered to the others to listen. They heard noises that seemed to come from the cellar, which sounded as though some one was digging in the earth. Then, as they came within range of a long, shallow cellar window, they saw the rays of a lantern.

They crept up closely and peered in through the pane. There, in the damp, dingy, cobwebbed cellar of the haunted house, dimly lighted by the rays of a lantern, which stood on an old wooden bench, a man was working. He had his coat off and was digging in the ground with a spade, throwing up shovelfuls of the hard clay.

The rays of light from the lantern were not diffused evenly throughout the cellar, but shot out in one direction, toward the spot where the man was at work; and this because it was neither the ordinary ship’s lantern, nor yet a house lantern, but a small dark lantern, such as a burglar might carry on his person, with a sliding shutter in front.

The man’s sleeves were rolled up, displaying arms that were corded with muscle, and on which the veins stood out as he worked. He handled the spade awkwardly enough, but made up in strength for his lack of skill. Presently he paused and looked up, and they saw that it was, as Henry Burns had prophesied, the stranger guest.

A curious occupation for one who was cruising for his health! Indeed, he looked so little like a man that was weak and ill, and so much like one that was powerful and reckless and devoid of fear, as the light of the lantern caused his figure to stand out in relief against the darkness, that, though they were six and he but one, had he seen them and sprung up, they would have fled in terror.

Then, as he stooped down to grasp the lantern, they drew quickly back from the window. It was well they did so, for, taking up the lantern, the man flashed it upon the window-panes, and then, turning it in all directions, threw the rays of light in all parts of the cellar and out through a window opposite. Then he set it down again; and it was evident his suspicions had not been aroused, for he resumed his digging.