“I’ve walked enough for to-day,” he mused. “I’ll see if I can’t get a bed or a chance to sleep on the hay in the barn, perhaps, up yonder.”
The gate opening on the lane leading to the house was wide open and hanging by one hinge only.
As Dick approached the dwelling he was impressed by the air of neglect and desolation which hung about the place.
But for the solitary gleam of light which penetrated the gloom he would have believed the premises to be deserted.
The boy knocked several times on the weather-seamed door, but no one answered his summons.
Finally he decided to turn the handle of the door.
It yielded to his touch, and he entered a large room that was quite bare and cheerless from floor to ceiling.
The dim light from a candle stuck in the neck of a bottle standing on a dusty mantel shelf showed him the motionless figure of a man crouching over an old stove, in which was a fire, at one side of the room.
“Hello!” Dick exclaimed, by way of introduction.
Slowly the figure turned its head and presented a face almost ghostly from its whiteness.