Indeed, when Dick led the animal off to its stable he almost fancied he could hear its bones rattle with each step it took.
“Poor old beast!” he murmured sympathetically. “How I’d like to give you one good, square meal! But I fear the shock of it would lay you out.”
And the mare, as if it understood him, looked at him with her saucer-like eyes in hopeless resignation.
Such a thing as a square meal to her was a dream, never to be realized.
The old man wouldn’t have the prisoners taken into the mansion.
He was afraid of them, and so Joe tied them securely to posts in the stable.
Inside the house there were bolts and bars without number.
Every room appeared to be completely furnished, but the old-fashioned mahogany pieces, that must have been valuable in their day long ago, were now given over to the ravages of dust and neglect.
Adam Fairclough ate and slept in one little room at the top of the building, of which the boys caught only a momentary glimpse as the old man led them past to another room in which were a bed, some chairs, and other articles in a fair state of preservation.
There the miser left them after assuring Dick once more that he was miserably poor and sorry he couldn’t do better by them.