It was indeed a derelict, a perfect example of the abandoned home. I couldn’t imagine anyone having been near it or in it for a score of years. The small window-panes were covered with cobwebs and the marks of falling leaves and pelting rains of many years. The door in the center was innocent of paint, and great seams ran down and across its sections, witnesses of the battles it had put up against the roaring storms.
The stone slabs, slanted and sunken, which served as steps to the door were moss-covered and almost hidden from sight by the luxuriantly growing grass. Not a sound came from the place, or indeed from anywhere else.
Hunky returned to the car, grinning at me with a huge bunch of the golden flowers. He presented them with a sweeping gesture. Not to be outdone in courtesy, I rose and made him a mocking bow.
“Accept these tokens of my esteem, I prithee.”
“I do, Sir Knight, and go to hell,” I replied. “If you’re through with this horticultural business what d’you say we get to the fishing? That’s what we started out for—trout, not yellow bellies.”
He held up his hand in protest.
“There is no element of romance in your sordid make-up. You’re as flat in the head as the fish you catch. Take a look at that old house. What stories it might tell! What ghosts may have prowled about in its sombre interior! I see a broken pane in the quaint side window of the door. Adventure calls. Watch me.”
The nut! He noiselessly moved toward the door. Then he gingerly thrust his hand through the jagged opening in the side window and felt for the key. I saw by the smile on his face that he had found it. He removed his hand, turned the outside knob—and the door opened. He peered around, and then went inside.
It wasn’t premonition or an unknown feeling of anything that prompted me to leap over the side of that car and beat it for the inside of that house. It was a glimpse of one corking fine mantle that I caught through the open door. Old mantles, newel-posts and corner china-closets exert an influence over my artistic soul that brooks no laziness. I’ll walk ten miles through a bog any day to get a peep at something rare and fine in old woodwork. This one called to me, and I went.
I had on rubber-soled shoes, as did my companion, and hence made little noise. Hunky was nowhere in sight, but there was a side door beyond the fire-place and I knew he must be prowling about on the other side of it.