As I mounted the broad stone steps to the low porch and the carved and four-lighted doorway I felt distinctly nervous, and started to light a cigarette—desisting when I saw how dry and inflammable everything about me was. Though now convinced that the house was deserted, I nevertheless hesitated to violate its dignity without knocking; so I tugged at the rusty iron knocker until I could get it to move, and finally set up a cautious rapping which seemed to make the whole place shake and rattle. There was no response; yet once more I plied the cumbrous, creaking device, as much to dispel the sense of unholy silence and solitude as to arouse any possible occupant of the ruin.
Somewhere near the river I heard the mournful note of a dove, and it seemed as if the coursing water itself were faintly audible. Half in a dream, I seized and rattled the ancient latch, and finally gave the great six-paneled door a frank trying. It was unlocked, as I could see in a moment; and though it stuck and grated on its hinges I began to push it open, stepping through it into a vast shadowy hall as I did so.
But the moment I took this step I regretted it. It was not that a legion of specters confronted me in that dim and dusty hall with the ghostly Empire furniture, but that I knew at once that the place was not deserted after all. There was a creaking on the great curved staircase, and the sound of faltering footsteps slowly descending. Then I saw a tall, bent figure silhouetted for an instant against the great Palladian window on the landing.
My first terror was soon over, and as the figure descended the final flight I was ready to greet the house-holder whose privacy I had invaded. In the semi-darkness I could see him reach into his pocket for a match. There came a flare as he lighted a small kerosene lamp which stood on a rickety console table near the foot of the stairs. The feeble glow revealed the stooping figure of a very tall, emaciated old man, disordered in dress and unshaven as to face, yet for all that with the bearing and expression of a gentleman.
I did not wait for him to speak, but at once began to explain my presence.
"You'll pardon my coming in like this, but when my knocking didn't raise anybody I concluded that no one lived here. I wanted to know the shortest road to Cape Girardeau. I wanted to get there before dark, but now, of course——"
As I paused, the man spoke, in exactly the cultivated tone I had expected, and with a mellow accent as unmistakably Southern as the house he inhabited.
"Rather, you must pardon me for not answering your knock more promptly. I live in a very retired way, and am not usually expecting visitors. At first I thought you were a mere curiosity-seeker. When you knocked again I started to answer, but I am not well and have to move very slowly, owing to spinal neuritis—very troublesome case.
"As for your getting to town before dark—you can't do that. The road you are on isn't the best or shortest way. What you must do is to take the first real road to your left after you leave the gate. There are three or four cart-paths you can ignore, but you can't mistake the real road because of the large willow tree on the right just opposite it.