Dark Hollow | Page 4

quick gesture suggestive of impatience if not
rebuke, and moving resolutely towards the gate Miss Weeks had so
indiscreetly left unguarded, pushed it open and disappeared within,
dragging the little child after her.
The audacity of this act, perpetrated without apology before Miss
Weeks' very eyes, was too much for that lady's equanimity. She

stopped stock-still, and, as she did so, beheld the gate swing heavily to
and stop an inch from the post, hindered as we know by the intervening
pebble. She had scarcely got over the shock of this when plainly from
the space beyond she heard a second creaking noise, then the swinging
to of another gate, followed, after a breathless moment of intense
listening, by a series of more distant sounds, which could only be
explained by the supposition that the house door had been reached,
opened and passed.
"And you didn't follow?"
"I didn't dare."
"And she's in there still?"
"I haven't seen her come out."
"Then what's the matter with you?" called out a burly, high-strung
woman, stepping hastily from the group and laying her hand upon the
gate still standing temptingly ajar. "It's no time for nonsense," she
announced, as she pushed it open and stepped promptly in, followed by
the motley group of men and women who, if they lacked courage to
lead, certainly showed willingness enough to follow.
One glance and they felt their courage rewarded.
Rumour, which so often deceives, proved itself correct in this case. A
second gate confronted them exactly like the first even to the point of
being held open by a pebble placed against the post. And a second
fence also! built upon the same pattern as the one they had just passed
through; the two forming a double barrier as mysterious to contemplate
in fact as it had ever been in fancy. In gazing at these fences and the
canyon-like walk stretching between them, the band of curious invaders
forgot their prime errand. Many were for entering this path whose
terminus they could not see for the sharp turns it took in rounding
either corner. Among them was a couple of girls who had but one
thought, as was evinced by their hurried whispers. "If it looks like this
in the daytime, what must it be at night!" To which came the quick

retort: "I've heard that the judge walks here. Imagine it under the
moon!"
But whatever the mysteries of the place, a greater one awaited them
beyond, and presently realising this, they burst with one accord through
the second gate into the mass of greenery, which, either from neglect or
intention, masked this side of the Ostrander homestead.
Never before had they beheld so lawless a growth or a house so
completely lost amid vines and shrubbery. So unchecked had been the
spread of verdure from base to chimney, that the impression made by
the indistinguishable mass was one of studied secrecy and concealment.
Not a window remained in view, and had it not been for some chance
glimmers here and there where some small, unguarded portion of the
enshrouded panes caught and reflected the sunbeams, they could not
have told where they were located in these once well-known walls.
Two solemn fir trees, which were all that remained of an old-time and
famous group, kept guard over the untended lawn, adding their
suggestion of age and brooding melancholy to the air of desolation
infecting the whole place. One might be approaching a tomb for all
token that appeared of human presence. Even sound was lacking. It was
like a painted scene--a dream of human extinction.
Instinctively the women faltered and the men drew back; then the very
silence caused a sudden reaction, and with one simultaneous rush, they
made for the only entrance they saw and burst without further
ceremony into the house.
A common hall and common furnishings confronted them. They had
entered at the side and were evidently close upon the kitchen. More
they could not gather; for blocked as the doorway was by their
crowding figures, the little light which sifted in over their heads was
not enough to show up details.
But it was even darker in the room towards which their determined
leader now piloted them. Here there was no light at all; or if some stray
glimmer forced its way through the network of leaves swathing the

outer walls, it was of too faint a character to reach the corners or even
to make the furniture about them distinguishable.
Halting with one accord in what seemed to be the middle of the
uncarpeted floor, they waited for some indication of a clear passageway
to the great room where the judge would undoubtedly be found in
conversation with his strange guest, unless, forewarned by their noisy
entrance, he should have