HAD the sides of this house suddenly fallen in and revealed to the distant neighbors at the foot of the hill the vision of this creeping marauder passing through the haunted rooms and down the creaking staircases of this long-unopened house, what a panic of fear would have swept through them at the uncanny sight! Glints of light from the small lantern which he carried, passed flickering from wall to wall, and on one window-shade threw an exaggerated outline of his form with its long beard and groping hand, which if seen from without would have sent most persons hurrying down the road. But there was no one in the fields that night, and this passing glimpse of the intruder went out in darkness without any other alarm being given than that which came from the creaking pines and pollards without.

He was on the first floor now, and being more fearful of surprise than in the rooms above he trod more carefully and was more attentive as to where the light of his lantern fell. The parlor, which in houses of this stamp is sufficiently musty when the place is inhabited and a dozen children pass its charmed door every day, was worse than a tomb on this night of its resurrection, and almost drove the man, who so fearlessly opened it, into the open air for refreshment. Being near the ground, its walls had become a prey to damp and mildew, and had not the two family portraits adorning the space over the mantel-shelf been so fortunate as to hang on an inner wall, their ruin would not have been confined to the gilded frames.

It was before these pictures the visitor took his stand. One was the portrait of an old man, and at this he barely glanced. But on the other he gazed earnestly and long, calling up the living appearance of the man it represented and comparing it with his own.

“Taken a year after marriage,” he presently commented, with his old sarcastic smile. “That was, let me see, seventeen years ago. No wonder the cheeks are fresh-colored and the locks unmixed with gray. When I am shaved and my beard trimmed the difference of years will not be so perceptible. Yet time makes changes under the most favorable circumstances, and when a man has led a life like mine, his features naturally coarsen. I must remember this fact when people tell me I have lost the frank, attractive look I see here. Fast living and wild expenditure leave their marks, and I will be as good an example of the returned prodigal as any Bible-pounding exhorter could wish. Yet,” and he sighed, “it is not altogether pleasant to remember one’s misdeeds, or to note the difference in such a face as this and that which lies under my long, disfiguring beard.”

These words, which he had uttered aloud, had no sooner left his lips than he was startled by the silence that followed. A sense of his position suddenly came over him, and casting one final glance at the portrait, he turned quickly away, murmuring under his breath:

“That ring on the finger,—it was pawned long ago. What a past I will have to disclose if my friends inquire into the matter too closely.”

Fifteen minutes more he spent in cellar and attic, and then he swung himself out of the window on to the tree, and thence lightly to the ground. As he did so he thought he heard a sigh, but just at that moment the trees gave a great swish and bent almost double, and he forgot the lesser sound and never thought to look behind him when he started to move down the road.

Had he done so, he would have seen by the first faint streaks of morning light, a figure standing at the angle of the house, with hat pulled low, and hands thrust out in superstitious protest at what was evidently considered a spectre stalking from the haunted house.

The next day the bent and feeble wayfarer announced that there was no work to be found in Hamilton, and took his leave of the place, followed by the faithful dog. But at the outskirts of the town, the latter paused, and whining, raised his protest at this departure; and when he found that his new master was determined to go, he lay down in the dusty road and refused to accompany him any further.

He would not leave the town in which his old master lay buried.