out in the dark. One's common-sense--at least in matters of this
sort--is reduced to a minimum, and imagination with all her attendant
sprites usurps the place of judgment. Two and two no longer make
four--they make a mystery, and the mystery loses no time in growing into
a menace. In this particular case, however, my imagination did not find
wings very readily, for I knew that my companion was the most
_unmovable_ of men--an unemotional, solid block of a man who would
never lose his head, and in any conceivable state of affairs would
always take the right as well as the strong course. So my faith in the
man gave me a false courage that was nevertheless very consoling, and I
looked forward to the night's adventure with a genuine appetite.

Side by side, and in silence, we followed the path that skirted the East
Woods, as they were called, and then led across two hay fields, and
through another wood, to the barn, which thus lay about half a mile from
the Lower Farm. To the Lower Farm, indeed, it properly belonged; and
this made us realise more clearly how very ingenious must have been the
excuses of the Hall servants who felt the desire to visit it.

It had been raining during the late afternoon, and the trees were still
dripping heavily on all sides, but the moment we left the second wood
and came out into the open, we saw a clearing with the stars overhead,
against which the barn outlined itself in a black, lugubrious shadow.
Shorthouse led the way--still without a word--and we crawled in through
a low door and seated ourselves in a soft heap of hay in the extreme
corner.

"Now," he said, speaking for the first time, "I'll show you the inside
of the barn, so that you may know where you are, and what to do, in
case anything happens."

A match flared in the darkness, and with the help of two more that
followed I saw the interior of a lofty and somewhat rickety-looking
barn, erected upon a wall of grey stones that ran all round and extended
to a height of perhaps four feet. Above this masonry rose the wooden
sides, running up into the usual vaulted roof, and supported by a double
tier of massive oak rafters, which stretched across from wall to wall
and were intersected by occasional uprights. I felt as if we were inside
the skeleton of some antediluvian monster whose huge black ribs
completely enfolded us. Most of this, of course, only sketched itself to
my eye in the uncertain light of the flickering matches, and whe