as then the object of his lengthened
and tedious journey; this ancient house rotting away among the bleak
hills of Vermont, the bourne towards which his steps had been tending
for these past two days. I could not understand it. Rapidly emerging
from the spot where I had secreted myself, I in my turn made a circuit
of the house, if happily I should discover some loophole of entrance
which had escaped his attention. But every door and window was securely
barred, and I was about to follow his example and leave the spot, when
I saw two or three children advancing towards me down the cross roads,
gaily swinging their school books. I noticed they hesitated and huddled
together as they approached and saw me, but not heeding this, I accosted
them with a pleasant word or so, then pointing over my shoulder to the
house behind, asked who lived there. Instantly their already pale faces
grew paler.

"Why," cried one, a boy, "don't you know? That is where the two wicked
men lived who stole the money out of the Rutland bank. They were put in
prison, but they got away and--"

Here, the other, a little girl, plucked him by the sleeve with such
affright, that he himself took alarm and just giving me one quick stare
out of his wide eyes, grasped his companion by the hand and took to his
heels. As for myself I stood rooted to the ground in my astonishment.
This blank, sleepy old house the home of the notorious Schoenmakers
after whom half of the detectives of the country were searching? I could
scarcely credit my own ears. True I now remembered they had come from
these parts, still--

Turning round I eyed the house once more. How altered it looked to me!
What a murderous aspect it wore, and how dismally secret were the tight
shut windows and closely fastened doors, on one of which a rude cross
scrawled in red chalk met the eye with a mysterious significance. Even
the old pine had acquired the villainous air of the uncanny repositor of
secrets too dreadful to reveal, as it groaned and murmured to itself in
the keen east wind. Dark deeds and foul wrong seemed written all over
the fearful place, from the long strings of black moss that clung to
the worm-eaten eaves, to the worn stone with its great blotch of
something,--could it have been blood?--that served as a threshold to
the door. Suddenly with the quickness of lightning the thought flashed
across me, what could Mr. Blake, the aristocratic representative of New
York's oldest family, h