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They passed several low, sturdy farm-houses, and one or two boarded-up summer cottages; then two white chimneys showed above a dark green tumble of trees, and the ancient Hopkins pointed with his whip saying: "Ther' you be. Kind o' dull this time year, I guess; but my! Asquam's real uppy, come summer machines a-goin', an' city folks an' such.
When all came to where the brother lay insensible, no sign of Margaret; nor could villagers and police, searching through the night, find her. She had gone without surprise with her four captors, who had carried her to a cottage of boarded-up windows: and the same hour Hogarth had the news.
"Well, anyway, we got at the story in another fashion. But oh, Cynthia, will we ever know about the locked-up room?" As Cynthia could cast no further light on this vexed question, they were forced to drop it. Then came spring, and the ancient cherry-trees in the enclosure back of the Boarded-up House blossomed anew.
The boards in the big front door had a small door fashioned in them, and this door fastened with a very rusty lock. No one ever came in or out. No one ever tended the grounds. The place had been without an occupant for years. The Boarded-up House had always been boarded up, as long as its neighbors could recollect. It was not advertised for sale.
In the centre of these, in a desk or pulpit covered with red baize, was the presiding minister. The kind of rostrum he occupied will be very well understood, if I liken it to a boarded-up fireplace turned towards the audience, with a gentleman in a black surtout standing in the stove and leaning forward over the mantelpiece. A portion of Scripture was being read when I went in.
They fell to work with a zest the like of which they had not known since their first entrance into the Boarded-up House. It was no easy task to remove the armfuls of books necessary to get at the door behind, and then push and shove and struggle with the dusty shelves.
Arriving at the corner where the old brown stone house stood looking the picture of desolation, with its closely boarded-up windows, its dusty steps and seedy doors, the boys passed down the side street and left the car in the shadow of the buildings there. They separated and hurried back to the house, one at a time.
If one adds a small porch filled with dirty, half-starved dogs, and refuse of every kind, an ancient and dilapidated stove in the sitting part of the house, two wooden benches against the walls, a fixed rude table, some shelves nailed to the wall, and two boarded-up beds, one has a fairly accurate description of the furnishings.
"And are you glad?" "How can I help it?" "You can't don't try. Come into this little park and let us talk." And drawing her hand through his arm, Archie led her into what to other eyes was a very dismal square, with a boarded-up fountain in the middle, sodden grass plots, and dead leaves dancing in the wintry wind.
What strange old nests of ruin, what marvellous homes of solitude and dilapidation, did we not wander into! What boarded-up windows peer through, what gloomy recesses penetrate! I have lumber enough in my memory stored from such rambles to load the nightmares of a generation, and stuff for the dreams of a whole people. Does any gentleman or lady wish to write a romance?
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