Close by the neck lay the rest of the broken bottle, whose
contents had evidently run out into the snow.
"Drunk?" asked Biggleswade.
Doyne felt the man and laid his hand on his heart.
"No," said he, "dead."
McCurdie leaped to his full height. "I told you the place was uncanny!"
he cried. "It's fey." Then he hammered wildly at the door.
There was no response. He hammered again till it rattled. This time a
faint prolonged sound like the wailing of a strange sea-creature was
heard from within the house. McCurdie turned round, his teeth
chattering.
"Did ye hear that, Doyne?"
[Illustration: I TOLD YOU THE PLACE WAS UNCANNY.]
"Perhaps it's a dog," said the Professor.
Lord Doyne, the man of action, pushed them aside and tried the
door-handle. It yielded, the door stood open, and the gust of cold wind
entering the house extinguished the candle within. They entered and
found themselves in a miserable stone-paved kitchen, furnished with
poverty-stricken meagreness--a wooden chair or two, a dirty table, some
broken crockery, old cooking utensils, a fly-blown missionary society
almanac, and a fireless grate. Doyne set the lamp on the table.
"We must bring him in," said he.
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