Old Caravan Days

known neighborhood, drenched, hungry and unprotected, he

and on the point of drowning; that would soon be over. But wh

to bespeak their attention, as if they

," said Robert Day,

mebody that bad Dutch landlord had half murdered and put in the cellar. Maybe the floor was built to give way and let every traveller fall into a pit! Or it m

e buried her head in her mother's skirts and wa

l have to go and see what ails that Thing dow

else, but he would not have m

uired. It was easy to be eager, because they h

saw how to dispense with lamp or candle. She took a shovel full of embers-and placed a burning

ahead?" inqu

e of stick," replied his grandmother, conveying

trance in a slow procession, to

rated with her daughter. "I sh'll step on you,

rn. A mouldy air from dried-up and forgotten vegetables meets you. The earth may not be moist underfoot, but it has not the kind feeling of sun-warmed earth. And if big rats hide there, how bold and hideous they are! There are cool farmhouse cellars floored with cement and shelved with sweet-smelling pine, where apple-bins make incense, and swinging-shelves of butter, tables of milk croc

m the noise proceeding out of it. Bobaday knew this be

hey were not disturbed, and sat with their candle, reading good books until after midnight. But the third, just on the stroke of twelve, a noise began in the cellar! So they took their candle, and, armed with nothing except good books, went below, and in the furthest corner they saw a little o

on shiver with dread as his feet went down into the Susan House dungeon. It was trying enough to be exploring a strange cellar fu

with stern emphasis, as she held her

ehind her nephew, and she squatted on the step to peer with disten

ing earthen sides, but piles of p

in. "We won't have any tricks played.

the chip was languishing upon its coals, an

ess, uttering a prolonged and hearty groan, as if