My father was clearly struck with the picture of the lonely house, especially when the host corroborated the story, saying he had heard rumours from travellers of a haunted mansion on the moors, some twenty or thirty miles maybe to the northward. Others, too, had heard of it, and the report wasn't encouraging to investigation, as the place seemed veiled in mystery and gloom, and no one could be found to inhabit it. The last tenant, it was said, had fled shrieking from it in the dead of night, and had died raving. To all this Picardino chimed in with "Yess, yess," like a bird's cheep, repeating, "So, as I tell you; yess," as though the accumulated testimony pleased him, and finishing with, "Ach, there! Eet ees a place of speereets. I not go near eet; neverr!" He shuddered till it seemed that his bones were being shaken together; then again striking on his guitar he soared into another song, and at the close he passed round his hat with a flourish, and emptying the few coppers into his hand spat upon them for luck, and invoking on us the blessing of the Virgin Mary and all the saints, danced out into the street, where we soon heard his voice thinly quavering on a high note of romantic passion. My father and I settled to our breakfast, and that over I was told to amuse myself as well as I could for the rest of the day, but to be back before dark as we were to be off once more on our wanderings. I gave my pistol practice a miss that morning, for my first thought was to follow Picardino, and I scampered out of the _Snow Man_ in pursuit of him; but he had vanished. I enquired of him from every one I met, and was sent southward in chase of him, but coming to a forked road I was at a loss which way to follow, and there was no one in sight. Turning to the left at a venture I ran a long way before I met any one, an old tramp as it happened sitting by the wayside; but to my eager questioning he slowly doffed his cap and rubbed his head, and declared that he couldn't rightly say, not but what he might have passed, but he had been winking his forty. His head nodded even as he spoke, and I ran on. But I didn't find Picardino. I turned back eventually to search along the other road, but was equally unsuccessful. However, I soon forgot my disappointment, and went coursing my own shadow over the heathery moor. The sun was getting low when I turned my face homewards; and sighting the village from a rise, at first, I stopped short, and then started running with all my might, for leaping up red into the evening was a burst of angry flame. Something vaguely foreboding tightened at my breast, but I kept a desperate pace, and arrived panting to find a crowd gathered about the _Snow Man_ which was wrapped in dense folds of smoke, with streaks of fire licking up from it like tongues from a black mouth.