As he assayed to open the rickety gate the tangled morning-glorys seemed to hold it closed against him as though in warning. A vision of supper and a bed with cool, sweet-scented sheets had possessed his mind; but as the gate creaked on its one rusty hinge and he felt the desolation of the place, a chill went over him and the comforting vision disappeared. A hollow, uncanny reverberation was the only answer to his rapping. He turned the knob, which yielded readily to his touch, but the door swung slowly on its rusty hinges; stiffly like a person old and tortured with the rheumatism. He stood undecided, peering in among the shadows of a long, dimly lighted hall, which extended the whole length of the house, the doors opening primly on either side along its entire length; plainly no foot had disturbed the dust on this floor for many a day. As he stepped within a cloud arose as though in protest; he opened the first door on the right, and was surprised to find the room furnished; the low-browed ceiling seemed to frown ominously; the sides were paneled in dark wood, being alternately the head of an animal and a flower, exquisite in design and workmanship; but the dark mahogany color added to the somber effect. A square old-fashioned bedstead stood at the far corner of the room, its tall spindling posts rising high toward the ceiling like uplifted hands; on one of these hung a man’s hat. Phil fancied that he could see the kind of a man who had worn it; an athletic fellow, not over nice in his dress, judging by its battered look. The clothing on the bed was pulled awry, as though the occupants had hurriedly stepped out, without time to arrange the room; an easy-chair was drawn up before the great, yawning fireplace, in which a few charred sticks lay across the old-fashioned, brass andirons. On the mantle stood a brass candlestick, with a half-burned candle in the socket; a pair of snuffers on a tray at its side; a turkey wing, bound with velvet, lay on another tray in the corner of the fireplace; just above it hung a pair of old-fashioned bellows; a short, squat shovel, and a pair of grotesquely, long legged tongs stood near; the two looking like a lank old man, and his fat, little wife. Taken altogether, it had a quaint, old-fashioned look, which told pathetically of mouldering forms, and days long since dead. All other rooms in the house were entirely destitute of furniture. He soon kindled a fire, and from a little stream which purled through the garden he filled his tin pot and presently it was singing drowsily. Hunger made a sauce piquant to his crackers cheese, and fragrant tea; better relished than all the costly dinners eaten when stomach and morals both were overburdened. The sun was setting in the west amid a glory of gilded clouds; the wind blew faintly across the level meadow and pasture land; no sound disturbed the silence; the tinkle of a cowbell, the crowing of a cock, seemed but to accentuate the peace.