Father Wiliston and Toboso went down the hill, silently, with furtive, lawless steps through the cluster of houses in the hollow, called Ironville, and followed then the road up the chattering hidden brook. The road came from the shadows of this gorge at last to meadows and wide glimmering skies, and joined the highway to Redfield. Presently they came to where a grassy side road slipped into the highway from the right, out of a land of bush and swamp and small forest trees of twenty or thirty years' growth. A large chestnut stood at the corner. “Hey, Jinny!” wheezed Toboso. “Let's look at that tree, Elder.” “Look at it? Yes, yes. What for?” Toboso examined the bark by the dim starlight; Father Wiliston peered anxiously through his glasses to where Toboso's finger pointed. “See those marks?” “I'm afraid I don't. Really, I'm sorry.” “Feel 'em, then.” And Father Wiliston felt, with eager, excited finger. “Them there mean there's lodging out here; empty house, likely.” “Do they, indeed. Very singular! Most interesting!” And they turned into the grassy road. The brushwood in places had grown close to it, though it seemed to be still used as a cart path. They came to a swamp, rank with mouldering vegetation, then to rising ground where once had been meadows, pastures, and plough lands. Father Wiliston was aware of vaguely stirring memories. Four vast and aged maple trees stood close by the road, and their leaves whispered to the night; behind them, darkly, was a house with a far sloping roof in the rear. The windows were all glassless, all dark and dead-looking, except two in a front room, in which a wavering light from somewhere within trembled and cowered. They crept up, and looking through saw tattered wall paper and cracked plaster, and two men sitting on the floor, playing cards in the ghostly light of a fire of boards in the huge fireplace. “Hey, Jinny!” roared Toboso, and the two jumped up with startled oaths. “Why, it's Boston Alley and the Newark Kid!” cried Toboso. “Come on, Elder.” The younger man cast forth zigzag flashes of blasphemy. “You big fat fool! Don't know no mor' 'n to jump like that on _me!_ Holy Jims! I ain't made of copper.” Toboso led Father Wiliston round by the open door. “Hold your face, Kid. Gents, this here's a friend of mine we'll call the Elder, and let that go. I'm backing him, and I hold that goes. The Kid,” he went on descriptively, addressing Father Wiliston, “is what you see afore you, Elder. His mouth is hot, his hands is cold, his nerves is shaky, he's always feeling the cops gripping his shirt-collar. He didn't see no clergy around. He begs your pardon. Don't he? I says, don't he?” He laid a heavy red hand on the Newark Kid's shoulder, who wiped his pallid mouth with the back of his hand, smiled, and nodded.