I looked at it again, but the shutters kept their secret: there was no
glimmer of light visible through any chink. I approached the house,
and from that nearer vantage discovered that the shutters were common
planks fitted into the windows and nailed fast to the woodwork from
without. Growing yet more curious, I marched to the door and knocked,
with an inquiry upon my tongue as to where Mr. Lovyes lived. But the
excuse was not needed; the sound of my blows echoed through the house
in a desolate, solitary fashion, and no step answered them. I knocked
again, and louder. Then I leaned my ear to the panel, and I distinctly
heard the rustling of a woman's dress. I held my breath to hear the
more surely. The sound was repeated, but more faintly, and it was
followed by a noise like the closing of a door. I drew back from the
house, keeping an eye upon the upper storey, for I thought it possible
the woman might reconnoitre me thence. But the windows stared at me
blind, unresponsive. To the right and left lights twinkled in the
scattered dwellings, and I found something very ghostly in the thought
of this woman entombed as it were in the midst of them and moving
alone in the shuttered gloom. The twilight deepened, and suddenly the
gate behind me whined on its hinges. At once I dropped to my full
length on the grass--the gloom was now so thick there was little
fear I should be discovered--and a man went past me to the house.
He walked, so far as I could judge, with a heavy stoop, but was yet
uncommon tall, and he carried a basket upon his arm. He laid the
basket upon the doorstep, and, to my utter disappointment, turned
at once, and so down the path and out at the gate. I heard the gate
rattle once, twice, and then a click as its latch caught. I was
sufficiently curious to desire a nearer view of the basket, and
discovered that it contained food. Then, remembering me that all this
while my own business waited, I continued on my way to Mr. Lovyes'
house. It was a long building of a brownish granite, under Merchant's