Here, too, the window on the ground floor was lit up behind its
blinds, but that of the room above was shuttered. There was a hole
in the shutter, however, where a knot of the wood had fallen out, and
a thin shaft of light stretched across the blackness and buried
itself in a ragged yew-tree at the end of the garden. From the
loudness of the sounds I judged this to be the room where the
flute-playing was going on. The crackling of my footsteps on the
thin soil did not disturb the performer, so I gathered a handful of
earth and pitched it up against the pane. The flute stopped for a
minute or so, but just as I was expecting to see the shutter open,
went on again: this time the air was "Pretty Polly Oliver."

I crept back again, and began to hammer more loudly at the door.
"Come," said I, "whoever this may be inside, I'll see for myself at
any rate," and with that I lifted the latch and gave the door a heavy
kick. It flew open quite easily (it had not even been locked), and I
found myself in a low kitchen. The room was empty, but the relics of
supper lay on the deal table, and the remains of what must have been
a noble fire were still smouldering on the hearthstone. A crazy,
rusty blunderbuss hung over the fireplace. This, with a couple of
rough chairs, a broken bacon-rack, and a small side-table, completed
the furniture of the place. No; for as I sat down to make a meal off
the remnants of supper, something lying on the lime-ash floor beneath
this side-table caught my eye. I stepped forward and picked it up.

It was a barrister's wig.

"This is a queer business," thought I; and I laid it on the table
opposite me as I went on with my supper. It was a "gossan" wig, as
we call it in our parts; a wig grown yellow and rusty with age and