I own I felt the cold shivers creep down my back as that creaking sound struck my ears, though as the day was chill with an east wind I dare say it was more the effect of my sudden cessation from exercise, than of any superstitious awe I felt.  Mr. Blake seemed to labor under no such impressions.  Riding up to the front door he knocked without dismounting, on its dismal panels with his riding whip.  No response was heard.  Knitting his brows impatiently, he tried the latch:  the door was locked.  Hastily running his eye over the face of the building, he drew rein and proceeded to ride around the house, which he could easily do owing to the absence of every obstruction in the way of fence or shrubbery.  Finding no means of entrance he returned again to the front door which he shook with an impatient hand that however produced no impression upon the trusty lock, and recognizing, doubtless, the futility of his endeavors, he drew back, and merely pausing to give one other look at its deserted front, turned his horse’s head, and to my great amazement, proceeded with sombre mien and clouded brow to retake the road to Melville.

This old inn or decayed homestead was then the object of his lengthened and tedious journey; this ancient house rotting away among the bleak hills of Vermont, the bourne towards which his steps had been tending for these past two days.  I could not understand it.  Rapidly emerging from the spot where I had secreted myself, I in my turn made a circuit of the house, if happily I should discover some loophole of entrance which had escaped his attention.  But every door and window was securely barred, and I was about to follow his example and leave the spot, when I saw two or three children advancing towards me down the cross roads, gaily swinging their school books.  I noticed they hesitated and huddled together as they approached and saw me, but not heeding this, I accosted them with a pleasant word or so, then pointing over my shoulder to the house behind, asked who lived there.  Instantly their already pale faces grew paler.

“Why,” cried one, a boy, “don’t you know?  That is where the two wicked men lived who stole the money out of the Rutland bank.  They were put in prison, but they got away and—­”

Here, the other, a little girl, plucked him by the sleeve with such affright, that he himself took alarm and just giving me one quick stare out of his wide eyes, grasped his companion by the hand and took to his heels.  As for myself I stood rooted to the ground in my astonishment.  This blank, sleepy old house the home of the notorious Schoenmakers after whom half of the detectives of the country were searching?  I could scarcely credit my own ears.  True I now remembered they had come from these parts, still—­