cottage, or hut.  My second glance showed it to be tenantless, for the thatch was partly gone, the windows were broken, and the door had long since fallen from its hinges.  Yet, despite its forlornness and desolation, despite the dilapidation of broken door and fallen chimney, there was something in the air of the place that drew me strangely.  It was somewhat roughly put together, but still very strong, and seemed, save for the roof, weatherfast.

“A man might do worse than live here,” thought I, “with the birds for neighbors, and the brook to sing him to sleep at night.  Indeed, a man might live very happily in such a place.”

I was still looking at the hut, with this in my mind, when I was startled by hearing a thin, quavering voice behind me: 

“Be you ‘m a-lookin’ at t’ cottage, master?”

Turning sharp round, I beheld a very ancient man in a smock frock, who carried a basket on one arm, and leaned upon a stick.

“Yes,” I answered; “I was wondering how it came to be built in such an out-of-the-world spot.”

“Why, ‘t were built by a wanderin’ man o’ the roads.”

“It’s very lonely!” said I.

“Ye may well say so, sir—­haunted it be, tu.”

“Haunted?” said I.

“Haunted as ever was!” answered the old man, with a sprightly nod strangely contrasting with his wrinkled face and tremulous limbs.  “No one ventur’s nigh the place arter dark, an’ few enough in the daytime, for that matter.”

“On account of the ghost?”

“Ah!” nodded the Ancient, “moans ‘e du, an’ likewise groans.  Theer’s some as says ‘e twitters tu, an’ shakes chains.”

“Then nobody has lived here of late?”

“Bless ’ee no—­nor wouldn’t, no, not if ye paid ’em tu.  Nobody’s come a-nigh the place, you may say, since ’t were built by the wanderin’ man.  Lived ’ere all alone, ’e did—­killed ’isself ’ere likewise.”

“Killed himself!” said I.

“Ah—! ’ung ‘isself—­be’ind th’ door yonder, sixty an’ six year ago come August, an’ ’t were me as found ’im.  Ye see,” said the old man, setting down his basket, and seating himself with great nicety on the moss-grown doorstep, “ye see, ’t were a tur’ble storm that night—­rain, and wind, wi’ every now an’ then a gert, cracklin’ flame o’ lightnin’.  I mind I’d been up to th’ farm a-courtin’ o’ Nancy Brent—­she ‘m dead now, poor lass, years an’ years ago, but she were a fine, buxom maid in those days, d’ye see.  Well, I were comin’ ‘ome, and what wi’ one thing an’ another, I lost my way.  An’ presently, as I were stumblin’ along in the dark, comes another crackle o’ lightnin’, an’ lookin’ up, what should I see but this ’ere cottage.  ‘T were newer-lookin’ then, wi’ a door an’ winders, but the door was shut an’ the winders was dark—­so theer I stood in the rain, not likin’ to disturb the stranger, for ‘e were a gert, fierce, unfriendly kind o’ chap, an’ uncommon fond o’ bein’ left alone.  Hows’ever, arter