In the voice of the bell there was something lonesome, something akin to the atmosphere of desertion which seemed to lie upon the whole neighborhood—­something fearful, too, as though the bell would whisper:  “Return!  Beware of disturbing the dwellers in this place.”

The house, one wing of which I have said was visible from the inn window, could not be seen at all from the gate.  Indeed I had lost sight of it at the moment that I had set out and had never obtained a glimpse of it since.

Ten minutes before, I had inquired the way from a farm-laborer whom I had met on the road, and he had answered me with a curiosity but thinly veiled.  His directions had been characterized by that rustic vagueness which assumes in the inquirer an intimate knowledge of local landmarks.  But nevertheless I believed I had come aright.  I gathered from its name that Friar’s Park was in part at least a former monastic building, and certainly the cracked bell spoke with the voice of ancient monasteries, and had in it the hush of cloisters and the sigh of renunciation.

Although I had mentioned nothing of the purpose of my journey to mine host of the Abbey Inn or to any of his cronies—­and these were few in number—­I had hoped to find Hawkins at the lodge; and a second time I awoke the ghostly bell-voice.  But nothing responded to its call; man, bird and beast had seemingly deserted Friar’s Park.

Faintly I detected the lowing of cattle in some distant pasture; the ranks of firs whispered secretly one to another; and the pall above the hills grew blacker and began to stretch out over the valley.

Amid this ominous stillness of nature I began to ascend the cone-strewn path.  Evidently enough the extensive grounds had been neglected for years, and that few pedestrians and fewer vehicles ever sought Friar’s Park was demonstrated by the presence of luxurious weeds in the carriage-way.  Having proceeded for some distance, until the sheer hillside seemed to loom over me like the wall of a tower, I paused, peering about in the ever growing darkness.  I was aware of a physical chill; certainly no ray of sunlight ever penetrated to this tunnel through the firs.  Could I have mistaken the path and be proceeding, not towards the house, but away from it, and into the gloom of the woods?  Or perhaps the deserted lodge was that of some other, empty establishment.

There was something uncomfortable in this reflection; momentarily I knew a childish fear of the dim groves.  I thought of the “darkness ’broidered with luminous eyes,” and I walked forward rapidly, self-assertively.  Ten paces brought me to one of the many bends in the winding road—­and there, far ahead, as though out of some cavern in the very hillside, a yellow light shone.