Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (202 page)

They
returned
through
the
garden,
and
went
into
the
front
hall
to leave
sticks,
etc.,
in
their
due
place.
And
here
they
found
the
aged butler
Patten
evidently
in
a
state
of
some
anxiety.
"Beg
pardon,
Master
Henry,"
he
began
at
once,
"but
someone's
been
up
to
mischief here,
I'm
much
afraid."
He
pointed
to
the
open
box
which
had
contained
the
glasses.

"Nothing
worse
than
that,
Patten?"
said
the
Squire.
"Mayn't
I
take out
my
own
glasses
and
lend
them
to
a
friend?
Bought
with
my
own money,
you
recollect?
At
old
Baxter's
sale,
eh?"

Patten
bowed,
unconvinced.
"Oh,
very
well,
Master
Henry,
as
long as
you
know
who
it
was.
Only
I
thought
proper
to
name
it,
for
I
didn't think
that
box'd
been
off
its
shelf
since
you
first
put
it
there;
and,
if you'll
excuse
me,
after
what
happened
.
.
."
The
voice
was
lowered, and
the
rest
was
not
audible
to
Fanshawe.
The
Squire
replied
with
a few
words
and
a
gruff
laugh,
and
called
on
Fanshawe
to
come
and
be shown
his
room.
And
I
do
not
think
that
anything
else
happened
that night
which
bears
on
my
story.

Except,
perhaps,
the
sensation
which
invaded
Fanshawe
in
the small
hours
that
something
had
been
let
out
which
ought
not
to
have been
let
out.
It
came
into
his
dreams.
He
was
walking
in
a
garden which
he
seemed
half
to
know,
and
stopped
in
front
of
a
rockery made
of
old
wrought
stones,
pieces
of
window
tracery
from
a
church, and
even
bits
of
figures.
One
of
these
moved
his
curiosity:
it
seemed to
be
a
sculptured
capital
with
scenes
carved
on
it.
He
felt
he
must pull
it
out,
and
worked
away,
and,
with
an
ease
that
surprised
him, moved
the
stones
that
obscured
it
aside,
and
pulled
out
the
block.
As he
did
so,
a
tin
label
fell
down
by
his
feet
with
a
little
clatter.
He picked
it
up
and
read
on
it:
"On
no
account
move
this
stone.
Yours sincerely^
J.
Patten."
As
often
happens
in
dreams,
he
felt
that
this injunction
was
of
extreme
importance;
and
with
an
anxiety
that amounted
to
anguish
he
looked
to
see
if
the
stone
had
really
been shifted.
Indeed
it
had;
in
fact,
he
could
not
see
it
anywhere.
The
removal
had
disclosed
the
mouth
of
a
burrow,
and
he
bent
down
to look
into
it.
Something
stirred
in
the
blackness,
and
then,
to
his
intense
horror,
a
hand
emerged—a
clean
right
hand
in
a
neat
cuff
and coat-sleeve,
just
in
the
attitude
of
a
hand
that
means
to
shake
yours.

He
wondered
whether
it
would
not
be
rude
to
let
it
alone.
But,
as
he looked
at
it,
it
began
to
grow
hairy
and
dirty
and
thin,
and
also
to change
its
pose
and
stretch
out
as
if
to
take
hold
of
his
leg.
At
that
he dropped
all
thought
of
politeness,
decided
to
run,
screamed
and
woke himself
up.