Chapter 59

Solitary and forbidding, the house stared specterlike through scraggly trees that seemed to shrink from its touch. The green moss of decay lay on its dank roofs, and the windows, set in deep cavities, peered blindly at the world as if through eyeless sockets. So forbidding was its aspect that boys, on approaching its cheerless gables, stopped their whistling and passed on the opposite side of the street. Across the fields, a few huddled cottages gazed through the falling rain, as if wondering what family could be s…