did,” observed Tuckerman with twinkling eyes. “Crows do sound dreadfully scolding, don’t they? And I never knew such birds for all wanting to talk at the same time.”

Tom knew where the old pier stood, and brought his boat skilfully up to the landing-stage. The sail was dropped and furled, baggage and stores carried ashore, and the four campers looked about them. From the old and rather decrepit pier a graveled path led up to the front of a wide white house, partially screened by trees.

“Cotterell Hall,” said Tuckerman, gazing at the ancient mansion. “That’s what they used to call it in Revolutionary days. Well, Tom, it’s up to you to tell us what to do. The house won’t run away, and something tells me it won’t be so very long before we’ll be hungry.”

“Suppose we look for our camping ground then,” said Tom, “since it seems to be understood that we’re not going to bunk in the house.”

“That’s the idea,” agreed Tuckerman promptly. “Fond as I am of ancestral halls and that sort of thing, I said to myself when I left the Middle-West for the New England coast: ‘John, you’re to sleep out of doors on a bed of pine boughs, even if the bugs do fall from the trees on your face and the boughs stick you as full of needles as a porcupine. You’re going back to the wild, that’s what you are!’”

His eyes behind his huge tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles looked so intensely serious that the three boys didn’t know whether to laugh or not. For all his dignified appearance he did seem extraordinarily guileless. David, the most outspoken of the three, shook his head solemnly. “This isn’t going to be what you’d call so all-fired wild, you know. If you’re looking for that, you ought to go up in the North Woods.”

Ben came to the rescue. “It’ll do as a starter though, Mr. Tuckerman,” he said encouragingly. “We can’t promise you bears or anything like that, but maybe there’ll be owls and loons and other things that sound sort of strange at night.”

Tuckerman smiled. “Ben, I can see you’re a friendly soul. And you must remember that what may not seem very wild to experienced woodsmen like you three may prove very thrilling to a tenderfoot like me.”

They decided on their camp readily; a smooth stretch of turf in a semi-circle of pines on high ground just above a small sandy beach. It was perhaps a quarter of a mile from the pier and from Cotterell Hall. Pine boughs were cut, trimmed, and spread out for bedding, stores were unpacked, driftwood collected for a fire, and the menu determined on for supper.

Tuckerman looked out at the water, a sheet of soft and beautiful opalescent colors in the setting sun. “Is there any reason why we shouldn’t take a bath?” he inquired. “I feel extremely sticky.”

“No reason whatever,” answered Tom. “The first rule of camp-life is, Obey that impulse. There’s plenty of room in that bathtub, but you won’t find much hot water.”

In five minutes they were all in the ocean, frisky as a school of porpoises, making enough noise to scare any wildfowl away. The boys struck out and swam, trying first one stroke and then another. Tuckerman, however, came lumbering along, jerking his arms and legs like an old and stiff-jointed frog. But he enjoyed himself. He was chuckling and gurgling and slapping his thighs with his hands as they all came out of the water.

“Tom, you must teach me to swim,” he begged. “I can see I’m not in your class now, but give me a week or so——”

“Righto. I bet you’ll learn quick.”

In fifteen minutes they were ready for supper. Fried eggs and bacon, grilled sweet potatoes, coffee, bread and butter, and then flapjacks with jam. “I can see,” said Tuckerman, as he finished his third flapjack, “that David’s reputation as a cook has not been exaggerated. I always wondered what it meant when I read that the gods lived on ambrosia and nectar. Now at last I know.”

“You’ll make his head swell,” cautioned Ben, “and it’s large enough already. We took him to a phrenologist last winter, and the man said he’d never felt such big bumps.”

The dishes were washed. The moon rose. Tuckerman lighted his pipe. “Well,” said Ben, “aren’t we going to have a look at the old house? It seems to me we ought.”

The house, when they approached it a little later in the moonlight—for Ben’s suggestion had met with favor from the others—presented a blank and shuttered white surface, against which the dark outline of the trees around it showed in jagged forms. It had been a fine old dwelling, built in a day when carpenters and joiners took a real love in their work and were as eager to make a graceful, artistic window or doorway as the medieval masons of Europe were to perfect every detail of their great cathedrals.

Broad steps led up to the front door, which was wide and adorned with a big brass knocker and knob. Tuckerman, taking a little electric flashlight from his pocket, aimed it at the moulding above the door. “Aha,” he exclaimed, “there’s the green and gold pineapple in all its glory! They used to put beautifully carved pineapples like that in such places in colonial days; they were the emblems of hospitality. My ancestor Sir Peter seems to have been friendly disposed when he built his dwelling at least.”

“I’ve seen pineapples like that over the doors of some old houses in Barmouth,” said Ben, “but I never thought much about them. That was a pretty nice idea. There’s some style to that front.”

“There was style, real dignified style to the houses of those days,” Tuckerman agreed. “We may think we’re pretty smart nowadays, but let me tell you those ancestors of ours who settled the country could teach us a good deal.” He felt in his pocket for a key. “Well, the pineapple bids us welcome. If there are any ghosts in the house, I think they’ll turn out friendly.”

The lock was rusty, but finally opened to the new owner’s efforts. They stepped into a large hallway, from which a wide stairway ascended at one side. Using his flashlight, Tuckerman discovered a gatelegged table, on which stood a cluster of small candlesticks, all ready for use.

“Now that’s something like—hospitality again!” he declared in a pleased voice. “They used candles in the old days; every guest in the house had one to light him to bed. I suppose these have been waiting for me here ever since Uncle Christopher died.” Lighting the candles with a match, he handed one to each of his companions. “I’m beginning to feel at home already, boys. Welcome to Cotterell Hall.”

Even David, who could see nothing very thrilling in going over an old house, felt something of the excitement that had so obviously taken possession of John Tuckerman. As for Tom and Ben, they peered up the stairway and through the open doors as if they half-expected to see gentlemen in curled wigs, knee-breeches and small swords advancing to meet them.

Tuckerman led the way into the room on the left, a spacious apartment, wainscoted and with a pictured paper, representing scenes in fields and woods, covering the walls to the ceiling. There was a large fireplace, with a carved mantel above it. Fine old pieces of furniture filled the room, and, except for the musty air that is to be found in all houses that have been closed for some time, the place looked precisely as though it were lived in, even to a pile of magazines and books that lay on the centre-table.

“The drawing-room,” said Tuckerman, holding his candle high as he gazed about him. “And there, if I’m not mistaken, is old Sir Peter himself.”

Ben gave a start and looked quickly around. But it was not a ghost to which Tuckerman referred; it was a large painting that hung on the wall across from the fireplace, the portrait of a man in buff-colored coat and breeches, wearing a white tie-wig, and with his right hand resting on the head of a greyhound that rubbed against his