When Everett arrived in Ithaca he made arrangements with the conductor of the local train running to Geneva to have it slow down at Sherwoods Lane.
A sudden jerk of the engine as it halted at the path that led to Lon's hut brought Brimbecomb to his feet, and he hurried from the car with muttered thanks and a substantial consideration to the conductor. While the train rumbled away in the distance, he stood in the shadow of a large pine tree by the track and looked about to get his bearings. Suddenly he heard not far from him the faint, weird cry of an owl. Instantly he was on the alert; for there was something familiar in the melancholy sound. It took him back to a night in Tarrytown, when he had cast a woman into the cemetery, and he remembered that she had said she lived in Ithaca. Superstition sent him deeper into the shadow for a moment; but he recovered himself and, shaking his shoulders, went his way toward the lake with a muttered oath.
So dense was the woodland bordering the path, and so dark was the shadow of the bushes in the twilight, that he had almost to feel his way down the dark lane. He had not proceeded more than fifty yards when he saw a light gleaming through the underbrush from the opposite side of the gulch that ran parallel with the narrow road. He came to a path that branched in the direction of the light, and picked his way along it. Soon he crossed a primitive bridge and, climbing a little incline, paused before a dilapidated shanty. He knocked peremptorily on the door; but only a droning voice humming a monotonous tune made answer. Again he knocked, this time harder. The singing ceased, and after a shuffling of feet the door opened.
Standing before him, her hair bedraggled as it had been the first time he saw her, was the woman who had claimed to be his mother, the woman he had thrown into Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Brimbecomb, in his astonishment, almost fell back into the gulch. But he quickly gathered his scattered wits and, forcing a face of effrontery, doffed his hat.
"Can you tell me," his agitation did not allow him to speak calmly,--"can you tell me, please, where Lon Cronk lives?"
Although his question was low and broken, Scraggy caught each word.
"Down to the edge of the lake, Mister," she replied. "It's a goin' to be a dark night to be out in, ain't it?"
In his relief, Brimbecomb drew a long breath. She had not recognized him! The dim light of the candle showed him that the same dazed expression still remained in her faded eyes. The smirk on her face, the crouch of her emaciated figure, about which the rags swirled in the wind, the dismal hut, and the loneliness of her surroundings, made such a picture of woe that Everett shuddered and hastened to get the information, that he might hurry away from the awful place.