WAS DARIUS DARKE really burned to death in the old barn assigned him as a resting-place?

So Squire Simpson thought, but he was mistaken.

When John Simpson went back to the house the tramp climbed up on the loft and lay down on the hay.

It was a comfortable place, far more comfortable than many in which he had been compelled to lodge, but it did not please him.

“Why,” he asked himself, “should John Simpson pass by his comfortable stable and put me in this out-of-the-way barn? I have fallen pretty low, it is true, but I still think a stable is not too good a place for me. What! what is that?”

He started as he felt something cold on his face, and quickly rose to a sitting posture.

“It is a rat!” he exclaimed, in disgust. “I felt his cold paws on my face. I never can sleep here!”

Then the thought occurred to him that the stable was near by, and he could probably get in easily. He groped his way down from the loft, opened the door through which he had entered, and retraced his steps along the path leading to the house, deviating at last and seeking the stable.

51 He could not open the large door, but there was a small side door through which he entered. Leaving it open for a minute till he could get his bearings, he caught a glimpse of a ladder, by which he easily ascended to the loft, which was about half filled with hay.

He stretched himself out on his humble bed with a sigh of satisfaction.

“There won’t be any rats here,” he said to himself. “The building is new and they haven’t found a lodgment here yet. I must wake up early in the morning and vacate the premises, and John Simpson will never know that I changed my sleeping-room.”

Darius Darke ensconced himself in the hay, and congratulated himself on his change of quarters. He expected to sink to sleep, but the stable seemed close! He had always been accustomed to plenty of air, but especially of late, when his bed had often been by the side of a fence, or at the foot of a hay-stack, under the canopy of heaven.

“I wonder whether there isn’t a window here?” thought he.

He rose from his couch and began to explore. He was successful.

In the side of the barn was, not a window, but a small door, which was fastened by a latch on the inside.

It was easy, of course, to open it, and admit the free air just behind where he lay.

“That is better,” he soliloquized, in a satisfied tone, and, resuming his place on the hay, he was soon fast asleep.

52 Generally he was a good sleeper. His walking during the day was enough to insure that. To-night, however, was an exception.

Soon after midnight he awoke, and found the pale moon shining upon him through the small door.

He rose, and drawing near the window, looked out. Mechanically, for he had no object in so doing, he directed his glance toward the old barn, where he had been assigned a bed. He saw something that startled him.

Beside the barn was the stooping figure of a man. He see............