With a stern ejaculation he crossed the porch and entered the kitchen.
In another minute he had returned, a lighted lantern in his hand.
"Simeon, d--don't go," begged the woman, tremulously.

"You--you don't know what's there." "Fiddles are not played without hands, Ellen," retorted the man severely.

"Would you have me go to bed and leave a half-drunken, ungodly minstrel fellow in possession of our barn?
To-night, on my way home, I passed a pretty pair of them lying by the roadside--a man and a boy with two violins.

They're the culprits, likely,--though how they got this far, I don't see.

Do you think I want to leave my barn to tramps like them ?" "N--no, I suppose not," faltered the woman, as she rose tremblingly to her feet, and followed her husband's shadow across the yard.
Once inside the barn Simeon Holly and his wife paused involuntarily.
The music was all about them now, filling the air with runs and trills and rollicking bits of melody.