Wait till I clear away the briers a bit! Thar! now ye kin look in." The "hole" was a square opening, a couple of feet from the ground, and large enough for a person of moderate size to creep through.

Hildegarde stooped down and looked in.

At first she saw nothing but utter blackness; but presently her eyes became accustomed to the place, and the feeble light which struggled in past her through the opening, revealed strange objects which rose here and there from the vast pit of darkness,--fragments of rusty iron, bent and twisted into unearthly shapes; broken beams, their jagged ends sticking out like stiffly pointing fingers; cranks, and bits of hanging chain; and on the side next the water, a huge wheel, rising apparently out of the bowels of the earth, since the lower part of it was invisible.

A cold, damp air seemed to rise from the earth.

Hilda shivered and drew back, looking rather pale.