Chapter 3 THE OLD COTTAGE - AND A SURPRISE
The two girls, with Timmy at their heels, left their camping-place and set off in the hot sun.
Anne caught sight of the ruined cottage and stopped.
'Let's have a look at it,' she said. 'It must be awfully¹ old, George.'
They went in at the wide doorway². There was no door left, only the stone archway. Inside was a bigroom, whose floor had once been paved with slabs³ of white stone. Now grass and other weeds hadgrown between the cracks, and had actually lifted up some of the slabs so that the whole floor wasuneven.
Here and there parts of the walls had fallen away, and the daylight came through. One window wasstill more or less intact, but the others had fallen out. A small crooked⁵ stairway of stone led upwardsin one corner.
'To rooms above, I suppose,' said Anne. 'Oh, here's another doorway, leading into a second room- a small one. It's got an old sink in it, look - and this must be the remains⁶ of a pump.'
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'There's not much to see, really,' said George, looking round. 'The top rooms must be quite ruined,because half the roof is off. Hallo, here's another door - a back door. It's actually a door too, not just adoorway.'
She gave a push at the stout wood - and the old door promptly⁷ fell off its hinges and crashed outwardsinto an over-grown yard.
'Goodness!' said George, startled. 'I didn't know it was quite so rotten. It made poor Tim jump almostout of his skin!'
'There are out-houses here - or the remains of them,' said Anne, exploring the back-yard. 'They musthave kept pigs and hens and ducks. Here's a dried-up pond, look.'
Everything was falling to pieces. The best preserved corner of the old place was what must have beena small stable. Rusted⁸ mangers were still there and the floor was of stone. An old, old piece ofharness hung on a big nail.
'It's got quite a nice 'feel' about it, this old place,' said Anne. 'Sometimes I don't like the feel of places- they give me an uneasy feeling, a feeling that

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