Locked! Why, what time could it be?
He tried to remember what time he had left home, but failed.

At last he knocked, and just as he did so he perceived through a chink of the kitchen shutter a light on the scrubbed deal table inside, and Hannah's figure beside it.

At the sound of the knocker Hannah rose, put away her work with deliberation, snuffed the candle, and then moved with it to the door of the kitchen.

The boy watched her with a quickly beating heart and whirling brain.

She opened the door.
'Whar yo bin ?' she demanded sternly.