What They Found
Don drew his horses up with a jerk and sprang to the ground.
“The other lot from over the Ridge have not got here yet, so we are first,” he remarked cheerfully, and then he held out his arms to Pam, so that she might descend with safety. But she drew back with a sudden shyness.
“You go first, please, and show me the way,” she said to Sophy, who laughed, and then dropped into the strong arms of her brother, which was certainly the easiest mode of descent.
“Come, Miss Walsh, I promise not to drop you, and I don’t expect that you are heavier than Sophy.” Don had turned to the wagon again, and now Pam had no excuse for holding back; so, dropping as she had seen Sophy do, she was speedily standing on the ground by her side and looking at the blank windows of the house that was to be her home. She could not repress a shiver as she thought how angry her grandfather would probably be when he found the sort of company in which she had arrived.
“Let us go and knock at the door while the others are unloading,” suggested Sophy, who seemed to understand Pam’s secret fear, and was anxious to reassure her.
Pam moved forward on unsteady feet. There was a queer sensation all about her that she was walking in a dream; nothing seemed real, least of all the girl with the kindly face and the quiet voice who stood at her side, gently encouraging and wholly sympathetic. The outlines of the house were vaguely familiar. Mrs. Walsh had talked so often to her children of her childhood’s home that Pam would never feel strange at Ripple; she had known it at second-hand for so long.
“I wish you would knock,” she said in a low voice, shrinking back behind Sophy as they stood before the heavy door. They were quite alone now, for all the others were busy about the wagons, taking out the supper baskets, and talking excitedly about something that was missing.
“What are you afraid of?” asked Sophy, when she had beat upon the door with her fists and they stood waiting for it to be opened.
Pam shivered, for she was genuinely scared. In the background a dog was barking in angry protest, but the house itself was absolutely deserted, to all appearance. She did not answer Sophy, but remembering that she was in a manner at home, whilst these others were only outsiders, she laid her hand on the door and tried to open it. Of course it was fast, and after a little more time spent in knocking at the door she turned to Sophy, asking: “What will you do? There does not seem to be anyone at home.”
“The men will find a way to get in, they always do,” replied Sophy laughing softly. Then she called to her brother: “Don, come here. There seems to be no one at home. How will you get in?”
“I will go and see if I can find a way. Don’t let the others start beating the door in until I have tried what I can do,” he said with a backward wag of his head in the direction of the noisy group by the wagon, who were still wrangling over the problem of a missing basket. Then came quite a long wait, or so it seemed to Pam, who was trying to form little sentences of explanation so that she might appease her grandfather if he should suddenly arrive upon the scene to demand the reason of her arrival with such a turbulent company.
“Here comes Don!” cried Sophy, as a step sounded inside the house, and there was a noise of a bolt being dragged back. “How did you get in?” she asked, as the heavy door came open, and Don with a lantern in his hand appeared on the threshold.
“The old fellow went away in a hurry, and forgot to shut the pantry window,” said Don, laughing as he stood back to let the others enter the house. Then he held the lantern high above his head to show them the way.
Pam went in first. A sudden sense of proprietorship had come to her; it was as if this were her own house and all that turbulent company outside were her guests. They might not be quite all that she would wish them to be, but she would make the best of them. There was a lamp standing on a small table near the stove, and she turned at once to light it.
“Don’t you think we ought to go over the house to see if he is at home?” she asked. “He might be ill, you see. I am sure we ought to do that first, before the others come in.”
“So am I,” Sophy agreed quickly. “Don, do you light the fire in the stove while we are gone; there are kindlings lying in that corner. Come along, Miss Walsh; the others will be here directly, so we must make haste!”
Sophy had taken the lantern from Don, and she handed it to Pam, instinctively taking her place in the rear, for this girl who was a stranger in a strange country moved with the assured air of one who was at home.
Pam held the lantern high, looking about her with absorbed interest. This was the living-room, and the outer door opened right into it, and that door in the corner would lead into the kitchen. She knew it well, for her mother had shown Jack how to draw a plan of the house. The door on the other side led to a sitting-room, the best room, which was only used on state occasions; a dreary place, so her mother had said. Beyond it was the bedroom where her grandfather slept, the very room in which her mother had been born. That was where she expected to find her grandfather if he was in the house. The best room had an unwholesome smell, as of a place never used and never aired. There was no carpet on the floor, but there was a couch, a cabinet, some chairs, and a table. Even in walking across the room with the lantern in her hand, Pam noticed that the stove was red with rust, and she wondered if there had been a fire there in all the years since her mother had run away from home to get married.
At the inner door she paused and knocked; then, as there was no reply, and the door stood ajar, she pushed it open and went in. It was a wide chamber, like the others, and being a corner room it had windows on two sides. It was even more airless and stuffy than the sitting-room. A heap of rugs and a mattress on the bed were a sign that someone slept there, while there was a heap of ashes before the stove which showed that, early in the autumn as it was, the old man had begun having a fire at nights. He was not there. Pam made quite sure of that, even pausing to lift the heap of tumbled rugs on the bed as if she expected to find him tucked away underneath. Sophy came to help her, and they peered under the bed, and in the old press which stood in the corner.
“He is not here, we must go upstairs,” said Pam, who was breathing hard, as if she had been running.
“Is there any upstairs to the house?” asked the other. She had not observed the outlines of the house particularly when they arrived, and it was the first time she had ever been to Ripple.
“Yes, there are three rooms,” Pam replied, and turning, she led the way back across the dreary sitting-room, and out to the living-room, where by this time Don had a fire roaring in the stove. Galena Gittins, the woman named Sissy, and one or two others were busy bringing in the supper baskets, but she took no notice of them. Crossing the floor, she went out by the door on the other side of the stove to the wide kitchen, or out-place, whence a narrow wooden stair led to the three bedrooms in the roof. These also were wide chambers, but only one of them had any furniture. This had been her mother’s old bedroom, as Pam recognized at the very first glance. There was a big press of red pine, which smelled like cedar, and was just as good at keeping away moths. There was the little bed with the carved head-board, the work of her great-grandfather, and the table that her great-uncle Zach had carved. There were even some old garments hanging on pegs behind the door, and she wondered if they had hung there ever since her mother went away. What a Rip-van-Winkle kind of business it was! Perhaps the room had hardly been entered for twenty years; it smelled stuffy enough.
“There is no one here,” said Sophy softly. She stood just behind Pam and looked about her in wonder. She did not understand how it was that this stranger from across the sea was so at home in this deserted house.
“No, he is not here,” said Pam. “He is not in the house, unless he is in the cellar. We ought to look there at once, before that lot downstairs start making a noise. Oh, pardon me, I forgot they are your friends, and of course they mean well.”
Sophy made a wry face, for the unconscious reproach in the voice of Pam made her wince.
“Yes, they—we mean all right,” she answered. She hesitated a moment, and then burst out: “It would have been rather horrid for you if you had come straight here, and found no one at all.”
“Indeed it would, and I am properly grateful down underneath,” replied Pam, and then she led the way towards the cellar, while Sophy followed behind. The cellar stretched right under the whole length of the house, as is common in New Brunswick, the severity of the winters making it essential to have a good storage that frost cannot touch.
But downstairs the merry crowd had been augmented by the other wagonload of people from over the Ridge; these were all presented to Pam in due course, and she found herself thrust, whether she would or no, into the position of hostess. It was in her to rise to the occasion, and she did it right royally, only there was all the time that feeling in her heart that she must search in the cellar before she allowed herself to be drawn into any merry-making. She slipped away with Sophy while the others were all busy trying to make the supper-table bigger by the addition of boards laid across the backs of chairs, and holding her lantern high above her head, she went carefully down the ladder-like stairs, while Sophy came close behind.
“Take care, there should be a very bad place about half-way down,” said Pam, who was breathing in little gasps again, for she was tremendously excited. “Ah, here it is! Mother has told me that she sprained her ankle over that step at three different times. Don’t you wonder what some people are made of, to leave necessary things neglected for so long?”
Sophy stumbled, nearly fell, and recovered herself with an effort; and steadying herself with a hand on Pam’s shoulder she answered with a laugh:
“Wait until you have lived at Ripple for a year before you pass judgment. Our summers are a fierce rush to do the things that must be done, and in the winter we are more or less torpid.”
“I shall not be torpid,” cried Pam in merry defiance. Then she paused and cried out in rapturous delight, as, reaching the bottom step, she came in sight of shelves piled with apples—bushels and bushels of them, some quite enormous in size, some so rosy and tempting to look at that she wanted to stretch out her hand and start eating then and there. Others were green and hard, as if they would not be mellow enough to eat for months to come. “What can my grandfather do with so much fruit?” she asked in surprise, as the flashing light of her lantern showed shelf after shelf piled with apples, while of pumpkins, squashes, and the harder sort of melons there was a goodly array.
“One needs a good lot of provisions to face a winter that is seven months long,” replied Sophy, who was also peering about with great interest, for she was of a housewifely turn. “But really, for an old man living alone, your grandfather has stored a considerable lot of apples. I suppose he has not lifted his potatoes yet, or we should smell them.”
“The potatoes always went into the inner cellar, so Mother said. Here they are, and what a lot! I shall live on roasted apples and potatoes this winter, I think. They will be easy to cook, and that will give me time for other things. Do you think I ought to take some of these apples up for the surprise party, or would Grandfather object to my making free with his property?”
“We have brought apples in plenty,” said Sophy. “If you are asked out to a surprise party yourself this fall (autumn), you might bring along some of those yellow ones over there; I don’t think there is another tree of that variety in the district. Mother has sent over here to buy some every winter since I can remember, and ever so many folks have asked to have scions from the tree, but Mr. Peveril would neither give nor sell them.”
“Poor Grandfather; I am afraid he is rather disobliging sometimes!” Pam murmured with wistful regret in her tone.
When they had thoroughly inspected the cellar, as they had done the rest of the house, they went back to the living-room, where the fun was now uproarious. The young men were making coffee, while the girls set the table, and the older women unpacked the food. There were even one or two middle-aged men, but Pam noticed that these withdrew into a corner, where they sat talking, quite heedless of the confusion all around them. They were much too tired to care for anything in the way of festivity which entailed any labour, but a chance to exchange opinions with a neighbour, and to hear a little gossip, was inducement sufficient to bring them long distances, and make them willing to be all night out of bed.
Old Wrack Peveril’s supply of lamps was limited, but the resourceful surprise party had succeeded in getting a fine illumination notwithstanding. A generous supply of pine knots had been brought along in a basket, and these, tossed on the fire a few at a time, lighted the big room with a vivid, flashing glare. There were also several lanterns, and these were hung in the outer kitchen, in the dreary best sitting-room, and even in the old man’s bedroom. This surprise party was not going to do things by halves, and they wanted room in which to spread themselves. A supply of candles eked out the lanterns, but these, being home-made, were not very brilliant, and they guttered fearfully in the liberal draughts.
Pam was not allowed to lift a finger to do anything. She was of the family, they told her, even though she had arrived with the company. Failing her grandfather, she was hostess. Entering into the spirit of the thing, some of the girls rushed out of doors and gathered great boughs of foliage by moonlight; these they wreathed in the back of a ponderous arm-chair, and dragging it to the head of the supper-table, installed Pam there in regal state.
“Oh, I cannot take the head of the table; it is not my house!” she cried. “My grandfather might be angry with me if he came back and found that I was taking his place in such a fashion, and it would be dreadful to start with him in that way.”
“I don’t fancy he will be back before to-morrow,” said Mrs. Morse, the stout woman who had known Pam’s mother. “It is awkward travelling the forest trails at night, and the moon will soon be down. We mostly stay where sundown finds us, and let travelling wait until daylight comes again. That is what your grandfather is going to do, I expect, so you might as well get all the fun you can. We are only young once, and there is no sense in being dismal when you can have the time of your life.”
“If the old man happens along we will square him somehow, Miss Walsh, don’t you be afraid,” put in Don Grierson, who, having undertaken the work of head coffee-maker, was busy at the stove.
Pam yielded then, and really it would have been silly to protest. She was excited, too, and the whole affair had taken on the character of an adventure. She permitted herself to be placed in the great chair, she let the girls take her hat off and twine a wreath of yellow maple leaves for her hair, and she sat at the head of the long table, a veritable queen of the ceremonies. Her face was flushed, her eyes were shining, and she entered into the fun with an abandon that surprised even herself.
The supper was very good, and she was so hungry that she could have devoured almost anything. Never, never had she tasted such chicken pie, or such delicious cake. They had given her an earthenware plate—cracked it is true, and browned with having been put in the oven, but it was a plate—and as there were only about three others this was a distinction indeed. Mrs. Morse, sitting at her side, was placidly eating from an old baking-tin, while Galena Gittins, farther down the table, had a saucepan lid by way of plate. These small drawbacks did but add to the fun, however, and gales of laughter resounded through the wide room, which must have been silent for so many years.
Suddenly Pam felt something pressing against her, and looking down she saw the shaggy head of a big dog pressed against her knee, while two wistful eyes looked into hers, and an eager tail thumped the floor.
“A dog, and such a dear! Where did it come from?” she asked, stooping to pat the shaggy head, and then sharing a liberal bit of pie with the hungry animal.
“It is old Wrack’s dog, and was going to eat us all when we took our horses into the barn; but a mouthful of food soon brought it to a better frame of mind,” said a young man, edging a little nearer for a chance of talking to Pam. She was having a triumph in a small way, and the surprise party were feeling that they themselves had had a very charming surprise at Ripple that night, for it is always the unexpected that appeals to people.
“If it is Grandfather’s dog, then it belongs to me in a way, and we must be friends, of course.” Pam stooped over the animal again, feeding it with morsels from her plate, and doing her very best to win the creature’s liking. Perhaps if the dog loved her, the old man would also find it easy to care for her. That was how she argued the matter to herself, as she sat at the head of the table playing hostess in a house she had never before entered, to a company of people she had never before seen.
“Funny the old man did not take his dog along with him where he has gone. Folks say that he is never seen without the beast,” remarked the young man who had just been talking to Pam, and for want of some one better he addressed his remark to Mrs. Morse.
“The old man knew his own business best, I guess,” rejoined the stout woman tartly. “It is likely he left the critter here to guard the place a bit. But it does seem a bit strange to me that the old fellow should have gone out for the night, and he expecting his granddaughter at any time, as you might say. Now you suppose what the situation would have been for that poor girl, if we had not taken it into our heads to surprise old Wrack to-night! I declare it fairly makes my flesh creep to think about it.”
“Then don’t think about it, Mrs. Morse,” said Pam, who had overheard the remark. “Grandfather would not have meant to treat me badly, I am sure; perhaps he has even gone some part of the way to meet me, and by ill fortune we missed each other.”
The company looked at each other, as much as to say that was about the most unlikely thing to have happened, but no one ventured to say so. There was not one present in the room who would have said or done anything to sadden Pam or put any foreboding as to her future into her heart. When supper was over, the food remaining—a goodly pile—was carefully stacked out of the way, the table was dragged to one side of the room, and then the fun began. One of the party had brought a fiddle, and one had a melodeon, and with these for orchestra, dancing went on with great spirit. Sir Roger de Coverley was first favourite, and they danced it over and over again until they were fairly tired out, and subsided on to chairs and forms to play General Post. This entailed so many forfeits, and so much hilarity in the paying of them, that midnight was long past before anyone even thought of wanting any fresh amusement. Singing was called for then, and chorus after chorus rang round the heavy timbers of the ceiling. Pam noticed that it was all sacred music, chorales, anthems, and sonorous fugues which had been learned at church, and which matched with the sombre grandeur of the leagues on leagues of forest surrounding Ripple on every side.
“Won’t you sing something?” Sophy asked, coming over to Pam, whose face was wearing a rather awed expression.
“I can’t sing—not by myself, I mean. I am not accomplished really, though I can play the piano enough to teach young children,” Pam answered, thinking of the governess life which she had left so far behind.
“Ah, the piano is rather out of it here. The useful instrument is one that can be carried about, like the violin or the melodeon,” Sophy said. She went on to tell Pam that so far as she knew there was only one piano in the township, and that was broken.
“I shall learn to play the jews’ harp; I am sure that I could manage it, for I could perform quite creditably with a comb and a piece of paper.” Pam laughed at her own small wit, then suddenly grew serious, for the night was wearing, and with the first streaks of dawn to light the forest trails these lively people would be gone, and she would be left alone to face whatever might come.
“Could you stay with me, just until my grandfather comes back? Would it be asking too much?” There was such a wistful look in the eyes she turned to Sophy as betrayed the heart-shrinking that was behind.
“I think so, but I will ask Don what he thinks. Mother is not very strong, but I know she will do her best to let me help you,” Sophy said. She made her way across to Don, who was just going to start making coffee again: a minute of consultation and she was back by the side of Pam. “Don says he is sure that I ought to stay, and that he will drive over for me this afternoon, unless Father happens to have a round in this direction. Father is the township doctor, you know, so he is all over the place, and we never know where he will have to go next. If I stay here with you we will do the clearing up after the company are gone. That will please them all, because, you see, it is proper for them to do it.”
The Next Day
Dawn was only faintly creeping up through the avenues of the forest when the last wagon, filled with tired merrymakers, drove away from Ripple. The silence which dropped when they had gone was so appalling that Pam turned to Sophy with actual consternation in her eyes.
“Is it always as deadly quiet as this?” she asked, and now it was hard work to keep her voice from quavering. She did not realize that she was worn out with all the excitement she had gone through.
“You don’t think of the quiet when you are used to it,” Sophy answered. “At least, I never think about it; but of course our house is not so remote as this. The fact is, you are so tired that you can hardly stand on your two feet. Suppose you lie down for a little rest before your grandfather comes back, and I will do the clearing up.”
“As if I should even dream of letting you work while I take my ease!” cried Pam in a shocked tone. “I am quite sure that you must be as tired as I am, only you are made of better stuff and will not cry out about it. Let us do what is necessary as quickly as we can, then we will just lie down and sleep the worst of it off. I wonder when Grandfather will come back, and what he will say when he finds that I have come?”
“He ought to say how sorry he is that he was not here to give you a welcome,” replied Sophy, as she moved to and fro straightening the furniture, picking up bits of paper, and restoring the room to the condition in which they had found it. The house door stood wide open, and presently they heard the sound of a cow mooing in the barn.
“There are the animals to be fed, and if you are a London girl you will not know much about milking.” Sophy had paused in her work of clearing and was standing still with a frown on her face. She did not know very much about it herself, for in the doctor’s household there were always men or boys to do that sort of work. But she was going to help Pam all she could, and if it entailed milking a cow, well, she did not intend to be beaten at the business. She had seen cows milked often enough, the operation looked fairly easy, and she was not afraid of the animals.
“I know that milk comes from cows—and coconuts, and that is about all,” said Pam, shrugging her shoulders as she realized the extent of her ignorance.
“Come and have your first lesson in milking, then.” Sophy caught up the cleanest bucket she could find, and tied a towel over her best frock. “We may have to feed pigs if there are any in the barn. If I had thought about the live stock I should certainly have asked one of the menfolks to stay and see us through with the morning chores. As it is, we must just do the best we can until your grandfather comes home again.”
“You never know what you can do until you try,” exclaimed Pam, as she, too, tied a towel over her frock in imitation of Sophy. The two stepped out into the keen, crisp air of the morning, and went across grass which sparkled with frost to the barn. They were closely followed by the dog. The creature had apparently decided that Pam was one of the family, and meant to treat her accordingly.
There were pigs and poultry to be fed, there was a cow to be milked and turned into a little paddock, which sloped like a wedge into the forest. There were half a score of sheep in the paddock also, but Sophy said these would not need feeding, as they were quite able to get their own living. When the “chores” were all done Pam went back to the house feeling as if her education had taken great strides since the previous day, and she envied the ease with which Sophy tackled all the mysteries of milking and feeding.
The two were just deciding that, now the “chores” were done, they were free to lie down and take a rest, when from the open door they caught the sounds of horses approaching. A moment later two men in police uniform rode up to the front of the house and dismounted.
“The police!” cried Sophy, and her face went as white as her blouse. “Courage, Pam! I am afraid something must have happened to your grandfather.”
Pam caught her breath in a little sobbing gasp, and clung to Sophy as the men rode up and dismounted before the door of the house.
“Is Mr. Peveril at home?” demanded the elder of the two, and at the question Pam’s courage instantly rose, for of course if the old man had been found injured or dead the police would not ask if he were at home.
Putting Sophy gently in the background Pam came forward, flushing a little as she looked into the strong, weather-beaten face of the policeman. Her voice was quite steady as she answered:
“My grandfather is not at home just now, and we do not know when he will be back, but we are expecting him at any minute.”
“Is Mr. Peveril your grandfather? I did not know he had any relatives,” said the officer, and Pam noticed with exceeding dismay that he looked as if he were sorry for her.
“Mr. Peveril has a daughter, my mother, who lives in England, and I have come from there to live with Grandfather and take care of him,” she said. Now there was defiance in her tone, for she was telling herself that she did not want this man’s pity. Why should people pity her for coming to live with her grandfather? It was horrid! Moreover, it was a slur on his character, and because blood is thicker than water every instinct of affection and defence of which Pam was capable rallied to champion the old man.
The officer nodded. “What time did Mr. Peveril leave here yesterday?” he asked. Then, suddenly recognizing Sophy, who had remained in the background where Pam had thrust her, he said: “Good morning, Miss Grierson; I am afraid we worked the Doctor rather hard last night.”
“Was Father called out last night?” cried Sophy in dismay. “Oh, I am sorry for Mother, for Don and I were both away. I do hate for her to be left alone like that. What time was Father called?”
“Between seven and eight o’clock. He was called to attend Sam Buckle, whose wife had found him lying near the fence that divides his quarter-section from Ripple. He was most fearfully battered, but just alive. I fear there is not much hope of his recovery, he is so badly knocked about.”
“Oh dear, oh dear, how truly dreadful!” gasped Sophy, and Pam, whose senses were by this time quite abnormally acute, noticed that she turned a glance full of pity upon herself.
“What time did Mr. Peveril leave here yesterday?” demanded the officer, turning to Pam once more, and now his voice had a more peremptory ring.
“I do not know; he was not here when we came last night,” she faltered. A chill dismay was creeping over her, and she was wondering why Sophy looked so distressed, and why she had so carefully averted her face.
“What time did you come?” asked the officer sharply.
This time it was Sophy who answered.
“It must have been about half an hour, perhaps three-quarters, after sundown. We came for a surprise party. We were in two wagons coming along the trail when we met Miss Walsh, who in walking here from Hunt’s Crossing had lost her way. We took her into our wagon and brought her along with us. We found the house deserted, and stayed all night enjoying ourselves. When the others went at dawn I remained with Miss Walsh, who is a stranger and a city girl, so she would have been hard put to it alone. That is all we know.”
“Can you remain here with Miss Walsh still, Miss Grierson? I will tell your father you are here.”
“Oh, yes, I will stay, of course. I could not leave Miss Walsh alone at such a time!” exclaimed Sophy, and there was such a thrill in her tone that Pam’s face blanched with a sudden terror. What was the hidden meaning of this compassion, and what had Sam Buckle’s accident to do with her or her grandfather? But she could not ask the officer. Indeed, she had no chance. Staying only to give a few instructions to Sophy, and saying that he would probably look round that way later in the day, the officer rode away accompanied by his companion, and the silence settled down again.
All desire to sleep seemed to have vanished from both girls. Directly they were alone, Pam turned to Sophy.
“Why did that man seem to pity me so much? Why should he come here to know where Grandfather is?” she demanded.
Sophy put her hand up in protest.
“It may be nothing, of course; but when such things happen people always jump to conclusions. Your grandfather and Sam Buckle have quarrelled about that fence ever since I was a small girl; as often as Sam has put it up your grandfather has broken it down. Maybe Sam had been putting the fence up before he was found so badly hurt.”
A long moment of silence passed. Pam was staring at Sophy with dilated eyes, and such a feeling of terror in her heart as she had never experienced before. Then finally she found her tongue.
“Do you mean to tell me,” she asked, “that you think Grandfather injured that poor man so dreadfully?”
Sophy put her arms about Pam in protecting wise, and her voice was kind and soothing when she spoke.
“Dear,” she said, “Mr. Peveril was very likely nowhere near the place where Sam Buckle was found, and when he comes back he will be able to tell people where he has been; but until then you have this hard thing to bear, and you will have to be as brave as ever you can.”
“Suppose he never does come back?” Pam shuddered violently, and then hid her face in her hands, feeling that the trouble was really more than she could bear.
“He will surely come back unless something has happened to him,” said Sophy soothingly; then she bent over Pam’s bowed head and comforted her as best she could. She succeeded so well that presently Pam suffered herself to be persuaded into lying down. She promptly fell asleep then, and lay wrapped in profound slumber while the hours of the hot, sunny noon came and passed. Sophy slept too, but fitfully; there was a sense of responsibility on her that kept her wakeful and alert. The house door was open, and the big dog slumbered on the threshold. The creature seemed to share Sophy’s wakefulness, for it kept lifting an uneasy head. Once or twice it growled, although apparently there was nothing anywhere near to growl at, except the chipmunks darting to and fro, busy in the collection of their winter store of nuts.
Then far away along the trail from the westward came the faint beat of a horse’s hoofs. Immediately the dog rose to its feet and stood growling, while Sophy, who had been drifting into deeper slumber, also rose and rubbed her eyes to get the sleepiness out of them.
“Pam,” she called softly, “Pam, dear, there is someone coming; you had better wake up.”
But Pam was so sound asleep that it was hard work to rouse her. The horseman was very near, indeed, before she had come to a real understanding of what Sophy was saying. Then she stood for some seconds swaying to and fro, more asleep than awake.
“There is water in the out-kitchen. Run, dip your face in the bucket, you will feel better then!” urged Sophy, and Pam moved slowly away, found the bucket of water and a coarse towel, dipped her face, and, rubbing it vigorously, at once began to feel better. “Why, it is Father!” Sophy fairly shouted with delight as a grey-haired man mounted on a powerful black horse rode into view and lifted his whip in salutation. He rode up to the doorstep, slid from his horse, and Sophy rushed into his arms.
“The police told me that I should find you here, so I rode round this way,” said Dr. Grierson, as he held his daughter with one hand and lifted his hat to Pam with the other. “Is this Miss Walsh, of whom I have been hearing? I am very pleased to meet you, but I am real sorry that you should have been pitchforked, as it were, into such a peck of trouble, my dear. I have heard of your mother very often. Quite the belle of these parts she was, I should imagine, but more than a bit headstrong. Do you take after her?”
“I don’t know,” answered Pam, a little dubiously, for she thought the Doctor was making fun of her. “I am not so wise as my mother, and I am always getting into muddles.”
“So did she, according to all accounts, so doubtless you are a chip off the old block,” he said with a laugh; then he asked if Wrack Peveril had come back.
“No; we have seen nothing of him,” Pam replied; and Sophy immediately asked how Sam Buckle was.
“He is very bad indeed.” The Doctor’s tone was curt, a sure sign, as Sophy knew, that there was not much hope. The Doctor simply hated having his patients die, and he always behaved as if it were a personal affront when they showed signs of slipping out of life.
“Has he said anything about—about who hurt him?” asked Pam. She was determined to know all there was to be known, and she feared they would hide things from her unless she asked right out.
“He has not said much of anything that we can understand except to mutter over and over again that ‘it is his right, it is his right’,” said the Doctor; and Pam suddenly felt a great sinking of heart, for why should the injured man say words like those unless he were living over again the quarrel with his neighbour?
“He is such a fearfully disagreeable man!” exclaimed Sophy, as if she read the thought in the heart of Pam, and would give her comfort if she could. “I never knew anyone yet who really liked Mr. Buckle; even his own wife admits that he is a dreadfully hard man to live with. Father, you will never get your money for attending him; he will say that he did not call you himself, and so there is no obligation to pay you. That was how he served you the time the tree fell on him and nearly killed him; don’t you remember it?”
“Some people are made that way,” said the Doctor. “But I guess that I shall be no poorer in the long run for doing my duty by my fellow creatures. Would you two like Don to come and stay the night here with you? It is a lonesome place for two girls.”
“We shall not mind, I think,” put in Sophy hastily. She was thinking of her mother, and how Mrs. Grierson hated to be left at home at night with the younger children only.
“Oh, no, we shall not mind!” cried Pam, who understood perfectly the reason why Sophy did not want Don to come. She, for her own part, was anxious to get used to being alone at Ripple. If her grandfather failed to come back, she would have to do as best she could until her family came out from England to live with her, so it was just as well to get used to things. “We have the dog, and there are two guns in the sitting-room; that is one each, and I don’t think we need more than that.”
“If you take my advice you will leave the guns severely alone,” broke in the Doctor hastily. “There is nothing so dangerous as fire-arms in the hands of people who know nothing about them. We don’t want any more tragedies in the neighbourhood just now.”
“Keep your mind easy, Dad,” said Sophy with a laugh. “The guns are here right enough, but so far as I have been able to find there is not a dust of powder or any shot on the place.”
“Hush, don’t talk of it!” cried Pam, holding up her finger in warning. “All the time no one knows that we have no ammunition the guns will serve their purpose. If we pointed the things full at any intruder he would be properly scared, of course, and we should be in no danger, so it would be quite right.”
“You will do!” said the Doctor heartily, patting Pam on the shoulder as if she were a little schoolgirl. “Now I must go, but I will look along to-morrow and let you know how Sam Buckle is getting on. Have you got enough clothes, Sophy, or would you like Don to bring some over for you this evening?”
“I have nothing but what I have on, and this is my best frock,” she answered in a rueful tone, for her best frocks had to last a long time, and this was only about the third time of wearing that one. “I would spend the time I am here in helping Pam to clean this house down—very needful work, too—but what can one do in a best frock?”
“I will ask your mother to put some things in a bag for you, then Don shall ride over with them,” said the Doctor, who was in a hurry to mount and ride away, for he was needed in another direction.
“Sophy, I am haunted by the thought that poor Grandfather may have met with an accident somewhere out in the woods or the fields,” said Pam when the last echoes of the Doctor’s horse had died away. “Could we not go and look to see if we can find him?”
“We might, but it would be awkward if he came back while we were away,” answered Sophy.
“We will leave a paper here on the table to say that we have gone to look for him, and we can shut the dog indoors to take care of the place.” Pam had rummaged a pencil and a piece of paper from her bag, and writing her message, she left it lying in a prominent place on the table, with a blue mug standing on the edge of the paper to keep it from being blown away by any draught from the door. The dog was coaxed in and left to guard the place, and then the two set forth on their quest.
Sophy had never been at Ripple before. Pam also was a stranger in a sense, and yet she knew so much more of the place from hearsay as to seem quite at home.
“We will go right round the cleared land first,” she said to Sophy, who had naturally fallen into the second place and was following Pam’s lead.
“There does not seem to be much cleared land,” Sophy remarked, gazing round at the crowding forest trees. Here and there a little field had been made, but even in these great stumps were still standing.
“We will go round all the fields first, and then we will search in the forest.” A little sob came up in Pam’s throat as she added: “I must find him somehow, the poor lonely old man!”
Where has He Gone?
It was quite late in the afternoon when the two girls reached the house again. They were both of them tired out, for the day was fiercely hot. They had come upon no trace of the old man, but of one thing they had made quite certain: he was not lying in a dying or dead condition in any of his fields, which was, as Pam said, a comfort of a sort.
They heard the dog barking wildly as they reached the house, and a man was turning away from the door as if he had been trying to get admission and had failed.
“Who is that?” cried Pam. At the first sight of the man she had jumped to the conclusion that it was her grandfather, but a second glance had shown her that this man was young, or comparatively young.
“It is Mose Paget,” Sophy whispered hurriedly, and there was so much disapproval in her tone that Pam gathered the arrival was something of a detrimental. And indeed he looked it, from the torn brim of his weather-beaten hat to the burst boots on his feet.
“Good afternoon!” said Pam politely. She would have supposed the man to be a tramp, only her companion knew his name, and so far as she knew tramps had no names, or if they had no one knew them. To her surprise the man swept off his ragged hat with a flourish, and he spoke like an educated man when he returned her greeting, and asked if Mr. Wrack Peveril was at home.
Pam’s face clouded. She had hoped that the man had come to give her news of her grandfather, and here he was asking where he was, just like all the other folks! She would have poured out the story of their long search that afternoon, only Sophy’s hand dropped with a warning touch on her arm, and instead of being confidential she merely said:
“I do not think that he has come back yet. If you will wait a moment I will go into the house and see.”
The man nodded, then leaned against the fence very much at his ease, while Pam, with Sophy at her side, walked to the door of the house and opened it. With a howl of rage the dog burst out, but seeing it was the two girls who were there the creature at once mended its manners, the growls died in its throat, and it came to fawn upon them with every appearance of joyfulness. Then, catching sight of the shabby figure leaning on the fence, it began growling again, and would have dashed away to do the man a serious injury, only Pam caught it round its neck and held it fast.
One glance into the room showed her that it was just as they had left it. The paper still lay on the table. No one had been there, and the old man had not returned.
“My grandfather has not come home yet. Is there any message you would like to leave for him?” she asked, raising her voice a little so that it might reach the man who leaned against the fence. The dog still struggled in her grasp, being plainly anxious to rend the man if only it could reach him.
“Well, no, I can’t say that I have,” he answered. As he spoke he drew himself erect from his leaning posture, and there was so much relief in his face that both girls noticed it and wondered. “Perhaps I shall meet him at The Corner in a day or two, or I may be round this way again soon. It ain’t no sort of consequence. Good afternoon!”
“Didn’t you think he seemed very glad to find that Grandfather was not at home?” said Pam, turning to Sophy as the retreating figure of Mose Paget was hid by the winding of the trail. She was still gripping the dog, and that sagacious beast was being nearly choked with its own growls. Plainly the man did not appeal to the dog, or perhaps the wise animal had some past grudge against him.
“Yes, I think that his wanting to see Mr. Peveril was only an excuse. It was a good thing we left the dog shut in the house, or we might have found the place had been ransacked while we were away. Mose Paget has not much of a reputation, though folks do say he is very kind to his half-brother, Reggie Furness.”
“A man would have to be very bad indeed if he had no good points,” remarked Pam, as the two turned into the house. Then she asked: “Do you suppose that there would be anything here worth stealing?”
“Not by the look of the place,” said Sophy, gazing round the wide, bare room. The solid furniture was mostly home-made, very clumsy, and only worth firewood price, which in that part of the world would not be worth consideration. Of household plenishing of the more movable sort, such as plate, glass, and cutlery, there was almost nothing; in fact, it was the most hopeless wilderness, from the point of view of a burglar, that could be imagined. “But Mose Paget might have heard that your grandfather was not at home, and so just happened round to see if there were any money to be picked up. When a man lives in the fashion Mr. Peveril has done people are apt to think that there must be money hidden somewhere close at hand, and to be had for the finding; and it is these people who find it almost impossible to believe that it is poverty and not miserliness which accounts for the barren look of things.”
Pam nodded, and was conscious of some secret sinking of heart. Sophy had spoken of the old man’s poverty by way of reassuring Pam, who might have been afraid to be compelled to guard the secret hoards of a miser. Besides, everyone believed that Wrack Peveril was very poor, and even in the wilderness people can make a very fair guess at the business of their neighbours. If Pam’s grandfather were so poor, it would be madly impracticable for her mother to give up the London boarding-house and come to the old home in New Brunswick. But Pam was longing for her family, and feeling that she could never be really happy while the wide Atlantic rolled between herself and them.
The two girls did the evening “chores” between them, only to-night it was Pam who sat on the stool and milked the cow under the able tuition of Sophy, whose best frock was still the barrier to happiness in work. Pam had to learn, however, and there was no time like the present, for without doubt Sophy was a more patient teacher than the old man would be when he came back; and Pam made up her mind to imbibe as much information as was possible in the time. The pigs and the poultry had fed themselves with the harvest of field and forest, but they had to be shut up because of the nocturnal marauders, to whom a chicken, or even a small porker, would not come amiss.
“We are all farmers more or less,” exclaimed Sophy, when Pam openly wondered at her cleverness and the extent of her knowledge. “That is to say, there is land under cultivation round most of the houses; and so we all grow our own milk and butter, and rear our own pigs and poultry.”
“I feel so dreadfully ignorant now that I am here, for the sort of knowledge I possess seems of no use at all,” said Pam, who had even to be instructed in the art of lighting a fire with a back stick.[1]She had never seen a cooking-stove of such a pattern before, and she would have been very much at a loss in her new surroundings had it not been for Sophy.
“You will soon pick up the ways of daily living that are most suited to this part of the world,” Sophy said in a comforting tone. Then the two proceeded to set supper. The food left over from the surprise party would keep them supplied with provisions for several days to come, which was just as well, for a house more bare of things to eat it would be hard to imagine. There was no tea, no coffee, only a little dust of sugar screwed up in a grimy paper bag, and a little meal in a tub. Pam was ready to cry, thinking that her grandfather must have been on the brink of starvation. Sophy reminded her of the cow, and pointed out that, supposing he lived on new milk, with meal porridge, he would be even better nourished than people who had tea, coffee, and all sorts of groceries.
“Poor old man!” wailed Pam, as she inspected that bare house, “I feel as if I could nearly break my heart over him. But if he comes back, and is fearfully hard to live with, then I shall feel like breaking it from another standpoint altogether.”
“Just so; and neither way will do any good, so it is much better to keep cheerful,” said Sophy, who was of a very literal turn of mind. “Here comes Don with some garments for me. Shall we ask him to stay for supper, or do you think your grandfather would object?”
“Time enough to think about that when the dear old man shows up; meanwhile we could not be so inhuman as to let anyone go away unfed. Bring your brother in, and we will feed him on chicken pie and spiced cake. What a good thing it is for me that the surprise party had such liberal ideas with regard to food!” Pam whisked round to find another plate as she spoke, but she left Sophy to go and invite the visitor in to supper.
Don was looking very serious. He muttered to Sophy in that moment of meeting that it was to be hoped old Wrack Peveril would not turn up in the township just now, for the people were ready to rise and slay him, because of the manner in which Sam Buckle had been knocked about.
“But they are not sure, are they, that Mr. Peveril did it?” gasped Sophy, with a quick backward glance to make certain that Pam was nowhere within earshot.
Don shrugged his broad shoulders.
“Who else was there to do it? The two were known to be at enmity. Sam Buckle keeps muttering that it was his right, and everyone knows he always declared it was his right to put a fence just there.”
“Sam Buckle is such a disagreeable old man that I cannot feel he is worth much pity,” remarked Sophy with a scornful tilt of her nose, as she laid her hand on the bag of clothes which her brother had brought for her.
“I don’t feel any for him,” said Don quickly, “nor for old Wrack either; the pair are about as amiable as a couple of old bull moose, and there is nothing for it but to let them fight to a finish, that I can see. The one that I am sorry for is that nice little girl in yonder, and whatever her mother could have been thinking about to let her come so far with no one to take care of her is more than I can imagine.”
“Oh, Pam can take care of herself, don’t you fret! She might be a Canadian by the way she takes hold of life, and she does not seem to be afraid of anything except the old mother-pig, and anyone might be forgiven for being a bit scared at facing her, she looks so very fierce.” Sophy was leading the way into the house as she spoke, and looking back over her shoulder at her brother. She did not remember having seen Don look so grave before, but she decided that gravity certainly became him, for it gave him a dignity which was quite new to him.
They were very merry at supper that night, despite the cloud which overhung the house. Sophy had carried her bag upstairs, and had slipped into a working frock. With her mind at ease about her clothes her spirits had mounted at once. She made little jokes, and went off into bursts of laughter about anything or nothing in a fashion which proved so infectious that the other two were speedily laughing also.
Directly supper was over Don rose to go. Not having been in bed on the previous night, and having been hard at work all day, he was so sleepy that he could hardly keep his eyes open. Sophy would have besought him to lie down on the settle in the living-room and have his sleep out there, but she was so concerned that her mother should not be alone another night that she would not even suggest his remaining at Ripple.
“Where are you two going to sleep to-night?” he asked, just as he was going to mount his horse.
“In one of the upstairs rooms. We have had the bed out in the sun all day,” said Sophy, and there was in her mind a swift wonder at his concern.
“That is right. Look here, sis, if there is a bolt to the stairs door, mind you shoot it when you go upstairs, and don’t come down in the night whatever you may hear. I’m not afraid that anyone would harm either of you—if you keep out of the way, that is. But I should not be surprised if someone tried a bit of burgling on here, for there are plenty of people silly enough to think that old Wrack was a miser, and not so bed-rock poor as he looked.”
“We won’t come down, I promise you,” said Sophy. Then she added, with a merry laugh: “Not even if another surprise party happens along this way, and dances all night to the strains of a cornet and flute. Oh, I say, wouldn’t it be weird!”
“I should think it would,” replied Don, and bothered though he was by the lonely condition of the two, he could not forbear a chuckle of amusement at the fancy picture his sister had called up. “Mose Paget is the only man that can play the cornet in the township that I know of, and he is going to help Mrs. Buckle with Sam to-night.”
It was very weird and still at Ripple when Don had ridden away. The darkness dropped over the forest like a pall. It was cloudy to-night, and the young moon had no chance at all against the billowy masses of cloud that were piled along the horizon. It would rain before morning, so Sophy said. If the weather broke it might even be dull and stormy for a week or more, and she sighed, because she loved fine weather so much the best. Pam sighed too, and her face was a little white and drawn when she dropped the heavy bar of ironwood into the socket at the side of the door. Sophy had told her that the nearest house was three miles away, and she was trying to picture the situation. Brought up in London, taught from her childhood to understand that there were bristling dangers all around her, the solitude of Ripple seemed to put her almost outside the world. She argued that if there were no people there could be no danger, and then was surprised because she was scared at the solitude.
The dog had attached itself to her with slavish devotion. The creature accorded Sophy a bare tolerance, but there was perfect worship in the gaze it turned on Pam, and she was tremendously flattered by its preference. It even wanted to come up to bed with her that night when, soon after Don had gone, they betook themselves to the upstairs room where they intended to sleep. They humoured the animal, feeling that it would really be a comfort to have it upstairs with them, and they did not forget to bolt the door at the bottom of the stairs when they shut it.
They were so tired that the night passed for both of them in dreamless slumber, and they did not rouse until the dog woke them by whining to be let out. It was Pam who, with a dressing-gown round her, came down to open the house door that the creature might go free. She stood on the doorstep for a moment sniffing the freshness and drinking in the beauty of the morning. There was a chill in the air which made her shiver, for the dressing-gown was thin and the sun was not up yet. It was the magical beauty of the forest that was drawing her, the call of the wild that was in her blood.
“I love it, I love it, I would not go back to England if I could!” she whispered as she turned into the house again to go upstairs and dress. Then it suddenly occurred to her to wonder what would happen if her grandfather failed to return. “It is silly even to think of such a thing. Of course he will come back!” she murmured as she went upstairs; but she could not repress a little shiver, for the possibility would haunt her despite her efforts to banish it.
The morning “chores” were done, breakfast was out of the way, and Sophy was discussing with Pam what was the most necessary bit of work for them to start that morning, when the Doctor rode up, and they both ran out to greet him. The dog growled languidly. There had been so many people at Ripple in the last two days that the creature plainly felt it was too much fag to growl at everyone and so was indifferent about the business, although when an arrival was a once-a-week or once-a-fortnight event it had been ready to tear the new-comer to pieces.
“How is Mr. Buckle?” demanded Pam, giving Sophy no time to do the asking, but shouting the question as she ran.
“He died at midnight,” replied the Doctor briefly, and Pam flung up her hands in horror and consternation at the news. Of course she knew yesterday that the poor man was very ill, but she had never thought that he was going to die. Oh, it was too dreadful! Suppose her grandfather really had hurt him, then the poor old man would not be able to come home now, but would have to be a wanderer always, hiding from the punishment which would await him if he were found.
“Father, you should not have told her so suddenly!” cried Sophy with acute reproach in her tone as Pam turned and clung to her.
“So it seems,” replied the Doctor, as he slid from his horse and came to help in the restoration of Pam. “But there are some things that do not improve by keeping, and this is one of them. Miss Walsh, you have need of every atom of courage you possess. I think you are made of good stuff, and you have got to rise to the occasion somehow.”
“I will if I can!” whispered Pam, but she was white to the lips, and there was such dismay in her heart that she was ready to sink with the pain of it all.
“It is all very well to tell her to be brave, but think of the shock for the poor girl! Why, I feel downright bad myself, and I am only an outsider. Poor Pam! Whatever will become of her? Will she have to turn round and go back to England?” Sophy was firing out a stream of questions, for she was tremendously excited. Nothing like this had ever come her way before, and she was a little thrown off her balance by it.
“I can’t go back to England, I have not money enough, and Mother cannot afford to send me any either,” said Pam, recovering herself a little. Then drawing away from Sophy she stood erect, though she was still white and trembling. “I shall stay here and make the best of it!” she declared.
“That is right!” The Doctor’s voice had such a ring of approval in it that Pam began at once to feel better. “Nothing is proved against Mr. Peveril, of course,” the Doctor went on. “He might not even have been suspected of having hurt Sam Buckle but for his unaccountable absence. As it is, people are disposed to think the very worst of him, and yet he may be as innocent as you or I.”
“I believe he is. I cannot think that he would hurt anyone,” murmured Pam, and the Doctor shook his head, but whether in agreement or dissent did not appear.
“Will Pam have to live on here alone? Will she have to run the farm?” demanded Sophy in a blaze of excitement. She was wondering whatever the city girl would do alone in the wilderness with winter coming on.
For a moment the Doctor looked from one girl to the other as if he was making up his mind, and then he spoke with brisk decision.
“No, she certainly cannot live alone; it is not to be thought of. You will have to stay with her until some of her own people can come out to her, or until she can find someone she likes better—that is, always supposing her grandfather makes no sign.”
“I shall love to have Sophy with me, but I am afraid it is more than I have any right to expect,” said Pam, striving to speak steadily. “I am such an absolute stranger, and she has been so good to me.”
“We have to be good to each other out here in the backwoods, or we should certainly get left every time there is trouble,” the Doctor replied. He went on in a lighter tone: “You need not worry overmuch about keeping Sophy. She is going to be married in the spring, and she has mountains of sewing to do. At home she will never get time for it; here she may.”
“Oh, and she never told me!” cried Pam, looking with new interest at Sophy, whose face was covered with blushes, and a sight to see.
“Did she not? I thought girls always told such things,” said Doctor Grierson with a glance of pride at his eldest daughter. Sophy had always been his right hand ever since she had been old enough to do anything at all. It was a piece of real self-sacrifice to spare her to stay with Pam at Ripple, but the plight of the stranger girl was so serious that he did not hesitate for a moment as to where his duty lay. He rode away in a great hurry as usual, and when he had gone Pam for a time broke down and cried.
Sophy, with rare wisdom, crept away and left her alone to have her cry out. A moaning wind swept through the trees and sighed away in the distance. Pam sobbed on until she had no more tears to shed, then she gathered her courage to face what lay before her. She realized that she was up against the hardest thing she had ever faced in her life; and she was going to meet it boldly if she could. Her courage might feel like water, but other people must not know it. For the sake of her grandfather, who had so mysteriously disappeared, she must stay on at Ripple and do her best. The thought of running a farm tickled her so much that her tears were dry, and she was laughing when Sophy crept back to see how it was with her.
“Well, you are a queer girl!” she exclaimed, and her opinion of Pam went up by leaps and bounds.
[1]
A “back stick” is a fair-sized log of hard wood which is slow in burning. It is lit in the stove of a Canadian house at bedtime, and smoulders through the night, so that in the morning a fire may easily enough be kindled from it.