Good News
People accustomed to waiting on themselves never feel so much at a loss in times of strain as those who have servants to command in a general way. Galena Gittins, summoned by the Irishman, came to the out-place, and started making coffee for all that big company with the ease and dispatch that came from long years of having to do all sorts of things at the shortest possible notice. She wondered why Pam had not spoken to her before about doing this particular bit of business, but she supposed something had turned up suddenly to call her away.
“Miss Gittins, where is Pam?” demanded Jack, dashing out from the big kitchen like a small tornado. The guests were all filing in and taking their places at the table, but there was no one to look after them, to act as hostess, or to do anything at all.
“I have not the ghost of a notion,” replied Galena, who was very hot, and very much occupied with the coffee. “If the folks are ready you had better start them at feeding, for this coffee is prime now, and some of the people must be fair tuckered out by this time.”
“I can’t sit at the head of the table, and—what do you call it?—dispense hospitality,” said Jack. “I will get Dr. Grierson to do it, and Mrs. Buckle can help him, but I want to know where Pam has got to. Is anything the matter, do you expect?”
“There will be in a minute, if this coffee boils over!” exclaimed Galena, as she hastily lifted two hissing pots from the stove. Jack darted away to see that Dr. Grierson and Mrs. Buckle were looking after the company, and then he came back to tell Galena that someone had seen Pam running across the paddock to the forest.
“What would she be going there for at a time like this?” demanded Galena in blank amazement.
“Perhaps she would be going for to find the ould man that was waiting to see her,” put in the Irishman, who had just come in from the wood pile with another armful of logs, which he proceeded to cram into the stove one by one.
“What old man?” asked Jack.
“Riley O’Sheen, why didn’t you tell me this before? You never said one word.” Galena stamped with impatience, and turned upon the unfortunate Irishman with so much wrath that he fairly cowered before her.
“Was it yourself then that was wanting to know? Sure an’ faith I’m sorry to have disappointed ye. It was an ould man that was after asking to see the young lady, and when I tould him that it was a wedding that she was seeing through in the next room, he said that he would wait until it was over. He went off to sit in the shade by reason that he was so very hot; and here he comes, but the young lady isn’t with him.”
Jack and Galena faced round in a great hurry at the Irishman’s last words, and then Galena cried out in a tone of disappointment:
“Why, it is only old Gilbert Pomroy, from Corner-Bottom. I expect he has come over to see Pam about the bees; he told her that he would let her know as soon as he had a swarm to spare.”
“When Pam heard it was an old man, I expect she said to herself that it was Grandfather come home, and she would set off hot-foot to find him. I know her!” Jack drew a long breath, and looked decidedly troubled. Their grandfather was a much less real person to him than to Pam, because he had not arrived at Ripple close upon the old man’s disappearance, as she had.
“I will talk to Gilbert; do you go and find Don Grierson, and he will hunt for Pam.” Galena had taken hold of the situation in her usually capable fashion, and sending Amanda to carry the coffee into the next room, she sailed out to talk bees with old Gilbert Pomroy, and finally induced the old man to come into the house and drink the health of the bride in a cup of coffee, which was the strongest beverage at Ripple that day.
Don started on a hasty search for Pam, shouting and calling, but getting no response. Then Jack set off in another direction. But the time passed, and as they did not return, Galena went into the room where the wedding feast was spread, and explained the situation in a few terse words.
“Has Mr. Peveril really come back?” demanded Sophy, going rather white, for she had lived with Pam long enough to know that the old man’s return was longed for and feared by her friend in about equal proportions.
“No,” snapped Galena, who was feeling decidedly cross by this time. Everything regarding the wedding had gone so smoothly before, and it was horrid to have a hitch at this crucial point; she had worked so hard beforehand that she was decidedly aggrieved that she could not be left in peace to enjoy herself now. “That silly idiot of an Irishman said that an old man was waiting to see her, and you know what Pam is! She thought the old man had come home, so she rushed off to find him, and she will run until she drops, unless someone catches up with her and tells her that it was a mistake, and that the old man is only Gilbert Pomroy from Corner-Bottom.”
Everyone rose from the table now. Food had lost its flavour, and appetite had gone. The men went here and there through the undergrowth searching and searching for Pam, while the women and the girls wandered up and down, calling to her and listening in vain for an answer to their shouts.
It was Don who found her. When he sprang over the log, and saw her lying among the fern and the willow scrub white and unconscious, with a streak of blood on her cheek, he thought she was dead, and cried out in dismay.
Pam opened her eyes at the sound of his voice, staring at him for a few minutes in a bewildered sort of way, as if she could not remember where she was, or what had happened; then she gasped out in a frightened sort of tone: “Oh, Don, Grandfather has come back, and I cannot find him. Whatever shall I do?”
“He has not come back!” burst out Don in an explosive fashion. “It was only old Gilbert Pomroy from Corner-Bottom, who had come up to know if you would have that swarm of bees that you talked about. The Irishman, being a stranger, and not too sharp, did not know him, and you jumped to the conclusion that it was your grandfather; you rushed off without letting anyone know, and now everybody is out searching for you, and we have been in a regular panic.”
“I am so sorry!” murmured Pam, and there were tears in her eyes because of the reproach in his tone.
“This constant expecting to see the old man is wearing you out, and spoiling your life,” said Don, as he helped Pam to her feet, and supported her until she was able to stand alone. “Look here, we have got the clergyman, and we have the company; let us be married when we get back to the house, and then I can stay here and take care of you!”
To poor Pam, sore of head, and still more sore of heart, the suggestion was about the fiercest temptation she had ever had to face. If only she might take the easy way out, and have Don between herself and the ever-present dread of the old man’s return. She was owning to herself now that she did fear his coming back more than anything else, and it was the constant apprehension of it that was spoiling her life. Oh, to have the mystery cleared, and to be done with the uncertainty!
“Say yes, Pam, and it shall be managed; I am quite sure that it can be done, because of the number of witnesses we have here. Or if a longer notice is really necessary, then I will get Mrs. Buckle to stay with you until we can be married,” he urged, and with his arm holding her up, his strength between her and the trouble which shadowed her days, Pam felt as if she must give way, and take the short cut out of the muddle. Then she remembered that she had come as the pioneer, to make the way easy for the others, and it was not herself that she should be thinking of at this time. Her head was aching so badly from the blow which had stunned her that it was difficult to think and act coherently. She felt bruised and battered, a perfect wreck; all the flavour had gone from the day’s festivity, and she was conscious only of a great weariness, and a longing to creep away out of sight, and to be done with it all.
“I can’t do it, Don, really, I can’t!” she faltered, and her eyes were wistful in their pleading when she raised them to his face. “I must go on as I am doing now, until I know where Grandfather is, or until he comes back again.”
“He may be dead; just think how easy it is for anyone to drop out without other people knowing it,” urged Don. But there was something in the resolute set of Pam’s white face that warned him he would not find it easy to turn her from the course on which she had set her mind.
“That is what I tell myself,” she said, and her tone was deeply troubled. “All the same, we have no proof, and so we are bound to go on as usual. Oh, I am sorry to have been so silly, and to have spoiled everyone’s pleasure in such a fashion. I can walk now, thank you, and I am not hurt at all, except that my head is so sore where I banged it into the tree-trunk when I caught my foot and fell.”
Don urged her no further, seeing the uselessness of it. He helped her back to the house, explained the situation to the others, and made it easy for her to slip away to her room to lie down for a rest. Then he got the fun started in good earnest, and with the help of Jack succeeded in keeping the whole company in a state of bubbling satisfaction. The bride and bridegroom were driven to Hunt’s Crossing for the down-river boat and the first stage of the long journey to the far west, and then by twos and threes, in wagons, in carts, and on foot, the company dispersed. Most of them would have “chores” to do when they reached home, and all would need to go to bed with the sun, since the next day’s work would call them from their rest at dawn.
Don drove his father home, for the Doctor was glad to rest his horse when he could, and his son mostly drove good cattle, which got over the ground in fine style. They took the corners rather more smartly than the older man approved, but young things have a tendency to be reckless, and so far Don had always contrived to keep clear of accidents.
To-night Don had only secondary attention for his horses, for he was telling his father of Pam’s state of mind regarding the possible return of the old grandfather, and he was insisting that the Doctor should write to Mrs. Walsh, and tell her it was her plain duty to come back to her old home.
“It will be some time yet before the law will permit the old man’s death to be assumed, especially as he was seen at the lumber camp,” said Don.
“It is not clear to my mind that he was seen at that camp,” replied the Doctor. “When I wrote to the foreman of the camp, he said they had had no one of the name of Wrack Peveril there, nor did he remember anyone who answered to the description I gave him of the old man.”
“The trouble is that we can’t prove he was not there.” Don shook his head with a bothered air, then went on: “In any case, it should be Mrs. Walsh who is in command at Ripple. She is the old man’s daughter, and her duty is here. You will write, Father, and you will put it strongly, please. Pam is at the point where every nerve is strained almost to breaking point. She has got Jack, I know; but he is younger than she is, and she needs someone older.”
“Yourself, for instance?” suggested the Doctor slyly, and he laughed in his hearty, genial fashion. Having got rid of his eldest daughter to-day, he was thinking it would be uncommonly pleasant to feel that he had another daughter to take her place.
Don shook his head with a rueful air.
“Pam won’t have me until the mystery is cleared up. If it is never cleared, then I suppose we shall remain single until the end of our lives. It is not a cheerful prospect, and that is another reason why I shall be glad to see Mrs. Walsh and the rest of the family.”
The Doctor nodded in complete comprehension, and promised that the letter should be ready for the next mail. Then he began to talk of other things, and so the journey ended.
The next three weeks slipped by in such a whirl of work that Pam could keep no count of their going. She and Jack were out of doors from morning until night. When Sunday came they managed to get to meeting once in the day, when they saw their neighbours, who were all as busy as they were themselves. The weather was glorious, and all that could be desired from the farmer’s point of view. The crops were looking well, and life was jogging on with only a normal amount of friction. Then one evening Amanda Higgins arrived with a letter for Pam, which she said Nathan Gittins had left at Mrs. Buckle’s on his way home from the post office.
Not finding anyone but the dog at home at Ripple, Amanda walked into the house, and laying the letter on the table, where the uncleared breakfast crockery was still standing, she went out again, closing the door behind her, to keep the poultry from wandering into the house. She met Pam and Jack toiling home from the woods with a great heap of timothy grass piled on the hand truck. There were parts of the forest near Ripple where timothy grass grew in profusion, and they were harvesting some of the patches as provision for the winter, when they hoped to have more cattle.
“There is a letter for you in the house, I left it on the table,” called Amanda, when she came within shouting distance; and then she volunteered the additional information: “It has come from England.”
“A letter from Mother!” cried Pam, with positive ecstasy in her tone. “Oh, how truly delightful! Thank you for bringing it over, Amanda. I had just been dreading going indoors this evening, for the breakfast things are still unwashed, the beds are not made, and we must cook supper, or go without. It was not a rosy prospect, but this has made all the difference.”
“I saw you were a bit behind with things when I went into your house, and I would have stopped and slicked things up a bit for you if I could,” said Amanda, who had a kindly disposition, albeit she was more than a trifle feckless. “But Mrs. Buckle told me to make haste back because we are going to make butter to-night. It is so much firmer this hot weather when it is done in the evening.”
Pam thanked her for the friendly thought, then hurried on her way, putting quite double energy into her task. She had been so tired only the minute before, and almost inclined to tell Jack that if he wanted any supper he would have to cook it himself. Now things looked quite different, and, with the thought of the letter to cheer her, she began to plan a really nice supper that would cook itself while she washed the breakfast dishes and made the beds. It was not often that she left these necessary household tasks undone when she went to work in the fields, but she had slept later than usual, and could not get through her work before Jack was ready and waiting for her help.
When they reached the house Jack went off to do the evening “chores”, while Pam prepared to rush round indoors. She fairly yearned for time to wash her face and do her hair, but a glance at the clock and the keenness of her appetite warned her that she had better get forward with preparations for the evening meal. They had had no dinner that day, there had been no time; and a hunch of harvest-cake had been the only food for which they had stayed during the long hot hours. No wonder Pam felt tired! A year ago she would have thought of such a life with horror; but ideals change as one grows older, and Pam felt that her highest joy now lay in keeping the old home ready for her mother and the children.
The breakfast things were washed and spread for supper, the beds were made, and supper was smelling really good by the time Jack came into the house. Pam had washed her hands and face, she had even put her hair tidy, and she was feeling that she had earned a rest.
“What is the letter about?” asked Jack as he came to the supper-table. He was very damp about face and head, for he had been stuffing his head into a bucket of water, as that was the quickest way of getting clean, and being very anxious for his supper he had not stayed for much towel work.
“As if I should dream of opening the letter until you were here to share it with me!” cried Pam in fine scorn. “Oh, I do wonder how they are getting on with both of us away! Of course it may be good for the boys and Muriel to learn to help themselves, but it seems to me that they need us as much as ever they did.”
“I need my supper!” sighed Jack, and he reached for the saucepan of “stirabout” which was simmering on the stove.
“We will have a proper midday meal to-morrow,” said Pam. “I do not think it pays to go so long without meals, one feels so tired out; but oh, I do begrudge the time spent in coming indoors to cook it, especially now that there is so much to do.”
“Mother is coming!” yelled Jack, who had opened the letter because his portion of stirabout was too hot to eat. “She and the children are already on their way. Read the letter, Pam; they will be here next week! My word, she has hustled this business, and no mistake!”
“Mother coming!” cried Pam, who had snatched the letter and was eagerly devouring it. “It sounds too good to be true! You won’t get any dinner to-morrow, Jack; we dare not spend time in fussing about ourselves when there is so much to be done to get ready for her. You see what she says—that she has had such a good offer for the house and the furniture that it seemed better to take it, and come off straight away, especially as Dr. Grierson had written to her that for my sake she ought to come at any sacrifice. Oh, how could he write to her in such a fashion?”
“I am very glad that he did, because, don’t you see, his letter got there at the very moment it was needed to help Mother to make up her mind. Now she will come and she will settle down; and if Grandfather comes back she will be able to manage him—at least, we will hope so—or if he does not turn up, then she will be on the spot to claim the property as heir-at-law as soon as we are allowed to assume that he is dead. To my way of thinking there is a great deal in being on hand at a time like this.”
“So I think. But I can’t grasp it yet that Mother is really coming!” cried Pam, who had jumped up from the supper-table, and was rushing round frantically trying to do two or three things all at once. “Jack, I must clean the house down again from top to bottom, for I could not have Mother come and find the place dirty. What would she think of me?”
“She would think you had other things to do, and she would be about right,” replied Jack, leaning back in his chair and stretching out his limbs with an air of luxurious enjoyment. “Leave off fussing round, Pam, and sit down for two minutes while we let this bit of news soak in. I don’t seem able to believe it yet, but I expect it is true. As for the house, if it is not clean enough to suit Mother, she will start at turning it inside out herself, and by the time she has done it she will feel quite at home, and she will wonder why she didn’t come back sooner. There is nothing like work for making people contented with their surroundings. That is why folks butter a cat’s toes when they take pussy to a fresh home; she has to be so busy at licking her feet clean, and it is such a pleasant occupation, that she forgets she ever lived anywhere else.”
Pam laughed. She was shrewd enough to see that Jack’s arguments were unanswerable. The house had been thoroughly cleaned for the wedding, but it had hardly been touched since, for every available minute had been spent out-of-doors. It was necessary to be always at work on the growing crops, pulling out the fern and grubbing up the willow shoots. Ripple had been a cleared farm for more than forty years, but if it had been left to lie without attention for six months of summer it would have lapsed back to forest again. The roots were there, and the seeds, and it was only the most careful and vigilant care and attention that kept the wilderness growth in check.
“It will be lovely to have Mother here.” Pam heaved a big sigh of pure happiness as she came to sit down in the rocking-chair near the open door. “We shall have a home again, Jack.”
“And a dinner every day, which is still more to the point!” he exclaimed, smacking his lips loudly, and screwing his face into such an aspect of absolute enjoyment that Pam had to laugh at him.
“Think of the berries the children will be able to gather! Why, there is enough fruit getting ripe on the bushes down by the creek to keep half a dozen families in pies and puddings. We can have jam made, and heaps of things. I have felt very bad because it was so impossible to get time to do things. When I am in the fields all day I have no energy left to gather fruit in the evening. But, Jack, if we leave the house dirty, we must have that field of potatoes weeded before Mother comes. The fern in some places is smothering the potatoes, and it looks so untidy, too.”
“I am going to bed,” said Jack, stumbling to his feet. “Perhaps when morning comes I may want to hoe potatoes; just now I don’t seem to care whether they are full of weeds or not.”
Jack had slept upstairs since the wedding, because it was less lonely for Pam to have him within call at night. She was ten minutes later than he was in coming upstairs, but as she passed his open door on her way to her room she heard his deep breathing. He was already asleep!
It was long before slumber came to her; she was too happy even to remember that she was tired. Her mother was coming, and her heavy responsibility would be at end. But how good it was to think she had been able to achieve so much!
The Mystery Cleared
Mrs. Walsh looked round her with mingled pleasure and pain. The pleasure was because the old house was so unchanged, and it made her feel almost young again to be shot back into the scenes of her girlhood, and to find that the environment had scarcely altered at all. But there was keen pain in the thought of what the old man’s lonely years must have been like, and the mystery of his disappearance was brought home to her so much more forcibly now that she stood in her old home once more.
The boys and Muriel had rushed off with Jack to see the barn and the pigs, and the calves which were the pride of Pam’s heart. They had two, one that belonged to their own cow, and another that Pam had bought from Mrs. Buckle when it was a week old, and had brought up by hand.
“There are quite a lot of things missing from the house,” said Mrs. Walsh with a troubled air, as she walked from room to room. “Of course in an ordinary way this would not have seemed wonderful, but knowing my father as I do, I cannot think he would have parted with Mother’s picture, which always hung in his own room. Then there was the safe that he kept his money in, a small iron affair, which used to stand by the side of his bed. Have you seen it anywhere?”
“There is no safe in the house that I know of, and we have turned out every hole and corner,” replied Pam. “A finer collection of rubbish was surely never found outside a second-hand shop, but we brushed and dusted it all and put it back for you to sort when you came.”
“I cannot think what he could have done with the safe, unless he has buried it somewhere,” said Mrs. Walsh in a musing tone. “He did not believe in banks, and he often used to keep a lot of money in the house. It was locked up in the safe and he thought it was all right, but I think it was a very risky thing to do.”
“Especially if people got to suspect it, for even this wilderness is not too remote for light-fingered folk.” Pam was thinking of Mose Paget as she spoke, and there was, as always, a pang of pity in her heart for the man whose life had been so wasted.
“To me it looks as if his going was a planned affair, and in view of your expected arrival it makes things seem very strange,” went on Mrs. Walsh; and then, the two of them being at this moment in the end bedroom downstairs, which had been prepared for her use, she went down on her knees and started peering curiously at the floor.
“What are you looking for?” demanded Pam with a ring of alarm in her voice, for her mother’s conduct was certainly strange.
“I am looking for the mark on the floor where the safe stood, and—yes, there it is! Do you see those screw-holes? It was screwed to the floor, and by the look of things it has not been removed from the place so very long. Pam, he must have moved that safe when he expected to have one of you children here with him. I expect he buried it, only the puzzle will be to find where. He must have had money in it, and was afraid that you would be curious about it. Oh, what a wearing mystery it all is!”
“But, Mother, Grandfather was poor, everyone says so!” gasped Pam, worried by the look on her mother’s face, and by all the unpleasant possibilities called up by Mrs. Walsh’s words.
“I dare say everyone thought so, and he would do what he could to keep them in their belief. But I do not think he was poor; he was always too fond of money not to have saved when he had the chance. He could live on next to nothing here, and if he only made a little money, that little he could save.”
“Mother, come and have supper, and leave off worrying about this,” said Pam hurriedly, for she could not bear to see how careworn her mother suddenly looked.
“I suppose that is about the only thing to be done, though it is very hard not to worry,” said Mrs. Walsh. She followed Pam across the big sitting-room, littered just now with the luggage of the travellers, and out to the kitchen, where a comfortable meal was spread.
It was the middle of the day, for Mrs. Walsh and her children had come up-river by the night boat. Pam and Jack declared that it gave them a most fearfully dissipated feeling to be sitting down to a meal in the middle of a day that was not Sunday. But weeding and hoeing were off for this one day, which was very much of a festival, and Pam had performed miracles of hard work since dawn in getting the house ready for the travellers. Nathan Gittins had driven his team to Hunt’s Crossing, taking Jack with him, to meet the arrivals, but he had too much tact to come in when they reached Ripple, and had driven off in a great hurry, pleading urgent business.
The boys were in raptures over the place, and Muriel was tearing round like a little wild thing. To them the new life would be like one long holiday, and Greg declared that he did not mind how hard he had to work provided he did not have to wait at table again.
“You may have to do worse than that. You may have to cook your own supper or go without,” laughed Pam.
“As if I should mind that!” snorted Greg. “I used to loathe waiting on the boarders, and seeing the disgusting greed with which they swallowed their food, and their eagerness to get their money’s worth. If you want to know what a person is really like, watch him feed, I say.”
“A good idea,” put in Jack hastily, for he had seen a cloud gather on his mother’s face, and he was not going to have her worried with the nonsense of the young ones if he could help it. “A very good idea indeed, Mr. Gregory Walsh, and by the elegant way in which you are at this moment eating flapjacks and molasses, I should be inclined to say that you are a bit of a bounder, and not very well acquainted with the usages of polite society.”
The others burst into peals of laughter at the expense of Greg, and the face of Mrs. Walsh smoothed as if by magic. It was only Jack and Pam who understood how any allusion to the hardships of the boarding-house life hurt her, and they spared her when they could.
“There were some friends of Mr. Gay’s on the boat we came in,” said Mrs. Walsh, as she lingered sitting at the table with Pam and Jack when the others had rushed away again. “They were in the first class, of course, and we were in the second, but they used to come to pay us visits nearly every day. They are going west to British Columbia for the summer, and young Mr. Gay—he is a nephew of the Mr. Gay who was so kind to Jack—asked if he could come here for shooting in the autumn. He and his friend want a moose if they can get one. They will bring a man with them, and they would rather not stay at Ripple, which they declare would be too civilized. I told them if nothing else offered we would build them a shack right out in the forest. They are going to pay me well for coming.”
“It is a shockingly busy time for shack-building,” said Pam. “They would want an extra special kind, too, because they are not used to roughing it, but we shall certainly have to do what we can, because old Mr. Gay was so good to Jack.”
“Why not rig up that old house in the tote road?” suggested Jack. “Nathan told me that is a wonderful place for moose, and as for other game, why, they might almost lie in bed and shoot the stuff that passes the house.”
“Oh, they could not go there, it is such a shocking ruin, and it is haunted too!” cried Pam with a shiver, whereupon Jack burst out laughing. But Mrs. Walsh wanted to know what place they were talking of.
“There is a little house, very dilapidated, standing on some ground which borders the old tote road. Grandfather bought the land some few years ago, so Luke Dobson told me,” explained Pam.
“I remember the place now,” said Mrs. Walsh. “The man who lived there was an Indian, or else he had an Indian wife, I don’t remember which. But, Pam, don’t you see that this bears out what I have said, that your grandfather was not poor, or he would not have been able to buy land?”
“It was only twenty acres, and he might have taken a mortgage for the bigger part of the price,” replied Pam.
Mrs. Walsh shook her head. She began to talk of other things soon after, but all the time she was puzzling out the matter of her father’s disappearance.
Pam and Jack had to work all the harder in the days that followed to make up for the holiday they had allowed themselves to welcome their mother and the younger children. But life was so much easier that the hard work scarcely counted in comparison. It was beautiful to throw down their hoes at noon, and come walking indoors to find a well-cooked meal spread ready for them to eat. It was even more delightful still to have no supper to cook at the end of a long and fagging day. Then Mrs. Walsh bought a horse and a wagon, for she said that it would never do for Muriel to have so many miles to walk to attend school. Oh, life was easier all round; only there was the one cloud that did not lift, and Pam could not be happy because of that still unexplained mystery of her grandfather’s disappearance.
Don Grierson came and went. He was so fortunate as to win the esteem of Mrs. Walsh, while the younger children adored him. But Pam was resolute in her determination to permit no engagement between him and herself while they still lived under the shadow of what might be a disgrace.
The weeks slipped by so quickly that August came and went, and September came in, with flaming autumn splendours, before anyone at Ripple seemed to realize that summer was on the wane. Then came a letter from Mr. Gay, asking if a shooting-lodge could be ready for him in a couple of weeks, as he wanted to have as much time as possible in New Brunswick before returning to England, where he was due in early November at the latest.
“Whatever shall we do?” cried Pam in dismay. “Jack, do you think we could have a logging bee, and get a framehouse run up and ready in two weeks? It will never do to disappoint these people. Besides, think how glad we shall be to have the money.”
“I should have the bee to put that house in repair that we have already got,” said Jack. He turned to Don Grierson, who had brought the mail over from The Corner, and asked him if he did not think Pam was silly to object to the place being used.
Don was not disposed to think anything Pam might do was foolish, and he said so with a straightforward simplicity which brought the hot blushes to Pam’s cheeks, and set the others laughing.
“I propose that we go and see this place straight away,” said Mrs. Walsh. “I have been meaning to go over there every week since I came, but there is always so much to be done, and there never seems to be an opportunity for outside things.”
“I can drive you over at this minute if you like,” suggested Don; “it will save you having to hitch your own horse to your wagon, and time is everything these days.”
“That is what I say,” answered Jack. “We will all three go if you can take us; the kids can run the house until we get back. Put a hat on, Mother, and come along. The ride will do you good; it is so hot this morning, and you did not go out all yesterday.”
Mrs. Walsh had a few objections to make, but these were speedily overruled. She was anxious to please Mr. Gay, and, of course, if the building would do it would be silly to put up another, especially as labour was so hard to come by.
The nearest trail to the old tote road was too narrow for a wagon, and Don had to take them by a broader trail, which was more than three miles farther. But for him it was a holiday pure and simple, as Pam sat on the front seat beside him, Jack and Mrs. Walsh being on the seat behind. Pam was brighter, too; more as she used to be before the burden of the old man’s mysterious disappearance had become so hard to bear. All the time it was supposed that he had left his home through fear of being arrested for the wounding of Sam Buckle, it had been a bearable trouble because it was easy to understand; but since the confession of Mose Paget had cleared the character of Wrack Peveril from even the shadow of a stain, Pam had been tortured by the wonder as to whether in her ignorance and inefficiency she might have left undone something that might have cleared the mystery.
There had been a frost on the previous night, and already the maples were flaming in scarlet and gold. Pam thought of her first coming to Ripple, and how the gorgeousness of the forest had impressed her. That was nearly a year ago, and all that time she had lived on the edge of a tragedy, not knowing what a day might reveal—hoping, fearing, and wondering, yet never able to get any light on the mystery.
Mrs. Walsh was telling Jack of some of the adventures of her youth, when they had gone berrying in this part of the forest, and they were both laughing over the story, which gave Don a chance to talk to Pam in a low tone. He was telling her that now her mother had come to Ripple, there was surely no need for her to feel the burden of responsibility was hers alone, and so she might just as well let him announce the fact of their betrothal. But Pam was obdurate still. It was as if she had inherited the spirit of the old man, and having once made up her mind, nothing could turn her. How much she suffered in making Don suffer, no one but herself could realize. She was white and spent with the effort, and the joy of the morning had turned to weariness by the time the horse reached the old tote road, and quickened its pace because the going was smoother.
“What a place!” cried Mrs. Walsh, when Don drew rein in front of the deserted house. “But the roof looks sound, and with four walls and a roof the other part should be easy enough.”
“It looks as if we ought to have brought a hatchet to chop our way in,” said Jack, as he surveyed the tall weeds and trailing brambles which had grown across the entrance door.
“I think we’ll manage to get in somehow,” replied Don. He drew his horse into the shade of a tall maple, and, jumping from the wagon, tied the animal to the tree, so that it should not take the homeward trail until he was ready. Then he helped Pam and her mother to climb down from the wagon, and, when they were on the ground, helped Jack to stamp down the weeds and the brambles to make a path to the door.
“Hullo! The handle is tied up with a yellow rag; it looks as if it was in quarantine,” called out Jack, as he pulled away a mass of wild bryony which had spread all across the door.
“That rag is a bit of Mose Paget’s handkerchief,” explained Pam. “He tied the door with it on the day when we found the lynxes here. I saw it again on the day when I was round here searching for the cow, and I thought it must have been pretty good stuff to have stood so long.”
“It was like Mose to be obliged to tear his handkerchief; any other man would have had a bit of string in his pocket,” commented Don.
“Now, I thought it was a sign of civilization in him that he possessed a handkerchief at all,” put in Pam, who was always stirred to the defence of Mose because of the rescue of the dog on that day when the creature found the lynxes.
“I don’t admire his taste in handkerchiefs. There is a thought too much yellow in it for my fancy,” said Jack, who had unfastened the rag, and now held it up for their inspection.
They all laughed, but the merriment died to a sudden silence when they opened the door and stood on the threshold. With a quick, involuntary movement Jack’s hand went to his hat, then dropped again, and he cast a furtive glance round, hoping the others had not noticed what he had been doing. A broken window had ventilated the room, which had a musty smell in spite of that. There were the remains of a wooden bed-frame in the far corner, a broken stove was in another corner, and in the centre a table of such solid manufacture that it had been left there because it was too unwieldy to move.
“Is there only one room? What a nuisance!” cried Mrs. Walsh, who had wrinkled her nose in distaste, for the odour of the lynxes still clung to the place.
“One room and a cellar,” said Don, who had been kicking at the rubbish on the floor, and had thus disclosed a trap-door on the farther side of the room, where the big table cast a shadow.
“A cellar under this place?” exclaimed Pam in amazement. “I should not have thought the house big enough to have a cellar.”
“The place being so small would make it all the more necessary to have a store where the frost could not reach,” said Don. “You see, the folks who lived here must have had some room to store their potatoes and other roots, and it is the cheapest way of doing things to have it under the place where you live.”
“Cheap and nasty, I should say, if they all smell like this! You are surely not going down?” cried Pam, as Don struggled to lift the trap-door.
“Yes, I am, for one must know the condition of the cellar, and find out whether the beams of the floor above are sound, before determining if the house is in good enough repair to be lived in,” said Don, as he wrestled fiercely with the trap-door.
“Is it screwed down?” asked Pam in surprise, for Don was putting out all his strength, and yet failing to raise the trap-door.
“There are no screw-holes that I can see,” he answered. “It feels more as if it were fastened from below, only, of course, that is out of the question. But it is coming up somehow, for I am not going to be beaten over a thing like this. Will you hand me that iron bar—the one leaning by the stove? Thanks; now stand clear. Ah!”
Don gave such a mighty heave that with a ripping, tearing sound the trap-door came in halves, and he crashed backwards on the floor. Though he looked ridiculous enough, no one laughed, and Jack, peering down into the dark cavity, cried out in the blankest surprise:
“I don’t wonder you could not get the door up. It is bolted down. Now, how could that bolt have been shot?”
How, indeed? Don gathered himself up, and stooping low over the broken trap-door proceeded to examine it carefully. There was an iron bolt on the under side, and this was shot fully home, the handle of the bolt being turned to prevent it being shaken back.
“It is certainly queer,” muttered Don, and Pam felt a cold shiver steal all over her.
“I am going down with you,” said Jack, as Don unbolted the bit of the trap-door that had not broken away, and prepared to trust his weight on the ladder that showed dimly from below.
“Better let me get landed at the bottom first. We don’t know the strength of the ladder, you see; and it is not worth while to invite disaster,” said Don. He set foot on the ladder with extreme caution, and clinging with both hands to the framework of the trap-door, stamped and banged at the ladder to test its firmness. “It feels sound enough, and is more solid than usual, so here goes!”
The silence above was so tense that the noise of the horse munching grass on the other side of the tote road came to the others plainly enough as they stood watching Don disappear in the darkness of the cellar.
“I am down!” he announced a minute later; and Jack had stepped on to the ladder, disappearing also, before Don had time to fumble in his pockets for a match-box to get a light.
Pam was stooping over the opening. She saw the flash of the match, then heard a frightened cry from Jack, and a startled word from Don.
“What is it?” she cried. She was shaking all over as if she had an ague, cold chills were creeping up her back, and yet she could feel the perspiration trickling slowly down her face.
“What have you found?” demanded Mrs. Walsh, thrusting Pam aside in her excitement, and coming to kneel by the yawning hole in the floor.
There was a long moment of silence, then Don’s voice spoke from below.
“A dead man is here, sitting in a chair beside a safe. Mrs. Walsh, I think it must be your father. Will you come down?”
“Grandfather down there?” cried Pam, and her voice was shrill with sheer astonishment.
The End
“Hush!” panted Mrs. Walsh, and Pam was immediately ashamed of having made such a noise.
“Will you come, Mrs. Walsh?” asked the voice of Don again from below. But Mrs. Walsh trembled so badly that Pam pulled her back from the top of the ladder.
“Stay here, Mother, I will go. Strike another match, will you, Don? That is right, I can see now!” Pam went steadily down as she spoke. She had screwed her courage to the ordeal because of the manifest unfitness of her mother. Down, down, down she went, until she stood on the floor of the cellar, felt her arm grasped by Don, and heard the loud breathing of Jack.
“Where?” she breathed, and felt a sudden rush of courage because Don gripped her hand so hard.
“There!” As he spoke, Don struck another match, and by its light Pam saw a small iron safe standing on a sort of table, and in a deep, hide-covered chair beside it, a huddled something that looked like a heap of clothes surmounted by an old hat. In the dim light she could make out a gun leaning against the chair, but at that moment the match went out, and Don’s voice sounded in her ear:
“Go up now,” he commanded, “you can’t do any good here.”
Pam climbed up the ladder dazed and wondering. She heard the sobs of her mother, and wondered at it. Then she suddenly felt so faint and queer that she was glad to stumble across to the door, and put her head out to the sunshine, where the horse still munched in contentment, and the blue butterflies hovered over the white cups of the bindweed, as if there were no such thing as death in the world.
Jack came up from the cellar, still breathing heavily as if he had been running. He was immediately followed by Don, who started to turn the table upside down over the broken trap-door.
“Why are you doing that?” asked Pam.
Don carefully let the table drop over the broken door before he spoke, and then he said gravely:
“From what I could see by the light of the matches, the old man must have been in the habit of keeping his valuables there. I expect he thought it was safer than Ripple, and I daresay he was right, though how he got that safe there alone is more than I can imagine. We don’t want anyone going down there until Father and the police have made their examination. If anyone came along when we have gone, he might go down there in all innocence of what there is to find. So it seemed best to cover the hole. Now I will drive you and your mother back to Ripple, then Jack and I will go and fetch the police.”
“We can walk by the narrow trail, and that will save time for you,” said Pam; but Don would not hear of it, and he drove them back to Ripple. Scarcely a word was spoken by any of them. What Mrs. Walsh was thinking of was the last time she had seen her father, before she ran away to get married. The thoughts of the three who had been in the cellar were busy with the huddled heap of garments resting in the old hide-covered chair.
It was Reggie Furness who had last seen the old man alive, and he identified the remains by the hat and the coat, which had a green patch on one shoulder. The cause of death was not clear, but was supposed to be heart trouble. Wrack Peveril had more than once complained to his neighbours of pain in his side, which might easily have been disease of the heart. Someone suggested that he had shot himself either by accident or intention, but this theory was at once set aside by the fact of the gun being found loaded in every chamber. It was Pam who testified to the fact of the old man having been there at any rate ever since the first snow of the previous fall, as the yellow rag which Mose Paget had tied on the door had never been removed until the day when Don discovered the cellar. This was proof enough that Cassidy O’Brien was either mistaken in stating that he had seen the old man working at the lumber camp, or else he had made the story up to suit his own ends.
From the evidence before them it was fairly easy to understand that the old man, warned by Reggie of the coming of the surprise party, had gone across the forest to his hiding-place in the cellar, intending that his unwanted visitors should not find him at home. He had probably forgotten that his granddaughter was expected that day. Death must have come to him in a very kindly guise, for there was nothing in the position of the body to show that he had suffered. Indeed, the peace of repose lay upon the huddled remains, and on the table by the safe there was an end of candle not burned out, and a box of matches was found in one of the pockets.
All the long apprehension and the fierce anxiety were now over. The lifting of the burden was so great that at first Pam could not realize that there was no longer anything to dread. It was Don who emphasized the fact for her, when he came to see her the week after the funeral, and insisted, in the most masterful fashion possible, that their engagement should be announced.
“There is noth to wait for now, and I have been patient long enough,” he said, standing drawn up to his full height, and looking down at Pam, who was resting in a rocking-chair.
“I don’t think that you have been patient at all,” she said, with a low laugh, and her eyes sparkled with fun as they used to do before the burden of her care dulled their light somewhat.
“Opinions differ,” he said calmly, and then he sat down on a little wooden stool by her chair, and told her that old, old story, which, however it may be varied by circumstances in the telling, always amounts to the same thing in the end. He must have told it well too, for Pam had no more excuses to bring against Don’s desire for an engagement between them.
It was not until later, when the contents of the safe were examined, that it was found Wrack Peveril had been quite a wealthy man. He had made no will, and so Mrs. Walsh inherited all he had to leave. Her future would be assured now, and there would be no poverty to fear in her old age; but it might all have been very different, and her interests must have suffered greatly, had it not been for the enterprise and courage of Pam in acting as Pioneer.
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Obvious printer errors have been corrected including missing periods, apostrophes and closing quotations necessary to the dialogue.
The use of hyphenated words has been retained as written. Where two spellings of the same word appear, the spelling with the highest frequency was adopted.
[The end ofA Canadian Farm Mystery, by Bessie Marchant.]