The Hidden House was a large, irregular edifice of dark red sandstone with its walls covered closely with the clinging ivy, that had been clipped away only from a few of the doors and windows, and its roof over-shadowed by the top branches of gigantic oaks and elms that clustered around and nearly concealed the building.
It might have been a long-forsaken house, for any sign of human habitation that was to be seen about it. All was silent, solitary and gloomy.
As Capitola drew up her horse to gaze upon its somber walls she wondered which was the window at which the spectral light and ghostly face had been seen. She soon believed that she had found it.
At the highest point of the building, immediately under the sharp angle of the roof, in the gable and nearest to view, was a solitary window. The ivy that clung tightly to the stone, covering every portion of the wall at this end, was clipped away from that high placed, dark and lonely window by which Capitola's eyes were strangely fascinated.
While thus she gazed in wonder, interest and curiosity, though without the least degree of superstitious dread, a vision flashed upon her sight that sent the blood from her ruddy cheek to her brave heart, and shook the foundations of her unbelief!
For while she gazed, suddenly that dark window was illumed by a strange, unearthly light that streamed forth into the gloomy evening air, and touched with blue flame the quivering leaves of every tree in its brilliant line! In the midst of this lighted window appeared a white female face wild with woe! And then the face suddenly vanished and the light was swallowed up in darkness!
Capitola remained transfixed!
"Great heavens!" she thought, "can these things really be! Have the ghostly traditions of this world truth in them at last? When I heard this story of the haunted window I thought some one had surely imagined or invented it! Now I have seen for myself; but if I were to tell what I have seen not one in a hundred would believe me!"
While these startling thoughts disturbed her usual well-balanced mind, a vivid flash of lightning, accompanied by a tremendous peal of thunder and a heavy fall of rain, roused her into renewed activity.
"Gyp, my boy, the storm is upon us sure enough! We shall catch it all around, get well drowned, beaten and buffeted here and well abused when we get home! Meantime, Gyp, which is the worst, the full fury of the tempest or the mysterious terrors of the Haunted House!"
Another blinding flash of lightning, a stunning crash of thunder, a flood of rain and tornado of wind decided her.
"We'll take the Haunted House, Gyp, my friend! That spectral lady of the lighted window looked rather in sorrow than in anger, and who knows but the ghosts may be hospitable? So gee up, Dobbin!" said Capitola, and, urging her horse with one hand and holding on her cap with the other, she went on against wind and rain until she reached the front of the old house.
Not a creature was to be seen; every door and window was closely shut. Dismounting, Capitola led her horse under the shelter of a thickly leaved oak tree, secured him, and then holding up her saturated skirt with one hand and holding on her cap with the other, she went up some moldering stone steps to an old stone portico and, seizing the heavy iron knocker of a great black oak double door, she knocked loudly enough to awaken all the mountain echoes.
She waited a few minutes for an answer, but receiving none, she knocked again, more loudly than before. Still there was no reply. And growing impatient, she seized the knocker with both hands and exerting all her strength, made the welkin ring again!
This brought a response. The door was unlocked and angrily jerked open by a short, squarely formed, beetle-browed, stern-looking woman, clothed in a black stuff gown and having a stiff muslin cap upon her head.
"Who are you? What do you want here?" harshly demanded this woman, whom Capitola instinctively recognized as Dorky Knight, the morose housekeeper of the Hidden House.
"Who am I? What do I want? Old Nick fly away with you! It's plain enough to be seen who I am and what I want. I am a young woman caught out in the storm and I want shelter!" said Cap, indignantly. And her words were endorsed by a terrific burst of the tempest in lightning, thunder, wind and rain!
"Come in then and when you ask favors learn to keep a civil tongue in your head!" said the woman sternly, taking the guest by the hand and pulling her in and shutting and locking the door.
"Favors! Plague on you for a bearess! I asked no favor! Every storm-beaten traveler has a right to shelter under the first roof that offers, and none but a curmudgeon would think of calling it a favor! And as for keeping a civil tongue in my head, I'll do it when you set me the example!" said Cap.
"Who are you?" again demanded the woman.
"Oh, I see you are no Arabian in your notions of hospitality! Those pagans entertain a guest without asking him a single question; and though he were their bitterest foe, they consider him while he rests beneath their tent sacred from intrusion."
"That's because they were pagans!" said Dorky. "But as I am a Christian, I'd thank you to let me know who it is that I have received under this roof."
"My name," said our heroine, impatiently, "is Capitola Black! I live with my uncle, Major Warfield, at Hurricane Hall! And now, I should thank your ladyship to send some one to put away my horse, while you yourself accommodate me with dry clothes."
While our saucy little heroine spoke the whole aspect of the dark-browed woman changed.
"Capitola-Capitola," she muttered, gazing earnestly upon the face of the unwelcome guest.
"Yes, Capitola! That is my name! You never heard anything against it, did you?"
For all answer the woman seized her hand, and while the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled, and the wind and rain beat down, she drew her the whole length of the hall before a back window that overlooked the neglected garden, and, regardless of the electric fluid that incessantly blazed upon them, she held her there and scrutinized her features.
"Well, I like this! Upon my word, I do!" said Cap, composedly.
Without replying, the strange woman seized her right hand, forcibly opened it, gazed upon the palm and then, flinging it back with a shudder, exclaimed:
"Capitola, what brought you under this roof? Away! Begone! Mount your horse and fly while there is yet time!"
"What! expose myself again to the storm? I won't, and that's flat!" said Cap.
"Girl! girl! there are worse dangers in the world than any to be feared from thunder, lightning, rain or wind!"
"Very well, then, when I meet them it will be time enough to deal with them! Meanwhile the stormy night and my soaked clothing are very palpable evils, and as I see no good end to be gained by my longer enduring them, I will just beg you to stop soothsaying—(as I have had enough of that from another old witch)—and be as good as to permit me to change my clothes!"
"It is madness! You shall not stay here!" cried the woman, in a harsh voice.
"And I tell you I will! You are not the head of the family, and I do not intend to be turned out by you!"
While she spoke a servant crossed the hall and the woman, whisking Capitola around until her back was turned and her face concealed, went to speak to the newcomer.
"When will your master be here?" Capitola heard her inquire.
"Not to-night; he saw the storm rising and did not wish to expose himself. He sent me on to say that he would not be here until morning. I was caught, as you see! I am dripping wet," replied the man.
"Go, change your clothes at once then, Davy,"
"Who is that stranger?" asked the man, pointing to Capitola.
"Some young woman of the neighborhood, who has been caught out in the tempest. But you had better go and change your clothes than to stand here gossiping," said the woman, harshly.
"I say," said the man, "the young woman is a God-send to Miss Clara; nobody has been to see her yet; nobody ever visits this house unless they are driven to it. I don't wonder the colonel and our young master pass as much as ten months in the year away from home, spending all the summer at the watering places, and all the winter in New York or Washington!"
"Hold your tongue! What right have you to complain? You always attend them in their travels!"
"True, but you see for this last season they have both been staying here, old master to watch the heiress, young master to court her, and as I have no interest in that game, I find the time hangs heavy on my hands," complained the man.
"It will hang heavier if you take a long fit of illness by standing in wet clothes," muttered the woman.
"Why, so 'twill, missus! So here goes," assented the man, hurrying across the hall and passing out through the door opposite that by which he entered.
Dorcas returned to her guest.
Eying her closely for a while, she at length inquired:
"Capitola, how long have you lived at Hurricane Hall?"
"So long," replied Cap, "that you must have heard of me! I, at least, have often heard of Mother Dorkey Knight."
"And heard no good of her!"
"Well, no—to be candid with you, I never did," said Cap.
"And much harm of her?" continued the woman, keeping her stern black eyes fixed upon those of her guest.
"Well, yes—since you ask me, I have heard pretty considerable harm!" answered Cap, nothing daunted.
"Where did you live before you came to Hurricane Hall?" asked Dorcas.
"Where I learned to fear God, to speak the truth and to shame the devil!" replied Cap.
—"And to force yourself into people's houses against their will!"
"There you are again! I tell you that when I learn from the head of this household that I am unwelcome, then I will retreat, and not until then! And now I demand to be presented to the master."
"To Colonel Le Noir?"
"Yes."
"I cannot curse you with the 'curse of a granted prayer! Colonel Le Noir is away."
"Why do you talk so strangely?" inquired Capitola.
"It is my whim. Perhaps my head is light."
"I should think it was, excessively so! Well—as the master of the house is away, be good enough to present me to the mistress?"
"What mistress? There is no mistress here!" replied Dorcas, looking around in strange trepidation.
"I mean the young lady, Colonel Le Noir's ward. In lieu of any other lady, she, I suppose, may be considered the mistress of the house!"
"Humph! Well, young girl, as you are fully resolved to stand your ground. I suppose there is nothing to do but to put up with you!" said Dorcas.
"And put up my horse," added Cap.
"He shall be taken care of! But mind, you must depart early in the morning!" said Dorcas, sternly.
"Once more, and for the last, Mother Cerberus, I assure you I do not acknowledge your authority to dismiss me!" retorted Capitola. "So show me to the presence of your mistress!"
"Perverse, like all the rest! Follow me!" said the house keeper, leading the way from the hall toward a back parlor.
There is a light around her brow,A holiness in those dark eyes,That show, though wandering earthward now,Her spirit's home is in the skies.—MOORE.
Pushing open the door, Dorcas Knight exclaimed:
"Here is a young lady, Miss Black, from Hurricane Hall, come to see you, Miss Day."
And having made this announcement, the woman retired and shut the door behind her.
And Capitola found herself in a large, dark, gloomy, wainscoted room, whose tall, narrow windows afforded but little light, and whose immense fireplace and blackened furniture seemed to belong to a past century.
The only occupant of this somber apartment was a young girl, seated in pensive thought beside the central table. She was clothed in deep mourning, which only served to throw into fairer relief the beauty of her pearly skin, golden hair and violet eyes.
The vision of her mourning robes and melancholy beauty so deeply impressed Capitola that, almost for the first time in her life, she hesitated from a feeling of diffidence, and said gently:
"Indeed, I fear that this is an unwarranted intrusion on my part, Miss Day."
"You are very welcome," replied the sweetest voice Capitola had ever heard, as the young girl arose and advanced to meet her. "But you have been exposed to the storm Please come into my room and change your clothes," continued the young hostess, as she took Cap's hand and led her into an adjoining room.
The storm was still raging, but these apartments being in the central portion of the strong old house, were but little exposed to the sight or sound of its fury.
There was a lamp burning upon the mantelpiece, by the light of which the young girl furnished her visitor with dry clothing and assisted her to change, saying as she did so:
"I think we are about the same size, and that my clothes will fit you; but I will not offer you mourning habiliments—you shall have this lilac silk."
"I am very sorry to see you in mourning," said Capitola, earnestly.
"It is for my father," replied Clara, very softly.
As they spoke the eyes of the two young girls met. They were both good physiognomists and intuitive judges, of character. Consequently in the full meeting of their eyes they read, understood and appreciated each other.
The pure, grave, and gentle expression of Clara's countenance touched the heart of Capitola.
The bright, frank, honest face of Cap recommended her to Clara.
The very opposite traits of their equally truthful characters attracted them to each other.
Clara conducted her guest back into the wainscoted parlor, where a cheerful fire had been kindled to correct the dampness of the air. And here they sat down unmindful of the storm that came much subdued through the thickness of the walls. And, as young creatures, however tried and sorrowful, will do, they entered into a friendly chat. And before an hour had passed Capitola thought herself well repaid for her sufferings from the storm and the rebuff, in having formed the acquaintance of Clara Day.
She resolved, let Old Hurricane rage as he might, henceforth she would be a frequent visitor to the Hidden House.
And Clara, for her part, felt that in Capitola she had found a frank, spirited, faithful neighbor who might become an estimable friend.
While they were thus growing into each other's favor, the door opened and admitted a gentleman of tall and thin figure and white and emaciated face, shaded by a luxuriant growth of glossy black hair and beard. He could not have been more than twenty-six, but, prematurely broken by vice, he seemed forty years of age. He advanced bowing toward the young women.
As Capitola's eyes fell upon this newcomer it required all her presence of mind and powers of self-control to prevent her from staring or otherwise betraying herself—for in this stranger she recognized the very man who had stopped her upon her night ride. She did, however, succeed in banishing from her face every expression of consciousness. And when Miss Day courteously presented him to her guest, saying merely, "My cousin, Mr. Craven Le Noir, Miss Black," Capitola arose and curtsied as composedly as if she had never set eyes upon his face before.
He on his part evidently remembered her, and sent one stealthy, been and scrutinizing glance into her face; but, finding that imperturbable, he bowed with stately politeness and seemed satisfied that she had not identified him as her assailant.
Craven Le Noir drew his chair to the fire, seated himself and entered into an easy conversation with Clara and her guest. Whenever he addressed Clara there was a deference and tenderness in his tone and glance that seemed very displeasing to the fair girl, who received all these delicate attentions with coldness and reserve. These things did not escape the notice of Capitola, who mentally concluded that Craven Le Noir was a lover of Clara Day, but a most unacceptable lover.
When supper was announced it was evidently hailed by Clara as a great relief. And after the meal was over she arose and excused herself to her cousin by saying that her guest, Miss Black, had been exposed to the storm and was doubtless very much fatigued and that she would show her to her chamber.
Then, taking a night lamp, she invited Capitola to come and conducted her to an old-fashioned upper chamber, where a cheerful fire was burning on the hearth. Here the young girls sat down before the fire and improved their acquaintance by an hour's conversation. After which Clara arose, and saying, "I sleep immediately below your room, Miss Black; if you should want anything rap on the floor and I shall hear you and get up," she wished her guest a good night's rest and retired from the room.
Cap was disinclined to sleep; a strange superstitious feeling which she could neither understand nor throw off had fallen upon her spirits.
She took the night lamp in her hand and got up to examine her chamber. It was a large, dark, oak-paneled room, with a dark carpet on the floor and dark-green curtains on the windows and the bedstead. Over the mantelpiece hung the portrait of a most beautiful black-haired and black-eyed girl of about fourteen years of age, but upon whose infantile brow fell the shadow of some fearful woe. There was something awful in the despair "on that face so young" that bound the gazer in an irresistible and most painful spell. And Capitola remained standing before it transfixed, until the striking of the hall clock aroused her from her enchantment. Wondering who the young creature could have been, what had been her history and, above all, what had been the nature of that fearful woe that darkened like a curse her angel brow, Capitola turned almost sorrowfully away and began to prepare for bed.
She undressed, put on the delicate nightclothes Clara had provided for her use, said her evening prayers, looked under the bed—a precaution taken ever since the night upon which she had discovered the burglars—and, finding all right, she blew out her candle and lay down. She could not sleep—many persons of nervous or mercurial temperaments cannot do so the first night in a strange bed. Cap was very mercurial, and the bed and room in which she lay were very strange; for the first time since she had had a home to call her own she was unexpectedly staying all night away from her friends, and without their having any knowledge of her whereabouts. She was conjecturing, half in fear and half in fun, how Old Hurricane was taking her escapade and what he would say to her in the morning. She was wondering to find herself in such an unforeseen position as that of a night guest in the mysterious Hidden House—wondering whether this was the guest chamber in which the ghost appeared to the officer and these were the very curtains that the pale lady drew at night. While her thoughts were thus running over the whole range of circumstances around her singular position, sleep overtook Capitola and speculation was lost in brighter visions.
How long she had slept and dreamed she did not know, when something gently awakened her. She opened her eyes calmly—to meet a vision that brave as she was, nearly froze the blood in her warm veins.
Her chamber was illumined with an intense blue flame that lighted up every portion of the apartment with a radiance bright as day, and in the midst of this effulgence moved a figure clothed in white—a beautiful, pale, spectral woman, whose large, motionless black eyes, deeply set in her death-like face, and whose long unbound black hair, fallen upon her white raiment, were the only marks of color about her marble form.
Paralyzed with wonder, Capitola watched this figure as it glided about the chamber. The apparition approached the dressing-table, seemed to take something thence, and then gliding toward the bed, to Capitola's inexpressible horror drew back the curtains and bent down and gazed upon her! Capitola had no power to scream, to move or to avert her gaze from those awful eyes that met her own, until at length, as the spectral head bent lower, she felt the pressure of a pair of icy lips upon her brow and closed her eyes!
When she opened them again the vision had departed and the room was dark and quiet.
There was no more sleep for Capitola. She heard the clock strike four, and was pleased to find that it was so near day. Still the time seemed very long to her, who lay there wondering, conjecturing and speculating on the strange adventure of the night.
When the sun arose she left her restless bed, bathed her excited head and proceeded to dress herself. When she had finished her toilet, with the exception of putting on her trinkets, she suddenly missed a ring that she prized more than she did all her possessions put together—it was a plain gold band, bearing the inscription Capitola-Eugene, and which she had been enjoined by her old nurse never to part from but with life. She had, in her days of destitution suffered the extremes of cold and hunger; had been upon the very brink of death from starvation or freezing, but without ever dreaming of sacrificing her ring. And now for the first time it was missing. While she was still looking anxiously for the lost jewel the door opened and Dorcas Knight entered the room, bearing on her arm Capitola's riding dress, which had been well dried and ironed.
"Miss Capitola, here is your habit; you had better put it on at once, as I have ordered breakfast an hour sooner than usual, so that you may have an early start."
"Upon my word, you are very anxious to get rid of me, but not more so than I am to depart," said Capitola, still pursuing her search.
"Your friends, who do not know where you are, must be very uneasy about you. But what are you looking for?"
"A ring, a plain gold circle, with my name and that of another inscribed on it, and which I would not lose for the world. I hung it on a pin in this pin-cushion last night before I went to bed. I would swear I did, and now it is missing," answered Cap, still pursuing her search.
"If you lost it in this room it will certainly be found," said Dorcas Knight putting down the habit and helping in the search.
"I am not so sure of that. There was some one in my room last night."
"Some one in your room!" exclaimed Dorcas in dismay.
"Yes; a dark-haired woman, all dressed in white!"
Dorcas Knight gave two or three angry grunts and then harshly exclaimed: "Nonsense! woman, indeed! there is no such woman about the house! There are no females here except Miss Day, myself and you—not even a waiting-maid or cook."
"Well," said Cap, "if it was not a woman it was a ghost; for I was wide awake, and I saw it with my own eyes!"
"Fudge! you've heard that foolish story of the haunted room, and you have dreamed the whole thing!"
"I tell you I didn't! I saw it! Don't I know?"
"I say you dreamed it! There is no such living woman here; and as for a ghost, that is all folly. And I must beg, Miss Black, that you will not distress Miss Day by telling her this strange dream of yours. She has never heard the ridiculous story of the haunted room, and, as she lives here in solitude, I would not like her to hear of it."
"Oh, I will say nothing to disquiet Miss Day; but it was no dream. It was real, if there is any reality in this world."
There was no more said. They continued to look for the ring, but in vain. Dorcas Knight, however, assured her guest that it should be found and returned, and that breakfast waited. Whereupon Capitola went down to the parlor, where she found Clara awaiting her presence to give her a kindly greeting.
"Mr. Le Noir never gets up until very late, and so we do not wait for him," said Dorcas Knight, as she took her seat at the head of the table and signed to the young girls to gather around it.
After breakfast Capitola, promising to come again soon, and inviting Clara to return her visit, took leave of her entertainers and set out for home.
"Thank heaven! I have got her off in time and safety!" muttered Dorcas Knight, in triumph.
Must I give way and room for your rash choler?Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?Go show your slaves how choleric you are!And make your bondsmen tremble! I'll not blench!—SHAKESPEARE.
It happened that about sunrise that morning Wool awoke In the cellar, and remembered that on the night previous his master had commanded him to sally forth in the storm end seek his young mistress, and had forbidden him, on pain of broken bones, to return without bringing her safe. Therefore, what did the honest soul do but steal out to the stables, saddle and mount a horse and ride back to the house just as Mrs. Condiment had come out into the poultry yard to get eggs for breakfast.
"Missus Compliment, ma'am, I'se been out all night in search of Miss Caterpillar, without finding of her. Is she come back, ma'am?"
"Lor', no, indeed, Wool! I'm very anxious, and the major is taking on dreadful! But I hope she is safe in some house. But, poor Wool, you must have had a dreadful time out all night in the storm looking for her!"
"Awful! Missus Compliment, ma'am, awful!" said Wool.
"Indeed, I know you had, poor creature, come in and get some warm breakfast," said the kind old lady.
"I dare'nt, Missus Compliment. Old marse forbid me to show my face to him until I fotch Miss Caterpillar home safe," said Wool, turning his horse's head as if to go. In doing so he saw Capitola galloping toward the house, and with an exclamation of joy pointed her out to the old lady and rode on to meet her.
"Oh, Miss Caterpillar, I'se so glad I've found you! I'se done been out looking for you all night long!" exclaimed Wool, as he met her.
Capitola pulled up her horse and surveyed the speaker with a comical expression, saying:
"Been out all night looking for me! Well, I must say you seem in a fine state of preservation for a man who has been exposed to the storm all night. You have not a wet thread on you."
"Lor', miss, it rained till one o'clock, and then the wind riz and blowed till six and blowed me dry," said Wool, as he sprang off his horse and helped his young mistress to alight.
Then, instead of taking the beasts to the stable, he tied them to the tree and hurried into the house and upstairs to his master's room, to apprise him of the return of the lost sheep, Capitola.
Old Hurricane was lying awake, tossing, groaning and grumbling with anxiety.
On seeing Wool enter he deliberately raised up and seized a heavy iron candlestick and held it ready to hurl at the head of that worthy, whom he thus addressed:
"Ah, you have come, you atrocious villain! You know the conditions. If you have dared to show your face without bringing your young mistress—"
"Please, marse, I wur out looking for her all night."
"Have you brought her?" thundered Old Hurricane, rising up.
"Please, marse, yes, sir; I done found her and brought her home safe."
"Send her up to me," said Old Hurricane, sinking back with a sigh of infinite relief.
Wool flew to do his bidding.
In five minutes Capitola entered her uncle's chamber.
Now, Old Hurricane had spent a night of almost intolerable anxiety upon his favorite's account, bewailing her danger and praying for her safety but no sooner did he see her enter his chamber safe and sound and smiling than indignation quite mastered him, and jumping out of his bed in his nightgown, he made a dash straight at Capitola.
Now, had Capitola run there is little doubt but that, in the blindness of his fury, he would have caught and beat her then and there. But Cap saw him coming, drew up her tiny form, folded her arms and looked him directly in the face.
This stopped him; but, like a mettlesome old horse suddenly pulled up in full career, he stamped and reared and plunged with fury, and foamed and spluttered and stuttered before he could get words out.
"What do you mean, you vixen, by standing there and popping your great eyes out at me? Are you going to bite, you tigress? What do you mean by facing me at all?" he roared, shaking his fist within an inch of Capitola's little pug nose.
"I am here because you sent for me, sir," was Cap's unanswerable rejoinder.
"Here because I sent for you! humph! humph! humph! and come dancing and smiling into my room as if you had not kept me awake all the live-long night—yes, driven me within an inch of brain fever! Not that I cared for you, you limb of Old Nick! not that I cared for you, except to wish with all my heart and soul that something or other had happened to you, you vagrant! Where did you spend the night, you lunatic?"
"At the old Hidden House, where I went to make a call on my new neighbor, Miss Day, and where I was caught in the storm."
"I wish to heaven you had been caught in a man-trap and had all your limbs broken, you—you—you—Oh!" ejaculated Old Hurricane, turning short and trotting up and down the room. Presently he stopped before Capitola and rapping his cane upon the floor, demanded:
"Who did you see at that accursed place, you—you—infatuated maniac?"
"Miss Day, Mr. Le Noir, Mrs. Knight and a man servant, name unknown," coolly replied Cap.
"And the head demon, where was he?"
"Uncle, if by the 'head demon' you mean Old Nick, I think it quite likely, from present appearances, that he passed the night at Hurricane Hall."
"I mean—Colonel Le Noir!" exclaimed Old Hurricane, as if the name choked him.
"Oh! I understood that he had that day left home."
"Umph! Oh! Ah! That accounts for it; that accounts for it," muttered Old Hurricane to himself; then, seeing that Cap was wistfully regarding his face and attending to his muttered phrases, he broke out upon her with:
"Get out of this—this—this—" He meant to say "get out of this house," but a sure instinct warned him that if he should speak thus Capitola, unlike the other members of his household, would take him at his word.
"Get out of this room, you vagabond!" he vociferated.
And Cap, with a curtsey and a kiss of her hand, danced away.
Old Hurricane stamped up and down the floor, gesticulating like a demoniac and vociferating:
"She'll get herself burked, kidnapped, murdered or what not! I'm sure she will! I know it! I feel it! It's no use to order her not to go; she will be sure to disobey, and go ten times as often for the very reason that she was forbidden. What the demon shall I do? Wool! Wool! you brimstone villain, come here!" he roared, going to the bell-rope and pulling it until he broke it down.
Wool ran in with his hair bristling, his teeth chattering and his eyes starting.
"Come here to me, you varlet! Now, listen: You are to keep a sharp look-out after your young mistress. Whenever she rides abroad you are to mount a horse and ride after her, and keep your eyes open, for if you once lose sight of her, you knave, do you know what I shall do to you, eh?"
"N—no, marse," stammered Wool, pale with apprehension.
"I should cut your eyelids off to improve your vision! Look to it, sir, for I shall keep my word! And now come and help me to dress," concluded Old Hurricane.
Wool, with chattering teeth, shaking knees and trembling fingers, assisted his master in his morning toilet, meditating the while whether it were not better to avoid impending dangers by running away.
And, in fact, between his master and his mistress, Wool had a hot time of it. The weather, after the storm had cleared the atmosphere, was delightful, and Cap rode out that very day. Poor Wool kept his eyeballs metaphorically "skinned," for fear they should be treated literally so—held his eyes wide open, lest Old Hurricane should keep his word and make it impossible for him ever to shut them.
When Cap stole out, mounted her horse and rode away, in five minutes from the moment of starting she heard a horse's hoofs behind her, and presently saw Wool gallop to her side.
At first Cap bore this good-humoredly enough, only saying:
"Go home, Wool, I don't want you; I had much rather ride alone."
To which the groom replied:
"It is old marse's orders, miss, as I should wait on you."
Capitola's spirit rebelled against this; and, suddenly turning upon her attendant, she indignantly exclaimed:
"Wool, I don't want you, sir; I insist upon being left alone, and I order you to go home, sir!"
Upon this Wool burst into tears and roared.
Much surprised, Capitola inquired of him what the matter was.
For some time Wool could only reply by sobbing, but when he was able to articulate he blubbered forth:
"It's nuf to make anybody go put his head under a meat-ax, so it is!"
"What is the matter, Wool?" again inquired Capitola.
"How'd you like to have your eyelids cut off?" howled Wool, indignantly.
"What?" inquired Capitola.
"Yes; I axes how'd you like to have your eyelids cut off? Case that's what ole marse t'reatens to do long o' me, if I don't follow arter you and keep you in sight. And now you forbids of me to do it, and—and—and I'll go and put my neck right underneaf a meat-ax!"
Now, Capitola was really kind-hearted, and, well knowing the despotic temper of her guardian, she pitied Wool, and after a little hesitation she said:
"Wool, so your old master says if you don't keep your eyes on me he'll cut your eyelids off?"
"Ye—ye—yes, miss," sobbed Wool.
"Did he say if you didn't listen to me he'd cut your ears off?"
"N—n—no, miss."
"Did he swear if you didn't talk to me he'd cut out your tongue out?"
"N—n—no, miss."
"Well, now, stop howling and listen to me! Since, at the peril of your eyelids, you are obliged to keep me in sight, I give you leave to ride just within view of me, but no nearer, and you are never to let me see or hear you, if you can help it for I like to be alone."
"I'll do anything in this world for peace, Miss Caterpillar," said poor Wool.
And upon this basis the affair was finally settled. And no doubt Capitola owed much of her personal safety to the fact that Wool kept his eyes open.
While these scenes were going on at Hurricane Hall, momentous events were taking place elsewhere, which require another chapter for their development.
"Hark! what a shriek was that of fear intense,Of horror and amazement!What fearful struggle to the door and thenceWith mazy doubles to the grated casement!"
An hour after the departure of Capitola, Colonel Le Noir returned to the Hidden House and learned from his man David that upon the preceding evening a young girl of whose name he was ignorant had sought shelter from the storm and passed the night at the mansion.
Now, Colonel Le Noir was extremely jealous of receiving strangers under his roof, never, during his short stay at the Hidden House, going out into company, lest he should be obliged in return to entertain visitors. And when he learned that a strange girl had spent the night beneath his roof, he frowningly directed that Dorcas should be sent to him.
When his morose manager made her appearance he harshly demanded the name of the young woman she had dared to receive beneath his roof.
Now, whether there is any truth in the theory of magnetism or not, it is certain that Dorcas Knight—stern, harsh, resolute woman that she was toward all others—became as submissive as a child in the presence of Colonel Le Noir.
At his command she gave him all the information he required, not even withholding the fact of Capitola's strange story of having seen the apparition of the pale-faced lady in her chamber, together with the subsequent discovery of the loss of her ring.
Colonel Le Noir sternly reprimanded his domestic manager for her neglect of his orders and dismissed her from his presence.
The remainder of the day was passed by him in moody thought. That evening he summoned his son to a private conference in the parlor—an event that happily delivered poor Clara Day from their presence at her fireside.
That night Clara, dreading lest at the end of their interview they might return to her society, retired early to her chamber where she sat reading until a late hour, when she went to bed and found transient forgetfulness of trouble in sleep.
She did not know how long she had slept when she was suddenly and terribly awakened by a woman's shriek sounding from the room immediately overhead, in which, upon the night previous, Capitola had slept.
Starting up in bed, Clara listened.
The shriek was repeated—prolonged and piercing—and was accompanied by a muffled sound of struggling that shook the ceiling overhead.
Instinctively springing from her bed, Clara threw on her dressing-gown and flew to the door; but just as she turned the latch to open it she heard a bolt slipped on the outside and found herself a prisoner in her own chamber.
Appalled, she stood and listened.
Presently there came a sound of footsteps on the stairs and a heavy muffled noise as of some dead weight being dragged down the staircase and along the passage. Then she heard the hall door cautiously opened and shut. And, finally, she distinguished the sound of wheels rolling away from the house.
Unable longer to restrain herself, she rapped and beat upon her own door, crying aloud for deliverance.
Presently the bolt was withdrawn, the door jerked open and Dorcas Knight, with a face of horror, stood before her.
"What is the matter! Who was that screaming? In the name of mercy, what has happened?" cried Clara, shrinking in abhorrence from the ghastly woman.
"Hush! it is nothing! There were two tomcats screaming and fighting in the attic, and they fought all the way downstairs, rolling over and over each other. I've just turned them out," faltered the woman, shivering as with an ague fit.
"What—what was that—that went away in the carriage?" asked Clara shuddering.
"The colonel, gone to meet the early stage at Tip-Top, to take him to Washington. He would have taken leave of you last night, but when he came to your parlor you had left it."
"But—but—there is blood upon your hand, Dorcas Knight!" cried Clara, shaking with horror.
"I—I know; the cats scratched me as I put them out," stammered the stern woman, trembling almost as much as Clara herself.
These answers failed to satisfy the young girl, who shrank in terror and loathing from that woman's presence, and sought the privacy of her own chamber, murmuring:
"What has happened? What has been done? Oh, heaven! oh, heaven! have mercy on us! some dreadful deed has been done in this house to-night!"
There was no more sleep for Clara. She heard the clock strike every hour from one to six in the morning, when she arose and dressed herself and went from her room, expecting to see upon the floor and walls and upon the faces of the household signs of some dreadful tragedy enacted upon the previous night.
But all things were as usual—the same dark, gloomy and neglected magnificence about the rooms and passages, the same reserved, sullen and silent aspect about the persons.
Dorcas Knight presided as usual at the head of the breakfast table, and Craven Le Noir at the foot. Clara sat in her accustomed seat at the side, midway between them.
Clara shuddered in taking her cup of coffee from the hand of Dorcas, and declined the wing of fowl that Craven Le Noir would have put upon her plate.
Not a word was said upon the subject of the mystery of the preceding night until Craven Le Noir, without venturing to meet the eyes of the young girl, said:
"You look very pale, Clara."
"Miss Day was frightened by the cats last night," said Dorcas.
Clara answered never a word. The ridiculous story essayed to be palmed off upon her credulity in explanation of the night's mystery had not gained an instant's belief.
She knew that the cry that had startled her from sleep had burst in strong agony from human lips!
That the helpless weight she had heard dragged down the stairs and along the whole length of the passage was some dead or insensible human form!
That the blood she had seen upon the hand of Dorcas Knight was—oh, heaven! her mind shrank back appalled with horror at the thought which she dare not entertain! She could only shudder, pray and trust in God.