A housemaid, passing through the disused “old laundry” on the ground floor, as a short-cut toward the newer one in a detached building, heard a strange noise in the drying-room overhead, and paused to listen. This was unusual. In ordinary the loft was never entered, nowadays, except by some slippered maid, or Michael with a trunk.
Setting down her basket of soiled linen she put her hands on her hips and stood motionless, intently listening. Dorothy? Could it be Dorothy? Impossible! No living girl could make all that racket; yet—was that a scream? Was it laughter—terror—wild animal—or what?
Away she sped; her nimble feet pausing not an instant on the way, no matter with whom she collided nor whom her excited face frightened, and still breathlessly running came into the great Assembly Hall. There Miss Tross-Kingdon had, by the advice of the Bishop, gathered the whole school; to tell them as quietly as she could of Dorothy’sdisappearance and to cross-examine them as to what anyone could remember about her on the evening before.
For the sorrowful fact could no longer be hidden—Dorothy Calvert was gone and could not be found.
On the faces of those three hundred girls was consternation and grief; in their young hearts a memory of the “spookish” things which had happened of late, but that had not before disturbed them; and now, at the excited entrance of the maid, a shiver ran over the whole company. Here was news! Nothing less could explain this unceremonious disturbance. Even Miss Muriel’s face turned paler than it had been, could that have been possible and without a word she waited for the maid to speak.
“Oh! Lady Principal! Let somebody come! The drying-loft! screams—boards dragging—or trunks—or murder doing—maybe! Let somebody go quick—Michael—a man—men—Somebody quick!”
Exhausted by her own excitement, the maid sank upon the nearest chair, her hand on her heart, and herself unable to add another word. Miss Tross-Kingdon rose, trembling so that she could hardly walk, and made her way out of the room. In an instant every assembled schoolgirl was on her feet,speeding toward the far west wing and the great loft, dreading yet eager to see what would there be revealed.
Still anxious on his own account, but from a far different cause, and still listening at the closed door with wonder at what seemed going on behind it, was Jack, the boot-boy. At the approach of the excited girls, he lifted his ear from the keyhole and looked behind him, to find himself trapped, as it were, at this end of the narrow passage by the multitude which swarmed about him, feverishly demanding:
“Boy, what is it? What is it? Is Dorothy in there? Is Dorothy found?”
“Is Dorothy—”
Poor Jack! This was the worst yet! At full comprehension of what that question meant, even he turned pale and his lips stuttered:
“I—I—dunno—I—Jiminy cricket!”
He must get out of that! He must—he must! Before that door was opened he must escape!
Frantically he tried to force his way backward through the crowd which penned him in, but could make little progress; even that being suddenly cut off by a strong hand laid on his shoulder and thechefforcing into his hand a stout crowbar, and ordering:
“Help to break her down!” at the same instantMichael, the porter, pressing to his side armed with an ax. “Now, all together!” cried he, and whether or no, Jack was compelled to aid in the work of breaking in.
But it was short work, indeed, and the crowd surged through the opening in terror of what they might behold—only to have that terror changed into shouts of hilarious delight.
For there was Dorothy! not one whit the worse for her brief imprisonment and happily unconscious of the anxiety which that had caused to others. And there was Baal, the goat! Careering about the place, dragging behind him a board to which he had been tied and was unable to dislodge. The room was fairly lighted now by the sun streaming through the skylight, and Baal had been having a glorious time chasing Dorothy about the great room, from spot to spot, gleefully trying to butt her with his horns, leaping over piles of empty trunks, and in general making such a ridiculous—if sometimes dangerous—spectacle of himself, that Dorothy, also, had had a merry time.
“Oh! you darling, you darling!” “Dolly Doodles, how came you here!” “Why did you do it? You’ve scared us all almost to death!” “The Bishop has gone into town to start detectives on your track!” “The Lady Principal—Here she is now! you’ve made her positively ill, and as forDawkins, they say she had completely collapsed and lies on her chair moaning all the time.”
“Oh, oh! How dreadful! And how sorry I am! I never dreamed; oh! dear Miss Muriel, do believe me—listen, listen!”
The lady sat down on a trunk and drew the girl to her. Her only feeling now was one of intensest gratitude, but she remembered how all the others had shared her anxiety and bade her recovered pupil tell the story so that all might hear. It was very simple, as has been seen, and needs no repetition here, ending with the heartfelt declaration:
“That cures me of playing detective ever again! I was so anxious to stop all that silly talk about evil spirits and after all the only such around Oak Knowe was Baal!”
“But how Baal, and why? And most of all how came he here in the house?” demanded Miss Tross-Kingdon, looking from one to another; until her eye was arrested by the expression of Jack, the boot-boy’s face. That was so funny she smiled, seeing it, and asked him:
“Can’t you explain this, Jack?”
“Uh—er—Ah! Wull—wull, yes, Ma’am, I allow ’t I might. I mean ’t I can. Er—sho!—Course, I’ll have to. Wull—wull—You see, Miss Lady Principal, how as last summer, afterschool was took in, I hired myself out to work for old John Gilpin an’ he had a goat. Dame didn’t hanker for it no great; said it et up things an’ got into places where ’twarn’t wanted and she adwised him, that is to say she told him, how ’t he must get rid of it. He got rid of it onto me. I hadn’t got nobody belongin’ and we’ve been first rate friends, Baal and me.”
This was evidenced by the quietude of the animal, now lying at the boot-boy’s feet in affectionate confidence, and refreshing itself with a nap, after its hilarious exercise.
“Strange that we didn’t know he was on our grounds, for I did not. Where have you kept him, Jack, and how?”
The lad flushed and fidgetted but dared not refuse to reply. He had been too long under the authority of Miss Tross-Kingdon for that, to whose good offices his mother had left him when she died.
“Wull—Wull—”
“Kindly stop ‘wulling’ and reply. It is nearly lunch time and Dorothy has had no breakfast.”
“Yes, Miss Muriel, please but I have. When I waked up after I’d slept so long it was real light, so I went poking around to see if I could find another door that would open, or any way out; and I came to a queer place away yonder at the end; and I heard the funniest noise—‘ih-ih-ih—Ah-umph!’something like that. Then I knew it was the goat, that I’d heard pat-pat-pattering along the hall last night and that I’d followed. And I guessed it was Jack, instead of a burglar, who’d rushed past me and locked me in. I was mighty glad to see anybody, even a goat, and I opened the gate to the place and Baal jumped out. He was tied to that board—he’d pulled it off the gate, and was as glad to see me as I was him. That little sort of cupboard, or cubby-hole, had lots of excelsior in it; I guess it had come around crockery or something, and that was where Baal slept. There was a tin box there, too, and I opened it. I was glad enough then! For it was half full of cakes and apples and a lemon pie, that you call a ‘Christchurch’ up here in Canada; and before I knew it Baal had his nose in the box, like he was used to eating out of it, and I had to slap his nose to make him let me have a share. So I’m not hungry and all I care is that I have made you all so worried.”
But already that was almost forgotten, though Miss Muriel’s curiosity was not yet satisfied.
“Jack, are you in the habit of keeping that animal here, in this room?”
“Yes—yes, Ma’am; times I am. Other times he stays in the old shed down by the brook. Most of the men knew I had him; Michael did, anyhow.He never said nothing again’ it;” answered the boy, defiantly, trying to shift responsibility to the old porter, the most trusted servant of the house.
“No, I cannot imagine Michael meddling with you and your foolishness; and for a lad who’s lived so long at a great school, I wonder to hear such bad grammar from your lips. How did you get Baal into this room without being detected in it?”
“Why, Ma’am, that was easy as preachin’. That back end, outside steps, what leads up from the ground for carrying up wet clothes, it used to be. He comes up that way, for goats can climb any place. Leastwise, Baal can, and the door’s never locked no more, ’cause I lost the key;” answered Jack, who was now the center of attention and proud of the fact.
“Very well, Jack. That will do. Kindly see to it that Baal is permanently removed from Oak Knowe, and—” She paused for a moment, as if about to add more, then quietly moved away, with Dorothy beside her and all her now happy flock following.
Never before had the laughter and chatter of her girls sounded so musical in her ears, nor her own heart been lighter than now, in its rebound from her recent anxiety. She wasn’t pleased withJack, the boot-boy; decidedly she was not pleased. She had not been since his return from his summer’s work, for he had not improved either in industry or behavior. She had not liked the strange interest which Gwendolyn had taken in his slight gift for drawing, which that enthusiastic young artist called “remarkable,” but which this more experienced instructor knew would never amount to anything.
Yet that was a matter which could wait. Meanwhile, here was a broken day, with everybody still so excited that lessons would be merely wasted effort; so, after she had sent Dorothy to put on her ordinary school dress, she informed the various classes that no more work was required that day and that after lunch there would be half-holiday for all her pupils.
“Hurrah! Hurrah! Three cheers for Dolly and may she soon get lost again!” shouted Winifred, and, for once, was not rebuked because of unladylike manners.
Left to himself, Jack regarded his beloved Baal, in keen distress.
“Said you’d got to go, did she? Well, if you go I do, too. Anyhow I’m sick to death of cleaning nasty girls’, or nasty shoes o’ a lot o’ girls—ary way you put it. Boot-boy, Baal! Think o’ that. If that ain’t a re—restrick-erated life for a artist,like Miss Gwen says I am; or uther a dectective gentleman—I’d like to know. No, sir, Baal! We’ll quit an’ we’ll do it to once. Maybe they won’t feel sorry when they find me gone an’ my place empty to the table! Maybe them girls that laughed when that old schoolmarm was a pitchin’ into me afore all them giggling creatures, maybe they won’t feel bad, a-lookin’ at that hull row of shoes outside cubicle doors waiting to be cleaned and not one touched toward it! Huh! It’ll do all them ’ristocratics good to have to clean ’em themselves. All but Miss Gwendolyn. She’s the likeliest one of the hull three hundred. I hate—I kinder hate to leave her. ‘Artists has kindred souls,’ she said once when she was showin’ me how to draw that skull. Who can tell? I might get to be more famouser’n her, smart as she is; an’ I might grow up, and her too, and I might come to her house—or is it a turreted castle?—an’ I might take my fa—famousness an’ offer it to her to marry me! And then, when her folks couldn’t hardly believe that I was I, and her old boot-boy, maybe they’d say ‘Yes, take her, my son! I’m proud to welcome into our ’ristocraticy one that has riz from a boot-boy to our rank!’ Many a story-book tells o’ such doings, an’ what’s in them ought to be true. Good for ’t I can buy ’em cheap. The Bishop caughtme reading one once and preached me a reg’lar sermon about it. Said that such kind of literatoor had ruined many a simple fellow and would me if I kep’ on. But even Bishops don’t know everything, though I allow he’s a grand old man. I kind of sorter hate to leave Oak Knowe on his account, he takes such an int’rest in me. But he’ll get over it. He’ll have to, for we’re going, Baal an’ me, out of this house where we’re wastin’ our sweetness on the desert air. My jiminy cricket! If a boy that can paint pictures and recite poetry like I can, can’t rise above shoe-cleanin’ and get on in this world—I’d like to know the reason why! Come, Baal! I’ll strap my clothes in a bundle, shake the dust of old Oak Knowe offen me, and hie away to seek my fortune—and your’n.”
Nobody interfering, Jack proceeded to put this plan into action; but it was curious that, as he reached the limits of Oak Knowe grounds, he turned and looked back on the big, many-windowed house, and at the throngs of happy girls who were at “recreation” on the well-kept lawns. A sort of sob rose in his throat and there was a strange sinking in his stomach that made him most uncomfortable. He couldn’t tell that this was “homesickness,” and he tried to forget it in bitterness against those whom he was deserting.
“They don’t care, none of ’em! Not a singlemite does anyone of them ’ristocratics care what becomes of—of poor Jack, the boot-boy! Come on, Baal! If we don’t start our seekin’ pretty quick—Why jiminy cricket I shall be snivellin’!”
Saying this, the self-exiled lad gripped the goat’s leading strap and set out at a furious pace down the long road toward the distant city. He had a dime novel in one pocket, an English sixpence in another—And what was this?
“My soul! If there ain’t the key to that old door they broke in to see what was racketing round so! I wonder if I ought to take it back? Baal, what say? That cubby of our’n wasn’t so bad. You know, Baal, I wouldn’t like to be a thief—not a reg’lar thief that’d steal a key. Course I wouldn’t. Anyhow, I’ve left, I’ve quit. I’m seekin’ my fortune—understand? Whew! The wind’s risin’. I allow there’s going to be a storm. I wish—Old Dawkins used to say: ‘Better take two thoughts to a thing!’ an’ maybe, maybe, if I’d ha’ waited a spell afore—I mean I wouldn’t ha’ started fortune-seekin’ till to-morrow and the storm over. Anyhow, I’ve really started, though! And if things don’t happen to my mind, I can show ’em what an honest boy I am by takin’ back that key. Come on, Baal, do come on! What in creation makes you drag so on that strap and keep lookin’ back? Come on, I say!”
Then, both helping and hindering one another, the lad and his pet passed out of sight and for many a day were seen no more in that locality.
Yet the strange events of that memorable day were not all over. At study hour, that evening, came another surprise—a visit to her mates of the invalid Gwendolyn. From some of them she received only a silent nod of welcome; but Laura, Marjorie, and Dorothy sprang to meet her with one accord, and Winifred followed Dorothy’s example after a second’s hesitation.
“Oh, Gwen! How glad we are to have you back! Are you sure you’re quite strong enough to come?” questioned Marjorie, while less judicious Laura exclaimed:
“But you can’t guess what you’ve missed! We’ve had the greatest scare ever was in this school! You’d ought to have come down sooner. What do you think it was that happened? Guess—quick—right away! Or I can’t wait to tell! I’ll tell anyhow! Dorothy was lost and everybody feared she had been killed! Yes, Gwen, lost all the long night through and had to sleep with the goat and—”
Gwendolyn’s face was pale from her confinement in the sick room but it grew paler now, and catching Dorothy’s hand she cried out:
“Oh! what if I had been too late!”
Nobody understood her, not even Dorothy herself, who merely guessed that Gwen was referring to their interview of the night before; but she didn’t know this proud girl fully, nor the peculiar nature of that pride which, once aroused, compelled her to do what she most shrank from. As Dorothy pushed a chair forward, Gwendolyn shook her head.
“Thank you, but not yet. I’ve got something to say—that all of you must hear.”
Of course, everybody was astonished by this speech and every eye turned toward the young “Peer” who was about to prove herself of noble “rank” as never in all her life before.
Dorothy began to suspect what might be coming and by a silent clasp of Gwendolyn’s waist and a protesting shake of her head tried to prevent her saying more.
But Gwendolyn as silently put aside the appealing arm and folding her own arms stood rigidly erect. It wouldn’t have been the real Gwen if she hadn’t assumed this rather dramatic pose, which she had mentally rehearsed many times that day. Also, she had chosen this quiet hour and place as the most effective for her purpose, and she had almost coerced Lady Jane into letting her come.
“Schoolmates and friends, I want to confess to you the meanest things that ever were done at dearOak Knowe. From the moment she came here I disliked Dorothy Calvert and was jealous of her. In less than a week she had won Miss Muriel’s heart as well as that of almost everybody else. I thought I could drive her out of the school, if I made the rest of you hate her, too. I’d begun to teach the boot-boy to draw, having once seen him attempting it. I painted him a death’s head for a copy, and gave him my pocket-money to buy a mask of the Evil One.”
“Oh! Gwendolyn how dared you? You horrid, wicked girl!” cried gentle Marjorie, moved from her gentleness for once.
“Well, I’ll say this much in justice to myself. That thing went further than I meant, which was only to have him put pictures of it around in different places. He’d told me about keeping a goat in the old drying-room, and of course he couldn’t always keep it still. The kitchen folks put the pictures and the goat’s noises together and declared the house was haunted. I told the maids that they might lay that all to the new scholar from the States, and a lot of them believed me.”
Even loyal Laura now shrank aside from her paragon, simply horrified. She had helped to spread the rumor that Dorothy was a niece of Dawkins, but she had done no worse than that. It had been left to Jack-boot-boy to finish the contemptibleacts. He got phosphorus from the laboratory, paint from any convenient color box, and his first success as a terrifier had been in the case of Millikins-Pillikins, at whose bed he had appeared—with the results that have been told. He it had been who had frightened the maid into leaving, and had spread consternation in the kitchen.
“And in all these things he did, I helped him. I planned some of them but he always went ahead and thought worse ones out. Yet nobody, except the simpletons below stairs, believed it was Dorothy who had ‘bewitched’ the house,” concluded that part of Gwendolyn’s confession.
Yet still she stood there, firmly facing the contempt on the faces of her schoolmates, knowing that that was less hard to bear than her own self-reproach had been. And presently she went on:
“Then came that affair at the Maiden’s Bath. Dorothy Calvert, whom I still hated, saved my life—while she might have lost her own. What I have suffered since, knowing this and how bravely she had borne all my hatefulness and had sacrificed herself for me—You must guess that. I can’t tell it. But last night I made myself beg her pardon in private as I now beg it before you all. May I yet have the chance to do to her as she has done to me! Dorothy Calvert—will you forgive me?”
After that memorable week of Hallowe’en, affairs at Oak Knowe settled into their ordinary smooth running. That week had brought to all the school a surfeit of excitement so that all were glad of quiet and peace.
“The classes have never made such even, rapid progress before, in all the years I’ve been here;” said the Lady Principal to the good Bishop. “Things are almost ominously quiet and I almost dread to have Christmas time approach. All the young ladies get more interested then in gift-preparing and anticipations of vacations at home than in school routine. I hate to have that interrupted so soon again.”
The Bishop laughed.
“My dear Miss Muriel, you take life too seriously. Upheavals are good for us. Our lives would grow stagnant without them.”
“Beg pardon, but I can’t fancy affairs at Oak Knowe ever being stagnant! Nor do I see, as you seem to, any fine results from the happenings ofHallow week. One of the ill results is—I cannot find a competent boot-boy. That makes you smile again, but I assure you it is no trifle in a large establishment like this, with it the rule that every pupil must walk the muddy road each day. The maids will do the work, of course, but they grumble. I do wish the ground would freeze or some good boy offer his services.”
A rattling of the window panes and a sound of rising wind sent the Bishop to the window:
“Well, Miss Tross-Kingdon, one of your wishes is already coming true. There’s a blizzard coming—surely. Flakes are already falling and I’m glad the double sashes are in place on this north side the building, and that Michael has seen to having the toboggan slide put in order. I prophesy that within a few days all the young folks will be tobogganing at a glorious rate. That’s one of the things I’m thankful for—having been born in Canada where I could slide with the best!”
He turned about and the lady smiled at his boyish enthusiasm. He was a man who never felt old, despite his venerable white head, but as he moved again toward the fire and Dorothy entered the room a shadow crossed his face. He had sent for her because within his pocket lay a letter he knew she ought to have, yet greatly disliked to give her. All the mail matter coming to the Oak Knowe girlspassed first through their instructors’ hands, though it was a rare occasion when such was not promptly delivered.
This letter the Bishop had read as usual, but it had not pleased him. It was signed by one James Barlow, evidently a very old friend of Dorothy’s, and was written with a boyish assumption of authority that was most objectionable, the Bishop thought. It stated that Mr. Seth Winters was very ill and that Mrs. Calvert was breaking down from grief and anxiety concerning him; and that, in the writer’s opinion, Dorothy’s duty lay at home and not in getting an education away up there in Canada. “Anybody who really wishes to learn can do that anywhere,” was the conclusion of this rather stilted epistle.
Now when his favorite came in, happy and eager to greet him, he suddenly decided that he would keep that letter to himself for a time, until he had written to some other of the girl’s friends and found out more about the matter.
“Did you send for me, dear Bishop?”
“Well, yes, little girl, I did. There was something I wanted to talk to you about, but I’ve changed my mind and decided to put it off for the present;” he answered with a kindly smile that was less bright than usual. So that the sensitive girl was alarmed and asked:
“Is it something that I’ve done but ought not?”
“Bless your bonny face, no, indeed. No, Miss Betty the second, I have no fault to find with you. Rather I am greatly delighted by all your reports. Just look out of window a minute—what do you see?”
Dorothy still wondered why she had been summoned, but looked out as she had been bidden.
“Why, it’s snowing! My, how fast, and how all of a sudden! When we were out for exercise the sun was shining bright.”
“The sun is always shining, dear child, even though clouds of trouble often obscure it. Always remember that, little Dorothy, no matter what happens.”
Then he dropped what the schoolgirls called his “preachy manner” and asked:
“How do you like tobogganing?”
“Why—why, of course I don’t know. I’ve never even seen a toboggan, except in pictures. They looked lovely.”
“Lovely? I should say, but the real thing far lovelier. Miss Tross-Kingdon, here, knows my opinion of tobogganing. The finest sport there is and one that you unfortunate southerners cannot enjoy in your native land. Up here we have everything delightful, ha, ha! But you’ll have to be equipped for the fun right away. Will you seeto it, Miss Muriel, that Dorothy has a toboggan rig provided? For Michael will have the slides ready, you may be sure. He was born a deal further north even than this and snow-and-ice is his native element. Why, the honest old fellow can show several prizes he won, in his younger days, for skating, ice-boating, tobogganing, and the like. I always feel safe when Michael is on hand at the slide to look after his ‘young leddies.’
“Now, I must go. I have a service in town, to-night, and if I don’t hurry I’ll be caught in this blizzard. You run along, ‘Betty’ and spread the news of the grand times coming.”
With a gentle pat of the little hand he held he thus dismissed her, and inspired by his talk of the—to her—novel sport, she ran happily away, forgetful already of anything more serious.
“Oh! girls! the Bishop says we’ll soon have tobogganing!” she cried, joining a group gathered about a great wood fire in the library.
“Oh! goody! I was looking at my new suit this very morning. Mother’s had such a pretty one made for me, a blanket suit of baby blue with everything to match—mittens and cap and all! I’m just wild to wear it!” answered Fanny Dimock, running to the window to peer out.
“To-morrow’s half-holiday. Let’s all go help Michael to get the slides ready!”
“Of course—if the storm will let us out! Oh glorious!” said Ernesta Smith flying to Fanny’s side, and trying to see through the great flakes, fast packing against the pane and hiding the view without.
But this only increased the gayety within. Electric lights flashed out, girl after girl ran to fetch her own coasting suit and to spread it before the eyes of her mates.
“Oh! aren’t they the sweetest things!” exclaimed the delighted Dorothy; “the very prettiest clothes I ever saw!”
Indeed they did make a fine show of color, heaped here and there, their soft, thick texture assuring perfect protection from cold. Reds and greens, pinks and blues, and snowy white; some fresh from the makers’ hands, some showing the hard wear of former winters; yet all made after the Oak Knowe pattern. A roomy pair of pantaloons, to draw over the ordinary clothing from the waist down, ended in stocking-shaped feet, fitted for warm wool overshoes. The tunic fell below the knees and ended above in a pointed hood, and mittens were made fast to the sleeves.
“Lovely, but isn’t it terribly clumsy?” asked Dorothy, more closely examining one costume.
“Let’s show her! Let’s have an Indian dance! Hurry up, everybody, and dress!”
In a jiffy every girl who owned a costume got into it and the place was transformed. For somebody flew to the piano and struck up a lively waltz, and away went the girls, catching one another for partner—no matter who—whirling and circling, twisting bodies about, arms overhead, as in a regular calisthenic figure—till Dorothy was amazed. For what looked so thick and clumsy was too soft and yielding to hinder grace.
In the midst of the mirth, the portieres were lifted and Gwendolyn came in. It was unfortunate that just then the music ended with a crash and that the whirling circles paused. For it looked as if her coming had stopped the fun, though this was far from true.
Ever since that day of her open confession her schoolmates had regarded her with greater respect than ever before. Most of them realized how hard that confession had been for so haughty a girl, and except for her own manner, many would have shown her marked affection.
When she had ceased speaking on that day an awkward silence followed. If she had expected hand-claps or applause she failed to get either. The listeners were too surprised to know what to do, and there was just as much pride in the young “Peer’s” bearing as of old. After a moment of waiting she had stalked away and all chance for applause was gone.
But she had returned to her regular classes the next morning and mixed with the girls at recreation more familiarly than she had formerly done; yet still that stiffness remained.
For half-minute, Gwendolyn hesitated just within the entrance, then forced herself to advance toward the fireplace and stand there warming herself.
“It’s getting very cold,” she remarked by way of breaking the unpleasant silence.
“Yes, isn’t it!” returned Winifred; adding under her breath: “Inside this room, anyway.”
“We’re warm enough, dressed up like this,” said Marjorie, pleasantly. “Dorothy says that the Bishop thinks we’ll have tobogganing in a day or two, if the snow holds. She’s never seen a toboggan nor how we dress for the sport, and we brought in our togs to show her. She thinks they look too clumsy for words, so we’ve just been showing her that we can move as easily in them as without them. But—my! It’s made us so warm!”
Gwendolyn turned toward Dorothy with a smile intended to be cordial, and asked:
“Is that so, indeed? Then I suppose you’ll have to get a rig like ours if you want to try the slide.”
“Yes, I suppose so. The Bishop asked the Lady Principal to get me one, but I don’t suppose she can right away. Nobody could go shopping in such weather, and I suppose they have to be bought in town.”
“The blankets are bought there, but usually the suits are made at home before we come; or else by the matron and some of the maids here. I—”
A look of keener interest had come into her face, but she said nothing further and a moment later went out again.
As the portieres fell together behind her, Winifred threw up her hands in comic despair.
“Whatever is the matter with that girl? or withme—oryou—oryou!” pointing to one and another around her. “She wants to be friendly—and so do we! But there’s something wrong and I don’t know what.”
“I do,” said a sweet-faced “Seventher,” who had been quietly studying during all this noise. “Poor Gwendolyn is sorry but isn’t one bit humble. She’s absolutely just and has done what she believed right. But it hasn’t helped her much. She’s fully as proud as she ever was, and the only way we can help her is by loving her. We’vegotto love her or she’ll grow harder than ever.”
“You can’t make love as you’d make a—a pin-cushion!” returned Florita Sheraton, holding up, to illustrate, a Christmas gift she was embroidering.
Dorothy listened to this talk, her own heart upbraiding her for her failure to “love” Gwen. She liked her greatly and admired her courage more.
“Win, let’s you and me try and see if that istrue, what Florita says. Maybe love can be ‘made’ after all;” she whispered to her friend.
“Huh! That’ll be a harder job than algebra! I shall fail in both.”
“I reckon I shall, too, but we can try—all the same. That won’t hurt either one of us and I’m awfully sorry for her, she must be so lonesome.”
“‘Pity is akin to love!’ You’ve taken the first step in your climb toward Gwen’s top-lofty heart!” quoted Winifred. “Climb away and I’ll boost you as well as I can. I—”
“Miss Dorothy Calvert, the Lady Principal would like to see you in her own parlor;” said a maid, appearing at the door.
“What now? You seem to be greatly in demand, to-day, by the powers that be, I hope it isn’t a lecture the Bishop passed on to her to deliver,” said Florita as Dorothy rose to obey.
But whatever fear Dolly felt of any such matter was banished by her first glance into her teacher’s face. Miss Muriel had never looked kinder nor better pleased than then, as, holding up a pair of beautiful white blankets she said:
“How will these do for the toboggan suit the Bishop wished me to get for you?”
“Oh! Miss Muriel! Are those for me and so soon? Why, it’s only an hour ago, or not much more, since he spoke of it, and how could anybodygo to town and back in that little while, in such a storm?”
“That wasn’t necessary. These were in the house. Do you like them?”
“Like them! They’re the softest, thickest, prettiest things! I never saw any so fine, even at Aunt Betty’s Bellevieu. Do you think I ought to have them? Wouldn’t cheaper ones answer for messing around in the snow?”
“The question of expense is all right, dear, and we’re fortunate to have the material on hand. Mrs. Archibald will be here, directly, to take your measurements. Ah! here she is now.”
This was something delightfully different from any “lecture,” and even Miss Muriel talked more and in higher spirits than usual; till Dorothy asked:
“Do you love tobogganing, too, Miss Tross-Kingdon?”
“No, my dear, I’m afraid of it. My heart is rather weak and the swift motion is bad for it. But I love to see others happy and some things have happened, to-day, which have greatly pleased me. But you must talk sliding with Mrs. Archibald. Dignified as she is, she’ll show you what a true Canadian can do, give her a bit of ice and a hill.”
The matron laughed and nodded.
“May the day be long before I tire of my nation’s sport! I’m even worse than Michael, who’s almost daft on the subject.”
Then she grew busy with her measurings and clippings, declaring: “It just makes me feel bad to put scissors into such splendid blankets as these. You’ll be as proud as Punch, when I dress you out in the handsomest costume ever shot down Oak Knowe slide!”
“Oh! I wish Aunt Betty could see it, too. She does so love nice things!”
When Mrs. Archibald and her willing helpers had completed her task and Dolly was arrayed in her snow-suit she made, indeed, “the picture” which Dawkins called her.
For the weather proved what the Bishop had foretold. The snow fell deep and heavy, “just right for packing,” Michael said, on the great wooden slide whose further end rose to a dizzy height and from whose lower one a second timbered “hill” rose and descended.
If the toboggan was in good working order, the momentum gained in the descent of the first would carry the toboggans up and over the second; and nothing could have been in finer condition than these on that next Saturday morning when the sport was to begin. The depression between the two slides was over a small lake, or pond, nowsolidly frozen and covered with snow; except in spots where the ice had been cut for filling the Oak Knowe ice-houses. Into one of these holes Michael and his force had plunged a long hose pipe, and a pump had been contrived to throw water upward over the slide.
On the night before men had been stationed on the slide, at intervals, to distribute this water over the whole incline, the intense cold causing it to freeze the instant it fell; and so well they understood their business they had soon rendered it a perfectly smooth slide of ice from top to bottom. A little hand-railed stairway, for the ascent of the tobogganers, was built into the timbers of the toboggan, or incline, itself; and it was by this that they climbed back to the top after each descent, dragging their toboggans behind them. At the further side of the lake, close to its bank, great blazing fires were built, where the merry makers could warm themselves, or rest on the benches placed around.
Large as some of the toboggans were they were also light and easily carried, some capable of holding a half-dozen girls—“packed close.” Yet some sleds could seat but two, and these were the handsomest of all. They belonged to the girls who had grown proficient in the sport and able to take care of themselves; while some man of the householdalways acted as guide on the larger sleds and for the younger pupils.
When Dorothy came out of the great building, that Saturday holiday, she thought the whole scene was truly fairyland. The evergreens were loaded to the ground with their burden of snow, the wide lawns were dazzlingly bright, and the sun shone brilliantly.
“Who’re you going to slide with, Dolly? On Michael’s sled? I guess the Lady Principal will say so, because you’re so new to it. Will you be afraid?”
“Why should I be afraid? I used to slide down the mountain side when I lived at Skyrie. What makes you laugh, Winifred? This won’t be very different, will it?”
“Wait till you try it! It’s perfectly glorious but it isn’t just the same as sliding down a hill, where a body can stop and step off any time. You can’t step off a toboggan, unless you want to get killed.”
Dorothy was frightened and surprised, and quickly asked:
“How can anybody call that ‘sport’ which is as dangerous as that? What do you mean? I reckon I won’t go. I’ll just watch you.”
It was Winifred’s turn to stare, but she was also disappointed.
“Oh! you little ‘Fraid-Cat,’ I thought you were never afraid of anything. That’s why I liked you. One why—and there are other whys—but don’t you back out in this. Don’t you dare. When you’ve got that be-a-u-tiful rig and a be-a-u-tiful toboggan to match. I’d hate to blush for you, Queen Baltimore!”
“I have no toboggan, Winnie, dear. You know that. I was wondering who’d take me on theirs—if—if I try it at all.”
Winifred rushed to the other side of the porch and came flying back, carrying over her head a toboggan, so light and finely polished that it shone; also a lovely cushion of pink and white dragged from one hand. This fitted the flat bottom of the sled and was held in place, when used, by silver catches. The whole toboggan was of this one polished board, curving upward in front according to the most approved form, pink tassels floating from its corners that pink silk cords held in their place. Across this curving front was stenciled in pink: “Dorothy Calvert.”
“There, girlie, what do you say to that? Isn’t it marked plainly enough? Didn’t you know about it before? Why all we girls have been just wild with envy of you, ever since we saw it among the others.”
Dorothy almost caught her breath. It certainlywas a beauty, that toboggan! But how came she to have it?
“What do you mean, Winifred Christie? Do you suppose the Bishop has had it made, or bought it, for me? Looks as if it had cost a lot. And Aunt Betty has lost so much money she can’t afford to pay for extra things—not very high ones—”
“Quit borrowing trouble, Queenie! Who cares where it came from or how much it cost? Here it is with your own name on it and if you’re too big a goose to use it, I shall just borrow it myself. So there you are. There isn’t a girl here but wouldn’t be glad to have first ride on it. Am I invited?” and Winifred poked a saucy face under her friend’s hood.
“Am I?” asked Florita Sheraton, coaxingly throwing her arms around Dolly.
“Oh! get away, Flo! You’re too big! You’d split the thing in two!” said Ernesta, pulling away her chum’s arms. “Just look at me, Dolly Doodles! Just see how nice and thin I am! Why I’m a feather’s weight to Flo, and I’m one of the best tobogganers at Oak Knowe. Sure. Ask Mrs. Archibald herself, for here she comes all ready for her share of the fun!”
“Yes, yes, lassie, you’re a fair one at the sport now and give some promise o’ winning the cup yet!” answered the matron, joining the girlsand looking as fit and full of life as any of them.
“Hear! Hear! Hurrah for ’Nesta! Three cheers for the champion cup winner!”
“And three times three for the girl Dolly chooses to share her first slide on the new toboggan!” cried somebody, while a dozen laughing faces were thrust forward and as many hands tapped on the breasts of the pleaders, signifying: “Choose me!”
The Bishop was already on hand, looking almost a giant in his mufflers, and as full of glee as the youngest there. The lady Principal, in her furs, had also joined the group, for though she did not try the slides, she loved to watch the enjoyment of the others, from a warm seat beside the bonfire.
While Dorothy hesitated in her choice, looking from one to another of the merry, pleading faces about her, Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard stood a little apart, watching with keen interest the little scene before her, while the elder members of the group also exchanged some interested glances.
“Count us! Count us! That’s fair! Begin: ‘Intry, mintry, outry, corn; wire, brier, apple, thorn. Roly, poly, dimble-dee;—O—U—T spells Out goes SHE!’”
Over and over, they laughingly repeated the nonsense-jingle, each girl whom the final “she” designated stepping meekly back with pretended chagrin, while the “counting out” went on withouther. The game promised to be so long that the matron begged:
“Do settle it soon, young ladies! We’re wasting precious time.”
Dorothy laughed and still undecided, happened to glance toward Gwendolyn, who had made no appeal for preference, and called out:
“Gwen, dear, will you give me my first lesson? I choose Gwendolyn!”
It was good to see the flush of happiness steal into Gwen’s face and to see the smile she flashed toward Dorothy. Stepping forward she said:
“Thank you, dear. I do appreciate this in you, and you needn’t be afraid. The Lady Principal knows I can manage a toboggan fairly well, and this of yours seems to be an exact copy of my own that I’ve used so long.”
Other cheers followed this and in a moment the whole party had spread over the white grounds leading to the great slide, the good Bishop following more slowly with the other “grown-ups,” and softly clapping his mittened hands.
“Good! Fine! I like that. Dorothy has ignorantly done the one right thing. If she could only guess the secret which lies under all how thankful she would be that she made this choice and no other.”
Old Michael stood on the wide platform at the top of the slide, his face aglow with eagerness, and his whole manner altered to boyish gayety. His great toboggan was perched on the angle of the incline, like a bird poised for flight, while he was bidding his company to: “Get on, ladies! Get on and let’s be off!”
Behind and around him were the other men employees of Oak Knowe, and every one of them, except thechef, enthusiastic over the coming sport. But he, unhappy mortal, preferred the warmth of his kitchen fire to this shivery pastime and had only entered into it to escape the gibing tongues of the other servants. Yet in point of costume he could “hold his head up with the best”; and the fact that he could, in this respect even outshine his comrades was some compensation for his cold-pinched toes.
The platform was crowded with toboggans and girls; the air rang with jest and laughter; with girlish squeals of pretended fear; and cries of: “Don’t crowd!” or: “Sit close, sit close!”
“Sit close” they did; the blanketed legs of each tobogganer pressed forward on either side of the girl in front, and all hands clasping the small rod that ran along the sides of the toboggan.
The slide had been built wide enough for two of the sleds abreast, and one side was usually left to the smaller ones of the experienced girls, who could be trusted to safely manage their own light craft.
To Michael and the matron was always accorded the honor of first slide on the right while the “best singles” coasted alongside on the left. That morning, by tacit consent, the new “Dorothy Calvert” was poised beside the big “Oak Knowe” and the Honorable Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard was a proud and happy girl, indeed, as she took her place upon it as guide and protector of ignorant Dorothy.
“She chose me of her own accord! I do believe she begins to really love me. Oh! it’s so nice to be just free and happy with her as the others are!” thought Gwen, as she took her own place and directed her mate just how to sit and act. Adding a final:
“Don’t you be one bit afraid. I never had an accident sliding and I’ve always done it every winter since I can remember. We’re off! Bow your head a little and—keep—your—mouth—shut!”
There wasn’t time! Dorothy felt a little quiver run through the thing on which she sat and a wildrush through icy air! That was all! They had reached the bottom of the first slide and began to fly upward over the other before she realized a thing. Gwen hadn’t even finished her directions before they had “arrived!”
The Southerner was too amazed, for a second, to even step off the toboggan, but Gwendolyn caught her up, gave her a hearty kiss and hug, and demanded:
“Well! Here we are! How do you like it! We’ve beat! We’ve beat!”
Dorothy rubbed her eyes. So they had, for at that instant the big Oak Knowe fetched up beside them, and its occupants stepped or tumbled off, throwing up their hands and cheering:
“Three cheers for the Dorothy Calvert! Queen of the Slide for all This Year!”
And liveliest among the cheerers was the once so dignified young “Peer,” the Honorable Gwen. Dorothy looking into her beaming face and hearing her happy voice could scarce believe this to be the same girl she had hitherto known. But she had scant time to think for here they came, thick and fast, toboggan after toboggan, Seventh Form girls and Minims, teachers and pupils, the Bishop and thechef, maids and men-servants, the matron and old Michael—all in high spirits, all apparently talking at once and so many demandingof “Miss Dixie” how she liked it, that she could answer nobody.
Then the Bishop pushed back her tasseled hood and smiled into her shining eyes:
“Well little ‘Betty the Second,’ can you beat that down at old Baltimore? What do you think now? Isn’t it fine—fine? Doesn’t it make you feel you’re a bird of the air? Ah! it’s grand—grand. Just tell me you like it and I’ll let you go.”
“I—Yes—I reckon I do! I hadn’t time to think. We hadn’t started, and we were here.”
“Up we go. Try her again!” cried one, and the climb back to the top promptly began, the men carrying the heavier sleds, the girls their lighter ones, Gwendolyn and Dorothy their own between them. Then the fun all over again; the jests at awkward starts, the cheers at skillful ones, the laughter and good will, till all felt the exhilaration of the moment and every care was forgotten.
Many a slide was taken and now Dorothy could answer when asked did she like it:
“It’s just grand, as the Bishop said. At first I could hardly breathe and I was dizzy. Now I do as Gwen tells me and I love it! I should like to stay out here all day!”
“Wait till dinner-time! Then you’ll be ready enough to go in. Tobogganing is the hungriestwork—or play—there can possibly be!” said Gwendolyn, pirouetting about on the ice as gracefully as on a waxed floor, the merriest, happiest girl in all that throng. Not only Dorothy but many another observed her with surprise. This was a new Gwen, not the stand-offish sort of creature who had once so haughtily scorned all their fun. She had always tobogganed, every year that she had been in that school, but she had never enjoyed it like this; and again as the Bishop regarded her, he nodded his head in satisfaction and said to the matron:
“I told you so. I knew it. Do a kindness to somebody and it will return to yourself in happiness a thousand fold.”
“Thanks, dear Bishop! I’ll try to remember,” merrily answered she; noticing that Gwendolyn had drawn near enough to hear, and taking this little preachment to herself to prevent Gwendolyn’s doing so. She was so pleased by sight of the girl’s present happiness that she wished nothing to cloud it, and believing herself discussed would certainly offend proud, sensitive Gwen.
Almost two hours had passed, and a few were beginning to tire of the really arduous sport, with its upward climb, so out of proportion to the swift descent; when suddenly fresh shouts of laughter rang out from the high platform and thoseascending made haste to join the others at the top.
There stood old John Gilpin and Robin, the latter’s young bones now sound and strong again, and himself much the better for his sojourn at the cottage with his enforced rest and abundance of good food.
“Well, well! How be ye all? Hearty, you look, and reg’lar circus pictures in them warm duds! Good day to your Reverence, Bishop, and I hope I see you in good health. My humble respects, your Reverence, and I thought as how I’d just step up and ask your Reverence might my lad here and me have a try on your slide. I thought—why, sir, the talk on’t has spread way into town a’ready, sir, and there’ll be more beggars nor me seekin’ use on’t, your Reverence—”
The prelate’s hearty laughter rang out on the frosty air, a sound delightful to hear, so full it was of genial humanity, and he grasped the hand of the old teamster as warmly as he would that of a far wealthier man.
“Man to man, John, we’re all in the same boat to-day. Drop the formality and welcome to the sport. But what sort of sled is this, man? Looks rather rough, doesn’t it? Sure you could manage it on this steep incline?”
John bridled and Robin looked disappointed. Expectations of the toboggan-slide’s being madeready had filled his head, and he and the old man had toiled for hours to make the sled at which the Bishop looked so doubtfully.
“Well, your Reverence—I mean—you without the Reverence—” here the Bishop smiled and Robin giggled, thereby causing his host to turn about with a frown. “You see, sir, Robin’s always been hearin’ about your toboggan up here to Oak Knowe and’s been just plumb crazy—”
At this point the shy lad pulled John’s coat, silently begging him to leave him out of the talk; but the farmer had been annoyed by Robin’s ill-timed giggle, and testily inquired:
“Well, sir, ain’t that so? Didn’t you pester the life clean out o’ me till I said I’d try? Hey?”
“Y-yes,” meekly assented the boy; then catching a glimpse of Dorothy and Winifred and their beckoning nods he slipped away to them. To him Dorothy proudly exhibited her beautiful toboggan, explaining its fine construction with a glibness that fitted an “old tobogganer” better than this beginner at the sport. Gwen’s face beamed again, listening to her, as if she felt a more personal pride in the sled than even Dorothy herself. She even unbent so far from her pride of rank as to suggest:
“If you’ll let me borrow it and he’d like to go, I’ll take Robin down once, to show him how smoothly it runs.”
Robin’s eyes sparkled. He wasn’t shy with girls, but only when he felt himself made too conspicuous by his host’s talk.
“Would you? Could she? May she?” he cried, teetering about on his ragged shoes in an ecstasy of delight.
Dolly laughed and clapped her hands.
“Verily, she should, would, can, and may! laddie boy. But where’s your jacket? I mean your other one? It’s so cold, you’ll freeze in that thin one.”
By the color which came to the lad’s cheek Dolly realized that she had asked a “leading question,” but Robin’s dismay lasted only an instant; then he laughed merrily at the “good joke,” and answered:
“Well, you see, Miss Dorothy, my ‘other one’ is at some tailor’s shop in town. I haven’t had a chance yet to choose one, let alone pay for it! But what matter? ’Tisn’t winter all the year and who wears top-coats in summer? Did she really mean it?”
Gwendolyn proved that she “really meant it” by pushing the “Dorothy Calvert” into position and nodding to him that she was ready.
“All right! Let her go!” he responded to her silent invitation and away they went, as ill-matched a pair as might have been found. But he had aboy’s fearlessness and love of adventure; and even on that swift descent his gay whistling floated back to those above.
Meanwhile, John Gilpin was explaining with considerable pride, yet thankful that the Bishop was out of hearing on his own downward-speeding toboggan:
“You see, lassie, how’t Robin was dead set to come. Said he knew so good a man as his Reverence wouldn’t say ‘No’ to us, and just kept teasin’ at me till we stepped-an’-fetched a lot of staves come off a hogshead. So I fastened ’em together on the insides—See? And we’ve shaved an’ shaved, an’ glass-scraped ’em on ’tother till they’ll never hurt no slide ’t ever was iced. The Bishop seemed terr’ble afraid I’d rough up his track with it, but it’s a poor track that water won’t freeze smooth again; so if we do happen to scratch it a mite, I’ll step-an’-fetch a few buckets o’ water and fix it up again. And say, girlie, where’s that Jack, boot-boy? And Baal? I ain’t seen hide nor hair of ary one this long spell, an’ I allow I kind of sorter miss ’em. He used to give the dame the fidgets with his yarns of what he’s goin to be an’ do, time comes, but me an’ him got on fairly well—fairly. As for that goat, he was the amusingest little creatur’ ’t ever jumped a fence, even if we did fight most of the time. Hah, hum! I’ve noticed more’nonce that the folks or things you quarrel with are the ones you miss most, once they’re gone.”
“We haven’t seen Jack since that time he locked me in the drying-room. He ran away, I reckon, and took Baal with him. And it’s just like you say: nobody liked him much, and he was always in disgrace with somebody, but I heard the Lady Principal say, only yesterday, that she actually believed she missed that worthless boot-boy more than any other servant who might have left.”
“Well, now, Dorothy, don’t that beat all? That book-l’arned lady just agreein’ with me! I often tell Dame ’t I know more’n she thinks I do, but all she’ll answer to that is: ‘John, that’ll do.’ A rare silent woman is my Dame but a powerful thinker. Hello! Here they come back again. Robin! Robin! Look-a-here! You didn’t bamboozle me into makin’ our sled and climbin’ this height just to leave me go for a passel o’ silly girls! No, siree! You come and slide with me right to once. I set out to go a-tobogganin’ an’ I’m goin’. So none of your backslidin’ now!”
“All right, Mr. Gilpin, here am I! And I do hope it won’t be any truebacksliding we shall do on this thing. You’d ought to have put a little handrail on the sides like I told you there always was; but—”
“But that’ll do, Robin. In my young days knee-highboys didn’t know more’n their elders. That’ll do!”
The old farmer’s imitation of his wife’s manner seemed very funny to all the young folks, but his anxiety was evident, as he glanced from his own hand-made “toboggan” to the professional ones of the others. Upon his was not even the slight rod to hold on by and the least jar might send him off upon the ice. Peering down, it seemed to him that glazed descent was a straight road to a pit of perdition and his old heart sank within him.
But—He had set out to go tobogganing and go he would, if he perished doing it. Dame had besought him with real tears not to risk his old bones in such a foolhardy sport, and he had loftily assured her that “what his Reverence can do I can do. Me and him was born in the same year, I’ve heard my mother tell, and it’s a pity if I can’t ekal him!”
Moreover, there were all these youngsters makin’ eyes at him, plumb ready to laugh, and thinkin’ he’d back out. Back out? He? John Gilpin? Never!
“Come on, Robin! Let’s start!”
Gwendolyn and Dorothy were also ready to “start” upon what they intended should be their last descent of that morning. Alas! it proved to be! Five seconds later such a scream of terror rent the air that the hearts of all who heard it chilled in horror.