The social meeting of the Up and Doing Club lasted less than an hour. It was quite evident that it had been mainly held for the introduction of Ruth Fielding and her chum into the society of the Briarwood girls. Those gathered in the assembly room did not number any Seniors, but were all of the Junior grade, and all older than Ruth and Helen. "Primes" were not allowed by Mrs. Tellingham to join any of the class-governed societies.
In spite of the fact that Ruth suspected Mary Cox of deliberately throwing herself in the way of Helen and she on their arrival at the school, with the sole object of getting them pledged to this society, the girl from the Red Mill could not fail to appreciate the good-natured attempts of the Upedes to make them both feel at home in their new surroundings. Theymustbe grateful for that.
Nor were they urged at this time to join the club. At least, nobody said more to Ruth about joining than had the stout girl, Jennie Stone, on their way to this meeting. The party broke up in such good season, that it was scarcely dark when the chums left the room in the dining hall and strolled back to their dormitory with their new friends. The lamps around the campus were being lighted by a little old Irishman, who wore a wreath of short, gray whiskers and hair about his face—a regular frame. His long upper lip and his chin were shaven, and this arrangement gave him a most comical appearance.
"You're late again to-night, Tony," Jennie Stone remarked, as she and Ruth came down the steps of the dining hall together.
The little Irishman backed down the short flight of steps he carried, with a groan. He had just lighted the final lamp of the series that surrounded the campus.
"And well I might be—well I might be," grumbled the man. "'Tis me needs fower pair of hands, instead of wan pair, and as many legs as a cinterpig." Tony evidently meantcentipede. "'Tis 'Tony, here!' and 'Tony, there!' iv'ry blissid minute av th' day. An' 'tis movin' trunks an' boxes, and the like—Mis' Grace should hire a nelephant at this time of the year, an' so I tell her. An' what with these here foreigners too—bad 'cess to them! I have to chase ev'ry rag tag and bobtail on the place, so I do——"
"Not tramps again, Tony?" cried Jennie Stone.
"'Tis worse. Musickle bodies, they be. Playin' harps an' fiddles, an' the loikes. Sure, 'twill be hand-organs an' moonkeys to-morrer, belike. Ah, yes!"
"Maybe some of these traveling musicians can play the marble harp yonder," said Heavy, with a chuckle, pointing to the now half-shrouded figure in the center of the campus.
"Oh, wirra, wirra! don't be sayin' it," grumbled the old man. "There's bad luck in speakin' ofthimfolks."
Jennie Stone squeezed Ruth's arm, still laughing, as they went on and left the old Irishman. "He's just as superstitious as he can be," she whispered. "He really believes the old story about the harp."
"He ought to believe in a harp," laughed Ruth, in return, "he being Irish. Tell me, who is he?"
"Anthony Foyle. He's the only workman about the place who sleeps on the premises. His wife's our cook. They're a comical old couple—and shedoesmake the nicest tarts! They'd melt in your mouth if you could only make up your mind to hold them long enough on your tongue," sighed Heavy, rapturously.
"But what's the story about the marble harp?" queried Ruth, as they came to the dormitory and joined the other girls. "You mean the harp held by that figure at the fountain?"
"Hello!" cried Belle Tingley. "Heavy's trying to scare the Infant with the campus ghost story."
"Oh! a real ghost story!" cried Helen. "Do let's hear it."
"Come into our room, Cameron," said Lluella Fairfax, lazily, "and I will tell the tale and harrow up thy young soul——"
"And make thy hair stand on end like quills upon the fretful 'porkypine,'" finished Mary Cox. "Yes! let Lluella tell it. It is well for Infants to learn the legends as well as the rules of Briarwood Hall."
Helen was used to being called "Infant" by now and didn't mind so much. She was so much taken with their new friends and the Upedes in general that she went right into the room occupied by Mary Cox and her chums, without a word to Ruth, and the latter followed with Heavy, perforce.
The windows of the "quartette" looked out upon the campus. The lights in the other dormitory shone brightly and the lamps around the open space, which the buildings of Briarwood surrounded, glimmered in the dark. Voices came up to them from the walks; but soon these ceased, for the girls were all indoors. The campus was deserted.
"Don't let's light the lamp," said Lluella. "I can tell stories better in the dark."
"And ghost stories, too," laughed Helen.
"Not so much of a ghost story—at least, there's nothing really terrible about it," returned Miss Fairfax, slowly. "I suppose there are not many people who talk about it, outside of our own selves here at Briarwood. But once—before the school came here—the marble statue down there was the talk of the whole countryside. I believe Mrs. Tellingham doesn't like the story to be repeated," added Miss Fairfax. "She thinks such superstitions aren't good for the minds of the Primes and Infants," and the story-teller laughed.
"However, it is a fact that the original owner of Briarwood Hall had a beautiful daughter. She was the apple of his eye—all beautiful daughters are apples of their fathers' eyes," said Lluella, laughing. "Jennie isherfather's apple——"
"Adam's apple," suggested Mary Cox.
"Such a size for an Adam's apple would choke a giant," murmured Belle Tingley, for the three were always joking poor Heavy because of her over-plumpness.
"Don't you bother about my father," said Jennie, calmly. "He gives me a dollar every month for chocolate creams, and you girls help eat them, I notice."
"Hurrah for the Stonepere!" cried Mary Cox. "Go on, Lluella."
"You sound as though you cheered for a sea-wall of masonry, or some such maritime structure," complained Jennie. "'Stonepere,' indeed!"
"She sha'n't have any of the next box of creams, Heavy," said Lluella, soothingly.
"And I'm not sure thatyouwill, either," replied the fat girl. "Dotell your story, Miss!" and Heavy yawned monstrously.
"Howdareyou yawn before 'taps'?" cried Belle. "I'll douse the water-pitcher over you, Jennie."
At this threat the fat girl sat up promptly and again urged Lluella to continue her tale. So Miss Fairfax continued:
"This rich old gentleman with the apple in his eye—in other words, a beautiful daughter—had a great deal more money than sense, I think. He engaged a sculptor to design a fountain for his lawn, and the draped figure you have seen upon that pedestal down yonder, is supposed to be the portrait of the beautiful daughter cut into enduring marble by the man whosculped. But, unfortunately for the old gentleman's peace of mind while hesculpedthe marble the artist likewise made love to the young lady and they ran away and were married, leaving the old gentleman nothing but the cold marble statue playing the marble harp, in place of a daughter.
"The father's heart at once became as adamant as the marble itself, and he refused to support the sculptor and his wife. Now, either the runaway couple died miserably of starvation in a garret, or were drowned at sea, or were wrecked in a railroad accident, or some other dreadful catastrophe happened to them—I'm not sure which; for after a time there began to be something strange about the fountain. The old man lived here alone with his servants for a number of years; but the servants would not remain long with him, for they said the place was haunted."
"Oh my!" exclaimed Helen.
"That's right, Miss Cameron. Please show the proper amount of thrilling interest. They said the fountain was queer. The water never poisoned anybody; but sometimes the marble strings of the marble harp in the marble hand or the marble daughter would be heard to twang in the night. Weird music came from the fountain at ghostly hours. Of course, the little harp the statue holds is in the form of a lyre; and what the people were who told these stories about the ghostly twanging of the instrument—you may draw your own conclusions," laughed Lluella Fairfax.
"However, the old gentleman at last broke up his household, or died, or moved to town, or something, and Briarwood was put up for sale and the school came here. That was a good many years ago. Dr. Tellingham's wig matched his fringe of hair when the school first began here, so that must have been a good while ago. The twanging of the marble harp has been heard down through the school ages, so it is said—particularly at queer times——"
"Queer times?" asked Ruth.
"Why, when something out of the common was about to happen. They say it twanged the night before our team beat the basket-ball team from Varden Preparatory. There was a girl here once who ran away because her folks went to Europe and left her behind at school. She was determined to follow them, and she got as far as New York and stole aboard a great steamer so as to follow her parents; only the steamship she boarded had just come in instead of just going out. They say the marble harp twangedthen."
"And when Heavy failed to oversleep one morning last half the marble harp must have twangedthattime," declared Mary Cox.
A gentle snore answered from the window seat, where Jennie Stone had actually gone to sleep.
"Wasted humor," said Mary, laughing. "Heavy is in the Land of Nod. It's been a hard day for her. At supper she had to eat her own and Miss Fielding's share of the cup-custards."
Ruth and Helen had already risen to go.
"You'll remember, Infants," said Lluella, "when you hear the twang of the ghostly harp, that something momentous is bound to happen at Briarwood Hall."
"But more important still," warned Mary, "be sure that your lights are out within twenty minutes after retiring bell sounds. Otherwise you will have that cat, Picolet, poking into your room to learn what is the matter."
"Aren't they just fine? Isn't it just fun?"
These were the enthusiastic questions that Helen Cameron hurled at Ruth when they returned to their own room. The girl from the Red Mill was glad that their school life had opened so pleasantly; but she was by no means blinded—as Helen seemed to be—to the faults of their neighbors in the room they had just left.
"They have been very friendly and we have no complaint to make, that is sure, Helen," she said.
"How exasperating you are at times!" exclaimed her chum. "Just the same, I am glad we didn't go with those poky Fussy Curls totheirmeeting."
Ruth made no reply to this. The bell in the tower had tolled nine, and they knew that there were twenty minutes only in which to get ready for retiring. Those girls who had lights after twenty minutes past nine were likely to be questioned, and any who burned a lamp after half after nine would find a demerit against their names in the morning.
The chums hurried, then, to get ready for sleep. "Don't you hope we'll dream something very nice?" whispered Helen as she plunged into bed first.
"I hope we will," returned Ruth, waiting to see her comfortable before she turned out the light and bent over her chum to kiss her. "Good-night, Helen. I hope we'll be just as good friends here, dear, as we have been since we met."
"Of course we will, Ruthie!" declared Helen, quite as warmly.
"We will let nobody, or nothing, come between us?" said Ruth, a little wistfully in the dark.
"Of course not!" declared Helen, with added emphasis.
Then Ruth crept into her own bed and lay looking at the whiter patch of the nearest window long after Helen's gentle, regular breathing announced her chum asleep. There were few other sounds about the dormitory. A door shut softly in the distance. Somewhere a dog barked once. Ruth was not sleepy at all. The day's doings passed in a not unpleasant procession through her mind.
It seemed a week—yes! a month—since she had left the Red Mill that morning. She again went over the pleasant road with the Camerons and Mrs. Murchiston to Cheslow. She remembered their conversation with good Dr. Davison, and wondered if by any possibility the time would come when poor Mercy Curtis could go to school—perhaps come to this very Briarwood Hall.
The long ride on the train to Lake Osago was likewise repeated in Ruth's mind; then the trip by boat to Portageton. She could not fail to recount the mysterious behavior of the big man who played the harp in the boat orchestra, and Mademoiselle Picolet. And while these thoughts were following in slow procession through her mind she suddenly became aware of a sound without. The nearest window was open—the lower sash raised to its full height. It was a warm and windless night.
The sound was repeated. Ruth raised her head from the pillow. It was a faint scratching—at the door, or at the window? She could not tell.
Ruth lay down again; then she sat upright in her bed as the sound continued. Every other noise about the house now seemed stilled. The dog did not bark. There was no rustle in the trees that shaded the campus. Where was that sound? At the door?
Ruth was not afraid—only curious. If somebody was trying to attract her attention—if somebody wished to communicate with her, to get into the room——
She hopped out of bed. Helen still slept as calmly as though she was in her own bed at home. Ruth went softly to the door. She had latched it when they came in. Now she pushed the bolt back softly. Was there a rustle and a soft whisper behind the panels?
Suddenly, as the fastening was removed, the door was pushed inward. Ruth stepped back. Had she been of a very nervous disposition, she would have cried aloud in fright, for two figures all in white stood at the door.
"Hush!" commanded the taller of the two shrouded figures. "Not a word."
Thus commanded, and half frightened, as well as wholly amazed, Ruth remained passive. The two white figures entered; two more followed; two more followed in turn, until there were eight couples—girls and all shrouded in sheets, with pillow-case hoods over their heads, in which were cut small "eyes"—within the duet room. Somebody closed the door. Somebody else motioned Ruth to awaken Helen.
Ruth hesitated. She at once supposed that some of their school-fellows meant to haze them; but she did not know how her chum would take such a startling awakening from sound sleep. She knew that, had she been asleep herself and opened her eyes to see these shrouded figures gathered about her bed, she would have been frightened beyond expression.
"Don't let her see you first!" gasped Ruth, affrightedly.
Instantly two of the girls seized her and, as she involuntarily opened her lips to scream, one thrust a ball of clean rags into her mouth, thrusting it in so far that it effectually gagged her, nor could she expel the ball from her mouth. It was not a cruel act, but it was awfully uncomfortable, and being held firmly by her two assailants, Ruth could do nothing, either in her own behalf, or for Helen.
But she was determined not to cry. These big girls called them "Infants," and Ruth Fielding determined not to deserve the name. She had no idea that the hazing party would really hurt them; they would have for their principal object the frightening of the new-comers to Briarwood Hall; and, secondarily, they would try to make Ruth and Helen appear just as ridiculous as possible.
Ruth was sorry in a moment that she had breathed a syllable aloud; for she was not allowed to awaken Helen. Instead, a girl went to either side of the bed and leaned over Ruth's sleeping chum. The tall, peaked caps made of the pillow-cases looked awful enough, and Ruth was in a really unhappy state of mind. All for Helen's sake, too. She had opened the door to these thoughtless girls. If she only had not done it!
Suddenly Helen started upright in bed. Her black eyes glared for a moment as she beheld the row of sheeted figures. But her lips only opened to emit a single "Oh!"
"Silence!" commanded one of the figures leaning over the bed, and Ruth, whose ears were sharpened now, believed that she recognized Mary Cox's voice. She immediately decided that these girls who had come to haze them were the very Juniors who had been so nice to them that evening—"The Fox" and her fellow-members of the Upedes. But Ruth was more interested just then in the manner in which Helen was going to take her sudden awakening.
Fortunately her chum seemed quite prepared for the visitation. After her first involuntary cry, she remained silent, and she even smiled across the footboard at Ruth, who, gagged and held captive, was certainly in no pleasant situation. The thought flashed into Ruth's mind: "Did Helen have reason for expecting this visit, and not warnme?"
"Up!" commanded the previous speaker among the white-robed company. "Your doom awaits you."
Helen put her bare feet out of bed, but was allowed to put her slippers on. The chums were in their night apparel only. Fortunately the air breathed in at the open window was warm. So there was no danger of their getting cold.
The two new girls were placed side by side. Helen was not gagged as Ruth was; but, of course, she had uttered only that single startled cry when she awoke. There was great solemnity among the shrouded figures as the chums stood in their midst. The girl who had previously spoken (and whom Ruth was quite positive was Mary Cox—for she seemed to be the leader and prime mover in this event) swept everything off the table and mounted upon it, where she sat cross-legged—like a tailor, or a Turk.
"Bring the culprits before the throne!" she commanded, in a sepulchral voice.
Helen actually giggled. But Ruth did not feel much like laughing. The ball of rags in her mouth had begun to hurt her, and she was held tightly by her two guards so that she could not have an instant's freedom. She was not, in addition, quite sure that these girls would not attempt to haze their prisoners in some unbecoming, or dangerous, way. Therefore, she was not undisturbed in her mind as she stood in the midst of the shrouded company of her school-fellows.
Helen pinched Ruth's arm. It was plain that her guards did not hold Helen as tightly as they did Ruth. And why wasthat? Ruth thought. Could it be possible that her chum had had warning of this midnight visitation?
Not that Ruth felt very much fear of the outcome of the exercises; but the possibility that her old friend had kept any secret knowledge of the raid from her troubled Ruth immensely. Since they had come among the girls of Briarwood Hall—and that so few hours before—Ruth felt that she and Helen were not so close together. There was danger of their drifting apart, and the possibility troubled Ruth Fielding exceedingly.
The thought of it now, however, was but momentary. Naturally she was vitally interested in what was about to be done to her by the party of hazers.
"I am pained," said the girl sitting on the table, "that one of the neophytes comes before us with a bigger mouthful than she can swallow. If she understands fully that a single word above a whisper—or any word at all unless she is addressed by the Sisters—will be punished by her being instantly corked up again, the gag may be removed. Do you understand, Neophyte? Nod once!"
Ruth, glad to get rid of the unpleasant mouthful on any terms, nodded vigorously. Immediately her captors let go of her arms and one of them pulled the "stopper" out of her mouth.
"Now, remember!" uttered the girl on the table, warningly. "A word aloud and the plug goes back." Helen giggled again, but Ruth didn't feel like laughing herself. "Now, culprits!" continued the leader of the hazing party, "you must be judged for your temerity. Howdaredyou come to Briarwood Hall, Infants?"
"Please, Ma'am," whispered Helen, who seemed to think the whole affair a great lark, "our guardians sent us here. We are not responsible."
"You may not so easily escape responsibility for your acts," hissed the girl on the table. "Those who enter Briarwood Hall must show themselves worthy of the high honor. It takes courage to come under the eye of Mrs. Tellingham; it takes supernatural courage to come under the eye of Picolet!"
"If she wasn't out of the house to-night you may believe we wouldn't be out of bed," murmured another of the midnight visitors, whom Ruth was quite sure was Belle Tingley.
"And I hope you made no mistake aboutthat, Miss!" snapped the girl on the table. "Youwent to her door."
"And knocked, and asked for toothache drops," giggled another of the shrouded figures.
"And she wasn't there. I pushed the door open," muttered the other girl. "I know she went out. I heard the door open and shut half an hour before."
"She's a sly one, she is," declared the girl on the table. "But, enough of Picolet. It is these small infants we have to judge; not that old cat. We say they have shown temerity in coming to Briarwood—is it not so, friends and fellow members—ahem! is it not so?"
There was a responsive giggle from the shrouded figures about the room.
"Then punishment must be the portion of these Infants," declared the foremost hazer. "They claim that they were sent here against their will and that it was not reckless bravery that brought them to these scholastic halls. Let them prove their courage then—what say the Sisters?"
The Sisters giggled a good deal, but the majority seemed to be of the opinion that proof of the Infants' courage should be exacted.
"Then let the Golden Goblet be brought," commanded the leader, her voice still carefully lowered, for even if Miss Picolet was out of the dormitory, Miss Scrimp, the matron, was asleep in her own room, likewise on the lower floor of the building. Somebody produced a vase which had evidently been covered with bright gold-foil for the occasion. "Here," said the leader, holding the vase out to Helen. "Take this Golden Goblet and fill it at the fountain on the campus. You will be taken down to the door by the guards, who will await your return and will bring you back again. And remember! Silence!"
The lights all around the campus had gone out ere this. There was no moon, and although it was a clear night, with countless stars in the heavens, it seemed dark and lonely indeed down there under the trees between the school buildings.
"Do not hesitate, Infant!" commanded the leader of the hazing party. "Nor shall you think to befool us, Miss! Take the Golden Goblet, and fill and drink at the fountain. But leave the goblet there, that we may know you have accomplished the task set you!"
This was said most solemnly; but the solemnity would not have bothered Helen Cameron at all, had the task been given to somebody else! The thought of venturing out there in the dark on the campus rather quelled her propensity for giggling.
But there seemed to be no way of begging off from the trial. Helen cast a look of pleading at her chum; but what could Ruth do? She was surprised that the task had not been given to her instead; she believed that these girls were really more friendly in feeling toward Helen than toward herself. At least, it was Mary Cox on the table, and Mary Cox had shown Helen much more attention than she had Ruth.
Two of the sheeted visitors seized Helen again and led her softly out of the room. A sentinel had been left in the corridor, and the word was whispered that all was silent in the house; Miss Scrimp was known to be a heavy sleeper, and the French teacher was certainly absent from her room.
The girls led Helen downstairs and to the outer door. This opened with a spring lock. The guards whispered that they would remain to await her return, and the new girl was pushed out of doors, with nothing over her nightgown but a wrapper, and only slippers on her feet.
Although there was little breeze now, it was not cold. But it was dark under the trees. Ruth, who could look out of the windows above, wondered how her chum was getting on. To go clear to the center of the campus with that vase, and leave it at the foot of the figure surmounting the fountain, was no pleasant experience, Ruth felt.
The minutes passed slowly, the girls in their shrouds whispering among themselves. Suddenly there came a sound from outside—a pattering of running feet on the cement walk. Ruth sprang to the nearest window in spite of the commands of the hazing party. Helen was running toward the house at a speed which betrayed her agitation. Besides, Ruth could hear her sobbing under her breath:
"Oh, oh, oh!"
"You've scared her half to death!" exclaimed Ruth, angrily, as the girls seized her.
"Put in the stopper!" commanded the girl who had seated herself on the table, and instantly the ball of rags was driven into Ruth's mouth again and she was held, in spite of her struggles, by her captors.
Ruth was angry now. Helen had been tricked into going to the fountain, and by some means the hazers had frightened her on her journey. But it was a couple of minutes before her chum was brought back to the room. Helen was shivering and sobbing between the guards—indeed they held her up, for she would have fallen.
"What's the matter with the great booby?" demanded the girl on the table.
"She—she says she heard something, or saw something, at the fountain," said one of the other girls, in a quavering voice.
"Of course she did—they always do," declared the leader. "Isn't the fountain haunted? We know it is so."
This was all said for effect, and to impressher, Ruth knew. But she tried to go to Helen. They held her back, however, and she could not speak.
"Did the Neophyte go to the fountain?" demanded the leader, sternly.
Helen, in spite of her tears, nodded vigorously.
"Did she drink of the water there?"
"I—I was drinking it when I—I heard somebody——"
"The ghost of the very beautiful woman whose statue adorns the fountain," declared Mary Cox, if it were she, in a sepulchral voice.
Ruth knew now why the story of the fountain had been told them earlier in the evening, but personally she had not been much impressed by it then, nor was she frightened now. She was only indignant that Helen and she should be treated so—and by these very girls for whom her chum had conceived such a fancy.
Helen was still trembling. They let her sit down upon her bed, and Ruth wanted to go to her more than ever, and comfort her. But the girl on the table brought her up short.
"Now, Miss!" she exclaimed. "You are the next. The first Infant has left the Golden Goblet at the fountain—youdidleave it there; didn't you, you 'fraid-cat?" she demanded sharply, of Helen. Helen bobbed her head and sobbed. "Then," said the leader of the hazing party, "you go and bring it here."
Ruth stared at her in surprise. She did not move.
"Take out her gag. Lead her to the door. If she does not come back with the Golden Goblet, lock her out and let her cool her temper till morning on the grass," said the girl on the table, cruelly. "And if she stirs up trouble, she'll wish she had never come to Briarwood!"
"Among two hundred girls there are bound to be girls of a good many different kinds." So had said Mrs. Tellingham when Ruth Fielding and her chum presented themselves before the Preceptress not many hours before. And Ruth saw plainly that some of these shrouded and masked figures, at least, were of the kind against whom Mrs. Tellingham had quietly warned them. These were not alone careless and thoughtless, however; but the girl whom Ruth believed to be Mary Cox, their whilom friend and guide, was cruel likewise.
Ruth Fielding was no coward. She believed these girls had arranged to terrify their victims by some manifestation at the fountain—why, otherwise, had they sent Helen there and now were determined to make Ruth repeat the experience? Nor was it necessary for the leader of the crew of hazers to remind the girl from the Red Mill how unpleasant they could make it for her if the dared report them to the teachers.
"Now, First Neophyte!" exclaimed the leader of their visitors. "Where did you leave the Golden Goblet?"
"On the pedestal, right between the feet of the figure," sobbed Helen.
"You hear?" repeated the other, turning her shrouded face to Ruth. "Then go, drink likewise of the fountain, and bring back the goblet. Failure to perform this task will be punished not only in the present, but in the future. Take her away—and remember your orders, guards."
The door was opened ever so quietly and the sentinel outside assured them that nobody had stirred. All had been so far conducted so carefully that even the other girls not in the plot were not awakened. As Ruth was led past the door of the larger room, which she knew Mary Cox and her three chums occupied, she heard the unmistakable snoring of a sound sleeper within. It made her doubt if, after all, those four who had appeared so friendly to Helen and herself that evening, were among the hazers; and she heard one of her guards whisper:
"Miss Picolet never has to look intothatroom to learn if they're asleep. Listen to Heavy, will you?"
But this puzzlement did not stick in Ruth's mind for long; the guards hustled her down the stairs and the outer door was opened.
"If the cat should suddenly come back, wouldn't we justcatchit?" whispered one girl to the other.
"Now, don't you be forever and ever going to that fountain," said the other to Ruth. "For if you are long, we'll just shut the door on you and run back."
As she spoke she let go of Ruth's arm and jerked the gag out of her mouth. Then the two pushed the new girl out of the door and closed it softly. Ruth could hear them whispering together behind the panels.
Like Helen, she had been given her bath-gown. She was not cold. But it was truth that the memory of her chum's state of mind when she had come back from the visit to the fountain, gave Ruth Fielding an actual chill. Helen had set out uponherventure without much worriment of mind; but she had been badly frightened. Ruth believed this fright had been wickedly planned by the hazing crew of girls; nevertheless she could not help being troubled in her own mind as she looked out into the dimness of the campus.
Not a sound rose from this court between the buildings. A few dim night-lights were visible in the windows about the campus; but the lamps that illumined the walks and the park itself were burned out. The breeze was so faint that it did not rustle the smallest branches of the trees. There was not a sound from anywhere upon the campus.
Remembering the promise of the two girls who had thrust her out of the house, Ruth thought it best for her to get the unpleasant business over as quickly as possible. Although she could not see the sunken fountain from the steps of the dormitory where she stood, she knew which path to take to get to it the quickest. She started along this path at once, walking until she was surely out of view of the girls in the windows above, and then running to the fountain. She had some objection to giving her new schoolmates the satisfaction of seeing that she was at all frightened by this midnight jaunt.
She sped along the path and there was the statue looming right before her. The trickle of the water, spouting into the basin, made a low and pleasant sound. Nothing moved about the fountain.
"Perhaps, after all, Helen onlyimaginedthere was somebody here," thought Ruth, and she pattered down the steps in her slippers, and so climbed upon the marble ledge from which she could reach the gilded goblet which was, as Helen had declared, placed between the feet of the marble statue.
And then, suddenly, there was a rustle near at hand. Was that a whisper—a sharp, muffled gasp? Ruth was startled, indeed, and shuddered so that the "goose-flesh" seemed to start all over her. Nevertheless, she clutched the goblet firmly and held it beneath one of the spouts of the fountain. She was convinced that if there was anybody behind the figure of marble, he was there for the express purpose of frightening her—and she was determined not to be frightened.
The goblet was quickly filled and Ruth held it to her lips. She might be watched, and she was determined to obey the mandate of the masked leader of the hazing party. She would not give them the right to say thatshewas panic-stricken.
And then, with an unexpectedness that held her for an instant spellbound, she heard a hasty hand sweep the taut strings of a harp! She was directly below the figure and—if the truth must be told—she looked up in horror, expecting to see the marble representation of a harp vibrating under that sudden stroke!
There was no movement, of course, in the marble. There was no further sound about the fountain. But the echo of that crash of music vibrated across the campus and died away hollowly between the buildings. It had been no sound called up by her imagination; the harp had been sounded with a sure and heavy hand.
Ruth Fielding confessed her terror now on the instant. When power of movement returned to her, she leaped from the basin's edge, scurried up the steps to the path, and dashed at top speed for the dormitory, bearing the goblet in one hand and catching up the draperies of her long garment so as not to ensnare her feet.
She reached the building and dashed up the steps. The door was ajar, but the shrouded guards were nowhere visible. She burst into the hall, banged the door after her, and ran up the stairs in blind terror, with no care for anybody, or anything else! Into the room at the end of the corridor she hurried, and found it——
Deserted, save for her chum, Helen Cameron, cowering in her bed. The masked and shrouded figures were gone, and Ruth found herself standing, panting and gasping, in the middle of the room, with the half-filled goblet in her hand, her heart beating as though it would burst.
There was some movement downstairs now. Ruth Fielding heard a door open and a voice speak in the lower corridor. Perhaps it was Miss Scrimp, the matron. But every one of the skylarkers had cut to bed, and the dormitories were as still as need be.
"Oh, Ruth!" gasped Helen, from her muffling bed clothes. "Did you hear it?"
"Did I hear what?" panted Ruth.
"Oh! I was so frightened. There is somethingdreadfulabout that fountain. I heard whisperings and rustlings there; but the harp——"
"They did it to scare us," declared Ruth, in both anger and relief. Shehadbeen badly frightened, but she was getting control of herself now.
"Then they frightened themselves," declared Helen, sitting up in bed. "You heard the harp?"
"I should say so!"
"We were all at the window listening to hear if you would be frightened and run," whispered Helen. "Oh, Ruthie!"
"What's the matter, now?" demanded her chum.
"I—I tried to help them. It was mean. I knew they were trying to scare you, and I helped them. I wasn't so scared myself as I appeared when I came in."
"WHAT?"
"I don't know what's made me act so mean to you this evening," sobbed Helen. "I'm sure I love you, Ruth. And I know you wouldn't have treated me so. But they said they were just going to have some fun with you——"
"Whosaid?" demanded Ruth.
"Mary Cox—and—and the others."
"They told you they were coming to haze us?"
"The Upedes—ye-es," admitted Helen. "And of course, it wouldn't have amounted to anything if that—— Oh, Ruth! was it truly the harp that sounded?"
"How could that marble harp make any sound?" demanded Ruth, sharply.
"But I know the girls were scared—just as scared as I was. They expected nothing of the kind. And the twang of the strings sounded just as loud as—as—well, as loud as that fat man's playing on the boat sounded. Do you remember?"
Ruth remembered. And suddenly the thought suggested by her frightened chum entered her mind and swelled in it to vast proportions. She could, in fact, think of little else than this new idea. She hushed Helen as best she could. She told her she forgave her—but she said it unfeelingly and more to hush her chum than aught else. She wanted to think out this new train of thought to its logical conclusion.
"Hush and go to sleep, Helen," she advised. "We shall neither of us be fit to get up at rising bell. It is very late. I—I wish those girls had remained in their own rooms, that I do!"
"But there is one thing about it," said Helen, with half a sob and half a chuckle. "They were more frightened than we were when they scuttled out of this room before you returned. Oh! you should have seen them."
Ruth would say no more to her. There had been no light lit in all this time, and now she snuggled down into her own bed. The excitement of the recent happenings did not long keep Helen awake; but her friend and room-mate lay for some time studying out the mystery of the campus.
Miss Picolet was out of her room.
The old Irishman, Tony Foyle, had mentioned chasing itinerant musicians off the grounds that very evening—among them a harpist.
The evil-looking man who played the harp on board the steamship, and who had so frightened little Miss Picolet, had followed the French teacher ashore.
Had he followed her to Briarwood Hall? Was he an enemy who plagued the little French teacher—perhaps blackmailed her?
These were the various ideas revolving in Ruth Fielding's head. And they revolved until the girl fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, and they troubled her sleep all through the remainder of the night. For that the man with the harp and Miss Picolet had a rendezvous behind the marble figure on the campus fountain was the sum and substance of the conclusion which Ruth had come to.
In the morning Ruth only mentioned these suppositions to Helen, but discussed them not at all with the other girls, her new school-fellows. Indeed, those girls who had set out to haze the two Infants, and had been frightened by the manifestation of the sounding harp upon the campus, were not likely to broach the subject to Ruth or Helen, either. For they had intended to surround their raid upon the new-comers' peace of mind with more or less secrecy.
However, sixteen frightened girls (without counting Ruth and Helen) could not be expected to keep such a mystery as this a secret among themselves. That the marble harp had been sounded—that the ghost of the campus had returned to haunt the school—was known among the students of Briarwood Hall before breakfast time. Jennie Stone was quite full of it, although Ruth knew from the unimpeachable testimony of Jennie's nose thatshewas not among the hazers; and the sounding of the mysterious harp-strings in the middle of the night really endangered Heavy's appetite for breakfast.
The members of the Upedes who had been so pleasant with them at the evening meeting seemed rather chary of speaking to Ruth and Helen how; and, anyway, the chums had enough to do to get their boxes unpacked and their keepsakes set about the room, and to complete various housekeeping arrangements. They enjoyed setting up their "goods and chattels" quite as much as they expected to; and really their school life began quite pleasantly despite the excitement and misunderstanding on the first night of their arrival.
If the crowd that Ruth was so sure had hazed them were slow about attending on the two Infants in the West Dormitory (as their building was called) there were plenty of other nice girls who looked into the duet in a friendly way, or who spoke to Ruth and Helen on the campus, or in the dining room. Miss Polk and Madge Steele were not the only Seniors who showed the chums some attention, either; and Ruth and Helen began secretly to count the little buttons marked "F. C." which they saw, as compared with the few stars bearing the intertwined "U" and "D" of the Upedes.
Just the same, Helen Cameron's leaning toward the lively group or girls in their house who had (it seemed) formed their club in protest against the Forward Club, was still marked. The friends heard that the last named association was governed by the Preceptress and teachers almost entirely. That it was "poky" and "stuffy." That some girls (not altogether those who formed the membership of the Upedes) considered it "toadying" to join the Forward Club. And on this second day Ruth and Helen saw that the rivalry for membership between the clubs was very keen indeed. A girl couldn't have friends among the members of both the F. C.'s and the Upedes—that was plain.
Many new girls arrived on this day—mostly from the Lumberton direction. That was another reason, perhaps, why Ruth and Helen were shown so little attention by the quartette of girls next door o them. They were all busy—even Heavy herself—in herding the new girls whom they had entangled in the tentacles of the Upedes. The chums found themselves untroubled by the F. C.'s; it seemed to be a settled fact among the girls that Ruth and Helen were pledged to the Upedes.
"But we arenot," Ruth Fielding said, to her friend. "I don't like this way of doing business at all, Helen—do you?"
"Well—but what does it matter?" queried Helen, pouting. "We want to get in with a lively set; don't we? I'm sure the Upedes are nice girls."
"I don't like the leadership of them," said Ruth, frankly.
"Miss Cox?"
"Miss Cox—exactly," said the girl from the Red Mill.
"Oh—well—she isn't everything," cried Helen.
"She comes pretty near being the boss of that club—you can see that. Now, the question is, do we want to be bossed by a girl like her?"
"Then, do you want to be under the noses of the teachers, and toadying to them all the time?" cried Helen.
"If that is what is meant by belonging to the Forward Club, I certainly do not," admitted Ruth.
"Then I don't see but you will have to start a secret society of your own," declared Helen, laughing somewhat ruefully.
"And perhapsthatwouldn't be such a bad idea," returned Ruth, slowly. "I understand that there are nearly thirty new girls coming to Briarwood this half who will enter the Junior classes. Of course, the Primary pupils don't count. I talked with a couple of them at dinner. They feel just as I do about it—there is too much pulling and hauling about these societies. They are not sure that they wish to belong to either the Upedes or the F. C.'s."
"But just think!" wailed Helen. "How much fun we would be cut out of! We wouldn't have any friends——"
"That's nonsense. At least, if the whole of us thirty Infants, as they call us, flocked together by ourselves, why wouldn't we have plenty of society? I'm not so sure that it wouldn't be a good idea to suggest it to the others."
"Oh, my! would you dare?" gasped Helen. "And we've only just arrived ourselves?"
"Self-protection is the first selfish law of nature," paraphrased Ruth, smiling; "and I'm not sure that it's a bad idea to be selfish on such an occasion."
"You'd just make yourself ridiculous," scoffed Helen. "To think of a crowd of freshies getting up an order—a secret society."
"In self-protection," laughed Ruth.
"I guess Mrs. Tellingham would have something to say about it, too," declared Helen.
It was not the subject of school clubs that was the burden of Ruth Fielding's thought for most of that day, however. Nor did the arrival of so many new scholars put the main idea in her mind aside. This troubling thought was of Miss Picolet and the sound of the harp on the campus at midnight. The absence of the French teacher from the dormitory, the connection of the little lady with the obese foreigner who played the harp on theLanawaxa, and the sounding of harp-strings on the campus in the middle of the night, were all dovetailed together in Ruth Fielding's mind. She wondered what the mystery meant.
She saw Tony Foyle cleaning the campus lanterns during the day, and she stopped and spoke to him.
"I heard you tell Jennie Stone last night that you had to drive street musicians away from the school grounds, sir?" said Ruth, quietly. "Was there a man with a harp among them?"
"Sure an' there was," declared Tony, nodding. "And he was a sassy dago, at that! 'Tis well I'm a mon who kapes his temper, or 'twould ha' gone har-r-rd wid him."
"A big man, was he, Mr. Foyle?" asked Ruth.
"What had that to do wid it?" demanded the old man, belligerently. "When the Foyles' dander is riz it ain't size that's goin' to stop wan o' that name from pitchin' into an' wallopin' the biggest felly that iver stepped. He was big," he added; "but I've seen bigger. Him an' his red vest—and jabberin' like the foreign monkey he was. I'll show him!"
Ruth left Tony shaking his head and muttering angrily as he pursued his occupation. Ruth found herself deeply interested in the mystery of the campus; but if she had actually solved the problem of the sounding of the harp at midnight, the reason for the happening, and what really brought that remarkable manifestation about, was as deep a puzzle to her as before.