"It will be easier," said Hezekiah, "if you hold the pipes while I tie them."
I found this propinquity wholly agreeable. It was pleasant to sit on a log beside Hezekiah. It seemed no far cry to the storied Mediterranean and Pan and dryads and naiads, as Hezekiah bound her reeds to the music of couplets. There was no self-consciousness in her recitation; she seemed to be telling me of something that she had seen herself an hour ago.
"He spread his arms to clasp her thereJust as she vanished into air.
"And to his bosom warm and roughDrew the gold reeds close enough.
"I don't remember the rest," she broke off. "But there! That's a pipe fit for any shepherd."
She put it to her lips and blew. I shall not pretend that the result was melodious: she whistled much better without the reeds; but the sight of her, sitting on the fallen tree beside the lake, beating time with her foot, her head thrown back, her eyes half-closed in a mockery of rapture at the shrill, wheezy uncertainties and ineptitudes she evoked, thrilled me with new and wonderful longings. A heart, a spirit like hers would never grow old! She was next of kin to all the elusive, fugitive company of the elf-world. And on such a pipe as she had strung together beside that pond, to this day Sicilian shepherd boys whistle themselves into tune with Theocritus!
She put it to her lips and blew.She put it to her lips and blew.
She put it to her lips and blew.She put it to her lips and blew.
"Take it," she said; "I can't tell you more than I have; and yet it is all there, Chimneys. Read the riddle of the reeds if you can."
I took the pipe and turned it over carefully in my hands; but I fear my thoughts were rather of the hands that had fashioned it, the fingers that had danced nimbly upon the stops.
"There are seven reeds,—seven," she affirmed.
She amused herself by skipping pebbles over the surface of the water while I pondered. And I deliberated long, for one did not like to blunder before Hezekiah! Then I jumped up and called to her.
"One, two, three, four, five, six—seven! Not until the seventh man offers himself shall Cecilia have a husband! Is that the answer?"
For a moment Hezekiah watched the widening ripples made by the casting of her last pebble; then she came back and resumed her seat.
"You have done well, Chimney Man; and now I 'll not make you guess any more, though I found it all out for myself. When Aunt Octavia gave that memorandum-book to Cecilia, I knew it must have something to do with the seventh man. You know I love all Aunt Octavia's nonsense because it's the kind of foolishness I like myself, and the idea of a pretty little note-book to write down proposals in was precisely the sort of thing that would have occurred to my aunt. And it was in the bargain, too, that she herself should not in any way interfere, or try to influence the course of events: it should be the seventh suitor, willy-nilly. And I suspect she's been a little scared too."
"She has indeed! She was almost ready to throw the whole scheme over last night. Your naughtiness had got on her nerves."
"You missed the target that time: Aunt Octavia loves my naughtiness, and I think she has really been afraid Sir Pumpkin Wiggins would catch me. Now I did n't roam my aunt's house just for fun. I was doing my best to keep Cecilia from getting into some scrape about that seventh-suitor plan. I found out by chance how to get into Hopefield, and about the hidden stairway and the old rooms tucked away there. Papa really discovered that. A carpenter in Katonah who worked on the house helped to build papa's bungalow, and he told us how that ruin came to be there. That dyspepsia-cure man, who also immortalized himself by inventing the ribless umbrella, was very superstitious. He believed that if he built an entirely new house he would die. So he had his architect build around and retain those two rooms and that stairway of a house that had been on the ground almost since the Revolution. Mr. Pepperton, the architect, humored him, but hid the remains of the relic as far out of sight as possible."
"Trust Pep for that! And he did it neatly!"
"Yes; but it did n't save the umbrella-man; he died anyhow; or maybe his pies killed him. Papa was so curious about it that he took me with him one night just before Aunt Octavia moved here, and he and I found the rooms and the stair and the secret spring by which, if you know just where to poke the wall in the fourth-floor hall, you can disappear as mysteriously as you please."
"But how on earth did you darken the halls so easily? You nearly gave me heart-disease doing that!"
"Oh, that was a mere matter of a young lady in haste! When I found how easily I could pass you on the stair it became a fascinating game, and it was no end of fun to see just how long it would take you to catch me."
"I wish, Hezekiah, that you would stay caught!"
"Be very, very careful, sir! We're talking business now. There's another ordeal for you before you dare become sentimental."
"Then hasten; let us be after it."
"Things are in a serious predicament, I can tell you. I was frightened when I looked into that note-book,—I did n't like to do that, but I had to assist Providence a little. Five men have already got their quietus."
"Then why don't they clear out, and stop their nonsense?"
"Oh, it's their pride, I suppose; and every man probably thinks that when Cecilia has seen a little more of him in particular, in contrast with the others, he will win her favor. They 're afraid of one another, those men; that's the reason they've been herding together so close since that first day you came. Mr. Wiggins was taking it for granted that he was the whole thing—just like the man!—and those others forced him to join in some sort of arrangement by which they were to hang together. These calls in a bunch came from that, as though any one of them would n't take advantage of the others if he saw a chance! Some of this I got from Wiggy himself, the rest I just guessed."
"But you may not know that they sent a delegation after me into town, to warn me off the grass."
"That was Mr. Dick. He never saw me when Cecilia was around. And he was terribly snippy sometimes, and supercilious; but I'm going to get even with him. I've about underlined him for number six," she concluded, with the manner of a queen who, about to give her chief executioner his orders for the day, glances calmly over the list of victims.
"That's a good idea; Dick is insufferable; I hope you have n't counted wrong."
"As we were saying, about the note-book," she resumed, "the fifth man has already been respectfully declined. The dates of the proposals are written in the note-book; so I learned from the book that Mr. Ormsby, Mr. Arbuthnot, and Mr. Gorse had proposed on the steamer. Professor Hume, as you know, tried his luck at Hopefield; and Lord Arrowood must have stopped Cecilia as she was riding to the station on my bicycle yesterday morning. His goose is cooked."
"His gooseberry pie was cooked, but I took it away from him. No pie sacred to Hezekiah can be confiscated by an indigent lord so long as I keep my present health and spirits. It's the close season for lords in Westchester County; I potted the last one. By the way, he thought you were a real ghost when you were playing tag with him in the dark."
"He stopped to tell papa good-bye and spoke very highly of you; papa and you are the only gentlemen he met in America. But now we come to Mr. Wiggins."
"We do; and why in the name of all that is beautiful and good has n't he tried his luck?"
"Because, knowing Cecilia's admiration for him," replied Hezekiah demurely, "I have kept him so diverted that he has n't been able to bring himself to the scratch."
She examined the palm of her hand critically to allow me time to grasp this.
"You did n't want him to blunder in as the first, fourth, or sixth man?"
Hezekiah gravely nodded her pretty head.
"And while you were engaged in this sisterly labor, Cecilia has been afraid that you were seriously interested in him!"
"That is like Cecilia. She's fine, and would n't cause me trouble for anything;" and there was no doubt of Hezekiah's sincerity.
"But now that I see the light and understand all this, how can we make sure that Wiggy will be on the spot at the right moment? While we sit here, he may be the sixth man! There's my friend, the eminent thinker from Nebraska; he's likely to kneel before Cecilia at any moment, and Henderson and Shallenberger are not asleep."
"That's all true; and you've got to fix it."
"You're leaving the fate of Wiggins and your sister in my hands? That's a heavy responsibility, Hezekiah. I might take care of Wiggy by asking Cecilia to marry me, being careful to have him appear johnny-on-the-spot when I had been duly declined."
"Um, I should n't take any chances if I were you," she replied, feigning to look at an imaginary bird in a tree-top; "for if you had counted wrong and were really the seventh man, she would have to accept you!"
"Hezekiah!"
"Oh, I really did n't mean what you thought I meant. We don't need to discuss it any more. That's the ordeal I've arranged for you," she answered, and set her lips sternly.
"But, my dear Hezekiah, by what means can this be effected? I don't dare tell him the combination he's playing against or sit on him until his hour strikes."
"Certainly not; you must n't tell him or anybody else. You know the plan; but you're not supposed to; and nobody must know I've meddled. Meanwhile, Cecilia must expose herself to proposals at all times. Aunt Octavia's heart would be broken if she thought Providence had been tampered with. She likes Wiggy well enough, except that his ancestors were all Tories and he can't be a son of the Revolution."
"Too bad; it was very careless of him not to do better about his ancestors; but he can't change that now."
"Well, you've behaved with considerable intelligence so far, and now with your friend's fate in your hands you will need to use great judgment and tact in all that follows. I wash my hands of the whole business."
She rose quickly and pointed to her coat.
"Drop it into the boat for me, Chimneys. We meet in funny places, don't we? Papa expects me for luncheon, and I must row back and get my bicycle. You? No, you can't go along; you've got a lot of thinking to do, and you'd better be doing it."
A few minutes later, as I swung along the highway toward the Prescott Arms, I saw Cecilia Hollister riding toward me at a lively gallop. She crossed the bridge without checking her horse, and then, with a hurried glance over her shoulder, she pointed with her crop to a by-way that led deviously into a strip of forest and vanished.
I hurried after her, and found her waiting for me in a quiet lane. She had dismounted and seemed greatly disturbed as I addressed her. Her horse, a superb Estabrook thoroughbred, had evidently been pushed hard. Cecilia had taken off her hat, and was giving a touch to the wayward strands of hair that had been shaken loose in her flight. The color glowed in her dark cheeks, and her eyes were bright with excitement.
"I hadn't expected to meet you; I thought you rode off with your aunt toward Mt. Kisco."
"We did; but on our way home Aunt Octavia stopped to call on a friend, and as I did n't feel in a mood for visits this morning I rode on alone."
She spoke further of her aunt's friend, of whom I had never heard before, to calm herself before touching upon the cause of her wild ride or her wish to speak to me. She pinned on her hat and drew on her riding-gloves while I helped to make conversation, and soon regained her composure. The haste with which she had withdrawn into the wood, and the imperative wave of her crop by which she had bidden me follow her, indicated that something of importance had happened and that she wished to confide in me.
"I was walking my horse in the road beyond Bedford, just after I left Aunt Octavia, when who should ride up beside me but Mr. Wiggins. He had evidently been following me."
She expected me to express surprise; and with the information that Hezekiah had just imparted fresh in my mind I dare say she was not disappointed in the effect of her words. I was thinking rapidly and fearfully. If my friend had sought her in the highway and offered himself in some fresh accession of ardor, he might even now be a rejected and hopeless man; but I was unwilling to believe that this had happened.
"Hartley is fond of riding, and nothing could be more natural than for him to have his horse sent out from town."
"Oh, it's natural enough," she cried; "but I was greatly taken aback when he rode up beside me."
"An old friend joining you in the highway, on a bright October morning! I can't for the life of me see anything surprising or alarming in that, Miss Hollister."
"But only yesterday, you remember I told you I had seen him walking with my sister."
"It's perfectly easy to talk to Hezekiah! It seems to me that that only shows a friendly attitude toward all the family. Let us deal with facts if I am to help you. I understand perfectly that Hartley Wiggins wishes to marry you; and that being the case I see no reason why he should n't be courteous to your sister. I 've always heard that it's the proper thing to be polite to the sisters, cousins, and aunts of one's prospective wife. I know of no more delightful occupation than listening to Hezekiah. Just now, for an hour or so, I have been enjoying her conversation myself. Nothing could be more refreshing or stimulating. She is an unusual young woman, and most amazingly wise."
"You have seen Hezekiah this morning!" she exclaimed.
"I have indeed. I hope I may say that she and I are becoming good friends. I am learning to understand her; though, believe me, I don't speak boastingly. However, this morning we got on famously together. But won't you continue and tell me what happened in the road when Hartley rode up beside you?"
"Oh, nothing happened; really nothing! Nothing could have happened, for the excellent reason that I ran away from him. It was n't what he did or said; it was the fear of what he might say!"
"If it had been Mr. Dick who had joined you in exactly the same way in the highway, you would not have minded in the least, Miss Hollister. Is n't that the truth?"
Her hand that had rested on the pommel of her saddle dropped to her side, and she stood erect, her eyes wide with wonder.
"What do you mean?" she gasped.
"I mean exactly what I have said; that if it had been that strutting young philosopher from the West you would—well, you would have allowed him to say what was in his mind, no matter whether it had been his latest thought on Kantianism, the weather, or his admiration for yourself. Am I not right?"
"I wonder, I wonder"—she faltered, drawing away, the better to observe me.
"You wonder how much I know! To relieve your mind without parleying further, I will say to you that I know everything."
"Then Aunt Octavia must have told you; and that seems incredible. It was distinctly understood"—
"Your aunt told me nothing. Not by words did any one tell me."
"Not by words?" she asked, eyeing me wonderingly and clearly fearing that I might be playing some trick upon her. "Then can it be that Hezekiah—but no! Hezekiah does n't know!"
"Trust Hezekiah for not telling secrets," I answered evasively. "Give me credit for some imagination. The air of Hopefield is stimulating, and in the few days I have spent in your aunt's house I have learned much that I never dreamed of before. I am not at all the person you greeted with so much courtesy in the library when I arrived there, a chimney-doctor and an ignorant person, a few afternoons ago,—called, as I thought, to prescribe for flues that proved to be in admirable condition, but really summoned by higher powers to assist the fates in the proper and orderly performance of their duties to several members of the house of Hollister,—yourself among them."
"I don't understand it; you are wholly inexplicable."
"I am the simplest and least guileful of beings, I assure you. Yet I have done some things here not in the slightest way related to chimney doctoring; and something else I expect to do for which I believe you will thank me through all the years of your life."
"Ah, if you really know, that is possible!" she sighed wearily. "I am very tired of it all. I was very foolish ever to have agreed to Aunt Octavia's plan. You have seen those men,—any one of them might, you know"— And she shrugged her shoulders impatiently.
"Any one of them might be the seventh man! There, you see I do know! And I mean to help you!"
She was immensely relieved; there was no question of that. Gratitude shone in her eyes; and then, as I marvelled at their beautiful dark depths, fear suddenly possessed them. The change in her was startling. Several motors had swept by in the outer road while we talked; they were faintly visible through the trees; and just now we both heard a horse and caught a fleeting glimpse of Hartley Wiggins, riding slowly with bowed head toward the inn. Cecilia's horse flung up his head, but she clapped her hands upon his nostrils and held them there to prevent his whinnying until that figure of despair had passed out of hearing.
I was smitten with sorrow for Hartley Wiggins. I could put myself in his place and imagine his feelings as he rode like a defeated general back to the inn, there to face the other suitors after the humiliating experience which Cecilia Hollister had just described. In his ignorance of the cause of her eagerness to escape from him, he no doubt believed that he had all unconsciously made himself intolerable to her. It was plain that that glimpse of him had touched Cecilia's pity; if I had doubted the sincerity of her regard for him before, I spurned the thought now. I was anxious to requicken hope in her,—an odd office for me to assume when in my own affairs I had always yielded my sword readily to the blue devils! Yet during my short stay at Hopefield I had already found it possible to restore Miss Octavia's confidence in her own chosen destiny, and in this delicate love-affair between Cecilia Hollister and my best friend I proffered counsel and sympathy with an assurance that astonished me.
"I have told you enough, Miss Hollister, to make it clear that I am in a position to help you. Believe me, I have no other business before me but to complete the service I have undertaken."
"But there is always"—she began, then ceased abruptly, and lifted her head proudly—"there is always Mr. Wiggins's attitude toward my sister. Not for anything in the world would I cause her the slightest unhappiness. You must see that, now that you know her."
I laughed aloud. Cecilia's concern for Hezekiah's happiness was so absurd that I could not restrain my mirth for a moment. Displeasure showed promptly in Cecilia's face.
"I am sorry if you doubt my sincerity, Mr. Ames. I will put the matter directly, to make sure I have not been misunderstood heretofore, and say that if Hezekiah is interested in Hartley Wiggins and cares for him in the least,—you know she is young and susceptible,—I shall take care that he never sees me again."
"Pardon me, but maybe you don't quite understand Hezekiah!"
"Is it possible, then, that you do?" she inquired coldly. "I imagine your opportunities for seeing her have not been numerous."
"Well, it is n't so much a matter of seeing her, when you've read of her all your life and dreamed about her. She's in every fairy story that ever was written; she dances through the mythologies of all races. Hers is the kingdom of the pure in heart. Her mind is like a beautiful bright meadow by the sea, and her thoughts the dipping of swallow-wings on lightly swaying grasses."
Cecilia's manner changed, and she smiled.
"You seem to have an attack of something; it looks serious. You have n't known her long enough to find out so much!"
"Longer than you would believe. She and I sat on the shore together when Ulysses sailed by; we were among those present at the sack of Troy; we heard Roland's ivory trumpet at Roncesvalles."
"Such words from you amaze me. I didn't imagine there was so much romance in chimneys."
"They are full of it! Commend me to an open fire, with a flue that knows its business, and a dream or two! I 've renounced my profession. I shall hereafter offer myself as adviser to persons in need of illusions; we 'd all be poets if we dared!"
I helped her into the saddle, and she looked down at me with amusement in her eyes. My praise of Hezekiah had pleased her, and I felt, as when we journeyed together into town, her kindly, human qualities. The perplexities and embarrassments resulting from her compact with her aunt had doubtless checked the natural flow of her spirits. She talked on buoyantly, though I was eager to be off, to avert the catastrophe that only her flight had prevented and which Wiggins might at any moment precipitate. She gathered up her reins.
"You are not coming home for luncheon? Then I shall see you at four. I hope the hiding-place of the ghost will prove interesting. Aunt Octavia has built her hopes high, and I may add that she has expressed the greatest admiration of you to me. On her ride this morning she declared that great things are in store for you. I hope so, too, Mr. Ames."
She gave me her hand and rode away, and before I had reached the highway she was across the bridge and galloping rapidly homeward.
The inn was a mile distant, and I set off at a brisk pace, turning over in my mind various projects for controlling the characters now upon the stage in such manner that Wiggins should become the seventh man. Cecilia could not always run away from him without violating the terms of her aunt's stipulation; and it was unlikely that she would attempt further to guide or thwart the pointing finger of fate. I relied little upon any arrangement effected among the suitors to stand together. Hume had already found a chance to speak. Lord Arrowood had bitten the dust and turned his face homeward, and Wiggins had been near the brink only that morning. It was unlikely that any of the active candidates remaining would stumble upon the key to the situation, which Hezekiah had given into my keeping.
It was well on toward two o'clock when I approached the inn. Before long the suitors would depart for their afternoon call at the Manor, which was an established event of the day. Just as I was about to enter the gate I was arrested by an imperious voice calling, and John Stewart Dick came running toward me. He had evidently been expecting me, and I paused, thinking him about to renew his attack upon me. To my surprise he greeted me cordially, even offering his hand.
"You thought you would come after all. Well, I'm glad you did. I've decided that there should be peace between us."
In stature he was the shortest of the suitors, but what he lacked in height was compensated for by a tremendous dignity. A dark Napoleonic lock lay across his forehead, and his clear-cut profile otherwise suggested the Corsican, the resemblance being, I wickedly assumed, one that the philosopher encouraged.
"You have several times addressed me, Mr. Ames, in a spirit of contumely which I have hesitated to punish by the chastisement you deserve; but I am willing to let bygones be bygones."
His changed tone put me on guard, but it was impossible for me to take him seriously. In spite of the fact that he was a vigorous muscular young fellow who could have threshed me without trouble, I could not resist the impulse he always roused in me to address him in language any self-respecting man would resent.
"Chant thedies iræwith considerableallegro, Plato, for I am hungry and would fain pay for food at the adjacent inn."
"I will overlook the coarseness of your humor," he rejoined haughtily. "My own time is as valuable as yours. You have sneered at my attainments as a philosopher; but I will pass that for the present. I am disposed to treat you magnanimously. You have an excellent opinion of yourself; you have come here as an intruder upon the rights of those of us who followed Cecilia Hollister across Europe and home to America; but in spite of this I waive my rights in your favor. I had intended to offer myself to Miss Hollister this afternoon, with every hope of success, but I yield to you. My only request is that you inform me at once when you have learned her decision."
He clapped on his cap and folded his arms, clearly satisfied with the expressions of surprise to which my feelings betrayed me. Could it be possible that he had guessed the truth, perhaps by deductive processes of which I was ignorant? Whether he had reasoned from some remark thrown out by Miss Octavia as to the influence of seven in the affairs of life and her application of that fateful principle to the choice of a husband for Cecilia, I could not guess, but assuming that he had caught that clue, he might readily enough have managed the rest. Having crossed on the steamer with the suitor host, a man of his intelligence might readily enough have kept track of the vanquished. In any case he had hit upon me as a likely victim, and on the plea of generously waiting till I had tried my luck he hoped to thrust me forward as the sixth suitor, and immediately thereafter project himself as the inevitable seventh man. The whole situation was rendered perilously complex by the knowledge that, unaided, he had possessed himself of so much dangerous information. I must not, however, allow him to see what I suspected.
"My dear professor, there's an ancient warning against the Greeks bearing gifts. You must give me time to inspect the horse."
"Are you questioning my good faith?"
"Be it far from me! I'm a good deal tickled though by your genial assumption that if I offered myself to this lady I should be declined with thanks. You have fretted yourself into a state of mind that bodes ill for American philosophy."
He was again belligerent. It may have occurred to him that I might know as much as he, but at any rate he grinned; it was a saturnine grin I did not like.
"I'm starving to death at the door of an inn, and you must excuse me. Have you seen Hartley Wiggins lately?"
"I have, indeed! He's taken to lonely horseback rides; he's off somewhere now. He has n't the stamina for a contest like this. One by one the autumn leaves are falling," he added, with special intention, "and I have given you your chance."
"Thanks, light-bringing Socrates from the lands of the Ogalallas! For so much courtesy I shall take pleasure in reading all your posthumous works. Let us cease being absurd."
He laid his hand on my arm and lowered his tone.
"Don't be an ass. If you and I both know what's underneath all this mystery we might come to an understanding."
"I don't follow you. Please make a light, like a man about to have an idea."
"You mean that you don't understand?" He eyed me doubtfully, uncertain whether I knew or not.
"You have implied that I am incapable of understanding; suppose we let it go at that."
With this I left him and entered the low-raftered office—it was really a pleasant lounging-room, unspoiled by the usual hotel-office paraphernalia. Dick had followed close behind, and as I paused, hearing voices raised angrily in the dining-room beyond, I turned to him for an explanation. As the suitors had been the only guests of the inn since their advent, having stipulated that the proprietor should exclude other applicants for meals or lodging, I attributed the commotion to strife in their own ranks. Dick nodded sullenly and bade me keep on.
"You 'd better take a look at those fellows. I 've quit them—quite out of it; remember that."
The dining-room door was slightly ajar, and I flung it open.
Ormsby, Shallenberger, Henderson, Hume, Gorse, and Arbuthnot had been engaged with cards at a round table in an alcove, but some dispute having apparently risen, they stood in their places engaged in acrimonious debate. As near as I could determine, some one of them—I think it was Ormsby—wished to abandon the game, which had been undertaken to determine in what order they should be permitted to pay visits to Hopefield in future, the callsen massehaving grown intolerable. They were so absorbed in their argument that they failed to note my appearance, and I stood unobserved within the door. The dialogue between the card-players was swift and hot.
"It's no good, I tell you!" cried Ormsby. "There's no fairness in this unless all take their chances together!"
"You ought to have thought of that before we began. This was your scheme, but because the cards are running against you, you want to quit. I say we'll go on!" This from Henderson, who struck the table sharply as he concluded.
"You knew Wiggins and Dick were n't going in when we started, and you are not likely to get them in now. Your anxiety to cut the rest of us out by any means seems to have unsettled your mind," shouted Gorse. "I say let's drop this and stand to our original agreement that no man speak till the end of the fortnight."
"After that whole scheme has been torn to pieces like paper! There's been nothing fair in this business from the start! We ought to have kept Arrowood here and held together. And we ought to have got rid of that Ames fellow—he did n't belong in this at all; and instead of protecting ourselves against outsiders we have sat here like a lot of fools while he's been making himself agreeable there in the house—right there in the house!"
Ormsby's voice rose to a disagreeable squeak as he closed with this indictment of me. Hume fidgeted uneasily, and met my eye so warily that I wondered whether he suspected that I knew of his breach of faith with the other suitors. Much dallying with Scandinavian literature had not lightened his heart, and there was nothing in Ibsen to which he could refer his present plight. Shallenberger seemed to be the only one of the group who had not lost his senses. He was in the farther corner of the alcove, out of sight from the door, but I heard him distinctly as he addressed the other suitors with rising anger.
"We're acting like cads, and cads of the most contemptible sort! I only agreed to this game to satisfy Ormsby. The idea of our sitting here to draw cards to determine the order in which we shall offer ourselves to the noblest and most beautiful woman in the world would be coarse and vulgar if it were not so ridiculous! The men who had their chance on the steamer or after we came here—and I don't pretend to know who they are—ought in decency to have left the field. We seem to have forgotten that we pretend to be gentlemen; or, far less pardonable, that we pay court to a lady. Damn you all! I refuse to have anything more to do with you, and if you try to interfere with my affairs in any way I'll smash your heads collectively or separately as you prefer!"
My interest in this colloquy had led me further into the room, and hearing my step they all turned and faced me. Dick had continued at my side, but the black looks they sent our way were intended, I thought, rather for me. Shallenberger, having taken himself out of the tangle, leaned against the wall and filled his pipe with unconcern. My appearance roused Ormsby to a fresh outburst.
"You're responsible! If you had n't forced yourself upon the ladies at Hopefield there would n't have been any of this trouble!"
"You're only an impostor anyhow. You went to the house to fix a chimney, and seem to think you 're engaged to spend the rest of your natural life there!" protested Henderson, twisting the ends of his moustache.
Then they dropped me and assailed Dick.
"We'd like to know what you expect to gain by dropping out! You got cold feet mighty sudden!" bellowed Ormsby.
Gorse and Henderson paid similar tributes to the apostate, whose melancholy grin only deepened. Shallenberger was pacing the floor slowly and puffing his pipe. Hume and Arbuthnot growled occasionally, but shared, I thought, Shallenberger's changed feeling.
My silence had been effective up to this time, but I was afraid to risk it longer. Dick, I imagined, had kept close to me for fear of missing any part of the altercation he knew my appearance would provoke. The more vociferous suitors had howled themselves hoarse and glared at me while I considered the situation. Henderson rallied for a final shot.
"A good horsewhipping is what you deserve," he cried, leveling his finger at me.
"Gentlemen," I began, not without inward quaking, "you have spoken loud naughty words to me, and in reply I must say that your vocal efforts suggest only the melodies of the braying jackass, and that your manners, to speak mildly, are susceptible of considerable improvement."
"You leave this neighborhood within an hour!" boomed Ormsby; and in his efforts to free himself from his chair it fell backward with a crash that echoed through the long room.
"Then summon the coroner by telephone, for I shall not be taken alive," I answered quietly, trying to recall my youthful delight in Porthos, Athos, and Aramis. "I should dislike to change the mild color-scheme of this pleasant dining-room, but as sure as you lay hands on me, these walls will become a playground for any corpuscles you carry in your loathsome persons."
"Come along, let us put him out," Henderson was saying in an aside to Ormsby.
"You were playing a game here for a stake not yours for the winning," I continued. "Now I suggest that you shuffle the pack,—you three, who are so full of valor,—shuffle the pack, I say, and draw for the jack of clubs. Whoever is the fortunate man I shall take pleasure in pitching through yonder very charming casement."
"Agreed!" cried Henderson, and the three flung themselves into their chairs.
The alacrity of their consent had unnerved me for a moment. D'Artagnan, I was sure, would have fought them all, but I consoled myself, as the cards rattled on the bare table, with the reflection that, considering the fact that I had never in my life laid violent hands on a fellow-being, I was conducting myself with admirable assurance. My weight has always hung well within one hundred and thirty, and physicians have told me that I was incapable of taking on flesh or muscle. Any one of these men could easily toss me through the window I had indicated as a means of their own exit.
Shallenberger caught my eye and indicated with a slight jerk of the head that I had better run before it was too late. The painstaking care with which Henderson had fallen upon the cards was disquieting, to put it mildly. Dick nudged me in the ribs and offered to hold my coat.
"It will not be necessary," I replied carelessly. "Tender your services to the other gentlemen."
I felt the cold sweat gathering on my brow. The three had begun to draw cards, and I heard them slap the bits of pasteboard smartly upon the table as they lifted them from the deck and, finding the jack of clubs still undrawn, waited the next turn. I had no idea that a pack of cards would dissolve so readily by the drawing process, and my memory ceased trying to recall the adventures of D'Artagnan and hovered with ominous persistence about the mad don of La Mancha. I cannot say now whether I stood my ground out of sheer physical inability to run or from an accession of courage due to the remembrance of my success in detecting the Hopefield ghost. In any case I affected coolness as I waited, even throwing out my arms to "shoot" my cuffs once or twice, and yawning.
"Come, gentlemen, hurry: let us not waste time here," I exclaimed impatiently.
"If Ormsby turns up the card you're a dead man," Dick was muttering gloomily.
"They're all alike to me," I replied loudly. "Mr. Ormsby is very beautiful; I shall hope not to disfigure him permanently;" but as I spoke my tongue was a wobbly dry clapper in my mouth.
I was bending over now, watching the three men pick up the cards, and once, when I misread the jack of spades for the jack of clubs, a shudder passed over me. They were down to the last card, and Ormsby's hand was on it. I recall that a group of steins on a shelf over Henderson's head seemed to be dancing wildly. Then I looked at the floor to steady myself, and hope leaped within me, for there, by Ormsby's foot,—a large and heavy one,—lay an upturned card, the jack of clubs, whose lone symbol magnified itself enormously in my amazed eyes.
At this moment, I became conscious that something had occurred to distract the attention of the other men, who were staring at some one who had entered noiselessly.
"Gentlemen, you seem immensely interested in the turn of those cards. I am glad to have arrived at the critical moment. Mr. Ormsby, will you kindly lift the remaining card from the table?"
Miss Octavia stood beside me. She was dressed in a dark brown riding-habit; the feather in her fedora hat emphasized her usual brisk air. She swung her riding-crop lightly in her hand, and bent over the table with the deepest interest.
Ormsby turned up the card. It was the ten of diamonds.
"Gentlemen," I cried, pointing to the card, "what trick is this? Can it be possible that you have been trifling with me in a fashion for which men have died the world over by sword and pistol!"
"Kindly explain, Arnold, the nature of this difficulty," Miss Octavia commanded.
"Simply this, Miss Hollister, if I must answer; I had offered to fight these three gentlemen in order. It was agreed that the man who drew the jack of clubs from the pack with which they had been playing should be my first victim. They have shuffled their own cards and have drawn the whole pack and there is no jack of clubs in the pack! The only possible explanation is one to which I hesitate to apply the obvious plain Saxon terms."
"It dropped out, that's all! You don't dare pretend that we threw out the jack to avoid drawing it!" protested Ormsby, though I saw from the glances the trio exchanged that they suspected one another. Ormsby and Gorse bent down to look for the missing card, but before they found it I stepped forward and drove my fist upon the table with all the power I could put into the blow.
"Stop!" I cried. "I gave you every opportunity to stand up and take a trouncing, but I need hardly say that after this contemptible knavery I refuse to soil my hands on you!"
"Do you insinuate"—began Henderson, jumping to his feet.
"Gentlemen," said Miss Hollister, lifting the riding-crop, "it is perfectly clear to me that Mr. Ames has gone as far as any gentleman need go in protecting his honor. I do not offer myself as an arbitrator here, but I advise my young friend that nothing further is required of him in this deplorable affair."
With one sweep of her crop she brushed to the floor the three piles of cards that lay on the table as they had been stacked when drawn.
With one sweep of her crop she brushed to the floor the three piles of cards.With one sweep of her crop she brushed to the floor the three piles of cards.
With one sweep of her crop she brushed to the floor the three piles of cards.With one sweep of her crop she brushed to the floor the three piles of cards.
"Arnold," she said, with indescribable dignity, "will you kindly attend me to my horse?"
A stable-boy held Miss Octavia's horse at the inn-door. Her face, her figure, her voice expressed outraged dignity as she tested the saddle-girth.
"You need never tell me what had happened to provoke your wrath, for that is none of my affair; but I wish to say that your conduct and bearing won my highest approval. They had undoubtedly hidden the jack of clubs to avoid the drubbing you would have administered to the unfortunate man who would have drawn that card if it had been in the pack."
"I was not in the slightest danger at any time, Miss Hollister," I protested. "By one of those tricks of fate to which you and I are becoming so accustomed, the card had fallen to the floor unnoticed. If you had not arrived so opportunely the lost jack would have been discovered, the cards reshuffled, and very likely Mr. Ormsby would have been dusting the inn-floor with me at this very minute."
"I refuse to believe any such thing," declared Miss Octavia, who had mounted and continued speaking from the saddle. "Your perfect confidence was admirable, and I shudder to think of the terrible punishment you would have given them. I do not particularly dislike Mr. Ormsby, though the possibility of Cecilia marrying him has troubled me not a little as I have recalled the unromantic aspect of Utica as seen from the car-windows; but it is much to your credit that you defied them all and brought them to the fighting-point, and then, by a stroke of cleverness it pleased me to witness, placed them irretrievably in the wrong."
If Miss Octavia wished to view my performances in this flattering light it seemed unnecessary and unkind to object. Now that I was in the open again with a whole skin I was not averse to the victor's crown; I would even wear it tilted slightly over one ear. Birds have been killed by shots that missed the real target; bunker sands are rich in gutta percha and good intentions. I was a fraud, but a cheerful one.
"It was only a pleasant incident of the day's work, Miss Hollister. I'm going to engage a squire and take to the open road as soon as all this is over."
"As soon as all what is over!" she demanded, eyeing me keenly.
"Oh, the work I've undertaken to do here. I flatter myself that I have made some progress; but within twenty-four hours I dare say that we shall have seen the end."
"Your words are not wholly luminous, Arnold."
"It is much better that it should be so. You have trusted me so far, and I have no intention of failing you now. If I say that the crisis is near at hand in a certain matter that interests you greatly, you will understand that I am not striking ignorantly in the dark."
"If you know what I suspect you know, Arnold Ames, you are even shrewder than I thought you, and you had already taken a high place in my regard. The curtains of the windows just behind you have shown considerable agitation since we have been speaking, not due, I think, to the wind, as there is no air stirring. Those gentlemen you have just vanquished are timidly watching you. Your daring and prowess have greatly alarmed them. You may be sure they will think twice before provoking your wrath again."
"I devoutly hope they will," I replied, glancing carelessly over my shoulder, and catching a glimpse of Henderson as he drew hastily out of sight. "But will you tell me just how you came to visit the inn at this particular hour?"
"Nothing could be simpler. I had luncheon at the house of a friend on whom I called. Cecilia had left me to continue her ride alone, and on my way home I thought I would ride by the Prescott Arms to see how the guests were faring. You see,"—she paused and gave a twitch to her hat to prolong my suspense,—"you see, I own the Prescott Arms!"
With this she rode away, and not caring to risk a further meeting with the angry suitors from whom Miss Octavia had rescued me by so narrow a margin, I set off across the fields toward Hopefield. From the stile I saw Miss Octavia in the highway half a mile distant, sending her horse along at a spirited canter. I reached the house without further adventures, was served with a cold luncheon in my room, and by the time I had changed my clothes Miss Octavia sent me word that Pepperton had arrived.
Miss Octavia and the architect were conversing earnestly when I reached the library; and from the abruptness with which they ceased on my entrance I imagined that I had been the subject of their talk. Pepperton is not only one of the finest architects America has produced, but one of the jolliest of fellows. He grasped my hand cordially and pointed to the fireplace.
"So you've at last found one of my jobs to overhaul, have you! You must n't let this get out on me, old man; it would shatter my reputation!"
"Please observe that the flue is drawing splendidly now," I answered. "A ghost had been strolling up and down the chimney, but now that I have found his lair he will not trouble Miss Hollister's fireplaces again."
"I have waited for your arrival, Mr. Pepperton, that we might have the benefit of your knowledge of the house in following the trail of this ghost which Arnold has discovered. But we must give Arnold credit for effecting the discovery alone and unaided. I destroyed the plans I obtained from your office so that Arnold might be fully tested as to his capacity for managing the most difficult situations."
When Miss Octavia first referred to me as Arnold, Pepperton raised his brows a trifle; the second time he glanced at me laughingly. He seemed greatly amused by Miss Octavia's seriousness, but her amiable attitude toward me clearly puzzled him.
"It takes a good man to uncover a thing I try to hide. I said nothing to you, Miss Hollister, about the retention within the walls of this house of parts of an old one that formerly occupied the site, for the reason that I thought you might refuse to buy the estate. The gentleman for whom I built Hopefield was superstitious, as many men of advanced years are, as to the building of a new house, and as the site he chose is one of the finest in the county he compelled me to construct this house—which is the most satisfactory I have built—in such manner enough of the old should be kept intact to soothe his superstitious soul with the idea that he had merely altered an old house, not built a new one. As it is the architect's business to yield to such caprices I obeyed him strictly. So there are two rooms of an old farmhouse hidden under the east wing, and it amused me, once I had got into it, to preserve part of the old stairway, and connect the retained chambers with the upper hall of this house. I had to patch the original stair, which was only one flight, with discarded lumber from the old house, but I flatter myself that I managed it neatly. I even saved the old nails to avert the wrath of the evil spirits. When the umbrella and dyspepsia-cure man died,—for he did die, as you know,—I believed the secret had died with him, as he was very sensitive about his superstitions. Most of the laborers on that part of the job were brought from a long distance, and I supposed they never really knew just what we were doing. I might have known, though, that if a fellow as clever as Ames got to pecking at the house the trick would be discovered. But the chimney, old man,—what on earth was the matter with it?"
"It will never happen again, and I promised the ghost never to tell how it was done."
"You were quite right in doing that, Arnold,—a ghost's secrets should be sacred; but let us now proceed to the hidden chambers," said Miss Hollister, rising without further ado.
She summoned Cecilia, to whom we explained matters briefly, and at Pepperton's suggestion the four of us went directly to the fourth floor, so that Miss Octavia might see the whole contrivance in the most effective manner possible.
My awkward pen falters in the attempt to convey any idea of Miss Octavia's delight in Pepperton's revelation; she kept repeating her admiration of his genius, and her praise of my cleverness, which, to protect Hezekiah, I was forced to accept meekly. When in broad daylight Pepperton found and pressed the spring in the upper hall and the hidden door opened, with a slowness that indicated a realization of its own dramatic value, Miss Octavia cried out gleefully, like a child that witnesses the manipulation of a new and wonderful toy.
"To think, Cecilia, that I should never have known of this if that chimney had not smoked!"—a remark that caused Pepperton to glance at me curiously. He knew as well as I did that with ordinary care every flue in that house would have drawn splendidly. "Beyond any question," Miss Octavia kept asserting, "beneath the chambers of the old house down there we shall find the bones of that British soldier who perished here; or it is even possible that a chest of hidden treasure is concealed beneath the floor. What do you yourself suspect, Mr. Pepperton?"
We were lighting candles preparatory to stepping down into the dark stairway, and Pepperton was plainly hard put to keep from laughing.
"I assure you, Miss Hollister, that I have told you all I know about the rooms down there. I 'm not very strong in the ghost-faith; and our friend the umbrella-man never dreamed of such a thing, I assure you, not even after he had satisfied his fierce craving for pie."
Miss Octavia followed Pepperton slowly, pausing frequently to hold her candle close to the stair-walls, whose rough surfaces confirmed all that Pepperton had said of the preservation of the old timbers. I had brought a handful of candles, and when we had reached the dark rooms beneath, I lighted these and set them up in the black corners of the old rooms, in which, Miss Octavia remarked, not even the wall paper had been disturbed. The exit into the coal-cellar, and concealed openings left for ventilation which had escaped me before, were now pointed out by the architect, who kept laughing at the huge joke of it all.
Cecilia murmured her surprise repeatedly as we continued the examination; nothing quite like this had ever happened in the world before, but even as we walked through those hidden rooms my thoughts reverted to the crisis so near at hand in her affairs. I had pledged myself to her service, but I saw no way yet of assuring the proper sequence of proposals. The ultimate seventh must be Wiggins; but how could I manage the penultimate sixth! Cecilia's own apparent freedom from care on this tour of inspection deepened my sense of responsibility to all concerned. Dick might by now have persuaded some one of the others at the inn to offer himself, thus closing the gap, and I had determined that the Westerner should not outwit me. It was some consolation to know that while Cecilia was in these lost rooms in my company, she was safe from Dick's machinations.
My thoughts were, however, given a new direction by Miss Octavia. She had been scrutinizing the floor closely, asking us all to bring our candles to bear upon it, that she might search thoroughly for any signs of a trapdoor beneath which the bones of the British soldier might repose.
"You can't tell me," she averred in her own peculiar vein, "that a house as old as this has been preserved merely to divert calamity from a superstitious gentleman engaged in the manufacture of ribless umbrellas and a dyspepsia cure."
Miss Octavia Hollister was a woman to be humored; we all knew this; but I realized with a pang that she was about to be disappointed. I had expected her to forget the British soldier in the perfectly tangible joy of secret springs and ghostly chambers; and if I had foreseen her persistence in clinging to the tradition of the ill-fated Briton I should have taken the trouble to hide a few bones under the flooring. Miss Octavia had brought a stick from the coal-room, and was thumping the floor with it even while Pepperton tried to discourage her further investigations. We were all ranged about her with our candles, and these, with the others I had thrust into the corners, lighted the room well.
"I'm afraid you've seen the whole of it, Miss Hollister," said Pepperton. "The old house was built after the Revolution, I judge, but your British soldier was probably left hanging to a tree and never buried at all."
"Mr. Pepperton," she replied, holding the candle so close to the architect that he blinked, "it would be far from me to question your knowledge of history, but I should not be at all surprised if the builder of this old house had fought on the seas with John Paul Jones, and had buried beneath these walls the very sea-chest that had been his companion on many eventful voyages."
Pepperton gasped at the absurdity of this, and then suppressed his mirth with difficulty. Cecilia faintly expostulated; but I knew Miss Octavia would not be dissuaded, and I thought it as well to facilitate her search and be done with it. A sailor with rings in his ears and a cutlass dangling at his side might have come home from the wars and established himself on a farm in Westchester County and even buried his sea-chest under the floor of his house, but in all likelihood he never had. It was not my office, however, to advise Miss Octavia Hollister in such matters. Pepperton had changed his tune and seemed anxious to follow my lead. To him she was an eccentric old woman, whose wealth alone gained her indulgence in such preposterous obsessions as this; but my own feelings were those of regret that she must so quickly be disillusioned. To me she had become an incarnation of the play-spirit that never grows old, and there may have risen in me an honest belief that what this unusual woman sought she would somehow find. Once or twice when the uneven worn flooring had boomed hollowly under her stick I had knelt promptly to examine the planks, and had thus disposed of several false alarms. Pepperton feigned interest for a time, but was becoming bored. Cecilia studied the quaint pattern of the wall paper, which she said ought to be reproduced, as nothing in contemporaneous designs equaled it.
Miss Octavia had been over the floors of the two rooms twice, and was about to desist. Her less frequent appeals to the rest of us for confirmation of some suspected change in the responses to her thumping indicated disappointment. She made her last stand in the corner of the smaller room, and as we all stood holding our lights, we were conscious that the dull monotonous thump suddenly changed its tone. We all noticed it at the same instant, and exchanged glances of surprise.
"Do you hear that, gentlemen?"
She subdued her gratification in the rebuking glance she gave us. Calm and unhurried, she rested a moment on her stick, with the candle's soft glow about her, a smile ineffably sweet on her face.
"The timbers may have rotted away underneath. We did n't raise these floors," said Pepperton; but we both dropped to our knees and brought all the candle-light to bear upon the flooring. Dust and mortar, shaken loose in the destruction of the house, filled the cracks. Pepperton, deeply absorbed, continued to sound the corner with his knuckles.
"It really looks as though these boards had been cut for some purpose," he said, whipping out his knife.
I ran to the kindling-room and found a hatchet, and when I returned he had dug the dirt out of the edges of the floor-planks. Silence held us all as I set to prying up the boards.
"I beg of you to exercise the greatest care, gentlemen. If bones are interred here we must do them no sacrilege," warned Miss Octavia.
By this time we all, I think, began to believe that the flooring might really have been cut in this corner of the old room to permit the hiding of something. The room had grown hot, and Cecilia opened the cellar-windows outside to admit air. The old planks clung stubbornly their joists, but after I had loosened one, the others came up quickly and the smell of dry earth filled the room. Pepperton had, at Miss Octavia's direction, brought a chisel and crowbar from the tool-room in the cellar, and he stood ready with these when I tore up the last board, disclosing an oblong space about five feet long and slightly over three feet wide. It was possible that this was the whole story, but Pepperton began driving the bar vigorously into the close-packed soil. As he loosened the earth I scooped it out, and we soon had penetrated about six inches beneath the surface.
We were all excited now. The edge of the bar struck repeatedly against something that resisted sharply. It might have been a root, but when Pepperton shifted the point of attack the same booming sound answered to the prodding. Pepperton now thought it might be only an empty cask or a box of no interest whatever; but Miss Octavia, hovering close with a candle, encouraged us to go on, and was fertile in suggestions as to the most expeditious manner of resurrecting whatever might be buried there. We were pretty well satisfied from the soundings that the hidden object was somewhat shorter and narrower than the hole itself.
"Quite naturally so," observed Miss Octavia, "for a man who buries a treasure has to allow himself room for getting at it."
We worked on silently, Pepperton loosening the soil with the bar while I shoveled it out. In half an hour we had revealed a long flat wooden surface, which to our anxious imaginations was the lid of some sort of box.
"It's sound red cedar," pronounced Pepperton, examining the wood where the tools had splintered it.
"Of course it's cedar," replied Miss Octavia, bending down to it. "I knew it would be cedar. It always is!"
We paused to laugh at her confident tone, and Cecilia suggested that as there was still a good deal to do before we could free the box, we should send for some of the servants to complete the work.
"I would n't take a thousand dollars for my chance at this," Pepperton answered; and we fell to again.
It must have been nearly six o'clock when we dragged out into that candle-lighted chamber a stout, well-fashioned box. The earth clung to its sides jealously, and it was bound with strips of brass that shone brightly where the scraping of our tools had burnished it. We pried off the heavy lock with a good deal of difficulty, and when it was free Miss Octavia asserted her right to the treasure-trove with much calmness.
"I should never forgive myself if I allowed this opportunity to pass; you must permit me to have the first look."
"Certainly, Miss Hollister; if it had n't been for you this chest would have remained hidden to the end of all time," Pepperton replied.
We gathered close about her as she knelt beside the box. My hand shook as I held my candle, and I think Miss Octavia was the only one in the room who showed no nervousness. Cecilia sighed deeply several times, and Pepperton mopped his face with his handkerchief. The lid did not yield as readily as we had expected, and it was necessary to resort to the hatchet and chisel again; but we were careful that it should be Miss Octavia's hand that finally raised the lid.
We all exclaimed in various keys as the light fell upon the open chest. The musty odor of old garments greeted us at once. The box was well filled, and its contents were neatly arranged. Miss Octavia first lifted out the remnants of a military uniform that lay on top.