CHAPTER IV.POOR ISABEL!
To say that Jim McCabe soon forgot his midnight adventure would not be speaking truthfully, for he did not. It preyed upon his mind so continuously that his once red face began to grow pale and haggard, and his eyes hollow. He unconsciously acquired the habit of falling into a deep reverie when alone, and on such occasions he started nervously when spoken to, and stared wildly around. In his dreams he saw visions of Russell Trafford and Isabel Moreland standing by the grave in the glade, and sometimes it seemed as if they were joined there by Doctor Trafford, the murdered man. He could not muster up courage sufficient to pay that lonely tomb another visit after dark, for, though always before he laughed at the mere idea of ghosts appearing to mortals on this earth,he now firmly believed that he had seen the spirit of a dead man! He could not, nor did he attempt to, explain the mysterious actions of Isabel, and her meeting with the supposed ghost, but he thought of it a great deal, and even told the girl’s father about it.
Yes, embracing the first opportunity that offered, McCabe related the circumstance to Moreland. That is to say, he informed that gentleman that he had seen his daughter meet a man in the woods; but he forbore mentioning the resemblance of the man to Russell Trafford, for fear such a statement would make him an object of ridicule. Mr. Moreland was sadly grieved by the intelligence. It is hardly probable that he would have put any faith in the testimony of such an unreliable person as Jim McCabe, had he not heard the same story from other sources. Different parties, happening by the glade on different nights, had come to him with the information that they had been very much surprised by seeing his daughter meet a man there in a very loverlike manner. None of them was prepared to say who the man was, since they had not been able to see his face, but that of Isabel seemed to have been plainly visible on each and every occasion.
No wonder, then, that Mr. and Mrs. Moreland were deeply troubled, and began to look on their daughter with distrust. Was it possible that Isabel, always so good and dutiful, was clandestinely meeting a stranger every night in the woods? They would fain have turned a deaf ear to every word touching the character of their idolized child, but all of those who had witnessed the secret meetings—we may except McCabe—were persons whom they positively could not disbelieve. They were at a loss what course to pursue. They decided to say nothing on the subject to their daughter, but to devise a plan instead, of putting an end to the nocturnal meetings without seeming to have such an object in view. The whole settlement was soon talking about the mysterious stranger, wondering who in the world he was, whence he came, and where he kept himself during the day. And the men looked puzzled, and the women held up their hands with horrified looks, as they speculated on the immodest conduct of Miss Moreland, but not a word of the gossip reached the ear of the wronged girl herself. All knew that the death of Russell Trafford hadwrought a marked change in her appearance, but already the roses were returning to her cheeks, the luster to her eyes, and she was fast becoming the same light-hearted, joyous girl that had once been the light and life of the whole settlement. Was not this, in itself, proof that she had forgotten her old love?
Poor Isabel! She knew nothing of the calumnious gossip that was being indulged in at her expense. She little dreamed even that her friends had begun to regard her with feelings of distrust, much less her own kind parents, who had always had confidence in her self-esteem, womanly modesty, and true dignity of soul. But, when Sunday came round, and she went with her parents to the little log meeting-house, where the settlers were wont to repair for worship on this day of each week, she was surprised and pained by the strange looks and cold salutations she there received. She spoke of this to her mother on returning home, but only an evasive reply was offered in return, leaving her as much in the dark as before.
Thus matters went on with the Morelands. Almost every evening, Isabel was observed to throw a light shawl over her shoulders and leave the house, and, on inquiry of the guards at the gate, it was ascertained that she really did leave the fort entirely in her nocturnal strolls. Still, neither the father nor mother was willing to broach the subject to the misguided daughter. They tried to think her innocent of any impropriety—to believe that she went out in the silent hours of night to weep unseen over the grave of her dead lover. But to no purpose. They could not discard the statement of those whom they knew too thoroughly to suspect of fabrication. So the talk was kept up, and the cause of it all was ignorant of the sensation she had raised.
Once Mr. Morton thought of forbidding the guard to let her out through the gate, but, before he had decided as to the feasibility of this plan, another one came to his mind which he liked much better. The forming of this last plan was followed by a firm resolution, and Mr. Moreland was not the man to break a resolution when once it was made.
“My dear,” he said, when he and his wife were alone in the house, “I am no longer at a loss what course to take to prevent a continuance of this imprudent conduct on the partof our child. I have thought of several plans which I did not think proper, on careful consideration, to put into execution, but I have devised one now which I shall certainly act upon. About fifteen miles down the river there is a fort, as you doubtless remember, and to this fort I propose to remove. Some fine morning we will pack our worldly effects, and take our poor daughter to a new home. She shall know nothing of the project until the time of starting, and then this strange lover of hers will not know what has become of her.”
Mrs. Moreland listened calmly to this. The idea of breaking off old associations, and turning their backs on their present home, was by no means a pleasant one to her. But she thought of all that was in the scales, and did not demur. Whatever her husband said was right, that she was willing to do, she said, and then bowed her head low over her knitting, to hide the tears that would come at the remembrance of her child’s conduct of late. So it was decided to take Isabel far away from the unknown scoundrel who had lured her from the path of duty, but they studiously avoided uttering a word of their intentions in her presence.
Among the foremost of the girl’s vilifiers was Jim McCabe, who told all of his acquaintances how he had seen her meet a strange-looking man at an unseemly hour, in an unseemly place, and how she had permitted him to embrace and kiss her. Of all this he had ample proof, but he began to exaggerate the story as he repeated it, and at the end would go on to say that Miss Moreland was no longer fit to associate with the other young women of the fort. As may well be supposed, the scheming rascal had an object in this. His hope was to deprive her entirely of her good name, and then go to her with words of deep compassion and urge her to fly with him away from those bad people!
One day, while McCabe was strolling through the settlement, he encountered the Irish boy, Mike Terry. Somewhat to his surprise, Mike had seemed to purposely shun him of late, and on this occasion he determined to have an interview. So he took a gold-piece from his pocket, and accosted the lad.
“Mike, here is some money for you,” he said, with a bland smile. “I have not given you any for some time, and I must say that your long silence has pleased me very much.”
“Divil a cint iv yer money do I want,” replied the boy, with a shrug of his shoulders.
“What! Don’t you want it?”
“Divil a cint,” he repeated, firmly.
“Why, what has come over you?” asked McCabe, in surprise.
“A faylin’ iv remorse for phat I’ve been an’ done,” answered Mike, moodily, beginning to dig his heel into the ground. “It’s yer own cousin I am, Jamie, on me mother’s side iv the house, but, begorra, ye’ve made me hate yeez like a kitten hates a wet floor.”
“Why so, Mike? What the deuce are you whining about?”
“Faith! don’t I have enough throuble to make me whine? Didn’t yeez do an awful wicked thing, sure, and didn’t yeez make a tool iv me to work yersilf out iv the scrape wid yer life? That ye did, ye bla’guard, an’ av it wasn’t yer own cousin I am, I should niver have done it, at all, at all. Bad ’cess to yeez for takin’ advantage iv me youth, an’ our relationship, to wheedle me into this wickedness. I’ve a great mind to confess all, an’ let ’em sthring ye up be the neck iv yeez; it’s desarvin’ it, ye are.”
Jim McCabe began to exhibit signs of alarm.
“See here, you little fool,” he hissed, grasping the boy’s arm, “you must exercise better judgment than this, or things will be brought to a pretty pass. The man is dead; both are dead, and it is too late now to remedy the matter. All you have to do is to keep your mouth, and all will be well; but let contrition bring you to a confession of your guilt, and, just so surely as you stand before me now, you will hang!”
“Not I, Jamie.”
“Yes, you as well as I. Was it not your evidence that convictedhim? Would they not regard you as a murderer, and punish you accordingly? As a matter of course they would, and the best thing you can do is to keep your tongue in your head. Do you hear?”
Mike Terry heard, and it was evident, too, that he believed his crafty cousin, for he relapsed into silence and continued digging in the ground with his heel. At length, however, he looked up suddenly, with a strange glitter in his eyes.
“Jamie,” he whispered, huskily, “do yeez belave in spooks?”
McCabe started in spite of himself at this unexpected inquiry.
“Spooks, boy? What do you mean?”
“Why, ghosts, to be sure. Raal ginewine ghosts.”
“Ha, ha! of course I do not. But why do you ask?”
It was plain that the laugh was forced, and that the villain was not a little disconcerted by the question put to him. He was thinking of a night not long gone, which would ever be fresh in his memory, should he live a hundred years. There were a few gray hairs on his temples now, the effects of that night’s fright.
“The raison why I ax,” said Mike, “is this: I saw one!”
“What! saw a ghost? Nonsense.”
“Yis, sur; a ginewinesperit. Ye know there’s a big sinsation ’bout that Moreland gurril. They say she mates a sthranger ivery night, out there where masther Russell’s grave is. (Wirra! wirra! phat good masthers they were, to be sure—Russell an’ the doctor!) Well, me curiosity got the upper hand iv me, Jamie, an’ I thought I’d thry an’ git a glimpse iv the sthranger that iverybody was talkin’ about. So last avenin’ I went out there in the woods all alone. I hid mesilf in the bushes, an’ while I was layin’ there, phat d’ yeez think come along?The ghost iv Russell Trafford!”
Jim McCabe closed his white lips tightly over his teeth, with a mighty effort to control himself. This conclusion of Mike Terry’s recital was just what he had expected, but it was none the less startling for that fact. Up to this time he had thought it possible that he was laboring under a mysterious illusion, but, now that another had seen the same thing, every doubt fled.
“You positively saw this?” he said to Mike.
“Yis,” said Mike, “an’ I was dridfully scairt.”
“Was the ‘ghost,’ as you call it, alone?”
“Entirely alone; an’ I was scairt half out iv me wits.”
“Did nobody join him there?”
“Faith! I didn’t wait to see. I took to me heels like a strake iv gr’ased lightin’. Musha! musha! I niver was so scairt before.”
McCabe mused awhile, and then asked:
“You don’t believe in ghosts, Mike?”
“Och, but I do, though,” asserted the Irish boy. “Me father used to belave in ’em, ye know, an’ he used to till long sthories about ’em that ’ud raise the hair iv me to hear.”
“Pshaw! your father was a drunken sot.”
“Yis; he resimbled, in that respect, yer own dear silf,” said Mike, with a flash of his old jocoseness. “But, Jamie,” he added, seriously, “av I had niver belaved in sperits before, I couldn’t help doin’ it now, afther phat I’ve been an’ seen.”
“Come with me, cousin,” said McCabe, in a changed tone of voice. “Let us go to my house and talk this thing over.”
He linked his arm in that of the lad, and the two walked slowly on together.
No sooner were they gone from the spot where they had been conversing, than a man stepped out from behind a tree, and stalked away as calmly as if nothing had been said in his hearing.
Again it was Nick Robbins!