Silent guests

By A. E. Forrest

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Title: Silent guests

Author: Alfred Edgar Forrest


        
Release date: March 20, 2026 [eBook #78254]

Language: English

Original publication: Chicago: Pascal Covici, 1927

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SILENT GUESTS ***




SILENT GUESTS




  SILENT
  GUESTS

  By
  A. E. Forrest

  [Illustration]

  CHICAGO
  PASCAL COVICI, _Publisher_
  MCMXXVII




  COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY
  PASCAL COVICI, PUBLISHER, INC.

  PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
  THE CUNEO PRESS, INC.




  “_What lurks behind the curtain? Wouldst thou learn? If thou art wise
  thou wouldst not_--”




[Illustration]

CHAPTER I


A mysterious thing, the human mind. Can it keep a secret indefinitely?
Here I find myself committing to paper things which I had determined
never to divulge--sacred things long hidden; intimate privacies having
their roots in the soul.

However, these written pages shall never be seen by the merely
inquisitive eye, but shall be safely hidden away and kept as a
faithful attestation of the genesis of this house--unless fate
decrees otherwise. I believe in fate--are we not all merely its
playthings--toys moved hither and yon in Nature’s nursery?

Was it fate that called me from my accustomed life and routine in a
distant American city to that little churchyard in a secluded corner of
the Canadian backwoods, where so trivial a thing as curiosity aroused
by the peculiarity of an epitaph chiseled in a marble headstone marking
the grave of an unknown led me into a realm of fact more unreal than
even the wildest of dreams and unfolded to me in reality the pages of
a weird, transcendental drama? Was it predestined that I should leave
home and friends and find in this sparsely settled spot an interest
which inextricably drew the very threads of my being into the tangled
skein of other and tragic lives?

The mission calling me from the office of a firm of lawyers in
Philadelphia into which I had but recently been admitted as junior
partner was a forlorn search for traces of an Englishman, one James
Hogarth, who had, while in Canada, mysteriously disappeared. The case
was important and urgent, we were informed by our clients in London, as
seven years had elapsed since Hogarth, heir to a large estate, had been
heard from, and the property was about to escheat to the British crown.

I was following a seemingly slender clue--the statement of a butler
once in the employ of the Hogarth family that “some six or seven years
previously he had seen a letter postmarked ‘Valleyford, Canada’ in
which Hogarth made mention of a place called Craighead Hall.”

On this meager thread rested our firm’s hope of a large fee and mine of
proving my qualification as a worthwhile partner.

My third day of travel on this, my first long journey, brought me to
a village called Laketown, reached only by local train. This day is
indelibly fixed in my memory. It was a bright September morning, and
marked the last stopping point before reaching my destination.

No premonition of anything untoward troubled me as I rested comfortably
on the cushions of an old-fashioned high-swung stage-coach as it rolled
quietly along a smooth dirt road away from the village. My spirits were
high through avid anticipations of success and the enjoyment of an
unusual and well-deserved holiday.

Alone in the coach, a long twenty-mile ride before me, I had
ample opportunity for reflection. What should I find: romance,
mystery, perhaps danger, for impulsively even before transferring
my luggage from the depot platform to the stage-coach labeled
“Laketown-Valleyford,” I had questioned the driver of the team of bays:

“Do you know of a place called Craighead Hall?”

The man had given me a peculiar inspection.

“Yes, but nobody of your kind ever goes there.”

Further inquiry brought curiosity but little satisfaction. “Never been
there.” “No, nobody ever went there.” “Place was some ten miles east of
the village.” “Was said to be a resort for criminals, brought there by
the owner, Hugh Craighead, who lived with them, a sort of overlord.”
“No, I have never seen him, but I think you run a big chance of being
murdered,” he speculated after I had informed him of my errand.

The driver had never heard of James Hogarth, but volunteered that
he would not be surprised at the disappearance of anyone who visited
Craighead Hall.

My pulse quickened at the thought of meeting this overlord of
criminals, but before we reach thirty, romanticism holds strong,
especially in those in whose veins flows Scotch blood, and my name is
Montrose.

“My partners know my destination,” was my thought, and there was
nothing to dull the keenness of anticipation as we jogged on, straight
into the wilderness.

The regular thud of hoof on soft dirt became monotonous and I welcomed
the opportunity of taking a seat beside the driver when a stop was made
that the horses might drink from a small fordable stream crossing the
roadway. The air was clear and bracing and the open country with its
evidences of a recently gathered bountiful crop of wheat, barley and
rye, in time gave place to dense woods.

We traveled miles through an unbroken forest of hardwood; the maples
had taken on their best scarlet dress and the oak and beech were
changing. We neared a river; spruce and cedar trees occasionally opened
to furnish a glimpse of white water tossed into spray. A waterfall, it
must have been of some magnitude, gave notice of its force.

The driver, pointing to an avenue between fronds of green, said
“Kneeley’s Falls; the river drivers shoot that fall of eighteen feet.
Craighead’s foreman tried it once--they got what was left of him six
miles downstream.”

Craighead again. I plied the man with questions, but he had no further
information to impart.

A wooded hill was on our left; not a human habitation had we passed
in ten miles; dense thickets of green fringed the noisy river on the
right. Suddenly we dropped without warning into civilization. We
crossed on a wooden bridge about one hundred and fifty feet in length,
a stream of water so black and swift that it presented the appearance
of immobility.

“The Ford, fifty feet deep and running like a millrace,” the driver
volunteered, “but old Sandy Todd with his usual Saturday night load of
gin aboard thought his mare could ford it.”

The usual small town, I reflected; two main streets, post office at the
bridge end, good brick buildings, one sporting four stories, at which
I alighted. This was the Myrtle Bank Hotel, with a piazza a few feet
above the board sidewalk.

Though the usual small village crowd was assembled to witness the one
exciting event of the day, the coach’s arrival, I was obliged to carry
my portmanteau into the office.

The dust of travel removed, a very fair dinner, then to the post
office. Not the postmaster, hotel proprietor, or livery-stable keeper,
nor any of the other citizens of whom I made inquiry had ever heard
of Hogarth or any stranger visiting this man’s town. Nor could I hire
a vehicle which would take me to the Craighead “plantation” as it was
commonly called.

I was not more fortunate on the following morning--“There is a funeral
out in the country, everything engaged,” was the excuse vouchsafed at
the public livery office. When I insisted, I was informed that roads
were bad and Craighead kept a pack of vicious hounds that roamed the
woods out to a high fence a mile from his house and did not welcome
strangers. No villager had entered the place.

In desperation I borrowed a ride on the seat beside a farmer whose
homing course brought him within three miles of Craighead’s enclosure.
We had traveled about seven miles and had just passed a small
white-painted church when the taciturn farmer, who declined my proffer
of money for the accommodation in terms equally decisive with those
used in refusing to discuss the Craighead menage, spoke, a little
excitement apparent in his voice:

“There is Hugh Craighead now,” pointing to a little cemetery adjoining
the church on the east. “He is at John Blank’s grave as usual.”

In the far corner of this little churchyard fate brought me face to
face with Hugh Craighead. The man was leaning on a white-painted
paling enclosing an isolated grave just outside the God’s acre
dedicated to remembrance. So absorbed in thought was he that he did not
notice me until I was quite near and called him by name.

I looked into the eyes of a man apparently in the early thirties;
kindly yet piercing eyes, wide set in a strong, refined face.
Tall, over six feet, symmetrical in build, yet showing evidence of
a constitution none too robust. There was a something about his
expression difficult of explanation--a sadness and yet not exactly
that, the face of a soulful man with a history. Introducing myself, I
stated my business and was pleased to hear him say: “Yes, I have heard
the name Hogarth. James, I think it was.”

My hopes of immediate success were shattered when he added, after
a pause, “That was many years ago when I was abroad. The name was
mentioned in the letter of a superintendent now dead.”

I pushed my inquiry as far as I dared without appearing importunate,
even suggesting that some old servant at his home might remember
Hogarth’s visit. “There are no old servants at Craighead Hall,” he
replied in a tone which forbade further questioning.

Evidently feeling that his statement was inadequate, abrupt, he added,
“You do not know of my establishment.”

Sensing in the man’s peculiar mien a desire perhaps for privacy as to
his peculiar affairs, I merely said, as I turned from him, “I am sorry.”

In turning, my eye was caught by a peculiarity in the markings on the
white marble slab at the head of the well-kept grave within the little
enclosure. It carried only the words:

  JOHN BLANK

and underneath in chiseled script these lines:

  _Weep not for me, my children dear,
   I am not dead, but sleeping here;
   The day will come when I shall rise
   To meet my loved ones in the skies._

There were lacking the customary dates; neither birth nor death
was recorded, nothing but the name so suggestive of desire to hide
identity, and the meaningless verse. The grave was evidently not
old--could it not hold the object of my search, perhaps masquerading
under the pseudonym John Blank?

“Who was this man?” I abruptly inquired of Craighead. “You evidently
knew him well.”

A peculiar, hunted look came into Craighead’s eyes as he too turned to
glance at the headstone. “Oh yes, I knew him well, knew him during my
childhood,” and after a pause added, “I know him yet, but you would
not understand,” and turned toward the roadway as though wishing to
terminate the interview.

“My friend,” I said, “What was this man’s real name--how did he die? I
am much interested.”

Craighead appeared troubled. After a keen direct look, holding my eyes
by something peculiar in his, he said, “His history is strange, most
tragic. I have never discussed it with any person.” Then he hesitated,
“But I rather like your manner, Mr.----”

“Montrose. Gordon Montrose,” I hastily answered. “You evidently did not
catch the name.”

“No, I was somewhat nonplussed when you addressed me. You know Hugh
Craighead has few friends hereabout,” he said rather pridefully, I then
thought.

The thought persisted--“This may be acting.”

“A relative, I presume, and a much loved one to bring you out to his
resting place,” I ventured.

“No,” Craighead replied, “the man was just one of the many
unfortunates, a plaything of fate, whose life was a fever and whose
death was a terrible tragedy. But,” he continued, “he did not suffer
alone, as I find cases just as sad as his in our work.”

“I don’t think I quite understand your real work, Mr. Craighead.”

He smiled peculiarly. “I am doing for both body and soul what your
ministers of the gospel claim to be doing for the soul. I am salving
the mentality of the derelicts of Canada, picking up the hulks held in
the whirlpool and those set adrift by the state to become a new menace
to society; searching out the history of felons claiming innocence or
justification and obtaining the release of the worthy; caring for them
until self-respect returns.”

Craighead turned toward Blank’s grave. “That silent sleeper there, a
felon, a suicide, yet a man--every inch a man. Would to God I had been
a grown man and had known his wrongs.”

He drew his hand across his eyes as though wiping away a film, a vision
stirred by recollection; then, as though exhausted, seated himself on a
flat slab of marble covering all that was mortal of one who had lived
and loved and was no more.

Both of us fell silent. There was for me a moment of embarrassment;
the man was so gentlemanly, so womanish and yet so strong. Nothing of
the overlord I had pictured; my sympathies were keenly aroused. “I
should like to hear his story,” I said, “maybe I can render you some
assistance;” an attempt to break the embarrassing silence rather than
the expression of a hope.

Craighead looked keenly at me, seeming to wish to read my thought
as well as character and after a pause, “Mr. Montrose, what is your
calling?”

“Lawyer,” I answered, “and you are also a lawyer. I was informed that
you were interested in helping criminals, but did not quite grasp the
nature of your work. I wish I could see the reformatory.”

“Reformatory!” he shot back. “You shall. Why man, that word reeks of
abuse, cruelty, petty graft and everything that is loathsome. You shall
see my _home_, my guests, the evidence of the worth of my work.”

Here he paused as I replied, promptly accepting the invitation. Into
his eyes that were blazing crept a look of defeat, fear, I thought. He
looked at his watch, glanced at the sun just disappearing behind the
ridge of the peaked roof of the one-storied church. I could read a wish
to recall the invitation.

“Mr. Montrose, night will soon be here. You are seven miles from the
village, without a conveyance. I have few callers at Craighead Hall.
Frankly, were there any means of getting you back to your hotel, I
should ask you to spend the day, rather than--” again he hesitated as
though reflecting--

“However, I shall enjoy your company tonight,” and his face lighted
as he added, “It is long since I have spent an evening in the company
of a brother in the law--and I may wish to ask your advice on a
matter--Well, my home is but three miles away.”

In silence we walked southward across fields of wheat stubble--across
plowed land. No fenced road was encountered until just before coming
to a dense wood. We turned into a broad pathway--it was little
more--the turf had, however, been cut by the wheels of vehicles.

Save for a monosyllabic “A short cut,” from my host, no word passed
between us. Craighead seemed in a brown study and I felt the intruder.
We reached the border of the wood, a high fence stretched off to right
and left as far as I could see. Craighead selected a key from a ring
holding many of varying sizes and unlocked a small gate in the fence,
paused for me to enter, then relocked the gate.

I began to entertain misgivings. The man was certainly peculiar. Was
he sane? What was hidden in this dark timber confronting us? Was I but
following Hogarth, to disappear?

A well-defined roadway led us into deeper shadows. Footsteps made
scarcely a sound as they pressed the damp leaves under foot. The
gloom was oppressive. The silence of the man walking alongside though
just a step ahead, the eerie surroundings, all tended to stir in me a
foreboding of evil.

I was about to break the silence, although my host’s preoccupied manner
indicated such an intrusion presumptuous, when the air was suddenly
shattered by a most startling sound, the baying, near at hand, of what
seemed an army of hounds.

I stopped, frozen in my tracks. Before I could utter a word, Craighead
placed two fingers in his mouth giving a shrill whistle as half-a-dozen
huge, long-eared brown animals came hurtling into the roadway from all
directions. We had been surrounded, effectually trapped.

Abruptly the animals stopped, every beast alert, then Craighead said
gently, “Come on boys, ’tis only your master.”

They crowded about him, emitting short muffled sounds, not touching
him, just seemingly expressing joy and affection. I had retreated a
step or two, involuntarily, but aside from being the recipient of a
glance from many an upturned eye in which the white showed viciously
from ugly, many-wrinkled heads, I was ignored.

As we followed the dogs, a pack of bloodhounds I observed, my
uneasiness increased, and the pathway becoming more and more obscure as
twilight deepened into night, I thought of retreat.

Craighead suddenly stopped, laid his hand on my shoulder, “Pardon my
seeming boorishness, Mr. Montrose. I have a heavy problem; you don’t
mind my thinking it out?”

“Not in the least,” I replied, glad to hear his voice addressing me. He
sent the dogs ahead of us with a word.

“In my peculiar work I sometimes have to call on my four-footed
friends here for aid in running down some poor devil who in gaining
physical freedom loses what little mental poise prison has left him
and endeavors too early a return to old haunts, where he would soon
become either the hunted or the hunter among the wolves of society, and
eventually find his way back into confinement.

“These are bloodhounds, most intelligent brutes. They will run down and
hold but will not harm any person. You see I have many thousands of
acres in my home; the country is sparsely settled. Bears, wolves and
the dreaded lynx are plentiful, even in this wood, though we hunt them
incessantly. Thank Heaven, though a number of men have run away, nobody
has been eaten yet.”

We had been walking with long strides and, just then, emerged from the
wood into a clearing. The terrain rose quite rapidly as we advanced,
until at length we were on a plateau across which we followed a
well-made road seemingly for a long distance. The fading twilight
could not hide the fact that on either side were cultivated fields and
away to the right a dark shadow marked a hill, much higher than the
elevation which we had attained.

Craighead appeared to be hurrying as though anxious to make some goal
before darkness closed down; there was a moon, but it had not yet
arisen.

“Here we are,” he said.

We came abreast of and passed a number of large barns and a long,
one-storied stable of stone. The munching of hay and grain, the
stamping of hoofs, and such usual sounds as come from a small army of
horses housed for the night, struck my auricular sense as weird and
untoward, so highly keyed were my nerves. I thought I could discern
people moving about in the open spaces between the buildings, but save
for the sounds made by the animals, everywhere was silence. A human
voice, or even the barking of a dog would have afforded a degree of
relief.

Craighead preceding me, we soon passed a picketed enclosure, evidently
the dog kennels. A man was housing the hounds. Farther along, we
entered, through a gate, onto a white graveled walk which seemingly led
us through an orchard, as I could make out the outline of trees while
the perfumed emanations from ripe apples came to me soothingly.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER II


We stood before a doorway of dark wood, heavy but not pretentious, and
showing some carving in the subdued light thrown by a lamp enclosed in
glass and set into the heavy jamb on the left.

The building seemed to be one-storied, and of stone. It stretched away
on either side of the door into the night. I could not make even a
guess as to its dimensions, but it loomed large in my imagination.

“We are home,” Craighead said, throwing back the heavy oak door and
holding it apparently with left arm outstretched and with head slightly
bowed; a mute invitation to me to precede him across the portal of
Craighead Hall.

I stepped into what was evidently an upper reception hall, as directly
in front of me was the top tread of a broad stairway. My host said in
a quiet tone, “I have brought you in the nearest way,” closed the door
and preceded me down the stair.

I noted two things--the house was silent, and he did not lock the door.

We descended a broad stairway with wide oak bannisters on either side,
the lower steps flaring out to at least a dozen feet to the left of the
center of a great audience hall. In front was a huge doorway, evidently
the main entrance to the house. Small, diamond-shaped, leaded glass
windows lined either side and the top of the massive two-leaved door;
plain square cut-glass lighted lamps, presenting the appearance of
vases, cast their glow to meet that of similar lamps on the staircase.
Stretching away to the right was a table, its polished surface
glistening as though alive, as far as my vision could penetrate in the
subdued light thrown by a row of lamps set into the walls. Heavy black
oak paneling went from polished floor to beamed ceiling, and apparently
some fifteen to twenty feet away the dying embers of a wood fire in a
mass of carving sent up little spurts of flame, throwing shadows back
of beams that looked colossal. A medieval hall, lifted bodily from some
old-world castle, an Elsinore, some Baron’s lair, where lolled and
drank and quarreled, brutal but brave, a race of desperate men, happily
long extinct.

Rooted to the spot, I looked in amazement down the length of the
polished table and the illusion was complete. Instantly there flashed
over me the thought that I should witness the stately procession of
flunkies in crimson and yellow preceding the Baron and his lady, or
hear the measured tramp, tramp of the halberdiers as they filed in and
took their places followed by the Lord of the Castle and his roistering
friends.

I felt Craighead’s fingers on my shoulder, heard his voice say as from
a distance, so absorbed was I in these strange surroundings, “Pardon me
a moment, will you step into the library? I must speak to my sister,”
and he ran lightly up the stairs, leaving me bewildered.

No word of any sister or other woman in this strange establishment
had come to me or crossed my mind. I had turned toward the stair when
addressed, and as Craighead disappeared, my brain sharply pictured my
host as at best peculiar, perhaps more so than that word would express.

The library--where was it?

As though in reply to my mental query came a quiet, “The library, sir,”
and I turned to find a man standing near me, who, certainly to my
thinking, had arisen from nowhere, a man, indicating an open door at
some distance to the right, as I faced the stairway.

The man preceded me to the door, stood and bowed me through. He was
dressed quietly in dark colored tweeds.

Some friend of my host who would join me, I speculated, and was
surprised to hear the door close without a word from him and to find
myself alone in a large room, paneled like the hall in black oak. Two
French windows at one end, a fireplace half-way down the wall opposite
where I entered, a large screen at the farther end, a table or two,
heavy chairs all about, a lounge and books, books from floor to ceiling
and from end to end almost. Two large hunting scenes in oil covered a
portion of one wall.

No touch of woman’s softness was here. The lights, shaded to cast their
full strength at certain points, served but to accentuate the severity
of the room. It dawned on me, as I entered from the orchard, that this
old-world building must sit on the side of a hill, that here, miles and
miles from a railroad or access to any port--right here--was mystery,
tragedy perhaps. A chill ran through me. One could fairly hear the
silence of this mammoth house.

I crossed to the window--its frame extended to the floor--drew aside
a curtain, and was peering out onto a wide veranda. I started as
though struck a blow as I heard my host say: “My sister presents her
compliments and begs to be excused, Mr.----”

“Montrose,” I replied, noting in my host an abstraction, an air of
dejection, saddening and depressing beyond description. “Gordon
Montrose; Scotch, as Scottish as your name, Craighead, would lead me
to believe you, though your lineaments are not perhaps as Scotch as
mine,” and to give the man opportunity to find himself, I rambled on,
“I have all the romantic leaning of the Scot and let me add, all his
curiosity, and this house, this palace hidden away in the wilds of
Canada, certainly arouses my entire inheritance in that direction. I am
delighted to have the privilege of being your guest for the night.”

“I am glad indeed to have you here,” Craighead interposed before I
could add that the strange surroundings into which my search for
Hogarth had brought me added greatly to my desire for the story
connecting the life of this young man with that of the sleeper just
outside the little cemetery whose marble marking read “John Blank.”

Craighead continued, “This certainly is a unique old place when one
looks at the surroundings. My father was, shall we say, eccentric. He
loved his home in Scotland and transplanted to this place of exile as
much of the inside of his boyhood home as was possible, but the light
of day will dispel many of your illusions. In the meantime, let us see
what the chef has provided for us. You must be famished after such an
unaccustomed amount of exercise,” adding, “City chaps, as I well know
from experience, seldom get the exercise required by natural laws.”

As we turned toward a table evidently hidden by a screen which had
been silently spirited away, a door at the end of the room opened, as
though in answer to the inquiry. A well-dressed man with nothing of the
butler air, entered and lowering his eyes to the floor said, “Served,
sir.”

The dinner was everything to be desired. Mutton broth with barley,
fish, roast partridge, everything well-cooked and served from a table
behind the large screen by the man who had opened the library door.

Seated across the table from my host I could not avoid noting as he
directed the conversation to my work and away from himself that he was
preoccupied, uneasy, I thought. He looked old and care-worn for a man
evidently not much past thirty. My mind was not on our conversation,
nor was his. I wished to ply him with questions, but there was a
something in his face which forbade a crudity.

Who were these silent serving men? Could they by any possibility be
manumitted criminals? No, their mien gave the lie to any such thought,
nor did they carry the subservient air of house servants.

By what magic did our food find a resting place behind the screen at
the end of the room? I mentally placed the kitchen at least eighty feet
away on what I calculated was the west end of the building, beyond the
great hall. The house must back into the solid hill on the north.

What an eery place! What tragedy in the life of man or woman,
especially one possessing ample means; for the entire inside finish
of the house including furnishings and books by the thousand must
have come across the Atlantic to this far-off spot, and this called
for heavy expenditure of money! What state of mind could have induced
isolation in this God-forsaken spot in the wilderness?

All these thoughts crowded through my mind as we talked of affairs in
the outside world, and back of it all was the desire for Craighead’s
story.

My ruminations were brought to a sudden stop. I found myself and my
host standing. A panel in the apparently solid west wall of the room
was open and framed an apparition, a picture in white, or was it a
wonderfully beautiful girl just budding into young womanhood?

I could not believe the picture animate until she spoke. The voice
had that carrying quality, that slight terminative inflection and
refinement characteristic of the cultured Englishwoman.

Her eyes rested for a second on my face, then she turned to Craighead,
her lips parted and I heard her say, “Pardon me, Hughie, I did not know
that you had returned.”

My host, showing embarrassment, took her hand, leading her to the
table, saying, “Mr. Montrose, my sister, Elaine.”

Inwardly I cursed my faltering tongue as it stammered something
unintelligible. I was no callow youth, had met many beautiful
women without embarrassment, but while heart and head made graceful
acknowledgment of the honor, yes, even such response as would a Sir
Galahad to the fair chatelaine of the castle in which he found himself
a guest, my tongue was tied.

I heard her, as from a great distance, say, “I trust you will be happy
here, sir,” as she looked at me with interested sympathy, showing
through dark sad eyes. Then turning to her brother she said, “I shall
not intrude. I will have my dinner served upstairs.”

Quickly as I recognized the mistake, Craighead forestalled me in
thought. “Elaine, what a blunderer I am. Mr. Montrose is my friend,
not one of our usual guests. He is engaged as we are, in helping
unfortunates. Won’t you join us? We shall both be delighted to have
our coffee and liqueur extended indefinitely for the pleasure of your
company.”

Gracefully the young lady came to me, offering her hand, and, as I
bent over it, she said, “Mr. Montrose, may I also have the privilege
of calling you friend? Hugh and I are so close, his friend is my
friend.” And when she added to the little compliment a smile so
innocent and winning, I felt that I had never before seen so beautiful
a picture. She stood so slim and straight, delicate and refined, yes,
over-refined, I thought, and yet there was lacking nothing in youthful
vigor and confidence; as much a contradiction as her brother.

I looked into her large questioning brown eyes as I assured her, in
a reply registering not a little embarrassment, that I was honored,
was fortunate, and sincerely trusted that in some way I should be
brought to the test that I might demonstrate my appreciation of the
honor. Rather an unusual, but sincere, declaration for me, a confirmed
bachelor of almost thirty.

As I seated her between Mr. Craighead and myself, I looked down on a
wonderful mass of molten gold crowning a well-shaped head. As we talked
seriously, or as the conversation touched on events in my country,
stirring or portentous, the pupils of her eyes dilated, changing from
brown to black, and the white hand in which the veins showed faintly,
would noticeably tremble. She seemed so deadly in earnest and so
interested in world affairs that one forgot her youth and gave to her
expressed opinion a weight usually reserved for that of the more mature.

Never did we touch on matters intimate to the Craighead private life. I
found the young lady adroit in drawing me out, making as much a study
of me as I of her, apparently. I learned that she and her brother had
spent many years abroad, had never separated, and that there was a
sister then abroad, also.

The brother seemed uneasy, his eyes seldom left his sister’s face, and
I wondered if he might not entertain a fear that the conversation would
in some way revert to the request “to be excused” which she certainly
had never made. I may not say that the thought left me wholly free of
embarrassment. I was sorely puzzled, amazed at meeting here in such
strange surroundings a lady, a mere girl, but with all the poise of the
young woman of society, capable of discussing interestingly questions
far beyond the sphere of the little Canadian principality which it
seemed they seldom left.

We were discussing the translation into Greek and Coptic of the
writings of Moses, about 300 B. C. at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus
in Alexandria, Egypt. The brother who, I learned, held a Master’s
degree from Edinburgh University, advanced the theory that Euclid,
who was a dweller at Ptolemy’s court, had much to do with the cryptic
figures in the Pentateuch; that the mystic numbers were his, and that
the translation from the original by 72 Levites, each in a separate
cell, in 72 days, into five books, Genesis to Deuteronomy, meant that
the entire history of man, from the beginning, including all laws
necessary for his guidance during the circle of life, was represented
by Euclid in this way: the five books representing man’s senses, the
circle of life 360 degrees formed by five times seventy-two.

“A trick of Mr. Euclid’s,” Hugh was continuing, and I was thinking,
“Here is a man who treats Holy Writ rather lightly,” and wondered
to what subdivision of the Protestant church the brother and sister
claimed affiliation, for I knew that the little edifice where I had met
Craighead was not Catholic.

I had been studying the brother’s face as he talked, when I was
startled at seeing the sister suddenly straighten back in her chair,
extend her right arm over the table with the little finger only resting
thereon, the thumb and forefinger placed as though holding a pen or
pencil.

The evident rigidity of the arm and hand flashed over my mind’s eye. I
looked into her face. To what could be attributed the terrible change
that had taken place? A moment before a beautiful, vivacious girl,
now a gray-faced woman. Beads of dew covered an ashen forehead. Her
eyes looked through and past me. It seemed as though they pierced even
the wall in the shadows at the far end of the room. She seemed to be
listening.

Involuntarily I placed my hand on hers. It was icy cold and moist.
Speechless I arose, but before I could open my lips to tender an offer
of aid, her brother who had not taken his gaze from his sister’s face
nor moved, said in a low tone, “Please be seated. Do not touch her. My
sister is subject to these seizures. It will pass in a little while.”

Then she spoke, not to either of us, but as though addressing somebody
present who had spoken to her.

“Yes, yes, I’ll go. Yes, all right dear, though you are mistaken. He is
Hugh’s friend and mine,” the last two words were hesitatingly uttered,
as she quietly arose, turned and walked toward the west wall apparently
unaware of the presence of either her brother or myself.

Hugh preceded her and opened the panel through means, which my excited
condition prevented my observing, and my hostess, my brilliant young
chatelaine, passed from sight through the wall, without uttering a
word, as though walking in a sleep.

Hugh stood in the opening looking up.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER III


What an unfortunate family skeleton I had unwittingly intruded upon.
Evidently this was a repetition. What possible ailment could in the
flash of an eye transform an animated girl of twenty to an ashen-faced
woman of forty? Why should the blood withdraw from hand and arm,
presenting the chill of the dead, and yet fail to interfere with the
sense of speech, of locomotion, yes, even of direction?

I was puzzled, embarrassed.

Hugh closed the panel and walked in silence back to the table,
helplessness, sadness, the depths of pity written on his downcast face.

I spoke first, “Mr. Craighead, we are both distressed. I have no desire
to intrude. Doubtless you are needed. Please do not permit any mistaken
sense of duty as a host to keep you from the side of your sister who
sorely needs assistance. May I be shown to my room?”

Craighead reached out his hand to meet mine; ensued a clasp which in
the extremely tense situation meant more than months of association;
he at least had made a friend.

Disregarding my protest, my host preceded me upstairs and ushering me
into a spacious room, said, “Shall see you in the morning. We have no
hours here, the sun will awaken you. Good night.” He turned, closed the
door, and was gone.

Night clothes, neatly folded, spread on the snow-white bed coverlet,
every convenience of refined bachelorhood in the great city whence I
had come, was here in this remote part of demi-civilization. I had
brought no baggage from the village.

Alone, not a sound in the big place. I speculated on the strangeness
of things, wished for day that I might get my bearings, mental and
otherwise.

In time I slept, nor did I dream in that unconscious period in which
the battery of what is termed life receives its regular charge from
nature’s dynamo, without which charge the house of the soul would
become uninhabitable. In the twilight of sleep, when the subconscious
was dominant, I failed to realize in this house of mystery anything
more than a strange, eerie sense of the unusual, not the unreal.

I slept late, and had just finished dressing when the serving man of
the evening entered with breakfast on a tray.

Was I spied upon? I had bathed and dressed quietly, had not given any
signal, yet there was a silent man with breakfast. A mysterious house,
certainly, a peculiar host and hostess. I thought while dressing of the
embarrassment of meeting Hugh and inquiring about his sister.

The servant, in silence, after a grave “good morning,” threw open the
double French windows letting in the sunlight of a warm September
morning, and retired.

It was about ten o’clock when I walked out onto a broad upper veranda
and made my first daylight survey of the surroundings.

A broad river, almost a lake, I thought at least two miles wide. Away
up to my right as I faced it. The bay narrowed or was partially closed
by islands and to my left it stretched away to where vision was cut off
by trees. Across was evidently an island, as I could see water pretty
well back through the stumps of dead trees running from both its east
and west points. Immediately in front of the house, two rows of solemn
Lombardy poplars lined on east and west a broad graveled walk, running
down to a pretentious boathouse and pier. Back of the poplars were two
trellised rows of wild grape and wisteria vines. Hedges of clipped
cedar lined a driveway to the beach at the right, and spruce and cedar
thickets seemed to extend away up the shore line. An apple orchard to
my left stretched over a rise in the ground out of my range of vision
around the east end of the house.

A perfect Canadian September day. A melodious voice floated up to me,
“Come down and help me pick apples.”

“Coming,” and I was down a stairway at the east end of the veranda
wondering what other young lady the place housed, for surely the voice
was feminine and as surely young. Thought of meeting my young hostess
after last night never entered my head. She was as something a thousand
miles removed from the commonplace of apple-picking.

It was my hostess--radiant, smiling through eyes of ebullient youth
from a perch at least ten feet from the ground in the crotch of an
immense apple tree. Thank God, my vision of the gray-faced woman of
last night was dispelled. She became dissociated from Hugh’s sister.
Had the afflicted sister even existed?

“Good morning, Mr. Montrose,” was Elaine’s greeting. “You got up just
in time to help me. This is my own tree, you see. Every apple on it is
a graftling, and I always pick them myself before the men begin.”

I felt at home at once. I picked apples, packed apples in baskets,
apples, the names of which I had never before heard, all growing on one
immense tree, “all through the labor of love of her father,” I was told.

Her father died before she was born. Hugh had gone to the county seat
to appear in court. My luggage at the hotel had been sent for. I was to
be Hughie’s guest here “until I tired of the place--and the society,”
the last with just a little of that arch look which lets down bars ever
so slightly and denies while it invites an adequate response. All so
cheerfully and with such an air of certainty of herself, imparted from
above and accepted by me as natural and conclusive.

I marveled at the man, Montrose, staid bachelor, lawyer, man of affairs
on a serious mission, hypnotized, actually carried away by the charm
of a young girl; or was it the unusual in the situation that made me
forget everything but the moment and give myself up wholly to enjoyment
of an unusual girl’s vivacity and sweetness.

A ripple of silvery laughter as an apple dropped several feet onto my
uncovered head.

“Help me down; I could not resist the temptation. It was the last on
the tree,” came the laughing voice.

“Eve was more considerate. She did not risk killing him,” I called back.

“Yes,” she replied, “but you know men were scarce then,” as two
small high boots slid down along the bole of the tree followed by
knickerbockered limbs, a white blouse and light blue flannel coat. Then
with “coming!” she swung out onto a lower limb and dropped gracefully
into my extended arms.

Just for the fraction of a moment I held her, for so brief an instant
that she could not possibly have noted an intent and yet, frankly,
there was intent. That was a moment of ecstasy, just to feel her lithe
body resting against mine, to sense the innocence, the trust. Surely I
was not in love! Did not life hold to sterner things?

Was it the exertion, did the feminine sense catch the thrill of the
moment of which I thought only God and I had knowledge? What was it
that suffused her cheek and caused her to lower her eyes from mine
which had sought them?

“Thank you,” was the commonplace that brought back my truant senses.
“Shall we walk down to the river? There are twelve baskets full,” she
added.

“And it is quite appropriate that we seek the two small fishes,” I
remarked as we walked shoreward between the poplars.

“That was a wonderful allegory, the loaves and fishes,” Elaine replied.

“Allegory?” I queried. “I read it as a happening.”

Laughingly she said, “You must have an orthodox soul, and I am just in
the mood to shock it with a sensible interpretation of that miracle.”
“You wouldn’t shock me at all; it would be interesting, even if a bit
sacrilegious,” I replied and with a side glance at me she said: “Well,
then, I’ll take the risk.”

“The fishes, you know, were to the new sect a symbol, representing the
all, beginning and end, life and death. The five loaves represent the
five senses. The Master’s sermon was the mental food of the multitude,
and the twelve baskets full of bread that remained were the teachings
that they carried home in their hearts, so that they might have enough
food for all their lives; twelve baskets full, because in the circle of
the Zodiac there are twelve signs or houses.”

As I listened to this modern interpretation of one of the mysteries of
my religion, trepidation seized me. Were we not discussing biblical
matters last night when the awful change took place in this young lady?
I looked anxious; perhaps I showed my anxiety too plainly, for as she
ceased speaking and just as we reached a bench on the pier, she looked
into my eyes and exclaimed, “Oh, I am afraid I have shocked you. You
mustn’t take it to heart, Mr. Montrose. You see we live a very solitary
life here, my brother and I. Visitors are rare, and Hugh is often away.
So I turn to books for companionship, and more frequently than not find
myself disagreeing with the writers. It’s good mental exercise, but
rather doubtful as social training. All the same, I love it--the woods
and the river and the solitude. I wouldn’t leave it even to return to
Scotland, or to--”

She broke off suddenly, jumped up from the pier bench and started on a
run toward the house, calling back to me, “Hugh is home, something must
have happened.”

I followed her up the walk, catching a glimpse of her as she
disappeared through the front door.

I walked leisurely out to the big apple tree and found a man whom I
had not previously seen carrying away the apple baskets. Volunteering
help, I took a couple of baskets and followed the man through a door in
the cliff side, close to the east wall of the house. We passed several
open doors on our right. They were the openings to vaults for different
kinds of fruit and vegetables.

Halting at the fifth opening, which had a huge door swung wide, I
entered and put my baskets alongside of the workman’s. The room,
apparently fifteen feet wide, was long. Many boxes bound with iron
straps were neatly arranged on one side of the room and in the far end
where the shadows were not penetrated by the light of the single lamp,
I could dimly see the outline of another door, closed.

“Where does that door lead to?” I asked.

“I do not know, sir,” the man replied, “I have never seen it open. Mr.
Craighead carries the keys.”

“Hello, Montrose, has sister pressed the lawyer into service?” came
a greeting from Hugh who was standing in the doorway. We shook hands;
he asked the man if Miss Craighead’s apples were all in, receiving an
affirmative reply, closed and locked the door, suggesting that we smoke
on the veranda while the day was still warm.

Craighead explained that he had received a message at the village,
enabling him to return so early, but gave no further information.
He seemed worried, evidently feeling that he owed some kind of an
explanation as to Elaine’s ailment.

As we rested comfortably, our eyes not meeting, both gazing out over
the bay, I could see beads of sweat on his face and hands. I reached
over, laying my hand on his, saying, “Can I do anything for you? I
would like to be a good friend; there is something worrying you.”

“Yes,” he replied, “I am at my wit’s end. You saw my sister’s serious
condition last night; a recurrence, yes, fear for her life or worse,
her sanity, keeps me always most anxious. God only knows how it will
end if we do not have help.”

“You have taken me into your confidence a little way,” I urged. “Tell
me what the doctors say; how did it set up in the first place; what is
the disease?”

Craighead looked at me, then said, “My friend, you would not understand
should I name the trouble. Our history is a peculiar one, some time I
shall tell it to you. Elaine’s trouble dates away back to childhood;
perhaps back of that,” and Craighead paused.

I did not understand fully, but a shudder passed over me as I thought
of epilepsy, congenital tendency toward insanity, a terrible heritage
for this lovable girl. My horror must have shown on my face, for Hugh
hastened to say, “Not that, not insanity. I shall tell you the story
from the beginning. The day is before us. Elaine has gone out with the
hounds, we shall not be interrupted.

“It is not a pleasant story, that of the Craigheads. You wished to know
John Blank’s history. They are closely knitted. In telling one, you
will hear the other.”

“Please begin at the beginning. I am interested in every detail.”




[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV


Leaning back in his chair, with unseeing eyes cast upward, Craighead
paused so long that I feared his mind had altered; then drawing his
hand across his forehead as though wiping away some vision, his entire
expression changed. He commenced as though still a boy.

“This entire estate was even more on the outskirts of civilization when
I was a boy than it is now. The village has grown, but it is still ten
miles away. We had few neighbors, only one east of us, two miles or
more away, through a black ash swamp, impassable even yet except when
the river is very low, then difficult. To my knowledge, there was no
communication between this neighbor, John Blank, and my family. Blank
was a sort of myth to us, never seen, only reputed living down the
‘back channel.’

“Father was a strange man, silent, austere; my sister, the one in
Scotland, Alix, and I were in awe of him, but only on account of his
austerity. I thought, even at thirteen, that this was a queer place
for a rich man to make a home, and wondered why a man of education and
refinement should hide a wife, and a beautiful wife my mother was, away
in this God-forsaken part of the world and bring my sister and myself
up without girls and boys of our age to play with.

“I asked mother, but she requested me never to refer to the subject
again. We children went to the red school you saw a mile beyond the
little church, when weather permitted our being carried there in a
buckboard, and we were tutored by our mother.

“Alix was two years my senior, very bright and a good pianist. I passed
the high school examination at twelve years of age, but because of
a body too frail, was not permitted to enter preparatory school as
planned, with McGill and the profession of doctor as the ultimate. To
this illness was due my meeting John Blank, the mythical, never visible
but reputed at school a dangerous character, an ogre, without ears and
with hoofs where his hands should have been.

“In my wanderings through the dense woods that hemmed in Craighead
Hall, as my father named this house, coming much closer then than now
and stretching for miles around, I found in the border of the swamp
a small knoll covered with beech trees at the summit, and completely
hedged about with stunted spruce and cedar; a creek winding around
almost the entire base. Here I secretly built a leafy bower, a little
house, and almost daily from spring to fall I took a book and crossing
nearly a mile of forest reveled in the romantic _Childe Harold’s
Pilgrimage_, _Lalla Rookh_, _The Deformed Transformed_; the poets and
the poetic my sole and beloved companions, and chameleon-like, I became
the hero of every song and story.

“The one disturbing thought assailing me, now and then becoming a
haunting fear, was that I might some day meet John Blank. Neurotic, I
feared that to see him meant death from terror and my retreat was on an
upper reach of Blank’s creek.

“One day the woes of _Little Dorrit_ having aroused in me such a
feeling of resentment against her oppressors and such a flood of
sympathy that I was blinded by tears, I was startled to see standing
before me in actual life, John Blank the dreaded. He had no ears--that
registered, and as expected, I faded, died, just as my school
companions predicted.”

As Craighead said this preposterous thing and paused, I looked at
him sharply, questioning his sanity, but he was absorbed in the
recollection, was a boy again and resumed as though the thing had just
then transpired.

“Yes,” Craighead continued, “I died, but the resurrection did not wait
on Old Gabriel.

“Where was I? Snow-white linen, four posts of red cedar roughly
hand-carved, a lamp, lighted but turned low, sat on a dresser near
at hand. I can see the room now, painted a light blue. I was in bed,
evidently not home, for we had no such room as this, and the aroma of
roast duck came temptingly over the half partition beyond which I could
hear somebody walking. I coughed involuntarily and sat up alarmed when
the door opened and a not unkind but stern-faced woman about as old as
my mother, I reflected, looked anxiously at me, saying,

“‘Thanks to the good God, he’s alive. He will eat supper with us; then
John, you must take the lad home; it is the only thing to do.’

“At mention of John came an instantaneous mental picture, a queer
fluttering in my chest and I fell back on the pillow.

“A deep-toned voice came over the partition, ‘How is the lad, Margie?’

“There was in the voice a tone of sadness indescribable, yet I had
heard that tone sometimes in the very minor chord struck by sister Alix
when she was blue, always when I was having one of my bad coughing
days. Byron would have analyzed the note was my thought. Was I not
Byron only yesterday? I did analyze it and properly. Here was no ogre,
but kindness, refinement, great sadness, and the inner sense even of
precocious, adolescent, undernurtured youth reassured me, told me there
was nothing here to fear; told me that the earless head was living
death, tragedy to this man as was his deformity to that other who wrote
_The Deformed Transformed_, my hero Byron, and fear flew out of the
window.

“Tenderly and without offense to the exaggerated modesty of youth, the
woman dressed me, took my hand and led me through the door, partially
screening with her person the man. He stood as though in deep thought,
head bowed, arms locked behind, leaning a little forward as though
seeing something through the windows, where my gaze followed across
a clearing, along rows of currant bushes down to an impenetrable
swamp a few rods away, and growing dark in the fading twilight. I
saw it all, and the three-quarter moon, and strange to say, even yet
I fail to comprehend just why my immediate thoughts dwelt on these
inconsequential things rather than on the man who had shocked me into a
faint.

“Then he extended his right hand, a flash at his face, a mental
measurement of his stature with my father as the yard stick, six feet
tall; my mind went blank for an instant. Here was no hand nor hoofs,
only a pitiable, misshapen thing. All the fingers had been severed
midway of the third phalanges. What an awful, unsightly thing, a thumb
and four gross misshapen stubs in contact with my soft hand which had
never known physical labor like that of other boys! I coughed, and the
old weak feeling made me reel.

“The man caught me in his arms and groaned, rather than said, ‘Oh, God,
it can never be,’ then, still holding my face against his body, ‘Son,
do not be afraid of me. I am deformed, but only in body. My ears and
fingers, they cut them off, but they couldn’t destroy the will nor my
heart. Son, it beats just like your father’s; let us be friends. My
God, my lot is hard,’ and then he held me off and in a harsher voice
said ‘Look at me. Once I was as other men. Men did this to me.’

“A more terrifying sight for a boy never was presented. The face was
scarred and lined, but the head was well-shaped and surmounted a strong
athletic-looking body, but the pity of it--the lack of the accustomed
semicircular protuberances on either side with scars marking each
cheek from chin to temple and from nose bridge to jaw hinge, gave to
the picture a terrifying, rather than a disgusting appearance. Without
ears it would not have been so bad; the thick iron-gray bunch of hair
growing low near the temples relieved the impression to some extent,
but the scars, crosses carried by this man, not from the temple of
justice to Golgotha, but throughout a lifetime until obliterated
by post-mortem putrefaction! Ugh! They give me a chill yet! They
brutalized an otherwise kindly, handsome face.

“It was the eyes that saved the day, fearless, determined yet kindly
brown eyes through which a man’s soul was shining. My terror was gone,
I grasped the stumpy hand, felt drawn to the man, clasped him about
the waist and wept. He held me close for a time and I could feel his
body racked by sobs. The woman put an arm around me, saying, ‘Supper is
ready,’ and led me to the table.

“I never ate much, nor talked during meals; was taught that it was
unbecoming in youth to converse before elders, but while I then ate
sparingly and at first with a lump in my throat, I was so drawn out by
Blank’s quiet questioning that I was soon telling all about my family,
all I knew. Especially that mother, while always appearing sad was
apparently happy, and in reply to the direct question, said I, was
awfully fond of father and mother as they would wander away together
and sit on our veranda alone for hours.

“I asked Blank if he knew why father with all his money (I had seen in
the back vault a trunk full of gold pieces) settled here in the woods,
and there was such a peculiar look in Blank’s eyes when he disclaimed
any knowledge of the reason, that I wondered if he did not know more
about our family than he was willing to disclose to me. He asked many
questions about Alix and I thought I sensed in him a sort of yearning.
Perhaps it was only because he had no children or had lost a daughter.
I was not a dullard. The very seclusion of our household, father’s
peculiar reserve and keenness seemed to have permeated; both Alix and I
were observing youths.

“Nine o’clock, and it suddenly dawned on me that my family would be
anxious, perhaps hunting for me, though I had stayed as late once when
I went to sleep in my retreat. Father would go out to the woods, atop
the burnt hill, as we called it because once swept by a forest fire.
Father found me there one day, reading Voltaire’s _La Pucelle_, a
forbidden book and locked away thereafter.

“Nobody knew of my bower in the creek’s embrace, or the joy I found
in the music of the rippling water, the song of the birds and the
whispering of the beech leaves. They all talked to me, never in words,
but it seemed as though souls released from the body were trying to
tell me the secrets of a hereafter. These friends knew my friends Byron
and Shelley and many others, but not Voltaire, so I took him to the
wood on the hill.

“Blank took a lantern and led me by the hand down the lane between
currant bushes right into the land of mystery, the impenetrable
vine-tangled moss-hung swamp. I was surprised to find two logs laid
lengthwise, flattened atop, on which we walked, the vines closing
overhead. For a quarter of a mile or so we walked on such logs. The way
led through tall rushes, then shallow water smothered in wild rice, a
dismal pathway to freedom.

“Reeds and rice cradled a canoe well hidden. It was of red cedar and
smooth as glass. A shove out and soon reeds and rice were left behind.
Water-killed ash trees gave place to water-lily pads and soon we were
in open water.

“We were in the back waters of the great river but nearly two miles
from the main stream, or bay. Blank paddled in silence, seemed sad or
moody. I remember feeling that I was putting him to a great deal of
trouble.

“Almost at our landing, a good four miles, Blank spoke, ‘Son, it is
better to lie a little sometimes than make others suffer. As you have
expressed gratitude to me, give me your promise that you will not say
one word about meeting me or going to my home--not to a living soul! I
have my reasons and know that you will respect them if you promise.’

“I promised. I would have promised that man anything and I would have
kept faith--strange how chivalrous the age, thirteen, is in certain
types. Wild horses could not have drawn out the truth as to where I
spent that evening. I was ready to invent any story, take any censure.
Neither father nor mother ever punished, only chided, but that method
of correction had for me a bitter sting.”

Hugh arose without a word from me; he was right back to that night.
Leaning over the heavy railing enclosing the front veranda he drew his
hand across his eyes as I had observed was his habit when trying to
arouse himself and said, “Let us walk.”

As we walked toward the river between the poplars, without preliminary,
just as though he had not interrupted his story, Hugh, pointing to the
left, said,

“Blank kissed me on the brow, jumped into the canoe, and pushed out
into the river. My father had never caressed me; mother often. I
remember that while it embarrassed, the act further endeared Blank to
me, he seemed so lonesome.

“I circled up there through the orchard instead of taking the path,
tiptoed up the east veranda stairs, pushed open the window of my room,
the corner one next to yours, and after marveling that the house was so
quiet, prepared to say that I had returned home early, fallen asleep in
the orchard and had just awakened.

“True, the housekeeper was worried over my absence but not unduly,
however, as she was a rather placid specimen. I simply said to her that
I was not feeling well when I returned, so did not wish dinner, her
chief concern being that it was ‘cold.’

“My parents and Alix had gone to the village and had not yet returned.
Soon they came in the front way; father was always so particular in
matters of form and deportment. I think he was endeavoring to teach
his children through example.

“Father said to me, ‘You look fatigued; what have you been doing?’

“‘Reading, sir,’ I replied.

“‘Then go to bed,’ was his order, kindly given.

“Alix had been led upstairs by the maid. I sorely wished to talk with
her, as I sensed something amiss from the strained look on the faces of
my parents.

“Mother said,

“‘Kiss me good night, my darling boy,’ took me in her arms and crying
silently held me close, while she kissed me fervently.

“I noticed a package of papers, one from Glasgow, with a fat letter
with foreign postmark, which father had placed on the big table.
Connecting these unusual things with father’s abrupt manner and
mother’s tears, living over again the events of the evening, seeing
Blank’s awful deformity, as though he stood beside my bed, I finally
dozed off, sick at heart for the first time in my young life.

“In the morning I went early to Alix’s room but she knew nothing,
though she told me all about the marvels of Valleyford, its high
buildings, some three stories higher by one than Craighead Hall,
and neither of us was prepared for the shock when, noonday luncheon
disposed of, father suddenly said, ‘Children, your grandfather, my
father, in Scotland, is dead. Died a month ago. I am his only heir.
That means I inherit his property. I must start for Glasgow tomorrow.
The property is nothing to me, God knows, but I must save it for you
two bairns; mother may go with me. If she does, you must mind Mr.
Hallowed, children, just as you would me. Hugh, you must give up your
rambling in the woods. You are old enough to know the danger of being
attacked by bears and lynx and timber wolves are thick this autumn.’

“We promised. I do not think we realized in the slightest that our
parents were going away.”

At this point in his story, Craighead paused as though the recollection
of the events of that long past day pained him immeasurably, turned his
back to me by squaring around on the bench on the pier on which we had
been resting, then resumed:

“I am telling you these details with a purpose, Montrose; it will
disclose itself in time. These were almost the parting words of my
father, at least his last advice to me. He never returned from Scotland.

“Mother refused to permit him to go alone. Heartsick at leaving her
children even for a couple of months, she felt a duty to father, he
seemed so strong yet so unfitted to go without her.

“They drove away, their luggage one small leather trunk which father
brought from the inner vault. I held open the great stone door which
swung back and up so that when opened against the wall it took all my
strength to keep it from slamming shut. The staple for the hook meant
to hold it open had loosened in the stone and father cautioned me not
to trust it, but to brace myself against the open slab until he put
some papers into the trunk.

“I noticed that he locked the box from which he took the papers, that
there were ribbons and big seals on the documents in his hands and that
he was excited, if such a word may be applied to the condition of a man
who was always calm. The big door fastened with a spring lock.

“When I returned here five years ago, I tried every key, but could not
unlock this vault. Some day I shall have a locksmith in and see what is
in the boxes. I have put this off because of the sad memories stirred
when I go into even the outer room where Elaine stores her apples.

“Letters came; February, the long winter passed; there was a hitch
in the estate’s settlement, Mother was not ill, but could not return
alone, expressed much yearning for her children. From Father,
admonitions as to health and conduct, directions to be relayed to John
Hallowed, the foreman in charge, who watched the two of us like a hawk,
even to seeing that we were safely tucked in nights, and I am afraid
we led him a merry chase that winter, for youth’s natural trend is
to be happy, and happiness in children means pranks and adventuring,
distressing to elders in charge, especially such elders as old John,
who felt a peculiar responsibility as our guardian.

“In time, I confided to Alix my great adventure in the black ash
swamp and we wove many a weird fiction about his life, but not even
the wildest of our imaginings came within a thousand miles of the
awfulness of the truth. You shall hear his story in good season. I am
leading up to it, I cannot tell it. You must see for yourself. Today
the whole strange thing would be unbelievable to you who know us as yet
so slightly. You must stay with us this fall, Montrose,” Hugh added,
and I replied, thanking him, “that I had a whole month, if he and Miss
Craighead would not tire of me.”

Resuming the thread of his story, Hugh said, “Our summons came in
August. We had become accustomed to the Hallowed regime and there had
grown in our young hearts the spirit of content. Gradually during
the months there had crept upon us the feeling that our parents had
gone on and on out through the wood which I had through tears watched
them enter; the picture of both grew dim though Mother’s dear face
came frequently into my thoughts. I wonder if the painful love in the
hearts of all young people is not perhaps very much intensified through
propinquity.

“One evening we were here on this pier and about to go for a swim when
we noticed a canoe put straight out from Verde Island, that strip of
green right opposite,” and Hugh pointed. “Two men were in the canoe,
one paddling. The swim was postponed.

“We speculated as to the canoe’s occupants, with many a pleasant
anticipation, as a stranger at Craighead Hall was always an adventure
for us children, old John Hallowed not being overly inclined socially.

“The canoe pulled in right alongside the pier. The passenger was a
stranger, a well-dressed man, I judged about twenty-five to thirty
years of age, the paddler Big Beaver, an Indian who lived on the island
from whom father bought furs for rugs and coats. Beaver was our friend.
We had often paddled our canoes over to his house, a half dugout in the
side of a knoll; he had permitted us to dig for arrowheads and flint
axes in the old Indian burying ground on his island.

“We greeted him joyously and his reply was a characteristic ‘Huh,’ but
he left out his usual ‘Huh, papooses.’

“The stranger, carefully, with a hand on the pier, I noted, thinking
how awkwardly he got out of a canoe, stood and stiffly bowed to Alix,
saying, ‘Is this Miss Alix Craighead whom I am addressing?’

“My sister made a little bow and the stranger continued his accent
marking his nativity as Scotch, ‘McFarlane, Miss Craighead. I would
speak with you and Mr. Hallowed. I come from your mother in Glasgow.’

“I was awestruck with his solemnity. Alix, deathly pale, with a finer
sensibility or as she told me later, a premonition of evil things,
asked me to run up to the barn and bring Mr. Hallowed to the library.
Before I left the pier, I saw the stranger take a large sealed envelope
from an inner pocket of his coat, heard Alix ask Beaver to stay for
dinner, heard his short ‘No,’ as he pushed back with his paddle,
shooting his canoe out into the stream, and when I looked back, Alix,
with bosom rising and falling as though in great excitement, was
holding the letter out in both hands evidently reading it.

“I found Hallowed dining with the men in the room west of the kitchen,
and took him to the library. Alix and Mr. McFarlane were just entering
the house, she dry-eyed but sad. Hallowed asked me to go back to where
the men were, get Keith and help him take some horses back to a remote
pasture. Pride in being of assistance on the farm, fatigue after the
exertion of riding a mile and leading a horse sent me willingly to bed
after an explanation from Hallowed who met me at the upstairs door,
that Alix was asleep, the stranger fatigued, consequently it was not
until next morning that I received my shock.

“An unusual thing, Alix bringing my breakfast on a tray. While I
breakfasted, she laid out my best wearing apparel and stacked a full
wardrobe on my bed. I asked if the Scotchman was royalty before whom I
had to dress up, and she answered evasively.

“When I was ready to go out and not until then did she tell me.

“‘Our father has fallen from a horse and was seriously injured.’

“I felt no shock. Had I not seen a man’s leg broken when a tree fell on
him? He was working as usual today.

“After a pause Alix said, ‘Father has passed away.’

“The grief of a child is poignant. Stunned, scarcely comprehending,
mine was twofold. The thought that I should never see father again and
the pity I had for Alix, who at last gave full sway to evidences of
the pangs of a stronger nature than mine, up to that time suppressed,
made me most miserable. But the little lady who had, since my parents
went away, assumed the role of mother protector to her younger brother,
soon dried her tears and mine, saying that we still had mother and must
hurry to her. That was the reason for the coming of McFarlane. We were
to travel with him to Scotland.

“In the early morning of life, nature is more kind to her children than
during the midday or the afternoon; in an hour my mind was full of our
imminent departure from the only home I had ever known and my heart was
aflutter with the excitement of the adventure.

“We left Craighead Hall before noon. Hallowed and his first assistant
foreman, Keith, rowed us over to Verde Island, old Big Beaver made a
silent sixth; as we anticipated bringing mother back right away we
proposed leaving a boat on the island.

“There is a mile of swamp back of the island, under water in the
spring, but then dry. At the first house, that of a Mr. Murray,
standing where the mainland is reached, where Mr. McFarlane had left a
carriage seating six, we had luncheon.

“I remember thinking about McFarlane’s extravagance, keeping a man and
a team a whole day. The man surely was a sport for a Scotchman, and I
began to admire him.

“Hallowed was quite a talented man who had served grandfather before
accompanying father across the ocean. I respected him, obeyed his
instructions always. I knew that he was in father’s confidence, held
almost as an equal, yet when he lifted Alix in his arms, held her close
for a moment and kissed her, I was shocked. He turned to me, placing a
hand on each of my shoulders, giving me a gentle shake saying, ‘Hugh
Craighead, ye are head of the Craighead clan now. Show by being a man
that ye be worthy the honor,’ and turned away, tears glistening on his
cheeks.

“I never saw the faithful old retainer again. He died before we
returned to the Hall. His body lies over there on the burnt hill, where
if he ever visits his grave he may overlook the demesne in which he had
as much pride as the owner.

“We drove over dubious roads for hours. It was dark when we reached the
railroad station. I had never consciously seen a railroad; was a baby
when brought across the ocean.

“Alix stood firm and calm with a hand on McFarlane’s arm as a great
shaft of light swept the station platform on which we stood, while I
cowered back against the station wall, terrified as the fearsome thing
with a grinding noise, a great clanking of iron and hissing of steam
passed us and the long line of coaches came to a stop. The thing seemed
in pain, or in a fury; it breathed, to that boy of the backwoods, just
like a monstrous animal, annoyed at being stopped in its mad journey
through the night.

“I was still trying to get a good look at the mastodon as Alix, pulling
me by the hand, mounted to the third car, following on the heels of
McFarlane. Then we walked back inside to the rear coach.

“How trivialities fasten themselves in the young mind! I was worried, I
recollect, that two strange boys, not much taller than I, should pick
up our treasured bags and those of Mr. McFarlane and run down the
station platform. I called to McFarlane to stop them, but he laughed,
saying,

“‘It’s all richt, come along,’ and there were the bags and the two
boys when we took our seats. It staggered me to see McFarlane pass a
glittering shilling to each of the boys; profligate, I thought.”

“Truants! At last I have found you,” came cheerful, bell-like, Elaine’s
voice through the fringe of cedars to the left of the landing.

A particularly vicious-looking bloodhound bounded in the open onto the
sand, followed by the young lady, holding a leash.

“Luncheon is over-ready, gentlemen,” and she pulled the beast back from
my uncomfortable heel which seemed to interest him inordinately and
laughed into my eyes as she said,

“Now you cannot get away, Mr. Montrose. Lucifer has your picture, your
measure,” and then addressing her brother, “Hughie, a messenger from
the village has been waiting an hour with a letter which he would not
entrust even to me.”

Hugh hurried up the avenue while Elaine and I walked over toward the
larger roadway, she saying that we must take Lucifer back to his mates.

“Has each dog a name?” I asked, looking at the powerful brute walking
ahead of us.

“Yes,” Elaine answered, laughingly, “Some of them two. The pack leader
is Julius Caesar, not turned to clay, I assure you, though I think he
would keep almost anything away should it see him first.”

“Is he a reincarnation?” I joked.

Apparently seriously, she said, “Yes, dogs, like all other things, are
born and reborn, just like humans, but always in their own line of
vibration.”

“So you think that this Julius Caesar, this dog, may be a reincarnation
of the great Caesar?” I asked lightly, unable to determine whether or
not she was serious.

“Stupid! Of course not,” she shot back. “Dogs come back as dogs, birds
as birds and man always as man. But the Caesar who conquered the world
had lived many lives and crossed many Rubicons before he sent that
historic message to Rome. Consider what a man he was--even if we don’t
quite approve of him. Isn’t reincarnation the only logical explanation
of such a product?”

“Some day, Miss Elaine,” I ventured, “I would like to have you
explain your theory of evolution as applied to the human soul. I am
in earnest,” I added, as she gave me a quizzical glance. “The idea of
the creation of the body from the earth and the breathing into it of
life by the Omnipotent has always been accepted and I have not reasoned
further.”

Elaine gave me such a serio-comic pitying look, laughingly adding, “You
dear old innocent. Once I thought too that we came ready-made from the
hands of a Creator, mind and soul and body, but--” and she hesitated,
“some day you shall have the evidence that man as he wills creates
himself. I wish for Hugh’s sake and my own that we could confide in
you. You would then at least understand matters better.”

Her face had become serious, even sorrowful-looking as she talked and I
was glad that Hugh interrupted just then.

He came out the garden way as we approached the kennels and announced
that he must go at once to the village and might be gone several days.
As the carriage drove up, he kissed his sister, then turned to me and
while holding my hand, said, “My friend, I am going to ask you to look
after my little sister during my absence.”

I ascended right then to the seventh heaven.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER V


The river was a sheet of glass that afternoon. Elaine suggested that we
take the punt, a broad flat-bottomed, square-ended boat, and go out and
spear garfish, schools of which were sunning their backs above water.
She was quick and accurate in handling the three-tined spear and pulled
in two for my one. The camaraderie engendered in this hour of sport,
“ridding the river of a pest,” as Elaine put it, completely broke down
the timidity which I must confess possessed me while with Elaine, ever
since that first episode while dining with Hugh.

It was about three o’clock and we were working fast when a bell atop
a barn on the hill back of the house, but in plain view to us, began
to ring vociferously. Elaine in the front of the boat, spear held
crosswise in both hands, turned facing me, a strange look of fear or
horror pictured in her great brown eyes.

“Another unfortunate,” she said as though speaking to herself, “and
Hugh is away.” Quickly she put out the oars, motioning me back as I
stepped forward to take them from her. I asked her what the bell meant,
but she made no answer.

I perforce merely steered the boat, while I watched the group of
buildings, expecting to see a fire break out. Not until we were on the
pier did Elaine vouchsafe a word, then she said, “You must help me with
the dogs,” as we went breathlessly up through the house and orchard
back walk to the dog kennels, a low stone building in a picket fence
enclosure.

A man with a great shock of snow-white hair and a young face touched
his forehead and said, “Haig, Miss; he has been uneasy for a week,”
then he picked up a leather boot, adding, “We changed his boots, Miss,
since Mr. Hugh noticed his nervousness.”

Two hounds giving evidence of having just abandoned their dinner came
lounging forward. Elaine placed two fingers in her mouth and gave a
shrill whistle, a duplicate of her brother’s signal when I first made
the acquaintance of the pack, and every beast was at the fence in a
jiffy.

The white-haired man now snapped a leash onto the collar of the
wickedest-looking of the animals, handed the braided strap to Elaine
and surrounded by the dogs we went toward the wood.

“Haig was disking in the firewood field, Miss. We think he took to
the swamp; has been gone hours probably. We missed him only after
lunch-hour and did not wish to disturb you knowing that the master was
away.”

“You should have notified me at once,” Elaine answered, “The poor
fellow is not in good health.”

The gray-haired man left us. We soon reached the plow from which the
horses had been turned loose. The half-mile walk was passed in silence
except that Elaine talked constantly to the brutes as they crowded
about her, whimpering replies strangely, seemingly comprehendingly.

The long boot brought by the man was investigated, I believe, by every
dog and they then spread out, circling over the field nearby, silently
for a moment, then one gave vent to a prolonged howl, a most dismal
sound, and headed off toward the woods on the east; the other dogs
in turn found the scent, each giving his lugubrious signal and then
running in silence.

As two men on horseback came in sight over a rise of ground, Elaine
pointed to the pack and the men spurred toward the swamp woods, making
a short cut.

As we walked back toward the house, Elaine explained that she and her
brother entertained about forty “guests,” liberated from Canadian and
American prisons, that they were constantly coming and going, but they
all came “on condition that they should stay at the Hall until Hugh
gave them permission to go.”

He found places for them in occupations suited to their condition. Some
stayed permanently, working at farming, keeping accounts, or doing such
work as best fitted them for the world outside. Most of those liberated
through Hugh’s efforts were educated men, proven innocent of the
crimes for which they were incarcerated or carrying unreasonably long
sentences, all alike robbed of spirit through prison discipline.

“Haig’s case?” I asked.

“Hugh will tell you all about it,” she evaded.

Regulations were that each might choose his work and change it if it
proved unsuitable. They were all silent men, good listeners, tractable,
helpful to each other, timid for a time, always respectful to Hugh,
herself, and the supervisors, who were all life-termers, who chose to
remain permanently at the Hall.

The white-haired man and the two house men whom I had seen were rescued
from life imprisonment through Hugh’s efforts.

“Was she afraid of her guests?”

“No, only sorry for them. She wished to help Hugh whose ambition was to
make of this work a national institution on a big scale.”

The case of the runaway was unfortunate inasmuch as his home was in the
village which he doubtless would attempt to reach--and he had not yet
recovered from “prison poisoning” as Elaine put it.

After six o’clock and no word from the runaway; Elaine had excused
herself. I selected a book from the library and then wandered down to
the river; the sun was behind the big hill to the west when I returned
to the house, found that the searchers were still out, but that the
dogs had lost the scent; repaired to my room to find my bags awaiting
me, bathed, debated, then city habit winning, donned dinner clothes and
returned to the library.

“Miss Craighead is resting,” the “guest”-waiter explained; “would I
prefer to wait, would I dine at the usual hour or await her pleasure?”

“I would prefer to wait,” I replied.

Though now that the sun was down, the fresh Canadian autumn air with
a tang and the unusual exercise of the afternoon had aroused in me a
splendid appetite, I would have risked starving rather than forego the
pleasure of a tête-à-tête dinner with this interesting personality.

I wandered out into the orchard, my thoughts drawing me to the tree of
the morning’s adventure. The “twelve baskets” were not there, but I had
no difficulty in finding what I wished, an apple to eat.

I dined late, and alone; it must have been at least nine o’clock.
Elaine offered no excuse through the servant.

“She must be asleep,” I reasoned. I retired about midnight, ill at ease
and not a little disappointed at the ending of a day that had begun so
pleasantly.

“Mr. Montrose!”

Was I dreaming? were my last thoughts on losing consciousness, a
silvery voice from the branches of the apple tree, carrying me through
the mystery period called sleep?

“Mr. Montrose!”

I was awake now, and sprang from my bed, calling excitedly, “What’s
wrong, what is it?” as I sensed anxiety or some great change in the
voice of Elaine calling from the hallway.

“Please dress quickly and warmly; I have found the runaway. He will
die before morning unless we can get to him. I shall be in the hall
downstairs or at the pier.”

I dressed quickly and as I started downstairs, Elaine called, “Please
get Stanton from the west corner room. I’ll be down in a minute.”

I confess feeling panicky as I rushed through the upper hall, dark as a
pocket, knocked, then without awaiting a reply, entered, to find that
Stanton was the young-faced gray-haired man who had started the hunt
for Haig.

The man was ready to go almost before I could get out of the room and
joined me at the foot of the stairway, just as Elaine came down the
stairs.

She was clad as in the morning, but wore a short coat of deerskin and a
close-fitting deerskin cap. The straight brown line of the cap crossing
her forehead probably accentuated her paleness, certainly the hours of
“rest” had worked on her sad havoc as she looked more like a spectre
than the reality of the girl of the evening. She spoke nervously,
authoritatively,

“Stanton, Haig is in the old Blank house beyond the swamp. He needs
help--pneumonia perhaps; bring a couple of blankets. Mr. Montrose, will
you put on an overcoat, a sweater, that will be better, you will have
to work. I’ll bring Hugh’s. Get the big canoe out,” and she ran swiftly
upstairs.

I followed, picked up my topcoat, for the night was chilly, and got
back to the front door to see Elaine flying down the pathway to the
landing.

Stanton was launching a good-sized canoe, wide of beam, beautifully
shaped from a pine tree log, and remarked, just as I arrived, “It will
hold four, but why should you go, Miss. Mr. Montrose and I can look
after him.”

Elaine’s answer was to stoop and seize the roll of blankets, throw them
into the bow of the canoe, and seat herself upon them, turning up the
collar of her coat, as she faced the two of us, I on the center thwart
and Stanton steering.

As we paddled eastward in silence, my mind, I must say, was not on the
case of Haig. A delicate white throat peeping out between the upturned
lapels of leather; the fair, wan face above it, the graceful outline of
the girl as she half reclined in the narrow prow of the canoe, were of
much greater interest than was the welfare of the fleeing ex-convict at
two o’clock in the morning.

I handled a paddle well, thanks to my early love of the open water and
a light canoe. While the fast little craft cut through the water in the
darkness, my mind was busy--almost to the asking point. I wondered how
Elaine knew about the hiding place of Haig.

Presently, after proceeding a long distance straight east as I judged
the direction on swinging out from the pier, we veered to the left a
little and proceeding a half-mile or so, turned sharply into a channel
with great-limbed water-killed trees on either side, at first dimly
outlined, then more close to us. How far we came I could not even
guess. The silent night, the sombre surroundings, the gentle dip, dip
of the paddles; the strange girl, seemingly asleep, but only seemingly,
and I thought with the purpose of avoiding conversation, had their
effect on my nerves.

I was relieved to hear Stanton say, “We must go slowly here or I shall
miss the channel and come to grief,” a long speech for a Craighead Hall
“guest.”

The canoe came almost to a standstill, then moved sharply to the left
at a paddle stroke by Stanton, gliding gently among the dead trees
whose limbs seemed to reach out like living tentacles of the octopus,
in an attempt to enfold us. Into the living woods, ash and willow,
through lily pads in clusters, an almost imperceptible path in a field
of wild rice and rushes.

Hugh’s description of his boyhood adventure at Blank’s house came
vividly before me as we pushed the canoe alongside the remnants of a
crude landing pier. It was a pier only in semblance. Ice had loosened
boards which time and neglect had reduced almost to nothingness. There
were gaps and rotted planks; Mirza’s bridge at Bagdad was not more
hazardous, but Elaine lightly sprang over the open places until she
reached more solid footing on logs laid lengthwise. Even they were
precarious as they also had yielded to time and the elements.

I followed more carefully, but in the dark made one mistake which left
me with a leg to the thigh dripping with water and black ooze from a
spot that looked solid.

Elaine waited for us, ’twas just a moment, and we proceeded through a
tangle for a seemingly interminable distance. How foolish of us to have
forgotten to bring a lantern or candle even. I had matches, and used a
few before we came to the bottom of a garden in a small clearing. Even
the garden was a labyrinth difficult of threading. All sorts of vines
seemed to reach up to trip us and weeds abounded.

We stood before a log house, one story high with two small-paned
windows, a door between. I could see the outlines of a barn or shed to
the left.

I tried the door, Stanton standing back as though awaiting orders,
while Elaine still held the roll of blankets that she had elected
to carry, notwithstanding my protest. The door withstanding all my
efforts, refused to open; there was something more substantial than a
lock holding it, I felt.

At Elaine’s suggestion, I tried the window on the right without avail.
Stanton, better riverman than I, had carried his paddle to help his
balance on the pier and logs. This he inserted under the window frame,
which raised.

He threw up the window and called, “Haig!”

No reply.

“He is in there,” Elaine said, and looked at me.

Stanton was holding up the lower frame of the window. I am not a
coward, but I certainly had no relish for what was evidently my task.
But had I known that the place was full of serpents, I would not have
hesitated in her presence.

I crawled awkwardly through the opening which was almost breast-high
from the ground. Inside, I listened intently just a moment, then
touching the wall with both hands, moved to the right, until I found
the door, felt a heavy bar across, lifted one end until it swung
upright on a hinge and from the sound, snapped into a holder. I could
see nothing. The darkness was inky.

Stanton was trying to and finally did force the lock, and it was a
relief to find him beside me, endeavoring to strike a match.

What is there in a human habitation, long deserted, which brings a
chill to the spine when entered at the darkest hour of night? Is it a
rendezvous for the baser spirits of the departed, the outcasts from the
civilization of the tomorrow?

Certainly as I stood awaiting the forcing of the door, I could feel the
foul things all about; could even hear them. I was not afraid, merely
palsied with horror, quivering.

“Bats,” Stanton said. “Please stay outside, out of the doorway, Miss,
they will strike you,” he called to Elaine as his match flared up for a
second, then went out, intensifying the darkness.

Stanton again called. Silence, except for that indescribable sough
produced by the wings of flying bats. Another match, two this time,
and Stanton opened the nearest door in the west half partition. I had
found my matches and before his expired was beside him with a fresh
light. There was not an article of furniture in the room, but huddled
in the far corner, in a half lying, half sitting posture, was Haig, a
white-faced frail-looking lad, not long out of his teens apparently.
Seemingly the spark of life had left him, he was so still. Elaine
was on her knees, beside him, feeling through his wet clothes for
heart-beats.

“He is alive, barely alive,” she exclaimed, excitedly. “Make a fire
of something. He will not live until we get him home and Hughie would
never forgive me.”

I wrapped one of the blankets about him, cursing myself for not
bringing either a light or a stimulant; carried him out and rubbed his
body vigorously while Stanton tore a cupboard from a corner of the
larger room and soon had a fire going outside.

The second blanket was warmed and replaced the first. As I worked over
him, I wondered what crime this delicate boy could have committed which
would harden the hearts of a jury of men to the extent of condemning so
innocent-looking a youth to a living death in prison. I must ask Hugh
about it.

He opened his eyes and tried to speak. Elaine, who was close beside
him, placed her little white hand over his lips and said, just as a
mother would, “Now don’t speak. Just shut your eyes and rest. We shall
take you home.”

After Haig’s clothing was dry, at least thoroughly heated, we wrapped
him in the two blankets, both hot, and Stanton carried him over the
hazardous places alone, while I helped when I could.

We found our way out to the open river just before dawn. It was
bitterly cold on the water. Elaine wore my topcoat. When I helped her
into it, she was tremulous, almost hysterical, now that the anxiety was
over.

I reached the conclusion, as I tucked the ample folds of the coat about
her, as she sat in the bottom of the canoe near the bow, that here
was a wonderful thing, a girl, a woman, such as I had never thought
existed. I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her--much.

Instead, I placed Haig’s head in her lap, at her demand, stretched his
body back with feet under my seat amidship, and with Stanton paddled
back the long four-mile detour to Craighead Hall.

Tucked into Stanton’s bed, with a drink of brandy, hot water bottles
about him, I left Haig and sought my room. I did not retire then; broad
daylight found me pacing the floor, filled with unease, doubt, fear,
yet with a longing unfathomable. I had come searching for a man astray,
and had lost myself. What would be the sequel?




[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI


The sun was pretty well down over the west when I found Elaine in the
great hall. I had slept through the day. She had ordered dinner in the
library, and was awaiting me. “How did you know I should be ready at
this time?” I asked.

“Oh,” she replied, “The walls of this house have ears. You needed a
good sleep after last night. I feel greatly indebted to you. Our boy is
doing splendidly.”

What hope for a man who wishes to say something when a woman wills that
he must not? Here was the woman, the lady hostess, not the approachable
girl of the canoe voyage, and I learned a lesson in restraint, found
myself drawn away from any encroachment on the personal; intensely
interested in a rare quality of mind, beautifully, absorbingly
unfolded. Yes, the evening was one of agony and I retired uncertain
of myself, baffled, convinced that no thought of me other than as the
brother’s friend and her guest during his absence had ever occurred to
her.

Next day we were seated on opposite sides of a luncheon table on
the upper veranda. The sun was bright. I was about to pull down the
Venetian curtain, when Hugh, a Chinaman at his heels, bounded up the
east stairway. After greeting his sister with an embrace and me with a
handshake, Hugh said,

“This is Fong Wing, who will hereafter make his home with us. He was
legally free yesterday morning, but I gave him time to buy an outfit;
Elaine, he is yours, the best lady’s maid in Canada. The warden’s
family wished him to stay; though he has nominally been in prison for
five years, during most of the time he has served as a maid in the
family of the warden. They became much attached to Fong.”

Turning to the Chinaman, Hugh said, “Fong, this is your new mistress,
Miss Elaine. Guard her as you would your life, and obey her; and this
is my friend, Mr. Montrose.”

What is the age of a Chinaman after he has seen forty or fifty years?
The queue was missing; shorn clean, his bullet head sported a million
bristles sticking straight out. His round satin cap was in his hand. He
bowed to me, looked with lamblike eyes into the face of Elaine, knelt,
took her right hand and placing it on his bristly pate, said,

“Missie catch one good China boy; good cook; good hair dresser, make
good music,” arose and held a chair that Elaine might resume her seat
at the table.

Hugh took Fong along presumably to show him his quarters and shortly
after joined us, laughingly saying, “At last, sister, we have one
cheerful, talkative guest in this house of silent men. Fong is a
talker. I would stake my life on his faithfulness. His parting with the
warden’s three young lady daughters was comically pathetic.”

“What was his crime?”

“He was given twenty years for using a hatchet promiscuously on
a member of a rival tong and glad to get out. Regards me as his
benefactor and feels that for fifteen years I shall own him, body and
soul.”

Recital of the attempt of Haig to escape and details of the rescue
seemed to sober Hugh who was in high spirits. I hoped he would ask
Elaine how she knew that the runaway was at the Blank place, but when
she mentioned that we had gone there at her request, Hugh’s eyes only
took on a saddened expression as he turned them toward those of his
sister.

“Montrose, I shall tell you Haig’s story some day,” Hugh said.

Elaine, who had been turning the leaves of a fashion magazine which
Hugh had brought, started up, saying, “I must see what they’re going to
wear this winter. Where did you put Fong?”

“In the green room, but you need not leave us. No secrets between Mr.
Montrose and me that you may not hear,” Hugh replied.

Her answer was a pat on his hand, and surprise of surprises, a glance
at me more frank and friendly than she had vouchsafed during Hugh’s
absence.

We were smoking and looking out over the river, calm and beautiful and
for a time both were silent, then Hugh said, “I am very glad that you
saved Haig, Montrose. Had he gotten to his old home, he would have
spoiled my plans. I have a fine place for him as soon as he regains
his poise. The boy was innocent of any crime, the greatest piece of
injustice and cruelty that I ever came across in the many cases which I
have investigated.

“You must know that in the best-managed of villages, vice resorts
cannot be kept out. Valleyford is a clean village, but it once harbored
one such place, kept by a woman who supported an innocent daughter at a
Toronto school through the use of her home by girls who plied a vicious
trade, alluring young men of the village, and many older men, I am
afraid, for gain.

“During the summer holiday season, Haig, who was only seventeen, was
celebrating with four older boys from college. They all took several
drinks and finally repaired to this house on the suggestion of one of
the boys that they go to see some girls. Unfortunately, the daughter
had unexpectedly reached home that evening and met three nice
appearing girl boarders and received the five boy callers, innocent of
the evil calling of her companions, the mother being at the grocer’s.
The obvious happened; the daughter was abused, warrants for the five
were issued next day at the mother’s instance.

“James Haig, on hearing of the warrant, walked into the sheriff’s
office; his brother, nineteen, resisted arrest in Manitoba and was
killed; another of the boys after wounding a policeman in Sarnia was
shot and died before the other three were placed on trial. The trio was
convicted and sentenced to twenty years in the penitentiary though the
four girls, and all three boys testified that Jimmie Haig merely met
the girls, had been so desperately ill that he lay out on the porch
until supported home by his brother. This was his first experience with
liquor.”

Hugh paused, added in an aside, “What a terrible curse is liquor. It
has filled penitentiaries. I wish it could be abolished,” then resumed:

“The crime is a serious one and is severely punished in Canada, but
there were mitigating circumstances and I shall never rest until
I have the other two boys under this roof. The stern old Scot who
passed sentence on these youths seemed to take a vicious delight in
disregarding a recommendation to mercy for James Haig, made by the
equally stern jury of farmers. The poor boy was in hell for five years
as a punishment for taking a drink. None of the boys was vicious; they
were only foolish.

“I saw the mother of these two lost sons die of grief, followed soon
after by the proud father whose spirit was broken by the disgrace and
when six months ago after nearly three years’ effort, I brought Haig
across the river here, a frail, broken young man, parents dead, home
and inheritance lost, no spirit, I felt no elation; felt that there was
scant justice in the world. This case as no other made me appreciate
that truly ‘man’s inhumanity to man makes countless millions mourn.’

“Think of this boy facing his schoolmates; while absolutely innocent
of any crime he carries the prison stigma; people not fit to tie his
shoe-laces will shun him as a jailbird. ‘Oh justice, how many crimes
are committed in thy name!’”

Hugh had arisen and walked the veranda in long strides; pity mingled
with passion seemed to almost overpower him. I hastened to suggest that
we go and cheer up the boy, adding, “and tonight I wish to discuss with
you another subject.”

“Gordon,” Hugh said, and I was pleased at the use of my Christian name,
“I have got to tell you the whole story. Strange that we humans should
find relief in sharing with others our worries,” and he put his arm
over my shoulder as we went into the house.

“Thank you, Hugh,” I replied, feeling my duplicity. I wished to discuss
Elaine, not her strange malady. I had decided that I had found the only
woman in the world beside whom I would be satisfied to walk through
life and whatever her trouble might be, I wanted her. Forgotten her
seizure, the fact that I knew so little of her, everything save that I
longed to have the privilege of caring for her.

A man whom I had noticed working about the boathouse intercepted us as
we were in the upper hall, asking Hugh’s permission for the “guests”
to try a night at spearing fish. Hugh readily assented and suggested
that possibly I might like to take a hand in the sport, explaining
that a flat-bottomed boat would be used; a “jack,” a sort of cradle
fixed about four feet high from the boat’s bow, filled with pine knots,
furnished the light, the spearmen stood forward and could easily see
the fish through six feet of water.

We reached Haig’s room and I marvelled at the man Craighead as he took
the boy’s hand, chiding him as gently as though he were his son, though
the difference in years as between the two was not great. I was taken
into the conversation and gleaned much of interest regarding Hugh’s
work.

Later in the men’s dining room, I listened after introduction to at
least twenty men ranging in age from possibly twenty-five to sixty, to
Hugh’s interesting talk to these “guests.” Inquiry as to work, how
the fall plowing, the land clearing, road building, ditch digging and
dairying were progressing. I thought what a splendid thing this salving
of human souls was, what a wonderful thing, if all ex-convicts on
regaining freedom could be taken to a retreat like this and kept until
the prison pallor was replaced by sunburn, until the broken will was
re-established and at least a measure of self-respect attained.

No! Society had not yet awakened to the advantages of such
humanitarianism. It remained for an individual fortunately provided
with the means as well as the will to furnish a haven for these social
outcasts who otherwise with poisoned minds and shrunken souls would
slink back to the old haunts, re-enact their crime, or failing in
vicious courage, live as best they could, the prey of every minion of
the guardians of society; fortunate if permitted to remain at large,
slinking through the world carrying always on face or in walk, the mark
of Cain.

We had watched the boat’s lights as the men went joyously out into the
quiet river. I found that they talked and jested; the older “guests”
seemingly endeavoring to draw out the later recruits in conversation.

I preferred to try my luck at the sport later on.

Elaine, with a peculiar look at her brother, absent-minded, it
appeared, had excused herself while Hugh and I were smoking over our
coffee, before walking down to the landing. A slight chill was in the
air.

Ten o’clock found us in the library. Lying back on the pillows of a
couch in the shadowy room, with hands clasped back of his head, Hugh
said reminiscently.

“McFarlane was a splendid fellow, seemed old to me at the time, though
not more than thirty; on the train, the ship, he looked after our
comfort; kept both Alix and myself much interested through his own
curiosity and peculiar remarks on what he observed.

“When greatly interested or excited, he lapsed into Scotch so broad
that the words were almost unintelligible to me. Craighead affairs were
not discussed, though I remember endeavoring to learn something about
my forebears.

“When we reached Glasgow, it was night. We were bundled into a
four-wheeled carriage, McFarlane giving the driver directions, and I
caught the name Hill Head, a name which I had heard father and John
Hallowed mention occasionally. It rained slightly, and the air seemed
hollow. I can even now distinctly hear the hoofbeats of the horses as
we crossed the wooden bridge over the little Kelvin River separating
the city from Hill Head borough, also McFarlane’s voice saying, ‘We
are a’most there the noo.’

“My nerves were tense as we drove through a gateway with stone pillars
in a high brick wall hiding from our view a great square three-story
building until we were right upon it. The house was dark, except for a
glimmer through diamond-shaped panes of glass, on each side a massive
door opening onto a stone-paved terrace.

“We alighted and waited until McFarlane spoke to our coachman, then
walked across the stone flagging to the door which a dour-faced man was
holding open.

“As we children entered, a sad-eyed, middle-aged woman in nurse’s
attire looked at us sharply and said, ‘Puir bairnies, puir bairnies,
and the mither buried this day week.’

“Alix screamed.

“‘What do you mean?’ McFarlane exclaimed, ‘Dead? Mrs. Craighead dead?’

“And the woman said, ‘Dead, aye, dead puir thing, gang awa’ hame to her
mon when the wee ane came.’

“I lost consciousness; with the exhaustion of hurried travel,
seasickness, the terrible shock of hearing that my sainted mother was
no more; what could be expected?

“When I recovered my senses after a night’s rest, the first thing that
greeted me was Alix, swollen-eyed, holding close to her face a wee
baby in a knitted white something.”

Hugh paused, a look indescribable came into his eyes raised to mine
and he said, “Gordon, this was Elaine, thus named in compliance with
mother’s expressed wish. Elaine, the finest, bravest little comforter
that God ever gave to a brother. I resented at that time the ‘will
of God’ as the nurse put it in saying that mother gave her life that
this little thing might live, but from the day that her little fingers
grasped mine, to this hour, I have had no love for any creature on
earth approaching my love for my little sister.

“McFarlane took entire charge of the little family of three. We had
plenty of money on which to live nicely and travel; always McFarlane,
Alix, baby, and nurse and myself.

“We stayed in the great gloomy house for months, then went to southern
France. I was out of school for a year, sickly. Finally we took a small
residence in Edinburgh where I attended school.

“During all the years until I was twenty-one and had my A. B. degree,
McFarlane evaded my every question as to my family history. He had had
himself appointed our legal guardian and had mapped out my career. I
was to be a lawyer, as we call it.

“I had now reached man’s estate, a citizen of the City of Edinburgh,
studious, a dreamer rather than a doer, my mind always painting
pictures of the old place, reverting frequently to John Blank and I
had always determined that I should come back when Elaine grew up.

“Elaine was a bright youngster, ‘muckle tae bricht,’ old nurse would
say. Though frail in appearance, she had wonderful vitality, was a
good student, her mind as she came into her teens running to the queer
things in literature and history. She studied especially the old Bible,
the edition with the apocrypha, the fourteen books of the Septuagint
and the Vulgate, added to the Hebrew scriptures, the net result being
avoidance of churches and preaching, a most awful thing to McFarlane
and to the local dominie, who assured Alix, the little mother of the
household, that the ‘girlie was headed straicht for Hell.’

“Alix was a splendid woman, with many friends, but McFarlane’s business
interviews with her were so frequent that all suitors were discouraged.
The course of our lives ran smoothly and we were very happy together.

“One day, McFarlane on returning from a two-hour business engagement
with Alix, as he explained it, asked me to accompany him to Glasgow
that I might sign some papers connected with my father’s estate.

“Arrived at the gloomy city, dreading a visit to the ugly house of my
forefathers, I was surprised and pleased when we alighted at a clean,
bright-looking hotel where we shared a room, repairing next morning
to the city hall, where I signed, McFarlane signed, a clerk witnessed,
another official signed and put a great blue seal with ribbons on a
number of papers.

“To another room, where a more important, if possible, personage than
the blue seal handler, critically examined every paper presented; I
remember feeling an anxiety equalling that of examination day when my
coveted A. B. was in the balance and was greatly relieved when the
judge finally affixed his signature to one of the documents, shoved all
of them over to a clerk at a desk on a lower level and told McFarlane,
‘You have been a good steward, sir,’ and looking keenly at me, added,
‘and this is the young man, and no blood of his, who has circumvented
the iron will of old Alexander Craighead; the old man will turn in his
grave tonight.’

“I almost ran from the building, urging McFarlane for an explanation of
the judge’s remarks.

“‘Naething, naething at a’; the auld judge is garrulous,’ was all I
could elicit.

“It never occurred to me to read what I was signing, but when in
our hotel room, McFarlane spread before me what he explained was a
power of attorney, giving him authority to handle my affairs until I
should revoke it; I read the document carefully and knowing nothing of
business, balked at signing. Finally I signed, after McFarlane produced
a document of similar import bearing Alix’s signature and I returned
to Edinburgh alone, the master of a property about which I knew
nothing, nor did I care, as life went along as before.

“I took my post-graduate course, graduated at law, spent six months
traveling in Europe and yet I had no idea as to the extent of my
inheritance. You may think, friend Montrose, that for a man holding
a Master’s degree I was a dullard; the fact is, Alix mothered me,
managed, I thought, all business matters, though it was really
McFarlane’s steady head that did everything needful.

“I was twenty-four; my time was almost wholly devoted to study. We
always called our friend ‘Mr. McFarlane,’ though once I overheard Alix
use his Christian name, saying,

“‘No, James, time enough when we must tell him.’

“I sensed an understanding between my elder sister and McFarlane, even
surmised that they might marry, thought the secret they were keeping
from me was an engagement, as they were much together when McFarlane
was not away in Glasgow.

“Alix did not wish me to return to Canada, but while in Europe, I
planned a visit to Craighead Hall before taking a place in a law office
secured through our faithful friend’s influence.

“Faithful old John Hallowed’s letters and accounts had all through the
years kept us in touch with the old place.

“Strange that Elaine, who had never seen this old mansion should have
developed a greater interest in it than either Alix or I retained. She
knew how many acres had been cleared, all about the enlargement of the
orchard and the wonderful success of the fruit grafting. We talked over
every item in Hallowed’s reports, otherwise I fear my interest might
have flagged.

“John Blank had become almost a myth. One day I was crossing from
Calais to Dover, homeward bound after seeing the world; sitting in
one of the uncomfortable chairs on deck I found myself looking at the
profile of an old lady--the young ones failed to interest me even then.

“Something in the half face before me carried me back to a deft blue
room and the block house down the back channel and the woman who
dressed me, whom John Blank called Margie. Ridiculous, I thought. This
plainly but handsomely gowned lady could not be the roughly dressed
woman of the long ago. I walked past her and inspection only tended to
confirm my first thought.

“My interest was such that it attracted her attention and fearing that
my actions would justly lay me under a charge of rudeness, at least, I
stepped up to her, bowed and said, ‘Madam, pardon me, are you not Mrs.
Blank from Canada?’

“She paled, appeared annoyed, rather seemed startled, then after
hesitating while we looked at each other, eye to eye, said, ‘No, young
man, I am not Mrs. Blank of Canada,’ arose and disappeared in the
boat’s interior.

“I stammered an apology wholly lost on her.

“Going directly to London I was surprised but delighted to meet
McFarlane at the hotel. He said Alix had informed him of the probable
date of my arrival there and as we were talking in the lounge even
before I had been assigned a room, two men whom I would have sworn were
Scotland Yard operatives appeared and he excused himself saying they
were friends with whom he wished to discuss some private matters.

“At dinner that night I mentioned the episode on the boat. When the
name Mrs. Blank was mentioned, McFarlane started, almost leaving his
chair and had me repeat the exact language used by the lady and myself.
I inquired as to his interest. He had calmed, said it merely related to
my oft repeated story of my adventure in the home of the deformed man
and changed the subject, informing me that he had to meet an old friend
and was already a little late.

“I finished dinner alone, thinking that the canny Scot was not very
cordial, considering our extended separation.

“Next day, McFarlane pleaded a bit of urgent business; we were to
have returned together to Edinburgh. He had to stay in London. I could
not wait, must see my sisters, so I traveled alone. What joy in that
reunion! Alix was even more beautiful than when I had left home. Elaine
was a tall, ethereal, big-eyed child.

“I took my place at a high desk and for three years devoted myself
assiduously to running errands, copying bills, then briefs, doing the
grinding, gruelling inside work considered a necessary stepping-stone
to the lower round of the ladder which all solicitors must climb, and
my ambition did not stop there. I wished to become an advocate, a
barrister. I worked hard, devoted much time previously spent with my
sisters to study after work hours.

“One day Alix told me that Elaine was fourteen. I awoke to the
realization that here was a young lady, almost; I thought her
beautiful, as I do now; apparently she was delicate; she never tired of
study, was an omnivorous reader and a good listener, especially when
matters pertaining to Craighead Hall were discussed.

“In this year came the turning point in her life and mine.”

Hugh sighed, looked dreamily at the long shadows thrown on a bookcase
by the leading running perpendicularly with the flame of the one
lamp, which, with one other, served to remove the library from total
darkness, hesitated, then said,

“It seems a sacrilege to open up even to your friendly, yes, I venture
to say more than friendly--sympathetic--ears, even the first chapter in
our book of secrets.

“Elaine is more to me than is existence. Her infirmity, for I cannot
now regard it as other than a terrible affliction, though once, God
forgive me, I looked upon her peculiar ability to penetrate the
impenetrable, to draw aside the veil separating the here from the
hereafter and receive messages from the dead--I looked upon this
unheard of ability as a gift--a sacred thing, sacred,” and Hugh’s voice
trailed off into a low sibilance.

The light over the fireplace sputtered and went out. Everything was in
shadow, a mist seemed to gather about Hugh’s reclining form--or was it
the change wrought through lessening of the light? I, Gordon Montrose,
saw, or thought I saw, a man of fifty or more years of age bending over
Hugh. I missed his features, they were indistinct.

In my excitement I started to my feet, calling, “Hugh! Hugh!” and then
only we two men, I standing all a-tremble, Hugh calm, but sitting up,
were in the room.

“Let us retire, Gordon,” Hugh said. “I cannot go on tonight.”

Excitedly I asked, “Did you see the man bending over you?”

“No, I seldom see him,” Hugh replied, smiling wanly.

“Then,” I answered, “am I taking on the spirit of this haunted old
place? Perhaps I am only like many good Scots, seeing my weird,” and I
think I laughed lowly, half-heartedly, the sound an apology, for Hugh
was silent and his manner embarrassed, while it kept me from further
comment or inquiry.

Hugh gave no sign, but took the one remaining lamp from its setting,
preceded me upstairs, opened my bedroom door, and said, “Good
night--and good morning,” and still carrying the lamp, my room being
lighted, walked down the corridor out of sight.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER VII


Sleep would not come. Were they all crazy in this mysterious house?
Had I, through contact, lost my sense of reality? I certainly saw
a shadowy man standing over Hugh, yet how could such a thing be?
Penetrating beyond death. One reads about such things; reads of the
Christ in person appearing on the third day after crucifixion, yes, and
I had never thought sufficiently deeply to determine whether or not I
believed this. Was it not labeled Gospel? And on other occasions the
Master appeared. I thought of all recorded appearance of spirits as I
remembered my Bible, all the old superstitions as we call them. Then my
mind came back to Elaine.

What, exactly, did Hugh mean by drawing aside the veil? Second sight
perhaps, but second sight is not a malady, it is a gift, if there is
such a thing, an extra sense. I thought of her beautiful, spirituelle
face, speaking eyes, golden bronze hair, then of the aged, ashen face
of the girl in white, felt her pressed against me as she dropped from
the apple tree.

I awoke with the sun shining in my window, facing south--late. Hugh in
riding clothes, was standing beside a saddled horse, held by one of the
silent men. The horse was a beautiful beast, one could almost use his
polished flank for a mirror.

I called a greeting and Hugh called back, “Hope you had a good rest,”
as he came across the yard and as he reached the veranda stairhead,
“Sorry I cannot stay to entertain you today. I have had breakfast and
must go to the village; urgent call and cannot say when I shall be
back. Elaine excuses herself this morning. Will be with you shortly, I
trust; amuse yourself and prowl about, there are many oddities about
the old place worth investigating.”

We shook hands and I assured him that I felt quite at home, secretly
rejoicing in anticipation of a day alone with my young hostess.

My breakfast came shortly after Hugh had mounted his horse, waved to me
with his riding crop, and disappeared.

The day was warm and windless; a boatload of rivermen was the only
thing moving on the placid water in front. These men were taking in and
piling in great piles, on the shore of the next point of land to the
east, the long logs, called booms, which had served to keep the timber
floating down the river, out of the shallow water dotted with trees
among which they would otherwise lodge.

I whiled away the morning, going no farther afield than the landing
pier, always keeping an eye on the house, momentarily hoping that
Elaine would present herself on the veranda.

Luncheon over; I dined alone, again sought the pier where I could have
a good view of the house. What a formidable affair it was, rising
through its entire length of fully 120 feet, two high stories and a
Tudor style palisade atop, all tooled gray limestone, upper and lower
veranda stretched across its front for about eighty feet to a tower
coming out to the twelve-foot verandas’ width, serving to break the
severity of the facade. The house shut off a view of the rise of the
hill into the side of which it was fitted.

Disinclined to intrude through inquiry as to the welfare of my hostess,
I nevertheless felt quite anxious and finally repaired to the house.

I was shocked on entering the great hall; an unmistakable odor of
something afire assailed me. I took the stairs in a few bounds, ran
through the hall following my sense of smell until it brought me to the
room which I knew was being occupied by Fong Wing, the Chinaman.

Without ceremony I swung open the door and burst in upon the celestial,
to find Fong on hands and knees on the floor, before him an improvised
shrine, a Buddha, black with age, an oblong plate in front, full of
burning punk sticks, the room full of smoke and scattered about in
orderly disorder, thousands of small discs of paper, white and pink.

“What in heaven’s name--” here I stopped. Another worshipper, another
religion, a devotee as earnest and orthodox as could be found in any
Catholic, Protestant or offshoot branch of the Christian church; a
heathen, and yet was there to the Deity anything in his manner of
worship differentiating his supplication or thank-offering from that of
the Christian?

Fong, as becomes any worshipper disturbed in his devotions who
naturally does not wish to break off the established connection
abruptly, took his time and while I stood, open-mouthed, arose.

I apologized, “Fong, I’m sorry, I thought the house was afire.”

“Allee light, allee light, Mista Montlose.”

“What the devil are you doing with all this paper stuff? You’ll set the
house ablaze same day,” I retorted.

“Dlive away devil-man makee li’l Missie sick. We ketchee him last
night,” Fong replied.

Fong’s eyes were big and startled as he sputtered out, “No, no! No see
him, quick devil-man come, Missie talk, talk, bymby nearly all night.
Soon Missie die; Fong dlive devil-man away, maybe.”

The doubt in the “maybe” registered despair, question as to the
efficacy of his supplication. There flashed through my mind the
prayer of the Christian, the penance, the intermediary, Mary, the
Saints, Jesus, Buddha, Confucius; the blood offering of the Hebrews,
the burning punk wood of the Chinaman; wherein lies the difference?
Is it not in fact in the reflex, is not the end attained in the act
itself? Else why should this heathen pray, this one of the five hundred
millions of Chinese now living and condemned as we are told to an
eternity in Hell. Is religion merely an emotion? Does devotion have its
genesis in fear?

“How is your little mistress?” I asked the innocent-faced Chinaman,
whom I regarded much as I would a child.

“Velly bad, velly bad. Velly sick. Not eat, while lookee allee same
die, last night, today, now maybe.”

“Take me to her,” I ordered, peremptorily, forgetting propriety or
anything except that I must get help.

Fong opened a door in the side of his room, crossed a hallway, quietly
swung wide another door and I stepped into Elaine’s chamber.

My heart stopped beating. She was lying on a great high mahogany
bed with four carved posts marking the corners rising half-way to
the room’s ceiling. The westering sun slanting across the white
bed-covering caught her face in its full light. She was as motionless
as the dead; gray with the pallor of death, there was no rise and fall
of the chest, not even a quiver of the throat.

I thought her dead as I stood for a moment looking not at the girl
Elaine as I carried her in my heart but at that other ashen-faced woman
into whom Elaine was unaccountably metamorphosed on my first night’s
sojourn at Craighead Hall.

Gently I placed my hand on her brow, it was cold--but moist--wet in
fact.

“This is not death,” I said aloud, though I had forgotten Fong who
stood about six feet away with hands clenched together and raised above
and in front of his head.

She was lying on her back, arms outstretched. I hastily placed a finger
on her left wrist. Thank God! a pulse, feeble heart-beats, regular, in
contrast with mine!

Fong, trained lady’s maid of the prison warden’s feminine household,
was at home in this emergency. The Chinaman brought cold water, laved
her brow, face and throat, talking an unintelligible jargon in low
crooning tones.

I stood silent and helpless until Fong directed me to perform a similar
office with hands and arms, applying linen wrung out in cold water and
rubbing vigorously.

A faint tinge of color gradually replaced the pallor. She sighed,
suddenly sat up, eyes wide open and lips apart as though in alarm.
She threw out her hands, palms outward as though to ward off--Fong
dropped to his knees. I think he thanked some deity, perhaps only the
intermediary; it was in Chinese; as for me, I thanked God direct and
in good Anglo-Saxon and so loudly that it seemed to arouse Elaine and
explain to her the cause of the intrusion.

“Why the reception?” came in a hysterical, whispered laugh from Elaine,
her big eyes resting on mine, then she sank back onto the pillows, the
eyes closed; she seemed utterly exhausted.

“I shall go for a doctor,” I urged, but she shook her head.

“No! No doctor can do anything. I shall be all right in a little
while,” and she seemed to fall asleep as I stood irresolute, not
knowing whether to obey or go at once to the village for a physician.

I turned on hearing a rustling as of paper being gathered together, to
find the Celestial with a sheaf of leaves in his hands, moon-eyed as he
looked at me saying, “Devil-liting, Missie liting to Devil-man, allee
time talk, talk, talk.”

I took the sheaf of papers from Fong’s hand. There was no writing,
nothing but almost perpendicular strokes on them. These strokes were
usually from left to right across the page and while they all ran
together in unbroken order, there seemed a semblance of word form.
Opposite is a facsimile of one paragraph that struck my eye.

At first meaningless, God help us, I thought, it is a mental disorder,
possibly incurable; then my eye caught in the pencil-strokes the
words “No the old life.” I followed, partially guessing, partially
deciphering, until I had the whole paragraph. This one read:

[Illustration]

“No the old life was too hard but until in this life I did not know
what the true meaning was--”

Great heavens, I had never suspected. I had read of mediums, automatic
writings--men and women allegedly possessing the gift of transcribing
without volition messages from the dead. Could such a thing be
possible? I had never given the absurd claim a serious thought. ’Twas
beyond the range of the possible, yet here in my hands under my very
eyes was evidence that such a thing existed. Evidence, not proof,
I reflected. Recollection of descriptions of the medium’s physical
manifestations when the desire or urge to write came fitted this case.

I glanced over to where Elaine lay, her face calm and turned slightly
away from me; the rise and fall of the coverlet showed an easy
breathing. Gone all semblance of death, a girl again, she peacefully
slept. What was the cause? Why should a mental impairment take this
peculiar phase, create this ability to put on paper what a dormant
physical consciousness permits the subconscious to receive and through
the pliant physical, transcribe? Did Elaine desire to write? No, I
preferred the thought that some peculiar complex brought the urge and
that she was helpless. Was she a “medium?” Surely the symptoms, the
pallor, the unnatural in every respect; did they not resemble very
closely those described in what I had at various times read and cast
aside as fanciful?

All delicate scruples were cast to the winds. I shamelessly took a pile
of written pages of this seemingly meaningless tracery, sat at the
little mahogany desk and painstakingly traced the lines.

Fong placed a shaded lamp on the desk top, carefully seeing that no
ray of light fell on the quiet sleeper, his little mistress, and left
the room. Strange how noiseless a Chinaman can be. I scarcely sensed
that he was in the room, so absorbed was I in deciphering the writing,
evidently traced for the full line without removal of pencil from the
paper. No crossed t’s or dotted i’s, but words stood out as legibly as
though in print.

As I read, hour after hour, with no realization as to the passing
of time or thought as to my indelicate act, I became more and more
mystified. Why should Elaine’s pencil trace such things?

Here apparently was something urging my hostess to “send me away; keep
me away from Hugh.”

The name “Hogarth” drew my attention; it seemed to stand out as though
written in India ink on a sheet lying on the desk which had fallen from
my hand and my errand to this house, which I must admit had become a
secondary matter, came sharply before me.

“Send him away, he cannot find Hogarth. He must go away.”

Evidently a question had been asked then. Did Elaine talk or merely
think the question?

The next line, “No, you never heard of him, he is nothing to you, he
will never be found.”

Another question, a new line, “yes, gone away, can never be found. No,
I cannot find him here.”

I searched for further mention of Hogarth through the entire pile of
written sheets, went back to where I had left off.

One line said “Hugh must be warned, wait for me.”

Were these lines written while Hugh and I sat in the library on the
previous evening? Was the shadowy form that I had seen bending over
Hugh the dictator of these alleged messages? Was there then in this
thing something more tangible than the meanderings of a mind asleep,
even deranged? What did this girl know about Hogarth? Surely I had
gleaned from Hugh that the man was unknown to him and therefore Elaine
could not have had him in mind. The name Hogarth held only in dim
recollection, that uncertain, was all that Hugh had, and of that I was
convinced.

I could feel a peculiar chill as of fear as I sat in the semi-darkness
of this silent night, a silence so intense as to be oppressive. Not
a sound came from the sleeper. For the first time there dawned on my
consciousness the thought, “Perhaps this is reality.”

The words of Paul came to me “If Christ be not risen, then is our
preaching vain and your faith is also vain.” “Christ is risen, Christ
is risen,” sung by many a sweet-voiced choir had passed me by, the
story of the resurrection accepted as a matter spiritual, not as
conscious life after death. Was my mind willing to accept such a thing
as a spirit, a living entity after death, knowing the things of life,
earthly life, seeing the happenings of today’s events, remembering the
past, just as though alive in the flesh?

“Go to the Bible for help in all dilemmas,” was my mother’s adjuration.
“There you shall learn the truth.”

At fourteen, had I been a Catholic, I should have been known as an
oblate, so possessed was I with religious fervor and I knew my Holy
Bible thoroughly. That I should cast back at this hour for negation or
affirmation of a new and somewhat terrifying thought to a book which I
had for years neglected to use did not occur to me as strange. Do we
not, almost to a man, when dire trouble overtakes us, go to God as we
know him through the teachings during our youth?

The words of Saul “Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit that
I may go to her and inquire of her,” and the reply, “Behold there
is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor,” floated to my
consciousness. And Samuel through this medium talked with Saul, told
him things as they were.

Could I question the inspired word of God? No! The medium saw and
identified Samuel to Saul. God’s laws being unchangeable, man being the
same today as in Saul’s time, natural law unchanged, spirits released
from the body must today exist as they did before Christ came, and if
they could communicate then, they can communicate now and as I thought
of the events of last night, fear smote me hard.

How long I pondered these things I know not, nor did I notice, except
vaguely that the Chinaman had noiselessly entered and as quietly left
the room. Hours must have passed. I remember thinking:

“What change in humanity might be wrought through the conviction, no,
the knowledge, that one was never alone, always accompanied by the
spirit of a friend who had passed on.”

Should one know his every act was seen by somebody would the world not
walk more circumspectly? Would not crime be lessened and life rendered
sweeter?

Things seemed unreal. I fancied an influence strange and new to
me, which I did not try to analyze, drawing me on to a point where
superstition superseded my usual common sense, and I do not know where
my thoughts would have carried me had not Fong Wing quietly entered the
room with a tray, an eggnog, a bowl of broth and three strips of brown
toast; an immaterial observation, everything considered, but something
real, tangible.

Fong spoke, “Dlink this, Missie,” presenting the tray.

Then I awoke to the fact that Elaine, awake and questioning-eyed was
looking at me.

I sprang to the bedside, “Elaine! Elaine! You have been desperately
ill,” I almost shouted and at the same time realized I had addressed
her thus familiarly.

She did not seem to notice the use of her Christian name, merely smiled
and said as she took the drink from Fong’s hands, “I’m awfully sorry to
have worried you. Really, I’ve slept wonderfully. Where is Hughie?”

Then without awaiting an answer to her query, while looking intently
past me at her desk, added,

“Thank you for your consideration. I had a miserable headache, but am
much--”

At that moment she must have seen the sheets of paper which I had
absent-mindedly kept in hand for her expression suddenly changed.

I cannot describe the change. Have you ever wounded a doe, run her to
exhaustion’s point and just before using the huntsman’s knife to end
her misery, caught the look in your victim’s eyes? If so, you then
have seen what I saw as I looked at my hostess; a beseeching, wounded,
pleading look which imposed its force on every fibre of my being and
brought me to my knees beside the bed asking forgiveness, asking for
her confidence, bringing in the name of Hugh, help for her, my anxiety,
everything except the one emotion obsessing me, the wish consuming me,
everything but the whole truth, that I loved her and was cold with the
fear that I had unforgivably offended.

I felt her small hand laid lightly on my bowed head, heard a low
pleading voice say, “Please go.”

I do not know how I got out of her presence, nor why I should have
walked so far through the night. Dawn came while I was atop a high hill
a mile at least from the house, with thoughts inchoate but even yet
holding to the night’s events and their possible sequel.

I must have slept all day. Hugh had returned, for my first sensation on
awakening was hearing him call from the orchard, “A beautiful sunset,
John.”

With spirits at low ebb, realizing that I must give an explanation and
offer an apology to the brother of the young lady whose privacy I had
encroached upon in the desperation of good purpose, I dressed hastily
and went down to the orchard, thinking that my status at the Craighead
home would be altered, yes, possibly my visit abridged through the
untoward events of the night.

Hugh, standing head bared under an apple tree, called out a quiet,
“Hello, Gordon, glad to see you out,” gave me courage and when he,
looking frankly and with friendship in the look, held out his hand, I
could not suppress the moisture which shut him from my vision as my
hand clasped his and his left arm went over my shoulders, giving me a
little familiar pull toward him.

“We must save her, Gordon,” and “Yes, Hugh,” was all that was said, but
it filled my very soul with gladness.

I excused myself to return to my room to change for dinner as Hugh
informed me, “We shall have the little girl’s company at dinner this
evening.”




[Illustration]

CHAPTER VIII


Summoned half an hour later by the Chinaman, all smiles, I met Elaine
and Hugh at the foot of the grand stairway, an embarrassing moment for
me. A momentary casting down of her eyes, then they were raised in all
their glory to mine and I grasped a little warm extended hand which
nestled in mine with just the hint of a returned pressure, but the day
was saved, it spelled forgiveness.

Our hostess was pale, but in good spirit. During dinner, Hugh explained
that his urgent call to the village was to see the member of Parliament
from his district making a flying visit home; in the interest of a
proposed law touching on prison reform generally and in particular
the establishment by the province of a provincial home for released
prisoners. He had not accomplished anything definite, but had arranged
for the care of Haig, had seen the Presbyterian minister, the Reeve,
Sheriff and the Postmaster and thought he had paved the way for the
boy’s return without more embarrassment to the unfortunate youth than
could naturally be avoided.

These and other topics while the serving man was present. We three
alone, an embarrassing silence ensued.

Elaine broke the spell.

“Hughie, I am glad that Mr. Montrose--”

“Gordon,” Hugh interrupted.

“Mr. Gordon, then,” she said, looking at me smilingly, “knows our
secret. I wish you would tell him everything--how at first we enjoyed
the novelty, experimented with it, played with the fire until we
were burned. We never even suspected danger. I was as eager for the
experiment as the others. But now it possesses me, controls me, and I
am powerless. He found me in Scotland, now he lives right here, right
here beside me.”

Her voice rose as she continued, “The man wanted to get through a
message, many messages relating to Hugh’s affairs. Gradually he
unfolded secrets, family secrets, things not known to Alix and Hughie
or myself. I was only a child. Then later when we heard his dreadful
story we were so moved that it seemed cruel to refuse to listen to him.”

Hugh spoke. “I encouraged the damnable practice.”

“Because we were in the dark,” Elaine continued, becoming more calm.
“The thing was so unbelievable! A dead man, buried in that little
enclosure where you and Hughie met, sending his messages telling his
history, and always keeping back something, just as though he were
alive and talking to me. Don’t think him tyrannical or unkind. He is
unhappy. He has not changed in the spirit world. He guides us, helps us
through his messages. It was he who urged Hugh to take up this work.”

“I--lose myself often. I can’t help listening to him. I don’t need to
write, I can repeat the words as they come to me. When I’m awake, I can
keep away from it by sheer will-power, but when I’m asleep, or just
falling asleep, I can’t help myself. I must get up and write. That was
the first stage--questioning aloud and writing the answers, and now I
can’t stop. My right arm is cold this minute.”

Her face was white, not the ashen hue of the first visitation, her
right arm extended, the first finger and thumb pressed together as
though holding a pencil and rotating rapidly as though drawing many
small circles. I had seen many of these circles among the automatic
writings last night and wondered as to their significance.

“Save me, Hughie,” she whispered.

Hugh sat as though petrified, gazing at the extended hand. Was there
too much light, or did Hugh see the form of his old friend? I do not
know, but if not actually visible, doubtless from memory’s storehouse
there came to Hugh the vision of the deformed John Blank to paralyze
action.

I grasped Elaine’s cold hand, seized her arm, brought her to her
feet and shook her violently before realizing what I was doing. Then
remembering the treatment administered the evening before, rubbed her
arm vigorously for a minute until warmth, imagined if not real, was
there.

The blood returned to the girl’s face. Embarrassed, we looked at each
other and she and I laughed. Mine was certainly not my usual exhibition
of hilarity.

Hugh put his arm about his sister’s waist and half carried her to a
large easy-chair where she sat on the great leather arm with one white
arm about his neck.

“Exorcising a devil,” was my first coherent thought. Christ driving out
evil spirits from humans into swine, a queer proceeding. He must have
a super-mind--strong--did not Elaine say she kept Blank away through
exercise of will-power--Luther seeing the evil one, _D’Evil_, _sans
apostrophe_, Devil, and throwing his inkwell at his Satanic majesty,
effectively putting him to flight, else we would all, I presume, still
be Catholic; these measures, the methods applied, crowded in on me as
I moved from the table to a seat near Hugh and Elaine. My brain was
chaotically striving for a defensive weapon for Elaine’s protection.

“Thank God I never see him. I should die of fright. Hughie has
described him to me, but oh, how I pity him, even now. He is so sad,
so unhappy in a state where we think our worries are over.”

There was silence for a moment, then she resumed,

“Do you know, Mr.----, do you know, Gordon, I am told that we do not
change when our bodies die; we awaken to find ourselves just as we
were, knowing nothing more than when we lived. We are cared for until
able to care for ourselves, influenced by those with whom we come in
contact, and just as here, there are the good and the bad. Some day I
shall show you the messages.”

I sat spellbound. A little hand came out toward me which I eagerly
grasped and touched with my lips. I think pity inspired her gracious
act for certainly I felt woebegone and probably looked it.

“Is that what we call Heaven, or is it Hell?” I managed to say.

“Perhaps we should call it Purgatory as there seem to be conditions or
places which my friend cannot reach,” Elaine replied gravely, then, in
a lighter tone, “I shall be in no hurry to make the change. I like life
here pretty well, just Hugh and I and our work and the great outdoors,”
and she gave her brother a hug which seemed to bring him back to
himself.

“Make it a trinity, take me into the circle, I implore,” I said
earnestly.

Elaine twisted Hugh’s face upward playfully so that she might see his
eyes and said, “Perhaps we shall, Hughie, after he knows all about us,
though our skeleton may scare him away back to Pennsylvania. I wish you
would go on and tell Gordon the rest of our history; I shall stay and
correct you, should you malign your infant sister too frequently.”

Hugh promptly commenced. “I think I was telling you of this girl’s
abnormality; the first signs, when the lamp went out. One evening
in June, Elaine and a girl-friend were playing with a new toy, a
planchette. For a time only undecipherable scribblings resulted, then
there was written: ‘I wish to speak with Hugh.’

“The girl came into the study calling: ‘Mr. Hugh, somebody on the
planchette is calling for you.’

“I answered, ‘Show him in, I am busy.’

“Elaine then called me and the pencil certainly wrote, ‘I must give
Hugh a message.’

“‘I am not consciously guiding the thing,’ Elaine said, and while
Alix, McFarlane and I looked on, the pencil wrote, but not in Elaine’s
square-topped letters, rather more like a man’s handwriting, ‘Hallowed
is dying. You are needed at Craighead Hall.’

“McFarlane said, ‘Drop the dratted thing. It is a machination of the
devil.’

“I urged Elaine to try again but she could get only nonsensical things,
some vile words, yet even these were a source of wonder to us as they
could not have originated in the brain of my little sister.

“That evening we were discussing the peculiarity of thought
transference; McFarlane said she had been thinking about the old man at
the Hall. We talked of Mesmer and his peculiar gift.

“Elaine suddenly exclaimed, ‘Hugh, Hugh, look what the board has
written; I wonder if I guided it.’

“There it was in the same handwriting, ‘Tell Hugh, John Blank says
Hallowed is dead. Hugh should come at once.’

“We were mystified, did not think to ask any question of thin air. It
would at that stage of inexperience and ignorance have seemed to all of
us a silly proceeding.

“We all, except McFarlane, tried the board with no result. Elaine,
accused of hoaxing, was advised not unkindly by her sister to devote
her energies to the piano or her books. We were always kindly toward
each other and the incident evidently hurt this tender flower for she
said nothing further about the planchette, though I learned later that
during the month following she still played with the board.

“One day there came a letter from one Alexander Douglas of Valleyford,
saying that he had officiated at the burial of John Hallowed two days
previously and was writing at the request of Lindsay Micklejohn who
had worked under Hallowed.

“I remembered Lindsay whose education was nil, my first thought being,
‘How will he run the place? He cannot write.’

“Alix was the first of us to hark back to the message. We compared
dates, then stood looking stupidly at each other. Elaine had not said
a word. Now she quietly told us that she had received many repetitions
of the statement that Hallowed was dead, that she had asked aloud while
alone as one of the messages came, ‘Where are you?’ and the pencil
wrote: ‘Right here’ and described a lot of circles.

“She went to her room and brought quite a number of sheets of paper,
timidly, yet I thought feeling rather proud of her gift and gratified
that the genuineness of the message had been established. She was in
good health, though at times Alix chided her for not getting outdoors
more. She looked pale and did not eat much.

“McFarlane who came in as usual that evening was dumbfounded; I think
he was more shocked than any of us. He kept his eyes on Elaine as
though she was something set apart.

“‘Uncanny,’ I heard him muttering to himself, and caught the words ‘a
witch, that leetle young ane.’

“Now came trouble. Elaine just would accompany me; all our joint
protests were vain. Alix asked McFarlane to go with us. He protested
that he could not go and added, ‘Neither can you, lass,’ and I was
surprised to see the masterful Alix accept the verdict without protest.

“Hysterics, oceans of tears, a fainting spell and the little minx had
her way. My employers accepted my resignation, giving me a ‘to whom it
may concern’ recommendation, carefully, I noted, weighing its wording
so that no responsibility would rest on them should I go wrong. Bless
them, theirs was a splendid school for a youth; the chalk-line was
never permitted to fade and the work habit was taught every day.

“We four were on the dock at Liverpool when McFarlane exploded his
bombshell. He put his arm around Alix’ waist, held out his hand to me
and said, ‘For sax year gane, Hugh, this wee girlie has been me wedded
wifie; she wadna permeet me to tell.’

“He was all excitement and as usual lapsed into his natural tongue.

“‘Is it true?’ to Alix, was all I could say.

“Yes, it was true; Alix exacted secrecy because she was the little
mother to Elaine and myself; looking back now I think she mothered
McFarlane also and did not wish our close relationship and happy home
disturbed. I was glad; so was Elaine, that during my absence Alix had a
protector, a man I liked; he seemed more like a father than a brother.

“Elaine put her arms about her sister, cried a little, but
incongruously said, ‘Now I shall have Hughie all to myself. You have
James.’

“After goodbyes had been spoken, Elaine aboard and I just about to
step onto the deck of the lighter which was to carry us to the waiting
ship, my newly found brother-in-law whispered in my ear while holding
my hand, ‘Anoo ye’ll ken why Alix canna gae. Ye’ll hae a neephe an ye
return.’”

One of McFarlane’s injunctions laid when he knew I was going back to
Canada was that I should immediately seek out John Blank, get his
full history and relay it to him promptly. We had all settled on the
theory that Blank had been able to project his thoughts through space
into the mind of Elaine who automatically transcribed them. This
theory was strengthened when Elaine informed us that she had discarded
the planchette and wrote just as easily without it, but always in a
handwriting different from hers.

“The sea took its toll of both Elaine and myself. We were rejoiced
after the long voyage to find ourselves with our two small traveling
trunks at the station where fifteen years before I first saw a
locomotive. A carriage and an express wagon conveyed us clear across
the old-time swamp to Verde Island. A new corduroy road, while rather
uncomfortable, was much better than walking.

“Big Beaver, a shriveled old Indian then, and he is alive yet, deigned
to take my hand, said ‘How’ and grimaced, one could scarcely call it
smiled, at Elaine.

“When well out in the river in the same canoe that had brought
McFarlane and his sad tidings to us, Beaver said, ‘Where other girl?’

“I told him about Alix and McFarlane, also who Elaine was, but it is
difficult to say whether or not an Indian is interested. Beaver merely
grunted and when we reached a point in the river where Elaine first saw
the old pile of stone here, the Indian said, ‘She tip,’ as the child
jumped to her feet with an ‘Oh, oh, that’s beautiful. I’ll never leave
that wonderful fairy castle.’

“I told her to sit quietly or we would never reach it.

“Micklejohn was awaiting us, big, kindly, raw-boned fellow that he was.
He sleeps beside Hallowed over on the ‘burnt hill,’ as we call it,
drowned in a dare-devil attempt to shoot the rapids below the village.

“I missed Hallowed, felt sad, but Elaine’s gladness cheered me. She was
all over the house during the first few days; explored from cellar to
garret, had to have explained how the water that comes out of the rock
under the kitchen in a big stream is pumped by its own force through
the use of an engine called a ‘ram’ set away back in a rock chamber.
The water is raised to the stone tower on the west of the house and
from there flows with some force throughout the whole place including
the garden and stables.

“On making an inspection of the vaults in which vegetables and fruit
were stored, the third day after our arrival, I heard voices in the
vault in which father kept his private boxes and papers and on looking
in, found Elaine, the cook and the housemaid before the door of the
inner vault which father had always kept locked. The cook had inserted
the hooked end of the grate poker into a hole where a big brass bolt
had served as a handle in pulling the massive stone door open.

“‘What is in here, Hugh?’ Elaine asked.

“I told her of its previous use and that it was empty and Micklejohn
who was with me explained that he had found the lock broken but sprung;
he had endeavored to get the door open and failed. The bolt had been
removed, in the belief that by putting a hook through to the inside the
lock could be forced, but the bolt went in only about six inches and
the door was a foot thick. Elaine appropriated this vault as her own
because of the inner door being closed.

“Hallowed had added at least two hundred acres to the cleared land.
There was quite a sum to my credit in the bank at Valleyford and over
a thousand dollars in currency in the oak chest.

“My first work was in identifying myself at the bank, accomplished
without difficulty.

“A week from the day I reached home I started in to comply with
McFarlane’s injunction to interview John Blank.

“I took the small canoe one afternoon and found my way through the back
channel to Blank’s landing, somewhat in need of repair; walked slowly
through the deep shade of the ash swamp and up through the rows of
currant bushes, thinking how I would be met by the unfortunate man and
the kindly wife and of what he would say to me.

“I intended asking all about his wonderful gift of thought transference.

“The house had that deserted appearance which chills the blood. I
rapped on the door several times, called, ‘Mr. Blank.’

“Not a sound. Somewhere out on the river a loon sent up its lonesome
cry. It threatened rain. After a time I tried to open the door.
Something held it firm. The window--I could see that a hickory peg
slipped through a hole in the sash into the jamb, secured it. Finally
I broke one of the small panes of glass, slipped my arm in and pulled
the peg. I called again through the open pane. The door and window,
being fastened from the inside, added to my conviction that the man was
there, perhaps very ill, so I pushed open the window and managed to
crawl through, letting it slip down into place as quietly as possible,
though it made a disquieting noise.

“The day was cloudy and though the room where I had once sat with Mr.
and Mrs. Blank at dinner was in order, the light was dim. I felt like
a burglar, called a couple of times, then opened the door of the south
room where you found Haig.”

Here Hugh stopped, looked at Elaine, who had been quietly sleeping
for some time, looked at me, shifted his sister to a more comfortable
position. I merely nodded and Hugh continued.

“There was nothing but the little white dresser, bed and blue furniture
there. Then I lifted the latch of the north room door. It was fastened
from the inside. Placing a chair against the door I stood upon it and
looked over the top of the partition; a long, square cornered box
of cedar was on the floor, a small pine box, open and half full of
something white resembling in the dim light flour or chalk stood close
beside it and there was some of the white substance on the floor. The
braided wool mat was covered with it. Otherwise the room was in order,
the bed ‘made up.’

“Nobody was in the house. I was about to withdraw, had even thought
of the note of apology for housebreaking that I should leave with an
invitation to come to the Hall, when my eye caught a piece of white
paper tacked onto the top of the chest.

“I swung over the partition and landed almost atop the small box. On
the card, tacked at its four corners, I found written:

  JOHN BLANK

and underneath was the verse which you read on his tombstone the day
we met. On a folded sheet of paper, slipped partially under the tacked
card was written in bold though cramped handwriting,

“‘Life is intolerable, sleep the only solace. There is no God of
mercy, my life is proof positive. No more sorrow, no more yearning,
only sleep. Why not sleep? This is my will and testament that all I
possess shall be the property of one Hugh Craighead of Edinburgh,
Scotland. I make no conditions but pray that he may make use of his
vast inheritance in searching prisons for the unhappy victims of
circumstances such as I, that they may have wrongs righted. Stranger,
show mercy in death to one to whom mercy in life has never been shown.
Bury me as I am.’

“I never was a coward, yet some feeling other than horror took
possession of me. I unbolted the bedroom door, fled across the outer
room, raised the bar and swung the front door wide; getting outside was
my first thought, for I did not doubt that the body of Blank was in the
big chest and the thought unmanned me.

“A thin misty rain was falling, but I sat head in hands on a crude seat
fashioned from a section of a tree, unmindful; anything was better than
this horrible house.

“My inheritance. The pity of it, the poor fellow giving all he had to
the boy who had not repulsed him, the deformed.

“Then came unworthy thoughts. If a body was in that box, it could not
be that of Blank for Elaine had caught his thought message. The message
had said he was right there in Edinburgh. Probably he was there now,
certainly this house had been closed for some weeks. The dust on my
clothing attested this, but why this mockery, a hoax. I should find
nothing alarming in the chest.

“I applied a match to the carefully trimmed wick of a tallow dip
sitting on the table, walked boldly into the room, examined the white
substance. It was lime, but that spoke nothing. I took hold of the top
of the chest, seemingly a loose lid as it overlapped the lower box,
raised it while standing at the south end, perhaps a foot, then dropped
it quickly, reeled from the room, ran from the house down through the
garden and was in my canoe before I remembered the door. It was open.

“Had the house been afire--perhaps it was as I had left the light on
the little stand--I could not have forced myself back.

“As I paddled my canoe over the long four miles through the quietly
falling rain, night came and with it a sense of my responsibility as a
citizen. The coroner must come. I must again see this awful evidence
of a tragedy. Who but I, last in the thoughts of this man, should see
his earthly house decently interred; but Elaine’s happiness must not
be encroached upon. I must ride to the village. Lindsay would not do.
Elaine must be made to think I had an urgent call, a veterinary for one
of the horses; no, one of the men could go for such a thing as that;
the night was bad; I had it--Smith up the river road had sent an Indian
for me. Elaine did not know of my visit to the Blank place, otherwise
she would have insisted upon accompanying me.

“I found my little sister asleep on a divan, looking unusually pale; a
book, the family Bible, was on the floor. There was also a couple of
small sheets of my mother’s writing paper there and a pencil beside her
hand. The paper was covered with that peculiar, perpendicular writing
which I had not seen since we left Edinburgh. Hard to decipher but
finally after repairing to my lighted room I traced the words: ‘Hugh
must respect my request.’

“Another line, ‘He will know. Hugh must keep secret.’

“I did not attempt to read further but returned at once to Elaine’s
room and quietly shook her. Wide-awake and wild-eyed she looked at me
a second, then exclaimed, ‘My, what a terrible dream! Why should he
follow me here?’

“Gently I put an arm about her; told her she must stay out in the
open air more. She replied, ‘I was out in the woods, just before the
mist became rain. I was enjoying the quiet and the damp smell, when
a feeling that I must return to the house came over me. I thought
something might have happened to you, but when I reached my room I
knew--you know the rest Hughie--and he seemed so anxious. The words
just came into my head, repeated over and over. Don’t you see, Hughie,
that the writing is just like that through the planchette? What is it?
What does it all mean?’

“‘Just a troublesome dream, child,’ was all I could say. I told her I
must ride up to Smith’s on some urgent call or he would not have sent
for me, sent the maid to her room and, supperless, rode out through the
dark woods.

“That was a long, hard ride. Village lights looked good when I reached
the top of the last hill. My thoughts had not been friendly companions.
I was disobeying a written request of the dead and Elaine’s writings
troubled me. Somehow in the light of events, thought transference did
not fit. The man, John Blank, was dead, had been, to my thinking, dead
for weeks. I could not fathom it.

“I sought out the doctor who served as coroner. He listened in silence
to my story, then went to a cupboard in the corner of the office, took
out a bottle, poured two generous portions of the contents, handed one
glass to me saying, ‘Take another drink, young man, ’twill clear your
brain,’ adding after he had swallowed the entire contents of his glass,
‘Damn me if I believe a word of it; how could a man murder himself and
put the body in a coffin? Put that under your belt and you’ll feel
better.’

“Alcohol and I were almost strangers but I took the doctor’s advice and
drank most of the stuff. Scotch, he called it. The result was I heard
the doctor’s voice as though from a distance saying that Sandy Campbell
said that while hunting he had once seen Blank on the river, that some
years ago somebody had said in the post office that he had seen Blank
and a woman taking a train at Beauville, but he, the doctor-coroner,
had never set eyes on him, did not really believe the county harbored
such a person.

“‘Why, he must have been either a ticket-of-leave man or an escaped
criminal.’

“Vaguely I gleaned that the doctor with some villagers would come to
the Hall on the morrow, take boats and hold an inquest, should he find
that I was sane and had seen what I stated.

“Long after midnight I aroused a stable boy to care for my horse.
The road home was heavy but the rain had ceased falling. I came in
through the orchard way, slipped quietly into Elaine’s room, found
her sleeping like a baby and retired, wondering if I had done right in
summoning the official or if I should not rather have taken a spade,
dug a grave and covered from an unsympathetic world all that was left
of my friend John Blank.

“They came next day about eleven o’clock, a joking, inquisitive lot.
None had ever seen Craighead Hall. My father always stood aloof from
the people of the village and township. To a man these seven were
silenced when ushered through the front door. I felt a pang of regret.
Father would have dined these yokels in the servants’ hall instead of
here. To carry out the deception which I had practised on Elaine, we
took fishing tackle in the boats. Micklejohn, I took into my confidence
and he accompanied the jury with the doctor and myself.

“The door stood ajar as when I had fled Blank’s house. The air was less
oppressive than when I had entered the day before. The tallow dip,
exhausted of fuel, had harmlessly burned the wick and gone out.

“The coroner, erstwhile jocular and careless, became now the public
officer, swore his jury of six, examined the room thoroughly, felt the
lime in the box, rubbed it between finger and thumb, lifted, as I had,
the box lid and closed it as quickly. The box was carried by the six
men and placed on the dining table.

“When the jury was seated, I read the letter, then made a plea that its
request be heeded and that no further examination be made. I identified
the body as that of John Blank. The old doctor merely shook his head,
removed the lid of the chest and I turned my back and looked out the
window through the long rows of current bushes down to the dismal
black ash swamp and thought of the dead years that had passed since my
memorable evening as a guest in this place.

“‘Ingenious’ the coroner called it, could one believe the evidence of
one’s eyes. Could any man deliberately prepare in this way to cut the
thread of life, fashion out a box, fill it with quicklime, pile it over
his person, keep at his side enough to fill out the spaces, leaving
only a hand and face clear? The cover was doubtless kept up at the
end where the head rested through the use of a neatly fashioned prop,
fitting into a slight groove in the top of the right side of the box.
A slight jar only was necessary to dislodge the prop permitting the
cover to close down into place. The verdict was suicide by the taking
of cyanide of potassium.

“Inwardly I mentally apologized; the villagers were after all, kindly
fellows, sobered and shocked. They volunteered aid in taking the body
away from this almost inaccessible spot. Micklejohn and I led the sad
procession of canoes homeward and we carried with us in our canoe all
that was mortal of one of God’s creatures who was glad to exchange the
certainties of life for the unknown beyond.

“We did not go near the Hall. With the aid of the young men, we
conveyed the remains to the little church on the main road, got the
sexton to open the church door, but could not arrange for a plot of
ground for burial.

“Next day by appointment the six young men met us and for the first
time I learned that God frowns on a suicide and that the sacred
half-acre could not be his resting place. Indignant, I sought among
the curious onlookers who had sprung from nowhere apparently, for the
owner of the land adjoining the little cemetery, and pressing on him a
banknote of such size that cupidity overcame disinclination, I secured
the little six by ten plot where you found me. I declined the aid of
the minister; helped dig the grave and without so much as a prayer laid
to rest the stranger whose life was a living death, to whom death in a
terrible form came as a relief.

“I wrote McFarlane details of the matter, visited the county seat and
found that the government had never given title to the Blank place.
Through purchase I added over a thousand acres, good and bad, to my
estate.

“In due season a letter came from McFarlane urging me to comply with
Blank’s request--fit up the farm as a refuge, apply my talent as a
barrister, he called it, in releasing prisoners unjustly or overly
punished--and enclosing a £5,000 draft.

“I filled out the Craighead estate to its present proportions and while
at the village one day purchasing material for the building of the
surrounding fence, I sat in court and heard Haig and his companions
sentenced. This decided me. I worked on Haig’s case first, but
fruitlessly, until justice as the Canadians see it, was satisfied.

“Many sad cases came to my attention. In five years I have given aid
to nearly two hundred unfortunates. Some day the province will be
moved to a sense of justice and we shall have a commission carrying
on the work on a large scale. My work is insignificant. I must see
our representative soon and secure his aid in the next sitting of
Parliament.”

Hugh interrupted his story here to look at Elaine who had moved
uneasily and said, “Gordon, this child is more to me than sister. She
seems to like you. Can’t you manage to spend the fall and winter with
us?”

My heart seemed to stop functioning. “This is my opportunity,”
flashed through my brain, but the struggle for speech was apparently
so strenuous that it attracted from Hugh a surprised glance at me.
Haltingly I answered, “Nothing would please me better, provided my firm
will let me off. They certainly sent me on a wild goose chase. Hogarth
seems to have vanished into thin air from here and he stayed here only
one afternoon.”

“Perhaps if you arranged to spend a few months at the Hall you might
by visiting the neighboring villages and railway points, even going to
Montreal and Quebec, our foreign shipping ports, find some trace of the
man. He certainly would eventually return to England,” Hugh said, then
added, “I must get this youngster to bed. Fong has peeked in here twice
to see what has become of his charge.”

I offered to assist, but without knowing just how. Hugh,
frail-appearing, just picked her up in his arms, saying, “I shall be
back,” opened the panel and disappeared.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER IX


I solved the mystery of the opening of the sliding door while Hugh was
absent. As he had not used his hands, I tried out treading on different
spots on a Persian rug lying in front of where the panel opened and
was startled on planting my toe firmly on a tree pattern on the right
hand side to see the wall glide to the right in front of me. Instantly
removing the pressure, the panel slipped back into place but not before
I had glimpsed in the shadows of the staircase the form of a man, dim,
merely an outline, but certainly it was a man’s outline and nobody was
there when Hugh had gone up those stairs a few moments ago.

I was feeling for the particular spot on the tree pattern rug when
Hugh opened the door of the library, evidently having used the front
stairway. “You look startled,” he said as he came near where I was
standing looking at the wall.

“There’s a man in there,” I exclaimed. “I saw him when I stepped on the
rug and the panel opened.”

Hugh laid a hand on my shoulder and said in a quiet, even voice, “Don’t
let these apparitions worry you, my friend. They come and go, but they
can do you no harm. The dead roam at will. I have seen my father in
this room since my return but have never had a word from him.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes; Hugh deliberately filled his pipe.
He had not smoked while Elaine was with us. I watched him spread the
mouth of a deerskin tobacco bag, pour tobacco into the palm of his left
hand, roll it, then fill a large English briar pipe.

“My father’s,” he said, holding up the pipe before applying a match
which gave out a blue flame as the sulphur burned. “Often I have
watched father sit here and fill this pipe; he would sit for hours
after mother retired and seldom spoke.”

“Do you favor him or your mother?” I asked.

“My mother,” he replied. “I have none of his features. He had a
hawk’s beak of a nose and the high cheek-bones of a Scot. Mother sang
beautifully.”

There came a silence, then Hugh resumed reminiscently, “Father used to
sing a doleful little song to us children. It ran thus,” and Hugh, in a
deep low voice false in tone, sang,

  “‘_There was a little dog and his name was Bopeep,
     He waded in the waters so deep, deep, deep.
     He climbed up the mountains so high, high, high,
     And the poor little doggie had only one eye!_’

“That’s the only song I ever heard father sing,” Hugh said, “but let
me relieve your mind. I see you eyeing the panel,” and he walked over
to the wall and the panel opened wide. There was nothing there but the
little square at the foot of a stair going up to the right from the
opening. Closing the panel, Hugh said, while resuming his seat, “Nature
is peculiar. There is nothing between us in life and those whom we
call the dead. People talk about a veil, as though a gauze, something,
hung between. We make our own veil; we living ones; the other fellow
can see us but we interpose the flesh, the earthly, the human part of
us between our subconscious self, our silent guest, and the living
entities who choose to make our home theirs,” adding, “Do you know,
Gordon, the heathen Japs, the Shintoists who place food with their
dead are nearer the truth than we Christians? We call them forefather
worshippers. Nonsense! They venerate the spirit of their fathers,
recognizing their existence.”

“What about food placed on graves?” I asked.

“Not without reason,” Hugh replied, “A reborn spirit carries with it
enough of the fleshly life to set up a desire for sustenance; the
emanations from food are sufficient, the use of the food itself is not
expected. Many an old skinflint who has during his life grudgingly
given of his plenty for the support of proselyting missionaries to
Japan and China will have a great shock when the doctor has made his
last guess and the minister has said his last prayer and he awakens
to things as they are and many such fellows will try to find a medium
through which he may warn his pet heir not to follow in his foolish
footsteps, and squander his patrimony. Much better to use that money
helping the unfortunates all about him,” Hugh added.

“Shall we retire or do you wish me to go on with our history?” Hugh
asked.

“I could not possibly sleep a wink. Go ahead, you were telling me about
hearing Haig sentenced and taking up your present work,” I responded.

“Well,” Hugh commenced, “you of the city may wonder what there was for
a girl of fifteen and a man grown, to interest them. Our servants fled
when the nature of our ‘guests’ became known. The white-haired man,
Stanton, was the first to come. Others followed. The cook and the maid
quit as did gradually many of the farm hands. The ‘guests’ replaced
them until after Micklejohn’s untimely death almost every member of my
household, if I may so term them, was an ex-convict.

“Did that alarm Elaine? No indeed. She and I enjoyed life in our own
way. We canoed, fished, hunted. Many a bear and wolf has fallen to her
rifle and the killing of our most dangerous pest, the wily lynx, was
our greatest adventure. The wolves often chased deer across the ice to
the great tamarack swamp up the river and we acquired many a wolf pelt
in the deer path. Fall, with the whole river a sheet of glass before
the snow came, found both of us skating for miles, exploring shorelines
up to where the rapids made the ice dangerous and down seven miles to
the rapids below us. We heard from Alix and McFarlane and in due time
came news of a Hugh McFarlane, the promised nephew.

“Constant exercise, pleasurable yet hard, toughened both my sister and
myself. Neither of us knew fear though wild animals abounded, many like
the gray wolf and the lynx, dangerous.

“In the fall of our second year here, a matter of land title took me to
Cobourg. The journey was shortened many miles through the use of the
river road instead of the main thoroughfare through Valleyford, but
night travel over the short cut was not safe. I thought to try it once
as I wished to make home that night. There was no moon; no road, merely
a bridle-path, but my mare was surefooted and we were within four miles
of home before I heard anything worse than a wolf howl and the cry of
lynx at a distance.

“Something told me to turn in at the Smith cabin about five miles up
the river, but I had promised Elaine that I would return that night, so
I rode on into a stretch of dense timber where objects at arm’s length
were undiscernible and I knew this particular stretch of wood as the
haunt of numerous lynx. I was unarmed, except for a riding crop.

“Cries like those of an infant in pain came from a point just passed,
then an answer from directly ahead. My mare stopped short in her rapid
walk, snorted and sprang sidewise, almost unseating me. At the same
instant a great bulk catapulted from the limb of a tree overhead,
alighting on the mare’s back just behind me. I could feel the horse
flesh under me wince and in the same split second came a terrific shock
from right shoulder to hip. The right hip was thrown up in my effort to
retain my saddle when my mount had jumped to the right and the teeth
of the brute had evidently missed a vital part as I could feel them
tear through my flesh as the mare pivoted, again to the right, throwing
the beast off and I lay low on her neck as she ran madly back over
the road, dark as a pocket, through which we had just picked our way
carefully.

“The whole misadventure happened in less time than it takes to tell of
it and in a few minutes I found myself at the door of Smith’s cabin,
nearly a mile from the place of the accident; even before I half fell
from the saddle I felt faint but attributed the feeling to excitement,
but as I staggered to the cabin door I realized that my boot was full
of blood and that I must have help quickly.

“Smith opened the door as my hand reached it and I fell in, knocking
a rifle from the hands of my host. You must know, Gordon, that my
neighbors were always afraid of my ex-convict ‘guests.’ They could not
believe in the harmlessness of the poor broken fellows.

“‘A bad tear’ Smith called my wound. The paw of the lynx had scored me
deeply from shoulder to thigh; that was nothing. The animal’s teeth had
sunk to the bone of the right thigh and had torn clean out through the
flesh and clothing and the rough surgery of my kindly neighbor did not
effectually stop the loss of blood.

“I wished to take a lantern and get on home in some way, but Smith
bound me so tightly in strips torn from his cotton sheets that I could
not move; while I slept and before dawn the good fellow rode my mare to
the Hall and I awoke to find a couple of men standing over me in the
little one-roomed cabin.

“I had to be carried to the creek where two of my men in a canoe met us.

“I am telling you of this incident, Gordon, as it marked a new phase in
our lives at the Hall.

“The men carried me to my room; I marveled that Elaine was not about,
though Micklejohn said they had not disturbed her. One maid was still
with us. I had her summoned and sent her to Elaine to say that I was
home, had been detained through a slight accident but was all right.

“The maid returned, wild-eyed, saying the Miss was lying on the floor
with a lot of letters scattered about and could not be awakened. With
the maid’s help I got to Elaine’s room and fainted from pain and
weakness.

“There the doctor found us and I shall never forget the shocked look
in my sister’s eyes as she saw my ensanguined garments. The doctor had
ministered only to me. She awoke as though from a troubled sleep, gave
a little cry, pillowed my head in her lap and said, ‘I know all about
it, Hughie. It is all written there. John Blank told me about your
accident; that you were at the Smith cabin and a lot of other things
before that. We must look into this thing when you are well, Hughie.’

“I shall never forget that morning, Gordon. The mystery of the thing
overpowered me. You must remember that Elaine had had, subsequent to
the date of his body’s burial, no message from Blank.”

As Hugh got to this point the clock in the great hall boomed the hour
of midnight.

“Shall we woo the gentle goddess Nephe?” Hugh said quietly. “I do not
feel like going further with my story tonight; merely thinking of my
lack of good sense during the days that followed will keep me awake for
hours.”

I breakfasted in my room, having learned from a silent young man, who
had evidently been awaiting my awakening from an eight-hour sleep that
“Mr. and Miss Craighead had arisen early and gone to inspect the work
being done on an outlying farm.”

I wrote my firm in Philadelphia asking for an indefinite leave of
absence, that “I might search the vicinity for trace of the missing
Hogarth.”

The truth is, however, that I wished an excuse to prolong my visit at
Craighead Hall. I even thought seriously of tendering my resignation
and offering Craighead my services for what they might be worth. The
work was to my liking but I knew while I wrote and reflected that I
was lying to myself; that my great desire to stay on at Craighead Hall
was actuated by one and only one thought--and I could not under any
circumstances put that thought into words until I was better known to
both Hugh and Elaine.

At dinner that evening I heard about the new house on a farm, a mile
or was it two or more miles away? My thoughts were not on farms and
improvements. Could it be possible that the animated girl sitting
opposite me had any affliction--certainly she showed no traces--seemed
much interested in every subject under discussion and expressed genuine
pleasure when I told of writing for a prolonged leave of absence from
my office.

“We shall have lots of fun gathering the annual crop of hazelnuts from
the plains up the river, and I know you will enjoy skating when the
ice first forms, it is so thrilling to feel it bend underfoot, though
it is quite safe,” Elaine remarked and Hugh said, “Gordon, I wish you
would consider seriously a proposition to become a member of the firm
of Craighead and Montrose, two Scots, good and true, though Scotch
people say I am more English than Scotch in my tastes and manners.”

I answered that it would be difficult to drive me away just now
and I ventured a glance at Elaine, alas, unconscious of my real
meaning--though she did look at me slightly quizzically. I took it that
she thought my remark merely politeness.

I expressed a desire that Hugh should continue his story.

Hugh looked at his sister saying, “Suppose we walk down by the river,
the evening is so glorious. Will you come along, Elaine?”

“Thank you, no,” Elaine said. “I must finish some sewing,” and
turning to me, “You see, Gordon, young ladies must dress even in the
wilderness. I think Fong is going to prove a good seamstress,” and
curtseying in an old-fashioned way, as children sometimes do even
today, she blew a kiss to Hugh and ran lightly up the path to the
house. We had been dining in the little bower in the orchard.

Hugh sent the man in for topcoats and presently we were at the pier. I
suggested a quiet canoe ride and that I should wield the paddle. Hugh
reclined on cushions forward. His eyes seemed to be searching out some
spot in the starry heavens. Perhaps they saw nothing.

We were on a lake of glass; the night was warm for September. Our house
lights had disappeared. It was as though there were no other of God’s
creatures within a thousand miles.

Silence intense; the canoe drifted; I was startled when I heard Hugh
say, evidently soliloquizing:

“Guests star-scattered on the grass--the atheistic tent-maker. He
believed and yet did not believe. Like all of us, his naturally
searching soul was shackled through involuntary absorption of false
interpretations of truths revealed, given cryptically, grudgingly it
seems, as though the intention is that we shall use our own God-given
intelligence; we must choose at the crossroads. Others may not furnish
the finger-boards, though that is just what our numerous creedists are
doing and what they were doing for old Omar. Graves arranged in the
order of the constellations. What we term religion is probably co-eval
with thinking man, yet how many different gestures we find in an
identical purpose, worship of God.

“Why should a Being Supreme demand worship--the thought implies a
weakness in the all-strong. Laws, by whomsoever or by whatsoever Ruler
or Force, laws under which man was brought from the lower form to his
present estate, tried and not found wanting, demand respect, obedience,
but servility--no! such a thought is repugnant. Perhaps old Moses
slipped in the little line anent ‘bowing down and worshipping’ during
the darkness between electric flashes on Sinai, just to make his own
task easier. The Israelites of the Exodus differed little from the
masses of religionists of today. They required a good scare to keep
them in line.”

Hugh suddenly sat upright and addressed me.

“Gordon, I am going to tell you a strange story--the real history of
John Blank, covering a decade or more of his life. The terrible method
adopted in his passing out and the mental anguish entailed in the
contemplation are as nothing compared with the man’s sufferings during
the period which I shall cover. Every word that I shall say to you I
implicitly believe and so will you, Gordon, when I tell you how the
story came to me.

“The wound made by the teeth of the lynx was slow in healing; it was
three months before I left my room. Those were momentous months.
Neither Elaine nor I knew that we were saddling upon her a burden
seemingly impossible of removal. We knew nothing about what is called a
medium--one through whose peculiarly attuned subconscious messages from
those known as the dead are transmitted to the living. We knew nothing
about the danger to the medium of the loss of his or her personality or
that reason itself is endangered through such practice. We learned in
time that the work affects the medium’s health distressingly but we
could not quit--every word of this history was written by Elaine while
under a mental stress which neither she nor I could explain.

“At first her appearance was merely such as undue excitement would
naturally produce. As the daily seances continued into weeks, months,
she gradually paled, faded, lost her appetite, her interest in
everything except this one obsession.

“The culmination was six months of serious illness, until spring came
and I carried her to this canoe and spent weeks, in fact, the whole
summer, in diverting her mind. Gradually youth won back; lapses were
infrequent, but, friend Gordon, she is still in danger and somehow I
feel that in sharing with you our troubles, we shall find relief--”

Hugh paused because I had impulsively reached forward and grasped
his hand, stammering, “With God’s help, Hugh, we shall save her--I
love her--give her to me. We can travel to cities where there must be
psychiatrists who have cured other cases.”

Hugh looked nonplussed.

“Gordon,” he said, taking my hand, “I never dreamed the slightest thing
about your caring for my little sister. She is only a child; have you
spoken to her?”

“Not a word; I would not dare, yet,” I replied, “I want your assent; I
shall stay here until I win her.”

Hugh made no reply for so long a period that I doubted the wisdom of
my impulsiveness. Then he said, “You know, Gordon, I am my sister’s
only guardian. I like you. I do not know much about you--but I like
you. You will not object to my investigating you. I have the means in
Philadelphia. Supposing we let it rest here.”

Then, after a pause, “I never thought about Elaine’s marrying--I shall
never marry. My chosen work shall be my spouse. Better not say anything
to Elaine. She likes you but I’ll warrant no thought of marriage has
ever entered her head.”

My reply was the answer of Jacob to his uncle Laban--“Seven years or
twice seven would be a short term to serve.”

Hugh said then, “You must hear Blank’s story. Elaine and I are, in some
way as yet unknown, involved. There is some connection as McFarlane
has urged further questioning--urged without knowing what it means to
Elaine; that we learn more of Blank’s early life--says it is important
to all of us--though I cannot conceive why.”

I replied to Hugh, “I shall be patient, and I shall not interrupt while
you proceed,” and Hugh lay back on the cushions and resumed his recital:

“My sister who always hated a lie, told me just after the surgeon had
left me, sewed, plastered and strapped, on my back in bed, that she was
sitting up awaiting my return from Cobourg when she became possessed
with a desire to write a message that repeated itself in her brain; she
was in her room, her account-book was at hand. You see she was trying
to become of use to me in the handling of the place.

“The first message she involuntarily wrote was, ‘Hugh is at the Smith
cabin and will not be home tonight.’

“She said she cried aloud, ‘Why?’ and into her brain one word at a
time came the answer, she received just as a stenographer receives
dictation, without knowing the full message until she had written:

“‘Hugh has met with an accident, not serious, will not be home tonight.’

“Remember my sister knew at the time that John Blank was dead but we
had not reasoned as to date or thought about the message that came the
day I found his body.

“Elaine said she talked with John Blank; wrote the incredible
information that he had been with me in the woods--had been with me all
day; had endeavored to influence me to stop at the Smith place before
entering the wood; could not get the warning message to me; that had
she been with me he could have told her--every detail of the incident
in the inky darkness was there before me, written in that peculiar
vertical-stroke writing.

“Some of the messages were repeated and Elaine wrote in for me the
questions asked. I was convinced. No person on earth could have been
privy to the circumstances set forth; in fact, I could not have
furnished details more exactly.

“Elaine had slept through sheer exhaustion. At daybreak she had
awakened, excitedly re-read the messages, seized paper and pencil and
feeling weak, returned to her bed, called aloud, ‘Mr. Blank, are you
here?’

“Promptly the pencil wrote, ‘Yes,’ and circled in a score of minute
circles, then wrote, ‘All is well.’

“A sort of obligation, a relationship into which gratitude entered
largely, established itself in Elaine. She had lost all embarrassment
at questioning aloud and seemed to regard her correspondent as somebody
really existing.

“Elaine had drawn a couch to my bedside on the following evening and
while again reading the messages, suggested that she get in touch with
and ask Mr. Blank any questions I wished to propound. The minx had
paper and pencil with her and asked, at my suggestion, ‘How were you
mutilated?’

“The pencil wrote, ‘The events were too terrible.’

“From that moment I urged Elaine to get his history and before we
realized it, hours had passed. Strange things were being set forth
on the many sheets of paper that fell from the hands of Elaine. As
darkness clouded my bedroom I thought I could see behind Elaine a
shadowy form. My mind pictured John Blank as I had seen him in the
flesh; but there was no repugnant feeling for the distorted, mutilated
face. I felt only a great surge of pity, even though I did not know at
that time all that had been written.

“We both became absorbed in the story as it unfolded and I feel shame
in saying that I failed to interrupt as my sister’s face became drawn
and colorless. She worked until exhausted and slept or at least seemed
to sleep. I also slept, I think with the aid of the drug administered
by the surgeon.

“For weeks this was repeated until we had the entire story and I
laboriously wrote it out for transmission to McFarlane while still
confined to my bed.”

Hugh sat up in the canoe and looked shoreward.

“We have drifted past the landing,” he said, and I took up my paddle
and turned the boat about.

“Shall we go in? I’m afraid my sister may be waiting for us,” and as I
gently propelled the light little craft upstream, Hugh mused, rather
than spoke to me, “The living dead do not seem to differ much from the
living. They seem to hold on to what we regard as the shortcomings of
the flesh--even to a show of cunning in evading questions which they
do not or cannot answer; in short they are just what they were in
the body--no better, no worse--but with the ability, apparently, of
moving with the velocity of light or electricity. It would appear that
we are, dead, of the same mental calibre as when living, apparently
a little more subdued, a little awed, as though aware of a loss of
something possessed when alive in the flesh.

“There was nothing assertive, nothing to indicate a greater nobility
such as we are accustomed to attributing to our dead throughout Blank’s
recital of his misfortunes. This case may be exceptional; the man was a
suicide and this has been my only experience. I may err in estimating
the changes ordained by nature for every living creature. There are,
doubtless, degrees of intelligence and perhaps station.”

As the boat quietly glided alongside the pier, Elaine, with a cheery
hallo of welcome, came running down the parkway from the house and
walked between Hugh and myself. I could feel the warmth of her body
as we strolled houseward, or was it the quickening of my own blood
circulation through accelerated heart-beats as I thought, “Now there is
another holding my secret.”

But Hugh gave no sign.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER X


I was awakened by the yelping of hounds; my windows, extending to the
floor, were open. As I stepped out onto the veranda in front, Elaine’s
silvery laugh floated up. I peered through the railing and backed into
my room for obvious reasons, not wishing to be seen, dressed as I was.

I had seen the young lady running down the pathway to the river with a
half-dozen of the long-eared, slack-lipped brown man-chasers bounding
about her. The dogs were evidently getting a scent from the blue jacket
which she carried in her hand, as during the momentary view which I
had, they started running ahead of her and the tone of each held a
different note from the yelp of play; a sinister sound meaning business
I determined, and I dressed hastily thinking something was amiss,
notwithstanding the evident cheerfulness of my little hostess.

The dogs had gone upshore, I was certain and as I reached the water’s
edge, I saw Elaine’s white dress a quarter of a mile away; its contrast
with the fringe of green spruce trees bordering the waterfront
rendered any mistake impossible. She was evidently standing still but I
could not make out what it was all about. I reached the point which I
had marked but she had vanished.

I stopped running as a most choice jumble of Pidgin English, Cantonese
and possibly other varieties of Chinese epithets met my ear.

In the precarious upper crotch of a wild cherry tree, looking down, his
usually sallow face empurpled, his eyes like twin moons at the full;
indignation, joy or fear, I could not determine which, was the moving
cause until it suddenly occurred to me that Fong’s little missie was
evidently having some sport at his expense.

Seriously I called, “What is the matter, Fong?”

“Mlatta, mlatta,” came irritably from the Chinaman, “Plitty soon mad
dogs eat this Chinaman plenty up.”

I asked where Miss Elaine had gone and Fong pointed out through the
spruce thicket, “Mlissie, dogs all gone same way; soon Fong come down,
Mlissie say,” and I gathered that the young lady was prone to amuse
herself as though no black cloud hung about. Youth irrepressible,
flaring up, had brought about Fong’s discomfiture.

He had depreciated the dogs’ ability--in his opinion their most useful
occupation was meat-eating and Elaine was proving him in error by
running him to cover and then she had called off the hunt and informed
Fong that he was at liberty after a half-hour or so.

Should I walk back with Fong or should I follow the little path through
the thicket and walk with Elaine? Was it timidity of the dogs? A
quarter-mile walk with her--it was worth the venture, though I doubted
not I stood a good chance of being eaten alive by the brute escort.
My hesitation was only momentary. I plunged into the dense fringe of
spruce and walking rapidly soon came out into a more open wood, where
hickory and butternut trees abounded.

She was on her knees before a great tangle of hazel bushes and I
stopped just for a second--“What shall I say or do?”

She arose, her white skirt gathered by her left hand into a receptacle
for the hazelnuts which she was gathering.

A little startled scream; the skirt fluttered from her fingers and the
gathered hazelnuts piled in a scattered heap on the ground.

“A thousand pardons--the picture was so charming--I’m sorry,” I
stammered.

The startled look left Elaine’s eyes.

“There,” she laughingly said, “You may retrieve my treasures. I had
just commenced picking. Did you see anything of poor Fong?”

“Yes,” I replied, “Up a tree.”

She laughed heartily, throwing her bare white arms up in an effort to
adjust some little strands of dark gold, disarranged in the flight
after the hounds.

“That China boy is a dear; he will never again doubt the usefulness of
my canine friends; was he still afraid?”

“Could not be persuaded to come down for half an hour.”

Then she said, “I hope I have not really alarmed him; let us return and
take him back to the Hall.”

I ventured a protest; could see my chances for a walk with her in the
balance. I was busily stuffing prickly husks into the patch-pockets of
my Norfolk when Elaine asked, “Why up so early this morning?”

It was not the words. Something in the quizzical tone, the look, the
thought that back of the question was an interest meant much at that
moment.

“Your laugh pulled me right across the veranda, over the rail, right
up to Fong’s perch,” I replied, and she said, archly, “Do I laugh so
rarely that it has such a terrible effect on our friends?”

Then she laughed gaily and for one glorious hour before we reached the
Hall I watched her every word and mood for indication of interest in me
or a motion that might be interpreted into something deeper than the
sentiment called friendship.

When we entered the house, loaded with floral trophies, wild and
tame, I was still wholly in the dark as to whether or not this girl
had ever given me a thought other than as a guest of her brother--her
brother--that was it; he seemed to be her great, her only interest--her
heart was his and no other man had as yet made even a dent in it--yet I
was not discouraged.

I decided I would spend the winter at Craighead Hall. My excellent
chances with my firm at home might go hang; for one hour,
responsibility was cast aside; there was for me only one desideratum.

That day and evening, Elaine was brilliant, joyful; her beautiful,
expressive eyes fairly danced. One could not bring oneself to believe
that she ever had a care or an anxious thought. I fervently offered a
silent supplication to the great God in heaven that she should always
be just as she was that night.

Under the wideflung branches of a lone giant maple atop the big hill to
the west, Hugh resumed his story.

Not a word had been spoken as we leisurely tramped up the river’s
edge, out through a fringe of woods, across a cultivated field, then
up, up by a zigzag pathway, little used, to the hill’s crest. Hugh
was unusually preoccupied; he walked the last stretch ahead of me and
seated himself on a bank of green. Pretty well winded by the climb, I
threw myself down a few feet from him.

Faintly then floated up to us the voices of rivermen in song. They were
taking in the booms used during high water when lumber drives were
floated down the river.

With chin resting on the palms of both hands and elbows on his knees,
Hugh sat pensively looking out across his demesne of field and forest
to where the castellated hall of the Craigheads, a set diamond in a
circle of greenery, gleamed white in the evening sunlight.

Suddenly he broke the silence.

“I do not wonder,” he said, “that my father objected to my reading
Voltaire. This is where I read _La Pucelle_--what a terrible impression
of the saintly Joan it leaves with you! What an egoist Voltaire was and
yet what a great mind! He thought independently, fearlessly. How he
ridiculed religion! His satire was cutting. Religion, a contradictory
emotion--dying, tortured, hundreds of thousands miserably perishing on
rack and in dungeon because of a belief.

“What do we Christians really believe? That God Almighty threw the
unlimited universe--or at least our solar system--out of gear that a
thieving band of unwashed nomads might have light for their massacre of
tens of thousands of women and innocent children?

“This is anthropomorphizing God with a vengeance, but the Israelite
could not look higher than the wandering old Arab Abraham or the
cunning Jacob, a wily trader, but God’s chosen who easily outwitted his
crafty uncle! That’s a long way back, Gordon, but the faith and the
trait survive--we need religion, ready-made. Hundreds of millions are
comforted by it, whether Christian, Mohammedan, Shinto, Buddhist or
Voodoo, and all, even you my friend, come within its control.

“What is your idea of God? For years I carried in my head the picture,
a woodcut of a stern-visaged old man with whiskers. I saw it in the
kirk at White’s Corners when a wee lad. I can see it even now, yes, and
hear the old dominie thunder out a denunciation of the ‘use of stringed
instruments.’

“Ezra was a plagiarist, Babylon, his birth-place, borrowed from the
Persian Vedas its story of Adamus and Procriti, antedating Moses
fifteen hundred years, and Ezra borrowed from Babylon to furnish a
beginning to our book of books on which all our hope of heaven is
founded. Borrowed its garden on the Tigris but shifted to a different
locale, characteristically purloining the snake, the tree and all,
but the versatile Babylonian Jew, contrary to the ancient Babylonian
teaching, made a transposition of personages; he pictured man in the
image of God instead of the reverse.

“I do not feel, Gordon, that Mr. Ezra improved things; I cannot
conceive of God as a man; that is debasing to a low level a Power--the
marvelous something ruling the limitless universe with its intelligent
laws. There is a Supreme Power. Call it God or Law, it is in every
soul, in every breath that sustains life and in every spirit even after
the great transformation.

“The old Persian version was better; man could draw his own picture,
make his God as beautiful, as sympathetic, as consoling as the case
demanded, but Ezra, abetted by Moses’ ideas, left us only the jealous,
vengeful Jehovah to appease and to worship through groveling. God is in
everything. The law plays no favorites; observance brings our meed of
happiness, health of mind and body; infraction brings the reverse.

“I wonder what unfortunate cross-current my poor friend Blank ran
counter to that he should have had such an existence on earth and yet
should find no happiness in the spirit.

“Gordon,” said Hugh, lying back on the grass, “The life history of
John Blank as revealed through his messages to Elaine is incomplete; I
can give you only that part of the picture showing him a man married
and having one child, a girl, two years of age. The canvas to the
left of this point is blank. Doubtless many incidents were scamped in
the fragmentary recital because our sessions--or shall we call them
seances--were necessarily interrupted for sleep and meals--details,
often amplifications, interested Elaine, who did most of the
questioning and, of course, all of the writing; consequently, I shall
tell you perhaps more than is necessary for the satisfying of your
curiosity as to how Blank was mutilated and how he happened to become
our neighbor.

“Elaine drew his tale from him reluctantly, it seemed to both of us,
because he told of his sufferings during days of recitals before we got
to the beginning of his troubles, but I have collated and arranged the
story in regular sequence as to time and events.

“Blank’s home was not many miles from Southampton, England. His
father had been a rich landowner; both father and mother dead, a
sister two years his junior, a wife and child as I have told you. He
was apprehended on the Strand in London and imprisoned, charged with
murder, would not admit his guilt, nor could Elaine or I obtain from
him a denial. He was tried in the Old Bailey, made no defense, his
counsel pled for mitigation and the judge sent him to Tasmania--he
called it Van Diemen’s Land--for life.

“After sentence, his mind benumbed, he found himself aboard the convict
ship Success. His cell was so small and crowded that he could scarcely
stand upright; a chain with a heavy iron ball was attached to his right
ankle. The night was cold and rainy and the ship tossed about as it
made its initial step in the long voyage half around the world.

“Insensibility mercifully blotted out his first agonies. Harsh voices
aroused him; dawn had come.

“‘Up on deck’ was the order and as the door of his den was thrown open
he gathered the ball and chain in his arms and joined a procession in
the enclosed way leading forward. On deck he stood in line watching in
horror the hideous work going on.

“A nauseous odor reached even down the companionway--burning flesh. He
could not appreciate that men could do such awful mischief to man. The
open deck was an inferno. Guards with cutlass and gun were all about.
Two furnaces, red-hot, were having thrust into them branding irons. Men
stripped to the waist were being thrown on the deck; irons were plucked
out of the furnaces glowing and pressed to the palm of the right hand
and to the back of each prostrate man, leaving a livid arrow where
white flesh had gleamed.

“Some screamed, many fainted, all were dragged to their feet, walked or
were carried forward.

“Blank’s time came; his coat, vest and shirt were torn off; even then
he did not appreciate that such indignity could be put upon him--him,
the scion of an honorable house, delicately reared, highly educated--he
was lying on his face; a blow behind the ear had ended an attempt to
resist; no feeling accompanied the burning.

“He found himself on the foredeck, still on his face, his back wet with
salt water which was being thrown indiscriminately on the score or
more victims lying near.

“Bread and water only were served him. On the third day out he was
again hustled on deck, a slip-noose passed around both wrists, then
drawn up to a triangle, and he was lashed with a cat-o’-nine-tails
until the blood ran down his back, then immersed in a tank of saltwater.

“He marveled that he stood a daily repetition of this scourging; tried
to die as he saw many a strong man succumb, the body being pitched
overboard. Sharks followed the ship on its tedious voyage and few days
passed without the consignment of some fortunate to their mercy. The
flogging was a regulation; it was imposed on all life prisoners.

“Six months or so later, the prisoner who had, from a wish to die,
passed to a hunger to kill, locked in his filthy den with three others,
felt the ship come to anchor.

“Hours later he heard the voices of his brutal keepers ordering all
men to line up for debarkation. His door was thrown open. Both hands
carried the thirty-pound ball as he stepped into line upon deck, over
the ship’s side--the earth again underfoot.

“Then between files of guards, a wabbling march, legs refusing to
properly function.

“The march seemed endless. Then through a postern, a large yard, into a
gloomy hall, when nature defaulted and he sank to the stone floor.

“Dimly he could feel lashes applied to his back, but all sense of
suffering was absent. He revived to find himself in a stone cell, a
plank for a bed, though he was then on the floor. A window, barred,
but at least twelve feet from the floor, threw a dim slanting light on
the cold gray wall. This was home--a six by eight room, but Paradise
compared with the cell on the ‘Success.’

“An officer with two subalterns stood in the cell; one had a book, the
other a gun and sword. As Blank endeavored to arise, the officer said,
‘Name and previous station.’

“‘John Blank--’ was as far as he got, and the name was so recorded. He
fainted through pain and weakness.

“Days of stupor followed but after a time he took his place with the
other convicts on the stone pile with a hammer; guards all about, ever
watching for an infraction of regulations; ever ready to lash out with
a heavy black bull hide whip if labor was not incessant, or if one
convict as much as exchanged a sign with another.

“Month after month of this until, his health restored, his vigor
regained, he commenced to entertain thoughts of escape.

“One day a convict near Blank, while working with head bowed over his
pile of stone whispered, ‘My last week; I sail on the next boat.’

“Blank whispered back, ‘£1,000 if you will take a message to my
sister,’ at the same time looking involuntarily toward his neighbor.

“A guard back of them plied his whip over both backs.

“A flat piece of stone was the medium of communication. Secreting it in
his clothing, he managed, while in his cell by the use of the tongue on
his belt-buckle to scratch on the stone, ‘Pay £1,000, Bring ship,’ and
his sister’s address.

“Hiding the stone, he managed to slip it to the other convict while in
the yard, but in so doing, lost his place in the line. A guard noticed
his effort to regain his assigned position and he drew a month at
the barrow transferring crushed stone. Dozens of other convicts were
similarly punished for slight infractions of prison rules.

“For a month at a stretch, then back to breaking stone, then for
another month, he made one of six men to strain on a tread-wheel used
to turn the gears of a mill, walked hundreds of miles without advancing
three feet because he answered in kind when called an offensive name by
a guard.

“The work in six-hour stretches toughened and the better fitted him for
the enterprise always in his mind--escape at any risk. The thought of
escape kept him alive.

“Six months passed with no sign from his sister. One day while working
in the woods he overheard two guards discussing the arrival of a
strange ship bound for Australia, blown out of her course. She had
taken on fresh water, but after staying in port until ordered out, she
continued to cruise back and forth within view of shore.

“Blank dragged the thirty-pound ball attached to his ankle nearer
and nearer to the fringe of woods, ostensibly to roll out cut logs
just felled. Suddenly he picked up the ball and made a dash into the
thicket. A bullet stung his shoulder but he ran for an hour, ran until,
through loss of blood, he became faint, halted to staunch the blood
flow and heard the baying of hounds. He brained one of the dogs with
the cant-hook which he still carried but the balance of the pack had
him on his back in a moment.

“Next morning, trussed up to a triangle in the jail enclosure, with
two hundred prisoners looking on, he received forty lashes from a
cat-o’-nine-tails and scarcely felt any pain when a guard passed a
lancet down the left side of his head, completely shearing off his ear.

“Days unrecorded and without care, for hope had fled, passed in a dark
cell, then one day he was driven, chained in a gang of six, away from
the prison. Whisperings in prison told of a terrible place from which
there was no chance of escape.

“There was a narrow spit of land jutting out into the ocean, a neck
about one hundred and fifty yards across guarded by a barracks house,
two smaller guard-houses, all of stone and beyond, chained so that
their muzzles almost met, were two rows of ferocious dogs--bull and
mastiff.

“The prisoners were marched through a gate between the buildings, the
dogs were held back and Blank found himself one of a company of perhaps
one hundred men all of whom had lost one or both ears; still carrying
the iron ball, but free to mingle with his miserable companions.

“The freedom of the open space was a joy; no restraint as to speaking.
The retreat was safe--man-eating sharks infested the water on all
sides and there was not a stick of timber on the little peninsula
sufficiently heavy for use in making a boat.

“A shelter of stone one story in height housed about half of the
prisoners; the others lived in the open, in the broiling sun, except
for caves dug in the sand, into which they crawled.

“Blank and his five companions slept on the sand the first night, then
through the attraction of like for like, he paired off with a man about
fifty years of age, a college man, a physician, there for murder which
he denied having committed.

“They dug a pit near the outer point of the spit, using a part of their
clothing to hold the sand in place. Then commenced the task of wearing
away the links in the chains attached to their legs.

“Months passed in this way. Finally they were both free of the iron
ball but still carried the iron bracelets on their ankles and the
tedious work of relieving themselves of these irons was a not unwelcome
task; it kept mind and body in action.

“Bread, water and meat, twice a week, placed within the line of dogs,
kept them alive.

“An organization of the prisoners had been formed; a hierarchy of the
most desperate; despotic but effectual, at least insofar as proper
distribution of food and the keeping clean of their small world was
concerned. A patrol of guards, twenty in number, inspected the camp
twice a week but no smaller number ever ventured inside the line of
animals.

“Killings among the prisoners were common and passed unnoted
apparently. This devoted colony contained the very worst of the
condemned desperadoes of Tasmania. No man who passed onto the spit had
ever left there alive. Attempts to rush the guards had met with failure
and served as an excuse for the lessening of the country’s burden
through the shooting down of all participants.

“The seemingly unguarded mainland less than a thousand yards away was
ever in Blank’s mind. How to get there was his problem. He could swim
it, but the tribe of finny sentinels showed a dorsal and a great swirl
if so small a thing as a meat-bone was tossed from shore.

“A year went by; the doctor and Blank had hidden away in their cave a
mattress of reeds and bits of flotsam gathered from the shore at night.
When tried in the water, it would support only one man; they drew
straws and Blank won.

“On a moonless night with wind blowing across the point and slightly
inshore, Blank said goodbye to his companion who shoved the raft off.

“Lying on his flimsy support he aided the light wind through using his
hands as paddles, frequently having to jerk them out of the proximity
of a shark’s teeth as they sported all about him.

“He drifted ashore just at dawn about five miles from Eagle Hawk Neck,
his recent home and found a company of musketeers awaiting him.

“Roughly handled by a petty officer he was glad of a two-day respite in
a windowless dungeon.

“On the third morning at daybreak they led him back of a guardhouse,
whipped him into insensibility and he awoke inside the line of dogs
with his friend the doctor bandaging a hand with strips torn from a
shirt--all the fingers of both hands had been cut away, deep gashes
were in both cheeks and the other ear was missing.

“Despair possessed him; his spirit was crushed.

“Could the wife and child whom he had last seen; could they ever again
look upon him with anything but loathing if he escaped? That head
without ears--grotesque--those livid scars on face--those stumps which
once were shapely hands.

“He kept no record of time. Years passed. The doctor died and he
guarded his dugout alone. The chains and leg circlets provided him a
much treasured weapon.

“Strange how death passed him by. For months he longed for an end to
his mental agony but the body was strong. He became an officer of the
‘Society of the Damned,’ as their organization was named.

“Gradually, in whispers, a plot to rush the guards was hatched. Almost
the entire colony was enrolled in the movement. A few of the weaker
ones were not invited to participate and they were kept in ignorance of
what was afoot.

“Death sure and swift was agreed upon as the price of any act tending
to divulge the plan.

“Six months after the first meeting of the conspirators all had been
provided with weapons, mainly a stone to be tied in a trouser leg or
shirt; nakedness adding to chances of swift running; some with sticks
and many with shackles hidden carefully away underground--a precious
possession.

“They patiently awaited a propitious night. With a gale blowing from
the sea driving sheets of rain toward the barracks, the only thing to
give warning the bright flashes of lightning, the Chief sent out his
call and over eighty half-naked men lined up at the outer end of the
prisoners’ quarters.

“All knew that the chances of success were slight, but few of
these men even dreaded the shock of a bullet or the quick stab of a
bayonet--either was preferable to suicide.

“An earless man, almost a giant, the leader, armed with a camp poker,
stepped alongside Blank and according to arrangement previously agreed
upon, the company divided into a line on either side of the long
building and while stooping low, formed two wedges. Blank and the giant
formed the point of the left wedge and all went forward in the darkness
across the hundred yards or so of space between the building and the
dogs.

“The howling of the wind, the downpouring rain and the almost constant
roll of thunder would, but for the dogs, have made success easy.

“Fifteen feet or more from the double line of bull and mastiff--a sharp
warning bark told of discovery--instantly every man rushed forward.
A rifle cracked. A quick swing of his weapon, another, and Blank was
through the line of dogs, the leader beside him--they knew the weakest
spot--the gate. Scattering spurts of flame showed that the guards were
firing but thunder drowned the reports.

“A soldier stood before the gate, his gun at present. Blank heard a
loud ‘Ah!’ from his companion as the gun flashed--all while a streak of
lightning made things near at hand momentarily visible. A swing of the
chain with two shackles at the end and the soldier went down. Then he
was over the gate and running. He was alone.

“The sound of regular volleys and scattering shots came back on the
wind serving only to urge him to greater speed. He made for the sea,
ran in shallow water for a mile or so, followed an inlet to a creek up
which he waded until it entered a thicket so dense that he could swing
himself from one tree to another and traveled thus until daylight came.

“Rain was still falling. He prayed that it might continue and wash away
the scent. The trees were getting larger; one served him as a resting
place while he ate the chunk of meat carried in a trouser pocket.

“Coatless, hatless and with bare feet, he was, nevertheless, exultant;
the fate of the others did not concern him. The years had made of the
English gentleman a something akin to the most dangerous of brutes. One
thought obsessed him--escape--the life of anything tending to thwart
his purpose was forfeit.

“He must have walked over a hundred miles, going ahead by night, hiding
by day, feeding like the animal he had become, on roots and berries.

“He reached a broad river and skulked through the wood well away from
its bank, toward the mouth, knowing that it must lead to the sea.

“He made a wide detour when smoke indicated the presence of man.

“One day he saw out in the stream a slovenly-looking four-masted ship
evidently awaiting the rise of the tide. She was headed downstream.

“That was his anxious hour; to show himself meant to return to be
executed.

“Transportation to a home on Tasmania was the penalty meted out to any
ship master aiding in an escape. Should the flood-tide precede darkness
he was doomed.

“Darkness found him swimming low in the water. Noiselessly he grasped
the rudder and climbed up onto the beam above it, huddling as close as
possible to the ship’s stern.

“The ship was well out to sea and it was not far from daybreak when
he stood up, facing a sleepy steersman resting on a wheel that needed
little attention because of the light but steady breeze prevailing.

“Blank said, ‘Speak and you are a dead man.’ Then he told the helmsman
that he could have £1,000 if he would hide him until he could talk to
the captain.

“The sailor said, ‘Take the helm, stand with your back to the lookout,
he’s likely asleep and I’ll bring the captain,’ and threw his oilskin
coat over Blank’s shoulders.

“‘£1,000 to the captain,’ Blank whispered.

“The captain and the steersman came separately. There was a plea for
sympathy, an offer of all the money the captain would ask--the purchase
outright of a ship that the captain might put the ocean between himself
and old England.

“Blank was installed in the captain’s cabin, bathed, clothed, ate a
part of the captain’s meals and notwithstanding his deformities was
almost happy during the long voyage around the Cape of Good Hope and up
the coast of Africa.

“At Southampton, Blank was hidden, his sister sent for. You can imagine
the meeting? The sister was not lacking in fidelity; the disfiguration
of the beloved brother meant to her merely a call for more love, more
fortitude.

“The captain resigned his employment, purchased for cash at the owner’s
asking price, a trim little three-master lying in port, became captain
of his own ship and cleared for Quebec, Canada.

“Two hooded and veiled women, apparently, boarded and the vessel went
on its way to a strange land. Neither Blank nor his sister appeared
on deck during the six weeks before the frowning citadel at Quebec,
guarding the waters of the St. Lawrence was reached and passed.

“A few miles up the river, beyond the plains of Abraham, Blank and his
sister Margaret bade the Captain goodbye.

“Each carried a heavy pack as they stepped into a small boat and were
rowed ashore by the same helmsman who first saw Blank on the rudder,
back in the waters of far-away Tasmania.

“Reasoning that safety was to be found only through hiding far from the
sea, the brother and sister followed the river, making wide detours
whenever hamlets or settlements intervened.

“It was May when they first set foot on Canadian soil. When the leaves
began to take on a russet hue, they found what appeared to them a
perfect hiding place.

“To their surprise, perhaps, their guide, the river, broadened into an
inland sea and they found that settlements, cities even, dotted the
shores of both river and lake. They struck back, following a turbulent
stream, and found it led them into a real wilderness.

“Margaret made purchases of necessities while John was always hiding.
They existed in constant fear of discovery. No spot on earth would
prove safe for the condemned. The offense against society would never
outlaw.

“An abandoned canoe, washed up on the shore of a back-water or channel
back of an island in this river encountered in their wanderings, was
used. They had not seen a village or even a human habitation in three
days’ walk through dense brush and open wood. A paddle was improvised
through the use of the light ax carried.

“For miles up the dark stream, sometimes widening to a couple of
hundred yards, but usually so narrow and grown with weeds as to be
wellnigh impassable, they proceeded.

“A landing had to be made as night was near. They pushed the canoe
through a labyrinth of water-deadened trees, with outreaching arms
suggestive of myriad gibbets, until they found the shore thicket for
which they were looking and thus they came home.

“Home--home from the proud old family mansion in well-settled England
to a spot where the foot of white-faced man had apparently never been
planted.

“Difficulty of getting to solid ground, inspired the thought of making
this stopping place their permanent abode, and led to a survey of the
entire surroundings. It was an almost inaccessible island, surrounded
not by open water, but by an impassable swamp.

“The dugout on Hawk’s Neck, Tasmania, inspired their first attempt at a
dwelling-place.

“Stealthily, gradually, from a distant village, Margaret gathered
such few tools as permitted the building of a cabin. She bought such
seedlings as enabled them to plant a garden. A gun became part of their
outfit and the following spring found them busily engaged in making
comfortable their retreat.

“As the years passed Margaret dared to go openly to a village many
miles away. In time they learned from newspapers which they bought that
the prison colony on Tasmania was abolished and though Blank’s status
was still uncertain, a sense of security was established--but from
something that John Blank’s living spirit would not disclose through
Elaine, a new cause of sorrow and discontent came into his miserable
existence; I am sure of that,” Hugh said, turning on me his gaze which
during this long recital had been fixed on the wood beyond the open
fields and I knew that he was not on the hilltop where we sat but at
that lonesome cabin back of the black ash swamp.

“What a fearful life and what a terrible ending,” I ventured. “What
became of the sister?”

“I do not know,” Hugh replied, “but I would swear I saw her on the
Dover boat, though it may have been my imagination only.”

As we walked homeward, our backs to the setting sun, we discussed
the brutality of the British penal system of the first half of the
nineteenth century and I was surprised to hear Hugh put up a plea in
extenuation of what to me was unthinkable in a civilization so far
advanced--a system instituted and maintained as late as 1854 by a
Christian country furnishing us the very laws which I, as an officer of
the courts, was sworn to respect.

Hugh calmly said, “Yes, the punishment of offenders against society’s
laws was as horrible as any demon incarnate could invent, though I have
a conviction that neither the Home authorities nor the English people
had any idea as to the depths to which human nature, both in keepers
and convicts, descended.

“Abandon hope, except of forcing freedom and the criminal becomes
extremely dangerous. Consider the plight of the keepers, outnumbered by
their charges, months removed from home and help; they could expect no
quarter--could they give it?

“Fear is contagious; the guards were not of the higher type of
Anglo-Saxon. They doubtless were rightly afraid of the army of the
abandoned and from the ignorant and doubtless cowardly private, the
feeling of insecurity crept up through the ranks even to the governor
himself. I believe that the horrors of the rack, with its stretchers,
breakers, hot irons and lancet was a natural corollary; brutality was
supreme on the island, though I find no excuse for the arrow-branding
and flogging on shipboard.”

“Remember, Gordon,” Hugh added, “We owe to the severity of the
Anglo-Saxon laws the fact that we find today more native honesty
of mind in the Anglo-Saxon than in either the Latin or the Slav.
The hangings for petty theft--the poaching of a rabbit and such
delinquencies as would now, in our Canadian and American courts, invite
a fine or at the worst a jail sentence--bred through generations of
English mothers a more honest race. Let us be thankful--we shall live
to see capital punishment a rarity. Even my poor friend Blank did not
suffer altogether in vain.”




[Illustration]

CHAPTER XI


Two weeks--the day had passed so rapidly--there was so much to
observe--this peculiar household of ex-convicts, so quiet, so
well-ordered; a great farm producing a good revenue, as attested by
the immense bins of grain which I had inspected with Hugh and Elaine
and the many mows packed with hay, the ample straw-stacks, well-fed
cattle and spirited horses--all gave evidence of earnest desire to make
good on the part of the “guests” who spent their evening in reading,
debating, and discussion of present work and future prospects.

Craighead Hall seemed sufficient unto itself. The world outside the
enclosure seemed remote and yet Hugh’s mail was voluminous; it was
sorted and cared for by Fred Hunt, his secretary, a fair-haired youth
who had served time for alleged forgery, though to me he protested
innocence. I mixed freely with the “guests.” To the last man they were
interesting; they came from the better class--educated, many refined;
bitterness, hatred of fellowman who had “persecuted” them was rare.
They were getting a new start in life.

I was surprised to find most of them young in years, especially those
convicted of crimes of violence--unchecked anger. I never arose early
enough to find the house asleep, and, while on duty, the prison habit
of silence seemed to cling to them--no, not to all--I am forgetting the
Chinaman.

He talked as freely as though he had always been at liberty with boon
companions and he was a splendid maid-servant and devoted to both Hugh
and his sister--and I was not a little pleased at the attention he
extended to me. He was an expert clothes-presser--even ironed out my
neck-scarfs and laundered my collars.

I was at ease, save for one perplexing obsession; I lived in a
dream--the great mansion with the rows of whispering poplars and the
mysterious river in front, sombre woods all around, enclosing us as
in an embrace. I lost all worldly perspective; life’s accustomed
activities became remote--for hours at a time my mind would dwell on
the strange phenomenon observed in Elaine’s condition.

That the dead could communicate with the living was contrary to all
my teachings, my belief. I asked Hugh for the “spirit writings” from
which he got the details of Blank’s strange story. They were voluminous
and in a handwriting distinctly different from Elaine’s clean-cut
chirography which followed the English, square-topped letters.

Everything and more of John Blank’s life history as told by Hugh was
there; many repetitions, as though a question had been repeated;
answers irrelevant; for instance, a statement from Blank that he did
not realize that he had passed from life through what we call death,
until he found himself among many strangers; that he had lingered near
his body, returned to his old home after visiting Craighead Hall; he
had seen nothing of either heaven or hell and was still a dweller on
earth with man embodied and disembodied and was not happier than while
in the flesh. In fact, from the disjointed writings, I gathered that he
was more timid and fearful of the world about him than when walking the
earth.

He had not changed mentally. He had sought Hugh and Alix in Scotland,
his sister in England, could not communicate with her, but “found in
the little half-sister a real friend.”

Evidently Hugh or Elaine had asked what he meant by this statement, as
there followed a line--“We are all looking for half-sisters or brothers
who can take messages.”

He was reasonably happy near Hugh and Elaine, it appeared, and
Craighead Hall was his home.

“Great Heavens!” I thought; “One more silent guest in this strange
place.”

Had he walked down the broad staircase one bright morning I would not
have been taken aback and, after reading this mass of evidence far into
the night, I could fairly feel his presence.

I felt that Blank resented my intrusion into the affairs of this family
and its relationship with him. I became an expert in deciphering the
difficult writing which ran all together with no dots or crosses and I
left no scrap unread.

Doubt as to the genuineness of Elaine’s communications with the spirit
fled--but my Sunday-school teachings kept bobbing into my head--I could
not, even at two o’clock in the afternoon, while sitting alone in the
great sombre library, help offering up a silent supplication to the Son
of the Father for guidance.

There was a stirring of the air in the room; in just that mental
condition which induces one to expect the impossible, I jumped from
my chair and turned toward the light to which my back had been that I
might the better read, fully expecting to meet the earless phantom.

“Oh!” I exclaimed and almost collapsed through sheer nervous weakness.
Elaine, in riding clothes, had playfully tiptoed into the room. A
vision of beauty, but as startling an apparition as would have been
John Blank in person, so foreign to my expectation was this visit.

“What in the world,” Elaine exclaimed, seeing my blanched face; then
she gravely laughed, if I may so describe it, saying, “Throw away those
papers; don’t let them bother you; they have upset you. I asked Hughie
not to let you worry over them.”

I could not speak for a moment, so great had been my shock and Elaine
seemingly appreciative of my condition, went on, “Hugh and I are riding
to the village;” and with a mischievous smile, “If you could sit a
horse for twenty miles and still wish to live tomorrow, I would ask
instead of one, two escorts all through the lonely wood.”

Elaine looked more than surprised when I sprang quickly to her and took
her disengaged hand--one held a riding crop--in both of mine.

Just then Hugh stepped into the room calling, “Elaine, we’ll be late
returning--” stopped with an “Oh, I did not know Gordon was here.”

My reply was to drop her hand, push Hugh aside in my excitement and
rush for the stair calling back, “Wait just a moment while I change.”

“Hold up,” Hugh called, “You haven’t any riding breeches. I’ll get
you my Sunday-go-to-meeting pair; they are too grand for any city
bridle-path equestrian, but Elaine’s knight-errants must be fittingly
clad while on exhibition at the village.”

I was upstairs when the last of this good-humored speech reached me but
it was pleasing--Hugh had not resented the familiarity witnessed. Hugh
brought the breeches and a coat as well, told me to wear my vest as the
night would be chilly.

“I’m as nervous as a fish,” I said to Hugh as he waited while I
struggled with a row of buttons on the trouser leg and clasped on a
pair of my host’s puttees.

“Pshaw, man,” Hugh retorted, “There is nothing in a twenty-mile ride to
get excited about, especially while there are three of us,” he added,
glancing sideways at me.

“It is the Blank writings,” I exclaimed.

“Oh that is it; well you must not let things of that nature worry you;
they are--that’s all--just accept and forget them.”

Hugh, on a splendid mount, set an easy pace, riding a few yards ahead.
I rode beside Elaine. The dogs set up a howl as we passed the kennels;
open fields were traversed; the wood road was beautiful; my heart sang.

A verse from a book of my childhood floated into my memory--

  _I saw the sunlight through the trees,
     Checkering the grassy earth;
   I felt the breath of the summer breeze
     And my spirit was full of mirth._

The padlocked gate, a road which Elaine explained was the “concession
line.” What that meant was nothing, but I dwelt on the voice as though
an angel had spoken.

Hugh had spurred on ahead when we reached the main road, and as we
approached the cemetery, I saw that he had dismounted and was leaning
just as when I saw him first, on the white paling of the little plot
outside the cemetery’s far corner.

As Elaine did not check her horse or give more than a glance toward
Hugh, I made no comment but kept beside her. Truth is, I was not a
finished horseman and had to watch my step with the rather mettlesome
black under me.

“Here is where Hughie went to school,” Elaine said as we came abreast a
clapboarded, one-story, red-painted, neat little building perched atop
a considerable hill; the first break in a silence commencing at the
cemetery.

My answer was cut short through a determined but most ungraceful
attempt to avoid landing on my head on the roadway. My horse had set a
front foot on a rolling stone as we took the down-grade of the hill.
He went on one knee before recovering to break into a run--and I had
my arms around his neck--a rather undignified figure, everything
considered.

When my companion came alongside, she was laughing. The gloom gathered
at the cemetery was dispelled and though the expense was mine, I was
glad.

“You should always keep a tight rein while going downhill,” she twitted
me on my horsemanship; solemnly advised me at the next hill then in
sight; there was light badinage which I answered in kind to the best
of my ability while we covered many miles; but I was always kept aloof
from anything approaching sentimentality.

A step on the ladder of my dreams--I had called her Elaine and she
dropped the Mr. and my name Gordon from her lips took on a new sound.

Rows of houses with gardens began to show the proximity of the village.
Hugh rode with us. He pointed out the tall spire of the church on top
of the hill beneath which the village nestles, saying, “Four lads in
their early teens got ninety days each in the ‘Black Hole,’ the village
lockup, for shooting up that spire when I was a boy.

“Father pleaded for them before the squire, I remember; he was the
judge who later sentenced Haig, but though the lads were merely trying
out a new rifle and were greatly alarmed when they found how far it
would carry--they shot from the hill across the river--no mercy was
shown.”

We were going down the hill; I held a tight rein and stole a glance
at Elaine; she was looking at me and smiling. Hugh knew nothing of my
mishap and kept on talking.

We tied our mounts in the open shed in the rear yard of the “Myrtle
Bank.” Where the name originated, I cannot say.

Both Hugh and his sister were afoot before I could get out of the
saddle. As we walked toward Front Street, Hugh was accosted by a
scholarly-looking stranger and excused himself, saying, “Meet you at
the post office in half an hour,” meantime looking at a thick timepiece.

Elaine dismissed me at the first and almost only dry goods store saying
that “she did not wish to display to me her vanity.”

From my vantage point at the end of the bridge near the post office
I watched Hugh approach. He looked neither to right nor left, though
people, neighbors, almost, were passing and eyeing him; a fine
upstanding figure, but the face was solemn, aloof, but, I thought,
purposeful.

We entered the post office together. Hugh shook hands with an
alert-looking young man, saying, “Mr. Montrose, this is our Postmaster,
Mr. Harris. I am looking for your father, Mr. Harris.”

Mr. Harris acknowledged my greeting with a real, political, come-along
handshake, saying to Hugh, “The governor will be out in a few minutes,”
and we turned to see Elaine at the post wicket talking to the clerk.

She turned to me, “You remember Mr. Haig?”

Mr. Haig, the transformed, was a government employee. Certainly Hugh
had done a good work here, for the young man, salved and reclaimed,
held an air of confidence, though I noted the deferential manner when
he greeted Hugh who put his hand through the wicket to Haig.

“Doing splendidly, sir, and all thanks to you, Mr. Craighead, and to
you and Mr. Montrose,” he added, looking at Elaine.

Stepping back out of sight, Haig reappeared with a good-sized bundle of
letters tied in a package and said, “A busy day, Mr. Craighead, I kept
this one out as it was ‘Special.’”

I noted that it carried foreign postage stamps. Hugh started to
open the letter, then stuck it in a side pocket of his coat as an
important-looking gentleman came up with hand extended and greeted
Hugh, who drew him aside, literally by the coat lapel, and called me by
a glance.

“Senator Harris, Mr. Montrose,” Hugh was saying, “a Philadelphia
lawyer, sojourning with us at the Hall. You will be interested in him.
I hope to induce Mr. Montrose to associate himself with me in my reform
work. He will stay with us and we shall enlarge our force just as soon
as you put through my bill.”

The Senator was cold-eyed.

“My dream is that the government of Canada will set an example for
the United States through taking up the work on a proper scale,” Hugh
resumed.

“I can only operate in a small way. Every man turned out of a prison
should have a home such as Craighead Hall where he can rest and get
back some of his self-respect, be taught to be decent, shown that
the world is for or against him only as he chooses. The Member who
is instrumental in passing this measure will have the gratitude of
thousands now living and a thousand thousand unborn.

“Millions of dollars lost under present systems of turning sewage right
back into the streets will be saved to taxpayers through the lessening
of crime, for I note, Senator, that most of our court and policing cost
is expended on ex-criminals who repeat. Come to the Hall and see a
model institution.”

The Senator, an influential member of the Upper Parliament I learned
later, a typical Canadian politician whose very soul would revolt at
the mention of graft--and yet who could see no impropriety in securing
for his own son the best that the government could give in the way of
plums, the postmastership; good-natured, but reserved in manner and
speech, exceedingly proud of self and position, kept on smiling.

“I have for some time been thinking of affording myself the pleasure of
calling on you and your charming sister,” the Senator said in a quiet
but attractive voice which I mentally contrasted with the reply which
would have been made by a member of our Congress not so affable; he
would have said “All right, Hugh,” with mental reservation perhaps and,
if no votes were involved, would have had ready a good alibi for their
next meeting.

Not so this Canadian statesman. There are no politicians in Parliament,
Upper or Lower, I have found--all statesmen.

When invited for a specific date, he urged “pressure of business,”
coldly, I thought, though taking the number of a Canadian Member
is difficult. He proceeded: “Precedence of other measures must be
carefully considered before I undertake the introduction of such a
radical bill--no, radical is perhaps the wrong appellation; I think
well of the scheme, yet it would appeal to many of my colleagues as
revolutionary.”

I thought Hugh was urging too earnestly. He put the direct question
finally, “Will you or will you not,” in his own straightforward way.

The Senator turned aside and looked down through a window at the black
stream carrying all the waters of a great river between rock walls
not over a hundred and fifty feet apart--waters that moved so rapidly
that the surface looked motionless, like glass; it required a bit of
flotsam, shooting past one’s vision, gone in a second of time, to
dispel the illusion.

The Senator spoke:

“Gentlemen, the power of that stream is nothing, it may be harnessed
by man; what power can check the human torrent called the mind of
the multitude? I value my seat. The unthinking, perhaps, among my
constituents, complain of the inadequacy of our laws and courts in
punishing crime; what would be the fate of a measure in amelioration?

“I but represent the wishes of my people. Petition--give me a request
in writing from a safe majority and I will act.”

He addressed me. “Our laws are respected here; punishment for
infraction is sure and swift. We have only a few, compared with the
many varying statutes of each state of the United States opposing
obstacles to the prompt meting out of justice. Our criminal laws are
good, our judges are fearless and our juries seldom permit sentiment
to sway them. Except in Quebec, our population is Anglo-Saxon--honesty
and respect for law is a birthright, let the Frenchman adjust his
own affairs in conformity with his moral view; our old Covenanting
Scotchman would certainly resent the coddling of a criminal, even with
‘ex-’ prefixed; our Irish are generous, though they make the greater
noise and cry louder for condign punishment; on impulse they would
forgive.

“Mr. Craighead, go after the many Irish in this district. Avoid
the Scotch and pick your Englishman--a few are impossible, many
reasonable, but, my boy, all are pigheaded and must be properly
approached or they will never sign up on your petition.

“Show every man how the meager tax he now pays may be wiped out almost
to the vanishing point, leaving just enough to afford him a subject for
complaint, and you will succeed.”

The Senator examined his watch, shot out his hand to Hugh, then to
me and vanished through a swinging door. “I can’t see it,” Hugh said
and I knew that Elaine, who had just joined us, saw as I did a great
disappointment settle on Hugh.

We took tea, a light dinner and learned from Hugh that he had arranged
with a traveling preacher to come to the Hall and lecture; I think he
would have said preach had he not caught some understandable light in
the eyes of his sister. A priest also was coming--it was not fair to
“guests” of the Catholic faith that they should have no opportunity of
conforming to their teachings.

Hugh, when Elaine protested at the teaching of impossibilities,
stressed the point that man must have his religion and that he had not
found the Joss of Fong missing when last he visited his room.

From the backs of our moving horses at the top of the hill where the
Catholic Church stands sentinel over its little army below, lights
seemed to dance like fireflies.

Hugh was silent, apparently depressed but doubtless thinking out a way
for the furthering of his work.

As we rode on through the miles, Hugh, a horse’s length ahead, only the
diapason of hoofbeats and the pleasant creaking of leathers conforming
to the horses’ motions, broke the silence.

“She” was near me. I was happy and yet most miserably unhappy.

Once, as we came in through the silence of the dense woods, I reached
across and laid my hand on the sleeve of her riding coat. She permitted
the caress, understood it, I think, for she leaned a little forward in
the saddle and turned her face toward me as though in acknowledgment. I
wished then that I could have seen her eyes.

It was merely a touch of the hand on her sleeve, but the harmonies were
awake.

“Jehovah,” I kept repeating, “is in His place in heaven,” and the ten
long miles were all too short.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER XII


The lecturer did not present an appearance but the priest came on
Friday contrary to Hugh’s understanding. The day set was Sunday but
nevertheless, he was heartily welcomed, his horse stabled and Hugh
proceeded at once to call in the “guests.”

The big bell atop the barn tolled seven strokes and within
three-quarters of an hour nearly forty men were assembled in the great
hall awaiting the pleasure of the father. Each man was introduced by
Hugh and I marvelled that he could remember their names.

Is there in the physiognomy of the Catholic a mark through which one of
the same faith may distinguish him from the Protestant?

Father Nealon, a comparatively young man, certainly under forty, went
about his work in a brisk, businesslike manner, picking out those of
his faith.

About one-third of the “guests” were confessed--a strange proceeding,
transmitting to the Most High, through the successor of Peter, the
innermost secrets, believing that a mortal man has the vicarious
authority to forgive or at least in a measure absolve.

The rest of the men went about their duties or read; some wandered down
to the river to see that the boats were securely under shelter as the
day had grown sullen and the wind had risen to almost a gale.

They reassembled later in the evening, before the usual dinner hour.
The entire household was there except the Chinaman and I would not say
that the Celestial was not hidden within earshot.

In a fine manly way the father talked--not of heaven or purgatory but
on things present; duty, cultivation of respect for self, for others,
for society’s laws, forgetfulness of old ideas, appreciation of a newly
regained citizenship--as fine a discourse as I had ever heard.

He admonished the men to cling to the faith of their childhood, though
those of his faith in the audience were in the minority and closed by
offering up a very understandable prayer, full of feeling, a sort of
summing up, I thought, into which he brought the name of Hugh as a
benefactor.

I was impressed with the genuineness of the man, especially after
the “guests” had left the hall. Without apology, even hesitation,
he accepted and drank a sizable potion of Scotch whiskey, declining
water with the remark that “such a wonderful concoction should, like
everything in nature, be kept pure.”

Night had fallen and the storm had increased in fury. Rain in sheets on
the breast of the wind, the darkness outside stabbed frequently through
by flashes of lightning.

“The last of our warm weather; the electricity will cool things
off,” Hugh suggested as we walked upstairs that we might all make
preparations for dinner.

The father needed no urging to stay overnight, but said that he
welcomed an opportunity of “taking a good look at such a magic palace
in such a setting.”

We dined much later than usual. There were four of us and Hugh
suggested the library as more cozy than the great hall on such a stormy
night. It must have been nearly eleven o’clock when Elaine excused
herself.

The discourse during dinner turned mainly on Hugh’s work and his effort
to make the salving of ex-criminals institutional through an act of
Parliament.

Father Nealon expressed himself as completely won over to a cause which
had theretofore appeared to him chimerical, if not positively wrong and
a menace to public order. He pledged himself to the cause and it meant
much to Hugh as the district held many Catholics.

Hugh, when we three were alone, prepared a night-cap of old brandy
from the vault. It was, I can testify, smooth, but to me, rather heavy
and as, safe from the howling wind outside, we smoked and sipped the
mild-tasting amber nectar I could feel that Hugh was being drawn into a
discussion of his peculiar faith, or rather lack of it.

The priest had a splendid fund of good-nature and dry wit, but in the
background there seemed to be an earnestness of purpose which doubtless
was inherent or the result of seminary teaching, and I doubted the
wisdom of Hugh’s probable disclosure of the fact that he was anything
but a churchman; it might prejudice the goodly man of the church
against an accepted responsibility.

First, Hugh confessed that since viewing the cathedrals of Europe he
had not been within a church. Then came the assertion that organized
churches and such control as they wielded were essential to good
government as then conducted; then he claimed that of course religious
teachings other than that golden rule of “doing unto others as you
would that others should do unto you” had no bearing as claimed on the
“fate of the soul.”

Father Nealon seemed to chuckle inwardly as he said, “Well, thanks be!
I thought you would be denying a soul to us poor mortals.”

“No, indeed,” Hugh replied, “I do deny, however, that the soul was
breathed into Adam or any other ready-made human as your Bible claims.”

The father leaned far back in the big leather chair, turned roguish
eyes to me and said, “Now, friend Montrose, we shall just sit and
listen while Mr. Craighead tells us how we became the possessors of
souls, for a soul we have, to be saved or damned.”

“Too long a story, father,” Hugh replied, “though I feel that having
committed myself I should give you my views, rather, my convictions;
they certainly do not coincide with yours and I do not ask you to give
them any weight, but you ask for them.”

“Never fear,” the priest replied, “though my faith is founded on a
rock, nevertheless, I want to learn the genealogy of the most precious
of my possessions.”

“Then listen, Mr. Priest,” Hugh began, “listen, not to me, but to your
native, unwarped intelligence, for, freed from mistaken inculcations
you have a splendid brain and a wonderful soul within you. This
intelligence must say that, like the body, the soul is an evolved
product of nature’s laws. Do you suppose that the first vertebrate
biped known as man carried within him such a soul as you possess? How
many changes has the body undergone since its habitat was the water,
the cooling gases sweated out from a cooling planet? Many, you will
grant, and the soul has not undergone any less in number.

“The soul’s origin? In fact it always was, just as everything in the
universe always existed, but everything in the universe, save only
the law eternal, changes. We do not live from within. We inspire life
with every breath. The unmeasurable universe is as an entity, alive
and sending out throughout its entirety, life--millions of different
forms of life have lived and disappeared entirely. Only the fittest
survive and this law holds today and will hold in the ultimate for all
eternity, beyond the grave.”

Father Nealon loudly interjected: “Do you mean to tell me that the soul
is not everlasting? For argument’s sake, but for the sake of argument
only, I’ll grant you that man came up from the fishes; though I don’t
believe a word of it; souls are immortal!”

Hugh smiled, saying, “Your Vulgate teachings will not permit you
to think clearly, I see. Let us reason that out. We may only use
analogy as a guide. Is anything, from planets to that which nature
builds through aggregation on planets, eternal? The soul is as much a
planetary product as the body. The body of man has attained its present
proportions through a process of unfolding. How many promising bodies
involuted and disappeared during the life of our world? We find them in
the rocks. The survival of man’s body is probably due to the presence
therein as a necessary integral of the evolved soul and spirit which
sustains, yes, moulds it. One leans upon the other and helps build the
whole. If the body may involute, why not the soul?”

The father, all attention, exclaimed, “Ah! Now I believe you not only
read profane writings, but you have studied what the New Testament
teaches. Paul distinguishes the soul from both spirit and body, but
just what is the soul and what the spirit?”

“Yes,” Hugh replied, “and the crucified Teacher of the doctrine of
love pointed out the absurdity of the soul’s awakening only after the
bones are gathered together on the last day when He said, according to
Matthew, ‘Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill
the soul.’

“I would say that anything possessing intelligence, the ability to
reason, has a soul. Reasoning has built up a carrier, we call it a
mind; whether in one part or in the whole of the body. The reasoning
mind has evolved the soul of man into the purposeful entity of today,
built it up through aggregation just as our planet was assembled. Can
you, Father Nealon, conceive of man’s wonderful soul as possessed by
his progenitors of a lower order--back to the fish?

“Man reasons through the brain and telegraphs sinews, muscles and
organs through the nerves, but many times he acts contrary to the
promptings of an as yet unsubjugated soul, what we recognize as our
subconscious self--an inner man, the spiritual man, in some degree
always subject to the flesh man, his partner in this life only.

“The degree of subjugation of the subconscious, a part of the body of
man, yet perhaps eons of years older, constitutes the measurement of
his evolution or involution.

“Listen to the soundless voice of the inner man and you will not go
far astray. The goal is the acquiring of knowledge, therefore, of an
all-embracing power, though there is no absolute, but we are a long
way back of it, thanks in some measure to untrue religious teachings
throughout the world. We lean too much. ‘Believe in me and ye shall
never die,’ as interpreted by the church is stultifying.

“You, father, teach the worship of the God-man, Jesus, or at least your
teachings are so interpreted while the Christ--Truth--only should we
consider.”

“But the spirit,” the father persisted, and the reply came, “A thorough
and complete body, Mr. Priest, a crystallization of the electrons of an
atom, perhaps, but we shall never know until Eos throws open to us the
gates of dawn and then perhaps we may not have revealed to us many more
of nature’s secrets than we now know. _That_ I would judge will depend
on the progress made in our many journeys from here to the hereafter
and back again.”

Father Nealon sat bolt upright. “Do you, Mr. Craighead, presume to say
that souls come back from heaven or hell to this earth and enter into a
new body? Preposterous! You must have been imbibing of the doctrines of
Mormon or are you a Theosophist?”

Hugh shot back: “Better a book of Mormon or Theosophy than the
deductions from that other book, misinterpreted and spread broadcast
during nearly two thousand years by ignorant satellites of the
higher-ups seeking aggrandizement; poisoning the minds and bodies--the
terms are synonymous--of our children; sowing the seeds of fear so
thoroughly that the child draws it into his being with the mother’s
milk. Fear, the most horrible of diseases, for it affects the mind
and the body and the soul; fear of God, of punishment; fear of father
and mother, teacher, the world, himself--throw away your doctrine of
darkness and fear that the mothers of a thousand years hence may have
no phobia when of their bodies they build a house for the stranger;
once a dweller on earth, seeking as he must another opportunity for
advancement in the science of nature’s manifestations.”

Here, as a vivid flash of lightning brightly illuminating the front of
the room was followed instantaneously by a crack of thunder, we all
stood tense.

Hugh leaned forward with right arm extended and finger pointing at
the father, “Know you, father, not in the spiritual essence of the
universe, not in the natural law, is there jealousy, hate or fear, nor
hypocrisy. You profess belief that the Spirit of Christ walked the
earth, that Abraham and the prophets became visible, yet if I should
say to you that the spirit of the living dead has appeared in this
room--”

At that instant the left panel of the huge French window was flung back
and there came into the room a sheet of water borne on a burst of wind.
The lamps in their brackets sent up each chimney a wisp of smoke and
went out; the chimney-place gave out a fitful flickering light as the
draft brought a dying flame to life. I was drenched to the skin when I
turned from shooting the bolt in the closed window.

An awed, shrill cry, “Hugh! Hugh!” rang in my ears.

I saw two figures standing just out from the wall-panel opening--both
in white--Elaine it certainly was, but the other figure, a man’s
ghostly contour--Hugh stepped clean through the man and I could see
Hugh’s dark clothing as though obscured by a mist as he took his
sister’s form in his arms and without a word disappeared in the
opening in the wall which closed behind them.

The good father stood crossing himself. He made the sign of the cross
half-a-dozen times, a weird figure in the dying light of the open
grate, now that the draft was excluded.

Father Nealon looked at the spot where the specter had stood, looked at
the blank wall where Hugh and the other specter with bronze-gold hair
all about the white shoulders above her robe of white had passed, and
almost shouted: “What is this? Am I crazy--am I blind? What manner of
theatrical chicanery has this crazy man invented?” and he rubbed his
eyes as though he had been asleep and strode over to the fireplace.

“Nothing to cause you any alarm, Reverend,” I said, “that was Hugh’s
sister evidently walking in her sleep--many people do that.”

I put fresh fuel on the fire and removed my wet coat.

Silence for a moment, then the father said, “Mysterious! I did not see
Mr. Hugh go after that voice called his name--where is he? But then I
saw nothing but the other. My friend, what did you make of it?”

“What?” I asked.

“Why! the man who stood beside the girl, the big fellow who looked
unreal. If I ever hope to see a ghost he was here tonight.”

“Miss Elaine was very real; Hugh carried her out through a secret
entrance; nothing of mystery about that; someone left the window
unlatched and the wind forced it open--”

I was interrupted.

“Man, man, didn’t you see something like a man standing to the right
of the girl--and that Craighead should walk right through it--I saw
him or I was dreaming,” and Nealon walked over to the table, held the
brandy bottle between his eyes and the fire, saying, “Only a thimbleful
gone; not enough to liven a sparrow and yet I believe by my soul I have
imagined everything since the venison was served.”

He poured out a brimming glass; it was a wine-glass, fortunately, and
drank it off, without a moment’s hesitation.

“Shall we seek sleep that our heads may be clear on the morrow, Mr.
Montrose? We can make our apologies in the morning. Probably our host
will feel relieved at our taking this liberty.”

I readily acquiesced, banked the fire as the wind was even higher than
when the window blew open and the draft was strong, walked upstairs
with our friend and bade him good night and pleasant dreams, at his
door.

Far into the small hours of the morning, in his room adjoining mine,
I could hear him pacing the floor. My estimate of this man was
unchanged--one of the finest, most manly of men. A good teacher, a
well-beloved pastor of a devoted flock. I wished him for a friend and
must say that though years have passed, time has only the more closely
cemented a mutual respect and liking begun on this first of his many
visits to Craighead Hall. And he kept faith with Hugh.

Sleep and I were strangers until dawn. I thought of all the tragic
things which might have ensued since Elaine’s startling visit to the
library, yet I dared not disturb the quiet of the household.

I prayed--yes, I asked the Almighty to spare her--and in the midst
of my silent prayer thought of Hugh’s contempt for religious
convictions--but I was only asking aid. The tramp-tramp next door
became monotonous. The priest was badly shaken.

Day must have dawned--a little rivulet came creeping out upon the
polished floor, the leaded windows were letting in the driving
equinoxial rain. Slowly, so slowly it crept out and out as I watched.
Noon was not far off when I awoke.

Rain was still falling, but the wind had moderated. As I stood on the
veranda sheltered from both rain and wind, the latter having veered to
the north, bringing a most disagreeable chill to the atmosphere, I saw
the farm carryall, a three-seated vehicle with springs, driven up to
the front door. The curtains parted and there alighted two cloaked and
hooded women and a man carrying a small black bag, whom I correctly
guessed was a doctor. She must be ill indeed for Hugh to have other
women about the Hall--and a doctor.

I found Hugh pacing the upper hall a half-hour later.

“High fever, unconscious since a few moments after I carried her to her
room,” Hugh said in answer to my unspoken question, then added, “The
doctor and nurses are with her.”

“What was the cause?” I inanely asked.

“A dream,” Hugh replied. “One of those terrible visitations--said
Alix must have died as she had seen her on a boat with water all
about; you know, Gordon, how unnatural she becomes during one of those
visitations. Well, this was the strangest condition of mind I have ever
witnessed in her. Seemed as though she was absolutely asleep downstairs
and when I laid her on her bed and drew the blanket over her she was
cold and still.

“I tell you, man, I was alarmed until I saw her eyelids quiver--then
she said, ‘Alix is dead; I saw her on a boat; water all about,’ then
became unconscious but her breathing deceived me into thinking she was
as usual after a visitation, merely sleeping and I think I slept while
watching her.

“This morning at daybreak, her flushed face and pulse spelled fever; I
sent for a doctor and day and night nurses. This may be serious.

“I believe that in some way her spirit crossed over to Scotland, was
out of her body for a time, though I have never heard of such a thing--”

The doctor approached, coming from the corridor leading to Elaine’s
room.

“Mr. Montrose, Dr. Parsons,” Hugh introduced us.

The medical man of middle age carrying a stethoscope in his left hand
extended to me his right, saying more to Hugh than to me, “Organically
perfect; the cerebro-spinal axis appears to be the seat of the trouble;
I find no indication of infection. Can you send blood samples to my
laboratory assistant?”

Hugh said, “Certainly, at once,” and I insisted upon being the
messenger; said it would ease my mind, and the doctor interposed, while
looking me over critically, “Let him go, Mr. Craighead. The analyst
may say something which he would not write in his report, besides your
friend needs a few hours in which to pick himself up. Where do I camp?
I shall stay here tonight,” the doctor added.

Hugh turned to me. “Will you show him to the room adjoining yours?”

“The priest?” I queried.

“Oh, Father Nealon went in the carryall this morning; I shall send his
horse as soon as weather permits,” Hugh replied.

I was pulling on a raincoat when the doctor unceremoniously opened
my door and without any preliminary, said, “Young man, there is
something peculiar about this young person’s case. Has she had some
great shock--exhaustion of nerves; unaccountably high fever with no
history--the mariner cannot navigate without his chart--out with it--I
can see it in your eyes.”

Should I let another, a stranger from the world outside into the
close-guarded, secret affliction? I weighed the matter a moment, then
said, “Doctor, the young lady is evidently a sleep-walker; she came
into the library last night, sound asleep.”

“Yes, yes,” he replied, “but there is something back of that; I’ll
have to quiz Craighead. Now off with you and get back pronto,” and he
whisked out of my room.

Every mile of the way recalled that recent joyous ride of but a few
days ago; but the rain continued to beat upon the supposedly waterproof
covering of the wagon.

I sat with the driver and scarcely a word was spoken. Wet through, I
hastened to Dr. Parsons’ office and handed the small box entrusted
to my care to a thin-faced, spectacled young man. I fully expected a
shock. It seemed to me that I was carrying the life-blood of her whom
I worshipped. There was only a small piece of lint--I did not even see
the blood smear on it.

“Hurry with this,” I said to the analyst who, in reply, merely looked
me over through his spectacles, turned on his heel and passed into an
inner room.

Two hours later, stiff and annoyed, I got painfully to my feet as the
man came into the cold, comfortless office and handed me a sealed
letter directed to Dr. A. W. Parsons.

“What did you find?” I queried. “All in there,” the man returned,
pointing to the letter, adding as he turned about, “Good day.”

The wagonette awaiting me under the hotel shed set off homeward at
once. About three miles out the road passed through a cedar swamp.
I remember noting the drooping, forlorn appearance of the trees as
I peered out between the curtains. Their bleak outline took on many
fantastic shapes, all gloomy. A sharp pain shot through under my left
shoulder blade and I remembered nothing more until a week later when
I opened my eyes to find a pleasant-faced young woman standing beside
my bed, a bottle in one hand and a spoon in the other. I tried to sit
up, but while I willed to do so, my body did not move; nor could I
recognize my feeble voice as my own when I essayed to speak.

The nurse put her finger on her lips and said, “Quiet; not a word;
do not try to move;” then, turning toward a couch out of my line of
vision, “Doctor.”

I could hear a grunt as though of somebody just awakened.

“Doctor, the brandy did it; he is conscious,” and next moment the
doctor, Parsons, had fingers on my wrist and stood over me looking at
his watch.

I tried to ask, but “Elaine” was all that I could whisper. The doctor’s
heavy black eyebrows seemed to meet, notwithstanding the great gulf I
thought had once separated them as he looked fiercely at me and said,
“Young man, if I hear a peep out of you again for twenty-four hours,
I’ll take away this good-looking young lady and leave you to Fong Wing
with his devil papers and punk sticks.

“Estelle,” he added, addressing the nurse, “did you smell that devilish
heathen’s incense? I threw the whole mess, god and all, out the window.”

The nurse leaned over near me and said, “Miss Elaine is well out of
danger but you have had a serious week--pneumonia--but the fever has
broken; you will be able to convalesce together. Now take this and go
to sleep.”

Hugh was in next day. The doctor seemed to blame me for keeping him
prisoner at the Hall. Strength to get out of bed had not returned.
I kept no account of the passing of time. Sleep--I seemed to sleep
always, but one memorable day, I started wide awake to find _her_
sitting on the outer edge of my bed.

I spoke her name. She was so fragile, so pale, the great mass of gold
coiled about her white brow accentuated the size and luster of her
glorious eyes. If there was ever a face that showed a soul in agony, I
was gazing into it.

She laid her little white hand on mine and whispered rather than spoke,
“Oh, Gordon, I’m so glad you are going to be well soon,” and when I
tried to say what was in my heart--just “I love you,” the words would
not come.

She placed the palm of her hand on my lips and held it there a moment
and then I sensed rather than heard others come into the room. There
was a glad cry, a woman’s voice, an answering hysterical, “Alix! Alix!”
the semblance of a struggle and the other woman calling frantically,
“Hugh, Hugh, James!” laid Elaine in a dead faint across the foot of my
bed.

I sat up and looked first at Elaine, then at the frantic woman almost
lying upon her, with both hands holding tight Elaine’s white face.
Hugh followed by a stranger ran into the room. Hugh looked just an
instant, then pulled Alix aside, but it was the Chinaman who appeared
from nowhere with a glass of water, a portion of which he dashed into
Elaine’s face. I had made such headway toward recovery that the nurse
had gone downstairs.

The others gone, the stranger lingered, pulled a chair to my bedside
and introduced himself quietly as though nothing had happened.

“James McFarlane,” he said. “We came over the river a few minutes ago
and walked in on Hugh at lunch. My wifie couldn’t wait; the girl was
daft to see her little sister; she made a mess of it, but--” he added,
“it’s a natural emotion.”

“I hope it will not give her a setback,” I replied.

“Never fear; joy does not kill,” he answered, then, taking a good look
at me, said, “Mon, ye look peaked. When ye are weal enow I want a talk
wi’ ye about Hugh and his affairs. The lad needs a friend.”

I assured him that I was fit, but he said the morrow or next day would
do, carefully adjusted the covering on my bed, put the chairs back in
place and as the nurse came in said, “I shall resign now that ye hae
better company,” bowing toward tyrannical Estelle who doped me with
eggnog, fixed my pillows so that I could sit up and then at my request,
sought out the other invalid and brought me the reassuring message
that Miss Elaine was none the worse for her experience and was busy in
converse with her sister.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIII


Elaine came next day, but not alone. The sister was more like Hugh;
had blue eyes and dark hair--a beautiful woman whose thirty-odd
years--I shall not be too exact--with their inevitable accumulation of
weight had merely rounded out a splendid figure and, in my judgment,
accentuated rather than diminished her attractiveness.

Hugh had no recollection of getting any letter from McFarlane notifying
him that the family was about to sail for Canada until I mentioned the
official-looking document with foreign stamps which he had put in a
side pocket of his coat while we were in the post office. A search was
made but it could not be found.

“Mac” as I mentally dubbed him--though in our frequent meetings during
the week before he sought me out for counsel I always addressed
him as Mr. McFarlane--“Mac” readily explained seemingly to his own
satisfaction though not to mine, that Elaine’s vision was but a dream,
a coincidence, “maybe a sort of thought transference,” as he put it.

By appointment made the day previous I met Mac in the library where, as
he expressed it, “we shall be oot o’ earshot o’ a’ the pryin’ silent
anes wha spring oot o’ the floor and harry the nerves o’ ane.”

The reunited family was at the village. The “wee bairnie,” a lusty
youngster, much taken with Fong, was out at the stables with the
Chinaman who seemed to have transferred his allegiance from Elaine to
the rosy-cheeked young Scot.

I must confess that for a whole week I had thought of little else than
that something portentous was impending which would disturb the promise
to me of an ideal life here at Craighead Hall. I had builded many a
castle but they were all of limestone and set into the side of a hill.

McFarlane’s manner was constrained. “Mr. Montrose, I hae deliberated
long, hae sounded Hugh as to his feelin’s toward ye, looked at the
situation from all angles and now, mon, I ask ye as a counsellor and
as a friend of all parties in interest for your best advice,” was the
opening.

“Trust me fully,” was my reply, the thought arising that some crime or
physical taint attaching to Hugh was about to be disclosed. It surely
could not involve Elaine?

Mac shifted his position from the use of a polished oak table as a rest
for his elbows to one in which he leaned back in the large chair,
placing his face in shadow.

“Montrose, are ye capable o’ carryin’ on here should Hugh be called
away?”

My worst imaginings almost confirmed, I asked anxiously, “What has Hugh
done?”

I could not see the expression on Mac’s face until he leaned forward;
then I read doubt as to whether or not I was the right person in whom
to confide.

“Dash it, Montrose, ye hae the wrong slant. I merely wish to know if ye
think yoursel’ capable o’ carryin’ on the farm’s management and keepin’
the pack o’ malefactors from killin’ ane anither durin’ Hugh’s absence.”

“Oh yes, I could do that if necessary, but why should Hugh give up his
work?”

“A’ in good time, my friend; I’ll tell ye a’; but do ye think ye could
do what Hugh is doin’, help more o’ the rascals to an easy berth?” he
came back.

“Yes, my practise is criminal law. I would like that work, but I am no
farmer.”

“Then ye could trust the farm management to a gude overseer such as
old Hallowed was when I took Hugh and Alix to Scotland,” Mac said,
adding, “That settled, I’ll proceed--but ye must hae patience and don’t
interrupt.”

I settled back, prepared to curb my impatience; it seemed the only
way. McFarlane at times lapsing into broad Scotch, continued, “Hugh
Craighead’s father, like Hugh, was a graduate of Edinburgh University.
There were two Craigheads, Alexander Junior and James, twins, and they,
as far as I can learn, were well-behaved lads, brought up i’ the fear
o’ God by old Alexander, a regular Covenanter who lived in Hill Head,
just across the Kelvin from Glasgow.

“The father was a stern parent, exacting, intolerant and unforgiving; a
bad combination as ye shall witness as I proceed, friend Montrose.

“Another lad about the same age lived with the boys in the same
dormitory, the object being to cut down expenses so that something of
the old man’s allowance would be left them.

“Alexander Senior was a close-fisted old Scotchman though he had
plenty and to spare. The three boys became close friends and graduated
together. Before separating, the Craigheads to return to Glasgow and
the other lad to England, they agreed to return to the university for a
post-graduate course.

“The Craigheads returned, but their friend met a young lady in London
and married. He took quarters in London and the boys received frequent
invitations to come there as his guest. He wished to have them meet his
wife of whose beauty of soul and body he filled his letters.

“Later the urge was stronger; a little girl had been born and pride in
paternity made him even more insistent. The Craigheads had never been
in London. They were boning down on a course in law; the old man would
not appreciate their natural desire to take even a week’s holiday. To
him it would have meant a useless waste of good money. No man needed
any friend other than Pounds Sterling was his theory, so the boys
having a few pounds saved up, hied themselves southwestward, failing to
let the old man know that they were not busy in Edinburgh.

“Their visit to the college chum was necessarily brief, but so pleasant
that when vacation season came and they were furnished with funds for
a continental trip as a part of their educational course, they spent
three days in Paris; the fourth found them with Mr. and Mrs. Blankleigh
in London.”

McFarlane at this point paused and with inquiry in his eyes glanced
keenly at me but as nothing he had recounted was startling I was all
impatient to learn where Hugh’s connection commenced.

Then he resumed: “London, with its fingerprints of history reaching
away back through centuries, its gay night life; and the affection
the twins felt for their host and hostess kept them in the old city
for over two months while the grim old man at Hill Head speculated on
how much they were absorbing of continental affairs that would be of
utility in increasing their ability to make money.

“Of the two boys perhaps the hostess preferred the company of
Alexander--‘Sandy’ his friends called him. They frequently visited
points of interest together, while James and John after visiting the
office of the latter would attend a boxing match or visit a variety
show matinee.

“Because the hostess preferred home and her baby girl, she seldom
accompanied the boys in their night prowls and frequently Sandy stayed
at home for company.

“Now, Mr. Montrose, God knows that was natural enough, as James had
a bent for pokin’ into the odd places at night. John was of the same
mind. You must remember that he was newly married, only a little more
than a couple of years and until his friends came, London at night
was to him as much an unknown country as it was to the Craigheads.
Newmarket, Chinese runaways, the quarters of sailors near the river,
the underworld of a great metropolis, kept these two boys absorbed;
often times they were out most of the night. Alexander seemed to care
nothing for all this, preferring a quiet evening at home.

“Montrose, I’m not a suspicious mon,” McFarlane shot at me as though I
had questioned the propriety of Alexander’s spending his evenings with
his hostess, “and, Montrose, I’m not criticizin’ onybody, nor makin’
aspersions,” he resumed, “but one night when both Craighead boys were
out, John, havin’ stayed at home, a terrible thing happened.

“James Craighead was leavin’ a theater on the Strand about eleven
o’clock that night; just as he stepped across the walk to enter a cab,
his friend Blankleigh, with eyes blazin’ like a madman’s, eyewitnesses
testified, shot him through the heart, then threw the pistol into the
gutter and stood wi’ arms folded until seized by a policeman.

“When the murdered mon, who the witnesses said was facin’ the murderer
and smilin’, fell on his face, his head a’most touched Blankleigh;
somebody turned him onto his back and when Blankleigh saw the face of
the twin and recognized that it was James, he said, ‘My God! what hae
I done,’ and struggled to recover the weapon but the police snapped
handirons on and carried him off to prison.

“Montrose, I spent months gettin’ all the details o’ this period in the
life and trial of John Hogarth Blankleigh--”

“Hogarth!” I yelled, bringing McFarlane fairly out of his chair;
“Hogarth! why Hogarth is my reason for being here; what is his
connection with this history?”

McFarlane leaned forward saying, “Mon, mon, ye’re overly excited;
perhaps ye are too late ailin’ to hae the judgment ye need to advise
me.”

He listened patiently while I explained my errand to Craighead Hall,
then said, “It’s merely a middle name; there are aplenty o’ Hogarths
in England. If ye interrupt me like that ye’ll never hear me through.

“It seems,” he resumed, “that John intended the bullet for Alexander;
the boys were verra much alike in height and build and probably, though
there was no evidence adduced at the trial, he was crazed through
jealousy of Alexander. He rotted in prison for months, never speakin’
to a soul; would not permit his wife e’en to see him when she recovered
from an almost fatal sickness.

“At the bar of Old Bailey he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to spend
the remainder of his life in the penal colony called Van Diemen’s
Land--he never saw wife or child again.”

As McFarlane talked, my mind traveled back to Hugh’s story. I heard
and yet did not hear the Scotchman speaking. Things began to piece
themselves together in my brain--a patchwork quilt.

I sat dreaming, but Mac’s eyes were evidently upon me as he said, “Mon,
mon, are ye heedin’ me; ye ken this John Hogarth Blankleigh was your
John Blank, Hugh’s friend and I hae his story, e’en to his queer doin’s
since his death, though I don’t hold to such things--they are uncanny
machinations of auld clutie.”

“Go ahead,” I said, “I am all attention and shall not interrupt again.”

Mac settled back, saying, “Ye didna interrupt, but ye canna sense a
thing when your wits are awa’ wool-gatherin’.”

I remained quiet.

“The deeil was to pay at Hill Head when the auld man Craighead got word
that his son James was deed,” resumed McFarlane.

“The newspapers printed the usual sensational news. Nobody saw the
bereaved auld mon when he read that the cause of his son’s death was
jealousy, though Blankleigh had ne’er said ane word but ‘Guilty,’ the
papers made out that it was well founded, Alexander and Mrs. Blankleigh
havin’ been seen togither overmuch.

“We may only guess at the old man’s line of reasonin’. Every copy
of the London and Glasgow papers containin’ anythin’ aboot the case
was carefully filed and rested in his strong box at the time of the
death--yes, and long after.

“Think of the shock; he thought of his boys about to return, broadened
through the experience that comes of continental travel, and learned
that they had been in London all the time. Nobody ever knew his
feelin’s. Doubtless in his stern way, his twin boys, for whom the
mother had given her life, meant as much to this lone auld mon as do
children to other parents, but he was silent.

“He sent for his solicitor, willed awa’ all property not subject to
entail; disinherited the survivin’ son after givin’ him fifty thousand
pounds sterlin’--and his curse. He refused to see Alexander who went
home to seek forgiveness; had him turned awa’ at the gates which were
locked against every man, with instructions to see his solicitor.

“He died some fifteen or saxteen years afterward never havin’ set eyes
on his boy from the day the twins left for the Hook of Holland on their
holiday trip.

“Now, Mr. Montrose, pay attention; here is the delicate and most
difficult business that brought me across the water. Over nine months,
the register says, after the date of the murder of James Craighead,
Ruth Blankleigh gave birth to a boy--that boy is known to you as Hugh
Craighead.”

“My God, McFarlane, can this be possible?” I said in an awed whisper.
“Illegitimate--Hugh illegitimate? Why the man is noble, proud--what
will this mean?”

“Aye, that’s the rub, mon, that’s what I’m askin’ ye--how can we break
it to him?” McFarlane dejectedly replied. “I’m marrit to his sister,
Blankleigh’s first born, but oh, mon, she’s made o’ different stuff.
Ye ken Hugh was alys pulin’ as a boy. I reared him wi’ the help o’ God
and his sister Alix, frae a wee laddie to man’s estate. He was always a
sensitive youth--even Alix doesna ken how to deal wi’ him.”

McFarlane fell into a moody silence, then added, “The birth-register;
an’ I could hae laid eyes on it first, the date would not hae so
registered.”

“Tell me all,” I said, “Did Craighead acknowledge him as his son?”

Yet, I reflected, which was the more consoling thought, to acknowledge
sonship to a man humiliated as Blank had been or to bear the stain of
illegitimacy? Then the mother, the sainted mother of Hugh’s tenderest
memory--what of her? And I could see no light.

McFarlane was again proceeding in his inimitable, even, yet jerky
enunciation. “A year later, Alexander Craighead married the widow of
John Hogarth Blankleigh, for the law of England held the felon as dead
as though sax feet beneath the sod. He adopted both children, Alix and
Hugh, and the papers in the proceedin’ affirm that both are the issue
of John and Ruth Blankleigh and by my hope of heaven, Montrose, I
believe this true, save for the pesky birth-book--but how to make the
world believe it is beyond me and I am afraid of how Hugh will take it.”

“He is very much a man,” I interposed, “though the stain on his
mother’s name is a bad feature.”

“Weel, weel,” McFarlane resumed. “We shall see. Anyway, the young ane
was Craighead’s chield, that’s certain. She doesna resemble either Hugh
or my wife; I refer to Elaine.

“When Hugh’s father--by adoption I mean,” corrected Mac, “came over to
Scotland on learnin’ that the auld mon was deed, he found the property
so tied up that he couldna get anywhere in a settlement. I think hadna
auld Alexander died suddenly, he would hae had Hill Head plastered with
squatter’s titles as a hindrance to his son’s succession.

“I was employed by Hugh’s adopted father in the disentanglement of his
affairs and we were in the midst of the work when my client was found
dead on the far side of the sheep pasture. He had been thrown from a
horse that he had ridden for months. The beast was grazin’ nearby when
the shepherd saw him--no accountin’ for such things.

“Poor Mrs. Craighead, husband gone, children in Canada, and about to
become a mother. The shock killed her, Montrose. She wouldna hear of
anythin’ except that I go bring her bairns, just as though they were in
the next shire.

“That was a great adventure for me, and oh mon, when I set eyes on that
girl Alix down at the pier at this very spot; when I saw how masterful
she was, my mind was made up; she should be mine, whether or no. She
took a lot of persuadin’ though, and would not permit me to become a
comfortable married man for years.”

“Hugh has recounted the bringing up of Elaine and himself,” I said.

“You should hae seen the boy take o’er the property of auld Sandy
Craighead though,” the Scot resumed. “The old surrogate was opposed
to it, but the law was wi’ me and at that time, three hundred thousand
pounds came to Hugh--yes, the children are rich beyond their needs,
but there is anither estate that belongs to Hugh--the estate of old
John Blankleigh, through his son John H., who lost his entail, it was
claimed when he was declared a felon.

“It was a pretty pickle I found when I first undertook to unravel the
thing. Hugh, if legitimate, was, in law, a posthumous child as he came
to the mother after the father’s conviction and there’s the damnable
birth-record which must be corrected, and that’s what will save the
estate or I am no solicitor.

“He must go to England and lay claim to his own and it’s a pretty
property, a thousand broad acres and a manor-house that puts this old
castle to shame.”

“When did you first learn that the children were adopted son and
daughter?” I interposed.

“An auld servant gave me the first hint,” Mac responded. “When I came
here after the children they were Craigheads as far as I knew; though I
was his counsellor he never said otherwise--had I not been clean daft
coortin’ Alix for years I would hae been wise to the situation much
earlier.

“I found in an old strong box the newspaper articles relatin’ to the
case of John Blankleigh and pieced the whole thing together. The
record of adoption was in London. Hugh was Alexander’s legal heir and
he is also the legal heir of Blankleigh.

“At first when I investigated at Blankleigh’s home, a woman lived
there; the house was never closed, though this woman, a sister of
Blankleigh’s, later disappeared. A couple, man and wife, old servants,
looked after the house. All the tenements were let, nobody knew
where Margaret Blankleigh was, all knew that John was in Tasmania or
dead, but this old couple answered all inquiries by sayin’ that Miss
Margaret was travelin’ on the continent and frequently they kept off
trouble-makers by reportin’ that she had been home but had just gone
abroad again.

“Hugh saw her once on a channel boat. Of course, after John escaped and
went to Canada, he had to keep in hidin’. I think, Montrose, that the
brother and sister died about the same time. She was buried from her
home.

“Then the trouble began. A scamp of a cousin filed a claim as heir to
the Blankleigh estate. I was near comin’ to get Hugh then, though not
ready, but on interviewin’ the cousin’s solicitors I learned that their
client could not be found,” and here McFarlane stopped short, grasped a
handful of his curly hair and gave it a sharp pull, his eyes riveted on
mine seemed to expand. Quietly he said, “Gordon Montrose, what did ye
say was the name of the mon ye were searchin’ for?”

“Hogarth, James Hogarth, Winchester, England,” I replied.

“Then by the Hall of Holyrood, they are ane and the same,” Mac boomed
at me. “James Hogarth, son o’ the brither o’ John Hogarth Blankleigh’s
mother, Hugh’s cousin and a bad mon, a ne’er-do-well, who gambled and
dissipated. He made the claim and disappeared.”

I sat silent, thinking, piecing together the threads. McFarlane gazed
at the ceiling for a moment or so, then said, “What did the veelin come
snoopin’ round here for? Ye were on the right track, Montrose, but
verra late; seven years will soon be here since the claim was filed
and unless Hugh’s heirship is presented and proven the British Crown
will be soon the richer by hundreds of thousands of pounds sterlin’.
’Twould be a pity, mon, to let that get oot o’ the family,” and the
Scot solicitor got up and paced the floor.

My mind was harking back to a lone cabin beyond the ash swamp to a
night described by Hugh, when he found himself in the embrace of John
Blank. What must have been the anguish of that father, realizing that
his own son fainted at sight of his terrible deformities? Providence
was certainly in a grim mood when it brought within three miles of each
other John Blankleigh and Alexander Craighead--Blankleigh a felon,
hiding from God and the world, Craighead, disgraced, disinherited by an
aggrieved father, fleeing to the wilderness with the woman of his heart
and her two innocent children.

A picture of the verse on John Blank’s tombstone came before my eyes,

  “_The day will come when I shall rise,
    And meet my dear ones in the skies._”

It was not meaningless to the despairing father--nor to me now.

Craighead could not have been a bad-intentioned man. Love is a strange
emotion--all barriers give way, be it strong enough; anything short of
taking life is excusable.

McFarlane broke in on me, “Montrose, God Almighty brought these people
together in this out-of-the-world place for a purpose. It is up to us
to find out what that purpose was,” adding as he took up and started
to put on his topcoat which had been draped into his chair, “Alix will
fash me when she espies the wrinkles in this; I’m goin’ oot to admire
the dawgs and think on it.”

What a peculiar character I thought; used good English when on
guard--reverted to his native tongue when aroused--a good clear
thinker. Doubtless he would find the way to approach Hugh on the
delicate subject that we had discussed.

As for my telling that sensitive fellow that his paternity was in
question--why, the thought was revolting--yet it must be done.

I met them at the stairtop, Hugh’s arm encircling the waist of
Elaine. Back at the doorway from the orchard, Mac and Alix were
evidently exchanging hurried confidences, and there followed Estelle,
my erstwhile nurse, and the red-haired secretary Hunt, carrying a
portmanteau.

They were all evidently in high spirit. Hugh called: “Hello, Gordon,
here you are, come and kiss the first bride to enter Craighead Hall;
may there soon be another.” And he whirled Elaine away and pulled me
forward to where Estelle was standing, a blush that would have shamed
many a rose on her fair face. I kissed her and congratulated the
secretary--I could not remember his name at the moment, but I shook his
hand so heartily and for such an extended period that both Hugh and
Mac rallied me, “I believe the man is envious” from Hugh and from Mac,
“Methinks he doth congratulate too much; he is embarrassed.”

Elaine had disappeared. Alix took the bride to a room which adjoined
that usually occupied by the secretary; then we four men repaired to
the Hall where Hugh poured out four generous drinks and we toasted the
groom.

Hugh jokingly admonished the newly-wedded man that in this house of
men he must prove himself a super-husband or risk losing his treasure
and adding with a wink at Mac, “You must be especially alert while
Mr. Montrose is about--he is a very attractive and susceptible young
fellow.”

Of course I joined in the laughter, but I kept thinking: “If Hugh but
knew!” He revered his mother; his sensitive soul would perish at the
parallel being drawn here, the Craighead boys’ visit to the bride and
groom in England in the long ago and the sequence.

Late that night, McFarlane gently tapped at my door. “I hae a monstrous
proposal to make to ye, mon,” was his greeting as he stepped inside the
room.

“Not murder, I hope,” I returned lightly, he looked so serious.

“Nay, Montrose, worse than that. I’m contemplatin’ traffic with the
deeil.”

“And you presume that I am a more fit intermediary than you. That’s
flattering,” I replied.

“I’m serious, mon,” he replied, “we want John Blank’s shade to come
oot o’ his grave just this once to tell Hugh why he thought his wife
untrue to him,” continuing, “Hugh ne’er wrote ane word on that i’ all
his report of Blank’s communications, which I feel is mighty peculiar;
though I don’t believe i’ the thing--not a whit.”

“Rather inconsistent for a solicitor. If you do not believe the
communications, why try now to get others?” I rejoined.

“Oh weel,” he replied, “i’ a case o’ this kind ane must perforce get
a’ ane can on the subject. ’Tis goin’ straicht against a’ my beliefs,
though the writin’s o’ Elaine are well borne oot by the evidence.

“God save us! I hope the Almighty will not take offense that a gude
churchman should so disrespect the Holy Word as to hae dealin’s wi’ the
minions o’ the Fallen Ane,” and the religious Scot looked piously up at
the black beams in the high ceiling, doubtless with an unspoken prayer
in his heart.

“But, Montrose, what now suggests itself is, can ye not hae Elaine
call up the speerit just this once and ask it just ane question which
ye and I shall prepare in writin’? I suspect the mind o’ John Hogarth
Blankleigh was tampered with or he never would hae gone huntin’ for
Craighead wi’ murderous intention.”

“Not for a thousand Hughs and all the property in England,” I heatedly
replied. “I would not see the face of that girl blanched to a
death-mask if I knew that everything could be satisfactorily explained
and James Craighead brought back to life. Why man, you are asking
something preposterous.”

“Weel, weel, then what hae ye to suggest? It goes sorely against my
religious beliefs, the tryin’ o’ the experiment.”

At the moment I despised the Scot for the exposition of his selfish
reason for a willingness to abandon the project. It was not on Elaine’s
account. His mawkish fear of God dissuaded him, though his next words,
in a measure, reinstated him in my esteem.

“I would risk the damnation of my immortal soul, friend Montrose, and
the little girl is just as much my baby as she is Hugh’s. The guid Lord
knows an I thocht there was any risk to Elaine girlie I’d cut off my
richt hand before I’d write oot any question, real or hypothetical,”
and his face spoke the truth of his expressions.

Mac was a fanatically religious Scotchman who would doubt verified
messages from the dead, but who, if shown a weather-beaten olive-wood
stick tapering at both ends and informed by an ordained Presbyterian
minister that it was a “round from Jacob’s ladder” would probably have
said, “Praised be God, the truths of Holy Writ cannot be refuted.”

We parted without perfecting any plan, concluding to sleep on the
subject and I retired sad at heart. Unaccountable, but the woes of this
family had gotten into my blood and I had not had even a glimpse of
_her_ since Hugh swung her from his arm down the hallway.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIV


I was pressed into service next day. The priest had sent for Hugh and
requested that I come along. We set out early; the men were silently
going about their work. It was a relief to hear one call to the other
occasionally, and Hugh, it seemed, was trying to bring back the habit
of sociability lost in prison for he had a cheerful word for those whom
we met.

Father Nealon greeted us like brothers and proceeded like the business
man he was, to relate his plans for getting signatures to Hugh’s
petition, saying that he had had an interview with the Honorable Mr.
Harris and received his unqualified promise of support of Hugh’s bill
for enlarging his prison work. In return the father had promised to
insure the return of Harris to his seat in Parliament. It appeared that
an opponent showing great strength was in the field.

The peculiar experiences of that week’s work--for it was
work--unceasing far into each night, were novel and interesting. We
slept where it was convenient for the farmer to “sleep” us.

Hugh and a young assistant to Father Nealon worked the “Irish
Settlement” while an Archie Graham and I called on every farmer of
Scotch lineage in the district from Blink Bonny to Devil’s Valley, a
hilly country closely settled by Scots.

The hills and valleys probably kept in mind the Highlands of their old
home country. I concluded that should I ever seek political office
anywhere, I shall first enlist the clergy’s sympathy and interest, for
let it be recorded here, the petition held the names of two-thirds of
the voters in the Honorable Mr. Harris’ district. The gentleman was
elected, presented Hugh’s draft of a statute, which was buried under an
avalanche of adverse criticism.

The argument prevailed that prisons were meant to be places to which a
man once liberated would rather die than return, but Hugh was far away
when the fate of his idea was, at least for a season, sealed.

Roughing it had toughened me and Hugh and I returned to Craighead Hall,
he elated and in high spirits, I dreading the overdue disclosure, “time
meanin’ muckle” as McFarlane had put it.

Three newly pardoned “guests” had arrived during our absence;
short-haired, furtive-eyed, pitiable spectacles, seemingly out of
place, even among those who boasted only a few months’ residence at the
Hall.

Hugh was all sympathy for them and I saw very little of him that
Saturday night except at dinner. McFarlane looked anxious and I thought
a little desirous of avoiding my eye.

Alix and Elaine were both, as always, gracious, and I was surprised and
delighted when Elaine, on leaving the dining table, beckoned me with
her eyes. I could scarcely credit my senses but noted that she turned
at the doorway and meaningly looked at me.

I escorted Alix to the stair, then with a muttered apology for leaving
her, stepped through the open library door.

Elaine was standing on the hearth, looking pensively into the blaze
in the fireplace. As I spoke her name, she laid a finger on her lips,
motioning silence or secrecy.

She stopped me with a low-spoken, “Gordon, I must talk with you. James
has told me everything and I am going to try, though I have not had any
call to write for weeks--not since, no, not even that night when I had
the dream about Alix.”

I was taken aback, dumbfounded, could have cursed McFarlane to his
face. I did protest to Elaine that she should not have been worried
with the matter and called McFarlane a blundering old fogey.

She ignored my railing.

“Gordon, it has to be, I wish you would come here about midnight. I
have tried, tried hard to find John Blank,” and she placed her hands
over her eyes and whispered. “I cannot think of him as--I cannot call
him Hugh’s father. The thought is too awful. A murderer, a convict--I
never thought of him in that light before.

“I must be alone until then; he will come here when it is quiet, if
he will ever come, but you be here at twelve. Alix does not know that
James has talked to me. He and you and I, Gordon, are confederates. You
should know as soon as possible.”

I tried to take her hand, but seemingly the effort passed unnoticed as
she turned from me, saying, “Now, Gordon, I wish to be alone; will you
please throw the catch on the door. I want only the light of the fire,”
as I looked toward the unlighted lamp.

I slipped out, up the stairs and to my room, feeling that I must
avoid seeing McFarlane or he would insist on accompanying me to the
midnight tryst. Four hours--an eternity, and yet what might not happen.
Alternations of hope and fear--I did not pray.

Gradually the place settled to a stillness. The frail girl and myself
in the lonesome gloom of the library were the only two souls in that
household of nearly half a hundred, who had not surrendered physical
consciousness into the keeping of the inner being who never wholly
sleeps--the engineer of that wonderful machine, the body, the whisperer
who gives the signals, but cannot, alas, always force obedience on its
twin, the physical being.

At three minutes before twelve I was stealing down the broad stairway;
a single light in the great hall was sufficient only to make the gloom
in the corners more intense. I quietly turned the doorknob, forgetting
that I had thrown the catch, then rapped gently, then more urgently as
no response came.

Finally the door was opened. Elaine, whose back-tilted head and bright
eyes certainly negatived any visitation, said quietly, “Come in, and
you too, James,” and then I noticed McFarlane at my elbow.

Seated near the chimney-place, without light other than that given
off by the slow-burning fire, we must indeed have appeared like three
conspirators or that unfortunate triangle--two men courting the same
girl.

Elaine said regretfully, “I’m afraid my muse has fled, my gift has
gone. I have even tried my old friend, the planchette. No use, I am
just an ordinary girl again,” and smilingly she pointed to pencil and
paper and the aid to beginners in mysticism which were lying on the
table.

We had talked probably ten minutes.

“Montrose, you are the man to tell him,” McFarlane insisted, “but ye
must be carefu’ not to go into the matter o’ the newspaper reports.”

A voice from the darkness near the door, the voice of a stranger, said
quietly, but as though under strain, “I shall know every word from
beginning to end.”

We three started to our feet to behold Hugh, a long dark figure in
dressing gown and slippers, standing in the room. He was leaning
forward, his left hand clenched and in his right a murderous-looking,
long-barreled cavalry pistol.

While for the fraction of a second I was too stunned even to speak, not
so Elaine; she flew across the room, grabbed the pistol-hand and had
the weapon in her possession in the twinkling of an eye.

Hugh laughed; the sound was not pleasant. The man was unnatural; held
in his eyes, as one saw at close quarters, such a glare as is seen in
the eyes of a wild animal caught in a trap.

“Not yet, child,” he said, looking fixedly at Elaine, then again the
same loud, mirthless laugh. “I was looking for prowlers, thieves,” then
he gravely bowed to his two silent male auditors, saying, “I beg the
pardon of every manumitted unfortunate under this roof. What of the
story you have been rehearsing, you poor child and you two cowards? Do
you think me so weak a creature that I cannot be told openly what you
have been whispering for a fortnight? That I am a bastard, the son of
a wanton? Well, by God, I’ll have the truth and before we leave this
room,” and he turned and slammed shut the door with such force that
the very bookshelves felt the jar.

None of us had a chance to speak. Elaine, wild-eyed, threw herself onto
Hugh’s breast, her arms about his neck, as he turned to face us. He
caught her up, walked with long strides down the room to the panel in
the wall which opened at his tread, stood the scared girl on her feet
and said, “To your room, girl--go to your room, and on your life, not a
word to your sister.”

The panel closed, there was a muffled sound, an ineffectual effort at
opening the panel from the other side, a pounding of small fists. Hugh
had secured the door.

He turned to the table, took off the shade from the lamp, calmly picked
out a match from the holder, struck it and held it to the turned-up
wick; then, without speaking, motioned to Mac and me as though we were
two culprits, to be seated.

I had noted from the corner of an eye that Mac had stooped and picked
up the pistol from a huge black bearskin rug near where Elaine had been
standing before she flung herself at Hugh and as the Scot, in obedience
to Hugh’s unspoken command, moved to the big leather chair designated,
the inconsequential thought: “What will happen if the chair is too
narrow to admit Mac with that big gun protruding from his trousers
pocket?” ran through my brain.

All three seated, Hugh at the table like a judge and we two about six
feet distant in chairs, Mac and I simultaneously started to speak. I
do not know what I intended saying, as Hugh, as alert as a madman and
having every appearance of derangement, held up a hand saying, “One at
a time. Now, James McFarlane, make your accusation, but before God,
if you as much as breathe calumny against my mother, I shall strangle
you with these hands,” and he leaned forward, eyes glaring, with fists
clenched and muscles strained just as though about to spring at the
poor Scotchman who sat forward in his place, scared, shocked, but with
a look of determination on his set face.

I was alarmed as to the possible denouement. The storm was not blowing
my way, but I felt cheapened and deeply sorrowful. Matters had taken an
unfortunate trend. We had blundered and I reproached myself as a fool.

McFarlane was speaking.

“Mon, there’s naethin’ to worry aboot--’tis only this: your mither
and Alix’ mither, the poor dear, was marrit to your father before she
marrit Alexander Craighead.”

“Who was my father then?” demanded Hugh.

“Hold a moment,” Mac returned. “Not so fast my boy, ye ken Alix and I
reared ye. My wifie kens the whole story and she is just as happy.”

“No,” Hugh replied. “She has not been herself. She has not been happy
since she came here.”

“No wonder,” Mac argued, and I could see in him a quality, a calm
persistence which, under the circumstances, drew my admiration.

“Knowin’ that ye would be unduly disturbed at learnin’ the truth--”

Hugh interrupted--“The truth, that’s what I want--the truth. I
overheard enough. You said illegitimate,” pointing at Mac.

“Nay, nay, mon, we were speakin’ o’ the way ye inherited auld Sandy
Craighead’s property--the means, mon. Calm yoursel’, ye were his
grandson by adoption only.”

Hugh’s face had, from a flush, become deathly pale.

“My father; out with it.”

“Yes,” Mac said, nodding his head without pause. “Yes, your faither was
the last of a fine auld English family who killed a mon--John Hogarth
Blankleigh, and no relation of auld Sandy Craighead, and was deported.”

“My mother?” and Hugh seemed to wail out the words.

“Your mither marrit Craighead after the deportation to Tasmania. I hae
been tryin’ to tell ye.”

Something seemed to break in on Hugh’s senses. From straining forward
in his chair toward Mac he suddenly sat bolt upright, said in a vacant
manner:

“Strange! Illusions that oft repeat themselves, fantasies which will
not down. My God! John Blank!” and the man suddenly fell forward on his
face.

I thought him dead as we laid him on the lounge.

Hurriedly I ran for Alix, I don’t know why. I did not have to go far.
She and Elaine were just outside in the hall. They both rushed in and
I turned my back on the family of four, so closely knit and yet at the
moment, one member so metamorphosed by shock out of all semblance of
the affectionate, considerate brother of a few short hours ago that he
had become an alien--a stranger, to be tenderly handled, loved, yet
held in awe if still alive, reverenced if dead.

My thoughts were broken in upon by a petulant, peremptory order from
Alix, bending over Hugh, “Go and get Estelle. Hurry--what are you
standing there for?” and I recognized nerves, a tension to the breaking
point, unconsciously seizing the first vent available for the release
of surcharged emotion.

We carried Hugh, still unconscious, to his room. Estelle was putting in
order the bed from which Hugh had arisen to investigate the reason for
the sounds of footsteps in this gaunt house, when we entered and as the
covers were drawn over him, he opened his eyes, looking wildly first at
Alix, then at Elaine, but the efficient Estelle, the physician among
us, unflinchingly applied a hypodermic needle and my friend went to
sleep.

We were a sad couple at breakfast, McFarlane and I.

“The doctor is here but muckle guid it does. Hugh will speak to
nobody,” McFarlane told me, “and the women are about daft. He won’t
look at them. We made a fine mess o’ it a’.”

I was sitting by a comfortable fire in the library about ten o’clock
that morning reading a letter from my firm in Philadelphia. Its import
was that we must find Hogarth; Europe had been combed thoroughly and
the man must be forthcoming or an estate worth millions would go to the
crown and incidentally we stood to lose a modest reward of $100,000.

“The estate must be an immense property, considering the large sum
offered,” I was thinking while looking idly at the pointed flames as
they shot up from the wood, then died down to a dull glow, when the
door quietly opened and Hugh, fully dressed, stepped in.

I sprang to my feet, all excitement.

“Why Hugh!” was my surprised ejaculation.

“Good morning, Gordon, I owe you an apology for my conduct last
night,” the dear fellow said and his tone and demeanor spoke
volumes--contrition, shame, a crushed man. He hung his head.

I grasped him by both arms as they hung by his sides and gently shook
him.

“Hugh, Mac and I were asses not to consult you immediately on his
arrival; nothing to overlook in you, old man. Forgive me my stupidity.
I must have been carried away by Mac’s cunning Scotch secretiveness.”

“I wish to go over the whole matter with you, Gordon, when it is all
clear. I can then decide on my course. Now I am rather bewildered.”

I softened the story McFarlane had told me, left out all question as to
Hugh’s paternity. Once in that hour, Elaine looked into the room, but
as Hugh’s back was turned while I faced the door from my side of the
hearth, I went right on talking earnestly as though not seeing her. She
withdrew.

When I touched upon the friendship of the three boys, the Craighead
twins and Blankleigh, tears came to the eyes of my auditor and as I
told of the shooting of one of the Craigheads, the wrong twin, he
shuddered as though he was cold, but he listened in silence.

In telling of the wrath of old man Craighead and how his solicitor paid
over to the surviving son £50,000 with the information that his father
gave it to him with his curse and the order that he should “never again
darken his door, was no longer his son” I am afraid I trenched on
dangerous ground as Hugh sprang from his chair and commenced pacing
the floor.

“It’s not that I am the son of a murderer; God knows I have nothing but
respect for the sorrows of John Blank,” Hugh said, in a grief-laden
voice. “Everything points to the unspeakable. I must see the newspaper
story, if I have to tear down the old homestead to find it. Why should
my mother’s husband shoot down a guest in his home?” and the man
increased his strides back and forth across the room without looking at
me.

“That is what we must find out, Hugh. We must trace down the cause of
your father’s anger.”

“Yes, though it lead to hell,” Hugh whispered.

There was silence for a moment or two.

“I cannot talk with James just yet. There is something here,” and
he struck his left breast, “which forbids; nor can I bear to see my
sisters. I shall come to your room tonight. In the meantime I shall
ride over the farm,” and he started out.

“Let me go with you, Hugh.”

“No, I wish to be alone,” and correctly reading my thought, added,
“Have no anxiety, I shall join you tonight when the family has retired.”

He would not permit me to accompany him, but I watched him from the
door in the upper hall as he, waving aside a stableman, contrary to
custom, brought out his horse and slipped the joined bridle-reins over
the animal’s head. Slowly for him, he climbed into the saddle and rode
away at a fast canter, out toward the wood.

I took a canoe, a handline, put on one of my host’s short deerskin
jackets which I found in the boathouse, for it was a “raw” day, and
went after northern pike and solitude. I found both in my unconsciously
protracted paddle upriver.

The landing without net or firearm of an immense pike after over two
hours’ struggle, the greatest fishing adventure that had up to that
day ever befallen me, took my thoughts clear away from that which had
obsessed and depressed me.

I awaited Hugh’s coming that night until late and then went to the
barns intending to quietly, without alarming the family, send out a
searching party. I lied to McFarlane, saying Hugh had told me he would
not return from the village before midnight.

It was past that hour when he rode quietly into the stable where I was
anxiously passing the time with the man in charge.

“Sorry to have kept you up,” was his quietly spoken greeting and as
he tossed me a packet of letters, “Mail for you, Gordon, you are not
forgotten of the world it seems,” and his tone was bitter.

We walked through the orchard way into the house, neither speaking.
Hugh seemed changed, his manner held a sort of aloofness new to him
while with me. Evidently he had either forgotten his promise given
during the day, to confer with me, or wished to avoid the interview as
he turned to the stairhead with a brief “Good night” and was gone.

The situation was embarrassing. Merely a guest--why should I feel that
I alone must shoulder the burden or furnish a solution. The answer
was patent--a dream engendered by a vision of a golden-haired girl,
walking between the poplars, listening to the prattle of a wee boy as
he confidently held her hand, of a lithesome young body which just for
a moment I had once held close.

My own affairs entirely forgotten, I sat day-dreaming that morning when
Hugh quietly stepped into my room, looked furtively about, saying, “Can
we talk without being interrupted--I presume you have had breakfast.”

“Certainly,” I lied, noting the absence of my host’s usual
punctiliousness. He had forgotten to say “good morning.”

I had arisen as Hugh pulled a chair up to the hearth in which a small
fire was burning and idly opened one of the letters from the half-dozen
brought by him the night before; casting my eye over it I was suddenly
aroused:

“Listen to this, Hugh,” I exclaimed, “Sorry to inform you that we lost
out on the English case, the heir to the Blankleigh estate, James
Hogarth, has turned up without our aid and is pressing his case
through a new firm of solicitors. Bagly, Atkins and Bagly write that
they are not prepared to compensate our firm. In fact, Hogarth their
client of seven years ago, persistently refuses even to see them, so
you will appreciate that it will not be necessary for you to absent
yourself longer.”

Hugh broke in on my reading.

“From your firm, Gordon? My course is clear. Today we shall come to
an agreement. I must see this man. He may clear up a lot of the dark
spots.”

“Certainly, Hugh, you must go, the property belongs to you and Mr.
McFarlane. You owe it to your father’s memory to make claim to what was
his.”

“I owe it to myself to ascertain much more than I know now,” was the
rather sullen answer.

“Elaine?” I said, attempting to get him to look directly at me, but
he evaded my eye saying, “No time for that now, my friend. My sisters
shall accompany me. I’ll need them in establishing things. McFarlane
says we must hurry and he knows nothing about Hogarth’s reappearance.”

Little did Craighead know of my inner feelings. It seemed as though
a light had been snuffed out. That I would also go to England was my
determination.

Mac was consulted finally when I balked at Hugh’s proposal that I
remain in charge of the Craighead property. I was for going along with
the party whether or no, but finally, on Hugh’s promise to return as
soon as the law’s demands were met, I gave in. He had urged unfinished
work, many poor fellows languishing in prison, who must have a friendly
hand to pull them out into the sunshine, urged the necessity of a firm,
kindly hand in looking after the “guests” now at the Hall, the election
of our member of Parliament and the introduction of his bill.

Emphatically, I must stay. I could not leave him helpless, but not
a word did he say of Elaine until I had assented to the proposed
arrangement, then, after McFarlane had gone, as we clasped hands over
our bargain the old Hugh came back for a moment as he smiled and said,
“I shall come back, a man again--and bring my little sister” then added
after a hesitation, the hard look coming into his eyes, “Or I shall
join my father in his wanderings.”

McFarlane lost his Scotch imperturbability when he learned of the
appearance in England of Hogarth and set out at once for the village to
arrange for passage home.

Hugh invited me to ride over the place with him so that I might have
the benefit of his suggestions as to the conduct of affairs during his
absence. I was deeply impressed with his minute knowledge of every
detail of farm operation and listened with interest as we rode from
field to field, to plans for keeping busy every man in his charge.

“There is no tonic like work,” he said. “It builds both body and brain
and these poor boys need help for both and God knows, so do I.”

From the hilltop, near the big maple, we saw Elaine ride out with the
hounds and, as it was getting dark, I suggested that we go to meet her.

Riding down the north slope of the hill, we struck the back roadway
which in time brought us into the road leading from the locked gate
which had on first sight aroused in me suspicion as to my personal
safety.

Hugh was silent, abstracted, engrossed with something. My horse was
on the left, abreast of his, but he constantly looked to the right
and seemed to be talking to himself. The words did not reach me, only
sounds, and my attention was soon attracted to the baying of the hounds
not far away.

Suddenly out of the semi-darkness came Elaine, and Hugh and I
separated, each springing his mount into the undergrowth to avoid being
run down. She gave a wild hallo as she shot past. Then came the dogs,
evidently in playful pursuit.

There were six of the brutes within twenty yards of us. We had resumed
the roadway with one accord. The hounds suddenly stopped, stood whining
just a second or two, then with dismal howls turned tail and fled.
Neither Hugh’s whistle or Elaine’s who had joined us, had any effect.
The man-chasers had gone home.

“Strange,” Elaine said as soon as she got her breath after the effort
of whistling and quieting her horse. “I never saw the hounds disobey
before; they must be getting cowardly.”

“Perhaps they saw me,” I threw back from my position a length ahead.

“What are you doing out in these woods; don’t you know something might
happen to you?” Hugh said somewhat crossly.

“I knew I should meet you, Hughie,” was the reply and I noted that she
reached over and patted Hugh’s horse on the neck.

“Better keep nearer the house,” came in sullen tones from Hugh, and
Elaine spurred her horse forward. As she passed me, I thought I heard
a little cry as of one in pain. I did not hesitate to follow her, but
succeeded only in finding the white-haired foreman holding her horse in
the stable yard.

It was too dark to see, but I imagined her going through the orchard
way, hurt, sore at heart at the unaccustomed mood of a brother whom she
worshipped.

I waited, but Hugh did not come and as I passed the kennels, I saw that
the animals were quietly lounging about their little yard. I always
gave them a wide berth, but on this occasion looked in at the wrinkled
old leader and spoke. He merely showed the whites of his eyes and
walked away.

Just then I heard the clump-clump of a horse’s hoofs and walked over to
the roadway which I had so recently taken at a gallop.

Two riders about a hundred yards distant came toward me as I stood on
the smooth graveled road. The light was scant, but I could see Hugh’s
horse distinctly, the other vaguely. The air was still. Strange that
the hoofbeats of only one horse came to me. My hair began to rise. I
could not have moved. In a moment they came out of the gloom, close,
and the horse on the left as I looked at them faded and Hugh reined up
to say in a quiet voice, “Did Elaine get in safely?”

The whole pack of hounds a few yards away gave vent to the most
lugubrious of howls, bringing from Hugh an unusual “Damn those brutes;
I’ll send them away.”

My answer was, “My God, Hugh; who was that with you? I certainly saw
another horse.”

Hugh’s horse jumped as he touched it smartly with his crop and he
called back, “Don’t wait for me for dinner. I have work to do.”

I never learned what he did or where he went that night, but McFarlane
who was an early riser, told me he saw him come up the veranda stairs
at daybreak.

He did not speak as Hugh looked worn and haggard.

“Has the mon a lassie or does he dally with the cards?” McFarlane
queried.

I kept my counsel as to Hugh’s companion of the early evening, while
assuring McFarlane that I was not aware before that our host dissipated
in any way.

The two days intervening before the day of the exodus were busy ones
for me. I went over accounts with the secretary, met and talked to many
of the “guests,” endeavoring to learn how the work was distributed,
while Hugh informed each one that he was leaving me as fully empowered
to look after their interests as though he were present. All were busy
making ready for the eventful Sunday morning when they would make the
downtrain at midday.

There was a hardness about Hugh that was unexplainable. He made no
reference to his companion on the ride back from the hill and I did not
dare again to put the question.

Saturday evening we all dined together in the great hall. The long
expanse of polished wood, stretching beyond our party of five, down
the sombre room with the vacant chairs, seemed to accentuate a feeling
which the others apparently shared with me that we were but a remnant
of a noble company which must at one time have filled the room. All
seemed depressed. Wine, of which all partook, failed in bringing
buoyancy. To me it was a sad function and though _she_ sat beside me, I
could neither talk nor eat.

McFarlane discoursed on the subject of most interest to him, the
reappearance of Hogarth and the necessity for hurry that no decree in
the Blankleigh case might be entered before the true heir in person was
presented in court. I did not follow him, nor did Hugh, apparently, and
Elaine broke in, during one of his lengthy speeches to lay her hand on
my arm and say, “Gordon, I am sorry we are going.”

Perhaps she saw something in my eyes, for I could not reply, but only
looked at her, for she added, “I shall come back--with Hughie, the old
Hughie, and we shall have such good days together again.”

I could only reach for her hand which had fallen below the level of the
table and press it.

I felt ashamed of my womanishness. When the others arose, I could
scarcely stand.

Said Alix: “Elaine, we have a lot of things to pack. Good night Mr.
Montrose, see you later, Hugh,” and we three men resumed our seats only
to listen to the Scotch solicitor’s resumption of the trend of his
thoughts.

Only for a moment, though, for Hugh, with “I have too many matters
to attend to, tonight, boys, you will have to excuse me,” arose and
disappeared up the stairway.

The Queen Anne liqueur which had previously always added zest to my
smoke, was bitter in my mouth, and I threw away my cigar and sought my
room.

Once in the night the lonesome baying of hounds came to my ears. I
heard the baby cry as though in pain. The sweetness had departed
from my life. Asleep, I saw a spectral horseman--headless, no--only
lacking ears, but the hands that held the bridle-rein--they were strong
hands, white, shapely, well-formed, a gentleman’s hands--and Williams
was saying, “The house is astir early this morning, sir. You wish to
see the party off? Shall I serve breakfast, sir? The others have all
partaken.”

“Thank you, no, I wish no breakfast, I shall be down in a minute,”
I replied, my heart sinking as I realized that this was the hour of
parting and I had soddenly overslept.

The luggage was afloat in a batteau paddled by six men when I stepped
through the French windows and looked toward the river. Another large
boat was being made comfortable with cushions and a carpet of furs.

I ran down the outside stair and entered the front door expecting to
find the travelers grouped in the hall awaiting me, but it was nearly
an hour before McFarlane appeared, carrying his bag and calling, “Come
on, come on, an there should be a mishap, we shall miss the train.”

Estelle, her arms about Elaine, Alix with Fong Wing close behind
carrying a package of considerable proportions, but evidently light,
came down the stairs and McFarlane, eyeing the package, said “Wifie, I
thocht everything had gone,” bringing the reply, “Oh this, I could not
leave these black fox skins.”

“Good morning, Gordon,” Elaine extended her hand and turned aside
her head, but I saw a tear. I grasped the hand in both of mine, half
dragging her, I am afraid, out toward the waiting boat.

Neither she nor I, it appeared, could speak a word. How strong were her
affections for this wilderness home! If the good God had only disposed
her toward me--no, there was boundless love for Hugh--for the Hall,
perhaps even for her horse. Certainly she reluctantly parted from her
servant Fong, for her last words to me were, “Gordon, be good to Fong
until I come back.”

But a wonderful memory lived with me; it buoyed me up during the long
months that followed; it lives with me yet.

When the three, no, four voyagers (I almost forgot the child, he was
so interested and quiet) were seated in the boat with four paddlers
in their places, Hugh came running down the gravel walk. Just before
he reached the pier, when the men who had congregated to wave an
adieu had stepped back and Estelle was saying goodbye to Alix, Elaine
beckoned me with a look.

I was very near, and went on one knee to hear the whisper which her
lips indicated. Suddenly she leaned forward and kissed me full on my
mouth, then put her hands over her face--and the boat moved out, Hugh
calling, “Goodby, Gordon, and good luck.”

Sorry for me? Yes, she pitied my loneliness. I watched the boat land
on Verde Island. A pain indescribable possessed me, and yet that kiss,
that little moist red mouth pressed against mine--I would not have
changed personality or circumstance with any man in the world. Her
friendship, her pity for my evident loneliness even, weighed more than
all the loves of history.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER XV


Alone, all alone, I dined with Estelle, now the hostess, and her
husband, and yet in this household I was alone. My rising hour was
regular, now that I was in charge. Eight o’clock saw me at the stables
or riding about the place overseeing the fall work.

I cultivated the friendship of the dogs, turned them loose to accompany
me on many a long ride, even learned to whistle so that they came at
my call, all much to the disgust of Fong Wing who never ceased to fear
the brutes. I used Hugh’s horse and it pained me to see Estelle astride
Elaine’s beautiful mount, but time wears away many sharp edges.

Father Nealon was a regular visitor. He never failed to interest me and
all the men liked him. We never ventured far on theology. When I told
him of the shadowy rider whom I saw with Hugh, he crossed himself and
said, “‘And forthwith Jesus gave them leave and the unclean spirits
went out and entered into the swine.’ Who am I but a servant of our
Lord and why should I deny his works and his word? It is not given
to me to see these things clearly, but my faith! I would have taken
oath that I did see a spirit on the occasion of my first visit to this
house.”

November came with snow and ice. And one day came a letter
from McFarlane, quaint and brief. The usual scold at the law’s
circumlocutions, but full of assurances. Family all well; not a word
in particular. Heart-beats quickened at sight of a dainty envelope
superscribed, I knew, by a delicate white hand which I had held in my
own on that last night. What hopes I entertained, what dreams I wove as
I turned it over and over before courage came!

Was it a joy or was it a disappointment? Here it is:

“Gordon dear: I am not happy. Hughie has changed so much. We shall
soon see the dear old Hall again. You looked so miserable but I would
feel disappointed if you did not miss us. Teach Estelle to skate.
We are leaving tomorrow for Scotland. Don’t write until I send our
address--will it be Craighead Hall? Much love--from all--Elaine.

“P.S. Kindly see that my tree is banked--you know--from the frost,
and have Nell sharp-shod if Estelle uses her. My skates are in the
boathouse, above the door. E. C.”

I studied the dash preceding the “from all,” wished the last two words
had been omitted, but then--

The tree was banked and the mare re-shod. The skates even were
retrieved and ground, but as a skater Estelle was a failure, and I
waited patiently until December for the promised address. Then I wrote
to her at the London address of McFarlane and waited.

Time did not stand still. Surprising how many vexatious happenings can
befall in the conduct of a large plantation, even when there exists no
lack of funds. When winter came in earnest, we started building the
big sawmill at Gold Creek, a mile west of the Hall. Foundations were
in shortly after Hugh left. The dam, the race and spillway were his
handiwork. Chisholm, one of the “guests” was a millwright, Atkinson,
another “guest,” a carpenter contractor before misfortune overtook him.
The men were willing workers and the building soon took form.

At Christmas it was under roof. Aye, Christmas--that was a day of
memories--memories of my boyhood home just outside the city, mother and
father, aunt and uncle, our entire family, but always boys and girls
and games and joy. How different this Christmas!

School and college days and each Christmas at home until at twenty only
aunt and uncle welcomed me. Both parents had passed on. At twenty-one,
aunt had died and at twenty-five I was alone in the world without a
relative; home sold, a city dweller, spending Christmas, my day of
memories, in the most lonesome place in the world--a man’s club in a
great city.

That Christmas night we served a banquet. The capacity of the great
baronial hall was taxed, for Estelle had brought in a number of girl
friends. It was the idea of Estelle, who sat at the head of the long
oak table, hostess in the place where _she_ belonged. The men were in
their best clothes; there were no dinner coats. Fong Wing was ornate
in a richly embroidered Mandarin jacket and sang a weird song of Hong
Kong Hong Kongee to his own accompaniment on a one-stringed Chinese
instrument.

There was talent in this family of one-time derelicts, now real men of
worth, and I thought as I looked up the table from my place at the east
end what a noble work Hugh had undertaken.

Tables are said to groan; this one was too solid for complaint, but it
lacked nothing of the load. Great Canadian pike, baked whole, taken
through the ice. I had watched the men in small houses on runners
with a spear-handle protruding from the top, dangling an artificial
minnow on the end of a line about five feet down through a hole in the
ice; a pike would strike, down went the barbed spear and the thing
was accomplished. Turkeys, venison, bear steak, vegetables from the
vaults, apple--even pumpkin-pies and a great assortment of cakes, the
especial pride of the cook, were a part of the menu.

A toast to Hugh was the only drink.

The Chinaman saved his glass of wine, arose and in a quavering voice
said, “I dlink to lillee Mistless of Claighead Hall,” and every man
stood and drained his glass.

I could not have brought her name into this company, but I loved the
Chinese boy for the act.

Was it right that the long table should have been set aside that they
should dance? I permitted it.

Two well-handled violins were produced and for the first time the
polished floor of Craighead Hall, liberally sprinkled with powder, felt
the rhythm of feet, dainty and substantial, gliding to music over its
smooth expanse.

I wonder what Hugh would have thought had he dropped in that night.
But was not a renewal of acquaintance with social usages a necessary
part of the plan of the institution? I stayed in the hall until the
table was back in place and every lady guest departed in charge of the
hostess.

That morning, before retiring, I re-read for the hundredth time my one
letter of letters and as on many previous occasions, convinced myself
that the returning family must be on the ocean.

But March came with its winds, which swept clean the veranda of the
snow that persisted in drifting into corners. True, I had a few letters
from McFarlane; “Only a little while and all would be settled” the
refrain of each.

“Alix was with the child and Elaine at Sorrento, Italy; both of the
latter were a little ‘puling’ but nothing to cause alarm;” Hugh, I
learned, was “dour” and not fit company for “man or beast,” and with
the work at the mill and the clearing of the ash swamp and contiguous
woods, time slipped away until near the end of May when I learned from
the Scot that while Alix and her consort were established at Blankleigh
Manor, holding possession, the case was still in doubt, put over until
a new court sitting.

The interesting, the important news was that Elaine and Hugh were
starting for home in a week.

“Right at this moment she is on the ocean, coming home” and I could do
nothing that day but sit and think.

Ten days. I had lost pounds in weight, wandered over the entire place
with my friends, the wise but wicked-looking bloodhounds, talked to the
old wrinkle-faced Julius Caesar, told him things I knew he would not
repeat, thoughts that burned my heart and seared my brain.

Those ten days extended over a greater period than did the seven months
during which I had kept watch and ward over her possessions.

Without warning they came--in the night--I sat alone in the library,
brooding, had made a pretense of reading, but could not hold interest
or follow line--when about ten o’clock the door opened and Hugh stepped
through, stopping short just inside.

“Well, Gordon, you are alive,” his greeting.

I sprang forward, impulsively threw my arms around him in a hug that
seemed to embarrass, saying only, “Hugh!”

He did not return the embrace. I stepped back, looking at the changes
which a few months had wrought and said, “But you are not alone?”

A little of the old Hugh flashed out as he sadly smiled, “I brought her
back as I promised, Gordon, but a little worse for wear--both of us.
She is upstairs with the women.”

I had reached that condition of mind where nothing mattered. I must see
her. I rushed past Hugh, who stood looking over the room, up the stairs
and in the upper hall saw her coming toward me.

Stricken dumb, I caught both her hands in mine and stood looking into
those glorious eyes, but how big and sad they were! She had grown thin
and pale.

“Why, Gordon, have you been ill? You look like death.”

I whispered her name and she shyly withdrew her hands as Estelle and a
girl came up to us. Then she said, “Gordon, this is Fong’s successor,
Jean,” and Jean, a highly colored Scotch lassie of seventeen or
eighteen, made a curtsey saying to Elaine, “Your bath is ready, please.”

And Estelle, the nurse again, put her arm around Elaine’s waist and
said, “Mr. Montrose, you will please excuse her, she has had a hard day
and needs rest.”

Could I do other than say: “Certainly, certainly,” especially as she,
Elaine, added, “Look after Hugh, Gordon. I wish to have a long talk
with you in the morning.”

When I returned to the library, Hugh was standing in the middle of
the room, hands clasped behind his back and I distinctly heard him
talking. I could no longer doubt that the man was in a dangerous state.
Physically he was far under average and his display of mental breakdown
could be deduced from changed attitude, his aloofness and habit of
talking to himself.

“Are you talking to yourself?” I ventured the question smilingly.

Hugh looked fixedly at me for so long a moment that I thought his
reply would be unpleasant. Then he said, “Gordon, you have been here
sufficiently long to appreciate that this house holds guests whom you
cannot see.”

Purposely I evaded understanding of his meaning. “I thought that from
the first day of my visit Hugh. Men appeared from nowhere even that
first night.”

“You understand my meaning,” Hugh coldly replied.

“You know that my father made this house his home, divided his
attentions between my sister and myself. I am never alone. I can hear
through my brain what he says, just as he hears and answers me,” and he
walked over to the panel in the wall; it slid back and as he stepped
into the dark stairway he added. “Can you join me at seven thirty?
I wish to go up to the mill and see what progress we have made in
clearing.”

Nothing for me to do on this eventful night of _her_ return but prepare
for a new day of hard riding. I surmised that Hugh’s nerves would
keep him moving. I was past the point where my friend’s peculiarities
interested me as a speculation. They had become a source of fear.

At seven thirty I had breakfasted and was out on the veranda ready for
Hugh. He was astride his horse which was showing evidence of too much
stabling. As I went down to where another mount was quietly cropping
grass, Hugh jerking his horse almost to her haunches petulantly blurted
out, “Why didn’t you have this beast exercised while I was away? She is
overfed.”

“Rode her every day,” I replied quietly.

“Then you must have walked her,” and he gave the beast a smart blow
with his riding crop and was off up the river road at such a pace that
I could join him only after he had reached the mill and dismounted.

We lunched at Smith’s cabin, rode the limits of the plantation, down as
far as the ash swamp, considerable of which had been cut over. Only a
few words of approval of my stewardship during a long busy eight months
were spoken, though every change was noted and explained.

We halted at the edge of the soft ground in the swamp. Hugh turned,
saying, “You are all in, old man. Go on home. I shall see what the
spring freshet has done to the creek.”

“Better come with me, you are not perfectly fresh yourself,” I argued,
but he turned and rode back over our tracks, seeking, as I sensed the
higher ground penetrating the swamp.

This was the most exhausting day’s work I had ever known. It was dark
when I handed over my tired horse to the stableman. The hounds clamored
for freedom as I neared the kennels. I opened the gate. They fawned on
me as once they did on Hugh.

The day had been oppressively hot and evening brought no relief. A
storm was brewing.

A cold spring-water bath and dinner clothes had a tonic effect and I
went buoyantly downstairs, anticipating.

Elaine and Estelle were there and the first greeting was “Where is
Hughie?”

I explained.

“Then we shall not wait dinner,” Elaine said. “Hughie spent most of
his days and nights riding about the country in England. I suppose
he will do the same here,” adding, “I am very much alarmed over his
restlessness.”

She was but the shadow of the girl who had kissed me goodbye in
November. Spirituelle, but bewitchingly beautiful. Thinness of face
accentuated the largeness of her eyes. They represented more than the
windows--the soul itself seemed to come out through them.

I committed the error of asking Estelle if her husband would not join
us. Her well-bred reply was, “No, Miss Craighead needs all my attention
tonight,” and I then appreciated that the European trip had indeed
worked sad havoc with the health of this frail girl.

As thunder muttered in the distance, the sister expressed great concern
about Hugh. She looked through the windows at the flashes of heat
lightning, sighed and said, “He likes storms, though. They soothe him,
he says, but I am fearful that he may be struck by lightning.”

“Only electricity burning up super-heated air,” I replied as though I
knew all about nature’s forces.

When rain came down briskly, Estelle asked me to see if my windows were
closed. Of course they were in this house of mysterious serving men,
but “I would see.”

She followed me upstairs, stopped me in the hall and said almost in a
whisper.

“Do not do anything to excite her tonight. She has been hysterical all
day. I gave you the pleasure of her company at dinner just to help her
regain composure. Fred has gone for the doctor.”

“Good lord, Estelle, is it as bad as that?”

“Yes,” she replied, “almost nervous prostration, only her spirit keeps
her up. Gracious! even you, Mr. Montrose, look all used up and you have
had only one day of that moonstruck brother of hers. What would you
have been after eight months of it?” and she flew back downstairs.

I looked into my room, an unnecessary precaution, hastened downstairs,
but Elaine and the nurse were coming up.

Flashes followed by thunder and the downpour of rain beating on the
upper veranda were disquieting. Elaine resting on a divan in the upper
hall from the exertion of climbing the stairs, chided me jokingly on
my failure to keep our morning appointment. I was sorely tempted as
Estelle had left us alone a moment together.

The orchard door opened suddenly bringing in a sheet of rain and
the white-haired overseer slammed shut the door and stood with water
running from his clothing onto the rug.

There was a wild look in his eyes as he directed them first to me, then
to Elaine, then back to me where they rested for a second, before he
said, “Mr. Montrose, I wish to see you a minute.”

Elaine jumped up, crying, “Hugh! Has anything happened to Hugh?”

“Not a thing, Miss, I want to talk privately with Mr. Montrose.”

Estelle who just then returned, said to Elaine, “It must be something
about storm damage; they don’t wish to worry you.” They left us.

“For God’s sake, man,” I ejaculated, looking at the wild eyes of
Stanton who said, “Hugh’s horse has come in, mud to the mane and I
don’t know what to make of it.”

“When?” I inanely exclaimed.

“Just now, and the dogs are out. We cannot have them trace him.”

My heart sank. The brutes always returned to their quarters for dinner.
I turned cold, but appreciated the necessity for action.

“A minute,” I said. “I know where to find him. Get a couple of men and
I will join you at the corner of the barn.”

“Man,” Stanton said, “It’s raining pitchforks.”

“That’s all right,” I replied more bravely than my condition of mind
warranted and fetched a raincoat from my room and was out in the night
without being intercepted, as I feared.

Nobody met me at the appointed place. The wind was high so I stepped
into the shelter afforded by an angle of the barn. Just then there
slunk by me in the darkness a procession of shadowy forms. The dogs
were returning to their kennel.

I was all impatience when four men with five horses came from the
yard. I had difficulty in mounting; finally succeeded through one of
the men’s putting his horse alongside mine to keep him from running
sidewise.

I led the party through the rain down to the point to which I surmised
Hugh was making when we parted. We spread out and urged our reluctant
beasts in the teeth of the storm into the soft swamp. There was no
trail. Stanton and I came together where there was a narrow peninsula
of reasonably firm ground. He called through the deafening roar of the
wind in the trees and the beating of the torrents of rain.

“If we had the dogs now we could trace him.” I made no reply.

We carefully picked our way further into the swamp, both appreciating
that at any moment our horses might disappear in the almost fathomless
black quagmire.

A wild halloo in front stopped us in our tracks. One of our men,
afoot, came staggering out of the dark.

“I’ve found him. He’s dead; all torn to pieces. The dogs, damn them,
they did it.”

We threw ourselves from the horses and followed the man to where in the
darkness we heard running water. In a minute we crossed a narrow ridge,
water on both sides and I recognized Hugh’s boyhood retreat which I had
more than once visited.

Hugh was lying on his back just inside the shelter. In the glare of a
match I saw his white face. The head was turned toward his shoulder as
though in an effort to close a gash in the right side of his neck from
which blood still flowed. I could see only this: his eyes were closed.
The man who found him was bending close and holding the small lights.

“He is alive or the blood would not spurt like this,” he exclaimed.
“What shall we do?”

“Get your horse; take mine, and ride like hell to the woods road. The
doctor is on his way to the Hall. If you don’t meet him, go to the
house. If he has not arrived, ride toward the village and bring him
here.”

“Better stop up the wound with something or the doctor will not be
needed,” he said as he hurried out into the pelting storm.

Light was furnished from a burning splinter. Making a pad of a folded
handkerchief, I tore a strip of linen from my shirt and bound the neck
as tightly as I dared. All in a daze, breath coming with difficulty, I
worked as quickly and effectually as I could.

To wait was agony. I straightened one of his legs which was flexed and
then noticed that the cloth of his trousers was caked with mud and my
hands after the service were incrimsoned. Other wounds--I searched for
them, binding up such as were bleeding.

The dogs had worked sad havoc with their master. Occupation brought
relief from the terrible tension.

Hugh’s riding crop was picked up by one of the two searchers who had
just come in. It showed evidences of a dog’s anger. I visualized the
scene; wondered which had first sought shelter here, Hugh or the
hounds. Probably the hounds. Hugh would, in his latterly acquired
dislike for the animals, attempt to drive them out, probably struck
with his riding whip and they attacked. My surmise was not far from
being correct.

Stanton busied himself in the making of a stretcher of two poles
from the framework of the little habitation, testing their soundness
carefully. Stirrup leathers were brought and fastened between the
poles to form a cradle. Four coats were then similarly used. Then we
waited in silence, watching the still form in lightning flash and the
flickering torchlight, while the wind and rain augmented by the noise
of the rushing waters of the swollen creek and the crashing thunder
created a fearful pandemonium; lightning frequently illuminating the
horror of the situation, drops of water pelted from the frail roof,
little streamlets ran down the side walls. My rubber coat protected
Hugh in a measure, but the leafy flooring beneath him was sadly wet.

The wait was terrible; finally I gave the order, “Let us carry him
home.”

I held his head in position while the men gently laid him in his
stretcher. He moaned once as we four traversed the narrow trail.

Little did the boy dream as he brought his beloved books to this spot
and cleared a path, that in the full day of manhood it would serve as
a guide for the bearers of his body on a night when men’s forms six
feet distant were undiscernible except when nature’s fearful forces
furnished a light.

Hugh’s face was covered; bended branches from his beloved beech tree
held up the coat, giving him air to breathe.

Once as we neared the main road after nearly a mile of laborious
searching out of our way through the forest and newly cleared land,
Hugh spoke. The voice was unnatural, husky and weak.

I was on his right side, near his head and thought he spoke his
sister’s name, but what I heard distinctly was “Hell hounds” and words
that trailed off into nothingness. Consecutive thought would not come
to me. The phrase “This will kill Elaine” had since my first excitement
driven everything else from my mind.

A group of men met us just after the main road was reached. They were
all excited and crowded around us urging their services, but our burden
was light. Not until afterwards did I think of what eight months had
done to my friend--it required little effort to carry the light form.

I gave my place to the silent Williams when we reached the east veranda
stairway whither I directed the awed carriers after dismissing the
other men, thinking to get Hugh to his room without carrying him
through the house and apprising his sister of the disaster before the
doctor came.

I tiptoed up the stairs, entered Hugh’s room and spread the French
windows wide, then pulled a divan out into the open where the stretcher
was rested. Four of us were coatless and drenched to the skin.

Up to this moment I had not felt the full force of the tragedy. My
feelings were beyond anything my pen can describe. We stood in our
sodden garments looking at each other. What should be the next move?

Williams disappeared into the hallway. The raincoat was stripped off,
the beech branches thrown on the floor. I examined the bandage on
Hugh’s neck and found it saturated.

Estelle, followed by Williams, came in hurriedly. Strange how trivial
things impress; in place of the usual nurse’s white, Estelle had on a
loose wrapper and her feet were bare.

She looked at Hugh, caught a breath, then said to the bearers, “You may
go; Mr. Montrose and Stanton stay.”

The two men disappeared through the windows into the rain.

“Now get these clothes off,” to us. A quick movement to Hugh’s dresser
and she was forcing brandy into his mouth. He coughed and I could see a
trickle of red down his breast which I had bared.

“Cut off what you cannot unfasten,” the nurse ordered and presently we
had him between the sheets of linen and she was uncovering the neck
wound while ordering Stanton to get bandages from her room.

The doctor came in through the window, piloted by a man who had waited
in the storm to intercept him, and the messenger. Our man had found him
under the open shed for vehicles at the little white church where he
had taken shelter. The faithful fellow had ridden to the stables where
he learned of the doctor’s non-appearance, then out the road through
the woods intending to go on until the doctor was found.

There was nothing I could do but stand by and watch the physician and
nurse work over the still form. I went over and stood looking at the
play of electricity on the tall poplars.

Just as Estelle said, “There, that is the last stitch,” there was a
deafening crash simultaneous with a blinding flash of lightning. A bolt
seemed to stab the earth with a viciousness indescribable and the smell
of sulphur filled the room. I was thrown back and off my balance.

“Gad!” the doctor exclaimed, “we are struck. Go out, Montrose, and
look about. This tinderbox must not burn tonight,” and he looked
significantly at Hugh’s still form.

Estelle who had been on her knees by the bedside sprang to her feet
with, “Doctor! Doctor! Your other patient; she’ll be wild; come on,”
and hastened from the room before my shocked senses operated to move me
from where I stood.

“Is he dead?” was my breathless query as the medic quietly removed from
the bed to the dresser a number of shining implements.

“Morphine,” was the laconic reply, “and the sister must sleep this
night--but get out, man, you can’t get any wetter.”

Outside as I circled the house from the east stairway, the storm seemed
to have augmented in force while the darkness was so intense that I
stepped right into the arms of another watcher coming through the
orchard.

“Struck a tree just back of the house,” he yelled through the roar of
the storm. “Buildings all right,” and I re-entered the house through
the orchard door and quietly went to my room.

There I found Estelle’s husband.

“Orders,” he said. “You are to take a hot bath, then drink this,”
indicating a long glass of slightly ambered liquid. “Then go to bed.
Doc Parsons says Mr. Hugh will sleep until morning.”

“How about Miss Elaine?” I queried.

“Asleep. She knows nothing about the accident.”

Was it fatigue? The day and night had certainly wearied me, but my
nerves were so tense that no bodily condition would have robbed me of
wakefulness. I slept within a minute after drinking the generous potion
prepared by Estelle--or was it the doctor--he was a great believer in
the efficacy of the poppy in emergencies.

The sun shining through parted curtains was drawing an elongated
triangle on the polished floor of my room when I opened my eyes. It was
late and I cursed myself while hastily dressing as thoughts of Elaine
and Hugh and all the terrors of yesternight rushed upon me.

My first action was to rush to Hugh’s room. Estelle, sitting near the
bed, placed her finger on lips as I cautiously opened the door and
intruded my head.

Then she silently, by motion of those lips, said, “Sleeping; Elaine
also,” and I withdrew to search for the doctor. He also was sleeping.

All nature appeared to voice its thanks to the God of the universe
for the cleansing of the atmosphere. There was a delightful odor of
fresh earth mingled with the perfume of blossoms filling the air. The
overseer and a couple of men were busy with pick and shovel removing
the last traces of what was yesterday a splendid apple tree. A few
small branches many yards away attested the violence of the shock which
had worked the destruction.

As I stood near them, one of the men said, “Ah, here is what attracted
the lightning,” and he reached down and endeavored to pull up a pipe
protruding from the cavity where the tree had stood.

“Seems to go deep,” he grunted while exerting all his strength.

“That must be a vent to one of the vaults--it is hollow,” the foreman
remarked, and while I stood by--I felt a little dazed yet--they filled
in and sodded the spot that nothing should mar the velvety smoothness
of a portion of the estate to which a practical gardener and our
Chinaman were devoted. I saw that a small opening atop the vent pipe
was left, but the spot was scarcely noticeable.

“Better,” a word common on the lips of doctor and nurse, though too
often meaningless, as I knew, nevertheless it braced me on each
occasion when I made inquiry as to the condition of the patients.

Work must go on. Forty men must not become idle for lack of guidance
and I was relieved when the foreman asked me to ride to the mill and to
the logging operations. I took up my duties of the days when I managed
the place just as naturally as though they had not been interrupted
through Hugh’s return.

The third day Hugh had a “slight fever,” and “Elaine was with him”
relayed, was all I could learn. Thank heaven, I did not witness the
meeting between brother and sister--it would have been too much.

Trouble multiplied. McFarlane, knowing Hugh’s condition, by letter
poured out to me his despair of winning for him his English estate.
The court could not disregard the operation of natural law and the
registering of birth in connection with the record of John Blankleigh’s
incarceration following the shooting of Craighead negated the claim
that Hugh was Blankleigh’s son.

“The estate would go to the other claimant, Hogarth, who had submitted
irrefutable proof of being the next of kin,” was Mac’s wail, but my
worry was over the other question, legitimacy, and the present effect
on my sick friend.

Should the doctor be taken into our confidence? I determined to lay the
whole matter before Parsons--or should I go to the priest?

The doctor was calling to me, “Come up. I wish to have a word with you.”

Hugh was losing his fight, did not seem to care to win, Parsons said.

Then I bared the whole story. Elaine’s strange malady; the change in
Hugh, commencing on the night when he overheard us discussing the
family history; the spectral horseman to whom Hugh talked and the
change in the behavior of the bloodhounds.

“They evidently could see what only a few of us can,” I concluded
lamely at least to the practical doctor’s thinking, for from a quiet,
anxious listener, he suddenly blazed forth, “Idiot! A parcel of damned
idiots. Why didn’t you tell me all this before? Why man, I have doubted
my own sanity; questioned my ability as a physician; tried my damnedest
to get to the root of things; and here I have been working to cure the
body when the mind is deranged.

“I am not one of those fool doctors who believe that the machine is
everything. The operator is of vastly more importance. Why in--well,
now I understand his delirium; why he sees things and talks to thin
air. Spiritualism, rank nonsense; imagines his father is with him--”
and abruptly Parsons left me, walked to the west end of the veranda
with head bowed and hands clasped behind his back.

Returning, he stopped and quietly said, “Do you know, Montrose, our
think-works, the useful ones, are in the front; the sleep-works in
the back of our heads. I saw you looking at the ceiling just now, so
conclude you have no suggestions.”

“Wrong, doctor,” I replied, accustomed to Parsons’ brusqueness; “why
not get a surgeon from Toronto or Montreal; they have a broader
practise than you; may know some kind of a cure for your patient’s
hallucinations.”

“All crazy here, from the Chinaman up. Come back about eleven,” and he
went back to Hugh’s room.

From eleven to twelve o’clock, I walked the upper veranda impatiently,
cursing that habit of all the medical men of my acquaintance--they
never once had kept an appointment or considered the other fellow’s
feelings. Then Parsons stuck his head out of the opened window.

“No time now, Montrose, am in consultation with a specialist; talk to
you later.” My suggestion had evidently been forestalled.

When, after an invitation from Parsons to join the medical men at
dinner, I walked into the library where a table was prepared near
the open windows, I was presented to Doctor Milne of Toronto, a man
about forty, shrewd-looking, with keen, colorless eyes and I noted
particularly, the longest, most slender fingers I had ever seen on a
human hand.

Parsons noted my hesitancy in taking the proffered hand of Dr. Milne
and broke the ice in his characteristic way with, “Lucky, young man, if
you never have to feel those fingers in anything more sensitive than
your palm” and the specialist smilingly commented: “Very convenient,
Mr. Montrose, yes, very convenient in delicate explorations,” holding
up his hands; “permit an unusually small incision, unusually small,”
and his satisfied air proclaimed to me evident pleasure in his art.

Peculiar, the reasoning of most doctors. I put my questions regarding
Hugh directly to Milne. He shifted the responsibility of reply to
Parsons, who with apparent amusement watched the blood mantling my
face. I was in no mental state to calmly listen to a play on words,
however erudite, or weigh foolish professional ethics.

Then Parsons said, “Montrose, don’t you know better than to question
a consultant? It isn’t done. Hugh’s wounds are not necessarily
fatal--infection, a little fever, nothing alarming, but the doubly
accursed dogs bit into his voice. That’s layman’s talk, Montrose,
the throat lesion is deep and the man may never again speak above a
whisper; but that’s all he seems to need, a whisper in this house
where even the living men are silent. The dead don’t need a trumpet.”

Parsons leaned far back and laughed harshly, a most bitter,
understandable laugh of commingled sorrow for patient and disgust for
himself, his skill which could not restore.

Anger seemed to fill his eyes as he tipped forward as though to
emphasize his statement. “That’s not the worst of it. He’s crazy. When
not confidentially whispering to some imaginary person, I know he is
thinking talk. Usually insanity has little effect on the health, but
this thing spiritism is different, he is wasting away.”

Doctor Milne interposed, “Loss of appetite; affects the pneumogastric
nerve, checks digestion.”

“We are agreed that an operation may at least partially restore Hugh’s
voice,” Parsons said, “but nothing will save him if he will not eat.”

Then the consulting doctor disregarded me wholly and addressing Parsons
said, “Perhaps, doctor, you have not had occasion to study that
peculiar aberration called spiritism. I regret to say that the malady
is becoming quite common, especially among the more serious thinkers.
Quite a smattering are scientific men. We have found it convenient to
attach to our hospital staff a specialist in psycho-physics; may I
suggest Mr. Craighead’s removal to Toronto? He may possibly have both
voice and reason benefited.”

“Can’t be moved, in my judgment,” from Parsons.

“Useless to discuss this further then,” said Milne. “Our Dr. Antoine
takes his own time in bringing about cures--has clinics or classes. The
method is peculiar. I have listened with interest on many occasions.
He seems to adopt homeopathic methods, cures like with like, for he
certainly teaches spiritism, is an avowed spiritualist.

“I have heard him say that a thousand years hence when people become
weaned from what he terms a silly emotional philosophy preached from
our pulpits and learn that God is within each of them and was never
seen in a burning bush or perched on far-away Mount Sinai, all will
know that the dead live and are as real as those in the flesh.

“He holds that lack of knowledge of spiritism in those endowed with
a peculiar brain or subconscious attunement affording ability to
communicate with spirits, causes many so-called mediums to sicken and
die. The fault lies in the ignorance of the living who know nothing
of natural laws; such laws are not taught our children because such
teachings would controvert common understanding of so-called ‘Bible
truths.’

“He believes that ignorant submission of will-power among beginners
through curiosity, amazement, interest in the unusual or for gain, yes,
submission of the will of the living to the will of the spirit with
whom the medium is in touch will cause the being within the living
to become silent, the actual spirit to be dispossessed, driven out,
the other to take possession but the house cannot accommodate the new
tenant. It decays.

“The life term of most mediums seldom exceeds seven years of active
work, I have noticed. A strange world, this,” and turning to me, “Mr.
ah--Montrose, I presume all of this is Greek to your practical mind.”

“Not quite, doctor,” I replied, “and I think well of your suggestion;
we must bring Dr. Antoine here, no matter what the cost.”

“Impossible. He is peculiar, money seems to mean nothing to him; he
treats many without charge, makes no distinction between those who
pay and the charity patients; seems to be a part of his peculiar
philosophy--or shall we call it religion?”

“A pretty blamed dangerous philosophy, I should say,” from Parsons,
“but any old religion that makes man feel a responsibility for his
fellow man’s weal has my approval. I’ve watched many pass away but have
yet to see any spooks hovering about and unless the lad upstairs gets
help which I can’t give him--and right soon--he is a goner.”

Before we left the library it was agreed that Hugh should be taken to
Dr. Milne’s hospital as promptly as possible.

The following morning Parsons, leaning over my bed, awoke me with, “No
wonder your wits are dull; you sleep as though it were a business; now,
boy, up and get both brother and sister into the care of this mind
carpenter of Milne’s--can’t do either of them any great harm.”

Two days later, after seeing Elaine, Hugh, Estelle, the maid and Dr.
Parsons aboard a private car at Brenton, as I leisurely paddled my
canoe through the twilight toward the Craighead Pier light, I thought
of the vagaries of fate which had brought me to this place, a stranger,
interested only in finding a client. Instead I had found a vocation,
taken on a great responsibility--and lost myself to a woman beyond my
reach.

I had resigned my junior partnership in my law firm and now, with
Hugh’s changed attitude toward me, I must give up this work.

The Hall, with its silent “guests”--master, mistress, nurse, all gone,
so depressed me that I welcomed work.

What a blessing is work, even hard manual labor, a necessity on the
farm. But for the urgency of necessary work on my part I should have
become a fit subject for Dr. Antoine’s ministration.

The rivermen, the boom-stringers had moved down the river, giving place
later to gangs of drivers who swept millions of logs before a great
sweep stretching from shore to shore, when wind and current were right.
The boom was formed of long logs chained end to end with a staunch raft
on either extremity, drawn forward through the turning of a capstan
which slowly drew the sweep toward anchors carried out by boats. The
turning of the capstan by four to six men reminded me of John Blank’s
treadmill in Tasmania, but invariably these men sang as they worked.

A short note from Dr. Parsons, who had returned to Valleyford, took
me hot-foot to the village, where I learned that he was again back in
Toronto--a great disappointment.

In confidence from the secretary, Hunt: “Hugh has deeded to Elaine the
entire Canadian estate accompanying the gift with an immense endowment
in funds.”

My last hope was shattered. Surely I felt impoverished, mentally and
otherwise--what except devotion had I to offer?

Parsons surprised me one hot day in July. He said he wanted a good
day’s fishing, well knowing that a drive of logs had just passed and
that catching fish was out of the question.

I learned that both patients were “on the mend” as the doctor put
it. “Hugh’s operation was successful but it had not had time to show
results. He was still morose.”

“Pretty lucky for Craighead, picking you out of a law office before
you got into some penitentiary. Saved him time and money;” and
“clodhopping, farming, rather than law was evidently my forte; he had
heard that I had just lost a case before the Governor-General” were
some of his good-natured jibes before I could elicit any details of the
case obsessing my mind.

Just before sundown as we were returning to the Hall after a fruitless
four hours of fishing, Parsons reached into his pocket saying, “Here is
a note from the young lady which I forgot to deliver.”

When I snatched the envelope from his hands with an oath, the doctor
laughed and said, “Good! I’m glad to see you have some spirit left.
Thought this madhouse had got you.”

“Dear faithful Gordon: The doctor has told you all about Hugh,
all about me. We are promised return leave about September first.
Faithfully, Elaine.”

It was not much, but it raised my spirits.

To insure the doctor’s staying that night, I had Stanton hide his horse
and the poor vicarious liar told Parsons with a solemn face that it had
strayed from the pasture.

I learned that though Hugh’s voice was not fully restored by the
operation, there was prospect of its becoming stronger. The young lady,
living in the quiet sanitarium of Dr. Antoine, was in cheerful spirit
and “getting back her roses.”

“What of Hugh’s mental poise?” I queried.

Parsons pondered a long minute. “Antoine is a peculiar fellow; he
didn’t pooh-pooh Hugh’s dementia at all. Even with the staff of
operating surgeons present he told Hugh he knew there were many living
spirits of the dead all about us, in our homes, that the hospital was
crowded with them. ‘Helping,’ he said.

“Now, Montrose, just imagine spooks helping Milne when he uses those
long fingers in an operation that means life or death according to
his skill in avoiding a membrane by the vigintillienth of an inch,
yet the fellow had an explanation, explained just as though it were
true that ‘through electrobiologic batteries charged from the persons
present’--whether alive or dead I don’t know,” Parsons interpolated,
“‘the spirit within the surgeon was given an ascendancy making the
physical for a time merely the agent of the subconscious man.’

“Briefly,” Parsons added, “the operation was not performed by Milne
alone; he was aided by the dead surgeons present,” and he laughed, then
resumed in a more serious vein, “The strange thing about it, Montrose,
is that Milne is different when operating with Antoine present. I have
watched him when Antoine looked into the patient’s eyes before the
operation as he did into Hugh’s, heard him say to the psychoanalyst,
‘Well!’ and the answer, ‘He has or has not the will to live,’ and in
each case the operation was successful or the reverse according to
Antoine’s reply.

“One day I asked Antoine why spirits make a rendezvous of the hospital.
He replied seriously, ‘Every worthwhile disembodied spirit has his work
and you doctors keep busy an army of them caring for souls released
through your bad guessing and reckless cutting.’

“I quit him then, but both Elaine and Hugh like him. Hugh has quit
whispering to himself.”

That night before retiring, I read and re-read _her_ brief note.

Reveries merged into dreams of mingled ecstacy and despondency.
Chemical activity fading, came rapture. The subjective in command, the
soul spoke. Then struggling came the conscious, the spoiler, and the
vision despair.

Parsons said to me next morning, “Boy! You look as though you had been
drawn through a knot-hole.”




[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVI


September, season of fulfillment, that seventh month of the old Roman
calendar now held for me a wonderful significance. Here was August with
its dusky brush spreading over field and forest a sizing of brown,
nature’s preparation for the coating of white to be laid on only a
couple of months later in this northern clime. Harvesting was well
along and I had time to build on the outer end of the pier a small
artistic summer house. There I rested evenings in the pleasantness of
the usually-present river-cooled breezes and dreamed.

News from England was disquieting. Hugh’s entailed patrimony would pass
from the hands of the rightful heir in September and my friend would
bear, to his death, a detested stain. Could, or rather, would he live
his life with this mark upon him?

The first of September found me in Toronto before a black-gowned judge
pleading and not in vain, for the parole of an unfortunate. Tardy
cutting of legal tape made my sojourn in that city so uncertain that
there was no conveyance awaiting me at Laketon when three days later I
arrived there; thus I resumed acquaintanceship with my driver of a year
ago--a year, but seemingly a decade.

He welcomed me to a seat on the coach beside him after stowing away the
mail bag for Valleyford: became the questioner, reversing our previous
roles.

“What has become of Craighead?”

“In Toronto recovering from an operation,” I replied and he looked the
suspicion which he a few minutes later voiced, “Some say that he has
been done away with and that you have taken his place; guess I need not
have been anxious about you,” and he shifted his position further to
the left.

When we had swung across the bridge into the village, although I had
endeavored to enlighten my friend as to the work at Craighead Hall, I
felt doubt as to whether or not I was cleared as a murder suspect. At
best, I remained to him a usurper.

My horse, Hugh’s, was at the hotel stables. As I passed the little red
school house and approached the white church, my mind was engrossed
with thoughts of the events of my year’s work in this, at first, land
of enchantment, turned place of sorrows, and through no fault of mine.

Evening shadows were falling as I passed the church and cast my eyes
over to the far corner of the little cemetery.

Was I taking on Hugh’s affliction? There he was--leaning on the paling
surrounding John Blank’s grave, just as when I first set eyes on him!

I reined up my mount so violently that even before the beast could be
quieted Hugh had walked over to the road fence, was leaning on it as
though tired, and when I came alongside, extended his hand, listlessly
and said something in greeting which I could not catch.

At my effusive “God bless you old man, I’m glad to see you again,” he
merely smiled a sad, wan smile.

“The spirit seems to have left the man,” was my thought as we rode side
by side, he on Elaine’s horse which had been tied in the church-shed.
He would not trust himself on his own mount which I had proffered.

It was not the Hugh of last September, neither was it the crazed man as
he had returned from England. This cross rested heavily on his weakened
shoulders. I would gladly have helped bear it with him.

His voice was a whisper as he talked and though I learned that
the whole party had returned two days previously, I hesitated at
questioning, not wishing to put upon him the effort necessary in making
reply.

I could discern, even though his riding stock was high, a livid scar
made by the teeth of his dogs, extended by the surgeons.

Our ride into the plantation was almost as silent as was our first walk
over the same road. Leaves were falling; the sadness of autumn crept
into my blood and it was an unhappy Montrose who walked with his host
into the upper hall. Even the thought of again seeing _her_ failed in
dispelling a monstrous depression.

She stood near the hearth in the library, one arm about Hugh, to
whom she was talking in a low tone when, after preparation in the
matter of dinner clothes, I went down to dine. I had never seen her
so bewilderingly beautiful. The months in care of the mind-healer had
certainly worked wonders and, as I took both her extended hands in
mine, reason seemed in the balance. I had difficulty in preventing
myself from drawing her into just one embrace, come what might.

Solicitude for Hugh held her close to him and it was not until the
following afternoon that opportunity came.

She proposed that we should pick the apples from her tree; even then
Hugh made a third party. The telling to Hugh of events intimate to last
year’s picking brought from him a smile but he was silent and when we
had gathered the meager crop afforded in what the gardener termed an
off-year for fruit, and Elaine and I had each taken up two baskets,
the total yield, and started for the vaults, he left us.

Sliding back the great oak door at the north end of the east wall of
the house we were in a corridor lighted only from the open doorway.
On the left was solid masonry; on the right, hewn rock with doors of
limestone showing at intervals of about twelve feet heavy wrought iron
hinges; overhead a vaulted ceiling of stone.

A number was painted on each door.

“Here is my storeroom,” Elaine said, in a strained voice, holding out a
huge key.

Neither of us had spoken after we entered the vault’s corridor. I shall
not attempt to explain the reason for her silence. I simply could not
speak, so intense were my emotions.

The key fell to the stone floor. I started toward her, whispering her
name. She put both hands over her eyes as I stopped, then turned and
fled down the corridor.

“Fool! Fool! How I have presumed--now I must quietly slip away from
this house and try to forget. She will never forgive what she must have
correctly interpreted as an act beyond the bounds of good breeding,”
was my thought.

The ignominy of it; could she not trust herself alone with me, her
brother’s friend? In my estimation, I fell far below the status of the
most unpromising of the Hall’s “guests.”

Listlessly I pulled back the vault door, deposited the baskets on the
floor and, utterly exhausted from surcharge of feeling, leaned back
against the door of the inner vault. My next sensation was that of a
man struck by a falling tree.

I had been pitched forward and was lying on my face, my feet pinned
beneath some heavy weight. A musty odor came into the vault. The upper
half of the stone door had fallen outward and only the baskets of
apples had saved me from a terrible crushing.

With difficulty I extricated myself; my first thought the apples,
ruined irretrievably and through my carelessness. I think I endeavored
to remove the stone, but desisted when I heard voices. No, there was
nothing of the supernatural about one voice. The sound came from the
inner vault.

Could I mistake Dr. Parsons’ cheery tones? They came again, then all
was silent.

I pulled the lower half of the door out onto the other. It fell with a
startling crash and a cloud of dust. Then I stepped through the portal,
but the room was dark.

I called “Dr. Parsons!” but there was no response.

I struck a match and the first object that met my eye was a huddled
form, apparently that of a man near the farther wall. The match
expired. I turned and ran out into the open air.

Hastily I went to my room via the veranda, secured two lamps and
hurrying back down the outer stairway was greeted with “Holy virgins!
Where are we going at four o’clock daylight with our lamps trimmed?”
from Dr. Parsons, the man of all others whom I wished to see.

“Come on, doctor, there’s a dead man in the vaults,” I exclaimed.

“You look crazy but I’ll go with you,” the doctor replied and added as
we halted on reaching the open door, to light the lamps, “Hope it’s
only the Chinaman. Don’t like to think of any of the other fellows
snooping around--they’re too decent.”

Parsons stepped over the broken door, holding a lamp high. Quite a mass
of debris was scattered over the floor of the northwest corner of the
room. Near it was what appeared to be a clothed human form. I could see
a head with reddish hair, the top of the head, as the chin rested on
the chest and back of the object was a small brass-bound leather trunk,
against the well.

From Parsons came, “Lightning must have struck above this place,” as he
looked at the shattered stone some of which was about the legs of the
partially recumbent figure.

“Yes, yes, last spring. It struck the air-vent when the tree was
destroyed.” I excitedly replied and then for the first time realized
that the voices which I had heard in the vault came through this pipe
from the orchard above.

“Then this fellow must have been in here since then. Probably killed
him.”

By this time, Parsons had his hand on the shoulder of the man and was
saying, “Holy Joseph! This has been here a long time, mummified, cured,
or I never saw the Catacombs of Rome.”

I stood mute while my friend kept up a continuous flow of fragmentary
remarks as he went on with his examination.

“Good thing they elected me coroner; looks like murder. No, by all
that’s holy, here we have it. A clean shot, in the right, out the left
temple,” and he picked up from the debris a small weapon. “English,
a bulldog, one chamber empty, a good shot,” and dropping the weapon,
proceeded to look inside the coat.

“Some sport--employed the best tailor in London ten years ago,” as he
examined markings on a pocket.

A yellowed parchment crackled as the doctor moved the form. Parsons
picked it up.

“Now what! Here is a certified copy of the birth-record of Hugh
Hogarth Blankleigh, London, England; queer, they don’t usually carry
credentials, these birds--”

I fairly yelled.

“Hogarth, James Hogarth--at last I have found you, too late, but I have
found you,” and then it dawned on me that the claimant in England must
be a fraud, a part of a conspiracy, that a cable to McFarlane would
secure a postponement or if decision had been rendered, a reopening of
the case.

“Wait a minute, don’t get panicky,” the doctor called as I snatched the
parchment from his hand and started to run from the room.

I stopped, not because commanded, but because, as the doctor was
reading the certificate I had caught on the reverse side the name
“James Hogarth” among a dozen or so lines of writing in soft pencil.
The name stood out as though embossed.

“Here is something!” I said, trying to decipher the irregular lines.

“Read it, man,” Parsons exclaimed as I stood silent, staring at the
thing--the last words of a dying man.

Turning closer to the light I read:

“God how I have yelled.

“Air good but so damned thirsty.

“In the dark soon--somebody may hear.”

The “may” was underscored and from the next writing it appeared that he
had extinguished the light and slept.

“Must be the second day or night--matches, but must save oil. It shakes
light.

“Craighead has the laugh on James Hogarth, Esq., this time.

“No use yelling; I’m caught. Be a good sport, James, die game, Cousin
John took his standing, not a peep.

“He got her! God bless her; no man could have told me she was untrue
and lived--wonder how he died. I am sorry, yes, sorry that the double
damned door slammed.”

Evidently some time elapsed before the other lines were written as the
words were hard to decipher.

“Crazy as march hare.

“God! God! God! Must I die--body to the rats, soul to the devil, with
John and Jim?

“I wronged you, little Ruth, when I lied to your John, forgive--

“Afire--paying--coward--a pill from five-fingered dick--no pain.
Hurry--light splutters, but I’ll burn it.”

This, as nearly as we could decipher was the last message of the source
of all the Craighead-Blankleigh tragedy--a disappointed suitor who for
revenge and gain, for Hogarth was the next male heir to the entailed
estate, had evidently poisoned Blankleigh’s mind to desperation’s
breaking point, sending the jealous husband out to commit murder.

As I crouched beside the doctor, the better to get his aid in
deciphering, he broke the trend of my thought with, “Well, the poor
cuss, he probably deserved it, but I’m sorry. What brought him snooping
in here to be caught like the rat he was? What was he going to burn?
Why the birth certificate of course. That’s what brought him here.”

It had just then struck me also. The record of birth of Hugh in London
had been doctored--altered--pity I did not remember details of dates
so frequently repeated by McFarlane--but the certificate was all
important--it might restore Hugh to himself. That was the important
thing. What matter the property?

A great burden seemed to have fallen from my shoulders. Gladness came
to my heart. My long sojourn at this place found an excuse. What had
up to this moment been demanded of me seemed trivial. Here in the
finding of Hogarth and this document was accomplishment, my excuse for
intrusion into the intimate life of these people--the quest was ended.

“Let’s take the certificate to Hugh,” I exclaimed.

“Wait, Montrose, the Scotch crops out in you when money is to be
found--I must think.”

“Joy never kills; let’s find Hugh,” I said as I started up.

“Parrot stuff,” Parsons ejaculated. “Trouble kills; something must be
done with this.” Then he added, after a moment’s silence, during which
he looked at what was once a man’s form. “Go ahead, tell Hugh, wire
McFarlane. I’ll get Stanton; he’s silent as the grave, and this find
will be our secret. No use harrying Hugh or Elaine with a sight of
this; but I’ll take photographs; they may come in handy.”

The parchment was folded and safely in my pocket when I walked into
Hugh’s room. He was not about the house, so I found Hunt the secretary.
Together we framed a long message to McFarlane, embodying the entire
content of the birth certificate and a recital of the circumstances
of its finding, promising the proofs by mail. A few minutes later the
secretary was on his way to the village telegraph office.

I dared not delay, even though the certificate meant nothing more than
proof that the real claimant was here and not before the English court.

I found Hugh through hearing the dogs. They were in a remote corner
of the orchard near the river’s edge. She was sitting by his side and
the whole pack of hounds sported about them, joyous, and showing none
of the sense of fear which evidently brought about the tragedy in the
swamp.

“Hugh!” I called from a little distance. They were apparently talking
seriously as they both seemed startled. Elaine gave me one quick,
frightened glance, then hastened away, the hounds following, while Hugh
came toward me without a word.

“Important news, Hugh. I have found your birth certificate,” I blurted
out. My friend’s face paled and his hand shook as he took the yellowed
parchment and fairly devoured it with his eyes.

“Good God!” he whispered and I put an arm about him.

He staggered as though from a blow. I wondered then if joy does not
sometimes kill.

“Why, I am six months older than I thought I was” came from his lips
and then the import of that fact seemed to strike him, for the voice,
from a whisper broke into an unintelligible something which I cannot
adequately describe.

“I doubted her--fool--I doubted her,” was understandable, more from the
expression of his eyes than from the words.

Then he sank to the ground, burying his face in his hands.

I was quietly telling him the whole truth as to how Hogarth had been
found, reading the last expressed thoughts of that criminal, saying
that Hunt was well on his way with the message which would secure him
his father’s property--and name--in England.

His form ceased to heave and presently he arose, placed both hands on
my shoulders and said, the voice weak, but different.

“Gordon, now I can look you in the face. The strain has been great--I
have thought of ending it all.” Here he paused, then looking away
added, “’Twas my little sister--the suicide’s sufferings even in the
spirit world would have created no barrier. I thought only of her
sorrow.”

Then his mood changed and as we stood facing the broad river, the
very soul within him seemed to expand as he told me of his plans, now
assured for carrying out his great work in the land of his birth, all
sense of the injustice done his father and mother which filled my
thoughts, seemed for the moment forgotten.

He was the zealot, the emancipator, the friend of the friendless, and
his plans carried me along in the scheme.

I should be master of Craighead Hall, filling it with new “guests,”
strange faces, until the whole countryside should be peopled with
reborn men and the Parliament forced to take notice and lend its
approval.

“And I shall return soon and you must come over and see what we have
done at Blankleigh Manor,” brought me back to a realization of present
things.

I could not say him nay. I could not tell him then that I had made
up my mind to go away, that life here was agony; even though I loved
both the wonderful old plantation and the work--yes, both court and
managerial work--but I could not live under the strain--here.

Hugh was continuing, “But I must not stand idling. Dr. Parsons is
opportunely here; he has often expressed a desire to see England again.
I’ll take him with us and be off soon as we hear from McFarlane. I must
go to Elaine. You haven’t told her anything?” he called back as he
hurried toward the house while I aimlessly wandered over to the pier to
sit in the little summer house to think and brood.

After a time, as the sun sank low over the big hill where I had
listened to Hugh’s recital of his father’s sad history, a wonderful
picture spread itself before my senses. I could see this whole country,
now sparsely settled, teeming with life, useful activity, mills driven
by the harnessed power of the great river, artisans now rotting in
prison becoming an indispensable part of a nation’s progress; engineers
making a waterway from the upper lakes to the St. Lawrence, and power,
unlimited power--being carried throughout the Province--all through
my effort. And then my thoughts went back to her and I started up,
wide-awake, as she, all in white as I had first seen her, stood in the
open doorway.

Her hands were by her sides, a wistful, pleading look was in her
soulful, glorious eyes. I stood, irresolute.

“Gordon, I have come to you,” she whispered, and waited.

I could not--no I could not reply.

“Hughie said I should find you here--don’t you want me?” and she held
out her hands--

As my arms encircled her in a close embrace, there came to us, through
the quiet evening air, the song of the boom-gatherers returning from
work.

The Ave Maria, appealing, rising and falling in wonderful cadences to
the dip-dip of many paddles--it floated to us over the still waters, a
benison.




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.


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