The Scarlet Car
Page 6
II
THE TRESPASSERS
With a long, nervous shudder, the Scarlet Car came to a stop, and thelamps bored a round hole in the night, leaving the rest of theencircling world in a chill and silent darkness.
The lamps showed a flickering picture of a country road between highbanks covered with loose stones, and overhead, a fringe of pine boughs.It looked like a colored photograph thrown from a stereopticon in adarkened theater.
From the back of the car the voice of the owner said briskly: "We willnow sing that beautiful ballad entitled 'He Is Sleeping in the YukonVale To-night.' What are you stopping for, Fred?" he asked.
The tone of the chauffeur suggested he was again upon the defensive.
"For water, sir," he mumbled.
Miss Forbes in the front seat laughed, and her brother in the rearseat, groaned in dismay.
"Oh, for water?" said the owner cordially. "I thought maybe it was forcoal."
Save a dignified silence, there was no answer to this, until there camea rolling of loose stones and the sound of a heavy body suddenlyprecipitated down the bank, and landing with a thump in the road.
"He didn't get the water," said the owner sadly.
"Are you hurt, Fred?" asked the girl.
The chauffeur limped in front of the lamps, appearing suddenly, like anactor stepping into the limelight.
"No, ma'am," he said. In the rays of the lamp, he unfolded a road mapand scowled at it. He shook his head aggrievedly.
"There OUGHT to be a house just about here," he explained.
"There OUGHT to be a hotel and a garage, and a cold supper, just abouthere," said the girl cheerfully.
"That's the way with those houses," complained the owner. "They neverstay where they're put. At night they go around and visit each other.Where do you think you are, Fred?"
"I think we're in that long woods, between Loon Lake and Stoughton onthe Boston Pike," said the chauffeur, "and," he reiterated, "thereOUGHT to be a house somewhere about here--where we get water."
"Well, get there, then, and get the water," commanded the owner.
"But I can't get there, sir, till I get the water," returned thechauffeur.
He shook out two collapsible buckets, and started down the shaft oflight.
"I won't be more nor five minutes," he called.
"I'm going with him," said the girl, "I'm cold."
She stepped down from the front seat, and the owner with suddenalacrity vaulted the door and started after her.
"You coming?" he inquired of Ernest Peabody. But Ernest Peabody beingsoundly asleep made no reply. Winthrop turned to Sam. "Are YOUcoming?" he repeated.
The tone of the invitation seemed to suggest that a refusal would notnecessarily lead to a quarrel.
"I am NOT!" said the brother. "You've kept Peabody and me twelve hoursin the open air, and it's past two, and we're going to sleep. You cantake it from me that we are going to spend the rest of this night herein this road."
He moved his cramped joints cautiously, and stretched his legs the fullwidth of the car.
"If you can't get plain water," he called, "get club soda."
He buried his nose in the collar of his fur coat, and the odors ofcamphor and raccoon skins instantly assailed him, but he only yawnedluxuriously and disappeared into the coat as a turtle draws into itsshell. From the woods about him the smell of the pine needles pressedupon him like a drug, and before the footsteps of his companions werelost in the silence he was asleep. But his sleep was only a review ofhis waking hours. Still on either hand rose flying dust clouds andtwirling leaves; still on either side raced gray stone walls, telegraphpoles, hills rich in autumn colors; and before him a long white road,unending, interminable, stretching out finally into a darkness lit byflashing shop-windows, like open fireplaces, by street lamps, byswinging electric globes, by the blinding searchlights of hundreds ofdarting trolley cars with terrifying gongs, and then a cold white mist,and again on every side, darkness, except where the four great lampsblazed a path through stretches of ghostly woods.
As the two young men slumbered, the lamps spluttered and sizzled likebacon in a frying-pan, a stone rolled noisily down the bank, a whiteowl, both appalled and fascinated by the dazzling eyes of the monsterblocking the road, hooted, and flapped itself away. But the men in thecar only shivered slightly, deep in the sleep of utter weariness.
In silence the girl and Winthrop followed the chauffeur. They hadpassed out of the light of the lamps, and in the autumn mist theelectric torch of the owner was as ineffective as a glow-worm. Themystery of the forest fell heavily upon them. From their feet the deadleaves sent up a clean, damp odor, and on either side and overhead thegiant pine trees whispered and rustled in the night wind.
"Take my coat, too," said the young man. "You'll catch cold." He spokewith authority and began to slip the loops from the big horn buttons.It was not the habit of the girl to consider her health. Nor did shepermit the members of her family to show solicitude concerning it. Butthe anxiety of the young man, did not seem to offend her. She thankedhim generously. "No; these coats are hard to walk in, and I want towalk," she exclaimed.
"I like to hear the leaves rustle when you kick them, don't you? WhenI was so high, I used to pretend it was wading in the surf."
The young man moved over to the gutter of the road where the leaveswere deepest and kicked violently. "And the more noise you make," hesaid, "the more you frighten away the wild animals."
The girl shuddered in a most helpless and fascinating fashion.
"Don't!" she whispered. "I didn't mention it, but already I have seenseveral lions crouching behind the trees."
"Indeed?" said the young man. His tone was preoccupied. He had justkicked a rock, hidden by the leaves, and was standing on one leg.
"Do you mean you don't believe me?" asked the girl, "or is it that youare merely brave?"
"Merely brave!" exclaimed the young man. "Massachusetts is so far northfor lions," he continued, "that I fancy what you saw was a grizzlybear. But I have my trusty electric torch with me, and if there isanything a bear cannot abide, it is to be pointed at by an electrictorch."
"Let us pretend," cried the girl, "that we are the babes in the wood,and that we are lost."
"We don't have to pretend we're lost," said the man, "and as I rememberit, the babes came to a sad end. Didn't they die, and didn't the birdsbury them with leaves?"
"Sam and Mr. Peabody can be the birds," suggested the girl.
"Sam and Peabody hopping around with leaves in their teeth would looksilly," objected the man, "I doubt if I could keep from laughing."
"Then," said the girl, "they can be the wicked robbers who came to killthe babes."
"Very well," said the man with suspicious alacrity, "let us be babes.If I have to die," he went on heartily, "I would rather die with youthan live with any one else."
When he had spoken, although they were entirely alone in the world andquite near to each other, it was as though the girl could not hear him,even as though he had not spoken at all. After a silence, the girlsaid: "Perhaps it would be better for us to go back to the car."
"I won't do it again," begged the man.
"We will pretend," cried the girl, "that the car is a van and that weare gypsies, and we'll build a campfire, and I will tell your fortune."
"You are the only woman who can," muttered the young man.
The girl still stood in her tracks.
"You said--" she began.
"I know," interrupted the man, "but you won't let me talk seriously, soI joke. But some day----"
"Oh, look!" cried the girl. "There's Fred."
She ran from him down the road. The young man followed her slowly, hisfists deep in the pockets of the great-coat, and kicking at theunoffending leaves.
The chauffeur was peering through a double iron gate hung betweensquare brick posts. The lower hinge of one gate was broken, and thatgate lurched forward leaving an opening. By th
e light of the electrictorch they could see the beginning of a driveway, rough and weed-grown,lined with trees of great age and bulk, and an unkempt lawn, strewnwith bushes, and beyond, in an open place bare of trees and illuminatedfaintly by the stars, the shadow of a house, black, silent, andforbidding.
"That's it," whispered the chauffeur. "I was here before. The well isover there."
The young man gave a gasp of astonishment.
"Why," he protested, "this is the Carey place! I should say we WERElost. We must