CHAPTER XVII
ONLY A BAT
The three girls sat quiet, every nerve tense, that same chilly sensationcreeping up their spines, and their hair beginning to stand on end.
Out there in that wilderness, at three o'clock in the morning, a noisethat sounded something like a motor car and yet was unlike anything theyhad ever heard before, might have frightened more experienced people thanthree fourteen-year-old girls.
"H-here it comes!" whispered Violet, clutching at Laura's arm, whileLaura in her turn clutched at Billie's. "It's coming closer! Oh,girls--is it in the house?"
"Sh!" cried Billie. "It's a machine--it must be a machine--out onthe road."
"But in this forsaken place, in the middle of the night?" cried Laura,beginning to shiver as though she were cold. "It--it can't be, Billie!"
"Sh-h," said Billie again. "Listen!"
The purring sound was coming closer, seemed almost in the house, it wasso near--Then came an awful thought to Billie. Could it really be in thehouse? Was it possible that those awful stories about ghosts were true?
But no, the noise was passing on, getting softer, softer, dying off inthe distance.
"It--it must have been a machine," said Laura, beginning to laughhysterically. "Vi, what did you go and wake me up in the middle of thenight for just to hear an automobile? I was having such a lovely sleep."
"But I'm not so sure it was a motor car," insisted Violet stubbornly, thespell of the dream still upon her. "It didn't sound like it."
"But it couldn't have been anything else," said Billie, trembling alittle with the reaction. "We heard it coming down the road, heard itpass the house, and go on. It simply must have been a machine."
"Oh, all right," said Violet, adding with a little sigh: "Well, I guessnone of us will sleep any more to-night. I'm not even going to try."
"Well, I am," said Billie, leaning back and closing her eyes, yet knowingthat she was as wide awake as she had ever been in her life. "I don't seeany use in lying here and listening for things. Good night once more,girls--I'm off."
"Meaning you're crazy?" asked Laura, to which Billie made no reply.
As a matter of fact, even while they were saying they could sleep no morethat night, the girls did go to sleep, and, what is more, slept soundlyuntil they were awakened by Mrs. Gilligan's voice calling to them fromthe connecting doorway.
"Do you expect to sleep all day?" she was asking them, her face rosy andherself very nice and trim in a light blue house dress. "This is thethird time I've spoken to you, and I was beginning to get worried."
"Wh-what time is it?" demanded Laura sleepily.
"About eleven," Mrs. Gilligan answered calmly, and they gasped.
"Eleven!" repeated Billie, sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes hard."For goodness' sake, how did it get that way? I feel as if I hadn't hadany sleep at all."
"Well, I've had the most awful dreams," complained Violet, turning overas if she intended to go to sleep again. "I've done nothing but dream ofghosts and motor cars all night."
At the mention of ghosts Mrs. Gilligan broke into hearty laughter.
"Ghosts?" she said, her eyes sparkling. "I shouldn't think you'd betalking of ghosts any more. Here you've spent a whole night in the houseand no spirits have bothered you yet. I should think you'd be satisfied."
"Oh, but didn't you hear that noise in the night?" Violet asked her,turning over and forgetting the nap she had been about to take. "Wegirls were just about scared to death."
"Speak for yourself," said Laura, who, whether she had really beenfrightened or not, never liked to have anybody tell her about it.
"You were scared too, what's the use of denying it?" Violet demandedhotly, but Mrs. Gilligan interrupted them.
"Never mind about that," she said, with a smile. "Just tell me about thisnoise you thought you heard."
So the girls told her about their weird experience of the night before,all talking at once and making it as hard as possible for Mrs. Gilliganto understand what it was all about.
"A noise that sounded like a motor car," she said, when they had finishedand had paused for lack of breath. "Well, I don't see what's so veryqueer about that. May have been some joy-riders or something."
"But who would be joy-riding in this part of the country?" Lauraobjected. "The country people hereabouts probably don't know what theword means."
"That particular sport does seem to belong to the idle rich," Mrs.Gilligan agreed, with a chuckle. "Well," she added, getting up andstarting for the door, "whatever it is, or was, we needn't go withoutour breakfast because of it. How would you like some bacon and eggs andbiscuits?"
The suggestion worked like a charm, and before Mrs. Gilligan had finishedthe girls were out of bed and feeling about for their clothes.
"You know the room doesn't look half bad by daylight," remarked Violet,as she was arranging her hair before an elaborately framed old mirror."And it surely is quite clean."
"But it's horribly gloomy, just as mother said." Billie was regarding thedingy woodwork, now almost black with age, and the huge four-poster withits funereal canopied top, and the large pictures of dead and goneancestors that adorned the walls. "The only really good things in thewhole room are the tables and chairs. They look," she added hopefully,"as if they might bring in a little money. Perhaps I'll be able to payfor the statue after all."
"Oh, and I'm just crazy to see the rest of the house by daylight," saidLaura, clapping her hands. "Come on, you slow pokes, aren't you evergoing to be ready?"
"We're ready now," said Billie, putting an arm about Violet and hurryingher to the door. "Oh, is that bacon I smell--and coffee?" she asked asthrough the open door came a whiff of the good things below.
"You said it!" cried Laura, making a rush for lower floor with Billie andViolet not very far behind her. "And it isn't going to be more thanabout two minutes before I taste that same bacon and eggs."
When they reached the lower hall they were surprised to see that itlooked almost as gloomy and forbidding as it had the night before, inspite of the fact that the front door was open and sunlight wasstreaming through.
"Ugh!" said Laura, with a shudder, "I don't wonder that they had gloomydispositions in the old days if they had to live in houses like these.It's enough to give one the creeps."
"I'm glad you like my property so much," said Billie, with a demurelittle smile. "I haven't heard you say one nice thing about it yet."
"We have treated our hostess rather rudely, haven't we?" laughedViolet, putting an arm about Billie and drawing her out into thesunshine. "But really, Billie, we're quite sure that you don't like itany better than we do."
"And you are quite right," Billie assured her, then added, breaking awayand running a little in front of them: "Girls, let's see if we can findany signs of that car we heard last night."
Eagerly they scanned the rocky road, but could see no traces of anyvehicle that would be big enough to make the noise they had heard thenight before.
"The plot thickens," said Laura, as they started back to the houseto eat the bacon and eggs and biscuits. "We hear a car, but see notraces of it."
"It must have been a spirit car," said Violet, adding, with a plaintivelittle sigh that made the girls laugh: "In spite of all my perfectly goodtraining, I'm beginning to believe in ghosts."
After breakfast the girls roamed around the big house, nosing intocorners, calling each other's attention to this and that queer ornamentor article of furniture--and there were plenty of them,--and otherwisethoroughly enjoying themselves. But as yet they did not venture into thegloomy cellar with its mysterious tunnels.
In the drawing-room they found a queer old piano which Violet declaredmust date back farther than Revolutionary days and which Billie, amidgibes and laughter from her chums, tried to play.
After she had tried and failed on half a dozen different compositions,she gave up the attempt, and they roamed upstairs, looking through oneroom after another until Billie accidentally opened the
door that led tothe attic.
"Here's where we want to go, girls," she cried. "Mother said this was thespookiest place in the whole house--except the cellar."
"Hadn't we better get Mrs. Gilligan to go with us?" asked Violet,holding back. "After last night I've had enough spooky experiences tolast me a week."
"Oh, come on," cried Laura, running ahead of them up the stairs. "I'llshow you two 'fraid cats--"
"Who's a 'fraid cat?" cried Billie, starting in hot pursuit. "I'll haveyou know that nobody dares call me such names and get away with it. Comeon, Vi, let's murder her."
"Just try it," Laura hissed at them dramatically from the head of thestairs. "I'd turn into another ghost and haunt you!"
"Oh, for goodness' sake, leave her alone, Billie," Violet entreated."We've got enough ghosts around here without Laura. What's that?"
"If you're going to scare me again," began Laura, but it was Billie thistime who commanded silence.
"Hush, I did hear something queer," she said, and all threelistened intently.
It came again, a weird little noise like the brushing of wings againstsome hard object, and the girls scarcely dared to breathe. Then out intothe hot open attic fluttered a tiny little object with webbed wings andthe body of a mouse.
"A bat!" cried Laura, sinking down weakly and shaking with hystericallaughter. "Oh, girls, if I have to stay here another week I'll just dieof heart failure--I know I will!"
Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance; Or, The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners Page 17