The Incendiary: A Story of Mystery

by William Augustine Leahy

  CHAPTER XVI.

  STAMPEDE AND AVALANCHE.

  Is there in all the world a sight more wholesome and comforting to thetired wayfarer than a loaded hay-cart? When Emily spied one ahead of hershe felt a little throb of pleasure in her bosom and at once hastenedher step to overtake it. The farmer was asleep on the seat, with asundown over his face.

  "Perhaps I had better wake him," thought Emily. "Won't your horse runaway?"

  "Run away?" The peaked old face was wide open of a sudden. "Guess not,miss, not with that load on. Dobbin ain't no pony. Step aboard? How farare you baound?"

  "I am looking for the Arnold mansion."

  "Arnold mansion? This is just the kerridge you want to take. Mrs.Arnold's a putty close neighbor of aours."

  Grateful for the offer, Emily climbed into the creaky seat under thefragrant, overhanging load.

  "You b'long in Foxtaown, I s'pose?"

  "No. I'm from the city."

  "All the way from the city? Well, I declare. I thot I knew all theElmwood leddies. I s'pose things are putty brisk in taown these days?"

  "Oh, yes. We always have plenty of excitement. Too much, I fear. Some ofus miss the quiet you enjoy out here among the meadows."

  The rustic meditated upon this a moment, chewing a straw.

  "Speakin' of medders, haow's hay sellin'?"

  "I don't know, really," answered Emily. She was not informed on thisutilitarian side of the subject.

  "Just been shavin' my ten-acre lot daown the road. Did most o' themowin' ourselves, me and Ike, that's my brother, with the Loomis boy.But he ain't good for much except forkin' it on. You wouldn't s'posethere was a clean ton o' hay on this wagon, would you?"

  "No, indeed," answered Emily. This was true. She would not have venturedany supposition at all as to the weight of the hay.

  "Good medder-grass, too."

  "Do you live in Hillsborough?"

  "Aour haouse jest abaout straddles the line, but wife goes to meetin' inElmwood."

  "I suppose she likes the services better?"

  "Nao. You see the Elmwood parson takes all our eggs, and wife thinks'twouldn't do to spile a payin' customer. Woa! Here comes wife's nephew,Silas Tompkins."

  "Evenin' uncle," nodded the young man in the buggy.

  "Evenin', Silas. Been down to the pasture?"

  "Yaas."

  "Well, haow are the oats lookin'?"

  "Comin' putty green, Uncle Silas," drawled the other, speeding by.

  Emily was wondering if a life of agricultural labor always gives such avegetable cast to people's minds, when a clatter of hoofs behind causedher to turn her head. The cavalier was clothed in velvet of a soft, richbulrush-brown. Just as he passed them his eye caught something afar andhe shouted to the farmer:

  "Here's a runaway! Hug the right of the road!"

  They were turning a bend, but across the angle through the bushes a pairof coal-black horses could be seen heading toward them. The farmer'sjerking at the reins was comical but effective. In a twinkling he hadhis nag squeezed against the wall which bounded the narrow road.

  "Get up, Aladdin!" whispered the rider, and the horse, a powerfulroadster or steeplechaser, yet with limbs like a stag's, canteredforward, as if to meet the wild blacks. But suddenly his master turnedhim about and began trotting gently back, keeping to the other side ofthe road and turning his head over his left shoulder toward theapproaching runaways. As they slewed around the bend their coachman wasflung from his seat into the grass border of the roadside.

  "Rosalie!" exclaimed the waiting cavalier, cutting his horse over theflanks. It bounded away abreast of the team. Emily remembered a vaguewhirl of spangled reins and a frightened face of rare beauty blushingthrough its silver veil.

  "He's killed!" she cried, dismounting and running toward the coachman.But the grass was like a cushion in its midsummer thickness, and he hadalready picked himself up uninjured, save for bruises and a tatteredsleeve.

  "It was the gobbler frightened 'em," he said, starting off at a lamedog-trot after the retreating carriage. Emily turned just in time towitness a rare exhibition of coolness and skill. The chestnut had keptabreast of the blacks with ease. At the right moment his rider, clingingto the saddle and stirrup like a cossack, reached over with his lefthand and caught the reins of the foaming pair. Then gradually he slowedup his steeplechaser, jerking powerfully at the bridles. The addedweight was too much for the runaways to pull, and all three were amblingpeacefully when they faded from sight in a cloud of dust.

  "I guess we'll start for hum," said the farmer. Emily was standing withher finger on her lip, unconscious of his presence.

  "Putty slick on a horse, ain't he?"

  "Who?"

  "Young Arnold. He kin stick on like a clothes-pin, I tell yew."

  "Is that Harry Arnold?"

  "'Tain't no one else."

  Emily remembered how his expression had changed when he recognized thelady in peril as "Rosalie," and felt like asking the farmer if he knewher. But Griggs (she now learned his name) was prosing on about his newbarn, and she relapsed into silence. The rest of their road was anavenue of elms. Through their interstices smiled the calm blue of thelate afternoon sky, tempered by contrast with the green of the foliage.It was the first time she had ever observed this rare harmony of colors.

  "Woa! There!" said Griggs. "I'll set you daown here. The Arnolds' houseis up yonder over the hill. They ain't p'ticler friends of aours, butthe help come over and buy wife's cream."

  "Have they a girl in help named Bertha Lund?"

  "I s'pose wife knows the women-folks. I don't," replied the old man,energetically reaching for his rake.

  "A new servant, this is."

  As if to answer her question, there came a loud bark from the littlewoody knoll on the right of the road, and a great St. Bernard camebounding down. It was Sire, who had recognized Emily. She knew that hehad been left in Bertha's charge and probably the housemaid was behindhim.

  "Sire! Sire!" her cheerful voice was heard calling through thestillness. How fresh she looked with her soft country bloom and a goldentan.

  "Is it you, Miss Barlow?" cried Bertha, opening her eyes in amazement. Acream pitcher in one hand revealed her errand, but Farmer Griggs wasalready half-way to his new barn, which lay fifty yards off the left ofthe road.

  "Yes, Bertha," answered Emily, fondling Sire, who seemed almost to knowthat she bore him a message from his master. "I have come all the wayout to meet you."

  "How is poor Mr. Robert?"

  "Not very well contented with his present quarters."

  "He is still in jail? Ah, poor young man! What a shame! And Ellen gone,too! It was the beginning of trouble for all of us when the oldprofessor died."

  "It wasn't easy to find you, Bertha. You didn't leave your address withMrs. Christenson."

  "Indeed I did not." Bertha gave an independent toss of her head. "I hadno wish to be chased by her and coaxed to come back, and I'm very wellsatisfied where I am, with my $5 and light duties and out of the cityand as kind treatment as if I was a visitor."

  Emily thought she might understand the reason of this bountifulhospitality.

  "Mr. Shagarach, the lawyer, who is defending Robert, suggested that Icome and see you. You were so near the fire when it broke out, hethought that you might know something that would help our side."

  "That I'll tell heartily. They sha'n't tie my tongue."

  "You don't believe Robert set the fire?"

  "No more than I did or Sire."

  Emily looked at the dog, who was crouched before them. He had lifted hishead at the mention of his name.

  "Ah, Sire, you know the solution of all this mystery, don't you? Andyou'd tell it if you could."

  Sire barked an answer to this appeal and turned his head away, blinking,as old dogs do.

  "But who could have done it, Bertha?"

  "Nobody in all the world. It just happened, like the other fire before."

  "Was there another fire before?" as
ked Emily, all eagerness.

  "Two or three years ago we had a fire in the study."

  "Tell me about it."

  "Oh, the professor had just gone upstairs a minute and when I went inthe big waste basket was blazing up."

  "There wasn't much damage then?"

  "If I hadn't opened the window and thrown it out on the sidewalk thewhole house might have been burned. Why, the study was nothing but atinder-box with the books on the shelves and magazines and papers alwaysthrown about."

  "After the fire had once started, I can see how it would spread. But themystery is, how did it start? You never followed the first fire up?"

  "Indeed we did. The professor was careful to follow it up, but theycould find nobody then and they'll find nobody now. It was just the willof heaven."

  "I wish you could have told about this other fire at the examination,Bertha."

  "I had it in my mind to tell, but the little thread of a man made me socross with his nagging, it all flew out of my head."

  "Robert--was Robert in the house when the other fire happened?"

  "Yes. I remember calling him, and he flew downstairs four at a time andstamped out the sparks on the carpet."

  "What time of day was it?"

  "I'm not good to remember time. It was daytime, I know."

  "Forenoon or afternoon?"

  Bertha's knitted forehead brought no clarity to her recollections.

  "I've forgotten, Miss Barlow. I know it was the hot summer time, butforenoon or afternoon, that's all gone from me now."

  "But you will try to bring it back, Bertha? It may be important. Mr.Shagarach is a wonderfully wise man who could build up a greatexplanation out of a little thing like that. You will tell him all youknow if he comes to see you?"

  "I'll be as free-spoken as I choose, and forty inspectors won't stopme."

  "Could you describe the study again, Bertha, just as it looked when youwere dusting it, with Robert standing over the hearth?"

  "Why, you know the room, Miss Barlow--square, high-studded, with twowindows, the professor's desk at one and the bird cage before the other.Shelves and books all round, hundreds of them, and magazines and papersscattered about. Chairs, pictures, the safe and the professor's thingsjust as he left them--his slippers on the floor, his spectacles andbible on the desk, his dressing-gown over the back of the arm-chair----"

  "And a waste-basket?"

  "Oh, yes, the big waste-basket always beside his desk. The professor hadso much writing to do."

  "Was it full?"

  "All full of black wrapping paper that came off of his books. Theprofessor got so many books."

  "And his safe with the papers in it?"

  "Nobody ever touched it but the professor. At least, I never meddledwith it."

  Emily noticed the emphasis Bertha laid on the first person, but anunwelcome interruption prevented further disclosures.

  The knoll which Bertha and Sire had descended made a grade like thepitch of an old gable roof. Toward the top a tempting tussock of cloverlay in sight, scenting the atmosphere and titillating the nostrils ofthe horse attached to Farmer Griggs' hay-cart. Dobbin was ordinarily astaid and trustworthy animal, who might be left alone for hours; but onthis occasion his carnal appetite overmastered his sense of duty and ledhim gradually higher and higher up the grade toward the odorous herbage.The first hint the two girls had of the peril which was imminent waswhen they heard the voice of the farmer shouting from the barn.

  Turning in that direction, they beheld him running toward them, hat inhand, as if racing for a guerdon, and brandishing a pitchfork. Whetherthey or some one else were the object of his outcries they could not inthe confusion of the moment determine. But the doubt was speedilysettled by the occurrence of the very catastrophe which Farmer Griggswas hastening to avert.

  Dobbin had just climbed within reach and was relishing the first morselof his stolen supper, when suddenly the top of the hay load, which wastipped up to an exceedingly steep angle by his ascent of the knoll, sliddown like a glacier and deposited itself at the feet of the startledgirls.

  But this was not all. From the midst of it the figure of a man, badlyshaken but unhurt, arose and straightened itself out.

  Both girls gave a shriek in unison. Emily recognized, to herastonishment and dismay, the face of her train companion, the supposedBill Dobbs. But Bertha's surprise was quickly converted into merriment.

  "Why, Mr. McCausland, what a tumble!" she laughed, just as Farmer Griggsarrived.