As we sat there the Awkward Man passed by, with his gun over his shoulder and his dog at his side. He did not look like an awkward man, there in the heart of the maple woods. He strode along right masterfully and lifted his head with the air of one who was monarch of all he surveyed.
The Story Girl kissed her finger tips to him with the delightful audacity which was a part of her; and the Awkward Man plucked off his hat and swept her a stately and graceful bow.
“I don’t understand why they call him an awkward man,” said Cecily, when he was out of earshot.
“You’d understand why if you ever saw him at a party or a picnic,” said Felicity, “trying to pass plates and dropping them whenever a woman looked at him. They say it’s pitiful to see him.”
“I must get well acquainted with that man next summer,” said the Story Girl. “If I put it off any longer it will be too late. I’m growing so fast Aunt Olivia says I’ll have to wear ankle skirts next summer. If I begin to look grown-up he’ll get frightened of me, and then I’ll never find out the Golden Milestone mystery.”
“Do you think he’ll ever tell you who Alice is?” I asked.
“I have a notion who Alice is already,” said the mysterious creature. But she would tell us nothing more.
When the jelly cookies were all eaten it was high time to be moving homeward, for when the dark comes down there are more comfortable places than a rustling maple wood and the precincts of a possibly enchanted spring. When we reached the foot of the orchard and entered it through a gap in the hedge it was the magical, mystical time of “between lights.” Off to the west was a daffodil glow hanging over the valley of lost sunsets, and Grandfather King’s huge willow rose up against it like a rounded mountain of foliage. In the east, above the maple woods, was a silvery sheen that hinted the moonrise. But the orchard was a place of shadows and mysterious sounds. Midway up the open space in its heart we met Peter; and if ever a boy was given over to sheer terror that boy was Peter. His face was as white as a sunburned face could be, and his eyes were brimmed with panic.
“Peter, what is the matter?” cried Cecily.
“There’s—something—in the house, ringing a bell,” said Peter, in a shaking voice. Not the Story Girl herself could have invested that “something” with more of creepy horror. We all drew close together. I felt a crinkly feeling along my back which I had ever known before. If Peter had not been so manifestly frightened we might have thought he was trying to “pass a joke” on us. But such abject terror as his could not be counterfeited.
“Nonsense!” said Felicity; but her voice shook. “There isn’t a bell in the house to ring. You must have imagined it, Peter. Or else Uncle Roger is trying to fool us.”
“Your Uncle Roger went to Markdale right after milking,” said Peter. “He locked up the house and gave me the key. There wasn’t a soul in it then, that I’m sure of. I druv the cows to the pasture, and I got back about fifteen minutes ago. I set down on the front door steps for a moment, and all at once I heard a bell ring in the house eight times. I tell you I was skeered. I made a bolt for the orchard—and you won’t catch me going near that house till your Uncle Roger comes home.”
You wouldn’t catch any of us doing it. We were almost as badly scared as Peter. There we stood in a huddled, demoralized group. Oh, what an eerie place that orchard was! What shadows! What noises! What spooky swooping of bats! You couldn’t look every way at once, and goodness only knew what might be behind you!
“There can’t be anybody in the house,” said Felicity.
“Well, here’s the key—go and see for yourself,” said Peter.
Felicity had no intention of going and seeing.
“I think you boys ought to go,” she said, retreating behind the defence of sex. “You ought to be braver than girls.”
“But we ain’t,” said Felix candidly. “I wouldn’t be much scared of anything real. But a haunted house is a different thing.”
“I always thought something had to be done in a place before it could be haunted,” said Cecily. “Somebody killed or something like that, you know. Nothing like that ever happened in our family. The Kings have always been respectable.”
“Perhaps it is Emily King’s ghost,” whispered Felix.
“She never appeared anywhere but in the orchard,” said the Story Girl. “Oh, oh, children, isn’t there something under Uncle Alec’s tree?”
We peered fearfully through the gloom. There was something—something that wavered and fluttered—advanced—retreated—
“That’s only my old apron,” said Felicity. “I hung it there to-day when I was looking for the white hen’s nest. Oh, what shall we do? Uncle Roger may not be back for hours. I can’t believe there’s anything in the house.”
“Maybe it’s only Peg Bowen,” suggested Dan.
There was not a great deal of comfort in this. We were almost as much afraid of Peg Bowen as we would be of any spectral visitant.
Peter scoffed at the idea.
“Peg Bowen wasn’t in the house before your Uncle Roger locked it up, and how could she get in afterwards?” he said. “No, it isn’t Peg Bowen. It’s something that walks.”
“I know a story about a ghost,” said the Story Girl, the ruling passion strong even in extremity. “It is about a ghost with eyeholes but no eyes—”
“Don’t,” cried Cecily hysterically. “Don’t you go on! Don’t you say another word! I can’t bear it! Don’t you!”
The Story Girl didn’t. But she had said enough. There was something in the quality of a ghost with eyeholes but no eyes that froze our young blood.
There never were in all the world six more badly scared children than those who huddled in the old King orchard that August night.
All at once—something—leaped from the bough of a tree and alighted before us. We split the air with a simultaneous shriek. We would have run, one and all, if there had been anywhere to run to. But there wasn’t—all around us were only those shadowy arcades. Then we saw with shame that it was only our Paddy.
“Pat, Pat,” I said, picking him up, feeling a certain comfort in his soft, solid body. “Stay with us, old fellow.”
But Pat would none of us. He struggled out of my clasp and disappeared over the long grasses with soundless leaps. He was no longer our tame, domestic, well acquainted Paddy. He was a strange, furtive animal—a “questing beast.”
Presently the moon rose; but this only made matters worse. The shadows had been still before; now they moved and danced, as the night wind tossed the boughs. The old house, with its dreadful secret, was white and clear against the dark background of spruces. We were woefully tired, but we could not sit down because the grass was reeking with dew.
“The Family Ghost only appears in daylight,” said the Story Girl. “I wouldn’t mind seeing a ghost in daylight. But after dark is another thing.”
“There’s no such thing as a ghost,” I said contemptuously. Oh, how I wished I could believe it!
“Then what rung that bell?” said Peter. “Bells don’t ring of themselves, I s’pose, specially when there ain’t any in the house to ring.”
“Oh, will Uncle Roger never come home!” sobbed Felicity. “I know he’ll laugh at us awful, but it’s better to be laughed at than scared like this.”
Uncle Roger did not come until nearly ten. Never was there a more welcome sound than the rumble of his wheels in the lane. We ran to the orchard gate and swarmed across the yard, just as Uncle Roger alighted at the front door. He stared at us in the moonlight.
“Have you tormented any one into eating more bad berries, Felicity?” he demanded.
“Oh, Uncle Roger, don’t go in,” implored Felicity seriously. “There’s something dreadful in there—something that rings a bell. Peter heard it. Don’t go in.”
“There’s no use asking the meaning of this, I suppose,” said Uncle Roger with the calm of despair. “I’ve gave up trying to fathom you young ones. Peter, where’s the key? What yarn have you b
een telling?”
“I did hear a bell ring,” said Peter stubbornly.
Uncle Roger unlocked and flung open the front door. As he did so, clear and sweet, rang out ten bell-like chimes.
“That’s what I heard,” cried Peter. “There’s the bell!”
We had to wait until Uncle Roger stopped laughing before we heard the explanation. We thought he never would stop.
“That’s Grandfather King’s old clock striking,” he said, as soon as he was able to speak. “Sammy Prott came along after tea, when you were away to the forge, Peter, and I gave him permission to clean the old clock. He had it going merrily in no time. And now it has almost frightened you poor little monkeys to death.”
We heard Uncle Roger chuckling all the way to the barn.
“Uncle Roger can laugh,” said Cecily, with a quiver in her voice, “but it’s no laughing matter to be so scared. I just feel sick, I was so frightened.”
“I wouldn’t mind if he’d laugh once and have done with it,” said Felicity bitterly. “But he’ll laugh at us for a year, and tell the story to every soul that comes to the place.”
“You can’t blame him for that,” said the Story Girl. “I shall tell it, too. I don’t care if the joke is as much on myself as any one. A story is a story, no matter who it’s on. But it is hateful to be laughed at—and grown-ups always do it. I never will when I’m grown up. I’ll remember better.”
“It’s all Peter’s fault,” said Felicity. “I do think he might have had more sense than to take a clock striking for a bell ringing.”
“I never heard that kind of a strike before,” protested Peter. “It don’t sound a bit like other clocks. And the door was shut and the sound kind o’ muffled. It’s all very fine to say you would have known what it was, but I don’t believe you would.”
“I wouldn’t have,” said the Story Girl honestly. “I thought it was a bell when I heard it, and the door open, too. Let us be fair, Felicity.”
“I’m dreadful tired,” sighed Cecily.
We were all “dreadful tired,” for this was the third night of late hours and nerve racking strain. But it was over two hours since we had eaten the cookies, and Felicity suggested that a saucerful apiece of raspberries and cream would not be hard to take. It was not, for any one but Cecily, who couldn’t swallow a mouthful.
“I’m glad father and mother will be back to-morrow night,” she said. “It’s too exciting when they’re away. That’s my opinion.”
XVII
The Proof of the Pudding
Felicity was cumbered with many cares the next morning. For one thing, the whole house must be put in apple pie order; and for another, an elaborate supper must be prepared for the expected return of the travellers that night. Felicity devoted her whole attention to this, and left the secondary preparation of the regular meals to Cecily and the Story Girl. It was agreed that the latter was to make a cornmeal pudding for dinner.
In spite of her disaster with the bread, the Story Girl had been taking cooking lessons from Felicity all the week, and getting on tolerably well, although, mindful of her former mistake, she never ventured on anything without Felicity’s approval. But Felicity had no time to oversee her this morning.
“You must attend to the pudding yourself,” she said. “The recipe’s so plain and simple even you can’t go astray, and if there’s anything you don’t understand you can ask me. But don’t bother me if you can help it.”
The Story Girl did not bother her once. The pudding was concocted and baked, as the Story Girl proudly informed us when we came to the dinner-table, all on her own hook. She was very proud of it; and certainly as far as appearance went it justified her triumph. The slices were smooth and golden; and, smothered in the luscious maple sugar sauce which Cecily had compounded, were very fair to view. Nevertheless, although none of us, not even Uncle Roger or Felicity, said a word at the time, for fear of hurting the Story Girl’s feelings, the pudding did not taste exactly as it should. It was tough—decidedly tough—and lacked the richness of flavour which was customary in Aunt Janet’s cornmeal puddings. If it had not been for the abundant supply of sauce it would have been very dry eating indeed. Eaten it was, however, to the last crumb. If it were not just what a cornmeal pudding might be, the rest of the bill of fare had been extra good and our appetites matched it.
“I wish I was twins so’s I could eat more,” said Dan, when he simply had to stop.
“What good would being twins do you?” asked Peter. “People who squint can’t eat any more than people who don’t squint, can they?”
We could not see any connection between Peter’s two questions.
“What has squinting got to do with twins?” asked Dan.
“Why, twins are just people that squint, aren’t they?” said Peter.
We thought he was trying to be funny, until we found out that he was quite in earnest. Then we laughed until Peter got sulky.
“I don’t care,” he said. “How’s a fellow to know? Tommy and Adam Cowan, over at Markdale, are twins; and they’re both cross-eyed. So I s’posed that was what being twins meant. It’s all very fine for you fellows to laugh. I never went to school half as much as you did; and you was brought up in Toronto, too. If you’d worked out ever since you was seven, and just got to school in the winter, there’d be lots of things you wouldn’t know, either.”
“Never mind, Peter,” said Cecily. “You know lots of things they don’t.”
But Peter was not to be conciliated, and took himself off in high dudgeon. To be laughed at before Felicity—to be laughed at by Felicity—was something he could not endure. Let Cecily and the Story Girl cackle all they wanted to, and let those stuck-up Toronto boys grin like chessy-cats; but when Felicity laughed at him the iron entered into Peter’s soul.
If the Story Girl laughed at Peter the mills of the gods ground out his revenge for him in mid-afternoon. Felicity, having used up all the available cooking materials in the house, had to stop perforce; and she now determined to stuff two new pincushions she had been making for her room. We heard her rummaging in the pantry as we sat on the cool, spruce-shadowed cellar door outside, where Uncle Roger was showing us how to make elderberry pop-guns. Presently she came out, frowning.
“Cecily, do you know where mother put the sawdust she emptied out of that old beaded pincushion of Grandmother King’s, after she had sifted the needles out of it? I thought it was in the tin box.”
“So it is,” said Cecily.
“It isn’t. There isn’t a speck of sawdust in that box.”
The Story Girl’s face wore a quite indescribable expression, compound of horror and shame. She need not have confessed. If she had but held her tongue the mystery of the sawdust’s disappearance might have forever remained a mystery. She would have held her tongue, as she afterwards confided to me, if it had not been for a horrible fear which flashed into her mind that possibly sawdust puddings were not healthy for people to eat—especially if there might be needles in them—and that if any mischief had been done in that direction it was her duty to undo it if possible at any cost of ridicule to herself.
“Oh, Felicity,” she said, her voice expressing a very anguish of humiliation, “I—I—thought that stuff in the box was cornmeal—and I used it to make the pudding.”
Felicity and Cecily stared blankly at the Story Girl. We boys began to laugh, but were checked midway by Uncle Roger. He was rocking himself back and forth, with his hand pressed against his stomach.
“Oh,” he groaned, “I’ve been wondering what these sharp pains I’ve been feeling ever since dinner meant. I know now. I must have swallowed a needle—several needles, perhaps. I’m done for!”
The poor Story Girl went very white.
“Oh, Uncle Roger, could it be possible? You couldn’t have swallowed a needle without knowing it. It would have stuck in your tongue or teeth.”
“I didn’t chew the pudding,” groaned Uncle Roger. “It was too tough—I just swallowed the chu
nks whole.”
He groaned and twisted and doubled himself up. But he overdid it. He was not as good an actor as the Story Girl. Felicity looked scornfully at him.
“Uncle Roger, you are not one bit sick,” she said deliberately. “You are just putting on.”
“Felicity, if I die from the effects of eating sawdust pudding, flavoured with needles, you’ll be sorry you ever said such a thing to your poor old uncle,” said Uncle Roger reproachfully. “Even if there were no needles in it, sixty-year-old sawdust can’t be good for my tummy. I daresay it wasn’t even clean.”
“Well, you know every one has to eat a peck of dirt in his life,” giggled Felicity.
“But nobody has to eat it all at once,” retorted Uncle Roger, with another groan. “Oh, Sara Stanley, it’s a thankful man I am that your Aunt Olivia is to be home to-night. You’d have me kilt entirely by another day. I believe you did it on purpose to have a story to tell.”
Uncle Roger hobbled off to the barn, still holding on to his stomach.
“Do you think he really feels sick?” asked the Story Girl anxiously.
“No, I don’t,” said Felicity. “You needn’t worry over him. There’s nothing the matter with him. I don’t believe there were any needles in that sawdust. Mother sifted it very carefully.”
“I know a story about a man whose son swallowed a mouse,” said the Story Girl, who would probably have known a story and tried to tell it if she were being led to the stake. “And he ran and wakened up a very tired doctor just as he had got to sleep.
“ ‘Oh, doctor, my son has swallowed a mouse,’ he cried. ‘What shall I do?’
“ ‘Tell him to swallow a cat,’ roared the poor doctor, and slammed his door.
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