He went on. He soared aloft on the wings of imagination, his hands in his pockets, his freckled face puckered up in frowning mental effort.
He certainly enjoyed himself.
"If only some of it could happen to _me_," breathed his confidante.
"Does it come to you at _nights_, William?"
"Yes," nodded William. "Nights mostly."
"I shall--watch to-night," said Cousin Mildred. "And you say the house is old?"
"Awful old," said William, rea.s.suringly.
Her att.i.tude to William was a relief to the rest of the family.
Visitors sometimes objected to William.
"She seems to have almost taken to William," said his mother, with a note of unflattering incredulity in her voice.
William was pleased yet embarra.s.sed by her attentions. It was a strange experience to him to be accepted by a grown-up as a fellow-being. She talked to him with interest and a certain humility, she bought him sweets and seemed pleased that he accepted them, she went for walks with him, and evidently took his constrained silence for the silence of depth and wisdom.
Beneath his embarra.s.sment he was certainly pleased and flattered. She seemed to prefer his company to that of Ethel. That was one in the eye for Ethel. But he felt that something was expected from him in return for all this kindness and attention. William was a sportsman.
He decided to supply it. He took a book of ghost stories from the juvenile library at school, and read them in the privacy of his room at night. Many were the thrilling adventures which he had to tell to Cousin Mildred in the morning. Cousin Mildred"s b.u.mp of credulity was a large one. She supplied him with sweets on a generous scale. She listened to him with awe and wonder.
"William ... you are one of the elect, the chosen," she said, "one of those whose spirits can break down the barrier between the unseen world and ours with ease." And always she sighed and stroked back her thin locks, sadly. "Oh, how I wish that some experience would happen to _me_!"
One morning, after the gift of an exceptionally large tin of toffee, William"s n.o.blest feelings were aroused. Manfully he decided that something _should_ happen to her.
Cousin Mildred slept in the bedroom above William"s. Descent from one window to the other was easy, but ascent was difficult. That night Cousin Mildred awoke suddenly as the clock struck twelve. There was no moon, and only dimly did she discern the white figure that stood in the light of the window. She sat up, quivering with eagerness. Her short, thin little pigtail, stuck out horizontally from her head.
Her mouth was wide open.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE SAT UP, QUIVERING WITH EAGERNESS. HER SHORT, THIN LITTLE PIGTAIL STUCK OUT HORIZONTALLY FROM HER HEAD. HER MOUTH WAS WIDE OPEN.]
"Oh!" she gasped.
The white figure moved a step forward and coughed nervously.
Cousin Mildred clasped her hands.
"Speak!" she said, in a tense whisper. "Oh, speak! Some message! Some revelation."
William was nonplussed. None of the ghosts he had read of had spoken.
They had rattled and groaned and beckoned, but they had not spoken. He tried groaning and emitted a sound faintly reminiscent of a sea-sick voyager.
"Oh, _speak_!" pleaded Cousin Mildred.
Evidently speech was a necessary part of this performance. William wondered whether ghosts spoke English or a language of their own. He inclined to the latter view and n.o.bly took the plunge.
"Honk. Yonk. Ponk," he said, firmly.
Cousin Mildred gasped in wonder.
"Oh, explain," she pleaded, ardently. "Explain in our poor human speech. Some message----"
William took fright. It was all turning out to be much more complicated than he had expected. He hastily pa.s.sed through the room and out of the door, closing it noisily behind him. As he ran along the pa.s.sage came a sound like a crash of thunder. Outside in the pa.s.sage were Cousin Mildred"s boots, William"s father"s boots, and William"s brother"s boots, and into these charged William in his headlong retreat. They slid noisily along the polished wooden surface of the floor, ricochetting into each other as they went. Doors opened suddenly and William"s father collided with William"s brother in the dark pa.s.sage, where they wrestled fiercely before they discovered each other"s ident.i.ty.
"I heard that confounded noise and I came out----"
"So did I."
"Well, then, who _made_ it?"
"Who did?"
"If it"s that wretched boy up to any tricks again----"
William"s father left the sentence unfinished, but went with determined tread towards his younger son"s room. William was discovered, carefully spreading a sheet over his bed and smoothing it down.
Mr. Brown, roused from his placid slumbers, was a sight to make a brave man quail, but the glance that William turned upon him was guileless and sweet.
"Did you make that confounded row kicking boots about the pa.s.sage?"
spluttered the man of wrath.
"No, Father," said William, gently. "I"ve not bin kickin" no boots about."
"Were you down on the lower landing just now?" said Mr. Brown, with compressed fury.
William considered this question silently for a few seconds, then spoke up brightly and innocently.
"I dunno, Father. You see, some folks walk in their sleep and when they wake up they dunno where they"ve bin. Why, I"ve heard of a man walkin" down a fire escape in his sleep, and then he woke up and couldn"t think how he"d got to be there where he was. You see, he didn"t know he"d walked down all them steps sound asleep, and----"
"Be _quiet_," thundered his father. "What in the name of----what on earth are you doing making your bed in the middle of the night? Are you insane?"
William, perfectly composed, tucked in one end of his sheet.
"No Father, I"m not insane. My sheet just fell off me in the night and I got out to pick it up. I must of bin a bit restless, I suppose.
Sheets come off easy when folks is restless in bed, and they don"t know anythin" about it till they wake up jus" same as sleep walkin".
Why, I"ve heard of folks----"
"Be _quiet_----!"
At that moment William"s mother arrived, placid as ever, in her dressing gown, carrying a candle.
"Look at him," said Mr. Brown, pointing at the meek-looking William.
"He plays Rugger up and down the pa.s.sage with the boots all night and then he begins to make his bed. He"s mad. He"s----"
William turned his calm gaze upon him.
"_I_ wasn"t playin" Rugger with the boots, Father," he said, patiently.
Mrs. Brown laid her hand soothingly upon her husband"s arm.