Then, leading the horses to a tree with conveniently low branches, he looped the reins so the animals would not stray. Horses in the East are not trained like their Western cousins, to stand if the reins are left to dangle on the ground.
The girls held back a little before going up the four steps at the entrance of the house. It was a combination Georgian-Colonial style, squarely built, with a beautiful fanlight still intact over the center door.
"It is spooky, isn"t it?" asked Sim with a pleased little shiver.
"Did you ever see such a sorrowful house, though?" Arden wanted to know.
"What do you mean, sorrowful? To me it seems very proud and stern," Terry decided.
"I don"t think so. Look at the way the door hangs on its hinges. Ready to fall off if it had a good push. And what lovely hinges they are, too.
Hand forged, I"ll bet," Arden said, going a little closer to inspect.
Sim, quickly sympathetic, fell under the spell of Arden"s imagining.
"Poor old place," she murmured, "I don"t blame it for haunting the workmen. I suppose this house has been the scene of many an exciting adventure. Do you know anything about it, d.i.c.k?" Sim turned to the boy, who stood aside waiting for them to enter.
He hesitated a moment before replying and then seemed reluctant to give much information.
"Yes," he said slowly, "I know a little bit about it. You see this place once belonged to my ancestors." He looked down at his polished boots and appeared rather bashful.
"Really?" asked Sim. "Tell us, please," and she smiled disarmingly at him.
Arden and Terry waited hopefully for d.i.c.k to continue.
"Suppose we go in and I"ll show you the place," the young groom suggested.
"How about the ghosts?" Terry asked.
"These ghosts aren"t the common graveyard variety-that is, if the stories are true. They all seem to be spirits of soldiers, farmers, and sometimes there"s the ghost of a lovely girl," d.i.c.k went on. "You see this place was built during the Revolution. The Continental army "dug in" at Jockey Hollow, here, for the winter of 1779."
Terry, growing bolder, preceded the others into the hall. Rooms very much dilapidated were on either side. One room, probably a parlor, was dominated by an enormous fireplace with a faded picture above it.
"Oh, girls, come here!" Terry called. "Look at this! Is this your girl ghost, d.i.c.k?"
They hurried to Terry as she stood before the painting. Terry was in sharp contrast to the charming scene above. Feet planted a little apart, hands clasped behind her back, tall as she was, her head just came to the old, high mantel. The girl in the picture was also in riding clothes, but far different from Terry"s. They looked like a tableau: "The Past and Present."
Terry wore smart riding trousers and a flaring coat. Her sandy hair was just showing beneath a well blocked hat.
The girl in the picture was dark-haired and tall. Her right arm was thrust through the reins of a black horse. The panniers of her dark-green riding costume seemed to melt into the leafy background of the painting.
The picture girl was staring straight at Terry and perhaps it was not entirely imagination that disclosed something akin in the two girls.
"What a charming picture you make!" Arden remarked, and then, as she saw that Terry was perhaps too delighted at the compliment, she added: "In this dim light we can"t see the freckles."
Terry turned and, like a small boy, stuck a pink tongue out at Arden.
d.i.c.k, in the meanwhile, was looking thoughtfully at the girls. Sim went to him.
"d.i.c.k," she said softly, "I can see that you somehow belong here. Won"t you tell us about it? We"ve been riding with you several seasons now, and we won"t repeat a thing if you don"t want us to."
"Please," begged Arden. "You look as sad as this house, d.i.c.k. What"s the matter?"
"This place," d.i.c.k began with an including gesture, "once belonged in my grandmother"s family. But the deed, or some necessary paper, has been lost, and now the state claims the estate, and the old house is to be torn down to make way for a road. The march of progress, you know, must not be halted."
"But has it no historic interest?" Terry asked. "Couldn"t it be preserved as a shrine of some sort? I mean the house, for you said Jockey Hollow is going to be a park."
"I"m afraid not," continued d.i.c.k. "I guess it"s about the only mansion that George Washington never visited. Besides, the original house has been added to so many times that now it is a combination of three or four periods."
"What would your grandmother do with this property if she could find the deed?" asked Terry practically.
"Sell it," answered d.i.c.k without any hesitation. "At least it would bring enough money for me to give up this stable job that any half-wit could hold and let me finish at college. Then Betty, she"s my sister, could go to New York and keep on with her work in costume design and interior decoration. She"s really talented," he added earnestly.
"If this home were mine I should hate to part with it," Arden announced.
"I don"t see how your grandmother can bear to give it up. Isn"t there a chance that she could keep it, d.i.c.k?"
"Perhaps, if we could prove t.i.tle. But even then we need the money its sale would bring. Granny ought to have little comforts, though really she"s been swell about it all. Never complains. And the stories she knows!"
"What does she say about the ghosts?" Sim asked.
"Just laughs. She says she"d sleep here on All Souls" Eve or any other particularly ghostly time. I guess she likes ghosts."
"I"d love to meet her sometime. Do you think we might? I wish we could help some way," said Arden thoughtfully.
"I"ll ask her. I"m sure she would. She leads rather a lonely life," d.i.c.k answered. "And she loves young folks."
"Say, d.i.c.k, who is this girl in the picture? Isn"t it too valuable a painting to be left here?" Terry was studying the painting.
"It"s not worth much. It was probably painted by one of those traveling artists who could do family portraits or barns, whichever might be wanted. Granny has left a few things in here to sort of claim the place, though the claim isn"t recognized. And we live now in a little house behind this one. It used to be the servants" quarters," d.i.c.k finished bitterly.
The little group fell silent. The girls had stumbled, it seemed, upon something very private, and they felt embarra.s.sed at learning of someone"s misfortune.
"Like finding somebody crying when they thought they were alone," Terry later remarked.
No one knew what to say. d.i.c.k walked to a window that reached almost from the ceiling to the floor, and stood looking out. Terry, always the first to move, stepped over the fender around the fireplace and peered up the chimney. For no reason except to break the trying silence, as far as she knew.
Barely perceptible at first, gradually a sound impressed itself on the girls. Like footsteps on a stair, far away but coming nearer, the sound approached.
Terry pulled back her head from the dark corner of the fireplace and looked at her friends. They stood like statues staring back at each other, while d.i.c.k turned slowly from the window.
"What"s that?" Sim asked, c.o.c.king her head like a young puppy as if to hear better.
"Sounds like someone creeping down the stairs," Arden ventured.
"Perhaps it"s one of the workmen coming back," suggested Terry.
At this d.i.c.k shook his head. "No," he said. "I happen to know that those two men we saw a while ago were the only ones on the job today, and they left in a hurry," he finished, grinning.
"Well, then, there is only one explanation left." Arden was glowing with excitement. "Ghosts!"
"Oh, gosh!" exclaimed Sim. "Let"s go! I like to read about ghosts but I don"t like to meet "em. Come on!" Without waiting for the others, Sim ran from the room.