I really do not know how we should ever have got home, had we been left to our own devices. We were cold with fright. How could we turn our backs on the eerie spruce wood, out of which SOMETHING might pop at any moment? How cross those long, shadowy fields between us and our rooftree? How venture through the darkly mysterious bracken hollow?
Fortunately, Uncle Alec came along at this crisis and said he thought we"d better come home now, since the fires were nearly out. We slid down from the fence and started, taking care to keep close together and in front of Uncle Alec.
"I don"t believe a word of that yarn," said Dan, trying to speak with his usual incredulity.
"I don"t see how you can help believing it," said Cecily. "It isn"t as if it was something we"d read of, or that happened far away. It happened just down at Markdale, and I"ve seen that very spruce wood myself."
"Oh, I suppose William Cowan got a fright of some kind," conceded Dan, "but I don"t believe he saw the devil."
"Old Mr. Morrison at Lower Markdale was one of the men who undressed him, and he remembers seeing the marks," said the Story Girl triumphantly.
"How did William Cowan behave afterwards?" I asked.
"He was a changed man," said the Story Girl solemnly. "Too much changed.
He never was known to laugh again, or even smile. He became a very religious man, which was a good thing, but he was dreadfully gloomy and thought everything pleasant sinful. He wouldn"t even eat any more than was actually necessary to keep him alive. Uncle Roger says that if he had been a Roman Catholic he would have become a monk, but, as he was a Presbyterian, all he could do was to turn into a crank."
"Yes, but your Uncle Roger was never clapped on the shoulder and called brother by the devil," said Peter. "If he had, he mightn"t have been so precious jolly afterwards himself."
"I do wish to goodness," said Felicity in exasperation, "that you"d stop talking of the--the--of such subjects in the dark. I"m so scared now that I keep thinking father"s steps behind us are SOMETHING"S. Just think, my own father!"
The Story Girl slipped her arm through Felicity"s.
"Never mind," she said soothingly. "I"ll tell you another story--such a beautiful story that you"ll forget all about the devil."
She told us one of Hans Andersen"s most exquisite tales; and the magic of her voice charmed away all our fear, so that when we reached the bracken hollow, a lake of shadow surrounded by the silver sh.o.r.e of moonlit fields, we all went through it without a thought of His Satanic Majesty at all. And beyond us, on the hill, the homelight was glowing from the farmhouse window like a beacon of old loves.
CHAPTER x.x.xII. THE OPENING OF THE BLUE CHEST
November wakened from her dream of May in a bad temper. The day after the picnic a cold autumn rain set in, and we got up to find our world a drenched, wind-writhen place, with sodden fields and dour skies. The rain was weeping on the roof as if it were shedding the tears of old sorrows; the willow by the gate tossed its gaunt branches wildly, as if it were some pa.s.sionate, spectral thing, wringing its fleshless hands in agony; the orchard was haggard and uncomely; nothing seemed the same except the staunch, trusty, old spruces.
It was Friday, but we were not to begin going to school again until Monday, so we spent the day in the granary, sorting apples and hearing tales. In the evening the rain ceased, the wind came around to the northwest, freezing suddenly, and a chilly yellow sunset beyond the dark hills seemed to herald a brighter morrow.
Felicity and the Story Girl and I walked down to the post-office for the mail, along a road where fallen leaves went eddying fitfully up and down before us in weird, uncanny dances of their own. The evening was full of eerie sounds--the creaking of fir boughs, the whistle of the wind in the tree-tops, the vibrations of strips of dried bark on the rail fences.
But we carried summer and sunshine in our hearts, and the bleak unloveliness of the outer world only intensified our inner radiance.
Felicity wore her new velvet hood, with a coquettish little collar of white fur about her neck. Her golden curls framed her lovely face, and the wind stung the pink of her cheeks to crimson. On my left hand walked the Story Girl, her red cap on her jaunty brown head. She scattered her words along the path like the pearls and diamonds of the old fairy tale.
I remember that I strutted along quite insufferably, for we met several of the Carlisle boys and I felt that I was an exceptionally lucky fellow to have such beauty on one side and such charm on the other.
There was one of father"s thin letters for Felix, a fat, foreign letter for the Story Girl, addressed in her father"s minute handwriting, a drop letter for Cecily from some school friend, with "In Haste" written across the corner, and a letter for Aunt Janet, postmarked Montreal.
"I can"t think who that is from," said Felicity. "n.o.body in Montreal ever writes to mother. Cecily"s letter is from Em Frewen. She always puts "In Haste" on her letters, no matter what is in them."
When we reached home, Aunt Janet opened and read her Montreal letter.
Then she laid it down and looked about her in astonishment.
"Well, did ever any mortal!" she said.
"What in the world is the matter?" said Uncle Alec.
"This letter is from James Ward"s wife in Montreal," said Aunt Janet solemnly. "Rachel Ward is dead. And she told James" wife to write to me and tell me to open the old blue chest."
"Hurrah!" shouted Dan.
"Donald King," said his mother severely, "Rachel Ward was your relation and she is dead. What do you mean by such behaviour?"
"I never was acquainted with her," said Dan sulkily. "And I wasn"t hurrahing because she is dead. I hurrahed because that blue chest is to be opened at last."
"So poor Rachel is gone," said Uncle Alec. "She must have been an old woman--seventy-five I suppose. I remember her as a fine, blooming young woman. Well, well, and so the old chest is to be opened at last. What is to be done with its contents?"
"Rachel left instructions about them," answered Aunt Janet, referring to the letter. "The wedding dress and veil and letters are to be burned.
There are two jugs in it which are to be sent to James" wife. The rest of the things are to be given around among the connection. Each members is to have one, "to remember her by.""
"Oh, can"t we open it right away this very night?" said Felicity eagerly.
"No, indeed!" Aunt Janet folded up the letter decidedly. "That chest has been locked up for fifty years, and it"ll stand being locked up one more night. You children wouldn"t sleep a wink to-night if we opened it now.
You"d go wild with excitement."
"I"m sure I won"t sleep anyhow," said Felicity. "Well, at least you"ll open it the first thing in the morning, won"t you, ma?"
"No, I"ll do nothing of the sort," was Aunt Janet"s pitiless decree.
"I want to get the work out of the way first--and Roger and Olivia will want to be here, too. We"ll say ten o"clock to-morrow forenoon."
"That"s sixteen whole hours yet," sighed Felicity.
"I"m going right over to tell the Story Girl," said Cecily. "Won"t she be excited!"
We were all excited. We spent the evening speculating on the possible contents of the chest, and Cecily dreamed miserably that night that the moths had eaten everything in it.
The morning dawned on a beautiful world. A very slight fall of snow had come in the night--just enough to look like a filmy veil of lace flung over the dark evergreens, and the hard frozen ground. A new blossom time seemed to have revisited the orchard. The spruce wood behind the house appeared to be woven out of enchantment. There is nothing more beautiful than a thickly growing wood of firs lightly powdered with new-fallen snow. As the sun remained hidden by gray clouds, this fairy-beauty lasted all day.
The Story Girl came over early in the morning, and Sara Ray, to whom faithful Cecily had sent word, was also on hand. Felicity did not approve of this.
"Sara Ray isn"t any relation to our family," she scolded to Cecily, "and she has no right to be present."
"She"s a particular friend of mine," said Cecily with dignity. "We have her in everything, and it would hurt her feelings dreadfully to be left out of this. Peter is no relation either, but he is going to be here when we open it, so why shouldn"t Sara?"
"Peter ain"t a member of the family YET, but maybe he will be some day.
Hey, Felicity?" said Dan.
"You"re awful smart, aren"t you, Dan King?" said Felicity, reddening.
"Perhaps you"d like to send for Kitty Marr, too--though she DOES laugh at your big mouth."
"It seems as if ten o"clock would never come," sighed the Story Girl.
"The work is all done, and Aunt Olivia and Uncle Roger are here, and the chest might just as well be opened right away."
"Mother SAID ten o"clock and she"ll stick to it," said Felicity crossly.
"It"s only nine now."