CHAPTER II

THE AGENT

A man in middle age. Busy, and hard to please. TAYLOR.

“Well, runaway! Where have you been all the morning?” briskly inquired John Palmer as he ran down the front steps to meet his favorite daughter as she came up the heavily-shaded avenue.

“To a lovely island down the river, father, to hear a—heavenly minister!” exclaimed Em. with a burst of enthusiasm.

And then, as they strolled leisurely on to the house, she gave him, after the manner of young girls, a rapid, impetuous, and graphic description of her morning’s adventures and discoveries.

“An Edengarden and a White Spirit! Wery fantastical names, Em. And, I reckon, just some of old ’Si’s yarns,” quietly observed John as they entered the hall, where Susan and old Monica were busy setting the table and preparing the frugal dinner.

“Gracious, Em., you’ve been away all day, and if it had not been for that little black boy—Si’, he said his name was—a coming and telling me you had gone to a preaching with his grandfather, I shouldn’t a known what had become o’ you,” said Susan.

“But I wouldn’t have gone without sending you word, mother. And, oh! as soon as ever we get quiet I have got _so_ much to tell you,” answered Em., as she took the loaf of bread out of the good woman’s hand and began to cut it in slices for the table.

The hall at this hour presented a very pleasant scene, both the front and the back doors being open and admitting a free current of the fresh summer air, laden with the fragrance of the wild woods which grew closely all around the house.

From the midst of the hall arose that grand staircase with its lofty window at the top, forevermore mysterious and memorable to Em. from the ghostly vision of the night before.

Now, however, it looked a homely and familiar household object enough, with the three little girls, Molly, Nelly and Venny running up and down its richly-carpeted steps or sliding on the balustrades.

Em. looked up at the high window and at such doors in the upper hall as came within the range of her sight, and with a natural curiosity, wondered into what manner of places they led.

“Mother,” she at length inquired, “have you looked into any of the rooms above there?”

“No, child, nor the rooms below, either. There hasn’t been a door opened anywhere except into this hall. It is Sunday, you know, and neither me nor your father believe in doing any more work than we can help on this day, even if we have just arrived at a strange place,” replied Susan Palmer.

Em. fell into silent and self-reproachful thought, wondering whether she had not committed a sin and broken the Sabbath by going to look at the lovely white palace on the island.

“Don’t you like to live here, Em.? Ain’t it jolly? Ain’t this a splendid old hall? I would like to stay here always, even if they didn’t give us any more of the house to live in than just this. Wouldn’t you?” inquired her youngest brother, Tom, who had just come in with a pail of fresh water from the well.

“Oh, it’s bully! It’s like a picnic or camp-meeting what Aunt Monica used to tell us about,” chimed in Ned, who was piling up a little heap of brush in a corner.

“I hope they’ll let us stay just here, where we can slide on the banisters all day long,” sung out little Nelly from her perch on the stairs.

“Them children will break their necks! John, can’t you make them come down and behave themselves? They don’t mind me one bit!” cried out Mrs. Palmer, pausing in the midst of slicing cold ham.

“Lor’, Susan, woman, young uns is like kittens and monkeys. It is their natur’ to climb. ‘Sich is life;’ and it’s cruel to perwent ’em; besides, these poor things never had a chance to climb in all their lives before.”

“And now they’ll go it, you may depend! They’ll be swarming up all these trees like bees before the week is out if you encourage them so.”

“Well, I hope they will. It will do ’em good. ‘Sich is life,’” concluded aggravating John.

All this time Em. had made no remark, but was silently putting the dinner on the table. It was a cold dinner of bread, butter, ham, pies and well water; for neither Susan nor John would have any cooking done on Sunday.

“I think I like this gypsy sort of life myself,” said John as he began to drag the heavy, high-backed oaken chair from the wall up to the table.

They were all about to sit down to dinner when they were interrupted by the sudden entrance of a little, elderly, dark-skinned man with snapping black eyes, a brisk manner, a quick step and a short tone.

All the family started up.

“‘Sich is life,’” said John.

“Well-well-well!” the intruder exclaimed, running his words together in swift repetition. “Well-well-well! So here you are at last! So here you are at last!”

“Yes, sir,” said John Palmer, rising and saluting the stranger who had taken him so much by surprise. “Yes, sir, we reached here all right. You are the agent of the property, I presume, sir—Mr. Comical?”

“_Car_-michael, man! _Car_-michael! But what the deuce are you doing here in the grand hall? Grand hall—grand hall—grand hall! Eh-eh-eh?” quickly demanded the brisk little man.

“Excuse me, sir. ‘Sich is life.’ We are doing no harm. We reached here last night too late to do anything more than to throw ourselves down here. This being the Sabbath day, we could not make a change without breaking the commandment; but to-morrow we will go into the quarters provided for us, if you will kindly direct us where they are,” said John.

“I see! I see! I see! And meantime you are cooking your dinners on the very hearths where the old cavalier lords of the manor used only to roast their own shins! Well-well-well! I suppose it can’t be helped for to-day—to-day—to-day!” replied the nervous little old man with rapid reiteration.

“You have likely had a long ride this morning, sir. Won’t you sit up and take some dinner?” inquired John politely.

“I thank you! Yes-yes-yes! I believe I will! I believe I will!” said the agent frankly, taking the chair that one of the boys vacated for him.

“That is my wife, sir,” said John, indicating the good woman at the head of the table.

“Yes-yes-yes! So I should have supposed! I hope you are very well, ma’am!” exclaimed the quick visitor, and then, without waiting for an answer, he turned to his host, and pointing with his fork to Mrs. Whitlock, said: “And the other respectable old party, your mother-in-law? mother-in-law? mother-in-law?”

“No, though she do lectur’ me to that extent, she might as well be,” laughed John as he resumed his place at the foot of the table and helped his guest to ham.

“Well-well-well!” said the agent after he had taken the edge off his appetite with several slices of bread and ham. “Well-well! as your conscience will not permit you to move on Sunday, and as I can’t stay here till Monday, I’ll just indicate where you are to lodge yourself and family. It is in the rear of the manor-house. We call it The Red Wing.”

“Yes, sir, I know exactly the place you mean. It is just under the shadow of the mountain and is built of a different colored stone from the rest of the house—a red stone.”

“Yes-yes-yes! Very fine specimen of old red sandstone, while the main building is of blue limestone. You’ll do, you’ll do, you’ll do! And now I will give you this paper, which contains full instructions as to your duties here, and I will leave it with you for reference,” said the agent, handing over to John a very formidable looking document in a long, yellow envelope, tied with red tape.

“I will study this to-morrow morning,” said Palmer, stowing it away in the breast pocket of his coat.

“I will rest here until the heat of the day is over, and then leave my horse here and take a fresh one and return-return-return,” said the agent as they all arose from the table when the frugal meal was ended.

Leaving the women to clear away the table, John Palmer and his guest walked down on the front lawn, if lawn that could be called which was so thickly covered with trees as to be only the skirt of the deep forest that lay between the house and the river.

“You spoke about your horse. I hope he is taken care of, sir. If so it had a been that I had knowed when you first came I’d a taken care of him myself,” said Palmer apologetically.

“Oh, don’t bother, don’t bother!” exclaimed the visitor as he threw himself down at full length under one of the large shade trees, took a pipe and pouch of tobacco from his pocket, filled and lighted the pipe from a match, and began to smoke, continuing to talk between his whiffs.

“Bless you, man, I’m more at home here, more at home, more at home than you are. I just rode around to the stable, gave my horse to Seth, the head groom, and then walked on to the house. The horse belongs here. I have none of my own, none of my own; but I have the privilege of using these, using these. I shall take a fresh one, a fresh one, a fresh one, when I go back. But, sit down, man, sit down, sit down. I want to talk to you about something else, and it tires me to see you standing.”

John seated himself under the tree at some little distance from the agent, who then, lowering his tone, inquired:

“Slept in the house last night, didn’t you? Slept in the house, slept in the house?”

“Yes,” replied John. “I told you so, you know.”

“Yes-yes-yes-yes! So you did! Hem! See anything unusual?”

“Sir?” inquired John in a bewilderment.

“See anything unsual—unusual—unusual?” rapidly reiterated the little man, fixing his keen black eyes on Palmer’s face.

“I beg pardon. I—I don’t understand,” said John.

“Any disturbance in the night—any fright-fright-fright?”

“Not in the least. But now that reminds me that the same question was asked by old ’Si, the gate-porter, this morning! But I answered him as I answer you: nothing disturbed us. As far as I know we all slept like tops—we always do. What _should_ have disturbed us?”

“Nothing-nothing-nothing! Bats, mice, wind! Nothing more, _I_ verily believe! But there are a lot of idiots who have got a story up about the old manor-house being haunted-haunted-haunted!”

“Rubbish!” said John with all the strong contempt of a practical man for the supernatural.

“So I say, so I say.”

“But I wish, for all that, no one would hint any sich a thing to the women and girls. It might trouble them. ‘Sich is life.’”

“No-no-no-no! But even if such a rumor should reach their ears it need not alarm them. It is only the old manor-house that the fools say is full of ghosts, ghosts, ghosts! Not the wing, not the wing!”

While the two men talked together they perceived the slow approach of some figure through the trees, which soon revealed itself to be old ’Sias, the gatekeeper.

“Well, well, old man, what do you want? What do you want?” demanded the agent, ill-pleased at the intrusion.

“Nothing werry particular, marster; only to pay my dispects to yer, sar, and I no more knowin’ as you was here till dat boy Seth told me! I nebber was more s’prised in my life, no, not since I was a boy, and dat wa’n’t yes’day, marster! Dat must a been a hundred and fifty year ago, more or less!”

“Humph-humph-humph! To hear _you_ talk, old man, one would think you might remember Noah’s flood,” said the agent.

“Well, no, marster, not quite: but _I_ s’pects my grand-daddy did; ’caze I has heerd him ’scribe it, when he was a little boy,” gravely replied the old man.

“Yes-yes-yes. I see! Mendacity comes to you quite legitimately, handed down from father to son,” said the agent.

“Yes, sar, so it do indeed, marster, sar, and few colored fam’lies is as much favored in dat ’spect as ours,” said old ’Sias so innocently that the agent looked half ashamed of himself.

To change the subjects, as well as to utilize the old man, Mr. Carmichael said:

“Well, now that you are here, ’Sias, do me the favor to walk down to the stable and tell Seth to saddle Saladin for me, and bring him around here.”

“Yes, marster, wid de greatest pleasure in life,” said ’Sias, moving off.

“And here-here-here! Come back here! Here’s a dollar for a present to buy tobacco pipes with,” added Carmichael, thrusting the broad silver coin in his hand.

“Thanky, marster, a thousand times, and I hab the hoss round here for yer in no time. T’anks be to goodness, Sereny don’t know nuffin’ ’tall ’bout my habbin’ ob _dis_ money! Ain’t me and her been in de way ob getting presents to-day? She a sky-blue scarf, and me dis here dollar! But, dere! I ain’t a gwine to let Sereny know nuffin’ ’tall ’bout dis here dollar. ’Cause if I did—hush, honey!—she’d dance a war-dance ’round me, and scalp de top o’ my head off but what she’d hab every blessed cent ob it,” muttered the old man to himself as he carefully stowed away his prize in the lowest recesses of his trowsers’ pocket and hurried away down a little foot-path leading through the thicket in the direction of the stables.

While waiting for his horse the agent occupied the time in giving the new overseer some general information about the situation. He told Palmer that the Wilderness Manor had always been in the possession of the Elphine family; but that the last male descendant of the race had suddenly left the house on the marriage of his cousin, many, many years before, and had lived abroad; that very lately he had died in Paris, unmarried and intestate, and the manor had fallen to the only daughter of that cousin whose marriage he had taken in such high dudgeon.

He went on to say that this lady—whose confidential agent he, Peter Carmichael, was—had come in person to visit her new inheritance, and finding the old manor-house going to ruin from neglect, she had directed him to find a suitable family to take charge of it; and that he had advertised and found the present family, with whom, he added, he was very well “pleased-pleased-pleased.”

He concluded by saying that he was a lawyer by profession and a bachelor by choice, and that he lived at the Red Deer Hotel in the town of Greyrock, about thirty miles down the river, and that he rode up weekly to look after the estate, always changing horses when he went back.

Then, as he saw the stable boy, Seth, coming up the narrow path and leading Saladin, he arose to take leave, requesting John Palmer to bid good-by to the family for him, and promising to ride over again on the ensuing Saturday.

“It’ll be ten o’clock before Mr. Comical gets home, and he’ll have to ride fast to do that,” said John as he stepped into the large hall, which he found put in order for the night, with all the pallets spread.

“Has that funny old fellow gone?” inquired Susan as she arose from putting the last smoothing touches on the children’s bed.

“Yes, and he asked me to bid you all good-by for him.”

“Well, now all is done here, we’ll go out and sit under the trees, and I hope this is the very last night we shall have to sleep in the hall. It is a perfectly savage way of living!”

“Oh! I think it’s just _nice_!”

“It’s real jolly!”

“It’s first-rate fun!”

“I’d rather live this way than any way!”

Such was the chorus of exclamations from the children that answered their mother’s remarks.

“Difference of opinion; but ‘sich is life,’” said John.

“_Do_ hush your noise, Palmer! You distract me with your clatter!” scolded Susan as she hurried the children out of the house.

“I wasn’t making the least bit. She and the young uns was making it all, and I get the blame: ‘sich is life,’” said John as he followed them out.

But there was no malice in Susan Palmer’s hasty speeches, and her husband knew it well.

All was harmony in the family circle as they sat under the trees, John smoking his white clay pipe, and the children amusing themselves with picking the grass-flowers that grew thickly around them.

“Is _this_ country enough for you, Em.?” inquired John Palmer for the second time, as he looked at his daughter, who was sitting on the ground with her hands clasped around her knees, and with her eyes fixed upon the forest, through whose waving branches, glimmering here and there, could be caught glimpses of the distant river.

“Oh, father, it is almost divine! I sometimes wonder if we are not all dead and in Paradise together. Maybe we were all suffocated in our burning house that night, you know, and have come to life in Paradise!” dreamily replied the girl.

“Em., hush! you’re crazy!” broke in Susan Palmer.

“Well, mother, anyway we _are_ dead to the old life in Laundry Lane, and are risen to this,” said Em., smiling.

“_That’s_ what she means, Susan. Law, _I_ understood the girl!” said Palmer heartily.

“Oh, yes! I dessay you do, John, and you encourage her in her flights just as you do the little ones in their climbing. The end of which will be you will have a crazy girl and three or four crippled children!” chimed in Ann Whitlock.

“No wonder Mr. Comical took her for my mother-in-law!” muttered John to himself. “And now I come to think of it, it is all providential—having no mother-in-law of my own, Mrs. Whitlock fell right into the place to fill up the wacancy! ‘Sich is life!’” laughed John to himself.

They sat out under the trees until their early bedtime, and then they all returned to the house. The women and children entered first and retired, and then the man and the boys.

Em., not wishing a repetition of her last night’s experience, had made her pallet in the rear of the grand staircase, and close by the back door, which was left wide open for air.

As usual with this hard-working and healthy family, as soon as their heads dropped upon their pillows they fell fast asleep.

Even Em.—who would have kept her eyes open if she could, for the pleasure of looking out from her pallet through the open door upon the waving trees, the gray rocks beyond and the starlit sky above, soon succumbed to fatigue and slept soundly.

The vigils of the last night and the exertions of the past day had completely exhausted the girl, and produced a prolonged sleep of many hours.

It must have been very near day when at last she calmly opened her eyes.

The moon was shining over the top of the mountain and down through the waving trees and making their shadows dance upon the floor of the hall and on the white quilt of Em.’s pallet.

All else was still in the place.

“This is beautiful, beautiful,” said the girl, watching the graceful shadows of the leaves dance and fly over her outspread hands. She knew the moon was also shining through the lofty window at the head of the stairs and flooding the stairway and front hall with light where she had seen the radiant vision of the night. She felt glad that she had moved her pallet, for she thought that visions would not be likely to appear anywhere else except in that splendor of light.

Hush! What was that?

Her ears had caught the sound of a soft foot-fall approaching, accompanied by the slight _swish_ of a trailing garment along the floor. The sound drew nearer.

Horror of horrors! What is this?

No radiant form of light now! but a demon of darkness from the pit! a tall figure shrouded in black from head to foot, with a muffled face of which nothing could be seen but a pair of fierce, dark eyes that seemed to shine and gleam by their own fires!

Em.’s blood curdled in her heart; she tried to cry out! to spring up! to fly for her life! but she could neither move, speak, nor breathe!

The terrible form drew nearer, stood beside her pallet, stooped over her.

That was too much, and the girl swooned with horror.