TRESPASS
Courtney never was without the heavy English walking-stick on which
he occasionally leaned for support. He took long strolls in the
country, frequently passing the Windom place, and twice he had gone
as far as the railed-in base of Quill's Window. From the footpath at
the bottom he could look through the trees up to the bare crest of
the rock. The gate through the high fence was padlocked, and contained
a sign with the curt warning: "No Trespass." On the opposite side
of the wide strip of meadow-land, in which cattle grazed placidly,
he could see the abandoned house where Alix Crown was born,--a
colourless, weather-beaten, two-storey frame building with faded
green window shutters and a high-pitched roof blackened by rain and
rot. Every shutter was closed; an atmosphere of utter desolation
hung over the place.
Across that brown, sunburnt stretch of meadow-land when it was white
and cold, old David Windom had carried the stiff body of Edward
Crown,--and returning had borne the soft, limp figure of his stricken
child. Courtney permitted his fancy to indulge in calculation. He
followed with his eye what must have been the path of the slayer
on that dreadful night. It led, no doubt, to the spot on which he
now was standing, for just behind him was the suggestion of a narrow,
weed-lined path that wormed its way through the trees toward the top
of the great rock. He decided that one day soon he would disregard
that sign on the gate, and climb up to the strange burial place of
Edward Crown and Alix the Second.
He had tested his increasing strength and endurance by rowing up
the river with Rosabel for a fair view of the hole in the face of
the rock--Quill's Window. It was plainly visible from the river, a
wide black gash in the almost perpendicular wall that reached well
above the fringe of trees and underbrush along the steep bank of
the stream.
He tried to picture Quill as he sat in his strange abode, a hundred
years ago, cowering over the fire or reading perhaps by the light
of a huge old-fashioned lanthorn. He thought of him hanging by the
neck back in the dark recess, victim either of his own conscience
or the implacable hatred of the enemy "down the river." And then
there were the others who had found death in the heart of that
mysterious cavern,--ugly death.
He wondered what the interior of the cave was like, and whether he
could devise some means of entering it. A rope ladder attached to
a substantial support at the top of the cliff would afford the easiest
way of reaching the mouth of the cave,--in fact, he recalled that
Quill employed some such means of descending to his eerie home. The
entrance appeared to be no more than twenty feet below the brow of
the cliff. It would not even be a hazardous undertaking. Besides,
if Quill and his successors were able to go up and down that wall
safely and repeatedly, why not he? No doubt scores of men,--perhaps
even schoolboys of the Tom Sawyer type,--had made frequent visits
to the cave. He knew he would be disregarding the command of Alix
Crown,--a command that all people respected and observed,--if he
passed the barrier and climbed to the top of the rock, but who,
after all, was Alix Crown that she should say "no trespass" to the
world at large?
The thought of Edward Crown wedged in at the bottom of Quill's Chimney,
weighted down with stones and earth, alone served as an obstacle to
the enterprise. He shrank from certain gruesome possibilities,--such
as the dislodgment of stones at the bottom of the crevice and the
consequent exposure of a thing that would haunt him forever. And
even though the stones remained in place there would still remain
the fact that almost within arm's length was imprisoned the crushed,
distorted remains of the murdered man.
Toward the end of his second week at Dowd's Tavern, he set out to
climb to the top of the big rock. He had no intention of descending
to the cavern's mouth on this occasion. That feat was to be reserved for
another day. Arriving at the gate, he was surprised and gratified
to discover that it was unlocked. While it was latched, the
padlock and chain hung loosely from the post to which the latter
was attached. Without hesitation, he opened the gate and strode
boldly into proscribed territory.
The ascent was gradual at first, then steep and abrupt for a matter
of fifty or sixty feet to the bald summit of the hill. Once at the
top, he sat down panting and exhausted upon the edge of the shallow
fissure he had followed as a path up the rock, and again his thoughts
went back to the night of the murder. This had been David Windom's
route to the top of the hill. He found himself discrediting one
feature at least of the man's confession. Only a fabled giant could
have carried the body of a man up that steep, tortuous incline.
Why, he was exhausted, and he had borne no heavier burden than
his stout walking-stick. That part of Windom's story certainly was
"fishy."
Presently he arose and strode out upon the rough, uneven "roof" of
the height. He could look in all directions over the tops of the
trees below. The sun beat down fiercely upon the unsheltered rock.
Off to the north lay the pall of smoke indicating the presence
of the invisible county seat. Thin, anfractuous highways and dirt
roads scarred the green and brown landscape, and as far as the eye
could reach were to be seen farmhouses and barns and silos.
Avoiding the significant heap of rocks near the centre of the little
plateau, he made his way to the brink of the cliff overlooking
the river. There he had a wonderful view of the winding stream,
the harvest fields, the groves, and the herds in the far-reaching
stretches of what was considered the greatest corn raising "belt"
in the United States. Some yards back from the edge of the cliff
he discovered the now thoroughly rotted section of a tree trunk,
eight or ten inches in diameter, driven deeply into a narrow fissure
and rendered absolutely immovable by a solid mass of stones and
gravel that completely closed the remainder of the crevice. He was
right in surmising that this was the support from which Quill's rope
or vine ladder was suspended a hundred years ago. Nearby were two
heavy iron rings attached to standards sunk firmly into the rock,
a modern improvement on the hermit's crude device. (He afterwards
learned that David Windom, when a lad of fifteen, had drilled the
holes in the rock and imbedded the stout iron shafts, so that he
might safely descend to the mouth of the cave.)
Turning back, he approached the heap of boulders that covered the
grave of Edward and Alix Crown. No visible sign of the cleft in
the surface of the rock remained. Six huge boulders, arranged in
a row, rose above a carefully made bed of stones held in place by
a low, soundly mortared wall.
Chiselled on one of the end boulders was the name of Alix Windom
Crown, with the date of her birth and her death, with the line:
"Rock of Ages Cleft for Me." Below this inscription was the recently
carved name of Edward Joseph Crown, Born July 7, 1871. Died March
22, 1895. Three words followed this. They were "Abide With Me."
II
Thane stood for a long time looking at the pile. He was not
sentimental. His life had been spent in an irreverent city, among
people hardened by pleasure or coarsened by greed. His thoughts
as he stood there were not of the unhappy pair who reposed beneath
those ugly rocks; they were of the far-off tragedy that had brought
them to this singular resting-place. The fact that this was a grave,
sacred in the same sense that his father's grave in Woodlawn was
supposed to be sacred to him and to his mother, was overlooked in
the silent contemplation of what an even less sophisticated person
might have been justified in describing as a "freak." Nothing
was farther from his mind, however, than the desire or impulse to
be disrespectful. And yet, as he was about to turn away from this
sombre pile, he leaned over and struck a match on one of the huge
boulders. As he was conveying the lighted sulphur match,--with
which Dowd's Tavern abounded,--to the cigarette that hung limply
from his lips, he was startled by a sharp, almost agonized cry.
It seemed to come from nowhere. He experienced the uncanny feeling
that a ghost,--the ghost that haunted Quill's Window,--standing
guard over the mound, had cried out under the pain inflicted by
that profane match.
Even as he turned to search the blazing, sunlit rock with apprehensive
eyes, a voice, shrill with anger, flung these words at him:
"What are you doing up here?"
His gaze fell upon the speaker, standing stockstill in the cloven
path below him, not twenty feet away. In his relief, he laughed.
He beheld a slim figure in riding-togs. Nothing formidable or
ghostlike in that! Nevertheless, a pair of dark blue eyes transfixed
him with indignation. They looked out from under the rim of a black
sailor hat, and they were wide and inimical.
"Did you not see that sign on the gate?" demanded the girl.
"I did," he replied, still smiling as he removed his hat,--one of
Knox's panamas. "And I owe you an apology."
She advanced to the top. He noted the riding-crop gripped rather
firmly in her clenched hand.
"No one is permitted to come up here," she announced, stopping a
few feet away. She was quite tall and straight. She panted a little
from the climb up the steep. He saw her bosom rise and fall under
the khaki jacket; her nostrils were slightly distended. In that
first glimpse of her, he took in the graceful, perfect figure; the
lovely, brilliant face; the glorious though unsmiling eyes. "You
must leave at once. This is private property. Go, please."
"I cannot go before telling you how rotten I feel for striking that
match. I beg of you, Miss Crown,--you ARE Miss Crown?--I can only
ask you to believe that it was not a conscious act of desecration.
It was sheer thoughtlessness. I would not have done it for the
world if I had--"
"It is not necessary for you to explain," she broke in curtly. "I
saw what you did,--and it is just because of such as you that this
spot is forbidden ground. Idle curiosity, utter disregard for the
sacredness of that lonely grave,--Oh, you need not attempt to deny
it. You are a stranger here, but that is no excuse for your passing
through that gate. I AM Miss Crown. This hill belongs to me. It was
I who had that fence put up and it was I who directed the sign to
be put on the gate. They are meant for strangers as well as for
friends. It was not thoughtlessness that brought you up here. You
thought a long time before you came. Will you be good enough to
go?"
He flushed under the scornful dismissal.
"The gate was unlocked--" he began.
"That doesn't matter. It might have been wide open, sir,--but that
did not grant you any special privileges."
"I can only ask your pardon, Miss Crown, and depart in disgrace,"
said he, quite humbly. As he started down the path, he paused to
add: "I did not know you had returned. I daresay I should have been
less venturesome had I known you were in the neighbourhood."
The thinly veiled sarcasm did not escape her.
"I suppose you are the young man from New York that every one is
talking about. That may account for your ignorance. In order that
you may not feel called upon to visit this place again to satisfy
your curiosity, I will point out to you the objects of interest.
This pile of rocks marks the grave of my father and mother. The
dates speak for themselves. You may have noticed them when you
scratched your match just above my mother's name. My father was
murdered by my grandfather before I was born. My mother died on
the day I was born. I never saw them. I do not love them, because
I never knew them. But I DO respect and honour them. They were good
people. I have no reason to be ashamed of them. If you will look
out over those trees and across that pasture, you will see the house
in which my mother died and where I was born. Directly in front of
the little porch my father died as the result of a blow delivered
by my grandfather. As to the disposal of the body, you may obtain
all the information necessary from Alaska Spigg, our town librarian,
who will be more than delighted to supply you with all the ghastly
details. To your right is the post to which a man named Quill
attached his ladder in order to reach the cave in the face of this
rock,--where he lived for many years. This is the path leading
down to the gate, which you will still find unlocked. It will not
be necessary for you to come up here again. You have seen all there
is to see."
With that, she deliberately turned her back on him and walked toward
the edge of the cliff. He stared after her for a few seconds, his
lips parted as if to speak, and then, as the flush of mortification
deepened in his cheeks, he began picking his way rather blindly
down the steep path.
He was never to forget his first encounter with Alix the Third.