THE GHOST OF A LITTLE CHILD.
That was but the first of many walks and talks with Captain
Garraway-Kyle. Comethup grew to look upon him as something very fine
and very splendid; learned from him, too, a very fine and very splendid
morality, which his dreamy father, for all the beauty of his character,
could scarcely have taught him. In those early days everything had, of
necessity, to pass the strong test of the captain's frown or approving
nod; each action was court-martialled, as it were, and approved or
utterly rejected, as the case might be. There was no dividing line with
the captain; he had lived by stern rules all his life, and a thing was
either perfectly right or it was perfectly wrong. Comethup's friendship
with the captain was probably the best thing that ever happened for
him; he grew up, under the old man's guidance, a pure and sweet and
wholesome little fellow, with a soul as clear as crystal.
From the captain's standpoint, also, the friendship was a good
thing. The old man bore himself as erectly as he had ever done; only
to Comethup he relaxed somewhat the hard and unbending set of laws
which hitherto had governed his days. The stern old face broke up
into something of tenderness at the sight of the child; he prepared,
out of his scanty means, little treats and relishes for the boy's
entertainment. David Willis he never quite understood; saw in him
something out of the normal--a creature sent into the world, he
sincerely trusted, for some good purpose; only the captain had not been
able to make up his mind what that purpose was. The captain liked him,
even pitied him a little, as he had pitied him on the first night of
their meeting; but the man was beyond his range of vision. When, in
church sometimes, he heard the organ pealing out above him, he would
glance round at the child (for Comethup came in time to occupy a seat
in the captain's pew), and a little curious look of anxiety would
gather on his brow and settle there--anxiety as to what the boy would
do in the years that were coming to him, and how his father would help
to equip him for the world. But, for the most part, the captain was
willing to let the happy present time go on, grateful that, in the last
of his years, this little child should have come to sweeten them.
Great excursions were planned in those early days of Comethup's life.
It was a wonderful thing to see Comethup do what no other living
creature in the town dared do so boldly--open the gate of the captain's
garden, and march straight up the trim little path which led to the
front door of the house. He had been taught, when an expedition was
afoot, to be punctual to the minute; and he always found the captain
coming out of the cottage as he reached it, glancing generally at his
watch with a quick nod of approval. Then would the captain, with hat
a-tilt and cane swinging, and with pride in his heart, sally forth
with Comethup to make new discoveries on a prearranged plan. For the
old town, which had once been a mere resting-place for the captain's
declining years, took on a new aspect, when viewed through the eyes of
this child.
It was an old town--a beautiful old town; the captain read up a
complete history of it, and proved--to Comethup's entire satisfaction
as well as to his own--that something extraordinary had happened in
nearly every house it contained. It had been a town of great deeds;
had once touched the sea, and had helped to defend that part of the
coast line during some of the country's stormiest times. The sea had
long since retreated, and left the little place lying high and dry, to
sleep in peace, and dream about its deeds.
It had been a walled town, too; indeed, the old wall still remained,
only that, in the very place and beauty of less stirring times, the
wall had become a mere grass-grown bank, with flowers and shrubs
growing all about it. But here the captain was in his element; he could
point out how the town would be attacked from this direction, or how an
invading force would come from there; would draw sketches in the gravel
with the point of his cane to illustrate exactly how _he_ would have
defended it, had he been alive in those times, and how he would have
made it absolutely impregnable. Comethup, gazing at him with delighted
eyes, came to believe that he was absolutely the greatest general and
master of the art of war that had ever existed, instead of a poor
little half-pay captain whose name had never been heard of.
There was a quiet and sleepy little river, too, which ran just outside
the town under a stone bridge; and the captain used to lean over the
parapet of the bridge, on sunny afternoons, while Comethup sat on the
stonework beside him, and they used to fish for the bright, gleaming,
darting little creatures in the river below. They very rarely caught
anything: it was a great event when they did; but the captain used to
explain exactly how various kinds of fishing could be accomplished with
the minimum of ease and the maximum of success. The captain always
seemed to know how to tell one the best way of doing a variety of
clever things, but he never seemed to have accomplished very much in
a practical sense; Comethup used to think sadly, in after years, that
if the captain had only been able to do half the things he could tell
other people how to do, he might have been a general at the very least,
with his breast ablaze of medals and orders. But Comethup loved him
devotedly, just as he was, and would not have had him changed for the
wide world.
A great wide expanse of sandy, marshy land lay between the little
town and the sea, and this was their playground. It was a wonderful
place--a place they seemed never to be able fully to explore. The
captain never quite lost his dignity; but away from the town and
under the influence of Comethup he relaxed considerably. It is always
possible that he comforted himself with the reflection that, whatever
species of amusement they sought, it was of an educational character,
and would assist the boy's future. But the Captain Garraway-Kyle
who marched out of the little town, holding the child by the hand
and swinging his cane, was a very different person indeed from the
light-hearted old gentleman who imperilled the knees of his tight
trousers in stooping over sand forts and anxiously superintending the
erection of fortifications. The puppy--grown a little older and wiser
and more staid now--usually accompanied them on these expeditions,
and was not always to be trusted when a delicate matter of building
was on hand, having a propensity for playing the enemy and levelling
earthworks and forts and everything else in one indiscriminate heap. So
pleasant days went by, each filled full to the last sleepy hour with
new experiences for Comethup; and the captain seemed to grow younger as
Comethup inevitably grew older.
It has been said that Comethup often occupied a seat in the captain's
pew in church; it became quite a regular thing for him to do so after
a time. The child had drawn two lonely men together, and, although the
captain did not understand David Willis, while David, for his part,
stood a little in awe of the captain's brusqueness, the two men often
met, and it became quite an ordinary thing for them to sit chatting in
David Willis's modest parlour long after Comethup was tucked up in his
little bed at the top of the house. They were both inordinately fond
of the child; probably the captain excelled in that particular. They
never had very much to say to each other, and when they spoke at all
it was generally about that one subject of their thoughts. The captain
would recount some bright speech of the boy's that he had caught during
the day, and David Willis would nod in sympathy and smile. Then the
captain, after a puff or two at his pipe, would exclaim half sternly:
"Fine boy, fine boy, Willis. Make a man of him some day." And on Sunday
mornings the captain would come marching down the street, and his eyes
would gleam a little at sight of a tiny figure drawn up erect at the
salute inside the open gateway of David Willis's garden. The captain
would return the salute, to Comethup's intense delight, and the two
would go gravely round the corner and through the churchyard into the
church.
Sitting beside the captain, Comethup would have leisure, in the dim
light of the place, to examine the old man's hands as they were folded
calmly over his prayer-book on his lap. The child often wondered how
they could ever have held a sword, and how many people the captain,
in his days of war, had killed; the hands were so soft and white, and
their touch on his own small fingers or on his shoulder had always been
so light and gentle, that it seemed impossible that they could have
been made for any stronger deeds. Comethup was always more desperately
fond of the captain on Sundays than on any other days; partly because
the captain, in his best black coat, and with his hat off, looked so
very small and old and gray and lonely in the big pew, and partly
because Comethup was so passionately grateful to him--perfect old
gentleman that he was--for his kindly patronage of so very small and
insignificant a person as himself. He was quite proud to be seen
walking with the captain out of church, and holding his hand; he
reflected with pardonable vanity more than once that there were very
few people in the world, at least as far as he knew it, who were
privileged to go to church every Sunday with so great a warrior.
The pew behind that in which the captain and Comethup sat was usually
unoccupied; but on one particular Sunday a little commotion was caused
in the quiet old church by the entry of two people into it. They
came late, after the service had commenced, and they made some noise
in getting into their seats. Comethup saw heads turned, and people
whisper among themselves. He would greatly have liked to look round,
as others were doing; he was consumed with curiosity. But the captain
was looking straight in front of him, and even frowning a little, and
Comethup had to do the same.
Comethup came to the conclusion, before the service was ended, that the
newcomers behind them, whoever they might be, had not been taught how
to behave properly in church. One of them, who seemed to be a man, gave
the responses in a very loud key, and sometimes very carelessly quite
in the wrong places; he breathed very heavily--Comethup was almost
persuaded, but that it seemed so terrible, that he snored--during the
sermon; and some one else in the pew moved about a great deal, and
dropped books, and kicked and shuffled with his feet. The captain
grew more and more stern and frowning as the service went on, so that
Comethup was quite afraid at last to look at him.
As they were passing out of church, the people from the pew behind
walked in front--a very tall and portly gentleman, whose coat tails
seemed to swing very much as he walked, and a boy a year or two older
than Comethup. In the porch the gentleman swung on his hat, almost
before he had passed through the door, with a flourish; glancing behind
him as he went out, he caught sight of the captain, and nodded and
spoke: "Aha! captain, delightful day; had no idea you belonged to the
good folk. Who's our young friend?" He indicated Comethup, who was
watching him with something of admiration.
The captain did not seem well pleased; he clipped his words very short,
in a fashion he had when angry, as he replied, "Don't you know?"
"Of course not; how should I?"
"Then let me present you," said the captain, keeping fast hold of
Comethup's hand, and making an ironically elaborate business of the
introduction. "Master Comethup Willis--Mr. Robert Carlaw.--Comethup,"
he added, his tone changing as he addressed the child, "this is your
Uncle Bob."
The portly gentleman seemed surprised, but passed the thing off easily.
"Most extraordinary," he exclaimed, "though why the devil Willis
ever called the unfortunate creature by that outlandish name passes
my comprehension.--How do you do, nephew? I suppose I ought to have
remembered your existence long since; but I'm such a careless rascal
that I leave undone those things which I ought to have done--if you're
a good churchman you'll know the rest, without my troubling to repeat
it. Here's your cousin Brian; if you're half as much trouble to your
poor old dad as he is to me, I pity that worthy fellow."
The captain was obviously anxious to get away, but Comethup had been
looking at the boy to whom he was now introduced, and had, in a
childish, worshipping fashion, been quite fascinated by him. He was
rather taller than Comethup, and very well dressed, and was, moreover,
an extremely handsome boy. He had a rather high forehead for a child,
and very thick, curling brown hair brushed loosely back from it. His
eyes were keen and bold and dark, and gave Comethup the odd impression
of being able to see a great deal more than the eyes of other people.
He held himself very upright, with his legs rather apart, and his hands
thrust in his pockets; and he swaggered a little as he walked, like his
father. He put out his hand to Comethup, and smiled so beautifully with
a smile which made his face glow and change, that Comethup was quite
glad to think that he was his cousin; he almost felt that he loved him
from that moment.
David Willis came at that moment from the church, with his books under
his arm; he gazed in an absent-minded fashion at the little group, and
obviously did not quite know what to make of it all. Uncle Bob came
blusteringly to the rescue; shook David heartily by the hand and walked
off with him, with a hand clapped confidentially upon his shoulder and
his head bent down sideways from his greater height to talk to him. The
boy Brian walked along on the other side of his father, glancing back
over his shoulder now and then with an engaging smile at Comethup, who
followed behind with the captain. The captain was ill at ease and in a
bad temper; he puffed out his chest as he walked and breathed heavily
under his mustache, and made savage little cuts at the air with his
cane, as though it had been a sword.
At the gate leading to the garden Mr. Robert Carlaw parted jovially,
shaking David heartily by the hand again, and patting Comethup on the
top of his best Sunday cap. In the captain he apparently scented an
enemy; they bowed to each other stiffly, and the frown did not leave
the captain's face.
"He must come and see us," said Mr. Carlaw, with a jerk of the head
toward Comethup. "They'll be company for each other; besides, they're
cousins. You're such quiet folks; I declare I'd forgotten your
existence--absolutely forgotten it." He went swinging away down the
street, with the boy swinging beside him, a curious, almost pathetic
imitation of the father.
It had become the captain's habit to dine with David Willis every
Sunday--quite a simple, homely dinner of a joint and vegetables and a
pudding to follow. The captain walked into the cottage now, sat himself
stiffly down in a chair near the window, and drew Comethup against his
knee and put his arm about him. David Willis was wandering about the
room, softly humming to himself a fragment of the voluntary he had
played that morning, while the servant-maid laid the table. It was a
hot and breathless summer morning; the window of the little parlour
was wide open, and Comethup could hear people passing and repassing
in the street beyond the garden; could hear the murmur of their talk.
There was a high, old-fashioned mahogany bureau on the other side of
the room, with curved brass handles to the drawers, and with three
leather-bound books, growing gradually smaller in size upward, like a
pyramid, on the top of it. Comethup had never seen either the books or
the bureau opened; it was curious, therefore, to see his father, with a
smile on his face, stroll across there presently and lift the topmost
book and open it. "You didn't know our friend Carlaw was something of
a poet, did you?" he asked, addressing the captain.
Disgust sprang suddenly into the captain's eyes, and into the lines
about his mouth. "A poet? Yes, I could have believed even _that_ of
him." The captain chuckled a little grimly at his own humour.
David Willis laughed, and brought the book over toward the window,
turning the leaves slowly and looking into it. "Yes," he said, "he
wrote these when he was quite a young man; they were published by
subscription. He was a mere youth at the time, and he gave this copy
to his sister, my wife. It's very queer reading, very mad reading some
of it. He's a queer fellow, and a mad fellow." David Willis laughed
good-humouredly and closed the book and carried it back to the bureau.
"Yes, he's mad enough," said the captain shortly. "I know the sort of
man--met dozens of his kidney. They flash through the world, spreading
their feathers in the sun and making such a flutter that no one sees
what shame and misery they leave in their track; or, if any one does
see it, it's all excused with the phrase, 'Oh, he couldn't help it--he
was such a good fellow.' Bah!" The captain was quite indignant, and the
arm that held Comethup shook a little.
"You're a little hard on our friend," said David, easily. "He's really
rather a clever sort of fellow; there are lots of things he does quite
well, only not quite well enough to make anything of them. He paints a
little, writes a little, plays and sings remarkably well. But he never
gives his mind to anything. I remember he said to me once: 'It's not
my fault; they shouldn't have given me such a name. Think of it! Bob!
What can a fellow do with such a name as that, except go to the devil
with it? And I've tried consistently to go to the devil with it.' And I
really believe he has."
"Yes, I dare say he has," replied the captain, a little wearily. "And
there you have the whole man in a nutshell."
Comethup was destined very soon to see more of that fascinating boy,
and of his father. But a few days had gone by when the shadow of Robert
Carlaw loomed large in the open doorway of the cottage, and he came
in, followed by Brian. He seemed to take up an immense amount of room,
and to block out the light a great deal, in whatever part of the room
he stood. It was immediately after breakfast--David Willis always
breakfasted late, a habit he had acquired when living in town--and
David was smoking a pipe before setting about those small duties which
occupied his day. David Willis had on a very shabby coat and slippers
on his feet; Robert Carlaw's coat was of the finest, his boots shone
magnificently, and he smoked a cigar. He announced airily that he had
come to carry off his little friend with the extraordinary name; the
name, he declared, was too much to pronounce in such weather as that,
but he didn't love him any the less on account of it, and meant to
carry him off, for the day at least. So Comethup was duly made ready
and went away with a fluttering heart on the other side of Uncle Bob,
peeping round his portly person, as he trotted along, to catch a
glimpse of that fascinating boy who walked on the farther side of him.
It had been a whim on the part of Mr. Robert Carlaw; he had suddenly
made up his mind that he ought to see the child--had suddenly
remembered that it was the child of his dead sister, and, in a fashion
quite characteristic of him, he had dashed off, hot with the purpose,
at the very moment the thought occurred to him.
He even devised schemes as he went along between them for their
entertainment. They would do this, they would do that; they would have
tea in the garden, or a pony chaise should be hired, and he would
take them for a drive. A hundred alluring schemes were in his mind;
he seemed to enter joyously and childishly into their world, and to
understand exactly what would suit them best. But, by the time he
reached his own house with them, the keenness of the business was done,
the edge of it had worn off. He rambled with them, in a perfunctory
fashion, round the garden, but he was obviously tiring. Quite
suddenly, on an excuse, he left them and shut himself up in a room he
called his workroom, and they saw no more of him.
Brian did not seem in the least surprised; his lip curled a little
disdainfully when Comethup politely inquired whether his father was
unwell. Comethup had a curious impression that this boy, although he
obviously admired his father very much, and even imitated him, yet saw
through him in some way and knew him to be not quite so nice as other
people imagined. There was a careless, curt fashion of dismissing his
father's name which Comethup could not have employed in the case of
_his_ father for the world, and which made him a little afraid of his
cousin in consequence.
The house must have been a very beautiful one at some time; it was
filled even now with many beautiful articles of furniture, articles
such as Comethup had never seen, and many of which he did not know the
use of. But everything was in hopeless confusion and disorder; valuable
articles broken and thrust aside, and something equally valuable put in
its place to serve its purpose. Books lay about in every room of the
house--some of them flung, with wide-open leaves, by impatient hands
into corners; fine engravings were stood in their frames against the
wall, because no one had ever troubled to hang them up; many of them
had their glasses broken, and most of them were smothered in dust, or
torn, or otherwise maltreated. Some stood in rolls in the corners of
the rooms. It seemed, in every way, the house of a man who meant many
things--even meant to live beautifully; but of a man who had never, in
anything, got far beyond the mere fluttering resolutions.
But it was nevertheless a house of delights to the child--a place of
never-ending wonder. Only, in the midst of their exploration, Comethup
suddenly remembered that he had that afternoon made an appointment with
Captain Garraway-Kyle, and that that appointment must be kept. There
was a sort of tremor at his heart when he remembered how the captain
would be standing, just within the door of his cottage, with his watch
on his palm, waiting for him at the hour named. He informed Brian that
he must really go.
The boy looked at him in astonishment; a shade of annoyance crossed his
face. "Oh, put him off!" he said.
Comethup shook his head very decidedly; he was troubled, like the
gentle little creature he was, at the thought that he would have to
show any discourtesy to his cousin; but it was quite imperative that he
should meet the captain, and the thing had to be managed somehow. "No,
I couldn't possibly do that. The captain and I are very great friends."
Brian looked at the sober young face for a moment, and then burst into
a roar of laughter. "But he's so old!" he said, when he had recovered
his gravity.
Comethup shook his head again, and smiled. "Not when you know him," he
replied. "Sometimes he seems almost as young as I am, only ever so much
wiser."
The other boy stared at him curiously. "Why, how old are you?" he asked.
"Seven next week," replied Comethup.
"And I'm nine." Giving the other time to digest his superiority, he
presently added: "Must you really go and see this old chap? You can
easily explain afterward."
Comethup did not waver, but he decided to effect a compromise. "Why
don't you come too?" he said. "He would be very glad to see you."
Brian looked a little ruefully round the untidy room in which they
stood, and decided rapidly that it would be better to do that than to
remain in the house alone. "Yes, I'll come," he said, and darted out
into the hall for his cap.
Comethup ventured a suggestion. "Won't you--won't you ask your father?"
Brian laughed, and tossed Comethup's cap to him. "Not I," he cried.
"Dad never knows where I am. All I have to do is to keep out of the way
when I'm not wanted, and be right at his elbow when he thinks he'd like
to see me. Come along."
"We'll have to run," said Comethup. "We're late."
They arrived breathless at the captain's cottage, and found the
captain, as Comethup had expected, standing with his watch in his hand.
He raised his eyebrows at the sight of a second visitor, and Comethup
breathlessly explained the situation and tried to make a polite
little speech, apologizing for having introduced a visitor without an
invitation. But the captain interrupted him by saying stiffly that
his cousin was very welcome, and the three set out for the usual walk
together.
Somehow or other that afternoon the expedition was not quite a success.
In the first place, Comethup and the captain were not quite at their
ease; had, in fact, a ridiculous feeling of being on their best
behaviour before a stranger. Then, too, the old innocent games--the
building of forts, and the pleasant little make-believe world they had
created--were things they did not care to venture upon before this
boy, whose scornful laughter seemed to come so easily. They sat on a
wooden seat on the top of the grass-grown wall of the town, and found
themselves talking nicely, as Comethup would have put it, and being
very stiff and unnatural and dull in consequence. The captain did not
talk about his battles; was quite reserved, in fact, and difficult
to lure into any expression of opinion. Comethup, proud of his old
friend and of his old friend's achievements, tried to draw him on
to descriptions of happenings with which he himself was beautifully
familiar, but which he felt would be interesting to Brian, and give
that young gentleman a finer idea of the captain. But the captain was
not to be drawn; seemed, indeed, purposely to forget things which had
rattled glibly off his tongue but yesterday.
They saw Comethup safely to the gate of his father's garden, and the
captain gravely shook hands with him; knowing his mood, Comethup was
positively afraid to salute, and, indeed, the stern eye of the captain
forbade it. Brian's road home lay for some distance in the same
direction as the old man's, and Comethup stood at the gate for some
moments, watching them going on together. But the captain walked on
one side of the pavement and Brian swung along on the other, as far
apart as possible, and they did not appear to have anything to say to
each other.
After that, Brian Carlaw entered somewhat largely into Comethup's
existence, to the exclusion, at times, of the captain. Comethup meant
no disloyalty to his first friend, and went to bed many a night
troubled at the thought that there was a breach growing between them;
but Brian, child though he was, had a fine air of appropriating
Comethup and planning excursions with him, and arranging boyish
expeditions from which the younger child found it difficult to escape.
He would dash in, in the morning, with his eyes sparkling and his gay
laugh waking up the house, and drag Comethup off, waving aside every
remonstrance, and refusing to wait an instant for anything. He had
a splendid, reckless fashion, so Comethup thought, of scorning mere
ordinary doors and paths, such as were used by mere ordinary boys, and
of leaping and rushing across flower-beds or turf, and climbing in at a
window, in a most unexpected and daring way. One never knew quite where
to have him, or what to expect of him; one never knew quite in what
mood he would appear. And each mood was something different from the
last, and, whether grave or gay, wholly captivating. If he came with
some childish tale of tribulation on his lips, it was a tribulation
apparently so great and so real that all one's heart went out to him
and one could not do enough to show how deep was one's sympathy; at
least that was what Comethup felt. If he dashed in, with laughter on
his lips and devilry in his eyes, the thing was so infectious, so
maddening, that even grave little Comethup was bitten by it and felt
the devil leaping in his veins as well, and was ready for anything.
When it happened that the captain and Comethup met at all, they met,
curiously enough, although neither confessed it to the other, by
stealth. Brian monopolized the younger boy so much that there were no
more arranged meetings, unless the one met the other by accident a
day before, and was able to suggest that a meeting should be held. On
most occasions, if Brian had not appeared by a certain hour, Comethup
would steal off to the captain's cottage. Never a word would be said,
but each fully and completely understood the situation; and the
captain welcomed Comethup, and Comethup received the welcome, with as
much grave courtesy as though they had been in the habit of meeting
daily, and there were no outside circumstances in their simple lives
to separate them. It was clearly understood on either hand that Brian
was elsewhere, or had failed to keep some engagement he had made; and
the captain very happily, and Comethup very happily too, but feeling a
little bit like a traitor to both sides, would start off, hand in hand,
to enjoy one of the old days.
Yet, even on those occasions, so great was the influence of the other
boy upon them that they would keep a wary eye open--still without a
word to each other--for his possible appearance on the scene. The
building of the forts was not the splendid, sole-absorbing thing it
used to be, because they did it stealthily. Some one else had entered
into their paradise, and had turned the fruit of it a little sour.
Comethup tried hard, on those occasions, to be very, very good to the
captain; and the captain, for his part, tried hard to appear as though
there could be nothing different between them, and as though these
stolen days were just as nice and just as spontaneous as the former
days had been. But things were different, somehow; their world went
differently, and was not the world they had known before. Comethup
found his mind wandering, even during the recital of a thrilling battle
episode, to that boy with the splendid eyes and the charming manner,
and found himself wondering what the boy was doing, and if he carried
little Comethup in his mind.
The expeditions with Brian were not of the innocent and sober character
which marked those with Captain Garraway-Kyle; Brian was the leader,
and was ready at all times for something new; the very soul of the boy
seemed to cry out for that; a new discovery, fascinating to-day, was
old and tiresome to-morrow; the day was a hopeless and fretful one
that saw nothing new or fantastic accomplished. His enterprise knew no
bounds, and fear, in the ordinary mortal sense, was not in him. The
captain's expeditions had been wonderful, and each had furnished a new
delight for Comethup; but they paled into insignificance beside the
inventions of Brian.
David Willis was a man of many dreamy occupations, a man who never
hurried, and whose life may be said to have been filled with odds and
ends of employment. So it happened that Comethup came and went as he
would, and his father saw but little of him; he knew that the child was
happy, and he heard his voice frequently about the house. But beyond
that he cared nothing; he was simply content to know that the child
was there, and that all was well with him. Thus Comethup had plenty of
scope for his adventures, and plenty of time for any expedition that
might present itself.
There was an old and half-ruined house which stood on the extreme
outskirts of the town and was surrounded by an old, dark, neglected
wilderness of a garden. The two children had peeped in through the
rusty iron gates occasionally, with their small faces pressed close
between the bars, and had speculated upon what the garden contained
and who lived in the house. Brian stoutly asserted that the house was
empty, and then that it was haunted; he had probably heard his father
or the servants say that. It remained, and had remained for some
time, the one possible place which they had not explored; Brian would
not have confessed it for the world, but he had a deadly fear of it,
probably the only fear he knew concerning anything at that time. It
frightened him, even while it fascinated him; he would choose that way
to walk, even when it meant that to pass the house they would have to
go a long way out of the direction they had arranged.
At last one day he came in, with his eyes curiously bright, and
announced his intention of exploring the place. They would get in
somehow, he said--through a window if necessary. Comethup was
doubtful, but Brian's stronger will conquered, as usual, and they set
off. Near the place, however, the elder boy hesitated, and drew back a
little.
"I don't think we'll go," he said. "There won't be any fun in it." And
he began to walk away.
Comethup felt relieved; he had not liked the expedition from the first.
He said nothing, but set out to follow Brian.
But Brian chafed under a sense of degradation all day. He watched
Comethup sharply, to be sure that the younger boy was not actually
laughing at him; saw scorn in his eyes, when there was no scorn in
Comethup's heart. They had parted for their midday meal, and had been
out again in the afternoon, still under that sense of constraint, and
Comethup was diligently studying the pictures in an old book alone in
the parlour of his father's house, when Brian came leaping across the
flower-beds and cried to him from outside the window:
"Come along; don't wait for anything. I'm going to that house."
Comethup knew perfectly well which house was meant, but he affected
ignorance, and said weakly, "Which house?"
"Oh, you know; the haunted one; the one we didn't go to to-day. Come
along."
Comethup closed the book, but kept a finger between the leaves. "It's
very late," he urged, "and it'll soon be getting dark."
Brian stood with his hands on the window sill, impatiently kicking at
the house wall. "You're afraid," he said, looking up at Comethup.
Comethup shook his head, but his drawn brows showed anxiety. "No, I'm
not afraid," he said, slowly. "But I'd rather wait until to-morrow, if
you want to see the house."
"No one ever goes to a house that's haunted in the daytime," said
Brian. "I'm going now."
"It's nicer in the daytime," urged Comethup, getting one leg down from
the window seat and dangling it irresolutely. "But I'll come if you
like."
"Come along then," cried the other. "You're so slow; you can't make up
your mind quickly, as I do."
Comethup knew that the reproach was justified, and felt humbled
accordingly. He was not altogether so happy in this adventure as he had
been in all those which had preceded it. In the first place, he had
to steal out of the house into the mysterious summer evening, being
careful that no one saw him. His father was in church practising; he
could hear the slow droning of the organ, like the hum of a gigantic
tired insect going to sleep with the rest of the world. Comethup wished
that he had gone into the church with his father, and sat there, out of
the way of temptation such as this.
The evening was warm and heavy, and a hundred sweet odours came from
the gardens which fringed the road. Brian talked valiantly and loudly
as they went along of how foolish it was to be afraid of anything, just
because it happened to be dark, and of a hundred other matters tending
to keep up his ebbing courage. Comethup was silent, doggedly determined
to go through with the business, now that he had embarked upon it, and
with a plaintive hope in his heart that it might not be so dreadful,
after all.
Curiously enough, that part of the outskirts of the town in which the
house lay seemed always to be darker and more sombre-looking than any
other. All the houses about there were very old, with high walls and
tall, rustling old trees; with paths in their gardens which seemed
always full of dead leaves and weeds at all times of the year. And that
particular house was the most sombre and dismal-looking of them all.
It had originally been a very fine house; there were the remains of
carvings on the stone pillars which supported the gates. But everything
was in decay; one of the great gates hung merely by one hinge, and
swayed perilously when it was touched; the other stood permanently ajar.
Their young hearts were beating very heavily when they reached the
gates. A wind had risen, and was coming from the distant sea across
the flat marshland; it stirred the trees and bent their long limbs, so
that they seemed to point down at the two small, trembling figures, and
to ask who they were, and to plot and whisper against them. Comethup
and Brian gripped hands tightly as they slipped through the aperture
between the gates. The wind seemed specially to haunt that place; it
sent a dusty, whirling eddy of last year's leaves charging at them and
fluttering about them as they went hesitatingly up the long drive.
Brian stopped halfway to the house and pushed his cap back on his
clustering hair with well-assumed carelessness, and said: "There's
nothing to be seen; I don't think we'll go any farther. Besides, we
ought to be home."
Comethup kept steadily on up the drive. "I'm going up to the house," he
said.
There was nothing left for Brian but to follow him, which he did,
keeping a wary eye behind him. They gained confidence as they went on,
and even raised their voices a little above the whisper in which they
had spoken previously. They ploughed their way through the neglected
grounds where the paths were scarcely to be distinguished for the mass
of tangled weeds which overgrew them, and came up to the house. Not a
light showed anywhere; the windows were all shuttered, and the doors
apparently fastened.
"I don't believe any one lives here," said Brian, sinking his voice
again to a whisper. "But I don't think we'll go in to-night; we've seen
a good deal, haven't we?"
Comethup evidently thought that he had done sufficient to clear
him from that accusation of cowardice; but, for the keeping up of
appearances, he spoke with apparent reluctance: "Oh, if you like;
perhaps we had better go home."
The house behind them, standing up gray and stark and sombre in the
twilight, was a far more terrible thing than it had been when they
faced it. By common consent they hurried a little as they trotted along
among the dead leaves. The wind, too, was at their back now, and flung
fluttering things about their legs and against their ears; they were
afraid to look round, and yet afraid to go on without glancing behind
them. Halfway down the drive, too, they heard a rustling among the
trees, a louder rustling than that caused by the wind. Brian stopped
still, and Comethup wondered why his heart kept jumping up into his
throat and nearly choking him. Then, from among the shadows of the
trees, came a little figure all in white--a figure smaller even than
Comethup, but very terrible coming in that fashion, and in that hour
and in that place. At any other time they might have said it was a
little child, a girl; but now their nerves were too unstrung for
practical things. There could be no mistake about its identity. With
a sort of simultaneous gasp they set off at headlong speed down the
drive, straight for the gate.
And the figure came running after them, crying something piteously
to them. But that was worse than anything else; they almost tumbled
over each other in their eagerness to get out through the gates; in
fact, they never stopped running till they were far down the road, and
breathless. Then Brian leaned against a wall and surveyed Comethup with
horror-struck eyes. "It was the ghost!" he said; "and it ran after us!"
"Yes," said Comethup, slowly, and a little doubtfully, "it was the
ghost."
"And it was pretty big, too," said Brian, fanning himself with his cap.
"They don't look so large in the dark."
Comethup lay awake a long time that night in his little room under
the roof. He was not frightened; he was quite calm as he looked out
through the uncurtained window at the blinking stars. He seemed to set
everything else aside, and to hear only the piteous, pleading voice
crying to him in the garden; he was quite sorry now that he had run
away; and very, very sorry, in his childish mind, for the ghost.
"It was a very little ghost," he murmured to himself as he fell asleep.