away. At the foot of the lawn the Booth-Higby peacock--supposedly a
decoration for the Italian garden, but given to wandering out of
bounds--trailed its plumage across his path. Peter shied his ten cents
at the bird's head, with the muttered wish that the coin had been large
enough really to accomplish damage.
The day of the garden party showed a clear sky above, and Peter was up
with the dawn and at work. Miss Ethel had appointed him her right-hand
man, and though he had the entire stable and house force to help him, he
found the responsibility wearing. He was feeling what it was to be a
Captain of Industry. He superintended the raising of a supper tent on
the lawn, strung coloured electric bulbs among the branches of the
trees, saw the furniture moved out of the drawing-room and a hundred
camp chairs moved in. He spent the afternoon shifting scenery for the
dress rehearsal; but finally, close upon six, he shoved Plymouth Rock
back into place for the first tableau, and, with a sigh of relief,
turned toward the kitchen. He felt that he had earned a fifteen-minutes'
chat with Annie.
But fresh trouble awaited him. He found Mrs. Carter and Nora in anxious
consultation. The ice-cream had not come; and the expressman, who had
already met three trains, said that he could not deliver it now until
morning.
Mrs. Carter pounced upon Peter.
"Is Miss Ethel through with you? Then drive to the station immediately
and meet the six-twenty train. If it isn't on that, stop at Gunther's
and tell them they will _have_ to make me seven gallons of ice-cream
before ten o'clock to-night. It's disgraceful! I shall never engage
Perry to cater again. And tell the expressman that I consider him very
disobliging," she threw after him.
An hour and a half later he dumped three kegs of ice and brine on the
back veranda, and was turning away, cheered by the near hope of his
long-postponed supper when Annie hailed him from the kitchen window.
"Hey, Pete! Wait a minute. Miss Ethel said, as soon as you got back, for
me to send you to the library."
"What are they wantin' now?" he growled. "I'll be glad when that
bloomin' young lord takes himself home to Ireland where he b'longs.
Between picnics an' ridin' parties an' clambakes an' theatricals, I
ain't had a chance to sit down since he come."
Annie shoved a chair toward him.
"Then now's your chance, for he's gone. A telegram came calling him
away, an' Mr. Harry's just back from motoring him to the station."
"Praise be to the saints!" said Peter, and he turned toward the library
door.
He found Miss Ethel, the two young ladies who were visiting her, and Mr.
Harry Jasper gathered in a pensive group before the gauze screen that
stretched across the front of the stage.
"Here he is!" cried Miss Ethel, with an assumption of energy. "Put on
this hat and wig, Peter, and stand behind the screen. I want to see what
you look like."
Peter apathetically complied. He had received so many extraordinary
commands during the past few days that nothing stirred his curiosity.
"Bully!" said Mr. Harry. "Never'd know him in the world."
"We'll lower the lights," said Miss Ethel. "Fortunately the gauze is
thick."
"Peter," Mr. Harry faced him with an air of tragic portent, "a grave
calamity has befallen the state. The rightful heir has been spirited
away, and it's imperative that we find a substitute. I've often
remarked, Peter, upon the striking resemblance between you and Lord
Kiscadden. In that lies our only hope. It's a Prisoner of Zenda
situation. Often occurs in novels. Do you think it might be carried out
in real life?"
"Can't say, sir," Peter blinked dazedly.
"Be sensible, Harry!" Miss Ethel silenced him. "Peter, Lord Kiscadden
has been suddenly called away, and it spoils our tableaux for this
evening. Fortunately, he didn't have a speaking part. You've watched him
rehearse--do you think you could take his place?"
"Don't believe I could, ma'am." Peter's face did not betray enthusiasm.
"You'll _have_ to do it!" said Miss Ethel. "It's too late now to find
anyone else."
"You're George Washington," Mr. Harry cut in. "Father of his country.
Only man on earth who never told a lie--no one will recognize you in
that part, Peter."
"Here are the clothes." Miss Ethel bundled them into his arms. "You saw
Lord Kiscadden this afternoon, so you know how they go. Be sure you get
your wig on straight, and powder your face _thick_! It's half-past
seven; you will have to dress immediately."
"I ain't had no supper," Peter stolidly observed.
"Annie will give you something to eat in the kitchen. We won't tell
anybody except the few who are with you in the tableaux. The operetta
cast have never seen Lord Kiscadden, and won't know the difference. The
minute the tableaux are over you can disappear, and we will explain that
you have been suddenly called away."
A slow grin spread over Peter's face.
"Are ye wantin' me to talk like him?" he inquired. His lordship's idiom
had been the subject of much covert amusement among the servants; Peter
could mimic it to perfection.
"I don't quite ask that," Miss Ethel laughed, "but at least keep still.
Don't talk at all except to us. You can pretend you are shy."
"What did she want, Pete?" Annie inquired, with eager curiosity as he
reappeared.
Peter exhibited his clothes.
"Don't speak to me so familiar! I'm Lord Kiscadden o' County Cark. Me
family is straight descinded from the kings of Ireland, and I'm
masqueradin' as George Washington who never told a lie."
An hour later, Peter, in knee breeches and lace ruffles, with hat
comfortably cocked toward his left ear, was sitting at ease on a corner
of the kitchen table, dangling two buckled shoes into space, while a
cigarette emerged at an acute angle from the corner of his mouth. His
appearance suggested a very rakish caricature of the immortal first
President. The maids were gathered in a giggling group about the young
man, when Miss Ethel and Mr. Harry, also in costume, appeared in the
kitchen door. The effect on George Washington was electrical; he removed
his cigarette, slid to the floor, straightened his spinal column, and
awaited orders.
Mr. Harry carried a make-up box under his arm. He covered the groom's
face with a layer of powder, redirected the curve of his eyebrows,
added a touch of rouge, and stepped back to view the effect.
"Perfect!" cried Miss Ethel. "No one on earth would recognize him."
"Peter," Mr. Harry gravely schooled him, "these are your lines for the
evening; say them after me: 'By Jove! Ripping! Oh, I say! Fancy, now!'"
Peter unsmilingly repeated his lesson.
"And no matter what anybody says to you, you are not to go beyond that.
Understand?"
"Yes, sir. I'll do me best, sir." There was an anxious gleam in Peter's
eye; he was suddenly being assailed by stage fright.
"Your first appearance is in the fourth tableau, where you say good-bye
to your family before taking command of the army," Miss Ethel explained.
"The moment it's over slip out to change your costume, and stay out
until after the Declaration of Independence has been signed. Don't stand
around the wings where people can talk to you. Now go and wait in the
butler's pantry until you are called."
Washington took an affecting leave of his family amid an interested
rustling of programmes on the part of the audience; no one was unaware
of the exalted identity of the hero. The applause was enthusiastic, and
the curtain was twice raised. As it fell for the last time a group of
historical personages from the operetta cast hovered about him with
congratulatory whispers. One or two were in the secret, but the rest
were not. Mr. Harry, as stage manager, waved them off.
"Clear the boards for the next scene," he whispered hoarsely. "Here,
Kiscadden, you'll have to hurry and dress. You cross the Delaware in ten
minutes." With a hand on George Washington's shoulder he marched him
off. "That was splendid, Peter," Mr. Harry whispered, as he shunted him
into the butler's pantry. "Not a soul suspected. You stay here until you
are wanted."
The Delaware was crossed without mishap, also the night watch kept at
Valley Forge. Washington and Lafayette crouched over their camp fire
amidst driving snow, while the audience shivered in sympathy. But
unluckily, these tableaux were followed by no change of costume, and
several others intervened before Peter's next appearance. As he was
anxiously trying to obliterate himself in the shadow of Plymouth Rock,
he heard some one behind him whisper:
"Let's cut out and have a smoke. It's deucedly hot in here."
He turned to find Miles Standish of the operetta cast, with an insistent
hand on his elbow. Miles Standish, in private life, was a young man
whose horse Peter had held many a time, and whose tips were always
generous.
There seemed to be no polite means of escape, and Peter, with a
suppressed grin, followed his companion to the veranda. It was lighted
by a subdued glow from coloured lanterns, but there was an occasional
patch of dimness. He picked out a comfortable chair and shoved it well
into the shadow of a convenient palm. Standish produced
cigars--twenty-five-cent Havanas, Peter noted appreciatively--and the
two fell into conversation. Fortunately the young man aspired to the
reputation of a _raconteur_, and he willingly bore most of the burden.
Peter kept his own speeches as short as possible, manfully overcoming a
tendency to end his sentences with "sir." An occasional interpolation of
"By Jove!" or "I say!" in imitation of Lord Kiscadden's lazy drawl, was
as far as he was required to go.
He came out of the encounter with colours still flying; but a perilous
ten minutes followed. As the two strolled back to the stage entrance,
they were intercepted by a gay group of Pilgrim maids. Peter had coped
successfully with one young man, but he realized that half a dozen
young ladies were quite beyond his powers of repartee. One of them threw
him a laughing compliment on his acting, and he felt himself growing
pink as he murmured with a spasmodic gulp:
"Yes, ma'am. Thank ye, ma'am--I say!"
The orchestra saved the situation by striking into a rollicking
quickstep that made talking difficult. The music in the end went to
Peter's heels; and grasping a blue and buff coat tail in either hand, he
favoured the company with an Irish jig. This served better than
conversation; the laughter and applause were uproarious, bringing down
upon them the wrath of the stage manager.
"Here you people, _taisez-vous_! You're making such a racket they can
hear you inside. Ah, Kiscadden! You're wanted on the stage; it's time
for Cornwallis to surrender." Peter was marched out of danger's way.
The surrender was followed by the operetta in which Miss Ethel was
heroine. Her own affairs claimed her, but she paused long enough to
whisper in George Washington's ear:
"You may go now, Peter. You've done very nicely. Slip out through the
butler's pantry where no one will see you. Change into your own clothes
and help them in the kitchen about serving supper--but don't on _any_
account step into the front part of the house again to-night."
"Yes, ma'am," said Peter, meekly.
He found the entrance to the butler's pantry blocked, and he dived into
the empty conservatory, intending to pass thence to the veranda, and so
get around to the kitchen the outside way. But as he reached the veranda
door he ran face to face into Mrs. Booth-Higby. Peter quickly backed
into a fern-hung nook to let her pass. The light was dim, but his
costume was distinctive; after a moment of hesitating scrutiny she bore
down upon him.
"Oh, it's George Washington!--Lord Kiscadden, I should say. I see by the
programme that your part is finished. It was so frightfully warm inside
that I slipped out to get a breath of air. May I introduce myself? I am
Mrs. Booth-Higby, of Red Towers. I trust that you will drop in often
while you are in the neighbourhood. I have so wanted to have a chance to
talk to you because you come from Ireland--dear old Ireland! I am Irish
myself on the side that isn't Colonial, and I have a warm spot in my
heart for everything green."
Peter manfully bit back the only observation that occurred to him while
the lady rattled on:
"My Irish connection is three generations back--a younger son, you know,
who came to make his way in a new land, and, having married into one of
the old Colonial families, settled for good. But once Irish, always
Irish, I say. My heart warms to the little ragamuffins in the street if
they have a bit of the brogue. It's the call of the blood, I suppose.
Shall we sit here? Or perhaps you have an engagement--don't let me keep
you----"
He summoned what breath was left and confusedly murmured: "Oh, I say!
Ripping!"
They settled themselves on a rustic bench, and Peter, possessing himself
of her fan, slowly waved it to and fro in the nonchalant manner of Mr.
Harry. Mrs. Booth-Higby, fortunately, was no less garrulous than Miles
Standish had been, and she rattled on gaily, barely pausing for her
companion's English interpolations.
Peter's feelings were divided. He had the amused consciousness that he
was being flirted with by the lady who, three days before, had so
condescendingly given him ten cents. And he also had a chilly
apprehension of the storm that would rise if by any mischance she
discovered the hoax. But his fighting blood was up, and he was excited
by past success. He abandoned his interjections and, venturing out for
himself, recounted an anecdote of a fellow countryman in an excellent
imitation of Irish brogue. The effort was received with flattering
applause. After all, he reassured himself, this was not his funeral,
Miss Ethel and Mr. Harry must bear all blame; with which care-free
shifting of responsibility he settled himself to extract what amusement
there might be in the situation.
The curtain finally fell on the last act of the play, and a shuffling of
feet and moving of chairs betokened that a general exodus would follow.
Peter came back with a start to a realization of his predicament. While
confidence in his powers of simulation had been rising steadily during
the past half-hour, he still doubted his ability to deal with the
audience _en masse_.
But fortunately, the first two to appear in the conservatory were Miss
Ethel and Mr. Harry, engaged entirely with their own affairs, all
thought of the pseudo Kiscadden put from their minds. As they became
aware of the couple in the fernery, they stopped short with a gasp of
surprise.
"Why, Pet----" Miss Ethel caught herself, and summoning a cordial tone
added quickly: "Lord Kiscadden! A telegram came a long time ago--I
thought you had received it? I'm afraid they stopped the boy in the
kitchen."
"Oh, I say, by Jove! Fancy now!" George Washington jumped hastily to his
feet. "Pleased to know ye, ma'am," he added with a farewell duck of his
head; and without waiting for further words, he vaulted the veranda
railing and disappeared around the corner of the house. He lingered a
moment in the shrubbery to hear her say:
"Lord Kiscadden and I have been having such an interesting evening! What
a delicious accent he has! You must bring him to Red Towers, Mr. Jasper.
I feel that he really belongs to me more than to you; we have discovered
that we are distant connections. It seems that his grandmother, the
third Lady Kiscadden, was a McGarrah before she married. My own family
name was McGarrah, and----"
Peter put his hand over his mouth to stifle his feelings, and reeled
toward the kitchen porch.
An hour later, when supper was finished, Miss Ethel and Mr. Harry Jasper
slipped away from the guests and turned toward the kitchen. They paused
for a moment in the butler's pantry, arrested by the sound of Peter's
voice as he discoursed in his richest brogue to an appreciative group of
maids. His theme was the Daughters of the Revolution--he had evidently
kept his ears open during his brief introduction to society.
"Me father was a Malone, an' me mother was a Haggerty. The family
settled in America in 1620 B. C., all me ancistors on both sides bein'
first-cabin passengers on the _Mayflower_. We're straight discinded from
Gov'nor Bradford, an' me fifth great-grandfather was the first man hung
in the United States. Malone's a Scotch name--it used to be Douglas, but
it got changed in the pronouncin'--an' Haggerty is Frinch. I'm eligible
on both sides, an' me mother was a charter member. Yes, 'tis a great
society; the object of it is to keep the country dimocratic."
They pushed open the door and entered. Peter, restored to his own
clothes, was seated before the kitchen table engaged, between sentences,
with a soup plate full of ice-cream. He shuffled hastily to his feet as
the two appeared, and with a somewhat guilty air studied their faces. He
was trying to remember what he had said last.
"Peter," Miss Ethel's voice was meant to be severe, "what have you been
telling Mrs. Booth-Higby?"
Peter shifted his weight anxiously from one foot to the other.
"Nothin', ma'am."
"Nothing--nonsense! She is going about telling everybody that she is
Lord Kiscadden's cousin. She never made up any such impossible story as
that without help."
Miss Ethel's manner was sternly reproving, but Peter caught a gleam of
malicious amusement in her eye. It occurred to him that she was not
averse to an exhibition of Mrs. Booth-Higby's folly before Mr. Harry
Jasper.
"I wasn't to blame, Miss Ethel. I couldn't get out by the butler's
pantry like ye told me because the Hartridge family was blockin' the
way, and I knew they'd recognize me if I come within ten feet. So I
thinks to meself, I'll go through the conservatory; but just as I
reaches the door I runs plumb into Mrs. Booth-Higby.
"'Oh, me dear Lord Kiscadden,' she says, 'you was the b'y I was wantin'
to see! I must tell ye,' she says, 'how I've enjoyed yer actin'; 'twas
great,' she says, 'ye was the best person in the whole show.' An' wid
that she puts a hand on me arm an' never lets go for an hour and a
quarter--ye know, Mr. Harry, how graspin' she is."
Peter appealed to him as one man to another.
"She begun with askin' about me estate in dear old Ireland. Bein' only
eighteen months old when I left it, I couldn't remember many details,
but I used me imagination an' done the best I could. I told her there
was two lions sittin' on the gate-posts holdin' me coat-of-arms in their
paws; I told her there was two towers to the castle, and a peacock
strollin' on the lawn; an' then f'r fear she'd be gettin' suspicious, I
thought to change the subject. 'Yes, 'tis a beautiful house,' I says,
'but it ain't so grand as some. The biggest place in the neighbourhood,'
I says, 'is Castle McGarrah'--the name just popped into me head, Miss
Ethel.
"'McGarrah!' she says, 'that is me own name.'
"'The divvil!' thinks I. 'I've put me foot in it now.' But 't was too
late to go back. 'Possibly the same family,' says I, politely. 'The
present owner, Sir Timothy McGarrah----'
"'Timothy!' she says, 'that was me father's name, an' me grandfather's
before him.'
"'There's always one son in ivery gineration that carries it,' says I.
"'Can it be possible?' she murmurs to herself.
"'Me own grandmother was a daughter to the second Sir Timothy,' I says,
'him as quarrelled with his youngest son an' drove him from home. Some
says he went to Australia, an' some that he come to America. 'Twas fifty
years ago, an' all trace is lost o' the lad.'
"An' with that she says solemn like, 'The b'y was me grandfather! I see
it all--he was a silent man an' he niver talked of his people; but I
always felt there was a secret a preyin' on his mind. An' by that token
we're cousins,' she says. 'I must insist that ye make Red Towers yer
home while ye stay in America. Me husband,' she says, 'will enjoy yer
acquaintance.'
"An' while I was tryin' to tell her polite like that 't would be a
pleasure, but unfortunately me engagements would require me presence in
another place, you an' Mr. Harry come walkin' into the conservatory, and
I made me escape."
"What ever possessed you to tell such outrageous lies?" Miss Ethel
gasped.
"'Twas the clothes that done it, ma'am; bein' dressed as George
Washington, I couldn't think o' nothin' true that was fit to say."
Miss Ethel dropped limply into a chair, and leaning her head on the
back, laughed until she cried.
"Peter," she said, wiping the tears from her eyes, "I don't see but what
I shall have to discharge you. I should never dare let you drive past
Mrs. Booth-Higby's again."
"There's nothin' to fear," said Peter, tranquilly. "She won't recognize
me, ma'am. Mrs. Booth-Higby's eyes ain't focussed to see a groom."
VIII
A USURPED PREROGATIVE
Peter scooped a quart of oats into a box, took out the bottle of
liniment the veterinary surgeon had left, and started, grumbling, for
the lower meadow. Trixy had hurt her foot, and it was Billy's fault. A
groom who knew no better than to tie a horse to a barbed-wire fence on a
day when the flies were bad, ought, in Peter's estimation, to be
discharged.
He had some trouble in catching Trixy and applying the liniment, but he
finally accomplished the matter, and dropped down to rest in the shade
of the straggling hedge that divided the grounds of Willowbrook from
Jasper Place. He lighted his pipe and fell to a lazy contemplation of
the pasture--his thoughts neither of Trixy nor the cows nor anything
else pertaining to his duties, but now as always playing with a
glorified vision of Annie, the prettiest little parlour-maid in the
whole wide world. He was completely lost to his surroundings, when the
sound of pistol shots on the other side of the hedge recalled him to the
present with a jerk.
"What are them young devils up to now?" he muttered, as he raised
himself to look through the branches.
A group of boys was visible down on the Jasper beach, firing, somewhat
wildly, toward a target they had set up on the bank. Peter squinted his
eyes and peered closely; one of the boys was Bobby Carter, and Peter
more than suspected that the revolver was his father's. The boy had been
strictly forbidden to play with firearms, and Peter's first impulse was
to interfere; but on second thoughts he hesitated. Bobby was very
recently thirteen, and was feeling the importance of no longer being a
little boy. He would not relish being told to come home and mind his
father.
While Peter stood hesitating, a sudden frightened squawk rang out, and
he saw one of Mr. Jasper's guinea fowls fly a few feet into the air and
plump heavily to the ground. At the same instant Patrick appeared at the
top of the meadow, bearing down upon the scene of the crime, shouting
menacingly as he advanced. The boys broke and ran. They came crashing
through the hedge a few feet from Peter and made for cover in a clump of
willows. Peter recognized them all--Bobby and Bert Holliday and the two
Hartridge boys, the latter the horror of all well-regulated parents. He
saw them part, the two Hartridge boys heading for the road, while Bobby
and Bert Holliday turned toward the house, keeping warily under the
bank, Bobby buttoning the revolver inside his jacket as he ran. Peter
crouched under the branches and laid low; he had no desire to be called
into the case as witness.
Patrick panted up to the hedge and surveyed the empty stretch of meadow
with a disappointed grunt. He caught a glimpse of the Hartridge boys as
they climbed the fence into the high-road, but they were too far off for
recognition. He mopped his brow and lumbered back to examine the body of
the guinea fowl. Poor Patrick was neither so slender nor so young as
when he entered Mr. Jasper's service twenty years before; as he daily
watched Peter's troubles across the hedge, he thanked the saints that
the Jasper family contained no boys.
Peter waited till Patrick was well out of sight, when he rose and turned
back toward the stables. He met Bobby and Bert Holliday in the lane,
armed with a net, a basket, and a generous hunk of raw meat.
"Hello, Pete!" Bobby hailed him cheerily. "We're going crabbing, Bert
and me. If you hear Nora asking after some soup meat that strayed out of
the refrigerator, don't let on you met it."
"Trust me!" said Peter with an answering grin; but he turned and looked
after the boys a trifle soberly.