Heath Hover was a long, two-storeyed house built in the shape of the
letter E with the centre bar left out. Nobody knew exactly how it had
ever come to be built at all. The property on which it stood had
changed hands several times right up to date, and tradition on the
subject was obscure. It could never have been intended for a farmstead,
if only that it was situated right in the middle of woods, nor were
there any traces of yard or outbuildings in the very limited and sloping
space immediately behind it. Some were of opinion that it had been
built as a dower house to one or other of the succeeding owners of
Sotherby Hall, others that it had been a separate demesne altogether.
As we have said, it stood low--the chimneys being below the level of the
sluice which regulated the custody of the great mass of water pent
within the long triangular pond which was the scene of the midnight
incident. It was situated at the open end of the V formed by this and
by a sweep of oakwoods on either side, flowing down to the water's edge.
In summer it was a delightfully picturesque and inviting retreat,
nestling in the heart of its sylvan surroundings, and never failed to
catch the attention of the users of the not very good public road which
ran along the sluice, whether motorists or cycle riders. In the darker
months, when the cloud-murk hung grey and gloomy, and no sound broke the
awful stillness of the moist air but that of the dripping woods, why
then the impression conveyed to the onlookers was dismal and desolate to
the last degree. Then it seemed to live up to its sinister reputation,
for in the opinion of the countryside Heath Hover was a very badly
haunted house indeed.
Its present occupant awoke the next morning later than usual, and
feeling by no means best pleased with himself and the world at large.
To begin with he had passed a bad night. Whether it was owing to the
excitement of the strange midnight adventure which might so easily have
culminated in tragedy, or that he had been wrought up by the weird
phenomenon of the opening door--which, try as he would, he could not
altogether persuade himself was a sheer optical delusion--certain it was
that hour followed upon hour before sleep would come. When it did it
brought with it strange dreams, or rather imaginings. Once he could
have sworn that his own bedroom door was opening, then that the
mysterious stranger whom he had so opportunely rescued, was standing by
his bedside, bending over him with stealthy enquiring gaze; and his
fingers had closed round the butt of the deadly weapon which reposed
beneath his pillow. But no; there was nothing. The moon tempered the
darkness of the room sufficiently to render visible anything moving
within the same. Still, when he did doze off there was always that
haunting apprehension of some impending peril and something which he had
thought buried, and which had suddenly started to life to dog him down
and threaten him in this out-of-the-world retreat. And it, somehow or
other, was closely connected with his unexpected guest, sleeping
peacefully in the room below.
Stay. As to the latter, was he sleeping so peacefully? Moved by an
unaccountable impulse Mervyn decided that he would make sure of that,
and was in the act of rising with that intent when a sudden wake of
drowsiness swept over him, and he fell back and slept hard until
morning.
The late sun was just rising, a red ball above the tree-tops. The
ground lay shrouded in whiteness, and the dark firs and naked oak boughs
were picked out in snow patterns, and the window panes were crusted with
the delicate lacework of a hard frost. Mervyn shivered, and wondered
apprehensively if he had caught cold in his undertaking of the night.
He dressed quickly and went downstairs.
He opened the door noiselessly and looked in. The room was in
semi-darkness, for the blinds were still down. His guest was still
asleep apparently, for there on the couch he lay, the rug drawn over his
head. Noiselessly still, Mervyn closed the door, and went out. Then,
through the back kitchen--for he would not open the front door lest the
grating of the bolts should disturb the sleeper--he passed into the open
air.
The exhilaration of it in a measure braced him. The sun, mounting
higher and higher, had emerged from the red ball stage into radiating
beams, which touched the frosty particles on ground and tree alike into
myriads of faceted diamonds. Mechanically he mounted the staircase-like
path which led up to the sluice. The ice lay, a pure white triangle,
narrowing away to the distantly converging woods; the break, now frozen
over and newly coated with snow, hardly showing. But to this he took
his way.
Heavens! it was a mystery the man had escaped the frozen death--a marvel
that he himself should have been aroused just in the very nick of time
to rescue him--he now told himself standing on the bank and
contemplating the spot in broad daylight. The ladder lay where it had
been left, but now frozen fast into the ice. It resisted his efforts to
move it. Well, it could stay where it was for the present. When old
Joe turned up--by the way, the old rascal was late this morning--they
would be able to move it between them, and the ice was thicker for the
night's frost, and would bear easily.
He retraced his steps along the woodland path. The leaves crackled
crisply under his tread, and hungry blackbirds shot out swiftly from the
hollies, uttering alarmed cachinnations. A little red squirrel clawed
itself up a tree bole, and squatting in a fork chirked angrily and
impudently at him from its place of safety. But as he walked, he was
puzzling hard over the strange and sinister impression which the advent
of his unknown guest had instilled within his mind. In the cheery and
bracing morning light and air, this seemed to strike him as sheer fancy,
sheer unreasonable imagining. The man was probably quite all right; his
appearance and manner were certainly not unprepossessing. He would
persuade him to stay on a few days and relieve his loneliness. Why not?
He was becoming altogether too self-centred, as he had told himself the
night before.
Thus musing he gained the sluice and looked down at his dwelling. The
blinds of the living-room were still down. Clearly his guest was
"taking it out," and small blame to him, after his experiences of the
night before. At the bottom of the stair path, the unit previously
referred to as old Joe came round the end of the house.
Old Joe, surnamed Sayers, was his outdoor male factotum--gardener--
though there wasn't much of a garden--make-himself-generally-useful, and
so on. Old Judy--otherwise Christian-named Judith--was his indoor and
female factotum; cook, general-do-everything there was to be done. Joe
Sayers was an ancient rustic, normally towards crisp surliness inclined,
except when full of extra ale--and Joe could carry a great deal of extra
ale--and then he would wax confidential, not to say friendly. On him
his master now opened.
"Hard morning, Joe?"
"Sure-ly," came the laconic assent.
"Is the gentleman in the sitting-room awake yet?"
"Gemmun in settin' room? I see nought o' he."
"Well, the blinds are still down. I thought Judy might have disturbed
him, not knowing he was here."
"She's t'whoam. Got roomatics. Tarr'ble hard marnin' t'is."
This ancient couple only gave their services during the hours of
daylight; no consideration on earth would have availed to keep them
within the precincts of Heath Hover during those of darkness. They
inhabited one of the labourers' cottages referred to on the other side
of the wooded hill and half a mile distant by road.
"Can't she come to-day then, Joe?"
"Not to-day," was the answer, with a very decided shake of the head.
"May-be not to-marrer neither."
Mervyn felt vexed. How could he ask the stranger to prolong his stay
when there was nobody on the premises to so much as boil a potato. And
he had rather reckoned that the other would prolong his stay. In fact
he wanted him to, and that, paradoxically, on all fours with that vague,
undefinable instinct of apprehension which had been upon him during
those sleepless night hours.
"Look up the pond, Joe," he said. "See that break in the ice, away
there, by the two hanging ash trees. Well, I got him out of there in
the middle of the night. I had to lug the ladder along to do it--we'll
have to haul it back again presently, by the way. He'd have been
drowned but for it."
"That he would, sure-ly." Then the intense rustic suspicion of
everything and everybody unknown asserted itself--"What be he a doing
there--on the ice--middle of the night? Poachin' may be?" Mervyn
laughed.
"No--no. He's no poacher whatever he is?"
"And what might he be? Tell me that," and the old countryman's little
eyes blinked with satisfaction over what he considered his own
shrewdness.
"Don't know, I didn't ask him and he hasn't told me--yet. It's a bad
habit to get into--asking people questions about themselves and their
private affairs, Joe. It's a thing I don't do."
The ancient slowly shook his head--pityingly, contemptuously. He
thought his master little removed from a fool.
"Folks as gets on the ice, middle of Plane Pond--middle of the night,
and don't say nothin' as to how they gets there and what they be after,
bean't up to no good. That's what _I_ say, muster." And the speaker
nodded profoundly.
"You're a rare clever 'un, Joe," and Mervyn laughed banteringly. "Now
there'd be no great difficulty in any one, especially a stranger, losing
his way in country like this, and that in the teeth of a howling sleet
storm. Taking a short cut, you know, and thinking to cross the ice
instead of taking all the way round? That needn't prove he was up to no
good. Eh?"
But to this the old fellow condescended no reply. He didn't take kindly
to banter, slow witted people don't as a rule. He spat on his palms,
picked up the handles of the barrow he had come to fetch and moved off
with it. His master followed him, chatting desultorily. Three or four
pigs in a stye grunted shrilly as the human clement suggested morning
aliment. To this was added the cacklings and flutterings of the
occupants of a fowl roost, expectant of like solid advantage.
"Mus' Reynolds he bin around sure-ly," chuckled old Joe, looking down on
the numerous pad marks of a fox indented in the fresh snow. "Well,
well, that there wire cageing's too tough for his milk teeth. He'll ha'
gone away wi' an empty belly I rackon."
"That reminds me, Joe, that I could peck a bit myself," laughed Mervyn,
turning towards the house. It was getting quite late too, he decided,
looking at his watch. It would do no harm now to awaken his guest.
He passed in through the back, listened a moment, then softly turned the
handle of the living-room door. The room was still in semi-darkness.
On the couch lay the long, shadowy figure of the stranger.
"Feel like turning out?" said Mervyn genially, but not in so loud a tone
as to startle the other. But no answer came. Then stepping to the
window, he raised the blind.
The room was now flooded with light--the light of a radiant, cloudless,
frosty winter day. Still the recumbent form never moved. Bending over
it Mervyn dropped a hand on one shoulder. But--still no response.
With a quick, strange impulse that accelerated his own heartbeats he
turned down the blanket and rug, which had been drawn over the head of
the sleeper. The latter had removed his coat and waistcoat, otherwise
he was fully dressed. But his face wore a half-startled, half-puzzled
expression, and the lips were slightly parted--and then, bending down
for a closer glance, Mervyn's countenance became if possible more
white--certainly more ghastly--than the one lying there beneath his
gaze, as well it might.
For his unknown and unexpected guest, the man whom he had rescued from
the frozen death in the black midnight depths of Plane Pond, was now
lying there in front of him stone dead.