“Well, if it’s the ghost that inhabited that house, he is wise in seeking
other quarters, for it will soon be nothing but red-hot ashes.”
Then, afraid that Henry might think him weak enough to believe in ghosts,
he added, hastily, “Of course, you know, boys, that there are no such
creatures as ghosts; only--”
At this juncture the speaker broke off abruptly, and whatever information
he had to impart was lost. The apparition was now quite close to the
boys, and as the last words left George’s lips, it flung off something
very much like a sheet, and exclaimed, in a voice quite as human as
ghostly:
“Well, young gentlemen, since you hesitate to take me for a supernatural
being, I shall reveal myself to you.”
“Do it, then,” said Steve, in street Arab style. “Do it, for we must be
off to look for a comrade.”
“This to me!” cried the new-comer, angrily. “I’d have you know that I am
Benjamin Stolz.”
“Oh, horrors!” groaned Steve. “It’s the man that owns ‘Nobody’s House.’”
Mr. Stolz spoke again. (By the way, his full name was Benjamin Franklin
Stolz.) Laying aside the bantering tones in which he first addressed
them, he spoke fiercely:
“Young men, I want to know who owns that burning house?”
“The one straight ahead of us?” Will asked, as if they were in the midst
of a burning city, with buildings on fire on every side.
Mr. Stolz stooped, picked up a small stone, and flung it towards the
fire, saying, “That is the building I have reference to, unhappy youth.
If you can’t see it yet, I will carry you up to it. I repeat, _who is
supposed to own that place_?”
“I am to blame for all this, Mr. Stolz,” Charles had the courage to say.
“I persuaded the boys to come and make use of it; but I thought it was so
useless, and had been left idle so many years, that no one valued it. I
beg pardon, Mr. Stolz.”
Stolz hesitated. The boy’s willingness to receive all the blame touched
him. “He is a fine little fellow,” he said to himself, “but now that I
have started this I must go through it.”
Charles gained, rather than lost, by his confession, yet he did not
escape punishment. Perhaps he did not expect that.
“Well,” began Mr. Stolz, “think twice, or even four or five times, before
you plan to ‘make use of’ the property of others again. When I choose
to burn down my establishments, I shall do it myself, and not call in
schoolboys to do it for me. Did any of you ever hear what the law says
about burning a man’s house? Law, and the newspapers, and insurance
agents, call it _incendiarism_. Judges and juries call _incendiarism_
a very nefarious occupation. Now, don’t wait to see the walls
collapse--begone! all of you! To-morrow I shall send a writ of summons to
each of you! Begone! Good night.”
Having discharged his horrible threat about the writ of summons, Stolz
turned and strode towards the blazing and roaring fire, a very odd smile
on his lips.
The “incendiaries” did not see that smile, and they stood staring at his
retreating figure, speechless and hopeless. This was the end of their
plot! Ah, its growth had been difficult and uneven--its end was sublimely
tragical!
Not one of them had accused Jim of firing the building, though, from
his own confession, each one knew that Jim only was guilty of the deed.
However, they deserve no praise for this, since they were all so utterly
confounded that not one of them remembered it. But as Mr. Stolz was the
ghost that caused Jim’s panic, flight, and fall, he must certainly have
known all about it, and consequently it was better that they should hold
their peace.
After a solemn silence, Stephen asked faintly, “Boys, what’s a writ of
summons? Isn’t it something awful?”
The Sage brightened and answered him thus: “Yes, Steve, it is a dreadful
instrument of justice to deliver culprits up to the fury of Law--to
trial, punishment, and torture.”
Steve, who had a very vague notion of what the word _instrument_ means,
instantly thought of thumb-screws, racks, and divers other engines of
torture, that our “chivalrous” forefathers were so ingenious as to invent
and so diabolical as to use.
“Boys,” said Charles, “we are in a worse scrape than ever before. It
would be an awful thing if we should be sent to prison! Oh, it would kill
my mother! Henry, do you really think Stolz could send us to prison?”
“I don’t know,” said Henry, in a mournful voice, little above a whisper.
“Look here, boys,” spoke the Sage, with his time-honored phraseology, “we
have lost track of Marmaduke altogether. We must find out what has become
of him.”
“O dear, if he is missing, I shall not care to live!” Henry declared
sincerely. “Where do you suppose he is, boys? Is he a boy to take such a
thing very much to heart?”
“I’m afraid he is,” Will acknowledged. “He takes everything so seriously
that this will be almost too much for him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” Henry asked bitterly.
With wildly beating hearts the little band began to search for the
missing one, calling him imploringly by name and begging his forgiveness.
The search was continued till Henry became so completely exhausted that
he could no longer drag himself along; and then it was incumbent on the
others to take him home.
As they drew near the village, one of them proposed to stop at
Marmaduke’s home and inquire after him, in the faint hope that he might
be there. The others agreed to this, but with little hope of receiving a
favorable answer.
“Is Marmaduke at home?” Charles asked timidly, as Mr. Fitz-Williams
opened the door.
“No, he is not,” came the answer, “and we are very uneasy about him.”
The plotters did not explain themselves, but turned away, more heart-sick
than before. Suppose that he should wander off, and be found dead some
time afterwards, would not they be held guilty? Would not they be goaded
by remorse to the end of their days? Or suppose that he should follow the
slighted schoolboy’s bent, run away to sea, and never be heard of again
for twenty years.
Stephen was so distressed that he actually said to his fellow-sufferers:
“Boys, if he would only come back, I wouldn’t tease him about getting
married. I intended to tease him about it for months; but I won’t now, if
he will only come back; I won’t, not a bit!”
Stephen was a boy of boys; and for him to say that was to express his
contrition in the strongest possible terms.
_Chapter XXXIX._
REPENTANT PLOTTERS.--THE HEROES RE-UNITED.
The discomfited plotters were forced into a confession of all their deeds
for the past few days, and a party headed by Mr. Fitz-Williams set out
to scour the country for the missing boy. Then, contrite and woebegone,
the evildoers slunk into their respective homes, there to receive what
punishment their outraged parents should see fit to inflict.
It is not best to enter into details; it would be too harrowing. It is
sufficient to say that when their weary heads at length sought their
pillows, sleep refused to come to their relief, and such a night of
torture few of them ever passed.
“If it wouldn’t make us appear guiltier than we are,” Henry said, with
feverishly bright eyes, “you and I would pack up, too, Will, and run
away, and travel all around the world.”
As Henry did not deign to state how this might be accomplished, we are
left to infer that he had an idea of a flying-machine in his mind.
Stephen and Charles wore out the night in wondering what they should do
with themselves if sent to prison. The former resolved that he would
undermine the prison foundations with his jack-knife, and make his escape
to Robinson Crusoe’s island.
“There I shall spend my life,” he sighed heroically, “thinking of
Marmaduke. Robinson lived alone twenty-eight years; I’m only sixteen, I
shall probably live alone about sixty years, if the cannibals don’t catch
me and eat me up.”
Poor dreamer! He was not sufficiently well versed in geography to know
that Robinson Crusoe’s island is not now so desirable a place to play the
hermit in as it was in the seventeenth century.
George, who was of an inquisitive disposition, finally left his bed,
broke into the lumber-room of his ancestral home, and after diligent
search, found a bulky tome, which, years before, had been consigned to
that dreary region as being more learned than intelligible. This tome was
entitled “Every Man his own Lawyer.”
With this prize he returned to his bedroom, muttering, “Now I shall see
just what the law can do to us boys, and all about the whole business,
and what we ought to do and say.”
After an hour’s careful study of this neglected “Mine of Wealth,” the
Sage let it slip out of his hands, and tumbled into bed again, muttering:
“Yes, one of us is guilty of the crime of arson. That is very clear. All
of us are liable to be sent to prison. That is pretty clear. As I make
it out, the sentence ranges between six months and a hundred years. Which
will the judge conclude we deserve, six or one hundred? Oh, well, it will
be hideous to live in a prison at all, for there will be no books there!”
According to the Sage’s notions, the worst fate that could possibly
overtake him would be to be deprived of his books.
“But, O dear,” he pursued, “I should be willing to give up all my books
if Marmaduke could be found.”
Morning dawned on the reformed plotters with mocking serenity. There
could be no enjoyment for them while such a cloud of mystery hung over
their companion’s fate.
The searchers were not so successful on this occasion as when they used
to rove over land and sea for Will and his companions; not the slightest
clew to Marmaduke’s whereabouts being found.
The news of the preceding day’s doings was already known throughout
the neighborhood, and the boys were spoken of in no flattering terms.
Those villagers whose phraseology was refined, called them “whimsical
juveniles, wise beyond their years;” while those villagers whose
phraseology was terse and expressive, brutally gave them Greek and
Japanese nick-names for the Evil One.
As the hour of dinner approached, a grim-visaged man, who looked like
the descendant of a long line of executioners and muleteers, so grave
and stern were his features, called on each one of the five boys who had
had an interview with Mr. Stolz, and delivered to each one a formidable
envelope that bore the impress of the Law, and a single glance at which
was sufficient to freeze one’s blood. Having done this, the “minion of
the law,” as the terrified boys supposed he was, left the village at a
round pace, looking less and less grave with every step. Reader, this
person was a bosom-friend of B. F. Stolz’s, disguised with a lawyer’s
neck-tie, hat, and cane, or cudgel.
Fearfully the awe-inspiring seals were broken, and the legal missives
were found to run as follows:
“Having observed a party of urchins prowling around my place
up stream, and having, by the merest accident, learned the
contents of a certain ‘letter’ written by a certain William,
I was so long-headed as to put this and that together; and I
resolved to make myself acquainted with what was going on.
Accordingly, I watched, and waited, and hovered lovingly near
you, when you knew it not. I discovered your plot. Last night I
was hidden away up-stairs, within earshot, prepared to spring
among you suddenly as a ghost, when I had an unexpected meeting
with Jim. The rest I believe you know. Don’t be at all alarmed
about the fire; Jim alone is responsible for that; I will
take no further notice of the affair. I wished to punish you,
however, and hit on this little plan. Whether I have succeeded
or not, you yourselves know best. If you were kept awake by
uneasiness last night as much as I was by laughter, I am more
than indemnified for the loss of ‘Nobody’s House.’
“In the matter of Marmaduke, I believe he is keeping house in
the big barn on the road to----. I have already notified his
parents of this. To the Rescue, O ye Heroes!
“I have the honor, your excellencies, to sign myself your
humble servant.
“B. F. STOLZ.”
This Stolz was a remarkable man--almost a genius. Professionally a
farmer, he was wholly taken up with the pastime of playing practical
jokes. No subject, no person, was too exalted to escape him; and, as his
letter proves, he stooped to play off his tricks on even boys! In this
instance he had actually spied on them, and let them make free with his
house, intending to electrify them as a hobgoblin when they should have
worked themselves up to a proper pitch of excitement.
But, like every one else concerned in this scheme, he himself was a
sufferer.
The boys were relieved. No more haunting fears of being sent to
penitentiary; no more ingenious speculations as to how they should occupy
themselves there. Better than all else, they had news of Marmaduke.
When Marmaduke discovered the imposition, and fled, he was almost
beside himself with grief, horror, and anger. It seemed to him that boys
who could deliberately contrive and execute so base a scheme must be
exceedingly depraved--cruel, and lost to all sense of honor. It seemed
to him, in short, that they were worse than they were. After having been
duped so completely by them, he could not endure the thought of ever
seeing them again, and so resolved to abandon his country.
Poor Marmaduke! He was of a sensitive temperament, and believed that his
heartless school-fellows would ridicule him for evermore.
He wandered on till he came to a large and empty barn, and then it
occurred to him that it would be proper for him, as an exile, to take up
his quarters in it for a short time. He reasoned, also, that if he should
be looked for, it would be well to keep hidden till the search was over,
when he could continue his flight towards the sea-coast, or any other
place, in peace and safety.
“I am resolved that they shall not take me,” he said in himself, “for I
could not survive another attack from those boys. No, I shall wander off
to some happy land, where my merit will be appreciated. Then I shall set
to work, become rich and famous, and after long years have passed I shall
return for a few days to my insulting countrymen, _a great man_! _Then_
people that think it is hardly worth while to say ‘good-day’ to me now,
will be glad to catch a glimpse of me from behind a window-curtain; and
that horrible old woman that says _I_ look a little like her _son_, the
_carter_, will discover that the _Governor of the State_ looks just like
_me_! Then those boys--they will be men then--will remember that I used
to be Marmaduke, that they used to sit in the same seat with me, and that
they used to study out of my books sometimes; and they will come around
me, humble and cringing, and try to get me to recognize them. But I won’t
recognize them--by even a look or a turn!”
Full of his future triumph and of his most original manner of slighting
his persecutors, Marmaduke effected an entry into the old barn in a
very burglarious way, not at all compatible with his dignity. To speak
plainly, he picked the lock with a pair of tweezers, which he had used a
few hours previous for a different, a very different purpose.
Here he spent the night, dozing, fuming against his school-fellows, and
speculating on his future glory; while his nearly distracted parent was
dragging ponds, snappishly replying to the impertinent questions of
curious old women, sending little boys and big men hither and thither on
a fool’s errand, and goading sleepy knights of the telegraph almost to
frenzy.
Next morning as Mr. Stolz was passing the old barn, he fancied he heard
strange sounds within. He slid off his horse, warily drew near, and
looking through a knot-hole, discovered the missing boy lying on the
floor, holding quiet converse with himself, as he matured his plans for
the future.
Stolz hurried back to his horse, almost beside himself with laughter, and
thinking that the boys’ plot was most sublimely ridiculous.
Just as the dreamer was in the midst of composing an elaborate letter of
farewell to his mother, his sterner parent appeared on the scene, and
poor Marmaduke’s trip to “some happy land” was postponed indefinitely.
Strange as it may at first seem, Marmaduke was more pleased to return
home than he cared to acknowledge. Life as an exile in a gloomy old
barn was decidedly monotonous; and his curiosity as to who the prisoner
represented by Sauterelle could be, was becoming excited. It was a
mystery which he must fathom.
His poor mother and his remorseful companions welcomed him with
heart-felt joy; and twenty-four hours after he and Henry first met, they
were debating--with considerable constraint, it is true--whether there is
more fun in fishing with a spear than with a pole and line.
Such is life--among school-boys.
What effect did this have on the tricksters, in a moral point of view?
Only a slight one, certainly not a lasting one. Though shocked and
conscience-smitten for a time, they were soon as reckless and perverse
as ever; and the lesson their suffering should have taught them was
unheeded.
Considering the leniency with which Mr. Stolz treated them, they should
have felt grateful towards him. On the contrary, whenever this practical
joker hove in sight on his goggle-eyed old charger, instead of advancing
to touch their hats to him respectfully, they regarded him with such
deep-seated rancour that they invariably jumped over the handiest fence,
and strolled off somewhere through the fields.
The gossiping villagers had a new subject of comment, and they took
delight in jeering at the “French lords,” as they insultingly called
the ex-plotters. For that reason it was dangerous, as long as the
holidays lasted, to say anything to them about France or Frenchmen; and
Stephen fell into such a habit of looking furious that his left eye was
permanently injured.
As for Henry, he became so home-sick and heart-sick that, after a visit
of only ten days, he packed his valise and returned.
_Chapter XL._
THE HEROES FIGURE AS HUNTERS.
Perhaps the reader may think that while the seven heroes were together,
instead of packing Henry, the seventh (observe the comma immediately
after Henry; observe, also, that it is not written Henry VII.), off home,
it would have been better to relate a few more of their exploits. Not so.
In imposing on Marmaduke, each one was guilty of a breach of trust, so
that it would not be right to have them appear with such a stain on their
reputation. As for Jim, he premeditated villainy; and in good romances
no villain can long be regarded as a hero--unless he happens to be a
highwayman, and it would be preposterous to attempt to have Jim play the
highwayman. Now, the intention is to write this story on a moral basis;
therefore, a few years are suffered to elapse, and they are supposed to
reform in that time.
Marmaduke did no wrong, so that his history might be continued, without
doubt. But this story could not go on, unless all the boys, Jim included,
were in it.
Suppose, therefore, that six years have passed since the burning of
“Nobody’s House.” The boys, now men, are still alive, and in good health
and spirits. How they have spent those six years is not difficult to
imagine. All of them regularly attended school till they were big and
awkward, when most of them were sent to a university, to complete their
education.
It was originally the intention to relate some thrilling incidents that
took place while they were students; but being too lazy to collect
sufficient scientific facts to do so with effect, that intention was
reluctantly given up.
Gentle reader, if you are ever at a loss for something to sigh about,
just think what you have missed in not reading how four sophomores barely
escaped blowing themselves and a leaky steamboat up into the clouds,
fancying that they understood the _theory_ of working a steam-engine.
To torture you still further, imagine, also, a scene in which a learned
professor’s “focus cannon” mysteriously, unadvisedly, and to the heroes’
amazement and horror, shot a ball into a pair of glass globes, which the
affectionate students were about to present to him.
It was autumn; and the seven young men, heroes still, were preparing to
journey far northward, to hunt deer, or whatever else their bullets might
chance to strike.
Will and Henry prevailed on Uncle Dick to accompany them--greatly to the
satisfaction of the elders, who fondly hoped he would keep a fatherly eye
on the reckless hunters, and prevent them from destroying themselves.
Fully equipped, the party of eight set out for the “happy hunting
grounds,” firm in the resolution to kill all the game still remaining in
the great northwest. If plenty of ammunition and fire-arms would avail,
then certainly they should bring home a great supply of animal food.
But whether the fourfooted creatures of the forest were forewarned that a
band of mighty hunters was on the war-trail, and fled from their sylvan
haunts, or whether they obstinately remained, and bade defiance to the
Nimrods’ balls, is a mooted point, which the intensely interested reader
may set at rest as he pleases.
Having arrived at the outskirts of a growing settlement, close to a
genuine forest, the eight hunters fell to work, and soon built an
uncomfortable and unsafe little shanty.
“This will be life in earnest,” Charles observed joyously.
The young ladies of his native village politely spoke of him as “Mr.
Growler;” but his moustache was still so white that we should not be
justified in so honoring him.
“Yes; this is the artless life our forefathers lived;” said Marmaduke,
poetical as ever.
“No,” corrected Stephen, “our forefathers didn’t range through the forest
with Castile soap in their bundles and charms dangling on their watch
chains.”
“Come, now, considering that you smuggled the soap into Marmaduke’s pack,
you are rather hard on him,” said Will.
“Oh, I smuggled it there for my own use as well as for his,” Stephen
explained.
This proves that Steve was as fond as ever of monkey tricks.
Of course the hunters were to depend on what they killed in the chase for
food; and so, as soon as they were fairly settled, Will and Henry set out
to shoot something that would make a delicious stew for dinner.
All at once a strange, shadowy form was espied by Will, lurking in the
edge of the wood; and without a moment’s hesitation he raised his gun
and fired. Now, at home, Will was considered an excellent marksman;
therefore, Henry, who was beside him, was not surprised to see that,
whatever the animal might be, it was stone dead.
They hurried to the fallen prey, and were almost as much disappointed
as the small boy is when he finds that his fish-hook has captured a
demonstrative crab instead of a good-natured chub.
“Well,” the destroyer said, with a grim smile, “I have done what Steve
has often tried to do, but never did--_I have slain a grimalkin_!”
“Cats have no business to prowl around here, and they deserve to be shot,
though we haven’t come all this distance to shoot them,” Henry said
peevishly. “But let us hide this hoary fellow; for if Steve should hear
of it, he might be tempted to box it up and send it home as your first
deer.”
It would not be worth while to give the weary and fruitless tramp the
cousins took; it is sufficient to say that they shot nothing that a
civilized cook would take pride in preparing for the table. At last
Henry was fortunate enough to disable a brace of woodcocks, and after an
exciting chase they secured them, and then returned to their quarters.
Next morning the entire party went hunting, resolved to kill something.
They penetrated far into the forest, talking as freely as if they were in
a desert or on the ocean. Consequently, they did not see much game.
“Hist!” Mr. Lawrence suddenly exclaimed. “What enormous beast is that
yonder?”
“It’s a bear?” Will cried with rapture. “A genuine bear!”
“Are there bears here, in this part of the world?” Jim asked uneasily.
“Did we come to hunt bears?”
“Of course we did; of course there are;” Henry said with disgust. “Jim,
I wish our good old professor could have you among his students. There
would be virgin soil, and you would make an apt student, I am sure.”
“Yes, it is a bear,” George said emphatically. “A large bear, and
probably a ferocious one. There is the true bearish head, thick and
heavy; the cropped ears; the thick snout; and the long shaggy coat. It is
larger than even the one in the museum, isn’t it, Henry?”
Henry thought it was.