It was a night to drive any man indoors. Not only was the darkness
impenetrable, but the raw mist enveloping hill and valley made the open
road anything but desirable to a belated wayfarer like myself.
Being young, untrammelled, and naturally indifferent to danger, I was
not averse to adventure; and having my fortune to make, was always on
the lookout for El Dorado, which to ardent souls lies ever beyond the
next turning. Consequently, when I saw a light shimmering through the
mist at my right, I resolved to make for it and the shelter it so
opportunely offered.
But I did not realise then, as I do now, that shelter does not
necessarily imply refuge, or I might not have undertaken this adventure
with so light a heart. Yet who knows? The impulses of an unfettered
spirit lean toward daring, and youth, as I have said, seeks the strange,
the unknown, and sometimes the terrible.
My path towards this light was by no means an easy one. After confused
wanderings through tangled hedges, and a struggle with obstacles of
whose nature I received the most curious impression in the surrounding
murk, I arrived in front of a long, low building, which, to my
astonishment, I found standing with doors and windows open to the
pervading mist, save for one square casement, through which the light
shone from a row of candles placed on a long mahogany table.
The quiet and seeming emptiness of this odd and picturesque building
made me pause. I am not much affected by visible danger, but this silent
room, with its air of sinister expectancy, struck me most unpleasantly,
and I was about to reconsider my first impulse and withdraw again to the
road, when a second look thrown back upon the comfortable interior I was
leaving convinced me of my folly, and sent me straight toward the door
which stood so invitingly open.
But half-way up the path my progress was again stayed by the sight of a
man issuing from the house I had so rashly looked upon as devoid of all
human presence. He seemed in haste, and at the moment my eye first fell
on him was engaged in replacing his watch in his pocket.
But he did not shut the door behind him, which I thought odd, especially
as his final glance had been a backward one, and seemed to take in all
the appointments of the place he was so hurriedly leaving.
As we met he raised his hat. This likewise struck me as peculiar, for
the deference he displayed was more marked than that usually bestowed on
strangers, while his lack of surprise at an encounter more or less
startling in such a mist, was calculated to puzzle an ordinary man like
myself. Indeed, he was so little impressed by my presence there that he
was for passing me without a word or any other hint of good-fellowship
save the bow of which I have spoken. But this did not suit me. I was
hungry, cold, and eager for creature comforts, and the house before me
gave forth, not only heat, but a savoury odour which in itself was an
invitation hard to ignore. I therefore accosted the man.
"Will bed and supper be provided for me here?" I asked. "I am tired out
with a long tramp over the hills, and hungry enough to pay anything in
reason----"
I stopped, for the man had disappeared. He had not paused at my appeal,
and the mist had swallowed him. But at the break in my sentence his
voice came back in good-natured tones, and I heard:
"Supper will be ready at nine, and there are beds for all. Enter, sir;
you are the first to arrive, but the others cannot be far behind."
A queer greeting certainly. But when I strove to question him as to its
meaning, his voice returned to me from such a distance that I doubted if
my words had reached him any more than his answer had reached me.
"Well," thought I, "it isn't as if a lodging had been denied me. He
invited me to enter, and enter I will."
The house, to which I now naturally directed a glance of much more
careful scrutiny than before, was no ordinary farm-building, but a
rambling old mansion, made conspicuously larger here and there by
jutting porches and more than one convenient lean-to. Though furnished,
warmed, and lighted with candles, as I have previously described, it had
about it an air of disuse which made me feel myself an intruder, in
spite of the welcome I had received. But I was not in a position to
stand upon ceremony, and ere long I found myself inside the great room
and before the blazing logs whose glow had lighted up the doorway and
added its own attraction to the other allurements of the inviting place.
Though the open door made a draught which was anything but pleasant, I
did not feel like closing it, and was astonished to observe the effect
of the mist through the square thus left open to the night. It was not
an agreeable one, and, instinctively turning my back upon that quarter
of the room, I let my eyes roam over the wainscoted walls and the odd
pieces of furniture which gave such an air of old-fashioned richness to
the place. As nothing of the kind had ever fallen under my eyes before,
I would have thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity of gratifying my taste
for the curious and the beautiful, if the quaint old chairs I saw
standing about me on every side had not all been empty. But the solitude
of the place, so much more oppressive than the solitude of the road I
had left, struck cold to my heart, and I missed the cheer rightfully
belonging to such attractive surroundings. Suddenly I bethought me of
the many other apartments likely to be found in so spacious a dwelling,
and, going to the nearest door, I opened it and called out for the
master of the house. But only an echo came back, and returning to the
fire, I sat down before the cheering blaze, in quiet acceptance of a
situation too lonely for comfort, yet not without a certain piquant
interest for a man of free mind and adventurous disposition like myself.
After all, if supper was to be served at nine, some one must be expected
to eat it; I should surely not be left much longer without companions.
Meanwhile ample amusement awaited me in the contemplation of a picture
which, next to the large fireplace, was the most prominent object in the
room. This picture was a portrait, and a remarkable one. The countenance
it portrayed was both characteristic and forcible, and so interested me
that in studying it I quite forgot both hunger and weariness. Indeed its
effect upon me was such that, after gazing at it uninterruptedly for a
few minutes, I discovered that its various features--the narrow eyes in
which a hint of craft gave a strange gleam to their native intelligence;
the steadfast chin, strong as the rock of the hills I had wearily
tramped all day; the cunning wrinkles which yet did not interfere with a
latent great-heartedness that made the face as attractive as it was
puzzling--had so established themselves in my mind that I continued to
see them before me whichever way I turned, and even found it impossible
to shake off their influence after I had resolutely set my mind in
another direction by endeavouring to recall what I knew of the town
into which I had strayed.
I had come from Scranton, and was now, according to my best judgment, in
one of those rural districts of Western Pennsylvania which breed such
strange and sturdy characters. But of this special neighbourhood, its
inhabitants, and its industries, I knew nothing, nor was I likely to
become acquainted with it so long as I remained in the solitude I have
described.
But these impressions and these thoughts--if thoughts they
were--presently received a check. A loud "Halloo!" rose from somewhere
in the mist, followed by a string of muttered imprecations, which
convinced me that the person now attempting to approach the house was
encountering some of the many difficulties which had beset me in the
same undertaking a few minutes before.
I therefore raised my voice and shouted out, "Here! This way!" after
which I sat still and awaited developments.
There was a huge clock in one of the corners, whose loud tick filled up
every interval of silence. By this clock it was just ten minutes to
eight when two gentlemen--I should say men, and coarse men at
that--crossed the open threshold and entered the house.
Their appearance was more or less noteworthy--unpleasantly so, I am
obliged to add. One was red-faced and obese; the other was tall, thin,
and wiry, and showed as many seams in his face as a blighted apple.
Neither of the two had anything to recommend him either in appearance or
address, save a certain veneer of polite assumption as transparent as it
was offensive. As I listened to the forced sallies of the one and the
hollow laugh of the other, I was glad that I was large of frame and
strong of arm, and used to all kinds of men and--brutes.
As these two newcomers seemed no more astonished at my presence than the
man I had met at the gate, I checked the question which instinctively
rose to my lips, and with a simple bow--responded to by a more or less
familiar nod from either--accepted the situation with all the
_sang-froid_ the occasion seemed to demand. Perhaps this was wise,
perhaps it was not; there was little opportunity to judge, for the start
they both gave as they encountered the eyes of the picture before
mentioned drew my attention to a consideration of the different ways in
which men, however similar in other respects, express sudden and
unlooked-for emotion. The big man simply allowed his astonishment,
dread, or whatever the feeling was which moved him, to ooze forth in a
cold and deathly perspiration which robbed his cheeks of colour, and
cast a bluish shadow over his narrow and retreating temples; while the
thin and waspish man, caught in the same trap (for trap I saw it was),
shouted aloud in his ill-timed mirth, the false and cruel character of
which would have made me shudder, if all expression of feeling on my
part had not been held in check by the interest I immediately
experienced in the display of open bravado with which, in another
moment, these two tried to carry off their mutual embarrassment.
"Good likeness, eh?" laughed the seamy-faced man. "Quite an idea that!
Makes him one of us again! Well, he's welcome--in oils. Can't say much
to us from canvas, eh?" And the rafters above him vibrated, as his
violent efforts at joviality went up in loud and louder assertion from
his thin throat.
A nudge from the other's elbow stopped him, and I saw them both cast
half-lowering, half-inquisitive glances in my direction.
"One of the Witherspoon boys?" queried one.
"Perhaps," snarled the other. "I never saw but one of them. There are
five, aren't there? Eustace believed in marrying off his gals young."
"Damn him, yes! And he'd have married them off younger if he had known
how numbers were going to count some day among the Westonhaughs." And he
laughed again in a way I should certainly have felt it my business to
resent if my indignation, as well as the ill-timed allusions which had
called it forth, had not been put to an end by a fresh arrival through
the veiling mist which hung like a shroud at the doorway.
This time it was for me to experience a shock of something like fear.
Yet the personage who called up this unlooked-for sensation in my
naturally hardy nature was old, and to all appearance harmless from
disability, if not from good-will. His form was bent over upon itself
like a bow; and only from the glances he shot from his upturned eyes
was the fact made evident that a redoubtable nature, full of force and
malignity, had just brought its quota of evil into a room already
overflowing with dangerous and menacing passions.
As this old wretch, either from the feebleness of age or from the
infirmity I have mentioned, had great difficulty in walking, he had
brought with him a small boy, whose business it was to direct his
tottering steps as best he could.
But once settled in his chair, he drove away this boy with his pointed
oak stick, and with some harsh words about caring for the horse and
being in time in the morning, he sent him out into the mist. As this
little shivering and pathetic figure vanished, the old man drew with
gasp and haw a number of deep breaths, which shook his bent back, and
did their share, no doubt, in restoring his own disturbed circulation.
Then, with a sinister twist which brought his pointed chin and twinkling
eyes again into view, he remarked:
"Haven't ye a word for kinsman Luke, you two? It isn't often I get out
among ye. Shakee, nephew! Shakee, Hector! And now, who's the boy in the
window? My eyes aren't what they used to be, but he don't seem to favour
the Westonhaughs overmuch. One of Salmon's four grandchildren, think 'e?
Or a shoot from Eustace's gnarled old trunk? His gals all married
Americans, and one of them, I've been told, was a yellow-haired giant
like this fellow."
At this description, pointed directly toward me, I was about to venture
a response on my own account, when my attention, as well as theirs, was
freshly attracted by a loud "Whoa!" at the gate, followed by the hasty
but assured entrance of a dapper, wizen, but perfectly preserved little
old gentleman with a bag in his hand.
Looking askance with eyes that were like two beads, first at the two
men, who were now elbowing each other for the best place before the
fire, and next at the revolting figure in the chair, he bestowed his
greeting, which consisted of an elaborate bow, not on them, but upon the
picture hanging so conspicuously on the open wall before him; and then,
taking me within the scope of his quick, circling glance, cried out with
an assumption of great cordiality:
"Good-evening, gentlemen; good-evening one, good-evening all. Nothing
like being on the tick. I'm sorry the night has turned out so badly.
Some may find it too thick for travel. That would be bad, eh? very
bad--for _them_."
As none of the men he openly addressed saw fit to answer, save by the
hitch of a shoulder or a leer quickly suppressed, I kept silent also.
But this reticence, marked as it was, did not seem to offend the
newcomer. Shaking the wet from the umbrella he held, he stood the
dripping article up in a corner, and then came and placed his feet on
the fender. To do this he had to crowd between the two men already
occupying the best part of the hearth. But he showed no concern at
incommoding them, and bore their cross looks and threatening gestures
with professional equanimity.
"You know me?" he now unexpectedly snapped, bestowing another look over
his shoulder at that oppressive figure in the chair. (Did I say that I
had risen when the latter sat?) "I'm no Westonhaugh, I; nor yet a
Witherspoon nor a Clapsaddle. I'm only Smead, the lawyer--Mr. Anthony
Westonhaugh's lawyer," he repeated, with another glance of recognition
in the direction of the picture. "I drew up his last will and testament,
and, until all of his wishes have been duly carried out, am entitled by
the terms of that will to be regarded both legally and socially as his
representative. This you all know, but it is my way to make everything
clear as I proceed. A lawyer's trick, no doubt. I do not pretend to be
entirely exempt from such."
A grumble from the large man, who seemed to have been disturbed in some
absorbing calculation he was carrying on, mingled with a few muttered
words of forced acknowledgment from the restless old sinner in the
chair, made it unnecessary for me to reply, even if the last comer had
given me the opportunity.
"It's getting late!" he cried, with an easy garrulity rather amusing
under the circumstances. "Two more trains came in as I left the depot.
If old Phil was on hand with his waggon, several more members of this
interesting family may be here before the clock strikes; if not, the
assemblage is like to be small. Too small," I heard him grumble a
minute after, under his breath.
"I wish it were a matter of one," spoke up the big man, striking his
breast in a way to make it perfectly apparent whom he meant by that word
_one_. And having (if I may judge by the mingled laugh and growl of his
companions) thus shown his hand both figuratively and literally, he
relapsed into the calculation which seemed to absorb all of his
unoccupied moments.
"Generous, very!" commented the lawyer in a murmur which was more than
audible. "Pity that sentiments of such broad benevolence should go
unrewarded."
This, because at that very instant wheels were heard in front, also a
jangle of voices, in some controversy about fares, which promised
anything but a pleasing addition to the already none too desirable
company.
"I suppose that's Sister Janet," snarled out the one addressed as
Hector. There was no love in his voice, despite the relationship hinted
at, and I awaited the entrance of this woman with some curiosity.
But her appearance, heralded by many a puff and pant which the damp air
exaggerated in a prodigious way, did not seem to warrant the interest I
had shown in it. As she stepped into the room I saw only a big frowsy
woman, who had attempted to make a show with a new silk dress and a hat
in the latest fashion, but who had lamentably failed owing to the
slouchiness of her figure and some misadventure, by which her hat had
been set awry on her head and her usual complacency destroyed. Later, I
noted that her down-looking eyes had a false twinkle in them, and that,
commonplace as she looked, she was one to steer clear of in times of
necessity and distress.
She, too, evidently expected to find the door open and people assembled,
but she had not anticipated being confronted by the portrait on the
wall, and cringed in an unpleasant way as she stumbled by it into one of
the ill-lighted corners.
The old man, who had doubtless caught the rustle of her dress as she
passed him, emitted one short sentence.
"Almost late," said he.
Her answer was a sputter of words.
"It's the fault of that driver," she complained. "If he had taken one
drop more at the half-way house I might really not have got here at all.
That would not have inconvenienced _you_. But oh! what a grudge I would
have owed that skinflint brother of ours"--here she shook her fist at
the picture--"for making our good luck depend upon our arrival within
two short strokes of the clock!"
"There are several to come yet," blandly observed the lawyer. But before
the words were well out of his mouth we all became aware of a new
presence--a woman, whose sombre grace and quiet bearing gave distinction
to her unobtrusive entrance, and caused a feeling of something like awe
to follow the first sight of her cold features and deep,
heavily-fringed eyes. But this soon passed in the more human sentiment
awakened by the soft pleading which infused her gaze with a touching
femininity. She wore a long loose garment, which fell without a fold
from chin to foot, and in her arms she seemed to carry something.
Never before had I seen so beautiful a woman. As I was contemplating
her, with respect but yet with a masculine intentness I could not quite
suppress, two or three other persons came in. And now I began to notice
that the eyes of all these people turned mainly one way, and that was
toward the clock. Another small circumstance likewise drew my attention.
Whenever any one entered--and there were one or two additional arrivals
during the five minutes preceding the striking of the hour--a frown
settled for an instant on every brow, giving to each and all a similar
look, for the interpretation of which I lacked the key. Yet not on every
brow either. There was one which remained undisturbed, and showed only a
grand patience.
As the hands of the big clock neared the point of eight a furtive smile
appeared on more than one face; and when the hour rang out a sigh of
satisfaction swept through the room, to which the little old lawyer
responded with a worldly-wise grunt as he moved from his place and
proceeded to the door.
This he had scarcely shut when a chorus of voices rose from without.
Three or four lingerers had pushed their way as far as the gate, only
to see the door of the house shut in their faces.
"Too late!" growled old man Luke from between the locks of his long
beard.
"Too late!" shrieked the woman who had come so near being late herself.
"Too late!" smoothly acquiesced the lawyer, locking and bolting the door
with a deft and assured hand.
But the four or five persons who thus found themselves barred out did
not accept without a struggle the decision of the more fortunate ones
assembled within. More than one hand began pounding on the door, and we
could hear cries of: "The train was behind time!" "Your clock is fast!"
"You are cheating us; you want it all for yourselves!" "We will have the
law on you!" and other bitter adjurations unintelligible to me from my
ignorance of the circumstances which called them forth.
But the wary old lawyer simply shook his head and answered nothing;
whereat a murmur of gratification rose from within, and a howl of almost
frenzied dismay from without, which latter presently received point from
a startling vision which now appeared at the casement where the lights
burned. A man's face looked in, and behind it, that of a woman, so wild
and maddened by some sort of heart-break that I found my sympathies
aroused in spite of the glare of evil passions which made both of these
countenances something less than human.
But the lawyer met the stare of these four eyes with a quiet chuckle,
which found its echo in the ill-advised mirth of those about him; and
moving over to the window where they still peered in, he drew together
the two heavy shutters which hitherto had stood back against the wall,
and, fastening them with a bar, shut out the sight of this despair, if
he could not shut out the protests which ever and anon were shouted
through the keyhole.
Meanwhile, one form had sat through this whole incident without a
gesture; and on the quiet brow, from which I could not keep my eyes, no
shadows appeared save the perpetual one of native melancholy, which was
at once the source of its attraction and the secret of its power.
Into what sort of gathering had I stumbled? And why did I prefer to
await developments rather than ask the simplest question of any one
about me?
Meantime the lawyer had proceeded to make certain preparations. With the
help of one or two willing hands he had drawn the great table into the
middle of the room, and, having seen the candles restored to their
places, began to open his small bag and take from it a roll of paper and
several flat documents. Laying the latter in the centre of the table and
slowly unrolling the former, he consulted, with his foxy eyes, the faces
surrounding him, and smiled with secret malevolence, as he noted that
every chair and every form was turned away from the picture before which
he had bent with such obvious courtesy on entering. I alone stood
erect, and this possibly was why a gleam of curiosity was noticeable in
his glance, as he ended his scrutiny of my countenance and bent his gaze
again upon the paper he held.
"Heavens!" thought I. "What shall I answer this man if he asks me why I
continued to remain in a spot where I have so little business?"
The impulse came to go. But such was the effect of this strange
convocation of persons, at night and in a mist which was itself a
nightmare, that I failed to take action and remained riveted to my
place, while Mr. Smead consulted his roll and finally asked in a
business-like tone, quite unlike his previous sarcastic speech, the
names of those whom he had the pleasure of seeing before him.
The old man in the chair spoke up first.
"Luke Westonhaugh," he announced.
"Very good!" responded the lawyer.
"Hector Westonhaugh," came from the thin man.
A nod and a look toward the next.
"John Westonhaugh."
"Nephew?" asked the lawyer.
"Yes."
"Go on, and be quick; supper will be ready at nine."
"Eunice Westonhaugh," spoke up a soft voice.