Now, the four days I passed at the Stone House I was like to die for

weariness and suspense. The routine was unbroken. I ate my breakfast in

the kitchen with the woman and the two men watching me; for an hour

thence I was free to exercise myself in the courtyard; all the days the

grey fog hung dank in the hollow, and the cobbles were wet and slippery.

The silent Bart was always within reach of me; Martin watched me from the

door, and the hound raved by the steps. Thence I was locked in my room

for the remainder of the morning; again brought down for dinner, again to

exercise in the courtyard; finally to be locked in my room for the night.

At dark, Mother Mag brought me my supper of bread and water; ere

midnight, Martin surveyed my room, to be assured that I was not

attempting to break out. I saw nothing of Roger Galt all this while. I

assumed that he had ridden away from the Stone House; through the parting

in the floor I could hear of a night only the mumblings of Martin and

Mother Mag; Bart never bore them company. From the certain likeness

among the three, I came to believe them all of the one evil brood; the

age of the hag, I thought, should make her their grandame, though Martin

treated her and Bart with the sneering insolence which he displayed

towards me. I knew that they expected daily the arrival of Captain Ezra

Blunt, who, I gathered from Martin, was master of the brig, _Black

Wasp_,—whether he was trader, smuggler, or pirate of the American coasts

I did not learn, but rather assumed, and dreaded all the more the life

awaiting me aboard.

But of Mr. Bradbury all this while? Was he dead? Or was he searching

for me, and on that lawless coast finding officers of the law poor

assistance to him? Would he yet come to the Stone House, and would he

come in time?

Now, the grey afternoon of the fourth day, I was looking drearily out of

my window, when I heard a voice calling from the gate. Mother Mag,

hobbling from the house, admitted Roger Galt; he rode up, mounted on his

great horse; by the flush of his reckless face and by his rolling in

saddle, he had been drinking deeply. Spying me at the window, he essayed

to flourish his hat, and almost fell from his horse in this endeavour. I

heard him presently wrangling with Martin in the room below, the deep

booming of his voice, the smash of a glass, as if he had failed to pour

himself a dram, or had slung a goblet at Martin’s head. But I paid

little heed to him, for my acute interest in the fellows whom Mother Mag

admitted on Roger’s heels into the courtyard. Twenty or more,—sunburned

seamen in loose breeches, rough jackets and red caps, a cutlass at every

man’s belt; a few country folk, men and women, driving a train of laden

pack-horses. Smugglers! I knew then the use of the Stone House, lonely

and near the sea, and guessed how the silks and laces and brandies and

what-not were secreted in its old cellars for distribution through the

countryside. There rode with these folk a rakish red-faced fellow on a

cob; his blue cloak, blown back in the wind, showed me his blue coat

ornate with gold lace and buttons, his white breeches poked into high,

mud-stained boots; he had a black hat thrust down upon his brows. All

these folk, entering the yard with much sound and clatter, passed about

the house, and out of view, Mother Mag following and calling for Bart. I

heard from beyond the house, presently, the rolling of barrels over

cobbles, the voices of the smugglers, and the baying of the hound. So

Blunt was come, with his seamen and his smuggled goods; so I was soon to

be handed over to him to be shipped overseas. Trembling, I waited by the

window, till the grey afternoon gave place to dusk and dark, with a cold

wind blowing, ever gaining strength and ever crying out around the house,

as though to share in the ever-swelling tumult of the smugglers. For the

quiet of the Stone House was at an end; it seemed that Captain Ezra

Blunt—if the fellow with the copper-red face were Blunt—and his folk

would spend a gay night ashore.

When the rolling of the barrels and the trampling of the horses ceased, I

heard the company clatter into the kitchen,—Mother Mag’s voice was shrill

as a fiddle-string over their laughter and the baying of the hound.

Their leader left them soon to join Martin and Roger in the room below

me; lying with my ear to the crack in the floor, I heard Martin address

him as “Blunt.” It appeared that Galt was now lying drunk by the fire,

for said Martin, “Our friend here’s been unloading an earlier cargo of

yours, Mr. Blunt. Don’t mind him! Sit you down and taste a dram!”—and I

heard the clink of glasses, and Blunt’s voice at first so low that I

could not make out his words.

“Will you be making back to the _Black Wasp_ to-night?” Martin asked.

“Mr. Craike would have a word with you at the Haven.”

I believed that Blunt answered that he had already met Mr. Craike.

Martin proceeded, “Don’t let these men of yours get too drunk, then. You

know what you’re to take away with you.”

“Ay, ay,” Blunt answered. “Young Craike.”

“Howe’s his name,” Martin asserted. “We’ve kept him safe for you. So

don’t let your men get too drunk!”

“Oh, they’ll be sober enough by dawn,” Blunt answered easily. “If not,

you and Bart can give me a hand down to the ship with him. Galt’s very

drunk.”

“He’s always drunk nowadays,” said Martin. “Don’t trouble about him.

But Mr. Craike surely gave you to understand that the lad was to be got

aboard in the dark. He must have told you of the old fool Bradbury, and

the hunt he’s making. Gavin Masters is backing him. There’s talk over

at the Haven of runners down from London. We’ll be having ’em here, if

Masters sets his wits to work. We’ll get the lad away now, if you’re

wise and willing, Blunt.”

“I’m not willing,” Blunt answered angrily. “I’m weary to death. I’ll

have supper and a bottle or more from old Mag’s cupboard, before I stir

this night. Damn Craike! What’s Craike to me?”

“Your master,” Martin snarled; then, as though apprehensive of my

listening, he lowered his voice; Blunt following suit, I heard them

muttering together; and, drearily, I rose and sat down on the bed. I was

to be taken out of the Stone House that night, and be set aboard Blunt’s

ship, _Black Wasp_, and that under the very nose of Mr. Bradbury and his

folk. Unless they came that night! I lifted my hands to heaven then,

and prayed that they might come to the house in time, or intercept my

captors on the way down to the sea. But I sat in the dark for hours, and

none came nigh me; below, the carousal rose to tumult.

I heard their voices roaring a chanty; I heard drunken laughter; once I

heard the sounds of strife, smash of bottles, clash of steel, fierce

cries; this uproar ceasing presently, the uproar and the singing

continued far into the night. All the while the wind rolled about the

Stone House; when I peered out, I saw the moon, now at the full,

cloud-chased; the light alternated swiftly with dark in the room, as the

wind blew the sacking to and fro. Ever the smugglers rioted within, and

the wind was riotous without.

Other folk came to the house in the night; at every cry at the gate I

would leap to my feet, hoping against hope that Mr. Bradbury and the

searchers after me were there; peering out, I saw in the moonlight only

seamen come, bringing still the smuggled cargo from the ship, and country

folk with teams to carry it away for distribution; the sounds of

discharge and loading from the courtyard were added to the sounds of

carousal in the house itself.

Not till long after moonrise did Mother Mag bring me my supper; this

night, she brought a mug of steaming spirits with bread and meat; when

she had set it down, she giggled shrilly at me; caught at my sleeve with

her skinny claw, and cried, “Eat and drink, young master,—drink while

your grog’s hot! You’re to travel far this night, and it’s bitter cold.

Drink!”

Her eagerness warned me, of course, against the grog. I answered, “I’m

not thirsty. I’ll not drink. Leave it there!”

She mouthed at me, and shook her fist at me; but, going out, paused at

the door to shriek at me, “Whether you drink or no, master, you’re going

from here to-night. Going, and never coming back!” Dragging the door to

with a crash, she descended the stair.

_Chapter XIII_. _Out of the Stone House_

As the night wore on, the clamour dulled; the roisterers were surely

drunken or wearied; few seemed astir. I heard the mumble of voices still

from the room below me; occasionally the shred of a chanty from the

kitchen; at times, the clatter of shoes over the cobbles of the yard, and

the outcry of the hound. But ever the wind blew through the night,

seeming to cry to me concerning great waters storm-tossed, whereon I

should be sailing after this night to the port of no return. Night drew

toward the hour before dawn; the moon was long since lost in massing

clouds packed high against the heaven by the wind. Lord, how the wind

battered at the house, making new clamour when the clamour died below;

always it cried to me of storm-tossed waters,—I had this sense upon me,

even when my overwrought mind growing dull, I fell asleep upon the bed,

and I had the sense still in my dreams. But suddenly I woke with a start

and a cry, to understand that pebbles were pattering through the bars and

falling into the room, and that a voice was muttering below the window,

“Young Craike,—hey, young Craike!” I snatched the sacking back, and in

the grey dawn saw a dark figure perched upon a ladder, his head a foot or

so below the sill.

“Galt!” I whispered.

“Hist! They may have heard the stones. Lord, how you slept! D’ye hear

them stirring?”

“No! No! Help me!”

“Can you slip through the bars?”

“No, they’re set too close and firm.”

He muttered, “Bart’s sleepin’ on the stair and Martin’s in the hall. The

woman’s got the key. Can you reach the roof by the chimney?”

“Blocked with brick!”

“No other way?”

“A manhole in the ceiling. If I could only reach it.”

“If you can only break out of that room, I’ll take you out of this. My

horse is saddled, waiting. I forgot those bars.”

I pressed my face down against the bars and whispered, “If you could

raise the ladder, we could pass it through the bars. It’d get me to the

trap-door. There’s sure a way out through the old roof. And a coil of

rope, if there’s one at hand. Tie that to the ladder.”

Grunting he descended; presently I saw him setting a barrel below the

window, and fixing a coil of rope to a rung of the ladder. He climbed on

to the barrel, gripped the ladder, and raised its head towards the

window. I caught the ladder, tilted it, and presently, rejoicing, had it

in the room, with no more sound than the wind should hide from the

drunken rogues below. Setting the ladder against the wall, and hitching

the coil of rope about my arm, I climbed, and to my joy reached easily

the trap-door above me. Exerting all my strength, I strove to force the

trap-door upwards. Lord, the shower of dust that descended, as the door

lifted, blinded me; broken slate or brick fell with the dust, and the

crash on the floor seemed fit to wake the dead. But, blindly struggling

upwards, and gripping a rafter, I pulled myself from the ladder, and

squeezed under the half-opened trap into the loft above my room.

An instant I lay in the dust and litter, exhausted,—the rats went

scurrying all about me; I heard the flapping of birds under the roof.

Struggling to my shaking knees, I forced the trap back into its place,

and without pausing to listen whether the fall of rubbish into the room

had roused the house, I groped forward through the blackness, my hope

being that I should find a trap opening on the roof itself, or that, with

the rottenness of the slates and the timbers I might break through, and

coiling my rope about a chimney, lower myself sufficiently to drop to the

ground. But as yet all was dark about me; a thick litter of dust and

feathers lay under my feet; groping still, I touched the slanting roof,

but thrusting with my hand found it yet set firmly for all the decay of

the years; I believed that I heard hoarse voices without the house, or

the growling of the wind upon the roofs. Creeping forward still, I

rejoiced to feel a cold draught of air blow upon me, and to see pale

light through many chinks. Loose slates, rotten wood, surely a decaying

patch in the roof, I dared to stand erect then, though fearing that the

mouldering, worm-eaten rafters would give way beneath me, and I should

crash into one of the upper rooms of the Stone House.

And as I lurched up, with a crash and splintering of slates, I broke

through the rotten roof; I was nigh the chimney stack; I could see the

leaden gutters below me,—birds flew out in a whirl. I could see Roger

Galt standing by his horse away from the house; I could hear the outcry

of the hound,—none of the folks save Roger seemed astir. I wriggled out

from the hole in the roof, though at first the slates cracked like thin

ice beneath me; and I began slowly to creep towards the chimney stack,

finding my hold in the breaks of the slates and the thick growths of moss

stuck closely to them. The roof held me; but, ere I reached the chimney,

the light was strong; had anyone come out of the Stone House I must have

been clear to view, though the sound of the wind hid the rasping of my

body over the slates. And slowly, with the wind beating upon me as if to

cast me down, I brought the rope about the chimney, and, securing it, let

myself slide down gradually to the gutter; gripping rope and gutter, I

lowered myself over the edge. On the instant, the hound broke into

furious clamour; a cry sounded below me; Martin was roaring, “Bart!

Blunt! Come here! Damn you—here!”

I was swinging now down the rope; at the end of the length I was little

below the gutter. At the alarm I lost my grip, and fell—by some chance

into a pile of bales of smuggled stuffs that they had left lying under

the wall; though the breath was knocked out of my body, and I lay there

gasping an instant, I was unhurt. I started up; dropped from the bales

on to the cobbles, and was staggering off; but, coming in a rush from the

house, the rogues were upon me. Martin and Bart had gripped me;

struggling wildly, I was borne backwards; on the instant came Roger Galt,

riding thunderously upon them. His riding-whip cracked upon Bart’s head;

his horse nigh trod Martin down; Roger’s great hand gripped my collar,

and swung me up before him.

Martin was screeching, “Galt! You’ll hang for this! Galt! Damn you!

Stop!” His pistol cracked after us, as Roger, turning his horse, set him

at full speed from the house. After us they came pell-mell,—Martin and

Blunt and his crew; I heard shots and their roaring voices. The gate was

barred against us; swinging back under the wall, Roger Galt suddenly put

his horse to it, and with a shock that almost drove my senses from me,

the horse brought us safely over.

We were away then at a gallop, and the clamour from the Stone House was

dying on the wind.

_Chapter XIV_. _Modesty of Mr. Galt_

Roger Galt was laughing triumphantly. He roared in my ear, “So you’ll

not go sailing overseas yet awhile, John Craike, to pleasure Uncle

Charles. Blunt’ll never earn his guineas for your kidnapping.”

“Thanks to you! Will they come after us, do you think?”

“There’s not a man among ’em has a horse can match mine. Save Martin!

And he’ll not dare. I vow by now Martin’s gallopin’ like the devil to

Craike House with the bad news for Charles.”

“Yes, and you’re like to suffer for it at Craike’s hands.”

He answered lugubriously, “Ay, I’m like to suffer for it if I remain in

this part of the country. But I’ll be riding elsewhere,—when I’ve set

you down. I’m not so much afraid of Craike or aught that he may do, that

I’ll dance to his fiddling always.”

“Why d’ye help me now?”

“For no more than knowin’ that you’re Dick Craike’s son.”

“He was your friend?”

“Ay, friend and master.”

“You said that he’d been put out of the way, as I’d be put out of the

way. What did you mean by that?”

“He was shipped overseas, I’ve heard tell.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Whither do you take me now?”

“Come to think of it now,” he answered, laughing, “I hadn’t thought of it

before. Not to Rogues’ Haven.”

“Do you know Mr. Bradbury?”

“I’ve heard tell of him.”

“He’s with old Gavin Masters—whoever he may be. Will you take me to him,

or set me down on the way to Masters’ house?”

He answered uneasily, “I’ll set you down near his house. I’ll not wait

on old Sir Gavin, I’m that modest, Mr. Craike. He’s a gentleman. He’s a

justice—as Charles Craike’s a justice.” His laughter sounded out on the

wind. “Ay, I’ll take you near enough. Get on, old horse! Get on!”

We were out then from the green cup in which the Stone House lay.

Looking back from the ridge, ere the trees took us into their company, I

saw the old house stand grey to the morning; I saw a confusion of figures

all about it; I saw a rider dashing from the gate and galloping of apace.

“Martin!” growled Roger. “He’s riding of for Rogues’ Haven to give

Craike word. I’ve a mind to cut him off.”

“Who is Martin? Bart and he are brothers, aren’t they?”

“Martin and Bart Baynes, ay, they’re brothers, both rogues, spawn of old

Mag Baynes’s son Adam,—he that was transported and died some year back.

Ay, transported he was, but died. Craike’s men, Mart and Bart—rogues

both!”

“Where does Rogues’ Haven lie?”

“That way”—with a sweep of his hand towards the rocky uplands. “Away,

with the wood all about it.”

“Why the name?”

“Didn’t you see and hear enough, young sir, in Mag’s house?”

“Smugglers—ay, and worse—is that why?”

“Ay, ay; and there’s odd tales of old Edward, how his money come—” but he

broke of—“I’m not forgettin’ you’re the old man’s grandson.”

“Forget that I am, and tell me.”

“There’s odd tales. Maybe he made his fortune in the East, like any

India merchant. He came as honest by it as many another, I’ve no doubt.”

“You mean dishonestly. What was my grandfather?”

He answered, laughing, “A gentleman of fortune, folk say”—and galloped on

through the trees and out upon the open moorlands.

Seated before him in saddle, with nigh as much discomfort to me as when

he had borne me on to Mag’s farm in the night, I fell to pondering over

the mystery of old Edward Craike. How had he come by his money? Mr.

Bradbury would never tell me, fencing me delicately; Roger Galt would

not, but “gentleman of fortune”—it might mean buccaneer, freebooter,

pirate, as Henry Morgan or many another. Ever my mother’s words recurred

to me, “the doomed house”—“ill-gotten wealth”—the thought of her hate of

Charles and terror of Rogues’ Haven. And the name and the company old

Edward kept? Howbeit, I should know soon. When once I was safe with Mr.

Bradbury, and the justice Sir Gavin Masters, and the thief-catchers from

London. And how would my uncle take all this, and what should be his

punishment, after his plot against me-defeated by this gentleman of the

road whom he had vowed to hang, if he should play him false, as Roger

Galt had played him!

But my thoughts were yet all awhirl, even as my body was jolted and

jarred before Roger Galt on his great black horse, as now putting his

mount to its full speed he galloped over the moors. He descended at last

on to a rough and broken road, striking back, as nearly as I might guess,

for the highway on which Mr. Bradbury and I had been intercepted. And,

suddenly, rounding a bend in the road, we came face to face with four

riders, at the sight of whom Roger pulled up abruptly—to snatch a pistol

from his holster, loosing his hold upon me, and muttering, “Jump down!

Quick! I’ll not stay!”

They came onward riding swiftly, as I dropped stiffly to my feet. Roger

Galt, with a wave of his hand and a cry, “Good day to ye, lad,” turned

his horse and was off at a gallop, ere I understood who came and why he

fled. And standing in the road, I swung round to meet the riders. I saw

Mr. Bradbury come riding swiftly through the morning; beside him a stout

gentleman in a scarlet coat as flushed as his jovial face; after them two

hard-looking fellows, who, by their grim visages and rigs, I took for the

runners whom Mr. Bradbury had called down from London.

Mr. Bradbury, with an exclamation, pulled up beside me; but the

red-coated gentleman, roaring, “After him! After him! There’s Galt!

There’s our man!” set spurs to his mount and galloped apace down the

track, with the two fellows clattering after.

Mr. Bradbury dismounted stiffly; hands outstretched, he came to me,

crying in that shrill voice of his, “Why, Mr. Craike—my dear sir! My

dear sir!”

“Good morning, Mr. Bradbury,” I answered, as he took my hands. “I’m glad

to see you.”

“But where in the devil’s name had they hid you? With whom were you

riding? He had cause to fear my friend here, Sir Gavin.”

“He’s Roger Galt. He took me out of Charles Craike’s hands, when he held

me prisoner in a farmhouse away on the moors miles from here.”

“Galt! A notorious fellow. Highwayman! There’s a price on his head.”

“Yet my father’s friend and mine. I’m safe through him. But for him I

should be aboard the ship of one Blunt, smuggler—may be worse; oh, it’s

been the prettiest of plots, Mr. Bradbury, and I’ve the wildest of tales

for you.”

“So!” he said swiftly. “So! Charles Craike thought to trick us, and

you’ve tricked Charles Craike. By heaven, he’ll answer for this—by

heaven! My dear sir, I’ve hunted high and low for you. Charles Craike

denied all knowledge of you. Old Mr. Edward would not lift a finger.

Lord knows and I guess the story our precious gentleman has told him of

you. But I’ll lay Charles Craike by the heels yet.”

“Mr. Bradbury,” said I, “your friend here and the runners follow after

Galt. I’d have no hurt come to him, for through him, and him only,

despite Craike, I’m here and safe ashore. Not that they’re like to take

him,” as I stared up the road and saw the riders pulling in, while Roger

vanished from view. “Charles Craike has sworn that Roger Galt shall pay

for this; I’d not have your friend there play Craike’s part, and set his

hands on Galt.”

“I’ll have a word with Sir Gavin,” Mr. Bradbury assented. “Not that

’twill count, for Sir Gavin is set against the fellow, he’s been swearing

indeed, for all I might say to the contrary, that not Charles Craike but

Galt was responsible for the outrage upon us.”

“You took little hurt from your fall, I trust, Mr. Bradbury.”

“Little save a bad shaking. I was afoot almost at once. And must step

it every foot of the way to the village—there’s a tolerable inn there,

whither I’ll now lead you, Mr. Craike.”

“And what then?” I asked.

“Why, surely, we’ll proceed to wait upon your grandfather, sir.”

“Unless my Uncle Charles plans otherwise.”

“Nay, we’ll ride thither this afternoon, sir, if you’re rested and well.

But the runners shall go beside our coach, lest Mr. Charles Craike still

desire that we shall not meet your grandfather.”

_Chapter XV_. _The Doomed House_

That afternoon I drove with Mr. Bradbury to my grandfather’s house, and

the two thief-catchers rode beside us. The house stood at a distance of

five miles from the little village that looked down upon the sea; from

the inn window I had caught sight of Blunt’s brig already putting out.

It was an ancient dwelling of the Craike family, that my grandfather,

enriched by trade in the East, Mr. Bradbury now assured me, had set in

repair for his habitation.

For all the outrage of my imprisonment, Mr. Bradbury would have me keep a

secret from old Sir Gavin Masters my detention in the Stone House. Let

it remain a secret, and let the scandal be hushed, he insisted, until we

had had our interview with my grandfather. I had an uneasy suspicion

that he believed the old man himself implicated in the plot against me,

or at least feared his resentment at interference with a crew of

smugglers, with whom he and his son were associated. Committing my cause

to Mr. Bradbury, I pleaded exhaustion; left him to tell what tale he

would to Sir Gavin, and kept my room until the hour of our departure from

the inn. I contented myself with insistence that Roger Galt should have

due credit for returning me to safety, and should not be held guilty of

the sins of Charles Craike and his rogues. What tale Mr. Bradbury told,

I knew not; as we drove away, he gave me to understand that Sir Gavin had

relinquished the search after Roger; I assumed that the justice himself

would not welcome an open breach with the smuggling fraternity—with whom,

indeed, I took it from furtive whisperings and black looks at me, the

folk at the inn—as, no doubt, the fisher-folk at the village—were in

league.

But what was my grandfather’s share in the plot of my kin against me I

conjectured bitterly. Mr. Bradbury observed that my uncle had

established great influence over the old man; that, indeed, the one

thought and acted habitually as the other. But he was bent still on my

presentation to my grandfather, as if he hoped that Mr. Craike might take

a liking to me, and my favour with him counteract the influence of my

Uncle Charles. So, cleanly-clad, well-dressed once more, I sat by Mr.

Bradbury in his coach, and proceeded with him to Craike House, as if none

of the events of the Stone House had happened; indeed, my curiosity to

learn what manner of man was my grandfather prevailed for the time over

perplexity and dread.

We drove always within sound of the sea, though it was hid from our sight

for the most; our way taking us over an old stone road; but at times,

where the cliffs were broken, we saw the waters grey and leaden still for

hanging clouds; the violence of the wind had abated, yet it blew keenly;

always the tang of the sea was in my nostrils. Our road struck at last

from the sea inland; we were driving soon through a deep wood; this was

unbroken, ere we came to iron gates in an old brick wall. A woman,

coming out of the gate-keeper’s cottage at the sound of coach and riders,

stared at us through the bars, but at the sight of Mr. Bradbury’s head

poking out of the window, and at his curt order, “Open the gates, woman.

Mr. Bradbury to see Mr. Craike!” she unlocked and opened the gates,

staring at us as we passed by. I saw her for a big woman, as nut-brown

as a gipsy, and as vivid in her red shawl and green kirtle; a swath of

orange-coloured stuff was about her black hair. We drove on, and the

runners clattered after us. Looking back, I saw the woman run into the

cottage, and reappear presently with a bearded fellow, rubbing his eyes

sleepily; I saw the glint of big rings in his ears, his rig of wide blue

breeches and red-striped shirt,—both remained staring after us, till the

trees hid them from us. The coach rolled on through a park, ill-tended,

overgrown, a very wilderness; green darkness dropped about us till we

came in sight of Craike House.

It stood amid tall pine and fir trees—a sombre, dreary house; the ivy

holding it in a green net, webbed across shuttered windows, climbing to

the very leads, and gripping the chimney stacks. An ancient, crumbling

house,—I had a notion that but for the ivy it must fall in ruins to the

ground; a house of gloom from the dark ivy—the evil green ivy, with the

black pines and fir trees all about it, with weeds and tangle of flowers

before it, where once had been rose gardens; with nettles and lank green

grass upon its lawns. We drove up, seeing no one; we pulled up before

the flight of stone steps leading up to its door,—steps worn by rains of

centuries, and by the feet of generations; steps guarded by stone

dragons, wingless and earless from their years, their eyes blinded and

their jaws stopped with green moss. Sombre and secret stood the house

amid the black cloud of pine and fir trees; I saw the black clouds lower

above it; I heard the winds cry out about it; the old trees strain and

sigh, and toss their boughs like arms, in lamentation or in terror for

the house,—the doomed house, where my kinsmen dwelt. Afar I heard the

drumming of the sea against the rock-bound coast. I had a curious

shapeless notion—prescience—that even as all the evil of the house—the

ill-gotten fortunes of the house—came from the sea, out of the sea should

retribution—vengeance—come.

Mr. Bradbury bade the runners and the coach-boy wait for us. Taking my

arm, he climbed the steps with me to the door; its oak was bound with

iron in fantastic pattern, and studded with copper nails; the knocker was

of copper in the form of a satyr’s grinning face,—and all this copper was

corroded, and the green stained the door as the evil green of the ivy

stained the front of the house. Mr. Bradbury raised the knocker with

difficulty; though it clashed heavily, it failed to bring response from

the house; whispering to me, “I’d have thought Charles would have been

keeping a sharper look out for our arrival than this,” he knocked double

knocks, until the clank of a chain and the screech of bolts sounded

within. The door opened, and an old man stood blinking out at us—an old

man, his clean-shaven face shrivelled and brown, and his eyes palely

blue; his white hair was powdered, and his suit of black on his bent and

withered body as neat and precise as his linen.

“Mr. Bradbury, sir,” he quavered.

“Your ears are not as sharp as they might be, Thrale,” said Mr. Bradbury,

drily. “Pray, open the door to Mr. Craike and me, and tell your master

that we have the honour to wait upon him in obedience to his wish.”

Thrale answered in that shaking voice of his—though his eyes looked

keenly and wickedly at me, “To be sure, gentlemen, to be sure! Pray step

inside!”—and opened the door slowly into the hall. It was a dark and

gloomy vault; ere old Thrale closed the door, I caught a glimpse of a

hall panelled all in oak, of canvases mouldering in mildewed frames, and

of a wide black stairway opposite the door, leading up into darkness. If

fanlight above the door or windows at the head of the stair should have

lit the hall, all light was kept out by curtains, shutters, or netted

ivy; the darkness of night fell with the closing of the door.

Mr. Bradbury, grasping my arm hurriedly, cried out, “Gad, how dark and

cold this house is, Thrale! I’m not prepared to take my death of a chill

waiting here till you announce us to your master. Go ahead of us, man,

and show us into his room immediately—d’ye hear me?” He adopted a tone

of brusque good humour, though well I understood his apprehension of what

might yet befall me, if we were left standing in the dark. The dark hung

mysterious all about us; I could feel cold draughts of air; I believed

that I could hear furtive whisperings and footsteps, doors softly opening

and closing, hangings waving; all this might have been the wind without.

Certainly I heard Thrale chuckle behind me, as he locked the door and

fixed the chain; he answered Mr. Bradbury, “As you wish, sir.”

“Strike a light, Thrale,—d’ye hear me?—a light. I’ve no mind to break a

leg or my neck in the dark! A light, Thrale!”

“Certainly, sir,” Thrale’s answer floated back to us, as he flitted away

in the dark.

“Why, damn the fellow, he’s leaving us after all,” gasped Mr. Bradbury.

“Thrale, you hear me? Thrale! Come back, man!”

But there came no sound save of the whisperings, gliding footsteps,

rustlings of hangings waving in the dark, or of the ghostly wind that

seemed to haunt the House of Craike. Mr. Bradbury’s left hand grasped my

arm; I understood that his right groped in his coat pocket for his

pistol. The impress of the blackness and gloom of the house was upon me,

while I had good cause to dread my uncle’s plotting; I stood straining my

eyes and ears in the darkness, imagining that figures advanced upon us in

the dark. Mr. Bradbury drew me back against the door, muttering, “By the

Lord, if the old rogue’s not back presently, I’ll take upon me to make a

dash for the stair and force my way into the master’s room.”

But he was silent, as a glimmer of light showed through the darkness.

Thrale was returning, carrying a silver candlestick; his face was

villainous and livid in the pale light.

“Where the deuce have you been, Thrale?” cried Mr. Bradbury. “Didn’t you

hear me call after you?”

Thrale answered quietly, “I asks pardon, Mr. Bradbury, sir. As you said,

I don’t hear as well as I might. I’d flint and steel to find,”—and stood

blinking at us, with the candlestick lifted high in his bone-white hands.

A skeleton’s hands—mere bone—they seemed to me, as the old rogue, at Mr.

Bradbury’s peremptory order, lit us up the stairs. The glimmer of pale

light, the lime-white head, the bone-white hands, the silver candlestick,

seemed from his noiseless movement to glide before us. From the head of

the stair wide galleries led off to right and left and before

us,—galleries shrouded with dark tapestries. I saw rusty armour standing

against the walls. I kicked against a pile of tumbled mail as the old

man flitted before us by many fast-shut doors down the corridor to the

left. He paused at a high black door, the glimmer of the candle showed

me grotesque carvings and tarnished gilding upon it; he rapped smartly on

this door with his bony fingers. No one answering, he opened the door,

and swept aside the thick green curtains hanging before it.

The room revealed was high and wide; only a pale green light crept

through the diamond panes of its two windows stained by the mosses of the

years and netted with the ivy. For the time I had no eye for its

furnishings, but only for the figure in the carved black chair by the

fire. He was an old man; he had been of great stature and strength, his

bulk was supported now by faded purple cushions. He seemed to prop

himself upon the arms of his chair; his wide, brown hands were stained

with red jewels; I had an uneasy fancy of blood-smeared hands. His

clean-shaven face was very broad, bronzed and congested, his brows were

framed in white hair tumbling about his immense shoulders; his eyes were

coal-black beneath ash-grey brows. His whole aspect suggested decaying

will, as his body decaying strength. A quilted gown of green and

gold-brocaded silk was corded about his middle; his bent legs were cased

in black silken breeches and hose; his shoe buckles were set with

smoke-blue jewels; an ebony stick rested by his chair.

“Mr. Craike,” said Mr. Bradbury, stepping swiftly forward and bowing

politely, “I have the honour at last to present your grandson—Mr. John

Craike!”

_Chapter XVI_. _Old Mr. Edward Craike_

It may have been only the leaping flame upon the hearth, but it seemed to

me that colour rose to the old brown face, and that light burned in the

coal-black eyes. An instant only, and his aspect was hard and grim. He

did not offer his hand to Mr. Bradbury or me; he seemed still to prop

himself upon the arms of his chair; he said, in tones curiously rich and

full for so old a man, “You wrote to me, Bradbury, and Charles answered

you at my dictation that I would receive you.”

“Well, we are here, sir,” said Mr. Bradbury, easily.

“And you are here! You know me well enough, Mr. Bradbury, to understand

my wishes. I do not welcome your visit. I felt bound only to receive

you and hear you. Why have you come?”

Mr. Bradbury, standing forward, sought his snuff-box, and made play with

it; the cold jewels shining white upon his fingers, his eyes hard and

keen as his diamonds. “Mr. Craike,” he said, “our interview with you

should surely be in private. Is there any need for Thrale to remain?”

“Set chairs, Thrale, and I’ll ring for you—if I need you. Is Mr. Charles

in the house?”

“No, sir,” answered Thrale, his malignant look marking resentment against

Mr. Bradbury. “He’s abroad.”

“If he return, tell him to come to my room. Set chairs—damn you! Set

chairs! Don’t stand there like a candle in a draught. Like to be blown

out any minute—eh, Bradbury, eh?” and passed from sudden passion to loud

laughter.

As Thrale set chairs by the fire for Mr. Bradbury and me, I found the

opportunity to look about the room. It was lit by those green panes

dully for the lateness of the afternoon, and by the leaping flame. It

had been a rich, ornate room; I saw dull gold and faded colours in some

sombre painting upon the ceiling; faces on the walls—portraits of gloomy

folks much of the aspect of the grim old man looking across the

green-veined marble hearth at us. A panelled room with heavy tapestries

corrupt with moth and grime, with heavy furniture dark with age, a huge

four-poster with black silken curtains, black presses, black table; pale

gleam of crystal and silver upon a sideboard, old books in a high case.

Only a Persian carpet by my grandfather’s chair and his garish gown and

gems lent rich colour to the room; all else was gloomy, tarnished, faded.

Gloom—surely over all the house was gloom; surely the wind beating on the

windows, moaning and sighing, was burdened with a tale of sins; surely a

sense of evil brooded in this room,—where sat old Edward Craike to think

of life drawing near to death,—to think, maybe, of punishment for years

of sinning. For on the face was scored a record of old sins and dead

passions; its aspect was evil; the lips were merciless; the brooding

eyes, from the sudden blazing wrath at Thrale, could burn with an unholy

fire. Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood,—I could feel for this old

broken man no pity, no affection. I found myself conjecturing only that

these eyes would face death—surely so near him—courageously, as an

intrepid voyager’s looking on uncharted seas.

Thrale, stepping noiselessly, withdrew.

Mr. Bradbury leaned forward swiftly. “Now, sir,” he said, “I ask you to

listen to me patiently.”

“Go on, Bradbury!”

“I ask you to remember your affection for your son Richard—such affection

as you have not felt for any other being.”

He said heavily, “Why recall the past, Bradbury? What is the past but a

voyage I have made, and come from with an empty hold?”

“Ay, surely,” assented Mr. Bradbury, taking snuff and smiling. “You have

a gift of melancholy, Mr. Craike.”

“Bradbury, you speak to me as no man dares to speak.”

“You permit me,” said Mr. Bradbury quietly, “to speak frankly to you,

knowing me your friend, Mr. Craike, and honest in my dealings with you.

As your friend—as your son’s friend—I am here. Mr. Craike, you’ve sailed

over the world in your day; you’ve suffered shipwreck; you’ve been cast

away. What would you not have given—even you—to have had with you upon

the desert isle you’ve told me of, one of your kind—one of your blood?”

“Allegory, Bradbury?” he said, impassively.

“Allegory, surely! Seeing you sitting here alone—knowing you all these

days alone, as surely as were you on your desert isle, longing—as any

human being must long—for kith and kin, for friend, at least for one of

whose companionship—affection even—you might be assured.”

“You mean this lad here?” in unaltered tone.

“Who else? Look at this lad! Frame a picture in your mind, Mr.

Craike—your son Richard’s—set Richard’s likeness and this boy’s side by

side. And will you say that this lad seated here is not, feature for

feature, colour of eyes and hair and skin, in body, manner—your son,

Richard?”

My grandfather said slowly, “Richard was as all our race. The lad is

Richard look for look. What is it to me, Bradbury? My son was never

wed.”

I felt my cheeks burn; ere Mr. Bradbury might restrain me, I started up,

and facing the old man, cried out, “And there you lie! If I be the son

of Richard Craike—and that I be I care not—no man shall question or deny

my parents’ honour, take their name lightly. You hear me,—you lie!”

He did not stir in his chair; his aspect was unchanged save that the

light seemed to burn up in his old eyes. He said coolly, “The lad is

Richard’s son, Bradbury.”

“And rightly resentful of your words, sir,” cried Mr. Bradbury, snapping

his snuff-box.

“Bradbury, don’t try me too far. You are at liberty to go at once—with

Richard’s son.”

“Mr. Craike,” said Mr. Bradbury, leaning forward in his chair, and

looking intently at my grandfather, “knowing you—your sense of justice—I

dare to tell you, as the lad has told you, that you lie. Your son was

wedded nineteen years back to Mary Howe—you will recall her.”

“Surely—serving-woman to Mrs. Charles.”

“He was wedded to her in London, after Charles and his wife,

understanding Richard’s passion for her, had driven her from this house.

Their enmity pursued her—from house to house, employment to employment.

She was in London—destitute, nigh starving—when Richard, returning from

the Continent, sought and found her. He married her in London—nineteen

years since, Mr. Craike, nineteen years since. He lived for several

years with her in London under her name of Howe, earning his living

honestly, not communicating with you and taking nothing from you. He

disappeared ten years or so back. Mr. Craike, the agency that robbed you

of your son; that took him from his wife and child, that shipped him out

of England or hid his body in the ground—for whether he be alive or dead

I cannot tell, even as you—I do believe to be the active enmity of your

son Charles—his jealousy of Richard Craike, his elder brother and your

heir.”

And now at last I saw the cruel lips part; and now I heard the old man

gasp and mutter to himself; I saw the red flash upon his shaking hands; I

saw his eyes burn up, and flame from Bradbury to me.

“Mr. Craike,” Mr. Bradbury proceeded, “the proofs of this marriage—of the

boy’s legitimacy—are in my hands.”

“You have these proofs with you?”

“Mr. Craike, would I be such a fool as to bring them here? Would Mrs.

Richard Craike entrust them to me, coming to this house? We have them

and we hold them.”

“Fearing me?”

“No! Fearing your son Charles. With cause, sir, with bitter cause! And

hear this, sir, we should have been here days since—would have been—but

for your son. His agents waylay our coach; his agents carry off the boy

and gaol him in the Stone House you may know of. Ay, and would have

shipped him overseas with Blunt—smuggler, freebooter—what is he? All

this, all this,—to keep the lad from you, sir, while you sit by your fire

alone—alone!”

“You’ve proof of this? I have no knowledge of any plot?”

“Proof! Am I fool or trickster, Mr. Craike?”

“I do not think you fool or trickster, Bradbury.”

“Look on this boy: his likeness to your son Richard. Knowing your son

Charles, think at what he would stay to keep him from your sight.”

He said deliberately, “I know my son Charles even as I know myself. I am

no censor, Bradbury. Charles would have kept this lad away from me, say

you? Fearing lest he commend himself to me and profit by it; take more

at my death than by the law he must inherit. Money and jewels—knowing on

what I have my hand. What of it, Bradbury? Had I been Charles; had I

desired to keep my brother’s son out of my father’s sight—for such a

reason—I would have done as Charles has done. Only, I was bolder in my

day than Charles. Enough, what is all this to me?”

“Yet Charles has failed,” said Mr. Bradbury, grinning, “and you will

profit by it, Mr. Craike. Do you love Charles?”

“You need not ask that, Bradbury.”

“And you loved Richard. You should favour Richard’s son. Alone—I said

of you—alone, with thoughts—and terrors.”

“Had the sea ever terror for me, Bradbury, or peril, or the dark? What

terrors now?”

“Mr. Craike, you are a man, and the unknown after death is terrible to

men. Except they have a faith that you have not. Unhappily!”

“I have no faith, or fear.”

“Oh, if you be prepared to sit alone in your last years,—face death

alone,” Mr. Bradbury said earnestly, “I appeal still to what was human in

you—love for your son Richard. Let your heart turn to Richard’s son.”

“What purpose would you serve?”

Mr. Bradbury did not answer, but was taking snuff, and coldly regarding

my Uncle Charles, who had drawn aside the curtain, and was standing in

the doorway.

_Chapter XVII_. _Creed of Mr. Charles_

He stepped forward—a handsome, smiling gentleman of middle age, his face

ivory-white, his white hair held by a black ribbon, his dress as precise

as Mr. Bradbury’s, but set off by his shapely body. He wore no jewel; he

had no touch of colour on him, save the red line of his lips and the cold

blue of his eyes. He bowed with a courtly grace to Mr. Bradbury; he

vouchsafed me the merest lift of his brows.

Mr. Bradbury met him with an equal composure. “It’s as well that you

came here, Mr. Charles,” he said. “You formed the subject of our

conversation.”

“Indeed,” he answered, indifferently, and, pulling forward a chair, he

seated himself beside his father. “I am happy to believe, sir, that

you’re prepared to speak of me as freely in my presence as in my

absence.”

“I am to take this as your permission, Charles?” asked Mr. Bradbury,

smoothly.

“Why not?” my uncle asked, smiling.

“Well, then, I have introduced this young gentleman to your father as

your brother’s son, John Craike. I have already informed your father of

the steps you took to prevent his arrival at Craike House.”

“My sole concern,” said the gentleman, carelessly, “is that I failed.”

“You admit your culpability?” asked Mr. Bradbury, meeting him with an

equal composure.

“Culpability! Pray, your snuff-box, Bradbury—I haven’t mine by me.

Thank you!” leaning forward and taking a pinch. “I admit no culpability,

my dear Bradbury.”

“It is, to be sure, merely a question of phrase,” Mr. Bradbury conceded,

drily. “It is enough for me that you failed. Admitting this, then, do

you admit equally your responsibility for your brother’s disappearance

from England?”

I saw my grandfather lean forward in his chair, his hands now gripping

the ebony stick; the movement was not lost upon my uncle.

He answered swiftly, “That, Bradbury, I deny wholly. You are well aware

of my affection for my brother, and my natural grief at his

disappearance.”

“Well aware,” said Mr. Bradbury, with some show of anger. “And well

aware, Charles, that if you were responsible, you would not dare to admit

this before your father, knowing his actual affection for your brother as

for no other being. Yet you admit before him your culpability—your

guilt—in regard to this young gentleman—your brother’s son.

Understanding that Mr. Edward Craike here takes a—shall I say

tolerant?—view of many things that others,—I,—that the law of England

regard as crimes, Charles Craike—as crimes punishable with the utmost

rigour.”

“Really, Bradbury, you grow prosy,” Mr. Charles protested.

“You impose upon our friendship, Bradbury,” the old man muttered.

“Mr. Craike,” said Mr. Bradbury, “would you have me make-believe to you

of all men? Your son attempts to put away his brother’s son. He admits

his guilt coolly—with effrontery, and you say nothing! I expected you to

say nothing. But by his denial of his responsibility for the

disappearance of Richard Craike from England, Charles here proves this to

me—his realisation of your love for his brother, and the certainty of

your righteous anger and his punishment, if it could be proved against

him.”

“Bradbury! Bradbury!” Charles Craike murmured, smiling; but for the

first time I saw a show of colour in his face, and a tightening of his

lips.

“The lad,” persisted Mr. Bradbury, “is Richard’s son. Legitimate! Be

silent, Charles”—as the gentleman, with a bitter exclamation, started

from his chair. “Don’t think that I, of all men, would come here,

present this lad to Mr. Craike as his grandson, unless I were in

possession of irrefutable proofs—that Richard Craike was married to Mary

Howe, and that the boy is the child of that marriage. Nor would I have

brought him to this house, but that I realise, as fully as I understand

aught of Mr. Craike—that the best of Mr. Craike—his natural affection—was

given wholly to his elder son.”

Mr. Bradbury leaned forward, eyeing the pair keenly. Charles Craike,

impassive now, sat back in his chair; the old man had lowered his eyes,

and now it seemed at last was moved and trembling; the ebony stick in his

grasp clattered upon the hearth.

“I hoped,” said Mr. Bradbury, “to offer my client a little happiness in

his last days. If I could not give him back his son, at least I could

give him his grandson—look for look, colour for colour—the image of his

son.”

Now my grandfather’s eyes burned suddenly upon me; now he leaned forward

in his chair; colouring and confused, I sat staring at him in turn. He

muttered then, “Bradbury—these proofs!”

“The proofs are in our possession, sir. Necessarily, I could not bring

them to this house.”

“Ay, but proofs, proofs—your bare word.”

“Mr. Craike,” said Mr. Bradbury, disdainfully, “when have you ever had

occasion before to question my probity?”

My grandfather was silent; again his eyes were cast down; the ebony stick

in his grasp did not cease to clatter on the hearth. Charles Craike sat

silent. Mr. Bradbury, snapping his snuff-box, rose from his chair.

“That is all I have to say to you, Mr. Craike,” he said, quietly. “I beg

you to give this matter your earnest consideration, realising that at

least the boy is the heir of Craike House, and realising that it is in

your power to enrich him from your private fortunes as surely, sir, you

would have enriched your son.”

I wondered at the composure of my Uncle Charles. He had risen with Mr.

Bradbury, and now stood leaning against the chimney-piece, his face

revealing nothing of the rage which surely racked him.

“I beg to take my leave of you, Mr. Craike,” said Mr. Bradbury, bowing to

my grandfather. “Come, lad!”

But as I started up, glad enough to be away, the old man’s cane smote

heavily upon the hearth. “The lad,” he growled, “stays here, Bradbury!”

“Mr. Craike, were you alone in this house,” said Mr. Bradbury, swiftly,

“nothing could give me keener pleasure than that your grandson should

remain with you. But Craike House is Craike House, and the lad goes with

me.”

“He stays here!” cried the old man, with sudden stormy anger. “Damn you,

Bradbury, he stays here!”

“Mr. Craike, I am answerable for the lad’s safety.”

“Really, Bradbury, really!” Charles deprecated.

“The lad will come to no hurt in this house,” the old man said, and his

eyes blazed suddenly at Charles. “You hear me, Charles? No hurt shall

come to him! If hurt come to him,—if, in defiance of me you seek to

injure him, and separate my son’s son from me, as they took my son from

me,—look to it, Bradbury, that no concern for me, and no desire further

to keep the secrets of this house, shall stand between my grandson’s

enemies and justice! Justice, Bradbury! The boy stays here. You remain

to dine with me, Bradbury. There are affairs.”

Smiling triumphantly, Mr. Bradbury bowed.

“I am honoured, Mr. Craike,” he said; and with a flourish, offered his

snuff-box to my Uncle Charles, who accepted a pinch, maintaining an

ineffable composure.

_Chapter XVIII_. _Compact of Tolerance_

An hour thence I sat in the room which was to be mine while I remained in

Craike House, and to which the shadowy Thrale had conducted me. It was a

great bed-chamber, its windows overlooking dark woods and hills, and afar

through the dropping dusk the leaden greyness of the sea. On entering, I

had hastened to throw wide the casement, regardless of the coldness of

the wind, but seeking by its freshness to dispel the thick, dead

mustiness of the room. A gloomy chamber—the fire smoking on the hearth,

the furniture of old dark oak, a great four-poster hung with sombre green

silk, presses like tombs, the mirrors, so dull with damp, neglect and

age, as scarcely to reflect the pale gleam of the candles, which I had

lit against the approaching darkness.

One painting only hung within the room, above the black marble

chimney-piece. It might have been a portrait of my Uncle Charles, yet if

the painter had depicted faithfully the manner of the man, this cavalier

wore no such mask as my uncle affected; the face was boldly evil. The

sinister gaze seemed to follow me from hearth to window-seat, the head to

bend forward from the rich lace collar; the jewelled hands of this

cavalier in green and silver to touch the sword in menace. A hateful

portrait, yet I had less dislike of it than of my uncle’s aspect; the

portrait might well have revealed the soul of Charles Craike, hid in him

by his smiling and composed demeanour, his distinction of person, mode

and manner, even as the beauty of the body conceals the skeleton. The

ceiling of my room, painted after the manner of my grandfather’s room,

suggested by its riot of bodies, gold gleam of wine cups and brocades,

the taste of a dead kinsman; mayhap, the cavalier over the chimney-piece

had had the decoration of Craike House. Like the hangings of the bed,

the tapestries upon the wall—recording the devoutness of some kinswoman

by depicting the quest of the Sangreal—were riddled with moth and dull

with dust. Over all the room, as over the house and the wood about it, a

cloud seemed to brood; still, in the whipping of the ivy against the

panes, the whistling of the wind, and the stir of the hangings, I seemed

to hear the whispering voices; the gloom prevailed over the pale

candlelight or the spurts of flame upon the smoking hearth. “The doomed

house—the doomed house”—I repeated my mother’s words. I found

resemblance between the house of Craike and my grandfather,—in the decay

upon them both, the storms scored on the front of man and house; the

breaking frames concealing secret sins, the end approaching. The doomed

house—so from my first knowledge of it I thought of my kinsmen’s home

amid the darkling wood.

And here was I to remain after Mr. Bradbury’s departure from the house

that night. I had the assurance of my grandfather’s protection, against

my uncle, who hated me, as he had hated my father. What was this

treasure old Edward Craike had amassed that for it—surely for it—Charles

should have sold his soul? Now, for the fear of losing this treasure,

compelled by the threatening of an old and breaking man to hold his hand

from me—his rival; the irony of it brought a bitter smile to my lips. I

had no definite terror yet of the house and its folk; terror I might have

on the moors, terror in the Stone House—to be done to death in my sleep,

or terror in the hands of Blunt—shipped aboard his brig, for, it might

be, the port of death; but here I was no more afraid of the event than a

man may be afraid of life’s adventure. I understood easily that the will

of one man—though this man near to dying—held in thrall the folk of

Rogues’ Haven; that this will decreed that I should dwell securely in the

house; I believed my uncle, for all his jealous hate of me, would not

dare lift his hand further to do me hurt. The mystery of the house, even

as the mystery of life to be, allured me; I was glad to be in the Rogues’

Haven, and in the company of its folk, even as I was glad to be alive.

As yet my grandfather had not addressed me directly. The fluttering

ghost, Thrale, ere leaving me in my room, had said no more than that a

bell would summon me to dinner; that he would then have the room properly

prepared for me; and that a groom would bring my baggage over from the

inn that night. I had laved my face and hands, and smoothed my hair;

this was all the toilet I might make for dinner, and I was resting in a

chair by the hearth when there came a knocking on my door. At my call

“Come in!” my uncle entered. He stood an instant in the doorway; from my

subsequent knowledge of him he had a just appreciation of the advantages

of his appearance,—a superb figure of a man, even as in the niceties and

preciseness of his dress and his courtly manners he bore the semblance of

a gentleman. He had made a change of his dress; he wore still sober

black, which he affected ever; but his coat and breeches were cut very

elegantly; his linen was of a silver whiteness, and illumined by a fine

diamond in his cravat; the snuff-box in his delicate fingers was set with

brilliants. He made me a little bow and smiled upon me.

“Pray be seated, nephew,” he said, as I rose from my chair. “I trust

that I do not intrude on your repose.”

I sought to match my manners with his own, but failed lamentably; bowing

with an ill grace, drawing a chair forward for him with a clatter, and

feeling myself colour to the tips of my ears, I said, “I’m not so weary

for the want of rest these past few nights, sir, that I’d be sleeping

now. Pray sit down!”

He sat down, lolling back in his chair, and crossing his shapely legs.

“Surely between kinsmen,” he said, smiling, “frankness is natural. Your

meaning is patent. Having had so little sleep through my detention of

you at the Stone House, you’re weary, and would rest alone. My dear

nephew, selfishness has always been my failing—indeed, it is a failing of

our family. Forgive me, then, if I trespass, having a word or two to say

to you. Will you hear me?”

“Surely.”

He said deliberately, “For aught that I have done to keep you from this

house; for aught that I have said concerning you, your parentage and

birth, I offer no excuse and ask no pardon. I am no hypocrite at least,

my nephew. Indeed, I did believe, when I read Bradbury’s letter to my

father, that though our blood might run in you, you could have no

legitimate claim upon us. I do not question Mr. Bradbury’s assurance

now”—with a hasty wave of his hand, as if to pacify my swift resentment.

“You took affront—natural affront—at words of mine you overheard in the

Stone House; accepting Mr. Bradbury’s assurance, I own myself mistaken.

I tell you, nephew, believing as I then believed, I still would do what I

have done to keep you from my father, and to prevent any marks of favour

he may show you. Am I frank with you?”

“You’d have me believe so,” I muttered, vengefully.

He laughed, and made me a bow. “Nephew,” he said, “you’re here; you’ve

caught the fancy of your grandfather; how long you’ll retain it I’ll not

conjecture, knowing so little of you. He’ll have no hurt come to you at

my hands; it is my habit to obey him,”—with a bitter sneer.

“Fearing him?” I ventured.

“As much as I fear any man,” he answered, carelessly. “It’s to my

advantage to be dutiful; it is to the advantage of any man to be dutiful

to a rich kinsman, as of the place-hunter to fawn upon a personage with

star or ribbon. Tush, nephew, my practice is the practice of all wise

men: to accept the fact, and shape myself to the fact, to seek advantage,

and employ what wit I have for the attainment of it. I’m not prepared to

love you, nephew; there is no need for that hypocrisy.”

“None!” I assented bitterly.

“But while my father lives,” he proceeded, “we’re to be inmates of this

house. We’re to meet daily; to live our lives together; to appear in

public together. It would be tedious to me that we should be for ever

wrangling. Let us then be frank with each other,—hate each other, but

let us not show our lack of breeding by impoliteness. John, while we’re

together in this house, I am prepared to play dutiful kinsman, preceptor,

friend. And you?”

For my very hate of him I could only seek to match my wit with his own.

I answered, “And I, my dear uncle, am prepared to ape the part of dutiful

nephew—to assume all the respect, affection, trust, I do not feel for

you.”

He laughed; he rose from his chair. “We understand one another, nephew.

I compliment you upon your breeding. Let us join the gentlemen.”

He took my arm with a gay show of cordiality; arm in arm we went down to

dinner, as the bell was clanging through the house.

_Chapter XIX_. _Company at Dinner_

The dining-room was gloomy as a vault. The candles, burning in branching

silver sticks on the white cloth, might have been tapers burning for the

dead. A tapestry of flickering lights and shadows seemed to drape the

room; ever and anon the leaping firelight or the waving candle-flame

would be reflected from some piece of plate, or crystal, or gilded frame.

I saw the colour show like blood from one great canvas. In the dimness,

the servants moving to and fro in final preparation for the meal, seemed

ghostly figures. I wondered that all should be old men, till I

recollected Mr. Bradbury’s explanation to me of the name of Rogues’

Haven, the fact that my grandfather retained about himself his associates

and servitors in the making of his fortunes.

I found my grandfather seated in a chair by the fire, and engaged in

conversation with Mr. Bradbury. Mr. Craike had put off his gown for an

old-fashioned coat of black, gold-braided and gold-buttoned, and a

flapped waistcoat of black silk, flowered with gold; the red jewels

glittered still upon his hands, and a brooch of red stones secured the

fine laces at his throat. He presented a singular, almost barbaric

figure in contrast to the precision of my uncle and Mr. Bradbury.

Waiving formality, all the company at dinner was assembled in the

dining-room; two young folk were seated a little apart,—a girl of about

my own years and a youth perhaps a year older—him I knew, by his dark

likeness to my uncle, for his son Oliver, whom Mr. Bradbury had already

mentioned to me; but he had not spoken to me of the girl. My uncle,

leading me forward, presented me to her; I scarcely caught his words for

my confusion, as I bowed awkwardly to her curtsy; but I gathered that she

was his ward, Miss Milne; and I recollected that Milne was his wife’s

name. I remember that I was repelled by my impression of a dark, sullen

face; her black hair fell in ringlets about thin white shoulders, her

lips were pale, her grey eyes seemed sunken. Her grey gown became her

ill, and she wore no ornament.

My attention was claimed instantly by my uncle—“My dear John,—your cousin

Oliver”—blandly making us known, yet his tone suggesting to me disfavour,

if not actual dislike, for the ungainly figure of his son. Ungainly, yet

built strongly, wholly lacking his father’s elegance,—his hair coarse and

black, his brows black, his look sullen and lowering—Oliver Craike yet

pleased me more than any of my kinsmen to whom I had been made known. I

understood the sturdy strength of him for the rippling muscles displayed

by the fine cut of his black clothes; his hand gripped mine with a force

that was not hostile; his eyes looked as sullenly at me as Miss Milne’s.

“You’re welcome, cousin,” he muttered, while my uncle smiled on us

urbanely, and expressed a polite wish that as kinsmen we might be

friends.

But Mr. Bradbury claimed my immediate attention; with a word of apology

to my grandfather, he rose from his chair, and drew me apart from them.

“I’ll be penning a letter to Chelton,” he said. “Have you any commission

with which you care to entrust me? My letter to your mother at least

will be delivered.”

“No more than a message to her,” I answered, with a sudden longing for

the peace and happiness of Chelton and my mother’s cottage, and for the

companionship of Tony Vining. “That I’m all eagerness to return to her.

That I’ll not long remain here.”

“I shall assure her,” he said, smiling at me, “that you’re safe with your

grandfather, and that you’ve commended yourself to his favour, and are

happy.”

“You interpret me too freely, Mr. Bradbury,” I said.

“Nay, now,” he protested, smiling. “I’m anxious only to convey to your

good mother a message that may allay her fears, and set her mind at

rest.” Lowering his tone, that only I might hear him, he added, “You’re

safe here, lad. Your grandfather’s will is law. I assure you that you

have won his favour by your looks and speech, your resemblance to your

father. You will be safe; a year or so, a few months—nay, days,

maybe—and you’ll be rich and free to live your life where and how you

will. And I’ll be accurately informed of your condition here; I’ll be at

hand.”

He broke off, observing that from the hearth my grandfather and my uncle

watched us closely. And at the moment Thrale stepped forward to announce

that dinner was served; my uncle gave my grandfather his arm to assist

him to his chair at the head of the table. The old man presided, with

Mr. Bradbury on his right and my uncle on his left; I sat with the girl

beside me, my cousin Oliver frowned darkly at us from across the board.

Mr. Bradbury had prepared me for my grandfather’s wealth—the neglect and

disorder of house and grounds might have served to negative this; I

wondered yet at the magnificence of the silver upon the table and at the

luxury of the meal. I wondered at the richness, and the fantastic design

and chasing of this massy plate, at the curious goblets of crystal, as at

the rare wines and meats and fruits. But I was amazed and more concerned

at my grandfather’s servants—old men, old rogues—I looked on wrinkled

faces, brown as with the burning of tropic suns and the lashing of

tropical seas; brown hands offered me dishes and filled my glass; a

sleeve slipping back from a bony wrist showed me dull blue tattoo marks;

glancing over my shoulder I saw an evil brown face, and believed that the

old man leered at me. All the while the girl beside me uttered not a

word; Oliver devoted himself to his dinner; and my grandfather conversed

in low tones with Mr. Bradbury. Not till the girl had left us silently,

and the cloth was drawn, and we sat over our wine, did aught come to

break the silence about me. My cousin, I saw, was drinking deeply; his

face was flushed with wine; once, as he looked up suddenly, and our eyes

met, he scowled blackly at me. My uncle was sitting watching his son,

his look expressive of contempt; now, as if to divert my attention from

Oliver’s intoxication, he leaned forward, and with a tolerable show of

cordiality, bade me draw in my chair, and take wine with him.

But my grandfather broke in, “I’ve a toast, Bradbury—a toast, Charles,”

and rose unsteadily, and lifted his glass in a shaking hand. Mr.

Bradbury raised his glass, my uncle watched the old man, smiling; Oliver

was muttering thickly to himself; I saw the old brown men watching from

the shadows.

“A toast,—I’ll drink few more, Bradbury—I’ll drink few more. I’ll give

ye the fortunes of our family—Charles, and the rest of ye. I’ll drink to

my son Dick’s home-coming—hey, Charles—hey, Bradbury? Or, if he’s dead,

I’ll have ye drink to my heir—whosoever he may be!”

He laughed harshly, and drank his wine. The stem of the crystal snapped

suddenly in my uncle’s fingers; the wine ran blood-red from his white

hand. Oliver burst into a roar of drunken laughter.

_Chapter XX_. _Soul of a Man_

Mr. Bradbury took his leave shortly after dinner, driving off in his

coach, attended by the Bow Street runners. He was allowed no further

opportunity of speech with me, my uncle engaging him in conversation; my

grandfather sitting grim and silent by the fire. From time to time, I

found his eyes studying me, as I sat glumly apart; his face was

expressionless of his sentiment to me. My cousin Oliver had been aided

from the room by Thrale on my uncle’s direction. On Mr. Bradbury’s

departure, the old man went to his room, leaning on his son; and I was

left alone by the fire.

The fire was burning down into coals; the candles flickered on the

chimney-piece; the reflections flitted like white moths over the mirrors;

else the room was draped with shadows. All about me I heard furtive

sounds; out of the gloom I believed that the bleared eyes of the old

rogues who served my grandfather surveyed me secretly,—this may have been

no more than a phantasm of my mind, yet I could have sworn that, when the

coals fell, and the red flame splashed into the well of darkness about

me, I saw those wrinkled brown faces—surely burnt by the suns of the

Spanish Main or the Indies. Rogues’ Haven! I was realising what manner

of man was my grandfather; I was conjecturing that he had sailed across

the seas in his heady youth, and grown rich with plunder.

I have a belief—it dates from the time I passed at Rogues’ Haven—that the

spirit of a man is stamped upon the house in which he dwells. Surely the

spirit of old Edward Craike impressed itself upon his gloomy home, and

the mystery of the man was the mystery of the house. Ay, the past of our

race and the past of my grandfather alike affected the ancient house,

meshed in a monstrous web of dark green ivy, clouded by gloomy woods, and

blown upon by melancholy winds. Now did faces peer our of the shadows at

me, seated drearily by the fire? Did I hear whispering, muttering, or

did I but imagine voices in the wind come up from stormy sea to the black

woods, to cry about the dwelling, and moan and sigh, and to creep in by

breach and crack and cranny, to stir the dusty, moth-corrupted hangings,

and fill the house with secret rustling, sighing?

My uncle did not rejoin me till the night was far advanced. He came in

stepping so stealthily that at the sudden sight of him standing beside

me, and watching me with haunted eyes, I started from my chair, and

scarcely repressed a cry. He smiled at me, but his gaiety of the early

evening had passed from him; he dropped heavily into a chair facing me,

giving me not a word. I watched the shadows fall about his face, as the

coals blackened out, and the candles, waving in the draughts, guttered,

burned down, and smoked. If a light leaped high from silver stick, I saw

him white as ivory, lips twisted, eyes brooding. He looked at me

malevolently at times; I understood how much in truth he hated me; how my

resemblance to my father tormented him; what was the repression compelled

upon him by his father.

He said suddenly, “It’s a cruel trick of fate, nephew, brings you to this

house!”

“How?” I asked. “I’m not here by any wish of mine.”

“Or by any wish of mine,” he said, with a bitter laugh. “Fate, in the

form of Bradbury! Odd, kinsman, that my father should be so near to

death, and I who have endured him all these years bid fair to lose in

these last days of his my profit on it. I’ve a notion, nephew, that in

the few weeks you will remain here you’ll benefit by all I looked for.

Estimate my sentiment towards you!”

“The hate that looked from your eyes a moment since.”

“A poor expression of it, nephew,” he said. “There is no look, or word

spoken or written, shall reveal a man’s soul. The fellow Rousseau has

essayed to reveal his soul, to be sure, and has revealed but the body of

an ape. I have a philosophy of my own, John Craike,—that my soul is not

my body’s own; that aught I do, while my soul is in my body, counts

nothing in the score against me. If I do aught—pride myself on it or am

ashamed—I need not plume myself, or fret me. For it is not my deed.”

“A comfortable creed,” said I. “It would absolve you from aught that you

have done or plan to do against your brother or your brother’s son.”

“I take it so,” he answered, coolly. “Nephew, this will of mine—I name

it ‘will’—is no more mine, no more controllable by me than that wind

blowing from the sea, and crying out about this dreary house. The

actions of our lives are inevitable as storm or summer sun. My very

promise to my father to do no hurt to you, while you are in this house,

is no more mine than the injury I have essayed and failed to do you. We

are predestined, nephew, as surely as any hapless wretch who walked the

plank, or drowned in scuttled ship, or burned with its burning—at my

father’s hands.”

“I did not know,” I whispered, “the manner of his past. And do you tell

me?”

“I tell you nothing that you must not know,” he said indifferently.

“Rogues’ Haven—this house is but a haven for old rogues,—rogues who were

young and lusty with him once, and sinned at his command. Sinned! Nay,

there is no sin; there is no virtue that is a man’s own.

Predestined!”—his laughter rang out over the winds that beat against the

shutters—“Will you tell all this to my father, nephew? Will you seek to

blacken me to him that you may profit by it? It will not change a whit

his disposition to me. He is not wholly past all love or hate, though he

is near to death. And lacking my philosophy, he is not past all terror.

He fears death; he fears dead men who, living, troubled him not at all.

He is afraid to go down to their company—their company—the maw of the

worm or the fish, the decay of all who go down into the ground or sink in

the sea. His soul—it never was his soul! He loved your father; he ever

hated me. Till he grew old, his will was stronger than my will. My will

grows stronger, nephew; I warn you my will may yet prevail over his old

affection for your father, on which your hope with him rests wholly.”

“Will!” I repeated. “It accords ill with your creed, my uncle.”

“Will!” he said, laughing. “Oh, it’s no more than the force given to the

wind or the wave. Predestined! If I win yet, nephew, so it is fated;

not any act of yours or mine may stay it. I do not see the event. No

man may look beyond the minute that is now. Nephew, I vow I saw you

yawning; I prose; I weary you; I am a dull fellow,—and who would not be,

living in this house?”

“No, I am tired, that’s all. I’ll go to bed.”

He caught the bell-rope, and old Thrale answering, he bade him light me

to my room. The fire upon its hearth burned brightly; the bed was warm

and soft, but my comfort lulled in no way my apprehension of the night.

Though I locked the door and set a chair against it, I did not feel

secure. Knowing myself friendless in the house, with no more than the

decaying will of an old man between me and my enemy. Knowing the house

peopled with old rogues, who, I conjectured, had been seamen on my

grandfather’s ship, when he was young, and sinned unpardonable sins, and

grew rich under a black flag. I fell to picturing him in his youth and

strength—the dark ruthless face, the powerful body, the strong, cruel

hands. I pictured him on the deck of his ship,—I conjured up its build

for swiftness, its rakish masts, the swell of its white sails. I

conjured up illusions of glittering seas, blue as the sheen on copper in

the sun; a phantasm of those old rogues, withered, bloated, tottering

now, as lusty with youth. Stark to the waist I saw them, their bodies

muscular and brown as iron, and lithe as steel; the wicked aged faces

that had peered at me out of the shadows now young, and red with drink

and lust and greed; I saw these rogues now toiling at the guns,—through

smoke I saw them: their hands grip cutlass, or knife, or pistol now for

dish or glass or bottle. I saw such treasure, as the massy plate upon

the board that night, piled on red decks with bursting chests of rich

apparel—dyed silks and satins, laces; gold pieces, precious gems, even as

the red gems upon my grandfather’s fingers. And I heard piteous

lamentation in the wind screaming from the sea; cries of the dying and

tormented in its wailing round the house, and in its rumbling above the

chimney stacks the roar of guns; and the wash of waters in the sweeping

of the pine and fir boughs. The dark curtains of my bed were half-drawn;

when the moon shone in, I saw a black flag flying and a death’s head on

it.

For my terrors, born of the evil brooding in this house, I could not

rest. I fell to wondering whether my grandsire slept soundly in his bed,

or whether phantoms crowded upon him, and the winds cried menace to

him—an old man black with sins and nigh to dying.

_Chapter XXI_. _My Cousin Oliver_

I slept towards morning, and did not wake until the sun was rising; the

light came golden-green through the stained windows. I rose from my bed,

and, opening the casement, looked out over sunlit woods; afar, through

the break in the trees, I could make out the glittering waters of the

sea. In the decaying garden I saw the colours of many flowers among

weeds; a hawthorn by an overgrown walk was a silver fount of blossom.

The gloom of the garden and the wood had passed with the darkness and the

sea wind; only the pines and firs were sombre yet and sighing in the

breeze.

I was still in my shirt when a rapping sounded on my door. I hastened

silently to pull away the chair, asking, “Who’s there?”

My cousin Oliver answered gruffly, “It’s I, cousin,” and I let him in.

He was in shabby riding-rig, his black hair tumbled over his nose; he

stood awkwardly in the doorway. With the flush of drink off him he

seemed not so ill a fellow, though his look was lowering and sullen, and

he possessed none of his father’s elegance, but only a hard strength such

as must have been my grandfather’s in his youth. “Get into your

breeches, cousin,” he muttered, “and ride with me.”

“Why, I’ll be happy,” said I.

“We’ll ride down to the sea and swim in it, if you’ve a mind for it.”

“I’ve a mind for it, yes.”

“Dress then. I’ll wait for you,” and moved over to the window-seat and

lounged there, till I had pulled on my clothes. He sat sullenly

regarding me; I could not estimate his disposition to me, believing that

his father had instructed him to treat me with civility; from time to

time I stole a glance at him reflected dully in the mirror, noting the

health and strength of him, and could not find it in me to hate the

fellow as with cause I hated his father. Dressed at last, a towel about

my neck, I said, “At your service, cousin,” and he, lurching up from his

seat, strode before me down the gallery, and brought me by a dark stair

out of the house into the courtyard. I had a certain hesitation in

accompanying him—with my escape from being shipped overseas with Blunt on

the _Black Wasp_ fresh in my mind; but reassured that I was safe now

through my grandfather’s direction, I set my dread aside.

He had anticipated my hesitation, it seemed, for he swung round, and

demanded curtly, “Are you afraid to go with me, cousin?”

“No, I’m not afraid,” I answered.

He cast a look about him, shot out his hand and gripped my sleeve. He

said, in that harsh tone of his, “You’ve no need to be, whatever others

may do. D’ye understand me?”

“I’m happy to understand.”

“You saw me swilling last night.”

“Ay, I saw.”

He said simply, “Wouldn’t the house and the folk in it drive a man to the

devil?”—and turned abruptly and crossed the courtyard with me at his

heels.

The courtyard was deserted. Neglect and decay marked it; the moss grew

green in crevices and cracks of the paving stones; the ivy held the

out-buildings as it held the house. The great stables were bare but for

three horses in the stalls; a fellow ill of look, of middle-age, but

seeming young by comparison with the old men about my grandfather, was

plying a broom.

“Saddle the mare for Mr. Craike, Nick,” Oliver ordered. “I’ll get my

horse out.”

Nick responding, “Ay, ay, sir,” set down his broom, and stared at me. A

seaman surely, he was as brown as the old rogues; the silver rings in his

ears, and the tattoo-marks on his bare arms, accorded ill with his shabby

rig of a groom.

I waited by the stable-door until Nick brought out the mare; Oliver

followed, leading a powerful black horse; and making down to the gates,

he leaped to saddle. I, rejoicing at the prospect of a better mount than

ever it had been my lot to ride, disdained Nick’s assistance into saddle,

and rode out after Oliver. I had already a hope of friendship with this

strong, uncouth, young kinsman of mine. I thought to find him in his

disposition no more a pattern of my uncle than he resembled the gentleman

in his fashion and graces. Yet I feared to confide in any of the folk of

the house, and I resolved to keep my own counsel until I knew more of my

cousin. Indeed, he gave me no opportunity for conversation. He made off

at a gallop down the drive; and I had much ado to keep within sight of

him. He did not ride for the gates, but swerving off to the left, he

rode down through the park to the wall, where it was crumbling and

broken. Setting his horse to the breach, he leaped it; and I following,

he led me at a gallop down towards the sea.

The joy of the morn dispelled for a time my thoughts of the gloomy house

and its folk. The sun was now clear; the breeze blew sweetly from the

sea; little white clouds sailed over a blue heaven. We came out of the

wood into open country; we swept through green meadows and drained lands;

he rode like the very devil, taking hedge and ditch; he did not pause

till we were riding out through a break in the cliffs. The shingly beach

of a little cove was before us; the waters rolling in and the foam

scudding. I saw the white gulls wheel and dip; fishing boats were out at

sea; no dwelling was in sight; the beach was all our own. Oliver,

dismounting, secured his bridle to a stunted tree, and silently walked

down with me over the rocks to the beach; drawing apart from me to strip.

I had no proper realisation of his strength till I saw him racing out

into the sea—it seemed to me to break with a dangerous wash upon the

beach; he splashed out with the sunlight white upon him, and the waters

foaming against him; he swam far out then and rode back with the

breakers. I, being accustomed only to inland waters, was nigh drowned,

when I attempted to follow him; I was no more his match as swimmer than

as horseman. I was dressed, and glowing with warmth and health, ere he

desisted and pulled on his clothes.

“Faith, cousin,” said I, “I would I had your strength and courage. Had I

dared swim out as you, I’d have drowned for sure.”

He nodded, not ill-pleased, and said, grinning, “I should have wagered

you you’d not dare. If you’d have drowned—” but broke off and turned

from me.

“You mean, if I’d have drowned,” said I, “it would have been all to the

advantage of other folk?”

“What does it matter what I meant? Hark’ee, cousin, while you’re in the

house, whatever’s done to get you out of it, I’m not for profiting by

it.”

“You mean you’re my friend.”

“I didn’t say so,” he answered heavily. “I’m saying that I’m not for

profiting at your cost—d’ye understand me?” He did not face me, but

stood staring seawards. I said nothing, but waited. He burst out

presently, “You’ve a notion by now how old Edward came by his money. If

he have money? If all this talk among the rogues about him be more than

the chattering of old fools? They talk of a secret store he keeps by him

at the house. They talk, when they fancy none’s listening to ’em, of

gold and jewels. They vow he’s hid his store in the house, and none

knows where save himself. From their talk ’twas evilly come by. There’s

blood upon it—every coin and gew-gaw; there’s a curse upon it; they say

no man’ll ever profit by it; and every rogue among them itches to set his

claws upon it, curse or no curse.” He laughed and waved his hand

seawards. “We’re an ill race, we Craikes,” he muttered. “We’ve been of

the sea and the coasts year in, year out. The sea calls every man of us

down to it—you and I’ll be sailing yet, cousin; the sea calls us and the

sea has us in the end. Did you hear the beat of the sea like drums

through the night, cousin? Did you hear the wind crying?”

“Ay, as if the spirits of the dead were in it. Ay, and I feared.”

He said slowly, “I’ve heard it, many a night about the old house. I’ve

heard the voices growing louder. D’ye think old Edward lies awake, and

listens and fears? He’s near to death. He’s turned eighty years. And

all the old rogues about him know him breaking and cease to fear him. He

was their captain once by the strength and the will of him. He would

have died at their hands but for his strength and will, and never have

brought his ship and his treasure home. He’s breaking. What’s to be the

end, cousin?”—he laughed savagely to himself. “D’ye think me mad, John

Craike?”

“No, having passed a night in the house.”

“We’re like to see the end, you and I and my father,—he has wit enough to

win. But that fellow Blunt.”

“A damned rogue!”

“Blunt and his men of the _Black Wasp_, Thrale and old Mistress Barwise,

will see to it yet there’s wild doings at the house. She’s housekeeper,

to be sure. Blunt was ship’s boy with old Edward. They think a

treasure’s hid in the house. What d’ye think of it all?”

“Think! That I’d have you for my friend, cousin?”

“You’re like to be the heir of all this,” he said, laughing. “Why should

I be your friend?”

“Being what I think you,” I told him; “not what you’d have me think.

Your hand, cousin.”

He swung round, his brows scowling, his face flushed. He muttered, “D’ye

mean it, John Craike? After seeing me as I was last night? You’ll see

me so any night of the week. You’ll see me a butt for my father. You’ll

find me a cross-grained, ill-mannered fellow.”

“I think you as you are,” I answered steadily. “Your hand, cousin.”

_Chapter XXII_. _The Web of Ivy_

My grandfather summoned me to his presence before noon. I breakfasted

with Oliver; my uncle did not honour us; it was his habit, his son

informed me, to lie abed late. The girl Evelyn Milne came down, slim and

pale in her black gown; she gave us the chillest of “good mornings,” and

sat silent and obscure through the meal. Thrale waited on us; recalling

all Oliver had said to me on the beach, I eyed the old man in the light

of day—observing the brownness of his shrivelled skin, the bony hands

serving us so deftly; and from time to time I saw him peer at me, his

eyes gleam sinister; his face expressed nothing; his voice was thin and

reedy. The girl passed not a word with us, ere she rose from breakfast;

she seemed a poor, scared, fluttering thing, afraid of Oliver and me.

“How do we pass the day, cousin?” I asked, as Oliver pulled back his

chair. “Do we ride abroad?”

Thrale interrupted swiftly, “Will you pardon me, sir?”

“Surely, Thrale.”

“Your grandfather, sir, desires a word with you. He asks you to remain

here. He’ll send for you when he’s ready for you.”

I nodded. Oliver, without a word, marched out, leaving me to yawn the

morning away by the fire. Thrale, clearing the table, vanished

presently; I sat waiting glumly; silence had fallen over the house. The

sunlight filtered through the dull panes, revealing the decay of the

house, the tattered tapestries, the mouldering oak, the green-specked

mirrors and the paintings dark with smoke and grime. I pondered heavily,

feeling the gloom descend once more upon me, and hearing stealthy

footsteps through the house, and muttering voices. The air of the room

was thick with the musty odours of decay; the windows, when I would have

opened them, proved bound with ivy. I grew so weary that at last I would

have pulled the bell-rope for Thrale, and asked him to bring me a book,

or let me out into the air, until my grandfather should summon me. I

started to find Thrale was in the room and beckoning to me, “Your

grandfather will see you now, sir,” he said.

I followed him readily up the stairs and down the corridor to my

grandfather’s room. He announced me with all formality, “Mr. John, sir,”

and left me standing before the grim old figure in the brocaded gown. He

sat huddled by the fire, his jewelled hands seemed palsied, as he warmed

them at the blaze; his lips scarcely to support his tobacco pipe—the air

was heavy with smoke. He pointed to the chair before him; when I sat

down, he regarded me for awhile in silence. He said at last, “Well,

grandson—Bradbury swears you’re my grandson, and Bradbury has no cause to

lie.”

“I’m happy that you think so, sir,” I flashed, colouring.

He chuckled to himself, “You’ve Richard’s look,” he said. “You’ve his

evil temper—I’ve horsed him for it many a time. Ay, and he’s dead—isn’t

he?”

“For all I know. Or overseas.”

“Or overseas!” he repeated slowly. “Your mother now—does she know?”

“My mother thinks him dead.”

“She was a fine, upstanding lass,” he said, pulling at his pipe. “Ay,

ay, years since. And she wedded Richard—he-he—for all that Charles and

his wife might do. She feared and hated us all, except Richard. She’s

paying Charles coin for coin. What’s she said of us to you.”

“Little, and that’ll I’ll not say, sir, by your leave.”

His brow grew dark; he muttered, “Years since—not so many—and you’d not

have answered so. You’re bold—hey, you’re bold. Little she said, but no

good—hey?”

“Why should she speak well of you?” I said, quietly. “You were her

enemies.”

He chuckled, “Ay, and so she kept you hid from us all these years. You’d

not be in the house but for Bradbury. Cunning dog, Bradbury.”

“And even for Mr. Bradbury,” said I, “I’ll not be staying, sir.”

“Why? D’ye fear Charles? Has Charles done aught—after my word to him?”

He lurched up from his chair and stood glowering down on me; the tobacco

pipe, dropping from his grasp, smashed on the hearth.

“No, he’s done nothing.”

“Why would you go then? Are you afraid—our ways not being yours? Why

would you go?”

I answered, “I do not like the house or the folk around you. What’s

there about this house, sir? What’s it in the very wind of a night?

What’s all the muttering in the dark?”

He returned to his chair, and leaning forward in it, watched me intently

with his red-lidded eyes.

“I feared the house,” I went on, “when I first came up through the woods

with Mr. Bradbury, and saw it in its cobweb of ivy and the black pines at

its back. I’ve no cause to remain here, and I’ll not remain.”

He muttered, “Yet you’ll remain.”

“I’m gaoled here, then. Is that it?”

“You’ll remain,” he repeated, “though you’ll be free to ride abroad with

the young cub Oliver. You’re safe here; there’s naught in the house to

fear. There’s none dares do you hurt.”

“None of those old men, your servants?” said I. “Those old brown men

with the evil eyes, and the rings in their ears, and the tattoo-marks on

their arms? I’m afraid, maybe, of Blunt and his crew—not of these old

men.”

“Once,” he chuckled. “Ay, but once.”

“Once these old rogues were to be feared, you mean?”

“Once, I was feared, as—by God!—I am yet to be feared. I’m master of my

house, grandson, as I was master of my ship. Master of Blunt—any who’d

do you hurt. You’ll stay!”—poking out his shaking hand, the red gems

gleaming, “You’ll stay, as your father would have stayed by me, till the

breath’s out of my body. Not so very long!” His tone was quavering and

eager, “You’ll bear me company, and you’ll profit by it. I’ll soon be

dead, and you’ll soon be rich. Would you have me think you care nothing

to be rich?”

“Why, surely we all care.”

“Ay,” nodding his head. “I could tell of a treasure a man would sell his

soul for”—lowering his tone, peering about him, and muttering. “You can

come by it honestly, if that’s aught to you, and more than if only you

come by it. D’ye see these red rings?”

“Like blood upon your hands,” I ventured, shrinking from him.

He laughed to himself, “Like blood! Rubies! I’ll show you yet—when it’s

fitting—and tell you a tale.”

“Plundered treasure!”

“What of it? What gives a man the right to the treasure of the earth

except the strength to take and hold it?”

“As any of the rogues about this house would take.”

“Ay, if they dared. And knew where I hold it. Fearing me yet and not

knowing. Will ye not stay?”

“And yet I’ll not stay in this house.”

He said heavily, but without anger, “You’re like your father in more than

looks. I’d have you by me, till I die. You fear the dark and the sounds

of the wind and sea. You’re young-what should you hear in the wind, or

see moving in the dark? What should you see stepping over the floor,

when the moon comes up? I fear nothing in the winds or the dark or the

moon. Ay, and I’ve sailed in uncharted seas, and I’ll sail the sea that

shall never have a chart. Not fearing! But I’d have you by me, till I

embark.”

He fell to silence; awhile I sat and watched him. He said then, musing,

“I’ve rotted in this accursed house, since I left the sea. The house

with the green ivy webbed about it; I’ve a sense of being caught in the

weed—held to die and rot. There’s talk among seamen of waters where the

weed’s taken many a ship—I’m held so by the weed. Its roots ’ll strike

into my heart. It battens on dead men.”

I knew his mind was decaying with the breaking body. I pitied

remembering that he had loved my father. I knew now that, black with

guilt, he feared the uncharted sea on which he must soon set sail. And I

thought of the old rogues about him watching, waiting, until they feared

no longer, and might take what long ago they would have taken, had they

dared. Yet I think not pity, not the desire that all men have to be

rich, would have prevailed against the terror of the house in the

night—the doomed house. I think that I, being of his blood, was led by

the spirit of adventure to stay by him. Adventure, and desire to see the

play to its end.

“I’ll stay here, sir,” I said, “if you’ll have it so. On a

condition—that I be free to go about and abroad as I will.”

“Ay, so long as you bear me company when I’ve need of you,” he answered,

with a show of satisfaction.

_Chapter XXIII_. _Dying Fires_

My grandfather, pulling the bell-rope, summoned Thrale, and ordered

curtly, “Send Barwise and her man to me!” As Thrale vanished, the old

man said to me, “I’ve orders for ’em, John—orders. She’s housekeeper;

he’s butler, and their son Nick’s groom. Rogues all!”

He chuckled, and sought his snuff-box; so he made play with it that I

observed it cut from ebony, with a silver skull and bones patterned upon

it. He ceased his senile chuckling at the rapping on the door; I saw him

grip the arms of his chair and hold his head high, as if to make a show

of strength and sanity before Barwise and his wife.

The woman held my attention rather than the man. She had been a fine

handsome woman in her day; she bore herself still stiffly erect, though

she was very old. A black silken gown hung loosely about her shrunken

body; keys in a little basket on her arm rattled like fetters. She had a

high, white mob-cap on her thick, iron-grey hair; the skin was drawn and

withered about the bones of her face; her mouth was firm yet, and her

eyes clear and black,—of all the rogues who served my grandfather, I came

to like none so ill as the Barwise woman. Her husband was a fat, bald,

old rogue, clad in shabby black, his paunch protruding; rolls of fat

beneath his chin; his hands were fat and oily. His sunburn was ripened

to the rich glow of wine; his little eyes were bloodshot. The woman made

a curtsy; the clash of her keys startled me with a notion that all her

bones were rattling. Barwise bowed.

My grandfather addressed the woman with the strong and measured utterance

he had employed to Mr. Bradbury. “I’ve sent for you, Barwise, and your

man there,” he said, “as I’d have you know that this young gentleman, my

grandson, is to be obeyed.”

She curtsied once more; for an instant her eyes rested balefully on me.

“I’d have you so instruct your folk,” my grandfather proceeded. “While

he’s in my house, you’ll all treat him as your master—d’ye understand

me?”

She nodded, staring at him curiously as if remarking a strength become

strange to her.

“He’s likely to be master after me, d’ye hear?” my grandfather added.

“You take your orders now from me; whatever orders he chooses to give,

you take them as from me.”

The woman croaked, “It’s well for you, Mr. Craike, to have the young

gentleman by you. I mark a change in you already.”

Her bold eyes warred with his; as understanding her meaning that she knew

him near to decay and that this assumed strength was no more than the

flash of a dying fire, he roared out, “I want no words from you,

mistress! You’re old; you’re presuming on your service. Mark me, I’ll

be obeyed!” and started to his feet, and rapped his cane upon the floor

with such bullying wrath and strength that she quailed before him and

shrank back, her husband staring at him and quivering like a jelly.

She muttered, “I meant nothing!”

“Ay, meant nothing! Time was—” but he broke off, hesitated, at last

cried out, “Ay, and the time is yet. I’ll be obeyed. You’ve thought me

old, Barwise—you and the lazy crew I support here of my bounty. Take

care I don’t make a sweep of ye all—of ye all—d’ye mark me?” Mastering

himself then and dropping heavily back in his chair, “That’s all,

Barwise. You’ll obey Mr. John Craike—all of ye!”

Propping his chin upon his cane, he sat glaring at them, till, with a

venomous look at me, the woman whisked from the room, her husband

shuffling after. So he sat stiffly till the door was shut; then lay back

in his chair and fell again to senile chuckling. “Eh, John; but they

think me near to dying,” he said. “Eh, John, did ye mark how I took the

wind from her sails? Eh, but I’m stronger for having Richard’s son

beside me. I thought to die captain of my ship many a time. And I think

to die master of my own house,” and so, sat chuckling and shaking, his

strength leaving him as suddenly as his will had summoned it. He rambled

on, “She’s an ill fowl—eh, John? She’s a skeleton held together by her

skin—no more. Barwise’s woman,—she’d looks once,—hair black as the storm

and eyes as black. She’d wear silks and gold rings. She took a fat

picking from my men, when I sailed my ship. She’d a tavern Shadwell

way.” He broke off, and looked dully at me. He muttered, “Can you not

see, lad, the manner of man I was? Can you not see the wreck I am? How

I ruled ’em once and how now that they think me broken—they’d mutiny,

they’d rob me; they’d have what they’ll never set their fingers on?”

“Surely my uncle would discipline them at a word from you. Clear the

house of them.”

“Ay, ay, Charles! Charles watches me, as they, and thinks to rob me!”

He gasped, and huddled in his chair; ghastly now, and the sweat beading

his brow.