“The wood!” he repeated. “You’re gaining confidence in us, John. A week
or two since and you’d not have had the courage to stir from the house.
And yet the wood is none too safe, nephew.”
I answered boldly, “I agree with you, sir. For example, I chanced upon
two rogues, Blunt and Martin Baynes.”
Maybe my tones confirmed the suspicions he had formed when I came
scrambling over the wall. He said drily, “You mean more than your words,
John. The encounter should warn you not to walk in the wood, or yet ride
down to the coast with my son. Mayhap, Oliver is no more than a
decoy”—his lips curling.
“I do not think it of my cousin,” I said.
“Oh, I’m happy to have your assurance, John. You look to find a friend
in Oliver. And yet I should not think it, John. My lad’s well enough,
but rough, uncouth; I fear he does me poor credit. How he passes his
days I know not. He’s dissolute; you’ve observed him with the bottle.”
He broke off, as wearying of the theme; he looked languidly over the
sunlit garden to the ivied walls, “Here’s the very wreck and ruin of a
great house, John!” he sighed. “I have a notion—nay, since your coming I
have it not—of shaping order out of chaos. Here in this garden, with a
book on such a sunlit afternoon; but here, with delightful arbours, trim
walks and plots of flowers,—a fountain playing silver! Mark that old
fountain, John—the form of it, the seamaids who support the sea-green
shells; the fountain’s dry; the lovely shapes of bronze corroded. Or the
designs on this pale marble: see where the moss grows green in these
delicate designs of Italy. The sun-dial where the sparrows chirp—why,
here’s an enchanted garden, John, where time stands still, as in the old
wives’ tale. Ay, see the hedge of thorns grows all about the castle!
Time stands still! Nay, ah nay! I’d picture, John, the garden in the
days when the second Charles was King of England. Why, I have looked
from my window of a summer night, and I have seen the ghosts walk in the
garden, as it was, and I have known the beauty and the colour and the
laughter of this garden and this house, as once they were. I have
thought of the beauty of Craike House restored, the greatness of our
race—ah me! Here am I, penniless son of—Mr. Edward Craike; penniless
parent of—Oliver! I’d tell my hope to you, John Craike, that, if you
win, you yet may care to carry out my own ambition.”
He had spoken earnestly; while his fine, melancholy voice sounded, I did
believe him,—knowing him for a rogue. His mood did not endure. He
laughed, and eyeing me, he said, “So you’ve progressed, my friend, in the
favour of your grandfather. So you’re a master in the house, and his
retainers take their orders from you as from himself!”
“He did no more than insure me against insolence,” I answered uneasily.
“You’re well served, my uncle!”
“Oh, I am!” he conceded. “To be sure, the woman Barwise came raging to
me that morning. They’re servile to you, nephew, are they not? Thinking
my father not yet in his dotage! And yet he is so near to breaking.”
His eyes held mine; he said quietly, “Nephew, I’ve a proposal to you,
more than truce—alliance. Liking you!”
“As you’ve surely proved, sir!”
“Yet hear me out,” he said. “You stand in favour with your grandfather.
But you’re no fool; what should you say would happen, were the old man’s
wits to go wandering, or were he to die, suddenly, as old men die, if
they be fortunate? How should you fare at the hands of all these rogues,
John?”
“Or at your hands?” I muttered.
“Or at my hands! I compliment you, nephew, on your wit. Or at the hands
of Blunt, or Barwise? This old man so near to dying or to dotage,
nephew! I put this to you.”
“Why, I’d suffer no more,” said I, “than Mr. Bradbury would speedily call
you to account for.”
“A lonely house,” he muttered, “so near the coast. And none save old Sir
Gavin within miles of us. Should we not work our will with you, and set
our fingers on what’s hid in the house, and be away—in France, or whither
in the world we would—ere Bradbury might lift a finger.”
“What’s hid in the house!” I repeated.
With sudden impatience he cried out, “Ay, what’s hid in the house! Why
not be frank with me, nephew? You know this—Bradbury knows, as I—there’s
in this house more than a moiety of all my father ever took on his
voyages. There’s treasure in this house, about this house; and one man
knows where it is hidden. And one man knows, and this one man may die,
or his mind grow dark, and he forget, and it never be known. You know of
the existence of this treasure, nephew, this secret hoard of his—and yet
you lie to me!”
Unguardedly I answered, “I’ve heard no more than a talk of the treasure.”
“When? From whom?” he took me up instantly, and his face was livid, and
his eyes were two evil gems. “This morn! Surely you heard this morn.
Talk near the wall there. Or do you know from him?”