THE NORTHERN FIRE-BOX AND DEAD MEN'S TALES
That night Hazel could not get to sleep. Perhaps this was due to having
noticed something that afternoon that made her vaguely uneasy. The
evenings were beginning to be chilly, and, shortly before supper, she
had gone up to Master Nathaniel's room to light his fire. She found
the widow and one of the maidservants there before her, and, to her
surprise, they had brought down from the attic an old charcoal stove
that had lain there unused for years, for Dorimare was a land of open
fires, and stoves were practically unknown. The widow had brought the
stove to the farm on her marriage, for, on her mother's side, she had
belonged to a race from the far North.
On Hazel's look of surprise, she had said casually, "The logs are
dampish today, and I thought this would make our guest cozier."
Now Hazel knew that the wood was not in the least damp; how could it
be, as it had not rained for days? But that this should have made her
uneasy was a sign of her deep instinctive distrust of her grandfather's
widow.
Perhaps the strongest instinct in Hazel was that of hospitality--that
all should be well, physically and morally, with the guests under
the roof that she never forgot was hers, was a need in her much more
pressing than any welfare of her own.
Meanwhile, Master Nathaniel, somewhat puzzled by the outlandish
apparatus that was warming his room, had got into bed. He did not
immediately put out his candle; he wished to think. For being much
given to reverie, when he wanted to follow the sterner path of
consecutive thought, he liked to have some tangible object on which
to focus his eye, a visible goal, as it were, to keep his feet from
straying down the shadowy paths that he so much preferred.
Tonight it was the fine embossed ceiling on which he fixed his eye--the
same ceiling at which Ranulph used to gaze when he had slept in
this room. On a ground of a rich claret colour patterned with azure
arabesques, knobs of a dull gold were embossed, and at the four corners
clustered bunches of grapes and scarlet berries in stucco. And though
time had dulled their colour and robbed the clusters of many of their
berries, they remained, nevertheless, pretty and realistic objects.
But, in spite of the light, the focus, and his desire for hard
thinking, Master Nathaniel found his thoughts drifting down the most
fantastic paths. And, besides, he was so drowsy and his limbs felt so
strangely heavy. The colours on the ceiling were getting all blurred,
and the old knobs were detaching themselves from their background
and shining in space like suns, moons, and stars--or was it like
apples--the golden apples of the West? And now the claret-coloured
background was turning into a red field--a field of red flowers, from
which leered Portunus, and among which wept Ranulph. But the straight
road, which for the last few months had been the projection of his
unknown, buried purpose, even through this confused landscape glimmered
white ... yet, it looked different from usual ... why, of course, it
was the Milky Way! And then he knew no more.
In the meantime Hazel had been growing more and more restless, and,
though she scolded herself for foolishness, more and more anxious.
Finally, she could stand it no more: "I think I'll just creep up to the
gentleman's door and listen if I can hear him snoring," she said to
herself. Hazel believed that it was a masculine peculiarity not to be
able to sleep without snoring.
But though she kept her ear to the keyhole for a full two minutes, not
a sound proceeded from Master Nathaniel's room. Then she softly opened
the door. A lighted candle was guttering to its end, and her guest
was lying, to all appearance, dead, whilst a suffocating atmosphere
pervaded the room. Hazel felt almost sick with terror, but she flung
open the casement window as wide as it would go, poured half the water
from the ewer into the stove to extinguish its fire, and the remainder
over Master Nathaniel himself. To her unspeakable relief he opened his
eyes, groaned, and muttered something inaudible.
"Oh, sir, you're not dead then!" almost sobbed Hazel. "I'll just go and
fetch you a cup of cordial and get you some hartshorn."
When she returned with the two restoratives, she found Master Nathaniel
sitting up in bed, and, though he looked a little fuddled, his natural
colour was creeping back, and the cordial restored him to almost his
normal condition.
When Hazel saw that he was really himself again, she sank down on the
floor and, spent with terror, began to sob bitterly.
"Come, my child!" said Master Nathaniel kindly, "there's nothing to
cry about. I'm feeling as well as ever I did in my life ... though, by
the Harvest of Souls, I can't imagine what can have taken me. I never
remember to have swooned before in all my born days."
But Hazel would not be comforted: "That it should have happened, here,
in my house," she sobbed. "We who have always stood by the laws of
hospitality ... and not a young gentleman, either ... oh, dearie me;
oh, dearie me!"
"What do you blame to yourself, my child?" asked Master Nathaniel.
"Your hospitality is in no sense to blame if, owing perhaps to recent
fatigues and anxieties, I should have turned faint. No, it is not you
that are the bad host, but I that am the bad guest to have given so
much trouble."
But Hazel's sobs only grew wilder. "I didn't like her bringing in that
fire-box--no I didn't! An evil outlandish thing that it is! That it
should have happened under my roof! For it is my roof ... and she'll
not pass another night under it!" and she sprang to her feet, with
clenched fists and blazing eyes.
Master Nathaniel was becoming interested. "Are you alluding to your
grandfather's widow?" he asked quietly.
"Yes, I am!" cried Hazel indignantly. "Oh! she's up to strange tricks,
always ... and none of her ways are those of honest farmers--no fennel
over our doors, unholy fodder in our granary ... and in her heart,
thoughts as unholy. I saw the smile with which she looked at you at
dinner."
"Are you accusing this woman of actually having made an attempt on my
life?" he asked slowly.
But Hazel flinched before this point-blank question, and her only
answer was to begin again to cry. For a few minutes Master Nathaniel
allowed her to do so unmolested, and then he said gently, "I think you
have cried enough for tonight, my child. You have been kindness itself,
but it is evident that I am not very welcome to your grandfather's
widow, so I must not inflict myself longer upon her. But before I leave
her roof there is something I want to do, and I shall need your help."
Then he told her who he was and how he wanted to prove something
against a certain enemy of his, and had come here hoping to find a
missing clue.
He paused, and looked at her meditatively. "I think I ought to tell
you, my child," he went on, "that if I can prove what I want, your
grandmother may also be involved. Did you know she had once been tried
for the murder of your grandfather?"
"Yes," she faltered. "I've heard that there was a trial. But I thought
she was proved innocent."
"Yes. But there is such a thing as a miscarriage of justice. I believe
that your grandfather was murdered, and that my enemy--whose name
I don't care to mention till I have more to go upon--had a hand in
the matter. And I have a shrewd suspicion that the widow was his
accomplice. Under these circumstances, will you still be willing to
help me?"
Hazel first turned red, and then she turned white, and her lower lip
began to tremble. She disliked the widow, but had to admit that she had
never been unkindly treated by her, and, though not her own kith and
kin, she was the nearest approach to a relative she could remember.
But, on the other hand, Hazel belonged by tradition and breed to the
votaries of the grim cult of the Law. Crime must not go unpunished;
moreover (and here Hazel subscribed to a still more venerable code)
one's own kith and kin must not go unavenged.
But the very vehemence with which she longed to be rid of the widow's
control had bred a curious irrational sense of guilt with regard to
her; and, into the bargain, she was terrified of her.
Supposing this clue should lead to nothing, and the widow discover that
they had been imagining? How, in that case, should she dare to face
her, to go on living under the same roof with her?
And yet ... she was certain she had tried to murder their guest that
night. How dared she? How dared she?
Hazel clenched her fists, and in a little gasping voice said, "Yes,
sir, I'll help you."
"Good!" said Master Nathaniel briskly. "I want to take old Portunus's
advice--and dig under that herm in the orchard, this very night.
Though, mind you, it's just as likely as not to prove nothing but the
ravings of a crazy mind; or else it may concern some buried treasure,
or something else that has nothing to do with your grandfather's
murder. But, in the case of our finding a valuable bit of evidence,
we must have witnesses. And I think we should have the law-man of the
district with us; who is he?"
"It's the Swan blacksmith, Peter Pease."
"Is there any servant you trust whom you could send for him? Someone
more attached to you than to the widow?"
"I can trust them all, and they all like me best," she answered.
"Good. Go and wake a servant and send him off at once for the
blacksmith. Tell him not to bring him up to the house, but to take him
straight to the orchard ... we don't want to wake the widow before
need be. And the servant can stay and help us with the job--the more
witnesses the better."
Hazel felt as if she was in a strange, rather terrible dream. But she
crept up to the attic and aroused one of the unmarried labourers--who,
according to the old custom, slept in their master's house--and bade
him ride into Swan and bring the blacksmith back with him on important
business concerning the law.
Hazel calculated that he should get to Swan and back in less than an
hour, and she and Master Nathaniel crept out of the house to wait for
them in the orchard, each provided with a spade.
The moon was on the wane, but still sufficiently full to give a good
light. She was, indeed, an orchard thief, for no fruit being left to
rob, she had robbed the leaves of all their colour.
"Poor old moon!" chuckled Master Nathaniel, who was now in the highest
of spirits, "always filching colours with which to paint her own pale
face, and all in vain! But just look at your friend, at Master Herm. He
does look knowing!"
For in the moonlight the old herm had found his element, and under her
rays his stone flickered and glimmered into living silver flesh, while
his archaic smile had gained a new significance.
"Excuse, me, sir," said Hazel timidly, "but I couldn't help wondering
if the gentleman you suspected was ... Dr. Leer."
"What makes you think so?" asked Master Nathaniel sharply.
"I don't quite know," faltered Hazel. "I just--wondered."
Before long they were joined by the labourer and the law-man
blacksmith--a burly, jovial, red-haired rustic of about fifty.
"Good evening," cried Master Nathaniel briskly, "I am Nathaniel
Chanticleer" (he was sure that the news of his deposition could not
yet have had time to travel to Swan) "and if my business were not
very pressing and secret I would not, you may be sure, have had you
roused from your bed at this ungodly hour. I have reason to think
that something of great importance may be hidden under this herm,
and I wanted you to be there to see that our proceedings are all in
order," and he laughed genially. "And here's the guarantee that I'm no
masquerader," and he removed his signet ring and held it out to the
blacksmith. It was engraved with his well-known crest, and with six
chevrons, in token that six of his ancestors had been High Seneschals
of Dorimare.
Both the blacksmith and the labourer were at first quite overwhelmed by
learning his identity, but he pressed a spade into the hand of each and
begged them to begin digging without further delay.
For some time they toiled away in silence, and then one of the spades
came against something hard.
It proved to be a small iron box with a key attached to it.
"Out with it! out with it!" cried Master Nathaniel excitedly. "I wonder
if it contains a halter! By the Sun, Moon and Stars, I wonder!"
But he was sobered by a glimpse of poor Hazel's scared face.
"Forgive me, my child," he said gently, "my thirst for revenge has made
me forget both decency and manners. And, as like as not, there will be
nothing in it but a handful of Duke Aubrey crowns--the nest-egg of one
of your ancestors."
They unlocked the box and found that it contained nothing but a sealed
parchment package, addressed thus:
"To the First Who Finds Me."
"I think, Miss Hazel, it should be you who opens it. Don't you agree,
Master Law-man?" said Master Nathaniel. So, with trembling fingers,
Hazel broke the seal, tore open the wrapper, and drew out a sheet of
writing.
By the light of the blacksmith's lanthorn they read as follows:
I, Jeremiah Gibberty, farmer and law-man of the district of
Swan-on-the-Dapple, having ever been a merry man who loved his
joke, do herein crack my last, this side of the Debatable Hills,
in the hopes that it will not lie so long in the damp earth as to
prove but a lame rocket when the time comes to fire it off. And
this is my last joke, and may all who hear it hold their sides,
and may the tears run down their cheeks. I, Jeremiah Gibberty,
was wilfully murdered by my second wife, Clementina, daughter of
Ralph Baldbreeches, sailor, and an outlandish woman from the far
North. In the which crime she was aided by her lover, Christopher
Pugwalker, a foreigner who called himself an herbalist. And I know
by sundry itchings of my skin which torment me as I write and by my
spotted tongue that I have been given what the folks who know them
call death-berries. And they were boiled down to look like mulberry
jelly, offered to me by my dear wife, and of which I ate in my
innocence. And I bid him who finds this writing to search for a
little lad, by name Peter Pease, the son of a tipsy tinker. For
this little lad, having an empty stomach and being greedy for
pence, came to me but an hour ago with a basket full of these same
death-berries and asked me if I should like to buy them. And I, to
test him, asked him if he thought there was a blight in my orchard
that I should be so hard put to it for fruit. And he said he
thought we must like them up at Gibberty's for he had seen the
gentleman who lived with us (Christopher Pugwalker) but a week
since, gathering them. And if Christopher Pugwalker should leave
these parts, then let the law search for a dumpy fellow, with
nut-brown hair, a pug-nose freckled like a robin's egg, and one eye
brown, the other blue. And in order that my last joke may be a
well-built one, I have tested the berries I bought from the little
lad, though it wrung my heart to do so, on one of the rabbits of a
certain little maid, by name, Marjory Beach, the daughter of my
carter. And I have done so because she, being seven years old and a
healthy lass, runs a good chance of being still this side of the
hills when someone digs up this buried jest. And if she be alive
she will not have forgotten how one of her rabbits took to
scratching itself, and how its tongue was spotted like a snake, and
how she found it lying dead. And I humbly beg her pardon for having
played such a cruel trick on a little maid, and I ask my heirs (if
so be any of them still alive) to send her a fine buck rabbit, a
ham, and ten gold pieces. And, though I am law-man and could put
them under arrest before I die, yet, for a time, I hold my hand.
Partly because I have been a hunter all my life, and as the hare
and deer are given their chance to escape, so shall they have
theirs; and partly because I should like to be very far on my
wanderings down the Milky Way before Clementina mounts Duke
Aubrey's wooden horse; because I think the sound of her strangling
would hurt my ears; and, last of all, because I am very weary. And
here I sign my name for the last time.