_The Pavilion on the Links_
I
I was a great solitary when I was young. I made it my pride to keep aloof
and suffice for my own entertainment; and I may say that I had neither
friends nor acquaintances until I met that friend who became my wife and
the mother of my children. With one man only was I on private terms; this
was R. Northmour, Esquire, of Graden Easter, in Scotland. We had met at
college; and though there was not much liking between us, nor even much
intimacy, we were so nearly of a humor that we could associate with ease
to both. Misanthropes, we believed ourselves to be; but I have thought
since that we were only sulky fellows. It was scarcely a companionship,
but a co-existence in unsociability. Northmour's exceptional violence of
temper made it no easy affair for him to keep the peace with anyone but
me; and as he respected my silent ways, and let me come and go as I
pleased, I could tolerate his presence without concern. I think we called
each other friends.
When Northmour took his degree and I decided to leave the university
without one, he invited me on a long visit to Graden Easter; and it was
thus that I first became acquainted with the scene of my adventures. The
mansion house of Graden stood in a bleak stretch of country some three
miles from the shore of the German Ocean. It was as large as a barrack;
and as it had been built of a soft stone, liable to consume in the eager
air of the seaside, it was damp and draughty within and half ruinous
without. It was impossible for two young men to lodge with comfort in
such a dwelling. But there stood in the northern part of the estate, in a
wilderness of links and blowing sand hills, and between a plantation and
the sea, a small pavilion or belvedere, of modern design, which was
exactly suited to our wants; and in this hermitage, speaking little,
reading much, and rarely associating except at meals, Northmour and I
spent four tempestuous winter months. I might have stayed longer; but one
March night there sprung up between us a dispute, which rendered my
departure necessary. Northmour spoke hotly, I remember, and I suppose I
must have made some tart rejoinder. He leaped from his chair and grappled
me; I had to fight, without exaggeration, for my life; and it was only
with a great effort that I mastered him, for he was near as strong in body
as myself, and seemed filled with the devil. The next morning, we met on
our usual terms; but I judged it more delicate to withdraw; nor did he
attempt to dissuade me.
It was nine years before I revisited the neighborhood. I traveled at that
time with a tilt-cart, a tent, and a cooking stove, tramping all day
beside the wagon, and at night, whenever it was possible, gypsying in a
cove of the hills, or by the side of a wood. I believe I visited in this
manner most of the wild and desolate regions both in England and Scotland;
and, as I had neither friends nor relations, I was troubled with no
correspondence, and had nothing in the nature of headquarters, unless it
was the office of my solicitors, from whom I drew my income twice a year.
It was a life in which I delighted; and I fully thought to have grown old
upon the march, and at last died in a ditch.
It was my whole business to find desolate corners, where I could camp
without the fear of interruption; and hence, being in another part of the
same shire, I bethought me suddenly of the Pavilion on the Links. No
thoroughfare passed within three miles of it. The nearest town, and that
was but a fisher village, was at a distance of six or seven. For ten miles
of length, and from a depth varying from three miles to half a mile, this
belt of barren country lay along the sea. The beach, which was the natural
approach, was full of quicksands. Indeed I may say there is hardly a
better place of concealment in the United Kingdom. I determined to pass a
week in the Sea-Wood of Graden Easter, and making a long stage, reached it
about sundown on a wild September day.
The country, I have said, was mixed sand hill and links; _links_ being a
Scottish name for sand which has ceased drifting and become more or less
solidly covered with turf. The pavilion stood on an even space: a little
behind it, the wood began in a hedge of elders huddled together by the
wind; in front, a few tumbled sand hills stood between it and the sea. An
outcropping of rock had formed a bastion for the sand, so that there was
here a promontory in the coast line between two shallow bays; and just
beyond the tides, the rock again cropped out and formed an islet of small
dimensions but strikingly designed. The quicksands were of great extent at
low water, and had an infamous reputation in the country. Close in shore,
between the islet and the promontory, it was said they would swallow a man
in four minutes and a half; but there may have been little ground for this
precision. The district was alive with rabbits, and haunted by gulls which
made a continual piping about the pavilion. On summer days the outlook was
bright and even gladsome; but at sundown in September, with a high wind,
and a heavy surf rolling in close along the links, the place told of
nothing but dead mariners and sea disaster. A ship beating to windward on
the horizon, and a huge truncheon of wreck half buried in the sands at my
feet, completed the innuendo of the scene.
The pavilion--it had been built by the last proprietor, Northmour's uncle,
a silly and prodigal virtuoso--presented little signs of age. It was two
stories in height, Italian in design, surrounded by a patch of garden in
which nothing had prospered but a few coarse flowers; and looked, with its
shuttered windows, not like a house that had been deserted, but like one
that had never been tenanted by man. Northmour was plainly from home;
whether, as usual, sulking in the cabin of his yacht, or in one of his
fitful and extravagant appearances in the world of society, I had, of
course, no means of guessing. The place had an air of solitude that
daunted even a solitary like myself; the wind cried in the chimneys with a
strange and wailing note; and it was with a sense of escape, as if I were
going indoors, that I turned away and, driving my cart before me, entered
the skirts of the wood.
The Sea-Wood of Graden had been planted to shelter the cultivated fields
behind, and check the encroachments of the blowing sand. As you advanced
into it from coastward, elders were succeeded by other hardy shrubs; but
the timber was all stunted and bushy; it led a life of conflict; the trees
were accustomed to swing there all night long in fierce winter tempests;
and even in early spring, the leaves were already flying, and autumn was
beginning, in this exposed plantation. Inland the ground rose into a
little hill, which, along with the islet, served as a sailing mark for
seamen. When the hill was open of the islet to the north, vessels must
bear well to the eastward to clear Graden Ness and the Graden Bullers. In
the lower ground, a streamlet ran among the trees, and, being dammed with
dead leaves and clay of its own carrying, spread out every here and there,
and lay in stagnant pools. One or two ruined cottages were dotted about
the wood; and, according to Northmour, these were ecclesiastical
foundations, and in their time had sheltered pious hermits.
I found a den, or small hollow, where there was a spring of pure water;
and there, clearing away the brambles, I pitched the tent, and made a fire
to cook my supper. My horse I picketed farther in the wood where there was
a patch of sward. The banks of the den not only concealed the light of my
fire, but sheltered me from the wind, which was cold as well as high.
The life I was leading made me both hardy and frugal. I never drank but
water, and rarely eat anything more costly than oatmeal; and I required so
little sleep, that, although I rose with the peep of day, I would often
lie long awake in the dark or starry watches of the night. Thus in Graden
Sea-Wood, although I fell thankfully asleep by eight in the evening I was
awake again before eleven with a full possession of my faculties, and no
sense of drowsiness or fatigue. I rose and sat by the fire, watching the
trees and clouds tumultuously tossing and fleeing overhead, and hearkening
to the wind and the rollers along the shore; till at length, growing weary
of inaction, I quitted the den, and strolled toward the borders of the
wood. A young moon, buried in mist, gave a faint illumination to my steps;
and the light grew brighter as I walked forth into the links. At the same
moment, the wind, smelling salt of the open ocean and carrying particles
of sand, struck me with its full force, so that I had to bow my head.
When I raised it again to look about me, I was aware of a light in the
pavilion. It was not stationary; but passed from one window to another, as
though some one were reviewing the different apartments with a lamp or
candle. I watched it for some seconds in great surprise. When I had
arrived in the afternoon the house had been plainly deserted; now it was
as plainly occupied. It was my first idea that a gang of thieves might
have broken in and be now ransacking Northmour's cupboards, which were
many and not ill supplied. But what should bring thieves at Graden Easter?
And, again, all the shutters had been thrown open, and it would have been
more in the character of such gentry to close them. I dismissed the
notion, and fell back upon another. Northmour himself must have arrived,
and was now airing and inspecting the pavilion.
I have said that there was no real affection between this man and me; but,
had I loved him like a brother, I was then so much more in love with
solitude that I should none the less have shunned his company. As it was,
I turned and ran for it; and it was with genuine satisfaction that I found
myself safely back beside the fire. I had escaped an acquaintance; I
should have one more night in comfort. In the morning, I might either slip
away before Northmour was abroad, or pay him as short a visit as I chose.
But when morning came, I thought the situation so diverting that I forgot
my shyness. Northmour was at my mercy; I arranged a good practical jest,
though I knew well that my neighbor was not the man to jest with in
security; and, chuckling beforehand over its success, took my place among
the elders at the edge of the wood, whence I could command the door of the
pavilion. The shutters were all once more closed, which I remember
thinking odd; and the house, with its white walls and green venetians,
looked spruce and habitable in the morning light. Hour after hour passed,
and still no sign of Northmour. I knew him for a sluggard in the morning;
but, as it drew on toward noon, I lost my patience. To say the truth, I
had promised myself to break my fast in the pavilion, and hunger began to
prick me sharply. It was a pity to let the opportunity go by without some
cause for mirth; but the grosser appetite prevailed, and I relinquished my
jest with regret, and sallied from the wood.
The appearance of the house affected me, as I drew near, with disquietude.
It seemed unchanged since last evening; and I had expected it, I scarce
knew why, to wear some external signs of habitation. But no: the windows
were all closely shuttered, the chimneys breathed no smoke, and the front
door itself was closely padlocked. Northmour, therefore, had entered by
the back; this was the natural, and indeed, the necessary conclusion; and
you may judge of my surprise when, on turning the house, I found the back
door similarly secured.
My mind at once reverted to the original theory of thieves; and I blamed
myself sharply for my last night's inaction. I examined all the windows on
the lower story, but none of them had been tampered with; I tried the
padlocks, but they were both secure. It thus became a problem how the
thieves, if thieves they were, had managed to enter the house. They must
have got, I reasoned, upon the roof of the outhouse where Northmour used
to keep his photographic battery; and from thence, either by the window of
the study or that of my old bedroom, completed their burglarious entry.
I followed what I supposed was their example; and, getting on the roof,
tried the shutters of each room. Both were secure; but I was not to be
beaten; and, with a little force, one of them flew open, grazing, as it
did so, the back of my hand. I remember, I put the wound to my mouth, and
stood for perhaps half a minute licking it like a dog, and mechanically
gazing behind me over the waste links and the sea; and, in that space of
time, my eye made note of a large schooner yacht some miles to the
northeast. Then I threw up the window and climbed in.
I went over the house, and nothing can express my mystification. There was
no sign of disorder, but, on the contrary, the rooms were unusually clean
and pleasant. I found fires laid, ready for lighting; three bedrooms
prepared with a luxury quite foreign to Northmour's habits, and with water
in the ewers and the beds turned down; a table set for three in the
dining-room; and an ample supply of cold meats, game, and vegetables on
the pantry shelves. There were guests expected, that was plain; but why
guests, when Northmour hated society? And, above all, why was the house
thus stealthily prepared at dead of night? and why were the shutters
closed and the doors padlocked?
I effaced all traces of my visit, and came forth from the window feeling
sobered and concerned.
The schooner yacht was still in the same place; and it flashed for a
moment through my mind that this might be the "Red Earl" bringing the
owner of the pavilion and his guests. But the vessel's head was set the
other way.