THE MASTER’S GUN.
The next morning Philip was sitting at the breakfast-table very much
dissatisfied. He had had a poor breakfast, and he did not think that
this should be. Susan need not cook as much as when there were two at
the table, but certainly she might give him something good to eat. Even
some eggs would have made matters different, and he had seen Jenny
bringing in a lot the day before. He would have a talk with Susan on
this subject, but first there were other things to be attended to. He
must find Old Bruden.
“Jenny,” he said to the young girl who came in to clear away the
breakfast things, “do you know anything about Old Bruden, my uncle’s
double-barrelled shot-gun?”
Jenny came nearer to him, and said, in a low voice,--
“If you wait five or six minutes she’ll be gone down to Joel’s house,
then I’ve got something to tell you.”
Philip walked out on the porch. He remembered that Jenny had given
him to understand, the evening before, that she had some sort of a
mysterious communication to make, and now he supposed it was coming. He
did not fancy such things at all. His own disposition, as well as his
uncle’s teaching and example, made him averse to having controversies
or confidences with servants. He did not object so much to Jenny,
for, although she occupied a menial position, she belonged to a very
respectable family, and he knew that his uncle expected her to go to
school the next winter at Boontown.
For these and other reasons he was much more willing to hear Jenny’s
story than to scold Susan about the breakfast, or to ask her what she
knew of the man who came the night before. It was not very long before
Jenny came out on the porch.
“Master Phil,” she said, “do you know that Susan was listening to all
you said to the man last night? And when he went away she slipped down
the back stairs and headed him off at the corner of the house. I looked
out of our window, and I heard her tell him that the young boy he’d
been talking to had made a mistake when he said there was no grown
person in the house, for she was there, and if he had any message to
leave for Mr. Berkeley he might leave it with her. The man said he
supposed she was grown, though she wasn’t very large; but he guessed
he’d keep his messages and deliver them himself. And then Susan told
him that there was no knowing when Mr. Berkeley would be back, and that
she knew a great deal more about family affairs than that boy inside
did. ‘Very well,’ said the man, ‘perhaps, when I come again, I’ll ask
for you, if Mr. Berkeley isn’t here. What’s your name?’ And then she
told him her name, and he went away.”
“You’d make a good reporter,” said Phil; “but I don’t think there is
much in all that. It isn’t a nice thing, Jenny, to be listening out of
windows to what people are saying.”
“That mayn’t be much,” said Jenny, not at all disconcerted; “but I can
tell you something that is much. I can tell you where Old Bruden is.”
Phil suddenly became all animation. He had already ceased to care about
the man with the black straw hat, but the whereabouts of Old Bruden was
quite another affair.
“Where is it?” he asked, eagerly.
“It is up in our room, under Susan’s bed,” said Jenny.
“How in the world did it get there?” asked Philip, in much surprise.
“She put it there herself, but what for I don’t know.”
“Go right up-stairs and get it,” said Phil.
And away ran Jenny.
She soon reappeared, carefully holding the gun out before her with both
hands.
“Which end of it is loaded?” she said.
“Neither end, you goose,” replied Philip. “When there is a load in it,
it is about the middle.”
“I don’t know anything about guns,” said Jenny. “I meant which side of
it is loaded?”
“There isn’t any load in it now,” said Philip. “We always fire off the
guns before we bring them in.”
And he drew out the ramrod and rattled it down one of the barrels.
“Why, there _is_ a load in it!” he cried; “although there isn’t any cap
on. I’d like to know what this means, and why Susan took Old Bruden,
anyway. Just you take this gun and carry it carefully back up-stairs
and put it where you found it. You needn’t be afraid of it, for it
can’t go off; it isn’t capped. And then go to the kitchen, and as soon
as Susan comes in tell her I want to see her.”
When Susan made her appearance in the hall, where Philip was walking
up and down, her countenance wore a very stern expression.
“Is anything the matter?” she said, shortly.
“Yes, there is a good deal the matter,” said Philip. “In the first
place, do you know where my uncle’s double-barrelled gun is?”
To this question Susan made no immediate answer, but, with a cloth she
held in her hand, she began to dust the hall-table.
“Haven’t you seen it?” repeated Philip.
“You’ve got a gun of your own,” said Susan, without turning around.
“Isn’t that enough for you?”
“That is not the question. I want to know where Old Bruden is.”
“I don’t believe in boys having double-barrelled guns,” said Susan, “or
any guns at all, for that matter.”
“It makes no difference to me what you believe or what you don’t
believe,” said Philip, whose temper was gradually getting the better of
him.
He remembered, however, his Uncle Godfrey’s frequently repeated
precept, that a gentleman never quarrels with a servant, and restrained
himself.
“Susan,” said he, “you know very well where that gun is, and I want you
to get it and hang it on the pegs in the gun-room, where it belongs.”
“You talk as if you were the master of everybody here,” said Susan.
“I am head of this house until my uncle comes back,” said Philip, “and
I want you to understand it.”
“And suppose I don’t choose to understand it?” said Susan.
“Then I’ll get somebody who will!” retorted Philip, quickly.
The idea of getting any one to fill her place seemed so absurd to Susan
that she could not help giving a little laugh.
“Is that all you have to say?” she asked.
“That is all,” said Philip; “but I wish you to remember it.”
Then Susan walked off to the kitchen. Phil had intended to speak to her
in regard to the meals, but he forgot all about that.
This little contest was now over, and Philip did not know whether he
had conquered or not. He was obliged to be content to wait and see what
the result would be, and, in the mean time, there was a good deal for
him to do.
He put his uncle’s letter to Mr. Welford in his pocket and went down to
the stables.
If Joel had resisted his authority, or questioned his orders, it is
likely there would have been a serious outbreak of temper; but Joel was
a cautious man, and, although he was a good deal surprised when Philip
requested him to put the saddle and bridle on Jouncer, he immediately
stopped the work he was doing and went to the paddock. At the gate,
however, he stopped.
“If you’d rather have your own horse,” he said, “I can send Dick down
to ketch him.”
“No, I’d rather have Jouncer this morning,” said Philip.
And Jouncer was saddled and bridled.
Philip had been gone about twenty minutes, when Susan came down to the
stable-yard.
“And so he’s gone off on his uncle’s horse,” said she. “He’s getting
high and mighty! He’s just been ordering me to take that gun and hang
it on the pegs I got it from!”
“How did he know you had it?” asked Joel.
“He asked me where it was, and as I didn’t deny it, of course he knew I
had it.”
“Why don’t you put it back?” said Joel. “You don’t want it.”
“I tell you what it is, Joel Burress!” said Susan; “you are a new-comer
here, and you don’t understand things as I do!”
“I’ve been here two years,” said Joel.
“And I lived here eleven years with old Mr. Berkeley, and since then
with Mr. Godfrey. Before that I lived five or six years with old Abram
Bruden. I know all about that gun. It used to hang over old Abram’s
kitchen fireplace, and nobody ever took it down but himself. It was
always called the Master’s gun, and if any of his sons, or anybody
about the place, wanted to shoot they got some other gun, or went
without. But when his son Charlie’s wife came there to be head of the
house, and wanted a big yellow cow belonging to Silas Wingo, old Abram,
who was getting a little weak in his mind anyway, and who hadn’t much
money just then, traded off the gun to Silas for the cow. Silas Wingo
was a man who would always a great deal rather shoot than milk. Now,
just see what happened! In a precious little while after that gun left
the house nobody ever thought of old Abram as being the master there.
From that time till the day of his death he hardly ever had a word to
say about his own affairs. And after a while Silas got hard up, and
brought the gun round to old Mr. Berkeley, and sold it to him for twice
as much as it was worth, I dare say. It wasn’t long after that before
Silas was sold out of house and home; but his creditors let him live in
a little house on his own farm, where he had been a pretty hard-headed
master. Mr. Berkeley kept the gun as long as he lived, and was always
head of his house, I can tell you. And so is Mr. Godfrey, too.”
“I suppose you think,” said Joel, “that if young Phil has the gun he
will be the real master now.”
“I don’t want no boys over me,” said Susan, curtly.
“Havin’ the gun don’t make any difference,” said Joel. “All the things
you’ve told of could ’a’ happened if there’d never been a gun in the
world.”
“It’s no use talking to me like that,” said Susan. “There’s something
in these things. That gun is the Master’s gun, and always has been.”
“When do you really guess the head-master’ll come back?” asked Joel,
very willing to change the subject.
“I don’t guess anything about it,” answered Susan.
“Perhaps he’s gone to see some of his relations,” remarked Joel.
“He hasn’t got many of them,” said the housekeeper. “His brother is
dead, and this boy is the only child; and old Mr. Berkeley only had two
sons and a daughter; and she married a Frenchman, and died somewhere
out West. Godfrey was the youngest, but he got this place; though,
whether the old man ever built houses for the others I don’t know.”
Joel laughed.
“Then he hasn’t much of a family to visit, and perhaps he’ll be back
all the sooner.”
“Humph!” said Susan. “He’s gone to see no relations.”
And she went back to the house.
[Illustration]