THE AGENT
A man in middle age.
Busy, and hard to please. TAYLOR.
“Well, runaway! Where have you been all the morning?” briskly inquired
John Palmer as he ran down the front steps to meet his favorite daughter
as she came up the heavily-shaded avenue.
“To a lovely island down the river, father, to hear a—heavenly
minister!” exclaimed Em. with a burst of enthusiasm.
And then, as they strolled leisurely on to the house, she gave him,
after the manner of young girls, a rapid, impetuous, and graphic
description of her morning’s adventures and discoveries.
“An Edengarden and a White Spirit! Wery fantastical names, Em. And, I
reckon, just some of old ’Si’s yarns,” quietly observed John as they
entered the hall, where Susan and old Monica were busy setting the table
and preparing the frugal dinner.
“Gracious, Em., you’ve been away all day, and if it had not been for
that little black boy—Si’, he said his name was—a coming and telling me
you had gone to a preaching with his grandfather, I shouldn’t a known
what had become o’ you,” said Susan.
“But I wouldn’t have gone without sending you word, mother. And, oh! as
soon as ever we get quiet I have got _so_ much to tell you,” answered
Em., as she took the loaf of bread out of the good woman’s hand and
began to cut it in slices for the table.
The hall at this hour presented a very pleasant scene, both the front
and the back doors being open and admitting a free current of the fresh
summer air, laden with the fragrance of the wild woods which grew
closely all around the house.
From the midst of the hall arose that grand staircase with its lofty
window at the top, forevermore mysterious and memorable to Em. from the
ghostly vision of the night before.
Now, however, it looked a homely and familiar household object enough,
with the three little girls, Molly, Nelly and Venny running up and down
its richly-carpeted steps or sliding on the balustrades.
Em. looked up at the high window and at such doors in the upper hall as
came within the range of her sight, and with a natural curiosity,
wondered into what manner of places they led.
“Mother,” she at length inquired, “have you looked into any of the rooms
above there?”
“No, child, nor the rooms below, either. There hasn’t been a door opened
anywhere except into this hall. It is Sunday, you know, and neither me
nor your father believe in doing any more work than we can help on this
day, even if we have just arrived at a strange place,” replied Susan
Palmer.
Em. fell into silent and self-reproachful thought, wondering whether she
had not committed a sin and broken the Sabbath by going to look at the
lovely white palace on the island.
“Don’t you like to live here, Em.? Ain’t it jolly? Ain’t this a splendid
old hall? I would like to stay here always, even if they didn’t give us
any more of the house to live in than just this. Wouldn’t you?” inquired
her youngest brother, Tom, who had just come in with a pail of fresh
water from the well.
“Oh, it’s bully! It’s like a picnic or camp-meeting what Aunt Monica
used to tell us about,” chimed in Ned, who was piling up a little heap
of brush in a corner.
“I hope they’ll let us stay just here, where we can slide on the
banisters all day long,” sung out little Nelly from her perch on the
stairs.
“Them children will break their necks! John, can’t you make them come
down and behave themselves? They don’t mind me one bit!” cried out Mrs.
Palmer, pausing in the midst of slicing cold ham.
“Lor’, Susan, woman, young uns is like kittens and monkeys. It is their
natur’ to climb. ‘Sich is life;’ and it’s cruel to perwent ’em; besides,
these poor things never had a chance to climb in all their lives
before.”
“And now they’ll go it, you may depend! They’ll be swarming up all these
trees like bees before the week is out if you encourage them so.”
“Well, I hope they will. It will do ’em good. ‘Sich is life,’” concluded
aggravating John.
All this time Em. had made no remark, but was silently putting the
dinner on the table. It was a cold dinner of bread, butter, ham, pies
and well water; for neither Susan nor John would have any cooking done
on Sunday.
“I think I like this gypsy sort of life myself,” said John as he began
to drag the heavy, high-backed oaken chair from the wall up to the
table.
They were all about to sit down to dinner when they were interrupted by
the sudden entrance of a little, elderly, dark-skinned man with snapping
black eyes, a brisk manner, a quick step and a short tone.
All the family started up.
“‘Sich is life,’” said John.
“Well-well-well!” the intruder exclaimed, running his words together in
swift repetition. “Well-well-well! So here you are at last! So here you
are at last!”
“Yes, sir,” said John Palmer, rising and saluting the stranger who had
taken him so much by surprise. “Yes, sir, we reached here all right. You
are the agent of the property, I presume, sir—Mr. Comical?”
“_Car_-michael, man! _Car_-michael! But what the deuce are you doing
here in the grand hall? Grand hall—grand hall—grand hall! Eh-eh-eh?”
quickly demanded the brisk little man.
“Excuse me, sir. ‘Sich is life.’ We are doing no harm. We reached here
last night too late to do anything more than to throw ourselves down
here. This being the Sabbath day, we could not make a change without
breaking the commandment; but to-morrow we will go into the quarters
provided for us, if you will kindly direct us where they are,” said
John.
“I see! I see! I see! And meantime you are cooking your dinners on the
very hearths where the old cavalier lords of the manor used only to
roast their own shins! Well-well-well! I suppose it can’t be helped for
to-day—to-day—to-day!” replied the nervous little old man with rapid
reiteration.
“You have likely had a long ride this morning, sir. Won’t you sit up and
take some dinner?” inquired John politely.
“I thank you! Yes-yes-yes! I believe I will! I believe I will!” said the
agent frankly, taking the chair that one of the boys vacated for him.
“That is my wife, sir,” said John, indicating the good woman at the head
of the table.
“Yes-yes-yes! So I should have supposed! I hope you are very well,
ma’am!” exclaimed the quick visitor, and then, without waiting for an
answer, he turned to his host, and pointing with his fork to Mrs.
Whitlock, said: “And the other respectable old party, your
mother-in-law? mother-in-law? mother-in-law?”
“No, though she do lectur’ me to that extent, she might as well be,”
laughed John as he resumed his place at the foot of the table and helped
his guest to ham.
“Well-well-well!” said the agent after he had taken the edge off his
appetite with several slices of bread and ham. “Well-well! as your
conscience will not permit you to move on Sunday, and as I can’t stay
here till Monday, I’ll just indicate where you are to lodge yourself and
family. It is in the rear of the manor-house. We call it The Red Wing.”
“Yes, sir, I know exactly the place you mean. It is just under the
shadow of the mountain and is built of a different colored stone from
the rest of the house—a red stone.”
“Yes-yes-yes! Very fine specimen of old red sandstone, while the main
building is of blue limestone. You’ll do, you’ll do, you’ll do! And now
I will give you this paper, which contains full instructions as to your
duties here, and I will leave it with you for reference,” said the
agent, handing over to John a very formidable looking document in a
long, yellow envelope, tied with red tape.
“I will study this to-morrow morning,” said Palmer, stowing it away in
the breast pocket of his coat.
“I will rest here until the heat of the day is over, and then leave my
horse here and take a fresh one and return-return-return,” said the
agent as they all arose from the table when the frugal meal was ended.
Leaving the women to clear away the table, John Palmer and his guest
walked down on the front lawn, if lawn that could be called which was so
thickly covered with trees as to be only the skirt of the deep forest
that lay between the house and the river.
“You spoke about your horse. I hope he is taken care of, sir. If so it
had a been that I had knowed when you first came I’d a taken care of him
myself,” said Palmer apologetically.
“Oh, don’t bother, don’t bother!” exclaimed the visitor as he threw
himself down at full length under one of the large shade trees, took a
pipe and pouch of tobacco from his pocket, filled and lighted the pipe
from a match, and began to smoke, continuing to talk between his whiffs.
“Bless you, man, I’m more at home here, more at home, more at home than
you are. I just rode around to the stable, gave my horse to Seth, the
head groom, and then walked on to the house. The horse belongs here. I
have none of my own, none of my own; but I have the privilege of using
these, using these. I shall take a fresh one, a fresh one, a fresh one,
when I go back. But, sit down, man, sit down, sit down. I want to talk
to you about something else, and it tires me to see you standing.”
John seated himself under the tree at some little distance from the
agent, who then, lowering his tone, inquired:
“Slept in the house last night, didn’t you? Slept in the house, slept in
the house?”
“Yes,” replied John. “I told you so, you know.”
“Yes-yes-yes-yes! So you did! Hem! See anything unusual?”
“Sir?” inquired John in a bewilderment.
“See anything unsual—unusual—unusual?” rapidly reiterated the little
man, fixing his keen black eyes on Palmer’s face.
“I beg pardon. I—I don’t understand,” said John.
“Any disturbance in the night—any fright-fright-fright?”
“Not in the least. But now that reminds me that the same question was
asked by old ’Si, the gate-porter, this morning! But I answered him as I
answer you: nothing disturbed us. As far as I know we all slept like
tops—we always do. What _should_ have disturbed us?”
“Nothing-nothing-nothing! Bats, mice, wind! Nothing more, _I_ verily
believe! But there are a lot of idiots who have got a story up about the
old manor-house being haunted-haunted-haunted!”
“Rubbish!” said John with all the strong contempt of a practical man for
the supernatural.
“So I say, so I say.”
“But I wish, for all that, no one would hint any sich a thing to the
women and girls. It might trouble them. ‘Sich is life.’”
“No-no-no-no! But even if such a rumor should reach their ears it need
not alarm them. It is only the old manor-house that the fools say is
full of ghosts, ghosts, ghosts! Not the wing, not the wing!”
While the two men talked together they perceived the slow approach of
some figure through the trees, which soon revealed itself to be old
’Sias, the gatekeeper.
“Well, well, old man, what do you want? What do you want?” demanded the
agent, ill-pleased at the intrusion.
“Nothing werry particular, marster; only to pay my dispects to yer, sar,
and I no more knowin’ as you was here till dat boy Seth told me! I
nebber was more s’prised in my life, no, not since I was a boy, and dat
wa’n’t yes’day, marster! Dat must a been a hundred and fifty year ago,
more or less!”
“Humph-humph-humph! To hear _you_ talk, old man, one would think you
might remember Noah’s flood,” said the agent.
“Well, no, marster, not quite: but _I_ s’pects my grand-daddy did; ’caze
I has heerd him ’scribe it, when he was a little boy,” gravely replied
the old man.
“Yes-yes-yes. I see! Mendacity comes to you quite legitimately, handed
down from father to son,” said the agent.
“Yes, sar, so it do indeed, marster, sar, and few colored fam’lies is as
much favored in dat ’spect as ours,” said old ’Sias so innocently that
the agent looked half ashamed of himself.
To change the subjects, as well as to utilize the old man, Mr.
Carmichael said:
“Well, now that you are here, ’Sias, do me the favor to walk down to the
stable and tell Seth to saddle Saladin for me, and bring him around
here.”
“Yes, marster, wid de greatest pleasure in life,” said ’Sias, moving
off.
“And here-here-here! Come back here! Here’s a dollar for a present to
buy tobacco pipes with,” added Carmichael, thrusting the broad silver
coin in his hand.
“Thanky, marster, a thousand times, and I hab the hoss round here for
yer in no time. T’anks be to goodness, Sereny don’t know nuffin’ ’tall
’bout my habbin’ ob _dis_ money! Ain’t me and her been in de way ob
getting presents to-day? She a sky-blue scarf, and me dis here dollar!
But, dere! I ain’t a gwine to let Sereny know nuffin’ ’tall ’bout dis
here dollar. ’Cause if I did—hush, honey!—she’d dance a war-dance ’round
me, and scalp de top o’ my head off but what she’d hab every blessed
cent ob it,” muttered the old man to himself as he carefully stowed away
his prize in the lowest recesses of his trowsers’ pocket and hurried
away down a little foot-path leading through the thicket in the
direction of the stables.
While waiting for his horse the agent occupied the time in giving the
new overseer some general information about the situation. He told
Palmer that the Wilderness Manor had always been in the possession of
the Elphine family; but that the last male descendant of the race had
suddenly left the house on the marriage of his cousin, many, many years
before, and had lived abroad; that very lately he had died in Paris,
unmarried and intestate, and the manor had fallen to the only daughter
of that cousin whose marriage he had taken in such high dudgeon.
He went on to say that this lady—whose confidential agent he, Peter
Carmichael, was—had come in person to visit her new inheritance, and
finding the old manor-house going to ruin from neglect, she had directed
him to find a suitable family to take charge of it; and that he had
advertised and found the present family, with whom, he added, he was
very well “pleased-pleased-pleased.”
He concluded by saying that he was a lawyer by profession and a bachelor
by choice, and that he lived at the Red Deer Hotel in the town of
Greyrock, about thirty miles down the river, and that he rode up weekly
to look after the estate, always changing horses when he went back.
Then, as he saw the stable boy, Seth, coming up the narrow path and
leading Saladin, he arose to take leave, requesting John Palmer to bid
good-by to the family for him, and promising to ride over again on the
ensuing Saturday.
“It’ll be ten o’clock before Mr. Comical gets home, and he’ll have to
ride fast to do that,” said John as he stepped into the large hall,
which he found put in order for the night, with all the pallets spread.
“Has that funny old fellow gone?” inquired Susan as she arose from
putting the last smoothing touches on the children’s bed.
“Yes, and he asked me to bid you all good-by for him.”
“Well, now all is done here, we’ll go out and sit under the trees, and I
hope this is the very last night we shall have to sleep in the hall. It
is a perfectly savage way of living!”
“Oh! I think it’s just _nice_!”
“It’s real jolly!”
“It’s first-rate fun!”
“I’d rather live this way than any way!”
Such was the chorus of exclamations from the children that answered
their mother’s remarks.
“Difference of opinion; but ‘sich is life,’” said John.
“_Do_ hush your noise, Palmer! You distract me with your clatter!”
scolded Susan as she hurried the children out of the house.
“I wasn’t making the least bit. She and the young uns was making it all,
and I get the blame: ‘sich is life,’” said John as he followed them out.
But there was no malice in Susan Palmer’s hasty speeches, and her
husband knew it well.
All was harmony in the family circle as they sat under the trees, John
smoking his white clay pipe, and the children amusing themselves with
picking the grass-flowers that grew thickly around them.
“Is _this_ country enough for you, Em.?” inquired John Palmer for the
second time, as he looked at his daughter, who was sitting on the ground
with her hands clasped around her knees, and with her eyes fixed upon
the forest, through whose waving branches, glimmering here and there,
could be caught glimpses of the distant river.
“Oh, father, it is almost divine! I sometimes wonder if we are not all
dead and in Paradise together. Maybe we were all suffocated in our
burning house that night, you know, and have come to life in Paradise!”
dreamily replied the girl.
“Em., hush! you’re crazy!” broke in Susan Palmer.
“Well, mother, anyway we _are_ dead to the old life in Laundry Lane, and
are risen to this,” said Em., smiling.
“_That’s_ what she means, Susan. Law, _I_ understood the girl!” said
Palmer heartily.
“Oh, yes! I dessay you do, John, and you encourage her in her flights
just as you do the little ones in their climbing. The end of which will
be you will have a crazy girl and three or four crippled children!”
chimed in Ann Whitlock.
“No wonder Mr. Comical took her for my mother-in-law!” muttered John to
himself. “And now I come to think of it, it is all providential—having
no mother-in-law of my own, Mrs. Whitlock fell right into the place to
fill up the wacancy! ‘Sich is life!’” laughed John to himself.
They sat out under the trees until their early bedtime, and then they
all returned to the house. The women and children entered first and
retired, and then the man and the boys.
Em., not wishing a repetition of her last night’s experience, had made
her pallet in the rear of the grand staircase, and close by the back
door, which was left wide open for air.
As usual with this hard-working and healthy family, as soon as their
heads dropped upon their pillows they fell fast asleep.
Even Em.—who would have kept her eyes open if she could, for the
pleasure of looking out from her pallet through the open door upon the
waving trees, the gray rocks beyond and the starlit sky above, soon
succumbed to fatigue and slept soundly.
The vigils of the last night and the exertions of the past day had
completely exhausted the girl, and produced a prolonged sleep of many
hours.
It must have been very near day when at last she calmly opened her eyes.
The moon was shining over the top of the mountain and down through the
waving trees and making their shadows dance upon the floor of the hall
and on the white quilt of Em.’s pallet.
All else was still in the place.
“This is beautiful, beautiful,” said the girl, watching the graceful
shadows of the leaves dance and fly over her outspread hands. She knew
the moon was also shining through the lofty window at the head of the
stairs and flooding the stairway and front hall with light where she had
seen the radiant vision of the night. She felt glad that she had moved
her pallet, for she thought that visions would not be likely to appear
anywhere else except in that splendor of light.
Hush! What was that?
Her ears had caught the sound of a soft foot-fall approaching,
accompanied by the slight _swish_ of a trailing garment along the floor.
The sound drew nearer.
Horror of horrors! What is this?
No radiant form of light now! but a demon of darkness from the pit! a
tall figure shrouded in black from head to foot, with a muffled face of
which nothing could be seen but a pair of fierce, dark eyes that seemed
to shine and gleam by their own fires!
Em.’s blood curdled in her heart; she tried to cry out! to spring up! to
fly for her life! but she could neither move, speak, nor breathe!
The terrible form drew nearer, stood beside her pallet, stooped over
her.
That was too much, and the girl swooned with horror.