WYTHER GRANGE
No reply or acknowledgement came from Great-Aunt Nancy Priest regarding
Emily’s picture. Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Laura, knowing Great-Aunt
Nancy’s ways tolerably well, were not surprised at this, but Emily
felt rather worried over it. Perhaps Great-Aunt Nancy did not approve
of what she had done; or perhaps she still thought her too stupid to
bother with.
Emily did not like to lie under the imputation of stupidity. She wrote
a scathing epistle to Great-Aunt Nancy on a letter-bill in which she
did not mince her opinions as to that ancient lady’s knowledge of the
rules of epistolary etiquette; the letter was folded up and stowed away
on the little shelf under the sofa but it served its purpose in blowing
off steam and Emily had ceased to think about the matter when a letter
came from Great-Aunt Nancy in July.
Elizabeth and Laura talked the matter over in the cook-house, forgetful
or ignorant of the fact that Emily was sitting on the kitchen doorstep
just outside. Emily was imagining herself attending a drawing-room of
Queen Victoria. Robed in white, with ostrich plumes, veil, and court
train, she had just bent to kiss the Queen’s hand when Aunt Elizabeth’s
voice shattered her dream as a pebble thrown into a pool scatters the
fairy reflection.
“What is your opinion, Laura,” Aunt Elizabeth was saying, “of letting
Emily visit Aunt Nancy?”
Emily pricked up her ears. What was in the wind now?
“From her letter she seems very anxious to have the child,” said Laura.
Elizabeth sniffed.
“A whim--a whim. You know what her whims are. Likely by the time Emily
got there she’d be quite over it and have no use for her.”
“Yes, but on the other hand if we don’t let her go she will be
dreadfully offended and never forgive us--or Emily. Emily should have
her chance.”
“I don’t know that her chance is worth much. If Aunt Nancy really has
any money beyond her annuity--and that’s what neither you nor I nor any
living soul knows, unless it’s Caroline--she’ll likely leave it all to
some of the Priests--Leslie Priest’s a favourite of hers, I understand.
Aunt Nancy always liked her husband’s family better than her own, even
though she’s always slurring at them. Still--she _might_ take a fancy
to Emily--they’re both so odd they might suit each other--but you know
the way she talks--she and that abominable old Caroline.”
“Emily is too young to understand,” said Aunt Laura.
“I understand more than you think,” cried Emily indignantly.
Aunt Elizabeth jerked open the cook-house door.
“Emily Starr, haven’t you learned by this time not to listen?”
“I wasn’t listening. I thought you knew I was sitting here--I can’t
help my ears _hearing_. Why didn’t you _whisper_? When you whisper I
know you’re talking secrets and I don’t try to hear them. Am I going to
Great-Aunt Nancy’s for a visit?”
“We haven’t decided,” said Aunt Elizabeth coldly, and that was all the
satisfaction Emily got for a week. She hardly knew herself whether she
wanted to go or not. Aunt Elizabeth had begun making cheese--New Moon
was noted for its cheeses--and Emily found the whole process absorbing,
from the time the rennet was put in the warm new milk till the white
curds were packed away in the hoop and put under the press in the old
orchard, with the big, round, grey “cheese” stone to weight it down as
it had weighed down New Moon cheeses for a hundred years. And then she
and Ilse and Teddy and Perry were absorbed heart and soul in “playing
out” the “Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Lofty John’s bush and it was
very fascinating. When they entered Lofty John’s bush they went out of
the realm of daylight and things known into the realm of twilight and
mystery and enchantment. Teddy had painted wonderful scenery on old
boards and pieces of sails, which Perry had got at the Harbor. Ilse
had fashioned delightful fairy wings from tissue paper and tinsel, and
Perry had made an ass’s head for _Bottom_ out of an old calf-skin that
was very realistic. Emily had toiled happily for many weeks copying
out the different parts and adapting them to circumstances. She had
“cut” the play after a fashion that would have harrowed Shakespeare’s
soul but after all the result was quite pretty and coherent. It did not
worry them that four small actors had to take six times as many parts.
Emily was _Titania_ and _Hermia_ and a job lot of fairies besides, Ilse
was _Hippolyta_ and _Helena_, plus some more fairies, and the boys were
anything that the dialogue required. Aunt Elizabeth knew nothing of it
all; she would promptly have put a stop to the whole thing, for she
thought play-acting exceedingly wicked; but Aunt Laura was privy to the
plot, and Cousin Jimmy and Lofty John had already attended a moonlight
rehearsal.
To go away and leave all this, even for a time, would be a hard wrench,
but on the other hand Emily had a burning curiosity to see Great-Aunt
Nancy and Wyther Grange, her quaint, old house at Priest Pond with
the famous stone dogs on the gateposts. On the whole, she thought she
would like to go; and when she saw Aunt Laura doing up her starched
white petticoats and Aunt Elizabeth grimly dusting off a small, black,
nail-studded trunk in the garret she knew, before she was told, that
the visit to Priest Pond was going to come off; so she took out the
letter she had written to Aunt Nancy and added an apologetic postscript.
Ilse chose to be disgruntled because Emily was going for a visit. In
reality Ilse felt appalled at the lonely prospect of a month or more
without her inseparable chum. No more jolly evenings of play-acting in
Lofty John’s bush, no more pungent quarrels. Besides, Ilse herself had
never been anywhere for a visit in her whole life and she felt sore
over this fact.
“_I_ wouldn’t go to Wyther Grange for anything,” said Ilse. “It’s
haunted.”
“’Tisn’t.”
“Yes! It’s haunted by a ghost you can _feel_ and _hear_ but never
_see_. Oh, I wouldn’t be _you_ for the world! Your Great-Aunt Nancy is
an _awful crank_ and the old woman who lives with her is a _witch_.
She’ll put a spell on you. You’ll pine away and die.”
“I won’t--she isn’t!”
“_Is!_ Why, she makes the stone dogs on the gateposts howl every night
if any one comes near the place. They go, ‘_Wo-or-oo-oo_.’”
Ilse was not a born elocutionist for nothing. Her “wo-or-oo-oo” was
extremely gruesome. But it was daylight, and Emily was as brave as a
lion in daylight.
“You’re jealous,” she said, and walked off.
“I’m not, you blithering centipede,” Ilse yelled after her. “Putting
on airs because your aunt has stone dogs on her gateposts! Why, I know
a woman in Shrewsbury who has dogs on her posts that are ten times
stonier than your aunt’s!”
But next morning Ilse was over to bid Emily good-bye and entreat her
to write every week. Emily was going to drive to Priest Pond with Old
Kelly. Aunt Elizabeth was to have driven her but Aunt Elizabeth was not
feeling well that day and Aunt Laura could not leave her. Cousin Jimmy
had to work at the hay. It looked as if she could not go, and this was
rather serious, for Aunt Nancy had been told to expect her that day
and Aunt Nancy did not like to be disappointed. If Emily did not turn
up at Priest Pond on the day set Great-Aunt Nancy was quite capable of
shutting the door in her face when she did appear and telling her to go
back home. Nothing less than this conviction would have induced Aunt
Elizabeth to fall in with Old Kelly’s suggestion that Emily should ride
to Priest Pond with him. His home was on the other side of it and he
was going straight there.
Emily was quite delighted. She liked Old Kelly and thought that a drive
on his fine red wagon would be quite an adventure. Her little black
box was hoisted to the roof and tied there and they went clinking and
glittering down the New Moon lane in fine style. The tins in the bowels
of the wagon behind them rumbled like a young earthquake.
“Get up, my nag, get up,” said Old Kelly. “Sure, an’ I always like to
drive the pretty gurrls. An’ when is the wedding to be?”
“Whose wedding?”
“The slyness av her! Your own, av coorse.”
“I have no intention of being married--immediately,” said Emily, in a
very good imitation of Aunt Elizabeth’s tone and manner.
“Sure, and ye’re a chip av the ould block. Miss Elizabeth herself
couldn’t have said it better. Get up, my nag, get up.”
“I only meant,” said Emily, fearing that she had insulted Old Kelly,
“that I am too young to be married.”
“The younger the better--the less mischief ye’ll be after working with
them come-hither eyes. Get up, my nag, get up. The baste is tired. So
we’ll let him go at his own swate will. Here’s a bag av swaties for ye.
Ould Kelley always trates the ladies. Come now, tell me all about him.”
“About who?”--but Emily knew quite well.
“Your beau, av coorse.”
“I haven’t _any_ beau. Mr. Kelly, I wish you wouldn’t talk to me about
such things.”
“Sure, and I won’t if ’tis a sore subject. Don’t ye be minding if ye
haven’t got one--there’ll be scads av them after a while. And if the
right one doesn’t know what’s good for him, just ye come to Ould Kelly
and get some toad ointment.”
Toad ointment! It sounded horrible. Emily shivered. But she would
rather talk about toad ointment than beaux.
“What is that for?”
“It’s a love charm,” said Old Kelly mysteriously. “Put a li’l smootch
on his eyelids and he’s yourn for life with never a squint at any other
gurrl.”
“It doesn’t _sound_ very nice,” said Emily. “How do you make it?”
“You bile four toads alive till they’re good and soft and then mash--”
“Oh, stop, stop!” implored Emily, putting her hands to her ears. “I
don’t want to hear any more--you couldn’t be so cruel!”
“Cruel is it? You were after eating lobsters this day that were biled
alive--”
“I don’t believe it. I don’t. If it’s true I’ll never, never eat one
again. Oh, Mr. Kelly, I thought you were a nice kind man--but those
poor toads!”
“Gurrl dear, it was only me joke. An’ you won’t be nading toad ointment
to win your lad’s love. Wait you now--I’ve something in the till behind
me for a prisent for you.”
Old Kelly fished out a box which he put into Emily’s lap. She found a
dainty little hairbrush in it.
“Look at the back av it,” said Old Kelly. “You’ll see something
handsome--all the love charm ye’ll ever nade.”
Emily turned it over. Her own face looked back at her from a little
inset mirror surrounded by a scroll of painted roses.
“Oh, Mr. Kelly--how pretty--I mean the roses and the glass,” she
cried. “Is it really for me? Oh, thank you, thank you! Now, I can have
Emily-in-the-glass whenever I want her. Why, I can carry her round with
me. And you were really only in fun about the toads!”
“Av coorse. Get up, my nag, get up. An’ so ye’re going to visit the
ould lady over at Praste Pond? Ever been there?”
“No.”
“It’s full of Prastes. Ye can’t throw a stone but ye hit one. And hit
one--hit all. They’re as proud and lofty as the Murrays themselves.
The only wan I know is Adam Praste--the others hold too high. He’s
the black shape and quite sociable. But if ye want to see how the
world looked on the morning after the flood go into his barnyard on
a rainy day. Look a-here, gurrl dear”--Old Kelly lowered his voice
mysteriously--“don’t ye ever marry a Praste.”
“Why not?” asked Emily, who had never thought of marrying a Priest but
was immediately curious as to why she shouldn’t.
“They’re ill to marry--ill to live with. The wives die young. The ould
lady of the Grange fought her man out and buried him but she had the
Murray luck. I wouldn’t trust it too far. The only dacent Praste among
them is the wan they call Jarback Praste and he’s too ould for you.”
“Why do they call him Jarback?”
“Wan av his shoulders is a l’il bit higher than the other. He’s got a
bit of money and doesn’t be after having to work. A book worrum, I’m
belaving. Have ye got a bit av cold iron about you?”
“No; why?”
“Ye should have. Old Caroline Praste at the Grange is a witch if ever
there was one.”
“Why, that’s what Ilse said. But there are no such thing as witches
really, Mr. Kelly.”
“Maybe that’s thrue but it’s better to be on the safe side. Here, put
this horseshoe-nail in your pocket and don’t cross her if ye can help
it. Ye don’t mind if I have a bit av a smoke, do ye?”
Emily did not mind at all. It left her free to follow her own thoughts,
which were more agreeable than Old Kelly’s talk of toads and witches.
The road from Blair Water to Priest Pond was a very lovely one,
winding along the gulf shore, crossing fir fringed rivers and inlets,
and coming ever and anon on one of the ponds for which that part of
the north shore was noted--Blair Water, Derry Pond, Long Pond, Three
Ponds where three blue lakelets were strung together like three great
sapphires held by a silver thread; and then Priest Pond, the largest
of all, almost as round as Blair Water. As they drove down towards it
Emily drank the scene in with avid eyes--as soon as possible she must
write a description of it; she had packed the Jimmy blank book in her
box for just such purposes.
The air seemed to be filled with opal dust over the great pond and the
bowery summer homesteads around it. A western sky of smoky red was
arched over the big Malvern Bay beyond. Little grey sails were drifting
along by the fir-fringed shores. A sequestered side road, fringed
thickly with young maples and birches, led down to Wyther Grange. How
damp and cool the air was in the hollows! And how the ferns did smell!
Emily was sorry when they reached Wyther Grange and climbed in between
the gateposts whereon the big stone dogs sat very stonily, looking grim
enough in the twilight.
The wide hall door was open and a flood of light streamed out over the
lawn. A little old woman was standing in it. Old Kelly seemed suddenly
in something of a hurry. He swung Emily and her box to the ground,
shook hands hastily and whispered, “Don’t lose that bit av a nail.
Good-bye. I wish ye a cool head and a warm heart,” and was off before
the little old woman could reach them.
“So this is Emily of New Moon!” Emily heard a rather shrill, cracked
voice saying. She felt a thin, claw-like hand grasp hers and draw her
towards the door. There were no witches, Emily knew,--but she thrust
her hand into her pocket and touched the horseshoe-nail.