RICHARD MAKES A TREMENDOUS SENSATION AT WOODVILLE.
The mansion at Woodville was dark and silent when Richard stole
cautiously up the walk which led from the pier to the house. Of course
his father and the other members of the family supposed he was asleep
in his chamber, where he had gone at an early hour to retire. He had
locked his door as usual, and to make the deception more complete, he
had pretended that he was not very well.
His chamber window opened upon the one-story addition which had been
erected to afford room for a conservatory. On one end of the structure
there was a trellis for the support of a grape vine. After he had
locked his door, Richard had opened the window, crawled out upon the
roof of the conservatory, and descended to the ground by the aid of the
trellis.
He intended to return to his room by the same route, but it was now a
more difficult matter than it had been when the family were all in the
sitting room. Mr. Presby's room was next to his own, and the old
gentleman was not a very sound sleeper. The difficulty of gaining
access to his room was so great that he was tempted to sleep in the
boat house, and not take the risk of being discovered; but the
condition of his legs, still smarting severely from the chastisement he
had received, would not permit him to do so. His wounds needed
attention, and though he was no surgeon, he knew that a good washing in
cold water, with the application of a simple remedy he had in his
chamber, might ease the pain, and perhaps save him from serious
consequences.
With a stealthy step he walked round to the conservatory, and with the
utmost care commenced the ascent of the trellis. With all the
precautions he could use, it was impossible to avoid making some noise,
and he trembled lest the wakeful invalid should hear him. But he
succeeded in gaining the roof without creating an alarm. Here he felt
comparatively secure; but sometimes when we think we are safest we are
in the greatest peril. The roof, wet with the dew of night, was very
slippery; and when he reached up to open the window, his feet flew up
beneath him, and he fell, with noise enough to rouse a deeper sleeper
than Mr. Presby.
"Help! Help! Robbers! Thieves!" shouted the old gentleman, as he threw
open his window.
The invalid's lungs did not seem to be at all affected, and there would
have been no difficulty in hearing him all over the house, not to say
all over the estate. Richard, taking advantage of the momentary
confusion, threw open the window, and sprang into his room. Doors were
opening in all parts of the house, and he could hear the hurried tread
of the members of the household in the halls.
But Richard did not lose his self-possession, and hastily threw off his
clothes. Placing himself at the open window, he joined in the cry which
Mr. Presby still continued, and hallooed as lustily as his neighbor in
the adjoining room. The house was in a complete uproar, and presently
he heard the voices of his father and uncle Obed at his door.
"Richard," said Mr. Grant.
"Sir," replied the young scapegrace.
"Open the door."
"They are not in here, father; they are out doors. One of them just
jumped off the conservatory,--at least, I think he did."
"Did you see them?" asked uncle Obed.
"No, I didn't see them, but I think I heard them."
Mr. Grant seemed to be satisfied with the information he had gained,
and retired from the door. Richard lighted his lamp, and waited
impatiently for the disturbance to subside; but he had to wait a long
time, for every body about the place had been thoroughly waked up. Mr.
Presby went down to the sitting room, where, after a thorough search
had been made, the family and the servants had collected to compare
notes, and ascertain to what extent the supposed robbers had been
successful in their enterprise.
Richard's two sisters, Bertha and Fanny, were there, and both of them
very much terrified. Mr. Grant soon pacified them with the assurance
that no one had been injured, and that there was no further danger. But
Richard was not there, and his absence was noticed. He and Mr. Presby
had been the only persons who had heard the robbers, and they had
created the alarm. The old gentleman told his story, and Richard's
testimony was very much needed to complete the chain of evidence. One
of the men servants was sent up to request him to join the party.
"Tell them I don't feel very well, and have gone to bed again," replied
Richard, when the man delivered his message.
But this was the most dangerous answer he could have returned; for Mr.
Grant, followed by uncle Obed and Mr. Presby, hastened up stairs to
ascertain the nature of his illness.
"What ails you, Richard?" demanded his father, in the tones of sympathy
and kindness.
"Nothing particular; only I don't feel just right," replied the young
midnight marauder, terribly alarmed as he thought of the probable
consequences of this visitation.
"Well, open the door, and let me see what I can do for you," added his
father.
"I don't want any thing done. I shall be well enough in the morning."
"You had better open the door, Richard; I want to see you about the
robbers."
"I can't; I am in bed."
"Don't get up then," said Mr. Grant, more anxious than at first for the
health of his son. "I have a key that will open the door."
These words struck terror to the soul of the guilty youth, and he
sprang out of bed with all the haste he could command. One terror
filled his mind--that his father might see his bleeding, lacerated
limbs; and he did, what guilty persons often do, the stupidest thing of
which the circumstances would admit. He had blown out the light when he
heard them coming, and now in the darkness he pulled on his pants,
forgetting that the bed clothes would as effectually hide his injured
members as the garment.
He had hardly clothed himself in this partial manner before his father
succeeded in opening the door. By the aid of the light which uncle Obed
carried, the head and front of the melon expedition was revealed to the
visitors, standing in the middle of the room, half clothed and wholly
scared.
"Why, Richard! What ails you? Where have you been?" demanded Mr. Grant,
as he and the others gazed with astonishment at the sorry figure which
the male heir of Woodville presented.
If Richard had attempted to dress himself in the light, he would have
rejected the muddy pants he now wore, and consigned them to the deepest
depths of the clothes-press. He had rolled in the moist earth of the
melon patch, while under the discipline of Mr. Batterman, till his
clothes were plastered with mud. His face was begrimed with the rich
black mould of the garden, through which the tears of anger and
resentment he had shed, under the influence of their natural gravity,
had furrowed passages down his checks.
In the simple but eloquent language of Mrs. Green, the housekeeper of
Woodville, who had followed the party up stairs, to offer her services
in the capacity of nurse, Richard was "a sight to behold." He had
retired from the sitting room, and bade the family good night before
nine o'clock, looking like a decent person. His pants were in good
condition then; certainly, if they had been in their present plight, it
would have been noticed.
The first impulse of the visiting party was to laugh at the
extraordinary appearance he presented; but a stronger feeling of
interest and sympathy overruled the inclination, and the culprit was
spared this humiliation. Richard was almost as much astonished as they
were, for he had not regarded a thing so trivial as his personal
experience, in the excitement and terror of the hour.
While the party were scrutinizing him with surprise and anxiety, he
happened to glance at the looking glass on the bureau. Then he saw his
hair tangled and matted with mud and filth; then he saw his dirty,
tear-furrowed cheeks; and then he saw his befouled and torn pants. In
the choice language of the boys, it seemed to him that "the cat was out
of the bag" beyond the possibility of recovery.
"What ails you, Richard? What under the sun has happened?" asked Mr.
Grant again, for the terrified boy made no reply to the first question.
But Richard was an old head, and he had no notion of being defeated in
the present contest of words or ideas. He stood like a statue in the
middle of the floor, and made no reply to the interrogatories.
"Where have you been?" said his father. "Can't you speak?"
"I don't know," replied Richard, with a bewildered look, as he glanced
with a vacant stare at his soiled garments.
"Don't know where you have been?"
"No, sir."
"That's very singular," said uncle Obed.
"Have you been up since you went to bed?" demanded Mr. Grant.
"I don't know," replied Richard, vacantly, as though the whole matter
was as much a mystery to him as to the others.
"Where were you when the alarm was given?"
"Out on the roof of the conservatory."
"On the roof!" exclaimed his father. "How came you there?"
"I don't know," answered Richard, shaking his head.
"Don't you know any thing about it?"
"No, sir. I woke up, and heard some one halloo, Robbers! thieves! I was
close by the window, and I jumped in, and hallooed with the rest of
them."
"Were you standing on the roof?"
"No, I was flat on my face."
"I see," interposed Mr. Presby, holding up his hands with astonishment,
"I understand it all. The poor boy is a sleep walker."
"Richard?" said Mr. Grant, who had never known his son to do such a
thing before.
"Yes, sir; your boy is unquestionably a somnambulist. He has been
wandering about the garden, and rolling in the mud, in his sleep. There
have been no robbers or thieves here to-night. The poor boy fell on the
roof; that was what waked him up; and the noise of his fall was what
caused me to give the alarm."
"Very singular," added uncle Obed.
"I never had any suspicion that he got up in his sleep," said Mr.
Grant.
"There are instances on record of persons addicted to the practice who
have followed it for years, without discovery. Now, if you will come to
my room, I will read you several accounts, given by competent medical
authority, of cases just like this," observed Mr. Presby.
But none of the party, at that hour of the night, were disposed to
consult the authorities on the subject. If they had looked on the table
in Richard's room they might have found there a yellow-covered pamphlet
novel, entitled "Sylvester Sound, the Somnambulist." It is a very
curious and amusing account of the antics of a sleep-walker, describing
the wonderful feats he performed in his slumbers, without having the
least idea of what he was doing.
The ingenious young rogue had been reading the book that very day, and
in the drama of the "Midnight Alarm," played at Woodville, he had
chosen for himself the part of Sylvester Sound. While his father went
for a hammer and nails, to secure the window, Richard removed his
telltale trousers, and jumped into bed.