How the Stranger Helped.
"Curiouser and curiouser," quoted Jack, from Alice in Wonderland; but
we were all too astonished to laugh at his droll face. "I specs he
walked in his sleep."
Harold looked angrily at his elder brother. "I promised I would not
go out of the house, and I didn't."
"Coach-house doesn't count, I suppose," remarked Rupert, who was, I
fancy, a little annoyed by the uneasiness we had all felt.
"Don't tease him, my boy," said father, kindly; "let him tell his
story in his own fashion."
Thus encouraged, Harold sat down, and told us that he had got into
the oak chest to hide.
"I thought, of course, that you would hear me when I called, but you
didn't seem to come into that room at all."
"We did go there," said Kathleen; "but you know there is no place to
hide there but the cupboard, and that had been left wide open by
Rupert when he hid there at the beginning of the game. So we just
ran up the stairs, put our heads in and saw that the room and
cupboard were empty, and then ran off to what we thought were more
likely places."
"Then that's why I did not hear your footsteps. The wood must be
fearfully thick. I lay still till I began to feel suffocated, and
then I tried to get out. I tried and tried, I pushed with my hands,
then I lay on my back and pressed with my knees and kicked with my
feet. It wasn't a bit of good, I only hurt myself and got more
choky. Then my nose began to bleed, and I gave up trying, and lay
with my face to the side of the chest. Oh, it was horrible, auntie!
I thought that I should die; and I wondered how long you would be
before you found me, and what poor father and mother would say when
they heard about it."
"There, there, don't pile it on," said Jack, rubbing his hand across
his eyes; "tell us how you got out, that's what we want to know.
Anyone could get in and be choked; but it's a regular Maskelyne and
Cooke's dodge to get out again instead."
"I can't tell you, I don't remember anything till I woke up in bed in
a strange room. I know now it was Robert's. Your new man gave me a
sandwich and something out of a little bottle, and I----"
"My new man?" repeated father, with his eyes wide open. "Why, I
haven't one in the place that has been here less than five years."
"Oh! perhaps I made a mistake," said Harold, rather wearily; "I
didn't know his face, so I thought he must be a stranger. He had a
white coat on like a coachman, and----"
"Hurrah!" cried Jack, "my mysterious stranger went to the rescue.
Could he talk English, Harold? Was he very furious?"
"He was very kind; but he didn't speak once, I remember. He bathed
my face with water out of Robert's basin, and I noticed that he kept
looking out of the window. Then I heard a noise like a bell; and he
went to the window, stood there a minute, then he waved his hand to
me, and unlocked the door and went."
"Why had he locked the door?"
"How can I tell?"
"How did you see all this in the dark?"
"The moon shone right in at the window. I don't know who the man
was, if uncle says he was not one of the servants; but I'm very
tired, and don't want to talk any more."
So we all were; but I am afraid if there had been any one sleeping in
my little room I should have talked all night about our mysterious
stranger.
The next morning things went on much as usual, till Kathleen and
Rupert came to carry me upstairs. Then you would have laughed if you
could have heard all the wild guesses we made as to the identity of
our strange visitor.
"Let's have a good look at that chest," said Rupert, when Kathleen
had declared she had done with it for the present.
"Your heels made a very queer sound in it last night, Rupert," I
said. "Only for pity's sake let somebody sit on the edge of it
whilst it is open. I don't want you to be guillotined or smothered."
Harold perched himself in such a manner that the lid could not
possibly fall, and dangled his legs against the side. It was a
wonderful old chest, and we have it still in our house. It is made
of black oak, is just five feet long, and about two feet wide.
"I know," said Rupert, presently, springing out of the box. "Where's
the foot rule?"
"What's the joke now?" said Harold. "Are you going to measure it to
see if there's room for the mysterious stranger to hide in?"
"That's it," exclaimed Rupert, disdaining to answer his brother's
remark. "That's it. There's a false bottom to it. Look! it
measures twenty inches inside and twenty-five outside. Let's break
it open; we shall find a treasure, perhaps. No wonder my heels
rattled when I got in last night."
"If it rattles," said Jack, sagaciously, "there isn't much inside.
But let's see if we can open it."
They pushed and knocked in turns, but it was useless; they only grew
tired and cross.
For once my studious life gave me an advantage over them. I
remembered that in all the wonderful tales I had read of hidden
chambers and secret drawers, there was no force required to open
them. I reminded my cousins of this. "There's some little trick
about it; some panel or hidden spring. You will be more likely to
find it just when you least expect."
"Get along, you stupid old thing," said Harold, losing patience; "I'm
sick of you." As he spoke he sprang from his perch and administered
a kick to the obstinate box. Kathleen was holding the lid on the
opposite side, and saw the bottom of the box move.
"Look, look," she cried, "it is opening!"
It did not spring up, it merely stood just enough away from the box
for Rupert to put his fingers under it and lift it out bodily. A low
groan of disappointment escaped us all. They had pulled my chair
close to the chest, and I was able to look into it as well, and
certainly shared in the groan. I can't say what we had expected. It
may have been gold, it may have been treasures of another kind. Most
certainly we none of us had expected to see a few packets of papers,
yellow with age, and covered with dust.
So engrossed had we been that we had not noticed a step in the room;
and when Rupert raised himself from the chest with a bundle of papers
in his hand, declaring he would take them to uncle, my blood seemed
to stand still and my heart almost to jump into my mouth when a
voice, with a strong French accent, said--
"Not too fast, young gentleman; those papers belong to me."
[Illustration: "NOT TOO FAST, YOUNG GENTLEMAN; THOSE PAPERS BELONG TO
ME."]
By the side of my couch, almost touching me, stood the man whom we
had named Jack's Ghost!
[Illustration: Chapter XI headpiece]