MYSTERY AND FUN
Mr. Howbridge was evidently somewhat impressed by Hedden's report. He
stared gravely for a minute at his grizzled butler. Then he nodded.
"Take me upstairs and show me which room you mean, Hedden," he said.
"Yes, sir. This way, sir."
He led the lawyer toward the nearest stairway. They mounted to the
gallery. Then the man led his employer down a passage and turned short
into a doorway. The room they entered was really on the other side of
the chimney from the big entrance hall.
It was a small, cozy den. Mr. Howbridge looked the place over keenly,
scrutinizing the furnishings before he glanced at the open coal grate
to which Hedden sought to draw his attention first of all.
"Ah. Yes," said the lawyer, thoughtfully. "A work-basket. Low rocker.
A dressing table. Couch. This, Hedden, was Mrs. Birdsall's private
sitting-room when she was alive. I never saw the house before, but I
have heard Birdsall describe it."
"Yes, sir?"
"Mrs. Birdsall spent a good deal of her time indoors in this room, and
the children with her. So he said. And you found live embers in the
grate there?"
"Yes, sir," said the butler, his own eyes big with wonder.
"No other signs of anybody having been here?"
"Not that I could see," said Hedden.
"Strange--if anybody had been in here who had a key. Have you seen Ike
M'Graw?"
"No, sir. The men who brought us up here said the man had gone
away--had been away for a week, sir--but would return tonight."
"Then he was not the person who built the fire the embers of which you
found. The coals would not have burned for a week. He is the person
who has a key to the Lodge, and nobody else."
"Yes, sir."
"Whoever got in here, of course, either departed when you came,
Hedden, or before. Did you notice any tracks about the house?"
"Plenty, sir. But only of beasts and birds."
"Ah-ha! Are the animals as tame as that up here?"
"There were footprints that the men from town assured me were those of
a big cat of some kind, and there were dog footprints; only the men
said they were those of wolves. They say the beasts are getting hungry
early in the season, because of the deep and early snow, sir."
"Humph! Better say nothing to the children about that," said Mr.
Howbridge. "Of course, this party's being here will keep any marauding
animals at a distance. We won't care for that sort of visitor."
"I think there is no danger, sir. I will tell the chef to throw out no
table-scraps, and to feed that big dog we have brought in the back
kitchen. Then there will be nothing to attract the wild creatures to
the door."
"Good idea," Mr. Howbridge said. "And I will warn them all tomorrow
not to leave the vicinity of the Lodge alone. When Ike M'Graw arrives
we shall be all right. This vicinity is his natural habitat, and he
will know all that's right to do, and what not to do."
Mr. Howbridge still looked about the room. The thing that interested
him most was the mystery of the intruder who had built the fire in the
grate. Mrs. Birdsall's sitting-room! And the lawyer knew from hearing
the story repeated again and again by the sorrowing widower, that the
woman had been brought in here after her fall from the horse and had
died upon the couch in the corner of the room.
He wondered.
Meanwhile the crowd of young people below were comforted with tea and
crackers before they went to their bedrooms to change their clothes
for dinner. Mr. Howbridge had brought the customs of his own formal
household to Red Deer Lodge, and, knowing how particular the lawyer
was, Ruth Kenway had warned the others to come prepared to dress for
dinner.
Mrs. MacCall, after drinking her third cup of tea, went off with the
chief maid to view the house and learn something about it. The Scotch
woman was very capable and had governed Mr. Howbridge's own home
before she went to the old Corner House to keep straight the household
lines there for the Kenways.
Her situation here at the Lodge was one between the serving people and
the family; but the latter, especially the smaller girls, would have
been woeful indeed had Mrs. MacCall not sat at the table with them and
been one of the family as she was at home in Milton.
The girls were shown to their two big rooms on the second floor, and
found them warm and cozy. They were heated by wood fires in
drum-stoves. Ike M'Graw, general caretaker of the Lodge, had long
since piled each wood box in the house full with billets of hard wood.
Neale and Luke and Sammy were given another room off the gallery above
the main hall. There they washed, and freshened up their apparel, and
otherwise made themselves more presentable. Even Sammy looked a little
less grubby than usual when they came down to the big fire again.
It was black dark outside by this time. The wind was still moaning in
the forest, and when they went to the door the fugitive snowflakes
drifted against one's cheek.
"Going to be a bad night, I guess," Neale said, coming back from an
observation, just as the girls came down the stairway. "Oh, look! see
'em all fussed up!"
The girls had shaken out their furbelows, and now came down smiling
and preening not a little. Mr. Howbridge appeared in a Tuxedo coat.
"Wish I'd brought my 'soup to nuts,'" admitted Luke Shepard. "This is
going to be a dress-up affair. I thought we were coming into the
wilderness to rough it."
"All the roughing it will be done outside the house, young man," said
Cecile to her brother. "You must be on your very best behavior
inside."
Hedden's assistant announced dinner, and Mr. Howbridge offered his arm
to Mrs. MacCall, who had just descended the stairway in old-fashioned
rustling black silk.
Immediately Luke joined the procession with Ruth on his arm, and Neale
followed with Agnes, giggling of course. Cecile made Sammy walk beside
her, and he was really proud to do this, only he would not admit it.
At the end of the procession came the two little girls.
They had not seen the dining-room before. It was big enough for a
banquet hall, and the table without being extended would have seated a
dozen. There was an open fireplace on either side of this room. The
acetylene lamps gave plenty of light. There were favors at each plate.
There were even flowers on the table. Aside from the unplastered walls
and raftered ceiling, one might have thought this dinner served in Mr.
Howbridge's own home.
They all (the older ones at least) began to realize how great a cross
it would have been for the lawyer to take into his home in Milton two
harum-scarum children like the Birdsall twins. If all tales about them
were true, they were what Neale O'Neil called "terrors."
Such children would surely break every rule of the lawyer's
well-ordered existence. And bachelors of Mr. Howbridge's age do not
take kindly to changes.
"Think of bringing the refinements of his own establishment away up
here into the woods for a three weeks' vacation!" gasped Cecile
afterwards to Ruth.
To-night at dinner every rule of a well-furnished and well-governed
household was followed. Hedden and his assistant served. The food was
deliciously cooked and the sauce of a good appetite aided all to enjoy
the meal.
And the fun and laughter! Mr. Howbridge and Mrs. MacCall enjoyed the
jokes and chatter as much as the younger people themselves. Dot's
discovery that this was not at all like the lodge room on Meadow
Street delighted everybody.
"If you think that red deer ever held lodge meetings in this house,
you are much mistaken, honey," Agnes told the smallest Corner House
girl.
Tom Jonah was allowed to come in and "sit up" at table. The old dog
was so well trained that his table manners (and this was Ruth's
declaration) were far superior to those of Sammy Pinkney. But Sammy
was on his best behavior this evening. The grandeur of the table
service quite overpowered him.
When they all filed back into the hall, which was really the
living-room and reception hall combined, Tom Jonah went with them and
curled down on a warm spot on the hearth. One of the men staggered in
with a great armful of chunks for the evening fire. Hedden found a
popper and popcorn. There was a basket of shiny apples, and even a jug
of sweet cider appeared, to be set down near the fire to take the
chill off it.
"Now, this," said Mr. Howbridge, sitting in a great chair with his
slippered feet outstretched toward the fire, "is what I call country
comfort."
"Whist, man!" exclaimed Mrs. MacCall. "'Tis plain to be seen you ken
little about country comforts, or discomforts either. You were born in
the city, Mr. Howbridge, and you have lived in the city most of your
days. 'Tis little you know what it means to live away from towns and
from luxuries."
"Why," laughed the lawyer, "I always go away for a vacation in the
summer, and I usually choose some rustic neighborhood."
"Aye. Where they have piped water in the house, and electricity, an'
hair mattresses. Aye. I know your kind of 'country,' too, Mr.
Howbridge. But when I was a child at home we lived in the real
country--only two farms in the vale and the shepherds' cots. My
feyther was a shepherd, you know."
"You must be some relation of ours, then, Mrs. MacCall," Luke said,
smiling.
"Oh, aye. By Adam," said the housekeeper coolly. "I've nae doot we
sprang from the same stock the Bible speaks of."
"Now will you be good?" cried Cecile, shaking a finger at her brother.
"Go on, Mrs. MacCall. Tell us about your Highland home."
"Hech! There's very little to tell," said the housekeeper, shaking her
head, "save that 'twas a very lonely vale we lived in, and forbye in
winter. Then we'd not see a strange body from end to end of the snows.
And the snow came early and went late.
"If we had not a grand oat bin and a cow in the stable we bairns would
oft go hungry. Why, our mother would sometimes keep us abed in stormy
weather to save turf. A fire like yon," she added, nodding toward the
blazing pile in the chimney, "would have been counted a sin even in a
laird's house."
"Ah, Mrs. MacCall," said the lawyer, "we're all lairds over here."
"Aye, that can pay the price can have the luxuries. 'Tis so. But
luxuries we knew naught about where I was born and bred."
"I suppose the people right around us here--the residents of this
neighborhood--have few luxuries," Ruth said thoughtfully.
"There aren't many neighbors, I guess," said Neale, laughing.
"But those people living in that fishing village--and even at
Coxford--never saw a tenth of the things which we consider necessary
at home," Ruth pursued.
"Suppose!" exclaimed Cecile eagerly. "Just suppose we were snowed in
up here and could not get out for weeks, and nobody could get to us. I
guess we would have to learn to go without luxuries! Maybe without
food."
"Oh, don't suggest such a thing," begged Agnes. "And this cold air
gives one such an appetite!"
"Don't mention a shortage of food," put in Neale, chuckling, "or Aggie
will be getting up in the night and coming down to rob the pantry."
There might have been a squabble right then and there had not Hedden
appeared, and, in his grave way, announced:
"Mr. M'Graw has arrived, sir. Shall I bring him in here?"
"Ah!" exclaimed the lawyer, waking up from a brown study. "Ike M'Graw?
I understood from Birdsall that he is a character. Has he had supper,
Hedden?"
"Yes, sir. I knew that you would wish him served. He has been eating
in the servants' dining-room, sir."
"Send him in," the lawyer said. "Now, young folks, here is the man who
can tell us more about Red Deer Lodge and the country hereabout, and
all that goes on in it, than anybody else. Here--"
The door opened again. Hedden announced gravely:
"Mr. Ike M'Graw, sir."
There strode over the threshold one of the tallest men the young
people, at least, had ever seen. And he was so lean that his height
seemed more than it really was.
"Why," gasped Neale to Agnes, "he's so thin he doesn't cast a shadow,
I bet!"
"Sh!" advised the girl warningly.
They were all vastly interested in the appearance of Mr. Ike M'Graw.