A PUNT RIDE
The faint tinkle sounded again. Nann sprang up and lighted the lantern.
To her amazement the bell was gone. Surprised as she was, she had
sufficient presence of mind not to tell her timid companion what had
happened. Very softly she turned the knob. The door was still locked. She
glanced at the window; the blind was still hooked. Then, blowing out the
light, she said in a tone meant to express unconcern, “All is serene on
the Potomac as far as I can see.” After returning to bed, however, Nann
remained awake, long after her companion’s even breathing told that she
was asleep, wondering what it could all mean. Toward morning Nann fell
into a light slumber, from which she was awakened by the sun streaming
into the room. Sitting up, she saw that Dories was dressed and had opened
the blinds. For a moment she sat in a dazed puzzling. What was it that
she had been pondering about in the night? Remembering suddenly, she
glanced quickly at the door. There hung the little bell as quietly as
though it had never disappeared. Dories, hearing a movement, turned from
the window where she had been gazing out at the sparkling sea.
“Good morning to you, Nancy dear,” she said gaily. “O, such a lovely day
this is! How I hope that I may go sailing with you and Gib.” Then, as she
saw her friend continuing to stare at the bell as though fascinated,
Dories remarked, “Well, I guess the ghost took warning all right and
stayed away. We won’t find a little paper in our room this morning, I’ll
wager.” As she talked, she was crossing the room to the door. Lifting the
little bell, she dropped it again with a clang.
Nann sprang out of bed, all excited interest. “Dories, what happened? Why
did you drop the bell?”
Dories pointed to the floor where it lay. Nann bent to pick it up. Tied
to the clapper was a bit of paper and on it was written in the familiar
penmanship and with the same red ink, “In eleven days you will know all.”
Instead of acting frightened, Dories’ look was one of triumph. “There
now, Mistress Nann,” she exclaimed, “you are always saying that it is not
a being supernatural that is leaving these notes. What have you to say
about it this morning?”
“That I am truly puzzled,” was the confession Nann was forced to make;
“that the joker is much too clever for us, but we’ll catch him yet, if
I’m a prophet.” She was dressing as she talked.
Dories, standing near the window, was examining the paper. “It seems to
be the sort that packages are wrapped in,” she speculated. Then, after a
silent moment and a closer scrutiny, “Nann, do you suppose that it is
written with blood?”
“Good gracious, no!” the denial was emphatic. “Why do you ask such an
absurd question?”
“Well, that was what the red ink was made of in one of the ghost stories
that I read to Aunt Jane yesterday morning.”
Nann, having completed her toilet, went to the window to look out.
“Good!” she exclaimed. “There is Gibralter Strait in his little punt
boat. He seems to have plenty of time to go sailing. Oh, I remember now.
He did tell me that their country school does not open until after
Christmas. So many boys are needed to help their fathers on the farms and
with the cranberries until snow falls.”
“I suppose I ought to stay at home again this morning and read to Aunt
Jane.” Dories’ voice sounded so doleful that her friend whirled about,
and, putting loving arms about her, she exclaimed: “Not a bit of it! You
may sail with Gibralter this morning and I will stay here and read to
your Great-Aunt Jane.”
But when the two girls visited the room of the elderly woman, she told
them that she wished to be left quite alone.
Dories went to the bedside and, almost timidly, she touched the wrinkled
head. “Don’t you feel well today, Aunt Jane!” she asked, feeling in her
heart a sudden pity for the old woman. “Isn’t there something I could do
for you?”
For one fleeting moment there was that strange expression in the dark,
deeply-sunken eyes. It might have been a hungry yearning for love and
affection. Impulsively the girl kissed the sallow cheek, but the elderly
woman had closed her eyes and she did not open them again, and so Nann
and Dories tiptoed out to the kitchen.
“Poor Aunt Jane!” the latter began. “She hasn’t had much love in her
life. I don’t remember just how it was. She was engaged to marry somebody
once. Then something happened and she didn’t. After that, Mother says she
just shut herself up in that fine home of hers outside of Boston and
grieved.”
“Poor Aunt Jane, indeed!” Nann commented as she began to prepare the
breakfast. “She must be haunted by many of the ghosts that your mother
told about, memories of loving deeds that she might have done. With her
money and her home, she could have made many people happy, but instead
she has spent her life just being sorry for herself.” Then more brightly,
“I’m glad we can both go sailing with Gib.”
Half an hour later, the girls in their bright colored sweater-coats and
tams raced across the beach. The red-headed boy was on the watch for them
and he soon had the punt alongside the broad rock which served as a dock.
“Do you want passengers this morning?” Nann called gaily.
“Sure sartin!” was the prompt reply. Then, when the two girls were seated
on the broad seat in the stem the lad hauled in the sheet and away they
went scudding. “Where are you going, Gib?” Nann inquired curiously.
“We’ll cruise ’long the water side o’ the ol’ ruin,” he told them. “Pa
says he’s sure sartin he saw a light burnin’ thar agin late las’ night,
an’ like’s not, we’ll see suthin’.”