"THE BLACK DOG"
Nobody started for the door for fully a minute, and within that time the
knocking was repeated three times. It was not only an imperious rapping;
it was plainly inspired by some excitement.
"My goodness!" Amelia Boggs murmured. "That ghost's in an awful hurry."
"He's hungry, maybe," giggled one girl.
"He can't be, if he ate all that he stole before we got here," Bess
declared.
Only Nan was silent. She suspected at once what the commanding summons
meant. It was a teacher, perhaps Dr. Prescott herself. The party was a
failure and all the girls whom she had invited would, with herself and
chum, be punished for the frolic.
As she slowly approached the door, a voice from outside faintly reached
her ear: "Let me in! open the door!"
Nan was astonished by this. It sounded like somebody in distress. She
hurriedly turned the bolt and opened the door a little way. There was a
keen wind blowing off the water and the garments of the person on the
doorstep fluttered in it, so that Nan knew at once it was a woman; but
she could not see her face.
"Who is it?" whispered Nan, while the other truants held their breath.
"For goodness' sake, let me in, child!" exclaimed a vexed voice and the
woman pushed by, slamming the door when once she was inside. It did not
need the black veil jerked up over her hat to assure the girls assembled
that Mrs. Cupp was under the veil!
"Good-_night_!" murmured Laura, falling dramatically into May Winslow's
arms. "'All is lost!' the captain shouted."
"Sh-h!" gasped the girl from Alabama. "Don't make her mad."
"I couldn't," declared the irrepressible. "She was born that way."
But suddenly Nan, as well as some of the other girls, saw that the stern
matron of Lakeview Hall had been crying. Her cheeks were tear-stained
and she was still sobbing convulsively as she leaned, exhausted, with
her back against the door.
Nan was instantly sympathetic, and cried aloud: "What is the matter,
Mrs. Cupp? What has happened?"
"I--I'm so frightened," stammered the lady.
"Oh!" whispered Lillie, shrilly. "She's seen the ghost."
"My goodness!" moaned May, almost letting the red-haired girl fall to
the floor.
But the latter, after all, was the one who rose to the occasion. Even
Nan was too amazed to appreciate properly the fact that for once Mrs.
Cupp was in a melting mood.
"Give her a chair, Nan, do!" cried Laura, bestirring herself briskly.
"Something has surely upset her. The poor dear! Wish we had a cup of hot
tea. But this chocolate is the next best thing to it."
She poured a brimming cup and brought it to Mrs. Cupp, who had been
seated at the long table. Before taking the first swallow the lady waved
her hand toward the door.
"Lock it!" she gasped.
"It is locked," Nan promptly assured her.
"You can bet it is!" exclaimed the crafty Laura. "We don't want anybody
coming in here who will _tell_ on us," she added significantly.
Mrs. Cupp must have heard this, for she flushed as she drank the hot
chocolate in great gulps. Or, perhaps, it was only the color coming back
into her face, after her fright.
Nan asked, with real feeling: "What was it scared you so, Mrs. Cupp?"
"I--I don't know," stammered the matron.
"But it must have been something?"
"I'm not sure even of that," was Mrs. Cupp's rather disconcerting
reply.
"It was the ghost, then!" shrilled Lillie.
"Oh!" gasped Grace, and the two timid ones clung together in alarm and
despair.
"Oh, shucks!" exclaimed Amelia Boggs. "It won't break the door down to
get in here, so don't be afraid."
"I never was so frightened in my life," declared Mrs. Cupp, drinking the
last drop of the comforting liquid. "Never!"
"Do tell us all about it, Mrs. Cupp," urged the red-haired girl,
hovering about the excited lady. "And have another cup of chocolate;
do!"
"Thank you," replied Mrs. Cupp, with real gratitude.
"Come, girls," said the bustling Laura. "The chocolate's all hot. Don't
let it spoil. And the sandwiches and salad must be eaten to be saved.
Pull up your chairs. Won't you try this lovely salad, Mrs. Cupp? And
these chicken sandwiches are delicious."
Mrs. Cupp was fairly caught. She had partaken of the hospitality of the
forbidden feast. Having accepted the chocolate she made but weak protest
against the heartier viands. A delightfully arranged plateful appeared
like magic before her and she found a fork in her hand.
Bess was almost bursting with suppressed laughter, and even Nan had
difficulty in keeping a straight face. Laura Polk had certainly stepped
into the breach. "She deserves a leather medal," whispered May Winslow.
"I'll give her one of my clocks," promised Amelia.
The girls gathered quietly about the long table and the food began to
disappear. Perhaps they were not quite as hilarious as they expected to
be at the feast; but Mrs. Cupp's presence did not make the viands any
the less delicious to the palate. And all of the girls were anxious to
hear the tale of the matron's fright.
"What could it have been you saw?" May asked.
"I--I don't know. Something black," was the sober reply.
"O-o-o!" from Grace and Lillie. "_All_ black?"
"Did it look like a black dog?" asked Nan, the practical.
"I declare! it might have been," Mrs. Cupp said, with some relief. "Of
course," she added, with sudden suspicion, "you girls didn't have
anybody on watch outside?"
"No. We were too scatterbrained for that," laughed Laura.
"And we did not think our light could be seen through any crack," added
Nan.
"It couldn't," Mrs. Cupp said promptly.
"How--how did you know we were here, then?" blurted out Bess.
"Ahem! I knew. That is sufficient," said Mrs. Cupp, more in her usual
tone.
Then it was true. Nan knew that somebody had played traitor. Mrs. Cupp
had been told of the party in the haunted boathouse by some jealous
girl, or she would never have come back to the Hall from the village by
the shore road. It was a roundabout way, and lonely.
"The road was very dark," explained the still excited matron. "When I
came to the big boulder just the other side of the boat landing,
something sprang out of the bushes and chased me. It was black, and
looked like a man or boy, only it was on four legs--or its hands and
knees."
"Maybe it was a dog," said Bess, doubtfully.
"'The black dog Remorse,' no less!" whispered Laura to Nan. "It was the
'black dog' of Mrs. Cupp's conscience, I guess."
"Hush!" returned Nan. She was worried by the happening. The raid on
their feast, the information evidently lodged about their frolic with
Mrs. Cupp, and this "black thing" that had startled them all, seemed to
be all parts of a plot.
"And it chased me!" Mrs. Cupp went on. "I declare, I never was so
frightened in all my life! It chased me right to this door----"
"It really was lucky we were here, then, wasn't it?" put in Laura, to
clinch the point.
Mrs. Cupp bit into a chicken sandwich, and frowned. "I don't know about
that," she said slowly. "I never would have come back by the shore road
if I hadn't heard of what you girls were doing here. I don't know but
that I consider you are the cause of my being so frightened," she
concluded grimly.