II
WAS HE LIVING?--WAS HE DEAD?
Meantime, a fussy, talkative man was endeavouring to impress the rapidlycollecting crowd with the advisability of their entering all togetherand approaching the judge in a body.
"We can say that we felt it to be our dooty to follow this woman in," heargued. "We don't know who she is, or what her errand is. She may meanharm; I've heard of such things, and are we goin' to see the judge indanger and do nothin'?"
"Oh, the woman's all right," spoke up another voice. "She has a childwith her. Didn't you say she had a child with her, Miss Weeks?"
"Yes, and--"
"Tell us the whole story, Miss Weeks. Some of us haven't heard it. Thenif it seems our duty as his neighbours and well-wishers to go in, we'lljust go in."
The little woman towards whom this appeal--or shall I say command--wasdirected, flushed a fine colour under so many eyes, but immediatelybegan her ingenuous tale. She had already related it a half dozen timesinto as many sympathising ears, but she was not one to shirk publicity,for all her retiring manners and meekness of disposition.
It was to this effect:
She was sitting in her front window sewing. (Everybody knew that thiswindow faced the end of the lane in which they were then standing.) Theblinds were drawn but not quite, being held in just the desired positionby a string. Naturally, she could see out without being very plainlyseen herself; and quite naturally, too, since she had watched the sameproceeding for years, she had her eyes on this gate when Bela, prompt tothe minute as he always was, issued forth on his morning walk to townfor the day's supplies.
Always exact, always in a hurry--knowing as he did that the judge wouldnot leave for court till his return--he had never, in all the eightyears she had been sitting in that window making button-holes, shown anyhesitation in his methodical relocking of the gate and subsequent quickdeparture.
But this morning he had neither borne himself with his usual spirit normoved with his usual promptitude. Instead of stepping at once into thelane, he had lingered in the gateway peering to right and left andpushing the gravel aside with his foot in a way so unlike himself thatthe moment he was out of sight, she could not help running down the laneto see if her suspicions were correct.
And they were. Not only had he left the gate unlocked, but he had doneso purposely. The movement he had made with his foot had been done forthe purpose of pushing into place a small pebble, which, as all couldsee, lay where it would best prevent the gate from closing.
What could such treachery mean, and what was her neighbourly duty undercircumstances so unparalleled? Should she go away, or stop and take onepeep just to see that there really was another and similar fence insideof this one? She had about decided that it was only proper for her toenter and make sure that all was right with the judge, when sheexperienced that peculiar sense of being watched with which all of usare familiar, and turning quickly round, saw a woman looking at her fromthe road,--a woman all in purple even to the veil which hid herfeatures. A little child was with her, and the two must have steppedinto the road from behind some of the bushes, as neither of them wereanywhere in sight when she herself came running down from the corner.
It was enough to startle any one, especially as the woman did not speakbut just stood silent and watchful till Miss Weeks in her embarrassmentbegan to edge away towards home in the hope that the other would followher example and so leave the place free for her to return and take thelittle peep she had promised herself.
But before she had gone far, she realised that the other was notfollowing her, but was still standing in the same spot, watching herthrough a veil the like of which is not to be found in Shelby, and whichin itself was enough to rouse a decent woman's suspicions.
She was so amazed at this that she stepped back and attempted to addressthe stranger. But before she had got much further than a timid andhesitating Madam, the woman, roused into action possibly by herinterference, made a quick gesture suggestive of impatience if notrebuke, and moving resolutely towards the gate Miss Weeks had soindiscreetly left unguarded, pushed it open and disappeared within,dragging the little child after her.
The audacity of this act, perpetrated without apology before Miss Weeks'very eyes, was too much for that lady's equanimity. She stoppedstock-still, and, as she did so, beheld the gate swing heavily to andstop an inch from the post, hindered as we know by the interveningpebble. She had scarcely got over the shock of this when plainly fromthe space beyond she heard a second creaking noise, then the swinging toof another gate, followed, after a breathless moment of intenselistening, by a series of more distant sounds, which could only beexplained by the supposition that the house door had been reached,opened and passed.
"And you didn't follow?"
"I didn't dare."
"And she's in there still?"
"I haven't seen her come out."
"Then what's the matter with you?" called out a burly, high-strungwoman, stepping hastily from the group and laying her hand upon the gatestill standing temptingly ajar. "It's no time for nonsense," sheannounced, as she pushed it open and stepped promptly in, followed bythe motley group of men and women who, if they lacked courage to lead,certainly showed willingness enough to follow.
One glance and they felt their courage rewarded.
Rumour, which so often deceives, proved itself correct in this case. Asecond gate confronted them exactly like the first even to the point ofbeing held open by a pebble placed against the post. And a second fencealso! built upon the same pattern as the one they had just passedthrough; the two forming a double barrier as mysterious to contemplatein fact as it had ever been in fancy. In gazing at these fences and thecanyon-like walk stretching between them, the band of curious invadersforgot their prime errand. Many were for entering this path whoseterminus they could not see for the sharp turns it took in roundingeither corner. Among them was a couple of girls who had but one thought,as was evinced by their hurried whispers. "If it looks like this in thedaytime, what must it be at night!" To which came the quick retort:"I've heard that the judge walks here. Imagine it under the moon!"
But whatever the mysteries of the place, a greater one awaited thembeyond, and presently realising this, they burst with one accord throughthe second gate into the mass of greenery, which, either from neglect orintention, masked this side of the Ostrander homestead.
Never before had they beheld so lawless a growth or a house socompletely lost amid vines and shrubbery. So unchecked had been thespread of verdure from base to chimney, that the impression made by theindistinguishable mass was one of studied secrecy and concealment. Not awindow remained in view, and had it not been for some chance glimmershere and there where some small, unguarded portion of the enshroudedpanes caught and reflected the sunbeams, they could not have told wherethey were located in these once well-known walls.
Two solemn fir trees, which were all that remained of an old-time andfamous group, kept guard over the untended lawn, adding their suggestionof age and brooding melancholy to the air of desolation infecting thewhole place. One might be approaching a tomb for all token that appearedof human presence. Even sound was lacking. It was like a paintedscene--a dream of human extinction.
Instinctively the women faltered and the men drew back; then the verysilence caused a sudden reaction, and with one simultaneous rush, theymade for the only entrance they saw and burst without further ceremonyinto the house.
A common hall and common furnishings confronted them. They had enteredat the side and were evidently close upon the kitchen. More they couldnot gather; for blocked as the doorway was by their crowding figures,the little light which sifted in over their heads was not enough to showup details.
But it was even darker in the room towards which their determined leadernow piloted them. Here there was no light at all; or if some strayglimmer forced its way through the network of leaves swathing the outerwalls, it was of too faint a character to reach the corners or even tomake the furniture about them
distinguishable.
Halting with one accord in what seemed to be the middle of theuncarpeted floor, they waited for some indication of a clear passagewayto the great room where the judge would undoubtedly be found inconversation with his strange guest, unless, forewarned by their noisyentrance, he should have risen already to meet them. In that case theymight expect at any minute to see his tall form emerging in anger uponthem through some door at present unseen.
This possibility, new to some but recognised from the first by others,fluttered the breasts of such as were not quite impervious to a sense oftheir own presumption, and as they stood in a close group, swaying fromside to side in a vain endeavour to see their way through the gloombefore them, the whimper of a child and the muttered ejaculations of themen testified that the general feeling was one of discontent which mightvery easily end in an outburst of vociferous expression.
But the demon of curiosity holds fast and as soon as their eyes hadbecome sufficiently used to the darkness to notice the faint line oflight marking the sill of a door directly in front of them, they allplunged forward in spite of the fear I have mentioned.
The woman of the harsh voice and self-satisfied demeanour, who hadstarted them upon this adventure, was still ahead; but even she quailedwhen, upon laying her hand upon the panel of the door she was the firstto reach, she felt it to be cold and knew it to be made not of wood butof iron. How great must be the treasure or terrible the secret to makenecessary such extraordinary precautions! Was it for her to push openthis door, and so come upon discoveries which--
But here her doubts were cut short by finding herself face to face witha heavy curtain instead of a yielding door. The pressure of the crowdbehind had precipitated her past the latter into a small vestibule whichacted as an ante-chamber to the very room they were in search of.
The shock restored her self-possession. Bracing herself, she held herplace for a moment, while she looked back, with a finger laid on herlip. The light was much better here and they could all see both the moveshe made and the expression which accompanied it.
"Look at this!" she whispered, pushing the curtain inward with a quickmovement.
Her hand had encountered no resistance. There was nothing between themand the room beyond but a bit of drapery.
"Now hark, all of you," fell almost soundlessly from her lips, as shelaid her own ear against the curtain.
And they hearkened.
Not a murmur came from within, not so much as the faintest rustle ofclothing or the flutter of a withheld breath. All was perfectlystill--too still. As the full force of this fact impressed itself uponthem, a blankness settled over their features. The significance of thisundisturbed quiet was making itself felt. If the two were there, or ifhe were there alone, they would certainly hear some movement, voluntaryor involuntary--and they could hear nothing. Was the woman gone? Had shefound her way out front while they approached from the rear? And thejudge! Was he gone also?--this man of inalterable habits--gone beforeBela's return--a thing he had not been known to do in the last twelveyears? No, no, this could not be. Yet even this supposition was not soincredible as that he should still be here and SILENT. Men like him donot hold their peace under a provocation so great as the intrusion of amob of strangers into a spot where he never anticipated seeing anybody,nor had seen anybody but his man Bela for years. Soon they would hearhis voice. It was not in nature for him to be as quiet as this in faceof such audacity.
Yet who could count upon the actions of an Ostrander, or reckon with theimperious whims of a man mysterious beyond all precedent?--He may bethere but silent, or--
A single glance would settle all.
The woman drew the curtain.
Sunshine! A stream of it, dazzling them almost to blindness and sendingthem, one and all, pellmell back upon each other! However dismal theapproach, here all was in brilliant light with every evidence beforethem of busy life.
The room was not only filled, but crammed, with furniture. This was thefirst thing they noticed; then, as their blinking eyes became accustomedto the glare and to the unexpected confusion of tables and chairs andscreens and standing receptacles for books and pamphlets and boxeslabelled and padlocked, they beheld something else; something, whichonce seen, held the eye from further wandering and made theapprehensions from which they had suffered sink into insignificancebefore a real and only too present terror.
The judge was there! but in what a condition.
From the end of the forty foot room, his seated figure confronted them,silent, staring and unmoving. With clenched fingers gripping the arms ofhis great chair, and head held forward, he looked like one frozen at themoment of doom, such the expression of features usually so noble, andnow almost unrecognisable were it not for the snow of his locks and hisunmistakable brow.
Frozen! Not an eyelash quivered, nor was there any perceptible movementin his sturdy chest. His eyes were on their eyes, but he saw no one; anddown upon his head and over his whole form the sunshine poured from alarge window let into the ceiling directly above him, lighting up thestrained and unnatural aspect of his remarkable countenance and bringinginto sharp prominence the commonplace objects cluttering the table athis elbow; such as his hat and gloves, and the bundle of papers he haddoubtless made ready for court.
Was he living? Was he dead?--stricken by the sight of so many faces in adoorway considered sacred from all intrusion? No! the emotion capable ofthus transforming the features of so strong a man must have a deepersource than that. The woman was to blame for this--the audacious, theunknown, the mysteriously clad woman. Let her be found. Let her be madeto explain herself and the condition into which she had thrown this goodman.
Indignation burst into words, and pity was beginning to voice itself ininarticulate murmurs which swelled and ebbed, now louder, now morefaintly as the crowd surged forward or drew back, appalled by thatmoveless, breathless, awe-compelling figure. Indignation and pity wereat their height when the strain which held them all in one common leashwas loosed by the movement of a little child.
Attracted possibly by what it did not understand, or simply madefearless because of its non-comprehension of the mystery before him, acurly-haired boy suddenly escaped its mother's clutch, and, toddling upby a pathway of his own to the awesome form in the great chair, laid hislittle hand on the judge's rigid arm and, looking up into his face,babbled out:
"Why don't you get up, man? I like oo better up."
A breathless moment; then the horrified murmur rose here, there andeverywhere: "He's dead! He's dead!" and the mother, with a rush, caughtthe child back, and confusion began its reign, when quietly andconvincingly a bluff and masculine voice spoke from the doorway behindthem and they heard:
"You needn't be frightened. In an hour or a half-hour he will be thesame as ever. My aunt has such attacks. They call it catalepsy."