Part 8

Toward the close of a cloudless July day he came up a long, grassy, country lane, to a squat looking farmhouse; he had come across country many miles, and had found a strange charm in the solitude. He was tired and hungry, and hailed a sight of the house with pleasure. The whole place had a wild and deserted look; a few late roses hung their heavy heads from the unpruned bushes; creepers ran riot over a long, low porch extending around three sides of the house giving it the appearance of a mother hen protecting her brood.

As he assayed to open the rickety gate the tangled morning-glorys seemed to hold it closed against him as though in warning. A vision of supper and a bed with cool, sweet-scented sheets had possessed his mind; but as the gate creaked on its one rusty hinge and he felt the desolation of the place, a chill went over him and the comforting vision disappeared.

A hollow, uncanny reverberation was the only answer to his rapping. He turned the knob, which yielded readily to his touch, but the door swung slowly on its rusty hinges; stiffly like a person old and tortured with the rheumatism. He stood undecided, peering in among the shadows of a long, dimly lighted hall, which extended the whole length of the house, the doors opening primly on either side along its entire length; plainly no foot had disturbed the dust on this floor for many a day. As he stepped within a cloud arose as though in protest; he opened the first door on the right, and was surprised to find the room furnished; the low-browed ceiling seemed to frown ominously; the sides were paneled in dark wood, being alternately the head of an animal and a flower, exquisite in design and workmanship; but the dark mahogany color added to the somber effect. A square old-fashioned bedstead stood at the far corner of the room, its tall spindling posts rising high toward the ceiling like uplifted hands; on one of these hung a man’s hat. Phil fancied that he could see the kind of a man who had worn it; an athletic fellow, not over nice in his dress, judging by its battered look. The clothing on the bed was pulled awry, as though the occupants had hurriedly stepped out, without time to arrange the room; an easy-chair was drawn up before the great, yawning fireplace, in which a few charred sticks lay across the old-fashioned, brass andirons. On the mantle stood a brass candlestick, with a half-burned candle in the socket; a pair of snuffers on a tray at its side; a turkey wing, bound with velvet, lay on another tray in the corner of the fireplace; just above it hung a pair of old-fashioned bellows; a short, squat shovel, and a pair of grotesquely, long legged tongs stood near; the two looking like a lank old man, and his fat, little wife. Taken altogether, it had a quaint, old-fashioned look, which told pathetically of mouldering forms, and days long since dead.

All other rooms in the house were entirely destitute of furniture. He soon kindled a fire, and from a little stream which purled through the garden he filled his tin pot and presently it was singing drowsily. Hunger made a sauce piquant to his crackers cheese, and fragrant tea; better relished than all the costly dinners eaten when stomach and morals both were overburdened.

The sun was setting in the west amid a glory of gilded clouds; the wind blew faintly across the level meadow and pasture land; no sound disturbed the silence; the tinkle of a cowbell, the crowing of a cock, seemed but to accentuate the peace.

Phil brought the chair out upon the porch, and sat leaning lazily back, dreamily regarding his surroundings. How much sweeter this than the restless, unsatisfying life which he had led! In some occult manner the quaint old-fashioned house and the peaceful scene brought his mother before his mind; the saddened quiet, the tinge of sweet loneliness, seemed like a reflection of her life. A wave of regret swept over him that he had not been a better son. He remembered that she had saved and denied herself many comforts that he might receive a fine education, and study art under the most favorable circumstances. He blushed with shame to think how ungrateful he had been, and felt glad that the money had not fallen to him while she yet lived, for he knew that his reckless course would have grieved her sorely. Heretofore he had consoled himself with the thought that there were others much worse than he; he began to understand that comparison did not in the least palliate the offense; he felt a greater twinge of shame as he thought of some of his past actions, that thus he had wronged her memory, her teachings, and his higher self.

He drifted from regretful thought into slumber.

It had grown dark; the wind had arisen with the going down of the sun, and the loose boards were rattling noisily; the vines were swaying to and fro, but the stars blinked in the darkened vault in a quizzical manner as he started up in affright. He thought that he felt a hand upon his shoulder, and that he beheld the shadowy outline of a form within the room.

He stood up and shook himself vigorously: “I must have been dreaming; this wind is uncomfortably cold,” he said, with a shiver.

He went in, and lighted the candle; he built a fire which leaped and flared up the broad-mouthed fireplace, throwing jolly, fantastic shadows over the great room, much more suggestive of the play of elfins than the gloomy walking of ghosts. He sat drowsily looking into the coals; the fire had burned low, and the room was in half shadow, with a fitful lighting up now and then; a cold wind struck him, and he seemed impelled by some unseen force to look toward the bed; the battered hat appeared to be rising of its own volition above the tall post, and the face of a man fitted itself beneath it; a cruel face; the white brow beetling over deep set, piercing eyes; the jaw massive and square; the lips thin, a mere line across the resolute face; the whole countenance imbued with a strange fierce beauty; a man who would allow nothing to stand in the way of his will. Phil started up with a gasp of terror; he felt suffocated.

“Great God! Is this place haunted, or have I a bad case of nightmare?” he exclaimed aloud.

He could have sworn that he heard a laugh, shrill and blood curdling; but perhaps it was but the wind among the gnarled apple trees—our imagination plays us strange tricks, and the furnishings and appearance of a room have disastrous effect upon our nerves at times.

He slept but fitfully the whole night, although nothing more occurred to alarm him, and with the coming of the morning sun he thought it all a dream.

After he had his breakfast he took his easel out upon the porch; he felt ashamed of the wasted hours which lay behind him, and determined to be more diligent; he placed his board, took his pencil in his hand—and sat staring straight before him. He sought vainly for an inspiration; his brain seemed empty, imagination dead. But one object rose before his mental vision—the face he had seen under the old hat!

He felt tempted to throw pencils and board in among the weeds. He left the easel standing, and went for a long walk; while walking his imagination leaped responsive to his desire; he outlined his work, and hastened back eager to commence; but as he once more seated himself, the same tormenting sense of inability assailed him; the same terrifying face came ever between him and the board.

With an angry exclamation he commenced sketching; at once he lost all feeling of uncertainty; he worked feverishly, and line by line the face grew before him; he seemed inspired by some power other than his own; a mole in front of the ear, a dimple in the chin, which he did not remember having seen, grew under his hand. A face of strange beauty, but from every lineament shone forth a fierce unconquerable nature, and at last, as the light was fading, he threw down his pencil and stepped back to look at it; he saw the ghostly counterpart hovering just above it; he gave utterance to a frightened exclamation; then said angrily: “I’ve looked so steadily at that thing, that I see double; I’ll take a run and rest myself.”

So he carried everything within, and took his way to the lone farmhouse visible in the distance; he found the place occupied by an elderly couple. After some desultory talk, he questioned the woman about the old house and its former occupants; she, nothing averse, told him the following story:

The house was built long before her birth, by a strange, foreign looking man, who, although he appeared to be wealthy, lived the life of a recluse. He suddenly disappeared, and what became of him no one ever knew; the estate was finally sold by the courts, and John Hilyer, then a young man, and just married to pretty, winsome Rachel Drew, bought the place, and came there to live.

A year or so later a son was born to them; John Hilyer, Jr. As young John grew to manhood, he resembled his father in feature and physique; but had a beauty inherited from his mother. No one ever knew the elder Hilyer to transgress a law, human or divine—according to his own estimation of himself. But he ruled his gentle wife as though she were a child; and he required of John unquestioning obedience—a complete subjugation of will, not considering that so sturdy a sapling must possess a growth of its own. He was a hard, selfish man; without sympathy or understanding for desires, and feelings not possessed by himself; he was, to himself, the criterion by which to judge all things. Added to this, he had a mean, miserly way of using religion as a specious plea for denying others the things conducive to comfort or pleasure; he stigmatized all such as sinful.

Young John was of a fiery, almost cruelly persistent turn; where he loved, he loved fiercely, jealously; where he hated it was with a violence of passion frightful to contemplate. His father allowed him no money to spend, and no time for pleasure, or even for recreation, saying that it was a sinful waste of time. All the love of John’s fierce heart was poured out upon his mother, and when she laid down her hard burden, his grief and anger were beyond words, though he cried out to his father: “You starved her to death! You starved her body of the things that might have prolonged her life, and her very soul of all intellectual and spiritual food!” Some little of the truth must have penetrated the old man’s armor of selfishness, as he turned away without reply.

A year later his father died, and so bitter was his feeling against him that he saw him lowered into his grave without a regret. He was like a child let loose from restraint; he plunged into all kinds of excess. He gathered around him a horde of evil companions, who for months made the old place a pandemonium. John was no fool, and he soon sickened of this life; and when one of them thought to be witty at the expense of his mother, and her poor way of living, he grew livid with wrath, and turned them all out, saying as he closed the door upon them, “Neither you, nor I, are fit to mention my mother; but you shall not disgrace her room again!”

He shut himself up in almost total solitude, with a wild idea of doing penance for having outraged his mother’s memory. Several months later one or two of his profligate associates sought him, he promptly shut the door in their faces, and what he said to them he said in such a manner that they left him undisturbed in his solitude. Then he disappeared, and no one knew of his whereabouts for fully a year; even at this time the house had come to have an evil reputation; people said of it that it was an unlucky place, but they passed it with a shudder which meant much more.

One night in early springtime, a passer-by saw a dim light in the front room—the others had long since been stripped of the old-fashioned furniture; the uncanny reputation of the house made him hasten by without a glance more than he could help.

The next day the whole country was in commotion. Early in the forenoon three large vans, loaded with furniture—which in those days was considered elegant—drove up to the door of the farmhouse. To their repeated knocking there was no response; one of the teamsters looked in through the uncurtained window; he gave a horrified cry. In the center of the room, ghastly and covered with blood, lay the body of John Hilyer; in his right hand he still grasped the pistol with which he had slain himself. He had bought the furniture the day before, and ordered it delivered at the house; he seemed to be in an unusually happy mood. What cause led to the deed none could conjecture, and during all these years the old house had kept its secret. Not a person could be induced to approach the place after dark, as all declared it to be haunted.

When Philip returned night had fallen, dark and solemn; he dreaded to enter the room; the weird story impressed him with a nervousness unaccountable to himself; he had ever been of a skeptical turn, and had scoffed at spiritual phenomena and manifestations as creations of an overwrought brain. He felt tempted to leave the old house this night, he had a dread of the coming hours; then, he thought scornfully, it would look too much like running away because of a weird story, and—some unseen force seemed to restrain him; a whisper in the air—an unseen hand—seemed to be holding him.

He tried to shake himself out of the feeling, and said pettishly: “What nonsense this is!—Much better to have gone on!” but he would not, neither could he go.

He gathered a great armful of wood from the old barn at the far end of the lot, and soon the blaze leaped up brightly; the room grew oppressively warm, the heat, together with the loss of sleep the night before, lulled his senses into drowsy nodding; then he dropped into deep sleep, with his head thrown back against the dark cushion, the dying fire playing over his sun-browned face fitfully.

The night waned; the fire died to a bed of embers, still he slept quietly on.

Of a sudden he opened his eyes, wide awake on the instant; he did not stir, but he felt sure—sure that a hand was resting lightly on his shoulder, that a face almost touched his own; it seemed not the presence of one unknown, but rather of one for whom he had been waiting; he had not before realized this fact, but it now dawned upon him with solemn gladness. At once he seemed to know that it was for this that he had waited; like a dawning light it occurred to him that there is no such thing as accident, that all things proceed from cause to effect, that the intelligent power which is the source of all things _cannot_ forsake His children; the law which is immutable to the least of His children is just as unalterable for Him; he realized that he had been led in this path. He did not seem to be thinking this; it was shown to him through the spiritual sense as though the search light of the soul had been thrown upon the facts for his guidance; his every physical effort seemed to be absorbed in the sense of hearing.

Some force other than his own compelled him to turn around; at that instant a sob sounded close beside him; it thrilled him like a blast of cold wind, but he was bound to his chair as though with iron bands. About the middle of the room he heard a rustling sound, but saw nothing except the indistinct shadows called forth by the dying fire; then a cry smote his ear, a sound full of fear and anguish; gradually upon his sight grew the forms of a man and woman in agitated conversation; he stern and angry; she, with her face in her hands, sobbed bitterly; this appeared to melt the man’s anger, and bending above her bowed figure he kissed her bright hair. Behind him crept the man whose face Phil had seen beneath the battered hat, and dealt the other man a terrible blow with a hatchet; the woman raised her face with an appalled shriek, and with a mad ferocity he struck her to the floor; as she sank down the assailed man appeared to recover somewhat, and sought to defend himself; Phil could see the straining muscles, the tigerish ferocity of the assailant’s countenance, the failing struggles of the man on the defensive, a falling back inertly; when he lay ghastly, and cadaverous, the assailant seized him and dragged him out; not as one in fear, but fiercely, as though desirous of putting something he loathed out of his sight. Presently he returned, and stood looking down at the woman with strangely working features; he brought his hands together despairingly, as though bewailing his work; then a sudden wave of passion seemed to sweep over him, a wild frenzy of mingled love and hate; for an instant he clasped her form in mad embrace; then as though he loathed even the inanimate flesh, he bore her out of the house as he had carried the man. Phil could hear the fierce panting breath, and the vicious tread upon the porch outside.

For an instant Phil lost all consciousness of the room, of all circumstances, of even the heavy tread outside—it was as though his very spirit swooned; when he again became cognizant of his surroundings the murderer was peering through the open door; his eyes shone out of his ghastly face with a fierce, yet half affrighted, maniacal light. He strode across the room to the bed, and with angry gestures, he pulled the clothing hither and thither; at last he seemed to find that for which he sought, a small packet tied in oiled silk. He walked to a panel in the wall, directly opposite the foot of the bed; he grasped the hound’s head by the muzzle, and it looked as though the animal sprang to life; its eyes rolled wildly, it opened its jaws as though to devour the assailant, who tossed the packet into the wide-open mouth, which closed with a snap as though appeased by the sacrifice. The scene faded away; exhaustion held Phil a prisoner until far into the next day.

He returned to a consciousness of his surroundings with a shiver of affright, but as he looked out at the sunlit fields, and smelled the fresh dewy atmosphere, he thought his vision of the past night but the illusions of a dream.

“This close, stuffy room is quite enough to give one a nightmare,” he said, stretching his limbs; which felt sore and bruised; he also had a horrible sense of exhaustion.

He walked into the garden, and bathed his face in the stream; there was such fresh life in the atmosphere that his soul filled with the elasticity of hope, and his spirits rose to exaltation; after all, what is energy but hope put to use?

Yesterday his imagination lay dormant; to-day his purposed picture formed itself in his mind, in lineaments of beauty and glowing color. He ate his breakfast in healthy mood; he said to himself: “I’ll get out of this witch’s den to-day! I wouldn’t spend another night here—” a touch light as thistledown grazed his cheek; a breath from the unseen—a pressure on his shoulder, as of an invisible hand; he felt, without knowing the cause, that he could not go.

He arose and went into the house: “I wonder!” though what he wondered he did not say.

He took the sketch of the head he had drawn yesterday, and held it to the light, turning it from side to side. It was, line for line, the face of the murderer as he saw it in his vision; as he sat regarding the drawing thoughtfully, another phase of the vision—was it vision or dream? though the distinction between a vision and a dream might be a nice point for argument—but his mind dwelt with strange insistence upon the packet which he had seen put away.

“If I find that parcel it will prove that it was a vision, and it will determine my next step; though why I should go prying around this old house I do not know. The sketch of the head and this illusion also, may both be the effect of that old woman’s story; but—but—it doesn’t tally. Well, here goes for the next move!” he said.

Was it but fancy, that a soft, happy sigh reached his ear? or was it but the summer breeze?

How like the unbroken links of a chain it all appeared; he had planned none of it, he could never have imagined himself in such a rôle; some volition other than his own had led him in a well-prepared way. No abrupt breaks, no jumps, no indecisions are necessary in our lives; when such is the case we are in fault; we fail to heed the signboards and the danger signals; we are shocked when we halt on the verge of a precipice, or disgusted when we find that we have walked weary miles on the wrong road, all because we read the signs to suit our fancied pleasure, or plunged ahead and read them not at all.

His exalted, happy mood left him; he grew restless and nervous; he was conscious of a stir all about him, a continuous vibration; he could not sit still. At last he arose and walked over to the panel which he had, in his vision, seen opened; he passed his hands over the ornamental head, searching for a screw, bolt, or anything to indicate that any portion of it was movable; it seemed one solid piece of carving.

“This is all nonsense! I have dreamed the whole thing!” But though he derided, he could not rid himself of his unrest, or the intuition of a sweet presence urging him on.

He examined the alternate panel, and could detect no difference; he again returned, grasping the muzzle as he had seen the murderer do; he started, it felt cold to his hand; he tapped it with his knife, it gave forth a metallic sound; this was iron, the others, wood. He trembled with excitement as he searched for a hinge, spring, or other means of ingress; he no longer doubted being intuitively led. He placed himself as nearly as possible in the position he had witnessed, and grasped the muzzle in the same manner; a hot flush passed over his face, for a single instant his knees grew weak with superstitious fear as he felt the yielding of a tiny spring beneath the ends of his fingers. He pressed firmly upon it; the jaws flew apart, the eyes rolled so fiercely and so suddenly that it made him start back in affright; he thrust his arm into the opening thus formed, and drew forth the package wrapped in oiled silk, just as he had seen it in his vision—he could no longer doubt its being such. Something else he saw, but a warning click caused him to withdraw his hand; none too soon, the jaws closed like a steel trap.

He eagerly unfolded the parcel, it seemed that he knew previous to opening it what it would contain; the marriage certificate of John Hilyer, and Amanda Cosgrove.

He returned to his chair and sat looking at the paper thoughtfully; it was dated from a distant city, but he knew in some occult way that Amanda Cosgrove was of the country. I cannot express it better than by saying that the name wafted to him a breath of country air; the odor of buttercups, and a glint of their gold.

The package held another paper—a sealed will.

He drew a breath of relief, and experienced a glad sense of freedom, as though until now he had been bound to some onerous duty. He sat long with his hand pressed over his eyes, his senses deadened to all outside impressions; repeating over many times the name of Amanda Cosgrove; formulating slowly and distinctly his desire to see her.

At first all things waved and swayed, a conglomeration of darkness, shot with rays of light and color; gradually, there evolved from this a hilly country, verdant with grass, and beautified with many trees; a sunny valley with carpet of a brighter hue, and fields of waving grain. A low, picturesque cottage stood in the shelter of a grove; before the door stood a woman whose hair was like silver, and the face though sad and worn did not look old. She shaded her eyes with her hand, and looked wistfully in his direction; dimly outlined within the doorway shone—fairly shone—a face which his spirit recognized as her whose hand had rested upon his shoulder, whose spirit presence had been his guide in this search.