Chapter 4

RICHARD MAKES A TREMENDOUS SENSATION AT WOODVILLE.

The mansion at Woodville was dark and silent when Richard stole cautiously up the walk which led from the pier to the house. Of course his father and the other members of the family supposed he was asleep in his chamber, where he had gone at an early hour to retire. He had locked his door as usual, and to make the deception more complete, he had pretended that he was not very well.

His chamber window opened upon the one-story addition which had been erected to afford room for a conservatory. On one end of the structure there was a trellis for the support of a grape vine. After he had locked his door, Richard had opened the window, crawled out upon the roof of the conservatory, and descended to the ground by the aid of the trellis.

He intended to return to his room by the same route, but it was now a more difficult matter than it had been when the family were all in the sitting room. Mr. Presby's room was next to his own, and the old gentleman was not a very sound sleeper. The difficulty of gaining access to his room was so great that he was tempted to sleep in the boat house, and not take the risk of being discovered; but the condition of his legs, still smarting severely from the chastisement he had received, would not permit him to do so. His wounds needed attention, and though he was no surgeon, he knew that a good washing in cold water, with the application of a simple remedy he had in his chamber, might ease the pain, and perhaps save him from serious consequences.

With a stealthy step he walked round to the conservatory, and with the utmost care commenced the ascent of the trellis. With all the precautions he could use, it was impossible to avoid making some noise, and he trembled lest the wakeful invalid should hear him. But he succeeded in gaining the roof without creating an alarm. Here he felt comparatively secure; but sometimes when we think we are safest we are in the greatest peril. The roof, wet with the dew of night, was very slippery; and when he reached up to open the window, his feet flew up beneath him, and he fell, with noise enough to rouse a deeper sleeper than Mr. Presby.

"Help! Help! Robbers! Thieves!" shouted the old gentleman, as he threw open his window.

The invalid's lungs did not seem to be at all affected, and there would have been no difficulty in hearing him all over the house, not to say all over the estate. Richard, taking advantage of the momentary confusion, threw open the window, and sprang into his room. Doors were opening in all parts of the house, and he could hear the hurried tread of the members of the household in the halls.

But Richard did not lose his self-possession, and hastily threw off his clothes. Placing himself at the open window, he joined in the cry which Mr. Presby still continued, and hallooed as lustily as his neighbor in the adjoining room. The house was in a complete uproar, and presently he heard the voices of his father and uncle Obed at his door.

"Richard," said Mr. Grant.

"Sir," replied the young scapegrace.

"Open the door."

"They are not in here, father; they are out doors. One of them just jumped off the conservatory,--at least, I think he did."

"Did you see them?" asked uncle Obed.

"No, I didn't see them, but I think I heard them."

Mr. Grant seemed to be satisfied with the information he had gained, and retired from the door. Richard lighted his lamp, and waited impatiently for the disturbance to subside; but he had to wait a long time, for every body about the place had been thoroughly waked up. Mr. Presby went down to the sitting room, where, after a thorough search had been made, the family and the servants had collected to compare notes, and ascertain to what extent the supposed robbers had been successful in their enterprise.

Richard's two sisters, Bertha and Fanny, were there, and both of them very much terrified. Mr. Grant soon pacified them with the assurance that no one had been injured, and that there was no further danger. But Richard was not there, and his absence was noticed. He and Mr. Presby had been the only persons who had heard the robbers, and they had created the alarm. The old gentleman told his story, and Richard's testimony was very much needed to complete the chain of evidence. One of the men servants was sent up to request him to join the party.

"Tell them I don't feel very well, and have gone to bed again," replied Richard, when the man delivered his message.

But this was the most dangerous answer he could have returned; for Mr. Grant, followed by uncle Obed and Mr. Presby, hastened up stairs to ascertain the nature of his illness.

"What ails you, Richard?" demanded his father, in the tones of sympathy and kindness.

"Nothing particular; only I don't feel just right," replied the young midnight marauder, terribly alarmed as he thought of the probable consequences of this visitation.

"Well, open the door, and let me see what I can do for you," added his father.

"I don't want any thing done. I shall be well enough in the morning."

"You had better open the door, Richard; I want to see you about the robbers."

"I can't; I am in bed."

"Don't get up then," said Mr. Grant, more anxious than at first for the health of his son. "I have a key that will open the door."

These words struck terror to the soul of the guilty youth, and he sprang out of bed with all the haste he could command. One terror filled his mind--that his father might see his bleeding, lacerated limbs; and he did, what guilty persons often do, the stupidest thing of which the circumstances would admit. He had blown out the light when he heard them coming, and now in the darkness he pulled on his pants, forgetting that the bed clothes would as effectually hide his injured members as the garment.

He had hardly clothed himself in this partial manner before his father succeeded in opening the door. By the aid of the light which uncle Obed carried, the head and front of the melon expedition was revealed to the visitors, standing in the middle of the room, half clothed and wholly scared.

"Why, Richard! What ails you? Where have you been?" demanded Mr. Grant, as he and the others gazed with astonishment at the sorry figure which the male heir of Woodville presented.

If Richard had attempted to dress himself in the light, he would have rejected the muddy pants he now wore, and consigned them to the deepest depths of the clothes-press. He had rolled in the moist earth of the melon patch, while under the discipline of Mr. Batterman, till his clothes were plastered with mud. His face was begrimed with the rich black mould of the garden, through which the tears of anger and resentment he had shed, under the influence of their natural gravity, had furrowed passages down his checks.

In the simple but eloquent language of Mrs. Green, the housekeeper of Woodville, who had followed the party up stairs, to offer her services in the capacity of nurse, Richard was "a sight to behold." He had retired from the sitting room, and bade the family good night before nine o'clock, looking like a decent person. His pants were in good condition then; certainly, if they had been in their present plight, it would have been noticed.

The first impulse of the visiting party was to laugh at the extraordinary appearance he presented; but a stronger feeling of interest and sympathy overruled the inclination, and the culprit was spared this humiliation. Richard was almost as much astonished as they were, for he had not regarded a thing so trivial as his personal experience, in the excitement and terror of the hour.

While the party were scrutinizing him with surprise and anxiety, he happened to glance at the looking glass on the bureau. Then he saw his hair tangled and matted with mud and filth; then he saw his dirty, tear-furrowed cheeks; and then he saw his befouled and torn pants. In the choice language of the boys, it seemed to him that "the cat was out of the bag" beyond the possibility of recovery.

"What ails you, Richard? What under the sun has happened?" asked Mr. Grant again, for the terrified boy made no reply to the first question.

But Richard was an old head, and he had no notion of being defeated in the present contest of words or ideas. He stood like a statue in the middle of the floor, and made no reply to the interrogatories.

"Where have you been?" said his father. "Can't you speak?"

"I don't know," replied Richard, with a bewildered look, as he glanced with a vacant stare at his soiled garments.

"Don't know where you have been?"

"No, sir."

"That's very singular," said uncle Obed.

"Have you been up since you went to bed?" demanded Mr. Grant.

"I don't know," replied Richard, vacantly, as though the whole matter was as much a mystery to him as to the others.

"Where were you when the alarm was given?"

"Out on the roof of the conservatory."

"On the roof!" exclaimed his father. "How came you there?"

"I don't know," answered Richard, shaking his head.

"Don't you know any thing about it?"

"No, sir. I woke up, and heard some one halloo, Robbers! thieves! I was close by the window, and I jumped in, and hallooed with the rest of them."

"Were you standing on the roof?"

"No, I was flat on my face."

"I see," interposed Mr. Presby, holding up his hands with astonishment, "I understand it all. The poor boy is a sleep walker."

"Richard?" said Mr. Grant, who had never known his son to do such a thing before.

"Yes, sir; your boy is unquestionably a somnambulist. He has been wandering about the garden, and rolling in the mud, in his sleep. There have been no robbers or thieves here to-night. The poor boy fell on the roof; that was what waked him up; and the noise of his fall was what caused me to give the alarm."

"Very singular," added uncle Obed.

"I never had any suspicion that he got up in his sleep," said Mr. Grant.

"There are instances on record of persons addicted to the practice who have followed it for years, without discovery. Now, if you will come to my room, I will read you several accounts, given by competent medical authority, of cases just like this," observed Mr. Presby.

But none of the party, at that hour of the night, were disposed to consult the authorities on the subject. If they had looked on the table in Richard's room they might have found there a yellow-covered pamphlet novel, entitled "Sylvester Sound, the Somnambulist." It is a very curious and amusing account of the antics of a sleep-walker, describing the wonderful feats he performed in his slumbers, without having the least idea of what he was doing.

The ingenious young rogue had been reading the book that very day, and in the drama of the "Midnight Alarm," played at Woodville, he had chosen for himself the part of Sylvester Sound. While his father went for a hammer and nails, to secure the window, Richard removed his telltale trousers, and jumped into bed.