CHAPTER XIV
WEIRD TALES
"Aye, and it is gloomy."
Startled, the girls looked around for the voice, then realized that itwas their driver who had spoken. He had been silent all the way from thestation, and they had all but forgotten him.
"What made you say that?" asked Billie, rather wonderingly. For althoughthe man had only repeated her own words, the tone in which he said themmade them appear twice as ominous.
"It's a gloomy place," he said once more, with a shake of his head. "Aye,and there be some folks around here as says it is haunted."
"Do--do they really think so?" stammered Violet Farrington, beginning towish herself back in North Bend.
"Aye, they think so," he answered, in the same monotonous voice. "Andthere be some times that I don't blame 'em for what they thinks."
"Do you think it's haunted?" asked Billie, with the hint of a laugh inher voice. Even here, in this forsaken place, with dusk coming on and theprospect of spending a night in a house people called haunted, Billie'ssense of humor did not altogether leave her. "Do you?" she repeated, thelaughter still more marked in her voice.
The driver twisted around in his seat to see her before he answered.
"It's all very well for you to laugh now," he answered. "But maybe youwon't feel so much like laughin' in the morning."
In spite of herself, Billie shivered a little, and the other girls lookedfrightened.
"If I was you," the driver went on with his unasked advice, "I'd turnright back an' spend the night in Roland. There's a boardin' house--"
"Nonsense, we're not going to turn back," spoke up Mrs. Gilligan, atrifle sharply, for she could see that the driver's evil prophecies weregetting on the girls' nerves. "If there are any ghosts in thathouse--which of course there ain't--they'd just better show their facesaround me, that's all. I'll give 'em such a taste of my rolling pin thatthey'll get discouraged for good and all."
She nodded her head vigorously, and the girls laughed.
"All right, all right," grumbled the driver, disgruntled at having hisideas treated in this highhanded manner. "You can laugh all you'rewanting to. But I tell you, if it was me--"
"Which it isn't," Mrs. Gilligan interrupted shortly.
"I wouldn't stay in that there haunted place for a farm, I wouldn't."
"What makes you think it's haunted?" Laura persisted, for, of the threegirls, Laura was by far the most curious. "Do people see lights and hearfunny noises and such things?"
"Laura--" began Violet in protest.
"Why no, Miss," said the driver reluctantly. "I don't know as theyactually seen things, but they has heard queer noises. There was someboys once," he went on, warming to his task of story teller, "asthought they'd have some fun. You know the old lady what owned theplace was nearly allus away and just left it to a caretaker that didn'ttake over much care of it--" He stopped to chuckle, and the girlsleaned forward eagerly.
"What about them?" asked Billie impatiently.
"Well, they thought as they'd play burglar an' break into the place an'make a regular lark of it."
"Weren't they afraid they'd get caught?" asked Laura.
"Not with Sheriff Higgins on the job," chuckled the driver, in high goodhumor now that he was getting off his favorite yarn. They were nearingthe house and the girls hurried him on impatiently.
"Well, they heard such funny humming noises and jingling like therattling of chains an' things," said the driver, "that they got mostscared to death and ran back home like the old Nick was after them. Eversince then folks has said the place was haunted."
"Stuff and rubbish!" said Mrs. Gilligan, as the team came to a stopbefore the house. "A nice lot o' talk I call that to fill the girls upwith. Rattlin' of chains and hummin' noises! Huh!" And with her nosein the air to show her contempt of all such notions she swept out ofthe carriage.
The girls followed, and ran back to the wagon that contained theirluggage and some provisions. The boy who had been driving this wagon wasalready unloading it, and the old fellow who had told them such gloomytales came hobbling back to lend a hand.
Billie fished in her pocketbook for the key to the house which wassupposed to be haunted, and, finding it, held it up with a hand that wasnot quite steady.
"Come on," she said. "We've got to do it, I suppose."
"Wh-who's going first?" asked Violet, regarding the gloomy bulk of therambling old house, now half hidden in the dusk, with troubled eyes.
"I am, of course," said Billie stoutly, adding with a gay little laugh:"I guess it's my right, isn't it? Why, this is my house--the first I'veever owned!"
"And welcome you be to it," murmured the old man, to be promptly cowedby a withering look from Mrs. Gilligan.
"Come on," cried Billie again. "I'll go first, but you'll have to promiseto follow me in."
"Why, of course we'll follow you in," said Violet, loyal through allher fear. "You don't suppose we'd let you go into that awful placealone, do you?"
"Well, I like that!" cried Billie, leading the way up the stone-pavedwalk. "Calling my beautiful old homestead an awful place."
"Yes, I'm surprised at you, Vi," added Laura, as she followed close atBillie's heels. "Don't you know you should have some tact? Even if it isawful, you shouldn't talk about it--"
Billie stopped and stared indignantly.
"If you say another word," she threatened, "I'll make you go first."
The threat had the desired effect, and both Violet and Laura protestedthat it was the most beautiful place on the face of the earth, or wordsto that effect.
"You'd better be giving the key to me," said Mrs. Gilligan. "Wecan't stand out here talkin' all night. Besides, the door probablyhas an old-fashioned lock on it, and they ain't a lock anywhere thatcan fool me."
Billie meekly handed over the key, and Mrs. Gilligan marched majesticallybefore them up to the front door. She bent down to examine the lock,then fitted the key into it.
With a groaning and squeaking of rusty hinges, the heavy door swunginward, and the girls found themselves staring into a black well ofhallway that seemed to have no windows anywhere.
"Gracious! did anybody think to bring matches?" asked Laura in anawed whisper.
"Sure and I did," Mrs. Gilligan's matter-of-fact voice reassured her."Five whole boxes I brought. But I've got something even better than thatfor the present occasion."
She drew from the pocket of her coat a small electric torch and flashedit into the interior of the house. The bright light showed them glimpsesof queer chairs standing about in odd corners and finally lighted up abroad stairway.
"It's the hall," announced Mrs. Gilligan. "Now forward march, and we'llsoon find out where the lights are."
"There must be a push button somewhere," suggested Violet, and even intheir present nervous state the other girls laughed at her.
"A push button!" cried Laura. "Do you expect to find electric lights outin this wilderness?"
"We're lucky if we find a chandelier somewhere," added Billie. "I hope wedon't have to burn candles or lamps. They aren't just exactly what youmight call cheerful."
"And something cheerful is what we need," added Laura ruefully.
"Well, if you're after acetylene gas I guess you'll be disappointed,"said Mrs. Gilligan as her torch lighted up a wonderful old-fashionedrichly carved candelabrum containing a dozen candles, half burned andlooking rather wilted. "It's candles we'll be burning while we're here."
The girls groaned.
"But they give such a ghostly, flickering light," protested Violet, as ifit were in some way Mrs. Gilligan's fault. "I know I'll never be able tostand it," and she glanced nervously over her shoulder.
"Well, could you stand the dark any better?" asked Mrs. Gilliganpractically, as she began to light the candles one after another. "Therewill probably be other candelabra in the house, and if you get enough ofthem burning there's nothing in this world that is prettier. For myself Ijust love candle light."
"Yes, when y
ou're in civilization," put in Laura. "But not out here."
"I've found another one!" cried Billie, who had been prospecting on herown account. "And here's another! Why we'll have a big illuminationbefore we're through."
"That's the way to talk," said Mrs. Gilligan approvingly, as she crossedover to Billie's side of the large hall and began to light the othercandles. "If we just make the best of everything and make up our mindsto have a good time, we'll have a good time. And if we don't we mightjust as well take the driver's advice and go home again."
"Go home? Well I should just say not!" cried Laura. "The very idea ofsuch a thing! The boys would tease the life out of us. We'd never hearthe end of it."
"Well then, we're going to have a good time," Mrs. Gilligan decided,adding, as she turned toward the door: "Where have those men gone? I toldthem to bring in the things."
She went out to see about it with the girls at her heels and found theold man and the boy in a heated argument over something.
"Well, if you want to go into that there haunted house, it's yourconcern," the old man was saying in a querulous voice. "As for me,I wouldn't step a foot inside of it, no sir, not if you was to giveme a farm!"