It made the past very real, and threw a friendly, humorous light upon the dead, to come upon, when turning those yellow parchment pages, some personal touch of the old scribe’s, such as a sententious or facetious insertion of his own — for instance, “The Law bides her Time, but my Dinner doesn’t!” or the caricature in the margin of some forgotten judge. It was just as if one of the grotesque plaster heads on the old houses were to give you, suddenly, a sly wink.
But it was the criminal trials that, in the past, had given Master Nathaniel the keenest pleasure. The dry style of the Law was such a magnificent medium for narrative. And the little details of everyday life, the humble objects of daily use, became so startlingly vivid, when, like scarlet geraniums breaking through a thick autumn mist, they blazed out from that grey style … so vivid, and, often, fraught with such tragic consequences.
Great was his astonishment when he discovered from the index that it was among the criminal trials that he must look for the widow Gibberty’s. What was more, it was a trial for murder.
Surely Endymion Leer had told him, when he was urging him to send Ranulph to the farm, that it had been a quite trivial case, concerning an arrear of wages, or something, due to a discharged servant?
As a matter of fact, the plaintiff, a laborer of the name of Diggory Carp, had been discharged from the service of the late Farmer Gibberty. But the accusation he brought against the widow was that she had poisoned her husband with the sap of osiers.
However, when he had finished the trial, Master Nathaniel found himself in complete sympathy with the judge’s pronouncement that the widow was innocent, and with his severe reprimand to the plaintiff, for having brought such a serious charge against a worthy woman on such slender grounds.
But he could not get Luke’s letter out of his head, and he felt that he would not have a moment’s peace till the groom returned with news from the farm.
As he sat that evening by the parlor fire, wondering for the hundredth time who the mysterious cloaked stranger could have been whose back had been seen by Luke, Dame Marigold suddenly broke the silence by saying, “What do you know about Endymion Leer, Nat?”
“What do I know of Endymion Leer?” he repeated absently. “Why, that he’s a very good leach, with very poor taste in cravats, and, if possible, worse taste in jokes. And that, for some unknown reason, he has a spite against me …”
He broke off in the middle of his sentence, and muttered beneath his breath, “By the Sun, Moon and Stars! Supposing it should be …”
Luke’s stranger had said he feared the Chanticleers.
A strange fellow, Leer! The Note had once sounded in his voice. Where did he come from? Who was he? Nobody knew in Lud-in-the-Mist.
And, then, there were his antiquarian tastes. They were generally regarded as a harmless, unprofitable hobby. And yet … the past was dim and evil, a heap of rotting leaves. The past was silent and belonged to the Silent People … But Dame Marigold was asking another question, a question that had no apparent connection with the previous one: “What was the year of the great drought?”
Master Nathaniel answered that it was exactly forty years ago, and added quizzically, “Why this sudden interest in history, Marigold?”
Again she answered by asking him a question. “And when did Endymion Leer first arrive in Dorimare?”
Master Nathaniel began to be interested. “Let me see,” he said thoughtfully. “It was certainly long before we married. Yes, I remember, we called him in to a consultation when my mother had pleurisy, and that was shortly after his arrival, for he could still only speak broken Dorimarite … it must be thirty years ago.”
“I see,” said Dame Marigold dryly. “But I happen to know that he was already in Dorimare at the time of the drought.”
And she proceeded to repeat to him her conversation that morning with Miss Primrose.
“And,” she added, “I’ve got another idea,” and she told him about the panel in the Guildhall that sounded hollow and what the guardian had said about the woodpecker ways of Endymion Leer. “And if, partly for revenge for our coldness to him, and partly from a love of power,” she went on, “it is he who has been behind this terrible affair, a secret passage would be very useful in smuggling, and would explain how all your precautions have been useless. And who would be more likely to know about a secret passage in the Guildhall than Endymion Leer!”
“By the Sun, Moon and Stars!” exclaimed Master Nathaniel excitedly, “I shouldn’t be surprised if you were right, Marigold. You’ve got a head on your shoulders with something in it more useful than porridge!”
And Dame Marigold gave a little complacent smile.
Then he sprang from his chair, “I’m off to tell Ambrose!” he cried eagerly.
But would he be able to convince the slow and obstinate mind of Master Ambrose? Mere suspicions are hard to communicate. They are rather like the wines that will not travel, and have to be drunk on the spot.
At any rate, he could but try.
“Have you ever had a vision of Duke Aubrey, Ambrose?” he cried, bursting into his friend’s pipe-room.
Master Ambrose frowned with annoyance. “What are you driving at, Nat?” he said, huffily.
“Answer my question. I’m not chaffing you, I’m in deadly earnest. Have you ever had a vision of Duke Aubrey?”
Master Ambrose moved uneasily in his chair. He was far from proud of that vision of his. “Well,” he said, gruffly, “I suppose one might call it that. It was at the Academy — the day that wretched girl of mine ran away. And I was so upset that there was some excuse for what you call visions.”
“And did you tell anyone about it?”
“Not I!” said Master Ambrose emphatically; then he caught himself up and added, “Oh! yes I believe I did though. I mentioned it to that spiteful little quack, Endymion Leer. I’m sure I wish I hadn’t. Toasted Cheese! What’s the matter now, Nat?”
For Master Nathaniel was actually cutting a caper of triumph and glee.
“I was right! I was right!” he cried joyfully, so elated by his own acumen that for the moment his anxiety was forgotten.
“Read that, Ambrose,” and he eagerly thrust into his hands Luke Hempen’s letter.
“Humph!” said Master Ambrose when he had finished it. “Well, what are you so pleased about?”
“Don’t you see, Ambrose!” cried Master Nathaniel impatiently. “That mysterious fellow in the cloak must be Endymion Leer … nobody else knows about your vision.”
“Oh, yes, Nat, blunt though my wits may be I see that. But I fail to see how the knowledge helps us in any way.”
Then Master Nathaniel told him about Dame Marigold’s theories and discoveries.
Master Ambrose hummed and hawed, and talked about women’s reasoning, and rash conclusions. But perhaps he was more impressed, really, than he chose to let Master Nathaniel see. At any rate he grudgingly agreed to go with him by night to the Guildhall and investigate the hollow panel. And, from Master Ambrose, this was a great concession; for it was not the sort of escapade that suited his dignity.
“Hurrah, Ambrose!” shouted Master Nathaniel. “And I’m ready to bet a Moongrass cheese against a flask of your best flower-in-amber that we’ll find that rascally quack at the bottom of it all!”
“You’d always a wonderful eye for a bargain, Nat,” said Master Ambrose with a grim chuckle. “Do you remember, when we were youngsters, how you got my pedigree pup out of me for a stuffed pheasant, so moth-eaten that it had scarcely a feather to its name, and, let me see, what else? I think there was a half a packet of moldy sugar-candy …”
“And I threw in a broken musical-box whose works used to go queer in the middle of ‘To War, Bold Sons of Dorimare,’ and burr and buzz like a drunk cockchafer,” put in Master Nathaniel proudly. “It was quite fair — quantity for quality.”
Chapter XIII
What Master Nathaniel and Master Ambrose Found in the Guildhall
Master Nathaniel was much
too restless and anxious to explore the Guildhall until the groom returned whom he had sent with the letter to Luke Hempen.
But he must have taken the order to ride night and day literally — in so short a time was he back again in Lud. Master Nathaniel was, of course, enchanted by his dispatch, though he was unable to elicit from him any detailed answers to his eager questions about Ranulph. But it was everything to know that the boy was well and happy, and it was but natural that the fellow should be bashful and tongue-tied in the presence of his master.
But the groom had not, as a matter of fact, come within twenty miles of the widow Gibberty’s farm.
In a road-side tavern he had fallen in with a red-haired youth, who had treated him to glass upon glass of an extremely intoxicating wine; and, in consequence, he had spent the night and a considerable portion of the following morning sound asleep on the floor of the tavern.
When he awoke, he was horrified to discover how much time he had wasted. But his mind was set at rest on the innkeeper’s giving him a letter from the red-haired youth, to say that he deeply regretted having been the indirect cause of delaying a messenger sent on pressing business by the High Seneschal (in his cup the groom had boasted of the importance of his errand), and had, in consequence, ventured to possess himself of the letter, which he guaranteed to deliver at the address on the wrapper as soon, or sooner, as the messenger could have done himself.
The groom was greatly relieved. He had not been long in Master Nathaniel’s service. It was after Yuletide he had entered it.
So it was with a heart relieved from all fears for Ranulph and free to throb like a schoolboy’s with the lust of adventure that Master Nathaniel met Master Ambrose on the night of the full moon at the splendid carved doors of the Guildhall.
“I say, Ambrose,” he whispered, “I feel as if we were lads again, and off to rob an orchard!”
Master Ambrose snorted. He was determined, at all costs, to do his duty, but it annoyed him that his duty should be regarded in the light of a boyish escapade.
The great doors creaked back on their hinges. Shutting them as quietly as they could, they tip-toed up the spiral staircase and along the corridor described by Dame Marigold: whenever a board creaked under their heavy steps, one inwardly cursing the other for daring to be so stout and unwieldy.
All round them was darkness, except for the little trickles of light cast before them by their two lanterns.
A house with old furniture has no need of guests to be haunted. As we have seen, Master Nathaniel was very sensitive to the silent things — stars, houses, trees; and often in his pipe-room, after the candles had been lit, he would sit staring at the bookshelves, the chairs, his father’s portrait — even at his red umbrella standing up in the corner, with as great a sense of awe as if he had been a star-gazer.
But that night, the brooding invisible presences of the carved panels, the storied tapestries, affected even the hardheaded Master Ambrose. It was as if that silent population was drawing him, by an irresistible magnetism, into the zone of its influence.
If only they would speak, or begin to move about — those silent rooted things! It was like walking through a wood by moonlight.
Then Master Nathaniel stood still.
“This, I think, must roughly be the spot where Marigold found the hollow panel,” he whispered, and began tapping cautiously along the wainscoting.
A few minutes later, he said in an excited whisper, “Ambrose! Ambrose! I’ve got it. Hark! You can hear, can’t you? It’s as hollow as a drum.”
“Suffering Cats! I believe you’re right,” whispered back Master Ambrose, beginning, in spite of himself, to be a little infected with Nat’s absurd excitement.
And then, yielding to pressure, the panel slid back, and by the light of their lanterns they could see a twisting staircase.
For a few seconds they gazed at each other in silent triumph. Then Master Nathaniel chuckled, and said, “Well, here goes — down with our buckets into the well! And may we draw up something better than an old shoe or a rotten walnut!” and straightway he began to descend the stairs, Master Ambrose valiantly following him.
The stairs went twisting down, down — into the very bowels of the earth, it seemed. But at long last they found themselves in what looked like a long tunnel.
“Tally ho! Tally ho!” whispered Master Nathaniel, laughing for sheer joy of adventure, “take it at a gallop, Brosie; it may lead to an open glade … and the deer at bay!”
And digging him in the ribs, he added, “Better sport than moth hunting, eh?” which showed the completeness of their reconciliation.
Nevertheless, it was very slowly, and feeling each step, that they groped their way along the tunnel.
After what seemed a very long time Master Nathaniel halted, and whispered over his shoulder, “Here we are. There’s a door … Oh, thunder and confusion on it forever! It’s locked.”
And, beside himself with irritation at this unlooked-for obstacle, he began to batter and kick at the door, like one demented.
He paused a minute for breath, and from the inside could be heard a shrill female voice demanding the pass-word.
“Pass-word?” bellowed back Master Nathaniel, “by the Sun, Moon and Stars and the Golden Apples of the West, what …”
But before he could finish his sentence, the door was opened from the other side, and they marched into a low, square room, which was lit by one lamp swinging by a chain from the ceiling — for which there seemed but little need, for a light more brilliant than that of any lamp, and yet as soft as moonlight, seemed to issue from the marvelous tapestries that hung on the walls.
They were dumb with amazement. This was as different from all the other tapestry they had ever seen as is an apple tree in full blossom against a turquoise sky in May to the same tree in November, when only a few red leaves still cling to its branches, and the sky is leaden. Oh, those blues, and pinks, and brilliant greens! In what miraculous dyes had the silks been dipped?
As to the subjects, they were those familiar to every Dorimarite — hunting scenes, fugitives chased by the moon, shepherds and shepherdesses tending their azure sheep. But, depicted in these brilliant hues, they were like the ashes of the past, suddenly, under one’s very eyes, breaking into flame. Heigh-presto! The men and women of a vanished age, noisy, gaudy, dominant, are flooding the streets, and driving the living before them like dead leaves.
And what was this lying in heaps on the floor? Pearls and sapphires, and monstrous rubies? Or windfalls of fruit, marvelous fruit, fallen from the trees depicted on the tapestry?
Then, as their eyes grew accustomed to all the brilliance, the two friends began to get their bearings; there could be no doubt as to the nature of that fruit lying on the floor — it was fairy fruit, or their names were not respectively Chanticleer and Honeysuckle.
And, to their amazement, the guardian of this strange treasure was none other than their old acquaintance Mother Tibbs.
Her clear, child-like eyes that shone like lamps out of her seared weather-beaten face, were gazing at them in a sort of mild surprise.
“If it isn’t Master Hyacinth and Master Josiah!” she exclaimed, adding, with her gay, young laugh, “to think of their knowing the pass-word!”
Then she peered anxiously into their faces: “Are your stockings wearing well yonder? The last pair I washed for you didn’t take the soap as they should. Marching down the Milky Way, and tripping it beyond the moon, is hard on stockings.”
Clearly she took them for their own fathers.
Meanwhile, Master Ambrose was drawing in his breath, with a noise as if he were eating soup, and creasing his double chins — sure signs, to anyone who had seen him on the Bench, that he was getting ready to hector.
But Master Nathaniel gave him a little warning nudge, and said cordially to their hostess, “Why, our stockings, and boots too, are doing very nicely, thank you. So you didn’t expect us to know the pass-word, eh? Well, well, perhaps we know mor
e than you think,” then, under his breath to Master Ambrose, “By my Great-aunt’s Rump, Ambrose, what was the pass-word?”
Then turning again to Mother Tibbs, who was slightly swaying from her hips, as if in time to some jig, which she alone could hear, he said, “You’ve got some fine tapestry. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen finer!”
She smiled, and then coming close up to him, said in a low voice, “Does your Worship know what makes it so fine? No? Why, it’s the fairy fruit!” and she nodded her head mysteriously, several times.
Master Ambrose gave a sort of low growl of rage, but again Master Nathaniel shot him a warning look, and said in a voice of polite interest, “Indeed! Indeed! And where, may I ask, does the … er… fruit come from?”
She laughed merrily, “Why, the gentlemen bring it! All the pretty gentlemen, dressed in green, with their knots of ribands, crowding down in the sunrise from their ships with the scarlet sails to suck the golden apricocks, when all in Lud are fast asleep! And then the cock says Cockadoodledoo! Cockadoodledooooo!” and her voice trailed off, far-away and lonely, suggesting, somehow, the first glimmer of dawn on ghostly hayricks.
“And I’ll tell you something, Master Nat Cock o’ the Roost,” she went on, smiling mysteriously, and coming close up to him, “you’ll soon be dead!”
Then she stepped back, smiling and nodding encouragingly, as if to say, “There’s a pretty present I’ve given you! Take care of it.”
“And as for Mother Tibbs,” she went on triumphantly, “she’ll soon be a fine lady, like the wives of the Senators, dancing all night under the moon! The gentlemen have promised.”
Master Ambrose gave a snort of impatience, but Master Nathaniel said with a good-humored laugh, “So that’s how you think the wives of the Senators spend their time, eh? I’m afraid they’ve other things to do. And as to yourself, aren’t you getting too old for dancing?”