Cursed be the treasure
a wonderful chatterbox, full of stories of the road; and I found myself
at times half wishing I might join him in his wanderings, and share
some of his adventures of frolic and danger over the ways of France and
Italy and Spain. I remember when I awoke from such dreams to reality I
glanced toward my father feeling guilty of a kind of treason, and he
seemed to be eyeing me darkly as though half divining my thought; till
in penitence lest I had wounded him I stole up to him, and clasping his
hand said, "I wouldn't, daddy; I really wouldn't."
"Wouldn't what?" he asked uncomprehendingly.
"I wouldn't go with him; I wouldn't really."
My father gazed at me rather dreamily for a minute, and suddenly
seeming to awake laughed and said, "Oh, that, Tommy. No, of course not;
of course not." But I thought he didn't know either what he was saying
or what I meant. I felt relieved.
Meanwhile Picardino was telling of a strange adventure in the north
from where he had just come, as he said, followed by "terreeble voices,
ach! so cru-ell, so chill, that my hair it stand upon its end, and my
hearrt it knock like so"; at which he beat a rat-tat upon the table. It
seemed that upon a lonely space of moor he had arrived one evening at
a huge grey house, but on knocking for admittance no one had answered
him. He was tired and hungry, and could see no village near where he
could rest, so he had continued to knock, till slowly growing out of
the hollow house he had become aware of a low and sorrowful moaning,
"like one lost soul, for everr and for everr bound to a beeg wheel of
pain." As he told his story his eyes started from his head, and his
hair seemed to stiffen about his neck.
My father was clearly struck with the picture of the lonely house,
especially when the host corroborated the story, saying he had heard
rumours from travellers of a haunted mansion on the moors, some twenty
or thirty miles maybe to the northward. Others, too, had heard of it,
and the report wasn't encouraging to investigation, as the place seemed
veiled in mystery and gloom, and no one could be found to inhabit it.
The last tenant, it was said, had fled shrieking from it in the dead of
night, and had died raving.
To all this Picardino chimed in with "Yess, yess," like a bird's
cheep, repeating, "So, as I tell you; yess," as though the accumulated
testimony pleased him, and finishing with, "Ach, there! Eet ees a place
of speereets. I not go near eet; neverr!" He shuddered till it seemed
that his bones were being shaken together; then again striking on his
guitar he soared into another song, and at the close he passed round
his hat with a flourish, and emptying the few coppers into his hand
spat upon them for luck, and invoking on us the blessing of the Virgin
Mary and all the saints, danced out into the street, where we soon
heard his voice thinly quavering on a high note of romantic passion.
My father and I settled to our breakfast, and that over I was told to
amuse myself as well as I could for the rest of the day, but to be back
before dark as we were to be off once more on our wanderings. I gave my
pistol practice a miss that morning, for my first thought was to follow
Picardino, and I scampered out of the _Snow Man_ in pursuit of him; but
he had vanished. I enquired of him from every one I met, and was sent
southward in chase of him, but coming to a forked road I was at a loss
which way to follow, and there was no one in sight. Turning to the
left at a venture I ran a long way before I met any one, an old tramp
as it happened sitting by the wayside; but to my eager questioning
he slowly doffed his cap and rubbed his head, and declared that he
couldn't rightly say, not but what he might have passed, but he had
been winking his forty. His head nodded even as he spoke, and I ran on.
But I didn't find Picardino. I turned back eventually to search along
the other road, but was equally unsuccessful. However, I soon forgot my
disappointment, and went coursing my own shadow over the heathery moor.
The sun was getting low when I turned my face homewards; and sighting
the village from a rise, at first, I stopped short, and then started
running with all my might, for leaping up red into the evening was a
burst of angry flame. Something vaguely foreboding tightened at my
breast, but I kept a desperate pace, and arrived panting to find a
crowd gathered about the _Snow Man_ which was wrapped in dense folds
of smoke, with streaks of fire licking up from it like tongues from a
black mouth.
My thought was uttered in my involuntary cry, "My father!" Some one in
the crowd turned, and I heard him exclaim in surprise, "Why, here ee
be," and another, "Ah, poor bairn!" in tones of pity.
I clutched the nearest villager, and again cried, "My father, where's
my father?" looking wildly up into his face; but I didn't stay for his
answer, for he turned his head uneasily away. I pushed past him, and
squeezing through the crowd broke to the front, crying in an agony,
"Daddy, dad-_dee_!"
I think I would have run headlong into the flames, for something told
me without the need of words what had happened; but I was arrested by
a strong arm, whose I don't know to this day, for I only struggled and
bit and kicked at him, shouting through my tears, "Let me go to my
daddy; let me go!"
"Steady, lad, steady," was all I heard in reply; but through my frenzy
I could hear a low voice droning evenly and monotonously, "However ee
coom out o' 't fust time was a miracle. An' then t' go back again!
Good sort too. 'Host,' sez 'ee, 'that cooms o' me carelessness,' sez
ee, 'an' here's what'll pay for 't,' ee sez; an' out comes a purse
o' gold as ee might be t' lord o' t' county." I heard more of this
through my shouting and struggling, though it wasn't till afterwards
that I realized the meaning of what I heard. But my struggling stopped
when the voice changed to, "An' all of a sudden ee sez, 'Hark!' ee
sez; 'Hark there!' an' takes a grip o' me arm, so. 'Ee's calling me,'
ee sez; but I couldn't hear nowt. 'Ee's there,' ee cries something
dreadful, 'ee's calling me; I can hear him.' An' before I knows what's
what ee's into t' fire again, here's t' bairn back again; an' ee
weren't calling at all; an' him rushing in t' save him. Ah 't's sad, 't
is. An' ee were a good sort...."
The first words of the story had frozen me to attention. It was all
so like my father that I could see it happening before my eyes. In my
confused mind one picture stood out vividly and terribly clear: my
father watching the blaze, and suddenly starting at my voice from the
flames calling for help; and then the dash into the fire which closed
like a curtain behind him.
I threw my arms up to my face and sobbed aloud; and everything went
dark....
I came to consciousness again with a dim chattering in my ears which
slowly strengthened and caught at my memory. And suddenly sitting up I
cried, "Picardino!"
The little fellow was at my side in a moment, soothing me with hand and
voice like a hundred mothers. But something began to grow cold about
my heart, and the full recollection of my state burst upon me, and I
whimpered like a baby, "Daddy! I want my daddy!"
"I'll be your daddee," said Picardino. "Ach, we'll soon be merree
again." He prattled of the delights of the road, trying to comfort
me, but I felt miserably desolate, and lay down and sobbed. He left
me after a while, and presently returned with some hot soup. At first
I waved it away, but the savoury smell was too much for me, and I was
soon greedily devouring the appetizing stuff. And then I think I must
have cried myself to sleep.
It was dark when I awoke, and I was strangely alert. I didn't know
where I was, but in a room below there was an indistinct murmur of
voices. But what caught my ear was a low, clear whistling from the
darkness outside, and I sprang to the window and strained my eyes into
the night; for the tune was my old favorite:
"Dance to your daddy,
My little laddy;
Dance to your daddy,
My little man."
There was a pause, and I took up the melody:
"You shall have a fish,
You shall have a fin;
You shall have a haddock,
When the ship comes in."
I paused in my turn, and closer on the air came the ending of the tune:
"You shall have a feather,
You shall have a fan.
Dance to your daddy,
My little man."
My heart was thumping wildly, and forgetting all my training in caution
I rushed out of the room, clothed as I was in my shirt only, and down
the stairs, and broke into a lighted room full of people, crying,
"Daddy, dad-_dee_!"
I made for the door, but Picardino caught me by the arm. "How? What?"
he said sharply.
Then my caution returned to me. I looked foolishly round and rubbed my
eyes as though I had been dreaming, and beginning to whimper I said, "I
want my daddy."
Picardino was at once all mother to me, and was leading me from the
room when the street door opened and a man entered. I just glanced at
him, but he wasn't my father; so I crept out of the room and up the
stairs. But I wasn't half-way up before I heard a terrible scream, and
the sounds of a scuffle. I stopped to listen, but the whistling was
still in my ears, and that claimed my first attention. I ran up to my
room and tugged on my clothes--Picardino must have undressed me--and
then peering out of the window I gave a low whistle. There was a faint
answer; and I looked down the wall to see if I could escape, my heart
beating with I know not what wild expectation. I could see the ground
beneath me, not a very deep drop, and the earth was soft, being dug up
into a flower-bed under the window. I was soon hanging to the sill; and
swinging myself away from the wall was on the ground on all fours. I
sprang up and looked about me. Again I whistled, and the answer came,
but not from where I expected it. I turned and crept forward, and heard
a low whisper, "Heest! Heer, heer." But it was the voice of Picardino,
and his hand just touched me.
I shrank back, at a loss to understand, but my amazement was cut short
by a great figure springing out of the dark, and I heard a faint cry,
and footsteps crashing away through the night. At last all was silent
again, and I was alone.
I stood still wondering what it could all mean. Then the door of the
house opened; or the inn, I should say, for it must have been an inn;
and dark figures appeared against the sudden light talking excitedly.
I slunk into the shadow, thinking it best to make my escape from such
a place, not knowing what dangers might be lurking for me there. And
then I felt a warm hand in my own, and my father's voice was whispering
"Shhh!"
For a moment I stood fixed to earth, my blood in a whirl; then turning
I flung my arms about my father, and buried my face against him to
stifle the sound of my glad sobbing; for I was unstrung by the agony
and excitement of the past few hours, and the revulsion of feeling was
too much for my self-control.
But I soon mastered myself sufficiently to creep quietly away, holding
my father tight by the hand, fearing lest somehow he might escape me
again.
The night was warm, for the summer weather wasn't over, though the year
was advancing; and we lay beneath the heather. And there my father told
me something of the story, while the burning inn still reddened under
the sky.
"You see, I'm dead now," he said. "I died in the fire."
"Daddy!" I exclaimed in terror, clutching him; for I was a
superstitious child, and it would have seemed no very strange thing for
me to be talking to my father's ghost.
He laughed: "Not dead to you, Tommy."
And then I understood.
"But to Shadow-of-Fear?" I said.
"You've got it," he answered; and explained how rushing back through