The thing in the woods
had lasted all day, off and on, and which her aunt had been unable to
check. The hysteria had brought on sickness, and the girl, so Mrs.
Sliefer told me, was now in bed in a state of utter collapse.
I told Herrick I would drop him at the house.
"On the contrary," he returned, "I'll come along, with Mrs. Sliefer's
permission."
We drove on accordingly, the three of us, covering the distance past
Dutchman's Hill and the Lessing's bungalow at a smart trot. A few
minutes beyond the saw-mill, along the road Mary Lessing and I had
taken some mornings ago, the Sliefer's farm-house came in sight, a
comfortable low-built dwelling standing back in a good-sized orchard
with the barn and out-buildings clustered near it.
We found Rebecca in an upper bedroom, watched over by a mute and
scared-looking neighbor, who had been fetched in to sit with her
while her aunt was away. The girl lay in bed, her eyes rolling, her
hands twitching nervously on the covers. There was nothing alarming
in her condition, which had been brought about as much by Mrs.
Sliefer's well-meant home physicking as by the original fright.
I went to the bedside and put my hand on her wrist.
"Now then," I said, "what's all this nonsense about bogies? A big
strong girl like you ought to have better sense than to imagine such
things."
She began to whimper.
"I seen it--I seen it! It was all spoutin' fire! It was Jakey
Menning as sure as there's a livin' God! Oh-h--I don't want to look
at it ... I don't want to!"
She went off into another hysterical spasm, and it took all my force
to hold her still while her aunt went for water. When it was over,
and she lay back on the pillows, still sobbing exhaustedly, I took
Mrs. Sliefer aside.
"Give me pen and ink," I said, "and have someone drive down to the
drug store with this prescription at once. I'll wait here till it's
brought back. Your niece will probably be all right tomorrow, after
a night's sleep, but keep her in bed a day in any case."
She took the prescription and gave it to her husband. We heard his
heavy boots creaking out to the back door. I turned to Mrs. Sliefer.
"And now," I said, "you're a clever, sensible woman. What's your
idea of all this nonsense?"
Mrs. Sliefer was obviously flattered by my description. She mopped
her flat round face, still shining from the walk.
"Rebecca ain't no liar," she said. "She's a good up-standin' girl,
an' she ain't never showed no foolishness before this. We was
talking about Dutchman's Hill on'y a few nights ago, and Rebecca was
the first to laugh about it. 'I'd like to see the ghost'd scare me!'
she said, right there. No. Rebecca seen suthin, or she wouldn't ha'
come home the state she did. An' as for it's bein' Jakey, she'd
oughter know Jakey Mennin' well enough, seein' he's brought the wagon
round here time an' ag'n when Aaron was busy."
"You don't tell me you believe in the foolish talk there's been, Mrs.
Sliefer!"
She stiffened.
"No, an' I ain't sayin' I do, but sperrits or no sperrits, Mr.
Sliefer's goin' to get to the bottom of this. Seems to me there' a
law had ought to deal with respectable girls bein' frightened out of
their wits ten yards from their own door-step!"
"Listen," I said. "It seems that your niece has been the victim of a
very cruel and foolish practical joke, but there's no good going into
the matter here and now. Only look after her. If anyone is playing
tricks around the saw-mill, keep her away from there. She's in no
state to risk any more shocks. Don't let her go wandering about
alone."
"I wouldn't ha' let her last night, on'y she was so sure of findin'
George Freeman there. Rebecca was born an' brought up here, and she
knows the woods as well as our own front yard. But there'll be an
end of these doin's, an' I told her so."
"That's right." I paused a moment. "Who was here, the evening that
your niece spoke of not being frightened?"
"Only us an' Mis' Scholl there, an' George Freeman. There wasn't one
of 'em would play a trick on her. An' George Freeman was in at the
house a'ready when Rebecca come runnin' back."
I did not leave until the farmer returned, and I had seen Rebecca
already quiet and subdued under the influence of the sleeping draught
I had prescribed for her. Then Herrick and I drove home through the
dusk to the ruined supper which Mrs. Searle had prepared so
painstakingly for six o'clock.
"Well," I said to him, "what do you make of it?"
Herrick smiled.
"Ghosts don't usually 'holler,'" he said, "and Rebecca seems to have
been very clear on the hollering, if on nothing else. I think we may
dismiss the theory of the defunct Jakey. And by the way, who was
Jakey Menning, and what is this extraordinary tangle about a place
called Dutchman's Hill?"
I gave the mare a light touch with the whip.
"We are passing Dutchman's Hill at this moment," I said, "and I'll
give you the history over our supper."
XII
MR. CROWFOOT
I outslept Herrick by a good hour the next morning; in fact, he was
already up and out by the time I came down to a belated breakfast. I
had one call to make in the village, and after that, Herrick being
still absent, I sat down on the porch with my pipe and a newspaper to
await his return.
There was no mail for me at the office, only a couple of letters for
Herrick, forwarded from New York, and as I slipped these in my pocket
I wondered again at the curious silence of Lennox. Since that short
note from Queenstown I had heard nothing from him, and he had
neglected even to provide me with the promised address by which I
could communicate with him in case of need, an oversight by which he
had certainly secured to himself a free and uninterrupted holiday,
and which left me no choice meantime but to await his return or such
news as he might ultimately choose to send. I must admit that
Lessing's phrase "bolted" stuck unpleasantly in my mind, little as it
accorded with my estimate of Lennox's character. His haste to be
off, the lack of any communication from him since, had more than a
look of flight, but why, or from what he had bolted I was still at a
loss to understand.
I was still turning this over in my mind when Herrick sauntered into
view down the road, accompanied by a stranger. Visitors were
sufficiently rare in the neighbourhood, and as the two approached the
house leisurely I studied the new-comer with some curiosity. He was
a small man, of apparently some fifty years, sparsely bearded, and
dressed in a very shabby knickerbocker suit of greenish tweeds. A
soft felt hat covered his head and at least half his forehead; he
wore dark glasses and carried a botanical collecting-box slung over
his shoulder. There was something quaintly rabbit-like in his
appearance, enhanced by the air of timidity with which he hung back
while Herrick strode forward to the porch to greet me.
"I want to introduce Mr. Crowfoot," Herrick said, with a gesture
which had an effect of herding the mild little man up to the porch
step as he might have herded some curious and inoffensive zoological
specimen. "He is down here hunting orchids, and I came across him in
the woods and brought him along to have a chat with you. You might
be able to give him some hints about the country."
I shook hands with the little man and gave him a chair on the porch,
where he settled himself shyly, his collecting-box across his knee.
"I'm afraid I don't know much about the flora round here," I said,
"but I imagine Mr. Crowfoot will find a good deal to interest him."
"Oh, I am only an amateur," said the little man. "I s---- I s----
I s-s----"
He undoubtedly did, and the reason for his shyness stood forthwith
revealed. He stammered, and had more than the usual sensitiveness of
his infirmity.
"S-simply indulge a hobby," he finished heroically. "It gives me an
object for my leisure time. I s-s---- _presume_ you have lived here
some time, Mr.----?"
"Haverill--Doctor Haverill," Herrick prompted.
"Haverill." He repeated it in a certain child-like way, as though to
place the name definitely in his memory, and immediately I was
conscious of a liking for him. He was at once so diffident and so
meticulously polite.
"On the contrary, I've been here only a month or so, taking a
friend's place for the time. The country about is delightful, so far
as I know it."
"Delightful!" he echoed, and lapsed into a pleased silence, which
lasted so long that Herrick rose.
"I want to change my shoes," he said. "I've been up to the neck in
bog. I don't know our resources, Austin, but I guess we can offer
Mr. Crowfoot a drink?"
"Water--I should l-like very much a plain glass of water," said the
little botanist.
"And a cigar at all events," I supplemented. "I should have some
pretty decent cigars somewhere around that my predecessor left here.
Look in the drawer in the surgery, Jack, will you?"
Herrick reappeared a moment later with the box.
"Excellent," said our new friend as he helped himself. "Excellent!
Apparently you d-d-don't care for these cigars then, Doctor Haverill?"
I laughed. "Oh, I only smoke a pipe, as a rule!"
"You make, if I may s-say so, a great error," he said gravely.
He smoked for a few moments tranquilly, his gaze, behind the dark
glasses, seeming to rest dreamily on the stretch of road before the
house.
"I suppose you are staying in the village?" I asked.
"Over there." He made a vague gesture which included half the
visible landscape. "With some excellent people of the name of
S-S-Sliefer."
"Oh, Sliefer's," I said, interested. "I know them slightly. The big
farm-house past the saw-mill."
"Precisely," he agreed, and gave me a look before relapsing again
into silence.
Our conversation, if it could be called so, languished. It was
evident to me that his shyness was battling with the desire to be
off--I judged that Herrick had fairly dragged him here out of a
mistaken cordiality--and after the exchange of a few more spasmodic
sentences I accepted his courteous and timid explanation that the
Sliefers dined at midday and would be expecting him back, and rose to
shake hands.
"A queer chicken!" said Herrick as we watched his jerky little figure
disappear down the road. "I picked him up back in the woods there,
grubbing around the saw-mill, and brought him along for your
benefit--a quaint example of the Pennsylvanian fauna! Timidicus
professus, or ground-dwelling goo-goo bird. Difficult of approach
and does not thrive in captivity. Guess he's more than a bit batty,
by his looks."
"Mrs. Sliefer never mentioned a boarder," I remarked. "He must be a
new arrival. It's to be hoped he won't come to any grief in his
grubbing around, as you call it."
"Oh, the gods protect the innocent," laughed Herrick. "Even the
alleged ghost of Jakey Menning would have pity. By the way, the fair
Rebecca's tale is still firmly believed in, by the Sliefers at any
rate. The latest village version is that she was chased clear to the
garden fence and that her skirt still shows five scorched prints
where the ghostly fingers clutched. The neighbourhood must have been
quite worked up. It was bad enough when Jakey had the decency to
keep to one place at least, but now he has taken, like the wind, to
blowing where he listeth, folks are getting scary. I got that much
from our guileless little friend, though he professes himself to be
quite indifferent on the subject. Of course you, as the village
doctor, are above such gossip, so I thought I'd go gleaning for you."
"Someone's doing it," I said.
"Of course someone did, in the case of Rebecca at least. Real ghosts
don't holler, as I said before, and the blue-fire details smell
strongly of the common or garden matchbox. But as our little