The Haunted Homestead Part 30

In fact, so charmed were we all with this walking with impunity at unaccustomed times and seasons, that the old carryall gathered dust in the coach house, and Jenny, the mare, acc.u.mulated fat in the stable.

But if the autumn in the city seemed so delightful to us rustics, what shall I say of the winter, when the lecture rooms and concert halls were thrown open, and when evening parties were given? There seemed to us no end of enchantments.

I should have told you that when we first went to town we had but one acquaintance there. It was with the family of our Uncle and Aunt Rackaway. They had a large family of growing sons and daughters, of which our dear Cousin Will (your own respected father, girls), was the eldest, the handsomest, the wildest, and the best beloved. Will Rackaway soon initiated us into all the innocent amus.e.m.e.nts of the season--took us to evening meetings, lectures, concerts, exhibitions of every sort, except the theatre, which our grandmother could not be persuaded to regard as an innocent amus.e.m.e.nt.

We were a social family, and soon collected around us a very agreeable neighborhood circle, some one or two of whom would drop in upon us every evening when we were at home, or else invite us out. Ally and I extended our acquaintance among young people whose parents occasionally gave dancing parties, at which we were always present, and which, therefore, our good grandmother felt bound to sometimes reciprocate. You are not to suppose that our days pa.s.sed in a round of fas.h.i.+onable dissipation.

Nonsense! nothing of the sort. We were rather a staid, domestic family--but upon the whole what a contrast this to the long, monotonous evenings in the farm house!

Well, so pa.s.sed that winter, so full of future consequences--that winter in which Ally's gentle spirit first won the heart of her wild Cousin Will. All pleasures pall! Before the season was over, the streets, the shops, the shows--all the wonders and glories of the city had lost their attraction with their novelty.

When the spring came, we had grown just a little weary of city life.

With April, a spring fever for sowing, and planting, and pruning, and training came upon us. But, alas! there was nowhere to sow or plant--our back yard was flagged, and our front one paved. And there was nothing to prune or train--four forlorn trees, trimmed by city authorities into the shape of upright mops, standing upon the hard pavement before our door, were the only apologies for vegetation near us, and they looked as exiled and homesick as ourselves. Mrs. Hawkins also missed her chickens and turkeys, and we all felt the loss of the cows.

"Ah, if we could only get a house away to ourselves, a house in the suburbs, with ground around it, where we could be private, and have shade trees and a garden, and cows and poultry, and all that, within easy walk to the city, how happy I should be," said grandmother, sighing.

"Ah, yes! if we only could! then we should enjoy the pleasures of both city and country life," said I.

"'Oh, that would be joyful, joyful, joyful, joyful!'" exclaimed Ally, quoting the chorus of a popular hymn.

"Ah! well, we must keep our eyes open, and see what we can find," said our grandmother.

The street upon which we lived was narrow and closely built up. It led down half a mile to a long bridge that crossed the river. Consequently this street was the great thoroughfare of country people coming into town, to market, or to shop, or upon any other errand.

Among those who came every day was one old man, who was quite an eccentric character, and who is still remembered by the aged inhabitants of W----. Dr. H---- always wore a c.o.c.ked hat, a powdered wig, a black velvet coat, double waistcoat, ruffled s.h.i.+rt, knee breeches, long hose and silver buckles, and carried a gold-headed cane, keeping up in his age the style and costume of his youth.

He came in town every morning in a gig driven by a servant as old and as quaint as himself.

He returned every evening.

The doctor was a never-failing object of interest to us. The little information we could get respecting him only whetted our curiosity to a keener edge. We learned from Cousin Will that he had no family and no society; that he lived alone in a secluded country house, called the Willow Cottage, with no companion except the aged servant seen always with him; that he had a traditional reputation of having possessed great skill in his profession, and that he now followed a limited practice among his old contemporaries in the city.

So much of authentic facts.

Besides these it was rumored that, years before, he had married a lovely young girl, who had been persuaded or forced to sacrifice her youth and beauty and a prior attachment, to his wealth and age and infirmities; whose short life had been embittered by his jealousies, and whose sudden death, under suspicious circ.u.mstances, had not left him free from imputations of the gravest character.

This was all we could learn of the doctor; and you may depend that our interest in him was deepened and darkened. We watched him with closer attention. His hard, sharp features, his deep-set eyes, whitened hair, and thin, bent figure, took on a sinister appearance, or we fancied so.

However that might be, we felt more shocked than grieved when one morning the news came that the doctor was found at daybreak dead in his bed, with dark marks upon his neck as from the pressure of a thumb and finger!

The news spread like wildfire. The long-closed doors of the Willow Cottage flew open to the public, and its darkened chambers to the sunlight. Crowds flocked thither; the old servant was examined and discharged, no suspicion attaching to him; the coroner's inquest met, and, after a session of twelve hours, rendered its sapient verdict: "Found dead," which, of course, greatly enlightened the public mind. The old servant obtained a home in the almshouse, and the Willow Cottage pa.s.sed to the next of kin.

These events occurred in the month of May. About the middle of June the weather became so hot, the streets so dusty, that the city grew intolerable to us. During winter the town of W---- had afforded a pleasant contrast to the country; during summer it was quite the opposite. In the height of our discontent one morning Will Rackaway came in.

"The Willow Cottage is for rent! Here is a chance for you!"

"The Willow Cottage for rent! Oh, that is delightful," said Ally and I in a breath.

"Who has the renting of it?" inquired grandmother.

"Well, the agent is out of town; but I got the key from his clerk, and if you'll order Jenny put to the carryall, I'll drive you out there to look at it. I think it will be let cheap, for the a.s.sociations of the place are so gloomy that none but a strong-minded woman like Aunt----"

"A Christian woman, you mean, Will."

"Well, yes, a Christian woman, like Aunt, would venture to live in it."

Mrs. Hawkins had in the meantime put her hand to the bell, summoned Hector, and given him an order to get the carryall ready for a drive. We were soon in the carriage, and half an hour's drive took us down the street, across the long bridge to the other side of the river, and to the Willow Cottage.

There is, as I have noticed always, a remarkable fitness in the names given to country houses. This was certainly the case with the present one. There was not a willow near the place.

A few yards from the end of the bridge, and to the right hand of the highway, a disused, gra.s.s-grown road led through a close thicket of evergreens, some quarter of a mile on to an open level area, of about a hundred acres of exhausted land, grown up in broom sedge and completely surrounded by the pine forest.

In the midst of this area stood a red stone cottage, consisting of a central building of two stories, flanked each side by wings of one story in height. The central building was finished by a gable roof front, with a large single fan-shaped window just above the front portico.

The cottage stood in the midst of a garden of about one acre, shaded with many trees and surrounded by a substantial stone wall, parallel to which, on the inside, was a hedge of evergreens, and on the outside another hedge of climbing and intertwining wild rose, eglantine and blackberry vines.

An iron gate, very rusty and dilapidated, admitted us to the gra.s.s-grown walk that led between two rows of black-oak trees to the front portico of the central building.

We entered a small front hall, behind which was a large, square parlor, in the rear of which was a long dining-room. The wings on the right and left consisted each of a bedchamber, entered from the front hall. There was but one room above stairs, a large chamber immediately over the parlor in the central building, and lighted by the fan-light in the front gable.

The kitchen, laundry and servants' rooms were in another building in the rear of the cottage; they were not joined together, but stood, as it were, back to back, presenting to each other a dead wall without door or window, and about two feet apart, thus forming a blind alley.

I have been thus particular in describing the house, that you may better understand the story that follows.

"The builder who designed this was certainly demented," said one of the party, pointing to the blind alley, with its waste of wall.

Will laughed.

"I have noticed, Madeleine, that quite as much of character is shown in the construction of houses as in the cut of physiognomies."

"But, upon the whole, I like it," said the other.

And so said every one.

There was a stable, a coachhouse, a henhouse, a smokehouse, and, in fact, every possible accommodation for the household. The fruit trees and vines were teeming with fruit, which also lay ripening or decaying in great quant.i.ties upon the ground. The rose bushes had spread the gra.s.s with a warmer hue and sweeter covering.

We filled our old carryall with fruit and our hands with flowers and prepared to return home. Ally was in ecstacies. So was Cousin Will. So was our grandmother, as much as a self-possessed and dignified matron of the old school could be said to be. As for myself, I could not sleep that night for thinking of our removal to the fine old place. We had unanimously resolved to take it.

Alas! we had reckoned without our landlord. Upon inquiry of the agent next day we learned that the place was already let to a man who intended to make it a house of summer resort, for which its convenient distance from the city, its cool and shady and secluded site, and its extensive grounds, numerous shade trees and fine fruit, and many other good points, peculiarly adapted it.

We were very much disappointed, but our regret was somewhat modified when we ascertained that it was let at a preposterous rate of rent, that a prudent woman like our grandmother never would have undertaken to pay.

So we resigned ourselves to the inevitable.

However, in a week or two we were so fortunate as to rent a small, neat house on the opposite side of the road from the Willow Cottage, and nearer to the bridge. We immediately moved into our new home; and grandmother sent Hector down into the country to bring up her poultry, and drive up her cows--a business that he took but three days to accomplish.

We were thus settled in our suburban residence, with which, by the way, we were not quite content. It was too small, too exposed to the rays of the sun, the dust of the road and the eyes of the pa.s.sengers; it was too new also, and the shrubs and flowers had not had time to grow, and then--we had been disappointed of Willow Cottage.

In addition to these drawbacks, and even worse than these, was the fact that we were annoyed all day long and every day by the troops of visitors, on foot and on horseback, in sulkies and buggies, all bound for the Willow Cottage.