Keziah Coffin Part 25

"Oh, has he? Ain't that nice! He couldn't have been in better comp'ny, I'm sure. But oh, say, 'Bishy! I ain't told you how nigh I come to not gettin' out at all. Just afore Mr. Payne come, I was in that spare room and--you remember I put a spring lock on that door?"

It was here at last. The long-dreaded explosion was imminent. Kyan's chin shook. He braced himself for the blow. The minister prepared to come to the rescue.

"Yes," went on Lavinia. "I--I put a lock on that door so's I--I could shut the room up when I wanted to. Well, when I was in there this afternoon the wind blew the door shut and--Hey?"

"I--I never said nothin'," panted Kyan.

"Yes, it blew to, the lock clicked, and there I was. If I hadn't had the other key in my pocket I don't know's I wouldn't have been in there yet.

That would have been a pretty mess, wouldn't it! He! he! he!"

She laughed shrilly. The minister looked at her, then at her brother, and he, too, burst into a shout of laughter. Kyan did not laugh; yet his grip upon the chair relaxed, and over his countenance was spreading a look of relief, of hope and peace, like a clear sunrise after a stormy night.

"Well, I must go and get supper," declared Lavinia. "You'll forgive me for leavin' you so, won't you, 'Bishy?"

Mr. Pepper sighed.

"Yes," he said slowly. "I'll forgive you, Laviny."

"I knew you would. I hope you ain't been too lonesome. Did you miss me?

Was you worried?"

"Hey? Yes, I--I missed you consider'ble. I WAS gettin' sort of worried.

I didn't s'pose you'd go off to ride with--with a feller and leave me all alone. But I forgive you." He stopped, drew his hand across his forehead, and then added, "I s'pose I hadn't ought to complain. Maybe I'd better get used to it; I guess likely this is only the beginnin'."

Lavinia blushed furiously.

"Why, 'Bis.h.!.+" she exclaimed. "How you do talk! Ain't he awful, Mr.

Ellery?"

The Reverend John did not answer. He could not trust himself to speak just then. When he did it was to announce that he must be getting toward home. No, he couldn't stay for supper.

Miss Pepper went into the kitchen, and Abishai saw the visitor to the door. Ellery extended his hand and Kyan shook it with enthusiasm.

"Wa'n't it fine?" he whispered. "Talk about your miracles! G.o.dfreys mighty! Say, Mr. Ellery, don't you ever tell a soul how it really was, will you?"

"No, of course not."

"No, I know you won't. You won't tell on me and I won't tell on you.

That's a trade, hey?"

The minister stopped in the middle of his step.

"What?" he said, turning.

Mr. Pepper merely smiled, winked, and shut the door. John Ellery reflected much during his homeward walk.

The summer in Trumet drowsed on, as Trumet summers did in those days, when there were no boarders from the city, no automobiles or telephones or "antique" collectors. In June the Sunday school had its annual picnic. On the morning of the Fourth of July some desperate spirits among the younger set climbed in at the church window and rang the bell, in spite of the warning threats of the selectmen, who had gone on record as prepared to prosecute all disturbers of the peace to the "full extent of the law." One of the leading citizens, his name was Daniels, awoke to find the sleigh, which had been stored in his carriage house, hoisted to the roof of his barn, and a section of his front fence tastefully draped about it like a garland. The widow Rogers noticed groups of people looking up at her house and laughing. Coming out to see what they were laughing at, she was provoked beyond measure to find a sign over the front door, announcing "Man Wanted Imediate. Inquire Within." The door of the Come-Outer chapel was nailed fast and Captain Zeb Mayo's old white horse wandered loose along the main road ringed with painted black stripes like a zebra. Captain Zeb was an angry man, for he venerated that horse.

The storm caused by these outbreaks subsided and Trumet settled into its jog trot. The stages rattled through daily, the packet came and went every little while, occasionally a captain returned home from a long voyage, and another left for one equally long. Old Mrs. Prince, up at the west end of the town, was very anxious concerning her son, whose s.h.i.+p was overdue at Calcutta and had not been heard from. The minister went often to see her and tried to console, but what consolation is there when one's only child and sole support is n.o.body knows where, drowned and dead perhaps, perhaps a castaway on a desert island, or adrift with a desperate crew in an open boat? And Mrs. Prince would say, over and over again:

"Yes, yes, Mr. Ellery. Thank you. I'm sure you mean to encourage me, but oh, you don't know the things that happen to seafarin' men. I do. I went to sea with my husband for fourteen year. He died on a voyage and they buried him over the vessel's side. I can't even go to his grave. The sea got him, and now if it's taken my Eddie--"

The young clergyman came away from these calls feeling very young, indeed, and woefully inadequate. What DID he know of the great sorrows of life?

The Sunday dinners with the Daniels family were almost regular weekly functions now. He dodged them when he could, but he could not do so often without telling an absolute lie, and this he would not do. And, regularly, when the solemn meal was eaten, Captain Elkanah went upstairs for his nap and the Reverend John was left alone with Annabel. Miss Daniels did her best to be entertaining, was, in fact, embarra.s.singly confidential and cordial. It was hard work to get away, and yet, somehow or other, at the stroke of four, the minister always said good-by and took his departure.

"What is your hurry, Mr. Ellery?" begged Annabel on one occasion when the reading of Moore's poems had been interrupted in the middle by the guest's sudden rising and reaching for his hat. "I don't see why you always go so early. It's so every time you're here. Do you call at any other house on Sunday afternoons?"

"No," was the prompt reply. "Oh, no."

"Then why can't you stay? You know I--that is, pa and I--would LOVE to have you."

"Thank you. Thank you. You're very kind. But I really must go. Good afternoon, Miss Daniels."

"Mrs. Rogers said she saw you going across the fields after you left here last Sunday. Did you go for a walk?"

"Er--er--yes, I did."

"I wish you had mentioned it. I love to walk, and there are SO few people that I find congenial company. Are you going for a walk now?"

"Why, no--er--not exactly."

"I'm sorry. GOOD-by. Will you come again next Sunday? Of COURSE you will. You know how dreadfully disappointed I--we--shall be if you don't."

"Thank you, Miss Daniels. I enjoyed the dinner very much. Good afternoon."

He hurried down the path. Annabel watched him go. Then she did an odd thing. She pa.s.sed through the sitting room, entered the front hall, went up the stairs, tiptoed by the door of her father's room, and then up another flight to the attic. From here a steep set of steps led to the cupola on the roof. In that cupola was a spygla.s.s.

Annabel opened a window a few inches, took the spygla.s.s from its rack, adjusted it, laid it on the sill of the open window and knelt, the gla.s.s at her eye. The floor of the cupola was very dusty and she was wearing her newest and best gown, but she did not seem to mind.

Through the gla.s.s she saw the long slope of Cannon Hill, with the beacon at the top and Captain Mayo's house near it. The main road was deserted save for one figure, that of her late caller. He was mounting the hill in long strides.

She watched him gain the crest and pa.s.s over it out of sight. Then she s.h.i.+fted the gla.s.s so that it pointed toward the spot beyond the curve of the hill, where the top of a thick group of silver-leafs hid the parsonage. Above the tree tops glistened the white steeple of the Regular church. If the minister went straight home she could not see him. But under those silver-leafs was the beginning of the short cut across the fields where Didama had seen Mr. Ellery walking on the previous Sunday.

So Annabel watched and waited. Five minutes, then ten. He must have reached the clump of trees before this, yet she could not see him.

Evidently, he had gone straight home. She drew a breath of relief.

Then, being in a happier frame of mind, and the afternoon clear and beautiful, she moved the gla.s.s along the horizon, watching the distant white specks across the bay on the Wellmouth bluffs--houses and buildings they were--the water, the sh.o.r.e, the fish weirs, the pine groves. She became interested in a sloop, beating into Wellmouth harbor, and watched that. After a time she heard, in the house below, her father shouting her name.

She gave the gla.s.s one more comprehensive sweep preparatory to closing it and going downstairs. As she did this a moving speck came into view and vanished.

Slowly she moved the big end of the spygla.s.s back along the arc it had traveled. She found the speck and watched it. It was a man, striding across the meadow land, a half mile beyond the parsonage, and hurrying in the direction of the beach. She saw him climb a high dune, jump a fence, cross another field and finally vanish in the grove of pines on the edge of the bluff by the sh.o.r.e.

The man was John Ellery, the minister. Evidently, he had not gone home, nor had he taken the short cut. Instead he had walked downtown a long way and THEN turned in to cross the fields and work his way back.

Annabel put down the gla.s.s and, heedless of her father's calls, sat thinking. The minister had deliberately deceived her. More than that, he had gone to considerable trouble to avoid observation. Why had he done it? Had he done the same thing on other Sunday afternoons? Was there any real reason why he insisted on leaving the house regularly at four o'clock?

Annabel did not know. Her eyes snapped and her sharp features looked sharper yet as she descended the steps to the attic. She did not know; but she intended to find out.