The House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholson (good ebook reader .TXT) 📖

CHAPTER IV

A VOICE FROM THE LAKE

 

I ran to the window and peered out into the night.

The wood through which we had approached the house

seemed to encompass it. The branches of a great tree

brushed the panes. I was tugging at the fastening of

the window when I became aware of Bates at my elbow.

 

“Did something happen, sir?”

 

His unbroken calm angered me. Some one had fired

at me through a window and I had narrowly escaped

being shot. I resented the unconcern with which this

servant accepted the situation.

 

“Nothing worth mentioning. Somebody tried to assassinate

me, that’s all,” I said, in a voice that failed

to be calmly ironical. I was still fumbling at the catch

of the window.

 

“Allow me, sir,”—and he threw up the sash with an

ease that increased my irritation.

 

I leaned out and tried to find some clue to my assailant.

Bates opened another window and surveyed the

dark landscape with me.

 

“It was a shot from without, was it, sir?”

 

“Of course it was; you didn’t suppose I shot at myself,

did you?”

 

He examined the broken pane and picked up the bullet

from the table.

 

“It’s a rifle-ball, I should say.”

 

The bullet was half-flattened by its contact with the

wall. It was a cartridge ball of large caliber and might

have been fired from either rifle or pistol.

 

“It’s very unusual, sir!” I wheeled upon him angrily

and found him fumbling with the bit of metal, a

troubled look in his face. He at once continued, as

though anxious to allay my fears. “Quite accidental,

most likely. Probably boys on the lake are shooting at

ducks.”

 

I laughed out so suddenly that Bates started back in

alarm.

 

“You idiot!” I roared, seizing him by the collar with

both hands and shaking him fiercely. “You fool! Do the

people around here shoot ducks at night? Do they

shoot water-fowl with elephant guns and fire at people

through windows just for fun?”

 

I threw him back against the table so that it leaped

away from him, and he fell prone on the floor.

 

“Get up!” I commanded, “and fetch a lantern.”

 

He said nothing, but did as I bade him. We traversed

the long cheerless hall to the front door, and I sent him

before me into the woodland. My notions of the geography

of the region were the vaguest, but I wished to

examine for myself the premises that evidently contained

a dangerous prowler. I was very angry and my

rage increased as I followed Bates, who had suddenly

retired within himself. We stood soon beneath the

lights of the refectory window.

 

The ground was covered with leaves which broke

crisply under our feet.

 

“What lies beyond here?” I demanded.

 

“About a quarter of mile of woods, sir, and then the

lake.”

 

“Go ahead,” I ordered, “straight to the lake.”

 

I was soon stumbling through rough underbrush similar

to that through which we had approached the house.

Bates swung along confidently enough ahead of me,

pausing occasionally to hold back the branches. I began

to feel, as my rage abated, that I had set out on a foolish

undertaking. I was utterly at sea as to the character of

the grounds; I was following a man whom I had not

seen until two hours before, and whom I began to suspect

of all manner of designs upon me. It was wholly

unlikely that the person who had fired into the windows

would lurk about, and, moreover, the light of the lantern,

the crack of the leaves and the breaking of the

boughs advertised our approach loudly. I am, however,

a person given to steadfastness in error, if nothing else,

and I plunged along behind my guide with a grim determination

to reach the margin of the lake, if for no

other reason than to exercise my authority over the

custodian of this strange estate.

 

A bush slapped me sharply and I stopped to rub the

sting from my face.

 

“Are you hurt, sir?” asked Bates solicitously, turning

with the lantern.

 

“Of course not,” I snapped. “I’m having the time

of my life. Are there no paths in this jungle?”

 

“Not through here, sir. It was Mr. Glenarm’s idea

not to disturb the wood at all. He was very fond of

walking through the timber.”

 

“Not at night, I hope! Where are we now?”

 

“Quite near the lake, sir.”

 

“Then go on.”

 

I was out of patience with Bates, with the pathless

woodland, and, I must confess, with the spirit of John

Marshall Glenarm, my grandfather.

 

We came out presently upon a gravelly beach, and

Bates stamped suddenly on planking.

 

“This is the Glenarm dock, sir; and that’s the boat-house.”

 

He waved his lantern toward a low structure that rose

dark beside us. As we stood silent, peering out into the

starlight, I heard distinctly the dip of a paddle and the

soft gliding motion of a canoe.

 

“It’s a boat, sir,” whispered Bates, hiding the lantern

under his coat.

 

I brushed past him and crept to the end of the dock.

The paddle dipped on silently and evenly in the still

water, but the sound grew fainter. A canoe is the most

graceful, the most sensitive, the most inexplicable contrivance

of man. With its paddle you may dip up stars

along quiet shores or steal into the very harbor of

dreams. I knew that furtive splash instantly, and knew

that a trained hand wielded the paddle. My boyhood

summers in the Maine woods were not, I frequently

find, wholly wasted.

 

The owner of the canoe had evidently stolen close to

the Glenarm dock, and had made off when alarmed by

the noise of our approach through the wood.

 

“Have you a boat here?”

 

“The boat-house is locked and I haven’t the key with

me, sir,” he replied without excitement.

 

“Of course you haven’t it,” I snapped, full of anger

at his tone of irreproachable respect, and at my own

helplessness. I had not even seen the place by daylight,

and the woodland behind me and the lake at my feet

were things of shadow and mystery. In my rage I

stamped my foot.

 

“Lead the way back,” I roared.

 

I had turned toward the woodland when suddenly

there stole across the water a voice—a woman’s voice,

deep, musical and deliberate.

 

“Really, I shouldn’t be so angry if I were you!” it

said, with a lingering note on the word angry.

 

“Who are you? What are you doing there?” I bawled.

 

“Just enjoying a little tranquil thought!” was the

drawling, mocking reply.

 

Far out upon the water I heard the dip and glide of

the canoe, and saw faintly its outline for a moment;

then it was gone. The lake, the surrounding wood, were

an unknown world—the canoe, a boat of dreams. Then

again came the voice:

 

“Good night, merry gentlemen!”

 

“It was a lady, sir,” remarked Bates, after we had

waited silently for a full minute.

 

“How clever you are!” I sneered. “I suppose ladies

prowl about here at night, shooting ducks or into people’s

houses.”

 

“It would seem quite likely, sir.”

 

I should have liked to cast him into the lake, but be

was already moving away, the lantern swinging at his

side. I followed him, back through the woodland to the

house.

 

My spirits quickly responded to the cheering influence

of the great library. I stirred the fire on the

hearth into life and sat down before it, tired from my

tramp. I was mystified and perplexed by the incident

that had already marked my coming. It was possible,

to be sure, that the bullet which narrowly missed my

head in the little dining-room had been a wild shot that

carried no evil intent. I dismissed at once the idea that

it might have been fired from the lake; it had crashed

through the glass with