Charred Wood. Bp. Francis Clement Kelley
Charred Wood
CHAPTER I
THE LADY OF THE TREE
The man lay in the tall grass. Behind him the wall of the Killimaga estate, from its beginning some fifty yards to his left, stretched away to his right for over a thousand feet. Along the road which ran almost parallel with the wall was the remnant of what had once been a great woods; yearly the county authorities determined to cut away its thick undergrowth—and yearly left it alone. On the left the road was bare for some distance along the bluff; then, bending, it again sought the shelter of the trees and meandered along until it lost itself in the main street of Sihasset, a village large enough to support three banks and, after a fashion, eight small churches. In front, had the lounger cared to look, he would have seen the huge rocks topping the bluff against which the ocean dashed itself into angry foam. But the man didn't care to look—for in the little clearing between the wall of Killimaga and the bluff road was peace too profound to be wantonly disturbed by motion. And so he lay there lazily smoking his cigar, his long length concealed by the tall grass.
Hearing a slight click behind him and to his right, the man slowly, even languidly, turned his head to peer through the grass. But his energy was unrewarded, for he saw nothing he had not seen before—a long wall, its rough stones half hidden by creeping vines, at its base a rank growth of shrubs and wild hedge; behind it, in the near distance, the towers of a house that, in another land, perched amid jutting crags, would have inspired visions of far-off days of romance. Even in its New England setting the great house held a rugged charm, heightened by the big trees which gave it a setting of rich green. Some of the trees had daringly advanced almost to the wall itself, while one—a veritable giant—had seemingly been caught while just stepping through.
With a bored sigh, as if even so slight an effort were too great, the smoker settled himself more comfortably and resumed his indolent musing. Then he heard the sound again. This time he did not trouble to look around. Something white swished quickly past him and he stared, bewildered. It was a woman, young, if her figure were to be trusted. His cigar dropped in the grass, and there he let it lie. His gaze never left her as she walked on; and he could scarcely be blamed, for he was still under thirty-five and feminine early twenties has an interest to masculine full youth. He had never seen anyone quite so charming. And so he watched the lady as she walked to the edge of the bluff overlooking the sea, and turned to the left to go along the pathway toward the village.
Five hundred yards away she was met by a tall man wearing a long black coat. Was it the priest he had noticed that morning at the door of the Catholic church in the village? Yes, there was no doubt about that; it was the priest. He had just lifted his hat to the lady and was now turning to walk back with her by the way he had come. They evidently knew each other well; and the man watching them almost laughed at himself when he realized that he was slightly piqued at the clergyman's daring to know her while he did not. He watched the pair until they disappeared around the bend of the bluff path. Then he settled back to look for his cigar. But he did not find it, for other matters quickly absorbed his attention.
From out a clump of bushes on his left, where they evidently had been hiding, two men appeared. He recognized them both. One was a book agent who was stopping at the hotel in the village; the other was the local constable. The book agent had a paper in his hand.
"That her?" he asked.
"Yaas, sir!"—the constable was surely a native New Englander—"I seed her face plain."
"I didn't," said the agent, with annoyance. "I have never seen her without that confounded veil. This is the first time she's had it thrown back. But the description is right? Look at it."
He showed the paper to the constable, tapping it as he read.
"'Brown hair, blue eyes'—did you see her eyes?"
"I sure did," answered the constable; "and they wuz blue."
"All right, then. 'Blue eyes, regular features'—how about that?"
"Reg'lar enough," said the constable. "She'd no pug nose, I kin tell ya that."
"'Regular features,' then, is right. 'Five feet four inches tall'—that's right. 'Small hands and feet'—that's right. 'About twenty-three years old; good figure.'"
"She sure hez all them," vouchsafed the wearer of the star. "I knowed her right away, and I've seed her often. She's been in Sihasset well nigh on a month."
"But where—" the agent turned to look at the unbroken wall—"where in thunder did she come from?"
The constable, pushing back his helmet, scratched his head.
"Damfino," he said. "That's the rub. There's no gate on this side of Killimaga."
"Killimaga?"
"A rich old Irishman built it and put a wall around it, too. We folks of Sihasset don't like that; it shuts off the view of the house and lawn. Lawn's what makes things purty. He wuz a queer old mug—wanted to shut hisself up."
"But how did she get out?" insisted the agent, coming back to the issue.
"Search me," offered the constable. He looked toward the top of the wall. "Clumb the fence, mebbe."
"With her dress looking as it does?"
"There's no other way. I dunno."
The agent was puzzled. "I want a closer inspection of that wall. We'll walk along this side."
Both agent and constable started off, keeping well behind the wild hedge along the wall so that they might not be seen from the bluff road.
The man lying in the grass was more puzzled than the agent. Why a book agent and a constable should be so anxious about a lady who was—well, just charming—but who had herself stepped out of nowhere to join a priest in his walk, was a problem for some study. He got up and walked to the wall. Then he laughed. Close examination showed him marks in the giant tree, the vertical cuts being cleverly covered by the bark, while the horizontal ones had creepers festooned over them. A door was well concealed. But the tree? It was large, yet there could not be room in it for more than one person, who would have to stand upright and in a most uncomfortable position. The man himself had been before it over an hour. How long had the lady been in the tree? He forgot his lost cigar in trying to figure the problem out.
Mark Griffin had never liked problems. That was one reason why he found himself now located in a stuffy New England inn just at the end of the summer season when all the "boarders" had gone except himself and the book agent.
Griffin himself, though the younger son of an Irish peer, had been born in England. The home ties were not strong and when his brother succeeded to the title and estates in Ireland Mark, who had inherited a fortune from his mother, went to live with his powerful English relatives. For a while he thought of going into the army, but he knew he was a dunce in mathematics, so he soon gave up the idea. He tried Oxford, but failed there for the same reason. Then he just drifted. Now, still on the sunny side of thirty-five, he was knocking about, sick of things, just existing, and fearfully bored. He had dropped into Sihasset through sheer curiosity—just to see a typical New England summer resort where the Yankee type had not yet entirely disappeared. Now that the season was over he simply did not care to pull out for New York and continue his trip to—nowhere. He was "seeing" America. It might take months and it might take years. He did not care. Then England again by way of Japan and Siberia—perhaps. He never wanted