CHAPTER XXII GHOSTS IN THE ACADEMY BELFRY

There was one man who had never been able to get Bar Vernon fairly out of his head since the first day he saw him, and that man was old Judge Danvers.

Not but that the busy lawyer had plenty of other things to occupy him, but there was something in Bar and his mysterious “old time” which was well calculated to excite the curiosity of one whose whole life had been spent in solving “riddles” of one kind or another.

“That black valise,” he said to himself. “I admire Bar’s honesty about it, and of course he must keep his word, but I’m under no such bond. I think I must manage to get hold of that Major Montague. He’ll be a hard one to find, if he chooses to keep out of the way. Sorry Dr. Manning didn’t temporize with him a little. I doubt if he will come near my office again.[Pg 266] There’s something about the premises that doesn’t suit his fancy.”

Major Montague had reasons of his own for not fancying anything which reminded him of the law, but just now, as we have seen, he would have been meeting the wishes of Judge Danvers a good deal more than halfway if it had not been for insurmountable difficulties.

The old lawyer was in quite a “brown study” over what might or might not be the best way to find the Major, when his office-boy brought him in a card, and with it a note of introduction.

“Ashbel Norton!” said the Judge, as he glanced at the card and then opened the note. “Ah, an Englishman. Brown Brothers, bankers. Introduction enough for any man. Show the gentleman in.”

A very English-looking person, indeed, with light hair and whiskers, and it seemed to the judge that he very much resembled somebody he knew, though he could not say whom.

The usual formalities of such a call were rapidly completed, for, as the banker’s introduction had stated, the stranger required the old lawyer’s professional advice and services.

[Pg 267]“Very curious case, indeed,” he said, as he laid a bundle of papers on the table. “Involves family secrets—very unpleasant things, you know. Not the affair I’d intrust to any ordinary man, I assure you. There’s really a good deal at stake, my dear sir.”

The Judge dryly professed his readiness to pay attention, although he could not, somehow, prevent his thoughts even then from wandering to Bar Vernon and Major Montague.

Whether or not the stranger was favorably impressed with the manner of his “counsel,” he promptly began to open his budget, accompanying the action with such verbal explanations as seemed to be required.

It was a strange story, though Judge Danvers had heard others somewhat resembling it, and before long he found himself taking a deeper and deeper interest, and Mr. Norton expressed himself surprised, in their subsequent conversation, at finding how thoroughly the lawyer had made himself acquainted with the outlines of his case.

“The first thing to be done,” remarked the Judge, “is to set the detectives on the track of all these items of information. They are very[Pg 268] slender as yet. Mere hints. That will take time.”

“Of course,” replied Mr. Norton, “I expect that. Am ready to spend as much time, and money, too, as may be necessary. I am quite at your service.”

“Then take a trip of a week to Niagara, or any other place where you can enjoy yourself, and by the time you return I will be ready to report what I have discovered.”

“Can I not aid you in your proposed search?”

“After that,” replied the Judge. “Is not this your first visit to America?”

“It is, indeed,” said Mr. Norton.

“Then try to make the most of it,” said Judge Danvers. “There’s no telling where you may have to travel before we get through.”

Mr. Ashbel Norton was apparently a gentleman accustomed to having his own way, but he was old enough to know there was little to be gained in a dispute with a lawyer, and so, after answering a legion of what seemed to him unimportant questions, he bowed himself out, promising to return at the end of the week.

“Very curious affair,” growled Judge Danvers,[Pg 269] after his new client had departed. “Now I’ve two family mysteries on my hands—one from England, and one from I don’t know where. Well, I’ll set the wires a-working on this one, but, for all that, I won’t neglect the other. I must find that rascal, Montague, and then I must write to Barnaby. No, not that, I must go to see him; but I’d like to find the Major first.”

A busy head was that of the old lawyer that afternoon and evening, what with one case and another; but not one whit more active than had been the brains of the two youngsters, away up there in Ogleport.

At the supper table Brayton remarked to Mrs. Wood:

“The sun went down in a great pile of clouds. Looks very much as if a storm were brewing.”

“’Bout time for one,” replied the landlady. “I kind o’ feel it in my bones. Not that I’m at all superstitious, only maybe it’s rheumatism.”

“Superstitious?” remarked Val, maliciously. “Mr. Brayton, do you believe in ghosts?”

Brayton had heard all that there was to hear about the village legends, and he was just “boy” enough to answer:

[Pg 270]“Can’t say, Val; but I never saw one.”

“Or heard one?” asked Bar.

“No, nor heard one,” said Brayton; “but I believe I should like to.”

“Ghosts!” exclaimed Mrs. Wood. “I s’pose it was ghosts that tied poor Dr. Dryer’s dun heifer to the bell rope.”

“Exactly,” said Brayton. “That’s the kind I imagine there are more of than any other. All very good ghosts till they are found out.”

“They haven’t found out that one,” said Val.

“Not yet they haven’t,” snapped Mrs. Wood; “but I believe his right name is Zebedee Fuller.”

“Nothing very ghostly about Zeb,” said Bar.

“Nor the heifer,” added Val.

Just then there came a pretty good gust of wind through the open window of the dining-room, and the two young conspirators could scarcely avoid a sly glance into each other’s eyes.

It was a very quick flash of a glance, but George Brayton caught it.

He could not guess at its meaning just then, but he stored it away in his memory for future[Pg 271] reference, for it meant, as plainly as anything could, “Fun a-coming. Wait and see.”

So he determined to do that very thing, and went on with his supper.

The night promised to be a dark and stormy one by the time the boys had a chance to look out on it. All the more so because the weather seemed disposed to take its own time in getting ready.

The two friends retired to their own room, and Bar astonished Val by actually going to work on his books.

“You’re a queer fellow,” said Val. “Why, I’m all ears.”

“So am I,” said Bar, “but I mean to improve my time, for all that. This wind’ll do our work for us without any help of ours. Seems as if it was getting more and more westerly all the while.”

Nevertheless, it required all the resolution Bar could muster to do anything worth while with his Greek, and Val vainly endeavored to find anything interesting in one of Kingsley’s best novels.

So long a time went by, in fact, that even Bar[Pg 272] began to have half a fear that his machinery had got “stuck” in some way.

So it had, for there had been more than a little rust on those old wheels, and, in spite of the oil, the “wing” had to work back and forth a good while before it had rubbed them into anything like easy running order.

Then the wind, too, at first, had come only in fitful and insufficient gusts, and not from the right direction, and so the good people of Ogleport, early sleepers and early risers, had a fine opportunity to stow themselves away in bed before the “ghosts” got fairly loose in the belfry.

Not all of them were sufficiently easy in their minds to go to sleep at once, however, and Mrs. Dryer had just remarked to the Doctor, as a sort of clincher to a good many other things she had been saying:

“Fond of fast horses, too, Dr. Dryer; that’s the kind of man you’ve got. The Academy’s all going to destruction. Riding ’round the country in buggies. Effie, too, what do you say to that? Boys fighting on the green and calling it boxing lessons. Threatening to drown you in the mill-pond.[Pg 273] Tying your cow’s horns to the bell-rope. Buying boats on the lake——”

“Dorothy Jane,” began the principal, but he was suddenly interrupted by a deep, mournful, booming sound from the Academy belfry, and an exclamation from his wife.

“Mercy on us, Doctor, what’s that?”

“Dorothy Jane,” replied the Doctor, as he slowly arose in bed, “can it be within the compass of mundane possibilities that that outrageous cow——”

“The cow? Poor thing!” returned his “third,” disdainfully. “Ain’t you ashamed, Dr. Dryer! Do you suppose she’d be out on such a night as this? Listen to the rain on the window. There it is again!”

“Dorothy Jane!” exclaimed the Doctor, as he sprang to his feet and began to dress himself, “this proceeding should arouse all Ogleport!”

“That bell!” mourned Mrs. Dryer.

“Yes, indeed!” replied the Doctor. “It’s a terrible affliction.”

George Brayton also heard the first sound made by the bell, and it somehow put him in mind of his two young friends, although he well[Pg 274] knew they were at that very moment in their room.

He was sure of it, if from nothing else, by the unnecessary amount of racket Bar Vernon was making in getting on his boots.

Fiercer and higher rose the strength of that reckless wind from the west, and louder and more prolonged, though terribly irregular were the clamorous peals from the Academy belfry, till not a sleeper remained in all Ogleport, except the stone-deaf grandmother of Zeb Fuller’s friend, William Jones.

The worst puzzled pair of ears in all the village, however, were those of Zebedee himself.

Not only on account of the bell, but because Deacon Fuller had deemed that tolling a direct summons to the bedroom of his son, and it had required all his fatherly faith in Zeb’s truthfulness to convince him that the mischief, whatever it might be, would never be traced across his own threshold.

That was very bad—so bad that Zeb enjoyed the rare luxury of looking upon himself in the character of injured innocence, but the very worst of it was that here was something going on in[Pg 275] his own Ogleport of which he knew no more than did “old Sol” himself.

“This must be looked to, father!” he solemnly declared. “It can hardly be the dun heifer can so soon again have forgotten herself. There’s been nothing going on that I know of, that the old bell need wake up and toll about at this time o’ night. We’d better go and make an investigation.”

There were plenty more of the same way of thinking, and now they were gathering at the Academy door, some with umbrellas and some without, and not a few of them had brought along their lanterns.

And now the door was opened by the Rev. Dr. Dryer in person, as on the previous occasion, and the whole crowd, variously half-clad, were glad enough to get in out of the rain.

There was the mystery, however, right before them.

No rope, no cow, and the old bell banging ceaselessly away, up there in the steeple.

“She’s working tip-top,” whispered a cautious voice in Bar Vernon’s ear. “You said as how the fun’d come the first windy night, and I footed[Pg 276] it over arter my sheer. It’s most as good as boat-buildin’.”

“All right, Puff; only keep still,” returned Bar. “Let’s see what they’ll do about it.”

There were other volunteers to go up with George Brayton that night, however, and although Zebedee Fuller crept along behind one of the trustees, he did not seem disposed to make himself at all conspicuous.

He had noted the presence of Bar and Val, but had promptly dismissed them from his calculations with the silent question:

“What do city fellows know about bells?”

Not much, perhaps, but the dripping investigators soon began to suspect that they themselves knew even less, for they failed to detect any sign of rope on the second floor.

“Now, my friends!” exclaimed the principal, triumphantly, “whoever the perpetrators may be, we are reasonably assured of their capture. They have lingered too long in the steeple!”

“Looks like it,” muttered Zeb; “nobody ever engineered a dun heifer up those crooked stairs. It was a tough enough job to get her into the lower hall.”

[Pg 277]But not on the stairs, nor even to the adventurous eyes which shortly afterwards peered out upon the “deck” above, did there appear any sign of boy or man or apple-hunting cow.

Such a gale as was sweeping through the sashless frame of the bell-tower and across the vacant level of the deck at that moment!

It laid the wing of Bar Vernon’s subtle invention so very flat that the tolling ceased and even the uplifted lanterns failed to discover it.

The combined light of the latter, moreover, convinced the keen eyes of George Brayton that no human form was lurking among the cross-pieces of the bell-frame in its nook overhead.

“Not a living soul, there or here,” solemnly exclaimed one of the trustees.

“No rope,” added another.

“It’s an awful mystery,” exclaimed a third.

“Ghosts from Mrs. Wood’s,” suggested a sepulchral voice behind them, and although they all knew it came from the lips of Zebedee Fuller, there was a very general disposition to regard their search as completed.

“He’s got away, whoever he was,” remarked George Brayton, “but the question is, how?”

[Pg 278]Did the bell mean to laugh at them?

They were halfway down the stairway just then, and the tolling burst forth in a sudden fit of half frantic violence that almost made one of the trustees lose his footing.

That was quite enough for George Brayton, however, and he quietly said to the rest:

“I’m going back. Please tell Mr. Vernon I wish he would come up here.”

“Now you’re in for it,” said Val, as he heard the message delivered.

“No, Val,” said Bar, “it’s all right. If I don’t go up they’ll find it out. I must shut it off for this time.”

“Shall I come along?”

“Better not. One’s enough.”

One would indeed have been enough, and Zeb Fuller made two. That would have been altogether too much, if there had not somehow dimly dawned on Zebedee’s mind the idea that it was his duty to keep George Brayton’s attention as much as possible.

Bar found the two sitting together at the top of the stairs waiting for him, but he stepped lightly past them and out upon the deck.

[Pg 279]It was the work of an instant, as he seemed to peer out upon the roof through that western window. The end of the rope was detached from the lower “arm” of the van and there was no danger of any more noise just then.

“Vernon,” said Brayton, “do you think you could climb up there such a night as this without danger?”

“Certainly,” said Bar.

“Will you?”

Bar’s reply, to the intense admiration of Zeb Fuller, who would scarcely have undertaken it himself, except as out-and-out “mischief,” was to climb rapidly and lightly up, till he reached the rafters beside the bell.

“Nobody here, Mr. Brayton,” he shouted. “Nobody’d want to sit here and toll, anyhow!”

“Come down, then. I thought as much,” replied Brayton.

Bar was down with the rapidity of a young monkey, for he now knew every inch of the way.

“Have you examined the roof?” he asked of Brayton.

“No,” was the reply; “it’s too wet and slippery[Pg 280] for any one to venture on to-night, and it’s too dark for us to see all over it. I’m afraid we’ll have to give it up.”

They waited for sometime, nevertheless, visited at brief intervals by other watchers from below, but no renewal of the mysterious sounds disturbed them.

In fact, the wind was dying away now, having lasted a good while for a summer gust, and when at last Brayton led the way down-stairs, Zeb went next, and Bar had a precious moment in which he was able to step back and once more slip the end of the tolling-rope over the arm of the van.

“It won’t do any harm, right away,” he thought, “and there’s no telling when I may have another chance to get up here.”

Once or twice, in the remaining course of that eventful night, faint efforts at a clangor moaned across the green through the still falling rain, but there was not enough of them to draw the villagers again from their houses.