CHAPTER XXX THE ACADEMY “GHOST” DISCOVERED

If Bar himself had passed that day in a state of ill-suppressed excitement, he had left a very volcanic state of things behind him.

Before matters at the Academy had a fair chance to settle into their customary routine, the news had passed swiftly from desk to desk and bench to bench, whispered, penciled, chalked, everything but telegraphed or shouted, that “Bar Vernon’s run away,” and this was speedily followed by, “Mr. Brayton’s gone after him.”

By the time the scholars were let out for the noon “recess,” the same messages, in various shapes and forms, had made the swift circle of Ogleport, and more than one boy found himself confronted, at corners of the green, by a more or less matronly inquisitor, anxious to “know about it all.”

It was surprising, too, very much so, what clear and circumstantial statements of the facts[Pg 360] those boys were prepared to give, but if any one among them faltered in his tale, that one was not named Zebedee Fuller.

The amount of “faith” afloat in Ogleport was quite likely to be all called for whenever the different inquirers at Zeb’s mouth should come to compare notes.

“Val,” he dolefully exclaimed, as he encountered that young gentleman, “you’ve got to help me out of this.”

“Out of what?” said Val.

“Why, Bar hasn’t run away and George isn’t after him, but what am I to say about it?”

“Keep it up,” said Val.

“Keep what up?”

“Why, Bar is off!”

“Bar off? You don’t mean to say he’s cut it for good?” was Zebedee’s almost breathless response.

“Can’t say about that,” said Val. “All I know is that he went away this morning, and may be gone some days, if not longer. There’s a secret in it.”

“Is there?” said Zeb. “That’s a great comfort. You won’t tell old Sol, will you?”

[Pg 361]“Tell him what?”

“Why, the secret.”

“Oh, I don’t know it myself, and I ain’t half sure that Bar does. He’s gone after it.”

“And George, too, he must have a secret,” groaned Zeb. “I think I must tell Dorothy Jane to keep a sharp eye on Euphemia. Val Manning, it’ll be a bad thing for Ogleport to lose Bar Vernon just now.”

“Hang Ogleport!” exclaimed Val. “Think of me!”

“Yes,” said Zeb, with a look of deep sympathy out of his left eye, “your case is a hard one. Val, don’t you think the wind is rising a little?”

“Seems so,” said Val.

“And a bit westerly?”

“More and more west.”

“Val, the Academy ought to have a chance to express its grief over the loss of Bar Vernon. You and I had better go and carry the sad news to the old bell.”

Val felt as if that sort of thing would give his mind just the relief he needed, and by the time the bell had finished its midday work of[Pg 362] recalling the boys to their studies, its last duty for the day, the “van” in the western gap of the steeple had been securely hitched to the tolling gear, and two agile forms were creeping down-stairs as lightly and silently as cats.

“The wind will be higher towards night,” said Zeb to his friend, “but there’s no telling when the bell may begin to express his feelings.”

Nevertheless, they both returned to their desks and duties with a truly wonderful degree of firmness, sticking bravely to their books in spite of more than one ominous wave of grating sound which came creeping down upon them from the bell-tower.

There was that upon Dr. Dryer’s mind that day, which so absorbed it that no ordinary interruption would have sufficed to secure his attention.

Indeed, never in all their experience of him had his pupils been so puzzled to get at the meaning of his “explanations,” while he once so far wandered from an exact use of terms as to address Hy Allen as “Euphemia.”

Hiram was afterwards compelled to thrash half a dozen small boys and one large one before he[Pg 363] could deliver himself from the consequences of that slip of the tongue.

Hiram would rather have died than have submitted to being called Euphemia Allen, or even “Effie,” much as he doubtless admired the Doctor’s pretty daughter.

School was out at last, however, and Zebedee Fuller led the way to the mill-dam for the accustomed swim.

He found Gershom Todderley and Patrick Murphy strolling about outside the mill, in a way which plainly indicated their readiness to listen to any kind of news from “up-town.”

Nor were they by any means disappointed either as to quantity or quality, for Zeb relieved Val Manning of all necessity for answering questions.

“Hark!” suddenly exclaimed Pat. “Hear that, now! Begorra, that’s the bill bruk loose again!”

“Ah, yes, the bell!” sighed Zeb. “Somebody has told the old fellow about George Brayton and Bar Vernon.”

“That’s what it’s towled for?” asked Pat.

[Pg 364]“Yes, Patrick,” said Zeb. “Do you s’pose it told itself?”

“That’s what it’s doin’ the noo,” exclaimed Pat. “It’s ownly a praste can do anythin’ right for that same bill.”

“That’s my opinion,” said Zeb, solemnly. “Those ghosts from Mrs. Wood’s are at it in broad daylight. What are we coming to?”

If the wind had been a steady one there is really no telling what the result might have been, but the lulls were so frequent and so prolonged that the intervals of silence became more difficult to comprehend than even the sudden outbreaks of half-tipsy tolling.

“Come, Val,” said Zeb, as he and the boys cut short their watery fun and began to dress themselves. “It’s time we were on hand at the Academy. They’re pretty sure to get at it this time, and I’m almost sorry we set it a-going.”

Stronger and stronger blew the western blast, as the boys marched up the street and across the green, and wilder and more protracted were the bell’s expressions of its sorrow for the loss of Bar Vernon.

“Quite a crowd of mourners, I declare,” remarked[Pg 365] Zeb, as he pointed to the assemblage on the Academy steps and scattered over the green before it. “The bell has done well.”

A few minutes later, however, there was indeed a commotion.

There were more than a few of the female population of Ogleport whose curiosity had brought them out upon the green, just when they should have been at home getting supper ready; but now, out from the Academy door, followed in dubious silence by her husband, strode the triumphant spouse of Dr. Dryer.

“There!” she exclaimed, as she pitched Bar Vernon’s invention down upon the grass, “it was that thing did it. All it needed was a woman to find it out. That’s your ghost. Now, Dr. Dryer, I’d like you to find out who put it up there. Zebedee Fuller, come here!”

Zeb promptly responded, with Val at his side, and there were auditors in almost uncomfortable abundance.

“There, sir,” demanded Mrs. Dryer, pointing to the wreck of the van, “did you ever see that before?”

[Pg 366]“That?” responded Zeb. “Everybody knows what that is, I hope.”

“What is it, then?” exclaimed the Doctor, incautiously, and Zeb’s face was all aghast with amazement at such a display of ignorance in such a man, as he respectfully replied:

“That, Dr. Dryer, is a philosophical apparatus for measuring the strength of the wind.”

“Zebedee!” exclaimed Mrs. Dryer.

“Strength of the wind?” said her husband.

“Yes, Doctor,” continued Zeb; “the harder the wind should blow the louder the bell would toll. I have no doubt of it. Still, I should prefer to have Mr. Brayton explain it to you, as my own information is limited.”

“Brayton?” cried the triumphant lady. “I told you so. Don’t you remember? He was up there every time. Of course it was Brayton. He and that Vernon boy knew all about it. No wonder they ran away together. I told you so! Come, Dr. Dryer, we had better go home.”

“Hot water for George when he gets back, I’m afraid, if not for Barnaby,” muttered Zeb; “but the bell don’t seem to feel as bad as it did. Come on, Val.”

[Pg 367]The two were walking rapidly away across the green when they were again halted by a softer voice than that of Mrs. Dryer.

“Zeb Fuller, what did you mean by laying that to Mr. Brayton?”

“I didn’t do anything of the kind,” replied Zeb; “it was Dorothy.”

“But you let her think so.”

“I?” exclaimed Zeb. “I never touched her. Euphemia, George is as innocent of that bell business as you or I.”

Effie burst out into a merry peal of laughter over Zeb’s response and the manner of it, but there were other curious questioners drawing near, and she hurried away.

Away from that spot, indeed, but her father’s house did not come to Effie’s mind just then, as the pleasantest place of refuge in the world, and, instead of seeking that shelter, she turned her footsteps towards Mrs. Wood’s for a bit of a chat with Sibyl.

A very excellent choice, but why should Effie Dryer have blushed so deeply, when Sibyl’s mother met her in the hall and put her soft arms[Pg 368] around her and gave her such a sweet and motherly kiss?

So very different was that kiss from any that Effie had received from her father’s third wife.