# The Billop Mystery

Extracted from 'The English Illustrated, Vol 14, Nov 1895, pp. 97–114. Illustrations by W. D. Almond may be omitted.
The Billop Mystery
By Julian Hawthorne

### I.

ON the wall opposite, as I sit at my study table, hangs a small picture framed in white. Though but a sketch in water-colour, it shows the handling of a master; and if the observer be a connoisseur, he will recognise the touch of Winslow Homer. The subject is a New England farmhouse among the hills: time, sunset of an October day.
The house, as you see, occupies the summit of an acclivity. Its broad hip-roof, its blunt gables, and its massive chimney stand out against the sky. The orange light from the west illuminates the venerable front, and glows in its deep-set windows. Two trees of unknown age and vast size stand one on either side of the heavily framed doorway. That on the right is a butternut; the other is an elm: and in the apparently still solid trunk of the former (as I happen to know, though it could not be represented in Mr. Homer's sketch) is still embedded a bullet fired from a flint-lock musket in the hands of an Indian one hundred and eighty years ago. The bullet was meant for the stout heart of Mistress Nancy Billop, who, with her two sons, was defending the house against a raid of the savages during the absence of her husband on a trading trip to the coast. For the house, as well as the trees, stood there in 1715, looking, probably, not very different from what they do now. You may be glad to know that the Indians were beaten off, after three of them had been shot dead while unsuccessfully trying to set the building on fire; and the valiant little garrison was relieved betimes the next morning. I mention this episode merely to give you an idea what sort of stuff these Billops had in them. Be we democratic as we may, we cannot help liking our friends the better for descending from stock like that.
Let us make a skip of a century and a half or so, during which the Billops' generations succeeded one another in a steady, honourable, but somewhat uneventful career of prosperity; raising crops, breeding cattle, sending a representative to the wars, when there were any, and voting for that form of government which stands for liberty, security, and minding your own business.
The original Billop was a pioneer in that region, and owned everything in sight from his windows. When, in the course of time, other settlers came along, he had treated them hospitably, and bade them help themselves to everything that they wanted in the way of farms, up to within a radius of a mile from his doorstep. The land within that radius got to be known as Billop's Farm, and it contained the finest land—upland pasture, forest, and meadow—to be found in the neighbourhood. Early in the century, about half of this farm was sold to a man by the name of Corvin. We have business with some of his posterity in the present narrative.
The house which Corvin built stood halfway between the old Billop homestead and the village of Ken brook (which had been in gradual course of materialisation since before the Revolutionary War). Corvin was a lawyer. He had brought money with him and made more. He was a pushing, shrewd man. and before his death had served a term in the State Legislature. His son adopted the profession of law also, but did not make out so well with it. He seemed to lack the gift of success. Being, upon a time, in straits, he got a considerable loan of money. Now, no details of this loan were known, but it was the general impression that it came from Matthew Billop, the then head of the Billop clan, with whom Corvin was understood to be on rather intimate terms. What security did Corvin give for it? What was there for him to give, except a mortgage on his land? It was not known what use he made of the loan, but there were indications that he never paid any interest on it, and it was only a question of time, therefore, when it would be foreclosed. For Matthew Billop was not the sort of man to give up his just dues for anybody.
This Matthew is known in local history as Miser Billop. He was the last male of his race, and perhaps the ablest of any of them. For reasons best known to himself he never married. He had two sisters, one of whom, Sally, married John Linton, and died a year after, followed several years later by her husband: the other, Nancy, remained an old maid, and kept house for Matthew. We shall have the pleasure of her nearer acquaintance shortly. I will only observe here that she was in love, in her salad days, with a certain good-looking, easy-going young fellow by the name of Brent. Brent, being more good-looking than otherwise good, jilted her, and married her bosom friend, Mary Selwin. The pair went to New Orleans, and had a daughter: and then both died of yellow fever. Nancy might have said, "Serve 'em right!" but she did not, not being that sort of woman. But she had the little girl brought up north, and took care of her, and made her a daughter of her own. Betrayed by both her lover and friend, she loved their little Nellie all the more tenderly for their sakes.
This transaction took place about 1870. Now, Sally before her death had presented her husband with a son—Thomas; and this Thomas became an orphan at almost the date of the New Orleans tragedy. Thomas was eight or nine years Nellie's senior It will not surprise anyone to learn that Nancy adopted him also: being her own nephew, and destitute, she could hardly do less. Thus, although an old maid, she was provided, at the age of, say, five-and-thirty, with a son and daughter, whom she cherished and indulged as only an old-maid mother can. But how did Miser Matthew like these proceedings?
Why, nobody knows; for Miser Matthew had died the year before the proceedings took place. When I say that he died, however. I speak hastily. I should have said he disappeared; and, as he never reappeared and sent no messages, it was finally assumed that dead he must be; and since his disappearance (or death) happened to occur at the very period when that mortgage of Corvin's would naturally have been foreclosed, and since no trace of a deed of mortgage or anything else referring to affairs with Corvin was discovered among his papers; and, finally, since the last time he was seen alive was the evening he left home, after telling Nancy that he was going down to have a chat with Corvin—why, people were free to form their own opinions, and they did so. But if their opinions had any significance—if, for example, they leant towards connecting the vanished man's fate with the fact that Corvin was thereby relieved of the necessity of losing most of his worldly possessions—nothing ever came of them, because nothing ever transpired to indicate that Corvin knew or had a hand in the taking off of his creditor. On the contrary, he was quite active in searching for him; but Matthew had gone out of sight like a soap-bubble, leaving not a trace behind him.
Hitherto you will have observed that there has been a good deal of chronology and genealogy, but there is no need of punctually remembering them. They were introduced merely to provide a background and an atmosphere for the events of the story itself. Stories of mystery, such as this is, need background and atmosphere in order to produce their full effect. Little except mystery will be found in what is to follow, and if you are able to sound the depths before the evolution of events brings it to light, all I can say is that you are cleverer than the present chronicler was at the time, or than any of his neighbours. Meanwhile, you will appreciate Mr. Homer's artistic purpose in enveloping his sketch in that dreamy, mysterious, Indian summer haze. Is there not something ghostly in that wreath of mist stealing along the middle distance, behind the big butternut-trees?
I should have mentioned another reason for the local suspicion of Mr. Corvin. We have seen that Matthew was a wealthy man: his money was invested chiefly in real estate and railroads But it became known that, shortly before his disappearance, he had been calling in these investments, and turning them into hard cash, with the design of putting the money in certain Western enterprises that paid a higher interest. He must, then, have had a great many thousand dollars actually in his hands; for there was no trace of his having deposited any of it in the local banks. What had become of it? Like himself, it had dissolved, every dollar of it, into thin air. It was gone. But, on the other hand, Mr. Corvin soon after began to show symptoms of decided solvence. His luck took a turn; he was looking up in the world at last. Instead of forfeiting his estate to the Billops, he presently found himself in a position to add some of the Billop acres to his own. Nancy, being so unexpectedly reduced in circumstances, and having no more head for business than a hen, was thankful to exchange parcels of land for a little cash. The neighbours shook their heads; but what could they do?—or say, even, above their breaths? Corvin was a lawyer, and a hard one; he would have been down on every one of them to whom he could trace an insinuation against his perfect integrity. They might think what they liked; but he was much more apt to put them in jail for libel than they were to get him hanged for murder. They had not even a corpus delicli.
What they did venture to say was that Corvin meant bit by bit to possess himself of the entire Billop estate, house and all, and turn poor Nancy out to shift for herself. For it was remembered that at the time Nancy had been betrothed to Brent, Corvin had himself been paying attentions to her; and that he had taken the rebuff very ill. Of course, his marriage with Miser Billop's sister would have been the making of him. He had married another girl immediately afterwards; but he was of a temper to cherish grudges; and now he had his chance he meant to satisfy it.
Thus do the guilty triumph in this world, and there is no help for it. In this case, though, one hope was still indulged by a few of the more innocent and credulous of the community. It was recalled that, during the lifetime of Matthew, the Billop house was believed to be haunted. Matthew's spirit, instead of adding to the supernatural crew, however, had apparently taken the existent ghosts away with it; at all events, the manifestations had come to a stop with his disappearance. But it was plausibly argued that a house which has once been haunted is likely to be haunted again: indulgence in spirits clings to a house just as it does to a man. Now (argued these philosophers) although Matthew's immaterial part might very well forbear to disturb the peace of his good sister, who had never done anybody any harm, but who was mortally afraid of disembodied intelligences, yet the saturnine old miser, foreseeing the future, might be only biding his time, and saving up his energies to harry the man who had shed his blood, as soon as the latter should venture to set foot in his ancient domicile. Yes, he would haunt Lawyer Corvin as never lawyer had been haunted before; and it would go hard but the whole secret of the murder—if murder there had been—would be revealed, the lost money recovered, and Nancy reinstated in her own.
Certainly, that would be poetical justice, and things as strange are said to have happened. We shall see what did happen shortly!

### II.

Few houses were better adapted for the accommodation of ghosts than the old Billop homestead. The two mighty trees cast a shadow over it even at midday, and its cavernous cellar and Dædalian garret seemed ideal stamping grounds for spectres. The acclivity on which the house stood—the site had been chosen with an eye to its defensibility in Indian times—sloped gently down in front, but fell away quite abruptly behind and at the sides. On the right side, almost beneath the roots of the butternut-tree, a small natural cave entered the rocky soil; it had been artificially enlarged so as to shelter the farm wagons and tools when the barn was over-full of produce. The barn stood farther down the slope, near the meadow, and was itself a delightfully mysterious and scary place; both the cave and the barn had been highly prized by the Billop children, as well as by their mothers, when, in rainy weather, they wanted to have some peace in the house. "May we play in the barn, or the cave, mother?" was a request seldom refused. Sometimes, no doubt, the children played ghosts till they were ready to expire with delightful creeps and horrors, and thus confirmed among themselves the weird legends which came down from generation to generation.
When Tom Linton, aged eleven, took up his abode at the house, Nellie Brent was a mere baby, just able to walk and utter a few Orphic words; so he had to do most of his playing by himself. But he was a boy of unusual resources and genius, and as his tenancy of the premises was, unfortunately, brief, and his fate grievous, we must make him as distinct as possible while he lasts. He had the energy and vitality of a whole school at noon recess, and was as sensational and indomitable in his manifestations as were Robin Hood and his merry men in the Sherwood forest. He neither feared ghosts nor believed in them; but his noises and surprises were more terrible than a battalion of the disincarnate. He was on the jump from morning till night—arms, legs, lungs, and brain in full function; he was the cleverest pupil in the school, though out of none of them did the master have less hope of evolving a sober and useful citizen. He was as inevitably the centre of all mischief as the hub is the centre of a wheel; and though nobody could help liking the young rascal, he was so good-tempered, amusing (so to say), contagious, yet all shook their heads over him, and opined that his future looked ominous. Nancy only, who suffered most from his outrageousness, not merely loved him with all her heart, but had faith in his final triumph over all evil; she continued to believe in him, in the teeth of ail evidence, when his misfortune came upon him; and when, at last, the poor little drowned body was picked out of the river, she thanked the Lord, on her knees, through her sobs, that she had never harboured an uncharitable thought towards him. This is how it came about.
There was one person in the parish with whom Tom was at open war—Lawyer Corvin. His aversion to him, instinctively at first, was confirmed by what he had heard and credited as to his shady conduct towards his deceased uncle. Tom expected, in due season, to become the master of Billop's, and then he meant to take it out of lawyer Corvin. Meanwhile, Corvin had a son, Peter, about Tom's size. Peter was a bully. He was once incautious enough to get into a fuss with Tom, and the latter thrashed him with such joy and thoroughness (as much on the lawyer's account as Peter's) that Peter ceased from that day to be a bully, and became a sneak.
One day a lot of the boys, Tom and Peter among them, went in bathing at the ford in Fenbrook. Peter took occasion to remark that Tom was a pauper anyhow, and that his (Peter's) father could sell him and his old aunt up to-morrow if he chose. The moment he selected for saying this was when he was standing dressed on the bank, and Tom was swimming naked in the middle of the stream. Tom, as he made his way with all possible speed towards shore, was heard to retort that Lawyer Corvin's money was not his own, and that one of these days he would wake up and find he was a pauper himself. As Tom approached the landing, with obvious designs on Peter's person, the latter took to flight; Tom pursued him as far as his own undraped plight made decorous, and then came back with an expression significant of vengeance to come. Apparently, however, he soon forgot all about the matter, and parted from his companions with his wonted good-humour.
But next morning a rumour ran that Lawyer Corvin's house had been entered and robbed during the night; the boys discussed it outside the school-house, and Peter, when he came up, confirmed it, and upon being asked if anything was known of the thieves, put on a very pregnant look, and said he guessed something would be known before long. The master came; the boys took their seats, but it was found that Tom was absent—not, unfortunately, a rare occurrence. But Peter looked more sagacious than ever.
School let out at noon. They swarmed forth into the elm-shadowed country road. Who were these approaching yonder? One of them, as Peter observed, was his father. A boy walked beside him—it was Tom. And who was that man with his hand resting on Tom's shoulder? Why, it was John Higgins, the constable. And there was Nancy Billop following on behind, with the tears streaming down her plump cheeks. What did it all mean? What could be opposed to such testimony as this?
Illustration: IT MEANT, ALAS! THAT TOM HAD BEEN ARRESTED FOR THE ROBBERY.
It meant, alas! that Tom had been arrested for the robbery. His jack-knife had been found on the ledge of the back window, which had been forced. The threat which he had made the day before was remembered. But all this and more would have weighed nothing had not an overwhelming piece of evidence come to light in Tom's pockets—nothing less than a wad of bank-notes which Lawyer Corvin proved he had drawn out of the bank the morning previous, as well as several coins and a gold ring, likewise his property.
The boy put a bold face on the matter; he admitted that he had been out a good part of the night, but he said he had been laying traps for woodchucks. He could not explain about his knife, except that he had lost it some days before. As to the terrible contents of his pockets, he vehemently professed to know nothing about it; but he was quite sure he had never been near Lawyer Corvin's. It was but a poor defence, and it was evident that his many friends were disappointed. As Tom looked around the little room in which the preliminary examination was held, there were no eyes to meet his own with encouragement and faith. Yet his self-command would not have faltered but for a sound of stifled sobbing that reached his cars. He looked around, and there was Nancy.
"My darling good boy," she cried out, "I know you didn't do it, if an angel was to sit right here and say you did. If they send you to prison, I'll go too, and Nellie with me. You were always the best boy in the world, and I'll lay down my life for you, I will, sooner than let them wrong you—I don't care who they are."
So the old fire in the Billop blood flashed out again, even in gentle Nancy. Tom, remembering, perhaps, how far from considerate he had been to this beloved woman who loved him, could not any longer keep the tears from raining down his stubborn brown phiz; and with a suddenness that disconcerted Mr. Higgins—who, however, secretly wished the boy had spread a pair of wings and flown out of harm's way altogether—he jumped over the high-backed bench that stood between him and her, and threw his arms around her comfortable shoulders, and pushed his cheeks against hers, and gulped out "Don't you cry, Mammy; they can't hurt me—inside—for I didn't do it; and goin' to prison's nothin' if you know you're all right. You'll see if I don't make somebody sweat for this, yet! I love you, you dear, and I wish I had always done what you wanted me!"
This, as the newspapers would say, created a visible impression favourable to the prisoner. Mr. Corvin, after a pause, observed that nobody would be more pleased than himself if Tom Linton succeeded in establishing his innocence; at the same time, until the facts before them were satisfactorily explained, justice to all parties required that the prisoner be kept in custody. He had no doubt Mr. Higgins would make him very comfortable. Still, stealing was stealing, and the law was bound to take action according to the evidence brought before it.
Then said the unlucky Tom, with a flash in his eyes, "If you was to tell how you got your money, maybe you'd be going to jail for stealing 'stead of me!"
That settled the question of bail; the magistrate thought it would be best to let Mr. Higgins retain charge of the prisoner for the present. In fact, everybody except Tom was more or less afraid of lawyer Corvin; and really, it was difficult to see how Tom could be otherwise than guilty.
Accordingly the worthy constable conveyed Tom to the village lock-up, which was a room in the disused water-mill below the falls. Fenbrook was a law-abiding community, and the lock-up was empty 350 days in the year; but this night it happened to contain another boy, a young tramp, who had been caught a while before in somebody's hen-house, and who was awaiting transference to the House of Correction in the neighbouring town.
It was an error of judgment on Mr. Higgins's part to put the two boys together. One boy is slippery enough, but there is no place that two boys, working together, cannot get out of. It may be that Mr. Higgins thought of this, but chose not to act upon the knowledge.
But, as people afterwards said, if he meant to give Tom a chance, he only succeeded in fixing his doom.
The next morning, when the constable opened the door to give his prisoners their breakfast, he found a hole in the roof hardly big enough for a cat to get through, but no boys.
The tramp, whom nobody was concerned about, seems to have got clean off. Why could he not have been drowned instead of Tom? It is to be feared that Nancy, in the anguish of her heart, asked the Lord of heaven and earth that question.
The body, almost unrecognisable save by his clothes, was found ten days later. The boy had tried to swim the river, probably intending to go down to the sea-coast, and perhaps ship as cabin-boy in some outward-bound vessel. It was the spring of the year, and a late flood had swollen the stream and carried away the bridge. Tom was a stout swimmer, but a floating tree may have overwhelmed him; at any rate, he was gone.
The whole village turned out for the funeral. They felt, somehow, responsible for poor Tom's death. Lawyer Corvin was there too, looking properly downcast. Hut when, at the grave, Nancy lifted her tear-stained face and fixed her eyes, which always were so kindly, upon him, he turned pale and got behind the others and slipped away. He could not meet that look; and yet what had he done that anybody in the place could have helped doing?
Nancy and little Nellie lived alone in the old house, and things went ill with them. But at last, when Nellie was about eleven years old, a mysterious event happened.

### III.

It was an October evening nine years later: the woods had glowed in their red and yellow splendour all day long, the sun had set in a rivalry of glory, and now it was getting so cool that a few logs were piled on the wide hearth, and a fire kindled. The pitch-pine sticks began to crackle and to ooze at the ends, the (illegible text) smoke whirled upward in (illegible text) of the chimney, and Nancy and Nellie, having cleared the supper things, were seated in a small and a big chair, side by side, face to the blaze. Nellie's head leaned against Nancy's substantial knee; her silky hair, which showed some of the colours of the golden flame at which she was gazing, or of the maple leaves of which she had gathered a big bunch that afternoon, shone in the flickering light with a lovely radiance. Nancy sat back in her chair with her stout arms folded across her ample waist. Never was there an old maid who looked the conventional type less than she. She was rosy, dimpled, plump, and cheery; yet she was not only a spinster of near fifty, but she had met with nothing but misfortune all her life. It is a marvel what some folks can thrive on!
Hut Nancy had in her bosom the innocent and kindly child's heart which was born with her; she was as much a child as the little girl beside her. Troubles could draw tears from her readily enough, but nothing could make her bitter or sullen. Her nature was of the summer quality, sometimes reverting to April, but never contracting into winter. Truly, she was not armed to contend with the artful and selfish world; yet the world could not hurt her. Her vital spots were beyond the world's reach.
Being of such a make, she and Nellie were full companions for each other. They were a pair of children. Things which to others would have been foolish and trivial interested them, and made the subject of their confidential talks. Each loved the sound of the other's voice and was secure in the other's sympathy. It is wonderful what a mutual comprehension love gives; the reason is, perhaps, because it so simplifies and illuminates the ordinary confusion and obscurity of ideas. We are ourselves the artificers of most of the riddles that perplex us.
"Nellie, you wouldn't have cared for me to marry that old Lawyer Corvin, would you, lovey?"
"Ugh!" said Nellie, prolonging a guttering of disgust. "He's horrid! You don't have to, do you?"
"No, but he asked me this afternoon." She gave a chuckling little laugh. "I declare I wonder what ailed the man. He did use to be spoonin' around 'bout twenty or thirty years ago, but I was young and smart then, and we was rich; and, anyway, I was fancyin' som'un else myself. So I said to him to-day, I says: 'Whatever ails you, Mr. Corvin? I guess you used to want me for the sake of my money,' I says; 'but now,' I says, 'you've got the money, and what under the canopy would you be wanting with me?' So I laughed; but I thought to myself, thinks I, 'Well, I guess I wouldn't marry a man that was the cause of my dear boy Tom gettin' drowned, not to speak of what folks said about my poor brother Matt; not that I b'lieve myself it was Mr. Corvin's fault, you know; but one feels things that way. I didn't tell him that; it's no use hurtin' folks' feelin's."
"What did he say?" asked Nellie.
"Well, he sort o' come out then; he says, 'That's just it,' he says; 'you ain't got no money an' I hate to have it that way, but what can I do?' he says. 'Here I've been lending you money these ten years back, Nancy,' he says, 'on the s'curity of your land an' cattle an' stuff,' he says, 'an' now you ain't got nothin' more to pledge, an' I'll have to foreclose on that mortgage to-morrow,' he says. 'An' what I thought was, Nancy, if you'd have me it would make it all smooth an' nice,' he says, 'for I was al'ays fond o' you, you know; an' now I've been a widower five years, an' everything's ready for you, ef you'll come,' he says. 'An' ef you don't, upon my word I don't see how you're going to get on anyway,' he says."
"He hasn't got this house, though, has he?" asked the child.
"No, lovey, he ain't: an' that's what I told him; an' I said I'd starve in it sooner 'n sell it, for it was Billop's house ever sence 'twas built, an' I don't consider I've any right to make away with it while I live. An' I told him maybe the folks around would give me work to do; anyhow, marry I couldn't. By'n' by he said, 'Well, I'm sorry to foreclose,' he says, 'but I can't help it; I need some cash to put into a new investment,' he says, an' than he went on to tell about a man had come to town with a new invention, some way of makin' crops grow with 'lectricity, but I didn' understand how 'twas. Mr. Corvin, he wanted to buy the stock of the invention, and had to have cash. So he said ef I wouldn't marry him, and didn't have the money for the mortgage to-morrow, why he'd be sorry, but he'd jest be obliged to sell up the farm an' fixin's. So I said, 'Well, ef you have to do it, sell away, Mr. Corvin,' I says, 'an' don't you bother 'bout Nellie an me,' I says; 'I guess the Lord'll look out after us, some way, 'an' then I told him I'd have to be gettin' the dinner ready, an' asked him would he stay? But he said 'No,' and so off he went."
"Do you think the Lord will take us to Heaven now we have no money?" Nellie inquired.
"Oh, well, I guess we'll get on all right down here for a spell yet, lovey," Nancy replied cheerfully. "I'll trot over to the village to-morrow, and see ef maybe I can't get somethin' to do—cookin', or washin', or sewin', my pet; an' we al'ays got the old house to live in, you know, thanks be."
Nellie made no rejoinder, and they sat silent. The fire fell into red embers, on a cushion of white ash. The wind rose without, and the boughs of the great trees swept across the roof of the house with a swishing sound, as if caressing the venerable building over which they had stood guard so long. How many generations of Billops had that soothing sound hushed to sleep! Nancy was beginning to nod, when suddenly she felt Nellie start slightly, and saw that she had lifted her head and was listening intently.
"What is it, lovey—rats?"
"Music!" whispered Nellie. "There! Don't you hear?"
Nancy uttered a faint cry, and sat rigid.
Music! It was unmistakable. At first a light and airy strain, rising and falling with the breeze, like the notes of an Æolian harp. It was a fitful, undulating call, as of fairy minstrels signalling with elfin horns. Hut presently it assumed a measured form. It gathered itself into a diatonic melody, warbling delectably. What made it? Where did it come from? After a moment, Nellie jumped up, ran to the window, and threw it open. In came the crisp cold air; the stars sparkled, the music sounded more distinct, but still aërial and remote. It was impossible to determine whence it came. It sounded now here, now there. Sometimes it seemed to emanate from the listener's own heart.
"Oh, isn't it good! Oh, don't let it stop!" murmured Nellie with groans of delight.
Hut it did stop, almost as if out of contrariness. A last note swelled out, and went off into a diminuendo, and sank into silence.
"Oh, do-o let it play some more!" she sighed, as if the invisible orchestra could be propitiated by entreaty. "Mammy, you ask 'em!"
Nancy had all this while remained in her chair in a state of breathless agitation. She now managed to find a weak and quavering voice. "Come away from that window, child! Lovey, it's ghosts—the same as used to he when your uncle Matt was livin'. Oh, my sakes—what a turn it give me!"
"Ghosts?" said Nellie stepping back from the window in momentary dismay. Hut she recovered herself. "If ghosts can make such nice sounds as that I like them."
"It won't play any more this time once it stops," said Nancy. "I rec'Iect how't used to be well enough! It 'ud play a bit an' then stop, an' then 'times it 'ud say somethin', an' then you wouldn't hear no more. That's how it was when poor Matt was livin', an' I guess this is the same ghost."
"But did it ever do any harm to Uncle Matt? Didn't he like it?" inquired the child.
"I don't know as he ever act'ly heard it himself; it 'ud mostly come when I'd be alone an' he off on his business som'er. When I'd tell him about it he'd look grave, an' then he'd say: 'Well, Nance,' he say, 'mind you always listen what it says, mind you do it, for ghosts know more'n we do,' he say. All the same it scared me awful."
"Maybe it isn't ghosts, but fairies—good fairies; and they mean to do us good somehow. Didn't they do Uncle Matt good?"
"Well, I believe he did sorter follow what they said, when I wasn't too scared to rec'lect it; and he used to say 'times that the Voices, as he called 'em, was as good for his business as a spellin'-book is for a child learnin' to read. Hut all the same, I'm scared of what I can't see, and don't know what it is; an' I al'ays thought it was them ghosts that carried poor Matt off, myster'ous like, at last."
"Maybe they'll bring him back again, then, and he'll make Mr. Corvin stop troubling us."
Nancy shook her head. "Ghosts is ghosts, lovey; they may be good or bad, but I never heard as they was able to pay folks' debts for 'em. Ef they could do that, I don't say but what I—— Sakes alive!"
The cause of this ejaculation was not supernatural but material. There was a heavy thump on the hearth and the wood ashes flew out into the room. Some heavy object had fallen down the chimney and struck among the smouldering embers. The next instant a light blaze broke out, burnt actively for a minute or so, and then died down.
"Lands sakes! it jest makes me sick! Must be a brick out of the chimney, I s'pose. And what was that burned up so? It didn't sound like a brick neither."
Nellie picked up a thin stick and poked among the ashes. "Why, Mammy, it's money—a whole lot of it!" she presently exclaimed. "It was done up in paper, and that's what burned."
"Money, child! You're crazy! Whatever would money be doin' in our old chimney?"
"But it is money," persisted Nellie; and with that she raked out a couple of ten-dollar gold pieces. "Oh, do see—what a lot of 'em!" She continued raking out gold and silver coins and brushing away the ashes. There were scores—hundreds of them. "We're rich now, ain't we, Mammy? You can pay Mr. Corvin to-morrow, and make him go away," said the child, looking up smiling with excitement and pleasure.
Nancy, her simple soul rent between fear, curiosity, and half-incredulous joy, got down on her knees on the hearth-stone, and picked up one of the gold pieces between her thumb and finger.
Illustration: "WHY, MAMMY, IT'S MONEY!"
"It's real, true gold, jest as sure as you're alive," she murmured; "an' the same kind of coin that poor Matt used to like to have about him. 'Gold eagles don't fly away as easy as other kinds,' was what he used to say. Well, it doesn't seem like it could be real, does it? 'Tis though, all the same. Hut I don't know—maybe the money ain't jestly ours, a'ter all. We don't know where it came from, an' ef we were to use it, and then some 'un was to come along and say it was theirs, what 'ud we do?"
"Why, Mammy, who would keep money up our chimney, if it wasn't ours?" said Nellie, with better sense than grammar. She kept on raking treasures out of the embers with untroubled enjoyment. "Uncle Matt must have put 'em there, and made 'em fall down just when we wanted them."
"Hark!" cried Nancy.
A whisper, a sigh—a voice, filling their ears, coming from they knew not where, slowly uttering speech, and dying away into silence.
"For you, Nance—for you and her—pay the debt—pay the debt—your brother Matt sends it—pay the debt, and free the land, and give me peace."

### IV.

"Well, now, Mr. Morford, I don't jest like you should talk that way," said Nancy to her visitor the next morning. "It's a real mir'cle; and real mir'cles is like religion—I think they be. So I don't like you should poke fun at it. You city folks don't never want to be serious ef you can help it, I know; but there 'tis. It dropped right down out of Heaven through our chimney, an' jest at' the very time we needed it the worst, too; and then there was my poor brother Matt's voice a-sayin' he'd sent it a purpose to pay off Mr. Corvin, an' free the mortgage. An' that's what I'm goin' to do the first minute Mr. Corvin calls here this day; an' my sakes! won't that man jest be surprised. I guess he won't b'lieve where we got it, no more 'n you do, maybe less."
Mr. Morford, it should be said, was the young man with the patent electrical invention, who was making the rounds of the neighbourhood to get subscribers to his stock. When he had knocked at the door that morning, Nancy had supposed that it must be Corvin, come for his mortgage money, and opened to him with her rosy face dimpling with pleasant anticipation. Explanation had ensued, Mr. Morford had introduced his business, and had soon created so pleasant an impression that the conversation became easy. Nancy was far too full of her miracle, and far too unversed in worldly caution, to withhold the story. Though Mr. Morford wore city clothes, and had a rather satirical expression about the corners of his mouth occasionally, still there was something about the look in his eyes and his general bearing that inspired confidence. At all events, she unfolded her guileless heart, and in the course of half an hour had told him at least as much of her history as the patient reader has learned up to the present. Nellie, after studying the young man with the silent profundity of childhood for ten or fifteen minutes, had also decided to like him, and had presented him with a bunch of gorgeous sugar-maple leaves.
"I'm not a sceptic, nor an infidel, Miss Billop," said Mr. Morford. "I like to see to the bottom of things if I can; and there are miracles enough without needing to have solid money fall out of the sky. Have you searched the garret and——"
"Searched? Well, jest you ask Nellie. Ef there's a square foot of space inside this house or outside of it that she ain't poked that little nose of hers into, I don't know. An' there ain't no trace of nothin' nor nobody not nowheres. An' then, as for the music and the voice, I don't know how you'd get around them."
"Is what I heard in the village true—that Matthew Billop disappeared mysteriously? That his manner of death was never known?"
"Yes; but he's dead, poor Matt, I guess," said Nancy, with a sigh. "Ef he warn't, I'd a heard from him before this; an' then again, ef what some thought was true—that he'd had foul play from—well, from anyone—I'd a heard of it too, from his speerit, ef no ways else. I was thinkin' last night, after he'd sent that money, that ef he'd been murdered he'd a said so then. But all he said was, 'Pay Corvin,' he says, 'an' I'll be at peace,' so I guess he died nat'ral. An' though Matt was a real good brother to me, an' I al'ays loved him right hearty, yet I don't mourn after him like I would ef he hadn't been a man past his prime, as had lived an' had his fling, an' I don't doubt is happier now than ef he was here with us. But it's different about Tom: I never can get used to losin' that dear precious boy. He was the cutest, smartest, best boy ever did live, an' I couldn't have loved him more not ef he'd been my—— And I ain't never felt the same woman since I lost him; an' it may be wickedness, but I do say I ain't never been able to forgive Mr. Corvin for the part he took in runnin' Tom to his death. In course he didn't mean it; but still—Mr. Corvin might have sold me up. An' I don't bear him no grudge 'bout not payin' the money he owed Matt, 'cause the paper that showed the debt was lost with Matt, an' men o' business nat'rally don't pay mor'n they have to; but when I think of my darlin' Tom drowned jest because they found money in his pockets that he'd never in this earth put there himself—well, Mr. Morford, I don't know what you'll think of an old woman like me to be cryin' 'bout it after these nine years, but I love my Tom jest the same as cf I'd seen him yesterday."
"Then you feel quite sure that the boy never stole the money?" said Mr. Morford, after a pause, in a gentle tone.
"That boy steal? It'll be the happiest day of my life, Mr. Morford, when I meet him in heaven, an' hear all the angels standin' round there say, 'You were right, Nancy; there ain't none innocenter than him here!'"
"It ought to make him happy to hear you say that, wherever he is," said Mr. Morford, getting up and walking to the window. "It would be a good thing if you could find the IOU for the money your brother lent Corvin, wouldn't it?" he added presently, turning round.
"Well, I'm thankful enough to be able to pay him, without his paying me; and land sakes!" she observed, with a laugh, "I guess it 'ud go agin' the poor man's grain to have to do it!"
"He'll be here in a few minutes," said Morford, "I just saw him turn in at the foot of the hill. Now, look there, Miss Billop, if I were you, when you pay him the money, I wouldn't tell him anything about how it came to you; just let him guess all he wants to. It's none of his business; and maybe the spirit of your brother may have some other surprises in store for him, that would be interfered with if you were to say anything now. While you're doing your affair with him, I'd like Nellie to show me around the place a bit, outside. Will you do it, Nellie? I saw a jolly cave underneath there as I came up; I'd like to explore it."
"Come," said Nellie, with an air of gracious proprietorship, "I'll show you," and they went out at the rear door, hand in hand, just as Mr. Corvin, all unsuspicious of the astonishment awaiting him, was admitted at the front door.
"Well, Nellie, I suppose you don't remember much about Tom?" said her companion.
"No; but I remember that I liked him," said Nellie; "and Mammy has told me lots of things about him. He used to play robber in the cave, and monkey in the big trees. He knew some way to get up the trees with a rope. I have never been up."
"But you've played in the cave, I suppose?"
"Yes, a little; but I don't like it much, because it's dark and smells dampy. If I'd had Tom, maybe I wouldn't have minded so much."
"Are you afraid of ghosts, Nellie?"
"Not when they really come, as they did last night. I am a little afraid sometimes, when Mammy tells stories about 'em before we go to bed. But, really, I think ghosts are fairies, don't you?"
"I should think likely. So this is the Robber Cave? Let's go in. I have wax matches, so it won't be dark."
The cave as a mere natural phenomenon was certainly not interesting. It was much in need of a boyish imagination to liven it up. It was too low to allow of Mr. Morford's walking upright in it, and the floor was littered with ancient rubbish and with the decayed remains of a palæozoic cart. After creeping inwards for ten or twelve paces, they turned a corner, and Nellie showed signs of reluctance. The little wax taper, burning in its socket, in the silver match-box, showed what looked like queer, irregular pillars and rafters; they were really straggling roots of the big butternut-tree overhead. At the end of the passage they found some half-rotten planks fixed upright like a rude door. Morford pulled at one of them, and it came away, revealing a further narrow cavity beyond. Nellie shrank back.
"What is in there?" asked Morford.
"I don't know; it isn't nice. Let's go back."
"A potato-cellar, perhaps. Yes, we'll go back. The sunshine is pleasanter, isn't it? Do you suppose Tom ever explored that place when he played robber?"
"He must have been brave if he did. I like to be where it's all alight and bright." She sighed with relief when they stood once more in the broad October daylight. They strolled round the corner of the house, and looked up at the mighty overspreading boughs of the butternut.
"It reminds me of when I used to be a boy," remarked the young man. "I was very fond of nuts in those days. That old tree seems to be full of them; wouldn't it be fun to get up there and pick some? Have you ever been up?"
Nellie shook her head. "There's no rope; besides, I don't climb ropes; I'm a girl."
"But here's a good ladder," rejoined her companion, pointing to one that lay under the end of the house hard by.
"Why, so there is. I never saw it before."
"The fairies must have brought it especially for us. Let's see if it will do." He lifted and set it up against the great bole of the tree. It just reached the fork of the lower branches. "It couldn't be better!" exclaimed the young man enthusiastically. "Now, Miss Nellie, will you walk upstairs?"
Nellie hesitated; but there is a great deal more of the bird and the squirrel in a little girl than of a mole; they move heavenward more rapidly than the other way. Under Morford's guidance and protection, his hands holding the sides of the ladder on each side of her, she clambered up step by step, until at last they found themselves standing in a sort of hollow cup-shaped place, thirty feet above the ground, with the branches stretching out and up in all directions, each as big as an ordinary tree. They overlooked the flattened roof of the old house, and had a fine view all about the surrounding country. The breeze blew sweet and fresh, the sunshine twinkled down between the leaves, and the nuts bobbed against their heads. It was fine; Nellie had never before been up in a tree, but now she thought it would be wise to spend most of her time there. It was more exhilarating than any other habitation she knew of.
"This is just like a little room," she said with a delighted smile at her companion, who smiled back. "And see, here is another almost as big on the other side of the great branch. I'm going to climb over into it."
"Mind you don't fall, then. Let me hold your hand."
She scrambled across, and Morford let her down carefully into the broad crotch. After a moment she uttered a shout—
"Oh, see! Here's a great, big. enormous hole goes right down into the tree! It's just like looking down into a chimney. It's all hollow. And there's something sticking in a crack in the side of it! It's an old piece of paper, folded up, with writing on it!"
"Look out you don't tumble down the hole!" said Morford, looking over at her. "Take the paper out and hand it up to me—it may be something important. How do you suppose it got there? Perhaps the fairies put it there, or a squirrel, or a magpie, or something."
She gave him the paper, which bore signs of age, though, considering its position, it was in remarkably good preservation. He opened it, glanced it over, and then said quietly—
"Yes, Nellie, it is important. I think it will interest Miss Billop very much—and Mr. Corvin too. We will show it to them. Let us get down before he gets away."
"Must we get down so soon?" said Nellie regretfully.
"Never you mind," said Morford cheerfully. "We'll come back as often as we like."

### V.

Mr. Corvin had been a fortunate man, as the world reckons, and yet he had never looked like a happy one. If he were happy he was very successful in disguising the ordinary external symptoms of it. To look at him you would have said that he was a victim of losses, disappointments, and discomforts.
He was the richest man in town, and the most powerful; what he said, went, and what he wanted, came. People were in awe of him, and judging by their manner when conversing with him, you would have thought they were devotedly fond of him. But if you had heard them talking about him when he was not present, you would have reconsidered this conclusion.
One misfortune, to be sure, he had met with; it concerned his son Peter. This young gentleman had been put in the way of getting a liberal education; he had attended the best school and the best college; but owing to personal peculiarities of nature and character, he had not achieved a brilliant or even creditable record at these places. He had learned how to spend money, though; but some of the things he bought with it had not been of benefit to him either in health or reputation. It was surmised that this had led to disagreements between his father and himself. Peter had not taken the paternal remonstrance in good part. At last things seemed to have arrived at a sort of crisis; and after it had passed, Peter was no longer an inmate of his father's house, nor, it was understood, the recipient of an income from him. Nor did Lawyer Corvin encourage any inquiries about his son on the part of inquisitive acquaintances. It was now three years since he had spoken the young man's name, and nobody knew (or cared) what had become of him.
Since Lawyer Corvin had no other living relatives, it was a matter of speculation what he would do with his property, when the time came for him to be gathered to his forefathers in the better, or, at all events, in the other world. It must have been annoying to Mr. Corvin himself to have spent his life in so arduously scraping wealth together, only to find at last that he could do nothing better with it than to bestow it upon some charitable institution. It must be painful for one who has carefully abstained from doing any good in the world while he lived in it to be almost compelled to appear as a benefactor after his decease. Why does not civilisation provide openings for posthumous investments more adapted to the temper and predilections of persons of Lawyer Corvin's kind?
Mr. Morford walked into the sitting-room holding Nellie by one hand, and in the other the folded paper which they had found in the tree. Mr. Corvin was standing before the table with his hands behind him, staring gloomily at the pile of gold eagles and double eagles which were heaped up upon it; and Nancy was sitting on the opposite side of the table, with her eyes sparkling and her cheeks red, holding in her hands a slip of paper freshly written, and bearing the appearance of a receipt—which, indeed, it was.
"Good-morning, Mr. Corvin!" said Morford. "Do I intrude, Miss Billop?"
"No, Mr. Morford—that you don't! I was jest settlin' a little account I had with Mr. Corvin. I was tellin' him I was sorry I ain't got no bank-notes, but ef he can't carry it off in his pockets, I'll have a buggy fetched up, and send it down in that."
"I don't understand this," said Mr. Corvin. "You had no money yesterday, and to-day the house seems to be full of gold. I shall make investigations. If this money was found anywhere in the land adjoining the house, I shall lodge a claim to it: the land being mine, so is the money."
"Land sakes! That can't be right, can it?" said Nancy, appealing to Mr. Morford.
"Mr. Corvin is a lawyer," replied the latter. "He must know about such things. If he owns the land, and you are buying it of him with money you found on the land, he may have the law of you. Of course, if he merely holds a mortgage on the property, he has no more right to make such a demand than I have."
"This is none of your affair, Sir," said Corvin harshly.
"It's his affair to answer a question ef I ask him, Mr. Corvin," interposed Nancy, whose spirit was evidently rising. "Ef it's your affair to make out what's mine by rights ain't mine, but yours—jest because you're a lawyer, and I ain't—then, I say, it's a poor affair for a man to be in! There's your money, Sir, to take or leave; an' I don't want to hurry you, but——"
And she looked at him with a resolution that is so effective in good and gentle persons, once they are aroused. Corvin met the look with a sullen frown, and began putting the gold into the pockets of his various garments, but at this juncture Morford said—
"Hold on a moment, Mr. Corvin, I have something to offer that may save you trouble—in fact, there are two things, for I knew I should be likely to meet you here, so I brought a letter for you from the post-office," and he took from his pocket a sealed envelope addressed to Isaac Corvin, and bearing in the upper left-hand corner the printed name of a New York hospital. Corvin glanced at the superscription, but did not immediately break the seal.
"What may your other matter be, Mr. Morford?" he demanded.
"It is this document," said Morford, referring to the folded paper in his hand. "While this little girl and I were rambling about the place just now she found this, and from the glance I ventured to take of it I think it contains matter of interest to both you and Miss Billop. Read it, Miss Billop," he added, giving it to her, "and see if I am mistaken."
Nancy took the paper, unfolded it, and began to read it with a strangely startled and perplexed expression.
"You take a remarkable interest in subjects personal to other people, it strikes me, Sir," said Corvin, still frowning.
"Well, I like to be of use when the chance offers," answered the other with a smile. "By the way, Mr. Corvin, you have possession of a good deal of farming-land hereabouts, I think. Would you be inclined to dispose of it?"
"No, Sir, not a foot of it," said Corvin curtly.
"I was told that you hold some of it on a rather uncertain tenure," the other continued; "that you are liable to be dispossessed of it, in certain contingencies, in fact. If that is so, it might be worth your while to find a purchaser, even if he were to ask you to make an abatement in the price, in consideration of the risk he would assume."
"You've been misinformed, Sir. What's mine is mine, and I don't intend to part with it."
"My information came to me pretty straight," remarked Morford. "I was told that you hold this land only because some paper showing that it really belonged to another person had been lost."
"If you choose to go about picking up fools' gossip, it's no affair of mine," retorted Corvin angrily.
"Perhaps, since you have no son or other legal heir, your idea is to leave this property to the heirs of the person to whom it justly belongs, in your will? In that case, I shouldn't press you to sell, though——"
"Will you mind your own business?" shouted the old man, quite losing control of his temper. "Who are you, I'd like to know? You came to me the other day to work off some of your stock on me. I'm glad I put off closing with you till now; I don't believe your stock is worth the paper it's printed on. I believe your invention is a swindle. As to my having no heir to leave my property to, we'll see about that. I'm not dead yet, to begin with, nor like to be; and I've got a son, though your informant forgot to tell you so. Folks may think I've cut him off with a dollar; maybe I did; but I can take him back again when I choose, and I choose now. I shall write to him by this day's post to come back here at once, and when he comes I shall settle everything I've got on him. I see your game. You think you can get some pickings by working up some idiotic conspiracy or other with that fool of a woman, to cheat me or frighten me out of my property; but you've got hold of the wrong man. If you don't want to get into trouble, and bad trouble, let me alone."
"Do you know your son's address, Mr. Corvin?" asked Morford very quietly. "If not, I have reason to think you may find it in that letter."
"We'll see how much you know," said the lawyer with a sneer, and he tore open the envelope and ran his eye over the enclosure. Then his arms fell heavily to his sides, and his face turned dingy white.
"Is he worse?" asked Morford quickly.
The old man fixed a dull stare upon him. "Who are you?" he demanded after a pause, in a heavy tone. "This letter says my boy Peter is dead. But maybe it's a lie. Maybe it's a part of the swindle."
But Morford made a gesture with his hand. "No, no, Mr. Corvin," he said, not unkindly. "I know your son; I met him in New York. He fell ill, and as he was destitute, I had him taken to the hospital from which that letter came, where he could get good nursing. But he was not expected to live. I am sorry for you."
"Keep your sorrow," said Corvin, setting his jaws, "I can do without it. If the boy's dead, he's dead, and that's the end of him. You and your partner here won't get the land any the more for that. I'll make a will and leave it to the first beggar I find in the street, sooner than Nancy Billop, or anyone she's plotting with, shall have as much of it as would bury 'em."
Morford eyed him rather sternly for a moment, and then turned to Nancy. "What is your news, Miss Billop?" he said.
But Nancy had hidden her face upon her arms on the table and was crying silently. She did not look up, but pushed the paper towards Morford with her hand. "Read it to. him—poor soul!" she said, with a sob between her words.
Morford took it up, and faced the lawyer again. "This paper, Mr. Corvin," he said, "is in your handwriting, and bears date about ten years back. It is signed by you, in the presence of two witnesses. It states that for the consideration of ten thousand dollars to you in hand paid, by Matthew Billop of Fenbrook, you do hereby deed to him, his heirs and assigns for ever, the certain tract and parcel of land herein named and described. You remember the writing, I presume; at any rate, if you intend to deny it or to contest it, you will have the opportunity when I bring it before the court, on Miss Billop's account, as I shall lose no time in doing. Meanwhile, I shall keep it in charge."
The old lawyer was terrible to look at while Morford was speaking thus. His dry lips curled back from his yellow teeth, his fierce, crafty eyes were concentrated in a stare of mingled hate and fear. He leaned forward over the table, and peered into Morford's face.
"Who are you?" he asked, in a husky whisper. "What does all this tomfoolery mean? Who are you?"
"It will soon be known who I am," replied the young man; "I came here to make it known, among other things. But I will tell you now, since you ask me, that I am Tom Linton."
Illustration: WHO ARE YOU?" HE ASKED, IN A HUSKY WHISPER.
Corvin gave a kind of hoarse cough, and reeled back. His hands clutched at the tablecloth as he fell, and dragged the it down with him. He fell to the floor with a crash, and the heap of gold coins fell clashing and jingling over him. Some of them rolled away into corners, but the bulk of them lay heavy on his heart, which had ceased to beat.

### VI.

The death of Lawyer Corvin and the events attending it were matters of absorbing interest to all the inhabitants of Fenbrook, and rendered the little village famous for a time, far beyond its boundaries. Some curious circumstances were brought to light in connection with the affair.
To begin with, of course, an inquest was held upon Corvin's body, and an autopsy made; the proximate occasion of death was found to be heart failure. It cannot be said that anybody was greatly grieved over the unhappy man's death: those who want friends in this world must take them—they do not exist spontaneously. Corvin had, during his life, busied himself about many things, but had neglected the friend-making industry. Nor were his sins of omission only. But while some of his misdeeds came to light only after his death, that event also showed that he was innocent of at least one crime of which he had been suspected.
The story came out piecemeal, as occasion required, but we will hear it in its final and connected form, along with Nancy and Nellie, as they sat in the old sitting-room, before the wood fire, after the vibrations of the first wonder, horror, and bewilderment had been abated by time. Tom Linton was the narrator—Morford, as he was known to the world of electricians and men of affairs.
"How was it that my clothes were found on that drowned body? A simple accident. That night in the lock-up, Dick, the tramp boy, and I made a hole through the roof—he standing on my shoulders to do it—and then we made a rope by tying his clothes and mine together, up which I climbed hand over hand. Then we dropped down outside and untied the clothes, and put them on again; but dressing in the dark and a big hurry we got them changed about. We got down to the river and started to swim it. I got over all right; but poor Dick (I didn't find it out till long afterward) was drowned, and my clothes misidentified him.
"Well, if he assumed my individuality, I assumed his. I became a tramp—I could do nothing else. I had plenty of adventures, which I'll tell you some time; at last I got work to do in a store, and from that I began to come up! I changed my employers several times, getting a better berth with each change, but nothing that quite suited me. Finally I was taken into an electrical engineer's office; and then I knew I was right. The people soon found out that I took an interest in the business, and that I was quick at picking up ideas; so the head man began to look after me, and gave me opportunities to learn. I studied and worked for all I was worth. One day I made a suggestion about a piece of machinery; they tried my idea and found it was an improvement. The boss got it patented for me, and you may imagine how pleased I was. It brought me some money, and I used it in books and study: I made up my mind to be another Edison, and then to come back here and make you rich—you two girls—and vindicate my reputation. For the last two years I worked on a plan I had conceived of making things grow by electricity applied through the soil. I managed it finally, got my patent, and you know the rest. You can dress in gold lace and diamonds, if you want to, Aunt Nancy: and as for you, Nellie, you are going to be a famous beauty and an heiress!"
"But you said you'd tell us about the fairies," said the child.
"Oh, yes! Well, the beginning of that is away back, before I was born, or Aunt Nancy either, for all I know. But my first knowledge of it was on the very night of the Corvin robbery.
"I'd been out that night after woodchucks, as I said at my examination the next morning; but I didn't tell where else I'd been. You see, I used to make a sort of storehouse and hiding-place of the cave; but there was a secret place at the end of the cave that no one but I knew of, and there I used to put my most precious valuables. It was faced up with planks then, just as you and I saw them the other day, Nellie. I had never explored the hole to the end; I didn't suppose there could be anything interesting in it; but on this night, when I went to put in my woodchucks, ready to skin the next day, I thought I'd see how far it went. Somebody before my time must have known of it, I thought, because the entrance had been so carefully concealed. Suppose a treasure were hidden there! I had a lantern, and in I went.
"It was quite a good corridor; I didn't have to stoop, though it was very narrow. Instead of going down as I expected, it slanted upwards; and soon, to my astonishment, I came to the foot of a sort of shaft, four or five feet in diameter, and going straight up. It was like a chimney. A kind of rough ladder was fixed to the side of it, and I began to climb it. At first I couldn't imagine where I was; the sides of the chimney seemed to be of wood dry-rotted. Sometimes I heard a faint creaking and rustling sound. Then all of a sudden I solved the mystery. I was in the trunk of the big butternut!
"Up I went. I was pretty well excited with the adventure by that time, but I had no conception of what was to come. I got to the top of the ladder, and there was a little; irregular chamber in the heart of the tree, not much bigger than a sentry-box, partly floored with a plank and with a bench or shelf running round it. There were things fastened or hanging to the walls: an old gun, for one thing, and a leather bag, and various queer odds and ends, as if someone used to live there.
"On one side of the shelf there was a box of hard wood bound with iron. I tried the lid and found it unlocked. I lifted it and saw a great heap of gold coins and a (illegible text) of papers!
"I thought I was Aladdin sure enough then. I turned to find a place to put up my lantern, so I could have both hands free. There was a heap of something lying or propped up on the bench beneath me—old clothes it seemed to be. I took hold of it to move it aside, and got hold of something that made my hair rise. It felt like a bony hand. I pushed aside the folds of decaying cloth and looked. It was a hand. And then, shining yellowish-white in the light of the lantern, I saw a face—a skull, with the skin stretched dry over the bone, and the mouth grinning at me!"
"Oh, land sakes!" quavered Nancy, who had heard the tale before, but was more scared with every repetition. "To think of poor dear Matt all those years! My soul alive!"
"I didn't know it was Uncle Matt at the time," continued Tom, giving his hand to Nellie to cling to through the terrors of the narrative. "I don't think I knew anything till I found myself out in the open air, at the mouth of the cave. No boy was ever more frightened than I, and lived through it. I lay awake the rest of the night in a succession of cold sweats, wondering what it all meant, and what I should do about it. The next morning, before I had made up my mind, I was arrested, as you remember, and so was prevented from doing anything.
"But I thought it over and over for years afterwards, and it gradually became clearer to me. The body must be that of Uncle Matt. The box of money, of course, was his; he kept it there for safety, and perhaps used to go up there to count it over, as folks of his peculiar temperament are said to enjoy doing. That evening he disappeared, saying he was going to see Corvin. He must have gone up there to get the deed for the ten thousand dollars; but he died while he was up there, whether by apoplexy, or how, of course we shall never know. All we do know is that old Corvin didn't murder him.
"From some of the indications there, I should judge that this secret place was known to the Billops for many generations back; they made it, and used it to keep their valuables in, or for whatever purpose might arise. The knowledge of it may have been handed down from father to son; but Uncle Matt having no son, the secret would have died with him but for the accident of my finding it out.
"Now, when I was ready to come back here, under the name of Morford, and clear things up, I was rather bothered how to go to work. I visited the tree again and found everything just as before; and I noticed among the things up there an old broken-down accordion and a sort of speaking-trumpet, that puzzled me at first until I concluded that they must have been used by Uncle Matt to make his ghost manifestations with, by way, I suppose, of additional security against having his hiding-place disturbed. That gave me an idea, and I bought a new accordion. I had learned that Corvin was going to foreclose his mortgage. Of course, I might have come out in my own colours at once and paid it off, but I had reasons for wanting to do things another way. So, the night before the money was due, I took my accordion and climbed up in the tree. I took enough money out of the box, put it in a strong paper bag, and made it fast to a string to the end of a long jointed fishing-pole I had brought along. Then, after playing on the accordion until I knew I had caught your attention, I climbed out of the hole in the top of the chamber, and got out on a branch, and dropped the bag down the chimney. After that I said a few words through the old speaking-trumpet, to settle any scruples of conscience you might feel, stuck the deed where Nellie might find it when I took her up there the next day, and went home. You know the rest."
"Then there were no fairies," said Nellie, with a sigh.
"Not that time, perhaps; but that doesn't prove that there may be plenty of them when they are needed."
"You've not told about Peter," said Nancy.
"Oh, to be sure! I ran across poor Peter in New York; he was dying of consumption, and hadn't a cent in his pockets. I got him a good bed in a hospital, and used to go and see him. One day he told me the truth about that robbery. He had put up a job on me, as he expressed it, whether with or without his father's connivance, he didn't say. He had put my knife where it was found (having first stolen it from me), and had put the money and things in my pocket while we had been bathing. He not only told me this, but he insisted on having a lawyer up there to take down his statement in legal form, so that it would be evidence to clear me in court. He was very penitent, and, of course, I couldn't help being very forgiving. But, still, I had a crow to pick with old Corvin himself, and, as you know, I did it only too thoroughly."
"Poor man! I'm jest downright sorry for him," said Nancy, with tears on her cheeks. "I'm glad I never believed he killed poor Matt. But whatever did possess him to be so hard after me, and to want to take away the very roof over my head? I never did him no harm that I know of."
"That's easy to explain, Aunt Nancy," said Tom. "He was never easy in his mind about Uncle Matt. At first he thought he might come back, and get the land away from him; and then he thought he must have hidden the deed somewhere about the place, and that you might find it any day. So he never got a moment's peace until the house and all about it was his, and you were driven out of the way. But we were too much for him!"
"But then what under the canopy did he ask me to marry him for?" demanded Nancy perplexedly.
"Who wouldn't want to marry you, if they could, you blessed old creature?" said Tom, leaning over and kissing her.
And he would have knocked any man down who should venture to suggest any other interpretation of that enigma.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1934, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 89 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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