Читать книгу Quill's Window - George Barr McCutcheon - Страница 9

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Courtney never was without the heavy English walking-stick on which he occasionally leaned for support. He took long strolls in the country, frequently passing the Windom place, and twice he had gone as far as the railed-in base of Quill's Window. From the footpath at the bottom he could look through the trees up to the bare crest of the rock. The gate through the high fence was padlocked, and contained a sign with the curt warning: "No Trespass." On the opposite side of the wide strip of meadow-land, in which cattle grazed placidly, he could see the abandoned house where Alix Crown was born—a colourless, weather-beaten, two-storey frame building with faded green window shutters and a high-pitched roof blackened by rain and rot. Every shutter was closed; an atmosphere of utter desolation hung over the place.

Across that brown, sunburnt stretch of meadow-land when it was white and cold, old David Windom had carried the stiff body of Edward Crown—and returning had borne the soft, limp figure of his stricken child. Courtney permitted his fancy to indulge in calculation. He followed with his eye what must have been the path of the slayer on that dreadful night. It led, no doubt, to the spot on which he now was standing, for just behind him was the suggestion of a narrow, weed-lined path that wormed its way through the trees toward the top of the great rock. He decided that one day soon he would disregard that sign on the gate, and climb up to the strange burial place of Edward Crown and Alix the Second.

He had tested his increasing strength and endurance by rowing up the river with Rosabel for a fair view of the hole in the face of the rock—Quill's Window. It was plainly visible from the river, a wide black gash in the almost perpendicular wall that reached well above the fringe of trees and underbrush along the steep bank of the stream.

He tried to picture Quill as he sat in his strange abode, a hundred years ago, cowering over the fire or reading perhaps by the light of a huge old-fashioned lanthorn. He thought of him hanging by the neck back in the dark recess, victim either of his own conscience or the implacable hatred of the enemy "down the river." And then there were the others who had found death in the heart of that mysterious cavern—ugly death.

He wondered what the interior of the cave was like, and whether he could devise some means of entering it. A rope ladder attached to a substantial support at the top of the cliff would afford the easiest way of reaching the mouth of the cave—in fact, he recalled that Quill employed some such means of descending to his eerie home. The entrance appeared to be no more than twenty feet below the brow of the cliff. It would not even be a hazardous undertaking. Besides, if Quill and his successors were able to go up and down that wall safely and repeatedly, why not he? No doubt scores of men—perhaps even schoolboys of the Tom Sawyer type—had made frequent visits to the cave. He knew he would be disregarding the command of Alix Crown—a command that all people respected and observed—if he passed the barrier and climbed to the top of the rock, but who, after all, was Alix Crown that she should say "no trespass" to the world at large?

The thought of Edward Crown wedged in at the bottom of Quill's Chimney, weighted down with stones and earth, alone served as an obstacle to the enterprise. He shrank from certain gruesome possibilities—such as the dislodgment of stones at the bottom of the crevice and the consequent exposure of a thing that would haunt him forever. And even though the stones remained in place there would still remain the fact that almost within arm's length was imprisoned the crushed, distorted remains of the murdered man.

Toward the end of his second week at Dowd's Tavern, he set out to climb to the top of the big rock. He had no intention of descending to the cavern's mouth on this occasion. That feat was to be reserved for another day. Arriving at the gate, he was surprised and gratified to discover that it was unlocked. While it was latched, the padlock and chain hung loosely from the post to which the latter was attached. Without hesitation, he opened the gate and strode boldly into proscribed territory.

The ascent was gradual at first, then steep and abrupt for a matter of fifty or sixty feet to the bald summit of the hill. Once at the top, he sat down panting and exhausted upon the edge of the shallow fissure he had followed as a path up the rock, and again his thoughts went back to the night of the murder. This had been David Windom's route to the top of the hill. He found himself discrediting one feature at least of the man's confession. Only a fabled giant could have carried the body of a man up that steep, tortuous incline. Why, he was exhausted, and he had borne no heavier burden than his stout walking-stick. That part of Windom's story certainly was "fishy."

Presently he arose and strode out upon the rough, uneven "roof" of the height. He could look in all directions over the tops of the trees below. The sun beat down fiercely upon the unsheltered rock. Off to the north lay the pall of smoke indicating the presence of the invisible county seat. Thin, anfractuous highways and dirt roads scarred the green and brown landscape, and as far as the eye could reach were to be seen farmhouses and barns and silos.

Avoiding the significant heap of rocks near the centre of the little plateau, he made his way to the brink of the cliff overlooking the river. There he had a wonderful view of the winding stream, the harvest fields, the groves, and the herds in the far-reaching stretches of what was considered the greatest corn raising "belt" in the United States. Some yards back from the edge of the cliff he discovered the now thoroughly rotted section of a tree trunk, eight or ten inches in diameter, driven deeply into a narrow fissure and rendered absolutely immovable by a solid mass of stones and gravel that completely closed the remainder of the crevice. He was right in surmising that this was the support from which Quill's rope or vine ladder was suspended a hundred years ago. Nearby were two heavy iron rings attached to standards sunk firmly into the rock, a modern improvement on the hermit's crude device. (He afterwards learned that David Windom, when a lad of fifteen, had drilled the holes in the rock and imbedded the stout iron shafts, so that he might safely descend to the mouth of the cave.)

Turning back, he approached the heap of boulders that covered the grave of Edward and Alix Crown. No visible sign of the cleft in the surface of the rock remained. Six huge boulders, arranged in a row, rose above a carefully made bed of stones held in place by a low, soundly mortared wall.

Chiselled on one of the end boulders was the name of Alix Windom Crown, with the date of her birth and her death, with the line: "Rock of Ages Cleft for Me." Below this inscription was the recently carved name of Edward Joseph Crown, Born July 7, 1871. Died March 22, 1895. Three words followed this. They were "Abide With Me."

II—Thane stood for a long time looking at the pile. He was not sentimental. His life had been spent in an irreverent city, among people hardened by pleasure or coarsened by greed. His thoughts as he stood there were not of the unhappy pair who reposed beneath those ugly rocks; they were of the far-off tragedy that had brought them to this singular resting-place. The fact that this was a grave, sacred in the same sense that his father's grave in Woodlawn was supposed to be sacred to him and to his mother, was overlooked in the silent contemplation of what an even less sophisticated person might have been justified in describing as a "freak." Nothing was farther from his mind, however, than the desire or impulse to be disrespectful. And yet, as he was about to turn away from this sombre pile, he leaned over and struck a match on one of the huge boulders. As he was conveying the lighted sulphur match—with which Dowd's Tavern abounded—to the cigarette that hung limply from his lips, he was startled by a sharp, almost agonized cry. It seemed to come from nowhere. He experienced the uncanny feeling that a ghost—the ghost that haunted Quill's Window—standing guard over the mound, had cried out under the pain inflicted by that profane match.

Even as he turned to search the blazing, sunlit rock with apprehensive eyes, a voice, shrill with anger, flung these words at him:

"What are you doing up here?"

His gaze fell upon the speaker, standing stockstill in the cloven path below him, not twenty feet away. In his relief, he laughed. He beheld a slim figure in riding-togs. Nothing formidable or ghostlike in that! Nevertheless, a pair of dark blue eyes transfixed him with indignation. They looked out from under the rim of a black sailor hat, and they were wide and inimical.

"Did you not see that sign on the gate?" demanded the girl.

"I did," he replied, still smiling as he removed his hat—one of Knox's panamas. "And I owe you an apology."

She advanced to the top. He noted the riding-crop gripped rather firmly in her clenched hand.

"No one is permitted to come up here," she announced, stopping a few feet away. She was quite tall and straight. She panted a little from the climb up the steep. He saw her bosom rise and fall under the khaki jacket; her nostrils were slightly distended. In that first glimpse of her, he took in the graceful, perfect figure; the lovely, brilliant face; the glorious though unsmiling eyes. "You must leave at once. This is private property. Go, please."

"I cannot go before telling you how rotten I feel for striking that match. I beg of you, Miss Crown—you ARE Miss Crown?—I can only ask you to believe that it was not a conscious act of desecration. It was sheer thoughtlessness. I would not have done it for the world if I had—"

"It is not necessary for you to explain," she broke in curtly. "I saw what you did—and it is just because of such as you that this spot is forbidden ground. Idle curiosity, utter disregard for the sacredness of that lonely grave—Oh, you need not attempt to deny it. You are a stranger here, but that is no excuse for your passing through that gate. I AM Miss Crown. This hill belongs to me. It was I who had that fence put up and it was I who directed the sign to be put on the gate. They are meant for strangers as well as for friends. It was not thoughtlessness that brought you up here. You thought a long time before you came. Will you be good enough to go?"

He flushed under the scornful dismissal.

"The gate was unlocked—" he began.

"That doesn't matter. It might have been wide open, sir—but that did not grant you any special privileges."

"I can only ask your pardon, Miss Crown, and depart in disgrace," said he, quite humbly. As he started down the path, he paused to add: "I did not know you had returned. I daresay I should have been less venturesome had I known you were in the neighbourhood."

The thinly veiled sarcasm did not escape her.

"I suppose you are the young man from New York that every one is talking about. That may account for your ignorance. In order that you may not feel called upon to visit this place again to satisfy your curiosity, I will point out to you the objects of interest. This pile of rocks marks the grave of my father and mother. The dates speak for themselves. You may have noticed them when you scratched your match just above my mother's name. My father was murdered by my grandfather before I was born. My mother died on the day I was born. I never saw them. I do not love them, because I never knew them. But I DO respect and honour them. They were good people. I have no reason to be ashamed of them. If you will look out over those trees and across that pasture, you will see the house in which my mother died and where I was born. Directly in front of the little porch my father died as the result of a blow delivered by my grandfather. As to the disposal of the body, you may obtain all the information necessary from Alaska Spigg, our town librarian, who will be more than delighted to supply you with all the ghastly details. To your right is the post to which a man named Quill attached his ladder in order to reach the cave in the face of this rock—where he lived for many years. This is the path leading down to the gate, which you will still find unlocked. It will not be necessary for you to come up here again. You have seen all there is to see."

With that, she deliberately turned her back on him and walked toward the edge of the cliff. He stared after her for a few seconds, his lips parted as if to speak, and then, as the flush of mortification deepened in his cheeks, he began picking his way rather blindly down the steep path.

He was never to forget his first encounter with Alix the Third.