The Siege of the Seven Suitors Part 32

"It really looks as though these boards had been cut for some purpose,"

he said, whipping out his knife.

I ran to the kindling-room and found a hatchet, and when I returned he had dug the dirt out of the edges of the floor-planks. Silence held us all as I set to prying up the boards.

"I beg of you to exercise the greatest care, gentlemen. If bones are interred here we must do them no sacrilege," warned Miss Octavia.

By this time we all, I think, began to believe that the flooring might really have been cut in this corner of the old room to permit the hiding of something. The room had grown hot, and Cecilia opened the cellar-windows outside to admit air. The old planks clung stubbornly their joists, but after I had loosened one, the others came up quickly and the smell of dry earth filled the room. Pepperton had, at Miss Octavia's direction, brought a chisel and crowbar from the tool-room in the cellar, and he stood ready with these when I tore up the last board, disclosing an oblong s.p.a.ce about five feet long and slightly over three feet wide. It was possible that this was the whole story, but Pepperton began driving the bar vigorously into the close-packed soil. As he loosened the earth I scooped it out, and we soon had penetrated about six inches beneath the surface.

We were all excited now. The edge of the bar struck repeatedly against something that resisted sharply. It might have been a root, but when Pepperton s.h.i.+fted the point of attack the same booming sound answered to the prodding. Pepperton now thought it might be only an empty cask or a box of no interest whatever; but Miss Octavia, hovering close with a candle, encouraged us to go on, and was fertile in suggestions as to the most expeditious manner of resurrecting whatever might be buried there. We were pretty well satisfied from the soundings that the hidden object was somewhat shorter and narrower than the hole itself.

"Quite naturally so," observed Miss Octavia, "for a man who buries a treasure has to allow himself room for getting at it."

We worked on silently, Pepperton loosening the soil with the bar while I shoveled it out. In half an hour we had revealed a long flat wooden surface, which to our anxious imaginations was the lid of some sort of box.

"It's sound red cedar," p.r.o.nounced Pepperton, examining the wood where the tools had splintered it.

"Of course it's cedar," replied Miss Octavia, bending down to it. "I knew it would be cedar. It always is!"

We paused to laugh at her confident tone, and Cecilia suggested that as there was still a good deal to do before we could free the box, we should send for some of the servants to complete the work.

"I would n't take a thousand dollars for my chance at this," Pepperton answered; and we fell to again.

It must have been nearly six o'clock when we dragged out into that candle-lighted chamber a stout, well-fas.h.i.+oned box. The earth clung to its sides jealously, and it was bound with strips of bra.s.s that shone brightly where the sc.r.a.ping of our tools had burnished it. We pried off the heavy lock with a good deal of difficulty, and when it was free Miss Octavia a.s.serted her right to the treasure-trove with much calmness.

"I should never forgive myself if I allowed this opportunity to pa.s.s; you must permit me to have the first look."

"Certainly, Miss Hollister; if it had n't been for you this chest would have remained hidden to the end of all time," Pepperton replied.

We gathered close about her as she knelt beside the box. My hand shook as I held my candle, and I think Miss Octavia was the only one in the room who showed no nervousness. Cecilia sighed deeply several times, and Pepperton mopped his face with his handkerchief. The lid did not yield as readily as we had expected, and it was necessary to resort to the hatchet and chisel again; but we were careful that it should be Miss Octavia's hand that finally raised the lid.

We all exclaimed in various keys as the light fell upon the open chest.

The musty odor of old garments greeted us at once. The box was well filled, and its contents were neatly arranged. Miss Octavia first lifted out the remnants of a military uniform that lay on top.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Miss Octavia first lifted out the remnants of a military uniform that lay on top.]

"It's his ragged regimentals!" cried Cecilia, as we unfolded an officer's coat of blue and buff, sadly decrepit and faded; "and he was not a British soldier at all, but an American patriot."

Time and service had dealt even more harshly with an American flag on which the thirteen white stars floated dimly on the dull blue field.

It had been bound tightly about a packet of papers which Miss Octavia asked Pepperton to examine.

"These are commissions appointing a certain Adoniram Caldwell to various positions in the Continental Army. Adoniram had the right stuff in him; here he's discharged as a private to become an ensign; rose from ensign to colonel, and seems to have been in most of the big doings. 'For gallantry in the recent engagement at Stony Point, on recommendation of General Anthony Wayne'--by Jove, that does rather carry you back!"

Half a dozen of these doc.u.ments traced Adoniram Caldwell's career to the end of the Revolution and his retirement from the military service with the rank of colonel. A sealed letter attached to these commissions next held our attention. The ends were dovetailed in the old style before the day of envelopes, and evidently care had been taken in folding and sealing it. The superscription, in a round bold hand, without flourishes, read: "To Whom It May Concern."

"I suppose it concerns us as much as anybody," remarked Miss Octavia.

"What do you say, gentlemen; shall we open it?"

We all demanded breathlessly that she break the seal, and we were soon bending over her with our lights. The ink had blurred and in spots rust had obliterated the writing:--

"I, Roger Hartley Wiggins, sometime known as Adoniram Caldwell"--

"Hartley Wiggins!" we gasped; and I felt Cecilia's hand clasp my arm.

Miss Octavia continued reading, and as she was obliged to pause often and refer illegible lines to the rest of us, I have copied the following from the letter itself, with only slight changes of punctuation and spelling.

"I, Roger Hartley Wiggins, sometime known as Adoniram Caldwell, having now resumed my proper name, and being about to marry, and having begun the construction of a habitation for myself wherein to end my days, truthfully set forth these matters:

"My father, Hiram Wiggins of Rhode Island, having supported the royalist cause in our late war for Independence, and angered by my friendliness to the patriots, and he, with ... brothers and sister having returned to England after the evacuation of Boston, I joined the Continental troops under General Putnam on Long Island, in July, 1776, serving in various commands thereafter, to the best of my ability, to the end.... My father has now returned to Rhode Island, and has, I learn, been making inquiries touching my whereabouts and condition, so that I have every hope that we may become reconciled. Yet as my services to the Country were against his wishes and caused so much harshness and heartache, and being now come into a part of the country where I am unknown, I am decided to resume my rightful name, that my wife and children may bear it and in the hope that I may myself yet add to it some honor....

"Nor shall my wife or any children that may be born to me, know from me ... (_badly blurred_.) Yet not caring to destroy my sword, which I bore with some credit, nor these testimonials of respect and confidence I received as Adoniram Caldwell at various times and from various personages of renown, both civilians and in the military service, I place them under my house now building, where I hope in G.o.d's care to end my days in peace. I would in like case make like choice again."

Ten lines following this were wholly illegible, but just before the date (June 17, 1789), and the signature, which was written large, was this:--

"G.o.d preserve these American states that they endure in unity and concord forever!"

We had all been moved by the reading of this long-lost letter, and Miss Octavia's voice had faltered several times. As I turned to Cecilia once or twice during the recital of the dead patriot's message, I saw tears br.i.m.m.i.n.g her eyes.

"Mr. Wiggins once told me that his great-grandfather had lived somewhere in Westchester County, but I fancy he had no idea that Hopefield was the identical spot," remarked Miss Octavia. "It seems incredible, and yet I dare say the hand of fate is in it."

"Oh, it's so wonderful; so beyond belief!" cried Cecilia, reverently folding the letter, which, I observed, she retained in her own hands.

"It's wonderful," added Miss Octavia promptly, taking the sword, which Pepperton had with difficulty drawn from its battered scabbard, "that even a discerning woman like me could have been so mistaken. I recall with humility that last Fourth of July, at Berlin, I reprimanded Mr.

Wiggins severely because his family had not been represented in the war for American Independence. By the irony of circ.u.mstances it becomes my duty to present to him the very sword that his admirable great-grandfather bore in that momentous struggle. I shall, with his permission, place a bronze tablet on the outer wall of this house to preserve the patriot's memory."

Several copies of New York newspapers, half a dozen French gold coins, the miniature of a woman's face, which we a.s.sumed to be that of Roger Wiggins's mother or sister, were briefly examined; then by Miss Octavia's orders we carefully returned everything to the chest.

Several packets of letters we did not open.

"Arnold," she said when we had closed the chest, "will you and Mr.

Pepperton kindly carry that box to my room? No servant's hand shall touch it; and I shall myself give it to Mr. Wiggins at the earliest opportunity."

We had lost track of time in those hidden rooms, preserved by the whim of one man that the secret of another might be discovered, and found with surprise, after the chest had been carried to Miss Octavia's apartments, that it was after seven o'clock. We had been in the hidden rooms for more than three hours.

"We shall have much to talk about to-night, and I fancy we are all a good deal shaken. It's not often we receive a letter from a dead man, so we shall admit no callers to-night unless, indeed, Mr. Wiggins should chance to come," announced Miss Octavia. "The next time Hartley Wiggins visits this house he shall come as a conquering hero."

"I hope so," replied Cecilia brokenly.

We were still at dinner when the cards of d.i.c.k and the other suitors I had last seen at the Prescott Arms were brought in; but Wiggins made no sign, and I wondered.

XX