Nan Sherwood's Summer Holidays Part 25

"Whoa, there," James Blake ordered, "we canna drive them. The poor beastie is hurt."

So it happened that at sometime after midnight, six Lakeview Hall girls and Dr. Prescott got out of a carriage and walked along the lonely entrance road to Emberon Castle.

CHAPTER XXV

JAMES BLAKE DOES SOME EXPLAINING

They were all wary as they picked their way over the dry rutted road, but Nan more so than any of them. Even as James Blake felt responsible for her, so she felt responsible for her friends. There was small comfort now, in this lonely place, in the memory that the hunchback had told Bess that "these things had no part of her." The accident, if such it might be called, on the hill just now, might very well have killed them all. Nan shuddered as she thought of how serious it might have been.

She peered this way and that into the tangle of bushes, gra.s.s, and thistles along the way, not knowing what she was looking for, but suspicious of every dark shadow.

Once, she looked gratefully up at the sky, the big moon, and the bright stars. She stumbled.

"No star gazing tonight," Laura steadied her as she almost fell. "And what a moon, and what a sky, and what a shadow." Laura pointed off to the right. "Look," she whispered, half in fun, half in seriousness, "look, it's like a man carrying something long in his hand."

Nan's glance followed Laura's. The shadow--was it a man's? She watched it. Was it moving? Then she breathed a deep sigh.

"Oh, Laura," she chided her friend, "it's only a tree! Will you stop teasing?"

"What was a tree?" Grace was on edge too, anxious to get inside, anxious to get away from this castle that had seemed so wonderful and so grand only a few hours ago.

"Nothing, Grace." Nan tried to keep her own voice from seeming worried as she spoke. "Laura's seeing things in the dark."

Grace didn't answer, because she had been seeing things too. In the face of Nan's quietness and calmness, it did seem silly. With this thought, she felt encouraged and looked more bravely around her. An owl hooted.

She jumped. All the girls jumped. It was Dr. Prescott's voice this time that calmed them down.

"Almost there, girls!" her voice actually sounded cheery in the night.

"Aye, and safely too." Old James Blake had been particularly silent since they left the carriage. Now, he spoke with a great sense of relief. Already he could see that a door was open and inside there was light and security.

He stepped his foot on the first of the broad stone steps and stood there as the girls walked on up through the door and into the light of the great hall. After watching them disappear, he turned, gave one last penetrating glance into the night, but saw nothing to disturb him further. He listened then for the sound of the horses, heard one whinny.

It was a rather pleasant, comforting sound. He was satisfied that they were being properly cared for, so he too walked up the steps, conscious now for the first time that the wound in his forehead ached and that his head hurt.

The pain angered him. Again he turned away from the light. This time, he shook his fist at the unseen forces out there in the dark.

"Ye'll not do her harm," he said, "as long as James Blake can fight."

With this, he set his chin firmly and followed the American la.s.sies into the castle.

Already, at Dr. Prescott's insistence they had found their way to their rooms. She lingered in the apartment until they had undressed and were safely in bed. Then she herself carefully closed their doors before she returned to the Hall where James Blake was sitting before the big open fireplace, puzzling over the whole situation.

"Your head, is it injured badly?" There was a real note of concern in her voice as she spoke. She liked this old Scotsman, even if she couldn't understand the ways of his household.

"It's nothing at all," he waived all consideration of himself. "Are the la.s.sies all right?" He nodded his head in the direction of the stairs.

Dr. Prescott knew by his tone that his entire thought was for them.

"Quite all right at present," she answered as she sat down in the chair he had pulled out for her with a quaint courtly sort of grace. "Now, tell me," she entreated, "what is this all about? What happened down on the hill?"

He didn't answer at once, but sat thinking. Should he tell as much of the story as he knew? Would it help or hinder this woman to know? For a moment he sat appraising her. She looked capable enough, he decided, but then, there was no telling about women. He shook his head and winced, without thinking, at the pain. After all, he decided finally, this pleasant looking woman was Nan's guardian in the absence of her mother and father. It was only fair that she know everything that he did. Then, too, if things worked out rightly, she would have to be Nan's sponsor in the whole London business.

Dr. Prescott, though she couldn't read his thoughts exactly, knew, from her long experience with people, approximately what was going on in his mind. She sat silent while she saw him coming to his decision.

Eventually, he spoke. "You know, of course," he said, "the story of Mrs.

Sherwood's inheritance?" Dr. Prescott nodded her head. "And why Nancy is here?" he continued.

Dr. Prescott was a little puzzled at this question. "Why--yes," she agreed slowly, "to see the estate."

"Yes, in part." James Blake seemed to be feeling his way along now.

"That is the reason that was given, at least, for our anxiety to have her come, that and the fact that we wanted to see her. An old man's whim, you know, that is what Nan's mother, bless her heart, thought. But actually, there is more behind this than appears on the surface.

"Old Hugh Blake was more of a power in this section of Scotland than most people of this generation realize," he went on. "The Blake family, in the beginning of Scotland's history, was, if you will pardon my saying so, for I, too, am one of his descendants, because of its wealth and intelligence, very close to the royal family. However, the old line gradually died out. This explains how it happened Mrs. Sherwood inherited the estate.

"But in the old days, when the clans hereabouts practically ruled the country, the Blakes of Emberon were frequently called to London to advise the king's ministers. At such times they were generally rewarded in one way or another. Sometimes it was with land, sometimes with important foreign posts, sometimes with court privileges that were highly prized in those days. Yes, and highly respected," he added, as the thought of the day's happenings again crossed his mind.

"So it happened that Hugh Blake the fourth, the original Laird of Emberon--it was he who built this Hall we are sitting in--back in the sixteenth century performed a service to the King that won for him an amba.s.sadors.h.i.+p to France. It was a particularly ticklish post then, for France and Scotland and England were continually having trouble.

"Well, Hugh Blake, he is supposed to have been a very charming young man at the time, gifted and well-educated, became a favorite at the French court, and well-beloved of the French king. So it was, that once, in the tangled history of the time, he succeeded in getting some concessions from the French that were most advantageous to the English.

"London and the court there was so pleased with young Hugh that they bestowed on him and his descendants forever the privilege of a.s.sisting at the coronation of English kings." His voice was excited and nervous as he finished the sentence.

"You understand what I am saying?" The old man looked at Dr. Prescott intently. Then he shook his head.

"Perhaps I don't make myself quite clear," he added. "The simple fact is," he explained further, "that Mrs. Sherwood's inheritance carried with it the right to a.s.sist at the present coronation! Moreover, her great uncle, Hugh Blake, who got his name from the old line, specified to those of us who were his friends, that young Nan, if she seemed to us to be worthy, should be the one to carry on! That is why we wanted her to come. That is why the villagers were so anxious to see her. And that is why," he lowered his voice now, "I was fearful of her safety out there this night."

"You mean there is some opposition?" Dr. Prescott asked when she found her voice after this amazing story had been told.

"Yes, on the part of one or two," the old man admitted, "who think, and wrongly so, that if some means can be found to prevent Nan's taking part at the crowning this spring, they will be able to prove their right to carry on when the court of claims, where such things are argued before the king's representatives, meets a few days hence in London."

"Does Mrs. Sherwood know of all of this?" Dr. Prescott asked further.

"Not yet. This portion of the inheritance was bestowed under the terms of another will which was put in my keeping by Hugh Blake. The Edinburgh solicitors who handled the estate for Mrs. Sherwood when she and her husband were here, know this story I have told you, however. Even now, they are awaiting word from me as to how to proceed. They are anxious, too, for Nan to come. Tonight, with your consent," he continued, "I will send off a cable to America, explaining the circ.u.mstances. We will not proceed until we hear from Nancy's parents."

Somewhere in the large rooms of the old castle a clock now chimed slowly, one, two, three.

Dr. Prescott looked at her watch. "Will you be so kind," she said as she arose from her chair, "as to wait and send that cable in the morning?

What you have told me here tonight has come so unexpectedly that I'd like an hour or two to think it over before communicating with Nan's parents."

"You don't object," James Blake seemed startled at the mere thought, "to Nan's taking part in the coronation?"

"None whatsoever," Dr. Prescott hastened to a.s.sure him. "It will be a great privilege and honor indeed, doubly so, because she is an American girl."

"Aye, that has been some of the cause for trouble," he said, "with the people hereabouts. They didn't want the honor to go across the seas. But Nancy's mother, when she came over to take possession of the estate quite won the heart of everyone. Now Nancy has done the same. There will be no more trouble of that sort," he promised, "and no more trouble of any kind, if I can help it." He finished the sentence belligerently.

His own fighting mood brought back to Dr. Prescott's mind the accident in the carriage.

"Do you know at all what happened tonight?" she asked.