Nan Sherwood's Summer Holidays Part 26

"You mean what caused the accident?" he parried, for here was something he did not want to talk about as yet.

"Yes."

"I am not certain as yet," he admitted half the truth, "but if you will have faith in an old man and leave your question rest for a few hours,"

he was very serious as he spoke, "I will answer it later. There is no need for you to worry," he concluded. With this he walked with her over to the stairway and watched her as she went up.

Alone in the hall now, he rang a bell and called for the servant who had been left with the carriage.

CHAPTER XXVI

NAN'S DISAPPEARANCE

Somewhere on the estate a c.o.c.k crowed.

Nan stirred sleepily and turned over. The c.o.c.k crowed triumphantly again. Nan turned once more and saw that the morning sun was filtering in through the heavy drapes at the windows. She rubbed her eyes and stretched. She looked around. Where was she? Then she spied the ancestral portraits frowning down upon her and she remembered everything.

So she had slept after all! She remembered vaguely an urge the night before to stay awake and watch to see that nothing happened. Why, it was music that had lulled her to sleep! She remembered it now, the faint far away sound of a bagpipe playing. It had been like a dream, for with the wind around the castle and the creaking of the old floors, she had been completely unable to follow the thread of the tune. It had come, died away, and come again. In trying to follow it, she had fallen asleep at last.

Now she lay listening. There were no sounds at all to be heard in the old castle. She got up quietly, slipped into her robe and slippers, and walked softly over to the windows, careful all the while not to disturb anyone. She pulled the curtains back and stood looking down on the castle grounds, seeing them in the daylight for the first time.

The big gray stone building she was in, she could see now, was built on a pinnacle so that on all sides there were valleys below. She remembered what Dr. Beulah had said the night before about the old castles. Now she saw in imagination the leaders of clans in days gone by standing where she was, watching the approach of the enemy below.

She peopled the towers that she could see with beautiful princesses, the crumbling walls of the older unused parts of the castle with knights in armor, singing, talking, laughing, and fighting. She imagined all sorts of plots and counterplots, and now in the valleys there was grain growing and cattle grazing! How pretty it looked in the early morning suns.h.i.+ne! So different than it had seemed the night before!

Now she thought again of the accident on the hill. What had caused it?

Could she learn more by daylight than she had been able to by night? A bird sang cheerily outside. Another flew across her line of vision.

Everything seemed to be beckoning her to come out and explore. She turned from the window and dressed hastily. Perhaps she could solve last night's mystery by going down the hill. Perhaps she could solve it and set everyone's mind at rest!

She opened the door carefully and walked slowly down the big staircase into the Great Hall. There James Blake was asleep before the big fireplace where the embers of last night's fire were still burning. She saw that his head was bandaged and that he looked tired and worried, even in sleep. She couldn't know that he had dropped off only a half hour before from sheer exhaustion. He had spent the few hours remaining after his talk with Dr. Prescott and his servant in personally watching to see that nothing further happened.

Now, as he slept, she walked quietly past his back. He stirred and muttered something. She stopped. He sank back into quiet sleep and she went on and out, opening the door carefully and closing it the same.

James Blake stirred again and awakened then with a start. He looked around. "Auld fool!" he muttered. "Sleeping, when ye'd set yourself to watch those la.s.sies." He got up and walked around the room. Everything seemed to be all right. Stiff from his night in the chair he stretched, threw a knotted log of wood on the fire, and then rang for a servant.

"The young la.s.sies upstairs are tired," he said. "See that everything is kept quiet so they will sleep until late. Before the day is over, they will be off to Edinburgh." So it was not until hours after she had slipped through the door, walked down the road past the bushes that had seemed such a menace the night before, and pa.s.sed through the gate, that Nan's disappearance was discovered.

It was Bess who missed her first. Awakening much later than Nan, she lay for some time enjoying the luxury of the room in which she slept. She noted every detail of the furnis.h.i.+ngs and determined that when she returned to school in the fall, nothing of all this would be lost in the telling. She half hoped that she would have the opportunity to tell Linda Riggs. In her mind's eye, she picked out one or two others that she would like to impress. No one that she knew, she thought with satisfaction, had ever even seen such a place as this old castle, much less stayed in one.

The more she thought of it, the grander it seemed. A little feeling of envy came over her. Why was it that the nice things that happened to Nan never happened to her? Why couldn't her father or mother have a place like this? Bess was a thoughtless unappreciative little person at times.

Though her father and mother gave her everything within their means, she was still dissatisfied. Her hand touched the satin cover that was over her. As quickly as the feeling of envy had come, it went. She listened for sounds. Was Nan awake in the next room?

She got up and stuck her head in through the door. The bed was empty!

Was everyone except herself up? She went across the hall to Laura's room, and found her still sleeping. She looked in the big double room where Amelia and Grace were. They were sleeping too. So was Rhoda. She debated once as to whether or not she should look into Dr. Prescott's apartment. "I don't dare to do that," she decided, "Nan's probably downstairs waiting for us. Maybe she will come up, if I stay here."

She went back into her own room, and because she was cold, she crawled back into bed. But then her curiosity as to Nan's whereabouts got the better of her. Maybe Nan was out exploring! It would be fun to walk around the castle grounds!

She dressed almost as quickly as Nan had, slipped out quietly too, and went downstairs.

"Weel, la.s.sie," James Blake greeted her as she entered the big hall.

"Ye're up bright and early this morning."

"But I'm not the first," Bess smiled back, "Where's Nan?"

"Why, the la.s.s is still asleep," he began heartily, and then noting the puzzled expression on Bess's face, he added, "Isn't she?" A world of possibilities came to his mind as he asked the question and he repeated it before Bess could answer. "Tell me quickly, isn't she upstairs? Isn't she with her other friends, with the school mistress? Isn't she about up there some place?"

Bess was frightened too now and turned. "I'll ask Dr. Prescott," she called over her shoulder as she went up the stairs. "Shall I?"

"Aye, la.s.s, and be quick!" Old James Blake followed her half way up the stairs.

But Dr. Prescott, awake herself in her apartment, heard their voices, and came out on the landing. "Is there anything wrong?" Before the question was answered, she knew the response. "Nan's missing!" For a moment the two older people stood with Bess between them looking hopelessly into one another's faces. Then they all got busy.

A hurried check of Nan's room showed that what they feared most had not happened. The young girl had left the apartment of her own accord. She had not been kidnapped, at least not while in her room. "She's probably just gone exploring." Bess took the whole thing calmly at first, for she knew Nan's habits.

"Aye, maybe so," old James Blake agreed, "but 'tis better to have her here with us. We'll all do our exploring together." With this, he called the servants and tried to check on Nan's movements. No one had seen her.

A search was organized. Everyone was sent to a different part of the estate. Old James Blake himself climbed to the top of the highest tower and looked out over the grounds. He came down sadly.

There was no Nan to be seen or found anyplace.

CHAPTER XXVII

BESS HAS HER SAY

"I just can't believe things won't turn out all right!" Bess exclaimed, as she and her other Lakeview Hall friends sat together in Nan's room in the great castle. "And I hate having to stay here! I don't see why they can't let us help too! After all, Nan's our friend and if she is in trouble, we ought to be allowed to help her get out of it."

"But Bess," Rhoda spoke softly, "they told us to stay here so that we would be handy in case we were needed. I'm sure that if there was anything at all in the world that we could do, Dr. Prescott would call us."

"I'm not so sure of that," Bess answered. "She treats us most of the time as though we were babies. It happens this time," she continued with some satisfaction, "that we know more than anyone about what has been going on."

"What do you mean?" Laura spoke up now.

"Well, for one thing," Bess began, "we know about the hunchback and n.o.body else does."

"Do you think he has anything to do with this?" Laura looked at Bess intently. "After all, you know, no one is certain but what Nan has just gone out and lost herself. You all know how she likes to wander around strange places by herself."

"I said that downstairs, myself," Bess answered, "but I don't believe it at all. Nan wouldn't worry us like this. Moreover, when we got on the train at Glasgow I thought I saw that old hunchback getting on, too. I didn't say anything about it then, because I didn't want to spoil the good time we were having. But I'm sure I saw him." She waited, watching the effect of her announcement on the others.

"Well, that settles it," Laura got up, "I'm going right downstairs now and tell them about him. Maybe it will help them to find Nan."

"Don't you do that." It was Bess who stopped her. "We promised Nan we wouldn't say anything about him and we're not going to. Anyway, Dr.