Fifty-Two Stories For Girls Part 43

Having delivered herself of this long, explosive speech, the housekeeper proceeded in the direction of the breakfast-room to review the pack, and f.a.n.n.y and the cook followed in her wake.

"As I thought," she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, eyeing the pack from the doorway, "a dirty pedlar's smellin' pack." But the tone of her voice was mollified, for the pack looked innocent enough, although it was somewhat bulky and unwieldy in appearance.

Her niece took heart of grace from her tone, and murmured apologetically:

"He's got the loveliest things in that bundle that ever you'd see, aunt. Feathers, ribbons, dresses, ap.r.o.ns, and he'll unpack them all when he comes back to let us see them."

"A pack o' tawdry rubbish, I have no doubt," was her aunt's reply; "only fit for flighty young girls, not for gentlemen's servants."

Thus silenced, f.a.n.n.y said no more, and the three women betook themselves to their different occupations.

After half an hour's work her girlish glee was still unabated, and on pa.s.sing the door of the breakfast-room mere curious elation impelled her to open it softly and to look in. A perplexed look stole into her eyes as they rested on the black object in the corner. It was there sure enough, safe and sound, but had it not been s.h.i.+fted from the corner in which the pedlar had placed it, and in which her aunt had seen it in company with herself and the cook? No, that was impossible. She had only fancied that it was right in the corner, and f.a.n.n.y softly shut the door again without making a sound, and went on with her daily duties.

This time her aunt employed her, and she was not free again till another two hours had pa.s.sed. It was now close on the luncheon hour, and f.a.n.n.y thought she would just take one little peep before setting the luncheon-table for the young mistress who would come home as usual as hungry as a hunter.

Gently she turned the handle, and stood upon the threshold. Her eyes grew fixed and staring, her cheek blanched to a chalky white. Without all doubt--_the pack had moved_!

f.a.n.n.y stood rooted to the spot. Wild, strange ideas flitted through her brain. There was something uncanny in this pack. Was it bewitched? She dared not call her aunt or the cook: she was in disgrace with both, and no wonder, the poor girl thought miserably, for the very sight now of that uncouth-looking object in the corner was beginning to a.s.sume hideous proportions in the girl's mind. She must watch and wait, and wait and watch for every sign that the pack made, but oh! the agony of bearing that uncanny secret alone! Oh for some one to share it with her!

A figure darkened the window of the breakfast-room, and f.a.n.n.y caught sight of her young mistress's form as it pa.s.sed with the rifle over her shoulder.

With a soft step she left the room, and intercepted her on the other side of the verandah. "Miss Patty," she whispered miserably.

Patty turned, her pretty face lighting up with a good-humoured smile as she nodded and said, "Luncheon ready, f.a.n.n.y? I am simply ravenous."

"Ye-es, I think so, miss. But oh! miss, I want to speak to you badly."

Fatty came forward with the smile still on her lips. "Has Mrs. Tucker been scolding you dreadfully, you poor f.a.n.n.y?"

"Then she's told you?" gasped the girl.

"She's told me nothing. I haven't seen her, but you look so woebegone that I thought she had been having a pitch battle with you for neglecting something or other, and you wanted me to get you out of the sc.r.a.pe."

f.a.n.n.y groaned inwardly. No, her aunt had said nothing, and she must brace herself up, and tell the whole story from beginning to end. The beginning, she began to think, was not so dreadful as the end. Oh that she could dare to disbelieve her eyes, and declare that there was no end--no awful, uncanny end!

At length, in the quiet of the verandah, the story was told, and f.a.n.n.y's heart misgave her more and more as she observed the exceeding gravity of her young mistress's bright face as the story neared its finish. When the finish did come, Patty's face was more than grave; the weight of responsibility was on her, and to young, unused shoulders that weight is particularly difficult to bear.

"Come and show me where it is," was the only remark she made, but f.a.n.n.y noticed that the red lips had lost some of their bright colour, and the pink in the soft cheeks was of a fainter tinge than when she had first seen her.

Without making the slightest sound, without one click of the handle, f.a.n.n.y opened the door, and Patty looked in. Her courage came back with a bound. f.a.n.n.y was a goose, there was nothing to be alarmed about.

She looked up to smile encouragingly at f.a.n.n.y, when the smile froze on her lips, for f.a.n.n.y's face was livid. Without a word she beckoned her young mistress out of the room, and as softly as before closed the door.

Then, turning to her, she whispered through her set teeth:

"_It has moved again!_"

A cold s.h.i.+ver ran down through Patty's spine, but she was no girl to be frightened by the superst.i.tious fancies of an ignorant serving maid.

"Nonsense, f.a.n.n.y!" she said sharply, "you are growing quite crazed over that stupid pack. I saw nothing unusual in it, it looked innocent enough in all conscience."

"You never saw it move," was the answer, given in such a lifeless tone that Patty was chilled again.

"I'll tell you what, f.a.n.n.y. I'll go in after luncheon, and see if it has moved from the place I saw it in."

"Did you notice the place well where it stood?" asked f.a.n.n.y.

"Yes," replied Patty, "I'd know if it moved again. Don't tell Mrs.

Tucker or cook anything about it. You and I will try to checkmate that pack if there is anything uncanny in it. Now tell cook I am ready for luncheon if she is."

But when the luncheon came on the table Patty had lost all hunger. She merely nibbled at trifles till f.a.n.n.y came to clear away.

"I'm going to that room," she whispered. "If Mrs. Tucker should want me, or perhaps Sam might, for I told him I was going to see how well he had cleaned the harness that I found in the loft, then you must come in quietly and beckon me out. Don't let any one know I am watching that pack."

"Yes, miss," was f.a.n.n.y's answer, given so hopelessly that Patty put a kind hand on her shoulder with the words:

"Cheer up, f.a.n.n.y. I don't believe it's so bad as you make out. It is my belief you have imagined that the pack moved."

"It isn't my fancy, it isn't," cried the girl, the tears starting to her eyes. "If anything dreadful happens, then it is me that has injured the master--the best master that a poor girl could have." And with her ap.r.o.n to her eyes f.a.n.n.y left the room.

She came back a minute later to see Patty examining the priming of her rifle. "Miss Patty," she whispered aghast, "you ain't never going to shoot at it!"

"I am going to sit in that room all the afternoon," said Patty calmly, "and if that pack moves while my eyes are on it I'll fire into that pack even if by so doing I riddle every garment in it." And without another word Patty stalked out of the room with her rifle on her shoulder.

At the door of the breakfast-room she set her teeth hard, and opened the door.

_The pack had moved since she saw it._

It was with a face dest.i.tute of all colour that Patty seated herself upon the table to mount guard over that black object now lying several yards away from the corner. Her eyes were glued to the bundle; they grew large and gla.s.sy, and a film seemed to come over them as she gazed, without daring even to wink. How the minutes pa.s.sed--if they revolved themselves into half hours--she did not know. No one called her, no one approached the door, she sat on with one fixed stare at the pedlar's pack.

Was she dreaming? Was it fancy? No, the pack was moving! Slowly, very slowly it crept--it could hardly be called moving, and Patty watched it fascinated. Then it stopped, and Patty, creeping nearer, stood over it, and watched more closely. Something was breathing inside! Something inside that pack was alive! Patty could now clearly see the movement that each respiration made. She had made up her mind, and now she took her courage in both hands.

She retreated softly to the opposite side of the room, and raising the rifle to her shoulder fired.

There was a loud, a deafening report, a shrill scream, and a stream of blood trickled forth from the pack. f.a.n.n.y was in the room crying hysterically, Mrs. Tucker and cook were looking over her shoulder with blanched faces.

Patty, with her face not one whit less white than any of the others, laid the smoking rifle on the table, and spoke with a tremulousness not usual to her.

"Mrs. Tucker, some vile plot has been hatched to rob this house while your master is away. That pack doesn't hold finery as f.a.n.n.y was at first led to believe, but it holds a man, and I have shot him."

With trembling hands and colourless lips Mrs. Tucker, with the help of her maids, cut away the oilcloth that bound the pack together, and disclosed the face of a short st.u.r.dy man, it was the face of the late coachman, Timothy Smith! With one voice they cried aloud as they saw it.

"Dead! Is he dead?" cried Patty, shuddering and covering her face with her hands. "Oh, Mrs. Tucker, and it is I who have killed him!"

A groan from the prostrate figure rea.s.sured the party as to the fatality of the adventure, and aroused in them a sense of the necessity of doing what they could to relieve the sufferings of their prostrate enemy.

The huddled-up position occupied by the man when in the pack made him, of course, a good target, and made it possible for a single shot to do much more mischief than it might have done in pa.s.sing once through any single part of his body. It was, of course, a random shot, and entering the pack vertically as the man was crouching with his hands upon his knees, it pa.s.sed through his right arm and left hand and lodged in his left knee, thus completely disabling him without touching a vital part.

With some difficulty they managed to get the wounded man on to a chair bedstead which they brought from the housekeeper's room for the purpose, and such "first aid" as Patty was able to render was quickly given.