CHAPTER XIV

The Haunted Tree

There were so many jolly friends staying at Chagmouth at present that they made a most delightful circle. Generally they all managed to meet every day, and the usual trysting-place was The Haven, partly because it was in so central a situation for everybody, but chiefly because the kind-hearted, unconventional Castletons were ready at any and every time to welcome visitors, and would allow friends to 'drop in' in true Bohemian fashion, quite regardless of whatever happened to be taking place in the household. From the studio, indeed, they were excluded while Mr. Castleton was at his easel, but they were allowed to use it when he was not working, and it proved admirable for either games, theatricals, or dancing. With so many costumes in the cupboard it was easy to get up charades, and they had much fun over acting. Perhaps the most successful was a small performance of 'The Babes in the Wood,' given by the Castleton children, with Perugia and Gabriel, lovely in Elizabethan costume, as 'the babes' John and Jane; Madox and Constable as the two villains 'Daggersdrawn' and 'Triggertight,' who abandoned them in the wood; and Lilith as the beneficent fairy 'Dewdrop,' who found them and whisked them away to bonny Elfland. The little Castletons had natural dramatic instincts and were adepts at posing, so their play was really very pretty. Madox, in especial, absolutely excelled himself as a robber and came out tremendously. He bowed gallantly in response to the storm of applause, and blew an airy kiss to Merle, who nearly collapsed with mirth. She thought her ten-year-old admirer deserved something in return for so graceful an attention, so she sent him a box of chocolates with a few verses written on a sheet of paper and placed inside.

TO DAGGERSDRAWN

You're a very handsome fellow, So gallant and so gay; And I really blush to tell you, But you've stole my heart away.

When you took the part of Daggersdrawn, My bosom swelled with pride To hear your voice of thunder And see your manly stride.

You seized the nasty pistols up Without a sign of fear, And thrust and parried with your sword Just like a Cavalier.

As you've escaped the lonesome wood-- For so the story ends-- I send these chocs, with best regards, And beg we may be friends.

Merle had no doubt the chocolates would be appreciated, but she had not expected to receive back a poetical effusion from her small knight. He evidently, however, had some slight gift for minstrelsy, for one day there was a tremendous rap on the front-door knocker at Burswood Farm, then a sound of running footsteps, and inside the letter-box was a note addressed to 'Miss Merle Ramsay,' in a rather wobbly and unformed hand.

At the top of the sheet of paper was painted a boat with brown sails on a blue sea, and underneath was written:

You ask me, dear, will I be thine?

How can you such a question ask When, 'neath the robber's fearful mask, I languish for thee, lady mine!

Thou art the lady that I love; Thou art the lady that I chose.

Oh, fly with me from friends and foes!

Oh, for the wings of a dove!

O sail with me to a southern sea, To where an isle is fair and warm, And the sea around it bright and calm: O Merle, will you come with me?

But for the nasty pistols, miss, I have one ready to shoot me dead!

For already my heart is heavy as lead Unless you favour my wish!

[Footnote: These verses were really composed by a little boy.]

It's rather silly but it's the best I can rite. M C.

In the privacy of the parlour Merle had a good laugh with Mavis over what they termed her first love-letter.

"'Oh, for the wings of a dove!'" quoted Merle. "It's so Biblical, isn't it? He's a dear, all the same! I love him better even than Constable.

He's such a bright little chap. Don't tell Clive, or he'd tease Madox to death about this. It must be an absolute secret. I can just picture the child sitting writing it with his sticky little fingers!"

"You mustn't let him know about 'Sweet William,' or there'll be a free fight!" laughed Mavis.

William was Mrs. Treasure's little boy, and also an ardent admirer of Merle, who gave him chocolates when she met him in the garden or the stackyard. In spite of his mother's injunctions to 'Behave and not trouble the visitors,' he would hang about the pa.s.sages to present Merle with handfuls of ferns and flowers grabbed at random from the hedgerows and of no botanical value whatever; or sometimes the parlour window would be cautiously opened from the outside, a pair of bright eyes would appear, and a small grubby hand would push in a bird's egg or some other country trophy as an offering. It was William who told Merle about the 'headless horseman,' a phantom rider who was reported to gallop down the road after dusk, and whom Chagmouth mothers found useful as a bogey to frighten their children with.

"He'll get you if you're out when it's dark!" said William, with round awed eyes.

"What would he do with you if he did?" asked Merle.

But such a pitch of horror was beyond the limit of William's imagination, and he could only reaffirm his original statement.

Of course the girls and Clive were very excited to learn that a real live ghost was supposed to haunt the neighbourhood. They discussed it at the dinner-table over the jam-tart and cream.

"We've certainly heard a sort of trotting sound when we've been in bed at night," said Mavis, anxious to establish evidence. "We didn't think of getting up to look out of the window, but I don't suppose we could have seen on to the road if we had."

"Yes; I remember people used to believe in the 'headless horseman,'" said Mr. Tremayne, who had known Chagmouth very well as a boy. "There was a demon dog, too, that ran down Tinkers' Lane, and an old lady who 'walked'

by the well."

A delighted howl arose from the family at the mention of two more spooks.

"O--o--h! Tell us about the demon dog!" implored Clive.

"It had eyes as big as saucers, and they shone like fire. It used to scuttle along the lane, and no one ever waited to see where it went, though there used to be a hole in a bank where I was told it had once disappeared."

"Was it _really_ ever seen?" asked Merle.

"I believe all these phantoms were clever devices of the smugglers in the old days, when it was very desirable to have the roads quiet at night in order to carry about contraband goods. It would be quite easy to fake a demon dog. You take a black retriever, fasten two cardboard circles smeared with phosphorus round his eyes, give him a kick, and send him running down a dark road, and every one who met him would have hysterics.

As for the headless horseman, that's also a well-known smugglers' dodge --false shoulders can be made and fixed on a level with the top of your head, and covered with a cloak, so that the apparently headless man has eyes in the middle of his chest, and can see to ride uncommonly well. It was generally to somebody's interest to make up these ghosts and frighten people."

"You take all the romance out of it!" pouted Mavis.

In spite of Mr. Tremayne's most reasonable explanations they clung to the supernatural side of the stories. It was much more interesting to picture the demon dog as the property of his Satanic Majesty, than to believe it an ordinary black retriever with circles of phosphorus round its eyes.

"I vote we go and try and see it for ourselves!" suggested Clive, waxing bold one evening. The girls agreed, so just before bedtime they sallied forth in the direction of Tinkers' Lane, a lonely stretch of road that led from the hillside towards the sea. They were all three feeling half valiant and half scared, and each had brought some species of protection.

Mavis carried a prayer-book and a little ivory cross, Merle grasped a poker, and Clive was armed with the hatchet from the wood-pile. So long as they were on the uplands and could see the stars they marched along tolerably bravely, but presently Tinkers' Lane turned downhill, and, like most of its kind in Devon, ran between high fern-grown banks, on the tops of which grew trees whose boughs almost met overhead and made an archway.

To plunge down here was like taking a dip into Dante's 'Inferno,' it looked so particularly dark and gloomy, and such a suitable place for anything ghostly.

"I wish we'd brought a lantern with us!" murmured Mavis.

"Then we shouldn't see any spooks!" declared Merle. "Come along! Let's go as far as the old gate at any rate. I dare you both to come! Who's afraid?"

Clive certainly was not going to show the white feather, and Mavis, though rather nervy, preferred to venture forward with the others than to remain by herself, so it ended in their all going on, arm-in-arm. They had worked themselves to such a pitch of excitement that the whole atmosphere seemed charged with the supernatural. There were mysterious groanings and rustlings in the hedge, and the long branches of the trees moaned as they swayed. It was so dark they were almost groping their way, and could barely see the banks on either side. Suddenly, through a rift in the trees came a faint gleam of starlight, and oh! horror of horrors!

What was that black dog-like object running rapidly towards them up the lane? Mavis, whose over-sensitive nerves were strung up to the last point, yelled with terror, and clung screaming to Merle, who gave a shriek of agony herself as the phantom approached and leaped at them.

"Whatever's the matter?" cried a voice, and a figure came hurrying forward and flashed an electric torch upon the scene.

In the circle of light thus formed the girls saw nothing more alarming than Bevis and his spaniel Fan, who was jumping up affectionately at Merle and licking her hands. They drew long breaths and then laughed.

"They thought you were Old Nick himself and his demon dog!" vouchsafed Clive, very brave now the alarm was over.

"What are you all doing down Tinkers' Lane so late as this?" asked Bevis.

"We came out to see spooks!"

"You won't find anything worse than Fan and myself! Better let us take you home."

"Oh, I wish you would," said Mavis, accepting the escort with alacrity.

"I don't think I like this dark place. I'm rather scared still. I don't wonder people see bogeys here. If you'd been riding, Bevis, I should certainly have taken you for the headless horseman. He rides here, doesn't he?"