The boy said at once, as though in an effort to apologize: “Pa’s been real sick all summer, Miss Moore, and like ’twas he fergot it, but I kin open up easy, if I kin find suthin’ to pry off the boards with. I think likely I’ll find an axe, anyhow, out in the back shed whar I used to chop wood fer you. I’m most sure I will.”
Miss Moore sank back. “Well, hurry up about it, then. I’ll stay in the coach till you get the windows uncovered.” When the boy was gone, the woman turned toward her niece. “Open up that small black bag, Dories; the one near you, and get out the back-door key. There’s a hammer just inside on the kitchen table, if it’s where I left it.” She continued her directions: “Give it to Gibralter and tell him, when he gets the boards off the windows, to carry in some wood and make a fire. A fog is coming in this minute and it’s as wet as rain.”
The key having been found, the girls ran gleefully around the cabin in search of the boy. They found him emerging from a shed carrying a hatchet. He grinned at them as though they were old friends. “Some cheerful place, this!” he commented as he began ripping off the boards from one of the kitchen windows. “You girls must o’ needed sea air a lot to come to this place out o’ season like this with a – a – wall, with a old lady like Miss Moore is.” Dories felt sure that the boy was thinking something quite different, but was not saying it because it was a relative of hers about whom he was talking. What she replied was: “I can’t understand it myself. I mean why Great-Aunt Jane wanted to come to this dismal place after everyone else has gone.”
They were up on the back porch and, as she looked out across the swampy meadows over which a heavy fog was settling, then she continued, more to Nann than to the boy: “I promised Mother I wouldn’t be afraid of ghosts, but honestly I never saw a spookier place.”
The boy had been making so much noise ripping off boards that he had only heard the last two words. “Spooks war yo’ speakin’ of?” he inquired. “Well, I guess yo’ll think thar’s spooks enough along about the middle of the night when the fog horn’s a moanin’ an’ the surf’s a crashin’ out on the pint o’ rocks, an’ what’s more, thar is folks at Siquaw Center as says thar’s a sure enough spook livin’ over in the ruins that used to be ol’ Colonel Wadbury’s place.”
The girls shuddered and Dories cast a “Didn’t I tell you so” glance at her friend, but Nann, less fearful by nature, was interested and curious, and after looking about in vain for the “ruin”, she inquired its whereabouts.
Gibralter enlightened them. “O, ’tisn’t in sight,” he said, “that is, not from here. It’s over beyant the rocky pint. From the highest rock thar you kin see it plain.”
Then as he went on around the cottage taking off boards, the girls followed to hear more of the interesting subject. “Fine house it used to be when my Pa was a kid, but now thar’s nothing but stone walls a standin’. A human bein’ couldn’t live in that ol’ shell, nohow. But – ” the boy could not resist the temptation to elaborate the theme when he saw the wide eyes of his listeners, “’long about midnight folks at the Center do say as how they’ve seen a light movin’ about in the old ruin. Nobody’s dared to go near ’nuf to find out what ’tis. The swamps all about are like quicksand. If you step in ’em, wall, golly gee, it’s good-bye fer yo’. Leastwise that’s what ol’-timers say, an’ so the spook, if thar is one over thar, is safe ’nuf from introosion.”
While the boy had been talking, he had removed all of the wooden blinds, his listeners having followed him about the cabin. Dories had been so interested that she had quite forgotten about the huge key that she had been carrying. “O my!” she exclaimed, suddenly noticing it. “But then you didn’t need the hammer after all. Now I’ll skip around and open the back door, and, Gibralter, will you bring in some wood, Aunt Jane said, to build us a fire?”
While the boy was gone, Nann confided merrily, “There now, Dories Moore, you’ve been wishing for an adventure, and here is one all ready made and waiting. Pray, what could be more thrilling than an old ruin surrounded by an uncrossable swamp and a mysterious light which appears at midnight?”
The boy returned with an armful of logs left over from the supply of a previous summer. “Gib,” Nann addressed him in her friendliest fashion, “may we call you that? Gibralter is so long. I’d like to visit your ruin and inspect the ghost in his lair. Really and truly, isn’t there any way to reach the place?”
The boy looked as though he had a secret which he did not care to reveal. “Well, maybe there is, and maybe there isn’t,” he said uncommittedly. Then, with a brightening expression in his red-brown eyes, “Anyway, I’ll show you the old ruin if yo’ll meet me at sun-up tomorrow mornin’ out at the pint o’ rocks.”
“I’m game,” Nann said gleefully. “It sounds interesting to me all right. How about you, Dori?”
“O, I’m quite willing to see the place from a distance,” the other replied, “but nothing could induce me to go very near it.” Neither of the girls thought of asking the advice of their elderly hostess, who, at that very moment, appeared around a corner of the cabin to inquire why it was taking such an endless time to open up the cottage. Luckily Gib had started a fire in the kitchen stove, which partly mollified the woman’s wrath. After bringing in the bags and supplies, the boy took his departure, and they could hear him whistling as he drove away through the fog.
CHAPTER V
A NEW EXPERIENCE
With the closing in of the fog, twilight settled about the cabin. The old woman, still in her black bonnet with the veil thrown back, drew a wooden armed chair close to the stove and held her hands out toward the warmth. “Open up the box of supplies, Dories,” she commanded, “and get out some candles. Then you can fill a hot-water bottle for me and I’ll go right to bed. No use making a fire in the front room until tomorrow. You girls are to sleep upstairs. You’ll find bedding in a bureau up there. It may be damp, but you’re young. It won’t hurt you any.”
Dories, having opened up the box of supplies, removed each article, placing it on the table. At the very bottom she found a note scribbled on a piece of wrapping paper: “Out of candles. Send some tomorrer.”
Miss Moore sat up ramrod-straight, her sharp gray eyes narrowing angrily. “If that isn’t just like that shiftless, good-for-nothing Simon Strait. How did he suppose we could get on without light? I wish now I had ordered kerosene, but I thought, just at first, that candles would do.” In the dusk Nann had been looking about the kitchen. On a shelf she saw a lantern and two glass lamps. “O, Miss Moore!” she exclaimed, “Don’t you think maybe there might be oil in one of those lamps?”
“No, I don’t,” the old woman replied. “I always had my maid empty them the last thing for fear of fire.” Nann, standing on a chair, had taken down the lantern. Her face brightened. “I hear a swish,” she said hopefully, “and so it must be oil.” With a piece of wrapping paper she wiped off the dust while Dories brought forth a box of matches.
A dim, sputtering light rewarded them. “It won’t last long,” Nann said as she placed the lantern on the table, “So, Miss Moore, if you’ll tell us what to do to make you comfortable, we’ll hurry around and do it.”
“Comfortable? Humph! We won’t any of us be very comfortable with such a wet fog penetrating even into our bones.” The old woman complained so bitterly that Dories found herself wondering why her Great-Aunt Jane had come at all if she had known that she would be uncomfortable. But she had no time to give the matter further thought, for Miss Moore was issuing orders. “Dories, you work that pump-handle over there in the sink. If it needs priming, we won’t get any water tonight. Well, thank goodness, it doesn’t. That’s one thing that went right. Nann, you rinse out the tea kettle, fill it and set it to boil. Now you girls take the lantern and go to my bedroom. It’s just off the big front room, so you can’t miss it; open up the bottom bureau drawer and fetch out my bedding.