THE HOUSE OF A THOUSAND CANDLES. Meredith Nicholson

you hurt, sir?” asked Bates solicitously, turning with the lantern.

      “Of course not,” I snapped. “I’m having the time of my life. Are there no paths in this jungle?”

      “Not through here, sir. It was Mr. Glenarm’s idea not to disturb the wood at all. He was very fond of walking through the timber.”

      “Not at night, I hope! Where are we now?”

      “Quite near the lake, sir.”

      “Then go on.”

      I was out of patience with Bates, with the pathless woodland, and, I must confess, with the spirit of John Marshall Glenarm, my grandfather.

      We came out presently upon a gravelly beach, and Bates stamped suddenly on planking.

      “This is the Glenarm dock, sir; and that’s the boat-house.”

      He waved his lantern toward a low structure that rose dark beside us. As we stood silent, peering out into the starlight, I heard distinctly the dip of a paddle and the soft gliding motion of a canoe.

      “It’s a boat, sir,” whispered Bates, hiding the lantern under his coat.

      I brushed past him and crept to the end of the dock. The paddle dipped on silently and evenly in the still water, but the sound grew fainter. A canoe is the most graceful, the most sensitive, the most inexplicable contrivance of man. With its paddle you may dip up stars along quiet shores or steal into the very harbor of dreams. I knew that furtive splash instantly, and knew that a trained hand wielded the paddle. My boyhood summers in the Maine woods were not, I frequently find, wholly wasted.

      The owner of the canoe had evidently stolen close to the Glenarm dock, and had made off when alarmed by the noise of our approach through the wood.

      “Have you a boat here?”

      “The boat-house is locked and I haven’t the key with me, sir,” he replied without excitement.

      “Of course you haven’t it,” I snapped, full of anger at his tone of irreproachable respect, and at my own helplessness. I had not even seen the place by daylight, and the woodland behind me and the lake at my feet were things of shadow and mystery. In my rage I stamped my foot.

      “Lead the way back,” I roared.

      I had turned toward the woodland when suddenly there stole across the water a voice, — a woman’s voice, deep, musical and deliberate.

      “Really, I shouldn’t be so angry if I were you!” it said, with a lingering note on the word angry.

      “Who are you? What are you doing there?” I bawled.

      “Just enjoying a little tranquil thought!” was the drawling, mocking reply.

      Far out upon the water I heard the dip and glide of the canoe, and saw faintly its outline for a moment; then it was gone. The lake, the surrounding wood, were an unknown world, — the canoe, a boat of dreams. Then again came the voice:

      “Good night, merry gentlemen!”

      “It was a lady, sir,” remarked Bates, after we had waited silently for a full minute.

      “How clever you are!” I sneered. “I suppose ladies prowl about here at night, shooting ducks or into people’s houses.”

      “It would seem quite likely, sir.”

      I should have liked to cast him into the lake, but be was already moving away, the lantern swinging at his side. I followed him, back through the woodland to the house.

      My spirits quickly responded to the cheering influence of the great library. I stirred the fire on the hearth into life and sat down before it, tired from my tramp. I was mystified and perplexed by the incident that had already marked my coming. It was possible, to be sure, that the bullet which narrowly missed my head in the little dining-room had been a wild shot that carried no evil intent. I dismissed at once the idea that it might have been fired from the lake; it had crashed through the glass with too much force to have come so far; and, moreover, I could hardly imagine even a rifle-ball’s finding an unimpeded right of way through so dense a strip of wood. I found it difficult to get rid of the idea that some one had taken a pot-shot at me.

      The woman’s mocking voice from the lake added to my perplexity. It was not, I reflected, such a voice as one might expect to hear from a country girl; nor could I imagine any errand that would excuse a woman’s presence abroad on an October night whose cool air inspired first confidences with fire and lamp. There was something haunting in that last cry across the water; it kept repeating itself over and over in my ears. It was a voice of quality, of breeding and charm.

      “Good night, merry gentlemen!”

      In Indiana, I reflected, rustics, young or old, men or women, were probably not greatly given to salutations of just this temper.

      Bates now appeared.

      “Beg pardon, sir; but your room’s ready whenever you wish to retire.”

      I looked about in search of a clock.

      “There are no timepieces in the house, Mr. Glenarm. Your grandfather was quite opposed to them. He had a theory, sir, that they were conducive, as he said, to idleness. He considered that a man should work by his conscience, sir, and not by the clock, — the one being more exacting than the other.”

      I smiled as I drew out my watch, — as much at Bates’ solemn tones and grim lean visage as at his quotation from my grandsire. But the fellow puzzled and annoyed me. His unobtrusive black clothes, his smoothly-brushed hair, his shaven face, awakened an antagonism in me.

      “Bates, if you didn’t fire that shot through the window, who did — will you answer me that?”

      “Yes, sir; if I didn’t do it, it’s quite a large question who did. I’ll grant you that, sir.”

      I stared at him. He met my gaze directly without flinching; nor was there anything insolent in his tone or attitude. He continued:

      “I didn’t do it, sir. I was in the pantry when I heard the crash in the refectory window. The bullet came from out of doors, as I should judge, sir.”

      The facts and conclusions were undoubtedly with Bates, and I felt that I had not acquitted myself creditably in my effort to fix the crime on him. My abuse of him had been tactless, to say the least, and I now tried another line of attack.

      “Of course, Bates, I was merely joking. What’s your own theory of the matter?”

      “I have no theory, sir. Mr. Glenarm always warned me against theories. He said — if you will pardon me — there was great danger in the speculative mind.”

      The man spoke with a slight Irish accent, which in itself puzzled me. I have always been attentive to the peculiarities of speech, and his was not the brogue of the Irish servant class. Larry Donovan, who was English-born, used on occasions an exaggerated Irish dialect that was wholly different from the smooth liquid tones of Bates. But more things than his speech were to puzzle me in this man.

      “The person in the canoe? How do you account for her?” I asked.

      “I haven’t accounted for her, sir. There’s no women on these grounds, or any sort of person except ourselves.”

      “But there are neighbors, — farmers, people of some kind must live along the lake.”

      “A few, sir; and then there’s the school quite a bit beyond your own west wall.”

      His slight reference to my proprietorship, my own wall, as he put it, pleased me.

      “Oh, yes; there is a school — girls? — yes; Mr. Pickering mentioned it. But the girls hardly paddle on the lake at night, at this season — hunting ducks — should you say, Bates?”

      “I don’t believe they do any shooting, Mr. Glenarm. It’s a pretty strict school, I judge, sir, from all accounts.”