Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall: or, Solving the Campus Mystery

"Wasted humor," said Mary, laughing. "Heavy is in the Land of Nod. It's been a hard day for her. At supper she had to eat her own and Miss Fielding's share of the cup-custards."

Ruth and Helen had already risen to go.

"You'll remember, Infants," said Lluella, "when you hear the twang of the ghostly harp, that something momentous is bound to happen at Briarwood Hall."

"But more important still," warned Mary, "be sure that your lights are out within twenty minutes after retiring bell sounds. Otherwise you will have that cat, Picolet, poking into your room to learn what is the matter."

CHAPTER IX

THE GHOSTLY TRIBUNAL

"Aren't they just fine? Isn't it just fun?"

These were the enthusiastic questions that Helen Cameron hurled at Ruth when they returned to their own room. The girl from the Red Mill was glad that their school life had opened so pleasantly; but she was by no means blinded – as Helen seemed to be – to the faults of their neighbors in the room they had just left.

"They have been very friendly and we have no complaint to make, that is sure, Helen," she said.

"How exasperating you are at times!" exclaimed her chum. "Just the same, I am glad we didn't go with those poky Fussy Curls to their meeting."

Ruth made no reply to this. The bell in the tower had tolled nine, and they knew that there were twenty minutes only in which to get ready for retiring. Those girls who had lights after twenty minutes past nine were likely to be questioned, and any who burned a lamp after half after nine would find a demerit against their names in the morning.

The chums hurried, then, to get ready for sleep. "Don't you hope we'll dream something very nice?" whispered Helen as she plunged into bed first.

"I hope we will," returned Ruth, waiting to see her comfortable before she turned out the light and bent over her chum to kiss her. "Good-night, Helen. I hope we'll be just as good friends here, dear, as we have been since we met."

"Of course we will, Ruthie!" declared Helen, quite as warmly.

"We will let nobody, or nothing, come between us?" said Ruth, a little wistfully in the dark.

"Of course not!" declared Helen, with added emphasis.

Then Ruth crept into her own bed and lay looking at the whiter patch of the nearest window long after Helen's gentle, regular breathing announced her chum asleep. There were few other sounds about the dormitory. A door shut softly in the distance. Somewhere a dog barked once. Ruth was not sleepy at all. The day's doings passed in a not unpleasant procession through her mind.

It seemed a week – yes! a month – since she had left the Red Mill that morning. She again went over the pleasant road with the Camerons and Mrs. Murchiston to Cheslow. She remembered their conversation with good Dr. Davison, and wondered if by any possibility the time would come when poor Mercy Curtis could go to school – perhaps come to this very Briarwood Hall.

The long ride on the train to Lake Osago was likewise repeated in Ruth's mind; then the trip by boat to Portageton. She could not fail to recount the mysterious behavior of the big man who played the harp in the boat orchestra, and Mademoiselle Picolet. And while these thoughts were following in slow procession through her mind she suddenly became aware of a sound without. The nearest window was open – the lower sash raised to its full height. It was a warm and windless night.

The sound was repeated. Ruth raised her head from the pillow. It was a faint scratching – at the door, or at the window? She could not tell.

Ruth lay down again; then she sat upright in her bed as the sound continued. Every other noise about the house now seemed stilled. The dog did not bark. There was no rustle in the trees that shaded the campus. Where was that sound? At the door?

Ruth was not afraid – only curious. If somebody was trying to attract her attention – if somebody wished to communicate with her, to get into the room —

She hopped out of bed. Helen still slept as calmly as though she was in her own bed at home. Ruth went softly to the door. She had latched it when they came in. Now she pushed the bolt back softly. Was there a rustle and a soft whisper behind the panels?

Suddenly, as the fastening was removed, the door was pushed inward. Ruth stepped back. Had she been of a very nervous disposition, she would have cried aloud in fright, for two figures all in white stood at the door.

"Hush!" commanded the taller of the two shrouded figures. "Not a word."

Thus commanded, and half frightened, as well as wholly amazed, Ruth remained passive. The two white figures entered; two more followed; two more followed in turn, until there were eight couples – girls and all shrouded in sheets, with pillow-case hoods over their heads, in which were cut small "eyes" – within the duet room. Somebody closed the door. Somebody else motioned Ruth to awaken Helen.

Ruth hesitated. She at once supposed that some of their school-fellows meant to haze them; but she did not know how her chum would take such a startling awakening from sound sleep. She knew that, had she been asleep herself and opened her eyes to see these shrouded figures gathered about her bed, she would have been frightened beyond expression.

"Don't let her see you first!" gasped Ruth, affrightedly.

Instantly two of the girls seized her and, as she involuntarily opened her lips to scream, one thrust a ball of clean rags into her mouth, thrusting it in so far that it effectually gagged her, nor could she expel the ball from her mouth. It was not a cruel act, but it was awfully uncomfortable, and being held firmly by her two assailants, Ruth could do nothing, either in her own behalf, or for Helen.

But she was determined not to cry. These big girls called them "Infants," and Ruth Fielding determined not to deserve the name. She had no idea that the hazing party would really hurt them; they would have for their principal object the frightening of the new-comers to Briarwood Hall; and, secondarily, they would try to make Ruth and Helen appear just as ridiculous as possible.

Ruth was sorry in a moment that she had breathed a syllable aloud; for she was not allowed to awaken Helen. Instead, a girl went to either side of the bed and leaned over Ruth's sleeping chum. The tall, peaked caps made of the pillow-cases looked awful enough, and Ruth was in a really unhappy state of mind. All for Helen's sake, too. She had opened the door to these thoughtless girls. If she only had not done it!

Suddenly Helen started upright in bed. Her black eyes glared for a moment as she beheld the row of sheeted figures. But her lips only opened to emit a single "Oh!"

"Silence!" commanded one of the figures leaning over the bed, and Ruth, whose ears were sharpened now, believed that she recognized Mary Cox's voice. She immediately decided that these girls who had come to haze them were the very Juniors who had been so nice to them that evening – "The Fox" and her fellow-members of the Upedes. But Ruth was more interested just then in the manner in which Helen was going to take her sudden awakening.

Fortunately her chum seemed quite prepared for the visitation. After her first involuntary cry, she remained silent, and she even smiled across the footboard at Ruth, who, gagged and held captive, was certainly in no pleasant situation. The thought flashed into Ruth's mind: "Did Helen have reason for expecting this visit, and not warn me?"

"Up!" commanded the previous speaker among the white-robed company. "Your doom awaits you."

Helen put her bare feet out of bed, but was allowed to put her slippers on. The chums were in their night apparel only. Fortunately the air breathed in at the open window was warm. So there was no danger of their getting cold.

The two new girls were placed side by side. Helen was not gagged as Ruth was; but, of course, she had uttered only that single startled cry when she awoke. There was great solemnity among the shrouded figures as the chums stood in their midst. The girl who had previously spoken (and whom Ruth was quite positive was Mary Cox – for she seemed to be the leader and prime mover in this event) swept everything off the table and mounted upon it, where she sat cross-legged – like a tailor, or a Turk.

"Bring the culprits before the throne!" she commanded, in a sepulchral voice.

Helen actually giggled. But Ruth did not feel much like laughing. The ball of rags in her mouth had begun to hurt her, and she was held tightly by her two guards so that she could not have an instant's freedom. She was not, in addition, quite sure that these girls would not attempt to haze their prisoners in some unbecoming, or dangerous, way. Therefore, she was not undisturbed in her mind as she stood in the midst of the shrouded company of her school-fellows.

CHAPTER X

SOMETHING MORE THAN GHOSTS

Helen pinched Ruth's arm. It was plain that her guards did not hold Helen as tightly as they did Ruth. And why was that? Ruth thought. Could it be possible that her chum had had warning of this midnight visitation?

Not that Ruth felt very much fear of the outcome of the exercises; but the possibility that her old friend had kept any secret knowledge of the raid from her troubled Ruth immensely. Since they had come among the girls of Briarwood Hall – and that so few hours before – Ruth felt that she and Helen were not so close together. There was danger of their drifting apart, and the possibility troubled Ruth Fielding exceedingly.

The thought of it now, however, was but momentary. Naturally she was vitally interested in what was about to be done to her by the party of hazers.

"I am pained," said the girl sitting on the table, "that one of the neophytes comes before us with a bigger mouthful than she can swallow. If she understands fully that a single word above a whisper – or any word at all unless she is addressed by the Sisters – will be punished by her being instantly corked up again, the gag may be removed. Do you understand, Neophyte? Nod once!"

Ruth, glad to get rid of the unpleasant mouthful on any terms, nodded vigorously. Immediately her captors let go of her arms and one of them pulled the "stopper" out of her mouth.

"Now, remember!" uttered the girl on the table, warningly. "A word aloud and the plug goes back." Helen giggled again, but Ruth didn't feel like laughing herself. "Now, culprits!" continued the leader of the hazing party, "you must be judged for your temerity. How dared you come to Briarwood Hall, Infants?"

"Please, Ma'am," whispered Helen, who seemed to think the whole affair a great lark, "our guardians sent us here. We are not responsible."

"You may not so easily escape responsibility for your acts," hissed the girl on the table. "Those who enter Briarwood Hall must show themselves worthy of the high honor. It takes courage to come under the eye of Mrs. Tellingham; it takes supernatural courage to come under the eye of Picolet!"

"If she wasn't out of the house to-night you may believe we wouldn't be out of bed," murmured another of the midnight visitors, whom Ruth was quite sure was Belle Tingley.