The Eye of Dread

As for Hester, she turned away from the door and went quietly about her well-ordered house, directing the maidservant and looking carefully over her husband’s wardrobe. Then she did the same for Peter Junior’s, and at last, taking her basket of mending, she sat in the large, lace-curtained window looking out toward the west–the direction from which Peter Junior would be likely to come. For how long she would sit there during the days to come–waiting–she little knew.

She was comforted by the thought of the talk she had had with him the day before. She knew he was upright, and she felt that this quarrel–if it had been a quarrel–with his father would surely be healed; and then, there was Betty to call him back. The love of a girl was a good thing for a man. It would be stronger to draw him and hold him than love of home or of mother; it was the divine way for humanity, and it was a good way, and she must be patient and wait.

She was glad she had gone without delay to Mary Ballard. The two women were fond of each other, and the visit had been most satisfactory. Betty she had not seen, for the maiden was still sleeping the long, heavy sleep which saves a normal healthy body from wreck after severe emotion. Betty was so young–it might be best that matters should wait awhile as they were.

If Peter Junior went to Paris now, he would have to earn his own way, of course, and possibly he had gone west with Richard where he could earn faster than at home. Maybe that had been the grounds of the quarrel. Surely she would hear from him soon. Perhaps he had taken their talk on Sunday afternoon as a good-by to her; or he might yet come to her and tell her his plans. So she comforted herself in the most wholesome and natural way.

Richard’s action in taking his valise away during her absence and leaving no word of farewell for her was more of a surprise to her. But then–he might have resented the Elder’s attitude and sided with his cousin. Or, he might have feared he would say things he would afterwards regret, if he appeared, and so have taken himself quietly away. Still, these reasons did not wholly appeal to her, and she was filled with misgivings for him even more than for her son.

Peter Junior she trusted absolutely and Richard she loved as a son; but there was much of his father in him, and the Irish nature was erratic and wild, as the Elder said. Where was that father now? No one knew. It was one of the causes for anxiety she had for the boy that his father had been lost to them all ever since Richard’s birth and his wife’s death. He had gone out of their lives as completely as a candle in a gale of wind. She had mothered the boy, and the Elder had always been kind to him for his own dead sister’s sake, but of the father they never spoke.

It was while Hester Craigmile sat in her western window, thinking her thoughts, that two lads came hurrying down the bluff from the old camp ground, breathless and awed. One carried a straw hat, and the other a stout stick–a stick with an irregular knob at the end. It was Larry Kildene’s old blackthorn that Peter Junior had been carrying. The Ballards’ home was on the way between the bluff and the village, and Mary Ballard was standing at their gate watching for the children from school. She wished Jamie to go on an errand for her.

Mary noticed the agitation of the boys. They were John Walters and Charlie Dean–two chums who were always first to be around when there was anything unusual going on, or to be found. It was they who discovered the fire in the foundry in time to have it put out. It was they who knew where the tramps were hiding who had been stealing from the village stores, and now Mary wondered what they had discovered. She left the gate swinging open and walked down to meet them.

“What is it, boys?”

“We–we–found these–and–there’s something happened,” panted the boys, both speaking at once.

She took the hat of white straw from John’s hand. “Why! This is Peter Junior’s hat! Where did you find it?” She turned it about and saw dark red stains, as if it had been grasped by a bloody hand–finger marks of blood plainly imprinted on the rim.

“And this, Mrs. Ballard,” said Charlie, putting Peter Junior’s stick in her hand, and pointing to the same red stains sunken into the knob. “We think there’s been a fight and some one’s been hit with this.”

She took it and looked at it in a dazed way. “Yes. He was carrying this in the place of his crutch,” she said, as if to herself.

“We think somebody’s been pushed over the bluff into the river, Mrs. Ballard, for they’s a hunk been tore out as big as a man, from the edge, and it’s gone clean over, and down into the river. We can see where it is gone. And it’s an awful swift place.”

She handed the articles back to the boys.

“Sit down in the shade here, and I’ll bring you some sweet apples, and if any one comes by, don’t say anything about it until I have time to consult with Mr. Ballard.”

She hurried back and passed quickly around the house, and on to her husband, who was repairing the garden fence.

“Bertrand, come with me quickly. Something serious has happened. I don’t want Betty to hear of it until we know what it is.”

They hastened to the waiting boys, and together they slowly climbed the long path leading to the old camping place. Bertrand carried the stick and the hat carefully, for they were matters of great moment.

“This looks grave,” he said, when the boys had told him their story.

“Perhaps we ought to have brought some one with us–if anything–” said Mary.

“No, no; better wait and see, before making a stir.”

It was a good half hour’s walk up the hill, and every moment of the time seemed heavily freighted with foreboding. They said no more until they reached the spot where the boys had found the edge of the bluff torn away. There, for a space of about two feet only, back from the brink, the sparse grass was trampled, and the earth showed marks of heels and in places the sod was freshly torn up.

“There’s been something happened here, you see,” said Charlie Dean.

“Here is where a foot has been braced to keep from being pushed over; see, Mary? And here again.”

“I see indeed.” Mary looked, and stooping, picked something from the ground that glinted through the loosened earth. She held it on her open palm toward Bertrand, and the two boys looked intently at it. Her husband did not touch it, but glanced quickly into her eyes and then at the boys. Then her fingers closed over it, and taking her handkerchief she tied it in one corner securely.

“Did you ever see anything like it, boys?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. It’s a watch charm, isn’t it? Or what?”

“I suppose it must be.”

“I guess the fellah that was being pushed over must ’a’ grabbed for the other fellah’s watch. Maybe he was trying to rob him.”

“Let’s see whether we can find anything else,” said John Walters, peering over the bluff.

“Don’t, John, don’t. You may fall over. It might have been a fall, and one of them might have been trying to save the other, you know. He might have caught at him and pulled this off. There’s no reason why we should surmise the worst.”

“They might ha’ been playing–you know–wrestling–and it might ’a’ happened so,” said Charlie.

“Naw! They’d been big fools to wrestle so near the edge of the bluff as this,” said the practical John. “I see something white way down there, Mrs. Ballard. I can get it, I guess.”

“But take care, John. Go further round by the path.”

Both boys ran along the bluff until they came to a path that led down to the river. “Do be careful, boys!” called Mary.

“Now, let me see that again, my dear,” and Mary untied the handkerchief. “Yes, it is what I thought. That belonged to Larry Kildene. He got it in India, although he said it was Chinese. He was a year in the British service in India. I’ve often examined it. I should have known it anywhere. He must have left it with Hester for the boy.”

“Poor Larry! And it has come to this. I remember it on Richard’s chain when he came out there to meet us in the grove. Bertrand, what shall we do? They must have been here–and have quarreled–and what has happened! I’m going back to ask Betty.”

“Ask Betty! My dear! What can Betty know about it?”

“Something upset her terribly yesterday morning. She was ill and with no cause that I could see, and I believe she had had a nervous shock.”

“But she seemed all right this morning,–a little pale, but otherwise quite herself.” Bertrand turned the little charm over in his hand. “He thought it was Chinese because it is jade, but this carving is Egyptian. I don’t think it is jade, and I don’t think it is Chinese.”

“But whatever it is, it was on Richard’s chain Saturday,” said Mary, sadly. “And now, what can we do? On second thought I’ll say nothing to Betty. If a tragedy has come upon the Craigmiles, it will also fall on her now, and we must spare her all of it we can, until we know.”

A call came to them from below, and Bertrand hastily handed the charm back to his wife, and she tied it again in her handkerchief.

“Oh, Bertrand, don’t go near that terrible brink. It might give way. I’m sure this has been an accident.”

“But the stick, Mary, and the marks of blood on Peter Junior’s hat. I’m afraid–afraid.”

“But they were always fond of each other. They have been like brothers.”

“And quarrels between brothers are often the bitterest.”

“But we have never heard of their quarreling, and they were so glad to see each other Saturday. And you know Peter Junior was always possessed to do whatever Richard planned. They were that way about enlisting, you remember, and everything else. What cause could Richard have against Peter Junior?”

“We can’t say it was Richard against Peter. You see the stick was bloody, and it was Peter’s. We must offer no opinion, no matter what we think, for the world may turn against the wrong one, and only time will tell.”

They both were silent as the boys came panting up the bank. “Here’s a handkerchief. It was what I saw. It was caught on a thorn bush, and here–here’s Peter Junior’s little notebook, with his name–”