Rosalind at Red Gate. Meredith Nicholson
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and the lake lay still in the white bath of light.
"Drop one of the canoes into the water," I said; and I watched the prowling boatman while Ijima crept back to the boat-house. The canoe was launched silently and the boy drove it out to me with a few light strokes. I took the paddle, and we crept close along the shore toward the St. Agatha light, my eyes intent on the boat, which was now drawing in to the school pier. The prowler was feeling his way carefully, as though the region were unfamiliar; but he now landed at the pier and tied his boat. I hung back in the shadows until he had disappeared up the bank, then paddled to the pier, told Ijima to wait, and set off through the wood-path toward St. Agatha's.
Where the wood gave way to the broad lawn that stretched up to the school buildings I caught sight of my quarry. He was strolling along under the beeches to the right of me, and I paused about a hundred feet behind him to watch events. He was a young fellow, not above average height, but compactly built, and stood with his hands thrust boyishly in his pockets, gazing about with frank interest in his surroundings. He was bareheaded and coatless, and his shirt-sleeves were rolled to the elbow. He walked slowly along the edge of the wood, looking off toward the school buildings, and while his manner was furtive there was, too, an air of unconcern about him and I heard him whistling softly to himself.
He now withdrew into the wood and started off with the apparent intention of gaining a view of St. Agatha's from the front, and I followed. He seemed harmless enough; he might be a curious pilgrim from the summer resort; but I was just now the guardian of St. Agatha's and I intended to learn the stranger's business before I had done with him. He swung well around toward the driveway, threading the flower garden, but hanging always close under the trees, and the mournful whistle would have guided me had not the moon made his every movement perfectly clear. He reached the driveway leading in from the Annandale road without having disclosed any purpose other than that of viewing the vine-clad walls with a tourist's idle interest. The situation had begun to bore me, when the school gardener came running out of the shrubbery, and instantly the young man took to his heels.
"Stop! Stop!" yelled the gardener.
The mysterious young man plunged into the wood and was off like the wind.
"After him, Andy! After him!" I yelled to the Scotchman.
I shouted my own name to reassure him and we both went thumping through the beeches. The stranger would undoubtedly seek to get back to his boat, I reasoned, but he was now headed for the outer wall, and as the wood was free of underbrush he was sprinting away from us at a lively gait. Whoever the young gentleman was, he had no intention of being caught; he darted in and out among the trees with astounding lightness, and I saw in a moment that he was slowly turning away to the right.
"Run for the gate!" I called to the gardener, who was about twenty feet away from me, blowing hard. I prepared to gain on the turn if the young fellow dashed for the lake; and he now led me a pretty chase through the flower garden. He ran with head up and elbows close at his sides, and his light boat shoes made scarcely any sound. He turned once and looked back and, finding that I was alone, began amusing himself with feints and dodges, for no other purpose, I fancied, than to perplex or wind me. There was a little summer-house mid-way of the garden, and he led me round this till my head swam. By this time I had grown pretty angry, for a foot-race in a school garden struck me with disgust as a childish enterprise, and I bent with new spirit and drove him away from his giddy circling about the summer-house and beyond the only gate by which he could regain the wood and meadow that lay between the garden and his boat. He turned his head from side to side uneasily, slackening his pace to study the bounds of the garden, and I felt myself gaining.
Ahead of us lay a white picket fence that set off the vegetable garden and marked the lawful bounds of the school. There was no gate and I felt that here the chase must end, and I rejoiced to find myself so near the runner that I heard the quick, soft patter of his shoes on the walk. In a moment I was quite sure that I should have him by the collar, and I had every intention of dealing severely with him for the hard chase he had given me.
But he kept on, the white line of fence clearly outlined beyond him; and then when my hand was almost upon him he rose at the fence, as though sprung from the earth itself, and hung a moment sheer above the sharp line of the fence pickets, his whole figure held almost horizontal, in the fashion of trained high-jumpers, for what seemed an infinite time, as though by some witchery of the moonlight.
I plunged into the fence with a force that knocked the wind out of me and as I clung panting to the pickets the runner dropped with a crash into the midst of a glass vegetable frame on the farther side. He turned his head, grinned at me sheepishly through the pickets, and gave a kick that set the glass to tinkling. Then he held up his hands in sign of surrender and I saw that they were cut and bleeding. We were both badly blown, and while we regained our wind we stared at each other. He was the first to speak.
"Kicked, bit or stung!" he muttered dolefully; "that saddest of all words, 'stung!' It's as clear as moonlight that I'm badly mussed, not to say cut."
"May I trouble you not to kick out any more of that glass? The gardener will be here in a minute and fish you out."
"Lawsy, what is it? An aquarium, that you fish for me?"
He chuckled softly, but sat perfectly quiet, finding, it seemed, a certain humor in his situation. The gardener came running up and swore in broad Scots at the destruction of the frame. We got over the fence and released our captive, who talked to himself in doleful undertones as we hauled him to his feet amid a renewed clink of glass.
"Gently, gentlemen; behold the night-blooming cereus! Not all the court-plaster in the universe can glue me together again." He gazed ruefully at his slashed arms, and rubbed his legs. "The next time I seek the garden at dewy eve I'll wear my tin suit."
"There won't be any next time for you. What did you run for?"
"Trying to lower my record—it's a mania with me. And as one good question deserves another, may I ask why you didn't tell me there was a glass-works beyond that fence? It wasn't sportsmanlike to hide a murderous hazard like that. But I cleared those pickets with a yard to spare, and broke my record."
"You broke about seven yards of glass," I replied. "It may sober you to know that you are under arrest. The watchman here has a constable's license."
"He also has hair that suggests the common garden or boiled carrot. The tint is not to my liking; yet it is not for me to be captious where the Lord has hardened His heart."
"What is your name?" I demanded.
"Gillespie. R. Gillespie. The 'R' will indicate to you the depth of my humility: I make it a life work to hide the fact that I was baptized Reginald."
"I've been expecting you, Mr. Gillespie, and now I want you to come over to my house and give an account of yourself. I will take charge of this man, Andy. I promise that he shan't set foot here again. And, Andy, you need mention this affair to no one."
"Very good, sir."
He touched his hat respectfully.
"I have business with this person. Say nothing to the ladies at St. Agatha's about him."
He saluted and departed; and with Gillespie walking beside me I started for the boat-landing.
He had wrapped a handkerchief about one arm and I gave him my own for the other. His right arm was bleeding freely below the elbow and I tied it up for him.
"That jump deserved better luck," I volunteered, as he accepted my aid in silence.
"I'm proud to have you like it. Will you kindly tell me who the devil you are?"
"My name is Donovan."
"I don't wholly care for it," he observed mournfully. "Think it over and see if you can't do better. I'm not sure that I'm going to grow fond of you. What's your business with me, anyhow?"
"My business, Mr. Gillespie, is to see that you leave this lake by the first and fastest train."
"Is it possible?" he drawled mockingly.