Books: Quill\'s Window

G >> George Barr McCutcheon >> Quill\'s Window

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He tried to picture Quill as he sat in his strange abode, a hundred
years ago, cowering over the fire or reading perhaps by the light
of a huge old-fashioned lanthorn. He thought of him hanging by the
neck back in the dark recess, victim either of his own conscience
or the implacable hatred of the enemy "down the river." And then
there were the others who had found death in the heart of that
mysterious cavern,--ugly death.

He wondered what the interior of the cave was like, and whether he
could devise some means of entering it. A rope ladder attached to
a substantial support at the top of the cliff would afford the easiest
way of reaching the mouth of the cave,--in fact, he recalled that
Quill employed some such means of descending to his eerie home. The
entrance appeared to be no more than twenty feet below the brow of
the cliff. It would not even be a hazardous undertaking. Besides,
if Quill and his successors were able to go up and down that wall
safely and repeatedly, why not he? No doubt scores of men,--perhaps
even schoolboys of the Tom Sawyer type,--had made frequent visits
to the cave. He knew he would be disregarding the command of Alix
Crown,--a command that all people respected and observed,--if he
passed the barrier and climbed to the top of the rock, but who,
after all, was Alix Crown that she should say "no trespass" to the
world at large?

The thought of Edward Crown wedged in at the bottom of Quill's Chimney,
weighted down with stones and earth, alone served as an obstacle to
the enterprise. He shrank from certain gruesome possibilities,--such
as the dislodgment of stones at the bottom of the crevice and the
consequent exposure of a thing that would haunt him forever. And
even though the stones remained in place there would still remain
the fact that almost within arm's length was imprisoned the crushed,
distorted remains of the murdered man.

Toward the end of his second week at Dowd's Tavern, he set out to
climb to the top of the big rock. He had no intention of descending
to the cavern's mouth on this occasion. That feat was to be reserved for
another day. Arriving at the gate, he was surprised and gratified
to discover that it was unlocked. While it was latched, the
padlock and chain hung loosely from the post to which the latter
was attached. Without hesitation, he opened the gate and strode
boldly into proscribed territory.

The ascent was gradual at first, then steep and abrupt for a matter
of fifty or sixty feet to the bald summit of the hill. Once at the
top, he sat down panting and exhausted upon the edge of the shallow
fissure he had followed as a path up the rock, and again his thoughts
went back to the night of the murder. This had been David Windom's
route to the top of the hill. He found himself discrediting one
feature at least of the man's confession. Only a fabled giant could
have carried the body of a man up that steep, tortuous incline.
Why, he was exhausted, and he had borne no heavier burden than
his stout walking-stick. That part of Windom's story certainly was
"fishy."

Presently he arose and strode out upon the rough, uneven "roof" of
the height. He could look in all directions over the tops of the
trees below. The sun beat down fiercely upon the unsheltered rock.
Off to the north lay the pall of smoke indicating the presence
of the invisible county seat. Thin, anfractuous highways and dirt
roads scarred the green and brown landscape, and as far as the eye
could reach were to be seen farmhouses and barns and silos.

Avoiding the significant heap of rocks near the centre of the little
plateau, he made his way to the brink of the cliff overlooking
the river. There he had a wonderful view of the winding stream,
the harvest fields, the groves, and the herds in the far-reaching
stretches of what was considered the greatest corn raising "belt"
in the United States. Some yards back from the edge of the cliff
he discovered the now thoroughly rotted section of a tree trunk,
eight or ten inches in diameter, driven deeply into a narrow fissure
and rendered absolutely immovable by a solid mass of stones and
gravel that completely closed the remainder of the crevice. He was
right in surmising that this was the support from which Quill's rope
or vine ladder was suspended a hundred years ago. Nearby were two
heavy iron rings attached to standards sunk firmly into the rock,
a modern improvement on the hermit's crude device. (He afterwards
learned that David Windom, when a lad of fifteen, had drilled the
holes in the rock and imbedded the stout iron shafts, so that he
might safely descend to the mouth of the cave.)

Turning back, he approached the heap of boulders that covered the
grave of Edward and Alix Crown. No visible sign of the cleft in
the surface of the rock remained. Six huge boulders, arranged in
a row, rose above a carefully made bed of stones held in place by
a low, soundly mortared wall.

Chiselled on one of the end boulders was the name of Alix Windom
Crown, with the date of her birth and her death, with the line:
"Rock of Ages Cleft for Me." Below this inscription was the recently
carved name of Edward Joseph Crown, Born July 7, 1871. Died March
22, 1895. Three words followed this. They were "Abide With Me."

II

Thane stood for a long time looking at the pile. He was not
sentimental. His life had been spent in an irreverent city, among
people hardened by pleasure or coarsened by greed. His thoughts
as he stood there were not of the unhappy pair who reposed beneath
those ugly rocks; they were of the far-off tragedy that had brought
them to this singular resting-place. The fact that this was a grave,
sacred in the same sense that his father's grave in Woodlawn was
supposed to be sacred to him and to his mother, was overlooked in
the silent contemplation of what an even less sophisticated person
might have been justified in describing as a "freak." Nothing
was farther from his mind, however, than the desire or impulse to
be disrespectful. And yet, as he was about to turn away from this
sombre pile, he leaned over and struck a match on one of the huge
boulders. As he was conveying the lighted sulphur match,--with
which Dowd's Tavern abounded,--to the cigarette that hung limply
from his lips, he was startled by a sharp, almost agonized cry.
It seemed to come from nowhere. He experienced the uncanny feeling
that a ghost,--the ghost that haunted Quill's Window,--standing
guard over the mound, had cried out under the pain inflicted by
that profane match.

Even as he turned to search the blazing, sunlit rock with apprehensive
eyes, a voice, shrill with anger, flung these words at him:

"What are you doing up here?"

His gaze fell upon the speaker, standing stockstill in the cloven
path below him, not twenty feet away. In his relief, he laughed.
He beheld a slim figure in riding-togs. Nothing formidable or
ghostlike in that! Nevertheless, a pair of dark blue eyes transfixed
him with indignation. They looked out from under the rim of a black
sailor hat, and they were wide and inimical.

"Did you not see that sign on the gate?" demanded the girl.

"I did," he replied, still smiling as he removed his hat,--one of
Knox's panamas. "And I owe you an apology."

She advanced to the top. He noted the riding-crop gripped rather
firmly in her clenched hand.

"No one is permitted to come up here," she announced, stopping a
few feet away. She was quite tall and straight. She panted a little
from the climb up the steep. He saw her bosom rise and fall under
the khaki jacket; her nostrils were slightly distended. In that
first glimpse of her, he took in the graceful, perfect figure; the
lovely, brilliant face; the glorious though unsmiling eyes. "You
must leave at once. This is private property. Go, please."

"I cannot go before telling you how rotten I feel for striking that
match. I beg of you, Miss Crown,--you ARE Miss Crown?--I can only
ask you to believe that it was not a conscious act of desecration.
It was sheer thoughtlessness. I would not have done it for the
world if I had--"

"It is not necessary for you to explain," she broke in curtly. "I
saw what you did,--and it is just because of such as you that this
spot is forbidden ground. Idle curiosity, utter disregard for the
sacredness of that lonely grave,--Oh, you need not attempt to deny
it. You are a stranger here, but that is no excuse for your passing
through that gate. I AM Miss Crown. This hill belongs to me. It was
I who had that fence put up and it was I who directed the sign to
be put on the gate. They are meant for strangers as well as for
friends. It was not thoughtlessness that brought you up here. You
thought a long time before you came. Will you be good enough to
go?"

He flushed under the scornful dismissal.

"The gate was unlocked--" he began.

"That doesn't matter. It might have been wide open, sir,--but that
did not grant you any special privileges."

"I can only ask your pardon, Miss Crown, and depart in disgrace,"
said he, quite humbly. As he started down the path, he paused to
add: "I did not know you had returned. I daresay I should have been
less venturesome had I known you were in the neighbourhood."

The thinly veiled sarcasm did not escape her.

"I suppose you are the young man from New York that every one is
talking about. That may account for your ignorance. In order that
you may not feel called upon to visit this place again to satisfy
your curiosity, I will point out to you the objects of interest.
This pile of rocks marks the grave of my father and mother. The
dates speak for themselves. You may have noticed them when you
scratched your match just above my mother's name. My father was
murdered by my grandfather before I was born. My mother died on
the day I was born. I never saw them. I do not love them, because
I never knew them. But I DO respect and honour them. They were good
people. I have no reason to be ashamed of them. If you will look
out over those trees and across that pasture, you will see the house
in which my mother died and where I was born. Directly in front of
the little porch my father died as the result of a blow delivered
by my grandfather. As to the disposal of the body, you may obtain
all the information necessary from Alaska Spigg, our town librarian,
who will be more than delighted to supply you with all the ghastly
details. To your right is the post to which a man named Quill
attached his ladder in order to reach the cave in the face of this
rock,--where he lived for many years. This is the path leading
down to the gate, which you will still find unlocked. It will not
be necessary for you to come up here again. You have seen all there
is to see."

With that, she deliberately turned her back on him and walked toward
the edge of the cliff. He stared after her for a few seconds, his
lips parted as if to speak, and then, as the flush of mortification
deepened in his cheeks, he began picking his way rather blindly
down the steep path.

He was never to forget his first encounter with Alix the Third.

CHAPTER VI

CHARLIE WEBSTER ENTERTAINS

That evening at the supper table, Mr. Pollock politely informed
him that Alix Crown had returned from Michigan, looking as fit as
a fiddle.

"You've been so sort of curious about her, Court?" (it had not
taken the male boarders long to dispense with formalities), "that
I thought you'd be interested in knowing that she's home. Got back
last evening. Her Packard automobile met her at the depot up in
the city. You'll know her when you see her. Tall girl and fairly
good-looking. Puts on an awful lot of 'dog.' What is it you fellows
in the Army call it? Swunk?"

"Swank," said Courtney, rather shortly. He was still smarting under
the sting of his afternoon's experience.

"Lemme help you to some more squash, Mr. Thane," said Margaret
Slattery in his ear. "And another biscuit."

"Thank you, no," said he.

"What's the matter with your appetite?" she demanded. "You ain't
hardly touched anything this evenin'. Sick?"

"I'm not hungry, Margaret."

"Been out in the sun too much, that's what's the matter with you.
First thing you know you'll get a sunstroke, and THEN! My Uncle
Mike was sunstruck when I was--"

"Pass me the biscuits, Maggie, and don't be all night about it," put
in Mr. Webster. "I'm hungry, even if Court isn't. I can distinctly
remember when you used to pass everything to me first, and almost
stuff it--"

"Yes, and she used to do the same for me before you shaved off your
chin whiskers, Charlie," said Mr. Hatch gloomily. "How times have
changed."

"It ain't the times that's changed," said Margaret. "It's you men.
You ain't what you used to be, lemme tell you that."

"True,--oh so true," lamented Mr. Webster. "I used to be nice and
thin and graceful before you began showering me with attention. Now
look at me. You put something like fifty pounds on me, and then you
desert me. I was a handsome feller when I first came here, wasn't
I, Flora? I leave it to you if I wasn't."

"I don't remember how you looked when you first came here," replied
Miss Grady loftily.

"Can you beat that?" cried Charlie to Courtney across the table.
"And she used to say I was the handsomest young feller she'd ever
laid eyes on. Used to say I looked like,--who was it you used to
say I looked like, Flora?"

"The only thing I ever said you looked like was a mud fence, Charlie
Webster."

"What did she say, Pa? Hey?" This from old Mrs. Nichols, holding
her hand to her ear. "What are they laughing at?"

"She says Charlie looks like a mud fence," shouted old Mr. Nichols,
his lips close to her ear.

"His pants? What about his pants?"

This time Courtney joined in the laugh.

After supper he sat on the front porch with the Pollocks and Miss
Grady. It was a warm, starry night. Charlie Webster and Doc Simpson
had strolled off down the street. Mr. Hatch and Miss Miller sat in
the parlour.

"She's going to land Furman Hatch, sure as you're a foot high,"
confided Mr. Pollock, with a significant jerk of his head in the
direction of the parlour.

"Heaven knows she's been trying long enough," said Miss Grady. "I
heard him ask Doc and Charlie to wait for him, but she nabbed him
before he could get out. Now he's got to sit in there and listen
to her tell about how interested she is in art,--and him just dyin'
for a smoke. Why, there's Alix Crown now. She's comin' in here."

A big touring car drew up to the sidewalk in front of the Tavern.
Miss Crown sprang lightly out of the seat beside the chauffeur and
came up the steps.

"How do you do, Mrs. Pollock? Hello, Flora. Good evening, Mr.
Editor," was her cheery greeting as she passed by and entered the
house.

"She comes around every once in a while and takes the Dowd girls
out riding in her car," explained Mrs. Pollock.

"Mighty nice of her," said Mr. Pollock, taking his feet down from
the porch-rail and carefully brushing the cigar ashes off of his
coat sleeve. "Takes old Alaska Spigg out too, and the Nicholses,
and--"

"We've been out with her a great many times," broke in Mrs. Pollock.
"I think a Packard is a wonderful car, don't you, Mr. Thane? So
smooth and--"

"I think I'll take a little stroll," said Courtney abruptly; and
snatching up his hat from the floor beside his chair he hurried
down the steps.

She had not even glanced at him as she crossed the porch. He had
the very uneasy conviction that so far as she was concerned he
might just as well not have been there at all. In the early dusk,
her face was clearly revealed to him. There was nothing cold
or unfriendly about it now. Instead, her smile was radiant; her
eyes,--even in the subdued light,--glowed with pleasure. Her voice
was clear and soft and singularly appealing. In the afternoon's
encounter he had been struck by its unexpected combination of English
and American qualities; the sharp querulousness of the English and
the melodious drawl of the American were strangely blended, and
although there had been castigation in her words and manner, he
took away with him the disturbing memory of a voice he was never
to forget. And now he had seen the smile that even the most envious
of her kind described as "heavenly." It was broad and wholesome
and genuine. There was a flash of white, even teeth between warm
red lips, a gleam of merriment in the half-closed eyes, a gay tilt
to the bare, shapely head. Her dark hair was coiled neatly, and
the ears were exposed. He liked her ears. He remembered them as he
had seen them in the afternoon, fairly large, shapely and close to
the head. No need for her to follow the prevailing fashion of the
day! She had no reason to hide her ears beneath a mat of hair.

In the evening glow her face was gloriously beautiful,--clear-cut
as a cameo, warm as a rose. It was no longer clouded with anger.
She seemed taller. The smart riding costume had brought her trim
figure into direct contrast with his own height and breadth, and
she had looked like a slim, half-grown boy beside his six feet and
over. Now, in her black and white checked sport skirt and dark
sweater jacket, she was revealed as a woman quite well above the
average height.

He was standing in front of the drug store when the big car went
by a few minutes later, filled with people. She was driving, the
chauffeur sitting in the seat beside her. In the tonneau he observed
the two Dowd sisters, Mr. and Mrs. Pollock and Flora Grady.

As the car whizzed by, A. Lincoln Pollock espied him. Waving his
hand triumphantly, the editor called out:

"Hello, Court!"

The object of this genial shout did not respond by word or action.
He looked to see if the girl at the wheel turned her head for a
glance in his direction. She did not, and he experienced a fresh
twinge of annoyance. He muttered something under his breath. The
car disappeared around a bend as he turned to enter the store.

"That was Alix Crown, Court," remarked Charlie Webster from the
doorway. "Little too dark to get a good look at her, but wait till
she flashes across you in broad daylight some time. She'll make you
forget all those Fifth Avenue skirts so quick your head'll swim."

"Is THAT so?" retorted Courtney, allowing rancour to get the
better of fairness. Down in his heart he had said that Alix Crown
was the loveliest girl he had ever seen. "What do you know about
Fifth Avenue?"

Charlie Webster grinned amiably. He was not offended by the other's
tone.

"Well, I've seen it in the movies," he explained. "What are you
sore about?"

"Sore? I'm not sore. What put that into your head?"

The rotund superintendent of the elevator fanned himself lazily
with his straw hat.

"If I was fifteen years younger and fifty pounds lighter," said
he, "I'd be sore too. But what's the use of a fat old slob like me
getting peeved because Miss Alix Crown don't happen to notice me?
Oh, we're great friends and all that, mind you, and she thinks a
lot of me,--as manager of her grain elevator. Same as she thinks
a lot of Jim Bagley, her superintendent,--and Ed Stevens, her
chauffeur, and so on. Now, as for you, it's different. You're from
New York and it goes against the grain to be overlooked, you might
say, by a girl from Indiana. Oh, I know what you New Yorkers think
of Indiana,--and all that therein is, as the Scriptures would say.
You think that nothing but boobs and corn-fed squaws come from
Indiana, but if you hang around long enough you'll find you're
mistaken. This state is full of girls like Alix Crown,--bright,
smart, good-looking girls that have been a hell of a ways farther
east than New York. Of course, there are boobs like me and Doc
Simpson and Tintype Hatch who get up to Chicago once every three
or four years and have to sew our return trip tickets inside our
belly-bands so's we can be sure of getting back home after Chicago
gets through admiring us, but now since prohibition has come in
I don't know but what we're as bright and clever as anybody else.
Most of the fellers I've run across in Chicago seem to be brightest
just after they change feet on the rail and ask the bartender if he
knows how to make a cucumber cocktail, or something else as clever
as that. But that ain't what we were talking about. We were talking
about--"

"I wasn't talking about anything," interrupted Courtney.

"Oh, yes, you were," said Charlie. "Not out loud, of course,--but
talking just the same. You were talking about Alix Crown and the
way she forgot to invite you to take a ride with the rest of--"

"See here, Webster,--are you trying to be offensive?"

"Offensive? Lord, no! I'm just TELLING you, that's all. On the
level now, am I right or wrong?"

"I do not know Miss Crown," replied Thane stiffly. "Why should I
expect her to ask me,--a total stranger,--to go out in her car?"

"Didn't Maude Pollock introduce you a while ago?"

"No," said the other succinctly.

"Well, by gosh, that ain't like Maude," exclaimed Charlie. "I'd
'a' bet two dollars she said 'I want to present my friend from New
York, Mr. Courtney Thane, the distinguished aviator, Miss Crown,'
or something like that. I can't understand Maude missing a chance
like that. She just LOVES it."

Courtney smiled. "I daresay she wasn't quick enough," he said drily.
"Miss Crown was in a hurry. And I left before she came out of the
house. Now is your curiosity satisfied?"

"Absolutely," said Charlie. "Now I'll sleep soundly tonight. I was
afraid the darned thing would keep me awake all night. Remember
me saying I had a small stock hid away up in my room? What say to
going up,--now that the coast is clear,--and having a nip or two?"

"No, thanks, old man. I don't drink. Doctor's orders. Besides,
I've got some letters to write. I'll walk home with you if you're
ready to go."

II

Mr. Webster shook his head sadly. "That's the one drawback to
livin' in Windomville," he said. "People either want to drink too
much or they don't want to drink at all. Nobody wants to drink in
moderation. Now, here's you, for instance. You look like a feller
that could kiss a highball or two without compromising yourself, and
there's Hatch that has to hold his nose so's he won't get drunk if
he comes within ten feet of a glass of whiskey." They were strolling
slowly toward the Tavern. "Now you up and claim you're on the water
wagon. I'd been counting on you, Court,--I certainly had. The last
time I took Hatch and Doc Simpson up to my room,--that was on the
Fourth of last July,--I had to sleep on the floor. Course, if I
was skinny like Doc and Hatch that wouldn't have been necessary.
But I can't bear sleepin' three in a bed. Doctor's orders, eh? That
comes of livin' in New York. There ain't a doctor in Indiana that
would stoop so low as that,--not one. Look at old man Nichols. He's
eighty-two years old and up to about a year ago he never missed a
day without taking a couple o' swigs of rye. He swears he wouldn't
have lived to be more than seventy-five if he hadn't taken his
daily nip. That shows how smart and sensible our doctors are out
here. They--"

"By the way, Mrs. Nichols appears to be a remarkably well-preserved
old lady,--aside from her hearing. How old is she?"

"Eighty-three. Wonderful old woman."

"I suppose she has always had her daily swig of rye."

Charlie Webster was silent for a moment. He had to think. This was
a very serious and unexpected complication.

"What did you say?" he inquired, fencing for time.

"Has she always been a steady drinker, like the old man?"

Charlie was a gentleman. He sighed.

"I guess it's time to change the subject," he said. "The only way
you could get a spoonful of whiskey down that old woman would be
to chloroform her. If I'm any good at guessin', she'll outlive the
old man by ten years,--so what's the sense of me preachin' to you
about the life preserving virtues of booze? Oh, Lordy! There's
another of my best arguments knocked galley-west. It's no use. I've
been playing old man Nichols for nearly fifteen years as a bright
and shining light, and he turns out to be nothing but a busted
flush. She's had eleven children and he's never had anything worse
than a headache, and, by gosh, he's hangin' onto her with both hands
for support to keep his other foot from slippin' into the grave.
But,"--and here his face brightened suddenly,--"there's one thing
to be said, Court. She didn't consult any darned fool doctor about
it."

Courtney was ashamed of his churlishness toward this good-natured
little man.

"Say no more, Charlie. I'll break my rule this once if it will
make you feel any better. One little drink, that's all,--in spite
of the doctor. He's a long way off, and I daresay he'll never
know the difference. Lead the way, old chap. Anything to cheer up
a disconsolate comrade."

A few minutes later they were in Webster's room, second floor
back. The highly gratified host had lighted the kerosene lamp on
the table in the centre of the room, and pulled down the window
shades. Then, putting his fingers to his lips to enjoin silence,
he tip-toed to the door and threw it open suddenly. After peering
into the hall and listening intently for a moment, he cautiously
closed it again.

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