Read Ebook: The Inn at the Red Oak by Griswold Latta

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Ebook has 1146 lines and 57652 words, and 23 pages

Again came the vigorous knocking. He ran across the room, let down the great oaken beam, and opened the door to the night and storm.

"Come in, travellers." A gust of wind and sleet rushed through the opening and stung their faces. With the gust there seemed to blow in the figure of a little old man wrapped in a great black coat, bouncing into their midst as if he were an India rubber ball thrown by a gigantic hand. Behind him strode in Manners, the liveryman of Monday Port.

"Here's a guest for you, Mr. Frost. I confess I did my best to keep him in town till morning, but nothing'd do; he must get to the Inn at the Red Oak to-night. We had a hellish time getting here too, begging the lady's pardon; but here we are."

Good-naturedly he had taken hold of his fare and, as he spoke, was helping the stranger unwrap himself from the enveloping cloak.

"He's welcome," said Dan. "Here, sir, let me sharply-pointed nose; a weak mouth, half-hidden by drooping white moustaches; and a small sharp chin, accentuated by a white beard nattily trimmed to a point. He was dressed entirely in black; a flowing coat of French cut, black small clothes, black stockings and boots that reached to the calves of his little legs. These boots were ornamented with great silver buckles, and about his neck and wrists showed bedraggled bits of yellowed lace."

He stood before the fire, speechless still; standing first on one foot then on the other; rubbing his hands the while as he held them to the grateful warmth.

Nancy had in the meanwhile drawn a glass of rum, and now advancing held it toward him a little gingerly. He took it eagerly and drained it at a gulp.

"Certainly, sir," said Dan. "It is late and we are unprepared, but we will put you up somehow. You too, Manners, had best let me bunk you till morning; you'll not be going back to the Port tonight? Nancy a fresh bumper for Mr. Manners."

"Thankee, sir; I managed to get out with the gentleman yonder, and I guess I'll manage to get back. But it's a rare night, masters. Just a minute, sir, and I'll be getting his honour's bags.... Thank ye kindly, Miss Nancy."

He drained the tumbler of raw spirit that Nancy held out. Then he opened the door again and went out into the storm, returning almost at once with the stranger's bags.

Dan turned to his sister. "Nancy dear, go stir up Susan and Deborah. We must have a fire made in the south chamber and some hot supper got ready. Tell Susan to rout out Jesse to help her. Say nothing to Mother; no need to disturb her. And now, sir," he continued, turning again to the stranger, "may I ask your name?"

The old gentleman ceased his springing seesaw for a moment, and fixed his keen black eyes on the questioner.

"Yes," said Dan, with a grim smile, "we are remote and quiet and secluded. You are welcome, sir, to what we have. Tom, see that Manners has another drink before he goes, will you? and do the honours for our guest, while Nance and I get things ready."

As he disappeared into the kitchen, following Nancy, the Marquis looking after him with a comical expression of gratitude upon his face. Tom drew another glass of rum, which Manners eagerly, if rashly, devoured. Then the liveryman wrapped himself in his furs, bade them good-night, and started out again into the storm for his drive back to Monday Port.

All this time the old gentleman stood warming his feet and hands at the fire, watching his two companions with quickly-shifting eyes, or glancing curiously over the great bar which the light of the fire and the few candles but faintly illuminated.

Having barred the door, Tom turned back to the hearth. "It is a bad night, sir."

"But yes," exclaimed the Marquis. "I think I perish. Oh! that dreary tavern at your Monday Port. I think when I arrive there I prefer to perish. But this, this is the old Inn at the Red Oak, is it not? And it dates, yes,--from the year 1693? The old inn, eh, by the great tree?"

"Yes, certainly," Pembroke answered; "at least, that is the date that some people claim is on the old cornerstone. You have been here before then, sir?"

"Oh, I see. And you have come far to-day?"

"From Coventry, monsieur--Monsieur--?"

"Pembroke," Tom replied, with a little start.

"Ah! yes, Monsieur Pembroke. A member of the household?"

"No--a friend."

"I make a mistake," quickly interposed the traveller, "Pardon. I am come from Coventry, Monsieur Pembroke, in an everlasting an eternal stage, a monster of a carriage, monsieur. It is only a few days since that I arrive from France."

"Ah, France!" exclaimed Tom, recalling that only a little while before he and Dan had been dreaming of that magic country. And here was a person who actually lived in France, who had just come from there, who extraordinarily chose to leave that delightful land for the Inn at the Red Oak in mid-winter.

"France," he repeated; "all my life, sir, I have been longing to go there."

"No, none," Tom answered. "I wish I had. You come from Paris, sir?"

For some time they chatted in such fashion, the Marquis answering Tom's many questions with characteristic French politeness, but turning ever and anon a pathetic glance toward the door through which Dan and Nancy had disappeared. It was with undisguised satisfaction that he greeted young Frost when he returned to announce that supper was ready.

"I famish!" the old gentleman exclaimed. "I have dined to-day on a biscuit and a glass of water."

They found the kitchen table amply spread with food,--cold meats, hot eggs and coffee, and a bottle of port. Monsieur de Boisdhyver ate heartily and drank his wine with relish, gracefully toasting Nancy as he did so. When his meal was finished, he begged with many excuses to be shown to his bedroom; and indeed his fatigue was evident. Dan saw him to the great south chamber, carrying a pair of lighted candles before. He made sure that all had been done that sulky sleepy maids could be induced to do, and then left him to make ready for the night.

Lights were extinguished in the parlour and the bar, the fires were banked, and the two young men went up to Dan's own room. There on either side of the warm hearth, had been drawn two great four-posted beds, and it took the lads but a moment to tumble into them.

"It's queer," said Dan, as he pulled the comfort snugly about his shoulders, calling to Tom across the way; "it's queer--the old chap evidently means to stay awhile. What does a French marquis want in a deserted hole like this, I'd like to know? But if he pays, why the longer he stays the better."

"I hope he does," said Tom sleepily. "He has a reason, I fancy, for he asked questions enough while you were out seeing to his supper. He seems to know the place almost as well as if he had been here before, though he said he hadn't. But, by gad, I wish you and I were snug in a little hotel on the banks of the Seine to-night and not bothering our heads about a doddering old marquis who hadn't sense enough to stay there."

"Wish we were," Dan replied. "Good-night," he called, realizing that his friend was too sleepy to lie awake and discuss any longer their unexpected guest.

"Good-night," murmured Tom, and promptly drifted away into dreams of the wonderful land he had never seen. As for Dan he lay awake a long time, wondering what could possibly have brought the old Marquis to the deserted inn at such a time of the year and on such a night.

THE LIONS EYE

Toward daylight the storm blew itself out, the wind swung round to the northwest, and the morning dawned clear and cold, with a sharp breeze blowing and a bright sun shining upon a snow-clad, ice-crusted world and a sparkling sapphire sea.

Dan had risen early and had set Jesse to clear a way across the court and down the avenue to the road. The maids, astir by dawn, were no longer sulky but bustled about at the preparation of an unusually good breakfast in honour of the new guest.

Mrs. Frost, who habitually lay till nine or ten o'clock behind the crimson curtains of her great bed, had caught wind of something out of the ordinary, demanded Nancy's early assistance, and announced her intention of breakfasting with the household.

She was fretful during the complicated process of her toilette and so hurt the feelings of her foster-daughter, that when Dan came to take her into the breakfast room, Nancy found an excuse for not accompanying them.

The Marquis was awaiting their appearance. He stood with his back-to the fire, a spruce and carefully-dressed little figure, passing remarks upon the weather with young Pembroke, who leaned his graceful length against the mantelpiece.

The noble traveller was presented with due ceremony to Mrs. Frost, who greeted him with old-world courtesy. She had had, indeed, considerably more association with distinguished personages than had most of the dames of the neighbouring farms who considered themselves her social superiors. She welcomed Monsieur de Boisdhyver graciously, enquiring with interest of his journey and with solicitude as to his rest during the night. She received with satisfaction his rapturous compliments on the comforts that had been provided him, on the beauty of the surrounding country upon which he had looked from the windows of his chamber, and on her own condescension in vouchsafing to breakfast with them. She was delighted that he should find the Inn at the Red Oak so much to his taste that he proposed to stay with them indefinitely.

They were soon seated at the breakfast-table and had addressed themselves to the various good things that black Deborah had provided. The native Johnny cakes, made of meal ground by their own windmill, the Marquis professed to find particularly tempting.

Despite Mrs. Frost's questions, despite his own voluble replies, Monsieur de Boisdhyver gave no hint, that there was any deeper reason for his seeking exile at the Inn of the Red Oak than that he desired rest and quiet and had been assured that he would find them there. And who had so complimented their simple abode of hospitality?

"Ah, madame," he murmured, lifting his tiny hands, "so many!"

"But I fear, monsieur," replied his hostess, "that you, who are accustomed to the luxuries of a splendid city like Paris, to so many things of which we read, will find little to interest and amuse you in our remote countryside."

"As for interest, madame," the Marquis protested, "there are the beauties of nature, your so delightful household, my few books, my writing; and for amusement, I have my violin;--I so love to play. You will not mind?--perhaps, enjoy it?"

"Indeed yes," said Mrs. Frost. "Dan, too, is a fiddler after a fashion; and as for Nancy, she has a passion for music, and dreams away many an evening while my son plays his old tunes."

"Ah, yes," said the Marquis, "Mademoiselle Nancy, I have not the pleasure to see her this morning?"

"No," replied Mrs. Frost, flushing a trifle at the recollection of why Nancy was not present, "she is somewhat indisposed--a mere trifle. You will see her later in the day. But, monsieur, you should have come to us in the spring or the summer, for then the country is truly beautiful; now, with these snow-bound roads, when not even the stagecoach passes, we are indeed lonely and remote."

He held her for a moment with his piercing little eyes, a faint smile upon his lips, as though to say that it was impossible he should be convinced that he had not found precisely what he was seeking, and insisting, as it were, that his hostess take his words as the compliment they were designed to be.

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