Ready and Willing: or, Guy Powers' Watchword

Front matter

aC. THE TEMPLE IN THE WOOD. Page 176. Ready and Willing. SETTING UP THE GRAPE-POSTS. Page IJI. Œbomas IRelson an£> Sons, LO X DON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK. J^EADY AND WILLING; OK, <5u\> powers' Matebworo. By J. T. HOPKINS. " Leaning on Thee, with child-like faith, To Thee the future I confide ; Each step in life's untrodden path Thy love will guide." Elliott. T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW. EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK. 1885. CSsontcnts. I. THE WEST-SIDE DOOR, ... ... ... ... 7 II. THE HOLLOWBLOOM HOUSE, ... ... ... 12 III. THE HOLLOWBLOOM BOTS, ... ... ... ... 19 IV. THE HAKP AND THE PORTFOLIO, ... ... ... 28 V. TO-MORROW, ... ... ... ... ... 39 VI. THE REPLY, ... ... ... ... ... 46 VII. THE FORSAKEN ROOM, ... ... ... ... 62 VIII. READY AND WILLING, ... ... ... ... 62 IX. THE SOUTH CHAMBER, ... ... ... ... 67 X. WAITING AND OFF, ... ... ... ... 79 XI.

THE YELLOW DEED AND THE WARNING, ... ... 297 XXX. EXPLANATION, ... ... ... ... ... 304 XXXI. THE CASTLE INVADED, ... ... ... ... 312 XXXII. STANDING BY, ... ... ... ... ... 322 XXXIII. " THE MASTER COMETH," ... ... ... ... 331 XXXIV. ALARM IN THE HOLLOWBLOOM HOUSE, ... ... 340 XXXV. ALMOST LOST, ... ... ... ... ... 346 XXXVI. SURPRISES, ... ... ... ... ... READY AND WILLING.

Chapter I. The West-side Door

The great brass knocker of the Hollowbloom side door lifted and fell again with a loud double rap of its great shining fist. Not the commonplace rap of some one who could wait as well as not, or who even begged pardon for intruding at all ; there was a triumphant whang in the echo, as if a goal had been reached, and as if something of importance had been brought by the one who applied for admittance. A light step crossed the room within, and a half turned blind allowed a bright dark eye to sweep for one instant across the broad flagstone before the door. The sweep took in the fringe of grass that bordered the stone, a stray trumpet-flower that had dropped from the vine above, and a pair of heavy winter moccasins, over which swung the hems of wide linen trousers bleached nearly white, while a hand muffled in a shaggy gray mitten bent to pick up the crimson flower.

"Oh, it's Drake, poor fellow;" and in another moment the door swung open, bringing the com pletion of the costume into view — a blue cardigan jacket with heavy stripes of red, and a sharp-peaked straw hat, with ribbon fluttering behind. An eager face, shaded by lank black hair, looked out from under the hat, while one hand crumpled something with a watchful grasp. " Here, Miss Hollowbloom. Here, Miss Cly. They had this waiting for you, but I made 'em give it up. I said I'd bring it down myself. I brought it down myself, you see, because — ;" and the imbecile glanced furtively over his shoulder and lowered his voice — " it's one of the evil days to-day — it's one of the evil days ; " and he thrust a square, important-looking letter into Miss Hollowbloom's hand. It touched her with a brush of the gray mitten and a thrill of half -recollection at once.

When had she seen that handwriting before ? " Yes," went on Drake eagerly, mistaking her thought ; " how could i" tell whether the boys would look in at the mail to-day ? They might not look in at all, and such a thing as a letter is safer at home, Miss Cly. And you did me a good turn once, you know. You did me a good turn once." Miss Hollowbloom recovered herself to give Drake the thanks he was waiting for. " You are very good," she said, " very good. The letter is much better here. And so it is a day of trouble once more, is it, Drake ?" Drake answered with one or two sharp nods that shook his black hair and made the hat-ribbon flutter afresh; and then, as if the hidden soul suddenly looked out, a gleam lighted his face, and he broke into a rich ringing laugh that echoed against the old chestnut trees at the gate.

" But they couldn't compass it, Miss Cly. They couldn't compass it, and they never will. I came off conqueror, and brought the old bag safe through once more ! " And with another peal of laughter, Drake turned and disappeared under the trees, his arms waving victoriously over his head. " It is time for that stupid trick to wear out," the lady said. " Whenever the spirit of mischief seizes man or boy in this town, the one glorious vent for it is to make that poor faithful fellow think they are going to rob him of his mail;" and then her eyes came back with a quick flash to the missive he had brought. She passed one swift glance from corner to corner of its envelope, and then went back into the sitting-room, and closed the door. Miss Hollowbloom, or Miss Cly, as she was gener ally called — Clytemnestra being rather long and lofty for every-day use — was not given to losing time when a thing was to done.

With a quick turn of the blind for a better light, she seated herself in her high-backed rocking-chair, and with a thrust of her paper-knife opened the letter and drew it out. One glance at the date was enough. She saw from whom it had come. But what was that yellowed, half-crumpled note that fell with a faint perfume from the inside page ? For a moment Miss Hollowbloom let it lie where it had dropped in her lap ; then with a strange feeling, as if she were touching some mysterious thing, she took it up, opened it, and with a start, and a strange light in her eyes, read and reread the few faint lines before she turned to the larger sheet. For the next half-hour Miss Hollowbloom sat with varying expressions chasing each other over her face; a strange, yearning look of tenderness, then grief, regret, then perplexity, and resolution, and dismay.

Over and over again one followed the other, while she sometimes started up and walked about the room, and then returned to her seat, her large brilliant eyes — real Hollowbloom eyes — first melting with tenderness and then shining with determination, as they rested on the faded note. At last determination seemed to mount upper most ; she let the papers fall again into her lap, and folded her hands firmly over them as they lay. But determination evidently brought dismay in its train, and that feeling broke from her lips at last in the exclamation, — " Another boy ! " The words dropped slowly, one syllable at a time, and then the tall clock that had stood in the corner ever since the first Hollowbloom's day, ticked an other quarter of an hour away before she spoke again. " Another boy in the Hollowbloom house !

An other for me to bring up, and before I have the two that belong to me fairly off my hands ! " Silence fell again, and the sun crept away from the flagstone and disappeared round the corner of the house. Suddenly Miss Cly started to her feet, and throwing the blind open wide, looked anxiously under the chestnut boughs and over the winding road down which Drake had disappeared. "I wish the boys would come home," she said impatiently. " It is getting late."

Chapter II. The Hollowbloom House

The Hollowbloom house was one of the stateliest mansions that the little town of Bolingbroke .could boast. It stood on a rise of land, just where the road, when a half -worn track to the next town, had struck into a heavy old chestnut-grove ; now the road was a solid highway, macadamized, toll-gated, and the pride of the country round about. But a few of the old chestnuts still stood sentinels against the house, while the two that the first Hollowbloom had planted by the gate, striplings from the old grove, spread their branches as wide and towered as high as any ancestor time had spared. The first Hollowbloom had had a good many queer notions of his own, his neighbours said, and though two or three generations had passed since then, it was still the opinion of some people that all the Hollowblooms were alike.

They certainly lived along in very much the same way; with the same heavy wainscotting and fluted friezes round the stately old rooms; the same tall clock with a moon on its face and a gilt eagle at the top, ticking silently in its place ; and the same brass knockers at the doors — the larger of these, a broad, jocund face, with the handle piercing its brows, looking steadily out at the front, while the heavy fist that Drake had lifted glittered on the more modest west side. The brass face, beaming though it was, did not welcome very frequent visitors. The great front door, with its carved portals and fluted sides, was hardly ever opened except on rare and important occasions ; it was the side-door, with its pillared portico and old trumpet-flower vine, to which every body came, and towards it Miss Cly, apparently dissatisfied with the view that the window gave, now moved restlessly.

She stepped out upon the flagstone where Drake had stood, and shading her face with her hand, looked through a gap in the trees that gave a more distant stretch. But still no one came in sight, and as the sun dropped still lower in the sky a half-perceptible mist began to rise in the valley beyond. "Those boys ought to be here," said Miss Cly again. " It never does suit Tom to be out after a fog comes up." She passed in again towards the sitting-room, closing the door behind her as she went. The latch was not quite pressed in, and it sprang open again with a little sound. She turned her head and saw it, and saw also a branch of the old vine tossed through by a passing breeze. She threw it out hastily, then drew it as quickly in again, and held it a moment with a hardly visible trembling in her hand; then dropping it, she left it where it was, and went back to her chair, with a sound that in any one but a Hollowbloom would have been thought sufficiently like a sob.

Apparently the letter, and the anxious watching and the stray vine-branch all had some close con nection ; but what Miss Cly thought and felt was almost always a secret of her own, and as far as the bit of trumpet-vine was concerned, no human being but herself had the slightest clue to the tale that it whispered. If the clue had once been given, though, a part at least of the story could easily have been told, for there was not a neighbour or a gossip in Bolingbroke but knew it from beginning to end. In fact, at that very moment it was being rehearsed, for the fiftieth time, in the kitchen at the end of the long stoop that ran out from the main part of the house. " Yes, there's a good many queer things might be said about the Hollowblooms," went on a rather high-pitched voice ; " and one of the queerest of 'em all is as how Miss Cly was the first girl of the name ever born in the old house since the day it was built.

I've seen two first-born sons step in and take the old place as they fell heir to it ; and there's older men than I can tell you of a third one before 'em. That's four generations hand running, and not a single change off till it came to Miss Cly, though there was boys enough before her and after her in the old Squire's day. A wonderful queer thing, / say, and no prospect of anything more to come to pass, one way or the other, for there hasn't been a wedding in the house for many a day, nor isn't like to be, as I can see. It's few thoughts the boys that are left seem to give to marrying yet, no more than if they were infants ; and as for Miss Cly, it's a rare pity ; but I suppose there was never the man as dared to ask ; " and a thin, quavering laugh finished the remark. The person to whom it was addressed did not reply ; her attention seemed absorbed in the contents of a steaming kettle from which she was just lifting the lid, and the speaker continued, — " And then, as if the queer luck must go on, there was all that trouble she had with little Miss Nell.

Dear land of liberty ! It looks like only yesterday, but it is near sixteen years ago. I was counting them up only the other day, and they took the five fingers of both hands, and the first hand over again the second time, and one finger of the other hand — sixteen good years this coming fall since she went out of the house ; twenty years old she was, and I suppose never a word about her has come into it since. And 'twas ten years before that, to a day, that I brought her here myself — drove her to the door with old Blackhawk to the Squire's shay. As pretty a lassie she was as ever this village felt step on its streets. Only Mr. Guy's child, to be sure — only Mr. Guy, that the Squire had driven away for being as high-headed as himself, and that left Mr. Roger oldest son again by dying. But I saw how things went with my own eyes.

I saw how Miss Cly caught her up and held her till she nigh took the child's breath, the first moment she stepped over the threshold of the door. And I kept the run of things all the way on after that. I saw how it cut Miss Cly to the heart when she ran away at last, and left her only the boys again that she'd had worry enough with before, and has still ; though, as I was saying, 'twill be the wonderfulest thing of all if there's a day to be when there's not another boy coming into the name. But it cut her to the heart ; didn't it now, Mistress Abigail ? Eh, didn't it now ? Or haven't you a word to say this afternoon ? " " Mistress Abigail," if so Nabby Granger, the faithful guardian for thirty -five years of the Hollow bloom kitchen, should be called, placed the lid firmly over her kettle, and crossing her arms, turned with a withering look.

" Yes, Adam Gorringer, I have something to say ; and that is, that it's a very poor sound coming from you or any of the rest of us, to take such a choice of words as to talk of Miss Nelly running away ! She measured her strength with Miss Cly about a thing as she wanted her own way about, and as they never chose to tell any of us what it was ; and you know as well as I do, that no Hollowbloom ever gave up, and that's all as is to be said about it. Nor I don't see as the family paying you wages for thirty years past is any reason why you should say any more, nor that you shouldn't talk of ' the young gentlemen' instead of 'the boys,' nor be waking up the family bygones to talk over, when there's plenty of work waiting for you outside the door." Adam rose and shook himself with a helplessly indignant look. .

Nabby 's remarks were exceedingly distasteful in their tone, but experience had long ago taught him that to retreat was his safest course when she commenced attack. "It may be all that's to be said, Mistress Abigail, and it may be you've heard the boys called anything else hereabout ; but as for knowing, I tell you again, 7" know it cut Miss Cly to the heart, and she's never been the same since, what is more, proud as she looks, i" know, I say. I've seen things in my day. i" know ! " and Adam moved stiffly off, muttering his last words over to himself as he went. Adam did know a good deal, it is true, but he did not know that on that morning nearly sixteen years ago, "when Miss Cly came down," the west-side door, where Nelly had gone out, stood ajar, and a branch of the trumpet-vine lay wandering in at the crack, and Miss Cly had never seen it happen again IS THE HOLLOWBLOOM HOUSE. till to-day.

And Adam did not know she was looking, the very moment he spoke, at something else she had never seen from that day to this — the handwriting of the note she still held in her hand, and its signature, " Your own poor Nell."

Chapter III. The Hollowbloom Boys

As Adam's step ground over the gravel towards the work that Nabby suggested was waiting for him, another sound came faintly in from the road down which Miss Cly had been gazing just before. It drew nearer, and in another moment a light waggon came in sight, driving rapidly towards the house. Miss Cly's boys were coming at last. The waggon whirled up to the door, and Miss Cly met it there with the restless look still in her face. " I am glad you have come, boys," she said. " It is very late." " Late ? Oh no. What are you thinking of ? " responded a cheery voice, and a strong, well-built man, with threads of gray just appearing in the crisp curls at his temples, put the reins into his com panion's hands. " But look at the fog, Tom. And I expected you at three. It is only a ten-miles' drive."

" That's true, but it seemed as if we couldn't get (781) off. I meant to start an hour before. — Just take Shanter round to the stable, won't you, Roger ? " " Where's Adam ? " was the response ; and Roger, whose close-cut hair showed even a thicker sprink ling of gray than his brother's, sat still with a very unacquiescent look on his smooth - shaved, florid face. " Oh, never mind, then. I'll take him myself directly. I want to look into the house a moment first." "But you know the creature won't stand. — Hey, there ! Hold still ! " said Roger, tightening the rein on the horse, which stood with distended nostrils, impatiently pawing, and striking sparks from the driveway stones. " That's right. Just hold him a moment, and I'll be there ; " and Tom disappeared into the house. "As if we didn't all know what his minutes mean," muttered Roger, with an annoyed glance over his shoulder.

" Where's that fellow Adam ? Can any one tell ? " "Give me the reins, and I'll take him myself," said Miss Cly, whose eyes began to grow bright. " You ? Nonsense." Fortunately at this moment Adam's stooping, square shoulders came in sight around the corner of the stoop. Roger sprang out, Adam took his seat, and with a thin, sharp whinny, Shanter half reared, struck the air once or twice with his delicate hoof, and then coming gently clown, sped towards the stable-door. Nabby 's housekeeping instincts always seemed to meet the exact moment that brought travellers home, and the savoury dish that had kept her back so long turned upon Adam was steaming already on the table, with tempting whiffs stealing out from under an old silver cover, and Miss Cly and Roger were waiting to take their seats, before Tom came bustling back to the side-door.

" Now, then, I'll take the creature," he announced ; but the road was clear, and the clatter of hoofs came back from the stable-floor as Shanter curvetted under Adam's brush. With a little start of surprise, he turned and entered the dining-room. " So you didn't wait after all ! Why couldn't you hold on a minute for a man ? " he asked in the same cheery tones that had answered Miss Cly before. " Wait !" echoed Roger, with a half growl. "We've done waiting enough, if that is all. Don't you see supper 's on the table now ? " "Yes, yes, I see. I'll be there. Let me just step upstairs one moment first." "We'll let you do nothing of the kind. Come along and eat your supper like a man. " And Roger laid a hand that was encouraging, to say the least, on his brother's shoulder. " Come, boys, " said Miss Cly quietly ; and with a wry face Tom sat down, and divided his attention between Nabby's dish and a running account of his afternoon's drive.

But he had not a very good listener in Miss Cly. The letter Drake had brought seemed burning in her pocket. Would tea never be over, and the right moment for speaking of it come ? Not until everything was quiet, at least. She could never talk of it till the boys should get settled down. "What's the matter with you, Cly?" asked Tom at last, as he caught the impatient look in her eyes ; but at that moment Nabby came in with a great branching candlestick, which she placed in the centre of the table, while she proceeded to take the tea things away, and then, at a sign from Miss Cly, touched a light to the fire already laid upon the hearth. The fog had wrapped quite around the house, and the twilight was chilly and damp. The fire cracked and curled and flickered back from the old brass andirons, and Roger opened his newspaper and shook it out.

" I'll sit here and read awhile, since you make it so tempting," he said. " This is all the mail brought to-day — no letter at all." " Yes," said Miss Cly quietly. " There was a letter. I have it here." Roger stopped, with his paper half-turned, and gave her a quick, inquiring glance, and Tom looked up from the greyhound he was petting at his side. " A letter ? How did it come here ? " "Drake brought it. They had been frightening him again with that silly pretence of trying to take his mail, and it always fills his head with notions when they do that;" and Miss Cly laid the letter and the note upon the table, pushing them a little towards Roger, where he sat. He reached out for them, when she drew them hastily back, half covering the note with one hand. " Wait a moment, boys," she said, with a strange sound in her voice ; " wait till I tell you what it says."

She hesitated again, and then, as if she would have it over, went on hastily. " This is one from Nelly, written to me." The half-opened paper almost fell from Roger's hand, and Tom sprang up with a suddenness that sent Troy under the table with a whimper of dismay. It was over fifteen years since that name had been spoken in the house, and five years since Roger, as oldest son, had received a letter stating that Nelly was dead. And now was Miss Cly talking of ghosts ? But there was the bit of paper that no ghost could ever have sent. — Roger stretched out his hand again. "Hush, boys. Wait. I'll tell you. This" — and Miss Cly touched the letter with a white, well-formed finger, that wore an old Hollowbloom ring — " this is from a lawyer where she lived ; the same one who wrote to you, Roger, five years ago.

This time he writes to say that her husband — the man who stole her from us — is gone too, and that in looking over his papers and effects this note in Nelly's hand was found, written on ahnost the last day of her life written with a dying request to us ; and that man " — and a flash came into Miss Cly's black eyes—" that man has dared to keep it back all this time." There was silence a moment, and then Tom's voice broke it in a lowered tone. " Poor little Nell ! And What did she want, then, that we could have done ?" Miss Cly uncovered the note and passed it to his side of the table. He took it with a strange feeling, as he touched a message from one so long lost, drew the candles nearer, and read, — - " Dear, dear Aunt Cly ! I have loved you so much all this time. But I could not come to you — that I could not do — and how could I make you believe in my love, if I never came ?

And now I am going further — oh, so much further away. I can never, never come now ; never hear you say what I have longed to hear so many years — that you have forgiven me all my wrong. " But, dear Aunt Cly, will you say it to my boy ? I want to feel that, besides his father's love and care, he will have some woman to look to, some woman whose kin he is. And — life is so uncertain ; we cannot tell what may come — if he should be left alone, will not you let him be with you — you and the boys ? "I am tired, so tired, but I must write this. I know what you will say. I shall watch and watch for the answer ; and oh, I hope I shall be here when it comes. Tell the boys I have always loved them. Good-bye, dear Aunt Cly ! Good-bye ! " Your own poor Nell." Tom folded the paper hastily, saying with a very suspicious faltering in his voice, "Poor child!

Of course, of course. And her husband 's dead, too, now. Then we should certainly bring the boy here. We'll do it for her, of course, some day. There's no special haste, I suppose." "What's that you're saying? What is it all about?" asked Roger, growing impatient. "She wants us to look after her boy," said Tom, speaking as if the note had been written that day. — " How old is he now ? She doesn't say, I believe. We can't refuse her, of course." Roger gave one quick, close look at Tom's face, and another at his sister's, and then made his own reply in one long-drawn sound : " Whe-ew ! " Tom turned quickly upon him, exclaiming, " What's that ? What do you say ? You don't mean you'd refuse a thing like that ? " Roger took up his paper again and folded it to wards the light. " I mean to say I think there have been boys enough in this family for two or three generations back, and I don't see the advantage of bringing any more in just now."

" Who's talking about advantage ? Here! Read this ! " and Tom pushed Nelly's note towards Roger's hand. Roger took the bit of paper, read it, passed it back to Miss Cly, and turned his paper to the light again with a look changed a trifle, but unyielding still. " Well ? " said Tom. " Well," answered his brother, looking him quietly in the eye. " Have you read it ? What have you to say now ?" " I have nothing more to say ; " and the newspaper was doubled once more for a closer view. " I am sorry " — he hesitated, and his voice softened a shade — " I am sorry the child brought so much trouble on herself. If that miserable fellow she married had died before her, it would have been better ; but this boy — we have nothing to do with him — know no thing of him, in fact." " We know this?' and Tom made a gesture towards the note.

" She has been dead five years. It can make no difference to her." Miss Cly uttered a half-smothered exclamation, and Roger went on. " What difference can it make to her ? Let the boy stay with his friends, whoever they are. No one knows that, I suppose, but they can probably do all that is required." Tom looked inquiringly at Miss Cly. "' Where is the boy, to be sure ? Or how old is he ? Does any one know ? " Miss Cly opened the lawyer's letter, and read : " His father's friends will be more than happy to retain the boy until hearing your pleasure in the case. He has just reached fifteen years of age, and I should be glad to see my own sons promise as well." Tom looked triumphantly across the table. " Does that answer any of your objections, Roger ?" he asked. "None in the world. I say we have had boys enough in the family, and I see no occasion for bringing in more."

" Come, come, man ! Are you out of your head ? We must bring him here, of course, some day. There's time enough, to be sure. A little time can make no difference after five years. When the right day comes, we'll see." Roger settled himself to his reading with a grim smile. " You can do some of the waiting you are so fond of, before that day comes. If it waits for my consent, it will — " " Boys," said Miss Cly quietly, though the hand that wore the Hollowbloom ring trembled a little, " the child must come here, and I wish one of you to go for him without delay. If that man were still living, I don't see how I could possibly have anything to do with the boy, even though Nell asked it ; but as he's dead, the case is entirely altered."