Warlock

A SMALL DISCOVERY.

When they had had a little talk over the narrative, the laird desired Cosmo to replace the papers, and rising he went to obey. As he approached the closet, the first beams of the rising sun were shining upon the door of it. The window through which they entered was a small one, and the mornings of the year in which they so fell were not many. When he opened the door, they shot straight to the back of the closet, lighting with rare illumination the little place, commonly so dusky that in it one book could hardly be distinguished from another. It was as if a sudden angel had entered a dungeon. When the door fell to behind him, as was its custom, the place felt so dark that he seemed to have lost memory as well as sight, and not to know where he was. He set it open again, and having checked it so, proceeded to replace the papers. But the strangeness of the presence there of such a light took so great a hold on his imagination, and it was such a rare thing to see what the musty dingy little closet, which to Cosmo had always been the treasure--chamber of the house, was like, that he stood for a moment with his hand on the cover of the bureau, gazing into the light-invaded corners as if he had suddenly found himself in a department of Aladdin's cave. Old to him beyond all memory, it yet looked new and wonderful, much that had hitherto been scarcely known but to his hands now suddenly revealed in radiance to his eyes also. Amongst other facts he discovered that the bureau stood, not against a rough wall as he had imagined, but against a plain surface of wood. In mild surprise he tapped it with his knuckles, and almost started at the hollow sound it returned.

"What can there be ahin' the bureau, father?" he asked, re-entering the room.

"I dinna ken o' onything," answered the laird. "The desk stan's close again' the wa', does na't?"

"Ay, but the wa' 's timmer, an' soon's how."

"It may be but a wainscotin'; an' gien there was but an inch atween hit an' the stane, it wad soon' like that."

"I wad like to draw the desk oot a bit, an' hae a nearer luik. It fills up a' the space,'at I canna weel win at it."

"Du as ye like, laddie. The hoose is mair yours nor mine. But noo ye hae putten't i' my held, I min' my mother sayin' 'at there was ance a passage atween the twa blocks o' the hoose: could it be there? I aye thoucht it had been atween the kitchen an' the dinin' room. My father, she said, had it closed up."

Said Cosmo, who had been gazing toward the closet from where he stood by the bedside,

"It seems to gang farther back nor the thickness o' the wa'!" He went and looked out of the western window, then turned again towards the closet. "I canna think," he resumed, with something like annoyance in his tone, "hoo it cud be 'at I never noticed that afore! A body wad think I had nae heid for what I prided mysel' upo'--an un'erstan'in' o' hoo things are putten thegither, specially i' the w'y o' stane an' lime! The closet rins richt intil the great blin' wa' atween the twa hooses! I thoucht that wa' had been naething but a kin' o' a curtain o' defence, but there may weel be a passage i' the thickness o' 't!"

So saying he re-entered the closet, and proceeded to move the bureau. The task was not an easy one. The bureau was large, and so nearly filled the breadth of the closet, that he could attack it nowhere but in front, and had to drag it forward, laying hold of it where he could, over a much-worn oak floor. The sun had long deserted him before he got behind it.

"I wad sair like to brak throu the buirds, father?" he said, going again to the laird.

"Onything ye like, I tell ye, laddie! I'm growin' curious mysel'," he answered.

"I'm feart for makin' ower muckle din, father."

"Nae fear, nae fear! I haena a sair heid. The Lord be praist, that's a thing I'm seldom triblet wi'. Gang an' get ye what tools ye want, an' gang at it, an' dinna spare. Gien the hole sud lat in the win', ye'll mar nae mair, I'm thinkin', nor ye'll be able to mak again. What timmer is 't o'?"

"Only deal, sae far as I can judge."

Cosmo went and fetched his tool-basket, and set to work. The partition was strong, of good sound pine, neither rotton nor worm-eaten--inch-boards matched with groove and tongue, not quite easy to break through. But having, with a centre-bit and brace, bored several holes near each other, he knocked out the pieces between, and introducing a saw, soon made an opening large enough to creep through. A cold air met him. as if from a cellar, and on the other side he seemed in another climate.

Feeling with his hands, for there was scarcely any light, he discovered that the space he had entered was not a closet, inasmuch as there was no shelf, or anything in it, whatever. It was certainly most like the end of a deserted passage. His feet told him the floor was of wood, and his hands that the walls were of rough stone without plaster, cold and damp. With outstretched arms he could easily touch both at once. Advancing thus a few paces, he struck his head against wood, felt panels, and concluded a door. There was a lock, but the handle was gone. He went back a little, and threw himself against it. Lock and hinges too gave way, and it fell right out before him. He went staggering on, and was brought up by a bed, half-falling across it. He was in the spare room, the gruesome centre of legend, the dwelling of ghostly awe. Not yet apparently had its numen forsaken it, for through him passed a thrill at the discovery. From his father's familiar room to this, was like some marvellous transition in a fairy-tale; the one was home, a place of use and daily custom; the other a hollow in the far-away past, an ancient cave of Time, full of withering history. Its windows being all to the north and long unopened, it was lustreless, dark, and musty with decay.

Cosmo stood motionless a while, gazing about him as if, from being wide awake, he suddenly found himself in a dream. Then he turned as if to see how he had got into it. There lay the door, and there was the open passage! He lifted the door: the other side of it was covered with the same paper as the wall, from which it had brought with it several ragged pieces. He went back, crept through, and rejoined his father.

In eager excitement, he told him the discovery he had made.

"I heard the noise of the falling door," said his father quietly. "I should not wonder now," he added, "if we discovered a way through to the third block."

"Oh, father," said Cosmo with a sigh, "what a comfort this door would have so often been! and now, just as we are like to leave the house forever, we first discover it!"

"How well we have got on without it!" returned his father.

"But what could have made grandfather close it up?"

"There was, I believe, some foolish ghost-story connected with it--perhaps the same old Grannie told you."

"I wonder grandmamma never spoke of it!"

"My impression is she never cared to refer to it."

"I daresay she believed it."

"Weel, I daursay! I wadna won'er!"

"What for did ye ca' 't foolish, father?"

"Jist for thouchtlessness, I doobt, But wha could hae imagined to kep a ghaist by paperin' ower a door, whan, gien there be ony trowth i' sic tales, the ghaist gangs throu a stane wa' jist as easy's open air! But surely o' a' fules a ghaist maun be the warst 'a things on aboot a place!"

"Maybe it's to haud away frae a waur. The queer thing, father, to me wad be 'at the ghist, frae bein' a fule a' his life, sud grow a wise man the minute he was deid! Michtna it be a pairt o' his punishment to be garred see hoo things gang on efter he's deid! What could be sairer, for instance, upon a miser, nor to see his heir gang to the deevil by scatterin' what he gaed to the deevil by gatherin'?"

"'Deed ye're richt eneuch, there, my son!" answered the old man. Then after a pause he resumed. "It's aye siller or banes 'at fesses them back. I can weel un'erstan' a great reluctance to tak their last leave o' the siller, but for the banes--eh, but I'll be unoo pleased to be rid o' mine!"

"But whaur banes are concernt, hasna there aye been fause play?" suggested Cosmo.

"Wad it be revenge, than, think ye?"

"It micht be: maist o' the stories o' that kin' en' wi' bringin' the murderer an' justice acquant. But the human bein' seems in a' ages to hae a grit dislike to the thoucht o' his banes bein' left lyin' aboot. I hae h'ard gran'mamma say the dirtiest servan' was aye clean twa days o' her time--the day she cam an' the day she gaed."

"Ye hae thoucht mair aboot it nor me, laddie! But what ye say wadna haud wi' the Parsees, 'at lay oot their deid to be devoored by the birds o' the air."

"They swipe up their banes at the last. An', though the livin' expose the deid, the deid mayna like it."

"I daursay. Ony gait it maun be a fine thing to lea' as little dirt as possible ahin' ye, an' tak nane wi' ye. I wad frain gang clean an' lea' clean!"

"Gien onybody gang clean an' lea' clean, father, ye wull."

"I luik to the Lord, my son.--But noo, whan a body thinks o' 't," he went on after a pause, "there wad seem something curious i' thae tales concernin' the auld captain! Sometime we'll tak Grizzie intil oor coonsel, an' see hoo mony we can gaither, an' what we can mak o' them whan we lay them a' thegither. Gien the Lord hae't in his min' to keep 's i' this place, yon passage may turn oot a great convanience."

"Ye dinna think it wad be worth while openin' 't up direc'ly?"

"I wad bide for warmer weather. I think the room's jist some caller now by rizzon o' 't."

"I'll close't up at ance," said Cosmo.

In a few minutes he had screwed a box-lid over the hole in the partition, and shut the door of the closet.

"Noo," he said, "I'll gang an' set up the door on the ither side."

Before he went however, he told his father what he had been thinking of, saying, if he approved and was well enough, he should like to go the next day.

"It's no an ill idea," said the laird; "but we'll see what the morn may be like."

When Cosmo entered the great bedroom of the house from the other side, he stood for a moment staring at the open passage and prostrate door as if he saw them for the first time, then proceeded to examine the hinges. They were broken; the half of each remained fast to the door-post, the other half to the door. New hinges were necessary; in the meantime he must prop it up. This he did; and before he left the room, as it was much in want of fresh air, he opened all the windows.

His father continuing better through that day, he went to bed early that he might start at sunrise.

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