|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 42
A ladder? Kenny caught his breath and stood still, quite still. It
was a ladder. Some one was climbing down. Branch after branch the
climber touched with unerring instinct and ran off noiselessly through
the orchard to the south.
Kenny's heart throbbed with a ghastly fear.
It was Joan.
He knew what lay to the south beyond the orchard: woodlands and
wildness, nothing else. The fields Hughie cultivated stretched to the
north from the kitchen windows. There in the forest to the south where
the river curved off at a tangent and flowed directly east, Brian had
had his camp. On farther Joan had never cared to go. Where did she go
now in the starlit darkness, climbing down the wistaria ladder with a
cloak around her shoulders? To what did she venture through the
solitude of whispering trees and the gloom of the pine forest?
A lover's tryst? Kenny sickened and choked. He could not follow her.
He would not.
He turned back instead and went to bed to lie wakeful until dawn with
something new and horrible gnawing at his heartstrings. Then he fell
asleep and dreamed of monsters.
CHAPTER XI
THE CABIN IN THE PINES
He did not mean to go again. He did not mean to watch the wistaria
vine. He went, he told himself wildly, to evade the summons that was
sure to come from Adam Craig. But when the glimmer of wistaria swayed
beneath a footfall, madness came upon him and he went stealthily
through orchard and forest, stalking the flutter of a cloak.
The river turned. Joan followed the bend for a little way and struck
off again into the thick of the forest through the cloistered gloom of
many pines. She came, after what seemed to Kenny a long, long time, to
a rude cabin made of logs. There was a light in the window. Joan
opened the door and disappeared.
If he had known definitely what he thought, he told himself with an
Irish twist, the agony of his suspense would have been worse and less.
The sharp intensity of the pain in his heart terrified him. Whatever
lay in the cabin of logs was something apart from him. The night
noises of the forest blared strangely in his ears. He was conscious of
the odor of pines; conscious of a shower of pine-needles when he
brushed back against a tree. And there were cones beneath his feet.
But his madness would not bear him on to the cabin door. At intervals
with fire in his brain he knew he heard the voice of a man.
In a vague eternity of minutes he waited until the door opened and
lamplight streamed brightly over the sill. A man stepped forth.
Something seemed to snap in Kenny's heart. Relief roared in his ears
and rushed unbidden to his lips.
"Oh, my God!" he gasped.
It was the gentle, white-haired minister with a book beneath his arm.
Startled the old man drew back and peered uncertainly into the
darkness. Kenny approached.
"I--I beg your pardon," he said, wiping his forehead. "I'm sorry."
Joan came to the door and stared.
"Kenny!" she exclaimed. And her voice had in it a note of distress.
She glanced at Mr. Abbott, who glanced in turn at Kenny with an air of
gentle inquiry. His confidence in Mr. O'Neill, never very robust, had
waned that day upon the river. It was weakening more and more.
Tongue-tied and scarlet, Kenny stared into the cabin. Its single room
with its raftered walls, books and a lamp, an old-fashioned stove, a
work-basket, a faded rag-carpet and the trophies of childhood, boy and
girl, was snug and comfortable.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|