Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries Read online

  But my uncle was serious.

  “Go on, Belts,” he said. “I do not believe that any man entered your house and robbed you. But why do you think that a witch did?”

  “Well, Abner,” answered the old man, “who could have got in but such a creature? A thief cannot crawl through a keyhole, but there are things that can. My grandmother said that once in the old country a man awoke one night to see a gray wolf sitting by his fireside. He had an ax, as I have, and he fought the wolf with that and cut off its paw, whereupon it fled screaming through the keyhole. And the paw lying on the floor was a woman’s hand!”

  “Then, Belts,” cried Randolph, “it’s damned lucky that you didn’t use your ax, if that is what one finds on the floor.”

  Randolph had spoken with pompous sarcasm, but at the words there—came upon Abner’s face a look of horror. “It is,” he said, “in God’s name!” Belts leaned forward in his chair.

  “And what would have happened to me, Abner, do you think, if I had used my ax? Would I have died there with the ax in my hand?”

  The look of horror remained upon my uncle’s face. “You would have wished for that when the light came; to die is sometimes to escape the pit.”

  “I would have fallen into hell, then?”

  “Aye, Belts,” replied my uncle, “straightway into hell!”

  The old man rested his hands on the posts of the chair. “The creatures behind the world are baleful creatures,” he muttered in his big whisper. Randolph got up at that.

  “Damme!” he said. “Are we in the time of Roger Williams, and is this Massachusetts, that witches ride and men are filched of their gold by magic and threatened with hell fire? What is this cursed foolery, Abner?”

  “It is no foolery, Randolph,” replied my uncle, “but the living truth.

  “The truth!” cried Randolph. “Do you call it the truth that creatures, not human, able to enter through the keyhole and fly away, have Belts’ gold, and if he had fought against this robbery with his ax he would have put himself in torment? Damme, man! In the name of common sense, do you call this the truth?”

  “Randolph,” replied Abner, and his voice was slow and deep, “it is every word the truth.”

  Randolph moved back the chair before him and sat down. He looked at my uncle curiously.

  “Abner,” he said, “you used to be a crag of common sense. The legends and theories of fools broke on you and went to pieces. Would you now testify to witches?”

  “And if I did,” replied my uncle, “I should have Saint Paul behind me.”

  “The fathers of the church fell into some errors,” replied Randolph.

  “The fathers of the law, then?” said Abner.

  Randolph took his chin in his hand at that. “It is true,” he said, “that Sir Matthew Hale held nothing to be so well established—as the fact of witchcraft for three great reasons, which he gave in their order, as became the greatest judge in England: First, because it was asserted in the Scriptures; second, because all nations had made laws against it; and, third, because the human testimony in support of it was overwhelming. I believe that Sir Matthew had knowledge of some six thousand cases … But Mr. Jefferson has lived since then, Abner, and this is Virginia.”

  “Nevertheless,” replied my uncle, “after Mr. Jefferson, and in Virginia, this thing has happened.”

  Randolph swore a great oath.

  “Then, by gad, sir, let us burn the old women in the villages until the creatures who carried Belts’ treasure through the keyhole bring it back!”

  Belts spoke then. “They have brought some of it back!”

  My uncle turned sharply in his chair.

  “What do you mean, Belts?” he said.

  “Why this, Abner,” replied the old man, his voice descending into the cavernous whisper; “on three mornings I have found some of my gold pieces in the jar. And they came as they went, Abner, with every window fastened down and the bar across the door. And there is another thing about these pieces that have come back—they are mine, for I know every piece—but they have been in the hands of the creatures that ride the horses in the pasture—they have been handled by witches!” He whispered the word with a fearful glance about him. “How do I know that? Wait, I will show you!”

  He went over to his bed and got out a little box from beneath his cornhusk mattress—a worn, smoke-stained box with a sliding lid. He drew the lid off with his thumb and turned the contents out on the table.

  “Now look,” he said; “look, there is wax on every piece! Shoemakers’ wax, mark you … Eh, Abner! My mother said that—the creatures grease their hands with that so their fingers will not slip when they ride the barebacked horses in the night. They have carried this gold clutched in their hands, see, and the wax has come off!”

  My uncle and Randolph leaned over the table. They examined the coins.

  “By the Eternal!” cried Randolph. “It is wax! But were they clean before?”

  “They were clean,” the old man answered. “The wax is from the creatures’ fingers. Did not my mother say it?”

  My uncle sat back in his chair, but Belts strained forward and put his fearful query:

  “What do you think, Abner; will all the gold come back?”

  My uncle did not at once reply. He sat for some time silent, looking through the open door at the sunny meadowland and the far off hills. But finally he spoke like one who has worked out a problem and got the answer.

  “It will not all come back,” he said.

  “How much, then?” whispered Belts.

  “What is left,” replied Abner, “when the toll is taken out.”

  “You know where the gold is?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the creatures that have it, Abner,” Belts whispered, “they are not human?”

  “They are not human!” replied my uncle.

  Then he got up and began to walk about the house, but not to search for clews to this mysterious thing. He walked like one who examines something within himself—or something beyond the eye—and old Belts followed him with his straining face. And Randolph sat in his chair with his arms folded and his chin against his stock, as a skeptic overwhelmed by proof might sit in a house of haunted voices. He was puzzled upon every hand. The thing was out of reason at every point, both in the loss and in the return of these coins upon the table, and my uncle’s comments were below the soundings of all sense. The creatures who now had Belts’ gold could enter through the keyhole! Belts would have gone into the pit if he had struck out with his ax! A moiety of this treasure would be taken out and the rest returned! And the coins testified to no human handling! The thing had no face nor aspect of events in nature. Mortal thieves enjoyed no such supernal powers. These were the attributes of the familiar spirit. Nor did the human robber return a per cent upon his gains!

  I have said that my uncle walked about the floor. But he stopped now and looked down at the hard, miserly old man.

  “Belts,” he said, “this is a mysterious world. It is hedged about and steeped in mystery. Listen to me! The Patriarchs were directed to make an offering to the Lord of a portion of the increase in their herds. Why? Because the Lord had need of sheep and heifers? Surely not, for the whole earth and its increase were His. There was some other reason, Belts. I do not understand what it was, but I do understand that no man can use the earth and keep every tithe of the increase for himself. They did not try it, but you did!”

  He paused and filled his big lungs.

  “It was a disastrous experiment … What will you do?”

  “What must I do, Abner?” the old man whispered. “Make a sacrifice like the Patriarchs?”

  “A sacrifice you must make, Belts,” replied my uncle, “but not like the Patriarchs. What you received from the earth you must divide into three equal parts and keep one part for yourself.”

  “And to whom shall I give the other two parts, Abner?”

  “To whom would you wish to give them, Belts, if you had the cho
ice?”

  The old man fingered about his mouth.

  “Well,” he said, “a man would give to those of his own household first—if he had to give.”

  “Then,” said Abner, “from this day keep a third of your increase for yourself and give the other two-thirds to your son and your daughter.”

  “And the gold, Abner? Will it come back?”

  “A third part will come back. Be content with that.”

  “And the creatures that have my gold? Will they harm me?”

  “Belts,” replied my uncle, “the creatures that have your gold on this day hidden in their house will labor for you as no slaves have ever labored—without word or whip. Do you promise?”

  The fearful old man promised, and we went out into the sun.

  The tall straight young girl was standing before the spring-house, kneading a dish of yellow butter and singing like a blackbird. My uncle strode down to her. We could not hear the thing he said, but the singing ceased when he began to talk and burst out in a fuller note when he had finished—a big, happy, joyous note that seemed to fill the meadow.

  We waited for him before the stand of bees, and Randolph turned on him when he came.

  “Abner,” he said, “what is the answer to this damned riddle?”

  “You gave it, Randolph,” he replied—“‘Singing masons building roofs of gold.’” And he pointed to the bees. “When I saw that the cap on one of the gums had been moved I thought Belts’ gold was there, and when I saw the wax on the coins I was certain.”

  “But,” cried Randolph, “you spoke of creatures not human-creatures that could enter through the keyhole—creatures—”

  “I spoke of the bees,” replied my uncle.

  “But you said Belts would have fallen into hell if he had struck out with his ax!”

  “He would have killed his daughter,” replied Abner. “Can you think of a more fearful hell? She took the gold and hid it in the bee cap. But she was honest with her father; whenever she sent a sum of money to her brother she returned an equal number of gold pieces to old Belts’ jar.”

  “Then,” said Randolph, with a great oath, “there is no witch here with her familiar spirits?”

  “Now that,” replied my uncle, “will depend upon the imagery of language. There is here a subtle maiden and a stand of bees!”

  Chapter 12

  The Riddle

  I have never seen the snow fall as it fell on the night of the seventeenth of February. It had been a mild day with a soft, stagnant air. The sky seemed about to descend and enclose the earth, as though it were a thing which it had long pursued and had now got into a corner. All day it seemed thus to hover motionless above its quarry, and the earth to be apprehensive like a thing in fear. Animals were restless, and men, as they stood about and talked together, looked up at the sky.

  We were in the county seat on that day. The grand jury was sitting, and Abner had been summoned to appear before it. It was the killing of old Christian Lance that the grand jury was inquiring into. He had been found one morning in his house, bound into a chair. The body sat straining forward, death on it, and terror in its face. There was no one in the house but old Christian, and it was noon before the neighbors found him. The tragedy had brought the grand jury together, and had filled the hills with talk, for it left a mystery unsolved.

  This mystery that Christian sealed up in his death was one that no man could get a hint at while he was living—what had the old man done with his money? He grazed a few cattle and got a handsome profit. He spent next to nothing; he gave nothing to any one, and he did not put his money out to interest. It was known that he would take only gold in payment for his cattle. He made no secret of that. The natural inference was that he buried his coin in some spot about his garden, but idle persons had watched his house for whole nights after he had sold his cattle, and had never seen him come out with a spade. And young bloods, more curious, I think, than criminal, had gone into his house when he was absent, and searched it more than once. There was no corner that they had not looked into, and no floor board that they had not lifted, nor any loose stone about the hearth that they had not felt under.

  Once, in conference on this mystery, somebody had suggested that the knobs on the andirons and the handles on the old high-boy were gold, having gotten the idea from some tale. And a little later, when the old man returned one evening from the grist-mill, he found that one of these knobs on the andirons had been broken off. But, as the thief never came back for the other, it was pretty certain that this fantastic notion was not the key to Christian’s secret.

  It was after one of these mischievous searchings that he put up his Delphic notice when he went away—a leaf from a day-book, scrawled in pencil, and pinned to the mantelpiece:

  “Why don’t you look in the cow?”

  The idle gossips puzzled over that. What did it mean? Was the thing a sort of taunt? And did the old man mean that since these persons had looked into every nook and corner of his house, they ought also to have looked into the red mouth of the cow? Or did he mean that his money was invested in cattle and there was the place to look? Or was the thing a cryptic sentence—like that of some ancient oracle—in which the secret to his hoarded gold was hidden?

  At any rate it was certain that old Christian was not afraid to go away and leave his door open, and the secret to guard itself. And he was justified in that confidence. The mischievous gave over their inquisitions, and the mystery became a sort of legend.

  With the eyes of the curious thus on him, and that mystery for background, it was little wonder that his tragic death fired the country.

  I have said there was a horror about the dead man’s face as he sat straining in the chair. And the thing was in truth a horror! But that word does not tell the story. The eyes, the muscles of his jaw, the very flesh upon his bones seemed to strain with some deadly resolution, as though the indomitable spirit of the man, by sheer determination, would force the body to do its will, even after death was on it. And here there was a curious thing. It was not about the house, where his treasure might have been concealed, that the dead man strained, but toward the door, as though he would follow after some one who had gone out there.

  The neighbors cut him from the chair, straightened out his limbs, and got him buried. But his features, set in that deadly resolution, they could not straighten out. Neither the placidity of death, nor the fingers of those who prepared the man for burial, could relax the muscles or get down his eyelids. He lay in the coffin with that hideous resolution on his face, and he went into the earth with it.

  When the man was found, Randolph sent for Abner, and the two of them looked through the house. Nothing had been disturbed. There was a kettle on the crane, and a crock beside the hearth. The ears of seed corn hung from the rafters, trussed up by their shucks; the bean pods together in a cluster; the cakes of tallow sat on a shelf above the mantel; the festoons of dried apples and the bunches of seasoned herbs hung against the chimney. The bed and all the furniture about the house was in its order.

  When they had finished with that work they did not know who it was that had killed old Christian. Abner did not talk, but he said that much, and the Justice of the Peace told all he knew to every casual visitor. True, it was nothing more than the county knew already, but his talk annoyed Abner.

  “Randolph’s a leaky pitcher,” he said. And I think it was this comment that inspired the notion that Abner knew something that he had not told the Justice.

  At any rate he was a long time before the grand jury on this February day. The grand jury sat behind closed doors. They were stern, silent men, and nothing crept out through the keyhole. But after the witnesses were heard, the impression got about that the grand jury did not know who had killed old Christian, and this conclusion was presently verified when they came in before the judge. They had no indictment to find. And when the judge inquired if they knew of anything that would justify the prosecuting attorney in taking any further action on
behalf of the state, the foreman shook his head.

  Night was descending when we left the county-seat. Abner sat in his saddle like a man of bronze, his face stern, as it always was when he was silent, and I rode beside him. I wish I could get my Uncle Abner before your eye. He was one of those austere, deeply religious men who might have followed Cromwell, with a big iron frame, a grizzled beard and features forged out by a smith. His god was the god of the Tishbite, who numbered his followers by the companies who drew the sword. The land had need of men like Abner. The government of Virginia was over the Alleghenies, and this great, fertile cattle country, hemmed in by the far-off mountains like a wall of the world, had its own peace to keep. And it was these iron men who kept it. The fathers had got this land in grants from the King of England; they had held it against the savage and finally against the King himself… And the sons were like them.

  The horses were nervous; they flung their heads about, and rattled the bit rings and traveled together like men apprehensive of some danger to be overtaken. That deadly stillness of the day remained, but the snow was now beginning to appear. It fell like no other snow that I have ever seen—not a gust of specks or a shower of tiny flakes, but now and then, out of the dirty putty-colored sky, a flake as big as a man’s thumb-nail winged down and lighted on the earth like some living creature. And it clung to the thing that it lighted on as though out of the heavens it had selected that thing to destroy. And, while it clung, there came another of these soft white creatures to its aid, and settled beside it, and another and another, until the bare stem of the ragweed, or the brown leaf of the beech tree snapped under the weight of these clinging bodies.

  It is a marvel how quickly this snow covered up the world, and how swiftly and silently it descended. The trees and fences were grotesque and misshapen with it. The landscape changed and was blotted out. Night was on us, and always the invading swarm of flakes increased until they seemed to crowd one another in the stagnant air.