“No Tulliwuddle has ever omitted the ceremony. If you shirked, I am assured on the very best authority that it would excite the gravest suspicions of your authenticity.”
Count Bunker spoke with an air of the most resolute conviction. Ever since they arrived he had taken infinite pains to discover precisely what was expected of the chieftain, and having by great good luck made the acquaintance of an elderly individual who claimed to be the piper of the clan, and who proved a perfect granary of legends, he was able to supply complete information on every point of importance. Once the Baron had endeavored to corroborate these particulars by interviewing the piper himself, but they had found so much difficulty in understanding one another's dialects that he had been content to trust implicitly to his friend's information. The Count, indeed, had rather avoided than sought advice on the subject, and the piper, after several confidential conversations and the passage of a sum of silver into his sporran, displayed an equally Delphic tendency.
The Baron, therefore, argued the present point no longer.
“It is jost a mere ceremony,” he said. “Ach, vell, nozing vill happen. Zis ghost—vat is his name?”
“It is known as the Wraith of the Tulliwuddles. The heir must interview it within a week of coming to the Castle.”
“Vere most I see him?”
“In the armory, at midnight. You bring one friend, one candle, and wear a bonnet with one eagle's feather in it. You enter at eleven and wait for an hour—and, by the way, neither of you must speak above a whisper.”
“Pooh! Jost hombog!” said the Baron valiantly. “I do not fear soch trash.”
“When the Wraith appears——”
“My goot Bonker, he vill not gom!”
“Supposing he does come—and mind you, strange things happen in these old buildings, particularly in the Highlands, and after dinner; if he comes, Baron, you must ask him three questions.”
The Baron laughed scornfully.
“If I see a ghost I vill ask him many interesting questions—if he does feel cold, and sochlike, eh? Ha, ha!”
With an imperturbable gravity that was not without its effect upon the other, however gaily he might talk, Bunker continued,
“The three questions are: first, 'What art thou?' second, 'Why comest thou here, O spirit?' third, 'What instructions desirest thou to give me?' Strictly speaking, they ought to be asked in Gaelic, but exceptions have been made on former occasions, and Mac-Dui—who pipes, by the way, in the anteroom—assures me that English will satisfy the Wraith in your case.”
The Baron sniffed and laughed, and twirled up the ends of his mustaches till they presented a particularly desperate appearance. Yet there was a faint intonation of anxiety in his voice as he inquired—
“You vill gom as my friend, of course?”
“I? Quite out of the question, I am sorry to say. To bring a foreigner (as I am supposed to be) would rouse the clan to rebellion. No, Baron, you have a chance of paying a graceful compliment to your host which you must not lose. Ask Mr. Gallosh to share your vigil.”
“Gallosh—he vould not be moch good sopposing—Ach, but nozing vill happen! I vill ask him.”
The pride of Mr. Gallosh on being selected as his lordship's friend on this historic occasion was pleasant to witness.
“It's just a bit of fiddle-de-dee,” he informed his delighted family. “Duncan Gallosh to be looking for bogles is pretty ridiculous—but oh, I can't refuse to disoblige his lordship.”
“I should think not, when he's done you the honor to invite you out of all his friends!” said Mrs. Gallosh warmly. “Eva! do you hear the compliment that's been paid your papa?”
Eva, their fair eldest daughter, came into the room at a run. She had indeed heard (since the news was on every tongue), and impetuously she flung her arms about her father's neck.
“Oh, papa, do him credit!” she cried; “it's like a story come true! What a romantic thing to happen!”
“What a spirit!” her mother reflected proudly. “She is just the girl for a chieftain's bride!”
That very night was chosen for the ceremony, and eleven o'clock found them all assembled breathless in the drawing-room: all, save Lord Tulliwuddle and his host.
“Will they have to wait for a whole hour?” asked Mrs. Gallosh in a low voice.
Indeed they all spoke in subdued accents.
“I am told,” replied the Count, “that the apparition never appears till after midnight has struck. Any time between twelve and one he may be expected.”
“Think of the terrible suspense after twelve has passed!” whispered Eva.
The Count had thought of this.
“I advised Duncan to take his flask,” said Mr. Rentoul, with a solemn wink. “So he'll not be so badly off.”
“Papa would never do such a thing to-night!” cried Eva.
“It's always a kind of precaution,” said the sage.
Presently Count Bunker, who had been imparting the most terrific particulars of former interviews with the Wraith to the younger Galloshes, remarked that he must pass the time by overtaking some pressing correspondence.
“You will forgive me, I hope, for shutting myself up for an hour or so,” he said to his hostess. “I shall come back in time to learn the results of the meeting.”
And with the loss of his encouraging company a greater uneasiness fell upon the party.
Meanwhile, in a vast cavern of darkness, lit only by the solitary candle, the Baron and his host endeavored to maintain the sceptical buoyancy with which they had set forth upon their adventure. But the chilliness of the room (they had no fire, and it was a misty night with a moaning wind), the inordinate quantity of odd-looking shadows, and the profound silence, were immediately destructive to buoyancy and ultimately trying to scepticism.
“I wish ze piper vould play,” whispered the Baron.
“Mebbe he'll begin nearer the time,” his companion suggested.
The Baron shivered. For the first time he had been persuaded to wear the full panoply of a Highland chief, and though he had exhibited himself to the ladies with much pride, and even in the course of dinner had promised Eva Gallosh that he would never again don anything less romantic, he now began to think that a travelling-rug of the Tulliwuddle tartan would prove a useful addition to the outfit on the occasion of a midnight vigil. Also the stern prohibition against talking aloud (corroborated by the piper with many guttural warnings) grew more and more irksome as the night advanced.
“It's an awesome place,” whispered Mr. Gallosh.
“I hardly thought it would have been as lonesome-like.”
There was a tremor in his voice that irritated the Baron.
“Pooh!” he answered, “it is jost vun old piece of hombog! I do not believe in soch things myself.”
“Neither do I, my lord; oh, neither do I; but—would you fancy a dram?”
“Not for me, I zank you,” said his lordship stiffly.
Blessing the foresight of Mr. Rentoul, his host unscrewed his flask and had a generous swig. As he was screwing on the top again, the Baron, in a less haughty voice, whispered,
“Perhaps jost vun leetle taste.”
They felt now for a few minutes more aggressively disposed.
“Ve need not have ze curtain shut,” said the Baron. “Soppose you do draw him?”
Through the gloom Mr. Gallosh took one or two faltering steps.
“Man, it's awful hard to see one's way,” he said nervously.
The Baron took the candle, and with a martial stride escorted him to the window. They pulled aside one corner of the heavy curtain, and then let it fall again and hurried back. So far north there was indeed a gleam of daylight left, but it was such a pale and ghostly ray, and the wreaths of mist swept so eerily and silently across the pane, that candle-light and shadows seemed vastly preferable.
“How much more time will there be?” whispered Mr. Gallosh presently.
“It is twenty-five minutes to twelve.”
“Your lordship! Can we leave at twelve?”
The Baron started.
“Oh, Himmel!” he exclaimed. “Vy did I not realize before? If nozing comes—and nozing vill come—ve most stay till one, I soppose.”
Mr. Gallosh emitted something like a groan.
“Oh my, and that candle will not last more than half an hour at the most!”
“Teufel!” said the Baron. “It vas Bonker did give him to me. He might have made a more proper calculation.”
The prospect was now gloomy indeed. An hour of candle-light had been bad, but an hour of pitch darkness or of mist wreaths would be many times worse.
“A wee tastie more, my lord?” Mr. Gallosh suggested, in a voice whose vibrations he made an effort to conceal.
“Jost a vee,” said his lordship, hardly more firmly.
With a dismal disregard for their suspense the minutes dragged infinitely slowly. The flask was finished; the candle guttered and flickered ominously; the very shadows grew restless.
“There's a lot of secret doors and such like in this part of the house—let's hope there'll be nothing coming through one of them,” said Mr. Gallosh in a breaking voice.
The Baron muttered an inaudible reply, and then with a start their shoulders bumped together.
“Damn it, what's yon!” whispered Mr. Gallosh.
“Ze pipes! Gallosh, how beastly he does play!”
In point of fact the air seemed to consist of only one wailing note.
“Bong!”—they heard the first stroke of midnight on the big clock on the Castle Tower; and so unfortunately had Count Bunker timed the candle that on the instant its flame expired.
“Vithdraw ze curtains!” gasped the Baron.
“I canna, my lord! Oh, I canna!” wailed Mr. Gallosh, breaking out into his broadest native Scotch.
This time the Baron made no movement, and in the palpitating silence the two sat through one long dark minute after another, till some ten of them had passed.
“I shall stand it no more!” muttered the Baron. “Ve vill creep for ze door.”
“My lord, my lord! For maircy's sake gie's a hold of you!” stammered Mr. Gallosh, falling on his hands and knees and feeling for the skirt of his lordship's kilt.
But their flight was arrested by a portent so remarkable that had there been only a single witness one would suppose it to be a figment of his imagination. Fortunately, however, both the Baron and Mr. Gallosh can corroborate each detail. About the middle, apparently, of the wall opposite, an oblong of light appeared in the thickest of the gloom.
“Mein Gott!” cried the Baron.
“It's filled wi' reek!” gasped Mr. Gallosh.
And indeed the space seemed filled with a slowly rising cloud of pungent blue smoke. Then their horrified eyes beheld the figure of an undoubted Being hazily outlined behind the cloud, and at the same time the piper, as if sympathetically aware of the crisis, burst into his most dreadful discords. A yell rang through the gloom, followed by the sounds of a heavy body alternately scuffling across the floor and falling prostrate over unseen furniture. The Baron felt for his host, and realized that this was the escaping Gallosh.
“Tulliwuddle! Speak!” a hollow voice muttered out of the smoke.
The Baron has never ceased to exult over the hardihood he displayed in this unnerving crisis. Rising to his feet and drawing his claymore, he actually managed to stammer out—
“Who—who are you?”
The Being (he could now perceive dimly that it was clad in tartan) answered in the same deep, measured voice—
“Your senses to confound and fuddle,
Behold the Wraith of Tulliwuddle!”
This was sufficiently terrifying, one would think, to excuse the Baron for following the example of his host. But, though he found afterwards that he must have perspired freely, he courageously stood his ground.
“Vy have you gomed here?” he demanded in a voice nearly as hollow as the Wraith.
As solemnly as before the spirit replied—
“From Pit that's bottomless and dark—
Methinks I hear it shrieking—Hark!”
(The Baron certainly did hear a tumult that might well be termed infernal; though whether it emanated from Mr. Gallosh, fiends, or the piper, he could not at the moment feel certain.)
“I came o'er many leagues of heather
To carry back the answer whether
The noble chieftain of my clan
Conducts him like a gentleman.”
After this warning, to put the third question required an effort of the most supreme resolution. The Baron was equal to it, however.
“Vat instroction do you give me?” he managed to utter.
In the gravest accents the Wraith chanted—
“Hang ever kilt above the knee,
With Usquebaugh be not too free,
When toasts and sic'like games be mooted
See that your dram be well diluted;
And oh, if you'd escape from Hades,
Lord Tulliwuddle, 'ware the ladies!”
The spirit vanished as magically as he had appeared, and with this solemn warning ringing in his ears, the Baron found himself in inky darkness again. This time he did not hesitate to grope madly for the door, but hardly had he reached it, when, with a fresh sensation of horror, he stumbled upon a writhing form that seemed to be pawing the panels. He was, fortunately; as quickly reassured by hearing the voice of Mr. Gallosh exclaim in terrified accents—
“I canna find the haundle! Oh, Gosh, where's the haundle?”
Being the less frenzied of the two, the Baron did succeed in finding the handle, and with a gasp of relief burst into the lighted anteroom. The piper had already departed, and evidently in haste, since he had left some portion of a bottle of whisky unfinished. This fortunate circumstance enabled them to recover something of their color, though, even when he felt his blood warming again, Mr. Gallosh could scarcely speak coherently of his terrible ordeal.
“What an awfu' night! what an awfu' night!” he murmured. “Oh, my lord, let's get out of this!”
He was making for the door when the Baron seized his arm.
“Vait!” he cried. “Ze danger is past! Ach, vas I not brave? Did you not hear me speak to him? You can bear vitness how brave I vas, eh?”
“I'll not swear I heard just exactly what passed, my lord. Man, I'll own I was awful feared!”
“Tuts! tuts!” said the Baron kindly. “Ve vill say nozing about zat. You stood vell by me, I shall say. And you vill tell zem I did speak mit courage to ze ghost.”
“I will that!” said Mr. Gallosh.
By the time they reached the drawing-room he had so far recovered his equanimity as to prove a very creditable witness, and between them they gave such an account of their adventure as satisfied even the excited expectations of their friends; though the Baron thought it both prudent and more becoming his dignity to leave considerable mystery attaching to the precise revelations of his ancestral spirit.
“Bot vere is Bonker?” he asked, suddenly noticing the absence of his friend.
A moment later the Count entered and listened with the greatest interest to a second (and even more graphic) account of the adventure. More intimate particulars still were confided to him when they had retired to their own room, and he appeared as surprised and impressed as any wraith-seer could desire. As they parted for the night, the Baron started and sniffed at him.
“Vat a strange smell you have!” he exclaimed.
“Peat smoke, probably. This fire wouldn't draw.”
“Strange!” mused the Baron. “I did smell a leetle smell of zat before to-night.”
“Yes; one notices it all through the house with an east wind.”
This seemed to the Baron a complete explanation of the coincidence.
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