The first few weeks of May had been, to my starved city eyes, a dazzling pageant of beauty.
The landscape glowed with yellow daffodils, pink peach blossoms, and the bright green of new wheat; the fields were alive with the frisky joyousness of spring lambs and colts, turned out to pasture.
It was with a keen feeling of reluctance that I faced the prospect of New York's brick and stone and asphalt.
My work was calling, but I lazily postponed my departure from day to day.
Things at the plantation seemed to have settled into their old routine.
The whereabouts of the bonds was still a mystery, but the ha'nt had returned to his grave—at least, in so far as any manifestations affected the house.
I believe that the "sperrit of de spring-hole" had been seen rising once or twice from a cloud of sulphurous smoke, but the excitement was confined strictly to the negro quarters.
No man on the place who valued a whole skin would have dared mention the word "ha'nt" in Colonel Gaylord's presence.
Relations between Rad and his father were rather less strained, and matters on the whole were going pleasantly enough, when there suddenly fell from a clear sky the strange and terrible series of events which changed everything at Four-Pools.
CHAPTER IX THE EXPEDITION TO LURAY
Toward eleven o'clock one morning, the Colonel, Radnor and I were established in lounging chairs in the shade of a big catalpa tree on the lawn.
It was a warm day, and Rad and I were just back from a tramp to the upper pasture—a full mile from the house.
We were addressing ourselves with considerable zest to the frosted glasses that Solomon had just placed on the table, when we became aware of the sound of galloping hoofs, and a moment later Polly Mathers and her sorrel mare, Tiger Lilly, appeared at the end of the sunflecked lane.
An Irish setter romped at her side, and the three of them made a picture.
The horse's shining coat, the dog's silky hair and Polly's own red gold curls were almost of a color.
I believe the little witch had chosen the two on purpose.
In her dark habit and mannish hat, with sparkling cheeks and laughing eyes, she was as pretty an apparition as ever enhanced a May morning.
She waved her crop gaily and rode toward us across the lawn.
"Howdy!" she called, in a droll imitation of the mountain dialect. "Ain't you-uns guine to ask me to 'light a while, an' set a bit, an' talk a spell?"
Radnor's face had flushed quickly as he perceived who the rider was, but he held himself stiffly in the background while the Colonel and I did the honors.
It was the first time, I know, that Polly and Rad had met since the night she refused to dance with him; and her appearance could only be interpreted as a desire to make amends.
She sprang lightly to the ground, turned Tiger Lilly loose to graze about the lawn, and airily perched herself on the arm of a chair.
There was nothing in her manner, at least, to suggest that her relations with any one of us were strained.
After a few moments of neighborly gossip with the Colonel and me—Rad was monosyllabic and remote—she arrived at her errand.
Some friends from Savannah were stopping at the Hall on their way to the Virginia hot springs, and, as is usual, when strangers visit the valley, they were planning an expedition to Luray Cave.
The cave was on the other side of the mountains about ten miles from Four-Pools.
Since I had not yet visited it (that was at least the reason she gave) she had come to ask the three of us to join the party on the following day.
Rad was sulky at first, and rather curtly declined on the ground that he had to attend to some business.
But Polly scouted his excuse, and added significantly that Jim Mattison had not been asked.
He accepted this mark of repentance with a pleased flush, and before she rode away, he had become his former cheerful self again.
The Colonel also demurred on the ground that he was getting too old for such diversions, but Polly laid her hands upon his shoulders and coaxed him into acquiescence—even a mummy must have unbent before such persuasion.
As a matter of fact though, the Colonel was only too pleased with his invitation.
It flattered him to be included with the young people, and he was immensely fond of Polly.
It struck me suddenly as I watched her, how like she was to that other girl, of eighteen years before.
There danced in Polly's eyes the same eager joy of life that vitalized the face of the portrait over the mantelpiece upstairs.
The resemblance for a moment was almost startling; I believe the same thought had come to Colonel Gaylord.
The old man's eyes dwelt upon her with a sadly wistful air; and I like to feel that it was of Nannie he was thinking.
Radnor and I had been invited to a dance that same evening at a neighboring country house, but when the time came, I begged off on the plea of wishing to rest for the ride the next morning.
The real reason, I fancy, was that I too was suffering from a touch of Radnor's trouble; and, since I had no chance of winning her, it was the part of wisdom to keep out of hearing of Polly's laugh.
In any case, I went to bed and to sleep, while Rad went to the party, and I have never known exactly what happened that night.
I rose early the next morning, and as I went down stairs I saw Solomon crawling around on his hands and knees on the parlor floor, collecting the remnants of a French clock which had stood on the mantelpiece.
"How did that clock come to be broken?" I asked a trifle sharply, thinking I had caught him in a bad piece of carelessness.
"Cayn't say, sah," Solomon returned, rising on his knees and looking at me mournfully. "I specs ole Marsa been chastisin' young Marsa again. It's powe'ful destructive on de brick-yuh-brack."
I went on out of doors, wondering sadly if Radnor could have been drinking, and accusing myself for not having gone to the party and kept him straight.
It was evident at breakfast that something serious had happened between him and his father.
The Colonel appeared unusually grave, and Rad, after a gruff "good morning," sat staring at his plate in a dogged silence.
Throughout the meal he scarcely so much as exchanged a glance with his father.
I tried to talk as if I noticed nothing; and in the course of the somewhat one-sided conversation, happened to mention our proposed trip to Luray.
Rad returned that he had visited the cave a good many times and did not care about going.
I was puzzled at this, for I knew that the cave was not the chief attraction, but I discreetly dropped the subject and shortly after we rose from the table.