Myles Muredach - Charred Wood

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CHARRED WOOD

BY

MYLES MUREDACH

"_O, Designer Infinite, must Thou
then Char the wood before Thou
canst limn with it?_"

ILLUSTRATED BY

J. CLINTON SHEPHERD

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS --- NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1917

by

The Reilly & Britten Co.

Published October 17, 1917

Reprinted December 10, 1917

Reprinted October 11, 1918.

Charred Wood

CONTENTS

I THE LADY OF THE TREE
II MONSIGNORE
III UNDER SUSPICION
IV KILLIMAGA
V WITH EMPTY HANDS
VI WHO IS RUTH?
VII BITTER BREAD
VIII FATHER MURRAY OF SIHASSET
IX THE BISHOP'S CONFESSION
X AT THE MYSTERY TREE
XI THIN ICE
XII HIS EXCELLENCY SUGGESTS
XIII THE ABDUCTION
XIV THE INEXPLICABLE
XV "I AM NOT THE DUCHESS!"
XVI HIS EXCELLENCY IS WORRIED
XVII THE OPEN DOOR
XVIII SAUNDERS SCORES
XIX CAPITULATION
XX THE "DUCHESS" ABDICATES
XXI THE BECKONING HAND
XXII RUTH'S CONFESSION
XXIII CHARRED WOOD

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

On Killimaga's Cliff. . . . . _Frontispiece_

Something white swished quickly past him and he stared,
bewildered . . . She had stepped out of nowhere.

Saunders looked long and earnestly at his face. "He's the man!" he
announced.

"God rest her," Father Murray said after what seemed an age to Mark;
"it is not Ruth!"

[Transcriber's note: The Frontispiece and the "Something white..."
illustration were missing from the book.]

Charred Wood

CHAPTER I

THE LADY OF THE TREE

The man lay in the tall grass. Behind him the wall of the Killimaga
estate, from its beginning some fifty yards to his left, stretched away
to his right for over a thousand feet. Along the road which ran almost
parallel with the wall was the remnant of what had once been a great
woods; yearly the county authorities determined to cut away its thick
undergrowth--and yearly left it alone. On the left the road was bare
for some distance along the bluff; then, bending, it again sought the
shelter of the trees and meandered along until it lost itself in the
main street of Sihasset, a village large enough to support three banks
and, after a fashion, eight small churches. In front, had the lounger
cared to look, he would have seen the huge rocks topping the bluff
against which the ocean dashed itself into angry foam. But the man
didn't care to look--for in the little clearing between the wall of
Killimaga and the bluff road was peace too profound to be wantonly
disturbed by motion. And so he lay there lazily smoking his cigar, his
long length concealed by the tall grass.

Hearing a slight click behind him and to his right, the man slowly,
even languidly, turned his head to peer through the grass. But his
energy was unrewarded, for he saw nothing he had not seen before--a
long wall, its rough stones half hidden by creeping vines, at its base
a rank growth of shrubs and wild hedge; behind it, in the near
distance, the towers of a house that, in another land, perched amid
jutting crags, would have inspired visions of far-off days of romance.
Even in its New England setting the great house held a rugged charm,
heightened by the big trees which gave it a setting of rich green.
Some of the trees had daringly advanced almost to the wall itself,
while one--a veritable giant--had seemingly been caught while just
stepping through.

With a bored sigh, as if even so slight an effort were too great, the
smoker settled himself more comfortably and resumed his indolent
musing. Then he heard the sound again. This time he did not trouble
to look around. Something white swished quickly past him and he
stared, bewildered. It was a woman, young, if her figure were to be
trusted. His cigar dropped in the grass, and there he let it lie. His
gaze never left her as she walked on; and he could scarcely be blamed,
for he was still under thirty-five and feminine early twenties has an
interest to masculine full youth. He had never seen anyone quite so
charming. And so he watched the lady as she walked to the edge of the
bluff overlooking the sea, and turned to the left to go along the
pathway toward the village.

Five hundred yards away she was met by a tall man wearing a long black
coat. Was it the priest he had noticed that morning at the door of the
Catholic church in the village? Yes, there was no doubt about that; it
was the priest. He had just lifted his hat to the lady and was now
turning to walk back with her by the way he had come. They evidently
knew each other well; and the man watching them almost laughed at
himself when he realized that he was slightly piqued at the clergyman's
daring to know her while he did not. He watched the pair until they
disappeared around the bend of the bluff path. Then he settled back to
look for his cigar. But he did not find it, for other matters quickly
absorbed his attention.

From out a clump of bushes on his left, where they evidently had been
hiding, two men appeared. He recognized them both. One was a book
agent who was stopping at the hotel in the village; the other was the
local constable. The book agent had a paper in his hand.

"That her?" he asked.

"Yaas, sir!"--the constable was surely a native New Englander--"I seed
her face plain."

"I didn't," said the agent, with annoyance. "I have never seen her
without that confounded veil. This is the first time she's had it
thrown back. But the description is right? Look at it."

He showed the paper to the constable, tapping it as he read.

"'Brown hair, blue eyes'--did you see her eyes?"

"I sure did," answered the constable; "and they wuz blue."

"All right, then. 'Blue eyes, regular features'--how about that?"

"Reg'lar enough," said the constable. "She'd no pug nose, I kin tell
ya that."

"'Regular features,' then, is right. 'Five feet four inches
tall'--that's right. 'Small hands and feet'--that's right. 'About
twenty-three years old; good figure.'"

"She sure hez all them," vouchsafed the wearer of the star. "I knowed
her right away, and I've seed her often. She's been in Sihasset well
nigh on a month."

"But where--" the agent turned to look at the unbroken wall--"where in
thunder did she come from?"

The constable, pushing back his helmet, scratched his head.

"Damfino," he said. "That's the rub. There's no gate on this side of
Killimaga."

"Killimaga?"

"A rich old Irishman built it and put a wall around it, too. We folks
of Sihasset don't like that; it shuts off the view of the house and
lawn. Lawn's what makes things purty. He wuz a queer old mug--wanted
to shut hisself up."

"But how did she get out?" insisted the agent, coming back to the issue.

"Search me," offered the constable. He looked toward the top of the
wall. "Clumb the fence, mebbe."

"With her dress looking as it does?"

"There's no other way. I dunno."

The agent was puzzled. "I want a closer inspection of that wall.
We'll walk along this side."

Both agent and constable started off, keeping well behind the wild
hedge along the wall so that they might not be seen from the bluff road.

The man lying in the grass was more puzzled than the agent. Why a book
agent and a constable should be so anxious about a lady who was--well,
just charming--but who had herself stepped out of nowhere to join a
priest in his walk, was a problem for some study. He got up and walked
to the wall. Then he laughed. Close examination showed him marks in
the giant tree, the vertical cuts being cleverly covered by the bark,
while the horizontal ones had creepers festooned over them. A door was
well concealed. But the tree? It was large, yet there could not be
room in it for more than one person, who would have to stand upright
and in a most uncomfortable position. The man himself had been before
it over an hour. How long had the lady been in the tree? He forgot
his lost cigar in trying to figure the problem out.

Mark Griffin had never liked problems. That was one reason why he
found himself now located in a stuffy New England inn just at the end
of the summer season when all the "boarders" had gone except himself
and the book agent.

Griffin himself, though the younger son of an Irish peer, had been born
in England. The home ties were not strong and when his brother
succeeded to the title and estates in Ireland Mark, who had inherited a
fortune from his mother, went to live with his powerful English
relatives. For a while he thought of going into the army, but he knew
he was a dunce in mathematics, so he soon gave up the idea. He tried
Oxford, but failed there for the same reason. Then he just drifted.
Now, still on the sunny side of thirty-five, he was knocking about,
sick of things, just existing, and fearfully bored. He had dropped
into Sihasset through sheer curiosity--just to see a typical New
England summer resort where the Yankee type had not yet entirely
disappeared. Now that the season was over he simply did not care to
pull out for New York and continue his trip to--nowhere. He was
"seeing" America. It might take months and it might take years. He
did not care. Then England again by way of Japan and Siberia--perhaps.
He never wanted to lose sight of that "perhaps," which was, after all,
his only guarantee of independence.

Siberia suited Mark Griffin's present mood, which was to be alone. He
had never married, never even been in love, at least, not since
boyhood. Of course, that had been mere puppy love. Still, it was
something to look back to and sigh over. He liked to think that he
could still feel a sort of consoling sadness at the thought of it. He,
a timid, dreaming boy, had loved a timid, dreaming girl. Her brother
broke up the romance by taunting Mark who, with boyish bashfulness,
avoided her after that. Then her parents moved to London and Mark was
sent to school. After school he had traveled. For the last ten years
England had been merely a place to think of as home. He had been in
India, and South America, and Canada--up on the Yukon. He would have
stayed there, but somebody suggested that he might be a remittance man.
Ye gods! a remittance man with ten thousand pounds a year! And who
could have had much more, for Mark Griffin was a master with his pen.
His imagination glowed, and his travels had fanned it into flame.
Every day he wrote, but burned the product next morning. What was the
use? He had plenty to live on. Why write another man out of a job?
And who could be a writer with an income of ten thousand pounds a year?
But, just the same, it added to Mark Griffin's self-hatred to think
that it was the income that made him useless. Yet he had only one real
failure checked against him--the one at Oxford. But he knew--and he
did not deceive himself--why there had been no others. He had never
tried.

But there was one thing in Mark's favor, too. In spite of his
wandering, in spite of the men and women of all kinds he had met, he
was clean. There was a something in the memory of his mother--and in
the memory, too, of that puppy love of his--that had made him a fighter
against himself.

"The great courage that is worth while before God," his mother used to
say, "is the courage to run away from the temptation to be unclean. It
is the only time you have the right to be a coward. That sort of
cowardice is _true courage_."

Besides her sweet face, that advice was the great shining memory he had
of his mother, and when he began to wander and meet temptations, he
found himself treasuring it as his best and dearest memory of her.
True, he had missed her religion--had lost what little he had had of
it--but he had kept her talisman to a clean life.

His lack of religion worried him, though he had really never known much
about his family's form of it. For that his mother's death, early
boarding school, and his father's worse than indifference, were
responsible. But as he grew older he felt vaguely that he had missed
something the quality of which he had but tasted through the one
admonition of his mother that he had treasured. His nature was full of
reverence. His soul burned to respond to the call of faith, but
something rebelled. He had read everything, and was humble enough to
acknowledge that he knew little. He had given up the struggle to
believe. Nothing seemed satisfactory. It worried him to think that he
had reached such a conclusion, but he was consoled by the thought that
many men had been of his way of thinking. He hoped this would prove
excuse enough, but found it was not excuse enough for him. Here he
was, rich, noble, with the English scales of caste off his eyes, doing
nothing, indolent, loving only a memory, indifferent but still seeing a
saving something of his mother and his child love in every woman to
whom he spoke.

Now something else, yet something not so very different, had suddenly
stepped into his life, and he knew it. The something was dressed in
white and had stepped out of a tree. It was almost laughable. This
woman had come into his dreams. The very sight of her attracted
him--or was it the manner of her coming? She was just like an ideal he
had often made for himself. Few men meet even the one who looks like
the ideal, but he had seen the reality--coming out of a tree. He kept
on wondering how long she had been there. He himself had been dreaming
in front of the tree an hour before he saw her. Had she seen him
before she came out? She had given no sign; but if she had seen him,
she had trusted him with a secret. Mark looked at the tree. It was
half embedded in the wall. Then he understood. The tree masked a
secret entrance to Killimaga.

He was still smiling over his discovery when he heard the voices of the
agent and constable. They were coming back, so he dropped into his
hiding place in the tall grass.

"Well, Brown," the agent was saying, "I am going to tackle her. I've
got to see that face. It's the only way! If I saw it once, I'd know
for sure from the photograph they sent me."

"Ye'd better not," advised the constable. "She might be a-scared
before--"

"But I've got to be sure," interrupted the agent.

"Aw, ye're sure enough, ain't ye? There's the photygraft, and I seed
her."

"But she slipped me in Boston, and I nearly lost the trail. I can't
take chances on this job--it's too important--and I've got to report
something pretty soon. That damn veil! She always has it on."

"Yep, she had it when she come down here, too, and when she tuk the
house. All right, see her if ye can! Ye're the jedge. She's coming
around the bend of the road now." The constable was peering out from
his hiding place among the bushes.

"Is the priest with her?" asked the agent.

"He's gone back to the village. She didn't go that far--she seldom
does. But he goes to see her; and she goes to his church on Sundays."

"I wonder if he knows anything?"

"Trust that gent to know most everything, I guess." The constable was
very positive. "Father Murray's nobody's fool," he added, "and she
won't talk to nobody else. I'll bet a yearlin' heifer he's on; but
nobody could drag nothing out of him."

"I know that," said the agent. "I've been up there a dozen times, and
I've talked with him by the hour--but always about books; I couldn't
get him to talk about anything else. Here she is! Go on back."

The constable disappeared behind the bushes, and his companion stood
out in the little clearing to wait.

The woman saw him; Mark, watching from the long grass, thought she
hesitated. Then she dropped her veil and came on. The agent stepped
forward, and the woman seemed distressed. What the agent intended to
do Mark could not guess, but he made up his mind at once as to what he
would do himself. He arose and, just as the agent met the lady, Mark's
arm went through his and he--not of his own volition--turned to face
the ocean.

"Hello, Saunders!" Mark said heartily. "Who'd expect to see you here,
with no one near to buy rare editions?"

Saunders looked at him with annoyance, but Mark was friendly. He
slipped his arm out of the agent's and slapped him on the shoulder.

"Look out at that sea, you old money-grabber. There's a sight for your
soul. Did you ever think of the beauty of it? Such a day!--no wonder
you're loafing. Oh! I beg your pardon, Madam. I am in your way."

Keeping Saunders' back to the lady, Mark stepped aside to let her pass.
Saunders could not even look back, as she walked quickly behind them.
The agent stammered a reply to Mark's unwelcome greeting before he
turned. But it was too late, for Mark heard the click that told him
that the tree had closed. He looked for the constable, to see if he
had been watching her and had discovered the secret door; but the
constable was leisurely walking toward the village.

CHAPTER II

MONSIGNORE

As the two men walked along, Mark Griffin, tall and of athletic build,
offered a sharp contrast to the typical American beside him. With his
gray tweeds, Mark, from his cap to shoes, seemed more English than
Irish, and one instinctively looked for the monocle--but in vain, for
the Irish-gray eyes, deep-set under the heavy straight brows, disdained
artifice as they looked half-seriously, though also a bit roguishly,
out upon the world. The brown hair clustered in curls above the tanned
face with its clear-cut features, the mouth firm under the aquiline
nose, the chin slightly squared--the face of one who would seek and
find.

He looked at his companion, clad in a neat-fitting business suit of
blue, his blond hair combed straight back under the carelessly-tilted
Alpine, and felt that the smaller man was one not to be despised. "A
man of brains," thought Mark, as he noted the keen intelligent look
from the blue eyes set in a face that, though somewhat irregular in
feature, bespoke strong determination.

Mentally, the two men were matched. Should they ever be pitted against
each other, it would be impossible for anyone to determine offhand
which would be the victor.

The agent was disposed to be surly during the walk to the hotel, for he
had become suspicious. Why had the fool Englishman done this thing?
Did he know or suspect that the supposed book agent was really a
detective? Did he know the woman? Was he in her confidence? How had
she disappeared so quickly?

Saunders found it difficult to keep up even a semblance of interest in
the conversation, for Mark gave him little time to think. He plied him
with friendly questions until the detective wondered if his companion
were a fool, or someone "on the inside." He wished that Mark would
stop his chattering long enough to let him do the questioning. But
Mark went right on.

"How's the book trade? Bad, I'll wager, so far from town. Why aren't
you working?"

Saunders had to think quickly.

"Oh, I took an afternoon off; business has off days, you know."

"Of course. Any success this morning?"

"One order. Took me a month to get it--from the Padre."

"Ah!"

Mark gave the word the English sound, which convinced the detective
that the speaker really was a fool who had stumbled into an affair he
knew nothing about. But Mark kept up his questioning.

"Did you get to talk much with the Padre? You know, he interests me.
By the way, why do you call him by that Spanish name?"

"Oh, I got into the habit in the Philippines; that's what they call a
priest there. I was a soldier, you know. Did you ever meet him?"

"No; but I'd like to."

"Perhaps I could introduce you." They were walking through the village
now, and Saunders glanced toward the rectory. "There he is."

The chance to get away attracted Saunders; and nothing suited Mark
better than to meet the priest at that very time.

"Certainly," he said; "I'd be glad if you introduced me. I'll stop
only a moment, and then go on to the hotel with you."

But this did _not_ suit Saunders.

"Oh, no; you must talk to the Padre. He's your kind. You'll like him.
I can't wait, though, so I'll have to leave you there."

"By the way," Mark went on with his questioning, "isn't the Padre
rather--well, old--to be in such a small and out-of-the-way place? You
know I rather thought that, in his church, priests as old as he were in
the larger parishes."

"Why, you couldn't have been listening much to gossip since you came
down here--not very much," said Saunders. "The Padre is here by
choice--but only partially by choice."

"By choice, but only partially by choice?" Mark was curious by this
time. "I don't quite understand."

Saunders smiled knowingly, and dropped his voice.

"It's like this," he whispered. "The Padre was a big man in the city
six months ago. He was what they call a vicar general--next job to the
bishop, you know. He was a great friend of the old Bishop who died
three months before the Padre came here. A new Bishop came--"

"'Who knew not Joseph'?"

But the Scripture was lost on the agent.

"His name is not Joseph," he answered solemnly, "but Donald, Donald
Murray. I read it on the book order I got."

"Donald! Funny name for a Catholic," commented Mark. "It sounds
Presbyterian."

"That's what it is," said Saunders quickly. "The Padre is a convert to
the Catholic Church. He was 'way up once, but he lost his big job as
vicar general, and then he lost all his big jobs. I met a priest on
the train once--a young fellow--who told me, with a funny sort of laugh
that sounded a bit sad, too, that the Bishop had the Padre buried."

"I see," said Mark, though he didn't see any more than the agent. "But
the priest doesn't take it hard, does he?"

"Not that you could notice," Saunders answered. "The Padre's
jolly--smart, too--and a bookman. He has books enough in that little
house to start a public library, but he's too poor now to buy many of
the kind he's daffy over--old stuff, you know, first editions and the
like."

They crossed the street to the rectory, an old-fashioned house nestling
among the trees, the parapet and pillars of its broad veranda almost
hidden by a heavy growth of ampelopsis. In front of the house, a
stretch of well-kept lawn was divided from the public walk by a
hawthorn hedge, and, cutting through its velvety green, a wide graveled
pathway swept up to the steps whose sharp angle with the veranda was
softened by a mass of low-growing, flowering shrubs. To the side,
extending towards the church, the hedge was tripled, with a space of
some six feet between. The lower branches of the evergreens forming
the second row were scarcely higher than the hawthorn in front; while,
in their turn, the evergreens were barely topped by the silver maples
behind. That triple hedge had been the loving care of the successive
priests for fifty years and served as an effectual bar to the curiosity
of the casual passer-by. In the little yard behind its shelter the
priest could read or doze, free from the intrusive gaze of the village.

Father Murray, who was comfortably reading on the veranda, arose as his
two visitors approached.

Saunders spoke quickly. "Don't worry, Padre. I ain't goin' to get
after you again to sell you another set. I just thought I'd like to
have you meet my friend, Mr. Griffin. I know you'll like him. He's
bookish, too, and an Englishman. Then, I'm off." Suiting the action
to the word, the agent, raising his hat, walked down the graveled path
and down toward the hotel.

Father Murray took Mark's hand with a friendly grip quite different
from the bone-crushing handshake he so often met in America. Mark
gazed thoughtfully at his host. With his thin but kindly face and
commanding presence, the priest seemed almost foreign. What Mark saw
was a tall--he was six feet at least of bone and muscle--and
good-looking man, with an ascetic nose and mouth; with hair, once
black, but now showing traces of white, falling in thick waves over a
broad brow. Mark noticed that his cassock was old and faded, but that
reddish buttons down its front distinguished it from the cassocks of
other village priests he had seen on his travels.

"You are welcome, Mr. Griffin--very welcome." Mark found Father
Murray's voice pleasing. "Sit down right over there. That chair is
more comfortable than it looks. I call it 'Old Hickory' because,
though it isn't hickory, yet it began life in this old house and has
outlived three pastors. Smoke?"

"Thanks, I do--but a pipe, you know. I'm hopelessly British." Mark
pulled out his pipe and a pouch of tobacco.

Turning to the wicker table beside him, the priest dug down into an old
cigar box filled with the odds and ends that smokers accumulate. He
found a pipe and filled it from Mark's extended tobacco pouch.

"It's poor hospitality, Mr. Griffin, to take your tobacco; but I
offered you a cigar. You know, this cigar habit has so grown into me
that it's a rare occasion that brings me back to old times and my
pipe." Father Murray pressed the tobacco down into the bowl. "How
long are you to be with us, Mr. Griffin?"

Mark was dropping into a lazy mood again; it was very comfortable on
the veranda. "I haven't fixed a time for going on. I beg your pardon,
but aren't those buttons significant? I once spent six months in Rome.
Aren't you what they call a _Monsignore_?"

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