Dawkins was cross, there was no denying that, for her nerves were sadly shaken by her fears for the girl she had learned to love so dearly.

"You get about your business, boy, at once; without tarryin' to pa.s.s remarks upon your betters;" and she made a vicious dash toward him as if to strike him. He knew this was only pretence, and sidled toward her, mockingly, then, as she raised her hand again--this time with more decision--he cowered aside and made a rush out of the kitchen.

"Well, that's odd! The first time I ever knew that boy to turn down his breakfast!" remarked the _chef_, pointing to a heaped up plate at the back of the range. "Well, I shan't keep it any longer. He'll have the better appet.i.te for dinner, ha, ha!"

Jack's unusual indifference to good food was due to a sound he had overheard. It came from somewhere above and pa.s.sed unnoticed by all but him, but set him running to a distant stairway which led from "the old laundry" to the drying-loft above: and a sigh of satisfaction escaped him as he saw that the door of this was shut.

"Lucky for me, that is! I was afraid they'd been looking here for that Calvert girl, but they haven't, 'cause the lock ain't broke and the key's in my pocket," said he, in a habit he had of talking to himself.

The noise beyond the door increased, and worried him, and he hurriedly sought the key where he usually carried it. The door could be, and had been, closed by a spring, but it needed that key to open it, as he had boastingly remembered. Unhappy lad! In not one of his many and ragged pockets could that key now be found! While in the great room beyond the noise grew loud, and louder, with each pa.s.sing second and surely would soon be heard by all the house. Under the circ.u.mstances n.o.body would hesitate to break that hateful lock to learn the racket's cause; yet what would happen to him when this was discovered?

What, indeed! Yet, strangely enough, in all his trepidation there was no thought of Dorothy.

CHAPTER X

OPEN CONFESSION IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL

A housemaid, pa.s.sing through the disused "old laundry" on the ground floor, as a short-cut toward the newer one in a detached building, heard a strange noise in the drying-room overhead, and paused to listen. This was unusual. In ordinary the loft was never entered, nowadays, except by some slippered maid, or Michael with a trunk.

Setting down her basket of soiled linen she put her hands on her hips and stood motionless, intently listening. Dorothy? Could it be Dorothy? Impossible! No living girl could make all that racket; yet--was that a scream? Was it laughter--terror--wild animal--or what?

Away she sped; her nimble feet pausing not an instant on the way, no matter with whom she collided nor whom her excited face frightened, and still breathlessly running came into the great a.s.sembly Hall.

There Miss Tross-Kingdon had, by the advice of the Bishop, gathered the whole school; to tell them as quietly as she could of Dorothy's disappearance and to cross-examine them as to what anyone could remember about her on the evening before.

For the sorrowful fact could no longer be hidden--Dorothy Calvert was gone and could not be found.

On the faces of those three hundred girls was consternation and grief; in their young hearts a memory of the "spookish" things which had happened of late, but that had not before disturbed them; and now, at the excited entrance of the maid, a shiver ran over the whole company.

Here was news! Nothing less could explain this unceremonious disturbance. Even Miss Muriel's face turned paler than it had been, could that have been possible and without a word she waited for the maid to speak.

"Oh! Lady Princ.i.p.al! Let somebody come! The drying-loft!

screams--boards dragging--or trunks--or murder doing--maybe! Let somebody go quick--Michael--a man--men--Somebody quick!"

Exhausted by her own excitement, the maid sank upon the nearest chair, her hand on her heart, and herself unable to add another word. Miss Tross-Kingdon rose, trembling so that she could hardly walk, and made her way out of the room. In an instant every a.s.sembled schoolgirl was on her feet, speeding toward the far west wing and the great loft, dreading yet eager to see what would there be revealed.

Still anxious on his own account, but from a far different cause, and still listening at the closed door with wonder at what seemed going on behind it, was Jack, the boot-boy. At the approach of the excited girls, he lifted his ear from the keyhole and looked behind him, to find himself trapped, as it were, at this end of the narrow pa.s.sage by the mult.i.tude which swarmed about him, feverishly demanding:

"Boy, what is it? What is it? Is Dorothy in there? Is Dorothy found?"

"Is Dorothy--"

Poor Jack! This was the worst yet! At full comprehension of what that question meant, even he turned pale and his lips stuttered:

"I--I--dunno--I--Jiminy cricket!"

He must get out of that! He must--he must! Before that door was opened he must escape!

Frantically he tried to force his way backward through the crowd which penned him in, but could make little progress; even that being suddenly cut off by a strong hand laid on his shoulder and the _chef_ forcing into his hand a stout crowbar, and ordering:

"Help to break her down!" at the same instant Michael, the porter, pressing to his side armed with an ax. "Now, all together!" cried he, and whether or no, Jack was compelled to aid in the work of breaking in.

But it was short work, indeed, and the crowd surged through the opening in terror of what they might behold--only to have that terror changed into shouts of hilarious delight.

For there was Dorothy! not one whit the worse for her brief imprisonment and happily unconscious of the anxiety which that had caused to others. And there was Baal, the goat! Careering about the place, dragging behind him a board to which he had been tied and was unable to dislodge. The room was fairly lighted now by the sun streaming through the skylight, and Baal had been having a glorious time chasing Dorothy about the great room, from spot to spot, gleefully trying to b.u.t.t her with his horns, leaping over piles of empty trunks, and in general making such a ridiculous--if sometimes dangerous--spectacle of himself, that Dorothy, also, had had a merry time.

"Oh! you darling, you darling!" "Dolly Doodles, how came you here!"

"Why did you do it? You've scared us all almost to death!" "The Bishop has gone into town to start detectives on your track!" "The Lady Princ.i.p.al--Here she is now! you've made her positively ill, and as for Dawkins, they say she had completely collapsed and lies on her chair moaning all the time."

"Oh, oh! How dreadful! And how sorry I am! I never dreamed; oh! dear Miss Muriel, do believe me--listen, listen!"

The lady sat down on a trunk and drew the girl to her. Her only feeling now was one of intensest grat.i.tude, but she remembered how all the others had shared her anxiety and bade her recovered pupil tell the story so that all might hear. It was very simple, as has been seen, and needs no repet.i.tion here, ending with the heartfelt declaration:

"That cures me of playing detective ever again! I was so anxious to stop all that silly talk about evil spirits and after all the only such around Oak Knowe was Baal!"

"But how Baal, and why? And most of all how came he here in the house?" demanded Miss Tross-Kingdon, looking from one to another; until her eye was arrested by the expression of Jack, the boot-boy's face. That was so funny she smiled, seeing it, and asked him:

"Can't you explain this, Jack?"

"Uh--er--Ah! Wull--wull, yes, Ma'am, I allow 't I might. I mean 't I can. Er--sho!--Course, I'll have to. Wull--wull--You see, Miss Lady Princ.i.p.al, how as last summer, after school was took in, I hired myself out to work for old John Gilpin an' he had a goat. Dame didn't hanker for it no great; said it et up things an' got into places where 'twarn't wanted and she adwised him, that is to say she told him, how 't he must get rid of it. He got rid of it onto me. I hadn't got n.o.body belongin' and we've been first rate friends, Baal and me."

This was evidenced by the quietude of the animal, now lying at the boot-boy's feet in affectionate confidence, and refreshing itself with a nap, after its hilarious exercise.

"Strange that we didn't know he was on our grounds, for I did not.

Where have you kept him, Jack, and how?"

The lad flushed and fidgetted but dared not refuse to reply. He had been too long under the authority of Miss Tross-Kingdon for that, to whose good offices his mother had left him when she died.

"Wull--Wull--"

"Kindly stop 'wulling' and reply. It is nearly lunch time and Dorothy has had no breakfast."

"Yes, Miss Muriel, please but I have. When I waked up after I'd slept so long it was real light, so I went poking around to see if I could find another door that would open, or any way out; and I came to a queer place away yonder at the end; and I heard the funniest noise--'ih-ih-ih--Ah-umph!' something like that. Then I knew it was the goat, that I'd heard pat-pat-pattering along the hall last night and that I'd followed. And I guessed it was Jack, instead of a burglar, who'd rushed past me and locked me in. I was mighty glad to see anybody, even a goat, and I opened the gate to the place and Baal jumped out. He was tied to that board--he'd pulled it off the gate, and was as glad to see me as I was him. That little sort of cupboard, or cubby-hole, had lots of excelsior in it; I guess it had come around crockery or something, and that was where Baal slept. There was a tin box there, too, and I opened it. I was glad enough then! For it was half full of cakes and apples and a lemon pie, that you call a 'Christchurch' up here in Canada; and before I knew it Baal had his nose in the box, like he was used to eating out of it, and I had to slap his nose to make him let me have a share. So I'm not hungry and all I care is that I have made you all so worried."

But already that was almost forgotten, though Miss Muriel's curiosity was not yet satisfied.

"Jack, are you in the habit of keeping that animal here, in this room?"

"Yes--yes, Ma'am; times I am. Other times he stays in the old shed down by the brook. Most of the men knew I had him; Michael did, anyhow. He never said nothing again' it;" answered the boy, defiantly, trying to shift responsibility to the old porter, the most trusted servant of the house.

"No, I cannot imagine Michael meddling with you and your foolishness; and for a lad who's lived so long at a great school, I wonder to hear such bad grammar from your lips. How did you get Baal into this room without being detected in it?"

"Why, Ma'am, that was easy as preachin'. That back end, outside steps, what leads up from the ground for carrying up wet clothes, it used to be. He comes up that way, for goats can climb any place. Leastwise, Baal can, and the door's never locked no more, 'cause I lost the key;"

answered Jack, who was now the center of attention and proud of the fact.

"Very well, Jack. That will do. Kindly see to it that Baal is permanently removed from Oak Knowe, and--" She paused for a moment, as if about to add more, then quietly moved away, with Dorothy beside her and all her now happy flock following.