Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries (19 page)

Then, it seemed to me, Randolph entered the only road there was out of this mystery.

“Your son knew about this money?”

“Yes,” replied Belts, “'Lander knew about it. He used to say that a part of it was his because he had worked for it as much as I had. But I told him,” and the old man's voice cheeped in a sort of laugh, “that he was mine.”

“Where was your son Philander when the money disappeared?” said Randolph.

“Over the mountains,” said Belts; “he had been gone a month.” Then he paused and looked at Randolph. “It was not 'Lander. On that day he was in the school that Mr. Jefferson set up. I had a letter from the master asking for money… I have the letter,” and he got up to get it.

But Randolph waved his hand and sat back in his chair with the aspect of a brooding oracle.

It was then that my uncle spoke.

“Belts,” he said, “how do you think the money went?”

The old man,'s voice got again into that big crude whisper.

“I don't know, Abner.”

But my uncle pressed him.

“What do you think?”

Belts drew a little nearer to the table.

“Abner,” he said, “there are a good many things going on around a man that he don't understand. We turn out a horse to pasture, and he comes in with hand-hold in his mane …. You have seen it?”

“Yes,” replied my uncle.

And I had seen it, too, many a time, when the horses were brought up in the spring from pasture, their manes twisted and knotted into loops, as though to furnish a hand-hold to a rider.

“Well, Abner,” continued the old man in his rustling whisper, “who rides the horse? You cannot untie or untwist those hand-holds—you must cut them out with shears—with iron. Is it true?”

“It is true,” replied my uncle.

“And why, eh, Abner? Because those hand-holds were never knotted in by any human fingers! You know what the old folk say?”

“I know,” answered my uncle. “Do you believe it, Belts?”

“Eh, Abner!” he croaked in the guttural whisper. “If there were no witches, why did our fathers hang up iron to keep them off? My grandmother saw one burned in the old country. She had ridden the king's horse, and greased her hands with shoemakers' wax so her fingers would not slip in the mane …. Shoemakers' wax! Mark you that, Abner!”

“Belts,” cried Randolph, “you are a fool; there are no witches!”

“There was the Witch of Endor,” replied my uncle. “Go on, Belts.”

“By gad, sir!” roared Randolph, “if we are to try witches, I shall have to read up James the First. That Scotch king wrote a learned work on demonology. He advised the magistrate search on the body of the witch for the seal of the devil; that would be a spot insensible to pain, and, James said, ‘Prod for it with a needle.'”

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 choice?”

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!”

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.