in the evening dr. crackenthorpe paid us a visit. he found my father out, but elected to sit with us and smoke his pipe expectant of the other’s return.
he always treated us boys as if we were so much dirt, and we respected his strength just sufficiently to try no pranks on him in the absence of the ruling power. but nevertheless we resented his presumption of authority, and whenever he sat with us alone made an exaggerated affectation of being thick in whispered confidences among ourselves.
zyp was still upstairs and the doctor had not as yet seen her, but he was conscious, i think, in some telepathic way, of an alien presence in the house, for he kept shifting his position uneasily and looking toward the door. a screech from his lips suddenly startled us, and we turned round to see the long man standing bolt upright, with his face gone the color of a meal sack, and his bold eyes staring prominent.
“what’s the matter?” said jason.
gradually the doctor’s face assumed a dark look of rage.
“which of you was it?” he cried in a broken voice; “tell me, or i’ll crack all your fingers up like fire sticks!”
“what’s the matter?” said jason, again; “you see for yourself we’ve been sitting by the table all the time you’ve been there.”
“something spoke—somebody, i tell you, as i sat here in the chimney corner!” he was beside himself with fury and had great ado to crush his emotion under. but he succeeded, and sat down again trembling all over.
“a curse is on the house!” he muttered; then aloud: “i’ve had enough of your games, you black vermin! i won’t stand it, d’ye hear? let there be an end!”
we stared, dropped into our seats and were beginning our confidences once more, when the doctor started up a second time with a loud oath, and leaped into the middle of the room.
“great thunder!” he shouted; “d’ye dare!”
this time we had all heard it—a wailing whisper that seemed to come from the neighborhood of the chimney and to utter the words: “beware the demon that sits in the bottle,” and of the whole company only i was not confounded.
as to the doctor, he suddenly turned very white again, and muttered shakingly: “can it be? i don’t exceed as others do. i swear i have taken less this month than ever before.”
with the terror in his soul he stumbled toward the door and was moving out his hand to reach it, when it opened from the other side and zyp, as meek and pure looking as a young saint, met him on the threshold.
now, i had that morning, in the course of conversation with the changeling, touched upon dr. crackenthorpe and his weaknesses, and that ghostly mention of the bottle convinced me on the moment that only she could be responsible for the mystery—a revelation of impishness which, i need not say, delighted me. the method of her prank i may as well describe here. the embrasure for a fireplace in her room had never been fitted with a grate, and the hearthstone itself was cracked and dislocated in a dozen places. by removing some of these fragments she had actually discovered a broken way into the chimney of the sitting room below, down which it was easy to slip a hollow rail of iron which with other lumber lay in the attic. this she had done, listened for her opportunity, and thereupon spoken the ominous words.
i think her appearance was the consummation of the doctor’s terror, for a shuddering “oh!” shook from his lips, and he seemed about to drop. and indeed she was somewhat like a spirit, with her wild white face looking from a tangle of pheasant-brown hair and her solemn eyes like water glints in little wells of shadow.
she walked past the stricken man all stately, and then modred and i jumped up and greeted her. at this the doctor’s jaw dropped, but his trembling ceased and he watched us with injected eyes. holding my two hands, zyp looked coyly round, leaning backward.
“i love a tall man,” she whispered; “he has more in him than a short one.”
the doctor pulled himself together and came straggling across to the table.
“who the pestilence is this?” he said, in a voice not yet quite under his command.
zyp let go my hands and curtsied like a wild flower.
“zyp, the orphan, good gentleman,” she said; “shall i fill your pipe for you?”
it had fallen on the floor by the chimney, and she picked it up and went to him with a winning expression.
“where is your tobacco, please?”
mechanically he brought a round tin box from his pocket and handed it to her. then it was a study in elfin coquetry to see the way in which she daintily coaxed the weed into the bowl and afterward sucking at the pipe stem with her determined little red lips to see if it drew properly. this done, she presented the mouthpiece to the doctor’s consideration, as if it were a baby’s “comforter.”
“now,” she said, “sit down and i’ll bring you your glass.”
but at this the four of us, including dr. crackenthorpe, drew back. my father was no man to allow his pleasures to be encroached upon unbidden, and we three, at least, knew it as much as our skins were worth to offer practical hospitality in his absence.
zyp looked at our faces and stamped her foot lively, with a toss of disdain.
“where is the strong drink?” she said.
modred tittered. “in that cupboard over the mantel shelf, if you must know,” he said.
zyp had the bottle out in a twinkling and a glass with it. she poured out a stiff rummer, added water from a stone bottle on a corner shelf, and presented the grateful offering to the visitor, who had reseated himself by the table.
his scruples of conscience and discretion grew faint in the near neighborhood of the happy cordial. he seized the glass and impulsively took half the grog at a breath. zyp clapped her hands joyfully, whereupon he clumped down the glass on the table with a dismayed look.
“well,” he said, “you’re an odd little witch, upon my word. what robin goodfellow fathered you, i should like to know?”
“he’s no father,” said zyp. “he’s too full of tricks for a family man. i could tell you things of him.”
“tell us some then,” said the doctor.
what zyp would have answered i don’t know, for at that moment my father walked into the room. if he had had what is vulgarly called a skinful, he was not drunk, for he moved steadily up to the little group at the table with a scowl contracting his forehead. the half-emptied tumbler had caught his eye immediately and he pointed to it. i was conscious that the doctor quaked a little.
“pray make yourself at home,” said my father, and caught up the glass and flung its contents in the other’s face. in a moment the two men were locked in a savage, furious embrace, till, crashing over a chair, they were flung sprawling on the floor and apart. before they could come together again zyp alone of us had placed herself between them, fearless and beautiful, and had broken into a quaint little song:
“smooth down her fur,
rub sleep over her eyes,
sweet, never stir.
kiss down the coat of her
there, where she lies
on the bluebells.”
she sung, and whether it was the music or the strangeness of the interruption, i shall never know; only the wonderful fact remains that, with the sound of her voice, the great passion seemed to die out of the two foes and to give place to a pleasant conceit, comical in its way, that they had only been rollicking together.
“well,” said my father, without closer allusion to his brutality, “the liquor was choice schiedam, and it’s gone.”
he sat down, called for another glass, helped himself to a noggin and pushed the bottle roughly across to dr. crackenthorpe, who had already reseated himself opposite.
“sing again, girl,” said my father, but zyp shook her head.
“i never do anything to order,” she said, “but the fairies move me to dance.”
she blew out the lamp as she spoke and glided to a patch of light that fell from the high may moon through the window on to the rough boards of the room. into this light she dipped her hands and then passed them over her hair and face as though she were washing herself in the mystic fountain of the night; and all the time her murmuring voice accompanied the action in little trills of laughter and words not understandable. presently she fell to dancing, slowly at first and dividing her presence between glow and gloom; but gradually the supple motion of her body increased, step by step, until she was footing it as wildly as a young hamadryad to her own leaping shadow on the floor.
suddenly she sprung from the moonlit square, danced over to dr. crackenthorpe and, whispering awfully in his ear, “beware the demon that sits in the bottle,” ran from the room.
my father burst into a fit of laughter, but i think from that day the doctor fully hated her.
