the inimitable watkins met us at chesby station with a motor in which we were whirled off through mirky woods and a half-seen park to a low, rambling building of varying architecture set on the summit of a saddle-back hill. lights showed in one wing, but the center and other wing were dark.
"i'm very sorry, your ludship," apologized watkins, as he assisted us from the car in front of a tudor archway. "it's been some years since the 'ouse has been opened. your uncle, 'e was used to living 'ere in the old wing, and we're under-staffed, if i may say so, your ludship, for—"
"it suits me, watty," returned hugh. "my friends are not company, and of course, we shall not entertain. it would be foolish to open up the entire place."
he stood on the doorstep, glancing around him at the thick, ivy-draped walls and the machicolated parapets which lined the roofs.
"welcome to chesby, you chaps," he hailed us. "it gives me a thrill to come here. i haven't seen it since before the war, except for one brief visit two years ago, and i haven't really lived here since i was a lad."
a butler no less dignified than watkins held the door open for us, and a palsied footman strove with the valet for custody of our scanty baggage. watkins motioned both aside when we entered the high-pitched hall.
"this way, if you please, your ludship and gentlemen," he said. "i 'ave 'ad supper served in the gunroom. 'is late ludship used it as a snuggery, as 'e called it, mister hugh—beg pardon, sir, your ludship—and far more cheery it is, sir, with a bright fire and all, than the other rooms."
"that's fine," approved hugh, and he led us after watkins through a short passage to the right and into a big room, with mullioned windows, deeply-embrasured, and carved oaken rafters and stone walls showing above the rich paneling that rose a tall man's height from the floor. at one side was a vast fireplace, with chimney-piece, ingle-nooks and over-mantle elaborately carved. a log-fire blazed on the dogs, and before it, warmly illuminated, a table was set with snowy linen and silver emblazoned with the chesby crest, a mailed arm clutching a dagger and beneath it an open eye, with the motto "i search."
hugh rubbed his hands with satisfaction.
"this is home," he said.
but a shadow instantly chased the smile from his lips.
"and if bellowes is correct, it will continue to be my home only if we succeed in finding something lost more than seven hundred years ago," he added.
"if it is to be found we shall find it," answered nikka. "what a beautiful room!"
"i was going to say the same thing," i said. "as an architect, i have tried to achieve this effect for rich americans, but i must admit i can't do with mere money what time and many men's imaginations have accomplished here."
"and women's imaginations, too," replied hugh. "this is the oldest part of the castle, but it has felt the influence of that redoubtable lady jane you heard about this afternoon. i believe this wing is supposed to be the remains of the angevin keep and great hall of the first hugh's castle, which were partially destroyed in the wars of the roses, and again by fire in bloody mary's time. lady jane rebuilt this wing and joined it with what was then the modern, and early tudor, central mass."
curious, i stepped over to the fireplace and examined the splendid carvings in deep relief that adorned stone and woodwork. high up near the roof on the over-mantel i discerned the family crest, together with numerous heraldic shields in colors faded and dimmed. but the most curious feature of the ornamentation was a lower panel supported by a group of bibulous monks in comically disordered attitudes. on the panel appeared to be lettering.
"watkins," i called, "bring me a candle, please."
he lifted a weighty candelabra from the table and carried it toward me, hugh and nikka trailing him like small boys eager to view anything new. as he held it aloft, arm-high, the soft light shone on four lines of gothic lettering which had once been gilded. they showed clearly in the age-old oak of the paneling:
whenne thatte ye pappist churchmanne
woudde seke his soul's contente
he tookened up ye wysshinge stone
and trodde ye prior's vent.
"i had forgotten that," exclaimed hugh. "it's some more of lady jane's poetry.'
"she seems to have been rather hipped that way," i suggested.
"now you speak of it, i can't recall any other specimens of her wit in rhyme," answered hugh, puzzled. "can you, watty?"
"no, your ludship. 'is ludship, your late uncle, made a careful examination of lady jane's papers, but 'e found no other verses."
"but what was her idea here?" i persisted, for the whimsicalness of the thing interested me.
"oh, as i told you, she was virulently anti-catholic," said hugh carelessly. "it was she, you know, who sealed up the old family crypt and built a new one in the priory, as the parish church is called. she probably believed that the former monks of the priory had been more interested in their wine-cellar than in masses."
"but the 'prior's vent'? what on earth is that?"
"i don't know, unless it was the way to the wine-cellar. don't you see the point?"
"no, i don't. and this 'wysshinge stone,' too? what could that be?"
"it must have been something connected with entering the wine-cellar. oh, it's all perfectly simple, jack. crowden priory was one of those establishments guilty of abuses which furnished henry the eighth with his excuse for looting the monastic orders. the facts were still a matter of memory in lady jane's time, and she took advantage of them to mock the catholics. that's all."
i did not answer him for i had become engrossed in the decorations of the stone mantel, itself, a magnificent piece of freestone, sculptured in a frieze of turks' heads, sphinxes and veiled women, ranged alternately.
"well, she—or her masons, i should say—did a fine job," i said at last, tearing myself reluctantly from the beautiful courses of stone and the even flags of the hearth.
"you'll have plenty of time to indulge your architect's eye hereabouts," declared hugh from the table. "come and eat or nikka will leave you nothing. watty, what is the news?"
the valet deposited a chafing dish and stand by my place.
"mr. penfellow, the vicar, your ludship, instructed me to tell you the service for 'is late ludship would be tomorrow morning, as you requested. 'e had made all arrangements consequent upon receiving your ludship's cablegram. oh, yes, sir, and mr. hilyer was over from little depping this afternoon in a motor—with some ladies, sir—and asked after you. 'e said 'e would be at the funeral, sir."
hugh frowned.
"i will not have anything to do with that bounder," he grunted.
"'e 'as quite a lively time, so the servants tell me, your ludship," volunteered watkins. "a regular 'ouse-party 'e's entertaining now, with foreign gentry and all."
"they would be foreign," retorted hugh. "he can't get a decent englishman inside his house, and if he thinks i shall fall for him just because i've spent two years in america—" he broke into a sudden grin—"it's rather funny, jack. i expect he believes i've been metamorphosed into a bloomin' democrat. the bounder!"
"what's the matter with the man?" inquired nikka.
"everything! the hilyers own the next place to us—little depping, it's called. they were always decent enough people, but this chap, montey hilyer, is a wrong 'un. he got into trouble before the war with the stewards of the jockey club and was barred from the course. then he picked up a reputation as a card-sharp and society gambler. for a while he used to hang around continental resorts and fleece the innocent.
"when the war came he enlisted, made a splendid record and earned a commission. the next thing that happened was a scandal in his mess over heavy play, and he was compelled to resign. he's a bad egg, through and through. odd, though, how he keeps up little depping. i believe he's been on short rations more than once, but he always has managed to preserve the estate—and like me, he's the last of the line."
watkins removed the savory, and received a platter of sandwiches from the butler, who he permitted to come no farther than the door.
"and your ludship may remember mr. hilyer married some years ago—before 'e got into trouble, sir," he observed as he placed the platter before us. "she was, if i may say so, your ludship, not one of us."
watkins contrived to express deep disapprobation, without wrinkling or contorting his countenance, a trick at which i always marveled.
"quite so," assented hugh. "she was an actress or something like that. well, it's in the beggar's favor that he married her. but they can't come footling around here. i'd have the whole county up in arms against me."
we chatted on for a while, and then watkins guided us to the upper story where three adjoining bedrooms had been made ready.
"the bathroom is across the 'all, sir," he informed me, stopping at my door on his way from hugh's room. "my room is beside it. you 'ave only to ring, sir, if you wish anything. good night, sir."
as he left, i reflected with a grin that i had not been so coddled since my schooldays as in the brief period following his adoption of hugh and myself. for that was what it amounted to. for all his deference and servility, neither hugh nor i would have dared to withstand any wish which watkins gave serious expression to, and furthermore, he made us feel constantly that we were obligated to maintain a certain standard of conduct, which he, watkins, might find satisfaction in.
i was up early the next morning, and a brief scouting tour revealed nikka's room empty, while hugh snoozed blissfully on. so i shaved and bathed, and descended the broad, shallow staircase into the entrance hall below. this wing, i noted, seemed to be shut off entirely from the remainder of the house. at any rate, there were no open corridors.
watkins was arranging flowers in a luster bowl on a table under an oriel window, and i mentioned this fact to him as i stood on the lowest step, drinking in the wonderful satisfaction of a perfectly designed and furnished entrance, something that it takes the average architect ten years to learn how to do.
"you are right, sir," he answered. "there are corridors, but they are shut off, in order to save heat, sir, and prevent draughts. since the death of the old lord, sir—mister hugh's grandfather—we 'ave 'ad such a small family that no occasion was found for all the rooms. and the old wing, sir, is a large 'ouse by itself."
"well, that makes so much less for us to defend," i said.
"beg pardon, sir?"
"in case our friends of toutou's gang should try to attack us," i explained.
but watkins was as positive as mr. bellowes that such things could not transpire in england.
"oh, sir, sure i am you need not concern yourself for that," he said seriously. "they would never dare. the constabulary, sir—and all that."
"perhaps," i said. "what is that music?"
he inclined his ear towards the door of a room that opened from the opposite side of the hall to the gunroom.
"oh, sir. that's mister nikka. 'e's in the music room aplaying to 'imself, sir."
i crossed to the half-open door and peered inside. nikka was sitting at a pianoforte in a flood of sunshine, and the music poured from his lips and fingers, like the sunshine, passionately intense, warm and vital. it stirred me as i listened, searching out primitive impulses, painting sound-pictures of outlandish scenes, spreading exotic odors over that conventional room. it was rebellious, uncivilized, untamed—and i liked it.
he crooned to himself, rather than sang, but the words and the melody, savage, melancholy, joyously-somber, beat their way into my brain:
sad is the ache in my heart;
the cities crowd me in.
i may not breath for their stench,
my ears are deaf from their din.
let me go forth from their ways,
out where the road runs free,
twisting over the balkan hills
down to the restless sea.
the dust shall caress my feet,
the sun shall warm my limbs,
the trees shall tell me their thoughts
at dusk as the twilight dims.
and i shall inhale the smoke
of fires beside the road;
i shall hear the camels grunt
as the drivers shift their loads.
and best of all, i shall hear
the wild, mad tzigane songs,
cruel and gay and lustful,
like fiddles and clanging gongs.
and in the glare of the campfires
i shall see the tziganes dance—
women with lithe, round bodies,
men straight as a heiduck's lance.
and perhaps a wild brown maiden
will seek me amongst the throng,
and dance with me down the twisting road
to a wild, mad tzigane song.
he ended with a crashing of keys, and looked up to meet my fascinated gaze.
"you liked it?" he asked shyly. "i can see you did. it is a little song i have made out of the heart-beats of my people. we gypsies can make music, if nothing else. and all gypsy music should be played on strings. only the fiddle can reach the heights and depths of human emotion. but i have put my fiddle away from me until we have finished this job."
he walked over and slipped his arm through mine.
"let us see what watty has for breakfast," he went on, "and send him to awaken that lazy-bones, hugh."
"but see here, nikka," i broke in. "are you really a gypsy? in the usual sense of the word?"
he considered as he explored a fruit-dish.
"i don't know what you mean by 'the usual sense of the word,'" he answered finally. "i am a gypsy by birth and blood. i passed my boyhood with the caravans. i learned to play the fiddle with the gypsy maestros of hungary."
"it's funny," i admitted, "but i never quite envisaged you as a gypsy until i heard you sing that song."
nikka smiled.
"i can understand that. i made up that song because i was feeling the lure of the blood. the gypsy in me has been crying out for assertion. i think that is one reason why i was so glad to have hugh call on me. i smelled in his need a chance to sample the old, wild life again."
"do you believe the gypsies play a part in this treasure business?" i asked.
he nodded.
"i feel it in my bones. it is a gypsy tradition, remember. probably we shall find the interest of some tzigane tribe crossing ours."
"and then?"
"my tribe fight for hugh."
"your tribe?"
"surely, i have a tribe. they fight for my hand and for my friends."
i regarded him with increased respect.
"that has a delightfully mediæval sound. it strikes me you are going to be the most valuable member of this expedition."
"all for one, and one for all," laughed nikka.
he waved a greeting to hugh, who came in at that moment.
"we are talking about gypsies and fighting," he explained.
"and it seems that nikka is a potentate who has a tribe to carry out his wishes," i amended.
"i wish we had his tribe here to help us pull down this old stone-box," answered hugh gloomily. "how else are we going to uncover any hiding-places? and i feel like fighting when i remember that we are going to uncle james's funeral this morning. well, the best way to fight, i suppose, is to search. that's the family motto. jack, you'll have a first rate opportunity to investigate early structural methods in english architecture. i expect you'll be the only one to get anything out of the affair."
which last was a very poor piece of prophecy.
