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The Bell In The Fog
by
He allowed what society was in town to lavish honors upon him for something over a month, then cancelled all his engagements and went down to Chillingsworth.
His estate was in Hertfordshire, that county of gentle hills and tangled lanes, of ancient oaks and wide wild heaths, of historic houses, and dark woods, and green fields innumerable–a Wordsworthian shire, steeped in the deepest peace of England. As Orth drove towards his own gates he had the typical English sunset to gaze upon, a red streak with a church spire against it. His woods were silent. In the fields, the cows stood as if conscious of their part. The ivy on his old gray towers had been young with his children.
He spent a haunted night, but the next day stranger happenings began.
II
He rose early, and went for one of his long walks. England seems to cry out to be walked upon, and Orth, like others of the transplanted, experienced to the full the country’s gift of foot-restlessness and mental calm. Calm flees, however, when the ego is rampant, and to-day, as upon others too recent, Orth’s soul was as restless as his feet. He had walked for two hours when he entered the wood of his neighbor’s estate, a domain seldom honored by him, as it, too, had been bought by an American–a flighty hunting widow, who displeased the fastidious taste of the author. He heard children’s voices, and turned with the quick prompting of retreat.
As he did so, he came face to face, on the narrow path, with a little girl. For the moment he was possessed by the most hideous sensation which can visit a man’s being–abject terror. He believed that body and soul were disintegrating. The child before him was his child, the original of a portrait in which the artist, dead two centuries ago, had missed exact fidelity, after all. The difference, even his rolling vision took note, lay in the warm pure living whiteness and the deeper spiritual suggestion of the child in his path. Fortunately for his self-respect, the surrender lasted but a moment. The little girl spoke.
“You look real sick,” she said. “Shall I lead you home?”
The voice was soft and sweet, but the intonation, the vernacular, were American, and not of the highest class. The shock was, if possible, more agonizing than the other, but this time Orth rose to the occasion.
“Who are you?” he demanded, with asperity. “What is your name? Where do you live?”
The child smiled, an angelic smile, although she was evidently amused. “I never had so many questions asked me all at once,” she said. “But I don’t mind, and I’m glad you’re not sick. I’m Mrs. Jennie Root’s little girl–my father’s dead. My name is Blanche–you are sick! No?–and I live in Rome, New York State. We’ve come over here to visit pa’s relations.”
Orth took the child’s hand in his. It was very warm and soft.
“Take me to your mother,” he said, firmly; “now, at once. You can return and play afterwards. And as I wouldn’t have you disappointed for the world, I’ll send to town to-day for a beautiful doll.”
The little girl, whose face had fallen, flashed her delight, but walked with great dignity beside him. He groaned in his depths as he saw they were pointing for the widow’s house, but made up his mind that he would know the history of the child and of all her ancestors, if he had to sit down at table with his obnoxious neighbor. To his surprise, however, the child did not lead him into the park, but towards one of the old stone houses of the tenantry.
“Pa’s great-great-great-grandfather lived there,” she remarked, with all the American’s pride of ancestry. Orth did not smile, however. Only the warm clasp of the hand in his, the soft thrilling voice of his still mysterious companion, prevented him from feeling as if moving through the mazes of one of his own famous ghost stories.