第9章 IN WHICH KEZIAH UNEARTHS A PROWLER(3)

I've a good mind to go with you,she said.I want to be with you as much as I can,and HE isn't there yet.I'm afraid uncle might not like it,but--Sho!Come along.Eben Hammond may be a chronic sufferer from acute Come-Outiveness,but he ain't a ninny.Nobody'll see you,anyway.This fog's like charity,it'll cover a heap of sins.Do come right along.Wait till I get on my things.She threw a shawl over her shoulders,draped a white knitted cloudover her head,and took from a nail a key,attached by a strong cord to a block of wood eight inches long.

Elkanah left the key with me,she observed.No danger of losin'it,is there.Might as well lose a lumber yard.Old Parson Langley tied it up this way,so he wouldn't miss his moorin's,Ipresume likely.The poor old thing was so nearsighted and absent-minded along toward the last that they say he used to hire Noah Myrick's boy to come in and look him over every Sunday mornin'before church,so's to be sure he hadn't got his wig on stern foremost.That's the way Zeb Mayo tells the yarn,anyhow.They left the house and came out into the wet mist.Then,turning to the right,in the direction which Trumet,with unconscious irony,calls downtown,they climbed the long slope where the main road mounts the outlying ridge of Cannon Hill,passed Captain Mayo's big house--the finest in Trumet,with the exception of the Daniels mansion--and descended into the hollow beyond.Here,at the corner where the Lighthouse Lanebegins its winding way over the rolling knolls and dunes to the light and the fish shanties on the ocean side,stood the plain,straight-up-and-down meeting house of the Regular society.Directly opposite was the little parsonage,also very straight up and down.Both were painted white with green blinds.This statement is superfluous to those who remember Cape architecture at this period;practically every building from Sandwich to Provincetown was white and green.

They entered the yard,through the gap in the white fence,and went around the house,past the dripping evergreens and the bare,wet lilac bushes,to the side door,the lock of which Keziah's key fitted.There was a lock on the front door,of course,but no one thought of meddling with that.That door had been opened but once during the late pastor's thirty-year tenantry.On the occasion of his funeral the mourners came and went,as was proper,by that solemn portal.

Mrs.Coffin thrust the key into the keyhole of the side door and essayed to turn it.

Humph!she muttered,twisting to no purpose;I don't see why--This must be the right key,because--Well,I declare,if it ain't unlocked already!That's some of Cap'n Elkanah's doin's.For a critter as fussy and particular about some things,he's careless enough about others.Mercy we ain't had any tramps around here lately.Come in.She led the way into the dining room of the parsonage.Two of the blinds shading the windows of that apartment had been opened when she and Captain Daniels made their visit,and the dim gray light made the room more lonesome and forsaken in appearance than a deeper gloom could possibly have done.The black walnut extension table in the center,closed to its smallest dimensions because Parson Langley had eaten alone for so many years;the black walnut chairs set back against the wall at regular intervals;the rag carpet and braided mats--homemade donations from the ladies of the parish--on the green painted floor;the dolorous pictures on the walls;Death of Washington,Stoning of Stephen,and a still more deadly fruit piececommitted in oils years ago by a now deceased boat painter;a black walnut sideboard with some blue-and-white crockery upon it;a gilt-framed mirror with another outrage in oils emphasizing its upper half;dust over everything and the cobwebs mentioned by Keziah draping the corners of the ceiling;this was the dining room of the Regular parsonage as Grace saw it upon this,her first visit.The dust and cobwebs were,in her eyes,the only novelties,however.Otherwise,the room was like many others in Trumet,and,if there had been one or two paintings of ships,would have been typical of the better class.

Phew!exclaimed Keziah,sniffing disgustedly.Musty and shut up enough,ain't it?Down here in the dampness,and 'specially in the spring,it don't take any time for a house to get musty if it ain't aired out regular.Mr.Langley died only three months ago,but we've been candidatin'ever since and the candidates have been boarded round.There's been enough of 'em,too;we're awful hard to suit,I guess.That's it.Do open some more blinds and a window.Fresh air don't hurt anybody--unless it's spiders,with a glare at the loathed cobwebs.

The blinds and a window being opened,more light entered the room.

Grace glanced about it curiously.

So this is going to be your new home now,Aunt Keziah,she observed.How queer that seems.Um--h'm.Does seem queer,don't it?Must seem queer to you to be so near the headquarters of everything your uncle thinks is wicked.Smell of brimstone any,does it?she asked with a smile.

No,I haven't noticed it.You've got a lot of cleaning to do.Iwish I could help.Look at the mud on the floor.Keziah looked.

Mud?she exclaimed.Why,so 'tis!How in the world did that come here?Wet feet,sure's you're born.Man's foot,too.Cap'n Elkanah's,I guess likely;though the prints don't look hardly big enough for his.Elkanah's convinced that he's a great man and his boots bear him out in it,don't they?Those marks don't look broad enough for his understandin',but I guess he made 'em;nobody else could.Here's the settin'room.She threw open another door.A room gloomy with black walnut and fragrant with camphor was dimly visible.