The village of Carrick was a place of few excitements. The departure or
arrival of the three fishing schooners whose several firms embraced every person
of consequence in the hamlet; an occasional wreck upon the ragged reef forming
the harbor; a small jubilation on election or “Independence” day; these were
its principal public events.

A smaller but more frequent interest, however, centered in the semi-weekly
arrival of the mail coach forming the only communication between Carrick and
the outer world. Even to see it whirling down the sandy street was something,
but the knowledge that it bore the lean mail-bag, perhaps a passenger, perhaps
some dim report of news affecting, it might be, the fishing interest, it might be
the less vital affairs of state, was sufficient to attract every male idler of Carrick
to the tavern of the Mermaid's Cave, where it stopped for change of horses;
while every woman in town paused with her pies half in the oven, her baby yet
unwhipped, her coffee “on the bile,” to rush to the door and stand on tiptoe staring

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down the street as if the Possibility, for whose advent most of us wait all our
lives, were booked to her by that especial coach.

Never, perhaps, had the constancy of these idlers been more severely tested
than on the afternoon of a certain dismal December day when the coach, delayed
by a furious storm of snow and hail, so far passed its usual hour of arrival that
the dinner prepared for the passengers was, as Mrs. Burroughs, landlady of the
Mermaid's Cave, remarked, “dried to a skillington, and had no more taste left in
it than last year's seaweed.”

“The worse for them as has to eat and pay for it,” retorted her lord, philosophically.
“But keep it hot, Jemima, she'll be here yet. Billings never failed
to get through somehow, and whoever he brings will be hungry enough to eat
biled hake 'thout gravy.”

“There's the supper horn for some on us,” said one of the loungers about the
bar-room stove, as the blatant tones of a fish-horn pierced the gathering darkness
without, and angrily seemed to demand an answer.

“Reckon it's mine,” remarked Reuben Brume, with a somewhat uneasy grin.
“But I'll hold on a spell for the stage. She can't be much longer, and I guess
my woman 'll keep a bite and a sup for me.”

“More like she'll give you the bite without the sup,” retorted Burroughs, who
like most magnates was fond of a joke at the expense of his courtiers.

A general laugh followed his present jibe, for Nancy Brume's proficiency as
a scold was well known throughout the village.

“What's the joke? I don't see none,” asked Brume, angrily. “Some folks
laughs as a loon squawks, jest to make a pooty noise.”

“It takes wit to see wit, Reub. You'd better jest laugh when other folks do,'
thout trying to see why,” replied the landlord, with a wink to his neighbor.

Brume, far from mollified by this suggestion, was still cudgelling his dull
brain for a retort, when the door was thrown open and a smart young fellow,
whip in hand, entered the room and strode up to the bar.

“A glass of toddy, Burroughs, as quick as you've a mind to make it. It's
cold enough outside to freeze your mermaid's tail off. Don't you hear her
screeching?”

The dismal groan of the sign vibrating upon its rusty pintles accompanied the
question, and Reuben Brume, finding the laugh diverted from himself, gave up
the desperate search for a retort, and asked, instead,

“Did you see anything of the stage, James?”

“Yes, it's lumbering into the village. I brought down a horse for Mr.
Vaughn to ride home. It wasn't worth while to try wheels nor yet a sleigh,
such going as we've got to-night.”

“Is he coming in the stage?” asked the landlady, in some excitement.

“Yes. He drove the horses up three days ago, but said if it stormed bad he
should come down in the stage and I was to meet him here with a cutter. Here
they come.”

A shout and the crack of a whip were heard at this moment, and the inmates
of the bar-room rushed in a body out upon the stoop at the front door, in time to
see the driver check his reeking horses and clamber stiffly from his box.

“It's some cold, Billings, ain't it?” suggested Burroughs.

“You put this old concern down to Wylde's to-night, and see if ye're as
chirk when you git there as you be now,” retorted the driver, grimly, while he
threw open the coach door and turned down the step.

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“Carrick. Stop for dinner,” briefly announced he, and then leaving his
horses to the stable boy, and his passengers to the landlord or to fate, he pushed
through the group of idlers, and entering the deserted bar, mixed himself a stiff
glass of spirits and water.

From the coach descended first a well-formed and handsome young man, apparently
about twenty-five years old, who, nodding good-humoredly to the spectators,
followed the driver into the house. Close behind him appeared the
stooping figure, yellow face, and rounded shoulders of a tall man, who, slowly
extricating himself from the coach, and rising to his full stature, remained an instant
staring disconcertedly about him.

“Won't you walk in, sir?” asked the landlord, rubbing his hands and
shivering a little. “A nice fire in the bar, and dinner all ready.”

“This is the town of Carrick, is it?”

“Yes, sir, this is Carrick. Was you going to stop here?” And at the implied
possibility the idlers paused in their retreat toward the fire, and gazed
with revived interest upon the stranger, whom a lucky chance had perhaps delivered
over to them.

“Yes. Is this the hotel?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Burroughs, with a little hesitation. “The Mermaid's
Cave, stage tavern, post-office, and hotel.”

At this new assumption of dignity on the part of their magnate, some of the
courtiers drew themselves up with a sense of increased consequence, some
nudged each other with sly smiles, and the disaffected Brume openly remarked,

“Fust time I ever heerd the old tahvern called a ho-tel. Burroughs 'll be
setting up for `the gen'lemanly lan'lord' next.”

At this moment the discordant tones of the fish-horn sounded again through
the whirling snow, and Reuben, now left alone upon the stoop, paused a moment
in doubt of the expediency of disobeying the summons. The supper hour,
however, was already passed. To return now was to suffer all the penalties and
reap none of the advantages of further delay, and after a momentary hesitation,
Reuben, with a defiant grimace in the direction of his home, followed his comrades
into the bar-room, and joined the silent ring about the stove, every man in
it bending his entire attention to the conversation between the landlord and the
stranger. Mr. Vaughn stood a little apart, questioning his groom as to the
state of the roads, and the best mode of travelling them. At another time this
interrogatory, now reduced to by-play, would have constituted an ample evening's
entertainment for the frequenters of the Mermaid's Cave, but to attend to
more than one thing at a time was never a fashion of the men of Carrick, and
Mr Vaughn they had seen and heard before, while the stranger fell among them
as a human victim to sharks long confined to a fish diet.

“Cragness! Why that's the old Vaughn place,” said the landlord, just as
Reuben Brume edged into the circle.

“Yes. I wish for a sleigh, horse, and careful driver to take me there immediately
after dinner,” said the stranger.

“But there ain't nobody living there now. The Square went off to Europe
or somewhere last winter, and there's only an old man—old Laz'rus Graves—in
the house.”

“I know it. Can I have the sleigh?”

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“Wa-al”—and Mr. Burroughs looked helplessly about the circle for competent
counsel in this unprecedented case.

The courtiers stirred each in his place as expressing sympathy and interest,
but no man yet ventured to suggest the appropriate question which should at
once arrive at the point next to be ascertained, namely, the motive of this mysterious
stranger in thus seeking conveyance to a deserted and lonely house,
haunted, too, as every babe in Carrick could testify.

“Wa-al,” repeated Mr. Burroughs, and again his rolling eyes traversed the
circle. This time they fell upon the figure of Mr. Vaughn, who, having finished
his instructions to the groom, now approached the fire. A brilliant idea illuminated
the publican's brain.

“Here's Square Vaughn can tell you all about the old place,” said he. “I
guess you don't fairly know what sort of craft you're shipping in, agoing there,
and maybe he'll give you some light. Square, this gentleman wants to go to
Cragness to-night.”

“Indeed?” And Mr. Vaughn, with somewhat cold politeness, turned to
the stranger, who, in their long day's journey, had not offered one remark to
him, or vouchsafed more than the curtest replies to his own attempts at conversation.

“I am afraid you will find the old place somewhat desolate on such a night
as this,” said he.

“Possibly. But I am not sensitive to such matters. Are there no horses
to be hired here, can you tell me?”

“Why, yes. I suppose, Burroughs, you could let this gentleman have your
own horse and a saddle, couldn't you? My man says the road is impassable for
wheels or runners on account of the drift.”

“Whitefoot ain't agoing out to-night,” whispered a sepulchral voice from the
kitchen door into the landlord's ear, who, starting a little, answered slowly,

“Wa-al, Square, I'd like to 'commodate the gentleman, of course, and I've
got my own horse in the barn as you say, but I guess he'd better stop there to-night.
I couldn't send no one to fetch him back, and like enough it'll storm
worse to-morrow, and maybe the gentleman never would get to Cragness, and
I'd be awful sorry to lose Whitefoot.”

“I suppose, then, I must stay here until the storm is over,” said the stranger,
glancing somewhat ruefully about the dingy room.

“We'll 'commerdate you the best we can, sir, though winter time, so it's
rather hard to have everything shipshape,” said Burroughs, casting a dubious
side-glance toward the kitchen door.

“I can suggest a better course, perhaps,” interposed Mr. Vaughn, with a
little hesitation, “if you will ride my servant's horse and accompany me to
Bonniemeer, I shall be most happy to offer you a bed, and so soon as the roads
are practicable, will send a man to show you the way to Cragness. Burroughs,
you will let James ride Whitefoot, won't you? I promise you shall see the old
nag safe to-morrow.”

“Yes” echoed from behind the kitchen door, and “Yes,” replied the land-land,
with some added phrase of confidence in the “Square's making it all right
if anything came to the horse.”

All eyes now turned upon the stranger. His first impulse was, evidently, to
refuse Mr. Vaughn's proffered hospitality, but a second thought held him a moment
irresolute, and he finally said,

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“I thank you, sir, for your invitation, but it may make some difference to
your feelings to know that I am John Gillies, heir to your late uncle, Reginald
Vaughn.”

The listeners gasped for breath. Such a mine of interest as was opened by
this announcement sufficed to engulf all Carrick for many a day.

Mr. Vaughn smiled frankly, and extended his hand.

“Very happy to give you a neighbor's welcome, Mr. Gillies,” said he; “and
I only wish I could congratulate you on your accession to the property. But
`the home of my fathers,' as the school girls say, had never much attraction for
me, and I infinitely prefer you should be its proprietor to owning it myself. You
will come home with me, I trust?”

“Thank you. Yes,” said Mr. Gillies, almost cordially.

“Then we will set out at once and dine at Bonniemeer,” suggested Vaughn.

“But you'd best take something to keep out the cold, gentlemen,” interposed
the landlord. “The iron's in the fire, and we'll have some flip ready before you'll
get your horses round.”

“It's churlish to refuse a stirrup cup, I suppose,” said the younger gentleman,
laughingly, and Mr. Gillies gravely bowing, said not a word, but watched somewhat
curiously, while the landlord drawing a tankard of ale, mingled with it sugar,
spirits, and spices, and then pulling from the glowing coals a short iron bar fitted
with a wooden handle, stirred the compound in the tankard, until a rich
spicy odor from the heated liquid rose in clouds, and caused the souls of the
courtiers to momentarily retire from eyes and ears to centre in their noses.

Each gentleman drained a glass of the flip thus compounded, and the host
joined them in another, saying, as he raised it to his lips,

“Here's wishing you good healths, sirs.”

“A prosperous journey were more to the purpose just now, Burroughs,”
said Mr. Vaughn, gaily. “Are the horses ready, James?”

“All ready, sir,” replied the groom, rather sulkily.

“Then get your own share of the flip, and follow us,” said his master, and
the two gentlemen mounting the impatient horses held by the stable boy at the
door, rode away as rapidly as might be, while James, upon the landlord's brokenwinded
nag, followed as best he could, comforting himself with several remarks
not to be here repeated. The idlers of the Mermaid's Cave attentively watched
them out of sight, and then returned to the bar-room to digest the events of the
evening, aided by Billings, who had decided the weather and the roads to be unpropitious
to farther progress that night.