Part 9 (1/2)
”Ain't it pretty?” murmured little Maggie. ”Just like them places where the fairies live.”
”Huh,” returned the boy, ”old Adam Ward, he ain't no fairy I'm a-tellin' yer.”
To which Maggie, hurt by this suggested break in the spell of her enchantment, returned indignantly, ”Well, I guess the fairies can live in all them there pretty flowers an' things just the same, if old Adam does own 'em. You can't shut fairies out with no big iron fences.”
”That's so,” admitted Bobby. ”Gee, I wisht we was fairies, so's we could sneak in! Gee, wouldn't yer like ter take a roll on that there gra.s.s?”
”Huh,” returned the little girl, ”I know what I'd do if I was a fairy.
I'd hide in that there bunch of flowers over there, an' I'd watch till the beautiful princess lady with the kind heart come along, an' I'd tell her where she could find them there jewels of happiness what the Interpreter told us about.”
”Do yer reckon she's in the castle there, right now?” asked Bobby.
”I wonder!” murmured Maggie.
”Betcher can't guess which winder is hern.”
”Bet I kin; it's that there one with all them vines around it. Princess ladies allus has vines a-growin' 'roun' their castle winders--so's when the prince comes ter rescue 'em he kin climb up.”
”Wisht she'd come out.”
”I wish--”
Little Maggie's wish was never expressed, for at that moment, from behind that near-by clump of shrubbery a man sprang toward them, his face distorted with pa.s.sion and his arms tossing in threatening gestures.
The children, too frightened to realize the safety of their position on the other side of those iron bars, stood speechless. For the moment they could neither cry out nor run.
”Get out!” Adam Ward yelled, hoa.r.s.e with rage, as he would have driven off a trespa.s.sing dog. ”Get out! Go home where you belong! Don't you know this is private property? Do you think I am keeping a circus here for all the dirty brats in the country to look at? Get out, I tell you, or I'll--”
With frantic speed the two children fled down the hill.
Adam Ward laughed--laughed until he was forced to hold his sides and the tears of his unG.o.dly mirth rolled down his cheeks.
But such laughter is a fearful thing to see. White and trembling with the shame and the horror of it, Helen crouched in her hiding place, not daring even to move. She felt, as never before, the presence of that spirit which possessed her father and haunted her home. It was as if the hidden thing of which she had forced herself to speak to the Interpreter were suddenly about to materialize before her eyes. She wanted to scream--to cry aloud her fear--to shriek her protest--but sheer terror held her motionless and dumb.
The spell was broken by Mrs. Ward who, from somewhere in the grounds, was calling, ”Adam! Oh-h, Adam!”
The man heard, and Helen saw him controlling his laughter, and looking cautiously about.
Again the call came, and there was an anxious note in the voice.
”Adam--father--Oh-h, father, where are you?”
With a cruel grin still twisting his gray face, Adam slunk behind a clump of bushes.
Helen Ward crept from her hiding place and, keeping the little arbor between herself and her father, stole away through the grounds. When she was beyond his hearing, she almost ran, as if to escape from a spot accursed.
CHAPTER VI
ON THE OLD ROAD