The Gypsy Queen's Vow

“Do they use bells or knockers on their doors, around here?” she carelessly asked, as she flitted about.

“Some use one, some the other. There is a large brass knocker on this door. I am sure you must have seen it.”

“I had forgotten. This is my trunk, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“What time do they go to bed here?”

“Nine in summer – eight in winter.”

“Hum-m-m! I know now. And do they stay out in that yard all the time?”

“Oh, no. As soon as it gets dusk we come in, have supper, and then the larger girls practice their music, or read, or write to their friends or study, or sew, or do whatever they like; and the little girls of your division play about the halls and passages.”

“Um-m-m! I see,” said Pet, in the same musing tone, while her wicked eyes, under their long, dark lashes, were twinkling with the very spirit of mischief. “Could you get me a good long cord, do you think? I want it for something.”

“Yes, I think so. Do you want it now?”

“Yes, please.”

“Very well; wait here till I go up to my room and get it for you,” said the unsuspecting young lady.

“Oh, ching-a-ring-a-ring-chaw!” shouted Pet, dancing round the long room with irrepressible glee, when she found herself alone. “Oh, won’t I have fun to-night! Won’t I show them what spiritual rapping is! Won’t there be weeping and gnashing of teeth before morning!

‘Mrs. MacShuttle,She lived in a scuttle,Along with her dog and her cat.’”

sang the imp, seizing a huge pitcher from one of the washstands and flourishing it over her head as she sung. Round and round she whirled, until her pitcher came furiously against the wall, and smash! in a thousand fragments it fell on the floor.

Arrested in her dance, Firefly stood still one moment, in dismay. Here was a winding-up of her extempore waltz quite unlooked for. There on the floor lay the pitcher, shivered into atoms, and there stood Pet, holding the handle still, and glancing utterly aghast from the ruins on the floor to the fragment of crockery in her hand.

“Whew! here’s a go!” was the elegant expression first jerked out of Pet by the exigency of the case. “I expect this pitcher’s been in the establishment ever since it was an establishment, and would have been in it as much longer only for me. Pet, child, look out! There’ll be murder, distraction, and a tearing off of our shirts! Fall of Jerusalem! won’t Miss Sharpe give me a blowing up, though!”

“Oh, Miss Lawless! what have you done?” cried the young lady, in tones of consternation, as she suddenly entered.

“Smashed the crockery,” said Pet, coolly pointing to the wreck.

“Oh, dear me! Oh, Miss Lawless! how could you do so?”

“Didn’t go for to do it. Got smashed itself.”

“Miss Sharpe will be very angry, Miss Lawless.”

“Well, that don’t worry me much,” said Pet.

“I am afraid she will blame me. I should not have left you here alone,” said the young lady, twisting her fingers in distress.

“No, she won’t. I’ll send out and buy another one.”

“Oh, you can’t. The servants are not allowed to run errands for the young ladies without permission from Mrs. Moodie. You will have to tell Miss Sharpe.”

“Well, come along then; I’ll tell her. Did you bring the string?”

“Yes, here it is. Oh, Miss Lawless! I am exceedingly sorry.”

“Well – my goodness! you needn’t be. An old blue pitcher! I used to throw half a dozen of them, every day, at the servants, at home, and nobody ever made a fuss about it. A common old blue pitcher – humph!”

“Oh! but it was different at home. They were your own, there; and Miss Sharpe is so – queer. She will scold you dreadfully.”

“Well, so will I, then – there! I can scold as long and as loud as she can, I reckon. An old blue pitcher! Humph! Wish to gracious I had smashed the whole set, and made one job of it.”

By this time they had reached the play-ground; and making her way through the crowd, Pet marched resolutely up to Miss Sharpe, and confronted that lady with an expression as severe as though she were about to have her arrested for high treason.

“Miss Sharpe, look here!” she began. “I’ve been upstairs and smashed an old blue pitcher. There!”

“What!” said Miss Sharpe, knitting her brows, and rather at a loss.

“Miss Lawless was in the children’s dormitory, Miss Sharpe,” explained the girl who had been Pet’s guide, “and she accidentally broke one of the pitchers. She could not help it, I assure you.”

“But I know she could help it,” screamed Miss Sharpe. “She has done it on purpose, just to provoke me. Oh, you little limb you! – you unbearable little mischief-maker! You deserve to be whipped till you can’t stand.”

“See here, Miss Sharpe; you’ll be hoarse pretty soon, if you keep screaming that way,” said Pet, calmly.

“I’ll go and tell Mrs. Moodie. I’ll go this minute. Such conduct as this, you’ll see, will not be tolerated here,” shrieked the exasperated lady, shaking her fist furiously at Pet.

“Mrs. Moodie has gone out,” said one of the girls.

“Then I’ll tell her to-morrow. I’ll – ”

Here the loud ringing of a bell put a stop to further declamation, and the girls all flew, flocking in, and marched, two by two, into another large room, where a long supper-table was laid out.

It was almost dark when the evening meal was over. Then the larger girls dispersed themselves to their various avocations, and the younger ones, under the care of a gentler monitor than Miss Sharpe, raced about the long halls and passages, and up and down-stairs.

Now was the time Pet had been waiting for. Gliding unobserved, up-stairs, she entered the dormitory, and securing one end of the string to the bed-post, let the remainder drop out of the window. Then returning down-stairs, she passed unnoticed through the front hall, and finally secured the other end of the string to the knocker of the door. It was too dark, as she knew, for any to observe the cord in opening the door.

This done, she returned to her companions, all aglow with delight at her success so far; and instigated by her, the din and uproar soon grew perfectly unbearable, and the whole phalanx were ordered off to bed half an hour earlier than usual, to get rid of the noise.

As Judge Lawless had said, it was a rigidly strict establishment; and the rule was that, at half-past nine, every light should be extinguished, and all should be safely tucked up in bed. Even Mrs. Moodie herself was no exception to this rule; for, either thinking example better than precept, or being fond of sleeping, ten o’clock always found her in the arms of Morpheus.

Therefore, at ten o’clock, silence, and darkness, and slumber, hung over the establishment of Mrs. Moodie. In the children’s dormitory, nestling in their white-draped beds, the little tired pupils were sleeping the calm, quiet sleep of childhood, undisturbed by feverish thoughts or gloomy forebodings of the morrow. Even Miss Sharpe had testily permitted herself to fall stiffly asleep, and lay with her mouth open, stretched out as straight as a ramrod, and about as grim. All were asleep – all but one.

One wicked, curly, mischief-brewing little head there was by far too full of naughty thoughts to sleep. Pet, nestling on her pillow, was actually quivering with suppressed delight at the coming fun.

She heard ten o’clock – eleven strike, and then she got up in bed and commenced operations. Her first care was to steal softly to one of the washstands, and thoroughly wet a sponge, which she placed on the window-ledge within her reach, knowing she would soon have occasion to use it.

Taking some phosphureted ether, which she had procured for the purpose of “fun” before leaving home, she rubbed it carefully over her face and hands.

Reader, did you ever see any one in the dark with their faces and hands rubbed over with phosphureted ether? looking as though they were all on fire – all encircled by flames? If you have, then you know how our Pet looked then.

Sitting there, a frightful object to contemplate, she waited impatiently for the hour of midnight to come.

The clock struck twelve, at last; the silence was so profound that the low, soft breathing of the young sleepers around her could be plainly heard. In her long, flowing night-wrapper, Pet got up and tiptoed softly across the room to the bed where the cross she-dragon lay.

Now, our Pet never thought there could be the slightest danger in what she was about to do, or, wild as she was, she would most assuredly not have done it. She merely wished to frighten Miss Sharpe for her obstinacy, unbelief in ghosts and crossness, and never gave the matter another thought.

Therefore, though it was altogether an inexcusable trick, still Pet was not so very much to blame as may at first appear.

Now she paused for a moment to contemplate the sour, grim-looking sleeper – thinking her even more repulsive in sleep than when awake; and then laying one hand on her face, she uttered a low, hollow groan, destined for her ears alone.

Miss Sharpe, awakened from a deep sleep by the disagreeable and startling consciousness of an icy-cold hand on her face, started up in affright, and then she beheld an awful vision! A white specter by her bedside, all in fire, with flames encircling face and hands, and sparks of fire seemingly darting from eyes and mouth!

For one terrible moment she was unable to utter a sound for utter, unspeakable horror. Then, with one wild piercing shriek, she buried her head under the clothes, to shut out the awful specter. Such a shriek as it was! No hyena, no screech-owl, no peacock ever uttered so ear-splitting throat-rending a scream as that. No word or words in the whole English language can give the faintest idea of that terrible screech. Before its last vibration had died away on the air, every sleeper in the establishment, including madame herself, had sprung out of bed, and stood pale and trembling, listening for a repetition of that awful cry. From twenty beds in the dormitory, twenty little sleepers sprung, and immediately began to make night hideous with small editions of Miss Sharpe’s shriek. Gathering strength from numbers, twenty voices rose an octave higher at every scream, and yell, after yell, in the shrillest soprano, pierced the air, although not one of them had the remotest idea of what it was all about.

At the first alarm, Firefly had flitted swiftly and fleetly across the room, jumped into bed, and seizing the sponge, gave her face and hands a vigorous rubbing; and now stood screaming with the rest, not to say considerably louder than any of them.

“Oh, Miss Sharpe, get up! the house is on fire! we’re all murdered in our beds!” yelled Pet, going over and catching that lady by the shoulder with a vigorous shake.

And “Oh, Miss Sharpe! Oh, Miss Sharpe! Get up. Oh-oh-oh!” shrieked the terrified children, clustering round the bed, and those who could springing in and shaking her.

With a disagreeable sense of being half crushed to death, Miss Sharpe was induced to remove her head from under the clothes, and cast a quick, terrified glance around. But the coast was clear – the awful specter was gone.

And now another noise met her ears – the coming footsteps of every one within the walls of the establishment, from Mrs. Moodie down to the little maid-of-all-work in the kitchen. In they rushed, armed with bedroom-candlesticks, rulers, ink-bottles, slate-frames, and various other warlike weapons, prepared to do battle to the last gasp.

And then it was: “Oh, what on earth is the matter? What on earth is the matter? What is the matter?” from every lip.

Miss Sharpe sprung out of bed and fled in terror to the side of Mrs. Moodie.

“Oh, Mrs. Moodie, it was awful! Oh, it was dreadful! With flames of fire coming out of its mouth, and all dressed in white. Oh, it was terrible! Ten feet high and all in flames!” shrieked Miss Sharpe, like one demented.

“Miss Sharpe, what in the name of Heaven is all this about?” asked the startled Mrs. Moodie, while the sixty “young ladies” clung together, white with mortal fear.

“Oh, Mrs. Moodie, I’ve seen it! It was frightful! all in flames of fire!” screamed the terrified Miss Sharpe.

“Seen it! seen what? Explain yourself, Miss Sharpe.”

“Oh, it was a ghost! a spirit! a demon! a fiend! I felt its blazing hands cold as ice on my face. Oh, good Heaven!” And again Miss Sharpe’s shriek at the recollection resounded through the room.

“Blazing hands cold as ice! Miss Sharpe, you are crazy! Calm yourself, I command you, and explain why we are all roused out of our beds at this hour of night by your shrieks,” said Mrs. Moodie, fixing her sharp eyes steadily upon her.

That look of rising anger brought Miss Sharpe to her senses. Wringing her hands, she cried out:

“Oh, I saw a ghost, Mrs. Moodie; an awful ghost! It came to my bedside all on fire, and – ”

“A ghost! nonsense, Miss Sharpe!” broke out the now thoroughly enraged Mrs. Moodie, as she caught Miss Sharpe by the shoulder, and shook her soundly. “You have been dreaming; you have had the nightmare; you are crazy! A pretty thing, indeed! that the whole house is to be aroused and terrified in this way. I am ashamed of you, Miss Sharpe, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself to terrify those little children committed to your charge in this manner. I never heard of anything so abominable in my life before,” said the angry Mrs. Moodie.

“Oh, indeed, indeed I saw it! Oh, indeed, indeed I did!” protested Miss Sharpe, wringing her hands.

“Silence, Miss Sharpe! don’t make a fool of yourself! I’m surprised at you! a woman of your years giving way to such silly fancies. You saw it, indeed! A nice teacher you are to watch young children! Return to your beds, young ladies; and do you, Miss Sharpe, return to yours; and don’t let me ever hear anything more about ghosts, or I shall instantly dismiss you. Ghosts, indeed! you’re a downright fool, Miss Sharpe – that’s what you are!” exclaimed the exasperated lady.

But even the threat of dismissal could not totally overcome Miss Sharpe’s fears now, and catching hold of Mrs. Moodie’s night-robe as she was turning away, she wildly exclaimed:

“Oh, Mrs. Moodie, let us have a light in the room for this night at least! I cannot sleep a wink unless you do.”

“Miss Sharpe, hold your tongue! Do you see how you have frightened these children? Go to bed and mind your business. Young ladies, I think I told you before to go to your rooms – did I not?” said Mrs. Moodie, with still increasing anger.

Trembling and terrified, the girls scampered like frightened doves back to their nests; and Mrs. Moodie, outraged and indignant, tramped her way to the bed she had so lately vacated, inwardly vowing to discharge Miss Sharpe as soon as ever she could get another to take her place.

And then the children in the dormitory crept shivering into bed, and wrapped their heads up in the bedclothes, trembling at every sound. And Miss Sharpe, quivering in dread, shrunk into the smallest possible space in hers, and having twisted herself into a round ball under the quilts, tightly shut her eyes, and firmly resolved that nothing in the earth, or in the waters under the earth, should make her open those eyes again that night. And our wicked Firefly chuckling inwardly over the success of her plot, jumped into hers, thinking of the fun yet to come.

An hour passed. One o’clock struck; then two, before sleep began to visit the drowsy eyelids of the roused slumberers again. Having assured herself that they had really fallen asleep at last, Pet sat up in bed softly, opened the window an inch or two, screened from view – had any one been watching her, which there was not – by the white curtains of the bed.

Then lying composedly back on her pillow, she took hold of her string, and began pulling away.

Knock! knock! knock! knock! Rap! rap! rap! rap! rap!

The clamor was deafening; the music was awful at that silent hour of the night. Up and down the huge brass knocker thundered, waking a peal of echoes that rung and rung through the house.

Once again the house was aroused; once again every sleeper sprung out of bed, in terror, wonder, and consternation.

“Oh, holy saints! what is that? Oh, good heavens! what can that be at this time?” came simultaneously from every lip.

Knock! knock! knock! Rap! rap! rap! louder and louder still.

Every girl flitted from her room, and a universal rush was made for the apartments of Mrs. Moodie – all but the inmates of the dormitory. Miss Sharpe was too terrified to stir, and the children, following her lead, contented themselves with lying still, and renewing their screams where they had left them off an hour or so before.

Now Mrs. Moodie, half-distracted, rushed out, and encountered her forty terrified pupils in the hall.

“Oh, Mrs. Moodie! what has happened to-night? We will all be killed! Oh, listen to that!”

Knock! knock! knock! knock! knock! The clamor was deafening.

“We had better open the door, or they will break it down!” said Mrs. Moodie, her teeth chattering with terror.

“Send for Bridget; she is afraid of nothing!” suggested one of the trembling girls.

Two or three of the most courageous made a rush for the kitchen; and Bridget – a strapping nymph of five feet nine, and “stout according” – was routed out of bed, to storm the breech.

“Faith, thin, I’ll open the door, if it was the divil himself!” exclaimed Bridget, resolutely, as she grasped the poker, and, like the leader of a forlorn hope, turned the key in the door.

Back she swung it with a jerk. The knocking instantly ceased. Up flew the poker, and down it descended with a whack, upon – vacancy! There was no one there!

“The Lord be between us an’ harm!” exclaimed Bridget, recoiling back. “The divil a one’s there, good, bad, or indifferint!”

“They must have run away when you opened the door!” said Mrs. Moodie, in trembling tones. “There is certainly some one there!”

Bridget descended the steps, and looked up and down the street; but all was silent, lonely, and deserted – not a living creature was to be seen.

“Come in, and lock the door,” said the appalled Mrs. Moodie. “What in the name of Heaven could it have been?”

“Oh, the house is haunted! – the house is haunted!” came from the white lips of the young ladies. “Oh, Mrs. Moodie! do not ask us to go back to our rooms. We dare not. Let us stay with you until morning!”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Moodie, not sorry to have company; “come into my room. Bridget, bring lights.”

The door was unlocked. The frightened girls hustled, pale, and frightened, and shivering with superstition, awe and undefined apprehension, into Mrs. Moodie’s room; while that lady herself, crouching in their midst, was scarcely less terrified than they. Bridget brought in lights; and their coming renewed the courage the darkness had totally quenched.

“Now, Mistress Moodie, ma’am,” said Bridget, crossing her arms with grim determination, “I’m goin’ to sit at that door till mornin’, if its plazin’ to ye, and if thim blackguardly spalpeens comes knockin’ dacint people out av their beds ag’in, be this an’ that, I’ll I’ve the mark of me five fingers on thim, as sure as my name’s Biddy Malone!”

“Very well, Bridget,” said Mrs. Moodie. “It may be some wickedly-disposed person wishing to frighten the young ladies; and if it is, the heaviest penalties of the law shall be inflicted on them.”

Arming herself with the poker, Bridget softly turned the key in the door, and laid her hand on the lock, ready to open it at a second’s notice.

Scarcely had she taken her stand, when knock! knock! it began again; but the third rap was abruptly cut short by her violently jerking the door open, and lifting the poker for a blow that would have done honor to Donnybrook Fair. But a second time it fell, with a loud crack, upon – nothing! Far or near, not a soul was to be seen. Bridget was dismayed. For the first time in her life, a sensation of terror filled her brave Irish heart. Slamming the door violently to, she locked it again, and rushed with open eyes and mouth, into the room where the terror-stricken mistress and pupils sat terrified with fear.

“Faith, it’s the divil himself that’s at it! Lord, pardon me for namin’ him! Och, holy martyrs! look down on us this night for a poor, disconsolate set ov craythers, and the Cross of Christ be between us and all harm!”

And dropping a little bob of a courtesy, Bridget devoutly cut the sign of the cross on her forehead with her thumb.

Unable to speak or move with terror, mistress, pupils, and servants crouched together, longing and praying wildly for morning to come.

Again the knocking commenced, and continued, without intermission, for one whole mortal hour. Even the neighbors began to be alarmed at the unusual din, and windows were opened, and night-capped heads thrust out to see who it was who knocked so incessantly. Three o’clock struck, and then, Pet beginning to feel terribly sleepy, and quite satisfied with the fun she had had all night, cut the cord, and drew it up. The clamors, of course, instantly ceased; and five minutes after, Firefly, the wicked cause of all this trouble, was peacefully sleeping.

But no other eye in the house was destined to close that night – or rather, morning. Huddled together below, the frightened flock waited for the first glimpse of morning sunlight, thinking all the while that never was there a night so long as that. Up in the children’s dormitory, all – from Miss Sharpe downward – lay in a cold perspiration of dread, trembling to stay where they were, yet not daring to get up and join their companions below.

“I’ll never stay another night in this dreadful place if I only live to see morning!” was the inward exclamation of every teacher and pupil who could by any means leave.

And so, in sleepless watchfulness, the dark, silent hours of morning wore on; and the first bright ray of another day’s sunlight streaming in through the windows, never beheld an assemblage of paler or more terrified faces than were gathered together in the establishment of Mrs. Moodie.

CHAPTER XXII.

PET FINISHES HER EDUCATION

“And her brow cleaned, but not her dauntless eye;The wind was down, but still the sea ran high.”– Don Juan.

Accustomed to early rising from her infancy, the first beam of morning sunshine found Pet out of bed, and dressed.

The other girls, with Miss Sharpe, were up, too, hastily throwing on their clothes, and looking pale, haggard and worn, from the previous night’s excitement and want of sleep.

Quivering with the remembrance of last night’s frolic, and the terror and consternation that would follow it to-day, Pet stood before the mirror bathing her hands and face, and curling her short, boyish, black ringlets.

The others did not wait for this, but as soon as they were dressed made a grand rush for the lower rooms, where they knew the remainder of the household were assembled. And here they found them, still in their night-robes just beginning to find their tongues, and venturing to talk over the exciting events of the previous night. Petronilla, with her keen sense of the ludicrous, had much ado to keep from laughing outright at their wild eyes and affrighted whispers, but drawing her face down to the length of the rest, she talked away as volubly as any of them of her terror and wonder, protesting she would write to her papa to take her home, for that she wasn’t accustomed to living in haunted houses. At last, becoming aware of their deshabille, the young ladies decamped up-stairs to don more becoming garments, and talk over, in the privacy of their own apartments, the ghost and the mysterious rapping.

Mrs. Moodie, recovering her presence of mind and dignity, with the coming of daylight, resolved to lose no time in having the matter fully investigated. Her first act was to have the house searched from top to bottom, and the young ladies willingly engaging in the search, every corner, cranny and crevice, from attic to cellar, was thoroughly examined. Had a needle been lost it must have been found, but no trace of last night’s visitor could be discovered.

“Oh, it’s no use looking; it was a ghost!” exclaimed Miss Sharpe.

“Oh, yes, it was a ghost! It must have been a ghost!” echoed all the young ladies simultaneously.

“But ghosts always come in though a key-hole – at least the ghosts up our way do,” said Pet; “so where was the use of its knocking and making such a fuss last night.”

No one felt themselves qualified to answer the questions, so the hunt was given over, and the hunters, in much disorder, were told they might amuse themselves in the play-ground that morning, instead of reciting, as usual. The teachers did not feel themselves able to pursue their customary avocations until some light had been thrown upon the mystery.