"Well, I don't know," answered Macandrew doubtfully, "all that fairy business and talk of not being able to read or write seems queer. I suppose you'll chuck the adventure, now that you know this?"
"Probably!" said Haskins evasively, so that Tod should not worry him. But in his heart he had a longing to probe the matter deeper.
Later in the day Gerald escorted Tod to Selbury, and saw him off to London. Macandrew left with the impression that Gerald would carry out his prearranged programme and travel to St. Ives on the ensuing day. But when Haskins walked back to Denleigh he was far from having made up his mind to such a course. It seemed incredible that the sender of the message should have homicidal tendencies. All the same, if she had not, the law would certainly have prevented her incarceration in the old Leegarth mansion known as the Pixy's House. That she could not read or write was quite possible, since she had used the phonograph, and yet, in this age of education, it appeared improbable that anyone could be so ignorant. The wording of the message was that of an imaginative, but not of a weak, brain; and the spirit of poetry it breathed appealed to the young man, himself a poet of no mean order. "On the whole," decided Gerald, "I shall go to Exeter to-morrow and get that canoe."
On that same evening, when Geary went for his usual walk, Haskins again slipped the record into the machine, and again drank in the music of that perfect voice. Then, for the sake of hiding his secret, since the landlord unexpectedly returned, he set the phonograph to grind out the godly hymns which were Geary's delight. These were dismal enough in words and tunes, but all through them sounded in Gerald's charmed ears the silvery lilt of the Fairy Princess' tones. The owner of such a voice could not possibly be crazy.
Haskins rather regretted that he had not asked Major Rebb about the Pixy's House and its occupant. Rebb doubtless knew the village of Leegarth excellently well, since he came down occasionally to see his elderly relative. For the moment Haskins was tempted to write and ask questions, but on second thoughts he made up his mind to explore for himself. He was even glad that Tod had departed, for now the secret was entirely his own, and he wished to share it with no one. He therefore abstained from talking to Geary on the subject, for he had learned all that was possible from that source. And what he had learned was so decidedly unpleasant that he did not wish to hear more. As it afterward turned out his reticence was wise.
The next day Haskins informed Geary of his intention to remain in Denleigh for another week, and the negro expressed his delight at the decision. Adonis was a cheerful soul, who had traveled widely, in the humble capacity of a steward on board various liners. He therefore approached more intellectual society than he could obtain in lethargic Denleigh. Haskins, with an eye to copy, after the fashion of the literary man, found Geary's experiences both entertaining and useful. As for the landlady, she was a nonentity, who worked like a horse, and was as dumb as one. She seemed to be somewhat afraid of her ever-smiling husband, and Gerald thought that there might be some cause for such dread. With all his suave manners, Geary's one eye hinted at sinister doings. But, as yet, Haskins, knowing him only on the surface, had no fault to find with his personality.
There was some difficulty in finding a precisely suitable canoe in Exeter, but having made up his mind--a singularly obstinate one--Gerald never rested until he had attained his object. In a couple of days he returned to the Devon Maid with a light birchwood affair, which he had purchased from a returned Canadian emigrant. This the young man temporarily bestowed in an outside shed, and informed his landlord, casually, that he intended to explore the waters of the Ruddle, as the stream was called. The name evidently came from the streaky red banks between which it flowed. Geary advised his guest to travel downstream toward Silbury, as the canoe would there be impeded by fewer stones. Needless to say, as Leegarth was in precisely the opposite direction, Haskins had no intention of taking this well-meant advice. And, indeed, because of the very difficulty in navigating the upper reaches of the Ruddle, he had purchased the canoe, for he could carry so light a craft along the banks when stones and weeds blocked up the waterway.
When Gerald took his Indian coracle down to the river, next afternoon, he saw how wise he had been in not buying a heavier boat. As the little stream wound its devious way through the dense woods it grew yet more narrow, and, on the whole, somewhat shallow. Here and there deep pools were to be found, inshore, but as a rule the current flowed lightly over a shingly bed, foaming round gigantic stones or bubbling over the trunks of fallen trees. The distance to Leegarth, as the crow flies, could not have been more than three miles; but the stream twisted so oddly, and the difficulties of navigation were so great, that Gerald sometimes doubted if he would reach his journey's end. Several times he was forced to climb the steep banks and drag his canoe through thickly growing saplings: but, on the whole, the tiny shallop behaved with the dexterity of an eel in slipping through dangerous places. Nevertheless his traveling was more like the exploration of unknown lands than like a civilized river trip in mapped-out England.
Late in the day--about six o'clock--and when the western sky was beginning to glow with the hues of a soapbubble, the adventurer found himself in a less toilsome position. After the choked stream, where the trees met overhead, it was a relief to float into an immense pool, fenced in by precipitous red cliffs draped with vividly green vegetation. Gerald emerged into this haven with a feeling of thankfulness, and laid down his paddle, both to rest his weary muscles and to examine his romantic surroundings. The pool was nearly circular, and, as the narrow Ruddle flowed in at one end, and out at the other, the whole resembled a bead on a string. On the placid waters, brimming like those of a mill-dam, the canoe floated idly until it touched the left bank. Haskins therefore saw, on the right hand, a tall cliff of ruddy earth, overgrown with bushes, and surmounted by a fringe of trees. Between these, he espied a ruinous gray stone wall, clothed thickly with ivy. As there were two or three small windows in this wall, Gerald guessed that it formed the side of a dwelling-place--and guessed moreover that from one of those same windows the sealed message had been thrown into the pool. It was, of, course, merely a surmise that the Pixy's House was built on the top of this inland cliff, but, bearing in mind the cylinder with its attached bladder, Haskins felt certain that he was correct. The imprisoned Mavis Durham could only have launched her message from the cliff top.
Gerald had now practically arrived at his journey's end, as he had discovered the palace of the Sleeping Beauty, shut in by Enchanted Woods. He therefore paddled swiftly under the cliff itself, to see how he could storm the castle. Tod would have called it a lunatic asylum, in his coarse way, but Gerald the poet preferred the more romantic appellation. Also, after hearing that wonderful voice, he made up his rash mind that he would not believe in the alleged insanity of Mavis Durham until he had seen her, and had spoken with her. If she were really a homicidal maniac he could return with some regrets to the workaday world; but if she was all that he hoped she would be,--well! Gerald drew a long breath as he thought thus. If she were as beautiful as her voice, as poetic as her message, he did not know what would happen. Yet, as a young man, dizzy with the wine of life, he should have known. But such things, for good or for evil, were yet on the knees of the most high gods.