As accurately as she could, Martine described the location of Red Knoll, and as suddenly as he had appeared on the scene, Mr. Gamut disappeared. After he had gone, Martine mounted the steep stairs to the second story of the gaol where she examined at her leisure the hand-made quilts and quaint furnishings of an old-time bedroom, and looked with interest at the picturesque costumes giving a somewhat ghostly effect to a number of dummy figures in one of the attics. She saw the cell, or rather the room, where gentlemen prisoners were confined, and going downstairs, took a final survey of the old kitchen, well equipped with cooking utensils of Colonial days.
Her visit to the gaol had diverted her, but as she walked homeward over the dusty road, the old feeling of loneliness returned. Never before had she realized that she was dependent on young companionship; yet never before had she been so cut off from her own special friends.
Mrs. Stratford was pleased to hear that Mr. Gamut intended to visit Red Knoll.
"He probably," she said, "has friends at York, of whom we shall be likely to see something; he and your father were never intimate, but always good friends. I shall be glad to see him and I hope his niece will come with him, for there is no reason why we should live in utter seclusion."
Two or three days passed away and then a week, and still Mr. Gamut had not presented himself. Meanwhile a letter had arrived from Lucian.
"Father is still in a rather critical condition; he is not able to attend to business, though they say he is much better than before I came; it will be impossible to tell for some time how things really stand or when we can come home."
"I call that very encouraging," cried Martine, reading the letter aloud for the second time. "I'm so glad that Lucian went out there."
"He has certainly taken hold very well," responded Mrs. Stratford, "although I cannot agree with you that the letter is very encouraging."
"But it might have been so much worse," murmured Martine, turning away that her mother might not discern any lack of cheerfulness in her face. For although the letter might have been worse, Martine realized that after all it did not promise a great deal for the future. Other letters came now to Red Knoll. Priscilla wrote affectionately. She knew, she wrote, it was probably warmer at Plymouth than at York and yet, if only it could have been arranged, she believed that Martine and her mother might have enjoyed the South Shore better even than the North.
"The children talk of you constantly; no one ever made a deeper impression; so I have promised them that Thanksgiving, if not before, you will come again to visit us. Mr. Stacy asks for you whenever he sees me, and that, you know, is fairly often. He says that York is historic in its way, and he hopes that you will find a lot to interest you there, so that you can tell him all about it when you see him. He evidently thinks that York history isn't half as important as our Plymouth history, and of course he's right, because this was the earlier settlement; still if there's anything worth knowing about the place, I am sure you will find it out. For even though you made so much fun of Acadian history last summer, in the end you really knew more about it than any of the rest of us. That was because there was so much more to know about the Acadians than the English, and you may recall I tried not to remember the Acadian history that Amy talked so much about."