THE TROUBLING OF BETHESDA POOL.
Part I.
Some people in the village (but they were the spiteful ones) used to say that Bethesda Pool might e'en so well be a dummy and done with it, if she never could open her mouth when a person spoke to her. But there were always others who were ready to respond that "it was a comfort there was one woman who knew enough to hold her tongue when she had nothing to say!" This retort was apt to provoke the reply churlish; and many a pretty quarrel had been hatched up over the silence of Bethesda Pool, who never quarrelled herself, because it entailed talking.
She was the Lady of the Inn, Miss Bethesda. Her mother, the late Mrs. Pool, had married the inn-keeper, and led a sad life of it. She was a woman of a lively fancy, and had been in the habit of saying that if she had been fool enough to get drownded in a pool, she meant to get all the good she could out of the name! So she named her eldest daughter Siloama (pronounced Silo-amy), her second Bethesda, and the son, who came just after her husband had drowned himself in his special pool of whiskey, Heshbon. The neighbours thought this triflin' with Scriptur', and had their own opinion of Ma'am Pool's eccentricities; but the good lady cared little for anybody's opinion; indeed, if she had had any such care, she would not have married Father Pool, whose failings were well known. All that was long ago, however; Father and Mother Pool were gone to their places, the pensive Silo-amy and the fishy Heshbon had followed, and Miss Bethesda was Queen of the Inn.
The Inn was the only one in the village. Perhaps there was little need even of this; but it had always been there since the old stage-coach days, when the village was a favourite stopping-place for gay parties of travellers, and when old Gran'ther Pool kept open house, and smiled over his bar on all comers, like a rising sun a little the worse for wear. It was a quaint old house, with a stone veranda in front, and mossy roofs pitching this way and that. Inside was maze upon maze of long, narrow corridors, with queer little rooms opening out of them,—some square, some long; all low of ceiling and wavy of floor, with curious dolphin-shaped latches, and doors set as if the builder had thrown them at the wall and made the opening wherever they happened to strike. Few of these doors were on a level with the floor; they might be two steps above it, or three steps below; it was a matter of fancy, purely. There was one room that could only be entered through the closet, unless you preferred to get in at the window; but you could easily do that, as it opened on the balcony. Then there was a square chamber containing a trap-door; the Kidderminster carpet fitted the trap perfectly, and it was a dangerous room for strangers to enter. Here the Freemasons used, in old times, to hold their meetings, and carry on their mystic rites. Later, it was the favourite playroom of the Pool children, and they and their playmates were never tired of popping up and down the "Tumplety Hole," as they called it.
In the middle of the second story was a long ballroom, where in old days merry dances had been held, and young feet jigged it to the tune of "Money Musk" or "Hull's Victory."
This room, with its wonderful wall-paper, representing the Carnival at Rome, and its curious clock, was an object of wonder to the whole village; and strangers or visitors were pretty sure to present themselves at the Inn door, sometimes begging to be taken in for a few days, sometimes merely asking the privilege of going over the quaint old house. The reception of these visitors was apparently a matter of caprice with the Lady of the Inn; one never could tell how she would take it. Sometimes an eager statement that "We heard of your beautiful house, and we have driven over from South Tupham, ten miles, on purpose to see it!" would be met by the monosyllable "Have!" delivered in Miss Bethesda's mildest tone, and the door would be softly but firmly shut in the travellers' faces. Or the visitor might try another tack, and begin with the bold assumption that the Inn was a place of public entertainment, and that man and beast were welcome there, as a matter of course.