The good pastor was working away among his people as hard as ever. With the autumn came illness to the village, and the old man's strength had been sorely tried by the demands made upon it; and even now, when the condition of Carfoos was healthy once more, he had hardly recovered his usual vigour.
As for the Valdens, they had indeed moved away; but they had not gone far; and though just at first they kept quiet, and nothing was heard of them, now again there had begun to be circulated rumours that spoke of quantities of wood mysteriously stolen, snares robbed that had been set for hares and birds. Birch trees were being despoiled of, their bark, and even frozen venison, frozen pigs and game and poultry, had been stolen out of the sheds where the villagers stored their marketable provisions to be in readiness for taking to town to sell.
As for Freskel, he still haunted the home of the pastor, though not as much as he had done before his father and brothers left Carfoos. But there was a great change in the lad, which the pastor could not but see, and which, he felt assured, dated back to that night when Freskel had been of such signal service to the children at the woodcutter's cottage, and in saving from the covetous hands of Dorlat and Hervitz, Rolf Bresser's bag of money.
Pastor Oshart knew not what to make now of the boy's strange moods, for Freskel went about as one in a dream, sometimes seeming quite unreasonably elated, and at others downcast and shrinking guiltily, as though conscious of doing wrong. To all questions the youth returned evasive replies, and even his love for the pastor could not induce him to make a confidant of his old friend. Some strange spell seemed to be about Freskel, some bad influence was slowly but surely undermining his happiness and dragging him down.
And now, at this time, once more it was reported that the Isle of Ghosts was haunted, and the glimmer of a ghostly light and the flitting of a shadowy form had been seen at night from the shores of the lake.
Connecting these reports with Freskel Valden's frequent and unaccounted for absences, the good pastor came to the conclusion that the poor, half-witted lad had become possessed by a mad passion for the ill-gotten gold which tradition said still lay hidden in some corner of the island, and that the ghost which haunted that lonely pile of rock was none other than Freskel himself. Pastor Oshart, however, said nothing to any one about his suspicions, for he hoped gradually to bring some better influence to bear upon the poor youth's heart and life,—some strong motive which would overcome the greed of riches which he inherited from his father and shared with his wicked brothers, Dorlat and Hervitz.
The good old man did not for one moment believe that any treasure existed at all on the island, save in the imagination of a few foolish or idle people. But he dreaded—and rightly—the strength of an absorbing, covetous passion on such a mind as that of poor Freskel, which was only too apt to lend itself to delusions of all sorts.
"Father," said Blonda to Grubert one afternoon as she sat down to her loom, "Father, hadst thou any special need for some of this linen last night or this morning?"
"No, my child; why?" asked Grubert.
"Because I see that quite a long piece of it is gone," replied the girl. "When I put away my work last evening, at supper-time, I had two rolls of linen, and had begun a third, and now I see that one of them is not here."