I nodded in his direction, but he feigned not to see me. A moment later he jumped into his boat and rowed out into the lake.
When I returned to the house Bates was at work in the kitchen. This was a large square room with heavy timbers showing in the walls and low ceiling. There was a great fireplace having an enormous chimney and fitted with a crane and bobs, but for practical purposes a small range was provided.
Bates received me placidly.
“Yes; it’s an unusual kitchen, sir. Mr. Glenarm copied it from an old kitchen in England. He took quite a pride in it. It’s a pleasant place to sit in the evening, sir.”
He showed me the way below, where I found that the cellar extended under every part of the house, and was divided into large chambers. The door of one of them was of heavy oak, bound in iron, with a barred opening at the top. A great iron hasp with a heavy padlock and grilled area windows gave further the impression of a cell, and I fear that at this, as at many other things in the curious house, I swore—if I did not laugh—thinking of the money my grandfather had expended in realizing his whims. The room was used, I noted with pleasure, as a depository for potatoes. I asked Bates whether he knew my grandfather’s purpose in providing a cell in his house.
“That, sir, was another of the dead master’s ideas. He remarked to me once that it was just as well to have a dungeon in a well-appointed house,—his humor again, sir! And it comes in quite handy for the potatoes.”
In another room I found a curious collection of lanterns of every conceivable description, grouped on shelves, and next door to this was a store-room filled with brass candlesticks of many odd designs. I shall not undertake to describe my sensations as, peering about with a candle in my hand, the vagaries of John Marshall Glenarm’s mind were further disclosed to me. It was almost beyond belief that any man with such whims should ever have had the money to gratify them.
I returned to the main floor and studied the titles of the books in the library, finally smoking a pipe over a very tedious chapter in an exceedingly dull work on Norman Revivals and Influences. Then I went out, assuring myself that I should get steadily to work in a day or two. It was not yet eleven o’clock, and time was sure to move deliberately within the stone walls of my prison. The long winter lay before me in which I must study perforce, and just now it was pleasant to view the landscape in all its autumn splendor.
Bates was soberly chopping wood at a rough pile of timber at the rear of the house. His industry had already impressed me. He had the quiet ways of an ideal serving man.
“Well, Bates, you don’t intend to let me freeze to death, do you? There must be enough in the pile there to last all winter.”