XV
Treasure-Trove
The August moon swung high in the heavens, and the crickets chirped unbearably. The luminous dew lay heavily upon the surrounding fields, and now and then a stray breeze, amid the overhanging branches of the trees that lined the roadway, aroused in the consciousness of the single wayfarer a feeling closely akin to panic. When he reached the summit of the hill, he was trembling violently.
In the dooryard of the Jack-o’-Lantern, he paused. It was dark, save for a single round window. In an upper front room a night-lamp, turned low, gave one leering eye to the grotesque exterior of the house.
With his heart thumping loudly, Mr. Bradford leaned against a tree and divested himself of his shoes. From a package under his arm, he took out a pair of soft felt slippers, the paper rattling loudly as he did so. He put them on, hesitated, then went cautiously up the walk.
“In all my seventy-eight years,” he thought, “I have never done anything like this. If I had not promised the Colonel—but a promise to a dying man is sacred, especially when he is one’s best friend.”
The sound of the key in the lock seemed almost like an explosion of dynamite. Mr. Bradford wiped the cold perspiration from his forehead, turned the door slowly upon its squeaky hinges, and went in, feeling like a burglar.
“I am not a burglar,” he thought, his hands shaking. “I have come to give, not to take away.”
Fearfully, he tiptoed into the parlour, expecting at any moment to arouse the house. Feeling his way carefully along the wall, and guided by the moonlight which streamed in at the side windows, he came to the wing occupied by Mrs. Holmes and her exuberant offspring. Here he stooped, awkwardly, and slipped a sealed and addressed letter under the door, heaving a sigh of relief as he got away without having wakened any one.