The social meeting of the Up and Doing
Club lasted less than an hour. It was quite evident
that it had been mainly held for the introduction
of Ruth Fielding and her chum into the society of the
Briarwood girls. Those gathered in the assembly
room did not number any Seniors, but were all of the
Junior grade, and all older than Ruth and Helen.
“Primes” were not allowed by Mrs. Tellingham
to join any of the class-governed societies.
In spite of the fact that Ruth suspected
Mary Cox of deliberately throwing herself in the way
of Helen and she on their arrival at the school, with
the sole object of getting them pledged to this society,
the girl from the Red Mill could not fail to appreciate
the good-natured attempts of the Upedes to make them
both feel at home in their new surroundings.
They must be grateful for that.
Nor were they urged at this time to
join the club. At least, nobody said more to
Ruth about joining than had the stout girl, Jennie
Stone, on their way to this meeting. The party
broke up in such good season, that it was scarcely
dark when the chums left the room in the dining hall
and strolled back to their dormitory with their new
friends. The lamps around the campus were being
lighted by a little old Irishman, who wore a wreath
of short, gray whiskers and hair about his face a
regular frame. His long upper lip and his chin
were shaven, and this arrangement gave him a most
comical appearance.
“You’re late again to-night,
Tony,” Jennie Stone remarked, as she and Ruth
came down the steps of the dining hall together.
The little Irishman backed down the
short flight of steps he carried, with a groan.
He had just lighted the final lamp of the series that
surrounded the campus.
“And well I might be well
I might be,” grumbled the man. “’Tis
me needs fower pair of hands, instead of wan pair,
and as many legs as a cinterpig.” Tony
evidently meant centipede. “’Tis
‘Tony, here!’ and ‘Tony, there!’
iv’ry blissid minute av th’ day.
An’ ‘tis movin’ trunks an’
boxes, and the like Mis’ Grace should
hire a nelephant at this time of the year, an’
so I tell her. An’ what with these here
foreigners too bad ’cess to them!
I have to chase ev’ry rag tag and bobtail on
the place, so I do ”
“Not tramps again, Tony?” cried Jennie
Stone.
“‘Tis worse. Musickle
bodies, they be. Playin’ harps an’
fiddles, an’ the loikes. Sure, ‘twill
be hand-organs an’ moonkeys to-morrer, belike.
Ah, yes!”
“Maybe some of these traveling
musicians can play the marble harp yonder,”
said Heavy, with a chuckle, pointing to the now half-shrouded
figure in the center of the campus.
“Oh, wirra, wirra! don’t
be sayin’ it,” grumbled the old man.
“There’s bad luck in speakin’ of
thim folks.”
Jennie Stone squeezed Ruth’s
arm, still laughing, as they went on and left the
old Irishman. “He’s just as superstitious
as he can be,” she whispered. “He
really believes the old story about the harp.”
“He ought to believe in a harp,”
laughed Ruth, in return, “he being Irish.
Tell me, who is he?”
“Anthony Foyle. He’s
the only workman about the place who sleeps on the
premises. His wife’s our cook. They’re
a comical old couple and she does
make the nicest tarts! They’d melt in your
mouth if you could only make up your mind to hold
them long enough on your tongue,” sighed Heavy,
rapturously.
“But what’s the story
about the marble harp?” queried Ruth, as they
came to the dormitory and joined the other girls.
“You mean the harp held by that figure at the
fountain?”
“Hello!” cried Belle Tingley.
“Heavy’s trying to scare the Infant with
the campus ghost story.”
“Oh! a real ghost story!”
cried Helen. “Do let’s hear it.”
“Come into our room, Cameron,”
said Lluella Fairfax, lazily, “and I will tell
the tale and harrow up thy young soul ”
“And make thy hair stand on
end like quills upon the fretful ‘porkypine,’”
finished Mary Cox. “Yes! let Lluella tell
it. It is well for Infants to learn the legends
as well as the rules of Briarwood Hall.”
Helen was used to being called “Infant”
by now and didn’t mind so much. She was
so much taken with their new friends and the Upedes
in general that she went right into the room occupied
by Mary Cox and her chums, without a word to Ruth,
and the latter followed with Heavy, perforce.
The windows of the “quartette”
looked out upon the campus. The lights in the
other dormitory shone brightly and the lamps around
the open space, which the buildings of Briarwood surrounded,
glimmered in the dark. Voices came up to them
from the walks; but soon these ceased, for the girls
were all indoors. The campus was deserted.
“Don’t let’s light
the lamp,” said Lluella. “I can tell
stories better in the dark.”
“And ghost stories, too,” laughed Helen.
“Not so much of a ghost story at
least, there’s nothing really terrible about
it,” returned Miss Fairfax, slowly. “I
suppose there are not many people who talk about it,
outside of our own selves here at Briarwood.
But once before the school came here the
marble statue down there was the talk of the whole
countryside. I believe Mrs. Tellingham doesn’t
like the story to be repeated,” added Miss Fairfax.
“She thinks such superstitions aren’t good
for the minds of the Primes and Infants,” and
the story-teller laughed.
“However, it is a fact that
the original owner of Briarwood Hall had a beautiful
daughter. She was the apple of his eye all
beautiful daughters are apples of their fathers’
eyes,” said Lluella, laughing. “Jennie
is her father’s apple ”
“Adam’s apple,” suggested Mary Cox.
“Such a size for an Adam’s
apple would choke a giant,” murmured Belle Tingley,
for the three were always joking poor Heavy because
of her over-plumpness.
“Don’t you bother about
my father,” said Jennie, calmly. “He
gives me a dollar every month for chocolate creams,
and you girls help eat them, I notice.”
“Hurrah for the Stone pere!”
cried Mary Cox. “Go on, Lluella.”
“You sound as though you cheered
for a sea-wall of masonry, or some such maritime structure,”
complained Jennie. “‘Stone pere,’
indeed!”
“She sha’n’t have
any of the next box of creams, Heavy,” said Lluella,
soothingly.
“And I’m not sure that
you will, either,” replied the fat girl.
“Do tell your story, Miss!” and
Heavy yawned monstrously.
“How dare you yawn before
’taps’?” cried Belle. “I’ll
douse the water-pitcher over you, Jennie.”
At this threat the fat girl sat up
promptly and again urged Lluella to continue her tale.
So Miss Fairfax continued:
“This rich old gentleman with
the apple in his eye in other words, a
beautiful daughter had a great deal more
money than sense, I think. He engaged a sculptor
to design a fountain for his lawn, and the draped
figure you have seen upon that pedestal down yonder,
is supposed to be the portrait of the beautiful daughter
cut into enduring marble by the man who sculped.
But, unfortunately for the old gentleman’s peace
of mind while he sculped the marble the artist
likewise made love to the young lady and they ran
away and were married, leaving the old gentleman nothing
but the cold marble statue playing the marble harp,
in place of a daughter.
“The father’s heart at
once became as adamant as the marble itself, and he
refused to support the sculptor and his wife.
Now, either the runaway couple died miserably of
starvation in a garret, or were drowned at sea, or
were wrecked in a railroad accident, or some other
dreadful catastrophe happened to them I’m
not sure which; for after a time there began to be
something strange about the fountain. The old
man lived here alone with his servants for a number
of years; but the servants would not remain long with
him, for they said the place was haunted.”
“Oh my!” exclaimed Helen.
“That’s right, Miss Cameron.
Please show the proper amount of thrilling interest.
They said the fountain was queer. The water
never poisoned anybody; but sometimes the marble strings
of the marble harp in the marble hand or the marble
daughter would be heard to twang in the night.
Weird music came from the fountain at ghostly hours.
Of course, the little harp the statue holds is in
the form of a lyre; and what the people were who told
these stories about the ghostly twanging of the instrument you
may draw your own conclusions,” laughed Lluella
Fairfax.
“However, the old gentleman
at last broke up his household, or died, or moved
to town, or something, and Briarwood was put up for
sale and the school came here. That was a good
many years ago. Dr. Tellingham’s wig matched
his fringe of hair when the school first began here,
so that must have been a good while ago. The
twanging of the marble harp has been heard down through
the school ages, so it is said particularly
at queer times ”
“Queer times?” asked Ruth.
“Why, when something out of
the common was about to happen. They say it
twanged the night before our team beat the basket-ball
team from Varden Preparatory. There was a girl
here once who ran away because her folks went to Europe
and left her behind at school. She was determined
to follow them, and she got as far as New York and
stole aboard a great steamer so as to follow her parents;
only the steamship she boarded had just come in instead
of just going out. They say the marble harp
twanged then.”
“And when Heavy failed to oversleep
one morning last half the marble harp must have twanged
that time,” declared Mary Cox.
A gentle snore answered from the window
seat, where Jennie Stone had actually gone to sleep.
“Wasted humor,” said Mary,
laughing. “Heavy is in the Land of Nod.
It’s been a hard day for her. At supper
she had to eat her own and Miss Fielding’s share
of the cup-custards.”
Ruth and Helen had already risen to go.
“You’ll remember, Infants,”
said Lluella, “when you hear the twang of the
ghostly harp, that something momentous is bound to
happen at Briarwood Hall.”
“But more important still,”
warned Mary, “be sure that your lights are out
within twenty minutes after retiring bell sounds.
Otherwise you will have that cat, Picolet, poking
into your room to learn what is the matter.”