F OUR young men sat around a table one winter’s night in an old New England country house. Their host, Richard Churchill, was a civil engineer, who had inherited some property, including this old estate, from an aunt; and he was giving a little winter stag party to three of his old college friends. On the table was a steaming punch bowl, and scattered about were pipes, tobacco and cigars. The conversation touched lightly on various subjects; the struggle in the Islands, the coming great presidential contest, and other current events. Captain Van Patten, a West Point graduate, who had done some things worthy of mention, and won the bars on his shoulder straps at San Juan Hill, had just made a statement regarding the courage of a recent great naval commander.
“You may talk about the courage that prompts men to do bold deeds in the bright[154] sunshine, with hundreds of men cheering and fighting beside them, but the man who has the real courage, is the one who, on a dark night like this, dares to walk by himself into a lonely graveyard, and sit on a newly made grave.” It was the host who had spoken, but as he had had the reputation at college of being afraid of the dark, there was a general laugh at his expense.
“That,” said one of the other young men, who was a doctor, and so accustomed to gruesome sights, “doesn’t require much courage, and besides,” he added, looking at the deep snowbanks outside, “one couldn’t very well sit on a newly made grave to-night, for the ground is frozen solid, and there are snow-drifts two feet deep. However, there are several bodies in the vault over in the cemetery yonder, and I am willing to wager that no one here dares walk over and knock three times on the iron door.”
“It seems to me,” answered Captain Van Patten, carelessly, “that you civilians have a very primitive idea of courage. If you will make a wager that would tempt a man to leave this most delicious punch, and such delightful company, I will venture to go over and bring back a souvenir from your terrible tomb. Churchill, our host here, as nearest resident to the village graveyard, is no doubt supplied with a key to the tomb.” He looked inquiringly at the young civil engineer, who nodded. “Well, as I remarked[155] before, for a sufficient wager I will agree to bring back to you one of the bats which probably haunt the place.”
The doctor, somewhat nettled at the bantering tone of the captain, rose as if to make what he was about to say more impressive, and said, slowly, “In that tomb there was placed this afternoon the body of Andrew Phelps, who died in church last Sunday from heart failure. The clothes of the corpse included a black frock suit and a black silk tie. I know these things, because the village undertaker was away, and I was called in to assist in preparing the body for burial. I will wager this gentleman, who seems not to be afraid,” he added sarcastically, “one hundred dollars that he does not dare, at twelve o’clock to-night, leave this courageous company, unlock the tomb, force open the coffin, and bring back to this room within the hour that same black neckcloth.”
“Taken,” answered the captain promptly; and drawing a check-book from his pocket, he wrote a check for the amount. “And now,” he continued, “as I see the clock indicates 11.30, I shall have to request as quickly as possible the loan of a hammer and screw-driver.”
They brought him the necessary tools, he wrapped himself in his great coat, and left the house whistling nonchalantly.
“I didn’t tell him which was the squire’s coffin,” said the doctor after Van Patten had[156] left. “It might give even his iron nerves a shock if he opened the coffin in which they buried the remains of the tramp who was run over on the Central last week, and was picked up in pieces in a basket,—all except the head, which was never found.”
Van Patten trudged along through the snow toward the tomb. He wasn’t a timid young man in any sense of the word, and the present excursion was nothing but a little adventure, which he could work up with frequent tellings into a good after-dinner story. “Rather a nasty night,” he muttered to himself, as he turned in at the cemetery gate. There was not a star in sight, and the sky was full of great threatening black clouds, which probably meant snow before morning.
He unlocked the tomb, and stepped inside, but it was some time before he could make out in the inky darkness where what he was seeking lay. There were three wooden boxes resting on iron bars set into the cement wall. All were of about the same length, and there was nothing by which to distinguish one from the other, as he felt them over.
“It’s a wonder he wouldn’t have told me there was a party of them here. How’s a man to know who’s wh............