The Treasure of Netherstrand

Chapter 41

It was hardly morning when light footsteps ran up the attic stairs. A gentle tap came at the half-open door, and Timothy was awake in an instant.

"Am I late?" he asked, sitting up quickly. He cocked his head in confusion. It was still rather dark outside. He couldn't even see the face of his watch when he tried to check the time.

"Timothy, it is only me," a sweet voice whispered through the darkness.

"Gracie, is that you?" the boy asked in surprise. "What ya doin' up 'ere?"

"I couldn't wait! Arthur and I are leaving by five-thirty to spend the day in another town, and I just had to tell you something first! Where are you? It is so dark I can scarcely see a thing!"

Tim rubbed his sleepy eyes and then lit a tiny candle. It was just a meager lump of wax with a little stub of wick, but he didn't have enough money to buy a new one yet. Hannover probably would have given him one after making a playful fuss, but Tim hadn't asked for the favor.

The candle was just enough to cast a dim glow across Timothy's bare, bleak bedroom. To Grace, it seemed as homely and joyless as a prison cell, but the little boy who owned it looked so happy that her first impression quickly changed.

Without wasting time, Gracie bounced to the hard, straw bed and sat down on it with a mixture of childish glee and womanly elegance. She was already dressed in a gown which Arthur had bought her two days before. It was a happy pink chiffon with rosettes sewn here and there, and big, puffy sleeves.

"I could not wait to show you, Tim! I have been dying to ever since I found it last night." She opened the pages of the Bible which she had brought with her and quickly turned to Jeremiah 6:16. "Look! Look at this!" she exclaimed. She underlined the words with her finger and began to read aloud: "'Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.' Are those not the very same words Lady Denzell wrote in her last letter? You told them to me the other day, and I remembered them as soon as I heard Arthur read them!"

Timothy grabbed the Bible and read the passage again and again. His face glowed with radiant joy.

"It is! Oh, Gracie! I would'a never found it wivout you! But...but what d'ya reckon it means? I still don't know 'ow it's s'posed t' lead us on to a treasure." That was a question Grace couldn't answer either. But Tim didn't stay daunted for long. "I know! I'll ask Hannover. He's an awful clever chap! Maybe he'll know just what it means!"

It was all Tim could do to keep himself from pounding on his master's door and rousing the man at four in the morning. He wanted to bounce onto the man's bed and fill his ears with everything he and Grace had discovered. But he forced himself to be patient and hurried to do his chores, repeating "Jeremiah 6:16," to himself so he wouldn't forget it.

Everything was going well that morning. He dusted ornaments, polished wood, and cleaned the windows in the drawing room. Then he traipsed down to the kitchen to make Hannover's cup of coffee. Every step of that process was well known to him by now. He made a fervent blaze in the cooking range and then hurried out the back door to draw some water from the pump. But before he returned with his bucket brim full, something strange arrested him. There was a hint of smoke in the air, and when he turned to look, he saw puffs of it wafting out from the cracks around the kitchen's door and windows.

"Ah blimey!" he cried, "it's on fire! Fire!" He dashed recklessly into the kitchen again, banging the door open and sloshing water from side to side as he ran. Then he stopped, choking on smoke and wondering what to do. The room looked hazy, but he couldn't see a glow of fire anywhere, just clouds of black smoke and soot.