A Book of Ghosts: 32
Author: Various authors
Date: 1852-12-31T15:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Ghost Stories; Supernatural Fiction; Weird Fiction; Horror
Description: A collection of thirteen ghost stories, classic and otherwise, by various authors. ~ ~ ~ ~ Compiled by ECM..
Publisher: MobileRead.com
Rights: Public domain where copyright is “Life+70” or less, and in the USA.

A BOOK OF GHOSTS
– 32 –

THINGS THAT GO BUMP
IN THE NIGHT

MobileRead Edition
2022

A collection of thirteen ghost stories, classic and otherwise, by various authors.
Compiled by ECM.

Contents were originally published 1853 ~ 1920. This book is in the public domain where copyright is “Life+70” or less, and in the USA.

CONTENTS:

- The House on Aungier Street  –1853
by Sheridan Le Fanu
(1814–1873)

- The Haunted and the Haunters  –1859
by Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton
(1803–1873)

- Uncle Cornelius, His Story  –1869
by George MacDonald
(1824–1905)

- 19, Great Hanover Street  –1889
by Lillie Harris
(1863–1921)

- An Unexpected Journey  –1893
by Joseph Henry Pearce
(1854–1909)

- A Night of Horror  –1899
by Dick Donovan
(James Muddock)
(1843–1934)

- Alice and Alicia  –1900
by Christabel Coleridge
(1843–1921)

- The House That Was Lost  –1908
by Tom Gallon
(1866–1914)

- The Kit-Bag  –1908
by Algernon Blackwood
(1869–1951)

- The Eastern Window  –1912
by E. G. Swain
(1861–1938)

- The Middle Bedroom  –1918
by Henry de Vere Stacpoole
(1863–1951)

- Joseph: A Story  –1919
by Katherine Rickford
(?–?)

- Room Number Ten  –1920
by Bessie Kyffin-Taylor
(1869–1922)

THE HOUSE
ON AUNGIER STREET

Sheridan Le Fanu

1851

It is not worth telling, this story of mine — at least, not worth writing. Told, indeed, as I have sometimes been called upon to tell it, to a circle of intelligent and eager faces, lighted up by a good after-dinner fire on a winter’s evening, with a cold wind rising and wailing outside, and all snug and cosy within, it has gone off — though I say it, who should not — indifferent well. But it is a venture to do as you would have me. Pen, ink, and paper are cold vehicles for the marvellous, and a “reader” decidedly a more critical animal than a “listener”. If, however, you can induce your friends to read it after nightfall, and when the fireside talk has run for a while on thrilling tales of shapeless terror; in short, if you will secure me the mollia tempora fandi, I will go to my work, and say my say, with better heart. Well, then, these conditions presupposed, I shall waste no more words, but tell you simply how it all happened.

My cousin (Tom Ludlow) and I studied medicine together. I think he would have succeeded, had he stuck to the profession; but he preferred the Church, poor fellow, and died early, a sacrifice to contagion, contracted in the noble discharge of his duties. For my present purpose, I say enough of his character when I mention that he was of a sedate but frank and cheerful nature; very exact in his observance of truth, and not by any means like myself — of an excitable or nervous temperament.

My Uncle Ludlow — Tom’s father — while we were attending lectures, purchased three or four old houses in Aungier Street, one of which was unoccupied. He resided in the country, and Tom proposed that we should take up our abode in the untenanted house, so long as it should continue unlet; a move which would accomplish the double end of settling us nearer alike to our lecture-rooms and to our amusements, and of relieving us from the weekly charge of rent for our lodgings.

Our furniture was very scant — our whole equipage remarkably modest and primitive; and, in short, our arrangements pretty nearly as simple as those of a bivouac. Our new plan was, therefore, executed almost as soon as conceived. The front drawing-room was our sitting-room. I had the bedroom over it, and Tom the back bedroom on the same floor, which nothing could have induced me to occupy.

The house, to begin with, was a very old one. It had been, I believe, newly fronted about fifty years before; but with this exception, it had nothing modern about it. The agent who bought it and looked into the titles for my uncle, told me that it was sold, along with much other forfeited property, at Chichester House, I think, in 1702; and had belonged to Sir Thomas Hacket, who was Lord Mayor of Dublin in James II.’s time. How old it was then, I can’t say; but, at all events, it had seen years and changes enough to have contracted all that mysterious and saddened air, at once exciting and depressing, which belongs to most old mansions.

There had been very little done in the way of modernising details; and, perhaps, it was better so; for there was something queer and bygone in the very walls and ceilings — in the shape of doors and windows — in the odd diagonal site of the chimney-pieces — in the beams and ponderous cornices — not to mention the singular solidity of all the woodwork, from the bannisters to the window-frames, which hopelessly defied disguise, and would have emphatically proclaimed their antiquity through any conceivable amount of modern finery and varnish.

An effort had, indeed, been made, to the extent of papering the drawing-rooms; but somehow, the paper looked raw and out of keeping; and the old woman, who kept a little dirt-pie of a shop in the lane, and whose daughter — a girl of two and fifty — was our solitary handmaid, coming in at sunrise, and chastely receding again as soon as she had made all ready for tea in our state apartment; — this woman, I say, remembered it, when old Judge Horrocks (who, having earned the reputation of a particularly “hanging judge,” ended by hanging himself, as the coroner’s jury found, under an impulse of “temporary insanity,” with a child’s skipping-rope, over the massive old bannisters) resided there, entertaining good company, with fine venison and rare old port. In those halcyon days, the drawing-rooms were hung with gilded leather, and, I dare say, cut a good figure, for they were really spacious rooms.

The bedrooms were wainscoted, but the front one was not gloomy; and in it the cosiness of antiquity quite overcame its sombre associations. But the back bedroom, with its two queerly-placed melancholy windows, staring vacantly at the foot of the bed, and with the shadowy recess to be found in most old houses in Dublin, like a large ghostly closet, which, from congeniality of temperament, had amalgamated with the bedchamber, and dissolved the partition. At night-time, this “alcove” — as our “maid” was wont to call it — had, in my eyes, a specially sinister and suggestive character. Tom’s distant and solitary candle glimmered vainly into its darkness. There it was always overlooking him — always itself impenetrable. But this was only part of the effect. The whole room was, I can’t tell how, repulsive to me. There was, I suppose, in its proportions and features, a latent discord — a certain mysterious and indescribable relation, which jarred indistinctly upon some secret sense of the fitting and the safe, and raised indefinable suspicions and apprehensions of the imagination. On the whole, as I began by saying, nothing could have induced me to pass a night alone in it.

I had never pretended to conceal from poor Tom my superstitious weakness; and he, on the other hand, most unaffectedly ridiculed my tremors. The sceptic was, however, destined to receive a lesson, as you shall hear.

We had not been very long in occupation of our respective dormitories, when I began to complain of uneasy nights and disturbed sleep. I was, I suppose, the more impatient under this annoyance, as I was usually a sound sleeper, and by no means prone to nightmares. It was now, however, my destiny, instead of enjoying my customary repose, every night to “sup full of horrors”. After a preliminary course of disagreeable and frightful dreams, my troubles took a definite form, and the same vision, without an appreciable variation in a single detail, visited me at least (on an average) every second night in the week.

Now, this dream, nightmare, or infernal illusion — which you please — of which I was the miserable sport, was on this wise:

I saw, or thought I saw, with the most abominable distinctness, although at the time in profound darkness, every article of furniture and accidental arrangement of the chamber in which I lay. This, as you know, is incidental to ordinary nightmare. Well, while in this clairvoyant condition, which seemed but the lighting up of the theatre in which was to be exhibited the monotonous tableau of horror, which made my nights insupportable, my attention invariably became, I know not why, fixed upon the windows opposite the foot of my bed; and, uniformly with the same effect, a sense of dreadful anticipation always took slow but sure possession of me. I became somehow conscious of a sort of horrid but undefined preparation going forward in some unknown quarter, and by some unknown agency, for my torment; and, after an interval, which always seemed to me of the same length, a picture suddenly flew up to the window, where it remained fixed, as if by an electrical attraction, and my discipline of horror then commenced, to last perhaps for hours. The picture thus mysteriously glued to the windowpanes, was the portrait of an old man, in a crimson flowered silk dressing-gown, the folds of which I could now describe, with a countenance embodying a strange mixture of intellect, sensuality, and power, but withal sinister and full of malignant omen. His nose was hooked, like the beak of a vulture; his eyes large, grey, and prominent, and lighted up with a more than mortal cruelty and coldness. These features were surmounted by a crimson velvet cap, the hair that peeped from under which was white with age, while the eyebrows retained their original blackness. Well I remember every line, hue, and shadow of that stony countenance, and well I may! The gaze of this hellish visage was fixed upon me, and mine returned it with the inexplicable fascination of nightmare, for what appeared to me to be hours of agony. At last—

“The cock he crew,
away then flew”

the fiend who had enslaved me through the awful watches of the night; and, harassed and nervous, I rose to the duties of the day.

I had — I can’t say exactly why, but it may have been from the exquisite anguish and profound impressions of unearthly horror, with which this strange phantasmagoria was associated — an insurmountable antipathy to describing the exact nature of my nightly troubles to my friend and comrade. Generally, however, I told him that I was haunted by abominable dreams; and, true to the imputed materialism of medicine, we put our heads together to dispel my horrors, not by exorcism, but by a tonic.

I will do this tonic justice, and frankly admit that the accursed portrait began to intermit its visits under its influence. What of that? Was this singular apparition — as full of character as of terror — therefore the creature of my fancy, or the invention of my poor stomach? Was it, in short, subjective (to borrow the technical slang of the day) and not the palpable aggression and intrusion of an external agent? That, good friend, as we will both admit, by no means follows. The evil spirit, who enthralled my senses in the shape of that portrait, may have been just as near me, just as energetic, just as malignant, though I saw him not. What means the whole moral code of revealed religion regarding the due keeping of our own bodies, soberness, temperance, etc.? here is an obvious connection between the material and the invisible; the healthy tone of the system, and its unimpaired energy may, for aught we can tell, guard us against influences which would otherwise render life itself terrific. The mesmerist and the electro-biologist will fail upon an average with nine patients out of ten — so may the evil spirit. Special conditions of the corporeal system are indispensable to the production of certain spiritual phenomena. The operation succeeds sometimes — sometimes fails — that is all.

I found afterwards that my would-be sceptical companion had his troubles too. But of these I knew nothing yet. One night, for a wonder, I was sleeping soundly, when I was roused by a step on the lobby outside my room, followed by the loud clang of what turned out to be a large brass candlestick, flung with all his force by poor Tom Ludlow over the banisters, and rattling with a rebound down the second flight of stairs; and almost concurrently with this, Tom burst open my door, and bounced into my room backwards, in a state of extraordinary agitation.

I had jumped out of bed and clutched him by the arm before I had any distinct idea of my own whereabouts. There we were — in our shirts — standing before the open door — staring through the great old banister opposite, at the lobby window, through which the sickly light of a clouded moon was gleaming.

“What’s the matter, Tom? What’s the matter with you? What the devil’s the matter with you, Tom?” I demanded shaking him with nervous impatience.

He took a long breath before he answered me, and then it was not very coherently.

“It’s nothing, nothing at all — did I speak? — what did I say? — where’s the candle, Richard? It’s dark; I — I had a candle!”

“Yes, dark enough,” I said; “but what’s the matter? — what is it? — why don’t you speak, Tom? — have you lost your wits? — what is the matter?”

“The matter? — oh, it is all over. It must have been a dream — nothing at all but a dream — don’t you think so? It could not be anything more than a dream.”

“Of course,” said I, feeling uncommonly nervous, “it was a dream.”

“I thought,” he said, “there was a man in my room, and — and I jumped out of bed; and — and — where’s the candle?”

“In your room, most likely,” I said, “shall I go and bring it?”

“No; stay here — don’t go; it’s no matter — don’t, I tell you; it was all a dream. Bolt the door, Dick; I’ll stay here with you — I feel nervous. So, Dick, like a good fellow, light your candle and open the window — I am in a shocking state.”

I did as he asked me, and robing himself like Granuaile in one of my blankets, he seated himself close beside my bed.

Everybody knows how contagious is fear of all sorts, but more especially that particular kind of fear under which poor Tom was at that moment labouring. I would not have heard, nor I believe would he have recapitulated, just at that moment, for half the world, the details of the hideous vision which had so unmanned him.

“Don’t mind telling me anything about your nonsensical dream, Tom,” said I, affecting contempt, really in a panic; “let us talk about something else; but it is quite plain that this dirty old house disagrees with us both, and hang me if I stay here any longer, to be pestered with indigestion and — and — bad nights, so we may as well look out for lodgings — don’t you think so? — at once.”

Tom agreed, and, after an interval, said—

“I have been thinking, Richard, that it is a long time since I saw my father, and I have made up my mind to go down tomorrow and return in a day or two, and you can take rooms for us in the meantime.”

I fancied that this resolution, obviously the result of the vision which had so profoundly scared him, would probably vanish next morning with the damps and shadows of night. But I was mistaken. Off went Tom at peep of day to the country, having agreed that so soon as I had secured suitable lodgings, I was to recall him by letter from his visit to my Uncle Ludlow.

Now, anxious as I was to change my quarters, it so happened, owing to a series of petty procrastinations and accidents, that nearly a week elapsed before my bargain was made and my letter of recall on the wing to Tom; and, in the meantime, a trifling adventure or two had occurred to your humble servant, which, absurd as they now appear, diminished by distance, did certainly at the time serve to whet my appetite for change considerably.

A night or two after the departure of my comrade, I was sitting by my bedroom fire, the door locked, and the ingredients of a tumbler of hot whisky-punch upon the crazy spider-table; for, as the best mode of keeping the

“Black spirits and white,

Blue spirits and grey,”

with which I was environed, at bay, I had adopted the practice recommended by the wisdom of my ancestors, and “kept my spirits up by pouring spirits down.” I had thrown aside my volume of Anatomy, and was treating myself by way of a tonic, preparatory to my punch and bed, to half-a-dozen pages of the Spectator, when I heard a step on the flight of stairs descending from the attics. It was two o’clock, and the streets were as silent as a churchyard — the sounds were, therefore, perfectly distinct. There was a slow, heavy tread, characterised by the emphasis and deliberation of age, descending by the narrow staircase from above; and, what made the sound more singular, it was plain that the feet which produced it were perfectly bare, measuring the descent with something between a pound and a flop, very ugly to hear.

I knew quite well that my attendant had gone away many hours before, and that nobody but myself had any business in the house. It was quite plain also that the person who was coming down stairs had no intention whatever of concealing his movements; but, on the contrary, appeared disposed to make even more noise, and proceed more deliberately, than was at all necessary. When the step reached the foot of the stairs outside my room, it seemed to stop; and I expected every moment to see my door open spontaneously, and give admission to the original of my detested portrait. I was, however, relieved in a few seconds by hearing the descent renewed, just in the same manner, upon the staircase leading down to the drawing-rooms, and thence, after another pause, down the next flight, and so on to the hall, whence I heard no more.

Now, by the time the sound had ceased, I was wound up, as they say, to a very unpleasant pitch of excitement. I listened, but there was not a stir. I screwed up my courage to a decisive experiment — opened my door, and in a stentorian voice bawled over the banisters, “Who’s there?” There was no answer but the ringing of my own voice through the empty old house — no renewal of the movement; nothing, in short, to give my unpleasant sensations a definite direction. There is, I think, something most disagreeably disenchanting in the sound of one’s own voice under such circumstances, exerted in solitude, and in vain. It redoubled my sense of isolation, and my misgivings increased on perceiving that the door, which I certainly thought I had left open, was closed behind me; in a vague alarm, lest my retreat should be cut off, I got again into my room as quickly as I could, where I remained in a state of imaginary blockade, and very uncomfortable indeed, till morning.

Next night brought no return of my barefooted fellow-lodger; but the night following, being in my bed, and in the dark — somewhere, I suppose, about the same hour as before, I distinctly heard the old fellow again descending from the garrets.

This time I had had my punch, and the morale of the garrison was consequently excellent. I jumped out of bed, clutched the poker as I passed the expiring fire, and in a moment was upon the lobby. The sound had ceased by this time — the dark and chill were discouraging; and, guess my horror, when I saw, or thought I saw, a black monster, whether in the shape of a man or a bear I could not say, standing, with its back to the wall, on the lobby, facing me, with a pair of great greenish eyes shining dimly out. Now, I must be frank, and confess that the cupboard which displayed our plates and cups stood just there, though at the moment I did not recollect it. At the same time I must honestly say, that making every allowance for an excited imagination, I never could satisfy myself that I was made the dupe of my own fancy in this matter; for this apparition, after one or two shiftings of shape, as if in the act of incipient transformation, began, as it seemed on second thoughts, to advance upon me in its original form. From an instinct of terror rather than of courage, I hurled the poker, with all my force, at its head; and to the music of a horrid crash made my way into my room, and double-locked the door. Then, in a minute more, I heard the horrid bare feet walk down the stairs, till the sound ceased in the hall, as on the former occasion.

If the apparition of the night before was an ocular delusion of my fancy sporting with the dark outlines of our cupboard, and if its horrid eyes were nothing but a pair of inverted teacups, I had, at all events, the satisfaction of having launched the poker with admirable effect, and in true “fancy” phrase, “knocked its two daylights into one,” as the commingled fragments of my tea-service testified. I did my best to gather comfort and courage from these evidences; but it would not do. And then what could I say of those horrid bare feet, and the regular tramp, tramp, tramp, which measured the distance of the entire staircase through the solitude of my haunted dwelling, and at an hour when no good influence was stirring? Confound it! — the whole affair was abominable. I was out of spirits, and dreaded the approach of night.

It came, ushered ominously in with a thunderstorm and dull torrents of depressing rain. Earlier than usual the streets grew silent; and by twelve o’clock nothing but the comfortless pattering of the rain was to be heard.

I made myself as snug as I could. I lighted two candles instead of one. I forswore bed, and held myself in readiness for a sally, candle in hand; for, coute qui coute, I was resolved to see the being, if visible at all, who troubled the nightly stillness of my mansion. I was fidgetty and nervous and, tried in vain to interest myself with my books. I walked up and down my room, whistling in turn martial and hilarious music, and listening ever and anon for the dreaded noise. I sat down and stared at the square label on the solemn and reserved-looking black bottle, until “Flanagan & Co.’s Best Old Malt Whisky” grew into a sort of subdued accompaniment to all the fantastic and horrible speculations which chased one another through my brain.

Silence, meanwhile, grew more silent, and darkness darker. I listened in vain for the rumble of a vehicle, or the dull clamour of a distant row. There was nothing but the sound of a rising wind, which had succeeded the thunderstorm that had travelled over the Dublin mountains quite out of hearing. In the middle of this great city I began to feel myself alone with nature, and Heaven knows what beside. My courage was ebbing. Punch, however, which makes beasts of so many, made a man of me again — just in time to hear with tolerable nerve and firmness the lumpy, flabby, naked feet deliberately descending the stairs again.

I took a candle, not without a tremor. As I crossed the floor I tried to extemporise a prayer, but stopped short to listen, and never finished it. The steps continued. I confess I hesitated for some seconds at the door before I took heart of grace and opened it. When I peeped out the lobby was perfectly empty — there was no monster standing on the staircase; and as the detested sound ceased, I was reassured enough to venture forward nearly to the banisters. Horror of horrors! within a stair or two beneath the spot where I stood the unearthly tread smote the floor. My eye caught something in motion; it was about the size of Goliah’s foot — it was grey, heavy, and flapped with a dead weight from one step to another. As I am alive, it was the most monstrous grey rat I ever beheld or imagined.

Shakespeare says — “Some men there are cannot abide a gaping pig, and some that are mad if they behold a cat.” I went well-nigh out of my wits when I beheld this rat; for, laugh at me as you may, it fixed upon me, I thought, a perfectly human expression of malice; and, as it shuffled about and looked up into my face almost from between my feet, I saw, I could swear it — I felt it then, and know it now, the infernal gaze and the accursed countenance of my old friend in the portrait, transfused into the visage of the bloated vermin before me.

I bounced into my room again with a feeling of loathing and horror I cannot describe, and locked and bolted my door as if a lion had been at the other side. Damn him or it; curse the portrait and its original! I felt in my soul that the rat — yes, the rat, the RAT I had just seen, was that evil being in masquerade, and rambling through the house upon some infernal night lark.

Next morning I was early trudging through the miry streets; and, among other transactions, posted a peremptory note recalling Tom. On my return, however, I found a note from my absent “chum,” announcing his intended return next day. I was doubly rejoiced at this, because I had succeeded in getting rooms; and because the change of scene and return of my comrade were rendered specially pleasant by the last night’s half ridiculous half horrible adventure.

I slept extemporaneously in my new quarters in Digges’ Street that night, and next morning returned for breakfast to the haunted mansion, where I was certain Tom would call immediately on his arrival.

I was quite right — he came; and almost his first question referred to the primary object of our change of residence.

“Thank God,” he said with genuine fervour, on hearing that all was arranged. “On your account I am delighted. As to myself, I assure you that no earthly consideration could have induced me ever again to pass a night in this disastrous old house.”

“Confound the house!” I ejaculated, with a genuine mixture of fear and detestation, “we have not had a pleasant hour since we came to live here”; and so I went on, and related incidentally my adventure with the plethoric old rat.

“Well, if that were all,” said my cousin, affecting to make light of the matter, “I don’t think I should have minded it very much.”

“Aye, but its eye — its countenance, my dear Tom,” urged I; “if you had seen that, you would have felt it might be anything but what it seemed.”

“I inclined to think the best conjuror in such a case would be an able-bodied cat,” he said, with a provoking chuckle.

“But let us hear your own adventure,” I said tartly.

At this challenge he looked uneasily round him. I had poked up a very unpleasant recollection.

“You shall hear it, Dick; I’ll tell it to you,” he said. “Begad, sir, I should feel quite queer, though, telling it here, though we are too strong a body for ghosts to meddle with just now.”

Though he spoke this like a joke, I think it was serious calculation. Our Hebe was in a corner of the room, packing our cracked delft tea and dinner-services in a basket. She soon suspended operations, and with mouth and eyes wide open became an absorbed listener. Tom’s experiences were told nearly in these words:

—  —  —  —  —

I saw it three times, Dick — three distinct times; and I am perfectly certain it meant me some infernal harm. I was, I say, in danger — in extreme danger; for, if nothing else had happened, my reason would most certainly have failed me, unless I had escaped so soon. Thank God. I did escape.

The first night of this hateful disturbance, I was lying in the attitude of sleep, in that lumbering old bed. I hate to think of it. I was really wide awake, though I had put out my candle, and was lying as quietly as if I had been asleep; and although accidentally restless, my thoughts were running in a cheerful and agreeable channel.

I think it must have been two o’clock at least when I thought I heard a sound in that — that odious dark recess at the far end of the bedroom. It was as if someone was drawing a piece of cord slowly along the floor, lifting it up, and dropping it softly down again in coils. I sat up once or twice in my bed, but could see nothing, so I concluded it must be mice in the wainscot. I felt no emotion graver than curiosity, and after a few minutes ceased to observe it.

While lying in this state, strange to say; without at first a suspicion of anything supernatural, on a sudden I saw an old man, rather stout and square, in a sort of roan-red dressing-gown, and with a black cap on his head, moving stiffly and slowly in a diagonal direction, from the recess, across the floor of the bedroom, passing my bed at the foot, and entering the lumber-closet at the left. He had something under his arm; his head hung a little at one side; and, merciful God! when I saw his face.

—  —  —  —  —

Tom stopped for a while, and then said—

—  —  —  —  —

That awful countenance, which living or dying I never can forget, disclosed what he was. Without turning to the right or left, he passed beside me, and entered the closet by the bed’s head.

While this fearful and indescribable type of death and guilt was passing, I felt that I had no more power to speak or stir than if I had been myself a corpse. For hours after it had disappeared, I was too terrified and weak to move. As soon as daylight came, I took courage, and examined the room, and especially the course which the frightful intruder had seemed to take, but there was not a vestige to indicate anybody’s having passed there; no sign of any disturbing agency visible among the lumber that strewed the floor of the closet.

I now began to recover a little. I was fagged and exhausted, and at last, overpowered by a feverish sleep. I came down late; and finding you out of spirits, on account of your dreams about the portrait, whose original I am now certain disclosed himself to me, I did not care to talk about the infernal vision. In fact, I was trying to persuade myself that the whole thing was an illusion, and I did not like to revive in their intensity the hated impressions of the past night — or, to risk the constancy of my scepticism, by recounting the tale of my sufferings.

It required some nerve, I can tell you, to go to my haunted chamber next night, and lie down quietly in the same bed, continued Tom. I did so with a degree of trepidation, which, I am not ashamed to say, a very little matter would have sufficed to stimulate to downright panic. This night, however, passed off quietly enough, as also the next; and so too did two or three more. I grew more confident, and began to fancy that I believed in the theories of spectral illusions, with which I had at first vainly tried to impose upon my convictions.

The apparition had been, indeed, altogether anomalous. It had crossed the room without any recognition of my presence: I had not disturbed it, and it had no mission to me. What, then, was the imaginable use of its crossing the room in a visible shape at all? Of course it might have been in the closet instead of going there, as easily as it introduced itself into the recess without entering the chamber in a shape discernible by the senses. Besides, how the deuce had I seen it? It was a dark night; I had no candle; there was no fire; and yet I saw it as distinctly, in colouring and outline, as ever I beheld human form! A cataleptic dream would explain it all; and I was determined that a dream it should be.

One of the most remarkable phenomena connected with the practice of mendacity is the vast number of deliberate lies we tell ourselves, whom, of all persons, we can least expect to deceive. In all this, I need hardly tell you, Dick, I was simply lying to myself, and did not believe one word of the wretched humbug. Yet I went on, as men will do, like persevering charlatans and impostors, who tire people into credulity by the mere force of reiteration; so I hoped to win myself over at last to a comfortable scepticism about the ghost.

He had not appeared a second time — that certainly was a comfort; and what, after all, did I care for him, and his queer old toggery and strange looks? Not a fig! I was nothing the worse for having seen him, and a good story the better. So I tumbled into bed, put out my candle, and, cheered by a loud drunken quarrel in the back lane, went fast asleep.

From this deep slumber I awoke with a start. I knew I had had a horrible dream; but what it was I could not remember. My heart was thumping furiously; I felt bewildered and feverish; I sat up in the bed and looked about the room. A broad flood of moonlight came in through the curtainless window; everything was as I had last seen it; and though the domestic squabble in the back lane was, unhappily for me, allayed, I yet could hear a pleasant fellow singing, on his way home, the then popular comic ditty called, “Murphy Delany.” Taking advantage of this diversion I lay down again, with my face towards the fireplace, and closing my eyes, did my best to think of nothing else but the song, which was every moment growing fainter in the distance:

“’Twas Murphy Delany, so funny and frisky,

Stept into a shebeen shop to get his skin full;

He reeled out again pretty well lined with whiskey,

As fresh as a shamrock, as blind as a bull.”

The singer, whose condition I dare say resembled that of his hero, was soon too far off to regale my ears any more; and as his music died away, I myself sank into a doze, neither sound nor refreshing. Somehow the song had got into my head, and I went meandering on through the adventures of my respectable fellow-countryman, who, on emerging from the “shebeen shop,” fell into a river, from which he was fished up to be “sat upon” by a coroner’s jury, who having learned from a “horse-doctor” that he was “dead as a doornail, so there was an end,” returned their verdict accordingly, just as he returned to his senses, when an angry altercation and a pitched battle between the body and the coroner winds up the lay with due spirit and pleasantry.

Through this ballad I continued with a weary monotony to plod, down to the very last line, and then da capo, and so on, in my uncomfortable half-sleep, for how long, I can’t conjecture. I found myself at last, however, muttering, “dead as a doornail, so there was an end”; and something like another voice within me, seemed to say, very faintly, but sharply, “dead! dead! dead! and may the Lord have mercy on your soul!” and instantaneously I was wide awake, and staring right before me from the pillow.

Now — will you believe it, Dick? — I saw the same accursed figure standing full front, and gazing at me with its stony and fiendish countenance, not two yards from the bedside.

—  —  —  —  —

Tom stopped here, and wiped the perspiration from his face. I felt very queer. The girl was as pale as Tom; and, assembled as we were in the very scene of these adventures, we were all, I dare say, equally grateful for the clear daylight and the resuming bustle out of doors.

—  —  —  —  —

For about three seconds only I saw it plainly; then it grew indistinct; but, for a long time, there was something like a column of dark vapour where it had been standing, between me and the wall; and I felt sure that he was still there. After a good while, this appearance went too. I took my clothes downstairs to the hall, and dressed there, with the door half open; then went out into the street, and walked about the town till morning, when I came back, in a miserable state of nervousness and exhaustion. I was such a fool, Dick, as to be ashamed to tell you how I came to be so upset. I thought you would laugh at me; especially as I had always talked philosophy, and treated your ghosts with contempt. I concluded you would give me no quarter; and so kept my tale of horror to myself.

Now, Dick, you will hardly believe me, when I assure you, that for many nights after this last experience, I did not go to my room at all. I used to sit up for a while in the drawing-room after you had gone up to your bed; and then steal down softly to the hall door, let myself out, and sit in the “Robin Hood” tavern until the last guest went off; and then I got through the night like a sentry, pacing the streets till morning.

For more than a week I never slept in bed. I sometimes had a snooze on a form in the Robin Hood, and sometimes a nap in a chair during the day; but regular sleep I had absolutely none.

I was quite resolved that we should get into another house; but I could not bring myself to tell you the reason, and I somehow put it off from day to day, although my life was, during every hour of this procrastination, rendered as miserable as that of a felon with the constables on his track. I was growing absolutely ill from this wretched mode of life.

One afternoon I determined to enjoy an hour’s sleep upon your bed. I hated mine; so that I had never, except in a stealthy visit every day to unmake it, lest Martha should discover the secret of my nightly absence, entered the ill-omened chamber.

As ill-luck would have it, you had locked your bedroom, and taken away the key. I went into my own to unsettle the bed-clothes, as usual, and give the bed the appearance of having been slept in. Now, a variety of circumstances concurred to bring about the dreadful scene through which I was that night to pass. In the first place, I was literally overpowered with fatigue, and longing for sleep; in the next place, the effect of this extreme exhaustion upon my nerves resembled that of a narcotic, and rendered me less susceptible than, perhaps I should in any other condition have been, of the exciting fears which had become habitual to me. Then again, a little bit of the window was open, a pleasant freshness pervaded the room, and, to crown all, the cheerful sun of day was making the room quite pleasant. What was to prevent my enjoying an hour’s nap here? The whole air was resonant with the cheerful hum of life, and the broad matter-of-fact light of day filled every corner of the room.

I yielded — stifling my qualms — to the almost overpowering temptation; and merely throwing off my coat, and loosening my cravat, I lay down, limiting myself to half-an-hour’s doze in the unwonted enjoyment of a feather bed, a coverlet, and a bolster.

It was horribly insidious; and the demon, no doubt, marked my infatuated preparations. Dolt that I was, I fancied, with mind and body worn out for want of sleep, and an arrear of a full week’s rest to my credit, that such measure as half-an-hour’s sleep, in such a situation, was possible. My sleep was deathlike, long, and dreamless.

Without a start or fearful sensation of any kind, I waked gently, but completely. It was, as you have good reason to remember, long past midnight — I believe, about two o’clock. When sleep has been deep and long enough to satisfy nature thoroughly, one often wakens in this way, suddenly, tranquilly, and completely.

There was a figure seated in that lumbering, old sofa-chair, near the fireplace. Its back was rather towards me, but I could not be mistaken; it turned slowly round, and, merciful heavens! there was the stony face, with its infernal lineaments of malignity and despair, gloating on me. There was now no doubt as to its consciousness of my presence, and the hellish malice with which it was animated, for it arose, and drew close to the bedside. There was a rope about its neck, and the other end, coiled up, it held stiffly in its hand.

My good angel nerved me for this horrible crisis. I remained for some seconds transfixed by the gaze of this tremendous phantom. He came close to the bed, and appeared on the point of mounting upon it. The next instant I was upon the floor at the far side, and in a moment more was, I don’t know how, upon the lobby.

But the spell was not yet broken; the valley of the shadow of death was not yet traversed. The abhorred phantom was before me there; it was standing near the banisters, stooping a little, and with one end of the rope round its own neck, was poising a noose at the other, as if to throw over mine; and while engaged in this baleful pantomime, it wore a smile so sensual, so unspeakably dreadful, that my senses were nearly overpowered, I saw and remember nothing more, until I found myself in your room.

I had a wonderful escape, Dick — there is no disputing that — an escape for which, while I live, I shall bless the mercy of heaven. No one can conceive or imagine what it is for flesh and blood to stand in the presence of such a thing, but one who has had the terrific experience. Dick, Dick, a shadow has passed over me — a chill has crossed my blood and marrow, and I will never be the same again — never, Dick — never!

—  —  —  —  —

Our handmaid, a mature girl of two-and-fifty, as I have said, stayed her hand, as Tom’s story proceeded, and by little and little drew near to us, with open mouth, and her brows contracted over her little, beady black eyes, till stealing a glance over her shoulder now and then, she established herself close behind us. During the relation, she had made various earnest comments, in an undertone; but these and her ejaculations, for the sake of brevity and simplicity, I have omitted in my narration.

“It’s often I heard tell of it,” she now said, “but I never believed it rightly till now — though, indeed, why should I not? Does not my mother, down there in the lane, know quare stories, God bless us, beyont telling about it? But you ought not to have slept in the back bedroom. She was loath to let me be going in and out of that room even in the day time, let alone for any Christian to spend the night in it; for sure she says it was his own bedroom.”

“Whose own bedroom?” we asked, in a breath.

“Why, his — the ould Judge’s — Judge Horrock’s, to be sure, God rest his sowl”; and she looked fearfully round.

“Amen!” I muttered. “But did he die there?”

“Die there! No, not quite there,” she said. “Shure, was not it over the bannisters he hung himself, the ould sinner, God be merciful to us all? and was not it in the alcove they found the handles of the skipping-rope cut off, and the knife where he was settling the cord, God bless us, to hang himself with? It was his housekeeper’s daughter owned the rope, my mother often told me, and the child never throve after, and used to be starting up out of her sleep, and screeching in the night time, wid dhrames and frights that cum an her; and they said how it was the speerit of the ould Judge that was tormentin’ her; and she used to be roaring and yelling out to hould back the big ould fellow with the crooked neck; and then she’d screech ‘Oh, the master! the master! he’s stampin’ at me, and beckoning to me! Mother, darling, don’t let me go!’ And so the poor crathure died at last, and the docthers said it was wather on the brain, for it was all they could say.”

“How long ago was all this?” I asked.

“Oh, then, how would I know?” she answered. “But it must be a wondherful long time ago, for the housekeeper was an ould woman, with a pipe in her mouth, and not a tooth left, and better nor eighty years ould when my mother was first married; and they said she was a rale buxom, fine-dressed woman when the ould Judge come to his end; an’, indeed, my mother’s not far from eighty years ould herself this day; and what made it worse for the unnatural ould villain, God rest his soul, to frighten the little girl out of the world the way he did, was what was mostly thought and believed by everyone. My mother says how the poor little crathure was his own child; for he was by all accounts an ould villain every way, an’ the hangin’est judge that ever was known in Ireland’s ground.”

“From what you said about the danger of sleeping in that bedroom,” said I, “I suppose there were stories about the ghost having appeared there to others.”

“Well, there was things said — quare things, surely,” she answered, as it seemed, with some reluctance. “And why would not there? Sure was it not up in that same room he slept for more than twenty years? and was it not in the alcove he got the rope ready that done his own business at last, the way he done many a betther man’s in his lifetime? — and was not the body lying in the same bed after death, and put in the coffin there, too, and carried out to his grave from it in Pether’s churchyard, after the coroner was done? But there was quare stories — my mother has them all — about how one Nicholas Spaight got into trouble on the head of it.”

“And what did they say of this Nicholas Spaight?” I asked.

“Oh, for that matther, it’s soon told,” she answered.

And she certainly did relate a very strange story, which so piqued my curiosity, that I took occasion to visit the ancient lady, her mother, from whom I learned many very curious particulars. Indeed, I am tempted to tell the tale, but my fingers are weary, and I must defer it. But if you wish to hear it another time, I shall do my best.

When we had heard the strange tale I have not told you, we put one or two further questions to her about the alleged spectral visitations, to which the house had, ever since the death of the wicked old Judge, been subjected.

“No one ever had luck in it,” she told us. “There was always cross accidents, sudden deaths, and short times in it. The first that tuck it was a family — I forget their name — but at any rate there was two young ladies and their papa. He was about sixty, and a stout healthy gentleman as you’d wish to see at that age. Well, he slept in that unlucky back bedroom; and, God between us an’ harm! sure enough he was found dead one morning, half out of the bed, with his head as black as a sloe, and swelled like a puddin’, hanging down near the floor. It was a fit, they said. He was as dead as a mackerel, and so he could not say what it was; but the ould people was all sure that it was nothing at all but the ould Judge, God bless us! that frightened him out of his senses and his life together.

“Some time after there was a rich old maiden lady took the house. I don’t know which room she slept in, but she lived alone; and at any rate, one morning, the servants going down early to their work, found her sitting on the passage-stairs, shivering and talkin’ to herself, quite mad; and never a word more could any of them or her friends get from her ever afterwards but, ‘Don’t ask me to go, for I promised to wait for him.’ They never made out from her who it was she meant by him, but of course those that knew all about the ould house were at no loss for the meaning of all that happened to her.

“Then afterwards, when the house was let out in lodgings, there was Micky Byrne that took the same room, with his wife and three little children; and sure I heard Mrs. Byrne myself telling how the children used to be lifted up in the bed at night, she could not see by what mains; and how they were starting and screeching every hour, just all as one as the housekeeper’s little girl that died, till at last one night poor Micky had a dhrop in him, the way he used now and again; and what do you think in the middle of the night he thought he heard a noise on the stairs, and being in liquor, nothing less id do him but out he must go himself to see what was wrong. Well, after that, all she ever heard of him was himself sayin’, ‘Oh, God!’ and a tumble that shook the very house; and there, sure enough, he was lying on the lower stairs under the lobby, with his neck smashed double undher him, where he was flung over the banisters.”

Then the handmaiden added—

“I’ll go down to the lane, and send up Joe Gavvey to pack up the rest of the taythings, and bring all the things across to your new lodgings.”

And so we all sallied out together, each of us breathing more freely, I have no doubt, as we crossed that ill-omened threshold for the last time.

Now, I may add thus much, in compliance with the immemorial usage of the realm of fiction, which sees the hero not only through his adventures, but fairly out of the world. You must have perceived that what the flesh, blood, and bone hero of romance proper is to the regular compounder of fiction, this old house of brick, wood, and mortar is to the humble recorder of this true tale. I, therefore, relate, as in duty bound, the catastrophe which ultimately befell it, which was simply this — that about two years subsequently to my story it was taken by a quack doctor, who called himself Baron Duhlstoerf, and filled the parlour windows with bottles of indescribable horrors preserved in brandy, and the newspapers with the usual grandiloquent and mendacious advertisements. This gentleman among his virtues did not reckon sobriety, and one night, being overcome with much wine, he set fire to his bed curtains, partially burned himself, and totally consumed the house. It was afterwards rebuilt, and for a time an undertaker established himself in the premises.

I have now told you my own and Tom’s adventures, together with some valuable collateral particulars; and having acquitted myself of my engagement, I wish you a very good night, and pleasant dreams.

aka “An Account of
Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street”

“Dublin University Magazine”, Jan. 1851

Madam Crowl’s Ghost And Other Tales of Mystery (1923)

THE HAUNTED
AND THE HAUNTERS

Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton

1859

A friend of mine, who is a man of letters and a philosopher, said to me one day, as if between jest and earnest, “Fancy! since we last met, I have discovered a haunted house in the midst of London.”

“Really haunted? — and by what? ghosts?”

“Well, I can’t answer that question: all I know is this — six weeks ago my wife and I were in search of a furnished apartment. Passing a quiet street, we saw on the window of one of the houses a bill, ‘Apartments Furnished.’ The situation suited us; we entered the house — liked the rooms — engaged them by the week — and left them the third day. No power on earth could have reconciled my wife to stay longer; and I don’t wonder at it.”

“What did you see?”

“Excuse me — I have no desire to be ridiculed as a superstitious dreamer — nor, on the other hand, could I ask you to accept on my affirmation what you would hold to be incredible without the evidence of your own senses. Let me only say this, it was not so much what we saw or heard (in which you might fairly suppose that we were the dupes of our own excited fancy, or the victims of imposture in others) that drove us away, as it was an undefinable terror which seized both of us whenever we passed by the door of a certain unfurnished room, in which we neither saw nor heard anything. And the strangest marvel of all was, that for once in my life I agreed with my wife, silly woman though she be — and allowed, after the third night, that it was impossible to stay a fourth in that house. Accordingly, on the fourth morning I summoned the woman who kept the house and attended on us, and told her that the rooms did not quite suit us, and we would not stay out our week. She said, dryly, ‘I know why: you have stayed longer than any other lodger. Few ever stay a second night; none before you a third. But I take it they have been very kind to you.’

“‘They — who?’ I asked, affecting to smile.

“‘Why, they who haunt the house, whoever they are. I don’t mind them; I remember them from many years ago, when I lived in this house, not as a servant; but I know they will be the death of me someday. I don’t care — I’m old, and must die soon anyhow; and then I shall be with them, and in this house still.’ The woman spoke with so dreary a calmness, that really it was a sort of awe that prevented my conversing with her further. I paid for my week, and too happy were my wife and I to get off so cheaply.”

“You excite my curiosity,” said I; “nothing I should like better than to sleep in a haunted house. Pray give me the address of the one which you left so ignominiously.”

My friend gave me the address; and when we parted, I walked straight towards the house thus indicated.

It is situated on the north side of Oxford Street (in a dull but respectable thoroughfare). I found the house shut up — no bill at the window, and no response to my knock. As I was turning away, a beer-boy, collecting pewter pots at the neighbouring areas, said to me, “Do you want anyone at that house, sir?”

“Yes, I heard it was to be let.”

“Let! — why, the woman who kept it is dead — has been dead these three weeks, and no one can be found to stay there, though Mr. J——— offered ever so much. He offered Mother, who chars for him, a pound a week just to open and shut the windows, and she would not.”

“Would not! — and why?”

“The house is haunted; and the old woman who kept it was found dead in her bed, with her eyes wide open. They say the devil strangled her.”

“Pooh! — you speak of Mr. J———. Is he the owner of the house?”

“Yes.”

“Where does he live?”

“What is he — in any business?”

“No, sir — nothing particular; a single gentleman.”

I gave the pot-boy the gratuity earned by his liberal information, and proceeded to Mr. J———, in G——— Street, which was close by the street that boasted the haunted house. I was lucky enough to find Mr. J——— at home, an elderly man, with intelligent countenance and prepossessing manners.

I communicated my name and my business frankly. I said I heard the house was considered to be haunted — that I had a strong desire to examine a house with so equivocal a reputation — that I should be greatly obliged if he would allow me to hire it, though only for a night. I was willing to pay for that privilege whatever he might be inclined to ask. “Sir,” said Mr. J———, with great courtesy, “the house is at your service, for as short or as long a time as you please. Rent is out of the question — the obligation will be on my side should you be able to discover the cause of the strange phenomena which at present deprive it of all value. I cannot let it, for I cannot even get a servant to keep it in order or answer the door. Unluckily the house is haunted, if I may use that expression, not only by night, but by day; though at night the disturbances are of a more unpleasant and sometimes of a more alarming character. The poor old woman who died in it three weeks ago was a pauper whom I took out of a workhouse, for in her childhood she had been known to some of my family, and had once been in such good circumstances that she had rented that house of my uncle. She was a woman of superior education and strong mind, and was the only person I could ever induce to remain in the house. Indeed, since her death, which was sudden, and the coroner’s inquest, which gave it a notoriety in the neighbourhood, I have so despaired of finding any person to take charge of the house, much more a tenant, that I would willingly let it rent-free for a year to anyone who would pay its rates and taxes.”

“How long is it since the house acquired this sinister character?”

“That I can scarcely tell you, but very many years since. The old woman I spoke of said it was haunted when she rented it between thirty and forty years ago. The fact is, that my life has been spent in the East Indies, and in the civil service of the Company. I returned to England last year, on inheriting the fortune of an uncle, among whose possessions was the house in question. I found it shut up and uninhabited. I was told that it was haunted, that no one would inhabit it. I smiled at what seemed to be so idle a story. I spent some money in repairing it — added to its old-fashioned furniture a few modern articles — advertised it, and obtained a lodger for a year. He was a colonel retired on half-pay. He came in with his family, a son and a daughter, and four or five servants: they all left the house the next day; and, although each of them declared that he had seen something different from that which had scared the others, a something still was equally terrible to all. I really could not in conscience sue, nor even blame, the colonel for breach of agreement. Then I put in the old woman I have spoken of, and she was empowered to let the house in apartments. I never had one lodger who stayed more than three days. I do not tell you their stories — to no two lodgers have there been exactly the same phenomena repeated. It is better that you should judge for yourself, than enter the house with an imagination influenced by previous narratives; only be prepared to see and to hear something or other, and take whatever precautions you yourself please.”

“Have you never had a curiosity yourself to pass a night in that house?”

“Yes. I passed not a night, but three hours in broad daylight alone in that house. My curiosity is not satisfied but it is quenched. I have no desire to renew the experiment. You cannot complain, you see, sir, that I am not sufficiently candid; and unless your interest be exceedingly eager and your nerves unusually strong, I honestly add, that I advise you not to pass a night in that house.”

“My interest is exceedingly keen,” said I, “and though only a coward will boast of his nerves in situations wholly unfamiliar to him, yet my nerves have been seasoned in such variety of danger that I have the right to rely on them — even in a haunted house.”

Mr. J——— said very little more; he took the keys of the house out of his bureau, gave them to me — and, thanking him cordially for his frankness, and his urbane concession to my wish, I carried off my prize.

Impatient for the experiment, as soon as I reached home, I summoned my confident servant — a young man of gay spirits, fearless temper, and as free from superstitious prejudices as anyone I could think of.

“F———,” said I, “you remember in Germany how disappointed we were at not finding a ghost in that old castle, which was said to be haunted by a headless apparition? Well, I have heard of a house in London which, I have reason to hope, is decidedly haunted. I mean to sleep there tonight. From what I hear, there is no doubt that something will allow itself to be seen or to be heard — something, perhaps, excessively horrible. Do you think if I take you with me, I may rely on your presence of mind, whatever may happen?”

“Oh, sir! pray trust me,” answered F———, grinning with delight.

“Very well; then here are the keys of the house — this is the address. Go now — select for me any bedroom you please; and since the house has not been inhabited for weeks, make up a good fire — air the bed well — see, of course, that there are candles as well as fuel. Take with you my revolver and my dagger — so much for my weapons — arm yourself equally well; and if we are not a match for a dozen ghosts, we shall be but a sorry couple of Englishmen.”

I was engaged for the rest of the day on business so urgent that I had not leisure to think much on the nocturnal adventure to which I had plighted my honour. I dined alone, and very late, and while dining, read, as is my habit. I selected one of the volumes of Macaulay’s Essays. I thought to myself that I would take the book with me; there was so much of the healthfulness in the style, and practical life in the subjects, that it would serve as an antidote against the influence of superstitious fancy.

Accordingly, about half-past nine, I put the book into my pocket, and strolled leisurely towards the haunted house. I took with me a favourite dog — an exceedingly sharp, bold and vigilant bull-terrier — a dog fond of prowling about strange ghostly corners and passages at night in search of rats — a dog of dogs for a ghost.

It was a summer night, but chilly, the sky somewhat gloomy and overcast. Still there was a moon — faintly and sickly, but still a moon — and if the clouds permitted, after midnight it would be brighter.

I reached the house, knocked, and my servant opened with a cheerful smile.

“All right, sir, and very comfortable.”

“Oh!” said I, rather disappointed; “have you not seen nor heard anything remarkable?”

“Well, sir, I must own I have heard something queer.”

“What — what?”

“The sound of feet pattering behind me; and once or twice small noises like whispers close at my ear — nothing more.”

“You are not at all frightened?”

“I! not a bit of it, sir,” and the man’s bold look reassured me on one point — viz., that happen what might, he would not desert me.

We were in the hall, the street-door closed, and my attention was now drawn to my dog. He had at first run in eagerly enough, but had sneaked back to the door, and was scratching and whining to get out. After patting him on the head, and encouraging him gently, the dog seemed to reconcile himself to the situation, and followed me and F——— through the house, but keeping close at my heels instead of hurrying inquisitively in advance, which was his usual and normal habit in all strange places. We first visited the subterranean apartments, the kitchen and other offices, and especially the cellars, in which last there were two or three bottles of wine still left in a bin, covered with cobwebs, and evidently, by their appearance, undisturbed for many years. It was clear that the ghosts were not wine-bibbers. For the rest we discovered nothing of interest. There was a gloomy little backyard with very high walls. The stones of this yard were very damp; and what with the damp, and what with the dust and smoke-grime on the pavement, our feet left a slight impression where we passed.

And now appeared the first strange phenomenon witnessed by myself in this strange abode. I saw, just before me, the print of a foot suddenly form itself, as it were. I stopped, caught hold of my servant, and pointed to it. In advance of that footprint as suddenly dropped another. We both saw it. I advanced quickly to the place; the footprint kept advancing before me, a small footprint — the foot of a child; the impression was too faint thoroughly to distinguish the shape, but it seemed to us both that it was the print of a naked foot. This phenomenon ceased when we arrived at the opposite wall, nor did it repeat itself on returning. We remounted the stairs, and entered the rooms on the ground floor, a dining parlour, a small back parlour, and a still smaller third room that had been probably appropriated to a footman — all still as death. We then visited the drawing-rooms, which seemed fresh and new. In the front room I seated myself in an armchair. F——— placed on the table the candlestick with which he had lighted us. I told him to shut the door. As he had turned to do so, a chair opposite to me moved from the wall quickly and noiselessly, and dropped itself about a yard from my own chair, immediately fronting it.

“Why, this is better than the turning tables,” said I, with a half laugh; and as I laughed, my dog put back his head and howled.

F———, coming back, had not observed the movement of the chair. He employed himself now in stilling the dog. I continued to gaze on the chair, and fancied I saw on it a pale blue misty outline of a human figure, but an outline so indistinct that I could only distrust my own vision. The dog now was quiet.

“Put back that chair opposite me,” said I to F———; “put it back to the wall.”

F——— obeyed. “Was that you, sir?” said he, turning abruptly.

“I! — what?”

“Why, something struck me. I felt it sharply on the shoulder — just here.”

“No,” said I. “But we have jugglers present, and though we may not discover their tricks, we shall catch them before they frighten us.”

We did not stay long in the drawing rooms — in fact, they felt so damp and so chilly that I was glad to get to the fire upstairs. We locked the doors of the drawing rooms — a precaution which, I should observe, we had taken with all the rooms we had searched below. The bedroom my servant had selected for me was the best on the floor — a large one, with two windows fronting the street. The four-posted bed, which took up no inconsiderable space, was opposite to the fire, which burned clear and bright; a door in the wall to the left, between the bed and the window, communicated with the room which my servant appropriated to himself. This last was a small room with a sofa bed, and had no communication with the landing-place — no other door but that which conducted to the bedroom I was to occupy. On either side of my fireplace was a cupboard, without locks, flush with the wall and covered with the same dull-brown paper. We examined these cupboards — only hooks to suspend female dresses — nothing else; we sounded the walls — evidently solid — the outer walls of the building. Having finished the survey of these apartments, warmed myself a few moments, and lighted my cigar, I then, still accompanied by F———, went forth to complete my reconnoitre. In the landing-place there was another door; it was closed firmly. “Sir,” said my servant, in surprise, “I unlocked this door with all the others when I first came; it cannot have got locked from the inside, for—”

Before he had finished his sentence, the door, which neither of us then was touching, opened quietly of itself. We looked at each other a single instant. The same thought seized both — some human agency might be detected here. I rushed in first, my servant followed. A small blank dreary room without furniture — few empty boxes and hampers in a corner — a small window — the shutters closed — not even a fireplace — no other door than that by which we had entered — no carpet on the floor, and the floor seemed very old, uneven, worm-eaten, mended here and there, as was shown by the whiter patches on the wood; but no living being, and no visible place in which a living being could have hidden. As we stood gazing round, the door by which we had entered closed as quietly as it had before opened: we were imprisoned.

For the first time I felt a creep of undefinable horror. Not so my servant. “Why, they don’t think to trap us, sir; I could break the trumpery door with a kick of my foot.”

“Try first if it will open to your hand,” said I, shaking off the vague apprehension that had seized me, “while I unclose the shutters and see what is without.”

I unbarred the shutters — the window looked on the little back yard I have before described; there was no ledge without — nothing to break the sheer descent of the wall. No man getting out of that window would have found any footing till he had fallen on the stones below.

F———, meanwhile, was vainly attempting to open the door. He now turned round to me and asked my permission to use force. And I should here state, in justice to the servant, that, far from evincing any superstitious terrors, his nerve, composure, and even gaiety amidst circumstances so extraordinary, compelled my admiration, and made me congratulate myself on having secured a companion in every way fitted to the occasion. I willingly gave him the permission he required. But though he was a remarkably strong man, his force was as idle as his milder efforts; the door did not even shake to his stoutest kick. Breathless and panting, he desisted. I then tried the door myself, equally in vain. As I ceased from the effort, again that creep of horror came over me; but this time it was more cold and stubborn. I felt as if some strange and ghastly exhalation were rising up from the chinks of that rugged floor, and filling the atmosphere with a venomous influence hostile to human life. The door now very slowly and quietly opened as of its own accord. We precipitated ourselves into the landing-place. We both saw a large pale light — as large as the human figure but shapeless and unsubstantial — move before us, and ascend the stairs that led from the landing into the attics. I followed the light, and my servant followed me. It entered, to the right of the landing, a small garret, of which the door stood open. I entered in the same instant. The light then collapsed into a small globule, exceedingly brilliant and vivid; rested a moment on a bed in the corner, quivered, and vanished.

We approached the bed and examined it — a half-tester, such as is commonly found in attics devoted to servants. On the drawers that stood near it we perceived an old faded silk kerchief, with the needle still left in a rent half repaired. The kerchief was covered with dust; probably it had belonged to the old woman who had died in that house, and this might have been her sleeping room. I had sufficient curiosity to open the drawers: there were a few odds and ends of female dress, and two letters tied round with a narrow ribbon of faded yellow. I took the liberty to possess myself of the letters. We found nothing else in the room worth noticing — nor did the light reappear; but we distinctly heard, as we turned to go, a pattering footfall on the floor — just before us. We went through the other attics (in all four), the footfall still preceding us. Nothing to be seen — nothing but the footfall heard. I had the letters in my hand: just as I was descending the stairs I distinctly felt my wrist seized, and a faint soft effort made to draw the letters from my clasp. I only held them the more tightly, and the effort ceased.

We regained the bedchamber appropriated to myself, and I then remarked that my dog had not followed us when we had left it. He was thrusting himself close to the fire, and trembling. I was impatient to examine the letters; and while I read them, my servant opened a little box in which he had deposited the weapons I had ordered him to bring; took them out, placed them on a table close at my bed-head, and then occupied himself in soothing the dog, who, however, seemed to heed him very little.

The letters were short — they were dated; the dates exactly thirty-five years ago. They were evidently from a lover to his mistress, or a husband to some young wife. Not only the terms of expression, but a distinct reference to a former voyage, indicated the writer to have been a seafarer. The spelling and handwriting were those of a man imperfectly educated, but still the language itself was forcible. In the expressions of endearment there was a kind of rough wild love; but here and there were dark and unintelligible hints at some secret not of love — some secret that seemed of crime. “We ought to love each other,” was one of the sentences I remember, “for how everyone else would execrate us if all was known.” Again: “Don’t let anyone be in the same room with you at night — you talk in your sleep.” And again: “What’s done can’t be undone; and I tell you there’s nothing against us unless the dead could come to life.” Here there was underlined in a better handwriting (a female’s), “They do!” At the end of the letter latest in date the same female hand had written these words: “Lost at sea the 4th of June, the same day as—”

I put down the letters, and began to muse over their contents.

Fearing, however, that the train of thought into which I fell might unsteady my nerves, I fully determined to keep my mind in a fit state to cope with whatever of the marvellous the advancing night might bring forth. I roused myself — laid the letters on the table — stirred up the fire, which was still bright and cheering — and opened my volume of Macaulay. I read quietly enough till about half-past eleven. I then threw myself dressed upon the bed, and told my servant he might retire to his own room, but must keep himself awake. I bade him leave open the doors between the two rooms. Thus alone, I kept two candles burning on the table by my bed-head. I placed my watch beside the weapons, and calmly resumed my Macaulay. Opposite to me the fire burned clear; and on the hearthrug, seemingly asleep, lay the dog. In about twenty minutes I felt an exceedingly cold air pass by my cheek, like a sudden draught. I fancied the door to my right, communicating with the landing-place, must have got open; but no — it was closed. I then turned my glance to my left, and saw the flame of the candles violently swayed as by a wind. At the same moment the watch beside the revolver softly slid from the table — softly, softly — no visible hand — it was gone. I sprang up, seizing the revolver with the one hand, the dagger with the other: I was not willing that my weapons should share the fate of the watch. Thus armed, I looked round the floor — no sign of the watch. Three slow, loud, distinct knocks were now heard at the bed-head; my servant called out, “Is that you, sir?”

“No; be on your guard.”

The dog now roused himself and sat on his haunches, his ears moving quickly backwards and forwards. He kept his eyes fixed on me with a look so strange that he concentrated all my attention on himself. Slowly he rose up, all his hair bristling, and stood perfectly rigid, and with the same wild stare. I had no time, however, to examine the dog. Presently my servant emerged from his room; and if ever I saw horror in the human face, it was then. I should not have recognized him had we met in the street, so altered was every lineament. He passed by me quickly, saying in a whisper that seemed scarcely to come from his lips, “Run — run! it is after me!” He gained the door to the landing, pulled it open, and rushed forth. I followed him into the landing involuntarily, calling him to stop; but, without heeding me, he bounded down the stairs, clinging to the balusters, and taking several steps at a time. I heard, where I stood, the street-door open — heard it again clap to. I was left alone in the haunted house.

It was but for a moment that I remained undecided whether or not to follow my servant; pride and curiosity alike forbade so dastardly a flight. I re-entered my room, closing the door after me, and proceeded cautiously into the interior chamber. I encountered nothing to justify my servant’s terror. I again carefully examined the walls, to see if there were any concealed door. I could find no trace of one — not even a seam in the dull brown paper with which the room was hung. How, then, had the THING, whatever it was, which had so scared him, obtained ingress except through my own chamber?

I returned to my room, shut and locked the door that opened upon the interior one, and stood on the hearth, expectant and prepared. I now perceived that the dog had slunk into an angle of the wall, and was pressing himself close against it, as if literally striving to force his way into it. I approached the animal and spoke to it; the poor brute was evidently beside itself with terror. It showed all its teeth, the slaver dropping from its jaws, and would certainly have bitten me if I had touched it. It did not seem to recognize me. Whoever has seen at the Zoological Gardens a rabbit fascinated by a serpent, cowering in a corner, may form some idea of the anguish which the dog exhibited. Finding all efforts to soothe the animal in vain, and fearing that his bite might be as venomous in that state as in the madness of hydrophobia, I left him alone, placed my weapons on the table beside the fire, seated myself, and recommenced my Macaulay.

Perhaps, in order not to appear seeking credit for a courage, or rather a coolness, which the reader may conceive I exaggerate, I may be pardoned if I pause to indulge in one or two egotistical remarks.

As I hold presence of mind, or what is called courage, to be precisely proportioned to familiarity with the circumstances that lead to it, so I should say that I had been long sufficiently familiar with all experiments that appertain to the Marvellous. I had witnessed many very extraordinary phenomena in various parts of the world — phenomena that would be either totally disbelieved if I stated them, or ascribed to supernatural agencies. Now, my theory is that the Supernatural is the Impossible, and that what is called supernatural is only a something in the laws of nature of which we have been hitherto ignorant. Therefore, if a ghost rise before me, I have not the right to say, “So, then, the supernatural is possible,” but rather, “So, then, the apparition of a ghost is, contrary to received opinion, within the laws of nature — i.e., not supernatural.”

Now, in all that I had hitherto witnessed, and indeed in all the wonders which the amateurs of mystery in our age record as facts, a material living agency is always required. On the continent you will still find magicians who assert that they can raise spirits. Assume for the moment that they assert truly, still the living material form of the magician is present; and he is the material agency by which, from some constitutional peculiarities, certain strange phenomena are represented to your natural senses.

Accept, again, as truthful, the tales of spirit manifestation in America — musical or other sounds — writings on paper, produced by no discernible hand — articles of furniture moved without apparent human agency — or the actual sight and touch of hands, to which no bodies seem to belong — still there must be found the MEDIUM or living being, with constitutional peculiarities capable of obtaining these signs. In fine, in all such marvels, supposing even that there is no imposture, there must be a human being like ourselves by whom, or through whom, the effects presented to human beings are produced. It is so with the now familiar phenomena of mesmerism or electro-biology; the mind of the person operated on is affected through a material living agent. Nor, supposing it true that a mesmerized patient can respond to the will or passes of a mesmerizer a hundred miles distant, is the response less occasioned by a material fluid — call it Electric, call it Odic, call it what you will — which has the power of traversing space and passing obstacles, that the material effect is communicated from one to the other. Hence all that I had hitherto witnessed, or expected to witness, in this strange house, I believed to be occasioned through some agency or medium as mortal as myself: and this idea necessarily prevented the awe with which those who regard as supernatural things that are not within the ordinary operations of nature might have been impressed by the adventures of that memorable night.

As, then, it was my conjecture that all that was presented; or would be presented to my senses, must originate in some human being gifted by constitution with the power so to present them, and having some motive so to do, I felt an interest in my theory which, in its way, was rather philosophical than superstitious. And I can sincerely say that I was in as tranquil a temper for observation as any practical experimentalist could be in awaiting the effect of some rare, though perhaps perilous, chemical combination. Of course, the more I kept my mind detached from fancy, the more the temper fitted for observation would be obtained; and I therefore riveted eye and thought on the strong daylight sense in the page of my Macaulay.

I now became aware that something interposed between the page and the light — the page was overshadowed: I looked up, and I saw what I shall find very difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe.

It was a Darkness shaping itself forth from the air in very undefined outline. I cannot say it was of a human form, and yet it had more resemblance to a human form, or rather shadow, than to anything else. As it stood, wholly apart and distinct from the air and the light around it, its dimensions seemed gigantic, the summit nearly touching the ceiling. While I gazed, a feeling of intense cold seized me. An iceberg before me could not more have chilled me; nor could the cold of an iceberg have been more purely physical. I feel convinced that it was not the cold caused by fear. As I continued to gaze, I thought — but this I cannot say with precision — that I distinguished two eyes looking down on me from the height. One moment I fancied that I distinguished them clearly, the next they seemed gone; but still two rays of a pale-blue light frequently shot through the darkness, as from the height on which I half believed, half doubted, that I had encountered the eyes.

I strove to speak — my voice utterly failed me; I could only think to myself, “Is this fear? it is not fear!” I strove to rise — in vain; I felt as if weighed down by an irresistible force. Indeed, my impression was that of an immense and overwhelming Power opposed to any volition — that sense of utter inadequacy to cope with a force beyond man’s, which one may feel physically in a storm at sea, in a conflagration, or when confronting some terrible wild beast, or rather, perhaps, the shark of the ocean, I felt morally. Opposed to my will was another will, as far superior to its strength as storm, fire, and shark are superior in material force to the force of man.

And now, as this impression grew on me — now came, at last, horror — horror to a degree that no words can convey. Still I retained pride, if not courage; and in my own mind I said, “This is horror, but it is not fear; unless I fear I cannot be harmed; my reason rejects this thing, it is an illusion — I do not fear.” With a violent effort I succeeded at last in stretching out my hand towards the weapon on the table; as I did so, on the arm and shoulder I received a strange shock, and my arm fell to my side powerless. And now, to add to my horror, the light began slowly to wane from the candles; they were not, as it were, extinguished, but their flame seemed very gradually withdrawn; it was the same with the fire — the light was extracted from the fuel; in a few minutes the room was in utter darkness.

The dread that came over me, to be thus in the dark with that dark Thing, whose power was so intensely felt, brought a reaction of nerve. In fact, terror had reached that climax, that either my senses must have deserted me, or I must have burst through the spell. I did burst through it. I found voice, though the voice was a shriek. I remember that I broke forth with words like these — “I do not fear, my soul does not fear” and at the same time I found strength to rise. Still in that profound gloom I rushed to one of the windows — tore aside the curtain — flung open the shutters; my first thought was — light. And when I saw the moon high, clear, and calm, I felt a joy that almost compensated for the previous terror. There was the moon, there was also the light from the gas lamps in the deserted slumberous street. I turned to look back into the room; the moon penetrated its shadow very palely and partially — but still there was light. The dark Thing, whatever it might be, was gone — except that I could yet see a dim shadow, which seemed the shadow of that shade, against the opposite wall.

My eye now rested on the table, and from under the table (which was without cloth or cover — an old mahogany round table) there rose a hand, visible as far as the wrist. It was a hand, seemingly, as much of flesh and blood as my own, but the hand of an aged person — lean, wrinkled, small, too — a woman’s hand. That hand very softly closed on the two letters that lay on the table: hand and letters both vanished. There then came the same three loud measured knocks I heard at the bed-head before this extraordinary drama had commenced.

As those sounds slowly ceased, I felt the whole room vibrate sensibly; and at the far end there rose, as from the floor, sparks or globules like bubbles of light, many-coloured — green, yellow, fire-red, azure. Up and down, to and fro, hither, thither, as tiny Will-o’-the-Wisps the sparks moved slow or swift, each at his own caprice. A chair (as in the drawing-room below) was now advanced from the wall without apparent agency, and placed at the opposite side of the table. Suddenly as forth from the chair, there grew a shape — a woman’s shape. It was distinct as a shape of life — ghastly as a shape of death. The face was that of youth, with a strange mournful beauty: the throat and shoulders were bare, the rest of the form in a loose robe of cloudy white. It began sleeking its long yellow hair, which fell over its shoulders; its eyes were not turned towards me, but to the door; it seemed listening, watching, waiting. The shadow of the shade in the background grew darker; and again I thought I beheld the eyes gleaming out from the summit of the shadow — eyes fixed upon that shape.

As if from the door, though it did not open, there grew out another shape, equally distinct, equally ghastly — a man’s shape — a young man’s. It was in the dress of the last century, or rather in a likeness of such dress (for both the male shape and the female, though defined, were evidently unsubstantial, impalpable — simulacra — phantasms); and there was something incongruous, grotesque, yet fearful, in the contrast between the elaborate finery, the courtly precision of that old-fashioned garb, with its ruffles and lace and buckles, and the corpse-like aspect and ghostlike stillness of the flitting wearer. Just as the male shape approached the female, the dark shadow started from the wall, all three for a moment wrapped in darkness. When the pale light returned, the two phantoms were as in the grasp of the shadow that towered between them; and there was a bloodstain on the breast of the female; and the phantom male was leaning on its phantom sword, and blood seemed trickling fast from the ruffles, from the lace; and the darkness of the intermediate Shadow swallowed them up — they were gone. And again the bubbles of light shot, and sailed, and undulated, growing thicker and thicker and more wildly confused in their movements.

The closet door to the right of the fireplace now opened, and from the aperture there came the form of an aged woman. In her hand she held letters — the very letters over which I had seen the Hand close; and behind her I heard a footstep. She turned round as if to listen, and then she opened the letters and seemed to read; and over her shoulder I saw a livid face, the face as of a man long drowned — bloated, bleached, seaweed tangled in its dripping hair; and at her feet lay a form as of a corpse, and beside the corpse there cowered a child, a miserable squalid child, with famine in its cheeks and fear in its eyes. And as I looked in the old woman’s face, the wrinkles and lines vanished and it became a face of youth — hard-eyed, stony, but still youth; and the Shadow darted forth, and darkened over these phantoms as it had darkened over the last.

Nothing now was left but the Shadow, and on that my eyes were intently fixed, till again eyes grew out of the Shadow — malignant, serpent eyes. And the bubbles of light again rose and fell, and in their disorder, irregular, turbulent maze, mingled with the wan moonlight. And now from these globules themselves, as from the shell of an egg, monstrous things burst out; the air grew filled with them; larvae so bloodless and so hideous that I can in no way describe them except to remind the reader of the swarming life which the solar microscope brings before his eyes in a drop of water — things transparent, supple, agile, chasing each other, devouring each other — forms like nought ever beheld by the naked eye. As the shapes were without symmetry, so their movements were without order. In their very vagrancies there was no sport; they came round me and round, thicker and faster and swifter, swarming over my head, crawling over my right arm, which was outstretched in involuntary command against all evil beings. Sometimes I felt myself touched, but not by them; invisible hands touched me. Once I felt the clutch as of cold soft fingers at my throat. I was still equally conscious that if I gave way to fear I should be in bodily peril; and I concentrated all my faculties in the single focus of resisting, stubborn will. And I turned my sight from the Shadow — above all, from those strange serpent eyes — eyes that had now become distinctly visible. For there, though in nought else round me, I was aware that there was a WILL, and a will of intense, creative, working evil, which might crush down on my own.

The pale atmosphere in the room began now to redden as if in the air of some near conflagration. The larvae grew lurid as things that live in fire. Again the room vibrated; again were heard the three measured knocks; and again all things were swallowed up in the darkness of the dark Shadow, as if out of that darkness all had come, into that darkness all returned.

As the gloom receded, the Shadow was wholly gone. Slowly as it had been withdrawn, the flame grew again into the candles on the table, again into the fuel in the grate. The whole room came once more calmly, healthfully into sight.

The two doors were still closed, the door communicating with the servant’s room still locked. In the corner of the wall into which he had so convulsively niched himself, lay the dog. I called to him — no movement; I approached — the animal was dead; his eyes protruded; his tongue out of his mouth; the froth gathered round his jaws. I took him in my arms; I brought him to the fire, I felt acute grief for the loss of my poor favourite — acute self-reproach; I accused myself of his death; I imagined he had died of fright. But what was my surprise on finding that his neck was actually broken. Had this been done in the dark? — must it not have been by a hand human as mine? — must there not have been a human agency all the while in that room? Good cause to suspect it. I cannot tell. I cannot do more than state the fact fairly; the reader may draw his own inference.

Another surprising circumstance — my watch was restored to the table from which it had been so mysteriously withdrawn; but it had stopped at the very moment it was so withdrawn; nor, despite all the skill of the watchmaker, has it ever gone since — that is, it will go in a strange erratic way for a few hours, and then come to a dead stop — it is worthless.

Nothing more chanced for the rest of the night. Nor, indeed, had I long to wait before the dawn broke. Nor till it was broad daylight did I quit the haunted house. Before I did so, I revisited the little blind room in which my servant and myself had been for a time imprisoned. I had a strong impression — for which I could not account — that from that room had originated the mechanism of the phenomena — if I may use the term — which had been experienced in my chamber. And though I entered it now in the clear day, with the sun peering through the filmy window, I still felt, as I stood on its floor, the creep of the horror which I had first there experienced the night before, and which had been so aggravated by what had passed in my own chamber. I could not, indeed, bear to stay more than half a minute within those walls. I descended the stairs, and again I heard the footfall before me; and when I opened the street door, I thought I could distinguish a very low laugh. I gained my own home, expecting to find my runaway servant there. But he had not presented himself; nor did I hear more of him for three days, when I received a letter from him, dated from Liverpool to this effect:

“Honoured Sir —

I humbly entreat your pardon, though I can scarcely hope that you will think I deserve it, unless — which Heaven forbid — you saw what I did. I feel that it will be years before I can recover myself and as to being fit for service, it is out of the question. I am therefore going to my brother-in-law at Melbourne. The ship sails tomorrow. Perhaps the long voyage may set me up. I do nothing now but start and tremble, and fancy IT is behind me. I humbly beg you, honoured sir, to order my clothes, and whatever wages are due to me, to be sent to my mother’s, at Walworth. John knows her address.”

The letter ended with additional apologies, somewhat incoherent, and explanatory details as to effects that had been under the writer’s charge.

This flight may perhaps warrant a suspicion that the man wished to go to Australia, and had been somehow or other fraudulently mixed up with the events of the night. I say nothing in refutation of that conjecture; rather, I suggest it as one that would seem to many persons the most probable solution of improbable occurrences. My belief in my own theory remained unshaken. I returned in the evening to the house, to bring away in a hack cab the things I had left up there, with my poor dog’s body. In the task I was not disturbed, nor did any incident worth note befall me, except that still, on ascending and descending the stairs, I heard the same footfall in advance. On leaving the house, I went to Mr. J———’s. He was at home. I returned him the keys, told him that my curiosity was sufficiently gratified, and was about to relate quickly what had passed, when he stopped me, and said, though with much politeness, that he had no longer any interest in a mystery which none had ever solved.

I determined at least to tell him of the two letters in which I had read, as well as of the extraordinary manner in which they had disappeared, and I then inquired if he thought they had been addressed to the woman who had died in the house, and if there were anything in her early history which could possibly confirm the dark suspicions to which the letters gave rise. Mr. J——— seemed startled, and, after musing a few moments, answered, “I am but little acquainted with the woman’s earlier history, except, as I before told you, that her family were known to mine. But you revive some vague reminiscences to her prejudice. I will make inquiries, and inform you of their result. Still, even if we could admit the popular superstition that a person who had been either the perpetrator or the victim of dark crimes in life could revisit, as a restless spirit, the scene in which those crimes had been committed, I should observe that the house was infested by strange sights and sounds before the old woman died — you smile — what would you say?”

“I would say this, that I am convinced, if we could get to the bottom of these mysteries, we should find a living human agency.”

“What! you believe it is all an imposture? for what object?”

“Not an imposture in the ordinary sense of the word. If suddenly I were to sink into a deep sleep, from which you could not awake me, but in that sleep could answer questions with an accuracy which I could not pretend to when awake — tell you what money you had in your pocket — nay, describe your very thoughts — it is not necessarily an imposture, any more than it is necessarily supernatural. I should be, unconsciously to myself, under a mesmeric influence, conveyed to me from a distance by a human being who had acquired power over me by previous rapport.”

“But if a mesmerizer could so affect another living being, can you suppose that a mesmerizer could also affect inanimate objects: move chairs — open and shut doors?”

“Or impress our senses with the belief in such effects — we never having been en rapport with the person acting on us? No. What is commonly called mesmerism could not do this; but there may be a power akin to mesmerism, and superior to it — the power that in the old days was called Magic. That such a power may extend to all inanimate objects of matter I do not say; but if so, it would not be against nature — it would be only a rare power in nature which might be given to constitutions with certain peculiarities, and cultivated by practice to an extraordinary degree. That such a power might extend over the dead — that is, over certain thoughts and memories that the dead may still retain — and compel, not that which ought properly to be called the SOUL, and which is far beyond human reach, but rather a phantom of what has been most earth-stained on earth, to make itself apparent to our senses — is a very ancient though obsolete theory, upon which I will hazard no opinion. But I do not conceive the power would be supernatural. Let me illustrate what I mean from an experiment which Paracelsus describes as not difficult, and which the author of the Curiosities of Literature cites as credible: A flower perishes; you burn it. Whatever were the elements of that flower while it lived are gone, dispersed, you know not whither; you can never discover nor recollect them. But you can, by chemistry, out of the burnt dust of that flower, raise a spectrum of the flower, just as it seemed in life. It may be the same with the human being. The soul has as much escaped you as the essence or elements of the flower. Still you may make a spectrum of it.

“And this phantom, though in the popular superstition it is held to be the soul of the departed, must not be confounded with the true soul; it is but an eidolon of the dead form. Hence, like the best attested stories of ghosts or spirits, the thing that most strikes us is the absence of what we hold to be soul; that is, of superior emancipated intelligence. These apparitions come for little or no object — they seldom speak when they do come; if they speak, they utter no ideas above those of an ordinary person on earth. American spirit-seers have published volumes of communications in prose and verse, which they assert to be given in the names of the most illustrious dead — Shakespeare, Bacon — heaven knows whom. Those communications, taking the best, are certainly not a whit of higher order than would be communications from living persons of fair talent and education; they are wondrously inferior to what Bacon, Shakespeare, and Plato said and wrote when on earth. Nor, what is more noticeable, do they ever contain an idea that was not on the earth before. Wonderful, therefore, as such phenomena may be (granting them to be truthful), I see much that philosophy may question, nothing that it is incumbent on philosophy to deny, viz., nothing supernatural. They are but ideas conveyed somehow or other (we have not yet discovered the means) from one mortal brain to another. Whether, in so doing, tables walk of their own accord, or fiend-like shapes appear in a magic circle, or bodiless hands rise and remove material objects, or a Thing of Darkness, such as presented itself to me, freeze our blood — still am I persuaded that these are but agencies conveyed, as if by electric wires, to my own brain from the brain of another. In some constitutions there is a natural chemistry, and these constitutions may produce chemic wonders — in others a natural fluid, call it electricity, and these may produce electric wonders.

“But the wonders differ from Normal Science in this — they are alike objectless, purposeless, puerile, frivolous. They lead on to no grand results; and therefore the world does not heed, and true sages have not cultivated them. But sure I am, that of all I saw or heard, a man, human as myself, was the remote originator; and I believe unconsciously to himself as to the exact effects produced, for this reason: no two persons, you say, have ever told you that they experienced exactly the same thing. Well, observe, no two persons ever experience exactly the same dream. If this were an ordinary imposture, the machinery would be arranged for results that would but little vary; if it were a supernatural agency permitted by the Almighty, it would surely be for some definite end. These phenomena belong to neither class; my persuasion is, that they originate in some brain now far distant; that that brain had no distinct volition in anything that occurred; that what does occur reflects but its devious, motley, ever-shifting, half-formed thoughts; in short, that it has been the dreams of such a brain put into action and invested with a semi-substance. That this brain is of immense power, that it can set matter into movement, that it is malignant and destructive, I believe; some material force must have killed my dog; the same force might, for ought I know, have sufficed to kill myself, had I been as subjugated by terror as the dog — had my intellect or my spirit given me no countervailing resistance in my will.”

“It killed your dog! that is fearful! indeed it is strange that no animal can be induced to stay in that house; not even a cat. Rats and mice are never found in it.”

“The instincts of the brute creation detect influences deadly to their existence. Man’s reason has a sense less subtle, because it has a resisting power more supreme. But enough; do you comprehend my theory?”

“Yes, though imperfectly — and I accept any crotchet (pardon the word), however odd, rather than embrace at once the notion of ghosts and hob-goblins we imbibed in our nurseries. Still, to my unfortunate house the evil is the same. What on earth can I do with the house?”

“I will tell you what I would do. I am convinced from my own internal feelings that the small unfurnished room at right angles to the door of the bedroom which I occupied, forms a starting point or receptacle for the influences which haunt the house; and I strongly advise you to have the walls opened, the floor removed — nay, the whole room pulled down. I observed that it is detached from the body of the house, built over the small back yard, and could be removed without injury to the rest of the building.”

“And you think, if I did that—”

“You would cut off the telegraph wires. Try it. I am so persuaded that I am right, that I will pay half the expenses if you will allow me to direct the operations.”

“Nay, I am well able to afford the cost; for the rest, allow me to write to you.” About ten days afterwards I received a letter from Mr. J———, telling me that he had visited the house since I had seen him; that he had found the two letters I had described replaced in the drawer from which I had taken them; that he had read them with misgivings like my own; that he had instituted a cautious inquiry about the woman to whom I rightly conjectured they had been written. It seemed that thirty-six years ago (a year before the date of the letters) she had married, against the wish of her relations, an American of very suspicious character, in fact, he was generally believed to have been a pirate. She herself was the daughter of very respectable tradespeople, and had served in the capacity of nursery governess before her marriage. She had a brother, a widower, who was considered wealthy, and who had one child of about six years old. A month after the marriage, the body of this brother was found in the Thames, near London Bridge; there seemed some marks of violence about his throat, but they were not deemed sufficient to warrant the inquest in any other verdict than that of “found drowned.”

The American and his wife took charge of the little boy, the deceased brother having by his will left his sister the guardian of his only child — and in the event of the child’s death, the sister inherited. The child died about six months afterwards — it was supposed to have been neglected and ill-treated. The neighbours deposed to have heard it shriek at night. The surgeon who had examined it after death said that it was emaciated as if from want of nourishment, and the body was covered with livid bruises. It seemed that one winter night the child had sought to escape — crept out into the back yard — tried to scale the wall — fallen back exhausted, and been found at morning on the stones in a dying state. But though there was some evidence of cruelty, there was none of murder; and the aunt and her husband had sought to palliate cruelty by alleging the exceeding stubbornness and perversity of the child, who was declared to be half-witted. Be that as it may, at the orphan’s death the aunt inherited her brother’s fortune. Before the first wedded year was out the American quitted England abruptly, and never returned to it. He obtained a cruising vessel, which was lost in the Atlantic two years afterwards. The widow was left in affluence; but reverses of various kinds had befallen her; a bank broke — an investment failed — she went into a small business and became insolvent — then she entered into the service, sinking lower and lower, from housekeeper down to maid-of-all-work — never long retaining a place, though nothing decided against her character was ever alleged. She was considered sober, honest, and peculiarly quiet in her ways; still nothing prospered with her. And so she had dropped into the workhouse, from which Mr. J——— had taken her, to be placed in charge of the very house which she had rented as mistress in the first years of her wedded life.

Mr. J——— added that he had passed an hour alone in the unfurnished room which I had urged him to destroy, and that his impressions of dread while there were so great, though he had neither heard nor seen anything, that he was eager to have the walls bared and the floors removed as I had suggested. He had engaged persons for the work, and would commence any day I would name.

The day was accordingly fixed. I repaired to the haunted house — he went into the blind dreary room, took up the skirting, and then the floors. Under the rafters, covered with rubbish, was found a trapdoor, quite large enough to admit a man. It was closely nailed down, with clamps and rivets of iron. On removing these we descended into a room below, the existence of which had never been suspected. In this room there had been a window and a flue, but they had been bricked over, evidently for many years. By the help of candles we examined this place; it still retained some mouldering furniture — three chairs, an oak settle, a table — all of the fashion of about eighty years ago. There was a chest of drawers against the wall, in which we found, half-rotted away, old-fashioned articles of a man’s dress, such as might have been worn eighty or a hundred years ago by a gentleman of some rank — costly steel buckles and buttons, like those yet worn in court-dresses, a handsome court sword — in a waistcoat which had once been rich with gold-lace, but which was now blackened and foul with damp, we found five guineas, a few silver coins, and an ivory ticket, probably for some place of entertainment long since passed away. But our main discovery was in a kind of iron safe fixed to the wall, the lock of which it cost us much trouble to get picked.

In this safe were three shelves, and two small drawers. Ranged on the shelves were several bottles of crystal, hermetically stopped. They contained colourless volatile essences, of the nature of which I shall only say that they were not poisons — phosphor and ammonia entered into some of them. There were also some very curious glass tubes, and a small pointed rod of iron, with a large lump of rock-crystal, and another of amber — also a loadstone of great power.

In one of the drawers we found a miniature portrait set in gold, and retaining the freshness of its colours most remarkably, considering the length of time it had probably been there. The portrait was that of a man who might be somewhat advanced in middle life, perhaps forty-seven or forty-eight.

It was a remarkable face — a most impressive face. If you could fancy some mighty serpent transformed into a man, preserving in the human lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a better idea of that countenance than long descriptions can convey: the width and flatness of frontal — the tapering elegance of contour disguising the strength of the deadly jaw — the long, large, terrible eye, glittering and green as the emerald — and withal a certain ruthless calm, as if from the consciousness of an immense power.

Mechanically I turned round the miniature to examine the back of it, and on the back was engraved a pentacle; in the middle of the pentacle a ladder, and the third step of the ladder was formed by the date 1765. Examining still more minutely, I detected a spring; this, on being pressed, opened the back of the miniature as a lid. Withinside the lid were engraved, “Marianna to thee — be faithful in life and in death to — — .” Here follows a name that I will not mention, but it was not unfamiliar to me. I had heard it spoken by old men in my childhood as the name borne by a dazzling charlatan who had made a great sensation in London for a year or so, and had fled the country on the charge of a double murder within his own house — that of his mistress and his rival. I said nothing of this to Mr. J———, to whom reluctantly I resigned the miniature.

We had found no difficulty in opening the first drawer within the iron safe; we found great difficulty in opening the second: it was not locked, but it resisted all efforts, till we inserted in the chinks the edge of a chisel. When we had thus drawn it forth we found a very singular apparatus in the nicest order. Upon a small thin book, or rather tablet, was placed a saucer of crystal: this saucer was filled with a clear liquid — on that liquid floated a kind of compass, with a needle shifting rapidly round; but instead of the usual points of a compass were seven strange characters, not very unlike those used by astrologers to denote the planets.

A particular, but not strong nor displeasing odour came from this drawer, which was lined with a wood that we afterwards discovered to be hazel. Whatever the cause of this odour, it produced a material effect on the nerves. We all felt it, even the two workmen who were in the room — a creeping tingling sensation from the tips of the fingers to the roots of the hair. Impatient to examine the tablet, I removed the saucer. As I did so the needle of the compass went round and round with exceeding swiftness, and I felt a shock that ran through my whole frame, so that I dropped the saucer on the floor. The liquid was spilt — the saucer was broken — the compass rolled to the end of the room — and at that instant the walls shook to and fro, as if a giant had swayed and rocked them. The two workmen were so frightened that they ran up the ladder by which we had descended from the trapdoor; but seeing that nothing more happened, they were easily induced to return.

Meanwhile I had opened the tablet: it was bound in plain red leather, with a silver clasp; it contained but one sheet of thick vellum, and on that sheet were inscribed within a double pentacle, words in old monkish Latin, which are literally to be translated thus:

On all that it can reach within these walls — sentient or inanimate, living or dead — as moves the needle, so work my will! Accursed be the house, and restless be the dwellers therein.

We found no more. Mr. J——— burnt the tablet and its anathema. He razed to the foundations the part of the building containing the secret room with the chamber over it. He had then the courage to inhabit the house himself for a month, and a quieter, better-conditioned house could not be found in all London. Subsequently he let it to advantage, and his tenant has made no complaints.

“Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine”, Aug. 1859

Intellect (1875)

UNCLE CORNELIUS,
HIS STORY

George MacDonald

1869

It was a dull evening in November. A drizzling mist had been falling all day about the old farm. Harry Heywood and his two sisters sat in the house-place, expecting a visit from their uncle, Cornelius Heywood. This uncle lived alone, occupying the first floor above a chemist’s shop in the town, and had just enough of money over to buy books that nobody seemed ever to have heard of but himself; for he was a student in all those regions of speculation in which anything to be called knowledge is impossible.

“What a dreary night!” said Kate. “I wish uncle would come and tell us a story.”

“A cheerful wish,” said Harry. “Uncle Cornie is a lively companion — isn’t he? He cant even blunder through a Joe Miller without tacking a moral to it, and then trying to persuade you that the joke of it depends on the moral.”

“Here he comes!” said Kate, as three distinct blows with the knob of his walking-stick announced the arrival of Uncle Cornelius. She ran to the door to open it.

The air had been very still all day, but as he entered he seemed to have brought the wind with him, for the first moan of it pressed against rather than shook the casement of the low-ceiled room.

Uncle Cornelius was very tall, and very thin, and very pale, with large grey eyes that looked greatly larger because he wore spectacles of the most delicate hair-steel, with the largest pebble-eyes that ever were seen. He gave them a kindly greeting, but too much in earnest even in shaking hands to smile over it. He sat down in the armchair by the chimney corner.

I have been particular in my description of him, in order that my reader may give due weight to his words. I am such a believer in words, that I believe everything depends on who says them. Uncle Cornelius Heywood’s story told word for word by Uncle Timothy Warren, would not have been the same story at all. Not one of the listeners would have believed a syllable of it from the lips of round-bodied, red-faced, small-eyed, little Uncle Tim; whereas from Uncle Cornie — disbelieve one of his stories if you could!

One word more concerning him. His interest in everything conjectured or believed relative to the awful borderland of this world and the next, was only equalled by his disgust at the vulgar, unimaginative forms which curiosity about such subjects has assumed in the present day. With a yearning after the unseen like that of a child for the lifting of the curtain of a theatre, he declared that, rather than accept such a spirit-world as the would-be seers of the nineteenth century thought or pretended to reveal — the prophets of a pauperised, workhouse immortality, invented by a poverty-stricken soul, and a sense so greedy that it would gorge on carrion — he would rejoice to believe that a man had just as much of a soul as the cabbage of Iamblichus, namely, an aerial double of his body.

“I’m so glad you’re come, uncle!” said Kate. “Why wouldn’t you come to dinner? We have been so gloomy!”

“Well, Katey, you know I don’t admire eating. I never could bear to see a cow tearing up the grass with her long tongue.” As he spoke he looked very much like a cow. He had a way of opening his jaws while he kept his lips closely pressed together, that made his cheeks fall in, and his face look awfully long and dismal. “I consider eating,” he went on, “such an animal exercise that it ought always to be performed in private. You never saw me dine, Kate.”

“Never, uncle; but I have seen you drink; — nothing but water, I must confess.”

“Yes that is another affair. According to one eyewitness that is no more than the disembodied can do. I must confess, however, that, although well attested, the story is to me scarcely credible. Fancy a glass of Bavarian beer lifted into the air without a visible hand, turned upside down, and set empty on the table! — and no splash on the floor or anywhere else!”

A solitary gleam of humour shone through the great eyes of the spectacles as he spoke.

“Oh, uncle! how can you believe such nonsense!” said Janet.

“I did not say I believed it — did I? But why not? The story has at least a touch of imagination in it.”

“That is a strange reason for believing a thing, uncle,” said Harry.

“You might have a worse, Harry. I grant it is not sufficient; but it is better than that commonplace aspect which is the ground of most faith. I believe I did say that the story puzzled me.”

“But how can you give it any quarter at all, uncle?”

“It does me no harm. There it is — between the boards of an old German book. There let it remain.”

“Well, you will never persuade me to believe such things,” said Janet.

“Wait till I ask you, Janet,” returned her uncle, gravely. “I have not the slightest desire to convince you. How did we get into this unprofitable current of talk? We will change it at once. How are consols, Harry?”

“Oh, uncle!” said Kate, “we were longing for a story, and just as I thought you were coming to one, off you go to consols!”

“I thought a ghost story at least was coming,” said Janet.

“You did your best to stop it, Janet,” said Harry.

Janet began an angry retort, but Cornelius interrupted her. “You never heard me tell a ghost story, Janet.”

“You have just told one about a drinking ghost, uncle,” said Janet — in such a tone that Cornelius replied—

“Well, take that for your story, and let us talk of something else.”

Janet apparently saw that she had been rude, and said as sweetly as she might — “Ah! but you didn’t make that one, uncle. You got it out of a German book.”

“Make it! — Make a ghost story!” repeated Cornelius. “No; that I never did.”

“Such things are not to be trifled with, are they?” said Janet.

“I at least have no inclination to trifle with them.”

“But, really and truly, uncle,” persisted Janet, “you don’t believe in such things?”

“Why should I either believe or disbelieve in them? They are not essential to salvation, I presume.”

“You must do the one or the other, I suppose.”

“I beg your pardon. You suppose wrong. It would take twice the proof I have ever had to make me believe in them; and exactly your prejudice, and allow me to say ignorance, to make me disbelieve in them. Neither is within my reach. I postpone judgment. But you, young people, of course, are wiser, and know all about the question.”

“Oh, uncle! I’m so sorry!” said Kate. “I’m sure I did not mean to vex you.”

“Not at all, not at all, my dear. — It wasn’t you.”

“Do you know,” Kate went on, anxious to prevent anything unpleasant, for there was something very black perched on Janet’s forehead, “I have taken to reading about that kind of thing.”

“I beg you will give it up at once. You will bewilder your brains till you are ready to believe anything, if only it be absurd enough. Nay, you may come to find the element of vulgarity essential to belief. I should be sorry to the heart to believe concerning a horse or dog what they tell you nowadays about Shakespeare and Burns. What have you been reading, my girl?”

“Don’t be alarmed, uncle. Only some Highland legends, which are too absurd either for my belief or for your theories.”

“I don’t know that, Kate.”

“Why, what could you do with such shapeless creatures as haunt their fords and pools for instance? They are as featureless as the faces of the mountains.”

“And so much the more terrible.”

“But that does not make it easier to believe in them,” said Harry.

“I only said,” returned his uncle, “that their shapelessness adds to their horror.”

“But you allowed — almost, at least, uncle,” said Kate, “that you could find a place in your theories even for those shapeless creatures.”

Cornelius sat silent for a moment; then, having first doubled the length of his face, and restored it to its natural condition, said thoughtfully, “I suspect, Katey, if you were to come upon an ichthyosaurus or a pterodactyl asleep in the shrubbery, you would hardly expect your report of it to be believed all at once either by Harry or Janet.”

“I suppose not, uncle. But I can’t see what—”

“Of course such a thing could not happen here and now. But there was a time when and a place where such a thing may have happened. Indeed, in my time, a traveller or two have got pretty soundly disbelieved for reporting what they saw — the last of an expiring race, which had strayed over the natural verge of its history, coming to life in some neglected swamp, itself a remnant of the slime of Chaos.”

“I never heard you talk like that before, uncle,” said Harry. “If you go on like that, you’ll land me in a swamp, I’m afraid.”

“I wasn’t talking to you at all, Harry. Kate challenged me to find a place for kelpies, and such like, in the theories she does me the honour of supposing I cultivate.”

“Then you think, uncle, that all these stories are only legends which, if you could follow them up, would lead you back to some one of the awful monsters that have since quite disappeared from the earth.”

“It is possible those stories may be such legends; but that was not what I intended to lead you to. I gave you that only as something like what I am going to say now. What if — mind, I only suggest it — what if the direful creatures, whose report lingers in these tales, should have an origin far older still? What if they were the remnants of a vanishing period of the earth’s history long antecedent to the birth of mastodon and iguanodon; a stage, namely, when the world, as we call it, had not yet become quite visible, was not yet so far finished as to part from the invisible world that was its mother, and which, on its part, had not then become quite invisible — was only almost such; and when, as a credible consequence, strange shapes of those now invisible regions, Gorgons and Chimaeras dire, might be expected to gloom out occasionally from the awful Fauna of an ever-generating world upon that one which was being born of it. Hence, the life-periods of a world being long and slow, some of these huge, unformed bulks of half-created matter might, somehow, like the megatherium of later times — a baby creation to them — roll at age-long intervals, clothed in a mighty terror of shapelessness into the half-recognition of human beings, whose consternation at the uncertain vision were barrier enough to prevent all further knowledge of its substance.”

“I begin to have some notion of your meaning, uncle,” said Kate.

“But then,” said Janet, “all that must be over by this time. That world has been invisible now for many years.”

“Ever since you were born, I suppose, Janet. The changes of a world are not to be measured by the changes of its generations.”

“Oh, but, uncle, there can’t be any such things. You know that as well as I do.”

“Yes, just as well, and no better.”

“There can’t be any ghosts now. Nobody believes such things.”

“Oh, as to ghosts, that is quite another thing. I did not know you were talking with reference to them. It is no wonder if one can get nothing sensible out of you, Janet, when your discrimination is no greater than to lump everything marvellous, kelpies, ghosts, vampires, doubles, witches, fairies, nightmares, and I don’t know what all, under the one head of ghosts; and we haven’t been saying a word about them. If one were to disprove to you the existence of the afreets of Eastern tales, you would consider the whole argument concerning the reappearance of the departed upset. I congratulate you on your powers of analysis and induction, Miss Janet. But it matters very little whether we believe in ghosts, as you say, or not, provided we believe that we are ghosts — that within this body, which so many people are ready to consider their own very selves, their lies a ghostly embryo, at least, which has an inner side to it God only can see, which says I concerning itself, and which will soon have to know whether or not it can appear to those whom it has left behind, and thus solve the question of ghosts for itself, at least.”

“Then you do believe in ghosts, uncle?” said Janet, in a tone that certainly was not respectful.

“Surely I said nothing of the sort, Janet. The man most convinced that he had himself had such an interview as you hint at, would find — ought to find it impossible to convince anyone else of it.”

“You are quite out of my depth, uncle,” said Harry. “Surely any honest man ought to be believed?”

“Honesty is not all, by any means, that is necessary to being believed. It is impossible to convey a conviction of anything. All you can do is to convey a conviction that you are convinced. Of course, what satisfied you might satisfy another; but, till you can present him with the sources of your conviction, you cannot present him with the conviction — and perhaps not even then.”

“You can tell him all about, it, can’t you?”

“Is telling a man about a ghost, affording him the source of your conviction? Is it the same as a ghost appearing to him? Really, Harry! — You cannot even convey the impression a dream has made upon you.”

“But isn’t that just because it is only a dream?”

“Not at all. The impression may be deeper and clearer on your mind than any fact of the next morning will make. You will forget the next day altogether, but the impression of the dream will remain through all the following whirl and storm of what you call facts. Now a conviction may be likened to a deep impression on the judgment or the reason, or both. No one can feel it but the person who is convinced. It cannot be conveyed.”

“I fancy that is just what those who believe in spirit-rapping would say.”

“There are the true and false of convictions, as of everything else. I mean that a man may take that for a conviction in his own mind which is not a conviction, but only resembles one. But those to whom you refer profess to appeal to facts. It is on the ground of those facts, and with the more earnestness the more reason they can give for receiving them as facts, that I refuse all their deductions with abhorrence. I mean that, if what they say is true, the thinker must reject with contempt the claim to anything like revelation therein.”

“Then you do not believe in ghosts, after all?” said Kate, in a tone of surprise.

“I did not say so, my dear. Will you be reasonable, or will you not?”

“Dear uncle, do tell us what you really think.”

“I have been telling you what I think ever since I came, Katey; and you won’t take in a word I say.”

“I have been taking in every word, uncle, and trying hard to understand it as well. — Did you ever see a ghost, uncle?”

Cornelius Heywood was silent. He shut his lips and opened his jaws till his cheeks almost met in the vacuum. A strange expression crossed the strange countenance, and the great eyes of his spectacles looked as if, at the very moment, they were seeing something no other spectacles could see. Then his jaws closed with a snap, his countenance brightened, a flash of humour came through the goggle eyes of pebble, and, at length, he actually smiled as he said — “Really, Katey, you must take me for a simpleton!”

“How, uncle?”

“To think, if I had ever seen a ghost, I would confess the fact before a set of creatures like you — all spinning your webs like so many spiders to catch and devour old Daddy Longlegs.”

By this time Harry had grown quite grave. “Indeed, I am very sorry, uncle,” he said, “if I have deserved such a rebuke.”

“No, no, my boy,” said Cornelius; “I did not mean it more than half. If I had meant it, I would not have said it. If you really would like—” Here he paused.

“Indeed we should, uncle,” said Kate, earnestly. “You should have heard what we were saying just before you came in.”

“All you were saying, Katey?”

“Yes,” answered Kate, thoughtfully. “The worst we said was that you could not tell a story without — well, we did say tacking a moral to it.”

“Well, well! I mustn’t push it. A man has no right to know what people say about him. It unfits him for occupying his real position amongst them. He, least of all, has anything to do with it. If his friends won’t defend him, he can’t defend himself. Besides, what people say is so often untrue! — I don’t mean to others, but to themselves. Their hearts are more honest than their mouths. But Janet doesn’t want a strange story, I am sure.”

Janet certainly was not one to have chosen for a listener to such a tale. Her eyes were so small that no satisfaction could possibly come of it. “Oh! I don’t mind, uncle,” she said, with half-affected indifference, as she searched in her box for silk to mend her gloves.

“You are not very encouraging, I must say,” returned her uncle, making another cow-face.

“I will go away, if you like,” said Janet, pretending to rise.

“No, never mind,” said her uncle hastily. “If you don’t want me to tell it, I want you to hear it; and, before I have done, that may have come to the same thing perhaps.”

“Then you really are going to tell us a ghost story!” said Kate, drawing her chair nearer to her uncle’s; and then, finding this did not satisfy her sense of propinquity to the source of the expected pleasure, drawing a stool from the corner, and seating herself almost on the hearth-rug at his knee.

“I did not say so,” returned Cornelius, once more. “I said I would tell you a strange story. You may call it a ghost story if you like; I do not pretend to determine what it is. I confess it will look like one, though.”

After so many delays, Uncle Cornelius now plunged almost hurriedly into his narration.

“In the year 1820,” he said, “in the month of August, I fell in love.” Here the girls glanced at each other. The idea of Uncle Cornie in love, and in the very same century in which they were now listening to the confession, was too astonishing to pass without ocular remark; but, if he observed it, he took no notice of it; he did not even pause. “In the month of September, I was refused. Consequently, in the month of October, I was ready to fall in love again. Take particular care of yourself, Harry, for a whole month, at least, after your first disappointment; for you will never be more likely to do a foolish thing. Please yourself after the second. If you are silly then, you may take what you get, for you will deserve it — except it be good fortune.”

“Did you do a foolish thing then, uncle?” asked Harry, demurely.

“I did, as you will see; for I fell in love again.”

“I don’t see anything so very foolish in that.”

“I have repented it since, though. Don’t interrupt me again, please. In the middle of October, then, in the year 1820, in the evening, I was walking across Russell Square, on my way home from the British Museum, where I had been reading all day. You see I have a full intention of being precise, Janet.”

“I’m sure I don’t know why you make the remark to me, uncle,” said Janet, with an involuntary toss of her head. Her uncle only went on with his narrative.

—  —  —  —  —

I begin at the very beginning of my story, he said; for I want to be particular as to everything that can appear to have had anything to do with what came afterwards. I had been reading, I say, all the morning in the British Museum; and, as I walked, I took off my spectacles to ease my eyes. I need not tell you that I am short-sighted now, for that you know well enough. But I must tell you that I was short-sighted then, and helpless enough without my spectacles, although I was not quite so much so as I am now; — for I find it all nonsense about short-sighted eyes improving with age. Well, I was walking along the south side of Russell Square, with my spectacles in my hand, and feeling a little bewildered in consequence — for it was quite the dusk of the evening, and short-sighted people require more light than others. I was feeling, in fact, almost blind. I had got more than half-way to the other side, when, from the crossing that cuts off the corner in the direction of Montagu Place, just as I was about to turn towards it, an old lady stepped upon the kerbstone of the pavement, looked at me for a moment, and passed — an occurrence not very remarkable, certainly. But the lady was remarkable, and so was her dress. I am not good at observing, and I am still worse at describing dress, therefore I can only say that hers reminded me of an old picture — that is, I had never seen anything like it, except in old pictures. She had no bonnet, and looked as if she had walked straight out of an ancient drawing-room in her evening attire. Of her face I shall say nothing now. The next instant I met a man on the crossing, who stopped and addressed me. So short-sighted was I that, although I recognised his voice as one I ought to know, I could not identify him until I had put on my spectacles, which I did instinctively in the act of returning his greeting. At the same moment I glanced over my shoulder after the old lady. She was nowhere to be seen.

“What are you looking at?” asked James Hetheridge.

“I was looking after that old lady,” I answered, “but I can’t see her.”

“What old lady?” said Hetheridge, with just a touch of impatience.

“You must have seen her,” I returned. “You were not more than three yards behind her.”

“Where is she then?”

“She must have gone down one of the areas, I think. But she looked a lady, though an old-fashioned one.”

“Have you been dining?” asked James, in a tone of doubtful inquiry.

“No,” I replied, not suspecting the insinuation; “I have only just come from the Museum.”

“Then I advise you to call on your medical man before you go home.”

“Medical man!” I returned; “I have no medical man. What do you mean? I never was better in my life.”

“I mean that there was no old lady. It was an illusion, and that indicates something wrong. Besides, you did not know me when I spoke to you.”

“That is nothing,” I returned. “I had just taken off my spectacles, and without them I shouldn’t know my own father.”

“How was it you saw the old lady, then?”

The affair was growing serious under my friend’s cross-questioning. I did not at all like the idea of his supposing me subject to hallucinations. So I answered, with a laugh, “Ah! to be sure, that explains it. I am so blind without my spectacles, that I shouldn’t know an old lady from a big dog.”

“There was no big dog,” said Hetheridge, shaking his head, as the fact for the first time dawned upon me that, although I had seen the old lady clearly enough to make a sketch of her, even to the features of her care-worn, eager old face, I had not been able to recognise the well-known countenance of James Hetheridge.

“That’s what comes of reading till the optic nerve is weakened,” he went on. “You will cause yourself serious injury if you do not pull up in time. I’ll tell you what; I’m going home next week — will you go with me?”

“You are very kind,” I answered, not altogether rejecting the proposal, for I felt that a little change to the country would be pleasant, and I was quite my own master. For I had unfortunately means equal to my wants, and had no occasion to follow any profession — not a very desirable thing for a young man, I can tell you, Master Harry. I need not keep you over the commonplaces of pressing and yielding. It is enough to say that he pressed and that I yielded. The day was fixed for our departure together; but something or other, I forget what, occurred, to make him advance the date, and it was resolved that I should follow later in the month.

It was a drizzly afternoon in the beginning of the last week of October when I left the town of Bradford in a post-chaise to drive to Lewton Grange, the property of my friend’s father. I had hardly left the town, and the twilight had only begun to deepen, when, glancing from one of the windows of the chaise, I fancied I saw, between me and the hedge, the dim figure of a horse keeping pace with us. I thought, in the first interval of unreason, that it was a shadow from my own horse, but reminded myself the next moment that there could be no shadow where there was no light. When I looked again, I was at the first glance convinced that my eyes had deceived me. At the second, I believed once more that a shadowy something, with the movements of a horse in harness, was keeping pace with us. I turned away again with some discomfort, and not till we had reached an open moorland road, whence a little watery light was visible on the horizon, could I summon up courage enough to look out once more. Certainly then there was nothing to be seen, and I persuaded myself that it had been all a fancy, and lighted a cigar. With my feet on the cushions before me, I had soon lifted myself on the clouds of tobacco far above all the terrors of the night, and believed them banished forever. But, my cigar coming to an end just as we turned into the avenue that led up to the Grange, I found myself once more glancing nervously out of the window. The moment the trees were about me, there was, if not a shadowy horse out there by the side of the chaise, yet certainly more than half that conviction in here in my consciousness. When I saw my friend, however, standing on the doorstep, dark against the glow of the hall fire, I forgot all about it; and I need not add that I did not make it a subject of conversation when I entered, for I was well aware that it was essential to a man’s reputation that his senses should be accurate, though his heart might without prejudice swarm with shadows, and his judgment be a very stable of hobbies.

I was kindly received. Mrs. Hetheridge had been dead for some years, and Laetitia, the eldest of the family, was at the head of the household. She had two sisters, little more than girls. The father was a burly, yet gentlemanlike Yorkshire squire, who ate well, drank well, looked radiant, and hunted twice a week. In this pastime his son joined him when in the humour, which happened scarcely so often. I, who had never crossed a horse in my life, took his apology for not being able to mount me very coolly, assuring him that I would rather loiter about with a book than be in at the death of the best-hunted fox in Yorkshire.

I very soon found myself at home with the Hetheridges; and very soon again I began to find myself not so much at home; for Miss Hetheridge — Laetitia as I soon ventured to call her — was fascinating. I have told you, Katey, that there was an empty place in my heart. Look to the door then, Katey. That was what made me so ready to fall in love with Laetitia. Her figure was graceful, and I think, even now, her face would have been beautiful but for a certain contraction of the skin over the nostrils, suggesting an invisible thumb and forefinger pinching them, which repelled me, although I did not then know what it indicated. I had not been with her one evening before the impression it made on me had vanished, and that so entirely that I could hardly recall the perception of the peculiarity which had occasioned it. Her observation was remarkably keen, and her judgment generally correct. She had great confidence in it herself; nor was she devoid of sympathy with some of the forms of human imagination, only they never seemed to possess for her any relation to practical life. That was to be ordered by the judgment alone. I do not mean she ever said so. I am only giving the conclusions I came to afterwards. It is not necessary that you should have any more thorough acquaintance with her mental character. One point in her moral nature, of special consequence to my narrative, will show itself by and by.

I did all I could to make myself agreeable to her, and the more I succeeded, the more delightful she became in my eyes. We walked in the garden and grounds together; we read, or rather I read and she listened; — read poetry, Katey — sometimes till we could not read any more for certain haziness and huskiness which look now, I am afraid, considerably more absurd than they really were, or even ought to look. In short, I considered myself thoroughly in love with her.

—  —  —  —  —

“And wasn’t she in love with you, uncle?”

“Don’t interrupt me, child. I don’t know. I hoped so then. I hope the contrary now. She liked me I am sure. That is not much to say. Liking is very pleasant and very cheap. Love is as rare as a star.”

“I thought the stars were anything but rare, uncle.”

“That’s because you never went out to find one for yourself, Katey. They would prove a few miles apart then.”

“But it would be big enough when I did find it.”

“Right, my dear. That is the way with love. — Laetitia was a good housekeeper. Everything was punctual as clockwork. I use the word advisedly. If her father, who was punctual to one date — the dinner-hour — made any remark to the contrary as he took up the carving-knife, Laetitia would instantly send one of her sisters to question the old clock in the hall, and report the time to half a minute. It was sure to be found that, if there was a mistake, the mistake was in the clock. But although it was certainly a virtue to have her household in such perfect order, it was not a virtue to be impatient with every infringement of its rules on the part of others. She was very severe, for instance, upon her two younger sisters if, the moment after the second bell had rung, they were not seated at the dinner-table, washed and aproned. Order was a very idol with her. Hence the house was too tidy for any sense of comfort. If you left an open book on the table, you would, on returning to the room a moment after, find it put aside. What the furniture of the drawing-room was like, I never saw; for not even on Christmas Day, which was the last day I spent there, was it uncovered. Everything in it was kept in bibs and pinafores. Even the carpet was covered with a cold and slippery sheet of brown holland. Mr. Hetheridge never entered that room, and therein was wise. James remonstrated once. She answered him quite kindly, even playfully, but no change followed. What was worse, she made very wretched tea. Her father never took tea; neither did James. I was rather fond of it, but I soon gave it up. Everything her father partook of was first-rate. Everything else was somewhat poverty-stricken. My pleasure in Laetitia’s society prevented me from making practical deductions from such trifles.”

“I shouldn’t have thought you knew anything about eating, uncle,” said Janet.

“The less a man eats, the more he likes to have it good, Janet. In short — there can be no harm in saying it now — Laetitia was so far from being like the name of her baptism — and most names are so good that they are worth thinking about; no children are named after bad ideas — Laetitia was so far unlike hers as to be stingy — an abominable fault. But, I repeat, the notion of such a fact was far from me then. And now for my story.”

—  —  —  —  —

The first of November was a very lovely day, quite one of the “halcyon days” of “St. Martin’s summer.” I was sitting in a little arbour I had just discovered, with a book in my hand — not reading, however, but daydreaming — when, lifting my eyes from the ground, I was startled to see, through a thin shrub in front of the arbour, what seemed the form of an old lady seated, apparently reading from a book on her knee. The sight instantly recalled the old lady of Russell Square. I started to my feet, and then, clear of the intervening bush, saw only a great stone such as abounded on the moors in the neighbourhood, with a lump of quartz set on the top of it. Some childish taste had put it there for an ornament. Smiling at my own folly, I sat down again, and reopened my book. After reading for a while, I glanced up again, and once more started to my feet, overcome by the fancy that there verily sat the old lady reading. You will say it indicated an excited condition of the brain. Possibly; but I was, as far as I can recall, quite collected and reasonable. I was almost vexed this second time, and sat down once more to my book. Still, every time I looked up, I was startled afresh. I doubt, however, if the trifle is worth mentioning, or has any significance even in relation to what followed.

After dinner I strolled out by myself, leaving father and son over their claret. I did not drink wine; and from the lawn I could see the windows of the library, whither Laetitia commonly retired from the dinner-table. It was a very lovely soft night. There was no moon, but the stars looked wider awake than usual. Dew was falling, but the grass was not yet wet, and I wandered about on it for half an hour. The stillness was somehow strange. It had a wonderful feeling in it as if something were expected — as if the quietness were the mould in which some event or other was about to be cast.

Even then I was a reader of certain sorts of recondite lore. Suddenly I remembered that this was the eve of All Souls. This was the night on which the dead came out of their graves to visit their old homes. “Poor dead!” I thought with myself; “have you any place to call a home now? If you have, surely you will not wander back here, where all that you called home has either vanished or given itself to others, to be their home now and yours no more! What an awful doom the old fancy has allotted you! To dwell in your graves all the year, and creep out, this one night, to enter at the midnight door, left open for welcome! A poor welcome truly! — just an open door, a clean-swept floor, and a fire to warm your rain-sodden limbs! The household asleep, and the house-place swarming with the ghosts of ancient times — the miser, the spendthrift, the profligate, the coquette — for the good ghosts sleep, and are troubled with no waking like yours! Not one man, sleepless like yourselves, to question you, and be answered after the fashion of the old nursery rhyme—

“What makes your eyes so holed?”

“I’ve lain so long among the mould.”

“What makes your feet so broad?”

“I’ve walked more than ever I rode!

“Yet who can tell?” I went on to myself. “It may be your hell to return thus. It may be that only on this one night of all the year you can show yourselves to him who can see you, but that the place where you were wicked is the Hades to which you are doomed for ages.” I thought and thought till I began to feel the air alive about me, and was enveloped in the vapours that dim the eyes of those who strain them for one peep through the dull mica windows that will not open on the world of ghosts. At length I cast my fancies away, and fled from them to the library, where the bodily presence of Laetitia made the world of ghosts appear shadowy indeed.

“What a reality there is about a bodily presence!” I said to myself, as I took my chamber-candle in my hand. “But what is there more real in a body?” I said again, as I crossed the hall. “Surely nothing,” I went on, as I ascended the broad staircase to my room. “The body must vanish. If there be a spirit, that will remain. A body can but vanish. A ghost can appear.”

I woke in the morning with a sense of such discomfort as made me spring out of bed at once. My foot lighted upon my spectacles. How they came to be on the floor I could not tell, for I never took them off when I went to bed. When I lifted them I found they were in two pieces; the bridge was broken. This was awkward. I was so utterly helpless without them! Indeed, before I could lay my hand on my hair-brush I had to peer through one eye of the parted pair. When I looked at my watch after I was dressed, I found I had risen an hour earlier than usual. I groped my way downstairs to spend the hour before breakfast in the library.

No sooner was I seated with a book than I heard the voice of Laetitia scolding the butler, in no very gentle tones, for leaving the garden door open all night. The moment I heard this, the strange occurrences I am about to relate began to dawn upon my memory. The door had been open the night long between All Saints and All Souls. In the middle of that night I awoke suddenly. I knew it was not the morning by the sensations I had, for the night feels altogether different from the morning. It was quite dark. My heart was beating violently, and I either hardly could or hardly dared breathe. A nameless terror was upon me, and my sense of hearing was, apparently by the force of its expectation, unnaturally roused and keen. There it was — a slight noise in the room! — slight, but clear, and with an unknown significance about it! It was awful to think it would come again. I do believe it was only one of those creaks in the timbers which announce the torpid, age-long, sinking flow of every house back to the dust — a motion to which the flow of the glacier is as a torrent, but which is no less inevitable and sure. Day and night it ceases not; but only in the night, when house and heart are still, do we hear it. No wonder it should sound fearful! for are we not the immortal dwellers in ever-crumbling clay? The clay is so near us, and yet not of us, that its every movement starts a fresh dismay. For what will its final ruin disclose? When it falls from about us, where shall we find that we have existed all the time?

My skin tingled with the bursting of the moisture from its pores. Something was in the room beside me. A confused, indescribable sense of utter loneliness, and yet awful presence, was upon me, mingled with a dreary, hopeless desolation, as of burnt-out love and aimless life. All at once I found myself sitting up. The terror that a cold hand might be laid upon me, or a cold breath blow on me, or a corpse-like face bend down through the darkness over me, had broken my bonds! — I would meet half-way whatever might be approaching. The moment that my will burst into action the terror began to ebb.

The room in which I slept was a large one, perfectly dreary with tidiness. I did not know till afterwards that it was Laetitia’s room, which she had given up to me rather than prepare another. The furniture, all but one article, was modern and commonplace. I could not help remarking to myself afterwards how utterly void the room was of the nameless charm of feminine occupancy. I had seen nothing to wake a suspicion of its being a lady’s room. The article I have excepted was an ancient bureau, elaborate and ornate, which stood on one side of the large bow window. The very morning before, I had seen a bunch of keys hanging from the upper part of it, and had peeped in. Finding however, that the pigeon-holes were full of papers, I closed it at once. I should have been glad to use it, but clearly it was not for me. At that bureau the figure of a woman was now seated in the posture of one writing. A strange dim light was around her, but whence it proceeded I never thought of inquiring. As if I, too, had stepped over the bourne, and was a ghost myself, all fear was now gone. I got out of bed, and softly crossed the room to where she was seated. “If she should be beautiful!” I thought — for I had often dreamed of a beautiful ghost that made love to me. The figure did not move. She was looking at a faded brown paper. “Some old love-letter,” I thought, and stepped nearer. So cool was I now, that I actually peeped over her shoulder. With mingled surprise and dismay I found that the dim page over which she bent was that of an old account-book. Ancient household records, in rusty ink, held up to the glimpses of the waning moon, which shone through the parting in the curtains, their entries of shillings and pence! — Of pounds there was not one. No doubt pounds and farthings are much the same in the world of thought — the true spirit-world; but in the ghost-world this eagerness over shillings and pence must mean something awful! I To think that coins which had since been worn smooth in other pockets and purses, which had gone back to the Mint, and been melted down, to come out again and yet again with the heads of new kings and queens — that dinners, eaten by men and women and children whose bodies had since been eaten by the worms — that polish for the floors, inches of whose thickness had since been worn away — that the hundred nameless trifles of a life utterly vanished, should be perplexing, annoying, and worst of all, interesting the soul of a ghost who had been in Hades for centuries! The writing was very old-fashioned, and the words were contracted. I could read nothing but the moneys and one single entry — “Corinths, Vs.”

Currants for a Christmas pudding, most likely! — Ah, poor lady! the pudding and not the Christmas was her care; not the delight of the children over it, but the beggarly pence which it cost. And she cannot get it out of her head, although her brain was “powdered all as thin as flour” ages ago in the mortar of Death. “Alas, poor ghost!” It needs no treasured hoard left behind, no floor stained with the blood of the murdered child, no wickedly hidden parchment of landed rights! An old account-book is enough for the hell of the housekeeping gentlewoman!

She never lifted her face, or seemed to know that I stood behind her. I left her, and went into the bow window, where I could see her face. I was right. It was the same old lady I had met in Russell Square, walking in front of James Hetheridge. Her withered lips went moving as if they would have uttered words had the breath been commissioned thither; her brow was contracted over her thin nose; and once and again her shining forefinger went up to her temple as if she were pondering some deep problem of humanity. How long I stood gazing at her I do not know, but at last I withdrew to my bed, and left her struggling to solve that which she could never solve thus. It was the symbolic problem of her own life, and she had failed to read it. I remember nothing more. She may be sitting there still, solving at the insolvable.

I should have felt no inclination, with the broad sun of the squire’s face, the keen eyes of James, and the beauty of Laetitia before me at the breakfast table, to say a word about what I had seen, even if I had not been afraid of the doubt concerning my sanity which the story would certainly awaken. What with the memories of the night and the want of my spectacles, I passed a very dreary day, dreading the return of the night, for, cool as I had been in her presence, I could not regard the possible reappearance of the ghost with equanimity. But when the night did come, I slept soundly till the morning.

The next day, not being able to read with comfort, I went wandering about the place, and at length began to fit the outside and inside of the house together. It was a large and rambling edifice, parts of it very old, parts comparatively modern. I first found my own window, which looked out of the back. Below this window, on one side, there was a door. I wondered whither it led, but found it locked. At the moment James approached from the stables. “Where does this door lead?” I asked him. “I will get the key,” he answered. “It is rather a queer old place. We used to like it when we were children.” “There’s a stair, you see,” he said, as he threw the door open. “It leads up over the kitchen.” I followed him up the stair. “There’s a door into your room,” he said, “but it’s always locked now. — And here’s Grannie’s room, as they call it, though why, I have not the least idea,” he added, as he pushed open the door of an old-fashioned parlour, smelling very musty. A few old books lay on a side table. A china bowl stood beside them, with some shrivelled, scentless rose-leaves in the bottom of it. The cloth that covered the table was riddled by moths, and the spider-legged chairs were covered with dust.

A conviction seized me that the old bureau must have belonged to this room, and I soon found the place where I judged it must have stood. But the same moment I caught sight of a portrait on the wall above the spot I had fixed upon. “By Jove!” I cried, involuntarily, “that’s the very old lady I met in Russell Square!”

“Nonsense!” said James. “Old-fashioned ladies are like babies — they all look the same. That’s a very old portrait.”

“So I see,” I answered. “It is like a Zucchero.”

“I don’t know whose it is,” he answered hurriedly, and I thought he looked a little queer.

“Is she one of the family?” I asked.

“They say so; but who or what she was, I don’t know. You must ask Letty,” he answered.

“The more I look at it,” I said, “the more I am convinced it is the same old lady.”

“Well,” he returned with a laugh, “my old nurse used to say she was rather restless. But it’s all nonsense.”

“That bureau in my room looks about the same date as this furniture,” I remarked.

“It used to stand just there,” he answered, pointing to the space under the picture. “Well I remember with what awe we used to regard it; for they said the old lady kept her accounts at it still. We never dared touch the bundles of yellow papers in the pigeon-holes. I remember thinking Letty a very heroine once when she touched one of them with the tip of her forefinger. She had got yet more courageous by the time she had it moved into her own room.”

“Then that is your sister’s room I am occupying?” I said.

“Yes.”

“I am ashamed of keeping her out of it.”

“Oh! she’ll do well enough.”

“If I were she though,” I added, “I would send that bureau back to its own place.”

“What do you mean, Heywood? Do you believe every old wife’s tale that ever was told?”

“She may get a fright someday — that’s all!” I replied.

He smiled with such an evident mixture of pity and contempt that for the moment I almost disliked him; and feeling certain that Laetitia would receive any such hint in a somewhat similar manner, I did not feel inclined to offer her any advice with regard to the bureau.

Little occurred during the rest of my visit worthy of remark. Somehow or other I did not make much progress with Laetitia. I believe I had begun to see into her character a little, and therefore did not get deeper in love as the days went on. I know I became less absorbed in her society, although I was still anxious to make myself agreeable to her — or perhaps, more properly, to give her a favourable impression of me. I do not know whether she perceived any difference in my behaviour, but I remember that I began again to remark the pinched look of her nose, and to be a little annoyed with her for always putting aside my book. At the same time, I daresay I was provoking, for I never was given to tidiness myself.

At length Christmas Day arrived. After breakfast, the squire, James, and the two girls arranged to walk to church. Laetitia was not in the room at the moment. I excused myself on the ground of a headache, for I had had a bad night. When they left, I went up to my room, threw myself on the bed, and was soon fast asleep.

How long I slept I do not know, but I woke again with that indescribable yet well-known sense of not being alone. The feeling was scarcely less terrible in the daylight than it had been in the darkness. With the same sudden effort as before, I sat up in the bed. There was the figure at the open bureau, in precisely the same position as on the former occasion. But I could not see it so distinctly. I rose as gently as I could, and approached it, after the first physical terror. I am not a coward. Just as I got near enough to see the account book open on the folding cover of the bureau, she started up, and, turning, revealed the face of Laetitia. She blushed crimson.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Heywood,” she said in great confusion; “I thought you had gone to church with the rest.”

“I had lain down with a headache, and gone to sleep,” I replied. “But — forgive me, Miss Hetheridge,” I added, for my mind was full of the dreadful coincidence — “don’t you think you would have been better at church than balancing your accounts on Christmas Day?”

“The better day the better deed,” she said, with a somewhat offended air, and turned to walk from the room.

“Excuse me, Laetitia,” I resumed, very seriously, “but I want to tell you something.”

She looked conscious. It never crossed me, that perhaps she fancied I was going to make a confession. Far other things were then in my mind. For I thought how awful it was, if she too, like the ancestral ghost, should have to do an age-long penance of haunting that bureau and those horrid figures, and I had suddenly resolved to tell her the whole story. She listened with varying complexion and face half turned aside. When I had ended, which I fear I did with something of a personal appeal, she lifted her head and looked me in the face, with just a slight curl on her thin lip, and answered me. “If I had wanted a sermon, Mr. Heywood, I should have gone to church for it. As for the ghost, I am sorry for you.” So saying she walked out of the room.

The rest of the day I did not find very merry. I pleaded my headache as an excuse for going to bed early. How I hated the room now! Next morning, immediately after breakfast, I took my leave of Lewton Grange.

—  —  —  —  —

“And lost a good wife, perhaps, for the sake of a ghost, uncle!” said Janet.

“If I lost a wife at all, it was a stingy one. I should have been ashamed of her all my life long.”

“Better than a spendthrift,” said Janet.

“How do you know that?” returned her uncle. “All the difference I see is, that the extravagant ruins the rich, and the stingy robs the poor.”

“But perhaps she repented, uncle,” said Kate.

“I don’t think she did, Katey. Look here.”

Uncle Cornelius drew from the breast pocket of his coat a black-edged letter.

“I have kept up my friendship with her brother,” he said. “All he knows about the matter is, that either we had a quarrel, or she refused me; — he is not sure which. I must say for Laetitia, that she was no tattler. Well, here’s a letter I had from James this very morning. I will read it to you.

“‘My Dear Mr. Heywood, — We have had a terrible shock this morning. Letty did not come down to breakfast, and Lizzie went to see if she was ill. We heard her scream, and, rushing up, there was poor Letty, sitting at the old bureau, quite dead. She had fallen forward on the desk, and her housekeeping-book was crumpled up under her. She had been so all night long, we suppose, for she was not undressed, and was quite cold. The doctors say it was disease of the heart.’

“There!” said Uncle Cornie, folding up the letter.

“Do you think the ghost had anything to do with it, uncle?” asked Kate, almost under her breath.

“How should I know, my dear? Possibly.”

“It’s very sad,” said Janet; “but I don’t see the good of it all. If the ghost had come to tell that she had hidden away money in some secret place in the old bureau, one would see why she had been permitted to come back. But what was the good of those accounts after they were over and done with? I don’t believe in the ghost.”

“Ah, Janet, Janet! but those wretched accounts were not over and done with, you see. That is the misery of it.”

Uncle Cornelius rose without another word, bade them good-night, and walked out into the wind.

“St Paul’s Magazine”, Jan. 1869

Works of Fancy and Imagination (1871)

19, GREAT HANOVER STREET

Lillie Harris

1889

My name is Alan Forsyth, my age thirty-three. I stand six feet, one inch and a half in my stockinged feet. I am sound in wind and limb, I have splendid digestion, have not a grain of superstition in my nature, am a doctor by profession, and a bachelor, because I see too much of the so-called joys (?) of domestic life. “Domestic life,” indeed, my experience of that gleaned from observations made while attending houses professionally is that it is a snare and a delusion. But it is not my purpose to speak on that subject. My task is to write out faithfully the extraordinary events that befell me while I occupied the house 19, Great Hanover street. Events that caused my hair to turn grey with horror in one single night, events that have seared themselves on my brain, events which can never be effaced from my memory while this life lasts. I say that I am strong and healthy because my narrative will sound like the delusions of some overwrought brain, and yet I have always had the reputation of being a clear-headed, eminently practical man. I am not superstitious — but stay, I ought to say I was not, for I have been taught that “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.” In writing this history of facts I can offer no explanation of their extraordinary character. I shall give you the whole story of what occurred to me, and if you like to disbelieve it, go yourself and spend a month or two in that accursed house, and you will be convinced, but let the time of your tenancy be in December, and if you live through the horror of what you will hear and what you will see, you will be fortunate, but assuredly never, never will you laugh or jeer at the incomprehensible again. If, however, you take my advice, you will shun Great Hanover street, or, at least, number nineteen.

In 1884 I wished to commence practise for myself. I had been assistant to Doctor ———, and I daresay should have kept with him, but an old aunt of mine died, and left me some money, so I thought that I could not do better than utilise it by making a start on my own behalf. I advertised, and in due time I bought a practice, my predecessor selling it because of the ill-health of his wife, which compelled them to live in Cheltenham. Unfortunately I could not take their house, as they had had it on a lease, which was just up, and the landlord himself intended residing in it in future.

Now I had always had a house of my own, as when my poor mother died I had kept on the home, and Anne, my housekeeper (who had originally been my nurse, and so consequently petted and tyrannised over me, in the manner of old servants), kept it in a way which was alike the delight and envy of all my bachelor friends. Of course moving was a nuisance, but Slominster was only about 70 miles from London, where I was then living, and I knew that if I could get a suitable house Anne would speedily get it into comfortable order.

“Don’t worry yourself,” said Mrs. Price, the wife of the doctor whose practice I had bought, “you will soon get a house, and till then make this your home, if you don’t mind us being in a state of confusion with packing, &c.”

I thanked her; but still I resolved to get a house as soon as possible. I put myself in the hands of an agent, and for two days spent the best part of my time inspecting residences all more or less unsuitable. At length I got thoroughly wearied, I walked along mechanically, and somehow I found myself in a street that I had never been in before. It was an old-fashioned looking road, with quaint red brick houses on either side. I looked up to see the name of the place; there it was at the corner — “Great Hanover street.” As my eye rested on the name, it also rested on a house. It was empty, and in the window was a card, “To Let.” I crossed over. It was a corner house, well on to the pavement, but round the corner was a large square garden, and through the high iron railings mounted on a brick wall I could see a side door.

“The very house for me,” I thought, triumphantly; “a quiet respectable neighbourhood; the door at the side would do excellently for the surgery; there’s a nice garden. I think I will look over it.” The “To Let” card informed me that keys and full particulars were to be obtained at Mr. Hunt’s, Howard row, so I took out my pocket book and jotted down the address, and then looked at the number of the house. It was 19, Great Hanover Street.

As I strode along, I saw a hansom and hailed it, and was soon bowling off to Howard row. Mr. Hunt I found from the brass plate on the door was a land agent, and this was his office. On entering I saw that there were some half-a-dozen young fellows all busily engaged in writing. One of them got off his stool at my entrance.

“I have come for some particulars concerning a house,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” he answered courteously but indifferently. The office was very quiet; the pens of the five clerks went scratching over the paper, and I was conscious of a vague and insane desire that they would lift up their heads, and not be so aggravatingly industrious. “What house is it?”

“19, Great Hanover street,” I answered.

There was a dead pause, my wish was gratified, the clerks had left off writing, and with one common accord had turned round to stare at me.

“19, Great Hanover street,” I repeated impatiently.

The young fellow gazed at me, all indifference gone; he seemed amazed.

“I think,” he commenced, in a quick, eager voice, strangely at variance with his former languid tone, when he was interrupted by the entrance of a small brisk-looking gentleman, who I rightly imagined was Mr. Hunt.

“What can we do for you, sir?” he asked.

“I want some information about the house 19, Great Hanover street,” I replied.

Was it my fancy, or did the ruddy colour fade from his cheek? Anyhow he stared at me with the same blank look that I had noticed with the clerk.

“Certainly,” he responded, recovering himself with an effort. “I take it that you are a stranger to the town?”

“Yes,” I answered, “I am Doctor Forsyth. I have bought Doctor Price’s practice.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, eyeing me curiously, “so you would like particulars about number 19. It has been empty a long time, I might say a very long time, but the owners will be glad to do it up thoroughly for a good tenant,” and then he gave me particulars as to accommodation, rent, &c.

The finish of it was that Hunt and I drove to see the house, but I was conscious that our departure in the hansom was watched with much interest by the clerks.

I was delighted with the house; the rooms were large and airy, the domestic arrangements splendid. On either side of the passage leading to the garden door was a good sized room, which would do capitally for surgery and consulting room; in short, it was a small mansion, and the only thing that surprised me was the ridiculously low rent, which Mr. Hunt informed me was owing to the house being empty for so long. Another thing that astonished me was the man’s nervousness, for he was certainly the most nervous beggar I ever met. Once I let my stick fall on the tessellated hall, and when he heard the clatter he turned simply livid.

To cut the matter short, I took the house for three years, on the understanding that it was to be re-papered, whitewashed, and painted inside and out.

I was staying at the Price’s, but they were both in Cheltenham, making final arrangements for their removal there, and I heard nothing about my house till nearly a fortnight after I had taken it. The work was being pushed on rapidly, but I had been so extremely busy professionally that I had only been down at number 19 twice, and I had been much tickled to see what an object of interest I was to all the neighbours, who eyed me from their windows with great curiosity.

The Prices returned in the evening, and at dinner I said to Mrs. Price, “I have got a house, and hope to be able to move in next week.”

“I am awfully glad to hear that you are suited at last,” she replied cordially, “where is it?”

“19, Great Hanover street,” I answered.

There was a pause, and a smash, a glass that she held in her hand fell to the ground.

“Oh, Doctor, not that red brick corner house?” she said, “not the one with the corner garden?”

“Yes, that’s the one,” I laughed rather impatiently, “what is the matter with it, is it haunted?”

“Yes,” she answered, “don’t take it. I can’t tell you how, or why it is haunted, but it is. Two people only have lived in it during the last 10 years, and one was found dead on the morning of the 22nd December, and the other, four years ago, on the same date, was found raving mad, and died a fortnight after without recovering his reason once, to say what he had seen or heard, in that fearful house.”

I burst out laughing, and my merriment only ceased when I saw how thoroughly offended my hostess looked. “I beg your pardon,” I said contritely, “but I really cannot help feeling amused. Imagine anyone in this prosaic materialistic age believing in ghosts. It is too funny. Why, I shall perfectly revel in Number 19. I have been pining all my life to live in a haunted house, to see a white-robed female carrying her head under her arm, and so on.”

Mrs. Price looked offended, her husband changed the conversation, and the subject dropped, but directly after she left the room he said to me quite gravely, “Look here, Forsyth, don’t live in that house, sneer at it as much as you please, but there is something uncanny about it. My wife mentioned two cases, but there are five authenticated cases of people who have resided at Number 19, and they have either been found dead or raving mad. No one knows what they have seen or heard, but the fact remains that strong, robust men of admirable physique have had their hair whitened and their reason destroyed with some unknown horror, and I beg of you not to rush into this mysterious danger.”

The doctor’s warning had no effect on me. I was an out and out sceptic, and the idea of a haunted house implicitly believed in, in this nineteenth century of ours filled me with delight.

The next morning, I went down to see Hunt. “So No. 19 is haunted,” I remarked.

He turned ghastly. “Well yes, Doctor,” he replied, recovering himself with an effort, “it has that reputation, and it has given us a lot of trouble. You know what it is, ‘Give a dog a bad name, &c,’ and as it has got about that the place is haunted folks are chary of taking it.”

“Is it true,” I asked, “that everyone who has lived there has either died or gone mad?”

He hesitated and fidgeted so, that I was quite convinced that Price’s story was correct, but rash fool that I was nothing would warn me.

“To tell the truth, Doctor,” said Hunt, in a burst of confidence, “the house has got a bad reputation. It was a splendid property till about twenty years ago. A doctor occupied it then. He was a foreigner — Doctor Caravini by name — and he had a very lovely young wife who disappeared mysteriously. It was believed that she had eloped, but anyhow she disappeared just before Christmas. Her husband, always a grave and reserved man, said nothing, and offered no explanation, and the following December he was found dead. I was only a young fellow at the time and I disliked the man most cordially for some unknown reason, but I shall never forget the awful expression of horror there was on his face when I saw him dead.”

“What day in December did he die?” I asked curiously.

“He was found dead on the morning of the 22nd of December, and since then no one has passed a Christmas in the house,” was the answer.

For a moment my heart beat faster, and I was stirred by a feeling of dread, then my common sense got the mastery of the idle superstition, and I said, “Well, I intend taking up my abode at Number 19, and shall certainly give any ghosts who feel inclined to play hanky-panky tricks with me a warm welcome.”

“I can assure you, Doctor,” cried the little house agent, seriously, “that if you show the people that these stories are mere nonsense you will be doing a public service.”

After I left Hunt and went on my professional round I found that I was looked upon as quite a hero, and a very imprudent one, too. At nearly every house I was asked if it were true that I had taken Number 19, Great Hanover street, and when I replied in the affirmative I had a repetition of the solemn warning given me by the Prices. It amused me intensely. How the house was haunted, whether by sounds or spectres none could tell me. All they did was to shake their heads and repeat the stories of the deaths that had taken place there. I ventured to remark that it might only be a coincidence people dying there on the one date, but my remark was treated with derisive sniffs.

The time passed quickly, the house was finished, and as no expense had been spared over it, it looked splendid. So bright and cheerful, the sun gaily streamed into all the rooms, birds sang in the garden; in short, as I surveyed the place I thought what an idiot I should have been to have let any superstitious nonsense stand in my way of renting such a suitable residence. Anne had arrived with all my goods and chattels. The only thing that annoyed me was that not a Slominster girl would accept service in the house. It was an easy place. I offered high wages, but nothing would induce a local girl to come. They all said the same thing, “I’d come in the daytime, but I wouldn’t sleep in Number 19 for wealth untold.”

Fortunately for me Anne was an eminently practical woman. I had told her of the reputation that the house had, and she laughed with me at the idea of some people believing in such rubbish, so when she found that Slominster servants would not come she wrote to two of her cousins who wanted situations, and engaged them, and when they came they were as much amused as she and I were at the idea of ghosts.

Soon the house was put to rights, and it was the admiration of all my friends who called to see me. The plate-glass windows were veiled with the daintiest of lace curtains, flowers were scattered about. The street door, which stood hospitably open, showed a wide tessellated marble hall, littered with skin rugs and furnished in carved oak. Altogether it needed but one thing only — and that was a lady to preside over it and share it with me. My patients used the side door in the garden, and a red lamp was conspicuously placed over the gate, with the word “Surgery” on it.

As time passed on, I was more and more charmed with the house. The most timid person could not have detected even a suspicious sound. The wind never howled or moaned in the chimneys in an objectionable manner; doors never opened ghostily. In short, it was as quiet and as well regulated as a house could possibly be.

My practice was also growing apace. I had been fortunate enough to perform a couple of very intricate operations successfully, and it had got my name well up with the local medical men. My consulting hours at home were from 9 to 10 in the morning, 2 to 3 in the afternoon, and 6.30 to 8.30 in the evening. During the latter two hours I was generally kept very busy. Sometimes I used to go out for a stroll after 8.30, but if I were tired I stayed in my consulting-room, and had a quiet rest and read.

I liked this room very much. It was large, had a southerly aspect, and the outlook in the garden, was exceedingly pleasant. My lady friends declared that it was the snuggest as well as the best furnished room in the house. It had an oak suite upholstered in crimson leather, and I had as well several very large and delightfully cosy easy chairs scattered about. Heavy velvet curtains draped the door, and successfully shut out all draughts; one side of the wall was lined with book shelves, filled with the works of my favourite authors, as well as the various scientific books needed in my profession. In the alcoves by the handsome black marble fireplace were carved oak cabinets, in which I blush to confess was a small but choice collection of wines, spirits, and cigars, comforts very dear to the heart of man. The long bay window looked, as I have said before, into the garden, and altogether it was a most comfortable room.

Things went on very happily and smoothly, and I constantly congratulated myself on my wisdom in not allowing superstition to have any influence over me. The winter of 1884 was an unusually severe one in Slominster, and I was kept exceedingly busy, so much so, that I had to decline all invitations for social enjoyments, and was seriously thinking of the advisability of taking a partner.

It wanted but a few days to Christmas. A patient of mine was dangerously ill, and I went to see her at night about 10 o’clock. When I returned home I let myself in with my latch key, for it was one of the strict domestic rules that was rigidly adhered to, that the servants, including Anne, went to bed punctually at 10. I strolled into the consulting room, kicked off my boots, lit a cigar, and sat down to have a good long read and rest, for I rarely if ever retire till the small hours of morning. Nip, my fox-terrier, a pure-bred dog, and my constant and most faithful companion lay at my feet. I suppose that I must have dozed off, for suddenly I was awakened by the book dropping from my hand, and at that moment came a howl of terror from the dog. “Nip, old boy,” I said, “it’s all right,” but to my astonishment I saw that he was standing upright, his hair positively bristling with fear, his ears thrown back, and every now and again he emitted the most blood curdling howls.

I looked round, there was absolutely nothing to see to account for the dog’s terror. I went to my desk, took a revolver from the drawer, and called Nip to follow me, but he could only stand shaking an abject object of fear. I picked him up in my arms, and went into the passage. There his howls were fearful, and his eyes seemed starting out of their sockets, but still there was nothing to see. When I got to the front portion of the house he was quiet. I looked into all the rooms; everything was in its normal state, so I calmly went to bed, taking Nip up with me as usual. As I turned in, I looked at my watch — nearly half-past one.

I slept splendidly, and came down to breakfast with a flourishing appetite. Just as I was finishing my bacon, Anne came in.

“Good morning, sir,” she said; “how are you?”

“All right, thanks,” I answered.

“How is your patient?” she asked.

I stared at Anne curiously, faithful servant that she was, she had never hitherto displayed any such interest in my patients.

“Out of danger,” I replied, “and I hope will pull through all right, now.”

“It must have been a frightful case,” she went on.

“Um, well, acute pluero-pneumonia is always rather dangerous,” I answered, impatiently.

“Pluero-pneumonia,” echoed the woman. “I don’t mean that. I mean the fearful accident that was brought in last night. I wish, Mr. Alan, you had rung me up. I might have been of some assistance.”

“Accident!” I repeated blankly, “what accident?”

“Last night, sir,” she answered.

“There was no accident that I know of last night,” I declared emphatically, “and I was in the consulting-room till past one.”

“No accident,” gasped Anne, and I saw that she was ghastly white, and was trembling so that she had to hold on to the table for support. “Sir, there must have been, for both the surgery passage and consulting-room were swimming with blood this morning.”

“Nonsense,” I cried, “you have had a nightmare.”

“I tell you, sir, it is a fact,” she said. “When Jane went to clean the side door step this morning she came back saying that there must have been a bad accident last night, for the place was covered with blood. She had turned so faint that I went myself, and from the door right along the passage into the consulting-room, there it was, oh! a horrible, horrible sight.”

“Is it all cleaned up, yet?” I asked.

“Not quite,” answered Anne.

I left my breakfast, and as I strode along I nearly fell over Jane, who on her knees was busily engaged in wiping up blood. Yes, I saw it myself; from the garden door a horrible red rivulet ran, and here and there the wall was splashed as if someone had wantonly dabbled in and thrown up the liquid. Sick and dizzy I went into the consulting-room. There was a scarlet trail right along, and just by the fireplace there was a large hideous pool of blood soaking into the carpet, and leaving ghastly stains around.

I am not ashamed to confess that my brain reeled; the mysterious horror overcame me, and for a moment I thought that I was going to disgrace myself by fainting, then common sense asserted itself and I recovered.

“Someone has been playing a scandalous practical joke here,” I said sternly, “and you may be sure that I shall spare no expense to bring the perpetrator to justice.”

The servants looked but half convinced, and I even heard Anne mutter something about “a haunted house.”

Although I affected to treat the matter lightly, yet I was sorely perplexed. I was quite convinced that it was a practical joke, but I was puzzled as to how the perpetrator or perpetrators could have got in to the house, then where did they get the blood from, and how silent they must have been? Suddenly I remembered Nip’s terror, and a cold thrill went through me. Altogether I was not surprised when my patients told me how very ill I looked. Mind I had not the slightest belief in any supernatural agency, no thoughts of ghosts oppressed me, but I felt uncomfortable, as I could advance no reasonable theory to account for those ghastly marks.

When I got home for luncheon everything was as neat and trim as usual, excepting that my servants looked ill, and that a large skin rug had been placed over the stains on the carpet in the consulting-room. The marks from the wall had also been washed away, but I felt strangely upset and irritable, and my annoyance was culminated when I was told that Nip was dead. I had left him in my bedroom, and when the girls had gone in they had found the poor beast dead.

I was so thoroughly dispirited that when a friend of mine wired to me, and asked me to dine with him that evening, I gladly accepted the invitation as a means of ridding myself from my unpleasant thoughts.

It was a lovely night, clear, cold, and frosty. The moon was lighting up the star-spangled blue sky, the air was deliciously bracing and exhilarating, and as I walked along all my worries seemed to disappear. I spent a most enjoyable evening, and I wish you to bear in mind that the conversation never once touched upon the supernatural. I am an extremely abstemious man, and I drank only one glass of claret, and two glasses of champagne. You will soon understand why I am giving you these apparently unimportant details.

About half-past eleven, I said good-bye, and as I slipped into my fur-lined coat, my friend said laughingly, “What a big fellow you are, Forsyth.” I glanced idly into the mirror, and thought how well I looked. The gas shone on my diamond studs, and my curly hair was as dark brown as it could possibly be, without being actually black; the next time I saw my reflection in a glass, it was the colour it is now, grey, bleached with horror!

I walked home, whistling blithely, and just as I neared my house I took out my bunch of keys preparatory to letting myself in through the surgery door. How bitterly cold it was. I had a feeling of pity for any unfortunate tramp that might be out; the wind had risen, and its icy blast penetrated even through my thick coat. When I got to the garden gate, judge of my astonishment when I saw crouching by the wall the figure of a woman. She rose when she heard my footsteps. I noticed that she wore a long black cloak, and a black hood covered her head.

She advanced to meet me, and the grace of her movements struck me with admiration.

“For the love of God,” she said, in a low melodious voice, “will you help me?”

I put my hand in my pocket mechanically and drew out half-a-crown, which I handed to her.

She looked at it idly. “I don’t want money,” she said sadly, “it is of no use to me. I want shelter, for I am so cold.”

“What do you require?” I queried impatiently. “I will give you another half-crown, and for five shillings you can get a bed anywhere.”

She put out her hands, and laid them on my arm. How small and white they were. What an exquisite shape, the pretty rosy filbert nails, the slender tapering fingers, on which blazed some costly diamond rings. At their touch a thrill went through me. “I am so cold,” she repeated, with infinite pathos. “Take me in with you and give me shelter.”

“You must be mad to ask me such a thing,” I said angrily; “go to an hotel.”

“They will be all shut,” she replied, “and I am so cold that I shall die.” As she spoke the moon came out from a bank of cloud and lit up the unknown’s face with a soft golden glory. Good heavens, what a face! Never could I have conceived anything earthly so lovely. Even now, waking or sleeping, I can see it before me. It was a purely oval face, with a delicate creamy complexion, absolutely colourless. The mouth was small and scarlet and the lips were tremulous and pouting like a child’s. I felt a mad desire to kiss them into smiling content; the nose was perfect, but the eyes were the chief beauty. Large, liquid, violet eyes, shaded with long, black lashes — eyes that in their dreamy sensuousness were sufficient to make a man lose his soul, but for one glance of love from them. Rings of soft, yellow, curly hair escaped from the hood, and clustered over the low, white brow. I stood fascinated, and gazed upon this dream of female loveliness.

“Don’t be vexed with me,” she urged piteously, “but he has turned me out, turned me out tonight in this bitter cold, and I shall die if you will not give me shelter.”

She came still nearer to me, her cloak touched me, I felt her warm fragrant breath on my cheek, her hands tightened on my arm, and I — well, I am only a man. The blood was coursing through my veins, and I was losing my head under the glamour of those wonderful eyes.

“Come in,” I said hastily, “I will give you shelter for tonight. It would kill a wee frail thing like you to be exposed to the cold much longer.”

She laughed gratefully, a low rippling laugh like the tinkle of bells. “You are good,” she murmured.

She followed me up the path, I opened the door and as she came in I was vaguely struck by an impression that she knew her way about the house.

I took her into the consulting room, a bright fire was crackling in the grate, and she went to it at once. “I am so cold,” she said again, and she held out her white hands to the blaze.

I turned up the gas, my brain was on fire; this was an adventure with a vengeance. But what would become of my reputation if it were to be known that a strange and lovely young woman had passed the night under my bachelor roof? As I looked at her, all my selfish doubts vanished. Laugh, sneer if you like, but I, Alan Forsyth, was madly in love, with a woman whose very name I did not know, and whose acquaintance I had made not a quarter of an hour back.

She had loosened her cloak, and stood in the bravery of her finery. She wore a gown of pale pink silk, made in a style that I had never seen before; the bodice was cut low in front, and showed a bosom perfectly modelled and as spotlessly white as marble; amongst the laces that fell and rose with every breath was a cluster of half-blown roses, and their faint sweet perfume seemed to madden me. They were fastened by a diamond brooch; the beautiful arms were bare to the shoulder, but diamond bracelets were clasped about them. Round the slender throat was a tight band of broad black watered ribbon, in the centre of which flashed a superb brooch of brilliants. This made the milky whiteness of the skin more vivid in contrast to the black. Her golden hair was piled up high on the queenly little head, and the coils were fastened by diamond pins.

How perfectly lovely she was. I rubbed my eyes to see if it were a dream, and if the vision would fade away; but no, she was still there, with the flames flickering on her marvellous beauty. Where had she come from? Who was she? I knew everyone in Slominster, by sight at least, and it was not likely that such a lovely creature could live in the town without being known; besides, her dress and jewels showed that she was wealthy.

“Are you warmer yet?” I asked smiling.

“No, I am so cold,” she repeated wearily; “do you think I will ever be warm again.”

I curbed the inclination to take the slender form in my arms, and warm it with the fervour of my embraces.

I put some brandy on the table, and mixed a little with water, which I handed to her. She took it with a grateful smile and sipped it, and I was relieved to see a tinge of pink come into the colourless cheeks.

“You must tell me who you are,” I remarked gently, “so that I can communicate with your friends.”

“My friends,” she repeated vacantly; “I have no friends, he will not allow me to have any, he is so jealous, and tonight he turned me out, out in the snow and rain, although he knows how I dread the cold.”

“It was not snowing or raining tonight,” I said, “but who is he that treats you so cruelly?”

“My husband, of course,” she answered; “but don’t let us talk of him, for I hate him, and oh! I am so afraid of him. Whenever his eyes are upon me I turn cold with dread, and when he attempts to kiss me I all but faint; and then he says that I have a lover, and that he will murder me, and I am so unhappy.”

How can I convey any idea of the inexpressible mournfulness of her tone, of the piteous look in her eyes. Hazardous as her conduct was, I felt convinced of her goodness and purity, for who could doubt it after once looking into the exquisite, innocent face.

“Do not think of him,” I said, “but rest here and get warm, and in the morning we will talk matters over, and if you will allow me I will assist you all in my power.”

“How good you are to me,” she murmured. “Yes; let us be happy tonight, for who knows where I shall be in the morning.”

I drew one of the easy chairs close to the fire for her, and I bade her be seated. She nestled in its depths with a sigh of content. I had flung off my coat, and, kneeling on the rug, was endeavouring to rub some warmth into her small numbed hands. She bent forward to me and patted my face.

“How handsome you are,” she said, “and how nice you look in evening dress.”

I kissed her fingers passionately, but their dead coldness went to my heart with a chill.

“I am so cold,” she again repeated. She stretched out her tiny feet, and as I saw the fine black silk stockings, and the thin kid shoes with their dainty bows and diamond buckle, I mentally execrated the man who had turned a woman out of doors clothed like this on such a night. I took off her shoes and rubbed her feet and made her swallow some more brandy. I added coals to the fire and wrapped my coat round her bare shoulders.

Every trivial event of that night is impressed on my memory, and will only be effaced with death. Once I asked her if she would like me to wake up the servants and let them take her to bed, but she refused with a gentle smile.

“Let me stay here,” she entreated, “it is warm, and you know I am so cold.”

She walked up and down the room, and once drew aside the curtains and blind from the window and looked out into the garden.

“I always hated that garden,” she said.

“Why,” cried I, astonished; “do you know it, then?”

She smiled inscrutably, and looked at me. She stretched out her arms, and I forgot everything, forgot that she was married, that being under my roof she should have been sacred. I say I forgot everything, but before you condemn me think of my temptation. I was only young, the blood of youth leaped through my veins, she held out her hands to me, and I rushed to her. I caught her in my arms, and I nearly crushed her slender form in the fervour of my embrace. I clasped her tightly to my throbbing, passionate heart, and rained hot kisses on her sweet face. I pressed my lips to hers, and tried to thaw their icy chill by the warmth of mine. I murmured endearing words to her, and swore that come what might she should never leave me. In those few blissful moments I felt the very ecstasy of love, my very soul went out of me, I was dizzy and blinded with emotion. I felt the supple form grow heavy in my arms, and she said faintly, “Let me rest.”

I lifted her into the chair, and I was alarmed to see how ill she looked; her eyes were half closed, her whole figure dejected and helpless. “Forgive me, darling,” I said, remorsefully, “I forgot myself.”

She opened her eyes wearily. “I am so cold,” she said, “and so faint; undo this band for the love of heaven, for I choke and die.”

She half rose, with her hand to her throat, and then sank nervelessly back into the easy chair. I bent over her, and took the brooch from the band of black watered ribbon about her throat, and, great God, how can I write it, how can I steady my hand so as to pen the words; as I undid the ribbon, so did that lovely head drop off.

Oh, the horror of it, there where but one moment before was a beautiful breathing woman, was now a headless trunk, and at my feet was the head, hideous and bloody, the eyes open and glassy, and with an awful expression of terror in their depths, the teeth biting through the lips with a dumb agony. I looked round madly, everywhere was blood; the rug was soaked with it, it fell from the easy chair to the ground with a hollow splash, a trail of it went to the door, the curtains where her hands had touched were stained scarlet. I looked down again at the head. I was frozen with horror, it was there, but oh, terrible sight, no longer the head of a young and beautiful woman, but a hideous skull, one mass of vile corruption.

This was too much for me. I gave one yell of terror that rung through the quiet house, and just then my eye caught sight of the calendar. It was the 21st of December. I tried to move but the smell of blood sickened me. With a moan I fell to the ground senseless.

•   •   •

When again I recovered my senses it was June. For six months I had been raving mad. On the morning of the 22nd of December Anne had found me lying on the floor of the consulting room, the apartment looking precisely the same as usual, and for weeks and months I was insane, but, thanks to clever doctors, good nursing, and a strong constitution, I pulled round. Directly I was strong enough I went abroad, to endeavour to efface the memory of that awful night, but although some of the terror has gone I shall never forget it, and never shall I marry while the sight of that lovely face is still in my memory.

I can give no explanation of the mysterious occurrence, excepting that some six months after I had returned to my professional duties from my illness I attended an old lady, who had known Doctor and Mrs. Caravini, who had once lived at No. 19. I asked what she was like, and the answer was — “A very beautiful girl, with an oval face and golden hair, and the most lovely violet eyes I ever saw. He was madly jealous of her, and, I believe, treated her very badly.”

I dare not ask anything more, but since then I have often wondered whether the doctor had murdered his fair young wife and buried her remains in the garden. This, however, is one of the mysteries that will never be revealed till the great day of judgment shall come, when the hidden secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed.

Needless to say I removed from the house without waiting for my three years’ tenancy to expire, for I felt that another such night would kill me. As I drove past the other day I saw that the “to let” card was still up at 19, Great Hanover street.

“Sheffield Weekly Telegraph”, 24 Dec. 1889

AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

J. H. Pearce

1893

The performance was over: the curtain had descended and the spectators had dispersed.

There had been a slight crush at the doors of the theatre, and what with the abrupt change from the pleasant warmth and light of the interior to the sharp chill of the night outside, Preston shivered, and a sudden weakness smote him at the joints.

The crowd on the pavement in front of the theatre melted away with unexampled rapidity, in fact, seemed almost to waver and disappear as if the mise en scène had changed in some inexplicable way.

A hansom drove up, and Preston stepped into it heavily, glancing drowsily askance at the driver as he did so.

Seated up there, barely visible in the gloom, the driver had an almost grisly aspect, humped with waterproof capes, and with such a lean, white face. Preston, as he glanced at him, shivered again.

The trapdoor above him opened softly, and the colourless face peered down at him curiously.

“Where to, sir?” asked the hollow voice.

Preston leaned back wearily. “Home,” he replied.

It did not strike him as anything strange or unusual, that the driver asked no questions but drove off without a word. He was very weary, and he wanted to rest.

The sleepless hum of the city was abidingly in his ears, and the lamps that dotted the misty pavements stared at him blinkingly all along the route. The tall black buildings rose up grimly into the night; the faces that flitted to and fro along the pavements, kept ever sliding past him, melting into the darkness; and the cabs and buses, still astir in the streets, had a ghostly air as they vanished in the gloom.

Preston lay back, weary in every joint, a drowsy numbness settling on his pulse. He had faith in his driver: he would bring him safely home.

Presently they were at one of the wharves beside the river: Preston could hear the gurgle of the water around the piles.

Not this way had he ever before gone homeward. He looked out musingly on the swift, black stream.

“Just in time: we can go down with the tide,” said a voice.

Preston would have uttered some protest, but this sluggishness overpowered him: it was as if he could neither lift hand nor foot. The inertia of indifference had penetrated into his bones.

Presently he was aware that he had entered a barge that lay close against the wharf, heaving on the tide. And, as if it were all a piece of the play, the lean old driver, with his dead-white face, had the oars in his hands and stood quietly facing him, guiding the dark craft down the stream.

The panorama of the riverbank kept changing and shifting in the most inexplicable manner, and Preston was aware of a crowd of pictures ever coming and going before his eyes: as if some subtle magician, standing behind his shoulder, were projecting for him, on the huge black screen of night, the most marvellous display of memories he had ever contemplated. For they were all memories, or blends of memories, that now rose here on the horizon of his consciousness. There was nothing new in essentials presented to him: but the grouping was occasionally novel to a fault.

The dear old home — the dear old folks! Green hills, with the little white-washed cottage in a dimple of them, and in the foreground the wind-fretted plain of the sea. The boyish games — marbles and hoop-trundling — and the coming home at dusk to the red-lighted kitchen, where the mother had the tea ready on the table and the sisters sat at their knitting by the fire.

The dear, dear mother! how his pulse yearned towards her! there were tears in his eyes as he thought of her now. Yet, all the same, the quiet of his pulse was profound.

And there was the familiar scenery of his daily life: the ink-stained desks, the brass rails for the books, the ledgers and bankbooks, and the files against the walls; and the faces of his fellow-clerks (even the office boy) depicted here before him to the very life.

The wind across the waters blew chilly in his face: he shivered, a numbness settling in his limbs.

His sweet young wife, so loving and gentle — how shamefully he had neglected her, seeking his own pleasure selfishly — there she sat in the familiar chair by the fireside with dear little Daisy dancing on her knee. What a quiet, restful interior it was! He wondered: would they miss him much if he were dead? … Above all, would little Daisy understand what it meant when someone whispered to her “favee is dead”?

The wavering shadows seemed to thicken around the boat. And the figure at the oars — how lean and white it was: and yet it seemed a good kind of fellow, too, he thought. Preston watched it musingly as the stream bore them onward: the rushing of the water almost lulling him to sleep.

Were they sweeping outward, then, to the unknown sea?

It was an unexpected journey.… And he had asked to be taken home!

Presently the air grew full of shapes: shadowy shapes with mournful faces; shapes that hinted secrets, with threatenings in their eyes.

If a man’s sins, now, should take to themselves bodies, would it not be in some such guise as this they would front and affright him at dead of night?

Preston shivered, sitting there like a mere numb lump.

How much of his wrong-doing is forgiven to a man — and how much remembered against him in the reckoning?

How awful this gruesome isolation was becoming!

Was it thus a man went drifting up to God?

The figure at the oars was crooning softly. It was like the lullaby his mother used to sing to him when he was a child.

There was a breath of freer air — humanity lay behind them — they were alone with Nature on the vast, dim sea.

The numbness crept to the roots of his being. He had no hands to lift; he had no feet to move. His heart grew sluggish: there was a numbness in his brain.

Death stood upright now in the bow before him: and in the east he was aware of a widening breadth of grey.

Would the blackness freshen into perfect day for him … or would the night lie hopelessly on him forever?…

The figure drew near — and laid its hand across his eyes.…

•   •   •

“Thrown out of the hansom, and the wheels went over him, sir. He was dead in less than five minutes, I should think.”

“Cover his face … and break it gently to his wife.”

Drolls from Shadowland (1893)

A NIGHT OF HORROR

Dick Donovan

1899

Bleak Hill Castle.

My dear old Chum,

Before you leave England for the East I claim the redemption of a promise you made to me some time ago that you would give me the pleasure of a week or two of your company. Besides, as you may have already guessed, I have given up the folly of my bachelor days, and have taken unto myself the sweetest, dearest little woman that ever walked the face of the earth.

We have been married just six months, and are as happy as the day is long. And then, this place is entirely after your own heart. It will excite all your artistic faculties, and appeal with irresistible force to your romantic nature. To call the building a castle is somewhat pretentious, but I believe it has been known as the Castle ever since it was built, more than two hundred years ago.

Hester — need I say that Hester is my better half! — is just delighted with it, and if either of us was in the least degree superstitious, we might see or hear ghosts every hour of the day.

Of course, as becomes a castle, we have a haunted room, though my own impression is that it is haunted by nothing more fearsome than rats. Anyway, it is such a picturesque, curious sort of chamber that if it hasn’t a ghost it ought to have. But I have no doubt, old chap, that you will make one of us, for, as I remember, you have always had a love for the eerie and creepy, and you cannot forget how angry you used to get with me sometimes for chaffing you about your avowed belief in the occult and supernatural, and what you were pleased to term the ‘unexplainable phenomena of psychomancy.’ However, it is possible you have got over some of the errors of your youth; but whether or not, come down, dear boy, and rest assured that you will meet with the heartiest of welcomes.

Your old pal,

Dick Dirckman.

The above letter was from my old friend and college chum, who, having inherited a substantial fortune, and being passionately fond of the country and country pursuits, had thus the means of gratifying his tastes to their fullest bent. Although Dick and I were very differently constituted, we had always been greatly attached to each other. In the best sense of the term he was what is generally called a hard-headed, practical man. He was fond of saying he never believed in anything he couldn’t see, and even that which he could see he was not prepared to accept as truth without due investigation. In short, Dick was neither romantic, poetical, nor, I am afraid, artistic, in the literal sense. He preferred facts to fancies, and was possessed of what the world generally calls “an unimpressionable nature.” For nearly four years I had lost sight of my friend, as I had been wandering about Europe as tutor and companion to a delicate young nobleman. His death had set me free; but I had no sooner returned to England than I was offered and accepted a lucrative appointment in the service of his Highness the Nyzam of Chundlepore, in Northern India, and there was every probability of my being absent for a number of years.

On returning home I had written to Dick to the chambers he had formerly occupied, telling him of my appointment, and expressing a fear that unless we could snatch a day or two in town I might not be able to see him, as I had so many things to do. It was true I had promised that when opportunity occurred I should do myself the pleasure of accepting his oft-proffered hospitality, which I knew to be lavish and generous. I had not heard of his marriage; his letter gave me the first intimation of that fact, and I confess that when I got his missive I experienced some curiosity to know the kind of lady he had succeeded in captivating. I had always had an idea that Dick was cut out for a bachelor, for there was nothing of the ladies’ man about him, and he used at one time to speak of the gentler sex with a certain levity and brusqueness of manner that by no means found favour with the majority of his friends. And now Dick was actually married, and living in a remote region, where most town-bred people would die of ennui.

It will be gathered from the foregoing remarks that I did not hesitate about accepting Dick’s cordial invitation. I determined to spare a few days at least of my somewhat limited time, and duly notified Dick to that effect, giving him the date of my departure from London, and the hour at which I should arrive at the station nearest to his residence.

•   •   •

BLEAK HILL CASTLE was situated in one of the most picturesque parts of Wales; consequently, on the day appointed I found myself comfortably ensconced in a smoking carriage of a London and North-Western train. And towards the close of the day — the time of the year was May — I was the sole passenger to alight at the wayside station, where Dick awaited me with a smart dog-cart. His greeting was hearty and robust, and when his man had packed in my traps he gave the handsome little mare that drew the cart the reins, and we spanked along the country roads in rare style. Dick always prided himself on his knowledge of horseflesh, and with a sense of keen satisfaction he drew my attention to the points of the skittish little mare which bowled along as if we had been merely featherweights.

A drive of eight miles through the bracing Welsh air so sharpened our appetites that the smell of dinner was peculiarly welcome; and telling me to make a hurried toilet, as his cook would not risk her reputation by keeping a dinner waiting, Dick handed me over to the guidance of a natty chambermaid. As it was dark when we arrived I had no opportunity of observing the external characteristics of Bleak Hill Castle; but there was nothing in the interior that suggested bleakness. Warmth, comfort, light, held forth promise of carnal delights.

Following my guide up a broad flight of stairs, and along a lofty and echoing corridor, I found myself in a large and comfortably-furnished bedroom. A bright wood fire burned upon the hearthstone, for although it was May the temperature was still very low on the Welsh hills. Hastily changing my clothes, I made my way to the dining-room, where Mrs. Dirckman emphasised the welcome her husband had already given me. She was an exceedingly pretty and rather delicate-looking little woman, in striking contrast to her great, bluff, burly husband. A few neighbours had been gathered together to meet me, and we sat down, a dozen all told, to a dinner that from a gastronomic point of view left nothing to be desired. The viands were appetising, the wines perfect, and all the appointments were in perfect consonance with the good things that were placed before us.

It was perhaps natural, when the coffee and cigar stage had arrived, that conversation should turn upon our host’s residence, by way of affording me — a stranger to the district — some information. Of course, the information was conveyed to me in a scrappy way, but I gathered in substance that Bleak Hill Castle had originally belonged to a Welsh family, which was chiefly distinguished by the extravagance and gambling propensities of its male members. It had gone through some exciting times, and numerous strange and startling stories had come to centre round it. There were stories of wrong, and shame, and death, and more than a suggestion of dark crimes. One of these stories turned upon the mysterious disappearance of the wife and daughter of a young scion of the house, whose career had been somewhat shady. His wife was considerably older than he, and it was generally supposed that he had married her for money. His daughter, a girl of about twelve, was an epileptic patient, while the husband and father was a gloomy, disappointed man. Suddenly the wife and daughter disappeared. At first no surprise was felt; but, then, some curiosity was expressed to know where they had gone to; and curiosity led to wonderment, and wonderment to rumour — for people will gossip, especially in a country district. Of course, Mr. Greeta Jones, the husband, had to submit to much questioning as to where his wife and child were staying. But being sullen and morose of temperament he contented himself by brusquely and tersely saying, “They had gone to London.” But as no one had seen them go, and no one had heard of their going, the statement was accepted as a perversion of fact. Nevertheless, incredible as it may seem, no one thought it worth his while to insist upon an investigation, and a few weeks later Mr. Greeta Jones himself went away — and to London, as was placed beyond doubt. For a long time Bleak Hill Castle was shut up, and throughout the country side it began to be whispered that sights and sounds had been seen and heard at the castle which were suggestive of things unnatural, and soon it became a crystallised belief in men’s minds that the place was haunted.

On the principle of giving a dog a bad name you have only to couple ghosts with the name of an old country residence like this castle for it to fall into disfavour, and to be generally shunned. As might have been expected in such a region the castle was shunned; no tenant could be found for it. It was allowed to go to ruin, and for a long time was the haunt of smugglers. They were cleared out in the process of time, and at last hard-headed, practical Dick Dirckman heard of the place through a London agent, went down to see it, took a fancy to it, bought it for an old song, and, having taste and money, he soon converted the half-ruined building into a country gentleman’s home, and thither he carried his bride.

Such was the history of Bleak Hill Castle as I gathered it in outline during the post-prandial chat on that memorable evening.

•   •   •

On the following day I found the place all that my host had described it in his letter to me. Its situation was beautiful in the extreme; and there wasn’t one of its windows that didn’t command a magnificent view of landscape and sea. He and I rambled about the house, he evinced a keen delight in showing me every nook and corner, in expatiating on the beauties of the locality generally, and of the advantages of his dwelling-place in particular. Why he reserved taking me to the so-called haunted chamber until the last I never have known; but so it was; and as he threw open the heavy door and ushered me into the apartment he smiled ironically and remarked:

“Well, old man, this is the ghost’s den; and as I consider that a country mansion of this kind should, in the interests of all tradition and of fiction writers, who, under the guise of truth, lie like Ananias, have its haunted room, I have let this place go untouched, except that I have made it a sort of lumber closet for some antique and mouldering old furniture which I picked up a bargain in Wardour Street, London. But I needn’t tell you that I regard the ghost stories as rot.”

I did not reply to my friend at once, for the room absorbed my attention. It was unquestionably the largest of the bedrooms in the house, and, while in keeping with the rest of the house, had characteristics of its own. The walls were panelled with dark oak, the floor was oak, polished. There was a deep V-shaped bay, formed by an angle of the castle, and in each side of the bay was a diamond-paned window, and under each window an oak seat, which was also a chest with an ancient iron lock. A large wooden bedstead with massive hangings stood in one corner, and the rest of the furniture was of a very nondescript character, and calls for no special mention. In a word, the room was picturesque, and to me it at once suggested the mise-en-scène for all sorts of dramatic situations of a weird and eerie character. I ought to add that there was a very large fireplace with a most capacious hearthstone, on which stood a pair of ponderous and rusty steel dogs. Finally, the window commanded superb views, and altogether my fancy was pleased, and my artistic susceptibilities appealed to in an irresistible manner, so that I replied to my friend thus:

“I like this room, Dick, awfully. Let me occupy it, will you?”

He laughed.

“Well, upon my word, you are an eccentric fellow to want to give up the comfortable den which I have assigned to you for this mouldy, draughty, dingy old lumber room. However” — here he shrugged his shoulders — “there is no accounting for tastes, and as this is liberty hall, my friends do as they like; so I’ll tell the servants to put the bed in order, light a fire, and cart your traps from the other room.”

I was glad I had carried my point, for I frankly confess to having romantic tendencies. I was fond of old things, old stories and legends, old furniture, and anything that was removed above the dull level of commonplaceness. This room, in a certain sense, was unique, and I was charmed with it.

When pretty little Mrs. Dirckman heard of the arrangements she said, with a laugh that did not conceal a certain nervousness, “I am sorry you are going to sleep in that wretched room. It always makes me shudder, for it seems so uncomfortable. Besides, you know, although Dick laughs at me and calls me a little goose, I am inclined to believe there may be some foundation for the current stories. Anyway, I wouldn’t sleep in the room for a crown of gold. I do hope you will be comfortable, and not be frightened to death or into insanity by gruesome apparitions.”

I hastened to assure my hostess that I should be comfortable enough, while as for apparitions, I was not likely to be frightened by them.

The rest of the day was spent in exploring the country round about, and after a recherché dinner Dick and I played billiards until one o’clock, and then, having drained a final “peg,” I retired to rest. When I reached the haunted chamber I found that much had been done to give an air of cheerfulness and comfort to the place. Some rugs had been laid about the floor, a modern chair or two introduced, a wood fire blazed on the earth. On a little “occasional table” that stood near the fire was a silver jug, filled with hot water, and an antique decanter containing spirits, together with lemon and sugar, in case I wanted a final brew. I could not but feel grateful for my host and hostess’s thoughtfulness, and, having donned my dressing-gown and slippers, I drew a chair within the radius of the wood fire’s glow, and proceeded to fill my pipe for a few whiffs previous to tumbling into bed. This was a habit of mine — a habit of years and years of growth, and, while perhaps an objectionable one in some respects, it afforded me solace and conduced to restful sleep. So I lit my pipe, and fell to pondering and trying to see if I could draw any suggestiveness as to my future from the glowing embers. Suddenly a remarkable thing happened. My pipe was drawn gently from my lips and laid upon the table, and at the same moment I heard what seemed to me to be a sigh. For a moment or two I felt confused, and wondered whether I was awake or dreaming. But there was the pipe on the table, and I could have taken the most solemn oath that to the best of my belief it had been placed there by unseen hands.

My feelings, as may be imagined, were peculiar. It was the first time in my life that I had ever been the subject of a phenomenon which was capable of being attributed to supernatural agency. After a little reflection, and some reasoning with myself, however, I tried to believe that my own senses had made a fool of me, and that in a half-somnolent and dreamy condition I had removed the pipe myself, and placed it on the table. Having come to this conclusion I divested myself of my clothing, extinguished the two tall candles, and jumped into bed. Although usually a good sleeper, I did not go to sleep at once, as was my wont, but lay thinking of many things, and mingling with my changing thoughts was a low, monotonous undertone — nature’s symphony — of booming sea on the distant beach, and a bass piping — rising occasionally to a shrill and weird upper note — of the wind. From its situation the house was exposed to every wind that blew, hence its name “Bleak Hill Castle,” and probably a south-east gale would have made itself felt to an uncomfortable degree in this room, which was in the south-east angle of the building. But now the booming sea and wind had a lullaby effect, and my nerves sinking into restful repose I fell asleep. How long I slept I do not know, and never shall know; but I awoke suddenly, and with a start, for it seemed as if a stream of ice-cold water was pouring over my face. With an impulse of indefinable alarm I sprang up in bed, and then a strange, awful, ghastly sight met my view.

I don’t know that I could be described as a nervous man in any sense of the word. Indeed, I think I may claim to be freer from nerves than the average man, nor would my worst enemy, if he had a regard for truth, accuse me of lacking courage. And yet I confess here, frankly, that the sight I gazed upon appalled me. Yet was I fascinated with a horrible fascination, that rendered it impossible for me to turn my eyes away. I seemed bound by some strange weird spell. My limbs appeared to have grown rigid; there was a sense of burning in my eyes; my mouth was parched and dry; my tongue swollen, so it seemed. Of course, these were mere sensations, but they were sensations I never wish to experience again. They were sensations that tested my sanity. And the sight that held me in the thrall was truly calculated to test the nerves of the strongest.

There, in mid-air, between floor and ceiling, surrounded or made visible by a trembling, nebulous light, that was weird beyond the power of any words to describe, was the head and bust of a woman. The face was paralysed into an unutterably awful expression of stony horror; the long black hair was tangled and dishevelled, and the eyes appeared to be bulging from the head. But this was not all. Two ghostly hands were visible. The fingers of one were twined savagely in the black hair, and the other grasped a long-bladed knife, and with it hacked, and gashed, and tore, and stabbed at the bare white throat of the woman, and the blood gushed forth from the jagged wounds, reddening the spectre hand and flowing in one continuous stream to the oak floor, where I heard it drip, drip, drip until my brain seemed as if it would burst, and I felt as if I was going raving mad. Then I saw with my strained eyes the unmistakable sign of death pass over the woman’s face; and next, the devilish hands flung the mangled remnants away, and I heard a low chuckle of satisfaction — heard, I say, and swear it, as plainly as I have ever heard anything in this world. The light had faded; the vision of crime and death had gone, and yet the spell held me. Although the night was cold, I believe I was bathed in perspiration. I think I tried to cry out — nay, I am sure I did — but no sound came from my burning, parched lips; my tongue refused utterance; it clove to the roof of my mouth. Could I have moved so much as a joint of my little finger, I could have broken the spell; at least, such was the idea that occupied my half-stunned brain. It was a nightmare of waking horror, and I shudder now, and shrink within myself as I recall it all. But the revelation — for revelation it was — had not yet reached its final stage. Out of the darkness was once more evolved a faint, phosphorescent glow, and in the midst of it appeared the dead body of a beautiful girl with the throat all gashed and bleeding, the red blood flowing in a crimson flood over her night-robe, which only partially concealed her young limbs; and the cruel, spectral hands, dyed with her blood, appeared again, and grasped her, and lifted her, and bore her along. Then that vision faded, and a third appeared. This time I seemed to be looking into a gloomy, damp, arched cave or cellar, and the horror that froze me was intensified as I saw the hands busy preparing a hole in the wall at one end of the cave; and presently they lifted two bodies — the body of the woman, and the body of the young girl — all gory and besmirched; and the hands crushed them into the hole in the wall, and then proceeded to brick them up.

All these things I saw as I have described them, and this I solemnly swear to be the truth as I hope for mercy at the Supreme Judgement.

It was a vision of crime — a vision of merciless, pitiless, damnable murder. How long it all lasted I don’t know. Science has told us that dreams which seem to embrace a long series of years, last but seconds; and in the few moments of consciousness that remain to the drowning man his life’s scroll is unrolled before his eyes. This vision of mine, therefore, may only have lasted seconds, but it seemed to me hours, years, nay, an eternity. With that final stage in the ghostly drama of blood and death, the spell was broken, and flinging my arms wildly about, I know that I uttered a great cry as I sprang up in bed.

“Have I been in the throes of a ghastly nightmare?” I asked myself.

Every detail of the horrific vision I recalled, and yet somehow it seemed to me that I had been the victim of a hideous nightmare. I felt ill; strangely ill. I was wet and clammy with perspiration, and nervous to a degree that I had never before experienced in my existence. Nevertheless, I noted everything distinctly. On the hearthstone there was still a mass of glowing red embers. I heard the distant booming of the sea, and round the house the wind moaned with a peculiar, eerie, creepy sound.

Suddenly I sprang from the bed, impelled thereto by an impulse I was bound to obey, and by the same impulse I was drawn towards the door. I laid my hand on the handle. I turned it, opened the door, and gazed into the long dark corridor. A sigh fell upon my cars. An unmistakable human sigh, in which was expressed an intensity of suffering and sorrow that thrilled me to the heart. I shrank back, and was about to close the door, when out of the darkness was evolved the glowing figure of a woman clad in blood-stained garments and with dishevelled hair. She turned her white corpse-like face towards me, and her eyes pleaded with a pleading that was irresistible, while she pointed the index finger of her left hand downwards, and then beckoned me. Then I followed whither she led. I could no more resist than the unrestrained needle can resist the attracting magnet. Clad only in my night apparel, and with bare feet and legs, I followed the spectre along the corridor, down the broad oak stairs, traversing another passage to the rear of the building until I found myself standing before a heavy barred door. At that moment the spectre vanished, and I retraced my steps like one who walked in a dream. I got back to my bedroom, but how I don’t quite know; nor have I any recollection of getting into bed. Hours afterwards I awoke. It was broad daylight. The horror of the night came back to me with overwhelming force, and made me faint and ill. I managed, however, to struggle through with my toilet, and hurried from that haunted room. It was a beautifully fine morning. The sun was shining brightly, and the birds carolled blithely in every tree and bush. I strolled out on to the lawn, and paced up and down. I was strangely agitated, and asked myself over and over again if what I had seen or dreamed about had any significance.

Presently my host came out. He visibly started as he saw me.

“Hullo, old chap. What’s the matter with you?” he exclaimed. “You look jolly queer; as though you had been having a bad night of it.”

“I have had a bad night.”

His manner became more serious and grave.

“What — seen anything?”

“Yes.”

“The deuce! You don’t mean it, really!”

“Indeed I do. I have gone through a night of horror such as I could not live through again. But let us have breakfast first, and then I will try and make you understand what I have suffered, and you shall judge for yourself whether any significance is to be attached to my dream, or whatever you like to call it.”

We walked, without speaking, into the breakfast room, where my charming hostess greeted me cordially; but she, like her husband, noticed my changed appearance, and expressed alarm and anxiety. I reassured her by saying I had had a rather restless night, and didn’t feel particularly well, but that it was a mere passing ailment. I was unable to partake of much breakfast, and both my good friend and his wife again showed some anxiety, and pressed me to state the cause of my distress. As I could not see any good cause that was to be gained by concealment, and even at the risk of being laughed at by my host, I recounted the experience I had gone through during the night of terror.

So far from my host showing any disposition to ridicule me, as I quite expected he would have done, he became unusually thoughtful, and presently said:

“Either this is a wild phantasy of your own brain, or there is something in it. The door that the ghost of the woman led you to is situated on the top of a flight of stone steps, leading to a vault below the building, which I have never used, and have never even had the curiosity to enter, though I did once go to the bottom of the steps; but the place was so exceedingly suggestive of a tomb that I mentally exclaimed, ‘I’ve no use for this dungeon,’ and so I shut it up, bolted and barred the door, and have never opened it since.”

I answered that the time had come when he must once more descend into that cellar or vault, whatever it was. He asked me if I would accompany him, and, of course, I said I would. So he summoned his head gardener, and after much searching about, the key of the door was found; but even then the door was only opened with difficulty, as lock and key alike were foul with rust.

As we descended the slimy, slippery stone steps, each of us carrying a candle, a rank, mouldy smell greeted us, and a cold noisome atmosphere pervaded the place. The steps led into a huge vault, that apparently extended under the greater part of the building. The roof was arched, and was supported by brick pillars. The floor was the natural earth, and was soft and oozy. The miasma was almost overpowering, notwithstanding that there were ventilating slits in the wall in various places.

We proceeded to explore this vast cellar, and found that there was an air shaft which apparently communicated with the roof of the house; but it was choked with rubbish, old boxes, and the like. The gardener cleared this away, and then, looking up, we could see the blue sky overhead.

Continuing our exploration, we noted that in a recess formed by the angle of the walls was a quantity of bricks and mortar. Under other circumstances this would not, perhaps, have aroused our curiosity or suspicions. But in this instance it did; and we examined the wall thereabouts with painful interest, until the conviction was forced upon us that a space of over a yard in width, and extending from floor to roof, had recently been filled in. I was drawn towards the new brickwork by some subtle magic, some weird fascination. I examined it with an eager, critical, curious interest, and the thoughts that passed through my brain were reflected in the faces of my companions. We looked at each other, and each knew by some unexplainable instinct what was passing in his fellow’s mind.

“It seems to me we are face to face with some mystery,” remarked Dick, solemnly. Indeed, throughout all the years I had known him I had never before seen him so serious. Usually his expression was that of good-humoured cynicism, but now he might have been a judge about to pronounce the doom of death on a red-handed sinner.

“Yes,” I answered, “there is a mystery, unless I have been tricked by my own fancy.”

“Umph! it is strange,” muttered Dick to himself.

“Well, sir,” chimed in the gardener, “you know there have been some precious queer stories going about for a long time. And before you come and took the place plenty of folks round about used to say they’d seen some uncanny sights. I never had no faith in them stories myself; but, after all, maybe there’s truth in ’em.”

Dick picked up half a brick and began to tap the wall with it where the new work was, and the taps gave forth a hollow sound, quite different from the sound produced when the other parts of the wall were struck.

“I say, old chap,” exclaimed my host, with a sorry attempt at a smile, “upon my word, I begin to experience a sort of uncanny kind of feeling. I’ll be hanged if I am not getting as superstitious as you are.”

“You may call me superstitious if you like, but either I have seen what I have seen, or my senses have played the fool with me. Anyway, let us put it to the test.”

“How?”

“By breaking away some of that new brickwork.”

Dick laughed a laugh that wasn’t a laugh, as he asked:

“What do you expect to find?” I hesitated what to say, and he added the answer himself — “Mouldering bones, if your ghostly visitor hasn’t deceived you.”

“Mouldering bones!” I echoed involuntarily.

“Gardener, have you got a crowbar amongst your tools?” Dick asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Go up and get it.”

The man obeyed the command.

“This is a strange sort of business altogether,” Dick continued, after glancing round the vast and gloomy cellar. “But, upon my word, to tell you the truth, I’m half ashamed of myself for yielding to anything like superstition. It strikes me that you’ll find you are the victim of a trick of the imagination, and that these bogey fancies of yours have placed us in rather a ridiculous position.”

In answer to this I could not possibly resist reminding Dick that even scientists admitted that there were certain phenomena — they called them “natural phenomena” — that could not be accounted for by ordinary laws.

Dick shrugged his shoulders and remarked with assumed indifference:

“Perhaps — perhaps it is so.” He proceeded to fill his pipe with tobacco, and having lit it he smoked with a nervous energy quite unusual with him.

The gardener was only away about ten minutes, but it seemed infinitely longer. He brought both a pickaxe and a crowbar with him, and in obedience to his master’s orders he commenced to hack at the wall. A brick was soon dislodged. Then the crowbar was inserted in the hole, and a mass prized out. From the opening came forth a sickening odour, so that we all drew back instinctively, and I am sure we all shuddered, and I saw the pipe fall from Dick’s lips; but he snatched it up quickly and puffed at it vigorously until a cloud of smoke hung in the foetid and stagnant air. Then, picking up a candle from the ground, where it had been placed, he approached the hole, holding the candle in such a position that its rays were thrown into the opening. In a few moments he started back with an exclamation:

“My God! the ghost hasn’t lied,” he said, and I noticed that his face paled. I peered into the hole and so did the gardener, and we both drew back with a start, for sure enough in that recess were decaying human remains.

“This awful business must be investigated,” said Dick. “Come, let us go.”

We needed no second bidding. We were only too glad to quit that place of horror, and get into the fresh air and bright sunlight. We verily felt that we had come up out of a tomb, and we knew that once more the adage, “Murder will out,” had proved true.

Half an hour later Dick and I were driving to the nearest town to lay information of the awful discovery we had made, and the subsequent search carried out by the police brought two skeletons to light. Critical medical examination left not the shadow of a doubt that they were the remains of a woman and a girl, and each had been brutally murdered. Of course it became necessary to hold an inquest, and the police set to work to collect evidence as to the identity of the bodies hidden in the recess in the wall.

Naturally all the stories which had been current for so many years throughout the country were revived, and the gossips were busy in retailing all they had heard, with many additions of their own, of course. But the chief topic was that of the strange disappearance of the wife and daughter of the once owner of the castle, Greeta Jones. This story had been touched upon the previous night, during the after-dinner chat in my host’s smoking room. Morgan, as was remembered, had gambled his fortune away, and married a lady much older than himself, who bore him a daughter who was subject to epileptic fits. When this girl was about twelve she and her mother disappeared from the neighbourhood, and, according to the husband’s account, they had gone to London.

Then he left, and people troubled themselves no more about him and his belongings.

•   •   •

A quarter of a century had passed since that period, and Bleak Hill Castle had gone through many vicissitudes until it fell into the hands of my friend Dick Dirckman. The more the history of Greeta Jones was gone into the more it was made clear that the remains which had been bricked up in the cellar were those of his wife and daughter. That the unfortunate girl and woman had been brutally and barbarously murdered there wasn’t a doubt. The question was, who murdered them? After leaving Wales Greeta Jones — as was brought to light — led a wild life in London. One night, while in a state of intoxication, he was knocked down by a cab, and so seriously injured that he died while being carried to the hospital; and with him his secret, for could there be any reasonable doubt that, even if he was not the actual murderer, he had connived at the crime. But there was reason to believe that he killed his wife and child with his own hand, and that with the aid of a navvy, whose services he bought, he bricked the bodies up in the cellar. It was remembered that a navvy named Howell Williams had been in the habit of going to the castle frequently, and that suddenly he became possessed of what was, for him, a considerable sum of money. For several weeks he drank hard; then, being a single man, he packed up his few belongings and gave out that he was going to California, and all efforts to trace him failed.

So much for this ghastly crime. As to the circumstances that led to its discovery, it was curious that I should have been selected as the medium for bringing it to light. Why it should have been so I cannot and do not pretend to explain. I have recorded facts as they occurred; I leave others to solve the mystery.

It was not a matter for surprise that Mrs. Dirckman should have been deeply affected by the terrible discovery, and she declared to her husband that if she were to remain at the castle she would either go mad or die. And so poor Dick, who was devoted to his charming little wife, got out as soon as he could, and once more Bleak Hill Castle fell into neglect and ultimate ruin, until at last it was razed to the ground and modern buildings reared on its site. As for myself, that night of horror I endured under Dick’s roof affected me to such an extent that my hair became prematurely grey, and even now, when I think of the agony I endured, I shudder with an indefinable sense of fear.

Tales of Terror (1899)

ALICE AND ALICIA

Christabel Coleridge

1900

Times are changed. Now that I am an elderly woman I hear people discuss what used to be called “ghost stories,” with grave faces. Books are written in explanation of them, and people hold serious arguments about the possibility of occurrences which in my young days would have been dismissed with a laugh, or put down with a scolding. They write to the papers about them, and publish their experiences. They talk about them at dinner-parties, and no one seems to think it either silly or profane to do so. If I had ever looked behind the veil I do not think I should publish what I saw. But, then, I never did. I do not believe that anything ever happened to me. I am not sure if anything ever really happened to anyone. If these experts — these men of science — could explain what did happen, I wonder if I should be impelled to ask them, as people go to a doctor or to a confessor to get their bodies or their souls explained to them? But you cannot tell to another soul the thing that dazzles and astounds your own. She could never tell me. But I think I will write down the outside story for my own satisfaction. I should like to read it over and see what it looks like put into definite words. I have left off wanting to forget it. I should like to understand it if I could. Ah, well, that shows that one’s point of view does change with that of other people.

But it is rather like the man who would “peep and botanize upon his mother’s grave,” as Wordsworth says. I suppose it was the discussion about haunted houses and “thought-transference” and “suggestions” at the dinner-party last night that has stirred up the notion. There can be no other reason why my thoughts should have gone back to Hilton just now. But I felt inclined to echo that brown old gentleman — I did not catch his name — who sat silent all through the discussion, and then, when he was asked if he had any experiences to contribute to the conversation, said that he thought the subject mischievous, in a tone that made our hostess change the conversation at once. I wonder what his name was?

The agency for the Hilton estate had been in my family for two or three generations. My father and grandfather were country solicitors of high reputation, who transacted the business of the county. They knew a great many family secrets, and could, if they would, have told many ins and outs of family history. My father and the last Mr. Hilton were close friends, and when Alice was left an orphan and the last direct representative of her family, we came to live at Hilton Grange in order to take care of her. My father was her sole guardian and trustee, and the arrangement was made with all due regard to her interests.

I was very fond of Hilton; it seemed to be almost as much mine as it was Alice’s. I was also very fond of her, and we had a very happy, commonplace sort of girlhood. We had a governess, and went to Wanbury, the nearest town, for dancing and singing lessons, visited the families round, and filled up our time as most young ladies did in the middle of the century. My brothers, who were all younger than we were, went, of course, to school.

I was a year older than Mice, and I was taller and stronger, and also, I may say, prettier — at least at first sight. I was fair and rosy, and full of spirits, and I always took the lead. I admired Alice myself very much. She was a little soft, round thing all in shades of brown, and I used to call her “Squirrel,” and sometimes “Scug.” She had brown hair and eyes and a pale, fine skin. She was shy and idle and dreamy, and did her lessons badly, though she was not at all stupid. She used to wear a brown hat with brown feathers and a red cloak, and I can see her now, that autumn, running about in the woods at Hilton. We were both to come out at the Wanbury Christmas ball. Miss Hilton and Miss Mary Curtis meant to enjoy that occasion, and we talked much about our dresses, and about the Hilton pearls which my father meant to allow Alice to wear for the first time at the ball.

How disjointed all this is, and how little to the point! Now, I will tell the story in a proper way, beginning with a description.

Hilton Grange had been partly rebuilt in the time of Alice’s great-grandfather. The rooms in this part were large and comfortable, but of a very ordinary sort — those at the back were much older and smaller, with low ceilings and steps up and down, and odd little gables and balconies. In these Alice and I slept, and our school-room was a queer little place, with a corner window of which we were fond.

The lawns were smooth and sloping with beautiful trees on them, and there were walled kitchen-gardens and hothouses. My father kept the place in nice order, and sold some of the fruit and vegetables. The farms were all let, and so was the park for grazing purposes.

The house was about half-a-mile from the village of Greenstoke, where we went to church and taught in the Sunday school.

There was only one remarkable thing about Hilton. Beyond the park, and across a wide field, there was a little wood, and in this wood there had once stood a church or chapel, every stone of which had been taken away, but the floor and, I suppose, the foundations remained, outlined by trees and by the undergrowth of the copse. You could see the stone pavement, the slabs with defaced inscriptions, could trace the broken steps which went up to the altar, and the space where the altar had stood. There were one or two raised tombs with mutilated figures on them. Here and there the turf had grown over the pavement, and in spring daffodils — Hilton copse was full of daffodils — pushed up heir heads in between.

The consecrated space was kept neat and smooth, and the gate to the little copse was always locked.

No one seemed to know anything about the church or its fate, and we thought that it had been the private chapel of the place when Hilton was an old manor, and had been done away with at the Reformation. Another view was that this had once been the parish church of Wanbury, but hat a new one had been built in the village, and his had been taken down and the stones used to build the present one. Then again there were deep pools in the wood, and some people thought they had been fish-ponds, and that there had been monks there in old days.

It all began with the ceiling tumbling down in the school-room and in our bedroom one day in September, so that Alice and I had to move into the new part of the house, and we took up our abode in some rooms that looked across the fields to Hilton copse, with its chapel that had been.

I think it must have been on the second evening after we had established ourselves there that, as we were putting on our white muslins and blue sashes in readiness for our half-past-six dinner, Alice said suddenly—

“Mary, do you know if we have got a ghost?”

Alice was a very quiet little person, and she said it exactly as she might have said, “Have you got a pocket-handkerchief?” I started.

“Ghost?” I said. “Here? Do you mean a ghost story? I never heard one. What made you think of such a thing?”

“Well,” she said, “there are stories about a great many old houses, and it came into my head. last night that there might be one about ours.”

“I don’t think mama would like us to think about such a thing,” I said.

“Oh, why not?” said Alice; “of course we shouldn’t believe it.”

We went down to dinner, and presently Alice said quite coolly—

“Mr. Curtis, is Hilton Manor haunted? I mean,” she added, “were there ever any stories told about it? Of course, I know they couldn’t be true,” and she laughed lightly and cheerfully.

There was a longer pause than 1 expected, and then papa said—

“I am unable to say if any foolish stories of that description were ever told in former times, but I should never allow any such to be repeated. Such a reputation in a house is a direct incentive to fraud.”

We were a good deal afraid of my father, and Alice said, “Yes, so it might be,” in a meek voice, and went on eating roast chicken.

“Mr. Curtis,” she said again in a minute, “which of the Hiltons was that girl with the pearl necklace opposite to me?”

“Why, Alice,” said my mother, “how many questions you are asking!”

“I thought I ought to know about our own pictures,” said Alice, still in her simple, cheerful voice. I think it struck my father for the first time that she certainly had a right to ask questions, for he answered at once—

“I think that girl was your great-grandfather’s sister, and I believe she married foolishly, and died when her first child was born.”

“Ah!” said Alice, “she is the prettiest of them all.”

She was. The picture was of a girl with a pearl necklace, and brown hair turned back over a cushion. She was very like Sir Joshua’s well-known Nelly O’Brien. She was like Alice too.

The next morning as we were dressing, Alice said—

“If there is a ghost, I think it is the girl who married foolishly, and I think Hilton chapel has something to do with it.”

“Why?” I said.

“I don’t know, I thought of it in the night,” she answered. “I thought how the chapel used to look. You could see it from this window.”

That morning my father came into the schoolroom and said — “Alice, I think it is time that you did know something about your own property. If you will come into the study, I will show you the list of the pictures, and explain a few things to you.”

Alice jumped up. “Oh, come, Mary,” she said. “Never mind smudging that sky you are doing.”

“It does not concern Mary,” said my father, “but she can come if you like.” We went, and papa showed Alice some papers about the letting of her farms and the control of the estate, and also lists of the pictures and ornaments in the house. There were some leather cases on the table which I had never seen, and papa opened them and showed Alice the old-fashioned jewels and the plate which they contained. There were some beautiful pearls, and among them a necklace which we supposed as the original of that in the girl’s picture.

The girl’s name was Alicia, my father said, and she ran away and married a musician. Alice clasped the pearls round her neck, and seemed unwilling to part with them, when my father proposed to put them away in an iron safe in one of the panels, which he now showed us for the first time.

That afternoon I went to the Rectory, and Alice for some reason stayed behind. I did the business about the school for which I went there, and then played croquet with Ellen and Ethel Graves. Their brother Jack was there, and a friend of his, a Mr. Ashford, a handsome,
pleasant young man who had come to read with the Rector. We had a capital game, and they asked us both to come for another on the next afternoon.

As I came back I met Alice just by the gate that led into the fields. She looked serious.

“Mary,” she said, “I got the key from the farm, and went into the chapel.”

“All by yourself?” I said. “Why did you do that?”

“I felt as if I wished to,” she said. “I thought a great deal about Alicia Hilton who had the pearls. Don’t you think she met her lover down there by the chapel? It would be so quiet.”

“Really I don’t know,” I said. “I suppose she was a naughty girl, or she wouldn’t have run away.”

“I think I should run away,” said Alice, “if Mr. Curtis stopped me from marrying the man I loved.”

“Good gracious, Squirrel!” I exclaimed “What are you thinking of?” She laughed a little.

“I’ve got the key still,” she said. “Come and have another look—”

Well, I went. It was a perfectly still evening, not a breath stirring. The air was warm and misty, with the low sun shining through a haze.

We went into the little wood, and into the clear space that had been the chapel. It had a dreamy look.

Alice looked all round.

“Yes,” she said, “there were walls standing here then, and she came here to meet him. She had a red cloak and a hood over her hair. He sat on that tombstone with a woman’s figure. He came in at the west—”

“Alice! Alice!” I cried. “ Are you making up a story about her? What do you mean?” Alice started.

“It came into my head,” she said. “You shouldn’t talk so loud, Mary. This is a church still.” I felt worried, and I insisted on going back, and dragged Alice away.

I suppose that was how it began.

We went to the Rectory and played croquet, and the Rectory party came to us, and Frank Ashford certainly paid Alice attention. There were a good many little engagements, and we met often. There was nothing unusual about it; I need not tell it in detail. We had what girls now call “a good time.” Alice said no more about the chapel, but I know she went there now and again, and she did not tell me. She said nothing about Alicia Hilton. I did not know then that she dreamed of her often.

After about a fortnight, my mother said to me — “Mary, there mustn’t be too much intercourse with the Rectory. It wouldn’t do at all to have anything between Alice and the pupil. I believe he is the son of a clergyman, and is perhaps going to take Orders; but of course he is not a match for Alice. Mind you are careful.” I coloured up. It was the first time anything of the kind had come before us.

“You know, Mary,” my mother said, “the time is coming when we must remember that Miss Hilton is an important person. It is a great responsibility. But don’t say anything to her.”

I was very silly. I went up into our room and cried, because the idea seemed to separate Alice from me.

Presently she came in and sat down in the window. It was beautiful clear twilight, with the young moon hanging over the chapel wood.

“Mary,” she said, “I’ve been down to the chapel. I sat down on the tombstone, and — perhaps I went to sleep — for I fancied I saw Alicia quite close to me in her red hood. She looked right into my eyes, and made me think inside her instead of in myself, I know all about her.”

“Alice,” I cried, “you will catch cold! How could you be so silly about Alicia Hilton!”

“When I came back,” said Alice, “Mr. Frank Ashford came into the chapel. He had found the door open, and we talked for a little while.”

“Alice! How very improper!” I said angrily. “Mamma wouldn’t like it.”

“I couldn’t help it,” said Alice. She stood up and looked out of the window, then she spoke again.

“Mary,” she said, “I was not asleep when Alicia came. She did come.”

“Nonsense!” I said. “You did not really see her.”

“She was there,” said Alice. “But I don’t now if she was outside me or inside me. She was me!”

I found fault with her grammar. I scolded her, I laughed at her; but I do not know why I never told my mother, either about Alicia or Mr. Frank Ashford.

All this time the rooms with the fallen ceiling were being done up; they needed a great deal of repair, and, in new papering them, a little cupboard was found in the thick wall, and in it an old portfolio. It so happened that the workmen who found it gave it to Alice, and she began to open and examine it at once. Of course she could, it was hers; but last year she would have run with it to papa at once.

It contained a plan of the old house, annotated. Where our new rooms now stood there had been a bedroom with a balcony looking down to the wood, and with a stair down to the garden, which was called “Alicia’s room.” At the side was written in a stiff old hand — “Here she was seen,” and lower down — “It is but a Dream, but I could think I heard her play on the Spinet, Unhappy child!”

“She doesn’t do that now, at any rate,” I said sharply.

“I don’t know,” said Alice; “I heard music once here when I woke in the morning, hut you said it was that organ with a monkey we saw in Queen Street.”

“Nonsense!” I said sharply.

There was also a plan of our new rooms, and we thought that the old ones had been pulled down that the lost Alicia might be forgotten.

I don’t know why the weeks after this till the day of the ball were so odd to me. We did not see quite so much of the Rectory people; but of course we met Frank Ashford occasionally.

He was full of life and go. You could not forget him. Alice left off talking about Alicia; but sometimes she puzzled me. My mother said she was growing up, and coming out very much. Now and then there was a spirit and force about her, and a sparkle in her face quite new to her.

But then, as we knew afterwards, she was in love, and that does alter people. The night of the ball came. We had our white dresses, and I had a snowdrop wreath; but Alice would have some of her pearls twisted in her hair. She turned it back in front, as was then the fashion, and as she clasped the pearl necklace round her throat, she looked very like Alicia’s picture.

She practised curtseys before the looking-glass, spread out her fan, and “bridled,” with smiles, and with a bright colour in her cheeks. I cannot describe it, but she looked at me with eyes that were not her own.

When we came to the ball, some of the great ladies took marked notice of Alice. People were always kind to me, and I had plenty of partners, but for the first time I was made to feel that she was Miss Hilton of Hilton, and of more consequence than Mary Curtis.

Frank Ashford was at the ball, and at first he had to look on, and could see Alice dancing with the most eligible young men in her county; but after the first hour or two, somehow, he got possession of her, and danced with her over and over again. My mother was greatly annoyed, and made many attempts to part them; but she was a shy and unready person, and Alice practically defied her. She looked lovely, but so strange!

I watched her even when I was dancing myself. And when I was coming up from supper, I caught sight of her, in a little side-room off the stairs, where formerly people played at cards. She was alone with Frank Ashford, and I saw him take her in his arms and kiss her.

I suppose the “fuss” that ensued after this ball was just what might have been expected. My father and the Rector acted together. Alice was told that the thing was impossible, and Frank Ashford was sent away to another tutor. Alice cried a great deal. She said little, and my parents thought she gave in. They were much distressed, but they were her sole guardians and responsible to no one for her.

They said very little to me. There was a distance and reserve in their relations with me, perhaps helped by the fact that my companion was not their child, and that they made it a point of honour to treat us both alike.

I did not think that Alice had given in. She did not talk to me, and she did not seem very unhappy; but I knew that she sometimes went to Hilton chapel. One afternoon, when the daffodils were coming out, I was looking for some at the top of the field, and I saw her in her red cloak flit along the bottom of it and disappear through the little gate into the wood.

When I came in, she was in our room, sewing. I asked her what she had been doing in the Chapel wood.

“I haven’t been there,” she said; “I haven’t been out.” She blushed all over her face, and then she turned pale.

“Alice!” I exclaimed, “I saw you! There is no other red cloak in the place. You went into the gate. How can you deny it?”

“I did not, Mary, indeed I did not,” she said. “It was not me!”

I was so angry with her that I turned my back, and would not speak to her. She got up, put on her red cloak and hat, and was out of the room and out of the house in a second, and I saw her run down the field towards the chapel, and I followed her. She was standing alone in the empty space in the soft, bright spring evening. She looked at me with her own eyes, and then she threw herself into my arms and cried.

And yet, of course—of course — it was Alice that I saw in the fields.

I had written so far, sitting in my little drawing-room, when I stopped, for my eyes were full of tears. I had not yet resolved to go on, when a visitor, whose name I did not catch, was announced, and as I started up I saw the handsome, brown-faced, elderly gentleman whom I had met at dinner on the night before.

“Miss Curtis,” he said, “you don’t remember me?”

“Frank Ashford!” I exclaimed, for suddenly I did remember him. I don’t know how we got over the meeting, or what he said, except that he told me that he had been abroad, had made money, had married, and had several children.

“But when I saw you, Miss Curtis, I recalled that one brief winter at Greenstoke, when we were all so young and so foolish — that boy and girl dream — made sacred by its sad conclusion.”

I had been very angry with him, or rather with his memory; but somehow as he sat there with his bronzed face and his grey moustaches, the long years between seemed to soften the old feelings. I answered indirectly.

“We went away — afterwards,” I said. “You know her distant cousin, Eustace Hilton, sold the place. Since my parents died I have travelled, and then I settled here.”

“I really do not know,” said Mr. Ashford, mildly and sadly, “how the sad end came.”

“When my parents knew that you still met her at the chapel, they settled to take us abroad.”

“I only met her once at the chapel, after the ball,” he said. “We parted, and I told her that I would wait and win her. I was not twenty-one.”

“Only once!” I said; “she went there very often, and at last—”

“Yes, at last? What happened at last?”

“When we were going away she once made a scene. She spoke as Alice never used to speak, and told them that it was in vain to try to change her. Then she went, as she often did in the evening, to the wood. I ran after her. She was not there, and I went on and called her. I went to the edge of the pool — I thought as I went I saw her before me, through the trees. I saw her red cloak, as I thought, flitting along. Then — then I saw it — really — in the water But she had been reaching after the daffodils. They were scattered on the water. That was all we knew. She fell in, you know, trying to pick them.”

He looked infinitely troubled and sad, with the distant sadness of a bygone grief. And I too! Till yesterday I had not really thought often of Alice. Forty years is a very long time.

“It was sad and mad,” he said presently, “and very sweet, but it was not very bad. We were over head and ears in love — and her death was an awful blow. We met certainly sometimes, before I left the Rectory. Sometimes she was shy — sometimes full of play and mischief. Sweet Alice! Poor Alice! The pool made a tragedy of the idyll.”

“I am glad she told me the truth about you,” I said. “What else did she tell you?” he said.

“I think she must have told me the truth,” I repeated. “What did she tell you?”

“We had a talk once. She declared that she saw Alicia Hilton. She thought so much of her. She looked so like her. After she began to go to the chapel, there were times when she was so different — from Alice. I suppose it was being in love. She said — strange things. I do not know what she meant—”

I stopped, and he did not answer. I don’t know if he at all understood — if she had told him. I think not. He told me nothing, and I had nothing more to tell him, for she never told me. Perhaps she inherited a rash spirit from Alicia. If such did enter into her — I mean, come out in her — it deserted her at last. It was just like my Alice to pick the flowers “for remembrance.” She would never really have run away.

“Alice,” said Frank Ashford as he went away, “was as pure as crystal and as good as gold.” Yes, I think she always told the truth. I don’t think it was Alice that I saw in the red cloak that evening in the field.

The Professional and Other Psychic Stories (1900)

THE HOUSE THAT WAS LOST

Tom Gallon

1908

The events I set down here occurred some three years ago, and I write of them now with as much wonderment as I regarded them then. Let me say at the outset that I have puzzled and puzzled over the mystery, and have arrived at no actual solution of it, nor do I know whether any solution will ever be arrived at, or whether, even if such is the case, I shall ever hear of it.

I am a commercial clerk, earning a small salary sufficient to keep my wife and two children and myself in modest comfort. My name is Paul Jenner, and I live at No. ———, Drawbridge Crescent, — Well, never mind the precise locality. I give you these particulars in order that you may understand that I am a very ordinary and commonplace person, not given to romancing. I want you to understand that I am setting down in bald and simple language what actually happened to me on a certain night in January three years ago.

It was on a Saturday night, and I had, as usual, come home on that day from the City early in the afternoon. It had been a black and foggy day, and I remember that the gas had been lighted in the streets and in the office where I worked from early morning. The fog was very bad at the time I returned home, and I congratulated myself on the fact that I had not to go out again that night. I sat with my wife and the two children in our little sitting-room all the evening, with that comfortable feeling that I was my own master until Monday morning, and that I need trouble about nothing outside the house. In due course the children went to bed, and then it was Mary reminded me of a letter that must be written and posted that night. Sufficient is it for me to say that the letter was to an elderly relative of some means who lived in the country, and who had taken great interest in the children. My wife (prudent woman) remembered that the following day was the birthday of this relative, and that she should receive proper greeting by the Sunday morning post in the country town in which she lived.

Frankly, I did not want the bother of it, but Mary always knows best in these matters, and so I wrote my note and sealed it up. Let me add here that I had read nothing exciting during the evening — nothing to stir my imagination in any way.

I stamped the letter and proceeded to the front door. Judge of my astonishment when, on throwing it open, I saw nothing but the grey wall of fog coming up to the very house; even the railings, not ten yards in front of our little house, were blotted out completely, I called softly back into the house to my wife to come and look.

“Don’t lose yourself, Paul,” she said, half laughing. “What a terrible night!”

“I shan’t lose myself” I replied, laughing in turn. “The pillar-box is only at the end of the crescent, if I stick to the railings, I can’t possibly miss it. Don’t wait here,” I added solicitously. “I’ll leave the door ajar, so that I can slip in easily when I come back. I’ve left my keys on my writing desk.”

Mary went in, and I pulled the door close, and then stepped out boldly for the front gate. Imagine me standing there, just outside my own gate, and with my back to the crescent, knowing that I had to go to the left to find the pillar-box which was at the end of the crescent. There are nine houses, and mine is the third, so that I knew I had to pass six more before reaching the pillar-box. I knew also that the gate of each house had an ornamental centrepiece standing up above it, and that I must touch six of those ornamental centrepieces before I stepped away from the crescent at the end to reach the pillar-box. That I knew would be something of an adventure, for the fog was the densest I have ever seen; I could only see the faint glow of the lamp in the centre of the crescent above me when I came opposite to the lamp-post; the post itself was invisible.

I counted the six gates, and then stood at the end of the last line of railings. I knew that the pillar-box was exactly opposite me. I took three quick steps, and literally cannoned into it. I was a little proud of my own judgement in getting it so nicely. Then I fumbled for the mouth of it, and dropped in my letter.

All this may sound very commonplace and ordinary, but you shall hear what followed. I am an observant man, and I had noticed always that the mouth of the pillar-box faced directly along the crescent, thus standing at right angles to the road. At the moment that I had my right hand in that mouth, therefore, I argued that if I stood out at the stretch of my arm I must be facing the crescent; I had but to move straight forward again to touch the friendly railings. I was putting that plan into operation, and had let go of the mouth of the pillar-box, when a man, coming hurriedly round the corner, ran straight into me, muttered a gruff apology, and was lost in the fog again in a moment. And in that accidental collision he had spun me round and tossed me aside — and I was lost!

That is literally true. I took a step and found myself slipping off the kerbstone into the road; stumbled back again, and strove to find my way along by sticking to the edge of the pavement. After a minute or two I was so sure of myself that I ventured to cross the pavement, and by great good luck touched in a moment one of those ornamental centrepieces of one of the gates — or so, at least, it seemed. I went on with renewed confidence until I saw certain bushes which topped the railings of one particular house, and then I knew that the next house must be mine. I pushed open the gate with confidence, stepped quickly up the little path, and reached the door. I was right; the door yielded to my touch, and I went hurriedly in.

I had taken off my hat, and had held it towards the familiar hat-stand before I realized that it was not a familiar hat-stand at all; it was one I did not know. I looked round in some confusion, meaning to make good my escape without being observed, and yet wondering into what house I could have come so near my own, when I stopped stock still, with the hat held in my hand, listening. From a room near at hand I heard the sound of a low, long-drawn moan, as from someone in pain. More than that, it was almost the wail of someone in acute terror.

Now l am a mild and inoffensive man, and I confess that my first instinct was to fly. There was the door within a foot of me; I could open it again noiselessly and slip out, and leave whoever was moaning to his or her own trouble. My next instinct, however, was a braver one; I might be able to help. Putting my hat on, and so leaving my hands free, I moved cautiously towards the sound, which was coming intermittently.

I found that the house was built in exactly the same fashion that mine was; there was the same number of steps leading to a room downstairs, which in my case was used as a playroom for the children. I went down these steps slowly and cautiously, with my flesh creeping a little, I must admit, as that weird moaning went on, and almost inclined to turn back with every step I took. But at last I got into the basement, and came to the door of the room from which the sound proceeded. I was in the very act of recklessly thrusting open the door when another sound broke upon my ears that held me still. The sound of someone singing in a raucous voice.

It was a sea song I remembered to have heard when a boy, and the words of which I have forgotten; it was something about “Blow the man down”. The door of the room was open a little way, and through the crack of it I was able to peer in; and there I saw a sight that for a moment made me doubt my own eyes. I remember that I rubbed my eyes in a stupid way and looked again, and this is what I saw:

The room was in a neglected state, with strips of wallpaper hanging down from the walls and with a blackened ceiling. There was a table in the centre of it, and at that table a man was seated, with a square black bottle and a glass before him, and a candle burning near his left hand. I can see the whole room now as plainly and as clearly as I saw it then. He was a man so villainously ugly that I had a thought that he was not a man at all, but some hideous thing out of a nightmare. He had very long arms — so long that they were stretched across the table, and his hands gripped the opposite edge of it, a great heavy head, crowned with a mass of red hair, was set low between enormously broad shoulders; his eyes, half closed, were high up and close together on either side of a nose that was scarcely a nose at all; the lips were thick and heavy.

But it was not the man that I looked at first, it was at two other figures in the room. These figures were seated on chairs facing the table at which the man was, and the strangeness of them lay in the fact that each was securely bound to the chair on which he and she sat, for it was a man and a woman. The man, who was quite young was not only bound, but gagged securely also; the woman was more lightly tied to her chair by the arms only, and her mouth was free. She was leaning back, with her eyes closed, and it was from her lips that that strange wailing sound was coming, and mingling with the raucous singing of the man at the table. My first impression was that the man at the table was some sort of unclean, bestial judge, and the others his prisoners.

He stopped his singing to pour some liquor from the square bottle into his glass and to drink it off then he resumed his former attitude, with his fingers locked over the edge of the table. And now I noticed that while the woman, who was, by the way, quite young and very pretty, with a fair, dainty prettiness, still kept her eyes closed, the eyes of the bound man never left that dreadful figure seated at the other side of the table.

“Wouldn’t you like to speak, you dog?” said the red-haired man. “What would you give now to have the use of your limbs — the free wagging of your tongue? What would you say to me; what would you do to me?”

The man who was bound could, of course, answer nothing. I saw his face flush and darken, and I guessed what his thoughts were. For myself I was too fascinated by the scene before me to do anything else than peer through the crack and watch what was going on.

“Lovers — eh?” exclaimed the man at the table. “You thought I was unsuspicious; you thought I knew nothing and suspected nothing — didn’t you? While I was safely out of the way you could meet, the pair of you — day after day, and week after week, and this puppy could steal from me what was mine by right.”

The woman opened her eyes for the first time and spoke. “It isn’t true,” she said, a sob breaking her voice. “It was all innocent. Dick and I have done no wrong.”

“You lie!” thundered the man, bringing his fist down upon the table with a blow that might have split it “You’ve always lied — lied from the moment your father gave you to me — from the very hour I married you. You always hated me; I’ve seen you shudder many and many a time at the mere sight of me. Don’t I know it; haven’t I felt you stab me a thousand times more deeply than you could have stabbed me with any weapon? You white devil! I’ve come at last to hate you as much as you hate me.”

The woman turned her head slowly and looked at the younger man; a faint smile crossed her lips. In an instant the red-haired man had leapt to his feet, showing me astonishingly enough that he was a dwarf with the shortest legs surely ever a man had. But the bulk of him was enormous, and I could guess, with a shudder, at his strength. He caught up the glass, crossed the room, and flung the contents in the face of the man.

“It’s a waste of good liquor — but that’s for the look she gave you. I wish there was some death more horrible than any invented yet that I could deal out to you,” he added, standing with the glass in his hand and glaring at his victim. “The death I mean for you is too easy.”

He walked across to the fireplace in a curious purposeless way, and stirred a great fire that was blazing there. Then from a corner of the room he dragged with ease a great sack that appeared to contain wood and shavings; so much I saw in a rent in the side of it. This he dropped down near the fire, as if in readiness for something, and then went back to his seat, applying himself again to the drink that was on the table. And still I watched, as a man may watch a play, wondering how it will end.

“I got the best of you tonight,” he said presently. “You might have been too much for me if I hadn’t come upon you from behind; but I was ready and waiting. I’ve been watching longer than you think, I had everything mapped out clearly days ago. Tonight sees the end of all things for the pair of you; tomorrow sees me miles away from here. You came in secret, you dog — you’ll go in secret.”

“We have done no wrong,” said the woman again. “We loved each other years ago, when we were boy and girl; there was no sin in that.”

“Bah! — I don’t believe a word of it. Don’t I know that in your black heart you’ve compared the two of us every day of your life since first I saw you. His straightness for my crookedness; his sleek, black hair for my red; his prettiness for this face of mine” — he struck his own face relentlessly with one hand as he spoke — “that women shudder at. Don’t I know all that?”

It was the strangest and most pitiful thing that the creature sitting there before his victims suddenly covered his face with his hands and groaned. If ever I had seen a soul in torment, I saw it then, and though I loathed him I could have wept for him. After a moment or two he dropped his hands and seized the bottle, and poured out the last drops into the glass and drank them off; then flung the bottle and glass crashing into the fireplace, as though there was an end to that business. And now, as he got down again from the chair, I saw the eyes of the woman open wide and follow his every movement with a dreadful look of terror in them.

“I’ll kill you both — here in the place where you’ve met — and then I’ll fire the house,” went on the dwarf “I’ve planned it all. Look your last on each other, for tonight you die — and this house shall be your funeral pyre!”

“I swear to you,” panted the woman eagerly, “by all I hold most holy and most dear, that if you’ll let us go, we’ll never see each other again. For pity’s sake! — for the sake of Dick!”

“For the sake of Dick!” sneered the dwarf. “That shows you in your true colours; that shows who you are and what you are. There’s one poor satisfaction left to you; you’ll die together.”

What held me then it would be impossible to say. I can only plead that in the dreadful thing that followed I was as a man who sits at a play, wondering what will happen next, and with never a thought in him of interfering. I think in my anxiety I had pressed open the door a little to get a dearer view, so that I saw every movement of the dwarf For myself, I had forgotten everything — my own home, and my wife, and the babies who slept in their quiet room above. It was as though I had stepped straight into a new world.

I saw the dwarf advance towards the man in the chair, carrying his right hand stiff and straight beside him, gripping something, I could not tell what it was that he held. I saw him come straight at him, and I saw the eyes of the woman in the opposite chair watching him as one fascinated. Then I saw two movements; one with the left hand of the dwarf, when he struck the other man on the face; then with the right hand, when he raised something that gleamed in the light of the candle and brought it down with a sound that was new and horrible to me on the breast of the other man. And I saw the face of the man change, and start as it were into new life, and then fall as it were into death. And I saw his head drop forward, and his eyes were closed.

Then, above it all, and yet seeming as a sort of dreadful chorus to it all, rang out the scream from the woman in the other chair. I do not think that the dwarf heard it, he had drawn back from what had been the living man, and was staring like one mad upon what he had done. And still piercing the air of the place rang the scream of the woman — not for her lover alone, but for herself.

That sound seemed at last to break in upon the senses of the dwarf and to call him partially to himself. I had watched him to the point where he drew himself together and crouched like a wild beast ready to spring, with that in his hand that dripped red, when, in some fashion, I flung myself round the partially open door and stumbled into the room. I think I must have been a little mad myself; otherwise, frail and commonplace creature that I was, I could not have battled with this madman. I came upon him from behind and gripped him, seizing him by the throat and by the head, and all the while shouting something to him quite unintelligible.

The attack had been so sudden and so unexpected that I had him, in a sense, at my mercy. He could not know who had attacked him; he struggled madly, not alone to get away from me, but also to discover who I was. I struggled to keep his face away from me, gripped him by the neck and by the hair, and fought with him for what I knew then was my own life. And so struggling we stumbled at last horribly against that still figure bound in the chair and brought it over crashing with us to the floor. And then in a sudden I felt the dwarf inert in my hands, and knew that I had conquered.

What I must have looked like in that room, kneeling there, panting and struggling to get my breath, I cannot now tell; the whole business was so like a nightmare. I remember seeing the dwarf lying there — huddled up and very still. I remember that other figure, bound grotesquely in the chair and lying, still bound, upon its side; and I remember, too, the woman, with her arms close fastened behind her, sitting there and sobbing wildly.

The dwarf must have been stunned, he lay there quite still, with the knife that was dreadfully red fallen from his hand, and lying beside him.

When at last I staggered to my knees I saw that the girl was staring at me with a face that seemed to suggest that here, perhaps, was another ruffian come to kill her.

“Who — who are you?” she asked in a frightened whisper.

“A friend — one who stumbled in by accident,” I panted.

“Look at the man that’s tied to the chair,” she whispered hoarsely. “He can’t be dead.”

I knew that he was, but still I looked, as she bade me. I had no need to look twice; the poor fellow was quite dead. The blow had been strong and sure. On my knees beside him, I looked up and nodded slowly to her, there was no need for words.

She leaned back in her chair again and closed her eyes. “Set me free,” she said in a faint voice.

I could not touch that knife that lay there; in a mechanical, methodical way I took from my waistcoat pocket the decent, respectable little bone-handled penknife I carried always with me. With that I cut her bonds, noting as I did so how cruelly they had cut into the white flesh; and after a moment or two she swung her arms listlessly against her sides and opened her eyes, and then, with an effort raised her hands and pressed them against her temples.

“What will you do?” I asked, looking at her curiously.

“I — I don’t know,” she said; and then, breaking into weeping, sobbed out “Oh — dear God — that it should have come to this! What shall I do — what shall I do?”

“You must get away,” I said, watching the dwarf, who was beginning to stir a little. “If he wakes, you know what will happen.”

“I know — I know,” she said; and got to her feet and began to move towards that bound figure still lying tied to the chair.

But at that I got before her, and with my hands against her shoulders held her back, and pleaded passionately to her that she should go, and leave the dead alone. She listened, with that strange look in her eyes of a child wakened from sleep and not clearly understanding, but she yielded to me, and stumbled under my guidance to the door.

We had reached it, and I had opened it for her to pass out, when suddenly the dwarf twisted over on to his hands and knees, and then raised himself upright He did not seem to realize for a moment what had happened; then he caught sight of the woman, and, with a snarl, crawled forward and gripped the hilt of the knife. At that she pushed suddenly past me and fled like a hare up the stairs. I heard the swift passage of her footsteps in the little hall of the house — then the slamming of the outer door. And now a quick break from the story. It should be clear that whoever published this tale did not take the time or effort to do it correctly and to check all the text. And now I had to look to myself, for I saw in the eyes of the man that he would not let this witness escape if he could catch him. I had managed to get through the door by the time that he had got to his feet, and in a dazed fashion was stumbling towards me, knife in hand. With a sudden swoop he reached the table and blew out the candle, and at the same moment I ran up the stairs, and in the darkness stumbled along the hall and fumbled with the catch of the door. By great good fortune I got the door open, and literally fell out into the fog.

I could not see him as he tore after me; in a faintness I had fallen to my knees, and I heard him, as he raced past me, panting heavily. Then the fog swallowed him up, and I knelt there on the pavement alone, shaking from head to foot

I had, of course, no means of knowing exactly which house it was in which I had had my adventure; I could only judge roughly that it must be about the middle of the crescent. I started along again, in the right direction, as I hoped, and thought to find my own house; missed the railings, after going what seemed to be an interminable distance, and came up hard against a pillar-box. Scarcely knowing what I did, I set my right hand in the mouth of it, and performed the same manoeuvre I had done before; advanced three paces, and touched railings again. Stumbling along these, I came blindly to a house that I thought might be mine, walked up the path, and pushed open a door that yielded; and there, with the face of my Mary looking at me in alarm and wonderment, I fell in a dead faint at her feet.

•   •   •

It has to be recorded that I never found the house again. I know everyone that lives in Drawbridge Crescent — all highly respectable people, of humdrum lives. Over and over again, in clear weather, I have walked to that pillar-box and have closed my eyes, and have tried to remember what steps I took on that particular night, after a stranger had cannoned into me and twisted me round, but all in vain. Whether in some house in some other road nearby lies the body of a man who was foully murdered on that particular night; or whether in one of the innocent- looking houses of the Crescent itself the crime was committed; or whether, in some strange supernatural fashion, I saw that night a deed committed that had been committed long before, I shall never know. That it is no mere figment of the imagination, and that something really happened that night, is proved by one fact. My wife, in raising me from the floor that night when I fell at her feet, found my fingers locked close upon something, and, forcing them open, disclosed what it was.

A tuft of red hair!

“The Story-teller” magazine, Jun. 1908

THE KIT-BAG

Algernon Blackwood

1908

When the words “Not Guilty” sounded through the crowded courtroom that dark December afternoon, Arthur Wilbraham, the great criminal K.C., and leader for the triumphant defence, was represented by his junior; but Johnson, his private secretary, carried the verdict across to his chambers like lightning.

“It’s what we expected, I think,” said the barrister, without emotion; “and, personally, I am glad the case is over.” There was no particular sign of pleasure that his defence of John Turk, the murderer, on a plea of insanity, had been successful, for no doubt he felt, as everybody who had watched the face felt, that no man had ever better deserved the gallows.

“I’m glad too,” said Johnson. He had sat in the court for ten days watching the face of the man who had carried out with callous detail one of the most brutal and cold-blooded murders of recent years.

The counsel glanced up at his secretary. They were more than employer and employed; for family and other reasons, they were friends. “Ah, I remember, yes,” he said with a kind smile, “and you want to get away for Christmas. You’re going to skate and ski in the Alps, aren’t you? If I was your age I’d come with you.”

Johnson laughed shortly. He was a young man of twenty-six, with a delicate face like a girl’s. “I can catch the morning boat now,” he said; “but that’s not the reason I’m glad the trial is over. I’m glad it’s over because I’ve seen the last of that man’s dreadful face. It positively haunted me. That white skin, with the black hair brushed low over the forehead, is a thing I shall never forget, and the description of the way the dismembered body was crammed and packed with lime into that—”

“Don’t dwell on it, my dear fellow,” interrupted the other, looking at him curiously out of his keen eyes, “don’t think about it. Such pictures have a trick of coming back when one least wants them.” He paused a moment. “Now go,” he added presently, “and enjoy your holiday. I shall want all your energy for my Parliamentary work when you get back. And don’t break your neck skiing.”

Johnson shook hands and took his leave. At the door he turned suddenly.

“I knew there was something I wanted to ask you,” he said. “Would you mind lending me one of your kit-bags? It’s too late to get one tonight, and I leave in the morning before the shops are open.”

“Of course; I’ll send Henry over with it to your rooms. You shall have it the moment I get home.”

“I promise to take great care of it,” said Johnson gratefully, delighted to think that within thirty hours he would be nearing the brilliant sunshine of the high Alps in winter. The thought of that criminal court was like an evil dream in his mind.

He dined at his club and went on to Bloomsbury, where he occupied the top floor in one of those old, gaunt houses in which the rooms are large and lofty. The floor below his own was vacant and unfurnished, and below that were other lodgers whom he did not know. It was cheerless, and he looked forward heartily to a change. The night was even more cheerless: it was miserable, and few people were about. A cold, sleety rain was driving down the streets before the keenest east wind he had ever felt. It howled dismally among the big, gloomy houses of the great squares, and when he reached his rooms he heard it whistling and shouting over the world of black roofs beyond his windows.

In the hall he met his landlady, shading a candle from the draughts with her thin hand. “This come by a man from Mr Wilbr’im’s, sir.”

She pointed to what was evidently the kit-bag, and Johnson thanked her and took it upstairs with him. “I shall be going abroad in the morning for ten days, Mrs Monks,” he said. “I’ll leave an address for letters.”

“And I hope you’ll ’ave a merry Christmas, sir,” she said, in a raucous, wheezy voice that suggested spirits, “and better weather than this.”

“I hope so too,” replied her lodger, shuddering a little as the wind went roaring down the street outside.

When he got upstairs he heard the sleet volleying against the window panes. He put his kettle on to make a cup of hot coffee, and then set about putting a few things in order for his absence. “And now I must pack — such as my packing is,” he laughed to himself, and set to work at once.

He liked the packing, for it brought the snow mountains so vividly before him, and made him forget the unpleasant scenes of the past ten days. Besides, it was not elaborate in nature. His friend had lent him the very thing — a stout canvas kit-bag, sack-shaped, with holes round the neck for the brass bar and padlock. It was a bit shapeless, true, and not much to look at, but its capacity was unlimited, and there was no need to pack carefully. He shoved in his waterproof coat, his fur cap and gloves, his skates and climbing boots, his sweaters, snow-boots, and ear-caps; and then on the top of these he piled his woollen shirts and underwear, his thick socks, puttees, and knickerbockers. The dress-suit came next, in case the hotel people dressed for dinner, and then, thinking of the best way to pack his white shirts, he paused a moment to reflect. “That’s the worst of these kit-bags,” he mused vaguely, standing in the centre of the sitting-room, where he had come to fetch some string.

It was after ten o’clock. A furious gust of wind rattled the windows as though to hurry him up, and he thought with pity of the poor Londoners whose Christmas would be spent in such a climate, whilst he was skimming over snowy slopes in bright sunshine, and dancing in the evening with rosy-cheeked girls — Ah! that reminded him; he must put in his dancing-pumps and evening socks. He crossed over from his sitting-room to the cupboard on the landing where he kept his linen.

And as he did so he heard someone coming up the stairs. He stood still a moment on the landing to listen. It was Mrs Monks’s step, he thought; she must be coming up with the last post. But then the steps ceased suddenly, and he heard no more. They were at least two flights down, and he came to the conclusion they were too heavy to be those of his bibulous landlady. No doubt they belonged to a late lodger who had mistaken his floor. He went into his bedroom and packed his pumps and dress-shirts as best he could.

The kit-bag by this time was two-thirds full, and stood upright on its own base like a sack of flour. For the first time he noticed that it was old and dirty, the canvas faded and worn, and that it had obviously been subjected to rather rough treatment. It was not a very nice bag to have sent him — certainly not a new one, or one that his chief valued. He gave the matter a passing thought, and went on with his packing. Once or twice, however, he caught himself wondering who it could have been wandering down below, for Mrs Monks had not come up with letters, and the floor was empty and unfurnished. From time to time, moreover, he was almost certain he heard a soft tread of someone padding about over the bare boards — cautiously, stealthily, as silently as possible — and, further, that the sounds had been lately coming distinctly nearer.

For the first time in his life he began to feel a little creepy. Then, as though to emphasize this feeling, an odd thing happened: as he left the bedroom, having just packed his recalcitrant white shirts, he noticed that the top of the kit-bag lopped over towards him with an extraordinary resemblance to a human face. The canvas fell into a fold like a nose and forehead, and the brass rings for the padlock just filled the position of the eyes. A shadow — or was it a travel stain? for he could not tell exactly — looked like hair. It gave him rather a turn, for it was so absurdly, so outrageously, like the face of John Turk, the murderer.

He laughed, and went into the front room, where the light was stronger.

“That horrid case has got on my mind,” he thought; “I shall be glad of a change of scene and air.” In the sitting-room, however, he was not pleased to hear again that stealthy tread upon the stairs, and to realize that it was much closer than before, as well as unmistakably real. And this time he got up and went out to see who it could be creeping about on the upper staircase at so late an hour.

But the sound ceased; there was no one visible on the stairs. He went to the floor below, not without trepidation, and turned on the electric light to make sure that no one was hiding in the empty rooms of the unoccupied suite. There was not a stick of furniture large enough to hide a dog. Then he called over the banisters to Mrs Monks, but there was no answer, and his voice echoed down into the dark vault of the house, and was lost in the roar of the gale that howled outside. Everyone was in bed and asleep — everyone except himself and the owner of this soft and stealthy tread.

“My absurd imagination, I suppose,” he thought. “It must have been the wind after all, although — it seemed so very real and close, I thought.” He went back to his packing. It was by this time getting on towards midnight. He drank his coffee up and lit another pipe — the last before turning in.

It is difficult to say exactly at what point fear begins, when the causes of that fear are not plainly before the eyes. Impressions gather on the surface of the mind, film by film, as ice gathers upon the surface of still water, but often so lightly that they claim no definite recognition from the consciousness. Then a point is reached where the accumulated impressions become a definite emotion, and the mind realizes that something has happened. With something of a start, Johnson suddenly recognized that he felt nervous — oddly nervous; also, that for some time past the causes of this feeling had been gathering slowly in his mind, but that he had only just reached the point where he was forced to acknowledge them.

It was a singular and curious malaise that had come over him, and he hardly knew what to make of it. He felt as though he were doing something that was strongly objected to by another person, another person, moreover, who had some right to object. It was a most disturbing and disagreeable feeling, not unlike the persistent promptings of conscience: almost, in fact, as if he were doing something he knew to be wrong. Yet, though he searched vigorously and honestly in his mind, he could nowhere lay his finger upon the secret of this growing uneasiness, and it perplexed him. More, it distressed and frightened him.

“Pure nerves, I suppose,” he said aloud with a forced laugh. “Mountain air will cure all that! Ah,” he added, still speaking to himself, “and that reminds me — my snow-glasses.”

He was standing by the door of the bedroom during this brief soliloquy, and as he passed quickly towards the sitting-room to fetch them from the cupboard he saw out of the corner of his eye the indistinct outline of a figure standing on the stairs, a few feet from the top. It was someone in a stooping position, with one hand on the banisters, and the face peering up towards the landing. And at the same moment he heard a shuffling footstep. The person who had been creeping about below all this time had at last come up to his own floor. Who in the world could it be? And what in the name of Heaven did he want?

Johnson caught his breath sharply and stood stock still. Then, after a few seconds’ hesitation, he found his courage, and turned to investigate. The stairs, he saw to his utter amazement, were empty; there was no one. He felt a series of cold shivers run over him, and something about the muscles of his legs gave a little and grew weak. For the space of several minutes he peered steadily into the shadows that congregated about the top of the staircase where he had seen the figure, and then he walked fast — almost ran, in fact — into the light of the front room; but hardly had he passed inside the doorway when he heard someone come up the stairs behind him with a quick bound and go swiftly into his bedroom. It was a heavy, but at the same time a stealthy footstep — the tread of somebody who did not wish to be seen. And it was at this precise moment that the nervousness he had hitherto experienced leaped the boundary line, and entered the state of fear, almost of acute unreasoning fear. Before it turned into terror there was a further boundary to cross, and beyond that again lay the region of pure horror. Johnson’s position was an unenviable one.

“By Jove! That was someone on the stairs, then,” he muttered, his flesh crawling all over; “and whoever it was has now gone into my bedroom.” His delicate, pale face turned absolutely white, and for some minutes he hardly knew what to think or do. Then he realized intuitively that delay only set a premium upon fear; and he crossed the landing boldly and went straight into the other room, where, a few seconds before, the steps had disappeared.

“Who’s there? Is that you, Mrs Monks?” he called aloud, as he went, and heard the first half of his words echo down the empty stairs, while the second half fell dead against the curtains in a room that apparently held no other human figure than his own.

“Who’s there?” he called again, in a voice unnecessarily loud and that only just held firm. “What do you want here?”

The curtains swayed very slightly, and, as he saw it, his heart felt as if it almost missed a beat; yet he dashed forward and drew them aside with a rush. A window, streaming with rain, was all that met his gaze. He continued his search, but in vain; the cupboards held nothing but rows of clothes, hanging motionless; and under the bed there was no sign of anyone hiding. He stepped backwards into the middle of the room, and, as he did so, something all but tripped him up. Turning with a sudden spring of alarm he saw — the kit-bag.

“Odd!” he thought. “That’s not where I left it!” A few moments before it had surely been on his right, between the bed and the bath; he did not remember having moved it. It was very curious. What in the world was the matter with everything? Were all his senses gone queer? A terrific gust of wind tore at the windows, dashing the sleet against the glass with the force of small gunshot, and then fled away howling dismally over the waste of Bloomsbury roofs. A sudden vision of the Channel next day rose in his mind and recalled him sharply to realities.

“There’s no one here at any rate; that’s quite clear!” he exclaimed aloud. Yet at the time he uttered them he knew perfectly well that his words were not true and that he did not believe them himself. He felt exactly as though someone was hiding close about him, watching all his movements, trying to hinder his packing in some way. “And two of my senses,” he added, keeping up the pretence, “have played me the most absurd tricks: the steps I heard and the figure I saw were both entirely imaginary.”

He went back to the front room, poked the fire into a blaze, and sat down before it to think. What impressed him more than anything else was the fact that the kit-bag was no longer where he had left it. It had been dragged nearer to the door.

What happened afterwards that night happened, of course, to a man already excited by fear, and was perceived by a mind that had not the full and proper control, therefore, of the senses. Outwardly, Johnson remained calm and master of himself to the end, pretending to the very last that everything he witnessed had a natural explanation, or was merely delusions of his tired nerves. But inwardly, in his very heart, he knew all along that someone had been hiding downstairs in the empty suite when he came in, that this person had watched his opportunity and then stealthily made his way up to the bedroom, and that all he saw and heard afterwards, from the moving of the kit-bag to — well, to the other things this story has to tell — were caused directly by the presence of this invisible person.

And it was here, just when he most desired to keep his mind and thoughts controlled, that the vivid pictures received day after day upon the mental plates exposed in the courtroom of the Old Bailey, came strongly to light and developed themselves in the dark room of his inner vision. Unpleasant, haunting memories have a way of coming to life again just when the mind least desires them — in the silent watches of the night, on sleepless pillows, during the lonely hours spent by sick and dying beds. And so now, in the same way, Johnson saw nothing but the dreadful face of John Turk, the murderer, lowering at him from every corner of his mental field of vision; the white skin, the evil eyes, and the fringe of black hair low over the forehead. All the pictures of those ten days in court crowded back into his mind unbidden, and very vivid.

“This is all rubbish and nerves,” he exclaimed at length, springing with sudden energy from his chair. “I shall finish my packing and go to bed. I’m overwrought, overtired. No doubt, at this rate I shall hear steps and things all night!”

But his face was deadly white all the same. He snatched up his field-glasses and walked across to the bedroom, humming a music-hall song as he went — a trifle too loud to be natural; and the instant he crossed the threshold and stood within the room something turned cold about his heart, and he felt that every hair on his head stood up.

The kit-bag lay close in front of him, several feet nearer to the door than he had left it, and just over its crumpled top he saw a head and face slowly sinking down out of sight as though someone were crouching behind it to hide, and at the same moment a sound like a long-drawn sigh was distinctly audible in the still air about him between the gusts of the storm outside.

Johnson had more courage and will-power than the girlish indecision of his face indicated; but at first such a wave of terror came over him that for some seconds he could do nothing but stand and stare. A violent trembling ran down his back and legs, and he was conscious of a foolish, almost a hysterical, impulse to scream aloud. That sigh seemed in his very ear, and the air still quivered with it. It was unmistakably a human sigh.

“Who’s there?” he said at length, finding his voice; but though he meant to speak with loud decision, the tones came out instead in a faint whisper, for he had partly lost the control of his tongue and lips.

He stepped forward, so that he could see all round and over the kit-bag. Of course there was nothing there, nothing but the faded carpet and the bulging canvas sides. He put out his hands and threw open the mouth of the sack where it had fallen over, being only three parts full, and then he saw for the first time that round the inside, some six inches from the top, there ran a broad smear of dull crimson. It was an old and faded blood stain. He uttered a scream, and drew back his hands as if they had been burnt. At the same moment the kit-bag gave a faint, but unmistakable, lurch forward towards the door.

Johnson collapsed backwards, searching with his hands for the support of something solid, and the door, being further behind him than he realized, received his weight just in time to prevent his falling, and shut to with a resounding bang. At the same moment the swinging of his left arm accidentally touched the electric switch, and the light in the room went out.

It was an awkward and disagreeable predicament, and if Johnson had not been possessed of real pluck he might have done all manner of foolish things. As it was, however, he pulled himself together, and groped furiously for the little brass knob to turn the light on again. But the rapid closing of the door had set the coats hanging on it a-swinging, and his fingers became entangled in a confusion of sleeves and pockets, so that it was some moments before he found the switch. And in those few moments of bewilderment and terror two things happened that sent him beyond recall over the boundary into the region of genuine horror — he distinctly heard the kit-bag shuffling heavily across the floor in jerks, and close in front of his face sounded once again the sigh of a human being.

In his anguished efforts to find the brass button on the wall he nearly scraped the nails from his fingers, but even then, in those frenzied moments of alarm — so swift and alert are the impressions of a mind keyed-up by a vivid emotion — he had time to realize that he dreaded the return of the light, and that it might be better for him to stay hidden in the merciful screen of darkness. It was but the impulse of a moment, however, and before he had time to act upon it he had yielded automatically to the original desire, and the room was flooded again with light.

But the second instinct had been right. It would have been better for him to have stayed in the shelter of the kind darkness. For there, close before him, bending over the half-packed kit-bag, clear as life in the merciless glare of the electric light, stood the figure of John Turk, the murderer. Not three feet from him the man stood, the fringe of black hair marked plainly against the pallor of the forehead, the whole horrible presentment of the scoundrel, as vivid as he had seen him day after day in the Old Bailey, when he stood there in the dock, cynical and callous, under the very shadow of the gallows.

In a flash Johnson realized what it all meant: the dirty and much-used bag; the smear of crimson within the top; the dreadful stretched condition of the bulging sides. He remembered how the victim’s body had been stuffed into a canvas bag for burial, the ghastly, dismembered fragments forced with lime into this very bag; and the bag itself produced as evidence — It all came back to him as clear as day… .

Very softly and stealthily his hand groped behind him for the handle of the door, but before he could actually turn it the very thing that he most of all dreaded came about, and John Turk lifted his devil’s face and looked at him. At the same moment that heavy sigh passed through the air of the room, formulated somehow into words: “It’s my bag. And I want it.”

Johnson just remembered clawing the door open, and then falling in a heap upon the floor of the landing, as he tried frantically to make his way into the front room.

He remained unconscious for a long time, and it was still dark when he opened his eyes and realized that he was lying, stiff and bruised, on the cold boards. Then the memory of what he had seen rushed back into his mind, and he promptly fainted again. When he woke the second time the wintry dawn was just beginning to peep in at the windows, painting the stairs a cheerless, dismal grey, and he managed to crawl into the front room, and cover himself with an overcoat in the armchair, where at length he fell asleep.

A great clamour woke him. He recognized Mrs Monks’s voice, loud and voluble.

“What! You ain’t been to bed, sir! Are you ill, or has anything ’appened? And there’s an urgent gentleman to see you, though it ain’t seven o’clock yet, and—”

“Who is it?” he stammered. “I’m all right, thanks. Fell asleep in my chair, I suppose.”

“Someone from Mr Wilb’rim’s, and he says he ought to see you quick before you go abroad, and I told him—”

“Show him up, please, at once,” said Johnson, whose head was whirling, and his mind was still full of dreadful visions.

Mr Wilbraham’s man came in with many apologies, and explained briefly and quickly that an absurd mistake had been made, and that the wrong kit-bag had been sent over the night before.

“Henry somehow got hold of the one that came over from the courtroom, and Mr Wilbraham only discovered it when he saw his own lying in his room, and asked why it had not gone to you,” the man said.

“Oh!” said Johnson stupidly.

“And he must have brought you the one from the murder case instead, sir, I’m afraid,” the man continued, without the ghost of an expression on his face. “The one John Turk packed the dead body in. Mr Wilbraham’s awful upset about it, sir, and told me to come over first thing this morning with the right one, as you were leaving by the boat.”

He pointed to a clean-looking kit-bag on the floor, which he had just brought. “And I was to bring the other one back, sir,” he added casually.

For some minutes Johnson could not find his voice. At last he pointed in the direction of his bedroom. “Perhaps you would kindly unpack it for me. Just empty the things out on the floor.”

The man disappeared into the other room, and was gone for five minutes. Johnson heard the shifting to and fro of the bag, and the rattle of the skates and boots being unpacked.

“Thank you, sir,” the man said, returning with the bag folded over his arm. “And can I do anything more to help you, sir?”

“What is it?” asked Johnson, seeing that he still had something he wished to say.

The man shuffled and looked mysterious. “Beg pardon, sir, but knowing your interest in the Turk case, I thought you’d maybe like to know what’s happened—”

“Yes.”

“John Turk killed hisself last night with poison immediately on getting his release, and he left a note for Mr Wilbraham saying as he’d be much obliged if they’d have him put away, same as the woman he murdered, in the old kit-bag.”

“What time — did he do it?” asked Johnson.

“Ten o’clock last night, sir, the warder says.”

“The Pall Mall Magazine”, Dec. 1908

THE EASTERN WINDOW

E. G. Swain

1912

It may well be that Vermuyden and the Dutchmen who drained the fens did good, and that it was interred with their bones. It is quite certain that they did evil and that it lives after them. The rivers, which these men robbed of their water, have at length silted up, and the drainage of one tract of country is proving to have been achieved by the undraining of another.

Places like Stoneground, which lie on the banks of these defrauded rivers, are now become helpless victims of Dutch engineering. The water which has lost its natural outlet, invades their lands. The thrifty cottager who once had the river at the bottom of his garden, has his garden more often in these days, at the bottom of the river, and a summer flood not infrequently destroys the whole produce of his ground.

Such a flood, during an early year in the 20th century, had been unusually disastrous to Stoneground, and Mr. Batchel, who, as a gardener, was well able to estimate the losses of his poorer neighbours, was taking some steps towards repairing them.

Money, however, is never at rest in Stoneground, and it turned out upon this occasion that the funds placed at his command were wholly inadequate to the charitable purpose assigned to them. It seemed as if those who had lost a rood of potatoes could be compensated for no more than a yard.

It was at this time, when he was oppressed in mind by the failure of his charitable enterprise, that Mr. Batchel met with the happy adventure in which the Eastern window of the Church played so singular a part.

The narrative should be prefaced by a brief description of the window in question. It is a large painted window, of a somewhat unfortunate period of execution. The drawing and colouring leave everything to be desired. The scheme of the window, however, is based upon a wholesome tradition. The five large lights in the lower part are assigned to five scenes in the life of Our Lord, and the second of these, counting from the North, contains a bold erect figure of St. John Baptist, to whom the Church is dedicated. It is this figure alone, of all those contained in the window, that is concerned in what we have to relate.

It has already been mentioned that Mr. Batchel had some knowledge of music. He took an interest in the choir, from whose practices he was seldom absent; and was quite competent, in the occasional absence of the choirmaster, to act as his deputy. It is customary at Stoneground for the choirmaster, in order to save the sexton a journey, to extinguish the lights after a choir-practice and to lock up the Church. These duties, accordingly, were performed by Mr. Batchel when the need arose.

It will be of use to the reader to have the procedure in detail. The large gas-meter stood in an aisle of the Church, and it was Mr. Batchel’s practice to go round and extinguish all the lights save one, before turning off the gas at the meter. The one remaining light, which was reached by standing upon a choir seat, was always that nearest the door of the chancel, and experience proved that there was ample time to walk from the meter to that light before it died out. It was therefore an easy matter to turn off the last light, to find the door without its aid, and thence to pass out, and close the Church for the night.

Upon the evening of which we have to speak, the choir had hurried out as usual, as soon as the word had been given. Mr. Batchel had remained to gather together some of the books they had left in disorder, and then turned out the lights in the manner already described. But as soon as he had extinguished the last light, his eye fell, as he descended carefully from the seat, upon the figure of the Baptist. There was just enough light outside to make the figures visible in the Eastern Window, and Mr. Batchel saw the figure of St. John raise the right arm to its full extent, and point northward, turning its head, at the same time, so as to look him full in the face. These movements were three times repeated, and, after that, the figure came to rest in its normal and familiar position.

The reader will not suppose, any more than Mr. Batchel supposed, that a figure painted upon glass had suddenly been endowed with the power of movement. But that there had been the appearance of movement admitted of no doubt, and Mr. Batchel was not so incurious as to let the matter pass without some attempt at investigation. It must be remembered, too, that an experience in the old library, which has been previously recorded, had pre-disposed him to give attention to signs which another man might have wished to explain away. He was not willing, therefore, to leave this matter where it stood. He was quite prepared to think that his eye had been deceived, but was none the less determined to find out what had deceived it. One thing he had no difficulty in deciding. If the movement had not been actually within the Baptist’s figure, it had been immediately behind it. Without delay, therefore, he passed out of the church and locked the door after him, with the intention of examining the other side of the window.

Every inhabitant of Stoneground knows, and laments, the ruin of the old Manor House. Its loss by fire some fifteen years ago was a calamity from which the parish has never recovered. The estate was acquired, soon after the destruction of the house, by speculators who have been unable to turn it to any account, and it has for a decade or longer been “let alone,” except by the forces of Nature and the wantonness of trespassers. The charred remains of the house still project above the surrounding heaps of fallen masonry, which have long been overgrown by such vegetation as thrives on neglected ground; and what was once a stately house, with its garden and park in fine order, has given place to a scene of desolation and ruin.

Stoneground Church was built, some 600 years ago, within the enclosure of the Manor House, or, as it was anciently termed, the Burystead, and an excellent stratum of gravel such as no builder would wisely disregard, brought the house and Church unusually near together. In more primitive days, the nearness probably caused no inconvenience; but when change and progress affected the popular idea of respectful distance, the Churchyard came to be separated by a substantial stone wall, of sufficient height to secure the privacy of the house.

The change was made with necessary regard to economy of space. The Eastern wall of the Church already projected far into the garden of the Manor, and lay but fifty yards from the south front of the house. On that side of the Churchyard, therefore, the new wall was set back. Running from the north to the nearest corner of the Church, it was there built up to the Church itself, and then continued from the southern corner, leaving the Eastern wall and window within the garden of the Squire. It was his ivy that clung to the wall of the Church, and his trees that shaded the window from the morning sun.

Whilst we have been recalling these facts, Mr. Batchel has made his way out of the Church and through the Churchyard, and has arrived at a small door in the boundary wall, close to the south-east corner of the chancel. It was a door which some Squire of the previous century had made, to give convenient access to the Church for himself and his household. It has no present use, and Mr. Batchel had some difficulty in getting it open. It was not long, however, before he stood on the inner side, and was examining the second light of the window. There was a tolerably bright moon, and the dark surface of the glass could be distinctly seen, as well as the wirework placed there for its protection.

A tall birch, one of the trees of the old Churchyard, had thrust its lower boughs across the window, and their silvery bark shone in the moonlight. The boughs were bare of leaves, and only very slightly interrupted Mr. Batchel’s view of the Baptist’s figure, the leaden outline of which was clearly traceable. There was nothing, however, to account for the movement which Mr. Batchel was curious to investigate.

He was about to turn homewards in some disappointment, when a cloud obscured the moon again, and reduced the light to what it had been before he left the Church. Mr. Batchel watched the darkening of the window and the objects near it, and as the figure of the Baptist disappeared from view there came into sight a creamy vaporous figure of another person lightly poised upon the bough of the tree, and almost coincident in position with the picture of the Saint.

It could hardly be described as the figure of a person. It had more the appearance of half a person, and fancifully suggested to Mr. Batchel, who was fond of whist, one of the diagonally bisected knaves in a pack of cards, as he appears when another card conceals a triangular half of the bust.

There was no question, now, of going home. Mr. Batchel’s eyes were riveted upon the apparition. It disappeared again for a moment, when an interval between two clouds restored the light of the moon; but no sooner had the second cloud replaced the first than the figure again became distinct. And upon this, its single arm was raised three times, pointing northwards towards the ruined house, just as the figure of the Baptist had seemed to point when Mr. Batchel had seen it from within the Church.

It was natural that upon receipt of this sign Mr. Batchel should step nearer to the tree, from which he was still at some little distance, and as he moved, the figure floated obliquely downwards and came to rest in a direct line between him and the ruins of the house. It rested, not upon the ground, but in just such a position as it would have occupied if the lower parts had been there, and in this position it seemed to await Mr. Batchel’s advance. He made such haste to approach it as was possible upon ground encumbered with ivy and brambles, and the figure responded to every advance of his by moving further in the direction of the ruin.

As the ground improved, the progress became more rapid. Soon they were both upon an open stretch of grass, which in better days had been a lawn, and still the figure retreated towards the building, with Mr. Batchel in respectful pursuit. He saw it, at last, poised upon the summit of a heap of masonry, and it disappeared, at his near approach, into a crevice between two large stones.

The timely re-appearance of the moon just enabled Mr. Batchel to perceive this crevice, and he took advantage of the interval of light to mark the place. Taking up a large twig that lay at his feet, he inserted it between the stones. He made a slit in the free end and drew into it one of some papers that he had carried out of the Church. After such a precaution it could hardly be possible to lose the place — for, of course, Mr. Batchel intended to return in daylight and continue his investigation. For the present, it seemed to be at an end. The light was soon obscured again, but there was no re-appearance of the singular figure he had followed, so after remaining about the spot for a few minutes, Mr. Batchel went home to his customary occupation.

He was not a man to let these occupations be disturbed even by a somewhat exciting adventure, nor was he one of those who regard an unusual experience only as a sign of nervous disorder. Mr. Batchel had far too broad a mind to discredit his sensations because they were not like those of other people. Even had his adventure of the evening been shared by some companion who saw less than he did, Mr. Batchel would only have inferred that his own part in the matter was being regarded as more important.

Next morning, therefore, he lost no time in returning to the scene of his adventure. He found his mark undisturbed, and was able to examine the crevice into which the apparition had seemed to enter. It was a crevice formed by the curved surfaces of two large stones which lay together on the top of a small heap of fallen rubbish, and these two stones Mr. Batchel proceeded to remove. His strength was just sufficient for the purpose. He laid the stones upon the ground on either side of the little mound, and then proceeded to remove, with his hands, the rubbish upon which they had rested, and amongst the rubbish he found, tarnished and blackened, two silver coins.

It was not a discovery which seemed to afford any explanation of what had occurred the night before, but Mr. Batchel could not but suppose that there had been an attempt to direct his attention to the coins, and he carried them away with a view of submitting them to a careful examination. Taking them up to his bedroom he poured a little water into a hand basin, and soon succeeded, with the aid of soap and a nail brush, in making them tolerably clean. Ten minutes later, after adding ammonia to the water, he had made them bright, and after carefully drying them, was able to make his examination. They were two crowns of the time of Queen Anne, minted, as a small letter E indicated, at Edinburgh, and stamped with the roses and plumes which testified to the English and Welsh silver in their composition. The coins bore no date, but Mr. Batchel had no hesitation in assigning them to the year 1708 or thereabouts. They were handsome coins, and in themselves a find of considerable interest, but there was nothing to show why he had been directed to their place of concealment. It was an enigma, and he could not solve it. He had other work to do, so he laid the two crowns upon his dressing table, and proceeded to do it.

Mr. Batchel thought little more of the coins until bedtime, when he took them from the table and bestowed upon them another admiring examination by the light of his candle. But the examination told him nothing new: he laid them down again, and, before very long, had lain his own head upon the pillow.

It was Mr. Batchel’s custom to read himself to sleep. At this time he happened to be re-reading the Waverley novels, and “Woodstock” lay upon the reading-stand which was always placed at his bedside. As he read of the cleverly devised apparition at Woodstock, he naturally asked himself whether he might not have been the victim of some similar trickery, but was not long in coming to the conclusion that his experience admitted of no such explanation. He soon dismissed the matter from his mind and went on with his book.

On this occasion, however, he was tired of reading before he was ready for sleep; it was long in coming, and then did not come to stay. His rest, in fact, was greatly disturbed. Again and again, perhaps every hour or so, he was awakened by an uneasy consciousness of some other presence in the room.

Upon one of his later awakenings, he was distinctly sensible of a sound, or what he described to himself as the “ghost” of a sound. He compared it to the whining of a dog that had lost its voice. It was not a very intelligible comparison, but still it seemed to describe his sensation. The sound, if we may so call it caused him first to sit up in bed and look well about him, and then, when nothing had come of that, to light his candle. It was not to be expected that anything should come of that, but it had seemed a comfortable thing to do, and Mr. Batchel left the candle alight and read his book for half an hour or so, before blowing it out.

After this, there was no further interruption, but Mr. Batchel distinctly felt, when it was time to leave his bed, that he had had a bad night. The coins, almost to his surprise, lay undisturbed. He went to ascertain this as soon as he was on his feet. He would almost have welcomed their removal, or at any rate, some change which might have helped him towards a theory of his adventure. There was, however, nothing. If he had, in fact, been visited during the night, the coins would seem to have had nothing to do with the matter.

Mr. Batchel left the two crowns lying on his table on this next day, and went about his ordinary duties. They were such duties as afforded full occupation for his mind, and he gave no more than a passing thought to the coins, until he was again retiring to rest. He had certainly intended to return to the heap of rubbish from which he had taken them, but had not found leisure to do so. He did not handle the coins again. As he undressed, he made some attempt to estimate their value, but without having arrived at any conclusion, went on to think of other things, and in a little while had lain down to rest again, hoping for a better night.

His hopes were disappointed. Within an hour of falling asleep he found himself awakened again by the voiceless whining he so well remembered. This sound, as for convenience we will call it, was now persistent and continuous. Mr. Batchel gave up even trying to sleep, and as he grew more restless and uneasy, decided to get up and dress.

It was the entire cessation of the sound at this juncture which led him to a suspicion. His rising was evidently giving satisfaction. From that it was easy to infer that something had been desired of him, both on the present and the preceding night. Mr. Batchel was not one to hold himself aloof in such a case. If help was wanted, even in such unnatural circumstances, he was ready to offer it. He determined, accordingly, to return to the Manor House, and when he had finished dressing, descended the stairs, put on a warm overcoat and went out, closing his hall door behind him, without having heard any more of the sound, either whilst dressing, or whilst leaving the house.

Once out of doors, the suspicion he had formed was strengthened into a conviction. There was no manner of doubt that he had been fetched from his bed; for about 30 yards in front of him he saw the strange creamy half-figure making straight for the ruins. He followed it as well as he could; as before, he was impeded by the ivy and weeds, and the figure awaited him; as before, it made straight for the heap of masonry and disappeared as soon as Mr. Batchel was at liberty to follow.

There were no dungeons, or subterranean premises beneath the Manor House. It had never been more than a house of residence, and the building had been purely domestic in character. Mr. Batchel was convinced that his adventure would prove unromantic, and felt some impatience at losing again, what he had begun to call his triangular friend. If this friend wanted anything, it was not easy to say why he had so tamely disappeared. There seemed nothing to be done but to wait until he came out again.

Mr. Batchel had a pipe in his pocket, and he seated himself upon the base of a sundial within full view of the spot. He filled and smoked his pipe, sitting in momentary expectation of some further sign, but nothing appeared. He heard the hedgehogs moving about him in the undergrowth, and now and then the sound of a restless bird overhead, otherwise all was still. He smoked a second pipe without any further discovery, and that finished, he knocked out the ashes against his boot, walked to the mound, near to which his labelled stick was lying, thrust the stick into the place where the figure had disappeared, and went back to bed, where he was rewarded with five hours of sound sleep.

Mr. Batchel had made up his mind that the next day ought to be a day of disclosure. He was early at the Manor House, this time provided with the gardener’s pick, and a spade. He thrust the pick into the place from which he had removed his mark, and loosened the rubbish thoroughly. With his hands, and with his spade, he was not long in reducing the size of the heap by about one-half, and there he found more coins.

There were three more crowns, two half-crowns, and a dozen or so of smaller coins. All these Mr. Batchel wrapped carefully in his handkerchief, and after a few minutes rest went on with his task. As it proved, the task was nearly over. Some strips of oak about nine inches long, were next uncovered, and then, what Mr. Batchel had begun to expect, the lid of a box, with the hinges still attached. It lay, face downwards, upon a flat stone. It proved, when he had taken it up, to be almost unsoiled, and above a long and wide slit in the lid was the gilded legend, “for ye poore” in the graceful lettering and the redundant spelling of two centuries ago.

The meaning of all this Mr. Batchel was not long in interpreting. That the box and its contents had fallen and been broken amongst the masonry, was evident enough. It was as evident that it had been concealed in one of the walls brought down by the fire, and Mr. Batchel had no doubt at all that he had been in the company of a thief, who had once stolen the poor-box from the Church. His task seemed to be at an end, a further rummage revealed nothing new. Mr. Batchel carefully collected the fragments of the box, and left the place.

His next act cannot be defended. He must have been aware that these coins were “treasure trove,” and therefore the property of the Crown. In spite of this, he determined to convert them into current coin, as he well knew how, and to apply the proceeds to the Inundation Fund about which he was so anxious. Treating them as his own property, he cleaned them all, as he had cleaned the two crowns, sent them to an antiquarian friend in London to sell for him, and awaited the result. The lid of the poor box he still preserves as a relic of the adventure.

His antiquarian friend did not keep him long waiting. The coins had been eagerly bought, and the price surpassed any expectation that Mr. Batchel had allowed himself to entertain. He had sent the package to London on Saturday morning. Upon the following Tuesday, the last post in the evening brought a cheque for twenty guineas. The brief subscription list of the Inundation Fund lay upon his desk, and he at once entered the amount he had so strangely come by, but could not immediately decide upon its description. Leaving the line blank, therefore, he merely wrote down £21 in the cash column, to be assigned to its source in some suitable form of words when he should have found time to frame them.

In this state he left the subscription list upon his desk, when he retired for the night. It occurred to him as he was undressing, that the twenty guineas might suitably be described as a “restitution,” and so he determined to enter it upon the line he had left vacant. As he reconsidered the matter in the morning, he saw no reason to alter his decision, and he went straight from his bedroom to his desk to make the entry and have done with it.

There was an incident in the adventure, however, upon which Mr. Batchel had not reckoned. As he approached the list, he saw, to his amazement, that the line had been filled in. In a crabbed, elongated hand was written, “At last, St. Matt. v. 26.”

What may seem more strange is that the handwriting was familiar to Mr. Batchel, he could not at first say why. His memory, however, in such matters, was singularly good, and before breakfast was over he felt sure of having identified the writer.

His confidence was not misplaced. He went to the parish chest, whose contents he had thoroughly examined in past intervals of leisure, and took out the roll of parish constable’s accounts. In a few minutes he discovered the handwriting of which he was in search. It was unmistakably that of Salathiel Thrapston, constable from 1705-1710, who met his death in the latter year, whilst in the execution of his duty. The reader will scarcely need to be reminded of the text of the Gospel at the place of reference—

“Thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.”

The Stoneground Ghost Tales (1912)

THE MIDDLE BEDROOM

H. de Vere Stacpoole

1918

Are all living creatures represented in the human race, so that we find shark men — or, at least, men with the instincts of sharks — sloth men, cat men, tiger men, and so on? Le Brun started the idea, I believe, and I take it up as bearing on the case of Sir Michael Carey, of Carey House, near Innis Town, on the west coast of Ireland.

I would ask another question before starting on my story: If a man were to give way to his natural instincts and retire from the world would he develop, or, rather, degenerate, along the line of his main instinct? Who can say? I only know that Sir Michael, the builder of the house that took his name, was known a hundred years ago amongst the illiterate peasantry as “the spider,” that so dubbed on account of his mentality and general make-up, he lived alone in his house like a spider in a gloomy corner, that, according to legend, the devil came and took him one dark night, leaving neither rag nor bone of him and that his ghost was reputed to haunt Carey House and the country round, ever after.

The next of kin, Mr. Massy Pope, tried to live in the house. He left suddenly on account of the “loneliness” of the situation and succeeded in letting the place, with the shooting and fishing rights, to a hard-headed Englishman named Doubleday.

Doubleday didn’t believe in ghosts nor care about them, snipe was his game and cock; he was a two-bottle man — it was in 1863 — and if he had met with a ghost any time after ten o’clock he would scarcely have seen it, or seeing it, would not have cared. But his servants were the trouble. They left one day in a body, being softheaded folk and unfortified and having a very good reason of their own. Then some years elapsed and the story of the next let, as told to me by Micky Feelan one day, out shooting, was as follows:

When Mr. Doubleday had gone, sor, the house laid empty, spilin’ the country for miles round, not a man would go into the groun’s to trap a rabbit nor a woman enter its doors to lift a window, and Mr. Pope squanderin’ his money to advertise it. That’s the man he was, he wouldn’t be bet by it, rowlin’ in riches what did it matter to him whether it lay let or empty, not a brass farthin’, but he wouldn’t be bet by it, it was like a horse that wouldn’t rise at a ditch and he’d canther it back and try it again and lather it over the head, squanderin’ his money in the advertisin’ till all of a sudden he got a rise out of a family be name of Leftwidge.

Dublin people they were, with a grocer’s shop in old Fishamble Street. There was a dozen of them, mostly childer and one red-headed strip of a girl to do the cookin’. Twenty pound a year was the rent, I’ve heard tell, and they lived mostly be trappin’ rabbits, the boys doin’ a bit of fishin’ and the groceries comin’ from the shop where the ould father stuck at work in his shirt sleeves while the rest of the lot was airin’ themselves in the counthry.

Be jabers, they were a crowd, ghosts! Little they cared about ghosts shamblin’ about widout shoes or stockin’s and the boys wid their sticks and catapults killin’ hens be the sly and maltreatin’ the country boys like Red Injuns, the shame of the county.

Norah Driscoll was the name of the redheaded slip and many a time me mother has seen her wid her apron over her head rockin’ and cryin’ wid the treatment of them boys and the botheration of the rest of them, for there was a matter of a dozen or more, rangin’ like the pipes of an organ from Micky the eldest son six fut and as thin as a gas pipe, to Pat the youngest not the height of your knee.

Well, sor, the ghost lay aisy at the sight of the lot of them and didn’t let a word out of it for a full mouth. Then one day, Norah Driscoll was goin’ along the top flure passage whin the band begin to play. The bedrooms was mostly on that passage and the house agent had warned them against havin’ anythin’ to do with the middle most bedroom, for, says he, there’s rats there that can’t be got rid of and that’s the cause of all the trouble in the lettin’ of the house, says he. It would be a hundred and twenty a year rent, only for them rats, says he, so they’re worth a hundred a year to you if you just keep the door shut and don’t bother about the noises they do be makin’ at odd times — sometimes it’s like as if they was sneezin’ and blowin’ their noses and sometimes it’s like as if they was walkin’ about with their brogues on and sometimes it’s like as if they was cursin’ and swearin’. Don’t you mind them, he says, but keep sayin’ over and over to yourself they’re worth a hundred a year to me. That’s what he tould Mrs. Leftwidge.

Well, sor, Norah was moonin’ along the passage, sent to fetch duster or somethin’ when she opened the dure of the middle bedroom be mistake. There was no furniture in it, not as much as a three-legged stool and the blind was down, but a shaft of the sun struck through be the side of the blind and there in the middle of the flure was sittin’ a little old man dressed as they was dressed a hundred years ago in an ould brown coat wid brass buttons and all and the face of him under his hat topped the sight of him, for Norah said it wasn’t a face, but more like one of those masks the childer make out of a bit of paper with holes in it.

The screech she let out of her as she banged the dure to, brought the family runnin’ from downstairs, and the boys slammed open the door to get at the chap but there wasn’t a speck of him.

“It’s a rat she saw,” says Mrs. Leftwidge, “Downstairs wid the lot of you or I’ll give you the linth of me slipper — and open that dure again if you dare.”

Down they went, Norah bawlin’ and the old woman pushin’ her and nothin’ more happened that day till the night. Half a dozen of the little ones slep’ in the same room with their mother to save the light and be under control, and gettin’ on for twelve o’clock the old woman, snorin’ wid her mouth wide, was woke from her slape be one of the childer.

“Mummy,” says he, “listen to the bagpipes.” She lifted herself on her elbow, but, faith, she could have heard it with her head; under the clothes, for the dhrone of the pipes filled the house comin’ from the middle bedroom.

Next minit the whole lither of them was in the passage, the old woman with a gutherin’ candle in her hand, and as they stood there keepin’ time with their teeth to the tune of the pipes, the noise of it suddenly let off and the handle of the middle bedroom dure began to turn.

They didn’t wait to see what was comin’ out; no, your honour, you may bet your life they didn’t, they was half of them under their beds the linth of that night and next mornin’ they began to pack to go back to Dublin, gettin’ their old traps together and strippin’ the garden to take back wid them in hampers. Micky, the second boy, was sent runnin’ to hire two cars to take them to the station, for the railway in those days had just come to Drumboyne, twelve miles away, and whilst he was gone they tore up the potatoes and cut the cabbages and faith they’d have taken the flurin’ away if they’d had manes to shift it.

Well, there they were strapped and ready to go when Mrs. Leftwidge, sittin’ in her bonnet on the boxes and atin’ a sandwidge, suddenly stops her chewin’ and looks about her like a hen countin’ her chickens:

“Where’s Pat?” says she.

Pat was the youngest, as I’ve tould you, sor, a bit of a chap in petticoats, no size at all and always gettin’ astray.

“I don’t know,” says one of the boys, “but faith, I hear him shoutin’ somewhere upstairs.”

Upstairs they all rushed led by the woman and they hadn’t no sooner reached the top passage than they seen Pat bein’ whisked through the open dure of the middle bedroom, dragged along be somebody’s hand, and when they reached the dure, there was Pat bein’ dragged up the chimney.

It was one of them big ould chimneys a man could go up, and the heels of the child was disappearin’ when Mrs. Leftwidge lays hold of a fut and pulls, bawlin’ murder Irish, till the thing in the chimney let go its holt and Pat comes into the grater kickin’ like a pup in the shtrangles and liftin’ the roof off with the hullabaloo of him.

She tuck him be one fut like a turkey and down she runs with him and into the garden and there when they’d soothed him he gives his story, how he’d been playin’ in the passage when a little ould man, the funniest ould man he’d ever seen pokes his head out of the bedroom dure. Pat, poor divil, bein’ sated at his play couldn’t get his legs under him wid the fright, he could only sit and shout whilst the head of the little ould man pops in and out of the dure-way like the head of a tortoise from its shell.

Then out he comes the whole of him and grabs the child be the hand and whisks him off into the bedroom and goes up the chimney heels and first haulin’ Pat after him. Goes up like a spider.

Well, they was sittin’ about on the boxes they’d hauled out of the house waitin’ for the cars and tryin’ to squeeze more of the news out of Pat, when up comes the cars wid Sergeant Rafferty and Constable O’Halloran on wan of them, to see they weren’t takin’ the house away wid them — they’d got that bad name in the county.

And when the sergeant heard the story, up he went to the bedroom and down he comes again.

“Here,” says he to O’Halloran, “take this lot off to the train and go to the barracks and fetch me two carbines wid buck shot ca’tridges — the same ould Forster used to shoot the boys with, bad luck to him — and look slippy,” says he, “for I’m a brave man, but I don’t want to be no longer here be myself than’s needful.”

Off the cars went wid the family packed like flies on them an’ in a matter of a couple of hours back comes the constable wid the guns. Up they go to the bedroom.

“Stick your head up the chimney,” says the sergeant.

“I’ll be damned if do,” says the other.

“Well, then, shut it,” says the sergeant, “and keep still.”

They listened but they didn’t hear nothing at all. Then the sergeant begins talkin’ in a loud voice, winkin’ at the other.

“There’s nothin’ there,” says he, “it was a ghost they saw and it’s gettin’ on easy I am meself. Let’s get off back to Drumboyne and have a glass and lave the ould house to look afther itself.”

“I’m wid you,” says the constable and downstairs they tramped, makin’ as much noise wid their big boots as a rigiment of soldiers. Then in the hall they sits down and begins takin’ off their boots.

“All the same,” says the constable as he pulled the laces, “I’d be just as aisy in me mind if I was three miles off trampin’ on the road to Drumboyne.”

“So would I,” says the sergeant, “and it’s there I’d be only I’m thinkin’ of promotion.”

“I’m thinkin’ of ghosts,” says the constable wid the bootlace in his hand.

“Go on unlacin’ your boots,” says the other, “and don’t be a keyoward, this is no ghost. Ghosts can’t pull childer up chimneys.”

“Faith, you seem to know a lot about them,” says the constable, “but it’s I that am thinkin’ it’s holy water and Father Mooney ought to be on this job instead of you and me and guns.”

“And how would you get holy water up the chimney?” axes the sergeant.

“Wit a squirt,” replies him, “and how else?”

“Squirt yourself out of them boots,” Says the sergeant, “or it’s me ramrod I’ll take to you, and now follow me,” he says, “and walk soft.”

Wid the loaded guns in their hands up they wint makin’ no more sound than shaddas in a wall, and when they got to the room down they squats one on each side of the chimney.

They hears nothin’ for a while, but the tickin’ of the sergeant’s watch and the sounds of their own hearts goin’ lub-a-dub. Then comes a cough. It wasn’t a right sort of cough, for, let alone that it was comin’ down a chimney, it sounded to be the cough of a chap that had died for want of water and lain in a brick kiln afther.

The constable said next day he’d have been up and off only the sound cut the legs from under him, the sergeant wasn’t much better and there they sat sayin’ their prayers and listenin’ for more.

They waited near an hour hearin’ nothin’, and then all at once began a noise, a scratchin’ and a scrabblin’ like a cat comin’ down a drain pipe.

“It’s comin’ down,” shouts the constable.

“Begob it’s not,” says the sergeant and wid that he shoves the muzzle of his gun up the flue and fires.

He fired from fright to keep it up, so he said at the inquest, but, be jabers, he brought it down like a cock pheasant, turnblin’ and clawin’ and when they stretched it out on the flure it was a man right enough. A bit of an ould man as brown as a spider, and there he lay dead as a grouse wid the buckshot holes in him and not a drop of blood no more than if he’d been made of cardboard.

“Cover the face of him,” says the constable, for that was the sort of face he had, better than I can tell you, and havin’ nothin’ to cover it they turned him face down, and made off runnin’ to Drumboyne for the residint magistrit.

Well, sor, when they took that chimney down they found a room off it, all littered with bones and birds’ feathers and rats’ tails. It wouldn’t do to be tellin’ you of that room, more than it had no winda to it and had been built on purpose be Sir Michael Carey when he put the house up. He’d took to live in it, for that was the way his heart was, and at long last he took to live nowhere else, and that was how the sergeant brought him down and he must have been a matter of a hundred and tin years of age, they reckoned.

He had his bagpipes to cheer him and frighten away tinints and he’d be out be nights scavengin’ for food — they say they found the bones of childer in the room, but may be that was a lie got be him tryin’ to drag Pat Leftwidge up the flue — but faith I wouldn’t put it beyond him. For that chap was a spider, sor, they said his face was the face of a spider, and his arms and legs no better.

He’d begun in the shape of a man, maybe, but the spider in him got the bether of him. Look, there’s all there’s left of the house, sor, thim walls beyond the trees. They set a light to it to get shut of that room and if you knew the truth of it all, you wouldn’t blame them.

“The Novel Magazine”, Dec. 1918

JOSEPH: A STORY

Katherine Rickford

1919

They were sitting round the fire after dinner — not an ordinary fire, one of those fires that has a little room all to itself with seats at each side of it to hold a couple of people or three.

The big dining room was panelled with oak. At the far end was a handsome dresser that dated back for generations. One’s imagination ran riot when one pictured the people who must have laid those pewter plates on the long, narrow, solid table. Massive medieval chests stood against the walls. Arms and parts of armour hung against the panelling; but one noticed few of these things, for there was no light in the room save what the fire gave.

It was Christmas Eve. Games had been played. The old had vied with the young at snatching raisins from the burning snapdragon. The children had long since gone to bed; it was time their elders followed them, but they lingered round the fire, taking turns at telling stories. Nothing very weird had been told; no one had felt any wish to peep over his shoulder or try to penetrate the darkness of the far end of the room; the omission caused a sensation of something wanting. From each one there this thought went out, and so a sudden silence fell upon the party. It was a girl who broke it — a mere child; she wore her hair up that night for the first time, and that seemed to give her the right to sit up so late.

“Mr. Grady is going to tell one,” she said.

All eyes were turned to a middle-aged man in a deep armchair placed straight in front of the fire. He was short, inclined to be fat, with a bald head and a pointed beard like the beards that sailors wear. It was plain that he was deeply conscious of the sudden turning of so much strained yet forceful thought upon himself. He was restless in his chair as people are in a room that is overheated. He blinked his eyes as he looked round the company. His lips twitched in a nervous manner. One side of him seemed to be endeavouring to restrain another side of him from a feverish desire to speak.

“It was this room that made me think of him,” he said thoughtfully.

There was a long silence, but it occurred to no one to prompt him. Everyone seemed to understand that he was going to speak, or rather that something inside him was going to speak, some force that craved expression and was using him as a medium.

The little old man’s pink face grew strangely calm, the animation that usually lit it was gone. One would have said that the girl who had started him already regretted the impulse, and now wanted to stop him. She was breathing heavily, and once or twice made as though she would speak to him, but no words came. She must have abandoned the idea, for she fell to studying the company. She examined them carefully, one by one. “This one,” she told herself, “is so-and-so, and that one there just another so-and-so.” She stared at them, knowing that she could not turn them to herself with her stare. They were just bodies kept working, so to speak, by some subtle sort of sentry left behind by the real selves that streamed out in pent-up thought to the little old man in the chair in front of the fire.

—  —  —  —  —

His name was Joseph; at least they called him Joseph. He dreamed, you understand — dreams. He was an extraordinary lad in many ways. His mother — I knew her very well — had three children in quick succession, soon after marriage; then ten years went by and Joseph was born. Quiet and reserved he always was, a self-contained child whose only friend was his mother. People said things about him, you know how people talk. Some said he was not Clara’s child at all, but that she had adopted him; others, that her husband was not his father, and these put her change of manner down to a perpetual struggle to keep her husband comfortably in the dark. I always imagined that the boy was in some way aware of all this gossip, for I noticed that he took a dislike to the people who spread it most.

—  —  —  —  —

The little man rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and let the tips of his fingers meet in front of him. A smile played about his mouth. He seemed to be searching among his reminiscences for the one that would give the clearest portrait of Joseph.

—  —  —  —  —

Well, anyway, he said at last, the boy was odd, there is no gainsaying the fact. I suppose he was eleven when Clara came down here with her family for Christmas. The Coningtons owned the place then — Mrs. Conington was Clara’s sister. It was Christmas Eve, as it is now, many years ago. We had spent a normal Christmas Eve; a little happier, perhaps, than usual by reason of the family re-union and because of the presence of so many children. We had eaten and drank, laughed and played and gone to bed.

I woke in the middle of the night from sheer restlessness. Clara, knowing my weakness, had given me a fire in my room. I lit a cigarette, played with a book, and then, purely from curiosity, opened the door and looked down the passage. From my door I could see the head of the staircase in the distance; the opposite wing of the house, or the passage rather beyond the stairs, was in darkness. The reason I saw the staircase at all was that the window you pass coming downstairs allowed the moon to throw an uncertain light upon it, a weird light because of the stained glass. I was arrested by the curious effect of this patch of light in so much darkness when suddenly someone came into it, turned, and went downstairs. It was just like a scene in a theater; something was about to happen that I was going to miss. I ran as I was, barefooted, to the head of the stairs and looked over the banister. I was excited, strung up, too strung up to feel the fright that I knew must be with me. I remember the sensation perfectly. I knew that I was afraid, yet I did not feel fright.

On the stairs nothing moved. The little hall down here was lost in darkness. Looking over the banister I was facing the stained glass window. You know how the stairs run around three sides of the hall; well, it occurred to me that if I went halfway down and stood under the window I should be able to keep the top of the stairs in sight and see anything that might happen in the hall. I crept down very cautiously and waited under the window. First of all, I saw the suit of empty armor just outside the door here. You know how a thing like that, if you stare at it in a poor light, appears to move; well, it moved sure enough, and the illusion was enhanced by clouds being blown across the moon. By the fire like this one can talk of these things rationally, but in the dead of night it is a different matter, so I went down a few steps to make sure of that armor, when suddenly something passed me on the stairs. I did not hear it, I did not see it, I sensed it in no way, I just knew that something had passed me on its way upstairs. I realized that my retreat was cut off, and with the knowledge fear came upon me.

I had seen someone come down the stairs; that, at any rate, was definite; now I wanted to see him again. Any ghost is bad enough, but a ghost that one can see is better than one that one can’t. I managed to get past the suit of armor, but then I had to feel my way to these double doors here.

—  —  —  —  —

He indicated the direction of the doors by a curious wave of his hand. He did not look toward them nor did any of the party. Both men and women were completely absorbed in his story; they seemed to be mesmerized by the earnestness of his manner. Only the girl was restless; she gave an impression of impatience with the slowness with which he came to his point. One would have said that she was apart from her fellows, an alien among strangers.

—  —  —  —  —

So dense was the darkness that I made sure of finding the first door closed, but it was not, it was wide open, and, standing between them, I could feel that the other was open, too. I was standing literally in the wall of the house, and as I peered into the room, trying to make out some familiar object, thoughts ran through my mind of people who had been bricked up in walls and left there to die. For a moment I caught the spirit of the inside of a thick wall. Then suddenly I felt the sensation I have often read about but never experienced before: I knew there was someone in the room. You are surprised, yes, but wait! I knew more: I knew that someone was conscious of my presence. It occurred to me that whoever it was might want to get out of the door. I made room for him to pass. I waited for him, made sure of him, began to feel giddy, and then a man’s voice, deep and clear:

“There is someone there; who is it?”

I answered mechanically, “George Grady.”

“I’m Joseph.”

A match was drawn across a matchbox, and I saw the boy bending over a candle waiting for the wick to catch. For a moment I thought he must be walking in his sleep, but he turned to me quite naturally and said in his own boyish voice:

“Lost anything?”

I was amazed at the lad’s complete calm. I wanted to share my fright with someone, instead I had to hide it from this boy. I was conscious of a curious sense of shame. I had watched him grow, taught him, praised him, scolded him, and yet here he was waiting for an explanation of my presence in the dining room at that odd hour of the night.

Soon he repeated the question, “Lost anything?”

“No,” I said, and then I stammered, “Have you?”

“No,” he said with a little laugh. “It’s that room, I can’t sleep in it.”

“Oh,” I said. “What’s the matter with the room?”

“It’s the room I was killed in,” he said quite simply.

Of course I had heard about his dreams, but I had had no direct experience of them; when, therefore, he said that he had been killed in his room I took it for granted that he had been dreaming again. I was at a loss to know quite how to tackle him; whether to treat the whole thing as absurd and laugh it off as such, or whether to humour him and hear his story. I got him upstairs to my room, sat him in a big armchair, and poked the fire into a blaze.

“You’ve been dreaming again,” I said bluntly.

“Oh, no I haven’t. Don’t you run away with that idea.”

His whole manner was so grown up that it was quite unthinkable to treat him as the child he really was. In fact, it was a little uncanny, this man in a child’s frame.

“I was killed there,” he said again.

“How do you mean, killed?” I asked him.

“Why, killed — murdered. Of course it was years and years ago, I can’t say when; still I remember the room. I suppose it was the room that reminded me of the incident.”

“Incident?” I exclaimed.

“What else? Being killed is only an incident in the existence of anyone. One makes a fuss about it at the time, of course, but really when you come to think of it….”

“Tell me about it,” I said, lighting a cigarette. He lit one too, that child, and began.

“You know my room is the only modern one in this old house. Nobody knows why it is modern. The reason is obvious. Of course it was made modern after I was killed there. The funny thing is that I should have been put there. I suppose it was done for a purpose, because I — I — — ”

He looked at me so fixedly I knew he would catch me if I lied.

“What?” I asked.

“Dream.”

“Yes,” I said, “that is why you were put there.”

“I thought so, and yet of all the rooms — but then, of course, no one knew. Anyhow I did not recognize the room until after I was in bed. I had been asleep some time and then I woke suddenly. There is an old wheel-back chair there — the only old thing in the room. It is standing facing the fire as it must have stood the night I was killed. The fire was burning brightly, the pattern of the back of the chair was thrown in shadow across the ceiling. Now the night I was murdered the conditions were exactly the same, so directly I saw that pattern on the ceiling I remembered the whole thing. I was not dreaming, don’t think it, I was not. What happened that night was this: I was lying in bed counting the parts of the back of that chair in shadow on the ceiling. I probably could not get to sleep, you know the sort of thing, count up to a thousand and remember in the morning where you got to. Well, I was counting those pieces when suddenly they were all obliterated, the whole back became a shadow, someone was sitting in the chair. Now, surely, you understand that directly I saw the shadow of that chair on the ceiling tonight I realized that I had not a moment to lose. At any moment that same person might come back to that same chair and escape would be impossible. I slipped from my bed as quickly as I could and ran downstairs.”

“But were you not afraid,” I asked, “downstairs?”

“That she might follow me? It was a woman, you know. No, I don’t think I was. She does not belong downstairs. Anyhow she didn’t.”

“No,” I said. “No.”

My voice must have been out of control, for he caught me up at once.

“You don’t mean to say you saw her?” he said vehemently.

“Oh, no.”

“You felt her?”

“She passed me as I came downstairs,” I said.

“What can I have done to her that she follows me so?” He buried his face in his hands as though searching for an answer to his thought. Suddenly he looked up and stared at me.

“Where had I got to? Oh yes, the murder. I can remember how startled I was to see that shadow in the chair — startled, you know, but not really frightened. I leaned up in bed and looked at the chair, and sure enough a woman was sitting in it — a young woman. I watched her with a profound interest until she began to turn in her chair, as I felt, to look at me; when she did that I shrank back in bed. I dared not meet her eyes. She might not have had eyes, she might not have had a face. You know the sort of pictures that one sees when one glances back at all one’s soul has ever thought.

“I got back in the bed as far as I could and peeped over the sheets at the shadow on the ceiling. I was tired; frightened to death; I grew weary of watching. I must have fallen asleep, for suddenly the fire was almost out, the pattern of the chair barely discernible, the shadow had gone. I raised myself with a sense of huge relief. Yes, the chair was empty, but, just think of it, the woman was on the floor, on her hands and knees, crawling toward the bed.

“I fell back stricken with terror.

“Very soon I felt a gentle pull at the counterpane. I thought I was in a nightmare but too lazy or too comfortable to try to wake myself from it. I waited in an agony of suspense, but nothing seemed to be happening, in fact I had just persuaded myself that the movement of the counterpane was fancy when a hand brushed softly over my knee. There was no mistaking it, I could feel the long, thin fingers. Now was the time to do something. I tried to rouse myself, but all my efforts were futile, I was stiff from head to foot.

“Although the hand was lost to me, outwardly, it now came within my range of knowledge, if you know what I mean. I knew that it was groping its way along the bed feeling for some other part of me. At any moment I could have said exactly where it had got to. When it was hovering just over my chest another hand knocked lightly against my shoulder. I fancied it lost, and wandering in search of its fellow.

“I was lying on my back staring at the ceiling when the hands met; the weight of their presence brought a feeling of oppression to my chest. I seemed to be completely cut off from my body; I had no sort of connection with any part of it, nothing about me would respond to my will to make it move.

“There was no sound at all anywhere.

“I fell into a state of indifference, a sort of patient indifference that can wait for an appointed time to come. How long I waited I cannot say, but when the time came it found me ready. I was not taken by surprise.

“There was a great upward rush of pent-up force released; it was like a mighty mass of men who have been lost in prayer rising to their feet. I can’t remember clearly, but I think the woman must have got on to my bed. I could not follow her distinctly, my whole attention was concentrated on her hands. At the time I felt those fingers itching for my throat.

“At last they moved; slowly at first, then quicker; and then a long-drawn swish like the sound of an over-bold wave that has broken too far up the beach and is sweeping back to join the sea.”

The boy was silent for a moment, then he stretched out his hand for the cigarettes.

“You remember nothing else?” I asked him.

“No,” he said. “The next thing I remember clearly is deliberately breaking the nursery window because it was raining and mother would not let me go out.”

There was a moment’s tension, then the strain of listening passed and everyone seemed to be speaking at once. The Rector was taking the story seriously.

“Tell me, Grady,” he said. “How long do you suppose elapsed between the boy’s murder and his breaking the nursery window?”

But a young married woman in the first flush of her happiness broke in between them. She ridiculed the whole idea. Of course the boy was dreaming. She was drawing the majority to her way of thinking when, from the corner where the girl sat, a hollow-sounding voice:

“And the boy? Where is he?”

The tone of the girl’s voice inspired horror, that fear that does not know what it is it fears; one could see it on every face; on every face, that is, but the face of the bald-headed little man; there was no horror on his face; he was smiling serenely as he looked the girl straight in the eyes.

“He’s a man now,” he said.

“Alive?” she cried.

“Why not?” said the little old man, rubbing his hands together.

She tried to rise, but her frock had got caught between the chairs and pulled her to her seat again. The man next her put out his hand to steady her, but she dashed it away roughly. She looked round the party for an instant for all the world like an animal at bay, then she sprang to her feet and charged blindly. They crowded round her to prevent her falling; at the touch of their hands she stopped. She was out of breath as though she had been running.

“All right,” she said, pushing their hands from her. “All right. I’ll come quietly. I did it.”

They caught her as she fell and laid her on the sofa watching the colour fade from her face.

The hostess, an old woman with white hair and a kind face, approached the little old man; for once in her life she was roused to anger.

“I can’t think how you could be so stupid,” she said. “See what you have done.”

“I did it for a purpose,” he said.

“For a purpose?”

“I have always thought that girl was the culprit. I have to thank you for the opportunity you have given me of making sure.”

“Land and Water” magazine, 18 Sep. 1919

ROOM NUMBER TEN

Bessie Kyffin-Taylor

1920

I was feeling more tired than tongue can tell, as the month of August trailed its suffocating days along — tired of my work, tired of people and things, especially tired, I think of the neighbourhood in which I lived — a village so rapidly becoming a suburb of a large manufacturing city, that it was neither true country nor true town, the inhabitants also gave one the impression of being neither one thing nor the other — they certainly were not “country” people, nor were they what they struggled hard to appear, “town” — for people who truly live near nature, have big, broad outlooks, and busy town dwellers are too much occupied to attend to much save their own affairs. While here, in this growing village, the concerns of one, were the concerns of all, from Mrs. So-and-So’s new hat, and how much she paid for it, down to the domestic and marital affairs of all and sundry; it was a soul-killing spot to live in, and I was very weary of it and its perpetual creed of “Thou shalt not — or if thou dost, I shall repeat and add to it, until thou no longer knoweth thine own act or words!”

And so, on this blazing August day, I hailed with delight a pressing invitation to visit some friends at their house in Scotland. The invitation was oddly worded, but they were odd people — I mean uncommon — therefore interesting; they were workers, for a greater part of the year, but as much time as all could spare, was spent in this somewhat isolated spot in Ayrshire; sometimes all of them managed to get there together, at times, only one or other of them could get away, and although I had often been asked to form one of their party, I had never been able to do so, and now just when I was hungering for quietness, and freedom, and could get away, their invitation reached me — it ran —

“Dear Old Man,

Ella and I both needed a rest, so have collected a few kindred spirits and fled to our refuge. Alec will be with us, and probably some of our chums also. We shall fill the house, but if you don’t mind where you sleep! come along.

Your old Chum,

Norman Stuart.”

I read the note over more than once, it was so curious to say “if I didn’t mind where I slept,” of course I didn’t mind, I’d sleep in the bath or on the billiard table if need be, so that I could pack and shake the dust of this trying village from my feet as quickly as possible.

I answered the note by return, in the same spirit, merely saying I was delighted and would be with them soon after this letter, adding that I would cheerfully sleep in a pigsty.

As soon as my letter was despatched I shook myself figuratively, and felt all my woes and irritations slipping away into nothingness, even the village with its talking and gossip seemed to recede into its proper state of no importance, as I gaily began — what to me is ever a joy — the collecting of the little odds and ends, which go to make a holiday a real holiday and not a thing of rushing and racing from one excitement to another, so to this end I wandered round my small domain, picking up a favourite book, tucking it under my arm, while I collected writing materials, favourite pencils, fishing tackle, oldest boots, and shoes, with fine disregard of the orthodox method of packing. Some people make packing a fine art, to me it only means throwing into a large box all that tends to my comfort or happiness, and then dropping in a few clothes, and sitting on the lid. All this I accomplished before the clock struck eleven p.m., and then with a sigh of relief I lit my final pipe, and turned in.

The following morning I was up betimes, waking with that happy feeling of exhilaration, which foretells pleasure to come, my breakfast was a hurried affair, and I was in the train and off, feeling like a schoolboy, and not by any means the staid literary man of forty-eight, that in very truth I was.

A journey is always a delight to me, and, once in my corner seat, with pipe and book, sure in the knowledge of happy days ahead, I gave myself up to the real enjoyment of this first part of my holiday. Changes at various stations only added zest and interest, for I was one of those people somewhat giving to weaving romances about the most everyday looking people. My station was about 10 miles from my friend’s house, and not the least enjoyable part of my trip was the long drive in an old-fashioned open wagonette, the only vehicle kept by my friends — they would not hear the word “motor” in their rest corner, so the 10 miles was only accomplished in a little over an hour, but the scenery was splendid, and I believe after all, there is something which appeals tremendously to everyone in the steady trotting sound of a good pair of horses — far above the buzz of a motor engine! At any rate, it fitted much more appropriately with both the scenery and my mood, than the hum of the best 60 h.p. Daimler could have done.

It was growing dusk, when we drew up at an old-fashioned white wooden gate, with the name of the house written upon it in black letters — “High Crags” — Here my worthy coachman descended stiffly to open the gate, with a pat for each steaming gee as he passed them. He had not been a very talkative companion during my long drive, and I had called him grumpy in my own mind, but now as he once again clambered into his seat, he seemed to unbend.

“Staying long, Sir?” he asked. I said I was not sure. “House a bit full,” he volunteered next.

“Is it?” I said indifferently, feeling aggrieved that after silence for 10 miles, he should now feel it incumbent upon him to talk.

“Aye,” he replied, “’ppears like as if they’ll have to use it this time.”

“Use what?” I asked.

“It,” he answered, lowering his voice, and bending towards me. “It, Sir, Room Number 10, but I pity the one who sleeps in it, I do so.”

“Why?” I asked, with a faint feeling of interest.

“Best not ask, Sir, best not ask, but there we are, whoa — whoa — my beauties,” he went on, all in one breath, as he rattled up to a big wide open door from which a welcome blaze of light streamed out lighting up glimpses of thick shrubberies.

“There you are at last!” sang out a cheery voice as my friend, big, strong, rugged looking, Norman Stuart, stretched out a welcoming hand and led me into the hall, where a big wood fire blazed, before which stood two figures — girls — both of whom eyed me curiously, as, without waiting for an introduction, they said simultaneously:

“Come and get warm, it’s nearly dinnertime, so we must run,” and run they did, with a flash of pretty frills and high-heeled shoes.

“And now, old man, let me have a look at you.” And with this remark my friend wheeled up a big chair in front of the blazing fire. “Come and get a warm first,” he added, “and then I’ll trot you upstairs to your room.”

He stopped speaking somewhat abruptly, busying himself with his pipe, while I revelled in the warmth and comfort.

After a few minutes I asked him who the pretty girls were, and he laughed.

“Two of Ella’s pals,” he said — “Miriam Langdale and Joyce Wood, great sports they are, full of nonsense.”

“Who else have you here?” I went on.

“Let me see,” he replied, “How many are we? There are Ella and I, those two girls, Alec and two young fellows from the same Hospital — Medical Students both of them; Professor Sturges, though he doesn’t bother with any of us, being fathoms deep in his scientific studies, is an interesting old chap, when he cares to talk; and Miss Brown.”

“Oh!” I said, “and who may Miss Brown be?”

“She’s just Miss Brown,” he said with a laugh — “rather an oddity, but a clever woman, one of those rather silent women with curious ideas on many things, a woman who never appears to hear or see half the time, but who never misses anything really — a woman apparently hard, cold and reserved, but, to those who know her, one of the most loyal, true, tender-hearted beings in the world, and always ready with a helping hand for any trouble.”

“A nice mixture,” I said, “do they all agree?”

“Um,” he muttered, “more or less, though the Professor and Miss Brown spar a bit, and those two saucy girls lead them both a bit of a dance, but anyway,” he added, “form your own judgement, you will see them all in half an hour — you have just that time before dinner, so I will take you to your room. We have done our best for you, so I hope you will be — er — comfortable — and — er — sleep — and all that,” and pulling himself together, he started off, up the dark oak staircase, I following, admiring as I went, the whole scheme, if one could call it so, of the decorations, the dark oak stairs, vivid crimson stair carpets, walls of duller red, bare of the orthodox pictures, which people put on their stairs and landings, when they won’t fit anywhere else! The old beaten copper lamps at the corners of the banisters and on the landing above, each dark oak door with its own specially designed knocker and number of the room in copper figures — an old oak chest, an oak table with an orange-coloured azalea in a quaint pewter jar, and one or two old engravings, gave a tone of comfort, and the whole atmosphere was one of soft restfulness.

“Sorry, old chap, we are crammed to overflowing on this landing — you are down here,” said my host, as he led me down two steps and along a passage somewhat narrow and feeling slightly chillier than the other part of the house, to a room at the far end. “You are rather far away from the rest of us,” he said, as if apologising, “but you said you did not mind,” and he put his hand on the handle of a door, at the same instant my eye fell on the copper number. Room No. 10 stared me in the face, and the words of my worthy driver beat in my brain, as I entered.

My friend having opened the door and ushered me in, did not come in with me, but turned, muttering —

“Hope you’ve all you want, come right down when you are ready,” and bolted from the door, shutting it after him.

Probably if I had never heard the words “Room No. 10” spoken as they were by my driver, I should have been wholly, as I was in part, entranced by the room in which I found myself, and as I gazed around me, I determined to wipe from my memory any previous thought of the room, and put the driver’s words in their proper category, as the silly vapourings of a stupid servant, and to give myself up to the enjoyment of my surroundings.

The room was spacious, but with a somewhat low ceiling, the floor of black oak had a square of peacock blue carpet in the centre, the ceiling was painted with gold stars, representing the Northern Hemisphere, there was an enormous oak four-poster bedstead, piled high with snowy pillows, and covered by a thick eiderdown of satin in shades of blue and gold, the fireplace was roomy and old-fashioned, with steel fittings which shone like silver in the dancing firelight, a big basket chair, with a blue and white cover, was drawn near to the fire, and a log box of beaten copper stood near at hand, piled up with logs of wood.

The only thing that struck me as out of keeping was a small modern brass and black bedstead, in a corner of the room, and this also was made ready for occupation. Was I to have a companion? or stay, possibly it was for choice, as many people do not care for a four-poster — to me, however, it appealed, and I straightway ignored the modern bed.

My dressing-table was a fine old piece of furniture, only thinly covered by a muslin cover, on it stood a quaint jar, full of late dahlias — the only really vivid note of colour in the room. It was in my opinion an ideal room, my eye fell on the fitted-up writing table in the window with joy, as I foresaw many quiet hours of happy scribbling.

No one came to help me to unpack, so I concluded the staff was limited, but I managed to unearth my dinner garments, and clothe my self unaided, just as the dinner-gong boomed in the distance. With a last glance of admiration round my quarters, I blew out the candles, and prepared to make my way down to the hall.

All the company were assembled round the fire, as I came down the stairs, and my hostess, Mrs. Stuart, came quickly to meet me.

“So sorry, Peter, I was not here to receive you, but you know us of old, also our unconventional ways, so I knew you would understand. Now let me introduce you, children,” she went on addressing them all —

“This is Mr. Peter Maxton of literary fame, some of you may have read his books, and if not, you will find them in the Library. Peter, these are two naughty girls, Miriam Langdale and Joyce Wood, of no use, except as ornaments; Professor Sturges with whom you will quarrel; and, Miss Brown, whom you will hate tonight, dislike tomorrow, endure the day after, and finally adore, as we all do. The boys are late, so we will not wait for them, but go in like Indians, single file, and eat.”

Miss Joyce Wood promptly attached herself to me, with the remark —

“Sit by me, Mr. Maxton, and I’ll give you all the wrinkles about our motley crew, and their fads. I haven’t read your books, so don’t talk about them, all my time is given to other things.”

“Bridge, I suppose,” I answered, “and golf, and buying clothes, and such things.”

“If you care to consider you have read and summed me up, very well, we will leave it at that,” she answered demurely.

“How do you like your room?” she went on, “Miriam and I arranged it; it’s nice, isn’t it?”

“It is delightful,” I answered, “No one could fail to be happy in it.”

She glanced at me quickly, but did not pursue the subject of my room, chattering through the remainder of dinner on all sorts of subjects.

The evening passed all too quickly, without any attempt at entertaining in its best known sense, but, in what I consider the truest form of it — the leaving each and all to follow their own bent. If anyone wanted to sing or play, they wandered to the piano, and did so, without any of that wearisome “Will you play? — Oh, I really can’t — I only play to myself.”

The Professor I did not see again, so concluded he had gone to the library, where I afterwards learnt he spent most of his time.

Miss Wood played and sang, my host and Miss Brown were lost to all in a game of chess; the young men had ’phoned they were dining with friends, and we were not to wait up for them, so my pretty hostess and I drew up our chairs for a gossip of old times and friends.

It was a quiet, restful evening, but my long cold drive had made me sleepy, and I was glad when about 11 o’clock a move was made, bedroom candles were lit, and we made our way upstairs.

Laughing “Good-nights” were exchanged on the main landing, as one after another vanished through their numbered doors. My hostess lingered a moment and then said —

“Do you remember your way, Peter, or shall I show you?”

“Not a bit,” I answered, “I know, quite well,” and I fancied a distinct look of relief passed over her face.

“Very well,” she said, “sleep well, oh! — and — er — sleep in whichever bed you prefer, both are ready—”

“Right-o!” I answered, “but give me the big one for preference; I’ve always longed to sleep in a four-poster.”

She smiled — “Please yourself, and change if you don’t like it,” and with a little wave, she followed the girls and I wended my solitary way down the other corridor to Room No. 10.

The room was in darkness as I entered, save for the red embers of a departing fire which apparently no one had made up for the night; still, it looked very cosy, even if a trifle sombre. I soon had a more cheery blaze and sat down before it, for a short read, as was ever my habit, before turning in. I was soon deep in my book, deeper than I had intended to get, and as my wood-fire subsided with a little rush of sparks, I realized it was close upon midnight, so, hurriedly prepared for bed; for a brief instant I surveyed my two beds, both looked the acme of comfort, and though, for some unaccountable reason my inclination now turned to the modern one, I nevertheless decided in favour of my four-poster, and was quickly in a comfortable nest of pillows and beginning to feel very sleepy, so, blowing out my last candle, I closed my eyes and gave myself up to sleep.

Possibly I had been asleep an hour, maybe less, when I awakened suddenly and completely, in full possession of my senses — I could not account for it, and yet was possessed by the feeling that something or some person had awakened me. The room was in complete darkness, and I groped for my matches on the table by my side where I had placed them. I could not find them, though the table was small, and my hand swept the whole of it from side to side, and end to end — “Odd,” I thought, “for I certainly remember putting them there.” However, they were not to be found, so I settled down once more. Hardly had my head touched the pillow, when I heard a faint, soft sigh — there was no mistaking it — I could not call it the wind moaning in the chimney, or anything else, but just what it was, a soft, faint sigh!

I had always thought I was a hard-headed materialist, a stolid matter of fact John Bull, but to my last day, I shall never be able to say what my feelings were at that moment — either my heart stopped and my blood froze, or my heart beat trebly as fast, and my blood boiled, I was either in a dead funk, or else I was annoyed beyond words at something quite inexplicable — I shall never know which state of mind was mine, all I was really conscious of was that I lay inert, incapable of moving, dreading I knew not what, until by sheer will power I forced myself to think. Should I endeavour to reach the door? — the door, by which I had entered this room but twice, and left once, could I then locate it in the inky darkness in which my room was now plunged? I doubted it. Should I yell — for what — to what end? I could not very well yell “help” or “murder” for I was in no need of help, and no one was being murdered, moreover, no mere yell would be heard from this backwater of a passage where my room was. What then was I to do? I lay trembling, trying to keep steady; all was still now, and I cautiously raised myself on my elbow, straining my eyes to peer into the darkness. As I did so, my pillow was gently shaken, so gently, that it seemed as if the idea of shaking it was merely to add to my comfort — it did not, for it reduced me to a state of terror. Suddenly the thought shot through my brain — the other bed! and my hostess’s words —

“Change if you are not comfortable.”

Dare I? The bed I knew was almost beside the four-posters for I had noticed that the little table for my candle, matches and books, stood just between the two beds, thereby being of the same use, whichever bed I chose to occupy. To think was to act now, so I slid out of bed, felt the table by knocking my shins on it, and fell headlong on to the other bed, grabbing the table wildly, to pull it closer, feeling at least it could be hurled at intruders. The first thing my hand came in contact with was — my matches! I seized them wildly, and with trembling hands struck one and lit my candle; holding it aloft I surveyed as much of the room as I could. Nothing of the slightest account seemed altered, everything looked perfectly normal, beyond one simple item, which I might be wrong in — I had rather hurriedly shed my garments, when I felt sleepy, and man-like had left them in a heap — I am prepared to swear to this, but, now, I saw them distinctly folded neatly and laid ready for me in the morning. Fool that I am, I thought, someone must have entered my room and tidied it, and it was that someone who sighed. That it was a fantastic and highly unlikely thing to have happened, did not seem to occur to my overwrought brain, and nature, now asserting herself, helped me to slip off into restful slumber, from which I awakened, to see the sun pouring into my room, and all as I had left it — even to my garments, in an untidy heap, on the hearth-rug! “Then I dreamt it,” I said aloud, and feeling foolish and half-ashamed, I carefully re-made the little brass bed, and got into the four-poster, where I lay contentedly smoking my pipe, until a trim maid brought my early tea, and announced — “Bath ready, sir, and breakfast in an hour.”

I dawdled over my dressing, happy in the knowledge at the back of my mind, that there were many hours before me ere I again went to bed, a weak form of reasoning surely, for a man with any brains at all, to indulge in.

An hour later as I joined the rest of the house-party in front of the jolly fire in the hall, my misgivings were fading quickly, and I was inclined to vote myself a silly ass, for being disturbed by what I was now convinced was a bad dream, resulting from too late a meal, following over- fatigue.

It might have been my fancy that one and all of the party round the fire, eyed me rather curiously, but I flattered myself that I looked fit and fresh, and showed no signs of my troubled night. My hostess asked me in a voice she endeavoured to make natural, “If I slept well.”

“Quite,” I answered, smiling, for I had made up my mind to say nothing of what I thought had taken place. Then the old Professor ambled in, glaring at me from under his shaggy brows as he barked out —

“Comfortable night?”

“Why, yes,” I answered, “perfect.”

“Umph,” he grunted, “no accounting for tastes.” Then we settled ourselves at a well-spread breakfast table, and began to discuss plans for the day.

Mrs. Stuart merely said —

“Entertain yourselves and be happy, luncheon will be ready here at 1.30, but those who wish to take it out are at liberty to do so. I am driving into Drayton — there are a few things I need, though the shops there are not much to see — anyone come?” she asked.

Now was my chance. I would go with her, and procure, if possible, an electric torch, or failing that, would wire home for mine, which I had left behind me.

Joyce Wood looked at me with a bright quick glance, as I accepted my hostess’s invitation, and said —

“I’ll come too, if I may, I want some silk.”

“Come along,” said Mrs. Stuart, “there is just room for three of us, and you can show Peter round while I shop. We will lunch at the ‘Bear Inn,’ and get tea here, on our return.”

“Is it far?” I asked.

“No,” she replied, “only fifteen miles, but slow with horses, though I love them; we will start in an hour,” she went on, “so mind you are ready.” And she went gaily away to attend, I suppose, to all those little duties, which make a house like this run as if with oiled machinery.

One by one the party dispersed, until the only people left before the fire were Miss Brown and myself. I really had not noticed her much the previous evening, but now, as she sat in a deep chair, her white hands busy with some knitting, I was rather struck by the restful feeling she seemed to have about her. She was not a tall woman, but proportionate, and her face, though pale, was not an unhealthy pallor, her head bent down over some intricate part of her work, was a glossy brown — very neatly dressed and with an absence of combs and big pins, such as most women love. I could not see her eyes, but I was watching her white firm hands, with their beautifully-kept nails, when my eye caught sight of the only ring she wore, a curious ring, an ancient emerald in a dull silver setting; it was more like a man’s ring than a woman’s, and something made me say, in spite of appearing rude —

“I am admiring your ring, Miss Brown.”

She looked up with a quick start, meeting my eyes, with a pair nearly as green as her emerald stone. I was startled. She laughed a low amused laugh.

“And now you are comparing my ring with my eyes. Everybody does,” she said, “though that is not why I wear it.”

“May I look at it?” I asked.

“From a distance,” she replied. “It has a curious history and does not bring luck to most people, so I never let it leave me.”

“You are not superstitious, surely?” I asked, for her answer amazed me. She looked so little like a person of that kind.

“What do you mean by superstitious?” she asked. “If you mean will I walk beneath a ladder, most certainly I will, and spill salt and sit down thirteen, quite cheerfully, but if you mean do I believe that certain gems have evil, attached to them, I do, as I also believe that certain impressions are retained by things worn by people at tragic moments, and, given sensitive people to handle them, I believe they can and do bring about curious happenings.”

“You amaze me,” I answered, “Will you talk to me again on this subject?”

“Yes,” she answered, “tomorrow, not any more today.” And with this I had to be content, and as she seemed to have relapsed into silence and her knitting, I wandered away in search of boots and coat, to be ready for my hostess and pretty companion for our jaunt to the market town.

It was a gay little drive, the country was looking superb, and it was one of those days when bushes and banks were veiled in shimmery gossamer, when shadows seemed deep and long, as the sun lit up vivid patches of red leaves here and there, making a wonderful scheme of colour and beauty.

Mrs. Stuart drove, and was too much occupied with her team to bother much with her passengers, so Miss Wood amused me by running comments on most things, though once or twice she seemed on the point of saying something, then seemed to suddenly pull herself up, relapsing into silence. Our drive took almost two hours, for the roads were hilly, but about one o’clock we rattled up the main street of Drayton, and pulled up at the “Bear Inn.” Here Mrs. Stuart gave the gees into the care of an aged ostler, and we entered in search of a meal, after which, she left us to do her shopping, leaving me wondering greatly how I was to get rid of my companion to transact my own little bit of business.

“I am going to buy some sweets,” Miss Wood announced presently, “so come along.” I was a little surprised to find the girl in a rather quiet mood, and more than a little surprised, when she suddenly said —

“Mr. Maxton, tell me the truth, did you really sleep well last night?” I answered her in my most offhand manner —

“Of course, Miss Wood, but why do you ask?”

She turned and glanced at me, but without answering my question, merely said —

“Oh! very well, either you are well able to hide your feelings, or else you passed a night — not usual — for those who sleep in No. 10.”

“Is there anything to prevent my sleeping peacefully there?” I asked.

“Oh! never mind,” she said, in rather annoyed tones — “Mrs. Stuart may be vexed if I say anything, so don’t ask me, only try to endure it, it would be a pity if you cannot, I think we are a jolly little party too,” adding — “I shall be a quarter of an hour in this shop, will you meet me again then?”

Rather with too much alacrity, I said I would, and turning away, I left her to her own devices, while I hunted for a torch. I was afraid I was to be doomed to disappointment, so visited the post office to send the wire requesting my own torch should be instantly despatched. I was relying upon a dependable light perhaps more than I was fully conscious of.

The old postmaster, on reading my wire, raised my spirits tremendously by saying —

“If it will save you, sir, I have one of them new-fangled lighting things — it was given to me a week or two past by a visitor, and I’ve no sort of use for such things, for when I’m home, I likes my lamp, and when I’m out, the stars is good enough light for me. I’ll sell it you, sir, and glad to be rid of it.”

I was thankful, gladly paying him the three shillings he asked for a twelve-and-sixpenny torch. Having tried it and found it sound, I slipped it in my pocket, and went on my way rejoicing, to meet Miss Wood.

“You are punctual,” she said, “now come and buy sweets,” so with my spirits higher, because of my torch, and with its possession, my dread of the night much less, we behaved like two children let loose in a sweet shop, laughing, fooling, tasting, and buying.

“The others will welcome us home,” she said, “but, oh! do stow some of these parcels in your pockets, we look so greedy!”

Without a thought, I took the torch from my pocket to make more room, but I realised instantly that I had given myself away as her eyes fell on it, and a quick “Oh!” fell from her lips.

“Then you did tell me untruths,” she said, “and I believed you. I suppose you think buying sweets is all I am capable of understanding, very well, so be it,” and she drew herself up in offended dignity.

I made no attempt to explain, but followed her from the shop as if in disgrace. Our drive home a little later, was dull and strained, fortunately Mrs. Stuart was too busy to notice us, and as we reached our own door, we were hailed with shouts from three young men, who all rushed to be first to assist pretty Joyce, so our somewhat forced remarks to each other passed unnoticed.

Tea was a merry meal, though Miss Wood did not appear, she was tired she said, and would rest in her own room.

It seemed to me that there was a constant effort on the part of everyone to keep the tone of conversation as light as possible, and, as evening approached, there was an outcry for lamps, instead of firelight. The two young medicals promptly hauled me from my cosy chair, and marched me off for a game of billiards.

“Won’t you come, too, Miss Brown?” I asked, seeing the little lady sitting a little apart as usual, absorbed in her knitting.

“No, thank you, Mr. Maxton, I must finish this sock,” she said. “But, later, perhaps after dinner, I will play you a game.”

“That is a promise,” I said, laughing, as I followed the two young fellows. We played on until one of them said —

“By Jove! we’ve only twenty minutes before dinner, come on you chaps,” and fled. The other man, a tall, slim youth of about twenty-nine or so, with a pale face, sleek black hair and rather piercing dark eyes, linked his arm in mine and escorted me up the stairs and along to my room, which he entered with me, and he poked up the fire, while I was lighting my candles.

“Which bed did you sleep in?” he asked, abruptly.

“Why?” I asked.

“I was only wondering,” he answered, “personally, I loathe four-posters.”

“ I like them,” I said, “I slept in that one.”

“What! all night?” he gasped.

“My dear chap,” I replied, “would you get out of a warm bed into a cold one in the middle of the night?”

“I might,” he answered, “one never knows, but I must dash off now, my room is the first you come to at the end of this passage, if — er — if you should want anything,” and he went off hurriedly. Once again I surveyed my room, and once again I thought it a perfect room. I carefully locked the torch up in my bag, hurried my dressing, and went down to dinner. I was still conscious of odd glances at me, and was faintly aware that for some reason I was of interest to the little company, even the glum old Professor cast a questioning eye upon me from time to time, but I showed nothing, gave no hint of any unusual happenings, so dinner and a merry evening passed pleasantly, although Miss Brown failed to keep her promise, saying she had some letters to write for the early post, and had promised to go and see Miss Wood who had a headache.

We were all off to bed early tonight — at least we all separated early — my friend Norman accompanied me upstairs after a last glass of whisky, but as before, he did not linger chatting to me, but merely saying —

“Pleasant night, old chap,” he went off, leaving me, for my second night in Room No. 10. I proceeded to make my arrangements for the night, in a most thorough manner. I heaped up the fire first until the leaping flames lit up even the dimmest corners of the room, making the polished floor between the rugs shine like glass. I calmly surveyed my two beds, quickly making up my mind to occupy the four-poster, so drew the little table well between the two, but in such a position that I could, if needs be, easily reach the little brass bed. I had decided not to sit up in the orthodox way and await the arrival of my visitors, ghostly or otherwise. No! I determined, I would go to bed, and to sleep if possible. I whistled cheerily to myself as I undressed, tucking my torch into the pocket of my pyjamas. I turned in, and settled myself comfortably. After about an hour’s reading, I blew out my candles, and prepared for sleep. I did sleep, and was awakened as suddenly as before, but this time by hearing the fire being gently stirred. I looked, expecting to see a bright blaze as the result, but black darkness greeted me, yet I could hear the coal being moved. I strained my eyes and ears, listening intently, and trying not to light up my torch, now ready in my hand. I heard the poker laid down. I heard the soft shuffle of felt slippers crossing the polished floor, nearer and nearer to the bed they came. I heard what sounded like a tinkle of a spoon against a glass, and a soft hand was laid on my wrist, rendering me powerless to light my torch, and turning me cold with terror. With a frantic plunge, I got to the other side of the bed, hoping and praying I should have strength to hurl myself across the little space into the brass bed, but to my unspeakable and everlasting horror, the other side of my four-poster was not empty! Someone was there — some form! With frenzied strength I sat up, flashing my torch as I did so, I suppose I was awake — I suppose I was sane though I would prefer to think I was asleep, or mad.

In my four-poster lay an old man — a man with a drawn livid face, closed eyes, and snow-white hair, one of whose hands lay outside the covers — claw-like, livid — on one finger of it shone a ring — an uncut emerald in a dull silver setting! winked in the light of my torch, as I held it tremblingly, for the light to shine as far as could be. Beside him stood a woman dressed as a nurse, holding a medicine glass in her right hand, while the other hand held his wrist; an evil smile hovered on her thin lips, and her hair, lit by my torch, was dull iron grey, flattened into a hard line above thin straight eyebrows; I glanced hurriedly round, my whole room seemed changed — a large screen stood round the bed, shielding the window, the writing table seemed full of bottles, in place of my books, garments, which were not mine, lay scattered about. I was so paralysed with terror, I could neither speak nor move, but clung to my torch as the cold sweat poured from me. I saw her raise the old man’s head. I saw him drink the contents of the glass held to his lips, and then, with a frenzied leap, I made one dash for the little bed, and fell on it, fainting.

It must have been some time after when I regained consciousness, for the dim light of early morning was struggling through my drawn curtains. I got up, flung back the curtains, letting in the light; it was just five o’clock, so the horror had occupied possibly some hours, and I was still alive, though badly shaken. My room was as I had left it; I, wearied beyond telling, now, in the blessed light of day, dropped off to sleep, heavily, dreamlessly, and did not awaken until, as before, my little maid entered with my tea, she gave a little start of surprise on seeing me in the little bed, but made no remark, beyond —

“Your bath is ready, sir, and breakfast in an hour.”

I took my tea and my bath, though I felt unhinged, and worn out. Later when I met the party at breakfast, I did not attempt, as before, to conceal the fact that I had not slept, and was not feeling very fit.

No one made any remark, except the old Professor, who curtly said —

“Better come and have a talk with me in the Library, I will give you a pick-me-up.” Norman, my friend, was ill at ease, and his wife seemed troubled, Miss Brown calmly eating buttered toast, eyed me, and I noticed her curious ring was not on her hand; she saw I missed it, smiled, saying, as if answering my unspoken thought.

“You need not let that trouble you, Mr. Maxton, its absence is for a purpose.”

After breakfast during which meal a sort of cloud seemed to hover over us, I wandered away alone, feeling that solitude and fresh air best suited my need. No one made any move to accompany me, so with my pipe alight, I tramped round the garden, scarcely noticing the autumn flowers, reddening leaves, or ripening fruit. The garden, like the house, was old and picturesque, flowers grew as they liked — set borders, and that most inartistic thing carpet bedding were things unknown. Late roses hob-nobbed with gaudy sunflowers, and flaunting hollyhocks, a riot of many coloured phlox, seemed herded together, guarded by a hedge of sweetbriar, and here and there a fading clump of night-scented stock drooped pensively, until evening, when it opened its eyes, and scented all the garden with its strange arresting perfume, a quaint sundial, moss covered, and cracked, stood in a clearing and its motto — “I only count the sunny hours,” gave one thought as one passed, of other hours, hours that were not sunny.

At one end of a long path, was a white wood seat, flanked on one side by a laburnum tree, and half hidden from sight by a lilac bush — my steps took me towards it, as I came upon it, I saw, too late to go back, that it was occupied, occupied by Miss Brown and her everlasting knitting. Courtesy demanded that I should stop to speak, though the lady did not raise her head.

“Busy as usual, Miss Brown,” I said, in tones I tried to make cheery.

“Come and sit down,” was her reply, “I want to ask you a question.”

“Am I bound to answer it?” I said.

“No,” she replied, “not bound, but I hope you will.”

“How many people did you see in your room last night?”

“Two,” I replied, unhesitatingly, as if the words were pulled out of me.

“Ah,” she breathed, “did you — er — have you — ever seen anyone like them before?” I gazed at her amazed.

“Seen anyone like them?” I said. “Why of course not, they were not real — I mean they could not have been alive!”

“No,” she said, “of course not, but oh! never mind, I only asked from idle curiosity. Are you leaving us today?”

“Certainly not,” I replied, “at least, I had not thought of doing so, do you wish me to leave?”

“It might be better for you if you did,” she answered, “but if you stay, you are a plucky man. I must go now. Miss Wood is not well, and I am looking after her.”

“You would be a good nurse,” I said politely, and for something to say, but I was unprepared for the change which came over placid Miss Brown, her face went paler than its usual pallor, her lips compressed themselves into a tight line, and a gleam shot into her usually quiet eyes, as she sprang to her feet, and holding the back of her seat, flashed out at me —

“I can’t nurse, I loathe the very word, but these things seem against our will to pass down from generation to generation, and who knows what other instincts pass down with it,” and with that she was gone, and I was alone.

I felt a little taken aback at Miss Brown’s quick change of manner, also her abrupt departure, but I had desired solitude so must make the best of it. The white seat appealed to me, and my pipe was always a good companion. It was odd, I thought, as I tried to go over in my mind the strange things that had befallen me, I had been here three days, at least this was my third day, and already I had unwittingly offended two of the house party — Miss Wood first, then Miss Brown — the former because I preferred to keep my own counsel, the latter, by the mild remark, that she would make a good nurse. What strange creatures women are! I should have thought any woman would have liked to have been called a good nurse, there are so few who know the meaning of the word “Nurse,” and to my mind they, the modern nurses, are the dullest of women, to judge by those I have known. Well I’ve certainly made a mess of things, how to extricate myself I couldn’t think. An hour passed quickly in my musing frame of mind, the horrors of the night were fading or had faded here in the sunlit garden, among the perfumes of a hundred flowers. Dare I be unsociable any longer, I wondered, or was it my duty as a guest, to go and seek the other members of our party? My question was answered by the approaching sound of footsteps, followed by the hurried appearance of my hostess, Mrs. Stuart, who breathlessly flopped on to the seat saying —

“Oh, Peter, you idiot! you’ve gone and upset Miss Brown. Wasn’t Joyce enough for you, you big clumsy manbody?”

“Dear lady,” I managed to say, “I am quite at a loss to understand you, I merely intimated to Miss Wood that a still tongue suited a certain happening, and to Miss Brown I paid the highest compliment of saying she would make a good nurse!”

Speechless for an instant, Mrs. Stuart looked at me, and then —

“Peter, you didn’t? Not really? Oh, for heaven’s sake, tell me you didn’t say that!”

“Most surely, I did,” I answered, “and why not, good nurses are extinct, or so it has seemed to me — tell me where I have stumbled please, that I may go on bended knee humbly apologizing!”

“Stop fooling,” she ordered, “and listen, though I am under a promise not to tell you anything really, I can explain your ‘faux pas,’ I care nothing for Joyce Wood’s touchiness, that can be explained later, but Miss Brown! that is another story!”

“We only got to know her through taking this house, it had belonged for generations to her people, and although she didn’t live here herself, she would only consent to let it to people who would allow her to retain some link with the place, allowing her to stay in it in their absence or some arrangement of that kind. We were so taken with the place, its quaintness, its beauty, but above all its remoteness, that we rather hurriedly agreed to anything, so that we got possession of it.”

“The first time we came, we did not see Miss Brown, the second time, she was here when we arrived, quite at home looking as if the place belonged to her, I was, I confess, not too cordial, but she speedily disarmed me, telling me she was not filling up our space, because her quarters were in a part of the house little used, in fact, rather shunned by most people, but she preferred it, and had not any nerves, moreover at this time of the year (that was just this time last year) she really must be in her old home, there was nothing I could say, and she very soon won us all, so much so, that now, whenever we are here, so is Miss Brown — she is invaluable to me, she attends to so much in the house for me, leaving me free to rest or enjoy myself. I couldn’t do without her,” she added — “and there! you’ve ruffled the dear, like, oh like anything.”

“I’m still in a fog,” I murmured.

“I know you are,” she answered, “and am I not doing my best to get you to see through it.”

“Proceed,” I said, “I may see daylight before luncheon.”

“Peter, you’re impossible.” This with a stamp to emphasize it.

“The point is this,” she went on.

“So that there is a point!” I ventured.

“Don’t interrupt please, as I said the point is this — all of Miss Brown’s relations for ages have been Nurses! — one after another, great grands, grands, and so on, have all developed nursing tendencies; they don’t seem able to help it, and years ago, one of the grands or great grands — I forget which — murdered a patient by poisoning him in this very house; it was never quite known for what reason other than spite, or carelessness, the Jury said ‘carelessness’ but her family didn’t, and one or two of the family who subsequently became nurses, were obliged to give it up, because the stain had somehow stuck, and people feared them. Nothing was ever missed, belonging to the old man the woman murdered, except a ring he always wore, but, as there was never any proof to show he had not given it to her, as she said at the trial, it remained in her possession, and has been handed down.”

“The emerald jewel, I suppose,” I asked.

“Yes, the emerald jewel,” answered Mrs. Stuart, “but it has an uncanny reputation, and no one has ever worn it as long as Miss Brown has, and she says she will wear it in spite of the curse it seems to have attached to it.”

“What’s the curse?” I asked sceptically.

“You needn’t sneer,” she replied, “you know something of it by now, if I am not very much mistaken. I may not tell you more, Peter, but, to tell Miss Brown she would make a good nurse, was simply awful! The poor soul loathes the very word, yet the tragedy is, she can no more help nursing than she can keep from walking, it’s in her blood, and she’s always nursing someone. A headache! — there’s Miss Brown — a sick animal! — there’s Miss Brown, she simply can’t keep off it, but, the horrible thing is, that just as he died, the old man cursed his nurse, and all her descendants, swearing that others should also be denounced as murderesses, whether they deserved it or not, and several of them got into trouble of sorts, one gave wrong medicine in the dark, and all but killed her patient, and so on, there are still one or two Nurse Browns about, but they have not an enviable reputation. Our Miss Brown swears she will never be a Nurse, and feels most acutely the disgrace of it all, and the very name ‘Nurse’ is like a red rag to a bull.”

“How on earth, Ella, was I to know?” I queried.

“Oh!” she answered me, “didn’t last night show you.”

“Lord, no,” I said, “how could it?”

“Well you are blinder than I thought,” she snapped, and then, as swiftly changing, she went on — in honey-sweet tones — “Tell me, Peter, are you too scared to go through tonight?”

“Not a bit,” I answered valiantly, “but you seem pretty sure I’ve got to go through it.”

“Miss Brown says so,” she answered demurely.

“Oh! d — Miss Brown,” I said, losing patience at last, “it’s some got-up tale, I don’t believe a word of it, and anyway what has Miss Brown got to do with me?”

“She gave up her room, that you might come — Room No. 10 you know — and she is doing all she knows, that you may not be disturbed, that is all,” she answered — “the Professor is helping her and we shall be thankful if you will go through it, and stay on, it will be over tonight, and you will have peace.”

“Try not to think about it, I may not tell you more, I should go to bed early, in the little bed, if I were you, and tomorrow, not today, you can apologise to Miss Brown, she may perhaps believe then that you did not make an intentionally cruel insinuation, but now, she believes you did, she can’t see how it could be otherwise.”

“Dear Lady,” I said, “the fog is thicker than at the beginning.”

“I know,” she answered, “and it will just have to be until tomorrow, then we shall see and all be free to talk, but until then the Professor insists on your being left in the fog, as you choose to call it. I must go now, Joyce and Miss Brown are spending the day together in my morning-room you will not see either of them, so get a good tramp with the other men, tire yourself out and keep as cheery as you can. See you at lunch,” and with airy wave she had gone, leaving me to my solitude and a good deal to occupy my thoughts. Thinking things out, I speedily found, was but to land myself deeper in the maze of perplexity. I had grasped the main idea, that a murder had been committed in the room I slept in, presumably by a long-since departed relative of Miss Brown, who, feeling the disgrace still clinging to her name and family, comes to sojourn here, where it all took place, to keep it ever fresh in her memory! How like a woman! A man would have shunned the spot, unless he could do any good. I wonder if our Miss Brown has some idea of laying the restless spirits, which — let me whisper to myself — most certainly do take possession of Room No. 10! Why does the silly woman wear the emerald ring? Where is it, that she is not wearing it today, and not least, what is the programme for tonight? Ah! tonight — let me confess, in spite of fooling, my sarcasm, my bluffing with Mrs. Stuart, I am sick when I think of tonight, I am in a dead funk, and dread it unspeakably, but I’m going through with it, with my teeth clenched, it can’t surely be worse than last night. Well, I can but wait for what transpires.

The day was not happy, nor could I shake off entirely the feeling of fear, any more than I could feel content, knowing I was in disgrace with two women of the party. Luncheon was soon over, the usual standing about with cigarettes after it, seemed by mutual consent to be abandoned, Mrs. Stuart and I alone remaining. A happy thought occurred to me.

“Mrs. Stuart,” I began, “do you think the two fair ladies with whom I am in disgrace, would permit me to visit them in their seclusion?”

“No, Peter,” she replied quickly, “no, they are both determined not to see you until tomorrow, I think they are right, you must do something else to pass your time.”

“May I see the Professor then?”

“Better not,” she answered, “I’m real sorry, Peter, but they all know and understand the position, and do not wish to speak of it. If you really funk the thing, I’ll make up a bed on a sofa for you.”

One instant I thought, feeling myself wavering, then —

“No thanks,” I said, “I will see the thing through, don’t bother about me. I was going to ask one of the men to share my vigil and have a talk by my fire, instead of going to bed, but I find they will be away until late, so there is nothing for it but just my lonesome. As a matter of fact, dear lady, I utterly disbelieve a third of the yarn, and the rest doesn’t matter.”

“That’s a good view to take,” she said, with a smile, “but now I must go. See you later.” And once more I was left to my own devices. I would shelve the whole wretched affair, and go for a good tramp alone, I decided, so, without waiting for company I set off, and tramped steadily over moor and hills until nearly five, the country was at its best, or rather as I loved it best, except for a feeling of sadness the autumn always brings, I prefer the bracken, golden and bronze, rather than in spring when its tender green fronds run the risk of being cut and blackened by icy wind; I love the trees turning to crimson glories, the berries scarlet or purple banging from every hedge, best of all I love the vivid red of the mountain ash berries, those glorious clusters, which the wandering gipsies say bring luck to the wearer. There are not any tints even in the freshest of spring green and yellow, to compare in my mind with the glory and colour of waning summer. A thought of tea, however, hastened my footsteps, but no matter how belated one was, fresh tea at once appeared, nor were the toasted cakes all cold and sodden for late corners. It was as I expected, tea was almost over, but I was not by any means neglected.

“Now we’ll be cosy,” said our hostess, when the last scone had vanished, “Miriam, dear, play and sing to us; you come and sit by me, Peter, and you, Professor, you will stay for some music, won’t you?”

“If Miss Miriam sings, Madam, I could not go,” the old fellow answered, as I wondered what manner of voice was this I was to hear, for the first time — I had been too absorbed in other things to have paid much attention hitherto — to the slim fair haired girl — who now moved quietly to the Piano, in a dim corner of the Hall —

“Shall I light the candles, Miss Langdale?” I asked.

“Not unless you wish, Mr. Maxton,” she answered in a soft low voice, “I like best to sing or play in the firelight.”

Silence fell upon our chatter, as the first soft notes of her choice reached us. I do not know the name of anything she played; I am a mere man, whose busy life had neither time for music nor romance in it, but there was both in this girl’s music, her soul was in her playing, and memories long called dead were awakened, sad memories, sweet ones, all came, as if at the call of a Pied Piper, memories I had relegated to the dust-heap of forgotten things, now stood before me, as if to say, “you may relegate us to the dust-heap, but memories that have once lived, never die, sooner or later something recalls us, maybe a perfume of a flower, or perhaps music — sooner or later something brings us back.”

Presently, but without a pause the music altered, a few soft chords floated softly through the firelit hall, and a soft deep voice, clear, resonant, full, yet without a trace of strain, or effort, took up the air, every word, every syllable reached us — old as the song was, often as I had heard it, its beauty and charm as sung by Miriam Langdale that evening, in the silence and warmth in that old hall, I shall never forget.

“The hours I spent with thee, dear heart,

Are as a string of pearls to me,

I count them over, every one apart,

My Rosary, my Rosary.

Softly, thrilling, the words came —

“Each hour, a pearl, each pearl, a prayer,

To still a heart in absence wrung,

I tell each bead unto the end,

And there, a cross is hung.”

Fuller, deeper, rang the lovely voice, there were tears in it now —

“Oh, memories that bless and burn,

Oh! barren gain and bitter loss,

I kiss each bead, and strive at last to learn

To kiss the cross, Sweetheart,

To kiss the cross.

The last line rang out — “To kiss the cross, Sweetheart,” and died away in a sob of anguish — “To kiss the cross.”

Unmoving, silent, we sat, each one wrapt deeply in their own memories, and surely those hours spent with one beloved, were truly likened to a string of pearls, as surely as there are very very few who have not known the “bitter loss” or who do not, agonised by sorrow, strive to “kiss the cross.”

The Professor was the first to move, but he only went to the Piano, laying his hand for an instant on the bright hair of the singer — he attempted no thanks. Miss Langdale rose from the piano, and kneeling by Mrs. Stuart said —

“I have saddened you, but I wanted to sing your favourite.”

“I am not sad, dear, I loved it,” answered Mrs. Stuart, “but those words always arrest me, however the tune has been maltreated, but let us light up now,” she added, “it is time we dressed — matches please, somebody, not all of you,” he went on smiling, “only one box,” turning as she spoke to light up the 3-standard lamps, dispelling in a few seconds the mystery of firelight and music, landing us suddenly in a matter-of-fact world, in place of our separate dream-worlds.

“By jove, we haven’t much time,” I remarked, glancing at my watch as I turned to make my way upstairs.

The room, as I entered it, looked cheery, candles had been lit, fire newly made up — I noticed there were more candles than before — I suppose with the idea of banishing all idea of gloom or creepiness, yet, in spite of it the room did not feel normal, I couldn’t explain it, but the feeling was there, a feeling I could not give a name to, possibly the music had made me unduly sensitive, at any rate it had not soothed me, and I did not care to linger over my dressing, feeling glad that some slight hustle on my part was really necessary, if I was to be ready when the dinner-gong sounded. With an idea of keeping my illumination until later, I blew out all the candles but one, as soon as I was ready, but that one I left on the extreme corner of the mantelpiece nearest to the door, as I reached the door, I remembered I had left my handkerchief on the dressing-table, I knew I was foolish, but I had not any desire to walk back to that now dim part of the room where the dressing-table stood, I mentally pulled myself together as I moved towards it. As I did so, a light as from a candle seemed to suddenly light it up, and I turned quickly — the candle was where I had left it, but was not a-light — the only light was seemingly poised in the air, close to the bed, about the exact height it would be if held in a person’s hand who was standing beside the bed. I made no further attempt to find my handkerchief, but, trembling in every limb, staggered to the door, nor did I turn then to see where the candle was.

The rest of that evening was neither more nor less than a ghastly nightmare to me — I believe I sat through a dinner, I know I drank a good deal of champagne, I know I talked and laughed, and later smoked, and played billiards, but like a wound-up toy not like a living being. Towards eleven it was no use anyone playing the game, the game was up, we all knew it, everyone present shared to some extent the feeling of foreboding that had me in its clutches.

“I am going to bed,” I announced, when I had come to the end of my grip on things — “Good-night, everybody, wish me luck, or at least, sleep.”

All answered me in a sort of chorus, all that is except the Professor, who had apparently slipped away in his usual manner.

I arrived at my room feeling that one straw more would send me flying from the house. As I opened the door the pungent aroma of a cigar met me, and my eyes fell on the figure of the old Professor, enveloped in a weird dressing gown of green and yellow, in which he had the appearance of a large caterpillar, his grey head was adorned by a scarlet skull cap, his feet encased in large red worsted slippers, and his whole attitude was one of benign, complacent restfulness. I felt my fears slip away, he looked so comfortable, so at home, so composed, as if quite unruffled by aught that could happen.

“You are surprised, dear lad,” he said, in his mellow tones, “I thought you would be, I admired your grit, in sticking to it, so thought, if you would permit me, I would keep you company.”

“I am overjoyed, sir,” I said, beaming on him, “I — I was rather dreading it, it is jolly good of you, I shall be glad of your company.”

We settled ourselves cosily beside the fire, first lighting up all candles, and chatted on every subject, until nearly 1 a.m., neither of us feeling like sleep, indeed it seemed to me the old man grew more alert as time passed.

“Are you cold, sir?” I asked suddenly.

“Yes, I am,” he replied, and together we heaped on more fuel, “there isn’t much warmth in these sir, is there?” I asked.

“No,” he replied, “one could almost think the fire was dying down.”

“It is,” I gasped, “look at it.” And surely but slowly it dwindled, until its last remaining flicker died away, and sank as dead fires do, back into the grate in cold blankness.

I looked at the Professor, he was staring intently at the four-poster, which in the now cold gloomy room had taken on a new aspect. It appeared hung with white, a white sheet lay stiffly spread upon it, a rigid form was beneath it, and the unforgettable scent of funeral flowers filled the air.

I cowered down beside the Professor’s knees, trembling, speechless, he held my hand in a tense grip and we waited, watching.

The door softly opened to admit the nurse, whom I had seen the night before — softly she seemed to slip-shod over the floor in her felt slippers, taking up her position beside the bed — she uncovered the face of the old man, to whom I had seen her administer a dose, and raising the candle she had picked up from the table as she passed, she peered intently at the old man’s face for an instant, turning away finally, with a slow, evil smile on her features — “Her” features! I called them, my heavens! in spite of the lank iron grey hair, tight lips, and death-like face, her features — nay, her very movements and expression were those not of a stranger, but — of — Miss Brown!

“Is it Miss Brown?” I gasped, in a hoarse whisper.

“Hush! no, it is not,” whispered the Professor, “keep quiet.” Before our eyes men entered that ghastly room, placed that rigid figure in a coffin, raised it, and slowly shuffled out of the room. I shivered as the icy coldness of a wind swept by me, when they passed through the door. We heard them shuffling along the passage, their steps growing fainter and fainter, then silence — only the nurse remained, standing immovable, pale, shadowy, the dim light of the now flickering candles dimly lighting her, as she stood with a grim smile twisting her face, one hand outstretched towards us, as if triumphantly, and on her finger a single ring — an uncut emerald in a dull silver setting!

Slowly before our eyes she faded, and we were alone, but to my last hour, I shall smell the sickly perfume of funeral flowers, and feel the icy wind sweep by me whenever I see the white cap and apron of a nurse.

“Dare you follow?” whispered the Professor.

I nodded, unable to speak, as he rose leading me by the arm to the door. A sound as of faint music came wafting towards us, and everywhere there seemed the penetrating scent of funeral flowers.

As we reached the top of the stairs, there, just ahead of us, stood the figure of the nurse, as if watching with malignant eyes the slowly moving procession, as it went down the stairs; beside the nurse, almost touching her, stood — Miss Brown — gowned in a long trailing black robe, her head held defiantly, as if commanding this scene to cease. There was not any mistake now in the relationship of the two women, as they stood facing each other, for even I, in my terror-stricken state, was well aware, that, feature for feature, the nurse’s face was identical with the face of Miss Brown, though older.

The Professor spoke to her, but she gazed at him, as if with unseeing eyes of a somnambulist.

Suddenly the nurse turned, and, with a swift movement, flashed the emerald ring before Miss Brown’s face, then, smiling her evil smile, she, too, descended the stairs, fading away into nothingness, ere she reached the foot, in the same way as both coffin and bearers had faded.

The quiet of a house at 2 a.m. enveloped us, Miss Brown, without word or sign, went slowly back to her room. The Professor drew my arm quickly through his own, as he led me, half-fainting as I was, to his own room. I think I must have fainted, for the next thing I remember was the smell of hot coffee! and opened my eyes to see Mrs. Stuart pouring it out, as if a coffee party at 2 a.m. in a guest’s room was the most usual thing!

I finished the night on the Professor’s sofa, though sleep was denied me; he nevertheless would not allow me to talk.

“Wait until daylight,” was all he would say, as I obediently swallowed a dose he gave me. Morning came at last, but I felt ill and shaken, though refusing to rest, I joined the breakfast party; after that, we gathered round the fire, and talked over the whole thing. I was allowed to tell my story of the three nights I had passed in No. 10, only to learn that I had witnessed every detail of the gruesome tale.

“Why didn’t you warn me?” I naturally enquired.

“Peter,” said Mrs. Stuart, “we one and all ought to ask pardon for that, but we all thought you would go right through it alone. There is a sort of tag to the curse, to the effect that someone seeing it all though alone will, in part, remove the curse. No one has so far done so. Miss Brown has tried and failed, the Professor would not attempt it alone, but seeing the state of tension you were in, last night, said he would not be responsible if you were allowed to go to your room alone.”

“Now you know how you upset Miss Brown. She naturally thought you saw the likeness to herself in the gruesome nurse, and thought you were twitting her with it.”

“But Miss Wood?” I questioned.

“Oh!” said Mrs. Stuart, with a smile, “she was nervy and wanted to warn you, only you treated her like an infant, she said, so she kept out of your way.”

“One question more,” I asked. “The emerald ring, why does Miss Brown wear it?”

“That is the horrible part of it all,” said Mrs. Stuart, “the Brown family always felt that the ring ought to be put back in the old man’s coffin, so, many years ago, the body of the nurse was exhumed, and the ring taken from her hand; but, as ill-luck would have it, the records, or whatever they are called, showing where the old man was buried, could not be found, so the Brown family have kept the ring. Miss Brown thought she would leave it outside the house last night, to see if it made any difference to the sequence of events, apparently it did not, and the Professor says it is not by any means the first time a curse has followed the stealing of a man’s jewel, and he is doing his utmost, so far without success, to find the grave, and restore the ring, it may or may not cause the haunting of this house to cease, but meantime no one can see the thing through and keep sane, alone, and Miss Brown wears the stolen jewel until it can be restored to its dead owner. It is a horrible story, and one apparently impossible to clear up. You’ve been jolly plucky, Peter, but you shall not again sleep in Room No. 10.”

Nor did I, but I spent some very happy weeks wandering about the country. No! not with Miss Wood, but with Miss Brown. I fulfilled Mrs. Stuart’s prophecy, spoken in jest — and ended by adoring her.

We talked over the haunting of her house until it was threadbare, but knowing, as we both do, the ghastly three nights which takes place in that room every autumn, we have decided, or rather I have decided, that if she will tolerate a somewhat dry, old book-worm, we might make “High Crags” a very cheery abode together; but we both say emphatically, we must find that grave, restore that jewel, or entirely pull down Room No. 10. Until that day comes, I confess to rather enjoying comparing Miss Brown’s green eyes with the emerald stone stolen by her ancestress who first nursed, then murdered, her hapless patient, in the room she seems yet to consider her own, at a certain time of the year, so much her own, that such trifles as the stirring of a dead fire, the shaking the pillow of an unsuspecting guest, are usual happenings, though only in autumn does one see the final act of the tragedy; but I, who saw it, shall never in my life forget, nor do I care who sneers, who laughs at what they are pleased to call my imagination, I saw — I know — as others will — until the emerald stone is restored — the horrible ghastly murder that took place in Room No. 10.

Out of the Silence (1920)