A Book of Ghosts: 38
Author: Various authors
Date: 1869-12-31T15:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Ghost Stories; Supernatural Fiction; Weird Fiction; Horror
Description: A goulash of ghosts and ghouls and goblins, heavily spiced with vampires. 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
– 38 –

THINGS THAT GO BUMP
IN THE NIGHT

MobileRead Edition
2023

A goulash of ghosts and ghouls and goblins, heavily spiced with vampires.  By various authors.
Compiled by ECM.

Contents were originally published 1870 ~ 1925. This book is in the public domain where copyright is “Life+70” or less, and in the USA.

CONTENTS:

- Madam Crowl’s Ghost
– 1870
by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
(1814–1873)

- Nut Bush Farm
– 1882
by Charlotte Riddell
(1832–1906)

- A Kiss of Judas
– 1893
by “X. L.”
(Julian Osgood Field)
(1852–1925)

- The Story of Konnor Old House
– 1899
by “E. Heron”
(Kate Pritchard)
(1851–1935)
and
“H. Heron”
(Hesketh Pritchard)
(1876–1922)

- The Woman with the “Oily Eyes”
– 1899
by “Dick Donovan”
(James Muddock)
(1843–1934)

- The Story of Annette
– 1899
by “Dick Donovan”
(James Muddock)
(1843–1934)

- The Tomb of Sarah
– 1900
by F. G. (Frederick George) Loring
(1869–1951)

- Number 13
– 1904
by M. R. James
(1862–1936)

- The Listener
– 1907
by Algernon Blackwood
(1869–1951)

- The Blood Fetish
– 1909
by Morley Roberts
(1857–1942)

- The Astrologer’s Legacy
– 1914
by “Roger Pater”
(Gilbert Roger Hudlestone)
(1874–1936)

- Out of the Earth
– 1915
by Arthur Machen
(1863–1947)

- Young Magic
– 1925
by Helen Simpson
(1897–1940)

MADAM CROWL’S GHOST

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

1870

I’m an old woman now; and I was but thirteen my last birthday, the night I came to Applewale House. My aunt was the housekeeper there, and a sort o’ one-horse carriage was down at Lexhoe to take me and my box up to Applewale.

I was a bit frightened by the time I got to Lexhoe, and when I saw the carriage and horse, I wished myself back again with my mother at Hazelden. I was crying when I got into the “shay” — that’s what we used to call it — and old John Mulbery that drove it, and was a good-natured fellow, bought me a handful of apples at the Golden Lion, to cheer me up a bit; and he told me that there was a currant-cake, and tea, and pork-chops, waiting for me, all hot, in my aunt’s room at the great house. It was a fine moonlight night and I eat the apples, lookin’ out o’ the shay winda.

It is a shame for gentlemen to frighten a poor foolish child like I was. I sometimes think it might be tricks. There was two on ’em on the tap o’ the coach beside me. And they began to question me after nightfall, when the moon rose, where I was going to. Well, I told them it was to wait on Dame Arabella Crowl, of Applewale House, near by Lexhoe.

“Ho, then,” says one of them, “you’ll not be long there!”

And I looked at him as much as to say, “Why not?” for I had spoke out when I told them where I was goin’, as if ’twas something clever I had to say.

“Because,” says he — “and don’t you for your life tell no one, only watch her and see — she’s possessed by the devil, and more an half a ghost. Have you got a Bible?”

“Yes, sir,” says I. For my mother put my little Bible in my box, and I knew it was there: and by the same token, though the print’s too small for my ald eyes, I have it in my press to this hour.

As I looked up at him, saying “Yes, sir,” I thought I saw him winkin’ at his friend; but I could not be sure.

“Well,” says he, “be sure you put it under your bolster every night, it will keep the ald girl’s claws aff ye.”

And I got such a fright when he said that, you wouldn’t fancy! And I’d a liked to ask him a lot about the ald lady, but I was too shy, and he and his friend began talkin’ together about their own consarns, and dowly enough I got down, as I told ye, at Lexhoe. My heart sank as I drove into the dark avenue. The trees stands very thick and big, as ald as the ald house almost, and four people, with their arms out and fingertips touchin’, barely girds round some of them.

Well, my neck was stretched out o’ the winda, looking for the first view o’ the great house; and, all at once we pulled up in front of it.

A great white-and-black house it is, wi’ great black beams across and right up it, and gables lookin’ out, as white as a sheet, to the moon, and the shadows o’ the trees, two or three up and down upon the front, you could count the leaves on them, and all the little diamond-shaped winda-panes, glimmering on the great hall winda, and great shutters, in the old fashion, hinged on the wall outside, boulted across all the rest o’ the windas in front, for there was but three or four servants, and the old lady in the house, and most o’ t’ rooms was locked up.

My heart was in my mouth when I sid the journey was over, and this, the great house afore me, and I sa near my aunt that I never sid till noo, and Dame Crowl, that I was come to wait upon, and was afeard on already.

My aunt kissed me in the hall, and brought me to her room. She was tall and thin, wi’ a pale face and black eyes, and long thin hands wi’ black mittins on. She was past fifty, and her word was short; but her word was law. I hev no complaints to make of her; but she was a hard woman, and I think she would hev bin kinder to me if I had bin her sister’s child in place of her brother’s. But all that’s o’ no consequence noo.

The squire — his name was Mr. Chevenix Crowl, he was Dame Crowl’s grandson — came down there, by way of seeing that the old lady was well treated, about twice or thrice in the year. I sid him but twice all the time I was at Applewale House.

I can’t say but she was well taken care of, notwithstanding, but that was because my aunt and Meg Wyvern, that was her maid, had a conscience, and did their duty by her.

Mrs. Wyvern — Meg Wyvern my aunt called her to herself, and Mrs. Wyvern to me — was a fat, jolly lass of fifty, a good height and a good breadth, always good-humoured, and walked slow. She had fine wages, but she was a bit stingy, and kept all her fine clothes under lock and key, and wore, mostly, a twilled chocolate cotton, wi’ red, and yellow, and green sprigs and balls on it, and it lasted wonderful.

She never gave me nout, not the vally o’ a brass thimble, all the time I was there; but she was good-humoured, and always laughin’, and she talked no end o’ proas over her tea; and, seeing me sa sackless and dowly, she roused me up wi’ her laughin’ and stories; and I think I liked her better than my aunt — children is so taken wi’ a bit o’ fun or a story — though my aunt was very good to me, but a hard woman about some things, and silent always.

My aunt took me into her bedchamber, that I might rest myself a bit while she was settin’ the tea in her room. But first she patted me on the shouther, and said I was a tall lass o’ my years, and had spired up well, and asked me if I could do plain work and stitchin’; and she looked in my face, and said I was like my father, her brother, that was dead and gone, and she hoped I was a better Christian, and wad na du a’ that lids.

It was a hard sayin’ the first time I set my foot in her room, I thought.

When I went into the next room, the housekeeper’s room — very comfortable, yak (oak) all round — there was a fine fire blazin’ away, wi’ coal, and peat, and wood, all in a low together, and tea on the table, and hot cake, and smokin’ meat; and there was Mrs. Wyvern, fat, jolly, and talkin’ away, more in an hour than my aunt would in a year.

While I was still at my tea my aunt went upstairs to see Madam Crowl.

“She’s agone up to see that old Judith Squailes is awake,” says Mrs. Wyvern. “Judith sits with Madam Crowl when me and Mrs. Shutters” — that was my aunt’s name — “is away. She’s a troublesome old lady. Ye’ll hev to be sharp wi’ her, or she’ll be into the fire, or out o’ t’ winda. She goes on wires, she does, old though she be.”

“How old, ma’am ?” says I.

“Ninety-three her last birthday, and that’s eight months gone,” says she; and she laughed. “And don’t be askin’ questions about her before your aunt — mind, I tell ye; just take her as you find her, and that’s all.”

“And what’s to be my business about her, please ma’am ?” says I.

“About the old lady? Well,” says she, “your aunt, Mrs. Shutters, will tell you that; but I suppose you’ll hev to sit in the room with your work, and see she’s at no mischief, and let her amuse herself with her things on the table, and get her her food or drink as she calls for it, and keep her out o’ mischief, and ring the bell hard if she’s troublesome.”

“Is she deaf, ma’am?”

“No, nor blind,” says she; “as sharp as a needle, but she’s gone quite aupy, and can’t remember nout rightly; and Jack the Giant Killer, or Goody Twoshoes will please her as well as the King’s court, or the affairs of the nation.”

“And what did the little girl go away for, ma’am, that went on Friday last? My aunt wrote to my mother she was to go.”

“Yes; she’s gone.”

“What for?” says I again.

“She didn’t answer Mrs. Shutters, I do suppose,” says she. “I don’t know. Don’t be talkin’; your aunt can’t abide a talkin’ child.”

“And please, ma’am, is the old lady well in health?” says I.

“It ain’t no harm to ask that,” says she. “She’s torflin’ a bit lately, but better this week past, and I dare say she’ll last out her hundred years yet. Hish! Here’s your aunt coming down the passage.”

In comes my aunt, and begins talkin’ to Mrs. Wyvern, and I, beginnin’ to feel more comfortable and at home like, was walkin’ about the room lookin’ at this thing and at that. There was pretty old china things on the cupboard, and pictures again the wall; and there was a door open in the wainscot, and I sees a queer old leathern jacket, wi’ straps and buckles to it, and sleeves as long as the bedpost, hangin’ up inside.

“What’s that you’re at, child?” says my aunt, sharp enough, turning about when I thought she least minded. “What’s that in your hand?”

“This, ma’am?” says I, turning about with the leathern jacket. “I don’t know what it is, ma’am.”

Pale as she was, the red came up in her cheeks, and her eyes flashed wi’ anger, and I think only she had half a dozen steps to take, between her and me, she’d a gov me a sizzup. But she did give me a shake by the shouther, and she plucked the thing out o’ my hand, and says she, “While ever you stay here, don’t ye meddle wi’ nout that don’t belong to ye,” and she hung it up on the pin that was there, and shut the door wi’ a bang and locked it fast.

Mrs. Wyvern was liftin’ up her hands and laughin’ all this time, quietly in her chair, rolling herself a bit in it, as she used when she was kinkin’.

The tears was in my eyes, and she winked at my aunt, and says she, dryin’ her own eyes that was wet wi’ the laughin’, “Tut, the child meant no harm — come here to me, child. It’s only a pair o’ crutches for lame ducks, and ask us no questions mind, and we’ll tell ye no lies; and come here and sit down, and drink a mug o’ beer before ye go to your bed.”

My room, mind ye, was upstairs, next to the old lady’s, and Mrs. Wyvern’s bed was near hers in her room and I was to be ready at call, if need should be.

The old lady was in one of her tantrums that night and part of the day before. She used to take fits o’ the sulks. Sometimes she would not let them dress her, and other times she would not let them take her clothes off. She was a great beauty, they said, in her day. But there was no one about Applewale that remembered her in her prime. And she was dreadful fond o’ dress, and had thick silks, and stiff satins, and velvets, and laces, and all sorts, enough to set up seven shops at the least. All her dresses was old-fashioned and queer, but worth a fortune.

Well, I went to my bed. I lay for a while awake; for a’ things was new to me; and I think the tea was in my nerves, too, for I wasn’t used to it, except now and then on a holiday, or the like. And I heard Mrs. Wyvern talkin’, and I listened with my hand to my ear; but I could not hear Mrs. Crowl, and I don’t think she said a word.

There was great care took of her. The people at Applewale knew that when she died they would every one get the sack; and their situations was well paid and easy.

The doctor come twice a week to see the old lady, and you may be sure they all did as he bid them. One thing was the same every time; they were never to cross or frump her, any way, but to humour and please her in everything.

So she lay in her clothes all that night, and next day, not a word she said, and I was at my needlework all that day, in my own room, except when I went down to my dinner.

I would a liked to see the ald lady, and even to hear her speak. But she might as well a’bin in Lunnon a’ the time for me.

When I had my dinner my aunt sent me out for a walk for an hour. I was glad when I came back, the trees was so big, and the place so dark and lonesome, and ’twas a cloudy day, and I cried a deal, thinkin’ of home, while I was walkin’ alone there. That evening, the candles bein’ alight, I was sittin’ in my room, and the door was open into Madam Crowl’s chamber, where my aunt was. It was, then, for the first time I heard what I suppose was the ald lady talking.

It was a queer noise like, I couldn’t well say which, a bird, or a beast, only it had a bleatin’ sound in it, and was very small.

I pricked my ears to hear all I could. But I could not make out one word she said. And my aunt answered:

“The evil one can’t hurt no one, ma’am, bout the Lord permits.”

Then the same queer voice from the bed says something more that I couldn’t make head nor tail on.

And my aunt med answer again: “Let them pull faces, ma’am, and say what they will; if the Lord be for us, who can be against us?”

I kept listenin’ with my ear turned to the door, holdin’ my breath, but not another word or sound came in from the room. In about twenty minutes, as I was sittin’ by the table, lookin’ at the pictures in the old Aesop’s Fables, I was aware o’ something moving at the door, and lookin’ up I sid my aunt’s face lookin’ in at the door, and her hand raised.

“Hish!” says she, very soft, and comes over to me on tiptoe, and she says in a whisper: “Thank God, she’s asleep at last, and don’t ye make no noise till I come back, for I’m goin’ down to take my cup o’ tea, and I’ll be back i’ noo — me and Mrs. Wyvern, and she’ll be sleepin’ in the room, and you can run down when we come up, and Judith will gie ye yaur supper in my room.”

And with that away she goes.

I kep’ looking at the picture-book, as before, listenin’ every noo and then, but there was no sound, not a breath, that I could hear; an’ I began whisperin’ to the pictures and talkin’ to myself to keep my heart up, for I was growin’ feared in that big room.

And at last up I got, and began walkin’ about the room, lookin’ at this and peepin’ at that, to amuse my mind, ye’ll understand. And at last what shud I do but peeps into Madame Crowl’s bedchamber.

A grand chamber it was, wi’ a great four-poster, wi’ flowered silk curtains as tall as the ceilin’, and foldin’ down on the floor, and drawn close all round. There was a lookin’-glass, the biggest I ever sid before, and the room was a blaze o’ light. I counted twenty-two wax-candles, all alight. Such was her fancy, and no one dared say her nay.

I listened at the door, and gaped and wondered all round. When I heard there was not a breath, and did not see so much as a stir in the curtains, I took heart, and I walked into the room on tiptoe, and looked round again. Then I takes a keek at myself in the big glass; and at last it came in my head, “Why couldn’t I ha’ a keek at the ald lady herself in the bed?”

Ye’d think me a fule if ye knew half how I longed to see Dame Crowl, and I thought to myself if I didn’t peep now I might wait many a day before I got so gude a chance again.

Well, my dear, I came to the side o’ the bed, the curtains bein’ close, and my heart a’most failed me. But I took courage, and I slips my finger in between the thick curtains, and then my hand. So I waits a bit, but all was still as death. So, softly, softly I draws the curtain, and there, sure enough, I sid before me, stretched out like the painted lady on the tomb-stean in Lexhoe Church, the famous Dame Crowl, of Applewale House. There she was, dressed out. You never sid the like in they days. Satin and silk, and scarlet and green, and gold and pint lace; by Jen! ’twas a sight! A big powdered wig, half as high as herself, was a-top o’ her head, and, wow! — was ever such wrinkles? — and her old baggy throat all powdered white, and her cheeks rouged, and mouse-skin eyebrows, that Mrs. Wyvern used to stick on, and there she lay grand and stark, wi’ a pair o’ clocked silk hose on, and heels to her shoon as tall as ninepins. Lawk! But her nose was crooked and thin, and half the whites o’ her eyes was open. She used to stand, dressed as she was, gigglin’ and dribblin’ before the lookin’-glass, wi’ a fan in her hand, and a big nosegay in her bodice. Her wrinkled little hands was stretched down by her sides, and such long nails, all cut into points, I never sid in my days. Could it ever a bin the fashion for grit fowk to wear their fingernails so?

Well, I think ye’d a bin frightened yourself if ye’d a sid such a sight. I couldn’t let go the curtain, nor move an inch, not take my eyes off her; my very heart stood still. And in an instant she opens her eyes, and up she sits, and spins herself round, and down wi’ her, wi’ a clack on her two tall heels on the floor, facin’ me, ogglin’ in my face wi’ her two great glassy eyes, and a wicked simper wi’ her old wrinkled lips, and lang fause teeth.

Well, a corpse is a natural thing; but this was the dreadfullest sight I ever sid. She had her fingers straight out pointin’ at me, and her back was crooked, round again wi’ age. Says she:

“Ye little limb! what for did ye say I killed the boy? I’ll tickle ye till ye’re stiff!”

If I’d a thought an instant, I’d a turned about and run. But I couldn’t take my eyes off her, and I backed from her as soon as I could; and she came clatterin’ after, like a thing on wires, with her fingers pointing to my throat, and she makin’ all the time a sound with her tongue like zizz-zizz-zizz.

I kept backin’ and backin’ as quick as I could, and her fingers was only a few inches away from my throat, and I felt I’d lose my wits if she touched me.

I went back this way, right into the corner, and I gev a yellock, ye’d think saul and body was partin’, and that minute my aunt, from the door, calls out wi’ a blare, and the ald lady turns round on her, and I turns about, and ran through my room, and down the back stairs, as hard as my legs could carry me.

I cried hearty, I can tell you, when I got down to the housekeeper’s room. Mrs. Wyvern laughed a deal when I told her what happened. But she changed her key when she heard the ald lady’s words.

“Say them again,” says she.

So I told her.

“Ye little limb! What for did ye say I killed the boy? I’ll tickle ye till ye’re stiff.”

“And did ye say she killed a boy?” says she.

“Not I, ma’am,” says I.

Judith was always up with me, after that, when the two elder women was away from her. I would a jumped out at winda, rather than stay alone in the same room wi’ her.

It was about a week after, as well as I can remember, Mrs. Wyvern, one day when me and her was alone, told me a thing about Madam Crowl that I did not know before.

She being young, and a great beauty, full seventy years before, had married Squire Crowl of Applewale. But he was a widower, and had a son about nine year old.

There never was tale or tidings of this boy after one mornin’. No one could say where he went to. He was allowed too much liberty, and used to be off in the morning, one day, to the keeper’s cottage, and breakfast wi’ him, and away to the warren, and not home, mayhap, till evening, and another time down to the lake, and bathe there, and spend the day fishin’ there, or paddlin’ about in the boat. Well, no one could say what was gone wi’ him; only this, that his hat was found by the lake, under a haathorn that grows thar to this day, and ’twas thought he was drowned bathin’. And the squire’s son, by his second marriage, by this Madam Crowl that lived sa dreadful lang, came in for the estates. It was his son, the ald lady’s grandson, Squire Chevenix Crowl, that owned the estates at the time I came to Applewale.

There was a deal o’ talk lang before my aunt’s time about it; and ’twas said the stepmother knew more than she was like to let out. And she managed her husband, the ald squire, wi’ her whiteheft and flatteries. And as the boy was never seen more, in course of time the thing died out of fowks’ minds.

I’m goin’ to tell ye noo about what I sid wi’ my own een.

I was not there six months, and it was winter time, when the ald lady took her last sickness.

The doctor was afeard she might a took a fit o’ madness, as she did, fifteen years befoore, and was buckled up, many a time, in a strait-waistcoat, which was the very leathern jerkin’ I sid in the closet, off my aunt’s room.

Well, she didn’t. She pined, and windered, and went off, torflin’, torflin’, quiet enough, till a day or two before her flittin’, and then she took to rabblin’, and sometimes skirlin’ in the bed, ye’d think a robber had a knife to her throat, and she used to work out o’ the bed, and not being strong enough, then, to walk or stand, she’d fall on the flure, wi’ her ald wizened hands stretched before her face, and skirlin’ still for mercy.

Ye may guess I didn’t go into the room, and I used to be shiverin’ in my bed wi’ fear, at her skirlin’ and scrafflin’ on the flure, and blarin’ out words that id make your skin turn blue.

My aunt, and Mrs. Wyvern, and Judith Squailes, and a woman from Lexhoe, was always about her. At last she took fits, and they wore her out.

T’ sir (parson) was there, and prayed for her; but she was past praying with. I suppose it was right, but none could think there was much good in it, and sa at lang last she made her flittin’, and a’ was over, and old Dame Crowl was shrouded and coffined and Squire Chevenix was wrote for. But he was away in France, and the delay was sa lang, that t’ sir and doctor both agreed it would not du to keep her langer out o’ her place, and no one cared but just them two, and my aunt and the rest o’ us, from Applewale, to go to the buryin’. So the old lady of Applewale was laid in the vault under Lexhoe Church; and we lived up at the great house till such time as the squire should come to tell his will about us, and pay off such as he chose to discharge.

I was put into another room, two doors away from what was Dame Crowl’s chamber, after her death, and this thing happened the night before Squire Chevenix came to Applewale.

The room I was in now was a large square chamber, covered wi’ yak pannels, but unfurnished except for my bed, which had no curtains to it, and a chair and a table, or so, that looked nothing at all in such a big room. And the big looking-glass, that the old lady used to keek into and admire herself from head to heel, now that there was na mair o’ that wark, was put out of the way, and stood against the wall in my room, for there was shiftin’ o’ many things in her chambers ye may suppose, when she came to be coffined.

The news had come that day that the squire was to be down next morning at Applewale; and not sorry was I, for I thought I was sure to be sent home again to my mother. And right glad was I, and I was thinkin’ of a’ at hame, and my sister, Janet, and the kitten and the pymag, and Trimmer the tike, and all the rest, and I got sa fidgety, I couldn’t sleep, and the clock struck twelve, and me wide awake, and the room as dark as pick. My back was turned to the door, and my eyes toward the wall opposite.

Well, it could na be a full quarter past twelve, when I sees a lightin’ on the wall befoore me, as if something took fire behind, and the shadas o’ the bed, and the chair, and my gown, that was hangin’ from the wall, was dancin’ up and down, on the ceilin’ beams and the yak pannels; and I turns my head ower my shouther quick, thinkin’ something must a gone a’ fire.

And what shud I see, by Jen! but the likeness o’ the ald beldame, bedizened out in her satins and velvets, on her dead body, simperin’, wi’ her eyes as wide as saucers, and her face like the fiend himself. ’Twas a red light that rose about her in a fuffin low, as if her dress round her feet was blazin’. She was drivin’ on right for me, wi’ her ald shrivelled hands crooked as if she was goin’ to claw me. I could not stir, but she passed me straight by, wi’ a blast o’ cald air, and I sid her, at the wall, in the alcove as my aunt used to call it, which was a recess where the state bed used to stand in ald times, wi’ a door open wide, and her hands gropin’ in at somethin’ was there. I never sid that door befoore. And she turned round to me, like a thing on a pivot, fleerin’ (grinning), and all at once the room was dark, and I standin’ at the far side o’ the bed; I don’t know how I got there, and I found my tongue at last, and if I did na blare a yellock, rennin’ down the gallery and almost pulled Mrs. Wyvern’s door, off t’ hooks, and frightened her half out o’ her wits.

Ye may guess I did na sleep that night; and wi’ the first light, down wi’ me to my aunt, as fast as my two legs cud carry me.

Well, my aunt did na frump or flite me, as I thought she would, but she held me by the hand, and looked hard in my face all the time. And she telt me not to be feared; and says she:

“Hed the appearance a key in its hand?”

“Yes,” says I, bringin’ it to mind, “a big key in a queer brass handle.”

“Stop a bit,” says she, lettin’ go ma hand, and openin’ the cupboard-door. “Was it like this?” says she, takin’ one out in her fingers and showing it to me, with a dark look in my face.

“That was it,” says I, quick enough.

“Are ye sure?” she says, turnin’ it round.

“Sart,” says I, and I felt like I was gain’ to faint when I sid it.

“Well, that will do, child,” says she, saftly thinkin’, and she locked it up again.

“The squire himself will be here today, before twelve o’clock, and ye must tell him all about it,” says she, thinkin’, “and I suppose I’ll be leavin’ soon, and so the best thing for the present is, that ye should go home this afternoon, and I’ll look out another place for you when I can.”

Fain was I, ye may guess, at that word.

My aunt packed up my things for me, and the three pounds that was due to me, to bring home, and Squire Crowl himself came down to Applewale that day, a handsome man, about thirty years ald. It was the second time I sid him. But this was the first time he spoke to me.

My aunt talked wi’ him in the housekeeper’s room, and I don’t know what they said. I was a bit feared on the squire, he bein’ a great gentleman down in Lexhoe, and I darn’t go near till I was called. And says he, smilin’:

“What’s a’ this ye a sen, child? it mun be a dream, for ye know there’s na sic a thing as a bo or a freet in a’ the world. But whatever it was, ma little maid, sit ye down and tell us all about it from first to last.”

Well, so soon as I med an end, he thought a bit, and says he to my aunt:

“I mind the place well. In old Sir Oliver’s time lame Wyndel told me there was a door in that recess, to the left, where the lassie dreamed she saw my grandmother open it. He was past eighty when he telt me that, and I but a boy. It’s twenty year sen. The plate and jewels used to be kept there, long ago, before the iron closet was made in the arras chamber, and he told me the key had a brass handle, and this ye say was found in the bottom o’ the kist where she kept her old fans. Now, would not it be a queer thing if we found some spoons or diamonds forgot there? Ye mun come up wi’ us, lassie, and point to the very spot.”

Loth was I, and my heart in my mouth, and fast I held by my aunt’s hand as I stept into that awesome room, and showed them both how she came and passed me by, and the spot where she stood, and where the door seemed to open.

There was an ald empty press against the wall then, and shoving it aside, sure enough there was the tracing of a door in the wainscot, and a keyhole stopped with wood, and planed across as smooth as the rest, and the joining of the door all stopped wi’ putty the colour o’ yak, and, but for the hinges that showed a bit when the press was shoved aside, ye would not consayt there was a door there at all.

“Ha!” says he, wi’ a queer smile, “this looks like it.”

It took some minutes wi’ a small chisel and hammer to pick the bit o’ wood out o’ the keyhole. The key fitted, sure enough, and, wi’ a strang twist and a lang skreeak, the bolt went back and he pulled the door open.

There was another door inside, stranger than the first, but the lacks was gone, and it opened easy. Inside was a narrow floor and walls and vault o’ brick; we could not see what was in it, for ’twas dark as pick.

When my aunt had lighted the candle the squire held it up and stept in.

My aunt stood on tiptoe tryin’ to look over his shouther, and I did na see nout.

“Ha! ha!” says the squire, steppin’ backward. “What’s that? Gi’ma the poker — quick!” says he to my aunt. And as she went to the hearth I peeps beside his arm, and I sid squat down in the far corner a monkey or a flayin’ on the chest, or else the maist shrivelled up, wizzened ald wife that ever was sen on yearth.

“By Jen!” says my aunt, as, puttin’ the poker in his hand, she keeked by his shouther, and sid the ill-favoured thing, “hae a care sir, what ye’re doin’. Back wi’ ye, and shut to the door!”

But in place o’ that he steps in saftly, wi’ the poker pointed like a swoord, and he gies it a poke, and down it a’ tumbles together, head and a’, in a heap o’ bayans and dust, little meyar an’ a hatful.

’Twas the bayans o’ a child; a’ the rest went to dust at a touch. They said nout for a while, but he turns round the skull as it lay on the floor.

Young as I was I consayted I knew well enough what they was thinkin’ on.

“A dead cat!” says he, pushin’ back and blowin’ out the can’le, and shuttin’ to the door. “We’ll come back, you and me, Mrs. Shutters, and look on the shelves by-and-by. I’ve other matters first to speak to ye about; and this little girl’s goin’ hame, ye say. She has her wages, and I mun mak’ her a present,” says he, pattin’ my shoulder wi’ his hand.

And he did gimma a goud pound, and I went aff to Lexhoe about an hour after, and sa hame by the stagecoach, and fain was I to be at hame again; and I never saa ald Dame Crowl o’ Applewale, God be thanked, either in appearance or in dream, at-efter. But when I was grown to be a woman my aunt spent a day and night wi’ me at Littleham, and she telt me there was na doubt it was the poor little boy that was missing sa lang sen that was shut up to die thar in the dark by that wicked beldame, whar his skirls, or his prayers, or his thumpin’ cud na be heard, and his hat was left by the water’s edge, whoever did it, to mak’ belief he was drowned. The clothes, at the first touch, a’ ran into a snuff o’ dust in the cell whar the bayans was found. But there was a handful o’ jet buttons, and a knife with a green handle, together wi’ a couple o’ pennies the poor little fella had in his pocket, I suppose, when he was decoyed in thar, and sid his last o’ the light. And there was, amang the squire’s papers, a copy o’ the notice that was prented after he was lost, when the old squire thought he might ’a run away, or bin took by gipsies, and it said he had a green-hefted knife wi’ him, and that his buttons were o’ cut jet. Sa that is a’ I hev to say consarnin’ ald Dame Crowl, o’ Applewale House.

“All The Year Round” magazine, 31 Dec. 1870

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

NUT BUSH FARM

Charlotte Riddell

1882

I

When I entered upon the tenancy of Nut Bush Farm almost the first piece of news which met me, in the shape of a whispered rumour, was that “something” had been seen in the “long field.”

Pressed closely as to what he meant, my informant reluctantly stated that the “something” took the “form of a man,” and that the wood and the path leading thereto from Whittleby were supposed to be haunted.

Now, all this annoyed me exceedingly. I do not know when I was more put out than by this intelligence. It is unnecessary to say I did not believe in ghosts or anything of that kind, but my wife being a very nervous, impressionable woman, and our only child a delicate weakling, in the habit of crying himself into fits if left alone at night without a candle, I really felt at my wits’ end to imagine what I should do if a story of this sort reached their ears.

And reach them I knew it must if they came to Nut Bush Farm, so the first thing I did when I heard people did not care to venture down the Beech Walk or through the copse, or across the long field after dark, or indeed by day, was to write to say I thought they had both better remain on at my father-in-law’s till I could get the house thoroughly to rights.

After that I lit my pipe and went out for a stroll; when I knocked the ashes out of my pipe and re-entered the sitting-room I had made up my mind. I could not afford to be frightened away from my tenancy. For weal or for woe I must stick to Nut Bush Farm.

It was quite by chance I happened to know anything of the place at first. When I met with that accident in my employers’ service, which they rated far too highly and recompensed with a liberality I never can feel sufficiently grateful for, the doctors told me plainly if I could not give up office work and leave London altogether, they would not give a year’s purchase for my life.

Life seemed very sweet to me then — it always has done — but just at that period I felt the pleasant hopes of convalescence; and with that thousand pounds safely banked, I could not let it slip away from me.

“Take a farm,” advised my father-in-law. “Though people say a farmer’s is a bad trade, I know many a man who is making money out of it. Take a farm, and if you want a helping hand to enable you to stand the racket for a year or two, why, you know I am always ready.”

I had been bred and born on a farm. My father held something like fifteen hundred acres under the principal landowner in his county, and though it so happened I could not content myself at home, but must needs come up to London to see the lions and seek my fortune, still I had never forgotten the meadows and the cornfields, and the cattle, and the orchards, and the woods and the streams, amongst which my happy boyhood had been spent. Yes, I thought I should like a farm — one not too far from London; and “not too big,” advised my wife’s father.

“The error people make nowadays,” he went on, “is spreading their butter over too large a surface. It is the same in business as in land — they stretch their arms out too far — they will try to wade in deep waters — and the consequence is they never know a day’s peace, and end mostly in the bankruptcy court.”

He spoke as one having authority, and I knew what he said was quite right. He had made his money by a very different course of procedure, and I felt I could not follow a better example.

I knew something about farming, though not very much. Still, agriculture is like arithmetic: when once one knows the multiplication table the rest is not so difficult. I had learned unconsciously the alphabet of soils and crops and stock when I was an idle young dog, and liked nothing better than talking to the labourers, and accompanying the woodman when he went out felling trees; and so I did not feel much afraid of what the result would be, more especially as I had a good business head on my shoulders, and enough money to “stand the racket,” as my father-in-law put it, till the land began to bring in her increase.

When I got strong and well again after my long illness — I mean strong and well enough to go about — I went down to look at a farm which was advertised as to let in Kent.

According to the statement in the newspaper, there was no charm that farm lacked; when I saw it I discovered the place did not possess one virtue, unless, indeed, an old Tudor house fast falling to ruins, which would have proved invaluable to an artist, could be so considered. Far from a railway, having no advantages of water carriage, remote from a market, apparently destitute of society. Nor could these drawbacks be accounted the worst against it. The land, poor originally, seemed to have been totally exhausted. There were fields on which I do not think a goose could have found subsistence — nothing grew luxuriantly save weeds; it would have taken all my capital to get the ground clean. Then I saw the fences were dilapidated, the hedges in a deplorable condition, and the farm buildings in such a state of decay I would not have stabled a donkey in one of them.

Clearly, the King’s Manor, which was the modest name of the place, would not do at any price, and yet I felt sorry, for the country around was beautiful, and already the sweet, pure air seemed to have braced up my nerves and given me fresh energy. Talking to mine host at the “Bunch of Hops,” in Whittleby, he advised me to look over the local paper before returning to London.

“There be a many farms vacant,” he said, “mayhap you’ll light on one to suit.”

To cut a long story short, I did look in the local paper and found many farms to let, but not one to suit. There was a drawback to each — a drawback at least so far as I was concerned. I felt determined I would not take a large farm. My conviction was then what my conviction still remains, that it is better to cultivate fifty acres thoroughly than to crop, stock, clean, and manure a hundred insufficiently. Besides, I did not want to spend my strength on wages, or take a place so large I could not oversee the workmen on foot. For all these reasons and many more I came reluctantly to the conclusion that there was nothing in that part of the country to suit a poor unspeculative plodder like myself.

It was a lovely afternoon in May when I turned my face towards Whittleby, as I thought, for the last time. In the morning I had taken train for a farm some ten miles distant and worked my way back on foot to a “small cottage with land” a local agent thought might suit me. But neither the big place nor the little answered my requirements much to the disgust of the auctioneer, who had himself accompanied us to the cottage under the impression I would immediately purchase it and so secure his commission.

Somewhat sulkily he told me a short cut back to Whittleby, and added, as a sort of rider to all previous statements, the remark: “You had best look out for what you want in Middlesex. You’ll find nothing of that sort hereabouts.”

As to the last part of the foregoing sentence I was quite of his opinion, but I felt so oppressed with the result of all my wanderings that I thought upon the whole I had better abandon my search altogether, or else pursue it in some county very far away indeed — perhaps in the land of dreams for that matter!

As has been said, it was a lovely afternoon in May — the hedges were snowy with hawthorn blossom, the chestnuts were bursting into flower, the birds were singing fit to split their little throats, the lambs were dotting the hillsides, and I — ah, well, I was a boy again, able to relish all the rich banquet God spreads out day by day for the delight and nourishment of His too often thankless children.

When I came to a point half-way up some rising ground where four lanes met and then wound off each on some picturesque diverse way, I paused to look around regretfully.

As I did so — some distance below me — along what appeared to be a never-before-traversed lane, I saw the gleam of white letters on a black board.

“Come,” I thought, “I’ll see what this is at all events,” and bent my steps towards the place, which might, for all I knew about it, have been a ducal mansion or a cockney’s country villa.

The board appeared modestly conspicuous in the foreground of a young fir plantation, and simply bore this legend:

TO BE LET, HOUSE AND LAND,

Apply at the “White Dragon.”

“It is a mansion,” I thought, and I walked on slowly, disappointed. All of a sudden the road turned a sharp corner and I came in an instant upon the prettiest place I had ever seen or ever desire to see.

I looked at it over a low laurel hedge growing inside an open paling about four feet high. Beyond the hedge there was a strip of turf, green as emeralds, smooth as a bowling green — then came a sunk fence, the most picturesque sort of protection the ingenuity of man ever devised; beyond that, a close-cut lawn which sloped down to the sunk fence from a house with projecting gables in the front, the recessed portion of the building having three windows on the first floor. Both gables were covered with creepers, the lawn was girt in by a semicircular sweep of forest trees; the afternoon sun streamed over the grass and tinted the swaying foliage with a thousand tender lights. Hawthorn bushes, pink and white, mingled with their taller and grander brothers. The chestnuts here were in flower, the copper beech made a delightful contrast of colour, and a birch rose delicate and graceful close beside.

It was like a fairy scene. I passed my hand across my eyes to assure myself it was all real. Then I thought “if this place be even nearly within my means I will settle here. My wife will grow stronger in this paradise — my boy get more like other lads. Such things as nerves must be unknown where there is not a sight or sound to excite them. Nothing but health, purity, and peace.”

Thus thinking, I tore myself away in search of the “White Dragon,” the landlord of which small public-house sent a lad to show me over the farm.

“As for the rent,” he said, “you will have to speak to Miss Gostock herself — she lives at Chalmont, on the road between here and Whittleby.”

In every respect the place suited me; it was large enough, but not too large; had been well farmed, and was amply supplied with water — a stream indeed flowing through it; a station was shortly to be opened, at about half-a-mile’s distance; and most of the produce could be disposed of to dealers and tradesmen at Crayshill, a town to which the communication by rail was direct.

I felt so anxious about the matter, it was quite a disappointment to find Miss Gostock from home. Judging from the look of her house, I did not suppose she could afford to stick out for a long rent, or to let a farm lie idle for any considerable period. The servant who appeared in answer to my summons was a singularly red armed and rough handed Phyllis. There was only a strip of carpeting laid down in the hall, the windows were bare of draperies, and the avenue gate, set a little back from the main road, was such as I should have felt ashamed to put in a farmyard.

Next morning I betook myself to Chalmont, anxiously wondering as I walked along what the result of my interview would prove.

When I neared the gate, to which uncomplimentary reference has already been made, I saw standing on the other side a figure wearing a man’s broad-brimmed straw hat, a man’s coat, and a woman’s skirt.

I raised my hat in deference to the supposed sex of this stranger. She put up one finger to the brim of hers, and said, “Servant, sir.”

Not knowing exactly what to do, I laid my hand upon the latch of the gate and raised it, but she did not alter her position in the least.

She only asked, “What do you want?”

“I want to see Miss Gostock,” was my answer.

“I am Miss Gostock,” she said; “what is your business with me?”

I replied meekly that I had come to ask the rent of Nut Bush Farm.

“Have you viewed it?” she inquired.

“Yes.” I told her I had been over the place on the previous afternoon.

“And have you a mind to take it?” she persisted. “For I am not going to trouble myself answering a lot of idle inquiries.”

So far from my being an idle inquirer, I assured the lady that if we could come to terms about the rent, I should be very glad indeed to take the farm. I said I had been searching the neighbourhood within a circuit of ten miles for some time unsuccessfully, and added, somewhat unguardedly, I suppose, Nut Bush Farm was the only place I had met with which at all met my views.

Standing in an easy attitude, with one arm resting on the top bar of the gate and one foot crossed over the other, Miss Gostock surveyed me, who had unconsciously taken up a similar position, with an amused smile.

“You must think me a very honest person, young man,” she remarked.

I answered that I hoped she was, but I had not thought at all about the matter.

“Or else,” proceeded this extraordinary lady, “you fancy I am a much greater flat than I am.”

“On the contrary,” was my reply. “If there be one impression stronger than another which our short interview has made upon me it is that you are a wonderfully direct and capable woman of business.”

She looked at me steadily, and then closed one eye, which performance, done under the canopy of that broad-brimmed straw hat, had the most ludicrous effect imaginable.

“You won’t catch me napping,” she observed, “but, however, as you seem to mean dealing, come in; I can tell you my terms in two minutes,” and opening the gate — a trouble she would not allow me to take off her hands — she gave me admission.

Then Miss Gostock took off her hat, and swinging it to and fro began slowly walking up the ascent leading to Chalmont, I beside her.

“I have quite made up my mind,” she said, “not to let the farm again without a premium; my last tenant treated me abominably.”

I intimated I was sorry to hear that, and waited for further information.

“He had the place at a low rent — a very low rent. He should not have got it so cheap but for his covenanting to put so much money in the soil; and well — I’m bound to say he acted fair so far as that — he fulfilled that part of his contract. Nearly two years ago we had a bit of a quarrel about — well, it’s no matter what we fell out over — only the upshot of the affair was he gave me due notice to leave at last winter quarter. At that time he owed about a year-and-a-half’s rent — for he was a man who never could bear parting with money — and like a fool I did not push him for it. What trick do you suppose he served me for my pains?”

It was simply impossible for me to guess, so I did not try.

“On the twentieth of December,” went on Miss Gostock, turning her broad face and curly grey hair — she wore her hair short like a man — towards me, “he went over to Whittleby, drew five thousand pounds out of the bank, was afterwards met going towards home by a gentleman named Waite, a friend of his. Since then he has never been seen nor heard of.”

“Bless my soul!” I exclaimed involuntarily.

“You may be very sure I did not bless his soul,” she snarled out angrily. “The man bolted with the five thousand pounds, having previously sold off all his stock and the bulk of his produce, and when I distrained for my rent, which I did pretty smart, I can tell you, there was scarce enough on the premises to pay the levy.”

“But what in the world made him bolt?” I asked, quite unconsciously adopting Miss Gostock’s expressive phrase; “as he had so much money, why did he not pay you your rent?”

“Ah! Why, indeed?” mocked Miss Gostock. “Young sir, I am afraid you are a bit of a humbug, or you would have suggested at once there was a pretty girl at the bottom of the affair. He left his wife and children, and me — all in the lurch — and went off with a slip of a girl, whom I once took, thinking to train up as a better sort of servant, but was forced to discharge. Oh, the little hussy!”

Somehow I did not fancy I wanted to hear anything more about her late tenant and the pretty girl, and consequently ventured to inquire how that gentleman’s defalcations bore upon the question of the rent I should have to pay.

“I tell you directly,” she said, and as we had by this time arrived at the house, she invited me to enter, and led the way into an old-fashioned parlour that must have been furnished about the time chairs and tables were first invented and which did not contain a single feminine belonging — not even a thimble.

“Sit down,” she commanded, and I sat. “I have quite made up my mind,” she began, “not to let the farm again, unless I get a premium sufficient to insure me against the chances of possible loss. I mean to ask a very low rent and — a premium.”

“And what amount of premium do you expect?” I inquired, doubtfully.

“I want—” and here Miss Gostock named a sum which fairly took my breath away.

“In that case,” I said as soon as I got it again, “it is useless to prolong this interview; I can only express my regret for having intruded, and wish you good morning.” And arising, I was bowing myself out when she stopped me.

“Don’t be so fast,” she cried, “I only said what I wanted. Now what are you prepared to give?”

“I can’t be buyer and seller too,” I answered, repeating a phrase the precise meaning of which, it may here be confessed, I have never been able exactly to understand.

“Nonsense,” exclaimed Miss Gostock — I am really afraid the lady used a stronger term — “if you are anything of a man of business, fit at all to commence farming, you must have an idea on the subject. You shall have the land at a pound an acre, and you will give me for premium — come, how much?”

By what mental process I instantly jumped to an amount it would be impossible to say, but I did mention one which elicited from Miss Gostock the remark: “That won’t do at any price.”

“Very well, then,” I said, “we need not talk any more about the matter.”

“But what will you give?” asked the lady.

“I have told you,” was my answer, “and I am not given either to haggling or beating down.”

“You won’t make a good farmer,” she observed.

“If a farmer’s time were of any value, which it generally seems as if it were not,” I answered, “he would not waste it in splitting a sixpence.”

She laughed, and her laugh was not musical.

“Come now,” she said, “make another bid.”

“No,” I replied, “I have made one and that is enough. I won’t offer another penny.”

“Done then,” cried Miss Gostock, “I accept your offer — we’ll just sign a little memorandum of agreement, and the formal deeds can be prepared afterwards. You’ll pay a deposit, I suppose?”

I was so totally taken aback by her acceptance of my offer I could only stammer out I was willing to do anything that might be usual.

“It does not matter much whether it is usual or not,” she said; “either pay it or I won’t keep the place for you. I am not going to have my land lying idle and my time taken up for your pleasure.”

“I have no objection to paying you a deposit,” I answered.

“That’s right,” she exclaimed; “now if you will just hand me over the writing-desk we can settle the matter, so far as those thieves of lawyers will let us, in five minutes.”

Like one in a dream I sat and watched Miss Gostock while she wrote. Nothing about the transaction seemed to me real. The farm itself resembled nothing I had ever before seen with my waking eyes, and Miss Gostock appeared to me but as some monstrous figure in a story of giants and hobgoblins. The man’s coat, the woman’s skirt, the hobnailed shoes, the grizzly hair, the old straw hat, the bare, unfurnished room, the bright sunshine outside, all struck me as mere accessories in a play — as nothing which had any hold on the outside, everyday world.

It was drawn — we signed our names. I handed Miss Gostock over a cheque. She locked one document in an iron box let into the wall, and handed me the other, adding, as a rider, a word of caution about “keeping it safe and taking care it was not lost.”

Then she went to a corner cupboard, and producing a square decanter half full of spirits, set that and two tumblers on the table.

“You don’t like much water, I suppose,” she said, pouring out a measure which frightened me.

“I could not touch it, thank you, Miss Gostock,” I exclaimed; “I dare not do so; I should never get back to Whittleby.”

For answer she only looked at me contemptuously and said, “D — — d nonsense.”

“No nonsense, indeed,” I persisted; “I am not accustomed to anything of that sort.”

Miss Gostock laughed again, then crossing to the sideboard she returned with a jug of water, a very small portion of the contents of which she mixed with the stronger liquor, and raised the glass to her lips.

“To your good health and prosperity,” she said, and in one instant the fiery potion was swallowed.

“You’ll mend of all that,” she remarked, as she laid down her glass, and wiped her lips in the simplest manner by passing the back of her hand over them.

“I hope not, Miss Gostock,” I ventured to observe.

“Why, you look quite shocked,” she said; “did you never see a lady take a mouthful of brandy before?”

I ventured to hint that I had not, more particularly so early in the morning.

“Pooh!” she said. “Early in the morning or late at night, where’s the difference? However, there was a time when I — but that was before I had come through so much trouble. Good-bye for the present, and I hope we shall get on well together.”

I answered I trusted we should, and was half-way to the hall door, when she called me back.

“I forgot to ask you if you were married,” she said.

“Yes, I have been married some years,” I answered.

“That’s a pity,” she remarked, and dismissed me with a wave of her hand.

“What on earth would have happened had I not been married?” I considered as I hurried down the drive. “Surely she never contemplated proposing to me herself? But nothing she could do would surprise me.”

II

There were some repairs I had mentioned it would be necessary to have executed before I came to live at Nut Bush Farm, but when I found Miss Gostock intended to do them herself — nay, was doing them all herself — I felt thunderstruck.

On one memorable occasion I came upon her with a red handkerchief tied round her head, standing at a carpenter’s bench in a stable yard, planing away, under a sun which would have killed anybody but a negro or my landlady.

She painted the gates, and put sash lines in some of the windows; she took off the locks, oiled, and replaced them; she mowed the lawn, and offered to teach me how to mow; and lastly, she showed me a book where she charged herself and paid herself for every hour’s work done.

“I’ve made at least twenty pounds out of your place,” she said triumphantly. “Higgs at Whittleby would not have charged me a halfpenny less for the repairs. The tradesmen here won’t give me a contract — they say it is just time thrown away, but I know that would have been about his figure. Well, the place is ready for you now, and if you take my advice, you’ll get your grass up as soon as possible. It’s a splendid crop, and if you hire hands enough, not a drop of rain need spoil it. If this weather stands you might cut one day and carry the next.”

I took her advice, and stacked my hay in magnificent condition. Miss Gostock was good enough to come over and superintend the building of the stack, and threatened to split one man’s head open with the pitchfork, and proposed burying another — she called him a “lazy blackguard” — under a pile of hay.

“I will say this much for Hascot,” she remarked, as we stood together beside the stream; “he was a good farmer; where will you see better or cleaner land? A pattern I call it — and to lose his whole future for the sake of a girl like Sally Powner; leaving his wife and children on the parish, too!”

“You don’t mean that?” I said.

“Indeed I do. They are all at Crayshill. The authorities did talk of shifting them, but I know nothing about what they have done.”

I stood appalled. I thought of my own poor wife and the little lad, and wondered if any Sally on the face of the earth could make me desert them.

“It has given the place a bad sort of name,” remarked Miss Gostock, looking at me sideways: “but, of course, that does not signify anything to you.”

“Oh, of course not,” I agreed.

“And don’t you be minding any stories; there are always a lot of stories going about places.”

I said I did not mind stories. I had lived too long in London to pay much attention to them.

“That’s right,” remarked Miss Gostock, and negativing my offer to see her home she started off to Chalmont.

It was not half an hour after her departure when I happened to be walking slowly round the meadows, from which the newly mown hay had been carted, that I heard the rumour which vexed me — “Nut Bush Farm haunted,” I thought, “I said the whole thing was too good to last.”

“What, Jack, lost in reverie?” cried my sister, who had some up from Devonshire to keep me company, and help to get the furniture a little to rights, entering at the moment, carrying lights; “supper will be ready in a minute, and you can dream as much as you like after you have had something to eat.”

I did not say anything to her about my trouble, which was then indeed no bigger than a man’s hand, but which grew and grew till it attained terrible proportions.

What was I to do with my wife and child? I never could bring them to a place reputed to be haunted. All in vain I sauntered up and down the Beech Walk night after night; walked through the wood — as a rule selected that route when I went to Whittleby. It did not produce the slightest effect. Not a farm servant but eschewed that path townward; not a girl but preferred spending her Sunday at home rather than venture under the interlacing branches of the beech trees, or through the dark recesses of the wood.

It was becoming serious — I did not know what to do.

One wet afternoon Lolly came in draggled but beaming.

“I’ve made a new acquaintance, Jack,” she said; “a Mrs. Waite — such a nice creature, but in dreadfully bad health. It came on to rain when I was coming home, and so I took refuge under a great tree at the gate of a most picturesque old house. I had not stood there long before a servant with an umbrella appeared at the porch to ask if I would not please to walk in until the storm abated. I waited there ever so long, and we had such a pleasant talk. She is a most delightful ----woman, with a melancholy, pathetic sort of expression that has been haunting me ever since. She apologised for not having called — said she was not strong and could not walk so far. They keep no conveyance she can drive. Mr. Waite, who is not at home at present, rides into Whittleby when anything is wanted.

“I hoped she would not think of standing on ceremony with me. I was only a farmer’s daughter, and accustomed to plain, homely ways, and I asked her if I might walk round and bid her good-bye before I went home.”

“You must not go home yet, Lolly,” I cried, alarmed; “what in the world should I do without you?”

“Well, you would be a lonely boy,” she answered, complacently, “with no one to sew on a button or darn your socks, or make you eat or go to bed, or do anything you ought to do.”

I had not spoken a word to her about the report which was troubling me, and I knew there must be times when she wondered why I did not go up to London and fetch my wife and child to enjoy the bright summertime; but Lolly was as good as gold, and never asked me a question, or even indirectly inquired if Lucy and I had quarrelled, as many another sister might.

She was as pleasant and fresh to look upon as a spring morning, with her pretty brown hair smoothly braided, her cotton or muslin dresses never soiled or crumpled, but as nice as though the laundress had that moment sent them home — a rose in her belt and her hands never idle — forever busy with curtain or blind, or something her housewifely eyes thought had need of making or mending.

About ten days after that showery afternoon when she found shelter under Mr. Waite’s hospitable roof, I felt surprised when, entering the parlour a few minutes before our early dinner, I found Lolly standing beside one of the windows apparently hopelessly lost in the depths of a brown study.

“Why, Lolly,” I exclaimed, finding she took no notice of me, “where have you gone to now? A penny for your thoughts, young lady.”

“They are not worth a penny,” she said, and turning from the window took some work and sat down at a little distance from the spot where I was standing.

I was so accustomed to women, even the best and gayest of them, having occasional fits of temper or depression — times when silence on my part seemed the truest wisdom — that, taking no notice of my sister’s manner, I occupied myself with the newspaper till dinner was announced.

During the progress of that meal she talked little and ate still less, but when I was leaving the room, in order to go out to a field of barley where the reapers were at work, she asked me to stop a moment.

“I want to speak to you, Jack,” she said.

“Speak, then,” I answered, with that lack of ceremony which obtains amongst brothers and sisters.

She hesitated for a moment, but did not speak.

“What on earth is the matter with you, Lolly?” I exclaimed. “Are you sick, or cross, or sorry, or what?”

“If it must be one of the four,” she answered, with a dash of her usual manner, “it is ‘or what,’ Jack,” and she came close up to where I stood and took me sorrowfully by the button-hole.

“Well?” I said, amused, for this had always been a favourite habit of Lolly’s when she wanted anything from one of the males of her family.

“Jack, you won’t laugh at me?”

“I feel much more inclined to be cross with you,” I answered. “What are you beating about the bush for, Lolly?”

She lifted her fair face a moment and I saw she was crying.

“Lolly, Lolly!” I cried, clasping her to my heart, “what is it, dear? Have you bad news from home, or have you heard anything about Lucy or the boy? Don’t keep me in suspense, there’s a darling. No matter what has happened, let me know the worst.”

She smiled through her tears, and Lolly has the rarest smile! It quieted my anxious heart in a moment, even before she said: “No, Jack — it is nothing about home, or Lucy, or Teddy, but — but — but—” and then she relinquished her hold on the button-hole, and fingered each button on the front of my coat carefully and lingeringly. “Did you ever hear — Jack — anybody say anything about this place?”

I knew in a moment what she meant; I knew the cursed tattle had reached her ears, but I only asked: “What sort of thing, Lolly?”

She did not answer me; instead, she put another question.

“Is that the reason you have not brought Lucy down?”

I felt vexed — but I had so much confidence in her good sense, I could not avoid answering without a moment’s delay.

“Well, yes; I do not want her to come till this foolish report has completely died away.”

“Are you quite sure it is a foolish report?” she inquired.

“Why, of course; it could not be anything else.”

She did not speak immediately, then all at once: “Jack,” she said, “I must tell you something. Lock the door that we may not be interrupted.”

“No,” I answered; “come into the barley field. Don’t you remember Mr. Fenimore Cooper advised, if you want to talk secrets, choose the middle of a plain?”

I tried to put a good face on the matter, but the sight of Lolly’s tears, the sound of Lolly’s doleful voice, darkened my very heart. What had she to tell me which required locked doors or the greater privacy of a half-reaped barley field. I could trust my sister — she was no fool — and I felt perfectly satisfied that no old woman’s story had wrought the effect produced on her.

“Now, Lolly,” I said, as we paced side by side along the top of the barley field in a solitude all the more complete because life and plenty of it was close at hand.

“You know what they say about the place, Jack?”

This was interrogative, and so I answered. “Well, no, Lolly, I can’t say that I do, for the very good reason that I have always refused to listen to the gossip. What do they say?”

“That a man haunts the Beech Walk, the long meadow, and the wood.”

“Yes, I have heard that,” I replied.

“And they say further, the man is Mr. Hascot, the late tenant.”

“But he is not dead,” I exclaimed; “how, then, can they see his ghost?”

“I cannot tell. I know nothing but what I saw this morning. After breakfast I went to Whittleby, and as I came back I observed a man before me on the road. Following him, I noticed a curious thing, that none of the people he met made way for him or he for them. He walked straight on, without any regard to the persons on the side path, and yet no one seemed to come into collision with him. When I reached the field path I saw him going on still at the same pace. He did not look to right or left, and did not seem to walk — the motion was gliding—”

“Yes, dear.”

“He went on, and so did I, till we reached the hollow where the nut-bushes grow, then he disappeared from sight. I looked down among the trees, thinking I should be able to catch a glimpse of his figure through the underwood, but no, I could see no signs of him, neither could I hear any. Everything was as still as death; it seemed to me that my ear had a spell of silence laid upon it.”

“And then?” I asked hoarsely, as she paused.

“Why, Jack, I walked on and crossed the little footbridge and was just turning into the Beech Walk when the same man bustled suddenly across my path, so close to me if I had put out my hands I could have touched him. I drew back, frightened for a minute, then, as he had not seemed to see me, I turned and looked at him as he sped along down the little winding path to the wood. I thought he must be some silly creature, some harmless sort of idiot, to be running here and there without any apparent object. All at once, as he neared the wood, he stopped, and, half wheeling round, beckoned to me to follow him.”

“You did not, Lolly?”

“No, I was afraid. I walked a few steps quietly till I got among the beech trees and so screened from sight, and then I began to run. I could not run fast, for my knees trembled under me; but still I did run as far nearly as that seat round the ‘Priest’s Tree.’ I had not got quite up to the seat when I saw a man rise from it and stand upright as if waiting for me. It was the same person, Jack! I recognised him instantly, though I had not seen his face clearly before. He stood quiet for a moment, and then, with the same gliding motion, silently disappeared.”

“Someone must be playing a very nice game about Nut Bush Farm,” I exclaimed.

“Perhaps so, dear,” she said doubtfully.

“Why, Lolly, you don’t believe it was a ghost you met in the broad daylight?” I cried incredulously.

“I don’t think it was a living man, Jack,” she answered.

“Living or dead, he dare not bring himself into close quarters with me,” was my somewhat braggart remark. “Why, Lolly, I have walked the ground day after day and night after night in the hope of seeing your friend, and not a sign of an intruder, in the flesh or out of it, could I find. Put the matter away, child, and don’t ramble in that direction again. If I can ascertain the name of the person who is trying to frighten the household and disgust me with Nut Bush Farm, he shall go to jail if the magistrates are of my way of thinking. Now, as you have told me this terrible story, and we have reduced your great mountain to a molehill, I will walk back with you to the house.”

She did not make any reply: we talked over indifferent matters as we paced along. I went with her into the pleasant sunshiny drawing-room and looked her out a book and made her promise to read something amusing; then I was going, when she put up her lips for me to kiss her, and said — “Jack, you won’t run any risks?”

“Risks — pooh, you silly little woman!” I answered; and so left my sister and repaired to the barley field once more.

When it was time for the men to leave off work I noticed that one after another began to take a path leading immediately to the main road, which was a very circuitous route to the hamlet, where most of them had either cottages or lodgings.

I noticed this for some time, and then asked a brawny young fellow. “Why don’t you go home through the Beech Walk? It is not above half the distance.”

He smiled and made some almost unintelligible answer.

“Why are you all afraid of taking the shortest way,” I remarked, “seeing there are enough of you to put half a dozen ghosts to the rout?”

“Likely, sir,” was the answer; “but the old master was a hard man living, and there is not many would care to meet him dead.”

“What old master?” I inquired.

“Mr. Hascot: it’s him as walks. I saw him as plain as I see you now, sir, one moonlight night, just this side of the wood, and so did Nat Tyler and James Monsey, and James Monsey’s father — wise Ben.”

“But Mr. Hascot is not dead; how can he ‘walk,’ as you call it?” was my natural exclamation.

“If he is living, then, sir, where is he?” asked the man. “There is nobody can tell that, and there is a many, especially just lately, think he must have been made away with. He had a cruel lot of money about him — where is all that money gone to?”

The fellow had waxed quite earnest in his interrogations, and really for the first time the singularity of Mr. Hascot’s disappearance seemed to strike me.

I said, after an instant’s pause, “The money is wherever he is. He went off with some girl, did he not?”

“It suited the old people to say so,” he answered; “but there is many a one thinks they know more about the matter than is good for them. I can’t help hearing, and one of the neighbours did say Mrs. Ockfield was seen in church last Sunday with a new dress on and a shawl any lady might have worn.”

“And who is Mrs. Ockfield?” I inquired.

“Why, Sally Powner’s grandmother. The old people treated the girl shameful while she was with them, and now they want to make her out no better than she should be.”

And with a wrathful look the young man, who I subsequently discovered had long been fond of Sally, took up his coat and his tin bottle and his sickle, and with a brief “I think I’ll be going, sir; good-night,” departed.

It was easy to return to the house, but I found it impossible to shake the effect produced by this dialogue off my mind.

For the first time I began seriously to consider the manner of Mr. Hascot’s disappearance, and more seriously still commenced trying to piece together the various hints I had received as to his character.

A hard man — a hard master, all I ever heard speak considered him, but just, and in the main not unkind. He had sent coals to one widow, kept a poor old labourer off the parish, and then in a minute, for the sake of a girl’s face, left his own wife and children to the mercy of the nearest Union. [poorhouse]

As I paced along, it seemed to me monstrous, and yet how did it happen that till a few minutes previously I had never heard even a suspicion of foul play?

Was it not more natural to conclude the man must have been made away with, than that, in one brief day, he should have changed his nature and the whole current of his former life?

Upon the other hand, people must have had some strong reason for imagining he was gone off with Miss Powner. The notion of a man disappearing in this way — vanishing as if the earth had opened to receive him and closed again — for the sake of any girl, however attractive, was too unnatural an idea for anyone to have evolved out of his internal consciousness. There must have been some substratum of fact, and then, upon the other hand, there seemed to me more than a substratum of possibility in the theory started of his having been murdered.

Supposing he had been murdered, I went on to argue, what then? Did I imagine he “walked” ? Did I believe he could not rest wherever he was laid?

Pooh — nonsense! It might be that the murderer haunted the place of his crime — that he hovered about to see if his guilt were still undetected, but as to anything in the shape of a ghost tenanting the Beech Walk, long meadow, and wood, I did not believe it — I could not, and I added, “if I saw it with my own eyes, I would not.”

Having arrived at which decided and sensible conclusion, I went in to supper. Usually a sound sleeper, I found it impossible that night when I lay down to close my eyes. I tossed and turned, threw off the bedclothes under the impression I was too hot and drew them tight up round me the next instant, feeling cold. I tried to think of my crops, of my land, of my wife, of my boy, of my future — all in vain. A dark shadow, a wall-like night stood between me and all the ordinary interests of my life — I could not get the notion of Mr. Hascot’s strange disappearance out of my mind. I wondered if there was anything about the place which made it in the slightest degree probable I should ever learn to forget the wife who loved me, the boy who was dependent on me. Should I ever begin to think I might have done better as regards my choice of a wife, that it would be nicer to have healthy merry children than my affectionate delicate lad?

When I got to this point, I could stand it no longer. I felt as though some mocking spirit were taking possession of me, which eventually would destroy all my peace of mind, if I did not cast it out promptly and effectually.

I would not lie there supine to let any demon torment me; and, accordingly, springing to the floor, I dressed in hot haste, and flinging wide the window, looked out over a landscape bathed in the clear light of a most lovely moon.

“How beautiful!” I thought. “I have never yet seen the farm by night, I’ll just go and take a stroll round it and then turn in again — after a short walk, I shall likely be able to sleep.”

So saying, I slipped downstairs, closed the hall door softly after me, and went out into the moonlight.

III

As I stood upon the lawn, looking around with a keen and subtle pleasure, I felt, almost for the first time in my life, the full charm and beauty of night. Every object was as clearly revealed as though the time had been noon instead of an hour past midnight, but there lay a mystic spell on tree and field and stream the garish day could never equal. It was a fairy light and a fairy scene, and it would scarcely have astonished me to see fantastic elves issue from the foxglove’s flowers or dart from the shelter of concealing leaves and dance a measure on the emerald sward.

For a minute I felt — as I fancy many and many a commonplace man must have done when first wedded to some miracle of grace and beauty — a sense of amazement and unreality.

All this loveliness was mine — the moonlit lawn — the stream murmuring through the fir plantation, singing soft melodies as it pursued its glittering way — the trees with a silvery gleam tinting their foliage — the roses giving out their sweetest, tenderest perfumes — the wonderful silence around — the fresh, pure air — the soft night wind — the prosperity with which God had blessed me. My heart grew full, as I turned and gazed first on this side and then on that, and I felt vexed and angry to remember I had ever suffered myself to listen to idle stories and to be made uncomfortable by reason of village gossip.

On such a night it really seemed a shame to go to bed, and, accordingly, though the restlessness which first induced me to rise had vanished, and in doing so left the most soothing calm behind, I wandered on away from the house, now beside the stream, and again across a meadow, where faint odours from the lately carried hay still lingered.

Still the same unreal light over field and copse — still the same witching glamour — still the same secret feeling. I was seeing something and experiencing some sensation I might never again recall on this side of the grave!

A most lovely night — one most certainly not for drawn curtains and closed eyelids — one rather for lovers’ tête-a-tête or a dreamy reverie — for two young hearts to reveal their secrets to each other or one soul to commune alone with God.

Still rambling, I found myself at last beside a stile, opening upon a path, which, winding upwards, led past the hollow where the nut trees grew, and then joined the footway leading through the long field to Whittleby. The long field was the last in that direction belonging to Nut Bush Farm. It joined upon a portion of the land surrounding Chalmont, and the field path continued consequently to pass through Miss Gostock’s property till the main road was reached. It cut off a long distance, and had been used generally by the inhabitants of the villages and hamlets dotted about my place until the rumour being circulated that something might be “seen” or “met” deterred people from venturing by a route concerning which such evil things were whispered. I had walked it constantly, both on account of the time it saved and also in order to set a good example to my labourers and my neighbours, but I might as well have saved my pains.

I was regarded merely as foolhardy, and I knew people generally supposed I should one day have cause to repent my temerity.

As I cleared the stile and began winding my upward way to the higher ground beyond, the thought did strike me what a likely place for a murder Nut Bush Hollow looked. It was a deep excavation, out of which, as no one supposed it to be natural, hundreds and thousands of loads of earth must at some time or other have been carted. From top to bottom it was clothed with nut trees — they grew on every side, and in thick, almost impenetrable masses. For years and years they seemed to have had no care bestowed on them, the Hollow forming in this respect a remarkable contrast to the rest of Mr. Hascot’s careful farming, and, as a fir plantation ran along the base of the Hollow, while the moon’s light fell clear and full on some of the bushes, the others lay in densest shadow.

The road that once led down into the pit was now completely overgrown with nut bushes which grew luxuriantly to the very edge of the Beech Walk, and threatened ere long to push their way between the trunks of the great trees, which were the beauty and the pride of my lovely farm.

At one time, so far as I could understand, the nut bushes had the whole place almost to themselves, and old inhabitants told me that formerly, in the days when their parents were boys and girls, the nuts used to pay the whole of the rent. As years passed, however, whether from want of care or some natural cause, they gradually ceased to bear, and had to be cut down and cleared off the ground — those in the dell, however, being suffered to remain, the hollow being useless for husbandry, and the bushes which flourished there producing a crop of nuts sufficient for the farmer’s family.

All this recurred to my mind as I stood for a moment and looked down into the depths of rustling green below me. I thought of the boys who must have gone nutting there, of all the nests birds had built in the branches so closely interlaced, of the summers’ suns which had shone full and strong upon that mass of foliage, of the winters’ snows which had lain heavy on twig and stem and wrapped the strong roots in a warm covering of purest white.

And then the former idea again asserted itself — what a splendid place for a tragedy; a sudden blow — a swift stab — even a treacherous push — and the deed could be done — a man might be alive and well one minute, and dead the next!

False friend, or secret enemy; rival or thief, it was competent for either in such a place at any lonely hour to send a man upon his last long journey. Had Mr. Hascot been so served? Down, far down, was he lying in a quiet, dreamless sleep? At that very moment was there anyone starting from fitful slumber to grapple with his remorse for crime committed, or shrink with horror from the dread of detection?

“Where was my fancy leading me?” I suddenly asked myself. This was worse than in my own chamber preventing the night watches. Since I had been standing there my heart felt heavier than when tossing from side to side in bed, and wooing unsuccessfully the slumber which refused to come for my asking.

What folly! what nonsense! and into what an insane course of speculation had I embarked. I would leave the eerie place and get once again into the full light of the moon’s bright beams.

Hush! hark! what was that? deep down amongst the underwood — a rustle, a rush, and a scurry — then silence — then a stealthy movement amongst the bushes — then whilst I was peering down into the abyss lined with waving green below, something passed by me swiftly, something which brought with it a cold chill as though the hand of one dead had been laid suddenly on my heart.

Instantly I turned and looked around. There was not a living thing in sight — neither on the path, nor on the sward, nor on the hillside, nor skirting the horizon as I turned my eyes upward.

For a moment I stood still in order to steady my nerves, then reassuring myself with the thought it must have been an animal of some kind, I completed the remainder of the ascent without further delay.

“The ghost, I suspect,” I said to myself as I reached the long field and the path leading back to the farm, “will resolve itself into a hare or pheasant — is not the whirr of a cock pheasant rising, for instance, enough, when coming unexpectedly, to frighten any nervous person out of his wits? And might not a hare, or a cat, or, better still, a stoat — yes, a stoat, with its gliding, almost noiseless, movements — mimic the footfall of a suppositious ghost?”

By this time I had gained the summit of the incline, and slightly out of breath with breasting the ascent, stood for a moment contemplating the exquisite panorama stretched out beneath me. I linger on that moment because it was the last time I ever saw beauty in the moonlight. Now I cannot endure the silvery gleam of the queen of night — weird, mournful, fantastic if you like, but to be desired — no.

Whenever possible I draw the blinds and close the shutters, yet withal on moonlight nights I cannot sleep, the horror of darkness is to my mind nothing in comparison to the terror of a full moon. But I drivel; let me hasten on.

From the crest of the hill I could see lying below a valley of dreamlike beauty — woods in the foreground — a champagne country spreading away into the indefinite distance — a stream winding in and out, dancing and glittering under the moon’s beams — a line of hills dimly seen against the horizon, and already a streak of light appearing above them, the first faint harbinger of dawn.

“It is morning, then, already,” I said, and with the words turned my face homewards. As I did so I saw before me on the path — clearly — the figure of a man.

He was walking rapidly and I hurried my pace in order to overtake him. Now to this part of the story I desire to draw particular attention. Let me hurry as I might, I never seemed able to get a foot nearer to him.

At intervals he paused, as if on purpose to assist my desire, but the moment I seemed gaining upon him, the distance between us suddenly increased. I could not tell how he did it, the fact only remained — it was like pursuing some phantom in a dream.

All at once when he reached the bridge he stood quite still. He did not move hand or limb as I drew near — the way was so narrow I knew I should have to touch him in passing; nevertheless, I pressed forward. My foot was on the bridge — I was close to him — I felt my breath coming thick and fast — I clasped a stick I had picked up in the plantation firmly in my hand — I stopped, intending to speak — I opened my mouth, intending to do so — and then — then — without any movement on his part — I was alone!

Yes, as totally alone as though he had never stood on the bridge — never preceded me along the field-path — never loitered upon my footsteps — never paused for my coming. I was appalled.

“Lord, what is this?” I thought. “Am I going mad?” I felt as if I were. On my honour, I know I was as nearly insane at that moment as a man ever can be who is still in the possession of his senses.

Beyond lay the farm of which in my folly I had felt so proud to be the owner, where I once meant to be so happy and win health for my wife and strength for my boy. I saw the Beech Walk I had gloried in — the ricks of hay it seemed so good to get thatched geometrically as only one man in the neighbourhood was said to be able to lay the straw.

What was farm, or riches, or beech trees, or anything, to me now? Over the place there seemed a curse — better the meanest cottage than a palace with such accessories.

If I had been incredulous before, I was not so now — I could not distrust the evidence of my own eyes — and yet as I walked along, I tried after a minute or two to persuade myself imagination had been playing some juggler’s trick with me. The moon, I argued, always lent herself readily to a game of hide-and-seek. She is always open to join in fantastic gambols with shadows — with thorn bushes — with a waving branch — aye, even with a clump of gorse. I must have been mistaken — I had been thinking weird thoughts as I stood by that dismal dell — I had seen no man walking — beheld no figure disappear.

Just as I arrived at this conclusion I beheld someone coming towards me down the Beech Walk. It was a man walking leisurely with a firm, free step. The sight did me good. Here was something tangible — something to question. I stood still, in the middle of the path — the Beech Walk being rather a grassy glade with a narrow footway dividing it, than anything usually understood by the term walk — so that I might speak to the intruder when he drew near, and ask him what he meant by trespassing on my property, more especially at such an hour. There were no public rights on my land except as regarded the path across the long field and through the wood. No one had any right or business to be in the Beech Walk, by day or night, save those employed about the farm, and this person was a gentleman; even in the distance I could distinguish that. As he came closer I saw he was dressed in a loose Palmerston suit, that he wore a low-crowned hat, and that he carried a light cane. The moonbeams dancing down amongst the branches and between the leaves fell full upon his face, and catching sight of a ring he had on his right hand, made it glitter with as many different colours as a prism.

A middle-aged man, so far as I could judge, with a set, determined expression of countenance, dark hair, no beard or whiskers, only a small moustache. A total stranger to me. I had never seen him nor anyone like him in the neighbourhood. Who could he be, and what in the wide world was he doing on my premises at that unearthly hour of the morning?

He came straight on, never moving to right or left — taking no more notice of me than if he had been blind. His easy indifference, his contemptuous coolness, angered me, and planting myself a little more in his way, I began:

“Are you aware, sir—”

I got no further. Without swerving in the slightest degree from the path, he passed me! I felt something like a cold mist touch me for an instant, and the next, I saw him pursuing his steady walk down the centre of the glade. I was sick with fear, but for all that I ran after him faster than I had ever done since boyhood.

All to no purpose! I might as well have tried to catch the wind. Just where three ways joined I stood still and looked around. I was quite alone! Neither sign nor token of the intruder could I discover. On my left lay the dell where the nut trees grew, and above it the field path to Whittleby showing white and clear in the moonlight; close at hand was the bridge; straight in front the wood looked dark and solemn. Between me and it lay a little hollow, down which a narrow path wound tortuously. As I gazed I saw that, where a moment before no one had been, a man was walking now. But I could not follow. My limbs refused their office. He turned his head, and lifting his hand on which the ring glittered, beckoned me to come. He might as well have asked one seized with paralysis. On the confines of the wood he stood motionless as if awaiting my approach; then, when I made no sign of movement, he wrung his hands with a despairing gesture, and disappeared.

At the same moment, moon, dell, bridge, and stream faded from my sight — and I fainted.

IV

It was not much past eight o’clock when I knocked at Miss Gostock’s hall door, and asked if I could see that lady.

After that terrible night vision I had made up my mind. Behind Mr. Hascot’s disappearance I felt sure there lurked some terrible tragedy — living, no man should have implored my help with such passionate earnestness without avail, and if indeed one had appeared to me from the dead I would right him if I could.

But never for a moment did I then think of giving up the farm. The resolve I had come to seemed to have braced up my courage — let what might come or go, let crops remain unreaped and men neglect their labour, let monetary loss and weary, anxious days be in store if they would, I meant to go on to the end.

The first step on my road clearly led in the direction of Miss Gostock’s house. She alone could give me all the information I required — to her alone could I speak freely and fully about what I had seen.

I was instantly admitted, and found the lady, as I had expected, at breakfast. It was her habit, I knew, to partake of that meal while the labourers she employed were similarly engaged. She was attired in an easy negligé of a white skirt and a linen coat which had formerly belonged to her brother. She was not taking tea or coffee like any other woman — but was engaged upon about a pound of smoking steak which she ate covered with mustard and washed down with copious draughts of home-brewed beer.

She received me cordially and invited me to join in the banquet — a request I ungallantly declined, eliciting in return the remark I should never be good for much till I ceased living on “slops” and took to “good old English” fare.

After these preliminaries I drew my chair near the table and said:

“I want you to give me some information, Miss Gostock, about my predecessor.”

“What sort of information?” she asked, with a species of frost at once coming over her manner.

“Can you tell me anything of his personal appearance?”

“Why do you ask?”

I did not immediately answer, and seeing my hesitation she went on: “Because if you mean to tell me you or anyone else have seen him about your place I would not believe it if you swore it — there!”

“I do not ask you to believe it, Miss Gostock,” I said.

“And I give you fair warning, it is of no use coming here and asking me to relieve you of your bargain, because I won’t do it. I like you well enough — better than I ever liked a tenant; but I don’t intend to be a shilling out of pocket by you.”

“I hope you never may be,” I answered meekly.

“I’ll take very good care I never am,” she retorted; “and so don’t come here talking about Mr. Hascot. He served me a dirty turn, and I would not put it one bit past him to try and get the place a bad name.”

“Will you tell me what sort of looking man he was?” I asked determinedly.

“No, I won’t,” she snapped, and while she spoke she rose, drained the last drop out of a pewter measure, and after tossing on the straw hat with a defiant gesture, thumped its crown well down on her head. I took the hint, and rising, said I must endeavour to ascertain the particulars I wanted elsewhere.

“You won’t ascertain them from me,” retorted Miss Gostock, and we parted as we had never done before — on bad terms.

Considerably perplexed, I walked out of the house. A rebuff of this sort was certainly the last thing I could have expected, and as I paced along I puzzled myself by trying to account for Miss Gostock’s extraordinary conduct, and anxiously considering what I was to do under present circumstances. All at once the recollection of mine host of the “Bunch of Hops” flashed across my mind. He must have seen Mr. Hascot often, and I could address a few casual questions to him without exciting his curiosity.

No sooner thought than done. Turning my face towards Whittleby, I stepped briskly on.

“I ever see Mr. Hascot?” repeated the landlord — when after some general conversation about politics, the weather, the crops, and many other subjects, I adroitly turned it upon the late tenant of Nut Bush Farm. “Often, sir. I never had much communication with him, for he was one of your stand-aloof, keep-your-distance, sort of gentlemen — fair dealing and honourable — but neither free nor generous. He has often sat where you are sitting now, sir, and not so much as said — ‘it is a fine day,’ or, ‘I am afraid we shall have rain.

“You had but to see him walking down the street to know what he was. As erect as a grenadier, with a firm easy sort of marching step, he looked every inch a gentleman — just in his everyday clothes, a Palmerston suit and a round hat, he was, as many a one said, fit to go to court. His hands were not a bit like a farmer’s, but white and delicate as any lady’s, and the diamond ring he wore flashed like a star when he stroked the slight bit of a moustache that was all the hair he had upon his face. No — not a handsome gentleman, but fine looking, with a presence — bless and save us all to think of his giving up everything for the sake of that slip of a girl.”

“She was very pretty, wasn’t she?” I inquired.

“Beautiful — we all said she was too pretty to come to any good. The old grandmother, you see, had serious cause for keeping so tight a hold over her, but it was in her, and ‘what’s bred in bone,’ you know, sir.”

“And you really think they did go off together?”

“Oh, yes, sir; nobody had ever any doubt about that.”

On this subject his tone was so decided I felt it was useless to continue the conversation, and having paid him for the modest refreshment of which I had partaken I sauntered down the High Street and turned into the Bank, where I thought of opening an account.

When I had settled all preliminaries with the manager he saved me the trouble of beating about the bush by breaking cover himself and asking if anything had been heard of Mr. Hascot.

“Not that I know of,” I answered.

“Curious affair, wasn’t it?” he said.

“It appears so, but I have not heard the whole story.”

“Well, the whole story is brief,” returned the manager. “He comes over here one day and without assigning any reason withdraws the whole of his balance, which was very heavy — is met on the road homeward but never returns home — the same day the girl Powner is also missing — what do you think of all that?”

“It is singular,” I said, “very.”

“Yes, and to leave his wife and family totally unprovided for.”

“I cannot understand that at all.”

“Nor I — it was always known he had an extreme partiality for the young person — he and Miss Gostock quarrelled desperately on the subject — but no one could have imagined an attachment of that sort would have led a man so far astray — Hascot more especially. If I had been asked to name the last person in the world likely to make a fool of himself for the sake of a pretty face I should have named the late tenant of Nut Bush Farm.”

“There never was a suspicion of foul play?” I suggested.

“Oh, dear, no! It was broad daylight when he was last seen on the Whittleby road. The same morning it is known he and the girl were talking earnestly together beside the little wood on your property, and two persons answering to their description were traced to London, that is to say, a gentleman came forward to say he believed he had travelled up with them as far as New Cross on the afternoon in question.”

“He was an affectionate father, I have heard,” I said.

“A most affectionate parent — a most devoted husband. Dear, dear! It is dreadfully sad to think how a bad woman may drag the best of men down to destruction. It is terrible to think of his wife and family being inmates of the Union.”

“Yes, and it is terrible to consider not a soul has tried to get them out of it,” I answered, a little tartly.

“H — m, perhaps so; but we all know we are contributing to their support,” he returned with an effort at jocularity, which, in my then frame of mind, seemed singularly mal-apropos.

“There is something in that,” I replied with an effort, and leaving the Bank next turned my attention to the Poorhouse at Crayshill.

At that time many persons thought what I did quixotic. It is so much the way of the world to let the innocent suffer for the guilty, that I believe Mr. Hascot’s wife might have ended her days in Crayshill Union but for the action I took in the matter.

Another night I felt I could not rest till I had arranged for a humble lodging she and her family could occupy till I was able to form some plan for their permanent relief. I found her a quiet, ladylike woman, totally unable to give me the slightest clue as to where her husband might be found. “He was just at the stile on the Chalmont fields,” she said, “when Mr. Waite met him; no one saw him afterwards, unless it might be the Ockfields, but, of course, there is no information to be got from them. The guardians have tried every possible means to discover his whereabouts without success. My own impression is he and Sally Powner have gone to America, and that someday we may hear from him. He cannot harden his heart forever and forget—” Here Mrs. Hascot’s sentence trailed off into passionate weeping.

“It is too monstrous!” I considered; “the man never did such a thing as desert his wife and children. Someone knows all about the matter,” and then in a moment I paused in the course of my mediations.

Was that person Miss Gostock?

It was an ugly idea, and yet it haunted me. When I remembered the woman’s masculine strength, when I recalled her furious impetuosity when I asked her a not very exasperating question, as I recalled the way she tossed off that brandy, when I considered her love of money, her eagerness to speak ill of her late tenant, her semi-references to some great trouble prior to which she was more like other women, or, perhaps, to speak more correctly, less unlike them — doubts came crowding upon my mind.

It was when entering her ground Mr. Hascot was last seen. He had a large sum of money in his possession. She was notoriously fond of rambling about Nut Bush Farm, and what my labouring men called “spying around,” which had been the cause of more than one pitched battle between herself and Mr. Hascot.

“The old master could not a-bear her,” said one young fellow.

I hated myself for the suspicion; and yet, do what I would, I could not shake it off. Not for a moment did I imagine Miss Gostock had killed her former tenant in cold blood; but it certainly occurred to me that the dell was deep, and the verge treacherous, that it would be easy to push a man over, either by accident or design, that the nut-bushes grew thick, that a body might lie amongst them till it rotted, ere even the boys who went nutting there, season after season, happened to find it.

Should I let the matter drop? No, I decided. With that mute appeal haunting my memory, I should know no rest or peace till I had solved the mystery of Mr. Hascot’s disappearance, and cleared his memory from the shameful stain circumstances had cast upon it.

What should I do next? I thought the matter over for a few days, and then decided to call on Mr. Waite, who never yet had called on me. As usual, he was not at home; but I saw his wife, whom I found just the sort of woman Lolly described — a fair, delicate creature who seemed fading into the grave.

She had not much to tell me. It was her husband who saw Mr. Hascot at the Chalmont stile; it was he also who had seen Mr. Hascot and the girl Powner talking together on the morning of their disappearance. It so happened he had often chanced to notice them together before. “She was a very, very pretty girl,” Mrs. Waite added, “and I always thought a modest. She had a very sweet way of speaking — quite above her station — inherited, no doubt, for her father was a gentleman. Poor little Sally!”

The words were not much, but the manner touched me sensibly. I felt drawn to Mrs. Waite from that moment, and told her more of what I had beheld and what I suspected than I had mentioned to anyone else.

As to my doubts concerning Miss Gostock, I was, of course, silent but I said quite plainly I did not believe Mr. Hascot had gone off with any girl or woman either, that I thought he had come to an unfair end, and that I was of opinion the stories circulated, concerning a portion of Nut Bush Farm being haunted, had some foundation in fact.

“Do you believe in ghosts then?” she asked, with a curious smile.

“I believe in the evidence of my senses,” I answered, “and I declare to you, Mrs. Waite, that one night, not long since, I saw as plainly as I see you what I can only conclude to have been the semblance of Mr. Hascot.”

She did not make any reply, she only turned very pale, and blaming myself for having alarmed one in her feeble state of health, I hastened to apologise and take my leave.

As we shook hands, she retained mine for a moment, and said, “When you hear anything more, if you should, that is, you will tell us, will you not? Naturally we feel interested in the matter, he was such a neighbour, and — we knew him.”

I assured her I would not fail to do so, and left the room.

Before I reached the front door I found I had forgotten one of my gloves, and immediately retraced my steps.

The drawing-room door was ajar, and somewhat unceremoniously, perhaps, I pushed it open and entered.

To my horror and surprise, Mrs. Waite, whom I had left apparently in her ordinary state of languid health, lay full length on the sofa, sobbing as if her heart would break. What I said so indiscreetly had brought on an attack of violent hysterics — a malady with the signs and tokens of which I was not altogether unacquainted.

Silently I stole out of the room without my glove, and left the house, closing the front door noiselessly behind me.

A couple of days elapsed, and then I decided to pay a visit to Mrs. Ockfield. If she liked to throw any light on the matter, I felt satisfied she could. It was, to say the least of it, most improbable her grand-daughter, whether she had been murdered or gone away with Mr. Hascot, should disappear and not leave a clue by which her relatives could trace her.

The Ockfields were not liked, I found, and I flattered myself if they had any hand in Mr. Hascot’s sudden disappearance I should soon hit on some weak spot in their story.

I found the old woman, who was sixty-seven, and who looked two hundred, standing over her washing tub.

“Can I tell you where my grand-daughter is,” she repeated, drawing her hands out of the suds and wiping them on her apron. “Surely sir, and very glad I am to be able to tell everybody, gentle and simple, where to find our Sally. She is in a good service down in Cheshire. Mr. Hascot got her the place, but we knew nothing about it till yesterday; she left us in a bit of a pet, and said she wouldn’t have written me, only something seemed to tell her she must. Ah! she’ll have a sore heart when she gets my letter and hears how it has been said that the master and she went off together. She thought a deal of the master, did Sally; he was always kind and stood between her and her grandfather.”

“Then do you mean to say,” I asked, “that she knows nothing of Mr. Hascot’s disappearance?”

“Nothing, sir, thank God for all His mercies; the whole of the time since the day she left here she has been in service with a friend of his. You can read her letter if you like.”

Though I confess old Mrs. Ockfield neither charmed nor inspired me with confidence, I answered that I should like to see the letter very much indeed.

When I took it in my hand I am bound to say I thought it had been written with a purpose, and intended less for a private than for the public eye, but as I read I fancied there was a ring of truth about the epistle, more especially as the writer made passing reference to a very bitter quarrel which had preceded her departure from the grand-paternal roof.

“It is very strange,” I said, as I returned the letter, “it is a most singular coincidence that your grand-daughter and Mr. Hascot should have left Whittleby on the same day, and yet that she should know nothing of his whereabouts, as judging from her letter seems to be the case.”

“Are you quite sure Mr. Hascot ever did leave Whittleby, sir?” asked the old woman with a vindictive look in her still bright old eyes. “There are those as think he never went very far from home, and that the whole truth will come out someday.”

“What do you mean?” I exclaimed, surprised.

“Least said soonest mended,” she answered shortly; “only I hopes if ever we do know the rights of it, people as do hold their heads high enough, and have had plenty to say about our girl, and us too for that matter, will find things not so pleasant as they find them at present. The master had a heap of money about him, and we know that often those as has are those as wants more!”

“I cannot imagine what you are driving at,” I said, for I feared every moment she would mention Miss Gostock, and bring her name into the discussion. “If you think Mr. Hascot met with any foul play you ought to go to the police about the matter.”

“Maybe I will sometime,” she answered, “but just now I have my washing to do.”

“This will buy you some tea to have afterwards,” I said, laying down half-a-crown, and feeling angry with myself for this momentary irritation. After all, the woman had as much right to her suspicions as I to mine.

Thinking over Miss Powner’s letter, I came to the conclusion it might be well to see the young lady for myself. If I went to the address she wrote from I could ascertain at all events whether her statement regarding her employment was correct. Yes, I would take train and travel into Cheshire; I had commenced the investigation and I would follow it to the end.

I travelled so much faster than Mrs. Ockfield’s letter — which, indeed, that worthy woman had not then posted — that when I arrived at my journey’s end I found the fair Sally in total ignorance of Mr. Hascot’s disappearance and the surmises to which her own absence had given rise.

Appearances might be against the girl’s truth and honesty, yet I felt she was dealing fairly with me.

“A better gentleman, sir,” she said, “than Mr. Hascot never drew breath. And so they set it about he had gone off with me — they little know — they little know! Why, sir, he thought of me and was careful for me as he might for a daughter. The first time I ever saw him grandfather was beating me, and he interfered to save me. He knew they treated me badly, and it was after a dreadful quarrel I had at home he advised me to go away. He gave me a letter to the lady I am now with, and a ten-pound note to pay my travelling expenses and keep something in my pocket. ‘You’ll be better away from the farm, little girl,’ he said the morning I left; ‘people are beginning to talk, and we can’t shut their mouths if you come running to me every time your grandmother speaks sharply to you.’”

“But why did you not write sooner to your relatives?” I asked.

“Because I was angry with my grandmother, sir, and I thought I would give her a fright. I did not bring any clothes or anything and I hoped — it was a wicked thing I know, sir — but I hoped she would believe I had made away with myself. Just lately, however, I began to consider that if she and grandfather had not treated me well, I was treating them worse, so I made up a parcel of some things my mistress gave me and sent it to them with a letter. I am glad it reached them safely.”

“What time was it when you saw Mr. Hascot last?” I inquired.

“About two o’clock, sir, I know that, because he was in a hurry. He had got some news about the Bank at Whittleby not being quite safe, and he said he had too much money there to run any risk of loss. ‘Be a good girl,’ were the last words he said, and he walked off sharp and quick by the field path to Whittleby. I stood near the bridge crying for a while. Oh, sir! do you think anything ill can have happened to him?”

For answer, I only said the whole thing seemed most mysterious.

“He’d never have left his wife and children, sir,” she went on; “never. He must have been made away with.”

“Had he any enemies, do you think?” I asked.

“No, sir; not to say enemies. He was called hard because he would have a day’s work for a day’s wage, but no one that ever I heard of had a grudge against him. Except Miss Gostock and Mr. Waite, he agreed well with all the people about. He did not like Miss Gostock, and Mr. Waite was always borrowing money from him. Now Mr. Hascot did not mind giving, but he could not bear lending.”

I returned to Nut Bush Farm perfectly satisfied that Mr. Hascot had been, as the girl expressed the matter, “made away with.” On the threshold of my house I was met with a catalogue of disasters. The female servants had gone in a body; the male professed a dislike to be in the stable-yard in the twilight. Rumour had decided that Nut Bush Farm was an unlucky place even to pass. The cattle were out of condition because the men would not go down the Beech Walk, or turn a single sheep into the long field. Reapers wanted higher wages. The labourers were looking out for other service.

“Poor fellow! This is a nice state of things for you to come home to,” said Lolly compassionately. “Even the poachers won’t venture into the wood, and the boys don’t go nutting.”

“I will clear away the nut trees and cut down the wood,” I declared savagely.

“I don’t know who you are going to get to cut them,” answered Lolly, “unless you bring men down from London.”

As for Miss Gostock, she only laughed at my dilemma, and said, “You’re a pretty fellow to be frightened by a ghost. If he was seen at Chalmont, I’d ghost him.”

While I was in a state of the most cruel perplexity, I bethought me of my promise to Mrs. Waite, and walked over one day to tell her the result of my inquiries.

I found her at home, and Mr. Waite, for a wonder, in the drawing-room. He was not a bad-looking fellow, and welcomed my visit with a heartiness which ill accorded with the discourtesy he had shown in never calling upon me.

Very succinctly I told what I had done, and where I had been. I mentioned the terms in which Sally Powner spoke of her benefactor. We discussed the whole matter fully — the pros and cons of anyone knowing Mr. Hascot had such a sum of money on his person, and the possibility of his having been murdered. I mentioned what I had done about Mrs. Hascot, and begged Mr. Waite to afford me his help and co-operation in raising such a sum of money as might start the poor lady in some business.

“I’ll do all that lies in my power,” he said heartily, shaking hands at the same time, for I had risen to go.

“And for my part,” I remarked, “it seems to me there are only two things more I can do to elucidate the mystery, and those are — root every nut-tree out of the dell and set the axe to work in the wood.”

There was a second’s silence. Then Mrs. Waite dropped to the floor as if she had been shot.

As he stooped over her, he and I exchanged glances, and then I knew. Mr. Hascot had been murdered, and Mr. Waite was the murderer!

•   •   •

That night I was smoking and Lolly at needlework. The parlour windows were wide open, for it was warm, and not a breath of air seemed stirring.

There was a stillness on everything which betokened a coming thunderstorm; and we both were silent, for my mind was busy and Lolly’s heart anxious. She did not see, as she said, how I was to get on at all, and for my part I could not tell what I ought to do.

All at once something whizzed through the window furthest from where we sat, and fell noisily to the floor.

“What is that?” Lolly cried, springing to her feet. “Oh, Jack! What is it?”

Surprised and shaken myself, I closed the windows and drew down the blinds before I examined the cause of our alarm. It proved to be an oblong package weighted with a stone. Unfastening it cautiously, for I did not know whether it might not contain some explosive, I came at length to a pocket book. Opening the pocket book, I found it stuffed full of bank notes.

“What are they? Where can they have come from?” exclaimed Lolly.

“They are the notes Mr. Hascot drew from Whittleby bank the day he disappeared,” I answered with a sort of inspiration, but I took no notice of Lolly’s last question.

For good or for evil that was a secret which lay between myself and the Waites, and which I have never revealed till now.

If the vessel in which they sailed for New Zealand had not gone to the bottom I should have kept the secret still.

When they were out of the country and the autumn well advanced, I had the wood thoroughly examined, and there in a gully, covered with a mass of leaves and twigs and dead branches, we found Mr. Hascot’s body. His watch was in his waistcoat pocket — his ring on his finger; save for these possessions no one could have identified him.

His wife married again about a year afterwards and my brother took Nut Bush Farm off my hands. He says the place never was haunted — that I never saw Mr. Hascot except in my own imagination — that the whole thing originated in a poor state of health and a too credulous disposition!

I leave the reader to judge between us.

Weird Stories (1882)

A KISS OF JUDAS

“X. L.”
(Julian Osgood Field)

1896

“Woman of outer darkness, fiend of death,

From what inhuman cave, what dire abyss,

Hast thou invisible that spell o’erheard?

What potent hand hath touched thy quickened corse,

What song dissolved thy cerements, who unclosed

Those faded eyes and filled them from the stars?”

W. S. Landor: Gebir

Towards the end of September, about eight years ago, the steamship Albrecht, under the command of the popular Captain Pellegrini, had on its voyage down the Danube, as far as Rustchuck, the honour of counting among its passengers a gentleman to whom not inaptly might have been addressed the somewhat audacious remark made by Charles Buller to a well-known peer, now deceased, “I often think how puzzled your Maker must be to account for your conduct.”

And, indeed, a more curious jumble of lovable and detestable qualities than went to the making-up of the personality, labelled for formal purposes Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Ulick Verner Rowan, but familiarly known to Society as “Hippy” Rowan, it would, we think, have been difficult to find. Selfish almost to cruelty, and yet capable of acts of generous self-sacrifice to which many a better man could not perhaps have risen; famous for his unnecessary harshness in the numerous wars wherein he had distinguished himself, and yet enjoying the well-merited reputation of being the best-natured man in London, Hippy Rowan, thanks to the calm and healthy spirit of philosophy within him, had in the course of his fifty odd years of mundane experiences, never allowed a touch of cynicism to chill his heart. It is not so easy or natural as many may imagine to be content with a great deal; but in the golden days when much had been his — at the meridian of his altogether pleasant life, in which even the afternoon shadows were in no wise indicative of the terrors of advancing night — Dick Rowan was possessed of the same serene spirit of content which distinguished him in the later and more troublous times when he found himself forced to look gout and debt in the face on an income barely double the wages he had formerly given to his cordon bleu.

Although, when we present him for the first time to our readers, Colonel Rowan is past fifty, he has been for the last twenty odd years what he himself termed “hopelessly and irretrievably ruined,” which meant that he could count on but little over a thousand pounds per annum for his maintenance. In former days he had been far better off and, indeed, for a very short time — a period of about twelve months — was the possessor of a very large sum of money, wealth suddenly inherited, which he had squandered in the most extravagant fashion.

Disraeli used to say, “When I meet a man whose name I cannot remember, I give myself two minutes: then, if it be a hopeless task, I always say, ‘And how is the old complaint?’” Now, if the great Tory leader could be imagined by any miracle forgetting the name of his highly-esteemed friend Hippy Rowan, and meeting him and asking him the above searching and comprehensive question, the reply doubtless would have been, “I only got back last week,” or “I’m going next month,” or something after that fashion; for certainly Colonel Rowan would have interpreted “the old complaint” to signify his passionate love for Paris, the theatre of his splendid follies, the sepulchre of his fortune indeed, but the Mecca whither his faithful feet were ever eager to speed — the shrine at which his knees, even when gouty, were glad to kneel. The sole surviving representative of one of the most patrician families of Ireland, a man of remarkable personal beauty — his good looks, by the way, in his youth would have been best described by the slang adjective “showy,” — for, ever a man of gigantic stature and herculean build, his bright auburn hair and beard had given him during the earlier part of his career a loud and flaming aspect which rendered him a hopelessly compromising Clavaroche for any Jacqueline to keep clandestine appointments with — as he was reckless and daring to a degree but rarely attained even by his fellow-countrymen, to whom temerity is often ascribed as a national failing. Dick Rowan had certainly distinguished himself in his martial profession; and the same may be said of that portion of his life passed in the House of Commons, in which august assembly he had for many years helped to represent an Irish county; but to the twelve months of riotous living in Paris already spoken of, Hippy, beyond all doubt, chiefly owed his fame; and his laurels, both as warrior and as legislator, paled before the roses which crowned his winecup filled with Yquem of ’37, and the myrtles sacred to Venus of which he wove garlands for that goddess by Seine side. But his career as one of the acknowledged leaders of la haute noce in the capital of pleasure had been brief though brilliant. Persistently playing the “rubicon” at four louis a point at the Petit Club, while at the same time constantly assuming the onerous responsibilities of an open bank at the Jockey, possess, when unfailing bad luck attends such gallant endeavours to win the smiles of fickle fortune, at least, the advantage not common to all evils of providing in themselves their own antidote and cure; and so, at the end of twelve brief months devoted to such pastimes, and others no less costly though less avowable, the gallant colonel had been forced to acknowledge his defeat, and retire with his never-failing grace from the French capital, exchanging indeed with regret Dugléré for the Speaker, and leaving with a sigh the sparkle of the Grand Seize for the comparative respectability of St. Stephen’s.

All this had taken place twenty years and more before the opening of our story, and in the course of this score of years, Hippy, by reason of certain prolonged and dangerous rambles undertaken by him for purposes of sport and amusement in all kinds of outlandish countries, had acquired among his friends a not inconsiderable reputation as a traveller; for though, while his money lasted, he had been quite content to limit his wanderings to explorations in the pays du tendre, yet, when forced by unmerciful disaster to fold his pleasure tent and steal away, he had sought to solace his soul for the loss of fortune by “going to and fro in the earth,” after the fashion of the prince in whose service indeed that very fortune had been spent — one year suffering himself to be entertained by the Emir of Bokhara, and in the course of the next twelve months accepting the hospitality of the Imaum of Muscat; becoming acquainted in his rambles, gun and notebook in hand, with all sorts and conditions of men, from sovereign despots, nay, demigods, to slaves ranking far below quadrupeds. Nor did he limit his pastimes to sport pure and simple — for this curious being would leave Pall Mall one day to see if Schliemann had forgotten anything in the Trojan plain, or endeavour to catch Beke tripping in Sinai the next; in all these expeditions being, of course, greatly aided by his rare and precious gift of easily and accurately acquiring all languages and dialects, the choice Arabic with which it amused him to surprise the Shereef of Wazan being no less fluent than the Polish in which he flirted with pretty patriots in the land of Kosciuszco.

But the expedition on which he was bent when we introduce him to our readers was one calling for the lead of neither pencil nor pellet, but a journey of purely social purport. The all too brief days of Hippy’s magnificence in Paris had been, so far as they went, concurrent with the reign of splendid folly which has made the name of Djavil Pacha famous in the annals of apolausticism, and some of the most happy hours of Rowan’s Parisian existence having been passed in the celebrated apartment on the corner of the Rue Taitbout and the Boulevard des Italiens, inhabited by the Turkish millionaire, between his Excellency and the gallant Colonel a warm feeling of friendship had sprung up — not the mere passing liking, born with the bisque and ceasing with the coffee, but a genuine sympathy which lasted when the banquet was all over and the lights put out, which expressed itself in various graceful and cordial shapes after both had retired from Paris, and which, just before our story opens, had taken the form of an invitation from Djavil to his friend to spend a few days with him at his palace on the Bosphorus, a summons which Dick Rowan was now steaming down the Danube to obey.

He had chosen this particularly monotonous and uncomfortable way of reaching his friend for reasons which do not concern us; but the thought of the unpleasant railway journey from Rustchuck to Varna which awaited him, and then the encounter with the Black Sea, did not tend to assuage the twinges of gout and irritability which assailed him by fits and starts as, during the two dreary days he watched the shores on either side glide slowly by — seeing on the right Hungary at length give place to Servia, and then Servia to Turkey, while perpetual Wallachia, sad and desolate, stretched unceasingly and forever to the left — walking up and down the deck leaning on the arm of his trusty valet, or rather, Ancient or Lieutenant, Adams by name, a man almost as well known and fully as well informed as his master, a Cockney who, without any control over the aspirates in his native English, spoke eight other different languages, including Arabic, accurately and fluently, and whose knowledge of Oriental countries dated indeed from the days when he had been page boy to the great Eltchi in Constantinople. There were but few passengers on board — an abnormally small number, in fact — and to this circumstance, doubtless, was it due that Rowan who, as a rule, paid but little attention to his fellow-travellers, happened to remark a mysterious-looking individual — a man, and apparently not an old one — who sat quite apart from the others and by himself, muffled up to the eyes in a very voluminous, albeit rather dirty, white silk handkerchief, and who was evidently an invalid, judging from the listless way in which he sat, the extreme pallor of the only part of his face which could be seen, and above all, the fever-fed light which glared from between sore and lashless eyelids. He was dressed entirely in black, and although his clothes were somewhat shabby, they betokened carelessness on the part of their wearer rather than poverty; and Adams had noticed and called his master’s attention to the fact that on one finger of the man’s thin, yellow, dirty hand, which every now and then he would lift to rearrange still higher up about his face the silken muffler, sparkled a diamond, which the omniscient valet recognised to be a stone of value.

“What an extremely disagreeable-looking man, Adams!” pettishly murmured the Colonel in English, as he and his servant in their perambulations up and down the deck for the twentieth time on the first morning of the journey passed by where the mysterious stranger sat. “And how he stares at us! He has the eyes of a lunatic, and there is evidently something horrible the matter with his face. Perhaps he’s a leper. Ask the Captain about him.”

But the ever-amiable Captain Pellegrini had not much information to impart, save indeed that the man was certainly neither a madman nor a leper, nor indeed, so far as he knew, an invalid. He was a Moldavian, Isaac Lebedenko by name, a young man, a medical student or doctor, the Captain thought; but, at all events, a man in very well-to-do circumstances, for he always spent his money freely.

“I have known him off and on for two years, please your Excellency,” said the skipper. “Though I must confess I have never seen his face properly, for he’s always muffled up in that way. He takes his meals by himself, and of course pays extra for doing so, and in fact he always, so far as I know, keeps entirely to himself and never speaks to anyone.

But the steward’s boy, who has waited on him and seen his face, says there is nothing the matter with him except indeed that he’s the ugliest man he ever saw.”

“Perhaps he’s consumptive,” suggested the Colonel. But the all-wise Adams shook his head. That was quite inadmissible. He had seen the man walk, and had noticed his legs.

Phthisis could not deceive him, he could recognise its presence at a glance. This man was as strong on his legs as a panther; no consumption there.

“Well,” said the Colonel, impatiently, “there’s evidently something wrong with him, no matter what, and I’m glad I’m not condemned to remain long in his society; for he certainly has the most unpleasant look in his eyes that I’ve seen since we left the lepers.” And then he turned the current of the conversation, and the subject dropped.

That night very late, when the Colonel was sitting quite alone on deck, smoking a cigarette, and thinking over his approaching visit to Djavil, wondering what persons his old friend would have invited to his palace to meet him, and a thousand souvenirs of the long-past pleasant Paris days thronging to his mind as he dreamily glanced up at the moon which smiled over slowly-receding Servia, a voice close by his ear, a slow, huskily sibilant high-pitched whisper, broke the stillness, saying in lisping French,

“May I ask, Monsieur, by what right you dare to question persons about me?” and, turning, he saw standing by his shoulder the horrible man in shabby black, his eyes glaring with exceptional ferocity from between the red bare lids, and the diamond-decorated, claw-like hand grasping convulsively the soiled white muffler, presumably to prevent the vehemence of his speech from causing it to slip down.

Hippy rose to his feet at once, and, as he did so, his face passed close to the half shrouded countenance of the man who had addressed him, and the familiar sickening smell of animal musk full of repulsive significance to the experienced traveller assailed his nostrils.

“What do you mean?” he exclaimed, shrinking back, his disgust quite overpowering for the moment every other sentiment. “Stand back! Don’t come near me!”

The man said nothing, stood quite still, but Rowan saw plainly in the moonlight the red-encircled eyes gleam with renewed ferocity, the yellow, claw-like hand wearing the diamond ring and grasping the dirty muffler agitated by a convulsive spasm, and heard beneath the silken covering the husky breathing caught as in a sob. Hippy recovered himself at once. “Forgive me, Monsieur,” he said, coldly. “You startled me. Might I beg you to repeat your question?”

The man said nothing. It was evident that he had perceived the disgust he had inspired, and that his anger, his indignation, mastered him, and that he dared not trust himself to speak.

“You asked me, I think,” continued the Colonel in a more gentle tone — for his conscience smote him as he reflected that he might perhaps involuntarily have caused pain to one who, notwithstanding his unpleasant aspect, and arrogant, not to say hostile, attitude, was doubtless merely an invalid and a sufferer — “You asked me, I think, Monsieur, by what right I made inquiries concerning you? Pray pardon me for having done so. I have, indeed, no excuse to offer, but I am really sorry if I have offended you. I merely asked the Captain—”

But the man interrupted him, his voice, which was tremulous with passion, coming as a husky, wheezy hiss, which rendered the strong lisp with which he pronounced the French the more noticeable and grotesque.

“You asked him — you dared ask him if I were not a leper. He told Hoffmann, the steward’s boy, who told me. You can’t deny it! Dog of an Englishman!”

Here, gasping for want of breath, and apparently quite overpowered by his anger, the man took a step towards Rowan. This outburst of vituperation came as a great relief to the Colonel. Like most persons of refined feeling, he could stand any wounds better than those inflicted by self-reproach, and the suspicion that perhaps by careless rudeness he had caused pain to one worthy only of pity had been as gall to him. The man’s violent hostility and bad language entirely altered and brightened the aspect of affairs.

“I am sorry,” said Hippy, with ironical politeness, “that my nationality should not meet with the honour of your approval. It is not, hélas! the proud privilege of all to be able to boast that they are natives of Moldavia, you know! Pour le reste, all I can do is to repeat my apology for—”

But the man interrupted him again.

“Apology!” he echoed, if indeed any word indicative of resonance can be applied to the hoarse, damp, lisping whisper in which he spoke- “Apology! Ah, yes! You English curs are all cowards, and only think of apologies. You dare not fight, canaille, but you shall! I’ll force you to!” And again he took a step forward, but this time in so menacing a fashion that the Colonel, half amused and half disgusted, thought it prudent to step back.

“Take care!” he said, half raising his stick as if to push the man back as an unclean thing: “keep your distance,” — and then, speaking quickly, for he feared an assault from the infuriated Moldavian, and was desirous of avoiding such an absurd complication, he continued, “If you can prove to me that I ought to meet you, I shall be happy to do so. You’re right, of course, in thinking duels are no longer the fashion in England. But I’m an exception to the rule. I’ve fought two already, and shall be happy to add to the number by meeting you if it can be arranged. But that’s hardly a matter you and I can properly discuss between ourselves, is it? Captain Pellegrini knows me. I’ll leave my address with him. I have friends in Turkey, and shall be staying in the neighbourhood of Constantinople for a fort night, so if you care to send me your seconds, I will appoint gentlemen to receive them. Allow me to wish you good-night!” and Rowan raised his hat with much formal politeness, and stepped aside as if to depart; but the man sprang forward like a cat and stood in his way.

“Coward!” he exclaimed, extending both arms as if to bar Rowan’s passage — “Cur! like all your countrymen! You think to run away from me, but you shall not! You shall go on your knees and beg my pardon, you accursed Englishman — you dog — you—”

But just as the enraged Moldavian reached this point in his fury an awful thing happened. The yellow, claw-like hand having been withdrawn from clutching at the dirty muffler, the vehemence of the man’s speech began gradually to disarrange this covering, causing it little by little to sink lower and lower and thus to disclose by degrees to Rowan a sight so strange, so awful, that, impelled by a morbid curiosity, he involuntarily bent his head forward as his horror-stricken eyes eagerly noted every step in the infernal progress of this revelation. And thus, gazing at the slowly slipping silk, he saw first, beardless, hollow cheeks, twitching with emotion, but of a most hideous pallor, of indeed that awful hue inseparably associated with the idea of post-mortem changes, then, in the middle of this livid leanness, lighted only by those fever-fed, red lidded eyes, the beginning — the broad base springing from the very cheekbones as it were — of a repulsive prominence which apparently went narrowing on to some termination which as yet the scarf hid, but which the horrified Colonel felt every second surer and yet more sure could not resemble the nasal organ of a man, but rather the ah, yes! the silk fell, and in the moonlight Rowan saw the end he had foreseen, the pointed nose as of a large ferret, and beneath it, far in under it, nervously working, the humid, viscous horror of a small mouth almost round, but lipless, from which came in hurried, husky sibilance the lisping words of hate and menace.

This awful revelation, although partly expected, was so inexpressibly horrible when it came, that, doubtless, the expression of disgust in Rowan’s face deepened so suddenly in acuteness and intensity as to arrest the attention of the monster who inspired it, infuriated though he was; for he paused in the lisping tumult of his violence, and, as he paused, became suddenly aware that the muffler had slipped down. Then, rightly interpreting the horror he saw written in the Colonel’s countenance, and goaded to a fresh fit of fury, too despairing and violent even for words, he, with an inarticulate moan or whimper, rushed blindly forward with extended arms to attack his enemy. But the Colonel, who had foreseen this onslaught, stepped quickly to one side, and, as he did so, quite overpowered by disgust, he could not resist the temptation of giving the hostile monster a violent push with his heavy walking-stick -a thrust of far greater force than he had intended, for it caused the man to totter and fall forward, just as two or three sailors, who, from a distance, had witnessed the last incidents of the dispute, ran up and stood between the adversaries.

“That man,” exclaimed the Colonel in German, pointing with his stick to where the Moldavian lay sprawling on his knees, hastily readjusting the muffler around his hideous face, “tried to assault me, and I defended myself. Look after him, but beware of him. He is a wild beast, not a man!”

The men looked at the Colonel, whom they knew to be some important grandee held in great honour by their Captain, and then at the shabby mass of black clothes sprawling on the deck, and then at each other, and marvelled greatly, open-mouthed, not knowing what to say or think or do.

“I shall see the Captain about this tomorrow morning,” continued Rowan. “But in the meantime, as I say, look after this — this — man, but beware of him!” and so speaking, he turned and strode away in the direction of his cabin.

Just before reaching the stairway he turned and looked back. There in the moon light stood the man in black, gazing after him, the awful face hidden once more in the dirty muffler, which was now stained on one side with the blood which came trickling down from a wound on the brow. As he saw the Colonel turn, the man raised his clenched fist and shook it very slowly, solemnly, and deliberately — the gesture of a warning and of a curse — and the sailors, fearing further violence, closed around him. Then the Colonel turned and went his way to bed. The following morning Rowan of course made his faithful Adams (who, by the way, was never astonished at anything, having acquired through long residence in the East the stolidity of the Oriental) fully acquainted with the strange events of the preceding night, but charged him to say nothing to anybody.

“I have thought the matter over,” said the Colonel, “and have decided merely to tell the Captain that I had a few words with this man, and in a heated moment struck him, and then give Pellegrini his Excellency’s address where we shall be for the next fortnight, so that if this man wants to communicate with me in any way, he can. Of course any question of a duel with such a brute is absurd, but I hope he won’t attempt to assault me again today.”

“I’ll keep a sharp look-out he doesn’t, sir,” said Adams.

But such precautions were unnecessary. Nothing more was seen of the Moldavian, who presumably was confined to his cabin by his wound, and the following morning at early dawn the Colonel and his servant left the steamer at Rustchuck and took the train to Varna and the Black Sea, en route for the splendours of the Bosphorus.

### CHAPTER II.

From one end to the other of the Bosphorus, both on the coast of Europe and on the coast of Asia, are numerous little towns and villages — the faubourgs, as it were, of Constantinople — which in the belle saison are inhabited by members of the Turkish aristocracy and strangers of distinction; and in one of these, on the European side, within less than an hour’s journey by steamboat from the Stamboul bridge, was situated the palace of Hippy Rowan’s friend — the whilom plunger of the Petit and Jockey Clubs — the famous Djavil Pacha.

Of the building we need say but little. It was white — partly marble and partly wood painted to resemble marble — low, rambling, and commodious, but of no special style of architecture, and certainly not Turkish, or even Oriental, but rather Italian in its outward aspect. The principal beauty and advantage of the residence was the extensive garden which surrounded it, and which, rising in banks of flowers and verdure at the back, in front sloped down to a splendid marble terrace, washed by the waters of the Bosphorus, that led to the Pacha’s private landing-place and quay, whereby was moored the private steam-launch of his Excellency.

Djavil was a bachelor, kept no harem, and lived in European style, his head cook and the chief assistants of that artist having been imported direct from Bignon’s, while the palace was throughout furnished by a tapissier from Paris; the only concession to Turkish prejudices which a careful observer might have remarked being the absence of statuary and paintings — the Koran, as we know, for bidding the reproduction in painting of animate objects, and Djavil having, before leaving the French capital, disposed of his splendid canvases and marbles in the Rue Drouot — whether induced to make this sacrifice by religious motives or for more sordid reasons, who shall say?

In Constantinople — which, by the way, is the most backbiting, tittle-tattling, scandal-mongering little village in the world — the ex-Ambassador and old Parisian viveur was greatly blamed for living in so thoroughly European a fashion, keeping open house, constantly entertaining the most distinguished members, male and female, of the European colony. The clever and ambitious Djavil, however, cared nothing for such disapproval, so long as he retained the favour of the Sultan and the Grand Vizier (the gambler and roué of the Rue Royale and Rue Scribe having now developed into a hard-working Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs). He quite determined to live his private life as he pleased since he devoted his public life to the service of his country, and when the day’s work was over and he embarked on his steam-launch on his return journey to his palace, he left behind him the Turkish statesman and became again purely and simply the cosmopolitan man of pleasure.

Of other permanent guests beside himself at the palace, Hippy found but three his old friend, a well-known gambler and breaker and taker of banks, Lord Melrose; an amusing French newspaper man, Emile Bertonneux by name, of the Paris Oeil de Boeuf — and last, but not least, the universally popular Tony Jeratczesco, whom Hippy had last seen in the Birdcage at Newmarket some months before, and whose sudden and mysterious disappearance from St. James’s Street, which loved him so well, to go to take possession of a property just left him in some outlandish country by a recently-deceased relation, was still the talk of London. Not that London had any reason to be astonished at anything, whether good or evil, that might befall the popular sportsman; for Tony Jeratczesco was altogether a mystery, and nobody knew anything whatever about the man familiarly nicknamed “Cheery and Cheeky,” whether he was rich or poor, married or single — patrician by birth or plebeian, nor indeed of what nationality he might boast himself to be, whether Austrian, Hungarian, Bohemian, Pole, Moldavian, Russian, Wallachian, Servian, Bulgarian or Montenegrin — Jew, Christian, Mohammedan, Buddhist — he was good-looking, amiable, refined, and well-dressed, and, moreover, was endowed to a very marked degree with the rare and precious gift of being able to both win and lose money admirably well; in no wise allowing either the smiles frowns of Fortune to disturb the serene reign of the perfect good taste which presided over all his affairs. When this had been said, and the facts chronicled that he was fond of cards and racing, and always seemed to have plenty of money to justify his interest in both these expensive forms of speculation, and that he enjoyed a close personal friendship with some of the most exalted personages of the realm — the authentic data wherewith to compose a biographical sketch of Count Jeratczesco would be perhaps exhausted, although of course scandal both benevolent and malignant was constantly taking up the wondrous tale of the great success of this mysterious stranger and adventurer in the best of our rude island society — and enriching it with rare and marvellous broideries of fancy.

For once, however, rumour, in dealing with the private affairs of “Cheery and Cheeky,” would appear to have been correct. A relative had died — an uncle — and left Tony a mysterious castle and many acres in Moldavia, not far from the little town of Sereth, and the Count had come over to stay with Djavil solely because he knew Hippy Rowan, Lord Melrose, and others ejusdem farinae, would be gathered together under the Pacha’s hospitable roof-tree, and he was desirous of making up a house-warming party of friends to accompany him to his new possessions, and enjoy some of the shooting for which the place was famous. This plan met with general approval, and Jeratczesco found no difficulty in forming a pleasant company to return with him to Moldavia; for though Dick Rowan, Lord Melrose, the Count and the French chroniqueur were the only permanent residents beneath the Pacha’s roof during this fortnight, the four remaining guest-chambers in the palace were never empty, and there was a constant ebb and flow of all kinds of persons, all more or less invited by the Pacha: people from our Embassy, and people from every other Embassy, people of every rank and position: from a very Broad Church English divine who was sent on, out of sheer mischief, by our Ambassador, Lord Malling, and who came accompanied by his florid, comely, and substantial spouse, both inclined to be slightly querulous about the Holy Places until they had tasted the water — drinking Djavil’s incomparable Yquem; to a very beautiful and wayward Italian diva, who came accompanied by two of her adorers, likewise blessed with the gift of song, and who made everyone weep (including the chef from Bignon’s, who listened outside) when she and her friends after dinner all three slightly intoxicated) interpreted, as only angels fired with a few goblets of St. Marceaux can, Verdi’s divine Requiem. So pleasantly did the time pass that it was with regret Colonel Rowan saw the termination of his visit drawing nigh, and heard one morning Jeratczesco, impatient to assume his unwonted rôle of host, solemnly announce that in four days’ time he should depart to his home in the Karpaks, taking with him the companions he had selected. Then, to celebrate the approaching departure of the popular Hippy Rowan, Djavil gave a sylvan picnic, which, for many months after, was the subject of much gossip on both sides of the Bosphorus, and from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmora- -an entertainment destined, alas! to be fraught with fatal consequences to the gentleman in whose honour it was given. The rendezvous was for ten o’clock in the morning, at the sweet waters of Asia — where an insignificant little streamlet loses itself in the Bosphorus; and the guests, about twenty in number, arrived at the place of meeting with surprising punctuality, — some coming with Djavil in his steam-launch, and some from Constantinople.

But for our limited space we would introduce each one of these somewhat notable individualities singly to our readers. Leopold Maryx, the dissipated, irregular and eccentric savant, the renowned specialist for nervous diseases, who had been summoned from Vienna on purpose to see the Sultan; Lord Malling, our delightful but impossible Ambassador; Lord, and especially Lady, Brentford, the champion political bore in petticoats, the victim to high principles, who had bullied her half-witted husband into believing he had a conscience on the occasion of the Reform Bill of 1867, and who, since then, had been dedicating her life to impotent though vigorous denunciations of what she termed the “treachery” of the Tory County Members, and the “infamy” of the County Caucus; Mr. Leonard P. Beacon, the New York millionaire and sportsman, a rough, boasting, but withal good-hearted giant, who, although vulgar beyond even the power of dynamite to purify, was vastly amusing, owing to the fact of his having only begun his boisterous youth at the age of forty-five; Frank Silveyra, the famous Hebrew financier and prince of good fellows from Vienna, and his friend, the no-less-delightful young Jew millionaire and artist, Raphael Sciama; the smart and enterprising little Alec Torquati, who had won our Derby at far distant Epsom the previous year with “Kyber”; and, finally, three very beautiful and witty, and altogether attractive, ladies of high degree from Paris, who, accompanied by their husbands, had come all the way from the Seine to the Bosphorus on purpose to be admired, and three very magnificent young Cavaliers of the Guard who had come all the way from the Neva to the Bosphorus on purpose to admire and to manifest their admiration.

Ten carriages awaited Djavil’s guests on the Asian coast, and into nine of these the party clambered; the tenth and last being reserved for a valet-de-chambre provided with all that could be required for the dispensing of light refreshments en route. And thus, with servants of the Pacha mounted on faultless little Arab horses racing up and down on either side of the carriages, bringing every now and then from the hindmost vehicle fruit and sandwiches, and bottles of champagne and Bordeaux wherewith the weary travellers might be refreshed, this gay and brilliant party dashed into the interior of Asia at full gallop. It had been arranged that the déjeuner champêtre should take place in the Forest of Alem-Dagh; and when, after a drive at steeplechase speed of three hours’ duration, this spot was reached, it was indeed made manifest that Djavil had neglected nothing to make this fantastic breakfast a success. Here, to this wild, deserted, picturesque spot in the heart of a forest in Asia, a romantic nook apparently miles away from any trace of European civilisation, this very grand seigneurhad sent the evening before — accompanied by an army of marmitons — his chef, whose education had been perfected in the famous kitchen on the corner of the Chaussée d’Antin and the Boulevard des Italiens; and with this great artist and his assistants had come vast and numerous vans drawn by bullocks, and containing all the requisites for cooking, and the food, and wine, and silver, and decorations, and furniture, -in fact, all that could be imagined by a wealthy and experienced voluptuary and man of the world to be necessary to make this déjeuner sur l’herbe for twenty persons an entertainment worthy of both host and guests.

The viands provided by Djavil (who, being a Turk, possessed that stubborn and rough Oriental palate which apparently can never be trained to a proper appreciation of the most precious and delicate secrets and traditions of la grande cuisine) were of a very substantial character; but the long journey had aroused appetites wholly beyond the power of sandwiches and goblets of St. Marceaux to satisfy, and the Pacha’s guests eagerly sought consolation in the introductory oeufs à la Béchamelas a hidden orchestra of the best musicians to be found in Constantinople ravished the Asian air with heaven-inspired passages telling of the jealousy of Amneris and of the ill-fated love of Radamès and Aïda.

“This is the most perfect still champagne I ever drank! Where did you get it, Djavil?” And so speaking, Mr. Leonard P. Beacon put down his glass and felt in his pocket for the notebook wherein he was accustomed to inscribe such precious addresses.

Life at best is short, but he, Mr. Leonard P. Beacon, had, to speak Hibernicé, only begun when already half through it; and as he always wanted the best of everything, and had no time to lose in personal quests after supreme excellence, he was always glad to take advantage of short cuts through the experience of friends. But the good-natured and adipose Pacha shook his head and smiled.

“No, no, mon cher. ’Tis a secret. Were I to tell you, you’d buy it all up and take it back with you to America. But, if you like it, I daresay I can spare you a few dozen. Ask Hassan yourself.”

Here a very high-pitched “Oh! how terrible!” from Lady Brentford disturbed the wit-winged chatter of the three lovely Seine-side dames with their three adoring flowers of Slav chivalry; disturbed the husbands of these dames, who were engaged in an animated discussion among themselves as to the merits of cooking in oil; disturbed the Dowager Duchess, who, while listening to Raphael Sciama’s enthusiastic account of the priceless Giulio Clovio he had unearthed a fortnight before in Venice, had been endeavouring, and not without success, to rekindle by means of a visual current of sympathy with the youthful Alec Torquati the flame of passion in those orbs which had first flashed with that all-devouring fire early in the fifties: disturbed Tony Jeratczesco, who was explaining some Newmarket matters to Baron Silveyra while Lord Brentford and our Ambassador listened; and disturbed, in fact, the original cause of this disturbing cry, the loud-voiced Leopold Maryx, whose remarks to Hippy Rowan had elicited this startling exclamation from Lady Brentford, who sat next to him and had overheard them.

“Dr. Maryx is saying such awful things,” said her ladyship, shaking her head. “He says he believes in people being possessed of devils.” Then, even as she spoke, her mind reverted to the terrible events of 1867, those famous “Resolutions” and the way the Borough members had been treated, and she felt that the great Professor might not perhaps after all be mistaken.

“Ah, no! you misunderstood me, Lady Brentford!” exclaimed Maryx, laughing. “What I said was, I saw no reason why, if people were ever possessed of evil spirits, as we are told they used to be, we should believe such things to be impossible now. Is the world any better now than it was on the day when the swine ran down that steep place and were choked in the lake? I didn’t say that I believed in such things, for I don’t; but, certainly, if I believed they ever existed, I should think they were as likely to exist now as ever.”

“Maryx was telling me about the Children of Judas,” remarked Hippy Rowan, by way of explanation.

“The Children of Judas!” echoed Emile Bertonneux, the Parisian newspaper man, scenting a possible article à sensation — for it is, we suppose, hardly necessary to remind our readers that in so cosmopolitan a gathering the conversation was carried on in French — “Who are they? I had no idea Judas was a père de famille.”

“It’s a Moldavian legend,” replied the great specialist. “They say that Children of Judas, lineal descendants of the arch traitor, are prowling about the world seeking to do harm, and that they kill you with a kiss.”

“Oh! how delightful!” murmured the Dowager Duchess, glancing at Alec Torquati as if inviting, and indeed expecting, just such homicidal osculatory tribute from the lips of the young Derby winner.

“But how do they get at you to kiss you?” gasped Mr. Leonard P. Beacon, his thirst for information leading him to ignore the fact that his mouth was full of loup sauce homard.

“The legend is,” said Maryx, “that in the first instance they are here in every kind of shape — men and women, young and old, but generally of extraordinary and surpassing ugliness, but are here merely to fill their hearts with envy, venom, and hatred, and to mark their prey. In order to really do harm, they have to sacrifice themselves to their hatred, go back to the infernal regions whence they came — but go back by the gate of suicide — report to the Chief of the Three Princes of Evil, get their diabolical commission from him, and then return to this world and do the deed. They can come back in any form they think the best adapted to attain their object, or rather satisfy their hate: sometimes they come as a mad dog who bites you and gives you hydrophobia — that’s one form of the kiss of Judas; sometimes as the breath of pestilence, cholera, or what not — that’s another form of the kiss of Judas; sometimes in an attractive shape, and then the kiss is really as one of affection, though as fatal in its effect as the mad dog’s bite or the pestilence. When it takes the form of a kiss of affection, however, there is always a mark on the poisoned body of the victim — the wound of the kiss. Last summer, when I was at Sinaia in attendance on the Queen, I saw the body of a peasant girl whose lover had given her the kiss of Judas, and there certainly was on her neck a mark like this:” and Maryx took up his fork and scratched on the tablecloth three X’s, — thus, XXX. “Can you guess what that’s supposed to signify?” inquired the great physician.

“It looks like a hurdle,” remarked Torquati. “Thirty,” exclaimed Lady Brentford.

“Of course,” replied Maryx, “thirty — the thirty pieces of silver, of course — the mark of the price of blood.”

“Vous êtes impayable, mon cher!” exclaimed Djavil, grinning. “Whenever you find it no longer pays to kill your patients you can always make money at the foires. Set Hippy Rowan to beat the drum at the door and you sit inside the van telling your wonderful blagues, and you’ll make a fortune in no time.”

“I hope you don’t tell those horrible tales to the Sultan, Maryx,” said Lord Malling, laughing “You cure nervous diseases by frightening people to death, I think.”

But the great Professor paid no attention to these flippant remarks; he was, indeed, notwithstanding his marvellous intelligence and extraordinary science and experience and skill, at heart a very charlatan and mountebank in his love of a gaping crowd; and the interest he saw depicted on the faces of his listeners delighted him.

“Did you say that in the first instance these Children of Judas are supposed to be very ugly?” inquired Colonel Rowan, his thoughts reverting to the awful face of that man Isaac Lebedenko who had assaulted him on the boat. The incident had almost wholly passed away from his memory until then, though he had noted it down in his carefully-kept diary; and he had, by the way, long ago told himself that he must have been mistaken in what he thought that horrible muffler had disclosed to him; that such things could not be, and that he must have been deceived either by some trick of shadow, or by some prank played on him by gout astride of his imagination.

“Yes,” replied Maryx, “so runs the legend. This physical ugliness betokens, of course, the malignant spirit within. At that stage they may be recognised and avoided, or better still, slain; for they only really become dangerous when their hatred has reached such a pitch that they are prompted to seek a voluntary death and reincarnation in order to completely satisfy their malignancy; for it is by the gate of suicide alone that they can approach the Arch-Fiend to be fully commissioned and equipped to return to earth on their errand of destruction. So if they are killed in their first stage of development, and not allowed to commit suicide, they are extinguished. When they return fully armed with power from Hell, it is too late; they cannot be recognised, and are fatal; for they have at their command all the weapons and artillery of Satan, from the smile of a pretty woman to the breath of pestilence. This voluntary self-sacrifice of hate in order to more fully satisfy itself by a regeneration, this suicide on the reculer pour mieux sauter principle, is of course nothing but a parody of the Divine Sacrifice of Love on which the Christian religion is based.”

“I’m both sorry and astonished, my dear Leopold,” said Baron Silveyra, smiling, “to see that your knowledge of diabolical matters is so faulty. How can you speak of three princes of evil? You must know that there are seventy-two!”

“Ah! you believe in the old system,” rejoined Maryx, laughing and pouring himself out a tumblerful of Mouton Rothschild: “six multiplied by twelve, and then the seven million four hundred and five thousand nine hundred and twenty-six demons of inferior rank. But, mon cher, that’s altogether out of fashion now; that brings you to six multiplied by one million two hundred and thirty-four thousand three hundred and twenty-one, or the old mysterious tetrade of Pythagoras and Plato counting both ways. [01] We’ve altogether changed that down in Hades now.” And then the great savant, who delighted above all things in gravely clothing nonsense in a garb of erudition, launched forth into a fantastic and witty description of the internal economy of the Kingdom of Satan, a satire in which he not only displayed an extraordinary amount of mystical knowledge, but which he enlivened by sly and apposite allusions to the Governments represented by Djavil and Lord Mailing respectively; and these gentlemen replying to this banter in the same spirit, and appealing to the other guests, the conversation soon became general.

[01]   Perhaps the meaning of the Professor will be more apparent if we put the numbers in figures. He speaks of 72 Princes of Darkness (6 multiplied by 12) and 7,405,926 demons of an inferior rank. This last number, so strange apparently, is still the product of 6 multiplied by 1,234,321; and, as our readers can see, 1,234,321 prese to us both from right to left and from left to right the four numbers constituting the mysterious “tetrade” of Pythagoras and of Plato.

When the repast was at length over, everyone began strolling about the woods, and Hippy Rowan, lighting a cigar, started for a ramble with his old friend Lord Malling, But they had not gone far when their host sent a servant after them to request his lordship to return and speak with him; and so, the Ambassador turning back, Hippy continued his saunter by himself, penetrating by degrees into a somewhat remote and secluded part of the forest, the voices and laughter of the other guests becoming gradually fainter and fainter as he strolled on.

Suddenly, from behind a tree, a man sprang out upon him, and a knife gleamed in the sunlight, swiftly descending upon his heart. Hippy, quick as lightning, leapt to one side, striking up as he did so with his heavy walking-stick at the would-be assassin’s arm, and with such force that he sent the knife flying out of the man’s hand into the air; and then turning, he dealt the villain a blow on the side of the head which brought him to the ground as one dead. It was the Moldavian, Isaac Lebedenko. Hippy had recognised the eyes gleaming over the dirty-white muffler the moment the man sprang out upon him; and now, as he lay on the ground insensible, there could, of course, be no shadow of doubt about his identity, although he had so fallen, on one side, that the wrapper had not been disarranged from his face. We have said that, although enjoying the well-merited reputation of being the best-natured man in London, Dick Rowan had laid himself open to the reproach of having been most unduly harsh and severe in the numerous wars in which he had been engaged; and this harshness, not to say cruelty, presumably ever latent in his nature, but which seemed only to be called to the surface under certain special conditions closely connected with peril and the excitement engendered thereby, now made itself apparent.

The Moldavian had fallen on his side, and the shock of his fall had been so violent that, while one hand lay palm upwards and half open on the trunk of a large fallen tree, the other hand, palm downwards, had been thrown upon its fellow. It was rather a peculiar position for the shock resulting from a fall to have thrown the hands into, and of course indicated that the blow had been so severe that the man had not been able to make any attempt to break his fall, but had sunk to the ground like a doll. Such, at least, was the way Rowan explained the matter as he stood over his prostrate enemy, wondering in his mind how he could possibly contrive to secure the violent would-be assassin until such time as he should be able to obtain assistance and have him handed over to the authorities for punishment; and just as he noticed the position of his hands his eyes caught the gleaming of the knife, which had fallen in the grass a little farther off. Hippy went to where it lay, and picked it up. It was a murderous-looking weapon indeed: broad, double-edged, and very sharp, though rather thick and not long; and fitted with a big round handle of lead, destined, of course, to lend terrible momentum to any blow struck by it. Rowan looked at the knife, and then at the hands of the Moldavian, lying in so diabolically tempting a position; and just then a quivering of the man’s legs plainly indicated that he was recovering his senses. If it was to be done at all there was evidently no time to be lost; so Rowan, taking the sharp instrument, and poising it point downwards over the man’s hands, which were already beginning to twitch with returning consciousness, and using his huge walking-stick as a hammer, with one powerful blow on the broad heavy handle of the knife, drove it through both the hands of the Moldavian and into the trunk of the tree up to the very hilt. A slight and almost inaudible groan came from behind the white wrapper — that was all; but Rowan could see that under the sting of the sudden pain the man had completely recovered consciousness, for the awful eyes, just visible above the muffler, were now open and fixed upon him.

“You miserable scoundrel!” exclaimed Rowan in German, his voice hoarse with anger. “You may think yourself lucky I didn’t kill you like a dog when you lay there at my mercy. But I’ll have you punished — never fear. Lie quiet there until I have you sent to prison.”

The man said nothing: his awful eyes simply looked at Rowan.

“I have been forced, as you see,” continued the Colonel, leisurely taking oui a cigar and lighting it, “to nail you to the tree to prevent your escaping. Vermin is often treated so, you know. But I shan’t inconvenience you for long. In a very few minutes I shall be sending people to unpin you and bind you properly, and have you taken off to prison. We have not seen the last of each other yet, my good friend — believe me, we have not.”

Then the man spoke — it was almost in a whisper, but the words came with the horrible liquid lisp Rowan remembered with so much disgust. “No,” he murmured, “we have not seen the last of each other yet — we have not.”

“There’s but little fear, I fancy, of your not being here when I send for you,” resumed Rowan, after a moment’s pause, during which he and the Moldavian had been steadfastly gazing at each other. “So we needn’t waste more time now, and especially as you must be rather uncomfortable. So à bientôt.” Then, just as he was turning away, he stopped. “In case,” said he very quietly, “you should succeed in wriggling away before I send for you, and prefer mutilating your hands to suffering the very many lashes I shall certainly have administered to you, it’s as well you should know, perhaps, that when travelling I invariably carry a revolver. I’m without it today — very luckily for you — by the merest accident. But I’m not likely to forget it again. So take care.”

And then Rowan turned and began strolling very leisurely back to where he had left his friends. His last words had not been idly spoken, but were intended to first of all suggest, to the miserable wretch whom he left nailed to the fallen tree, that escape was not altogether impossible, provided he were ready to pay the terrible price of self-mutilation required; and, secondly, to indicate the humiliating nature and severity of the punishment in store for him, that he might decide whether escape at any cost were not preferable to such torture and degradation. For, as a matter of fact, Hippy Rowan, directly the first moment of anger and the accompanying spasm of malignant cruelty had passed away, had decided in his mind to proceed no further in the matter, and by no means to take upon himself the ennui and trouble of having the paltry villain more seriously punished than he had already been. Had he had his revolver with him, he would of course have killed the man; but, as it was, he had nailed him as vermin to a tree in a lonely forest in Asia, and there he would leave him to his fate. He might starve to death there, or escape by a terrible mutilation, or possibly with his teeth remove the knife; or somebody might happen to pass by and relieve him — though this last was hardly likely: but at all events he, Hippy Rowan, having warned the villain what to expect in the event of his again molesting him, would have nothing more to do with the matter, and, indeed, not even mention the disagreeable episode to his friends — at least, not at present.

When Rowan got back to the scene of the picnic, he found the preparations for departure just being completed; and in a few minutes all Djavil’s guests were once more comfortably ensconced in the carriages and on their way back to the Bosphorus, but this time by another road, which their host had reserved as an agreeable surprise, and which led through scenery of great beauty, — first, after fairy vistas of sylvan solitudes and entanglements, through a squalid though picturesque little village, the inhabitants of which, men and women and children, came running out after the carriages in great excitement, calling out and holding up their hands for alms; then past an encampment of Tziganes, who were singing and playing and dancing; then across a lonely plain, over which here and there in the far distance, and standing out in bold relief against the horizon now all ablaze with the glory of the setting sun, passed bullock carts full of peasants, grouped together with Oriental and artistic grace, going home after the day’s toil; and then at last, as the sun disappeared to their left behind the islands of the Sea of Marmora, to where the splendid panorama of the Bosphorus bathed in twilight lay at their feet. There, by the waterside, the party broke up — all but those persons staying with Djavil going back to Constantinople in a steamboat provided for their convenience by their host, and the others, including of course Hippy Rowan, returning to the Pacha’s palace in his Excellency’s steam-launch.

The scene returning home was beautiful indeed. It was evening, and the sea was very quiet, for after sundown no boat leaves the Bosphorus, neither is any vessel allowed to enter therein before the dawn; so that the only sound which broke the stillness when the music had died away in the distance was the noise of the screw, which, working in the phosphorescent waters, rolled out showers and sheets of gold as the little steam-launch plodded, plodded, plodded on its course, cleaving and leaving on either side and behind a way of liquid fire. Above were the heavens sparkling with stars, below and around the sea of molten gold, while on either side on the silent banks of the Bosphorus gleamed and streamed innumerable lights from the different harem-windows, at some one of which every now and then an inquisitive head would appear, peeping out at the passing vessel.

All Djavil’s guests were tired; so after dinner, a little music and chatting, and some very harmless gambling, they retired to rest much earlier than usual, Rowan being indeed glad when the time came that, unobserved and alone, he could deliver himself up wholly to his reflections, which happened that night to be of a strangely melancholy complexion. His rooms were on the ground floor, the windows indeed opening out on to the garden which sloped down to the marble terrace bordering the Bosphorus; and since it was to meditate rather than to sleep that Rowan sought retirement, the Colonel sent the faithful Adams to bed, lit a cigar and went out, descending to the waterside to enjoy the view. Hardly had he reached the terrace, however, when from its farther end, which lay in shadow, emerged, crawling in the moonlight along the white marble pavement, an awful figure, which he knew but too well — that of Isaac Lebedenko the Moldavian, the man whom he had left but a few hours before nailed to a tree in the forest in Asia. As Rowan saw the man, the man saw him; and as Hippy stepped back and hurriedly felt in his pocket for his revolver, remembering, even as he did so, that he had left that useful weapon on his dressing-table, the Moldavian drew himself up and sprang towards his enemy, pulling, as he did so, with one hand the muffler from his face, and disclosing with hideous distinctness in the moonlight the indescribable horror of the countenance of a monster not born of woman, while with the other hand he fumbled in his pocket.

“The only way!” he gasped, in lisping German: “the only way! But I am really glad; for I shall come to you now and you cannot escape me! See!” And so saying, and before Rowan could realise what was taking place, the man stabbed himself to the heart, and with a loud groan fell backwards into the waters of the Bosphorus, which closed over him.

### CHAPTER III.

“And you say you were not frightened?” exclaimed Bertonneux of the Oeil de Boeuf.

Hippy Rowan shook his head and smiled. “No, of course not,” he said. Then he added, lowering his voice lest the others should hear him, “Do you know, it’s a strange thing, mon cher, that never in my life have I known what fear is. It’s no boast, of course, but a fact; and you can ask anyone who’s been with me in danger. There are plenty of them about, for I began with Inkermann and only ended with Candahar, not to speak of innumerable little private adventures more or less unpleasant between times, like the one I’ve just been telling you about, in fact. You know me well enough to feel that I’m neither a fool nor a coxcomb, and as a matter of fact this is not exactly courage, I fancy, but rather an absolute inability to entertain such a sentiment as fear. Just as some people are born blind and deaf and dumb.”

The scene was an immense and lofty chamber, luxuriously furnished, half drawing room, half smoking-room, in Tony Jeratczesco’s house in Moldavia, in the Karpak Mountains, and the time about a month after the events recorded in the last chapter had taken place. It had been raining all day as it only can rain in the Danubian principalities, and so the sportsmen had been unable to get out: a particularly deplorable contretemps, seeing that, with the exception of the small contingent which had come on from the Bosphorus, and which included Rowan, the French journalist, Lord Melrose, the three very magnificent Chevaliers Gardes from the shores of the Neva, and Mr. Leonard P. Beacon, the guests of “Cheery and Cheeky” were wild, rough and boisterous neighbouring magnates, many of whom had never travelled beyond Bucharest, and none of whom possessed any of those very rare and precious qualities of heart and head, a combination of which in a fellow-captive can alone reconcile us to the common chain. These Boyards were, indeed, so inconceivably rough and uncouth that Tony Jeratczesco greatly regretted having on the occasion of his taking possession of his property conformed to the almost feudally hospitable custom of the country and invited these loud-voiced Nimrods and their retainers to take up their residence under his roof-tree for such time as the sport in the neighbourhood might meet with their approval. As it was, however, the mistake had been made: these strange beings had been asked and had come, and the evil was past recall; and although at certain times, and especially after dinner, when the alcohol began to lift its voice, the society of the wealthy barbarians became almost unendurable, it had, of course, to be put up with and made the best of, all that Tony’s more civilised friends could do being, almost in self-defence, as it were, to keep to themselves as much as was possible without risking giving offence to their unpleasant fellow-guests by this reserve. The house party was composed entirely of men, which, of course, did not add to the refinement of the gathering; and when, as at the beginning of this chapter, the tedium of a long and rainy day, thoroughly saturated with alcohol and tobacco, had reached the hour preceding midnight, the atmosphere of Jeratczesco’s salon, either from an ethical or from a purely social point of view, would assuredly have compared unfavourably with that of most drawing-rooms in Mayfair.

To the French journalist Rowan had already told the story of his horrible adventure with Isaac Lebedenko and of the man’s suicide — all of which events, together with minutes of what Maryx had said about the Children of Judas, were found carefully noted down in the Colonel’s diary after his death — from which source of information and the testimony of Adams the present authentic account of these strange occurrences is taken; but Mr. Leonard P. Beacon not having heard the story before, Hippy had been prevailed upon to repeat it to him, the question and answer with which this chapter opens being the immediate consequences of the telling of this tale.

Hippy had spoken in a low tone, to avoid attracting attention; but he had not taken into consideration the boisterous nature of his American auditor, who now exclaimed at the top of his voice: “What! do you mean seriously to tell me, Rowan, that you have never known what fear is? that you simply can’t be frightened by anything?”

Annoying as it was under the circumstances to have such a question put in so trumpet-tongued a fashion, Hippy plainly saw that the American would insist upon a reply to his thundered query, and that it would in no wise better matters to delay giving it.

“I do,” said he simply; and then added, in a half-whisper, “I wish you wouldn’t yell so, Beacon.”

But it was too late: the half-tipsy Boyards, bored to death, and eager to seize upon any topic of conversation likely to furnish a pretext for violence of language, had heard the question and the answer, and an uproar ensued which Jeratczesco was powerless to quell, and in the course of which the amiability and good breeding of Dick Rowan were both put to a severe test by the clumsy banter and coarsely expressed incredulity of these uncouth noblemen. One gentleman especially, a certain Prince Valerian Eldourdza, who, owing to the fact of his having been educated at a Lycée in Paris, was looked upon as the Admirable Crichton of that part of Moldavia, pressed Hippy very hard, plying him with most personal and impertinent questions as to his belief in a future life, future punishment, the devil, and so forth, and at last, indeed, going so far as to solemnly declare that not only did he not believe in Colonel Rowan’s inability to experience terror, but that he would himself undertake under a penalty of £4000 to frighten him. This somewhat offensive boast had, in the first instance, fallen from Eldourdza’s lips in the heat of excitement, and probably without the speaker himself attaching any very great meaning or importance to his words; but the statement having been received with vociferous approval by the other Boyards, his Highness had been constrained to repeat the bet, and the second time give it a more specific form. “One hundred thousand francs,” he repeated, bringing his very small and very unclean fist down on the table with much violence, “that I frighten you, Colonel, before you leave here — that is, of course, always provided you’re not leaving at once.”

“My friend is staying with me another month,” interposed Jeratczesco, rather angrily. “But I can’t allow such bets to be made in my house, Eldourdza. I hate practical jokes — we have quite enough of that kind of folly in England.”

“They’re afraid already!” sneered a very unpleasant-looking old Moldavian statesman, all lip and nose, chewing at his cigar in the corner of his mouth after the fashion of a dog with a bone.

“You leave this to me, Tony,” said Rowan to his host, speaking quickly, and in English; then, turning to Eldourdza: “Let’s understand each other plainly, Prince. What do you mean by fright? Of course you can startle me by jumping out from a dark corner, or by any trick of that kind. I make no bet about that kind of thing, of course; but I’ll bet you an even hundred thousand francs, if you like, or a hundred and fifty thousand francs, that you don’t make me experience what is generally and by everyone understood by the word fright — a sentiment of fear, or of anything even remotely resembling fear. How shall we define it, for we must be clear on this point?”

“Hair standing on end and teeth chattering,” suggested Mr. Leonard P. Beacon, who was greatly delighted at the turn affairs had taken, foreseeing an adventure and new experience of some kind.

“Exactly,” replied Eldourdza, who had been consulting in a whisper with his friends, and absorbing yet another gobletful of champagne strongly laced with brandy. “Let those very words be used if you like — I’ll bet you an even hundred and fifty thousand francs — two hundred thousand if you like” (Hippy nodded) — “that before you leave this place, four weeks from today, you shall be so frightened that your hair will stand on end, your teeth will chatter, and what’s more, you’ll call for help.”

“Very well,” assented Rowan, laughing, “C’est entendu; but I sha’n’t make you go so far as that, my dear Prince. I shall be quite ready to pay up if you do more than merely startle me in the way I spoke of just now — by some sudden noise, or jumping out at me, or some such silly prank. Anything even approaching fear, much less terror, of course, and I pay up at once. And,” he added good-naturedly — for he was fond of winning money, and the certainty of this £8000 was very pleasant to him — “luckily for you, Eldourdza, I happen to have the money to pay with if I lose. I was on every winner the last day at Baden — couldn’t do wrong — and sent it all on to Gunzburg at once, where it is intact, for I didn’t want to be tempted to gamble till I got to St. Petersburg.”

And so this strange bet was made, and duly noted down with the approval of all, even Jeratczesco withdrawing his objection when he saw the very evident satisfaction with which the Colonel regarded what he felt sure to be the only possible result of this absurd wager.

But if Hippy Rowan had foreseen the wholly unexpected way in which this waiting day by day, night after night, and hour by hour for the surprise — of course of an apparently unpleasant nature — which Eldourdza and his friends must be preparing for him — had he, we say, foreseen the peculiar and unprecedented way in which this really absurd suspense was destined gradually, and by almost imperceptible degrees, to affect his nerves in the course of the next month — he would most assuredly have let the Prince’s silly wager pass unnoticed. And what made this never-absent feeling of care, of perpetual caution, of unceasing vigilance, the more acutely irksome to Hippy, was that these novel sensations could be ascribed but to one altogether disagreeable and detestable cause — namely, the advance of old age.

His experience of life had told him that the constitution of a man who had lived as he had lived was apt to break down suddenly, no matter how apparently robust it might be; the supports, the foundation, which kept the structure in its place and seemingly firm and upright, having been little by little, and very gradually but very surely, removed in the course of years, the nights of which had been worn to morning in the fatigue of pleasure, and the days of which had been scornful of repose. He had seen innumerable friends of his, apparently as strong and vigorous as himself, suddenly give way in this fashion — fall down like a house of cards, as it were, and be swept away into the outer darkness. Could it be owing to the approach of some such sudden and disastrous conclusion to his mundane affairs, that he found, day by day, as the next four weeks wore on, his nerves, hitherto apparently of steel, becoming more and more unstrung by this suspense, the cause of which was in reality so utterly puerile and contemptible? This was very certainly not his first experience of suspense: he had been in danger of his life very often, and on a few occasions this danger had been imminent for a considerable period of time, and yet never could he recall having felt before this uneasiness of mind, this perpetual questioning of his heart, which he now experienced while merely waiting for these boorish savages to play some more or less gruesome, and even perhaps dangerous practical joke on him. It must be old age; it could be nothing else — old age, and the beginning, perhaps, of a general breaking-up of the system; the first intimation, as it were, of the second and final payment about to be required of him for those extravagances by Seine side already alluded to, those myrtles sacred to the sparrow-drawn goddess, those prolonged and oft-repeated saunters from midnight to dawn arm-in-arm with Bacchus and baccarat, -such outriders of Death’s chariot, Rowan told himself, it must be, that induced him, greatly to his own surprise, to waste so much of his time twisting and turning over in his mind all kinds of possible and impossible speculations as to how these wretched Moldavians were going to try and frighten him. This led him to examine carefully his apartments every night before retiring to rest, and see that his revolver had not been tampered with and was safely under his pillow. Of course this very abnormal condition of mind, which in no wise even remotely resembled fear, and was one merely of perpetual watchfulness, was of very gradual growth, and Hippy Rowan was throughout the whole course of its development, until just before the end, sufficiently master of himself to conceal his feelings, not only from his friends, but even from his valet, the omniscient Adams; and the very visible change in the Colonel’s appearance and manner, which by-and-by came to be remarked, was ascribed by all — and in a great measure justly ascribed — to a very severe chill which he caught shortly after the night of the wager, and which confined him to the house, and indeed to his room, for many days. Neither Prince Eldourdza nor anyone else had made any allusion whatever, in Rowan’s hearing, to the wager since the night on which it had been made and formally noted down; and this fact in itself, this studied silence, became in the course of time, and as Rowan’s nervous irritability increased, a source of annoyance to him, and induced him at length, suddenly, one morning, when they were all at breakfast together, to boldly allude to the matter, which was becoming more and more constantly uppermost in his mind.

“Pardon me, Prince,” said he, smiling, and with well-assumed carelessness, “if I allude to the matter of our wager, which you seem to have forgotten, for you have only ten days left now, and—”

“Plenty of time!” interrupted Eldourdza roughly. “Forgotten it? Not I — have I?” he continued, turning to his friends. “You know whether I have forgotten it or not!” Significant and sinister grins and much shaking of heads in negation responded to this appeal, — a pantomime which excited the Colonel’s curiosity not a little.

“Well,” said he, “I’m glad to hear it, for I shouldn’t like to take your money without your having had some semblance of a run for it. All I wanted to tell you was this, and I feel sure you’ll agree with what I now say. Of course I’ve no idea what kind of prank you’re going to play on me, to endeavour to frighten me, but no doubt it will be as horrible and awful a thing as you can concoct, for I suppose you’ve no intention of making me a present of two hundred thousand francs.”

“Certainly not!” laughed Prince Valerian; “if you get it at all you’ll have to pay dear for it, believe me.”

“Very well,” replied Hippy, “anything you like; but that’s just what I wanted to speak about. Of course I’m at your disposal to do anything you like with, and to try and frighten in any way and every way you can contrive; but you can easily under stand that there must be a limit to my endurance, otherwise you’d make me look like a fool. What I mean is, that you’re at perfect liberty, say, to send any ghost or vampire or wild beast or devil, or anything else you can think of, to my room to try and frighten me, and for that purpose I am glad to lend you all the aid in my power. As it is, I leave my door unlocked every night now, as perhaps you know. But there must be some limit to this, -I mean that your endeavour to frighten me must have some limit in time, and can’t go on forever. Suppose we put it at one hour — for one hour let your ghost or devil do its worst: then at the end of that time, if it has failed to frighten me, your goblin will become merely a nuisance, and I think I shall be justified in extinguishing it, don’t you?”

“Most assuredly,” replied Eldourdza. “In less than an hour: we don’t ask for an hour — half an hour will do, -after half an hour you are perfectly at liberty to do as you like — provided always,” he added grimly, “that by that time you are not half dead with fright.”

“Very well, then,” rejoined Hippy: “so that’s understood. After half an hour from the time your test, whatever it may be, begins, I shall be free to use any means I care to adopt to put a stop to this test, provided by that time, of course, I have not felt anything even remotely resembling alarm. As in the event of your test being something really offensive and disagreeable to me I should probably use my revolver, I thought it only fair to have this plainly understood, so that what is really only a silly practical joke may not, by a misunderstanding, end in a tragedy.”

The Prince nodded in acquiescence. “You are quite right,” he said. “After half an hour do as you please. But you’re mistaken in looking upon this as a practical joke, Colonel Rowan: it will be no joke, and may indeed, even against your will, end in a tragedy.”

As may be readily imagined, these few mysterious words of menace from the man pledged, in some way or other, to cause him within ten days’ time to experience the novel, but doubtless unpleasant, sensation of terror, did not tend to bring the Colonel to a more restful state of mind; and his never-ending speculations as to what scheme these savages might perchance be planning wherewith to frighten him began again after this conversation to torment his brain with renewed persistency. Of course Eldourdza would do all he could to win his bet — not for the sake of the money, perhaps, for that could be nothing to him, but for the pleasure and delight of triumph; and, equally of course — at least so Hippy told himself, this desired fright the Prince and his friends would only endeavour to bring about by some pseudo-supernatural agency, for they could hardly imagine that any of the vulgar dangers of life — say an attack of many adversaries, whether men or brutes, peril from water, fire, or what not; in fact, any of the thousand-and-one not uncommon evils which threaten human existence — could possibly affright so hardened and experienced a soldier and traveller as he was, a man whose record of perilous adventures was so well known. The supernatural, therefore, the terrors which owe their horror to the fact of their being inexplicable, the power of them unfathomable; the awful enemies which may be lurking crouched behind the last breath of life ready to spring upon us as the heart stops beating; such, or rather the semblance of such, would doubtless be alone the influences which these wild barbarians would seek to bring to bear upon his nerves to try them. And when this probability having been suggested to his imagination, Colonel Rowan began recalling to mind all the gruesome stories he had ever heard of about ghosts, hobgoblins, and the like, his restlessness and nervous watchfulness (to which he only gave way when in the privacy of his own chamber, of course) so increased as the last ten days sped by, that at length Adams, who slept in the next room, remarking his master’s condition, arranged, without, of course, the knowledge of anyone, to keep watch and ward over the Colonel during these last few nights by means of an aperture high up in the wall, through which he could obtain a perfect view of his master’s sleeping apartment, and see all that took place therein.

So it came to pass that on the last night but two Hippy never retired to rest until the dawn, having decided, after mature reflection, that no matter what absurd practical joke his friends might be going to play on him, he would cut a less ludicrous figure in his dressing-gown than in bed, and that it might indeed be advisable to be thus prepared to follow the tormenting masqueraders from his chamber to punish them elsewhere, and before the whole household, in the event of their conduct proving too outrageous. And so, after having as usual carefully examined every hole and cranny of his sleeping apartment (as the unobserved Adams from his peephole above saw him do very plainly), and lighted many tapers about the old-fashioned and vast chamber, and put many cheering logs upon the fire, the Colonel lit a cigar and began pacing up and down the room, turning over of course in his mind the perpetual question — “What are these uncouth madmen going to do?” and the query forever followed by the usual reflection — “They can do as they please, provided they don’t, by their folly, make me look a fool.” There would probably be the rattling of chains and bones, and some very cleverly contrived apparition; and even, in fact, some real danger, perhaps, for these men were really perfect savages, who would stop at nothing to attain their end; and Hippy would certainly not have been surprised to have found a box of dynamite concealed beneath his bed.

“Luckily, this is the last night but two,” he said to himself — . “and after all this bet has taught me one thing I never plainly realised before, and in a certain sense I have really lost the wager, for there is one thing I am afraid of, and very much afraid of, more and more afraid of every minute, and that is being made a fool of.” Then he stopped in his perambulation and stared at himself in the looking-glass. Yes; he was certainly growing old: the grey hairs he cared nothing about — they were entirely insignificant; and the crows’ feet and wrinkles were of no importance — they did not in the least annoy him; but the eyes, ah! the eyes were losing their light — that light that had disported itself over so many beautiful things. But then even a youthful face would look sad in so mystic a mirror — for it was very old, and evidently Venetian, and had doubtless been in that room in that castle in that remote corner of Moldavia for years and years, and seen perchance strange things, and was destined (who could tell?) before three nights were over to reflect images of even more fantastic terror than had ever darkened it before. What a pity that this old looking-glass could not recall some of the most pleasant images that had been reflected in it in the long ago to keep him company that night! If he stared at it long enough, would he not, perhaps, at length perceive far, far away, there in the most remote and distant and least lighted corner of the room, reflected the fair sad face of some Moldavian dame who had wept and kissed and loved and lost in the old days of the Hospodars?

“Les miroirs par les jours abrégés de Décembre

Songent-telles les eaux captives — dans les chambres,

Et leur mélancolie a pour causes lointaines

Tant de visages doux fanés dans ces fontaines

Qui s’y voyaient naguère embellis de sourires.”

The mirrors by the abbreviated days of December

Think like the captive waters — in the chambers,

And their melancholy has for distant causes

So many sweet faces faded in these fountains

Who once saw themselves there embellished with smiles.

( — googleTranslate)

Then, drawing up a comfortable armchair before the blazing logs, he seated himself, and taking up Le Rouge et le Noir, which he happened to find lying on the table by his side, ere long had read himself to sleep over the marvellous narrative of the vicissitudes of Julien Sorel, only awaking, indeed, when the

STANZA

INS6 “fair-faced sun, Killing the stars and dews and dreams and desolations of the night,”

was plainly visible through the curtains, and the noises of the awakening household warned him that another day had begun. Then he arose and went to bed, fondly believing that by this little comedy he was deceiving the omniscient Adams, who, as a matter of fact, perched on a stepladder in the adjoining apartment, had kept an unceasing watch over his master. That day, Rowan’s last day on earth, passed without any incident worthy of notice. Jeratczesco announced at breakfast that he had engaged a band of laoutari — gypsy minstrels — to enliven his friends, but that, as he only expected them to arrive late that night, his guests would not have the opportunity of enjoying their wild and delightful music until the morning.

“I shall lodge them in your wing of the house, where they’ll be quiet,” explained Tony to Colonel Rowan later on in the day, when they happened to be alone. “You know how beautiful some of these tsigane women are, and how jealously guarded by their men. I don’t want a row here, and there’s no knowing what mad folly Eldourdza and his friends might be up to when drunk.”

And that the prudent Tony was quite justified in taking all precautionary measures to ensure peace and tranquillity during the sojourn of the gypsies beneath his roof was amply proved that very night when they arrived late, for the Moldavian magnates, who, with Eldourdza at their head, would seem to have intentionally got drunk rather earlier than usual that evening, were only with the greatest difficulty restrained by their host from rushing out into the moonlit courtyard and embracing the women of the minstrel band, as they were seen and heard passing and chattering and singing on their way to their quarters. The arrival of these gypsies, and the prospect of the break which their performances would make in the monotony of the daily life at the château (which, by the way, all save the most enthusiastic sportsmen would have found intolerably tedious), greatly enlivened Hippy Rowan’s spirits; and when he retired for the night — the last night but one of this absurd waiting for surprises, as he reminded himself with a smile — he opened his window and looked out across the quadrangle to the lights in the rooms occupied by the wandering musicians, wondering whether indeed this band contained any of those really beautiful women such as he remembered having remarked among the Strelna gypsy musicians of Moscow, -women unlike any other women to be found in any class or country in the world, and whose peculiar charm is as indescribable as it is indisputable, possessing as it does a power partaking of the supernatural, springing as it were from a fountain of infernal fascination. What a splendid night! And nearly Christmas too, the very season for ghostly masquerading, and — But hark! a woman’s voice singing.

Hippy leaned out and listened. The voice was low and very sweet, though the woman singing was evidently engaged in some other occupation which absorbed her attention, for there would be careless pauses in her song, the words of which in a Roumanian dialect ran somewhat as follows:

“Love shot his arrow o’er the Sea,

And all the waters leaped with joy,

Lifting their foam-wreathed arms in glee,

To bid the sunlight hold the boy;

But the Sun said

My beams are shed

To cheer with flowers the lonely dead.”

Here the singing ceased for a moment, but presently a man’s voice took up the song, singing in the same careless fashion, stopping every now and then.

“Death spread his pinions o’er the Sea,

And all the waves with storm-thrilled breath

In sobs besought the Moon that she

Might break the tear-plumed wings of Death.

But the Moon cried

My silver tide

Will only—”

But here a merry burst of laughter interrupted the singer, and though for some time after Rowan could hear the voices of the gypsies laughing and talking, he could not distinguish what was being said, and there was no more singing.

“What a strange people!” murmured Rowan to himself, as he closed the window, “and what suitable neighbours to have on such a night as this, when at any moment now I may expect to see a cavalcade of ghosts come galloping into the room!”

Then the watchful Adams saw his master make his usual careful inspection of the room, seat himself by the fire, take up Stendhal again, and read himself to sleep.

Suddenly Rowan awoke, roused by a sound that stole into his ears very gradually and very gently, but which, when his drowsy faculties had understood its meaning, stirred them to instant activity — the sound of weeping. He sprang to his feet and looked around the room. He was alone; the apartment was brilliantly illuminated, thanks to two large lamps and several tapers in girandoles, and he could plainly see into the farthest corner: nobody — no animated creature was visible. He listened, but not a sound broke the stillness of the night. He must have been dreaming. But no — hark! there it was again, the sound of weeping, of someone in great and bitter distress: it came from the corridor, and not far from his chamber door. Should he go and see what it was? Could this be any part of the Moldavians’ masquerading? Surely not! Hardly would they begin their attempt to frighten a man by such heart-rending expressions of anguish, which could evoke but pity and compassion. Again! Oh, what a wealth of woe!

And a woman too: the long-drawn, gasping, tear-clogged suspiration was pitched in a key of peculiar pathos which that treasury of divine tenderness, a woman’s heart, alone can find to woo compassion. Again — yes, certainly a woman: could it perchance be one of the laoutari? The corridor led to the part of the house where they were sleeping, and, so far as he knew, they were the only women in the house except the servants. Surely Eldourdza had nothing to do with this; and even if he had, what then? Had not this drunken Moldavian boor already occupied his mind quite long enough with speculations as to what he might and what he might not be about to do? Let him do as he pleased, and what he liked, and go to the devil!

There was a woman in terrible distress just outside his door, and he, Hippy Rowan, must go to her without delay — that was very clear. So, taking his revolver in his hand in case of need, Rowan advanced, opened the door wide, and looked out into the sombre corridor, Adams, greatly frightened, watching his master the while, and, having heard nothing, was at a loss to understand the Colonel’s conduct. Even as he opened the door Rowan saw that he had guessed aright, and that it was a woman who was giving utterance to these most pitiful and heart-rending expressions of anguish. There she lay, not very near his door after all, weeping bitterly, her face buried in her hands — as if she had been praying on her knees for mercy, and in a very agony of supplication had fallen forward. Rowan saw at once that those white and shapely hands must belong to a young woman; and so his voice assumed a tone of very special tenderness and compassion, as he said, in the Roumanian dialect in which he had heard the gypsies singing:

“What is it, lady? Can I help you?”

The mourner, who apparently had not remarked the opening of the door, at the sound of Hippy’s voice ceased her lamenting; and after a moment’s pause slowly raised her head, withdrawing her hands from her face as she did so, and revealing to Rowan’s astonished eyes the most faultlessly lovely countenance he had ever gazed upon in living woman — a countenance different to anything Hippy had ever seen. Was it the moonlight pouring in through the uncurtained windows which gave it that ethereal radiance? Who could she be? That she was not a gypsy was very evident, for her skin was of the most fine and delicate fairness, and her hair, which fell in caressing curls over her forehead, of a soft and tender brown. Moreover her dress was entirely unlike that of a tsigane, both in colour and in form, being all black, and fashioned, so far as Rowan could see, as that of a member of some religious order, the beautiful face being, as it were, framed round about in a covering not unlike a cowl. Rowan had heard, he thought, of some sisterhood in the neighbourhood: perhaps this fair mourner belonged to such a community; -at all events she was assuredly a very lovely woman, and it behoved him, both as a man of heart and as a man of taste, to console her in her sorrow. But to attain this desired end, of course the first and most necessary step would be to make himself understood, and that, apparently, he had not so far succeeded in doing. The lustrous violet eyes looked at him, indeed, with startled surprise and fawn-like timidity, though there was assuredly nothing redoubtable in the kind aspect of Hippy’s handsome face, and he had instinctively hidden the revolver in his pocket the moment he had seen the pathetic prostrate figure in the corridor; but beyond this half-frightened expression there was nothing to be recognised but sorrow in that lovely countenance: not the slightest indication that his words had conveyed to the mourner’s mind any idea of sympathy and compassion. Again he addressed her, this time in no dialect, but in the purest Roumanian, and in a still more tender and sympathising tone than before; but the look of timid wonder in the sweet Madonna face remained unchanged. Then, feeling that the situation was becoming rather ludicrous, he said, this time speaking in German and beckoning towards the open door of his apartment,

“Lady, let me beg of you to tell me what troubles you! Come into my room and rest and warm yourself. Believe me, there is nothing I would not gladly do to be of service to you. You have only to command me; I am an Englishman, a gentleman, and a soldier — so you may trust me. Let me help you, lady: come, I beg of you.” Then, after a pause, as the mourner neither spoke nor moved, Hippy bowed, and, motioning her to follow him, walked slowly into his room, turning every now and then and repeating his gesture of invitation; -she the while remaining upon her knees, looking after him, indeed, but making no attempt to rise and follow.

Although Adams had at no time lost sight of his master, whose back, as he seemed to be engaged in conversation with some invisible person far down the corridor, had always been within the range of the faithful servant’s vision, still it was with a feeling of great relief that he now saw the Colonel come back into the room unharmed, although the expression of tenderness and pity in his master’s face rather puzzled the man, as did also the Colonel’s conduct in turning when he had reached the fireplace and looking anxiously back towards the door which he had left open behind him, as if expecting and indeed longing for the arrival of some visitor. At length, after the lapse of a few minutes — a delay which, though brief, the servant could plainly see his master bore impatiently, the longed-for visitor slowly emerged from the darkness of the corridor until she stood framed in the doorway, against one side of which, as if to support herself, she lightly placed a small white hand. It was thus Adams saw the slender black-robed figure of a sweet girl mourner appear, and for the first time in his life was astonished, nay, astounded rather, at the marvellous resemblance in depth of tenderness, in purity of sorrow-hallowed loveliness, between this nocturnal lady visitor to his master and a Madonna from a canvas, say, of Raphael, standing apparently before him clothed in flesh.

Perhaps some such fantastic idea of an incarnation of one of Raphael’s Holy Virgins occurred to Rowan as he bowed low and advanced to welcome his fair visitor, for this time he addressed her in Italian, thanking her for the great honour she was doing him, making all kinds of graceful and very Italian protestations of sympathy and respect, and concluding a very pretty speech by begging her not to stay there on the threshold, but to come in and seat herself by the fire; adding that if his presence were in any way distasteful to her he would at once withdraw and leave her in undisturbed possession of the room. But this attempt, clothed in the choicest Tuscan, to inspire confidence, met with no greater measure of success than had attended its Roumanian and German predecessors. The sweetly sorrowful lady stood on the threshold in the same timid attitude, staring at the Colonel with no abatement in the tender melancholy of her face, but apparently in no wise understanding his words, and even, indeed, ignoring his gesture inviting her to enter and be seated.

What was to be done? He could hardly, of course, take this lovely girl-Madonna in his arms and drag her into his room by force; and yet it seemed intolerably absurd, and indeed impossible, to leave her standing there in the doorway. Why had she come even to the threshold of his door, if she had not intended coming farther in the event of her seeing nothing to alarm her? Of course, and beyond all doubt, if he could only make her understand his sympathy and respect, and that she need have no fear of him, she would come in and perhaps tell him the cause of her distress, and let him help her; and on the other hand, knowing so many languages and even dialects and patois as he did, it seemed almost impossible that he should not be able at length to hit upon some form of speech by which he could convey to this most perfect incarnate type of spiritual purity and loveliness the expression of his devoted homage.

So he started off on a wild polyglottic steeplechase, making protestations of respect and sympathy and offers of aid and friendship in every language and dialect he could remember, from his native English to the patois spoken by the Jews in White Russia. But all to no purpose; and at length he was constrained to pause and acknowledge that he was utterly defeated.

“You’re very beautiful,” said he at last, with a sigh, speaking in his native English, the inability of his fair auditor to understand him possessing at least the meagre and thankless advantage of allowing him to express his admiration in words no matter how impassioned, provided, of course, he took care his face should not betray the significance and ardour of his speech — “the most beautiful woman I think I ever saw; but you’re a beautiful riddle, and I don’t know how to read you. What language can you speak, I wonder? Only the language of love, perhaps! Were I to kneel down there before you, or take you in my arms and kiss you, in what language would you repulse me, or — ?”

Here he paused, greatly surprised: were his eyes deceiving him, or was at length a change stealing over the Madonna face, and the timidity and sadness in it slowly giving place to an expression of some brighter sentiment? That she could not understand the language he was speaking he felt sure, for he had already addressed her in it, and his words had evidently failed utterly to convey any meaning to her mind. But surely there was a difference now, and something he had said, or some gesture he had made, or some expression in his face, had been pleading to her, for the great shadow of melancholy was slowly passing from her. But between the language, the English he had used before and that which he had just spoken, what difference was there? None, of course, save in the sense: then the words had been of respect and sympathy, now of love and tenderness. Could it be that by some marvellous intuition her woman’s instinct had at once divined the more tender words? or indeed was it not possible, nay, likely, that in speaking them he had involuntarily let their meaning be reflected in his eyes, and that she had read it there?

But then such tenderness and affection were not displeasing to her; and this Mask of the Madonna, this ideal type of womanly purity, could be lighted by the joy of love.

The thought set Rowan’s blood coursing through his veins like fire, and made his heart beat as if he had been but twenty. He must see, and at once: he would speak to her again in words of affection, and let his eyes partly and by degrees interpret what he said, carefully of course, and always guided by what he should see her eyes reply to his, lest he should offend her. And so he began telling this lovely woman in very low, quiet and grave tones, but in words of great tenderness, how fair he found her, and as he spoke his eyes expressed the meaning of his words more and more clearly and ardently as he recognised with ever-growing delight that the Madonna face was being gradually illuminated and transfigured by joy, as word after word of ever increasing passion, echoed in tender glances from his eyes, fell from his lips.

And as he spoke he did not advance towards her, but only clasped his hands and stood still far from her, looking at her in the doorway; while she, more and more visibly affected by his ever-growing emotion, first withdrew her hand from the side of the door where she had leant it, and pushed back the cowl from her face a little, still further disclosing, by so doing, the wavy wealth of soft brown curls, and then, as the violet eyes became by degrees lighted with great joy and the sweet lips melted to a smile of ineffable rapture, clasped both hands together just beneath her cheek in an attitude of girlish and innocent delight.

So she stood until the fervour of Rowan’s words and voice and eyes rose to an ecstasy of passion, and then leaning forward her head, not indeed to hide the sweet blushes which were rising to her cheeks, but as a child eager to rush to a beloved embrace, and her eyes answering the ardour she read in those she gazed into, she half stretched forth her arms as if her longing to twine him in a caress were but restrained by maiden bashfulness. Rowan saw the gesture, stepped forward, opened wide his arms, and the girl Madonna rushed to his embrace, nestling her blushing face upon his neck, as in a rapture of fondness he clasped her to his bosom.

At the same moment a terrible cry rang through the room and through the house, waking the tsiganes, who sprang from their beds in mad terror, and startling the stupid Moldavians, who, despairing of really frightening Rowan, had decided on merely making him look a fool, and were at that very moment creeping up the staircase, dressed in absurd costumes and armed with monster squirts and all kinds of grotesque instruments — the cry of a strong man in an agony of terror. The horrified Adams saw his master hurl the woman from him with great violence, snatch his revolver from his pocket, discharge three chambers of it at her in quick succession, and then reel and fall forward on his face, while she, rising from the floor apparently unhurt, glided from the apartment by the still open door. When Adams reached his master’s side he found him quite dead, the body presenting two most remarkable peculiarities: first a very strong odour of musk — and secondly, on the neck three small wounds shaped like three X’s joined together. The medical man, a German, who was immediately called in, ascribed the death of Colonel Rowan to aneurism of the heart, and declined to attach the least importance to the three small wounds or bites on the neck, the post-mortem examination proving that so far as the cause of death was concerned the physician was right in his conjecture.

As for the strange lady with the Madonna face, Adams was far too shrewd a man of the world to make known the extraordinary circumstance to everyone. He told Tony Jeratczesco, and inquiries were made; but no such person had been seen or heard of, and so the matter dropped; and it is only within the last few months that Mr. Adams, now retired from his delicate and difficult profession of valet and living in the neighbourhood of Newmarket, could be prevailed upon to give a detailed account of all the strange facts connected with the death of his master, show Hippy Rowan’s diary, and complete his story by producing a photograph which he himself had taken of the dead man’s neck, on which is plainly visible the imprint of the Kiss of Judas,

“Pall Mall Magazine”, Jul. 1893

Aut Diabolus Aut Nihil,
and Other Tales (1895)

THE STORY OF
KONNOR OLD HOUSE

“E. Heron”
(Kate Pritchard)
and
“H. Heron”
(Hesketh Pritchard)

1899

“I hold,” Mr. Flaxman Low, the eminent psychologist, was saying, “that there are no other laws in what we term the realm of the supernatural but those which are the projections or extensions of natural laws.”

“Very likely that’s so,” returned Naripse, with suspicious humility. “But, all the same, Konnor Old House presents problems that won’t work in with any natural laws I’m acquainted with. I almost hesitate to give voice to them, they sound so impossible and — and absurd.”

“Let’s judge of them,” said Low.

“It is said,” said Naripse, standing up with his back to the fire, “it is said that a Shining Man haunts the place. Also a light is frequently seen in the library — I’ve watched it myself of a night from here — yet the dust there, which happens to lie very thick over the floor and the furniture, has afterwards shown no sign of disturbance.”

“Have you satisfactory evidence of the presence of the Shining Man?”

“I think so,” replied Naripse shortly. “I saw him myself the night before I wrote asking you to come up to see me. I went into the house after dusk, and was on the stairs when I saw him: the tall figure of a man, absolutely white and shining. His back was towards me, but the sullen, raised shoulders and sidelong head expressed a degree of sinister animosity that exceeded anything I’ve ever met with. So I left him in possession, for it’s a fact that anyone who has tried to leave his card at Konnor Old House has left his wits with it.”

“It certainly sounds rather absurd,” said Mr. Low, “but I suppose we have not heard all about it yet?”

“No, there is a tragedy connected with the house, but it’s quite a commonplace sort of story and in no way accounts for the Shining Man.”

Naripse was a young man of means, who spent most of his time abroad, but the above conversation took place at the spot to which he always referred as home — a shooting-lodge connected with his big grouse-moor on the West Coast of Scotland. The lodge was a small new house built in a damp valley, with a trout-stream running just beyond the garden-hedge.

From the high ground above, where the moor stretched out towards the Solway Firth, it was possible on a fine day to see the dark cone of Ailsa Crag rising above the shimmering ripples. But Mr. Low happened to arrive in a spell of bad weather, when nothing was visible about the lodge but a few roods of sodden lowland, and a curve of the yellow tumbling little river, and beyond a murky outline of shouldering hills blurred by the ever-falling rain. It may have been eleven o’clock on a depressing, muggy night, when Naripse began to talk about Konnor Old House as he sat with his guests over a crackling flaming fire of pinewood.

“Konnor Old House stands on a spur of the ridge opposite one of the finest sites possible, and it belongs to me. Yet I am obliged to live in this damp little boghole, for the man who would pass a night in Konnor is not to be met with in this county!”

Sullivan, the third man present, replied he was, perhaps — with a glance at Low — there were two, which stung Naripse, who turned his words into a deliberate challenge.

“Is it a bet?” asked Sullivan, rising. He was a tallish man, dark, and clean-shaven, whose features were well-known to the public in connection with the emerald green jersey of the Rugby International Football Team of Ireland. “If it is, it’s a bet I’m going to win! Good-night. In the morning, Naripse, I’ll trouble you for the difference.”

“The affair is much more in Low’s line than in yours,” said Naripse. “But you’re not really going?”

“You may take it I am though!”

“Don’t be a fool, Jack! Low, tell him not to go, tell him there are things no man ought to meddle with — -” he broke off.

“There are things no man can meddle with,” replied Sullivan, obstinately fixing his cap on his head, “and my backing out of this bet would stand in as one of them!”

Naripse was strangely urgent.

“Low, speak to him! You know — -”

Flaxman Low saw that the big Irishman’s one vanity had got upon its legs; he also saw that Naripse was very much in earnest.

“Sullivan’s big enough to take care of himself:” he said laughing. “At the same time, if he doesn’t object, we might as well hear the story before he starts.”

Sullivan hesitated, then flung his cap into a corner.

“That’s so,” he said.

It was a warm night for the time of the year, and they could hear, through the open window, the splashing downpour of the rain.

“There’s nothing so lonely as the drip of heavy rain!” began Naripse, “I always associate it with Konnor Old House. The place has stood empty for ten years or more, and this is the story they tell about it. It was last inhabited by a Sir James Mackian, who had been a merchant of sorts in Sierra Leone. When the baronetcy fell to him, he came to England and settled down in this place with a pretty daughter and a lot of servants, including a nigger, named Jake, whose life he was said to have saved in Africa. Everything went on well for nearly two years, when Sir James had occasion to go to Edinburgh for a few days. During his absence his daughter was found dead in her bed, having taken an overdose of some sleeping draught. The shock proved too great for her father. He tried travelling, but, on his return home, he fell into a settled melancholy, and died some months later a dumb imbecile at the asylum.”

“Well, I shan’t object to meeting the girl as she’s so pretty,” remarked Sullivan with a laugh. “But there’s not much in the story.”

“Of course,” added Naripse, “countryside gossip adds a good deal of colour to the plain facts of the case. It is said that terrible details connected with Miss Mackian’s death were suppressed at the inquest, and people recollected afterwards that for months the girl had worn an unhappy, frightened look. It seemed she disliked the negro, and had been heard to beg her father to send him away, but the old man would not listen to her.”

“What became of the negro in the end?” asked Flaxman Low.

“In the end Sir James kicked him out after a violent scene, in the course of which he appears to have accused Jake of having some hand in causing the girl’s death. The nigger swore he’d be revenged on him, but, as a matter of fact, he left the place almost immediately, and has never been heard of since — which disposes of the nigger. A short time after the old man went mad; he was found lying on a couch in the library — a hopeless imbecile.” Saying this, Naripse went to the window, and looked out into the rainy darkness. “Konnor Old House stands on the ridge opposite, and a part of the building, including the library window, where the light is sometimes seen, is visible through the trees from here. There is no light there tonight, though.”

Sullivan laughed his big, full laugh.

“How about your shining man? I hope we may have the luck to meet. I suspect some canny Scots tramp knows where to get a snug roost rent free.”

“That may be so,” replied Naripse, with a slow patience. “I can only say that after seeing the light of a night, I have more than once gone up in the morning to have a look at the library, and never found the thick dust in the least disturbed.”

“Have you noticed if the light appears at regular intervals?” said Low.

“No; it’s there on and off. I generally see it in rainy weather.”

“What sort of people have gone crazy in Konnor Old House?” asked Sullivan.

“One was a tramp. He must have lived pleasantly in the kitchen for days. Then he took to the library, which didn’t agree with him apparently. He was found in a dying state lying upon Sir James’s couch, with horrible black patches on his face. He was too far gone to speak, so nothing was gleaned from him.”

“He probably had a dirty face, and, having caught cold in the rain, went into Konnor Old House and died quietly there of pneumonia or something of the kind, just as you or I might have done, tucked up in our own little beds at home,” commented Sullivan.

“The last man to try his luck with the ghosts,” went on Naripse, without noticing this remark, “was a young fellow, called Bowie, a nephew of Sir James. He was a student at Edinburgh University and he wanted to clear up the mystery. I was not at home, but my factor allowed him to pass a night in the house. As he did not appear next day, they went to look for him. He was found lying on the couch — and he has not spoken a rational word since.”

“Sheer — mere physical fright, acting on an overwrought brain!” Sullivan summed up the case scornfully. “And now I’m off. The rain has stopped, and I’ll get up to the house before midnight. You may expect me at dawn to tell you what I’ve seen.”

“What do you intend to do when you get there?” asked Flaxman Low.

“I’ll pass the night on the ghostly couch which I suppose I shall find in the library. Take my word for it, madness is in Sir James’s family; father and daughter and nephew all gave proof of it in different ways. The tramp, who was perhaps in there for a couple of days, died a natural death. It only needs a healthy man to run the gauntlet and set all this foolish talk at rest.”

Naripse was plainly much disturbed though he made no further objection, but when Sullivan was gone, he moved restlessly about the room looking out of the window from time to time. Suddenly he spoke:

“There it is! The light I mentioned to you.”

Mr. Low went to the window. Away on the opposite ridge a faint light glimmered out through the thick gloom. Then he glanced at his watch.

“Rather over an hour since he started,” he remarked. “Well, now, Naripse, if you will be so good as to hand me ‘Human Origins’ from the shelf behind you, I think we may settle down to wait for dawn. Sullivan’s just the man to give a good account of himself — under most circumstances.”

“Heaven send there may be no black side to this business!” said Naripse. “Of course I was a fool to say what I did about the Old House, but nobody except an ass like Jack would think I meant it. I wish the night was well over! That light is due to go out in two hours anyway.”

Even to Mr. Low the night seemed unbearably long; but at the first streak of dawn he tossed his book on to the sofa, stretched himself, and said: “We may as well be moving; let’s go and see what Sullivan is doing.”

The rain began to fall again, and was coming down in close straight lines as the two men drove up the avenue to Konnor Old House. As they ascended, the trees grew thicker on the banks of the cutting which led them in curves to the terrace on which stood the house. Although it was a modern red-brick building, rather picturesque with its gables and sharply-pitched overhanging roofs, it looked desolate and forbidding enough in the grey daybreak. To the left lay lawns and gardens, to the right the cliff fell away steeply to where the burn roared in spate some three hundred feet below. They drove round to the empty stables, and then hurried back to the house on foot by a path that debouched directly under the library window. Naripse stopped under it, and shouted: “Hullo! Jack, where are you?”

But no answer came, and they went on to the hall door. The gloom of the wet dawning and the heavy smell of stagnant air filled the big hall as they looked round at its dreary emptiness. The silence within the house itself was oppressive. Again Naripse shouted, and the noise echoed harshly through the passages, jarring on the stillness, then he led the way to the library at a run.

As they came in sight of the doorway a wave of some nauseating odour met them, and at the same moment they saw Sullivan lying just outside the threshold, his body twisted and rigid like a man in the extremity of pain, his contorted profile ivory-pale against the dark oak flooring, As they stooped to raise him, Mr. Low had just time to notice the big gloomy room beyond, with its heaped and trampled layers of accumulated dust. There was no time for more than a glance, for the indescribable, foetid odour almost overpowered them as they hastened to carry Sullivan into the open air.

“We must get him home as soon as we can,” said Mr. Low, “for we have a very sick man on our hands.”

This proved to be true. But in a few days, thanks to Mr. Low’s treatment and untiring care, the severe physical symptoms became less urgent, and in due time Sullivan’s mind cleared.

The following account is taken from the written statement of his experience in Konnor Old House:

“On reaching the house he entered as noiselessly as possible, and made for the library, finding his way by the help of a series of matches to Sir James’s couch, upon which he lay down. He was conscious at once of an acrid taste in his mouth, which he accounted for by the clouds of dust he had raised in crossing the room.

“First he began to think about the approaching football match with Scotland, for which he was already in training. He was still in his mood of derisive incredulity. The house seemed vastly empty, and wrapped in an uneasy silence, a silence which made each of his comfortable movements an omen of significance. Presently the sense of a presence in the room was borne in upon him. He sat up, and spoke softly. He almost expected someone to answer him, and so strong did this feeling become that he called out: ‘Who’s there?’ No reply came, and he sat on amidst the oppressive silence. He says the slightest noise would have been a relief. It was the listening in the silence that bred in him so intense a longing to grapple with some solid opponent.

“Fear! He, who had denied the very existence of cause for fear, found himself shivering with an untranslatable terror! This was fear! He realised it with an infinite recoil of anger.

“Presently he became aware that the darkness about him was clearing. A feeble light filtered slowly through it from above. Looking up at the ceiling, he perceived directly above his head an irregular patch of pale phosphorescent luminance, which grew gradually brighter. How long he sat with his head thrown back, staring at the light, he does not know. It seemed years. Then he spoke to himself plainly. With an immense effort, he forced his eyes away from the light and got upon his feet to drag his limbs round the room. The phosphorescence was of a greenish tint, and as strong as moonlight, but the dust rose like vapour at the slightest movement, and somewhat obscured its power. He moved about, but not for long. A clogging weight, such as one feels in nightmare, pressed upon him, and his exhaustion was intensified by the overpowering physical disgust bred in him by the repulsive odour which passed across his face as he staggered back to the couch.

“For a few moments he would not look up. He says he had an impression that someone was watching him through the radiance as through a window. The atmosphere about him was thickening and cloaking the walls with drowsy horror, while his senses revolted and choked at the growing odour. Then followed a state of semi-sleep, for he recollects no more until he found himself staring again at the luminous patch on the ceiling.

“By this time the brightness was beginning to dim; dark smears showed through it here and there, which ran slowly together till out of them grew and protruded a fat, black, evil face. A second later Sullivan was aware that the horrible face was sinking down nearer and nearer to his own, while all about it the light changed to black, dripping fluid, that formed great drops and fell.

“It seemed as if he could not save himself; he could not move! The fighting blood in him had died out; Then fear, mad fear and strong loathing gave him the strength to act. He saw his own hand working savagely, it passed through and through the impending face, yet he swears that he felt a slight impact and that he saw the fat, glazed skin quiver! Then, with a final struggle, he tore it himself from the couch, and, rushing to the door, he wrenched open, and plunged forward into a red vacancy, down — down — After that he remembered no more.”

While Sullivan still lay ill and unable to give an account of himself or of what had happened at Konnor Old House, Mr. Flaxman Low expressed his intention of paying a visit to the asylum for the purpose of seeing young Bowie. But on arrival at the asylum, he found that Bowie had died during the previous night. A weary-eyed assistant doctor took Mr. Low to see the body. Bowie had evidently been of a gaunt, but powerful build. The features, though harsh, were noble, the face being somewhat disfigured by a rough, raised discolouration, which extended from the centre of the forehead to behind the right ear.

Mr. Low asked a question.

“Yes, it is a very obscure case,” observed the assistant, “but it is the disease he died of. When he was brought here some months ago he had a small dark spot on his forehead, but it spread rapidly, and there are now similar large patches over the whole of his body. I take it to be of a cancerous character, likely to occur in a scrofulous subject after a shock and severe mental strain, such as Bowie chose to subject himself to by passing a night in Konnor Old House. The first result of the shock was the imbecility, an increasing lethargic condition of the body supervened and finally coma.”

While the doctor was speaking, Mr. Low bent over the dead man and closely examined the mark upon the face.

“This mark appears to be the result of a fungoid growth, perhaps akin to the Indian disease known as mycetoma?” he said at length.

“It may be so. The case is very obscure, but the disease, whatever we may call it, appears to be in Bowie’s family, for I believe his uncle, Sir James Mackian, had precisely similar symptoms during his last illness. He also died in this institution, but that was before my time,” replied the assistant.

After a further examination of the body Mr. Low took his leave, and during the following day or two was busily engaged in a spare empty room placed at his disposal by Naripse. A deal table and chair were all he required, Mr. Low explained, and to these he added a microscope, an apparatus for producing a moist heat, and the coat worn by Sullivan on the night of his adventure. At the end of the third day, as Sullivan was already on the road to recovery, Mr. Low, accompanied by Naripse, paid a second visit to Konnor Old House, during which Low mentioned some of his conclusions about the strange events which had occurred there. It will be an easy task to compare Mr. Flaxman Low’s theory with the experience detailed by Sullivan and with the one or two subsequent discoveries that added something like confirmation to his conclusions.

Mr. Low and his host drove up as on the previous occasion, and stabled the horse as before. The day was dry, but grey, and the time the early afternoon. As they ascended the path leading to the house, Mr. Low remarked, after gazing up for a few seconds at the library window:

“That room has the air of being occupied.”

“Why? — What makes you think so?” asked Naripse nervously.

“It is hard to say, but it produces that impression.” Naripse shook his head despondently.

“I’ve always noticed it myself,” he returned, “I wish Sullivan were all right again and able to tell us what he saw in there. Whatever it was it has nearly cost him his life. I don’t suppose we shall ever know anything more definite about the matter.”

“I fancy I can tell you,” replied Low, “but let us get on into the library, and see what it looks like before we enter into the subject any further. By the way, I should advise you to tie your handkerchief over your mouth and nose before we go into the room.”

Naripse, upon whom the events of the last few days had had a very strong effect, was in a state of scarcely-controllable excitement.

“What do you mean, Low? — you can’t have any idea — -”

“Yes, I believe the dust in that house to be simply poisonous. Sullivan inhaled any amount of it — hence his condition.”

The same suggestion of loneliness and stagnation hung about the house as they passed through the hall and entered the library. They halted at the door and looked in. The amount of greenish dust in the room was extraordinary; it lay in little drifts and mounds over the floor, but most abundantly just about the couch. Immediately above this spot, they perceived on the ceiling a long, discoloured stain. Naripse pointed to it.

“Do you see that? It is a bloodstain, and, I give you my word, it grows larger and larger every year!” He finished the sentence in a low voice, and shuddered.

“Ah, so I should have expected,” observed Flaxman Low, who was looking at the stained ceiling with much interest. “That, of course, explains everything.”

“Low, tell me what you mean? A bloodstain that grows year by year explains everything?” Naripse broke off and pointed to the couch. “Look there! a cat’s been walking over that sofa.”

Mr. Low put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and smiled.

“My dear fellow! That stain on the ceiling is simply a patch of mould and fungi, Now come in carefully without raising the dust, and let us examine the cat’s footsteps, as you call them.”

Naripse advanced to the couch and considered the marks gravely.

“They are not the footmarks of any animal, they are something much more unaccountable. They are raindrops. And why should raindrops be here in this perfectly watertight room, and even then only in one small part of it? You can’t very well explain that, and you certainly can’t have expected it?”

“Look round and follow my points,” replied Mr. Low. “When we came to fetch Sullivan, I noticed the dust which far exceeds the ordinary accumulation even in the most neglected places. You may also notice that it is of a greenish colour and of extreme fineness. This dust is of the same nature as the powder you find in a puff-ball, and is composed of minute sporuloid bodies. I found that Sullivan’s coat was covered with this fine dust, and also about the collar and upper portion of the sleeve I found one or two gummy drops which correspond to these raindrops, as you call them. I naturally concluded from their position that they had fallen from above. From the dust, or rather spores, which I found on Sullivan’s coat, I have since cultivated no fewer than four specimens of fungi, of which three belong to known African species; but the fourth, so far as I know, has never been described, but it approximates most closely to one of the phalliodei.”

“But how about the raindrops, or whatever they are? I believe they drop from that horrible stain.”

“They are drops from the stain, and are caused by the unnamed fungus I have just alluded to. It matures very rapidly, and absolutely decays as it matures, liquefying into a sort of dark mucilage, full of spores, which drips down, and diffuses a most repulsive odour. In time the mucilage dries, leaving the dust of the spores.”

“I don’t know much about these things myself,” replied Naripse dubiously, “and it strikes me you know more than enough. But look here; how about the light? You saw it last night yourself.”

“It happens that the three species of African fungi possess well known phosphorescent properties, which are manifested not only during decomposition, but also during the period of growth. The light is only visible from time to time; probably climatic and atmospheric conditions only admit of occasional efflorescence.”

“But,” object Naripse, “supposing it to be a case of poisoning by fungi as you say, how is it that Sullivan, though exposed to precisely the same sources of danger as the others who have passed a night here, has escaped? He has been very ill, but his mind has already regained its balance, whereas, in the three other cases, the mind was wholly destroyed.”

Mr. Low looked very grave.

“My dear fellow, you are such an excitable and superstitious person that I hesitate to put your nerves to any further test.”

“Oh, go on!”

“I hesitate for two reasons. The one I have mentioned, and also because in my answer I must speak of curious and unpleasant things, some of which are proved facts, others only more or less well-founded assumptions. It is acknowledged that fungi exert an important influence in certain diseases, a few being directly attributable to fungi as a primary cause. Also it is an historical fact that poisonous fungi have more than once been used to alter the fate of nations. From the evidence before us and the condition of Bowie’s body, I can but conclude that the unknown fungus I have alluded to is of a singularly malignant nature, and acts through the skin upon the brain with terrible rapidity afterwards gradually inter-penetrating all the tissues of the body, and eventually causing death. In Sullivan’s case, luckily, the falling drops only touched his clothing, not his skin.”

“But wait a minute, Low, how did these fungi come here? And how can we rid the house of them? Upon my word, it is enough to make a man go off his head to hear about it. What are you going to do now?”

“In the first place we will go upstairs and examine the flooring just above that stained patch of ceiling.”

“You can’t do that I’m afraid. The room above this happens to be divided into two portions by a hollow partition between 2ft. and 3ft. thick,” said Naripse, “the interior of which may originally have been meant for a cupboard, but I don’t think it has ever been used.”

“Then let us examine the cupboard; there must be some way of getting into it.”

Upon this Naripse led the way upstairs, but, as he gained the top, he leant back, and grasping Mr. Low by the arm thrust him violently forward.

“Look! the light — did you see the light?” he said.

For a second or two it seemed as if a light, like the elusive light thrown by a rotating reflector, quivered on the four walls of the landing, then disappeared almost before one could he certain of having seen it.

“Can you point me out the precise spot where you saw the shining figure you told us of?” asked Low.

Naripse pointed to a dark corner of the landing.

“Just there in front of that panel between the two doors. Now that I come to think of it, I fancy there is some means of opening the upper part of that panel. The idea was to ventilate the cupboard-like space I mentioned just now.”

Naripse walked across the landing and felt round the panel, till he found a small metal knob. On turning this, the upper part of the panel fell back like a shutter, disclosing a narrow space of darkness beyond. Naripse thrust his head into the opening and peered into the gloom, but immediately started back with a gasp.

“The shining man!” he cried. “He’s there!”

Mr. Flaxman Low, hardly knowing what to expect, looked over his shoulder; then, exerting his strength, pulled away some of the lower boarding. For within, at arm’s length, stood a dimly shining figure! A tall man, with his back towards them, leaning against the left of the partition, and shrouded from head to foot in faintly luminous white mould.

The figure remained quite motionless while they stared at it in surprise; then Mr. Flaxman Low pulled on his glove, and, leaning forward, touched the man’s head. A portion of the white mass came away in his fingers, the lower surface of which showed a bunch of frizzled negroid hair.

“Good Heavens, Low, what do you make of this?” asked Naripse. “It must be the body of Jake. But what is this shining stuff?”

Low stood under the wide skylight and examined what he held in his fingers.

“Fungus,” he said at last. “And it appears to have some property allied to the mouldy fungus which attacks the common housefly. Have you not seen them dead upon windowpanes, stiffly fixed upon their legs, and covered with a white mould? Something of the same kind has taken place here.”

“But what had Jake to do with the fungus? And how did he come here?”

“All that, of course, we can only surmise,” replied Mr. Low. “There is little doubt that secrets of nature hidden from us are well known to the various African tribes. It is possible that the negro possessed some of these deadly spores, but how or why he made use of them are questions that can never be cleared up now.”

“But what was he doing here?” asked Naripse.

“As I said before we can only guess the answer to that question, but I should suppose that the negro made use of this cupboard as a place where he could be free from interruption; that he here cultivated the spores is proved by the condition of his body and of the ceiling immediately below. Such an occupation is by no means free from danger, especially in an airless and inclosed space such as this. It is evident that either by design or accident he became infected by the fungus poison, which in time covered his whole body as you now see. The subject of obeah,” Flaxman Low went on reflectively, “is one to the study of which I intend to devote myself at some future period. I have, indeed, already made some arrangements for an expedition in connection with the subject into the interior of Africa.”

“And how is the horrible thing to be got rid of? Nothing short of burning the place down would be of any radical use,” remarked Naripse.

Low, who by this time was deeply engrossed in considering the strange facts with which he had just become acquainted, answered abstractedly: “I suppose not.”

Naripse said no more, and the words were only recalled to Mr. Low’s mind a day or two later, when he received by post a copy of the West Coast Advertiser. It was addressed in the handwriting of Naripse, and the following extract was lightly scored:

“Konnor Old House, the property of Thomas Naripse, Esquire, of Konnor Lodge, was, we regret to say, destroyed by fire last night. We are sorry to add that the loss to the owner will be considerable, as no insurance policy had been effected with regard to the property.”

“Pearson’s Magazine”, Apr. 1899

Ghosts, Being the Experiences
of Flaxman Low (1899)

THE WOMAN WITH
THE “OILY EYES”

“Dick Donovan”
(J. E. Preston Muddock)

1899

Although often urged to put into print the remarkable story which follows I have always strenuously refused to do so, partly on account of personal reasons and partly out of respect for the feelings of the relatives of those concerned. But after much consideration I have come to the conclusion that my original objections can no longer be urged. The principal actors are dead. I myself am well stricken in years, and before very long must pay the debt of nature which is exacted from everything that lives.

Although so long a time has elapsed since the grim tragedy I am about to record, I cannot think of it even now without a shudder. The story of the life of every man and woman is probably more or less a tragedy, but nothing I have ever heard of can compare in ghastly, weird horror with all the peculiar circumstances of the case in point. Most certainly I would never have put pen to paper to record it had it not been from a sense of duty. Long years ago certain garbled versions crept into the public journals, and though at the time I did not consider it desirable to contradict them, I do think now that the moment has come when I, the only living being fully acquainted with the facts, should make them known, otherwise lies will become history, and posterity will accept it as truth. But there is still another reason I may venture to advance for breaking the silence of years. I think in the interest of science the case should be recorded. I have not always held this view, but when a man bends under the weight of years, and he sniffs the mould of his grave, his ideas undergo a complete change, and the opinions of his youth are not the opinions of his old age. There may be exceptions to this, but I fancy they must be very few. With these preliminary remarks I will plunge at once into my story.

It was the end of August 1857 that I acted as best man at the wedding of my friend Jack Redcar, C.E. It was a memorable year, for our hold on our magnificent Indian Empire had nearly been shaken loose by a mutiny which had threatened to spread throughout the whole of India. At the beginning of 1856 I had returned home from India after a three years’ spell. I had gone out as a young medico in the service of the H.E.I.C., but my health broke down and I was compelled to resign my appointment. A year later my friend Redcar, who had also been in the Company’s service as a civil engineer, came back to England, as his father had recently died and left him a modest fortune. Jack was not only my senior in year, but I had always considered him my superior in every respect. We were at a public school together, and both went up to Oxford, though not together, for he was finishing his final year when I was a freshman.

Although erratic and a bit wild he was a brilliant fellow; and while I was considered dull and plodding, and found some difficulty in mastering my subjects, there was nothing he tackled that he failed to succeed in, and come out with flying colours. In the early stage of our acquaintance he made me his fag, and patronized me, but that did not last long. A friendship sprang up. He took a great liking to me, why I know not; but it was reciprocated, and when he got his Indian appointment I resolved to follow, and by dint of hard work, and having a friend at court, I succeeded in obtaining my commission in John Company’s service. Jack married Maude Vane Tremlett, as sweet a woman as ever drew God’s breath of life. If I attempted to describe her in detail I am afraid it might be considered that I was exaggerating, but briefly I may say she was the perfection of physical beauty. Jack himself was an exceptionally find fellow. A brawny giant with a singularly handsome face. At the time of his wedding he was thirty or thereabouts, while Maude was in her twenty-fifth year. There was a universal opinion that a better matched couple had never been brought together. He had a masterful nature; nevertheless was kind, gentle, and manly to a degree.

It may be thought that I speak with some bias and prejudice in Jack’s favour, but I can honestly say that at the time I refer to he was as fine a fellow as ever figured as hero in song or story. He was the pink of honour, and few who really knew him but would have trusted him with their honour, their fortunes, their lives. This may be strong, but I declare it’s true, and I am the more anxious to emphasise it because his after life was in such marked contrast, and he presents a study in psychology that is not only deeply interesting, but extraordinary.

The wedding was a really brilliant affair, for Jack had troops of friends, who vied with each other in marking the event in a becoming manner, while his bride was idolized by a doting household. Father and mother, sisters and brothers, worshipped her. She was exceedingly well connected. Her father held an important Government appointment, and her mother came from the somewhat celebrated Yorkshire family of the Kingscotes. Students of history will remember that a Colonel Kingscote figured prominently and honourably as a royalist during the reign of the unfortunate Charles I.

No one who was present on that brilliant August morning of 1857, when Jack Redcar was united in the bonds of wedlock to beautiful Maude Tremlett, would have believed it possible that such grim and tragic events would so speedily follow. The newly-married pair left in the course of the day for the Continent, and during their honeymoon I received several charming letters from Jack, who was not only a diligent correspondent, but he possessed a power of description and a literary style that made his letter delightful reading. Another thing that marked this particular correspondence was the unstinted — I may almost say florid — praise he bestowed upon his wife. To illustrate what I mean, here is a passage from one of his letters:

“I wish I had command of language sufficiently eloquent to speak of my darling Maude as she should be spoken of. She has a perfectly angelic nature; and though it may be true that never a human being was yet born without faults, for the life of me I can find none in my sweet wife. Of course you will say, old chap, that this is honeymoon gush, but, upon my soul, it isn’t. I am only doing scant justice to the dear woman who has linked her fate with mine. I have sometimes wondered what I have done that the gods should have blest me in such a manner. For my own part, I don’t think I was deserving of so much happiness, and I assure you I am happy — perfectly, deliciously happy. Will it last? Yes, I am sure it will. Maude will always be to me what she is now, a flawless woman; a woman with all the virtues that turn women into angels, and without one of the weaknesses or one of the vices which too often mar an otherwise perfect feminine character. I hope, old boy, that if ever you marry, the woman you choose will be only half as good as mine.”

Had such language been used by anyone else I might have been disposed to add a good deal more than the proverbial pinch of salt before swallowing it. But, as a matter of fact, Jack was not a mere gusher. He had a thoroughly practical, as distinguished from a sentimental, mind, and he was endowed with exceptionally keen powers of observation. And so, making all the allowances for the honeymoon romance, I was prepared to accept my friend’s statement as to the merits of his wife without a quibble. Indeed, I knew her to be a most charming lady, endowed with many of the qualities which give the feminine nature its charm. But I would even go a step farther than that, and declare that Mrs. Redcar was a woman in ten thousand. At that time I hadn’t a doubt that the young couple were splendidly matched, and it seemed to me probable that the future that stretched before them was not likely to be disturbed by any of the commonplace incidents which seemed inseparable from most lives. I regarded Jack as a man of such high moral worth that his wife’s happiness was safe in his keeping. I pictured them leading an ideal, poetical life — a life freed from all the vulgar details which blight the careers of so many people — a life which would prove a blessing to themselves as well as a joy to all with whom they had to deal.

When they started their tour Mr. and Mrs. Redcar anticipated being absent from England for five or six weeks only, but for several reasons they were induced to prolong their travels, and thus it chanced I was away when they returned shortly before Christmas of the year of their marriage. My own private affairs took me to America. As a matter of fact a relative had died leaving me a small property in that country, which required my personal attention; the consequence was I remained out of England for nearly three years.

For the first year or so Jack Redcar wrote to me with commendable regularity. I was duly apprised of the birth of a son and heir. This event seemed to put the crown upon their happiness ; but three months later came the first note of sorrow. The baby died, and the doting parents were distracted. Jack wrote:

“My poor woman is absolutely prostrated, but I tell her we were getting too happy, and this blow has been dealt to remind us that human existence must be chequered in order that we may appreciate more fully the supreme joy of that after-life which we are told we may gain for the striving. This, of course, is a pretty sentiment, but the loss of the baby mite has hit me hard. Still, Maude is left to me, and she is such a splendid woman, that I ought to feel I am more than blest.”

This was the last letter I ever received from Jack, but his wife wrote at odd times. Hers were merely gossipy little chronicles of passing events, and singularly enough she never alluded to her husband, although she wrote in a light, happy vein. This set me wondering, and when I answered her I never failed to inquire about her husband. I continued to receive letters from her, though at long intervals, down to the month of my departure from America, two years later.

I arrived in London in the winter, and an awful winter it was. London was indeed a city of dreadful night. Gloom and fog were everywhere. Everybody one met looked miserable and despondent. Into the public houses and gin palaces such of the poor as could scratch a few pence together crowded for the sake of the warmth and light. But in the streets sights were to be seen which made one doubt if civilization is the blessing we are asked to believe it. Starving men, women and children, soaked and sodden with the soot-laden fog, prowled about in the vain hope of finding food and shelter. But the well-to-do passed them with indifference, too intent on their own affairs, and too wrapped in self-interests to bestow thought upon the great city’s pariahs.

Immediately after my arrival I penned a brief note to Jack Redcar, giving him my address, and saying I would take an early opportunity of calling, as I was longing to feel once more the hearty, honest grip of his handshake. A week later a note was put into my hand as I was in the very act of going out to keep an appointment in the city. Recognizing Mrs. Redcar’s handwriting I tore open the envelope, and read, with what feelings may be best imagined, the following lines:

“For God’s sake come and see me at once. I am heart-broken and am going mad. You are the only friend in the world to whom I feel I can appeal. Come to me, in the name of pity.

“Maude Redcar.”

I absolutely staggered as I read these brief lines, which were so pregnant with mystery, sorrow, and hopelessness. What did it all mean? To me, it was like a burst of thunder from a cloudless summer sky. Something was wrong, that was certain; what that something was I could only vaguely guess at. But I resolved not to remain long in suspense. I put off my engagement, important as it was, and hailing a hansom directed the driver to go to Hampstead, where the Redcars had their residence.

The house was detached and stood in about two acres of ground, and I could imagine it being a little Paradise in brilliant summer weather; but it seemed now in the winter murk, as if a heavy pall of sorrow and anguish enveloped it.

I was shown into an exquisitely furnished drawing room by an old and ill-favoured woman, who answered my knock at the door. She gave me the impression that she was a sullen, deceptive creature, and I was at a loss to understand how such a woman could have found service with my friends — the bright and happy friends of three years ago. When I handed her my card to convey to Mrs. Redcar she impertinently turned it over, and scrutinized it, and fixed her cold bleared grey eyes on me, so that I was induced to say peremptorily, “Will you be good enough to go to your mistress at once and announce my arrival?”

“I ain’t got no mistress,” she growled. “I’ve got a master”; and with this cryptic utterance she left the room.

I waited a quarter of an hour, then the door was abruptly opened, and there stood before me Mrs. Redcar, but not the bright, sweet, radiant little woman of old. A look of premature age was in her face. Her eyes were red with weeping, and had a frightened, hunted expression. I was so astounded that I stood for a moment like one dumbfounded; but as Mrs. Redcar seized my hand and shook it, she gasped in a nervous, spasmodic way:

“Thank God, you have come! My last hope is in you.”

Then, completely overcome by emotion, she burst into hysterical sobbing, and covered her face with her handkerchief.

My astonishment was still so great, the unexpected had so completely paralysed me for the moment, that I seemed incapable of action. But of course this spell quickly passed, and I regained my self-possession.

“How is it I find this change?” I asked. It was a natural question, and the first my brain shaped.

“It’s the work of a malignant fiend,” she sobbed.

This answer only deepened my mystery, and I began to think that perhaps she was literally mad. Then suddenly, as if she divined my thoughts, drew her handkerchief from her face, motioned me to be seated, and literally flung herself on to a couch.

“It’s an awful story,” she said, in a hoarse, hollow voice, “and I look to you, and appeal to you, and pray to you to help me.”

“You can rely upon my doing anything that lies in my power,” I answered. “But tell me your trouble. How is Jack? Where is he?”

“In her arms, probably,” she exclaimed between her teeth; and she twisted her handkerchief up rope-wise and dragged it backward and forward through her hand with an excess of desperate, nervous energy. Her answer gave me a keynote. Jack had swerved from the path of honour, and allowed himself to be charmed by other eyes to the neglect of this woman whom he had described to me as being angelic. Although her beauty was now a little marred by tears and sorrow, she was still very beautiful and attractive, and had she been so disposed she might have taken an army of men captive. She saw by the expression on my face that her remark was not an enigma to me, and she added quickly: “Oh, yes, it’s true, and I look to you, doctor, to help me. It is an awful, dreadful story, but mind you, I don’t blame Jack so much; he is not master of himself. This diabolical creature has enslaved him. She is like the creatures of old that one reads about. She is in possession of some devilish power which enables her to destroy men body and soul.”

“Good God! This is awful,” I involuntarily ejaculated; for I was aghast and horror-stricken at the revelation. Could it be possible that my brilliant friend, who had won golden opinions from all sorts and conditions of men, had fallen from his pedestal to wallow in the mire of sinfulness and deception.

“It is awful,” answered Mrs. Redcar. “I tell you, doctor, there is something uncanny about the whole business. The woman is an unnatural woman. She is a she-devil. And from my heart I pity and sorrow for my poor boy.”

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“In Paris with her.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Since a few weeks after our marriage.”

“Good heavens, you don’t say so!”

—   —   —   —   —

You may well look surprised, but it’s true. Three weeks after our marriage, Jack and I were at Wiesbaden. As we were going downstairs to dinner one evening, we met this woman coming up. A shudder of horror came over me as I looked at her, for she had the most extraordinary eyes I have ever seen. I clung to my husband in sheer fright, and I noted that he turned and looked at her, and she also turned and looked at him.

“What a remarkable woman,” he muttered strangely, so strangely that it was as if some other voice was using his lips. Then he broke into a laugh, and, passing his arm around my waist, said: “Why, my dear little woman, I believe you are frightened.”

“I am,” I said; “that dreadful creature has startled me more than an Indian cobra would have done.”

“Well, upon my word,” said Jack, “I must confess she is a strange-looking being. Did ever you see such eyes? Why, they make one think of the fairy-books and the mythical beings who flit through their pages.”

During the whole of the dinnertime that woman’s face haunted me. It was a strong, hard-featured, almost masculine face, every line of which indicated a nature that was base, cruel, and treacherous. The thin lips, the drawn nostrils, the retreating chin, could never be associated with anything that soft, gentle, or womanly. But it was the eyes that were the wonderful feature — they absolutely seemed to exercise some magic influence ; they were oily eyes that gleamed and glistened, and they seemed to have in them that sinister light which is peculiar to the cobra, and other poisonous snakes. You may imagine the spell and influence they exerted over me when, on the following day, I urged my husband to leave Wiesbaden at once, notwithstanding that the place was glorious in its autumn dress, and was filled with a fashionable and light-hearted crowd. But my lightest wish then was law to Jack, so that very afternoon we were on our way to Homburg, and it was only when Wiesbaden was miles behind me that I began to breathe freely again.

We had been in Homburg for a fortnight, and the incident of Wiesbaden had passed from my mind, when one morning, as Jack and I were on our way from the Springs, we came face to face with the woman with the oily eyes. I nearly fainted, but she smiled a hideous, cunning, cruel smile, inclined her head slightly in token of recognition, and passed on. I looked at my husband. It seemed to me he was unusually pale, and I was surprised to see him turn and gaze after her, and she had also turned and was gazing at us. Not a word was uttered by either of us, but I pressed my husband’s arm and we walked rapidly away to our apartments.

“It’s strange,” I remarked to Jack as we sat at breakfast, “that we should meet that awful woman again.”

“Oh, not at all,” he laughed. “You know at this time of the year, people move about from place to place, and it’s wonderful how you keep rubbing shoulders with the same set.”

It was quite true what Jack said, nevertheless, I could not help the feeling that the woman with the oil eyes had followed us to Homburg. If I had mentioned this then it would have been considered ridiculous, for we had only met her once, and had never spoken a word to her. What earthly interest, therefore, could she possibly take in us who were utter strangers to her. But, looked at by the light of after events, my surmise was true. The creature had marked Jack for her victim the moment we unhappily met on the stairs at Wiesbade. I tell you, doctor, that that woman is a human ghoul, a vampire, who lives not only by sucking the blood of men, but by destroying their souls.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Mrs. Redcar broke down again at this stage of her narrative, and I endeavoured to comfort her; but she quickly mastered her feelings sufficiently to continue her remarkable story.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Some days later my husband and I moved along with the throng that drifted up and down the promenade listening to the band, when we met a lady whom I had known as a neighbour when I was at home with my parents. We stopped and chatted with her for some time, until Jack asked us to excuse him while he went to purchase some matches at a kiosk; he said he would be by the fountain in ten minutes, and I was to wait for him.

My lady friend and I moved along and chatted as women will, and then she bade me good-night as she had to rejoin her friends. I at once hurried to the rendezvous at the fountain, but Jack wasn’t there. I waited some time, but still he came not. I walked about impatiently and half frightened, and when nearly three-quarters of an hour had passed I felt sure Jack had gone home, so with all haste I went to our apartments close by, but he was not in, and had not been in. Half distracted, I flew back to the promenade. It was nearly deserted, for the band had gone. As I hurried along, not knowing where to go to, and scarcely knowing what I was doing, I was attracted by a laugh — a laugh I knew. It was Jack’s, and proceeding a few years further I found him on a seat under a linden tree with the woman with the oily eyes.

“Why, my dear Maude,” he exclaimed, “wherever have you been to? I’ve hunted everywhere for you.”

A great lump came in my throat, for I felt that Jack was lying to me. I really don’t know what I said or what I did, but I am conscious in a vague way that he introduced me to the woman, but the only name I caught was that of Annette. It burnt itself into my brain; it has haunted me ever since.

Annette put out her white hand veiled by a silk net glove through which diamond rings sparkled. I believe I did touch the proffered fingers, and I shuddered, and I heard her say in a silvery voice that was quite of keeping with her appearance:

“If I were your husband I should take you to task. Beauty like yours, you know, ought not to go unattended in a place like this.”

Perhaps she thought this was funny, for she laughed, and then patted me on the shoulder with her fan. But I hated her from that moment — hated her with a hatred I did not deem myself capable of.

We continued to sit there, how long I don’t know. It seemed to me a very long time, but perhaps it wasn’t long. when we rose to go to the promenade was nearly deserted, only two or three couples remained. The moon was shining brilliantly; the night wind sighed pleasantly in the trees; but the beauty of the night was lost upon me. I felt ill at ease, and, for the first time in my life, unhappy. Annette walked with us nearly to our door. When the moment for parting came she again offered me the tips of her fingers, but I merely bowed frigidly, and shrank from her as I saw her oily eyes fixed upon me.

“Ta, ta!” she said in her fatal silvery voice; “keep a watchful guard over your husband, my dear; and you, sir, don’t let your beautiful little lady stray from you again, or there will be grief between you.”

Those wicked words, every one of which was meant to have its effect, was like the poison of asps to me; you may imagine how they stung me when I tell you I was seized with an almost irresistible desire to hurl the full weight of my body at her, and, having thrown her down, trample upon her. She had aroused in me such a feeling of horror that very little more would have begotten in me the desperation of madness, and I might have committed some act which I should have regretted all my life. But bestowing another glance of her basilisk eyes upon me she moved off, and I felt relieved; though, when I reached my room, I burst into hysterical weeping. Jack took me in his arms, and kissed and comforted me, and all my love for him was strong again; as I lay with my head pillowed on his breast I felt once more supremely happy.

The next day, on thinking the matter over, I came to the conclusion that my suspicions were unjust, my fears groundless, my jealousy stupid, and that my conduct had been rude in the extreme. I resolved, therefore, to be more amiable and polite to Annette when I again met her. But, strangely enough, though we remained in Homburg a fortnight longer we did not meet; but I know now my husband saw her several times.

Of course, if it had not been for subsequent events, it would have been said that I was a victim of strong hysteria on that memorable night. Men are so ready to accuse women of hysteria because they are more sensitive, and see deeper than men do themselves. But my aversion to Annette from the instant I set eyes upon her, and the inferences I drew, were not due to hysteria, but to that eighth sense possessed by women, which had no name, and of which men know nothing. At least, I mean to say that they cannot understand it.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Again Mrs. Redcar broke off in her narrative, for emotion had got better of her. I deemed it advisable to wait. Her remarkable story had aroused all my interest, and I was anxious not to lose any connecting link of it, for from the psychological point of view it was a study.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Of course, as I have begun the story I must finish it to its bitter end, she went on. As I have told you, I did not see Annette again in Homburg, and when we left all my confidence in Jack was restored, and my love for him was stronger than ever if that were possible. Happiness came back to me. Oh! I was so happy, and thinking I had done a cruel, bitter wrong to Jack in even supposing for a moment that he would be unfaithful to me. I tried by every little artifice a woman is capable of to prove my devotion to him.

Well, to make a long story short, we continued to travel about for some time, and finally returned home, and my baby was born. It seemed to me then as if God was really too good to me. I had everything in the world that a human being can reasonably want. An angel baby, a brave, handsome husband, ample means, hosts of friends. I was supremely happy. I thanked my Maker for it all every hour of my life. But suddenly amongst the roses the hiss of the serpent sounded. One day a carriage drove up to our door. It brought a lady visitor. She was shown into our drawing-room, and when asked for her name made some excuse to the servant. Of course, I hurried down to see who my caller was, and imagine my horror when on entering the room I beheld Annette.

“My dear Mrs. Redcar,” she gushingly exclaimed, emphasizing every word, “I am so delighted to see you again. Being in London, I could not resist the temptation to call and renew acquaintances.”

The voice was as silvery as ever, and her awful eyes seemed more oily. In my confusion and astonishment I did not inquire how she had got our address; but I know that I refused her proffered hand, and by my manner gave her unmistakably to understand that I did not regard her as a welcome visitor. But she seemed perfectly indifferent. She talked gaily, flippantly. She threw her fatal spell about me. She fascinated me, so that when she asked to see my baby I mechanically rang the bell, and as mechanically told the servant to send the nurse and baby in. when she came, the damnable woman took the child from the nurse and danced him, but he suddenly broke into a scream of terror, so that I rushed forward; but the silvery voice said:

“Oh, you silly little mother. The baby is all right. Look how quiet he is now.”

She was holding him at arm’s length, and gazing at him with her basilisk eyes, and he was silent. Then she hugged and fondled him, and kissed him, and all the while I felt as if my brain was on fire, but I could neither speak nor move a hand to save my precious little baby.

At last she returned him to his nurse, who at once left the room by my orders, and then Annette kept up a cackle of conversation. Although it did not strike me then as peculiar, for I was too confused to have any clear thought about anything — it did afterwards — she never once inquired about Jack. It happened when he was out. He had gone away early that morning to the city on some important business in which he was engaged.

At last Annette took herself off, to my intense relief. She said nothing about calling again; she gave no address, and made no request for me to call on her. Even had she done so I should not have called. I was only too thankful she had gone, and I fervently hoped I should never see her again.

As soon as she had departed I rushed upstairs, for baby was screaming violently. I found him in the nurse’s arms, and she was doing her utmost to comfort him. But he refused to be comforted, and I took him and put him to my breast, and he still fought, and struggled, and screamed, and his baby eyes seemed to me to be bulging with terror. From that moment the darling little creature began to sicken. He gradually pined and wasted, and in a few weeks was lying like a beautiful waxen doll in a bed of flowers. He was stiff, and cold, and dead.

When Jack came home in the evening of the day of Annette’s call, and I told him she had been, he did not seem in the least surprised, but merely remarked:

“I hope you were hospitable to her.”

I did not answer him, for I had been anything but hospitable. I had not even invited her to partake of the conventional cup of tea.

As our baby boy faded day by day, Jack seemed to change, and the child’s death overwhelmed him. He was never absolutely unkind to me at that period, but he seemed to have entirely altered. He became sullen, silent, even morose, and he spent the whole of his days away from me. When I gently chided him, he replied that his work absorbed all his attention. And so things went on until another thunderbolt fell at my feet.

One afternoon Jack returned home and brought Annette. He told me that he had invited her to spend a few days with us. When I urged an objection he was angry with me for the first time in our married life. I was at once silenced, for his influence over me was still great, and I thought I would try and overcome my prejudice for Annette. At any rate, as Jack’s wife I resolved to be hospitable, and play the hostess with grace. But I soon found that I was regarded as of very little consequence. Annette ruled Jack, she ruled me, she ruled the household.

You will perhaps ask why I did not rise up in wrath, and, asserting my position and dignity, drive the wicked creature out of my home. But I tell you, doctor, I was utterly powerless. She worked some devil’s spell upon me, and I was entirely under the influence of her will.

Her visit stretched into weeks. Our well-tried and faithful servants left. Others came, but their stay was brief; and at last the old woman who opened the door to you was stalled. She is a creature of Annette’s, and is a spy upon my movements.

All this time Jack was under the spell of the charmer, as I was. Over and over again I resolved to go to my friends, appeal to them, tell them everything, and ask them to protect me; but my will failed, and I bore and suffered in silence. And my husband neglected me; he seemed to find pleasure only in Annette’s company. Oh, how I fretted and gnawed my heart, and yet I could not break away from the awful life. I tell you, doctor, that that woman possessed some strange, devilish, supernatural power over me and Jack. When she looked at me I shriveled up. When she spoke, her silvery voice seemed to sting every nerve and fibre in my body, and he was like wax in her hands. To me he became positively brutal, and he told me over and over again that I was spoiling his life. But, though she was a repulsive, mysterious, crafty, cruel woman, he seemed to find his happiness in her company.

One morning, after a restless, horrible, feverish night, I arose, feeling strangely ill, and as if I were going mad. I worked myself up to almost a pitch of frenzy, and, spurred by desperation, I rushed into the drawing-room, and where my husband and Annette were together, and exclaimed to her:

“Woman, do you not see that you are killing me? Why have you come here? Why do you persecute me with your devilish wiles? You must know you are not welcome. You must feel you are an intruder.”

Overcome by the effort this had cost me, I sank down on the floor on my knees, and wept passionately. Then I heard the silvery voice say, in tones of surprise and injured innocence:

“Well, upon my word, Mrs. Redcar, this is an extra ordinary way to treat your husband’s guest. I really thought I was a welcome visitor instead of an intruder; but, since I am mistake, I will go at once.”

I looked at her through a blinding mist of tears. I met the gaze of her oily eyes, but only for a moment, and felt powerless again. I glanced at my husband. He was standing with his head bowed, and, as it seemed to me, in a pose of shame and humiliation. But suddenly he darted at me, and I heard him say: “What do you mean by creating such a scene as this? You must understand I am master here.” Then he struck me a violent blow on the head, and there was a long blank.

When I came to my senses I was in bed, and the hideous old hag who opened the door to you was bending over me. It was some little time before I could realize what had occurred. When I did, I asked the woman where Mr. Redcar was, and she answered sullenly:

“Gone.”

“And the — Annette; where is she?” I asked.

“Gone, too,” was the answer.

Another blank ensued. I fell very ill, and when my brain was capable of coherent thought again I learnt that I had passed through a crisis, and my life had been in jeopardy. A doctor had been attending me, and there was a professional nurse in the house; but she was a hard, dry, unsympathetic woman, and I came to the conclusion — wrongly so, probably — she, too, was one of Annette’s creatures.

I was naturally puzzled to understand why none of my relatives and friends had been to see me, but I was to learn later that many had called, but had been informed I was abroad with my husband, who had been summoned away suddenly in connection with some professional matters. And I also know now that all my letters coming for me were at once forwarded to him, and that any requiring answers he answered.

As I grew stronger I made up my mind to keep my own counsel, and not let any of my friends know of what I had gone through and suffered; for I still loved my husband, and looked upon him as a victim to be pitied and rescued from the infernal wiles of the she-demon. When I heard of your arrival in England, I felt you were the one person in the wide world I could appeal to with safety, for you can understand how anxious I am to avoid a scandal. Will you help me? Will you save your old friend Jack? Restore him to sanity, doctor, bring him back to my arms again, which will be wide open to receive him.

—   —   —   —   —

I listened to poor Mrs. Redcar’s story patiently, and at first was disposed to look upon it as a too common tale of human weakness. Jack Redcar had fallen into the power of an adventuress, and had been unable to resist her influence. Such things had happened before, such things will happen again, I argued with myself. There are certain women who seem capable of making men mad for a brief space; but under proper treatment they come to their senses quickly, and blush with shame as they think of their foolishness. At any rate, for the sake of my old friend, and for the sake of his poor suffering little wife, I was prepared to do anything in reason to bring back the erring husband to his right senses.

I told Mrs. Redcar this. I told her I would redress her wrongs if I could, and fight her battle to the death. She almost threw herself at my feet in her gratitude. But when I suggested that I should acquaint her family with the facts, she begged of me passionately not to do so. Her one great anxiety was to screen her husband. One thing, however, I insisted upon. That was, the old woman should be sent away, the house shut up, and that Mrs. Redcar should take apartments in an hotel, so that I might be in touch with her. She demurred to this at first, but ultimately yielded to my persuasion.

Next, I went to the old woman. She was a German Suisse — her name was Grebert. I told her to pack up her things and clear out at once. She laughed in my face, and impertinently told me to mind my own business. I took out my watch and said, “I give you half an hour. If you are not off the premises then, I will call in the police and have you turned out. Any claim you have on Mrs. Redcar, who is the mistress here — shall be settled at once.”

She replied that she did not recognize my authority, that she had been placed there by Mr. Redcar, who was her master, and unless he told her to go she should remain. I made it plain to her that I was determined and would stand no nonsense. Mr. Redcar had taken himself off, I said; Mrs. Redcar was his lawful wife, and I was acting for her and on her behalf.

My arguments prevailed, and after some wrangling the hag came to the conclusion that discretion was the better part of valour, and consented to go providing we paid her twenty pounds. This we decided to do rather than have a scene, but three hours passed before we saw the last of the creature. Mrs. Redcar had already packed up such things as she required, and when I had seen the house securely fastened up I procured a cab, and conveyed the poor little lady to a quiet West-end hotel, close to my own residence, so that I could keep a watchful eye upon her.

Of course, this was only the beginning of the task I had set myself, which was to woo back the erring husband, if possible, to his wife’s side, and to restore him to the position of happiness, honour, and dignity from which he had fallen. I thought this might be comparatively easy, and little dreamed of the grim events that were to follow my interference.

Three weeks later I was in Paris, and proceeded to the Hotel de l’Univers, where Mrs. Redcar had ascertained through his bankers her husband was staying. But to my chagrin, I found he had departed from his companion, and the address he had given for his letters at the post-office was Potes, in Spain. As I had taken up the running I had no alternative but to face the long, dreary journey in pursuit of the fugitives, or confess defeat at the start.

It is not necessary for me to dwell upon that awful journey in the winter time. Suffice to say I reached my destination in due course.

Potes, it is necessary to explain, is a small town magnificently situated in the Liebana Valley, in the Asturian Pyrenees, under the shadow of Pico de Europa. Now, what struck me as peculiar was the fugitives coming to such a place at that time of the year. Snow lay heavily everywhere. The cold was intense. For what reason had such a spot been chosen? It was a mystery I could not hope to solve just then. There was only one small hotel in the village, and where Annette and Redcar were staying. My first impulse was not to let them know of my presence, but to keep them under observation for a time. I dismissed that thought as soon as formed, for I was not a detective, and did not like the idea of playing the spy. But even had I been so disposed, there would have been a difficulty about finding accommodation. Moreover, it was a small place, and the presence of a foreigner at that time of year must necessarily have caused a good deal of gossip. The result was I went boldly to the hotel, engaged a room, and then inquired for Redcar. I was directed to a private room, where I found him alone. My unexpected appearance startled him, and when he realized who I was, he swore at me, and demanded to know my business.

He had altered so much that in a crowd I really might have had some difficult in recognizing him. His face wore a drawn, anxious, nervous look, and his eyes had acquired a restless, shifty motion, while his hair was already streaked with grey.

I began to reason with him. I reminded him of our old friendship, and I drew a harrowing picture of the sufferings of his dear, devoted, beautiful little wife.

At first he seemed callous; but presently he grew interested, and when I referred to his wife he burst into tears. Then suddenly he grasped my wrist with a powerful grip, and said:

“Hush! Annette mustn’t know this — -mustn’t hear. I tell you, Peter, she is a ghoul. She sucks my blood. She has woven a mighty spell about me, and I am powerless. Take me away; take me to dear little Maude.”

I looked at him for some moments with a keen professional scrutiny, for his manner and strange words were not those of sanity. I determined to take him at his word, and, if possible, remove him from the influence of the wicked siren who had so fatally lured him.

“Yes,” I said,“we will go without a moment’s unnecessary delay. I will see if a carriage and post-horses are to be had, so that we can drive to the nearest railway station.”

He assented languidly to this, and I rose with the intention of asking of making inquiries of the hotel people; but simultaneously with my action the door opened and Annette appeared. Up to that moment I thought that Mrs. Redcar had exaggerated in describing her, therefore I was hardly prepared to find that so far from the description being an exaggeration, it had fallen short of the fact.

Annette was slightly above the medium height, with a well-developed figure, but a face that to me was absolutely repellent. There was not a single line of beauty nor a trace of womanliness in it. It was hard, coarse, cruel, with thin lips drawn tightly over even white teeth. And the eyes were the most wonderful eyes I have ever seen in a human being. Maude was right when she spoke of them as “oily eyes”. They literally shone with a strange, greasy, lustre, and were capable of such a marvellous expression that I felt myself falling under their peculiar fascination. I am honest and frank enough to say that, had it been her pleasure, I believe she could have lured me to destruction as she had lured my poor friend. But I was forearmed, because forewarned. Moreover, I fancy I had a much stronger will than Redcar. Any way, I braced myself up to conquer and crush this human serpent, for such I felt her to be.

Before I could speak, her melodious voice rang out with the query, addressed to Jack:

“Who is this gentleman? Is he a friend of yours?”

“Yes, yes,” gasped Jack, like one who spoke under the influence of a nightmare.

She bowed and smiled, revealing all her white teeth, and she held forth her hand to me, a delicately shaped hand, with clear, transparent skin, and her long lithe fingers were bejewelled with diamonds.

I drew myself up, as one does when a desperate effort is needed, and, refusing the proffered hand, I said:

“Madame, hypocrisy and deceit are useless. I am a medical man, my name is Peter Haslar, and Mr. Redcar and I have been friends from youth. I’ve come here to separate him from your baneful influence and carry him back to his broken-hearted wife. That is my mission. I hope I have made it clear to you?”

She showed not the slightest sign of being disturbed, but smiled on me again, and bowed gracefully and with the most perfect self-possession. And speaking in a soft gentle manner, which in such startling contrast to the woman’s appearance, she said:

“Oh, yes; thank you. But, like the majority of your countrymen, you display a tendency to arrogate too much to yourself. I am a Spaniard myself, by birth, but cosmopolitan by inclination, and, believe me, I do not speak with any prejudice against your nationality, but I have yet to learn, sir, that you have any right to constitute yourself Mr. Redcar’s keeper.”

Her English was perfect, though she pronounced it with just a slight foreign accent. There was no anger in her tones, no defiance. She spoke softly, silvery, persuasively.

“I do not pretend to be his keeper, madame; I am his sincere friend,” I answered. “and surely I need not remind you that he owes a duty to his lawful wife.”

During this short conversation Jack had sat motionless on the edge of a couch, his chin resting on his hands, and apparently absorbed with some conflicting thoughts. But Annette turned to him, and, still smiling, said:

“I think Mr. Redcar is quite capable of answering for himself. Stand up, Jack, and speak your thoughts like a man.”

Although she spoke in her oily, insidious way, her request a peremptory command. I realized at once, and I saw as Jack rose he gazed at her, and her lustrous eyes fixed him. Then he turned upon me with a furious gesture and exclaimed, with a violence of expression that startled me:

“Yes, Annette is right. I am my own master. What the devil do you mean by following me, like the sneak and cur that you are? Go back to Maude, and tell her that I loathe her. Go; relieve me of your presence, or I may forget myself and injure you.”

Annette, still smiling and still perfectly self-possessed, said:

“You hear what your friend says, doctor. Need I say that if you are a gentleman you will respect his wishes?”

I could no longer contain myself. Her calm, defiant, icy manner, maddened me, and her silvery voice seemed to cut down on to my most sensitive nerves, for it was so suggestive of the devilish nature of the creature. It was so incongruous when contrasted with her harsh, horribly cruel face. I placed myself between Jack and her, and meeting her weird gaze, I said, hotly:

“Leave this room. You are an outrage on your sex; a shame and a disgrace to the very name of woman. Go, and leave me with my friend, whose reason you have stolen away.”

She still smiled and was still unmoved, and suddenly I felt myself gripped in a grip of iron, and with terrific force I was hurled into a corner of the room, where, huddled up in a heap, I lay stunned for some moments. But as my senses returned I saw the awful woman smiling still, and she was waving her long white bejewelled hand before the infuriated Jack, as if she were mesmerizing him; and I saw him sink on to the sofa subdued and calmed. Then addressing me she said:

“That is a curious way for your friend to display his friendship. I may be wrong, but perhaps as a medical man you will recognize that your presence has an irritating effect on Mr. Redcar, and if I may suggest it, I think it desirable that you should part at once and see him no more.”

“Devil!” I shouted at her. “You have bewitched him, and made him forgetful of his honour and of what he owes to those that are dear to him. But I will defeat you yet.”

She merely bowed and smiled, but deigned no reply; and holding her arm to Jack, he took it, and they passed out of the room. She was elegantly attired. Her raven hair was fascinatingly dressed in wavy bands. There was something regal in her carriage, and gracefulness in her every movement; and yet she filled me with a sense of indefinable horror; a dread to which I should have been ashamed to own to a little while ago.

I tried to spring up and go after them, but my body seemed a mass of pain, and my left arm hung limp and powerless. It was fractured below the elbow. There was no bell in the room, and I limped out in search of assistance. I made my way painfully along a gloomy corridor, and hearing a male voice speaking Spanish, I knocked at a door, which was opened by the landlord. I addressed him, but he shook his head and gave me to understand that he spoke no English. Unhappily, I spoke no Spanish. Then he smiled as some idea flitted through his mind, and bowing me into the room he motioned me to be seated, and hurried away. He returned in about five minutes accompanied by Annette, whom he had brought to act as interpreter. I was almost tempted to fly at her and strangle her where she stood. She was undisturbed, calm, and still smiled. She spoke to the man in Spanish, then she explained to me that she had told him I had just slipped on the polished floor, and falling over a chair had injured myself, and she had requested him to summon the village surgeon if need be.

Without waiting for me to reply she swept gracefully out of the room. Indeed, I could not reply, for I felt as if I were choking with suppressed rage. The landlord rendered me physical assistance and took me to my bedroom, where I lay down on my bed, feeling mortified, ill, and crushed. Half an hour later a queer-looking old man, with long hair twisted into ringlets, was ushered into my room, and I soon gathered that he was the village surgeon. He spoke no English, but I explained my injury by signs, and he went away, returning in a little while with the necessary bandages and splints, and he proceeded to rather clumsily bandage my broken arm. I passed a cruel and wretched night. My physical pain was great, but my mental pain was greater. The thought forced itself upon me that I had been defeated, and that the fiendish, cunning woman was too much for me. I felt no resentment against Jack. His act of violence was the act of a madman, and I pitied him. For hours I lay revolving all sorts of schemes to try and get him away from the diabolical influence of Annette. But though I could hit upon nothing, I firmly resolved that while my life lasted I would make every effort to save my old friend, and if possible restore him to the bosom of his distracted wife.

The case altogether was a very remarkable one, and the question naturally arose, why did a man so highly gifted and so intelligent as Jack Redcar desert his charming, devoted, and beautiful wife, to follow an adventuress who entirely lacked physical beauty. Theories without number might have been suggested to account for the phenomenon, but not one would have been correct. The true answer is, Annette was not a natural being. In the ordinary way she might be described as a woman of perverted moral character, or as a physiological freak, but that would have been rather a misleading way of putting it. She was, in short, a human monstrosity. By that I do not mean to say her body was contorted, twisted, or deformed. But into her human composition had entered a strain of the fiend; and I might go even further than this and say she was more animal than human. Though in whatever way she may be described, it is certain she was an anomaly — a human riddle.

The morning following the outrage upon me found me prostrated and ill. A night of racking pain and mental distress had told even upon my good constitution. The situation in which I found myself was a singularly unfortunate one. I was a foreigner in an out-of-the-way place, and my want of knowledge of Spanish, of course, placed me at a tremendous disadvantage.

The landlord came to me and brought his wife, and between them they attended to my wants, and did what they could for my comfort. But they were ignorant, uncultivated people, only one remove from the peasant class, and I realized that they could be of little use to me. Now the nearest important town to this Alpine village was Santander, but that was nearly a hundred miles away. As everyone knows who has been in Spain, a hundred miles, even on a railway, is a considerable journey; but there was no railway between Santander and Potes. An old ramshackle vehicle, called a diligence, ran between two places everyday in the summer and twice a week in the winter, and it took fourteen hours to do the journey. Even a well-appointed carriage and pair could not cover the distance under eight hours, as the road was infamous, and in parts was little better than a mule track. I knew that there was a British consul in Santander, and I was hopeful that if I could communicate with him he might be able to render me some assistance. In the meantime I had to devise some scheme for holding Annette in check and saving my friend. But in my crippled and prostrate condition I could not do much while lying in my bed, and thus revolving all these things in my mind, the door gently opened and Annette glided in — “glided” best expresses her movement, for she seemed to put forth no effort. She sat down beside the bed and laid her hand on mine.

“You are ill this morning,” she said softly. “This is regrettable, but you have only yourself to blame. It is dangerous to interfere in matters in which you have no concern. My business is mine, Mr. Redcar’s is his, and yours is your own, but the three won’t amalgamate. Jack and I came here for the sake of the peace and quietness of these solitudes; unhappily you intrude yourself and disaster follows.”

Her voice was as silvery as ever. The same calm self-possessed air characterized her; but in her oily eyes was a peculiar light, and I had to turn away, for they exerted a sort of mesmeric influence over me, and I am convinced that had I not exerted all my will power I should have thrown myself into the creature’s arms. This is a fact which I have no hesitation in stating, as it serves between than any other illustration to show what a wonderful power of fascination the remarkable woman possessed. Naturally I felt disgusted and enraged, but I fully recognized that I could not fight the woman openly; I must to some extent meet her with my own weapons. She was cunning, artful, insidious, pitiless, and the basilisk-like power she possessed not only gave her a great advantage but made her a very dangerous opponent. At any rate, having regard to all the circumstances and my crippled condition, I saw that my only chance was in temporizing with her. So I tried to reason with her, and I pointed out that Redcar had been guilty of baseness in leaving his wife, who was devoted to him.

At this point of my argument, Annette interrupted me, and for the first time she displayed something like passion, and her voice became hard and raucous.

“His wife,” she said with a sneer of supreme contempt. “A poor fool, a fleshly doll. At the precise instant I set my eyes upon her for the first time I felt that I should like to destroy her, because she is a type of woman who make the world commonplace and reduce all men to a common level. She hated me from the first and I hated her. She would have crushed me if she could, but she was too insignificant a worm to do that, and I crushed her.”

This cold, brutal callousness enraged me; I turned fiercely upon her and exclaimed:

“Leave me, you are a more infamous and heartless wretch than I believed you to be. You are absolutely unworthy the name of a woman, and if you irritate me much more I may even forget that you have a woman’s shape.”

She spoke again. All trace of passion had disappeared. She smiled the wicked insidious smile which made her so dangerous, and her voice resumed its liquid, silvery tones:

“You are very violent,” she said gently, “and it will do you harm in your condition. But you see violence can be met with violence. The gentleman you are pleased to call your friend afforded you painful evidence last night that he knows how to resent unjustifiable interference, and to take care of himself. I am under his protection, and there is no doubt he will protect me.

“For God’s sake, leave me!” I cried, tortured beyond endurance by her hypocrisy and wickedness.

“Oh, certainly, if you desire it,” she answered, as she rose from her seat. “But I thought I might be of use. It is useless your trying to influence Mr. Redcar — absolutely useless. His destiny is linked with mine, and the human being doesn’t exist who can sunder us. With this knowledge, you will do well to retrace your steps; and, if you like, I will arrange to have you comfortable conveyed to Santander, where you can get a vessel. Anyway, you will waste your time and retard your recovery by remaining here.”

“I tend to remain here, nevertheless,” I said, with set teeth. “And, what is more, madame, when I go my friend Redcar will accompany me.”

She laughed. She patted my head as a mother might pat the head of her child. She spoke in her most insidious silvery tones.

“We shall see, mon cher — we shall see. You will be better tomorrow. Adieu!”

That was all she said, and she was gone. She glided out of the room as she had glided in.

I felt irritated almost into madness for some little time; but as I reflected, it was forced upon me that I had to deal with a monster of iniquity, who had so subdued the will of her victim, Redcar, that he was a mere wooden puppet in her hand. Force in such a case was worse than useless. What I had to do was to try and circumvent her, and I tried to think out some plan of action.

All that day I was compelled to keep my bed, and, owing to the clumsy way in which my arm had been bandaged, I suffered intolerable pain, and had to send for the old surgeon again to come and help me to reset the fracture. I got some ease after that, and a dose of chloral sent me to sleep, which continued for many hours. When I awoke I managed to summon the landlord, and he brought me food, and a lantern containing a candle so that I might have light. And, in compliance with my request, he made me a large jug of lemonade, in order that I could have a drink in the night, for I was feverish, and my throat was parched. He had no sooner left the room than Annette entered to inquire if she could do anything for me. I told her that I had made the landlord understand all that I desired, and he would look after me, so she wished me good-night and left. Knowing as I did that sleep was very essential in my case, I swallowed another, though smaller, dose of chloral, and then there was a blank.

How long I slept I really don’t know; but suddenly, in a dazed sort of way, I saw a strange sight. The room I occupied was a long, somewhat meagrely furnished, one. The entrance door was at the extreme end, opposite the bed. Over the doorway hung a faded curtain of green velvet. By the feeble light of the candle lantern I saw this curtain slowly pulled on one side by a white hand; then a face peered in; next Annette entered. Her long hair was hanging down her back, and she wore a nightdress of soft, clinging substance, which outlined her figure. With never a sound she moved lightly towards the bed, and waved her hand two to three times over my face. I tried to move, to utter a sound, but couldn’t; and yet what I am describing was no dream, but a reality. Slightly bending over me, she poured from a tiny phial she carried in the palm of her hand a few drops of a slightly acrid, burning liquid right into my mouth, and at that instant, as I believe, it seemed to me as if a thick, heavy pall over my eyes, for all was darkness.

I awoke hours later. The winter sun was shining brightly into my room. I felt strangely languid, and had a hot, stinging sensation in my throat. I felt my pulse, and found it was only beating at the rate of fifty-eight beats in one minute. Then I recalled the extraordinary incident of the previous night, which, had it not been for my sensations, I might have regarded as a bad dream, the outcome of a disturbed state of the brain. But as it was, I hadn’t a doubt that Annette had administered some subtle and slow poison to me. My medical knowledge enabled me to diagnose my own case so far, that I was convinced I was suffering from the effects of a potent poisonous drug, the action of which was to lower the action of the vital forces and weaken the heart. Being probably cumulative, a few doses more or less, according to the strength of that subject, the action of the heart would b e so impeded that the organ would cease to beat. Although all this passed through my brain, I felt so weak and languid that I had neither energy nor strength to arouse myself, and when the landlord brought me in some food I took no notice of him. I knew that this symptom of languor and indifference was very characteristic of certain vegetable poisons, though what it was Annette had administered to me I could not determine.

Throughout that day I lay in a drowsy, dreamy state. At times my brain was clear enough, and I was able to think and reason; but there were blanks, marked, no doubt, by periods of sleep.

When night came I felt a little better, and I found that the heart’s action had improved. It was steadier, firmer, and the pulse indicated sixty-two beats. Now I had no doubt that if it was Annette’s intention to bring about my death slowly she would come again that night, and arousing myself as well as I could, and summoning all my will power, I resolved to be on the watch. During the afternoon I had drunk milk freely, regarding it as an antidote, and when the landlord visited me for the last time that evening I made him understand that I wanted a large jug of fresh milk from the cow, if he could get it. He kept cows of his own; they were confined in a chalet on the mountain side, not far from his house, so that he was able to comply with my request. I took a long draught of this hot milk, which revived my energies wonderfully, and then I waited for developments. I had allowed my watch to run down, consequently I had no means of knowing the time. It was a weary vigil, lying there lonely and ill, and struggling against the desire for sleep.

By-and-by I saw the white hand lift the curtain again, and Annette entered, clad as she was on the previous night. When she came within reach of me I sprang up in the bed and seized her wrist.

“What do you want here?” I demanded angrily. “Do you mean to murder me?”

Her imperturbability was exasperating. She neither winced nor cried out, nor displayed the slightest sign of surprise. She merely remarked in her soft cooing voice, her white teeth showing as her thin lips parted in a smile:

“You are evidently restless and excited tonight, and it is hardly generous of you to treat my kindly interest in such a way.”

“Kindly interest!” I echoed with sneer, as, released her wrist, I fell back on the bed.

“Yes; you haven’t treated me well, and you are an intruder here. Nevertheless, as you are a stranger amongst strangers, and cannot speak the language of the country, I would be of service to you if I could. I have come to see if you have everything you require for the night.”

“And you did the same last night,” I cried in hot anger, for, knowing her infamy and wickedness, I could not keep my temper.

“Certainly,” she answered, coolly; “and I found you calmly dozing, so left you.”

“Yes — after you poured poison down my throat,” I replied.

She broke into a laugh — a rippling laugh, with the tinkle of silver in it — and she seemed hugely amused.

“Well, well,” she said; “it is obvious, sir, you are not in a fit state to be alone. Your nerves are evidently unstrung, and you are either the victim of a bad dream or some strange delusion. But there, there; I will pardon you. You are not responsible just at present for your language.”

As she spoke she passed her soft white hand over my forehead. There was magic in her touch, and it seemed as if all my will had left me, and there stole over me a delightful sense of dreamy languor. I looked at her, and I saw her strange eyes change colour. They became illumined, as if it were, by a violet light that fascinated me so that I could not turn from her. Indeed, I was absolutely subdued to her will now. Everything in the room faded, and I saw nothing but those marvellous eyes glowing with violet light which seemed to fill me with a feeling of ecstasy. I have a vague idea that she kept passing her hand over my face and forehead; that she breathed upon my face; then that she pressed her face to mine, and I felt her hot breath in my neck.

Perhaps it will be said that I dreamed all this. I don’t believe it was a dream. I firmly and honestly believe that every word I have written is true.

Hours afterwards my dulled brain began to awake to things mundane. The morning sun was flooding the room, and I was conscious that somebody stood over me, and soon I recognized the old surgeon, who had come to see that the splints and bandages had not shifted. I felt extraordinarily weak, and I found that my pulse was beating very slowly and feebly. Again I had the burning feeling in the throat and a strange and absolutely indescribable sensation at the side of the neck. The old doctor must have recognized that I was unusually feeble, for he went to the landlord, and returned presently with some cognac which he made me swallow, and it picked me up considerably.

After his departure I lay for sometime, and tried to give definite shape to vague and dreadful thoughts that haunted me, and filled me with a shrinking horror. That Annette was a monster in human form I hadn’t a doubt, and I felt equally certain that she had designs upon my life. That she had now administered poison to me on two occasions seemed to me beyond question, but I hesitated to believe that she was guilty of the unspeakable crime which my sensations suggested.

At last, unable to endure the tumult in my brain, I sprang out of bed, rushed to the looking-glass, and examined my neck. I literally staggered back, and fell prostrate on the bed, overcome by the hideous discovery I had made. It had the effect, however, of calling me back to life and energy, and I had a mental resolution that I would, at all hazards, save my friend, though I clearly recognized how powerless I was to cope with the awful creature single-handed.

I managed to dress myself, not without some difficulty; then I summoned the landlord, and made him understand that I must go immediately to Santander at any cost. My intention was to invoke the aid of the consul there. But the most I insisted, the more the old landlord shook his head. At length, in desperation, I rushed from the house, hoping to find somebody who understood French or English. As I almost ran up the village street I came face to face with a priest. I asked him in English if he spoke my language, but he shook his head. Then I tried him with French, and to my joy he answered me that he understood a little French. I told him of my desire to start for Santander that very day, but he said that it was impossible, as, owing to the unusual hot sun in the daytime there had been a great melting of snow, with the result that a flooded river had destroyed a portion of the road; and though a gang of men had been set to repair it, it would be two or three days before it was passable.

“But is there no other way of going?” I asked.

“Only by a very hazardous route over the mountains,” he answered. And he added that the risk was so great it was doubtful if anyone could be found who would act as a guide. “Besides,” he went on, “you seem very ill and weak. Even a strong man might fail, but you would be certain to perish from exhaustion and exposure.”

I was bound to recognize the force of his argument. It was a maddening disappointment, but there was no help for it. Then it occurred to me to take the old priest into my confidence and invoke his aid. Though, on second thoughts, I hesitated, for was it not possible — nay, highly probable — that if I told the horrible story he and others would think I was mad. Annette was a Spanish woman, and it was feasible to suppose she would secure the ear of those ignorant villagers sooner than I should. No, I would keep the ghastly business to myself for the present at any rate, and wait with such patience as I could command until I could make the journey to Santander. The priest promised me that on the morrow he would let me know if the road was passable, and, if so, he would procure me a carriage and make all the preparations for the journey. So, thanking him, for his kindly services, I turned towards the hotel again. As I neared the house I observed two persons on the mountain path that went up among the pine trees. The sun was shining brilliantly; the sky was cloudless, the air crisp and keen. The two persons were Annette and Redcar. I watched them for some minutes until they were lost to sight amongst the trees.

Suddenly an irresistible impulse to follow them seized me. Why I know not. Indeed, had I paused to reason with myself it would have seemed to me then a mad act, and that I was risking my life to no purpose. But I did not reason. I yielded to the impulse, though first of all I went to my room, put on a thicker pair of boots, and armed myself with a revolver which I had brought with me. During my extensive travelling about America a revolver was a necessity, and by force of habit I put it up with my clothes when packing my things in London for my Continental journey.

Holding the weapon between my knees, I put a cartridge in each barrel, and, providing myself with a stick in addition, I went forth again and began to climb the mountain path. I was by no means a sanguinary man; even my pugnacity could only be aroused after much irritation. Nevertheless, I knew how to defend myself, and in this instance, knowing that I had to deal with a woman who was capable of any crime, and who, I felt sure, would not hesitate to take my life if she got the chance, I deemed it advisable to be on my guard against any emergency that might arise. As regards Redcar, he had already given me forcible and painful evidence that he could be dangerous; but I did not hold him responsible for his actions. I regarded him as being temporarily insane owing to the internal influence the awful woman exercised over him. Therefore it would only have been in the very last extremity that I should have resorted to lethal weapons as a defence against him. My one sole aim, hope, desire, prayer, was to rescue him from the spell that held him in thrall and restore him to his wife, his honour, his sanity. With respect to Annette, it was different. She was a blot on nature, a disgrace to humankind, and, rather than let her gain complete ascendency over me and my friend I would have shot her if I had reason to believe she contemplated taking my life. It might have involved me in serious trouble with the authorities at first, for in Spain the foreigner can hope for little justice. I was convinced, however, that ultimately I should be exonerated.

Such were the thoughts that filled my mind as I painfully made my way up the steep mountain side. My fractured arm was exceedingly painful. Every limb in my body ached, and I was so languid, so weak that it was with difficult I dragged myself along. But worse than all this was an all but irresistible desire to sleep, the result, I was certain, of the poison that had been administered to me. But it would have been fatal to have slept. I knew that, and so I fought against the inclination with all my might and main, and allowed my thoughts to dwell on poor little Maude Redcar, waiting desolate and heartbroken in London for news. This supplied me with the necessary spur and kept me going.

The trees were nearly all entirely bare of snow. It had, I was informed, been an unusually mild season, and at that time the sun’s rays were very powerful. The path I was pursuing was nothing more than a rough track worn by the peasants passing between the valley and their hay chalets dotted about the mountain. Snow lay on the path where it was screened from the sun by the trees. I heard no sound, saw no sign of those I was seeking save here and there footprints in the snow. I frequently paused and listened, but the stillness was unbroken save for the subdued murmur of falling water afar off.

In my weakened condition the exertion I had endured had greatly distressed me; my heart beat tumultuously, my pulses throbbed violently, and my breathing was stertorous. I was far above the valley now, and the pine trees were straggling and sparse. The track had become very indistinct, but I still detected the footsteps of the people I was following. Above the trees I could discern the snowcapped Picos de Europa glittering in the brilliant sun. It was a perfect Alpine scene, which, under other circumstances, I might have revelled in. But I felt strangely ill, weak, and miserable, and drowsiness began to steal upon me, so that I made a sudden effort of will and sprang up again, and resumed the ascent.

In a little time the forest ended, and before me stretched a sloping plateau which, owing to its being exposed to the full glare of the sun, as well as to all the winds that blew, was bare of snow. The plateau sloped down for probably four hundred feet, then ended abruptly at the end of a precipice. How far the precipice descended I could not tell from where I was, but far far below I could see a stream meandering through a thickly wooded gorge. I took the details of the scene in with a sudden glance of the eye, for another sight attracted and riveted my attention, and froze me with horror to the spot. Beneath a huge boulder which had fallen from the mountain above, and lodged on the slope, were Annette and Redcar. He was lying on his back, she was stretched out beside him, and her face was buried in his neck. Even from where I stood I could see that he was ghastly pale, his features drawn and pinched, his eyes closed. Incredible as it may seem, horrible as it sounds, it is nevertheless true that that hellish woman was sucking away his life blood. She was a human vampire, and my worst fears were confirmed.

I am aware that an astounding statement of this kind should not be made lightly by a man in my position. But I take all the responsibility of it, and I declare solemnly that it is true. Moreover, the sequel which I am able to give to this story more than corroborates me, and proves Annette to have been one of those human problems which, happily for the world, are very rare, but of which there are several well authenticated cases.

As soon as I fully realized what was happening I draw my revolver from the side pocket of my jacket and fired, not at Annette, but in the air; my object being to startle her so that she would release her victim. It had the desired effect. She sprang up, livid with rage. Blood — his blood — was oozing from the side of her mouth. Her extraordinary eyes had assumed that strange violet appearance which I had seen once before. Her whole aspect was repulsive, revolting, horrible beyond words. Rooted to the spot I stood and gazed at her, fascinated by the weird, ghastly sight. In my hand I still held the smoking revolver, levelled at her now, and resolved if she rushed towards me to shoot her, for I felt that the world would be well rid of such a hideous monster. But suddenly she stooped, seized her unfortunate victim in her arms, and tore down the slope, and when the edge of the precipice was reached they both disappeared into space.

The whole of this remarkable scene was enacted in the course of a few seconds. It was to me a maddening nightmare. I fell where I stood, and remembered no more until hours afterwards, I found myself lying in bed at the hotel, and the old surgeon and the priest sitting beside me. Gradually I learnt that the sound of the shot from the revolver, echoing and re-echoing in that mountain region, had been heard in the village, and some peasants had set off for the mountain to ascertain the cause of the firing. They found me lying on the ground still grasping the weapon, and thinking I had shot myself they carried me down to the hotel.

Naturally I was asked for explanations when I was able to talk, and I recounted the whole of the ghastly story. At first my listeners, the priest and the doctor, seemed to think I was raving in delirium, as well as they might, but I persisted in my statements, and I urged the sending out of a party to search for the bodies. If they were found my story would be corroborated.

In a short time a party of peasants started for the gorge, which was a wild, almost inaccessible, ravine through which flowed a mountain torrent amongst the debris and boulders that from time to time had fallen from the rocky heights. After some hours of searching the party discovered the crushed remains of Jack Redcar. His head had been battered to pieces against the rocks as he fell, and every bone in his body was broken.The precipice over which he had fallen was a jagged, scarred, and irregular wall of rock at least four thousand feet in height. The search for Annette’s body was continued until darkness compelled the searchers to return to the village, which they did bringing with them my poor friend’s remains. Next day the search was resumed, and the day after, and for many days, but with no results. The woman’s corpse was never found. The theory was that somewhere on that frightful rock face she had been caught by a projecting pinnacle, or had got jammed into a crevice, where her unhallowed remains would moulder into dust. It was as fitting end for so frightful a life.

Of course an official inquiry was held — and officialism in Spain is appalling. It was weeks and weeks before the inevitable conclusion of the tribunal was arrived at, and I was exonerated from all blame. In the meantime Redcar’s remains were committed to their eternal rest in the picturesque little Alpine village churchyard, and for all times Potes will be associated with that grim and awful tragedy. Why Annette took her victim to that out of the way spot can only be guessed at. She knew that the death of her victim was only a question of weeks, and in that primitive and secluded hamlet it would arouse no suspicion, she being a native of Spain. It would be easy for her to say that she had taken her invalid husband there for the benefit of his health, but unhappily the splendid and bracing air had failed to save his life. In this instance, as in many others, her fiendish cunning would have enabled her to score another triumph had not destiny made me its instrument to encompass her destruction.

For long after my return to England I was very ill. The fearful ordeal I had gone through, coupled with the poison which Annette had administered to me, shattered my health; but the unremitting care and attention bestowed upon me by my old friend’s widow pulled me through. And when at last I was restored to strength and vigour, beautiful Maude Redcar became my wife.

***

NOTE BY THE AUTHOR — The foregoing story was suggested by a tradition current in the Pyrenees, where a belief in ghouls and vampires is still common. The same belief is no less common throughout Syria, in some parts of Turkey, in Russia, and in India. Sir Richard Burton deals with the subject in his “Vikram and the Vampire.” Years ago, when the author was in India, a poor woman was beaten to death one night in the village by a number of young men armed with cudgels. Their excuse for the crime was that the woman was a vampire, and had sucked the blood of many of their companions, whom she had first lured to her by depriving them of their will power by mesmeric influence.

Tales of Terror (1899)

THE STORY OF
ANNETTE
(From Official Records)

Being the Sequel to
“The Woman with the Oily Eyes”

“Dick Donovan”
(J. E. Preston Muddock)

1899

At the time the inquiry was held into the circumstances of Jack Redcar’s death, the authorities deemed it their duty to find out something of Annette’s past history. In this they were aided by certain documents discovered amongst her belongings, and, by dint of astute and patient investigation, they elicited the following remarkable facts. Her real name was Isabella Ribera, and she was born in a little village in the Sierra Nevada, of Andalusia. Her mother was a highly respectable peasant woman, of a peculiarly romantic disposition, and fond of listening to and reading weird and supernatural stories. Her father was also a peasant, but intellectual beyond his class. By dint of hard work, he acquired a considerable amount of land and large numbers of cattle, and ultimately became the mayor of his village.

There were two peculiarities noticed about Isabella Ribera when she was born. She had an extraordinary amount of back hair, and she lids of her eyes remained fast sealed until she was a year old. An operation was at first talked about, but the child was examined by a doctor of some repute in the nearest town, and he advised against the operation, saying that it was better to let nature take her course. When the girl was in her thirteenth month she one day suddenly opened her eyes, and those who saw them were frightened. Some people said that they were seal’s eyes, others that they were the eyes of a snake, and others, again, that “the devil looked through them.” The superstitious people in the village urged the parents to consult the priest, and this was done, with the result that the infant was subjected to a religious ceremony, with a view to exorcising the demon which was supposed to have taken possession of her.

As the girl grew she displayed amazing precocity. When she was only four she was more like a grown woman in her acts and ways than a child, and the intuitive knowledge she exhibited only served to increase the superstitious dread with which she inspired people. One day, when she was nearly five, her father had a pig killed. The girl witnessed the operation, and seemed to go almost mad with delight. And suddenly, to the horror and consternation of those looking on, she threw herself on the dying animal and began to drink the blood that flowed from the cut throat. Somebody snatched her up and ran screaming with her to her mother, who was distracted when she heard the story.

The incident, of course, soon became known all over the village, and indeed far beyond it, and a fierce hatred of the child seized upon the people. The consequence was, the parents had to keep a very watchful eye over her. They were seriously advised to have the girl strangled, and her body burnt to ashes with wood that had been blessed and consecrated by the priests. Fearing that an attempt would be made upon her life by the villagers, Isabella’s parents secretly conveyed her away and took her to Cordova, where she was placed in the care of the mother superior of a convent.

At this place she was carefully trained and taught, but was regarded as an unnatural child. She seemed to be without heart, feeling, or sentiment. Her aptitude for learning was looked upon as miraculous, and a tale of horror or bloodshed afforded her an infinite amount of enjoyment.

When she was a little more than twelve she escaped from her guardians and disappeared.

For a long time no trace of her was forthcoming, then it became known that she had joined a band of gipsies, and gained such a dominating influence and power over them, that she was made a queen and married a young man of the tribe. A month afterwards he was found dead one morning in his tent. The cause of his death remained a mystery, but it was noticed that there was a peculiar blue mark at the side of his neck, from which a drop or two of blood still oozed.

A few weeks after her husband’s death, Isabella, queen of the gipsies, announced to her tribe that she was going to sever herself from them for a tie and travel all over Europe. Where she went to during the succeeding two years will never be known; but she was next heard of in Paris, where she was put upon her trial, charged with having caused the death of a man whom she alleged was her husband. She was then known as Madame Ducoudert. The husband had died in a very mysterious manner. He seemed to grow bloodless, and gradually faded away. And after his death certain signs suggested poison. An autopsy, however, failed to reveal any indications of recognized poisons. Nevertheless madame was tried, but no evidence was forthcoming to convict her, and she was acquitted.

Almost immediately afterwards she quitted Paris with plenty of money, her husband, who was well off, having left her all his property. The Paris police, through their agents and spies, ascertained that she proceeded direct to Bordeaux, where, in a very short time, she united herself to a handsome young man, the only son of an exceedingly wealthy Bordeaux wine merchant. She had changed her name at this stage to Marie Tailleux. She had a well-developed figure, an enormous quantity of jet black hair, and perfect teeth. In other respects she was considered to be ugly, by some even repulsive. And yet she exercised a fatal fascination over men, though women feared and hated her.

She went through Bordeaux to London with the wine-merchant’s son, and six months later the English people were treated to a sensation. “Madame and Monsieur Tailleux” travelled extensively about England and Scotland. Monsieur fell ill, soon after arriving, of some nameless disease. His illness was characterized by prostration, languor, bloodlessness. He consulted several doctors, who prescribed for him without effect.

The pair at last took up their residence at a very well-known metropolitan hotel, where they lived in great style, spent money lavishly, and were supposed to be people of note. But one morning monsieur was found dead in bed, and as no doctor had been treating him for some time, and the cause of death could not be certified, an inquest was ordered and a post-mortem became necessary. Those who made the examination had their suspicions aroused. They believed there had been foul play — at any rate, the man had died of poison. The police were communicated with result, the arrest of madame, and columns and columns of sensational reports in the papers.

Amongst madame’s belongings was found a little carved ebony box containing twelve receptacles for twelve tiny phials. Some of these phials were empty, others full of liquid that varied in colour; that is, in one phial it was yellow, in another red, in another green, in another blue, and yet another held what seemed to be clear water.

The chemical analysis of the contents of the stomach quite failed to justify the suspicions of poison. But the blood had a peculiar, watery appearance; the heart was flabby and weak. Madame accounted for possession of the phials by saying they contained gipsy medicine of great efficacy in certain diseases. There was such a small quantity in each phial as to make analysis practically impossible; certain animals, however, were treated with some of the contents, and seemed actually to improve under the treatment. Under the circumstances, of course, there was nothing for it but to release madame, as the magistrate said there was no case to go before a jury.

It is worth while to quote the following description of the woman at this time. It appeared in a report in the Times.

“The prisoner is a most extraordinary looking woman, and appears to be possessed of some wonderful magnetic power, which half fascinates one. It is difficult to say wherein this power lies, unless it be in her eyes. They are certainly remarkable eyes, that have a peculiar, glistening appearance like oil. Then her voice is a revelation. Until she speaks one would be disposed to say the voice of such a harsh-featured woman would be hard, raucous, and raspy. But its tones are those of a silver bell, or a sweet-toned flute. Her self-possession is also marvellous, and she smiles sweetly and fascinatingly. Somehow or another she gives one the impression that she has some of the attributes of the sirens of old, who were said to lure men to their destruction. Possibly this is doing the woman an injustice; but it is difficult to resist the idea. Her hands, too, are in striking contrast to her general physique. They are long, thin, lithe, and white. Taken altogether, she cannot certainly be described as an ordinary type of woman, and we should be disposed to say that, allied to great intelligence, was a subtle cunning and cruelty of disposition that might make her dangerous.”

This description was written during the time the woman was a prisoner. The writer showed that he had a keen insight, and had he but known some of her past history he would probably have written in a much more pronounced way.

“Madame Tailleux” was discharged for the want of legal evidence, and Madame Tailleux soon afterwards left England and went to America, where she became “Miss Anna Clarkson”; and though nobody knew anything at all about her, she had no difficulty in making her way into so-called Society; but not as an associate and companion of women, who shunned and hated her as she hated them; but men followed her, as men are alleged to have followed Circe. Indeed, in some respects, the classical description of Circe with her magic and potions might apply to Isabella Ribera, with the many aliases.

In a very little while Phineas Miller fell a victim to her potent spells. Phineas was a young man, a stockbroker, and rich. The twain journeyed to Florida, from whence Phineas wrote to an intimate friend that he was strangely ill, and he believed the climate was affecting him. He looked like a corpse, he said. He was languid. He took no interest in anything. He suffered from a peculiar prostration, and found a difficulty in moving about. Yet he experienced no pain, and at times sank into a dreamy state that was pleasant. He thought, however, as soon as he left that part of the country he would be all right.

He was doomed, however, never to leave that part of the country. He went out one day with Miss Anna Clarkson, and an old negro, to shoot in the swamps. They had a boat which was in charge of the negro. That evening, Miss Clarkson returned alone. She was drenched and covered with slime and mud. There had been an accident. The boat had capsized by striking against a sunken tree. They were all thrown into the water. She managed to cling to the boat, and ultimately to right it, but her companions disappeared. The negro, she thought, was taken by a crocodile.

A search party went out to try and recover the bodies. The negro was never found, Miller was. He presented an extraordinary appearance, and those who examined him said he had not died by drowning. This theory, however, found no favour. Men were often drowned in the swamps, which swarmed with alligators and crocodiles, huge snakes, and other repulsive things. When a man once got into the water he had no chance. It was a perfect miracle how Miss Clarkson escaped. “Poor thing, she must have had an awful time of it.”

It is true that crocodiles, alligators, and snakes did swarm in the swamps, and the remarkable thing was that Miller’s body was recovered. Much sympathy was shown for Miss Clarkson; Miller was duly buried and forgotten in a week.

Amongst the lady’s most pronounced sympathizers was a Mr. Lambert Lennox, an Englishman engaged in fruit-farming. He was about forty-five, a widower with two daughters and a son. It was generally agreed that he was one of the finest men in Florida. He was an athlete. He stood six feet two in his stockings. His health was perfect. It was his boast that he had never been laid up a day with illness.

Mr. Lennox had some business to transact in Jamaica, West Indies, and sailed for that island in one of the trading vessels. In the same vessel went, “poor” Miss Clarkson. A month or two later Mr. Lennox, Jun., received from Mr. Lennox, Sen., a letter dated from Jamaica, in the West Indies. Amongst much other news the writer told his son that he had not been well. He had a strange anaemic appearance, felt weak and languid, had no energy, suffered from unquenchable thirst, and was constantly falling asleep suddenly, often at the most inopportune moments. He had consulted a doctor, who was of opinion that the climate of Jamaica didn’t suit him, and he advised him to get away as soon as possible. “I shall therefore be home in about six weeks,” Mr. Lennox added. But in the meantime he departed for his long home. Mr. Lambert Lennox died somewhat suddenly one morning, and was buried in the evening. The doctor who had been attending him certified that he had succumbed to low fever. The next mail that went out bore the sad intelligence to his family, and people marvelled much when they heard that handsome Lambert Lennox, the man with the iron constitution, had slipped away so quickly, more particularly as long residence in Florida had inured him to a hot climate and miasma.

It was found difficult to trace Miss Clarkson’s movements during the next two or three years, but there were grounds for believing that she travelled extensively, and amongst other places visited India, and in this connection there was a somewhat vague and legendary story told. At a hill station a strange and mysterious women put in an appearance. She was thought to be either a Spaniard or a Portuguese. She was known as Mademoiselle Sassetti, though why “Mademoiselle,” if Spanish or Portuguese, was not explained. But that is a detail.

This mysterious lady claimed to have occult powers. She could read anyone’s future. She could perform miracles. The women kept away from her because they were afraid of her, thought there was no definite statement as to how this fear arose. But the men showed no fear, as became them, and amongst others who consulted her was a handsome, much beloved young military officer. His frequent visits to the sorceress caused a good deal of talk, as it was bound to do in an Indian hill station. Grey-bearded men shook their heads sadly, and wise and virtuous women turned up their noses and muttered mysterious interjections such as “Ah!” “Oh!” “Umph.”

One day the station was startled by a report that the young officer had been found dead in a jungle in one of the valleys. He had been bitten by a cobra, so the report said, for there was a peculiar little blue mark at the side of his neck.

If the virtuous ones didn’t actually it served him right, they thought it; and mumbled that the young officer had been dining somewhere not wisely but too well, and had mistaken the jungle for his bedroom, and gone to sleep, otherwise how did the cobra manage to bite him in the neck.

It seemed a plausible theory. Anyway it got over a difficulty, and it brought an unpleasant little scandal to a tragic and abrupt end. So the virtuous ones went about their many occupations again, and the atmosphere was purer when it was known that the sorceress had disappeared as mysteriously as she had come.

The next direct evidence we got was that under the name of Isabella Rodino the adventuress turned up in Rome, where she rented a small but expensive villa in the fashionable Via Porta Pia. Everyone who knows Rome knows how exclusive society is, but while Isabella Rodino made no attempt to be received by Roman society she attracted to her villa some of the male representatives of the best families in the city. Amongst these gentlemen was the scion of one of the oldest Roman houses.

Now it may be said boldly here, and that without any reflections, that the young gentleman of Rome, as of most other continental cities, are allowed a good deal more latitude than would be accorded to the same class in, say, cold-blooded, unromantic, prosaic, and commonplace London, whose soot and grime, somehow, seem to grind their way into people’s brains and hearts. Anyway the young gentleman referred to, whose baptismal name was Basta, did not at first provoke any very severe criticism, but he was destined ultimately to give the Romans a sensation to talk about for the proverbial nine days, for one Sunday morning a humble fisherman, having some business on the Tiber, fished out of that classic river the stark body of the scion. Over Rome flew the news, and those who loved him, and looked to him to uphold the honour and dignity of his family, were horror stricken.

Now, it’s a very curious thing that his distracted relatives firmly believed that the young prodigal had in a moment of remorse, after a night’s debauch, flung himself into eternity via the Tiber, and so mighty was their pride that they used their wealth, their influence, and their power to stifle inquiry, and caused a report to be circulated that Basta had met his end through accident. It is not less curious that the family doctor who examined the body was of opinion that there was something mysterious about the lad’s death, for he certainly had not died by drowning, and on one side of the neck was a peculiar little bluish puncture. But as the family persisted in their view, the doctor, not wishing to lose their influential patronage, observed a discreet silence.

A week later, however, an agent of the police called on Isabella Rodino, and did something more than hint that it was desirable that within twenty-four hours she should leave Rome as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. The result of this functionary’s call was Isabella Rodino journeyed to Florence by that night’s mail train. It was known that she only sojourned two days in the fair city on the Arno.

After that there is another hiatus of something like two years in her known career, and it is not easy to fill up. And this brings us to that fatal night in Wiesbaden, when ill-starred Jack Redcar met the enchantress on the hotel stairs. From that point to the moment when, her role being finished, she disappeared forever from the ken of men, the reader of the story can fill in for himself. She played out her last act under the name of Annette. In selecting her many names she seemed actuated by a fine sense of poetic euphony, and in selecting her victims she was guided by a “damnable” discrimination.

“Annette,” as we will now call her, was a human riddle, and she illustrates for the millionth time the trite adage that “Truth is stranger than Fiction,” besides which she presents the world with an object lesson in the study of the occult.

Tales of Terror (1899)

The Tomb of Sarah

F. G. Loring

1900

My father was the head of a celebrated firm of church restorers and decorators about sixty years ago. He took a keen interest in his work, and made an especaal study of any old legends or family histories that came under his observation. He was necessarily very well read and thoroughly well posted in all questions of folklore and medieval legend. As he kept a careful record of every case he investigated the manuscripts he left at his death have a special interest. From amongst them I have selected the following, as being a particularly weird and extraordinary experience. In presenting it to the public I feel it is superfluous to apologize for its supernatural character.

MY FATHER’S DIARY

1841 — June 17th. — Received a commission from my old friend Peter Grant to enlarge and restore the chancel of his church at Hagarstone, in the wilds of the West Country.

July 5th. — Went down to Hagarstone with my head man, Somers. A very long and tiring journey.

July 7th. — Got the work well started. The old church is one of special interest to the antiquarian, and I shall endeavour while restoring it to alter the existing arrangements as little as possible. One large tomb, however, must be moved bodily ten feet at least to the southward. Curiously enough, there is a somewhat forbidding inscription upon it in Latin, and I am sorry that this particular tomb should have to be moved. It stands amongst the graves of the Kenyons, an old family which has been extinct in these parts for centuries. The inscriptaon on it runs thus:

SARAH.

1630.

FOR THE SAKE OF THE DEAD AND THE WELFARE OF THE LIVING, LET THIS SEPULCHRE REMAIN UNTOUCHED AND ITS OCCUPANT UNDISTURBED TILL THE COMING OF CHRIST.

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, THE SON, AND THE HOLY GHOST.

July 8th. — Took counsel with Grant concerning the “Sarah Tomb”. We are both very loth to disturb it, but the ground has sunk so beneath it that the safety of the church is in danger; thus we have no choice. However, the work shall be done as reverently as possible under our own direction.

Grant says there is a legend in the neighbourhood that it is the tomb of the last of the Kenyons, the evil Countess Sarah, who was murdered in 1630. She lived quite alone in the old castle, whose ruins still stand three miles from here on the road to Bristol. Her reputation was an evil one even for those days. She was a witch or were-woman, the only companion of her solitude being a familiar in the shape of a huge Asiatic wolf. This creature was reputed to seize upon children, or failing these, sheep and other small animals, and convey them to the castle, where the Countess used to suck their blood. It was popularly supposed that she could never be killed. This, however, proved a fallacy, since she was strangled one day by a mad peasant woman who had lost two children, she declaring that they had both been seized and carried off by the Countess’s familiar. This is a very interesting story, since it points to a local superstition very similar to that of the Vampire, existing in Slavonic and Hungarian Europe.

The tomb is built of black marble, surmounted by an enormous slab of the same material. On the slab is a magnificent group of figures. A young and handsome woman reclines upon a couch; round her neck is a piece of rope, the end of which she holds in her hand. At her side is a gigantic dog with bared fangs and lolling tongue. The face of the reclining figure is a cruel one: the corners of the mouth are curiously lifted, showing the sharp points of long canine or dog teeth. The whole group, though magnificently executed, leaves a most unpleasant sensation.

If we move the tomb it will have to be done in two pieces, the covering slab first and then the tomb proper. We have decided to remove the covering slab tomorrow.

July 9th. 6 p.m. — A very strange day.

By noon everything was ready for lifting off the covering stone, and after the men’s dinner we started the jacks and pulleys. The slab lifted easily enough, though if fitted closely into its seat and was further secured by some sort of mortar or putty, which must have kept the interior perfectly air-tight.

None of us were prepared for the horrible rush of foul, mouldy air that escaped as the cover lifted clear of its seating. And the contents that gradually came into view were more startling still. There lay the fully dressed body of a woman, wizened and shrunk and ghastly pale as if from starvation. Round her neck was a loose cord, and, judging by the scars still visible, the story of death of strangulation was true enough.

The most horrible part, however, was the extraordinary freshness of the body. Except for the appearance of starvation, life might have been only just extinct. The flesh was soft and white, the eyes were wide open and seemed to stare at us with a fearful understanding in them. The body itself lay on mould, without any pretence to coffin or shell.

For several moments we gazed with horrible curiosity, and then it became too much for my workmen, who implored us to replace the covering slab. That, of course, we would not do; but I set the carpenters to work at once to make a temporary cover while we moved the tomb to its new position. This is a long job, and will take two or three days at least.

July 9th. — Just at sunset we were startled by the howling of, seemingly, every dog in the village. It lasted for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, and then ceased as suddenly as it began. This, and a curious mist that has risen round the church, makes me feel rather anxious about the “Sarah Tomb”. According to the best-established traditions of the Vampire-haunted countries, the disturbance of dogs or wolves at sunset is supposed to indicate the presence of one of these fiends, and local fog is always considered to be a certain sign. The Vampire has the power of producing it for the purpose of concealing its movements near its hiding-place at any time.

I dare not mention or even hint my fears to the Rector, for he is, not unnaturally perhaps, a rank disbeliever in many things that I know, from experience, are not only possible but even probable. I must work this out alone at first, and get his aid without his knowing in what direction he is helping me. I shall now watch till midnight at least.

10.15 p.m. — As I feared and half expected. Just before ten there was another outburst of the hideous howling. It was commenced most distinctly by a particularly horrible and blood-curdling wail from the vicinity of the churchyard. The chorus lasted only a few minutes, however, and at the end of it I saw a large dark shape, like a huge dog, emerge from the fog and lope away at a rapid canter towards the open country. Assuming this to be what I fear, I shall see it return soon after midnight.

12.30 p.m. — I was right. Almost as midnight struck I saw the beast returning. It stopped at the spot where the fog seemed to commence, and lifting its head, gave tongue to that particularly horrible long-drawn wail that I had noticed as preceding the outburst earlier in the evening.

Tomorrow I shall tell the Rector what I have seen; and if, as I expect, we hear of some neighbouring sheepfold having been raided, I shall get him to watch with me for this nocturnal marauder. I shall also examine the “Sarah Tomb” for something which he may notice without any previous hint from me.

July 10th. — I found the workmen this morning much disturbed in mind about the howling of the dogs. “We doan—t like it, zur,” one of them said to me — “we doan—t like it; there was summat abroad last night that was unholy.” Bey were still more uncomfortable when the news came round that a large dog had made a raid upon a flock of sheep, scattering them far and wide, and leaving three of them dead with torn throats in the field.

When I told the Rector of what I had seen and what was being said in the village, he immediately decided that we must try and catch or at least identify the beast I had seen. “Of course,” said he, “it is some dog lately imported into the neighbourhood, for I know of nothing about here nearly as large as the animal you describe, though its size may be due to the deceptive moonlight.”

This afternoon I asked the Rector, as a favour, to assist me in lifting the temporary cover that was on the tomb, giving as an excuse the reason that I wished to obtain a portion of the curious mortar with which it had been sealed. After a slight demur he consented, and we raised the lid. If the sight that met our eyes gave me a shock, at least it appalled Grant.

“Great God!” he exclaimed; “the woman is alive!”

And so it seemed for a moment. The corpse had lost much of its starved appearance and looked hideously fresh and alive. It was still wrinkled and shrunken, but the lips were firm, and of the rich red hue of health. The eyes, if possible, were more appalling than ever, though fixed and staring. At one corner of the mouth I thought I noticed a slight dark-coloured froth, but I said nothing about it then.

“Take your piece of mortar, Harry,” gasped Grant, “and let us shut the tomb again. God help me! Parson though I am, such dead faces frighten me!”

Nor was I sorry to hide that terrible face again; but I got my bit of mortar, and I have advanced a step towards the solution of the mystery. This afternoon the tomb was moved several feet towards its new position, but it will be two or three days yet before we shall be ready to replace the slab.

10.15 p.m. — Again the same howling at sunset, the same fog enveloping the church, and at ten o—clock the same great beast slipping silently out into the open country. I must get the Rector’s help and watch for its return. But precautions we must take, for if things are as I believe, we take our lives in our hands when we venture Out into the night to waylay the — Vampire. Why not admit it at once? For that the beast I have seen as the Vampire of that evil thing in the tomb I can have no reasonable doubt.

Not yet come to its full strength, thank Heaven! after the starvation of nearly two centuries, for at present it can only maraud as wolf apparently. But, in a day or two, when full power returns, that dreadful woman an new strength and beauty will be able to leave her refuse” Then it would not be sheep merely that would satisfy her disgusting lust for blood, but victims that would yield their life-blood without a murmur to her caressing touch — victims that, dying of her foul embrace, themselves must become Vampires in their turn to prey on others.

Mercifully my knowledge gives me a safeguard; for that little piece of mortar that I rescued today from the tomb contains a portion of the Sacred Host, and who holds it, humbly and firmly believing in its virtue, may pass safely through such an ordeal as I intend to submit myself and the Rector to tonight.

12.30 p.m. — Our adventure is over for the present, and we are back safe.

After writing the last entry recorded above, I went off to find Grant and tell him that the marauder was out on the prowl again. “But, Grant,” I said, “before we start out tonight I must insist that you will let me prosecute this affair in my own way; you must promise to put yourself completely under my orders, without asking any questions as to the why and wherefore.”

After a little demur, and some excusable chaff on his part at the serious view I was taking of what he called a “dog hunt”, he gave me his promise. I then told him that we were to watch tonight and try and track the mysterious beast, but not to interfere with it in any way. I think, in spite of his jests, that I impressed him with the fact that there might be, after all, good reason for my precautions.

It was just after eleven when we stepped out into the still night.

Our first move was to try and penetrate the dense fog round the church, but there was something so chilly about it, and a faant smell so disgustingly rank and loathsome, that neither our nerves nor our stomachs were proof against it. Instead, we stationed ourselves in the dark shadow of a yew tree that commanded a good view of the wicket entrance to the churchyard.

At midnight the howling of the dogs began again, and in a few minutes we saw a large grey shape, with green eyes shinang like lamps, shamble swiftly down the path towards us.

The Rector started forward, but I laid a firm hand upon his arm and whispered a warning “Remember!” Then we both stood very still and watched as the great beast cantered swiftly by. It was real enough, for we could hear the clicking of its nails on the stone flags. It passed within a few yards of us, and seemed to be nothing more nor less than a great grey wolf, thin and gaunt, with bristling hair and dripping jaws. It stopped where the mist commenced, and turned round. It was truly a horrible sight, and made one’s blood run cold. The eyes burnt like fires, the upper lip was snarling and raised, showing the great canine teeth, while round the mouth clung and dripped a dark-coloured froth.

It raised its head and gave tongue to its long wailing howl, which was answered from afar by the village dogs. After standing for a few moments it turned and disappeared into the thickest part of the fog.

Very shortly afterwards the atmosphere began to clear, and within ten minutes the mist was all gone, the dogs in the village were silent, and the night seemed to reassume its normal aspect. We examined the spot where the beast had been standing and found, plainly enough upon the stone flags, dark spots of froth and saliva.

“Well, Rector,” I said, “will you admit now, in view of the things you have seen today, in consideration of the legend, the woman in the tomb, the fog, the howling dogs, and, last but not least, the mysterious beast you have seen so close, that there is something not quite normal in it all? Will you put yourself unreservedly in my hands and help me, whatever I may do, to first make assurance doubly sure, and finally take the necessary steps for putting an end to this horror of the night?” I saw that the uncanny influence of the night was strong upon him, and wished to impress it as much as possible.

“Needs must,” he replied, “when the Devil drives: and in the face of what I have seen I must believe that some unholy forces are at work. Yet, how can they work in the sacred precincts of a church? Shall we not call rather upon Heaven to assist us in our need.”

“Grant,” I said solemnly, “that we must do, each in his own way. God helps those who help themselves, and by His help and the light of my knowledge we must fight this battle for Him and the poor lost soul within.”

We then returned to the rectory and to our rooms, though I have sat up to write this account while the scene is fresh in my mind.

July 11th. — Found the workmen again very much disturbed in their minds, and full of a strange dog that had been seen during the night by several people, who had hunted it. Farmer Stotman, who had been watching his sheep (the same flock that had been raided the night before), had surprised it over a fresh carcass and tried to drive it off, but its size and fierceness so alarmed him that he had beaten a hasty retreat for a gun. When he returned the animal was gone, though he found that three more sheep from his flock were dead and torn.

The “Sarah Tomb” was moved today to its new position; but it was a long, heavy business, and there was not time to replace the covering slab. For this I was glad, as in the prosaic light of day the Rector almost disbelieves the events of the night, and is prepared to think everything to have been magnified and distorted by our imagination.

As, however, I could not possibly proceed with my war of extermination against this foul thing without assistance, and as there is nobody else I can rely upon, I appealed to him for one more night — to convince him that it was no delusion, but a ghastly, horrible truth, which must be fought and conquered for our own sakes, as well as that of all those living in the neighbourhood.

“Put yourself in my hands, Rector,” I said, “for tonight at least. Let us take those precautions which my study of the subject tells me arc the right ones. Tonight you and I must watch in the church; and I feel assured that tomorrow you will be as convinced as I am, and be equally prepared to take those awful steps which I know to be proper, and I must warn you that we shall find a more startling change in the body lying there than you noticed yesterday.”

My words came true; for on raising the wooden cover once more the rank stench of a slaughterhouse arose, making us feel positively sick. There lay the Vampire, but how changed from the starved and shrunken corpse we saw two days ago for the first time! The wrinkles had almost disappeared, the flesh was firm and full, the crimson lips grinned horribly over the long pointed teeth, and a distinct smear of blood had trickled down one corner of the mouth. We set our teeth, however, and hardened our hearts. Then we replaced the cover and put what we had collected into a safe place in the vestry. Yet even now Grant could not believe that there was any real or pressing danger concealed in that awful tomb, as he raised strenuous objections to am apparent desecration of the body without further proof. This he shall have tonight. God grant that I am not taking too much on myself. If there is any truth in old legends it would be easy enough to destroy the Vampire now; but Grant will not have it.

I hope for the very best of this night’s work, but the danger in waiting is very great.

6 p.m. — I have prepared everything: the sharp knives, the pointed stake, fresh garlic, and the wild dog-roses. All these I have taken and concealed in the vestry, where we can get at them when our solemn vigil commences.

If either or both of us die with our fearful task undone, lei those reading my record see that this is done. I lay it upon them as a solemn obligation. “That the Vampire be pierced through the heart with the stake, then let the Burial Service be read over the poor clay at last released from its doom. Thus shall the Vampire cease to be, and a lost soul rest.”

July 12th. — All is over. After the most terrible night of watching and horror one Vampire at least will trouble the world no more. But how thankful should we be to a merciful Providence that that awful tomb was not disturbed by anyone not having the knowledge necessary to deal with its dreadful occupant! I write this with no feelings of self-complacency, but simply with a great gratitude for the years of study I have been able to devote to this special subject.

And now to my tale.

Just before sunset last night the Rector and I locked ourselves into the church, and took up our position in the pulpit. It was one of those pulpits, to be found in some churches, which is entered from the vestry, the preacher appearing at a good height through an arched opening in the wall. This gave us a sense of security (which we felt we needed), a good view of the interior, and direct access to the implements which I had concealed in the vestry.

The sun set and the twilight gradually deepened and faded. There was, so far, no sign of the usual fog, nor any howling of the dogs. At nine o—clock the moon rose, and her pale light gradually flooded the aisles, and still no sign of any kind from the “Sarah Tomb”. The Rector had asked me several times what he might expect, but I was determined that no words or thought of mine should influence him, and that he should be convinced by his own senses alone.

By half-past ten we were both getting very tired, and I began to think that perhaps after all we should see nothing that night. However, soon after eleven we observed a light mist rising from the “Sarah Tomb”. It seemed to scintillate and sparkle as it rose, and curled in a sort of pillar or spiral.

I said nothing, but I heard the Rector give a sort of gasp as he clutched my arm feverishly. “Great Heaven!” he whispered, “it is taking shape.”

And, true enough, in a very few moments we saw standing erect by the tomb the ghastly figure of the Countess Sarah!

She looked thin and haggard still, and her face was deadly white; but the crimson lips looked like a hideous gash in the pale cheeks, and her eyes glared like red coals in the gloom of the church.

It was a fearful thing to watch as she stepped unsteadily down the aisle, staggering a little as if from weakness and exhaustion. This was perhaps natural, as her body must have suffered much physically from her long incarcerataon, in spite of the unholy forces which kept it fresh and well.

We watched her to the door, and wondered what would happen; but it appeared to present no difficulty, for she melted through it and and disappeared.

“Now, Grant,” I said, “do you believe?”

“Yes,” he replied, “I must. Everything is in your hands, and I will obey your commands to the letter, if you can only instruct me how to rid my poor people of this unnameable terror.”

“By God’s help I will,” said I; “but you shall be vet more convinced first, for we have a terrible work to do, and much to answer for in the future, before we leave the church again this morning. And now to work, for in its present weak state the Vampire will not wander far, but may return at any time, and must not find us unprepared.”

We stepped down from the pulpit and, taking dog-roses and garlic from the vestry, proceeded to the tomb. I arrived first and, throwing off the wooden cover, cried, “Look! it is empty!” There was nothing there! Nothing except the impress of the body in the loose damp mould!

I took the flowers and laid them in a circle round the tomb, for legend teaches us that Vampires will not pass over these particular blossoms if they can avoid it.

Then, eight or ten feet away, I made a circle on the stone pavement. large enough for the Rector and myself to stand in, and within the circle I placed the implements that I had brought into the church with me.

“Now,” I said, “from this circle, which nothing unholy can step across, you shall see the Vampire face to face, and see her afraid to cross that other circle of garlic and dog-roses to regain her unholy refuge. But on no account step beyond the holy place you stand in, for the Vampire has a fearful strength not her own, and, like a snake, can draw her victim willingly to his own destruction.”

Now so far my work was done, and, calling the Rector, we stepped into the Holy Circle to await the Vampire’s return.

Nor was this long delayed. Presently a damp, cold odour seemed to pervade the church, which made our hair bristle and flesh to creep. And then down the aisle with noiseless feet came That whach we watched for.

I heard the Rector mutter a prayer, and I held him tightly by the arm, for he was shivering violently.

Long before we could distinguish the features we saw the glowing eyes and the crimson sensual mouth. She went straight to her tomb, but stopped short when she encountered my flowers. She walked right round the tomb seeking a place to enter, and as she walked she saw us. A spasm of diabolical hate and fury passed over her face; but it quickly vanished, and a smile of love, more devilish still, took its place. She stretched out her arms towards us. Ben we saw that round her mouth gathered a bloody froth, and from under her lips long pointed teeth gleamed and champed.

She spoke: a soft soothing voice, a voice that carried a spell with it, and affected us both strangely, particularly the Rector. I wished to test as far as possible, without endangering our lives, the Vampire’s power.

Her voice had a soporific effect, which I resisted easily enough, but which seemed to throw the Rector into a sort of trance. More than this: it seemed to compel him to her in spite of his efforts to resist.

“Come!” she said — “come! I give sleep and peace — sleep and peace — sleep and peace.”

She advanced a little towards us; but not far, for I noted that the Sacred Circle seemed to keep her back like an iron hand.

My companion seemed to become demoralized and spellbound. He tried to step forward and, finding me detain him, whispered, “Harry, let go! I must go! She is calling me! I must! I must! Oh, help me! help me!” And he began to struggle.

It was time to finish.

“Grant!” I cried, in a loud, firm voice, “in the name of all that you hold sacred, have done and the man!” He shuddered violently and gasped, “Where am I?” Ben he remembered, and clung to me convulsively for a moment.

At this a look of damnable hate changed the smiling face before us, and with a sort of shriek she staggered back.

“Back!” I cried: “back to your unholy tomb! No longer shall you molest the suffering world! Your end is near.”

It was fear that now showed itself in her beautiful face (for it was beautiful in spite of its horror) as she shrank back, hack and over the circlet of flowers, shivering as she did so. At last, with a low mournful cry, she appeared to melt hack again into her tomb.

As she did so the first gleams of the rising sun lit up the world, and I knew all danger was over for the day.

Taking Grant by the arm, I drew him with me out of the circle and led him to the tomb. There lay the Vampire once more, still in her living death as we had a moment before seen her in her devilish life. But in the eyes remained that awful expression of hate, and cringing, appalling fear.

Grant was pulling himself together.

“Now,” I said, “will you dare the last terrible act and rid the world forever of this horror?”

“By God!” he said solemnly, “I will. Tell me what to do.”

“Help me to lift her out of her tomb. She can harm us no more,” I replied.

With averted faces we set to our terrible task, and laid her out upon the flags.

“Now,” I said, “read the Burial Service over the poor body, and then let us give it its release from this living hell that holds it.” Reverently the Rector read the beautiful words, and reverently I made the necessary responses. When it was over I took the stake and, without giving myself time to think, plunged it with all my strength through the heart.

As though really alive, the body for a moment writhed and kicked convulsively, and an awful heart-rending shriek woke the silent church; then all was still.

Then we lifted the poor body back; and, thank God! the consolation that legend tells is never denied to those who have to do such awful work as ours came at last. Over the face stole a great and solemn peace; the lips lost their crimson hue, the prominent sharp teeth sank back into the mouth, and for a moment we saw before us the calm, pale face of a most beautiful woman, who smiled as she slept. A few minutes more, and she faded away to dust before our eyes as we watched. We set to work and cleaned up every trace of our work, and then departed for the rectory. Most thankful were we to step out of the church, with its horrible associations, into the rosy warmth of the summer morning.

•   •   •

With the above end the notes in my father’s diary, though a few days later this further entry occurs:

July 15th. — Since the 12th everything has been quiet and as usual. We replaced and sealed up the “Sarah Tomb” this morning. The workmen were surprised to find the body had disappeared, but took it to be the natural result of exposing it to the air.

One odd thing came to my ears today. It appears that the child of one of the villagers strayed from home the night of the 11th inst., and was found asleep in a coppice near the church, very pale and quite exhausted. There were two small marks on her throat, which have since disappeared.

What does this mean? I have, however, kept it to myself, as, now that the Vampire is no more, no further danger either to that child or any other is to be apprehended. It is only those who die of the Vampire’s embrace that become Vampires at death in their turn.

“The Pall Mall Magazine”, Dec. 1900

Victorian Ghost Stories (1933)

NUMBER 13

M. R. James

1904

Among the towns of Jutland, Viborg justly holds a high place. It is the seat of a bishopric; it has a handsome but almost entirely new cathedral, a charming garden, a lake of great beauty, and many storks. Near it is Hald, accounted one of the prettiest things in Denmark; and hard by is Finderup, where Marsk Stig murdered King Erik Glipping on St. Cecilia’s Day, in the year 1286. Fifty-six blows of square-headed iron maces were traced on Erik’s skull when his tomb was opened in the seventeenth century. But I am not writing a guidebook.

There are good hotels in Viborg — Preisler’s and the Phoenix are all that can be desired. But my cousin, whose experiences I have to tell you now, went to the Golden Lion the first time that he visited Viborg. He has not been there since, and the following pages will, perhaps, explain the reason of his abstention.

The Golden Lion is one of the very few houses in the town that were not destroyed in the great fire of 1726, which practically demolished the cathedral, the Sognekirke, the Raadhuus, and so much else that was old and interesting. It is a great red-brick house — that is, the front is of brick, with corbie steps on the gables and a text over the door; but the courtyard into which the omnibus drives is of black and white wood and plaster.

The sun was declining in the heavens when my cousin walked up to the door, and the light smote full upon the imposing façade of the house. He was delighted with the old-fashioned aspect of the place, and promised himself a thoroughly satisfactory and amusing stay in an inn so typical of old Jutland.

It was not business in the ordinary sense of the word that had brought Mr. Anderson to Viborg. He was engaged upon some researches into the Church history of Denmark, and it had come to his knowledge that in the Rigsarkiv of Viborg there were papers, saved from the fire, relating to the last days of Roman Catholicism in the country. He proposed, therefore, to spend a considerable time — perhaps as much as a fortnight or three weeks — in examining and copying these, and he hoped that the Golden Lion would be able to give him a room of sufficient size to serve alike as a bedroom and a study. His wishes were explained to the landlord, and, after a certain amount of thought, the latter suggested that perhaps it might be the best way for the gentleman to look at one or two of the larger rooms and pick one for himself. It seemed a good idea.

The top floor was soon rejected as entailing too much getting upstairs after the day’s work; the second floor contained no room of exactly the dimensions required; but on the first floor there was a choice of two or three rooms which would, so far as size went, suit admirably.

The landlord was strongly in favour of Number 17, but Mr. Anderson pointed out that its windows commanded only the blank wall of the next house, and that it would be very dark in the afternoon. Either Number 12 or Number 14 would be better, for both of them looked on the street, and the bright evening light and the pretty view would more than compensate him for the additional amount of noise.

Eventually Number 12 was selected. Like its neighbours, it had three windows, all on one side of the room; it was fairly high and unusually long. There was, of course, no fireplace, but the stove was handsome and rather old — a cast-iron erection, on the side of which was a representation of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, and the inscription, “I Bog Mose, Cap. 22,” above. Nothing else in the room was remarkable; the only interesting picture was an old coloured print of the town, date about 1820.

Supper-time was approaching, but when Anderson, refreshed by the ordinary ablutions, descended the staircase, there were still a few minutes before the bell rang. He devoted them to examining the list of his fellow-lodgers. As is usual in Denmark, their names were displayed on a large blackboard, divided into columns and lines, the numbers of the rooms being painted in at the beginning of each line. The list was not exciting. There was an advocate, or Sagförer, a German, and some bagmen from Copenhagen. The one and only point which suggested any food for thought was the absence of any Number 13 from the tale of the rooms, and even this was a thing which Anderson had already noticed half a dozen times in his experience of Danish hotels. He could not help wondering whether the objection to that particular number, common as it is, was so widespread and so strong as to make it difficult to let a room so ticketed, and he resolved to ask the landlord if he and his colleagues in the profession had actually met with many clients who refused to be accommodated in the thirteenth room.

He had nothing to tell me (I am giving the story as I heard it from him) about what passed at supper, and the evening, which was spent in unpacking and arranging his clothes, books, and papers, was not more eventful. Towards eleven o’clock he resolved to go to bed, but with him, as with a good many other people nowadays, an almost necessary preliminary to bed, if he meant to sleep, was the reading of a few pages of print, and he now remembered that the particular book which he had been reading in the train, and which alone would satisfy him at that present moment, was in the pocket of his great-coat, then hanging on a peg outside the dining-room.

To run down and secure it was the work of a moment, and, as the passages were by no means dark, it was not difficult for him to find his way back to his own door. So, at least, he thought; but when he arrived there, and turned the handle, the door entirely refused to open, and he caught the sound of a hasty movement towards it from within. He had tried the wrong door, of course. Was his own room to the right or to the left? He glanced at the number: it was 13. His room would be on the left; and so it was. And not before he had been in bed for some minutes, had read his wonted three or four pages of his book, blown out his light, and turned over to go to sleep, did it occur to him that, whereas on the blackboard of the hotel there had been no Number 13, there was undoubtedly a room numbered 13 in the hotel. He felt rather sorry he had not chosen it for his own. Perhaps he might have done the landlord a little service by occupying it, and given him the chance of saying that a well-born English gentleman had lived in it for three weeks and liked it very much. But probably it was used as a servant’s room or something of the kind. After all, it was most likely not so large or good a room as his own. And he looked drowsily about the room, which was fairly perceptible in the half-light from the street-lamp. It was a curious effect, he thought. Rooms usually look larger in a dim light than a full one, but this seemed to have contracted in length and grown proportionately higher. Well, well! sleep was more important than these vague ruminations — and to sleep he went.

On the day after his arrival Anderson attacked the Rigsarkiv of Viborg. He was, as one might expect in Denmark, kindly received, and access to all that he wished to see was made as easy for him as possible. The documents laid before him were far more numerous and interesting than he had at all anticipated. Besides official papers, there was a large bundle of correspondence relating to Bishop Jörgen Friis, the last Roman Catholic who held the see, and in these there cropped up many amusing and what are called “intimate” details of private life and individual character. There was much talk of a house owned by the Bishop, but not inhabited by him, in the town. Its tenant was apparently somewhat of a scandal and a stumbling-block to the reforming party. He was a disgrace, they wrote, to the city; he practised secret and wicked arts, and had sold his soul to the enemy. It was of a piece with the gross corruption and superstition of the Babylonish Church that such a viper and blood-sucking Troldmand “Troll man, sorcerer” should be patronized and harboured by the Bishop. The Bishop met these reproaches boldly; he protested his own abhorrence of all such things as secret arts, and required his antagonists to bring the matter before the proper court — of course, the spiritual court — and sift it to the bottom. No one could be more ready and willing than himself to condemn Mag. Nicolas Francken if the evidence showed him to have been guilty of any of the crimes informally alleged against him.

Anderson had not time to do more than glance at the next letter of the Protestant leader, Rasmus Nielsen, before the record office was closed for the day, but he gathered its general tenor, which was to the effect that Christian men were now no longer bound by the decisions of Bishops of Rome, and that the Bishop’s Court was not, and could not be, a fit or competent tribunal to judge so grave and weighty a cause.

On leaving the office, Mr. Anderson was accompanied by the old gentleman who presided over it, and, as they walked, the conversation very naturally turned to the papers of which I have just been speaking.

Herr Scavenius, the Archivist of Viborg, though very well informed as to the general run of the documents under his charge, was not a specialist in those of the Reformation period. He was much interested in what Anderson had to tell him about them. He looked forward with great pleasure, he said, to seeing the publication in which Mr. Anderson spoke of embodying their contents. “This house of the Bishop Friis,” he added, “it is a great puzzle to me where it can have stood. I have studied carefully the topography of old Viborg, but it is most unlucky — of the old terrier of the Bishop’s property which was made in 1560, and of which we have the greater part in the Arkiv — just the piece which had the list of the town property is missing. Never mind. Perhaps I shall someday succeed to find him.”

After taking some exercise — I forget exactly how or where — Anderson went back to the Golden Lion, his supper, his game of patience, and his bed. On the way to his room it occurred to him that he had forgotten to talk to the landlord about the omission of Number 13 from the hotel board, and also that he might as well make sure that Number 13 did actually exist before he made any reference to the matter.

The decision was not difficult to arrive at. There was the door with its number as plain as could be, and work of some kind was evidently going on inside it, for as he neared the door he could hear footsteps and voices, or a voice, within. During the few seconds in which he halted to make sure of the number, the footsteps ceased, seemingly very near the door, and he was a little startled at hearing a quick hissing breathing as of a person in strong excitement. He went on to his own room, and again he was surprised to find how much smaller it seemed now than it had when he selected it. It was a slight disappointment, but only slight. If he found it really not large enough, he could very easily shift to another. In the meantime he wanted something — as far as I remember it was a pocket-handkerchief — out of his portmanteau, which had been placed by the porter on a very inadequate trestle or stool against the wall at the farthest end of the room from his bed. Here was a very curious thing: the portmanteau was not to be seen. It had been moved by officious servants; doubtless the contents had been put in the wardrobe. No, none of them were there. This was vexatious. The idea of a theft he dismissed at once. Such things rarely happen in Denmark, but some piece of stupidity had certainly been performed (which is not so uncommon), and the stuepige “chambermaid” must be severely spoken to. Whatever it was that he wanted, it was not so necessary to his comfort that he could not wait till the morning for it, and he therefore settled not to ring the bell and disturb the servants. He went to the window — the right-hand window it was — and looked out on the quiet street. There was a tall building opposite, with large spaces of dead wall; no passers-by; a dark night; and very little to be seen of any kind.

The light was behind him, and he could see his own shadow clearly cast on the wall opposite. Also the shadow of the bearded man in Number 11 on the left, who passed to and fro in shirtsleeves once or twice, and was seen first brushing his hair, and later on in a nightgown. Also the shadow of the occupant of Number 13 on the right. This might be more interesting. Number 13 was, like himself, leaning on his elbows on the windowsill looking out into the street. He seemed to be a tall thin man — or was it by any chance a woman? — at least, it was someone who covered his or her head with some kind of drapery before going to bed, and, he thought, must be possessed of a red lamp-shade — and the lamp must be flickering very much. There was a distinct playing up and down of a dull red light on the opposite wall. He craned out a little to see if he could make any more of the figure, but beyond a fold of some light, perhaps white, material on the windowsill he could see nothing.

Now came a distant step in the street, and its approach seemed to recall Number 13 to a sense of his exposed position, for very swiftly and suddenly he swept aside from the window, and his red light went out. Anderson, who had been smoking a cigarette, laid the end of it on the windowsill and went to bed.

Next morning he was woken by the stuepige with hot water, etc. He roused himself, and after thinking out the correct Danish words, said as distinctly as he could:

“You must not move my portmanteau. Where is it?”

As is not uncommon, the maid laughed, and went away without making any distinct answer.

Anderson, rather irritated, sat up in bed, intending to call her back, but he remained sitting up, staring straight in front of him. There was his portmanteau on its trestle, exactly where he had seen the porter put it when he first arrived. This was a rude shock for a man who prided himself on his accuracy of observation. How it could possibly have escaped him the night before he did not pretend to understand; at any rate, there it was now.

The daylight showed more than the portmanteau; it let the true proportions of the room with its three windows appear, and satisfied its tenant that his choice after all had not been a bad one. When he was almost dressed he walked to the middle one of the three windows to look out at the weather. Another shock awaited him. Strangely unobservant he must have been last night. He could have sworn ten times over that he had been smoking at the right-hand window the last thing before he went to bed, and here was his cigarette-end on the sill of the middle window.

He started to go down to breakfast. Rather late, but Number 13 was later: here were his boots still outside his door — a gentleman’s boots. So then Number 13 was a man, not a woman. Just then he caught sight of the number on the door. It was 14. He thought he must have passed Number 13 without noticing it. Three stupid mistakes in twelve hours were too much for a methodical, accurate-minded man, so he turned back to make sure. The next number to 14 was number 12, his own room. There was no Number 13 at all.

After some minutes devoted to a careful consideration of everything he had had to eat and drink during the last twenty-four hours, Anderson decided to give the question up. If his eyes or his brain were giving way he would have plenty of opportunities for ascertaining that fact; if not, then he was evidently being treated to a very interesting experience. In either case the development of events would certainly be worth watching.

During the day he continued his examination of the episcopal correspondence which I have already summarized. To his disappointment, it was incomplete. Only one other letter could be found which referred to the affair of Mag. Nicolas Francken. It was from the Bishop Jörgen Friis to Rasmus Nielsen. He said:

“Although we are not in the least degree inclined to assent to your judgement concerning our court, and shall be prepared if need be to withstand you to the uttermost in that behalf, yet forasmuch as our trusty and well-beloved Mag. Nicolas Francken, against whom you have dared to allege certain false and malicious charges, hath been suddenly removed from among us, it is apparent that the question for this time falls. But forasmuch as you further allege that the Apostle and Evangelist St. John in his heavenly Apocalypse describes the Holy Roman Church under the guise and symbol of the Scarlet Woman, be it known to you,” etc.

Search as he might, Anderson could find no sequel to this letter nor any clue to the cause or manner of the “removal” of the casus belli. He could only suppose that Francken had died suddenly; and as there were only two days between the date of Nielsen’s last letter — when Francken was evidently still in being — and that of the Bishop’s letter, the death must have been completely unexpected.

In the afternoon he paid a short visit to Hald, and took his tea at Baekkelund; nor could he notice, though he was in a somewhat nervous frame of mind, that there was any indication of such a failure of eye or brain as his experiences of the morning had led him to fear.

At supper he found himself next to the landlord.

“What,” he asked him, after some indifferent conversation, “is the reason why in most of the hotels one visits in this country the number thirteen is left out of the list of rooms? I see you have none here.”

The landlord seemed amused.

“To think that you should have noticed a thing like that! I’ve thought about it once or twice myself, to tell the truth. An educated man, I’ve said, has no business with these superstitious notions. I was brought up myself here in the high school of Viborg, and our old master was always a man to set his face against anything of that kind. He’s been dead now this many years — a fine upstanding man he was, and ready with his hands as well as his head. I recollect us boys, one snowy day—”

Here he plunged into reminiscence.

“Then you don’t think there is any particular objection to having a Number 13?” said Anderson.

“Ah! to be sure. Well, you understand, I was brought up to the business by my poor old father. He kept an hotel in Aarhuus first, and then, when we were born, he moved to Viborg here, which was his native place, and had the Phoenix here until he died. That was in 1876. Then I started business in Silkeborg, and only the year before last I moved into this house.”

Then followed more details as to the state of the house and business when first taken over.

“And when you came here, was there a Number 13?”

“No, no. I was going to tell you about that. You see, in a place like this, the commercial class — the travellers — are what we have to provide for in general. And put them in Number 13? Why, they’d as soon sleep in the street, or sooner. As far as I’m concerned myself, it wouldn’t make a penny difference to me what the number of my room was, and so I’ve often said to them; but they stick to it that it brings them bad luck. Quantities of stories they have among them of men that have slept in a Number 13 and never been the same again, or lost their best customers, or — one thing and another,” said the landlord, after searching for a more graphic phrase.

“Then what do you use your Number 13 for?” said Anderson, conscious as he said the words of a curious anxiety quite disproportionate to the importance of the question.

“My Number 13? Why, don’t I tell you that there isn’t such a thing in the house? I thought you might have noticed that. If there was it would be next door to your own room.”

“Well, yes; only I happened to think — that is, I fancied last night that I had seen a door numbered thirteen in that passage; and, really, I am almost certain I must have been right, for I saw it the night before as well.”

Of course, Herr Kristensen laughed this notion to scorn, as Anderson had expected, and emphasized with much iteration the fact that no Number 13 existed or had existed before him in that hotel.

Anderson was in some ways relieved by his certainty, but still puzzled, and he began to think that the best way to make sure whether he had indeed been subject to an illusion or not was to invite the landlord to his room to smoke a cigar later on in the evening. Some photographs of English towns which he had with him formed a sufficiently good excuse.

Herr Kristensen was flattered by the invitation, and most willingly accepted it. At about ten o’clock he was to make his appearance, but before that Anderson had some letters to write, and retired for the purpose of writing them. He almost blushed to himself at confessing it, but he could not deny that it was the fact that he was becoming quite nervous about the question of the existence of Number 13; so much so that he approached his room by way of Number 11, in order that he might not be obliged to pass the door, or the place where the door ought to be. He looked quickly and suspiciously about the room when he entered it, but there was nothing, beyond that indefinable air of being smaller than usual, to warrant any misgivings. There was no question of the presence or absence of his portmanteau tonight. He had himself emptied it of its contents and lodged it under his bed. With a certain effort he dismissed the thought of Number 13 from his mind, and sat down to his writing.

His neighbours were quiet enough. Occasionally a door opened in the passage and a pair of boots was thrown out, or a bagman walked past humming to himself, and outside, from time to time, a cart thundered over the atrocious cobble-stones, or a quick step hurried along the flags.

Anderson finished his letters, ordered in whisky and soda, and then went to the window and studied the dead wall opposite and the shadows upon it.

As far as he could remember, Number 14 had been occupied by the lawyer, a staid man, who said little at meals, being generally engaged in studying a small bundle of papers beside his plate. Apparently, however, he was in the habit of giving vent to his animal spirits when alone. Why else should he be dancing? The shadow from the next room evidently showed that he was. Again and again his thin form crossed the window, his arms waved, and a gaunt leg was kicked up with surprising agility. He seemed to be barefooted, and the floor must be well laid, for no sound betrayed his movements. Sagförer Herr Anders Jensen, dancing at ten o’clock at night in a hotel bedroom, seemed a fitting subject for a historical painting in the grand style; and Anderson’s thoughts, like those of Emily in the Mysteries of Udolpho, began to “arrange themselves in the following lines”:

When I return to my hotel,

At ten o’clock p.m.,

The waiters think I am unwell;

I do not care for them.

But when I’ve locked my chamber door,

And put my boots outside,

I dance all night upon the floor.

And even if my neighbours swore,

I’d go on dancing all the more,

For I’m acquainted with the law,

And in despite of all their jaw,

Their protests I deride.

Had not the landlord at this moment knocked at the door, it is probable that quite a long poem might have been laid before the reader. To judge from his look of surprise when he found himself in the room, Herr Kristensen was struck, as Anderson had been, by something unusual in its aspect. But he made no remark. Anderson’s photographs interested him mightily, and formed the text of many autobiographical discourses. Nor is it quite clear how the conversation could have been diverted into the desired channel of Number 13, had not the lawyer at this moment begun to sing, and to sing in a manner which could leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was either exceedingly drunk or raving mad. It was a high, thin voice that they heard, and it seemed dry, as if from long disuse. Of words or tune there was no question. It went sailing up to a surprising height, and was carried down with a despairing moan as of a winter wind in a hollow chimney, or an organ whose wind fails suddenly. It was a really horrible sound, and Anderson felt that if he had been alone he must have fled for refuge and society to some neighbour bagman’s room.

The landlord sat open-mouthed.

“I don’t understand it,” he said at last, wiping his forehead. “It is dreadful. I have heard it once before, but I made sure it was a cat.”

“Is he mad?” said Anderson.

“He must be; and what a sad thing! Such a good customer, too, and so successful in his business, by what I hear, and a young family to bring up.”

Just then came an impatient knock at the door, and the knocker entered, without waiting to be asked. It was the lawyer, in déshabille and very rough-haired; and very angry he looked.

“I beg pardon, sir,” he said, “but I should be much obliged if you would kindly desist—”

Here he stopped, for it was evident that neither of the persons before him was responsible for the disturbance; and after a moment’s lull it swelled forth again more wildly than before.

“But what in the name of Heaven does it mean?” broke out the lawyer. “Where is it? Who is it? Am I going out of my mind?”

“Surely, Herr Jensen, it comes from your room next door? Isn’t there a cat or something stuck in the chimney?”

This was the best that occurred to Anderson to say and he realized its futility as he spoke; but anything was better than to stand and listen to that horrible voice, and look at the broad, white face of the landlord, all perspiring and quivering as he clutched the arms of his chair.

“Impossible,” said the lawyer, “impossible. There is no chimney. I came here because I was convinced the noise was going on here. It was certainly in the next room to mine.”

“Was there no door between yours and mine?” said Anderson eagerly.

“No, sir,” said Herr Jensen, rather sharply. “At least, not this morning.”

“Ah!” said Anderson. “Nor tonight?”

“I am not sure,” said the lawyer with some hesitation.

Suddenly the crying or singing voice in the next room died away, and the singer was heard seemingly to laugh to himself in a crooning manner. The three men actually shivered at the sound. Then there was a silence.

“Come,” said the lawyer, “what have you to say, Herr Kristensen? What does this mean?”

“Good Heaven!” said Kristensen. “How should I tell! I know no more than you, gentlemen. I pray I may never hear such a noise again.”

“So do I,” said Herr Jensen, and he added something under his breath. Anderson thought it sounded like the last words of the Psalter, “omnis spiritus laudet Dominum “Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord”, but he could not be sure.

“But we must do something,” said Anderson — “the three of us. Shall we go and investigate in the next room?”

“But that is Herr Jensen’s room,” wailed the landlord. “It is no use; he has come from there himself.”

“I am not so sure,” said Jensen. “I think this gentleman is right: we must go and see.”

The only weapons of defence that could be mustered on the spot were a stick and umbrella. The expedition went out into the passage, not without quakings. There was a deadly quiet outside, but a light shone from under the next door. Anderson and Jensen approached it. The latter turned the handle, and gave a sudden vigorous push. No use. The door stood fast.

“Herr Kristensen,” said Jensen, “will you go and fetch the strongest servant you have in the place? We must see this through.”

The landlord nodded, and hurried off, glad to be away from the scene of action. Jensen and Anderson remained outside looking at the door.

“It is Number 13, you see,” said the latter.

“Yes; there is your door, and there is mine,” said Jensen.

“My room has three windows in the daytime,” said Anderson with difficulty, suppressing a nervous laugh.

“By George, so has mine!” said the lawyer, turning and looking at Anderson. His back was now to the door. In that moment the door opened, and an arm came out and clawed at his shoulder. It was clad in ragged, yellowish linen, and the bare skin, where it could be seen, had long grey hair upon it.

Anderson was just in time to pull Jensen out of its reach with a cry of disgust and fright, when the door shut again, and a low laugh was heard.

Jensen had seen nothing, but when Anderson hurriedly told him what a risk he had run, he fell into a great state of agitation, and suggested that they should retire from the enterprise and lock themselves up in one or other of their rooms.

However, while he was developing this plan, the landlord and two able-bodied men arrived on the scene, all looking rather serious and alarmed. Jensen met them with a torrent of description and explanation, which did not at all tend to encourage them for the fray.

The men dropped the crowbars they had brought, and said flatly that they were not going to risk their throats in that devil’s den. The landlord was miserably nervous and undecided, conscious that if the danger were not faced his hotel was ruined, and very loth to face it himself. Luckily Anderson hit upon a way of rallying the demoralized force.

“Is this,” he said, “the Danish courage I have heard so much of? It isn’t a German in there, and if it was, we are five to one.”

The two servants and Jensen were stung into action by this, and made a dash at the door.

“Stop!” said Anderson. “Don’t lose your heads. You stay out here with the light, landlord, and one of you two men break in the door, and don’t go in when it gives way.”

The men nodded, and the younger stepped forward, raised his crowbar, and dealt a tremendous blow on the upper panel. The result was not in the least what any of them anticipated. There was no cracking or rending of wood — only a dull sound, as if the solid wall had been struck. The man dropped his tool with a shout, and began rubbing his elbow. His cry drew their eyes upon him for a moment; then Anderson looked at the door again. It was gone; the plaster wall of the passage stared him in the face, with a considerable gash in it where the crowbar had struck it. Number 13 had passed out of existence.

For a brief space they stood perfectly still, gazing at the blank wall. An early cock in the yard beneath was heard to crow; and as Anderson glanced in the direction of the sound, he saw through the window at the end of the long passage that the eastern sky was paling to the dawn.

“Perhaps,” said the landlord, with hesitation, “you gentlemen would like another room for tonight — a double-bedded one?”

Neither Jensen nor Anderson was averse to the suggestion. They felt inclined to hunt in couples after their late experience. It was found convenient, when each of them went to his room to collect the articles he wanted for the night, that the other should go with him and hold the candle. They noticed that both Number 12 and Number 14 had three windows.

•   •   •

Next morning the same party reassembled in Number 12. The landlord was naturally anxious to avoid engaging outside help, and yet it was imperative that the mystery attaching to that part of the house should be cleared up. Accordingly the two servants had been induced to take upon them the function of carpenters. The furniture was cleared away, and, at the cost of a good many irretrievably damaged planks, that portion of the floor was taken up which lay nearest to Number 14.

You will naturally suppose that a skeleton — say that of Mag. Nicolas Francken — was discovered. That was not so. What they did find lying between the beams which supported the flooring was a small copper box. In it was a neatly-folded vellum document, with about twenty lines of writing. Both Anderson and Jensen (who proved to be something of a palaeographer) were much excited by this discovery, which promised to afford the key to these extraordinary phenomena.

•   •   •

I possess a copy of an astrological work which I have never read. It has, by way of frontispiece, a woodcut by Hans Sebald Beham, representing a number of sages seated round a table. This detail may enable connoisseurs to identify the book. I cannot myself recollect its title, and it is not at this moment within reach; but the fly-leaves of it are covered with writing, and, during the ten years in which I have owned the volume, I have not been able to determine which way up this writing ought to be read, much less in what language it is. Not dissimilar was the position of Anderson and Jensen after the protracted examination to which they submitted the document in the copper box.

After two days’ contemplation of it, Jensen, who was the bolder spirit of the two, hazarded the conjecture that the language was either Latin or Old Danish.

Anderson ventured upon no surmises, and was very willing to surrender the box and the parchment to the Historical Society of Viborg to be placed in their museum.

I had the whole story from him a few months later, as we sat in a wood near Upsala, after a visit to the library there, where we — or, rather, I — had laughed over the contract by which Daniel Salthenius (in later life Professor of Hebrew at Königsberg) sold himself to Satan. Anderson was not really amused.

“Young idiot!” he said, meaning Salthenius, who was only an undergraduate when he committed that indiscretion, “how did he know what company he was courting?”

And when I suggested the usual considerations he only grunted. That same afternoon he told me what you have read; but he refused to draw any inferences from it, and to assent to any that I drew for him.

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904)

THE LISTENER

Algernon Blackwood

1907

Sept. 4. — I have hunted all over London for rooms suited to my income — £120 a year — and have at last found them. Two rooms, without modern conveniences, it is true, and in an old, ramshackle building, but within a stone’s throw of P——— Place and in an eminently respectable street. The rent is only £25 a year. I had begun to despair when at last I found them by chance.

The chance was a mere chance, and unworthy of record. I had to sign a lease for a year, and I did so willingly. The furniture from our old place in Hampshire, which has been stored so long, will just suit them.

Oct. 1. — Here I am in my two rooms, in the centre of London, and not far from the offices of the periodicals, where occasionally I dispose of an article or two. The building is at the end of a cul-de-sac. The alley is well paved and clean, and lined chiefly with the backs of sedate and institutional-looking buildings. There is a stable in it. My own house is dignified with the title of “Chambers”. I feel as if one day the honour must prove too much for it, and it will swell with pride — and fall asunder. It is very old. The floor of my sitting-room has valleys and low hills on it, and the top of the door slants away from the ceiling with a glorious disregard of what is usual.

They must have quarrelled — fifty years ago — and have been going apart ever since.

Oct. 2. — My landlady is old and thin, with a faded, dusty face. She is uncommunicative. The few words she utters seem to cost her pain. Probably her lungs are half choked with dust. She keeps my rooms as free from this commodity as possible, and has the assistance of a strong girl who brings up the breakfast and lights the fire. As I have said already, she is not communicative.

In reply to pleasant efforts on my part she informed me briefly that I was the only occupant of the house at present. My rooms had not been occupied for some years. There had been other gentlemen upstairs, but they had left.

She never looks straight at me when she speaks, but fixes her dim eyes on my middle waistcoat button, till I get nervous and begin to think it isn’t on straight, or is the wrong sort of button altogether.

Oct. 8. — My week’s book is nicely kept, and so far is reasonable. Milk and sugar 7d., bread 6d., butter 8d., marmalade 6d., eggs 1s. 8d., laundress 2s. 9d., oil 6d., attendance 5s.; total 12s. 2d.

The landlady has a son who, she told me, is “somethink on a homnibus”. He comes occasionally to see her. I think he drinks, for he talks very loud, regardless of the hour of the day or night, and tumbles about over the furniture downstairs.

All the morning I sit indoors writing — articles; verses for the comic papers; a novel I’ve been “at” for three years, and concerning which I have dreams; a children’s book, in which the imagination has free rein; and another book which is to last as long as myself, since it is an honest record of my soul’s advance or retreat in the struggle of life. Besides these, I keep a book of poems which I use as a safety valve, and concerning which I have no dreams whatsoever.

Between the lot I am always occupied. In the afternoons I generally try to take a walk for my health’s sake, through Regent’s Park, into Kensington Gardens, or farther afield to Hampstead Heath.

Oct. 10. — Everything went wrong today. I have two eggs for breakfast. This morning one of them was bad. I rang the bell for Emily. When she came in I was reading the paper, and, without looking up, I said, “Egg’s bad.” “Oh, is it, sir?” she said; “I’ll get another one,” and went out, taking the egg with her. I waited my breakfast for her return, which was in five minutes. She put the new egg on the table and went away. But, when I looked down, I saw that she had taken away the good egg and left the bad one — all green and yellow — in the slop basin. I rang again.

“You’ve taken the wrong egg,” I said.

“Oh!” she exclaimed; “I thought the one I took down didn’t smell so very bad.” In due time she returned with the good egg, and I resumed my breakfast with two eggs, but less appetite. It was all very trivial, to be sure, but so stupid that I felt annoyed. The character of that egg influenced everything I did. I wrote a bad article, and tore it up. I got a bad headache. I used bad words — to myself. Everything was bad, so I “chucked” work and went for a long walk.

I dined at a cheap chophouse on my way back, and reached home about nine o’clock.

Rain was just beginning to fall as I came in, and the wind was rising. It promised an ugly night. The alley looked dismal and dreary, and the hall of the house, as I passed through it, felt chilly as a tomb. It was the first stormy night I had experienced in my new quarters. The draughts were awful. They came criss-cross, met in the middle of the room, and formed eddies and whirlpools and cold silent currents that almost lifted the hair of my head. I stuffed up the sashes of the windows with neckties and odd socks, and sat over the smoky fire to keep warm. First I tried to write, but found it too cold. My hand turned to ice on the paper.

What tricks the wind did play with the old place! It came rushing up the forsaken alley with a sound like the feet of a hurrying crowd of people who stopped suddenly at the door. I felt as if a lot of curious folk had arranged themselves just outside and were staring up at my windows.

Then they took to their heels again and fled whispering and laughing down the lane, only, however, to return with the next gust of wind and repeat their impertinence. On the other side of my room a single square window opens into a sort of shaft, or well, that measures about six feet across to the back wall of another house. Down this funnel the wind dropped, and puffed and shouted. Such noises I never heard before. Between these two entertainments I sat over the fire in a greatcoat, listening to the deep booming in the chimney. It was like being in a ship at sea, and I almost looked for the floor to rise in undulations and rock to and fro.

Oct. 12. — I wish I were not quite so lonely — and so poor. And yet I love both my loneliness and my poverty. The former makes me appreciate the companionship of the wind and rain, while the latter preserves my liver and prevents me wasting time in dancing attendance upon women.

Poor, ill-dressed men are not acceptable “attendants”.

My parents are dead, and my only sister is — no, not dead exactly, but married to a very rich man. They travel most of the time, he to find his health, she to lose herself. Through sheer neglect on her part she has long passed out of my life. The door closed when, after an absolute silence of five years, she sent me a cheque for £50 at Christmas. It was signed by her husband! I returned it to her in a thousand pieces and in an unstamped envelope. So at least I had the satisfaction of knowing that it cost her something! She wrote back with a broad quill pen that covered a whole page with three lines, “You are evidently as cracked as ever, and rude and ungrateful into the bargain.” It had always been my special terror lest the insanity of my father’s family should leap across the generations and appear in me. This thought haunted me, and she knew it. So after this little exchange of civilities the door slammed, never to open again. I heard the crash it made, and, with it, the falling from the walls of my heart of many little bits of china with their own peculiar value — rare china, some of it, that only needed dusting. The same walls, too, carried mirrors in which I used sometimes to see reflected the misty lawns of childhood, the daisy chains, the wind-torn blossoms scattered through the orchard by warm rains, the robbers’ cave in the long walk, and the hidden store of apples in the hayloft. She was my inseparable companion then — but, when the door slammed, the mirrors cracked across their entire length, and the visions they held vanished forever. Now I am quite alone. At forty one cannot begin all over again to build up careful friendships, and all others are comparatively worthless.

Oct. 14. — My bedroom is 10 by 10. It is below the level of the front room, and a step leads down into it. Both rooms are very quiet on calm nights, for there is no traffic down this forsaken alleyway. In spite of the occasional larks of the wind, it is a most sheltered strip. At its upper end, below my windows, all the cats of the neighbourhood congregate as soon as darkness gathers. They lie undisturbed on the long ledge of a blind window of the opposite building, for after the postman has come and gone at 9.30, no footsteps ever dare to interrupt their sinister conclave, no step but my own, or sometimes the unsteady footfall of the son who “is somethink on a homnibus”.

Oct. 15. — I dined at an “A.B.C.” shop on poached eggs and coffee, and then went for a stroll round the outer edge of Regent’s Park. It was ten o’clock when I got home, I counted no less than thirteen cats, all of a dark colour, crouching under the lee side of the alley walls. It was a cold night, and the stars shone like points of ice in a blue-black sky. The cats turned their heads and stared at me in silence as I passed. An odd sensation of shyness took possession of me under the glare of so many pairs of unblinking eyes. As I fumbled with the latchkey they jumped noiselessly down and pressed against my legs, as if anxious to be let in. But I slammed the door in their faces and ran quickly upstairs. The front room, as I entered to grope for the matches, felt as cold as a stone vault, and the air held an unusual dampness.

Oct. 17. — For several days I have been working on a ponderous article that allows no play for the fancy. My imagination requires a judicious rein; I am afraid to let it loose, for it carries me sometimes into appalling places beyond the stars and beneath the world. No one realises the danger more than I do. But what a foolish thins to write here — for there is no one to know, no one to realize! My mind of late has held unusual thoughts, thoughts I have never had before, about medicines and drugs and the treatment of strange illnesses. I cannot imagine their source.

At no time in my life have I dwelt upon such ideas now constantly throng my brain. I have had no exercise lately, for the weather has been shocking; and all my afternoons have been spent in the reading-room of the British Museum, where I have a reader’s ticket.

I have made an unpleasant discovery: there are rats in the house. At night from my bed I have heard them scampering across the hills and valleys of the front room, and my sleep has been a good deal disturbed in consequence.

Oct. 19. — The landlady, I find, has a little boy with her, probably her son’s child. In fine weather he plays in the alley, and draws a wooden cart over the cobbles. One of the wheels is off, and it makes a most distracting noise. After putting up with it as long as possible, I found it was getting on my nerves, and I could not write. So I rang the bell. Emily answered it.

“Emily, will you ask the little fellow to make less noise? It’s impossible to work.”

The girl went downstairs, and soon afterwards the child was called in by the kitchen door. I felt rather a brute for spoiling his play. In a few minutes, however, the noise began again, and I felt that he was the brute. He dragged the broken toy with a string over the stones till the rattling noise jarred every nerve in my body. It became unbearable, and I rang the bell a second time.

“That noise must be put a stop to!” I said to the girl, with decision.

“Yes, sir,” she grinned, “I know; but one of the wheels is hoff. The men in the stable offered to mend it for ’im, but he wouldn’t let them. He says he likes it that way.”

“I can’t help what he likes. The noise must stop. I can’t write.”

“Yes, sir; I’ll tell Mrs. Monson.”

The noise stopped for the day then.

Oct. 23. — Every day for the past week that cart has rattled over the stones, till I have come to think of it as a huge carrier’s van with four wheels and two horses; and every morning I have been obliged to ring the bell and have it stopped. The last time Mrs. Monson herself came up, and said she was sorry I had been annoyed; the sounds should not occur again. With rare discursiveness she went on to ask if I was comfortable, and how I liked the rooms. I replied cautiously. I mentioned the rats. She said they were mice. I spoke of the draughts. She said, “Yes, it were a draughty ’ouse.” I referred to the cats, and she said they had been as long as she could remember. By way of conclusion, she informed me that the house was over two hundred years old, and that the last gentleman who had occupied my rooms was a painter who “’ad real Jimmy Bueys and Raffles ’anging all hover the walls”. It took me some moments to discern that Cimabue and Raphael were in the woman’s mind.

Oct. 24. — Last night the son who is “somethink on a homnibus” came in. He had evidently been drinking, for I heard loud and angry voices below in the kitchen long after I had gone to bed. Once, too, I caught the singular words rising up to me through the floor, “Burning from top to bottom is the only thing that’ll ever make this ’ouse right.” I knocked on the floor, and the voices ceased suddenly, though later I again heard their clamour in my dreams.

These rooms are very quiet, almost too quiet sometimes. On windless nights they are silent as the grave, and the house might be miles in the country. The roar of London’s traffic reaches me only in heavy, distant vibrations. It holds an ominous note sometimes, like that of an approaching army, or an immense tidal wave very far away thundering in the night.

Oct. 27. — Mrs. Monson, though admirably silent, is a foolish, fussy woman. She does such stupid things. In dusting the room she puts all my things in the wrong places. The ashtrays, which should be on the writing-table, she sets in a silly row on the mantelpiece. The pen-tray, which should be beside the inkstand, she hides away cleverly among the books on my reading-desk.

My gloves she arranges daily in idiotic array upon a half-filled bookshelf, and I always have to rearrange them on the low table by the door. She places my armchair at impossible angles between the fire and the light, and the tablecloth — the one with Trinity Hall stains — she puts on the table in such a fashion that when I look at it I feel as if my tie and all my clothes were on crooked and awry. She exasperates me. Her very silence and meekness are irritating.

Sometimes I feel inclined to throw the inkstand at her, just to bring an expression into her watery eyes and a squeak from those colourless lips. Dear me! What violent expressions I am making use of! How very foolish of me! And yet it almost seems as if the words were not my own, but had been spoken into my ear — I mean, I never make use of such terms naturally.

Oct. 30. — I have been here a month. The place does not agree with me, I think. My headaches are more frequent and violent, and my nerves are a perpetual source of discomfort and annoyance.

I have conceived a great dislike for Mrs. Monson, a feeling I am certain she reciprocates.

Somehow, the impression comes frequently to me that there are goings on in this house of which I know nothing, and which she is careful to hide from me.

Last night her son slept in the house, and this morning as I was standing at the window I saw him go out. He glanced up and caught my eye. It was a loutish figure and a singularly repulsive face that I saw, and he gave me the benefit of a very unpleasant leer. At least, so I imagined.

Evidently I am getting absurdly sensitive to trifles, and I suppose it is my disordered nerves making themselves felt. In the British Museum this afternoon I noticed several people at the readers’ table staring at me and watching every movement I made. Whenever I looked up from my books I found their eyes upon me. It seemed to me unnecessary and unpleasant, and I left earlier than was my custom. When I reached the door I threw back a last look into the room, and saw every head at the table turned in my direction. It annoyed me very much, and yet I know it is foolish to take note of such things. When I am well they pass me by. I must get more regular exercise. Of late I have had next to none.

Nov. 2. — The utter stillness of this house is beginning to oppress me. I wish there were other fellows living upstairs. No footsteps ever sound overhead, and no tread ever passes my door to go up the next flight of stairs. I am beginning to feel some curiosity to go up myself and see what the upper rooms are like. I feel lonely here and isolated, swept into a deserted corner of the world and forgotten…. Once I actually caught myself gazing into the long, cracked mirrors, trying to sec the sunlight dancing beneath the trees in the orchard. But only deep shadows seemed to congregate there now, and I soon desisted.

It has been very dark all day, and no wind stirring. The fogs have begun. I had to use a reading-lamp all this morning. There was no cart to be heard today. I actually missed it. This morning, in the gloom and silence, I think I could almost have welcomed it. After all, the sound is a very human one, and this empty house at the end of the alley holds other noises that are not quite so satisfactory.

I have never once seen a policeman in the lane, and the postmen always hurry out with no evidence of a desire to loiter.

10 p.m. — As I write this I hear no sound but the deep murmur of the distant traffic and the low sighing of the wind. The two sounds melt into one another. Now and again a cat raises its shrill, uncanny cry upon the darkness. The cats are always there under my windows when the darkness falls. The wind is dropping into the funnel with a noise like the sudden sweeping of immense distant wings. It is a dreary night. I feel lost and forgotten.

Nov. 3 — From my windows I can see arrivals. When anyone comes to the door I can just see the hat and shoulders and the hand on the bell. Only two fellows have been to see me since I came here two months ago. Both of them I saw from the window before they came tip, and heard their voices asking if I was in. Neither of them ever came back.

I have finished the ponderous article. On reading it through, however, I was dissatisfied with it, and drew my pencil through almost every page. There were strange expressions and ideas in it, that I could not explain, and viewed with amazement, not to say alarm. They did not sound like my very own, and I could not remember having written them. Can it be that my memory is beginning to be affected?

My pens are never to be found. That stupid old woman puts them in a different place each day. I must give her due credit for finding so many new hiding places; such ingenuity is wonderful. I have told her repeatedly, but she always says, “I’ll speak to Emily, sir.” Emily always says, “I’ll tell Mrs. Monson, sir.” Their foolishness makes me irritable and scatters all my thoughts. I should like to stick the lost pens into them and turn them out, blind-eyed, to be scratched and mauled by those thousand hungry cats. Whew! What a ghastly thought! Where in the world did it come from? Such an idea is no more my own than it is the policeman’s. Yet I felt I had to write it. It was like a voice singing in my head, and my pen wouldn’t stop till the last word was finished. What ridiculous nonsense! I must and will restrain myself. I must take more regular exercise; my nerves and liver plague me horribly.

Nov. 4. — I attended a curious lecture in the French quarter on “Death”, but the room was so hot and I was so weary that I fell asleep. The only part I heard, however, touched my imagination vividly. Speaking of suicides, the lecturer said that self-murder was no escape from the miseries of the present, but only a preparation of greater sorrow for the future. Suicides, he declared, cannot shirk their responsibilities so easily. They must return to take up life exactly where they laid it so violently down, but with the added pain and punishment of their weakness. Many of them wander the earth in unspeakable misery till they can re-clothe themselves in the body of someone else — generally a lunatic, or weak-minded person, who cannot resist the hideous obsession. This is their only means of escape. Surely a weird and horrible idea! I wish I had slept all the time and not heard it at all. My mind is morbid enough without such ghastly fancies. Such mischievous propaganda should be stopped by the police. I’ll write to the Times and suggest it.

Good idea!

I walked home through Greek Street, Soho, and imagined that a hundred years had slipped back into place and De Quincey was still there, haunting the night with invocations to his “just, subtle, and mighty” drug. His vast dreams seemed to hover not very far away. Once started in my brain, the pictures refused to go away; and I saw him sleeping in that cold, tenantless mansion with the strange little waif who was afraid of its ghosts, both together in the shadows under a single horseman’s cloak; or wandering in the companionship of the spectral Anne; or, later still, on his way to the eternal rendezvous at the foot of Great Titchfield Street, the rendezvous she never was able to keep. What an unutterable gloom, what an untold horror of sorrow and suffering comes over me as I try to realise something of what that man — boy he then was — must have taken into his lonely heart.

As I came up the alley I saw a light in the top window, and a head and shoulders thrown in an exaggerated shadow upon the blind. I wondered what the son could be doing up there at such an hour.

Nov. 5. — This morning, while writing, someone came up the creaking stairs and knocked cautiously at my door. Thinking it was the landlady, I said, “Come in!” The knock was repeated, and I cried louder, “Come in, come in!” But no one turned the handle, and I continued my writing with a vexed “Well, stay out, then!” under my breath. Went on writing? I tried to, but my thoughts had suddenly dried up at their source. I could not set down a single word. It was a dark, yellow-fog morning, and there was little enough inspiration in the air as it was, but that stupid woman standing just outside my door waiting to be told again to come in roused a spirit of vexation that filled my head to the exclusion of all else. At last I jumped up and opened the door myself.

“What do you want, and why in the world don’t you come in?” I cried out. But the words dropped into empty air. There was no one there. The fog poured up the dingy staircase in deep yellow coils, but there was no sign of a human being anywhere.

I slammed the door, with imprecations upon the house and its noises, and went back to my work. A few minutes later Emily came in with a letter.

“Were you or Mrs. Monson outside a few minutes ago knocking at my door?”

“No, sir.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mrs. Monson’s gone to market, and there’s no one but me and the child in the ’ole ’ouse, and I’ve been washing the dishes for the last hour, sir.”

I fancied the girl’s face turned a shade paler. She fidgeted towards the door with a glance over her shoulder.

“Wait, Emily,” I said, and then told her what I had heard. She stared stupidly at me, though her eyes shifted now and then over the articles in the room.

“Who was it?” I asked when I had come to the end. “Mrs. Monson says it’s only mice,” she said, as if repeating a learned lesson.

“Mice!” I exclaimed; “it’s nothing of the sort. Someone was feeling about outside my door. Who was it? Is the son in the house?”

Her whole manner changed suddenly, and she became earnest instead of evasive. She seemed anxious to tell the truth.

“Oh no, sir; there’s no one in the house at all but you and me and the child, and there couldn’t ’ave been nobody at your door. As for them knocks—” She stopped abruptly, as though she had said too much.

“Well, what about the knocks?” I said more gently.

“Of course,” she stammered, “the knocks isn’t mice, nor the footsteps neither, but then—”

Again she came to a full halt.

“Anything wrong with the house?”

“Lor,’ no, sir; the drains is splendid!”

“I don’t mean drains, girl. I mean, did anything — anything bad ever happen here?”

She flushed up to the roots of her hair, and then turned suddenly pale again. She was obviously in considerable distress, and there was something she was anxious, yet afraid to tell — some forbidden thing she was not allowed to mention.

“I don’t mind what it was, only I should like to know,” I said encouragingly.

Raising her frightened eyes to my face, she began to blurt out something about “that which ’appened once to a gentleman that lived hupstairs”, when a shrill voice calling her name sounded below.

“Emily, Emily!” It was the returning landlady, and the girl tumbled downstairs as if pulled backwards by a rope, leaving me full of conjectures as to what in the world could have happened to a gentleman upstairs that could in so curious a manner affect my ears downstairs.

Nov. 10. — I have done capital work; have finished the ponderous article and had it accepted for the Review, and another one ordered. I feel well and cheerful, and have had regular exercise and good sleep; no headaches, no nerves, no liver! Those pills the chemist recommended are wonderful. I can watch the child playing with his cart and feel no annoyance; sometimes I almost feel inclined to join him. Even the grey-faced landlady rouses pity in me; I am sorry for her: so worn, so weary, so oddly put together, just like the building. She looks as if she had once suffered some shock of terror, and was momentarily dreading another. When I spoke to her today very gently about not putting the pens in the ashtray and the gloves on the book-shelf, she raised her faint eyes to mine for the first time, and said with the ghost of a smile, “I’ll try and remember, sir.” I felt inclined to pat her on the back and say, “Come, cheer up and be jolly. Life’s not so bad after all.” Oh! I am much better. There’s nothing like open air and success and good sleep. They build up as if by magic the portions of the heart eaten down by despair and unsatisfied yearnings. Even to the cats I feel friendly. When I came in at eleven o’clock tonight they followed me to the door in a stream, and I stooped down to stroke the one nearest to me.

Bah! The brute hissed and spat, and struck at me with her paws. The claw caught my hand and drew blood in a thin line. The others danced sideways into the darkness, screeching, as though I had done them an injury. I believe these cats really hate me. Perhaps they are only waiting to be reinforced. Then they will attack me. Ha, ha! In spite of the momentary annoyance, this fancy sent me laughing upstairs to my room.

The fire was out, and the room seemed unusually cold. As I groped my way over to the mantelpiece to find the matches I realised all at once that there was another person standing beside me in the darkness. I could, of course, see nothing, but my fingers, feeling along the ledge, came into forcible contact with something that was at once withdrawn. It was cold and moist. I could have sworn it was somebody’s hand. My flesh began to creep instantly.

“Who’s that?” I exclaimed in a loud voice.

My voice dropped into the silence like a pebble into a deep well. There was no answer, but at the same moment I heard someone moving away from me across the room in the direction of the door. It was a confused sort of footstep, and the sound of garments brushing the furniture on the way. The same second my hand stumbled upon the matchbox, and I struck a light. I expected to see Mrs. Monson, or Emily, or perhaps the son who is something on an omnibus. But the flare of the gas-jet illumined an empty room; there was not a sign of a person anywhere. I felt the hair stir upon my head, and instinctively I backed tip against the wall, lest something should approach me from behind. I was distinctly alarmed. But the next minute I recovered myself. The door was open on to the landing, and I crossed the room, not without some inward trepidation, and went out. The light from the room fell upon the stairs, but there was no one to be seen anywhere, nor was there any sound on the creaking wooden staircase to indicate a departing creature.

I was in the act of turning to go in again when a sound overhead caught my ear. It was a very faint sound, not unlike the sigh of wind; yet it could not have been the wind, for the night was still as the grave. Though it was not repeated, I resolved to go upstairs and see for myself what it all meant. Two senses had been affected — touch and hearing — and I could not believe that I had been deceived. So, with a lighted candle, I went stealthily forth on my unpleasant journey into the upper regions of this queer little old house.

On the first landing there was only one door, and it was locked. On the second there was also only one door, but when I turned the handle it opened. There came forth to meet me the chill musty air that is characteristic of a long unoccupied room. With it there came an indescribable odour. I use the adjective advisedly. Though very faint, diluted as it were, it was nevertheless an odour that made my gorge rise. I had never smelt anything like it before, and I cannot describe it.

The room was small and square, close under the roof, with a sloping ceiling and two tiny windows. It was cold as the grave, without a shred of carpet or a stick of furniture. The icy atmosphere and the nameless odour combined to make the room abominable to me, and, after lingering a moment to see that it contained no cupboards or corners into which a person might have crept for concealment, I made haste to shut the door, and went downstairs again to bed.

Evidently I had been deceived after all as to the noise.

In the night I had a foolish but very vivid dream. I dreamed that the landlady and another person, dark and not properly visible, entered my room on all fours, followed by a horde of immense cats. They attacked me as I lay in bed, and murdered me, and then dragged my body upstairs and deposited it on the floor of that cold little square room under the roof.

Nov. 11. — Since my talk with Emily — the unfinished talk — I have hardly once set eyes on her. Mrs. Monson now attends wholly to my wants. As usual, she does everything exactly as I don’t like it done. It is all too utterly trivial to mention, but it is exceedingly irritating. Like small doses of morphine often repeated, she has finally a cumulative effect.

Nov. 12. — This morning I woke early, and came into the front room to get a book, meaning to read in bed till it was time to get tip. Emily was laying the fire.

“Good morning!” I said cheerfully. “Mind you make a good fire. It’s very cold.”

The girl turned and showed me a startled face. It was not Emily at all!

“Where’s Emily?” I exclaimed.

“You mean the girl as was ’ere before me?”

“Has Emily left?”

“I came on the 6th,” she replied sullenly, “and she’d gone then.” I got my book and went back to bed. Emily must have been sent away almost immediately after our conversation. This reflection kept coming between me and the printed page. I was glad when it was time to get up.

Such prompt energy, such merciless decision, seemed to argue something of importance — to somebody.

Nov. 13. — The wound inflicted by the cat’s claw has swollen, and causes me annoyance and some pain. It throbs and itches. I’m afraid my blood must be in poor condition, or it would have healed by now. I opened it with a penknife soaked in an antiseptic solution, and cleansed it thoroughly. I have heard unpleasant stories of the results of wounds inflicted by cats.

Nov. 14. — In spite of the curious effect this house certainly exercises upon my nerves, I like it. It is lonely and deserted in the very heart of London, but it is also for that reason quiet to work in. I wonder why it is so cheap. Some people might he suspicious, but I did not even ask the reason. No answer is better than a lie. If only I could remove the cats from the outside and the rats from the inside. I feel that I shall grow accustomed more and more to its peculiarities, and shall die here. Ah, that expression reads queerly and gives a wrong impression: I meant live and die here. I shall renew the lease from year to year till one of us crumbles to pieces. From present indications the building will be the first to go.

Nov. 16. — It is abominable the way my nerves go up and down with me — and rather discouraging. This morning I woke to find my clothes scattered about the room, and a cane chair overturned beside the bed. My coat and waistcoat looked just as if they had been tried on by someone in the night. I had horribly vivid dreams, too, in which someone covering his face with his hands kept coming close up to me, crying out as if in pain. “Where can I find covering? Oh, who will clothe me?” How silly, and yet it frightened me a little. It was so dreadfully real. It is now over a year since I last walked in my sleep and woke up with such a shock on the cold pavement of Earl’s Court Road, where I then lived. I thought I was cured, but evidently not. This discovery has rather a disquieting effect upon me. Tonight I shall resort to the old trick of tying my toe to the bedpost.

Nov. 17. — Last night I was again troubled by most oppressive dreams. Someone seemed to be moving in the night up and down my room, sometimes passing into the front room, and then returning to stand beside the bed and stare intently down upon me. I was being watched by this person all night long. I never actually awoke, though I was often very near it. I suppose it was a nightmare from indigestion, for this morning I have one of my old vile headaches. Yet all my clothes lay about the floor when I awoke, where they had evidently been flung (had I so tossed them?) during the dark hours, and my trousers trailed over the step into the front room.

Worse than this, though — I fancied I noticed about the room in the morning that strange, foetid odour. Though very faint, its mere suggestion is foul and nauseating. What in the world can it be, I wonder?… In future I shall lock my door.

Nov. 26. — I have accomplished a lot of good work during this past week, and have also managed to get regular exercise. I have felt well and in an equable state of mind. Only two things have occurred to disturb my equanimity. The first is trivial in itself, and no doubt to be easily explained. The upper window where I saw the light on the night of November 4, with the shadow of a large head and shoulders upon the blind, is one of the windows in the square room under the roof. In reality it has no blind at all!

Here is the other thing. I was coming home last night in a fresh fall of snow about eleven o’clock, my umbrella low down over my head. Half-way up the alley, where the snow was wholly untrodden, I saw a man’s legs in front of me. The umbrella hid the rest of his figure, but on raising it I saw that he was tall and broad and was walking, as I was, towards the door of my house. He could not have been four feet ahead of me. I had thought the alley was empty when I entered it, but might of course have been mistaken very easily.

A sudden gust of wind compelled me to lower the umbrella, and when I raised it again, not half a minute later, there was no longer any man to be seen. With a few more steps I reached the door. It was closed as usual. I then noticed with a sudden sensation of dismay that the surface of the freshly fallen snow was unbroken. My own footmarks were the only ones to be seen anywhere, and though I retraced my way to tile point where I had first seen the man, I could find no slightest impression of any other boots. Feeling creepy and uncomfortable, I went upstairs, and was glad to get into bed.

Nov. 28. — With the fastening of my bedroom door the disturbances ceased. I am convinced that I walked in my sleep. Probably I untied my toe and then tied it up again. The fancied security of the locked door would alone have been enough to restore sleep to my troubled spirit and enable me to rest quietly.

Last night, however, the annoyance was suddenly renewed another and more aggressive form. I woke in the darkness with the impression that someone was standing outside my bedroom door listening. As I became more awake the impression grew into positive knowledge.

Though there was no appreciable sound of moving or breathing, I was so convinced of the propinquity of a listener that I crept out of bed and approached the door. As I did so there came faintly from the next room the unmistakable sound of someone retreating stealthily across the floor. Yet, as I heard it, it was neither the tread of a man nor a regular footstep, but rather, it seemed to me, a confused sort of crawling, almost as of someone on his hands and knees.

I unlocked the door in less than a second, and passed quickly into the front room, and I could feel, as by the subtlest imaginable vibrations upon my nerves, that the spot I was standing in had just that instant been vacated! The Listener had moved; he was now behind the other door, standing in the passage. Yet this door was also closed. I moved swiftly, and as silently as possible, across the floor, and turned the handle. A cold rush of air met me from the passage and sent shiver after shiver down my back. There was no one in the doorway; there was no one on the little landing; there was no one moving down the staircase. Yet I had been so quick that this midnight Listener could not be very far away, and I felt that if I persevered I should eventually come face to face with him. And the courage that came so opportunely to overcome my nervousness and horror seemed born of the unwelcome conviction that it was somehow necessary for my safety as well as my sanity that I should find this intruder and force his secret from him. For was it not the intent action of his mind upon my own, in concentrated listening, that had awakened me with such a vivid realisation of his presence?

Advancing across the narrow landing, I peered down into the well of the little house. There was nothing to be seen; no one was moving in the darkness. How cold the oilcloth was to my bare feet.

I cannot say what it was that suddenly drew my eyes upwards. I only know that, without apparent reason, I looked up and saw a person about half-way up the next turn of the stairs, leaning forward over the balustrade and staring straight into my face. It was a man. He appeared to be clinging to the rail rather than standing on the stairs. The gloom made it impossible to see much beyond the general outline, but the head and shoulders were seemingly enormous, and stood sharply silhouetted against the skylight in the roof immediately above. The idea flashed into my brain in a moment that I was looking into the visage of something monstrous. The huge skull, the mane-like hair, the wide-humped shoulders, suggested, in a way I did not pause to analyse, that which was scarcely human; and for some seconds, fascinated by horror, I returned the gaze and stared into the dark, inscrutable countenance above me, without knowing exactly where I was or what I was doing.

Then I realised in quite a new way that I was face to face with the secret midnight Listener, and I steeled myself as best I could for what was about to come.

The source of the rash courage that came to me at this awful moment will ever be to me an inexplicable mystery. Though shivering with fear, and my forehead wet with an unholy dew, I resolved to advance. Twenty questions leaped to my lips: What are you? What do you want?

Why do you listen and watch? Why do you come into my room? But none of them found articulate utterance.

I began forthwith to climb the stairs, and with the first signs of my advance he drew himself back into the shadows and began to move. He retreated as swiftly as I advanced. I heard the sound of his crawling motion a few steps ahead of me, ever maintaining the same distance. When I reached the landing he was half-way up the next flight, and when I was half-way up the next flight he had already arrived at the top landing. I then heard him open the door of the little square room under the roof and go in. Immediately, though the door did not close after him, the sound of his moving entirely ceased.

At this moment I longed for a light, or a stick, or any weapon whatsoever; but I had none of these things, and it was impossible to go back. So I marched steadily up the rest of the stairs, and in less than a minute found myself standing in the gloom face to face with the door through which this creature had just entered.

For a moment I hesitated. The door was about half-way open, and the Listener was standing evidently in his favourite attitude just behind it — listening. To search through that dark room for him seemed hopeless; to enter the same small space where he was seemed horrible. The very idea filled me with loathing, and I almost decided to turn back.

It is strange at such times how trivial things impinge on the consciousness with a shock as of something important and immense. Something — it may have been a beetle or a mouse — scuttled over the bare boards behind me. The door moved a quarter of an inch, closing. My decision came back with a sudden rush, as it were, and thrusting out a foot, I kicked the door so that it swung sharply back to its full extent, and permitted me to walk forward slowly into the aperture of profound blackness beyond. What a queer soft sound my bare feet made on the boards! how the blood sang and buzzed in my head!

I was inside. The darkness closed over me, hiding even the windows. I began to grope my way round the walls in a thorough search; but in order to prevent all possibility of the other’s escape, I first of all closed the door.

There we were, we two, shut in together between four walls, within a few feet of one another.

But with what, with whom, was I thus momentarily imprisoned? A new light flashed suddenly over the affair with a swift, illuminating brilliance — and I knew I was a fool, an utter fool! I was wide awake at last, and the horror was evaporating. My cursed nerves again; a dream, a nightmare, and the old result — walking in my sleep. The figure was a dream-figure. Many a time before had the actors in my dreams stood before me for some moments after I was awake….

There was a chance match in my pyjamas’ pocket, and I struck it on the wall. The room was utterly empty. It held not even a shadow. I went quickly down to bed, cursing my wretched nerves and my foolish, vivid dreams. But as soon as ever I was asleep again, the same uncouth figure of a man crept back to my bedside, and bending over me with his immense head close to my ear, whispered repeatedly in my dreams, “I want your body; I want its covering. I’m waiting for it, and listening always.” Words scarcely less foolish than the dream.

But I wonder what that queer odour was up in the square room. I noticed it again, and stronger than ever before, and it seemed to be also in my bedroom when I woke this morning.

Nov. 29. — Slowly, as moonbeams rise over a misty sea in June, the thought is entering my mind that my nerves and somnambulistic dreams do not adequately account for the influence this house exercises upon me. It holds me as with a fine, invisible net. I cannot escape if I would. It draws me, and it means to keep me.

Nov. 30. — The post this morning brought me a letter from Aden, forwarded from my old rooms in Earl’s Court. It was from Chapter, my former Trinity chum, who is on his way home from the East, and asks for my address. I sent it to him at the hotel he mentioned, “to await arrival”.

As I have already said, my windows command a view of the alley, and I can see an arrival without difficulty. This morning, while I was busy writing, the sound of footsteps coming up the alley filled me with a sense of vague alarm that I could in no way account for. I went over to the window, and saw a man standing below waiting for the door to be opened. His shoulders were broad, his top-hat glossy, and his overcoat fitted beautifully round the collar. All this I could see, but no more. Presently the door was opened, and the shock to my nerves was unmistakable when I heard a man’s voice ask, “Is Mr. — still here?” mentioning my name. I could not catch the answer, but it could only have been in the affirmative, for the man entered the hall and the door shut to behind him. But I waited in vain for the sound of his steps on the stairs. There was no sound of any kind. It seemed to me so strange that I opened my door and looked out. No one was anywhere to be seen. I walked across the narrow landing, and looked through the window that commands the whole length of the alley. There was no sign of a human being, coming or going.

The lane was deserted. Then I deliberately walked downstairs into the kitchen, and asked the grey-faced landlady if a gentleman had just that minute called for me.

The answer, given with an odd, weary sort of smile, was “No!”

Dec. 1. — I feel genuinely alarmed and uneasy over the state of my nerves. Dreams are dreams, but never before have I had dreams in broad daylight.

I am looking forward very much to Chapter’s arrival. He is a capital fellow, vigorous, healthy, with no nerves, and even less imagination; and he has £2,000 a year into the bargain.

Periodically he makes me offers — the last was to travel round the world with him as secretary, which was a delicate way of paying my expenses and giving me some pocket-money — offers, however, which I invariably decline. I prefer to keep his friendship. Women could not come between us; money might — therefore I give it no opportunity. Chapter always laughed at what he called my “fancies”, being himself possessed only of that thin-blooded quality of imagination which is ever associated with the prosaic-minded man. Yet, if taunted with this obvious lack, his wrath is deeply stirred. His psychology is that of the crass materialist — always a rather funny article. It will afford me genuine relief, none the less, to hear the cold judgment his mind will have to pass upon the story of this house as I shall have it to tell.

Dec. 2. — The strangest part of it all I have not referred to in this brief diary. Truth to tell, I have been afraid to set it down in black and white. I have kept it in the background of my thoughts, preventing it as far as possible from taking shape. In spite of my efforts, however, it has continued to grow stronger.

Now that I come to face the issue squarely it is harder to express than I imagined. Like a half-remembered melody that trips in the head but vanishes the moment you try to sing it, these thoughts form a group in the background of my mind, behind my mind, as it were, and refuse to come forward. They are crouching ready to spring, but the actual leap never takes place.

In these rooms, except when my mind is strongly concentrated on my own work, I find myself suddenly dealing in thoughts and ideas that are not my own! New, strange conceptions, wholly foreign to my temperament, are forever cropping up in my head. What precisely they are is of no particular importance. The point is that they are entirely apart from the channel in which my thoughts have hitherto been accustomed to flow. Especially they come when my mind is at rest, unoccupied; when I’m dreaming over the fire, or sitting with a book which fails to hold my attention. Then these thoughts which are not mine spring into life and make me feel exceedingly uncomfortable. Sometimes they are so strong that I almost feel as if someone were in the room beside me, thinking aloud.

Evidently my nerves and liver are shockingly out of order. I must work harder and take more vigorous exercise. The horrid thoughts never come when my mind is much occupied. But they are always there — waiting and as it were alive.

What I have attempted to describe above came first upon me gradually after I had been some days in the house, and then grew steadily in strength. The other strange thing has come to me only twice in all these weeks. It appals me. It is the consciousness of the propinquity of some deadly and loathsome disease. It comes over me like a wave of fever heat, and then passes off, leaving me cold and trembling. The air seems for a few seconds to become tainted. So penetrating and convincing is the thought of this sickness, that on both occasions my brain has turned momentarily dizzy, and through my mind, like flames of white heat, have flashed the ominous names of all the dangerous illnesses I know. I can no more explain these visitations than I can fly, yet I know there is no dreaming about the clammy skin and palpitating heart which they always leave as witnesses of their brief visit.

Most strongly of all was I aware of this nearness of a mortal sickness when, on the night of the 28th, I went upstairs in pursuit of the listening figure. When we were shut in together in that little square room under the roof, I felt that I was face to face with the actual essence of this invisible and malignant disease. Such a feeling never entered my heart before, and I pray to God it never may again.

There! Now I have confessed. I have given some expression at least to the feelings that so far I have been afraid to see in my own writing. For — since I can no longer deceive myself — the experiences of that night (28th) were no more a dream than my daily breakfast is a dream; and the trivial entry in this diary by which I sought to explain away an occurrence that caused me unutterable horror was due solely to my desire not to acknowledge in words what I really felt and believed to be true. The increase that would have accrued to my horror by so doing might have been more than I could stand.

Dec. 3. — I wish Chapter would come. My facts are all ready marshalled, and I can see his cool, grey eyes fixed incredulously on my face as I relate them: the knocking at my door, the well-dressed caller, the light in the upper window and the shadow upon the blind, the man who preceded me in the snow, the scattering of my clothes at night, Emily’s arrested confession, the landlady’s suspicious reticence, the midnight listener on the stairs, and those awful subsequent words in my sleep; and above all, and hardest to tell, the presence of the abominable sickness, and the stream of thoughts and ideas that are not my own.

I can see Chapter’s face, and I can almost hear his deliberate words, “You’ve been at the tea again, and underfeeding, I expect, as usual. Better see my nerve doctor, and then come with me to the south of France.” For this fellow, who knows nothing of disordered liver or high-strung nerves, goes regularly to a great nerve specialist with the periodical belief that his nervous system is beginning to decay.

Dec. 5. — Ever since the incident of the Listener, I have kept a night-light burning in my bedroom, and my sleep has been undisturbed. Last night, however, I was subjected to a far worse annoyance. I woke suddenly, and saw a man in front of the dressing-table regarding himself in the mirror. The door was locked, as usual. I knew at once it was the Listener, and the blood turned to ice in my veins. Such a wave of horror and dread swept over me that it seemed to turn me rigid in the bed, and I could neither move nor speak. I noted, however, that the odour I so abhorred was strong in the room.

The man seemed to be tall and broad. He was stooping forward over the mirror. His back was turned to me, but in the glass I saw the reflection of a huge head and face illumined fitfully by the flicker of the night-light. The spectral grey of very early morning stealing in round the edges of the curtains lent an additional horror to the picture, for it fell upon hair that was tawny and mane-like, hanging loosely about a face whose swollen, rugose features bore the once seen never forgotten leonine expression of — I dare not write down that awful word. But, byway of corroborative proof, I saw in the faint mingling of the two lights that there were several bronze-coloured blotches on the cheeks which the man was evidently examining with great care in the glass. The lips were pale and very thick and large. One hand I could not see, but the other rested on the ivory back of my hairbrush. Its muscles were strangely contracted, the fingers thin to emaciation, the back of the hand closely puckered up. It was like a big grey spider crouching to spring, or the claw of a great bird.

The full realisation that I was alone in the room with this nameless creature, almost within arm’s reach of him, overcame me to such a degree that, when he suddenly turned and regarded me with small beady eyes, wholly out of proportion to the grandeur of their massive setting, I sat bolt upright in bed, uttered a loud cry, and then fell back in a dead swoon of terror upon the bed.

Dec. 6. — …When I came to this morning, the first thing I noticed was that my clothes were strewn all over the floor…. I find it difficult to put my thoughts together, and have sudden accesses of violent trembling. I determined that I would go at once to Chapter’s hotel and find out when he is expected. I cannot refer to what happened in the night; it is too awful, and I have to keep my thoughts rigorously away from it. I feel light-headed and queer, couldn’t eat any breakfast, and have twice vomited with blood. While dressing to go out, a hansom rattled up noisily over the cobbles, and a minute later the door opened, and to my great joy in walked the very subject of my thoughts.

The sight of his strong face and quiet eyes had an immediate effect upon me, and I grew calmer again. His very handshake was a sort of tonic. But, as I listened eagerly to the deep tones of his reassuring voice, and the visions of the night-time paled a little, I began to realise how very hard it was going to be to tell him my wild intangible tale. Some men radiate an animal vigour that destroys the delicate woof of a vision and effectually prevents its reconstruction.

Chapter was one of these men.

We talked of incidents that had filled the interval since we last met, and he told me something of his travels. He talked and I listened. But, so full was I of the horrid thing I had to tell, that I made a poor listener. I was forever watching my opportunity to leap in and explode it all under his nose.

Before very long, however, it was borne in upon me that he too was merely talking for time.

He too held something of importance in the background of his mind, something too weighty to let fall till the right moment presented itself. So that during the whole of the first half-hour we were both waiting for the psychological moment in which properly to release our respective bombs; and the intensity of our minds’ action set up opposing forces that merely sufficed to hold one another in check — and nothing more. As soon as I realised this, therefore, I resolved to yield.

I renounced for the time my purpose of telling my story, and had the satisfaction of seeing that his mind, released from the restraint of my own, at once began to make preparations for the discharge of its momentous burden. The talk grew less and less magnetic; the interest waned; the descriptions of his travels became less alive. There were pauses between his sentences. Presently he repeated himself. His words clothed no living thoughts. The pauses grew longer. Then the interest dwindled altogether and went out like a candle in the wind. His voice ceased, and he looked up squarely into my face with serious and anxious eyes.

The psychological moment had come at last!

“I say—” he began, and then stopped short.

I made an unconscious gesture of encouragement, but said no word. I dreaded the impending disclosure exceedingly. A dark shadow seemed to precede it.

“I say,” he blurted out at last, “what in the world made you ever come to this place — to these rooms, I mean?”

“They’re cheap, for one thing,” I began, “and central and—”

“They’re too cheap,” he interrupted. “Didn’t you ask what made ’em so cheap?”

“It never occurred to me at the time.”

There was a pause in which he avoided my eyes.

“For God’s sake, go on, man, and tell it!” I cried, for the suspense was getting more than I could stand in my nervous condition.

“This was where Blount lived so long,” he said quietly, “and where he — died. You know, in the old days I often used to come here and see him, and do what I could to alleviate his—” He stuck fast again.

“Well!” I said with a great effort. “Please go on — faster.”

“But,” Chapter went on, turning his face to the window with a perceptible shiver, “he finally got so terrible I simply couldn’t stand it, though I always thought I could stand anything. It got on my nerves and made me dream, and haunted me day and night.”

I stared at him, and said nothing. I had never heard of Blount in my life, and didn’t know what he was talking about. But, all the same, I was trembling, and my mouth had become strangely dry.

“This is the first time I’ve been back here since,” he said almost in a whisper, “and, ’pon my word, it gives me the creeps. I swear it isn’t fit for a man to live in. I never saw you look so bad, old man.”

“I’ve got it for a year,” I jerked out, with a forced laugh; “signed the lease and all. I thought it was rather a bargain.”

Chapter shuddered, and buttoned his overcoat up to his neck. Then he spoke in a low voice, looking occasionally behind him as though he thought someone was listening. I too could have sworn someone else was in the room with us.

“He did it himself, you know, and no one blamed him a bit; his sufferings were awful. For the last two years he used to wear a veil when he went out, and even then it was always in a closed carriage. Even the attendant who had nursed him for so long was at length obliged to leave. The extremities of both the lower limbs were gone, dropped off, and he moved about the ground on all fours with a sort of crawling motion. The odour, too, was—”

I was obliged to interrupt him here. I could hear no more details of that sort. My skin was moist, I felt hot and cold by turns, for at last I was beginning to understand.

“Poor devil,” Chapter went on; “I used to keep my eyes closed as much as possible. He always begged to be allowed to take his veil off, and asked if I minded very much. I used to stand by the open window. He never touched me, though. He rented the whole house. Nothing would induce him to leave it.”

“Did he occupy — these very rooms?”

“No. He had the little room on the top floor, the square one just under the roof. He preferred it because it was dark. These rooms were too near the ground, and he was afraid people might see him through the windows. A crowd had been known to follow him up to the very door, and then stand below the windows in the hope of catching a glimpse of his face.”

“But there were hospitals.”

“He wouldn’t go near one, and they didn’t like to force him. You know, they say it’s not contagious, so there was nothing to prevent his staying here if he wanted to. He spent all his time reading medical books, about drugs and so on. His head and face were something appalling, just like a lion’s.”

I held up my hand to arrest further description.

“He was a burden to the world, and he knew it. One night I suppose he realised it too keenly to wish to live. He had the free use of drugs — and in the morning he was found dead on the floor. Two years ago, that was, and they said then he had still several years to live.”

“Then, in Heaven’s name!” I cried, unable to bear the suspense any longer, “tell me what it was he had, and be quick about it.”

“I thought you knew!” he exclaimed, with genuine surprise. “I thought you knew!”

He leaned forward and our eyes met. In a scarcely audible whisper I caught the words his lips seemed almost afraid to utter:

“He was a leper!”

The Listener and Other Stories (1907)

THE BLOOD FETISH

Morley Roberts

1909

Outside the tent the forest was alive and busy, as it is forever in the tropics of Africa. Birds called with harsh strange notes from dark trees, for, though the forest was even more full of creeping shadows, the sun had not yet sunk beyond the western flats through which the Kigi ran to the sea. Monkeys chattered and howled: and beneath this chorus was the hum of a million insects, that voice of the bush which never ceases. The sick man in the tent moved uneasily and looked at his companion.

“Give me something to drink, doctor,” he said.

The doctor supported his head while he drank.

“Were there any of your drugs in it?” asked the patient.

“No, Smith,” said the doctor.

“My taste is morbid,” said Smith. “I shan’t last long, old chap.”

Dr Winslow looked out into the forest, into the night, for now it was night very suddenly.

“Nonsense,” said Winslow. “You’ll live to take your collection home and be more famous than you are now.”

“Am I famous?” asked Simcox Smith. “I suppose I am in my way. I’m thought to know more than most about this country and the devilish ways of it. Everyone acknowledges that, or everyone but Hayling.”

He frowned as he mentioned the name.

“He’s no better than an ignorant fool,” he remarked. “But we see strange things here, doctor.”

The doctor sighed.

“I suppose so,” he said, “but what fools we are to be here at all.”

The dying man shook his head.

“No, no, I’ve learnt a lot, old chap. I wish I could teach Hayling. I meant to, and now I can’t. He’ll spend all his time trying to discredit my — my discoveries.”

“Lie quiet,” said the doctor, and for long minutes Simcox Smith and the anthropologist said nothing. He lay thinking. But he spoke at last.

“I’ve not bought that thing from Suja,” he said.

“Don’t,” said Winslow.

“You think it’s fraud?”

“I’m sure of it,” said Winslow.

Simcox Smith laughed.

“You are as bad as Hayling.”

He put out his hand and drew Winslow closer to him.

“Suja showed me what it did,” he said. “I saw it myself.”

“On what?” asked Winslow quickly.

“On a prisoner, one who was killed when you were away.”

“And it did—”

“Did something! My God, yes,” said the anthropologist, shivering.

“What?” asked the doctor curiously, but with drawn brows.

“He grew pale and it got red. I thought I saw the wrist,” said Simcox Smith. “I thought I saw it. I did see it.”

Winslow would have said it was all a delusion if Smith had been well. He knew how men’s minds went in the rotten bush of the West Coast. He had seen intellects rot, and feared for his own.

“Oh,” said Winslow.

The sick man lay back in his bed.

“I’ll buy it and send it to Hayling.”

“Nonsense,” said Winslow; “don’t.”

“You don’t believe it, so why shouldn’t I send it? I will. I’ll show Hayling! He’s a blind fool, and believes there are no devilish things in this world. What is this world, old chap, and what are we? It’s all horrible and ghastly. Fetch Suja, old chap.”

“Nonsense, lie down and be quiet,” said Winslow.

“I want Suja, the old rascal, I want him,” said Smith urgently. “I must have it for Hayling. I’d like Hayling or some of his house to grow pale. They’ll see more than the wrist. Oh God! What’s the head like?”

He shivered.

“I want Suja,” he said moaning, and presently Winslow went out and send a boy for Suja, who came crawling on his hands and knees, for he was monstrously old and withered and weak. But his eyes were alive. They looked like lamps in a gnarled piece of wood. He kneeled on the floor beside Smith’s bed. Smith talked to him in his own tongue that Winslow could not understand, and the two men, the two dying men, talked long and eagerly while Winslow smoked. Suja was dying, had been dying for twenty, fifty years. His people said they knew not how old he was. But Smith would die next day, said Winslow. Suja and Smith talked, and at last they came to an agreement. And then Suja crawled out of the tent.

“Get me a hundred dollars out of my chest,” said Smith. “And when I am dead you will give him my clothes and blankets; all of them.”

“All right if you say so,” said Winslow. He got the hundred dollars out, and presently the old sorcerer came back. With him he brought a parcel done up in fibre and a big leaf, and over that some brown paper on which was a label in red letters, with great care. It was a precious piece of paper, and not a soul thereabouts but Suja would have touched it. The red letters were some dreadful charm, so Suja had told the others.

“This is it,” said Suja.

“Give him the money,” said Smith eagerly.

He turned to Suja and spoke quietly to him in his own tongue.

“It’s not mine, Suja, but John Hayling’s. Say it.”

Winslow heard Suja say something, and then he heard the words, “Shon ’Aylin’.”

Simcox Smith looked up at Winslow.

“He gives it to Hayling,Winslow,” he said triumphantly.

“Is that part of the mumbo jumbo?” asked Winslow, half contemptuously. But somehow he was not wholly contemptuous. The darkness of the night and the glimmer of the lamp in the darkness, and the strange and horrible aspect of the sorcerer affected him.

“Shon ’Aylin’,” mumbled Suja, as he counted his dollars.

“Yes, it’s part of it,” said Smith. “It won’t work except on the one who owns it and on his people. It must be transferred. We have it to the slave who died.”

“It’s a beastly idea,” said Winslow.

“You’ll send it for me,” said Smith. “You must.”

“Oh, all right,” said Winslow.

With trembling hands Smith put the packet into a biscuit tin.

Old Suja crept out into the darkness.

“I believe anything with that old devil in the tent,” said Winslow.

Smith giggled.

“It’s true, and it’s Hayling’s. I always meant to send it to him, the unbelieving beast,” he said. “I wish I was going to live to see it. You’ll send it,Winslow?”

“Yes.”

“You promise on your word of honour?” insisted Smith.

Reluctantly enough, Winslow gave his word of honour, and Smith was satisfied. And at ten o’clock that night he died in his sleep.

Winslow packed up all his papers and collections, and sent him down to the coast by carriers and canoe. The packet containing the fetish which Smith had bought from the ancient sorcerer he sent by post to England. He addressed it to A.J. Hayling, 201 Lansdown Road, St John’s Wood. By this time Winslow had recovered his tone. He believed nothing which he could not see. He was angry with himself for having been affected by what Smith and old Suja had said and done.

“It’s absurd, of course,” said Winslow, with bend brows. He added, “but it’s a beastly idea.”

When he sent the fetish away he wrote a letter to go with it, saying that Simcox Smith had often spoken to him of his rival in England. He described briefly what had occurred at the time of Smith’s death, and gave some brief details of old Suja. He was obviously very old, and all the natives for miles round were frightened of him. Nevertheless, there was, of course, nothing in the thing. Latterly the climate and overwork had obviously affected Smith’s mind. “I should not sent it if he had not made me promise to do so on my word of honour,” wrote Winslow.

He dismissed the matter from his mind, and the parcel and letter went home by the next Elder Dempster boat.

Mr Hayling was rather pleased than otherwise to hear of Simcox Smith’s decease, although he said “poor fellow,” as one must when a scientific enemy and rival dies. They had quarrelled for years when they met at the Society’s rooms, and had fought in the scientific journals. Hayling was an anthropological Mr Gradgrind. He wanted facts, and nothing but facts. He believed he was a Baconian, as he knew nothing of Bacon. It had never occurred to him that there was any mystery in anything. There was nothing but ignorance, and most men were very ignorant. The existence of men, of things, of the universe, of matter itself, were all taken for granted by him, in the same way they were taken for granted by the average man. What made Simcox Smith (who had a penchant for metaphysics) once jokingly called the Me-ness of the Ego was an absurdity. It was idiocy. When a man begins to think what made himself an Ego and what constitutes “Me”, he is on the verge of insanity unless he is a great philosopher.

“Simcox Smith is an ass,” said Hayling, quite oblivious to the fact that Smith had done good work in many directions and offered some conjectural hypotheses to the world which had much merit and might someday rank as theories. “Simcox Smith is an ass. He believed in occultism. He believed, I am prepared to swear, in witchcraft. He mistook the horrible ideas of a savage race for realities. Would you believe it, he even said that everything believed in utter and simple faith had a kind of reality? He said this was a law of nature!”

Obviously Simcox Smith had been mad. But some easily affected and imaginative people said it was a dreadful idea, just as Winslow had said the notion of Suja’s blood fetish was a beastly one. Imagine for an instant that the idea was true! It meant that the frightful imaginations of madmen had a quasi existence at least! It meant that there was a dreadful element of truth (for who knew what truth was?) in any conceived folly. A man had but to imagine something to create it. One of Smith’s friends really believed this. He was an atheist, he said, but he believed (in a way, he added, as he laughed) that mankind had really created a kind of anthropomorphic deity, with the passions and feelings attributed to him by belief and tradition. No wonder, said this friend of Smith’s, that the world was a horrible place to anyone who could grasp its misery and had ears for its groans.

It must be acknowledged that this idea of Simcox Smith’s was a horrible one. It really affected some men. One tried it on a child (he was very scientific, and believed in his experiments he could more or less control) and the child saw things which threw it into a fit and injured it for life. Nevertheless, it was a very interesting experiment, for something happened to the child (there were odd marks on it) which looked like something more than suggestion, unless it all true that we hear of stigmata. Perhaps it is, but personally I have an idea (I knew Smith) that there is something in his damnable creating theory.

But to return to Hayling. He got the parcel from the Coast, and he read Winslow’s letter.

“Poor fellow,” said Hayling; “so he’s dead at last. Well, well! And what is this that he sends? A blood fetish? Ah, he thinks he can convert me at the last, the poor mad devil.”

He opened the parcel, and inside the matting and the leaves, which smelt of the West Coast of Africa (the smell being muddy and very distinctive to those who have smelt it), he found a dried black hand, severed at the wrist joint.There was nothing else, only this hand.

“Humph,” said Hayling, who had nerves which had never been shaken by the bush and the fevers of the bush, and had never heard black men whispering dreadfully of the lost soulds of the dead. “Humph.”

He picked it up and looked at it. It was an ordinary hand, a right hand, and there was nothing remarkable about it at first. On a further look the nails seemed remarkably long, and that gave the hand a rather cruel look. Hayling said “humph,” again. He examined it carefully and saw that it was very deeply marked on the palm.

“Very interesting,” said Hayling. Curiously enough (or rather it would have been curious if we didn’t know that the strongest of us have our weak spots), he had a belief or some belief in palmistry. He had never acknowledged it to a soul but a well-known palmist in the west of London. “Very interesting. I wonder what Sacconi would say of these lines?”

Sacconi was the palmist. He was an Irishman.

“I’ll show it to Sacconi,” said Hayling. He packed it up in its box again and put it in a cupboard, which he locked up. He dismissed the matter, for he had a good deal to do. He had to write something about Simcox Smith, for instance, and he was working on totemism. He hardly thought of the dried hand for some days.

Hayling was a bachelor, and lived with a niece and a housekeeper. He was a nice man to live with unless one knew anything about anthropology and totems and such like, and Mary Hayling knew nothing about them whatever. She said “Yes, uncle dear,” and “No, uncle dear,” just as she ought to do, and when he abused Simcox Smith, or Robins-Gunter, or Williams, who were rivals of his, she was always sympathetic and said it was a shame.

“What’s a shame?” said Hayling.

“I don’t know, dear uncle,” said Mary Hayling.

And Hayling laughed.

Then there was the housekeeper. She was fair, stout and ruddy, and very cheerful in spite of the fact that skulls and bones and specimen things in bottles made her flesh creep. She knew nothing whatever about them, and wondered what they mattered. Why Mr Hayling raged and rumbled about other men’s opinions on such horrid subjects she didn’t know. However, she took everything easily, and only remonstrated when the fullness of the house necessitated skulls being exposed to public view. The passage even had some of them and the maids objected to dusting them, as was only natural. Hayling said he didn’t want ’em dusted, but what would any housekeeper who was properly constituted think of that? She made the girls dust them, though she herself shivered. She even saw that they wiped glass bottles with awful things inside them. She and the housemaid cleaned up Mr Hayling’s own room and opened the cupboard where the hand was. The girl gave a horrid squeak as she put her hand in and touched it.

“O, law, ma’am, what is it?” asked Kate.

“Don’t be a fool, girl,” said Mrs Farwell, with a shiver. “It’s only a hand.”

“Only — oh Lord! I won’t touch it,” said the girl. “There’s a dead mouse by it.”

“Then take out the dead mouse,” said the housekeeper. The girl did so, and slammed the cupboard door to and locked it. The mouse was a poor shriveled little thing, but how interesting it would have been to dead Simcox Smith neither Kate nor the housekeeper knew. It went into the dustbin as if it did not bear witness to a horror.

That afternoon Mrs Farwell spoke to Hayling.

“If you please, sir, there’s a hand in that cupboard, and I couldn’t get Kate to clean it out.”

“A hand! Oh yes, I remember,” said Hayling. “The girl’s a fool. Does she think it will hurt her? How did she know it was there? I wrapped it up. Someone’s been meddling.”

“I don’t think so, sir,” said Mrs Farwell, with dignity. “She is much too frightened to meddle, and so am I.”

“Mrs Farwell, you are a fool,” said Hayling.

“Thank you, sir,” said Mrs Farwell. When Mrs Farwell had sailed out of the room Hayling opened the cupboard and found the hand out of its package.

“Someone has been meddling,” growled Hayling.“They pretend that they are frightened and come hunting here to get a sensation. I know “em. They’re all savages, and so are all of us. Civilization!”

He gave a snort when he thought of what civilization was. That is an anthropological way of looking at it. It’s not a theological way at all.

He looked at the hand. It was a curious hand.

“It’s contracted a little,” said Hayling. “The fist has closed, I think. Drying unequally. But it’s interesting; I’ll show it to Sacconi.”

He put the hand into its coverings, and took it that very afternoon to Sacconi.

Personally Hayling believed in chiromancy. As I have said, it really was his only weakness. I never used to believe it when he argued with me, but now I have my doubts. When Sacconi took the thing into his own white and beautiful hands and turned it over to look at the palm, his eyebrows went up in a very odd way. Hayling said so.

“This, oh, ah,” said Sacconi. His real name was Flynn. He came from Limerick. “This is very odd — very—”

“Very what?” asked Hayling.

“Horrible, quite horrible,” said Sacconi.

“Can you read it, man?”

Sacconi grunted.

“Can I read the Times? I can, but I don’t. I’ve half the mind not to read this. It’s very horrible, Hayling.”

“The devil,” said Hayling;“what d’ye mean?”

“This is a negro’s hand.”

“Any fool can see that,” said Hayling rudely.

“A murderer’s hand.”

“That’s likely enough,” said Hayling.

“A cannibal’s hand.”

“You don’t say so!” said Hayling.

“Oh, worse than that.”

“What’s worse?”

Sacconi said a lot that Hayling denounced as fudge. Probably it was fudge. And yet—

“I’d burn it,” said Sacconi, with a shiver, as he handed it back to Hayling, and went to wash his hands. “I’d burn it.”

“There’s a damn weak spot in you, Sacconi,” said the anthropologist.

“Perhaps,” said Sacconi, “but I’d burn it.”

“Damn nonsense,” said Hayling. “Why should I?”

“I believe a lot of things you don’t,” said Sacconi.

“I disbelieve a lot that you don’t,” retorted Hayling.

“You see, I’m a bit of a clairvoyant,” said Sacconi.

“I’ve heard you say that before,” said Hayling, as he went away.

When he got home again he put the hand in the cupboard. He forgot to lock it up. And he locked the cat up in his room when he went to bed.

There was an awful crying of cats, or a cat, in the middle of the night. But cats fight about that time.

And when Kate opened the door of Hayling’s working-room in the morning she saw the hand upon the hearthrug, and gave a horrid scream. It brought Mrs Farwell out of the drawling room, and Hayling out of the bathroom in a big towel.

“What the devil—” said Hayling.

“What is it, Kate?” cried Mrs Farwell.

“The hand! the hand!” said Kate. “It’s on the floor.”

Mrs Farwell saw it. Hayling put on his dressing-gown, and came down and saw it, too.

“Give that fool a month’s notice,” said Hayling. “She’s been meddling again.”

“I haven’t,” said Kate, sobbing. And then Mrs Farwell saw the cat lying stretched out under Hayling’s desk.

“It was the cat. There she is,” said Mrs Farwell.

“Damn the cat,” said Hayling. He took Kate’s broom and gave the cat a push with it.

The cat was dead.

“I don’t want a month’s notice,” said Kate, quavering. “I’ll go now.”

“Send the fool off,” said Hayling angrily. He took up the cat, of which he had been very fond, and put it outside, and shut the door on the crying girl and Mrs Farwell. He picked up the hand and looked at it.

“Very odd,” said Hayling.

He looked again.

“Very beastly,” said Hayling. “I suppose it’s my imagination.”

He looked once more.

“Looks fresher,” said Hayling. “These fools of women have infected me.”

He put the hand down on his desk by the side of a very curious Maori skull, and went upstairs again to finish dressing.

That morning the scientific monthlies were out, and there was much of interest in them that Hayling forgot all about the hand. He had an article in one of them abusing Robins-Gunter, whose views on anthropology were coloured by his fanaticism in religion. “Imagine a man like that thinking he is an authority on anything scientific,” said Hayling. It was a pleasure to slaughter him on his own altar, and indeed this time Hayling felt he had offered Robins-Gunter up to the outraged deity of Truth.

“It’s a massacre,” said Hayling; “it’s not a criticism — it’s a massacre.”

He said “Ha-ha!” and went to town to hear what others had to say about it. They had so much to say that he remained at the club till very late, and got rather too much wine to drink. Or perhaps it was the whisky-and-soda. He left his working-room door open and unlocked.

Kate had gone, sacrificing a fortnight’s wages. Mrs Farwell said she was a fool. Kate said she would rather be a fool outside that house. She also said a lot of foolish things about the hand, which had a very silly effect upon the housekeeper. For how else can we account for what happened that night? Kate said that the beastly hand was alive, and that it had killed the cat. Uneducated superstitious girls from the country often say things as silly. But Mrs Farwell was a woman of nerves. She only went to sleep when heard her master come in.

She woke screaming at three o’clock, and Hayling was still so much under the influence of Robins-Gunter’s scientific blood and the club whisky that he didn’t wake. But Mary Hayling woke and so did the cook, and they came running to Mrs Farwell’s room. They found her door open.

“What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” screamed Mary Hayling. She brought a candle and found Mrs Farwell sitting up in bed.

She was as white as a ghost, bloodlessly white. “There’s been a horrible thing in my room,” she whispered.

The cook collapsed on a chair; Mary Hayling say on the bed and put her arms round the housekeeper.

“What?”

“I saw it,” whispered Mrs Farwell. “A black man, reddish black, very horrible — “

She fainted, and Mary laid her down.

“Stay with her,” said Mary. “I’ll go and wake my uncle.”

The cook whimpered, but she lighted the gas and stayed, while Mary hammered on Hayling’s door. He thought it was thunderous applause at a dinner given him by the Royal Society. Then he woke.

“What is it?”

Mary opened the door and told him to get up.

“Oh, these women,” he said.

His head ached. He went upstairs cursing and found Mrs Farwell barely conscious.

The cook was shaking like a jelly, and Hayling thrust her aside. He had some medical training before he turned to anthropology, and he took hold of the housekeeper’s wrist, and found her pulse a mere running thread.

“Go and bring brandy,” said Hayling, “and fetch Dr Sutton from next door.”

He was very white himself. So far as he could guess she looked as if she were dying of loss of blood. But she didn’t die. Sutton, when he came in, said the same.

“She’s not white only from fainting, she’s blanched,” he declared.

He turned back her nightgown, and found a very strange red patch on her shoulder. It was redder than the white skin, and moist. He touched it with a handkerchief, and the linen was faintly reddened. He turned and stared at Hayling.

“This is very extraordinary,” he said, and Hayling nodded.

He tried to speak and could not. At last he got his voice. It was dry and thick.

“Don’t you think the patch is the shape of a hand?” asked Hayling.

“Yes, rather,” replied Sutton; “somewhat like it, I should say.”

They were all in the room then: Mary Hayling and the cook. There was no other person in the house. They could have sworn that was a fact. They heard a noise below.

“What’s that?” asked Hayling.

“Someone gone out the front door, sir,” said the trembling cook.

“Nonsense,” said Hayling.

But the door slammed. When he ran down he found no one about. He went upstairs again shaking. For he had looked for something in his own room and had not found it.

The next day there was a curious paragraph in all the evening papers.

“The freshly severed hand of a negro was picked up early this morning in Lansdown Road, St John’s Wood, just outside the residence of the well-known anthropologist, Mr A.J. Hayling. The police are investigating the mystery.”

But Hayling destroyed the article in which he proposed to massacre the poor credulous Simcox Smith.

Midsummer Madness (1909)

THE ASTROLOGER’S LEGACY

“Roger Pater”
(Gilbert Roger Hudlestone)

1923

26 May, St Philip’s feast, is the squire’s birthday, and every year he celebrates the day by giving a little dinner party to a few very intimate friends. But, as he says, rather sadly, “I have outlived most of my generation;” and, for some years past, the whole number, including the host and a guest or two who may be staying at the Hall, has seldom reached as many as ten.

On the first birthday for which I was present there were only half a dozen of us in all at the dinner. These were, first, Father Bertrand, an English Dominican Friar, and one of the squire’s oldest friends, who usually spent some weeks with him every summer. Second, Sir John Gervase, a local baronet and antiquarian, who, besides being an F.S.A., and one of the greatest living authorities on stained glass, was also one of the few Catholic gentry in the neighbourhood of Stanton Rivers. The third was Herr Aufrecht, a German professor, who had come to England to study some manuscripts in the British Museum, and had brought a letter of introduction from a common friend in Munich. Fourth, there was the rector of the next parish, who had been a Fellow of one of the colleges at Cambridge for most of his life, but had accepted the living, which was in the gift of his college, a few years previously, and had since become very intimate with the old squire, who, with myself, completed the number.

The mansion of Stanton Rivers is built round a little quadrangle, of which the servants’ quarters and kitchen occupy the north side, the dining-room being at the north end of the west wing. When we are alone, however, the squire has all meals served in the morning-room; a small, cheerful apartment on the east side of the house, with dull, ivory-coloured walls, hung with exquisite old French pastels, and furnished entirely with Chippendale furniture, designed expressly for the squire’s grandfather by the famous cabinet-maker; the original contract and bills for which are preserved in the family archives.

The birthday dinner, however, as befits an “institution”, is always served in the dining-room proper, which is approached through the beautiful long apartment, stretching the whole length of the west wing, which the squire has made into the library. The dining-room is large and finely proportioned, and has its original Jacobean decoration, the walls being panelled in dark oak, with a carved cornice and plaster ceiling delicately moulded with a strapwork design, in which the cockle shells of the Rivers escutcheon are repeated again and again in combination with the leopards’ heads of Stanton. The broad, deep fireplace has polished steel “dogs” instead of a grate, and above it is a carved overmantel reaching to the ceiling, and emblazoned with all the quarterings the united families can boast, with their two mottoes, which combine so happily. Sans Dieu rien and Garde ta Foy.

I think the squire would prefer not to use the dining-room even for his birthday dinner, but he hasn’t the heart to sadden Avison, the butler, by suggesting this. Indeed, the occasion is Avison’s annual opportunity, and he glories in decking out the table with the finest things the house possesses in the way of family plate, glass, and china: while Mrs Parkin, the cook, and Saunders, the gardener, in their respective capacities, second his efforts with the utmost zeal.

The evening was an exquisite one, and we sat in the library talking and watching the changing effects of the fading lights as they played on the garden before the windows, until Avison threw open the folding doors and announced that dinner was served. Hitherto I had only seen the room in dSshabille, and it was quite a surprise to see how beautiful it now looked. The dark panelling, reflecting the warm sunset glow which came in through the broad mullioned windows, formed a perfect background to the dinner-table, with its shaded candles, delicate flowers, and gleams of light from glass and plate: and I felt that Avison’s effort was really an artistic triumph. The same thought, I fancy, struck the rest of the guests, for no sooner had Father Bertrand said grace than Sir John burst out in admiration:

“My dear squire, what exquisite things you do possess! Someday I shall come and commit a burglary on you. Your glass and silver are a positive temptation.”

The host smiled, but I noticed that his eyes were fixed on the centre of the table, and that the eyelids were slightly drawn down, an expression I had learned to recognize as a sign of annoyance, carefully controlled. Following his gaze, I glanced at the table-centre, but before I could decide what it was, the German professor, who was sitting next me, broke out in a genial roar:

“Mein Gott, Herr Pater, but what is this?” and he pointed to the exquisite piece of plate in the centre of the table.

“We call it the Cellini fountain, Herr Aufrecht,” answered the squire, “though it is certainly not a fountain, but a rose-water dish, and I can give you very little evidence that it is really Cellini’s work.”

“Effidence,” exclaimed the German — “it has its own effidence. What more want you? None but Benvenuto could broduce such a one. But how did you come to possess it?”

There was no doubt about the eyelids now, and I feared the other guests would notice their host’s annoyance, but the squire controlled his voice perfectly as he answered:

“Oh, it has been in the family for more than three centuries; Sir Hubert Rivers, the ancestor whose portrait hangs at the foot of the stairs, is believed to have brought it back from Italy.”

I thought I could guess the cause of his annoyance now, for the ancestor in question had possessed a most unenviable reputation, and, by a strange trick of heredity, the squire’s features were practically a reproduction of Sir Hubert’s — a fact which was a source of no little secret chagrin to the saintly old priest. Fortunately, at this point, the rector turned the conversation down another channel; Herr Aufrecht did not pursue the subject further, and the squire’s eyelids soon regained their normal elevation.

As the meal advanced the German came out as quite a brilliant talker, and the conversational ball was kept up so busily between Father Bertrand, the rector, and himself that the other three of us had little to do but listen and be entertained. A good deal of the talk was above my head, however, and during these periods my attention came back to the great rose-water dish which shone and glittered in the centre of the table.

In the first place I had never seen it before, which struck me as a little odd, for Avison had discovered my enthusiasm for old silver, and so had taken me to the pantry and displayed all the plate for my benefit. However, I concluded that so valuable a piece was probably put away in the strongroom, which would account for its not appearing with the rest.

What puzzled me more was the unusual character of the design, for every curve and line of the beautiful piece seemed purposely arranged to concentrate the attention on a large globe of rock crystal, which formed the centre and summit of the whole. The actual basin, filled with rose-water, extended beneath this ball, which was supported by four exquisite silver figures, and the constant play of reflected lights between the water and the crystal was so fascinating that I wondered the idea had never been repeated; yet, so far as my knowledge went, the design was unique.

Seated as I was, at the foot of the table, I faced the squire, and after a while I noticed that he, too, had dropped out of the conversation, and had his gaze fixed on the crystal globe. All at once his eyes dilated and his lips parted quickly, as if in surprise, while his gaze became concentrated with an intensity that startled me. This lasted for fully a minute, and then Avison happened to take away his plate. The distraction evidently broke the spell, whatever it was, for he began to talk again, and, as it seemed to me, kept his eyes carefully away from the crystal during the rest of the meal.

After we had drunk the squire’s health, we retired to the library, where Avison brought us coffee, and about ten o’clock Sir John’s carriage was announced. He had promised to give the rector a lift home, so the two of them soon departed together, and only the professor and Father Bertrand were left with the squire and myself. I felt a little afraid lest Herr Aufrecht should return to the subject of the Cellini fountain, but to my surprise, as soon as the other two were gone, the squire himself brought up the subject, which I thought he wished to avoid.

“You seemed interested in the rose-water fountain, Herr Aufrecht,” he remarked, “would you like to examine it now that the others are gone?”

The German beamed with delight, and accepted the proposal volubly, while the squire rang the bell for Avison, and ordered him to bring the Cellini fountain to the library for Herr Aufrecht to see. The butler looked almost as pleased as the professor, and in a minute the splendid piece of plate was placed on a small table, arranged in the full light of a big shaded lamp.

The professor’s flow of talk stopped abruptly as the conversationalist gave place to the connoisseur. Seating himself beside the little table, he produced a pocket lens, and proceeded to examine every part of the fountain with minute care, turning it slowly round as he did so. For fully five minutes he sat in silence, absorbed in his examination, and I noticed that his attention returned continually to the great crystal globe, supported by the four lovely figures, which formed the summit of the whole. Then he leaned back in his chair and delivered his opinion.

“It is undoubtedly by Cellini,” he said, “and yet the schema is not like him. I think the patron for whom he laboured did compel him thus to fashion it. That great crystal ball at top — no, it is not what Benvenuto would do of himself. Think you not so?” and he turned to the squire with a look of interrogation.

“I will tell you all I know about it in a minute, professor,” answered the old priest, “but first please explain to me why you think Cellini was not left free in the design.”

“Ach so,” replied the German, “it is the crystal globe. He is too obvious, too assertive; how is it you say in English, he ‘hit you in the eye’. You haf read the Memoirs of Benvenuto?” The squire nodded. “Ach, then you must see it, yourself. Do you not remember the great morse he make, the cope-clasp for Clemens septimus? The Pope show to him his great diamond, and demand a model for a clasp with it set therein. The other artists, all of them, did make the diamond the centre of the whole design. But Cellini? No. He put him at the feet of God the Father, so that the lustre of the great gem would set off all the work, but should not dominate the whole, for ars est celare artem. Now here,” and he laid his hand upon the crystal globe, “here it is otherwise.

“These statuettes, they are perfection, in efery way they are worth far more than is the crystal. Yet, the great ball, he crush them, he kill them. You see him first, last, all the time. No, he is there for a purpose, but the purpose is not that of the design, not an artistic purpose, no. I am sure of it, he is there for use.”

As he finished speaking, he turned quickly towards the squire, and looked up at him with an air of conviction. I followed his example, and saw the old priest smiling quietly with an expression of admiration and agreement.

“You are perfectly right, professor,” he said quietly, “the crystal was put there with a purpose, at least so I firmly believe; and I expect you can tell us also what the purpose was.”

“No, no, Herr Pater,” answered the other. “If you know the reason, why make I guesses at it? Better you should tell us all about it, is it not so?”

“Very well,” replied the squire, and he seated himself beside the little table. Father Bertrand and myself did the same, and when we were all settled, he turned to the professor and began:

“I mentioned at dinner that this piece of plate was brought from Italy by Sir Hubert Rivers, and, first of all, I must tell you something about him. He was born about the year 1500, and lived to be over ninety years old, so his life practically coincides with the sixteenth century. His father died soon after Hubert came of age, and he thus became a person of some importance while still quite young. He was knighted by Henry VIII a year or two later, and soon afterwards was sent to Rome in the train of the English Ambassador.

“There his brilliant parts attracted attention, and he soon abandoned his diplomatic position to become a member of the Papal entourage, though without any official position. When the breach between Henry and the Pope took place, he attached himself to the suite of the Imperial Ambassador, thus avoiding any trouble with his own sovereign, who could not afford to quarrel still further with the Emperor, as well as any awkward questions as to his religious opinions.

“Of his life in Rome I can tell you practically nothing, but if tradition be true, he was a typical son of the Renaissance. He played with art, literature, and politics; and he more than played with astrology and the black arts, being, in fact, a member of the famous, or infamous, Academy. You may remember how that institution, which was founded in the fifteenth century by the notorious Pomponio Leto, used to hold its meetings in one of the catacombs. Under Paul II the members were arrested and tried for heresy, but nothing could be actually proved against them, and afterwards they were supposed by their contemporaries to have reformed. We know now that in reality things went from bad to worse. The study of paganism led them on to the worship of Satan, and eventually suspicion was again aroused, and a further investigation ordered.

“Sir Hubert got wind of this in time, however, so he availed himself of his position in the household of the Imperial Ambassador, and quietly retired to Naples. There he lived till he was over eighty, and no one in England ever expected him to return. But he did so, bringing with him a great store of books and manuscripts, some pictures, and this piece of plate; and he died and was buried here in the last decade of the sixteenth century.

“His nephew, who came in for the estates on his death, was a devout Catholic, and had been educated at St Omers. He made short work with Sir Hubert’s manuscripts, most of which he burned, as being heretical or worse, but he spared one volume, which contains an inventory of the things brought from Naples. Among the items mentioned is this fountain. In fact, it has a whole page to itself, with a little sketch and a note of its attribution to Cellini, besides some other words, which I have never been able to make out. But I think it is clear that the crystal was used for evil purposes, and that is why I dislike seeing it on the table. If Avison had asked me, I should have forbidden him to produce it.”

“Then I am very glad he did not ask you, mein Herr,” observed the German, bluntly, “for I should not then have seen him. But this inventory you speak of, is it permitted that I study it?”

“Certainly, Herr Aufrecht,” replied the squire, and walking to one of the bookcases, he unlocked the glass doors and took out a small volume, bound in faded red leather with gilt ornaments.

“This is the book,” he said; “I will find you the page with the sketch,” and a minute later he handed the volume to the professor. I glanced across and saw a little drawing, unquestionably depicting the piece of plate before us, with some lines of writing beneath; the whole in faded ink, almost the colour of rust.

The professor’s lens came out again and, with its aid, he read out the description beneath the picture.

“‘Item. Vasculum argenteum, crystallo ornatum in quattuor statuas imposito. Opus Benevenuti, aurificis clarissimi. Quo crystallo Roma in ritibus nostris pontifex noster Pomponius olim uti solebat.

“‘(Item. A vessel of silver, adorned with a crystal supported on four statuettes. The work of Benvenuto, most famous of goldsmiths. This crystal our Pontiff Pomponius was wont to use in our rites at Rome in days gone by.)’”

“Well, that sounds conclusive enough,” said Father Bertrand, who had been listening intently. “Opus Benevenuti, aurificis clarissimi, could only mean Cellini; and the last sentence certainly sounds very suspicious, though it doesn’t give one much to go upon as to the use made of the crystal.”

“But there is more yet,” broke in Herr Aufrecht, “it is in another script and much fainter.” He peered into the page with eyes screwed up, and then exclaimed in surprise, “Why, it is Greek!”

“Indeed,” said the squire, with interest, “that accounts for my failure to read it. I’m afraid I forgot all the Greek I ever knew as soon as I left school.”

Meanwhile the professor had produced his pocket-book, and was jotting down the words as he deciphered them, while Father Bertrand and myself took the opportunity to examine the work on the little plaques which adorned the base of the fountain.

“I haf him all now,” announced Herr Aufrecht, triumphantly, after a few minutes. “Listen and I will translate him to you,” and after a little hesitation he read out the following:

In the globe all truth is recorded, of the present, the past and the future.

To him that shall gaze it is shown; whosoever shall seek he shall find. O Lucifer, star of the morn, give ear to the voice of thy servant,

Enter and dwell in my heart, who adore thee as master and lord.

Fabius Britannicus.

“Fabius Britannicus,” exclaimed the squire, as the professor ceased reading, “why, those are the words on the base of the pagan altar in the background of Sir Hubert’s portrait!”

“I doubt not he was named Fabius Britannicus in the Academia,” answered the German; “all the members thereof did receive classical names in place of their own.”

“It must be that,” said the squire; “so he really was a worshipper of Satan. No wonder tradition paints him in such dark colours. But, why — of course,” he burst out, “I see it all now, that explains everything.”

We all looked up, surprised at his vehemence, but he kept silent, until Father Bertrand said gently:

“I think, Philip, you can tell us something more about all this; will you not do so?”

The old man hesitated for a little while and then answered: “Very well, if you wish it, you shall hear the story; but I must ask you to excuse me giving you the name. Although the principal actor in it has been dead many years now, I would rather keep his identity secret.

•   •   •

When I was still quite a young man, and before I decided to take orders, I made friends in London with a man who was a spiritualist. He was on terms of intimacy with Home, the medium, and he himself possessed considerable gifts in the same direction. He often pressed me to attend some of their seances, which I always refused to do, but our relations remained quite friendly, and at length he came down here on a visit to Stanton Rivers.

The man was a journalist by profession, a critic and writer on matters artistic, so one evening, although we were quite alone at dinner, I told the butler, Avison’s predecessor, to put out the Cellini fountain for him to see. I did not warn him what to expect, as I wanted to get his unbiased opinion, but the moment he set eyes on it, he burst out in admiration, and, like our friend the professor tonight, he pronounced it to be unquestionably by Benvenuto himself.

I said it was always believed to be his work, but purposely told him nothing about Sir Hubert, or my suspicions as to the original use of the crystal, and he did not question me about its history. As the meal advanced, however, he became curiously silent and self-absorbed. Sometimes I had to repeat what I was saying two or three times before he grasped the point; and I began to feel uncomfortable and anxious, so that it was a real relief when the butler put the decanters on the table and left us to ourselves.

My friend was sitting on my right, at the side of the table, so that we could talk to each other more easily, and I noticed that he kept his gaze fixed on the fountain in front of him. After all it was a very natural thing for him to do, and at first I did not connect his silence and distraction with the piece of plate.

All at once he leaned forward until his eyes were not two feet away from the great crystal globe, into which he gazed with the deepest attention, as if fascinated. It is difficult to convey to you how intense and concentrated his manner became. It was as if he looked right into the heart of the globe — not at it, if you understand, but at something inside it, something beneath the surface, and that something of a compelling, absorbing nature which engrossed every fibre of his being in one act of profound attention.

For a minute or two he sat like this in perfect silence, and I noticed the sweat beginning to stand out on his forehead, while his breath came audibly between his lips, under the strain. Then, all at once, I felt I must do something, and without stopping to deliberate I said in a loud tone, “I command you to tell me what it is you see.”

As I spoke, a kind of shiver ran through his frame, but his eyes never moved from the crystal ball. Then his lips moved, and after some seconds came a faint whisper, uttered as if with extreme difficulty, and what he said was something like this:

“There is a low, flat arch, with a kind of slab beneath it, and a picture at the back. There is a cloth on the slab, and on the cloth a tall gold cup, and lying in front of it is a thin white disc. By the side is a monster, like a huge toad,” and he shuddered, “but it is much too big to be a toad. It glistens, and its eyes have a cruel light in them. Oh, it is horrible!” Then all at once the voice leaped to a shrill note, and he spoke very rapidly, as if the scene were changing quicker than he could describe it.

“The man in front — the one with a cross on the back of his cloak — is holding a dagger in his hand. He raises it and strikes at the white disc. He has pierced it with the dagger. It bleeds! The white cloth beneath it is all red with blood. But the monster — some of the blood has fallen upon it as it spurted out, and the toad is writhing now as if in agony. Ah! it leaps down from the slab, it is gone. All present rise up in confusion; there is a tumult. They rush away down the dark passages. Only one remains, the man with the cross on his back. He is lying insensible upon the ground. On the slab still stands the gold cup and white disc with the bloodstained cloth, and the picture behind and the voice sank to an inaudible whisper, as if the speaker were exhausted.

Almost without thinking, I put a question to him before the sight should fade entirely. “The picture, what is it like?” But instead of answering he merely whispered “Irene, da calda,” and fell back as if exhausted in his chair.

•   •   •

There was silence for a few moments.

“And your friend, the spiritualist,” began Father Bertrand, “could he tell you nothing more of what he saw?”

“I did not ask him,” answered the old priest, “for, when he came to himself, he seemed quite ignorant of what he had told me during his trance. But, some years afterwards, I got some further light on the incident, and that in quite an unexpected way. Just wait a minute, and I will show you what I believe to be the picture he saw at the back of the niche!” And the old man walked to one of the bookcases and selected a large folio volume.

“The picture I am going to show you is an exact copy of one of the frescoes in the catacombs of SS. Peter and Marcellinus, where I came upon it, quite unexpectedly, during my period in Rome as a student; it has been reproduced since by Lanciani in one of his books. Ah, here it is,” and he laid the album on the table.

There, before us, was a copy of an undeniable catacomb fresco depicting an “agape” or love-feast! a group of figures symbolical both of the Last Supper and the communion of the elect. Above it were the contemporary inscriptions, “irene da calda” and “agape misce mi”, while round about were scrawled, in characters evidently much more recent, a number of names: “POMPONIUS, FABIANUS, RUFFUS, LETUS, VOLSCUS, FABIUS” and others, all of them members of the notorious Academy. There they had written them in charcoal, and there they still remain today, as evidence how the innermost recesses of a Christian catacomb were profaned, and the cult of Satan practised there, by the neo-pagans of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

We sat looking at the picture in silence for a minute or so, and then Herr Aufrecht turned to the Dominican.

“Fra Bertrand,” he said, “you are Master in Theologia, what is your opinion of all this?”

The friar hesitated for a moment before he answered.

“Well, Herr Aufrecht,” he said at length, “the Church has never ceased to teach the possibility of diabolical possession, and for my part I see no reason why a thing,” and he pointed to the crystal, “should not become ‘possessed’ in much the same way as a person can. But if you ask my opinion on the practical side of the question, I should say that, since Father Philip here cannot legally part with his heirloom, he certainly acts wisely in keeping it under lock and key.”

“The Catholic World”, Aug. 1914

Mystic Voices (1923)

OUT OF THE EARTH

Arthur Machen

1915

There was some sort of confused complaint during last August of the ill behaviour of the children at certain Welsh watering-places. Such reports and vague rumours are most difficult to trace to their heads and fountains; none has better reason to know that than myself. I need not go over the old ground here, but I am afraid that many people are wishing by this time that they had never heard my name; again, a considerable number of estimable persons are concerning themselves gloomily enough, from my point of view, with my everlasting welfare. They write me letters, some in kindly remonstrance, begging me not to deprive poor, sick-hearted souls of what little comfort they posses amidst their sorrows. Others send me tracts and pink leaflets with allusions to “the daughter of a well-known canon”; others again are violently and anonymously abusive. And then in open print, in fair book form, Mr. Begbie has dealt with me righteously but harshly, as I cannot but think.

Yet, it was all so entirely innocent, nay casual, on my part. A poor linnet of prose, I did but perform my indifferent piping in the Evening News because I wanted to do so, because I felt that the story of “The Bowmen” ought to be told. An inventor of fantasies is a poor creature, heaven knows, when all the world is at war; but I thought that no harm would be done, at any rate, if I bore witness, after the fashion of the fantastic craft, to my belief in the heroic glory of the English host who went back from Mons fighting and triumphing.

And then, somehow or other, it was as if I had touched a button and set in action a terrific, complicated mechanism of rumours that pretended to be sworn truth, of gossip that posed as evidence, of wild tarradiddles that good men most firmly believed. The supposed testimony of that “daughter of a well-known canon” took parish magazines by storm, and equally enjoyed the faith of dissenting divines. The “daughter” denied all knowledge of the matter, but People still quoted her supposed sure word; and the issues were confused with tales, probably true, of painful hallucinations and deliriums of our retreating soldiers, men fatigued and shattered to the very verge of death. It all became worse than the Russian myths, and as in the fable of the Russians, it seemed impossible to follow the streams of delusion to their fountain-head — or heads. Who was it who said that “Miss M. knew two officers who, etc., etc.”? I suppose we shall never know his lying, deluding name.

And so, I dare say, it will be with this strange affair of the troublesome children of the Welsh seaside town, or rather of a group of small towns and villages lying within a certain section or zone, which I am not going to indicate more precisely than I can help, since I love that country, and my recent experience with “The Bowmen” have taught me that no tale is too idle to be believed. And, of course, to begin with, nobody knew how this odd and malicious piece of gossip originated. So far as I know, it was more akin to the Russian myth than to the tale of “The Angels of Mons.” That is, rumour preceded print; the thing was talked of here and there and passed from letter to letter long before the papers were aware of its existence. And — here it resembles rather the Mons affair — London and Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham were muttering vague unpleasant things while the little villages concerned basked innocently in the sunshine of an unusual prosperity.

In this last circumstance, as some believe, is to be sought the root of the whole matter. It is well known that certain east coast towns suffered from the dread of air-raids, and that a good many of their usual visitors went westward for the first time. So there is a theory that the east coast was mean enough to circulate reports against the west coast out of pure malice and envy. It may be so; I do not pretend to know. But here is a personal experience, such as it is, which illustrated the way in which the rumour was circulated. I was lunching one day at my Fleet Street tavern — this was early in July — and a friend of mine, a solicitor, of Serjeants’ Inn, came in and sat at the same table. We began to talk of holidays and my friend Eddis asked me where I was going. “To the same old place,” I said. “Manavon. You know we always go there.” “Are you really” said the lawyer; “I thought that coast had gone off a lot. My wife has a friend who’s heard that it’s not at all that it was.”

I was astonished to hear this, not seeing how a little village like Manavon could have “gone off.” I had known it for ten years as having accommodation for about twenty visitors, and I could not believe that rows of lodging houses had sprung up since the August of 1914. Still I put the question to Eddis: “Trippers?” I asked, knowing firstly that trippers hate the solitudes of the country and the sea; secondly, that there are no industrial towns within cheap and easy distance, and thirdly, that the railways were issuing no excursion tickets during the war.

“No, not exactly trippers,” the lawyer replied. “But my wife’s friend knows a clergyman who says that the beach at Tremaen is not at all pleasant now, and Tremaen’s only a few miles from Manavon, isn’t it?”

“In what way not pleasant?” I carried on my examination. “Pierrots and shows, and that sort of thing?” I felt that it could not be so, for the solemn rocks of Tremaen would have turned the liveliest Pierrot to stone. He would have frozen into a crag on the beach, and the seagulls would carry away his song and make it a lament by lonely, booming caverns that look on Avalon. Eddis said he had heard nothing about showmen; but he understood that since the war the children of the whole district had gone quite out of hand.

“Bad language, you know,” he said, “and all that sort of thing, worse than London slum children. One doesn’t want one’s wife and children to hear foul talk at any time, much less on their holiday. And they say that Castell Coch is quite impossible; no decent woman would be seen there!”

I said: “Really, that’s a great pity,” and changed the subject. But I could not make it out at all. I knew Castell Coch well — a little bay bastioned by dunes and red sandstone cliffs, rich with greenery. A stream of cold water runs down there to the sea; there is the ruined Norman Castle, the ancient church and the scattered village; it is altogether a place of peace and quiet and great beauty. The people there, children and grown-ups alike, were not merely decent but courteous folk: if one thanked a child for opening a gate, there would come the inevitable response: “And welcome kindly, sir.” I could not make it out at all. I didn’t believe the lawyer’s tales; for the life of me I could not see what he could be driving at. And, for the avoidance of all unnecessary mystery, I may as well say that my wife and child and myself went down to Manavon last August and had a most delightful holiday. At the time we were certainly conscious of no annoyance or unpleasantness of any kind. Afterwards, I confess, I heard a story that puzzled and still puzzles me, and this story, if it be received, might give its own interpretation to one or two circumstances which seemed in themselves quite insignificant.

But all through July I came upon traces of evil rumours affecting this most gracious corner of the earth. Some of these rumours were repetitions of Eddis’s gossip; others amplified his vague story and made it more definite. Of course, no first-hand evidence was available. There never is any first-hand evidence in these cases. But A knew B who had heard from C that her second cousin’s little girl had been set upon and beaten by a pack of young Welsh savages. Then people quoted “a doctor in large practice in a well-known town in the Midlands,” to the effect that Tremaen was a sink of juvenile depravity. They said that a responsible medical man’s evidence was final and convincing; but they didn’t bother to find out who the doctor was, or whether there was any doctor at all — or any doctor relevant to the issue. Then the thing began to get into the papers in a sort of oblique, by-the-way sort of manner. People cited the case of these imaginary bad children in support of their educational views. One side said that “these unfortunate little ones” would have been quite well behaved if they had had no education at all; the opposition declared that continuation schools would speedily reform them and make them into admirable citizens. Then the poor Arfonshire children seemed to become involved in quarrels about Welsh disestablishment and in the question of the miners; and all the while they were going about behaving politely and admirably as they always do behave.

I knew all the time that it was all nonsense, but I couldn’t understand in the least what it meant, or who was pulling the wires of rumour, or their purpose in so pulling. I began to wonder whether the pressure and anxiety and suspense of a terrible war had unhinged the public mind, so that it was ready to believe any fable, to debate the reasons for happenings which had never happened. At last, quite incredible things began to be whispered: visitors’ children had not only been beaten, they had been tortured; a little boy had been found impaled on a stake in a lonely field near Manavon; another child had been lured to destruction over the cliffs at Castell Coch. A London paper sent a good man down quietly to Arfon to investigate. He was away for a week, and at the end of that period returned to his office and in his own phrase, “threw the whole story down.” There was not a word of truth, he said, in any of these rumours; no vestige of a foundation for the mildest forms of all this gossip. He had never seen such a beautiful country; he had never met pleasanter men, women or children; there was not a single case of anyone having been annoyed or troubled in any sort or fashion.

Yet all the while the story grew, and grew more monstrous and incredible. I was too much occupied in watching the progress of my own mythological monster to pay much attention. The town clerk of Tremaen, to which the legend had at length penetrated, wrote a brief letter to the press indignantly denying that there was the slightest foundation for “the unsavoury rumours” which, he understood, were being circulated; and about this time we went down to Manavon and, as I say, enjoyed ourselves extremely. The weather was perfect: blues of paradise in the skies the seas all a shimmering wonder, olive greens and emeralds rich purples, glassy sapphires changing by the rocks; far away a haze of magic lights and colours at the meeting of sea and sky. Work and anxiety had harried me; I found nothing better than to rest on the thymy banks by the shore, finding an infinite balm and refreshment in the great sea before me, in the tiny flowers beside me. Or we would rest all the summer afternoon on a “shelf” high on the grey cliffs and watch the tide creaming and surging about the rocks, and listen to it booming in the hollows and caverns below. Afterwards, as I say, there were one or two things that struck cold. But at the time those were nothing. You see a man in an odd white hat pass by and think little or nothing about it. Afterwards, when you hear that a man wearing just such a hat had committed murder in the next street five minutes before, then you find in that hat a certain interest and significance. “Funny children,” was the phrase my little boy used; and I began to think they were “funny” indeed.

If there be a key at all to this queer business, I think it is to be found in a talk I had not long ago with a friend of mine named Morgan. He is a Welshman and a dreamer, and some people say he is like a child who has grown up and yet has not grown up like other children of men. Though I did not know it, while I was at Manavon, he was spending his holiday time at Castell Coch. He was a lonely man and he liked lonely places, and when we met in the autumn he told me how, day after day, he would carry his bread and cheese and beer in a basket to a remote headland on that coast known as the Old Camp. Here, far above the waters, are solemn, mighty walls, turf-grown; circumvallations rounded and smooth with the passing of many thousand years. At one end of this most ancient place there is a tumulus, a tower of observation, perhaps, and underneath it slinks the green, deceiving ditch that seems to wind into the heart of the camp, but in reality rushes down to sheer rock and a precipice over the waters.

Here came Morgan daily, as he said, to dream of Avalon, to purge himself from the fuming corruption of the streets.

And so, as he told me, it was with singular horror that one afternoon as he dozed and dreamed and opened his eyes now and again to watch the miracle and magic of the sea, as he listened to the myriad murmurs of the waves, his meditation was broken by a sudden burst of horrible raucous cries — and the cries of children, too, but children of the lowest type. Morgan says that the very tones made him shudder — “They were to the ear what slime is to the touch,” and then the words: every foulness, every filthy abomination of speech; blasphemies that struck like blows at the sky, that sank down into the pure, shining depths, defiling them! He was amazed. He peered over the green wall of the fort, and there in the ditch he saw a swarm of noisome children, horrible little stunted creatures with old men’s faces, with bloated faces, with little sunken eyes, with leering eyes. It was worse than uncovering a brood of snakes or a nest of worms.

No; he would not describe what they were about. “Read about Belgium,” said Morgan, “and think they couldn’t have been more than five or six years old.” There was no infamy, he said, that they did not perpetrate; they spared no horror of cruelty. “I saw blood running in streams, as they shrieked with laughter, but I could not find the mark of it on the grass afterwards.”

Morgan said he watched them and could not utter a word; it was as if a hand held his mouth tight. But at last he found his voice and shrieked at them, and they burst into a yell of obscene laughter and shrieked back at him, and scattered out of sight. He could not trace them; he supposes that they hid in the deep bracken behind the Old Camp.

“Sometimes I can’t understand my landlord at Castell Coch,” Morgan went on. “He’s the village postmaster and has a little farm of his own — a decent, pleasant, ordinary sort of chap. But now and again he will talk oddly. I was telling him about these beastly children and wondering who they could be when he broke into Welsh, something like ‘the battle that is for age unto ages; and the People take delight in it.’”

So for Morgan, and it was evident that he did not understand at all. But this strange tale of his brought back an odd circumstance or two that I recollected: a matter of our little boy straying away more than once, and getting lost among the sand dunes and coming back screaming, evidently frightened horribly, and babbling about “funny children.” We took no notice; did not trouble, I think, to look whether there were any children wandering about the dunes or not. We were accustomed to his small imaginations.

But after hearing Morgan’s story I was interested and I wrote an account of the matter to my friend, old Doctor Duthoit, of Hereford. And he:

“They were only visible, only audible to children and the childlike. Hence the explanation of what puzzled you at first; the rumours, how did they arise? They arose from nursery gossip, from scraps and odds and ends of half-articulate children’s talk of horrors that they didn’t understand, of words that shamed their nurses and their mothers.

“These little people of the earth rise up and rejoice in these times of ours. For they are glad, as the Welshman said, when they know that men follow their ways.”

“T.P.’s Weekly”, 27 Nov. 1915

The Shining Pyramid
and Other Stories (1923)

YOUNG MAGIC

Helen Simpson

1925

When Viola was very little she used to play by herself exactly as a cat does. She would fix her eyes upon an invisible adversary, stalk him, and fly from him when her manoeuvres could not take him unawares. It was a very good game to play in a garden, especially in autumn when the taller flowers came out, delphiniums, and a strong kind of white daisy; but curiously enough in the garden it was never a success. Viola used always to hope that one day it would be. She used to run out of the house pretending not to care, not looking behind, and would hide, allowing some part of her dress to show in a most alluring way. It was no use, though sometimes she caught a grown-up, with whom it was no fun to play, for such persons showed a long way off, and trod heavily, and were awkward at dodging. The grown-ups considered her a good child, always amusing herself and not noisy. They thought it was perhaps a little odd, the way in which she talked and nodded to flowers or patches of shadow, and they used to question her.

“Is that a fairy you’re playing with? Oh, how nice! What is her name?”

Viola would stare at them, realising that some answer was required if she were not to be rebuked for sulkiness; and when the enquirer asked again, wheedling, for the fairy’s name she would contemptuously answer,

“Binns.”

And go on with whatever she was doing. This always caused laughter, and as a rule put the grown-ups to silence. Persistent ones, however, would keep at it.

“And what is Binns like?”

“Thin.”

“Oh! And what does she do?”

At first Viola used to ignore this question, but when she found that it meant being told not to be silly she invented an occupation for Binns. She hated more completely than anything in her experience to be told she was silly. So she would answer,

“Washing.”

And sometimes when people were looking she would pretend to be washing, so that they would believe her when the inevitable question and answer came along. But it was all the purest invention. She did not like the way other people came trampling into her mind, just as they often walked unheeding and made dull marks on a nice-shaped patch of dewy grass she had been treasuring since morning. And they would have said she was silly if she told them truthfully that there was no Binns, only a feeling, and this feeling was not a she, and that he did no washing and was not thin; he was rather soft and big. She did not know what he looked like. He played with her only in the house. Perhaps for that reason Viola lost touch with him in summer. She liked to be a prince in summer, and her throne was a tree that had split in two low down, and was easily to be climbed. In the rounded fork she would sit with a sword tucked into her leather belt, and sometimes other trappings, a piece of gold braid round her head or a few bits of ribbon pinned on for medals. She was not often a prince in the house, and never wore decorations there, because if she did somebody was sure to comment. She was sure to be asked where she had got the braid from, and if she were playing soldiers. She knew when they asked in that voice and smiled in that way that they thought she was being silly, even when they said quite kindly,

“Having a lovely game, darling? Don’t get in Annie’s way, dear.”

So she was only royal in the garden; in that special part of the garden where nobody ever bothered to come, and where she was not watched. She would make tremendous speeches there, standing up in the fork with her left hand on the cross hilt of the sword to make it stick out; her subjects all adored her, because she was so very noble. Once or twice she allowed herself to die in battle, and lay with her arms stretched out on the daisies, that felt damp but were only cool, listening to the sad things her people said as they passed. They all thought that there could never have been a prince so brave or so good. They said,

“What we’ll do now I don’t know, I’m sure.”

And Viola listened, every moment inventing new and more splendid things for them to say about her. When she had to go in to her dinner — and she knew, when the shadow of the big branch got as far as the fence, that it was about time to go in — the contrast was too great. It was too big a distance to be bridged in a moment. There had to be a period of readjustment, of coming back, and during this period she was silent and aloof, paying no attention to the small talk of the table; this habit, when she neglected to answer questions immediately addressed to her, sometimes led to trouble, accusations of sulkiness; or nurse would say, from sheer caprice, when she had finished and wanted to go out again,

“Now you don’t want to go off by yourself in the garden. Stay about here where I can see you. Don’t go running off.”

It made Viola angry to be told she didn’t want to go off by herself when she did. Often she wondered if it would count as a lie against nurse when she died, for it was as untrue as possible on the face of it. In her more savage moods she hoped that it would count, and that Jesus would say to nurse when she wanted to get into Heaven,

“What about all those lies you told Viola?” For it was one of nurse’s favourite expressions. It cropped up in relation to almost every impulse of Viola’s life.

“You don’t want to look like those little dirty children. You don’t want to be always running wild in the garden. You don’t want that old tin soldier in bed with you.”

If nurse had had her way, or what she liked to pretend was her way, Viola would have been very nearly always in the house; but in fact nurse, though she scolded and bullied a little for form’s sake, was glad enough not to have Viola underfoot and always permitted the garden in the end, so that during the long days, of which only the sunny hours remained afterwards in her memory, Viola was happy by herself.

But towards the end of October things would begin to happen which she could recognise, and which meant that there was to be no more summer. One day as she sat in her throne a yellow leaf would fall on to her knee, half-a-dozen others following; she would look round her and see that all the trees were losing their green. Then the branches would begin to lash about and sweep the air, making a wind that sent the poor leaves running on the grass, lost and homeless. When they were quiet again the thick shade that had lain like an island under her tree would be pierced with holes when there was sun to show them; looking up, the sky showed clearly in a hundred places. At last no leaves would be left at all, but only the branches, ugly against the sky, like lace without any proper pattern, or cat’s-cradle when it came very tight and muddled towards the end. The prince game ended with the green year, and the warm free days gave place to an infinite time without colours, or any outdoor play except the official walk before tea. The house was big, but there was nothing much to do in it except watch cook now and then. Viola could not read, for her mother always thought it so unwise to force children. In the winter which held her ninth birthday she began seriously to play with Binns.

These games were something quite different; not in themselves, for there were still fairy tales to be acted in which she was the prince; but this indoors winter prince was a more romantic figure, dressed like one of the photographs in the drawing-room, with a shining breastplate and a long-tailed helmet. People did not weep over him; he had no people, and no need of them with all his magic things, the table that was covered with food each time he rapped on it, and the sword that could kill twenty enemies at a blow. He was less real than the other prince, but he went better with an audience she could not see or touch, and which did not interfere. She knew Binns was there by the sounds he made, and by the feeling he brought with him, which nurse always said was a draught. At first he could only make very little noises, like the cracks that furniture makes in the night. Viola knew that it was not the furniture because the sounds came from the air, quite near her; as they increased in strength she began to understand what he said; and at the end of a month of rain, when she had had to stay in the house nearly all the time, she knew all his meanings. His noises did not make sense if you thought of them as words; he could not give a plain answer to a question, yes or no, so many cracks for each. One sort of crack meant that he was pleased, another sort meant that he wanted her to go on playing, and after a time he learnt to make four or five cracks close together, like a laugh.

The first time he did this she was frightened. Nurse was quite near, just at the door, and the cracks were so deliberate, not like anything that furniture could do. Nurse heard, for she turned her head suddenly, and said that it was time they had somebody to see to those loose boards. Then she went out, and Viola told Binns not to do it again, but he was proud of his achievement and would not keep quiet. Fortunately nurse had gone. Viola tried all sorts of ways of making that sound, so that she could pretend, if anyone else heard, that it was her own. She tried bending a nice round stick that she had found and peeled, but it had gone dry and soon it broke. She tried with a cotton-reel against the leg of a chair, but that made a dull, woolly sound. The problem was not solved until the afternoon of her birthday party, when she found in a cracker a black piece of tin shaped like a beetle, which, if its wings were pressed down towards its stomach, gave out a sound exactly like Binns’ laugh. The grown-up who had pulled the cracker with her said,

“Oh! It’s only a nasty old locust. Never mind, I’ll find you one with something pretty in it.”

While she was away Viola dropped the locust right inside her clothes, where it felt cold for a moment before her skin warmed it. She was afraid that Binns might come to the party and crack at the grown-ups. However, he stayed away, and she went to sleep with it under her pillow, relieved from the fear that they might be discovered and somehow not allowed to play any more.

The locust answered its purpose well for a day or two, until the morning when nurse kept her in the sewing-room trying on dresses and underclothes. There was no need for her to stay. Most of the time nurse was occupied with the sewing-machine, a reluctant thing that always clucked angrily before it began to make its regular thudding buzz. Viola was interested in the almost human unwillingness of the machine; it had one or two tricks, such as refusing to swallow the stuff, and holding it fast in one place while it stabbed the needle down a dozen times, savagely, that pleased her for a few repetitions. But soon nurse got what she called the knack and the machine obeyed her, and roamed over Viola’s clothes-to-be just as nurse wanted it to go. Still Viola was not allowed to put on her dress and go away. She stood by the fire, trying to see how the flames grew, hoping that soon they would turn the coal into bright pinky hills; but the fire was new, the lumps of coal were hardly red even underneath, the thin yellow flames did not look as if they would burn if she were to put her finger into them. She thought that it would be fun if flames could be picked like flowers. They would be alive, snaky, all twisting about in the hand that held them; much nicer than flowers, that stayed still, and never cared for being in a house, but died soon. Fire didn’t mind houses, it was used to them; it wouldn’t need water in its vases; it would always be twisting and straining and doubling back; nice bunches of flames; and her mother would say, as she often did about flowers,

“Wonderful how a vase or two will brighten a room.”

Viola watched the hot flame-flowers growing, and would have liked to put her hand into their funny black garden, but nurse saw and said,

“Come away from that fire at once. You’ll be getting chilblains.”

Viola would have liked to say that nurse was wrong, and that only servants got chilblains; but she knew that such answers annoyed nurse, who called them arguing. “Don’t you argue with me,” was one of nurse’s speeches that Viola feared. There was temper behind it. So she moved away from the fire and went slowly over to the window, to breathe on it, and make patterns in the breath that got caught on the panes. Nurse said at once that she was in the light and told her to move out of it. She obeyed, feeling sulky and impotent, and wishing with all her strength that something would happen to nurse, that she would get very ill, or go away to some other child as she had often threatened to do. She wished the scissors would stand up on their round ends where the holes were for fingers, and snap at nurse’s hands as they flattened the stuff under the quick needle. Viola looked very hard at the scissors, wanting them to get up and walk on those round feet towards nurse’s hands. She put herself on her honour not to blink, which would break the strength of the wish, and she stared at the scissors, lying with their blades a little open on a pile of stuff. She stared so long that her eyes began to draw towards each other and to feel watery; to drive away the feeling she moved them up and down, following the white line that shone on one of the blades; the other was dull, shadowed by the stuff on which it lay. She thought that she would make her eyes like magnets; she could almost think that they were becoming that shape, like a thin round horseshoe. She had to keep herself from winking by bits at a time. “Not until I’ve counted twenty very slowly; another twenty; ten.” Just as she finished the last second of the ten she forgot why she was counting. She could see the scissors beginning to move, twitching themselves up in little jerks, and she thought with triumph, “I can do magic.” She could see the dent the weight of them was making in the stuff, the little movements in the stuff as they twitched themselves upright on it. Nurse did not see, busily making the machine slave for her, but she was warned of something by the child’s silence. She stopped the wheel with her right hand and turned round to see what Viola was doing. When she found her standing quite still, very white, with eyes, as nurse said afterwards, that put her in mind of a maniac, she turned back again to find out what the trouble was, and saw the scissors standing upright, but unsteadily, like a man walking a rope, and moving with timorous jerky steps towards the hand that still held the wheel. Nurse gave a scream that made Viola start and cover her face, a scream so loud that she could not have heard the double crack that sounded close beside her. The scissors dropped, and lay innocently on the stuff again; but now the line of the light showed along a different blade.

Nurse looked then as Viola had never thought any grown-up could ever look. She was ugly with terror, more frightening than the happening that had surprised her. She made a scrambling movement towards the door, but halted, and came back to catch Viola by the arm and push her first out of the room. The key was on the outside, and nurse turned it before she let Viola go; then she seemed to forget her, and ran down the back stairs to the shelter of the kitchen.

Viola waited while the stairs hid nurse bit by bit, until even her head was gone, and went back into the room which, now that nurse with her ugly fear was out of it, was calm. The fire still climbed, the scissors had not moved. Viola went to the window, feeling happy. She blew on the glass and started to draw in the grey vapour that began to shrink at the edges almost as soon as it was there. She drew a face, and her own name, and nurse’s name, and then another face in a big piece of breath that was the size of a whole pane. This last face was not very like anyone. It was more like an animal, a slug or a fish. It was different from anything Viola had ever seen, and she was proud of it. She watched it for a long time with her face close to it so that she could breath it back again as soon as it began to fade. Then she could hear voices in the passage, Annie’s scornful voice, and nurse protesting. She heard Annie say,

“I thought it must be a fire or something. You want to be ashamed, yelling like that.”

“I take my God to witness—” said nurse.

But Annie interrupted,

“You ought to take something for your nerves; not what you do take, neither.”

“I never—” said nurse.

“Oh, get on with you,” Annie interrupted again. “Well, let’s see into the room. Whatever it is can’t have got out.”

Viola could hear the dry refusing sound a key makes when it is turned back as far as it can go. Annie shook the door.

“Oh, don’t,” said nurse, “No. What’s the good?”

“Whatever have you done to this lock?” Annie asked, paying no attention.

Viola turned away from the window, unable to attend to her drawing while they disputed. At the sound her feet made nurse screamed again, and the horrible noise angered Viola. She ran to the door and opened it, but before she could say a word nurse caught her by the arm and roughly shook her, so that everything she had meant to say went out of her head.

“What do you mean by going back in there, you naughty girl?” said nurse.

Viola did not answer because she was still being shaken. She had felt proud, contemptuous of nurse and able to shame her; now she was silly again only because nurse, though a coward, was strong. She began to cry. The shaking continued, and nurse’s voice went scolding on in the full vengeful flood of her relief from fear. Then she saw Annie put her fingers and thumb on nurse’s arm and give it a good wringing pinch. The noise and the shaking stopped. Viola could hear her own sobs, which were bigger and more uncontrollable than any she could remember. Annie said,

“Let that child alone. She’s got more sense than what you have. Let her go, now, or someone’ll know about it.”

Annie waited for a moment, looking very hard at nurse, and went on in a different voice, to Viola,

“It’s all right, lovey. Don’t cry. Where’s your dress?”

She advanced into the sewing-room, picked up the dress and called, “Come while I put it on for you.”

“You bring that dress here,” said nurse, holding Viola.

Annie laughed and brought it. Nurse snatched it from her and hurried it over Viola’s head, not caring how it caught one of her ears and almost pulled it away.

“You be off,” said nurse. “And you’re not to say anything to Mummy; mind what I tell you, now. Go along to the nursery, and don’t you move till I come.”

Viola went along to the nursery, where she sat doubled up on the floor near the fire. After a moment she went to sleep, quite unexpectedly, and when she woke it was dinnertime. The morning seemed almost not to have happened. Nurse said nothing. She did not repeat her warning. In any case Viola would not have told, lest her mother might find some way of putting a stop to the magic, but the knowledge lay in her, golden as a treasure, with all her senses on guard about it.

After this the games became great fun, when they could be played; they needed secrecy because of the cracking, whip-lash noises which grew louder the more they played together. She tried to put him through all the fairy tricks, one after another, but he was as obstinate and as unteachable as a cat. There was no magically spread table for Viola, no walnut shells with dresses inside, not even a leaf of the cabbage that could turn people into donkeys. In the mornings, at the forlorn hour when nurse brought her two uninteresting biscuits and a cup of milk covered with wrinkled white skin, she used to wish that he had never come. Before, it had been fun to pretend; the things she imagined she was eating used to taste as distinct as the food at dinner, so that she had once asked her mother if thinking you were eating would do instead of really eating. Now, somehow, the fun had gone out of pretending. She could not build those steep fairy castles in her head, nor ride through those forests. She had made her inside world as a place to slip into when the green ordinary world was dull; now it could never be dull, because she never knew when it might suddenly flare up into magic, and flames might begin to lift and curl instead of flowers in the vases. And a great sword swinging in a castle gateway was less marvellous than a pair of ordinary scissors walking across the sewing-room table on their round heels.

It was disappointing to realise how little Binns could actually do. He could move things and he could make noises, and that was all. And the only improvement Viola could notice after a month’s training was that he could lift heavier weights and the noises were louder. He spoilt things for her. He had taken the keen edge off the old games, and would not help with the new ones. She could not think of anything that she really wanted to do, and used to stand by the nursery window watching the sky go past, wondering how the trees could make, with their bare winter arms, enough wind to drive the heavy clouds at such a rate. At the end of such stormy vacant days there was nothing to go to bed for.

Six weeks after her birthday her godfather came, a little man in spectacles so large that she thought he must be a diver. She was taken down to the drawing-room after tea to see him, and her mother said,

“Here’s Uncle Godfrey, darling, who gave you that nice fork and spoon. You’ve never seen him before, have you? At least, you don’t remember.”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” the little man answered, shaking hands politely with Viola.

“Oh, my dear,” said her mother, “at the font!”

“Well, why not?” asked the little man. “You have no right to assume that people forget certain events merely because they happen at a time when the mind has no pigeon-holes ready for them.”

“But you haven’t seen Uncle Godfrey before, have you, Viola?” said her mother.

Viola stared at him.

“Of course the child can’t in one moment bring to the surface of her mind a thing which happened before the crust of consciousness formed. But I dare say she has the appropriate dreams.”

“She doesn’t have dreams, do you? Not at night, anyhow.”

“No,” said Viola, very shortly. She knew the question about Binns was coming.

“Very wise,” said Uncle Godfrey, “they’re a great waste of good sleeping-time.”

“I’m afraid they waste a lot of play-time too,” Viola’s mother said; and rather wistfully added,

“It’s difficult down here. They’re all octogenarians; no children at all on this side of the county. It’s difficult with only one.”

“Parents always suppose that children must be lonely by themselves. It’s the sentimental instinct of creatures that live in a herd, but it’s quite false. How is a child to develop an imagination if you crowd it up with half-a-dozen others and give it elaborate toys, and illustrate its books to the last scale on the dragon’s tail?”

“I’m not listening to you,” said Viola’s mother, pulling Viola’s sash straight.

“I know you’re not. But sense is sense even if nobody hears it, as a table left solitary on the top of Everest at the end of the world continues to be a table after all consciousness has perished; though there are people who dispute that.”

“People with a great deal of time on their hands.”

“Possibly, though that’s not relevant. A wise man knows that time on the hands is worth eternity on the clock. But the point at issue is this. You suppose that your daughter must be lonely and dull if she is left alone with her imagination, because, similarly left, you would yourself be lonely and dull. And why? Because you, in common with most fully developed persons, physically, are in the habit of restraining your imagination.”

“I’m sure I don’t.”

“You’re not listening. I say you do. You permit it to depict for you only such happenings as are strictly possible.”

“I often imagine quite impossible things; you behaving like an ordinary person, for instance.”

“I repeat, the most you allow your imagination, which is your power of creation, to do for you is to provide ropes of real pearls or an admirer like a young Greek god. Both lie conceivably within your power of attainment; utterly dull, utterly remote from the fantastic. Sky-scrapers limit your empyrean. Now the child—”

“You’re too absurd. Do you talk this nonsense to your undergraduates?”

“I can’t understand how women who are not good listeners ever get married. No, of course I don’t. What is the use of talking nonsense to undergraduates or fairies to children? They both know more about it than I do.”

“Oh, you have some limitations?”

“Certainly. My only claim to distinction is that I recognise them.”

“Viola knows all about fairies,” said her mother, bringing her into the conversation.

“I’ve no doubt she does,” said Uncle Godfrey.

“She has a fairy who comes and plays with her, and helps with the doll’s washing.”

“Not she,” said Uncle Godfrey, “that’s not the sort of thing a fairy worth its salt would do.”

“But Viola sees her, don’t you? She really plays in the most uncanny way sometimes, just as if somebody was with her. Tell Uncle Godfrey what Binns does.”

Viola did not answer. She felt that Uncle Godfrey would see through the usual answer. Her mother went on.

“Binns comes and helps her to be a queen when they’re not busy with the washing. She’s very thin, isn’t she, Viola? And they have a lovely kingdom down in the far corner of the garden where we burn the rubbish.”

Viola wanted to explain that her mother had got it all wrong, every single word of it; but that would have meant giving up her secret. She stood very square on her feet and kept quiet.

“It can’t be much of a fairy,” said Uncle Godfrey. “What’s the use of setting an elemental power to do menial jobs like washing, or running a kingdom? I reject Viola’s domestic fairy as I reject your Greek gods. You fail, both of you. You bind fire with chains; for two pins you’d set Pegasus to pull the municipal dustcart.”

“What is the matter with you? You scold me first because I’d rather she had other children than these funny plays of her own; and then you scold her and say her fairies are no good. Of course they’re good. Why shouldn’t her Binns be a nice friendly person?”

“Because in that case she might as well have been given an undersized body and sent out into the world, with a reference from Lady Stick-in-the-Mud, to replace your kitchen-maid.”

“He’s very unkind, isn’t he, Viola? Well, we’re quite happy about Binns. We know she’s real.”

Viola’s mind was in a tangle. She could see that it was Uncle Godfrey who really understood, and that her mother, who defended her on the surface, inwardly, deep down, thought the invention of Binns rather silly. She wanted to do something to show them both the meaning of the unseen companion, and it was her mother’s attitude which made her want to come out into the open, abandoning her secret place; the tone, not exactly condescending, but affectionately tolerant and bland. While the decision hung in the balance her mother added something which snapped, like a spider’s thread, Viola’s resolution to hold back. She said to Uncle Godfrey,

“We won’t let you play with us. You can’t pretend.”

Viola had no words with which to answer this. It was too wrong, more wrong even than her mother’s account of the fairy games that were Viola’s own property, and of which her mother, unasked, ignorant, assumed control and patronage. Viola smiled, and a hot misty feeling mounted from her stomach to where her throat began. There was a loud crack just by her right hand, a crack more arresting than any she had yet heard.

“What’s that?” asked her mother, startled.

“My locust,” Viola answered, keeping her hand shut tight.

“What a hateful noise! Don’t do it again.”

“I’ll try not,” Viola answered, with unusual meekness.

But she knew very well that she had no control over Binns in these proud fits; almost immediately he cracked again.

“Viola!” said her mother, “I asked you not to do that.”

“I know,” Viola answered; a third crack sounded in the middle of her words. Her mother got up from her chair.

“Give me that thing at once,” her mother commanded.

Viola withdrew the hand and held it behind her back. She could not afford to have it examined, for it was empty. Uncle Godfrey stood looking on with interest, as though they were acting a play for him. Her mother repeated,

“Give it to me, Viola.”

Viola took a step backwards, not answering. Her mother made a sudden movement, intending to become possessed by force of the clenched hand which her strength would be able to open. To Viola, frightened already, it seemed the most important thing of all that nobody should open that hand. She had somehow to distract her mother, and make her abandon her intention. She stretched out her left arm with a jerk, pointing at a jar of heavy painted poppy-heads that served for flowers in winter; the jar was a foot distant from the longest of her pointing fingers, and much higher. The odd, stiff gesture surprised her mother, who stopped, looking at the outstretched hand, expecting to see in it the scrap of black tin; instead, she saw one of the poppy-heads begin to lean towards it. It leant out at an impossible angle, and when it was free of the jar it seemed to fall very slowly towards Viola, as though it were sliding down a solid invisible slope, and it hung in the air just short of her fingers for a definite moment before they closed on it.

Viola could not remember what happened after that. She had an illness almost at once that lasted for weeks and obliged her to forget; then, as soon as she got well her mother took her away to a village in the south-west of France. They stayed there for two years in a whitish villa roofed with curved red tiles; at the end of those years Viola could speak French with a savage facility which she had acquired in self-defence. She was never, for more than ten minutes at a time, left by herself; not even to sleep. At first she was inclined to shut herself up in her silent castles, but they were no longer the same. They would not build themselves easily in France, within a bee’s flight of a real castle, to which she could climb. And the village people were different, more vivid, and they were always singing; the songs were queer, like pictures drawn in sound. Viola could not learn them; there were no words on which to hang the slow, balancing phrases; but she loved to listen, and during the second year, because in French it was something of an adventure, she learned to read. Overtaken by that immense new interest as by an enveloping sea the castles disappeared, and the princedoms, and the memory faded of solitary games played in an empty room.

When she could read pretty well, and after a serious French doctor had examined her, she was sent to school at an establishment on the south coast of England where her mother had been assured that a healthy tone prevailed. At first she was not homesick, but after a year or two a longing grew up in her, not for the villa backed by mountains and the dark cheerful people with their unhappy songs; some unreasonable fraction of her wanted, and saw clearly in dreams, the house where she had played alone. She crowded the stupid longing out of her waking thoughts, and did not speak of it to anyone. When she was seventeen they went back to the house.

She had looked forward so long and so eagerly to being there that the actual arrival felt a little flat, as though the house, which for years had been busy with strangers and their affairs, had forgotten her. She came as an acquaintance into the brown hall, looking about her, unrecognised. She remembered everything, the positions of the furniture, the way the light came in from the autumn afternoon outside. Forlorn and restless, with the vacant feeling of a person newly arrived in a new place, cheated of habits and at a loss for occupation, she wandered about, while her mother dealt with the servants and the unpacking. She went into the nursery, where she was no longer to sleep; the patterned birds on its walls had scarcely faded at all. Going down the passage from the nursery she came to the sewing-room, and thought with a pang of wonder, “Could I have been that child?” She could see the child as though she had been someone else, one of the children who used to come to tea; sulky and secret, and very sure of the worlds she had created. The child had been safe, her strong imaginings had protected her; the invisible thing had been no more and no less real than they. Now it was as though one of those imagined creatures had escaped, taking body and power apart from her; huge, towering above the dwarfish company her grown mind could picture for her. It would be dangerous now. And she had a feeling of courage and elation, like a moment before battle.

She had been given a different bedroom. Grown Viola could not make for herself a golden hall in an attic, nor conjure a pattern of parrots and cherries into a tropical forest at night. She had been robbed by the years of these splendours, and instead was given the room which before had been kept for the most important guest. It was on the first floor, very light, and there were flowers on a small table in the window. The nursery had never been given flowers, except the frail things that Viola used to pick from the hedges and put in a doll’s teacup with the water forgotten. There were writing things, as for a guest, and cupboards for clothes. But when she had unpacked and put her own belongings about it still felt empty; and she thought, “Hiding.”

At dinner her mother said that it was delightful to be home again, not to be nomads any more. She said the house gave one such a friendly feeling, as though it were making one welcome. She said she had almost forgotten what it looked like, and supposed that Viola had, too. She was civil about the departed tenants, except that they had let the garden get into a dreadful state. Viola agreed with it all.

Next day she announced that she would like to have the sewing-room as her own room, to sit in.

“But there are plenty of places for you to sit,” said her mother, astonished, “and your own room is quite nice. There’s a comfy chair. What are we to do if a woman comes in to sew?”

“She can have the old nursery.”

“But that little room is so inconvenient, right at the top of the house. Dark—”

“Oh, please. Really I’d like it.”

“Well, of course — But I can’t give you any more furniture. I really can’t have anything taken out of the other rooms.”

“I didn’t ask for anything. I don’t want anything.”

“But you can’t leave it like that, without any proper things. I don’t see why you want it; you’ve got all the rest of the house—”

In the end Viola was allowed to keep the sewing-room just as it had been. A fire was lighted there each morning, and this was the only sign that the room expected anyone. It had always been a room that lived by fits and starts. Its guests were the shadows cast by some passing emergency, sewing women, monthly nurses, housemaids in quarantine. It was unaccustomed to people, and during the first weeks of Viola’s tenancy it continued to have an air of awkwardness, like a person who is willing to be friendly but has not the habit of civility. Then it began to respond to her continued presence; and although its furniture remained austere, although there were no flowers on its table, it began to look, as her mother said, quite habitable; quite human.

Viola used to sit there for hours, doing nothing, trying to make her mind empty, a long bare attic such as children love to play in. She was sure that if she could succeed in doing this he would be tempted out of hiding, but she could not banish altogether the furnishings that the years had collected and stored there. And there were people, too. There had been a great many of them in the nine years of absence, and they kept coming in, without warning, to the bare room of her mind; people she thought she had forgotten, or had hardly known, shop-assistants, schoolgirls, gardeners. While they were there he did not come. At night she would sit in the dark, staring at some glowing promontory of coal; the red ashes moved as though they breathed light, and the running white glow sketched for her hills and cities she had known; real places always, not the steep, thin towers of her childhood with bridges curved like scimitars leading to their gates. He was obstinate, but she was more patient than Viola the child had been. She tried other ways. Once or twice she spoke aloud, on windy evenings when nobody could have heard.

“You’re afraid. You won’t come because you know I’m stronger than you. Can you hear me? You’re afraid.”

“Do come. I can’t remember you, it was so long ago. We used to have such good games. I want to find you again. Oh, do come on. I know you’re there — aren’t you? — listening. You needn’t be frightened of me. I won’t ask you to do anything.”

Silence; then, in a burst of temper.

“All right, you silly beast; you coward; you ugly dirty beast. I’m sick of you. Good riddance.”

Between the sudden thrusts of the wind she could hear silence waiting in the room, full of tiny prickling sounds, unguessed movements, and knew that he was there. She wondered if there could be anything in herself that shut him out; sought, but could find nothing, except that she no longer had entry to her invisible, obedient world.

Then James happened. He was an ordinary young man but for one or two engaging tricks which made him more adorable to Viola than the Greek god of her uncle’s taunt. His hair grew very close to his head in the shape of a wig; he had large feet and large limbs that contrived to arrange themselves in soft puppy-attitudes. He had a mark like a little arrow-head near each corner of his mouth from smiling so often. Viola sat in the sewing-room more than ever, thinking; but now every part of her thought was concerned with James. She even brought him up once to see it, and gave him tea. He thought it an odd room for her to have chosen, and said so; he was not to know how she felt about him, nor why she was allowing him to see the place where her very self lived. At first he temporised.

“I suppose you feel more on your own up here, out of everybody’s way?”

“No, I just like it.”

“Well, you’re high enough up. Is there a view?”

But the sewing-room looked on to a couple of nondescript trees and the shed where the servants kept their bicycles.

“No. I hate views. I’ve had to live with too many of them.”

“What do you do up here, then?”

“Nothing. I don’t read or sew or play the violin or cat’s-cradle or learn anything or make anything.”

“Just one of the idle rich.”

She laughed because he did; and when he tried to lean back in the unyielding chair and fold his legs comfortably together in their usual way she laughed again because it was so obvious that he would have been happier on the sofa downstairs. She did not mind when he said that women could not understand comfort, for she knew it was true, and when he said that she was a Spartan and he must give her a little fox, she was delighted with him for being so funny and so dear as to talk, even in joke, of giving her anything. She fussed over his tea, wanting it to be just right, and made one or two of the little faces she had noticed in her glass and hoped that he would like. While he coaxed a pipe, she looked hard at him so as to be able to remember the shape of his head as it bent forward, and his face, serious for once, the arrow-heads quite smoothed out with the pursing of his lips. She thought he would look like that kissing someone; kissing her; serious and intent, thinking only of one thing at a time. She was friendly and natural, not herself exactly, but the sort of self he probably liked, and which she played for love of him so that it almost became the real Viola. She let him laugh at her chairs, and her unattractive view, and the complete absence of what he called the woman’s touch.

“I know just the sort of house you’ll have when you’re married. You’ll go to the firm that does station waiting-rooms and give them a free hand. And you’ll say to your husband, [There’s a sale at the Office of Works tomorrow, dear; they’re selling off a lovely lot of iron seats from the parks].”

“I’ll marry someone who won’t notice. Or someone that’s never at home.”

“A commercial traveller.”

“Or a policeman. Or one of those men that sit all night with a street when it’s up, with buckets full of charcoal.”

“Good idea. He might let you have the bucket to put an aspidistra in by day. I’ll give you one for a wedding present.”

“Thanks, but it’s to be a very quiet wedding. The bride and bridegroom will leave by Tube for the Edgware Road, which will be their address for the season.”

“It’s funny about you. You’ve really got a sense of humour.”

“I had the three permanent jokes in Punch carefully explained to me when I was little. Since then I have used no others.”

“You are an ass. But nice.”

“Thanks. Your old-world courtesy is charming.”

When they came downstairs and were under observation once more she was casual and normal, and there was not a word to be got from her that was amusing. She interested and stimulated him, so that he found himself that night writing a marvellously good letter to the lady in Ebury Street who had taken charge of his sentimental education. While he wrote and admired Viola sat in her room, or walked irrepressibly about it, with her arms lifted above her head. The room of her mind was to be bare no longer; it should be hung with tapestries and have a thousand candles in gold sconces alive on the walls. She stared into the fire, smiling, trying to see it there as the red and white heats shifted. She thought,

“I wish I had lots of things that I could give him. I wish I was rich and most frightfully beautiful, and that he was poor. I’d ask him to marry me and he’d be surprised and would hate not having anything of his own. But I’d make him and we’d be together. Happy.”

She could see herself, dressed in silver and much taller than at present, standing with him on some balcony, some terrace which looked out on to water. There was no moon, and no light except that which came from a long window open behind them. He would be looking at her, dreadfully in love; and then she would put her hand on his and say,

“We love each other. What does it matter who says it first?”

She did this scene over several times, improving it here and there, changing the décor. At the end it went beautifully, with several admiring people looking on, unseen, of course; but she heard their comments afterwards.

After this her own bedroom, with white lights everywhere and incorruptible mirrors, was an anticlimax, and she went to sleep at once, in a prosaic attitude.

She saw him often, for a time. He had a car and would call for her at odd hours, just after breakfast, just before luncheon. They would race through sixty or eighty miles of country while he tried to draw her out and make her say the things which tempted him to wit. She knew what he expected and gave it, thinking that even to make him laugh was something; but compared with the other gifts she wanted to put into his hands it was rather pitiful.

Upstairs in her room she tried to send messages to him, patiently imagining him as he might be at any given moment, sitting with his legs crossed and one foot twisted under the other ankle; reading a newspaper; bending over the shining body of the car. She made herself see these pictures of him so clearly; even the grain of his skin and the way his eyebrows grew were visible to her as though she were in the room with him. And holding him like this in her company she would talk to him, and give him those other things. Now and then his head would lift as if he listened, and tilt on one side as though he could not hear all her nonsense, or her passionate boasting.

“You don’t know all the things I can do. I can make ordinary things not be the same. You feel that when I’m with you. I’m a kind of witch. I could do all the magic, godmother things for you. Can you feel me now, standing beside you? I’ve gone out of myself, I’ve left myself quite empty, to visit you and talk to you. I’m strong, aren’t I? That’s why I can come to you like this. When I go back I shall be weak, because I’ll have left part of my strength with you. We’ll share. I love you when you laugh at me.”

At the end of three weeks he said that he was going back to London. It was dreadful. She was shocked by the thought of not having him near her, and by another thought, that perhaps it would not take him long to forget her. Only one thing could have made it bearable, if she could have been sure that the night messages reached him. She was almost sure — the pictures were very real — but she was afraid to ask him, lest, to tease her, or because he would not admit he was sensitive, he might deny it. The day before his departure she begged him to come. He refused, lightly, offering some very reasonable and acceptable excuse. She insisted, with a curious force that surprised him.

“I want you to come, please.”

“But I’ve got ten thousand things to do.”

“One more won’t matter, then.”

“No, seriously—”

“Seriously, I want you to come.”

“Any particular reason?”

“One.”

“Tell me now.”

She lifted her left shoulder, and the hand that held the receiver, in a shrug.

“It’s far too indelicate.”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. Will you come?”

“Only for a minute, then, and probably cross. About six-thirty.”

“Right.”

She spent the day waiting, and wondering if the whole thing were madness, or a kind of primal sanity. She had not the energy even to smoke. She was utterly listless, surprised at the outgoing of her strength. It could not, she thought, disappear like a blown candle-flame; it must go somewhere, touch something. It was satisfying to imagine those waves of strength beating continuously against the strong wall of his mind. It was worth being tired to have that going on, but she had to keep away from mirrors in order to believe it. Her square child’s face and body made an incredible shrine. If she could hardly believe, seeing herself, how should he?

When he came he found her sitting by a fire that was red and low, with only a candle beside her to light the room.

“Well, Cinderella,” said he.

“The light’s fused. Can you put up with a candle?”

“I’ll fix it.”

“No, don’t. Let it alone. You’re going back to marble halls tomorrow.”

“So I am, and not a thing packed. What’s this indelicate secret?”

“It’s not, really.”

“You said it was. Why do you tell such appalling lies?”

“I thought you probably wouldn’t come if I didn’t.”

“Perfectly correct, I wouldn’t have.”

“I thought not.”

“Well, what? Are you going to make an offer for my hand?”

“Not quite. It’s something that’s been worrying me. I want to ask you something.”

“Don’t make it too difficult.”

“I — you see, when I was little I could do all sorts of funny things. Make things move just by willing, and so on.”

“Things? What?”

“Oh, well; a pair of scissors, once. Flowers.”

“Move?”

“Yes. I know it sounds silly, but other people saw them too. This hasn’t anything to do with it really, only it sort of leads up. I used to do it for spite, chiefly, then. It was something in the house — oh, I don’t know. At least, I do, but it’s no use my explaining that part of it. Anyhow, these last few weeks I’ve been trying something else.”

She leant forward. The light, placed a little behind her, showed her round head and thick shoulders; her voice was that of a child, and all the candle did was to make her outline correspond to the voice. But already she had forgotten why she had arranged the candle. He felt that he must say something.

“All sounds pretty necromantic.”

“Yes, that was; the first part. This is different, what I’m trying to do now. I’m thinking how to put it. Well, I’ve been trying to communicate with people. I get out of myself somehow and go to them.”

“Good lord, who?”

“You, for one. And I’m sure I’ve got you once or twice.”

“Viola, look here—”

“No, let me tell you. Two nights ago did you go out at ten minutes to six to look at the car? Pat was with you. He put his paws on the mudguard and you knocked him off because he scratched the paint. Did you?”

“I don’t know what I was doing at ten minutes to six on Tuesday. I think all this is a trifle far-fetched.”

“Well, last night, then. Did you go to bed about eleven and take two books up with you, and drop one on the stairs?”

“No.”

“Don’t just say that. I mean, don’t tell lies just to snub me. I’m frightfully serious about this. Did you?”

“No.”

“But you must have felt something. Did you hear me saying I was strong?”

“No.”

“Have you ever thought you could hear me talking to you? You mightn’t have known what I was saying. Did you ever think I was sort of there?”

“No.”

“Honour?”

“Yes.”

“But where’s it gone, then?”

He was alarmed by the change in her voice; it cut through his indifference and his impatience. He tried to cover it up, talking loudly, even advancing to pat her shoulder.

“Of course I often think about you. Look here, don’t you think this sort of thing is rather unhealthy? You’re only a kid. Eighteen is only a kid, after all. I don’t like to think of you taking it out of yourself over a silly thing like this.”

She was not listening to him. She was leaning sideways and back, behind the candle, watching a shadow that was beginning to take shape on the forget-me-not patterned wall of the sewing-room. It was a shadow without definite edges, almost formless, but certainly there. It was a sleek shadow, not angular; like a fish, perhaps, or a slug. She began to laugh when she saw how it was growing, and James, who had his back to it but was frightened, ran to the switch by the door and pressed it down. Instantly light flooded into the room, overwhelming the candle and its shadows, and he was brave again, so that he could even bear to kneel by her and hold his arms round her while she fought with her laughter.

The Baseless Fabric (1925)